Michael passed on, grinning. Good old Uncle Hilary! Humanising religion, and living dangerously—had climbed all the worst peaks in Europe; no sense of his own importance and a real sense of humour. Quite the best type of Englishman! They had tried to make him a dignitary, but he had jibbed at the gaiters and hat-ropes. He was what they called a ‘live wire’ and often committed the most dreadful indiscretions; but everybody liked him, even his own wife. Michael dwelt for a moment on his Aunt May. Forty—he supposed—with three children and fourteen hundred things to attend to every day; shingled, and cheerful as a sandboy. Nice-looking woman, Aunt May!
Having garaged his car, he remembered that he had not lunched. It was three o’clock. Munching a biscuit, he drank a glass of sherry, and walked over to the House of Commons. He found it humming in anticipation of a statement. Sitting back, with his legs stretched out, he had qualms. What things had been done in here! The abolitions of Slavery and of Child Labour, the Married Woman’s Property Act, Repeal of the Corn Laws; but could they be done nowadays? And if not—was it a life? He had said to Fleur that you couldn’t change your vocation twice and survive. But did he want to survive? Failing Foggartism—and Foggartism hadn’t failed only because it hadn’t started—what did he really care about?
Leaving the world better than he found it? Sitting there, he couldn’t help perceiving a certain vagueness about such an aspiration, even when confined to England. It was the aspiration of the House of Commons; but in the ebb and flow of Party, it didn’t seem to make much progress. Better to fix on some definite bit of administrative work, stick to it, and get something done. Fleur wanted him to concentrate on Kenya for the Indians. Again rather remote, and having little to do with England. What definite work was most needed in connection with England? Education? Bunkered again! How tell what was the best direction into which to turn education? When they brought in State Education, for instance, they had thought the question settled. Now people were saying that State education had ruined the State. Emigration? Attractive, but negative. Revival of agriculture? Well, the two combined were Foggartism, and he knew by now that nothing but bitter hardship would teach those lessons; you might talk till you were blue in the face without convincing anyone but yourself.
What then?
“I’ve got a topping scheme for airing ‘The Meads’.” The Meads was one of the worst slum parishes in London. ‘Clear the slums!’ thought Michael; ‘that’s practical anyway!’ You could smell the slums, and feel them. They stank and bit and bred corruption. And yet the dwellers therein loved them; or at least preferred them to slums they knew not of! And slum-dwellers were such good sorts! Too bad to play at shuttlecock with them! He must have a talk with Uncle Hilary. Lots of vitality in England still—numbers of red-haired children! But the vitality got sooted as it grew up—like plants in a back garden. Slum clearance, smoke abolition, industrial peace, emigration, agriculture, and safety in the air! ‘Them’s my sentiments!’ thought Michael. ‘And if that isn’t a large enough policy for any man, I’m—!’
He turned his face towards the Statement, and thought of his uncle’s words about this ‘House.’ Were they all really in a state of auto-intoxication here—continual slow poisoning of the tissues? All these chaps around him thought they were doing things. And he looked at the chaps. He knew most of them, and had great respect for many, but collectively he could not deny that they looked a bit dazed. His neighbour to the right was showing his front teeth in an asphyxiated smile. ‘Really,’ he thought; ‘it’s heroic how we all keep awake day after day!’
Chapter VIII.
SECRET
It would not have been natural that Fleur should rejoice in the collapse of the General Strike. A national outlook over such a matter was hardly in her character. Her canteen was completing the re-establishment in her of the social confidence which the Marjorie Ferrar affair had so severely shaken; and to be thoroughly busy with practical matters suited her. Recruited by Norah Curfew, by herself, Michael, and his Aunt Lady Alison Charwell, she had a first-rate crew of helpers of all ages, most of them in Society. They worked in the manner popularly attributed to negroes; they craned at nothing—not even beetles. They got up at, or stayed up to, all hours. They were never cross and always cheery. In a word, they seemed inspired. The difference they had made in the appearance of the railway’s culinary premises was startling to the Company. Fleur herself was ‘on the bridge’ all the time. On her devolved the greasing of the official wheels, the snipping off of red tape in numberless telephonic duels, and the bearding of the managerial face. She had even opened her father’s pocket to supplement the shortcomings she encountered. The volunteers were fed to repletion, and—on Michael’s inspiration—she had undermined the pickets with surreptitious coffee dashed with rum, at odd hours of their wearisome vigils. Her provisioning car, entrusted to Holly, ran the blockade, by leaving and arriving, as though Harridge’s, whence she drew her supplies, were the last place in its thoughts.
“Let us give the strikers,” said Michael, “every possible excuse to wink the other eye.”
The canteen, in fact, was an unqualified success. She had not seen Jon again, but she lived in that peculiar mixture of fear and hope which signifies a real interest in life. On the Friday Holly announced to her that Jon’s wife had arrived—might she bring her down next morning?
“Oh! yes,” said Fleur: “What is she like?”
“Attractive—with eyes like a water-nymph’s or so Jon thinks; but it’s quite the best type of water-nymph.”
“M-m!” said Fleur.
She was checking a list on the telephone next day when Holly brought Anne. About Fleur’s own height, straight and slim, darker in the hair, browner in complexion, browner in the eye (Fleur could see what Holly had meant by “water-nymph”) her nose a little too sudden, her chin pointed and her teeth very white, her successor stood. Did she know that Jon and she—?
And stretching out her free hand, Fleur said:
“I think it’s awfully sporting of you as an American. How’s your brother Francis?”
The hand she squeezed was brown, dry, warm; the voice she heard only faintly American, as if Jon had been at it.
“You were just too good to Francis. He always talks of you. If it hadn’t been for you—”
“That’s nothing. Excuse me… Ye-es?… No! If the Princess comes, ask her to be good enough to come when they’re feeding. Yes—yes—thank you! To-morrow? Certainly… Did you have a good crossing?”
“Frightful! I was glad Jon wasn’t with me. I do so hate being green, don’t you?”
“I never am,” said Fleur.
That girl had Jon to bend above her when she was green! Pretty? Yes. The browned face was very alive—rather like Francis Wilmot’s, but with those enticing eyes, much more eager. What was it about those eyes that made them so unusual and attractive?—surely the suspicion of a squint! She had a way of standing, too—a trick of the neck, the head was beautifully poised. Lovely clothes, of course! Fleur’s glance swept swiftly down to calves and ankles. Not thick, not crooked! No luck!
“I think it’s just wonderful of you to let me come and help.”
“Not a bit. Holly will put you wise.”
“That sounds nice and homey.”
“Oh! We all use your expressions now. Will you take her provisioning, Holly?”
When the girl had gone, under Holly’s wing, Fleur bit her lip. By the uncomplicated glance of Jon’s wife she guessed that Jon had not told her. How awfully young! Fleur felt suddenly as if she herself had never had a youth. Ah! If Jon had not been caught away from her! Her bitten lip quivered, and she buried it in the mouthpiece of the telephone.
Whenever again—three or four times—before the canteen was closed, she saw the girl, she forced herself to be cordial. Instinctively she felt that she must shut no doors on life just now. What Jon’s reappearance meant to her she could not tell; but no one should put a finger this time in whatever pie she chose to make. She was mistress of her face and movements now, as she had never been when she and Jon were babes in the wood. With a warped pleasure she heard Holly’s: “Anne thinks you wonderful, Fleur!” No! Jon had not told his wife about her. It was like him, for the secret had not been his alone! But how long would that girl be left in ignorance? On the day the canteen closed she said to Holly: