Mechanism! Everywhere—mechanism! Devices for getting away from life so complete that there seemed no life to get away from.
‘It’s all,’ he thought, ‘awfully like a man sending a registered letter to himself. And perhaps it’s just as well. Is ‘life’ a good thing—is it? Do I want to see ‘life’ raw again?’
Elderson was seated now, and Michael had a perfect view of the back of his head. It disclosed nothing.
‘I’m no sleuth,’ he thought; ‘there ought to be something in the way he doesn’t part his hair behind.’ And, getting off the fender, he went home.
At dinner he caught one of his own looks at Fleur and didn’t like it. Sleuth! And yet how not try to know what were the real thoughts and feelings of one who held his heart, like an accordion, and made it squeak and groan at pleasure!
“I saw the model you sent Aubrey yesterday,” she said. “She didn’t say anything about the clothes, but she looked ever so! What a face, Michael! Where did you come across her?”
Through Michael sped the thought: ‘Could I make her jealous?’ And he was shocked at it. A low-down thought—mean and ornery! “She blew in,” he said. “Wife of a little packer we had who took to snooping—er—books. He sells balloons now; they want money badly.”
“I see. Did you know that Aubrey’s going to paint her in the nude?”
“Phew! No! I thought she’d look good on a wrapper. I say! Ought I to stop that?”
Fleur smiled. “It’s more money and her look-out. It doesn’t matter to you, does it?”
Again that thought; again the recoil from it!
“Only,” he said, “that her husband is a decent little snipe for a snooper, and I don’t want to be more sorry for him.”
“She won’t tell him, of course.”
She said it so naturally, so simply, that the words disclosed a whole attitude of mind. One didn’t tell one’s mate what would tease the poor brute! He saw by the flutter of her white eyelids that she also realised the give-away. Should he follow it up, tell her what June Forsyte had told him—have it all out—all out? But with what purpose—to what end? Would it change things, make her love him? Would it do anything but harass her a little more; and give him the sense that he had lost his wicket trying to drive her to the pavilion? No! Better adopt the principle of secrecy she had unwittingly declared her own, bite on it, and grin. He muttered:
“I’m afraid he’ll find her rather thin.”
Her eyes were bright and steady; and again he was worried by that low-down thought: ‘Could he make her—?’
“I’ve only seen her once,” he added, “and then she was dressed.”
“I’m not jealous, Michael.”
‘No,’ he thought, ‘I wish to heaven you were!’
The words: “A young man called Butterfill to see you, sir,” were like the turning of a key in a cell door.
In the hall the young man “called Butterfill” was engaged in staring at Ting-a-ling.
‘Judging by his eyes,’ thought Michael, ‘he’s more of a dog than that little Djinn!’
“Come up to my study,” he said, “it’s cold down here. My father-inlaw tells me you want a job.”
“Yes, sir,” said the young man, following up the stairs.
“Take a pew,” said Michael; “and a cigarette. Now then! I know all about the turmoil. From your moustache, you were in the war, I suppose, like me? As between fellow-sufferers: Is your story O. K.?”
“God’s truth, sir; I only wish it wasn’t. I’d nothing to gain and everything to lose. I’d have done better to hold my tongue. It’s his word against mine, and here I am in the street. That was my first job since the war, so I can whistle for a reference.”
“Wife and two children, I think?”
“Yes, and I’ve put them in the cart for the sake of my conscience! It’s the last time I’ll do that, I know. What did it matter to me, whether the Society was cheated? My wife’s quite right, I was a fool, sir.”
“Probably,” said Michael. “Do you know anything about books?”
“Yes, sir; I’m a good book-keeper.”
“Holy Moses! OUR job is getting rid of them. My firm are publishers. We were thinking of putting on an extra traveller. Is your tongue persuasive?”
The young man smiled wanly.
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Well, look here,” said Michael, carried away by the look in his eyes, “it’s all a question of a certain patter. But, of course, that’s got to be learned. I gather that you’re not a reader.”
“Well, sir, not a great reader.”
“That, perhaps, is fortunate. What you would have to do is to impress on the poor brutes who sell books that every one of the books on your list—say about thirty-five—is necessary in large numbers to his business. It’s lucky you’ve just chucked your conscience, because, as a matter of fact most of them won’t be. I’m afraid there’s nowhere you could go to to get lessons in persuasion, but you can imagine the sort of thing, and if you like to come here for an hour or two this week, I’ll put you wise about our authors, and ready you up to go before Peter.”
“Before Peter, sir?”
“The Johnny with the keys; luckily it’s Mr. Winter, not Mr. Danby; I believe I could get him to let you in for a month’s trial.”
“Sir, I’ll try my very best. My wife knows about books, she could help me a lot. I can’t tell you what I think of your kindness. The fact is, being out of a job has put the wind up me properly. I’ve not been able to save with two children; it’s like the end of the world.”
“Right-o, then! Come here tomorrow evening at nine, and I’ll stuff you. I believe you’ve got the face for the job, if you can get the patter. Only one book in twenty is a necessity really, the rest are luxuries. Your stunt will be to make them believe the nineteen are necessaries, and the twentieth a luxury that they need. It’s like food or clothes, or anything else in civilisation.”
“Yes, sir, I quite understand.”
“All right, then. Good-night, and good luck!”
Michael stood up and held out his hand. The young man took it with a queer reverential little bow. A minute later he was out in the street; and Michael in the hall was thinking: ‘Pity is tripe! Clean forgot I was a sleuth!’
Chapter X.
FACE
When Michael rose from the refectory table, Fleur had risen, too. Two days and more since she left Wilfrid’s rooms, and she had not recovered zest. The rifling of the oyster Life, the garlanding of London’s rarer flowers which kept colour in her cheeks, seemed stale, unprofitable. Those three hours, when from shock off Cork Street she came straight to shocks in her own drawing-room, had dislocated her so that she had settled to nothing since. The wound re-opened by Holly had nearly healed again. Dead lion beside live donkey cuts but dim figure. But she could not get hold again of—what? That was the trouble: What? For two whole days she had been trying. Michael was still strange, Wilfrid still lost, Jon still buried alive, and nothing seemed novel under the sun. The only object that gave her satisfaction during those two dreary, disillusioned days was the new white monkey. The more she looked at it, the more Chinese it seemed. It summed up the satirical truth of which she was perhaps subconscious, that all her little modern veerings and flutterings and rushings after the future showed that she believed in nothing but the past. The age had overdone it and must go back to ancestry for faith. Like a little bright fish out of a warm bay, making a splash in chill, strange waters, Fleur felt a subtle nostalgia.
In her Spanish room, alone with her own feelings, she stared at the porcelain fruits. They glowed, cold, uneatable! She took one up. Meant for a passion fruit? Alas! Poor passion! She dropped it with a dull clink on to the pyramid, and shuddered a little. Had she blinded Michael with her kisses? Blinded him to—what? To her incapacity for passion?
‘But I’m not incapable,’ she thought; ‘I’m not. Some day I’ll show him; I’ll show them all.’ She looked up at ‘the Goya’ hanging opposite. What gripping determination in the painting—what intensity of life in the black eyes of a rather raddled dame! SHE would know what she wanted, and get it, too! No compromise and uncertainty there—no capering round life, wondering what it meant, and whether it was worth while, nothing but hard living for the sake of living!