The Forsyte Saga Volume 2(238)

‘What do you say, Mont?’

‘Well, sir, if we won’t export children to the Colonies or speed up emigration somehow, there’s nothing for it but birth control. In the upper and middle classes we’re doing it all the time, and blinking the moral side, if there is one; and I really don’t see how we can insist on a moral side for those who haven’t a quarter of our excuse for having lots of children.’

‘My dear Mont,’ said the chairman, with a grin, ‘aren’t you cutting there at the basis of all privilege?’

‘Very probably,’ said Michael, with an answering grin. ‘I think, of course, that child emigration is much better, but nobody else does, apparently.’

Everybody knew that ‘young Mont’ had a ‘bee in his bonnet’ about child emigration, and there was little disposition to encourage it to buzz. And, since no one was more aware than Michael of being that crank in politics, one who thought you could not eat your cake and have it, he said no more. Presently, feeling that they would go round and round the mulberry bush for some time yet, and sit on the fence after, he excused himself and went away.

He found the address he wanted: ‘Miss June Forsyte, Poplar House, Chiswick’, and mounted a Hammersmith bus.

How fast things seemed coming back to the normal! Extraordinarily difficult to upset anything so vast, intricate, and elastic as a nation’s life. The bus swung along among countless vehicles and pedestrian myriads, and Michael realized how firm were those two elements of stability in the modern state, the common need for eating, drinking, and getting about; and the fact that so many people could drive cars. ‘Revolution?’ he thought. ‘There never was a time when it had less chance. Machinery’s dead agin it.’ Machinery belonged to the settled state of things, and every day saw its reinforcement. The unskilled multitude and the Communistic visionaries, their leaders, only had a chance now where machinery and means of communication were still undeveloped, as in Russia. Brains, ability and technical skill, were by nature on the side of capital and individual enterprise, and were gaining even more power.

‘Poplar House’ took some finding, and, when found, was a little house supporting a large studio with a north light. It stood, behind two poplar trees, tall, thin, white, like a ghost. A foreign woman opened to him. Yes. Miss Forsyte was in the studio with Mr Blade! Michael sent up his card, and waited in a draught, extremely ill at ease; for now that he was here he could not imagine why he had come. How to get the information he wanted without seeming to have come for it, passed his comprehension; for it was the sort of knowledge that could only be arrived at by crude questioning.

Finding that he was to go up, he went, perfecting his first lie. On entering the studio, a large room with green canvassed walls, pictures hung or stacked, the usual dais, a top light half curtained, and some cats, he was conscious of a fluttering movement. A little light lady in flowing green, with short silver hair, had risen from a footstool, and was coming towards him.

‘How do you do? You know Harold Blade, of course?’

The young man, at whose feet she had been sitting, rose and stood before Michael, square, somewhat lowering with a dun-coloured complexion and heavily charged eyes.

‘You must know his wonderful Rafaelite work.’

‘Oh yes!’ said Michael, whose conscience was saying: ‘Oh no!’

The young man said grimly: ‘He doesn’t know me from Adam.’

‘No, really,’ muttered Michael. ‘But do tell me, why Rafaelite? I’ve always wanted to know.’

‘Why?’ exclaimed June. ‘Because he’s the only man who’s giving us the old values; he’s rediscovered them.’

‘Forgive me, I’m such a dud in art matters – I thought the academicians were still in perspective!’

They!’ cried June, and Michael winced at the passion in the word. ‘Oh, well – if you still believe in them–’

‘But I don’t,’ said Michael.

‘Harold is the only Rafaelite; people are grouping round him, of course, but he’ll be the last, too. It’s always like that. Great painters make a school, but the schools never amount to anything.’

Michael looked with added interest at the first and last Rafaelite. He did not like the face, but it had a certain epileptic quality.

‘Might I look round? Does my father-in-law know your work, I wonder? He’s a great collector, and always on the lookout.’

‘Soames!’ said June, and again Michael winced. ‘He’ll be collecting Harold when we’re all dead. Look at that!’