The Forsyte Saga Volume 2(290)

Behind the Rafaelite’s back Fleur bit her lip.

‘He must wear a turn-down shirt. Blue, don’t you think, Harold – to go with his hair?’

‘Pink, with green spots,’ muttered the Rafaelite.

Then three o’clock tomorrow?’ said Fleur hastily.

June nodded. ‘Jon’s coming to lunch, so he’ll be gone before you come.’

‘All right, then. Au revoir!’

She held her hand out to the Rafaelite, who seemed surprised at the gesture.

‘Good-bye, June!’

June came suddenly close and kissed her on the chin. At that moment the little lady’s face looked soft and pink, and her eyes soft; her lips were warm, too, as if she were warm all through.

Fleur went away thinking: ‘Ought I to have asked her not to tell Jon I was going to be painted?’ But surely June, the warm, the single-eyed, would never tell Jon anything that might stop him being useful to her Rafaelite. She stood, noting the geography around ‘The Poplars’. The only approach to this backwater was by a road that dipped into it and came out again. Just here, she would not be seen from the house, and could see Jon leaving after lunch whichever way he went. But then he would have to take a taxi, for the picture. It struck her bitterly that she, who had been his first-adored, should have to scheme to see him. But if she didn’t, she would never see him! Ah! what a ninny she had been at Wansdon in those old days when her room was next to his. One little act, and nothing could have kept him from her for all time, not his mother nor the old feud; not her father; nothing, and then there had been no vows of hers or his, no Michael, no Kit, no nymph-eyed girl in barrier between them; nothing but youth and innocence. And it seemed to her that youth and innocence were over-rated.

She lit on no plan by which she could see him without giving away the fact that she had schemed. She would have to possess her soul a little longer. Let him once get his head into the painter’s noose, and there would be not one but many chances.

She arrived at three o’clock with her Folly’s dress, and was taken into June’s bedroom to put it on.

‘It’s just right,’ said June; ‘delightfully artificial. Harold will love it.’

‘I wonder,’ said Fleur. The Rafaelite’s temperament had not yet struck her as very loving. They went up to the studio without having mentioned Jon.

The portrait of Anne was gone. And when June went to fetch ‘the exact thing’ to cover a bit of background, Fleur said at once:

‘Well? Are you going to paint my cousin Jon?’

The Rafaelite nodded.

‘He didn’t want to be, but she made him.’

‘When do you begin?’

‘Tomorrow,’ said the Rafaelite. ‘He’s coming every morning for a week. What’s the good of a week?’

“If he’s only got a week I should have thought he’d better stay here.’

‘He won’t without his wife, and his wife’s got a cold.’

‘Oh!’ said Fleur, and she thought rapidly. ‘Wouldn’t it be more convenient, then, for him to sit early in the afternoons? I could come in the mornings; in fact, I’d rather – one feels fresher. June could give him a trunk call.’

The Rafaelite uttered what she judged to be an approving sound. When she left, she said to June: ‘I want to come at ten every morning, then I get my afternoons free for my “Rest House” down at Dorking. Couldn’t you get Jon to come in the afternoons instead? It would suit him better. Only don’t let him know I’m being painted – my picture won’t be recognizable for a week, anyway.’

‘Oh!’ said June, ‘you’re quite wrong there. Harold always gets an unmistakable likeness at once; but of course he’ll put it face to the wall, he always does while he’s at work on a picture.’

‘Good! He’s made quite a nice start. Then if you’ll telephone to Jon, I’ll come tomorrow at ten.’ And for yet another day she possessed her soul. On the day after, she nodded at a canvas whose face was to the wall, and asked:

‘Do you find my cousin a good sitter?’

‘No,’ said the Rafaelite; ‘he takes no interest. Got something on his mind, I should think.’

‘He’s a poet, you know,’ said Fleur.

The Rafaelite gave her an epileptic stare. ‘Poet! His head’s the wrong shape – too much jaw – and the eyes too deep in.’

‘But his hair! Don’t you find him an attractive subject?’

‘Attractive!’ replied the Rafaelite – ‘I paint anything, whether it’s pretty or ugly as sin. Look at Rafael’s Pope – did you ever see a better portrait, or an uglier man? Ugliness is not attractive, but it’s there.’