‘I meant in character. I want him frightfully to be cheerful and not restless, and have the feeling that life’s worth while.’
Michael stared at her lips – they were quivering; at her cheek, slightly browned by the afternoon’s sunning; and, bending sideways, he put his own against it.
‘He’ll be a sunny little cuss, I’m certain.’
Fleur shook her head.
‘I don’t want him greedy and self-centred; it’s in my blood, you know. I can see it’s ugly, but I can’t help it. How do you manage not to be?’
Michael ruffled his hair with his free hand.
‘The sun isn’t too hot for you, is it, ducky?’
‘No. Seriously, Michael – how?’
‘But I am. Look at the way I want you. Nothing will cure me of that.’
A slight pressure of her cheek on his own was heartening, and he said:
‘Do you remember coming down the garden one night, and finding me in a boat just here? When you’d gone, I stood on my head, to cool it. I was on my uppers; I didn’t think I’d got an earthly –’ He stopped. No! He would not remind her, but that was the night when she said: ‘Come again when I know I can’t get my wish!’ The unknown cousin!
Fleur said quietly:
‘I was a pig to you, Michael, but I was awfully unhappy. That’s gone. It’s gone at last; there’s nothing wrong now, except my own nature.’
Conscious that his feelings betrayed the period, Michael said:
‘Oh! if that’s all! What price tea?’
They went up the lawn arm-in-arm. Nobody was at home – Soames in London, Annette at a garden party.
‘We’ll have tea on the verandah, please,’ said Fleur.
Sitting there, happier than he ever remembered being, Michael conceded a certain value to Nature, to the sunshine stealing down, the scent of pinks and roses, the sighing in the aspens. Annette’s pet doves were cooing; and, beyond the quietly-flowing river, the spires of poplar trees rose along the further bank. But, after all, he was only enjoying them because of the girl beside him, whom he loved to touch and look at, and because, for the first time, he felt as if she did not want to get up and flutter off to someone or something else. Curious that there could be, outside oneself, a being who completely robbed the world of its importance, ‘snooped’, as it were, the whole ‘bag of tricks’ – and she one’s own wife! Very curious, considering what one was! He heard her say:
‘Of course, mother’s a Catholic; only, living with father down here, she left off practising. She didn’t even bother me much. I’ve been thinking, Michael – what shall we do about him?’
‘Let him rip.’
‘I don’t know. He must be taught something, because of going to school. The Catholics, you know, really do get things out of their religion.’
‘Yes; they go it blind; it’s the only logical way now.’
‘I think having no religion makes one feel that nothing matters.’
Michael suppressed the words: ‘We could bring him up as a sun-worshipper,’ and said, instead:
‘It seems to me that whatever he’s taught will only last till he can think for himself; then he’ll settle down to what suits him.’
‘But what do you think about things, Michael? You’re as good as anyone I know.’
‘Gosh!’ murmured Michael, strangely flattered: ‘Is that so?’
‘What do you think? Be serious!’
‘Well, darling, doctrinally nothing – which means, of course, that I haven’t got religion. I believe one has to play the game – but that’s ethics.’
‘But surely it’s a handicap not to be able to rely on anything but oneself? If there’s something to be had out of any form of belief, one might as well have it.’
Michael smiled, but not on the surface.
‘You’re going to do just as you like about the eleventh baronet, and I’m going to abet you. But considering his breeding – I fancy he’ll be a bit of a sceptic.’
‘But I don’t want him to be. I’d rather he were snug, and convinced and all that. Scepticism only makes one restless.’
‘No white monkey in him? Ah! I wonder! It’s in the air, I guess. The only thing will be to teach him a sense of other people, as young as possible, with a slipper, if necessary.’
Fleur gave him a clear look, and laughed.
‘Yes,’ she said: ‘Mother used to try, but Father wouldn’t let her.’
They did not reach home till past eight o’clock.
‘Either your father’s here, or mine,’ said Michael, in the hall; ‘there’s a prehistoric hat.’