Читать книгу The Meadows of the Moon - James Hilton - Страница 21

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Of course she was fated to be between the two of them. Michael avoided John as much as possible, and John certainly would not go running after Michael; so she was the medium through which they had to deliver their respective ultimata. Although the quarrel and its possible consequences worried her, she was serenely aware that the post of mediator suited her temperamentally. “You see, Micky,” she said, “I always can see two sides of a question.”

And his reply, blindingly swift, was: “Only two, Fran? What a frightfully narrow-minded person you must be!”

She told him that same evening what John had said. She had not intended to tell him so soon, but he hurried to her room after dinner and was obviously eager to learn what sort of a time she had had with John at the works.

He smiled when she had finished. “I still don’t care, Fran. I don’t care what John does. And if he thinks I’m going to worry about what I’m going to do next month, he’s mistaken. I’ll wait till the time comes and then decide.”

“But, Micky, you know he means what he says.”

“Oh, yes, I know that. Anybody can mean what he says. It’s saying what one means that’s the real difficulty....” He paused for a moment, and then went on, less calmly: “He hasn’t in his whole body as much music or art or love of beauty as you and I have in our little fingers. He wants his thousands a year—that’s all. By God, I’m not so easily satisfied.”

“But he wouldn’t understand that, Micky.”

“I know. He reckons things out in terms of money. Very well, then, in terms of money, I want about five hundred a year. I’d be perfectly content with that. It would keep me in books and music and odd little things I had a fancy for. In the old days rich men felt they had a duty towards art—just as to-day they feel that they have a duty towards hospitals. They used to choose out some poor poet or painter and give him—not what he earned or what he was worth—but just enough to keep him comfortable and happy. I think it must have been very often a decent and honourable arrangement. ... But John, of course, wouldn’t believe in it.”

“I’m not sure that he wouldn’t,” she replied, reflectively. “But you’d have to approach him the right way. If you told him definitely you wanted to write, or paint, or take up music—or do anything seriously——”

“And if I supplied him with a carefully drawn-up schedule of what I intended to do every day for the next five years, eh? Oh, it’s impossible ... and you know it is, Fran, as well as I do. You’re on my side, not on John’s. Aren’t you?”

“I’m not on any side, Micky. I can see that you’re both right and both wrong.”

She was sitting at her writing-desk and he had drawn up a chair opposite hers, so that his head was against a background of books and bookshelves. The last livid rays of the sun were streaming in through the window, and they suddenly struck his hair and the bookcovers into a single turbulent, gorgeously-compounded splash of colour. There seemed something symbolical in the flame that was consuming Hammond’s Town Labourer and Cunningham’s Growth of English Industry and Commerce.

He said, sharply: “That impartiality’s a pose, Fran. It pleases you for the present, but some day you’ll be beyond being pleased by it. Oh, Fran, you are on my side—I can feel you are ... and I want you to be—more—more than John wants anything—even money.”

“Oh, leave John out of it....”

“Yes, let’s leave him out of it. Let’s be our two selves. Give up the pose. A pose is lifeless—put the ‘i’ into it—the personal ‘I,’ and it becomes a poise. A poise is living, vital, a prelude to movement. Poise, Fran, as much as you like, but don’t pose.”

He had the strange habit, fascinating to her, of using all his body when he spoke; not only his lips, but his eyes, his hands, even his hair seemed to vibrate in total harmony. She said, quietly: “Micky, what do you mean? I believe you think you’re playing with words when all the time they’re playing with you.”

“No, no—I mean all I said. I want you to poise splendidly—along with me. You must.... There’s something that links us—” He put his arms across the table and held her tightly. “Something that burns us together——”

His enthusiasm half-frightened her; she tried instinctively to say something that would damp it. “Perhaps it’s just physical attraction,” she remarked, quietly.

He looked at her till she wished she had not spoken. “With me, Fran, there isn’t anything that’s merely physical. There’s always something more than that. Something—rather—quaint—if you know what I mean ... like a taste you’re interested in before you know whether you like it or not.”

The words conveyed something to her, something that made her catch hold of his arm and exclaim: “Oh, Micky—do go away and let me work. I don’t know what your game is, but you re making me infernally unsettled....”

“Game!” He rose and stood close to her. “That’s a fine word to use, Fran.... Is there anything on earth more glorious—more child-like—than a game?” He caught her into his arms, and she yielded fully, instantly, with every limb and muscle; she cared no more for anything else in the world. And when he whispered, “Come for a walk in the meadows,” she nodded tranquilly, like a child that has perfect happiness.