Michael Part 7

But you haven't. You haven't even gone among the people who could be your friends. Your friends, broadly speaking, must like the same sort of things as you. There must be a common basis. You can't even argue with somebody, or disagree with somebody unless you have a common ground to start from. If I say that black is white, and you think it is blue, we can't get on. It leads nowhere. And, finally--"

She turned round and faced him directly.

"Finally, don't be so cross, my dear," she said.

"But am I?" asked he.

"Yes. You don't know it, or else probably, since you are a very decent fellow, you wouldn't be. You expect not to be liked, and that is cross of you. A good-humoured person expects to be liked, and almost always is. You expect not to be understood, and that's dreadfully cross. You think your father doesn't understand you; no more he does, but don't go on thinking about it. You think it is a great bore to be your father's only son, and wish Francis was instead. That's cross; you may think it's fine, but it isn't, and it is also ungrateful. You can have great fun if you will only be good-tempered!"

"How did you know that--about Francis, I mean?" asked Michael.

"Does it happen to be true? Of course it does. Every cross young man wishes he was somebody else."

"No, not quite that," began Michael.

"Don't interrupt. It is sufficiently accurate. And you think about your appearance, my dear. It will do quite well. You might have had two noses, or only one eye, whereas you have two rather jolly ones. And do try to see the joke in other people, Michael. You didn't see the joke in your interview last night with your father. It must have been excruciatingly funny. I don't say it wasn't sad and serious as well. But it was funny too; there were points."

Michael shook his head.

"I didn't see them," he said.

"But I should have, and I should have been right. All dignity is funny, simply because it is sham. When dignity is real, you don't know it's dignity. But your father knew he was being dignified, and you knew you were being dignified. My dear, what a pair of you!"

Michael frowned.

"But is nothing serious, then?" he asked. "Surely it was serious enough last night. There was I in rank rebellion to my father, and it vexed him horribly; it did more, it grieved him."

She laid her hand on Michael's knee.

"As if I didn't know that!" she said. "We're all sorry for that, though I should have been much sorrier if you had given in and ceased to vex him. But there it is! Accept that, and then, my dear, swiftly apply yourself to perceive the humour of it. And now, about your plans!"

"I shall go to Baireuth on Wednesday, and then on to Munich," began Michael.

"That, of course. Perhaps you may find the humour of a Channel crossing.

I look for it in vain. Yet I don't know. . . . The man who puts on a yachting-cap, and asks if there's a bit of a sea on. It proves to be the case, and he is excessively unwell. I must look out for him next time I cross. And then?"

"Then I shall settle in town and study. Oh, here's my father coming home."

Lord Ashbridge approached down the terrace. He stopped for a moment at the desecrated geranium bed, saw the two sitting together, and turned at right angles and went into the house. Almost immediately a footman came out with a long dog-lead and advanced hesitatingly to Og. Og was convinced that he had come to play with him, and crouched and growled and retreated and advanced with engaging affability. Out of the windows of the library looked Lord Ashbridge's baleful face. . . . Aunt Barbara swayed out of her chair, and laid a trembling hand on Michael's shoulder.

"I shall go and apologise for Og," she said. "I shall do it quite sincerely, my dear. But there are points."

CHAPTER IV

Michael practised a certain mature and rather elderly precision in the ordinary affairs of daily life. His habits were almost unduly tidy and punctual; he answered letters by return of post, he never mislaid things nor tore up doc.u.ments which he particularly desired should be preserved; he kept his gold in a purse and his change in a trousers-pocket, and in matters of travelling he always arrived at stations with plenty of time to spare, and had such creature comforts as he desired for his journey in a neat Gladstone bag above his head. He never travelled first-cla.s.s, for the very simple and adequate reason that, though very well off, he preferred to spend his money in ways that were more productive of usefulness or pleasure; and thus, when he took his place in the corner of a second-cla.s.s compartment of the Dover-Ostend express on the Wednesday morning following, he was the only occupant of it.

Probably he had never felt so fully at liberty, nor enjoyed a keener zest for life and the future. For the first time he had a.s.serted his own indisputable right to stand on his own feet, and though he was genuinely sorry for his father's chagrin at not being able to tuck him up in the family coach, his own sense of independence could not but wave its banners. There had been a second interview, no less fruitless than the first, and Lord Ashbridge had told him that when next his presence was desired at home, he would be informed of the fact. His mother had cried in a mild, trickling fas.h.i.+on, but it was quite obvious that in her heart of hearts she was more concerned with a bilious attack of peculiar intensity that had a.s.sailed Petsy. She wished Michael would not be so disobedient and vex his father, but she was quite sure that before long some formula, in diplomatic phrase, would be found on which reconciliation could be based; whereas it was highly uncertain whether any formula could be found that would produce the desired effect on Petsy, whose illness she attributed to the shock of Og's sudden and disconcerting appearance on Sat.u.r.day, when all Petsy's nervous force was required to digest the copious cream. Consequently, though she threw reproachful glances at Michael, those directed at Barbara, who was the cause of the acuter tragedy, were pointed with more penetrating blame.

Indeed, it is questionable whether Lady Ashbridge would have cried at all over Michael's affairs had not Petsy's also been in so lamentable and critical a state.

Just as the train began to move out of the station a young man rushed across the platform, eluded the embrace of the guard who attempted to stop him with amazing agility, and jumped into Michael's compartment.

He slammed the door after him, and leaned out, apparently looking for someone, whom he soon saw.

"Just caught it, Sylvia," he shouted. "Send on my luggage, will you?

It's in the taxi still, I think, and I haven't paid the man. Good-bye, darling."

He waved to her till the curving line took the platform out of sight, and then sat down with a laugh, and eyes of friendly interest for Michael.

"Narrow squeak, wasn't it?" he said gleefully. "I thought the guard had collared me. And I should have missed Parsifal."

Michael had recognised him at once as he rushed across the platform; his shouting to Sylvia had but confirmed the recognition; and here on the day of his entering into his new kingdom of liberty was one of its citizens almost thrown into his arms. But for the moment his old invincible habit of shyness and sensitiveness forbade any responsive lightness of welcome, and he was merely formal, merely courteous.

"And all your luggage left behind," he said. "Won't you be dreadfully uncomfortable?"

"Uncomfortable? Why?" asked Falbe. "I shall buy a handkerchief and a collar every day, and a s.h.i.+rt and a pair of socks every other day till it arrives."

Michael felt a sudden, daring impulse. He remembered Aunt Barbara's salutary remarks about crossness being the equivalent of thinking about oneself. And the effort that it cost him may be taken as the measure of his solitary disposition.

"But you needn't do that," he said, "if--if you will be good enough to borrow of me till your things come."

He blurted it out awkwardly, almost brusquely, and Falbe looked slightly amused at this wholly surprising offer of hospitality.

"But that's awfully good of you," he said, laughing and saying nothing direct about his acceptance. "It implies, too, that you are going to Baireuth. We travel together, then, I hope, for it is dismal work travelling alone, isn't it? My sister tells me that half my friends were picked up in railway carriages. Been there before?"

Michael felt himself lured from the ordinary aloofness of att.i.tude and demeanour, which had been somewhat accustomed to view all strangers with suspicion. And yet, though till this moment he had never spoken to him, he could hardly regard Falbe as a stranger, for he had heard him say on the piano what his sister understood by the songs of Brahms and Schubert. He could not help glancing at Falbe's hands, as they busied themselves with the filling and lighting of a pipe, and felt that he knew something of those long, broad-tipped fingers, smooth and white and strong. The man himself he found to be quite different to what he had expected; he had seen him before, eager and intent and anxious-faced, absorbed in the task of following another mind; now he looked much younger, much more boyish.

"No, it's my first visit to Baireuth," he said, "and I can't tell you how excited I am about it. I've been looking forward to it so much that I almost expect to be disappointed."

Falbe blew out a cloud of smoke and laughter.

"Oh, you're safe enough," he said. "Baireuth never disappoints. It's one of the facts--a reliable fact. And Munich? Do you go to Munich afterwards?"

"Yes. I hope so."

Falbe clicked with his tongue

"Lucky fellow," he said. "How I wish I was. But I've got to get back again after my week. You'll spend the mornings in the galleries, and the afternoons and evenings at the opera. O Lord, Munich!"

He came across from the other side of the carriage and sat next Michael, putting his feet up on the seat opposite.

"Talk of Munich," he said. "I was born in Munich, and I happen to know that it's the heavenly Jerusalem, neither more nor less."

"Well, the heavenly Jerusalem is practically next door to Baireuth,"

said Michael.

"I know; but it can't be managed. However, there's a week of unalloyed bliss between me now and the desolation of London in August. What is so maddening is to think of all the people who could go to Munich and don't."

Michael held debate within himself. He felt that he ought to tell his new acquaintance that he knew who he was, that, however trivial their conversation might be, it somehow resembled eavesdropping to talk to a chance fellow-pa.s.senger as if he were a complete stranger. But it required again a certain effort to make the announcement.