The Tree of Heaven Part 42

Besides, he liked Stephen, and it complicated things most frightfully to go on living in the same house with people who disliked him.

If, Michael said, they chose to dissociate themselves altogether from their eldest son and his career, very well. They could go on ignoring and tacitly insulting Mr. Stephen. He could understand their taking a consistently wrong-headed line like that; but so long as they had any regard, either for him or his career, he didn't see how they could very well keep it up any longer. He was sorry, of course, that his career had let them in for Stephen if they didn't like him; but there it was.

And beyond a doubt it was there.

"You might vindicate Bartie gloriously," Michael said, "by turning me out of the house and disinheriting me. But would it be worth while? I'm not asking you to condone Stephen's conduct--if you can't condone it; I'm asking you either to acknowledge _or_ repudiate your son's debts.

"After all, if _he_ can condone your beastly treatment of him--I wouldn't like him if he was the swine you think him."

And Anthony had appealed to Michael's mother.

To his "Well, Frances, what do you think? Ought we or oughtn't we?" she had replied: "I think we ought to stand solid behind Michael."

It was Michael's life that counted, for it was going on into a great future. Bartie would pa.s.s and Michael would remain.

Their nervous advances had ended in a complete surrender to Stephen's charm.

Vera and Stephen seemed to think that the way to show the sincerity and sweetness of their reconciliation was to turn up as often as possible on Frances's Day. They arrived always at the same hour, a little late; they came by the road and the front door, so that when Bartie saw them coming he could retreat through the garden door and the lane. The Flemings and the Jervises retreated with him; and presently, when it had had a good look at the celebrities, the rest of the party followed.

This Sat.u.r.day Frances's Day dwindled and melted away and closed, after its manner; only Vera and Stephen lingered. They stayed on talking to Michael long after everybody else had gone.

Stephen said he had come to say good-bye to Michael's people and to make a proposal to Michael himself. He was going to Ireland.

Vera interrupted him with pa.s.sion.

"He isn't. He hasn't any proposal to make. He hasn't come to say good-bye."

Her restless, unhappy eyes turned to him incessantly, as if, more than ever, she was afraid that he would escape her, that he would go off G.o.d knew where.

G.o.d knew where he was going, but Vera did not believe that he was going to Ireland. He had talked about going to Ireland for years, and he had never gone.

Stephen looked as if he did not see her; as if he did not even see Michael very distinctly.

"I'm going," he said, "to Ireland on Monday week, the third of August. I mayn't come back for long enough. I may not come back at all."

"That's the sort of thing he keeps on saying."

"I may not come back _at all_. So I want you to take over the _Review_ for me. Ellis and my secretary will show you how it stands. You'll know what to do. I can trust you not to let it down."

"He doesn't mean what he says, Michael. He's only saying it to frighten me. He's been holding it over me for years.

"_Say_ you'll have nothing to do with it. _Say_ you won't touch his old _Review_."

"Could I go to Ireland for you?"

"You couldn't."

"Why not? What do you think you're going to do there?"

"I'm going to pull the Nationalists together, so that if there's civil war in Ireland, the Irish will have a chance to win. Thank G.o.d for Carson! He's given us the opportunity we wanted."

"Tell him he's not to go, Michael. He won't listen to me, but he'll mind what you say."

"I want to go instead of him."

"You can't go instead of me. n.o.body can go instead of me."

"I can go with you."

"You can't."

"Larry, if you take Michael to Ireland, Anthony and Frances will never forgive you. _I_'ll never forgive you."

"I'm not taking Michael to Ireland, I'm telling you. There's no reason why Michael should go to Ireland at all. It isn't _his_ country."

"You needn't rub _that_ in," said Michael.

"It isn't _yours_," said Vera. "Ireland doesn't want you. The Nationalists don't want you. You said yourself they've turned you out of Ireland. When you've lived in England all these years why should you go back to a place that doesn't want you?"

"Because if Carson gets a free hand I see some chance of Ireland being a free country."

Vera wailed and entreated. She said it showed how much he cared for her.

It showed that he was tired of her. Why couldn't he say so and have done with it?

"It's not," she said, "as if you could really do anything. You're a dreamer. Ireland has had enough of dreamers." And Stephen's eyes looked over her head, into the high branches of the tree of Heaven, as if he saw his dream s.h.i.+ning clear through them like a moon.

The opportunist could see nothing but his sublime opportunity.

Michael went back with him to dine and talk it over. There was to be civil war in Ireland then?

He thought: If only Lawrence would let him go with him. He wanted to go to Ireland. To join the Nationalists and fight for Ireland, fight for the freedom he was always dreaming about--_that_ would be a fine thing.

It would be a finer thing than writing poems about Ireland.

Lawrence Stephen went soberly and steadily through the affair of the _Review_, explaining things to Michael. He wanted this done, and this.

And over and over again Michael's voice broke through his instructions.

Why couldn't he go to Ireland instead of Lawrence? Or, if Lawrence wouldn't let him go instead of him, he might at least take him with him.

He didn't want to stay at home editing the _Review_. Ellis or Mitch.e.l.l or Monier-Owen would edit it better than he could. Even the wretched Wadham would edit it just as well. He wanted to go to Ireland and fight.

But Lawrence wouldn't let him go. He wasn't going to have the boy's blood on his hands. His genius and his youth were too precious.

Besides, Ireland was not his country.

It was past ten o'clock. Frances was alone in the drawing-room. She sat by the open window and waited and watched.

The quiet garden lay open to her sight. Only the inner end of the farther terrace, under the orchard wall, was hidden by a high screen of privet.

It seemed hours to Frances since she had seen Nicky and Veronica go down the lawn on to the terrace.