Michael, Page 2

"Even if I wasexaggerating--which I don't for a moment admit--the effect on my generalefficiency would be the same. I think what I say is true."

  Francis became more practical.

  "But you've only been in the regiment three years," he said. "It won'tbe very popular resigning after only three years."

  "I have nothing much to lose on the score of popularity," remarkedMichael.

  There was nothing pertinent that could be consoling here.

  "And have you told your father?" asked Francis. "Does Uncle Robertknow?"

  "Yes; I wrote to father this morning, and I'm going down to Ashbridgeto-morrow. I shall be very sorry if he disapproves."

  "Then you'll be sorry," said Francis.

  "I know, but it won't make any difference to my action. After all, I'mtwenty-five; if I can't begin to manage my life now, you may be sure Inever shall. But I know I'm right. I would bet on my infallibility. Atpresent I've only told you half my reasons for resigning, and alreadyyou agree with me."

  Francis did not contradict this.

  "Let's hear the rest, then," he said.

  "You shall. The rest is far more important, and rather resembles asermon."

  Francis appropriately sat down again.

  "Well, it's this," said Michael. "I'm twenty-five, and it is time thatI began trying to be what perhaps I may be able to be, instead of nottrying very much--because it's hopeless--to be what I can't be. I'mgoing to study music. I believe that I could perhaps do something there,and in any case I love it more than anything else. And if you love athing, you have certainly a better chance of succeeding in it than insomething that you don't love at all. I was stuck into the army for noreason except that soldiering is among the few employments which it isconsidered proper for fellows in my position--good Lord! how awful itsounds!--proper for me to adopt. The other things that were open werethat I should be a sailor or a member of Parliament. But the soldier waswhat father chose. I looked round the picture gallery at home the otherday; there are twelve Lord Ashbridges in uniform. So, as I shall beLord Ashbridge when father dies, I was stuck into uniform too, to be theill-starred thirteenth. But what has it all come to? If you think of it,when did the majority of them wear their smart uniforms? Chiefly whenthey went on peaceful parades or to court balls, or to the Sir JoshuaReynolds of the period to be painted. They've been tin soldiers,Francis! You're a tin soldier, and I've just ceased to be a tin soldier.If there was the smallest chance of being useful in the army, by whichI mean standing up and being shot at because I am English, I would notdream of throwing it up. But there's no such chance."

  Michael paused a moment in his sermon, and beat out the ashes from hispipe against the grate.

  "Anyhow the chance is too remote," he said. "All the nations with armiesand navies are too much afraid of each other to do more than growl. AlsoI happen to want to do something different with my life, and you can'tdo anything unless you believe in what you are doing. I want to leavebehind me something more than the portrait of a tin soldier in thedining-room at Ashbridge. After all, isn't an artistic professionthe greatest there is? For what counts, what is of value in theworld to-day? Greek statues, the Italian pictures, the symphonies ofBeethoven, the plays of Shakespeare. The people who have made beautifulthings are they who are the benefactors of mankind. At least, so thepeople who love beautiful things think."

  Francis glanced at his cousin. He knew this interesting vital side ofMichael; he was aware, too, that had anybody except himself been in theroom, Michael could not have shown it. Perhaps there might be peopleto whom he could show it but certainly they were not those among whomMichael's life was passed.

  "Go on," he said encouragingly. "You're ripping, Mike."

  "Well, the nuisance of it is that the things I am ripping about appearto father to be a sort of indoor game. It's all right to play the piano,if it's too wet to play golf. You can amuse yourself with painting ifthere aren't any pheasants to shoot. In fact, he will think that mywanting to become a musician is much the same thing as if I wanted tobecome a billiard-marker. And if he and I talked about it till we were ahundred years old, he could never possibly appreciate my point of view."

  Michael got up and began walking up and down the room with his slow,ponderous movement.

  "Francis, it's a thousand pities that you and I can't change places," hesaid. "You are exactly the son father would like to have, and I shouldso much prefer being his nephew. However, you come next; that's onecomfort."

  He paused a moment.

  "You see, the fact is that he doesn't like me," he said. "He has nosympathy whatever with my tastes, nor with what I am. I'm an awful trialto him, and I don't see how to help it. It's pure waste of time, mygoing on in the Guards. I do it badly, and I hate it. Now, you're madefor it; you're that sort, and that sort is my father's sort. But I'mnot; no one knows that better than myself. Then there's the question ofmarriage, too."

  Michael gave a mirthless laugh.

  "I'm twenty-five, you see," he said, "and it's the family custom for theeldest son to marry at twenty-five, just as he's baptised when he's acertain number of weeks old, and confirmed when he is fifteen. It's partof the family plan, and the Medes and Persians aren't in it when thefamily plan is in question. Then, again, the lucky young woman has to besuitable; that is to say, she must be what my father calls 'one of us.'How I loathe that phrase! So my mother has a list of the suitable, andthey come down to Ashbridge in gloomy succession, and she and I aresent out to play golf together or go on the river. And when, to ourunutterable relief, that is over, we hurry back to the house, and Iescape to my piano, and she goes and flirts with you, if you are there.Don't deny it. And then another one comes, and she is drearier than thelast--at least, I am."

  Francis lay back and laughed at this dismal picture of the rejection ofthe fittest.

  "But you're so confoundedly hard to please, Mike," he said. "There wasan awfully nice girl down at Ashbridge at Easter when I was there, whowas simply pining to take you. I've forgotten her name."

  Michael clicked his fingers in a summary manner.

  "There you are!" he said. "You and she flirted all the time, and threemonths afterwards you don't even remember her name. If you had only beenme, you would have married her. As it was, she and I bored each otherstiff. There's an irony for you! But as for pining, I ask you whetherany girl in her senses could pine for me. Look at me, and tell me! Orrather, don't look at me; I can't bear to be looked at."

  Here was one of Michael's morbid sensitivenesses. He seldom forgot hisown physical appearance, the fact of which was to him appalling. Hisstumpy figure with its big body, his broad, blunt-featured face, hislong arms, his large hands and feet, his clumsiness in movement were tohim of the nature of a constant nightmare, and it was only with Francisand the ease that his solitary presence gave, or when he was occupiedwith music that he wholly lost his self-consciousness in this respect.It seemed to him that he must be as repulsive to others as he was tohimself, which was a distorted view of the case. Plain without doubt hewas, and of heavy and ungainly build; but his belief in the finality ofhis uncouthness was morbid and imaginary, and half his inability to geton with his fellows, no less than with the maidens who were broughtdown in single file to Ashbridge, was due to this. He knew very wellhow light-heartedly they escaped to the geniality and attractiveness ofFrancis, and in the clutch of his own introspective temperament he couldnot free himself from the handicap of his own sensitiveness, and, likeothers, take himself for granted. He crushed his own power to please bythe weight of his judgments on himself.

  "So there's another reason to complain of the irony of fate," he said."I don't want to marry anybody, and God knows nobody wants to marry me.But, then, it's my duty to become the father of another Lord Ashbridge,as if there had not been enough of them already, and his mother mustbe a certain kind of girl, with whom I have nothing in common. So Isay that if only we could have changed places, you would have filledmy niche so perfectly, and I should have been free to bury myself inLe
ipzig or Munich, and lived like the grub I certainly am, and havedrowned myself in a sea of music. As it is, goodness knows what myfather will say to the letter I wrote him yesterday, which he will havereceived this morning. However, that will soon be patent, for I go downthere to-morrow. I wish you were coming with me. Can't you manage to fora day or two, and help things along? Aunt Barbara will be there."

  Francis consulted a small, green morocco pocket-book.

  "Can't to-morrow," he said, "nor yet the day after. But perhaps I