Fraternity. Galsworthy John
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colour a palish tan; the eyebrows of its windows rather straight than arched, and those deep-set eyes, the windows, twinkled hospitably; it had, as it were, a sparse moustache and beard of creepers, and dark marks here and there, like the lines and shadows on the faces of those who think too much. Beside it, and apart, though connected by a passage, a studio stood, and about that studio – of white rough-cast, with a black oak door, and peacock-blue paint – was something a little hard and fugitive, well suited to Bianca, who used it, indeed, to paint in. It seemed to stand, with its eyes on the house, shrinking defiantly from too close company, as though it could not entirely give itself to anything. Cecilia, who often worried over the relations between her sister and her brother-in-law, suddenly felt how fitting and symbolical this was.
But, mistrusting inspirations, which, experience told her, committed one too much, she walked quickly up the stone-flagged pathway to the door. Lying in the porch was a little moonlight-coloured lady bulldog, of toy breed, who gazed up with eyes like agates, delicately waving her bell-rope tail, as it was her habit to do towards everyone, for she had been handed down clearer and paler with each generation, till she had at last lost all the peculiar virtues of dogs that bait the bull.
Speaking the word “Miranda!” Mrs. Stephen Dallison tried to pat this daughter of the house. The little bulldog withdrew from her caress, being also unaccustomed to commit herself…
Mondays were Blanca’s “days,” and Cecilia made her way towards the studio. It was a large high room, full of people.
Motionless, by himself, close to the door, stood an old man, very thin and rather bent, with silvery hair, and a thin silvery beard grasped in his transparent fingers. He was dressed in a suit of smoke-grey cottage tweed, which smelt of peat, and an Oxford shirt, whose collar, ceasing prematurely, exposed a lean brown neck; his trousers, too, ended very soon, and showed light socks. In his attitude there was something suggestive of the patience and determination of a mule. At Cecilia’s approach he raised his eyes. It was at once apparent why, in so full a room, he was standing alone. Those blue eyes looked as if he were about to utter a prophetic statement.
“They have been speaking to me of an execution,” he said.
Cecilia made a nervous movement.
“Yes, Father?”
“To take life,” went on the old man in a voice which, though charged with strong emotion, seemed to be speaking to itself, “was the chief mark of the insensate barbarism still prevailing in those days. It sprang from that most irreligious fetish, the belief in the permanence of the individual ego after death. From the worship of that fetish had come all the sorrows of the human race.”
Cecilia, with an involuntary quiver of her little bag, said:
“Father, how can you?”
“They did not stop to love each other in this life; they were so sure they had all eternity to do it in. The doctrine was an invention to enable men to act like dogs with clear consciences. Love could never come to full fruition till it was destroyed.”
Cecilia looked hastily round; no one had heard. She moved a little sideways, and became merged in another group. Her father’s lips continued moving. He had resumed the patient attitude which so slightly suggested mules. A voice behind her said: “I do think your father is such an interesting man, Mrs. Dallison.”
Cecilia turned and saw a woman of middle height, with her hair done in the early Italian fashion, and very small, dark, lively eyes, which looked as though her love of living would keep her busy each minute of her day and all the minutes that she could occupy of everybody else’s days.
“Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace? Oh! how do you do? I’ve been meaning to come and see you for quite a long time, but I know you’re always so busy.”
With doubting eyes, half friendly and half defensive, as though chaffing to prevent herself from being chaffed, Cecilia looked at Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace, whom she had met several times at Bianca’s house. The widow of a somewhat famous connoisseur, she was now secretary of the League for Educating Orphans who have Lost both Parents, vice-president of the Forlorn Hope for Maids in Peril, and treasurer to Thursday Hops for Working Girls. She seemed to know every man and woman who was worth knowing, and some besides; to see all picture-shows; to hear every new musician; and attend the opening performance of every play. With regard to literature, she would say that authors bored her; but she was always doing them good turns, inviting them to meet their critics or editors, and sometimes – though this was not generally known – pulling them out of the holes they were prone to get into, by lending them a sum of money – after which, as she would plaintively remark; she rarely saw them more.
She had a peculiar spiritual significance to Mrs. Stephen Dallison, being just on the borderline between those of Bianca’s friends whom Cecilia did not wish and those whom she did wish to come to her own house, for Stephen, a barrister in an official position, had a keen sense of the ridiculous. Since Hilary wrote books and was a poet, and Bianca painted, their friends would naturally be either interesting or queer; and though for Stephen’s sake it was important to establish which was which, they were so very often both. Such people stimulated, taken in small doses, but neither on her husband’s account nor on her daughter’s did Cecilia desire that they should come to her in swarms. Her attitude of mind towards them was, in fact, similar-a sort of pleasurable dread-to that in which she purchased the Westminster Gazette to feel the pulse of social progress.
Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace’s dark little eyes twinkled.
“I hear that Mr. Stone – that is your father’s name, I think – is writing a book which will create quite a sensation when it comes out.”
Cecilia bit her lips. “I hope it never will come out,” she was on the point of saying.
“What will it be called?” asked Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace. “I gather that it’s a book of Universal Brotherhood. That’s so nice!”
Cecilia made a movement of annoyance. “Who told you?”
“Ah!” said Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace, “I do think your sister gets such attractive people at her At Homes. They all take such interest in things.”
A little surprised at herself, Cecilia answered “Too much for me!”
Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace smiled. “I mean in art and social questions. Surely one can’t be too interested in them?”
Cecilia said rather hastily:
“Oh no, of course not.” And both ladies looked around them. A buzz of conversation fell on Cecilia’s ears.
“Have you seen the ‘Aftermath’? It’s really quite wonderful!”
“Poor old chap! he’s so rococo…”
“There’s a new man.
“She’s very sympathetic.
“But the condition of the poor…
“Is that Mr. Balladyce? Oh, really.
“It gives you such a feeling of life.
“Bourgeois!..”
The voice of Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace broke through: “But do please tell me who is that young girl with the young man looking at the picture over there. She’s quite charming!”
Cecilia’s cheeks went a very pretty pink.
“Oh, that’s my little daughter.”
“Really! Have you a daughter as big as that? Why, she must be seventeen!”
“Nearly eighteen!”
“What is her name?”
“Thyme,” said Cecilia, with a little smile. She felt that Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace was about to say: ‘How charming!’
Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace saw her smile and paused. “Who is the young man with her?”
“My nephew, Martin Stone.”
“The son of your brother who was killed with his wife in that dreadful Alpine accident? He looks a very decided sort of young man. He’s got that new look. What