Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (147 page)

But her dress was dreadfully coarse blue stuff. She had thought it so nice when she had bought it before they came to Wickham. Why shouldn’t she have some better things? She had money now. Besides, they could afford it. She had always made her own. Why shouldn’t she manage to run up to town for an afternoon now to a dressmaker’s? Surely Dora could look after her father for one day. Dora had plenty of things.

“He took an interest in Dora,” she said, suddenly. He worried himself about her, about Thwaite — even about that hateful Hailes, who had always made her shudder. What could he see in such a creature, such a manifest leech? Why should he help such people? Why not her? What was the matter, that she appealed to no one?

“Oh, if only—” she began again. If only she could talk, just once, just once open her heart to some good man like that! If only he would listen to her for awhile, just once, just to ease herself of her intolerable load of “of silly nothings,” she said, sharply.

She must put a stop to these morbid selfanalyses. There was nothing in her to attract the notice of such a great man. Hundreds of other girls had been trampled under, dried up, became dust at last without ever speaking. She, too, would have to in the end.

“But if only—” No, it was no good.

She couldn’t even speak to herself. What was the good? One has to give up day dreams at last. One has to come to renunciations. She opened a drawer and stood looking into it abstractedly. She had a few treasures, some old brooches of her mother’s, a pearl necklace. She took it out, and stood fingering the pearls. They were wonderfully soothing to the touch, delicate, silky. She put it round her neck and stood thinking. It came over her gently, like something precious, that she knew more about George than anyone there. Even Thwaite did not know that he was a poor man. She had overheard that hateful Mrs. Gregory Moffat talking about it — to Hailes. A horrible, barefaced thing to do!
“
Oh, I assure you,” Mrs. Moffat’s high voice had said, “George can’t last another year. This place is mortgaged up to the hilt — What? Oh, I don’t suppose he’s in debt; he’s too ridiculously considerate of his tradesmen.” Clara had been coming in by the private way, over the turf in the dusk, behind a tall, quickset hedge that George was proud of. It had arcaded openings, round arches cut in it. Mrs. Moffat had been talking, in her high, contemptuous voice on the other side. Clara had paused with one foot drawn back. She had heard a great deal more.

It had shocked her horribly at first. She had watched George’s face intently for signs of worry. She thought she had made them out. But how splendidly he concealed it!

Afterwards, when Thwaite had spoken light-heartedly of owing a large sum to George, it had sickened her. It was too dreadful, too heartless. But Thwaite evidently knew nothing. George was keeping his sorrow to himself. What would he do? What was he going to do? It would be dreadful for him. He was used to all these fine things. It was impossible to imagine him without them. Supposing he intended to kill himself!

She paused, bending over another drawer that she had opened. It was full of her mother’s beautiful old china silks. She remembered that there was some old, very fine lace beneath the silks. She began to take them carefully out, and lay them on the bed. They had only been relics for her. What was she to do? What ought she to do? She had not money enough to be worth offering to George. And how could she offer it. It wasn’t possible. And all these people had been preying upon him. Her father, too, had been taking up time when George might have been working. Well, she had stopped all that! She was going to go on as she had begun, on the very next day — keeping her father away from George.
They,
assuredly, were not going to prey on him.

She began to take out from the drawer a long strip of broad lace; it fell voluptuously, a delicate yellow, over her arm; it depended in a broad fold to her feet. She remembered for a minute that lace was coming in again. This, she believed, was priceless.

No! They were not going to prey on George. If Thwaite were going to become a member of their family, he, too, would have to leave off. She would insist on that — if George could persuade her father to consent to the marriage. She wondered vaguely if he would. If not, poor Dora.

She herself liked Thwaite; in many things he was so “genuine.” But, if he were to marry Dora, he must work to pay George back. He must. They couldn’t be indebted. But she couldn’t explain to Thwaite; she could not tell him why it was so urgent. George wanted no one to know. She sat down again on her bed and began to loosen her dress. She tilted the glass down, to catch sight of herself.

What, then, was to be done? She had only her own money — and Dora’s. Of her mother’s bequest she had given away by now all but their two shares. Perhaps, after all, George might not be ruined. She undid the hooks of her cuffs; her dress began to slip down.

Thwaite owed George all this money. If he married Dora, then — She sat up very straight; her dress slid down, her white shoulders appeared, dazzling and solid.

“Dora’s money ought to pay Mr. Moffat,” she said. The whole position took shape before her, as if snow had fallen to outline a dim landscape.

That was it; that was obviously it. In some form. But in what?

Dora’s money will just pay Mr. Moffat,” she said. She considered for a long time. She could not tell Thwaite — that George was in need of money. It might be a great blow for Thwaite. Perhaps it would. She was convinced that Thwaite was fond of money. She did not want to hurt Thwaite’s feelings. What ought she to do?

She was draping the yellow lace upon her white shoulders. The touch of it was like a caress.

“I could give Mr. Moffat my own money,” she said. But no. That wasn’t possible. It would do Thwaite good — to have a reverse. He had had too easy a time of it; he had been too long a parasite. Things had “turned up” for him too easily. It was demoralising.

That was precisely it; George was demoralising. He helped people too much; they could not do without him at last. He meddled, too. It would have been meddling in a man less fine, She pursued remorselessly her conscientious reasoning. It must lead to evil in the end. People victimised him. That was degrading to them. He hadn’t the right to usurp the functions of Providence. No man had.

She sat down in front of her mirror. She shook her hair loose about her shoulders. Her face had the freshness, her flesh the lustrous transparence, in the bright light, of a white-heart cherry. The white of her shoulders looked velvety and soft through, the old ivory of the lace. Yes; she was beautiful, like that. Why wouldn’t people see it? Why had she never attracted anyone? Was it only the matter of dress, or hadn’t she had the will?

“If I had this lace made up,” she thought, “and did my hair so as to get the full value of it.” She half closed her eyes and pictured herself walking, tall, straight, fair, her cheeks flushed, her eyes dancing, a soft smile curving the clear lines of her mouth. She had seen women like that with — with... “with an
ensemble,
” she remembered George had said of a lady they had once seen — a tourist, looking at the church. She sighed, the tenseness relaxed. She wondered what sort of a woman his wife could have been.

“Why have people always treated him so badly?” she asked herself. He had probably spoilt his wife. That was it. He spoiled everybody he met. He was too good. People could not appreciate him. They
must
treat him badly. It was inevitable.

“I ought to put these things away,” she said, but she was too tired. She had used up all her energy. Then she said determinedly: “Thwaite sha’n’t escape.” It was perfectly right. Her mother had given her the money. This was precisely a case for her to use her discretion.

“But ought I? — ought I?” She felt instinctively that something, somewhere, was biasing her. “If only I had someone to talk to!” But she couldn’t talk, even to George, about this matter. To him least of all.

It would do Thwaite good. That was something. The thing was beginning to worry her horribly. It needn’t hurt Dora. If Dora ever needed money, she, Clara, would give her her own. How
did
it work out? It was surely perfectly right. Mr. Moffat
ought
to be paid. Her sister could not be indebted to him. But supposing he never needed the money? Supposing that Mrs. Moffat had been lying? She was that sort of woman.

She drew up her blind, and looked through the low diamond-paned window at the pale night. She extinguished her candles, and a blazing moon, a great bright star, the silver band of the distant, tranquil sea, existed suddenly behind the wintering branches of trees. It was all so still, so steadfast, so definite.

“I suppose I must let it slide,” she said, bitterly. “Then I shall have to act. But I’m always doing things. I can never get to the bottom of anything.”

She had become, in her little room, a white, dim figure in the shadows. Her hair caught the reflection of the moon in broad bands. She said—” Never!”

But she debated these things for long after.

George was prepared to go to any lengths to make Mr. Brede consent to the marriage of Dora and Thwaite. He thought he understood Mr. Brede’s mental trouble; he was not prepared to call him a brute. There was undoubtedly a logic underlying the unreasonableness.

“But it’s absurd,” he fulminated. Mr. Brede had at last come to see him, after perhaps a week of gloomy and obstinate silence at home. “Even if, for the sake of argument, we allow that you did cause your wife’s death,
that’s
not the kind of sin that’s visited on the children. Besides, it would be for Thwaite to object.”

Mr. Brede shook his head gloomily.

“It isn’t that,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

George caught him resolutely. “I won’t talk about anything else.”

He implied, distinctly enough, that if Mr. Brede would not listen to reason, he, George, would have no more to say to him. Mr. Brede said, rather lamentably:

“But, Moffat—” There was a great appeal in his voice.

George shook his head.

Mr. Brede’s heavy features sank towards his chest. Suddenly he raised his brows and shot a piercing, rather wild glance at George.

“I’m — I tell you I’m going—” he muttered rather thickly, and then, with a swift intonation, “I’m not the sort of man whose children ought to marry, There are more than enough creatures like me.”

George laughed robustly and comfortingly. “It’s just such strenuous natures as yours that we need so dreadfully. People who can work themselves out — right out, as you have done. Now, of course you’re taking a rest; but you’ll begin again. I’m not certain that you oughtn’t soon.”

Mr. Brede shook his head gloomily.
“
I’ve no mind left,” he said. “You don’t know what it is.”

George laughed rather brilliantly.

“You know, you are — you are really — a little outrageous with your self-questioning. It’s conscientiousness carried to a logical absurdity. But you must really get back to work again. That’s what you want.”

Mr. Brede looked at him with a suggestion of awakened trusting that irresistibly suggested Clara’s.

“You think
that”
he said.

“Oh, I’m sure of it,” George answered.

Mr. Brede rose suddenly to his immense height. “I’ll never consent to their marriage,” he said, vehemently. His manner had entirely changed. “Never. It’s not fitting that my children should marry. A mark is set upon me.” He rushed out of the room.

But after a week, during which George resolutely refused to see him, he wrote a note to George.
“
Heaven, if it cares about me any more, knows that I don’t wish to be cruel to my girls. But I’m a man sorely tried.”

George felt extremely pleased.
“
Oh, I’ll take all the responsibilities,” he went round to say to him.

There was going to be such a pleasant circle in that little town. He himself would take Mr. Brede in hand, and would get him back to himself. And he had begun his new volume.

PART II. THE GOLDEN CIRCLE
.

CHAPTER I
.

WHILST he was ferretting in drawers and turning over in his mind fragments of uncompleted verse, George came upon a novel that he had written a great many years before. He had been dissatisfied with it, and the manuscript had remained ever since at the bottom of a drawer. He read it out of curiosity, and it left him gasping and ashamed to think that he had ever been so callow and so crude. It was like looking at a portrait of himself in his boyhood, though it was not really ten years old.

It had been a mediaeval-renaissance story; it was romantically concerned with the discovery of America, the opening up of new and mysterious worlds; it was “justified” according to George’s own psychological ideas. The hero analysed his emotions hair-splittingly. He thought whole pages full between the uplifting and downfall of a battle axe; he was filled with quite modern world pain as he walked in cloisters, strayed in Virginian forests, or saw outrages committed on the high seas. It was, in fact, that
Wilderspin
which half the world that reads has since read.

It had filled George with the shame of a suddenly remembered youthful indiscretion. He left it lying, a heap of paper, open to the oak beams of his study on the top of the bureau at which he wrote. Sometimes whilst he was working at the new volume he looked at the heap; the dust was settling down on it again. Then one day Clara Brede came in and borrowed it to read. But
Wilderspin
or no
Wilderspin
, there was undoubtedly a fever in George. He thought of Clara’s finding revealed its vulgarities, its life, its positiveness and its youth, and that spurred him to those fits of impatience in which, spasmodically, a man catches at the pen, and can’t write fast enough. It carried him into the New Year, too.

“My dear fellow,” he said suddenly to Thwaite,
“
the fact is you’re all, all of you, working along wrong lines. What we want is your commonplaces.”

It was a January night after supper. Candlelight from under green shades in two places of the dusky room fell on the respective blotting-pads of George and of the Editor of the
Salon.
Thwaite had undoubtedly ensued the civilising touches of George’s
“
best type.” He had had his beard well trimmed; it gave him a certain air of Henry IV. of France, and a certain air of knowing it. He was by then definitely affianced to Dora. Mr. Brede had never again mentioned the subject. They were to be married in the summer holidays; peace had descended upon the little circle.

“Oh, if you want my commonplaces,” he said good humouredly, looking up from the slip on his knees, “listen!” He began to read the book announcements from the
Salon
: “Messrs. Killingworth are publishing an interesting volume on...”

George said:
“
Killingworths have asked for this volume,” and Thwaite answered:

“Oh, they aren’t the least use for verse.”

“Where I mean your mistake lies,” George took up again, “is in your view of the attitude of the poet — you want so damnably to
be
poets, to get the poetic point of view.” Thwaite laid his pad on the ground beside his cane chair, crossed his legs, and began to tap his delicate white fingers one on the other. He said: “Well?”

“The poetic point of view,” George said, with a slight sniff, “and to ‘get’ it... But don’t you see, my dear fellow? A man either is or is not a poet. If he is, his commonplace
is
the poetic point of view. If he isn’t..

Thwaite said:” Oh, but...” and stirred slightly. His chair creaked in the dim warmth of the room.

“I fall upon you,” George said animatedly, “because the idea is a new one; a new canon, a new motive, a light through all sort of dimnesses — to me, I mean. I’ve never seen it put as clearly as I want to put it. And upon you because here—” he let a heavy fist fall upon a copy of the
Salon, “
here I find you writing those absurd words: An unfortunate has published a first volume; you recommend him to keep firmly before him
‘
the poetic point of view.”’

Thwaite said: “Oh, I’m not a good critic.
That’s
commercialism — that’s penny-a-lining. Those reviews represent tables and chairs for the cottage.”

“You’re writing a great deal too much, my dear boy,” George said with sudden gravity. “This rag of a paper isn’t worth it.”

“You mean I’ve a delicate thin pipe of a talent,” Thwaite mocked at him.

“You have,” George affirmed. “I don’t want to see you blunt it.”

Thwaite leaned forward.

“The
Salon
people — (I fancy it’s principally your sister-in-law) — have given hints of displeasure,” he said. “They think I’m not worth my salt. I been trying to prove I am.”

“You’ve been writing it pretty well from cover to cover,” George accused. “It’s too much, too much.”

“It’s a matter of death or nothing,” Thwaite laughed. “If they give me notice, how the deuce am I to marry Dora? She’s next to nothing; I’ve practically not a cent.”

“It’s not as bad as that, surely?” George asked.

“Bad,” Thwaite answered gloomily, “why, one has to look things in the face. I couldn’t take that child into starvation. I don’t want anything for myself.”

George interjected: “No, no,” as if he were asking a question.

“I explained the matter to the father — to Mr. Brede,” Thwaite went on, “and he said the whole thing was in Clara’s hands.”

George nodded confidently.

“Clara — Clara’s so incomprehensible.” Thwaite uttered an ejaculation of intense vexation. “I thought she approved of me. Why the deuce shouldn’t she? But — but—” he paused—” I believe she’s as mad as her father,” he said.

“You’re talking absolute nonsense,” George interrupted angrily.

Clara had acted on Christmas Eve. She and her sister had been sitting over the fire in Dora’s room, at night.

Dora had said: “Oh, Clara, I shan’t see another Xmas at home.”

Clara looked absently at the red coals. It was the first time Dora had spoken directly of leaving home. But she had been talking about it with Thwaite. And sitting now with her sister, on that anniversary, she began to make her plans before Clara. She loved Clara very much, because Clara was so good and so gentle. She was going to marry Thwaite in July; that was the time when Thwaite could take his holiday, because people didn’t publish books much in the summer. They were going to live in Thwaite’s cottage. She would spend some of her money in doing it up. They could make it lovely.

Clara said suddenly: “I may not be able to let you have your money.”

She had reflected about it all that time, and ten minutes before she hadn’t arrived at any conclusion. Now the words were out.

Dora was saying: “Oh, but, Clara,... why?”

It was not against Clara that she felt resentment, but against whatever it was that forced Clara.

Clara said: “I can’t give you any reason. I have one. I may not be able to let you have the money.”

Her voice sounded horribly cold to herself; the short, sharp sentences had a ring like the command of an officer. Dora’s blue eyes were round with surprise. It wasn’t anger. She was too young to understand quite what not having the money meant.

Clara felt suddenly horribly mean.
“
I’ve a claim upon me,” she said.

“But
what
?” Dora said.

“I can’t give you any reason,” Clara answered again.

She continued looking at the red coals. She remained quite motionless. But it was as if she were out of breath after a desperate Struggle. She had acted!

She was not going to give Dora her money. She was going to wait to see what happened to George. She was not going to explain, because that would be to betray George. It was settled. But what was going to happen? She felt sudden tears in her eyes. She did not know why they were there. She looked round and said to Dora, “Darling child, I will give you whatever you want out of my own money.” It came suddenly into her mind: “This means that I am giving my money to George Moffat. And Dora will get her money, but I shall be keeping a hold over it.” She could not trust Thwaite. These thoughts made her more firm. She had no more doubts.

Dora could not understand. She consulted Thwaite, and he was angry. Dora said, “Oh, but Clara says there is a claim.”

Her words made him still more angry. He could not see why Dora should so implicitly trust her sister. The money was Dora’s. He had thought of speaking to Clara. Then he had decided to consult George first. Now he was doing it. He tried to restrain his anger.

“But it’s at least annoying,” he said.
“
We certainly had expected the money.”

George said, “What are Clara’s reasons?”

“I don’t know.” Thwaite poured out his heart.
“
It’s the most incomprehensible thing. She’s given Dora a hundred pounds towards doing up the cottage.” His handsome, peak-bearded face expressed an honest puzzlement. “She says that if something happens a claim on her will arise — She can’t ignore it even for her sister’s sake.”

“Only don’t,” George urged, “only don’t take the odious family view of these things. Don’t drop down to that level. If Clara says she has a claim, she certainly has. She’s essentially” — he paused for a word—” scrupulous,” he added.

Thwaite laughed. “It’s easier for you than for me to see that she has a fine character. She has, of course she has.” He paused and then broke out again, “But that’s why I’m doing so much to keep in the good books of the
Salon
people. I simply
must.
Dora and I are both set on — on living happily ever afterwards. Good Lord, I wouldn’t have believed it of myself a year ago.”

George frowned. “You are not to overwrite yourself,” he said; “you will be ruining your style.”

Thwaite laughed. “At any rate I’ll make Dora happy,” he said; “it’s a responsibility.” George pondered. He took up his pen and began listlessly scrawling the letters of the alphabet A B C… A B C. Then C; then B; then a more ornate C and a finer B. He did not much like this mood of Thwaite’s. Here he was talking like a householder, about his “responsibilities.” George was romantic enough to prefer the joyous Bohemian, the vagabond with the knapsack. But after all it was his own doing. It struck him that his capital C’s had not a sufficiently weighty look. He wrote “Clara Brede” heavily and majestically with the full weight of his strong hand. He looked at the name uncomprehendingly, and then with a certain alertness at Thwaite.

“I’ll speak to Clara Brede,” he said, “and to my brother. He’s an enigmatic person; but he sha’n’t turn you off the
Salon.”

He would have to keep these worries out of Thwaite’s way. They would spoil any man. He was not going to let them spoil Thwaite. “Dora shan’t come within measurable distance of a pinch.”

Thwaite said, “Oh, I can’t cadge on you for ever.”

George waved his hand plutocratically.
“
It’s a point of honour,” he said. “I’m responsible. I brought you together.” It went through his mind that to do anything effectual for Dora he would have to sell his house.

Thwaite laughed. “Someone said of you that you would give the shirt off your back.”

“Who?” George asked.

“Oh, I heard it from Clara,” Thwaite said. Clara had heard it from Mrs. Gregory Moffat.

George came into the Bredes’ drawing room next morning. The front, door stood always open, and he had the run of the house. Clara was standing in front of the tall glass. It ran from floor to ceiling, and, was the only one in which she could see her full figure. Her new dress had come down from Town that morning. It had fitted very badly on the shoulders, and she had been for a long time moving and removing the hooks and eyes of the lace in the collar. She had been looking forward to it — she had only that moment discovered how ardently. She drew a long breath; it was very charming now.

The dressmaker had told her that her old lace would work into it beautifully. And it did. It was set in square round the shoulders, and fell gracefully right down to her feet. Yes, it made her look.... it made her look.... she couldn’t think of any word. She was a little ashamed to be thinking of such things at all. It wasn’t
like
her.