Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (448 page)

“I told you!” she said in the lowest of voices. The major became pale when he looked at her. She was in what Mrs. Foster called a roofed in dress of dark blue silk.

“My God!” he ejaculated. “You here! I insist upon some explanation.”

But Mrs. Foster exclaimed: “No, no, my dear, not now. We must go away. I couldn’t explain here. You would kill your uncle. I’m afraid it would be your duty to kill your uncle.”

The major exclaimed: “Good God! Kill my uncle! What’s the meaning of all this?”

Miss Peabody got up from the ground. “Edward,” she said, “I will explain to you and to no one else.”

“Well, I certainly think,” the major commented, “that somebody ought to explain to someone.”

“Then I will explain to no one at all,” Miss Peabody said. “I will leave this house at once.”

“I should certainly advise you,” Miss Jenkins said slowly, “to give an entire explanation of everything. I believe, miss, that you are perfectly innocent.” Miss Peabody looked at Miss Jenkins, and her lips almost silently let fall the one word, “Devil!” Then she turned upon Major Foster. “There’s no need of explanation,” she said.

But Miss Jenkins exclaimed with her level intonation: “I don’t know so much about that, Miss Peabody. You see, the other night you said that things didn’t look so innocent. And yet the other night....”

Mrs. Foster said: “What’s that about the other night?” with the sharpness of a cross-examining barrister.

“It was a most infamous scene,” Miss Peabody said. “There were all these women running after that fool of a nephew of yours.”

“Oh, I say!” the major exclaimed. “What have
I
done, Olympia?”

Miss Peabody turned upon him with an extraordinary fierceness. “If you had had the spirit of a man,” she said, “you would have struck your aunt dead at my feet.”

“Oh, come, Olympia,” the major said. “Kill my aunt as well as my uncle? I should be an orphan.”

“You would have struck your aunt dead at your feet,” Miss Peabody repeated, “before you would have let her utter the abominable insults she has poured on me.”

“But I haven’t heard any of the insults,” the major said amiably. “She must have poured them out before I came in.”

“She didn’t say a single word that was not true,” Miss Delamare exclaimed. “Not a single word.”

“You hear her?” Miss Peabody exclaimed to the major. “You hear her, and you don’t strike her to the ground at once!”

“Oh, I say, Olympia,” the major said. “You want a town butcher for this job.”

Miss Peabody was by now enraged past bearing.

And her face as she looked towards the major trembled visibly.

“You utter imbecile!” she said. “You grinning, amiable fool. It’s disgusting to me that I ever saw your face, and it will disgust me so that I shall be ill if I ever see your face again. This is a house of madmen and fools and of corruption. I leave this house at once. Send for my maid to take away my things. I shall give no explanation; I shall go: for this house is Sodom and Gomorrah.” And suddenly she pulled off her engagement ring and threw it at the major’s feet. “My own car,” she continued, “will take me to town at once. I say good night to nobody; I say good-bye to nobody. I only hope that all your sins may be rewarded as they deserve.”

And suddenly they perceived that Miss Peabody was just gone. They had all been thinking so hard along one train of thought or the other that it was almost as if she had vanished into the ground The major exclaimed:

“Oh, I say! We can’t let the poor woman go off like that.” And he made a movement towards the door. But Mrs. Foster caught him fiercely by the hand.

“Edward,” she said, “if you go after that woman, I will pray God to strike you dead at my feet.”

“Oh, come,” the major said, “you wouldn’t do that.”

They all stood about awkwardly; there simply was not anyone there who had a word to say, it seemed to have grown so extraordinarily quiet with the absence of Miss Peabody. It was as if a tempest had suddenly died away and left them listening for departing gusts. And then suddenly Miss Peabody’s maid appeared in the room that had been Miss Peabody’s, and, without a word, she began packing Miss Peabody’s trunks. In a sort of bewildered silence they all of them began to help her. Miss Jenkins was the first to do this, and then Mrs. Kerr Howe, and then Miss Delamare. The girl was gone in an astonishingly short space of time, and still they all hung about, for everyone of them felt that he or she had something remarkable to say. But nobody said anything; only at last Miss Jenkins remarked:

“I think, Major Edward, if you would help me to bring some of your things here it would be just as well. I don’t suppose Mrs. Foster would want the servants to know anything more than they need know.” Nobody said anything, for Mrs. Foster was beginning just slightly to whimper.

“And if,” Miss Jenkins continued, “Mrs. Kerr Howe and Miss Delamare will go to bed, it might make things all the quieter. I’m certain Mrs. Foster is wanting a quiet word with her husband.”

And slowly, under Miss Jenkins’s direction, they all dissolved, until Mr. and Mrs. Foster were left standing there alone.

CHAPTER VII
.

AND suddenly, since she no longer had the stimulating presence of Olympia to stiffen her into hostility, Mrs. Foster burst into tears and exclaimed: “How
could
you, Arthur!”

Mr. Foster did the best that he could with several sentences beginning with the words, “But, my dear...” He could not, however, finish any of them. And then Mrs. Foster began to speak with a real and quite touching mournfulness.

“Again I have got to say,” she exclaimed, “how
could
you, Arthur! For although I have known for years that you haven’t been a good husband to me in that sort of way, it didn’t seem somehow to matter to me. I know I ought to have been enraged; I know it is highly improper of me — it’s probably not even virtuous of me — not to have made frightful scenes. I suppose I ought to have cared, but I simply did not see how I could care. I’ve sat up in bed at night trying to shake myself into rages, but I just couldn’t. But when it comes to this — this is so unnatural — this is so horrible.”

“But I’m damned,” Mr. Foster said, “if I understand what
this
is! I know I ought not to swear, but I simply can’t help it. What’s it all about? What is
this
?...”

Mrs. Foster contented herself with remarking still more mournfully: “How could you! How
could
you!”

“But hang and confound you,” her husband exclaimed, “I couldn’t! I didn’t do anything; I don’t know what it’s all about.”

“But she was in your room,” Mrs. Foster said. “She was,” her husband answered; “but I can’t help that. I don’t know what happened. I had been reading a book, and suddenly the wall opened and then she came in and accused me of having Miss Delamare concealed there. She came in to search the room.”

A new anger overwhelmed Mrs. Foster.

“What business,” she exclaimed, “what business was it of that woman to search your room — unless you had given her a right to be jealous? Why did you let her?”

“My dear,” Mr. Foster said, “how in the world could I stop her? She was like a sort of policeman over me. You know she was like a sort of policeman over me.”

“Yet,” Mrs. Foster said, “I found you carrying her.”

“She was fainting,” Mr. Foster replied.

“It doesn’t matter whether she was fainting or not,” his wife said. “If you could have carried her out, you could have stopped her coming in — a great strong man like you. No, I am convinced of it, you had arranged with her beforehand to press that knob and open that panel.”

Mr. Foster said bewilderedly: “What panel? What panel?” And when his wife had explained he seized his advantage quickly, and with a quite virtuous indignation, he said:

“
You
knew about that panel. I didn’t. You changed my room. I didn’t. It’s you who are to blame; I am certainly not. I was as obedient as any husband ought to be. I was trying to read a book you told me to read in a room you told me to be in, and suddenly — I’m hanged if it didn’t feel as if all the pots from the side of a grocer’s shop fell on my head at once. It was all entirely your fault.”

“It’s no good your trying to get out of it like that, Arthur,” Mrs. Foster said.

“But I am going to get out of it like that,” her husband answered energetically. “I’ve had too much of it; I’m going to take a stand. Not only did you put me in this room, but you put that woman in that other room.”

“I certainly didn’t,” she answered. “It was Teddy’s room, and it has always been Teddy’s room.”

“That’s all nonsense,” Mr. Foster said. “You’re the mistress of this house. It’s your business to arrange people’s rooms.”

“But that’s just the whole thing,” Mrs. Foster said. “I’ve never been the mistress of this house. That’s been the whole cause of complaint with me. I may be now, though Heaven knows what other woman mayn’t come wriggling in...” And just at that moment Miss Jenkins came into the major’s room carrying his kit-bag. And because Mrs. Foster felt that things were entirely at a deadlock between herself and her husband, since they were each accusing the other with words of the utmost veracity and sincereness, Mrs. Foster turned upon Miss Jenkins and said:

“Now, Miss Jenkins, my dear, perhaps you will kindly tell Mr. Foster who is the real mistress of this house. I know I sit at the head of the table, and I know the servants call me ‘ma’am’; but who, for instance, has had the arranging of the bedrooms? Who is really responsible for these extraordinary scenes? For that’s the person who is the real mistress of the house.”

Miss Jenkins looked quite softly at Mrs. Foster.”

“Well, if you ask me, ma’am,” she said, “should just simply say that I think I am.”

She added, looking down at the kit-bag that she still held:

“You see, I am arranging it even now.”

“Then perhaps,” Mr. Foster exclaimed quite confidently, “you will kindly explain what the whole of this confounded business has really meant.”

“I am sure,” Miss Jenkins said, “that I am perfectly ready to explain everything, and to take every possible kind of responsibility. And I am perfectly ready to begin by saying that everybody in the house is entirely innocent of any kind of guilt — except Miss Peabody, whose motor has just gone tearing down the avenue. If it hadn’t, I should not be quite so ready to explain. But she’s safely out of it, and we’re all safely out of it. So that I can quite well say that even she has not been guilty of anything except simple spite.”

“You don’t expect me to believe that!” Mrs. Foster said.

“I do, ma’am,” Miss Jenkins answered. “I expect you to believe every word that I say. For if I’ve said that I’ve been responsible for all this arrangement, I certainly expect it to be believed that I was not aiding and abetting Miss Peabody or anybody else to do anything that could be called immoral.”

“Well, I think I will allow that,” Mrs. Foster said. “I think you will have to, ma’am,” Miss Jenkins answered. “I’m not going to say that Miss Peabody didn’t insist on being transferred to this room; because she did. She didn’t do it with any view to midnight interviews with Mr. Foster. And Mr. Foster could not possibly have had any idea of midnight interviews with Miss Peabody, because he hadn’t the slightest idea in any manner of speaking of where he really was. He was just planked down in a room he didn’t know. So that clears
him
. And I don’t really suppose that he in the least wanted any midnight conversation with Miss Peabody because, as a matter of fact, I know pretty well that he was just hiding in his bedroom in order to get away from Miss Peabody.”

“Why should he want to get away from Miss Peabody?” Mrs. Foster asked.

“Well, just because, ma’am,” Miss Jenkins answered, “because he signed the contract for the new theatre with Miss Delamare this evening after dinner.”

Mrs. Foster said, “Oh!”

“So that you can understand,” Miss Jenkins continued, “that Mr. Foster was not particularly anxious to have an interview with the lady. And I daresay you can understand that Miss Peabody
was
anxious to have an interview with Miss Delamare. That was why she insisted upon having this bedroom. That is why we’re all — all of us — feeling perceptibly happier.”

Mrs. Foster looked at Miss Jenkins. “What a way you have of understanding things, Miss Jenkins, my dear,” she said. “For it’s perfectly true that we’re all of us ever so much happier. I think I was heartbroken, but the minute that woman went out of the room I knew I was standing on what some poet called his native heath, though, of course, this isn’t really my own house.”

“Oh, well, for all practical purposes,” Miss Jenkins said, “you can consider it absolutely your own house.”

“But I never shall really,” Mrs. Foster answered. “Not really quite absolutely.”

“I wouldn’t make too certain of that, ma’am,” Miss Jenkins said.

Mrs. Foster looked at her with bewildered eyes that gradually widened and widened. And then she asked as a certain enlightenment seemed to pass across her mild and simple features:

“You really think you can manage that?”

“I really mean, ma’am,” Miss Jenkins said, “that I wouldn’t be too certain that I couldn’t — and that you could be perfectly and absolutely certain that if I could, you would, in a manner of speaking, be standing on your native heath.”

“I don’t understand what this is all about,” Mr. Foster said. “But women are always incomprehensible, so it doesn’t matter. I want to know if there is any charge hanging over my head.”

Mrs. Foster looked at Miss Jenkins. “Then this,” she said, “is really the happiest day of my life. For even Mr. Foster, for the first time since I’ve known him, has really behaved like a man, and you can’t imagine what an immense satisfaction that is to me. For he has just said, ‘Damn it!’ quite loud and strong, and he has just stood up to me as if he hadn’t got a backbone that was made of india-rubber.... Yes, yes, for the very first time! For, for the whole of his life he has been cringing before me because he has been afraid that I should find out about some redhaired shopgirl out of a glass case, and I have known all the time, especially when he came home with the whiskers that he used to wear damaged and bedraggled. And I’ve known and I haven’t cared, and I’ve been so ashamed of not having cared that I haven’t dared to tell him for fear he should tell me that I was immoral. And now it’s all come out, and he has really stood up and spoken like a man; and that alone is enough to make me happier than I’ve ever been since my wedding-day. And if only my Edward were here...”

“Oh,” Miss Jenkins said, “I told him to wait outside the door till I said he could come in. He’s there quite all right. But I thought it was not quite fitting that he should hear the delicate things I knew we should have to discuss.”

“But we’ve really discussed everything, Miss Jenkins my dear,” Mrs. Foster said, “and I don’t think he should be kept outside the door any longer than is absolutely necessary, for these corridors are cold and draughty and nasty and anxious sort of places, and it’s all so cleared up, and there are such tremendous weights off my mind; so that I think we ought to let my dear Edward come in and tell him that I am going to have him too all to myself for the rest of the time.”

“I should not be too certain of that, ma’am,” Miss Jenkins said softly. “And I should not be too certain that we’ve discussed all the delicate things that we’ve got to discuss, because I want a little direction from you on that very subject.”

“What very subject?” Mr. Foster asked. But Mrs. Foster continued composedly:

“The only thing that I stipulate is that the next one he chooses shan’t be an old maid with a skin like lawyers’ parchment, and a temper like what Lucifer is said to have, though I don’t believe his can be really as bad.”

“I don’t think, ma’am,” Miss Jenkins said, “that she will be that. Though, of course, it isn’t for me to say. But perhaps, ma’am, if you tell me just exactly what it is you want, I might be able to provide you with something that would come up to sample. For you must remember, ma’am, that you promised me £4000, and that I might have the major for myself if I got that woman out of the house. And I have got that woman out of the house, as everyone will clearly acknowledge. So that if you don’t feel inclined to keep your promise — though as for the £4000 I don’t want it — I should just like to know what it is that exactly you do want — what it is that would suit you exactly and absolutely down to the ground.”

Mrs. Foster looked almost piteously at Miss Jenkins.

“Miss Jenkins my dear,” she said, “I have always felt that you were one of the family. I have felt from the very first moment I came here — and with no disloyalty to Flossie, for that’s quite another sort of thing, and she doesn’t strike me as being so much a woman as a child — that you were the very nicest woman I have ever met, and — that if you had certain other things which you don’t appear to have — but you’re so extraordinary that there’s no knowing what you have or haven’t, or might have, or mightn’t have — that it would make me the very happiest woman in the world if you married my Edward. For you are capable and sensible, and more handsome than anybody I have ever seen, and good-tempered and disciplined. I can tell that because you have such an excellent quiet way of being a servant, and you’re high-spirited, and you like your fun, and you can make anyone in the world fond of you...”