Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (461 page)

“Your lordship!... Your Excellency!.. the man protested.

“Get out and fetch the straw,” Macdonald grumbled amiably. “I know you’ve taken to me immensely, and you think a nobleman of my rank ought to be protected from himself in the matter of curtains and carpets.”

Oh, you’re too much!” the man ejaculated.

“Well, I’ve broken you in,” Macdonald laughed, as the man went irresolutely from the room.

Macdonald climbed lightly up the circular iron staircase into the office. He fetched down two chairs, a box with nails that was in a tool chest, a hammer, a looking-glass, and a large almanac that showed a blonde woman stretching out her arms yearningly to an approaching automobile. He put a row of eight nails along the wall nearest the door, two nails above the window, and one in the centre of the wall. On this he hung the almanac. The chauffeur was grunting and rustling into the room, bundling behind him through the door a huge mass of straw. He cast it on to the ground.

“This almanac,” Macdonald said, “is not intended to keep me posted as to the flight of time. And it is not intended to impress you with anything, because, as you have gathered, I affect to disdain your opinion. I’ve stuck it up there to make a pretty spot of colour and to remind myself that I am not an ascetic. I want to get all the pretty spots of colour that I can. On principle.”

“You’ve got a damned sharp tongue, Your Excellency,” the man muttered.

“Normally, I haven’t,” Macdonald said; “but I’m just showing how immeasurably I’m your superior.”

The chauffeur grumbled rather beneath his breath: “All men are equals.”

“Now, no more of that antiquated nonsense,” Macdonald said sharply. “No men are equal. You are not mine, and the chap driving the taxi from the next rank isn’t yours, and the cab-washer in his garage isn’t his, so drop it. Help me to get this room straight.”

But this was almost more than the capacity of Mr. Salt would run to. With his hands hanging by his sides and an expression of half-admiring helplessness, he set to work. Sergius Mihailovitch arranged the two bundles of straw side by side in the comer of the room. Over them he spread one of his rugs, and over the rug his motor-coat.

“That’s my bed,” he exclaimed.

Another rug he hung up before his bare window. “That’s a curtain.” He undid his valises and took out suit after suit, which he hung on the nails that he had knocked into the bare walls. One of the suits was a diplomatic uniform of dark blue, with buttons and with epaulettes of shining gold. “That’s how we do it,” he said again.

The chauffeur’s bewildered eyes rested on the decorations of the uniform.

“Oh, come,” Macdonald exclaimed, “you’ve seen something like that before. Come! Move! Do you feel up to helping me down with the small table from the office upstairs?”

They climbed the corkscrew steps and clumsily managed to get the table down. Macdonald set it against the wall beneath the coloured almanac.

“Now, here’s the furnished room,” he exclaimed.” There’s a place to wash one’s self underneath the stairs, so that’s all I want.”

The chauffeur began: “But Your Excellency isn’t — ?”

“My Excellency is,” Macdonald said. “My Excellency is going to dress for dinner now, and my Excellency is going to sleep here when I come back after dinner.”

He took from a portmanteau some silken underclothing, a dress shirt, a tie-case, and a collar box, and laid them carefully upon the table.

“Now, tell me about Mr. Spenlow,” he said, “whilst I am putting the studs in my shirt.”

“His Majesty—” the chauffeur began.

“I’ve told you to call the King Mr. Spenlow,” Macdonald said sharply.

“But it’s very difficult to call His Majesty...”

“By God!” Macdonald shouted suddenly, “if you ever call the King anything else but Mr. Spenlow, I will tear the inside out of your throat.” And his aspect was so ferocious that Mr. Salt staggered back against the door.

“Good Lord!” he said. “I’ve heard of the British Lion, but protect me from the Russian Bear.”

“That’s better,” Macdonald commented. “You seem to be coming to some sense of responsibility. You understand this. This is a matter of life and death, and it will be your death that will happen first if there is any bungling.”

“I didn’t take on a life-and-death job,” the chauffeur grumbled.

“Well, you’re in one,” Macdonald retorted. “I didn’t want you, but it seems I’ve got to have you. Now, tell me all about the habits of the gentleman we’ve been talking of. You’ve told me that he’s passionately interested in motorcars, and that’s a good thing. What about women?”

“Women?” the chauffeur asked stupidly.

“Yes, women,” Macdonald answered impatiently. “Wine, women, and song! Dissipation! Don’t you understand English? Hasn’t he got the vices proper to his station?”

“He’s a most respectable young chap,” the chauffeur said. “I have heard the Queen-Mother say that he never gave her a moment’s anxiety.”

Macdonald said: “That makes things very awkward;” and then he added: “You must call the Queen-Mother Mrs. Spenlow—” He remained abstracted for a moment, then he asked:

“Isn’t there an actress who goes about with him as I ordered? I am always seeing photographs of you and Mr. Spenlow and Miss Flossie Coward going about in a 200 h p. Panhard; or are they all fakes?”

“Oh, they are genuine enough,” the chauffeur answered. “But the King — I mean Mr. Spenlow, positively hates having to have her with him.”

“Doesn’t he want to be put back in his confounded little kingdom?” Macdonald asked.

“If you ask me,” the chauffeur answered, “I believe he’d much rather play about with spanners and wrenches to the end of his day.”

“Poor little devil!” Macdonald said. “He’s got to go into the dark forest too.”

“I don’t understand Your Excellency,” the chauffeur said. “It’s probable you wouldn’t,” Macdonald answered. “But I will explain it up to a point. And that point is that if anyone should cross-question you as to Mr. Spenlow’s habits, you should represent him as being a thoroughly dissipated young man.”

“But he isn’t,” the chauffeur expostulated. “I’ve never known anyone more respectable.”

“I tell you,” Macdonald answered, “that the only thing he takes an interest in is rushing about the country in a motor car with an actress at his side. You’re always being fined for breaking the speed limit. You’re going to have a nasty accident quite soon, owing to Mr. Spenlow forcing you to be reckless. Mr. Spenlow himself won’t be quite sober at the time.”

“I’ve never had what you can call an accident in my life,” the chauffeur said sulkily, “and you’re quite mistaken in thinking that that gentleman likes fast driving. As a matter of fact, he is a little cowardly, and what really interests him is the engines and the inside of the car. And as for not being sober...”

“My good chap,” Macdonald said, “it will be your business in the next three or four days to get fined twice for exceeding the limit; and you will have to arrange for a nice little accident that will bring the names of Mr. Spenlow and Miss Flossie Coward and of myself and some other actress...” Macdonald paused suddenly, and then he asked:

“By-the-by, you haven’t got an actress for me this evening? Someone quite disreputable?”

The chauffeur exclaimed: “Your Excellency!” in tones of panic.

“Don’t you understand anything?” Macdonald asked. “Don’t you understand that Mr. Spenlow and Miss Coward and myself are going to dine in public to-night? And that it is essential that I should take with me someone who is quite disreputable. Someone who will throw peaches at the head waiter and empty bottles of champagne over Mr. Spenlow?”

Mr. Salt’s mouth dropped, his eyes took on an appalled glare.

“Can’t you understand anything?” Macdonald asked. “Can’t you see that I have to be the corrupter of Mr. Spenlow’s youth and innocence? Can’t you see how the papers have got to be filled with accounts of the desperate misdeeds of Mr. Spenlow and his companions? I tell you that I’m going to turn him into the most desperate ne’er- do-well that the history of kings can show. This poor young man hasn’t had any kind of a record so far, but I’m going to give him a most desperate one.”

The chauffeur suddenly clutched his fists, and his voice when he spoke was tremulous with emotion.

“Then all I can say is,” he exclaimed, “that I’m not going to have anything to do with it. I’m the son of respectable Methodist parents, and I’m not going to see anyone, whether it’s a commoner or a king, wilfully corrupted. It’s disgraceful, it’s disgusting; I can’t stand it, and I won’t. This young man, for all he is a king, is as nice and respectable a young man as anyone I ever saw. Give him a couple of spanners and a sparking plug and an old car and some standardised spare parts to play with, and he’ll be as quiet and grave and good for the whole afternoon as if he were preparing for the ministry. And you want to take this young man — I tell you, I like him for his own sake... Of course, I know kings have got to be kings, but I won’t... no, I’ll be hanged if I will...”

And suddenly Mr. Salt blew his nose.

“There, there,” Macdonald said, “you need not cry about it. I really thought you would understand me better. But, of course, you haven’t got a sense of humour. The steel you deal in doesn’t run to that.”

“I tell you, I’ll throw up my job!” Mr. Salt exclaimed. “I will split on your whole show....”

Macdonald, who was fitting the links into his dress shirt, exclaimed: “There, there!” soothingly once more. And when he had completed the fitting up of that garment, he looked up at the chauffeur with a friendly and rather childlike smile.

“It’s all right,” he said, “my good chap; don’t let your feelings run away with you. The young man isn’t really going to be corrupted. But it’s absolutely necessary that he should appear as if he were.”

“I don’t see why—” Mr. Salt grumbled.

“Of course you don’t,” Macdonald answered. “But I’ll explain. Don’t you understand the president and ministers of the Galizian Republic have got their eyes all the time on Mr. Spenlow? Now, exactly what we don’t want is that they should hear that he’s engrossed in tools and engineering.”

“I don’t see why not,” the chauffeur said. “You couldn’t have anything more respectable for a king to do.”

“But they don’t want a king, my dear chap,” Macdonald said. “And for him to be taken up in that sort of work is just the sort of thing that will make them afraid that he’s the sort of king to plan a counter-revolution.”

“But he isn’t planning a counter-revolution at all,” the chauffeur objected.

“No! We, his devoted servants, are planning it for him,” Macdonald continued. “And what the president and the ministers of the Galizian Republic want is that he should be a dissipated little scoundrel, with nothing in his head but wine and women and song and breaking the speed limit.”

“I don’t see why we should give the republicans what they want,” Mr. Salt once more objected.

“We aren’t going to, you know,” Macdonald said. “We’re only going to pretend to. All the dissipation will be only a put-up job.”

A sudden light seemed to strike in upon Mr. Salt.

“I see, I see,” he said eagerly. “You only want to hoodwink these republicans. You want to make them think Mr. Spenlow is an idle young fool in order to put them off the scent.”

“It’s extraordinary how intelligent you are, Mr. Salt,” Macdonald said. “And you see, giving Mr. Spenlow this dashing reputation will serve a double purpose. It will not only put the Galizian Government off the scent, but it will make Mr. Spenlow popular with the Galizian people. Really, they kicked him off the throne because he was such a milksop. That’s what it really amounted to. You see, they’re a nation of sportsmen. They like bull-fights and cock-fights and any sort of row. They’d like breaking speed limits if they had any kind of a road that a motor can run on. Only they haven’t.”