Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (470 page)

“Still,” Macdonald said, a little indistinctly over the papers in the drawer that he had pulled out, “it was certainly your idea — to bribe the whole population.” Macdonald was glad that he was able to keep his face averted. It wasn’t the sort of idea he would himself have been glad to have. But Mr. Pett immediately became animated.

“Yes, it is splendid,” he said. “It’s altogether one of the most splendid ideas that ever came into a man’s head. It’s simply that of Columbus and the egg. Taking the ordinary household of Galizia at five persons and accounting for the precious few who won’t want to be bribed, it means that every head of the house will get about three pounds ten, and as living only costs them about seven pounds a year per family, that means that the whole of Galizia will live free for six months. In addition, we remit all direct taxation for the first two years of the new reign. Don’t you see it means the Golden Age for Galizia?”

And Mr. Pett grinned a little, unscrupulous cockney grin as if he had succeeded in cheating successfully at a game of cards played for beans. But immediately his manner changed to one of truculent morality.

“Mind you,” he blared out threateningly, though at no one in particular, “this thing is perfectly moral. Absolutely! Mind that!... The business of the state is to provide for the material happiness of its people. That’s all a state can do, and the only way it can do it is by means of economics. Our scheme is perfectly moral because it’s perfectly sound economically. It may not be picturesque. That’s not my business as an economist. We give a starved people six months of peace and plenty and two years of relief from the burden of taxation in order to recover from times of disturbance. During those two years we develop the enormous mineral resources of the kingdom, which have never been developed because there has never been a period of two undisturbed years in the history of Galizia. That’s perfectly sound. If the republican ministry could do anything nearly as good for the country it would not be moral to displace them. But the republican ministry cannot. It can’t establish confidence. It can’t maintain peace. It can’t find capital. We can.”

“Oh, it’s all right, Pett,” Macdonald said cheerfully and with a soothing manner, “you aren’t addressing a public meeting. We all know that.”

He approached Mr. Pett from behind with his papers. Mr. Pett began once more to blush.

“Of course I know I’m not addressing a public meeting,” he said, “but it does no harm to restate these first principles. It makes the ground feel firmer under my feet. You don’t seem to see that all this is a great responsibility for me. You don’t seem to see how serious it all is. Besides,” he added, with a new access of aggressiveness, “I know that in your damned aristocratic silliness you sneer at my scheme because it isn’t picturesque. And the more often you hear that it’s sound, moral, and beneficent to an oppressed people, the more often you get jolly well snubbed in your silly pride.”

Mr. Pett’s voice had become high and shrill with a sort of impish malice, but he dropped it again to pleasanter tones in order to exclaim: “Besides, it’s all rot to say that I deserve all the credit of the thing. It isn’t true, and it is putting too great a responsibility upon me. It was I that worked out the idea — but with me it was purely theoretic.

... A sort of a game. It was you, Macdonald, who thought of putting it into practice. So you ought to have all the practical credit. I only got an idea from a man called Vincent. You’re going to do it.”

“Well, since we are making confessions,” Macdonald said pleasantly, “I don’t mind confessing that I got my idea from a man called Austin Evans. Austin Evans is an American-Welsh filibuster when he isn’t a sensational journalist. He came up one day to me in my club and asked me if I wouldn’t join an expedition that was going to steal ivory from the King of the Nigombi. He had got together one hundred and fifty British and American desperados, and they were going to make a raid from Rhodesian territory. If the poor old king tried to resist them, they would declare that he had attacked them by armed force. And the Chartered Company were all ready to annex Nigombi. That is how the British Empire grows.”

“Oh, we know all about that,” Mr. Pett said; “for the matter of that I know Austin Evans a little fat, fiery chap.”

“But,” Macdonald continued, “the point was that when I didn’t consent to go with him to Central Africa, Austin Evans offered for fifty thousand pounds to make me president of any small South American Republic with a seacoast that I might point out on the map. For that sum he was going to hire a battleship, fill it with English desperados, and threaten to blow any seaport capital off the map of South America.”.

“But you aren’t going to trust a little, lying blackguard like Austin Evans?” Mr. Pett said contemptuously.

“Oh, I’m not going to trust him,” Macdonald answered, “but I’m going to thank him for giving me an idea. It’s the idea of the younger son and the armed black sheep of this peaceful country. For you can say what you like, my Pett, we shan’t get hold of Flores without some sort of pretence at an armed threat.”

“Oh, you can have your silly old battleship if you want it,” Mr. Pett grumbled amiably. “It’s a useless expense, but I’ll sanction it. I know you must get the picturesque element into this show by hook or by crook. You’re the spoiled child of this particular dark forest that I’ve made so damned clear to you.”

“If you wouldn’t mind not talking so much,” Macdonald said, “and if you would just look over these papers — they contain the approximate figures for the cost of practically everything, and as you have entire financial control I want you to sanction every item.”

With an astonishing want of loquacity Mr. Pett exclaimed only, “All right.” He caught hold of the large bundle of papers that Macdonald held out to him, and he crushed them into one or other of the pockets of his black coat.

“You’ve got to remember,” he exclaimed fragmentarily, “that I’m a thinker. An economist... Um — um... not a book-keeper.” And then he called out:

“Come along, Anne! We’ve got to go and eat and go on to Lady Aldington’s.” He disappeared from the room with the sudden scuffle of an alarmed rabbit, and they heard him dropping his top-hat and swearing amongst the automobiles in the garage.

Macdonald had all along been aware that Mrs. Pett was conversing in undertones with Miss di Pradella, just as he knew very well that she was keeping a careful ear for everything that passed between himself and Mr. Pett. And now both these ladies approached him....

“I’m going,” Mrs. Pett said, “to take this young lady to Lady Aldington’s after we’ve had a little simple supper together.”

Macdonald uttered a rather appalled “But—”

Mrs. Pett continued: “Oh, it’s all right; all sorts of people go to Lady Aldington’s, and we take whom we like. And it will be an education for Miss di Pradella. Education is always an excellent thing.”

Macdonald said: “Well, well.” He could not see that any particular harm could come of it And the two ladies followed Mr. Pett.

Miss di Pradella was smiling radiantly for no particular reason. Macdonald had never discovered in her the faintest trace of a desire foi social advancement. She never seemed to want to know anybody or to talk to anybody, but she spent hours of perfect contentment in poring over her clean washing.

Macdonald descended into his basement and began to dress. But he had not been at it for more than five minutes when Mr. Pett ran into the room. His hair was very dishevelled, and he began to pull papers out of his pocket and to throw them on to the bed.

“Look here, Macdonald,” he exclaimed, “I am a scientist! A profound thinker needing tranquil conditions and leisure! I can’t take up the financial control of this thing. I really can’t. It would take too much of my time.”

Macdonald said: “Well, well.”

“I feel like a swine,” Mr. Pett said, “throwing all this new responsibility and work upon you. But I really can’t do it. I really can’t.”

Macdonald said: “All right. Leave the papers on the bed.”

And Mr. Pett went away. Macdonald continued his dressing. He had got into his shirt and trousers when once more Mr. Pett entered:

“Look here, Macdonald,” he said, and he began to stammer painfully: “I feel like a swine — a mean hound. But about the money. I can’t raise it.”

“What money?” Macdonald asked.

“The money for the expedition,” Mr. Pett stammered. “I promised to raise half of it from my friends.”

In the first flush and arrogant glory of his new idea for a revolution Mr. Pett had enthusiastically undertaken to raise at least half the money that would be needed. In his capacity as a journalist writing upon social matters and attracting a great deal of attention, Mr. Pett had met not only a great many political peers, but a great many very rich men. And because he always lectured them with great arrogance whilst they listened to him with the greatest respect, Mr. Pett imagined that he was really intimate with men who controlled millions and millions of money. But upon his approaching Lord Egdon the banker, and the Hon. Samuel Isaacstein, who was one of the directors of the Resiliens Company as well as Mr. Hutt, the director of the Great Southern Railway, Mr. Pett had been received with such a blank polite and attentive inattention that his whole acute soul had become panic-stricken. He had realised because the attitude of all these distinguished men had been so similar, although they were each of them so entirely indifferent — he had realised that not one of all the wealthy and eminent men that he knew would have anything to do with the speculation that he was proposing. It was this panic that had made him ill. That had made him desire to spoil the whole scheme by exposing it in the
Daily Herald.
If he could not raise the money the thing was going to be a failure. He could not see how Macdonald was going to do it, for he regarded Macdonald with an intellectual contempt. And Mr. Pett thought he could not afford to be connected with failures. He had wanted to pull out of it altogether; he had wanted to smash it, to ruin it. But that was only panic. The sight of Macdonald’s cheerful and cool smile, the sight of the documents; the news that Mr. Dexter was anxious to provide half the money; — all these things had restored to Mr. Pett almost all his original keenness. More particularly he was delighted with the view of his own scheme for the constitution of Galizia, carefully engrossed in a legal hand with the fat, red royal seals attached to it. This was his own fineness that he saw before him. And there had remained only the one mortifying thing — the confession he had to make that he had been unable to raise the money.

“I can’t do it,” he said. “I could if I weren’t a philosopher before everything. But I have my duty to my age. I’ve been thinking it over. It wouldn’t be right for me to distract my attention. Of course, I’ll give you some letters of introduction.”

“Oh, it’s all right,” Macdonald said. “I’ll attend to the money. Don’t bother.”

And Mr. Pett went away with deep peace in his soul. Whilst Macdonald continued his dressing, he read in a hurry several letters that he had found upon his return. Four were invitations; there were letters ordering cars; one was from a firm of solicitors whose name he did not know asking him to make an appointment to discuss a matter which they did not specify; and the last was a polite intimation from his bank that his account was overdrawn by the sum of eleven shillings and threepence. This was very worrying, because he had to provide for Miss di Pradella’s expenses next morning and he was very much hurried to get to Lady Aldington’s, whilst he hadn’t in his pocket enough money to pay for a cab. He walked to Leicester House.

Lady Aldington gave him just one glance from amongst a great group of diversely attired persons. She did not smile, but her eyes rested seriously upon’ his. He did not get a word with her. Instead he heard the whole of Dr. Farquhar’s speech on the Nationalisation of Scottish Railways.

CHAPTER I
V

KINTYRE had dropped a gold cigar case in the garden at Countess Macdonald’s. But it wasn’t for two days that he remembered about it. And then he remembered with extreme clearness. He had just been going to take a cigar when the Countess had swung herself out of the hammock to pour some milk into Lady Aldington’s tea. The cigar case had slipped out of his hand just as he sprang forward — for at times, when he felt the situation to demand it, he could behave with all the rigid politeness of a foreigner. He had sprung forward to relieve the Countess of her milk jug, and the cigar case had slipped from his fingers into the grass. The grass was quite long, being in seed, and Kintyre’s operations with the milk jug having taken a minute or so, he had forgotten all about the cigar case in watching attentively what he considered to be the interesting position.

He could not get out of his head the idea that his cousin and Macdonald were what he called “
au mieux”
for before his succession to the title, Kintyre had passed the greater part of his time abroad. And just because his first impression of his cousin Emily had been received at the interview between himself and Sergius Mihailovitch and the Grand Duke, his first impression of the situation that existed between his cousin and Macdonald had been one of great intimacy. He had himself very quickly become intimate with Emily Aldington. But there was nothing remarkable in that, because they had merely taken up the cousinly relations that they had dropped when they were thirteen and fourteen, after which date the old Duke had very sharply separated them.

A bachelor not particularly rich for his station, and having let his town house, so that he lived more or less permanently at Claridge’s, Kintyre found that he was going to have a very agreeable
pied-à-terre
at Leicester House. He even found it pleasant to make a fool of Aldington. But although he had been in and out of the house almost every day since their return from Wiesbaden, he had not heard his cousin mention Macdonald’s name once, until the afternoon when Emily Aldington had suggested that he should go down with her to return the call — the extraordinary, stiff, silent call — that the Countess had paid to Lady Aldington in her saloon carriage between Rudesheim and Ehrenbreitstein. Going down to Putney, Kintyre had made one or two polite references to Macdonald, whom for the matter of that he really liked. He was not in the least inspired by curiosity. If it suited, or if it was necessary for Emily to be”
au mieux
” with Sergius Mihailovitch, he entirely approved. It was none of his business however to inquire into the matter. But, on the other hand, it was entirely his duty as a gentleman to show some interest in his cousin’s complement. So, as if he really desired information, he began to ask a few questions about Macdonald’s opinions, what he was doing, and why his wife lived at Putney?

Emily Aldington, in the motor going down, had answered with what might have been perfect openness or with what might have been careful reserve. She had seen Macdonald, she said, only four or five times, but once or twice for rather long periods. They had had a good deal of talk, and she had found him extraordinarily pleasant and sympathetic. She had found him, she said, one of the nicest men she had ever met, and she wished she could see more of him. But she didn’t know very clearly what his occupations were, and during the autumn sitting of the House she was so taken up by her political duties that she could not expect to see much of Macdonald, who was anything rather than a Whig. Indeed, Lady Aldington’s duties as a political hostess were that year unusually heavy. She usually did the official receptions for the Minister of the Fine Arts, who was a bachelor and quite a poor man. But during August, the wives of two cabinet ministers had died, and Lady Aldington had, as a matter of course, taken over during the period of mourning whatever of the social side of those ministries was indispensable.

“It’s the misfortune,” she sighed, “of being so very much the richest person, and having so very much the largest house of one’s party. But I hope I shall see Count Macdonald this afternoon, though I’ve heard someone say that he doesn’t live with his wife.”

Altogether Kintyre had gathered that Lady Aldington knew very little of Macdonald’s affairs, however much she might have penetrated and have appreciated his character and his disposition. He remained silent for a minute or two, and then he leaned forward to the little rack in the motor before them and laid his hand upon her ladyship’s engagement book. He asked permission to look at it, and ran through its pages for the next month or so. There were not many blanks amongst all the names of societies for the promotion of or for the suppression of one thing or another. But here and there there was an evening free, and here and there a lunch time or an afternoon. Kintyre took out the little pencil from the back of the book.

“What are you doing?” Emily asked.

A minute or so later he handed her the book to look at. Across each one of the blank spaces he had written:

Kintyre.”

“And what does that mean?” Emily Aldington asked. “It means, my dear,” Kintyre answered, “that there are a great many too many flannel shirts in your engagement book.”

“I don’t in the least understand you,” Lady Aldington said.

“Oh, think about it,” the Duke answered. “They may not all wear flannel shirts, but whatever they do wear you’re a great deal too lonely. I don’t at all like the looks of you. Why do you stare so straight in front of you?”

“I am only watching the traffic.” Emily answered; “Jenkins drives almost too skilfully.”

“Ah, but you don’t need to watch the traffic when you’re among the flannel shirts,” Kintyre answered, “and you do it just as much then as now.”

“Well, I’m pretty tired,” Emily conceded.

“Tired and lonely and done,” Kintyre answered. “You can’t keep it up. No, you can’t. That’s why I’ve taken those spaces in the book. You won’t have to watch the traffic where I’ll drive you. I am as lonely as you are, really. So let’s just join forces and work together.”

Emily laughed: “I should think that would be rather fun,” she said. “Thank you, Kintyre.”

Kintyre indeed really liked his cousin well enough to take a little trouble for her. Besides, he quite genuinely wanted something to do, and he didn’t see why he shouldn’t play providence to his cousin. His cousin was vastly richer than he, and, he considered, vastly more virtuous and more deserving. Besides, his motives were just a little complicated by the fact that obviously Emily knew nothing at all about the Galizian counter-revolution. And Kintyre was interested in Galizia.

He owed that fact to a sort of lazy malice that he felt against his uncle — really, it was his great-uncle — the late Duke. The late Duke had added a large fortune to his other large fortunes by developing the province of Batalha. As a matter of fact, the late Duke had been an extraordinarily good and persistent business man. There was undoubtedly a touch of Jewish blood in all of their house. Kintyre himself wasn’t in the least interested in business; he didn’t in the least want to be much richer than he was. But eighteen months ago, at the breaking out of the Galizian revolution, it had struck him that it would be rather fun to do a little dabbling in Galizian land. He hadn’t at that date reopened his acquaintance with Emily, and he regarded her with a certain malice as being the person who had inherited alike the title and the fortune of Batalha. It had struck him, in fact, that it would be rather fun to stick a pin into the ghost of his disagreeable old uncle by making himself a huge fortune out of Galizia. Thus, at the outset of the revolution he had gone to that distressed country. He had taken a mining engineer with him, and the two had spent an enjoyable month or so in poking about amongst rocky sided and precipitous valleys where there were only mule tracks, mud huts, and cheese. Afterwards the Duke alone had spent a week or two in the city of Flores. Here he had spent his time amongst what he regarded as a crowd of dirty republicans. And at the end of those weeks he was in the possession of a great district of confiscated land, bordering on the provinces of Gallegos and Batalha. He had, that is to say, purchased the title to these lands at a price so small as clearly to show him that the republican ministers, who put the money into their own pockets, did not expect to remain in power for more than a few months at the very outside. Then Kintyre had returned to London, where he had had a number of interviews with several Galizian noblemen, whom he regarded as being a little more dirty than the republican ministers. As the result of these interviews the Duke had found himself in possession of the royalist rights to the same stretch of territory. He had paid almost nothing for them, for the dirty noblemen were depressed and nearly starving. So that altogether Kintyre possessed the double rights to a district of almost a hundred thousand acres, for which he hadn’t paid much more than as many sovereigns.

And, upon the whole, he very decidedly desired the restoration of the royalists. As far as he understood the present negotiations, in that case his stretch of land would lie between the province of Gallegos, which would be very surely settled by the American speculators, and the province of Batalha, which, by the power of Lady Aldington and her factor, was at least as settled as the county of Cornwall. In that way Kintyre’s property would become almost inevitably susceptible of vast developments.

So that it had been with feelings of polite curiosity that Kintyre had watched the interview between his cousin and the Countess during their short call.

He hadn’t gathered very much from it, except the fact that the Countess had waited on Lady Aldington at tea. The Countess had done this in the most vigilantly polite manner, pouring in milk, cream of which there had been a small quantity in a pewter can, and anxiously pressing upon Emily her own home-made jam. Emily hadn’t “noticed” anything, but the Duke, who wasn’t as used as she was to oddities of advanced thought, found Countess Macdonald a most extraordinary woman. He had never really imagined anyone just like her. So that all together he had been extremely glad to remember that he had dropped his cigar case into the long grass. He really wanted to deepen his acquaintance with the Countess. He did.

He drove down to Putney in a hansom, for he had gathered that the Countess disapproved of all kinds of motor vehicles, and he expected her to open the door herself. The door, however, was opened by a very large and quite unmistakable butler. This gentleman showed Kintyre into a room that that nobleman could only regard as odd. On the table were an immense quantity of uncovered pots of jam. The walls were covered with brown paper, the decoration of one wall limiting itself to three large brass warming-pans. The room also contained a grandfather’s clock and four large oak chests, whilst on one wall was a large coloured reproduction of an early Italian Annunciation. There were not any chairs, so Kintyre sat himself down on one of the oak chests. He waited a long time; he waited an interminable time. He had never been kept waiting for so long. At last there came in Miss Dexter, who told him that the Countess would be down in a few minutes. She was dressing herself....

“Well, she needn’t have taken the trouble for me,” the Duke said.

“I guess she didn’t know it was you,” the young lady answered. “She thought it was Count Macdonald. We were making jam. At least, we were tying paper on to the tops of the jam-pots.”

“And does the Countess always dress herself when she expects Macdonald?” Kintyre asked.

“I guess I don’t know,” Miss Dexter answered. “I guess I’m not privileged enough yet to know so much about the workings of this wonderful household. Don’t you think it’s a wonderful household?”

The Duke surveyed the jam-pots, the warming-pans, and the tall clock.

“I am afraid,” he said, “that I’m even less privileged than you are. But it does appear certainly to be a wonderful household.”

“Oh, it is!” Miss Dexter exclaimed. “These are a most wonderful people. I’ve seen Count Macdonald several times. He’s the most wonderful man in the world. He takes me shopping, and I just adore him. He knows all the Stores and just where you buy everything. And the Countess is the most wonderful woman in the world. I only had the privilege of meeting her twice — the other day when you were here and to-day. She’s let me help her tying up the jam, and I just adore her for it.”

“Well, it does seem a reason for adoring her,” the Duke said.

“Oh, I am so glad that you see that,” Miss Dexter answered; “but, of course, you’re sympathetic. I guess you’re some great poet. I didn’t catch your name when you were here the other day.”

“Oh, I am only Kintyre,” the Duke answered.

“Now, that’s a pity,” Miss Dexter said. “You ought to be a poet. You look like one. And the best poets of England come to read their poems to Countess Macdonald. She says so. And if I was to be disappointed in not seeing the Count, I did think I was going to be privileged to be present at a reading.”