Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (477 page)

Next morning Macdonald was in the midst of a good deal of trouble with the affairs of the Resiliens Motor Company. The care and attention which he gave to this enterprise was just one more of his unimportant nuisances. He didn’t, of course, know anything about the motor-car industry, and that was probably why such ideas as he had were regarded by the sub-manager, Mr. Lawson, as being of singular brilliancy.

It had struck Macdonald that as the chief characteristic of the Resiliens car was the standardisation of its parts, they ought to make as much of this as they could. This had given him the idea of issuing a challenge to the other manufacturers of motor cars in this country. He offered to send six machines to Brooklands; to let them be pulled entirely to pieces by the staff on the ground, and to have all the pieces mixed up as if in a heap of scrap iron. And he said that his six cars would be put together again quicker than any three cars of other makes that had been subjected to the same process. He added other sporting features to the challenge, such as that the Brookland officials might take away any parts they liked and then telephone to the factory for these parts to be sent out and fitted into the machines.

Mr. Lawson had said that that was all very well, but it wouldn’t come off, because none of the other makers would enter the competition. Macdonald said that, nevertheless, they would have a try. And in the end, by skilfully taunting the higher officials of certain companies, he did bring the competition off. They even sold off the ground the six reconstructed cars, so that the affair was in every way a success. But it had meant an enormous amount of correspondence and an enormous amount of wrangling with the board. It came, indeed, to the Hon. Mr. Isaacstein’s resigning his directorship; for Mr. Isaacstein had views which did not include the success of the Resiliens Cars. But Macdonald had Mr. Dexter very firmly under his thumb, and the other directors, if they were as stupid as owls, were at least perfectly honest men.

But into the middle of a very worrying morning, when Macdonald had one secretary at work and Lawson another, and when in consequence half the letters had got into wrong envelopes and the three telephone bells of the establishment were all ringing madly together, Macdonald perceived the Marquis da Pinta stalking into the room, dressed with unusual care in a funereal black. Da Pinta said that he wanted to have some private conversation with Macdonald about a personal matter. Macdonald asked Da Pinta whether he couldn’t see that he was very busy. Then Da Pinta asked Macdonald formally to retract the infamous scandal that he had uttered against the patron saint of the literature of Galizia. At that moment three telegrams were put into Macdonald’s hands, and Sergius Mihailovitch could think of nothing better to say for the moment than that he’d willingly retract having said that Dumas wrote like a cabman; as a matter of fact, he wrote worse than a chauffeur. Da Pinta went away in a stiff cloud of gloom whilst Macdonald was reading his telegrams.

And the next morning, whilst Sergius Mihailovitch had a bad headache and was worrying about where he could get the money for Miss di Pradella’s weekly account, there came in two gentlemen with French titles and top-hats with flat brims. They were very polite and formal, and Macdonald was in a very bad temper. That did not mean to say that he was anything but polite and formal himself, but it meant that he absolutely refused to apologise. He was perfectly ready to fight Da Pinta; he really wasn’t going to be bothered with all this nonsense, and he referred Da Pinta’s seconds to two gentlemen of the Russian Embassy, to whom he telephoned, thus getting the whole thing off his hands. The duel was fixed to take place during the following week at Boulogne. But on the night before Macdonald had forgotten all about it. He really had a most important interview to attend to. This was with Kintyre and a Scotch-American called Campbell, whom Kintyre had vouched for. Campbell was to find the men for the Russian battleship that was to overawe the city of Flores. It was an interview that could not be put off, because Campbell was sailing in the small hours for the United States. Thus Macdonald had another confounded rush on hand. By motoring with his seconds to Folkestone, he had just caught a boat that landed him in Boulogne towards eight. But when they reached the hotel to which they were to have gone for coffee, they found a telegram from the young King to say that he had absolutely forbidden Da Pinta to fight until their whole enterprise was safely concluded.

This really did annoy Macdonald because he had lost one of the few leisure days that he could allow himself. If it hadn’t been for this folly he would have been able to lunch alone with Emily Aldington. As it was, he didn’t get back to town till seven. And in his ill temper he told his seconds that nothing in the world would persuade him to give up the duel. It was a silly thing to say, really, because he did not care two pins about it, because Da Pinta was a dirty little animal, and because, in the end, he regarded himself as having behaved with nonsensical badness. But after that, of course he couldn’t very well apologise.

On Charing Cross platform he found awaiting him the young King, who had Da Pinta under control as if he were a very sulky dog. His Majesty insisted that Da Pinta should offer Macdonald his hand, and that Macdonald should take it. The fact was that, owing to the influence of Sergius Mihailovitch, the King was beginning to take his historic position with a touch of romantic seriousness. He took the whole lot of them into the gloomy grill-room of the station, and tried to bring off a speech in which he wanted to say that a king could not allow his most prominent adherents to quarrel in the very hour of organisation of a victory.

He did not bring off his speech very well, and Macdonald recognised that as things stood it was a silliness; for it would have been much better if he had been allowed to scratch Da Pinta’s wrist, or to cut a little bit of skin off the top of his shoulder. That would have satisfied the whole fiery blood of the Galizian. As it was, Da Pinta, he knew, would from that moment begin to intrigue against him. Da Pinta indeed made a quite creditable little speech in return. He said that His Majesty could rely upon him for faithful services in their gracious endeavour, but as for that gentleman, His Excellency the Count Macdonald, he must expect, as soon as the King enjoyed his own again, the flick of a pair of gloves or something of that sort. And Macdonald was sorry that he couldn’t think of anything better to do at the moment than just to laugh pleasantly.

It all annoyed him very much, and it annoyed him all the more to think that his manners had given way under the strain of the mere overwork and over-thinking that he had to do. He begged his seconds next day to inform the seconds of Da Pinta that he appreciated the fact that the Marquis had acted with an extreme correctitude. Nevertheless, he knew that Da Pinta was pursuing him all the time with an untiring malignancy.

He heard of it from many people, but principally from Mr. Pett. And then he managed to insult Mr. Pett himself. It came about in this way.

‘Mr. Pett, happening to be in a benevolent frame of mind, came one day to Macdonald at the garage to say that Da Pinta was saying the most frightful things about Macdonald. Mr. Pett tried to make Sergius Mihailovitch see what a silly thing it all was, and what nonsense duelling was in any case. He began an interminable worrying argument on the whole subject of duelling. He began it by saying that every one was talking about this silly duel, and every one thought that it was sheer foolishness — Mrs. Pett, Lady Aldington, Mr. Salt the chauffeur, and even Kintyre.

“Well, hang it all,” Macdonald said, “you don’t suppose I like all you confounded fools talking about my affairs? I tell you I have got to fight the duel.”

Mr. Pett replied that duelling was a barbarous survival that had been abandoned by all sensible people in the eighteenth century. Macdonald said that he had got to fight this duel. Mr. Pett said he couldn’t see why Macdonald shouldn’t tell Da Pinta that he was a dirty little foreigner, and that he might go and hang himself if he wanted death in a hurry. Macdonald said that he had got to fight this duel. And Mr. Pett said once more that he thought duels were silly.

At last Macdonald couldn’t stand it any longer, and, although he realised that he was making a mistake, he said:

“Look here, my Pett, you had better save your breath for some meeting or other. You can’t understand my attitude, and you never could.’’

Mr. Pett, who was the son of a market gardener, immediately made the reply that might have been expected of him. He said that Macdonald had told him he was no gentleman.

Macdonald replied that he hadn’t said anything of the sort. All he had tried to say was that there are sillinesses, and that you can only get out of sillinesses satisfactorily in a silly way. Duelling might be a silly way, but at any rate it was a clean one.

And immediately Mr. Pett exclaimed that Macdonald had told him that he, Pett, was dirty.

Macdonald was quite good humoured, but he was really tired and not in the least in the mood either for explanation or for a theoretic discussion of the ethics of manners, so that all he said was — and he was trying to be as English as he could for his friend’s benefit — all he could find to say was:

“Oh, go away and don’t be a rotten fool.”

Mr. Pett went away. And then gradually, in the shifting kaleidoscope of all these people that were thrown together by circumstances, Macdonald discovered that Mr. Pett and Da Pinta were forming a cabal against him.

The really weak spot of Macdonald in the whole affair was the question of the Russian battleships. Without them Macdonald wasn’t going to set out upon the revolution. But this was doubly awkward, for Mr. Pett considered nothing of any importance but his own particular scheme of bribing the Galizian population. And Da Pinta’s share in the execution of the affair was precisely to get the population bribed. This made Da Pinta, too, consider that the bribery was the only matter of importance, and it threw him altogether into the arms of Mr. Pett; for both Mr. Pett and Da Pinta thought themselves justified in asserting that not only the entire population of Galizia, but the republican ministry itself could be bribed for a few thousand pounds. And this fact Mr. Pett was perpetually dinning into the ears even of Lady Aldington herself. He couldn’t let her alone; he imagined that by the right of his genius he ought to have her ladyship entirely under his thumb.

But little by little it came into Mr. Pett’s head to observe that Lady Aldington sympathised entirely with Macdonald. Indeed, Mr. Pett at last opened his eyes sufficiently to see that Macdonald was at Leicester House every day, and practically all day, and one day his own wife — his own Anne — informed him that there couldn’t be any doubt that Lady Aldington was going to divorce her husband and marry Macdonald. She had heard it from Lady Aldington’s own lips.

And it was perfectly true.

One afternoon Emily had rung up the house of Mrs. Montmorency in Curzon Street and had asked to be allowed to speak to Lord Aldington, whom she hadn’t seen for three days. And then she asked Aldington to come and see her at Leicester House at once. Otherwise all the rest of her time was occupied for nearly a fortnight. She was only free on that afternoon owing to a sudden indisposition of the royal lady who was to have laid the foundation-stone of a hospital in which Lady Aldington was interested.

Aldington, who had been playing with the children of Mrs. Montmorency, and who was in consequence in quite a good humour, got himself into a cab and came to Leicester House.

He was more untidy than usual, for one of the children had pulled three buttons off his waistcoat, and another had ruffled all of his hair that remained. He lurched into Emily’s dressing-room and exclaimed:

“What is it?”

Emily said: “I just want to know what you will take to let me divorce you? I can’t make it more than six figures, but I’ll go up to that.”

Aldington looked at her with a crooked smile that, beneath his ragged moustache, displayed all his ugly and discoloured teeth.

“You want to take up with somebody else?” he said. “I want to marry Count Macdonald,” she answered. “If you don’t convenience me in the matter I shall ask him to go away with me to-morrow.”

Aldington laughed. “And what becomes,” he said, “of your ladyship’s position and your ladyship’s example and your ladyship’s good works?”

“I’ve naturally thought all about that,” she answered. “But it seems to me that one of the privileges of my position is that I can do what I want. That’s the only reward that I can expect for what you call my good works and for the example I do set to the rest of the world. If I don’t get that it doesn’t seem fair. If I had to be a cook- maid I might act differently. But I don’t have the pleasures of a cook-maid, and I have twice the work of a prime minister. So I consider that I have the right to do what I want.” She added: “And if I haven’t the right I shall make it.”