Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (508 page)

“So you’d better take what I offer you. If you’ll consider it you’ll see that I’ve been awfully decent with you. What I’ve really done is to take into account that you had a threat against poor Aaron that was worth £150,000. So I’m giving you £7,500 a year — £4,500 for the rent and expenses of this house and £3,000 a year for pin-money. You can’t complain that I’ve taken any advantage of my secret knowledge of you. On the contrary, I’m giving you a perfectly secure situation. I’m not depriving you of the society of Aaron, for whom I can quite believe you’ve a perfectly sincere affection. You’ll get probably half of his time and be at liberty to work on his liberality as much as you like. He’ll buy you more Portuguese titles if you want them and more pearl necklaces like the one you’ve got on. And you’ve got to see, in conclusion, that it will be really more agreeable to love a man who’s becoming day by day more and more of a celebrity than to have to live with a little nobody of a Jew who mopes about in this preposterous exhibition until he yawns his head off for mere boredom.”

“That’s all very true,” the Baroness said; but then she suddenly clenched her fists. “But this other woman!” she exclaimed.

“What other woman?” Mr. Blood asked.

“This one — the one you’ve got up your sleeve,” she said bitterly.

“Oh, she!” Mr. Blood said, and he gave her credit for a perfectly genuine pang of jealousy. “I thought you meant the girl at the tobacco stall. I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with my candidate. And you’ll have the gratification of knowing that she comes of a race that thinks itself absolutely defiled by marrying into our poor dear Aaron’s race.”

“I thought she was a dirty German!” the Baroness commented.

“She’ll marry him,” Mr. Blood said, “and she’ll detest him — or at least she’ll detest herself for marrying him. And she’ll want to take up with other men, but she won’t dare to for fear of losing her position. So that she’ll have a pretty hellish time of it, and you, my dear, will have all the fun. And that’s all there is about
that.”

“
I suppose I shall have to give in,” the lady said very slowly, “but it goes against the grain — the thought of that German pig. No, I don’t think that I can stand it.” But then by an oddity of psychology it suddenly came into her head to doubt his good faith, and immediately the settlement seemed to her to become overwhelmingly desirable.

“You aren’t fooling me merely to keep me quiet?” she exclaimed, with a sudden and almost painful anxiety. “You’ll really make those settlements? You won’t throw me over at the last moment?”

“My good girl!” Mr. Blood said gently, “you know who I am. You must have heard of me from Teddy Flanders.”

“Oh! I know all about that,” the Baroness said. “I know you’re a gentleman, but gentlemen can only be trusted to keep their word to other gentlemen. There’s never a poor girl in the world that can afford to trust any one of you, and that’s the devil’s own truth. I can’t afford to be thrown out; I’ve got these luxurious habits now. It’s no good. I couldn’t go back to a tea-shop or the beastly dressing rooms they give the back row at the Variety. Come, you give me a piece of paper signed with your own name.”

Mr. Blood, after a moment’s hesitation at the distastefulness of the task, for that he shouldn’t be trusted seemed to him the most disagreeable episode of his career, took from his breast-pocket a small betting-book, and from his left-hand pocket a fountain pen. He wrote in the betting-book: “I promise to pay the Baroness di Sonnino, otherwise Elizabeth Brown, the sum of £150,000 in the event that Mr. Aaron Rothweil, of Palatial Hall, Hampstead, should not settle on her at the date of any marriage he may contract, a life income equal in value to £7,500 a year.” He signed his name, tore the leaf out of his betting-book and handed it to the lady.

“You can do what you like with it,” he said. “I don’t know that it has any legal value, but it would be sufficient to get me kicked out of most of my clubs and warned off the turf in case I tried to go behind it.”

The Baroness drew a deep breath of satisfaction. “I guess that’s enough,” she said.

“It’s a deuced sight too much!” Mr. Blood answered. “Supposing I can’t find Aaron, supposing the whole thing goes to pieces — what then?”

“Well, I’ll do what I can to help you,” the Baroness answered. “What do you want me to do?”

“The first thing I want you to do,” Mr. Blood said, “is to take your confounded detectives off Aaron. They can’t even keep on his track, and they only irritate him.”

“I’ll do that,” the Baroness said with a sigh.

“And for anything else,” Mr. Blood continued, “just go on as you’ve been going before. Nag at him and wrangle at him and sponge on him and worry him and keep him as lively as a puppy in a cage full of cats. That’s all I ask.”

“Well, I can do all that,” the lady answered.

“And the girl at the tobacco stall?” Mr. Blood asked. “What’s her name and where does she live?”

“Her name’s Gilda Leroy,” the Baroness said, “and she keeps a tobacco stall at High Street Station up-platform on the Underground. But as to where she lives I haven’t the beginnings of a notion. The detectives never seem to have been able to find out, that proves what a designing beast the woman is.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Mr. Blood answered; “it just proves what confoundedly inefficient fools your detectives are.”

Just as Mr. Blood was getting out of his car to mount the doorstep of 122a, Burton Street, the Hon. Mr. Debenham, who lived at No. 63, happened to pass him. He nodded and then turned back.

“I say,” he asked, “why was your candidate in the West Strand Post Office last night with two enormous black eyes?”

“Oh!” Mr. Blood said with a grain of nonchalance, “there was a little rumpus with the suffragettes and he ran up to town to get them painted.”

Mr. Blood went upstairs to Mr. Mitchell’s room.

CHAPTER I
I

MR. FLEIGHT, with two enormous black eyes and three of his front teeth knocked out, was in the backyard of Mrs. Leroy’s house. Under that lady’s direction he was opening a crate of lemons with a claw hammer. He had got the lid off — he was in his shirt sleeves and was wearing a great apron of sackcloth — when Mrs. Leroy exclaimed to him.

“You know, young man, I think it’s about time you declared your intentions.”

Mr. Fleight sat down upon the opened crate so that he was actually sitting upon the lemons themselves and wiped his brow with the corner of his sackcloth apron. He had such an air of bewilderment that Mrs. Leroy herself began to laugh. She regarded the small, dejected figure, the hooked nose, the damaged features, the apron that came right up to the chest and the shirt sleeves rolled up so that the small, weedy arms showed a mass of bruises. And then she said:

“It do seem absurd to think that a flibberty-gibbet like you should be expected to have any intentions at all. But it’s my duty to ask, and I do ask it.”

That was on the Tuesday afternoon. On the night before, just after his speech in the Market Hall at Byefleet Mr. Fleight had come across the mother and daughter just as he was descending the steps of the Hall. They had indeed planted themselves directly in his way. Mrs. Leroy had expected him to exhibit signs of perturbation, but all that he had said was:

“Hullo! You’ve come down to hear me speak. I thought you would one of these days.”

“Yes, we’ve found you out,” Mrs. Leroy said.

He answered:

“Of course you would! You would naturally one of these days. Get into the car. I’ll take you for a run. I must get some fresh air into my lungs.”

Gilda Leroy perceived a chauffeur with a grave face exactly resembling a naval cadet, standing holding open the door of an immense landaulette. It was almost the biggest car she had ever seen, and she understood that she was to make her way into the dark interior. She did so and sank down upon something soft — the softest cushioned seat she had ever imagined. Her mother followed her immediately and sat down at her side. Then Mr. Fleight put his head in at the door and asked whether they would have the car shut or open. The chauffeur was helping him into a rather heavy overcoat, and, having taken away the top hat which he wore for political purposes, had presented him with a German deerstalker hat of greenish felt.

“Oh, good heavens!” Mrs. Leroy exclaimed; “you keep the thing shut! With my asthma I never could abide the night air.”

“Then I shall drive,” Mr. Fleight said. “I must have the fresh air and I’m nervous and irritable. I want a good spin.”

“But you be careful, young man,” Mrs. Leroy said.

Our train goes at 9.30, and it’s a quarter past eight now. We don’t want to miss it.”

Mr. Fleight said: “That’ll be all right,” and suddenly he turned on the lamp in the roof of the car. The light welled out, inconceivably brilliant to Gilda Leroy, though in some strange way it was exactly what she had expected of life.

They were in a large, square space that appeared to her to be nearly as big, though not so high, as their parlour at home. It was all upholstered in a sort of mouse skin grey velvet that made the light seem twice as brilliant. It began to move with a gentle smoothness such as Miss Leroy had never experienced. There was some desultory cheering from a small crowd that had lingered on the steps of the Town Hall and to Gilda that, too, seemed appropriate, for she considered that her hero ought never to depart from anywhere save to the sound of cheering.

In front of her was a sort of ledge-table containing a great number of objects in silver — a clock whose hands were still, another shaking and vibrating, a great bottle of smelling-salts with a silver top, a silver cigar case, a match-box, an A B C Railway Guide in a silver case. And above the table, hung in a silver vase, was a great bouquet of flowers.

The town glided by them, the vibrating hands of the silver clock jumped to five, to ten; the country outside them grew dark, they seemed to be going into a dusky cave lit up by the enormous headlights. The pale faces of men, looking round, shot by them; their progress was attended by the musical notes of the siren, and against the glow cast by the headlights they could see the dark silhouettes of the hunting hat of Mr. Fleight and the cap of his chauffeur, motionless as the heads gazed forward. The vibrating hands of the dial jumped to thirty and trembled towards forty.

“Oh, mother!” Gilda exclaimed, “we’re going at forty miles an hour. That’s what it means.”

“Well,” Mrs. Leroy said, “his neck’s as valuable to him as ours are to us, so I suppose it’s all right.”

Gilda said: “Oh, I’m not afraid I It’s exactly like what I always expected it would be like. It’s so exactly like it that I seem to have lived in it all my life.”

“Well, my girl,” Mrs. Leroy said grimly, “you didn’t get that from your father or from me. Where’s the young man going? We shall miss the train.”

“Oh, don’t interfere!” Gilda said. “Let’s go on like this. It’s like heaven!”

They illuminated old houses as they shot past; dim horses appeared looking white or dun-coloured and drawing carts that had the aspect of being covered in dust.

A long time afterwards, when they had begun already to pass street lamps, a monstrous object with the appearance of a tower of lighted glass loomed up against them. It was a double-decked tram.

“This is Lewisham,” said Mrs. Leroy. “He will be making for the Elephant and Castle and then along to Kennington. He’s taking us home. Well, I’ll admit that is doing the thing in style.”

It was exactly what Gilda Leroy had expected, and yet it was odd to note the details of it — the swinging along in a square of lighted privacy through the familiar streets that the brilliance of their interior rendered dim, and peopled with distant humanity seeming so far away and unreal that the people on the pavements might have been dim fishes in a dim aquarium. Gilda Leroy seemed to feel herself different and apart; a sort of a priestess, a sort of a queen. She perceived that the policeman who was holding up the traffic let them pass in Parliament Square, and it seemed to her that the splendour of life could go no further.

“So that’s what it is,” she whispered to herself. “No one can say now that I haven’t lived.”

The car slowed down to turn out of Victoria Street.

At the top of Augusta Street it stopped altogether. There was no getting up that thoroughfare by reason of the costermonger stalls that, in two lines, blocked it up. Mr. Fleight got slowly down from his seat and opened the door for them.

“You’ll have to get down now,” he said, “and walk the rest of the way. I’ll see you safe home.”

He told the chauffeur to go to a garage by Victoria Station and wait till he was telephoned to.

And then Gilda Leroy found herself walking over the bits of wrapping paper, of sawdust, and over the rotten grapes of Augusta Street once more. The costermongers were shouting their endless invitations to purchase. The street children ran against her legs; Mr. Fleight, in his long mackintosh and his German hunting hat, walked ahead with her mother; and outside the public-houses there stood the same women holding the same babies for their neighbours who were inside drinking.

A knot of ill-grown lads and young men obstructed the entrance to Augusta Mews, and they had some difficulty in pushing their way through. Gilda Leroy could hear them address abusive remarks to Mr. Fleight, and it seemed to her like a profanation.

They found her father sitting behind the counter in the shop.

“You’ve been having a high old beano,” he said good-naturedly. “Mrs. Kerridge said she couldn’t wait after half-past six, and I’ve been sitting here ever since. Sold a dozen kippers; that’s what I’ve done.”

“Oh, pa!” Miss Leroy exclaimed breathlessly. “We’ve come home in a motor car. In Mr. Fleight’s motor car. He’s standing up for a member of Parliament.”

Mr. Leroy looked rather queerly at Mr. Fleight.

“Well, I suppose he knows his own business best,” he said. “If he does his duty in Parliament he may be of some use, for I’ve taught him a thing or two and I suppose that’s why he’s come here—’learning the conditions of the life of the poor’ they call it.’’

“Oh, I come here because I like to come here,” Mr. Fleight said. “I look on you as friends, and I haven’t got many others.”

“Well, they always say the rich have no friends,” Mrs. Leroy said. “I don’t blame you. You’ve always been welcome. But I suppose you won’t be coming again?”

“I don’t know whether I can,” Mr. Fleight answered. “It’s a question of time. I don’t know whether I shall get the chance. When I can come, or if I can come, I certainly shall. But I must get back to Byefleet now. So it’s good-bye till we meet again.”

He shook hands all round, opened the door of the shop and let himself out. There was a momentary silence, during which they could hear voices from outside. Then Mr. Leroy said:

“Well, he hasn’t offered to make me doorkeeper of the House of Lords or given you a new bonnet, old woman.”

“Why should he?” Mrs. Leroy asked rather sharply. “We’ve never given him anything.”

“But it’s what you’d expect,” Mr. Leroy said. “He’s had his supper here many a time and I’ve given him many valuable tips. They’re always talking in Parliament about the conditions of life of the poor’ and the Housing Question, when all we want is to be let alone.”

Gilda Leroy was exclaiming:

“Oh, shan’t I ever see him again? I’m sure my heart’s broken. What shall I do if I never ride in that motor car any more and never hear that gurgly voice of his or see those long moustaches? I couldn’t stand it! I couldn’t stand it! And I shan’t ever!’

The voices outside had grown to a loud sound, and at the top of a violent crescendo the glass panels of the door crashed inwards; the lock gave, and a figure was hurled violently into the shop. It pitched on to its shoulder on the floor in front of the counter, scrambled to its feet and stood leaning back. It was Mr. Fleight. The blood was flowing from his nose and mouth, and in his eyes there was an expression of terror and submission such as distinguishes his race on occasions when Christians in large numbers beset, after their own fashion, solitary individuals.