Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (512 page)

He gazed at her meaningly and a strong colour mounted to her forehead.

“If you come to think of it,” he continued, “you’ll see that that’s what’ll happen. That’s what always does happen to journalists nowadays.” — When that did happen she would find it difficult to get another job. She would, may be, get one after a year and lose that in a year more. They were such extraordinarily fleeting persons — the journalists — because their hold on the public taste was so fleeting itself. They caught people now with ladies’ costumes and actresses. But in five years time it would be perhaps slumming and field sports — something like that. Augusta couldn’t go slumming; she didn’t know anything about field sports and she never could. “You’ll just have to go on with your clothes and your actresses,” he finished. “You’ll be tired and so worn out that you’ll drop into the second rank and the third rank. Heaven knows where you won’t descend to!”

“Oh, hang it all!” Augusta said, “don’t go on croaking like that. You give me the shivers. Even if something like that did happen — and I don’t say that things like that don’t in journalism as it is to-day — I’d manage to catch on somewhere. A lucky investment — a hat shop?”

“You’ll never,” Mr. Blood said, “with all your obligations save enough to make an investment, and as for hat shops, did you ever hear of one that didn’t fail? No, I’ll tell you what it is, Augusta, the only thing you could hang on to is a man. You’ll have to marry. It’s the old story. And you’ve no particular hold over men. It’s astonishing how little you attract the decent sort of Englishman. And your beauty will be failing with the hard work, and if you do marry, it will be some sort of journalist like yourself, with a very precarious hold on his income. As likely as not he’ll be an expense on your hands all the time. Now you’re a good common-sensible sort of girl, you just reflect upon what I’ve been saying.”

The car drew up in front of the portico which is before High Street Kensington Station.

“Just wait for me,” Mr. Blood said, and he went down between the shops.

He had to buy a penny ticket before they would admit him to the station. Then he went quickly down the stairs and approached the tobacco stall. A young person with very golden hair and a mealy white complexion was affectionately lighting a cigarette for a boy with many pimples on his face. Mr. Blood waited until the boy had taken the next train. Then he approached the stall and removed his hat with elaboration.

“Mr. Fleight’s friend?” he asked, with a comparatively deferential manner.

“I don’t know who he may be,” the young person answered.

“He’s a man,” Mr. Blood said, “who comes here rather frequently to talk to the young lady in charge.”

“Then it can’t be me,” she answered. “I’m only a substitute going from place to place when one of the young ladies is taken ill. It’ll be Gilda Leroy you want.”

“Yes, it’s Miss Leroy I want,” Mr. Blood said. “Can you give me her address?”

The young person called to a porter who was sweeping the platform.

“Hi!” she exclaimed, “here’s a gent wants Miss Leroy’s address. Can you give it him?”

The porter, who had red hair and a rather scowling face, approached Mr. Blood and gazed at his feet.

“You ain’t a tec,” he said, “I can tell by your boots. What’s all this questioning about Gilda Leroy? There’s been one of you here already.”

“She’s likely to come in for a good thing,” Mr. Blood answered. “Money, quite a lot of money.”

The porter pushed forward his peaked cap and scratched his red hair.

“You appear quite the gent,” he said. “I daresay you don’t mean her any harm, and if you did, you could find out her address in no time from the company, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t oblige you.”

Mr. Blood gave him a shilling.

“I don’t rightly exactly know where she does live,” the porter said. “I’ve tried to walk out with her, and I’ve tried to see her home. But she gives herself out as being above the like of me. Though why she should I don’t know, since I’ve every chance of rising to be a station master, or I should have if I hadn’t a bit made a fool of myself with the union in the last strike.”

He considered for a moment and then he said:

“Her father’s a foreman turncock of the C Division in Westminster, and he lives somewhere in Henry Street neighbourhood. You could get certain news of him at the waterworks just near here, because I’ve seen him come about once a week to get his directions from there, and he’ll stop and chat with his daughter for a minute or so.”

“And what sort of girl is Gilda Leroy?” Mr. Blood asked.

“She’s as quiet and as respectable as she could be, and if it’s you that’s going to leave her money, I can only say you couldn’t find a more deserving object.”

“That’s what I expected,” Mr. Blood said. “It would be that sort of person that would appeal to Mr. Fleight.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” the porter said. “Tastes differ.”

During the short drive up to the waterworks Mr. Blood did not say anything material, even though Augusta addressed to him the question:

“I suppose you’ve got some proposition to make to me yourself since you cry so much stinking fish about my chances?”

He only answered:

“You go on thinking it out, Augusta.”

He got the address of Mr. Leroy without much difficulty from the clerk in charge of the waterworks’ office. And then, reseating himself in the motor beside Augusta, he said:

“I want you to get rid of your German accent as much as possible. You need to be as Teutonic as you like in appearance. But not to the ear. It’s apt to make people guy you.”

Augusta said, “Well!”

“I want you, too,” Mr. Blood said, “to use much less slang. Of course, the better classes use a good deal of slang, but it’s not your sort. Your sort is schoolboy and journalist’s slang, and it’s rather too hard and ugly. Similarly, I want you to be less masculine in your attitudes. Don’t you swagger about and pose like the male proprietor of five cheap daily papers. You’ve never known any women; now you’re going to meet a good many. You look out and catch their style. I’m going to introduce you to my cousin, Mrs. Dumerque. You try and get her to like you. I don’t say try to model yourself on
her,
mind, but if you can get her to like you — if you can key yourself down enough, you’ll do extremely well. You might model yourself on Wilhelmina for the matter of that.”

“I thought that was coming,” Miss Macphail said.

“Well,” Mr. Blood answered, “Wilhelmina is a nice person.”

Mr. Blood remained silent for a moment, looking at the monument to Queen Victoria in front of Kensington Church which the car was passing.

“Did you ever see such a monstrosity?” he exclaimed. Augusta answered:

“It seems all right to me.”

“That’s just what you’ve got to get rid of,” Mr. Blood said. “I don’t say you’ve got to like the right sort of thing, but you’ve got to know when not to praise the Albert Memorial.”

“But the Albert Memorial is a very fine thing,” Augusta said. “It has three stars in the German guide that I used when I first came to London.”

“It would, you know,” Mr. Blood said; “and that’s just what you’ve got to avoid. You’ve got to make your husband pension the right sort of young poet and buy the right sort of picture.”

Miss Macphail said:

“What is all this fairy tale?”

“This is your life, Augusta,” Mr. Blood said. “Your life and my fun.”

“You talk like God Almighty,” Augusta commented. “That is rather my attitude,” Mr. Blood answered. “You seem such an extraordinarily ignorant lot of people. You’re all climbers more or less, and I am so exactly where I want to be that I seem to sit on a pinnacle. If it amuses me to stick a finger down into the middle of you and give some of you a lift, why shouldn’t I?”

“That’s all very well,” Augusta said, “but business is
Geschaeft.
I want to know what my salary is to be?”

“Now, look here, Augusta,” Mr. Blood answered; “now you’ve got over your bad temper, you know perfectly well that Mr. Fleight will keep the
Review
going for five years at the very least. He couldn’t afford to stop it. It would make him too much of a laughing stock. You don’t know much about this sort of life.”

“Do I get a five years’ contract?” Miss Macphail asked.

“Yes, of course you do,” Mr. Blood answered. “Five years at twelve hundred a year. We aren’t going to give you less than Crowther and Bingham have offered you. But understand you must spend it.” She was to have her old mother over from Germany and to take a nice house down Kensington way. She was to have a studio for Wilhelmina and a brougham for herself and for her mother to take the air in. She could just about do that much on twelve hundred a year.

“But who’s my contract with?” Augusta asked. “A limited company?”

Mr. Blood answered:

“Don’t be a fool, Augusta! I tell you you’re in a different sort of life. You can have a contract with Mr. Fleight or with me personally. Or you may have six thousand pounds down for the five years if you like, though I shouldn’t advise it.”

“No,” Augusta said reflectively, “I don’t think I want six thousand pounds down. I should get the interest, of course, but it might make me extravagant. You never can tell. I’d like a contract with you personally.” She knew he was a very rich man and she could understand his sort of honour. She continued:

“I don’t believe much in Mr. Fleight. These Jewish fortunes have a way of disappearing. They’re like fairy gold in fairy tales, and I’m German enough to like to listen to such stories but not to depend on them.” English people were honourable when they were rich enough to afford it, though they were the most dishonourable people in the world when they weren’t. But
you’re
all right. I know you can afford it, so I’ll just take a personal contract with you.”

“But mind, Augusta,” Mr. Blood said, “You must attend to your duties.”

“What
are
my duties?” Augusta asked. “I’m assistant editress.”

“You try to understand this,” he answered. “Your watchword is to be: ‘All for Mr. Fleight!’ You’ve never got to miss a chance of giving him a lift up and you’ll all — all of you — be so hung on to him that as he goes up he’ll carry you all up with him, hanging in a bunch on to his skirts.”

“But what have I got to do?” Augusta asked.

“Oh, you’ll have millions of things to do,” Mr. Blood said. “Now, for instance, in just about a month’s time I want you to get up a great entertainment to celebrate the first number of the
Review.
You’ll get it up yourself, please, under the direction of Mitchell and myself.” She was to ask absolutely everybody that Charlie Mitchell by any possibility thought could be a contributor to the
New Review.
She would have to sit about with Charlie, and every time he mentioned a name in the ordinary course of conversation she was to ask him: “Is that the sort of person?” And it didn’t matter who it was — if it were the sort of person, she was to send them a ticket for the entertainment. The only sort of people that she would have to keep out were the people she knew before. Any time she had ever heard of anybody being called a smart man, meaning a smart journalist, she was to put a black mark against his name. “If you leave that sort of person a hungry outsider whilst expensive functions are going on,” Mr. Blood finished, “he’ll boom your enterprise till it looks to the public as big as twelve balloons in one.”

“There’s something in that,” Augusta said meditatively. “I suppose we journalists really do respect the persons who kick us in the face.”

“Now at this entertainment,” Mr. Blood said, “you’ll have to be everywhere, with Mr. Fleight beside you. Understand, you’ll just have to shove him in.” She was to get up the entertainment, officially, as assistant editress of the
Review.
It didn’t matter how blatantly she puffed Mr. Fleight to the Intellectuals. That sort of person hadn’t any social taste. As long as they knew a man was rich and that they were likely to wolf something out of him, they would cotton to him like pigs to clover. “And it’ll be your business to let them know it. You’ll have every chance. You’d better engage the Russian dancers from the Opera, and you’d better have the Opera orchestra, too. Fix the time for 11.30—”