Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (317 page)

Katya, her eyes full of light, paused; she began again with less of exultation.

“I dare say,” she said, “she began to live with father without the rites of the Church because there was no Church she acknowledged to administer them; but later, she didn’t want them. I remember how she always told us, ‘Trust each other, trust each other; then you will become perfectly to be trusted.’ And again, she would never let us make promises one to another. Don’t you remember? She always said to us: ‘Say that you will do a thing. Never promise — never. Your word must be your bond.’ You remember?”

Grimshaw slowly nodded his head. “I remember.”

“So that I am certain,” she said, “that that was why she never married father. I think she regarded marriage — the formality, the vows — as a desecration. Don’t you see, she wanted to be my father’s chattel, and to trust him absolutely — to trust, to trust! Isn’t that the perfect relationship?”

Grimshaw said: “Yes, I dare say that is the explanation. But...”

“But it makes no difference to you?” she pleaded. In the distance she heard the faint grind of wheels.

“No,” he said, “not even if no one else knew it. I’m very tired; I’m very lonely. I want you so; I want you with all my heart. But not that — not that.”

“Not ever?” she said.

“No,” he answered; “I’ll play with my cards on the table. If 1 grow very tired — very, very tired — if I cannot hold out any longer, well, T may consent — to your living with me as your mother lived with your father. But” — and he stood up briskly—”I’ll tell you this: you’ve strengthened me — you’ve strengthened me in my motive. If you had shuddered at me as you did on that day years ago, I think I should have given in by now. But you didn’t any longer. You’ve come to me; you raised your arms to me. Don’t you see how it has strengthened me? I’m not alone any more; I’m not the motherless boy that I was.... Yes, it’s heaven.”

Her hands fell by her side. The sound of wheels filled the room, and ceased.

“If I’d repulsed you, you’d have given in?” she said.

The door fell violently back, and from the black and radiant figure of Ellida came the triumphant cry: “Kitty’s spoken! Kitty’s spoken! You’ve not deceived me!”

CHAPTER II
.

HE found Pauline Leicester in his dining-room upon his return to town. Little and serious, and always with the tiny smile about her lips, she was seated in his deep chair by the fireplace. He was happy and erect, with Katya’s kisses still upon his lips, and for all the world he felt a tenderness.

“I got your letter,” she said. “Miss Lascarides has come back; the child has spoken. I suppose you are very happy?”

He feared to detect jealousy in her tones; he found only a business-like precision.

“I was coming to dine with you,” he said. “Can’t you do with me?”

“Oh, we want you so much!” she said.

He had a sudden and black premonition.

“You’re not on bad terms with Dudley?” he asked.

“Tell me,” she said, “you were in town part of the time when Dudley was all alone? Mother died, you know, a week after you left for Athens.”

“Oh, poor child!” Grimshaw answered.

Her lips moved a little.

“She suffered so much, poor dear; she was so brave.” She looked up at him with a queer little smile. “I suppose we’re born to suffer. It’s up to us to be brave.”

“Oh, but Dudley hasn’t been giving you trouble?” he asked. “You aren’t on bad terms with him?”

“One could not be on bad terms with Dudley,” she answered. “But he’s giving me trouble.”

“The hound!” Grimshaw answered.

“Oh, it isn’t what he does, it’s what he is,” she said quickly. She rose and put her little hand upon his arm. “Tell me, Robert,” she said, “what has happened to him? He’s very ill.”

Grimshaw made a step back.

“Not tuberculosis, really?” he asked.

“I am sure he’s very ill,” she said,” mentally; he’s quite altered. What’s to be done?”

“My poor girl,” Grimshaw voiced his tenderness and concern.

“Tell me,” she adjured him, “what happened to him? It’s something that’s happened. He couldn’t do anything. Tell me the truth!”

“How should I know?” he asked. “How should I know?”

“Sometimes he’s quite the same; sometimes he’s gay — he’s too gay. And then...” She looked up. “He sits and thinks; he’ll sit silent for hours. He’s not spoken a word all the morning. And then suddenly... he’ll shudder. And his eyes aren’t the same; they aren’t the same, you understand. It’s as if he were afraid. Afraid! He cowers into a corner. What is it, Robert? You know.”

Grimshaw was silent, pondering.

“Tell me!” she said. You
shall
tell me; you know. Is it religious mania?”

Grimshaw shook his head.

“No, I don’t think it can be religious mania.” He added: “It might be hypochondria — sheer anxiety about his health. He was always like that.”

“No,” she said, “he hasn’t been near a doctor. It can’t be that.” She looked up at him with a little, birdlike gaze. “I know what it is,” she said, “it’s another woman.”

Robert Grimshaw threw up his hands that were still gloved.

“You aren’t surprised,” she said, and there was about her whole figure an air of a little and tender calmness. “It’s no good your feigning surprise. I am sure you know all about it. Oh, I know what men are, and women. I have been a nursery governess, you know. Isn’t it true that there was another woman?” and, at his hesitation, she pleaded: “Tell me the truth, there was!”

“Well, there was,” he said.

“And it was Etta Stackpole,” she accused him.

He saw her sit, looking down at the point of her umbrella.

“I’ve got to get him well,” she said. “Tell me the truth.”

“Yes, it was Lady Hudson,” he answered. “But you aren’t going to...”

“Robert dear,” she said, with her little, clear, appealing voice. “You can’t make such a mistake as to think that I am going to hamper Dudley. It’s my task in life to keep him going.

Think it out. I’m not
really
the girl to give ourselves away. I turned Dudley out of my mother’s house. I ought not to have done it, but mother could not bear him. Perhaps I valued mother more than Dudley — perhaps that was wrong. But I’ve heard you say: ‘Do what you want and take what you get for it.’ I’m taking what I get for it, and it’s easier to do it because I know what men are.”

“It wasn’t Dudley’s doing,” Grimshaw said. “We can’t even tell...”

“Robert, dear,” she repeated, “I
have
been a nursery-governess, you know.”

“Oh yes,” he answered, “but you’re a woman too.”

“Oh yes,” she imitated him, “but I’m a woman of our class. Don’t you see the two things I’ve learned? One is, that we can’t have what we want. I may have wanted... Well, that does not matter. But if I couldn’t give, I could get — adoration. That’s all there is to it.’

Robert Grimshaw said suddenly:” Yes, you could make something out of poor Dudley.”

“I won’t say that it doesn’t hurt,” she took him up: “it does. Or, no, it doesn’t. Well, one can’t say.... Up in the nursery at the Brig- stocks’ there were great big clumsy boys. They adored me, and it was my business to make men of them — at any rate, during the holidays. Well, they’d disobey me. Sometimes they’d even deceive me — rather meanly, in little things; and then they’d behave like Dudley. So that I’m used to it on a small scale. It’s saddening that a man can’t be quite true, even when he adores you; but he can’t. That’s all.”

She was buttoning up her little black gloves, and she stood up to go.

“Wouldn’t you like me,” Grimshaw asked, “to break it to him that you know? I suppose he’s got to know it?”

“Of course he’s got to know it,” she said. “He’ll never be himself as long as he’s trying to conceal it. But... I think I’ll tell him myself. You see, he might not like you to know; it might make him shy. It’s best to drink one’s own black draughts.” But when she reached the door she turned to say: “You might come along soon — quite soon. I shan’t say more than three words to him.

Your coming in might relieve any strain. It would carry us over till bedtime.”

“I’ll be there well before lunch,” he said. “It’s twelve now.”

As they stood on the doorstep, he taking his farewell, she brought out: “Mind, nobody’s to blame but me, from the beginning. If it hadn’t been for mother, I don’t suppose I should have married Dudley. I knew I could make a good wife for him; I know I can make a man of him, and I know he adores me. But that isn’t everything. I can put him into the sort of position he ought to occupy. But that’s only being a nursery governess on a larger scale. It’s a good piece of work.... But — but for mother... oh, poor dear!” — she broke off, and the blue eyes that gazed down the empty street were filmed over for a moment—”much it has profited mother to have me off her hands. It’s five months now, and she’s been dead thirteen days. Well, so long.”

She waved her hand minutely to him from the pavement, and exclaimed: “Go in; you’ll take cold!” and then she seemed to be blown round the corner into Curzon Street.

CHAPTER III
.

IN passing from the dining-room to his snuggery at the back of the house, Dudley Leicester brushed against his tall hat. He took it from the rack, and surveyed distastefully its ruffled surface.

“Saunders,” he called, “take this round to Tang’s. They’re to put a band on it a half- inch deeper, and to iron it. I hate a hat that’s been ruffled.”

‘‘‘It
does
mark a man off, sir,” Saunders said from the dining-room door.

Saunders had been considering with his master the question of dark shades in trousering, and the colloquial atmosphere seemed to remain in the air.

“Now, what the devil do you mean by that?” Leicester asked. “Do you mean it would help you to track him?”

“It helps you to place him, sir,” Saunders answered. He brushed the hat with his sleeve, and surveyed it inscrutably. “If a gentleman doesn’t know that his hat’s ruffled, it means that he’s something on his mind. I mean, sir, it means that he belongs to the professional or merchant class, or below that. It’s only gentlemen of leisure who can think of their hats at all times.”

Dudley Leicester laughed.

“What an odd fish you are, Saunders,” he said. “Get along, man, with the hat at once. I’m going to Mrs. Langham’s with your mistress just after lunch.”

He lounged towards his snuggery, smiling to himself at the thought that Katya Lascarides had again refused Robert Grimshaw, though he and she, and Ellida and the child had been staying a week or more at Brighton together.

A funny job — what?” he said. He had developed the habit of talking to himself whilst Pauline had been away. He looked at himself in the rather smoky mirror that was over the black marble mantel of a gloomy room. “What the deuce is it all about? She loves him like nuts; he’s like a bee after honey. Why don’t they marry?”

Looking at himself in the mirror, he pulled down one of his eyelids to see if he were not a little anaemic, for he had heard the day before that if a man were at all anaemic, the inner flesh of the eyelid was pale. A careful survey showed him that his eyelid was very red, and his eyes watering. He muttered: “Cobwebs! That’s what it is! Cobwebs in the brain....” He dropped himself into a deep, dark saddlebag chair. In twenty minutes it would be time for him to take his exercise. “Umph! cobwebs!” he said. “Yes, I’ve had some of my own, but
I’ve
broken through them. Poor old Robert! He hasn’t, though.”

He suddenly realized that he was talking aloud, and then the telephone-bell rang at his elbow. He gave a grunt, swore, and switched off the connection, so that it would ring in the butler’s pantry. And when he had got over the slight shock to his nerves, he sat for some time in silence. Suddenly he exclaimed: “What rot it was!”

He was thinking of what he called his cobwebs. It had all been a trifle, except that Etta was a devil. He would like to flay her hide with a whip. But he realized that it was impossible that Pauline should have heard of it. At least, it was unlikely. If she had been going to hear of it, she would have heard by now.

He stretched his arms behind his head, and rested his crown upon his hands.

“Never felt so fit in my life,” he said, “never.”

Saunders — if Saunders knew — he wouldn’t go and blab to Pauline. What good would it do him? Besides, Saunders was a decent sort; besides, too, the fellow who had recognized his voice, probably he was a decent sort, too. After all, blackmailers were not in his line. He doubted if he had ever spoken to a real bad hat in his life for long enough to let him recognize his voice.... And perhaps the whole thing had been a trick of his nerves. He had certainly been nervy enough at the time.

“All cobwebs,” he said, “beastly cobwebs!”

Then all the dreadful fears that he had felt... they were all nothing! It would have broken Pauline’s heart.

“She’s had such rough times, little woman,” he said, “such beastly rough times.”

But though his cobwebs had been imbecile enough, the remembrance of the pain made him wince.

“By Jove! I was nearly mad,” he said.

He had felt insane desires to ask strangers — perfect strangers in the street — whether they were the men who had rung up 4,259 Mayfair.

“By Jove!” he repeated again, “by Jove! And now it’s all over.”

He leaned back luxuriously in his chair; he stretched his long legs.

“Never so fit in my life,” he said; and he extended his long hand to take from the desk at his side a little carved box that Pauline had bought of a Japanese to hold his nail-scissors.

He had observed a little speck of dirt beneath the nail of his forefinger. And in the pleasant well-being of the world he half dozed away, the box held nearly to his nose. It exhaled a faint musky odour, and suddenly his eyes opened as he jerked out of his day-dream.

“Etta!’ he said, for the box exhaled the scent that Etta Hudson always had about her — a sweet, musky, cobwebby odour....

“By God!” he said; and he crossed himself as he had learned to do in St. Andrew’s, Holborn, where his wife worshipped.

The lines of his face seemed to decompose; his head fell forward; his mouth opened. Pauline was closing the door after her silent entry. It was a long, dusky slice of the rear- house, and he watched her approach, wide-eyed and panic-stricken, as if she held an animal- trainers whip. The little smile was about her lips when she stood over his huddled figure in the light of the stained-glass window that had been put in to hide the dreary vision of house- backs.

She held out her little gloved hand; her face was quite tranquil.

“She knows all about it,” he said. “Good God!”

“Dudley, dear,” she said, “I know all about it.”