Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (468 page)

“There, there!” Mr. Lawson tried to soothe him. “The meeting was quite regular. There wasn’t anything out of order. I can understand what you feel at the thought of the small investors. I always feel it myself when I am reporting these meetings. I always have to have a good glass of port afterwards. I’m going to have one now. Shall I fetch you one?”

“Yes, do!” Macdonald said. “What’s that?”

They heard the sound of Mr. Dexter’s voice raised very high.

“Mamie,” it exclaimed, “get into your smartest motor- coat and take a taxi here as quick as hell! You’re going to lunch with the King.”

“It’s Mr. Dexter talking through the telephone,” Mr. Lawson said.

Macdonald exclaimed: “Oh, damnation! Oh, damnation!” And he made hurriedly, round the table, towards the door; but Mr. Lawson stood gently in front of him.

“I wouldn’t go out just yet,” he said. “Not till you’ve had your glass of port and feel better.”

Macdonald ran his hand down his forehead. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “But just go out — do me the favour to go out and ask the ladies in the King’s car if they’d mind going to lunch at the Savoy alone. Tell them that the King and I have got business together. You understand? Get them out of the car before Miss Dexter can get here. Let them have the new sixteen h p., and Darr to drive them for the afternoon.”

Mr. Lawson looked rather stupidly at Macdonald.

“Don’t you understand?” Macdonald asked. “I can’t have Miss Dexter driving about in public with those women. I thought even Mr. Dexter would shy at the invitation. But he’s such a damned snob that he hasn’t. And I’m in a hole!”

Mr. Lawson hurried from the room. And Macdonald remained walking up and down agitatedly, and exclaiming to himself:

“I’m no good for this sort of thing,” he said. “I oughtn’t to have to do with fools. What’s the matter with me? I’m no good. I’m as bad as a woman! What would it matter to me if that odious American swindler’s silly little daughter did come in contact with the other two? It wouldn’t matter a curse.”

But he continued to walk up and down, tall, thin, and fair, with his hair in disorder.

“Decidedly,” he said, “there’s a soft spot in me. You’d say there was a screw loose too. It’s not my business to keep the world in order....”

Mr. Lawson came quietly back with a large tumblerful of dark liquid in his hand.

“There, drink that,” he said, “there is nothing like it. You’ll feel better at once. It’s from the cellar of my grandfather, who was the Bishop of Richmond.” Macdonald drank off the whole glass at a draught.

“Oh, you oughtn’t to have done that,” Mr. Lawson said reproachfully. “You’ll have missed all the flavour, and I — have only got three dozen left.”

“Oh, my poor dear chap!” Macdonald said.

“Oh, it’s all right!” Lawson answered “Perhaps you’ll join me in a bottle when your nerves are more at leisure. But it’s all, all right. The ladies are quite ready to go to the Savoy, and Darr has got the sixteen h p. out already. There, you can hear the engines....” Macdonald sighed with relief.

“But aren’t those ladies quite respectable?” Mr.

Lawson asked, with an innocent wonder in his brown eyes. “They’re dressed like young duchesses.”

“Respectable as your grandmother!” Macdonald grumbled.

“Oh, but my grandmother was
quite
respectable,” Mr. Lawson said, with an innocent and amazed protest. “She was the wife of the bishop.”

And then Macdonald burst into a fit of laughter.

“Oh, well,” he said at last, “those young ladies are perfectly respectable. But it’s their profession to be suspected of immorality. They’re like inverted bishop’s wives. They’ve got to live on their reputations. But, of course, I didn’t mean anything against your grandmother. It was a silly schoolboy phrase that I learnt at Harrow.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Mr. Lawson said. “But it’s very interesting to hear your theory about living on reputations, and I’m awfully glad you’re feeling better, because..

“Because what?” Macdonald asked.

Mr. Lawson stuttered rather nervously. “Now, don’t get upset again,” he said, “because it’s a thing that might happen to all of us. It
has
happened to all of us. And, of course, if those ladies aren’t quite respectable it explains it all. At first I thought it was debt...”

“But what the deuce is it?” Macdonald asked.

“Now, don’t get angry!” Mr. Lawson said. “But there’s a man...”

“A man!” Macdonald repeated.

“Yes, waiting! There is a man waiting in Little Walden Street. And there’s another waiting outside your door in the mews. They’re waiting for you. At least, they’ve been asking Darr and the commissionaire questions about you. And they have each of them separately given Darr and the commissionaire a sovereign to hold their tongues.”

Again Sergius Mihailovitch relieved the little man’s feeling by bursting into laughter.

“Then they aren’t bailiffs,” Mr. Lawson said. “Only detectives? I thought they were bailiffs.”

“Oh, you’ll find this neighbourhood buzzing with detectives,” Macdonald said. “It’s all right, it’s exactly what I want. I should have been extremely disappointed if they hadn’t turned up.”

“But what are Darr and the commissionaire to say to them?” Mr. Lawson asked. “They both came to me and told me at once, and they said they would say anything in the world you wanted, because you’re a real gentleman!”

“What a lot of kindness of heart there is in the world!” Macdonald said. “It’s perfectly astonishing! Let them just say the exact disreputable truth. The more disreputable they make it the better it will suit me. I’m an idle, dissipated, bankrupt adventurer, you understand.”

“But we all know,” Mr. Lawson said, with an accent of hero-worship, “that you’re one of the best families in Europe.”

“My dear chap,” Macdonald said, “I’m only telling you what to tell the detectives.”

“But,” Mr. Lawson said, “are they to tell both detectives the same thing? For they’re employed by two different firms. The commissionaire, who knows a thing or two, says that one comes from Nash’s in Conduit Street, and the other from May’s of Baker Street.”

“Oh, I think he must be mistaken,” Macdonald said, “for there’s only one Government that would want to watch me. My own Government
might.
But they always employ detectives of their own — most drunken Russians.”

“Well,” Mr. Lawson said, “the commissionaire was positive that there were two from two separate firms.”

“Then I suppose they want to be extra sure,” Macdonald said gaily.

He took his motor cap and spectacles from a drawer in the bureau and ran through the show-room. Miss Dexter was sitting in the car beside the King. Her father was beaming opposite her. As Macdonald got in beside Mr. Dexter he perceived a fat and florid man, with large boots and an egregious umbrella, hiding behind the taxi-cab that had brought Miss Dexter. And when they drove off he perceived this individual speak hurriedly to the driver of the taxi and bolt into the cab. It followed them.

“Now, this will cost the Galizian Government a pretty penny for cab fares,” Macdonald said gaily.

CHAPTER I
I

IT was upon the whole a pleasant run; but because they had started so late they could not get, even with the smartest driving of Mr. Salt, any further than Richmond. They lunched, therefore, in a little hotel overlooking the Terrace and the wide view of the Thames that, through a fine, Indian summer haze, showed here and there only like large loops and sickles of pale silver. It was quite a pleasant little domestic occasion, and it was rendered the more pleasant because, every time that Mr. Dexter began to talk about the higher morality of trusts, his daughter said, in a little grating invalid’s voice:

“Do shut down, Popper. You make my poor head ache.”

So that all they really had to talk about was the view, the history of Richmond, the real Cheshire cheese and the roast fowls, and the manners and customs of old-fashioned English hotels. The occasion struck Miss Dexter as real quaint just as the waiter who waited on them had real cunning old whiskers. This Miss Dexter was a little, pale, quite old-fashioned American girl. There was nothing whatever about her that was smart; even her smile was the smile of an invalid, and her brown eyes had in their irises the shadow of what she called her headaches. And, indeed, her headaches were the strongest characteristic of her frail being. So that when she said to her father that he must shut down Mr. Dexter became silent with an air of consideration that seemed to be the only thing about him that did not lack dignity. And when she said to Macdonald:

“Mr. Count, you’ve got a real lovely voice; it’s just grateful to my poor ears,” Macdonald could not but feel extremely pleased.

And even the King behaved like a good boy. For one thing, he was interested in the resilience of some new puncture-preventing liquid that Mr. Salt had put into the tyre. For another, he was quite interested in the history of England as Macdonald related it, in its connection with the landscape beneath their eyes. The poor boy had never heard either any history or any fairy tales, and Macdonald really contrived to let him see historical figures, like the princes and princesses of fairy tales, walking about amongst the falling leaves of the broad Terrace with the very still view, in the breathless air, the whitish haze and the mellow sunlight of the late autumn afternoon. And he really liked Macdonald, so that when Miss Dexter, on their rising from the table, said:

“I guess I’ve got to thank you, Mr. Count, for the vurry
happiest
lunch of my whole life,” the King brought out, with an English schoolboy’s blundering enthusiasm:

“Oh, he’s a thundering good fellow, is old Mac, a right down thundering good fellow!” For, actually, the only person who had been really kind to him since the death of his father the late King had been an English groom in the stables of the Palace at Flores. So that his English as well as his manners might very well have been those of any young English duke who had passed the greater part of his time in his father’s stable. The poor young King had really loved Jenkins the groom. He had learnt of him ethics, morals and a rough-and-ready stable honesty. And this affection he had transferred to Sergius Mihailovitch; for Mr. Salt was too filled with the enigmatic coldness of the skilled mechanic to be loved, however immensely you might admire him.

The young people went down into the car, but Mr. Dexter stayed behind to try to pay his share of the bill. Whilst Macdonald was gathering up the loose silver from amongst the pieces of bread on the tablecloth, the American began:

“Now, couldn’t Your Excellency take the opportunity of five minutes’ discussion of our little plan?”

“My dear chap,” Sergius Mihailovitch said, “I’ve told you before, this thing is much too dangerous to be discussed in public places.... There is a chap — a florid, fat chap, whom you will see sitting in the bar below as we pass. And that man is a detective. He has followed us from Little Walden Street, and he’ll follow us back. If we ever do discuss this thing, it’ll be in a time and place selected by myself.”

Mr. Dexter had become vastly more eager over “their little affair” during the course of that morning’s ride. His own motives were so inextricably mixed that he couldn’t in the least have unravelled them himself. For one thing, he really imagined that he was anxious to spread the blessings of American civilisation into a benighted kingdom. For another, he really wanted to put his American correspondents, the two United States monarchs, into a soft thing; and he really considered that the oil-bearing regions of the Gallegos district of that benighted kingdom were exceedingly valuable, so that he would gain immediate prestige and position in the syndicate that included the two millionaires, himself, and one of the United States secretaries of State — he would gain that prestige if, at a cheap rate, he could obtain the concession of those oil- bearing lands. He was also much impressed by the negligence which Macdonald showed towards the King; he was still more impressed by the affection that the King had shown to Sergius Mihailovitch. He had some faint idea that whilst they were standing there his daughter might be making inroads into the affection of the King himself. And he felt more than anything an intense desire to keep friendly with Macdonald, since that morning for the first time in several years he had seen his Mamie show a little colour in her cheeks and a little light in her eyes. To do that again, to have it done for him continually, Mr. Dexter, with his high colour, his side whiskers and his pepper-and- salt suit — Mr. Dexter would have sacrificed all the other motives of this life, for he loved his daughter with an intense and dog-like passion. So that he really turned pale when he repeated, appalledly, Macdonald’s words.

“If
we ever discuss the thing... what do you mean by that? Isn’t it settled that we do?”

“I don’t know,” Macdonald said. “To be perfectly candid, I disliked your business methods of this morning immensely. I don’t know that I should be justified in imposing such a system as yours may be upon any country that I’m interested in. To tell you the exact truth, I think your whole methods are without any heart at all, and I don’t know just exactly what safeguards I can devise against you. I’m thinking the matter out, and when I feel settled in my mind I’ll make an appointment with you.”

“But, good God!” Mr. Dexter ejaculated.

“I really can’t talk about it,” Sergius Mihailovitch cut him short.

“But my methods—” Mr. Dexter said. “Do you mean to impugn my honesty?”

“My dear chap,” Macdonald said, “I shouldn’t mean to impugn the honesty of the Redskins who scalped your ancestors, whoever they were. I shouldn’t mean to impugn the honesty of Judas Iscariot; but there are methods I like and methods I dislike. I’m a crank, you know.”

“But if you want safeguards—” Mr. Dexter stammered... “I’m not used to being called Judas Iscariot.... But I’ll let you have any safeguards you want. I should have thought I had explained sufficiently to you how beneficently the system of combines really acts. But I’ll let you have all the safeguards, as you call it, that you want.”

“I certainly expect you to do so,” Macdonald said. “But the point is, that I want to think out what those safeguards are to be. I can’t conceal from myself that the whole of history has been a fight between your sort of men and my sort of men. And I want to make myself, and anybody who depends on me, as safe as I can before I go into partnership with you.” And then Macdonald smiled amiably. “You see, I don’t want to be rude to you, but it’s the lamb going into partnership with the tiger, when all is said and done.”

“Upon my word, Your Excellency!” Mr. Dexter said, and he recovered some of his lost breeziness, “that really is a most fanciful simile!”

“All similes are, you know,” Macdonald said; “the point is, how far they come near expressing the necessary truth....”

They found the King lying underneath the body of the automobile in the road. Miss Dexter was holding his cap, his goggles, his pocket handkerchief, two spanners, and a little oil-can. She was even smiling faintly.

“I guess I was never an oiler and cleaner before,” she said.

Mr. Salt, who had been paying his own bill, came out from the hotel door. They all got into the car. And immediately afterwards, with an aspect of hurry, the fat and florid man ran down the steps and bolted into his taxi-cab. When he was comfortably following them into Richmond Park gates, he was unfortunately turned back by the keeper because hired vehicles are not permitted to use those roads.

And on their way back it suddenly occurred to Macdonald to say:

“By Jove, I’ll take you to call on my wife at Putney!”

It had occurred to him that, not having received any answer from the Countess, it was his duty to go and see, at least, how she was.

Countess Macdonald herself opened for them the door of a small villa standing well on the road towards Wimbledon Common. She had been washing her hair, and was drying it in the sun of the back garden, so that she had a towel with a red border over her shoulders, and her hair itself was loosely dripping down her back. In her left hand she held a brush and comb.

“We’ve just looked in to see how you are,” Macdonald said pleasantly. They were all of them on the door-step, for it had taken some time to get the door opened. He added:

“This is Miss Dexter, this is the King of Galizia, this is Mr. Dexter.”

The Countess surveyed Mr. Dexter with indifference, the King with a glance of contempt. To Miss Dexter she gave a look of keen scrutiny, which died down at once into indifference. Then she looked at Macdonald with what he knew was intended to be a meaning glance, though what it meant he could not exactly tell, for he imagined that she ought to be feeling particularly friendly towards him. He stretched out his hand in her direction, and she put her own behind her back.

“Don’t touch me,” she said. “I don’t want to be polluted.”

No one except Macdonald really understood this speech, and he continued to smile friendlily. She was standing full in the doorway, an erect figure in a sulphur-coloured garment that they all took to be a dressing-gown. But suddenly she withdrew into the passage.

“You can all come in if you want to,” she said. “But I don’t know what you expect to get in this house.”

It was Mr. Dexter who came to the rescue rather astonishingly.

“Well, I guess we want a cup of tea,” he said; and without a word the Countess marched right down the passage in front of them. They came out in a back garden which, though it was narrow, was extremely long. Between two apple-trees a hammock was slung, and beside it was a cane chair. The Countess marched straight to the hammock and sat down in it, swinging her legs. She pointed to the cane chair.

“You can sit there,” she said to Miss Dexter. “If you want tea, Sergius Mihailovitch can get it for you. My servant is out.”

Mr. Dexter suddenly fell upon the King like a refreshed lion:

“If Your Majesty will just walk apart with me to be out of earshot of my daughter’s headache,” he said, “I’ll explain to you what I was saying about the overhead trolley system. I guess the ladies will not wish to hear it.”

And he walked off the poor young man down the long path beneath the apple-trees. Macdonald lingered for a moment beside the hammock. He had some vague idea of trying to discover how he had managed to displease his wife, and he was very much afraid that the Countess would insult Miss Dexter. And suddenly Miss Dexter broke out: “Oh, Countess, I think it’s perfectly quaint and cunning how you live here! And I just love your husband. I think he’s the loveliest man I ever met.”

The Countess swallowed in her throat and looked down at her hair brush.

“He’s just the kindest, most thoughtful, most attentive man I’ve ever met,” Miss Mamie continued, “and I think it must be just heaven for you to live with him!”

And suddenly the Countess looked kindly at Miss Dexter. “My dear child,” she said, “you must be very young.”

“I’m just nineteen,” Miss Dexter replied. “I was born in Buffalo, New York. And I’ve lived all my life in Vienna, where you don’t see much of gentlemen. But I hope I’ll see a great deal of you, and that you’ll teach me to be less ignorant.”

Macdonald walked quietly away over the grass and into the kitchen. He lit the gas-stove, boiled the kettle, found the tea, the cups and saucers, the sugar basin, and the tray. He had some difficulty in finding the milk, which was in a can outside the kitchen window, where it had been placed by the milkman. When he reached the garden again, carrying the tray, he found beneath the apple-trees Lady Aldington and the Duke of Kintyre. The Duke was bending over Miss Dexter, and Lady Aldington seemed to be talking intimately to the Countess Macdonald. But they all ceased their conversation upon the appearance of Macdonald.