Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (479 page)

Mr. Buss’s voice became soft and confidential. “Of course I recognise,” he said, “that you are acting with a most extraordinary handsomeness. I’ve never met any one who acted with more handsomeness. But the point is that there might be such a thing as giving the Countess more than she asks for.”

“Then you can just cut the surplus out of the deed,” Macdonald said.

“But really,” Mr. Buss answered, “I can see that you intend to be most amiable, but you do put us into a confounded difficulty.”

“It’s more than I can understand,” Macdonald said. “What do you want me to do?”

“Why, of course, we want you to consult a solicitor,” Mr. Buss answered.

“But what’s the good of consulting a solicitor?” Macdonald asked. “I’ve already said that I will give you all you ask.”

“No; but really do get a solicitor to have a look at the deed,” Mr. Buss said; “all this is so extraordinarily irregular. Don’t you see that this deed, which you haven’t read, might perhaps, let’s say, now — let’s say it might prevent your marrying again?”

“But I haven’t the least desire to marry again,” Sergius Mihailovitch said, “not the least desire or intention in the world.”

At this Mr. Buss’s jaw fell right open. “But, good God,” he exclaimed, “is the Countess mad?”

“I should say,” Macdonald answered amiably, “that Her Excellency is quite mad. That’s really the trouble, you know.”

“But then...” Mr. Buss sat down in his chair in an ungainly heap. He ran his hand through his untidy hair and gazed at his blotting-pad.

“Of course, it puts us in an impossible position,” he said; “because I don’t mind telling you — without prejudice of course — that the Countess
does
want to marry again!” And then he started uneasily and exclaimed: “You really mean what you say — that you will give the Countess ah that she asks? You won’t take advantage of my slip? But it’s such an extraordinary position.”

“My dear man,” Macdonald answered, “I shan’t take an advantage of your slip because I don’t know what your slip is. But I certainly shan’t prevent Her Excellency marrying again if that is what you mean. Why should I? As far as I am concerned I regard her as a dead person. She simply isn’t there. She simply doesn’t exist.”

“Of course that makes it more comprehensible,” Mr.

Buss said. “But all the same it’s very queer. It’s very
queer.”

Macdonald laughed: “I don’t in the least understand you,” he said. “It seems to me that I am acting in the only possible manner for a decent man.”

“That’s just it,” Mr. Buss said; “they never do act in that manner. That’s what’s thrown us off our balance. We expected — the Countess represented that you would make all sorts of objections. So we prepared the deed in the expectation that you would.”

Macdonald laughed. “I am very sorry for you personally,” he said, “but I will do everything that I can to help you. What do you want me to do?”

Mr. Buss straightened his back and resumed something of the hopeful attitude of an ordinary man.

“All that’s wanted,” he said, “is that you should consult a solicitor. He’ll explain the matter to you. You understand that I can’t professionally do it.”

“Well, I’ll consult a solicitor,” Macdonald said. “I seem to gather that you want me to instruct a solicitor to fight your own deed.”

Mr. Buss really sighed with relief. He rose from his chair and, coming round his table, patted Macdonald on the shoulder.

“Oh yes, do that!” he exclaimed. “That’s all that we want. You understand that our position has been extraordinarily difficult. The lady...”

“Oh, I quite understand that your position has been difficult,” Macdonald said.

Mr. Buss smiled affectionately. “You mean to say,” he said, “that you’ve had fifteen years of the same sort of thing.”

“I didn’t mean to say anything at all,” Macdonald said.

The immediate result of this interview, as far as Macdonald was concerned, was that at about half-past eleven of that night Miss Dexter came knocking at his door that gave on to the mews. This was inconvenient to Macdonald, because he had Miss di Pradella upstairs in the garage. Miss di Pradella had come to fetch a dozen embroidered pillow slips which a stupid firm of tradesmen had sent to Macdonald’s address instead of hers, and she had declared that she couldn’t possibly wait for them till next morning. So that it was by the merest accident that Macdonald heard Miss Dexter knocking at all, for he had merely come down into his room to fetch the parcel, and had intended to go straight back to Miss di Pradella and out with her by the Little Walden Street entrance.

So that when he saw Miss Dexter, pale and dishevelled in the light of the mews lamp, he couldn’t do anything but exclaim:

“My God!”

She walked straight past him and into his room. She exclaimed:

“The Countess has asked me to come and see you.”

“But at this time of night?” Macdonald protested.

“The Countess says that she couldn’t possibly sleep unless she gets this matter settled,” Miss Dexter quavered. “I don’t want her to have a bad night.”

“But you can’t stop here,” Macdonald said. “We’d better go to your hotel.” —

“I’m not stopping at the hotel,” the girl answered. “I am stopping with the Countess at Putney, and Popper’s away at Liverpool over a cotton deal.” She added rather dismally, “You can’t say I’ll be compromised if the Countess is waiting outside.”

And, at an end of his resources, Macdonald answered: “I can’t say anything. It’s beyond me.”

He took up the parcel of pillow slips and exclaimed: “At any rate, however monstrously you may tyrannise over me, I’ve got to have three minutes to myself.” And he ran upstairs to deliver her parcel to Miss di Pradella.

Miss di Pradella insisted on opening the parcel then and there to see that the pillow slips were the right ones. What with the opening and the packing it up again she managed to occupy a full ten minutes, and before the final knot was tied Macdonald was aware that Miss Dexter had climbed the corkscrew stairs and was coming towards them in the aisle between the two rows of automobiles. She was paler than any one he had ever seen in his life. It was all extraordinarily bewildering.

It had come about in this way. No sooner had Macdonald left Mr. Buss than that gentleman sent the Countess a telephone message to say that he had had an interview with Macdonald and wanted to see her. But it was full six o’clock before the Countess arrived in Savile Row. Mr. Buss was upon the point of leaving the office, because he had an engagement for bridge at his club at ten minutes past six. Thus, when the Countess arrived with the distracted Miss Dexter in attendance upon her, Mr. Buss became in the worst of tempers. In the ordinary course he would have said that he was out. But something had gone wrong with the telephone in his own room and he had come down to use the instrument that was in the clerk’s office. Thus the Countess caught him at it, and indeed she had marched into Mr. Buss’s room, followed by Miss Dexter, before that gentleman had left the telephone. This really did seem to him what he called a little too thick. He followed her agitatedly — it is possible that he might not have been the celebrated and skilful divorce lawyer that he was had he not been a person of more human passions than is usual in a solicitor. He found the Countess glaring at him with very large eyes and flushed cheeks.

“You’ve seen Sergius Mihailovitch?” she said.

“Yes, I have,” Mr. Buss answered; “I’ve seen Count Macdonald, and let me tell you, you’ve dished the whole show. That’s what you’ve done; you’ve cooked your own goose, because the Count is an absolute gentleman. You shouldn’t have tried that sort of game on with the Count. Because that’s what he is, a perfect gentleman.”

The Countess looked at him ironically. “Of course, Sergius Mihailovitch would take a man like you in,” she said. “He takes everybody in except me;” and then she added slowly and contemptuously, “I thought you represented me, not him.”

“So I do,” Mr. Buss said. “I wish I didn’t.”

“This doesn’t seem a conventional way to treat a client,” the Countess exclaimed.

“It isn’t,” Mr. Buss answered; “but if you want me to continue representing you the matter has got to be treated in an unconventional manner. Now listen to me. If you want me to go on with your affair you’ve got to leave the matter entirely in my hands. You’ve not got to go confusing me by misrepresenting your husband’s character. I know what you want. You want all his money and all his furniture and his title, and as much as you can get of his prospects; and you want him to let you divorce him; and you want to damage his character in the divorce case as much as you can. Well, I can guarantee to arrange all that if you let me alone. But with the muddle you have got things into at the present...”

“What is the muddle I have got things into at the present?” the Countess asked sombrely.

“Simply this,” Mr. Buss answered with exasperation, “your confounded husband agrees to every silly blessed thing you made me stick into this agreement.”

“Well, that seems to be all right,” the Countess said.

“Is it?” Mr. Buss snarled. “It simply means that you won’t get your divorce. That’s what you’ve done, you’ve dished yourself.”

He pulled off his office coat and snatched another from the nail at the back of the door. Whilst he was struggling into this he said:

“You’ve dished yourself, that’s it. Do you suppose that your husband is going to let you discredit him just because you ask it, when all the while he can get what he wants in this confounded separation deed? Do you understand that? He’s got you caught out of your own mouth. You simply haven’t got a chance. You worried me into producing a deed that would prevent your husband from remarrying and you from remarrying. You thought that in that way you would blackmail him! Yes, blackmail him! You’ve offered him those terms, and you can’t get out of it if he accepts them, and you’re done if he does. Is that King’s English enough for you to understand it?” And Mr. Buss clapped on his broad-brimmed silk hat and shook a heavy finger at the Countess. His game of bridge was calling to him insistently.

“I can’t spare any more time,” he said. “I’ve got an urgent appointment. You go away and reflect upon it, and let me know to-morrow whether you agree to my handling the case or else you find another solicitor.”

The Countess dragged the agitated Miss Dexter down to Putney in a taxi-cab. And then, reaching that place about seven, they began to discuss the matter in the room that contained the oak chests, the warming-pans, and the grandfather’s clock.

The Countess discussed the matter with an extreme eloquence from all its aspects. The chief thing which she made out of it was that Sergius Mihailovitch was a cunning devil who could take in the Arch-fiend himself. He was determined to treat her with the most refined cruelty, even if he had to sacrifice his marriage with Emily Aldington in order to do it. What Sergius Mihailovitch really was. she said, was a mean scoundrel who would starve her and cheat her out of all her rights. But now he wanted to pose as a gentleman. And the way he did it was the meanest thing of all. By pretending to give her what she wanted he was cheating her out of the possibility of marrying Kintyre.

It was exactly three hours before Miss Dexter got a word in — that is to say, it was ten o’clock. Then the unfortunate Mamie managed to say that she didn’t believe Sergius Mihailovitch knew what he was doing when he offered to agree to all that the Countess wanted. She believed that he was just simply ignorant of the niceties of English law. She supposed that he thought he could have the deed of separation and the divorce as well. The Countess, of course, confuted this theory with an immense vigour. She said that it was absurd to say that Macdonald was a fool when every one in the world knew that he was a hardened villain steeped in the practices of the idle and dissolute Smart Set. How was it possible that he could not know about the divorce laws when the idle and dissolute Smart Set talked of nothing else? But for once in a way Miss Dexter held firmly to her opinion. She said she believed that Sergius Mihailovitch was just ignorant. She said even that Sergius Mihailovitch was just as innocent as a Boston boarding-school miss.