The Good Soldier (18 page)

And have I, I wonder, given the due impression of how his life
was portioned and his time laid out? Because, until the very last,
the amount of time taken up by his various passions was relatively
small. I have been forced to write very much about his passions,
but you have to consider—I should like to be able to make you
consider—that he rose every morning at seven, took a cold bath,
breakfasted at eight, was occupied with his regiment from nine
until one; played polo or cricket with the men when it was the
season for cricket, till tea-time. Afterwards he would occupy
himself with the letters from his land-steward or with the affairs
of his mess, till dinner-time. He would dine and pass the evening
playing cards, or playing billiards with Leonora or at social
functions of one kind or another. And the greater part of his life
was taken up by that—by far the greater part of his life. His
love-affairs, until the very end, were sandwiched in at odd moments
or took place during the social evenings, the dances and dinners.
But I guess I have made it hard for you, O silent listener, to get
that impression. Anyhow, I hope I have not given you the idea that
Edward Ashburnham was a pathological case. He wasn't. He was just a
normal man and very much of a sentimentalist. I dare say the
quality of his youth, the nature of his mother's influence, his
ignorances, the crammings that he received at the hands of army
coaches—I dare say that all these excellent influences upon his
adolescence were very bad for him. But we all have to put up with
that sort of thing and no doubt it is very bad for all of us.
Nevertheless, the outline of Edward's life was an outline perfectly
normal of the life of a hard-working, sentimental and efficient
professional man.

That question of first impressions has always bothered me a good
deal—but quite academically. I mean that, from time to time I have
wondered whether it were or were not best to trust to one's first
impressions in dealing with people. But I never had anybody to deal
with except waiters and chambermaids and the Ashburnhams, with whom
I didn't know that I was having any dealings. And, as far as
waiters and chambermaids were concerned, I have generally found
that my first impressions were correct enough. If my first idea of
a man was that he was civil, obliging, and attentive, he generally
seemed to go on being all those things. Once, however, at our Paris
flat we had a maid who appeared to be charming and transparently
honest. She stole, nevertheless, one of Florence's diamond rings.
She did it, however, to save her young man from going to prison. So
here, as somebody says somewhere, was a special case.

And, even in my short incursion into American business life—an
incursion that lasted during part of August and nearly the whole of
September—I found that to rely upon first impressions was the best
thing I could do. I found myself automatically docketing and
labelling each man as he was introduced to me, by the run of his
features and by the first words that he spoke. I can't, however, be
regarded as really doing business during the time that I spent in
the United States. I was just winding things up. If it hadn't been
for my idea of marrying the girl I might possibly hav looked for
something to do in my own country. For my experiences there were
vivid and amusing. It was exactly as if I had come out of a museum
into a riotous fancy-dress ball. During my life with Florence I had
almost come to forget that there were such things as fashions or
occupations or the greed of gain. I had, in fact, forgotten that
there was such a thing as a dollar and that a dollar can be
extremely desirable if you don't happen to possess one. And I had
forgotten, too, that there was such a thing as gossip that
mattered. In that particular, Philadelphia was the most amazing
place I have ever been in in my life. I was not in that city for
more than a week or ten days and I didn't there transact anything
much in the way of business; nevertheless, the number of times that
I was warned by everybody against everybody else was simply
amazing. A man I didn't know would come up behind my lounge chair
in the hotel, and, whispering cautiously beside my ear, would warn
me against some other man that I equally didn't know but who would
be standing by the bar. I don't know what they thought I was there
to do—perhaps to buy out the city's debt or get a controlling hold
of some railway interest. Or, perhaps, they imagined that I wanted
to buy a newspaper, for they were either politicians or reporters,
which, of course, comes to the same thing. As a matter of fact, my
property in Philadelphia was mostly real estate in the
old-fashioned part of the city and all I wanted to do there was
just to satisfy myself that the houses were in good repair and the
doors kept properly painted. I wanted also to see my relations, of
whom I had a few. These were mostly professional people and they
were mostly rather hard up because of the big bank failure in 1907
or thereabouts. Still, they were very nice. They would have been
nicer still if they hadn't, all of them, had what appeared to me to
be the mania that what they called influences were working against
them. At any rate, the impression of that city was one of
old-fashioned rooms, rather English than American in type, in which
handsome but careworn ladies, cousins of my own, talked principally
about mysterious movements that were going on against them. I never
got to know what it was all about; perhaps they thought I knew or
perhaps there weren't any movements at all. It was all very secret
and subtle and subterranean. But there was a nice young fellow
called Carter who was a sort of second-nephew of mine, twice
removed. He was handsome and dark and gentie and tall and modest. I
understand also that he was a good cricketer. He was employed by
the real-estate agents who collected my rents. It was he,
therefore, who took me over my own property and I saw a good deal
of him and of a nice girl called Mary, to whom he was engaged. At
that time I did, what I certainly shouldn't do now—I made some
careful inquiries as to his character. I discovered from his
employers that he was just all that he appeared, honest,
industrious, high-spirited, friendly and ready to do anyone a good
turn. His relatives, however, as they were mine, too—seemed to have
something darkly mysterious against him. I imagined that he must
have been mixed up in some case of graft or that he had at least
betrayed several innocent and trusting maidens. I pushed, however,
that particular mystery home and discovered it was only that he was
a Democrat. My own people were mostly Republicans. It seemed to
make it worse and more darkly mysterious to them that young Carter
was what they called a sort of a Vermont Democrat which was the
whole ticket and no mistake. But I don't know what it means.
Anyhow, I suppose that my money will go to him when I die—I like
the recollection of his friendly image and of the nice girl he was
engaged to. May Fate deal very kindly with them.

I have said just now that, in my present frame of mind, nothing
would ever make me make inquiries as to the character of any man
that I liked at first sight. (The little digression as to my
Philadelphia experiences was really meant to lead around to this.)
For who in this world can give anyone a character? Who in this
world knows anything of any other heart—or of his own? I don't mean
to say that one cannot form an average estimate of the way a person
will behave. But one cannot be certain of the way any man will
behave in every case—and until one can do that a "character" is of
no use to anyone. That, for instance, was the way with Florence's
maid in Paris. We used to trust that girl with blank cheques for
the payment of the tradesmen. For quite a time she was so trusted
by us. Then, suddenly, she stole a ring. We should not have
believed her capable of it; she would not have believed herself
capable of it. It was nothing in her character. So, perhaps, it was
with Edward Ashburnham.

Or, perhaps, it wasn't. No, I rather think it wasn't. It is
difficult to figure out. I have said that the Kilsyte case eased
the immediate tension for him and Leonora. It let him see that she
was capable of loyalty to him; it gave her her chance to show that
she believed in him. She accepted without question his statement
that, in kissing the girl, he wasn't trying to do more than
administer fatherly comfort to a weeping child. And, indeed, his
own world—including the magistrates—took that view of the case.
Whatever people say, one's world can be perfectly charitable at
times... But, again, as I have said, it did Edward a great deal of
harm.

That, at least, was his view of it. He assured me that, before
that case came on and was wrangled about by counsel with all sorts
of dirty-mindedness that counsel in that sort of case can impute,
he had not had the least idea that he was capable of being
unfaithful to Leonora. But, in the midst of that tumult—he says
that it came suddenly into his head whilst he was in the
witness-box—in the midst of those august ceremonies of the law
there came suddenly into his mind the recollection of the softness
of the girl's body as he had pressed her to him. And, from that
moment, that girl appeared desirable to him—and Leonora completely
unattractive.

He began to indulge in day-dreams in which he approached the
nurse-maid more tactfully and carried the matter much further.
Occasionally he thought of other women in terms of wary
courtship—or, perhaps, it would be more exact to say that he
thought of them in terms of tactful comforting, ending in
absorption. That was his own view of the case. He saw himself as
the victim of the law. I don't mean to say that he saw himself as a
kind of Dreyfus. The law, practically, was quite kind to him. It
stated that in its view Captain Ashburnham had been misled by an
ill-placed desire to comfort a member of the opposite sex, and it
fined him five shilling for his want of tact, or of knowledge of
the world. But Edward maintained that it had put ideas into his
head.

I don't believe it, though he certainly did. He was twenty-seven
then, and his wife was out of sympathy with him—some crash was
inevitable. There was between them a momentary rapprochement; but
it could not last. It made it, probably, all the worse that, in
that particular matter, Leonara had come so very well up to the
scratch. For, whilst Edward respected her more and was grateful to
her, it made her seem by so much the more cold in other matters
that were near his heart—his responsibilities, his career, his
tradition. It brought his despair of her up to a point of
exasperation—and it riveted on him the idea that he might find some
other woman who would give him the moral support that he needed. He
wanted to be looked upon as a sort of Lohengrin.

At that time, he says, he went about deliberately looking for
some woman who could help him. He found several—for there were
quite a number of ladies in his set who were capable of agreeing
with this handsome and fine fellow that the duties of a feudal
gentleman were feudal. He would have liked to pass his days talking
to one or other of these ladies. But there was always an
obstacle—if the lady were married there would be a husband who
claimed the greater part of her time and attention. If, on the
other hand, it were an unmarried girl, he could not see very much
of her for fear of compromising her. At that date, you understand,
he had not the least idea of seducing any one of these ladies. He
wanted only moral support at the hands of some female, because he
found men difficult to talk to about ideals. Indeed, I do not
believe that he had, at any time, any idea of making any one his
mistress. That sounds queer; but I believe it is quite true as a
statement of character.

It was, I believe, one of Leonora's priests—a man of the
world—who suggested that she should take him to Monte Carlo. He had
the idea that what Edward needed, in order to fit him for the
society of Leonora, was a touch of irresponsibility. For Edward, at
that date, had much the aspect of a prig. I mean that, if he played
polo and was an excellent dancer he did the one for the sake of
keeping himself fit and the other because it was a social duty to
show himself at dances, and, when there, to dance well. He did
nothing for fun except what he considered to be his work in life.
As the priest saw it, this must for ever estrange him from
Leonora—not because Leonora set much store by the joy of life, but
because she was out of sympathy with Edward's work. On the other
hand, Leonora did like to have a good time, now and then, and, as
the priest saw it, if Edward could be got to like having a good
time now and then, too, there would be a bond of sympathy between
them. It was a good idea, but it worked out wrongly.

It worked out, in fact, in the mistress of the Grand Duke. In
anyone less sentimental than Edward that would not have mattered.
With Edward it was fatal. For, such was his honourable nature, that
for him to enjoy a woman's favours made him feel that she had a
bond on him for life. That was the way it worked out in practice.
Psychologically it meant that he could not have a mistress without
falling violently in love with her. He was a serious person—and in
this particular case it was very expensive. The mistress of the
Grand Duke—a Spanish dancer of passionate appearance—singled out
Edward for her glances at a ball that was held in their common
hotel. Edward was tall, handsome, blond and very wealthy as she
understood—and Leonora went up to bed early. She did not care for
public dances, but she was relieved to see that Edward appeared to
be having a good time with several amiable girls. And that was the
end of Edward—for the Spanish dancer of passionate appearance
wanted one night of him for his beaux yeux. He took her into the
dark gardens and, remembering suddenly the girl of the Kilsyte
case, he kissed her. He kissed her passionately, violently, with a
sudden explosion of the passion that had been bridled all his
life—for Leonora was cold, or at any rate, well behaved. La
Dolciquita liked this reversion, and he passed the night in her
bed.