Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 180
“Mackinnon,” he said, “was my father’s chief agent in London. He holds the secret cipher book. The man who sent it — Maginnis — is an Irishman. He’s — so they say — my father’s âme damnée — as remarkable a man as my father. At the head of all the combination. So that he speaks with the weight of about six hundred firms, there and here....”
She interrupted him with: “Is this possible?”
“That my father controlled six hundred firms? Why,” he said, “I don’t know that the figure’s an exactly round number, but...”
She interrupted him again, a little impatiently: “Oh! — that’s possible. But that your father should...” and she pointed her white, little finger at the line of a paper.
“Oh! — that he said,” that’s entirely likely. You may take it for gospel truth.”
“What a huge sum the cable must have cost!” she said as a side issue.
“You’ve got to revise all your ideas,” he answered. “The cable may have cost a hundred pounds. But that’s not even a drop in the bucket compared with what’s always at stake. Why, this combination handles — I don’t know — a million dollars a day! I don’t know. I don’t suppose they know themselves — that anybody ever could know — because the circumstances of the businesses are so vast and change so rapidly that everything might be something else before you could possibly calculate where you stood at any given hour.”
She dropped the consideration with:
“It makes one feel giddy.”
And he with: “Yes, it’s like trying to think what would become of you if you fell overboard in mid-Atlantic. The depths are bottomless.”
They returned to the consideration of the cable, when she said:
“But which are we to believe? That your father died because the medicine he took was not properly made up, or because he was drugging himself to look ill for the sake of deceiving the reporters?”
He removed the hand that held her disengaged fingers to touch his moustache, a gesture that aided his reflections.
“You can believe either,” he said. “Or both. Or nothing. Or even something quite different.”
Her dark eyes rested for a moment upon him, affectionately, seeking further explanation, and he added:
“My father certainly suffered from angina pectoris. He certainly took nitrate of amyl for it. And a chemist over there is equally capable of giving him capsules without any nitrate of amyl in them. No doubt, if the truth came to be known, the chemist’s shop was owned by one of my father’s own combinations. In that case they’d certainly have had instructions to run the business as economically as possible. And nitrate of amyl costs money. In that case, not even a man as rich as my father could have got the stuff pure. No one could in the whole continent.”
He considered again for a moment.
“But the whole thing with its ramifications is so infinite that it makes one tired. Why, it doesn’t even begin to end there. The capsules my father took may really have been perfectly all right. He may just have died. The whole story may be a lie. But his combination may be now intent on forming a combine of drug stores. They may want to raise a storm of indignation against druggists and then to buy up all the drug stores in America at cheap rates because of the discredit.”
“What a frightful people!” she said.
“Oh!” he answered, “don’t believe that they’re frightful. The only wonderful thing is that we’re only just beginning to understand such manoeuvres.
They’ve been going on everywhere and always. What’s hopeful is that now we’re beginning to understand the method we shall arrive at a means of fighting it soon.”
She did not answer that, but returned to her paper.
“But why should your father have wanted to make himself appear ill?”
“Oh,” he answered, “that’s simple. It’s the only simple thing in the business — because, you see, it’s the only place in which a human figure stands alone and is visible. All the rest is combines and numerals. This is a human dodge. It would be just like my father — who always was fond of a joke.” He reflected again for a moment.
“You’ve got to think that my father really was a striking man. My mother, of course, taught me to dislike his — his methods so much that I’ve shrunk from talking about him much, even to you.”
“Yes,” she answered, “I’ve learnt a great deal more of him from the papers than I ever heard from you.”
He patted her hand deprecatingly.
“Well, don’t bear a grudge against me for that,” he said. “I sort of hoped that I should never have to talk to you about him. And the papers — Heaven knows! — always had enough in them about him for you to learn all you could possibly want to know — for the purpose of marrying me.”
“You mean,” she said, “that you never expected to be him — as you are now.”
He smiled a little wearily and then kissed her.
“Never,” he answered, and then: “But of course I’m not the man my father was. All the same....” and he straightened himself by pulling at the back seam of his coat,” I’m going to stand up against him now. I’m going to fight the influence he’s left on the world.”
She considered this announcement for long enough to rejoin:
“It almost seems a pity!”
He returned to his parable.
“You see: my mother, for all she was only a lady’s-maid when he married her, was as English as you — or your friend the Canon’s wife, or your father for that matter. She just hated his ‘American methods’ as much as ever your father could. I expect it was as much that as the ‘Thing,’ whatever it was, that my father had done that made her hate him so terribly.”
She paused before she asked him:
“What was the thing your father did?”
He shook his head and answered:
“I don’t know. As I’ve told you two or three times, there was something. But my mother never told me. She had a sort of loyalty to my father after all. It may have been murder....”
“It hadn’t anything to do with another woman?” she asked.
“Oh, dear no,” he answered, “my mother had too much knowledge of life to expect my father to be faithful to her. No: it may have been murder — my mother would not have liked murder. But I think it had to do with my father’s having been disloyal to a friend. Once or twice before she died she spoke of a man called Kratzenstein. I think my father stole a mine from him. Something like that. My mother, you see, would not have been able to stand — she would not have been able to understand — that sort of crime.”
Eleanor commented: “Ah!”
“But my father,” he continued, “my father, I imagine, would have considered it a good — or sardonic — joke to rob a man who trusted him. Probably Kratzenstein was robbing someone else already... you can’t tell.”—’
She scratched her cheek reflectively.
“I think I understand your mother’s standpoint,” she said.
“Oh my father’s is absolutely simple,” he answered. “What he wanted was fun. If he diddled Kratzenstein it was for the pure fun of diddling. If he’s made the largest fortune in the world it was for the same reason. If he tried to make himself appear ill to the reporters, that was because it was a lark. No doubt the lark’s only huger if he actually killed himself over it. I wouldn’t mind betting that if he’s left his fortune to me it was because he saw it would be a tremendous bother to me. He was not the type of man who’d want to found a dynasty. I guess he thought I was a terrific prig.”
“I think I’m rather glad he did,” Eleanor answered.
He meditated upon the point as if he were not quite certain.
“I think my mother was glad of that too. You see, she hadn’t a sense of humour. I fancy my father thought she was a prig too. He used to be amused at her — and at me. I suppose I haven’t any sense of humour.”
“I’m glad of that too,” she said softly. She considered once more.
“I’m sometimes sorry, in a sneaking way,” he said. “It makes me seem less of a man.”
She said, with a little wounded intonation:
“Then you don’t care what I care!”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” he said, “don’t say that. If I did not care what you cared should I be here consulting you?”
In a swift access of tenderness she put her cheek against his.
“You dear!” she said in soft tones of emotion. Then she drew back and looked into his eyes from quite close. “At the same time I don’t see what we’re consulting about.”
He knelt down suddenly and kissed first one foot and then the other, that she held a little out as if to a shoe-black, pulling her skirt a little back and peering over.
“We are not consulting about things,” he said, from his knees, “we’re getting to know each other better and better. We’re consulting about our points of view.” As he knelt she put her hand upon his head. “That’s why we can’t keep to any straight line,” he concluded.
“At the same time,” she said, “we ought to talk about something. There seems to be such a tremendous lot to do.”
“Oh — to do” he said, with a touch of deprecation. “The only thing to do is for me to show you how I worship you.”
“That is very American, isn’t it?” she asked, as if she were inclined to take advantage of both people’s traits. He was to behave like a European and to be as devoted as the Transatlantic is supposed to be. He rose, however, to his feet.
“Yes, I suppose we’ve got to settle on some line of action,” he said. “Where are we?” He took a little pencil from his waistcoat pocket and ran it through the hair above his brows.
“I have not ascertained a single thing,” she said. “Not one that’s definite. Here’s this telegram? Who is it from? What does it really mean? What are you going to do?”
“I’ll write that down,” he said, and when he had taken from his pocket an old envelope he jotted down upon his knee the three headings. “We need,” he concluded, “some sort of anchor to hold us to the ground.”
He took from her the copy of the deciphered cable and tapped it with the back of his pencil.
“Where does it come from?” he quoted. “New York. And from Patrick C. Maginnis. That’s fairly certain, because it was sent in a code that only Maginnis uses. My father, even, was not acquainted with it. That was their safeguard. Maginnis, in the combine, represented the heads of businesses who were not my father. That settles where it comes from.” He wrinkled his brows. “Now, as for what it means?” He reflected for a moment. “Let’s read the cable word for word.” She nodded and he went on: “‘John Collar Kelleg died on Sunday at 4.30 in the afternoon.” There’s a definite statement. It may be a lie. My father may have got Maginnis to cable it for his own purposes.”
“What sort of purposes?” she asked.
“Well,” he answered, “consider the rest of the cable.” He cleared his throat and read further. “‘It is urgent that this news be authoritatively denied and re-affirmed in all London papers until after Monday, when associates of all the Kelleg interests will meet and determine on plan.’ That may be true: it may be a dodge.” He read on again. “‘Use all your influence with advertising staffs of London journals to give the matter prominence.’”
He drew in a deep breath.
“Now, there’s a pretty straight proposition at last,” he said.
She moved her hand across her dark eyebrows.
“I’m an owl, I suppose,” she said, “for I don’t see it.”
He patted her on the hand.
“I’d hate it if you did,” he answered. “It’s a blighting sort of knowledge that I wish I had not got to have myself. But there it is!”
He tapped her knuckles with his pencil.
“It’s like this,” he explained. “What’s wanted is to keep Kelleg shares in the public eye. They go down when it’s reported that Kelleg’s dead; they go up when it’s reported that he’s alive. Well now, someone makes something out of each of those ups and downs. But what’s wanted is a downward tendency — not too swift just now, because they’re not ready.”
“But why?” she asked. “Why a downward tendency? They’d lose, wouldn’t they?”
“You dear!” he answered.
After a moment he continued:
“Now, let’s read the next sentence. ‘On Monday you will declare unofficially that J. C. K. died by his own hand. Upon fall of shares in London markets you will purchase every purchasable cent’s worth. ‘“
“I am an owl,” she said again. But, holding her head on one side, she touched suddenly her dark, smooth hair at the back. “Why!” she ejaculated.
He uttered: “Yes: you see the key.’ On Tuesday we shall declare the dividend of 17 1/2 per cent, for the year of the whole combine. You will realise, upon the rising market, at your own discretion.”
“Oh!” she said, and a certain light came into her dark eyes. He took it for anger, and tenderly stroking her hand he whispered:
“Of course it’s abominable to bring you into contact with these things....”
He looked round upon the comfortable, severe, darkened scholar’s dining-room. He touched the red velvet of the sofa: his artist’s eyes were gladdened with the Grecian bust of Aphrodite upon the black marble mantelpiece, by the large photographs of the Forum and by the shining clock that stood, as if dubiously hidden, against the light, between the two tall windows. It was symbolic — because Time, there, was not the important matter: the last thing you did was to look at the clock. And it shocked him subconsciously that he should be bringing her into level with the times. But after all, as he considered, if they were making acquaintance with that sort of thing they were doing it in order to fight in the interests of this sort of thing.
“It is degrading...” he was beginning, but she interrupted him with animation and gratitude.
“It is very interesting,” she said. “It is not exactly the thing for a lady to understand. But so many women have to look out for themselves nowadays.”
“Your Aunt Emmeline?” he suggested.
She nodded and added: “Let me see if I really understand it.”
She referred again to the paper. “Your father’s associates are not — are not simply interested in the sales of what they manufacture, as one would expect of them. They’re more interested in the price of their own shares. Then they do not hold all their shares?”
“Heaven knows what they hold,” he said. “Perhaps not three penn’orth at this moment.”
“But if...” and she laid her hand on his as the luminous idea came to her, “if they can make a fuss about your father they will call attention to the shares. And if they can put it about that your father committed suicide, the people who hold the shares will think he did it because the — the companies are ruined and he knew it.” He nodded at her reasoning. “And these people will sell their shares for very little money. And your father’s associates, who know that a very big profit has been made last year, will buy these shares for almost nothing?” He nodded again enthusiastically. “So that, when your father’s associates declare that dividend the shares will go up to huge prices, and they will hold the shares, and they’ll take nearly all the huge profits of the dividend and then sell the shares again at a very high price...”
“You make me frightened,” he laughed at her. “You’ve a perfect genius for finance.”
“So that” — she ignored his sarcasm—” they’ll have made a large amount of money and done nothing, and have just as many shares as before.” She was silent for a moment, taking in the vastness of the idea.
“So that’s the sort of thing that goes on,” she said.
“That sort of thing goes on, year in, year out. My father did nothing else all his life after he’d made his first start.” — .
“But the little speculators — they’ll find out now,” she said.
“The little speculators never find out,” he answered. “It’s done every year: it’s been done every year in full view of everybody and nobody ever grows wiser.”
She reflected again for a moment, and then she said: “What’s to become of Aunt Emmeline?”
“I shall have to lend her something to carry on with,” he said.
She made a quick movement of repulsion.
“You can’t! She’s a lady. I can’t have my relations sponging on you for money.”
“My dear,” he answered gravely, “that’s the whole thing. She’s a lady — but she’s a fool. I shan’t be lending to the lady but to the fool.” He paused again for a moment. “It’s inevitable. Don’t you see? She has not been buying shares. If she had she could hold on to them till they rose. But she has not. She’s got nothing to hold on to. She’ll have to go on dropping money into this well until its water rises and comes back to her reach again.”
“It’s degrading,” she answered.
He said, gravely still:
“Yes, everything’s degrading — to a lady. But I daresay she didn’t understand.” And, after a moment, he added: “You said, a moment ago, that with so many women about who’ve got to look after themselves it’s time women understood this sort of thing. It is.”
“But if they understand — they’re degraded,” she said.
He caught her up with:
“That’s the question of the whole theory of education. Does the degradation come with the knowledge or with the action? It’s like a cheap debating society’s thesis. But if your aunt had understood what she was up to she probably would not have been the fool she has been...
“You see, my dear,” he added, “it’s a question of a whole social side. This sort of thing...” and he waved his hand abroad to the clock, the silver candlesticks, the bust on the mantelpiece and the beautifully polished steel fireirons that stood in the high steel fender. “This sort of thing is beautiful, but it’s expensive. If women have to have this sort of thing, to lead this splendid, cloistral life, someone’s got to provide the investments in Consols to do it on. It’s a divine ideal: it’s you. But you represent all that your fathers have scraped together — or a pretty good share of it...”
