Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 373
That had been a confoundedly hard knock. He had come home from the physical examination blundering into the calm of the common room of his Bloomsbury boarding-house, and had just tumbled into an arm-chair in a sort of fit or faint or something. He considered that it was up to him to go on the spree, paint the town red — there was nothing else left. After all those years and years there was nothing else left. He could not now go to Nancy Savylle — even if she still existed as Nancy Savylle, which he did not know — and offer the hand and heart of a damaged major with crocky eyes and the end of the world before him.
But in that common room of the Bloomsbury boarding-house, when he had come in and collapsed, Miss Olympia Peabody had been sitting. She had got up and approached him with the words:
“My! Whatever is the matter with you?”
And the major, as soon as he could speak, had looked up at her with the words:
“I’m just drunk. Couldn’t toe a line. Couldn’t say the words ‘Sixty-six identifications.’ Couldn’t pass any police tests. Suspected of seeing double. See two of you. Wish there were four.”
Olympia had started back from him, and then she said:
“But you did say the words sixty-six, and so on.” He had replied with a sort of hysterical laugh: “That was because I wasn’t trying. I couldn’t do it if I tried!”
And then he just told her all about it. It was the first time in his life that he had not kept up a mystification when he had once begun it. And that first time did for him — it engaged him to Olympia Peabody.
And that, he could not help seeing, had been entirely his own fault. Because he really had flirted with poor Olympia quite outrageously. It had begun by his simply wishing to give her a good time, just as he had tried to do for Flossie. She had seemed to him a lonely, poorish, lost sort of soul in a Bloomsbury boarding-house. He, on the other hand, had appeared to her to be a brilliant lost sheep on the road to perdition. Even on that day she had not been able not to believe that he was drunk. He certainly announced that he was going to paint the town red, so she had insisted on accompanying him to the Empire Theatre of Varieties to see that he did not throw four commissionaires down the stairs. He was rather astonished to find that they went there together in an immense motor-car, that apparently belonged to Miss Peabody herself.
But it was he who took her to the Tower, because the Tower seemed to be the proper place for an American maiden lady. She, on the other hand, suggested that they should explore Whitechapel, and later the opium dens of the docks. He also accompanied her to Wormwood Scrubbs and Borstal Prisons, to which apparently the American Embassy had secured admission. He made a last attempt to keep her to orthodox tourist lines, such as were fitted for maiden ladies from Boston, by taking her to Hampton Court, where he informed her that Lely’s Duchess of Portsmouth reminded him of herself. But, except for that remark that had a great deal of success, the day was such a failure that he gave up the tourist ghost. He could not escape from the conviction that Miss Peabody was enormously earnest.
She was, he discovered, simply here in order that she might study social problems, and more especially that of vice. He discovered also that she was enormously wealthy, that she was the founder of the B.S.S.V., and that if she was in a Bloomsbury boarding-house, it was simply in order to study the serious problems of British vice at close quarters.
Then he gave her a letter of introduction to his aunt, Mrs. Arthur Foster, his mother’s sister, whom he had not seen for ten years because his uncle, Arthur Foster, Esq., a Common Councilman of the City of London, had abused his dead father. The major was, however, really fond of his aunt and was glad of an opportunity to come into contact with her again. It would not have entered his head if, in the long unoccupied hours that he had to get through, he had not read listlessly in a newspaper the item that Mrs. Arthur Foster of The Pines, Hornsey, the President of the N.S.R.S. (The National Society for the Reform of Sin), was giving an afternoon to the members of the N.L.S.R.T. (The North London Society for the Reform of the Theatre). He could not imagine his pleasant, soft old aunt as being connected with either Sin or Theatres; but he had been ten years out of England, and he recognized that both Sin and Theatres might have changed.
So he sent Miss Peabody up to his aunt, and the result was that both ladies had been hanging round his neck ever since. Then he had learnt from his aunt that poor Olympia certainly expected him to marry her, because she had saved him from Hell, and he had said she was like the Duchess of Portsmouth. The idea had seemed to him to be ridiculous until he had read in the paper that the heiress and successor to Lord Savylle, of Higham, was Mary Savylle. Four at least of her cousins must have died in that ten years, and the title went in tail female.
That really knocked the bottom out of him, and he had, as he considered it, gone steadily downhill ever since. He had consented to change his name to Brent Foster on the definite condition that he became his uncle’s heir, married Miss Peabody, who enjoyed an income of 90,000 dollars (£18,000) a year, and settled down as a country gentleman. But he did not care to consider these details of his fall. He was out of conceit with himself and life, and he was going down to re-make the acquaintance of Arthur Foster, Esq., Common Councilman of the City of London, at the country house that he had hired. His aunt had never let him come up to The Pines, Hornsey, because she had the idea that her nephew had led a worldly and glittering life. She thought it would be less of a shock to him to meet his uncle in one of the really stately homes of England. It was called The Manor, Basildon, in Hampshire, and Olympia, who had been down with Mrs. Foster to inspect it, reported that it was chockful of old armour, old contraptions, and secret rooms and Vandyke paintings. But Major Edward Brent Foster did not care a damn.
He sat opposite Mrs. Kerr Howe and just wondered gloomily what was going to happen. There he was going down to a house with that woman and Flossie. And poor dear Olympia was as jealous as they make them, and Heaven knew what racket there would not be. He almost wished that he had not dragged the old gentleman into the carriage. Then he would have been able to have it out with Mrs. Kerr Howe, and to get to know just what she did intend to do about it. The old gentleman was deep in one of seven books, and he was just going to risk things and ask her, when she looked round from the window and, with every sign of exasperation, asked — her foot tapping ominously on the floor of the carriage:
“How in the world could you be such an idiot as not to let Miss Delamare get into this carriage?” The major started back and said: “Well, I thought she’d be in the way — considering how things are between us, I thought she would be in the way.”
“How things are between us?” she asked carelessly. “How are they, I should like to know?”
“Well, I certainly thought,” the major said, “that you intended to marry me whether I wanted it or no.”
“That’s all very well,” she said, “that cock isn’t going to fight. You aren’t going to get out of it in that way. I want to talk to Miss Delamare before she can get to your uncle’s. I can settle you afterwards.”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” the major said, with some heat. “I’m not going to have poor Olympia upset. When we meet at my uncle’s, we meet as strangers.”
“Oh, no, we don’t,” she mocked him. “As if I care whether poor Olympia is upset!”
“Well, she isn’t going to be,” the major said, with his most businesslike air.
“Well, we can’t meet as strangers,” she still mocked him. “Your aunt thinks I am your oldest friend. That’s why she has asked me down to meet you.”
The major exclaimed:
“My aunt!...” with an accent of horror.
“Yes, Teddy,” Mrs. Howe continued, “your dear, good aunt. She wants everybody to be nice and homelike for you. Everybody and everything! That is why she has taken Basildon Manor. She took no end of trouble to get it to welcome you in.” The major said blankly:
“Basildon Manor? I don’t understand...”
“Well, it’s not my business to give you understanding,” the lady said. “There it is. Your aunt wanted you to be nice and comfy and in the society that you are accustomed to. So she asked me because I told her that I was your oldest friend. And she’s told me that she asked Miss Delamare because Miss Delamare said she was your oldest friend too.”
The major said limply:
“But what an extraordinary idea!”
“It’s a surprise party,” Mrs. Kerr Howe said.
“It certainly is,” the major said.
“And what I want to know is,” the lady continued, “how you could be such an utter oaf as to head Miss Delamare off from me. She is going to sign her contract with your uncle for the New Theatre the moment she gets down. And it’s the most important thing in the world for me to get her to promise to put on my play before she signs. Your uncle is opposed to my ideas, and he won’t let her do it afterwards.... The whole of my future — the whole of our future may depend on it. I suppose you don’t want to be a beggar, and I lose my husband’s fortune on re-marrying.”
“Oh, I shan’t be a beggar,” the major said; “Olympia’s got eighteen thousand a year.”
“Oh, you’re not going to marry Olympia,” the lady said; “that’s a silly affair. She’s not in the least suited to you....”
The major was just saying:
“Look here, Juliana, this thing has got to be settled here and now,” when a roar that positively reminded him of his first tiger came from the other end of the carriage. Sir Arthur Johnson had sprung to his feet and had flung a blue volume on to the floor. The major saw vaguely that it was the Navy List.
“The only thing that I can think is that you’re drunk, sir. Outrageously drunk!” Sir Arthur shouted. His whole face was purple and his whitish blue beard was quivering. He began furiously throwing books into his open kit-bag and missing the opening each time. He gave an idea of violent and stormy motion, for as each book fell on the floor he threw it at the kit-bag again, and the breath came from his nostrils like a tempest.
The major said:
“Well, I’ll admit we were talking of rather intimate matters. Perhaps we ought not to have been. But, you see, I’m engaged to this very charming lady. It’s a painful circumstance, and there’s ever so much to talk about.”
The old gentleman became dangerously calm and his eyes glittered.
“Do you mean to say, sir,” he said, “that you accuse me of listening to your filthy and degenerate conversation?”
“Well, I don’t know what else it could have been,” the major said, and he bent humbly to pick up the blue book. But the old man stamped his foot hard upon it and stood like an old sea-lion at bay.
“No you don’t, sir,” he hissed. “You shall not destroy the evidence of your guilt. That, sir, is a Navy List.”
The major brought out:
“A Na...” And then he said, “Oh!”
“Yes, sir, ‘oh!’” the old man said violently. “A Navy List. In that book there is no such name as that of Sir Arthur Bowles, Rear-Admiral.’’
“Well, of course, he has been dead two years,” the major said mildly.
“That book, sir,” the old gentleman said coldly, “is three years old. Your friend would have been in it if he only died two years ago!”
“Well, but he was in the United States Navy!” the major said. “He was a baronet in his own right, and he deserted to the United States in 1863. He wanted to see service against the South. There wasn’t anything discreditable in his desertion.”
“Sir, I have written a history of the war in the United States. I am intimately acquainted with all the circumstances. There was no English baronet of the name of Bowles in the Federal naval service.”
“Well, of course, he changed his name too,” the major said, “like me. He did not naturally want it known. Now, would he?”
“Sir, this is all a pack of lies,” Sir Arthur said. “Why, so it is,” the major said brightly. “But even you will admit that there is such a thing as tact.”
“No, there is no such thing,” the president of the Quietist Church exclaimed. “There is the truth. And there are lies. You had better tell the truth or I shall take the proper steps.”
“Well, I’ve done my best to shield all parties,” the major sighed resignedly. “I was only doing my best for poor Olympia. Because I don’t want her to think I am not a reformed character. I really am.”
The old gentleman continued standing at one end of the carriage.
“Come, sir. The truth!” he exclaimed, and his eyes wandered up to the alarm signal.
“Well, then, this is the exact truth,” the major said. “I am engaged to Miss Peabody of Boston, Massachusetts.”
“A minute ago you said you were engaged to this lady,” Sir Arthur convicted him triumphantly.
“Why, so I did,” the major said pleasantly. “But then I was lying. Now I am telling the truth.”
The old gentleman turned upon Mrs. Kerr Howe. “This appears to be a sordid story, madam,” he said. “But if the matter should come to a breach of promise trial I am at your disposal as a witness that this person said that he was engaged to you.” The major said:
“That’s very amiable of you. But you admitted yourself that everything I was saying then was a pack of lies. Those were your exact words. You can’t have it both ways.”
And Mrs. Kerr Howe exclaimed:
“I beg you not to associate me with anything so vulgar as a breach of promise case. I have other ways of enforcing my rights. I am not the President of the Society for the Reform of Conventional Marriage for nothing. Let me introduce myself. I am Mrs. Kerr Howe, the famous authoress.”
The old gentleman shivered and exclaimed:
“Infamous!”
“The real truth is,” the major continued, “that as I am engaged to Olympia I did not wish to travel down alone in a carriage with a much too attractive lady. So I used what was a little subterfuge, I admit, to provide myself with a chaperon. So that’s the real truth, and I hope you will admit that it was harmless enough.”
“I don’t believe a word of it,” Sir Arthur said.
“I’m not accustomed to being called a liar,” the major said angrily. “Damn it, I won’t stand that.” Sir Arthur stretched out his hand to the alarm signal and continued, holding the knob in his hand: “Don’t you try to threaten me, sir. I recognized you from the first for the coward and hired bully that you are. I daresay that my life is in danger, but I am not to be intimidated. I shall say my say come what will. No one ever said that I was wanting in courage. Let me tell you that I recognized your type from the first.”
He paused and pointed an accusing finger at the major.
“You, sir,” he hissed, “are a military character. You, madam, are an immoral authoress pandering to the cryptic and morbid tastes of the day. I quite understand that you have joined causes in this monstrous outrage on myself.” He breathed deeply and continued: “You entice me into this carriage. I am willing to give you the excuse that you are both drunk. I am willing even to admit that you do not mean to rob me or even to assault me. You may want no more than to gloat in some low pot-house with your boon companions over the low trick that you have played on me. I can quite see that your infamous causes of prize-fighter and panderer to the filthy tastes of the day would not be advanced by the report that you had assaulted an old man — a feeble nonagenarian like myself....”
“You’re quite sure that you are talking about us?” the major asked. “It’s certainly more confusing than reading Henry James. It really is.”
The old gentleman really screamed:
“Stop, sir!” he shouted. “If you think that it is humorous to force upon my attention the name of another of your filthy young writers...”
“Young!” the major exclaimed in a puzzled manner. “I thought he was quite old. A classic!”
“Sacred shade of Byron!” Sir Arthur exclaimed. “And you too, sacred name of Walter Scott, that I knew in my childhood! Where are Thackeray and Tennyson, and my good old friend Lewis Morris! That I should have lived ninety years in the land to hear these lewd striplings applauded as classics!”
“But you can’t call that writer a stripling,” the major said. “You could run him three times round a mile course yourself, I would not mind betting.”
“I do call that writer a stripling!” the old man said fiercely. “I do. A purveyor of cryptic and morbid vileness!”
“Now come,” the major said, “I don’t believe you have read a word that was written since Macaulay died.”
“I haven’t, sir,” Sir Arthur exclaimed fiercely. “Not a word. All my efforts since then have been confined to damming up the foul tricklings of that morbid stream. And let me tell you, sir, prizefighter that you are, I should never have lived to this splendid and green old age if I had so befouled my mind.”
“I don’t see why you call me a prize-fighter,” the major said. “Of course it makes things much more amusing. But it’s odd!”
“Of course you are a prize-fighter!” Sir Arthur exclaimed. “What else should you be? Is it not inevitable and demonstrable! You are a military person and you outrage me and you talk of meretricious and obscene tales by young writers and you join in your insult to me with the most meretricious female writer that I have ever heard of — so of course I join you with prizefighters. I do not mean that you have muscle and nerve to stand up against a trained man with your fists. Your unclean living has probably deprived you of those attributes of a man — physical courage and nerves. But you are one of those persons who organize the disgusting exhibitions in which the degenerate descendants of the most infamous type of gladiators...”
