Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 420
It is true that according to his own standards Mr. Pett had been very badly treated by her ladyship. Emily Aldington had regarded the little cockney as a friend of Sergius Mihailovitch, and any friend of his she considered to be worthy of attention. Thus she had listened to Mr. Pett’s quite brilliant conversation with a serious attention, though she had always disliked shaking hands with him. But, with Mr. Pett, to listen to him with serious attention was, for a woman, a sign that she was ready to be seduced by him when he chose to throw down his handkerchief.
At that date — in late November — he had already been told by Mrs. Pett that Lady Aldington was wrapped up in Macdonald, but though the announcement had at first put him into a fever of rage, as the weeks had passed and he had seen absolutely no sign of any understanding between Sergius Mihailovitch and Emily, he had gradually come to take it for an accepted fact that that story was only a manifestation of Mrs. Pett’s jealousy. For the only manifestation of jealousy that Mrs. Pett allowed herself over all her husband’s numerous infidelities was at times, with a faint malice, to disparage the lady who for the time being occupied the time in her husband’s attention that she considered ought to be devoted to his work. And that Mrs. Pett should say that Lady Aldington preferred to the attentions of Mr. Pett those of Sergius Mihailovitch, Mr. Pett considered was a serious libel. It belittled the intelligence of Emily Aldington; it was as if she were accused of preferring the man to the master.
For there is no denying that Mr. Pett considered Sergius Mihailovitch to be immensely his inferior. It must be remembered that Mr. Pett, being a writer, regarded himself as immensely the superior of any man who did not write books. This is an attitude very common amongst politico- economic writers. Mr. Pett indeed regarded himself as a sort of priest. He would not have said this in public, but it was what he felt in his heart. And since he regarded himself as the finest serious writer in the world of his day, so he regarded himself as the high priest of the world. He had no respect for any other man unless that man happened to possess a title — and a British title at that. Thus he regarded Sergius Mihailovitch with a contempt that can hardly be measured. For Sergius Mihailovitch had never done anything He had never written a book or a newspaper article; he hadn’t even so much as written a poem. He seldom showed any gifts of argument, and he practically never talked about Sociology, Hygienics, or the New Toryism. He was therefore just nothing, though from time to time in the moments of warm generosity that he undoubtedly had Mr. Pett remembered that it was by taking Macdonald’s money that he had been able to make a start as a writer. For Mr. Pett had commenced his career of public usefulness as booking-office clerk at a suburban station, and it had been at a Fabian meeting that he had impressed Sergius Mihailovitch with the sense of his enormous gifts.
The sky above the terrace of Aldington Towers was of a jet black with many stars powdered all over its face, and some of them hanging twinkling between the black boughs of the large elms that fringed the terraces. The night was exceedingly still and exceedingly cold. The black buildings rose up behind the terraces in a rigid mass that in the darkness presented an air of venerability. Aldington Towers was unfortunately a modern edifice of the very worst type of Victorian architecture. The original building had been destroyed by fire in the year 1873, and the present house, which was supposed exactly to reproduce it, contained three hundred and sixty-five windows, each one being a slab of solid plate glass four feet by three in dimensions. But all of its newness the night hid. From four of the plate-glass windows a warm light poured outwards, and up and down along stone, balustraded terrace Mr. Pett marched in a fur coat, in the bitter cold. He had a little champagne in him, and he was upon the point of being screaming mad with rage before he perceived Lady Aldington opening one of the French windows, which was so brightly lit, and coming out upon the terrace.
Mr. Pett plunged straight upon her. “Look here, Lady A,” he exclaimed, “this battleship business has got to be stopped! Do you understand? It’s just got to be stopped.”
“No, I don’t understand,” Lady Aldington said.
She walked straight across the terrace and leant upon the balustrade, looking out upon the darkness to the southward. A very long way away on the shore of the sea a lighthouse whirled round intermittently, and by its light Mr. Pett had two momentary glimpses of her face.
When she stood looking out like that, and it was a characteristic habit of hers, it always seemed to him as if she were superintending the landscape itself. That was it. It was as if she looked at that great expanse of country not for the pleasure of looking, but just in order to see whether it still remained pleasing to her, and whether she would not have some of it altered. And in the two glimpses that he had, Mr. Pett perceived that her face, even in the darkness, preserved still that aspect of cold power. Mr. Pett knew this lady had bought the whole town of Berkhampstead-on-Sea so that square blocks of lodging- houses should not spoil the perfection of her view to the south. And when Mr. Pett considered that this cold woman of great power was bowing her head not before him, but before a man whom he considered to be the dirt under his feet, Mr. Pett so nearly screamed with rage that his voice had a high and piercing note.
“It’s got to be stopped,” he exclaimed; “it’s ruining the whole show!”
Lady Aldington remained looking at the view for an instant longer, and then, as if she was satisfied with its invisible intactness, she began to walk along the terrace. Mr. Pett moved beside her.
“I have no control of this matter,” she said, “and I don’t understand why you select this moment to talk to me about it.”
“I’ve talked to you about it thousands of times!” Mr. Pett exclaimed. “You know thoroughly well that I disapproved of it from the start. Our counter-revolution...”
“No, you are quite incorrect,” Lady Aldington said; “you have talked to me many times about your disapproval of the employment of armed force. But you have never talked to me about my stopping it. That is the distinction, and I do not understand why you select this moment to talk about that.”
“It’s got to be stopped!” Mr. Pett exclaimed.
Lady Aldington reflected for a moment. “Then you must stop it yourself,” she said, “by using your influence in a legitimate manner.”
“But don’t you understand,” Mr. Pett urged, “that these battleships are relics of barbarism? The counterrevolution which we are setting up has got to be made not by the employment of militarism, but by the use of the more subtle power of economic reasoning. It’s only gold that is the real force, not because it bribes, but because it is the ultimate end of all revolutions. What’s the use of setting out upon this affair if it’s to be carried out by old- fashioned methods? What’s the use? It’s no use at all. It isn’t a thing that any intelligent man would have anything to do with. It will be just the old story. I don’t want to have anything to do with old stories. It’s not my business; I’m an imaginative writer. It’s my business to meddle in things if something new is to be done, but it’s not my business if it’s only a matter of doing the old things in the old way. Can’t you understand that?”
“I quite understand that,” Lady Aldington answered; “but I don’t understand why you talk to me about it. That is a matter for yourself alone.”
“But don’t you understand,” Mr. Pett exclaimed, “that you have the power to stop it?”
“I have no power at all,” Lady Aldington answered.
“But you are finding all the money,” Mr. Pett said,—”all the money that this fool Macdonald has at his disposal for bringing about this foolish scheme.”
“I have no power at all,” Lady Aldington said, “none. I am in the hands of Count Macdonald.”
“But that’s outrageous,” Mr. Pett shrieked; “that’s infamous!”
A sudden panic overwhelmed him; it was as if he were being swept along by a dark, swift force. He seemed to be exactly in a nightmare. Supposing he had been awake he ought to find some damning adjectives that should prove to this woman that Macdonald was a negligible trifle. But he couldn’t think of any adjectives. That was why it was like a nightmare.
“I don’t see that there is anything wrong with the arrangement at all,” Lady Aldington said; “it is simply sound common sense. It is just a business arrangement. If I think he can do it better than I, I am absolutely in his hands.”
“But oh, my God!” — Mr. Pett exclaimed; and he clutched his furred motoring cap with both his hands. “Don’t you see...”
But he could think of nothing that he wanted to make this woman see except that he himself was everything and Macdonald nothing. He could not tell how he was going to put that into words.
Lady Aldington said: “No, I don’t understand what you want me to see.”
“Don’t you see, then,” Mr. Pett exclaimed hurriedly, “that I am a better man than he is?”
For him the world seemed for a moment to stand still. It was absolutely still; there was no motion in the boughs of the elms, there was no rustling in the dark leaves of the laurels. No beast moved in the frozen meadows of the park lands below the terraces. And suddenly Mr. Pett found himself continuing:
“Don’t you see that I’m the better man? How can you confide yourself to such an empty, idle-brained, useless adventurer? He’s never done a thing; he’s never thought a thought; and you, who are the most wonderful woman in the world, put yourself in his hands when you might put yourself into mine.”
There was such a note of honest tragedy in his voice — and indeed then Mr. Pett spoke more honestly than he had ever spoken before — that Lady Aldington in her turn spoke to him more attentively than she had ever done.
“Mr. Pett,” she said quite gently, “I think you mistake the issue. I am quite ready to believe that you are a better man than Count Macdonald. You may be more practical; you may be a much greater thinker; you are certainly the most wonderful mere talker that I have ever met. But you must excuse me if I say that these are not the things that I want when I set out upon such an enterprise as the one in which we are interested in common. It is a great responsibility that I feel that I am taking. We are going to influence the lives of large numbers of persons. That is nothing new to me; I have been used to the idea all my life. And what I want is to be certain of my man — to be certain of his goodness of heart.”
“This is all confounded nonsense,” Mr. Pett interrupted violently.
“No, it isn’t nonsense,” Lady Aldington answered gently, “it’s just a question of what we want. You have just said that it was not your business to have to do with anything that wasn’t something new. You said that no intelligent man would want to have to do with anything that wasn’t something new. It may be that, as you have said, Count Macdonald isn’t an intelligent man, and that may be why I have selected him to put my trust in. I don’t know about that; but, you see, I don’t in the least wish to have anything to do with something that’s new.
That isn’t my business in the world. I suppose that what I really want to do is to preserve whatever old goodnesses there may be in the world. I am not in the least ashamed of being old-fashioned. There’s nothing whatever that even you could say that will make me ashamed of being old-fashioned. And what has made me trust Count Macdonald in this matter is that he seems to have the old- fashioned goodnesses, and just because he has the old- fashioned goodnesses I think he is the right person to re-establish a kingdom along the lines of old-fashioned happiness and contentment. Even if I were dissatisfied with Count Macdonald I could not trust you in this particular matter. You are not to be trusted; you don’t lay yourself out to be trusted. You proclaim that the only business of an intelligent man is to invent something new.”
“But this fellow,” Mr. Pett exclaimed, “this unintelligent useless fellow of a Macdonald...”
Lady Aldington stood still for a moment.
“Count Macdonald,” she said slowly, “never thought an unworthy thought and never did an unworthy action. He is what you and I aren’t, and what almost no one is to-day — he is chivalrous! And it is chivalry that I am looking for in the world, and that I should like to reintroduce into the world. I don’t know that my affairs will prosper in the hands of this gentleman, but I know that he will never do anything that is against my heart. That is what I should like you to understand. And I really do think that if Count Macdonald puts his mind and his whole soul into any adventure, that adventure will prosper. I think he will never prosper himself, and that is because he is quixotic But it is a great thing to have in any sort of an enterprise a man with a quixotic spirit, if only because it prevents your doing injustices that will set many people against whatever your undertaking may be. Of course, I know that this is not clever talk and it is hardly worth your while to listen to me. But you seem to wish to know what my attitude is in this affair, and in that case it is as well that you should know that what I think of Count Macdonald is that his ‘strength is as the strength of ten because his heart is pure.’”
Mr. Pett exclaimed in a high scream, “My God!” and then again “My God!” And clutching his fur motor cap with both his hands, he really reeled on his feet, and with extraordinary acid laughter in his intonation he exclaimed once more:
“It’s outrageous; it’s infamous! You get me here! — me! — to listen to quotations from Tennyson! Me!”
“My dear Mr. Pett,” Lady Aldington said, “it isn’t my business in life to select my quotations with care. That’s your business.”
“But it’s outrageous!” Mr. Pett said once more. He couldn’t think what had become of his vocabulary. He couldn’t understand how it was that he had only one or two words that he had to use over and over again. He only knew that between himself and this cold woman there seemed to stretch an invisible stone wall. He didn’t know what it meant. “It’s outrageous! You get me here to chant your love for Count Macdonald in an early Victorian dialect and with quotations from Tennyson!”
“It seemed to be only proper,” Lady Aldington said, “to let you know of my love for Count Macdonald.”
“Proper!” Mr. Pett exclaimed, and suddenly he began to laugh. He laughed on and on, exclaiming from time to time, “Proper! that’s a funny word.”
Mr. Pett indeed was extraordinarily hard hit. His successes had always been so facile that it would be safe to say that he had never known what failure was, and now suddenly he found himself up against this stone wall.
There had never before been anything that he hadn’t been able to wriggle round, to creep under, or to scramble over. Now he was up against it, and then he did what he called forgetting himself.
“Your ladyship means,” he said, and his voice still had the high laugh of incredulous scorn—”your ladyship means to tell me that your ladyship is your ladyship. Your ladyship means to tell me that your ladyship and that... that fellow are of a different blood from me. You want to say that you are a different order of being — you and he. I am just a person who talks. I’m nothing, that’s what you mean to say.”
He stopped, and then exclaimed: “That... fellow an aristocrat! Who’d have thought it! Why, I’ve known him since he was twenty. In all sorts of places: Fabian meetings; low public-houses when he hadn’t got a penny!...’’
“He’d given you all his money,” Lady Aldington said sharply. “You victimised him.”
“I dare say I did,” Mr. Pett continued, “but you mean to tell me that that stupid fool who let himself be victimised by me is the sort of person that is too high and mighty even to wipe his boots on me.”
“I hadn’t thought of saying that,” Lady Aldington said. “But I dare say that is what I really did mean.”
“But, my God!” Mr. Pett exclaimed. “You don’t understand! You don’t understand how I’ve despised this person! I’ve looked down on him for years and years! It’s impossible for me to take him seriously.”
“I quite understand that you’ve despised him,” Lady Aldington said; “that’s the new thing that you have discovered — how to despise a man for being good to you and for making your fortune.”
“My God!” Mr. Pett exclaimed for the ninth time. “Can’t you see that it’s a privilege for a man of that kidney to be allowed to look after a man like me?”
“I quite understand,” Lady Aldington answered, “that there is that way of looking at it; and you can understand — you do understand that it is a privilege for a woman of my kidney to look after Count Macdonald. And that is what I am going to do.”
Mr. Pett had often thought that if he had been a mere writer of stories instead of a political philosopher he would have written a scene between a gentleman of lowly birth and a woman of high society. They were going to love each other passionately and to realise that it would not do. So that at the end of Mr. Pett’s story there would have been a regretful scene, the gentleman’s head being bowed and the woman of high breeding looking back over her shoulder as she vanished in the distance. They would speak slowly, carefully, balanced words in a rhythm that gradually faded out. Now Mr. Pett was as nearly in the middle of such a scene as he was ever likely to be in his whole life. He spluttered violently:
“What you mean to say is that you are an atrocious snob.”
He had a sense in the darkness that Lady Aldington was making the motion of gathering her garments together.
“I dare say I am,” she answered. And she went away towards the lighted window.
It struck him that her emotions were so singularly businesslike that she could not be imagined to have any emotions at all. It was as if she had just polished off a necessary piece of work at one committee meeting and was going on to another. She certainly did not look back over her shoulder.
