Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 427
Mr. Pett beside her was talking about the local colour in an excited frame of mind. Mrs. Pett was quite silent. Suddenly Lady Aldington perceived a white figure, in a long cloak, with a long motor veil streaming behind, following an officer down the empty presidential seats. It was Countess Macdonald....
She took her place immediately beside the President, as if defiantly she were determined that no one should say she had not supported the republic on principle; and indeed she had really given all her money to buy powder for the ragged troops. And again Lady Aldington became conscious of an agony of fear because of Macdonald’s absence. The Marquis da Pinta suddenly waved his cocked hat, and amidst a very thin blare of trumpets some little figures began to appear at the far distant end of the arena — white horses, men with spears, men on foot with scarlet cloaks, white stockings, black round hats, all very clear and small in the limpid atmosphere. There was an enormous noise, fans and little packets of cigarettes began to spout from the audience on to the sands. It was the Corrieda, the cavalcade of Gay El Huelto, the celebrated Madrid toreador, whom they had brought there to do honour to the memory of the immortal Dumas. Small, desultory, the procession streamed over the glaring sunlight of the white sand....
Lady Aldington’s anxiety became painful. Mr. Pett began to talk to her cheerfully and garrulously about the lust for blood that existed in human breasts. He mentioned the theory of Sclaso, the Italian psychologist, who said “that a certain amount of cruelty, vicarious or inflicted by one’s self, was an absolute necessity to humanity in a civilised state.” It was for that reason that fairly highly civilised communities indulged in painful practical jokes, and that very civilised people read tragic works. Lady Aldington said that the theory appeared to her to be repulsive. If we were civilised we were civilised, and there wasn’t any need to shed blood in order to make us know it. And all the while she was wondering what had become of Macdonald. She imagined that he must have been taken prisoner by the republican soldiers. Possibly at that very minute he was being placed against the wall of the amphitheatre and being shot. It seemed to her impossible to sit still or impossible to think of anything else. She could positively see Macdonald standing in the nettles against the high white wall looking at the muskets....!
But Mr. Pett thought Emily Aldington was perfectly inhuman. She sat there so calmly, although she must have known that some of them were in danger. But she didn’t appear to know it; on the contrary, she had eyes for everything.
Great guttural roars were coming from the audience. The ceremony in the bull ring had come to a halt; there was no mistaking the angry tone in the voices of the spectators.
“What’s that? What’s that?” Mr. Pett shivered nervously.
“Oh, there’s nothing to be alarmed about,” Lady Aldington said. “The people are only calling out for the bulls. There seems to be some delay about them.”
“Oh, is that all?” Mr. Pett said. “I thought it had begun.” And once more he talked feverishly about Professor Sclaso’s theory.
The audience began to get very angry. They were shouting rhythmically the word “Toros!” each syllable coming like a clap of thunder. With the opera-glasses it was possible to see that many men were shaking their fists at the presidential box, and more particularly the men in the red cloaks.
The rather terrible rhythmic sound became at last too much for Mr. Pett. Suddenly he started to his feet.
“I can’t understand,” he said in an agitated squeak, “how you can sit there so calmly! I want it to begin. Why doesn’t it begin? If we hadn’t got to wait for that battleship it might begin at once.” And suddenly he gave a real scream. There had come a particularly ominous sound — the long rattle of musket butts upon the wooden seats. The blue line of troops below the president had moved suddenly like a wave. He had commanded them to order arms, and they were all on their feet standing at “Attention.” This preceded a momentary silence amongst the crowd — a silence of watchful and sinister attention. A high clear voice called out: “Viva Dom Pedro el segundo.” The boy in the chauffeur’s dress, sitting amongst the white sailors from the Esmeralda, suddenly stood up, but the soldiers beneath the president shouted all together: “Viva la Republica Galiziana,” and drowned any noise that he might have made. And the coxswain of Lady Aldington’s pinnace pulled him down to his seat again.
“I can’t stand it!” Mr. Pett exclaimed.’ The soldiers are going to fire! I must go away!”
“Well, go and ask Sergius Mihailovitch to come to me,” Lady Aldington said. —
Mr. Pett suddenly scrambled over the sunlit seats. He bolted into the tunnel past the officer, but as he turned to the right and not to the left he never came across Sergius Mihailovitch. He paced up and down in the darkness of the Moorish buildings; then he found himself in the sunlight. His agitation had become tremendous. Like Mr. Salt, whom he resembled by birth and training, he grew to feel exceedingly sick. Renewed shouts from the amphitheatre seemed to galvanise his legs. He hurried straight in front of him through the blinding sunlight. He walked, he walked down a long avenue of palms, across a long broad street that resembled Regent Street. He was just walking straight in front of him. He never met a soul. Then suddenly he found himself upon the quay; he found himself going down the gangway of the Esmeralda. When he realised that that was where he was, he ran agitatedly down the companion, scuttling like a rabbit to his own cabin. He unearthed a bottle of aspirin from his cabin trunk, and he swallowed five or six tabloids. The ship was absolutely silent, only from another cabin he could hear the loud groans of an elderly woman. It was the Queen-Mother groaning about sea-sickness. Mr. Pett could not stand the sound. He went into the corridor and knocked at the door of the drawing-room, which had been converted into the private cabin for Her Majesty. An altar, with a gilt statue of St. Anthony and the Child, had been erected at the forward end of the long saloon. The Queen-Mother was upon her knees before this, an English priest standing at her side. When Mr. Pett entered she screamed out violently:
“Oh, is it over? Is it over?”
The priest was very pale and anxious. He explained to Mr. Pett that Her Majesty was extremely afraid of dying of sea-sickness. She was sure she would die if the counter-revolution did not succeed, and if she had to go back to Southampton by sea.
“Will it succeed?” the priest asked. He was quite pale.
“No, it won’t,” Mr. Pett answered viciously. “It’s been lamentably mismanaged.”
The Queen began to scream violently, and, like Mr. Salt, Mr. Pett found nothing to say but: “Damn, Damn, Damn,” in a sort of mystic passion. He went back to his own cabin. Then he began to cry; then, the aspirin working upon him, he stumbled towards his bed and fell fast asleep.
In the seats of the arena Lady Aldington had looked after him as he went upwards. Mrs. Pett had moved nearer to her, as if for comfort.
“What’s the matter with him?” Lady Aldington asked.
“It’s one of his attacks,” Mrs. Pett answered. “He’s very miserable.”
“What’s he miserable about?” Lady Aldington asked.
“Oh, it’s the feeling,” Mrs. Pett said, “that he’s betraying his old comrades. He hasn’t been able to sleep very well because he’s always dreaming that dead Socialists like Henry George and William Morris come and reproach him.”
“Well, I suppose he can’t help it?” Lady Aldington said. “It’s a pity he’s so weak. Why don’t you go and look after him?”
“Oh, he’ll walk it off,” Mrs. Pett said. “Besides, I daren’t go near him when he has these fits of depression. It’s quite on the cards that he might turn on me and strangle me. Then, of course, he’d be hung. I don’t think I should much object to being strangled, but it would be bad for the children if he were hung.”
Lady Aldington patted Mrs. Pett gently on the shoulder.
“Do you suppose,” she said, “that he’ll have asked Sergius Mihailovitch to come to me?”
“No, I don’t suppose it for a moment,” Mrs. Pett exclaimed. “I’m very sorry. I’ll go myself.”
“No, don’t,” Lady Aldington said.
It did not, however, seem to be the time for any display of tender feminine emotion. Mr. Dexter suddenly climbed Up from his seat, with his Mamie behind him. Mr. Dexter was really quite calm.
“I think it’s all going all right, your ladyship,” he said. “Unless the soldiers begin to fire, the counter-revolution is perfectly safe. I think I’ll go and shake hands with His Majesty and congratulate him.”
“Oh, don’t do that,” Lady Aldington said. “It’s all going all right. The soldiers won’t fire on the people; that’s agreed, as you know, with the President.”
“It’s all perfectly thrilling!” Miss Dexter exclaimed. “Now, isn’t it all perfectly thrilling? And it’s all so high- minded. For you are all agreed to do all you can to avoid bloodshed. The poor old President won’t let his troops fire as long as he’s got the upper hand. And he won’t let them fire after he’s lost the upper hand, because it would be so useless. Now, that’s what I call fine! It’s all fine! Aren’t they a fine people with all that self-control and everything? They’re like Roman senators.”
Mr. Dexter said: “Now, Mamie, you sit here right beside her ladyship and I guess I’ll stroll round.” He looked, however, seriously at Emily. “You don’t think,” he said, “that there’s the remotest danger of the soldiers shooting at you? Because if there is I guess I’ll stop here.”
“Oh, there’s not the remotest danger of that,” Lady Aldington said. “It would lead to too much bloodshed. And the President wants to avoid bloodshed as much as we do. Besides, we are only spectators. No, there’s not the remotest danger for us.”
Mrs. Pett had been looking intently at Lady Aldington’s calm face. And suddenly it occurred to her to see that Emily was suffering an intense anguish caused by the absence of Sergius Mihailovitch. Immediately she got up and, a little common-place figure in her white duck dress, she climbed up the sloping steps. She was going to fetch Sergius Mihailovitch.
Mr. Dexter pierced a cigar with his stiletto, bit it, and slowly strolled away, glancing about the arena. The steady calls for the bulls on the part of the spectators had fallen to a dead silence. From the arena there came the sound of a great number of guitars, played in unison with a strong metallic twang. The poor President of the Republic, hoping to add splendour to this bull-fight, had sold nearly all he possessed in order to bring a famous troop of dancers from Madrid. They were to have performed in the audience between the successive bull-fights, whilst they were dragging out the carcases. Now he had given the order that they should dance while they were waiting for the bulls. Twenty women and four men were performing rhythmical contortions upon a square of nailed boards that some mules had dragged into the centre of the arena. The guitars clanged on. The audience was entirely silent out of its studied respect for all foreigners. There was not even a whisper on any of the benches, so singularly well disciplined in this respect was that people. The spearmen supporting the toreadors and all the figures of the bull-fighters stood at attention before the President’s box, the white horses motionless and dejected beneath their red and silver trappings. The sun had become very hot, but it had shifted until all the gentlefolk were now in the shadow of the Moorish buildings, whilst all the other seats glowed with the sunlight. The twenty girls and the four men who had been dancing sat down upon the boxes. The audience applauded with a polite moderation. The extraordinary figure of a man in grey, thin and very long, but with enormous trousers tucked into his boots, began springing extraordinarily high to the sound of the guitars. He smacked one thigh, then the other; the rhythmical clapping of hands of the other dancers became like a volley of musketry. Suddenly Miss Dexter said in Lady Aldington’s ear:
“I guess that Countess Macdonald is trying to get us shot.”
And they perceived that the Countess, in her long robes made of white Witney blankets, was violently attracting the President’s attention towards their seats. She was pointing her hand dramatically straight at Lady Aldington. The President shook his head, which he kept averted, as if he did not wish to look at them.
“I guess she does want to have us shot,” Miss Dexter said.
The Countess was running, stumbling down the few seats towards the fringe of soldiers. She caught hold of the arm of one of the officers, and again pointed at the three women above her to the right. Many of the soldiers looked round.
“She’s trying to get us shot against the orders of the President,” Miss Dexter said. But the officer shook his head, and they heard him call “Attention!”
There were many cries of dissatisfaction amongst the spectators, for this noise appeared to them to be a gross want of respect to the illustrious dancer in grey; besides, it came from the presidential enclosure. One of the President’s daughters hurried quickly down to the Countess. She caught hold of the gesticulating white arm, and both women sat down side by side just behind the soldiers. The Countess was talking violently, but the soldiers had resumed their rigid gaze into the arena.
Then Sergius Mihailovitch came and sat down quietly beside Emily. He was smiling.
“The bulls haven’t come, then,” he said. “That’s all right.”
Emily said, rather fiercely: “How could you leave me alone like that?”
“But you weren’t in any danger,” Sergius Mihailovitch answered.
“I was going mad,” she said. “You hadn’t the right to leave me like that!”
“But I had to,” Sergius Mihailovitch answered. “I had duties. I’ve been making perfectly certain that the bulls wouldn’t come.”
“It was you that did that?” Lady Aldington said.
“Of course it was I,” he answered. “Don’t you see that that’s the real stroke of genius? Don’t you see that it discredits the President in the eyes of the people? Infinitely more than if he had stolen all the crown jewels. It’s the end of the republic. I paid the bull tenders last night a thousand pounds to drive the bulls clear away. They’re twenty miles off now, all following the little donkey. There isn’t a bull within a radius of twenty miles. I don’t suppose they could even rake up a cow.”
Lady Aldington looked at him with a queer analytic glance.
“You’re a perfect devil, sometimes,” she said. “That’s why your eyelids slope so queerly. I couldn’t have found it in my heart to disgrace that wretched broken man so utterly. Look at him!”
The black-coated President was sitting stiffly, gazing into the arena.
“Well, he’s done for,” Sergius Mihailovitch said. “We had to do for him. Yes, it was damnably cruel.” Then he smiled suddenly at her. “But then,” he said, “I’ll tell you what really gave me the idea. I knew you’d hate to see bulls killed, and I knew it was essential that you should show yourself here; that was what did it. When I thought of that I was determined that there shouldn’t be a bull in the ring. I paid my money for that. I wasn’t thinking of the counter-revolution.”
“But you said,” Lady Aldington exclaimed, “that it was a stroke of genius.”
Macdonald laughed. “I shouldn’t have said it if it had been,” he exclaimed. “Don’t you know me better than that? It was just a happy accident.”
She rested her hand for a moment caressingly on the sleeve of his light grey suit.
“Then I forgive you for keeping me waiting,” she said. “But that was cruel enough.”
Macdonald looked out over the arena. A quite loud sound of applause had come from the spectators. And it was repeated when the dancers held up their hands, showing that they were exhausted, and that their dancing had come to an end. And then, a moment after, the other really terrible cry of Toros began to sound.
“I think we’d better go and get married,” Macdonald said equably. “I don’t like to leave Mrs. Pett alone with Mr. Salt. There are a lot of soldiers there. It might be an ugly job to get away later.”
Lady Aldington said: “It’s come, then.” She was looking away over the arena, and there was a faint flush of colour in her cheeks.
“Yes, come!” Macdonald said. “It’s really very dangerous. Look at the soldiers looking up. They’re not looking at us. They’re looking at the King. My amiable Countess has told them that he’s the King. Some of them believe it, some of them don’t. We’d better clear out. They wouldn’t shoot you or me, because we’re foreigners. But the King is Galizian. Let’s go and get married.”
Lady Aldington stood up. But Miss Dexter remained obstinately still.
“I guess I’m not coming,” she said. “I guess Popper will be back. I guess I don’t want to see you married.”
Lady Aldington had already climbed up three steps. Macdonald caught hold of the girl’s wrist.
“You’ve got to come,” he said. “If I have to carry you you’ve got to come. Look, there’s a soldier aiming.”
“I shan’t see you married,” the girl said.
The officer suddenly flung himself upon the musket of the soldier who was aiming. But another turned round and lifted his rifle. Lady Aldington was just coming to a level with the King’s feet. She called to the sailors to get round the King, but as they did not understand quite rightly who the King was, they only moved irresolutely. She sprang up the three seats that separated her from the King, and she stood right in front of his body.
