Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 514
“My girl,” he said. “For me our uncle is the best and kindest. What he wishes goes, with me! What he says stands!” He added very slowly and distinctly:
“I will never — never — never! — disturb my uncle with questions as to my birth. I will never — never — never agree that any other soul shall!”
His hand dropped to his side.
“I....” the girl began. I could not see her face, but her right hand must have been touching her throat. I missed a word or two, but I heard her finish:
“But I have said — to you and your friend! — all that I mean to say!”
I was filled with dismay; her tone was so tragic; but he preserved his fine smile.
“You have,” he said, “an excellent lawyer. You are an excellent lawyer yourself. But I believe our uncle to be the soul of justice, and that justice is a better thing than law to rely upon.”
She said:
“George!” — and her hand dropped to her side. He remained looking at her intently in the bright light. Suddenly his face lit up:
“My dear,” he said, “let me introduce you to Miss Honeywill!”
CHAPTER VII
THAT evening had still seven and a half hours to run. I did not get to bed till past four, and I was already very tired. So that of it there come back to me only spots of colour and — it’s a French word — vacarme, and voices shouting against the noise of instruments. For immediately upon the entrance of Miss Honeywill into that pink cell, Madame’s negroid orchestra set up a crash of sound. It is no good to accuse me of an anachronism. Madame had South American mulattos, Barbadoes quadroons, and Cuban octoroons, not to mention Bowery Buck negroes, in her orchestra already in July, 1914. The mad, bad tune of that day was “All night long he calls her” — and the dance the tango, though that was really a misnomer for the South American Cielito.
I will try to continue my time-table, though it is not chronologically that that long night comes back to me. But it would confuse anyone if I put all those visions, as they really return, one on top of the other. Besides, the real agony of it, for me, had nothing to do with the birthright of George Heimann and his sister.
At 8.45 then, Clarice Honeywill came into that pink room to get her domino, as she had every right to do. Marie Elizabeth turned half round to look at her, and I still remember the expression on her clear, aquiline features.
It was curiosity; but there was not a tinge of sexual or sisterly jealousy. It was, rather, sheer business agony. She looked round eagerly and keenly, as if to see what influence the girl might be expected to have over her brother in the matter of the litigation she contemplated. And then her interest just died out. She said, positively: “Pleased to meet you!”
Fastening her domino under her chin, Clarice chose at that moment to appear just the country doctor’s daughter. I have sometimes thought that that was a pity, since first impressions count for so much with a person all of one piece like Miss Heimann. Supposing that, with her “technique,” Clarice had chosen to appear big — a wise woman of the world! She might have taken that poor, distracted girl to her breast and it would all, perhaps, have been different. But I daresay Kate Robins knew best what was the limitation of her art. And, of courses, he wanted to get her George away from emotion for that night. So she just said to George:
“Do let us try that step! Our show does not begin until eleven.” And that just registered her for three and a half years or so, in the mind of Marie Elizabeth, as a little bit of fluff with whom George might amuse himself as clever men must — but negligible as an influence.
She was in George’s arms. As they waltzed out of the room she said beside the ear of Marie Elizabeth:
“Get Mr. Jessop to take you round. On a night like this, my father says...”
They went slowly through the doorway, so I never heard what her father said.
Marie Elizabeth had turned rather stiffly to me. She said:
“Shall we?” The orchestra was braying.
I was not, of course, a professional dancer of the tango, still I thought that if those two could waltz out through a little door we could at least try it; and Marie Elizabeth was in my arms.
Destiny, I suppose, was not in an inventive frame of mind that night, for, for the second time, my shoulder was shaken by passionate sobs. Marie Elizabeth was crying. She pulled herself away and leaned her forehead against the pink wall. She was, in the end, only twenty-two, or not quite twenty-two, and to have parted thus from her brother, worried as she was almost to mania by Miss Jeaffreson, as to her origins, must have made her feel dreadfully lonely.
Madame looked in. She said:
“Ah, you would like this reserved for you?”
I exclaimed:
“Fetch Miss Jeaffreson... I had been addressing the shaken back of that weeping girl. I went on addressing it. I felt a fool, but I thought I could do some good.
I said that she ought to take time to consider what her brother had said. Probably he was right. No doubt he was a judge of men. Her uncle was obviously a man of great probity: it would be better to trust him than to try coercion. I added, on my own account, that I believed Mr. Heimann to be a man with a violent temper. If that were so it would surely be wiser not to interfere with what had been a habit of at least her lifetime. He might make it very uncomfortable for them.
She pushed herself away from the wall and confronted me with a sort of passionate contempt, as if I had been an imbecile.
I wouldn’t understand, she said. Neither would her brother. She wanted her position made plain. She must have it made plain. For that she needed her brother’s co-operation. He had just refused it. The position was unbearable. If her father had betrayed her mother, let him own it and take the shame of it. If extorting the information forced them to starve, it would be better to starve than to go on in uncertainty. But she believed they would not starve. Even supposing they were — illegitimate! In other countries the illegitimate had certain rights. Definite and assured. She wanted her rights, and she wanted the thing settled. Nothing more. But that she would have.
Miss Jeaffreson was there, large glasses and all.
Marie Elizabeth said:
“George refuses to go to our uncle!”
Miss Jeaffreson, cool, capable, and in a Governing-class frame of mind, said:
“He must be argued with. Men can be!”
And, pretending to ignore my presence, they began rehearsing together an interminable argument. I had no doubt they were showing me what they intended to say to Marie Elizabeth’s unfortunate brother. I went away. I could hear their voices going on and on through the insubstantial wood of the little door after I had closed it on them. If they had wanted me to hear their arguments they should have asked me.
At two minutes past nine, just outside that flimsy door, I was assailed by a foolish young man who wanted me to spend a fortnight at the beginning of next month with the house party of a lady with a name like Mrs. Epstein, who loved literature. I knew nothing of Mrs. Epstein, and was not in the mood for literature for a fortnight on end. I told him I couldn’t go, and he kept me for about ten minutes talking about some party last week — to which I hadn’t gone. He had a face like a brown egg. A charming, fair young girl, whose name I did not know, came running up to me, and said:
“Oh, Mr. Jessop! Do ask the conductor to play a coon song very slowly, so that we can try the eighth variation step. We’re all one party in the hall now.”
I said:
“I don’t believe you can dance the eighth to any known coon song” — and I went towards the conductor. She said: “You always are a teaze!” over her shoulder, as she ran away.
I used to be everyone’s Dutch uncle in those days; that, I suppose, is why I have gathered no moss. The orchestra was functioning so violently that I found it difficult to approach the conductor. But I observed a lugubrious, lanthorn-jawed fellow, very blonde, with his longish front hair parted in the middle, who regarded his score with pained attention, and from time to time hit a bright steel triangle with a bright steel pencil. I was usually interested in this man, because he was an extremely important United States detective, who was said to occupy that central, subterranean position in order to observe what dangerous international crooks were then in London. And, whilst I was waiting for that number to finish, I looked at him with attention. One never, I suppose, gets over a boyish awe at the sight of a detective.
Whilst conning his score and hitting his triangle, I suppose at the right times, he was keeping up an unembarrassed conversation with a black-haired, gold-eyeglassed, squat American gentleman who stood protuberantly beside him. The noise seemed to make no difference. They just talked as if they had been sitting in armchairs, on a verandah in the Adirondacks.
I was going away, having preferred the young girl’s request to the conductor, when the lugubrious triangle player touched my elbow. I knew he had been quite aware of the interest I took in him. He said to the other man: “Mister—” the name was something like Plugsmeat. “This is Mr. Thomson, the noted writer. He could, if he liked, introduce you to more romances of this great city than any other living man!”
I wish I could reproduce the deep, the utter dejection, expressed in the tone of some Americans — and of this one more than most others. To me he explained that his comfortable-looking friend was touring Europe for the Philadelphia Something — I think it was Philadelphia. He was putting in time writing about Real Romances of the Great Cities, whilst waiting for the War that was to break out between our country and the German Empire.
I said:
“Our country and my aunt!” It was in that way that we used to talk, in July, 1914, of Armageddon. In perfect good faith!
“Well, that’s what our papers say!” the detective answered. “But, as I was just telling Mr. Plugsmeat for his good, you can’t trust our papers a cod’s tooth in a mile and a half!”
That comfortable stranger suddenly blared upon me with an amazing truculence. He told me that any reporter on any United States journal would be dispatched to All-fired Hell if in his “ stories” he misspelt the name of any single person. He repeated the statement all over again with enhanced violence. He was short, round, double-eyeglassed, and his black hair, which was parted in the middle, in the then American fashion, had the air of being plastered down, with violence, by means of some tenacious mucilage.
The lugubrious triangle-player winked at me. He said:
“Mr. Thomson!”
I said:
“Mr. Pinkerton!” That of course was humour — or it may have been on his part the professional discreetness of the great detective. I, too, knew that his name was not Pinkerton. He went on:
‘If you could help my friend here — to a Romance!”
I looked round the hall and perceived Marie Elizabeth, all alone, walking rather disconsolately towards my table. It was occupied by that solicitor, who was wiping his glasses. He cannot have been enjoying himself immensely. I don’t know where his sister was, but I could see George Heimann talking to Clarice. And there walked Marie Elizabeth, definite and clear, doing up a glove button. I said to Mr. Pinkerton:
“Oh, if your friend wants romance!”
It was really an inspiration, the introduction of those two! The journalist, whilst we were walking towards the girl, assured me again in an earnest tone that any American who made a mistake in the report of a name to a newspaper would lose his job; and, divining a certain incredulity about me, he re-asserted the statement with such violence that I might have thought he was going to shoot me with the revolver out of his hip pocket.
And he made it all over again as soon as I had introduced him to Miss Heimann. He was so comfortable and so kindly in appearance that I could not have imagined anyone more comforting for a desolate young lady; he did not seem to have a great stock of ideas. But her rather set face became at once animated. I daresay that this gentleman who stood for exact accuracy in the recording of names appealed to her in a world where, if she were accepted quite unquestioningly on her face, figure, and dress value, no one seemed to take an extreme interest in her desire to establish what was her own exact and legal name. The band played.
That fellow appeared to dance extremely well. Many fat, good-natured men have that as their sole athletic accomplishment. His face over Marie Elizabeth’s shoulders wore an expression of bliss. I went back and asked the triangle-player:
“That fellow’s all right? Officially, please?”
He answered without expression, gazing at the score on his music desk:
“It’s just H-ll if you’re no musician to synchronise this dinner gong. He’s the whitest son of all Old Glory’s children. I speak officially. Hang it, what bar is this? And he’ll make the greatest pile. You could trust him with The band began a fortissimo, and I did not hear the end of his figure of speech; but I felt that for half an hour I could dismiss Marie Elizabeth from my mind.
I was not allowed to.
Across the hall there was a man with whom I had discussed making up a party for August, on the Norfolk Broads. I really needed a rest, and I knew that, if I did not fix myself before that evening was out, I should be lassoed for some house party or other. I was drifting towards him between half-filled tables; I wanted to re-discuss that tranquil idea. The voice of Madame said in my ear:
“You let her go with another. So soon” I asked her whom.
She answered:
“That girl. Marie Elizabeth. The daughter of my dear old friend, Lord.... Lord...”
I am a person of sudden obsessions, lasting a minute or so. And suddenly and desperately I just did not want to hear any more of that affair. It was irrational; I ought to have desired to know out of a just curiosity. But I wanted to be on the Norfolk Broads.
She said:
“The name is on the tip of my tongue!”
I said:
“For Heaven’s sake, keep it there, then!”
She ignored me, repeating dreamily: “ Lord.... Lord.... I spent a whole summer at Aix en Provence. In the time of my first husband. He was very intelligent, but with a temper like a volcano. That Lord, I mean, not my husband! I have never known such a temper. Such gusts! We walked often together.”
I said:
“And the children...”
She said:
“I recognised them at once. I have the royal gift for faces. I suppose he has thrown them off?” Her attention began to wander to her waiters. But she brought it back with a jerk. “That pink room,” she said, “ was taken by the Right Honourable.... Oh, la! la! Something or other. But I told my maître d’hotel to lock it up and give the key to you.” She was going away to the right.
I caught her elbow and asked imperatively:
“Tell me! Are they legitimate?”
She said to a waiter:
*’ I told you to serve no sparkling red wine before eleven.”
And to me:
“I do not know. What does it matter? Kiss and be thankful. That is the good motto!” It was impossible to keep her attention any longer. She came back and said: “Bastards, of course. What do you suppose?”
She became the centre of a group of guardsmen to whom three waiters, all in despair, gesticulated and exclaimed: “It’s impossible!” I heard her say to the Guardsmen: “ It will be all ra-ight!”
My man had just lost a rich relation and could not go to the Broads after all. He would be busy right up to September. He was a nice fellow. I was sorry.
I was considering that, since the Heimann children were certainly illegitimate, I had probably done right in trying to prevent their troubling their “uncle.” And he had a temper like a volcano. That seemed to settle it. They must leave him alone.
I had to think sharply and baldly, like that, because I was being worried all the time and having to outshout that infernal band. A Lady Laubenheimer — at least I know she had the name of some German vintage: it may have been Johannisberger! — had caught my sleeve and was pressing me to go down to a historic manor called Hurstcote for the last week in July and the first in August. She wanted me to arrange some eighteenth century Venetian plays in the open air. She said she desired to encourage the Arts. I believe she was hideously wealthy. I was trying to think about the young Heimanns. She edged me back so that one of those infernal Caryatids was forcing a scarlet projection into my kidneys. I shouted:
“I’ve got to go to...
She screamed:
“Go where? I can’t hear!”
I shouted through a deep silence: the band had stopped: “ To my brother’s. His chickens are sick!”
It was an inspiration; but I daresay I should not have had it if in that electric brougham I had not been talking to Clarice about poor Fred’s chicken farm at Froghole. I neglected my brother dreadfully.
Lady Johannisberger went on worrying. She said: “Chickens! “Did I prize chickens above art! I said they were prize chickens! She said: “Where is it?”
“The Summit, Froghole?”
“But that’s not twelve miles from us: we could motor you over every day.” I said I wanted to write a book whilst I nursed the valuable chickens. At that she cried out: “Ah, yes! your Art comes first!” She was a good creature, really. She just pleaded: “Well, then, couldn’t I find someone for her. Presentable and gifted, and with some knowledge of stage management. She wanted to have something pretty and first rate. To help Art. Lady Bugle Kellerman and Lord Justice Someone would be there all the time.
Then I suggested introducing the young Heimanns to her. I did it some time during the evening. She was a motherly, unpresentable woman, with quite a moustache. And she took at once to those two. I daresay she thought them Jewish.
It was by then five minutes to ten. And it came into my head that Mr. Jeaffreson, who was after all my guest, must be having rather a thin time.
He was. He was sitting alone, three feet from that orchestra.
I took him further off. And I found him, as I had suspected, a much more reasonable fellow when his women folk were leaving him alone. He told no stories, for instance, about his clients: I came to the conclusion that he only did that to show his sister what a devil of a fellow he was. And the cocky, j aunty titter and side-glance through the edges of his glasses had deserted him, too, when there were no women about. Before me he let himself appear merely worried.
