Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 761
The Indiana publisher had alarmed her — and all the more because of his praise of Henry Martin’s intelligence. She had thought at first that he must have been the publisher of the other book and that his praise was thus for Henry Martin whom he appeared to know intimately. She had gradually gathered that Mr. Old-Smith was really talking of Hugh Monckton. That had seemed to her almost more alarming. It was difficult really to get the hang of Henry Martin’s situation at times; thinking about it her mind seemed almost to stop. But it seemed to her that it would be much less difficult for Henry Martin to give the impression that he was not Henry Martin than that he was Hugh Monckton. In the one case the interview would be over in a few seconds. Henry Martin would only have to say that he was not Henry Martin and the affair would be over. But Mr. Old-Smith professed to have been intimate with both Hugh Monckton and his father and if he wanted to make a proposition about a book, it would call, very likely, for a great deal of discussion in which Henry Martin’s intonation, accent, mannerisms, and obvious ignorance of Hugh Monckton’s conversations with Mr. Old-Smith must almost inevitably give his secret away.... And Mr. Old-Smith laid more and more stress on his intimacy with Hugh Monckton. He said it was absurd to imagine that a few minutes’ chat with an old friend could do Mr. Monckton Smith any harm. That made her the more determined....
Her fear was much more for Henry Martin’s reason than for any consequences of discovery. At that time she had not seen the result of Aunt Elizabeth’s visit. She was still trying, even, to stall that off. That it would probably be inevitable she knew. She had intended, a little before that lady’s visit, to prepare him for it in the hope that that might do some good. She had put it off till the latest possible day simply because she had been afraid that the mere anticipation might drive him out of his mind....
With a sort of delicacy she had never discussed with him what he thought of his position. For herself she would much have preferred him to be a fine imaginative writer or even a scholar than the most world-famous of captains of industry and she was quite prepared to accompany him through any inconveniences a disclosure of the truth might cause. The bare outlines of his case she knew. Hugh Monckton had begged him if possible to conceal the fact of his suicide and had in effect lent him a very large sum of money in order to make the concealment more certain. Henry Martin had used that sum of money so as to make, with inside information provided by Hugh Monckton himself, a fortune even more considerable. Then he had returned the original capital to what was now Hugh Monckton’s estate. She could not see anything disgraceful in the fact that Henry Martin had assumed Hugh Monckton’s identity. How could he better have kept the suicide secret than by shewing Hugh Monckton as if still alive?
In all that she could see nothing disgraceful.... Nothing certainly that any Frenchman could be disturbed about.
But Henry Martin was an American — and half a New Englander at that. She knew enough of New Englanders to be aware that they had strange and uneasy mental processes. And indeed she knew instinctively that his soul had at least a tender spot. She got that from his intonation, from his occasional depression, from a hundred jealously observed signs. She knew it most from his visible home-sickness.
When they were alone — and even indeed when Jeanne Becquerel was with them — they would not be talking long before he would turn the conversation round to New York. He did not know New York very well, his time in America having mostly been passed in Springfield, Ohio, and the neighbouring Middle West with a few trips to the Eastern seaboard. So that, with the exception of Canaan, New Hampshire, not New Canaan, Mass. — where they had both curiously enough, stayed, though at different times, in the same summer boarding-house, they hardly both in common knew any place in the States. Her father, like all French functionaries, had a passion for gardening and possessed just outside Danby, Conn. what he called a campagne, where, during the week-ends and holidays he cultivated cabbages, string beans, sweet corn and other truck. But she and the paternal aunt who had come out to New York on her mother’s death almost never went there and, having been born in New York, Eudoxie knew singularly little of the rest of the country.
All the same her conversations with Henry Martin consisted almost altogether either of American reminiscences or of speculations as to what was really happening in that country. These were largely fed by the letters of Eudoxie’s father. From his office in the Consulate he had a clear view of American commerce and his regular and shrewd letters spoke of a continual, widespread and always deepening ruin, hearing of which caused in Henry Martin fits of mortified depression. And he had an exasperated feeling that, at a moment when all his kin and kind in that country were suffering disasters and hardships, it was there that he should be.
Of that much Eudoxie was certain, and, from that she might have deduced that being discovered to be not Hugh Monckton would seem a small matter to him. Nevertheless, one day when he had just said: “One thinks that, if one were there one might be able to think out some solution... to be of some use.... Though of course one knows one wouldn’t.... All the same the impression’s terribly strong!” He had suddenly burst out:
“But at any moment one might be denounced as the most pitiful impostor.... And that would drive me mad! Besides... there’s the passport....”
And the whites of his eyes had shewn with such a singular gleam that she had really believed that if he actually were exposed he might go mad.
The publisher and his friend had nevertheless got past her consigne.
On the morning after his sleepless night Henry Martin was dozing in the sun on the terrace. Jeanne Becquerel, whom no sleeplessness seemed to affect, had gone into the market as usual.... He heard the car come up to the garage on the road below and stop.... Then she was at the bottom of the garden path laughing and gesticulating between the clipped hedges. There appeared behind her two men, the one rather tall, the other noticeably shorter than Jeanne Becquerel. Each of them carried a market-bag filled with provisions. The three together came up the path in all good fellowship. Once Jeanne Becquerel turned and with her graceful and free gestures pointed out to the others the features of the great view that sweltered beneath the light of the sun. Henry Martin could hear her say that on the hill above Napoleon had had his headquarters at his first famous engagement.
One of the men said: — the short one:
“You’d say: ‘Let the boy win his spurs!’ wouldn’t you?...” in an agreeable Middle Western.
And Jeanne Becquerel to the other:
“What does he say?... It is not nice of him to talk American.”
The short man said:
“Aw, mahdahmazel.... Vous me faîtes... shy! Modeste.... A ung aut je parle comme ung.... I don’t know what...
She laughed...” Oh vous... vous êtes modeste... come ung paon... As modest as a peacock. She was a stage queen commanding supers.
At the foot of the terrace she made a gesture along the path.
“Voila,” she said, “there.... Carry your parcels along there.... Qui m’aime me suit.... But you aren’t built for that!”
She came up the face of the terrace and over the balustrade as Eudoxie did. Usually she could not because of her parcels.
She stood radiant and panting beside Henry Martin:
“Here,” she said, “are M. Ol’smeez, the publisher, and M. Pancake — Crêpe — the tall man.... He is a régisseur of cinemas! or something like that...
She still stood beside him laughing at their approach along the terrace.
“I did not see,” she said, “why you should not receive an offer for a book.... I don’t see why you should not write a book.... If you like, ask them to lunch. I have plenty.... Pancake desires to make you an offer that might be admirable publicity for your automobiles!”
She added:
“Also, he repeats... what I told you...
Henry Martin said:
“We will, if you permit, wait a little before the invitation.... I do not know if the interview will turn well.... If it will give you pleasure I hope to be able to ask them....”
Mr. Crape explained:
They had encountered Mr. Allard Smith’s secretary, just as she pulled up the car. They had ventured to ring at his bell and she had invited them to come in. They wouldn’t keep him more than a minute and they would try not to fatigue him.
He was tall, grave, brown-eyed, dressed in brown.... Artistic in effect, he was probably a Philadelphian expatriate. Europeanised at any rate.
Mr. George Old-Smith of Old-Smith Brothers was also in no way alarming. He was a little, round, very bespectacled fellow. He gave the impression of a clown who should have been awed into silence in the presence of one of the great of the earth.
It appeared that he had really sat next to Hugh Monckton at a dinner given to his father in an Indianapolis club four years before and he recognised Henry Martin, in spite of his beard, with a subdued boisterousness. — As Hugh Monckton! Hugh Monckton’s conversation had really impressed him very much. — He appealed to Mr. Crape: Hadn’t he, all the way down in the train, been telling Mr. Crape how much Hugh Monckton’s conversation had impressed him?
Mr. Crape said gravely that Mr. Old-Smith certainly seemed to have been impressed by Mr. Allard Smith’s personality.... To such an extent that Mr. Old-Smith had insisted on their stopping off the train in the town below. In order to remind Mr. Allard Smith that he had promised to write something for him. Mr. Allard Smith could believe that!
Henry Martin said:
“Oh, drop the Allard, won’t you?... If you’re named Smith it won’t cut any more ice however you double-barrel it!”
He had had a little time of worry. Later than their dawn conversation Jeanne Becquerel had suddenly remembered that the publisher’s name was certainly “Smeez.” At breakfast she had come to the conclusion that it was Al-Smeez or Oll Smeez — and Henry Martin had been irrationally worried at the idea that this stranger might be his brother Hal whose given name was Harold.... Hal had once edited a series of engineering text books. He was certainly an engineer and, as such might very well have met Hugh Monckton in Indiana.... But Old-Smith Brothers were a very well known firm of publishers. It was a long time since he had had any male society. He had seemed for months to be buried under skirts.... And this was American male society.... It was going on for a year since he had spoken to an American! He found he was taking pleasure in the situation!
At the same time he was not going to be called “Allard Smith”.... He had long ago decided that no one should ever be able to testify that he had answered to any of Hugh Monckton’s given names.... Even in his own person he had formerly refused to be called anything but plain Smith. He told Mr. Old-Smith that his double name was a different matter.... Mr. Old-Smith had giggled uneasily just before. “Old-Smith” was a trademark. There must be any number of Smith publishing firms in America. The firm had been originally Old & Smith. But Mr. Old’s widow had married Mr. Smith and had two sons who had inherited the business. They had decided that “Old & Smith Brothers” would be an awkward name and their mother who was still living and after the good old American fashion called herself Mrs. Old Smith had been pleased at the change.... Henry Martin had all that out of his own knowledge. “Be Thou Chaste” had been offered to and turned down by Old-Smith Brothers.... That gave him suddenly a wild idea. He certainly wanted to write a book....
Mr. Old-Smith exploded gaily with:
“Fancy you remembering all that all these years!”... It appeared then that they had had exactly the same discussion in Indianapolis.... He had added: “If our car had been called the ‘Allard-Smith Car’ there would be some reason in the directors going by that name. As it’s the ‘Monckton’ it would be stupid....”
Mr. Old-Smith had promised his host’s charming secretary not to stay more than ten minutes — five for him and five for his friend Mr. Crape who had an important proposition to make to him. He knew how valuable Mr. Al... Mr. Smith’s time was. He had suffered himself too much from talkative intruders not to.
He went off into an elaborate explanation of why he was there. He began by relating how bad things were in the American publishing trade — and, in order to account for that he described lengthily how bad they were in the United States. He said that Mr. Smith could have no idea....
At that Henry Martin asked several questions and Mr. Old-Smith went off into a violent denunciation of the President of the United States whom he wished to see impeached and then hung. He said he knew it was bad form to denounce the Chief Executive because theoretically he could not answer back. But the President was certain to stand for a new term and he was practically stumping the country already.... That let Mr. Old-Smith out. The President had been elected as a Big Business man by the Big Business men of the country. The first time Big Business had actually got into the White House. And look what he had done to business!... He would give Mr. Smith an example. The other day a biggest-seller, a real topnotcher and well in the public eye, had come into the office and said: “Say, Tubal Cain, ladle us out a grand or two.”
“I,” Mr. Old-Smith said, “asked what he had done to call for so much dough?”... The fellow’s name had been Baker. Baker had said he guessed “Pruins and Prisms,” his last best-seller, had entitled him to that moderate loan. “I,” Mr. Old-Smith said, “sent for my books and there — though all the booksellers in the country returned his book at the head of their lists — I was able to prove to him that he hadn’t a hundred dollars to come.... You should have seen his face...
It became evident that Mr. Old-Smith had really business in mind — that he had introduced not only the anecdote of Mr. Baker but the attack on the President — which certainly was in pretty bad taste, considering that Henry Martin passed for a foreigner.... But Business is Geschaft! — he had introduced those topics solely in order to break to Hugh Monckton the news that he wasn’t prepared to pay Hugh Monckton anything like the rate that four years ago in Indianapolis he had promised him....
So the interview proceeded along lines to which Henry Martin was accustomed enough. And it gave him all the pleasure that remembrance can give. It gave almost exactly the impression of the interviews that, as his father’s drummer, he had had with heads of important firms anywhere between Indianapolis itself and Springfield, Ohio....
From time to time Mr. Crape, reposing in his deck chair and smoking a long cigar, would interrupt Mr. Old-Smith who in his eagerness bumped up and down on a green garden-seat, with:
“Listen, old friend, we’ve promised Mr. Smith not to take up more than ten minutes of his time!”... but on Mr. Old-Smith would go about the philanthropic, financial, or publicity aspects of his proposal. And Henry Martin imagined that he would not have minded if Mr. Old-Smith had gone on for ever.... This at least was life....
In these interviews neither of the disputants thinks of listening for a moment to the other’s dissertations. Each takes the stand, delivers an oration; stands down for the other to speak, and then again gets up and adds to his last remarks....
For Henry Martin, the Mediterranean had suddenly become Lake Michigan. He had been driving with Eudoxie — as he had so often driven with his first wife! — round and round in the vast plains that surround the dreaming spires of the Spearmint building — though for all he knew other cathedrals now overtopped and dwarfed that frame.... Eudoxie had gone to the Blackstone, and there he was in a twelfth floor office listening to the proposals of a magnate who proposed to take over the whole products of Pisto-Brittle in that region.... He was sitting back, luxuriously idle, looking over the sunlit waters of the Lake, conscious that he had nothing to do or say but, at the end of every three or five minutes of talk, to issue a flat: “Non possumus!”—”Nothing doing!” So his adversary would go on in his arguments, flying like a pigeon, round and round its cote.... Until at last he came down to hard tacks Henry Martin just had to sit still and say:
“Oh, you know... I’m not a writing fellow.... Not really to say an author....”
And then a long time after, when Mr. Old-Smith had advanced his offer from $3,000 to $3,500 for all rights and had expressed his sense of outrage that a gentleman who at a banquet to his father should have promised to write something, should, now that he was infinitely more famous, declare that he had never had any intention of writing anything at all — a proceeding that was certainly not jake — Henry Martin had only to say:
“You know, old bean, there are days when one talks through one’s hat.... You forget that we were looking upon good wine that was red... He took it that that Indianapolis club had got round the 18th Amendment! Mr. Old-Smith leant forward in his chair to say:
“Ah, you remember my Château Mouton Rothschild 1906.... I devoted my last three pre-war bottles to you and Sir Monckton...
Henry Martin had only to say:
“And damn good of you.... One doesn’t forget a vintage like that.”
People change as times go on... and the confusion of the English and American languages aided in the deception. Half the cultivated Americans that he had known in Europe tried to talk and gradually did talk more and more like English people, and all the English people that he had ever known — outside Cardiff barracks of course — had picked up with avidity every American colloquialism they could get hold of — either to shew how smart they were or because they found it picturesque and agreeable to say “cent” when they meant “ha’penny” or “all set” instead of “ready.”
He himself had over and over again been taken, in the old days, for English — in bars, at restaurant tables or in railway cars where every other occupant had been honest-to-God sons of Old Glory — and he had himself just as often taken honest-to-God Americans for quite hard-boiled Cockneys.... Mr. Crape, lounging, in his brown English-made clothes, in his deck chair, was looking at nothing but his cigar ash with any interest. He might well have been an English artist with money who should have spent most of his youth at the Beaux Arts in Paris.... It was extraordinarily English to spend a quarter of an hour gazing fixedly at a cigar ash. You would say that no one born out of hearing of Bow Bells could have done it....
