Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (214 page)

“I’m an owl, I suppose,” she said, “for I don’t see it.”

He patted her on the hand.

“I’d hate it if you did,” he answered. “It’s a blighting sort of knowledge that I wish I had not got to have myself. But there it is!”

He tapped her knuckles with his pencil.

“It’s like this,” he explained. “What’s wanted is to keep Kelleg shares in the public eye. They go down when it’s reported that Kelleg’s dead; they go up when it’s reported that he’s alive. Well now, someone makes something out of each of those ups and downs. But what’s wanted is a downward tendency — not too swift just now, because they’re not ready.”

“But why?” she asked.
“Why
a downward tendency? They’d lose, wouldn’t they?”

“You dear!” he answered.

After a moment he continued:

“Now, let’s read the next sentence. ‘
On Monday you will declare unofficially that J. C. K. died by his own hand. Upon fall of shares in London markets you will purchase every purchasable cent’s worth.
‘“

“
I
am
an owl,” she said again. But, holding her head on one side, she touched suddenly her dark, smooth hair at the back. “Why!” she ejaculated.

He uttered: “Yes: you see the key.’
On Tuesday we shall declare the dividend of
17 1/2
 
per cent, for the year of the whole combine. You will realise, upon the rising market, at your own discretion
.”

“
Oh!” she said, and a certain light came into her dark eyes. He took it for anger, and tenderly stroking her hand he whispered:

“Of course it’s abominable to bring you into contact with these things....”

He looked round upon the comfortable, severe, darkened scholar’s dining-room. He touched the red velvet of the sofa: his artist’s eyes were gladdened with the Grecian bust of Aphrodite upon the black marble mantelpiece, by the large photographs of the Forum and by the shining clock that stood, as if dubiously hidden, against the light, between the two tall windows. It was symbolic — because Time, there, was not the important matter: the last thing you did was to look at the clock. And it shocked him subconsciously that
he
should be bringing her into level with the times. But after all, as he considered, if they were making acquaintance with
that
sort of thing they were doing it in order to fight in the interests of
this
sort of thing.

“It
is
degrading...” he was beginning, but she interrupted him with animation and gratitude.

“It is very
interesting
,” she said. “It is not exactly the thing for a lady to understand. But so many women have to look out for themselves nowadays.”

“Your Aunt Emmeline?” he suggested.

She nodded and added: “Let me see if I
really
understand it.”

She referred again to the paper. “Your father’s associates are not — are not simply interested in the sales of what they manufacture, as one would expect of them. They’re more interested in the price of their own shares. Then they do not hold all their shares?”

“Heaven knows what they hold,” he said. “Perhaps not three penn’orth at this moment.”

“But if...” and she laid her hand on his as the luminous idea came to her, “if they can make a fuss about your father they will call attention to the shares. And if they can put it about that your father committed suicide, the people who hold the shares will think he did it because the — the companies are ruined and he knew it.” He nodded at her reasoning. “And these people will sell their shares for very little money. And your father’s associates, who know that a very big profit has been made last year, will buy these shares for almost nothing?” He nodded again enthusiastically. “So that, when your father’s associates declare that dividend the shares will go up to huge prices, and they will hold the shares, and they’ll take nearly all the huge profits of the dividend and then sell the shares again at a very high price...”

“You make me frightened,” he laughed at her. “You’ve a perfect genius for finance.”

“So that” — she ignored his sarcasm—” they’ll have made a large amount of money and done nothing, and have just as many shares as before.” She was silent for a moment, taking in the vastness of the idea.

“So that’s the sort of thing that goes on,” she said.

“That sort of thing goes on, year in, year out. My father did nothing else all his life after he’d made his first start.” — .

“But the little speculators — they’ll find out now,” she said.

“The little speculators never find out,” he answered. “It’s done every year: it’s been done every year in full view of everybody and nobody ever grows wiser.”

She reflected again for a moment, and then she said: “What’s to become of Aunt Emmeline?”

“I shall have to lend her something to carry on with,” he said.

She made a quick movement of repulsion.

“You can’t! She’s a lady. I can’t have my relations sponging on you for
money.”

“My dear,” he answered gravely, “that’s the whole thing. She’s a lady — but she’s a fool. I shan’t be lending to the lady but to the fool.” He paused again for a moment. “It’s inevitable. Don’t you see? She has not been buying shares. If she had she could hold on to them till they rose. But she has not. She’s got nothing to hold on to. She’ll have to go on dropping money into this well until its water rises and comes back to her reach again.”

“It’s degrading,” she answered.

He said, gravely still:

“Yes, everything’s degrading — to a lady. But I daresay she didn’t understand.” And, after a moment, he added: “You said, a moment ago, that with so many women about who’ve got to look after themselves it’s time women understood this sort of thing. It
is.”

“But if they understand — they’re degraded,” she said.

He caught her up with:

“That’s the question of the whole theory of education.
Does
the degradation come with the knowledge or with the action? It’s like a cheap debating society’s thesis. But if your aunt had understood what she was up to she probably would not have been the fool she has been...

“You see, my dear,” he added, “it’s a question of a whole social side. This sort of thing...” and he waved his hand abroad to the clock, the silver candlesticks, the bust on the mantelpiece and the beautifully polished steel fireirons that stood in the high steel fender. “This sort of thing is beautiful, but it’s expensive. If women have to have this sort of thing, to lead this splendid, cloistral life, someone’s got to provide the investments in Consols to do it on. It’s a divine ideal: it’s you. But you represent all that your fathers have scraped together — or a pretty good share of it...”

“I don’t see what you’re getting at,” she said.

“We’re getting at the fact that you’re the most beautiful thing the world’s produced,” he said.

“But the world’s changing so fast,” she said, with her little mouthing of pleasure.

“No, no,” he said quickly. “An ideal does not change.”

She kissed him for that, but while she kissed him she said:

“But I’m changing. I’ve learnt an infinite amount this very afternoon.”

With his arm round her fine waist he uttered his confession of faith:

“No: you haven’t changed. It cannot affect
you.
You’re cast in too hard a mould.” It was, literally, the hardness of her clean drawn figure, her stays beneath his hand, that had suggested the idea to him. She gave exactly that impression of perfection that could not be damaged. Her bust with its fine rounding, her skirts with their fine, long lines, her clearly moulded cheeks with their fine, dark colour, the clear outlines of her hair — all these things that he so much admired made him eloquent to say: “It isn’t you that are in any danger. You’ll always see the ugliness of what my father stood for. It’s your business to be a shining example; it’s your business to teach the Aunt Emmelines of this world what to avoid. You’ve taught me so much....”

She denied, with a happy and credulous blush, that she had ever taught him anything.

“Not in words,” he conceded. “But merely to look at you is enough!”

He moved away from her and leant back in the corner of the sofa, his hands clasped behind his head. He looked at her. “That’s enough,” he said, “to teach me volumes and volumes!”

She made a little, obvious, pleased retort, and he continued speculatively:

“I’d be an absolute fool if I did not learn from being with you how to live the best sort of life. Just as we should be fools if we could not learn from that Venus” — and he pointed to the Aphrodite that, with vacant, dreaming eyes and clear-cut, vaguely smiling lips, confronted a whole vision world from the black polished mantel—” a whole side of beauty in Art and life.”

“All the same,” she said, “I am corrupted. I’m perfectly itching to know more about your father — and what he did — and what you’re going to do, and all the sort of thing that people like that
do
do.”

He unclasped his hands a little unwillingly and, leaning forward, used them to emphasise his meanings.

“No, that is not corruption in you,” he said. “It’s the call of duty. If there were not men in the world like my father, and if there were not affairs like my father’s, people like you would be able to live your beautiful cloistral lives without having to bother about American business methods. Well, it’s our affair — yours and mine — to drive that sort of thing out of the world.”

With a sudden access of fury he slapped one fist into the palm of his other hand.

“And, by Jove,” he said, “I’ve got a chance to cripple
one
Trust, and I’m — going — to — do — it!” The animation dropped from his voice, and he leaned once more in his corner of the large sofa.

“After that’s done,” he said, “we shall come back here and pick up — no, not the pieces but the whole — of the life we intended to lead, and you’ll forget everything of this, and I shall be able again to do, as I’m desperately wanting to do now — just to look at you leading your beautiful life as if nothing had ever happened to it.”

“But does not everything that happens modify one’s life for ever?” she asked.

“Only in novels,” he said. “You’ve got to look at it in a different way. There’s one’s life — and there’s the accidental life that goes on all round-one. If you go to a garden-party it doesn’t affect your life in this house: you go out for an hour and a half, that’s all. If I’m painting a picture and I find the canvas is not quite properly stretched I go down into the basement and borrow a hammer from the caretaker of the studio. I come back and tap in the wedges of the stretcher behind the canvas. But that does not modify the picture. It’s an excursion. And our excursion to the new world is just going down into the basement to borrow a hammer.” He paused to survey her unconvinced face. “Only, my love,” he said, “I’ve
got
the hammer. My father’s left it me. All I’ve to do is tap the wedges!” She took up again the cable that lay upon the sofa between them. She did not wish to continue the arguments, either as to whether she remained uncorrupted or as to whether you can change and not change. She said: —

“You’ve explained ‘Who it’s from?’ and a good deal of ‘What it really means?’ but you have not at all told me ‘What are you going to do?’”

He had a great deal of patience even in a contest of wills like this with her, but he pleaded for grace at this.

“It’ll bore you to hear it twice,” he said. “I shall have to tell it all to your father. Let’s wait till then.” It was her father’s polite practice at halfpast six to enter the dining-room when his daughter’s suitor was there, and to address to him a certain number of remarks. If, on the other hand, the young couple wished to be alone they retired to a room more private, and Mr Greville, after peeping through the half-opened door, would, in his turn, retire once more to his study till dinner-time. It was with reference to this established custom that she said: