Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (279 page)

Again Margaret said —

“Mother..

But the greatness of her emotions found words for Mrs. Todd.

“And oh,” she said, “I shall never see my man again. I feel it in my bones, and you feel it too. It’s in the room; it’s all around us. You know I am a Campbell of Glen Tir, and all those Campbells have the second sight. Your father would never let me speak of it, but I have it..

In the word”
Mother!
” that came from -Margaret there was a note of anguish and alarm — of anguish at the thought that some calamity had indeed overtaken her father, and of alarm at hearing her mother — dumb for so long — speak her thoughts so suddenly.

“When I was a child,” Mrs. Todd said, with a dry dignity, “I saw the spell hanging over both your grandfathers before they died: their double gangers I saw, and they died. And when your father went out with that man — why I remember I had felt like a girl just before, seeing the chapel where I was wed and all — I saw just such a thing going beside your father, only what it was I could not see plainly; it was like a cloud, or maybe a tree...”

Margaret stood up so suddenly that her drawing-board fell to the ground: on it, plain in the black and white, the figure of the lady with the parasol appeared to be marching towards the door.

“Don’t”
she said. “There’s no such thing as second sight.”

“Child,” old Mrs. Todd answered, “there are many things that you do not know in this world.”

She was silent for a minute, shaking her head.

“And you marked,” she said, “or perhaps you did not” (if Margaret bad never heard her mother speak in this way, first the Scotch Alice who had been their servant for thirty years, and then little Milly with the smutty face, had heard something like it often enough)—”
he
said that sometimes man and wife are not one. And he meant that Todd and I were not, and he said it to Todd, and that he would reward me, and not Todd. Your father said that his Highness was pleased to be pleasant, but I knew he was grim.”

“Oh, it’s all nonsense, mother,” Margaret said; “you could not have found a kinder man to you and me and Arthur.”

“To you and me and Arthur,” Mrs. Todd said, “but not to him. Didn’t I heed his words?”

She gazed down on her mittened hands, on which her wedding-ring gleamed large through the black lace.

“Perhaps it’s true,” she said, “and him and me were never one. At times it’s seemed so; at times it’s seemed as if I were his dog rather than his own rib. And it’s been so always from the first I ought never to have wed him, being so much older than he, and he was always a man for the lassies, minister though he was.”

She suddenly wrung her hands, whilst Margaret grew pallid at these revelations, for they were revelations to her.

“I ought never to have wed him,” Mrs. Todd said; “but he had need of my siller, and, having it, he played the brute with me. Mark what I say, child, and thank God ye’re wedding a kindly fellow. For — if it be blasphemy in me to say though I do not believe it be — your father’s Providence — the Providence that he spoke of, but did never put his trust in — that Providence was never mine. No, he had no fear of God, neither regarded man, for I have heard him blaspheme through the long night... But oh!” she said, “it’s the not knowing, it’s the not knowing...”

“But, mother...” Margaret said, “if he was a man like that...” and she leaned against the wall beside the mantelpiece, feeling for support, her face white and with a sick look—”if he was a man like that, isn’t this then the reward?”

“Oh, yes, it’s the reward!” Mrs. Todd said. “And he was a man like that, and worse. Who is there that knows what women suffer except it be God?”

“But, mother,” Margaret said, “why should you want him back?” She pursed her lips till the red of them disappeared. “If this is your reward, take it.” Her eyes looked venomous. “If that is the man he was, let him rot!”

Her mother suddenly moved herself from one side of the chair to the other.

“What do you and what does he understand of the heart of a woman?” she said. “How we live with these men that break our hearts while they live, and break our hearts when they die! We suffer with them; we cannot live without them. Oh!” she said, “if God were good to us, he would give to women children that were always babes, for when they grow it is all sorrow. And, oh!” she cried out again, “give him back to me; let me hear him speak but ten words, and let me for all my life after be his slave, to put the food into his mouth, to warm his feet when they are cold, to mend his clothes. Give him to me but for that....”

From beside the mantelpiece Margaret’s eyes grew large with horror; she pointed a pallid hand, the arm extended and rigid, towards the window.

“I have done nothing to be ashamed of, mark that!” came with a husky threatening from the dark space between the curtains, and, falling like a hewn tree-trunk to the ground, the missionary’s head struck the floor. He lay there motionless, his eyes gazing at the sunflower of painted plaster that, in the ceiling, surrounded the top of the chandelier. After a little his fingers moved convulsively, like an unweaned child’s, out and in to the palms of his hands.

CHAPTER V
I

INTO the room where Lord Aldington was interviewing the Prince — it was small in comparison with the editorial saloon, brightly lit with more garish light globes, and contained, until Lord Aldington ejected them, a decorative lady and an industrious young man at a typewriting machine — Arthur Bracondale came hurriedly. Lord Aldington, appearing in the smaller room very big, flushed, and lit up, had his mouth open as if he were uttering an incredulous expostulation, for his eyes were wide and directed intently at the Prince’s necktie.

“Alfred Milne seems very ill,” Bracondale said. “Shall I take him home?”

The Prince said —

“Wait. I will ask you some questions”; and to Bracondale’s half-uttered “But...’’of expostulation he returned —

“This man’s malady must run its appointed course: it will be better neither here nor elsewhere till the time comes, for so these things are appointed.”

And at this view of a malady Lord Aldington seemed to shrink a little. But, as if to throw himself into a new subject, he said to the dark boy with the thin moustache —

“The Prince declares that he has changed your missionary friend into...” He broke off, and then added —

“I don’t want to be rude. I want, on the contrary... But... I ask a plain and direct question. I have the right to ask it The disappearance of Mr. Todd, a public servant, is a matter of public interest The paper is quite ready to take it up... to give it prominence.”

Arthur Bracondale wavered visibly between his adherence to the Prince and his allegiance to the great man.

“It’s like a nightmare!” he said suddenly, and suddenly he sat down near the door.

“But” — Lord Aldington directed his vigour to him—”surely you can speak! You can give an account What do you say? You are acquainted with this gentleman? What does he mean? Is it that he is imperfectly acquainted with the English tongue? What is it?”

Bracondale wiped his brow.

“If the Prince,” he said, “wants me to say what I believe, I believe...” — and after a pause he brought out—”You’ll think I’m mad; it will ruin me. But I believe it’s true.”

And suddenly, leaning his forehead upon one hand, he burst into tears; his black figure, with the black hair, the white shirt front, and the white face presenting an odd resemblance to that of a prodigal, but repentant, gambler.

“I don’t know,” he said bitterly at the carpet; “I’m not an expert in these things. But there’s the man gone; there’s the extra bay tree; there’s his Highness’s statement; there’s all that his Highness has done. What am I to make of it?...”

And then he turned his wet cheeks to the Prince.

“I wish,” he said, “you’d let the man come back. It’s miserable there with Mrs. Todd crying all day. I get away from it, but it’s wretched for Margaret.”

“My friend,” the Prince said, “is it not for the good of this woman that her husband is wrapped away from her?” Arthur Bracondale looked up; he set his hands upon his knees, and before the benignant air of his hero he took courage.

“No,” he said, “I don’t believe it is. I’ve wanted to get to you to say it. The old lady will never get over it. She’ll be miserable all her life.”

“I believe,” the Prince said, “that you are in the right.”

“I’m perfectly sure I am,” Arthur Bracondale said. And something in his voice and air confirmed Lord Aldington — it was the only thing that he really got hold of in the conversation — that Arthur Bracondale was exactly the man for the
Daily Outlook.
He could imagine the young man confronting, say, a Cabinet Minister, and doing it pluckily and bravely, at an interview.

“After all,” he was continuing, “a woman’s like a dog. If you beat her long enough she’ll miss the beating. There’s a proverb: ‘A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree, The more you beat them the better they be.’ And,” he added with a sort of wondering and timid braveness, “it astonishes me that you haven’t enough knowledge of human nature to see it. You know so much.”

“My friend,” the Prince said gravely, “in your unwisdom you speak words of great wisdom. For if I, or if any of the Gods, had that knowledge in them, Gods should not be Gods, or men would not be men. For a God will set the rays of the sun to shine down, and they shine down, and he will set the water of rivers to flow, of the rains to fall, and they will flow and fall. He will also set the beasts to increase and multiply, each after its kind, and they will do it But, having given to man life and a body and dominion over the earth and. the produce of the earth, having given him reason and the power to turn all these things to benefits and pleasures, what does the God see: that the benefits and pleasures become plagues and scourges, and that that reason which should set a woman to rejoice in her liberty becomes instead an instrument to make her like the beasts that are taught fidelity with blows.”

“I say,” Lord Aldington interrupted, “what is all this leading up to?”

“It is leading up to this,” the Prince said, “that when a God will benefit he will benefit. Of that you have had many proofs upon earth, and this woman is assuredly beloved of the Gods for her faith, her humility, and her love of service.”

“But what are you going to
do?”
Lord Aldington said. “I hope if you’re going to let the man return home, you’ll let us have private advice of it first.”

“I shall do nothing,” the Prince said, “for what is done is done.”

“Of course,” Aldington continued, “the disappearance of a man like this missionary is not worth much to us unless it is properly worked up; and, frankly speaking, the cost of working it up and the space that it occupies...”

“My friend,” the Prince said, “you may dismiss this topic from your mind as being of service for your journal. For this man is already in his own house.”

“At
hornet
” Arthur Bracondale exclaimed, and instinctively he started towards the telephone on the typewriter’s table.

“But how do you
know
the man is at home?” Lord Aldington asked irritably. “I do wish we could get at something definite.”

“Sir,” the Prince answered him, “you shall have these definite and assured facts. Whilst here we have been talking, this woman prayed to me in these words: ‘Give him back to me; let me hear him speak but ten words, and let me for all my life after be his slave.’”

“But that’s all nonsense,” Lord Aldington said; his tone was at once outraged and avidly credulous. “It’s worse than the Krakroffs! Why, if you can do that you can do anything.” And he desired at once to put the thing out of his mind as an evil thought, and to hear so much more of it as would convince him. He rubbed his large hands nervously together and gazed at the Prince’s tie. He persuaded himself that it was a sense almost of guilt that would not let him raise his glance to the Prince’s face: for a tremendous thought, a tremendous beginning of a desire, was in his mind.

“It’s more than the Krakroffs claim,” he repeated.

“It is more than the Krakroffs claim,” came to him in tones that seemed, in the blaze of light in the small room, as incongruous as the idea itself. “But is it not my function to attend to the voices of those I love?’

“But what have you
done?”
Arthur Bracondale said. He was half-way towards the telephone that he was unwilling to use without its proprietor’s permission.

“I have done this,” the Prince answered. “I have given her husband back to this woman, and with these alternatives. For you will observe that she said: ‘Give him back to me.’ That I have done. Then she said:

‘Let him speak but ten words to me,’ and that too I have permitted. But though I am willing to give her back her husband, I am less willing to give him back to himself. And I have set this proviso to this boon, that if in the ten few words that are granted to him there be one spark of contrition, of affection for this woman, or of thought for any being than himself in the universe — though it were but for a dog, a horse, or a courtesan — he should live again the life of this earth, revelling in the heat of the sun, the savour of meats, and the use of speech and hearing. But if these ten words be spent upon himself, then he shall be — for as long as this woman sees the light of day — like a new-born child, so that it shall be accomplished to the letter as this woman prayed to me, that for all her life she shall be his slave, to put the food into his mouth, to warm his feet when they be cold, and to tend his clothes!”

Lord Aldington suddenly covered his eyes with one hand.

“Isn’t that... isn’t that a terrible thing?” he said. “Sir,” — he got his answer—”the justice of Heaven is a very terrible thing.”

“But to be useless, to be speechless, to be a log in one’s wife’s hands!” the man said.

“Sir,” — the words came to him—”this is a thing that will be very precious to the wife of the man. For you will observe that if this man had uttered one word of selflessness out of ten at this grave moment of his life that would have been an indication that there was hope; or if there had been one word of praise to God. But since there has been no such word, it is evident that, in this priest without faith, in this man without sweetness, there is no hope at all of amendment.”

“But,” Lord Aldington said, “you mean to say that he is doomed?”

“Ho is doomed,” he got his answer.

Lord Aldington stepped suddenly to the light-switch by the door.

“This glare’s too much for my eyes,” he said, and suddenly shadow descended from above their heads, so that there remained beneath a deep green shade of the light on the typewriter’s table only one globe that illuminated brightly the machine, with its pillars like the tiny pipes of an organ, and the mouth of the telephone receiver that seemed to open and to await the lips of a speaker.

“You know,” Lord Aldington said, “this thing can be tested.” And he added sharply to Bracondale —

“Here, you!...” But he stopped and then brought out —

“No; I’ll do it myself. What’s their number?” But then again he added, “No; I’ll do it myself. You might put me on to a confederate.”

He crossed to the telephone, pushing Bracondale out of the way.

“Here, you!” he shouted into the receiver; “find me Todd the missionary’s number, and get me on to it — like lightning. I’m the Chief!”

He sat on a little stool, silent, listening, leaning his head to one side, the light strong upon him. Then he turned it away so that it shone upon the wall. The silence seemed endless, and he drummed his thick finger-ends unceasingly on the table, the beat of them growing faster and faster, dying down and then growing faster again. In the reflected light his face had a set ferocity of enraged hope. Suddenly he cried out —

“Who are you?” — and a look of cunning came into his eyes.

He heard a girl’s tones, thin and distant, say “I’m Margaret Todd. Who are you?” and he answered into the black mouthpiece —

“I’m Arthur... Arthur Bracondale.... Has he come back?...”

The thin and ghostly sound thrilled to him with agitation and horror that he thought he could gauge as genuine —

“He’s come back; he fell suddenly into the room. Oh, Arthur: he’s senseless; he’s like a log; only his fingers move....”

Aldington set the ear-piece on the table, as if he had had enough; then as suddenly he put it to his ear again.

“Give me all the details,” they heard him cry; and then again, “What did he say?” and again, “Nothing more?” Then he hung the ear-piece on to its hook.

He stood up and, leaning against the table, drew a huge breath.

“What do you claim to be?” he said.

“I am Phoebus Apollo, the son of Maia,” came to his ears from the shadows of the room.

“But what sort of a man do you claim to be?” he said. “What sort of an advertisement do you want us to give you? Are you behind the Krakroffs, or what is it?”