Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (381 page)

Suddenly Mr Everard heard a high scream for help. It was immediately quenched and succeeded by the sound of a heavy body being thumped against something. There followed a violent sobbing and then another scream. There was not the least doubt that it came from the last cottage but one. The door was ajar, the window quite open. There came a crash and a voice in harsh accents of rage. Mr Everard sighed and then ran in at the door.

The white face, the green eyes and the orange-red hair of a young woman in a bright green dress embroidered round the shoulders, struck him as exactly resembling those of a medieval virgin he remembered to have seen in some picture gallery. The white, oak table was overturned, and across the floor from a broken jar there extended the long stem of a madonna lily.

“My dear!” Mr Everard exclaimed. “What on earth’s the matter?”

“Matther enough,” the lady exclaimed, “and him telling me to my face that he wants to go off with Mrs Johnson.”

Mr Everard’s eyes rested upon the figure of a very spindley young man with dishevelled, pale hair, who was leaning against the wall for support and feeling at his throat.

“He doesn’t
look
like a Don Juan,” Mr Everard said. “I don’t believe there’s room for any harm in him.”

“Harm!” the lady said. “Cora Johnson has put the comether upon him so that he follows her about like a lamb after the feeding-bottle.”

Slow tears gathered in the young man’s eyes. They descended his cheeks and dropped heavily on to his smock frock.

“Look at him!” his wife exclaimed. “Isn’t he the figure of scorn? And her so unhappy, you’ll hear him sighing in a minute. And is it her being unhappy that’s to rob me of my man who brought me all the way from Donegal, him being come seeking Celtic melodies and saying he’d wipe the flure of Heaven wid his hair and calling me Beata Beatrix by Rossetti, of which the picture hangs up there and keeping always a lily in the room summer and winter alike.”

Mr Everard’s eyes wandered to the picture above the mantel-piece. It was a reproduction in colours representing a placid lady in an ecstatic attitude. She had red hair and a green flowing dress, and Mr Everard at once recognised that this was the portrait of the lady of which he had thought on entering.

“So your husband’s a poet?” Mr Everard said.

“A poet he is,” she answered, “and he says he sees the pity of things. The pity of things! Sorrow take the day that he brought me away from my own country where my father had the purtiest cabin and three pigs and a cow to his name. The pity of things!” she continued. “Well, ‘tis a fine pity but other folk might miscall it another name. ‘There’s Cora Johnson sorrowing,’ he says, ‘and there’s Mr Johnson gone making the tower of France with Mabel Hewlett, the girl with black eyes and a scrawny neck and them two sleeping in the open air in trees or under rugs as it may be. And then there’s....”“

“But for goodness’ sake, my dear lady, don’t tell me any more, I don’t want to know any more. I thought there were rules against that sort of thing.”

“Sir,” the young man bleated suddenly, “the agreement between me and my wife was that we were both of us to be perfectly free, and Cora Johnson is so unhappy....”

“
Yes, hear him!” his wife said. “Well, that was the agreement, but I’ve changed my mind. It’s a woman’s privilege to change her mind. I’m not wanting to be free myself, and I’ll wipe the flure with him seven and seventy times before he shall hear another of Cora Johnson’s gurgly groans.”

“Well, I daresay it’s very good for him,” Mr Everard said. “You keep it up. But for Heaven’s sake aren’t there rules against these things?”

“Mister,” she said, “there’s a rule here that you must show your marriage lines when you come, and there’s a rule against men taking up with women in the lawful lines of matrimony without the consent of all the other weak-kneed beasts. But there’s no rule against one man sitting with another man’s wife in the heather and squeezing her band in the light of the moon.”

“Good Lord!” Mr Everard said. “Poor Luscombe made all the rules he could think of. I suppose it passed his decent mind....” He paused for a moment. “Look here,” he said. “Take your husband away.”

“I mean to,” she answered.

“Take him to Galway. Lock him up in a cabin and give him pens and paper and only let him out when you’re walking at his side.”

“I mean to,” she answered.

“Well, then, there’s the whole thing fixed up,” Mr Everard said. “What we have got to avoid — what we’ve got to avoid above all things is scandal.”

“To avoid scandals!” the lady exclaimed. “I’ll give you scandals. The whole world shall ring with scandals. Is it me not to get my kerufe into that long-necked, blackeyed Cora Johnson! Sorrow o’ me, I’ll expose them. I’ll expose them all and their secret nasty ways. Is it me to be ashamed by the affections of my man being taken from me by a woman with a sorrow on her!”

“Oh, but,” Mr Everard said, “we’ve got to stop scandals. We’ve got to keep things from getting out. You don’t want to give pain to a whole lot of people.”

“And what for no?” the representation of Beata Beatrix exclaimed, setting her arms akimbo in her green dress. “If pain’s been given to me, why will I not give pain to other people?”

“Oh, but,” Mr Everard said, “ — if the gentleman will promise never to see the lady again — and if you take him away over the water, don’t you see...?”

The lady screwed her green eyes into a small compass while she reflected. “Oh, if the poor weak-kneed thing’ll promise that....” she said. “But sure, I’ll have some of Cora Johnson’s hair off her head...”

“Oh, come, come!” Mr Everard said. “If he’s such a worm as you make him out, I can’t understand why you should make such a fuss about it.”

“It isn’t him,” the lady answered. “It’s her. It’s the shame of the likes of her being preferred to the likes of me. Look at me!” and she spread her broad chest out and elevated her long white neck. “That whimpering day-old kitten is to be preferred to me because of the pity of things. We’ll be having it said next that he courted me for pity. That’s the shame of it.”

“But, my dear madam?” Mr Everard said. “No one could ever say of you that you needed pity. On the contrary, it’s probable that he came to you for help. People will say that you are the strong character of the two.”

“And is it making me out a ramping, raging virago that you’re after?” the lady said, “when all the world knows that I’ve the tenderest heart in my bosom as ever was in any woman that came out of books and ballads and plays?”

“Madam,” Mr Everard said, “what I was trying to say was that you are the perfect woman of the poet’s dream. Byron, wasn’t it, who said something about it? Strong when you’re wanted to be strong, and like a clinging vine at all other times, and always sensible and virtuous.”

“Come now, that’s better,” the lady said, “though I’d like to know who’s been after questioning my virtue?”

“Good heavens!” Mr Everard said. “I mentioned your virtuous character only because I saw it in your eyes.”

A sudden light came over the lady’s face.

“You’re Mr Everard, aren’t you?” she said. Aren’t you the one that’s going to give Ophelia Bransdon a dancing place? Well now, look here, I’ve always thought I’d be fine as an actress woman. Give me a place at your theatre and we’ll say no more about this matter.”

A certain panic came into Mr Everard’s face and eyes.

“But, but—” he said. “How do I know you can act?”

That however was only the stumble of a moment. If there was one thing in the world Mr Everard was used to, it was being asked by ladies for a place upon his boards.

“Of course,” he said, “that’s a thing that we might think about. But in that case, you understand, there can’t possibly be any talk of scandals. That’s absolutely essential.”

A certain disappointment showed itself in the lady’s green eyes.

“You mustn’t, I mean,” Mr Everard continued, “think of damaging — Mrs Johnson’s hair. You understand, I know my business and if anything of that sort happened; what you want would be out of the question.”

“But I don’t see—” the lady was beginning.

“Oh, of course you don’t see,” Mr Everard answered. “But I can’t have any scandals attaching to the Talavera. It doesn’t matter whether you’re on the right side or the wrong side. A scandal’s always a scandal.”

Mr Everard looked at the husband. The young man’s costume and hair seemed to have settled itself down a little, much as a bird’s does after it has been badly ruffled. He had not as yet been able to get a word in, but his mouth had been continually opening as if he lived in hopes.

“Now look here,” Mr Everard said to him, “you just at once promise your good lady to have nothing whatever to do with the other lady. You explain that it was all a mistake. You never did care for — what was the colour of it? — black hair. Red’s been your only taste and still is.”

“But,” the young man began...

“Oh, come along,” Mr Everard said. And with the eye that the lady could not see he winked markedly at the young man. “Come along. Promise never to speak to the lady again and let’s all be nice and happy and kiss and make friends together.”

The lady looked at her husband.

“Ye’d as well promise,” she said, “for if ye speak to Cora Johnson again it’s one or other of you that won’t live beyond the first word.”

“There now!” Mr Everard said. “That’s very proper. That’s what I like to hear. Now you, sir, let’s have your promise. It’s the only way, you see, to get to the end of a very unpleasant scene. Out with it! Come, be a man!”

“But it was agreed between us from the first—” the young man bleated.

“Oh, rot!” Mr Everard exclaimed. “Look here, I can’t stay here all night. Out with that promise or I’ll bang into you myself. You’d better give it. It’s two to one against you.”

The young man wavered but he caught a glimpse of his wife’s eye and suddenly he blurted out, “I promise. Oh, yes, I promise.”

“Come now,” Mr Everard said, “that’s what I like. Now we’re all settled.” He slapped one hand into the other. “Now madam,” he addressed the lady, “the thing to do is for you to go at once to Mr Gubb and give a week’s notice....” To-night’s Saturday night and it’s the proper time for notices. You rim along, my dear, and do it now. No time like the present. And such an energetic and charming lady as yourself should always strike while the iron’s hot. I’ll just stop and give your husband a little fatherly advice. And,” Mr Everard added, “no interviews with the other lady on the road there or back,
‘please.’’

The lady went slowly out of the door, casting a green and slightly ogling glance at Mr Everard as she passed.

“There, there now, that’s fine!” Mr Everard said. He bent corpulently to restore the upset table to its legs. He picked up the lily and the pot that had been cracked in its fall and doing his best to restore their original condition he muttered, “There, there! There’s a pity!” and set them upon the table.

The young man was exclaiming in a voice extremely shrill, agitated and passionate, “I sha’n’t keep that promise, you know.”

“There, there! Of course you won’t,” Mr Everard said. “No one ever does. Why should you?”

The young man’s jaw dropped and his eyes became round. “A man’s a right to do what he likes,” Mr Everard said comfortably. “But if he’s a decent man he’ll do it so that his missus won’t know. Our wives and sweethearts, may they never meet, that’s the ticket!”

The young man’s lip curved inwards with contempt.

“You seem to be a disgusting sort of person,” he said. “Oh Lord!” Mr Everard ejaculated. “I’m not a penny piece better or a penny piece worse than anyone in the whole middle class.”

“Isn’t it disgusting to conceal things?” the young man asked.

“It’s a damn sight more disgusting to talk about them,” Mr Everard answered. “If you can’t behave proper — and some of us can’t — what the devil do you want to go and talk about it for? It’s like being dirty at your meals.”