Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (429 page)

“Well, I’ve done my best to shield all parties,” the major sighed resignedly. “I was only doing my best for poor Olympia. Because I don’t want her to think I am not a reformed character. I really am.”

The old gentleman continued standing at one end of the carriage.

“Come, sir. The truth!” he exclaimed, and his eyes wandered up to the alarm signal.

“Well, then, this is the exact truth,” the major said. “I am engaged to Miss Peabody of Boston, Massachusetts.”

“A minute ago you said you were engaged to this lady,” Sir Arthur convicted him triumphantly.

“Why, so I did,” the major said pleasantly. “But then I was lying. Now I am telling the truth.”

The old gentleman turned upon Mrs. Kerr Howe. “This appears to be a sordid story, madam,” he said. “But if the matter should come to a breach of promise trial I am at your disposal as a witness that this person said that he was engaged to you.” The major said:

“That’s very amiable of you. But you admitted yourself that everything I was saying then was a pack of lies. Those were your exact words. You can’t have it both ways.”

And Mrs. Kerr Howe exclaimed:

“I beg you not to associate me with anything so vulgar as a breach of promise case. I have other ways of enforcing my rights. I am not the President of the Society for the Reform of Conventional Marriage for nothing. Let me introduce myself. I am Mrs. Kerr Howe, the famous authoress.”

The old gentleman shivered and exclaimed:

“Infamous!”

“The real truth is,” the major continued, “that as I am engaged to Olympia I did not wish to travel down alone in a carriage with a much too attractive lady. So I used what was a little subterfuge, I admit, to provide myself with a chaperon. So that’s the real truth, and I hope you will admit that it was harmless enough.”

“I don’t believe a word of it,” Sir Arthur said. “I’m not accustomed to being called a liar,” the major said angrily. “Damn it, I won’t stand that.” Sir Arthur stretched out his hand to the alarm signal and continued, holding the knob in his hand: “Don’t you try to threaten me, sir. I recognized you from the first for the coward and hired bully that you are. I daresay that my life is in danger, but I am not to be intimidated. I shall say my say come what will. No one ever said that I was wanting in courage. Let me tell you that I recognized your type from the first.”

He paused and pointed an accusing finger at the major.

“You, sir,” he hissed, “are a military character. You, madam, are an immoral authoress pandering to the cryptic and morbid tastes of the day. I quite understand that you have joined causes in this monstrous outrage on myself.” He breathed deeply and continued: “You entice me into this carriage. I am willing to give you the excuse that you are both drunk. I am willing even to admit that you do not mean to rob me or even to assault me. You may want no more than to gloat in some low pot-house with your boon companions over the low trick that you have played on me. I can quite see that your infamous causes of prize-fighter and panderer to the filthy tastes of the day would not be advanced by the report that you had assaulted an old man — a feeble nonagenarian like myself....”

“You’re quite sure that you are talking about us?” the major asked. “It’s certainly more confusing than reading Henry James. It really is.”

The old gentleman really screamed:

“Stop, sir!” he shouted. “If you think that it is humorous to force upon my attention the name of another of your filthy young writers...”

“Young!” the major exclaimed in a puzzled manner. “I thought he was quite old. A classic!”

“Sacred shade of Byron!” Sir Arthur exclaimed. “And you too, sacred name of Walter Scott, that I knew in my childhood! Where are Thackeray and Tennyson, and my good old friend Lewis Morris! That I should have lived ninety years in the land to hear these lewd striplings applauded as classics!”

“But you can’t call that writer a stripling,” the major said. “You could run him three times round a mile course yourself, I would not mind betting.”

“I do call that writer a stripling!” the old man said fiercely. “I do. A purveyor of cryptic and morbid vileness!”

“Now come,” the major said, “I don’t believe you have read a word that was written since Macaulay died.”

“I haven’t, sir,” Sir Arthur exclaimed fiercely. “Not a word. All my efforts since then have been confined to damming up the foul tricklings of that morbid stream. And let me tell you, sir, prizefighter that you are, I should never have lived to this splendid and green old age if I had so befouled my mind.”

“I don’t see why you call me a prize-fighter,” the major said. “Of course it makes things much more amusing. But it’s odd!”

“Of course you are a prize-fighter!” Sir Arthur exclaimed. “What else should you be? Is it not inevitable and demonstrable! You are a military person and you outrage me and you talk of meretricious and obscene tales by young writers and you join in your insult to me with the most meretricious female writer that I have ever heard of — so of course I join you with prizefighters. I do not mean that you have muscle and nerve to stand up against a trained man with your fists. Your unclean living has probably deprived you of those attributes of a man — physical courage and nerves. But you are one of those persons who organize the disgusting exhibitions in which the degenerate descendants of the most infamous type of gladiators...”

“I! Organize a prize-fight!” the major exclaimed. “My God!”

“That is what you do!” Sir Arthur said.

And suddenly Mrs. Kerr Howe cried out:

“The rude old man thinks that you are one of the promoters of the Military Boxing Displays that a lot of silly parsons got stopped!”

“I certainly,” Sir Arthur said, “used all my influence as head of the Quietist Church to get those infamous displays suppressed — that and my efforts to drive foul literature off the bookstalls....”

“Oh, of course,” Mrs. Kerr Howe said. “You are one of the old Pharisees in fig-leaves who tried to get up the boycott of my books. I thought I knew your name!”

“Knew my name!” Sir Arthur suddenly foamed. “This to me — the author of
Economic Ethics and the Modern State!
To me, whom the most eminent statesmen of the nineteenth century were proud to be privileged to consult. To ME!” He choked and once more began to cram his books into his kit-bag. And then he suddenly threw the bag out of the window and pulled the alarm cord. “To me!” he said. “Just Gods! that my only title to fame in this degenerate day should be that I stopped a prize-fight and attempted to cleanse the world of filthy books.” His fury was so terrific that both the major and Mrs. Kerr Howe cowered in their corners whilst he stamped up and down from end to end of the carriage. The train slowed, jolted, ground along the rails and then came to a stop just at a little roadside station. Sir Arthur sprang out and, stamping on the platform, began to shout for the guard. The guard came running up.

“I shall see if the laws of my country will not protect me from such Yahoos,” Sir Arthur hissed back at the carriage. Then he called out: “Guard, arrest these people for drunkenness, the use of obscene language and assault.”

The guard said:

“There, there, Sir Arthur, you know perfectly well I haven’t got the power to arrest anybody. You’ve got to issue a summons, as you usually do.”

“Find me an empty first-class carriage,” Sir Arthur exclaimed majestically, and he began to stalk off up the platform.

The major came to the door of the carriage “You’d better,” he said to the guard, “smell my breath and hear if I can say ‘sixty-six incidentals.’”

The guard said:

“Oh, that’s all right, sir. Very fiery old gentleman, Sir Arthur. This is the third time he stopped the 6.48 this year.” And he shut the door and went up the platform after Sir Arthur.

The engine-driver having stopped the train at a station instead of in the open country, none of the passengers had paid any particular attention to the stoppage, except Miss Flossie Delamare, who came to her window and, leaning out, kissed her hand to the major. He drew his own head in precipitately. For, just as before he had been anxious to be protected from a scene with Mrs. Kerr Howe, now, upon reconsideration, he was anxious for an explanation with her. He wanted to get perfectly settled what she was going to be up to before he got down to his uncle’s.

He pulled up the window and was about to sit down opposite Mrs. Kerr Howe.

“This appears to me,” Mrs. Kerr Howe said, “to be an excellent opportunity for me to have some conversation with Miss Delamare about my play,” and she rose to her feet.

“Oh, come,” the major said, “that can wait. We’ve got to settle about our relationships.”

“They’re settled already,” that lady said. “But of course we must have a talk about them before the day is done,” and vigorously she pushed past him towards the door. He caught hold of her wrist.

“Look here, Juliana,” he said, “I can’t go having
tête-à-têtes
with you in my uncle’s house.”

“It would upset Olympia?” she asked amiably. “It would upset the whole blooming lot,” the major said. “My uncle, my aunt, Olympia, me — everybody.”

She slipped her hand neatly out of his fingers. “Oh, would it?” she said. “Well, I’m afraid they are going to be upset,” and she was gone out of the carriage.

She got hold of a sleepy porter who had been awakened from a nap by the unaccustomed stopping of the mail, and in a minute she had got her dressing-bag and her jewel-case out of the major’s carriage and into Miss Delamare’s. From the door the major could perceive Sir Arthur foaming down the platform like a great white wave. And the major had to do a lot of rapid reflection. In the first place, he knew perfectly well that it would not be the least use getting in with Flossie and Mrs. Kerr Howe. Mrs. Kerr Howe would be talking about her play the whole way down, and that would bore him to extinction. On the other hand, if he didn’t get into the same carriage to check them they would almost certainly compare notes as to his past career, and he didn’t know that he wanted that. He had, of course, to think of poor Olympia’s feelings as much as possible, and he was convinced that Mrs. Kerr Howe would do all that she possibly could to give poor Olympia a lively time. His uncertainty, however, was cut short by the guard, who came running up to beg him to get into the other carriage with his other lady friends, so as to leave Sir Arthur an empty first. And the major, with a good-tempered “Oh, well,” got himself out of his own carriage and into the next. He was just saying cheerfully to Flossie Delamare, “You wicked, abandoned little wretch,” when Sir Arthur, his eyes blazing, his beard working convulsively, thrust his head in at the window and shouted:

“You wicked, abandoned wretch. Don’t think to escape me in this way. You hired bully, you atrocious, drunken sot with your abandoned female companions, the moment I get to my destination I shall issue a summons against you for drunkenness, assault, and the use of obscene language.” His head disappeared like that of a Jack-in-the-box, leaving the guard visible behind him.

“Do you suppose he’ll take out a summons against me?” the major asked.

“He’ll certainly issue it himself,” the guard said. “He’s one of these liberal J.P.’s — precious fond of issuing summonses.” The guard disappeared.

“Drunkenness! Assault! The use of obscene language!” Miss Flossie Delamare laughed. “That’ll make a pretty lively time for poor Olympia when the summons comes on.”

The major said, “Oh, rot!” and then he hurriedly began to talk to her in the hope of heading off Mrs. Kerr Howe.

“You wicked, abandoned little wretch,” he said, “what do you mean by not telling me you were going down to my aunt’s? What do you mean by telling my aunt that you were one of my best friends?”

“Oh well, Teddy,” Miss Delamare said, “if it comes to good wishes, I am sure I’m the best friend you’ve got in the world. And as for taking you in... why, you’re such a precious hand at mystification yourself that it’s a fine old temptation to score off you sometimes.”