Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (432 page)

“There were six thousand miles between us,” the major said grimly.

“And I got to know ten or a dozen officers, and one of them was an old Colonel Sax of your regiment, and they all said you were working very hard. And Colonel Sax said you weren’t a very brilliant officer, but a regular good plodder.”

“Well, that was kind of Colonel Sax,” the major said.

“And then,” Mrs. Foster continued,. “I came upon Miss Flossie Delamare, and afterwards Mrs. Kerr Howe, and then I knew that the sort of women you picked up were quite the nicest sort of women.”

“The devil you did!” the major exclaimed.

“And I knew, or I supposed you were just working up to get Lady Savylle, and I hoped and prayed you would. That I did, when I heard how good you’d been to Miss Delamare and paid her passage back. And I’m sure you had to go to those dreadful Indian money-lenders to do it, and you had to suffer for it afterwards. And then you went to Somaliland and I lost track of you, until I saw in the military information in
The Times
, that you were ordered home. And then I saw in the
Army and Navy Gazette
about your brilliant examination, and that same day you sent Olympia to me and she told me that you were going blind. And then I knew that you would never have your Mary Savylle, after all the way you’d worked and suffered in that sun and that horrible dusty place, and then.. The major sank down in a long deep arm-chair before the fire.

“Olympia was exaggerating,” he said. “I wasn’t going blind. I was only pipped for active service. And I wasn’t engaged to Olympia. I never even thought of it.”

“She said,” Mrs. Foster said vindictively, “that it was practically certain to come, and she showed me that horrid little dog that you had given her, and oh, my boy, my boy, I knew you’d given up.”

“Oh, you mustn’t say that about a man,” the major said, “who was just going to get engaged to a charming lady. That’s the beginning of life, that isn’t chucking up the sponge.”

“But she isn’t your sort, she isn’t your kind; she isn’t meant to make you happy,” Mrs. Foster almost wailed. “And oh, I was desperately unhappy, and I took a stern determination. Yes, I did, a determination. I just set my teeth and I said: ‘My boy shall have a good time now, if he never did in his life.’ And I said I’d get the best house I knew in England for him to spend his last days of freedom in. And I ordered in the best wines and the best cigars, at twelve guineas a hundred — though it was Miss Jenkins that chose them, and she said they were the kind you used to smoke at Thorbury.”

“But, I say, old woman,” the major said, “who is Miss Jenkins? And why did you choose this house of all the houses in the world?”

A look of real triumph charmed in Mrs. Foster’s eyes.

“Ah!” she exclaimed. “I said to myself, ‘If Edward is going to live in prison for the rest of his life, I’m going to let him see his old friends for the last time.’ And so I asked Miss Delamare and Mrs. Kerr Howe because they seemed so fond of you, and I was perfectly determined that I would get Lady Savylle too. And I thought of that plan of getting her Ladyship to let me this house, because I thought it was sure to be full of portraits of her, and remembrances of her. And I was determined to ask her Ladyship to be good enough to come and stop with us while we were here, because you would be the son of the house.”

“I say, old woman,” the major said, “that was an awfully rum thing to do.”

“Well, I did it,” Mrs. Foster said. “I wrote to her Ladyship in exactly, those words. I’ve never seen her herself, but she answered kindly that she couldn’t come and stop with us...”

The major said: “Ah!”

“But that she would leave her own maid to help settle us in, and that she would be coming to stop at the Dower House just at the end of the garden next week.” Mrs. Foster paused to take breath.

“So there you are,” she said; “you will have your old friends and your old wine and your old cigars, and there are six of the best horses that could be got from Whiteleys’. And I forced your uncle to agree to it all, for, I said, if he didn’t, I would take my money out of the business. For my father saw to it that all my money was settled on me, under trustees, with the permission to your uncle to use it as capital, and I said, I take all my money out and come and live down here with you For he and I have lived together twenty-five years, and I don’t see why we shouldn’t separate now. I don’t, for I’ve had a great deal to put up with, though I shouldn’t like anybody else to hear it.... And then your uncle said quite mildly that he didn’t see anything against the scheme, and that he’d long thought of making you his heir, because we were childless, and he knew I’d like to adopt you. But that was only what he said. It was really Olympia’s doing. She can twist him round her little finger. They sit and hold confabulations together by the hour, leaving me quite out in the cold. And it was she got your uncle to make you his heir.”

“Well, you can hardly blame her for that, old woman,” the major said mildly.

“She didn’t do it for you,” Mrs. Foster exclaimed, “she did it to get the money for herself. But I said that if you were going to have all that money, you must change your name to Foster, for it only seemed just.”

There was quite a long pause, and then the major said:

“Well, old woman, you don’t often break out, but when you do ruzzle round, you certainly do. It’s an extraordinarily rum collection you’ve got together.”

“Oh, Teddy dear,” Mrs. Foster exclaimed on a note of anguish, “I do hope there’s nothing wrong. I do hope there’s nothing you don’t like.”

“Oh, there’s nothing wrong,” the major said. “It’s only just queer.” He got up from his chair and put both his hands heavily and affectionately on his aunt’s shoulders. “You know, old woman, you do get the most extraordinary ideas into that head of yours. It’s all most ingenious jumble. But if you’d got a large barrel of gunpowder and knocked its head off and put half a dozen barrels all round it, and then stuck a lighted candle in the naked powder — well, you couldn’t have more ingeniously incited a little plot for a jolly big explosion. Except, of course, that I
am
a reformed character.”

“Oh, Teddy,” Mrs. Foster said plaintively, “I do hope you don’t mean to set the house on fire by smoking in your bedroom and I do hope much more that you aren’t going to be a reformed character until you marry Olympia. Your uncle has forced me to be the president of a society for the suppression of sin, but I do hope and pray that you enjoy yourself here after all the trouble I’ve taken to make things nice for you.”

“Oh, it’s all right, old woman,” the major said. “I’m going to have the time of my life; but I guess one can enjoy oneself without sinning.”

Mrs. Foster looked very dubious.

“I don’t know about that,” she said, and the major shook her with his laughter because he still had his hands on her shoulders.

“You do have the rummiest old, funniest old ideas I’ve ever heard of,” he said. “And you’re the most courageous old plotter I ever met. You don’t fear and you do what you want, and you don’t care about the consequences!”

“I don’t know that I do — much,” Mrs. Foster said. “I’m beginning to think that I don’t.” The major said:

“Oh come, old woman!” — .

“I don’t and I don’t and I don’t,” Mrs. Foster exclaimed. “I’m going to do what I think is right and proper, and — and hang the consequences. That’s what you’d say, isn’t it?”

The major recoiled a full step from his relative and stood transfixed, holding out his arms before him.

“In spite of your uncle and in spite of your Olympia, who is a Wesleyan Episcopal,” Mrs. Foster said slowly, with an air of fiendish determination, “while we are in this house we — are — all going to church on Sundays.”

The major exclaimed: “By gum!”

“We shall go there,” Mrs. Foster said, “out of deference to Lady Savylle and to set the tenants a good example.”

“But if you’re.. the major said slowly,” if you’re what you are in fact, surely it isn’t a good example to go to church.”

“I don’t care,” Mrs. Foster said. “It’s a sign to them that you are master of this house. You would not like the other thing; it is not what you’ve been used to. Besides, it would be against true hospitality to use Lady Savylle’s house in order to spread a form of belief that her Ladyship would not approve of.”

“Oh, I don’t believe Nancy would care a button.”

“Well, that’s enough about that,” Mrs. Foster said. And then to change the subject she asked, after a long pause:

“My dear, did you know Lady Savylle very well?”

“Well...” the major said. “Oh, yes, very well.” And his manner seemed to shut in as if he had snapped his lips together.

“But tell me just one thing,” Mrs. Foster pleaded. “You
were
engaged to her....”

“Yes, for three days,” the major said in a short tone. “I’d only known her a fortnight. There, there, that’s enough.”

“If you’d only told me! If you’d only told me!” Mrs. Foster almost wailed. “If you’d only told your uncle! He would have made it all right. He would have seen that you were in earnest...”

“Oh, chuck it, old woman!” the major said. “I tell you, I won’t talk about it. It would have been a pretty way to show that I was in earnest, just to marry a girl who might be coming into a title. If that’s earnestness, damn it, I say.”

“But it might have meant a seat for the County,” Mrs. Foster pleaded. “That was how your uncle looked at it, after the Duke had very kindly told me he thought you were engaged to the young lady, but he couldn’t be sure.”

The major said: “There, there, that will do.”

“You know how strong a Nonconformist Unionist your uncle is,” Mrs. Foster said. “He would have made any sacrifices for the party or to get you into it.”

“Oh, I know what my uncle is,” the major said; “the blessed Unionist party is a thing no decent man would stand for, because of people like him and his sacrifices. You’re a good sort, but he’s a confounded prig, and a tuft-hunter — and unsuccessful at that. He never gets a chance to bow down to his boots to an Honourable’s third son, except at some charity function. He wanted me to marry money or a title to show I was an orderly member of Society. I wouldn’t do it then. I’m doing it now, because my spirit is broken; I’m used up. Done. I go out. I’m marrying Olympia for her money — that’s the dirty truth, and I’m not proud of it. You know he would throw me over to-morrow if she threw me over. So, I shall behave so that she will not throw me over — and of course I’ll do my best to give her a good time. That’s my duty, and I’ll do it.” In moments of agitation the major spoke like one of his own sergeants. He finished with, “There, there, there!” And then he began again agitatedly: “I tell you, I’m tired! Used up! I must have comfort, quiet! I can’t stodge away any more. God knows I’ve done enough to get it — and it hasn’t all been any good. Worse than useless! Worse! If I hadn’t sweated so hard, I should be in a better position! I’d have had better eyes — that would mean more money! That’s what it comes to! I slogged like that for Nancy — upon my word, just for Nancy! We could have got along on a major’s pay, out there. Just got along! And then the blasted girl goes and gets rotten titles and mouldy houses to her back on the day the bottom drops out of me. The very black, beastly, blighted day...”

In her turn Mrs. Foster said:

“There, there, there!”

“That very same hateful day,” he raved on. And then he fixed his aunt with a glaring gaze. “Look here,” he said, “don’t think that I’m not young enough to enjoy a good time — and to deserve it. God knows I can laugh like another, and lark above most. Young! I’m the youngest major in the British Army, for the rotten twopence halfpenny that it’s worth! And consider the time that I’ve had. The long evenings with nothing to do; and the beastly dust going pink in the sunsets, and the nigger johnnies sitting eating dough under the wilted palm trees — and everything stinking of paraffin, and some sort of beastly animal yap, yap, yapping away from the filthy, blistering low hills! Why, I’ve got the feel of it in my bones, and not all the iced wine of Champagne, and not all the kisses that were ever kissed by a hundred women, could wash it out again. Wine! Kisses! I’ve drunk lukewarm pale ale, and I could have screamed, mad
ghut,
and run amok in the native quarters....” He stopped and looked at his aunt. “There, there, old woman,” he said, “that’s how it feels. But don’t you worry. I’ll be shocking Olympia, so that it tickles her and makes her good all over to-morrow! What you feel in your bones, don’t show in your face.”