Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (439 page)

“I don’t see why Mr. Foster should not have a title. Hasn’t he deserved it? Aren’t his successes and his public services perfectly splendid?” And it was at that moment that there was born in Miss Olympia’s mind the idea that Mr. Arthur Foster must certainly be made into a baronet, with a special remainder to his nephew whom she was going to marry. But Mr. Foster was pushing into her hand the letter from Colonel Hangbird. He said: “Now just read that. Isn’t that splendid?”

As a matter of fact, Olympia commented before reading the letter:

“I was going to apologize for being so late. I had rather a bad night.”

Miss Jenkins came suddenly forward and asked Miss Peabody if her coffee was to her taste. Miss Peabody paid no attention whatever. She finished reading the letter.

“Of course,” she said, without any signs of appearing impressed, “of course, it’s satisfactory; but it doesn’t seem so much to me. You see, we’re used to so much larger figures in my country. The last report of my Secondary Society — the Boston League for the Reform of Young Men — the B.L.R.Y.M. as we call it — the last report showed that our roll of members numbers 640,000 — an increase of
40,000 in
the year.”

“Oh, of course,” Mr. Foster said, with an elaborate politeness in his air, “the B.L.R.Y.M. is a very different thing.”

“And consider what it means,” Olympia continued, with that hard enthusiasm which comes over even the mildest of Americans when they talk of the institutions of their own country, “consider what it means. Here are 640,000 young men all between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, and all reformed characters.”

Mr. Foster interrupted with a rather enthusiastic “Splendid! Splendid! But even our humble L.S.S.V., which we hope soon to be able to call the R.L.S.S.V....”

But the voice of Miss Peabody, which had continued and which was growing louder and louder, took up her tale:

“And every one of those 640,000 young men is pledged to abstain from drinking alcohol, playing cards, or any form of gambling, swearing or using loose expressions, attending race meetings” — and Miss Peabody’s voice swelled until it became a formidable organ—”frequenting theatres or music-halls, or the society of young women other than their mothers unless they are engaged to them. They pledge themselves all to be at home by ten o’clock at night, unless their professions call for it...”

Mr. Foster exclaimed: “Glorious! Glorious!”

But Mrs. Foster put in with an amiable determination:

“I don’t quite see, my dear, and I never have seen, my dear, though I have heard you say the same thing at least twenty times, how young people are ever to get engaged at all under your rules. Mayn’t they even know their female cousins?”

“Oh, yes,” Miss Peabody said in her most superior manner; “they may see them in the presence of some fitting elderly woman.”

“But even that,” Mrs. Foster replied quite mildly, “must make it rather difficult when a young man wants to propose. Perhaps that is why the birth-rate in America is decreasing.”

Miss Peabody stood up so suddenly that she upset her large coffee-cup.

“Mrs. Foster,” she said, and her cheeks were exceedingly red, “if I was not perfectly sure that you were not, I should think that you desired to insult me by suggesting that I advocate race suicide.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what that means,” Mrs. Foster answered. “I may have been suggesting that you do advocate it; perhaps you do. You’re not the Pope, that I know of — infallible, and all that sort of thing; though they do say that he isn’t infallible after all.”

For a moment Miss Peabody really looked quite dangerous, but she sat down after she had shrugged her shoulders.

“Of course” — she addressed herself markedly to Mrs. Foster—”a young man can always propose by letter, preferably addressed to the parents of his intended. That is a very great advantage, for a young man cannot afterwards get out of his engagement as he could if the proposal were made in the private circumstances that are usual in Europe. I expect to see a complete disappearance of the Breach of Promise Suit in the United States.”

Mrs. Foster, who was really placable enough, remarked:

“Oh, well, my dear, I have no doubt that if you are managing the United States, they’re well managed. But if you didn’t sleep well, I hope there wasn’t anything the matter with your room; because, of course, that’s my business, and not these things that I don’t understand very well; though Admiral Brent was accustomed to say, that for all I was so quiet, I could see as far over a millstone as the man who made the sixty-two foot telescope that there was such an excitement about in the year 1852, which was two years after I was born.”

Olympia said:

“Oh, there was nothing the matter with the room. I had anxieties.”

Miss Jenkins said suddenly:

“Will you not take some more coffee, miss? ‘And Miss Peabody answered tartly:

“I have already signified that I desire more coffee. It stands to reason as I upset my first cup.” Mr. Foster exclaimed:

“Anxieties, my honoured guest? I hope not. Not about money, or — er — about my nephew?” Miss Jenkins said:

“Miss Peabody’s little dog was lost nearly all night, sir.”

“And enough to make anybody anxious,” Mr. Foster commented.

Olympia said coldly:

“It is extraordinary how servants interrupt in this country. In Boston we should not stand it for a minute.”

Mrs. Foster really trembled with nervousness.

“Oh,” she said, “Miss Jenkins is hardly a servant. She’s the Lady Savylle’s confidential attendant. She has very kindly consented to wait upon us because the butler has a bad foot, and though I’m sure we have got other servants enough. I don’t think I should like to see them handle her Ladyship’s best breakfast service, which is all real Spode, though I am sure I don’t know what that may mean. But perhaps,” she continued anxiously, “your little dog doesn’t like your room. Perhaps you would like to change on that account?”

Again Miss Jenkins interrupted.

“Major Foster doesn’t like his room. Perhaps her Lady — I mean Miss Peabody — would like to change with him?”

“I shall certainly do nothing of the sort,” Miss Olympia said. And then Mrs. Foster continued: “As for Edward, I’m perfectly certain he never gave anybody any anxiety in his life, except when he went away like that. I had a long conversation with him last night, and it quite brought the tears to my eyes. We have been cruel and misjudging to him all these years, and I’m not going to sit here and listen to suggestions that he cost anybody any anxiety. It’s not fair, and I won’t.” And Mrs. Foster, who was really shaking with anger, stood up and began to move along the table. “I’m sure,” she exclaimed, “if there’s anything I can do to make up for it I will; and it’s the greatest satisfaction to me to have him in this house, and I hope he will never leave it.”

“But it’s Lady Savylle’s house,” Mr. Foster said. “I don’t care,” Mrs. Foster replied; “I don’t care whose house it Is. It’s the house he likes best in the world, and I hope he may never leave it.” And Mrs. Foster went agitatedly out of the room.

It was not really a very comfortable breakfast for anybody. The major and Miss Delamare and Mrs. Kerr Howe drifted in one after the other. But Miss Peabody, who had finished her breakfast at least half an hour before, was peering into the breakfast-room from behind the statue of a plaster lion that was gnawing the head off of a plaster serpent. Miss Jenkins was careful to inform them of this fact, and indeed they could see George Washington frisking round the base of the statue itself, so that they all sat as far away as they could from each other at the long table and spoke hardly at all. And after that they had a long day of the park, and the piano, and the proofs, which were corrected against tree-trunks, all of them being under the surveillance of Miss Peabody. And in the evening the major and Mrs. Kerr Howe and Miss Delamare tried to play bridge, but, as Miss Peabody was in a mood to unbend and desired to learn this frivolous and innocent game, they all retired to bed at a quarter to ten, having got with difficulty through one rubber.

The major had changed his bedroom because, as he remarked to his aunt, the noise in the huge chimney was distracting. And, as he also remarked, if his day could not have been said to resemble the dazzling glitter of life which he had not been accustomed to lead among the idle and dissolute Smart Set, it could not, on the other hand, be said to differ very much from a rest cure in the country which the doctors had recommended him to take. So that there, as he said, they all were.

In this singular peace three days passed. They were all really very tired people on whom London had enforced a desire for rest — all except Miss Peabody, who desired not so much rest as a period for reflection. Miss Peabody, of course, did not desire that any of Mr. Foster’s money — which she regarded as already her own — should go to Miss Delamare’s theatre. At least, she was not quite sure that she did not desire it. She had a natural hatred for Miss Delamare, as she had a natural hatred for most people. And she would very much have liked to have hit Miss Delamare very hard, just as she would very much have liked to have hit Mrs. Kerr Howe harder still. But when it came to the theatre she was not quite certain. She was even not quite certain that she would be able, by any amount of denunciation, to make Mr. Foster abandon that scheme — but these were not quite ordinary circumstances. Mrs. Foster was now deeply engaged on the side of Miss Delamare, and although Miss Peabody had the greatest contempt in the world for Mrs. Foster, she could not help seeing that Mr. Foster was really extremely afraid of his wife. And even if Miss Peabody had wanted to smash Miss Delamare and Mrs. Kerr Howe over the incident of the panel, she was not by any means certain that they could be proved to have behaved disreputably enough to give her the handle which she wanted.

She considered that they had been hateful, but she could not prove that they had acted disreputably, without at least showing that she herself had been rather ridiculous.

She had, indeed, had a haughty interview with Miss Jenkins on the following night, and Miss Jenkins’s tale had so exactly coincided with the version that she got from the major himself, that Miss Peabody simply did not see how she could get any kind of guilt out of the proceedings.

And indeed she was not quite certain that she wanted the new theatre suppressed. She would have liked to have smashed Miss Delamare without smashing the theatre. She had tried to point out to Mr. Foster that Miss Delamare, whose chief accomplishments were that she could sing five notes and kick down her own back hair, was not exactly the sort of person to run a theatre which, she imagined, would be chiefly concerned with the plays of Ibsen and Mr. Bernard Shaw. But when she had propounded this theory to Mr. Foster it simply did not come off at all. Mr. Foster was so entirely ignorant of any theatrical knowledge, that he did not know the difference between musical comedy and the serious drama. Indeed, the only theatrical performance that he had ever seen was that of “Pigs is Pigs” itself, and this performance had so bewildered and so delighted him, and Miss Delamare had kicked about and sung with such grace, and smiled with such jolly sweetness, that Mr. Arthur Foster seriously considered that she was not only the greatest, but the nicest and most respectable actress in the world. Mrs. Foster, on the other hand, had several times been taken to performances of Shakespeare by her sister, the admiral’s wife, and these performances had so terrified or so bored her, since they all appeared to be gouging out each other’s eyes, or stabbing someone else in the back, or being an unpleasant ghost, or making incomprehensible speeches over skulls — Shakespeare, in fact, had so terrified and agonized Mrs. Foster, that when she came to see “Pigs is Pigs,” and Flossie twirling about and squeaking with her little voice, she really thought that this was, comparatively speaking, heaven. And she had already found Flossie so kind and attentive, and, as it were, daughterly, that she simply told her husband that there was an end of it. He had simply got to consider Miss Delamare as not only the greatest actress in the world, but as absolutely the one most suited to manage the new, pure drama.

So that when Miss Peabody tried gently to suggest that she could not imagine Miss Delamare playing Nora in “A Doll’s House,” or the heroine in “Man and Superman,” or, for the matter of that, a tragic charwoman who had to be arrested by a policeman for stealing a silver box that she had not stolen, she found that Mr. Foster, though he simply did not understand her, regarded her as talking almost blasphemously, since it was an article of faith in that household to consider that Miss Delamare could do anything. Moreover, Mr. Foster was aware that the greatest and most serious Nonconformist Dramatic Critic of the day had several times called Miss Delamare the symphonic embodiment of quaint imbecility; and although Mr. Foster did not in the least understand what this meant — for the matter of that Miss Delamare herself did not — it seemed to be a satisfactory testimonial to some sort of gifts and obvious respectability, since neither Mrs. nor Mr. Foster could imagine the great critic praising anybody who was not at least as respectable as Mrs. Gurney, of Earlham. They were perfectly convinced that he would not have soiled his pen by praising anyone who was at all disreputable — that was how it struck them; and Miss Peabody knew quite well that if she tried any further to interfere with this belief, they would simply tell her that, being a foreigner, she could not be expected to understand an institution so thoroughly British as musical comedy.