Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (444 page)

“So that that’s all right, that’s all right,” Mr. Foster remarked.

“Things have got to be much more pleasant in the future,” Mrs. Foster said hardly. “They’ve just got to be. I’m not going to have my Edward worried any more. I don’t like to see him sitting about here with a green shade over his eyes. I’m going to take him up to town to-morrow in the motor, myself, to see a specialist. I want to hear what’s said, and what’s to be done for him. I know that excitement and trouble and all these things are bad for his eyes, and there’s an end of it.” For a moment Miss Peabody thought of saying that, in that case, she ought to be allowed to be of the party; but she suddenly remembered that that would leave Mr. Foster open to the advances of Miss Delamare, and she said instead: “That would be an immense relief to my mind.”

“Well,” the major remarked from under his green shade, “you have had the most terrific and edifying scrap over my poor body, and I hope you are admiring the pretty way in which I lay still and didn’t poke my nose into it. And now that it’s all settled — and it’s thankful I am that it’s all
 
settled without my having to make any exertions — for usually it’s me who has to take command of all these situations...”

“Oh, but Teddy,” Miss Delamare suddenly interrupted him, “it isn’t all settled; it isn’t really quite altogether settled. I guess I want an apology — an exact, and what you would call a specific, apology from Miss Peabody.”

Olympia exclaimed: “But good gracious, I’ve apologized and withdrawn everything.”

“Oh, it isn’t for me,” Flossie said amiably. “I have a public character, and I guess I can stand all the shot that’s ever shot against me without the hair of one of my wigs, whether it’s auburn or black, standing up on end. No, it isn’t for me I want the apology, but it’s for Mrs. Foster.”

“But,” Mr. Foster exclaimed, “nobody has insulted Mrs. Foster.”

“Well, if you can’t see it,” Miss Delamare said, “I can. Miss Peabody has accused Mrs. Foster of throwing in the major’s way the sort of woman — well, the sort of woman that you couldn’t leave alone with him...”

“Oh, come, Flossie dear,” the major said; “there’s quite enough of all this.”

“No, there isn’t,” Miss Delamare answered. “If Mrs. Foster’s going to be my mother, I’m going to stand up for my mother, and things have got to be perfectly good and straight.”

Miss Peabody had started with rage when she heard the major say “Flossie dear.” She had sufficient sense to see that she was up against it — right absolutely up against it. She would have to apologize to Mrs. Foster at the demands of Flossie Delamare, and that was the bitterest proposition that had ever been put to her in her life. In some odd way it increased her hatred for Miss Delamare a thousandfold. She felt almost, that supposing a knife had been handy she could have plunged it into Miss Delamare’s throat. But when Mrs. Foster exclaimed, “I certainly think that some sort of apology ought to be made to me,” Miss Peabody said from a dry throat:

“Of course, I had no idea of insulting anybody; and it stands to reason that if I have done so I take it all back. I simply did not know what the circumstances were.”

“Well, then, that’s handsome,” Miss Delamare said; “and, just to let you know exactly what the circumstances are — and I’m sure it ought to put your troubled mind at rest — I will just tell you that I love Teddy here just as much as it’s possible to love anybody in the world. And how couldn’t I! For when I come to think of what I might have been, if it had not been for Teddy picking me up and putting me on my feet at a time when, as he says, I was a half-starved little rat — I just shudder to think about it. So I just love Teddy with the deepest gratitude you could possibly get out of a half-starved rat; but if you think, Olympia, that I’d go poaching on your, or any other woman’s, preserves — why, you’re a much sillier fool than I ever took you for, and you appear to me to be pretty foolish at times.”

“Oh, I quite believe you,” Miss Peabody said. And the odd thing was, that she did perfectly believe Miss Delamare and that she hated her — in spite of that belief — so that she really felt that she was going to faint. She said to Mr. Foster: “If you will just give me that paper of statistics — the blue one, A32 — I will go to my room and study them.”

With a frightened glance at his wife — a sort of agonized appeal to her — Mr. Foster went out of the room. This did not please Mrs. Foster.

CHAPTER II
.

MISS PEABODY managed to fix up her own particular side of the matter pretty well before the unfortunate Mr. Foster got to bed that night. She really had begun to make him see that Miss Delamare was not the person to run a serious theatre. She had the sense to repeat in private what she had said, as it were, in public, before the others. She withdrew in the frankest and most unlimited way anything that she had ever said against Flossie’s moral character. But she pointed out with great insistence that a lady whose highest idea of praise was to be called the “symphonic embodiment of quaint imbecility” was not obviously the person to manage a theatre that should stand for great and serious moral truths. Mr. Foster took his stand upon the words “symphonic embodiment.” These seemed to him to be words matchless and remarkable. He did not exactly know what they meant, but they appeared to him to be very strengthening. But Miss Peabody hammered in the other two words “quaint imbecility.” She said that there could not possibly be any mistake as to what those words meant, and they certainly did not mean anything that had anything at all to do with a high and serious moral purpose.

And the unfortunate old gentleman knew so absolutely nothing about the theatre or about the drama, that Miss Peabody spent an hour and a half in trying to instruct him as to the literary point of view of Boston, which is the centre of the serious world. She committed herself so far as to say that Flossie was a dear little thing. She had to get the words out though they nearly choked her; but what, she asked, had a dear little thing to do with the high region of starlit thought that was symbolized by such great names as Emerson, Longfellow, Henry Ward Beecher and Nathaniel Hawthorne — not to mention Walt Whitman, and Henrik Ibsen who didn’t come from Boston? She pointed out delicately that although Mrs. Foster was the most amiable person in the world, she was not a lady of whose intellectual opinions Mr. Foster himself had a very high view. And she pointed out, too, that from the beginning to the end of this theatre scheme, Mr. Foster must really have been actuated by his wife’s affection for dear little Flossie; and she got him to see at last that that was not a very rational position, and she got him at last to be exceedingly afraid that he would become the laughing-stock of all the serious and great people who read Emerson and Thoreau and Walt Whitman, and all the other serious American, Nonconformist and Puritan writers. And she made him understand that the people in high places who could confer titles read nothing else but the works of these transatlantic moralists.

It was the greatest triumph of Miss Peabody’s career. For, before she let Mr. Foster go to bed, she had extracted from him a promise — in his interests, in hers, in Mrs. Foster’s, in the major’s, and even in dear little Flossie’s own interests — that he would absolutely suspend any decision about the theatre — at any rate for a day or two — until Miss Peabody had had an opportunity of talking to all the parties concerned. She was convinced that she would be able to make it clear even to Flossie that it could only do her harm to attempt to run a theatre in such a way as to be the laughingstock of all admirers of Oliver Wendell Holmes or even of Mr. Bernard Shaw, though she could not be quite certain that Mr. Shaw was always serious.

The praise that she had been forced to bestow upon Miss Delamare made Miss Peabody feel actually ill. Each time that she called Flossie a dear little thing — and she did it half a dozen times in the course of the evening — her hatred mounted and mounted. And nothing would have prevented her going up to Flossie’s bedroom, and giving her the piece of her mind, which she certainly intended to do, save that she really felt herself too shaky to do herself justice.

Mr. Foster went rather tremblingly up to bed. Mrs. Foster was lying with her head sideways on the pillow and her eyes open. And at first Mr. Foster really intended to do his undressing and to get into bed without saying a word, as indeed was his general practice. But whilst he was loosening his braces he suddenly brought out the words:

“I’ve decided to suspend my judgment about the theatre.”

Mrs. Foster, without moving, asked: “That’s all, then?”

“Well, my dear,” Mr. Foster began to protest, “you can hardly expect more than that. There are an immense number of reasons...”

“I don’t want to listen to any reasons,” Mrs. Foster said. “I want to go to sleep. Your money’s your own, and your risks are your own; and that’s all there is to say about it.”

And Mr. Foster decided to leave it at that.

CHAPTER III
.

CASTING about in her mind for something that would aid her cause, Miss Peabody, in the early morning, hit upon the idea that if she used a little skill, she might be able to make very effective use of her Ladyship’s Own Maid. She reflected that servants were usually venial, untruthful and immoral, and she imagined that she might be able to use these qualities in the excellent work of ridding that household at least of Miss Delamare. She even began to foresee that she might even rid it of Mrs. Foster herself, though that was a very great flight. Accordingly, after the major and his aunt had set off in the motor for London, she rang her bedroom bell and told her maid to tell her Ladyship’s Own Maid that she would be obliged by an interview. Before, however, she let her own servant go, she enquired as to the habits and customs of Miss Jenkins.

What she learned was mostly that, in the opinion of her own maid, her Ladyship’s Own Maid could scarcely be considered a servant. She was more like a land-stewardess; the other servants hardly ever saw her. She lived in a housekeeper’s room of her own. At first she had been waited on by Mr. Foster’s servants, but yesterday she had imported an Own Maid of her own from the county town, and she lived more secluded than ever. Miss Peabody’s maid informed her that there was nothing very unusual in all this, though her Ladyship’s Own Maid carried haughtiness rather further than most, treating even Saunders, Mr. Foster’s butler, at a great distance, though most politely. Miss Peabody’s maid knew nothing to speak of about a policeman. She had — like all the other servants — seen Miss Jenkins talking to a policeman. But they had all wanted to talk to the policemen, and there was nothing to be said against Miss Jenkins talking to him first. She had the right, considering her position, and the officer had touched his cap to her most civil and respectful.

And when Miss Peabody had said that all this seemed a little strange, the servant had answered:

“Oh, dear me no, miss,” and she added: “Not at all strange, miss, that, in these Radical times with Heaven knows who, and foreigners, and all that, ladies like her Ladyship’s Own Maid should be wishful to keep themselves select.”

So that Miss Peabody thought it would be better to leave it at that. She realized that her task was more formidable than she had supposed, and it was with a certain nervousness that she thanked Miss Jenkins for coming to her with great promptitude. And she added at once:

“I quite understand, Miss Jenkins, that it would be useless for me to offer you any — any pecuniary reward, but I want to ask you, as from one woman to another, whether you did not think that the present position of affairs is very odd.” And it relieved her immensely when Miss Jenkins answered: “Extremely odd, miss.” And then Miss Peabody imagined that Miss Jenkins might not understand her, and she sought to make her position quite plain by adding:

“I mean this affair of Mrs. Foster’s adopting Miss Delamare.”

Miss Jenkins answered: “I perfectly understand, miss.”

“So that you won’t find it strange,” Miss Peabody continued, “if I have asked you to give me your own views of it all.”

“It’s flattering, miss, if I may say so,” her Ladyship’s Own Maid commented. “But as to views...”

“Oh,” Miss Peabody said airily, “I thought you might have some little information to give me about... well, about just anything. Trifles, you know...”

“Information!” Miss Jenkins repeated.

“They say, you know,” Miss Peabody said, “that servants — let us say onlookers — know more of us than we know ourselves. And you might know something about Miss Delamare — just as by accident I happen to have observed the little incident of yourself and the policeman...”

Miss Jenkins said: “The policeman!” And then she added: “Oh!” And Miss Peabody had not the slightest doubt that the small start which Miss Jenkins gave was indicative at least of a perturbed and probably of a guilty conscience. She continued therefore:

“Of course, I don’t attach any importance to such a little thing, but still... you understand,.. if it was only that it might be regarded as a
mésalliance
...” And then Miss Peabody paused, for she felt she was upon dangerous ground; but she continued at last: “So that if you had observed any little things — trifles — in the behaviour of Miss Del...”

“I don’t think I have observed anything, miss,” her Ladyship’s Own Maid replied; “not anything that one could really mention..,.”

“But I think you might as well mention it,” Miss Peabody said.

Miss Jenkins answered: “Oh, no, miss. They’re not things that one really could mention. I’m certainly not going to mention them.” And Miss Jenkins’s lips closed under Miss Peabody’s eyes so firmly, that Miss Peabody was convinced that she certainly did not mean to impart any of the unmentionable things that Miss Peabody imagined her to have seen. And Miss Peabody had to reflect for a minute. Then she gave up the idea of trying to coerce her Ladyship’s Own Maid. It simply was not, she could plainly see, to be done. It would be much better to seek to make a friend of her. She therefore made the following reasoned and subduedly passionate appeal to the feelings of her Ladyship’s Own Maid.

“You will have seen,” she said, “and indeed you acknowledge that you have seen, what is going on in this house. You perceive that a young lady — without doubt a charming young lady, but still a young lady — has obtained such a hold over the mistress of the house, that the entire establishment is in danger of misery and may very well be in danger of ruin. I don’t know if you know the exact circumstances. This young lady, by means which I won’t specify, has obtained from Mr. Foster an absolute promise, not only to start a theatre for her, but to run it for a considerable period of time. Mr. Foster is, of course, an exceedingly wealthy man; he runs a hundred and fifty bakers’ shops. But you probably know as well as I do that the expenses of a theatre are enormous, and that the profits of a hundred and fifty bakers’ shops may be very well eaten up by the expenses of less than one theatre. Putting the matter on this basis, this young lady is therefore a very dangerous — well, let me say adventuress.”

“I quite follow you, miss,” her Ladyship’s Own Maid said.

“And not only that,” Miss Peabody continued, “but this person threatens to destroy the peace of the family that until she came into it was exceedingly united. I don’t think it can be denied that her influence upon this family is a very unhealthy one. She has obtained over Mrs. Foster an influence which can only be signalized by that one word ‘unhealthy,’ and although I have no wish to suggest anything against the major, her influence over him is bound to be unhealthy in the long run. Similarly it is not healthy for Mr. Foster — an elderly and impressionable gentleman — to be closeted for long hours with a young and attractive woman. As for Mrs. Foster, her attachment to this person partakes of the nature of an imbecile obsession; for it is absolutely unnatural that an old woman with no particular brains, provided with a most excellent husband, an attached nephew and a prospective niece-in-law who is ready to treat her with all the kindness that she deserves — it is unthinkable that if the old lady were sane and healthy, she should find it necessary to adopt a casual stranger off the streets. I suppose you understand what I mean?”

“Well, I can hear what you are saying, miss,” Miss Jenkins said.

“Now I am sure,” Miss Peabody continued, “that you have the proper feelings that do credit to our common womanhood, and I am sure that you will do all that you can to put an end to this state of things.”

“I’m sure I’m quite ready to, miss,” Miss Jenkins said, “but...”

“But!’’ Miss Peabody ejaculated almost incredulously.” Can there be any doubt about it? Can you have any hesitation about helping to put an end to a state of things that is lamentable and disgraceful to a family in which you are bound to take some interest? Of course, I am aware that you may say you are in this house only in the interests of Lady Savylle. But I think I can take upon myself to say in your mistress’s name that her Ladyship would entirely approve of your attempt to break down this infamous position.”

“Oh, I have no doubt her Ladyship would
approve”
Miss Jenkins said slowly. “The only thing is, do you feel perfectly certain that things will turn out exactly as you wish?’’

“I haven’t the least doubt of it,” Miss Peabody said. “Only give me a hold over this infamous woman, and the old state of peace will descend upon this family.”

“I don’t know, miss,” her Ladyship’s Own Maid said; “I think I know more about family quarrels than probably you do, and it will astonish you how people split up and fly apart.”

“My good girl,” Miss Peabody said sharply, “I am probably ten or fifteen years older than you, and I think I may be said to know the world quite well enough to be able to manage my own affairs.”

“Of course, that’s as it may be,” Miss Jenkins was beginning, when Miss Peabody broke in upon her speech.

“Do you mean to say,” she exclaimed,—”but, of course, you wouldn’t dare to insinuate — that Major Edward will not fulfil his duty to me?”

“Oh, no, miss,” her Ladyship’s Own Maid answered. “That’s the one thing in the situation that can be regarded as perfectly certain — that Major Foster will stick to his duty.”

“Then,” Miss Peabody exclaimed triumphantly, “what do you propose to imagine can happen to
me?
You don’t suppose that it’s my intention again to accuse Miss Delamare of indiscretions before other people? That, I acknowledge, was a great mistake on my part, but I was carried away by my legitimate indignation. What I wish to do is to obtain in private a hold over Miss Delamare.” Miss Jenkins said, “Oh!” and Miss Peabody asked her sharply what she meant.

“I only mean, miss,” her Ladyship’s Own Maid said, “that that seems the proper — well, let us say the most effective course you can pursue.”

“I’m glad you see
that”
Miss Peabody said.

“But it won’t be so very easy,” Miss Jenkins answered.

“I have got an absolute trust in you,” Miss Peabody retorted. “Of course, I expect you to do it for me.”

“I don’t think you can quite expect me to do that, miss,” her Ladyship’s Own Maid said.

“But you’re acquainted with all the winding staircases and secret doors of this old house in a way no one else here can approach,” Miss Peabody answered. “And you
do
listen at doors. We know from the other night that you do listen at doors.”

“But I only listen at doors, miss,” her Ladyship’s Own Maid said, “when it seems likely that there will be a misunderstanding that I can smooth out. It’s my duty to look after the reputation of her Ladyship’s house; and,” she continued, “I don’t think it’s for me to take up the business of a spy, and I should strongly advise you, miss, not to have anything to do with it either.”

“Spy!” Miss Peabody said. “Do you wish to insult me?”

“Of course, miss,” her Ladyship’s Own Maid conceded, “that’s all a matter of point of view. Of course, if I did it, I should feel like a spy, supposing that any harm to anybody was to come of it. But of course you, miss, may feel like a righteous detective about to confront a guilty person.”

“Of course, that’s exactly what I do feel like,” Miss Peabody said.

“Then your conscience is probably all right,” Miss Jenkins answered, “and I don’t see that there’s anything more to be said about it, miss.”

“Do you mean to say,” Miss Peabody asked, “that you don’t mean to help me?”

“I am perfectly ready, miss,” her Ladyship’s Own Maid said, “to give you the best opportunity in the world for spying upon Miss Delamare and for giving her, as you call it, a piece of your mind. Of course, I don’t believe it’s much use your trying to spy upon the lady. Let us say that’s only because she’s likely to be careful as long as she’s in this house, and not because she’s naturally a virtuous character.”

“I feel it in my bones that she isn’t,” Miss Peabody said. “I feel it in my bones that, if I could get a quiet talk with her in circumstances which had already compromised her a little, by sheer force of virtuous indignation I could so address her that she would leave this household for good, crushed and overwhelmed.”

“I don’t think I would be too sure of that,” said Miss Jenkins.

“My good girl,” Miss Peabody retorted, “I’ve done too much talking to abandoned women in my time — you forget that I’m the president of the Boston Association for the Suppression of Sin — and I haven’t been the president of that society for ten years without knowing how to deal with abandoned women. They’re like wax in my fingers.”