Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (473 page)

“Now, about ruining Macdonald! How do you think you’re going to get him out of the job he’s got in the motor shop?”

“My dear man,” she answered, “I don’t believe he’s got any job in the motor shop. I believe that’s just a pretext. He just wants those rooms.”

The Duke said: “The deuce he does.”

“He just wants them,” the lady continued, “in order to continue his dissolute practices.”

“Oh, is that all?” the Duke said. And then he put the question that he really wanted to have answered.

“But really,” he said at first, “Macdonald must have
some
sort of resources. He can’t exist on nothing. Don’t you suppose he’s got some sort of political mission — say, from the Russian Government?”

“He!” the lady ejaculated, with a high contempt.

“Who do you suppose would trust him? He’s too entirely weak and feeble. No, he’s just nothing, and he’s just got nothing to do. If he tells you that he has any political errand, don’t you believe him. He’s just lying so as to make himself of importance in your Smart Set.”

The Duke heaved a slight sigh; really, it was a relief, for he couldn’t doubt that the Countess was entirely sincere. She knew nothing about the counter-revolution in Galizia. So he said, in order to turn the lady’s mind away from the subject:

“Oh, I wouldn’t believe that too implicitly, you know. The Smart Set, if there is such a thing, though I never meet it, wouldn’t set any particular store by diplomatic importance. They’d be, you know — what is it you call them? — too idle and dissolute. They’d be like me, you know. I wouldn’t walk round a lamp-post to meet the most important diplomatist in the world.”

“The only diplomatic occupation Sergius Mihailovitch would ever get would be just to secure a new mistress for the Grand Duke. That’s about all he is fit for. I tell you he’s an idle and useless adventurer. And he’s utterly penniless. Don’t I know the man? I tell you you’d better look after your pockets if you come into contact with Sergius Mihailovitch. Why, I’ve known him go three days without food, and have only one suit, and yet turn up looking smart at some Countess or other’s garden party. He’s utterly impracticable. Why, he’d give his last penny to some needy hanger-on, and never think where the next is coming from!”

“I see,” Kintyre said, and nodding pleasantly, he went down the front steps. He occupied his long drive home in the hansom with a brown study. He pushed his hat back on his head and sat looking at the withers of the horse in front of him.

Decidedly he was going to do something for his cousin Emily. But the point was, how far would he have to entangle himself? It was a very complicated position, and if the Countess Macdonald was too savage a woman to be really dangerous, she might nevertheless wound him in some way or other. He didn’t see any objection to his cousin’s being in a divorce case. It was quite a proper sort of thing if she cared for the man. It would be a quarter of a million times better than her being tired out by her flannel-shirted friends. It would probably shake them all off, for they would be mostly Nonconformists.

“But, hang it all,” he suddenly ejaculated, “I wouldn’t
marry
that woman! That would be a little too thick even for Emily’s sake.”

CHAPTER
V

IN his bedroom at Claridge’s Mr. Dexter was trying the effect of slightly shortening his grey side-whiskers. In his walks in the parks and public places of England he had observed that, however much he might himself resemble idealised pictures of John Bull, he hadn’t seen any man of position who resembled himself in that particular. Moreover, he had gone that afternoon to call on Mrs. Gould, whom he had met on the Riviera; the servant who had opened the door had tentatively suggested that Mr. Dexter ought to have gone down the area steps. And Mr. Dexter, who was not without perception in these matters, had worked it out that Mrs. Gould’s servant had taken him for a butler. This had almost decided him that his whiskers must go. And, in his shirt-sleeves, with a safety razor in his hand he was carefully regarding himself in his bedroom glass.

It gave him, therefore, something of a start when his daughter, running in, exclaimed:

“Oh, Popper, I’ve seen a real live English Duke.” And she subsided, exhausted, on to Mr. Dexter’s bed.

Mr. Dexter put on his dressing-gown out of respect for his daughter’s femininity. He sank himself into an armchair and crossed his legs in an attitude that he knew to be genuinely British. A kind smile went over his face, but because he had been thinking very deeply of his personal appearance, his smile was extremely distracted. And this gave his daughter the idea that he had been thinking about high financial problems.

Then he said: “What Duke?”

And when his Mamie answered that it was the Duke of Kintyre, he rose slowly from his armchair, went slowly into the sitting-room and slowly returned, carrying a fat red volume that had the Order of the Garter embossed upon its cover. He read out slowly from this volume, “Kintyre. Ninth Duke of (cr. 1642), Sir Edward William Percy Archibald Fitzroy John Augustus.. His voice continued for quite a long time droning out a string of titles that meant nothing but rather agreeable sounds to the girl. And then he said:” He doesn’t appear to be married. Where did you meet him?”

“At Countess Macdonald’s,” Miss Dexter answered. “It was most perfectly thrilling. I tell you, Popper, it was just the home life of the corrupt British aristocracy as you see it on the stage. His cousin is in love with Count Macdonald, and Count Macdonald is in love with his cousin. And the Duke came down to save the family name from ruin. And then I could see the Duke was falling in love with the Countess and the Countess with the Duke. But she won’t divorce them. And she is going to reclaim the Count from his idle and dissolute ways. And the Duke says I may call him Kintyre after I’ve known him a fortnight.”

Mr. Dexter, who thought very slowly, said: “Well, well!” once more.

“And the Countess and I,” Miss Dexter continued—”I just wish Macdonald wasn’t married, for I love him more than any man, and it’s just lovely to see how serious he is when he’s helping me to buy gloves — but the Countess and I have sworn a mutual oath that we are to redeem him from his vicious practices.”

“Redeem who?” Mr. Dexter asked “Why, the Count,” Miss Dexter answered.

“What are his idle and dissolute practices?” Mr. Dexter asked again.

“I don’t know,” Miss Mamie said. “The Countess doesn’t explain what they are. But they appear to be dreadful. I know it’s awful. I know I oughtn’t to; but I can’t help saying that it’s a tremendous privilege to know such a person. It’s as good as knowing Lord Byron or Don Juan.”

“But I want to know some more of this,” Mr. Dexter said.

“I am telling you as fast as I can,” she answered. “It’s all a tremendous battle between right and wrong. Of course, I don’t believe Count Macdonald ever did anything wrong in his life. But what we’ve got to do is to redeem him and to make him lead the Simple Life again, and to be strenuous, as the Countess says he used to be when he was under her influence. The Countess is a Socialist, you know.”

Mr. Dexter said: “Oh, I think I’ve sized the Countess up.”

“What the Countess wants,” Miss Dexter said, “is that the Count should come back to Putney and do without servants, and wear a sack-cloth apron to keep his trousers from getting spoiled when he does the washing-up. The Countess has got a butler now, the most lovely butler you ever saw in your life!”

Mr. Dexter winced slightly, and then he asked: “What does she want a butler for?”

“That’s to show the world that she isn’t in fault,” Miss Dexter answered. “She wants everyone to think that she gives Macdonald the kind of home he wants because she’s so gentle and yielding. The Count wants the Smart Set, and the Smart Set always have butlers. So the Countess is going to live like the Smart Set. The Count allows her two thousand a year, and she says she can do it on that. She says it’s all he’s got.”

“All this appears to be rather confusing,” Mr. Dexter said. “But just go on talking. I’m sizing it all up.”

“The Duke,” Miss Dexter continued, “is Count Macdonald’s best friend. He’s going to protect Count Macdonald against the Countess. The Countess is going to ruin the Count. But the Duke’s going to stop it. But it is all a little confusing, and sometimes I think the Countess contradicts herself, because at one time she talks of leading the Simple Life, and at another she says she’s going to go on the stage as a great tragic actress and be the Smart Set herself.”

“Well, that’s all right,” Mr. Dexter said. “I tell you I’ve sized the Countess up.”

“And I don’t see,” Miss Dexter went on, “how the Duke is going to save the Count if he’s going to be in love with the Countess! I could see it in his eyes that he was. He’s a perfectly lovely Duke — dark, and like a Spanish don. But I don’t see how he’s going to fix up saving the Count and loving the Countess at the same time.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Mr. Dexter said, “that’s all right, Mamie. It’s like cat’s cradle. When you take the string off one set of hands on to another the pattern’s all different, but it’s the same old string. Now, hold your little tongue, Mamie, and I’ll do my thinking.”

Mr. Dexter got slowly up from his armchair and, with his dressing-gown enfolding him, he went slowly into his sitting-room again. He returned with an immense cigar.

For a long time Mr. Dexter remained sunk in his armchair. His lips moved on the end of his cigar with an unctuous, sucking sound. And gradually, as he thought his American thoughts, his attitude became less and less British until, his legs stretching out and his heels resting on the washing-stand, his feet were somewhat higher than his head. From time to time Miss Mamie, sitting on the bed, entertained him with bursts of speech. She recounted the methods of living of the Countess, or the virtues and charms of Sergius Mihailovitch. But Mr. Dexter did no more than from time to time to let drop an ejaculation that was invariably: “Well, now!”

In spite of his British tastes, his Viennese home, and his American upbringing, Mr. Dexter was of simple, pious German ancestry. His father, Hermann Dexter of Bremen, had made a large fortune by speculating in Californian land at the time of the boom. And Mr. Dexter had, by his quiet, financial methods, added reasonably to this fortune. But, in spite of his sermons on ethics, Mr. Dexter had practically no moral standards and no knowledge of life. His sermons on ethics he indulged in only on dress occasions, and these sermons were no more than quotations from the fervid rhetoric of such American magazines and newspapers as supported the great American trusts. Mr. Dexter believed in keeping one’s account scrupulously straight; in paying one’s bills with scrupulous accuracy. He had a certain shrewd knowledge of character, but that was all there was to him. And the main point that he gathered from his daughter’s story was that Macdonald hadn’t got any money. And one of the main principles of the business tradition that he had inherited from his father had been, never to do business with a man who you knew hadn’t got any money. It can’t be said, too, that he wasn’t affected by his daughter’s account of the circle in which Macdonald appeared to live. He was accustomed to think of all foreign aristocrats as being exceedingly immoral — it didn’t matter whether they were French, German, Austrian, or Russian. And Mr. Dexter in one way and another had come into contact on the continent with quite a number of counts and barons, nearly all of them exceedingly shady persons. So that his idea of all aristocrats was that of a crowd of hungry pike all waiting to tear into shreds the fortunes of simple, honest, American citizens.

He did not have to think in this way of any friends of Macdonald’s that he had met or heard of. He didn’t indeed know that he had met either Kintyre or Lady Aldington, though he had been with them in Countess Macdonald’s garden for at least ten minutes during their call. But he had been so engaged in lecturing the young King on the moral and economic advantages of the Trust system that he had not even heard their names. He had negligently omitted to look at them, taking them for the parson and his wife making an afternoon call. But still, he knew that Macdonald was acquainted with this brace of aristocrats, and he heard from his daughter that the intimacy appeared to be a very close one. And he knew that Lady Aldington was enormously wealthy, even by American standards, and that the Duke of Kintyre, though he was poorish for an English duke, could not by any means be called a poor man. So that Mr. Dexter did not need to think of any of Macdonald’s friends as penniless adventurers — except perhaps the Marquis da Pinta, who appeared to be negligible, or Mr. Pett, whom Mr. Dexter could not quite make out.

He knew, of course, from reading American books and papers, that the British aristocracy is corrupt. And, in setting out to better himself socially, Mr. Dexter had vaguely taken into account the fact that he and his family would have to come into contact with persons whose manners and customs were not exactly respectable, according to the notions of Boston, Mass. Mr. Dexter, however, was not from Boston, Mass., but from Brooklyn, N.Y., where the standards are slightly different. And quite an astonishing number of Mr. Dexter’s business friends had availed themselves of the divorce facilities of the United States. Indeed, when Mr. Dexter came to think of it he was not acquainted with any single American man of business who hadn’t been divorced at least once. Nevertheless, these divorces did not somehow seem to count. They seemed to be airy nothings; there did not seem to be any sexual passion behind them, so that they had none of the aspects of immorality. But when it came to the large collection of divorce suits into which apparently Macdonald and his friends were going to be plunged, Mr. Dexter couldn’t help feeling alarmed for his daughter. There seemed to be so much passion about them. And though Mr. Dexter had quite expected to find corruption amongst the corrupt aristocracy, he hadn’t wanted to go quite as far as this. He had hoped to be able to come across at least one or two respectable noblemen and ladies of title with whom he might establish intimacies.

And for the moment Mr. Dexter was really alarmed for his Mamie. American parents have not the same standards as European ones, and it would never have occurred to Mr. Dexter that the pure thoughts of his Mamie would be endangered by this society. It didn’t really even occur to him to think that it might be bad for the girl, who was obviously sickly in love with Sergius Mihailovitch, to establish an intimacy with the Countess Macdonald. Nor did he anticipate any danger to the girl’s morals from Macdonald himself, nor yet for her reputation or her social position. Into Mr. Dexter’s American mind these considerations never entered. He was afraid, nevertheless; he was genuinely and seriously worried. He wished that he could have consulted Mrs. Dexter, but Mrs. Dexter had taken the opportunity to visit her relatives in Saratoga Springs. But what he was afraid of for himself was Macdonald’s pennilessness. And what he was afraid of for his daughter was the Countess’s physical violence.

If he had had to regard Macdonald as a prospective son- in-law the pennilessness would not have worried him. Mr.

Dexter was quite wealthy enough to set up a household for any European, young, noble pair. And if it had been in the United States, Mr. Dexter would have been quite prepared to purchase Macdonald for his daughter from the Countess. But this matter was complicated by Lady Aldington. Mr. Dexter didn’t imagine that Lady Aldington would be a seller. She was too immensely wealthy. She was extraordinarily, she was quite respectably wealthy. Mr. Dexter had even heard his own chief, Hodges P. Mordaunt, speak of Lady Aldington along with himself as being one of the possible chief forces of the world. So that he wouldn’t be able to buy Macdonald of
her
for his daughter. But he imagined that he had sized up the Countess Macdonald, and he was really afraid. He was afraid simply that if it came to a three-cornered scene between the Countess, Lady Aldington, and his daughter, his daughter might suffer physically. He was afraid, in fact, that the Countess would throw vitriol over his Mamie.

So, he sat and meditated. At about a quarter to eight he roused himself from his armchair and went into his sitting-room. He telephoned down to the hotel office to ask them to ring up Mr. Hodges P. Mordaunt at the Hotel Bristol in Paris. He said that he would stop in his room all the evening so that Mr. Mordaunt might get through, and would they tell Mr. Mordaunt that it was urgent?