Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (511 page)

“Well that’s a queer start!”

“It isn’t, you know,” Mr. Fleight said wearily. “You see, I live in a sort of palace. It’s all white marble and porphyry, and the floors are so slippery that you can’t move without feeling like a cat in walnut shells. And it’s frightfully dull! Oh, quite frightfully dull!”

“I dare say it might be,” Mrs. Leroy said judicially.

“So sometimes,” Mr. Fleight continued, “I used to pull myself together and go out on adventures. I put on rather old clothes and wandered about for miles and miles. You see, my first father and mother were a bricklayer and his wife. And the happiest days of my life were when we moved to Sidlesham, near Selsey.”

“I daresay they were,” Mrs. Leroy interrupted him, “and though I don’t see exactly what this has got to do with Gilda, I suppose it might come out if you tried to be clear.”

“Quite happy days,” Mr. Fleight rambled on. “The sea had come in a tidal wave over a lot of the marshes, and, as they wanted to put up a sea wall about two miles long and in a great hurry, they were employing bricklayers at very high wages. Father was a very good workman.”

“But if your father was only a bricklayer—” Mrs.

Leroy was beginning.

“He wasn’t.” Mr. Fleight cut her short, and he informed her succinctly and wearily that he was the child of a secret marriage.

“Then I hope you did something for them when you came into your own,” Mrs. Leroy said.

“They always,” he answered, “wanted to be the lodge-keeper to a lord and see him drive by in his carriage. So I got them the job of lodge-keeper to Lord Home of Ditton. But they both died within a year of it. They couldn’t stand the change.”

“Folks is like that,” Mrs. Leroy commented. “Most of them can’t stand what they want when they get it, and them as can, want something else. But you don’t tell me what your adventures were.”

“You don’t let me,” Mr. Fleight said querulously. “You keep on interrupting. I used to visit them in their lodge — quite regularly once a week. It seemed to strengthen me. It did me good. As I was saying, it was at Sidlesham. We moved over there, father, mother and I. I remember I had to carry the old magpie in his cage and a tame rabbit as well. Father carried the arm-chair on his head, and the railway people tried to stop it because it wasn’t luggage. There was a row; but I don’t know what came of it. Well, behind the cottage there was a salt water pond. And there was a big boy called George Mason, and a little one we called Charlie, and me. I didn’t go to school in those days, and we got an old bath from the rubbish in the blacksmith’s yard, and we used to dob up the holes with clay and go sailing on the pond. I don’t suppose I was ever dry in those days, because salt water doesn’t evaporate, you know, and mother used to be a good deal worried.” Mr. Fleight paused and again passed his hand over his eyes. “That’s what I want,” he said. “Strong, cheap tea at the end of the day, and cheap, strong cheese. And a rabbit that’s been poached. And father will give you a taste of his beer if he’s in a good temper, and you’ll trot out to the wood-stack after dark and meet the other boys.”

“Bless my soul!” Mrs. Leroy said, “you could have all that now. At least, you could have the strong tea and the cheese and the rabbit and a drop of ale.”

“No, you can’t!” Mr. Fleight said wearily. “In my palace the servants won’t let you, and the women won’t let you. And if you buy them and bring them in yourself, they don’t taste the same. And you have indigestion and things.”

“Well, you’re a poor flibberty jibbet of a man!” Mrs. Leroy exclaimed. “If I wanted things I’d see that I got them.”

“Ah, but you can’t!” Mr. Fleight said. “That’s why I used to go upon adventures.”

“Yes, tell me about them,” Mrs. Leroy said.

“Oh, I’ve wandered for miles,” he answered. “Through hundreds of miles of streets. But nothing ever happened. No one ever spoke to me, and I never could pluck up the courage ever to speak to anyone. Not in many years and years. There was just the once.”

“When you spoke to Gilda?” Mrs. Leroy asked.

“No, when I spoke to Mr. Blood.” Mr. Fleight answered. “I didn’t speak to your daughter, she spoke to me. I was taking the train in one of my wanderings from High Street, Kensington, to Whitechapel, and while I was waiting for the train I saw an elderly working man talking to the girl at the tobacco stall. And he went on talking and laughing, and in a sort of way he reminded me of my foster-father. He had a kind of a country manner. So when he’d gone I went to the tobacco stall to buy a cigarette, and before I could speak, your daughter said to me:

“‘Oh, father’s forgotten his pocket-book!’

“It was lying on the place where you scratch the matches — the pocket-book he keeps the company’s blue papers in, you know.”

“He’s always leaving it about,” Mrs. Leroy said. “It’s a wonder to me he ever gets his work done.”

“So,” Mr. Fleight continued, “I ran after him and gave it to him before he got to the top of the stairs.

And then I went back to the tobacco stall and your daughter thanked me and explained that the pocket-book was very important as her father was a foreman turncock, and so on, quite properly, of course. And then I got into the habit of buying cigarettes at the stall, and I used to chat about the prices of tobaccos and the way they were made up. And then one day I plucked up my courage — you see, you’ve no idea how difficult it is for a rich man to become really friendly with working people. It’s almost impossible — so I asked your daughter to take me home and introduce me to you.”

Mr. Fleight stopped, and after he had been silent for some time, Mrs. Leroy said:

“What you want is a mother,” and after a time she added, “that’s what you want.”

Mr. Fleight said nothing at all. He was feeling very ill. And then suddenly there fell on his ear the sound of three loud crashes, such as are sometimes made by large motor cars. He sprang to his feet with an expression of panic. “My God!” he exclaimed, “that’s Mr. Blood’s car. I know the sound of his exhaust. He’s tracked me down.” He sank down once more upon the lemons. “But, of course, he would track me down,” he said with an air of weary resignation.

A tinkle of the bell sounded from behind Mrs. Leroy. “They’ll be coming into the shop,” she said,” but Gilda’s there. I want to know....”

The voice of Mr. Blood said from behind the sheet:

“Hullo, what’s the matter? You can’t lie there.” Mr. Fleight exclaimed:

“What’s that?” And Mr. Blood’s voice said more loudly:

“There’s somebody seems to have fainted here.”

The sheet bulged out portentously, and Mr. Blood appeared, draped by the white folds that ran diagonally across his large body and the slight form of Gilda Leroy that he was carrying in his arms. She had certainly fainted.

CHAPTER
V

“YOU’RE no earthly use to me, Mr. Mitchell!”

Miss Macphail had been saying an hour before to an audience which was composed of Charlie Mitchell, himself, Mr. Cluny Macpherson, a dark young man called Raggett, who was the sub-editor, and a fair young lady, called Shipwright who was the secretary, as well as Miss Wilhelmina Macphail, who was quite in the background. Miss Macphail was pointing down at the rather limp sheet of paper lying upon the round table, which they were all encircling, all standing and all looking down. The slip of paper was the “contents” sheet of the
New Review.

“
There’s not a single thing in it,” Miss Macphail repeated, “that is of the least use to me.”

It was at that moment that Mr. Blood came into the room, and Miss Macphail turned upon him agitatedly, and repeated for the third time her statement, that the
New Review
wasn’t of the least use to her.

“It probably wouldn’t be, you know,” Mr. Blood said; “it wasn’t really meant to be.”

“But—” Augusta exclaimed, and there was a good deal of hard indignation in her voice.

“Of course,” Mr. Blood ejaculated calmly, “if you wish to discuss private matters before this crowd, you can. But I warn you it won’t do much good, and it may do you a good deal of harm.”

He took up with irreverent hands the sheet of paper which everyone else in that small crowd regarded with awe. For to everyone else in the room the appearance of the
New Review
was an event almost religious, since it seemed to give everyone there his or her chance — to everyone else except, perhaps, to Miss Shipwright, the secretary, who was more concerned by the fact that she had left her sleeve covers at home, and that in consequence she was in some danger of inking the real sleeves of her white muslin blouse. But, indeed, even Miss Shipwright had, in the last day or so, become infected with some little of the awe holding all these people, whom she regarded as rather odd maniacs.

Mr. Blood looked slowly down the list.

“It appears to be an excellent selection of writers,” he said. “I don’t see whom you’ve left out that you could have got into the first number. There’s Block and Brown and Cocks and Dickinson and Hickman and Puddephatt and Shelley and Alexander White. What’s the matter with the list?”

At that, with the exception of Mr. Mitchell they all began to talk at once. Mr. Cluny Macpherson said the list would have been all right if Charlie Mitchell had left out Block, Brown, Cocks, Dickinson, Hickman and Shelley. Puddephatt, of course, was a very fine stylist when he was up to the mark, but in the article that he happened to have contributed he certainly hadn’t been in the vein. The sub-editor thought that it would be a very fine number but that, if they’d left out Brown, Cocks, Dickinson, Puddephatt and Shelley, Mr. Mitchell would have been able to include some new writers. All those authors were well established, and had even written themselves out. And surely the
Review
existed for the discovery of new talent. They certainly ought to have included Castor Chilcock, Nelson and O’Donohue. At that, Augusta Macphail gave a little scream. “If ever you print anything by that man O’Donohue,” she said, “I resign at once. I’m not going to have anything to do with a concern that prints hideous immorality.”

Mr. Blood said, “There, there, Augusta!” and Miss Macphail shook herself viciously.

“My name’s Macphail!” she exclaimed. “I tell you I’ve done with Bohemianism.” The inhabitants of that room gave, in unison, one real scream of incredulous laughter.

“I mean it,” Miss Macphail said. “There’s nothing so vulgar as people calling each other by their Christian names. I’m determined to stop all vulgarity in my circle.”

The rest of that small crowd reflected in abashed silence, for it struck them immediately that Augusta was right, and although everyone of them desired to be advanced in speech, thought and action, they knew very well there was an immense gulf fixed between that and vulgarity. In the silence of their reflections the clear and rather high voice of Miss Shipwright continued its remarks to Mr. Raggett — remarks which hitherto had been drowned by the other voices.

“There’s not a single thing in it that any sane person would want to read.” She hesitated for a moment when she discovered that everyone in the room was listening to her voice, but then, reflecting that in a way that this was Liberty Hall, she repeated with a clear, calm voice. “There’s not a single thing in it that any sane person would want to read.” She looked at Mr. Blood. “There’s that story of Mr. Cocks’,” she said. “I’ve been reading the proofs. It’s shockingly badly printed, but I suppose that doesn’t matter. But if anybody can tell me what it’s all about, if it isn’t about something so nasty that I wouldn’t soil my lips by making the suggestion — then all I can say is that it isn’t about anything at all. And as for Mr. Puddephatt’s poems — except that he doesn’t have capitals at the beginnings of the lines — But there, I suppose it’s no affair of mine.”

She had been looking at Mr. Blood, whom she regarded as the only sane person connected with the enterprise. And Mr. Blood accepted the tribute of her glance as a testimonial to his appearance of common sense.

“My dear,” he said, “that’s exactly the view that the public will take, and you’ve expressed it with extraordinary clearness, and it’s really the one thing that you could have said that will absolutely please Mr. Mitchell, isn’t it, Mr. Mitchell?”

Mr. Mitchell, who had said nothing, and never did say anything, said nothing now. He had made the
New Review
exactly what he had wanted to make it, and he didn’t mean to talk. Mr. Cluny Macpherson, however, began:

“There was a man called Fulijcks, who started a magazine in Hungary. And I said to him in a mud bath—”

“But that’s really the point,” Mr. Blood’s voice drowned that of Mr. Macpherson. “Mr. Mitchell has produced exactly the article that his employers wanted him to produce. What it amounts to, Miss Shipwright, is that if you’d really liked the magazine you’d have lost your job, because Mr. Rothweil would have shut it up. But as you dislike it so cordially your job will be absolutely safe, and you’ll go on being the secretary to this
Review
for ever and ever — or, at any rate, until the supply of articles that you don’t like is entirely exhausted in the world.”

“Well, that’s a comfort at any rate,” Miss Shipwright said, “for the work’s well paid and it’s easy — at any rate, it would be if Mr. Mitchell could be prevented from dropping his shaving paper and his washing bills into the basket for rejected manuscripts.”

“You shouldn’t,” Mr. Mitchell said, “have put that basket exactly where the slop basin used to stand.”

“You can’t,” Miss Shipwright retorted, “run this office as if it were a combination dressing room and sitting room for two bachelors. I’m a trained professional secretary and I must have some system.”

Mr. Mitchell, a gentleman of profound laziness, had decided that he would run this periodical from the flat occupied by Mr. Macpherson and himself. And this flat containing only three rooms was extremely inconvenient for the purpose. Indeed, on Thursday nights, which Mr. Mitchell devoted to looking through manuscripts which had been submitted to him, Mr. Macpherson was unable to retire until four o’clock in the morning, since Mr. Mitchell, who was quiet but obstinate, insisted on covering Mr. Macpherson’s bed with the manuscripts that he had accepted. Mr. Raggett, the sub-editor, was occupied until that hour in Mr. Macpherson’s bedroom in the composing of letters, which he wrote on the washhand-stand, to explain why Mr. Mitchell did not like the contributions of various writers whose work he refused. Mr. Mitchell’s own bedroom had to be left intact because immediately after the terrible labours of the Thursday night he had to fall into bed like a log and sleep until one o’clock on the following day.

Mr. Macpherson bore these hardships uncomplainingly and recognised that he deserved them for the honour and glory of it. In those three rooms they were engaged in saving British literature, and that was always something. Moreover, Mr. Macpherson had the great enjoyment of being able to inform rejected contributors of what Mr. Mitchell really said about their work — which differed very much from what Mr. Raggett said in the letters composed upon Mr. Macpherson’s washstand.

Mr. Blood pushed Miss Macphail rather roughly into his motor and told the chauffeur to drive to High Street Kensington Station on the Underground.

“It’s perfectly true!” Miss Macphail said rather angrily. “I oughtn’t to be driving about with you. It was all very well when I was just a roving sort of free lance—”

“I’ll tell you what,” Mr. Blood interrupted her roughly, “if you don’t do what I tell you you’ll find you’ll be just a roving free lance to the end of your days.”

Miss Macphail answered:

“I think I know all there is to know about journalism. And if you think that anything’s going to be done with this rotten
Review
of yours and Charlie Mitchell’s, you’re absolutely mistaken. It can’t succeed. It can’t pay. The public doesn’t want this high-brow sort of stuff. Why, you can’t make head or tail of a single thing in it! Take the first poem, now—”

Mr. Blood said: “Well!” and Miss Macphail had a sort of shiver of discouraged ill-temper because she couldn’t find any words to characterise the poem which opened the
New Review.

“
It’s just simply rotten!” she brought out. “I tell you I can’t afford to be connected with a thing that won’t pay and can’t pay. I want to belong to a real live journal.” That was why she had given up the editorship of the
Halfpenny Weekly.
It was all very well that they were paying her a thousand a year. They wouldn’t be able to carry on this rotten
Review
for more than a year or so unless they were prepared to drop fifty thousand pounds. And she didn’t suppose they were prepared for that. She didn’t know much about this Mr. Fleight, or Mr. Rothweil, or whatever his name might be, but she had seen too many of these romantic, philanthropic, literary enterprises. They started with a tremendous flare and they banged up and rattled for about three months. Then the proprietor got tired of spending money and the editor went off with the till and they were all left in the cart. “I tell you what it is,” Augusta declared, “either you will make your
Review
a real five paper or I give you a quarter’s notice right here.”

“Don’t you think,” Mr. Blood asked, “that you’d better listen to me?”

“No, I don’t!” the lady answered. “Not until I’ve had my say. You listen to me. Crowther and Bingham rang me up this morning and offered to start a new paper for me on the lines of the
Ha’penny Weekly.
They offer me
£
1,200 a year, a ten years’ contract for editing it, and ten thousand
£1
shares as a bonus. That’s what I’ve been playing for all these years and that’s what you’re practically asking me to give up. It isn’t good enough, Mr. Blood.”

“Now you listen to me, Augusta,” Mr. Blood said. “You’re a beautiful woman.”

Augusta answered:

“That’s why I intend to see that I take my pigs to the proper market.”

“You’re a beautiful woman,” Mr. Blood repeated equably. “There really are few women more beautiful than you that I know of.”

“If,” Augusta said frostily, “that’s your way of beginning to ask permission to pay your attentions to my sister Wilhelmina you may as well save yourself the trouble.”

“But,” Mr. Blood pursued his sentence, “for the last year or so you’ve been going off. You can’t stand the life. You want more luxury, more ease.” — She needed domestic surroundings. It was not too late to pick her looks up again but it was almost too late. If she stopped in journalism for another five years she’d be just one of the poor, dried-up hacks of the Pocohontas Club. She might have saved a little money; probably she wouldn’t have; she’d have dropped back into hack journalism. She would be beginning to think of wearing a chestnut front and her complexion would be all little lines and creases as if she had been sleeping on it all day and had only just got up.

Miss Macphail said:

“What’s that? What’s that? You dare to talk to me like that?”

“I’m talking to you for your own good, Augusta,” Mr. Blood said. “You think you know journalism and you don’t. You think I don’t and I do. I’ll tell you, for instance, what’ll become of your ten years’ contract with Crowther and Bingham.” — The paper would be the property of a limited company. Her contract would be with the company. She would make the paper a roaring success. Then the company would go bankrupt owing to faulty financial handling. She must know that was always what happened. Crowther and Bingham would buy the paper. Her contract would be with the company and so it would not be worth the paper it was written on. “You’ll get thrown out and the paper will continue with some poor devil of an editor at £150 a year.” Mr. Blood broke off to see what impression he was making.