Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (593 page)

“You let her go with another. So soon” I asked her whom.

She answered:

“That girl. Marie Elizabeth. The daughter of my dear old friend, Lord.... Lord...”

I am a person of sudden obsessions, lasting a minute or so. And suddenly and desperately I just did not want to hear any more of that affair. It was irrational; I ought to have desired to know out of a just curiosity. But I wanted to be on the Norfolk Broads.

She said:

“The name is on the tip of my tongue!”

I said:

“For Heaven’s sake, keep it there, then!”

She ignored me, repeating dreamily: “ Lord.... Lord.... I spent a whole summer at Aix en Provence. In the time of my first husband. He was very intelligent, but with a temper like a volcano. That Lord, I mean, not my husband! I have never known such a temper. Such gusts! We walked often together.”

I said:

“And the children...”

She said:

“I recognised them at once. I have the royal gift for faces. I suppose he has thrown them off?” Her attention began to wander to her waiters. But she brought it back with a jerk. “That pink room,” she said, “ was taken by the Right Honourable.... Oh, la! la! Something or other. But I told my
maître d’hotel
to lock it up and give the key to you.” She was going away to the right.

I caught her elbow and asked imperatively:

“Tell me! Are they legitimate?”

She said to a waiter:

*’ I told you to serve no sparkling red wine before eleven.”

And to me:

“I do not know. What does it matter? Kiss and be thankful. That is the good motto!” It was impossible to keep her attention any longer. She came back and said: “Bastards, of course. What do you suppose?”

She became the centre of a group of guardsmen to whom three waiters, all in despair, gesticulated and exclaimed: “It’s impossible!” I heard her say to the Guardsmen: “ It will be all ra-ight!”

My man had just lost a rich relation and could not go to the Broads after all. He would be busy right up to September. He was a nice fellow. I was sorry.

I was considering that, since the Heimann children were certainly illegitimate, I had probably done right in trying to prevent their troubling their “uncle.” And he had a temper like a volcano. That seemed to settle it. They must leave him alone.

I had to think sharply and baldly, like that, because I was being worried all the time and having to outshout that infernal band. A Lady Laubenheimer — at least I know she had the name of some German vintage: it may have been Johannisberger! — had caught my sleeve and was pressing me to go down to a historic manor called Hurstcote for the last week in July and the first in August. She wanted me to arrange some eighteenth century Venetian plays in the open air. She said she desired to encourage the Arts. I believe she was hideously wealthy. I was trying to think about the young Heimanns. She edged me back so that one of those infernal Caryatids was forcing a scarlet projection into my kidneys. I shouted:

“I’ve got to go to...

She screamed:

“Go where? I can’t hear!”

I shouted through a deep silence: the band had stopped: “ To my brother’s. His chickens are sick!”

It was an inspiration; but I daresay I should not have had it if in that electric brougham I had not been talking to Clarice about poor Fred’s chicken farm at Froghole. I neglected my brother dreadfully.

Lady Johannisberger went on worrying. She said: “Chickens! “Did I prize chickens above art! I said they were prize chickens! She said: “Where is it?”

“The Summit, Froghole?”

“But that’s not twelve miles from us: we could motor you over every day.” I said I wanted to write a book whilst I nursed the valuable chickens. At that she cried out: “Ah, yes! your Art comes first!” She was a good creature, really. She just pleaded: “Well, then, couldn’t I find someone for her. Presentable and gifted, and with some knowledge of stage management. She wanted to have something pretty and first rate. To help Art. Lady Bugle Kellerman and Lord Justice Someone would be there all the time.

Then I suggested introducing the young Heimanns to her. I did it some time during the evening. She was a motherly, unpresentable woman, with quite a moustache. And she took at once to those two. I daresay she thought them Jewish.

It was by then five minutes to ten. And it came into my head that Mr. Jeaffreson, who was after all my guest, must be having rather a thin time.

He was. He was sitting alone, three feet from that orchestra.

I took him further off. And I found him, as I had suspected, a much more reasonable fellow when his women folk were leaving him alone. He told no stories, for instance, about his clients: I came to the conclusion that he only did that to show his sister what a devil of a fellow he was. And the cocky, j aunty titter and side-glance through the edges of his glasses had deserted him, too, when there were no women about. Before me he let himself appear merely worried.

He appeared indeed so worried that, when he began again to pull out his infernal pink and soiled evening paper I had not the heart to stop him, though that festive place was not one in which the reading of papers looked well. He said:

“You know this... my client’s world! I wish you would read this and advise me.” He had a decent hesitancy about handing me the sheet, and added: “I know you’re busy. But it may be urgent — or it may not. I am prepared to be guided by you.”

His grubby sheet was marked with large blue crosses in two places. In what is called the stop-press column there was a pale, three-line account of the proceedings before the magistrate in Rex
v.
Heimann. But in another, a column in which the paragraphs were separated by stars, there was a much nastier note. In it someone asked whether, considering the relations between this country and Germany, a quite unknown young man, publishing a translation of a German epic, was well advised in bringing in the German Emperor to insult a leading British commercial light like Mr. Podd, the eminent publisher.

Mr. Jeaffreson said:

“The question is... I can’t get at my client... That is to say, I have spoken to my client about it.”

I said:

“The deuce you have! When?”

He answered that he had tried to talk to George Heimann about it in the street between the Ladies’ Club and my chambers. But the boy had said that when he had a solicitor he left all such matters in that solicitor’s hands.

“And I don’t know,” he began to conclude.

I said, irritably:

“What!” For in spite of all my precautions that fellow had managed to get his paper through to George! That was annoying.

“Should I,” he answered, “apply to the court to attach the editor?”

I exclaimed, as impressively as I could:

“For Heaven’s sake do nothing of the sort!”

“Miss Heimann,” he added, cautiously, “is extremely anxious that I should.”

“If you do,” I cried out.

I was going to say: “You will upset him dreadfully,” but I changed it to:

“You will endanger his whole career!”

Mr. Jeaffreson’s dull blue eyes grew as large as his sister’s behind his glasses. I felt myself by then deeply enough engaged to say:

“Can’t you, in your defence, treat the whole thing as a lark? As the amiable excitement of a gifted young man destined to a public career?”

Mr. Jeaffreson said:

“It’s unfortunately a
criminal
charge.” He looked for a moment genuinely regretful. “If it were a civil action,” he went on, “ it might be arranged as you obviously want. But in criminal proceedings one’s hands are so tied! Besides, the complainant is really vindictive.”

I said:

“You can take it from me that he won’t be after he has slept on it. For goodness sake do all that you can to quiet the whole matter down!”

Mr. Jeaffreson said:

“You understand the
Evening Paper
states that the prisoner was remanded without saying that he was granted bail. That and the other paragraph are sufficient....” I had really a great distaste for meddling in the matter at all. But I could not help interrupting:

“Whatever you do....”

He finished his sentence as if I had never interrupted him:

“To amount to an obvious attempt to create prejudice against my client.”

I began mine again:

“Whatever you do, don’t make this young man ridiculous. He cannot afford it. An aristocratic young man may abuse a publisher, be bound over and have the sympathies of the whole world. And then stand for Parliament — which is what he is to do — and gain by that exploit. But a fellow who makes himself ridiculous by suing half the papers in London won’t stand any chance. The papers are too powerful — and unforgiving.”

I broke off and asked:

“Have you seen any of the other papers?”

He was looking at me intently.

“Are you,” he asked, “in a position to assure me that he is going to stand for Parliament — and that he will be provided with funds? No, I have not seen any of the other papers.”

I reflected as quickly as I could on what Lady Ada had said to me. And then I took the responsibility, though I disliked it. I said:

“He is to be introduced to-night to a political leader of Cabinet rank. If he appeals to the gentleman he will be put up for Parliament. So it’s important that he should not now be agitated. You are man of the world enough to understand that.”

I added:

“A waiter will bring you all the papers.”

The voice of Madame said in my ears:

“Do you want to
marry
that girl?” She was leaning right over me. I said:

“Would you tell a waiter to bring all the evening papers to this gentleman?”

Her voice whispered on:

“I daresay she is legitimate. Perhaps
she
is and he isn’t. She is younger.” She was gone.

That was maddening.

It should be understood that I had a conscience, and the point whether Miss Heimann were or were not legitimate made all the difference in the world. If she were, then one had no right to stop her applying pressure to her “uncle.” It would be too rough on the girl. For instance, it might very well stop her making a good match. If, on the other hand, they were illegitimate, it was plain common sense to urge the solicitor to leave the uncle in peace.

A waiter appeared with a great bundle of evening papers. I am a quick reader, and find my way through journals with a speed that would appear improbable to those less practised. So that, whilst Mr. Jeaffreson was still wiping Ms glasses, I had satisfied myself. The reporters of all the other papers were quite friendly to George Heimann. One called him “the distinguished poet”; and another had, alongside the report of the trial, a review of the translation of
The Titanic: an Epic.
This journal said that George had done the world a service in this attempt to bring together the culture of two great nations in times of misunderstanding. I said to Mr. Jeaffreson:

“It is quite clear. The court would never give you an order, and you would look a fool.”

Mr. Jeaffreson thought slowly. I had to go on to explain that the attack on the foreign sovereign in the
Evening Paper
must have been in print long before that report of the trial had come into the newspaper office. The report was in the stop-press column; the attack in the body of the paper. The
Evening Paper
wanted a war with Germany. That was criminal or foolish; but it could not be construed into contempt of court. It was mere coincidence that the note and the report appeared side by side; just as it was coincidence that, in the other paper, which did not want a war with Germany, the favourable review appeared beside the report of the trial.