Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (601 page)

“Your brother Fred is the finest man I have ever met. The most understanding and the most helpful.”

I was not in the least surprised: I am never surprised when two young people marry each other after a three days’ acquaintance. Then, precipitation just sweeps away prudence. My brother had never married till then, not because he was insensible to the attractions of women, but simply because he considered stubbornly that he had not enough, in the purely material sense, to offer a girl of good family. A chicken farm that just paid its way and afforded him healthful exercise, and five to six hundred a year of private income — It was not enough for two people to live on. But, now, he did not expect to live. So that the chickens and the rest would be just a present to Marie Elizabeth.

That I could see. But what hurt me was that he had not told myself a word of his intentions. Marie Elizabeth said that we were meeting him and my mother at my mother’s little town house — towards five. So he must have told my mother. And indeed, the day before, Marie Elizabeth had driven herself over in my brother’s milk-float to call on my mother, who lived seven miles or so away from Froghole Summit. I had not been very well, and had not gone.

I got the answer to that that afternoon, about five. We were washing our hands together in my mother’s bathroom; and I just asked him why he had told me nothing. He was drying his hands slowly, wiping each long finger with extreme care. He said, slowly too:

“Because you miscalled her with such force. And such skill, I’m bound to say!”

I recoiled, physically, against the washing basin. I couldn’t recall having abused Marie Elizabeth to him. But I have no doubt that I had. For he went on to say: “ After all, a girl has a certain right to take an interest in her birth. And I suppose it is a brother’s duty to help her. That fellow....”

He did not finish his sentence. I said:

“At any rate you can rely on me to look after Marie Elizabeth, now.”

He said, rather grimly:

“I do. She obviously hasn’t anyone else to help her.” He finished drying his hands and, folding up the towel exactly and with care, hung it on the towel rail. Then he began again:

“You clever chaps are sometimes not just. You look out for unusual things and miss the plain ones. And what you don’t see is that Marie Elizabeth has the spirit of a crusader. She does not look either to the right or to the left. And her determination to be righted is not merely selfish. Women treat men as a rule too well, and men treat women too badly. She is determined to show the world that things are changing and that women, nowadays, can defend themselves as well as men. Apparently her brother will put up with anything for the sake of a quiet life; and you sympathise with him. But that is wrong. We are not in the world for peace and quietness....

He went on talking in that strain for quite a long time: his Delilah had certainly shorn that Samson to some purpose. I don’t think we had had a disagreement for twenty years, nor do I remember ever to have heard him talk so much at once, but with all his talk he had very little the gift of showing what were exactly his feelings. So that I do not really know whether our relations were as cordial as before, when we parted. I never had the chance to talk to him alone again.

He was to be in London for about a week, after all. He had put in for a commission. He had not intended to do that; he said that he did not believe he would have much control over the men. He could not even get his old chicken-foreman to obey him without expending a good deal of argument. However, he considered it would be better for Marie Elizabeth at home if she were the wife of an officer in France. That was one of the things Sir Arthur and she had fixed up behind that mahogany door. It was not, of course, difficult. There was a great dearth of officers just beginning. I do not know that Marie Elizabeth even asked Fred before she made Sir Arthur get on to the War Office on that telephone of his. Fred got a week’s marriage leave, too.

I believe that Fred regretted it a little. His was one of those battalions — he had been in it for seven or eight years — in which the privates were all country gentlemen’s or yeomen’s sons; and they had agreed to go on together in the ranks. However, as soon as they landed in France the battalion was disbanded, nearly all of the men being given commissions and drafted into other regiments. So it did not make much difference.

My mother, a woman of nearly sixty, was a vigorous creature of remarkable practical gifts. She lived alone in the country, managing her own place, and was nearly as taciturn as my brother, though with a little more surface hardness. When Fred disappeared after a fight somewhere in Belgium, the War Office harrowed her a good deal. First they wired that he was dead; then they cancelled that telegram with another saying that he was unhurt; cancelled that in favour of his being seriously wounded, and, about a week later, they announced that he had been missing ever since the first date — which was true. I suppose they had to do that sort of thing; they did it to many of my friends or their parents. That did not do my mother good — though she said nothing.

Anyhow, on the night of poor Fred’s wedding she was active enough. She was not a very large woman, still with very black hair, a brownish complexion and dark, rather liquorish eyes — a Scotswoman. She loved rather broad country stories, and was quite reckless as to when or to whom she told them, chuckling over Essex ploughmen’s witticisms and turning the words over in her mouth for long after she had heard them, slightly shaking her sides. She was of better family than my father, and had been a celebrated beauty — about the Court I believe. At any rate, she was rather a great lady, and had a great knowledge of past scandals and the oddities of great men.

I believe she liked Marie Elizabeth very well — Marie Elizabeth being quiet, cold, practical, and determined. And she certainly sympathised with the girl over her wrongs, though I don’t know how I knew she did. She never spoke much about it then, though I heard her say that she had known Lord Marsden well and not liked him much.

At any rate she was rather a powerful and aggressive protectrix for the girl to have found. And on Fred’s wedding day she showed her spirit by getting up one of those scratch entertainments with which we were afterwards to be familiar enough. I don’t know how many people turned up at that rather detestable church. There was quite a small crowd in the gloom away from the altar. It was past nine of course. And there were old aunts and decorative uncles of my family — admiralish sort of decayed creatures. And half a dozen of Fred’s regiment; and in the centre of the front row of pews the silver-grey head and grey features of Sir Arthur shone in the light of the two incandescent burners that illuminated the brass gimcracks of the altar. He kept on whispering to the lady on his right and to the gentleman on his left:

“This is rather fun, isn’t it? Isn’t it rather fun? I hear there’s to be some supper, too! Lady Jessop used to keep a deuced good cook. It
is
rather fun, isn’t it?”

The gentleman on his left looked rather worried. He was Mr. Carstones. Marie Elizabeth had undoubtedly made a great impression on him, and he too played some part in the development of her fortunes. Indeed, I believe she led him a devil of a life. But at that time he saw new dangers for Sir Arthur. I don’t mean sentimental ones....

As for Marie Elizabeth, coming up the aisle on my arm, her slightly parted lips in her otherwise immobile and exactly proportioned face had just the least chisellings of triumph. And indeed it was a triumph for her. She and my mother had worked like niggers with two telephones, my mother having gone in next door to use the instrument of her neighbours. My mother, I believe, enjoyed it immensely, in a spirit of pure lark; Marie Elizabeth being grim and determined. Anyhow, there the people were....

In the garishly lit sacristy — I hate the light from incandescent gas mantles shining on stone and surplices hung from hooks — the minor clergyman who had performed the ceremony smelt extremely strongly of his dinner, and his eyes stood out of his head with excitement. He was an Irishman, come only yesterday from some remote bog, and he was not used to seeing names like those written down.... For myself, I had been, not in any prominent way or frame of mind, guiding old aunts and uncles to that bright place. I was standing still at rather a loose end when I noticed Marie Elizabeth bending over the great register, signing her name. Sir Arthur, just behind her, holding a quill pen, exclaimed:

“Oh! I say!” — and looked at the lady beside him, who also held a pen. The parson had been running round amongst us with a bundle of these implements, which he forced into any hand.

I wasn’t myself right up against the register on its lectern. But I certainly heard Sir Arthur exclaim: “Oh, I say!” And I noticed that both Marie Elizabeth’s hands clenched themselves together. The lady beside Sir Arthur suddenly patted that girl on the arm. I only saw her back; but when she bent, a very tall woman, over the large illuminated page, I could see elaborate silver hair and a dark-complexioned, very smooth face. It was of course Lady Ada Pugh Gomme. And whilst her pen moved slowly and carefully — I fancy she was short-sighted — I saw Marie Elizabeth’s hands slowly unclose and her jaw fall. I slipped along and caught her small, thin elbow. I said: “Steady, Marie Elizabeth!” I thought she was going to faint with the natural emotions of the ceremony. She caught my lower arm tightly and watched Sir Arthur sign, over her shoulder.

When the last letter of his name was there, twinkling in the full black ink, she gave one extraordinarily deep sigh. She must have been holding her breath all that time. Well, I have said that she had a broad chest and very deep lungs.... And it pleases me to remember that she whispered swiftly and with a sort of hoarseness:

“Take me to Fred, will you? I can’t see Fred!”

I like to think that that poor, good, long fellow, hiding in unbearable confusion and excitement behind the row of surplices depending from varnished deal, got that much out of it.

I had a very strong sense that something excruciating and social had just happened. I couldn’t tell what: my mind would not make the effort. In a crowd like that I always feel a sense of stupidity; there are too many personalities tearing away at the consciousness. And I will make the confession that merely wondering with a sense of irritation what I ought to give the pew-opener had dulled my perception, so that I had not really taken in anything but just those nasty lights, the rows of surplices, the pushings of admirals retired, and the active officers of Fred’s own battalion who at that moment wedged me in by the elbows.

A voice said, just at my elbow:

“Arthur! If your young man expects me to let down my brother’s daughter at the very altar, on her wedding day, tell him I am not that sort of woman!”

I wedged myself two paces to the right so that I stood almost between Lady Ada and her opposite. I did it as obviously as I could, for I wanted Lady Ada to know that I had heard her. She looked directly into my eyes. There was about her something quite hard. Sir Arthur was — and I daresay correctly — reputed to be her lover of ten or twelve years’ standing. He appeared — I don’t know why — rather crumpled. He muttered from just under my nose: “Carstones is worried because Pugh may object!” He caught sight of me. Lady Ada, still looking straight into my eyes, said:

“Of course Pugh will defend his children’s title. Who is to blame him!”

She spoke highly and imperiously. Her movements were sharp. I supposed that, now, I was my brother’s brother for her. When I had been just the casual novelist, Mr. Jessop, she had been as vague as a silver point drawing of shipping in a mist. She addressed me:

“We’re keeping that girl,” she said, “it seems, in the family.” She half closed her eyes, seemed to swallow, and went on: “Your mother is such an old friend of mine, I remember her doing up my frocks behind at garden parties. Ages ago!”

Sir Arthur looked at me rather sulkily. I do not believe he took me in at all. At any rate, seven years afterwards, he had no idea that he had ever met me. In his office or on the hustings he had that pose of the blandly idiotic. With this intimate woman he appeared just frightened. I daresay he had reason to be. Those were frightening days. Women suffered too much. She vouchsafed to him — I had missed his remark:

“In a jam like this you could talk anything! Obscenities! And not a soul the wiser.”

He just gave way and exclaimed:

“You’d be better at home!”

She answered:

“I could not sit at home... To-night... Waiting on that wire! I do not dare!”