For nine years, John Dowell and his wife have spent the summer season at a German spa town in the company of the respectable Ashburnhams. Behind the placid exterior of their lives lie the destructive passions of men and women.
The Good Soldier
By Ford Madox FordCarcanet Press, Ltd.
Copyright © 1996 Ford Madox Ford
All right reserved.ISBN: 9781857543001
Excerpt
I
HIS is the saddest story I have ever heard. We had known the Ashburnhams fornine seasons of the town of Nauheim with an extreme intimacy?or, rather with anacquaintanceship as loose and easy and yet as close as a good glove's with yourhand. My wife and I knew Captain and Mrs Ashburnham as well as it was possibleto know anybody, and yet, in another sense, we knew nothing at all about them.This is, I believe, a state of things only possible with English people of whom,till today, when I sit down to puzzle out what I know of this sad affair, I knewnothing whatever. Six months ago I had never been to England, and, certainly, Ihad never sounded the depths of an English heart. I had known the shallows.
I don't mean to say that we were not acquainted with many English people.Living, as we perforce lived, in Europe, and being, as we perforce were,leisured Americans, which is as much as to say that we were un-American, we werethrown very much into the society of the nicer English. Paris, you see, was ourhome. Somewhere between Nice and Bordighera provided yearly winter quarters forus, and Nauheim always received us from July to September. You will gather fromthis statement that one of us had, as the saying is, a "heart", and,from the statement that my wife is dead, that she was the sufferer.
Captain Ashburnham also had a heart. But, whereas a yearly month or so atNauheim tuned him up to exactly the right pitch for the rest of the twelvemonth,the two months or so were only just enough to keep poor Florence alive from yearto year. The reason for his heart was, approximately, polo, or too much hardsportsmanship in his youth. The reason for poor Florence's broken years was astorm at sea upon our first crossing to Europe, and the immediate reasons forour imprisonment in that continent were doctor's orders. They said that even theshort Channel crossing might well kill the poor thing.
When we all first met, Captain Ashburnham, home on sick leave from an India towhich he was never to return, was thirty-three; Mrs Ashburnham?Leonora?wasthirty-one. I was thirty-six and poor Florence thirty. Thus today Florence wouldhave been thirty-nine and Captain Ashburnham forty-two; whereas I am forty-fiveand Leonora forty. You will perceive, therefore, that our friendship has been ayoung-middle-aged affair, since we were all of us of quite quiet dispositions,the Ashburnhams being more particularly what in England it is the custom to call"quite good people".
They were descended, as you will probably expect, from the Ashburnham whoaccompanied Charles I to the scaffold, and, as you must also expect with thisclass of English people, you would never have noticed it. Mrs Ashburnham was aPowys; Florence was a Hurlbird of Stamford, Connecticut, where, as you know,they are more old-fashioned than even the inhabitants of Cranford, England,could have been. I myself am a Dowell of Philadelphia, Pa., where, it ishistorically true, there are more old English families than you would find inany six English counties taken together. I carry about with me, indeed?as if itwere the only thing that invisibly anchored me to any spot upon the globe?thetitle deeds of my farm, which once covered several blocks between Chestnut andWalnut Streets. These title deeds are of wampum, the grant of an Indian chief tothe first Dowell, who left Farnham in Surrey in company with William Penn.Florence's people, as is so often the case with the inhabitants of Connecticut,came from the neighbourhood of Fordingbridge, where the Ashburnhams' place is.From there, at this moment, I am actually writing.
You may well ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For it is notunusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city or the falling topieces of a people to desire to set down what they have witnessed for thebenefit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely remote; or, if you please,just to get the sight out of their heads.
Some one has said that the death of a mouse from cancer is the whole sack ofRome by the Goths, and I swear to you that the breaking up of our littlefour-square coterie was such another unthinkable event. Supposing that youshould come upon us sitting together at one of the little tables in front of theclub house, let us say, at Homburg, taking tea of an afternoon and watching theminiature golf, you would have said that, as human affairs go, we were anextraordinarily safe castle. We were, if you will, one of those tall ships withthe white sails upon a blue sea, one of those things that seem the proudest andthe safest of all the beautiful and safe things that God has permitted the mindof men to frame. Where better could one take refuge? Where better?
Permanence? Stability? I can't believe it's gone. I can't believe that thatlong, tranquil life, which was just stepping a minuet, vanished in four crashingdays at the end of nine years and six weeks. Upon my word, yes, our intimacy waslike a minuet, simply because on every possible occasion and in every possiblecircumstance we knew where to go, where to sit, which table we unanimouslyshould choose; and we could rise and go, all four together, without a signalfrom any one of us, always to the music of the Kur orchestra, always in thetemperate sunshine, or, if it rained, in discreet shelters. No, indeed, it can'tbe gone. You can't kill a minuet de la cour. You may shut up the music-book,close the harpsichord; in the cupboard and presses the rats may destroy thewhite satin favours. The mob may sack Versailles; the Trianon may fall, butsurely the minuet?the minuet itself is dancing itself away into the furtheststars, even as our minuet of the Hessian bathing places must be stepping itselfstill. Isn't there any heaven where old beautiful dances, old beautifulintimacies prolong themselves? Isn't there any Nirvana pervaded by the faintthrilling of instruments that have fallen into the dust of wormwood but that yethad frail, tremulous, and everlasting souls?
No, by God, it is false! It wasn't a minuet that we stepped; it was a prison?aprison full of screaming hysterics, tied down so that they might not outsoundthe rolling of our carriage wheels as we went along the shaded avenues of theTaunus Wald.
And yet I swear by the sacred name of my creator that it was true. It was truesunshine; the true music; the true splash of the fountains from the mouth ofstone dolphins. For, if for me we were four people with the same tastes, withthe same desires, acting?or, no, not acting?sitting here and thereunanimously, isn't that the truth? If for nine years I have possessed a goodlyapple that is rotten at the core and discover its rottenness only in nine yearsand six months less four days, isn't it true to say that for nine years Ipossessed a goodly apple? So it may well be with Edward Ashburnham, with Leonorahis wife and with poor dear Florence. And, if you come to think of it, isn't ita little odd that the physical rottenness of at least two pillars of ourfour-square house never presented itself to my mind as a menace to its security?It doesn't so present itself now though the two of them are actually dead. Idon't know. . . .
I know nothing?nothing in the world?of the hearts of men. I only know that Iam alone?horribly alone. No hearthstone will ever again witness, for me,friendly intercourse. No smoking-room will ever be other than peopled withincalculable simulacra amidst smoke wreaths. Yet, in the name of God, whatshould I know if I don't know the life of the hearth and of the smoking-room,since my whole life has been passed in those places? The warm hearthside!--Well, there was Florence: I believe that for the twelve years her life lasted,after the storm that seemed irretrievably to have weakened her heart?I don'tbelieve that for one minute she was out of my sight, except when she was safelytucked up in bed and I should be downstairs, talking to some good fellow orother in some lounge or smoking-room or taking my final turn with a cigar beforegoing to bed. I don't, you understand, blame Florence. But how can she haveknown what she knew? How could she have got to know it? To know it so fully.Heavens! There doesn't seem to have been the actual time. It must have been whenI was taking my baths, and my Swedish exercises, being manicured. Leading thelife I did, of the sedulous, strained nurse, I had to do something to keepmyself fit. It must have been then! Yet even that can't have been enough time toget the tremendously long conversations full of worldly wisdom that Leonora hasreported to me since their deaths. And is it possible to imagine that during ourprescribed walks in Nauheim and the neighbourhood she found time to carry on theprotracted negotiations which she did carry on between Edward Ashburnham and hiswife? And isn't it incredible that during all that time Edward and Leonora neverspoke a word to each other in private? What is one to think of humanity?
For I swear to you that they were the model couple. He was as devoted as it waspossible to be without appearing fatuous. So well set up, with such honest blueeyes, such a touch of stupidity, such a warm goodheartedness! And she?so tall,so splendid in the saddle, so fair! Yes, Leonora was extraordinarily fair and soextraordinarily the real thing that she seemed too good to be true. You don't, Imean, as a rule, get it all so superlatively together. To be the county family,to look the county family, to be so appropriately and perfectly wealthy; to beso perfect in manner?even just to the saving touch of insolence that seems tobe necessary. To have all that and to be all that! No, it was too good to betrue. And yet, only this afternoon, talking over the whole matter she said tome: "Once I tried to have a lover but I was so sick at the heart, soutterly worn out that I had to send him away." That struck me as the mostamazing thing I had ever heard. She said "I was actually in a man's arms.Such a nice chap! Such a dear fellow! And I was saying to myself, fiercely,hissing it between my teeth, as they say in novels?and really clenching themtogether: I was saying to myself: 'Now, I'm in for it and I'll really have agood time for once in my life?for once in my life!' It was in the dark, in acarriage, coming back from a hunt ball. Eleven miles we had to drive! And thensuddenly the bitterness of the endless poverty, of the endless acting?it fellon me like a blight, it spoilt everything. Yes, I had to realize that I had beenspoilt even for the good time when it came. And I burst out crying and I criedand I cried for the whole eleven miles. Just imagine me crying! And justimagine me making a fool of the poor dear chap like that. It certainly wasn'tplaying the game, was it now?"
I don't know; I don't know; was that last remark of hers the remark of a harlot,or is it what every decent woman, county family or not county family, thinks atthe bottom of her heart? Or thinks all the time for the matter of that? Whoknows?
Yet, if one doesn't know that at this hour and day, at this pitch ofcivilization to which we have attained, after all the preachings of all themoralists, and all the teachings of all the mothers to all the daughters insaecula saeculorum . . . but perhaps that is what all mothers teach alldaughters, not with lips but with the eyes, or with heart whispering to heart.And, if one doesn't know as much as that about the first thing in the world,what does one know and why is one here?
I asked Mrs Ashburnham whether she had told Florence that and what Florence hadsaid and she answered:?"Florence didn't offer any comment at all. Whatcould she say? There wasn't anything to be said. With the grinding poverty wehad to put up with to keep up appearances, and the way the poverty cameabout?you know what I mean?any woman would have been justified intaking a lover and presents too. Florence once said about a very similarposition?she was a little too well-bred, too American, to talk about mine?thatit was a case of perfectly open riding and the woman could just act on the spurof the moment. She said it in American of course, but that was the sense of it.I think her actual words were: 'That it was up to her to take it or leave it. .. .'"
I don't want you to think that I am writing Teddy Ashburnham down a brute. Idon't believe he was. God knows, perhaps all men are like that. For as I've saidwhat do I know even of the smoking-room? Fellows come in and tell the mostextraordinarily gross stories?so gross that they will positively give you apain. And yet they'd be offended if you suggested that they weren't the sort ofperson you could trust your wife alone with. And very likely they'd be quiteproperly offended?that is if you can trust anybody alone with anybody. But thatsort of fellow obviously takes more delight in listening to or in telling grossstories?more delight than in anything else in the world. They'll hunt languidlyand dress languidly and dine languidly and work without enthusiasm and find it abore to carry on three minutes' conversation about anything whatever and yet,when the other sort of conversation begins, they'll laugh. and wake up and throwthemselves about in their chairs. Then, if they so delight in the narration, howis it possible that they can be offended?and properly offended?at thesuggestion that they might make attempts upon your wife's honour? Or again:Edward Ashburnham was the cleanest looking sort of chap;?an excellentmagistrate, a first rate soldier, one of the best landlords, so they said, inHampshire, England. To the poor and to hopeless drunkards, as I myself havewitnessed, he was like a painstaking guardian. And he never told a story thatcouldn't have gone into the columns of the Field more than once or twicein all the nine years of my knowing him. He didn't even like hearing them; hewould fidget and get up and go out to buy a cigar or something of that sort. Youwould have said that he was just exactly the sort of chap that you could havetrusted your wife with. And I trusted mine and it was madness.
And yet again you have me. If poor Edward was dangerous because of the chastityof his expressions?and they say that is always the hall-mark of alibertine?what about myself? For I solemnly avow that not only have I never somuch as hinted at an impropriety in my conversation in the whole of my days; andmore than that, I will vouch for the cleanness of my thoughts and the absolutechastity of my life. At what, then, does it all work out? Is the whole thing afolly and a mockery? Am I no better than a eunuch or is the proper man?the manwith the right to existence?a raging stallion forever neighing after hisneighbour's womankind?
I don't know. And there is nothing to guide us. And if everything is so nebulousabout a matter so elementary as the morals of sex, what is there to guide us inthe more subtle morality of all other personal contacts, associations, andactivities? Or are we meant to act on impulse alone? It is all a darkness.
II
I DON'T know how it is best to put this thing down?whether it would be betterto try and tell the story from the beginning, as if it were a story; or whetherto tell it from this distance of time, as it reached me from the lips of Leonoraor from those of Edward himself.
So I shall just imagine myself for a fortnight or so at one side of thefireplace of a country cottage, with a sympathetic soul opposite me. And I shallgo on talking, in a low voice while the sea sounds in the distance and overheadthe great black flood of wind polishes the bright stars. From time to time weshall get up and go to the door and look out at the great moon and say:"Why, it is nearly as bright as in Provence!" And then we shall comeback to the fireside, with just the touch of a sigh because we are not in thatProvence where even the saddest stories are gay. Consider the lamentable historyof Peire Vidal. Two years ago Florence and I motored from Biarritz to Las Tours,which is in the Black Mountains. In the middle of a tortuous valley there risesup an immense pinnacle and on the pinnacle are four castles?Las Tours, theTowers. And the immense mistral blew down that valley which was the way fromFrance into Provence so that the silver grey olive leaves appeared like hairflying in the wind, and the tufts of rosemary crept into the iron rocks thatthey might not be torn up by the roots.
It was, of course, poor dear Florence who wanted to go to Las Tours. You are toimagine that, however much her bright personality came from Stamford,Connecticut, she was yet a graduate of Poughkeepsie. I never could imagine howshe did it?the queer, chattery person that she was. With the far-away look inher eyes?which wasn't, however, in the least romantic?I mean that she didn'tlook as if she were seeing poetic dreams, or looking through you, for she hardlyever did look at you!?holding up one hand as if she wished to silence anyobjection?or any comment for the matter of that?she would talk. She would talkabout William the Silent, about Gustave the Loquacious, about Paris frocks,about how the poor dressed in 1337, about Fantin-Latour, about theParis-Lyons-Mediterranée train-deluxe, about whether it would be worthwhile to get off at Tarascon and go across the windswept suspension-bridge, overthe Rhone to take another look at Beaucaire.
We never did take another look at Beaucaire, of course?beautiful Beaucaire,with the high, triangular white tower, that looked as thin as a needle and astall as the Flatiron, between Fifth and Broadway?Beaucaire with the grey wallson the top of the pinnacle surrounding an acre and a half of blue irises,beneath the tallness of the stone pines, What a beautiful thing the stone pineis! . . .
No, we never did go back anywhere. Not to Heidelberg, not to Hamelin, not toVerona, not to Mont Majour?not so much as to Carcassonne itself. We talked ofit, of course, but I guess Florence got all she wanted out of one look at aplace. She had the seeing eye.
I haven't, unfortunately, so that the world is full of places to which I want toreturn?towns with the blinding white sun upon them; stone pines against theblue of the sky; corners of gables, all carved and painted with stags andscarlet flowers and crowstepped gables with the little saint at the top; andgrey and pink palazzi and walled towns a mile or so back from the sea, on theMediterranean, between Leghorn and Naples. Not one of them did we see more thanonce, so that the whole world for me is like spots of colour in an immensecanvas. Perhaps if it weren't so I should have something to catch hold of now.
Is all this digression or isn't it digression? Again I don't know. You, thelistener, sit opposite me. But you are so silent. You don't tell me anything. Iam, at any rate, trying to get you to see what sort of life it was I led withFlorence and what Florence was like. Well, she was bright; and she danced. Sheseemed to dance over the floors of castles and over seas and over and over andover the salons of modistes and over the plages of the Riviera?like agay tremulous beam, reflected from water upon a ceiling. And my function in lifewas to keep that bright thing in existence. And it was almost as difficult astrying to catch with your hand that dancing reflection. And the task lasted foryears.
Florence's aunts used to say that I must be the laziest man in Philadelphia.They had never been to Philadelphia and they had the New England conscience. Yousee, the first thing they said to me when I called in on Florence in the littleancient, colonial, wooden house beneath the high, thin-leaved elms?the firstquestion they asked me was not how I did but what did I do. And I did nothing. Isuppose I ought to have done something, but I didn't see any call to do it. Whydoes one do things? I just drifted in and wanted Florence. First I had driftedin on Florence at a Browning tea, or something of the sort in Fourteenth Street,which was then still residential. I don't know why I had gone to New York; Idon't know why I had gone to the tea. I don't see why Florence should have goneto that sort of spelling bee. It wasn't the place at which, even then, youexpected to find a Poughkeepsie graduate. I guess Florence wanted to raise theculture of the Stuyvesant crowd and did it as she might have gone in slumming.Intellectual slumming, that was what it was. She always wanted to leave theworld a little more elevated than she found it. Poor dear thing, I have heardher lecture Teddy Ashburnham by the hour on the difference between a Franz Halsand a Wouvermans and why the Pre-Mycenaean statues were cubical with knobs onthe top. I wonder what he made of it? Perhaps he was thankful.
I know I was. For do you understand my whole attentions, my whole endeavourswere to keep poor dear Florence on to topics like the finds at Cnossos and themental spirituality of Walter Pater. I had to keep her at it, you understand, orshe might die. For I was solemnly informed that if she became excited overanything or if her emotions were really stirred her little heart might cease tobeat. For twelve years I had to watch every word that any person uttered in anyconversation and I had to head it off what the English call"things"?off love, poverty, crime, religion and the rest of it. Yes,the first doctor that we had when she was carried off the ship at Havre assuredme that this must be done. Good God, are all these fellows monstrous idiots, oris there a freemasonry between all of them from end to end of the earth? . . .That is what makes me think of that fellow Peire Vidal.
Because, of course, his story is culture and I had to head her towards cultureand at the same time it's so funny and she hadn't got to laugh, and it's so fullof love and she wasn't to think of love. Do you know the story? Las Tours of theFour Castles had for chatelaine Blanche Somebody-or-other who was called as aterm of commendation, La Louve?the She-Wolf. And Peire Vidal the Troubadourpaid his court to La Louve. And she wouldn't have anything to do with him. So,out of compliment to her?the things people do when they're in love!?he dressedhimself up in wolfskins and went up into the Black Mountains. And the shepherdsof the Montagne Noire and their dogs mistook him for a wolf and he was torn withthe fangs and beaten with clubs. So they carried him back to Las Tours and LaLouve wasn't at all impressed. They polished him up and her husband remonstratedseriously with her. Vidal was, you see, a great poet and it was not proper totreat a great poet with indifference.
So Peire Vidal declared himself Emperor of Jerusalem or somewhere and thehusband had to kneel down and kiss his feet though La Louve wouldn't. And Peireset sail in a rowing boat with four companions to redeem the Holy Sepulchre. Andthey struck on a rock somewhere, and, at great expense, the husband had to fitout an expedition to fetch him back. And Peire Vidal fell all over the Lady'sbed while the husband, who was a most ferocious warrior, remonstrated some moreabout the courtesy that is due to great poets. But I suppose La Louve was themore ferocious of the two. Anyhow, that is all that came of it. Isn't that astory?
You haven't an idea of the queer old-fashionedness of Florence's aunts?theMisses Hurlbird, nor yet of her uncle. An extraordinarily lovable man, thatUncle John. Thin, gentle, and with a "heart" that made his life verymuch what Florence's afterwards became. He didn't reside at Stamford; his homewas in Waterbury where the watches come from. He had a factory there which, inour queer American way, would change its functions almost from year to year. Fornine months or so it would manufacture buttons out of bone. Then it wouldsuddenly produce brass buttons for coachmen's liveries. Then it would take aturn at embossed tin lids for candy boxes. The fact is that the poor oldgentleman, with his weak and fluttering heart, didn't want his factory tomanufacture anything at all. He wanted to retire. And he did retire when he wasseventy. But he was so worried at having all the street boys in the town pointafter him and exclaim: "There goes the laziest man in Waterbury!" thathe tried taking a tour round the world. And Florence and a young man called Jimmywent with him. It appears from what Florence told me that Jimmy's function withMr Hurlbird was to avoid exciting topics for him. He had to keep him, forinstance, out of political discussions. For the poor old man was a violentDemocrat in days when you might travel the world over without finding anythingbut a Republican. Anyhow, they went round the world.
I think an anecdote is about the best way to give you an idea of what the oldgentleman was like. For it is perhaps important that you should know what the oldgentleman was; he had a great deal of influence in forming the character of mypoor dear wife.
Just before they set out from San Francisco for the South Seas old Mr Hurlbirdsaid he must take something with him to make little presents to people he met onthe voyage. And it struck him that the things to take for that purpose wereoranges?because California is the orange country?and comfortable foldingchairs. So he bought I don't know how many cases of oranges?the great coolCalifornia oranges, and half-a-dozen folding chairs in a special case that healways kept in his cabin. There must have been half a cargo of fruit.
For, to every person on board the several steamers that they employed?to everyperson with whom he had so much as a nodding acquaintance, he gave an orangeevery morning. And they lasted him right round the girdle of this mighty globeof ours. When they were at North Cape, even, he saw on the horizon, poor dearthin man that he was, a lighthouse. "Hello," says he to himself,"these fellows must be very lonely. Let's take them some oranges." Sohe had a boatload of his fruit out and had himself rowed to the lighthouse on thehorizon. The folding chairs he lent to any lady that he came across and liked orwho seemed tired and invalidish on the ship. And so, guarded against his heartand, having his niece with him, he went round the world. . . .
He wasn't obtrusive about his heart. You wouldn't have known he had one. He onlyleft it to the physical laboratory at Waterbury for the benefit of science, sincehe considered it to be quite an extraordinary kind of heart. And the joke of thematter was that, when, at the age of eighty-four, just five days before poorFlorence, he died of bronchitis there was found to be absolutely nothing thematter with that organ. It had certainly jumped or squeaked or something justsufficiently to take in the doctors, hut it appears that that was because of anodd formation of the lungs. I don't much understand about these matters.
I inherited his money because Florence died five days after him. I wish Ihadn't. It was a great worry. I had to go out to Waterbury just after Florence'sdeath because the poor dear old fellow had left a good many charitable bequestsand I had to appoint trustees. I didn't like the idea of their not beingproperly handled.
Yes, it was a great worry. And just as I had got things roughly settled Ireceived the extraordinary cable from Ashburnham begging me to come back and havea talk with him. And immediately afterwards came one from Leonora saying,"Yes, please do come. You could be so helpful." It was as if he hadsent the cable without consulting her and had afterwards told her. Indeed, thatwas pretty much what had happened, except that he had told the girl and the girltold the wife. I arrived, however, too late to be of any good if I could havebeen of any good. And then I had my first taste of English life. It was amazing.It was overwhelming. I never shall forget the polished cob that Edward, besideme, drove; the animal's action, its high-stepping, its skin that was like satin.And the peace! And the red cheeks! And the beautiful, beautiful old house.
Just near Branshaw Teleragh it was and we descended on it from the high, clear,windswept waste of the New Forest. I tell you it was amazing to arrive there fromWaterbury. And it came into my head?for Teddy Ashburnham, you remember, hadcabled to me to "come and have a talk" with him?that it wasunbelievable that anything essentially calamitous could happen to that place andthose people. I tell you it was the very spirit of peace. And Leonora, beautifuland smiling, with her coils of yellow hair, stood on the top doorstep, with abutler and footman and a maid or so behind her. And she just said: "So gladyou've come," as if I'd run down to lunch from a town ten miles away,instead of having come half the world over at the call of two urgent telegrams.
The girl was out with the hounds, I think.
And that poor devil beside me was in an agony. Absolute, hopeless, dumb agonysuch as passes the mind of man to imagine.
III
IT was a very hot summer, in August, 1904; and Florence had already been takingthe baths for a month. I don't know how it feels to be a patient at one of thoseplaces. I never was a patient anywhere. I daresay the patients get a home feelingand some sort of anchorage in the spot. They seem to like the bath attendants,with their cheerful faces, their air of authority, their white linen. But, formyself, to be at Nauheim gave me a sense?what shall I say??a sense almost ofnakedness?the nakedness that one feels on the sea-shore or in any great openspace. I had no attachments, no accumulations. In one's own home it is as iflittle, innate sympathies draw one to particular chairs that seem to enfold onein an embrace, or take one along particular streets that seem friendly whenothers may be hostile. And, believe me, that feeling is a very important part oflife. I know it well, that have been for so long a wanderer upon the face ofpublic resorts. And one is too polished up. Heaven knows I was never an untidyman. But the feeling that I had when, whilst poor Florence was taking hermorning bath, I stood upon the carefully swept steps of the Englischer Hof,looking at the carefully arranged trees in tubs upon the carefully arrangedgravel whilst carefully arranged people walked past in carefully calculatedgaiety, at the carefully calculated hour, the tall trees of the public gardens,going up to the right; the reddish stone of the baths?or were they whitehalf-timber châlets? Upon my word I have forgotten, I who was there sooften. That will give you the measure of how much I was in the landscape. I couldfind my way blindfolded to the hot rooms, to the douche rooms, to the fountainin the centre of the quadrangle where the rusty water gushes out. Yes, I couldfind my way blindfolded. I know the exact distances. From the Hotel Regina youtook one hundred and eighty-seven paces, then, turning sharp, left-handed, fourhundred and twenty took you straight down to the fountain. From the EnglischerHof, starting on the sidewalk, it was ninety-seven paces and the same fourhundred and twenty, but turning lefthanded this time.
And now you understand that, having nothing in the world to do?but nothingwhatever! I fell into the habit of counting my footsteps. I would walk withFlorence to the baths. And, of course, she entertained me with her conversation.It was, as I have said, wonderful what she could make conversation out of. Shewalked very lightly, and her hair was very nicely done, and she dressedbeautifully and very expensively. Of course she had money of her own, but Ishouldn't have minded. And yet you know I can't remember a single one of herdresses. Or I can remember just one, a very simple one of blue figured silk?aChinese pattern?very full in the skirts and broadening out over the shoulders.And her hair was copper-coloured, and the heels of her shoes were exceedinglyhigh, so that she tripped upon the points of her toes. And when she came to thedoor of the bathing place, and when it opened to receive her, she would look backat me with a little coquettish smile, so that her cheek appeared to be caressingher shoulder.
I seem to remember that, with that dress, she wore an immensely broad Leghornhat?like the Chapeau de Paille of Rubens, only very white. The hat would be tiedwith a lightly knotted scarf of the same stuff as her dress. She knew how togive value to her blue eyes. And round her neck would be some simple pink, coralbeads. And her complexion had a perfect clearness, a perfect smoothness . . .
Yes, that is how I most exactly remember her, in that dress, in that hat,looking over her shoulder at me so that the eyes flashed very blue?dark pebbleblue . . .
And, what the devil! For whose benefit did she do it? For that of the bathattendant? of the passers-by? I don't know. Anyhow, it can't have been for me,for never, in all the years of her life, never on any possible occasion, or inany other place did she so smile to me, mockingly, invitingly. Ah, she was ariddle; but then, all other women are riddles. And it occurs to me that some wayback I began a sentence that I have never finished . . . It was about thefeeling that I had when I stood on the steps of my hotel every morning beforestarting out to fetch Florence back from the bath. Natty, precise, well-brushed,conscious of being rather small amongst the long English, the lank Americans,the rotund Germans, and the obese Russian Jewesses, I should stand there, tappinga cigarette on the outside of my case, surveying for a moment the world in thesunlight. But a day was to come when I was never to do it again alone. You canimagine, therefore, what the coming of the Ashburnhams meant to me.
I have forgotten the aspect of many things, but I shall never forget the aspectof the dining-room of the Hotel Excelsior on that evening?and on so many otherevenings. Whole castles have vanished from my memory, whole cities that I havenever visited again, but that white room, festooned with papier-machéfruits and flowers; the tall windows; the many tables; the black screen round thedoor with three golden cranes flying upward on each panel; the palm-tree in thecentre of the room; the swish of the waiter's feet; the cold expensive elegance;the mien of the diners as they came in every evening?their air of earnestnessas if they must go through a meal prescribed by the Kur authorities and their airof sobriety as if they must seek not by any means to enjoy their meals?thosethings I shall not easily forget. And then, one evening, in the twilight, I sawEdward Ashburnham lounge round the screen into the room. The head waiter, a manwith a face all grey?in what subterranean nooks or corners do people cultivatethose absolutely grey complexions??went with the timorous patronage of thesecreatures towards him and held out a grey ear to be whispered into. It wasgenerally a disagreeable ordeal for newcomers but Edward Ashburnham bore it likean Englishman and a gentleman. I could see his lips form a word of threesyllables?remember I had nothing in the world to do but to notice theseniceties?and immediately I knew that he must be Edward Ashburnham, Captain,Fourteenth Hussars, of Branshaw House, Branshaw Teleragh. I knew it because everyevening just before dinner, whilst I waited in the hall, I used, by the courtesyof Monsieur Schontz, the proprietor, to inspect the little police reports thateach guest was expected to sign upon taking a room.
The head waiter piloted him immediately to a vacant table, three away from myown?the table that the Grenfalls of Falls River, N.J., had just vacated. Itstruck me that that was not a very nice table for the newcomers, since thesunlight, low though it was, shone straight down upon it, and the same ideaseemed to come at the same moment into Captain Ashburnham's head. His facehitherto had, in the wonderful English fashion, expressed nothing whatever.Nothing. There was in it neither joy nor despair; neither hope nor fear; neitherboredom nor satisfaction. He seemed to perceive no soul in that crowded room; hemight have been walking in a jungle. I never came across such a perfectexpression before and I never shall again. It was insolence and not insolence; itwas modesty and not modesty. His hair was fair, extraordinarily ordered in awave, running from the left temple to the right; his face was a light brick-red,perfectly uniform in tint up to the roots of the hair itself; his yellowmoustache was as stiff as a toothbrush and I verily believe that he had hisblack smoking jacket thickened a little over the shoulder-blades so as to givehimself the air of the slightest possible stoop. It would be like him to dothat; that was the sort of thing he thought about. Martingales, Chiffney bits,boots; where you got the best soap, the best brandy, the name of the chap whorode a plater down the Khyber cliffs; the spreading power of number three shotbefore a charge of number four powder . . . by heavens, I hardly ever heard himtalk of anything else. Not in all the years that I knew him did I hear him talkof anything but these subjects. Oh, yes, once he told me that I could buy myspecial shade of blue ties cheaper from a firm in Burlington Arcade than from myown people in New York. And I have bought my ties from that firm ever since.Otherwise I should not remember the name of the Burlington Arcade. I wonder whatit looks like. I have never seen it. I imagine it to be two immense rows ofpillars, like those of the Forum at Rome, with Edward Ashburnham striding downbetween them. But it probably isn't?the least like that. Once also he advisedme to buy Caledonian Deferred, since they were due to rise. And I did buy themand they did rise. But of how he got the knowledge I haven't the faintest idea.It seemed to drop out of the blue sky.
And that was absolutely all that I knew of him until a month ago?that and theprofusion of his cases, all of pigskin and stamped with his initials, E. F. A.There were gun cases, and collar cases, and shirt cases, and letter cases andcases each containing four bottles of medicine; and hat cases and helmet cases.It must have needed a whole herd of the Gadarene swine to make up his outfit.And, if I ever penetrated into his private room it would be to see him standing,with his coat and waistcoat off and the immensely long line of his perfectlyelegant trousers from waist to boot heel. And he would have a slightly reflectiveair and he would be just opening one kind of case and just closing another.
Good God, what did they all see in him? for I swear there was all there was ofhim, inside and out; though they said he was a good soldier. Yet, Leonora adoredhim with a passion that was like an agony, and hated him with an agony that wasas bitter as the sea. How could he arouse anything like a sentiment, in anybody?
What did he even talk to them about?when they were under four eyes? ?Ah, well,suddenly, as if by a flash of inspiration, I know. For all good soldiers aresentimentalists?all good soldiers of that type. Their profession, for onething, is full of the big words, courage, loyalty, honour, constancy. And I havegiven a wrong impression of Edward Ashburnham if I have made you think thatliterally never in the course of our nine years of intimacy did he discuss whathe would have called "the graver things." Even before his finaloutburst to me, at times, very late at night, say, he has blurted out somethingthat gave an insight into the sentimental view of the cosmos that was his. Hewould say how much the society of a good woman could do towards redeeming you,and he would say that constancy was the finest of the virtues. He said it verystiffly, of course, but still as if the statement admitted of no doubt.
Constancy! Isn't that the queer thought? And yet, I must add that poor dearEdward was a great reader?he would pass hours lost in novels of a sentimentaltype?novels in which typewriter girls married Marquises and governesses Earls.And in his books, as a rule, the course of true love ran as smooth as butteredhoney. And he was fond of poetry, of a certain type?and he could even read aperfectly sad love story. I have seen his eyes filled with tears at reading of ahopeless parting. And he loved, with a sentimental yearning, all children,puppies, and the feeble generally. . . .
So, you see, he would have plenty to gurgle about to a woman?with that and hissound common sense about martingales and his?still sentimental?experiences as acounty magistrate; and with his intense, optimistic belief that the woman he wasmaking love to at the moment was the one he was destined, at last, to beeternally constant to. . . . Well, I fancy he could put up a pretty good deal oftalk when there was no man around to make him feel shy. And I was quiteastonished, during his final burst out to me?at the very end of things, whenthe poor girl was on her way to that fatal Brindisi and he was trying to persuadehimself and me that he had never really cared for her?I was quite astonished toobserve how literary and how just his expressions were. He talked like quite agood book?a book not in the least cheaply sentimental. You see, I suppose heregarded me not so much as a man. I had to be regarded as a woman or asolicitor. Anyhow, it burst out of him on that horrible night. And then, nextmorning, he took me over to the Assizes and I saw how, in a perfectly calm andbusiness-like way, he set to work to secure a verdict of not guilty for a poorgirl, the daughter of one of his tenants, who had been accused of murdering herbaby. He spent two hundred pounds on her defence . . . Well, that was EdwardAshburnham.
I had forgotten about his eyes. They were as blue as the sides of a certain typeof box of matches. When you looked at them carefully you saw that they wereperfectly honest, perfectly straightforward, perfectly, perfectly stupid. But thebrick pink of his complexion, running perfectly level to the brick pink of hisinner eyelids, gave them a curious, sinister expression?like a mosaic of blueporcelain set in pink china. And that chap, coming into a room, snapped up thegaze of every woman in it, as dexterously as a conjurer pockets billiard balls.It was most amazing. You know the man on the stage who throws up sixteen ballsat once and they all drop into pockets all over his person, on his shoulders, onhis heels, on the inner side of his sleeves; and he stands perfectly still anddoes nothing. Well, it was like that. He had rather a rough, hoarse voice.
And, there he was, standing by the table. I was looking at him, with my back tothe screen. And suddenly, I saw two distinct expressions flicker across hisimmobile eyes. How the deuce did they do it, those unflinching blue eyes with thedirect gaze? For the eyes themselves never moved, gazing over my shouldertowards the screen. And the gaze was perfectly level and perfectly direct andperfectly unchanging. I suppose that the lids really must have roundedthemselves a little and perhaps the lips moved a little too, as if he should besaying: "There you are, my dear." At any rate, the expression was thatof pride, of satisfaction, of the possessor. I saw him once afterwards, for amoment, gaze upon the sunny fields of Branshaw and say: "All this is myland!"
And then again, the gaze was perhaps more direct, harder if possible?hardy too.It was a measuring look; a challenging look. Once when we were at Wiesbadenwatching him play in a polo match against the Bonner Hussaren I saw the same lookcome into his eyes, balancing the possibilities, looking over the ground. TheGerman Captain, Count Baron Idigon von Lelöffel, was right up by their goalposts, coming with the ball in an easy canter in that tricky German fashion. Therest of the field were just anywhere. It was only a scratch sort of affair.Ashburnham was quite close to the rails not five yards from us and I heard himsaying to himself: "Might just be done!" And he did it. Goodness! heswung that pony round with all its four legs spread out, like a cat dropping offa roof. . . .
Well, it was just that look that I noticed in his eyes: "It might," Iseem even now to hear him muttering to himself, "just be done."
I looked round over my shoulder and saw, tall, smiling brilliantly andbuoyant?Leonora. And, little and fair, and as radiant as the track of sunlightalong the sea?my wife.
That poor wretch! to think that he was at that moment in a perfect devil of afix, and there he was, saying at the back of his mind: "It might just bedone." It was like a chap in the middle of the eruption of a volcano,saying that he might just manage to bolt into the tumult and set fire to ahaystack. Madness? Predestination? Who the devil knows?
Mrs Ashburnham exhibited at that moment more gaiety than I have ever since knownher to show. There are certain classes of English people?the nicer ones whenthey have been to many spas, who seem to make a point of becoming much more thanusually animated when they are introduced to my compatriots. I have noticed thisoften. Of course, they must first have accepted the Americans. But that oncedone, they seem to say to themselves: "Hallo, these women are so bright. Wearen't going to be outdone in brightness." And for the time being theycertainly aren't. But it wears off. So it was with Leonora?at least until shenoticed me. She began, Leonora did?and perhaps it was that that gave me the ideaof a touch of insolence in her character, for she never afterwards did any onesingle thing like it?she began by saying in quite a loud voice and from quite adistance:
"Don't stop over by that stuffy old table, Teddy. Come and sit by thesenice people!"
And that was an extraordinary thing to say. Quite extraordinary. I couldn't forthe life of me refer to total strangers as nice people. But, of course, she wastaking a line of her own in which I at any rate?and no one else in the room, forshe too had taken the trouble to read through the list of guests?counted anymore than so many clean, bull terriers. And she sat down rather brilliantly at avacant table, beside ours?one that was reserved for the Guggenheimers. And shejust sat absolutely deaf to the remonstrances of the head waiter with his facelike a grey ram's. That poor chap was doing his steadfast duty too. He knew thatthe Guggenheimers of Chicago, after they had stayed there a month and hadworried the poor life out of him, would give him two dollars fifty and grumble atthe tipping system. And he knew that Teddy Ashburnham and his wife would give himno trouble whatever except what the smiles of Leonora might cause in hisapparently unimpressionable bosom?though you never can tell what may go onbehind even a not quite spotless plastron! ?And every week Edward Ashburnhamwould give him a solid, sound, golden English sovereign. Yet this stout fellowwas intent on saving that table for the Guggenheimers of Chicago. It ended inFlorence saying:
"Why shouldn't we all eat out of the same trough? ?that's a nasty New Yorksaying. But I'm sure we're all nice quiet people and there can be four seats atour table. It's round."
Then came, as it were, an appreciative gurgle from the Captain and I wasperfectly aware of a slight hesitation?a quick sharp motion in Mrs Ashburnham,as if her horse had checked. But she put it at the fence all right, rising fromthe seat she had taken and sitting down opposite me, as it were, all in onemotion.
I never thought that Leonora looked her best in evening dress. She seemed to getit too clearly cut, there was no ruffling. She always affected black and hershoulders were too classical. She seemed to stand out of her corsage as a whitemarble bust might out of a black Wedgwood vase. I don't know.
I loved Leonora always and, today, I would very cheerfully lay down my life,what is left of it, in her service. But I am sure I never had the beginnings of atrace of what is called the sex instinct towards her. And I suppose?no I amcertain that she never had it towards me. As far as I am concerned I think itwas those white shoulders that did it. I seemed to feel when I looked at themthat, if ever I should press my lips upon them that they would be slightlycold?not icily, not without a touch of human heat, but, as they say of baths,with the chill off. I seemed to feel chilled at the end of my lips when I lookedat her . . .
No, Leonora always appeared to me at her best in a blue tailor-made. Then herglorious hair wasn't deadened by her white shoulders. Certain women's lines guideyour eyes to their necks, their eyelashes, their lips, their breasts. ButLeonora's seemed to conduct your gaze always to her wrist. And the wrist was atits best in a black or a dog-skin glove and there was always a gold circlet witha little chain supporting a very small golden key to a dispatch box. Perhaps itwas that in which she locked up her heart and her feelings.
Anyhow, she sat down opposite me and then, for the first time, she paid anyattention to my existence. She gave me, suddenly, yet deliberately, one longstare. Her eyes too were blue and dark and the eyelids were so arched that theygave you the whole round of the irises. And it was a most remarkable, a mostmoving glance, as if for a moment a lighthouse had looked at me. I seemed toperceive the swift questions chasing each other through the brain that wasbehind them. I seemed to hear the brain ask and the eyes answer with all thesimpleness of a woman who was a good hand at taking in qualities of a horse?asindeed she was. "Stands well; has plenty of room for his oats behind thegirth. Not so much in the way of shoulders," and so on. And so her eyesasked: "Is this man trustworthy in money matters; is he likely to try toplay the lover; is he likely to let his women be troublesome? Is he, above all,likely to babble about my affairs?"
And, suddenly, into those cold, slightly defiant, almost defensive china blueorbs, there came a warmth, a tenderness, a friendly recognition . . . oh, it wasvery charming and very touching?and quite mortifying. It was the look of amother to her son, of a sister to her brother. It implied trust; it implied thewant of any necessity for barriers. By God, she looked at me as if I were aninvalid?as any kind woman may look at a poor chap in a bath chair. And, yes,from that day forward she always treated me and not Florence as if I were theinvalid. Why, she would run after me with a rug upon chilly days. I suppose,therefore, that her eyes had made a favourable answer. Or, perhaps, it wasn't afavourable answer. And then Florence said: "And so the whole round table isbegun." Again Edward Ashburnham gurgled slightly in his throat; but Leonorashivered a little, as if a goose had walked over her grave. And I was passing herthe nickel-silver basket of rolls. Avanti! . . .
IV
So began those nine years of uninterrupted tranquillity. They were characterizedby an extraordinary want of any communicativeness on the part of the Ashburnhamsto which we, on our part, replied by leaving out quite as extraordinarily, andnearly as completely, the personal note. Indeed, you may take it that whatcharacterized our relationship was an atmosphere of taking everything forgranted. The given proposition was, that we were all "good people." Wetook for granted that we all liked beef underdone but not too underdone; thatboth men preferred a good liqueur brandy after lunch; that both women drank avery light Rhine wine qualified with Fachingen water?that sort of thing. It wasalso taken for granted that we were both sufficiently well off to afford anythingthat we could reasonably want in the way of amusements fitting to ourstation?that we could take motor cars and carriages by the day; that we couldgive each other dinners and dine our friends and we could indulge if we liked ineconomy. Thus, Florence was in the habit of having the Daily Telegraphsent to her every day from London. She was always an Anglo-maniac, was Florence;the Paris edition of the New York Herald was always good enough for me.But when we discovered that the Ashburnhams' copy of the London paper followedthem from England, Leonora and Florence decided between them to suppress onesubscription one year and the other the next. Similarly it was the habit of theGrand Duke of Nassau Schwerin, who came yearly to the baths, to dine once withabout eighteen families of regular Kur guests. In return he would give a dinnerof all the eighteen at once. And, since these dinners were rather expensive (youhad to take the Grand Duke and a good many of his suite and any members of thediplomatic bodies that might be there)?Florence and Leonora, putting their headstogether, didn't see why we shouldn't give the Grand Duke his dinner together.And so we did. I don't suppose the Serenity minded that economy, or even noticedit. At any rate, our joint dinner to the Royal Personage gradually assumed theaspect of a yearly function. Indeed, it grew larger and larger, until it becamea sort of closing function for the season, at any rate as far as we wereconcerned.
I don't in the least mean to say that we were the sort of persons who aspired tomix "with royalty." We didn't; we hadn't any claims; we were just"good people." But the Grand Duke was a pleasant, affable sort ofroyalty, like the late King Edward VII, and it was pleasant to hear him talkabout the races and, very occasionally, as a bonne bouche, about his nephew, theEmperor; or to have him pause for a moment in his walk to ask after the progressof our cures or to be benignantly interested in the amount of money we had put onLelöffel's hunter for the Frankfurt Welter Stakes.
But upon my word, I don't know how we put in our time. How does one put in one'stime? How is it possible to have achieved nine years and to have nothing whateverto show for it? Nothing whatever, you understand. Not so much as a bonepenholder, carved to resemble a chessman and with a hole in the top throughwhich you could see four views of Nauheim. And, as for experience, as forknowledge of one's fellow beings?nothing either. Upon my word, I couldn't tellyou offhand whether the lady who sold the so expensive violets at the bottom ofthe road that leads to the station, was cheating me or no; I can't say whetherthe porter who carried our traps across the station at Leghorn was a thief or nowhen he said that the regular tariff was a lira a parcel. The instances ofhonesty that one comes across in this world are just as amazing as the instancesof dishonesty. After forty-five years of mixing with one's kind, one ought tohave acquired the habit of being able to know something about one's fellowbeings. But one doesn't.
I think the modern civilized habit?the modern English habit of taking every onefor granted?is a good deal to blame for this. I have observed this matter longenough to know the queer, subtle thing that it is; to know how the faculty, forwhat it is worth, never lets you down.
Mind, I am not saying that this is not the most desirable type of life in theworld; that it is not an almost unreasonably high standard. For it is reallynauseating, when you detest it, to have to eat every day several slices of thin,tepid, pink india rubber, and it is disagreeable to have to drink brandy when youwould prefer to be cheered up by warm, sweet Kümmel. And it is nasty to haveto take a cold bath in the morning when what you want is really a hot one atnight. And it stirs a little of the faith of your fathers that is deep downwithin you to have to have it taken for granted that you are an Episcopalian whenreally you are an old-fashioned Philadelphia Quaker.
But these things have to be done; it is the cock that the whole of this societyowes to Æsculapius.
And the odd, queer thing is that the whole collection of rules applies toanybody?to the anybodies that you meet in hotels, in railway trains, to a lessdegree, perhaps, in steamers, but even, in the end, upon steamers. You meet a manor a woman and, from tiny and intimate sounds, from the slightest of movements,you know at once whether you are concerned with good people or with those whowon't do. You know, this is to say, whether they will go rigidly through withthe whole programme from the underdone beef to the Anglicanism. It won't matterwhether they be short or tall; whether the voice squeak like a marionette orrumble like a town bull's; it won't matter whether they are Germans, Austrians,French, Spanish, or even Brazilians? they will be the Germans or Brazilians whotake a cold bath every morning and who move, roughly speaking, in diplomaticcircles.
But the inconvenient?well, hang it all, I will say it?the damnable nuisance ofthe whole thing is, that with all the taking for granted, you never really get aninch deeper than the things I have catalogued.
I can give you a rather extraordinary instance of this. I can't remember whetherit was in our first year?the first year of us four at Nauheim, because, ofcourse, it would have been the fourth year of Florence and myself?but it musthave been in the first or second year. And that gives the measure at once of theextraordinariness of our discussion and of the swiftness with which intimacy hadgrown up between us. On the one hand we seemed to start out on the expedition sonaturally and with so little preparation, , that it was as if we must have mademany such excursions before; and our intimacy seemed so deep. . . .
Yet the place to which we went was obviously one to which Florence at leastwould have wanted to take us quite early, so that you would almost think weshould have gone there together at the beginning of our intimacy. Florence wassingularly expert as a guide to archaeological expeditions and there was nothingshe liked so much as taking people round ruins and showing you the window fromwhich some one looked down upon the murder of some one else. She only did itonce; but she did it quite magnificently. She could find her way, with the solehelp of Baedeker, as easily about any old monument as she could about anyAmerican city where the blocks are all square and the streets all numbered, sothat you can go perfectly easily from Twenty-fourth to Thirtieth.
Now it happens that fifty minutes away from Nauheim, by a good train, is theancient city of M----, upon a great pinnacle of basalt, girt with a triple roadrunning sideways up its shoulder like a scarf. And at the top there is acastle?not a square castle like Windsor, but a castle all slate gables and highpeaks with gilt weathercocks flashing bravely?the castle of St Elizabeth ofHungary. It has the disadvantage of being in Prussia; and it is alwaysdisagreeable to go into that country; but it is very old and there are manydouble-spired churches and it stands up like a pyramid out of the green valleyof the Lahn. I don't suppose the Ashburnhams wanted especially to go there and Ididn't especially want to go there myself. But, you understand, there was noobjection. It was part of the cure to make an excursion three or four times aweek. So that we were all quite unanimous in being grateful to Florence forproviding the motive power. Florence, of course, had a motive of her own. She wasat that time engaged in educating Captain Ashburnham?oh, of course, quite pourle bon motif! She used to say to Leonora: "I simply can't understand how youcan let him live by your side and be so ignorant!" Leonora herself alwaysstruck me as being remarkably well educated. At any rate, she knew beforehandall that Florence had to tell her. Perhaps she got it up out of Baedeker beforeFlorence was up in the morning. I don't mean to say that you would ever haveknown that Leonora knew anything, but if Florence started to tell us how Ludwigthe Courageous wanted to have three wives at once?in which he differed fromHenry VIII, who wanted them one after the other, and this caused a good deal oftrouble?if Florence started to tell us this, Leonora would just nod her head ina way that quite pleasantly rattled my poor wife.
She used to exclaim: "Well, if you knew it, why haven't you told it allalready to Captain Ashburnham? I'm sure he finds it interesting!" AndLeonora would look reflectively at her husband and say: "I have an idea thatit might injure his hand?the hand, you know, used in connection with horses'mouths. . . ." And poor Ashburnham would blush and mutter and would say:"That's all right. Don't you bother about me."
I fancy his wife's irony did quite alarm poor Teddy; because one evening heasked me seriously in the smoking-room if I thought that having too much in one'shead would really interfere with one's quickness in polo. It struck him, hesaid, that brainy Johnnies generally were rather muffs when they got on to fourlegs. I reassured him as best I could. I told him that he wasn't likely to takein enough to upset his balance. At that time the Captain was quite evidentlyenjoying being educated by Florence. She used to do it about three or four timesa week under the approving eyes of Leonora and myself. It wasn't, you understand,systematic. It came in bursts. It was Florence clearing up one of the darkplaces of the earth, leaving the world a little lighter than she had found it.She would tell him the story of Hamlet; explain the form of a symphony, hummingthe first and second subjects to him, and so on; she would explain to him thedifference between Arminians and Erastians; or she would give him a short lectureon the early history of the United States. And it was done in a way wellcalculated to arrest a young attention. Did you ever read Mrs Markham? Well, itwas like that. . . .
But our excursion to M---- was a much larger, a much more full dress affair. Yousee, in the archives of the Schloss in that city there was a document whichFlorence thought would finally give her the chance to educate the whole lot ofus together. It really worried poor Florence that she couldn't, in matters ofculture, ever get the better of Leonora. I don't know what Leonora knew or whatshe didn't know, but certainly she was always there whenever Florence broughtout any information. And she gave, somehow, the impression of really knowing whatpoor Florence gave the impression of having only picked up. I can't exactlydefine it. It was almost something physical. Have you ever seen a retrieverdashing in play after a greyhound? You see the two running over a green field,almost side by side, and suddenly the retriever makes a friendly snap at theother. And the greyhound simply isn't there. You haven't observed it quicken itsspeed or strain a limb; but there it is, just two yards in front of theretriever's outstretched muzzle. So it was with Florence and Leonora in mattersof culture.
But on this occasion I knew that something was up. I found Florence some daysbefore, reading books like Ranke's History of the Popes, Symonds'Renaissance, Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic and Luther'sTable Talk.
I must say that, until the astonishment came, I got nothing but pleasure out ofthe little expedition. I like catching the two-forty; I like the slow, smoothroll of the great big trains?and they are the best trains in the world! I likebeing drawn through the green country and looking at it through the clear glassof the great windows. Though, of course, the country isn't really green. The sunshines, the earth is blood red and purple and red and green and red. And the oxenin the ploughlands are bright varnished brown and black and blackish purple; andthe peasants are dressed in the black and white of magpies; and there are greatRocks of magpies too. Or the peasants' dresses in another field where there arelittle mounds of hay that will be grey-green on the sunny side and purple in theshadows?the peasants' dresses are vermilion with emerald green ribbons andpurple skirts and white shirts and black velvet stomachers. Still, theimpression is that you are drawn through brilliant green meadows that run away oneach side to the dark purple fir-woods; the basalt pinnacles; the immenseforests. And there is meadowsweet at the edge of the streams, and cattle. Why, Iremember on that afternoon I saw a brown cow hitch its horns under the stomach ofa black and white animal and the black and white one was thrown right into themiddle of a narrow stream. I burst out laughing. But Florence was impartinginformation so hard and Leonora was listening so intently that no one noticed me.As for me, I was pleased to be off duty; I was pleased to think that Florencefor the moment was indubitably out of mischief?because she was talking aboutLudwig the Courageous (I think it was Ludwig the Courageous but I am not anhistorian) about Ludwig the Courageous of Hessen who wanted to have three wivesat once and patronized Luther?something like that!?I was so relieved to be offduty, because she couldn't possibly be doing anything to excite herself or sether poor heart a-fluttering?that the incident of the cow was a real joy to me.I chuckled over it from time to time for the whole rest of the day. Because itdoes look very funny, you know, to see a black and white cow land on its back inthe middle of a stream. It is so just exactly what one doesn't expect of a cow.
I suppose I ought to have pitied the poor animal; but I just didn't. I was outfor enjoyment. And I just enjoyed myself. It is so pleasant to be drawn along infront of the spectacular towns with the peaked castles and the many doublespires. In the sunlight gleams come from the city?gleams from the glass ofwindows; from the gilt signs of apothecaries; from the ensigns of the studentcorps high up in the mountains; from the helmets of the funny little soldiersmoving their stiff little legs in white linen trousers. And it was pleasant toget out in the great big spectacular Prussian station with the hammered bronzeornaments and the paintings of peasants and flowers and cows; and to hearFlorence bargain energetically with the driver of an ancient droschka drawn bytwo lean horses. Of course, I spoke German much more correctly than Florence,though I never could rid myself quite of the accent of the Pennsylvania Duitschof my childhood. Anyhow, we were drawn in a sort of triumph, for five markswithout any trinkgeld, right up to the castle. And we were taken through themuseum and saw the fire-backs, the old glass, the old swords and the antiquecontraptions. And we went up winding corkscrew staircases and through theRittersaal, the great painted hall where the Reformer and his friends met forthe first time under the protection of the gentleman that had three wives at onceand formed an alliance with the gentleman that had six wives, one after the other(I'm not really interested in these facts but they have a bearing on my story).And we went through chapels, and music rooms, right up immensely high in the airto a large old chamber, full of presses, with heavily-shuttered windows allround. And Florence became positively electric. She told the tired, boredcustodian what shutters to open; so that the bright sunlight streamed in palpableshafts into the dim old chamber. She explained that this was Luther's bedroom andthat just where the sunlight fell had stood his bed. As a matter of fact, Ibelieve that she was wrong and that Luther only stopped, as it were, for lunch,in order to evade pursuit. But, no doubt, it would have been his bedroom if hecould have been persuaded to stop the night. And then, in spite of the protestof the custodian, she threw open another shutter and came tripping back to alarge glass case.
"And there," she exclaimed with an accent of gaiety, of triumph, andof audacity. She was pointing at a piece of paper, like the half-sheet of aletter with some faint pencil scrawls that might have been a jotting of theamounts we were spending during the day. And I was extremely happy at hergaiety, in her triumph, in her audacity. Captain Ashburnham had his hands uponthe glass case. "There it is?the Protest." And then, as we allproperly stage-managed our bewilderment, she continued: "Don't you know thatis why we were all called Protestants? That is the pencil draft of the Protestthey drew up. You can see the signatures of Martin Luther, and Martin Bucer, andZwingli, and Ludwig the Courageous. . . ."
I may have got some of the names wrong, but I know that Luther and Bucer werethere. And her animation continued and I was glad. She was better and she was outof mischief. She continued, looking up into Captain Ashburnham's eyes: "It'sbecause of that piece of paper that you're honest, sober, industrious,provident, and clean-lived. If it weren't for that piece of paper you'd be likethe Irish or the Italians or the Poles, but particularly the Irish. . . ."
And she laid one finger upon Captain Ashburnham' s wrist.
I was aware of something treacherous, something frightful, something evil in theday. I can't define it and can't find a simile for it. It wasn't as if a snakehad looked out of a hole. No, it was as if my heart had missed a beat. It was asif we were going to run and cry out; all four of us in separate directions,averting our heads. In Ashburnham's face I know that there was absolute panic. Iwas horribly frightened and then I discovered that the pain in my left wrist wascaused by Leonora's clutching it:
"I can't stand this," she said with a most extraordinary passion;"I must get out of this."
I was horribly frightened. It came to me for a moment, though I hadn't time tothink it, that she must be a madly jealous woman?jealous of Florence and CaptainAshburnham, of all people in the world! And it was a panic in which we fled! Wewent right down the winding stairs, across the immense Rittersaal to a littleterrace that overlooks the Lahn, the broad valley and the immense plain intowhich it opens out.
"Don't you see?" she said, "don't you see what's going on?"The panic again stopped my heart. I muttered, I stuttered?I don't know how I gotthe words out:
"No! What's the matter? Whatever's the matter?"
She looked me straight in the eyes; and for a moment I had the feeling thatthose two blue discs were immense, were overwhelming, were like a wall of bluethat shut me off from the rest of the world. I know it sounds absurd; but thatis what it did feel like.
"Don't you see," she said, with a really horrible bitterness, with areally horrible lamentation in her voice, "Don't you see that that's thecause of the whole miserable affair; of the whole sorrow of the world? And ofthe eternal damnation of you and me and them. . . ."
I don't remember how she went on; I was too frightened; I was too amazed. Ithink I was thinking of running to fetch assistance?a doctor, perhaps, orCaptain Ashburnham. Or possibly she needed Florence's tender care, though, ofcourse, it would have been very bad for Florence's heart. But I know that when Icame out of it she was saying: "Oh, where are all the bright, happy,innocent beings in the world? Where's happiness? One reads of it in books!"
She ran her hand with a singular clawing motion upwards over her forehead. Hereyes were enormously distended; her face was exactly that of a person lookinginto the pit of hell and seeing horrors there. And then suddenly she stopped. Shewas, most amazingly, just Mrs Ashburnham again. Her face was perfectly clear,sharp and defined; her hair was glorious in its golden coils. Her nostrilstwitched with a sort of contempt. She appeared to look with interest at a gypsycaravan that was coming over a little bridge far below us.
"Don't you know," she said, in her clear hard voice, "don't youknow that I'm an Irish Catholic?"
V
THOSE words gave me the greatest relief that I have ever had in my life. Theytold me, I think, almost more than I have ever gathered at any one moment?aboutmyself. I don't think that before that day I had ever wanted anything very muchexcept Florence. I have, of course, had appetites, impatiences . . . Why,sometimes at a table d'hôte, when there would be, say, caviare handedround, I have been absolutely full of impatience for fear that when the dishcame to me there should not be a satisfying portion left over by the otherguests. I have been exceedingly impatient at missing trains. The Belgian StateRailway has a trick of letting the French trains miss their connections atBrussels. That has always infuriated me. I have written about it letters toThe Times that The Times never printed; those that I wrote to theParis edition of the New York Herald were always printed, but they neverseemed to satisfy me when I saw them. Well, that was a sort of frenzy with me.
It was a frenzy that now I can hardly realize. I can understand itintellectually. You see, in those days I was interested in people with"hearts." There was Florence, there was Edward Ashburnham?or,perhaps, it was Leonora that I was more interested in. I don't mean in the way oflove. But, you see, we were both of the. same profession?at any rate as I sawit. And the profession was that of keeping heart patients alive.
You have no idea how engrossing such a profession may become. Just as theblacksmith says: "By hammer and hand all Art doth stand," just as thebaker thinks that all the solar system revolves around his morning delivery ofrolls, as the postmaster-general believes that he alone is the preserver ofsociety?and surely, surely, these delusions are necessary to keep us going?sodid I and, as I believed, Leonora, imagine that the whole world ought to bearranged so as to ensure the keeping alive of heart patients. You have no ideahow engrossing such a profession may become?how imbecile, in view of thatengrossment, appear the ways of princes, of republics, of municipalities. Arough bit of road beneath the motor tyres, a couple of succeeding"thank'ee-marms" with their quick jolts would be enough to set megrumbling to Leonora against the Prince or the Grand Duke or the Free Citythrough whose territory we might be passing. I would grumble like a stockbrokerwhose conversations over the telephone are incommoded by the ringing of bellsfrom a city church. I would talk about medieval survivals, about the taxes beingsurely high enough. The point, by the way, about the missing of the connectionsof the Calais boat trains at Brussels was that the shortest possible sea journeyis frequently of great importance to sufferers from the heart. Now, on theContinent, there are two special heart cure places, Nauheim and Spa, and toreach both of these baths from England if in order to ensure a short sea passage,you come by Calais?you have to make the connection at Brussels. And the Belgiantrain never waits by so much the shade of a second for the one coming fromCalais or from Paris. And even if the French train, are just on time, you have torun?imagine a heart patient running! ?along the unfamiliar ways of theBrussels station and to scramble up the high steps of the moving train. Or, ifyou miss connection, you have to wait five or six hours. . . . I used to keepawake whole nights cursing that abuse.
My wife used to run?she never, in whatever else she may have misled me, triedto give me the impression that she was not a gallant soul. But, once in theGerman Express, she would lean back, with one hand to her side and her eyesclosed. Well, she was a good actress. And I would be in hell. In hell, I tellyou. For in Florence I had at once a wife and an unattained mistress?that iswhat it comes to?and in the retaining of her in this world I had my occupation,my career, my ambition. It is not often that these things are united in one body.Leonora was a good actress too. By Jove she was good! I tell you, she wouldlisten to me by the hour, evolving my plans for a shock-proof world. It is truethat, at times, I used to notice about her an air of inattention as if she werelistening, a mother, to the child at her knee, or as if, precisely, I weremyself the patient.
You understand that there was nothing the matter with Edward Ashburnham'sheart?that he had thrown up his commission and had left India and come half theworld over in order to follow a woman who had really had a "heart" toNauheim. That was the sort of sentimental ass he was. For, you understand, too,that they really needed to live in India, to economize, to let the house atBranshaw Teleragh.
Of course, at that date, I had never heard of the Kilsyte case. Ashburnham had,you know, kissed a servant girl in a railway train, and it was only the grace ofGod, the prompt functioning of the communication cord and the ready sympathy ofwhat I believe you call the Hampshire Bench, that kept the poor devil out ofWinchester Gaol for years and years. I never heard of that case until the finalstages of Leonora's revelations. . . .
But just think of that poor wretch. . . . I, who have surely the right, beg youto think of that poor wretch. Is it possible that such a luckless devil should beso tormented by blind and inscrutable destiny? For there is no other way to thinkof it. None. I have the right to say it, since for years he was my wife's lover,since he killed her, since he broke up all the pleasantnesses that there were inmy life. There is no priest that has the right to tell me that I must not askpity for him, from you, silent listener beyond the hearth-stone, from the world,or from the God who created in him those desires, those madnesses. . . .
Of course, I should not hear of the Kilsyte case. I knew none of their friends;they were for me just good people?fortunate people with broad and sunny acres ina southern county. Just good people! By heavens, I sometimes think that it wouldhave been better for him, poor dear, if the case had been such a one that I mustneeds have heard of it?such a one as maids and couriers and other Kur guestswhisper about for years after, until gradually it dies away in the pity thatthere is knocking about here and there in the world. Supposing he had spent hisseven years in Winchester Gaol or whatever it is that inscrutable and blindjustice allots to you for following your natural but ill-timedinclinations?there would have arrived a stage when nodding gossips on theKursaal terrace would have said, "Poor fellow," thinking of his ruinedcareer. He would have been the fine soldier with his back now bent. . . . Betterfor him, poor devil, if his back had been prematurely bent.
Why, it would have been a thousand times better. . . . For, of course, theKilsyte case, which came at the very beginning of his finding Leonora cold andunsympathetic, gave him a nasty jar. He left servants alone after that.
It turned him, naturally, all the more loose amongst women of his own class.Why, Leonora told me that Mrs Maidan?the woman he followed from Burma toNauheim?assured her he awakened her attention by swearing that when he kissedthe servant in the train he was driven to it. I daresay he was driven to it, bythe mad passion to find an ultimately satisfying woman. I daresay he was sincereenough. Heaven help me, I daresay he was sincere enough in his love for MrsMaidan. She was a nice little thing, a dear little dark woman with long lashes,of whom Florence grew quite fond. She had a lisp and a happy smile. We saw plentyof her for the first month of our acquaintance, then she died, quite quietly?ofheart trouble.
But you know, poor little Mrs Maidan?she was so gentle, so young. She cannothave been more than twenty-three and she had a boy husband out in Chitral notmore than twenty-four, I believe. Such young things ought to have been leftalone. Of course Ashburnham could not leave her alone. I do not believe that hecould. Why, even I, at this distance of time am aware that I am a little in lovewith her memory. I can't help smiling when I think suddenly of her?as you mightat the thought of something wrapped carefully away in lavender, in some drawer,in some old house that you have long left. She was so?so submissive. Why, evento me she had the air of being submissive?to me that not the youngest childwill ever pay heed to. Yes, this is the saddest story . . .
No, I cannot help wishing that Florence had left her alone?with her playingwith adultery. I suppose it was; though she was such a child that one has theimpression that she would hardly have known how to spell such a word. No, it wasjust submissiveness?to the importunities, to the tempestuous forces that pushedthat miserable fellow on to ruin. And I do not suppose that Florence really mademuch difference. If it had not been for her that Ashburnham left his allegiancefor Mrs Maidan, then it would have been some other woman. But still, I do notknow. Perhaps the poor young thing would have died?she was bound to die, anyhow,quite soon?but she would have died without having to soak her noonday pillowwith tears whilst Florence, below the window, talked to Captain Ashburnham aboutthe Constitution of the United States. . . . Yes, it would have left a bettertaste in the mouth if Florence had let her die in peace. . . .
Leonora behaved better in a sense. She just boxed Mrs Maidan's ears?yes, shehit her, in an uncontrollable access of rage, a hard blow on the side of thecheek, in the corridor of the hotel, outside Edward's rooms. It was that, youknow, that accounted for the sudden, odd intimacy that sprang up between Florenceand Mrs Ashburnham.
Because it was, of course, an odd intimacy. If you look at it from the outsidenothing could have been more unlikely than that Leonora, who is the proudestcreature on God's earth, would have struck up an acquaintanceship with twocasual Yankees whom she could not really have regarded as being much more than acarpet beneath her feet. You may ask what she had to be proud of. Well, she was aPowys married to an Ashburnham?I suppose that gave her the right to despisecasual Americans as long as she did it unostentatiously. I don't know what anyonehas to be proud of. She might have taken pride in her patience, in her keepingher husband out of the bankruptcy court. Perhaps she did.
At any rate that was how Florence got to know her. She came round a screen atthe corner of the hotel corridor and found Leonora with the gold key that hungfrom her wrist caught in Mrs Maidan's hair just before dinner. There was not asingle word spoken. Little Mrs Maidan was very pale, with a red mark down herleft cheek, and the key would not come out of her black hair. It was Florence whohad to disentangle it, for Leonora was in such a state that she could not havebrought herself to touch Mrs Maidan without growing sick.
And there was not a word spoken. You see, under those four eyes?her own and MrsMaidan's?Leonora could just let herself go as far as to box Mrs Maidan's ears.But the moment a stranger came along she pulled herself wonderfully up. She wasat first silent and then, the moment the key was disengaged by Florence she wasin a state to say: "So awkward of me . . . I was just trying to put the combstraight in Mrs Maidan's hair. . . ."
Mrs Maidan, however, was not a Powys married to an Ashburnham; she was a poorlittle O'Flaherty whose husband was a boy of country parsonage origin. So therewas no mistaking the sob she let go as she went desolately away along thecorridor. But Leonora was still going to play up. She opened the door ofAshburnham's room quite ostentatiously, so that Florence should hear her addressEdward in terms of intimacy and liking. "Edward," she called. Butthere was no Edward there.
You understand that there was no Edward there. It was then, for the only time ofher career, that Leonora really compromised herself?She exclaimed . . ."How frightful! . . . Poor little Maisie! . . ."
She caught herself up at that, but of course it was too late. It was a queersort of affair. . . .
I want to do Leonora every justice. I love her very dearly for one thing and inthis matter, which was certainly the ruin of my small household cockle-shell, shecertainly tripped up. I do not believe?and Leonora herself does notbelieve?that poor little Maisie Maidan was ever Edward's mistress. Her heartwas really so bad that she would have succumbed to anything like an impassionedembrace. That is the plain English of it, and I suppose plain English is best.She was really what the other two, for reasons of their own, just pretended tobe. Queer, isn't it? Like one of those sinister jokes that Providence plays uponone. Add to this that I do not suppose that Leonora would much have minded, atany other moment, if Mrs Maidan had been her husband's mistress. It might havebeen a relief from Edward's sentimental gurglings over the lady and from thelady's submissive acceptance of those sounds. No, she would not have minded.
But, in boxing Mrs Maidan's ears, Leonora was just striking the face of anintolerable universe. For, that afternoon she had had a frightfully painful scenewith Edward.
As far as his letters went, she claimed the right to open them when she chose.She arrogated to herself the right because Edward's affairs were in such afrightful state and he lied so about them that she claimed the privilege ofhaving his secrets at her disposal. There was not, indeed, any other way, for thepoor fool was too ashamed of his lapses ever to make a clean breast of anything.She had to drag these things out of him.
It must have been a pretty elevating job for her. But that afternoon, Edwardbeing on his bed for the hour and a half prescribed by the Kur authorities, shehad opened a letter that she took to come from a Colonel Hervey. They were goingto stay with him in Linlithgowshire for the month of September and she did notknow whether the date fixed would be the eleventh or the eighteenth. The addresson this letter was, in handwriting, as like Colonel Hervey's as one blade ofcorn is like another. So she had at the moment no idea of spying on him.
But she certainly was. For she discovered that Edward Ashburnham was paying ablackmailer of whom she had never heard something like three hundred pounds ayear . . . It was a devil of a blow; it was like death; for she imagined that bythat time she had really got to the bottom of her husband's liabilities. You see,they were pretty heavy. What had really smashed them up had been a perfectlycommon-place affair at Monte Carlo?an affair with a cosmopolitan harpy whopassed for the mistress of a Russian Grand Duke. She exacted a twenty thousandpound pearl tiara from him as the price of her favours for a week or so. It wouldhave pipped him a good deal to have found so much, and he was not in theordinary way a gambler. He might, indeed, just have found the twenty thousand andthe not slight charges of a week at an hotel with the fair creature. He must havebeen worth at that date five hundred thousand dollars and a little over.
Well, he must needs go to the tables and lose forty thousand pounds. . . . Fortythousand solid pounds, borrowed from sharks! And even after that he must?it wasan imperative passion?enjoy the favours of the lady. He got them, of course,when it was a matter of solid bargaining, for far less than twenty thousand, ashe might, no doubt, have done from the first. I daresay ten thousand dollarscovered the bill.
Anyhow, there was a pretty solid hole in a fortune of a hundred thousand poundsor so. And Leonora had to fix things up; he would have run from money-lender tomoney-lender. And that was quite in the early days of her discovery of hisinfidelities?if you like to call them infidelities. And she discovered that onefrom public sources. God knows what would have happened if she had not discoveredit from public sources. I suppose he would have concealed it from her until theywere penniless. But she was able, by the grace of God, to get hold of the actuallenders of the money, to learn the exact sums that were needed. And she went offto England.
Yes, she went right off to England to her attorney and his while he was still inthe arms of his Circe?at Antibes, to which place they had retired. He got sickof the lady quite quickly, but not before Leonora had had such lessons in the artof business from her attorney that she had her plan as clearly drawn up as wasever that of General Trochu for keeping the Prussians out of Paris in 1870. Itwas about as effectual at first, or it seemed so.
That would have been, you know, in 1895, about nine years before the date ofwhich I am talking?the date of Florence's getting her hold over Leonora; forthat was what it amounted to. . . . Well, Mrs Ashburnham had simply forced Edwardto settle all his property upon her. She could force him to do anything; in hisclumsy, good-natured, inarticulate way he was as frightened of her as of thedevil. And he admired her enormously, and he was as fond of her as any man couldbe of any woman. She took advantage of it to treat him as if he had been aperson whose estates are being managed by the Court of Bankruptcy. I suppose itwas the best thing for him.
Anyhow, she had no end of a job for the first three years or so. Unexpectedliabilities kept on cropping up?and that afflicted fool did not make it anyeasier. You see, along with the passion of the chase went a frame of mind thatmade him be extraordinarily ashamed of himself. You may not believe it, but hereally had such a sort of respect for the chastity of Leonora's imagination thathe hated?he was positively revolted at the thought that she should know thatthe sort of thing that he did existed in the world. So he would stick out in anagitated way against the accusation of ever having done anything. He wanted topreserve the virginity of his wife's thoughts. He told me that himself duringthe long walks we had at the last?while the girl was on the way to Brindisi.
So, of course, for those three years or so, Leonora had many agitations. And itwas then that they really quarrelled.
Yes, they quarrelled bitterly. That seems rather extravagant. You might havethought that Leonora would be just calmly loathing and he lachrymosely contrite.But that was not it a bit . . . Along with Edward's passions and his shame forthem went the violent conviction of the duties of his station?a conviction thatwas quite unreasonably expensive. I trust I have not, in talking of hisliabilities, given the impression that poor Edward was a promiscuous libertine.He was not; he was a sentimentalist. The servant girl in the Kilsyte case hadbeen pretty, but mournful of appearance. I think that, when he had kissed her, hehad desired rather to comfort her. And, if she had succumbed to hisblandishments I daresay he would have set her up in a little house in Portsmouthor Winchester and would have been faithful to her for four or five years. He wasquite capable of that.
No, the only two of his affairs of the heart that cost him money were that ofthe Grand Duke's mistress and that which was the subject of the blackmailingletter that Leonora opened. That had been a quite passionate affair with quite anice woman. It had succeeded the one with the Grand Ducal lady. The lady was thewife of a brother officer and Leonora had known all about the passion, which hadbeen quite a real passion and had lasted for several years. You see, poorEdward's passions were quite logical in their progression upwards. They beganwith a servant, went on to a courtesan and then to a quite nice woman, veryunsuitably mated. For she had a quite nasty husband who, by means of letters andthings, went on blackmailing poor Edward to the tune of three or four hundred ayear?with threats of the Divorce Court. And after this lady came Maisie Maidan,and after poor Maisie only one more affair and then?the real passion of hislife. His marriage with Leonora had been arranged by his parents and, though healways admired her immensely, he had hardly ever pretended to be much more thantender to her, though he desperately needed her moral support, too. . . .
But his really trying liabilities were mostly in the nature of generositiesproper to his station. He was, according to Leonora, always remitting histenants' rents and giving the tenants to understand that the reduction would bepermanent; he was always redeeming drunkards who came before his magisterialbench; he was always trying to put prostitutes into respectable places?and hewas a perfect maniac about children. I don't know how many ill-used people he didnot pick up and provide with careers?Leonora has told me, but I daresay sheexaggerated and the figure seems so preposterous that I will not put it down.All these things, and the continuance of them seemed to him to be his duty?alongwith impossible subscriptions to hospitals and Boy Scouts and to provide prizesat cattle shows and antivivisection societies. . . .
Well, Leonora saw to it that most of these things were not continued. They couldnot possibly keep up Branshaw Manor at that rate after the money had gone to theGrand Duke's mistress. She put the rents back at their old figures; dischargedthe drunkards from their homes, and sent all the societies notice that they wereto expect no more subscriptions. To the children, she was more tender; nearly allof them she supported till the age of apprenticeship or domestic service. Yousee, she was childless herself.
She was childless herself, and she considered herself to be to blame. She hadcome of a penniless branch of the Powys family, and they had forced upon her poordear Edward without making the stipulation that the children should be brought upas Catholics. And that, of course, was spiritual death to Leonora. I have givenyou a wrong impression if I have not made you see that Leonora was a woman of astrong, cold conscience, like all English Catholics. (I cannot, myself, helpdisliking this religion; there is always, at the bottom of my mind, in spite ofLeonora, the feeling of shuddering at the Scarlet Woman, that filtered in upon mein the tranquility of the little old Friends' Meeting House in Arch Street,Philadelphia.) So I do set down a good deal of Leonora's mismanagement of poordear Edward's case to the peculiarly English form of her religion. Because, ofcourse, the only thing to have done for Edward would have been to let him sinkdown until he became a tramp of gentlemanly address, having, maybe, chance loveaffairs upon the highways. He would have done so much less harm; he would havebeen much less agonized too. At any rate, he would have had fewer chances ofruining and of remorse. For Edward was great at remorse.
But Leonora's English Catholic conscience, her rigid principles, her coldness,even her very patience, were, I cannot help thinking, all wrong in this specialcase. She quite seriously and naïvely imagined that the Church of Romedisapproves of divorce; she quite seriously and naïvely believed that herchurch could be such a monstrous and imbecile institution as to expect her totake on the impossible job of making Edward Ashburnham a faithful husband. Shehad, as the English would say, the Nonconformist temperament. In the UnitedStates of North America we call it the New England conscience. For, of course,that frame of mind has been driven in on the English Catholics. The centuriesthat they have gone through?centuries of blind and malignant oppression, ofostracism from public employment, of being, as it were, a small beleaguredgarrison in a hostile country, and therefore having to act with greatformality?all these things have combined to perform that conjuring trick. And Isuppose that Papists in England are even technically Nonconformists.
Continental Papists are a dirty, jovial and unscrupulous crew. But that, atleast, lets them be opportunists. They would have fixed poor dear Edward up allright. (Forgive my writing of these monstrous things in this frivolous manner.If I did not I should break down and cry.) In Milan, say, or in Paris, Leonorawould have had her marriage dissolved in six months for two hundred dollars paidin the right quarter. And Edward would have drifted about until he became atramp of the kind I have suggested. Or he would have married a barmaid who wouldhave made him such frightful scenes in public places and would so have torn outhis moustache and left visible signs upon his face that he would have beenfaithful to her for the rest of his days. That was what he wanted to redeem him.. . .
For, along with his passions and his shames there went the dread of scenes inpublic places, of outcry, of excited physical violence; of publicity, in short.Yes, the barmaid would have cured him. And it would have been all the better ifshe drank; he would have been kept busy looking after her.
I know that I am right in this. I know it because of the Kilsyte case. You see,the servant girl that he then kissed was nurse in the family of the Nonconformisthead of the county?whatever that post may be called. And that gentleman was sodetermined to ruin Edward, who was the chairman of the Tory caucus, or whateverit is?that the poor dear sufferer had the very devil of a time. They askedquestions about it in the House of Commons; they tried to get the Hampshiremagistrates degraded; they suggested to the War Ministry that Edward was not theproper person to hold the King's commission. Yes, he got it hot and strong.
The result you have heard. He was completely cured of philandering amongst thelower classes. And that seemed a real blessing to Leonora. It did not revolt herso much to be connected?it is a sort of connection?with people like MrsMaidan, instead of with a little kitchenmaid.
In a dim sort of way, Leonora was almost contented when she arrived at Nauheim,that evening. . . .
She had got things nearly straight by the long years of scraping in littlestations in Chitral and Burma?stations where living is cheap in comparison withthe life of a county magnate, and where, moreover, liaisons of one sort oranother are normal and inexpensive too. So that, when Mrs Maidan came along?andthe Maidan affair might have caused trouble out there because of the youth of thehusband?Leonora had just resigned herself to coming home. With pushing andscraping and with letting Branshaw Teleragh, and with selling a picture and arelic of Charles I or so. had got?and, poor dear, she had never had a reallydecent dress to her back in all those years and years?she had got, as sheimagined, her poor dear husband back into much the same financial position as hadbeen his before the mistress of the Grand Duke had happened along. And, ofcourse, Edward himself had helped her a little on the financial side. He was afellow that many men liked. He was so presentable and quite ready to lend you hiscigar puncher?that sort of thing. So, every now and then some financier whom hemet about would give him a good, sound, profitable tip. And Leonora was neverafraid of a bit of a gamble?English Papists seldom are, I do not know why.
So nearly all her investment turned up trumps, and Edward was really in fit caseto reopen Branshaw Manor and once more to assume his position in the county. ThusLeonora had accepted Maisie Maidan almost with resignation?almost with a sigh ofrelief. She really liked the poor child?she had to like somebody. And, at anyrate, she felt she could trust Maisie?she could trust her not to rook Edwardfor several thousands a week, for Maisie had refused to accept so much as atrinket ring from him. It is true that Edward gurgled and raved about the girlin a way that she had never yet experienced. But that, too, was almost a relief.I think she would really have welcomed it if he could have come across the loveof his life. It would have given her a rest.
And there could not have been anyone better than poor little Mrs Maidan; she wasso ill she could not want to be taken on expensive jaunts. . . . It was Leonoraherself who paid Maisie's expenses to Nauheim. She handed over the money to theboy husband, for Maisie would never have allowed it; but the husband was inagonies of fear. Poor devil!
I fancy that, on the voyage from India, Leonora was as happy as ever she hadbeen in her life. Edward was wrapped up, completely, in his girl?he was almostlike a father with a child, trotting about with rugs and physic and things, fromdeck to deck. He behaved, however, with great circumspection, so that nothingleaked through to the other passengers. And Leonora had almost attained to theattitude of a mother towards Mrs Maidan. So it had looked very well?thebenevolent, wealthy couple of good people, acting as saviours to the poor,dark-eyed, dying young thing. And that attitude of Leonora's towards Mrs Maidanno doubt partly accounted for the smack in the face. She was hitting a naughtychild who had been stealing chocolates at an inopportune moment.
It was certainly an inopportune moment. For, with the opening of thatblackmailing letter from that injured brother officer, all the old terrors hadredescended upon Leonora. Her road had again seemed to stretch out endless; sheimagined that there might be hundreds and hundreds of such things that Edward wasconcealing from her?that they might necessitate more mortgagings, more pawningsof bracelets, more and always more horrors. She had spent an excruciatingafternoon. The matter was one of a divorce case, of course, and she wanted toavoid publicity as much as Edward did, so that she saw the necessity ofcontinuing the payments. And she did not so much mind that. They could findthree hundred a year. But it was the horror of there being more such obligations.
She had had no conversation with Edward for many years?none that went beyondthe mere arrangements for taking trains or engaging servants. But that afternoonshe had to let him have it. And he had been just the same as ever. It was likeopening a book after a decade to find the words the same. He had the samemotives. He had not wished to tell her about the case because he had not wishedher to sully her mind with the idea that there was such a thing as a brotherofficer who could be a blackmailer?and he had wanted to protect the credit ofhis old light of love. That lady was certainly not concerned with her husband.And he swore, and swore, and swore, that there was nothing else in the worldagainst him. She did not believe him.
He had done it once too often?and she was wrong for the first time, so that heacted a rather creditable part in the matter. For he went right straight out tothe post-office and spent several hours in coding a telegram to his solicitor,bidding that hard-headed man to threaten to take out at once a warrant againstthe fellow who was on his track. He said afterwards that it was a bit too thickon poor old Leonora to be ballyragged any more. That was really the last of hisoutstanding accounts, and he was ready to take his personal chance of theDivorce Court if the blackmailer turned nasty. He would face it out?thepublicity, the papers, the whole bally show. Those were his simple words. . . .
He had made, however, the mistake of not telling Leonora where he was going, sothat, having seen him go to his room to fetch the code for the telegram, andseeing, two hours later, Maisie Maidan come out of his room, Leonora imaginedthat the two hours she had spent in silent agony Edward had spent with MaisieMaidan in his arms. That seemed to her to be too much.
As a matter of fact, Maisie's being in Edward's room had been the result, partlyof poverty, partly of pride, partly of sheer innocence. She could not, in thefirst place, afford a maid; she refrained as much as possible from sending thehotel servants on errands, since every penny was of importance to her, and shefeared to have to pay high tips at the end of her stay. Edward had lent her oneof his fascinating cases contaiing fifteen different sizes of scisssors, and,having seen from her window, his departure for the post-office, she had taken theopportunity of returning the case. She could not see why she should not, thoughshe felt a certain remorse at the thought that she had kissed the pillows of hisbed. That was the way it took her.
But Leonora could see that, without the shadow of a doubt, the incident gaveFlorence a hold over her. It let Florence into things and Florence was the onlycreated being who had any idea that the Ashburnhams were not just good peoplewith nothing to their tails. She determined at once, not so much to give Florencethe privilege of her intimacy?which would have been the payment of a kind ofblackmail?as to keep Florence under observation until she could havedemonstrated to Florence that she was not in the least jealous of poor Maisie. Sothat was why she had entered the dining-room arm in arm with my wife, and whyshe had so markedly planted herself at our table. She never left us, indeed, fora minute that night, except just to run up to Mrs Maidan's room to beg her pardonand to beg her also to let Edward take her very markedly out into the gardensthat night. She said herself, when Mrs Maidan came rather wistfully down into thelounge where we were all sitting: "Now, Edward, get up and take Maisie tothe Casino. I want Mrs Dowell to tell me all about the families in Connecticutwho came from Fordingbridge." For it had been discovered that Florence cameof a line that had actually owned Branshaw Teleragh for two centuries before theAshburnhams came there. And there she sat with me in that hall, long afterFlorence had gone to bed, so that I might witness her gay reception of that pair.She could play up.
And that enables me to fix exactly the day of our going to the town of M----.For it was the very day poor Mrs Maidan died. We found her dead when we gotback?pretty awful, that, when you come to figure out what it all means. . . .
At any rate the measure of my relief when Leonora said that she was an IrishCatholic gives you the measure of my affection for that couple. It was anaffection so intense that even to this day I cannot think of Edward withoutsighing. I do not believe that I could have gone on any more with them. I wasgetting too tired. And I verily believe, too, if my suspicion that Leonora wasjealous of Florence had been the reason she gave for her outburst I should haveturned upon Florence with the maddest kind of rage. Jealousy would have beenincurable. But Florence's mere silly jibes at the Irish and at the Catholicscould be apologized out of existence. And that I appeared to fix up in twominutes or so.
She looked at me for a long time rather fixedly and queerly while I was doingit. And at last I worked myself up to saying:
"Do accept the situation. I confess that I do not like your religion. But Ilike you so intensely. I don't mind saying that I have never had anyone to bereally fond of, and I do not believe that anyone has ever been fond of me, as Ibelieve you really to be."
"Oh, I'm fond enough of you," she said. "Fond enough to say thatI wish every man was like you. But there are others to be considered." Shewas thinking, as a matter of fact, of poor Maisie. She picked a little piece ofpellitory out of the breast-high wall in front of us. She chafed it for a longminute between her finger and thumb, then she threw it over the coping.
"Oh, I accept the situation," she said at last, "if youcan."
VI
I REMEMBER laughing at the phrase, "accept the situation", which sheseemed to repeat with a gravity too intense. I said to her something like:
"It's hardly as much as that. I mean, that I must claim the liberty of afree American citizen to think what I please about your co-religionists. And Isuppose that Florence must have liberty to think what she pleases and to say whatpoliteness allows her to say."
"She had better," Leonora answered, "not say one single wordagainst my people or my faith."
It struck me at the time, that there was an unusual, an almost threatening,hardness in her voice. It was almost as if she were trying to convey to Florence,through me, that she would seriously harm my wife if Florence went to somethingthat was an extreme. Yes, I remember thinking at the time that it was almost asif Leonora were saying, through me to Florence:
"You may outrage me as you will; you may take all that I personallypossess, but do not you care to say one single thing in view of the situationthat that will set up?against the faith that makes me become the doormat foryour feet."
But obviously, as I saw it, that could not be her meaning. Good people, be theyever so diverse in creed, do not threaten each other. So that I read Leonora'swords to mean just no more than:
"It would be better if Florence said nothing at all against myco-religionists, because it is a point that I am touchy about."
That was the hint that, accordingly, I conveyed to Florence when, shortlyafterwards, she and Edward came down from the tower. And I want you to understandthat, from that moment until after Edward and the girl and Florence were alldead together, I had never the remotest glimpse, not the shadow of a suspicion,that there was anything wrong, as the saying is. For five minutes, then, Ientertained the possibility that Leonora might be jealous; but there was neveranother flicker in that flame-like personality. How in the world should I get it?
For, all that time, I was just a male sick nurse. And what chance had I againstthose three hardened gamblers, who were all in league to conceal their hands fromme? What earthly chance? They were three to one?and they made me happy. Oh God,they made me so happy that I doubt if even paradise, that shall smooth out alltemporal wrongs, shall ever give me the like. And what could they have donebetter, or what could they have done that could have been worse? I don't know. .. .
I suppose that, during all that time I was a deceived husband and that Leonorawas pimping for Edward. That was the cross that she had to take up during herlong Calvary of a life. . . .
You ask how it feels to be a deceived husband. Just Heavens, I do not know. Itfeels just nothing at all. It is not Hell, certainly it is not necessarilyHeaven. So I suppose it is the intermediate stage. What do they call it? Limbo.No, I feel nothing at all about that. They are dead; they have gone before theirJudge who, I hope, will open to them the springs of His compassion. It is not mybusiness to think about it. It is simply my business to say, as Leonora's peoplesay: "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Do mine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.In memoria aeterna erit. . . ." But what were they? The just? Theunjust? God knows! I think that the pair of them were only poor wretches,creeping over this earth in the shadow of an eternal wrath. It is very terrible.. . .
It is almost too terrible, the picture of that judgement, as it appears to mesometimes, at nights. It is probably the suggestion of some picture that I haveseen somewhere. But upon an immense plain, suspended in mid-air, I seem to seethree figures, two of them clasped close in an intense embrace, and oneintolerably solitary. lt is in black and white, my picture of that judgement, anetching, perhaps; only I cannot tell an etching from a photographicreproduction. And the immense plain is the hand of God, stretching out for milesand miles, with great spaces above it and below it. And they are in the sight ofGod, and it is Florence that is alone. . . .
And, do you know, at the thought of that intense solitude I feel an overwhelmingdesire to rush forward and comfort her. You cannot, you see, have acted as nurseto a person for twelve years without wishing to go on nursing them, even thoughyou hate them with the hatred of the adder, and even in the palm of God. But, inthe nights, with that vision of judgement before me, I know that I hold myselfback. For I hate Florence. I hate Florence with such a hatred that I would notspare her an eternity of loneliness. She need not have done what she did. Shewas an American, a New Englander. She had not the hot passions of theseEuropeans. She cut out that poor imbecile of an Edward?and I pray God that heis really at peace, clasped close in the arms of that poor, poor girl! And, nodoubt, Maisie Maidan will find her young husband again, and Leonora will burn,clear and serene, a northern light and one of the archangels of God. And me. . .. Well, perhaps, they will find me an elevator to run. . . . But Florence. . . .
She should not have done it. She should not have done it. It was playing it toolow down. She cut out poor dear Edward from sheer vanity; she meddled between himand Leonora from a sheer, imbecile spirit of district visiting. Do you understandthat, whilst she was Edward's mistress, she was perpetually trying to reunitehim to his wife? She would gabble on to Leonora about forgiveness?treating thesubject from the bright, American point of view. And Leonora would treat her likethe whore she was. Once she said to Florence in the early morning:
"You come to me straight out of his bed to tell me that that is my properplace. I know it, thank you."
But even that could not stop Florence. She went on saying that it was herambition to leave this world a little brighter by the passage of her brief life,and how thankfully she would leave Edward, whom she thought she had brought to aright frame of mind, if Leonora would only give him a chance. He needed, shesaid, tenderness beyond anything.
And Leonora would answer?for she put up with this outrage for years?Leonora,as I understand, would answer something like:
"Yes, you would give him up. And you would go on writing to each other insecret, and committing adultery in hired rooms. I know the pair of you, you know.No. I prefer the situation as it is."
Half the time Florence would ignore Leonora's remarks. She would think they werenot quite ladylike. The other half of the time she would try to persuade Leonorathat her love for Edward was quite spiritual?on account of her heart. Once shesaid:
"If you can believe that of Maisie Maidan, as you say you do, why cannotyou believe it of me?"
Leonora was, I understand, doing her hair at that time in front of the mirror inher bedroom. And she looked round at Florence, to whom she did not usuallyvouchsafe a glance,?she looked round coolly and calmly, and said:
"Never do you dare to mention Mrs Maidan's name again. You murdered her.You and I murdered her between us. I am as much a scoundrel as you. I don't liketo be reminded of it."
Florence went off at once into a babble of how could she have hurt a person whomshe hardly knew, a person whom with the best intentions, in pursuance of herefforts to leave the world a little brighter, she had tried to save from Edward.That was how she figured it out to herself. She really thought that. . . . SoLeonora said patiently:
"Very well, just put it that I killed her and that it's a painful subject.One does not like to think that one had killed someone. Naturally not. I oughtnever to have brought her from India."
And that, indeed, is exactly how Leonora looked at it. It is stated a littlebaldly, but Leonora was always a great one for bald statements.
What had happened on the day of our jaunt to the ancient city of M---- had beenthis:
Leonora, who had been even then filled with pity and contrition for the poorchild, on returning to our hotel had gone straight to Mrs Maidan's room. She hadwanted just to pet her. And she had perceived at first only, on the clear, roundtable covered with red velvet, a letter addressed to her. It ran something like:
"Oh, Mrs Ashburnham, how could you have done it? I trusted you so. Younever talked to me about me and Edward, but I trusted you. How could you buy mefrom my husband? I have just heard how you have?in the hall they were talkingabout it, Edward and the American lady. You paid the money for me to come here.Oh, how could you? How could you? I am going straight back to Bunny. . . ."
Bunny was Mrs Maidan's husband.
And Leonora said that, as she went on reading the letter, she had, withoutlooking round her, a sense that that hotel room was cleared, that there were nopapers on the table, that there were no clothes on the hooks, and that there wasa strained silence?a silence, she said, as if there were something in the roomthat drank up such sounds as there were. She had to fight against that feeling,whilst she read the postscript of the letter.
"I did not know you wanted me for an adulteress," the postscriptbegan. The poor child was hardly literate. "It was surely not right of youand I never wanted to be one. And I heard Edward call me a poor little rat to theAmerican lady. He always called me a little rat in private, and I did not mind.But, if he called me it to her, I think he does not love me any more. Oh, MrsAshburnham, you knew the world and I knew nothing. I thought it would be allright if you thought it could, and I thought you would not have brought me ifyou did not, too. You should not have done it, and we out of the same convent. .. ."
Leonora said that she screamed when she read that.
And then she saw that Maisie's boxes were all packed, and she began a search forMrs Maidan herself?all over the hotel. The manager said that Mrs Maidan had paidher bill, and had gone up to the station to ask the Reiseverkehrsbureau to makeher out a plan for her immediate return to Chitral. He imagined that he had seenher come back, but he was not quite certain. No one in the large hotel hadbothered his head about the child. And she, wandering solitarily in the hall,had no doubt sat down beside a screen that had Edward and Florence on the otherside. I never heard then or after what had passed between that precious couple. Ifancy Florence was just about beginning her cutting out of poor dear Edward byaddressing to him some words of friendly warning as to the ravages he might bemaking in the girl's heart. That would be the sort of way she would begin. AndEdward would have sentimentally assured her that there was nothing in it; thatMaisie was just a poor little rat whose passage to Nauheim his wife had paid outof her own pocket. That would have been enough to do the trick.
For the trick was pretty efficiently done. Leonora, with panic growing and withcontrition very large in her heart, visited every one of the public rooms of thehotel?the dining-room, the lounge, the schreibzimmer, the wintergarden. God knows what they wanted with a winter garden in an hotel that is onlyopen from May till October. But there it was. And then Leonora ran?yes, she ranup the stairs?to see if Maisie had not returned to her rooms. She haddetermined to take that child right away from that hideous place. It seemed toher to be all unspeakable. I do not mean to say that she was not quite coolabout it. Leonora was always Leonora. But the cold justice of the thing demandedthat she should play the part of mother to this child who had come from the sameconvent. She figured it out to amount to that. She would leave Edward toFlorence and to me?and she would devote all her time to providing that childwith an atmosphere of love until she could be returned to her poor younghusband. It was naturally too late.
She had not cared to look round Maisie's rooms at first. Now, as soon as shecame in, she perceived, sticking out beyond the bed, a small pair of feet inhigh-heeled shoes. Maisie had died in the effort to strap up a great portmanteau.She had died so grotesquely that her little body had fallen forward into thetrunk, and it had closed upon her, like the jaws of a gigantic alligator. The keywas in her hand. Her dark hair, like the hair of a Japanese, had come down andcovered her body and her face.
Leonora lifted her up?she was the merest featherweight?and laid her on the bedwith her hair about her. She was smiling, as if she had just scored a goal in ahockey match. You understand she had not committed suicide. Her heart had juststopped. I saw her, with the long lashes on the cheeks, with the smile about thelips, with the flowers all about her. The stem of a white lily rested in herhand so that the spike of flowers was upon her shoulder. She looked like a bridein the sunlight of the mortuary candles that were all about her, and the whitecoifs of the two nuns that knelt at her feet with their faces hidden might havebeen two swans that were to bear her away to kissing-kindness land, or whereverit is. Leonora showed her to me. She would not let either of the others see her.She wanted, you know, to spare poor dear Edward's feelings. He never could bearthe sight of a corpse. And, since she never gave him an idea that Maisie hadwritten to her, he imagined that the death had been the most natural thing inthe world. He soon got over it. Indeed, it was the one affair of his about whichhe never felt much remorse.
Continues...
Excerpted from The Good Soldierby Ford Madox Ford Copyright © 1996 by Ford Madox Ford. Excerpted by permission.
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