Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (342 page)

“Release the prisoners, Jack, and come and drink.”

It was Mr. Roland calling from the buttery door.

“Gentlemen, I have the honour,” Mr. Williamson said. “Put your tails between your legs and skulk.”

The Major and Mr. Harcourt stepped out into the sunlight.

“We may debate on Mr. Chuckel’s plan,” Mr. Harcourt said; “for, war having failed us, there remains nothing but the art of the fox.”

CHAPTER IX
.

MR. BETTESWORTH sat for so long in his chair that he outpassed the time suited for his dignity, and entered a period of almost angry impatience. Finally he pulled the long, pink satin ribbon that set in motion the large bell specially allotted to Mr. Chuckel. The steward, who had indeed been listening at the keyhole, permitted a respectable interval to elapse, and then, with an air half-way between assurance and extreme nervousness, presented himself in the tall doorway.

“Sir,” Mr. Bettesworth said, “will you afford me information as to any occurrences in the avenue?” A singular agitation overcame Mr. Chuckel. He had expected no occurrences in the avenue; he knew of none.

“My brother,” Mr. Bettesworth said, “half an hour ago leapt suddenly through the window. Since I cannot imagine that he was overtaken by the fate of the Gadarene swine, I can only speculate that something of an unusual character took place within his purview.” He continued, with a shade more of disfavour in his voice: “It appears to me that, as my lady’s steward, it is your business either to know of or to foresee any occurrences in her park.”

Mr. Chuckel, with almost trembling lips, brought out 167

such phrases as that on account of Disloyalists, Papists, and Jacobites those were very troublous times; that on account of smugglers and the lawless, that was a troubled region. But for the life of him he could not understand what, upon that bright May morning, could have occurred to disturb the serenity of the unruffled lawns, or to cause a young gentleman suddenly to jump out of a window.

“Sir,” Mr. Bettesworth said, “I see no reason why smugglers, Papists, or Jacobites should be introduced into this matter; and the course to be pursued, it appears to me, is that I should make investigations which should have been your work.” He added curtly the three words, “Attend on me,” and having found his hat and stick, he proceeded with a very great stiffness to walk across the great room, through the large hall whose black-and-white marble tiles echoed their footsteps, and down the broad stone steps on to the circular lawn. Mr. Bettesworth’s frame of mind, as far as it regarded the steward, was one of cruel, godlike contempt; he considered himself as Olympian Jove showing disfavour to a worm. Mr. Chuckel, on the other hand, followed Mr. Bettesworth in a state of lamentable perturbation. He kept a distance of perhaps four feet, and he bowed automatically as was his habit, with his eyes well upon the golden galoons and tassels of Mr. Bettesworth’s blue back. The black tie of Mr. Bettesworth’s wig moved in the breeze, the skirts of his coat were too stiffened with gold lace to do more than just to move with the rhythm of his stiff footsteps. And if, Mr. Chuckel thought, he could only hold out till nightfall; if he could only keep Mr. Bettesworth unsuspecting till that night, when Mr. Bettesworth was to return, at the Turk’s Head, the visit of Major Penruddock and the Hon. Simon Harcourt! He regarded Mr. Bettesworth’s back with a black hatred. Then, he thought, he would have this abominably arrogant man, at any rate for a time, in his own clutches. He would have him disabled, fooled, humiliated, and shut up for as long as it would take for a messenger to reach the Secretary of State in London, and to return. He would have his cargoes of French silks and brandies run, sold in Canterbury, and the money in his strong-box, all ready to make his accounts square with all the rent-rolls, all the underwood tallies, and all the Copy-holders’ services. Mr. Bettesworth might rave, Mr. Bettesworth might even cause my lady to dismiss him, but he would have made his profits; and, in the matter of accounts, he would be safe from the hangman. But what in the name of the devil this new coil could be; what could have caused that whelp, Mr. Roland, to jump out of the window — that passed him to imagine. Could Mr. Stareleigh have precipitated matters in a panic? — Could Major Penruddock or Mr. Harcourt have acted suddenly on his information? Or could Mr. Bettesworth, believing the information that Lydia undoubtedly had given him the night before — could Mr. Bettesworth be decoying him out in the park to have him suddenly arrested, to demand his keys of him, to shut him up, whilst with his cold and diabolical persistence Mr. Bettesworth investigated his accounts? Then, indeed, everything was lost! And suddenly he uttered a sort of choked wail — they were continuing their slow promenade beside the water, Mr. Bettesworth had his hat beneath his arm; he was walking with his hand a little below the head of his long cane, so that it gave him the air of a gold-stick in waiting. He stopped and pivoted round on his heels —

“What is it you are pleased to perceive?” he said coldly.

Mr. Chuckel, whose face had turned from a rice-white to an ashen grey, stuttered —

“Your Worship, nothing! Nothing in the world!”

Mr. Bettesworth coldly ignored these asseverations. He swept his eye inexorably over the surface of the water, over the trunks of the trees on the opposite bank, over what was visible of the lawn, the terrace, and the house front. His cold stare came back to the trees on the right-hand side, and then, deliberately, he said, “Ah!” and stepped amongst the trees of the avenue. His remorseless eyes had perceived what Mr. Chuckel’s had before him — the extreme end of a gown whose wearer was otherwise hidden from them. In advancing towards it Mr. Bettesworth uttered no word at all, and Mr. Chuckel followed him, clenching and unclenching his hands in impotent fury and dismay. He could understand nothing, and the first thing that came into his muddled mind when they had a full sight of Lydia was a question as to where in this world his stepdaughter had procured this dress that he had never seen upon her?

Lydia Chuckel had been seated in a genuine pensiveness on the gnarled and spreading bole of one of the small thorn-trees that grew in under the oaks of the park, and, becoming aware of the approach of Mr. Bettesworth, she maintained the attitude for the sake of an effect that delighted her. The strawberry frail was at her feet, she held in her hand the broad pink ribbons of the immense garden-hat that lay in her lap. And all her actress’ soul bubbled with delight at the thought that she must present exactly the appearance of “Celia in her Arbour.”

Having escaped from Mrs. Hitchcock’s by the front door, she had run as fast as she could to the park gates, and then in a bee-line through the trees towards the house — she had meant to throw herself at Mr. Bettesworth’s feet, and to implore protection from the dangerous men who, with lethal weapons, had sought to carry her off. She imagined that she would thus present to Mr. Bettesworth, if not the exact picture of “Celia in her Arbour,” at least a very convincing one of Celia in distress. But even to her small sparrow’s soul Mr. Bettesworth seemed a personality somewhat minatory and alarming. She had treated him with playful disrespect, but she had done it all the time with a concealed trepidation.

Thus, having nearly run herself out of breath, and aware that she might reach Mr. Bettesworth more hot, flushed, and tousled than beauty in distress altogether demanded, she had sat down upon this mossy bole to let her complexion recover its normal pink and white, and give herself time for reflection.

It was all, after all, simply a matter of terms. She was by then undoubtedly launched upon the career of Celia. Mr. Williamson had sworn to it; Major Penruddock had confirmed the oaths by his actions; Mr. Harcourt had obviously not a doubt of the matter. But she was not so certain of Mr. Bettesworth; and of Mr. Roland she was very dubious indeed. Mr. Bettesworth she knew to be immensely rich. She knew, also, that he was pledged by a very heavy wager — the
London Mercury
said it was a wager of at least a hundred thousand guineas — to carry off the original of Celia. So that to Mr. Bettesworth, if he accepted her as Celia, she would obviously be worth a good round sum. But, on the other hand, Mr. Harcourt and Major Penruddock presented also the appearance of men of fashion and of wealth. One of them the journals stated to be a man of very broad acres in the West. The other was at least a member of His Majesty’s Privy Council, with enormous patronage at his disposal, and means enough at least to permit him to engage upon this enormous wager.

She sat upon her mossy bole and, pensive, with a mournful and romantic air, with her eyelids drooping, her mouth contemplative and tender, the dark locks falling upon her shiny shoulders, with an air of virginal reverie, she addressed herself to her reflections. It seemed to her probable that Major Penruddock and Mr. Harcourt together must be worth at least as much as Mr. Bettesworth alone, and in her small soul she felt a greater kinship to either Mr. Harcourt or Major Penruddock than to Mr. Bettesworth. If Mr. Bettesworth was the more shining figure, he was also much more serious. She had hardly seen him smile — she could not imagine that he could laugh or give way to any intemperateness. Major Penruddock she had heard to swear, and to give way to passion. Mr. Harcourt had a pleasant ogle in the corner of his dark eyes. And it occurred to her — she felt it rather than thought it out — that to be the mistress of Mr. Bettesworth would be an affair of intolerable dulness. She wanted lights, riot, and abandonment; and at the thought of Mr. Bettesworth her flowerlike lips drooped, and her dark, uncandid eyes grew shadowed. Besides, Mr. Harcourt and Major Penruddock were already convinced that she was the original of Celia: Mr. Bettesworth remained to be convinced. And he must be convinced in a manner so overwhelming that she could reap an enormous and immediate reward, so that when Mr. Bettesworth himself became intolerable, or discovered the cheat — if it was a cheat — she could upon the instant abandon him for a life more gay, and one in which she could be her own mistress. An absolute and overwhelming belief!...

And Mr. Bettesworth, approaching through the trees that made, as it were, aisles, arches, and even frames, around him and the small, changing interstices of bright landscape, exclaimed suddenly the one word “Celia!” whilst at the same moment, behind his back, Mr. Chuckel cried out: “By Heaven, Lydia!”

Mr. Bettesworth imagined that in a flash he understood the perfidy of Mr. Chuckel — all the stutterings, the perturbation, and the reluctance to come out of the house. The mutterings about Papists, smugglers, Jacobites, and the lawless, had been merely false suggestions to throw him off the track. Chuckel, it came to him convincingly, had sold the secret to his rivals. His brother, when he had leapt through the window, must have seen Celia on the way to some rendezvous to which Mr. Chuckel, using his brutal authority, must have coerced his stepdaughter.

“Believe me,” he said to Lydia, “you have nothing to fear from this man Chuckel or any other man.”

The words threw Mr. Chuckel into an extraordinary state of agitation. He imagined that without doubt Mr. Bettesworth had his men waiting amongst the trees to arrest him. There could be no other construction to be put on it.

And suddenly, with a hissing expiration of the breath, he flung his hat violently upon the turf, and dashing from behind Mr. Bettesworth’s back he ran away into the open, across the broad stretches of sunlight towards the park gate. It appeared to Mr. Bettesworth that Mr. Chuckel must be running to warn his confederates. In his habitual caution, however, he did not set to work to question his new-found Celia. He had gazed so often and so searchingly upon the faceless sketch for the picture that he could have no doubt that this indeed was the Celia he sought. There was the very dress itself, of a lilac white shade, worked with little sprigs of pink silk isolated and in lines. The throat was bare, the broad collar falling right away from the aperture to well beyond the shoulders in a drooping line that suggested at once freshness and modesty. The very folds of the skirt had been preserved in the ridges and monticules, since the stuff had been starched and ironed into the precise radiations that Mr. Hitchcock needed. The little basket was there at Celia’s feet, of a straw-work so delicate and minute that it resembled the fineness of a cream-jug; the broad hat, slung from her bare arm by great pink ribbons, resembled in the straight flow of its lines a great, pale palm-leaf; and the left arm, to which the hat hung, crossed her bosom and her heart, the left depending so that the small, plump hand rested half hidden in a fold of the stiff dress. And looking at her face he perceived that it would exactly fill the outline of the space that had been left white and blank upon his canvas.

It filled up a void; it afforded him an intense satisfaction for his curiosity and an irresistible conviction. He removed his hat from beneath his arm, and, extending it to some six inches in a lateral direction from his right hip, exclaimed —

“Madam, I have the honour to salute Celia in an Arbour.” He glanced up at the thorn-tree upon whose bole she was resting. If it had not spread above her so brown and so umbrageous as the foliage that Mr. Hitchcock had given to his picture, he was nevertheless well content. For he was aware that painters must beautify natural objects, and that such trees as you shall see in paintings are neither upon the earth nor in the seas. But shadow fell across her, which was of itself enough to complete the resemblance; though behind her, inartistically, nature had spread a sward of green all blazing with sunlight, across which there stepped slowly a herd of pale deer, their coats seeming to focus and to reflect the light; and in lieu of the broad ray that Mr. Hitchcock had sent to illumine his sitter’s features and form, a single beam filtered through the thorn-leaves and played, shivering tenuously, upon the bright filaments of her dark hair, upon her bare shoulder, and to be reflected upwards upon the brown ovals of her left cheek.