Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (426 page)

“I’m awfully glad to hear it, old girl. I always warned you against that sort of thing. It doesn’t pay!”

“If you don’t pay that three and fourpence...” the clerk chimed in.

“It’s like this, Teddy,” Miss Delamare said in a sort of whisper of confession. And then she suddenly raised her voice quite high. “Aren’t you going to kiss me, Teddy?” she exclaimed. “Not a good-bye kiss if we part for ever?” Her voice was a fine wail. But this time Mrs. Kerr Howe, who had returned, was not to be driven off.

“I only want to tell Captain Brent,” she said in her sweetest and most crawling tones, “that I shall be in the special carriage that his uncle has reserved for his guests. There is only five minutes before the train starts.”

“I’ll come and find you,” Major Brent Foster said. “I just want a word with my sister.”

Mrs. Kerr Howe answered meaningly:

“Then I won’t intrude.” She added, “A tantôt?” languishingly, and really went away. The bookstall clerk remarked:

“I shall have to fetch an officer.”

Major Brent Foster burst into the most violent oaths.

“That woman!” he screamed, “going to my uncle’s! In the same carriage with me! How does she know my uncle? How does she know I’ve got an uncle?”

“Oh, well, Teddy,” Miss Delamare said, “everyone’s got an uncle. Even I’ve got one real one. And there are hundreds of Johnnies who have offered to be uncles to me. But I’ve done my best for you. You’ll have to see it through now. And what I wanted to explain is this..

“I’m going to fetch an officer now,” the bookstall clerk exclaimed, and he went away.

“You know, Teddy,” Miss Delamare said, “you’d better pay that man.”

Major Brent Foster exclaimed violently:

“Oh, hell!” Then he fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and pitched half a sovereign on to the bookstall. After the half-sovereign he pitched the papers themselves. The boy began to scramble amongst his literature for his coin.

“Now, that’s like the old dear Teddy,” Miss Delamare said. He had hooked his hand into her arm and was drawing her away up the platform. “That’s more like you — to chuck away half a sov. and not to wait for the change.”

“I’m ruined, anyhow, if Mrs. Kerr Howe is going to my uncle’s,” he answered vindictively.

“Poor old Teddy!” Miss Delamare said, with a note of commiseration. And then she continued swiftly: “But what I wanted to tell you was this — about how I came to get in with those people. You know, somewhere up in the north of London there are a lot of rich Nonconformists. People with hot-houses and peaches, and being Aldermen and so on. And I’ve got a chum — Lottie Charles. And Lottie Charles was precious down on her luck, and the North London Congregations had started a Society for the Reform of the Stage. And Lottie, as she couldn’t get anything in the world to do, used to walk before them once a week as an awful example — you know the sort of thing. So one day Lottie Charles came to me, and she says it would be doing her no end of a good turn if I would come and pose too. Well, of course, I’ve nothing against doing anything in the world to oblige an old chum. She and me were on the old North Circuit. Roomed it and ate off the same old red herring together. So, of course, I said I’d do it. But it did not suit me to be wept over and pawed by a lot of Nonconformists, so I said I’d read them a lecture on the ‘REAL REFORM OF THE STAGE.’ Of Course, I don’t know anything about reforms; the Stage is all right as long as you’re jolly well on the top. But I’ve got another pal — Robin, his name is — a dramatic critic. Awful prim and respectable chap; always with an umbrella. But he writes articles about me that bring the tears to your eyes; he says I’m the symphonic embodiment of quaint imbecility, and as such have my worth. I learned the words by heart, though what they mean passes me. So up I goes to Robin on the first night of” Pigs is Pigs,” and I just asked him point blank to write the lecture for me — on the real reform of the Stage. And, what’s more, he did it. So I learned it by heart, and I just slung it at those Johnnies. My! you should have heard me. Cheer? I don’t think! Cry at the pathetic passages? Not half they did not.... But it was the fine lecture and all. The Stage! The Stage was to regenerate the people’s morals. It was to replace the old pulpit. It was to fill the minds of the unthinking with thought! My goodness me, I never heard such talk! But I slung it at them in a sort of awful mournful voice, like Mrs. Pat’s. You know!... And the end of it is that the old chap who was the chairman,
and
a millionaire,
and
a Common-Councilman — that old chap is never out of my diggings. And his missus, too, you understand. There’s nothing underhand about it. His missus likes me as much as he does, and more. Like a mother she is. And I’m going down now to stop at their country house.... But the long and short of it is that the old chap is building a theatre for me. And we’re going to put on the weirdest sort of old reforming plays. And I’ve got a ten years’ contract, and that critic man is to be general manager. So I’m provided for, Teddy, old boy. It’s a funny world.”

CHAPTER II
.

MAJOR BRENT FOSTER was not, however, paying much attention to his companion. As they approached the train he observed Miss Delamare’s porter standing at the door of one first-class carriage. At the door of the next was Mrs. Kerr Howe, and the compartment beside which she stood was labelled “Reserved.” The bookstall clerk was speaking to a railway policeman at the door of the booking-office. Miss Delamare walked straight to the door of her compartment; she held out her peachy pink cheek, and remarked:

“Ain’t you really going to kiss me, Teddy — for old time’s sake?” And there was such a plaintive tone in her voice that, with a fierce determination, he stretched out his lips. But she just laughed and jumped into her carriage.

“Keep it for the Horse Show,” she said.

He was by now in a temper that made him ready to face Mrs. Kerr Howe and half a dozen devils, so that he marched straight upon the reserved compartment. But again his heart failed. He was ready to face the lady and several devils. Facing her alone was another matter. And the compartment was empty!

At that moment he perceived a rather diabolical-looking old gentleman in a fur coat, though it was June, and a soft, curious felt hat. The old gentleman, accompanied by a guard and a porter, was obviously looking for a first-class carriage. And Major Brent Foster chanced his luck. He did not know the old gentleman from Adam, but he exclaimed:

“Come along, Sir Arthur. Glad to see you. Get in here, and let’s travel together. It’s a long time since we met.”

The old gentleman seemed haughtily puzzled. But the carriage was comfortably empty, and the major had already pushed in the porter, bags and all. And immediately he was in the midst of a scene. There was Miss Delamare laughing out of her window. There was the guard with his flag, lingering, as if to give the finishing touches to his train. There was Mrs. Kerr Howe just getting in. And then suddenly the voice of the bookstall clerk exclaimed:

“Officer, arrest that man for theft.”

Major Brent Foster got into the carriage, and, treading on the old gentleman’s toes as he turned, exclaimed:

“Go away! I haven’t got your magazines.”

“You’ve disposed of them to an accomplice,” the bookstall clerk cried out.

“I paid half a sovereign for them,’ the major exclaimed good-naturedly.

“Not at my stall,” the clerk said.

“No, of course not,” the major said. “I never do pay at the stall where I buy them. It’s the only way to keep a check on you fellows. I’m a shareholder.”

The guard suggested that it was time; the railway policeman, who had said that he had no powers to arrest, suggested that the gentleman might leave his name and address. The major called out:

“Major Brent Foster, the Manor, Basildon, Hants,” and the train moved on. The major sank down in the seat opposite the old gentleman, and exclaimed:

“What a day!”

Almost at the same moment Mrs. Kerr Howe exclaimed:

“So you’ve changed your name, Teddy.” And the old man said violently:

“Who are you, sir? I don’t know your name, sir! What is the meaning of this outrage?”

“Of course, I changed my name,” the major explained first to Mrs. Kerr Howe. “My old name wasn’t popular. It stunk in my uncle’s nostrils. I changed it on the day I was engaged to Olympia.” Then he turned mildly on the old gentleman. “That’s probably why you do not recognize my name. I used to be called Edward Brent.”

“I’m not a connoisseur of unsavoury names,” the old gentleman said bitterly. “I presume you’re a groom?”

“Now I don’t see why you should presume that,” the major said.

“You say you’re engaged at Olympia,” the old man said. “I cannot imagine anyone but grooms being engaged there.”

The major exclaimed, “Oh!” And then he said, “That’s what you all mean. The fact is, I’ve been out of England for so long — put away, as you might say, and working like a nigger to get through — that I can’t be expected to recognize these topical matters. Of course, Olympia is a horse show. That’s what Flossie meant!” He looked at Mrs. Kerr Howe as if for confirmation, and then he added, “Of course, Sir Arthur, I said I was engaged not at, but to, Olympia — Miss Olympia Peabody, of Boston State Reformatory.”

The old gentleman positively shivered.

“I’m not losing my nerve,” he said, “I never lost my nerve in my life, but all this has a very criminal sound. Be good enough to explain, or I shall certainly pull the alarm cord.”

“But, my dear Sir Arthur...” Major Brent Foster exclaimed.

“How do you know my name?” the old gentleman asked sharply. He had a very hale and hearty face, with red cheek-bones, a white beard, a savage black moustache, and savage black eyebrows.

“As if I did not know your face,” the major said, and he wondered amiably who the old gentleman could be in the world. “Wasn’t your photograph on the study desk of my best chum Toppy at Harrow?”

“It certainly wasn’t,” the old gentleman said. “I do not know any individual of the name of Toppy. You trepan me into the compartment of yourself and your female companion. The first thing I hear is that you are accused of theft. You stamp upon my toes, and announce that you have changed your name because it is unsavoury to your relatives. You certainly appear to know my name. But there is nothing astonishing about that, for in these curiosity - mongering times my face is constantly appearing in the public Press.”

“Oh, I say,” Major Brent Foster said guilelessly, “there’s nothing curious about your face. It’s rather a fine face, if you’ll excuse my saying so.”

Major Brent Foster was upon the whole happy, for the longer he could keep up any sort of a talk with this mysterious Sir Arthur, the longer he could stave off a private explanation with Mrs. Kerr Howe. Sir Arthur blushed with fury, and his eyes positively sparkled.

“I did not mean,” he said, “that my face is a curiosity, as if it were, what I believe it is the custom to call, a freak. I meant that, as I enjoy a certain celebrity, my face is frequently reproduced in the Press.”

“But that only means,” Major Brent Foster said amiably, “that the Press is doing its duty. It inspirits us nobodies to know what our leaders look like.”

Sir Arthur appeared modified in his course of rage. “Understand me,” he said, “if the Press confined itself to the portrayal of leaders of thought, there would be little to complain of.”

“Now that was what I was just saying to my little friend, Miss Flossie Delamare,” the major invented boldly. “She is in the next compartment because she was too shy to come into such distinguished society as that of you and Mrs. Kerr Howe.”

The old gentleman raised both his hands in an attitude of tragic horror; but Mrs. Kerr Howe said eagerly:

“You’re such a consummate liar, Teddy, that there’s never a chance to know what you do mean. But if that was Miss Flossie Delamare, why in the world did you not bring her in here?”

The major did not in the least understand where he was getting to.

“I don’t see why a great writer like you should want to know a poor little thing like Flossie,” he said. “But, at any rate, she was too modest. She’s a retiring little thing.”

“You
said
she was your sister,” Mrs. Kerr Howe remarked sweetly.

“So she is,” the major said pleasantly; “a sort of a half-sister. Only, of course, it’s a painful subject, and it would not be quite kind to mention it, you understand. You understand. But still, she’s my oldest woman friend.”

“It’s strange you never mentioned her at Simla,” Mrs. Howe said. “Don’t you remember Simla and the pukka drives? And you never once mentioned her name.”

“Of course I should not,” the major said; “that’s only her stage name. Besides, at that time we had quarrelled. I should not have been likely to mention her name. It was a deadly quarrel — about her being on the stage.”

“I suppose it was the same old quarrel going on just now?” Mrs. Kerr Howe asked.

“But we weren’t quarrelling,” the major answered. “We’re the best of friends. If I were not going to marry Olympia, I don’t see that I could do better than marry Flossie.”

“Your half-sister!” Mrs. Howe uttered.

“You’re awfully unimaginative for a writer,” the major said. “What I mean is that if I were not going to marry Olympia, I should have little Flossie to keep house for me. She’s the best and kind-heartedest and staunchest little thing in the world. That’s how I feel.”

“And I’m sure,” Mrs. Howe said, “it does your fraternal feelings credit. But that does not explain how you come to be parting for good. For I heard her ask you to kiss her for that reason.”

“Oh, you’re a perfect fool sometimes, my dear Juliana,” the major said. “Of course we are on the best terms in the world. And of course we have to part for good. It explains itself. How can I have an unexplained half-sister going about with me when I am going to marry Olympia? It’s a ridiculous idea. Think of the discredit it would cast on my family.”

Sir Arthur began suddenly to speak, and the major heaved a sigh of relief. He would just as soon — being Irish! — lie as not. But Mrs. Howe was a little wearying.

“My young friend,” the old man said, “I begin to understand that you are not, as I at first considered you, a criminal. You stand up for your humble relation in a way that is quite creditable in this immoral and thoughtless age. But you will oblige me by kindly explaining where you have met me before, and who Toppy is — the gentleman that used to have my likeness on his desk.”

Major Brent Foster heaved a deep sigh.

“I used to meet you at the Admiral’s balls at Portsmouth,” he said succinctly, “and Toppy was the nickname of your son Arthur at Harrow. He was my room-mate.”

“And pray who am I, then?” Sir Arthur asked.

“You!” the major said guilelessly. “You are Rear-Admiral Sir Arthur Bowles.” The old gentleman had such a martial air that the major thought he was safe to put him in one or other of the services — more probably in the Navy, because of his beard. The old gentleman raised both of his hands to heaven.

“I,” he said, “I am Sir Arthur Johnson, the president of the First Church of Christ Quietist in London.”

“Well, it’s a most extraordinary world I’ve come back to,” the major sighed. “Everybody I have met since I left Somaliland, is a reformer of something. There’s Olympia. She’s the honorary secretary of the Massachusetts Reformatory, and Perpetual Grand Mistress of the Boston Society for the Abolition of Vice. There’s my aunt that I’m going to, dear old soul, who knows about as much of evil as an egg knows of aeroplanes, and she’s the secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Sin. Now what are you reforming, Juliana?”

“I?” Mrs. Kerr Howe said. “I am the president of the Society for Abolishing Conventional Marriage.”

“My God!” the Major said, “I guess you’re cut out for the part. But I’m hanged if the only person that I know that isn’t the president of something or other isn’t my old humbug of an uncle, and yet you’d say he was just cut out for the part. Why even Flossie, little Flossie, is something of the sort. She’s the only woman on the stage who looks anything than a stuffed fiddle in tights — and she’s going to be the first manager of a show for the REFORM OF THE THEATRE.”

Mrs. Kerr Howe leaned forward from her corner to say as clearly as possible:

“It’s your uncle who is the founder of the National Society for Theatre Reform. It’s he that is going to build the theatre for Miss Delamare.”

The major sank down in his seat, all crumpled together as if he had fallen from a great height.

“Just Heaven!” he said; “then my uncle and aunt are the respectable couple that Flossie said she was going to visit. Then she’s travelling down with us. She ought to have been in this carriage.”