Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (486 page)

April, however, had been fixed for the date of the entrance into Flores, the capital. This was because the taxes of the country were collected and became due in May. That had been Macdonald’s idea. By April the republic would have positively no money at all in its possession, and Mr. Dexter in his capacity of representative of the monied king of the United States had taken all the steps necessary to prevent the unfortunate republic from being able to borrow a penny from anywhere in the world. By April they simply wouldn’t have a penny. The republic, seeing its doom approaching, had made a desperate attempt to raise extra personal taxes in November; but even at that, by the most unconstitutional methods, they hadn’t been able to get together more than three thousand pounds, and the army hadn’t been paid for six months. Thus, wherever he had gone Carrasco had been treated by the population as a saviour. In many places he had made speeches in the market from the back of the white stallion. He had told the people that a reign of peace and plenty was coming for them; he had said that he personally was ready to authorise them to pay no taxes for two whole years. At first he had had to do these things with some show of secrecy, but by the time he had reached Vila di Goya, a large town twelve miles distant from the capital, there hadn’t any longer been the least need for concealment. He had addressed an immense concourse in the marketplace, and then nearly nine thousand people had insisted on following him in his ride to Flores. Nay, they had even insisted on forcing him up to the very doors of the Palace of the Annunciation, where the republican ministry was sitting; and they had insisted on his entering and confronting the ministers. By that time there must have been from thirty to forty thousand men howling and gesticulating outside the long old palace of white stone. They were crying out that they would tear everyone of the ministers limb from limb if the little finger nail of Carrasco were so much as tapped in an unfriendly manner. Carrasco himself hadn’t in the least desired to interview the ministers, but he described how he had found them, sitting at a long table covered with a green cloth — fourteen professors, journalists, and tradesmen, all rather fat, all in black frock coats, and with extremely pale faces. Mr. Carrasco had remained looking at them for a minute or so in silence. Then he had said:

“Well, gentlemen, I have nothing to say to you.”

The Minister of Agriculture, a Jewish money-lender, was the only one of the ministers who had kept his head. He said to Carrasco with a jaunty manner:

“Senhor, we hear that you have come to every Galizian to offer him thirty-six thousand peccadi and no taxes for two years. For myself and my colleagues I beg to say that we shall be very happy to accept this offer when the time comes.”

And all the ministers at the table had muttered indistinguishable words, with the exception of the President of the Republic, a fat author — the only author in Galizia. This gentleman had violently struck the table with his fist, and had exclaimed:

“May God curse this day when I hear Galizians ready to sell their country!”

Mr. Carrasco had calmly opened the window and, stepping out on to the balcony, had addressed the immense crowd that was outside. He had said:

“My brothers, go home quietly, the reign of peace and plenty is at hand. For the present have patience, pay no taxes, but live at peace one with the other. When the sun comes — for it is winter — I pledge you my word, I Crisostomo Carrasco, that all I have promised you shall take effect, but for the present be peaceful.”

He commented to Da Pinta:’ They are an astonishing people, your Galizians. At my words they began to go away like trained horses, each returning to his private affairs, so that you would have said that in forty minutes there had never been any hint of disorder at all in Galizia. And for myself, if I might advise you, I should set aside a sum of twenty-eight thousand pounds — two thousand for each of these ministers, and then bargain about bribing them to desert the President.”

“The President is a gallant man,” the Marquis da Pinta grumbled. “He is the vice-president of the Society of Worshippers of Dumas. He will never desert his post; that is what comes of studying this admirable author.”

“And if you will take my advice,” Mr. Carrasco continued, “you will string out the negotiations about this bribe to the cabinet for as long as you can, for this country is ripe for the revolution. But we shall have two months to wait until we shall be ready, and in these two months the ministers might do something if they had some money in their hands. At the present moment the Minister of Finance has not one cent, and the man who sells him beans for his stew will no longer give him credit I might have declared the revolution a week ago from that balcony, but I had no organisation behind me, and it might have confused the issue, for some of the soldiers are still loyal to the republic.” Mr. Pett exclaimed: “What more could you ever want? It is really all finished. It is foolish to sit here and wait any more.”

“I do not know so much about that,” Dom Carrasco answered, “for there is still in this matter a hard core of republican sentiment, and they are very obstinate men. I agree that this Count Macdonald is worthy of death, but at the same time I personally shall be glad of his battleships, for I am certain that without them there would be much shedding of blood. This republican core consists almost entirely of soldiers, and they are well armed and very ferocious, whilst the rest of the population has only a few daggers and some old swords. So that unless the warships of this traitor, whose name I spit upon, should be there to over-awe these republicans, I think there might very well be much bloodshed, for on both sides this people is a very determined one.”

Mr. Pett immediately began violently to harangue the Dom Carrasco. But although the Dom Carrasco adored Mr. Pett as if he had been a god, and was perfectly ready to assassinate Count Macdonald because Count Macdonald had annoyed Mr. Pett, he nevertheless stuck quite firmly to his opinion that battleships were necessary. Dom Carrasco adored Mr. Pett because Da Pinta had assured him that this gentleman had started the counter-revolution, and to Dom Carrasco to start a counter-revolution appeared to be a thing so meritorious and so splendid that he was ready to put his head under Mr. Pett’s heel at any moment and in the dustiest of places, and he always called Mr. Pett “Your Excellency.” He was the son of a shoemaker in Toboso, where his name is a very old one, and he was ready to go at any moment to his death in support of a legitimate king or of the Holy Sacraments of the Church.

A furious wrangling immediately began between all these people.

In the next room the Countess Macdonald was saying to Mrs. Pett:

“Who has Pett got with him? I want to speak to him urgently.”

Mrs. Pett trembled a little; she was rather exhausted and very nervous, and she dreaded immensely that in some way the Countess should discover the secret of the revolution and by betraying it to the press should ruin its chances of success. The gentlemen in the next room were raising their voices very loudly, and although exactly what they said could not be heard through the folding doors, she very much dreaded that her husband might raise his voice so high as to become comprehensible. She said:

“Let us go upstairs to my bedroom; there’s a much better fire there.”

“Oh, the fire here is quite good enough. I prefer to be here; besides, you can always put some more wood on.” And this the Countess did herself, though she occupied a minute or so in blowing it with the brass bellows afterwards.

“I want to speak to Pett at once,” she said. “It’s urgent.”

“But you’ve seen Herbert every day at least once until last week,” Mrs. Pett said. “Why, you saw him last night after we had got back from Aldington Towers.”

“But I’ve discovered a new villainy,” the Countess said. “It’s very urgent.”

“You’ve discovered a new villainy every day for the last two months,” Mrs. Pett said; and she began to get angry. “Haven’t you got villainies enough together to suit you?”

“But this is the end of everything,” the Countess said. “It’s always the end of everything, you know,” Mrs. Pett answered.

“Do you know what Macdonald is up to?” The Countess faced her squarely. “Do you know what I’ve found out? He’s getting up a counter-revolution in Galizia.”

Mrs. Pett only said: “Ah!” And she put her hand upon her throat because her heart was fluttering so wildly. She looked at the sideboard and saw the bread-knife on it. She looked at the door and saw that the key was on the outside. In any case she was determined that this woman should not go out of her house with this secret.

“I am going to stop that,” the Countess said. “I am going to stop the counter-revolution altogether. I was determined to find out what Macdonald was up to. I sent information to all the newspapers that he was attempting to get together a great opera syndicate. That was what you told me. And letters have come to all the papers from all the singers that you mentioned, utterly denying that they have had anything to do with any syndicate.”

“You’ve utterly spoiled the plan,” Mrs. Pett said faintly. “That’s what I was trying to do,” the Countess Macdonald answered. “But the plan never existed. You were lying to me when you said that it did.”

She spoke very slowly, and Mrs. Pett realised that she was being treated to one of the Countess’s fits of what she called icy contempt. And Mrs. Pett determined to attempt so to enrage the Countess that she would make an attempt to strike her. Mrs. Pett in her educational thoroughness had learnt ju-jitsu. She had learnt it almost perfectly, and she imagined that if the Countess should attempt to strike her she could throw her so scientifically that she would be laid up with concussion of the brain for at least six weeks. And although Mrs. Pett felt herself to be in an evil dream, the Countess who was one of their oldest friends, by haunting her home day in, day out, for the last three months had become such a figure of nightmare that it seemed appropriate enough, and Mrs. Pett was prepared to do anything in the world to prevent her husband’s scheme from being ruined.

“Yes,” the Countess said, “I’ve got all the letters drafted ready to post to the papers.”

Mrs. Pett said, without raising her voice:

“The only thing to do with a woman of your description is to lie to her.”

“But you didn’t do it cleverly enough,” the Countess exclaimed triumphantly. “I’ve done you, you see. I went round this morning to one of Sergius Mihailovitch’s women — that person calling herself di Pradella. And what do you think that infernal villain had told the girl? Nothing less than that she had nothing whatever to do with separating me from him. So when I told her it was an infamous lie..

“But it was perfectly true,” Mrs. Pett said, “it was you who were lying.”

“Haven’t I the right to lie?” the Countess said. “Hasn’t my home been broken up? Hasn’t...”

“Oh, we’ve heard all that before,” Mrs. Pett said. “So you lied to that poor girl? And I suppose if you told her that she was the absolute cause of your quarrel with Macdonald she’d at once be so shocked as to tell you anything that you asked?”

“That’s exactly what happened,” the Countess answered triumphantly.

“How could you do such a thing?” Mrs. Pett said.

“How could you lead that poor innocent girl to betray her benefactor! It is the worst thing that I have heard of you.”

The Countess suddenly went swiftly past Mrs. Pett.

“I am going to tell your husband exactly what I think of him,” she said.

Mrs. Pett gave a sigh of relief. In the next room there were, at any rate, three men.’

The Countess threw open the drawing-room door. She switched on the lights, and all three men appeared blinking uneasily in the white room with the blue curtains. The Countess surveyed them with what she called looks of flashing scorn. She was dressed all in black, because she had come to do a deed of denunciation. She pointed her hand dramatically at Mr. Pett.

“Traitor!” she did her best to hiss.

Mr. Pett had not yet got over the sudden turning up of the light, and the only thing that he could do was to giggle rather idiotically. He grasped, however, what had happened quite quickly. He had realised that Her Excellency was certain to make the discovery sooner or later.

“Traitor to the cause!” the Countess said. “Traitor to Socialism! Traitor to all your old friends! Double traitor to me! I have got all the letters ready addressed to all the papers telling them what a dastardly traitor you are.”