Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (492 page)

“I guess that Countess Macdonald is trying to get us shot.”

And they perceived that the Countess, in her long robes made of white Witney blankets, was violently attracting the President’s attention towards their seats. She was pointing her hand dramatically straight at Lady Aldington. The President shook his head, which he kept averted, as if he did not wish to look at them.

“I guess she does want to have us shot,” Miss Dexter said.

The Countess was running, stumbling down the few seats towards the fringe of soldiers. She caught hold of the arm of one of the officers, and again pointed at the three women above her to the right. Many of the soldiers looked round.

“She’s trying to get us shot against the orders of the President,” Miss Dexter said. But the officer shook his head, and they heard him call “Attention!”

There were many cries of dissatisfaction amongst the spectators, for this noise appeared to them to be a gross want of respect to the illustrious dancer in grey; besides, it came from the presidential enclosure. One of the President’s daughters hurried quickly down to the Countess. She caught hold of the gesticulating white arm, and both women sat down side by side just behind the soldiers. The Countess was talking violently, but the soldiers had resumed their rigid gaze into the arena.

Then Sergius Mihailovitch came and sat down quietly beside Emily. He was smiling.

“The bulls haven’t come, then,” he said. “That’s all right.”

Emily said, rather fiercely: “How could you leave me alone like that?”

“But you weren’t in any danger,” Sergius Mihailovitch answered.

“I was going mad,” she said. “You hadn’t the right to leave me like that!”

“But I had to,” Sergius Mihailovitch answered. “I had duties. I’ve been making perfectly certain that the bulls wouldn’t come.”

“It was you that did that?” Lady Aldington said.

“Of course it was I,” he answered. “Don’t you see that that’s the real stroke of genius? Don’t you see that it discredits the President in the eyes of the people? Infinitely more than if he had stolen all the crown jewels. It’s the end of the republic. I paid the bull tenders last night a thousand pounds to drive the bulls clear away. They’re twenty miles off now, all following the little donkey. There isn’t a bull within a radius of twenty miles. I don’t suppose they could even rake up a cow.”

Lady Aldington looked at him with a queer analytic glance.

“You’re a perfect devil, sometimes,” she said. “That’s why your eyelids slope so queerly.
I
couldn’t have found it in my heart to disgrace that wretched broken man so utterly. Look at him!”

The black-coated President was sitting stiffly, gazing into the arena.

“Well, he’s done for,” Sergius Mihailovitch said. “We had to do for him. Yes, it was damnably cruel.” Then he smiled suddenly at her. “But then,” he said, “I’ll tell you what really gave me the idea. I knew you’d hate to see bulls killed, and I knew it was essential that you should show yourself here; that was what did it. When I thought of that I was determined that there shouldn’t be a bull in the ring. I paid my money for that. I wasn’t thinking of the counter-revolution.”

“But you said,” Lady Aldington exclaimed, “that it was a stroke of genius.”

Macdonald laughed. “I shouldn’t have said it if it had been,” he exclaimed. “Don’t you know me better than that? It was just a happy accident.”

She rested her hand for a moment caressingly on the sleeve of his light grey suit.

“Then I forgive you for keeping me waiting,” she said. “But that was cruel enough.”

Macdonald looked out over the arena. A quite loud sound of applause had come from the spectators. And it was repeated when the dancers held up their hands, showing that they were exhausted, and that their dancing had come to an end. And then, a moment after, the other really terrible cry of Toros began to sound.

“I think we’d better go and get married,” Macdonald said equably. “I don’t like to leave Mrs. Pett alone with Mr. Salt. There are a lot of soldiers there. It might be an ugly job to get away later.”

Lady Aldington said: “It’s come, then.” She was looking away over the arena, and there was a faint flush of colour in her cheeks.

“Yes, come!” Macdonald said. “It’s really very dangerous. Look at the soldiers looking up. They’re not looking at us. They’re looking at the King. My amiable Countess has told them that he’s the King. Some of them believe it, some of them don’t. We’d better clear out. They wouldn’t shoot you or me, because we’re foreigners. But the King is Galizian. Let’s go and get married.”

Lady Aldington stood up. But Miss Dexter remained obstinately still.

“I guess I’m not coming,” she said. “I guess Popper will be back. I guess I don’t want to see you married.”

Lady Aldington had already climbed up three steps. Macdonald caught hold of the girl’s wrist.

“You’ve got to come,” he said. “If I have to carry you you’ve got to come. Look, there’s a soldier aiming.”

“I shan’t see you married,” the girl said.

The officer suddenly flung himself upon the musket of the soldier who was aiming. But another turned round and lifted his rifle. Lady Aldington was just coming to a level with the King’s feet. She called to the sailors to get round the King, but as they did not understand quite rightly who the King was, they only moved irresolutely. She sprang up the three seats that separated her from the King, and she stood right in front of his body.

“Get out quickly!” she said. “The soldiers are going to shoot at you.”

They were all of them in a bustle. The officer came running along to them.

“No, don’t come here!” Lady Aldington said. “Lead the way through the tunnel to the car.”

Sergius Mihailovitch was pulling at Miss Dexter’s wrist.

“This isn’t the time,” he said violently, “to show off personal jealousies. It’s odious! It’s abominable! They’ll be firing at me next. You’ll be getting me killed.”

She looked up at him with a blank and expressionless hatred.

“Then you’ll only draw their fire on me if you stop,’’ she said.” You’ll get me killed. You’d better go away. I’m not going to see you married.”

Macdonald turned and walked slowly up the seats. He was very angry, and he turned to look back at the soldiers. The others had already got to the tunnel and were out of danger. The Countess was pointing straight at him and calling out, but the President’s daughter was also calling out. The soldiers wavered. And then, from amongst the confused bunch of green and gold Academicians surrounding the Marquis da Pinta, there came a single, slight report. There was also a little thud on the wood of the seat just above him, and Macdonald perceived the hole made by a revolver bullet, but he could not see the man who had fired, though there was some confusion amongst the Academicians.

“By Jove!” Macdonald said to himself. “Da Pinta’s put somebody up to murder me.”

He stood for a moment longer looking at all the brightness. There wasn’t any doubt now that half the crowd was calling out “Viva Dom Pedro.” And there couldn’t be any doubt that the cry was spreading. Macdonald shrugged his shoulders and turned into the tunnel behind the officer.

Beneath the tall entrance arch the others were already in the car; even the King was in his place beside Mr. Salt. But there were many soldiers also there, and just in front of the bonnet stood the one-eyed under-officer. The officer who had led them called out: “Out of the way, let this car proceed;” but the under-officer said:

“No, no; we do not know who these people are!”

“Come!” Macdonald cried out. “You know very well that I am going to be married to this lady. Upon my word of honour, we are going straight to the Russian Ministry to be married. As you are a gallant man who have worn my wedding-favours, you will not impede us.”

The under-officer hesitated for a moment, moving irresolutely a little to one side; and then Mr. Salt suddenly pushed his hand forward. The great car moved on, the mud-guard knocking the under-officer right off his feet.

Whilst they still moved slowly they heard a voice crying:

“Treason to the State! Treason to the State!” in Galizian. The car was gathering way. They heard the voice more faintly: “The King! the King!” And then, more faintly still: “That is Dom Pedro on the machine.” They were thirty yards off now and moving quickly. Then quite a loud voice called out: “Fire!”

Mr. Salt spun his wheel suddenly, and the machine went away at right angles, skidding over the grass. There was a loud noise of explosion. Macdonald felt his cap suddenly jerked from his head. The glass shield between the driving-seat and the body of the car suddenly splintered. Mrs. Pett screamed. Mr. Salt was swearing at the top of his voice: “They’ve hit my hand, they’ve hit my hand.” But the car went ahead, plunging in among the booths at the top of the long avenue.

They heard Mr. Salt say: “I can’t steer, my left wrist’s broken.”

And they heard the King say: “Put on the speed, I’ll steer.”

He leaned over with his hand on the wheel, and after a moment of hesitation the great car purred down the avenue at an immense speed, with the sound like that of scissors going through velvet. They swung, lurching out of the shadow of the Avenue of Palm Trees to the left, into the brilliant light of the plaza. And before they had taken two breaths they were in front of a white house that had in front of it, over its door, a shield displaying a double- headed-eagle upon a lozenge. Macdonald jumped quickly out and began to assist the King in getting out Mr. Salt, for Mr. Salt had fainted in a complicated manner behind his wheel. But Mrs. Pett was astonished to see the nonchalance with which Lady Aldington got together her wraps. She did not even forget a little map of the city of Flores in a red cover that they had purchased, after some difficulty in finding it, in Trafalgar Square three days before.

CHAPTER II
I

THERE was an air of champagne about all the rest of the counter-revolution, and, looking from the windows of the ministry, they appeared to be rather the spectators at a state function than participators at an historic event. The first thing that they noticed, after Mr. Salt’s scratch on the wrist — for it was no more than a scratch — had been tied up by Mrs. Pett, was that a banquet of quite unreasonable profusion had been spread in the large bare lower room of the ministry. The minister himself was an agreeable enough young person, a bankrupt prince from somewhere away in the neighbourhood of Albania. But he was not the sort of person who could normally have provided so much gold plate, and neither Sergius Mihailovitch nor Lady Aldington happened to have given any thought to what they would eat that day. In the general rush of things there was really too much to do.

Macdonald had remembered to see to it that the captain of the
Esmeralda,
with all the remainder of the crew, had escorted the pope from the yacht to the ministry. And they had forcibly prevented his touching anything in the shape of alcohol. Moreover, there were now altogether about eighty sailors and engineers from the yacht in the building itself, so that Macdonald, considering that they were now actually upon Russian soil, did not imagine that any danger whatever remained. But there was the banquet, and although Macdonald was ready to accept the large gilt
pâtés de joie gras,
the great silver-gilt dishes of sweetmeats and the sixteen different kinds of champagne that stood upon a side-table, he was nevertheless somewhat astonished to find that it was the Greek orthodox Archbishop of Neicomesia, and not the pope that they had brought with them, who was prepared to receive Lady Aldington into the Russian Church, a formality which necessarily preceded the wedding.

And then he was exceedingly astonished, though really he need not have been, as he realised in the next minute, for there came from the plaza a most extravagant rattling and jingling — a suggestive and unpleasant sound that could only mean one thing. And when they went quickly to the window they could see the broad wheel bases, the long brown barrels, of half a dozen unmistakable field-guns. It felt like an absurd dream coming comfortably right. For there must have been at least two hundred sailors in white duck with rather silly looking caps, all hauling the guns into position. Once in position the muzzles pointed straight from the front of the ministry upon the white and rusty front of the Palace of the Annunciation. And then Macdonald perceived, amongst the white duck of the sailors, the larger form of the Grand Duke in the dark blue and gold uniform of a Russian admiral. He stood for a moment on the cobbles outside, giving a glance of satisfaction at the guns, then he strolled into the house. At the door of the banqueting-room he exclaimed to Macdonald:

“I hope it’s perfectly regular? I hope you’ve been fired at.”

“Oh, I’ve been fired at all right,” Macdonald said.

The Grand Duke took off his cocked hat and wiped his forehead with a purple pocket-handkerchief. He was very hot.

“Then it’s all perfectly regular,” he said. He looked round the room. “If there’s anybody here,” he said, “who represents the Galizian authorities, I beg to report that I have landed half a park of Imperial Naval field-guns to protect the valuable life of a Russian subject who has been fired upon during a rising in the country.”

The young King had taken off his motor coat. He was in grey tweeds, and he was exceedingly angry.

“I am the King of this country,” he said. “I object in the very strongest manner to my claims being asserted by means of any foreign artillery.”

“That’s all right, that’s all right,” the Grand Duke said. “This is one of the little troubles of being a king. I’m not helping you, you understand; I’m insulting you. Don’t you believe that those guns are meant to help in putting you on the throne. Not a bit of it. They’re just an insult.”

“I don’t understand,” the King said. “But I won’t have foreign guns turned upon my people in order to help me.”

“But I’m telling you it’s an insult,” the Grand Duke said painfully. “It’s an unpleasant diplomatic incident. That’s what it is. We had reason to believe that the life of a very valuable Russian subject, Count Sergius Mihailovitch Macdonald, was in great danger. We were upon the battleship
Marie Nikolaevna,
which is temporarily the Russian Imperial yacht. What is more natural than in our anxiety to protect Sergius Mihailovitch, who is the spoilt child, as all the world knows, of the Russian Court — what is more natural than that we should land half a park of field-guns and plant them in front of the house in which he happens to be. It is surely not our fault if, because the guns stand in front of your ministry and because the Government Palace happens to be in front of the ministry, the guns should point towards the Government Palace. If Your Majesty feels insulted, as undoubtedly Your Majesty is insulted, Your Majesty’s Foreign Minister will to-morrow make proper representation to our Foreign Ministry, and will discover that the proper person to complain to is not the Imperial Foreign Ministry, but the Field-Gun Department of the Admiralty, who will then refer Your Majesty’s Ministry to the Russian Imperial Home Office. So that, at the end of thirty-seven months, Your Majesty will receive a proper apology from the proper quarter, unless in the meantime Your Majesty sees fit to declare war upon the Empire of all the Russias...’’

He began to fan himself with his cocked hat.

“Phew!” he exclaimed, “it’s extraordinarily hot! Sergius Mihailovitch, my good fellow, knock the top off a bottle of champagne, and explain to His Majesty that everything is perfectly in order. And then introduce me to Marie Feodorovna, the Duchess of Batalha. I intend to be her godfather, if you will permit it.”

The young King remained, however, singularly angry. As there was no particular reason for Sergius Mihailovitch to be present at the baptism, he remained with the King alone in the room with the banquet, which now had upon its floor a great quantity of broken glass; for the Grand Duke in toasting Lady Aldington had insisted that they should throw six bottles of champagne and all their drinking glasses on to the stone floor. This was the proper custom. The young King looked moodily out of the window.

“By God!” he exclaimed, “I wish the republican soldiers would blow the heads off every one of those rotten Russians!”

Sergius Mihailovitch didn’t, of course, like the guns being there. It seemed to spoil the clean neatness of his scheme. But there wasn’t anything that he could do or say, for the Grand Duke had acted with an impeccable diplomatic correctitude.

“But dear Dom Pedro,” he said, “that’s the sort of thing that has to happen. You must understand that the Grand Duke has really a very deep affection for me. That’s the only way to look at it.”

“But hang it all, Mac,” the boy exclaimed, “he hasn’t half the affection for you that I have. But I wouldn’t go landing half a park of guns on Russian soil...” Macdonald suddenly laughed. “Wouldn’t you?” he said. “Wouldn’t you land guns on Russian soil if there was a revolution and I was in danger and you wanted to protect me? It wouldn’t be a very regular thing to do, but I hope you’d do it. It’s the sort of thing I had hoped you’d do. It’s what one would expect of you.”

“How could you be such a fool!” the King exclaimed suddenly. “Of course it’s what I’d do.”

‘‘Well, then,” Macdonald said, “that’s all that Nicholas Alexandravitch has done.”

The King wavered for a minute. He was looking at the guns, for any object of machinery fascinated him.

“By Jove,” he exclaimed suddenly, “I don’t believe those guns have got any breech-blocks!”

Macdonald opened the window and called out to the officer in charge of the guns:

“Hi you, you there! Where are your breechblocks?”

The officer was drinking champagne from a very long glass.

“Good God!” he grumbled. “What’s this? Who are you?”

“I am Sergius Mihailovitch Macdonald,” Macdonald said, “aide-de-camp to his Imperial Majesty; and I want to know what the devil you’ve done with your breechblocks?”

“Breech-blocks!” the officer grumbled. “What are breech-blocks? I don’t know what breech-blocks are.

The guns are guns. They’re what we’ve got. I don’t know anything about breech-blocks.”

Macdonald had talked in French, so that the King should understand him. And then the King began to laugh.

“That’s it,” Macdonald said; “that’s typical of it. Now, have you any more to say?”

“I’m blest if I have,” the King said.

“You won’t,” Macdonald said, “have to make any representations to any foreign officer. Those guns aren’t guns. They’re just decoration. Those sailors aren’t troops, they haven’t even got their side-arms on. That’s it, you see. Even when the Admiral Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy tries to get up a diplomatic incident he can’t really do it. It’s all all right.”

The King remained regarding the guns with a fascinated glance.

“It’s the most extraordinary thing in the world!” he said. “It’s really most extraordinary!”

Macdonald sat down and fell into a long reverie. A great many noises began to come from the street, but he didn’t pay much attention. He was really very tired. The President with his daughters and the Countess Macdonald drove back to the palace. The republican troops surrounded his old landau. When he came in front of the ministry he sent a footman to ask the officer in charge of the guns who they were and what they were doing. The officer was by this time quite drunk enough to be sensible. He replied that the Grand Duke had landed the guns to protect a Russian subject, who was then in the ministry. The Russian imperial yacht was lying in the harbour. The Russian subject in the ministry had been fired upon.

That was all that was needed to put the President, who was of a very academic turn of mind, into a violent rage. He ran up to the ministerial rooms and suddenly appeared on the balcony.

“Brothers!” he shouted down to the troops, who to the number of three hundred and twenty were massed along the steps of the palace. “Brothers!” he said, “you are dogs! You are the mad swine of Galilee. Above us floats the sacred tricolour of the republic. From under its folds you have spat musket fire upon the first of our commandments, which bids us deal hospitably with all foreigners. Now, in the name of my sacred office, I command you to offer violence to no man. You know very well the compact we have made with these enemies of the republic. At the present moment our show of force is overwhelming, so it was till, swine as you are, you broke the laws of hospitality. Now it is all over with us. Upon this house, the sacred Temple of the Republican Justice, there are pointed such engines of destruction that with one spit from their filthy mouths they can blow to pieces the last vestige of liberty in this unhappy land.”

“That man appears to be mad,” the King said. “Or is it only this sunlight, the wine of the south, that makes us all drunk?”

Macdonald smiled suddenly. “No, it’s only the dark forest,” he said.

But the King exclaimed: “It isn’t dark. Look at all the sunlight.”

Great crowds coming from the bull-fight were pouring into the plaza, and perceiving the President upon the balcony they began to howl and moan rhythmically. The whole place was full of men, and street boys even crawled over the Russian guns. And then an acolyte came to ask Macdonald to come to his own wedding. The King would not be present, because he was a Roman Catholic, but he was ready to sign the protocol of the wedding after it had taken place. The only hitch in the ceremony itself came from Mr. Dexter. He strolled into the small back room that had been turned into a chapel with his hands in his pockets, and an immense cigar in his mouth. He had been walking round the town, and had only reached the ministry with some difficulty. His cigar very much irritated the Archbishop of Nicomesia, who interrupted his extremely beautiful intoning to say, in a harsh voice, that this was the House of God, and not a place for a man to make a beast of himself in.

And as Mr. Dexter did not understand him, the Grand Duke pulled the enormous cigar from his mouth and threw it into the Holy Water font. After that it all went very quietly.

Then came the banquet, at which, of course, were the little lampreys of the Don. The Grand Duke was extremely affable, and he offered Macdonald four fingers of his hand to shake, because, as he explained, Macdonald had now become the reigning Duke of Batalha and Viceroy of North Galizia. Then he kissed Macdonald three times on each cheek, and he explained that each kiss represented a million pounds sterling which he, the Grand Duke, stood to make out of the revolution by speculation, bets, and investments with the American Company. Then he kissed Lady Aldington’s hand, and he explained that although he was a little drunk, which was quite unusual with him, but excusable on such a happy occasion, when the spoilt baby of the Russian Court was really being spoilt by fortune and getting more than he deserved, though by enabling the Grand Duke to make some millions he had for once done something useful in the world — although he, the Grand Duke, was a little drunk, he was not so drunk as to forget that English ladies were rather prudish, otherwise he would have kissed her too upon both cheeks.