Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (587 page)

I don’t blame them. But they ought to have gone away when they heard that my father was not yet dead. I was eighteen then, and at eighteen one wants to see one’s father die. They stood there, interviewing, and interviewing, and interviewing me, until the doctor came down the stairs, taking his gloves out of his top-hat.

They seemed never to forgive me, though I had made no protest. Perhaps they would have forgiven me if I had. Anyhow, it’s queer.

It would be queer, that is to say, if the death of Sir James Jessop in 1901 should have contributed to the already sufficient tale of misfortunes of George Heimann in 1914, and for several subsequent years, except that, if a man is unfortunate, every remotest thing may contribute to his ruin.

They had come to write a nasty little paragraph between asterisks, about me, in some evening newspaper, making the occasion out of my quite unimportant speech, and they had tittered visibly, if inaudibly, just below me, all the time I had been speaking. Now they craned their necks round, their lorgnettes elevated, to catch the first sight of the man they were preparing to hate.

It took some time to get that young man on to his feet. The President — the leonine, charming, and business-like Miss Scott — had to call him two or three times by name, looking out from beside the Irish poet, over the audience. And I believe that if Miss Jeaffreson and Miss Heimann, in the back seats of the horseshoe, had not made a buzz of exhortations and incitements, one on each side of that unfortunate boy, Miss Scott would never have found him with her eyes. He would never have spoken, and heaven only knows what he would not have escaped!

But those two damfool girls had got it into their heads that a little notoriety would help George with the magistrate who presided over the Podd case. And they went on and on, whispering, one on each side of him, until there was no missing him, and Miss Scott, masterly and smiling, addressed him at last directly with the words:

“Come along, young man. Get up!” She had a long neck and a fair face. I believe she was killed in an air-raid. Anyhow, she is dead. I wish she wasn’t.

George Heimann stood up.

His hesitation had not been due to shyness; he was perfectly used to speaking. But he had really been uncertain as to what line to take. He had found, during his stay in London, that the English people took not the remotest interest in the natures and virtues of Germans. The subject, even before there had been any talk of war, had simply bored them to death. So that he had resolved to ask his uncle whether the more sensible method would not be to begin with the Germans themselves, a race that
could
be interested in a foreign nation, if only with the idea of understanding their trade methods and underselling them.

His rising made a sensation. Half the audience — it was a very cultivated gathering — was used to the appearance of the young artists and poets of that day. These loved him on sight. The other half, inured to the laments of the art critics of 1914, regarded him with not unfriendly amusement. I suppose no one disliked him except the two women.

He made a wonderful speech — the speech of a born orator, delivered gaily, with a beautiful voice and good-humoured gestures. He had determined, since he could not imagine it doing any harm, to give that audience, speaking like a barrister, not a missionary, something of what his uncle desired to have expressed.

He got in a little about the Irish, a good deal of blarney about the Irish poet there present, and a great deal more about the Teutonic ability to appreciate and buy Erse-inspired poems.

And then he began to eulogise Germany, his face as serious as that of a deacon of the State of Maine. He talked of great, sober, industrious Germany, exactly in the manner of the late Samuel Smiles, author of
Self-Help
; and he talked of immense, hero-bestridden, balanced Germany, exactly in the maimer of the late Thomas Carlyle. I believe he was actually quoting from memory passages of Carlyle that his uncle had read to him in the great voice of a public orator. Then he voiced his uncle, talking exaltedly of a World Ideal, of the Union of Great Britain and the German Empire for the eternal establishment of a sober, honest, and industrious Universal Peace! The Whig ideal!

In speaking in that way he was performing an act of ancestral piety. He didn’t like Germans much. He didn’t dislike them; but his mother had been a Frenchwoman, and the earliest German virtue of which he had heard had borne the name of Bismarck-Moltke. But he knew they had virtues, only the virtues were those that did not appeal to him much.

He told me afterwards that he had been afraid of appearing impertinent, of having the aspect of letting off a burlesque of official-diplomatic oratory. But I assured him that he had appeared perfect in manner and tone. If a trained diplomat of forty had been highly paid to do it he could not have done it more exquisitely. And he exclaimed:

“There you are, you see!”

That was the first speech he had ever made to an English audience, and he would have liked to have spoken of something that really interested him. But he had never — never, never, never! — had the chance to talk about things that really aroused his passions. To audiences of university students, or to artists in cafés, he had, ever so often, made what he called “spoof” speeches. Once a week, perhaps, since he had been seventeen. Generally they had been seriously-mannered caricatures of official orations.

I suppose his obviously inherited talent of oratory was quickly discoverable as soon as he was in large, freeish, and rather intimate circles such as students’ gatherings.

But, he said, he had practically never had a chance of his own. When he had been quite a little boy his uncle had sometimes set him to declaim passages from Burke, and later Mr. Heimann had given him themes to talk about, correcting his voice and cadences. But never once had his uncle let him talk about any subject chosen by himself.

That, he continued, seemed to be fated. Even to-day, as I had witnessed, he had been set up to talk twice. Twice in one day, on topics he himself would certainly never have chosen. He had talked to Mr. Podd to please his sister that morning; now, in the afternoon, he had been really put up to it by his uncle functioning from a distance of some hundred miles. He finished good-humouredly, but with a faint touch of regret, that he sometimes thought it would be better for him if people let him alone. But of course, he caught himself up immediately, his uncle had spent a great deal of money on sending them to London, and it was one’s duty to give him something for his money. And his sister was a charming girl. One had to please people as long as it did not go actually counter to one’s conscience!

Someone for whom I have a great respect and whom I consulted as to the best method of telling this story, commented that I managed to preserve the unities very well — keeping all these people together, as it were, and on the stage. But, upon my soul, I could not help it! They pursued me, tearing at me and engaging my sympathies all that long day and far, far into the night. Wherever I went there was a shining trail of taxis, rushing after me and containing all that personnel.

After my speech I had adhered pretty well to my private plan, burying myself amongst the teacups of the Club notables, with Miss Scott, the Irish poet, and other people I have forgotten. But, when I walked down the broad marble staircase I saw the whole crowd of the Podd-Heimann case waiting for me in the vestibule and shouting at the tops of their voices, one against the other — about the Podd case. Even the two women who hated me were on the outskirts of that little mob; but those two were listening, not talking!

The Professor Doctor, overtopping all the others by a head, saw me first. He came to the bottom of the stairs and, with his loud chest voice, his bent brows and his dark eyes that were so earnest, that they had an air of resentfulness, he began to make me a little oration for myself alone. He said how much it pleased him to find that English poets, too, supported each other; and he had got so far as to say once more that he had chust been reading with such
enthusiasm
my pudiful book called....

I should have liked immensely to hear the Professor’s compliments to myself about my books. He was a good, kind man, and a great poet, too, in the German style; and one gets in this world too few compliments that one really cares for. But he’s dead now, and although in the course of that day he made three separate attempts to get out that compliment, he was always interrupted. So I shall never hear him, or not this side of Heaven.

On that occasion, at the foot of the club stairs, Lady Ada Pugh Gomme headed him off, without saying a word. She had just engaged him to dinner that evening. She had wanted to engage George too, but his sister would not let him come; he would be wanted, Mary Elizabeth and Miss Jeaffreson having to talk to him about the different aspects of the Podd case. And so, being concerned about George, and being determined to get those conversations stopped if she could, she was just lying in wait for me. How she suppressed the Professor without herself speaking I do not know. It was magic of the will, he having just got going with his resonant organ. I daresay it was done with her beautiful brown eyes. Anyhow, within half a minute, staving off Mary Elizabeth and the two Jeaffresons, who were descending on me, she had me confined in the half arch that was beneath the stairs beside a telephone box, she herself shutting me in with, behind her, the tall Professor as not only a sentry but a corroborator.

She wanted to hint that that poor boy was in a dreadful state of nerves. The Professor said: “Ach ja!” and whatever is the German for dreadfully nervous. George, she explained, had during the speeches been talking to her about his “case.” And, she went on very tentatively: His sister — a charming girl! — and Miss Jeaffreson, were not good for him. Not that evening! The Professor said: “They are not considerate. That is true!”

Lady Ada held up one finger whilst she gazed at me in my confinement with her immense, misty eyes. One could hear the others, quite plainly talking to George. The solicitor was telling an anecdote about a client who had had some misfortune; both young women were talking at once, so that what they said was indistinguishable. I could just see George’s head and shoulders and the hat of Miss Jeaffreson. He was pale. Certainly he was very pale. And I had a sudden image of him, going on like that, for ever and ever. And, upon my soul, I said:

“He has got to be got away from those women. For to-night at least!”

That was exactly what Lady Ada had been willing me to say!

And then, against the light, tall, statuesque and shadowy, she too told an anecdote. About her own son, a boy, she said: “Just like... Oh, quite startlingly just the same, as that one. And boys somehow are glad”... She had, with her hands a little gesture of modesty, “to confide in me. Even my own son!”

It seems that her son, Charles, the heir to a peerage, had become engaged to some Front Row “Little Tottie.” Lady Ada had opposed no obstacles. Then Little Tottie had had a bad cold — a dreadfully bad cold in the head — lasting a fortnight. Three times a day Lady Ada had sent Charles round to Little Tottie’s rooms — they were very stuffy! — with baskets of peaches from the Pugh-Gomme hothouses. Lady Ada had made Charles never be away from Little Tottie’s sick-bed side!

So that when the breach came and the threats of proceedings were carried right up to the Court doors, there had been every prospect of bright pickings for the evening papers. And Lady Ada’s son, Charles, had gone nearly out of his mind at the thought of the placards. It had distracted him. He was a vital, energetic, humorous, and good-tempered Guards’ officer; but that was too much for him.

“And one can’t, can one,” she said, “ bear to see the young ones suffer? They take it so dreadfully. So that if you
could
! Of course you have engagements! I know your mother so very well. Since I was a tiny! And she, too, is so kind as they all say you are!”

She broke off and began again:

“I don’t
want
him to have a night of misery. They leave traces on a whole life. And I like him. He’s a dear gallant fellow.”

I said:

“Look here, I’m busy. I’m really busy.”

“I
know,”
she answered. “ You’ve a little play being performed to-night. I wish you would ask me to see it!”

I said:

“It’s wicked of you. I will be responsible for him — for getting him past the newspaper placards — till eleven. I’ve got a table for sixteen at the Night Club. But you must come with the Professor and your other guests at eleven — and take charge!”