Complete works of ford m.., p.704
Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 704
He had not been able to understand why the arms were outstretched... Their doubles should have appeared to himself and Lottie whilst they sinned. Or perhaps afterwards whilst they walked in Priory Wood... Lottie, he remembered, had said with a laugh ‘Well, that’s over!’ He himself had been rather awed: as if in church....
But would they meet their doubles, he and Henrietta Felise, if they walked together after...? In Europe, for the doppelgaenger could perhaps not cross water? In Italy? Probably in Germany, in the Hartz Mountains... That was the sort of place... But would they be guilty lovers? Where would be the guilt of it?... None for her. For himself perhaps... ‘Some beguiling virgins with the broken seals of perjury!’
That was it... They would both have to be guilty. And of some dreadful sin. The man would have murdered the woman’s husband... Why! By God, if he and Lola Porter walked in a wood after having slept together... In the Hartz Mountains... He had murdered her husband. They say the doppelgaenger of the Hartz is produced by refractions of shadows on mists. A wooded misty country.
On the fourth - or it may have been the fifth - day after Porter’s death, Notterdam who had been revolving these thoughts slowly in his mind and had been silent for a long time, said suddenly to Henrietta Felise who was standing, buttoning a glove on the other side of his table: ‘I suppose it is true that I murdered Porter.’
Her face was infinitely sad.
‘You are bound to think that,’ she said, ‘I suppose that it is true that we did, if you insist on it.’
He exclaimed:
‘No, no! That isn’t so. The responsibility is mine.’ She answered:
‘Technically, yes.’ She paused and then said slowly: ‘We lost our heads over it. Has it occurred to you that we could have sent the same radio to Mr. Kratch and have let the contract go through in the first instance? You had made the contract several days before. We could perfectly well have sent the undertaking to make no more.’
He said:
‘Yes, I have since thought of that,’ and she answered: ‘One eventually thinks of everything, doesn’t one?... There’s nothing for it but for us to do the best for his memory.’
He said:
‘You must think out a scheme for it whilst you are at home. You think you could write a memoir?’
She answered:
‘Yes...I don’t know... I have no experience. But I seem to feel it so. To know him!’
He asked:
‘You knew Porter?’
They were speaking in dulled tones, without expression as if they had been in a monochrome picture.
‘Not to say know him,’ she said, ‘I have seen him about and talked two or three words with him. At nightclubs. I saw him give a fencing display for some charity, too. We were once in the same party and he said rather nice things about you.’
Notterdam said:
‘About me!... Good God!’
‘Someone had told him I was Mr. Kratch’s secretary for the House,’ she answered.
He asked dully: ‘You go to night-clubs and things? Speakeasies?’
It was as if she had put together a background behind herself. He saw her against clouds of tobacco-smoke, leaning over Porter. She answered:
‘A girl alone in New York has to go somewhere - if she can get an escort.’
He said:
‘I wasn’t suggesting that you shouldn’t... We might go together one night. Somewhere.’
She answered:
‘It doesn’t seem to be the moment... You’d say we ought to - oh, expiate. A little.’
He said:
‘Of course that is right. Besides you are going to your mother’s. So you knew him!’
‘He was very vivid,’ she said, ‘like - oh, a dark flame. And so unfortunate!’
Notterdam said:
‘I didn’t know. He was poor, of course....’
‘Oh, not so terribly poor,’ she commented. ‘He must have made enough to live simply... Mrs. Porter made a good deal from time to time... She is quite a star journalist, but she can’t hold down jobs because of drink. I don’t mean that she is sodden but when she does drink she is terrible... Abandoned, you know. And with such... oh, toughs. You see, her first husband died in jail. And his associates... Well, she rather keeps in with them. And poor Mr. Porter....’
‘She seems a quiet enough person,’ Notterdam said. ‘She is at my house now and she gives no trouble....’ Henrietta paused a moment.
‘I don’t want, heaven knows,’ she said, ‘to prejudice you against her... No doubt, the shock will have had an effect... When she isn’t - oh, under the weather - she is quite a nice person. But these Creoles... I don’t mean of coloured origin... The real Creoles of French descent... From Martinique and such places. They say she has even gipsy blood, I don’t know how...
Notterdam said:
‘If the doctor, after you have had your rest, says you are still not to work, you might really do worse than prepare, say a short memoir for the memorial edition of that poor fellow. The House would commission you...
I should have, of course, to see a page or two before... Or, we could even work together at it...I don’t mean so much at the writing of the memoir, but the technical publishing work... and the editing for my share....’
She said with wan animation:
‘That would be nice... I should like that... It would be a real expiation... And if I can’t work here I shall have to try to write as my father wanted me to or....’
He began to say:
‘We might even....’
He had been about to say that they might visit together the birthplace of Porter which was his own birthplace. The idea had very much obsessed him since Porter’s death. He had been about to say it without any idea of having any more than the pleasure of her company which seemed to have become indispensable to him. But he had to eschew for the moment any planning for any pleasure - as is the case in the house of a dead brother. He said:
‘Oh, we... the House... will take care of you....’
She said:
‘I shall not have any claim, if I can’t write... I’ve told you already that we are the proud Felises!’
The world had seemed empty when she was gone, since she was the only soul in it who really knew the whole of his predicament. He had no one else with whom he could talk outspokenly. Lola Porter seemed perfectly to believe, or at any rate to desire to assert, that Porter had died by accident. She too had been frequently interviewed and she too never swerved from the note that death had visited her husband on the very brink of success. She put it that this was no weakling. He had carved a career of greatness and had died enriched by the results of his labours. For when he died he had actually had big money, if not in the hand, then ready.
It was a picture to arouse enthusiasm in the American mind; that it did so daily more and more Notterdam was to see in the next fortnight or so. Orders came from booksellers from all over the country. They desired for clients copies of Porter’s book which was then being prepared with all the rapidity that can be exhibited by a great House when put on its mettle. The orders were not tremendously numerous. They came three at a time; then four; then seven, then eleven and so on. They trickled. But there is nothing that so enheartens a publisher as to hear from booksellers that clients are coming in by twos and threes and asking for a book. That means that the public as apart from the critics, the trade and the intelligentsia have really taken hold. And, of course, if the book is not even published the fact means a great deal more, for, for one member of the general public who orders a book before it is published, travelled and advertised, you may safely reckon on a thousand once the machinery of sale has got into motion.
The publication of the book without any preliminary travelling was, of course, a bold measure but this was no ordinary occasion. Notterdam had not even read the book or so much as glanced at it. He could not. He knew he would have seen Porter’s avenging face looking up at him through the soiled pages and he never knew till the end of his days what nature of book it was. He was nevertheless passionately determined to merchandise it to the limits of his abilities - in expiation, as Henrietta Felise had said.
The book remained in his mind merely as an algebraic symbol. He had naturally consulted his usual advisers. Mr. Holzhauer said that it was swell; Miss Brooke Phelps that it was the sort of book the House ought to publish. Almost more importantly, Red Crogan who was chief in charge of the sales department said that the publication was a proposition that he was, in the actual circumstances, perfectly prepared to handle. He would not like to be asked often to take care of such a hurried affair, but for this once and to oblige Mr. Notterdam and Miss Felise as representing Mr. Kratch, he was prepared to try. Crogan was an elderly, grey, thin fellow. Usually he kept himself very much to himself but it pleased Notterdam to observe the condescending kindness with which he had behaved to Henrietta Felise. (Notterdam called her always to himself never ‘Henrietta,’ tout court, but always ‘Henrietta Felise’ at the least. Sometimes he thought of her as ‘Henrietta Faukner Felise’ because he liked to allow himself the luxury of dwelling on these sounds.)
The consciousness that he had killed Porter remained constantly with him. It was like an overhanging cloud, a continual depression. It was as if he lived always in a house with the blinds drawn down for a funeral. All he could do was to work for that fierce man’s memory. That he set out to do methodically, determined to use all his skill and all the immense resources of the House in the effort to keep that memory alive. Authors, he knew, were avid of immortality, though how it helped a fellow who had been two or three hundred years in the grave that his heirs even received no royalties - Notterdam had never been able to see. He recognized, however, that the ambition did exist as an ambition like another and indeed he remembered Porter once to have said that he too made his books ‘better’ than they need be in the hope of their lasting. Thus Notterdam could see that, if he were able to ensure that posthumous life for Porter’s books, he would be really keeping part of Porter himself alive, since part of Porter’s activities were directed toward ensuring that very thing.
So that after the first two or three agitated days those three weeks had passed very quietly. In the office he had plenty of occupation, but not too much, since he no longer had the work for the Radio Syndicate to occupy him. At home things were peaceful - more peaceful indeed than he had ever known them to be since the children, who had been speculating on the cover system in various industrial stocks, had lost all their savings of pocket money, had had to put off their ordering of the baby plane and were further chastened by the consciousness that Notterdam was once again a quite warm business man. They took, moreover, a great fancy to Mrs. Porter who told them fantastic and horrible details of obi and the voodoo practices of the coloured people of her childhood’s home. From what Notterdam overheard he was inclined to think that this information would not do the children much good - and it was certainly harmful to such roosters amongst his poultry as happened to be white... And indeed, after about a week during which the children were always hanging about Lola Porter’s skirts or in her room, Elspeth suddenly packed them off to Boston with their nurse — to the house of Brother Tom whose children were about of the same age. That only made the house the quieter and, in one way or another, Notterdam, during those three weeks, passed more time in the bosom of his family than he ever remembered before to have done.
He had abandoned all his social engagements under the plea of a bereavement, though he and Elspeth passed a quiet week-end strolling about the rock-gardens of the father of Mrs. Wagner. That is to say that Elspeth had ridden a great deal whilst Notterdam had strolled with Mrs. Wagner, occasionally coming upon her father in his antique gardening clothes, doing something with a trowel and chemical manure at the corner of a rock-path. They talked at first about books, but, as their tastes were very divergent they fell back upon Notterdam’s natal Wessex, a district of which Mrs. Wagner was extravagantly fond.
By a coincidence, whilst they were there week-ending, Notterdam found forwarded to him from the office a letter from a firm of Dorchester - English Dorchester - house and estate agents.
After his mother’s death his father had taken to live with him a younger sister but nevertheless a very old maid and she had continued to live in the Old Rectory until about six years ago. But long before that the old Rev. Felix Notterdam had realized that both he and his parsonage were past work. He had retired from his cure and had purchased from his successor, by arrangement with the ecclesiastical commissioners, the rectory itself with a small parcel of mixed farming land. The rectory the old man had naturally left to his son, many generations of Notterdams having owned land in the neighbourhood and the family having usually provided a rector for the parish. There the old aunt had lived on until her death, some years after the Rector’s.
Had Notterdam then had the time he would have gone over to his birthplace and, selecting several pieces of furniture and portraits that still held his affections, would have sold the place. But Elspeth was against this. She had long had the dream of paying, with the children, a prolonged visit to the English countryside and she had toyed with the idea of spending that vacation beneath the roof that had sheltered so many of her husband’s ancestors. So, retaining possession of the Old Rectory - which he was not averse from doing though he was completely uninterested in his late country - Notterdam had simply let it furnished.
Now the agents wrote that the tenants had given notice to leave at Lady Day. The house was in a terribly dilapidated condition; it would be hopeless to find anyone to replace them without the expenditure of a considerable sum of money on repairs. The ivy which had long since grown over and filled the bedroom chimneys had by now penetrated into the interior of the roof. The builder reported that it was actually wrenching the great oak joists out of position.
Notterdam had at once come to the conclusion that there remained nothing but to sell the building. He could not be bothered with correspondence about oak joists and the infinitesimal cheques that, after deduction of rates, tithes, king’s taxes and commission, he received every quarter from the agents would be insufficient to defray the repairs if he saved them for ten years....
But, re-reading the letter in the rock-garden before the house, there came suddenly into his mind that the ghostly attendant, from time to time visible to him, might be in some sort a warning to him that if he further neglected the home of his ancestors disaster might even there overtake him. It was the merest fugitive idea. And it immediately disappeared beneath the protestations of both Elspeth and Mrs. Wagner who were accompanying him for a short, after-breakfast saunter. Both ladies exclaimed with animation that it would be monstrous to sell the home of his fathers. For an infinitesimal sum like three or four hundred pounds it might be assured of another three hundred years of life... And Mrs, Wagner expatiated eloquently to Mrs. Notterdam as to the beauty of the Old Rectory that she knew well - its great, ivy-covered chimney stacks, its elaborately mullioned windows, the peacefulness of its site. If Notterdam actually sold she would herself in all probability buy the place, though it was rather outlying from the property that she had lately purchased. But that Elspeth would not hear of. Years ago she had visited her husband’s father in the old place, Notterdam finding no time to go. She had so much loved the old man’s courtesy in its old frame that, if anyone was going to buy the place, which would go for an old song, it would be she herself that would do so. And then she exclaimed that if Notterdam was really determined to round out his memorial edition of the works of his poor friend Porter, how could he do so better than by visiting the birthplace of that great writer. It was but next house but two to the Old Rectory and by picking up hints and reminiscences of his boyhood and youth that there remained, Notterdam would help his friend’s memory. There was no one who could do better than Notterdam and no more fitting tribute could be paid than such a pilgrimage on the part of his patron and best friend. Whilst there he could perform the other pious duty of restoring the home of his ancestors to a condition that would enable it to weather the gales of further centuries.
Notterdam objected: now that Kratch was in Europe he could not well leave the House to itself. Mrs. Notterdam said that, nonsense, there were Mr. Holzhauer, Miss Brooke Phelps and Henrietta Faukner Felise who could perfectly efficiently replace him.
A quick vision went through his mind - for not long enough to be a desecration of his mourning for the dead - of himself and Henrietta Felise, sitting in the firelight before the great ingle of the Old Rectory. They would be composing a sort of threnody to Edward Porter in his native place before... But he must not think of that.
He objected: He was no writer; he had already allotted the task of the memoir of Porter. Mrs. Notterdam exclaimed quickly:
‘To whom, I should like to know? Not to that....’ Notterdam said: ‘To Henrietta Felise... She is making a trial beginning on it in Memphis, Tennessee, now.’ Besides she would probably not be available to the House during his absence, for it would be ten chances to one that the doctors would not let her return to work.
‘Then,’ Elspeth exclaimed, ‘take her with you!’ And, at his agitated protestations, she said: ‘I suppose that you could respect her at your age. And, if you couldn’t, she’s perfectly able to take care of herself!’
She went on to descant to Mrs. Wagner on the virtues, abilities, pretty looks and intelligence of Henrietta Felise who had been of such signal use to Mr. Kratch and had certainly resisted any advances that Mr. Kratch might have made to her... What in the world was there to prevent an elderly publisher from travelling with his valet - for Giovanni would, of course, go too - and his private secretary? Men were so chicken-hearted. The sea voyage would be the very thing for Henrietta and, if she was to write about Porter’s childhood, who could be better calculated to guide her about the scene and explain the nuances of English country life than Notterdam with his real devotion to that poor fellow?
