‘You have managed the job amazingly. You are a wonderful woman.’ He was thinking that if they went back to Bramshaw they would leave Maisie Maidan behind. That thought occupied him exclusively. They must, undoubtedly, return to Bramshaw; there could be no doubt that Leonora was too ill to stay in that place. She said:
‘You understand that the management of the whole of the expenditure of the income will be in your hands. There will be five thousand a year.’
She thought that he cared very much about the expenditure of an income of five thousand a year and that the fact that she had done so much for him would rouse in him some affection for her. But he was thinking exclusively of Maisie Maidan – of Maisie, thousands of miles away from him. He was seeing the mountains between them – blue mountains and the sea and sunlit plains. He said:
‘That is very generous of you.’ And she did not know whether that were praise or a sneer. That had been a week before. And all that week he had passed in an increasing agony at the thought that those mountains, that sea, and those sunlit plains would be between him and Maisie Maidan. That thought shook him in the burning nights: the sweat poured from him and he trembled with cold, in the burning noons – at that thought. He had no minute’s rest; his bowels turned round and round within him: his tongue was perpetually dry and it seemed to him that the breath between his teeth was like air from a pest-house.
He gave no thought to Leonora at all; he had sent in his papers.145 They were to leave in a month. It seemed to him to be his duty to leave that place and to go away, to support Leonora. He did his duty.
It was horrible, in their relationship at that time, that whatever she did caused him to hate her. He hated her when he found that she proposed to set him up as the Lord of Bramshaw again – as a sort of dummy lord, in swaddling clothes. He imagined that she had done this in order to separate him from Maisie Maidan. Hatred hung in all the heavy nights and filled the shadowy corners of the room. So when he heard that she had offered to the Maidan boy to take his wife to Europe with him, automatically he hated her since he hated all that she did. It seemed to him, at that time, that she could never be other than cruel even if, by accident, an act of hers were kind… Yes, it was a horrible situation.
But the cool breezes of the ocean seemed to clear up that hatred as if it had been a curtain. They seemed to give him back admiration for her, and respect. The agreeableness of having money lavishly at command, the fact that it had bought for him the companionship of Maisie Maidan – these things began to make him see that his wife might have been right in the starving and scraping upon which she had insisted. He was at ease; he was even radiantly happy when he carried cups of bouillon for Maisie Maidan along the deck. One night, when he was leaning beside Leonora, over the ship’s side, he said suddenly:
‘By Jove, you’re the finest woman in the world. I wish we could be better friends.’
She just turned away without a word and went to her cabin. Still, she was very much better in health.
And now, I suppose, I must give you Leonora’s side of the case…
That is very difficult. For Leonora, if she preserved an unchanged front, changed very frequently her point of view. She had been drilled – in her tradition, in her upbringing – to keep her mouth shut. But there were times, she said, when she was so near yielding to the temptation of speaking that afterwards she shuddered to think of those times. You must postulate that what she desired above all things was to keep a shut mouth to the world, to Edward and to the women that he loved. If he spoke she would despise herself.
From the moment of his unfaithfulness with La Dolciquita she never acted the part of wife to Edward. It was not that she intended to keep herself from him as a principle, for ever. Her spiritual advisers, I believe, forbade that. But she stipulated that he must, in some way, perhaps symbolical, come back to her. She was not very clear as to what she meant; probably she did not know herself. Or perhaps she did.
There were moments when he seemed to be coming back to her; there were moments when she was within a hair of yielding to her physical passion for him. In just the same way, at moments, she almost yielded to the temptation to denounce Mrs Basil to her husband or Maisie Maidan to hers. She desired then to cause the horrors and pains of public scandals. For, watching Edward more intently and with more straining of ears than that which a cat bestows upon a bird overhead, she was aware of the progress of his passion for each of these ladies. She was aware of it from the way in which his eyes returned to doors and gateways; she knew from his tranquillities when he had received satisfactions.
At times she imagined herself to see more than was warranted. She imagined that Edward was carrying on intrigues with other women – with two at once; with three. For whole periods she imagined him to be a monster of libertinage and she could not see that he could have anything against her. She left him his liberty; she was starving herself to build up his fortunes; she allowed herself none of the joys of femininity – no dresses, no jewels – hardly even friendships, for fear they should cost money.
And yet, oddly, she could not but be aware that both Mrs Basil and Maisie Maidan were nice women. The curious, discounting eye which one woman can turn on another did not prevent her seeing that Mrs Basil was very good to Edward and Mrs Maidan very good for him. That seemed to her to be a monstrous and incomprehensible working of Fate’s. Incomprehensible! Why, she asked herself again and again, did none of the good deeds that she did for her husband ever come through to him, or appear to him as good deeds? By what trick of mania could not he let her be as good to him as Mrs Basil was? Mrs Basil was not so extraordinarily dissimilar to herself. She was, it was true, tall, dark, with soft mournful voice and a great kindness of manner for every created thing, from punkah men to flowers on the trees. But she was not so well read as Leonora, at any rate in learned books. Leonora could not stand novels. But, even with all her differences, Mrs Basil did not appear to Leonora to differ so very much from herself. She was truthful, honest and, for the rest, just a woman. And Leonora had a vague sort of idea that, to a man, all women are the same after three weeks of close intercourse. She thought that the kindness should no longer appeal, the soft and mournful voice no longer thrill, the tall darkness no longer give a man the illusion that he was going into the depths of an unexplored wood. She could not understand how Edward could go on and on maundering over Mrs Basil. She could not see why he should continue to write her long letters after their separation. After that, indeed, she had a very bad time.
She had at that period what I will call the ‘monstrous’ theory of Edward. She was always imagining him ogling at every woman that he came across. She did not, that year, go into ‘retreat’ at Simla because she was afraid that he would corrupt her maid in her absence. She imagined him carrying on intrigues with native women or Eurasians. At dances she was in a fever of watchfulness…
She persuaded herself that this was because she had a dread of scandals. Edward might get himself mixed up with a marriageable daughter of some man who would make a row or some husband who would matter. But, really, she acknowledged afterwards to herself, she was hoping that, Mrs Basil being out of the way, the time might have come when Edward should return to her. All that period she passed in an agony of jealousy and fear – the fear that Edward might really become promiscuous in his habits.
So that, in an odd way, she was glad when Maisie Maidan came along – and she realized that she had not, before, been afraid of husbands and of scandals, since, then, she did her best to keep Maisie’s husband unsuspicious. She wished to appear so trustful of Edward that Maidan could not possibly have any suspicions. It was an evil position for her. But Edward was very ill and she wanted to see him smile again. She thought that if he could smile again through her agency he might return, through gratitude and satisfied love – to her. At that time she thought that Edward was a person of light and fleeting passions. And she could understand Edward’s passion for Maisie, since Maisie was one of those women to who
m other women will allow magnetism.
She was very pretty; she was very young; in spite of her heart she was very gay and light on her feet. And Leonora was really very fond of Maisie, who was fond enough of Leonora. Leonora, indeed, imagined that she could manage this affair all right. She had no thought of Maisie’s being led into adultery; she imagined that if she could take Maisie and Edward to Nauheim, Edward would see enough of her to get tired of her pretty little chatterings, and of the pretty little motions of her hands and feet. And she thought she could trust Edward. For there was not any doubt of Maisie’s passion for Edward. She raved about him to Leonora as Leonora had heard girls rave about drawing masters in schools. She was perpetually asking her boy husband why he could not dress, ride, shoot, play polo, or even recite sentimental poems, like their major. And young Maidan had the greatest admiration for Edward, and he adored, was bewildered by and entirely trusted his wife. It appeared to him that Edward was devoted to Leonora. And Leonora imagined that when poor Maisie was cured of her heart and Edward had seen enough of her, he would return to her. She had the vague, passionate idea that when Edward had exhausted a number of other types of women he must turn to her. Why should not her type have its turn in his heart? She imagined that, by now, she understood him better, that she understood better his vanities and that, by making him happier, she could arouse his love.
Florence knocked all that on the head….
Notes
NSOED refers to The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).
1 ‘Beati Immaculati’: ‘Blessed are the undefiled’ (Latin). ‘Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord’ (Psalm 119:1; 118:1 in the Vulgate, the official Roman Catholic Latin text of the Bible, 1592).
2 the town of Nauheim: Bad Nauheim is a spa on the northeastern slopes of the Taunus Mountains, twenty-four miles north of Frankfurt-am-Main, central Germany. In 1915 it was in the grand duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt and has long been noted for its salt springs, which are used to treat nerve and heart disorders. Ford visited Nauheim in 1910 with Violet Hunt.
3. the Ashburnham who accompanied… scaffold: Sir John Ashburnham (1603–71) of Sussex held the position of ‘groom of the bedchamber’ at the court of Charles I and was also treasurer and paymaster of the Royalist army during the Civil Wars (1642–51). Ford had touched on Sir John in an earlier work, Ford Madox Hueffer, The Cinque Ports: A Historical and Descriptive Record (London: William Blackwood, 1900), 36.
4. Cranford: the English novelist Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–65) published Cranford, a novel loosely based on the Cheshire town of Knutsford, in 1853. It has always been regarded as one of the quintessential portraits of English provincial life.
5. Chestnut and Walnut Streets: prime real estate in Philadelphia.
6. Farnham… William Penn: the founding father of Pennsylvania, William Penn (1644–1718), was an English Quaker. He was born at Tower Hill, London, educated in Essex, and had no connection with Farnham in Surrey.
7. Fordingbridge: a small market town in southwest Hampshire on the River Avon and the western edge of the New Forest.
8. sack of Rome by the Goths: Rome was sacked by the Visigoths under their king Alaric (c. 370–410) in August 410, an event that symbolized the fall of the Roman Empire.
9. 9 Homburg: a spa town and watering-place at the southeastern foot of the Taunus Mountains twelve miles north of Frankfurt-am-Main.
10. the Kur orchestra: the orchestra which played for the entertainment of patrons of the Kursaal (‘Cure Hall’) at Nauheim.
11. minuet de la cour: ‘minuet of the court’ (French).
12. mob may sack Versailles; the Trianon: the baroque Palace of Versailles, twelve miles west of Paris, was the principal residence of the French kings from 1678–1769. In addition to the Grand Château, there are two smaller châteaux, the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon. The Palace was stormed by the Paris mob on 6 October 1789 soon after the beginning of the French Revolution. The Petit Trianon was a favourite resort of Marie Antoinette (1755–93), the wife of Louis XVI (1754–93), and she only escaped with difficulty when the mob burst in to her quarters.
13. Hessian: ‘Of or pertaining to the former grand duchy, or the region or State, of Hesse in Germany’ (NSOED).
14. Taunus Wald: the Taunus Forest, extending northwards over a large area of the Taunus Mountains from Wiesbaden and Bad Homburg.
15. Swedish exercises: ‘a system of therapeutic muscular exercises’ (NSOED).
16. in saecula saeculorum: ‘for ever and ever’ (Latin). The words that conclude most prayers in the Tridentine Mass, the eucharistic liturgy used by the Roman Catholic Church from 1570 to 1964.
17. the Field: a magazine, founded in 1853, for devotees of field sports and other country pursuits.
18. Peire Vidal: the type of the reckless and scatterbrained troubadour (Provençal lyric poets who composed and sang on the theme of courtly love in the Middle Ages), Vidal’s biographer called him ‘the maddest man in all the world’.
19. Biarritz… mistral: Biarritz is a coastal town in southwest France on the Bay of Biscay. It became a fashionable resort under the patronage of the Empress Eugénie in the 1850s. Las Tours is situated in the Black Mountains of southwest France, a few miles from Carcassonne. The mistral is a cold, dry, northerly wind that is funnelled down the Rhône Valley in southern France to the Mediterranean.
20. Poughkeepsie: a small town in New York State and the location of Vassar College, a non-sectarian institution for the higher education of women, incorporated in 1861 and opened in 1865.
21. William the Silent… Beaucaire: William the Silent was the name by which William I (1533–84), Prince of Orange, was more widely known. By ‘Gustave the Loquacious’, Dowell probably has in mind Gustavus Adolphus (1594–1632), King of Sweden (1611–32), whose polyglot accomplishments were legendary. Henri Fantin Latour (1836–1904) was a French painter of highly detailed, ‘Dutch’-style, still-life subjects and group portraits. Tarascon is a largely medieval town near the mouth of the River Rhône. Beaucaire, another medieval town popular with tourists, faces it across the river.
22. Flatiron… Broadway: the 290-ft-high Fuller or ‘Flatiron’ Building, completed in 1902, is one of the oldest skyscrapers in New York City.
23. Mont Majour… Carcassonne itself: Mont Majour is a small town near Tarascon and Beaucaire in Provence, southern France, with a medieval abbey. Carcassonne is a medieval fortified town in the Aude region of southwest France, which was largely rebuilt in the nineteenth century.
24. Leghorn: the English name for Livorno, a port in central Italy on the Ligurian sea, south of Pisa and not far from Florence.
25. modistes and over the plages: a ‘modiste’ is a milliner and a ‘plage’ is a beach. Both words are French.
26. a Browning tea: founded in 1881 by F. J. Furnivall and E. H. Hickey and dedicated to examining every aspect of the poetry and life of the English poet Robert Browning (1812–89), the Browning Society is still in existence today (it is now no less concerned with the life and work of Browning’s wife, the poet Elizabeth Barratt Browning, 1806–61). A ‘Browning tea’ would have been a tea party involving either members of the Society or unaffiliated aficionados of Robert Browning’s work.
27. spelling bee: ‘a contest in spelling’ (NSOED).
28. Stuyvesant: the Dutch colonial administrator Peter Stuyvesant (c. 1610–72) was Governor of New Netherland until 8 September 1664, when the colony was taken from him by the British and divided into New York and New Jersey. There is a Stuyvesant Square in Manhattan. Dowell probably has in mind a philistine but wealthy crowd of socialites based around a family called Stuyvesant (see p. 67).
29. Frans Hals… Pre-Mycenaic: Frans Hals (c. 1581–1666) was born in Antwerp of Flemish parents, but spent most of his life in Haarlem. His talent was for portraiture and he is best known for the huge and lively groups of archers and musketeers which he painted from 1616. Philips Wouwerman (1619–
1668), also a Haarlem painter and a pupil of Hals, painted genre scenes of horsemen, battles and camp life. Mycenaic civilization, the civilization of Bronze Age Greece, flourished between c.1650 BC and c.1200 BC.
30. Cnossos… Walter Pater: Cnossos (more commonly Knossos) was the principal city of Minoan Crete. It was excavated between 1899 and 1935 by the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans (1851–1941). The most influential and lasting work of the English critic Walter Pater (1839–94) is his Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873). It had a profound effect on the development of aestheticism in England.
31. Waterbury: an industrial city on the River Naugatuck in Connecticut, Waterbury was once famous as the brass centre of the USA.
32. Democrat… Republican: from 1869, when Ulysses S. Grant took office as the 18th President of the United States, until 1913, when Woodrow Wilson took office as the 28th, the American President had always been a Republican, apart from during Grover Cleveland’s two terms of office (1885–9 and 1893–7).
33. North Cape: considered to be (though not actually) the most northerly point of the European continent, North Cape is a promontory on a north Norwegian island and a traditional stop for tourist steamers.
34. Bramshaw: Bramshaw is situated on the edge of the New Forest, about six miles west of Fordingbridge, in Hampshire.
35. the Englischer Hof: the English Hotel.
36. the Chapeau de Paille of Rubens: otherwise known as The Straw Hat by the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), the most important northern European artist of his day and the greatest exponent of the baroque outside southern Europe. This picture was executed around 1625 and is now in the National Gallery, London.
37. the Hotel Excelsior: ‘Excelsior’ means ‘A person who or thing which reaches or aspires to reach higher’ (NSOED). It is the comparative of the Latin word excelsus (lofty).
38. Fourteenth Hussars: ‘The 14th King’s Hussars, later the 14th/20th King’s Hussars, who captured Joseph Bonaparte’s carriage and retained a silver chamber pot as a trophy after the Battle of Vitoria (1813).’ Hence their nickname: ‘the Emperor’s Chambermaids’ (Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1999).