: A call by Ford Ford Madox - English fiction 20th century

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PART I

A CALL

IT was once said of Mr. Robert Grimshaw: "That chap is like a seal"--and the simile was a singularly just one. He was like a seal who is thrusting his head and shoulders out of the water, and, with large, dark eyes and sensitive nostrils, is on the watch. All that could be known of him seemed to be known; all that could be known of the rest of the world he moved in he seemed to know. He carried about with him usually, in a crook of his arm, a polished, light brown dachshund that had very large feet, and eyes as large, as brown, and as luminous, as those of his master. Upon the occasion of Pauline Lucas's marriage to Dudley Leicester the dog was not upon his arm, but he carried it into the drawing-rooms of the many ladies who welcomed him to afternoon tea. Apparently it had no attractions save its clear and beautiful colour, its excellent if very grotesque shape, and its complete docility. He called upon a lady at tea-time, and, with the same motion that let him down into his chair, he would set the dog upon the floor between his legs. There it would remain, as motionless and as erect as a fire-dog, until it was offered a piece of buttered tea-cake, which it would accept, or until its master gave it a minute and hardly audible permission to rove about. Then it would rove. The grotesque, large-little feet paddled set wide upon the carpet, the long ears flapped to the ground. But, above all, the pointed and sensitive nose would investigate with a minute attention, but with an infinite gentleness, every object within its reach in the room, from the line of the skirting-board to the legs of the piano and the flounced skirts of the ladies sitting near the tea-tables. Robert Grimshaw would observe these investigations with an indulgent approval; and, indeed, someone else once said--and perhaps with more justness--that Mr. Grimshaw resembled most nearly his own dog Peter.

And to Hartley Jenx's croaking remark that Dudley Leicester might have done himself better, Grimshaw, with his eyes upon the bride, raised and hardened his voice to say:

"Nobody in the world could have done better, my good man. If it hadn't been Dudley, it would have been me. You're come to the wrong shop. I know what I'm talking about. I haven't been carting Yankees around ruins; I've been in the centre of things."

Hartley Jenx, who estimated Dudley Leicester at five thousand a year and several directorates, estimated Grimshaw at a little over ten, plus what he must have saved in the six years since he had come into the Spartalide money. For it was obvious that Grimshaw, who lived in rooms off Cadogan Square and had only the smallest of bachelor shoots--that Grimshaw couldn't spend anything like his income. And amongst the guests at the subsequent reception, Hartley Jenx--who made a living by showing Americans round the country in summer, and by managing a charitable steam-laundry in the winter--with croaking voice, might at intervals be heard exclaiming:

"The bride of the day has refused sixty thousand dollars a year!"

So that, although the illustrated papers lavishly reproduced Pauline's pink-and-white beauty, stated that her father was the late Commodore Lucas, and her mother a daughter of Quarternion Castlemaine, and omitted the fact that she had refused twelve thousand a year to many seven and a few directorates, there were very few of those whom Grimshaw desired to have the knowledge that did not know this his tragedy.

On the steps of the church, Robert Grimshaw was greeted by his cousin, Ellida Langham, whose heavily patterned black veil, drooping hat of black fur, and long coat all black with the wide black sleeves, enhanced the darkness of her coal-black eyes, the cherry colour of her cheeks, and the rich red of her large lips. Holding out her black-gloved hand with an odd little gesture, as if at the same time she were withdrawing it, she uttered the words:

"Have you heard anything of Katya?" Her head seemed to be drawn back, birdlike, into the thick furs on her neck, and her voice had in it a plaintive quality. Being one of two daughters of the late Peter Lascarides, and the wife of Paul Langham, she was accounted fortunate as owning great possessions, a very attached husband, and sound health. The plaintive tone in her voice was set down to the fact that her little daughter of six was said to be mentally afflicted, and her sister Katya to have behaved in the strangest possible manner. Indeed, Mr. Hartley Jenx was accustomed to assure his American friends that Katya Lascarides had been sent abroad under restraint, though her friends gave it out that she was in Philadelphia working at a nerve-cure place.

"She is still in Philadelphia," Robert Grimshaw answered, "but I haven't heard from her."

Ellida Langham shivered a little in her furs.

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