No More Parades_ A Novel - Ford Madox Ford [67]
The general, with Sylvia beside him, stood glorious in the centre of the clearing that led to the open doorway of a much smaller room. Through the doorway you could see a table with a white damask cloth; a silver-gilt inkpot, fretted, like a porcupine with pens, a fat, flat leather case for the transportation of documents and two notaries: one in black, fat, and bald-headed; one in blue uniform, with a shining monocle, and a brown moustache that he continued to twirl...
Looking round that scene Sylvia's humour calmed her and she heard the general say:
'She's supposed to walk on my arm to that table and sign the settlement...We're supposed to be the first to sign it together...But she won't. Because of the price of coal. It appears that she has hothouses in miles. And she thinks the English have put up the price of coal as if...damn it you'd think we did it just to keep her hothouse stoves out.'
The duchess had delivered, apparently, a vindictive, cold, calm, and uninterruptible oration on the wickedness of her country's allies as people who should have allowed France to be devastated and the flower of her youth slain in order that they might put up the price of a comestible that was absolutely needed in her life. There was no arguing with her. There was no British soul there who both knew anything about economics and spoke French. And there she sat, apparently immovable. She did not refuse to sign the marriage contract. She just made no motion to go to it and, apparently, the resulting marriage would be illegal if that document were brought to her!
The general said:
Now, what the deuce will Christopher find to say to her? He'll find something because he could talk the hind legs off anything. But what the deuce will it be?...'
It almost broke Sylvia's heart to see how exactly Christopher did the right thing. He walked up that path to the sun and made in front of the duchess a little awkward nick with his head and shoulders that was rather more like a curtsy than a bow. It appeared that he knew the duchess quite well...as he knew everybody in the world quite well. He smiled at her and then became just suitably grave. Then he began to speak an admirable, very old-fashioned French with an atrocious English accent. Sylvia had no idea that he knew a word of the language--that she herself knew very well indeed. She said to herself that upon her word it was like hearing Chateaubriand talk--if Chateaubriand had been brought up in an English hunting country...Of course Christopher would cultivate an English accent: to show that he was an English country gentleman. And he would speak correctly--to show that an English Tory can do anything in the world if he wants to...
The British faces in the room looked blank: the French faces turned electrically upon him. Sylvia said:
'Who would have thought...?' The duchess jumped to her feet and took Christopher's arm. She sailed with him imperiously past the general and past Sylvia. She was saying that that was just what she would have expected of a milor Anglais...Avec un spleen tel que vous l'avez!
Christopher, in short, had told the duchess that as his family owned almost the largest stretch of hot-house coal-burning land in England and her family the largest stretch of hothouses in the sister-country of France, what could they do better than make an alliance? He would instruct his brother's manager to see that the duchess was supplied for the duration of hostilities and as long after as she pleased with all the coal needed for her glass at the pithead prices of the Middlesbrough-Cleveland district as the prices were on the 3rd of August, nineteen fourteen...He repeated: 'The pit-head price...livrable au prix de l'houillemaigre