Some Do Not . . ._ A Novel - Ford Madox Ford [86]
'I should not have thought they counted,' Sylvia said. 'Of course they count,' Tietjens said. 'They write for the Press. They can get anybody anything...except themselves!'
'Like you!' Sylvia said; 'exactly like you! They're a lot of bribed squits.'
'Oh, no,' Tietjens said. 'It isn't done obviously or discreditably. Don't believe that Macmaster distributes forty-pounders yearly of bounty on condition that he gets advancement. He hasn't, himself, the least idea of how it works, except by his atmosphere.'
'I never knew a beastlier atmosphere,' Sylvia said. 'It reeked of rabbit's food.'
'You're quite mistaken,' Tietjens said; 'that is the Russian leather of the backs of the specially bound presentation copies in the large bookcase.'
'I don't know what you're talking about,' Sylvia said. 'What are presentation copies? I should have thought you'd had enough of the beastly Russian smells Kiev stunk of.'
Tietjens considered for a moment.
'No! I don't remember it,' he said. 'Kiev?...Oh, it's where we were...'
'You put half your mother's money,' Sylvia said, 'into the Government of Kiev 12½ per cent. City Tramways...
At that Tietjens certainly winced, a type of wincing that Sylvia hadn't wanted.
'You're not fit to go out to-morrow,' she said. 'I shall wire to old Campion.'
'Mrs Duchemin,' Tietjens said woodenly. 'Mrs Macmaster that is, also used to burn a little incense in the room before the parties...Those Chinese stinks...what do they call them? Well, it doesn't matter,' he added resignedly, Then he went on: 'Don't you make any mistake. Mrs Macmaster is a very superior woman. Enormously efficient! Tremendously respected. I shouldn't advise even you to come up against her, now she's in the saddle.'
Mrs Tietjens said:
'That sort of woman!'
Tietjens said:
'I don't say you ever will come up against her. Your spheres differ. But, if you do, don't...I say it because you seem to have got your knife into her.'
'I don't like that sort of thing going on under my windows,' Sylvia said.
Tietjens said:
'What sort of thing?...I was trying to tell you a little about Mrs Macmaster...she's like the woman who was the mistress of the man who burned the other fellow's horrid book...I can't remember the names.'
Sylvia said quickly:
'Don't try!' In a slower tone she added: 'I don't in the least want to know...'
'Well, she was an Egeria!' Tietjens said. 'An inspiration to the distinguished. Mrs Macmaster is all that. The geniuses swarm round her, and with the really select ones she corresponds. She writes superior letters, about the Higher Morality usually; very delicate in feeling. Scotch naturally. When they go abroad she sends them snatches of London literary happenings; well done, mind you! And then, every now and then, she slips in something she wants Macmaster to have. But with great delicacy...Say it's this C.B...she transfuses into the minds of Genius One, Two and Three the idea of a C.B. for Macmaster...Genius No. One lunches with the Deputy Sub-Patronage Secretary, who looks after literary honours and lunches with geniuses to get the gossip...'
'Why,' Sylvia said, 'did you lend Macmaster all that money?'
'Mind you,' Tietjens continued his own speech, 'it's perfectly proper. That's the way patronage is distributed in this country; it's the way it should be. The only clean way. Mrs Duchemin backs Macmaster because he's a first-class fellow for his job. And she is an influence over the geniuses because she's a first-class person for hers...She represents the higher, nicer morality for really nice Scots. Before long she will be getting tickets stopped from being sent to people for the Academy soirées. She already does it for the Royal Bounty dinners. A little later, when Macmaster is knighted for bashing the French in the eye, she'll have a tiny share in auguster assemblies...Those people have to ask somebody for advice. Well, one day you'll want to present some débutante. And you won't