The Good Soldier_ A Tale of Passion - Ford Madox Ford [85]
Or, perhaps, it wasn’t. No, I rather think it wasn’t. It is difficult to figure out. I have said that the Kilsyte case eased the immediate tension for him and Leonora. It let him see that she was capable of loyalty to him; it gave her her chance to show that she believed in him. She accepted without question his statement that, in kissing the girl, he wasn’t trying to do more than administer fatherly comfort to a weeping child. And, indeed, his own world – including the magistrates – took that view of the case. Whatever people say, one’s world can be perfectly charitable at times… But, again, as I have said, it did Edward a great deal of harm.
That, at least, was his view of it. He assured me that, before that case came on and was wrangled about by counsel with all sorts of dirty-mindedness that counsel in that sort of case can impute, he had not had the least idea that he was capable of being unfaithful to Leonora. But, in the midst of that tumult – he says that it came suddenly into his head whilst he was in the witness-box – in the midst of those august ceremonies of the law there came suddenly into his mind the recollection of the softness of the girl’s body as he had pressed her to him. And, from that moment, that girl appeared desirable to him – and Leonora completely unattractive.
He began to indulge in daydreams in which he approached the nursemaid more tactfully and carried the matter much further. Occasionally he thought of other women in terms of wary courtship – or, perhaps, it would be more exact to say that he thought of them in terms of tactful comforting, ending in absorption. That was his own view of the case. He saw himself as the victim of the law. I don’t mean to say that he saw himself as a kind of Dreyfus.131 The law, practically, was quite kind to him. It stated that in its view Captain Ashburnham had been misled by an ill-placed desire to comfort a member of the opposite sex, and it fined him five shillings for his want of tact, or of knowledge of the world. But Edward maintained that it had put ideas into his head.
I don’t believe it, though he certainly did. He was twenty-seven then, and his wife was out of sympathy with him – some crash was inevitable. There was between them a momentary rapprochement; but it could not last. It made it, probably, all the worse that, in that particular matter, Leonora had come so very well up to the scratch. For, whilst Edward respected her more and was grateful to her, it made her seem by so much the more cold in other matters that were near his heart – his responsibilities, his career, his tradition. It brought his despair of her up to a point of exasperation – and it riveted on him the idea that he might find some other woman who would give him the moral support that he needed. He wanted to be looked upon as a sort of Lohengrin.
At that time, he says, he went about deliberately looking for some woman who could help him. He found several – for there were quite a number of ladies in his set who were capable of agreeing with this handsome and fine fellow that the duties of a feudal gentleman were feudal. He would have liked to pass his days talking to one or other of these ladies. But there was always an obstacle – if the lady were married there would be a husband who claimed the greater part of her time and attention. If, on the other hand, it were an unmarried girl, he could not see very much of her for fear of compromising her. At that date, you understand, he had not the least idea of seducing any one of these ladies. He wanted only moral support at the hands of some female, because he found men difficult to talk to about ideals. Indeed, I do not believe that he had, at any time, any idea of making any one his mistress. That sounds queer; but I believe it is quite true as a statement of character.
It was, I believe, one of Leonora’s priests – a man of the world – who suggested that she should take him to Monte Carlo.132 He had the idea that what Edward needed, in order to fit him for the society of Leonora, was a touch of irresponsibility. For Edward, at