Delphi Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated)

by Ford Madox Ford

make out which of them was right. I leave it to you. It is, at any rate, certain that Edward’s actions were perfectly — were monstrously, were cruelly — correct. He sat still and let Leonora take away his character, and let Leonora damn him to deepest hell, without stirring a finger. I daresay he was a fool; I don’t see what object there was in letting the girl think worse of him than was necessary. Still there it is. And there it is also that all those three presented to the world the spectacle of being the best of good people. I assure you that during my stay for that fortnight in that fine old house, I never so much as noticed a single thing that could have affected that good opinion. And even when I look back, knowing the circumstances, I can’t remember a single thing any of them said that could have betrayed them. I can’t remember, right up to the dinner, when Leonora read out that telegram — not the tremor of an eyelash, not the shaking of a hand. It was just a pleasant country house-party. And Leonora kept it up jolly well, for even longer than that — she kept it up as far as I was concerned until eight days after Edward’s funeral. Immediately after that particular dinner — the dinner at which I received the announcement that Nancy was going to leave for India on the following day — I asked Leonora to let me have a word with her. She took me into her little sitting-room and I then said — I spare you the record of my emotions — that she was aware that I wished to mar...