Parade's End (103 page)

These things looked terribly sordid and forlorn. Why did he place them in the centre of the room? Why not against a wall? It is usual to stand the head of a bed against a wall when there is no support for the pillows. Then the pillows do not slip off. She would change … No, she would not. He had put the bed in the centre of the room because he did not want it to touch walls that had been brushed by the dress of… . You must not think bad things about that woman!

They did not look sordid and forlorn. They looked frugal. And glorious! She bent down and, drawing down the flea-bag at the top, kissed the pillows. She would get him linen pillows. You would be able to get linen now. The war was over. All along that immense line men could stand up!

At the head of the room was a dais. A box of square boarding, like the model-throne artists have in studios. Surely she did not receive her guests on a dais; like Royalty. She was capable …
You must not
… . It was perhaps for a piano. Perhaps she gave concerts. It was used as a library now. A row of calf-bound books stood against the wall on the back edge of the platform. She approached them to see what books he had selected. They must be the books he had read in France. If she could know what books he had read in France she would know what some of his thoughts there had been. She knew he slept between very cheap cotton sheets.

Frugal and glorious. That was he! And he had designed this room to love her in. It was the room she would have asked… . The furnishing … Alcestis never had… . For she, Valentine Wannop, was of frugal mind, too. And his
worshipper.
Having reflected glory… . Damn it, she was getting soppy. But it was curious how their tastes marched together. He had been neither haughty nor gauche. He had paid her the real compliment. He had said: ‘Her mind so marches with mine that she will understand.’

The books were indeed a job lot. Their tops ran along against the wall like an ill-arranged range of hills; one was a great folio in calf, the title indented deep and very dim. The others were French novels and little red military textbooks. She leaned over the dais to read the title of the tall book. She expected it to be Herbert’s
Poems
or his
Country Parson… . He
ought to be a Country Parson. He never would be now. She was depriving the church of… . Of a Higher Mathematician, really. The title of the book was
Vir. Obscur
.

Why did she take it that they were going to live together? She had no official knowledge that he wanted to. But
they
wanted to TALK. You can’t talk unless you live together. Her eye, travelling downwards along the dais, caught words on paper. They threw themselves up at her from among a disorder of half a dozen typed pages; they were in big, firm, pencilled letters. They stood out because they were pencilled; they were:

A man could stand up on a bleedin’ ’ill!

Her heart stopped. She must be out of condition. She could not stand very well, but there was nothing to lean on to. She had – she didn’t know she had – read also the typed words:

‘
Mrs. Tietjens is leaving the model cabinet by Barker of Bath which she believes you claim
… .’

She looked desperately away from the letter. She did not want to read the letter. She could not move away. She believed she was dying. Joy never kills… . But it … ‘
fait peur
’. ‘Makes afraid.’ Afraid! Afraid! Afraid! There was nothing now between them. It was as if they were already in each other’s arms. For surely the rest of the letter must say that Mrs. Tietjens had removed the furniture. And his comment – amazingly echoing the words she had just thought – was that he could stand up. But it wasn’t in the least amazing. My beloved is mine… . Their thoughts marched together; not in the least amazing. They could now stand on a hill together. Or get into a little hole. For good. And talk. For ever. She must not read the rest of
the
letter. She must not be certain. If she were certain she would have no hope of preserving her … Of remaining … Afraid and unable to move. Then she would be lost. She looked beseechingly out of the window at the house-fronts over the way. They were friendly. They would help her. Eighteenth-century. Cynical, but not malignant. She sprang right off her feet. She could move then. She hadn’t had a fit.

Idiot. It was only the telephone. It went on and on. Drrinn; drinnnn; drRinn. It came from just under her feet. No, from under the dais. The receiver was on the dais. She hadn’t consciously noticed it because she had believed the telephone was dead. Who notices a dead telephone?

She said – it was as if she was talking into his ear, he so pervaded her – she said:

‘Who are you?’

One ought not to answer all telephone calls, but one does so mechanically. She ought not to have answered this. She was in a compromising position. Her voice might be recognised. Let it be recognised. She desired to be known to be in a compromising position! What did you do on Armistice Day!

A voice, heavy and old, said:

‘You
are
there, Valentine… .’

She cried out:

‘Oh, poor
mother
… . But he’s not here.’ She added: ‘He’s not been here with me. I’m still only waiting.’ She added again: ‘The house is empty!’ She seemed to be stealthy, the house whispering round her. She seemed to be whispering to her mother to save her and not wanting the house to hear her. The house was eighteenth-century. Cynical. But not malignant. It wanted her undoing, but knew that women liked being … ruined.

Her mother said, after a long time:

‘Have you
got
to do this thing? … My little Valentine … My little Valentine!’ She wasn’t sobbing.

Valentine said:

‘Yes, I’ve got to do it!’ She sobbed. Suddenly she stopped sobbing.

She said quickly:

‘Listen mother. I’ve had no conversation with him. I don’t know even whether he’s sane. He appears to be
mad.’
She wanted to give her mother hope. Quickly. She had been speaking quickly to get hope to her mother as quickly as possible. But she added: ‘I believe that I shall die if I cannot live with him.’

She said that slowly. She wanted to be like a little child trying to get truth home to its mother.

She said:

‘I have waited too long. All these years.’ She did not know that she had such desolate tones in her voice. She could see her mother looking into the distance with every statement that came to her, thinking. Old and grey. And majestic and kind… . Her mother’s voice came:

‘I have sometimes suspected… . My poor child… . It has been for a long time?’ They were both silent. Thinking. Her mother said:

‘There isn’t any practical way out?’ She pondered for a long time. ‘I take it you have thought it all out. I know you have a good head and you are good.’ A rustling sound. ‘But I am not level with these times. I should be glad if there were a way out. I should be glad if you could wait for each other. Or perhaps find a legal …’

Valentine said:

‘Oh, mother, don’t cry!’ … ‘Oh, mother, I can’t …’ … ‘Oh, I will come… . Mother, I will come back to you if you order it.’ With each phrase her body was thrown about as if by a wave. She thought they only did that on the stage. Her eyes said to her:

… ‘
Dear sir
,

‘
Our Client, Mrs. Christopher Tietjens of Groby-in-Cleveland
…’

They said:

‘
After the occurrence at the Base-Camp at
…’

They said:

‘
Thinks it useless
…’

She was agonised for her mother’s voice. The telephone hummed in E-flat. It tried B. Then it went back to E-flat. Her eyes said:

‘
Proposes when occasion offers to remove to Groby
…’ in fat, blue typescript. She cried agonisedly:

‘Mother. Order me to come back or it will be too late… .’

She had looked down, unthinkingly … as one does when standing at the telephone. If she looked down again
and
read to the end of the sentence that contained the words ‘It is useless’, it would be too late! She would know that his wife had given him up!

Her mother’s voice came, turned by the means of its conveyance into the voice of a machine of Destiny.

‘No I can’t. I am thinking.’

Valentine placed her foot on the dais at which she stood. When she looked down it covered the letter. She thanked God. Her mother’s voice said:

‘I cannot order you to come back if it would kill you not to be with him.’ Valentine could feel her late-Victorian advanced mind, desperately seeking for the right plea – for any plea that would let her do without seeming to employ maternal authority. She began to talk like a book, an august Victorian book; Morley’s
Life of Gladstone
. That was reasonable: she wrote books like that.

She said they were both good creatures of good stock. If their consciences let them commit themselves to a certain course of action they were probably in the right. But she begged them, in God’s name to assure themselves that their consciences
did
urge that course. She
had
to talk like a book!

Valentine said:

‘It is nothing to do with conscience.’ That seemed harsh. Her mind was troubled with a quotation. She could not find it. Quotations ease strain; she said: ‘One is urged by blind destiny!’ A Greek quotation, then! ‘Like a victim upon an altar. I am afraid; but I consent!’ … Probably Euripides; the
Alcestis
very likely! If it had been a Latin author the phrases would have occurred to her in Latin. Being with her mother made her talk like a book. Her mother talked like a book: then
she
did. They
must
; if they did not they would scream… . But they were English ladies. Of scholarly habits of mind. It was horrible. Her mother said:

‘That is probably the same as conscience – race conscience!’ She could not urge on them the folly and disastrousness of the course they appeared to propose. She had, she said, known too many irregular unions that had been worthy of emulation and too many regular ones that were miserable and a cause of demoralisation by their examples… . She was a gallant soul. She could not in conscience go back on the teachings of her whole life.
She
wanted to. Desperately! Valentine could feel the almost physical strainings of her poor, tired brain. But she could not recant. She was not Cranmer! She was not even Joan of Arc. So she went on repeating:

‘I can only beg and pray you to assure yourself that not to live with that man will cause you to die or to be seriously mentally injured. If you think you can live without him or wait for him, if you think there is any hope of later union without serious mental injury I beg and pray …’

She could not finish the sentence … It was fine to behave with dignity at the crucial moment of your life! It was fitting, it was proper. It justified your former philosophic life. And it was cunning. Cunning!

For now she said:

‘My child! my little child! You have sacrificed all your life to me and my teaching. How can I ask you now to deprive yourself of the benefit of them?’

She said:

‘I
can’t
persuade you to a course that might mean your eternal unhappiness!’ … The
can’t
was like a flame of agony!

Valentine shivered. That was cruel pressure. Her mother was no doubt doing her duty; but it was cruel pressure. It was very cold. November is a cold month. There were footsteps on the stairs. She shook.

‘Oh, he is coming. He is coming!’ she cried out. She wanted to say: ‘Save me!’ She said: ‘Don’t go away! Don’t … Don’t go away!’ What do men do to you, men you love? Mad men. He was carrying a sack. The sack was the first she saw as he opened the door. Pushed it open; it was already half-open. A sack was a dreadful thing for a madman to carry. In an empty house. He dumped the sack down on the hearthstone. He had coal-dust on his right forehead. It was a heavy sack. Bluebeard would have had in it the corpse of his first wife. Borrow says that the gipsies say: ‘Never trust a young man with grey hair!’ He had only half-grey hair and he was only half young. He was panting. He must be stopped carrying heavy sacks. Panting like a fish. A great motionless carp, hung in a tank.

He said:

‘I suppose you would want to go out. If you don’t we will have a fire. You can’t stop here without a fire.’

At the same moment her mother said:

‘If that is Christopher I will speak to him.’

She said away from the mouthpiece:

‘Yes, let’s go out. Oh, oh, oh. Let’s go out… . Armistice … My mother wants to speak to you.’ She felt herself to be suddenly a little Cockney shop-girl. A midinette in an imitation Girl Guide’s uniform. ‘Afride of the gentleman, my dear.’ Surely one could protect oneself against a great carp! She could throw him over her shoulder. She had enough Ju Jitsu for that. Of course a little person trained to Ju Jitsu can’t overcome an untrained giant if he expects it. But if he doesn’t expect it she can.

His right hand closed over her left wrist. He had swum towards her and had taken the telephone in his left. One of the window-panes was so old it was bulging and purplish. There was another. There were several. But the first one was the purplishest. He said:

‘Christopher Tietjens speaking!’ He could not think of anything more recherché to say than that – the great inarticulate fellow! His hand was cool on her wrist. She was calm, but streaming with bliss. There was no other word for it. As if you had come out of a bath of warm nectar and bliss streamed off you. His touch had calmed her and covered her with bliss.

He let her wrist go very slowly. To show that the grasp was meant for a caress! It was their first caress!

Before she had surrendered the telephone she had said to her mother:

‘He doesn’t know… . Oh, realise that he doesn’t know!’

She went to the other end of the room and stood watching him.

He heard the telephone from its black depths say:

‘How are you, my dear boy? My dear, dear boy; you’re safe for good.’ It gave him a disagreeable feeling. This was the mother of the young girl he intended to seduce. He intended to. He said: