Parade's End (115 page)

At any rate that bitch must have become so engrossed in her tale that it had not come through to her that he, Mark, could not speak. Of course the results of venereal disease are not pleasant to contemplate and no doubt Sylvia having invented the disease for him had not liked to contemplate the resultant symptoms. At any rate that boy did not know – and neither did Mrs. de Bray Pape – that he did not speak; not to them, not to anybody. He was finished with the world. He perceived the trend of its actions, listened to its aspirations and even to its prayers, but he would never again stir lip or finger. It was like being dead – or being a God. This boy was apparently asking for absolution. He was of opinion that it was not a very sporting thing of himself and Mrs. Bray to come there… . It was however sporting enough. He could see that they were both as afraid of him, Mark, as of the very devil. Its taste might, however, be questioned. Still, the situation was unusual – as all situations are.

Obviously it was not in good taste for a boy to come to the house in which his father lived with a mistress, nor for the wife’s intimate friend either. Still they apparently wanted, the one to let, the other to take, Groby. They could not do either if he, Mark, did not give permission, or at any rate if he opposed them. It was business, and business may be presumed to cover quite a lot of bad taste.

And in effect the boy was saying that his mother was, of course, a splendid person but that he, Mark junior, found her proceedings in many respects questionable. One could not however expect a woman – and an injured woman … The boy with his shining eyes and bright cheeks seemed to beg Mark to concede that his mother was at least an injured woman… . One could not expect, then, a wronged woman to see things eye to eye with …
with
young Cambridge! For, he hastened to assure Mark, his Set – the son of the Prime Minister, young Doble, and Porter, as well as himself, were unanimously of opinion that a man ought to be allowed to live with whom he liked. He was not therefore questioning his father’s actions and, for himself, if the occasion arose, he would be very glad to shake his father’s … companion … by the hand.

His bright eyes became a little humid. He said that he was not in effect questioning anything, but he thought that he, himself, would have been the better for a little more of his father’s influence. He considered that he had been too much under his mother’s influence. They noticed it, even at Cambridge! That, in effect, was the real snag when it came to be a question of dissolving unions once contracted. Scientifically considered. Questions of … of sex-attraction, in spite of all the efforts of scientists, remained fairly mysterious. The best way to look at it… the safest way, was that sex-attraction occurred as a rule between temperamental and physical opposites because Nature desired to correct extremes. No one in fact could be more different than his father and mother – the one so graceful, athletic and … oh, charming. And the other so … oh, let us say perfectly honourable but lawless. Because, of course, you can break certain laws and remain the soul of honour.

Mark wondered if this boy was aware that his mother habitually informed everyone whom she met that his father lived on women. On the immoral earnings of women, she would infer when she thought it safe… .

The soul of honour, then, and masculinely clumsy and damn fine in his way… . Well, he, Mark Tietjens junior, was not there to judge his father. His Uncle Mark could see that he regarded his father with affection and admiration. But if Nature – he must be pardoned for using anthropomorphic expressions since they were the shortest way – if Nature then, meant unions of opposite characters to redress extremes in the children, the process did not complete itself with … in short with the act of physical union. For just as there were obviously inherited physical characteristics and no doubt inherited memory, there yet remained the question of the influence of temperament on temperament by means of personal association. So that for one opposite to leave the fruits of a
union
exclusively under the personal influence of the other opposite was very possibly to defeat the purposes of Nature… .

That boy, Mark thought, was a very curious problem. He seemed to be a good, straight boy. A little loquacious: still that was to be excused since he had to do all the talking himself. From time to time he had paused in his speech as if, deferentially, he wished to have Mark’s opinion. That was proper. He, Mark, could not stand hobbledehoys – particularly the hobbledehoys of that age who appeared to be opinionative and emotional beyond the normal in hobbledehoys. Anyhow, he could not stand the Young once they were beyond the age of childhood. But he was aware that, if you want to conduct a scientific investigation, if you want to arrive, for yourself, at the truth of an individual’s parentage – you must set aside your likes and dislikes.

Heaven knew, he had found Christopher, when he had been only one of the younger ones in his father’s – he had found him irritating enough … a rather moony, fair brat, interested mostly in mathematics, with a trick of standing with those goggle eyes gazing bluely at you – years ago in and around, at first the nursery, then the stables at Groby. Then, if this lad irritated him it was rather an argument in favour of his being Christopher’s son than Sylvia’s by-blow by another man… . What was the fellow’s name? A rank bad hat, anyhow.

The probability was that he
was
the other fellow’s son. That woman would not have trepanned Christopher into the marriage if she hadn’t at least thought that she was with child. There was nothing to be said against any wench’s tricking any man into marrying her if she were in that condition. But once having got a man to give a name to your bastard you ought to treat him with some loyalty: it is a biggish service he has done you. That Sylvia had never done… . They had got this young springald into their – the Tietjenses’ – family. There he was, with his fingers on Groby already… . That was all right. As great families as Tietjens’ had had that happen to them.

But what made Sylvia pestilential was that she should afterwards have developed this sex-madness for his unfortunate brother.

There was no other way to look at it. She had undoubtedly lured Christopher on to marry her because she thought rightly or wrongly that she was with child by another man. They would never know – she herself probably did not know! – whether this boy was Christopher’s son or the other’s. English women are so untidy – shamefaced – about these things. That was excusable. But every other action of hers from that date had been inexcusable – except regarded as actions perpetrated under the impulsion of sex-viciousness.

It is perfectly proper – it is a mother’s duty to give an unborn child a name and a father. But afterwards to blast the name of that father is more discreditable than to leave the child nameless. This boy was now Tietjens of Groby – but he was also the legal son of a father who had behaved unspeakably according to the mother… . And the son of a mother who had been unable to attract her man! … Who advertised the fact to the estate carpenter! If we say that the good of the breed is the supreme law, what sort of virtue was this?

It was all very well to say that every one of Sylvia’s eccentricities had in view the sole aim of getting her boy’s father to return to her. No doubt they might be. He, Mark, was perfectly ready to concede that even her infidelities, notorious as they had been, might have been merely ways of calling his unfortunate brother’s attention back to her – of keeping herself in his mind. After the marriage Christopher, finding out that he had been a mere catspaw, probably treated her pretty coldly or ignored her – maritally… . And he was a pretty attractive fellow, Christopher. He, Mark, was bound nowadays to acknowledge that. A regular saint and Christian martyr and all that… . Enough to drive a woman wild if she had to live beside him and be ignored.

It is obvious that women must be allowed what means they can make use of to maintain – to arouse – their sex-attraction for their men. That is what the bitches are for in the scale of things. They have to perpetuate the breed. To do that they have to call attention to themselves and to use what devices they see fit to use, each one according to her own temperament. That cruelty was an excitant he was quite ready, too, to concede. He was ready to concede anything to the woman. To be cruel is to draw attention
to
yourself; you cannot expect to be courted by a man whom you allow to forget you. But there probably ought to be a limit to things. You probably ought in this, as in all other things, to know what you can do and what you can’t – and the proof of this particular pudding, as of all others, was in the eating. Sylvia had left no stone unturned in the determination to keep herself in her man’s mind and she had certainly irretrievably lost her man: to another girl. Then she was just a nuisance.

A woman intent on getting a man back ought to have some system, some sort of scheme at the very least. But Sylvia – he knew it from the interminable talk that he had had with Christopher on Armistice night – Sylvia delighted most in doing what she called pulling the strings of shower-baths. She did extravagant things, mostly of a cruel kind, for the fun of seeing what would happen. Well, you cannot allow yourself fun when you are on a campaign. Not as to the subject matter of the campaign itself! If then you do what you want rather than what is expedient you damn well have to take what you get for it.
Damn
well!

What would have justified Sylvia, no matter what she did, would have been if she had succeeded in having another child by his brother. She hadn’t. The breed of Tietjens was not enriched. Then she was just a nuisance… .

An infernal nuisance … For what was she up to now? It was perfectly obvious that both Mrs. de Bray Pape and this boy were here because she had had another outbreak of … practically Sadism. They were here so that Christopher might be hurt some more and she not forgotten. What then was the reason for this visit? What the deuce was it?

The boy had been silent for some time. He was gazing at Mark with the goggle-eyed gasping that had been so irritating in his father – particularly on Armistice Day… . Well, he, Mark, was apparently now conceding that this boy was probably his brother’s son. A real Tietjens after all was to reign over the enormously long, grey house behind the fantastic cedar. The tallest cedar in Yorkshire; in England; in the Empire… . He didn’t care. He who lets a tree overhang his roof calls the doctor in daily… . The boy’s lips began to move. No sound came out. He was presumably in a great state!

He was undoubtedly like his father. Darker… . Brown hair, brown eyes, high-coloured cheeks all flushed now; straight nose, marked brown eyebrows. A sort of … scared, puzzled … what was it? … expression. Well, Sylvia was fair; Christopher was dark-haired with silver streaks, but fair-complexioned… . Damn it; this boy was more attractive than Christopher had been at his age and earlier… . Christopher hanging round the schoolroom door in Groby, puzzled over the mathematical theory of waves. He, Mark, hadn’t been able to stand him or indeed any of the other children. There was sister Effie –
born
to be a curate’s wife… . Puzzled! That was it! … That bothering woman, his father’s second wife – the Saint! – had introduced the puzzlement strain into the Tietjenses… . This was Christopher’s boy, saintly strain and all. Christopher was probably born to be a rural dean in a fat living, writing treatises on the integral calculus all the time except on Saturday afternoons. With a great reputation for saintliness. Well he wasn’t the one and hadn’t the other. He was an old-furniture dealer who made a stink in virtuous nostrils… . Provvy works in a mysterious way. The boy was saying now:

‘The tree … the great tree … It darkens the windows… .’

Mark said: ‘Aha!’ to himself. Groby Great Tree was the symbol of Tietjens. For thirty miles round Groby they made their marriage vows by Groby Great Tree. In the other Ridings they said that Groby Tree and Groby Well were equal in height and depth one to the other. When they were really imaginatively drunk Cleveland villagers would declare – would knock you down if you denied – that Groby Great Tree was 365 foot high and Groby Well 365 feet deep. A foot for every day of the year… . On special occasions – he could not himself be bothered to remember what – they would ask permission to hang rags and things from the boughs. Christopher said that one of the chief indictments against Joan of Arc had been that she and the other village girls of Domrèmy had hung rags and trinkets from the boughs of a cedar. Or maybe a thorn? Offerings to fairies… . Christopher set great store by the tree. He was a romantic ass. Probably he set more store by the tree than by anything else at Groby. He would pull the house down if he thought it incommoded the tree.

Young Mark was bleating, positively bleating:

‘The Italians have a proverb… . He who lets a tree overhang his house invites a daily call from the doctor … I agree myself… . In principle of course… .’

Well, that was that! Sylvia, then, was proposing to threaten to ask to have Groby Great Tree cut down. Only to threaten to ask. But that would be enough to agonise the miserable Christopher. You couldn’t cut down Groby Great Tree. But the thought that the tree was under the guardianship of unsympathetic people would be enough to drive Christopher almost dotty – for years and years.

‘Mrs. de Bray Pape,’ the boy was stammering, ‘is extremely keen on the tree’s being … I agree in principle… . My mother wished you to see that – oh, in modern days – a house is practically unlettable if … So she got Mrs. de Bray Pape… . She hasn’t had the courage though she swore she had… .’

He continued to stammer. Then he started and stopped, crimson. A woman’s voice had called:

‘Mr. Tietjens… . Mr. Mark … Hi … hup!’

A small woman, all in white, white breeches, white coat, white wide-awake, was slipping down from a tall bay with a white star on the forehead – a bay with large nostrils and an intelligent head. She waved her hand obviously at the boy and then caressed the horse’s nostrils. Obviously at the boy … for it was impossible that Mark, Senior, would know a woman who could make a sound like ‘Hi, hup!’ to attract his attention.