Parade's End (129 page)

It was queer. You would almost say that there was a Provvy who delighted to torment you with: ‘If it hadn’t been that …’ Christopher probably believed that there was a Provvy or he would not dream for his little Chrissie a country parsonage… . He proposed, if they ever made any money, to buy a living for him – if possible near Salisbury… . What was the name of the place … a pretty name? … Buy a living where George Herbert had been parson… .

She must, bye the bye, remember to tell Marie Léonie that it was the Black Orpington labelled 42, not the Red 16 that she had put the setting of Indian Runners under. She had found that Red 16 was not really broody, though she had come on afterwards. It was queer that Marie Léonie had not the courage to put eggs under broody hens because they pecked her whereas she, Valentine, had no courage to take the chickens when the settings hatched, because of the shells and gumminesses that might be in the nests… . Yet neither of them wanted courage… . Hang it all, neither of them wanted courage
or
they would not be living at Tietjens’s. It was like being tied to buffaloes!

And yet… . How you wanted them to change!

Bremersyde… . No that was the home of the Haigs… . Tide what will and tide what tide, there shall be Haigs at Bremersyde… . Perhaps it was Bemersyde! … Bemerton, then. George Herbert, rector of Bemerton, near Wilton, Salisbury… . That was what Chrissie was to be like… . She was to imagine herself sitting with her cheek on Chrissie’s floss-silk head, looking into the fire and seeing in the coals, Chrissie, walking under elms beside plough-lands.
Elle ne demandait
, really,
pas mieux!

If the country would stand it! …

Christopher presumably believed in England as he believed in Provvy – because the land was pleasant and green and comely. It would breed true. In spite of showers of Americans descended from Tiglath Pileser and Queen Elizabeth and the end of the industrial system and the statistics of the shipping trade, England with its pleasant, green comeliness would go on breeding George Herberts with Gunnings to look after them… . Of course with Gunnings!

The Gunnings of the land were the rocks on which the lighthouse was built – as Christopher saw it. And Christopher was always right. Sometimes a little previous. But always right. Always right. The rocks had been there a million years before the lighthouse was built, the lighthouse made a deuce of a movable flashing – but it was a mere butterfly. The rocks would be there a million years after the light went for the last time out.

A Gunning would be, in the course of years, painted blue, a Druid-worshipper, later, a Duke Robert of Normandy, illiterately burning towns and begetting bastards – and eventually – actually at the moment – a man of all works, half-full of fidelity, half blatant, hairy. A retainer you would retain as long as you were prosperous and dispensed hard cider and overlooked his blear-eyed peccadilloes with women. He would go on… .

The point was whether the time had come for another Herbert of Bemerton. Christopher thought it had; he was always right, always right. But previous. He had predicted the swarms of Americans buying up old things. Offering fabulous prices. He was right. The trouble was they did
not
pay when they offered the fabulous prices: when they did pay they were as mean as … she was going to say Job. But she did not know that Job was particularly mean. That lady down below the window would probably want to buy the signed cabinet of Barker of 1762 for half the price of one bought in a New York department store and manufactured yesterday… . And she would tell Valentine she was a bloodsucker – even if – to suppose the ridiculous! – Valentine let her have it at her own price. On the other hand Mr. Schatzweiler talked of fantastic prices… .

Oh, Mr. Schatzweiler, Mr. Schatzweiler, if you would only pay us ten per cent. of what you owe us I could have all the pink fluffies, and three new gowns and keep the little old lace for Chrissie – and have a proper dairy, and not milk goats. And cut the losses over the confounded pigs and put up a range of glass in the sunk garden where it would not be an eye-sore… . As it was, the age of fairy-tales was not, of course, past. They had had windfalls, lovely windfalls when infinite ease had seemed to stretch out before them… . A great windfall when they had bought this place; little ones for the pigs and old mare… . Christopher was that sort of fellow; he had sowed so many golden grains that he could not be always reaping whirlwinds. There must be some halcyon days… .

Only it was deucedly awkward now – with Chrissie coming and Marie Léonie hinting all day that, as she was losing her figure, if she could not get the grease stains out of her skirt she would lose the affections of Christopher. And they had not got a stiver… . Christopher had cabled Schatzweiler. But what was the use of that? … Schatzweiler would be finely dished if she lost the affections of Christopher – because poor old Chris could not run any old junk shop without her! … She imagined cabling Schatzweiler – about the four stains on the skirt and the necessity for elegant lying-in gowns. Or else he would lose Christopher’s assistance… .

The conversation down below raised its tones. She heard the tweeny maid ask why, if the American lady was a friend of the family, she did not know ’Er Ladyship theere? … Of course it was easy to understand: these people came, all of them, with letters of introduction
from
Schatzweiler. Then they insisted that they were friends of the family. It was perhaps nice of them – because most English people would not want to know old-furniture dealers.

The lady below exclaimed in a high voice:

‘That Lady Mark Tietjens! That! Mercy me, I thought it was the cook!’

She, Valentine, ought to go down and help Marie Léonie. But she was not going to. She had the sense that hostile presences were creeping up the paths and Marie Léonie had given her the afternoon off … For the sake of the future, Marie Léonie had said. And
she
had said that she had once expected her own future to offer the reading of Æschylus beside the Ægean sea. Then Marie Léonie had kissed her and said she knew that she, Valentine would never rob her of her belongings after Mark died!

An unsolicited testimonial, that; but of course Marie Léonie would desire her not to lose the affections of Christopher: Marie Léonie would say to herself that in that case Christopher might take up with a woman who
would
want to rob Marie Léonie of her possessions after Mark died.

The woman down below announced herself as Mrs. de Bray Pape, descendant of the Maintenon, and wanted to know if Marie Léonie did not think it reasonable to cut down a tree that overhung your house. Valentine desired to spring to the window: she sprang to the old panelled door and furiously turned the key in the lock. She ought not to have turned the key so carelessly; it had a knack of needing five or ten minutes’ manipulation before you could unlock the door again… . She ought to have sprung to the window and cried out to Mrs. de Bray Pape:

‘If you so much as touch a leaf of Groby Great Tree we will serve you with injunctions that it will take half your life and money to deal with!’

She ought to have done that to save Christopher’s reason. But she could not, she could not! It was one thing living with all the tranquillity of conscience in the world in open sin. It was another, confronting elderly Americans who knew the fact. She was determined to remain shut in there. An Englishman’s house may no longer be his castle – but an Englishwoman’s castle is certainly
her
own bedroom. When once, four months or so ago, the existence of little Chrissie being manifest, she had expressed to Christopher the idea that they ought no longer to go stodging along in penury, the case being so grave; they ought to take some of the Groby money – for the sake of future generations… .

Well, she had been run down… . At that stage of parturition, call it, a woman is run down and hysterical… . It had seemed to her overwhelmingly the fact that a breeding woman ought to have pink fluffy things next her quivering skin and sprayings of, say, Houbigant all over her shoulders and hair. For the sake of the child’s health.

So she had let out violently at poor wretched old Chris who was faced with the necessity for denying his gods and she had slammed to and furiously locked that door. Her castle had been her bedroom with a vengeance then – for Christopher had been unable to get in or she to get out. He had had to whisper through the keyhole that he gave in; he was dreadfully concerned for her. He had said that he hoped she would try to stick it a little longer, but, if she would not, he would take Mark’s money.

Naturally she had not let him – but she
had
arranged with Marie Léonie for Mark to pay a couple of pounds more a week for their board and lodging and as Marie Léonie had perforce taken over the housekeeping they had found things easing off a little. Marie Léonie had run the house for thirty shillings a week less than she, Valentine, had ever been able to do – and run it streets better. Streets and streets! So they had had money at least nearly to complete their equipments of table linen and the layette… . The long and complicated annals!

It was queer that her heart was nearly as much in Christopher’s game as was his own. As house-mother she ought to have grabbed after the last penny – and goodness knew the life was strain enough. Why do women back their men in unreasonable romanticisms? You might say that it was because if their men had their masculinities abated – like defeated roosters! – the women would suffer in intimacies… . Ah, but it wasn’t that! Nor was it merely that they wanted the buffaloes to which they were attached to charge.

It was really that she had followed the convolutions of her man’s mind. And ardently approved. She disapproved
with
him of riches, of the rich, of the frame of mind that riches confers. If the war had done nothing else for them – for those two of them – it had induced them at least to instal Frugality as a deity. They desired to live hard even if it deprived them of the leisure in which to think high! She agreed with him that if a ruling class loses the capacity to rule – or the desire! – it should abdicate from its privileges and get underground.

And having accepted that as a principle, she could follow the rest of his cloudy obsessions and obstinacies.

Perhaps she would not have backed him up in his long struggle with dear Mark if she had not considered that their main necessity was to live high… . And she was aware that why, really, she had sprung to the door rather than to the window, had been that she had not desired to make an unfair move in that long chess game; on behalf of Christopher. If she had had to see Mrs. de Bray Pape or to speak to her it would have been disagreeable to have that descendant of a king’s companion look at her with the accusing eyes of one who thinks: ‘You live with a man without being married to him!’ Mrs. de Bray Pape’s ancestress had been able to force the king to marry her… . But that she would have chanced: they had paid penalty enough for having broken the rules of the Club. She could carry her head high: not obtrusively high, but sufficiently! For, in effect they had surrendered Groby in order to live together and she had endured sprays of obloquy that seemed never to cease to splash over the garden hedges … in order to keep Christopher alive and sane!

No, she would have faced Mrs. de Bray Pape. But she would hardly, given Christopher’s half-crazed condition, have kept herself from threatening Mrs. Pape with dreadful legal consequences if she touched Groby Great Tree. That would not have been jonnock. That would have been to interfere in the silent Northern struggle between the brothers. That she would never do, even to save Christopher’s reason – unless she were jumped into it! … That Mark did not intend to interfere between Mrs. Pape and the tree she knew – for when she had read Mrs. Pape’s letter to him he had signified as much to her by means of his eyes… . Mark she loved and respected because he was a dear – and because he had backed her through
thick
and thin. Without him … There had been a moment on that dreadful night… . She prayed God that she would not have to think again of that dreadful night… . If she had to see Sylvia again she would go mad, and the child within her… . Deep, deep within her the blight would fall on the little thread of brain!

Mrs. de Bray Pape, God be thanked, provided diversion for her mind. She was speaking French with an eccentricity that could not be ignored.

Valentine could see, without looking out of the window, Marie Léonie’s blank face and the equal blankness with which she must have indicated that she did not intend to understand. She imagined her standing, motionless, pinafored and unmerciful before the other lady who beneath the three-cornered hat was stuttering out:

‘Lady Tietjens, mwaw Madam de Bray Pape desire coo-pay la arbre… .’

Valentine could hear Marie Léonie’s steely tones saying:

‘On dit “l’arbre”, Madame!’

And then the high voice of the little maid:

‘Called us “the pore” she did, your ladyship… . Ast us why we could not take example!’

Then a voice, soft for these people, and with modulations:

‘Sir Mark seems to be perspiring a great deal. I was so free as to wipe …’

Whilst, above, Valentine said: ‘Oh Heaven!’ Marie Léonie cried out: ‘Mon Dieu!’ and there was a rush of skirts and pinafore.

Marie Léonie was rushing past a white, breeched figure, saying:

‘Vous, une étrangère, avez osé… .’

A shining, red-cheeked boy was stumbling slightly from before her. He said, after her back:

‘Mrs. Lowther’s handkerchief is the smallest, softest …’ He added to the young woman in white: ‘We’d better go away… . Please let’s go away… . It’s not sporting… .’ A singularly familiar face; a singularly moving voice.

‘For God’s sake let us go away… .’

Who said ‘For God’s sake!’ like that – with staring blue eyes?

She was at the door frantically trying to twist the great iron key; the lock was of very old hammered ironwork. The doctor ought to be telephoned to. He had said that if Mark had fever or profuse sweats he should be telephoned to at once. Marie Léonie would be with him; it was her, Valentine’s, duty to telephone. The key would not turn; she hurt her hand in the effort. But part of her emotion was due to that bright-cheeked boy. Why should he have said that it was not sporting of them to be there? Why had he exclaimed for God’s sake to go away? The key would not turn. It stayed solid, like a piece of the old lock… . Who was the boy like? She rammed her shoulder against the unyielding door. She must not do that. She cried out.