Parade's End (131 page)

The eyes of the statue were if possible doubly bent on her!

The bitter answer came to her as if from stiff lips:

‘An the King will have my head I carena what he may do with my …’

It affected Valentine disagreeably – with a pang of jealousy. What it amounted to was that Sylvia said: ‘You
have
my man, so you may as well have his name.’ But by using a saying that Christopher used habitually – and that Mark had used habitually when he could speak – by using then a Tietjens-family saying she asserted that she too had belonged to the Tietjens family, and, before Valentine, had been intimate with their sayings to the point of saturation.

That statue went on speaking.

It said:

‘I wanted to get those people out… . And to see …’ It spoke very slowly. Marmoreally. The flowers in the jug on the fald-stool needed more water. Marigolds. Orange… . A woman is upset when her child moves within her. Sometimes more, sometimes less. She must have been very upset: there had been a lot of people in the room; she knew neither how they had come nor how they had gone. She said to Marie Léonie:

‘Dr. Span is bringing some bromide… . I can’t find those …’

Marie Léonie was looking at that figure; her eyes stuck out of her head like Christopher’s. She said, as still as a cat watching a mouse:

‘Qui este elle? C’est bien la femme?’

It looked queerly like a pilgrim in a ballet, now, that figure against the light – the long legs slightly bent gave that effect. Actually this was the third time she had seen it – but in the dark house she had not really seen the face… . The features had been contorted and thus not the real features: these were the real features. There was about that figure something timid. And noble. It said:

‘Sporting! Michael said: “Be sporting, mother!” … But sporting… .’ It raised its hand as if to shake a fist at heaven. The hand struck the beam across the ceiling; that roof was so low. And dear! It said:

‘It was Father Consett really … They can all, soon, call you Mrs. Tietjens. Before God, I came to drive those people out… . But I wanted to see how it was you kept him… .’

Sylvia Tietjens was keeping her head turned aside, drooping. Hiding a tendency to tears, no doubt. She said to the floor:

‘I say again, as God hears me, I never thought to harm your child. His child… . But any woman’s… . Not harm a child … I have a fine one, but I wanted another … with
its
littleness… . It’s the riding has done it… .’ Someone sobbed!

She looked loweringly then at Valentine:

‘It’s Father Consett in heaven that has done this. Saint and martyr, desiring soft things! I can almost see his shadow across these walls now it’s growing dark. You hung him: you did not even shoot him though I say you shot him to save my feelings… . And it’s you who will be going on through all the years… .’

She bit into a small handkerchief that she had in her hand, concealed. She said:

‘Damn it, I’m playing pimp to Tietjens of Groby – leaving my husband to you! …’

Someone again sobbed.

It occurred to Valentine that Christopher had left those prints at old Hunt’s sale in a jar on the field. They had not wanted the jar. Then Christopher had told a dealer called Hudnut that he could have that jar and some others against a little carting service… . He would be tired, when he got back, Christopher. But he would have to go to Hudnut’s, Gunning could not be trusted. They must not disappoint Lady Robinson… .

Marie Léonie said:

‘C’est lamentable qu’un seul homme puisse inspirer deux passions pareilles dans deux femmes… . C’est le martyre de notre vie!’

Yes, it was lamentable that a man could inspire two such passions in two women. Marie Léonie went to look after Mark. Sylvia Tietjens was gone. They say joy never kills. She fell straight down onto the floor. Lumpishly… . It was lucky they had the Bussorah rug otherwise Chrissie … They had no money… . Poor … poor …

IV

MARK TIETJENS HAD
lain considering the satisfaction of a great night he had lately passed. Or perhaps not lately; at some time.

Lying out there in the black nights the sky seemed enormous. You could understand how somewhere heaven could be concealed in it. And tranquil at times. Then you felt the earth wheeling through infinity.

Night birds cried overhead: herons, ducks, swans even; the owls kept closer to the ground, beating along the hedgerows. Beasts became busy in the long grass. They rustled busily, then paused for long. No doubt a rabbit ran till it found an attractive plantain. Then it nibbled for a long time without audible movement. Now and then cattle lowed, or many lambs – frightened by a fox maybe… .

But there would nevertheless be long silences… . A stoat would get onto the track of the rabbit. They would run, run, run brushing through the long grass, then out into the short meadow and round and round, the rabbit squealing. Loudly at first.

In the dim illumination of his night-light dormice would climb up the posts of his shelter. They would remain regarding him with beads of eyes. When the rabbits squealed they would hunch themselves together and shiver. They knew it meant S … t … o … at – stoat! Their turn soon!

He despised himself a little for attending to these minutiae – as if one were talking down to a child… . On his great night the whole cattle of the country had been struck with panic; you heard them crashing down through the hedges and miles down into the silent valleys.

No! He had never been one to waste his time and mind on small mammals and small birds… . The Flora and Fauna of Blankshire! … Not for him. It was big movements interested him: ‘wherein manifesteth itself the voice of God!’ … Very likely that was true. Transport! Panic in cattle over whole counties. In people, over whole continents!

Once years – oh, years and years ago, when he had been aged twelve and on a visit to Grandfather he had taken a gun to Redcar Sands from Groby, over the moors, and with one shot he had brought down two terns, a sandpiper, and a herring gull. Grandfather had been so delighted with his prowess – though naturally the shot had been a fluke – that he had the things stuffed and there they were in Groby Nursery to this day. The herring gull stiff on a mossy rock; the sandpiper doing obeisance before it, the terns flying, one on each side. Probably that was the only memorial to him, Mark Tietjens, at Groby. The younger children had been wont to refer with awe to
‘Mark’s
bag’, for long years afterwards. The painted background had been Bamborough Castle with lashings of foam and blue sky. It was a far cry from Redcar to Bamborough – but that was the only background the bird-stuffing chap in Middlesbrough could paint for sea-birds. For larks and the like he had a cornfield in the Vale of York; for nightingales, poplar trees… . Never heard that nightingales were particularly partial to poplars!

… Nightingales disturbed the majesty of great nights; for two months out of the year, more or less, according to the nature of the season. He wasn’t decrying the beauty of their voices. Hearing them you felt like seeing a good horse win the St. Leger. No other things in the world could do it – just as there was no place in the world like Newmarket Heath on a breezy day… . But they limited the night. It was true that nightingales deep down in the spinney near where Gunning’s hut must be – say a quarter of a mile away – could make you think of great distance, echoing up through the deep woods. Woods dripping with dew beneath the moon… . And air-raids not so long ago! The moon brought air-raids and its shining was discouraged… . Yes, nightingales made you think of distance just as the night-jar forever crepitating from twilight to dawn seemed to measure a fragment of eternity… . But only fragments! The great night was itself eternity and the Infinite… . The spirit of God walking on the firmament.

Cruel beggars, nightingales: they abused one another with distended throats all through the nights. Between the gusts of gales you could hear them shouting on – telling their sitting-hens that they – each one – were the devils of fellows, the other chap, down the hill by Gunning’s hut, being a bedraggled, louse-eaten, braggart… . Sex ferocity!

Gunning lived in a bottom, in a squatter’s cottage, they said. With a thatch like Robinson Crusoe’s bonnet. A wise-woman’s cottage. He lived with the wise-woman, a chalk-white-faced slattern… . And a grand-daughter of the wise-woman whom, because she had a cleft palate and only half a brain the parish, half out of commiseration, half for economy, had nominated mistress in the school up the hill. No one knew whether Gunning slept with the wise-woman or the grand-daughter; for one or the other
he
had left his missus and Fittleworth had tanned his hide and taken his cottage from him. He thrashed them both impartially with a hunting thong every Saturday night – to teach them, and to remind them that for them he had lost his cottage and the ten bob a week Fittleworth allowed such hinds as had been in his service thirty years… . Sex ferocity again!

And how shall I thy true love know from another one? Oh, by his cockled hat and staff and by his sandalled shoon!

An undoubted pilgrim had suggested irresistibly the lines to him! … It was, naturally, that bitch Sylvia. Wet eyes she had! … Then some psychological crisis was going on inside her. Good for her.

Good for Val and Chris, possibly. There was no real knowing… . Oh, but there was. Hear to that: the bitch-pack giving tongue! Heard ye ever the like to that, sirs. She had had Groby Great Tree torn down… . But as God was her maker she would not tear another woman’s child …

He felt himself begin to perspire… . Well, if Sylvia had come to that his, Mark’s, occupation was gone. He would no longer have to go on willing against her; she would drop into the sea in the wake of their family vessel and be lost to view… . But damn it, she must have suffered to be brought to that extreme… . Poor bitch! Poor bitch! The riding had done it… . She ran away, a handkerchief to her eyes.

He felt satisfaction and impatience. There was some place to which he desired to get back. But there were also things to be done: to be thought out… . If God was beginning to temper the wind to these flayed lambs … Then … He could not remember what he wanted to think about… . It was – no, not exasperating. Numb! He felt himself responsible for their happiness. He wanted them to go rubbing along, smooth with the rough, for many long, unmarked years… . He wanted Marie Léonie to stay with Valentine until after her deliverance and then go to the Dower House at Groby. She was Lady Tietjens. She knew she was Lady Tietjens and she would like it. Besides she would be a thorn in the flesh of Mrs… . He could not remember the name… .

He wished that Christopher would get rid of his Jewish partner so as to addle a little brass. It was their failing as Tietjenses that they liked toadies. He himself had bitched all their lives by having that fellow Ruggles years ago sharing his rooms. Because he could not have borne to share with an equal and Ruggles was half Jew, half Scotchman. Christopher had had for toadies firstly Macmaster, a Scot, and then this American Jew. Otherwise he, Mark, was reconciled with things. Christopher no doubt was wise in his choice. He had achieved a position in which he might – with just a little more to it – anticipate jogging away to the end of time, leaving descendants to carry on the country without swank.

Ah… . It came to his mind to remember, almost with pain. He had accepted nephew Mark as nephew Mark: a strong slip. A good boy… . But there was the point … the point! The boy had the right sort of breeches… . But if there were incest… .

Crawling through a hedge after a rabbit was thinkable. Father had been in the churchyard to shoot rabbits to oblige the vicar. There was no doubt of that. He did not want rabbits… . But supposing he had mis-hit a bunny and the little beast had been throwing gymnastics on the other side of the quickset? Father would have crawled through then rather than go all the way to the lych-gate and round. Decent men put their mis-hits out of their agony as soon as possible. Then there was motive. And as for not putting his gun out of action before crawling through the quickset… . Many good, plucked men had died like that… .
And father had grown absent-minded!
… There had been farmer Lowther had so died; and Pease of Lobhall; and Pease of Cullercoats. All good plucked farmers… . Crawling through hedges rather than go round, and with their guns at full cock! And not absent-minded men… . But he had remembered … just now, he had remembered that father had grown absent-minded. He would put a paper in one of his waistcoat pockets and fumble for it in all his other pockets a moment after; he would push his spectacles up onto his forehead and search all the room for them; he would place his knife and fork in his plate and whilst talking take another knife and fork from beside it and begin again to eat… . Mark remembered that his father had done that
twice
during the last meal they had eaten together – whilst he, Mark, had been presenting the fellow Ruggles’ account of Christopher’s misdeeds… .

Then it need not be incumbent on him, Mark, to go up to his father in heaven and say: ‘Hullo, sir. I understand you had a daughter by the wife of your best friend, she being now with child by your son.’ Rather ghostly to introduce yourself to the awful ghost of your father… . Of course you would be a ghost yourself. Still, not, with your billycock hat, umbrella, and racing-glasses, an awful ghost! … And to say to your father: ‘I understand that you committed suicide!’

Against the rules of the Club… . For I consider it no grief to be going there where so many great men have preceded me. Sophocles that, wasn’t it? So, on his authority it was a damn good club… .

But he did not have to anticipate that
mauvais quart d’heure
! Dad quite obviously did not commit suicide. He wasn’t the man to do so. So Valentine was not his daughter and there was no incest. It is all very well to say that you care little about incest. The Greeks made a hell of a tragic row about it… . Certainly it was a weight off the chest. He had always been able to look Christopher in the eyes – but he would be able to do it better than ever now. Comfortably! It is uncomfortable to look a man in the eyes and think: You sleep between incestuous sheets.