Parade's End (41 page)

Edith Ethel looked at her with a long, calculating glance. Then she went to stand before the fireplace.

That had been five – or at most six – Fridays before Valentine sat with Mark Tietjens in the War Office waiting hall, and, on the Friday immediately before that again, all the guests being gone, Edith Ethel had come to the tea-table and, with her velvet kindness, had placed her right hand on Valentine’s left. Admiring the gesture with a deep fervour, Valentine knew that that was the end.

Three days before, on the Monday, Valentine, in her school uniform, in a great store to which she had gone to buy athletic paraphernalia, had run into Mrs. Duchemin, who was buying flowers. Mrs. Duchemin had been horribly distressed to observe the costume. She had said:

‘But do you go
about
in that? It’s really dreadful.’

Valentine had answered:

‘Oh, yes. When I’m doing business for the school in school hours I’m expected to wear it. And I wear it if I’m going anywhere in a hurry after school hours. It saves my dresses. I haven’t got too many.’

‘But
anyone
might meet you,’ Edith Ethel said in a note of agony. ‘It’s very inconsiderate. Don’t you
think
you’ve been very inconsiderate? You might meet any of the people who come to our Fridays!’

‘I frequently do,’ Valentine said. ‘But they don’t seem to mind. Perhaps they think I’m a Waac officer. That would be quite respectable… .’

Mrs. Duchemin drifted away, her arms full of flowers and real agony upon her face.

Now, beside the tea-table she said, very softly:

‘My dear, we’ve decided not to have our usual Friday afternoon next week.’ Valentine wondered whether this was merely a lie to get rid of her. But Edith Ethel went on: ‘We’ve decided to have a little evening festivity. After a great deal of thought we’ve come to the conclusion that we ought, now, to make our union public.’ She paused to await comment, but Valentine making none she went on: ‘It coincides very happily – I can’t help feeling it coincides very happily! – with another event. Not that
we
set much store by these things… . But it has been whispered to Vincent that next Friday… . Perhaps, my dear Valentine, you, too, will have heard …’

Valentine said:

‘No, I haven’t. I suppose he’s got the O.B.E. I’m very glad.’

‘The Sovereign,’ Mrs. Duchemin said, ‘is seeing fit to confer the honour of knighthood on him.’

‘Well!’ Valentine said. ‘He’s had a quick career. I’ve no doubt he deserves it. He’s worked very hard. I do sincerely congratulate you. It’ll be a great help to you.’

‘It’s,’ Mrs. Duchemin said, ‘not for mere plodding. That’s what makes it so gratifying. It’s for a special piece of brilliance, that has marked him out. It’s, of course, a secret. But …’

‘Oh, I know!’ Valentine said. ‘He’s worked out some calculations to prove that losses in the devastated districts, if you ignore machinery, coal output, orchard trees, harvests, industrial products and so on, don’t amount to more than a year’s household dilapidations for the …’

Mrs. Duchemin said with real horror:

‘But how did you know? How on
earth
did you know? …’ She paused. ‘It’s such a
dead
secret… . That fellow must have told you… . But how on earth could
he
know?’

‘I haven’t seen Mr. Tietjens to speak to since the last time he was here,’ Valentine said. She saw, from Edith Ethel’s bewilderment, the whole situation. The miserable Macmaster hadn’t even confided to his wife that the practically stolen figures weren’t his own. He desired to have a little prestige in the family circle; for once a little prestige! Well! Why shouldn’t he have it? Tietjens, she knew, would wish him to have all he could get. She said therefore:

‘Oh, it’s probably in the air… . It’s known the Government want to break their claims to the higher command. And anyone who could help them to that would get a knighthood… .’

Mrs. Duchemin was more calm.

‘It’s certainly,’ she said, ‘Burke’d, as you call it, those beastly people.’ She reflected for a moment. ‘It’s probably that,’ she went on. ‘It’s in the air. Anything that can help to influence public opinion against those horrible people is to be welcomed. That’s known pretty widely… . No! It could hardly be Christopher Tietjens who thought of it and told you. It wouldn’t enter his head. He’s their friend! He would be …’

‘He’s certainly,’ Valentine said, ‘not a friend of his country’s enemies. I’m not myself.’

Mrs. Duchemin exclaimed sharply, her eyes dilated.

‘What do you mean? What on earth do you dare to mean? I thought you were a pro-German!’

Valentine said:

‘I’m not! I’m not! … I hate men’s deaths … I hate any men’s deaths… . Any men …’ She calmed herself by main force. ‘Mr. Tietjens says that the more we hinder our allies the more we drag the war on and the more lives are lost… . More lives, do you understand? …’

Mrs. Duchemin assumed her most aloof, tender, and high air: ‘My poor child,’ she said, ‘what possible concern can the opinions of that broken fellow cause anyone? You can warn him from me that he does himself no good by going on uttering these discredited opinions. He’s a marked man. Finished! It’s no good Guggums, my husband, trying to stand up for him.’

‘He
does
stand up for him?’ Valentine asked. ‘Though I don’t see why it’s needed. Mr. Tietjens is surely able to take care of himself.’

‘My good child,’ Edith Ethel said, ‘you may as well know the worst. There’s not a more discredited man in London than Christopher Tietjens, and my husband does himself infinite harm in standing up for him. It’s our one quarrel.’

She went on again:

‘It was all very well whilst that fellow had brains. He was said to have some intellect, though I could never see it. But now that, with his drunkenness and debaucheries, he has got himself into the state he is in; for there’s no other way of accounting for his condition! They’re striking him, I don’t mind telling you, off the roll of his office… .’

It was there that, for the first time, the thought went through Valentine Wannop’s mind, like a mad inspiration: this woman must at one time have been in love with Tietjens. It was possible, men being what they were, that she had even once been Tietjens’ mistress. For it was impossible otherwise to account for this spite, which to Valentine seemed almost meaningless. She had, on the other hand, no impulse to defend Tietjens against accusations that could not have any possible grounds.

Mrs. Duchemin was going on with her kind loftiness:

‘Of course a fellow like that – in that condition! – could not understand matters of high policy. It is imperative
that
these fellows should not have the higher command. It would pander to their insane spirit of militarism. They
must
be hindered. I’m talking, of course, between ourselves, but my husband says that that is the conviction in the very highest circles. To let them have their way, even if it led to earlier success, would be to establish a precedent – so my husband says! – compared with which the loss of a few lives… .’

Valentine sprang up, her face distorted.

‘For the sake of Christ,’ she cried out, ‘as you believe that Christ died for you, try to understand that millions of men’s lives are at stake… .’

Mrs. Duchemin smiled.

‘My poor child,’ she said, ‘if you moved in the higher circles you would look at these things with more aloofness… .’

Valentine leant on the back of a high chair for support.

‘You don’t move in the higher circles,’ she said. ‘For Heaven’s sake – for your own – remember that you are a woman, not for ever and for always a snob. You were a good woman once. You stuck to your husband for quite a long time… .’

Mrs. Duchemin, in her chair, had thrown herself back.

‘My good girl,’ she said, ‘have you gone mad?’

Valentine said:

‘Yes, very nearly. I’ve got a brother at sea; I’ve had a man I loved out there for an infinite time. You can understand that, I suppose, even if you can’t understand how one can go mad merely at the thoughts of suffering at all… . And I know, Edith Ethel, that you are afraid of my opinion of you, or you wouldn’t have put up all the subterfuges and concealments of all these years… .’

Mrs. Duchemin said quickly:

‘Oh, my good girl… . If you’ve got personal interests at stake you can’t be expected to take abstract views of the higher matters. We had better change the subject.’

Valentine said:

‘Yes, do. Get on with your excuses for not asking me and mother to your knighthood party.’

Mrs. Duchemin, too, rose at that. She felt at her amber beads with long fingers that turned very slightly at the tips. She had behind her all her mirrors, the drops of her lustres, shining points of gilt and of the polish of dark
woods.
Valentine thought that she had never seen anyone so absolutely impersonate kindness, tenderness, and dignity. She said:

‘My dear, I was going to suggest that it was the sort of party to which you might not care to come… . The people will be stiff and formal and you probably haven’t got a frock.’

Valentine said:

‘Oh, I’ve got a frock all right. But there’s a Jacob’s ladder in my party stockings and that’s the sort of ladder you can’t kick down.’ She couldn’t help saying that.

Mrs. Duchemin stood motionless and very slowly redness mounted into her face. It was most curious to see against that scarlet background the vivid white of the eyes and the dark, straight eyebrows that nearly met. And, slowly again her face went perfectly white; then her dark blue eyes became marked. She seemed to wipe her long, white hands one in the other, inserting her right hand into her left and drawing it out again.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a dead voice. ‘We had hoped that, if that man went to France – or if other things happened – we might have continued on the old friendly footing. But you yourself must see that, with our official position, we can’t be expected to connive …’

Valentine said:

‘I don’t understand!’

‘Perhaps you’d rather I didn’t go on!’ Mrs. Duchemin retorted. ‘I’d much rather not go on.’

‘You’d probably better,’ Valentine answered.

‘We had meant,’ the elder woman said, ‘to have a quiet little dinner – we two and you, before the party – for auld lang syne. But that fellow has forced himself in, and you see for yourself that we can’t have you as well.’

Valentine said:

‘I don’t see why not. I always like to see Mr. Tietjens!’

Mrs. Duchemin looked hard at her.

‘I don’t see the use,’ she said, ‘of your keeping on that mask. It is surely bad enough that your mother should go about with that man and that terrible scenes like that of the other Friday should occur. Mrs. Tietjens was heroic; nothing less than heroic. But you have no right to subject us, your friends, to such ordeals.’

Valentine said:

‘You mean … Mrs. Christopher Tietjens …’

Mrs. Duchemin went on:

‘My husband insists that I should ask you. But I will not. I simply will not. I invented for you the excuse of the frock. Of course we could have given you a frock if that man is so mean or so penniless as not to keep you decent. But I repeat, with our official position we cannot – we cannot; it would be madness! – connive at this intrigue. And all the more as the wife appears likely to be friendly with us. She has been once: she may well come again.’ She paused and went on solemnly: ‘And I warn you, if the split comes – as it must, for what woman could stand it! – it is Mrs. Tietjens we shall support. She will always find a home here.’

An extraordinary picture of Sylvia Tietjens standing beside Edith Ethel and dwarfing her as a giraffe dwarfs an emu, came into Valentine’s head. She said:

‘Ethel! Have I gone mad? Or is it you? Upon my word I can’t understand… .’

Mrs. Duchemin exclaimed:

‘For God’s sake hold your tongue, you shameless thing! You’ve had a child by the man, haven’t you?’

Valentine saw suddenly the tall silver candlesticks, the dark polished panels of the rectory and Edith Ethel’s mad face and mad hair whirling before them.

She said:

‘No! I certainly haven’t. Can you get that into your head? I certainly haven’t.’ She made a further effort over immense fatigue. ‘I assure you – I beg you to believe if it will give you any ease – that Mr. Tietjens has never addressed a word of love to me in his life. Nor have I to him. We have hardly talked to each other in all the time we have known each other.’

Mrs. Duchemin said in a harsh voice:

‘Seven people in the last five weeks have told me you have had a child by that brute beast: he’s ruined because he has to keep you and your mother and the child. You won’t deny that he has a child somewhere hidden away? …’

Valentine exclaimed suddenly:

‘Oh, Ethel, you mustn’t … you
mustn’t
be jealous of me! If you only knew you wouldn’t be jealous of me… . I suppose the child you were going to have was by
Christopher?
Men are like that… . But not of me! You need never, never. I’ve been the best friend you can ever have had… .’

Mrs. Duchemin exclaimed harshly, as if she were being strangled:

‘A sort of blackmail! I knew it would come to that! It always does with your sort. Then do your damnedest, you harlot. You never set foot in this house again! Go you and rot… .’ Her face suddenly expressed extreme fear and with great swiftness she ran up the room. Immediately afterwards she was tenderly bending over a great bowl of roses beneath the lustre. The voice of Vincent Macmaster from the door had said:

‘Come in, old man. Of course I’ve got ten minutes. The book’s in here somewhere… .’

Macmaster was beside her, rubbing his hands, bending with his curious, rather abject manner, and surveying her agonisedly with his eyeglass, which enormously magnified his lashes, his red lower lid and the veins on his cornea.

‘Valentine!’ he said, ‘my dear Valentine… . You’ve heard? We’ve decided to make it public… . Guggums will have invited you to our little feast. And there will be a surprise, I believe… .’

Edith Ethel looked, as she bent, lamentably and sharply, over her shoulder at Valentine.