Parade's End (45 page)

‘Will you be my mistress to-night? I am going out to-morrow at 8.30 from Waterloo.’

She had answered:

‘Yes! Be at such and such a studio just before twelve… . I have to see my brother home… . He will be drunk… .’ She meant to say: ‘Oh, my darling, I have wanted you so much… .’

She said instead:

‘I have arranged the cushions… .’

She said to herself:

‘Now whatever made me say that? It’s as if I had said: “You’ll find the ham in the larder under a plate… .” No tenderness about it… .’

She went away, up a cockle-shelled path, between ankle-high railings, crying bitterly. An old tramp, with red weeping eyes and a thin white beard, regarded her curiously from where he lay on the grass. He imagined himself the monarch of that landscape.

‘That’s women!’ he said with the apparently imbecile enigmaticality of the old and the hardened. ‘Some do!’ He spat into the grass; said: ‘Ah!’ then added: ‘Some do not!’

VI

HE LET HIMSELF
in at the heavy door; when he closed it behind him, in the darkness, the heaviness of the door sent long surreptitious whisperings up the great stone stairs. These sounds irritated him. If you shut a heavy door on an enclosed space it will push air in front of it and there will be whisperings; the atmosphere of mystery was absurd. He was just a man, returning after a night out… . Two-thirds, say, of a night out! It must be half-past three. But what the night had lacked in length it had made up in fantastic aspects… .

He laid his cane down on the invisible oak chest and, through the tangible and velvety darkness that had always in it the chill of the stone of walls and stairs, he felt for the handle of the breakfast-room door.

Three long parallelograms existed: pale glimmerings above, cut two-thirds of the way down by the serrations of chimney pot and roof-shadows! Nine full paces across the heavy piled carpet; then he ought to reach his round-backed chair, by the left-hand window. He reached his round-backed chair, by the left-hand window. He sank into it; it fitted exactly his back. He imagined that no man had ever been so tired and that no man had ever been so alone! A small, alive sound existed at the other end of the room; in front of him existed one and a half pale parallelograms. They were the reflection of the windows in the mirror; the sound was no doubt Calton, the cat. Something alive, at any rate! Possibly Sylvia at the other end of the room, waiting for him, to see what he looked like. Most likely! It didn’t matter!

His mind stopped! Sheer weariness!

When it went on again it was saying:

‘Naked shingles and surges drear …’ and, ‘On these debatable borders of the world!’ He said sharply: ‘Nonsense!’ The one was either
Calais beach
or
Dover sands
of the whiskered man: Arnold… . He would be seeing them both within the twenty-four hours… . But no! He was going from Waterloo. Southampton, Havre, therefore! … The other was by that detestable fellow: ‘the subject of our little monograph!’ … What a long time ago! … He
saw
a pile of shining despatch cases: the inscription ‘
This rack is reserved for
…’; a coloured – pink and blue! – photograph of Boulogne sands and the held-up squares, the proofs of ‘our little …’. What a long time ago! He heard his own voice saying in the new railway carriage, proudly, clearly, and with male hardness:

‘
I stand for monogamy and chastity. And for no talking about it. Of course if a man who’s a man wants to have a woman he has her. And again no talking about it
… .’ His voice – his own voice – came to him as if from the other end of a long-distance telephone. A damn long-distance one! Ten years …

If then a man who’s a man wants to have a woman… . Damn it, he doesn’t! In ten years he had learnt that a Tommy who’s a decent fellow… . His mind said at one and the same moment, the two lines running one over the other like the two subjects of a fugue:

‘Some beguiling virgins with the broken seals of perjury’, and:

‘Since when we stand side by side, only hands may meet!’

He said:

‘But damn it; damn it again! The beastly fellow was wrong! Our hands didn’t meet… . I don’t believe I’ve shaken hands… . I don’t believe I’ve touched the girl … in my life… . Never once! … Not the handshaking sort… . A nod! … A meeting and parting! … English, you know … But yes, she put her arm over my shoulders… . On the bank! …
On such short acquaintance!
I said to myself then … Well, we’ve made up for it since then. Or no! Not made up! … Atoned… . As Sylvia so aptly put it; at that moment mother was dying… .’

He, his conscious self, said:

‘But it was probably the drunken brother… . You don’t beguile virgins with the broken seals of perjury in Kensington High Street at two at night supporting, one on each side, a drunken bluejacket with intermittent legs… .’

‘Intermittent!’ was the word. ‘Intermittently functioning!’

At one point the boy had broken from them and run with astonishing velocity along the dull wood paving of an immense empty street. When they had caught him up he had been haranguing under black hanging trees, with an Oxford voice, an immobile policeman:

‘You’re the fellows!’ he’d been exclaiming, ‘who make old England what she is! You keep the peace in our homes! You save us from the vile excesses… .’

Tietjens himself he had always addressed with the voice and accent of a common seaman; with his coarsened surface voice!

He had the two personalities. Two or three times he had said:

‘Why don’t you kiss the girl? She’s a
nice
girl, isn’t she? You’re a poor b—y Tommy, ain’t cher? Well, the poor b—y Tommies ought to have all the nice girls they want! That’s straight, isn’t it? …’

And, even at that time they hadn’t known what was going to happen… . There are certain cruelties… . They had got a four-wheel cab at last. The drunken boy had sat beside the driver; he had insisted… . Her little, pale, shrunken face had gazed straight before her… . It hadn’t been possible to speak; the cab, rattling all over the road, had pulled up with frightful jerks when the boy had grabbed at the reins… . The old driver hadn’t seemed to mind; but they had had to subscribe all the money in their pockets to pay him after they had carried the boy into the black house… .

Tietjens’ mind said to him:

‘Now when they came to her father’s house so nimbly she slipped in, and said: “There is a fool without and is a maid within… .”’

He answered dully:

‘Perhaps that’s what it really amounts to… .’ He had stood at the hall door, she looking out at him with a pitiful face. Then from the sofa within the brother had begun to snore; enormous, grotesque sounds, like the laughter of unknown races from darkness. He had turned and walked down the path, she following him. He had exclaimed:

‘It’s perhaps too … untidy …’

She had said:

‘Yes! Yes … Ugly … Too … oh …
private!
’

He said, he remembered:

‘But … for ever …’

She said, in a great hurry:

‘But when you come back… . Permanently. And … oh, as if it were in public… . I don’t know,’ she had
added.
‘
Ought
we? … I’d be ready… .’ She added: ‘I will be ready for anything you ask.’

He had said at some time: ‘But obviously… . Not under
this
roof… .’ And he had added: ‘We’re the sort that …
do not
!’

She had answered, quickly too:

‘Yes – that’s it. We’re that sort!’ And then she had asked: ‘And Ethel’s party? Was it a great success?’ It hadn’t, she knew, been an inconsequence. He had answered:

‘Ah …
That’s
permanent …
That’s
public… . There was Rugeley. The Duke … Sylvia brought him. She’ll be a great friend! … And the President of the Local Government Board, I think … and a Belgian … equivalent to Lord Chief Justice … and, of course, Claudine Sandbach… . Two hundred and seventy; all of the best, the modestly-elated Guggumses said as I left! And Mr. Ruggles … Yes! … They’re established… . No place for me!’

‘Nor for
me
!’ she had answered. She added: ‘But I’m glad!’

Patches of silence ran between them. They hadn’t yet got out of the habit of thinking they had to hold up the drunken brother. That had seemed to last for a thousand painful months… . Long enough to acquire a habit. The brother seemed to roar: ‘Haw – Haw – Kuryasch… .’ And after two minutes: ‘Haw – Haw – Kuryasch… .’ Hungarian, no doubt!

He said:

‘It was splendid to see Vincent standing beside the Duke. Showing him a first edition! Not of course
quite
the thing for a, after all, wedding party! But how was Rugeley to know that? … And Vincent not in the least servile! He even corrected cousin Rugeley over the meaning of the word
colophon
! The first time he ever corrected a superior! … Established, you see! … And
practically
cousin Rugeley… . Dear Sylvia Tietjens’ cousin, so the next to nearest thing! Wife of Lady Macmaster’s
oldest
friend… . Sylvia going to them in their – quite modest! – little place in Surrey… . As for us,’ he had concluded ‘they also serve who only stand and wait… .’

She said:

‘I suppose the rooms looked lovely.’

He had answered:

‘Lovely… . They’d got all the pictures by that beastly fellow up from the rectory study in the dining-room on dark oak panelling… . A fair blaze of bosoms and nipples and lips and pomegranates… . The tallest silver candlesticks of course… . You remember, silver candlesticks and dark oak… .’

She said:

‘Oh, my dear … Don’t …
Don’t!
’

He had just touched the rim of his helmet with his folded gloves.

‘So we just wash out!’ he had said.

She said:

‘Would you take this bit of parchment… . I got a little Jew girl to write on it in Hebrew: It’s “God bless you and keep you: God watch over you at your goings out and at …”’

He tucked it into his breast pocket.

‘The talismanic passage,’ he said. ‘Of course I’ll wear it… .’

She said:

‘If we
could
wash out this afternoon… . It would make it easier to bear… . Your poor mother, you know, she was dying when we last …’

He said:

‘You remember
that
… Even then you … And if I hadn’t gone to Lobscheid… .’

She said:

‘From the first moment I set eyes on you… .’

He said:

‘And I … from the first moment … I’ll tell you … if I looked out of a door … it was all like sand… . But to the half left a little bubbling up of water. That could be trusted. To keep on for ever… . You, perhaps, won’t understand.’

She said:

‘Yes! I know!’

They were seeing landscapes… . sand dunes; close-cropped… . Some negligible shipping; a stump-masted brig from Archangel… .

‘From the first moment,’ he repeated.

She said:

‘If we
could
wash out …’

He said, and for the first moment felt grand, tender, protective:

‘Yes, you
can
,’ he said. ‘You cut out from this afternoon, just before 4.58 it was when I said that to you and you consented … I heard the Horse Guards clock… . To now… . Cut it out; and join time up… . It
can
be done… . You know they do it surgically; for some illness; cut out a great length of the bowel and join the tube up… . For colitis, I think… .’

She said:

‘But I
wouldn’t
cut it out… . It was the first spoken sign.’

He said:

‘No it wasn’t… . From the very beginning … with every word… .’

She exclaimed:

‘You felt that too! … We’ve been pushed, as in a carpenter’s vice… . We couldn’t have got away… .’

He said: ‘By God! That’s it… .’

He suddenly saw a weeping willow in St. James’s Park; 4.59! He had just said: ‘Will you be my mistress to-night?’ She had gone away, half left, her hands to her face… . A small fountain; half left. That could be trusted to keep on for ever… .

Along the lake side, sauntering, swinging his crooked stick, his incredibly shiny top-hat perched sideways, his claw-hammer coat tails, very long, flapping out behind, in dusty sunlight, his magpie pince-nez gleaming, had come, naturally, Mr. Ruggles. He had looked at the girl; then down at Tietjens, sprawled on his bench. He had just touched the brim of his shiny hat. He said:

‘Dining at the club to-night? …’

Tietjens said: ‘No; I’ve resigned.’

With the aspect of a long-billed bird chewing a bit of putridity, Ruggles said:

‘Oh, but we’ve had an emergency meeting of the committee … the committee was sitting … and sent you a letter asking you to reconsider… .’

Tietjens said:

‘I know… . I shall withdraw my resignation to-night. And resign again to-morrow morning.’

Ruggles’ muscles had relaxed for a quick second, then they stiffened.

‘Oh, I say!’ he had said. ‘Not that… . You couldn’t do that… . Not to the
club
! … It’s never been done… . It’s an insult… .’

‘It’s meant to be,’ Tietjens said. ‘Gentlemen shouldn’t be expected to belong to a club that has certain members on its committee.’

Ruggles’ deepish voice suddenly grew very high.

‘Eh, I say, you know!’ he squeaked.

Tietjens had said:

‘I’m not vindictive… . But I
am
deadly tired: of all old women and their chatter.’

Ruggles had said:

‘I don’t …’ His face had become suddenly dark brown, scarlet, and then brownish purple. He stood droopingly looking at Tietjens’ boots.

‘Oh! Ah! Well!’ he said at last. ‘See you at Macmaster’s to-night… . A great thing his knighthood. First-class man… .’

That had been the first Tietjens had heard of Macmaster’s knighthood; he had missed looking at the honours’ list of that morning. Afterwards, dining alone with Sir Vincent and Lady Macmaster, he had seen, pinned up, a back view of the Sovereign doing something to Vincent; a photo for next morning’s papers. From Macmaster’s embarrassed hushings of Edith Ethel’s explanation that the honour was for special services of a specific kind Tietjens guessed both the nature of Macmaster’s service and the fact that the little man hadn’t told Edith Ethel who, originally, had done the work. And – just like his girl – Tietjens had let it go at that. He didn’t see why poor Vincent shouldn’t have that little bit of prestige at home – under all the monuments! But he hadn’t – though through all the evening Macmaster, with the solicitude and affection of a cringing Italian greyhound, had hastened from celebrity to celebrity to hang over Tietjens, and although Tietjens knew that his friend was grieved and appalled, like any woman, at his, Tietjens’, going out again to France – Tietjens hadn’t been able to look Macmaster again in the face… . He had felt ashamed. He had felt, for the first time in his life, ashamed!