Parade's End (56 page)

She was a thoroughbred. He had always credited her with being that. And now she was behaving as if she had every mean vice that a mare could have. Or it looked like it. Was that, then, because she had been in his stable? But how in the world otherwise could he have run their lives? She had been unfaithful to him. She had never been anything but unfaithful to him, before or after marriage. In a high-handed way so that he could not condemn her, though it was disagreeable enough to himself. He took her back into his house after she had been off with the fellow Perowne. What more could she ask? … He could find no answer. And it was not his business!

But even if he did not bother about the motives of the poor beast of a woman, she was the mother of his heir. And now she was running about the world declaiming about her wrongs. What sort of a thing was that for a boy to have happen to him? A mother who made scenes before the servants! That was enough to ruin any boy’s life… .

There was no getting away from it that that was what Sylvia had been doing. She had deluged the general with letters for the last two months or so, at first merely contenting herself with asking where he, Tietjens, was and in what state of health, conditions of danger, and the like. Very decently, for some time, the old fellow had said nothing about the matter to him. He had probably taken the letters to be the naturally anxious inquiries of a wife with a husband at the front; he had considered that Tietjens’ letters to her must have been insufficiently communicative, or concealed what she imagined to be wounds or a position of desperate danger. That would not have been very pleasant in any case; women should not worry superior officers about the vicissitudes of their menfolk. It was not done. Still, Sylvia was very intimate with Campion and his family – more intimate than he himself was, though Campion was his godfather. But quite obviously her letters had got worse and worse.

It was difficult for Tietjens to make out exactly what she had said. His channel of information had been Levin, who was too gentlemanly ever to say anything direct at all. Too gentlemanly, too implicitly trustful of Tietjens’ honour … and too bewildered by the charms of Sylvia, who had obviously laid herself out to bewilder the poor staffwallah… . But she had gone pretty far, either in her
letters
or in her conversation since she had been in that city, to which – it was characteristic – she had come without any sort of passports or papers, just walking past gentlemen in their wooden boxes at pierheads and the like, in conversation with – of all people in the world! – with Perowne, who had been returning from leave with King’s dispatches, or something glorified of the Staff sort! In a special train very likely. That was Sylvia all over.

Levin said that Campion had given Perowne the most frightful dressing down he had ever heard mortal man receive. And it really was
damn
hard on the poor general, who, after happenings to one of his predecessors, had been perfectly rabid to keep skirts out of his headquarters. Indeed it was one of the crosses of Levin’s worried life that the general had absolutely refused him, Levin, leave to marry Miss de Bailly if he would not undertake that that young woman should leave France by the first boat after the ceremony. Levin, of course, was to go with her, but the young woman was not to return to France for the duration of hostilities. And a fine row all her noble relatives had raised over that. It had cost Levin another hundred and fifty thousand francs in the marriage settlements. The married wives of officers in any case were not allowed in France, though you could not keep out their unmarried ones… .

Campion, anyhow, had dispatched his furious note to Tietjens after receiving, firstly, in the early morning, a letter from Sylvia in which she said that her ducal second-cousin, the lugubrious Rugeley, highly disapproved of the fact that Tietjens was in France at all, and after later receiving, towards four in the afternoon, a telegram, dispatched by Sylvia herself from Havre, to say that she would be arriving by a noon train. The general had been almost as much upset at the thought that his car would not be there to meet Sylvia as by the thought that she was coming at all. But a strike of French railway civilians had delayed Sylvia’s arrival. Campion had dispatched, within five minutes, his snorter to Tietjens, who he was convinced knew all about Sylvia’s coming, and his car to Rouen Station with Levin in it.

The general, in fact, was in a fine confusion. He was convinced that Tietjens, as Man of Intellect, had treated Sylvia badly, even to the extent of stealing two pair of her
best
sheets, and he was also convinced that Tietjens was in close collusion with Sylvia. As Man of Intellect, Campion was convinced, Tietjens was dissatisfied with his lowly job of draft-forwarding officer, and wanted a place of an extravagantly cushy kind in the general’s own entourage… . And Levin had said that it made it all the worse that Campion in his bothered heart thought that Tietjens really ought to have more exalted employment. He had said to Levin:

‘Damn it all, the fellow ought to be in command of my Intelligence instead of you. But he’s unsound. That’s what he is, unsound. He’s too brilliant… . And he’d talk both the hind legs off Sweedlepumpkins.’ Sweedlepumpkins was the general’s favourite charger. The general was afraid of talk. He practically never talked with anyone except about his job – certainly never with Tietjens – without being proved to be in the wrong, and that undermined his belief in himself.

So that altogether he was in a fine fume. And confusion. He was almost ready to believe that Tietjens was at the bottom of every trouble that occurred in his immense command.

But, when all that was gathered, Tietjens was not much farther forward in knowing what his wife’s errand in France was.

‘She complains,’ Levin had bleated painfully at some point on the slippery coastguard path, ‘about your taking her sheets. And about a Miss … a Miss Wanostrocht, is it? … The general is not inclined to attach much importance to the sheets.’

It appeared that a sort of conference on Tietjens’ case had taken place in the immense tapestried salon in which Campion lived with the more intimate members of his headquarters, and which was, for the moment, presided over by Sylvia, who had exposed various wrongs to the general and Levin. Major Perowne had excused himself on the ground that he was hardly competent to express an opinion. Really, Levin said, he was sulking, because Campion had accused him of running the risk of getting himself and Mrs. Tietjens ‘talked about’. Levin thought it was a bit thick of the general. Were none of the members of his staff ever to escort a lady anywhere? As if they were sixth-form schoolboys… .

‘But you … you … you …’ he stuttered and shivered together, ‘certainly
do
seem to have been remiss in not writing to Mrs. Tietjens. The poor lady – excuse me! – really appears to have been out of her mind with anxiety… .’ That was why she had been waiting in the general’s car at the bottom of the hill. To get a glimpse of Tietjens’ living body. For they had been utterly unable, up at H.Q., to convince her that Tietjens was even alive, much less in that town.

She hadn’t in fact waited even so long. Having apparently convinced herself by conversation with the sentries outside the guard-room that Tietjens actually still existed, she had told the chauffeur-orderly to drive her back to the Hôtel de la Poste, leaving the wretched Levin to make his way back into the town by tram, or as best he might. They had seen the lights of the car below them, turning, with its gaily lit interior, and disappearing among the trees along the road farther down… . The sentry, rather monosyllabically and gruffly – you can tell all right when a Tommie has something at the back of his mind! – informed them that the sergeant had turned out the guard so that all his men together could assure the lady that the captain was alive and well. The obliging sergeant said that he had adopted that manœuvre which generally should attend only the visits of general officers and, once a day, for the C.O., because the lady had seemed so distressed at having received no letters from the captain. The guard-room itself, which was unprovided with cells, was decorated by the presence of two drunks who, having taken it into their heads to destroy their clothing, were in a state of complete nudity. The sergeant hoped, therefore, that he had done no wrong. Rightly the Garrison Military Police ought to take drunks picked up outside camp to the A.P.M.’s guard-room, but seeing the state of undress and the violent behaviour of these two, the sergeant had thought right to oblige the Red Caps. The voices of the drunks, singing the martial anthem of the ‘Men of Harlech’ could be heard corroborating the sergeant’s opinion as to their states. He added that he would not have turned out the guard if it had not been for its being the captain’s lady.

‘A damn smart fellow, that sergeant,’ Colonel Levin had said. ‘There couldn’t have been any better way of convincing Mrs. Tietjens.’

Tietjens had said – and even whilst he was saying it he tremendously wished he hadn’t:

‘Oh, a
damned
smart fellow,’ for the bitter irony of his tone had given Levin the chance to remonstrate with him as to his attitude towards Sylvia. Not at all as to his actions – for Levin conscientiously stuck to his thesis that Tietjens was the soul of honour – but just as to his tone of voice in talking of the sergeant who had been kind to Sylvia, and, just precisely, because Tietjens’ not writing to his wife had given rise to the incident. Tietjens had thought of saying that, considering the terms on which they had parted, he would have considered himself as molesting the lady if he had addressed to her any letter at all. But he said nothing and, for quarter of an hour, the incident resolved itself into a soliloquy on the slippery hillside, delivered by Levin on the subject of matrimony. It was a matter which, naturally, at that moment very much occupied his thoughts. He considered that a man should so live with his wife that she should be able to open all his letters. That was his idea of the idyllic. And when Tietjens remarked with irony that he had never in his life either written or received a letter that his wife might not have read, Levin exclaimed with such enthusiasm as almost to lose his balance in the mist:

‘I was sure of it, old fellow. But it enormously cheers me up to hear you say so.’ He added that he desired as far as possible to model his ideas of life and his behaviour on those of this his friend. For, naturally, about as he was to unite his fortunes with those of Miss de Bailly, that could be considered a turning point of his career.

IV

THEY HAD GONE
back up the hill so that Levin might telephone to headquarters for his own car in case the general’s chauffeur should not have the sense to return for him. But that was as far as Tietjens got in uninterrupted reminiscence of that scene… . He was sitting in his flea-bag, digging idly with his pencil into the squared page of his notebook which had remained open on his knees, his eyes going over and over again the words with which his report on his own case had concluded – the
words:
So the interview ended rather untidily
. Over the words went the image of the dark hillside with the lights of the town, now that the air-raid was finished, spreading high up into the sky below them… .

But at that point the doctor’s batman had uttered, as if with a jocular, hoarse irony, the name:

‘Poor — O Nine Morgan! …’ and over the whitish sheet of paper on a level with his nose Tietjens perceived thin films of reddish purple to be wavering, then a glutinous surface of gummy scarlet pigment. Moving! It was once more an effect of fatigue, operating on the retina, that was perfectly familiar to Tietjens. But it filled him with indignation against his own weakness. He said to himself: Wasn’t the name of the wretched O Nine Morgan to be mentioned in his hearing without his retina presenting him with the glowing image of the fellow’s blood? He watched the phenomenon, growing fainter, moving to the right-hand top corner of the paper and turning a faintly luminous green. He watched it with a grim irony.

Was he, he said to himself, to regard himself as responsible for the fellow’s death? Was his inner mentality going to present that claim upon him? That would be absurd. The end of the earth! The absurd end of the earth … Yet that insignificant ass Levin had that evening asserted the claim to go into his, Tietjens of Groby’s, relations with his wife. That was an end of the earth as absurd! It was the unthinkable thing, as unthinkable as the theory that the officer can be responsible for the death of the man… . But the idea had certainly presented itself to him. How could he be responsible for the death? In fact – in literalness – he was. It had depended absolutely upon his discretion whether the man should go home or not. The man’s life or death had been in his hands. He had followed the perfectly correct course. He had written to the police of the man’s home town, and the police had urged him not to let the man come home… . Extraordinary morality on the part of a police force! The man, they begged, should not be sent home because a prize-fighter was occupying his bed and laundry… . Extraordinary common sense, very likely. They probably did not want to get drawn into a scrap with Red Evans of the Red Castle… .

For a moment he seemed to see … he actually saw … O Nine Morgan’s eyes, looking at him with a sort of wonder, as they had looked when he had refused the fellow his leave… . A sort of wonder! Without resentment, but with incredulity. As you might look at God, you being very small and ten feet or so below His throne when He pronounced some inscrutable judgment! The Lord giveth home-leave, and the Lord refuseth… . Probably not blessed, but queer, be the name of God-Tietjens!

And at the thought of the man as he was alive and of him now, dead, an immense blackness descended all over Tietjens. He said to himself:
I am very tired
. Yet he was not ashamed… . It was the blackness that descends on you when you think of your dead… . It comes, at any time, over the brightness of sunlight, in the grey of evening, in the grey of the dawn, at mess, on parade; it comes at the thought of one man or at the thought of half a battalion that you have seen, stretched out, under sheeting, the noses making little pimples; or not stretched out, lying face downwards, half buried. Or at the thought of dead that you have never seen dead at all… . Suddenly the light goes out… . In this case it was because of one fellow, a dirty enough man, not even very willing, not in the least endearing, certainly contemplating desertion… . But your dead …
yours
… your own. As if joined to your own identity by a black cord… .