Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 561
‘Sylvia also is Rugeley’s cousin, of course, a degree further removed,’ Tietjens said. ‘She isn’t anyone’s mistress. You can be certain of that.’
‘They say she is,’ Mark answered. ‘They say she’s a regular tart...I suppose you think I’ve insulted you.’ Christopher said:
‘No, you haven’t...It’s better to get all this out. We’re practically strangers, but you’ve a right to ask.’
Mark said:
‘Then you haven’t got a girl and don’t need money to keep her...You could have what you liked. There’s no reason why a man shouldn’t have a girl, and if he has he ought to keep her decently...’
Christopher did not answer. Mark leaned against the half-buried cannon and swung his umbrella by its crook.
‘But,’ he said, ‘if you don’t keep a girl, what do you do for...’ He was going to say ‘for the comforts of home,’ but a new idea had come into his mind. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘one can see that your wife’s soppily in love with you.’ He added: ‘Soppily...one can see that with half an eye...
Christopher felt his jaw drop. Not a second before — that very second! — he had made up his mind to ask Valentine Wannop to become his mistress that night. It was no good, any more, he said to himself. She loved him, he knew, with a deep, an unshakable passion, just as his passion for her was a devouring element that covered his whole mind as the atmosphere envelops the earth. Were they, then, to go down to death separated by years, with no word ever spoken? To what end? For whose benefit? The whole world conspired to force them together! To resist became a weariness!
His brother Mark was talking on. ‘I know all about women,’ he had announced. Perhaps he did. He had lived with exemplary fidelity to a quite unpresentable woman, for a number of years. Perhaps the complete study of one woman gave you a map of all the rest!
Christopher said:
‘Look here, Mark. You had better go through all my pass-books for the last ten years. Or ever since I had an account. This discussion is no good if you don’t believe what I say.’
Mark said:
‘I don’t want to see your pass-books. I believe you.’ He added, a second later:
‘Why the devil shouldn’t I believe you? It’s either believing you’re a gentleman or Ruggles a liar. It’s only common sense to believe Ruggles a liar, in that case. I didn’t before because I had no grounds to.’
Christopher said:
‘I doubt if liar is the right word. He picked up things that were said against me. No doubt he reported them faithfully enough. Things are said against me. I don’t know why.’
‘Because,’ Mark said with emphasis, ‘you treat these south country swine with the contempt that they deserve. They’re incapable of understanding the motives of a gentleman. If you live among dogs they’ll think you’ve the motives of a dog. What other motives can they give you?’ He added: ‘I thought you’d been buried so long under their muck that you were as mucky as they!’
Tietjens looked at his brother with the respect one has to give to a man ignorant but shrewd. It was a discovery: that his brother was shrewd.
But, of course, he would be shrewd. He was the indispensable head of a great department. He had to have some qualities...Not cultivated, not even instructed. A savage! But penetrating!
‘We must move on,’ he said, ‘or I shall have to take a cab.’ Mark detached himself from his half-buried cannon.
‘What did you do with the other three thousand?’ he asked. ‘Three thousand is a hell of a big sum to chuck away. For a younger son.’
‘Except for some furniture I bought for my wife’s rooms,’ Christopher said, ‘it went mostly in loans.’ ‘Loans!’ Mark exclaimed. ‘To that fellow Macmaster?’
‘Mostly to him,’ Christopher answered. ‘But about seven hundred to Dicky Swipes, of Cullercoats.’
‘Good God! Why to him?’ Mark ejaculated.
‘Oh, because he was Swipes, of Cullercoats,’ Christopher said, ‘and asked for it. He’d have had more, only that was enough for him to drink himself to death on.’
Mark said:
‘I suppose you don’t give money to every fellow that asks for it?’
Christopher said:
‘I do. It’s a matter of principle.’
‘It’s lucky,’ Mark said, ‘that a lot of fellows don’t know that. You wouldn’t have much brass left for long.’ ‘I didn’t have it for long,’ Christopher said.
‘You know,’ Mark said, ‘you couldn’t expect to do the princely patron on a youngest son’s portion. It’s a matter of taste. I never gave a ha’penny to a beggar myself. But a lot of the Tietjens were princely. One generation to addle brass: one to keep: one to spend. That’s all right...I suppose Macmaster’s wife is your mistress? That’ll account for it not being the girl. They keep an arm-chair for you.’
Christopher said:
‘No. I just backed Macmaster for the sake of backing him. Father lent him money to begin with.’
‘So he did,’ Mark exclaimed.
‘His wife,’ Christopher said, ‘was the widow of Breakfast Duchemin. You knew Breakfast Duchemin?’
‘Oh, I knew Breakfast Duchemin,’ Mark said. ‘I suppose Macmaster’s a pretty warm man now. Done himself proud with Duchemin’s money.’
‘Pretty proud!’ Christopher said. ‘They won’t be knowing me long now.’
‘But damn it all!’ Mark said, ‘You’ve Groby to all intents and purposes. I’m not going to marry and beget children to hinder you.’
Christopher said:
‘Thanks. I don’t want it.’
‘Got your knife into me?’ Mark asked.
‘Yes. I’ve got my knife into you,’ Christopher answered. ‘Into the whole bloody lot of you, and Ruggles and ffolliot and our father!’
Mark said: ‘Ah!’
‘You don’t suppose I wouldn’t have?’ Christopher asked.
‘Oh, I don’t suppose you wouldn’t have,’ Mark answered. ‘I thought you were a soft sort of bloke. I see you aren’t.’
‘I’m as North Riding as yourself!’ Christopher answered.
They were in the tide of Fleet Street, pushed apart by foot passengers and separated by traffic. With some of the imperiousness of the officer of those days, Christopher barged across through motor-buses and paper lorries. With the imperiousness of the head of a department, Mark said:
‘Here, policeman, stop these damn things and let me get over.’ But Christopher was over much the sooner and waited for his brother in the gateway of the Middle Temple. His mind was completely swallowed up in the endeavour to imagine the embraces of Valentine Wannop. He said to himself that he had burnt his boats.
Mark, coming alongside him, said:
‘You’d better know what our father wanted.’
Christopher said:
‘Be quick then. I must get on.’ He had to rush through his War Office interview to get to Valentine Wannop. They would have only a few hours in which to recount the loves of two lifetimes. He saw her golden head and her enraptured face. He wondered how her face would look, enraptured. He had seen on it humour, dismay, tenderness, in the eyes — and fierce anger and contempt for his, Christopher’s, political opinions. His militarism!
Nevertheless they halted by the Temple fountain. That respect was due to their dead father. Mark had been explaining. Christopher had caught some of his words and divined the links. Mr Tietjens had left no will, confident that his desires as to the disposal of his immense fortune would be carried out meticulously by his eldest son. He would have left a will, but there was the vague case of Christopher to be considered. Whilst Christopher had been a youngest son you arranged that he had a good lump sum and went, with it, to the devil how he liked. He was no longer a youngest son: by the will of God.
‘Our father’s idea,’ Mark said by the fountain, ‘was that no settled sum could keep you straight. His idea was that if you were a bloody pimp living on women...You don’t mind?’
‘I don’t mind your putting it straightforwardly,’ Christopher said. He considered the base of the fountain that was half full of leaves. This civilization had contrived a state of things in which leaves rotted by August. Well, it was doomed!
‘If you were a pimp living on women,’ Mark repeated, ‘it was no good making a will. You might need uncounted thousands to keep you straight. You were to have ‘em. You were to be as debauched as you wanted, but on clean money. I was to see how much in all probability that would be and arrange the other legacies to scale...Father had crowds of pensioners...’
‘How much did father cut up for?’ Christopher asked. Mark said:
‘God knows...You saw we proved the estate at a million and a quarter as far as ascertained. But it might be twice that. Or five times!...With steel prices what they have been for the last three years it’s impossible to say what the Middlesbrough district property won’t produce...The death duties even can’t catch it up. And there are all the ways of getting round them.’
Christopher inspected his brother with curiosity. This brown-complexioned fellow with bulging eyes, shabby on the whole, tightly buttoned into a rather old pepper-and-salt suit, with a badly rolled umbrella, old race-glasses, and his bowler hat the only neat thing about him, was, indeed, a prince. With a rigid outline! All real princes must look like that. He said:
‘Well! You won’t be a penny the poorer by me.’ Mark was beginning to believe this. He said:
‘You won’t forgive father?’
Christopher said:
‘I won’t forgive father for not making a will. I won’t forgive him for calling in Ruggles. I saw him and you in the writing-room the night before he died. He never spoke to me. He could have. It was clumsy stupidity. That’s unforgiveable.’
‘The fellow shot himself,’ Mark said. ‘You usually forgive a fellow who shoots himself.’
‘I don’t,’ Christopher said. ‘Besides, he’s probably in heaven and don’t need my forgiveness. Ten to one he’s in heaven. He was a good man.’
‘One of the best,’ Mark said. ‘It was I that called in Ruggles though.’
‘I don’t forgive you either,’ Christopher said.
‘But you must,’ Mark said — and it was a tremendous concession to sentimentality—’take enough to make you comfortable.’
‘By God!’ Christopher exclaimed. ‘I loathe your whole beastly buttered toast, mutton-chopped, carpet-slippered, rum-negused comfort as much as I loathe your beastly Riviera-palaced, chauffeured, hydraulic-lifted, hot-house aired beastliness of fornication...’ He was carried away, as he seldom let himself be, by the idea of his amours with Valentine Wannop, which should take place on the empty boards of a cottage, without draperies, fat meats, gummy aphrodisiacs...’You won’t,’ he repeated, ‘be a penny the poorer by me.’
Mark said:
‘Well, you needn’t get shiny about it. If you won’t you won’t. We’d better move on. You’ve only just time. We’ll say that settles it...Are you, or aren’t you, overdrawn at your bank? I’ll make that up, whatever you damn well do to stop it.’
‘I’m not overdrawn,’ Christopher said. ‘I’m over thirty pounds in credit, and I’ve an immense overdraft guaranteed by Sylvia. It was a mistake of the bank’s.’
Mark hesitated for a moment. It was to him almost unbelievable that a bank could make a mistake. One of the great banks. The props of England.
They were walking down towards the Embankment. With his precious umbrella Mark aimed a violent blow at the railings above the tennis lawns, where whitish figures, bedrabbled by the dim atmosphere, moved like marionettes practising crucifixions.
‘By God!’ he said, ‘this is the last of England...There’s only my department where they never make mistakes. I tell you, if there were any mistakes made there there would be some backs broken!’ He added: ‘But don’t you think that I’m going to give up comfort, I’m not. My Charlotte makes better buttered toast than they can at the club. And she’s got a tap of French rum that’s saved my life over and over again after a beastly wet day’s racing. And she does it all on the five hundred I give her and keeps herself clean and tidy on top of it. Nothing like a Frenchwoman for managing...By God, I’d marry the doxy if she wasn’t a Papist. It would please her and it wouldn’t hurt me. But I couldn’t stomach marrying a Papist. They’re not to be trusted.’
‘You’ll have to stomach a Papist coming into Groby,’ Christopher said. ‘My son’s to be brought up as a Papist.’
Mark stopped and dug his umbrella into the ground.
‘Eh, but that’s a bitter one,’ he said. ‘Whatever made ye do that?...I suppose the mother made you do it. She tricked you into it before you married her.’ He added: ‘I’d not like to sleep with that wife of yours. She’s too athletic. It’d be like sleeping with a bundle of faggots. I suppose, though, you’re a pair of turtle doves...Eh, but I’d not have thought ye would have been so weak.’
‘I only decided this morning,’ Christopher said, ‘when my cheque was returned from the bank. You won’t have read Spelden on sacrilege, about Groby.’
‘I can’t say I have,’ Mark answered.
‘It’s no good trying to explain that side of it then,’ Christopher said, ‘there isn’t time. But you’re wrong in thinking Sylvia made it a condition of our marriage. Nothing would have made me consent then. It has made her a happy woman that I have. The poor thing thought our house was under a curse for want of a Papist heir.’
‘What made ye consent now?’ Mark asked.
‘I’ve told you,’ Christopher said, ‘it was getting my cheque returned to the club; that on the top of the rest of it. A fellow who can’t do better than that had better let the mother bring up the child...Besides, it won’t hurt a Papist boy to have a father with dishonoured cheques as much as it would a Protestant. They’re not quite English.’ ‘That’s true too,’ Mark said.
He stood still by the railings of the public garden near the Temple station.
‘Then,’ he said, ‘if I’d let the lawyers write and tell you the guarantee for your overdraft from the estate was stopped as they wanted to, the boy wouldn’t be a Papist? You wouldn’t have overdrawn.’
‘I didn’t overdraw,’ Christopher said. ‘But if you had warned me I should have made enquiries at the bank and the mistake wouldn’t have occurred. Why didn’t you?’
‘I meant to,’ Mark said. ‘I meant to do it myself. But I hate writing letters. I put it off. I didn’t much like having dealings with the fellow I thought you were. I suppose that’s another thing you won’t forgive me for?’
‘No. I shan’t forgive you for not writing to me,’ Christopher said. ‘You ought to write business letters.’
‘I hate writing ‘em,’ Mark said. Christopher was moving on. ‘There’s one thing more,’ Mark said. ‘I suppose the boy is your son?’
‘Yes, he’s my son,’ Christopher said.
‘Then that’s all,’ Mark said. ‘I suppose if you’re killed you won’t mind my keeping an eye on the youngster?’ ‘I’ll be glad,’ Christopher said.
They strolled along the Embankment side by side, walking rather slowly, their backs erected and their shoulders squared because of their satisfaction of walking together, desiring to lengthen the walk by going slow. Once or twice they stopped to look at the dirty silver of the river, for both liked grim effects of landscape. They felt very strong, as if they owned the land!
Once Mark chuckled and said:
Us too damn funny. To think of our both being...what is it?...monogamists? Well, it’s a good thing to stick to one woman...you can’t say it isn’t. It saves trouble. And you know where you are.’
Under the lugubrious arch that leads into the War Office quadrangle Christopher halted.
‘No. I’m coming in,’ Mark said. ‘I want to speak to Hogarth. I haven’t spoken to Hogarth for some time. About the transport waggon parks in Regent’s Park. I manage all those beastly things and a lot more.’
‘They say you do it damn well,’ Christopher said. ‘They say you’re indispensable.’ He was aware that his brother desired to stay with him as long as possible. He desired it himself.
‘I damn well am!’ Mark said. He added: ‘I suppose you couldn’t do that sort of job in France? Look after transport and horses.’
‘I could,’ Christopher said, ‘but I suppose I shall go back to liaison work.’
‘I don’t think you will,’ Mark said. ‘I could put in a word for you with the transport people.’
‘I wish you would,’ Christopher said. ‘I’m not fit to go back into the front line. Besides, I’m no beastly hero! And I’m a rotten infantry officer. No Tietjens was ever a soldier worth talking of.’
They turned the corner of the arch. Like something fitting in, exact and expected, Valentine Wannop stood looking at the lists of casualties that hung beneath a cheaply green-stained deal shelter against the wall, a tribute at once to the weaker art movements of the day and the desire to save the ratepayers’ money.
With the same air of finding Christopher Tietjens fit in exactly to an expected landscape she turned on him. Her face was blue-white and distorted. She ran upon him and exclaimed:
‘Look at this horror! And you in that foul uniform can support it!’
The sheets of paper beneath the green roof were laterally striped with little serrated lines: each line meant the death of a man, for the day.
Tietjens had fallen back a step off the kerb of the pavement that ran round the quadrangle. He said:
‘I support it because I have to. Just as you decry it because you have to. They’re two different patterns that we see.’ He added: ‘This is my brother Mark.’
She turned her head stiffly upon Mark: her face was perfectly waxen. It was as if the head of a shopkeeper’s lay-figure had been turned. She said to Mark:
‘I didn’t know Mr Tietjens had a brother. Or hardly. I’ve never heard him speak of you.’
Mark grinned feebly, exhibiting to the lady the brilliant lining of his hat.
‘I don’t suppose anyone has ever heard me speak of him,’ he said, ‘but he’s my brother all right!’
She stepped on to the asphalt carriage-way and caught between her fingers and thumb a fold of Christopher’s khaki sleeve.
