Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 568
As to the Kadaver business, Valentine agreed with him, as to the ‘war babies’ she kept a more open mind. If there weren’t any war babies it couldn’t, as far as she could see, matter whether one wrote about them; it couldn’t certainly matter as much as to write about them, supposing the poor little things to exist. She was aware that this was immoral, but her mother needed the money desperately and her mother came first.
There was nothing for it, therefore, but to plead with Tietjens; for Valentine knew that without so much of moral support from him as would be implied by a good-natured or an enforced sanction of the article, Mrs Wannop would drop the matter and so would lose her connection with the excitable paper which paid well. It happened that on the Friday morning Mrs Wannop received a request that she would write for a Swiss review a propaganda article about some historical matter connected with the peace after Waterloo. The pay would be practically nothing, but the employment was at least relatively dignified, and Mrs Wannop — which was quite in the ordinary course of things! — told Valentine to ring Tietjens up and ask him for some details about the Congress of Vienna at which, before and after Waterloo, the peace terms had been wrangled out.
Valentine rang up — as she had done hundreds of times; it was to her a great satisfaction that she was going to hear Tietjens speak once more at least. The telephone was answered from the other end, and Valentine gave her two messages, the one as to the Congress of Vienna, the other as to war babies. The appalling speech came back:
‘Young woman! You’d better keep off the grass. Mrs Duchemin is already my husband’s mistress. You keep off.’ There was about the voice no human quality; it was as if from an immense darkness the immense machine had spoken words that dealt blows. She answered; and it was as if a substratum of her mind of which she knew nothing must have been prepared for that very speech; so that it was not her own ‘she’ that answered levelly and coolly:
‘You have probably mistaken the person you are speaking to. Perhaps you will ask Mr Tietjens to ring up Mrs Wannop when he is at liberty.’
The voice said:
‘My husband will be at the War Office at 4.15. He will speak to you there — about your war babies. But I’d keep off the grass if I were you!’ The receiver at the other end was hung up.
She went about her daily duties. She had heard of a kind of pine kernel that was very cheap and very nourishing, or at least very filling. They had come to it that it was a matter of pennies balanced against the feeling of satiety, and she visited several shops in search of this food. When she had found it she returned to the dog-kennel; her brother Edward had arrived. He was rather subdued. He brought with him a piece of meat which was part of his leave ration. He occupied himself with polishing up his sailor’s uniform for a rag-time party to which they were to go that evening. They were to meet plenty of conchies, he said. Valentine put the meat — it was a godsend, though very stringy! — on to stew with a number of chopped vegetables. She went up to her room to do some typing for her mother.
The nature of Tietjens’ wife occupied her mind. Before, she had barely thought about her: she had seemed unreal; so mysterious as to be a myth! Radiant and high-stepping: like a great stag! But she must be cruel! She must be vindictively cruel to Tietjens himself, or she could not have revealed his private affairs! Just broadcast; for she could not, bluff it how she might, have been certain of to whom she was speaking! A thing that wasn’t done! But she had delivered her cheek to Mrs Wannop; a thing, too, that wasn’t done! Yet so kindly! The telephone bell rang several times during the morning. She let her mother answer it.
She had to get the dinner, which took three-quarters of an hour. It was a pleasure to see her mother eat so well; a good stew, rich and heavy with haricot beans. She herself couldn’t eat, but no one noticed, which was a good thing. Her mother said that Tietjens had not yet telephoned, which was very inconsiderate. Edward said: ‘What The Huns haven’t killed old Feather Bolster yet? But of course he’s been found a safe job.’ The telephone on the sideboard became a terror to Valentine; at any moment his voice might...Edward went on telling anecdotes of how they bamboozled petty officers on mine-sweepers. Mrs Wannop listened to him with the courteous, distant interest of the great listening to commercial travellers. Edward desired draught ale and produced a two-shilling piece. He seemed very much coarsened; it was, no doubt, only on the surface. In these days everyone was very much coarsened on the surface.
She went with a quart jug to the jug and bottle department of the nearest public-house — a thing she had never done before. Even at Ealing the mistress hadn’t allowed her to be sent to a public-house; the cook had had to fetch her dinner beer herself or have it sent in. Perhaps the Ealing mistress had exercised more surveillance than Valentine had believed; a kind woman, but an invalid. Nearly all day in bed. Blind passion overcame Valentine at the thought of Edith Ethel in Tietjens’ arms. Hadn’t she got her own eunuch? Mrs Tietjens had said: ‘Mrs Duchemin is his mistress!’ Is! Then she might be there now!
In the contemplation of that image, she missed the thrills of buying beer in a bottle and jug department. Apparently it was like buying anything else, except for the smell of beer on the sawdust. You said: ‘A quart of the best bitter!’ and a fat, quite polite man, with an oily head and a white apron, took your money and filled your jug...But Edith Ethel had abused Tietjens so foully! The more foully the more certain it made it!...Draught beer in a jug had little marblings of burst foam on its brown surface. It mustn’t be spilt at the kerbs of crossings! — the more certain it made it! Some women did so abuse their lovers after sleeping with them, and the more violent the transports the more frantic the abuse. It was the ‘post-dash-triste’ of the Rev. Mr Duchemin! Poor devil! Triste! Triste!
Terra tribus scopulis vastum...Not longum!
Brother Edward began communing with himself, long and unintelligibly, as to where he should meet his sister at 19.30 and give her a blow-out! The names of restaurants fell from his lips into her panic. He decided hilariously and not quite steadily — a quart is a lot to a fellow from a mine-sweeper carrying no booze at all! — on meeting her at 7.20 at High Street and going to a pub, he knew; they would go on to the dance afterwards. In a studio. ‘Oh, God!’ her heart said, ‘if Tietjens should want her then!’ To be his; on his last night. He might! Everybody was coarsened then; on the surface. Her brother rolled out of the house, slamming the door so that every tile on the jerry-built dog-kennel rose and sat down again.
She went upstairs and began to look over her frocks. She couldn’t tell what frocks she looked over; they lay like aligned rags on the bed, the telephone bell ringing madly. She heard her mother’s voice, suddenly assuaged: ‘Oh! oh!...It’s you!’ She shut her door and began to pull open and to close drawer after drawer. As soon as she ceased that exercise her mother’s voice became half audible; quite audible when she raised it to ask a question. She heard her say: ‘Not get her into trouble...Of course!’ then it died away into mere high sounds.
She heard her mother calling:
‘Valentine! Valentine! Come down...Don’t you want to speak to Christopher?...Valentine! Valentine!...’ And then another burst: ‘Valentine...Valentine...Valentine...’ As if she had been a puppy dog! Mrs Wannop, thank God, was on the lowest step of the creaky stairs. She had left the telephone. She called up:
‘Come down. I want to tell you! The dear boy has saved me! He always saves me! What shall I do now he’s gone?’
‘He saved others: himself he could not save!’ Valentine quoted bitterly. She caught up her wideawake. She wasn’t going to prink herself for him. He must take her as she was...Himself he could not save! But he did himself proud! With women!...Coarsened! But perhaps only on the surface! She herself!...She was running downstairs!
Her mother had retreated into the little parlour: nine feet by nine; in consequence, at ten feet it was too tall for its size. But there was in it a sofa with cushions...With her head upon those cushions, perhaps...If he came home with her! Late!...
Her mother was saying: He’s a splendid fellow...A root idea for a war baby article...If a Tommy was a decent fellow he abstained because he didn’t want to leave his girl in trouble...If he wasn’t he chanced it because it might be his last chance...
‘A message to me!’ Valentine said to herself. ‘But which sentence...’ She moved, absently, all the cushions to one end of the sofa. Her mother exclaimed:
‘He sent his love! His mother was lucky to have such a son!’ and turned into her tiny hole of a study.
Valentine ran down over the broken tiles of the garden path, pulling her wideawake firmly on. She had looked at her wrist-watch: it was two and twelve: 14.45. If she was to walk to the War Office by 4.15 — 16.15 — a sensible innovation! — she must step out. Five miles to Whitehall. God knows what, then! Five miles back! Two and a half diagonally, to High Street Station by half-past 19! Twelve and a half miles in five hours or less. And three hours dancing on the top of it. And to dress!...She needed to be fit...And, with violent bitterness, she said:
‘Well! I’m fit...’ She had an image of the aligned hundreds of girls in blue jumpers and men’s ties keeping whom fit had kept her super-fit. She wondered how many of them would be men’s mistresses before the year was out. It was August then. But perhaps none! Because she had kept them fit...
‘Ah!’ she said, ‘if I had been a loose woman, with flaccid breasts and a soft body. All perfumed!’...But neither Sylvia Tietjens nor Ethel Duchemin were soft. They might be scented on occasion! But they would not contemplate with equanimity doing a twelve-mile walk to save a few pence and dancing all night on top of it! She could! And perhaps the price she paid was just that; she was in such hard condition she hadn’t moved him to...She perhaps exhaled such an aura of sobriety, chastity and abstinence as to suggest to him that...that a decent fellow didn’t get his girl into trouble before going to be killed...Yet if he were such a town bull!...She wondered how she knew such phrases...
The sordid and aligned houses seemed to rush past her in the mean August sunshine. That was because if you thought hard time went quicker; or because after you noticed the paper shop at this corner you would be up to the boxes of onions outside the shop of the next corner before you noticed anything else.
She was in Kensington Gardens, on the north side; she had left the poor shops behind...In sham country, with sham lawns, sham avenues, sham streams. Sham people pursuing their ways across the sham grass. Or no! Not sham! in a vacuum! No! ‘Pasteurised’ was the word! Like dead milk. Robbed of their vitamins...
If she saved a few coppers by walking it would make a large pile to put into the leering — or compassionate — taxicabman’s hand after he had helped her support her brother into the dog-kennel door. Edward would be dead drunk. She had fifteen shillings for the taxi...If she gave a few coppers more it seemed generous...What a day to look forward to still! Some days were lifetimes!
She would rather die than let Tietjens pay for the cab!
Why? Once a taximan had refused payment for driving her and Edward all the way to Chiswick, and she hadn’t felt insulted. She had paid him; but she hadn’t felt insulted! A sentimental fellow; touched at the heart by the pretty sister — or perhaps he didn’t really believe it was a sister — and her incapable bluejacket brother! Tietjens was a sentimental fellow too...What was the difference!...And then! The mother a dead, heavy sleeper; the brother dead drunk. One in the morning! He couldn’t refuse her! Blackness: cushions! She had arranged the cushions, she remembered. Arranged them subconsciously! Blackness! Heavy sleep; dead drunkenness!...Horrible!...A disgusting affair! An affair of Ealing...It shall make her one with all the stuff to fill graveyards...Well, what else was she, Valentine Wannop: daughter of her father? And of her mother? Yes! But she herself...Just a little nobody!
They were no doubt wirelessing from the Admiralty...But her brother was at home, or getting a little more intoxicated and talking treason. At any rate the flickering intermittences over the bitter seas couldn’t for the moment concern him...That bus touched her skirt as she ran for the island...It might have been better...But one hadn’t the courage!
She was looking at patterned deaths under a little green roof, such as they put over bird shelters. Her heart stopped! Before, she had been breathless! She was going mad. She was dying...All these deaths! And not merely the deaths...The waiting for the approach of death; the contemplation of the parting from life! This minute you were; that, and you weren’t! What was it like? Oh heaven, she knew...She stood there contemplating parting from...One minute you were; the next...Her breath fluttered in her chest...Perhaps he wouldn’t come...
He was immediately framed by the sordid stones. She ran upon him and said something; with a mad hatred. All these deaths and he and his like responsible!...He had apparently a brother, a responsible one too! Browner complexioned!...But he! He! He! He! completely calm; with direct eyes...It wasn’t possible. ‘Holde Lippen: klaare Augen: heller Sinn...Oh, a little bit wilted, the clear intellect! And the lips? No doubt too. But he couldn’t look at you so, unless...
She caught him fiercely by the arm; for the moment he belonged — more than to any browner, mere civilian, brother! — to her! She was going to ask him! If he answered: ‘Yes, I am such a man!’ she was going to say: ‘Then you must take me too! If them, why not me? I must have a child. I too!’ She desired a child. She would overwhelm those hateful lodestones with a flood of argument; she imagined — she felt — the words going between her lips...She imagined her fainting mind; her consenting limbs...
His looks were wandering round the cornice of these stone buildings. Immediately she was Valentine Wannop again; it needed no word from him. Words passed, but words could no more prove an established innocence than words can enhance a love that exists. He might as well have recited the names of railway stations. His eyes, his unconcerned face, his tranquil shoulders; they were what acquitted him. The greatest love speech he had ever made and could ever make her was when, harshly and angrily, he said something like:
‘Certainly not. I imagined you knew me better’ — brushing her aside as if she had been a midge. And, thank God, he had hardly listened to her!
She was Valentine Wannop again; in the sunlight the chaffinches said ‘Pink! pink!’ The seed-heads of the tall grasses were brushing against her skirt. She was clean-limbed, clear-headed...It was just a problem whether Sylvia Tietjens was good to him...Good for him was, perhaps, the more exact way of putting it. Her mind cleared, like water that goes off the boil...’Waters stilled at even.’ Nonsense. It was sunlight, and he had an adorable brother! He could save his brother...Transport! There was another meaning to the word. A warm feeling settled down upon her; this was her brother; the next to the best ever! It was as if you had matched a piece of stuff so nearly with another piece of stuff as to make no odds. Yet just not the real stuff! She must be grateful to this relative for all he did for her; yet, ah, never so grateful as to the other — who had done nothing!
Providence is kind in great batches! She heard mounting the steps the blessed word Transport! ‘They,’ so Mark said: he and she — the family feeling again — were going to get Christopher into the Transport...By the kindness of God the First Line Transport was the only branch of the Services of which Valentine knew anything. Their charwoman, who could not read and write, had a son, a sergeant in a line regiment. ‘Hooray!’ he had written to his mother, ‘I’ve been off my feed; recommended for the D.C.M. too. So they’re putting me senior N.C.O. of First Line Transport for a rest; the safest soft job of the whole bally front line caboodle!’ Valentine had had to read this letter in the scullery amongst black-beetles. Aloud! She had hated reading it as she had hated reading anything that gave details of the front line. But charity begins surely with the char! She had had to. Now she could thank God. The sergeant, in direct, perfectly sincere language, to comfort his mother, had described his daily work, detailing horses and G.S. limber wagons for jobs and superintending the horse-standings. ‘Why,’ one sentence ran, ‘our O.C. Transport is one of those fishing lunatics. Wherever we go he has a space of grass cleared out and pegged and b —— y hell to the man who walks across it!’ There the O.C. practised casting with trout and salmon rods by the hour together. ‘That’ll show you what a soft job it is!’ the sergeant had finished triumphantly...
So that there she, Valentine Wannop, sat on a hard bench against a wall; downright, healthy middle-class — or perhaps upper middle-class — for the Wannops were, if impoverished, yet of ancient family! Over her sensible, moccasined shoes the tide of humanity flowed before her hard bench. There were two commissionaires, the one always benevolent, the other perpetually querulous, in a pulpit on one side of her; on the other, a brown-visaged sort of brother-in-law with bulging eyes, who in his shy efforts to conciliate her was continually trying to thrust into his mouth the crook of his umbrella. As if it had been a knob. She could not, at the moment, imagine why he should want to conciliate her; but she knew she would know in a minute.
For just then she was occupied with a curious pattern; almost mathematically symmetrical. Now she was an English middle-class girl — whose mother had a sufficient income — in blue cloth, a wideawake hat, a black silk tie; without a thought in her head that she shouldn’t have. And with a man who loved her: of crystal purity. Not ten, not five minutes ago, she had been...She could not even remember what she had been! And he had been, he had assuredly appeared a town...No, she could not think the words...A raging stallion then! If now he should approach her, by the mere movement of a hand along the sable, she would retreat.
