Parade's End

“There you are, Father,” she said. “I’ll not ask you to shake hands with me. You probably wouldn’t.”

“As I am a priest,” Father Consett answered, “I could not refuse. But I’d rather not.”

“This,” Sylvia repeated, “appears to be a boring place.”

“You won’t say so to-morrow,” the priest said. “There’s two young fellows…. And a sort of policeman to trepan away from your mother’s maid!”

“That,” Sylvia answered, “is meant to be bitter. But it doesn’t hurt. I am done with men.” She added suddenly: “Mother, didn’t you one day, while you were still young, say that you had done with men? Firmly! And mean it?”

Mrs. Satterthwaite said:

“I did.”

“And did you keep to it?” Sylvia asked.

Mrs. Satterthwaite said:

“I did.”

“And shall I, do you imagine?”

Mrs. Satterthwaite said:

“I imagine you will.”

Sylvia said:

“Oh dear!”

The priest said:

“I’d be willing to see your husband’s telegram. It makes a difference to see the words on paper.”

Sylvia rose effortlessly.

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t,” she said. “It will give you no pleasure.” She drifted towards the door.

“If it would give me pleasure,” the priest said, “you would not show it me.”

“I would not,” she said.

A silhouette in the doorway, she halted, drooping, and looked over her shoulder.

“Both you and mother,” she said, “sit there scheming to make life bearable for the Ox. I call my husband the Ox. He’s repulsive: like a swollen animal. Well… you can’t do it.” The lighted doorway was vacant. Father Consett sighed.

“I told you this was an evil place,” he said. “In the deep forests. She’d not have such evil thoughts in another place.”

Mrs. Satterthwaite said:

“I’d rather you didn’t say that, Father. Sylvia would have evil thoughts in any place.”

“Sometimes,” the priest said, “at night I think I hear the claws of evil things scratching on the shutters. This was the last place in Europe to be christianised. Perhaps it wasn’t ever even christianised and they’re here yet.”

Mrs. Satterthwaite said:

“It’s all very well to talk like that in the day-time. It makes the place seem romantic. But it must be near one at night. And things are bad enough as it is.”

“They are,” Father Consett said. “The devil’s at work.”

Sylvia drifted back into the room with a telegram of several sheets.

Father Consett held it close to one of the candles to read, for he was short-sighted.

“All men are repulsive,” Sylvia said; “don’t you think so, mother?”

Mrs. Satterthwaite said:

“I do not. Only a heartless woman would say so.”

“Mrs. Vanderdecken,” Sylvia went on, “says all men are repulsive and it’s woman’s disgusting task to live beside them.”

“You’ve been seeing that foul creature?” Mrs. Satterthwaite said. “She’s a Russian agent. And worse!”

“She was at Gosingeux all the time we were,” Sylvia said. “You needn’t groan. She won’t split on us. She’s the soul of honour.”

“It wasn’t because of that I groaned, if I did,” Mrs. Satterthwaite answered.

The priest, from over his telegram, exclaimed:

“Mrs. Vanderdecken! God forbid.”

Sylvia’s face, as she sat on the sofa, expressed languid and incredulous amusement.

“What do you know of her?” she asked the Father.

“I know what you know,” he answered, “and that’s enough.”

“Father Consett,” Sylvia said to her mother, “has been renewing his social circle.”

“It’s not,” Father Consett said, “amongst the dregs of the people that you must live if you don’t want to hear of the dregs of society.”

Sylvia stood up. She said:

“You’ll keep your tongue off my best friends if you want me to stop and be lectured. But for Mrs. Vanderdecken I should not be here, returned to the fold!”

Father Consett exclaimed:

“Don’t say it, child. Id rather, heaven help me, you had gone on living in open sin.”

Sylvia sat down again, her hands listlessly in her lap.

“Have it your own way,” she said, and the Father returned to the fourth sheet of the telegram.

“What does this mean?” he asked. He had returned to the first sheet. “This here: ‘Accept resumption yoke’?” he read, breathlessly.

“Sylvia,” Mrs. Satterthwaite said, “go and light the spirit lamp for some tea. We shall want it.”

“You’d think I was a district messenger boy,” Sylvia said as she rose. “Why don’t you keep your maid up?… It’s a way we had of referring to our… union,” she explained to the Father.

“There was sympathy enough between you and him then,” he said, “to have bywords for things. It was that I wanted to know. I understood the words.”

“They were pretty bitter bywords, as you call them,” Sylvia said. “More like curses than kisses.”

“It was you that used them then,” Mrs. Satterthwaite said. “Christopher never said a bitter thing to you.”

An expression like a grin came slowly over Sylvia’s face as she turned back to the priest.

“That’s mother’s tragedy,” she said. “My husband’s one of her best boys. She adores him. And he can’t bear her.” She drifted behind the wall of the next room and they heard her tinkling the tea- things as the Father read on again beside the candle. His immense shadow began at the centre and ran along the pitchpine ceiling, down the wall and across the floor to join his splay feet in their clumsy boots.

“It’s bad,” he muttered. He made a sound like “Umbleumbleum-ble…. Worse than I feared… umbleumble…. ‘accept resumption yoke but on rigid conditions.’ What’s this: esoecially; it ought to be a ‘p,’‘especially regards child reduce establishment ridiculous our position remake settlements in child’s sole interests flat not house entertaining minimum am prepared resign office settle Yorkshire but imagine this not suit you child remain sister Effiie open visits both wire if this rough outline provisionally acceptable in that case will express draft general position Monday for you and mother reflect upon follow self Tuesday arrive Thursday Lobscheid go Wiesbaden fortnight on social task discussion Thursday limited solely comma emphasised comma to affairs.’ ”

“That means,” Mrs. Satterthwaite said, “that he doesn’t mean to reproach her. Emphasised applies to the word solely….”

“Why d’you take it…” Father Consett asked, “did he spend an immense lot of money on this telegram? Did he imagine you were in such trepidation….” He broke off. Walking slowly, her long arms extended to carry the tea-tray, over which her wonderfully moving face had a rapt expression of indescribable mystery, Sylvia was coming through the door.

“Oh, child,” the Father exclaimed, “whether it’s St. Martha or that Mary that made the bitter choice, not one of them ever looked more virtuous than you. Why aren’t ye born to be a good man’s helpmeet?”

A little tinkle sounded from the tea-tray and three pieces of sugar fell on to the floor. Mrs. Tietjens hissed with vexation.