Parade's End

flea bag at the top, kissed the pillows. She would get him linen pillows. You would be able to get linen now. The war was over. All along that immense line men could stand up!

At the head of the room was a dais. A box of square boarding, like the model-throne artists have in studios. Surely she did not receive her guests on a dais; like Royalty. She was capable… You must not…. It was perhaps for a piano. Perhaps she gave concerts. It was used as a library now. A row of calf-bound books stood against the wall on the back edge of the platform. She approached them to see what books he had selected. They must be the books he had read in France. If she could know what books he had read in France she would know what some of his thoughts there had been. She knew he slept between very cheap cotton sheets.

Frugal and glorious. That was he! And he had designed this room to love her in. It was the room she would have asked…. The furnishing… Alcestis never had…. For she, Valentine Wannop, was of frugal mind, too. And his worshipper. Having reflected glory…. Damn it, she was getting soppy. But it was curious how their tastes marched together. He had been neither haughty nor gauche. He had paid her the real compliment. He had said: “Her mind so marches with mine that she will understand.”

The books were indeed a job lot. Their tops ran along against the wall like an ill-arranged range of hills; one was a great folio in calf, the title indented deep and very dim. The others were French novels and little red military text-books. She leaned over the dais to read the title of the tall book. She expected it to be Herbert’s Poems or his Country Parson…. He ought to be a Country Parson. He never would be now. She was depriving the church of…. Of a Higher Mathematician, really. The title of the book was Vir. Obscur.

Why did she take it that they were going to live together? She had no official knowledge that he wanted to. But they wanted to TALK. You can’t talk unless you live together. Her eye, travelling downwards along the dais caught words on paper. They threw themselves up at her from among a disorder of half a dozen typed pages; they were in big, firm, pencilled letters. They stood out because they were pencilled; they were:

A man could stand up on a bleedin’ ’ill!

Her heart stopped. She must be out of condition. She could not stand very well, but there was nothing to lean on to. She had — she didn’t know she had — read also the typed words:

“Mrs. Tietjens is leaving the model cabinet by Barker of Bath which she believes you claim….”

She looked desperately away from the letter. She did not want to read the letter. She could not move away. She believed she was dying. Joy never kills…. But it… “fait peur.” “Makes afraid.” Afraid! Afraid! Afraid! There was nothing now between them. It was as if they were already in each other’s arms. For surely the rest of the letter must say that Mrs. Tietjens had removed the furniture. And his comment — amazingly echoing the words she had just thought — was that he could stand up. But it wasn’t in the least amazing. My beloved is mine…. Their thoughts marched together; not in the least amazing. They could now stand on a hill together. Or get into a little hole. For good. And talk. For ever. She must not read the rest of the letter. She must not be certain. If she were certain she would have no hope of preserving her… Of remaining… Afraid and unable to move. She would be forced to read the letter because she was unable to move. Then she would be lost. She looked beseechingly out of the window at the house-fronts over the way. They were friendly. They would help her. Eighteenth-century. Cynical, but not malignant. She sprang right off her feet. She could move then. She hadn’t had a fit.

Idiot. It was only the telephone. It went on and on. Drrinn; drinnnn; drRinn. It came from just under her feet. No, from under the dais. The receiver was on the dais. She hadn’t consciously noticed it because she had believed the telephone was dead. Who notices a dead telephone?

She said — it was as if she was talking into his ear, he so pervaded her — she said:

“Who are you?”

One ought not to answer all telephone calls, but one does so mechanically. She ought not to have answered this. She was in a compromising position. Her voice might be recognised. Let it be recognised. She desired to be known to be in a compromising position! What did you do on Armistice Day!

A voice, heavy and old, said:

“You are there, Valentine….”

She cried out:

“Oh, poor mother…. But he’s not here.” She added: “He’s not been here with me. I’m still only waiting.” She added again: “The house is empty!” She seemed to be stealthy, the house whispering round her. She seemed to be whispering to her mother to save her and not wanting the house to hear her. The house was eighteenth-century. Cynical. But not malignant. It wanted her undoing, but knew that women liked being… ruined.

Her mother said, after a long time:

“Have you got to do this thing?… My little Valentine… My little Valentine!” She wasn’t sobbing.

Valentine said:

“Yes, I’ve got to do it!” She sobbed. Suddenly she stopped sobbing.

She said quickly:

“Listen mother. I’ve had no conversation with him. I don’t know even whether he’s sane. He appears to be mad.” She wanted to give her mother hope. Quickly. She had been speaking quickly to get hope to her mother as quickly as possible. But she added: “I believe that I shall die if I cannot live with him.”

She said that slowly. She wanted to be like a little child trying to get truth home to its mother.

She said:

“I have waited too long. All these years.” She did not know that she had such desolate tones in her voice. She could see her mother looking into the distance with every statement that came to her, thinking. Old and grey. And majestic and kind…. Her mother’s voice came:

“I have sometimes suspected…. My poor child…. It has been for a long time?” They were both silent. Thinking. Her mother said:

“There isn’t any practical way out?” She pondered for a long time. “I take it you have thought it all out. I know you have a good head and you arc good.” A rustling sound. “But I am not level with these times. I should be glad if there were a way out. I should be glad if you could wait for each other. Or perhaps find a legal…”

Valentine said:

“Oh, mother, don’t cry!”… “Oh, mother, I can’t….”… “Oh, I will come…. Mother, I will come back to you if you order it.” With each phrase her body was thrown about as if by a wave. She thought they only did that on the stage. Her eyes said to her:

… “Dear sir,

“Our Client, Mrs. Christopher Tietjens of Groby-in-Cleveland… ”

They said:

“After the occurrence at the Base-Camp at…”

They said:

“Thinks it useless…”

She was agonised for her mother’s voice. The telephone hummed in E-flat. It tried B. Then it went back to E- flat. Her eyes said:

“Proposes when occasion offers to remove to Groby…” in fat, blue typescript. She cried agonisedly:

“Mother. Order me to come back or it will be too late….”

She had looked down, unthinkingly… as one does when standing at the telephone. If she looked down again and read to the end of the sentence that contained the words “It is useless,” it would be too late! She would know that his wife had given him up!

Her mother’s voice came, turned by the means of its conveyance into the voice of a machine of Destiny.

“No I can’t. I am thinking.”

Valentine placed her foot on the dais at which she stood. When she looked down it covered the letter. She thanked God. Her mother’s voice said: