Parade's End

little Chrissie being manifest, she had expressed to Christopher the idea that they ought no longer to go stodging along in penury, the case being so grave; they ought to take some of the Groby money — for the sake of future generations….

Well, she had been run down…. At that stage of parturition, call it, a woman is run down and hysterical…. It had seemed to her overwhelmingly the fact that a breeding woman ought to have pink fluffy things next her quivering skin and sprayings of, say, Houbigant all over her shoulders and hair. For the sake of the child’s health.

So she had let out violently at poor wretched old Chris who was faced with the necessity for denying his gods and she had slammed to and furiously locked that door. Her castle had been her bedroom with a vengeance then — for Christopher had been unable to get in or she to get out. He had had to whisper through the keyhole that he gave in; he was dreadfully concerned for her. He had said that he hoped she would try to stick it a little longer, but, if she would not, he would take Mark’s money.

Naturally she had not let him — but she had arranged with Marie Leonie for Mark to pay a couple of pounds more a week for their board and lodging and as Marie Leonie had perforce taken over the housekeeping they had found things easing off a little. Marie Leonie had run the house for thirty shillings a week less than she, Valentine, had ever been able to do — and run it streets better. Streets and streets! So they had had money at least nearly to complete their equipments of table linen and the layette…. The long and complicated annals!

It was queer that her heart was nearly as much in Christopher’s game as was his own. As house-mother she ought to have grabbed after the last penny — and goodness knew the life was strain enough. Why do women back their men in unreasonable romanticisms? You might say that it was because if their men had their masculinities abated — like defeated roosters! — the women would suffer in intimacies…. Ah, but it wasn’t that! Nor was it merely that they wanted the buffaloes to which they were attached to charge.

It was really that she had followed the convolutions of her man’s mind. And ardently approved. She disapproved with him of riches, of the rich, of the frame of mind that riches confers. If the war had done nothing else for them — for those two of them — it had induced them at least to instal Frugality as a deity. They desired to live hard even if it deprived them of the leisure in which to think high! She agreed with him that if a ruling class loses the capacity to rule — or the desire! — it should abdicate from its privileges and get underground.

And having accepted that as a principle, she could follow the rest of his cloudy obsessions and obstinacies.

Perhaps she would not have backed him up in his long struggle with dear Mark if she had not considered that their main necessity was to live high…. And she was aware that why, really, she had sprung to the door rather than to the window, had been that she had not desired to make an unfair move in that long chess game; on behalf of Christopher. If she had had to see Mrs. de Bray Pape or to speak to her it would have been disagreeable to have that descendant of a king’s companion look at her with the accusing eyes of one who thinks: “You live with a man without being married to him!” Mrs. de Bray Pape’s ancestress had been able to force the king to marry her…. But that she would have chanced: they had paid penalty enough for having broken the rules of the Club. She could carry her head high: not obtrusively high, but sufficiently! For, in effect they had surrendered Groby in order to live together and she had endured sprays of obloquy that seemed never to cease to splash over the garden hedges… in order to keep Christopher alive and sane!

No, she would have faced Mrs. de Bray Pape. But she would hardly, given Christopher’s half-crazed condition, have kept herself from threatening Mrs. Pape with dreadful legal consequences if she touched Groby Great Tree. That would not have been jonnock. That would have been to interfere in the silent Northern struggle between the brothers. That she would never do, even to save Christopher’s reason — unless she were jumped into it!… That Mark did not intend to interfere between Mrs. Pape and the tree she knew — for when she had read Mrs. Pape’s letter to him he had signified as much to her by means of his eyes…. Mark she loved and respected because he was a dear — and because he had backed her through thick and thin. Without him… There had been a moment on that dreadful night…. She prayed God that she would not have to think again of that dreadful night…. If she had to see Sylvia again she would go mad, and the child within her…. Deep, deep within her the blight would fall on the little thread of brain!

Mrs. de Bray Pape, God be thanked, provided diversion for her mind. She was speaking French with an eccentricity that could not be ignored.

Valentine could see, without looking out of the window, Marie Leonie’s blank face and the equal blankness with which she must have indicated that she did not intend to understand. She imagined her standing, motionless, pinafored and unmerciful before the other lady who beneath the three-cornered hat was stuttering out:

“Lady Tietjens, mwaw Madam de Bray Pape desire coo-pay la arbre….”

Valentine could hear Marie Leonie’s steely tones saying:

“On dit ‘I’arbre,’ Madame!”

And then the high voice of the little maid:

“Called us ‘the pore’ she did, your ladyship…. Ast us why we could not take example!”

Then a voice, soft for these people, and with modulations:

“Sir Mark seems to be perspiring a great deal. I was so free as to wipe…”

Whilst, above, Valentine said: “Oh Heaven!” Marie Leonie cried out: “Mon Dieu!” and there was a rush of skirts and pinafore.

Marie Leonie was rushing past a white, breeched figure, saying:

“Vous, une etrangere, avez ose….”

A shining, red-cheeked boy was stumbling slightly from before her. He said after her back:

“Mrs. Lowther’s handkerchief is the smallest, softest…” He added to the young woman in white: “We’d better go away…. Please let’s go away…. It’s not sporting….” A singularly familiar face; a singularly moving voice.

“For God’s sake let us go away….”

Who said “For God’s sake!” like that — with staring blue eyes?

She was at the door frantically trying to twist the great iron key; the lock was of very old hammered iron work. The doctor ought to be telephoned to. He had said that if Mark had fever or profuse sweats he should be telephoned to at once. Marie Leonie would be with him; it was her, Valentine’s, duty to telephone. The key would not turn; she hurt her hand in the effort. But part of her emotion was due to that bright-cheeked boy. Why should he have said that it was not sporting of them to be there? Why had he exclaimed for God’s sake to go away? The key would not turn. It stayed solid, like a piece of the old lock…. Who was the boy like? She rammed her shoulder against the unyielding door. She must not do that. She cried out.

From the window — she had gone to the window intending to tell the girl to set up a ladder for her, but it would be more sensible to tell her to telephone! — she could see Mrs. de Bray Pape. That lady was still haranguing the girl. And then on the path, beyond the lettuces and the newly sticked peas, arose a very tall figure. A very tall, thin, figure. Portentous. By some trick of the slope, figures there always appeared very tall…. The figure appeared leisurely: almost hesitant. Like the apparition of the statue of the Commander in Don Juan, somehow. It appeared to be preoccupied with its glove: undoing its glove….

Very tall, but with too much slightness of the legs…. A woman in hunting-breeches! Grey against the tall ash-stems of the spinney. You could not see her face because you were above her, in the window, and her head was bent down! In the name of God!…

There wafted over her a sense of the dreadful darkness in the old house at Grays Inn on that dreadful night…. She must not think of that dreadful night because of little Chrissie deep within her. She felt as if she held the child covered in her arms, as if she were looking upwards, bending down over the child. Actually she was looking downwards…. Then she had been looking upwards — up the dark stairs. At a marble statue, the white figure of a woman, the Nike… the Winged Victory. It is like that on the stairs of the Louvre. She must think of the Louvre, not Grays Inn. They were, in a Pompeian ante-room, Etruscan tombs, with guardians in uniform, their hands behind their backs. Strolling about as if they expected you to steal a tomb….

She had — they had — been staring up the stairs. The house had seemed unnaturally silent when they had entered. Unnaturally…. How can you seem more silent than silent. But you can! They had seemed to tiptoe. She had, at least. Then light had shone above —coming from an opened door, above. In the light had been the white figure that had said it had cancer!

She must not think about these things!