Parade's End

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 Mac-master’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 ffolliott’s 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 motorbuses 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: I

“Be quick then. 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 civilisation 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 unforgivable.”

“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