Parade's End

Now, beside the tea-table she said, very softly:

“My dear, we’ve decided not to have our usual Friday afternoon next week.” Valentine wondered whether this was merely a lie to get rid of her. But Edith Ethel went on: “We’ve decided to have a little evening festivity. After a great deal of thought we’ve come to the conclusion that we ought, now, to make our union public.” She paused to await comment, but Valentine making none she went on: “It coincides very happily — I can’t help feeling it coincides very happily! — with another event. Not that we set much store by these things…. But it has been whispered to Vincent that next Friday…. Perhaps, my dear Valentine, you, too, will have heard…”

Valentine said:

“No, I haven’t. I suppose he’s got the O.B.E. I’m very glad.”

“The Sovereign,” Mrs. Duchemin said, “is seeing fit to confer the honour of knighthood on him.”

“Well!” Valentine said. “He’s had a quick career. I’ve no doubt he deserves it. He’s worked very hard. I do sincerely congratulate you. It’ll be a great help to you.”

“It’s,” Mrs. Duchemin said, “not for mere plodding. That’s what makes it so gratifying. It’s for a special piece of brilliance, that has marked him out. It’s, of course, a secret. But…”

“Oh, I know!” Valentine said. “He’s worked out some calculations to prove that losses in the devastated districts, if you ignore machinery, coal output, orchard trees, harvests, industrial products and so on, don’t amount to more than a year’s household dilapidations for the…”

Mrs. Duchemin said with real horror:

“But how did you know? How on earth did you know?…” She paused. “It’s such a dead secret…. That fellow must have told you…. But how on earth could he know?”

“I haven’t see Mr. Tietjens to speak to since the last time he was here,” Valentine said. She saw, from Edith Ethel’s bewilderment, the whole situation. The miserable Macmaster hadn’t even confided to his wife that the practically stolen figures weren’t his own. He desired to have a little prestige in the family circle; for once a little prestige! Well! Why shouldn’t he have it? Tietjens, she knew, would wish him to have all he could get. She said therefore:

“Oh, it’s probably in the air…. It’s known the Government want to break their claims to the higher command. And anyone who could help them to that would get a knighthood….”

Mrs. Duchemin was more calm.

“It’s certainly,” she said, “Burke’d, as you call it, those beastly people.” She reflected for a moment. “It’s probably that,” she went on. “It’s in the air. Anything that can help to influence public opinion against those horrible people is to be welcomed. That’s known pretty widely…. No! It could hardly be Christopher Tietjens who thought of it and told you. It wouldn’t enter his head. He’s their friend! He would be…”

“He’s certainly,” Valentine said, “not a friend of his country’s enemies. I’m not myself.”

Mrs. Duchemin exclaimed sharply, her eyes dilated.

“What do you mean? What on earth do you dare to mean? I thought you were a pro-German!”

Valentine said:

“I’m not! I’m not!… I hate men’s deaths…. I hate any men’s deaths…. Any men…” She calmed herself by main force. “Mr. Tietjens says that the more we hinder our allies the more we drag the war on and the more lives are lost…. More lives, do you understand?…”

Mrs. Duchemin assumed her most aloof, tender, and high air: “My poor child,” she said, “what possible concern can the opinions of that broken fellow cause anyone? You can warn him from me that he does himself no good by going on uttering these discredited opinions. He’s. a marked man. Finished! It’s no good Guggums, my husband, trying to stand up for him.”

“He does stand up for him?” Valentine asked. “Though I don’t see why it’s needed. Mr. Tietjens is surely able to take care of himself.”

“My good child,” Edith Ethel said, “you may as well know the worst. There’s not a more discredited man in London than Christopher Tietjens, and my husband does himself infinite harm in standing up for him. It’s our one quarrel.”

She went on again:

“It was all very well whilst that fellow had brains. He was said to have some intellect, though I could never see it. But now that, with his drunkenness and debaucheries, he has got himself into the state he is in; for there’s no other way of accounting for his condition! They’re striking him, I don’t mind telling you, off the roll of his office….”

It was there that, for the first time, the thought went through Valentine Wannop’s mind, like a mad inspiration: this woman must at one time have been in love with Tietjens. It was possible, men being what they were that she had even once been Tietjens’ mistress. For it was impossible otherwise to account for this spite, which to Valentine seemed almost meaningless. She had, on the other hand, no impulse to defend Tietjens against accusations that could not have any possible grounds.

Mrs. Duchemin was going on with her kind loftiness:

“Of course a fellow like that — in that condition! — could not understand matters of high policy. It is imperative that these fellows should not have the higher command. It would pander to their insane spirit of militarism. They must be hindered. I’m talking, of course, between ourselves, but my husband says that that is the conviction in the very highest circles. To let them have their way, even if it led to earlier success, would be to establish a precedent — so my husband says! — compared with which the loss of a few lives….”

Valentine sprang up, her face distorted.

“For the sake of Christ,” she cried out, “as you believe that Christ died for you, try to understand that millions of men’s lives are at stake….”

Mrs. Duchemin smiled.

“My poor child,” she said, “if you moved in the higher circles you would look at these things with more aloofness….”

Valentine leant on the back of a high chair for support.

“You don’t move in the higher circles,” she said. “For Heaven’s sake — for your own — remember that you are a woman, not for ever and for always a snob. You were a good woman once. You stuck to your husband for quite a long time….”

Mrs. Duchemin, in her chair, had thrown herself back.

“My good girl,” she said, “have you gone mad?”

Valentine said:

“Yes, very nearly. I’ve got a brother at sea; I’ve had a man I loved out there for an infinite time. You can understand that, I suppose, even if you can’t understand how one can go mad merely at the thoughts of suffering at all…. And I know, Edith Ethel, that you are afraid of my opinion of you, or you wouldn’t have put up all the subterfuges and concealments of all these years….”

Mrs. Duchemin said quickly:

“Oh, my good girl…. If you’ve got personal interests at stake you can’t be expected to take abstract views of the higher matters. We had better change the subject.”

Valentine said:

“Yes, do. Get on with your excuses for not asking me and mother to your knighthood party.”

Mrs. Duchemin, too, rose at that. She felt at her amber beads with long fingers that turned very slightly at the tips. She had behind her all her mirrors, the drops of her lustres, shining points of gilt and of the polish of dark woods. Valentine thought that she had never seen anyone so absolutely impersonate kindness, tenderness, and dignity. She said:

“My dear, I was going to suggest that it was the sort of party to which you might not care to come…. The people will be stiff and formal and you probably haven’t got a frock.”

Valentine said:

“Oh, I’ve got a frock all right. But there’s a Jacob’s ladder in my party stockings and that’s the sort of ladder you can’t kick down.” She couldn’t help saying that.

Mrs. Duchemin stood motionless and very slowly redness mounted into her face. It was most curious to see