Idiot. It was only the telephone. It went on and on. Drrinn; drinnnn; d.r.R.I.n.n. 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 were 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 it 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 are 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:
“I cannot order you to come back if it would kill you not to be with him.” Valentine could feel her late-Victorian advanced mind, desperately seeking for the right plea—for any plea that would let her do without seeming to employ maternal authority. She began to talk like a book: an august Victorian book; Morley’s Life of Gladstone. That was reasonable: she wrote books like that.
She said they were both good creatures of good stock. If their consciences let them commit themselves to a certain course of action they were probably in the right. But she begged them, in God’s name to assure themselves that their consciences did urge that course. She had to talk like a book!
Valentine said:
“It is nothing to do with conscience.” That seemed harsh. Her mind was troubled with a quotation. She could not find it. Quotations ease strain; she said: “One is urged by blind destiny!” A Greek quotation, then! “Like a victim upon an altar. I am afraid; but I consent!” … Probably Euripides; the Alkestis very likely! If it had been a Latin author the phrases would have occurred to her in Latin. Being with her mother made her talk like a book. Her
