That boy, Mark thought, was a very curious problem. He seemed to be a good, straight boy. A little loquacious; still, that was to be excused since he had to do all the talking himself. From time to time he had paused in his speech as if, deferentially, he wished to have Mark’s opinion. That was proper. He, Mark, could not stand hobbledehoys—particularly the hobbledehoys of that age, who appeared to be opinionative and emotional beyond the normal in hobbledehoys. Anyhow, he could not stand the Young once they were beyond the age of childhood. But he was aware that, if you want to conduct a scientific investigation, if you want to arrive, for yourself, at the truth of an individual’s parentage—you must set aside your likes and dislikes.
Heaven knew, he had found Christopher, when he had been only one of the younger ones in his father’s—he had found him irritating enough … a rather moony, fair brat, interested mostly in mathematics, with a trick of standing with those goggle eyes gazing bluely at you—years ago, in and around, at first the nursery, then the stables at Groby. Then, if this lad irritated him, it was rather an argument in favour of his being Christopher’s son than Sylvia’s by-blow by another man. … What was the fellow’s name? A rank bad hat, anyhow.
The probability was that he was the other fellow’s son. That woman would not have trepanned Christopher into the marriage if she hadn’t at least thought that she was with child. There was nothing to be said against any wench’s tricking any man into marrying her if she were in that condition. But once having got a man to give a name to your bastard you ought to treat him with some loyalty; it is a biggish service he has done you. That Sylvia had never done. … They had got this young fellow into their—the Tietjenses’—family. There he was, with his fingers on Groby already. … That was all right. As great families as Tietjens’ had had that happen to them.
But what made Sylvia pestilential was that she should afterwards have developed this sex-madness for his unfortunate brother.
There was no other way to look at it. She had undoubtedly lured Christopher on to marry her because she thought, rightly or wrongly, that she was with child by another man. They would never know—she herself probably did not know!—whether this boy was Christopher’s son or the other’s. English women are so untidy—shamefaced—about these things. That was excusable. But every other action of hers from that date had been inexcusable—except regarded as actions perpetrated under the impulsion of sex-viciousness.
It is perfectly proper—it is a mother’s duty to give an unborn child a name and a father. But afterwards to blast the name of that father is more discreditable than to leave the child nameless. This boy was now Tietjens of Groby—but he was also the boy who was the son of a father who had behaved unspeakably according to the mother. … And the son of a mother who had been unable to attract her man! … Who advertised the fact to the estate carpenter! If we say that the good of the breed is the supreme law what sort of virtue was this?
It was all very well to say that every one of Sylvia’s eccentricities had in view the sole aim of getting her boy’s father to return to her. No doubt they might. He, Mark, was perfectly ready to concede that even her infidelities, notorious as they had been, might have been merely ways of calling his unfortunate brother’s attention back to her—of keeping herself in his mind. After the marriage Christopher, finding out that he had been a mere cat’s-paw, probably treated her pretty coldly or ignored her—maritally. … And he was a pretty attractive fellow, Christopher. He, Mark, was bound nowadays to acknowledge that. A regular saint and Christian martyr and all that. … Enough to drive a woman wild if she had to live beside him and be ignored.
It is obvious that women must be allowed what means they can make use of to maintain—to arouse—their sex attraction for their men. That is what the bitches are for in the scale of things. They have to perpetuate the breed. To do that they have to call attention to themselves and to use what devices they see fit to use, each one according to her own temperament. That cruelty was an excitant, he was quite ready, too, to concede. He was ready to concede anything to the woman. To be cruel is to draw attention to yourself; you cannot expect to be courted by a man whom you allow to forget you. But there probably ought to be a limit to things. You probably ought in this, as in all other things, to know what you can do and what you can’t—and the proof of this particular pudding, as of all others, was in the eating. Sylvia had left no stone unturned in the determination to keep herself in her man’s mind, and she had certainly irretrievably lost her man: to another girl. Then she was just a nuisance.
A woman intent on getting a man back ought to have some system, some sort of scheme at the very least. But Sylvia—he knew it from the interminable talk that he had had with Christopher on Armistice Night—Sylvia delighted most in doing what she called pulling the strings of shower-baths. She did extravagant things, mostly of a cruel kind, for the fun of seeing what would happen. Well, you cannot allow yourself fun when you are on a campaign. Not as to the
