Such rage and despair had swept over her as she had never before known. She had cried to Christopher, dark, beside her: that the woman lied. She had not got cancer. …
She must not think about these things.
The woman on the path—in grey riding things—approached slowly. The head still bent down. Undoubtedly she had silk underthings beneath all that grey cloth. … Well, they—Christopher and Valentine—gave her them.
It was queer how calm she was. That of course was Sylvia Tietjens. Let it be. She had fought for her man before and so she could again; the Russians should not have … The old jingle ran in her calm head. …
But she was desperately perturbed: trembling. At the thought of that dreadful night. Christopher had wanted to go with Sylvia after she had fallen downstairs. A good theatre fall, but not good enough. But she had shouted: No! He was never going with Sylvia again. Finis Sylviae et magna. … In the black night … They had gone on firing maroons. They could be heard!
Well, she was calm. The sight of that figure was not going to hurt the tiny brain that worked deep within her womb. Nor the tiny limbs! She was going to slub the warm, soap-transfused flannel onto those little legs in the warm of the great hearth. … Nine hams up that chimney! Chrissie looking up and laughing. … That woman would never again do that! Not to a child of Christopher’s. Not to any man’s child, belike!
That had been that woman’s son! With a girl in white breeches! … Well, who was she, Valentine, to prevent a son’s seeing his father. She felt on her arm the weight of her own son. With that there she could confront the world.
It was queer! That woman’s face was all blurred. … Blubberingly! The features swollen, the eyes red. … Ah, she had been thinking, looking at the garden and the stillness: “If I had given Christopher that I should have kept him!” But she would never have kept him. Had she been the one woman in all the world he would never have looked at her. Not after he had seen her, Valentine Wannop!
Sylvia had looked up, contemplatively—as if into the very window. But she could not see into the window. She must have seen Mrs. de Bray Pape and the girl, for it became apparent why she had taken off her glove. She now had a gold vanity box in her hand: looking in at the mirror and moving her right hand swiftly before her face. … Remember: it was we who gave her that gold thing. Remember! Remember it hard!
Sudden anger came over her. That woman must never come into their house-place, before whose hearth she was to bathe the little Chrissie! Never! Never! The place would be polluted. She knew, only by that, how she loathed and recoiled from that woman.
She was at the lock. The key turned. … See what emotion at the thought of harm to your unborn child can do for you! Subconsciously her right hand had remembered how you pressed the key upwards when you made it turn. … She must not run down the narrow stairs. The telephone was in a niche on the inner side of the great ingle. The room was dim: very long, very low. The Barker cabinet looked very rich, with its green, yellow and scarlet inlays. She was leaning sideways in the nook between the immense fireplace and the room wall, the telephone receiver at her ear. She looked down her long room—it opened into the dining-room, a great beam between. It was dark, gleaming, rich with old beeswaxed woods. … Elle ne demandait pas mieux … the phrase of Marie Léonie occurred constantly to her mind. … She did not ask better—if only the things were to be regarded as theirs! She looked into the distant future when things would spread out tranquilly before them. They would have a little money, a little peace. Things would spread out … like a plain seen from a hill. In the meantime they had to keep all on going. … She did not, in effect, grumble at that … as long as strength and health held out.
The doctor—she pictured him, long, sandy and very pleasant, suffering too from an incurable disease and debts, life being like that!—the doctor asked cheerfully how Mark was. She said she did not know. He was said to have been profusely sweating. … Yes, it was possible that he might have been having a disagreeable interview. The doctor said: “Tut! Tut! And yourself?” He had a Scotch accent, the sandy man. … She suggested that he might bring along a bromide. He said: “They’ve been bothering you. Don’t let them!” She said she had been asleep—but they probably would. She added: “Perhaps you would come quickly!” … Sister Anne! Sister Anne! For God’s sake, Sister Anne! If she could get a bromide into her it would pass like a dream.
It was passing like a dream. Perhaps the Virgin Mary exists. … If she does not we must invent her to look after mothers who could not … But she could! She, Valentine Wannop!
The light from the doorway that was open onto the garden was obscured. A highwayman in skirts with panniers stood in the room against the light. It said:
“You’re the saleswoman, I guess. This is a most insanitary place, and I hear you have no bath. Show me some things. In the Louie Kaator’s style.” … It guessed that it was going to refurnish Groby in Louis Quatorze style. Did she, Valentine, as saleswoman, suppose that They—her employers—would meet her in the expense. Mr. Pape had had serious losses in Miami. They must not suppose that the Papes could be bled white. This place ought to be pulled down as unfit for human habitation and a model workman’s cottage built in its place. People who sold things to rich Americans in this country were sharks. She herself was descended spiritually from Madame de Maintenon. It would be all
