Valentine’s heart started. The light from the doorway was again obscured. Marie Léonie ran panting in. Sister Anne, in effect! She said: “Le téléphone! Vite!”
Valentine said:
“J’ai déjà téléphoné. … Le docteur sera ici dans quelques minutes. … Je te prie de rester à côté de moi!” … “I beg you to remain beside me!” Selfish! Selfish! But there was a child to be born. … Anyhow Marie Léonie could not have got out of that door. It was blocked. … Ah!
Sylvia was looking down on Valentine. You could hardly see her face against the light. … Well, it did not amount to more than that. … She was looking down because she was so tall; you could not see her face against the light. Mrs. de Bray Pape was explaining what spiritual descent from grands seigneurs did for you.
Sylvia was bending her eyes on Valentine. That was the phrase. She said to Mrs. de Bray Pape:
“For God’s sake hold your damned tongue. Get out of here!”
Mrs. de Bray Pape had not understood. For the matter of that neither did Valentine take it in. A thin voice from a distance thrilled:
“Mother! … Mo … ther!”
She—it—for it was like a statue. … Marvellous how she had made her face up. Three minutes before it had been a mush! … It was flawless now; dark-shadowed under the eyes! And sorrowful! And tremendously dignified. And kind! … Damn! Damn! Damn!
It occurred to Valentine that this was only the second time that she had ever seen that face.
Its stillness now was terrible!
What was she waiting for before she began the Billingsgate that they were both going to indulge in before all these people? … For she, Valentine, had her back against the wall! She heard herself begin to say:
“You have spoilt …”
She could not continue. You cannot very well tell a person that their loathsomeness is so infectious as to spoil your baby’s bathing-place! It is not done!
Marie Léonie said in French to Mrs. de Bray Pape that Mrs. Tietjens did not require her presence. Mrs. de Bray Pape did not understand. It is difficult for a Maintenon to understand that her presence is not required!
The first time that she, Valentine, had seen that face, in Edith Ethel’s drawing-room, she had thought how kind … how blindingly kind it was. When the lips had approached her mother’s cheek the tears had been in Valentine’s eyes. It had said—that face of a statue!—that it must kiss Mrs. Wannop for her kindness to Christopher. … Damn it, it might as well kiss her, Valentine now. But for her there would have been no Christopher.
You must not say Damn it all. The war is over …
Ah, but its backwashes, when would they be over?
It said—that woman’s voice was so perfectly expressionless that you could continue appropriately to call it “it”—it said, coldly to Mrs. de Bray Pape:
“You hear! The lady of the house does not require your presence. Please go away.”
Mrs. de Bray Pape was explaining that she intended re-furnishing Groby in the Louis Quatorze style.
It occurred to Valentine that this position had its comicalities. Mrs. de Bray Pape did not know her, Valentine. Marie Léonie did not know who that figure was.
They would miss a good deal of the jam … Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday. … Where was the jam? That figure had said, “The lady of the house.” Delicately. Quelle delicatesse!
But she did not appear denunciatory. She dropped sideways: pensive. Puzzled. As if at the ways of God. As if stricken by God and puzzled at his ways … Well, she might be.
She caught at the telephone shelf. The child had moved within her. … It wanted her to be called “Mrs. Tietjens” in its own house. This woman stood in the way. She could not give a father’s name to the little thing. So he protested within her. Dark it was growing. Hold up there.
Someone was calling “Valentine!”
A boy’s voice called:
“Mother! Mother!”
A soft voice said:
“Mrs. Tietjens!”
What things to say in her child’s hearing! … Mother! Mother! … Her mother was in Pontresina, complete with secretary in black alpaca … The Italian Alps!
Dark! … Marie Léonie said in her ear: “Tiens toi debout, ma chérie!”
Dark, dark night; cold, cold snow—Harsh, harsh wind, and lo!—Where shall we shepherds go, God’s son to find?
Edith Ethel was reading to Mrs. de Bray Pape from a letter. She said: “As an American of culture, you will be interested. … From the great poet!” … A gentleman held a top-hat in front of his face, as if he were in church. Thin, with dull eyes and a Jewish beard! Jews keep their hats on in church. …
Apparently she, Valentine Wannop, was going to be denounced before the congregation! Did they bring a scarlet letter. … They were Puritans enough, she and Christopher. The voice of the man with the Jewish beard—Sylvia Tietjens had removed the letter from the fingers of Edith Ethel. … Not much changed, Edith Ethel! Face a little lined. And pale. And suddenly reduced to silence—the voice of the man with the beard said:
“After all! It does make a difference. He is virtually Tietjens of …” He began to push his way backwards, outwards. A man trying to leave through the crowd at the church door. He turned to say to her oddly:
“Madame … eh … Tietjens! Pardon!” Attempting a French accent!
Edith Ethel remarked:
“I wanted to say to Valentine: if I effect the sale personally I do not see that
