Parade's End (12 page)

Tietjens said:

‘Wouldn’t it be better, sir, if you said what you had on your mind? …’

The old General blushed a little.

‘I don’t like to,’ he said straightforwardly. ‘You brilliant fellows… . I only want, my dear boy, to hint that …’

Tietjens said, a little more stiffly:

‘I’d prefer you to get it out, sir… . I acknowledge your right as my father’s oldest friend.’

‘Then,’ the General burst out, ‘who was the skirt you were lolloping up Pall Mall with? On the last day they trooped the colours? … I didn’t see her myself. Was it this same one? Paul said she looked like a cook maid.’

Tietjens made himself a little more rigid.

‘She was, as a matter of fact, a bookmaker’s secretary,’ Tietjens said. ‘I imagine I have the right to walk where I like, with whom I like. And no one has the right to question it… . I don’t mean you, sir. But no one else.’

The General said puzzledly:

‘It’s you
brilliant
fellows… . They all say you’re brilliant… .’

Tietjens said:

‘You might let your rooted distrust of intelligence … It’s natural of course; but you might let it allow you to be just to me. I assure you there was nothing discreditable.’

The General interrupted:

‘If you were a stupid young subaltern and told me you were showing your mother’s new cook the way to the Piccadilly tube I’d believe you… . But, then, no young subaltern would do such a damn, blasted, tomfool thing! Paul said you walked beside her like the king in his glory! Through the crush outside the Haymarket, of all places in the world!’

‘I’m obliged to Sandbach for his commendation… .’ Tietjens said. He thought a moment. Then he said:

‘I was trying to get that young woman… . I was taking her out to lunch from her office at the bottom of the Haymarket… . To get her off a friend’s back. That is, of course, between ourselves.’

He said this with great reluctance because he didn’t want to cast reflection on Macmaster’s taste, for the young lady had been by no means one to be seen walking with a really circumspect public official. But he had said nothing to indicate Macmaster, and he had other friends.

The General choked.

‘Upon my soul,’ he said, ‘what do you take me for?’ He repeated the words as if he were amazed. ‘If,’ he said, ‘my G.S.O.II. – who’s the stupidest ass I know – told me such a damn-fool lie as that I’d have him broke to-morrow.’ He went on expostulatorily: ‘Damn it all, it’s the first duty of a soldier – it’s the first duty of all Englishmen – to be able to tell a good lie in answer to a charge. But a lie like that …’

He broke off breathless, then he began again:

‘Hang it all, I told that lie to my grandmother and my grandfather told it to
his
grandfather. And they call you brilliant! …’ He paused and then asked reproachfully: ‘Or do you think I’m in a state of senile decay?’

Tietjens said:

‘I know you, sir, to be the smartest general of division in the British Army. I leave you to draw your own conclusions as to why I said what I did… .’ He had told the exact truth, but he was not sorry to be disbelieved.

The General said:

‘Then I’ll take it that you tell me a lie meaning me to know that it’s a lie. That’s quite proper. I take it you mean to keep the woman officially out of it. But look here, Chrissie’ – his tone took a deeper seriousness – ‘if the
woman
that’s come between you and Sylvia – that’s broken up your home, damn it, for that’s what it is! – is little Miss Wannop …’

‘Her name was Julia Mandelstein,’ Tietjens said.

The General said:

‘Yes! Yes! Of course! … But if it
is
the little Wannop girl and it’s not gone too far … put her back … put her back, as you used to be a good boy! It would be too hard on the mother… .’

Tietjens said:

‘General! I give you my word …’

The General said:

‘I’m not asking any questions, my boy; I’m talking now. You’ve told me the story you want told and it’s the story I’ll tell for you! But that little piece is … she used to be! … as straight as a die. I daresay you know better than I. Of course when they get among the wild women there’s no knowing what happens to them. They say they’re all whores… . I beg your pardon, if you like the girl …’

‘Is Miss Wannop,’ Tietjens asked, ‘the girl who demonstrates?’

‘Sandbach said,’ the General went on, ‘that he couldn’t see from where he was whether that girl was the same as the one in the Haymarket. But he thought it was… . He was pretty certain.’

‘As he’s married your sister,’ Tietjens said, ‘one can’t impugn his taste in women.’

‘I say again, I’m not asking,’ the General said. ‘But I do say again too: put her back. Her father was a great friend of your father’s: or your father was a great admirer of his. They say he was the most brilliant brain of the party.’

‘Of course I know who Professor Wannop was,’ Tietjens said. ‘There’s nothing you could tell me about him.’

‘I daresay not,’ the General said drily. ‘Then you know that he didn’t leave a farthing when he died and the rotten Liberal Government wouldn’t put his wife and children on the Civil List because he’d sometimes written for a Tory paper. And you know that the mother has had a deuced hard row to hoe and has only just turned the corner. If she can be said to have turned it. I know Claudine takes them all the peaches she can cadge out of Paul’s gardener.’

Tietjens was about to say that Mrs. Wannop, the mother, had written the only novel worth reading since the eighteenth century… . But the General went on:

‘Listen to me, my boy… . If you can’t get on without women … I should have thought Sylvia was good enough. But I know what we men are… . I don’t set up to be a saint. I heard a woman in the promenade of the Empire say once that it was the likes of them that saved the lives and figures of all the virtuous women of the country. And I daresay it’s true. But choose a girl that you can set up in a tobacco shop and do your courting in the back parlour. Not in the Haymarket… . Heaven knows if you can afford it. That’s your affair. You appear to have been sold up. And from what Sylvia’s let drop to Claudine …’

‘I don’t believe,’ Tietjens said, ‘that Sylvia’s said anything to Lady Claudine … She’s too straight.’

‘I didn’t say “said”,’ the General exclaimed, ‘I particularly said “let drop”. And perhaps I oughtn’t to have said as much as that, but you know what devils for ferreting out women are. And Claudine’s worse than any woman I ever knew.’

‘And, of course, she’s had Sandbach to help,’ Tietjens said.

‘Oh, that fellow’s worse than any woman,’ the General exclaimed.

‘Then what does the whole indictment amount to?’ Tietjens asked.

‘Oh, hang it,’ the General brought out, ‘I’m not a beastly detective, I only want a plausible story to tell Claudine. Or not even plausible. An obvious lie as long as it shows you’re not flying in the face of society – as walking up the Haymarket with the little Wannop when your wife’s left you because of her would be.’

‘What does it amount to?’ Tietjens said patiently: ‘What Sylvia “let drop”?’

‘Only,’ the General answered, ‘that you are – that your views are – immoral. Of course they often puzzle me. And, of course, if you have views that aren’t the same as other people’s, and don’t keep them to yourself, other people will suspect you of immorality. That’s what put Paul Sandbach on your track! … and that you’re extravagant… . Oh, hang it… . Eternal hansoms, and taxis and
telegrams.
… You know, my boy, times aren’t what they were when your father and I married. We used to say you could do it on five hundred a year as a younger son… . And then this girl too… .’ His voice took on a more agitated note of shyness – pain. ‘It probably hadn’t occurred to you… . But, of course, Sylvia has an income of her own… . And, don’t you see … if you outrun the constable and … In short, you’re spending Sylvia’s money on the other girl, and that’s what people can’t stand.’ He added quickly: ‘I’m bound to say that Mrs. Satterthwaite backs you through thick and thin. Thick and thin! Claudine wrote to her. But you know what women are with a handsome son-in-law that’s always polite to them. But I may tell you that but for your mother-in-law, Claudine would have cut you out of her visiting list months ago. And you’d have been cut out of some others too… .’

Tietjens said:

‘Thanks. I think that’s enough to go on with. Give me a couple of minutes to reflect on what you’ve said …’

‘I’ll wash my hands and change my coat,’ the General said with intense relief.

At the end of two minutes Tietjens said:

‘No; I don’t see that there is anything I want to say.’

The General exclaimed with enthusiasm:

‘That’s my good lad! Open confession is next to reform… . And … and try to be more respectful to your superiors… . Damn it; they say you’re brilliant. But I thank heaven I haven’t got you in my command… . Though I believe you’re a good lad. But you’re the sort of fellow to set a whole division by the ears… . A regular … what’s ’is name? A regular Dreyfus!’

‘Did you think Dreyfus was guilty?’ Tietjens asked.

‘Hang it,’ the General said, ‘he was worse than guilty – the sort of fellow you couldn’t believe in and yet couldn’t prove anything against. The curse of the world… .’

Tietjens said:

‘Ah.’

‘Well, they are,’ the General said: ‘fellows like that
unsettle
society. You don’t know where you are. You can’t judge. They make you uncomfortable… . A brilliant fellow too! I believe he’s a brigadier-general by now… .’ He put his arm round Tietjens’ shoulders.

‘There, there, my dear boy,’ he said, ‘come and have a sloe gin. That’s the real answer to all beastly problems.’

It was some time before Tietjens could get to think of his own problems. The fly that took them back went with the slow pomp of a procession over the winding marsh road in front of the absurdly picturesque red pyramid of the very old town. Tietjens had to listen to the General suggesting that it would be better if he didn’t come to the golf-club till Monday. He would get Macmaster some good games. A good, sound fellow that Macmaster, now. It was a pity Tietjens hadn’t some of his soundness!

The two city men had approached the General on the course and had used some violent invectives against Tietjens: they had objected to being called ruddy swine to their faces; they were going to the police. The General said that he had told them himself, slowly and distinctly, that they
were
ruddy swine and that they would never get another ticket at that club after Monday. But till Monday, apparently, they had the right to be there and the club wouldn’t want scenes. Sandbach, too, was infuriated about Tietjens.

Tietjens said that the fault lay with the times that permitted the introduction into gentlemen’s company of such social swipes as Sandbach. One acted perfectly correctly and then a dirty little beggar like that put dirty little constructions on it and ran about and bleated. He added that he knew Sandbach was the General’s brother-in-law, but he couldn’t help it. That was the truth… . The General said: ‘I know, my boy: I know… .’ But one had to take society as one found it. Claudine had to be provided for and Sandbach made a very good husband, careful, sober, and on the right side in politics. A bit of a rip; but they couldn’t ask for everything! And Claudine was using all the influence she had with the other side – which was not a little, women were so wonderful! – to get him a diplomatic job in Turkey, so as to get him out of the way of Mrs. Crundall! Mrs. Crundall was the leading Anti-Suffragette of the little town. That was what made Sandbach so bitter against Tietjens. He told Tietjens so that Tietjens might understand.

Tietjens had hitherto flattered himself that he could examine a subject swiftly and put it away in his mind. To
the
General he hardly listened. The allegations against himself were beastly; but he could usually ignore allegations against himself and he imagined that if he said no more about them he would himself hear no more. If there were, in clubs and places where men talk, unpleasant rumours as to himself he preferred it to be thought that he was the rip, not his wife the strumpet. That was normal, male vanity; the preference of the English gentleman! Had it been a matter of Sylvia spotless and himself as spotless as he was – for in all these things he knew himself to be spotless! – he would certainly have defended himself, at least, to the General. But he had acted practically in not defending himself more vigorously. For he imagined that, had he really tried, he could have made the General believe him. But he had behaved rightly! It was not mere vanity. There was the child up at his sister Effie’s. It was better for a boy to have a rip of a father than a whore for a mother!

The General was expatiating on the solidity of a squat castle, like a pile of draughts, away to the left, in the sun, on the flatness. He was saying that we didn’t build like that nowadays.

Tietjens said:

‘You’re perfectly wrong, General. All the castles that Henry VIII built in 1543 along this coast are mere monuments of jerry-building… . “
In 1543 jactat castra Delis, Sandgatto, Reia, Hastingas Henricus Rex
” … That means he chucked them down… .’

The General laughed:

‘You are an incorrigible fellow… . If ever there’s any known, certain fact …’

‘But go and
look
at the beastly things,’ Tietjens said. ‘You’ll see they’ve got just a facing of Caen stone that they tide-floated here, and the fillings-up are just rubble, any rubbish. Look here! It’s a known certain fact, isn’t it, that your eighteen-pounders are better than the French seventy-fives. They tell us so in the House, on the hustings, in the papers; the public believes it… . But would you put one of your tin-pot things firing – what is it? – four shells a minute? – with the little bent pins in their tails to stop the recoil – against their seventy-fives with the compressed-air cylinders… .’

The General sat stiffly upon his cushions:

‘That’s different,’ he said. ‘How the devil do you get to know these things?’

‘It isn’t different,’ Tietjens said, ‘it’s the same muddle-headed frame of mind that sees good building in Henry VIII as lets us into wars with hopelessly antiquated field guns and rottenly inferior ammunition. You’d fire any fellow on your staff who said we could stand up for a minute against the French.’