Parade's End (60 page)

Tietjens, with a carefully measured fury, first cross-examined and then damned the police witness to hell. Then he marked the charge sheets with the words ‘Case explained’, and told the Canadians to go and get ready for his parade. It meant he was aware of a frightful row with the provost-marshal, who was a port-winey old general called O’Hara and loved his police as if they had been ewe-lambs.

He took his parade, the Canadian troops looking like real soldiers in the sunlight, went round his lines with the new Canadian sergeant-major, who had his appointment, thank goodness, from his own authorities; wrote a report on the extreme undesirability of lecturing his men on the causes of the war, since his men were either graduates of one or other Canadian university and thus knew twice as much about the causes of the war as any lecturer the civilian authorities could provide, or else they were half-breed Micamuc Indians, Esquimaux, Japanese, or Alaskan Russians, none of whom could understand any English lecturer… . He was aware that he would have to re-write his report so as to make it more respectful to the newspaper-proprietor peer who, at that time, was urging on the home Government the necessity of lecturing all the subjects of His Majesty on the causes of the war. But he wanted to get that grouse off his chest and its disrespect would pain Levin, who would have to deal with these reports if he did not get married first. Then he lunched off army sausage-meat and potatoes, mashed with their skins complete, watered with an admirable 1906 brut champagne which they bought themselves, and an appalling Canadian cheese – at the headquarters table to which the colonel had invited all the subalterns who that day were going up the line for the first time. They had some ‘h’s in their compositions, but in revenge they must have boasted of a pint of adenoid growths between them. There was, however, a charming young half-caste Goa second-lieutenant, who afterwards proved of an heroic bravery. He gave Tietjens a lot of amusing information as to the working of the purdah in Portuguese India.

So, at half-past one Tietjens sat on Schomburg, the coffin-headed, bright chestnut from the Prussian horse-raising
establishment
near Celle. Almost a pure thoroughbred, this animal had usually the paces of a dining-room table, its legs being fully as stiff. But to-day its legs might have been made of cotton-wool, it lumbered over frosty ground breathing stertorously and, at the jumping-ground of the Deccan Horse, a mile above and behind Rouen, it did not so much refuse a very moderate jump as come together in a lugubrious crumple. It was, in the light of a red, jocular sun, like being mounted on a broken-hearted camel. In addition, the fatigues of the morning beginning to tell, Tietjens was troubled by an obsession of O Nine Morgan which he found tiresome to have to stall off.

‘What the hell,’ he asked of the orderly, a very silent private on a roan beside him, ‘what the hell is the matter with his horse? … Have you been keeping him warm?’ He imagined that the clumsy paces of the animal beneath him added to his gloomy obsessions.

The orderly looked straight in front of him over a valley full of hutments. He said:

‘No, sir.’ The ’oss ’ad been put in the ’oss-standings of G depot. By the orders of Lieutenant ’Itchcock. ’Osses, Lieutenant ’Itchcock said, ’ad to be ’ardened.’

Tietjens said:

‘Did you tell him that it was my orders that Schomburg was to be kept warm? In the stables of the farm behind No. XVI I.B.D.’

‘The lieutenant,’ the orderly explained woodenly, ‘said as ’ow henny departure f’m ’is orders would be visited by the extreme displeasure of Lord Breech’em, K.C.V.O., K.C.B., etcetera.’ The orderly was quivering with rage.

‘You will,’ Tietjens said very carefully, ‘when you fall out with the horses at the Hôtel de la Poste, take Schomburg and the roan to the stables of La Volonté Farm, behind No. XVI I.B.D.’ The orderly was to close all the windows of the stable, stopping up any chinks with wadding. He would procure, if possible, a sawdust stove, new pattern, from Colonel Gillum’s store and light it in the stables. He was also to give Schomburg and the roan oatmeal and water warmed as hot as the horses would take it… . And Tietjens finished sharply, ‘If Lieutenant Hotchkiss makes any comments, you will refer him to me. As his C.O.’

The orderly seeking information as to horse-ailments, Tietjens said:

‘The school of horse-copers, to which Lord Beichan belongs, believes in the hardening of all horse-flesh other than racing cattle.’ They bred racing-cattle. Under six blankets apiece! Personally Tietjens did not believe in the hardening process and would not permit any animal over which he had control to be submitted to it… . It had been observed that if any animal was kept at a lower temperature than of its normal climatic condition it would contract diseases to which ordinarily it was not susceptible… . If you keep a chicken for two days in a pail of water it will contract human scarlet-fever or mumps if injected with either bacillus. If you remove the chicken from the water, dry it, and restore it to its normal conditions, the scarlet-fever or the mumps will die out of the animal… . He said to the orderly: ‘You are an intelligent man. What deduction do you draw?’

The orderly looked away over the valley of the Seine.

‘I suppose, sir,’ he said, ‘that our ’osses, being kept alwise cold in their standings, ’as hillnesses they wouldn’t otherwise ’ave.’

‘Well then,’ Tietjens said, ‘keep the poor animals warm.’

He considered that here was the makings of a very nasty row for himself if, by any means, his sayings came round to the ears of Lord Beichan; but that he had to chance. He could not let a horse for which he was responsible be martyred… . There was too much to think about … so that nothing at all stood out to be thought of. The sun was glowing. The valley of the Seine was blue-grey, like a Gobelin tapestry. Over it all hung the shadow of a deceased Welsh soldier. An odd skylark was declaiming over an empty field behind the incinerators’ headquarters… . An odd lark. For as a rule larks do not sing in December. Larks sing only when courting, or over the nest… . The bird must be oversexed. O Nine Morgan was the other thing, that accounting for the prize-fighter!

They dropped down a mud lane between brick walls into the town… .

PART TWO

IN THE ADMIRABLY
appointed, white-enamelled, wicker-worked, be-mirrored lounge of the best hotel of that town Sylvia Tietjens sat in a wickerwork chair, not listening rather abstractedly to a staff-major who was lachrymosely and continuously begging her to leave her bedroom door unlocked that night. She said:

‘I don’t know… . Yes, perhaps… . I don’t know… .’ And looked distantly into a bluish wall-mirror that, like all the rest, was framed with white-painted cork bark. She stiffened a little and said:

‘There’s Christopher!’

The staff-major dropped his hat, his stick, and his gloves. His black hair, which was without parting and heavy with some preparation of a glutinous kind, moved agitatedly on his scalp. He had been saying that Sylvia had ruined his life. Didn’t Sylvia know that she had ruined his life? But for her he might have married some pure young thing. Now he exclaimed:

‘But what does he want? … Good God! … what does he want?’

‘He wants,’ Sylvia said, ‘to play the part of Jesus Christ.’

Major Perowne exclaimed:

‘Jesus Christ! But he’s the most foul-mouthed officer in the general’s command… .’

‘Well,’ Sylvia said, ‘if you had married your pure young thing she’d have … what is it? … cuckolded you within nine months… .’

Perowne shuddered a little at the word. He mumbled:

‘I don’t see… . It seems to be the other way …’

‘Oh, no, it isn’t,’ Sylvia said. ‘Think it over… . Morally,
you’re
the husband… .
Im
morally, I should say… . Because he’s the man I want… . He looks ill… . Do
hospital
authorities always tell wives what is the matter with their husbands?’

From his angle in the chair from which he had half-emerged Sylvia seemed to him to be looking at a blank wall.

‘I don’t see him,’ Perowne said.

‘I can see him in the glass,’ Sylvia said. ‘Look! From here you can see him.’

Perowne shuddered a little more.

‘I don’t want to see him… . I have to see him sometimes in the course of duty… . I don’t like to… .’

Sylvia said:

‘
You
,’ in a tone of very deep contempt. ‘You only carry chocolate boxes to flappers… . How can he come across you in the course of duty? … You’re not a
soldier
!’

Perowne said:

‘But what are we going to do? What will
he
do?’

‘I,’ Sylvia answered, ‘shall tell the page-boy when he comes with his card to say that I’m engaged… . I don’t know what
he’ll
do. Hit you, very likely. He’s looking at your back now… .’

Perowne became rigid, sunk into his deep chair.

‘But he
couldn’t
!’ he exclaimed agitatedly. ‘You said that he was playing the part of Jesus Christ. Our Lord wouldn’t hit people in an hotel lounge… .’

‘Our Lord!’ Sylvia said contemptuously. ‘What do you know about our Lord? Our Lord was a gentleman… . Christopher is playing at being our Lord calling on the woman taken in adultery… . He’s giving me the social backing that his being my husband seems to him to call for.’

A one-armed, bearded
maître d’hôtel
approached them through groups of arm-chairs arranged for
tête-à-tête
. He said:

‘Pardon … I did not see madame at first… .’ And displayed a card on a salver. Without looking at it, Sylvia said:

‘
Dîtes à ce monsieur
… that I am occupied.’ The
maître d’hôtel
moved austerely away.

‘But he’ll smash me to pieces …’ Perowne exclaimed. ‘What am I to do? … What the deuce am I to do?’ There would have been no way of exit for him except across Tietjens’ face.

With her spine very rigid and the expression of a snake that fixes a bird, Sylvia gazed straight in front of her and said nothing until she exclaimed:

‘For God’s sake leave off trembling… . He would not do anything to a girl like you. He’s a man… .’ The wickerwork of Perowne’s chair had been crepitating as if it had been in a railway car. The sound ceased with a jerk… . Suddenly she clenched both her hands and let out a hateful little breath of air between her teeth.

‘By the immortal saints,’ she exclaimed, ‘I swear I’ll make his wooden face wince yet.’

In the bluish looking-glass, a few minutes before, she had seen the agate-blue eyes of her husband, thirty feet away, over arm-chairs and between the fans of palms. He was standing, holding a riding-whip, looking rather clumsy in the uniform that did not suit him. Rather clumsy and worn out, but completely expressionless! He had looked straight into the reflection of her eyes and then looked away. He moved so that his profile was towards her, and continued gazing motionless at an elk’s head that decorated the space of wall above glazed doors giving into the interior of the hotel. The hotel servant approaching him, he had produced a card and had given it to the servant, uttering three words. She saw his lips move in the three words: Mrs. Christopher Tietjens. She said, beneath her breath:

‘Damn his chivalry! … Oh, God damn his chivalry!’ She knew what was going on in his mind. He had seen her, with Perowne, so he had neither come towards her nor directed the servant to where she sat. For fear of embarrassing her! He would leave it to her to come to him if she wished.

The servant, visible in the mirror, had come and gone deviously back, Tietjens still gazing at the elk’s head. He had taken the card and restored it to his pocket-book and then had spoken to the servant. The servant had shrugged his shoulders with the formal hospitality of his class and, with his shoulders still shrugged and his one hand pointing towards the inner door, had preceded Tietjens into the hotel. Not one line of Tietjens’ face had moved when he had received back his card. It had been then that Sylvia had sworn that she would yet make his wooden face wince… .

His face was intolerable. Heavy; fixed. Not insolent, but simply gazing over the heads of all things and created beings, into a world too distant for them to enter. And yet it seemed to her, since he was so clumsy and worn out, almost not sporting to persecute him. It was like whipping a dying bulldog… .

She sank back into her chair with a movement almost of discouragement. She said:

‘He’s gone into the hotel… .’

Perowne lurched agitatedly forward in his chair. He exclaimed that he was going. Then he sank discouragedly back again:

‘No, I’m not,’ he said, ‘I’m probably much safer here. I might run against him going out.’

‘You’ve realised that my petticoats protect you,’ Sylvia said contemptuously. ‘Of course, Christopher would never hit anyone in my presence.’

Major Perowne was interrupting her by asking:

‘What’s he going to do? What’s he doing in the hotel?’

Mrs. Tietjens said:

‘Guess!’ She added: ‘What would you do in similar circumstances?’

‘Go and wreck your bedroom,’ Perowne answered with promptitude. ‘It’s what I did when I found you had left Yssingueux.’

Sylvia said:

‘Ah, that was what the place was called.’

Perowne groaned:

‘You’re callous,’ he said. ‘There’s no other word for it. Callous. That’s what you are.’

Sylvia asked absently why he called her callous at just that juncture. She was imagining Christopher stumping clumsily along the hotel corridor looking at bedrooms, and then giving the hotel servant a handsome tip to ensure that he should be put on the same floor as herself. She could almost hear his not disagreeable male voice that vibrated a little from the chest and made her vibrate.

Perowne was grumbling on. Sylvia was callous because she had forgotten the name of the Brittany hamlet in which they had spent three blissful weeks together, though she had left it so suddenly that all her outfit remained in the hotel.

‘Well, it wasn’t any kind of a beanfeast for me,’ Sylvia went on, when she again gave him her attention. ‘Good heavens! … Do you think it
would
be any kind of a beanfeast with you,
pour tout potage
? Why should I remember the name of the hateful place?’