PART TWO 2 страница

“I daresay not, ” the priest said. “But let's talk about men. ” “There's nothing you can tell me I don't know, ” Sylvia said.

“I daresay not, ” the priest answered. “But let's rehearse what you do know. Now suppose you could elope with a new man every week and no questions asked? Or how often would you want to? ”

Sylvia said:

“Just a moment, Father, ” and she addressed Mrs Satterthwaite: “I suppose I shall have to put myself to bed. ”

“You will, ” Mrs Satterthwaite said. “I'll not have any maid kept up after ten in a holiday resort. What's she to do in a place like this? Except listen for the bogies it's full of? ”

“Always considerate! ” Mrs Tietjens gibed. “And perhaps it's just as well. I'd probably beat that Marie of yours' arms to pieces with a hair-brush if she came near me. ” She added: “You were talking about men, Father…” And then began with sudden animation to her mother:

“I've changed my mind about that telegram. The first thing to-morrow I shall wire: 'Agreed entirely but arrange bring Hullo Central with you. '”

She addressed the priest again.

“I call my maid Hullo Central because she's got a tinny voice like a telephone. I say: 'Hullo Central'—when she answers 'Yes, modd'm, ' you'd swear it was the Exchange speaking… But you were telling me about men. ”

“I was reminding you! ” the Father said. “But I needn't go on. You've caught the drift of my remarks. That is why you are pretending not to listen. ”

“I assure you, no, ” Mrs Tietjens said. “It is simply that if a thing comes into my head I have to say it… You were saying that if one went away with a different man for every week-end…”

“You've shortened the period already, ” the priest said. “I gave a full week to every man. ”

“But, of course, one would have to have a home, ” Sylvia said, “an address. One would have to fill one's mid-week engagements. Really it comes to it that one has to have a husband and a place to store one's maid in. Hullo Central's been on board-wages all the time. But I don't believe she likes it… Let's agree that if I had a different man every week I'd be bored with the arrangement. That's what you're getting at, isn't it? ”

“You'd find, ” the priest said, “that it whittled down until the only divvy moment was when you stood waiting in the booking-office for the young man to take the tickets… And then gradually that wouldn't be divvy any more… And you'd yawn and long to go back to your husband. ”

“Look here, ” Mrs Tietjens said, “you're abusing the secrets of the confessional. That's exactly what Tottie Charles said. She tried it for three months while Freddie Charles was in Madeira. It's exactly what she said down to the yawn and the booking-office. And the 'divvy. ' It's only Tottie Charles who uses it every two words. Most of us prefer ripping! It is more sensible. ”

“Of course I haven't been abusing the secrets of the confessional, ” Father Consett said mildly.

“Of course you haven't, ” Sylvia said with affection. “You're a good old stick and no end of a mimic, and you know us all to the bottom of our hearts. ”

“Not all that much, ” the, priest said, “there's probably a good deal of good at the bottom of your hearts. ” Sylvia said:

“Thanks. ” She asked suddenly: “Look here. Was it what you saw of us—the future mothers of England, you know, and all—at Miss Lampeter's—that made you take to the slums? Out of disgust and despair? ”

“Oh, let's not make melodrama out of it, ” the priest answered. “Let's say I wanted a change. I couldn't see that I was doing any good. ”

“You did us all the good there was done, ” Sylvia said. “What with Miss Lampeter always drugged to the world, and all the French mistresses as wicked as hell. ”

“I've heard you say all this before, ” Mrs Satterthwaite said. “But it was supposed to be the best finishing school in England. I know it cost enough! ”

“Well, say it was we who were a rotten lot, ” Sylvia concluded; and then to the Father: “We were a lot of rotters, weren't we? ”

The priest answered:

“I don't know. I don't suppose you were—or are—any worse than your mother or grandmother, or the patricianesses of Rome or the worshippers of Ashtaroth. It seems we have to have a governing class and governing classes are subject to special temptations. ”

“Who's Ashtaroth? ” Sylvia asked. “Astarte? ” and then: “Now, Father, after your experiences would you say the factory girls of Liverpool, or any other slum, are any better women than us that you used to look after? ”

“Astarte Syriaca, ” the Father said, “was a very powerful devil. There's some that hold she's not dead yet. I don't know that I do myself. ”

“Well, I've done with her, ” Sylvia said.

The Father nodded:

“You've had dealings with Mrs Profumo? ” he asked. “And that loathsome fellow… What's his name? ”

“Does it shock you? ” Sylvia asked. “I'll admit it was a bit thick… But I've done with it. I prefer to pin my faith to Mrs Vanderdecken. And, of course, Freud. ”

The priest nodded his head and said:

“Of course! Of course…”

But Mrs Satterthwaite exclaimed, with sudden energy:

“Sylvia Tietjens, I don't care what you do or what you read, but if you ever speak another word to that woman, you never do to me! ”

Sylvia stretched herself on her sofa. She opened her brown eyes wide and let the lids slowly drop again.

“I've said once, ” she said, “that I don't like to hear my friends miscalled. Eunice Vanderdecken is a bitterly misjudged woman. She's a real good pal. ”

“She's a Russian spy, ” Mrs Satterthwaite said.

“Russian grandmother, ” Sylvia answered. “And if she is, who cares? She's welcome for me… Listen now, you two. I said to myself when I came in: 'I daresay I've given them both a rotten time. ' I know you're both more nuts on me than I deserve. And I said I'd sit and listen to all the pi-jaw you wanted to give me if I sat till dawn. And I will. As a return. But I'd rather you let my friends alone. ”

Both the elder people were silent. There came from the shuttered windows of the dark room a low, scratching rustle.

“You hear! ” the priest said to Mrs Satterthwaite. “It's the branches, ” Mrs Satterthwaite answered.

The Father answered: “There's no tree within ten yards! Try bats as an explanation. ”

“I've said I wish you wouldn't, once, ” Mrs Satterthwaite shivered. Sylvia said:

“I don't know what you two are talking about. It sounds like superstition. Mother's rotten with it. ”

“I don't say that it's devils trying to get in, ” the Father said. “But it's just as well to remember that devils are always trying to get in. And there are especial spots. These deep forests are noted among others. ” He suddenly turned his back and pointed at the shadowy wall. “Who, ” he asked, “but a savage possessed by a devil could have conceived of that as a decoration? ” He was pointing to a life-sized, coarsely daubed picture of a wild boar dying, its throat cut, and gouts of scarlet blood. Other agonies of animals went away into all the shadows.

“Sport! ” he hissed. “It's devilry! ”

“That's perhaps true, ” Sylvia said. Mrs Satterthwaite was crossing herself with great rapidity. The silence remained.

Sylvia said:

“Then if you're both done talking I'll say what I have to say. To begin with…” She stopped and sat rather erect, listening to the rustling from the shutters.

“To begin with, ” she began again with impetus, “you spared me the catalogue of the defects of age; I know them. One grows skinny—my sort—the complexion fades, the teeth stick out. And then there is the boredom. I know it; one is bored… bored… bored! You can't tell me anything I don't know about that. I'm thirty. I know what to expect. You'd like to have told me, Father, only you were afraid of taking away from your famous man of the world effect—you'd like to have told me that one can insure against the boredom and the long, skinny teeth by love of husband and child. The home stunt! I believe it!

“I do quite believe it. Only I hate my husband… and I hate… I hate my child. ”

She paused, waiting for exclamations of dismay or disapprobation from the priest. These did not come.

“Think, ” she said, “of all the ruin that child has meant for me; the pain in bearing him and the fear of death. ”

“Of course, ” the priest said, “child-bearing is for women a very terrible thing. ”

“I can't say, ” Mrs Tietjens went on, “that this has been a very decent conversation. You get a girl… fresh from open sin, and make her talk about it. Of course you're a priest and mother's mother; we're en famille. But Sister Mary of the Cross at the convent had a maxim: " Wear velvet gloves in family life. " We seem to be going at it with gloves off. ”

Father Consett still didn't say anything.

“You're trying, of course, to draw me, ” Sylvia said. “I can see that with half an eye… Very well then, you shall…”

She drew a breath.

“You want to know why I hate my husband. I'll tell you; it's because of his simple, sheer immorality. I don't mean his actions; his views! Every speech he utters about everything makes me—I swear it makes me—in spite of myself, want to stick a knife into him, and I can't prove he's wrong, not ever, about the simplest thing. But I can pain him. And I will… He sits about in chairs that fit his back, clumsy, like a rock, not moving for hours… And I can make him wince. Oh, without showing it… He's what you call loyal… oh, loyal… There's an absurd little chit of a fellow… oh, Macmaster… and his mother… whom he persists in a silly mystical way in calling a saint… a Protestant saint! … And his old nurse, who looks after the child… and the child itself… I tell you I've only got to raise an eyelid… yes, cock an eyelid up a little when anyone of them is mentioned… and it hurts him dreadfully. His eyes roll in a sort of mute anguish… Of course he doesn't say anything. He's an English country gentleman. ”

Father Consett said:

“This immorality you talk about in your husband… I've never noticed it. I saw a good deal of him when I stayed with you for the week before your child was born. I talked with him a great deal. Except in the matter of the two communions—and even in these I don't know that we differed so much—I found him perfectly sound. ”

“Sound. ” Mrs Satterthwaite said with sudden emphasis; “of course he's sound. It isn't even the word. He's the best ever. There was your father, for a good man… and him. That's an end of it. ”

“Ah, ” Sylvia said, “you don't know… Look here. Try and be just. Suppose I'm looking at The Times at breakfast and say, not having spoken to him for a week: 'It's wonderful what the doctors are doing. Have you seen the latest? ' And at once he'll be on his high-horse—he knows everything! —and he'll prove… prove… that all unhealthy children must be lethal-chambered or the world will go to pieces. And it's like being hypnotised; you can't think of what to answer him. Or he'll reduce you to speechless rage by proving that murderers ought not to be executed. And then I'll ask, casually, if children ought to be lethal-chambered for being constipated. Because Marchant—that's the nurse—is always whining that the child's bowels aren't regular and the dreadful diseases that leads to. Of course that hurts him. For he's perfectly soppy about that child, though he half knows it isn't his own… But that's what I mean by immorality. He'll profess that murderers ought to be preserved in order to breed from because they're bold fellows, and innocent little children executed because they're sick… And he'll almost make you believe it, though you're on the point of retching at the ideas. ”

“You wouldn't now, ” Father Consett began, and almost coaxingly, “think of going into retreat for a month or two. ” “I wouldn't, ” Sylvia said. “How could I? ”

“There's a convent of female Premonstratensians near Birkenhead, many ladies go there, ” the Father went on. “They cook very well, and you can have your own furniture and your own maid if ye don't like nuns to wait on you. ”

“It can't be done, ” Sylvia said, “you can see for yourself. It would make people smell a rat at once. Christopher wouldn't hear of it…”

“No, I'm afraid it can't be done, Father, ” Mrs Satterthwaite interrupted finally. “I've hidden here for four months to cover Sylvia's tracks. I've got Wateman's to look after. My new land steward's coming in next week. ”

“Still, ” the Father urged, with a sort of tremulous eagerness, “if only for a month… If only for a fortnight… So many Catholic ladies do it… Ye might think of it. ”

“I see what you're aiming at, ” Sylvia said with sudden anger; “you're revolted at the idea of my going straight from one man's arms to another. ”

“I'd be better pleased if there could be an interval, ” the Father said. “It's what's called bad form. ”

Sylvia became electrically rigid on her sofa.

“Bad form! ” she exclaimed. “You accuse me of bad form. ” The Father slightly bowed his head like a man facing a wind.

“I do, ” he said. “It's disgraceful. It's unnatural. I'd travel a bit at least. ”

She placed her hand on her long throat.

“I know what you mean, ” she said, “you want to spare Christopher… the humiliation. The… the nausea. No doubt he'll feel nauseated. I've reckoned on that. It will give me a little of my own back. ”

The Father said:

“That's enough, woman. I'll hear no more. ”

Sylvia said:

“You will then. Listen here… I've always got this to look forward to: I'll settle down by that man's side. I'll be as virtuous as any woman. I've made up my mind to it and I'll be it. And I'll be bored stiff for the rest of my life. Except for one thing. I can torment that man. And I'll do it. Do you understand how I'll do it? There are many ways. But if the worst comes to the worst I can always drive him silly… by corrupting the child! ” She was panting a little, and round her brown eyes the whites showed. “I'll get even with him. I can. I know how, you see. And with you, through him, for tormenting me. I've come all the way from Brittany without stopping. I haven't slept… But I can…”

Father Consett put his hand beneath the tail of his coat.

“Sylvia Tietjens, ” he said, “in my pistol pocket I've a little bottle of holy water which I carry for such occasions. What if I was to throw two drops of it over you and cry: Exorcizo to Ashtaroth in nomine? …”

She erected her body above her skirts on the sofa, stiffened like a snake's neck above its coils. Her face was quite pallid, her eyes staring out.

“You… you daren't, ” she said. “To me… an outrage! ” Her feet slid slowly to the floor; she measured the distance to the doorway with her eyes. “You daren't, ” she said again; “I'd denounce you to the Bishop…”

“It's little the Bishop would help you with them burning into your skin, ” the priest said. “Go away, I bid you, and say a Hail Mary or two. Ye need them. Ye'll not talk of corrupting a little child before me again. ”

“I won't, ” Sylvia said. “I shouldn't have…”

Her black figure showed in silhouette against the open doorway.

When the door was closed upon them, Mrs Satterthwaite said:

“Was it necessary to threaten her with that? You know best, of course. It seems rather strong to me. ”

“It's a hair from the dog that's bit her, ” the priest said. “She's a silly girl. She's been playing at black masses along with that Mrs Profumo and the fellow whose name I can't remember. You could tell that. They cut the throat of a white kid and splash its blood about… That was at the back of her mind… It's not very serious. A parcel of silly, idle girls. It's not much more than palmistry or fortune-telling to them if one has to weigh it, for all its ugliness, as a sin. As far as their volition goes, and it's volition that's the essence of prayer, black or white… But it was at the back of her mind, and she won't forget to-night. ”

“Of course, that's your affair, Father, ” Mrs Satterthwaite said lazily. “You hit her pretty hard. I don't suppose she's ever been hit so hard. What was it you wouldn't tell her? ”

“Only, ” the priest said, “I wouldn't tell her because the thought's best not put in her head… But her hell on earth will come when her husband goes running, blind, head down, mad after another woman. ”

Mrs Satterthwaite looked at nothing; then she nodded. “Yes, ” she said; “I hadn't thought of it… But will he? He is a very sound fellow, isn't he? ”

“What's to stop it? ” the priest asked. “What in the world but the grace of our blessed Lord, which he hasn't got and doesn't ask for? And then… He's a young man, full-blooded, and they won't be living… maritalement. Not if I know him. And then… Then she'll tear the house down. The world will echo with her wrongs. ”

“Do you mean to say, ” Mrs Satterthwaite said, “that Sylvia would do anything vulgar? ”

“Doesn't every woman who's had a man to torture for years when she loses him? ” the priest asked. “The more she's made an occupation of torturing him, the less right she thinks she has to lose him. ”

Mrs Satterthwaite looked gloomily into the dusk.

“That poor devil…” she said. “Will he get any peace anywhere? … What's the matter, Father? ”

The Father said:

“I've just remembered she gave me tea and cream and I drank it. Now I can't take mass for Father Reinhardt. I'll have to go and knock up his curate, who lives away in the forest. ”

At the door, holding the candle, he said:

“I'd have you not get up to-day nor yet to-morrow, if ye can stand it. Have a headache and let Sylvia nurse you… You'll have to tell how she nursed you when you get back to London. And I'd rather ye didn't lie more out and out than ye need, if it's to please me… Besides, if ye watch Sylvia nursing you, you might hit on a characteristic touch to make it seem more truthful… How her sleeves brushed the medicine bottles and irritated you, maybe… or—you'll know! If we can save scandal to the congregation, we may as well. ”

He ran downstairs.

III

At the slight creaking made by Macmaster in pushing open his door, Tietjens started violently. He was sitting in a smoking-jacket, playing patience engrossedly in a sort of garret bedroom. It had a sloping roof outlined by black oak beams, which cut into squares the cream-coloured patent distemper of the walls. The room contained also a four-post bedstead, a corner cupboard in black oak, and many rush mats on a polished oak floor of very irregular planking. Tietjens, who hated these disinterred and waxed relics of the past, sat in the centre of the room at a flimsy card-table beneath a white-shaded electric light of a brilliance that, in these surroundings, appeared unreasonable. This was one of those restored old groups of cottages that it was at that date the fashion to convert into hostelries. To it Macmaster, who was in search of the inspiration of the past, had preferred to come. Tietjens, not desiring to interfere with his friend's culture, had accepted the quarters, though he would have preferred to go to a comfortable modern hotel as being less affected and cheaper. Accustomed to what he called the grown-oldness of a morose, rambling Yorkshire manor house, he disliked being among collected and rather pitiful bits which, he said, made him feel ridiculous, as if he were trying to behave seriously at a fancy-dress ball. Macmaster, on the other hand, with gratification and a serious air, would run his finger tips along the bevellings of a darkened piece of furniture, and would declare it “genuine Chippendale” or “Jacobean oak, ” as the case might be. And he seemed to gain an added seriousness and weight of manner with each piece of ancient furniture that down the years he thus touched. But Tietjens would declare that you could tell the beastly thing was a fake by just cocking an eye at it and, if the matter happened to fall under the test of professional dealers in old furniture, Tietjens was the more often in the right of it, and Macmaster, sighing slightly, would prepare to proceed still further along the difficult road to connoisseurship. Eventually, by conscientious study, he got so far as at times to be called in by Somerset House to value great properties for probate—an occupation at once distinguished and highly profitable.

Tietjens swore with the extreme vehemence of a man who has been made, but who much dislikes being seen, to start.

Macmaster—in evening dress he looked extremely miniature! —said:

“I'm sorry, old man, I know how much you dislike being interrupted. But the General is in a terrible temper. ”

Tietjens rose stiffly, lurched over to an eighteenth-century rosewood folding washstand, took from its top a glass of flat whisky and soda, and gulped down a large quantity. He looked about uncertainly, perceived a notebook on a “Chippendale” bureau, made a short calculation in pencil and looked at his friend momentarily.

Macmaster said again:

“I'm sorry, old man. I must have interrupted one of your immense calculations. ”

Tietjens said:

“You haven't. I was only thinking. I'm just as glad you've come. What did you say? ”

Macmaster repeated:

“I said, the General is in a terrible temper. It's just as well you didn't come up to dinner. ”

Tietjens said:

“He isn't… He isn't in a temper. He's as pleased as punch at not having to have these women up before him. ” Macmaster said:

“He says he's got the police scouring the whole county for them, and that you'd better leave by the first train tomorrow. ”

Tietjens said:

“I won't. I can't. I've got to wait here for a wire from Sylvia. ”

Macmaster groaned:

“Oh dear! oh dear! ” Then he said hopefully: “But we could have it forwarded to Hythe. ”

Tietjens said with some vehemence:

“I tell you I won't leave here. I tell you I've settled it with the police and that swine of a Cabinet Minister. I've mended the leg of the canary of the wife of the police-constable. Sit down and be reasonable. The police don't touch people like us. ”

Macmaster said:

“I don't believe you realise the public feeling there is…”

“Of course I do, amongst people like Sandbach, ” Tietjens said. “Sit down I tell you… Have some whisky…” He filled himself out another long tumbler, and, holding it, dropped into a too low-seated, reddish wicker armchair that had cretonne fixings. Beneath his weight the chair sagged a good deal and his dress-shirt bulged up to his chin.

Macmaster said:

“What's the matter with you? ” Tietjens' eyes were bloodshot.

“I tell you, ” Tietjens said, “I'm waiting for a wire from Sylvia. ”

Macmaster said:

“Oh! ” And then: “It can't come to-night, it's getting on for one. ”

“It can, ” Tietjens said, “I've fixed it up with the postmaster—all the way up to Town! It probably won't come because Sylvia won't send it until the last moment, to bother me. None the less, I'm waiting for a wire from Sylvia and this is what I look like. ”

Macmaster said:

“That woman's the cruellest beast…”

“You might, ” Tietjens interrupted, “remember that you're talking about my wife. ”

“I don't see, ” Macmaster said, “how one can talk about Sylvia without…”

“The line is a perfectly simple one to draw, ” Tietjens said. “You can relate a lady's actions if you know them and are asked to. You mustn't comment. In this case you don't know the lady's actions even, so you may as well hold your tongue. ” He sat looking straight in front of him.

Macmaster sighed from deep in his chest. He asked himself if this was what sixteen hours' waiting had done for his friend, what were all the remaining hours going to do?

Tietjens said:

“I shall be fit to talk about Sylvia after two more whiskies… Let's settle your other perturbations first… The fair girl is called Wannop: Valentine Wannop. ”

“That's the Professor's name, ” Macmaster said.

“She's the late Professor Wannop's daughter, ” Tietjens said. “She's also the daughter of the novelist. ”

Macmaster interjected:

“But…”

“She supported herself for a year after the Professor's death as a domestic servant, ” Tietjens said. “Now she's housemaid for her mother, the novelist, in an inexpensive cottage. I should imagine the two experiences would make her desire to better the lot of her sex. ”

Macmaster again interjected a “But…”

“I got that information from the policeman whilst I was putting his wife's canary's leg in splints. ”

Macmaster said:

“The policeman you knocked down? ” His eyes expressed unreasoning surprise. He added: “He knew Miss… eh… Wannop then! ”

“You would not expect much intelligence from the police of Sussex, ” Tietjens said. “But you would be wrong. P. C. Finn is clever enough to recognise the young lady who for several years past has managed the constabulary's wives' and children's annual tea and sports. He says Miss Wannop holds the quarter-mile, half-mile, high jump, long jump and putting the weight records for East Sussex. That explains how she went over that dyke in such tidy style… And precious glad the good, simple man was when I told him he was to leave the girl alone. He didn't know, he said, how he'd ever a had the face to serve the warrant on Miss Wannop. The other girl—the one that squeaked—is a stranger, a Londoner probably. ”

Macmaster said:

“You told the policeman…”

“I gave him, ” Tietjens said, “the Rt. Hon. Stephen Fenick Waterhouse's compliments, and he'd be much obliged if the P. C. would hand in a 'No Can Do' report in the matter of those ladies every morning to his inspector. I gave him also a brand new fi' pun note—from the Cabinet Minister—and a couple of quid and the price of a new pair of trousers from myself. So he's the happiest constable in Sussex. A very decent fellow; he told me how to know a dog otter's spoor from a gravid bitch's… But that wouldn't interest you. ”

He began again:

“Don't look so inexpressibly foolish. I told you I'd been dining with that swine… No, I oughtn't to call him a swine after eating his dinner. Besides, he's a very decent fellow…”

“You didn't tell me you'd been dining with Mr Waterhouse, ” Macmaster said. “I hope you remembered that, as he's amongst other things the President of the Funded Debt Commission he's the power of life and death over the department and us. ”

“You didn't think, ” Tietjens answered, “that you are the only one to dine with the great ones of the earth! I wanted to talk to that fellow… about those figures their cursed crowd make me fake. I meant to give him a bit of my mind. ”

“You didn't! ” Macmaster said with an expression of panic. “Besides, they didn't ask you to fake the calculation. They only asked you to work it out on the basis of given figures. ”

“Anyhow, ” Tietjens said, “I gave him a bit of my mind. I told him that, at threepence, it must run the country—and certainly himself as a politician! —to absolute ruin. ”

Macmaster uttered a deep “Good Lord! ” and then: “But won't you ever remember you're a Government servant? He could…”

“Mr Waterhouse, ” Tietjens said, “asked me if I wouldn't consent to be transferred to his secretary's department. And when I said: 'Go to hell! ' he walked round the streets with me for two hours arguing… I was working out the chances on a 4/½ d. basis for him when you interrupted me. I've promised to let him have the figures when he goes up by the 1. 30 on Monday. ”

Macmaster said:

“You haven't… But by Jove you're the only man in England that could do it. ”

“That was what Mr Waterhouse said, ” Tietjens commented. “He said old Ingleby had told him so. ”

“I do hope, ” Macmaster said, “that you answered him politely! ”

“I told him, ” Tietjens answered, “that there were a dozen men who could do it as well as I, and I mentioned your name in particular. ”

“But I couldn't, ” Macmaster answered. “Of course I could convert a 3d. rate into 4½ d. But these are the actuarial variations; they're infinite. I couldn't touch them. ”

⇐ Предыдущая 1 2 345 6 7 8 9 10 Следующая ⇒