PART TWO 10 страница

“If, ” she interrupted, “that was really Gran'fer's Want-ways: midland English. 'Vent' equals four crossroads: high French carrefour… Or, perhaps, that isn't the right word. But it's the way your mind works…”

“You have, of course, often walked from your uncle's to Gran'fer's Wantways, ” Tietjens said, “with your cousins, taking brandy to the invalid in the old toll-gate house. That's how you know the story of Grandfer. You said you had never driven it; but you have walked it. That's the way your mind works, isn't it? ”

She said: “Oh! ”

“Then, ” Tietjens went on, “would you mind telling me—for the sake of the poor horse—whether Uddlemere is or isn't on our road home. I take it you don't know just this stretch of road, but you know whether it is the right road. ”

“The touch of pathos, ” the girl said, “is a wrong note. It's you who're in mental trouble about the road. The horse isn't…”

Tietjens let the cart go on another fifty yards; then he said:

“It is the right road. The Uddlemere turning was the right one. You wouldn't let the horse go another five steps if it wasn't. You're as soppy about horses as as I am. ”

“There's at least that bond of sympathy between us, ” she said drily. “Gran'fer's Wantways is six and three-quarter miles from Udimore; Udimore is exactly five from us; total, eleven and three-quarters; twelve and a quarter if you add half a mile for Udimore itself. The name is Udimore, not Uddlemere. Local place-name enthusiasts derive this from 'O'er the mere. ' Absurd! Legend as follows: Church builders desiring to put church with relic of St Rumwold in wrong place, voice wailed: 'O'er the mere. ' Obviously absurd! … Putrid! 'O'er the' by Grimm's law impossible as 'Udi'; 'mere' not a middle low German word at all…”

“Why, ” Tietjens said, “are you giving me all this information? ”

“Because, ” the girl said, “it's the way your mind works… It picks up useless facts as silver after you've polished it picks up sulphur vapour; and tarnishes! It arranges the useless facts in obsolescent patterns and makes Toryism out of them… I've never met a Cambridge Tory man before. I thought they were all in museums, and you work them up again out of bones. That's what father used to say; he was an Oxford Disraelian Conservative Imperialist…”

“I know, of course, ” Tietjens said.

“Of course you know, ” the girl said. “You know everything… And you've worked everything into absurd principles. You think father was unsound because he tried to apply tendencies to life. You want to be a Nenglish country gentleman and spin principles out of the newspapers and the gossip of horse-fairs. And let the country go to hell, you'll never stir a finger except to say I told you so. ”

She touched him suddenly on the arm:

“Don't mind me! ” she said. “It's reaction. I'm so happy. I'm so happy. ”

He said:

“That's all right! That's all right! ” But for a minute or two it wasn't really. All feminine claws, he said to himself, are sheathed in velvet; but they can hurt a good deal if they touch you on the sore places of the defects of your qualities—even merely with the velvet. He added: “Your mother works you very hard. ”

She exclaimed:

“How you understand. You're amazing: for a man who tries to be a sea-anemone! ” She said: “Yes, this is the first holiday I've had for four solid months; six hours a day typing; four hours a day work for the movement; three, housework and gardening; three, mother reading out her day's work for slips of the pen… And on the top of it the raid and the anxiety… Dreadful anxiety, you know. Suppose mother had gone to prison… Oh, I'd have gone mad… Weekdays and Sundays…” She stopped: “I'm apologizing, really, ” she went on. “Of course I ought not to have talked to you like that. You a great Panjandrum; saving the country with your statistics and It did make you a rather awful figure, you know… and the relief to find you're… oh, a man like oneself with feet of clay… I'd dreaded this drive… I'd have dreaded it dreadfully if I hadn't been in such a dread about Gertie and the police. And if I hadn't let off steam I should have had to jump out and run beside the cart… I could still…”

“You couldn't, ” Tietjens said. “You couldn't see the cart. ”

They had just run into a bank of solid fog that seemed to encounter them with a soft, ubiquitous blow. It was blinding; it was deadening to sounds; it was in a sense mournful; but it was happy, too, in its romantic unusualness. They couldn't see the gleam of the lamps; they could hardly hear the step of the horse; the horse had fallen at once to a walk. They agreed that neither of them could be responsible for losing the way; in the circumstances that was impossible. Fortunately the horse would take them somewhere; it had belonged to a local higgler: a man that used the roads buying poultry for re-sale… They agreed that they had no responsibilities; and after that went on for unmeasured hours in silence; the mist growing, but very, very gradually, more luminous… Once or twice, at a rise in the road, they saw again the stars and the moon, but mistily. On the fourth occasion they had emerged into the silver lake; like mermen rising to the surface of a tropical sea…

Tietjens had said:

“You'd better get down and take the lamp. See if you can find a milestone; I'd get down myself, but you might not be able to hold the horse…” She had plunged in…

And he had sat, feeling, he didn't know why, like a Guy Fawkes; up in the light, thinking by no means disagreeable thoughts—intent, like Miss Wannop herself, on a complete holiday of forty-eight hours; till Tuesday morning! He had to look forward to a long and luxurious day of figures; a rest after dinner; half a night more of figures; a Monday devoted to a horse-deal in the market-town where he happened to know the horse-dealer. The horse-dealer, indeed, was known to every hunting man in England! A luxurious, long argument in the atmosphere of stable-hartshorn and slow wranglings couched in ostler's epigrams. You couldn't have a better day; the beer in the pub probably good, too. Or if not that, the claret… The claret in south-country inns was often quite good; there was no sale for it so it got well kept…

On Tuesday it would close in again, beginning with the meeting of his wife's maid at Dover…

He was to have, above all, a holiday from himself and to take it like other men, free of his conventions, his strait waistcoatings…

The girl said:

“I'm coming up now! I've found out something…” He watched intently the place where she must appear; it would give him pointers about the impenetrability of mist to the eye.

Her otter-skin cap had beads of dew; beads of dew were on her hair beneath: she scrambled up, a little awkwardly: her eyes sparkled with fun: panting a little: her cheeks bright. Her hair was darkened by the wetness of the mist, but she appeared golden in the sudden moonlight.

Before she was quite up, Tietjens almost kissed her. Almost. An all but irresistible impulse! He exclaimed:

“Steady, the Buffs! ” in his surprise.

She said:

“Well, you might as well have given me a hand. I found, ” she went on, “a stone that had I. R. D. C. on it, and there the lamp went out. We're not on the marsh because we are between quick hedges. That's all I have found… But I've worked out what makes me so tart with you…”

He couldn't believe she could be so absolutely calm: the after-wash of that impulse had been so strong in him that it was as if he had tried to catch her to him and had been foiled by her… She ought to be indignant, amused, even pleased… She ought to show some emotion…

She said:

“It was your silencing me with that absurd non-sequitur about the Pimlico clothing factory. It was an insult to my intelligence. ”

“You recognized that it was a fallacy! ” Tietjens said. He was looking hard at her. He didn't know what had happened to him. She took a long look at him, cool, but with immense eyes. It was as if for a moment destiny, which usually let him creep past somehow, had looked at him. “Can't, ” he argued with destiny, “a man want to kiss a schoolgirl in a scuffle…” His own voice, a caricature of his own voice, seemed to come to him: “Gentlemen don't…” He exclaimed:

“Don't gentlemen? …” and then stopped because he realized that he had spoken aloud.

She said:

“Oh, gentlemen do! ” she said, “use fallacies to glide over tight places in arguments. And they browbeat schoolgirls with them. It's that, that underneath, has been exasperating me with you. You regarded me at that date—three-quarters of a day ago—as a schoolgirl. ”

Tietjens said:

“I don't now! ” He added: “Heaven knows, I don't now! ”

She said: “No, you don't now! ”

He said:

“It didn't need your putting up all that blue-stocking erudition to convince me…”

“Blue-stocking! ” she exclaimed contemptuously. “There's nothing of the blue-stocking about me. I know Latin because father spoke it with us. It Was your pompous blue socks I was pulling. ”

Suddenly she began to laugh. Tietjens was feeling sick, physically sick. She went on laughing. He stuttered:

“What is it? ”

“The sun! ' she said, pointing. Above the silver horizon was the sun; not a red sun: shining, burnished.

“I don't see…” Tietjens said.

“What there is to laugh at? ” she asked. “It's the day! … The longest day's begun… and to-morrow's as long… The summer solstice, you know… After to-morrow the days shorten towards winter. But to-morrow's as long… I'm so glad…”

“That we've got through the night? …” Tietjens asked.

She looked at him for a long time. “You're not so dreadfully ugly, really, ” she said.

Tietjens said:

“What's that church? ”

Rising out of the mist on a fantastically green knoll, a quarter of a mile away, was an unnoticeable place of worship: an oak shingle tower roof that shone grey like lead: an impossibly bright weathercock, brighter than the sun. Dark elms all round it, holding wetnesses of mist. “Icklesham! ” she cried softly. “Oh, we're nearly home. Just above Mountby… That's the Mountby drive…” Trees existed, black and hoary with the dripping mist. Trees in the hedgerow and the avenue that led to Mountby: it made a right-angle just before coming into the road and the road went away at right-angles across the gate. “You'll have to pull to the left before you reach the avenue, ” the girl said. “Or as like as not the horse will walk right up to the house. The higgler who had him used to buy Lady Claudine's eggs…”

Tietjens exclaimed barbarously:

“Damn Mountby. I wish we'd never come near it, ” and he whipped the horse into a sudden trot. The hoofs sounded suddenly loud. She placed her hand on his gloved driving hand. Had it been his flesh she wouldn't have done it.

She said:

“My dear, it couldn't have lasted for ever… But you're a good man. And very clever… You will get through…” Not ten yards ahead Tietjens saw a tea-tray, the underneath of a black-lacquered tea-tray, gliding towards them: mathematically straight, just rising from the mist. He shouted: mad: the blood in his head. His shout was drowned by the scream of the horse: he had swung it to the left. The cart turned up: the horse emerged from the mist: head and shoulders: pawing. A stone sea-horse from the fountain of Versailles! Exactly like that! Hanging in air for an eternity: the girl looking at it, leaning slightly forward.

The horse didn't come over backwards: he had loosened the reins. It wasn't there any more. The damndest thing that could happen! He had known it would happen. He said:

“We're all right now! ” There was a crash and scraping: like twenty tea-trays: a prolonged sound. They must be scraping along the mudguard of the invisible car. He had the pressure of the horse's mouth: the horse was away: going hell for leather. He increased the pressure. The girl said:

“I know I'm all right with you. ”

They were suddenly in bright sunlight: cart: horse: commonplace hedgerows. They were going uphill: a steep brae. He wasn't certain she hadn't said: “Dear! ” or “My dear! ” Was it possible after so short…? But it had been a long night. He was, no doubt, saving her life, too. He increased his pressure on the horse's mouth gently: up to all his twelve stone: all his strength. The hill told, too. Steep, white road between shaven grass banks!

Stop, damn you! Poor beast… The girl fell out of the cart. No! jumped clear! Out to the animal's head. It threw its head up. Nearly off her feet: she was holding the bit… She couldn't! Tender mouth… afraid of horses… He said:

“Horse cut! ” Her face like a little white blancmange!

“Come quick, ” she said.

“I must hold a minute, ” he said, “might go off if I let go to get down. Badly cut? ”

“Blood running down solid! Like an apron, ” she said.

He was at last at her side. It was true. But not so much like an apron. More like a red, varnished stocking. He said: “You've a white petticoat on. Get over the hedge; jump it, and take it off…”

“Tear it into strips? ” she asked. “Yes! ”

He called to her; she was suspended halfway up the bank:

“Tear one half off first. The rest into strips. ”

She said: “All right! ” She didn't go over the quickset as neatly as he had expected. No take off. But she was over…

The horse, trembling, was looking down, its nostrils distended, at the blood pooling from its near foot. The cut was just on the shoulder. He put his left arm right over the horse's eyes. The horse stood it, almost with a sigh of relief… A wonderful magnetism with horses. Perhaps with women, too? God knew. He was almost certain she had said “Dear. ”

She said: “Here. ” He caught a round ball of whitish stuff. He undid it. Thank God: what sense A long, strong, white band… What the devil was the hissing… A small, closed car with crumpled mudguards: noiseless nearly: gleaming black… God curse it: it passed them: stopped ten yards down… the horse rearing back: mad Clean mad… something like a scarlet and white cockatoo, fluttering out of the small car door… a general. In full tog. White feathers! Ninety medals! Scarlet coat! Black trousers with red stripes. Spurs, too, by God!

Tietjens said:

“God damn you, you bloody swine. Go away! ”

The apparition, past the horse's blinkers, said:

“I can, at least, hold the horse for you. I went past to get you out of Claudine's sight. ”

“Damn good-natured of you, ” Tietjens said as rudely as he could. “You'll have to pay for the horse. ”

The General exclaimed:

“Damn it all! Why should I? You were driving your beastly camel right into my drive. ”

“You never sounded your horn, ” Tietjens said.

“I was on private ground, ” the General shouted. “Besides I did. ” An enraged, scarlet scarecrow, very thin, he was holding the horse's bridle. Tietjens was extending the half petticoat, with a measuring eye, before the horse's chest. The General said:

“Look here! I've got to take the escort for the Royal party at St Peter-in-Manor, Dover. They're laying the Buffs' colours on the altar or something. ”

“You never sounded your horn, ” Tietjens said. “Why didn't you bring your chauffeur? He's a capable man… You talk very big about the widow and child. But when it comes to robbing them of fifty quid by slaughtering their horse…”

The General said:

“What the devil were you doing coming into our drive at five in the morning? ”

Tietjens, who had applied the half petticoat to the horse's chest, exclaimed:

“Pick up that thing and give it to me. ” A thin roll of linen was at his feet: it had rolled down from the hedge. “Can I leave the horse? ” the General asked.

“Of course you can, ” Tietjens said. “If I can't quiet a horse better than you can run a car…”

He bound the new linen strips over the petticoat: the horse dropped its head, smelling his hand. The General, behind Tietjens, stood back on his heels, grasping his gold-mounted sword. Tietjens went on twisting and twisting the bandage.

“Look here, ” the General suddenly bent forward to whisper into Tietjens' ear, “what am I to tell Claudine? I believe she saw the girl. ”

“Oh, tell her we came to ask what time you cast off your beastly otter hounds, ” Tietjens said; “that's a matutinal job…”

The General's voice had a really pathetic intonation:

“On a Sunday! ” he exclaimed. Then in a tone of relief he added: “I shall tell her you were going to early communion in Duchemin's church at Pett. ”

“If you want to add blasphemy to horse-slaughtering as a profession, do, ” Tietjens said. “But you'll have to pay for the horse. ”

“I'm damned if I will, ” the General shouted. “I tell you you were driving into my drive. ”

“Then I shall, ” Tietjens said, “and you know the construction you'll put on that. ”

He straightened his back to look at the horse.

“Go away, ” he said, “say what you like. Do what you like! But as you go through Rye send up the horse ambulance from the vet's. Don't forget that. I'm going to save this horse…”

“You know, Chris, ” the General said, “you're the most wonderful hand with a horse… There isn't another man in England…”

“I know it, ” Tietjens said. “Go away. And send up that ambulance… There's your sister getting out of your car…”

The General began:

“I've an awful lot to get explained…” But, at a thin scream of: “General! General! ” he pressed on his sword hilt to keep it from between his long, black, scarlet-striped legs, and running to the car pushed back into its door a befeathered, black bolster. He waved his hand to Tietjens:

“I'll send the ambulance, ” he called.

The horse, its upper leg swathed with criss-crosses of white through which a purple stain was slowly penetrating, stood motionless, its head hanging down, mule-like, under the blinding sun. To ease it Tietjens began to undo the trace. The girl hopped over the hedge and, scrambling down, began to help him.

“Well. My reputation's gone, ” she said cheerfully. “I know what Lady Claudine is… Why did you try to quarrel with the General? …”

“Oh, you'd better, ” Tietjens said wretchedly, “have a lawsuit with him. It'll account for… for your not going to Mountby…”

“You think of everything, ” she said.

They wheeled the cart backwards off the motionless horse. Tietjens moved it two yards forward—to get it out of sight of its own blood. Then they sat down side by side on the slope of the bank.

“Tell me about Groby, ” the girl said at last.

Tietjens began to tell her about his home… There was, in front of it, an avenue that turned into the road at right angles. Just like the one at Mountby.

“My great-great-grandfather made it, ” Tietjens said. “He liked privacy and didn't want the house visible to vulgar people on the road… just like the fellow who planned Mountby, no doubt… But it's beastly dangerous with motors. We shall have to alter it… just at the bottom of a dip. We can't have horses hurt… You'll see…” It came suddenly into his head that he wasn't perhaps the father of the child who was actually the heir to that beloved place over which generation after generation had brooded. Ever since Dutch William! A damn Nonconformist swine!

On the bank his knees were almost level with his chin. He felt himself slipping down.

“If I ever take you there…” he began.

“Oh, but you never will, ” she said.

The child wasn't his. The heir to Groby! All his brothers were childless… There was a deep well in the stable yard. He had meant to teach the child how, if you dropped a pebble in, you waited to count sixty-three. And there came up a whispering roar… But not his child! Perhaps he hadn't even the power to beget children. His married brothers hadn't… Clumsy sobs shook him. It was the dreadful injury to the horse which had finished him. He felt as if the responsibility were his. The poor beast had trusted him and he had smashed it up. Miss Wannop had her arm over his shoulder.

“My dear! ” she said, “you won't ever take me to Groby… It's perhaps… oh… short acquaintance; but I feel you're the splendidest…”

He thought: “It is rather short acquaintance. ”

He felt a great deal of pain, over which there presided the tall, eel-skin, blonde figure of his wife…

The girl said:

“There's a fly coming! ” and removed her arm.

A fly drew up before them with a blear-eyed driver. He said General Campion had kicked him out of bed, from beside his old woman. He wanted a pound to take them to Mrs Wannop's, waked out of his beauty sleep and all. The knacker's cart was following.

“You'll take Miss Wannop home at once, ” Tietjens said, “she's got her mother's breakfast to see to… I shan't leave the horse till the knacker's van comes. ”

The fly-driver touched his age-green hat with his whip.

“Aye, ” he said thickly, putting a sovereign into his waistcoat pocket. “Always the gentleman… a merciful man is merciful also to his beast… But I wouldn't leave my little wooden 'ut, nor miss my breakfast, for no beast… Some do and some… do not. ”

He drove off with the girl in the interior of his antique conveyance.

Tietjens remained on the slope of the bank, in the strong sunlight, beside the drooping horse. It had done nearly forty miles and lost, at last, a lot of blood.

Tietjens said:

“I suppose I could get the governor to pay fifty quid for it. They want the money…”

He said:

“But it wouldn't be playing the game! ”

A long time afterwards he said:

“Damn all principles! ” And then:

“But one has to keep on going… Principles are like a skeleton map of a country—you know whether you're going east or north. ”

The knacker's cart lumbered round the corner.

PART TWO

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