A Man Could Stand Up—, Ford Madox Ford [ebook reader macos .txt] 📗

that in that Institution, for the last four years, she had been regarded as supplementing if not as actually replacing both the doctor and the priest.⁠ ⁠… But from that to evolving a complete theory that the Pettigul’s lie was the product of an over-oxygenated brain was going pretty far.⁠ ⁠…

Still, she was prevented from taking part in national rejoicings; pretty certainly Edith Ethel had been talking scandal about her to Miss Wanostrocht. She had the right to take it out in some sort of exaggerated declamation!

“It appears,” Miss Wanostrocht said, “for we can’t now go into the question of the whole curriculm of the school, though I am inclined to agree with you. What by the by is the matter with Pettigul One? I thought her rather a solid sort of girl. But it appears that the wife of a friend⁠ ⁠… perhaps it’s only a former friend of yours, is in a nursing home.”

Valentine exclaimed:

“Oh, he.⁠ ⁠… But that’s too ghastly!”

“It appears,” Miss Wanostrocht said, “to be rather a mess.” She added: “That appears to be the only expression to use.”

For Valentine, that piece of news threw a blinding light upon herself. She was overwhelmingly appalled because that woman was in a nursing home. Because in that case it would not be sporting to go and see the husband!

Miss Wanostrocht went on:

“Lady Macmaster was anxious for your advice.⁠ ⁠… It appears that the only other person that could look after the interests of⁠ ⁠… of your friend: his brother⁠ ⁠…”

Valentine missed something out of that sentence. Miss Wanostrocht talked too fluently. If people wanted you to appreciate items of sledgehammering news they should not use long sentences. They should say:

“He’s mad and penniless. His brother’s dying: his wife’s just been operated on.” Like that! Then you could take it in; even if your mind was rioting about like a cat in a barrel.

“The brother’s⁠ ⁠… female companion,” Miss Wanostrocht was wandering on, “though it appears that she would have been willing is therefore not available.⁠ ⁠… The theory is that he⁠—he himself, your friend, has been considerably unhinged by his experiences in the war. Then.⁠ ⁠… Who in your opinion should take the responsibility of looking after his interests?”

Valentine heard herself say:

“Me!”

She added:

“Him! Looking after him. I don’t know that he has any⁠ ⁠… interests!”

He didn’t appear to have any furniture, so how could he have the other things. She wished Miss Wanostrocht would leave off using the word “appear.” It was irritating⁠ ⁠… and infectious. Could the lady not make a direct statement? But then, no one ever made clear statements and this no doubt appeared to that anæmic spinster a singularly tenebrous affair.

As for clear statements.⁠ ⁠… If there had ever been any in precisely this tenebrous mess she, Valentine, would know how she stood with that man’s wife. For it was part of the preposterous way in which she herself and all her friends behaved that they never made clear statements⁠—except for Edith Ethel who had the nature of a female costermonger and could not tell the truth, though she could be clear enough. But even Edith Ethel had never hitherto said anything about the way the wife in this case treated the husband. She had given Valentine very clearly to understand that she “sided” with the wife⁠—but she had never gone as far as to say that the wife was a good wife. If she⁠—Valentine⁠—could only know that.

Miss Wanostrocht was asking:

“When you say ‘Me,’ do you mean that you would propose to look after that man yourself? I trust not.”

… Because, obviously, if she were a good wife, she, Valentine couldn’t butt in⁠ ⁠… not generously. As her father’s and still more her mother’s daughter.⁠ ⁠… On the face of it you would say that a wife who was always striding along the palings of the Row, or the paths of other resorts of the fashionable could not be a good⁠—a domestic⁠—wife for a Statistician. On the other hand he was a pretty smart man, Governing class, county family and the rest of it⁠—so he might like his wife to figure in Society: he might even exact it. He was quite capable of that. Why, for all she knew, the wife might be a retiring, shy person whom he thrust out into the hard world. It was not likely: but it was as possible as anything else.

Miss Wanostrocht was asking:

“Aren’t there Institutions⁠ ⁠… Military Sanatoria⁠ ⁠… for cases precisely like that of this Captain Tietjens. It appears to be the war that has broken him down, not merely evil living.”

“It’s precisely,” Valentine said, “because of that that one should want⁠ ⁠… shouldn’t one.⁠ ⁠… Because it’s because of the War⁠ ⁠…”

The sentence would not finish itself.

Miss Wanostrocht said:

“I thought.⁠ ⁠… It has been represented to me⁠ ⁠… that you were a Pacifist. Of an extreme type!”

It had given Valentine a turn⁠—like the breaking out of sweat in a case of fever⁠—to hear the name, coldly: “Captain Tietjens,” for it was like a release. She had been irrationally determined that hers should not be the first tongue to utter that name.

And apparently from her tone Miss Wanostrocht was prepared to detest that Captain Tietjens. Perhaps she detested him already.

She was beginning to say:

“If one is an extreme Pacifist because one cannot bear to think of the sufferings of men isn’t that a precise reason why one should wish that a poor devil, all broken up⁠ ⁠…”

But Miss Wanostrocht had begun one of her own long sentences. Their voices went on together, like trains dragging along ballast⁠—disagreeably. Miss Wanostrocht’s organ, however, won out with the words:

“… behaved very badly indeed.”

Valentine said hotly:

“You ought not to believe anything of the sort⁠—on the strength of anything said by a woman like Lady Macmaster.”

Miss Wanostrocht appeared to have been brought to a complete stop: she leaned forward in her chair; her mouth was a little open. And Valentine said: “Thank Goodness!” to herself.

She had to have a moment to herself to digest what had the air of being new evidence of the baseness of Edith Ethel; she felt herself to be infuriated in