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

regions of her own being that she hardly knew. That seemed to her to be a littleness in herself. She had not thought that she had been as little as that. It ought not to matter what people said of you. She was perfectly accustomed to think of Edith Ethel as telling whole crowds of people very bad things about her, Valentine Wannop. But there was about this a recklessness that was hardly believable. To tell an unknown person, encountered by chance on the telephone, derogatory facts about a third party who might be expected to come to the telephone herself in a minute or two⁠—and, not only that⁠—who must in all probability hear what had been said very soon after, from the first listener.⁠ ⁠… That was surely a recklessness of evil-speaking that almost outpassed sanity.⁠ ⁠… Or else it betrayed a contempt for her, Valentine Wannop, and what she could do in the way of reprisals that was extremely hard to bear!

She said suddenly to Miss Wanostrocht:

“Look here! Are you speaking to me as a friend to my father’s daughter or as a Headmistress to a Physical Instructor?”

A certain amount of blood came into the lady’s pinkish features. She had certainly been ruffled when Valentine had permitted her voice to sound so long alongside her own; for, although Valentine knew next to nothing about the Head’s likes or dislikes she had once or twice before seen her evince marked distaste on being interrupted in one of her formal sentences.

Miss Wanostrocht said with a certain coldness:

“I’m speaking at present.⁠ ⁠… I’m allowing myself the liberty⁠—as a much older woman⁠—in the capacity of a friend of your father. I have been, in short, trying to recall to you all that you owe to yourself as being an example of his training!”

Involuntarily Valentine’s lips formed themselves for a low whistle of incredulity. She said to herself:

“By Jove! I am in the middle of a nasty affair.⁠ ⁠… This is a sort of professional cross-examination.”

“I am in a way glad,” the lady was now containing, “that you take that line.⁠ ⁠… I mean of defending Mrs. Tietjens with such heat against Lady Macmaster. Lady Macmaster appears to dislike Mrs. Tietjens, but I am bound to say that she appears to be in the right of it. I mean of her dislike. Lady Macmaster is a serious personality and, even on her public record Mrs. Tietjens appears to be very much the reverse. No doubt you wish to be loyal to your⁠ ⁠… friends, but⁠ ⁠…”

“We appear,” Valentine said, “to be getting into an extraordinary muddle.”

She added:

“I haven’t, as you seem to think, been defending Mrs. Tietjens. I would have. I would at any time. I have always thought of her as beautiful and kind. But I heard you say the words: ‘has been behaving very badly,’ and I thought you meant that Captain Tietjens had. I denied it. If you meant that his wife has, I deny it, too. She’s an admirable wife⁠ ⁠… and mother⁠ ⁠… that sort of thing, for all I know.⁠ ⁠…”

She said to herself:

“Now why do I say that? What’s Hecuba to me?” and then:

“It’s to defend his honour, of course⁠ ⁠… I’m trying to present Captain Tietjens as English Country Gentleman complete with admirably arranged establishment, stables, kennels, spouse, offspring⁠ ⁠… That’s a queer thing to want to do!”

Miss Wanostrocht who had breathed deeply said now:

“I’m extremely glad to hear that. Lady Macmaster certainly said that Mrs. Tietjens was⁠—let us say⁠—at least a neglectful wife.⁠ ⁠… Vain, you know; idle; overdressed.⁠ ⁠… All that⁠ ⁠… And you appeared to defend Mrs. Tietjens.”

“She’s a smart woman in smart Society,” Valentine said, “but it’s with her husband’s concurrence. She has a right to be.⁠ ⁠…”

“We shouldn’t,” Miss Wanostrocht said, “be in the extraordinary muddle to which you referred if you did not so continually interrupt me. I was trying to say that, for you, an inexperienced girl, brought up in a sheltered home, no pitfall could be more dangerous than a man with a wife who neglected her duties!”

Valentine said:

“You will have to excuse my interrupting you. It is, you know, rather more my funeral than yours.”

Miss Wanostrocht said quickly:

“You can’t say that. You don’t know how ardently.⁠ ⁠…”

Valentine said:

“Yes, yes.⁠ ⁠… Your schwaerm for my father’s memory and all.⁠ ⁠… But my father couldn’t bring it about that I should lead a sheltered life.⁠ ⁠… I’m about as experienced as any girl of the lower classes.⁠ ⁠… No doubt it was his doing, but don’t make any mistakes.”

She added:

“Still, it’s I that’s the corpse. You’re conducting the inquest. So it’s more fun for you.”

Miss Wanostrocht had grown slightly pale:

“I; if.⁠ ⁠…” she stammered slightly, “by ‘experience’ you mean.⁠ ⁠…”

“I don’t,” Valentine exclaimed, “and you have no right to infer that I do on the strength of a conversation you’ve had, but shouldn’t have had, with one of the worst tongues in London.⁠ ⁠… I mean that my father left us so that I had to earn my and my mother’s living as a servant for some months after his death. That was what his training came to. But I can look after myself⁠ ⁠… In consequence.⁠ ⁠…”

Miss Wanostrocht had thrown herself back in her chair.

“But⁠ ⁠…” she exclaimed: she had grown completely pale⁠—like discoloured wax. “There was a subscription.⁠ ⁠… We.⁠ ⁠…” she began again: “We knew that he hadn’t.⁠ ⁠…”

“You subscribed,” Valentine said, “to purchase his library and presented it to his wife⁠ ⁠… who had nothing to eat but what my wages as a tweeny maid got for her.” But before the pallor of the other lady she tried to add a touch of generosity: “Of course the subscribers wanted, very naturally, to preserve as much as they could of his personality. A man’s books are very much himself. That was all right”: She added: “All the same I had that training: in a suburban basement. So you cannot teach me a great deal about the shady in life. I was in the family of a Middlesex County Councillor. In Ealing.”

Miss Wanostrocht said faintly:

“This is very dreadful!”

“It isn’t really!” Valentine said. “I wasn’t badly treated as tweeny maids go. It