Some Do Not …, Ford Madox Ford [free e novels .txt] 📗

silted harbour mouth. After reflecting for some time on the wave-curves in the sloping mud of the water sides he had a long conversation, mostly in signs, with a Finn who hung over the side of a tarred, stump-masted, battered vessel that had a gaping, splintered hole where the anchor should have hung. She came from Archangel; was of several hundred tons burden, was knocked together anyhow, of soft wood, for about ninety pounds, and launched, sink or swim, in the timber trade. Beside her, taut, glistening with brasswork, was a new fishing boat, just built there for the Lowestoft fleet. Ascertaining her price from a man who was finishing her painting, Tietjens reckoned that you could have built three of the Archangel timber ships for the cost of that boat, and that the Archangel vessel would earn about twice as much per hour per ton.⁠ ⁠…

It was in that way his mind worked when he was fit: it picked up little pieces of definite, workmanlike information. When it had enough it classified them: not for any purpose, but because to know things was agreeable and gave a feeling of strength, of having in reserve something that the other fellow would not suspect.⁠ ⁠… He passed a long, quiet, abstracted afternoon.

In the dressing-room he found the General, among lockers, old coats, and stoneware washing basins set in scrubbed wood. The General leaned back against a row of these things.

“You are the ruddy limit!” he exclaimed.

Tietjens said:

“Where’s Macmaster?”

The General said he had sent Macmaster off with Sandbach in the two-seater. Macmaster had to dress before going up to Mountby. He added: “The ruddy limit!” again.

“Because I knocked the bobbie over?” Tietjens asked. “He liked it.”

The General said:

“Knocked the bobbie over.⁠ ⁠… I didn’t see that.”

“He didn’t want to catch the girls,” Tietjens said, “you could see him⁠—oh, yearning not to.”

“I don’t want to know anything about that,” the General said. “I shall hear enough about it from Paul Sandbach. Give the bobbie a quid and let’s hear no more of it. I’m a magistrate.”

“Then what have I done?” Tietjens said. “I helped those girls to get off. You didn’t want to catch them; Waterhouse didn’t, the policeman didn’t. No one did except the swine. Then what’s the matter?”

“Damn it all!” the General said, “don’t you remember that you’re a young married man?”

With respect for the General’s superior age and achievements, Tietjens stopped himself laughing.

“If you’re really serious, sir,” he said, “I always remember it very carefully. I don’t suppose you’re suggesting that I’ve ever shown want of respect for Sylvia.”

The General shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said. “And damn it all I’m worried. I’m.⁠ ⁠… Hang it all, I’m your father’s oldest friend.” The General looked indeed worn and saddened in the light of the sand-drifted, ground-glass windows. He said: “Was that skirt a⁠ ⁠… a friend of yours? Had you arranged it with her?”

Tietjens said:

“Wouldn’t it be better, sir, if you said what you had on your mind?⁠ ⁠…”

The old General blushed a little.

“I don’t like to,” he said straightforwardly. “You brilliant fellow.⁠ ⁠… I only want, my dear boy, to hint that⁠ ⁠…”

Tietjens said, a little more stiffly:

“I’d prefer you to get it out, sir.⁠ ⁠… I acknowledge your right as my father’s oldest friend.”

“Then,” the General burst out, “who was the skirt you were lolloping up Pall Mall with? On the last day they trooped the colour?⁠ ⁠… I didn’t see her myself.⁠ ⁠… Was it this same one? Paul said she looked like a cook maid.”

Tietjens made himself a little more rigid.

“She was, as a matter of fact, a bookmaker’s secretary,” Tietjens said. “I imagine I have the right to walk where I like, with whom I like. And no one has the right to question it.⁠ ⁠… I don’t mean you, sir. But no one else.”

The General said puzzledly:

“It’s you brilliant fellows.⁠ ⁠… They all say you’re brilliant.⁠ ⁠…”

Tietjens said:

“You might let your rooted distrust of intelligence.⁠ ⁠… It’s natural of course; but you might let it allow you to be just to me. I assure you there was nothing discreditable.”

The General interrupted:

“If you were a stupid young subaltern and told me you were showing your mother’s new cook the way to the Piccadilly tube I’d believe you.⁠ ⁠… But, then, no young subaltern would do such a damn, blasted, tomfool thing! Paul said you walked beside her like the king in his glory! Through the crush outside the Haymarket, of all places in the world!”

“I’m obliged to Sandbach for his commendation.⁠ ⁠…” Tietjens said. He thought a moment. Then he said:

“I was trying to get that young woman.⁠ ⁠… I was taking her out to lunch from her office at the bottom of the Haymarket.⁠ ⁠… To get her off a friend’s back. That is, of course, between ourselves.”

He said this with great reluctance because he didn’t want to cast reflection on Macmaster’s taste, for the young lady had been by no means one to be seen walking with a really circumspect public official. But he had said nothing to indicate Macmaster, and he had other friends.

The General choked.

“Upon my soul,” he said, “what do you take me for?” He repeated the words as if he were amazed. “If,” he said, “my G.S.O. II⁠—who’s the stupidest ass I know⁠—told me such a damn-fool lie as that I’d have him broke tomorrow.” He went on expostulatorily: “Damn it all, it’s the first duty of a soldier⁠—it’s the first duty of all Englishmen⁠—to be able to tell a good lie in answer to a charge. But a lie like that⁠ ⁠…”

He broke off breathless, then he began again:

“Hang it all, I told that lie to my grandmother and my grandfather told it to his grandfather. And they call you brilliant!⁠ ⁠…” He paused and then asked reproachfully: “Or do you think I’m in a state of senile decay?”

Tietjens said:

“I know you, sir, to be the smartest general of division in the British Army. I leave you to draw your own conclusions as to why I said what I did.⁠ ⁠…” He had told the exact truth,