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

mother talked like a book: then she did. They must; if they did not they would scream.⁠ ⁠… But they were English ladies. Of scholarly habits of mind. It was horrible. Her mother said:

“That is probably the same as conscience⁠—race conscience!” She could not urge on them the folly and disastrousness of the course they appeared to propose. She had, she said, known too many irregular unions that had been worthy of emulation and too many regular ones that were miserable and a cause of demoralisation by their examples.⁠ ⁠… She was a gallant soul. She could not in conscience go back on the teachings of her whole life. She wanted to. Desperately! Valentine could feel the almost physical strainings of her poor, tired brain. But she could not recant. She was not Cranmer! She was not even Joan of Arc. So she went on repeating:

“I can only beg and pray you to assure yourself that not to live with that man will cause you to die or to be seriously mentally injured. If you think you can live without him or wait for him, if you think there is any hope of later union without serious mental injury I beg and pray.⁠ ⁠…”

She could not finish the sentence.⁠ ⁠… It was fine to behave with dignity at the crucial moment of your life! It was fitting: it was proper. It justified your former philosophic life. And it was cunning. Cunning!

For now she said:

“My child! my little child! You have sacrificed all your life to me and my teaching. How can I ask you now to deprive yourself of the benefit of them?”

She said:

“I can’t persuade you to a course that might mean your eternal unhappiness!”⁠ ⁠… The can’t was like a flame of agony!

Valentine shivered. That was cruel pressure. Her mother was no doubt doing her duty; but it was cruel pressure. It was very cold. November is a cold month. There were footsteps on the stairs. She shook.

“Oh, he is coming. He is coming!” she cried out. She wanted to say: “Save me!” She said: “Don’t go away! Don’t.⁠ ⁠… Don’t go away!” What do men do to you: men you love? Mad men. He was carrying a sack. The sack was the first she saw as he opened the door. Pushed it open; it was already half-open. A sack was a dreadful thing for a mad man to carry. In an empty house. He dumped the sack down on the hearth stone. He had coal dust on his right forehead. It was a heavy sack. Bluebeard would have had in it the corpse of his first wife. Borrow says that the gipsies say: “Never trust a young man with grey hair!”⁠ ⁠… He had only half-grey hair and he was only half young. He was panting. He must be stopped carrying heavy sacks. Panting like a fish. A great, motionless carp, hung in a tank.

He said:

“I suppose you would want to go out. If you don’t we will have a fire. You can’t stop here without a fire.”

At the same moment her mother said:

“If that is Christopher I will speak to him.”

She said away from the mouthpiece:

“Yes, let’s go out. Oh, oh, Oh. Let’s go out.⁠ ⁠… Armistice.⁠ ⁠… My mother wants to speak to you.” She felt herself to be suddenly a little Cockney shop-girl. A midinette in an imitation Girl Guide’s uniform. “Afride of the gentleman, my dear.” Surely one could protect oneself against a great carp! She could throw him over her shoulder. She had enough Ju Jitsu for that. Of course a little person trained to Ju Jitsu can’t overcome an untrained giant if he expects it. But if he doesn’t expect it she can.

His right hand closed over her left wrist. He had swum towards her and had taken the telephone in his left. One of the window panes was so old it was bulging and purplish. There was another. There were several. But the first one was the purplishest. He said:

“Christopher Tietjens speaking!” He could not think of anything more recherché to say than that⁠—the great inarticulate fellow! His hand was cool on her wrist. She was calm but streaming with bliss. There was no other word for it. As if you had come out of a bath of warm nectar and bliss streamed off you. His touch had calmed her and covered her with bliss.

He let her wrist go very slowly. To show that the grasp was meant for a caress! It was their first caress!

Before she had surrendered the telephone she had said to her mother:

“He doesn’t know.⁠ ⁠… Oh realise that he doesn’t know!”

She went to the other end of the room and stood watching him.

He heard the telephone from its black depths say:

“How are you, my dear boy? My dear, dear boy; you’re safe for good.” It gave him a disagreeable feeling. This was the mother of the young girl he intended to seduce. He intended to. He said:

“I’m pretty well. Weakish. I’ve just come out of hospital. Four days ago.” He was never going back to that bloody show. He had his application for demobilisation in his pocket. The voice said:

“Valentine thinks you are very ill. Very ill, indeed. She came to you because she thinks that.” She hadn’t come, then, because.⁠ ⁠… But, of course, she would not have. But she might have wanted them to spend Armistice Day together! She might have! A sense of disappointment went over him. Discouragement. He was very raw. That old devil, Campion! Still, one ought not to be as raw of that. He was saying, deferentially:

“Oh, it was mental rather than physical. Though I had pneumonia all right.” He went on saying that General Campion had put him in command over the escorts of German prisoners all through the Lines of several Armies. That really nearly had driven him mad. He couldn’t bear being a beastly gaoler.

Still⁠—Still!⁠—he saw those grey spectral shapes that had surrounded and interpenetrated all his later days. The image came over him with the mood