No More Parades - Ford Madox Ford (the gingerbread man read aloud .TXT) 📗

Port Scatho, one or two from brother officers and some official chits⁠ ⁠… She said to herself that, if there had been any letters from that girl, she would have let all his letters go through, including the girl’s⁠ ⁠… Now she was not so certain that she would have.

In the glass she saw Christopher marching woodenly out of the hotel, along the path that led from door to door behind her⁠ ⁠… It came to her with extraordinary gladness⁠—the absolute conviction that he was not corresponding with Miss Wannop. The absolute conviction⁠ ⁠… If he had come alive enough to do that he would have looked different. She did not know how he would have looked. But different⁠ ⁠… Alive! Perhaps self-conscious: perhaps⁠ ⁠… satisfied⁠ ⁠…

For some time the major had been grumbling about his wrongs. He said that he followed her about all day, like a lapdog, and got nothing for it. Now she wanted him to be conciliatory. She said she wanted to have a man on show as escort. Well then, an escort got something⁠ ⁠… At just this moment he was beginning again with:

“Look here⁠ ⁠… will you let me come to your room tonight or will you not?”

She burst into high, loud laughter. He said:

“Damn it all, it isn’t any laughing matter!⁠ ⁠… Look here! You don’t know what I risk⁠ ⁠… There are A.P.M.s and P.M.s and deputy sub-acting A.P.M.s walking about the corridors of all the hotels in this town, all night long⁠ ⁠… It’s as much as my job is worth⁠ ⁠…”

She put her handkerchief to her lips to hide a smile that she knew would be too cruel for him not to notice. And even when she took it away, he said:

“Hang it all, what a cruel-looking fiend you are!⁠ ⁠… Why the devil do I hang around you?⁠ ⁠… There’s a picture that my mother’s got, by Burne-Jones⁠ ⁠… A cruel-looking woman with a distant smile⁠ ⁠… Some vampire⁠ ⁠… La Belle Dame sans Merci⁠ ⁠… That’s what you’re like.”

She looked at him suddenly with considerable seriousness⁠ ⁠…

“See here, Potty⁠ ⁠…” she began. He groaned:

“I believe you’d like me to be sent to the beastly trenches⁠ ⁠… Yet a big, distinguished-looking chap like me wouldn’t have a chance⁠ ⁠… At the first volley the Germans fired, they’d pick me off⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, Potty,” she exclaimed, “try to be serious for a minute⁠ ⁠… I tell you I’m a woman who’s trying⁠ ⁠… who’s desperately wanting⁠ ⁠… to be reconciled to her husband!⁠ ⁠… I would not tell that to another soul⁠ ⁠… I would not tell it to myself⁠ ⁠… But one owes something⁠ ⁠… a parting scene, if nothing else⁠ ⁠… Well, something⁠ ⁠… to a man one’s been in bed with⁠ ⁠… I didn’t give you a parting scene at⁠ ⁠… ah, Yssingueux-les-Pervenches⁠ ⁠… so I give you this tip instead⁠ ⁠…”

He said:

“Will you leave your bedroom door unlocked, or won’t you?”

She said:

“If that man would throw his handkerchief to me, I would follow him round the world in my shift!⁠ ⁠… Look here⁠ ⁠… see me shake when I think of it⁠ ⁠…” She held out her hand at the end of her long arm: hand and arm trembled together, minutely, then very much⁠ ⁠… “Well,” she finished, “if you see that and still want to come to my room⁠ ⁠… your blood be on your own head⁠ ⁠…” She paused for a breath or two and then said:

“You can come⁠ ⁠… I won’t lock my door⁠ ⁠… But I don’t say that you’ll get anything⁠ ⁠… or that you’ll like what you get⁠ ⁠… That’s a fair tip⁠ ⁠…” She added suddenly: “You sale fat⁠ ⁠… take what you get and be damned to you!”

Major Perowne had suddenly taken to twirling his moustaches; he said:

“Oh, I’ll chance the A.P.M.s⁠ ⁠…”

She suddenly coiled her legs into her chair.

“I know now what I came here for,” she said.

Major Wilfrid Fosbrooke Eddicker Perowne of Perowne, the son of his mother, was one of those individuals who have no history, no strong proclivities, nothing. His knowledge seemed to be bounded by the contents of his newspaper for the immediate day; at any rate, his conversation never went any farther. He was not bold, he was not shy; he was neither markedly courageous nor markedly cowardly. His mother was immoderately wealthy, owned an immense castle that hung over crags, above a western sea, much as a birdcage hangs from a window of a high tenement building, but she received few or no visitors, her cuisine being indifferent and her wine atrocious. She had strong temperance opinions and, immediately after the death of her husband, she had emptied the contents of his cellar, which were almost as historic as his castle, into the sea, a shudder going through county-family England. But even this was not enough to make Perowne himself notorious.

His mother allowed him⁠—after an eye-opener in early youth⁠—the income of a junior royalty, but he did nothing with it. He lived in a great house in Palace Gardens, Kensington, and he lived all alone with rather a large staff of servants who had been selected by his mother, but they did nothing at all, for he ate all his meals, and even took his bath and dressed for dinner at the Bath Club. He was otherwise parsimonious.

He had, after the fashion of his day, passed a year or two in the army when young. He had been first gazetted to His Majesty’s Forty-second Regiment, but on the Black Watch proceeding to India he had exchanged into the Glamorganshires, at that time commanded by General Campion and recruiting in and around Lincolnshire. The general had been an old friend of Perowne’s mother, and, on being promoted to brigadier, had taken Perowne on to his staff as his galloper, for, although Perowne rode rather indifferently, he had a certain social knowledge and could be counted on to know how correctly to address a regimental invitation to a dowager countess who had married a viscount’s third son⁠ ⁠… As a military figure otherwise he had a very indifferent word of command, a very poor drill and next to no control of his men, but he was popular