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

the head!⁠ ⁠… Perowne had melted away somewhere behind the disagreeable duchess. The general, very splendid and white-headed and scarlet-tipped and gilt, had also borne down upon her at that⁠ ⁠… At the sight of Perowne with her he had been sniffing and snorting whilst he talked to the young nobleman⁠—a dark fellow in blue with a new belt who seemed just a shade too theatrical, he being chauffeur to a marshal of France and first cousin and nearest relative, except for parents and grandparents, of the prospective bride⁠ ⁠…

The general had told her that he was running the show pretty strong on purpose because he thought it might do something to cement the Entente Cordiale. But it did not seem to be doing it. The French⁠—officers, soldiers and women⁠—kept pretty well all on the one side of the room⁠—the English on the other. The French were as a rule more gloomy than men and women are expected to be. A marquis of sorts⁠—she understood that these were all Bonapartist nobility⁠—having been introduced to her had distinguished himself no more than by saying that, for his part, he thought the duchess was right, and by saying that to Perowne who, knowing no French, had choked exactly as if his tongue had suddenly got too big for his mouth⁠ ⁠…

She had not heard what the duchess⁠—a very disagreeable duchess who sat on a sofa and appeared savagely careworn⁠—had been saying, so that she had inclined herself, in the courtly manner that at school she had been taught to reserve for the French legitimist nobility, but that she thought she might expend upon a rather state function even for the Bonapartists, and had replied that without the least doubt the duchess had the right of the matter⁠ ⁠… The marquis had given her from dark eyes one long glance, and she had returned it with a long cold glance that certainly told him she was meat for his masters. It extinguished him⁠ ⁠…

Tietjens had staged his meeting with herself remarkably well. It was the sort of lymphatic thing he could do, so that, for the fifth of a minute, she wondered if he had any feelings or emotions at all. But she knew that he had⁠ ⁠… The general, at any rate, bearing down upon them with satisfaction, had remarked:

“Ah, I see you’ve seen each other before today⁠ ⁠… I thought perhaps you wouldn’t have found time before, Tietjens⁠ ⁠… Your draft must be a great nuisance⁠ ⁠…”

Tietjens said without expression:

“Yes, we have seen each other before⁠ ⁠… I made time to call at Sylvia’s hotel, sir.”

It was at Tietjens’ terrifying expressionlessness, at that completely being up to a situation, that the first wave of emotion had come over her⁠ ⁠… For, till that very moment, she had been merely sardonically making the constatation that there was not a single presentable man in the room⁠ ⁠… There was not even one that you could call a gentleman⁠ ⁠… for you cannot size up the French⁠ ⁠… ever!⁠ ⁠… But, suddenly, she was despairing!⁠ ⁠… How, she said to herself, could she ever move, put emotion into, this lump! It was like trying to move an immense mattress filled with feathers. You pulled at one end, but the whole mass sagged down and remained immobile until you seemed to have no strength at all⁠ ⁠… Until virtue went out from you⁠ ⁠…

It was as if he had the evil eye: or some special protector. He was so appallingly competent, so appallingly always in the centre of his own picture.

The general said, rather joyfully:

“Then you can spare a minute, Tietjens, to talk to the duchess! About coal!⁠ ⁠… For goodness’ sake, man, save the situation! I’m worn out⁠ ⁠…”

Sylvia bit the inside of her lower lip⁠—she never bit her lip itself!⁠—to keep herself from exclaiming aloud. It was just exactly what should not happen to Tietjens at that juncture⁠ ⁠… She heard the general explaining to her, in his courtly manner, that the duchess was holding up the whole ceremony because of the price of coal. The general loved her desperately. Her, Sylvia! In quite a proper manner for an elderly general⁠ ⁠… But he would go to no small extremes in her interests! So would his sister!

She looked hard at the room to get her senses into order again. She said:

“It’s like a Hogarth picture⁠ ⁠…”

The undissolvable air of the eighteenth century that the French contrive to retain in all their effects kept the scene singularly together. On a sofa sat the duchess, relatives leaning over her. She was a duchess with one of those impossible names: Beauchain-Radigutz or something like it. The bluish room was octagonal and vaulted, up to a rosette in the centre of the ceiling. English officers and V.A.D.s of some evident presence opened out to the left, French military and very black-clothed women of all ages, but all apparently widows, opened out to the right, as if the duchess shone down a sea at sunset. Beside her on the sofa you did not see Lady Sachse: leaning over her you did not see the prospective bride. This stoutish, unpresentable, coldly venomous woman, in black clothes so shabby that they might have been grey tweed, extinguished other personalities as the sun conceals planets. A fattish, brilliantined personality, in mufti, with a scarlet rosette, stood sideways to the duchess’s right, his hands extended forward as if in an invitation to a dance; an extremely squat lady, also apparently a widow, extended, on the left of the duchess, both her black-gloved hands, as if she too were giving an invitation to the dance⁠ ⁠…

The general, with Sylvia beside him, stood glorious in the centre of the clearing that led to the open doorway of a much smaller room. Through the doorway you could see a table with a white damask cloth; a silver-gilt inkpot, fretted, like a porcupine with pens, a fat, flat leather case for the transportation of documents and two notaries: one in black, fat, and bald-headed; one in blue uniform, with a shining monocle, and a brown moustache that he continued to