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

“Major Thurston is looking for you, sir. Very urgently⁠ ⁠…” The general regarded him as if he had been the unicorn of the royal arms, come alive. He exclaimed:

“Major Thurston!⁠ ⁠… Yes! Yes!⁠ ⁠…” and, Tietjens saying to him:

“I wanted to ask you, sir⁠ ⁠…” he pushed Tietjens away as if he dreaded an assault and went off with short, agitated steps.

So, sitting there in the smoking-lounge of the hotel which was cram-jam full of officers, and no doubt perfectly respectable, but over-giggling women⁠—the sort of place and environment which she had certainly never expected to be called upon to sit in; and waiting for the return of Tietjens and the ex-sergeant-major⁠—who again was certainly not the sort of person that she had ever expected to be asked to wait for, though for long years she had put up with Tietjens’ protégé, the odious Sir Vincent Macmaster, at all sorts of meals and all sorts of places⁠ ⁠… but of course that was only Christopher’s rights⁠ ⁠… to have in his own house, which, in the circumstances, wasn’t morally hers, any snuffling, nervous, walrus-moustached or orientally obsequious protégé that he chose to patronize⁠ ⁠… And she quite believed that Tietjens, when he had invited the sergeant-major to celebrate his commission with himself at dinner, hadn’t expected to dine with her⁠ ⁠… It was the sort of obtuseness of which he was disconcertingly capable, though at other times he was much more disconcertingly capable of reading your thoughts to the last hairsbreadth⁠ ⁠… And, as a matter of fact, she objected much less to dining with the absolute lower classes than with merely snuffly little official critics like Macmaster, and the sergeant-major had served her turn very well when it had come to flaying the hide off Christopher⁠ ⁠… So, sitting there, she made a new pact, this time with Father Consett in heaven⁠ ⁠…

Father Consett was very much in her mind, for she was very much in the midst of the British military authorities who had hanged him⁠ ⁠… She had never seemed before to be so in the midst of these negligible, odious, unpresentable, horse-laughing schoolboys. It antagonized her, and it was a weight upon her, for hitherto she had completely ignored them: in this place they seemed to have a coherence, a mass⁠ ⁠… almost a life⁠ ⁠… They rushed in and out of rooms occupied, as incomprehensibly, as unpresentably, with things like boots, washing, vaccination certificates⁠ ⁠… Even with old tins!⁠ ⁠… A man with prematurely white hair and a pasty face, with a tunic that bulged both above and below his belt, would walk into the drawing-room of a lady who superintended all the acid-drop and cigarette stalls of that city and remark to a thin-haired, deaf man with an amazingly red nose⁠—a nose that had a perfectly definite purple and scarlet diagonal demarcation running from the bridge to the upper side of the nostrils⁠—that he had got his old tins off his hands at last. He would have to repeat it in a shout because the red-nosed man, his head hanging down, would have heard nothing at all. The deaf man would say Humph! Humph! Snuffle. The woman giving the tea⁠—a Mrs. Hemmerdine, of Tarbolton, whom you might have met at home, would be saying that at last she had got twelve reams of notepaper with forget-me-nots in the top corners when the deaf-faced man would begin, gruffly and uninterruptedly, a monologue on his urgent need for twenty thousand tons of sawdust for the new slow-burning stoves in the men’s huts⁠ ⁠…

It was undeniably like something moving⁠ ⁠… All these things going in one direction⁠ ⁠… A disagreeable force set in motion by gawky schoolboys⁠—but schoolboys of the Sixth Form, sinister, hobbledehoy, waiting in the corners of playgrounds to torture someone, weak and unfortunate⁠ ⁠… In one or other corner of their worldwide playground they had come upon Father Consett and hanged him. No doubt they tortured him first. And, if he made an offering of his sufferings, then and there to Heaven, no doubt he was already in paradise⁠ ⁠… Or, if he was not yet in heaven, certain of these souls in purgatory were yet listened to in the midst of their torments⁠ ⁠…

So she said:

“Blessed and martyred father, I know that you loved Christopher and wish to save him from trouble. I will make this pact with you. Since I have been in this room I have kept my eyes in the boat⁠—almost in my lap. I will agree to leave off torturing Christopher and I will go into retreat in a convent of Ursuline Dames Nobles⁠—for I can’t stand the nuns of that other convent⁠—for the rest of my life⁠ ⁠… And I know that will please you, too, for you were always anxious for the good of my soul⁠ ⁠…” She was going to do that if when she raised her eyes and really looked round the room she saw in it one man that looked presentable. She did not ask that he should more than look presentable, for she wanted nothing to do with the creature. He was to be a sign: not a prey!

She explained to the dead priest that she could not go all the world over to see if it contained a presentable man, but she could not bear to be in a convent forever, and have the thought that there wasn’t, for other women, one presentable man in the world⁠ ⁠… For Christopher would be no good to them. He would be mooning forever over the Wannop girl. Or her memory. That was all one⁠ ⁠… He was content with love⁠ ⁠… If he knew that the Wannop girl was loving him in Bedford Park, and he in the Khyber States with the Himalayas between them, he would be quite content⁠ ⁠… That would be correct in its way, but not very helpful for other women⁠ ⁠… Besides, if he were the only presentable man in the world, half the women would be in love with him⁠ ⁠… And that would be disastrous, because he was no more responsive than a bullock in a fatting pen.

“So,