Some Do Not … - Ford Madox Ford (non fiction books to read TXT) 📗

dishonourable action.⁠ ⁠… And, mind you, I believe that no other man save one has ever had more right to say it than you⁠ ⁠…”

Tietjens said:

“You believe that!”

“As I hope to stand before my Redeemer,” Sylvia said, “I believe it.⁠ ⁠… But, in the name of the Almighty, how could any woman live beside you⁠ ⁠… and be forever forgiven? Or no: not forgiven: ignored!⁠ ⁠… Well, be proud when you die because of your honour. But, God, you be humble about⁠ ⁠… your errors in judgment. You know what it is to ride a horse for miles with too tight a curb-chain and its tongue cut almost in half.⁠ ⁠… You remember the groom your father had who had the trick of turning the hunters out like that.⁠ ⁠… And you horsewhipped him, and you’ve told me you’ve almost cried ever so often afterwards for thinking of that mare’s mouth.⁠ ⁠… Well! Think of this mare’s mouth sometimes! You’ve ridden me like that for seven years⁠ ⁠…”

She stopped and then went on again:

“Don’t you know, Christopher Tietjens, that there is only one man from whom a woman could take ‘Neither I condemn thee’ and not hate him more than she hates the fiend!⁠ ⁠…”

Tietjens so looked at her that he contrived to hold her attention.

“I’d like you to let me ask you,” he said, “how I could throw stones at you? I have never disapproved of your actions.”

Her hands dropped dispiritedly to her sides.

“Oh, Christopher,” she said, “don’t carry on that old play acting. I shall never see you again, very likely, to speak to. You’ll sleep with the Wannop girl tonight: you’re going out to be killed tomorrow. Let’s be straight for the next ten minutes or so. And give me your attention. The Wannop girl can spare that much if she’s to have all the rest⁠ ⁠…”

She could see that he was giving her his whole mind.

“As you said just now,” he exclaimed slowly, “as I hope to meet my Redeemer I believe you to be a good woman. One that never did a dishonourable thing.”

She recoiled a little in her chair.

“Then!” she said, “you’re the wicked man I’ve always made believe to think you, though I didn’t.”

Tietjens said:

“No!⁠ ⁠… Let me try to put it to you as I see it.”

She exclaimed:

“No!⁠ ⁠… I’ve been a wicked woman. I have ruined you. I am not going to listen to you.”

He said:

“I daresay you have ruined me. That’s nothing to me. I am completely indifferent.”

She cried out:

“Oh! Oh!⁠ ⁠… Oh!” on a note of agony.

Tietjens said doggedly:

“I don’t care. I can’t help it. Those are⁠—those should be⁠—the conditions of life amongst decent people. When our next war comes I hope it will be fought out under those conditions. Let us, for God’s sake, talk of the gallant enemy. Always. We have got to plunder the French or millions of our people must starve: they have got to resist us successfully or be wiped out.⁠ ⁠… It’s the same with you and me⁠ ⁠…”

She exclaimed:

“You mean to say that you don’t think I was wicked when I⁠ ⁠… when I ‘trepanned’ is what mother calls it?⁠ ⁠…”

He said loudly:

“No!⁠ ⁠… You had been let in for it by some brute. I have always held that a woman who has been let down by one man has the right⁠—has the duty for the sake of her child⁠—to let down a man. It becomes woman against man: against one man. I happened to be that one man: it was the will of God. But you were within your rights. I will never go back on that. Nothing will make me, ever!”

She said:

“And the others! And Perowne.⁠ ⁠… I know you’ll say that anyone is justified in doing anything as long as they are open enough about it.⁠ ⁠… But it killed your mother. Do you disapprove of my having killed your mother? Or you consider that I have corrupted the child⁠ ⁠…”

Tietjens said:

“I don’t.⁠ ⁠… I want to speak to you about that.”

She exclaimed:

“You don’t⁠ ⁠…”

He said calmly:

“You know I don’t⁠ ⁠… while I was certain that I was going to be here to keep him straight and an Anglican I fought your influence over him. I’m obliged to you for having brought up of yourself the considerations that I may be killed and that I am ruined. I am. I could not raise a hundred pounds between now and tomorrow. I am, therefore, obviously not the man to have sole charge of the heir of Groby.”

Sylvia was saying:

“Every penny I have is at your disposal⁠ ⁠…” when the maid, Hullo Central, marched up to her master and placed a card in his hand. He said:

“Tell him to wait five minutes in the drawing-room.”

Sylvia said:

“Who is it?”

Tietjens answered:

“A man.⁠ ⁠… Let’s get this settled. I’ve never thought you corrupted the boy. You tried to teach him to tell white lies. On perfectly straight Papist lines. I have no objection to Papists and no objection to white lies for Papists. You told him once to put a frog in Marchant’s bath. I’ve no objection to a boy’s putting a frog in his nurse’s bath, as such. But Marchant is an old woman, and the heir to Groby should respect old women always and old family servants in particular.⁠ ⁠… It hasn’t, perhaps, struck you that the boy is heir to Groby⁠ ⁠…”

Sylvia said:

“If⁠ ⁠… if your second brother is killed.⁠ ⁠… But your eldest brother⁠ ⁠…”

“He,” Tietjens said, “has got a French woman near Euston station. He’s lived with her for over fifteen years, of afternoons, when there were no race meetings. She’ll never let him marry and she’s past the childbearing stage. So there’s no one else⁠ ⁠…”

Sylvia said:

“You mean that I may bring the child up as a Catholic.”

Tietjens said:

“A Roman Catholic.⁠ ⁠… You’ll teach him, please, to use that term before myself if I ever see him again⁠ ⁠…”

Sylvia said:

“Oh, I thank God that he has softened your heart. This will take the curse off this house.”

Tietjens shook his head:

“I think not,” he said, “off you, perhaps. Off Groby very likely. It was, perhaps, time that there should be a Papist owner of Groby