‘Oh, you’ll live it down,’ she said.
‘I ought to tell you,’ he persisted, ‘that it’s more serious than you think. I fancy I ought not to be here.’
‘Not here!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why, where else in the world should you be? You don’t get on with your wife; I know. She’s a regular wrong ’un. Who else could look after you as well as Valentine and I.’
In the acuteness of that pang, for, after all, Tietjens cared more for his wife’s reputation than for any other factor in a complicated world, Tietjens asked rather sharply why Mrs Wannop had called Sylvia a wrong ’un. She said in rather a protesting, sleepy way:
‘My dear boy, nothing! I’ve guessed that there are differences between you; give me credit for some perception. Then, as you’re perfectly obviously a right ’un, she must be a wrong ’un. That’s all, I assure you.’
In his relief Tietjens’ obstinacy revived. He liked this house; he liked this atmosphere; he liked the frugality, the choice of furniture, the way the light fell from window to window; the weariness after hard work, the affection of mother and daughter; the affection, indeed, that they both had for himself, and he was determined, if he could help it, not to damage the reputation of the daughter of the house.
Decent men, he held, don’t do such things, and he recounted with some care the heads of the conversation he had had with General Campion in the dressing-room. He seemed to see the cracked wash-bowls in their scrubbed oak settings. Mrs Wannop’s face seemed to grow greyer, more aquiline; a little resentful! She nodded from time to time, either to denote attention or else in sheer drowsiness:
‘My dear boy,’ she said at last, ‘it’s pretty damnable to have such things said about you. I can see that. But I seem to have lived in a bath of scandal all my life. Every woman who has reached my age has that feeling . . . Now it doesn’t seem to matter . . . ’ She really nodded nearly off: then she started. ‘I don’t see . . . I really don’t see how I can help you as to your reputation. I’d do it if I could: believe me . . . But I’ve other things to think of . . . I’ve this house to keep going and the children to keep fed and at school. I can’t give all the thought I ought to to other people’s troubles . . .
She started into wakefulness and right out of her chair.
‘But what a beast I am!’ she said, with a sudden intonation that was exactly that of her daughter; and, drifting with a Victorian majesty of shawl and long skirt behind Tietjens’ high-backed chair, she leaned over it and stroked the hair on his right temple:
‘My dear boy,’ she said. ‘Life’s a bitter thing. I’m an old novelist and know it. There you are working yourself to death to save the nation with a wilderness of cats and monkeys howling and squalling your personal reputation away . . . It was Dizzy himself said these words to me at one of our receptions. “Here I am, Mrs Wannop,” he said . . . And . . . ’ She drifted for a moment. But she made another effort: ‘My dear boy,’ she whispered, bending down her head to get it near his ear: ‘My dear boy; it doesn’t matter; it doesn’t really matter. You’ll live it down. The only thing that matters it to do good work. Believe an old woman who has lived very hard; “Hard lying money” as they call it in the navy. It sounds like cant, but it’s the only real truth. You’ll find consolation in that. And you’ll live it down. Or perhaps you won’t; that’s for God in His mercy to settle. But it won’t matter; believe me, as thy days so shall thy strength be.’ She drifted into other thoughts; she was much perturbed over the plot of a new novel and much wanted to get back to the consideration of it. She stood gazing at the photograph, very faded, of her husband in side-whiskers and an immense shirt-front, but she continued to stroke Tietjens’ temple with a sublime tenderness.
This kept Tietjens sitting there. He was quite aware that he had tears in his eyes; this was almost too much tenderness to bear, and, at bottom his was a perfectly direct, simple and sentimental soul. He always had bedewed eyes at the theatre, after tender love scenes, and so avoided the theatre. He asked himself twice whether he should or shouldn’t make another effort, though it was almost beyond him. He wanted to sit still.
The stroking stopped; he scrambled on to his feet.
‘Mrs Wannop,’ he said, facing her, ‘it’s perfectly true. I oughtn’t to care what these swine say about me, but I do. I’ll reflect about what you say till I get it into my system . . .
She said:
‘Yes, yes! my dear,’ and continued to gaze at the photograph.
‘But,’ Tietjens said; he took her mittened hand and led her back to her chair: ‘What I’m concerned for at the moment is not my reputation, but your daughter Valentine’s .’
She sank down into the high chair, balloon-like, and came to rest:
‘Val’s reputation!’ she said, ‘Oh! you mean they’ll be striking her off their visiting lists. It hadn’t struck me. So they will!’ She remained lost in reflection for a long time.
Valentine was in the room, laughing a little. She had been giving the handy-man his dinner, and was still amused at his commendations of Tietjens.
‘You’ve got one admirer,’ she said to Tietjens. ‘“Punched that rotten strap,” he goes on saying, “like a gret of yaffle punchin’ a ‘ollow log!” He’s had a pint of beer and said it between each gasp.’ She continued to narrate the quaintness of Joel which appealed to her; informed Tietjens that ‘yaffle’ was Kentish for great green woodpecker; and then said:
‘You haven’t got any friends in Germany, have you?’ She was beginning to clear the table.
Tietjens said:
‘Yes; my wife’s in Germany; at a place called Lobscheid.’
She placed a pile of plates on a black japanned tray.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, without an expression of any deep regret. ‘It’s the ingenious clever stupidities of the telephone. I’ve got a telegraph message for you then. I thought it was the subject for mother’s leader. It always comes through with the initials of the paper which are not unlike Tietjens, and the girl who always sends it is called Hopside. It seemed rather inscrutable, but I took it to have to do with German politics and I thought mother would understand it . . . You’re not both asleep, are you?’
Tietjens opened his eyes, the girl was standing over him, having approached from the table. She was holding out a slip of paper on which she had transcribed the message. She appeared all out of drawing and the letters of the message ran together. The message was:
Righto. But arrange for certain Hullo Central travels with you. Sylvia Hopside Germany.’
Tietjens leaned back for a long time looking at the words; they seemed meaningless. The girl placed the paper on his knee, and went back to the table. He imagined the girl wrestling with these incomprehensibilities on the telephone.
‘Of course if I’d had any sense,’ the girl said, ‘I should have known it couldn’t have been mother’s leader note; she never gets one on a Saturday.’
Tietjens heard himself announce clearly, loudly and with between each word a pause:
‘It means I go to my wife on Tuesday and take her maid with me.’
‘Lucky you!’ the girl said, ‘I wish I was you. I’ve never been in the Fatherland of Goethe and Rosa Luxemburg.’ She went off with her great tray load, the table-cloth over her forearm. He was dimly aware that she had before then removed the crumbs with a crumb-brush. It was extraordinary with what swiftness she worked, talking all the time. That was what domestic service had done for her; an ordinary young lady would have taken twice the time, and would certainly have dropped half her words if she had tried to talk. Efficiency! He had only just realized that he was going back to Sylvia, and of course to Hell!