‘Oh, Christopher!’ Sylvia said. ’You read that encyclopaedia; it’s pitiful. You used to despise it so.’
‘That’s what’s meant by “smitten in his pride,"’ Tietjens said. ‘Of course what I read or hear now I remember . . . But I haven’t got to M, much less V. That was why I was worried about Metternich and the Congress of Vienna. I try to remember things on my own, but I haven’t yet done so. You see, it’s as if a certain area of my brain had been wiped white. Occasionally one name suggests another. You noticed, when I got Metternich it suggested Castlereagh and Wellington—and even other names . . . But that’s what the Department of Statistics will get me on. When they fire me out. The real reason will be that I’ve served. But they’ll pretend it’s because I’ve no more general knowledge than is to be found in the encyclopaedia: or two-thirds more or less—according to the duration of the war . . . Or, of course, the real reason will be that I won’t fake statistics to dish the French with. They asked me to, the other day, as a holiday task. And when I refused, you should have seen their faces.’
‘Have you really,’ Sylvia asked, ‘lost two brothers in action?’
‘Yes,’ Tietjens answered. ‘Curly and Longshanks. You never saw them because they were always in India. And they weren’t noticeable . . . ’
‘Two!‘ Sylvia said. ‘I only wrote to your father about one called Edward. And your sister Caroline. In the same letter . . . ’
‘Carrie wasn’t noticeable either,’ Tietjens said. ‘She did Charity Organization Society work . . . But I remember: you didn’t like her. She was the born old maid . . . ’
‘Christopher!’ Sylvia asked, ‘do you still think your mother died of a broken heart because I left you?’ Tietjens said:
‘Good God, no. I never thought so and I don’t think so. I know she didn’t.’
‘Then!‘ Sylvia exclaimed, ‘she died of a broken heart because I came back . . . It’s no good protesting that you don’t think so. I remember your face when you opened the telegram at Lobscheid. Miss Wannop forwarded it from Rye. I remember the postmark. She was born to do me ill. The moment you got it I could see you thinking that you must conceal from me that you thought it was because of me she died. I could see you wondering if it wouldn’t be practicable to conceal from me that she was dead. You couldn’t, of course, do that because, you remember, we were to have gone to Wiesbaden and show ourselves; and we couldn’t do that because we should have to be in mourning. So you took me to Russia to get out of taking me to the funeral.’
‘I took you to Russia,’ Tietjens said. ‘I remember it all now—because I had an order from Sir Robert Ingleby to assist the British Consul-General in preparing a Blue Book statistical table of the Government of Kiev . . . It appeared to be the most industrially promising region in the world in those days. It isn’t now, naturally. I shall never see back a penny of the money I put into it. I thought I was clever in those days . . . And of course, yes, the money was my mother’s settlement. It comes back . . . yes, of course . . .
‘Did you,’ Sylvia asked, ‘get out of taking me to your mother’s funeral because you thought I should defile your mother’s corpse by my presence? Or because you were afraid that in the presence of your mother’s body you wouldn’t be able to conceal from me that you thought I killed her? . . . Don’t deny it. And don’t get out of it by saying that you can’t remember those days. You’re remembering now: that I killed your mother: that Miss Wannop sent the telegram—why don’t you score it against her, that she sent the news? . . . Or, good God, why don’t you score it against yourself, as the wrath of the Almighty, that your mother was dying while you and that girl were croodling over each other? . . . At Rye! Whilst I was at Lobscheid . . .
Tietjens wiped his brow with his handkerchief.
‘Well, let’s drop that,’ Sylvia said. ‘God knows, I’ve no right to put a spoke in that girl’s wheel or in yours. If you love each other you’ve a right to happiness and I daresay she’ll make you happy. I can’t divorce you, being a Catholic; but I won’t make it difficult for you in other ways, and self-contained people like you and her will manage somehow. You’ll have learned the way from Macmaster and his mistress . . . But, oh, Christopher Tietjens, have you ever considered how foully you’ve used me!’
Tietjens looked at her attentively, as if with magpie anguish.
‘If,’ Sylvia went on with her denunciation, ‘you had once in our lives said to me: “You whore! You bitch! You killed my mother. May you rot in hell for it . . . ” If you’d only once said something like it . . . about the child! About Perowne! . . . you might have done something to bring us together . . . ’
Tietjens said:
‘That’s, of course, true!’
‘I know,’ Sylvia said, ‘you can’t help it . . . But when, in your famous county family pride—though a youngest son!—you say to yourself: And I daresay if . . . Oh, Christ! . . . you’re shot in the trenches you’ll say it . . . oh, between the saddle and the ground! that you never did a 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 for ever forgiven? Or no: not forgiven: ignored! . . . Well, be proud when you die because of your honour. But, God, 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 horse-whipped 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 do 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 playacting. I shall never see you again, very likely, to speak to. You’ll sleep with the Wannop girl to-night: you’re going out to be killed to-morrow. 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: