‘He doesn’t,’ Macmaster exclaimed. Tietjens continued with equanimity:
‘Now your novelist who writes a book to justify his every tenth or fifth seduction of a commonplace young woman in the name of the rights of shop boys… .’
‘I’ll admit,’ Macmaster coincided, ‘that Briggs is going too far. I told him only last Thursday at Mrs. Limoux’s …’
‘I’m not talking of anyone in particular,’ Tietjens said. ‘I don’t read novels. I’m supposing a case. And it’s a cleaner case than that of your pre-Raphaelite horrors! No! I don’t read novels, but I follow tendencies. And if a fellow chooses to justify his seductions of uninteresting and viewy young females along the lines of freedom and the rights of man, it’s relatively respectable. It would be better just to boast about his conquests in a straightforward and exultant way. But …’
‘You carry joking too far sometimes,’ Macmaster said. ‘I’ve warned you about it.’
‘I’m as solemn as an owl!’ Tietjens rejoined. ‘The lower classes are becoming vocal. Why shouldn’t they? They’re the only people in this country who are sound in wind and limb. They’ll save the country if the country’s to be saved.’
‘And you call yourself a Tory!’ Macmaster said.
‘The lower classes,’ Tietjens continued equably, ‘such of them as get through the secondary schools, want irregular and very transitory unions. During holidays they go together on personally conducted tours to Switzerland and such places. Wet afternoons they pass in their tiled bathrooms, slapping each other hilariously on the backs and splashing white enamel paint about.’
‘You say you don’t read novels,’ Macmaster said, ‘but I recognise the quotation.’
‘I don’t read novels,’ Tietjens answered. ‘I know what’s in ’em. There has been nothing worth reading written in England since the eighteenth century except by a woman… . But it’s natural for your enamel splashers to want to see themselves in a bright and variegated literature. Why shouldn’t they? It’s a healthy, human desire, and now that printing and paper are cheap they get it satisfied. It’s healthy, I tell you. Infinitely healthier than …’ He paused.
‘Than what?’ Macmaster asked.
‘I’m thinking,’ Tietjens said, ‘thinking how not to be too rude.’
‘You want to be rude,’ Macmaster said bitterly, ‘to people who lead the contemplative … the circumspect life.’
‘It’s precisely that,’ Tietjens said. He quoted:
She walks, the lady of my delight,
A shepherdess of sheep;
She is so circumspect and right:
She has her thoughts to keep.
Macmaster said:
‘Confound you, Chrissie. You know everything.’
‘Well, yes,’ Tietjens said musingly, ‘I think I should want to be rude to her. I don’t say I should be. Certainly I shouldn’t if she were good looking. Or if she were your soul’s affinity. You can rely on that.’
Macmaster had a sudden vision of Tietjens’ large and clumsy form walking beside the lady of his, Macmaster’s, delight, when ultimately she was found – walking along the top of a cliff amongst tall grass and poppies and making himself extremely agreeable with talk of Tasso and Cimabue. All the same, Macmaster imagined, the lady wouldn’t like Tietjens. Women didn’t as a rule. His looks and his silences alarmed them. Or they hated him… . Or they liked him very much indeed. And Macmaster said conciliatorily:
‘Yes, I think I could rely on that!’ He added: ‘All the same I don’t wonder that …’
He had been about to say:
‘I don’t wonder that Sylvia calls you immoral.’ For Tietjens’ wife alleged that Tietjens was detestable. He bored her, she said, by his silences; when he did speak she hated him for the immorality of his views… . But he did not finish his sentence, and Tietjens went on:
‘All the same when the war comes it will be these little snobs who will save England, because they’ve the courage to know what they want and to say so.’
Macmaster said loftily:
‘You’re extraordinarily old-fashioned at times, Chrissie. You ought to know as well as I do that a war is impossible – at any rate with this country in it. Simply because …’ He hesitated and then emboldened himself: ‘We – the circumspect – yes, the circumspect classes, will pilot the nation through the tight places.’
‘War, my good fellow,’ Tietjens said – the train was slowing down preparatorily to running into Ashford – ‘is inevitable, and with this country plumb centre in the middle of it. Simply because you fellows are such damn hypocrites. There’s not a country in the world that trusts us. We’re always, as it were, committing adultery – like your fellow! – with the name of Heaven on our lips.’ He was jibing again at the subject of Macmaster’s monograph.
‘He never!’ Macmaster said in almost a stutter. ‘He never whined about Heaven.’
‘He did,’ Tietjens said: ‘The beastly poem you quoted ends:
Better far though hearts may break,
Since we dare not love,
Part till we once more may meet
In a Heaven above.’
And Macmaster, who had been dreading that shot – for he never knew how much or how little of any given poem his friend would have by heart – Macmaster collapsed, as it were, into fussily getting down his dressing-cases and clubs from the rack, a task he usually left to a porter. Tietjens who, however much a train might be running into a station he was bound for, sat like a rock until it was dead-still, said:
‘Yes, a war is inevitable. Firstly, there’s you fellows who can’t be trusted. And then there’s the multitude who mean to have bathrooms and white enamel. Millions of them; all over the world. Not merely here. And there aren’t enough bathrooms and white enamel in the world to go round. It’s like you polygamists with women. There aren’t enough women in the world to go round to satisfy your insatiable appetites. And there aren’t enough men in the world to give each woman one. And most women want several. So you have divorce cases. I suppose you won’t say that because you’re so circumspect and right there shall be no more divorce? Well, war is as inevitable as divorce… .’
Macmaster had his head out of the carriage window and was calling for a porter.
On the platform a number of women in lovely sable cloaks, with purple or red jewel cases, with diaphanous silky scarves flying from motor hoods, were drifting towards the branch train for Rye, under the shepherding of erect, burdened footmen. Two of them nodded to Tietjens.
Macmaster considered that he was perfectly right to be tidy in his dress; you never knew whom you mightn’t meet on a railway journey. This confirmed him as against Tietjens, who preferred to look like a navvy.
A tall, white-haired, white-moustached, red-cheeked fellow limped after Tietjens, who was getting his immense bag out of the guard’s van. He clapped the young man on the shoulder and said:
‘Hullo! How’s your mother-in-law? Lady Claude wants to know. She says come up and pick a bone tonight if you’re going to Rye.’ He had extraordinarily blue, innocent eyes.
Tietjens said:
‘Hullo, General,’ and added: ‘I believe she’s much better. Quite restored. This is Macmaster. I think I shall be going over to bring my wife back in a day or two. They’re both at Lobscheid … a German spa.’
The general said:
‘Quite right. It isn’t good for a young man to be alone. Kiss Sylvia’s finger-tips for me. She’s the real thing, you lucky beggar.’ He added, a little anxiously: ‘What about a foursome to-morrow? Paul Sandbach is down. He’s as crooked as me. We can’t do a full round at singles.’
‘It’s your own fault,’ Tietjens said. ‘You ought to have gone to my bone-setter. Settle it with Macmaster, will you?’ He jumped into the twilight of the guard’s van.
The general looked at Macmaster, a quick, penetrating scrutiny:
‘You’re the Macmaster,’ he said. ‘You would be if you’re with Chrissie.’
; A high voice called:
‘General! General!’
‘I want a word with you,’ the general said, ‘about the figures in that article you wrote about Pondoland. Figures are all right. But we shall lose the beastly country if … But we’ll talk about it after dinner to-night. You’ll come up to Lady Claudine’s… .’
Macmaster congratulated himself again on his appearance. It was all very well for Tietjens to look like a sweep; he was of these people. He, Macmaster, wasn’t. He had, if anything, to be an authority, and authorities wear gold tie-rings and broadcloth. General Lord Edward Campion had a son, a permanent head of the Treasury department that regulated increases of salaries and promotions in all the public offices. Tietjens only caught the Rye train by running alongside it, pitching his enormous kit-bag through the carriage window and swinging on the foot-board. Macmaster reflected that if he had done that half the station would have been yelling, ‘Stand away there.’
As it was Tietjens, a stationmaster was galloping after him to open the carriage door and grinningly to part:
‘Well caught, sir!’ for it was a cricketing county.
‘Truly,’ Macmaster quoted to himself,
The gods to each ascribe a differing lot:
Some enter at the portal. Some do not!
II
MRS. SATTERTHWAITE WITH her French maid, her priest, and her disreputable young man, Mr. Bayliss, were at Lobscheid, an unknown and little-frequented air resort amongst the pinewoods of the Taunus. Mrs. Satterthwaite was ultra-fashionable and consummately indifferent – she only really lost her temper if at her table and under her nose you consumed her famous Black Hamburg grapes without taking their skin and all. Father Consett was out to have an uproarious good time during his three weeks’ holiday from the slums of Liverpool; Mr. Bayliss, thin like a skeleton in tight blue serge, golden-haired and pink, was so nearly dead of tuberculosis, was so dead penniless, and of tastes so costly that he was ready to keep stone quiet, drink six pints of milk a day and behave himself. On the face of it he was there to write the letters of Mrs. Satterthwaite, but the lady never let him enter her private rooms for fear of infection. He had to content himself with nursing a growing adoration for Father Consett. This priest, with an enormous mouth, high cheek-bones, untidy black hair, a broad face that never looked too clean and waving hands that always looked too dirty, never kept still for a moment, and had a brogue such as is seldom heard outside old-fashioned English novels of Irish life. He had a perpetual laugh, like the noise made by a steam roundabout. He was, in short, a saint, and Mr. Bayliss knew it, though he didn’t know how. Ultimately, and with the financial assistance of Mrs. Satterthwaite, Mr. Bayliss became almoner to Father Consett, adopted the rule of St. Vincent de Paul and wrote some very admirable, if decorative, devotional verse.
They proved thus a very happy, innocent party. For Mrs. Satterthwaite interested herself – it was the only interest she had – in handsome, thin, and horribly disreputable young men. She would wait for them, or send her car to wait for them, at the gaol gates. She would bring their usually admirable wardrobes up to date and give them enough money to have a good time. When contrary to all expectations – but it happened more often than not! – they turned out well, she was lazily pleased. Sometimes she sent them away to a gay spot with a priest who needed a holiday; sometimes she had them down to her place in the west of England.
So they were a pleasant company and all very happy. Lobscheid contained one empty hotel with large verandahs and several square farmhouses, white with grey beams, painted in the gables with bouquets of blue and yellow flowers or with scarlet huntsmen shooting at purple stags. They were like gay cardboard boxes set down in fields of long grass; then the pinewoods commenced and ran, solemn, brown and geometric for miles up and down hill. The peasant girls wore black velvet waistcoats, white bodices, innumerable petticoats and absurd parti-coloured headdresses of the shape and size of halfpenny buns. They walked about in rows of four to six abreast, with a slow step, protruding white-stockinged feet in dancing pumps, their headdresses nodding solemnly; young men in blue blouses, knee-breeches and, on Sundays, in three-cornered hats, followed behind singing part-songs.
The French maid – whom Mrs. Satterthwaite had borrowed from the Duchesse de Carbon Châteaulherault in exchange for her own maid – was at first inclined to find the place maussade. But getting up a tremendous love affair with a fine, tall, blond young fellow, who included a gun, a gold-mounted hunting knife as long as his arm, a light, grey-green uniform, with gilt badges and buttons, she was reconciled to her lot. When the young Förster tried to shoot her – ‘et pour cause’, as she said – she was ravished and Mrs. Satterthwaite lazily amused.
They were sitting playing bridge in the large, shadowy dining-hall of the hotel: Mrs. Satterthwaite, Father Consett, Mr. Bayliss. A young blond sub-lieutenant of great obsequiousness who was there as a last chance for his right lung and his career, and the bearded Kur-doctor cut in. Father Consett, breathing heavily and looking frequently at his watch, played very fast, exclaiming: ‘Hurry up now; it’s nearly twelve. Hurry up wid ye.’ Mr. Bayliss being dummy, the Father exclaimed: ‘Three, no trumps; I’ve to make. Get me a whisky and soda quick, and don’t drown it as ye did the last.’ He played his hand with extreme rapidity, threw down his last three cards, exclaimed: ‘Ach! Botheranouns an’ all; I’m two down and I’ve revoked on the top av it,’ swallowed down his whisky and soda, looked at his watch and exclaimed: ‘Done it to the minute! Here, doctor, take my hand and finish the rubber.’ He was to take the mass next day for the local priest, and mass must be said fasting from midnight, and without cards played. Bridge was his only passion; a fortnight every year was what, in his worn-out life, he got of it. On his holiday he rose at ten. At eleven it was: ‘A four for the Father.’ From two to four they walked in the forest. At five it was: ‘A four for the Father.’ At nine it was: ‘Father, aren’t you coming to your bridge?’ And Father Consett grinned all over his face and said: ‘It’s good ye are to a poor ould soggart. It will be paid back to you in Heaven.’
The other four played on solemnly. The Father sat himself down behind Mrs. Satterthwaite, his chin in the nape of her neck. At excruciating moments he gripped her shoulders, exclaimed: ‘Play the queen, woman!’ and breathed hard down her back. Mrs. Satterthwaite would play the two of diamonds, and the Father, throwing himself back, would groan. She said over her shoulder:
‘I want to talk to you to-night, Father,’ took the last trick of the rubber, collected 17 marks 50 from the doctor and 8 marks from the unter-leutnant. The doctor exclaimed:
‘You gan’t dake that immense sum from us and then ko off. Now we shall be ropped py Herr Payliss at gutt-throat!’
She drifted, all shadowy black silk, across the shadows of the dining-hall, dropping her winnings into her black satin vanity bag and attended by the priest. Outside the door, beneath the antlers of a royal stag, in an atmosphere of paraffin lamps and varnished pitch-pine, she said:
‘Come up to my sitting-room. The prodigal’s returned. Sylvia’s here.’
The Father said:
‘I thought I saw her out of the corner of my eye in the ’bus after dinner. She’ll be going back to her husband. It’s a poor world.’
‘She’s a wicked devil!’ Mrs. Satterthwaite said.
‘I’ve known her myself since she was nine,’ Father Consett said, ‘and it’s little I’ve seen in her to hold up to the commendation of my flock.’ He added: ‘But maybe I’m made unjust by the shock of it.’
They climbed the stairs slowly.
Mrs. Satterthwaite sat herself on the edge of a cane chair. She said:
‘Well!’
She wore a black hat like a cart-wheel and her dresses appeared always to consist of a great many squares of silk that might have been thrown on to her. Since she considered that her complexion, which was matt white, had gone slightly violet from twenty years of make-up, when she was not made up – as she never was at Lobsch
eid – she wore bits of puce-coloured satin ribbon stuck here and there, partly to counteract the violet of her complexion, partly to show she was not in mourning. She was very tall and extremely emaciated; her dark eyes that had beneath them dark brown thumb-marks were very tired or very indifferent by turns.
Father Consett walked backwards and forwards, his hands behind his back, his head bent, over the not too well polished floor. There were two candles, lit but dim, in imitation pewter nouvel art candlesticks, rather dingy; a sofa of cheap mahogany with red plush cushions and rests, a table covered with a cheap carpet and an American roll-top desk that had thrown into it a great many papers in scrolls or flat. Mrs. Satterthwaite was extremely indifferent to her surroundings, but she insisted on having a piece of furniture for her papers. She liked also to have a profusion of hot-house, not garden, flowers, but as there were none of these at Lobscheid she did without them. She insisted also, as a rule, on a comfortable chaise longue which she rarely, if ever, used; but the German Empire of those days did not contain a comfortable chair, so she did without it, lying down on her bed when she was really tired. The walls of the large room were completely covered with pictures of animals in death agonies: capercailzies giving up the ghost with gouts of scarlet blood on the snow; deer dying with their heads back and eyes glazing, gouts of red blood on their necks; foxes dying with scarlet blood on green grass. These pictures were frame to frame, representing sport, the hotel having been a former Grand Ducal hunting-box, freshened to suit the taste of the day with varnished pitch-pine, bathrooms, verandahs, and excessively modern but noisy lavatory arrangements which had been put in for the delight of possible English guests.
Mrs. Satterthwaite sat on the edge of her chair; she had always the air of being just about to go out somewhere or of having just come in and being on the point of going to take her things off. She said:
‘There’s been a telegram waiting for her all the afternoon. I knew she was coming.’