Noises existed. Sandbach, from beyond the low garden wall fifty yards away, was yelping, just like a dog: ‘Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!’ and gesticulating. His little caddy, entangled in his golf-bag, was trying to scramble over the wall. On top of a high sandhill stood the policeman: he waved his arms like a windmill and shouted. Beside him and behind, slowly rising, were the heads of the General, Macmaster and their two boys. Further along, in completion, were appearing the figures of Mr. Waterhouse, his two companions and their three boys. The Minister was waving his driver and shouting. They all shouted.
‘A regular rat-hunt,’ the girl said; she was counting. ‘Eleven and two more caddies!’ She exhibited satisfaction. ‘I headed them all off except two beasts. They couldn’t run. But neither can Gertie… .’
She said urgently:
‘Come along! You aren’t going to leave Gertie to those beasts! They’re drunk.’
Tietjens said:
‘Cut away then. I’ll look after Gertie.’ He picked up his bag.
‘No, I’ll come with you,’ the girl said.
Tietjens answered: ‘Oh, you don’t want to go to gaol. Clear out!’
She said:
‘Nonsense. I’ve put up with worse than that. Nine months as a slavey… . Come along!’
Tietjens started to run – rather like a rhinoceros seeing purple. He had been violently spurred, for he had been pierced by a shrill, faint scream. The girl ran beside him.
‘You … can … run!’ she panted, ‘put on a spurt.’
Screams protesting against physical violence were at that date rare things in England. Tietjens had never heard the like. It upset him frightfully, though he was aware only of an expanse of open country. The policeman, whose buttons made him noteworthy, was descending his conical sandhill, diagonally, with caution. There is something grotesque about a town policeman, silvered helmet and all, in the open country. It was so clear and still in the air; Tietjens felt as if he were in a light museum looking at specimens.
A little young woman, engrossed, like a hunted rat, came round the corner of a green mound. ‘This is an assaulted female!’ the mind of Tietjens said to him. She had a black skirt covered with sand, for she had just rolled down the sandhill; she had a striped grey and black silk blouse, one shoulder torn completely off, so that a white camisole showed. Over the shoulder of the sandhill came the two city men, flushed with triumph and panting; their red knitted waistcoats moved like bellows. The black-haired one, his eyes lurid and obscene, brandished aloft a fragment of black and grey stuff. He shouted hilariously:
‘Strip the bitch naked! … Ugh … Strip the bitch stark naked!’ and jumped down the little hill. He cannoned into Tietjens, who roared at the top of his voice:
‘You infernal swine. I’ll knock your head off if you move!’
Behind Tietjens’ back the girl said:
‘Come along, Gertie… . It’s only to there …’
A voice panted in answer:
‘I … can’t… . My heart …’
Tietjens kept his eye upon the city man. His jaw had fallen down, his eyes stared! It was as if the bottom of his assured world, where all men desire in their hearts to bash women, had fallen out. He panted:
‘Ergle! Ergle!’
Another scream, a little further than the last voices from behind his back, caused in Tietjens a feeling of intense weariness. What did beastly women want to scream for? He swung round, bag and all. The policeman, his face scarlet like a lobster just boiled, was lumbering unenthusiastically towards the two girls who were trotting towards the dyke. One of his hands, scarlet also, was extended. He was not a yard from Tietjens.
Tietjens was exhausted, beyond thinking or shouting. He slipped his clubs off his shoulder and, as if he were pitching his kit-bag into a luggage van, threw the whole lot between the policeman’s running legs. The man, who had no impetus to speak of, pitched forward on to his hands and knees. His helmet over his eyes, he seemed to reflect for a moment; then he removed his helmet and with great deliberation rolled round and sat on the turf. His face was completely without emotion, long, sandy-moustached and rather shrewd. He mopped his brow with a carmine handkerchief that had white spots.
Tietjens walked up to him.
‘Clumsy of me!’ he said. ‘I hope you’re not hurt.’ He drew from his breast pocket a curved silver flask. The policeman said nothing. His world, too, contained uncertainties and he was profoundly glad to be able to sit still without discredit. He muttered:
‘Shaken. A bit! Anybody would be!’
That let him out and he fell to examining with attention the bayonet catch of the flask top. Tietjens opened it for him. The two girls, advancing at a fatigued trot, were near the dyke side. The fair girl, as they trotted, was trying to adjust her companion’s hat; attached by pins to the back of her hair, it flapped on her shoulder.
All the rest of the posse were advancing at a very slow walk, in a converging semi-circle. Two little caddies were running, but Tietjens saw them check, hesitate and stop. And there floated to Tietjens’ ears the words:
‘Stop, you little devils. She’ll knock your heads off.’
Rt. Hon. Mr. Waterhouse must have found an admirable voice trainer somewhere. The drab girl was balancing tremulously over a plank on the dyke; the other took it at a jump: up in the air – down on her feet; perfectly businesslike. And, as soon as the other girl was off the plank, she was down on her knees before it, pulling it towards her, the other girl trotting away over the vast marsh field.
The girl dropped the plank on the grass. Then she looked up and faced the men and boys who stood in a row on the road. She called in a shrill, high voice, like a young cockerel’s:
‘Seventeen to two! The usual male odds! You’ll have to go round by Camber railway bridge, and we’ll be in Folkestone by then. We’ve got bicycles!’ She was half going when she checked and, searching out Tietjens to address, exclaimed: ‘I’m sorry I said that. Because some of you didn’t want to catch us. But some of you did. And you were seventeen to two.’ She addressed Mr. Waterhouse:
‘Why don’t you give women the vote?’ she said. ‘You’ll find it will interfere a good deal with your indispensable golf if you don’t. Then what becomes of the nation’s health?’
Mr. Waterhouse said:
‘If you’ll come and discuss it quietly …’
She said:
‘Oh, tell that to the marines,’ and turned away, the men in a row watching her figure disappear into the distance of the flat land. Not one of them was inclined to risk that jump: there was nine foot of mud in the bottom of the dyke. It was quite true that, the plank being removed, to go after the women they would have had to go several miles round. It had been a well-thought-out raid. Mr. Waterhouse said that girl was a ripping girl: the others found her just ordinary. Mr. Sandbach, who had only lately ceased to shout: ‘Hi!’ wanted to know what they were going to do about catching the women, but Mr. Waterhouse said: ‘Oh, chuck it, Sandy,’ and went off.
Mr. Sandbach refused to continue his match with Tietjens. He said that Tietjens was the sort of fellow who was the ruin of England. He said he had a good mind to issue a warrant for the arrest of Tietjens – for obstructing the course of justice. Tietjens pointed out that Sandbach wasn’t a borough magistrate and so couldn’t. And Sandbach went off, dot and carry one, and began a furious row with the two city men who had retreated to a distance. He said they were the sort of men who were the ruin of England. They bleated like rams… .
Tietjens wandered slowly up the course, found his ball, made his shot with care and found that the ball deviated several feet less to the right of a straight line than he had expected. He tried the shot again, obtained the same result and tabulated his observations in his notebook. He sauntered slowly back towards the club-house. He was content.
He felt himself to be content for the first time in four months. His pulse beat calmly; the heat of the sun all over him appeared to be a beneficent flood. On the flanks of the o
lder and larger sandhills he observed the minute herbage, mixed with little purple aromatic plants. To these the constant nibbling of sheep had imparted a protective tininess. He wandered, content, round the sandhills to the small, silted harbour mouth. After reflecting for some time on the wave-curves in the sloping mud of the water sides he had a long conversation, mostly in signs, with a Finn who hung over the side of a tarred, stump-masted, battered vessel that had a gaping, splintered hole where the anchor should have hung. She came from Archangel; was of several hundred tons’ burthen, was knocked together anyhow, of soft wood, for about ninety pounds, and launched, sink or swim, in the timber trade. Beside her, taut, glistening with brasswork, was a new fishing boat, just built there for the Lowestoft fleet. Ascertaining her price from a man who was finishing her painting, Tietjens reckoned that you could have built three of the Archangel timber ships for the cost of that boat, and that the Archangel vessel would earn about twice as much per hour per ton.
It was in that way his mind worked when he was fit: it picked up little pieces of definite, workmanlike information. When it had enough it classified them: not for any purpose, but because to know things was agreeable and gave a feeling of strength, of having in reserve something that the other fellow would not suspect… . He passed a long, quiet, abstracted afternoon.
In the dressing-room he found the General, among lockers, old coats, and stoneware, washing basins set in scrubbed wood. The General leaned back against a row of these things.
‘You are the ruddy limit!’ he exclaimed.
Tietjens said:
‘Where’s Macmaster?’
The General said he had sent Macmaster off with Sandbach in the two-seater. Macmaster had to dress before going up to Mountby. He added: ‘The ruddy limit!’ again.
‘Because I knocked the bobbie over?’ Tietjens asked. ‘He liked it.’
The General said:
‘Knocked the bobbie over … I didn’t see that.’
‘He didn’t want to catch the girls,’ Tietjens said, ‘you could see him – oh, yearning not to.’
‘I don’t want to know anything about that,’ the General said. ‘I shall hear enough about it from Paul Sandbach. Give the bobbie a quid and let’s hear no more of it. I’m a magistrate.’
‘Then what have I done?’ Tietjens said. ‘I helped those girls to get off. You didn’t want to catch them; Waterhouse didn’t, the policeman didn’t. No one did except the swine. Then what’s the matter?’
‘Damn it all!’ the General said, ‘don’t you remember that you’re a young married man?’
With the respect for the General’s superior age and achievements, Tietjens stopped himself laughing.
‘If you’re really serious, sir,’ he said, ‘I always remember it very carefully. I don’t suppose you’re suggesting that I’ve ever shown want of respect for Sylvia.’
The General shook his head.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘And damn it all I’m worried. I’m … hang it, I’m your father’s oldest friend.’ The General looked indeed worn and saddened in the light of the sand-drifted, ground glass, windows. He said: ‘Was that skirt a … a friend of yours? Had you arranged it with her?’
Tietjens said:
‘Wouldn’t it be better, sir, if you said what you had on your mind? …’
The old General blushed a little.
‘I don’t like to,’ he said straightforwardly. ‘You brilliant fellows… . I only want, my dear boy, to hint that …’
Tietjens said, a little more stiffly:
‘I’d prefer you to get it out, sir… . I acknowledge your right as my father’s oldest friend.’
‘Then,’ the General burst out, ‘who was the skirt you were lolloping up Pall Mall with? On the last day they trooped the colours? … I didn’t see her myself. Was it this same one? Paul said she looked like a cook maid.’
Tietjens made himself a little more rigid.
‘She was, as a matter of fact, a bookmaker’s secretary,’ Tietjens said. ‘I imagine I have the right to walk where I like, with whom I like. And no one has the right to question it… . I don’t mean you, sir. But no one else.’
The General said puzzledly:
‘It’s you brilliant fellows… . They all say you’re brilliant… .’
Tietjens said:
‘You might let your rooted distrust of intelligence … It’s natural of course; but you might let it allow you to be just to me. I assure you there was nothing discreditable.’
The General interrupted:
‘If you were a stupid young subaltern and told me you were showing your mother’s new cook the way to the Piccadilly tube I’d believe you… . But, then, no young subaltern would do such a damn, blasted, tomfool thing! Paul said you walked beside her like the king in his glory! Through the crush outside the Haymarket, of all places in the world!’
‘I’m obliged to Sandbach for his commendation… .’ Tietjens said. He thought a moment. Then he said:
‘I was trying to get that young woman… . I was taking her out to lunch from her office at the bottom of the Haymarket… . To get her off a friend’s back. That is, of course, between ourselves.’
He said this with great reluctance because he didn’t want to cast reflection on Macmaster’s taste, for the young lady had been by no means one to be seen walking with a really circumspect public official. But he had said nothing to indicate Macmaster, and he had other friends.
The General choked.
‘Upon my soul,’ he said, ‘what do you take me for?’ He repeated the words as if he were amazed. ‘If,’ he said, ‘my G.S.O.II. – who’s the stupidest ass I know – told me such a damn-fool lie as that I’d have him broke to-morrow.’ He went on expostulatorily: ‘Damn it all, it’s the first duty of a soldier – it’s the first duty of all Englishmen – to be able to tell a good lie in answer to a charge. But a lie like that …’
He broke off breathless, then he began again:
‘Hang it all, I told that lie to my grandmother and my grandfather told it to his grandfather. And they call you brilliant! …’ He paused and then asked reproachfully: ‘Or do you think I’m in a state of senile decay?’
Tietjens said:
‘I know you, sir, to be the smartest general of division in the British Army. I leave you to draw your own conclusions as to why I said what I did… .’ He had told the exact truth, but he was not sorry to be disbelieved.
The General said:
‘Then I’ll take it that you tell me a lie meaning me to know that it’s a lie. That’s quite proper. I take it you mean to keep the woman officially out of it. But look here, Chrissie’ – his tone took a deeper seriousness – ‘if the woman that’s come between you and Sylvia – that’s broken up your home, damn it, for that’s what it is! – is little Miss Wannop …’
‘Her name was Julia Mandelstein,’ Tietjens said.
The General said:
‘Yes! Yes! Of course! … But if it is the little Wannop girl and it’s not gone too far … put her back … put her back, as you used to be a good boy! It would be too hard on the mother… .’
Tietjens said:
‘General! I give you my word …’
The General said:
‘I’m not asking any questions, my boy; I’m talking now. You’ve told me the story you want told and it’s the story I’ll tell for you! But that little piece is … she used to be! … as straight as a die. I daresay you know better than I. Of course when they get among the wild women there’s no knowing what happens to them. They say they’re all whores… . I beg your pardon, if you like the girl …’
‘Is Miss Wannop,’ Tietjens asked, ‘the girl who demonstrates?’
‘Sandbach said,’ the General went on, ‘that he couldn’t see from where he was whether that girl was the same as the one in the Haymarket. But he thought it was… . He was pretty certain.’
‘As he’s married your sister,’ Tietjens said, ‘one can’t impugn his taste in women.’
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‘I say again, I’m not asking,’ the General said. ‘But I do say again too: put her back. Her father was a great friend of your father’s: or your father was a great admirer of his. They say he was the most brilliant brain of the party.’
‘Of course I know who Professor Wannop was,’ Tietjens said. ‘There’s nothing you could tell me about him.’
‘I daresay not,’ the General said drily. ‘Then you know that he didn’t leave a farthing when he died and the rotten Liberal Government wouldn’t put his wife and children on the Civil List because he’d sometimes written for a Tory paper. And you know that the mother has had a deuced hard row to hoe and has only just turned the corner. If she can be said to have turned it. I know Claudine takes them all the peaches she can cadge out of Paul’s gardener.’
Tietjens was about to say that Mrs. Wannop, the mother, had written the only novel worth reading since the eighteenth century… . But the General went on:
‘Listen to me, my boy… . If you can’t get on without women … I should have thought Sylvia was good enough. But I know what we men are… . I don’t set up to be a saint. I heard a woman in the promenade of the Empire say once that it was the likes of them that saved the lives and figures of all the virtuous women of the country. And I daresay it’s true. But choose a girl that you can set up in a tobacco shop and do your courting in the back parlour. Not in the Haymarket… . Heaven knows if you can afford it. That’s your affair. You appear to have been sold up. And from what Sylvia’s let drop to Claudine …’
‘I don’t believe,’ Tietjens said, ‘that Sylvia’s said anything to Lady Claudine … She’s too straight.’
‘I didn’t say “said”,’ the General exclaimed, ‘I particularly said “let drop”. And perhaps I oughtn’t to have said as much as that, but you know what devils for ferreting out women are. And Claudine’s worse than any woman I ever knew.’
‘And, of course, she’s had Sandbach to help,’ Tietjens said.
‘Oh, that fellow’s worse than any woman,’ the General exclaimed.