The boudoir all lit up. Warm! Scented! Mother’s shoulders! A portrait of Nell Gwynn by Sir Peter Lely. Mrs. de Bray Pape wanted to buy it. Thought she could buy the earth, but Lord Fittleworth only laughed…. How had they all got forced down there? By Mother…. To spy on Father. Mother had never taken much stock of Fittleworth — good fellow Fittleworth, good landlord! — till last winter when she had got to know that Father had bought this place. Then it was Fittleworth, Fittleworth, Fittleworth! Lunches, dinner, dances at the Ambassador’s. Fittleworth wasn’t saying no. Who could say no to Mother, with her figure in the saddle, and her hair?
If he had known when they came down to Fittleworth’s last winter what he knew now! He knew now that his mother, come down for the hunting, though she had never taken much stock in hunting… Still, she could ride. Jove, she could ride. He had gone queer all over again and again at first in taking those leaps that she took laughing. Diana, that’s what she was…. Well, no, Diana was… His mother, come down for the hunting was there to torment Father and his… companion. She had told him. Laughing in that way she had…. It must be sex cruelty!… Laughing like those Leonardi-do-da… Well, Vinci women. A queer laugh, ending with a crooked smile…. In corresponding with Father’s servants…. Dressing up as a housemaid and looking over the hedge.
How could she do it? How? How could she force him to be here? What would Monty, the Prime Minister’s son, Dobles, Porter — fat ass because his father was too beastly rich! — what would his set think at Cambridge. They were all Marxist-Communists to a man. But still…
What would Mrs. Lowther think if she really knew…. If she could have been in the corridor one night when he came out from his mother’s boudoir! He would have had the courage to ask her then. Her hair was like floss silk, her lips like cut pomegranates. When she laughed she threw up her head…. He was now warm all over, his eyes wet and warm.
When he had asked if he ought to — if she wanted him to — do whatever his mother wanted whether or no he approved…. If his mother asked him to do what he thought was a mean action…. But that had been on the Peacock Terrace with the famous Fittleworth Seven Sister Roses…. How she went against the roses!… In a yellow… No, moth-coloured… Not yellow, not yellow. Green’s forsaken, but yellow’s forsworn. Great pity filled him at the thought that Mrs. Lowther might be forsaken. But she must not be forsworn… moth-coloured silk. Shimmering. Against pink roses. Her fine, fine hair, a halo. She had looked up and sideways. She had been going to laugh with her lips like cut pomegranates…. She had told him that as a rule it was a good thing to do what one’s mother wanted when she was like Mrs. Christopher Tietjens. Her soft voice… Soft Southern voice… Oh, when she laughed at Mrs. de Bray Pape…. How could she be a friend of Mrs. de Bray Pape’s?…
If it hadn’t been sunlight…. If he had come on Mrs. Lowther as he came out of his mother’s boudoir. He would have had courage. At night. Late. He would have said: “If you are really interested in my fate tell me if I ought to spy upon my father and his… companion!” She would not have laughed, late at night. She would have given him her hand. The loveliest hands and the lightest feet. And her eyes would have dimmed…. Lovely, lovely pansies! Pansies are heartsease….
Why did he have these thoughts: these wafts of intolerable… oh, desire! He was his mother’s son…. His mother was… He would kill anyone who said it….
Thank God! Oh thank God! He was down on the crazy paving level with the house. AND there was another path went up to Uncle’s Mark’s shed. The Blessed Virgin — who was like Helen Lowther! — had watched over him. He had not to walk under those little deep, small-paned windows.
His father’s… companion might have been looking out. He would have fainted….
His father was a good sort of man. But he too must be… like Mother. If what they said was true. Ruined by dissolute living. But a good, grey man. The sort of man to be tormented by Mother. Great spatulate fingers. But no one had ever tied flies like Father. Some he had tied years ago were the best he, Mark Tietjens junior of Groby, had yet. And Father loved the wine-coloured moor. How could he stifle under these boughs! A house overhung by trees is unsanitary. They all say that…
But what a lovely glimpse under the trees. Sweet-williams along the path. Light filtered by boughs. Shadow. Gleams in the little window-panes. Wallstones all lichen. That’s England. If he could spend a while here with Father…
Father had been matchless with horses. Women too…. What an inheritance was his, Mark Tietjens, junior’s! If he could spend a while here…. But his Father slept with… If she came out of the door… She must be beautiful…. No they said she was not a patch on Mother. He had overheard that at Fittleworth’s. Or Helen Lowther…. But his father had had his pick!… If he chose then to sleep with…
If she came out of the door he would faint…. Like the Venus of Botti…. A crooked smile… No, Helen Lowther would protect…. He might fall in love with his father’s… What do you know of what will happen to you when you come in contact with the Bad Woman… of advanced views… They said she was of Advanced Views. And a Latinist…. He was a Latinist. Loved it!
Or his father might with Hel… Hot jealousy filled. His father was the sort of man… She might… Why did over-… people like Mother and Father beget children?
He kept his eyes fascinatedly fixed on the stone porch of the cottage whilst he stumbled up the great stone slabs to the path. The path led to Uncle Mark’s wall-less thatched hut…. No form filled the porch. What was to become of him? he had great wealth; terrific temptation would be his. His mother was no guide. His father might have been better…. Well, there was Marxian-Communism. They all looked to that now, in his set at Cambridge. Monty, the Prime Minister’s son with black eyes; Dobles, Campion’s nephew, lean as a rat; Porter, with a pig’s snout, but witty as hell. Fat ass!
IV
MARK TIETJENS thought that a cow or a hog must have got into the orchard there was such a rushing in the grass. He said to himself that that damn Gunning was always boasting about his prowess as a hedger; he might see that his confounded hedges kept out the beasts from the Common. An unusual voice — unusual in its intonation —remarked:
“Oh, Sir Mark Tietjens, this is dreadful!”
It appeared to be dreadful. A lady in a long skirt — an apparently elderly Di Vernon out of Waverley which was one of the few novels Mark had read — was making dreadful havoc with the standing grass. The beautiful, proud heads swayed and went down as she rushed, knee-deep amongst it; stopped, rushed again across his view and then stopped apparently to wring her hands and once more explain that it was dreadful. A tiny rabbit, scared out by her approach, scuttered out under his bed and presumably down into the vegetables. Marie Léonie’s Mistigris would probably get it and, since it was Friday, Marie Léonie would be perturbed.
The lady pushed through the remaining tall grass that stood between them, and had the air of rising up at his bed-foot. She was rather a faint figure — like the hedge-sparrow. In grey, with a grey short coat and a waistcoat with small round buttons and a three-cornered hat. A tired, thin face…. Well, she must be tired, pushing through that long grass with a long skirt. She had a switch of green shagreen. The hen tomtit that lived in the old shoe they had tucked on purpose under his thatch uttered long warning cries. The hen tomtit did not like the aspect of this apparition.