He had forgotten about those prints. That was dreadful. She knew that he had forgotten about them. How could he, when they wanted to get a good, English client, for the sake of little Chrissie? How could he? How could he? It is true that he was almost out of his mind about Groby and Groby Great Tree. He had begun to talk about that in his sleep as for years, at times, he had talked, dreadfully, about the war.
“Bringt dem Hauptmann eine Kerze…. Bring the Major a candle,” he would shout dreadfully beside her in the blackness. And she would know that he was remembering the sound of picks in the earth beneath the trenches. And he would groan and sweat dreadfully and she would not dare to wake him…. And there had been the matter of the boy, Aranjuez’ eye. It appeared that he had run away over a shifting landscape, screaming and holding his hand to his eye. After Christopher had carried him out of a hole… Mrs. Aranjuez had been rude to her at the Armistice night dinner…. The first time in her life that anyone — except of course Edith Ethel — had ever been rude to her. Of course you did not count Edith Ethel Duchemin, Lady Macmaster!… But it’s queer. Your man saves the life of a boy at the desperate risk of his own. Without that there would not have been any Mrs. Aranjuez; then Mrs. Aranjuez is the first person that ever in your life is rude to you. Leaving permanent memories that made you shudder in the night! Hideous eyes!
Yet, but for a miracle there might have been no Christopher! Little Aranjuez — it had been because he had talked to her for so long, praising Christopher, that Mrs. Aranjuez had been rude to her! — little Aranjuez had said that the German bullets had gone over them as thick as the swarm of bees that came out when Gunning cut the leg off the skep with his scythe!… Well, there might have been no Christopher. Then there would have been no Valentine Wannop! She could not have lived…. But Mrs. Aranjuez should not have been rude to her. The woman must have seen with half an eye that Valentine Wannop could not live without Christopher…. Then, why should she fear for her little, imploring, eyeless soldier boy!
It was queer. You would almost say that there was a Provvy who delighted to torment you with: “If it hadn’t been that…” Christopher probably believed that there was a Provvy or he would not dream for his little Chrissie a country parsonage…. He proposed, if they ever made any money, to buy a living for him — if possible near Salisbury…. What was the name of the place… a pretty name?… Buy a living where George Herbert had been parson….
She must, bye the bye, remember to tell Marie Léonie that it was the Black Orpington labelled 42, not the Red 16 that she had put the setting of Indian Runners under. She had found that Red 16 was not really broody, though she had come on afterwards. It was queer that Marie Léonie had not the courage to put eggs under broody hens because they pecked her whereas she, Valentine, had no courage to take the chickens when the settings hatched, because of the shells and gumminesses that might be in the nests…. Yet neither of them wanted courage…. Hang it all, neither of them wanted courage or they would not be living with Tietjens’s. It was like being tied to buffaloes!
And yet…. How you wanted them to change!
‘Bremersyde…. No that was the home of the Haigs…. Tide what will and tide what tide, there shall be Haigs at Bremersyde…. Perhaps it was Bemersyde!… Bemerton, then. George Herbert, rector of Bemerton, near Wilton, Salisbury…. That was what Chrissie was to be like…. She was to imagine herself sitting with her cheek on Chrissie’s floss-silk head, looking into the fire and seeing in the coals, Chrissie, walking under elms beside plough-lands. Elle ne demandait, really, pas mieux!
If the country would stand it!…
Christopher presumably believed in England as he believed in Provvy — because the land was pleasant and green and comely. It would breed true. In spite of showers of Americans descended from Tiglath Pileser and Queen Elizabeth and the end of the industrial system and the statistics of the shipping trade, England with its pleasant, green comeliness would go on breeding George Herberts with Gunnings to look after them…. Of course with Gunnings!
The Gunnings of the land were the rocks on which the lighthouse was built — as Christopher saw it. And Christopher was always right. Sometimes a little previous. But always right. Always right. The rocks had been there a million years before the lighthouse was built, the lighthouse made a deuce of a movable flashing — but it was a mere butterfly. The rocks would be there a million years after the light went for the last time out.
Gunnings had been in the course of years, painted blue, a Druid-worshipper, later, a Duke Robert of Normandy, illiterately burning towns and begetting bastards — and eventually — actually at the moment — a man of all works, half-full of fidelity, half blatant, hairy. A retainer you would retain as long as you were prosperous and dispensed hard cider and overlooked his blear-eyed peccadilloes with women. He would go on….
The point was whether the time had come for another Herbert of Bemerton. Christopher thought it had; he was always right, always right. But previous. He had predicted the swarms of Americans buying up old things. Offering fabulous prices. He was right. The trouble was they did not pay when they offered the fabulous prices: when they did pay they were as mean as… she was going to say Job. But she did not know that Job was particularly mean. That lady down below the window would probably want to buy the signed cabinet of Barker of 1762 for half the price of one bought in a New York department store and manufactured yesterday…. And she would tell Valentine she was a bloodsucker — even if — to suppose the ridiculous! — Valentine let her have it at her own price. On the other hand Mr. Schatzweiler talked of fantastic prices….
Oh, Mr. Schatzweiler, Mr. Schatzweiler, if you would only pay us ten per cent. of what you owe us I could have all the pink fluffies, and three new gowns and keep the little old lace for Chrissie — and have a proper dairy, and not milk goats. And cut the losses over the confounded pigs and put up a range of glass in the sunk garden where it would not be an eye-sore…. As it was, the age of fairytales was not, of course, past. They had had windfalls, lovely windfalls when infinite ease had seemed to stretch out before them…. A great windfall when they had bought this place; little ones for the pigs and old mare…. Christopher was that sort of fellow; he had sowed so many golden grains that he could not be always reaping whirlwinds. There must be some halcyon days….
Only it was deucedly awkward now — with Chrissie coming and Marie Léonie hinting all day that, as she was losing her figure, if she could not get the grease stains out of her skirt she would lose the affections of Christopher. And they had not got a stiver…. Christopher had cabled Schatzweiler. But what was the use of that?… Schatzweiler would be finely dished if she lost the affections of Christopher — because poor old Chris could not run any old junk shop without her!… She imagined cabling Schatzweiler — about the four stains ori the skirt and the necessity for elegant lying-in gowns. Or else he would lose Christopher’s assistance….
The conversation down below raised its tones. She heard the tweeny maid ask why, if the American lady was a friend of the family, she did not know ’Er Ladyship theere?… Of course it was easy to understand: these people came, all of them, with letters of introduction from Schatzweiler. Then they insisted that they were friends of the family. It was perhaps nice of them — because most English people would not want to know old-furniture dealers.