“An the King will have my head I carena what he may do with my…”
It affected Valentine disagreeably — with a pang of jealousy. What it amounted to was that Sylvia said: “You have my man, so you may as well have his name.” But by using a saying that Christopher used habitually — and that Mark had used habitually when he could speak – by using then a Tietjens-family saying she asserted that she too had belonged to the Tietjens family, and, before Valentine, had been intimate with their sayings to the point of saturation.
That statue went on speaking.
It said:
“I wanted to get those people out…. And to see…” It spoke very slowly. Marmoreally. The flowers in the jug on the fald-stool needed more water. Marigolds. Orange…. A woman is upset when her child moves within her. Sometimes more, sometimes less. She must have been very upset: there had been a lot of people in the room; she knew neither how they had come nor how they had gone. She said to Marie Léonie:
“Dr. Span is bringing some bromide…. I can’t find those…”
Marie Léonie was looking at that figure; her eyes stuck out of her head like Christopher’s. She said, as still as a cat watching a mouse: “Qui este elle? C’est bien la femme?”
It looked queerly like a pilgrim in a ballet, now, that figure against the light — the long legs slightly bent gave that effect. Actually this was the third time she had seen it — but in the dark house she had not really seen the face…. The features had been contorted and thus not the real features: these were the real features. There was about that figure something timid. And noble. It said:
“Sporting! Michael said: ‘Be sporting, mother!’… But sporting….” It raised its hand as if to shake a fist at heaven. The hand struck the beam across the ceiling; that roof was so low. And dear! It said:
“It was Father Consett really… They can all, soon, call you Mrs. Tietjens. Before God, I came to drive those people out…. But I wanted to see how it was you kept him….”
Sylvia Tietjens was keeping her head turned aside, drooping. Hiding a tendency to tears, no doubt. She said to the floor:
“I say again, as God hears me, I never thought to harm your child. His child…. But any woman’s…. Not harm a child… I have a fine one, but I wanted another… with its littleness…. It’s the riding has done it….” Someone sobbed!
She looked loweringly then at Valentine:
“It’s Father Consett in heaven that has done this. Saint and martyr, desiring soft things! I can almost see his shadow across these walls now it’s growing dark. You hung him: you did not even shoot him though I say you shot him to save my feelings…. And it’s you who will be going on through all the years….”
She bit into a small handkerchief that she had in her hand, concealed. She said:
“Damn it, I’m playing pimp to Tietjens of Groby — leaving my husband to you!…”
Someone again sobbed.
It occurred to Valentine that Christopher had left those prints at old Hunt’s sale in a jar on the field. They had not wanted the jar. Then Christopher had told a dealer called Hudnut that he could have that jar and some others against a little carting service…. He would be tired, when he got back, Christopher. But he would have to go to Hudnut’s, Gunning could not be trusted. They must not disappoint Lady Robinson….
Marie Léonie said:
“C’est lamentable qu’un seul homme puisse inspirer deux passions pareilles dans deux femmes…. C’est le martyre de notre vie!”
Yes, it was lamentable that a man could inspire two such passions in two women. Marie Léonie went to look after Mark. Sylvia Tietjens was gone. They say joy never kills. She fell straight down onto the floor Lumpishly…. It was lucky they had the Bussorah rug otherwise Chrissie… They had no money…. Poor… poor…
IV
MARK TIETJENS had lain considering the satisfaction of a great night he had lately passed. Or perhaps not lately; at some time.
Lying out there in the black nights the sky seemed enormous. You could understand how somewhere heaven could be concealed in it. And tranquil at times. Then you felt the earth wheeling through infinity.
Night birds cried overhead: herons, ducks, swans even; the owls kept closer to the ground, beating along the hedgerows. Beasts became busy in the long grass. They rustled busily, then paused for long. No doubt a rabbit ran till it found an attractive plantain. Then it nibbled for a long time without audible movement. Now and then cattle lowed, or many lambs — frightened by a fox maybe….
But there would nevertheless be long silences…. A stoat would get onto the track of the rabbit. They would run, run, run brushing through the long grass, then out into the short meadow and round and round, the rabbit squealing. Loudly at first.
In the dim illumination of his night-light dormice would climb up the posts of his shelter. They would remain regarding him with beads of eyes. When the rabbits squealed they would hunch themselves together and shiver. They knew it meant S .. t .. o .. at — stoat! Their turn soon!
He despised himself a little for attending to these minutiae — as if one were talking down to a child…. On his great night the whole cattle of the county had been struck with panic; you heard them crashing down through the hedges and miles down into the silent valleys.
No! He had never been one to waste his time and mind on small mammals and small birds…. The Flora and Fauna of Blankshire!… Not for him. It was big movements interested him: “wherein manifesteth itself the voice of God!”… Very likely that was true. Transport! Panic in cattle over whole counties. In people, over whole continents!
Once years — oh, years and years ago, when he had been aged twelve and on a visit to Grandfather he had taken a gun to Redcar Sands from Groby, over the moors, and with one shot he had brought down two terns, a sandpiper, and a herring gull. Grandfather had been so delighted with his prowess — though naturally the shot had been a fluke — that he had the things stuffed and there they were in Groby Nursery to this day. The herring gull stiff on a mossy rock; the sandpiper doing obeisance before it, the terns flying, one on each side. Probably that was the only memorial to him, Mark Tietjens, at Groby. The younger children had been wont to refer with awe to “Mark’s bag,” for long years afterwards. The painted background had been Bamborough Castle with lashings of foam and blue sky. It was a far cry from Redcar to Bamborough — but that was the only background the bird-stuffing chap in Middlesboro could paint for sea-birds. For larks and the like he had a cornfield in the Vale of York; for nightingales, poplar trees…. Never heard that nightingales were particularly partial to poplars!
… Nightingales disturbed the majesty of great nights; for two months out of the year, more or less, according to the nature of the season. He wasn’t decrying the beauty of their voices. Hearing them you felt like seeing a good horse win the St. Leger. No other things in the world could do it — just as there was no place in the world like Newmarket Heath on a breezy day…. But they limited the night. It was true that nightingales deep down in the spinney near where Gunning’s hut must be — say a quarter of a mile away — could make you think of great distance, echoing up through the deep woods. Woods dripping with dew beneath the moon…. And air-raids not so long ago! The moon brought air-raids and its shining was discouraged…. Yes, nightingales made you think of distance just as the night-jar for ever crepitating from twilight to dawn seemed to measure a fragment of eternity…. But only fragments! The great night was itself eternity and the Infinite…. The spirit of God walking on the firmament.
Cruel beggars, nightingales: they abused one another with distended throats all through the nights. Between the gusts of gales you could hear them shouting on — telling their sitting-hens that they — each one — were the devils of fellows, the other chap, down the hill by Gunning’s hut, being a bedraggled, louse-eaten, braggart…. Sex ferocity!