Parade's End Series: Some Do Not, No More Parades, A Man Could Stand Up & Last Post (Complete Edition). Madox Ford
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more suddenly. ‘I may not be much, but I’m a sportsman. I’m afraid of hellfire; horribly, I’ll admit. But I don’t bargain with the Almighty. I hope He’ll let me through; but I’d go on trying to pick men out of the dirt—I suppose that’s what you and Father Consett mean—if I were as certain of going to hell as I am of going to bed to-night. So that’s that!’
‘“And lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest!"’ Sylvia jeered softly. ‘All the same I bet you wouldn’t bother to reclaim men if you could not find the young, good-looking, interestingly vicious sort.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ Mrs Satterthwaite said. ‘If they didn’t interest me, why should I?’
Sylvia looked at Father Consett.
‘If you’re going to trounce me any more,’ she said, ‘get a move on. It’s late, I’ve been travelling for thirty-six hours.’
‘I will,’ Father Consett said. ‘It’s a good maxim that if you swat flies enough some of them stick to the wall. I’m only trying to make a little mark on your common sense. Don’t you see what you’re going to?’
‘What?’ Sylvia said indifferently. ‘Hell?’
‘No,’ the Father said, ‘I’m talking of this life. Your confessor must talk to you about the next. But I’ll not tell you what you’re going to. I’ve changed my mind. I’ll tell your mother after you’re gone.’
‘Tell me,’ Sylvia said.
‘I’ll not,’ Father Consett answered. ‘Go to the fortunetellers at the Earl’s Court exhibition; they’ll tell ye all about the fair woman you’re to beware of.’
‘There’s some of them said to be rather good,’ Sylvia said. ‘Di Wilson’s told me about one. She said she was going to have a baby . . . You don’t mean that, Father? For I swear I never will . . . ’
‘I daresay not,’ the priest said. ‘But let’s talk about men.’ ‘There’s nothing you can tell me I don’t know,’ Sylvia said.
‘I daresay not,’ the priest answered. ‘But let’s rehearse what you do know. Now suppose you could elope with a new man every week and no questions asked? Or how often would you want to?’
Sylvia said:
‘Just a moment, Father,’ and she addressed Mrs Satterthwaite: ‘I suppose I shall have to put myself to bed.’
‘You will,’ Mrs Satterthwaite said. ‘I’ll not have any maid kept up after ten in a holiday resort. What’s she to do in a place like this? Except listen for the bogies it’s full of?’
‘Always considerate!’ Mrs Tietjens gibed. ‘And perhaps it’s just as well. I’d probably beat that Marie of yours’ arms to pieces with a hair-brush if she came near me.’ She added: ‘You were talking about men, Father . . . ’ And then began with sudden animation to her mother:
‘I’ve changed my mind about that telegram. The first thing to-morrow I shall wire: ”Agreed entirely but arrange bring Hullo Central with you."’
She addressed the priest again.
‘I call my maid Hullo Central because she’s got a tinny voice like a telephone. I say: “Hullo Central”—when she answers “Yes, modd’m,” you’d swear it was the Exchange speaking . . . But you were telling me about men.’
‘I was reminding you!’ the Father said. ‘But I needn’t go on. You’ve caught the drift of my remarks. That is why you are pretending not to listen.’
‘I assure you, no,’ Mrs Tietjens said. ‘It is simply that if a thing comes into my head I have to say it . . . You were saying that if one went away with a different man for every week-end . . . ’
‘You’ve shortened the period already,’ the priest said. ‘I gave a full week to every man.’
‘But, of course, one would have to have a home,’ Sylvia said, ‘an address. One would have to fill one’s mid-week engagements. Really it comes to it that one has to have a husband and a place to store one’s maid in. Hullo Central’s been on board-wages all the time. But I don’t believe she likes it . . . Let’s agree that if I had a different man every week I’d be bored with the arrangement. That’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it?’
‘You’d find,’ the priest said, ‘that it whittled down until the only divvy moment was when you stood waiting in the booking-office for the young man to take the tickets . . . And then gradually that wouldn’t be divvy any more . . . And you’d yawn and long to go back to your husband.’
‘Look here,’ Mrs Tietjens said, ‘you’re abusing the secrets of the confessional. That’s exactly what Tottie Charles said. She tried it for three months while Freddie Charles was in Madeira. It’s exactly what she said down to the yawn and the booking-office. And the “divvy.” It’s only Tottie Charles who uses it every two words. Most of us prefer ripping! It is more sensible.’
‘Of course I haven’t been abusing the secrets of the confessional,’ Father Consett said mildly.
‘Of course you haven’t,’ Sylvia said with affection. ‘You’re a good old stick and no end of a mimic, and you know us all to the bottom of our hearts.’
‘Not all that much,’ the, priest said, ‘there’s probably a good deal of good at the bottom of your hearts.’ Sylvia said:
‘Thanks.’ She asked suddenly: ‘Look here. Was it what you saw of us—the future mothers of England, you know, and all—at Miss Lampeter’s —that made you take to the slums? Out of disgust and despair?’
‘Oh, let’s not make melodrama out of it,’ the priest answered. ‘Let’s say I wanted a change. I couldn’t see that I was doing any good.’
‘You did us all the good there was done,’ Sylvia said. ‘What with Miss Lampeter always drugged to the world, and all the French mistresses as wicked as hell.’
‘I’ve heard you say all this before,’ Mrs Satterthwaite said. ‘But it was supposed to be the best finishing school in England. I know it cost enough!’
‘Well, say it was we who were a rotten lot,’ Sylvia concluded; and then to the Father: ‘We were a lot of rotters, weren’t we?’
The priest answered:
‘I don’t know. I don’t suppose you were—or are—any worse than your mother or grandmother, or the patricianesses of Rome or the worshippers of Ashtaroth. It seems we have to have a governing class and governing classes are subject to special temptations.’
‘Who’s Ashtaroth?’ Sylvia asked. ‘Astarte?’ and then: ‘Now, Father, after your experiences would you say the factory girls of Liverpool, or any other slum, are any better women than us that you used to look after?’
‘Astarte Syriaca,’ the Father said, ‘was a very powerful devil. There’s some that hold she’s not dead yet. I don’t know that I do myself.’
‘Well, I’ve done with her,’ Sylvia said.
The Father nodded:
‘You’ve had dealings with Mrs Profumo?’ he asked. ‘And that loathsome fellow . . . What’s his name?’
‘Does it shock you?’ Sylvia asked. ‘I’ll admit it was a bit thick . . . But I’ve done with it. I prefer to pin my faith to Mrs Vanderdecken. And, of course, Freud.’
The priest nodded his head and said:
‘Of course! Of course . . . ’
But Mrs Satterthwaite exclaimed, with sudden energy:
‘Sylvia Tietjens, I don’t care what you do or what you read, but if you ever speak another word to that woman, you never do to me!’
Sylvia