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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of a day ago—as a schoolgirl.’
Tietjens said:
‘I don’t now!’ He added: ‘Heaven knows, I don’t now!’
She said: ‘No, you don’t now!’
He said:
‘It didn’t need your putting up all that blue-stocking erudition to convince me . . . ’
‘Blue-stocking!’ she exclaimed contemptuously. ‘There’s nothing of the blue-stocking about me. I know Latin because father spoke it with us. It Was your pompous blue socks I was pulling.’
Suddenly she began to laugh. Tietjens was feeling sick, physically sick. She went on laughing. He stuttered:
‘What is it?’
The sun!’ she said, pointing. Above the silver horizon was the sun; not a red sun: shining, burnished.
‘I don’t see . . . ’ Tietjens said.
‘What there is to laugh at?’ she asked. ‘It’s the day! . . . The longest day’s begun . . . and to-morrow’s as long . . . The summer solstice, you know . . . After to-morrow the days shorten towards winter. But to-morrow’s as long . . . I’m so glad . . . ’
‘That we’ve got through the night? . . . Tietjens asked.
She looked at him for a long time. ‘You’re not so dreadfully ugly, really,’ she said.
Tietjens said:
‘What’s that church?’
Rising out of the mist on a fantastically green knoll, a quarter of a mile away, was an unnoticeable place of worship: an oak shingle tower roof that shone grey like lead: an impossibly bright weathercock, brighter than the sun. Dark elms all round it, holding wetnesses of mist. ‘Icklesham!’ she cried softly. ‘Oh, we’re nearly home. Just above Mountby . . . That’s the Mountby drive . . . ’ Trees existed, black and hoary with the dripping mist. Trees in the hedgerow and the avenue that led to Mountby: it made a right-angle just before coming into the road and the road went away at right-angles across the gate. ‘You’ll have to pull to the left before you reach the avenue,’ the girl said. ‘Or as like as not the horse will walk right up to the house. The higgler who had him used to buy Lady Claudine’s eggs . . . ’
Tietjens exclaimed barbarously:
‘Damn Mountby. I wish we’d never come near it,’ and he whipped the horse into a sudden trot. The hoofs sounded suddenly loud. She placed her hand on his gloved driving hand. Had it been his flesh she wouldn’t have done it.
She said:
‘My dear, it couldn’t have lasted for ever . . . But you’re a good man. And very clever . . . You will get through . . . Not ten yards ahead Tietjens saw a tea-tray, the underneath of a black-lacquered tea-tray, gliding towards them: mathematically straight, just rising from the mist. He shouted: mad: the blood in his head. His shout was drowned by the scream of the horse: he had swung it to the left. The cart turned up: the horse emerged from the mist: head and shoulders: pawing. A stone sea-horse from the fountain of Versailles! Exactly like that! Hanging in air for an eternity: the girl looking at it, leaning slightly forward.
The horse didn’t come over backwards: he had loosened the reins. It wasn’t there any more. The damndest thing that could happen! He had known it would happen. He said:
‘We’re all right now!’ There was a crash and scraping: like twenty tea-trays: a prolonged sound. They must be scraping along the mudguard of the invisible car. He had the pressure of the horse’s mouth: the horse was away: going hell for leather. He increased the pressure. The girl said:
‘I know I’m all right with you.’
They were suddenly in bright sunlight: cart: horse: commonplace hedgerows. They were going uphill: a steep brae. He wasn’t certain she hadn’t said: ‘Dear!’ or ‘My dear!’ Was it possible after so short . . .? But it had been a long night. He was, no doubt, saving her life, too. He increased his pressure on the horse’s mouth gently: up to all his twelve stone: all his strength. The hill told, too. Steep, white road between shaven grass banks!
Stop, damn you! Poor beast . . . The girl fell out of the cart. No! jumped clear! Out to the animal’s head. It threw its head up. Nearly off her feet: she was holding the bit . . . She couldn’t! Tender mouth . . . afraid of horses . . . He said:
‘Horse cut!’ Her face like a little white blancmange!
‘Come quick,’ she said.
‘I must hold a minute,’ he said, ‘might go off if I let go to get down. Badly cut?’
‘Blood running down solid! Like an apron,’ she said.
He was at last at her side. It was true. But not so much like an apron. More like a red, varnished stocking. He said: ‘You’ve a white petticoat on. Get over the hedge; jump it, and take it off . . . ’
‘Tear it into strips?’ she asked. ‘Yes!’
He called to her; she was suspended halfway up the bank:
‘Tear one half off first. The rest into strips.’
She said: ‘All right!’ She didn’t go over the quickset as neatly as he had expected. No take off. But she was over . . .
The horse, trembling, was looking down, its nostrils distended, at the blood pooling from its near foot. The cut was just on the shoulder. He put his left arm right over the horse’s eyes. The horse stood it, almost with a sigh of relief . . . A wonderful magnetism with horses. Perhaps with women, too? God knew. He was almost certain she had said ‘Dear.’
She said: ‘Here.’ He caught a round ball of whitish stuff. He undid it. Thank God: what sense A long, strong, white band . . . What the devil was the hissing . . . A small, closed car with crumpled mudguards: noiseless nearly: gleaming black . . . God curse it: it passed them: stopped ten yards down . . . the horse rearing back: mad Clean mad . . . something like a scarlet and white cockatoo, fluttering out of the small car door . . . a general. In full tog. White feathers! Ninety medals! Scarlet coat! Black trousers with red stripes. Spurs, too, by God!
Tietjens said:
‘God damn you, you bloody swine. Go away!’
The apparition, past the horse’s blinkers, said:
‘I can, at least, hold the horse for you. I went past to get you out of Claudine’s sight.’
‘Damn good-natured of you,’ Tietjens said as rudely as he could. ‘You’ll have to pay for the horse.’
The General exclaimed:
‘Damn it all! Why should I? You were driving your beastly camel right into my drive.’
‘You never sounded your horn,’ Tietjens said.
‘I was on private ground,’ the General shouted. ‘Besides I did.’ An enraged, scarlet scarecrow, very thin, he was holding the horse’s bridle. Tietjens was extending the half petticoat, with a measuring eye, before the horse’s chest. The General said:
‘Look here! I’ve got to take the escort for the Royal party at St Peter-in-Manor, Dover. They’re laying the Buffs’ colours on the altar or something.’
‘You never sounded your horn,’ Tietjens said. ‘Why didn’t you bring your chauffeur? He’s a capable man . . . You talk very big about the widow and child. But when it comes to robbing them of fifty quid by slaughtering their horse . . . ’
The General said:
‘What the devil were you doing coming into our drive at five in the morning?’
Tietjens, who had applied the half petticoat to the horse’s chest, exclaimed:
‘Pick up that thing and give it to me.’ A thin roll of linen was at his feet: it had rolled down from the hedge. ‘Can