A Man Could Stand Up - Ford Madox Ford [82]
With a little trepidation she took the telephone. It had got to be done. She could not live with Christopher Tietjens without first telling her mother. Her mother ought to be given the chance of dissuading. They say you ought to give a lover a chance of a final scene before leaving him or her for good. Still more your mother. That was jannock.
It broke the word of promise to the ear, the telephone!...Was it blasphemy to quote Shakespeare when one was going to...Perhaps bad taste. Shakespeare, however, was not spotless. So they said...Waiting! Waiting! How much of one's life wasn't spent waiting, with one's weight boring one's heels into the ground...But this thing was dead. No roar came from its mouth and when you jabbed the little gadget at the side up and down no bell tinkled...It had probably been disconnected. They had perhaps cut him off for not paying. Or he had cut it off so that she might not scream for the police through it whilst he was strangling her. Anyhow they were cut off. They would be cut off from the world on Armistice Night...Well, they would probably be cut off for good!
What nonsense. He had not known that she was coming. He had not asked her to come.
So, slowly, slowly she went up the great stone staircase, the noises all a-whispering up before her...'So, slowly, slowly she went up and slowly looked about her. Henceforth take warning by the fall...' Well, she did not need to take warning: she was not going to fall in the way Barbara Allen did. Contrariwise!
He had not sent for her. He had not asked Edith Ethel to ring her up. Then presumably she felt humiliated. But she did not feel humiliated! It was in effect fairly natural. He was quite noticeably mad, rushing out, lopsided, with bits of furniture under his arm and no hat on his noticeable hair. Noticeable! That was what he was. He would never pass in a crowd!...He had got rid of all his furniture as Edith Ethel had alleged. Very likely he had not recognized the porter, too. She, Valentine Wannop, had seen him going to sell his furniture. Madly! Running to it. You do not run when you are selling furniture if you are sane. Perhaps Edith Ethel had seen him running along with a table on his head. And she was by no means certain that he had recognized her, Valentine Wannop!
So Edith Ethel might have been almost justified in ringing her up. Normally it would have been an offence, considering the terms on which they had parted. Considering that Edith Ethel had accused her of having had a child by this very man! It was pretty strong, even if she had seen him running about the Square with furniture, and even if there had been no one else who could help...But she ought to have sent her miserable rat of a husband. There was no excuse!
Still, there had been nothing else for her, Valentine, to do. So there was not call for her to feel humiliated. Even if she had not felt for this man as she did she would have come, and, if he had been very bad, would have stayed.
He had not sent for her! This man who had once proposed love to her and then had gone away without a word and who had never so much as sent her a picture-postcard! Gauche! Haughty! Was there any other word for him? There could not be. Then she ought to feel humiliated. But she did not.
She felt frightened, creeping up the great staircase, and entering a great room. A very great room. All white; again with stains on the walls from which things had been