A Man Could Stand Up - Ford Madox Ford [92]
Tietjens astonished himself by saying to himself that if he had any proof that Campion had committed adultery with Sylvia he would kill him! Call him out and kill him...That of course was absurd. You do not kill a General Officer commanding in chief an Army. And a good General too. His reorganization of that Army had been everything that was ship-shape and soldierly; his handling it in the subsequent fighting had been impeccably admirable. It was in fact the apotheosis of the Regular Soldier. That alone was a benefit to have conferred on the country. He had also contributed by his political action to forcing the single command on the Government. When he had gone to Groby he had let it be quite widely known that he was prepared to fight that Division of Cleveland on the political issue of single command or no single command--and to fight it in his absence in France. Sylvia no doubt would have run the campaign for him!
Well, that, and the arrival of the American troops in large quantities, had no doubt forced the hand of Downing Street. There could no longer have been any question of evacuating the Western Front. Those swine in their corridors were scotched. Campion was a good man. He was good--impeccable!--in his profession he had deserved well of his country. Yet, if Tietjens had had proof that he had committed adultery with his, Tietjens', wife he would call him out. Quite properly. In the eighteenth-century tradition for soldiers. The old fellow could not refuse. He was of eighteenth-century tradition too.
Mrs Wannop was informing him that she had had the news of Valentine's having gone to him from a Miss Wanostrocht. She had, she said, at first agreed that it was proper that Valentine should look after him if he were mad and destitute. But this Miss Wanostrocht had gone on to say that she had heard from Lady Macmaster that Tietjens and her daughter had had a liaison lasting for years. And ...Mrs Wannop's voice hesitated...Valentine seemed to have announced to Miss Wanostrocht that she intended to live with Tietjens. 'Maritally', Miss Wanostrocht had expressed it.
It was the last word alone of Mrs Wannop's talk that came home to him. People would talk. About him. It was his fate. And hers. Their identities interested Mrs Wannop, as novelist. Novelists live on gossip. But it was all one to him.
The word 'Maritally!' burst out of the telephone like a blue light! That girl with the refined face, the hair cut longish, but revealing its thinner refinement...That girl longed for him as he for her! The longing had refined her face. He must comfort...
He was aware that for a long time, from below his feet a voice had been murmuring on and on. Always one voice. Who could Valentine find to talk or to listen to for so long? Old Macmaster was almost the only name that came to his mind. Macmaster would not harm her. He felt her being united to his by a current. He had always felt that her being was united to his by a current. This then was the day!
The war had made a man of him! It had coarsened him and hardened him. There was no other way to look at it. It had made him reach a point at which he would no longer stand unbearable things. At any rate from his equals! He counted Campion as his equal; few other people, of course. And what he wanted he was prepared to take...What he had been before, God alone knew. A Younger Son? A Perpetual Second-in-Command? Who knew? But to-day the world changed. Feudalism was finished; its last vestiges were gone. It held no place for him. He was going--he was damn well going!--to make a place in it for...A man could now stand up on a hill, so he and she could surely get into some hole together!
He said:
'Oh, I'm