No More Parades_ A Novel - Ford Madox Ford [64]
Sylvia said--she did not want to say it:
'It's quite a nice place...but I should not think of staying there for ever...'
Tietjens said:
'The Cheshires have a training camp--not a depot--near Birkenhead. And of course there are R.G.A.'s there...' She had been looking away from him...Cowley exclaimed:
'You were nearly off, sir,' hilariously. 'You had your peepers shut...' Lifting a champagne glass, he inclined himself towards her. 'You must excuse the captain, ma'am,' he said. 'He had no sleep last night...Largely owing to my fault...Which is what makes it so kind of him...I tell you, ma'am, there are few things I would not do for the captain...' He drank his champagne and began an explanation: 'You may not know, ma'am, this is a great day for me...And you and the captain are making it the greatest day of my life...' Why, at four this morning there hadn't been a wretcheder man in Ruin town...And now...He must tell her that he suffered from an unfortunate--a miserable--complaint...One that makes one have to be careful of celebrations...And to-day was a day that he had to celebrate...But he dare not have done it where Sergeant-Major Ledoux is along with a lot of their old mates...'I dare not...I dussn't!' he finished...'So I might have been sitting, now, at this very moment, up in the cold camp...But for you and the captain...Up in the cold camp...You'll excuse me, ma'am...'
Sylvia felt that her lids were suddenly wavering:
'I might have been myself,' she said, 'in a cold camp, too...if I hadn't thrown myself on the captain's mercy!...At Birkenhead, you know...I happened to be there till three weeks ago...It's strange that you mentioned it...There are things like signs...but you're not a Catholic! They could hardly be coincidences...'
She was trembling...She looked, fumblingly opening it, into the little mirror of her powder-box--of chased, very thin gold with a small blue stone, like a forget-me-not in the centre of the concentric engravings...Drake--the possible father of Michael--had given it to her...The first thing he had ever given her. She had brought it down to-night out of defiance. She imagined that Tietjens disliked it...She said breathlessly to herself: perhaps the damn thing is an ill omen...Drake had been the first man who had ever...A hot-breathed brute!...In the little glass her features were chalk-white...She looked like...she looked like...She had a dress of golden tissue...The breath was short between her white set teeth...Her face was as white as her teeth...And...Yes! Nearly! Her lips...What was her face like?...In the chapel of the convent of Birkenhead there was a tomb all of alabaster...She said to herself:
'He was near fainting...I'm near fainting...What's this beastly thing that's between us?...If I let myself faint...But it would not make that beast's face any less wooden!...'
She leaned across the table and patted the ex-sergeantmajor's black-haired hand:
'I'm sure,' she said, 'you're a very good man...' She did not try to keep the tears out of her eyes, remembering his words: 'Up in the cold camp.'...'I'm glad the captain, as you call him, did not leave you in the cold camp...You're devoted to him, aren't you?...There are others he does leave...up in...the cold camp...For punishment, you know...'
The ex-sergeant-major, the tears in his eyes too, said: 'Well, there is men you 'as to give the C.B. to...C.B. means confined to barracks...'
'Oh, there are!' she exclaimed. 'There are!...And women, too...Surely there are women, too?...'
The sergeant-major said:
Wacks, per'aps...I don't know...They say women's discipline is like ours...Founded on hours!'
She said:
'Do you know what they used to say of the captain?...'