Some Do Not . . ._ A Novel - Ford Madox Ford [152]
So that there she, Valentine Wannop, sat on a hard bench against a wall; downright, healthy middle-class--or perhaps upper middle-class--for the Wannops were, if impoverished, yet of ancient family! Over her sensible, moccasined shoes the tide of humanity flowed before her hard bench. There were two commissionaires, the one always benevolent, the other perpetually querulous, in a pulpit on one side of her; on the other, a brown-visaged sort of brother-in-law with bulging eyes, who in his shy efforts to conciliate her was continually trying to thrust into his mouth the crook of his umbrella. As if it had been a knob. She could not, at the moment, imagine why he should want to conciliate her; but she knew she would know in a minute.
For just then she was occupied with a curious pattern; almost mathematically symmetrical. Now she was an English middle-class girl--whose mother had a sufficient income--in blue cloth, a wideawake hat, a black silk tie; without a thought in her head that she shouldn't have. And with a man who loved her: of crystal purity. Not ten, not five minutes ago, she had been...She could not even remember what she had been! And he had been, he had assuredly appeared a town...No, she could not think the words...A raging stallion then! If now he should approach her, by the mere movement of a hand along the sable, she would retreat.
It was a godsend; yet it was absurd. Like the weather machine of the old man and the old woman on opposite ends of the stick...When the old man came out the old woman went in and it would rain; when the old woman came out...It was exactly like that! She hadn't time to work out the analogy. But it was like that...In rainy weather the whole world altered. Darkened!...The cat-gut that turned them slackened...slackened...But, always, they remained at opposite ends of the stick!
Mark was saying, the umbrella crook hindering his utterance:
'We buy then an annuity of five hundred for your mother...'
It was astonishing, though it spread tranquillity through her, how little this astonished her. It was the merely retarded expected. Mr. Tietjens senior, an honourable man, had promised as much years ago. Her mother, an august genius, was to wear herself out putting, Mr Tietjens alive, his political views in his paper. He was to make it up to her. He was making it up. In no princely fashion, but adequately, as a gentleman.
Mark Tietjens, bending over, held a piece of paper. A bell-boy came up to him and said: 'Mr Riccardo?' Mark Tietjens said: 'No! He's gone!' He continued:
'Your brother...Shelved for the moment. But enough to buy a practice, a good practice! When he's a full-fledged sawbones.' He stopped, he directed upon her his atrabilarian eyes, biting his umbrella handle; he was extremely nervous.
'Now you!' he said. 'Two or three hundred. A year of course! The capital absolutely your own...' He paused: 'But I warn you! Christopher won't like it. He's got his knife into me. I wouldn't grudge you...oh, any sum!'...He waved his hand to indicate an amount boundless in its figures. 'I know you keep Christopher straight,' he said. The only person that could!' He added: 'Poor devil!'
She said:
'He's got his knife into you? Why?'
He answered vaguely:
'Oh, there's been all this talk...Untrue, of course.' She said:
'People have been saying things against you? To him? Perhaps because there's been delay in settling the estate.'
He said:
'Oh, no! The other way round, in fact!'
'Then they have been saying,' she exclaimed, 'things against...against me. And him!'
He exclaimed in anguish:
'Oh, but I ask you to believe...I beg you to