Some Do Not . . ._ A Novel - Ford Madox Ford [156]
She said:
'I suppose the rooms looked lovely.'
He had answered:
'Lovely...They'd got all the pictures by that beastly fellow up from the rectory study in the dining-room on dark oak panelling...A fair blaze of bosoms and nipples and lips and pomegranates...The tallest silver candlesticks of course...You remember, silver candlesticks and dark oak...'
She said:
'Oh, my dear...Don't...Don't!'.
He had just touched the rim of his helmet with his folded gloves.
'So we just wash out!' he had said.
She said:
'Would you take this bit of parchment...I got a little Jew girl to write on it in Hebrew: It's "God bless you and keep you: God watch over you at your goings out and at..."'
He tucked it into his breast pocket.
The talismanic passage,' he said. 'Of course I'll wear it...'
She said:
'If we could wash out this afternoon...It would make it easier to bear...Your poor mother, you know, she was dying when we last...'
He said:
'You remember that...Even then you...And if I hadn't gone to Lobscheid...'
She said:
'From the first moment I set eyes on you...
He said:
'And I I...from the first moment...I'll tell you...If I looked out of a door...It was all like sand...But to the half left a little bubbling up of water. That could be trusted. To keep on for ever...You, perhaps, won't understand.'
She said:
'Yes! I know!'
They were seeing landscapes...Sand dunes; close-cropped...Some negligible shipping; a stump-masted brig from Archangel...
'From the first moment,' he repeated.
She said:
'If we could wash out...'
He said, and for the first moment felt grand, tender, protective:
'Yes, you can,' he said. 'You cut out from this afternoon, just before 4.58 it was when I said that to you and you consented...I heard the Horse Guards clock...To now...Cut it out; and join time up...It can be done...You know they do it surgically; for some illness; cut out a great length of the bowel and join the tube up...For colitis, I think...
She said:
'But I wouldn't cut it out...It was the first spoken sign.'
He said:
'No it wasn't...From the very beginning...with every word...'
She exclaimed:
'You felt that...Too!...We've been pushed, as in a carpenter's vice...We couldn't have got away...He said: 'By God! That's it...'
He suddenly saw a weeping willow in St James's Park; 4.59! He had just said: 'Will you be my mistress to-night?' She had gone away, half left, her hands to her face...A small fountain; half left. That could be trusted to keep on for ever...
Along the lake side, sauntering, swinging his crooked stick, his incredibly shiny top-hat perched sideways, his claw-hammer coat tails, very long, flapping out behind, in dusty sunlight, his magpie pince-nez gleaming, had come, naturally, Mr Ruggles. He had looked at the girl; then down at Tietjens, sprawled on his bench. He had just touched the brim of his shiny hat. He said:
'Dining at the club to-night?...'
Tietjens said: 'No; I've resigned.'
With the aspect of a long-billed bird chewing a bit of putridity, Ruggles said:
'Oh, but we've had an emergency meeting of the committee...the committee was sitting...and sent you a letter asking you to reconsider...
Tietjens said:
'I know...I shall withdraw my resignation to-night...And resign again to-morrow morning.'
Ruggles' muscles had relaxed for a quick second, then they stiffened.
'Oh, I say!' he had said. 'Not that...You couldn't do that...Not to the club!...It's never been done...It's an insult...
'It's meant to be,' Tietjens said. 'Gentlemen shouldn't be expected to belong to a club that has certain members on its committee.'
Ruggles' deepish voice suddenly grew very high. 'Eh, I say, you know!' he squeaked.
Tietjens hid said:
'I'm not vindictive...But I am deadly tired: of all old women and their chatter.'
Ruggles had