Some Do Not . . ._ A Novel - Ford Madox Ford [53]
Mrs Wannop suddenly said:
'Oh!' and looked at her daughter, whose face grew slowly crimson as she continued to peel a peach. Mrs Wannop turned to Mr Horsley beside her and said:
'You write, too, I believe, Mr Horsley. No doubt something more learned than my poor readers would care for...Mr Horsley had been preparing, according to his instructions from Mrs Duchemin, to shout a description of an article he had been writing about the Mosella of Ausonius, but as he was slow in starting the lady got in first. She talked on serenely about the tastes of the large public. Tietjens leaned across to Miss Wannop and, holding in his right hand a half-peeled fig, said to her as loudly as he could:
'I've got a message for you from Mr Waterhouse. He says if you'll...'
The completely deaf Miss Fox--who had had her training by writing--remarked diagonally to Mrs Duchemin:
'I think we shall have thunder to-day. Have you remarked the number of minute insects...'
'When my revered preceptor,' Mr Duchemin thundered on, 'drove away in the carriage on his wedding day he said to his bride: "We will live like blessed angels!" How sublime! I, too, after my nuptials...'
Mrs Duchemin suddenly screamed:
'Oh...no!'
As if checked for a moment in their stride all the others paused--for a breath. Then they continued talking with polite animation and listening with minute attention. To Tietjens that seemed the highest achievement and justification of English manners!
Parry, the prize-fighter, had twice caught his master by the arm and shouted that breakfast was getting cold. He said now to Macmaster that he and the Rev. Mr Horsley could get Mr Duchemin away, but there'd be a hell of a fight. Macmaster whispered: 'Wait!' and, turning to Mrs Duchemin he said: 'I can stop him. Shall I?' She said:
'Yes! Yes! Anything!' He observed tears; isolated upon her cheeks, a thing he had never seen. With caution and with hot rage he whispered into the prize-fighter's hairy ear that was held down to him:
'Punch him in the kidney. With your thumb. As hard as you can without breaking your thumb...'
Mr Duchemin had just declaimed:
'I, too, after my nuptials...' He began to wave his arms, pausing and looking from unlistening face to unlistening face. Mrs Duchemin had just screamed.
Mr Duchemin thought that the arrow of God struck him. He imagined himself an unworthy messenger. In such pain as he had never conceived of he fell into his chair and sat huddled up, a darkness covering his eyes.
'He won't get up again,' Macmaster whispered to the appreciative pugilist. 'He'll want to. But he'll be afraid to.' He said to Mrs Duchemin:
'Dearest lady! It's all over. I assure you of that. It's a scientific nerve counter-irritant.'
Mrs Duchemin said:
'Forgive!' with one deep sob: 'You can never respect...
She felt her eyes explore his face as the wretch in a cell explores the face of his executioner for a sign of pardon. Her heart stayed still: her breath suspended itself...
Then complete heaven began. Upon her left palm she felt cool fingers beneath the cloth. This man knew always the exact right action! Upon the fingers, cool, like spikenard and ambrosia, her fingers closed themselves.
In complete bliss, in a quiet room, his voice went on talking. At first with great neatness of phrase, but with what refinement! He explained that certain excesses being merely nervous cravings, can be combated if not, indeed, cured altogether, by the fear of, by the determination not to endure, sharp physical pain--which of course is a nervous matter, too!...
Parry, at a given moment, had said into his master's ear:
'It's time you prepared for your sermon to-morrow, sir,' and Mr Duchemin had gone as quietly as he had arrived, gliding over the thick carpet to the small door.
Then Macmaster said to her:
'You come from Edinburgh? You'll know the Fifeshire