Some Do Not . . ._ A Novel - Ford Madox Ford [92]
'Carrie,' Tietjens said, 'was drowned on a hospital ship. I thank God I didn't have to connect the other girl with her...But you don't suppose that in addition to one's name, rank, unit, and date of admission they'd put that I'd lost a sister and two brothers in action and a father--of a broken heart, I dare say...'
'But you only lost one brother,' Sylvia said. 'I went into mourning for him and your sister...
'No, two,' Tietjens said; 'but the fellow who was strangling me was what I wanted to tell you about. He let out a number of ear-piercing shrieks and lots of orderlies came and pulled him off me and sat all over him. Then he began to shout "Faith!" He shouted: "Faith!...Faith!...Faith!'..." at intervals of two seconds, as far as I could tell by my pulse, until four in the morning, when he died...I don't know whether it was a religious exhortation or a woman's name, but I disliked him a good deal because he started my tortures, such as they were...There had been a girl I knew called Faith. Oh, not a love affair: the daughter of my father's head gardener, a Scotsman. The point is that every time he said Faith I asked myself "Faith...Faith what?" I couldn't remember the name of my father's head gardener.'
Sylvia, who was thinking of other things, asked: 'What was the name?'
Tietjens answered:
'I don't know, I don't know to this day...The point is that when I knew that I didn't know that name, I was as ignorant, as uninstructed, as a new-born babe and much more worried about it...The Koran says--I've got as far as K in my reading of the Encyclopaedia Britannica every afternoon at Mrs Wannop's--"The strong man when smitten is smitten in his pride!"...Of course I got King's Regs. and the M.M.L. and Infantry Field Training and all the A.C.I.s to date by heart very quickly. And that's all a British officer is really encouraged to know...
'Oh, Christopher!' Sylvia said. 'You read that encyclopaedia; it's pitiful. You used to despise it so.'
'That's what's meant by "smitten in his pride,"' Tietjens said. 'Of course what I read or hear now I remember...But I haven't got to M, much less V. That was why I was worried about Metternich and the Congress of Vienna. I try to remember things on my own, but I haven't yet done so. You see, it's as if a certain area of my brain had been wiped white. Occasionally one name suggests another. You noticed, when I got Metternich it suggested Castlereagh and Wellington--and even other names...But that's what the Department of Statistics will get me on. When they fire me out. The real reason will be that I've served. But they'll pretend it's because I've no more general knowledge than is to be found in the encyclopaedia: or two-thirds more or less--according to the duration of the war...Or, of course, the real reason will be that I won't fake statistics to dish the French with. They asked me to, the other day, as a holiday task. And when I refused, you should have seen their faces.'
'Have you really,' Sylvia asked, 'lost two brothers in action?'
'Yes,' Tietjens answered. 'Curly and Longshanks. You never saw them because they were always in India. And they weren't noticeable...'
'Two!' Sylvia said. 'I only wrote to your father about one called Edward. And your sister Caroline. In the same letter...'
'Carrie wasn't noticeable either,' Tietjens said. 'She did Charity Organization Society work...But I remember: you didn't like her. She was the born old maid...'
'Christopher!' Sylvia asked, 'do you still think your mother died of a broken heart because I left you?' Tietjens said:
'Good God, no. I never thought so and I don't think so. I know she didn't.'
'Then!' Sylvia exclaimed, 'she died of a broken heart because I came back...It's no good protesting that you don't think so. I remember your face when you opened the telegram at Lobscheid. Miss Wannop forwarded it from Rye. I remember the postmark. She was born to do me ill. The moment you got it