Some Do Not … · Part I · Chapter 1 6 (2/3)

“I suppose it’ll fetch a ten pound note⁠ ⁠…” She said: “I ought to have gone to market myself.”

“No!” Tietjens answered: “I’ll get you fifty for it or I’m no Yorkshireman. This fellow hasn’t been swindling you. He’s got you deuced good value for money, but he doesn’t know what’s suited for ladies; a white pony and a basket-work chaise is what you want.”

“Oh, I like a bit of spirit,” Mrs. Wannop said.

“Of course you do,” Tietjens answered: “but this turnout’s too much.”

He sighed a little and took out his surgical needle.

“I’m going to hold this band together with this,” he said. “It’s so pliant it will make two stitches and hold forever.⁠ ⁠…”

But the handy man was beside him, holding out the contents of his pockets: a greasy leather pouch, a ball of beeswax, a knife, a pipe, a bit of cheese and a pale rabbit wire. He had made up his mind that this Quality was benevolent and he made offering of all his possessions.

Tietjens said: “Ah,” and then, while he unknotted the wire:

“Well! Listen⁠ ⁠… you bought this turnout of a higgler at the back door of the Leg of Mutton Inn.”

“Saracen’s ’Ed!” the driver muttered.

“You got it for thirty pounds because the higgler wanted money bad. I know. And dirt cheap.⁠ ⁠… But a rig isn’t everybody’s driving. All right for a vet or a horse-coper. Like the cart that’s too tall!⁠ ⁠… But you did damn well. Only you’re not what you were, are you, at thirty? And the horse looked to be a devil and the cart so high you couldn’t get out once you were in. And you kept it in the sun for two hours waiting for your mistress.”

“There wer’ a bit o’ lewth ’longside stable wall,” the driver muttered.

“Well! he didn’t like waiting,” Tietjens said placably. “You can be thankful your old neck’s not broken. Do this band up, one hole less for the bit I’ve taken in.”

He prepared to climb into the driver’s seat, but Mrs. Wannop was there before him, at an improbable altitude on the sloping watch-box with strapped cushions.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said, “no one drives me and my horse but me or my coachman when I’m about. Not even you, dear boy.”

“I’ll come with you then,” Tietjens said.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she answered. “No one’s neck’s to be broken in this conveyance but mine and Joel’s,” she added: “perhaps tonight if I’m satisfied the horse is fit to drive.”

Miss Wannop suddenly exclaimed:

“Oh, no, mother.” But the handy man having climbed in, Mrs. Wannop flirted her whip and started the horse. She pulled up at once and leaned over to Tietjens:

“What a life for that poor woman,” she said. “We must all do all we can for her. She could have her husband put in a lunatic asylum tomorrow. It’s sheer self-sacrifice that she doesn’t.”

The horse went off at a gentle, regular trot.

Tietjens addressed Miss Wannop:

“What hands your mother’s got,” he said, “it isn’t often one sees a woman with hands like that on a horse’s mouth.⁠ ⁠… Did you see how she pulled up?⁠ ⁠…”

He was aware that, all this while, from the roadside, the girl had been watching him with shining eyes: intently even: with fascination.

“I suppose you think that a mighty fine performance,” she said.

“I didn’t make a very good job of the girth,” he said. “Let’s get off this road.”

“Setting poor, weak women in their places,” Miss Wannop continued. “Soothing the horse like a man with a charm. I suppose you soothe women like that too. I pity your wife.⁠ ⁠… The English country male! And making a devoted vassal at sight of the handy man. The feudal system all complete.⁠ ⁠…”

Tietjens said:

“Well, you know, it’ll make him all the better servant to you if he thinks you’ve friends in the know. The lower classes are like that. Let’s get off this road.”

She said:

“You’re in a mighty hurry to get behind the hedge. Are the police after us or aren’t they? Perhaps you were lying at breakfast: to calm the hysterial nerves of a weak woman.”

“I wasn’t lying,” he said, “but I hate roads when there are field-paths⁠ ⁠…”

“That’s a phobia, like any woman’s,” she exclaimed.

She almost ran through the kissing-gate and stood awaiting him:

“I suppose,” she said, “if you’ve stopped off the police with your high and mighty male ways you think you’ve destroyed my romantic young dream. You haven’t. I don’t want the police after me. I believe I’d die if they put me in Wandsworth⁠ ⁠… I’m a coward.”

“Oh, no, you aren’t,” he said, but he was following his own train of thought, just as she wasn’t in the least listening to him. “I daresay you’re a heroine all right. Not because you persevere in actions the consequences of which you fear. But I daresay you can touch pitch and not be defiled.”

Being too well brought up to interrupt she waited till he had said all he wanted to say, then she exclaimed:

“Let’s settle the preliminaries. It’s obvious mother means us to see a great deal of you. You’re going to be a mascot too, like your father. I suppose you think you are: you saved me from the police yesterday, you appear to have saved mother’s neck today. You appear, too, to be going to make twenty pounds profit on a horse deal. You say you will and you seem to be that sort of a person⁠ ⁠… Twenty pounds is no end in a family like ours⁠ ⁠… Well, then, you appear to be going to be the regular bel ami of the Wannop family⁠ ⁠…”

Tietjens said:

“I hope not.”

“Oh, I don’t mean,” she said, “that you’re going to rise to fame by making love to all the women of the Wannop family. Besides, there’s only me. But mother will press you into all sorts of odd jobs: and there will always be a plate for you at the table. Don’t shudder! I’m a regular good cook⁠—cuisine bourgeoise of course. I learned under a real professed cook, though a drunkard. That meant I used to do half the cooking and the family was particular. Eating people are: county councillors, half of them, and the like. So I know what men are⁠ ⁠…” She stopped and said good-naturedly: “But do, for goodness’ sake, get it over. I’m sorry I was rude to you. But it is irritating to have to stand like a stuffed rabbit while a man is acting like a regular Admirable Crichton, and cool and collected, with the English country gentleman air and all.”

Tietjens winced. The young woman had come a little too near the knuckle of his wife’s frequent denunciations of himself. And she exclaimed:

“No! That’s not fair! I’m an ungrateful pig! You didn’t show a bit more side really than a capable workman must who’s doing his job in the midst of a crowd of incapable duffers. But just get it out, will you? Say once and for all that⁠—you know the proper, pompous manner: you are not without sympathy with our aims: but you disapprove⁠—oh, immensely, strongly⁠—of our methods.”

It struck Tietjens that the young woman was a good deal more interested in the cause⁠—of votes for women⁠—than he had given her credit for. He wasn’t much in the mood for talking to young women, but it was with considerably more than the surface of his mind that he answered:

“I don’t. I approve entirely of your methods: but your aims are idiotic.”

She said:

“You don’t know, I suppose, that Gertie Wilson, who’s in bed at our house, is wanted by the police: not only for yesterday, but for putting explosives in a whole series of letter-boxes?”

He said:

“I didn’t⁠ ⁠… but it was a perfectly proper thing to do. She hasn’t burned any of my letters or I might be annoyed; but it wouldn’t interfere with my approval.”

“You don’t think,” she asked earnestly, “that we⁠ ⁠… mother and I⁠ ⁠… are likely to get heavy sentences for shielding her. It would be beastly bad luck on mother. Because she’s an anti⁠ ⁠…”

“I don’t know about the sentence,” Tietjens said, “but we’d better get her off your premises as soon as we can.⁠ ⁠…”

She said:

“Oh, you’ll help?”

He answered:

“Of course, your mother can’t be incommoded. She’s written the only novel that’s been fit to read since the eighteenth century.”

She stopped and said earnestly:

“Look here. Don’t be one of those ignoble triflers who say the vote won’t do women any good. Women have a rotten time. They do, really. If you’d seen what I’ve seen, I’m not talking through my hat.” Her voice became quite deep: she had tears in her eyes: “Poor women do!” she said, “little insignificant creatures. We’ve got to change the divorce laws. We’ve got to get better conditions. You couldn’t stand it if you knew what I know.”

Her emotion vexed him, for it seemed to establish a sort of fraternal intimacy that he didn’t at the moment want. Women do not show emotion except before their familiars. He said drily:

“I daresay I shouldn’t. But I don’t know, so I can!”

She said with deep disappointment:

“Oh, you are a beast! And I shall never beg your pardon for saying that. I don’t believe you mean what you say, but merely to say it is heartless.”

This was another of the counts of Sylvia’s indictment and Tietjens winced again. She explained:

“You don’t know the case of the Pimlico army clothing factory workers or you wouldn’t say the vote would be no use to women.”

“I know the case perfectly well,” Tietjens said: “It came under my official notice, and I remember thinking that there never was a more signal instance of the uselessness of the vote to anyone.”

“We can’t be thinking of the same case,” she said.

“We are,” he answered. “The Pimlico army clothing factory is in the constituency of Westminster; the Undersecretary for War is member for Westminster; his majority at the last election was six hundred. The clothing factory employed seven hundred men at 1s. 6d. an hour, all these men having votes in Westminster. The seven hundred men wrote to the Undersecretary to say that if their screw wasn’t raised to two bob they’d vote solid against him at the next election.⁠ ⁠…”

Miss Wannop said: “Well then!”

“So,” Tietjens said: “The Undersecretary had the seven hundred men at eighteenpence fired and took on seven hundred women at tenpence. What good did the vote do the seven hundred men? What good did a vote ever do anyone?”

Miss Wannop checked at that and Tietjens prevented her exposure of his fallacy by saying quickly:

“Now, if the seven hundred women, backed by all the other ill-used, sweated women of the country, had threatened the Undersecretary, burned the pillar-boxes, and cut up all the golf greens round his country-house, they’d have had their wages raised to half-a-crown next week. That’s the only straight method. It’s the feudal system at work.”

“Oh, but we couldn’t cut up golf greens,” Miss Wannop said. “At least the W.S.P.U. debated it the other day, and decided that anything so unsporting would make us too unpopular. I was for it personally.”

Tietjens groaned:

“It’s maddening,” he said, “to find women, as soon as they get in Council, as muddleheaded and as afraid to face straight issues as men!⁠ ⁠…”

“You won’t, by the by,” the girl interrupted, “be able to sell our horse tomorrow. You’ve forgotten that it will be Sunday.”

“I shall have to on Monday, then,” Tietjens said. “The point about the feudal system⁠ ⁠…”

Just after lunch⁠—and it was an admirable lunch of the cold lamb, new potatoes and mint-sauce variety, the mint-sauce made with white wine vinegar and as soft as kisses, the claret perfectly drinkable and the port much more than that, Mrs. Wannop having gone back to the late professor’s wine merchants⁠—Miss Wannop herself went to answer the telephone.⁠ ⁠…

The cottage had no doubt been a cheap one, for it was old, roomy and comfortable; but effort had no doubt, too, been lavished on its low rooms. The dining-room had windows on each side and a beam across; the dining silver had been picked up at sales, the tumblers were old cut glass; on each side of the ingle was a grandfather’s chair. The garden had red brick paths, sunflowers, hollyhocks and scarlet gladioli. There was nothing to it all, but the garden-gate was well hung.

To Tietjens all this meant effort. Here was a woman who, a few years ago, was penniless, in the most miserable of circumstances, supporting life with the most exiguous of all implements. What effort hadn’t it meant! and what effort didn’t it mean? There was a boy at Eton⁠ ⁠… a senseless, but a gallant effort.

Mrs. Wannop sat opposite him in the other grandfather’s chair; an admirable hostess, an admirable lady. Full of spirit in dashes; but tired. As an old horse is tired that, taking three men to harness it in the stable yard, starts out like a stallion, but soon drops to a jog-trot. The face tired, really; scarlet-cheeked with the good air, but seamed downward. She could sit there at ease, the plump hands covered with a black lace shawl, and descending on each side of her lap, as much at ease as any other Victorian great lady. But at lunch she had let drop that she had written for eight hours every day for the last four years⁠—till that day⁠—without missing a day. Today being Saturday, she had no leader to write:

“And, my darling boy,” she had said to him. “I’m giving it to you. I’d give it to no other soul but your father’s son. Not even to⁠ ⁠…” And she had named the name that she most respected. “And that’s the truth,” she had added. Nevertheless, even over lunch, she had fallen into abstractions, heavily and deeply, and made fantastic misstatements, mostly about public affairs.⁠ ⁠… It all meant a tremendous record.⁠ ⁠…

And there he sat, his coffee and port on a little table beside him; the house belonging to him.⁠ ⁠…

She said:

“My dearest boy⁠ ⁠… you’ve so much to do. Do you think you ought really to drive the girls to Plimsoll tonight? They’re young and inconsiderate; work comes first.”

Tietjens said:

“It isn’t the distance⁠ ⁠…”

“You’ll find that it is,” she answered humorously. “It’s twenty miles beyond Tenterden. If you don’t start till ten when the moon sets, you won’t be back till five, even if you’ve no accidents.⁠ ⁠… The horse is all right, though⁠ ⁠…”

Tietjens said:

“Mrs. Wannop, I ought to tell you that your daughter and I are being talked about. Uglily!”

She turned her head to him; rather stiffly. But she was only coming out of an abstraction.

“Eh?” she said, and then: “Oh! About the golf-links episode.⁠ ⁠… It must have looked suspicious. I daresay you made a fuss, too, with the police, to head them off her.” She remained pondering for a moment, heavily, like an old pope:

“Oh, you’ll live it down,” she said.

“I ought to tell you,” he persisted, “that it’s more serious than you think. I fancy I ought not to be here.”

“Not here!” she exclaimed. “Why, where else in the world should you be? You don’t get on with your wife; I know. She’s a regular wrong ’un. Who else could look after you as well as Valentine and I?”

In the acuteness of that pang, for, after all, Tietjens cared more for his wife’s reputation than for any other factor in a complicated world, Tietjens asked rather sharply why Mrs. Wannop had called Sylvia a wrong ’un. She said in rather a protesting, sleepy way:

“My dear boy, nothing! I’ve guessed that there are differences between you; give me credit for some perception. Then, as you’re perfectly obviously a right ’un, she must be a wrong ’un. That’s all, I assure you.”

In his relief Tietjens’ obstinacy revived. He liked this house; he liked this atmosphere; he liked the frugality, the choice of furniture, the way the light fell from window to window; the weariness after hard work; the affection of mother and daughter; the affection, indeed, that they both had for himself, and he was determined, if he could help it, not to damage the reputation of the daughter of the house.

Decent men, he held, don’t do such things, and he recounted with some care the heads of the conversation he had had with General Campion in the dressing-room. He seemed to see the cracked washbowls in their scrubbed oak settings. Mrs. Wannop’s face seemed to grow greyer, more aquiline; a little resentful! She nodded from time to time; either to denote attention or else in sheer drowsiness: