Now she certainly realised. How Christopher had got round Mark she did not know or much care, but there Christopher certainly was, although his father had certainly died of a broken heart at the rumours that were going round about his son — rumours she, almost as efficiently as the man called Ruggles and more irresponsible gossips, had set going about Christopher. They had been meant to smash Christopher: they had smashed his father instead…. But Christopher had got round Mark, whom he had not seen for ten years…. Well, he probably would. Christopher was perfectly immaculate, that was a fact, and Mark, though he appeared half-witted in a North Country way, was no fool. He could not be a fool. He was a really august public official. And, although as a rule Sylvia gave nothing at all for any public official, if a man like Mark had the position by birth amongst presentable men that he certainly ought to have and was also the head of a department and reputed absolutely indispensable — you could not ignore him…. He said, indeed, in the later, more gossipy parts of his letter that he had been offered a baronetcy, but he wanted Christopher to agree with his refusing it. Christopher would not want the beastly title after his death, and for himself he would be rather struck with the pip than let that harlot — meaning herself — become Lady T. by any means of his. He had added, with his queer solicitude, “Of course if you thought of divorcing — which I wish to God you would, though I agree that you are right not to — and the title would go to the girl after my decease I’d take it gladly, for a title is a bit of a help after a divorce. But as it is I propose to refuse it and ask for a knighthood, if it won’t too sicken you to have me a Sir. For I hold no man ought to refuse an honour in times like these, as has been done by certain sickening intellectuals because it is like slapping the sovereign in the face and bound to hearten the other side, which no doubt was what was meant by those fellows.”
There was no doubt that Mark — with the possible addition of the Wannops — made a very strong backing for Christopher if she decided to make a public scandal about him…. As for the Wannops… the girl was negligible. Or possibly not, if she turned nasty and twisted Christopher round her fingers. But the old mother was a formidable figure — with a bad tongue, and viewed with a certain respect in places where people talked… both on account of her late husband’s position and of the solid sort of articles she wrote…. She, Sylvia, had gone to take a look at the place where these people lived… a dreary street in an outer suburb, the houses — she knew enough about estates to know — what is called tile-healed, the upper parts of tile, the lower flimsy brick and the tiles in bad condition. Oldish houses really, in spite of their sham artistic aspect, and very much shadowed by old trees that must have been left to add to the picturesqueness. The rooms poky, and they must be very dark…. The residence of extreme indigence, or of absolute poverty…. She understood that the old lady’s income had so fallen off during the war that they had nothing to live on but what the girl made as a school-teacher, or a teacher of athletics in a girls’ school. She had walked two or three times up and down the street with the idea that the girl might come out, then it had struck her that that was rather an ignoble proceeding, really…. It was, for the matter of that, ignoble that she should have a rival who starved in an ashbin…. But that was what men were like; she might think herself lucky that the girl did not inhabit a sweetshop…. And the man, Macmaster, said that the girl had a good head and talked well, though the woman Macmaster said that she was a shallow ignoramus…. That last probably was not true; at any rate the girl had been the Macmaster woman’s most intimate friend for many years — as long as they were sponging on Christopher and until, lower middle-class snobs as they were, they began to think they could get into Society by carneying to herself…. Still, the girl probably was a good talker and, if little, yet physically uncommonly fit. A good homespun article…. She wished her no ill!
What was incredible was that Christopher should let her go on starving in such a poverty-stricken place when he had something like the wealth of the Indies at his disposal…. But the Tietjens were hard people! You could see that in Mark’s rooms… and Christopher would lie on the floor as lief as in a goose-feather bed. And probably the girl would not take his money. She was quite right. That was the way to keep him…. She herself had no want of comprehension of the stimulation to be got out of parsimonious living…. In retreat at her convent she lay as hard and as cold as any anchorite, and rose to the nuns’ matins at four.
It was not, in fact, their fittings or food that she objected to — it was that the lay-sisters, and some of the nuns, were altogether too much of the lower classes for her to like to have always about her…. That was why it was to the Dames Nobles that she would go, if she had to go into retreat for the rest of her life, according to contract.
A gun manned by exhilarated anti-aircraft fellows, and so close that it must have been in the hotel garden, shook her physically at almost the same moment as an immense maroon popped off on the quay at the bottom of the street in which the hotel was. She was filled with annoyance at these schoolby exercises. A tall, purple-faced, white-moustached general of the more odious type, appeared in the doorway and said that all the lights but two must be extinguished and, if they took his advice, they would go somewhere else. There were good cellars in the hotel. He loafed about the room extinguishing the lights, couples and groups passing him on the way to the door…. Tietjens looked up from his letter — he was now reading one of Mrs. Wannop’s — but seeing that Sylvia made no motion he remained sunk in his chair.
The old general said:
“Don’t get up, Tietjens…. Sit down, lieutenant…. Mrs. Tietjens, I presume…. But of course I know you are Mrs. Tietjens…. There’s a portrait of you in this week’s… I forget the name….” He sat down on the arm of a great leather chair and told her of all the trouble her escapade to that city had caused him…. He had been awakened immediately after a good lunch by some young officer on his staff who was scared to death by her having arrived without papers. His digestion had been deranged ever since…. Sylvia said she was very sorry. He should drink hot water and no alcohol with his lunch. She had had very important business to discuss with Tietjens, and she had really not understood that they wanted papers of grown-up people. The general began to expatiate on the importance of his office and the number of enemy agents his perspicacity caused to be arrested every day in that city and the lines of communication….
Sylvia was overwhelmed at the ingenuity of Father Consett. She looked at her watch. The ten minutes were up, but there did not appear to be a soul in the dim place…. The father had — and no doubt as a Sign that there could be no mistaking! — completely emp tied that room. It was like his humour!
To make certain, she stood up. At the far end of the room, in the dimness of the one other reading lamp that the general had not extinguished, two figures were rather indistinguishable. She walked towards them, the general at her side extending civilities all over her. He said that she need not be under any apprehension there. He adopted that device of clearing the room in order to get rid of the beastly young subalterns who would use the place to spoon in when the lights were turned down. She said she was only going to get a timetable from the far end of the room….
The stab of hope that she had that one of the two figures would turn out to be the presentable man died…. They were a young mournful subaltern, with an incipient moustache and practically tears in his eyes, and an elderly, violently indignant bald-headed man in civilian evening clothes that must have been made by a country tailor. He was smacking his hands together to emphasize what, with great agitation, he was saying.