Mrs. Wannop was talking to him now; he did not know what she said; he never knew afterwards what he had answered.
“God!” he said within himself, “if it’s sexual sins God punishes, He indeed is just and inscrutable!” Because he had had physical contact with this woman before he married her; in a railway carriage, coming down from the Dukeries. An extravagantly beautiful girl!
Where was the physical attraction of her gone to now? Irresistible; reclining back as the shires rushed past…. His mind said that she had lured him on. His intellect put the idea from him. No gentleman thinks such things of his wife.
No gentleman thinks…. By God; she must have been with child by another man…. He had been fighting the conviction down all the last four months. He knew now that he had been fighting the conviction all the last four months whilst, anaesthetised, he had bathed in figures and wave-theories. Her last words had been, her very last words, late, all in white she had gone up to her dressing-room, and he had never seen her again; her last words had been about the child…. “Supposing,” she had begun… He didn’t remember the rest. But he remembered her eyes. And her gesture as she peeled off her long white gloves….
He was looking at Mrs. Wannop’s ingle; he thought it a mistake in taste, really, to leave logs in an ingle during the summer. But then what are you to do with an ingle in summer. In Yorkshire cottages they shut the ingles up with painted doors. But that is stuffy, too!
He said to himself:
“By God! I’ve had a stroke!” and he got out of his chair to test his legs…. But he hadn’t had a stroke. It must then, he thought, be that the pain of his last consideration must be too great for his mind to register, as certain great physical pains go unperceived. Nerves, like weighing machines, can’t register more than a certain amount, then they go out of action. A tramp who had had his leg cut off by a train had told him that he had tried to get up, feeling nothing at all…. The pain comes back though…
He said to Mrs. Wannop, who was still talking:
“I beg your pardon. I really missed what you said.”
Mrs. Wannop said:
“I was saying that that’s the best thing I can do for you.”
He said:
“I’m really very sorry: it was that that I missed. I’m a little in trouble you know.”
She said:
“I know, I know. The mind wanders; but I wish you’d listen. I’ve got to go to work, so have you. I said: after tea you and Valentine will walk into Rye to fetch your luggage.”
Straining his intelligence, for, in his mind, he felt a sudden strong pleasure: sunlight on pyramidal red roof in the distance: themselves descending in a long diagonal, a green hill. God, yes, he wanted open air. Tietjens said:
“I see. You take us both under your protection. You’ll bluff it out.”
Mrs. Wannop said rather coolly:
“I don’t know about you both. It’s you I’m taking under my protection (it’s your phrase!). As for Valentine: she’s made her bed; she must lie on it. I’ve told you all that already: I can’t go over it again.”
She paused, then made another effort:
“It’s disagreeable,” she said, “to be cut off the Mountby visiting list. They give amusing parties. But I’m too old to care and they’ll miss my conversation more than I do theirs. Of course, I back my daughter against the cats and monkeys. Of course, I back Valentine through thick and thin. I’d back her if she lived with a married man or had illegitimate children. But I don’t approve, I don’t approve of the suffragettes: I despise their aims, I detest their methods. I don’t think young girls ought to talk to strange men. Valentine spoke to you and look at the worry it has caused you. I disapprove. I’m a woman, but I’ve made my own way: other women could do it if they liked or had the energy. I disapprove! But don’t believe that I will ever go back on any suffragette, individual, in gangs; my Valentine or any other. Don’t believe that I will ever say a word against them that’s to be repeated — you won’t repeat them. Or that I will ever write a word against them. No, I’m a woman and I stand by my sex!”
She got up energetically:
“I must go and write my novel,” she said. “I’ve Monday’s instalment to send off by train to-night. You’ll go into my study: Valentine will give you paper, ink, twelve different kinds of nibs. You’ll find Professor Wannop’s books all round the room. You’ll have to put up with Valentine typing in the alcove. I’ve got two serials running, one typed, the other in manuscript.”
Tietjens said:
“But you!”
“I,” she exclaimed, “I shall write in my bedroom on my knee. I’m a woman and can. You’re a man and have to have a padded chair and sanctuary…. You feel fit to work? Then you’ve got till five; Valentine will get tea then. At half-past five you’ll set off to Rye. You’ll be back with your luggage and your friend and your friend’s luggage at seven.”
She silenced him imperiously with:
“Don’t be foolish. Your friend will certainly prefer this house and Valentine’s cooking to the pub and the pub’s cooking. And he’ll save on it…. It’s no extra trouble. I suppose your friend won’t inform against that wretched little suffragette girl upstairs.” She paused and said: “You’re sure you can do your work in the time and drive Valentine and her to that place… Why it’s necessary is that the girl daren’t travel by train and we’ve relations there who’ve never been connected with the suffragettes. The girl can live hid there for a bit…. But sooner than you shouldn’t finish your work I’d drive them myself….”
She silenced Tietjens again: this time sharply:
“I tell you it’s no extra trouble. Valentine and I always make our own beds. We don’t like servants among our intimate things. We can get three times as much help in the neighbourhood as we want. We’re liked here. The extra work you give will be met by extra help. We could have servants if we wanted. But Valentine and I like to be alone in the house together at night. We’re very fond of each other.”
She walked to the door and then drifted back to say:
“You know I can’t get out of my head that unfortunate woman and her husband. We must all do what we can for them.” Then she started and exclaimed: “But, good heavens, I’m keeping you from your work. The study’s in there, through that door.”