Some Do Not … by Ford Madox Ford (story read aloud txt) 📕

Mrs. Tietjens.⁠ ⁠… In the case of two people so much esteemed!⁠ ⁠… We have, of course, argued the matter of principle. It is a part of a subject I have very much at heart: the granting of divorce⁠ ⁠… civil divorce, at least⁠ ⁠… in cases in which one of the parties to the marriage is in a lunatic asylum. I have sent you the pamphlets of E. S. P. Haynes that we publish. I know that as a Roman Catholic you hold strong views.⁠ ⁠… I do not, I assure you, stand for latitude⁠ ⁠…” He became then simply eloquent: he really had the matter at heart, one of his sisters having been for many years married to a lunatic. He expatiated on the agonies of the situation all the more eloquently in that it was the only form of human distress which he had personally witnessed.

Sylvia took a long look at Tietjens: he imagined for counsel. He looked at her steadily for a moment, then at Port Scatho, who was earnestly turned to her, then back at her. He was trying to say:

“Listen to Port Scatho for a minute. I need time to think of my course of action!”

He needed, for the first time in his life, time to think of his course of action.

He had been thinking with his under mind ever since Sylvia had told him that she had written her letter to the benchers denouncing Macmaster and his woman; ever since Sylvia had reminded him that Mrs. Duchemin in the Edinburgh to London express of the day before the war had been in his arms, he had seen with extraordinary clearness a great many north country scenes though he could not affix names to all the places. The forgetfulness of the names was abnormal: he ought to know the names of places from Berwick down to the vale of York⁠—but that he should have forgotten the incidents was normal enough. They had been of little importance: he preferred not to remember the phases of his friend’s love affair; moreover, the events that happened immediately afterwards had been of a nature to make one forget quite normally what had just preceded them. That Mrs. Duchemin should be sobbing on his shoulder in a locked corridor carriage hadn’t struck him as in the least important: she was the mistress of his dearest friend; she had had a very trying time for a week or so, ending in a violent, nervous quarrel with her agitated lover. She was, of course, crying off the effects of the quarrel which had been all the more shaking in that Mrs. Duchemin, like himself, had always been almost too self-contained. As a matter of fact he did not himself like Mrs. Duchemin, and he was pretty certain that she herself more than a little disliked him; so that nothing but their common feeling for Macmaster had brought them together. General Campion, however, was not to know that.⁠ ⁠… He had looked into the carriage in the way one does in a corridor just after the train had left.⁠ ⁠… He couldn’t remember the name.⁠ ⁠… Doncaster⁠ ⁠… No!⁠ ⁠… Darlington; it wasn’t that. At Darlington there was a model of the Rocket⁠ ⁠… or perhaps it isn’t the Rocket. An immense clumsy leviathan of a locomotive by⁠ ⁠… by⁠ ⁠… The great gloomy stations of the north-going trains⁠ ⁠… Durham⁠ ⁠… No! Alnwick.⁠ ⁠… No!⁠ ⁠… Wooler.⁠ ⁠… By God! Wooler! The junction for Bamborough⁠ ⁠…

It had been in one of the castles at Bamborough that he and Sylvia had been staying with the Sandbachs. Then⁠ ⁠… a name had come into his mind spontaneously!⁠ ⁠… Two names!⁠ ⁠… It was, perhaps, the turn of the tide! For the first time⁠ ⁠… To be marked with a red stone⁠ ⁠… after this: some names, sometimes, on the tip of the tongue, might come over! He had, however, to get on.⁠ ⁠…

The Sandbachs, then, and he and Sylvia⁠ ⁠… others too⁠ ⁠… had been in Bamborough since mid-July: Eton and Harrow at Lord’s, waiting for the real house parties that would come with the 12th.⁠ ⁠… He repeated these names and dates to himself for the personal satisfaction of knowing that, amongst the repairs effected in his mind, these two remained: Eton and Harrow, the end of the London season: 12th of August, grouse shooting begins.⁠ ⁠… It was pitiful.⁠ ⁠…

When General Campion had come up to rejoin his sister he, Tietjens, had stopped only two days. The coolness between the two of them remained; it was the first time they had met, except in Court, after the accident.⁠ ⁠… For Mrs. Wannop, with grim determination, had sued the General for the loss of her horse. It had lived all right⁠—but it was only fit to draw a lawnmower for cricket pitches.⁠ ⁠… Mrs. Wannop, then, had gone bald-headed for the General, partly because she wanted the money, partly because she wanted a public reason for breaking with the Sandbachs. The General had been equally obstinate and had undoubtedly perjured himself in Court: not the best, not the most honourable, the most benevolent man in the world would not turn oppressor of the widow and orphan when his efficiency as a chauffeur was impugned or the fact brought to light that at a very dangerous turning he hadn’t sounded his horn. Tietjens had sworn that he hadn’t: the General that he had. There could not be any question of doubt, for the horn was a beastly thing that made a prolonged noise like that of a terrified peacock.⁠ ⁠… So Tietjens had not, till the end of that July, met the General again. It had been quite a proper thing for gentlemen to quarrel over and was quite convenient, though it had cost the General fifty pounds for the horse and, of course, a good bit over for costs. Lady Claudine had refused to interfere in the matter: she was privately of opinion that the General hadn’t sounded his horn, but the General was both a passionately devoted and explosive brother. She had remained closely intimate with Sylvia, mildly cordial with Tietjens and had continued to ask the Wannops to such of her