Some Do Not . . ._ A Novel - Ford Madox Ford [117]
'You aren't going away? Not without a kinder word to him. You think! He might be killed...Besides. Probably he's never killed a German. He was a liaison officer. Since then he's been in charge of a dump where they sift army dustbins. To see how they can give the men less to eat. That means that the civilians get more. You don't object to his giving civilians more meat?...It isn't even helping to kill Germans...
He felt her arm press his hand against her warm side. 'What's he going to do now?' she asked. Her voice wavered.
'That's what I'm here about,' Mark said. 'I'm going in to see old Hogarth. You don't know Hogarth? Old General Hogarth? I think I can get him to give Christopher a job with the transport. A safe job. Safeish! No beastly glory business about it. No killing beastly Germans either...I beg your pardon, if you like Germans.'
She drew her arm from his hand in order to look him in the face.
'Oh!' she said, 'you don't want him to have any beastly military glory!' The colour came back into her face: she looked at him open-eyed.
He said:
'No! Why the devil should he?' He said to himself: 'She's got enormous eyes: a good neck: good shoulders: good breasts: clean hips: small hands. She isn't knockkneed: neat ankles. She stands well on her feet. Feet not too large! Five foot four, say! A real good filly!' He went on aloud: 'Why in the world should he want to be a beastly soldier? He's the heir to Groby. That ought to be enough for one man.'
Having stood still sufficiently long for what she knew to be his critical inspection, she put her hand in turn, precipitately, under his arm and moved him towards the entrance steps.
'Let's be quick then,' she said. 'Let's get him into your transport at once. Before he goes to-morrow. Then we'll know he's safe.'
He was puzzled by her dress. It was very business-like, dark blue and very short. A white blouse with a black silk, man's tie. A wide-awake, with, on the front of the band, a cipher.
'You're in uniform yourself,' he said. 'Does your conscience let you do war work?'
She said:
'No. We're hard up. I'm taking the gym classes in a great big school to turn an honest penny...Do be quick!'
Her pressure on his elbow flattered him. He resisted it a little, hanging back, to make her more insistent. He liked being pleaded with by a pretty woman: Christopher's girl at that.
He said:
'Oh, it's not a matter of minutes. They keep 'em weeks at the base before they send 'em up...We'll fix him up all right, I've no doubt. We'll wait in the hall till he comes down.'
He told the benevolent commissionaire, one of two in a pulpit in the crowded grim hall, that he was going up to see General Hogarth in a minute or two. But not to send a bellboy. He might be some time yet.
He sat himself beside Miss Wannop, clumsily, on a wooden bench, humanity surging over their toes as if they had been on a beach. She moved a little to make room for him and that, too, made him feel good. He said:
'You said just now: "we" are hard up. Does "we" mean you and Christopher?'
She said:
'I and Mr Tietjens. Oh, no! I and mother! The paper she used to write for stopped. When your father died, I believe. He found money for it, I think. And mother isn't suited to free-lancing. She's worked too hard in her life.'
He looked at her, his round eyes protruding.
'I don't know what that is, free-lancing,' he said. 'But you've got to be comfortable. How much do you and your mother need to keep you comfortable? And put in a bit more so that Christopher could have a mutton-chop now and then!'
She hadn't really been listening. He said with some insistence: 'Look here! I'm here on business. Not like an elderly admirer forcing himself on you. Though, by God, I do admire you too...But my father wanted your mother to be comfortable...'
Her face, turned to him, became rigid.
'You don't mean...' she began. He said:
'You won't get it any quicker by interrupting. I have to tell my stories in my own way. My father wanted your mother to be comfortable. He said so that she could write books, not papers. I don't know what the difference is: that's what he said. He wants you to be comfortable too...You've not got any encumbrances! Not...oh, say a business: a hat shop that doesn't pay? Some girls have...