Some Do Not . . ._ A Novel - Ford Madox Ford [129]
Mrs Wannop they had formerly accepted as permanent leader writer and chief critic of a great organ, but the great organ having dwindled and now disappeared the Macmasters no longer wanted her at their parties. That was the game--and Valentine accepted it. But that it should have been with such insolence, so obviously meant to be noted--for in twice breaking up Mrs Wannop's little circle Mrs Duchemin had not even once so much as said: 'How d'ye do?' to the elder lady I--that was almost more than Valentine could, for the moment, bear, and she would have taken her mother away at once and would never have re-entered the house, but for the compensations.
Her mother had lately written and even found a publisher for a book--and the book had showed no signs of failing powers. On the contrary, having been perforce stopped off the perpetual journalism that had dissipated her energies, Mrs Wannop had turned out something that Valentine knew was sound, sane and well done. Abstractions of failing attention to the outside world are not necessarily in a writer signs of failing, as a writer. It may mean merely that she is giving so much thought to her work that her outside contacts suffer. If that is the case her work will gain. That this might be the case with her mother was Valentine's great and secret hope. Her mother was barely sixty: many great works have been written by writers aged between sixty and seventy...
And the crowding of youngish men round the old lady had given Valentine a little confirmation of that hope. The book naturally, in the maelstrom flux and reflux of the time, had attracted no attention, and poor Mrs Wannop had not succeeded in extracting a penny for it from her adamantine publisher: she hadn't, indeed, made a penny for several months, and they existed almost at starvation point in their little den of a villa--on Valentine's earnings as athletic teacher...But that little bit of attention in that semi-public place had seemed, at least, as a confirmation to Valentine: there probably was something sound, sane and well done in her mother's work. That was almost all she asked of life.
And, indeed, while she stood by her mother's chair, thinking with a little bitter pathos that if Edith Ethel had left the three or four young men to her mother the three or four might have done her poor mother a little good, with innocent puffs and the like--and heaven knew they needed that little good badly enough!--a very thin and untidy young man did drift back to Mrs Wannop and asked, precisely, if he might make a note or two for publication as to what Mrs Wannop was doing. 'Her book,' he said, 'had attracted so much attention. They hadn't known that they had still writers among them...'
A singular, triangular drive had begun through the chairs from the fireplace. That was how it had seemed to Valentine! Mrs Tietjens had looked at them, had asked Christopher a question and, immediately, as if she were coming through waist-high surf, had borne down Macmaster and Mrs Duchemin, flanking her obsequiously, setting aside chairs and their occupants, Tietjens and the two, rather bashfully following staff officers, broadening out the wedge.
Sylvia, her long arm held out from a yard or so away, was stretching out her hand to Valentine's mother. With her clear, high, unembarrassed voice she exclaimed, also from a yard or so away, so as to be heard by everyone in the room:
'You're Mrs Wannop. The great writer. I'm Christopher Tietjens' wife.'
The old lady, with her dim eyes, looked up at the younger woman towering above her.
'You're Christopher's wife!' she said. 'I must kiss you for all the kindness he has shown me'
Valentine felt her eyes filling with tears. She saw her mother stand up, place both her hands on the other woman's shoulders. She heard her mother say:
'You're a most beautiful creature. I'm sure you're good!'
Sylvia stood, smiling faintly, bending a little to accept the embrace. Behind the Macmasters, Tietjens and the staff officers, a little crowd of goggle eyes had ranged itself.
Valentine was crying. She slipped back behind the tea-urns, though she could hardly feel the way. Beautiful! The most beautiful woman she had ever seen! And good! Kind! You could see it in the lovely way she had given her cheek to that poor old woman's lips...And to live all day, for ever, beside him...she, Valentine, ought to be ready to lay down her life for Sylvia Tietjens...