PART ONE
I
The two young menâthey were of the English public official classâsat in the perfectly appointed railway carriage. The leather straps to the windows were of virgin newness; the mirrors beneath the new luggage racks immaculate as if they had reflected very little; the bulging upholstery in its luxuriant, regulated curves was scarlet and yellow in an intricate, minute dragon pattern, the design of a geometrician in Cologne. The compartment smelt faintly, hygienically of admirable varnish; the train ran as smoothlyâTietjens remembered thinkingâas British gilt-edged securities. It travelled fast; yet had it swayed or jolted over the rail joints, except at the curve before Tonbridge or over the points at Ashford where these eccentricities are expected and allowed for, Macmaster, Tietjens felt certain, would have written to the company. Perhaps he would even have written to The Times.
Their class administered the world, not merely the newly created Imperial Department of Statistics under Sir Reginald Ingleby. If they saw policemen misbehave, railway porters lack civility, an insufficiency of street lamps, defects in public services or in foreign countries, they saw to it, either with nonchalant Balliol voices or with letters to The Times, asking in regretful indignation: âHas the British This or That come to this?â Or they wrote, in the serious reviews of which so many still survived, articles taking under their care, manners, the Arts, diplomacy, inter-Imperial trade, or the personal reputations of deceased statesmen and men of letters.
Macmaster, that is to say, would do all that: of himself Tietjens was not so certain. There sat Macmaster; smallish; Whig; with a trimmed, pointed black beard, such as a smallish man might wear to enhance his already germinated distinction; black hair of a stubborn fibre, drilled down with hard metal brushes; a sharp nose; strong, level teeth; a white, butterfly collar of the smoothness of porcelain; a tie confined by a gold ring, steel-blue speckled with blackâto match his eyes, as Tietjens knew.
Tietjens, on the other hand, could not remember what coloured tie he had on. He had taken a cab from the office to their rooms, had got himself into a loose, tailored coat and trousers, and a soft shirt, had packed, quickly, but still methodically, a great number of things in an immense two-handled kit-bag, which you could throw into a guardâs van if need be. He disliked letting that âmanâ touch his things; he had disliked letting his wifeâs maid pack for him. He even disliked letting porters carry his kit-bag. He was a Toryâand as he disliked changing his clothes, there he sat, on the journey, already in large, brown, hugely welted and nailed golf boots, leaning forward on the edge of the cushion, his legs apart, on each knee an immense white handâand thinking vaguely.
Macmaster, on the other hand, was leaning back, reading some small, unbound printed sheets, rather stiff, frowning a little. Tietjens knew that this was, for Macmaster, an impressive moment. He was correcting the proofs of his first book.
To this affair, as Tietjens knew, there attached themselves many fine shades. If, for instance, you had asked Macmaster whether he were a writer, he would have replied with the merest suggestion of a deprecatory shrug.
âNo, dear lady!â for of course no man would ask the question of anyone so obviously a man of the world. And he would continue with a smile: âNothing so fine! A mere trifle at odd moments. A critic, perhaps. Yes! A little of critic.â
Nevertheless Macmaster moved in drawing rooms that, with long curtains, blue china plates, large-patterned wallpapers and large, quiet mirrors, sheltered the long-haired of the Arts. And, as near as possible to the dear ladies who gave the At Homes, Macmaster could keep up the talkâa little magisterially. He liked to be listened to with respect when he spoke of Botticelli, Rossetti, and those early Italian artists whom he called âThe Primitives.â Tietjens had seen him there. And he didnât disapprove.
For, if they werenât, these gatherings, Society, they formed a stage on the long and careful road to a career in a first-class Government office. And, utterly careless as Tietjens imagined himself of careers or offices, he was, if sardonically, quite sympathetic towards his friendâs ambitiousnesses. It was an odd friendship, but the oddnesses of friendships are a frequent guarantee of their lasting texture.
The youngest son of a Yorkshire country gentleman, Tietjens himself was entitled to the bestâthe best that first-class public offices and first-class people could afford. He was without ambition, but these things would come to him as they do in England. So he could afford to be negligent of his attire, of the company he kept, of the opinions he uttered. He had a little private income under his motherâs settlement; a little income from the Imperial Department of Statistics; he had married a woman of means, and he was, in the Tory manner, sufficiently a master of flouts and jeers to be listened to when he spoke. He was twenty-six; but, very big, in a fair, untidy, Yorkshire way, he carried more weight than his age warranted. His chief, Sir Reginald Ingleby, when Tietjens chose to talk of public tendencies which influenced statistics, would listen with attention. Sometimes Sir Reginald would say: âYouâre a perfect encyclopaedia of exact material knowledge, Tietjens,â and Tietjens thought that that was his due, and he would accept the tribute in silence.
At a word from Sir Reginald, Macmaster, on the other hand, would murmur: âYouâre very good, Sir Reginald!â and Tietjens thought that perfectly proper.
Macmaster was a little the senior in the service, as he was probably a little the senior in age. For, as to his roommateâs years, or as to his exact origins, there was a certain blank in Tietjensâ knowledge. Macmaster was obviously Scotch by birth, and you accepted him as what was called a son of the manse. No doubt he was really the son of a grocer in Cupar or a railway porter in Edinburgh. It does not matter with the Scotch, and as he was very properly reticent as to his ancestry, having accepted him, you didnât, even mentally, make enquiries.
Tietjens always had accepted Macmasterâat Clifton, at Cambridge, in Chancery Lane and in their rooms at Grayâs Inn. So for Macmaster he had a very deep affectionâeven a gratitude. And Macmaster might be considered as returning these feelings. Certainly he had always done his best to be of service to Tietjens. Already at the Treasury and attached as private secretary to Sir Reginald Ingleby, whilst Tietjens was still at Cambridge, Macmaster had brought to the notice of Sir Reginald Tietjensâ many great natural gifts, and Sir Reginald, being on the look-out for young men for his ewe lamb, his newly founded department, had very readily accepted Tietjens as his third in command. On the other hand, it had been Tietjensâ father who had recommended Macmaster to the notice of Sir Thomas Block at the Treasury itself. And, indeed, the Tietjens family had provided a little moneyâthat was Tietjensâ mother reallyâto get Macmaster through Cambridge and install him in Town. He had repaid the small sumâpaying it partly by finding room in his chambers for Tietjens when in turn he came to Town.
With a Scots young man such a position had been perfectly possible. Tietjens had been able to go to his fair, ample, saintly mother in her morning-room and say:
âLook here, mother, that fellow Macmaster! Heâll need a little money to get through the University,â and his mother would answer:
âYes, my dear. How much?â
With an English young man of the lower orders that would have left a sense of class obligation. With Macmaster it just didnât.
During Tietjensâ late troubleâfor four months before Tietjensâ wife had left him to go abroad with another manâMacmaster had filled a place that no other mart could have filled. For the basis of Christopher Tietjensâ emotional existence was a complete taciturnityâat any rate as to his emotions. As Tietjens saw the world, you didnât âtalk.â Perhaps you didnât even think about how you felt.
And, indeed, his wifeâs flight had left him almost completely without emotions that he could realize, and he had not spoken more than twenty words at most about the event. Those had been mostly to his father, who, very tall, very largely built, silver-haired and erect, had drifted, as it were, into Macmasterâs drawing-room in Grayâs Inn, and after five minutes of silence had said:
âYou will divorce?â
Christopher had answered:
âNo! No one but a blackguard would ever submit a woman to the ordeal of divorce.â
Mr Tietjens had suggested that, and after an interval had asked:
âYou will permit her to divorce you?â
He had answered:
âIf she wishes it. Thereâs the child to be considered.â Mr Tietjens said:
âYou will get her settlement transferred to the child?â Christopher answered:
âIf it can be done without friction.â
Mr Tietjens had commented only:
âAh!â Some minutes later he had said:
âYour motherâs very well.â Then: âThat motor-plough didnât answer,â and then: âI shall be dining at the club.â Christopher said:
âMay I bring Macmaster in, sir? You said you would put him up.â
Mr Tietjens answered:
âYes, do. Old General ffolliot will be there. Heâll second him. Heâd better make his acquaintance.â He had gone away.
Tietjens considered that his relationship with his father was an almost perfect one. They were like two men in the clubâthe only club; thinking so alike that there was no need to talk. His father had spent a great deal of time abroad before succeeding to the estate. When, over the moors, he went into the industrial town that he owned, he drove always in a coach-and-four. Tobacco smoke had never been known inside Groby Hall: Mr Tietjens had twelve pipes filled every morning by his head gardener and placed in rose bushes down the drive. These he smoked during the day. He farmed a good deal of his own land; had sat for Holdernesse from 1876 to 1881, and had not presented himself for election after the redistribution of seats; he was patron of eleven livings; rode to hounds every now and then, and shot fairly regularly. He had three other sons and two daughters, and was now sixty-one.
To his sister Effie, on the day after his wifeâs elopement, Christopher had said over the telephone:
âWill you take Tommie for an indefinite period? Mar-chant will come with him. She offers to take charge of your two youngest as well, so youâll save a maid, and Iâll pay their board and a bit over.â
The voice of his sisterâfrom Yorkshireâhad answered: âCertainly, Christopher.â She was the wife of a vicar, near Groby, and she had several children.
To Macmaster Tietjens had said:
âSylvia has left me with that fellow Perowne.â Macmaster had answered only: âAh!â
Tietjens had continued:
âIâm letting the house and warehousing the furniture. Tommie is going to my sister Effie. Marchant is going with him.â
Macmaster had said:
âThen youâll be wanting your old rooms.â Macmaster occupied a very large storey of the Grayâs Inn buildings. After Tietjens had left him on his marriage he had continued to enjoy solitude, except that his man had moved down from the attic to the bedroom formerly occupied by Tietjens.
Tietjens said:
âIâll come in to-morrow night if I may. That will give Ferens time to get back into his attic.â
That morning, at breakfast, four months having passed, Tietjens had received a letter from his wife. She asked, without any contrition at all, to be taken back. She was fed-up with Perowne and Brittany.
Tietjens looked up at Macmaster. Macmaster was already half out of his chair, looking at him with enlarged, steel-blue eyes, his beard quivering. By the time Tietjens spoke Macmaster had his hand on the neck of the cut-glass brandy decanter in the brown wood tantalus.
Tietjens said:
âSylvia asks me to take her back.â
Macmaster said:
âHave a little of this!â
Tietjens was about to say: âNo,â automatically. He changed that to:
âYes. Perhaps. A liqueur glass.â
He noticed that the lip of the decanter agitated, tinkling on the glass. Macmaster must be trembling. Macmaster, with his back still turned, said:
âShall you take her back?â
Tietjens answered:
âI imagine so.â The brandy warmed his chest in its descent.
Macmaster said:
âBetter have another.â
Tietjens answered:
âYes. Thanks.â
Macmaster went on with his breakfast and his letters. So did Tietjens. Ferens ...