APPENDIX

This appendix concerns the 47 typewritten leaves preserved separately from the bulk typescript of 200 leaves that corresponds to the published text of the novel. They have been numbered in pencil in the bottom right-hand corner by the librarian or archivist and, since the typed numbers at the top right-hand corners of these leaves are often duplicated and not always strictly sequential, I shall refer to the librarian’s pencilled numbers for the sake of clarity.

Two brief sequences bookend the more substantial sections. The first two leaves (1–2) duplicate leaves 129a and 131 in the main typescript and correspond to the end of I.vii in the published text, from ‘just before seemed to have a good deal of temperature’ to the chapter’s conclusion (‘that young couple’), while the final four leaves (44–7) duplicate leaves 160–3 in the main typescript and correspond to part of II.ii in the published text, from ‘For it came back to her with sudden extraordinary clearness’ to ‘as if strength had gone out from her’: Sylvia’s recollections first of the incident with the gardener when she was a girl and then of the court case.

The second section begins with a title leaf (3), ‘LAST POST/ Part II.’ but the first eight leaves correspond to the opening of II.i in the published volume, though the last leaf (11) contains only four lines on the page and ends in mid-sentence. The following thirteen leaves (12–24) begin mid-sentence and continue that material though perhaps three or four lines are missing at the point of juncture. These 21 leaves (4–24) lack a good many of the revisions made on the primary typescript that have found their way into UK.

There follow ten leaves that comprise two copies each of five leaves (25–34), followed by three copies of a sixth leaf (35–7). The five leaves (or pairs of leaves) show practically no revisions, and those few are typewritten. The second of the three copies of the sixth leaf has the equivalent of three complete lines erased by hand and three other autograph emendations. Then follow two copies of the next leaf (38–9), two single leaves (40, 41) and two copies of the final leaf (42–3) in the sequence, the second half of which is a variant of the first half of leaf 40.

This section is the only material from these leaves that was excluded from the published novel and follows on from the separation of Campion and Fittleworth from Sylvia (II.ii). While UK remains with Sylvia, this section leaves her fairly abruptly and remains with the two men.

We don’t know why Ford cut this section but there were two likely reasons. Firstly, Fittleworth might emerge as an implausibly admirable feudal figure, a landlord remarkably concerned with the well-being of his tenants and neighbours, verging indeed on the figures in Tietjens’ good-humoured reflections in No More Parades I.iv on his official religion: God the great English landowner, Christ ‘an almost too benevolent land steward […] knowing all about the estate down to the last child at the porter’s lodge’. Secondly, Fittleworth’s change of heart, his readiness to criticise not only Campion but Sylvia too, his willingness to defend Christopher even to the point of using his own and his wife’s influence to damage Campion’s prospects of ‘getting’ India – all this would throw out the balance of the book, the tensions of it, and would radically undermine another ‘change of heart’: Sylvia’s. She has been, already and quite plausibly, unsettled by Fittleworth whom she cannot ‘read’, whose motives (and values) she cannot grasp. This is a significant factor in her retreat, but the two primary ones must, I think, remain a general weariness, a reluctant recognition that her world is waning; and the religious aspect of that change of heart, her ‘vision’ of Father Consett already prepared for and her adherence (however fitful and idiosyncratic) to her faith well established. The inclusion of this material would, in short, have made it too easy for Christopher, and he must go on as he is now – always with that rather abstracted expression, a little worried, a little fatigued, ‘since the salvation of a world is a large order’.

Ford’s typing has been faithfully reproduced, including the varying number of dots in his ellipses. Textual indications of inserted or deleted text follow the conventions established in the main text. Numerals indicate the divisions of the TS leaves.

 

[25–6] His Lordship said that, damn it, that was just what it was. If that fellow was the sort of fellow Mrs Tietjens said he was her Ladyship would properly curl his, Lord Fittleworth’s whiskers, for letting Helen go down into that sink of iniquity.

Sylvia, whilst the general choked, said that as she herself intended to descend into that dangerous vicinity she did not see why Helen Luther should not. She presumed the young woman could look after herself.

Fittleworth said that it was not that. The general exclaimed:

“Surely you would not…..” but his voice lost itself in other noises made by his agitated throat.

Fittleworth exclaimed:

“Damn it all this fellow Gunning would wear out the patience of ….” He beckoned the general towards him with his crop handle. Their horses, relieved to be out of the neighbourhood of Sylvia Tietjens’ chestnut minced gently along the road. “This fellow Gunning….” his Lordship began…. He continued with great animation: “About these gates…. You know my estate carpenter repairs all the gates in my country. Independent of whether they are on my or my tenents’ [sic] lands or any other fellow’s…. Hang it, your confounded nephew – godson – whatever he is to you…. Is he a Bolshevik…What the hell is he? He appears to be like everybody else….”

He broke off because his horse jolted three paces in advance. When the general caught him up he said:

“And a pretty penny repairing these blasted fellows’ blasted gates stands me in….” He added that he did not care whether Christopher Tietjens was a Bolshevik or anything else. He did not pretend to look after his tenents’ [sic] morals or politics or anyone else’s in his district. But he did look after their unting. He said unting always in reference to Mr Jorrocks1 just as he said that his countess would curl his whiskers, although he wore no whiskers. His father however had used that expression and had worn whiskers. He took [27–8] in fact from tadition [sic] what he wanted to take from tradition. His father had always objected to gates that bumped the behinds as he called it of lady riders’ horses after they had gone through. A gate should not swing to in a hunting country. His lordship paid an army of earth-stoppers, foot huntsmen, spare-horse-men and fellows that looked like tramps. They had to see that all field-gates were closed after members of the hunt had gone through. The tenants’ beasts of course must not get out.

But that blasted cunning fellow Gunning would make all his master’s field- and path-gates cant inwards; so they swung to. And made the latches difficult to lift with a crop. Latches ought to open at a touch and gates to stand as they swung. And there were more paths going through Tietjens’ fields and timber than on any other blasted place in our [sic] out of the estate…Of course gates must be kept shut…But that fellow went round after the estate carpenter and canted all the gateposts inwards, ramming stakes down beside them. And wedged up the latches …. His Lordship went on and on. Suddenly however he exclaimed:

“But all that does not make this confounded fellow – Mark’s brother – I mean, necessarily a Bolshevik…Damn it all what does it all mean, Campion?”

The general said he would be confounded if he knew. Sylvia said now one thing, now another, the one completely contradicting the other. Of course she was justified in saying anything she liked: she had been atrociously treated. But it made the issues confused…Look at how atrocious it was of that fellow to get his brother to buy property in just the neighbourhood that Sylvia desired to frequent, considering her <intimacy> friendship with the Fittleworths.

Fittleworth said:

“Stop there, you know. Mrs Tietjens never honoured me with much of her friendship till her husband bought this place. It was her husband bought the place, not old Mark. Old Mark has stayed with me often enough and glad we always were to have him. But Mrs Tietjens never, till lately. It was old Mark, [29–30] as far as I understand it who put his brother up to buying the place. I would not have sold to anyone else. I am not under the necessity of selling my land. But an outlying piece – to <satisfy> oblige an old friend. I don’t mind that. So now you know.”

The general said:

“Damn it all, Fittleworth, what do I know? …. What can any body know?”

The two old gentlemen rgarded [sic] each other like well-bred dogs. They were not friends. The general considered that the earl was not doing his duty by the country because he did not <atke an avtive> ↑take an active↓ part in politics on the part of the government that should make him commander in chief of the forces in the country of Hyder Ali.2 The earl considered that, according to the traditions of his House a peer should not take an active part in politics. The earl therefore considered that the general, the son of a peer, was importunate: the general considered the earl as, if nota [sic] traitor to his extate [sic], then at least indifferent to the interest of his order.

But if they were not friends at least they did not snarl. They were of the same order if holding different views. They both considered, for instance, that a gentleman does not mix his liquors. You should not drink brandy after beer or whiskey after wine. As long as you do not do that and as long as you take a cold bath in the morning you are all right.

The general said:

“No, I do not suppose that my godson Christopher is a Bolshevist…. Theawkward – the damnable – thing for a godson of mine is that, according to Sylvia, he seems to model himself after…after Jesus Christ, in short.”

The earl regarded the immense view, a great part of which he owned. It spread out beneath their eyes under the hedgerow – at first the great copses and spinneys of beech, then plantations of fir, then ploughlands with farms at the intersections of hedgerows, then rolling country – four counties, ending in gentle undulations and purple hills.

[31–2] The earl regarded the view. The general exploded suddenly into extraordinary blasphemy at the thought that his godson should desire the Redeemer to be his model. He desired to give all his goods to the poor – something of that sort. In the name of God what was to become of the country if ……

The Earl pointed the stag-horn handle of his crook [sic] at a square-towered church three miles away in the blue-grey woods.

“Well,” he said, “What is to become of the country? I don’t know. All this is my country. But who’s the deuce it will be after me, God knows….”

“But to model yourself…..”, the general exclaimed.

“You might do worse,” his interlocutor asserted tentatively. “Didn’t someone say…. Our Lord, I daresay, say ‘And he had great possessions’ …I tell you they worry you out of your life. I’m sometimes thankful Cammy has no children.”

“But what”, the General exclaimed, “is to become of the country? How are we to save India and the Colonies?”

The Earl removed his eyes from the view and fixed them darkly on the man beside him.

“I’m damned if I know”, he said, “and I don’t know that I’m not damned if I care. The country – this land – is much what it was when my grandfather owned. If he got up out of the grave and came to look at it ↑he↓ would not see much difference. Nor his grandfather before him. Nor his. Nor the Poindestres before them……”3

“But if the right people”, the general maintained, “are giving up the job, what is to become of the country? What? What in the name of the Almighty? For that’s what is damnable. Sylvia says that this degenerate oaf of a nephew [sic] of mine refuses – refuses, mind you – to own or look after Groby. Do you know what Groby is? You could put your place in a corner of it and not find it. And they’re chopping down the trees. And they won’t let me have the [33–4] Dower House for my hunting box…. Well, then?”

“Doesn’t it occur to you”, the peer said, “that they may not be the right persons to look after property? I don’t know. If old Mark chooses to run an Agapemone at the age of sixty five – He’s much the same age as myself – I don’t see why he should not.4 But you cannot run a great estate on those terms. The right sort of person to possess an estate is the right sort of person to run it. I daresay I am: at any rate I have done it for a long time and no complaints….. Ifyour godson does not consider himself to be the proper person to run his estate it is damn creditable of him if he does not. And for the matter of that he seems to be a pretty creditable sort of person. At any rate he’s a marvellous hand with a horse. I asked him as a favour to take in the Countess’s Flora for a week and she was not the same mare afterwards.”

The general exclaimed:

“Creditable! That fellow! My God, if Sylvia heard you!”

Lord Fittleworth said:

“That’s all I have to say about it. It does not interest me much. These people are here. They have a right to be. The Countess has left cards on old Mark and his wife and Lady Mark left cards on us. She same [sic] to a garden party when it was mostly tenants. A fine woman. A damn fine woman; French and no worse for that. And that’s that. Live and let live is my motto. And Cammie’s. I daresay Cammie would leave cards on your godson’s light of love, if she saw her way to it…But that’s different from liking Helen Luther to go down there. American’s [sic] apparently ain’t like us. Cammie would be afraid of what her connections would say to her if they knew!”
[TS has line break here]

The general exclaimed:

“Hang it all. It’s incomprehensible to me. There you are, a great landowner; a man of the old school. I remember your father. And you are as [35–7; two of the three copies of this leaf have no emendations; the emended page is the one transcribed] indifferent to the well-being of your inferiors…..”

Fittleworth said:

“Hang it all, Campion, if it comes to well-being how can I tell they mayn’t know as well or better than I what’s good for them? No, my motto is Never interfere and never interfere it will continue to be. Besides: what do you want me to do?”

The general shook his head. He did not know. He would be hanged if he knew.

“Dnounce [sic] your godson to the police? As a Bolshevik? In order to gratify Sylvia <by making that girl have a miscarriage at the visit of the police AR>? I’m not so green. Besides, old Mark has a stake in the country too. You say yourself he’s a greater stake than me! And he<’s> ↑was always↓ a damn sight more of a public figure than I <am>. The police would <a deal sight> more likely listen to him than to me. I never made a speech but once in the House of Lords and then it was about Foot and Mouth Disease and I broke down because my language pained the Lord Chancellor. He looked like a cat that had swallowed a glass of lemon-juice, old Halsbury on the Woolsack….5 All the same you are bound to have foot and mouth disease <o>↑i↓f you let Canadian cattle in alive. And there’s an end of hunting, for I’m as ready to admit as any man that you can’t have hounds running through tainted country.

The general said:

<”The country is going to the dogs anyhow if you have this sort of thing going on. Hang it all AR> ↑“↓If a bankrupt, discredited fellow like that is to be allowed to settle down in peace. In open sin! With the daughter of his father’s best friend. Getting bastards and ….”

“Oh damn it, Campion”, Fittleworth grinned, ↑with sudden fury AR↓ “You’ve trodden on the wrong toe this time. The country’s all right if that’s all that’s wrong with it. Wasn’t my own grandfather a bastard? And didn’t William IV give the peerage to him to please his father who was the eleventh earl of the old line? You’ve come to the wrong shop to talk of that. The wrong shop! If I [38–9] could divert the peerage and the settled estates from that idle devil Wentworth to my Harry – and no offence to Cammie because she’s no children – do you suppose I wouldn’t do it…. No, you’ve come to the wrong shop…”

His lordship was quivering with anger. He thought slowly, but with passion.

“The whole thing,” he said, “your whole confounded show is on a wrong basis. I don’t know that I approve of selling all your goods and giving them to the poor. I shouldn’t do it myself – but Our Lord recommends the course and I have not gone every Sunday to service in that church there – every Sunday morning, child and boy and man for sixty years and then to deny that our Lord is a good chap to follow, heaven help me. You’ve overshot the mark and I’d advise you – you are nearly as old as I and ought to have learnt some wisdom – I’d advise you to retrace your steps. You’re so damn under the thumb of Sylvia that you have lost all sense of…. of….. proportion. I’d advise you to use all the influence you have with her to stop this show. Now. Here!” He stopped to shorten his reins. The general stoutly maintained:

“Sylvia has been damn badly used. That fellow….”

Fittleworth’s horse tried on a little fit of impatience at the waiting. The peer had to readjust his hat so he lost his train of thought. He began upon another.

“I’ve been damn in the wrong myself”, he said. “Damnably! If what you say is true…. And it is…. this Tietjens fellow is as much a great landowner as myself. He’s my equal and we ought to stand together. You can’t get away from that, you who are always blatting about duty to your class. Then I have been wanting in my duty. If that fellow chooses – does me the honour – to settle on my land it’s my duty to see that he lives in peace with his doxy and all. He may not choose to spaffle his money but that does not make him any less Tietjens of Groby to all intents and purposes because old Mark’s done for…. Then it’sbeen damnably wanting in hospitality in me to let Sylvia come down here and pin-prick these people. That’s what it’s been and you know it.

[40] “You mean,” the general said with a certain stiffness, “that we are not welcome…MY godson’s wife and I are not welcome. I may say that I approve of all her actions….” He was at that moment Lord Edward Campion, Lieutenant General, M.P. and so on.

“Then I should advise you to give up approving, damn sharp!” the Earl said. “Your welcome here is sound enough. Her ladyship likes Sylvia or she would not be here. So do I. But it’s time Sylvia dropped it. I did not understand the lay of the land. Now I begin to…. Well, you take a friendly word while it’s still friendly. You want India and you will be a damn good man in India. But you stop monkeying between that man and his wife or you will burn your fingers so you will not be able to sign G.O.C.i.C’s Orders.”

Campion’s moustache stood up; his mouth opened; he leaned right back in his saddle, extending his stirrups to the full forward cock of his legs.

He said:

“Excuse me Fittleworth, you’re speaking as….”

“I’m speaking” Fittleworth said, “as myself. But I’m voicing a whole lot of people. I’ll tell you the way Lady Fittleworth sees it – since last night. That fellow – the younger brother – has taken his punishment. There’s every symptom that he wants to marry that gal. It’s you who stop him – for the fun of the thing. You’ve dragged him through every sort of mud, private and public. . Well, that’s his affair. But this is mine – and Cammie’s. I’m not one to mince matters. As for her Ladyship she’s straighter than I. She <will> can make more fuss in the Lord Chamberlain’s Office…. say in the Lord Chamberlain’s Office…You understand what I mean….”

The general began to grow white round the nostrils.

“This appears to be a threat, Fittleworth,” he said.

“It means,” Fittleworth said, “that if you and Sylvia do not stop tormenting those people while you are under my roof – and when you’re elsewhere – Cammie will ask Sylvia to pack her bags. And it means that Lady Fittleworth will use [41] all her influence…And mine. . In say the Office….”

His Lordship who had begun to speak with harsh emotion here exclaimed:

“What the devil’s that?”

A singular, varnished, black basket work chaise had approached them, emerging from the shadow of high beeches along the road. It contained a thin, graceful widow in extraordinarily deep weeds, who drove, a singularly emaciated man in a high silk hat, who wore a beard of a curly kind that singularly did not become him, and a hatless, very young man whose hair curled. Its slow progress was occasioned by a too obese cob whose skin and harness nevertheless shone.

The general said:

“I’ve hitherto regarded myself as the champion….” Fittleworth drew his horse alongside the hedge, but the pony-chaise stopped.

The emaciated man exclaimed:

“You would singularly oblige us, Lord Fittleworth, if you would assist us to get to Mark Tietjens’” He held his top-hatted head on one side and used his jaws with the air of a magpie that was eating something distasteful.

Fittleworth pointed with his crop.

“Tietjens’ place is down there,” he said, “But you won’t be able to do much with him. I seem to know you.”

“This,” His interlocutor said, “is Lady Duchemin [?]” His voice took on an additional tone of distaste: “This is Mr Redfern, the poet…I myself am Ruggles…of the …in short of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office!”
[42–3] It’s all right for a woman to avenge her wrongs: but only within limits. If a man of our class – your’s too if you like though your father made his money in beer! – if a man of our class chooses not to live with his wife he doesn’t and who’s to interfere? He isn’t anybody’s <[tenant]> so his landlord can’t. Nor yet the Archbishop of Canterbury, So his wife has to lump it. That’s the way of our class and chance it. It’s the way of old Gunning’s class to [sic]: I don’t know about the middle classes.” [The remainder of this leaf repeats in part the beginning of leaf 40 but with certain differences]

“You mean,” the general said with a certain stiffness, “that we are not welcome…. Mygodson’s wife and I are not welcome…..”

“Oh, damn it all your welcome is sound enough. Cammie likes Sylvia <well enough> or she would not be here. So do I. But it’s time she dropped it. I didn’t understand the lay of the <old> land. Now I do…. And let me tell you this, Campion. You want India and you will be a damn good man in India. But you stop monkeying between man and wife or you will burn your fingers so you won’t be able to sign Orders…. And there’s another thing [TS ends here]

1 Jorrocks appears in several works by R.S. Surtees and probably influenced Dickens in his creation of The Pickwick Papers. Jorrocks’s Jaunts and Jollities (collected edition 1838) was followed by Handley Cross (1843) and Hillingdon Hall (1845).

2 Hyder (or Haider) Ali was a soldier and ruler of Mysore in the late eighteenth century who waged war against the British.

3 Ford’s ‘The Old Story’ (Cornell), probably an early version of The Nature of a Crime, has a narrator called Ambrose Poindestre (information from Max Saunders, who mentions the story in Dual Life I 212).

4 The internal evidence of the novel suggests that Mark is no more than fifty-five; see the Introduction.

5 Hardinge Giffard (1823–1921) was created Baron Halsbury in 1885 and appointed Lord Chancellor. He held the position again from 1886–92 and from 1895–1905.