It had been obvious to her for a long time that God would one day step in and intervene for the protection of Christopher. After all Christopher was a good man -- a rather sickeningly good man. It is, in the end, she reluctantly admitted, the function of God and the invisible Powers to see that a good man shall eventually be permitted to settle down to a stuffy domestic life... even to chaffering over old furniture. It was a comic affair -- but it was the sort of affair that you had to admit. God is probably -- and very rightly -- on the side of the stuffy domesticities.Graham Greene called The Last Post a mistake and omitted from his collected edition of the Parade's End novels (1 2 3), operating according to what seem to have been Ford's express wishes. I am not sure I agree with Ford and his protege, but the purpose of this novel does remain unclear. The last time we saw Christopher Tietjens, he was celebrating Armistice Day, having decided once and for all to abandon the income of Groby, his ancestral home, and to take up with his would-be mistress, Valentine Wannop. It was an awfully sweet ending for a series about a perpetually tortured man, and it's hard to shake the feeling that Ford couldn't resist adding a dash of bitters:
It had come through to Marie Leonie partly then and partly subsequently that Christopher's wife had turned up at Christopher's empty house that was in the Square only a few yards away. They had gone back late at night probably for purposes of love and had found her there. She had come for the purpose of telling them that she was going to be operated on for cancer so that with their sensitive natures they could hardly contemplate going to bed together at that moment.
In the first novel, Father Consett, the confessor of Tietjens' vindictive wife Sylvia, warns that if Christopher ever leaves her for another woman, "[t]he world will echo with her wrongs." In this way, Ford's impulse to write a fourth novel makes sense; Sylvia Tietjens would never consent to simply let Tietjens and Valentine live together apart from her torments. And true to form, on Armistice Day she invents a lie about cancer to keep them apart.
The most perplexing thing about The Last Post, however, is that it's barely about Tietjens at all. The strongest character is his brother, Mark, who has had some sort of seizure brought on by the news that England has refused to follow the Germans into their own territory. Mark maintains that his paralysis is voluntary--he echoes Iago's insistence that "from this time forth I never will speak word"--but whether that is true is never clear. The narrative perspective bounces from Mark to his recently married mistress, Marie Leonie, to Valentine, but Christopher is away on an aeroplane, gone to Groby to convince Sylvia's tenants there not to tear down the symbolic Great Groby Tree.
But Sylvia of course, is at Christopher's house, in order to "torture that girl out of her mind. That was why she was there now. She imagined Valentine under the high roof suffering tortures because she, Sylvia, was looking down over the hedge." She brings with her (for reasons that are never all that clear to me) a murderers' row of the series' villains: General Campion, Tietjens' godfather who sends him to the front because of Sylvia's mud-slinging; Ruggles, who does much of Sylvia's dirt-digging; Edith Ethel Duchemin, who hates Tietjens because her husband owes him money; Mrs. de Bray Pape, the uncouth American who is renting Groby (and believes herself the spiritual descendant of Louis XIV's consort); even Michael Mark, Tietjens' son, whose dubious parentage tortures Tietjens. All this leads to a very tense climax in which Sylvia, at the head of her phalanx of scoundrels, confronts a defenseless Valentine. But, because this is Ford, things do not turn out as they seem that they will:
[Sylvia said, "]They can all, soon, call you Mrs. Tietjens. Before God, I came to drive those people out... But I wanted to see how it was you kept him..."
Sylvia Tietjens was keeping her head turned aside, drooping. Hiding a tendency to tears, no doubt. She said to the floor.
"I say again, as God hears me, I never thought to harm your child. His child... But any woman's... Not harm a child... I have a fine one, but I wanted another... with its littleness... It's the riding has done it..." Someone sobbed!
Sylvia, having come intent to destroy Valentine psychologically, discovers that Valentine is pregnant with Tietjens' child and cannot do it. Perhaps the corruption of an innocent thing is too far; perhaps it is the realization that Valentine has succeeded where she could not, not just in keeping him, but in giving him a child that is doubtlessly his, and a family. I wish that I knew what that last phrase--it's the riding has done it--meant, but I have not been able to figure it out.
Is The Last Post a failure? On one hand, it ties up the loose end of Sylvia, who broods over the happy ending of A Man Could Stand Up--, and I think it does so appropriately. On the other hand, there's something discordant about packaging Christopher Tietjens away in an aeroplane to finish the tetralogy which is expressly his. I am reminded of Rabbit Remembered, but in that case Rabbit was dead, and the novella was written in the spirit of mourning. The Last Post is a novel of mourning too, but for an English culture that has perished with the war (like Groby Great Tree, which takes out half Groby wall with it).
Tietjens' absence, however, provides us--with what, exactly? More space for someone like Marie Leonie, Mark Tietjens' wife, who gives us the French perspective on the end of World War I, I suppose. Marie Leonie is a well-developed, intriguing character, and so is the "paralyzed" Mark, but they aren't Tietjens, and so the experience of reading The Last Post is like ordering the steak and being served the beef consomme.
But--then again--these books are wonderful and it's wonderful to have more of them. I am a little sad to have done with them, but I have the upcoming BBC adaptation to look forward to, scripted by none other than Tom Stoppard. It will probably be the best five hours of television that anyone has ever seen, ever.
5 comments:
my own interpretation of sylvia's cryptic statement about 'the riding that's done it' is that her athleticism (which is often mentioned in regards to her physical appearance) led to infertility or a miscarriage in the years when she was with christopher. i have no idea if others have interpreted it this way, but that's my take on it.
best,
emma
Yes, it was commonly believed that vigorous riding could cause a miscarriage.
Of course, the real reason that Sylvia had no (other) child by Christopher was her refusal to share a bed with him after she returned from her little escapade on the Continent. No doubt she expected him to plead for her favors--surely, all men must desire The Beautiful Sylvia! Or rough her up, perhaps; the relationship with Drake seems to have begun almost violently. So she tried to attract his attention by torturing him & wrecking his reputation. It didn't work.
I recall Tietjens thinking that Sylvia thought her accusations were true--when she made them. Thus, she could look back with regret on the babies she never had--even though she hadn't wanted them, at the time. Once again, she was trying to fool herself.
Sylvia had great powers for destruction but lacked focus. Edith Ethel, now, was quite efficient in fostering Macmaster's career (& separating him from his friend). Alas, Macmaster did not flourish--but a wealthy widow can afford to look well in black.
Yes, it was commonly believed that vigorous riding could cause a miscarriage.
Of course, the real reason that Sylvia had no (other) child by Christopher was her refusal to share a bed with him after she returned from her little escapade on the Continent. No doubt she expected him to plead for her favors--surely, all men must desire The Beautiful Sylvia! Or rough her up, perhaps; the relationship with Drake seems to have begun almost violently. So she tried to attract his attention by torturing him & wrecking his reputation. It didn't work.
I recall Tietjens thinking that Sylvia thought her accusations were true--when she made them. Thus, she could look back with regret on the babies she never had--even though she hadn't wanted them, at the time. Once again, she was trying to fool herself.
Sylvia had great powers for destruction but lacked focus. Edith Ethel, now, was quite efficient in fostering Macmaster's career (& separating him from his friend). Alas, Macmaster did not flourish--but a wealthy widow can afford to look well in black.
That makes sense, thanks! I love hearing the opinion of others on these books.
It's Mark Tietjens that first says "You poor bitch! you poor bitch! The riding has done it".
Whether he does speak then or Sylvia imagines it can't be known, but it seems likely, - the shock may have broken his paralysis and he speaks to Marie-Leonie and Valentine later. However,what is surprising is his feeling sorry for Sylvia - for whom he has previously shown absolutely no sympathy whatever. So there is something that has awoken even Mark Tietjens sympathy, and that has to be the fact that Sylvia cannot have children. What prompts this is her acknowledging that it was she that had Groby Great Tree torn down, but that she wouldn't tear another woman's child in the womb. This is what Gunning had just said that she would do if she proceeded down the path. The thought of that is so awful to her that she protests her innocence of that crime to Mark Tietjens (no-one has actually accused her of intending this; it's as if she imagines . He sees suddenly that what has prompted her behaviour is that she cannot have children. It would be perfectly likely that he would think of horse riding having damaged her fertility (there are many references to her being an excellent horsewoman, and Mark of course is obsessed with horseracing)- just the sort of opinion he would hold- but it's the fact that she can't have children and really wants them - "'I have a fine one, but I wanted another....with its littleness....It's the riding has done it' Someone sobbed" [presumably Sylvia herself, but Valentine is not really connecting things by this point] - that has led to her being unable to come to any peace. She goes on to blame it on Father Consett, which is her way of seeing it as God's (just) punishment for her immoral behaviour.
It seems likely that at least before Sylvia's fling with Perowne, she and Christopher would have shared a bed - and it's hard to imagine that a woman like Syliva would not have had a child by someone if that's what she wanted. So I think the key here is that she's unable to have children (perhaps this happened at the birth of her son, but I don't think there are clues to this).
As a side thought, the role of mothers is recurrently important though in the background, there is Mrs Wannop, Sylvia's mother, and in the background Christopher's mother the Anglican saint, - all of these are quietly influential and of course Valentine herself, imagining being a mother. Sylvia is probably incapable of becoming like them and knows it.
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