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Some Do Not...
V
We get Mrs Duchemin and Valentine in conversation before the “breakfast.”
P 81 Miss Wannop said:
“Wait a minute. I haven’t finished. I want to say this: I never talk about that stage of my career [when she was in service after her father died] because I’m ashamed of it. I’m ashamed of it because I think I did the wrong thing, not for any other reason. I did it on impulse and I stuck to it out of obstinacy. I mean it would probably have been more sensible to go round with the hat to benevolent people, for the keep of mother and to complete my education. But if I’ve inherited the Wannop ill-luck, we’ve inherited the Wannop pride. And I couldn’t do it...”
Couldn’t this be said of Christopher as well? About the pride?
P83 “...I could harangue the whole crowd when I got them together. But speak to one man in cold blood I couldn’t. . . . Of course I did speak to a fat golfing idiot with bulging eyes, to get him to save Gertie. But that was different.”
Great way to have the love interest describe her future mate.
...
“Oh, the right man!”Miss Wannop said. “Thanks for tactfully changing the subject. The right man for me, when he comes along, will be a married man. That’s the Wannop luck!”
Christopher, upon first properly seeing Valentine at breakfast, and after having learned the evening before that half the world thinks her his mistress.
P88 “By Jove . . .” he said to himself: “It’s true! What a jolly little mistress she’d make!”
...
...He looked back at Miss Wannop [after dismissing Mrs Duchemin], and considered that she would make a good wife for Macmaster; Macmaster liked bouncing girls and this girl was quite lady enough.
What’s funny about this is that Macmaster, when first meeting Mrs Duchemin, was pairing her with Christopher.
I don’t quite understand Mrs Duchemin’s instant antipathy towards Christopher. It’s important for the plot of the story, but you’d think a person would tend to make allowances for the best friend of the person they’re falling in love with.
VI
This is the part I’ve been waiting for.
P109 [Mrs Wannop to Christopher] “My dear boy!” she said, “My dear boy; it’s such a satisfaction to have you under my roof!” [They are in fact on the road to her house.]
The black horse reared on end, the patriarch [I have no idea. A type of bit?] sawing at its mouth. Mrs. Wannop said unconcernedly: “Stephen Joel! I haven’t done talking.”
Tietjens was gazing enraged at the lower part of the horse’s sweat-smeared stomach.
“You soon will have,” he said, “with the girth in that state. Your neck will be broken soon.”
..
P110 Tietjens addressed the driver with some ferocity:
“Here; get down, you,” he said. He held himself the head of the horse whose nostrils were wide with emotion; it rubbed its forehead almost immediately against his chest. He said: “Yes! Yes! There! There!” It’s limbs lost their tauntness. The aged driver scrambled down from the high seat... Tietjens fired indignant orders at him:
“Lead the horse into the shade of the tree. Don’t touch his bit: his mouth’s sore... blast you, don’t you see you’ve got a thirteen hands pony’s harness for a sixteen and a half hands horse. Let the bit out three holes: it’s cutting the animal’s tongue in half...”
“Loosen that bit, confound you,” he said to the driver. “Ah! You’re afraid.”
He loosened the bit himself, covering his fingers with greasy harness polish which he hated...
... He stood back and looked at the horse: it had dropped its head and lifted its near hind foot, resting the toe on the ground: an attitude of relaxation.
“He’ll stand now!” he said. He undid the girth, bending down uncomfortably, perspiring and greasy; the girth strap parted in his hand.
...
P112 ...This fellow hasn’t been swindling you. He’s got you deuced good value for money, but he doesn’t know what’s suited for ladies; a white pony and a basket-work chaise is what you want.”
“Oh, I like a bit of spirit,” Mrs Wannop said.
“Of course you do,” Tietjens answered: “but this turn-out’s too much.”
...
[To the driver] ...”You did damn well. Only you’re not what you were, are you, at thirty? And the horse looked to be a devil and the cart so high you couldn’t get out once you were in. And you kept it in the sun for two hours waiting for your mistress.”
“There wer’ a bit o’ lewth ‘longside stable wall,” the driver muttered.
“Well! He didn’t like waiting,”...
P112 Tietjens addressed Miss Wannop:
“What hands your mother’s got.” he said, “it isn’t often one sees a woman with hands like that of a horse’s mouth...”
“I suppose you think that’s a mighty fine performance,” she said.
“I didn’t make a very good job of the girth,” he said. “Let’s get off this road.”
“Setting poor, weak women in their places,” Miss Wannop continued. “Soothing the horse like a man with a charm. I suppose you soothe women like that too. I pity your wife. . . . The English country male! And making a devoted vassal at sight of the handy-man, The feudal system all complete. . .”
...
...”I’m sorry I was rude to you. But it is irritating to have to stand like a stuffed rabbit while a man is acting like a regular Admirable Crichton, and cool and collected, with the English country gentleman air and all.”
Tietjens winced, The young woman had come a little too near the knuckle of his wife’s frequent denunciations of himself. And she exclaimed:
“No! That’s not fair!I’m an ungrateful pig! You didn’t show a bit more side really than a capable workman must who’s doing his job in the midst of a crowd of duffers...”
So. There will be more, much more, but here we have Christopher and horses vs Christopher and women. He sees horses and knows how to care for them. And his line about this being too much horse for their needs applies to Sylvia and himself. What he needs is what he says Mrs Wannop needs, a “white pony.” In other words Valentine.
So we are at the point in this story where in Pride and Prejudice we first see that Darcy and Elizabeth are made for each other. Or maybe we are at the point where Darcy realizes this but is so struggling with his pride that he can only offend Elizabeth. Alas, I don’t think Valentine ever does see Groby.
VII
P124 Jumping down from the high step of the dog-cart the girl completely disappeared into the silver... she was gone more completely than if she had dropped into deep water, into snow... Here there had been nothing.
The constation interested him...
P125 He would have asked: “Are you all right?” but to express more concern than the “look out.” which he had expended already, would have detracted from his stolidity. He was Yorkshire and stolid; she south country and soft, emotional, given to such ejaculations as “I hope you’re not hurt,” when the Yorkshireman only grunts...
He returned to his constations of the concealing effect of water vapour...
P142 [Christopher to Campion after Campion’s car has injured the horse in the fog] “Go away,” he said, “say what you like. Do what you like! But as you go through Rye send up the horse-ambulance from the vet.’s. Don’t forget that. I’m going to save this horse. . . .”
“You know Chris,” the General said, “you’re the most wonderful hand with a horse . . . There isn’t another man in England . . .”
“I know it,” Tietjens said. “Go away. And send up that ambulance...”
Day 83 of the pandemic
I haven’t written for a while. Chaotic times. Now the pandemic has been pushed aside by another Black Lives Matter moment. It does surprise me that Minneapolis is so often behind these episodes. It could be anywhere, given the racism in America, so I guess Minnesota is as good a trigger point as any. I have friends in the neighborhood where Mr Floyd was murdered so I've been following events as well as I can at this remove.
At any rate, the protests are still going on here and around the country, though the looting seems to have stopped locally. The shopping district below me was hard hit and I lost my drugstore. But here on the hill the only change has been more windows boarded up, just as the plywood was starting to come down for the pandemic. We have been stuck at 43 deaths from COVID-19 for quite some time now -- which is good. But the expectation is that the numbers may start going up as a result of the crowding at protests. We shall see.
I’ve now made two attempts to buy better face masks online and have nothing to show for it. One online vendor’s system died even before we got to the credit card information. The other seemed to work, but I canceled the purchase after a couple weeks passed with no goods and no response to my inquiries. This isn’t a problem now but it may become a problem when things start to open up again, possibly later this month.
In other pandemic news, the big three when it comes to daily deaths are now the USA, Brasil, and Mexico. The published numbers for several countries are rather suspicious. Mexico has a surprisingly low number of cases for the death rate, no doubt because they aren’t doing much testing. Russia has a huge number of cases but few deaths, I imagine a comparison of year to year deaths will tell a different tale. The USA is up to 111,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths and still going strong at around a thousand a day. 250,000 before the election still looks like a reasonable number.
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