Tatterdemalion

Tatterdemalion
by John Galsworthy
"Gentillesse cometh fro' God allone"
--CHAUCER
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN.
1920.

For ELIZABETH LUCAS

CONTENTS

PART I. OF WAR-TIME
I. THE GREY ANGEL
II. DEFEAT
III. FLOTSAM AND JETSAM
IV. THE BRIGHT SIDE
V. "CAFARD"
VI. RECORDED
VII. THE RECRUIT

VIII. PEACE MEETING
IX. "THE DOG IT WAS THAT DIED"
X. IN HEAVEN AND EARTH
XI. THE MOTHER STONE
XII. POIROT AND BlDAN
XIII. THE MUFFLED SHIP
XIV. HERITAGE
XV. "A GREEN HILL FAR AWAY"

PART II. OF PEACE-TIME
I. SPINDLEBERRIES
II. EXPECTATIONS
III. MANNA
IV. A STRANGE THING
V. TWO LOOKS
VI. FAIRYLAND
VII. THE NIGHTMARE CHILD
VIII. BUTTERCUP NIGHT

PART I
OF WAR-TIME

I
TATTERDEMALION
THE GREY ANGEL
HER predilection for things French came from childish recollections of
school-days in Paris and a hasty removal thence by her father during
the revolution of '48; of later travels as a little maiden, by diligence, to
Pau and the then undiscovered Pyrenees, to a Montpellier and a Nice as
yet unspoiled. Unto her seventy-eighth year, her French accent had
remained unruffled, her soul in love with French gloves and dresses;
and her face had the pale, unwrinkled, slightly aquiline perfection of
the French marquise type it may, perhaps, be doubted whether any
French marquise ever looked the part so perfectly.
How it came about that she had settled down in a southern French town,
in the summer of 1914, only her roving spirit knew. She had been a
widow ten years, which she had passed in the quest of perfection; all
her life she had been haunted by that instinct, half-smothered in
ministering to her husband, children, and establishments in London and
the country. Now, in loneliness the intrinsic independence of her soul
was able to assert itself, and from hotel to hotel she had wandered in
England, Wales, Switzerland, France, till she had found what
seemingly arrested her. Was it the age of that oldest of Western cities,
that little mother of Western civilisation, which captured her fancy? Or
did a curious perversity turn her from more obvious abodes; or was she
kept there by the charm of a certain church which she would enter
every day to steep herself in mellow darkness, the scent of incense, the
drone of incantations, and quiet communion with a God higher indeed
than she had been brought up to, high-church though she had always
been? She had a pretty little apartment, where for very little the bulk of

her small wealth was habitually at the service of others she could
manage with one maid and no " fuss." She had some " nice " French
friends there, too. But more probably it was simply the war which kept
her there, waiting, like so many other people, for it to be over before it
seemed worth while to move and re-establish herself. The immensity
and wickedness of this strange event held her, as it were, suspended,
body and spirit, high up on the hill which had seen the ancient peoples,
the Romans, Ganls, Saracens, and all, and still looked out toward the
flat Camargue. Here in her three rooms, with a little kitchen, the maid
Augustine, a parrot, and the Paris Daily Mail, she dwelt as it were
marooned by a world event which seemed to stun her. Not that she
worried, exactly. The notion of defeat or of real danger to her country
and to France never entered her head. She only grieved quietly over the
dreadful things that were being done, and every now and then would
glow with admiration at the beautiful way the King and Queen were
behaving. It was no good to "fuss," and one must make the best of
things, just as the " dear little Queen " was doing for each Queen in turn,
and she had seen three reign in her time, was always that to her. Her
ancestors had been uprooted from their lands, their house burned, and
her pedigree diverted, in the Stuart wars; a reverence for royalty was
fastened in her blood.
Quite early in the business she had begun to knit, moving her slim
fingers not too fast, gazing at the grey wool through glasses, specially
rimless and invisible, perched on the bridge of her firm, well-shaped
nose, and now and then speaking to her parrot. The bird could say, "
Scratch a poll, Poll," already, and " Hullo! " those keys to the English
language. The maid Augustine, having completed some small duty,
would often come and stand, her head on one side, gazing down with a
sort of inquiring compassion in her wise, young, clear-brown eyes. It
seemed to her, who was straight and sturdy as a young tree, both
wonderful and sad that Madame should be seventy-seven, and so frail
Madame who had