Parade's End

To get back at Christopher, Sylvia plots to have Groby Great Tree cut down. She also figures that if she had Groby Great Tree cut down just to injure a person, why couldn’t she have India. Sylvia gets the feeling that Fittleworth will side with Mark. They have known one another a long time, and Fittleworth protects his people. She wants to convince Fittleworth that Mark has installed a scandalous polygamous sect at Groby, but she knows this will be hard to do. Sylvia wants to go to the house where Mark lives, but to do so would be a social faux pas. Eventually, her ruses fail, and Fittleworth and the General ride off to talk instead.

Gunning comes up, leading horses, and asks Sylvia to get out of the way. She says she will go down to the house. Gunning stops her aggressively. His behavior reminds her of a time when she was a girl. The gardener then was very fond of the cat. Sylvia commented she might do something to harm that cat. The gardener threatened her. The threat exhilarated her. She feels that exhilaration again with Gunning.

Sylvia then learns that Valentine is pregnant This revelation causes her to change her mind about harming the Tietjens family.

Valentine is worried about some missing prints. She and Christopher need the money badly, which those prints will bring. She wishes for better things for the baby, a less frugal life than the one they are currently living. Marie has been telling her she needs certain silk undergarments to keep herself attractive for Christopher. Valentine worries about their future, and about the future of England. Schatzweiler owes them a lot of money. She is an integral part of the furniture business. Valentine considers threatening Schatzweiler.

Valentine remembers that dreadful night on Armistice Day. She had fought so hard to get Christopher. A feminine voice outside mentions Mark sweating. Marie runs off. The doctor said to call him if Mark sweated profusely. Valentine tries to get out of the door, but it is caught. She must call the doctor. She notices a female figure coming towards the house. She knows it is Sylvia. She feels darkness encroaching on her. She is afraid. Valentine gets the door open and calls the doctor. He is coming. She goes downstairs and is accosted by Mrs. de Bray Pape. Sylvia enters. She tells Mrs. de Bray Pape to hold her tongue. She tells everyone to leave. She speaks to Valentine, alluding to the fact that she will divorce Christopher, for the child’s sake. She says Father Consett is to be thanked. Marie remarks, “C’est lamentable qu’un seul homme puisse inspirer deux passions pareilles dans deux femmes…C’est le martyre de notre vie!” (827). Valentine is exhausted but overjoyed. She also remembers where the prints are.

At night, Mark is listening to the nature around him. The nightingale’s song disturbs the majesty of the evening. The nightingales are just a fragment of eternity, whereas the great night was eternity itself. The cattle had run: They heard “[t]he spirit of God walking on the firmament” (829). Mark remembers telling Sylvia how riding had ruined her chances for another child. She ran away crying. Mark reflects again on his father’s death by suicide. He remembers that his father had grown absent-minded. Therefore, it is very possible that it was a hunting accident. To Mark, this would imply that Valentine is not his half-sister. Everything is fine, he thinks to himself: “No suicide. No incest” (832). Not to mention, now that Groby Great Tree has been cut down—the result of Sylvia’s machinations—perhaps the curse has been lifted from the family. Mark recalls the time he killed three birds with a single shot. His epitaph shall read, “Here lies one whose name was writ in sea-birds!” (832). Lord Fittleworth is there. He tells Mark that Sylvia told him she would divorce Christopher and get an annulment from Rome. Christopher and Valentine are there, and everyone else leaves. Valentine tells Christopher where the prints are. He goes to get them, though he is weary. Mark speaks to Valentine. She is shocked to hear his voice; his muteness may have been a conscious choice, rather than an involuntary result of a stroke. He quotes a song from his childhood. He tells her everything is going to be okay. The doctor arrives. Mark is dead. Valentine says, “Perhaps it would be best not to tell Lady Tietjens [Marie Léonie] that he spoke…She would have liked to have his last words…But she did not need them as much as I” (836).