by John Masters
‘He’s sixty-one, about five foot nothing, and sozzled most of the time.’
‘And you’re going to marry him?’
She shrugged. ‘Why not? He’s not going to last more than a year or two. It’s worth it. I know where I’m going.’
‘Good luck,’ he said, picking up his book once more. He read half a dozen pages from Leaves of Grass, the cottage instantly sinking from his consciousness as he read, to be replaced by shouting cities, waving corn, whistling axe blades … wind, movement…
‘Hey!’ Florinda said, ‘you’re breathing like you’ve just run a mile after a girl.’
‘I don’t run after girls,’ he said. ‘They run after me.’
‘Read aloud, Fletcher.’
Out of the cradle endlessly rocking
Out of the mock-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands, and the field beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander’d alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
Down from the shower’d halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memory of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories, sad brother, from the fitful rising and falling I heard,
From under that yellow half-moon late risen and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,
From the myriad thence arous’d word,
From the word stronger and more delicious than any.
He paused, sucking in a deep breath, and said, “Tis like a magician … I don’t understand, but I do. I …’
She interrupted him. ‘Are you writing anything?’
‘Not since I got these – Shelley and Whitman. I’m not good enough.’
‘Yes, you are! Don’t be afraid. They’re dead.’
‘I know that, you silly cunt.’
‘I mean, this is 1915. What you say will be different from what they said – when was it?’
‘Damned if I know.’
‘Well, it wasn’t now … You’ve got to write! That’s why squire lent you those books. Not just to read them … that would be like putting the bull to the cow, and nothing happening. Those books are the bull, and you’re the cow. You got it inside you. Squire expects it to come out – poetry … They’re saying in the village you ought to be in France.’
‘I don’t care what the buggers are saying. Nor did you, till just now.’
She said earnestly, ‘Fletcher, I told you I know where I’m going. I was meant to be a lady … rich and beautiful. That’s what I have to be, and I’m going to be. You were meant to be a poet. If you won’t be a poet, the only other thing you can be is a man … a fighting man. Either write your poetry, or join the army. Otherwise you’re wasting your life. I won’t have it.’
He did not answer but took up the book again. This time he was not transported; for his sister’s vehemence had brought his own poems back into his mind. They were tucked away in a drawer in the bedroom. He sat awhile, thinking, then closed the book, went to the bedroom and brought out his poems, with his stub of pencil, and began to pore over them, listening to the rhythms, painfully inscribing a correction here, removing a word there; until suddenly he jumped up. ‘I’m going to have a couple at the Arms.’
Bob Stratton sat in the front parlour at 85 Jervis Street, reading the paper and listening with half an ear to his wife and daughter talking in low tones across the fireplace from his chair.
Jane said, ‘Isn’t that just like Master Guy, to go and hide himself when they want to give him a medal and the key to Hedlington!’
‘Where’s he gone?’ Ethel Fagioletti asked listlessly.
‘To the Lake District. Mr Harry told your Dad – wants to walk in the mountains, alone, he said. Won’t come home till New Year’s Day … just to say goodbye to his mother before he goes into the Flying Corps … His picture in all the papers, and everything! What a boy he is!’
‘Man now,’ Bob said. ‘He’s killed someone.’
‘He had to! In self-defence!’
‘So they say.’
‘And a good thing, too! That girl would be dead but for him … and goodness knows how many more women … all cut up … and he didn’t really have a bad foot even, that was just disguise, ugh!’ She shivered. ‘Don’t let’s talk about it … You must speak to Willum about Violet, Bob.’
‘Little Violet?’
‘She’s not so little any more, Bob. Eleven now, and can’t fit into her dresses, at the top … She’s been caught stealing – sausages, it was, from Adkins’. He caught her and spanked her and sent her home … but Mr Adkin told me that if he ever catches her again, he’ll have the police on her. He knows I take an interest in them.’
‘What can Willum say? It’s Mary who has to teach the girl.’
‘She needs a father’s hand,’ Jane said. ‘Even Willum’s better than no father.’
Ethel burst into tears, as though the word ‘father’ had opened a tap.
‘Don’t cry now,’ her mother said sharply, ‘you’re going to be free on December 29th, and Mr Willbanks wants to marry you. You’re better off than you deserve, sitting and moping over that dirty Eyetalian.’
‘But I love him.’ Ethel sobbed. ‘He’ll come back to me when he’s got over his infatuation with that woman.’
‘Oh no, he won’t!’ her mother cried, ‘because you won’t have him! The very idea! Have you no pride? After him making you sign that paper that you’d been going with other men! You ought to be divorcing him, not the other way round, that’s what! Make him pay, what’s it called, alimony.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Ethel said.
Bob lowered his paper. ‘If you don’t want to get married you ought to get a job in an office. Or a factory even. Mr Harry’s always employed some women in the fabric shop, but now we’re employing them everywhere, and so are all the other factories in Hedlington, just about.’
Ethel shuddered, I couldn’t work in a factory, Dad.’
Jane said, ‘That Fagioletti was the one who couldn’t make the babies, if you ask me … probably going with dirty Italian women when he was supposed to be at work, and using himself up, and getting diseases … You marry Mr Willbanks, Ethel, and then everything’ll be all right. He’ll give you babies.’
Ethel wiped her eyes and put away her handkerchief. She said, ‘I saw Anne with a man, last week.’
‘Where?’ her mother said sharply, ‘what were they doing? What time was it?’
‘They were outside Lloyds Bank,’ Ethel said, ‘about eleven o’clock, talking.’
‘In the morning?’
‘Oh yes. I didn’t want to interrupt, so I didn’t speak to Anne.’
‘Do you know who the man was?’
‘No, Mum.’
Jane turned to her husband. ‘I’d best speak to Anne about this, Dad. It’s Ethel who needs another man. Anne’s got a husband, and she’ll be getting herself into trouble if she’s not careful. Even if she’s seen talking to a man in the street. What would Frank think, if he heard about it? There’s people who’d write and tell him a thing like that.’
‘There are,’ Bob said. ‘Interfering old cows! She must be lonely, Jane.’
‘Better lonely than having your husband hear that you’re a loose woman,’ she said.
Bob got up. ‘I’ll just go down to the shed for half an hour. There’s a little job I have to do on Victoria.’
‘Wait a minute, Bob. I hear the waits outside – and isn’t that someone knocking at the door?’
Bob got up. Nellie was out with a young man who was sweet on her. He opened the door to face a group of carol singers in the street and, on the doorstep, Miss Alice Rowland. He stared, doubting his eyes. ‘Miss Alice … what …?’
Th
e carol singers burst into The First Nowell.
Alice raised her voice. ‘May I come in, Mr Stratton? Thank you.’
He followed her through to the parlour. Jane and Ethel were on their feet, Ethel half curtseying. Alice said, ‘Frank’s been wounded, Mrs Stratton. He’s in Lady Blackwell’s Hospital.’
‘Here? In Hedlington?’ Jane cried, tears bursting from her eyes. Bob put his arm round her shoulder to support her. ‘How bad is he?’
‘In critical condition, I’m afraid,’ Alice said, ‘but the doctor who called us up said he’s conscious most of the time, and he’s so fit and strong, that they’re sure he’ll pull through. We thought we should tell you so that you can pass it on to Anne in any way you decide … You can visit the hospital in normal visiting hours, though whether you’ll be able to see Frank will depend on his condition at the time.’
Jane sank into a chair, dabbing her eyes. ‘Thank you, Miss Alice,’ she muttered. ‘Give our respects to your mother and father.’
‘I will,’ Alice said. She turned and went out, followed by Bob. In the hallway she said to him in a low voice, ‘He’s lost one kidney, has a punctured intestine, and punctured right lung. He was operated on in France. The lung’s draining now, but they think they may have to operate again on the intestine as there’s a blockage … but the doctor was very hopeful. He really was. And of course he’ll never have to go back to France.’
‘Thank you,’ Bob muttered. She went out, turning suddenly at the kerb. ‘Oh, I nearly forgot. My father would like to talk to you, at our house, tomorrow morning, about nine.’
She walked away and Bob stood, staring at the waits. They finished The First Nowell and began another. He found a shilling in his pocket, walked slowly down to them, and gave it to their leader, then turned and re-entered his house, head bowed.
One group of waits had been and gone from Walstone Manor. Johnny and Betty Merritt and Stella Cate were still out carolling with another group. Stephen Merritt was upstairs in his room, changing for dinner. Laurence Cate sat with his father beside the big fire leaping in the drawing-room grate.
He was seventeen now, by over a month; he had been given the beastly hunter, and every day uneasiness grew in him. Walking Beighton Down, hoping to spot one of the few carrion crows, or even rarer hen harriers … slowly searching the Scarrow for three miles up and down stream from Walstone for waterfowl … sitting in the woods, quiet, until the wrens came to feed from his hand – all these, which had been the solaces of so many earlier holidays, no longer kept him content. His voice had long since broken, and he suffered unaccustomed stirrings and inexplicable emotions when girls passed close, or touched him. He knew that he was at an in-between stage, no longer a boy, not yet a man. He’d seen Guy the day before Guy had killed the Ripper and in him the change had already taken place. He was no longer the brilliant schoolboy who had bowled for Kent last year. He was not much changed in appearance – a little taller, a little firmer, stronger seeming everywhere, but in manner he was different. Laurence had been almost afraid to call him ‘Guy’; and would be even more so now, after the killing. He shivered suddenly.
After a time he spoke to his father. ‘Do you think they’ll bring in conscription, Daddy?’
Christopher Cate rested his book on his lap. ‘I think so, soon.’
‘Do you think it’s a good idea?’
Cate paused to collect his thoughts. He said, ‘You must remember that the army has been feared and hated in England ever since Cromwell ruled the country with it. It’s an illegal organization.’
‘Illegal?’ Laurence said, startled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The Army Act is the law that enables the army to function – sets out powers of discipline and punishment, describes military crimes, and so on. But it is not effective unless Parliament passes another act, the Army Annual Act, every year. That gives the Army Act force – but only for one year. The reasoning is that if the army, under some modern Cromwell, tried to seize power, there would shortly be no authority for anyone to give orders, or get paid, in it. So, to impose conscription would be a very big step for England to take, but it’s the only efficient way … and you can say that it’s the only fair way … that everyone should serve his country, and let the experts decide in just what way, what service each should give. I cannot deny all that. But I still do not like it. I do not think it is fair, though it appears to be.’
‘Why not?’
Christopher said, ‘People say it’s wrong that the best should go first … and when they say that, they often mean the most educated, the richest – the upper class. There are as good men and women in every class … but I say that it is right for the upper class to go first. The ordinary people of England work hard for very little, Laurence. Many go to bed hungry every night. Many have to go barefoot …’
‘Not here, Daddy,’ Laurence interjected.
‘Some, sometimes … many, in the big city slums, in the coalpits, in the factory towns, when there is not enough work, in the mill towns, when the Americans and Japanese and Indians sell cheaper cotton goods here … We live in a country where there is no threat of revolution. We are secure in our possessions. Our tenants and labourers do not lie in wait to shoot us in the back from behind walls as we pass, or kill us with sickles when we go to watch the harvesting. Our servants are the best in the world, but still Englishmen, looking you straight in the eye … We have the pick of the world’s materials to use for our own purposes – to eat, drink, make clothes, shoes, motor cars. We owe the country, and the common people something. They give us a standard of living, a way of life, unequalled in history. We owe them, in return, our lives, whenever we are called upon to give them. If someone falls in a lake, or the sea, it’s a gentleman’s duty – and privilege – to go first to rescue him. If a house catches fire, it is our privilege to go into it first, and try to save life. And when there is a war such as this – it is our privilege to go first, whether into the army, or into the enemy trenches – at whatever cost. Only so can we earn our position – and keep it.’
Laurence stared into the dancing flames for a long time; then he said, ‘But Dad, what if no one follows – if the common people don’t volunteer?’
His father said, ‘If the ordinary people of England are not willing to fight to preserve the society we have built here in the past thousand years – then we have failed to make it good enough for them. We, our society, deserve to go down.’
Again Laurence was silent a long time. When he spoke his voice sounded distant, even to himself. He said, ‘Daddy, I was wondering … do you think I could be a parson?’
Cate looked at him in astonishment. ‘A parson? A Church of England parson?’
‘Yes,’ Laurence said, ‘I’d like to be rector here … Mr Kirby’s pretty old … I could be his curate, and learn all about it, though I know what he does already, really.’
Cate nodded his head, wondering. ‘Then you’d be squire and parson. It’s called squarson. We’ve done it before. Your great-great-great-grandfather was squarson … lived here, not in the Rectory, of course … You’d still go to the university, but you’d have to read something special, I suppose … classics rather than mathematics, if you were thinking of that.’
Laurence’s mouth felt dry and his hands were sweating. He should force himself at the jump, make the declaration from which he could not back away: but he said, ‘I’ll ask the housemaster about becoming a parson, and then … well, if the war ends, soon, I’ll go to Oxford, otherwise … I’ll go into the Wealds when I’m eighteen, and then go to Oxford after the war. Do you think that’ll be all right?’
‘Of course,’ his father said heartily. ‘Do another year at Charterhouse, and then we’ll know what the situation is. Conscription will probably be in by then, and we’ll have to see what its terms are. But you won’t go to France till after you’re eighteen and a half, at least. There’s been a good deal of protest about sending children to the slaughter … Here come our carollers.’ H
e stood up as Johnny, Betty, and Stella trooped in. ‘How do you like our old English customs, Betty?’
‘Oh, it was lovely,’ Betty Merritt cried. ‘The village so beautiful, the thatched houses, the people coming out to talk to us … the glasses of ginger wine … and a gorgeous young man, not very tall, but slender, and so handsome, with lazy eyes.’ She turned to Stella. ‘The young man who came out of the Beaulieu Arms and sang two or three carols with us? No one introduced him. Was that the famous Guy?’
Stella said, ‘That was Fletcher Gorse, our head poacher’s grandson.’
Stephen Merritt came in, smiling; followed closely by Blyth, the butler. ‘Dinner is served, sir,’ he said. ‘And I took the liberty of providing Mrs Abell with three shillings, a dozen sixpences, and half a dozen threepences to put into the Christmas pudding, as usual.’
‘Thank you, Blyth. Remind me to pay you back tomorrow. And tell Mrs Abell we’ll be five minutes – no more, I swear.’
Bob had waited all day, waited till Ethel had gone to bed. All day he waited, and thought, turning over in his mind what Mr Harry had said: what had been, and were, his own thoughts; what would be best. Only once had his thoughts changed their course – when they had visited Lady Blackwell’s Hospital, with Anne. They had not seen Frank, but an old doctor had come out and told them he was in the same condition – critical, but holding his own: they should come again on Boxing Day, and might be able to see him.
He said, ‘Mr Harry’s given control of Rowland’s to Mr Richard.’
Jane put down her sewing and waited. She knew that her husband had been thinking; and had waited for this moment.
‘Mr Richard doesn’t know for certain yet what he’s going to do, but probably he’ll be converting us to making shells. He and young Mr Merritt will be starting a new factory at the airfield, to make aeroplanes. He wants me to stay on as manager of Rowland’s, whatever it makes in the end. I’ll get double the pay, because I’ll be manager, not foreman.’
She waited till she was sure he had finished then said, ‘What do you want to do?’
He said, ‘I was looking forward to retiring last year, when Mr Harry asked me to stay on … I was going to work on Victoria … a little in the garden … take life easy … you know.’