The Power of the Dead

by Henry Williamson

  Please tell them they won’t regret publishing this novel, it is far superior to my early efforts. I can’t send the manuscript just yet, I am revising it day and night.

  His agent replied enclosing a copy of the letter received from Hollins, who thanked Mr. Maddison for his offer to send the novel later, but they did not propose to exercise their option. They were about to remainder the other books, and would Mr. Maddison let them know if he wanted to buy any copies at remainder price for himself under the terms of the agreement? The price was 6d. a copy.

  Phillip bought a hundred copies for £2/10/–, meaning to keep them until they were worth something, and then give sets to all his friends and relations.

  *

  The ordinary 7s. 6d. edition of The Water Wanderer was published late in November. It had a good reception among the critics. Encouraged by that, he determined that the novel of the ex-soldier Donkin should be finished. Nearly three years had wasted away since he had started to write it, and seven since the idea had grown into his life. He sat in the small room while the rain beat on the window, feeling secure in the dumpy little chair his mother had given him for a wedding present—the very chair he needed to keep him at his desk: for, once drawn up at the desk, it was impossible to get out, since it had no castors. One could wriggle oneself out in stages, each with a lift and a hop and a shove all in one movement, while the flat wooden feet rucked up the carpet, and his knees, raised in each effort to push backwards, lifted the top of the desk and threatened to shower pens, papers, and ink-bottles upon the floor. So it wasn’t really worth while trying to get away from the job, until it became urgent to leave; then, calmly, one might, while sitting still, lift up the desk top, set it back on its two supporting rests of drawers—excellent for strengthening the stomach muscles—and then writhe out like an eel. It really was more effective as a work-compellor than Carlyle’s cobbler’s-wax on the seat of the trousers.

  A pin from the local one-man brewery stood on a box beside the desk, within arm’s-reach. Now and again he drew ale into the battered pewter pint-pot. The poker was already in the fire, ready to be plunged in to mull the ale. All done while fixed in the chair.

  It was at night, when the darkness came, that the story really began to flow. The beech-logs gave out slow lilac flames; three candles burned on a diamond-shaped base of dark oak, part of a Jacobean floor-board which had been taken out, to split and fracture, when hot-water pipes were laid under the floor. The lozenge of wood was thickly coagulated with grease: it looked like a frozen ship, a star above each white funnel. As the candles burned down, so they were replaced; and a new light shone upon the gutters of the old.

  One midnight of the dark of the year, with a feeling of the appalling imminence of fate as the B.B.C. went off the air, he pressed down fresh candles, and braced himself for what was to come. The tapers burned, steady and faithful, like the riding lights of the ship in Conrad’s Secret Sharer, while the tide that was to bear Donkin away began to flow in from the Atlantic. He wrote steadily, unconscious of time: the tragedy was nearly over. The candles came down to wick-falling stage, dark particles were swimming about in the liquid grease. One wick fell over and died as the last word was written. It was done, Donkin was drowned.

  “Willie! Willie!”

  He pushed back his chair, tears streaming down his face. The top of the desk lifted, scattering pens and paper. He went to the window and opened the casement, to look at the stars and to feel their greatness in his breast. It was ended; now Willie could rest.

  This feeling gave way to the thought of what would he himself do now? What was there to look forward to? Could he get back among ordinary people, and change the trend of his thoughts? Was he not on the same pathway as Willie had been, and perhaps others of their generation who had survived the war?

  He crept into Lucy’s bedroom, to stand beside the dim-seen head breathing softly on the pillow, and to whisper, “Are you awake?”

  She did not stir. He looked down at Billy sleeping in the cot on one side of the bed, then at the baby in the cradle on the other side. There lay her whole thoughts, her love. No, it would not be fair to awaken her, and to tell her—what?

  Downstairs there was the noise of claws scratching wood. Rusty was awake, and wanting to come to him. Did animals feel emotion, without power to rationalise their feelings? Had he broadcast his emotion to the dog? He went down quietly and the dog went happily up the stairs and into the writing room, to lie before the fire, head on paws, eyes upon Phillip getting under the rug of the couch. Only when his master’s head was on the pillow did the spaniel give a sigh of relief, and settle to sleep.

  Phillip lay still, feeling the flow of time to be rushing silently in the room, while the embers made their small tinkling noises, and the old aching sadness possessed him as he thought of Barley, lost for ever and for ever. Yet love is resurrection, the thought came: love is from everlasting to everlasting.

  Chapter 8

  LITERARY LIONS

  One spring morning, on his return from setting-off the men, Lucy gave him an envelope in an unknown handwriting. The envelope of thin grey paper was addressed directly to him, not redirected from the publishers. He asked Lucy to open it, since he felt it was something extraordinary; and so it proved, for within was a brief note from a manor house in Buckinghamshire, signed by the name Corinna Arden, which at once sent an extra beat of blood through his head.

  “I knew it! I knew it, though the thought never came to my conscious mind. I’ve always known my true place in the world.”

  Nevertheless, it was with a shock of surprise that he read that the Committee of the Grasmere Memorial Prize had unanimously awarded it to The Water Wanderer, and that she hoped to get Thomas Morland, O.M., to make the presentation. The writer asked him to keep the secret, as it was hoped to announce it for the first time at the award in London during the coming June.

  “Seven years to be famous! Walter Ramal told me in J. D. Woodford’s house in Inverness Terrace in March nineteen twenty-one that it would take seven years. He too has second-sight, which is only clear thought. The prize is one hundred pounds, so I’ll be out of debt to Nuncle.” He suppressed a feeling of panic by taking a deep breath and respiring slowly. “I must revise The Phoenix at once. It will be timely in the autumn, and get the publicity of the Grasmere Award. Look how Robert Graves’ Goodbye has gone. The war-interest is coming back, but the real war this time. I can’t help the farm, it must look after itself.”

  He danced with Billy and Peter on the rush mat, while the spaniel in affectionate excitement gripped Phillip’s leg. “Poor old Rusty, he wants a wife. He’s given all his humanised self to us.”

  He went to tell the good news to Uncle John, and was congratulated; but under his gracious manner John was disturbed by the thought that Phillip’s success was the beginning of the end for Hilary.

  *

  While he was revising the book Phillip wrote to Mr. Driver asking him to pay £50 advance for the novel.

  I promise you that you will never regret it. I can’t send the Tss. now as I haven’t finished it. I want it to come out in the late autumn. I can’t tell you why, but ask you to trust me. I guarantee a good sale.

  Mr. Driver replied at length, saying that it was generally agreed in his office that the otter book was so far and away superior to the novels that he did not think it in the author’s interest to accept an unread novel. Phillip answered that it was a good book, and now that the old novels published by Hollins were out of print and the copyright lease returned to him, he intended to rewrite them in direct line with The Phoenix.

  Mr. Driver wrote again to say that he really ought not to accept a book like that, but would rather wait to read it. By the same post came a letter from Anders Norse saying that he had had a telephone call from Coats, a comparatively new and successful publisher, offering £250 for his next book, whatever it was to be, if he were free to give it to him.

  This was a situation which could only be resolv
ed by writing again to Mr. Driver, begging him to reconsider his decision.

  I am rather hard up, but that has nothing to do with my request that you take The Phoenix. I have certain knowledge that this book will have a successful sale. You will never regret taking it now.

  Again Mr. Driver wrote to ask, What is this knowledge? Phillip spent 5s. on a telephone call, saying that he was not free to tell him; but if he would trust him, he would not let him down. Mr. Driver still maintained his opinion that the novels were far inferior to the story of the otter, and after a further wait of two weeks, during which time he hoped that Mr. Driver would change his mind, Phillip wrote to Anders.

  You are my agent, will you decide for me?

  As soon as Anders got this authority he telephoned to Mr. Coats who formally accepted the novel and asked that the manuscript be sent direct to him, since he wanted to include it in his Autumn list, then being made up. Anders telegraphed this request to Phillip, who posted the Tss. of The Phoenix from Colham within an hour of getting the telegram. Three days later the agreement came for his signature with Anders’ cheque for £225. By the same post was a book called Dubliners, with a letter from Edward Cornelian: the famous critic, and discoverer of Conrad, had written to him, Phillip told Lucy.

  I have read your story, and it is good, very natural and inevitable. But of the climax I shall have something to say when we meet. Are you ever in London? I go there, to Coats’ office, every Friday. Meanwhile you might care to read some of the stories by James Joyce, particularly The Dead.

  Again the Norton raised the dust on the Colham road; the cheque was paid in, then a visit to Captain Arkell’s office with a cheque for the seed-bill.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “I’d be glad if it could be paid into the farm account immediately. I want to pay for my own mistakes.”

  “As you wish, but I don’t know what Sir Hilary will say.”

  Feeling all light and air, he returned fast to his home, thinking how he would now be able to give up the monthly allowance from Nuncle, and perhaps help to pull his weight by paying the wages of the farm men.

  He found Lucy looking more than usually happy: she had heard again from Tim. The temporary electrification work in Sydney had ended unexpectedly. Tim’s part in the wiring had been extremely interesting, he wrote; it was fairly important, too, for all Sydney was to be illuminated to celebrate the arrival of the Duke of York to open Parliament. But something had gone wrong somewhere with one of the switches he had fixed up; anyway the foreman had put the blame on Fiennes and himself.

  The foreman absolutely despised both of us for being Britishers. He frequently referred in a disparaging way to the clothes we wore, our attempts to be polite, our youth, and most frequently to our soft, white hands. Well, Lulu, since Fiennes and I spent the entire voyage, sixteen hours a day and seven days a week for nearly two months washing plates, cups, and saucers for the 2,700 emigrants on board, with our hands continuously in soapy water, I consider he was a little unreasonable. His contempt, I regret to say, made me not a little nervous while in his presence, and under his fault-finding eye. But to my story of the Fiasco of the Illuminations. Our company had the job of fixing up the switch-board, including the Master Switch, for the said Illuminations. One change-over of the switch, and Sydney would be a city of light, a signal to which all ships in harbour would respond. Well, as the Lord Mayor, or whoever it was, pressed the Master Switch, there was a big blue flash followed by darkness.

  After a stunned silence, which you can well imagine, I heard the foreman shouting out, “It’s that XYZ Forrise.” ‘Forrise’, I must tell you, is the name he invariably bestowed upon me, because of my spectacles—‘Four Eyes’, I think. “Forrise, where the etc. is that (ahem!) Forrise!” I need hardly tell you that both Fiennes and I agreed in the matter of not answering his call, then or later. In fact we both lost a week’s pay because we didn’t turn up the next morning, but wended our way out of Sydney, carrying our swags. We heard, incidentally, that the current which should have gone into the Civic Festivities went instead into the town reservoir some distance away and killed a number of swans thereon, but I honestly don’t think the matter had anything to do with our wiring.

  Well, to cut a long story short, Fiennes and I walked several hundred miles, and very cold it was at night, being winter. We found the best places to sleep were farmyard manure dumps, but we had to be careful of dogs. You have no idea how much warmer they can be than the surrounding air, particularly during frosty weather. Well, here we are, camping out just outside the town I’ve put on the top of my letter, and adjoining the aforesaid coal-mine. The work down below is fairly hard, but we feel we are getting somewhere at last.

  Before going to London, Phillip went to see Mrs. Chychester, to tell her the news.

  “I am so happy for you, my dear. And I can see a splendid career lying before you. So you may be going to meet Mr. Thomas Morland, whom I have long admired for his country house stories. I wish I could feel the same way about his Crouchend family chronicle, but then I have never known anyone like them. Now go you to London, my dear, and enjoy your holiday after all your hard work on the land.”

  *

  On the train he saw Piers Tofield, who left his compartment and sat with Phillip in a 3rd smoker until it was time to have lunch together. They drank a bottle of Burgundy, and Phillip had to dissuade Piers from ordering another.

  “Come to my flat and dine with me,” Piers proposed at Paddington station. “I can put you up if you want a bed. I’d like you to meet some friends of mine afterwards. We’ll dine at my club.”

  Now that he was about to be a man of means, Phillip took a taxi from Paddington to the Adelphi, to tell his agent of Miss Arden’s letter. Anders’ face broke into a smile, his eyes shone.

  “This is going to be your year, you know. I told you that you were going to the top soon after I met you in the Parnassus Club seven, no eight, years ago, d’you remember? Now before I forget: are you free at two o’clock tomorrow? Coats rang up this morning and said that Edward Cornelian, his reader, would like to see you. Cornelian’s day for coming to town is Friday, tomorrow. He says he can’t ask you to lunch with him because he has a long-standing engagement with Thomas Morland to discuss a private matter, but he and Thomas Morland would be able to see you afterwards for coffee, at Romano’s.

  “Well, you’ll be safe in Cornelian’s hands,” went on his agent, “but he can’t care for your work more than I do. Remember, it was I who first knew that you had the potential to be a great novelist.”

  “Will Coats be disappointed if The Phoenix is the last novel I write?”

  “Your last novel? But you’ve only just started, man! What about those novels you once told me about—the one to be called Soot, for instance?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  “Well, these things resolve themselves in their own time. Are you doing anything tonight? If not, would you care to dine with me at my club, the Barbarian?”

  “Thank you, but a friend has offered me a bed, after dining with him, Anders. Then we’re going to see some friends of his.”

  “Well, lunch with me at the Barbarian tomorrow, will you? Meanwhile I’ll telephone Coats to say that you’ll meet Edward Cornelian at Romano’s.”

  *

  At 7 p.m. Phillip arrived at Piers’ flat in Blue Ball Yard.

  “I thought we’d go to the Voyagers, they have a decent grill and the best claret in London. You look surprised.”

  “Oh, nothing really. Only my Uncle Hilary belongs to that club, and as you know we don’t get on awfully well. However, he’s spending the summer in Wales—— You must think me very rude——”

  “Not at all. I’m all for the generations keeping their distance. We might go to the Game Pie—or a restaurant if you’d prefer that.”

  “May I change my mind? I’d like to see the Voyagers again. I had lunch there with my uncle years ago—before the war.”

 
; The lobster soup was good, so was the mixed grill, the wine was exhilarating. Phillip told Piers of the decision he would have to make about continuing to write, or to farm.

  “How odd. My father wants me to follow your example, and learn estate management. I’m afraid I prefer London life to that of the country. He gave me a pair of guns for my twenty-first birthday, and complains that I haven’t used them yet. If ever you should want to borrow them, do tell me. I was measured for them, and the cast-off might suit you, since we’re about the same height.”

  “Thanks. I’m rather like you, I think. When I was a young man I longed to live in the country, and to shoot, and now—I don’t care about it. Birds and animals feel the same about death as we do.”

  “I have thought about selling my Purdeys. I’m rather keen on an Aston-Martin. I know of one for sale at four hundred pounds. I suppose I might get half that amount for my guns.”

  “Oh, don’t sell them, Piers. Your son, one day, might appreciate his father’s guns.”

  Phillip was thinking of the small saloon garden-gun which Uncle John had given him when he was a schoolboy, but Father had confiscated it as dangerous. How he had dreamed of knocking over a pigeon, or even a wild duck, in a countryside of mysterious lakes and forests. Perhaps Billy, one day, might covet the little gun. Billy, of whom Uncle John sometimes spoke as the heir. No, he mustn’t give up the Maddison land. He must discipline himself and go to bed early, regularly, and get up every morning at 5, to write until 7 a.m.

  *

  “Anthony Cruft is going to make a name for himself, I fancy,” said Piers. “He and Virginia have a flat in a little-known part of London.” He avoided the word suburb. “It’s in rather a pleasant square. Early Victorian. I suppose City merchants once lived there, and took a ’bus to the office and back. Or more likely kept their mistresses where no-one would have heard of the place.”