The Power of the Dead

by Henry Williamson

  *

  A church clock struck the two hours. He drew a deep breath, and stood still to collect himself before going in to enquire for Mr. Edward Cornelian; to find that he was expected. A waiter took him upstairs, and there at a far table, overlooking the street, sat the man whom he recognized at once as the famous critic, and beside him the remote, almost chaste, countenance—a word more apt than face—of Thomas Morland, world-famous for his sequence of novels, generally supposed to be based upon the older generations of his own family.

  Phillip walked forward lightly, eagerly, feeling that he was about to be recognised by his own kind at last. He heard Edward Cornelian say, “Well, my dear fellow, to sum up: we both agree that Evelyn Crouchend will have to die; but not the way you have arranged his death in your first draft.” He looked at his watch. “We have a moment before the young man is due, and I think I can recapitulate in that time.”

  Phillip sat down at an empty table, to wait. How awful, he was too early. He pretended to be writing in his pocket-book, while overhearing what the famous critic was saying. This was the stuff of literary history!

  “Let me be frank. The so-called virtue of tolerance,” said Cornelian with a loosening of already loose lips as he smiled at the creator of The Crouchend Saga, “can lead not only to the death of art, but to the extinction of society. Nature advances by tension, not by relaxation of physical laws. In your book as it stands, my dear fellow, your over-extended tolerance not only trembles on the verge of sentimentality, but brings one perilously near to what Oscar Wilde said of one of Dickens’ characters—‘Only a man with a heart of stone would fail to laugh at the death of Little Nell’. No, my dear fellow, Evelyn should die appalled by the terrors of his mind arising from within, the materialist without sensitivity come at last to realise that his property cannot save him, and that he has nothing else to fall back upon. His final loneliness should purge the reader with pity and terror. As now written, his death by a picture falling on him when his house is on fire is a mere accident happening outside the story. He might as well have fallen under a train at Waterloo Station, or had a chimney pot drop on his head.”

  At this moment Thomas Morland observed a thin young man getting up from a table to approach them with a smile. To Morland the eyes were the arresting feature: deep blue, with a look about them suggesting a capacity for reflection beyond the normal; but which now were in free play upon the living scene. Here was modesty, here was that rare quality of balance, he thought, that had gone to the creation of the world of the otter.

  “You have had luncheon?”

  “Oh yes, thank you, Mr. Morland.”

  “Will you have some coffee, and brandy? A cigar?”

  “May I have some coffee, sir?”

  Edward Cornelian said, “I have been reading your new novel. It is good stuff. But I’ll talk to you about it later. How is the farm progressing?”

  Phillip told them of his dilemma; they listened; Cornelian with one ear thrust towards Phillip, Morland looking like a benevolent judge, his eyes alight with understanding and sympathy.

  “There’s a novel in what you have told us,” said Cornelian.

  “Part of a novel, as I’ve seen it, sir——”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake drop the ‘sir’. We are all writers here,” retorted Cornelian, testily.

  “‘Emotion recollected in tranquillity’,” said Thomas Morland softly. “I don’t think any writer can see a subject in perspective while he is one of his own characters. ‘Ripeness is all’.”

  “Oh, he won’t make your mistakes, Tom,” replied Cornelian, a little maliciously. “Maddison’s characters in the novel I have just read are objectively created, that is with compassion, because he has no axe to grind, or old scores to pay off.”

  Phillip thought that Cornelian had aimed this remark at the characterisation of Evelyn Crouchend in Possession, said to be based on the novelist’s cousin, whose wife Morland had married. He kept an open expression on his face.

  “What do you want to do, most of all?” asked Thomas Morland.

  “To write a series of novels beginning at the end of the nineteenth century, eighteen ninety-three, and leading up to the Great War,” said Phillip, feeling a slight constriction that he was exposing his subconscious mind.

  “Why go so far back?” Cornelian cut in sharply. “Why not plunge directly into nineteen fourteen?”

  This was a shock. Why had he exposed his most secret idea, which even to himself he sheered away from formulating? He kept his gaze on the table-cloth, and felt the cold drip of sweat under his arm-pit.

  Thomas Morland’s lips were now slightly pursed; he drew in a breath as though to speak, but held it. Then he said in a soft, controlled voice, “I must tell you, Maddison, how greatly I enjoyed your book. The prose flows like water from a spring on one of your high moors. You are a West Countryman?”

  “Only by adoption. I was born in Kent—now part of London.”

  “But your forbears lived in the West Country.”

  “Yes.”

  “My forbears originated under Cranborne Chase,” murmured Thomas Morland. “We were small copyholders. There is a Morland Down near the border of Wil’shire and Dorset.”

  “I can see the dark-blue tree-line of the ox-drove on top of the Chase from our bit of land, Mr. Morland. My father and uncles used to walk there and back, making a wide circle, when they were boys.”

  “How came you to write about the moors and rivers of Devonshire when you are a ‘moonraker’?” asked Cornelian.

  Phillip told them about his cottage in South Devon after the war.

  “And you had a tame otter living in your cottage with you?”

  Both noticed that the young man lowered his gaze at this point. Hitherto he had been frank and open about himself: now he seemed to close up, the sight of his eyes becoming unfocus’d.

  “Have you still got the otter?” asked Cornelian.

  “It escaped one night.”

  “Did you track it down, as you describe in your book?”

  “Yes. But it escaped from hounds, the last time I saw it, into salt water, which carries no scent.”

  “I remember the tide-head scene. It actually got away then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why did you kill it off at the end of the hunt?”

  Morland, who had seen that the young man’s eyes had filled with tears, said gently, “But otters are still hunted to death by hounds, in spite of a growing revulsion after the blood-shed of the war.”

  The critic continued his own line. “What puzzled me when I read it was a feeling that your beast was more than an otter. You appear to have had an extraordinary affection for your beast, in fact, the search for its mate after she had been torn by hounds might almost be the animal equivalent of Tristan and Isolde” He peered hen-like at his wristlet watch. “Good gracious, I must soon be on my way to Coats’.” He turned to Phillip. “Will you be able to meet me there later—Satchville Street, you know it I expect—at three-thirty? I must have a word now with Morland about a private matter——”

  Phillip was already on his feet, thanking Mr. Morland for his hospitality, and then the critic for ‘making such a meeting with both of you possible’; and with a bow, he left them.

  “Of course it was his wife’s tame otter,” said Cornelian. “Coats heard about it from Norse. His wife was very young and had a remarkably clear intelligence. His book is the result, almost, of the transmigration of souls.”

  “But if you already knew that, Eddy, why did you persist in questioning him?”

  “To see to what extent he was prepared to be truthful, my dear fellow.” The critic peered again at his wristlet watch. “Now let me briefly recapitulate my points about your novel, For Rent——”

  Thomas Morland suddenly felt tired. He reflected that Eddie Cornelian had set out, in youth, to be a creative writer, and had never brought it off.

  “My main objection is that you have cheated us of the inevi
tability of Evelyn’s death scene, in his bed, a lonely old man—fearful, anxious, tormented—the inevitable nemesis of failure ever to have shared his personality with any living person.” He looked with sly innocence at his old friend. “So you’re in the know too, about Maddison having got the Grasmere? We’ll meet again at the Aeolian Hall, then.”

  *

  Phillip saw Mr. Cornelian again later in the afternoon and, after an exhilarating talk about The Phoenix, went away carrying the bundle of typescript under one arm, to call on Anders Norse. As he took long, confident strides towards Adelphi Terrace from Satchville Street he recalled that the Duke of Gaultshire owned a great deal of London, W.C., and would it be taking advantage of a war-time acquaintanceship if he sent him a copy of the otter book? After all, the Duke was a great man for natural history. Yes, he would send a copy.

  Arriving at Anders’ basement, he told him that Edward Cornelian had praised the novel, but suggested that the climax, just before the drowning of Donkin, should be strengthened.

  “He said that everyone takes it too calmly, that no tears are shed. Of course you haven’t read it, but I didn’t want to stress the irony, as Hardy did sometimes in his novels. To tell the truth, the ending moved me so much that I was afraid of sentimentality.”

  Anders knew that Phillip’s cousin, and great friend, had been drowned; but all he said was, “What are you going to do, take Cornelian’s advice?”

  “I’m going back by the evening train, and will bring it up to you after the week-end.”

  “Are you in a great hurry now?”

  “No.”

  “I wonder if you’d run your eye over this for me.” He took a typed Mss. from his desk. “I’d like your opinion. This came in yesterday by post, out of the blue. I know nothing about the author, A. B. Cabton.”

  The first sentence was arresting. He read on; the scene described stood out of the paper, the whole page was alive.

  “It’s good stuff, Anders. This chap can write.”

  “I’m so glad to hear you say that. As I said, I know nothing about the author. He sent it in from an address in East London. I thought of sending it to Coats.”

  “Yes, do. Edward Cornelian’s the man to spot talent.” Then saying “Au revoir, my pilot”, he left Anders to his pile of letters and walked down the Strand to Savoy Hill to call on Piers Tofield.

  It was a hot afternoon. He found Piers in a morning coat and trousers worn with a soft shirt open at the neck. He had been to a wedding; thrown upon a chair was a stiff winged collar, tie, slip, spats, and shirt with starched cuffs.

  “I’m going home now, but will be back next Monday, Piers.”

  “Do come and stay if you’ve nothing better to do. We’ll dine and go on to Channerson’s party. One more won’t make any difference, since it’s a bottle party. I must leave you now, unfortunately, to prepare the first news bulletin. Archie Plugge was asking after you, he’s down the passage, third door on right.”

  Ever since the first meeting Phillip had been awaiting a letter from Plugge, about broadcasting. He had thought out an original programme. Now was his chance.

  “My dear Phil, I met a friend of yours the other night at the Game Pie, who knew you in the war.” Plugge beamed through his enormous round glasses, awaiting a smile of recognition on the other’s face as he announced, “Bill Kidd!”

  “Bill Kidd? The only Bill Kidd I knew is dead. He was a Black and Tan, and ambushed by Sinn Feiners near Cork in nineteen twenty.”

  “This Bill Kidd told me that you served together in the second battalion of the Gaultshire regiment in the spring of nineteen eighteen.”

  “The last time I saw him he was standing outside a moviehouse in Leicester Square, advertising the film of Shagbag the Tailor, wearing a turban and the long white robes of a desert sheik. He was either the star, or the commissionaire in disguise; you know what British films are.”

  They were still laughing when the editor of The Wireless Times, a tall, thin young man, came in, was introduced, and left at once, murmuring ‘Conference’.

  “Horowitz says he is going to write a play around you. It’s about a soldier killed in the war who comes back into ordinary life and tries to tell the truth, but finds it isn’t wanted.”

  “Why, that’s the theme of my new novel, The Phoenix!”

  Plugge appeared to have forgotten about the broadcast.

  *

  London was exhausting, the pavements hot underfoot. He took a taxi to St. James Street, got his bag and went on to Paddington, where he had half an hour to wait. He sat on a bench near the clock, and started to make notes for a novel of scenes in Flanders in the late autumn and winter of 1914; but the face of Bill Kidd kept coming between him and the paper; Bill Kidd at his whisky-worst, arrogant, rude, refusing to obey the order to withdraw to the Peckham switch, resentful of having been passed over, as senior captain, for the command of the battalion after the March decimation. The withdrawal was a Corps order; Armentières had fallen; Bailleul in flames; Messines gone; the vital Hazebrouck railway junction almost within reach of the German heavy guns; and there in the Staenyzer Kabaret sat the half-drunken idiot, refusing to obey the order to withdraw, climax to near-insubordination ever since he, Phillip, had been in command. Through a chain of circumstances from Bill Kidd’s whisky heroics ‘Spectre’ West had lost his life.

  Bill Kidd dead during the past eight years had been a heroic-braggart figment in the imagination; Bill Kidd alive was—destruction of the character for his book. He sat there, the visual surroundings of the station unseen as he heard again the soft floo-er-er-er of yellow-cross gas-shells falling on Byron farm; the sudden swish of one striking at their feet; the crack of ‘Spectre’s’ legbone; everything flaring, fading out as a spray of mustard gas met his face, his eyeballs burning red above a rough remote feeling, followed by infinitely faraway silence while he wondered if his face was blown away and he unable to feel it. The world had vanished, the earth pressing on his face through eyes clenched tight, face ragged in big knots burning in a world on fire.

  *

  Among his letters at home was one from Miss Corinna Arden telling him that the award was to be presented by Thomas Morland, O.M. Enclosed were half a dozen invitation cards for his friends. He posted one to Lord Satchville, who promptly sent a subscription for a copy of the limited edition of the book together with a letter.

  The award of the Grasmere Memorial Prize for 1928 really confirms what I divined of your talent during those days we shared together, my dear Maddison, and it is with the greatest possible pleasure that I shall come to the Aeolian Hall on the twelfth of June, during an interval of a debate in the Lords, to do honour to a fellow officer of the Regiment.

  Phillip took this letter with him to Down Close the next morning, but before showing it to Pa he asked Ernest if they would care to go with Lucy and himself to London for ‘a rather special occasion’.

  “In confidence, Ernest, I’ve won the Grasmere Memorial Prize.”

  “Ah,” said Ernest.

  “It’s to be given in three weeks’ time in London. I’d like you and Pa to be my guests, if you don’t mind staying at the Adelphi Hotel just off the Strand for the night. Do you mind if we all go in your car? I’ll pay for the petrol and oil, of course.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Ernest was deep in a problem of making a model of a crown wheel in mahogany, from which to cast, in yellow metal, a new wheel. The broken original belonged to an ancient Delauny-Belville tourer which had broken down in the lane outside the Works. Ernest had observed the motionless car through the window and gone on with his work, which he had reluctantly left when one of the men had asked him how they could get to the station, and might he leave the vehicle under cover in his garage. The Delauny-Belville was pushed in, after which Ernest had driven the six men, on an outing with the driver, to Shakesbury railway station in his own car.

  A week or two later he had set about taking down the broken differential. The
various parts of this gear now lay neatly on a bench, with the chewed-up crown wheel exactly restored in mahogany.

  “I suppose you’re going to send that away to be cast?”

  “I am.”

  “I can see you’re pretty busy.”

  “You are right,” said Ernest. “I am busy.”

  “It will only be one day up, and one day coming back, Ernest. Will that make much difference to this job? I mean, have you a delivery time to work to?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “How about Pa? Would he like to come to London? It’s a pretty good thing, you know, the Grasmere Prize for Literature.”

  “I don’t know about Pa. At the moment he is watching his tomato plants for signs of potato disease.”

  “We’ll be there and back within thirty-six hours. Will a plague be likely to spread in that time?”

  “I—don’t—know.”

  Phillip examined the ancient motorcar, upholstered in red Russian leather; but the body had been repainted in yellow and brown. It stood high on the concrete floor. Within the open body was a litter of paper and a number of dry ham sandwiches.

  “Looks as though it were owned by a publican on an outing, Ernest.”

  “Ah.”

  Phillip went into the garden. Pa, having found his spectacles, read Lord Satchville’s letter. “Ha,” he remarked, giving it back. Then throwing up his head he said genially, “I’m quite willing to make the journey with you and Lucy if Ernest is.”