The Innocent Moon

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The Innocent Moon Page 37

by Henry Williamson


  “Well, I’m damned!” he exclaimed. Then Wigfull, broad-brimmed Stetson hat on head, left his office and went into Messrs. Mutton.

  He laughed sardonically to himself, realizing that he had been conned, as they said in the Scrubs.

  The letter was left at the surgery. Two days later Dr. MacNab called at Phillip’s cottage.

  “You may be amused to hear that when I showed several members that letter of apology you left at my surgery, the reply was, ‘Oh, that’s nothing! We were in the office when that was composed’. The Vicar’s wife said to me later, ‘If that man stays in the Club, I regret to say that we won’t be able to play there in the coming season’.” He looked at Phillip quizzically. “That means, old chap, that I shan’t be able to get my daily exercise this summer, it will mean that half the membership will have left.”

  “But you must have your tennis, of course! It isn’t right that one person should spoil the pleasure of eight or nine people, so I won’t appear any more. I don’t feel I should resign. My subscription will lapse.”

  “I’ll tell them, old chap. I think it’s awfully decent of you. Well, I must go—keep your pecker up!”

  The doctor out of kindness, he thought, was keeping back the bad news of the sputum test. Ah well, everyone had to die some time. Goodbye to all hope; and Annabelle. Now he must work, for time was short.

  The following week Dr. MacNab motored in his worn Singer to see another patient in Malandine, and again called at Valerian Cottage. “I thought I’d amuse you by letting you know the latest about the Tennis Club imbroglio. I told the Committee what you said about not wanting to spoil the tennis of the majority, and that you wouldn’t appear again, and the reply was, ‘Oh, so he can’t keep up his bluff any longer!’”

  “What I like about this country, from the little I’ve seen of it,” said Phillip, with calm bitterness, “Is the total absence of any magnanimity. My publisher tells me that in the book trade the salesman’s ‘territory’ west of Taunton and Exeter is known as ‘The Graveyard’.”

  “Now you mustn’t let yourself be depressed over a silly little misunderstanding! You’ll laugh at all this one day, when you are an established author. How are you keeping? You look very fit, it’s the healthy life you lead, I wish I had the time to walk about as you do.”

  The long-dreaded moment had come. “Oh, doctor—I wonder if you could tell me—about that sputum test?”

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’m so sorry. You must have been worrying yourself. You’re all right now. The results arrived at the surgery weeks ago, showing negative. No, take my advice, get away from yourself, and have a rest from your work!”

  *

  “Hullo, nice to see you, Drummer. Where you bin all this time, you bad boy?”

  “Oh, mouching about, enjoying myself in a quiet way, Jackie. ‘Drummer’ sounds like a Yankee commercial traveller.”

  “Your old bike, midear!” She said it in the Devon way, running the two words my and dear together. ‘Us yerrs ’ee miles away, bumblin’ and bangin’ like ’tes part of an ould jazz band rattlin’ away down the li’l ole lanes. Goodness knows what maids you be after, you old oyl, you!”

  “When’s the opening meet, Jackie?”

  “Next Thursday. At the Master’s place, Tunnhayes. Eleven o’clock. I’ll ask Mother to give you a lift in our motor, if you like. What about a hoss? You can hire from Smardon’s, cost you thirty bob. Shall I bespeak one for ’ee, midear?”

  “I’ll come, thanks. Next Thursday? Right. Well—good-bye.”

  “Where you off to, Drummer? Us be just goin’ vor ’ave tay. Dammit, you can’t go without saying howdo to Ma! Can’t you give they li’l maids a rest now and agen? Come on in, Drummer, and don’t pretend you’re shy. And don’t take any notice of my rough exterior. Anyway, we’re all as rude as hell in our house.” She took his arm, and led him in.

  On the following Thursday he went with the Carders to the meet, and as a non-subscriber was capped 2/6d. before the pack moved off. His anxieties about being too soft to ride were soon lost. There was not much of a run, too many foxes were about, dodging in and out of the combe-side woods which grew down to rushy bottoms which meant heavy going through boggy ground and over rotting tree trunks and branches. The rest of the field avoided such treacherous places, and crossed the stream by culverts which led from field to field. When he saw Jacky again, his hunter’s legs were yellow with clay well above the hocks.

  At the next meet, Jacky said, “Very sporting of you, Drummer, to take your own line, but ’ware bogs in these bottoms, midear!” He learned other things from Jacky. How not to fly a bank, as though it were a ‘fence’. This after he had tried to jump a stone-and-earth bank, at which his horse had remained on one side while he went headfirst over the bank and arrived among rushes on the other side, falling on a shoulder and fortunately rolling over to break the fall, to get up with clay on the brim of his bowler and sleeve of tweed jacket.

  “Us ban’t in the Shires, y’knaw, midear!” remarked Jackie. “Us ban’t top-sawyers and bullfinch crashers, noomye! Us catts banks down yurr, y’knaw!” She reverted to her ordinary clear, cool voice. “Come with me, Drummer, and I’ll show you.”

  It was during a break, while hounds were drawing a new covert. Riders were standing, talking to one another in low voices, or listening to the huntsman’s voice in the wood as he took hounds through, and the occasional rating voice of the whipper-in to a hound rioting, probably after rabbit.

  Phillip followed her to the far end of the field. There she put her horse at a bank. “Watch me, Drummer!” At a hand canter she approached the bank; sprang atop it; allowed her hunter to change feet; then to jump off, to the other side. All done smoothly, as in one motion.

  “Don’t follow me!” came her voice. “I’m coming back.” Over she came. “Now you try it. Roman Nose has been trained to cat, but has a tendency to go slow, from having to carry side-saddle some old baggage who probably pulled him too much. Goo on, try it, midear!”

  He walked the horse twenty yards away, turned its head and put it at the bank, approaching at a hand-canter. Two yards from the hollow under the bank Roman Nose slowed down, looked at the top of the bank, and suddenly sprang, almost unseating its rider.

  He walked it back again, and tried once more, this time using the spur. Roman Nose pranced, Jacky cried “Steady!” He pulled back the horse’s head to try again. Roman Nose slewed round, its hind feet scoring yellow clay under the thin grass. That was bad, he might have lamed it.

  “Go easy,” said Jacky, quietly. “Approach at a hand canter, steady your horse, and then let him go at the bank.”

  Once again he turned Roman Nose, and going forward with reserve, bent down to speak to it before saying “Hup!” while lifting himself in the irons and gripping with his calves as the gelding leapt upon the bank; he lifted the reins, allowed it to change feet, and with a slight pressure of calves, heels well down lest he touch with spurs, was down the other side safely just as the huntsman’s horn sounded the Gone Away!; and he saw, as he held back the quivering animal, that riders were crossing the field lower down. Waiting for Jacky to lead, he set off after her at a gallop.

  Thus began a wonderful run, Jacky now beside him, now in front at a bank. Half a dozen riders were well up with the pack, following the huntsman. He galloped down hill and crossed a stream, then over rushy places where curlew rose up, and on through thin, crooked oaks hung with lichen. He was sweating, mud on face and stock, he felt gloriously alive. Hounds were running a breast-high scent, judging by the full-throated music.

  Roman Nose was excited as it saw hounds in front entering rough heather and bracken of the hill. He held it back lest it strain a tendon or burst its heart taking long striding plunges up the 1-in-7 slopes of Darkdown Camp. Once the summit was reached he gave Roman Nose its head, until Jacky yelled beside him, “’Ware rabbit holes, Drummer!” Yes, how dense he was: a foot in a rabbit hole, crack of cannon bone, shoulder twisted out of socke
t—anything, even a broken back. He held back, using the curb. Then, releasing the pressure, he found that the horse was sensitive to the laying of reins on neck for direction, and to pressure of calves—obviously it was an old Army charger! At last he felt at home with Roman Nose, he spoke close to its ear, patting its neck.

  The fox was seen, a long lean animal. “Born in the open, never seen the inside of an earth!” cried Jacky beside him. “Making for the moor! Yii-io!”

  Most of the field was now left behind. He rammed his hat over his ears, feeling himself to be a real thruster. This was the life!

  The fox ran on, tirelessly it seemed. He hoped it would get away after showing such sport. Grey-green slopes of the moor were coming near now. Hounds were running silent. Looking back, he saw a few riders very small against the sky.

  The crest of the moor loomed larger, they were going down to a road. They were beside the road, cantering along the grassy verge looking for a gate on the other side.

  “Follow me, Drummer!”

  He followed Jacky through a gate into a narrow lane sunken under hazel and thorn bushes, its banks pale green with hart’s-tongue ferns. There was the smoke of a railway engine in front; they waited while the London train, pulling out of Fernbridge, passed away eastwards.

  Cantering under a bridge, they found themselves in a valley rising to the sky-line of the moor. Roman Nose was lathered with sweat, but still willing to thrust on. And then, among a small grove of trees, where bunched steers were backing away from the huntsman on foot among hounds, he saw the lifted carcase of the fox.

  “Five-mile point, Jim!” said Jacky in her clear voice, as the huntsman laid the fox among hazel-stubs on the bank. “Well done, midear! Bold old stub-bred varx, I reckon!”

  The huntsman sucked in breath with a lift of his chin, “Aye, Miss Jacky, us ’ave rinned he before, proper old Jack Varx, but ’a didden get away thissy time, noomye!”

  They killed another fox after sandwiches and port; and at half-past three, as the evening was drawing in, the four looped notes to end the day were wound on the horn. A glass of beer in the Turfcutter; a trot beside Jacky to where the Norton lay in the ditch; handing over Roman Nose to groom, and Drummer Boy, Jacky’s second hunter, to the stableman—and they were off to the crisp notes of the exhaust, back to Osswill House for poached eggs on muffins: two friends with no sentiment between them, friends of the hunting field and not outside it, soon to go their separate ways; for when he got back to his cottage Phillip found a letter from Sophy inviting him to stay at Tollemere for the hunt ball after Christmas. Annabelle is leaving school, and will be ‘out’ for the occasion, she wrote.

  He sent off a telegram, Delighted, accept with greatest pleasure, Phillip. He saw Sophy with new eyes: she really was his friend. O life was glorious!

  Chapter 16

  ‘GIGOLO’

  In London, Phillip went to Mr. Kerr, his war-time tailor in Cundit Street, to be measured for a dress suit, and hunting jacket of dark West of England cloth; and from a bootmaker in Panton Street a pair of hunting boots with patent leather tops.

  When the boots were tried on for the first fitting they were too big around the calf. A hand, almost, could be thrust between boot-top and knee-button. Time was now short; he was expected to arrive in four days’ time. The bootmaker said he would post them direct to Tollemere Park. Mr. Kerr promised to send his suit on the same day.

  He was met by Sophy and the General in a Daimler at Chelmsford station. Was he deceiving himself again, or had a change come over Sophy? The General was a widower; perhaps——It was somewhat disconcerting; but soon they were on the friendliest terms.

  Sitting in the hall—the General had driven the Daimler away, presumably it was his car, and he had gone home—Sophy said, “Well, my dear, what have you been doing with yourself? You didn’t answer my last two letters, did you? Were you busy writing a new masterpiece, or have you fallen in love again?”

  “Again? Have I ever fallen in love with anyone?”

  “Don’t worry, there’s plenty of time. Now tell me all about yourself. When is the new novel being published? That Pauline book will make you famous.”

  “I’m rewriting it. J. D. Woodford said the other version was too hastily written.”

  He looked round the hall; the fire was roaring in the wide hearth, split ash-wood branch lengths and coal. He amused himself by thinking how people could be revealed by their hearths. The Kingsmans had burned only wood, using the ash for the roses; they had been—well—a little different from the Selby-Lloyds, who one generation before had made money in Midland industry. The wood-burning Kingsmans had never showed any sort of class superiority. They were sure of themselves, and so had not needed to resent “common” people. Probably Sophy and the others regarded him as slightly common—all three, at times, had kindly corrected his pronunciation of various words.

  “More tea, child? Sure you’ve had enough? Dinner won’t be for two hours, you know!”

  She took his hand and held it. Her face glowed, she laughed in her throat. “You look very well, Phillip. Been doing some good work?”

  “Well—I don’t altogether know.” He saw two packages, one from Panton Street, on the oak chest. “Ah, my boots have come, too!”

  “Oh, they’re boots, are they? Annabelle and I wondered what they were.”

  Making his breathing steady, he said, “Oh, isn’t she at school?”

  “Surely I wrote and told you? Annabelle left at Christmas. She’s staying for the ball and the meet the day after, then she’s off to Melton Mowbray—her first invitation since she put up her hair! I had doubts of accepting for her at first, for the mother of a school-friend who invited her ended up ‘Yours truly,’ to the letter she wrote to me. They are wholesale grocers, with shops everywhere, and came on a lot during the war—profiteers, one supposes, rolling in money, but Annabelle’s nearly eighteen now, and was keen to go, so of course I didn’t stand in her way.”

  “But if you and this woman have not met, Sophy, isn’t ‘yours truly’ correct?”

  “Well, it may be among such people, but not in our class. By the way, Queenie’s young man, ‘Woppy’ Raymond, is here, and so is Roger, you haven’t met either of them, have you? They were both with the Mediterranean Fleet as snotties last year. Roger, my elder boy, was at Smyrna when the Turks drove through and set fire to the town. He took it a bit hard, seeing all the corpses of women and children floating in the harbour, so don’t say anything about the war, will you?”

  He said politely, “How much leave has Roger got?”

  “Three months, in all. He’s going to join Annabelle at Melton next week, so with Raymond and Queenie going about a lot together, we’ll have the place more or less to ourselves. I hope it won’t be too dull for you.”

  “Oh, no. I hope to do some writing.”

  There seemed little else to say.

  “Tired, old man? Go up and rest yourself. You know your room, don’t you? Ring if you want anything.”

  “May I have a whisky and soda, please?”

  “By all means—help yourself. The tray is over there. I’ll leave you now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got a few things to attend to.”

  So Annabelle was grown up, and was going away almost at once. It was hopeless to think of her: he had always known it: and yet it had seemed—— He sighed: Annabelle at fashionable Melton—Annabelle a different edition of the girl wearing ready-made Swears and Wells boots and breeches. He imagined her riding astride in a new bowler and black coat, brown breeches and straight-sided black boots of crupp leather made from the hide of a porpoise—one of a set of rich and fashionable young people. Had Sophy arranged to get her out of the way? It was a wretched thought. He poured himself another stiff peg of magazine fiction, then a third, and with the package from Cundit Street, went up to his room.

  *

  There was a feeling of space, but of undeserved luxury, in having again a bathroom of one’s own: almost a feeling of self-betrayal
to lie in a hot bath when he had swum all the year round in the sea. He lay there until he heard the gong thrumming downstairs, and got out to find the water was chilly. Five minutes later, pushing the last gold stud through his boiled shirtfront after several attempts to get the white tie level—and realising he should have tied it after pushing through the studs—he ran downstairs to find Sophy sitting in the hall alone. She was in a black dress, and looked fresh and lively.

  “I must apologise for being late down!”

  “Now don’t pretend you didn’t know that was the dressing gong,” said Queenie, coming down the stairs from another wing, in a pale blue frock with silver trimmings. She sat down with an ingenuous lift of azure eyes and patted the sofa, giving his hand a small squeeze as he lowered his length beside her. “You look so distinguished,” she murmured. “Have you been to those Moses people who sell cast-off clothing?”

  “As a fact I did go to them, but they told me a hunt ball was being held near Chelmsford, so they had no second-hand dress clothes left. I went to Cahoon Brothers, their rivals, who charged me double when I told them I was staying at Tollemere with the Selby-Lloyds.”

  “You ninny! But seriously, haven’t you got a dinner jacket? The ball’s tomorrow night, you know.”

  “Oh, you mean a short dress coat! They’re only worn by the socially damned, who wear gloves with black stripes on the back! Haven’t you read Way of Revelation?”

  “Now, Phillip, you’re talking too much!” said Sophy, with a flutter of eyelids in his direction. “I don’t think you’ve met my other son, Roger, have you?”

  Roger was in age between Annabelle and Queenie, whom he resembled, being slight and fair; but where Queenie was talkative, Roger was reserved, with a faint air of amusement behind an almost unsmiling face. Was it shyness? Hardly so; for during some talk about books he said suddenly, in his faintly amused voice, “But are books so important? I suppose people who write them think they are, but does anyone else?”

 

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