The Innocent Moon

by Henry Williamson

  October 4 (in retrospect).

  I had several long talks with Mary Ogilvie, who made me promise never to tell anyone that her sister Jean had overheard Willie saying to her mother that he was going to cross by a salmon boat coming up from the South Tail (dangerous sand-bar at mouth of estuary) and would Mrs. O. tell Mary this. Mrs. O failed to give the message, not knowing what Mary knew—that salmon netting was ended for the season. So W. waited in vain, and was swept off the mid-river gravel ridge by tide flowing at 6–7 knots.

  I was with Mary and her friend Howard and Julian when the body was brought in. Willie’s spaniel, Billjohn, had been found before this, and Julian had made a fire of driftwood to burn the body of the dog; he suggested burning W’s body, too, like Byron burning the body of Shelley on sands of Lerici bay in Italy. Julian was greatly moved, chanting Swinburne’s Itylus, weeping and raging by turns. Howard damned him for the effect this “maudlin” behaviour had on Mary, who cried that she had let Willie down.

  I told Uncle John that Willie had left no debts. “Proper gen’le’man, always paid his way,” said the sexton, a part-time netsman.

  Mary O. didn’t come to funeral; too ill. She was brave and tearless until the flamy scene, like climax of Greek play, on the sandhills of Crow Spit—the pale face of the dead in the well of the fisherman’s boat. Several crews were out that night, shooting their nets from the ridge, knowing the body would be up and down with the tides. Might have been taken right up Torridge; the tides of the two rivers divide beyond the shingle bank, at the String, a patch of agitated water.

  Note. One of life’s little ironies. The local correspondent of The Weekly Courier came up to me after the inquest in Barnstaple and said, “Bloom asks me to give you his sympathy, and says he remembers the article your cousin wrote for the paper, the plea for a better relationship between late enemies. He will publish it as it stands if you can let me have a copy by tomorrow morning.”

  Alas, where is it? I said I didn’t know.

  Now I recall, “with bitter tears to shed”, that the clairvoyant Barley urged me to help Willie. I have failed him.

  Phillip saw some of his father’s relations at the funeral. There was Uncle Hilary, Aunt Augusta, Aunt Victoria (‘Viccy’) Lemon, and of course Aunt Dora from Lynmouth. The aunts all seemed kind and gentle, with their Victorian manners, each a little apart from the others, but never distant. He felt himself to belong to them rather than to the Turneys, his mother’s people. They were gentlefolk, he could see that; never familiar with one another, and yet sharing the same close family feeling. He could understand fully why his father had never really been at home at Wakenham, with his mother; for these tall grey-eyed people spoke so precisely, and yet quietly, about all kinds of things afterwards, as though there had been no funeral.

  When they had gone, Uncle John asked Phillip to stay the night. After dinner he told him that he was his heir now, and in due course the house would belong to him.

  “But I must tell you that there are certain burdens that go with it, Phillip. It is mortgaged, to your Uncle Hilary, who has also bought up some of the land which belonged to your grandfather. It is his hope, and mine too, that you will decide to live here. He has no farm in hand, but he tells me that he is prepared to buy out one of the tenants, who at present farms what was the Home Farm, of about a hundred and fifty acres, including the brook, which still holds some trout. He is also prepared to put up some capital, to start you off, at a low rate of interest. I don’t know, of course, how you will feel about this, but there is no immediate hurry. How are your books doing?”

  “Not very well, I’m afraid, Uncle John.’’

  “You could perhaps write them in your spare time, as a hobby? That’s what R. D. Blackmore did, didn’t he? He ran a market garden at Teddington by the Thames, I fancy.” He offered Phillip another glass of port. “We Maddisons seem to like living alone,” he went on. “There’s Belle at Westcliff-on-Sea, Dora at Lynmouth, and Viccy at Bournemouth; she left Hawkhurst, I expect you know. And I’m here, stuck in the mud, and Hilary talking of having a caravan made to tow behind his motor, and to live, during the spring and summer, on the unspoiled coast of Pembroke, north of Milford Haven, where he says are sandy bays as fine as any in Cornwall, which is beginning to be a little too popular for him. And now there is our latest addition to the family reclusion, yourself in South Devon. How do you like it there? Isn’t the air a bit relaxing?”

  “I don’t notice it, Uncle John, I’m out walking most of the time.”

  “Do you see many people? You hunt, don’t you, so Dicky wrote to me some time back. Isn’t it rather expensive, hiring from a stables?”

  “I have done only a very little, Uncle John.”

  He told his uncle about the tennis club.

  “The middle classes of any country town are rather prone, you know, to resent any newcomer, particularly if they think he or she is not quite up to their standards. I think if, I may say so, that your attitude to the various rebuffs is commendable. You wouldn’t find the same thing among people who are sure of themselves, the established families. Of course, good manners are essential in any stable society, but your own sensitivity, I fancy, and experience of your fellow officers in your regiment, will have shown you that. After all, it is the man himself who counts, in the long run. Do you meet any young women where you live?”

  He was too shy to speak about Barley—besides, the engagement was secret—so he said, “I’ve met one or two summer visitors, Uncle John.”

  “Perhaps you’ll meet your lady love when you settle down, Phillip. Meanwhile, I’ll say only that there is no life like farming, it’s the natural life. The only fly in the ointment, so far as I can see, will be if that scamp Lloyd George has his way and repeals the Corn Production Act, letting into the country another flood of cheap foreign food. Free Trade very nearly broke the real England during the three decades before the Kaiser’s war.”

  Phillip was touched by Uncle John’s gentleness, and promised next morning before leaving to visit the old man again before long. “Do send me a line, now and again, when you can spare the time. And bear in mind Hilary’s offer, won’t you?”

  “Yes, thank you both, I am most grateful for the very kind offer.”

  “I like your book of essays, and also your story of little Donkin. It was too realistic in some places, perhaps, but a genuine work of the imagination. That is where some modern young authors seem, if I may say so, to go wrong; but it is understandable, your generation was exhausted in the war, and so criticism of society has taken the place of the imagination. Such books will soon ‘date’, I fancy. Human nature, you know, remains much the same from one generation to another.”

  “Well, Uncle, Hardy wrote, ‘If way to the better there be, it enacts a full look at the worst’.”

  “That is a brave attitude, Phillip, but it is by his country scenes, rather than his predisposition to repeat the themes of Greek tragedy, that Hardy will live as a writer. By the way, I have here Willie’s collection of the works of Richard Jefferies, I would like you to have them. I will keep them here for you. Well, my dear boy, thank you for all you have done, and do remember to call on me for help if at any time you feel you need it, won’t you?”

  *

  In all directions the old life was changing rapidly: could it be more than three years since he first rented Valerian Cottage? As for the war, the fifth Armistice Day Two Minutes’ Silence had gone; and nothing written of those scenes and faces which lived with him, their medium, to appear during many times of every day and night, often with a phrase of Willie’s found among his papers—“Speak for us, brother, the snows of death are on our brows”.

  But the snows dissolved with thoughts of Barley: the gentians were under the snow, awaiting the sun. She was coming to stay at his father’s house after Christmas.

  He had no fear of his old home now, the life of which had seemed to be in eternal discord, so that all were tone-deaf to one another.

 
; Barley arrived one early January day. He met her at Victoria and took her down to Wakenham. She slept in the little room which had been his as a boy; and seeing her head on the pillow when he went in to kiss her good-night, and again in the morning when he took in a tea tray, Phillip could scarcely believe his luck. He was living again in boyhood’s summer.

  Richard, too, felt to be young again, as he looked forward to his nightly game of chess. Barley beat him sometimes, which added to the keenness of the tournament, as he called it. Others in the family felt new life, too. One Saturday Phillip took Barley and Elizabeth to a matinée; Phillip discovered a new personality in his sister. They returned home in high spirits, to Hetty’s happiness. Barley was, in Richard’s words, a general favourite. Phillip took her to see Mrs. Rolls, Mrs. Bigge next door, and Mrs. Neville, the mother of his boyhood friend Desmond, from whom he was estranged. Mrs. Neville, when Phillip led Barley into the flat, took the girl in her arms and with tears running down her large powdered face exclaimed, “Phillip has been dreaming of you all his life, dear!”

  *

  But Phillip was not yet clear of the past. Morbid thoughts sometimes arose out of time remembered. The first day they went for a walk in the country he took her to the new housing estate beyond Cutler’s Pond, to show her where Tom Ching, accompanying him soon after the war, had set fire to a builder’s office hut. But where had it stood? Was this the foundation road of red and yellow crushed bricks once lying through the felled trees—this macadamised dead thing between rows of houses, a bewilderment of slates, bricks, unmade gardens and wireless poles and aerials behind stringy private hedges?

  He hurried her back to the new main road, and caught a bus going to the country.

  “I think I ought to tell you that I went to prison, just after the war, Barley. I was ‘done’, as they said in the Scrubs, for arson.” He told her about it, and she said, “But why did you take the blame for Ching?”

  “His mother was a widow, and had been in an asylum part of the time during the war, recently coming home. But it wasn’t that, really. I simply didn’t care what happened to me after the war.”

  “What’s it like in prison?”

  “I could sleep at night, out of the rain. Nothing could ever be as bad again as the war. It’s a kind of touchstone.”

  “Did you wear a broad arrow?”

  “Only a grey uniform, I’m afraid. Second division in the Scrubs.”

  “Why weren’t you in the first division?”

  “Oh, I bribed the judge!” It was wonderful to take everything lightly.

  “While we’re about it, is there anything else in your past you want to declare?”

  “You sound like a Customs officer! Yes, I had an affaire or two.”

  “Were they fun?”

  “Not altogether. Do you mind?”

  “Why should I?”

  “I thought that perhaps if one loved anyone——”

  “You mean I should be jealous? I’m not conventional, P.M.”

  This started a deteriorating train of thought. French boys were supposed to be very precocious. The idea of Barley having been involved similarly put him out.

  “What’s on your mind, P.M.?”

  “When you call me ‘P.M.’, I feel almost as though we are part of a French marriage of convenience.”

  “Well, aren’t we? I want to be with you; you want to be with me. Voilá!”

  Just as Eveline Fairfax had cried, ‘Voilà!’, taking lightly all ideas of morality. “I’ve told you about my affaires. Have you had any?”

  They were now in the woods where he, Quick, Willie, Broughton, and Poppett had walked on the way to the deserted chalk quarry.

  “No serious ones.”

  “Depends on what you call serious.”

  “You mean what you call serious?” When he gave no reply she went on, “You mean, have I slept with any man? No, I haven’t, but I nearly did once.”

  His morbid curiosity, his fear, had let in ‘the worm that flies in the night, in the howling storm——’ She kept pace with him, determined not to let him lose himself. “I’ll tell you about it, Phillip. He was very attractive, you see.”

  “Was this after you met me?”

  “No, before.”

  “Did he ask you?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  “I knew it was wrong.”

  “In what way?”

  “Because I didn’t love him. It was only an attraction, as I told you. Besides, he was married already.”

  “If he hadn’t been married, would you have done?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Not until I was married, anyway.”

  He stopped and faced her. “What! You believe a wife should have lovers?”

  “Yes, if she wants them. I said if she wants them. Are you satisfied?”

  He strode on alone. She caught up with him and pulled him round to face her. “I said if she wants them, if she is unhappy, if she isn’t loved, don’t you see?”

  They clung together against an oak. She was so beautiful that his tears fell. She stroked them from his cheeks with her finger, putting each one to her lips. “Darling, there’s only you, for ever and ever.”

  *

  On a cold day in January Phillip was standing as he had stood nearly four years before, on Victoria station, by the waiting boat-train to Folkestone; only this time the girl he was seeing off was Barley, on her way to Paris and the last term at her finishing school.

  “Look after yourself, Phillip. You will go regularly to your meals in the Ring of Bells, won’t you? Promise?”

  “I promise, Barley. You’ll come back, won’t you?”

  “Of course I shall! I wish I had left school.”

  “So do I, Barley. Give my love to Irene.”

  “That’s four times you’ve sent Mummie your love. What a loving man it is, to be sure!” The bright puma-cub eyes were almost hidden in the creases of the smiling face. “Hullo, there’s Spica!”

  Tabitha Trevelian was coming along the platform. She had already seen them, her face was pink, her eyes alight with pleasure. “I saw you as I came through the barrier! Well, this is a surprise!” For a moment those eyes became reflective, the smile faded; then she was beyond that ghost of old personal feeling. “Barley, you look radiant, my dear!”

  “She’s going back to Paris, that’s why, Tibby my dear!”

  “Nonsense! And my name to you is Spica! I am one of your first stars, remember!” She embraced the younger girl. “How fortunate for me, I shall have your company as far as Folkestone! Are you going back to your finishing school?”

  “Yes, the last term, thank goodness! I don’t in the least want to go.”

  “Then why do you go?” asked Spica sharply. “Oh, of course, Irene is there, isn’t she? Well, I must go and get my seat. See you on the train!”, and she was about to move off when she hesitated and reached down into her bag. “I’d like to give you Nip, the only surviving son of Nig,” she said, holding out a small grey mouse, and putting the little beast on Phillip’s shoulder. “Mother’s got a cat now, and I don’t want Nip to get nightmares. Mice do, you know! I’ve seen them twitching in sleep, and uttering squeaks of fear, while they can’t move their legs. Would you like him?”

  “Thanks,” said Phillip, as she put the mouse on his shoulder, and walked down the platform. Warming the mouse in his hands he said, “I wish you hadn’t got to go, Barley.”

  “So do I.”

  The same elderly guard was walking to the rear of the train, furled green flag in hand.

  “Must you go?”

  “No!”

  His legs trembled. “Would your Father—do you think—his permission—if——?”

  “Yes!”

  “How d’you know?”

  “I’ve already asked him. I sent him your book of essays.”

  “Well?”

  “He said they are beautiful, and advised me to marry you!”

  �
�Will you?”

  “Yes!”

  “Now?”

  “All right! I’ll get my suit-case!’’ She lugged it from the rack. “Sure you want me?” pausing at the door, eyes almost hidden in a grin.

  He pulled the suit-case through the window, while she opened the door and almost fell with it on the platform, just as the guard was taking out his watch.

  “Quick, say goodbye to Spica!” They ran, hand in hand, to the next carriage.

  “Barley’s not going! We’re going to get spliced!”

  Spica hesitated and said, “In that case you won’t want Nip, so I’d better take him back.” Phillip stuck Nip on her shoulder, as she leaned down and kissed him, and then Barley. “My blessings on you both!”

  The whistle blew, and they stood waving to Spica whose last words were, “You’ll have to use your signet ring, Phillip, until I send the ring I promised you for Barley later on.”

  *

  Phillip applied for a marriage licence at Caxton Hall, and every day they went to London to look at the notice pinned on the board. The last day for any objections was a Thursday. The next morning they were to be married at 10 a.m.

  “A pity Irene can’t be here” he said, once again. Irene had sailed from Marseilles to the Far East, her husband had had a ‘serious operation’, the cable said. On Friday Teresa Jane Lushington, spinster, was married to Phillip Sidney Thomas Maddison, bachelor, in the presence of Henrietta Eliza Maddison and Hilda Rose Neville. The wedding breakfast was coffee for three, rock cakes for two, and tea for one in the Paddington Station buffet; and tears on the departure platform for the elderly women left behind as the train pulled out.

  Mrs. Neville took Hetty’s arm, for the first time. “Now that we know one another better dear, do come down to the flat whenever you feel like a little chat and a cup of tea,” she said as she dabbed her eyes.

  *

  On arrival at Queensbridge Phillip suggested that they have tea at the Britannia Inn and then walk to Malandine. On the way down the High Street from the station he saw a bulky form under a Stetson hat coming towards them, and with a muttered “Damn Wigfull!” he pulled her by the hand down a side-street, laughing as they ran to hide. After a tall heap of buttered toast and two boiled eggs each for tea, followed by whortleberry jam tart with cream, they went shopping, Barley to buy ham and bread for supper, and Phillip a bottle of sherry. After this, each carrying a bag, they set out for the five-mile walk to Malandine as the full moon was rising above the line of hills to the east.