He got up from the warm oak seat, thinking that perhaps Father had already gone home by the path switching from the row of elms, which led in front of the Grammar School, a path invisible behind the plantation of hawthorn bushes. It was sad to leave the happy girls; the moment of their summery joy was over; they sat or lay upon the grass—“Blime, I’m puffed!” said one—and were silent when he walked away. Had they noticed him, he wondered; and turning by the shelter at the top of the gully leading down to his home, saw them looking his way; he waved, and at once eight arms waved back. Perhaps they had been feeling as he had been feeling: I love them, he thought, I love them: the moment is gone for ever, it will never be the same again.
*
The spirit of the summer day prevailed. Mrs. Feeney, as always, had left the rooms dustless, polished, spotless, the steel fire-arms on the hearth shining bright.
Not a cross word at lunch: Richard was released by his son’s open manner, for Phillip concealed his thoughts, and strove only to appear interested in Father’s allotment, the “considerable damage” done in the raid—“the second daylight raid upon London by those beastly Gothas”. He showed interest in his parent’s description of the explosion at Silvertown, seen from London Bridge, as he was coming home from the office one January night.
“It was an awful sight, Phillip, really awful! I was crossing over London Bridge, it was a pitch dark night—you know the authorities are now very keen, and quite rightly, about exposed lights. These German beggars up above follow the streets, you know, and particularly the railway lines leading into London. Well, as I was saying, I was crossing the Bridge, in utter darkness, keeping close to the parapet, when all in a moment everything was as clear as day! Much brighter than when the Schütte-Lanz burned, you remember, old chap? The light came from down river, a great uprushing of yellow flames. The queer thing was these died down, but only for an instant was it dark again, for immediately afterwards the sky was a mass of rainbow colours—I can’t tell you the effect! It had to be seen to be believed! I don’t exaggerate in the very least, I assure you! All the colours of the spectrum run riot—green, red, violet, blue. They filled the entire sky, making the Tower Bridge black!”
“Rather like the Aurora Borealis, I suppose, Father?”
“Oh, much more vivid than that, Phillip! It was like a vast kaleidoscope, all the colours swirling and mingling together. Heaven knows what was the cause of the explosion.”
“German spies, I bet,” said Doris.
“No,” replied Phillip. “Five tons of T.N.T. were set off by a fire in one of the top-storey rooms at Brünner Mond, then the various chemicals for S.O.S. rockets—barium, strontium, magnesium et cetera caught fire, in the air.”
“What?” said Richard. “You know all about it, do you?”
“Only a little, Father. Please go on. It is most interesting. I haven’t heard what it looked like, until now.”
“Oh well. Where was I? Oh yes. As I was saying, it was a wonderful sight, but that was not all! In a few moments the whole Bridge was vibrating with the effects of an enormous explosion! Then, when it had rolled and rumbled away, the sky began to glow with burning buildings. I had my own ideas of what had happened, but kept them to myself, for obvious reasons. But now, it appears, you know all about it!”
“What was it, Phillip?” asked Doris.
“Well, as it never got into the papers, and as one can’t be too careful, perhaps——”
“Now you’re pulling my leg, old chap!” said Richard. “Come on, tell us——”
“Well, Father, the little bit I heard fits in with your very vivid description. I got my information from a driver in my section whose home was blown up, so he was given compassionate leave. Lost everything except one small boy—his wife, two young children, his parents. Everything flat, for hundreds of yards.”
“Oh, how very sad! And his poor little son, left all alone!” Hetty was nearly in tears.
“Luckily Tallis was wounded, and got home with it. I heard from him the other day. He’s going to work in a munitions factory.”
Richard laughed with relief. “So he’ll be able to take care of his little boy, won’t he? Well now, tell us about what you have been doing, old man.”
“Yes, do, Phillip! We know almost nothing from the paper.”
“There isn’t much to tell. All Weather Jack, the C.O., copped it, and now Downham’s in command of the company. I want to go back to the Gaultshires, if I can.”
“What, another change?” asked Richard.
“Won’t that mean giving up your riding work, Phillip?”
“I might get a battalion transport. Anyway, in the infantry things are much better now. Messines was a good show.”
“Yes, we thought you might be there, when you mentioned your bike ride on Christmas Day. Mother and I read between the lines, didn’t we, Mother?”
“Yes, Dickie.”
“So things are going well out there, are they, old man?”
“Unfortunately the French are out of it. Nivelle’s a wash-out. He lost hundreds of thousands of his men in one day in Champagne. The troops mutinied, and some set out to march on Paris.”
“Oh!” said Richard, glancing from one face to another. Incredulity and amazement gave him a partially helpless look. “But I have seen no mention of what you say in The Daily Trident!” Then with a pang of disappointment he remembered his son’s habit of—well—drawing the long bow.
“Mutiny, you say, my boy?”
“Yes, Father.”
“That’s a most serious charge to make, you know!”
“I am not making any charge, Father.”
“Well, I can only hope you will not go about talking like that, outside this house. That’s all I can say. No doubt you remember what happened last time.”
This was a reference to Phillip’s abrupt recall when on sick leave in June of the previous year, after he had been talking in Freddy’s bar, and Det.-Sgt. Keechey from Randiswell police station had reported his words.
Phillip hesitated between a desire to speak out and another to avoid his father and all he might say. The hesitation gave a third feeling of acute discomposure. He stabbed a slice of smoked salmon with his fork, and put it clumsily in his mouth and chewed without tasting, while keeping his gaze on the plate.
He put down his fork. “I’m sorry I spoke,” he said, to the tablecloth. Why had he come on leave?
“Are you sure of your facts?” went on Richard.
“No, Father. It was a rumour. You are quite right, I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“Well, we’ll say no more about it, old chap,” said Richard; but his anxiety, increased by inferior food, overwork, and habitual loneliness, was not to be suppressed. “All the same, it is most disturbing to hear what you say, considering the gravity of the submarine sinkings. It only goes to show that the warnings of The Daily Trident have some foundation in fact—provided, of course, that what you tell me is the situation with our Ally.”
“But Phillip has said that he only heard it——” began Hetty, but she stopped when Phillip frowned at her.
“Well, ‘the least said, the soonest mended’,” said Richard, wiping his bearded lips with his table napkin. “It’s a lovely afternoon, I think I’ll do some work on my allotment. The fashion has spread!” he went on, genially, looking at his son, “since you were so very kind as to provide me with some cabbage plants—let me see, it was just about a year ago, wasn’t it? Well, Phillip,” as he put the rolled napkin in its ring, “I’d like to thank you for providing an excellent lunch. What do you say, Hetty?” He manoeuvred a few crumbs on the cloth beside him to a knife blade, and tipped them into an envelope.
“Yes, it was very thoughtful of Phillip.” At that moment a sharp rat-tattat sounded on the knocker of the front door. “There’s Mavis! Open the door, will you, Doris?”
“Mother!” said Doris, in warning voice. “Remember what you said—‘Elizabeth’!”
“Ah yes!”
exclaimed Richard, jocularly. “You must prime Phillip about that new departure! Well, I will leave you to enjoy yourselves,” and putting his napkin in its especial place in the drawer below the mahogany bookcase, he went through the open french windows into the garden, to put the crumbs on his bird-tray under the elm, followed down the lawn by Zippy the cat, mewing unhappily at the memory of tomtits well out of reach of its chattering teeth. For Zippy ground, or rather chopped its teeth at birds that remained selfishly out of reach so that it could not catch them. Sometimes the neuter appealed to the birds with faint mewings; but they never came down, to be kind to Zippy.
“Bastard!” said Phillip, looking through the open doors.
“Really, dear! Your father——!”
“Oh, I only meant the cat. What’s all this about ‘Elizabeth’?”
“Your sister,” said Hetty, “has asked particularly not to be called by her first name any more. She wants to be known by her second name—Elizabeth. So you will be careful, won’t you, dear.”
“All right, I’ll call her Liz. And now we’re on the subject, would you mind not calling me ‘dear’, in future? Now please!”—seeing her face—“it doesn’t mean that I’m callous, or indifferent—but I’d much rather be called Phillip—if my name can be pronounced with one ‘l’!” he went on jokingly. “I’m rather fed up by people asking me why it is spelt with two ‘l’s. It’s too late to alter your spellin’ on my birth certificate, but you will be careful to pronounce it with one ‘l’ in future, will you, Hetty?”
Doris considered this in puzzlement for a few moments; then she cried, “Aren’t you funny! How can you pronounce it with one ‘l’, I’d like to know?”
“Easy! One ‘l’ makes it quicker to say with a flip of the tongue. No lingering echoes. Actually, I’d much rather be called by my second name—Sidney. Call Father by his second name, too, why not? ‘Yes, of course, naturally Teddy.’ Say it jauntily, as though you had a cloth cap on your head, and Teddy had just asked you to have a pint of thick in Freddy’s. Why laugh? I’m perfectly serious! One gets rid of old clothes, one washes off the stains of the day, one cleans one’s teeth, or should do. The effect is renovating. So let’s all go the whole hog in our family circle!” he said, as Mavis’ footfalls came from the bedroom above.
“Phillip,” said Hetty, quietly, “be kind to your sister; she isn’t very happy just now. Don’t make jokes about her wish to be called Elizabeth, will you?”
“And don’t call her ‘Liz’,” said Doris. “She thinks that’s vulgar. Anyway, Mother had her christened Eliza, but she doesn’t like that either.”
“Really, Hetty!” said Phillip. “Calling your gel ‘Eliza the Thrush’. And you a Shakespearean lover!”
Hetty could not help laughing: he seemed to be his old self again.
*
Mavis was making a desperate effort to become a new person. Mavis was the name for the song-thrush, heard long ago in the Surrey lavender and herb fields of Hetty’s childhood. That time had been such a happy one for her, with her brothers and sisters, that the thrush had been for her a symbol of happiness and joy. Mavis—a word spoken with love and tenderness by the mother at her baby’s christening, had become, for the twenty-year-old girl filled with ruinous thoughts, a sound almost of horror. Desperately she sought to escape from herself—but how, how? She must change utterly—by will-power alone could she cure herself. Prayer was no good. Everyone must depend upon themselves, alone. Her attacks were not inevitable, they were not inherited. They were functional. The doctor said so. If she did not change herself, which meant her thoughts, she was doomed—done for! O, she would die, for very shame, if anyone in the office were to see her fall down and twist about in one of her ‘attacks’ (as she and her mother, dreading the shorter, usual word, spoke of them). If only she could live away from home, and not see Father! But then, what about Mother? Poor little Mother needed her, to help her against Father. There had been a gleam of hope, of going to live with Nina, her great friend, and to see Mother once a day, in the evenings, perhaps at Gran’pa’s next door—but when it was all arranged, the change to take place at Easter—Doris had spoilt it all by announcing that during her holidays from school she was going to work on a farm in East Anglia, with some other senior girls under a mistress. When Doris returned, with bright eyes, and full of eager talk about rank-harrows and seed-harrows, littering bullock yards, and pail-feeding calves, she announced that she was going to join the Women’s Land Army when she left school at the end of the summer term. When she was gone, who would Mother have to stand up for her against Father’s beastliness? So the move to Nina’s was off.
*
Phillip lay in a deckchair in the garden, under the elm. Doris knitted on a rug. Zippy the cat found consolation by what the girl called hurdy-gurdying—purring loudly while extending its clawed toes on her lap. Mavis was eating her lunch in the sitting room. When she finished, she called through the open french windows, “Come on, Doris, come and help Mother to wash up.” Then having taken a tray of plates and cutlery as far as the kitchen, she said, “I’ve asked Doris to help you. I must get ready for Nina. She’ll be here any minute now!” and went on upstairs to her bedroom. Doris lifted off Zippy, dumped the cat on Phillip’s lap, and went in to dry for her mother. Phillip got up, dripped Zippy over the wooden fence into the next-door garden, and went into the sitting room to play his father’s gramophone.
Nina arrived. Doris opened the door to her.
“I won’t be long!” the voice of Mavis called down. The bathroom door was shut again. “Phillip’s in the garden, go and talk to him,” said Doris.
Nina blushed when she saw Phillip. He thought she was much prettier than when he had seen her last. She was fair, with blue eyes, a straight brow and nose, and firm chin.
“How are you getting on, Nina?”
“Very well, thank you, Phillip. And you?” He told her of his wish to transfer to the Gaultshires.
“But will you be able to stand it again, Phillip? I don’t mean to interfere, but won’t it be too much to go through, again?”
“You mean I’m a funk? Well, I am! Anyway, one can only be killed once.”
“Please don’t talk like that, Phil!” She blushed, and changed the subject. “Tom Ching called here last night, did your mother tell you? He said he was on his final leave before going to the front. Of course he was hoping to see Mavis, but she was unexpectedly kept late at the office.” After a pause she said, “I wonder if you can give me some advice. Only please don’t let Elizabeth know that I’ve spoken to you about it. I’ve been thinking for some time about joining the Women’s Legion, and perhaps learning to drive a motor for an ambulance, or something. Today in the paper there’s an announcement about a new Corps, the Women’s Army Auxiliary, it’s to be called. I’ve got it here.” She gave him The Daily News.
“‘Army Council Instruction’,” read Phillip. “Substitution of women for soldiers in certain employments, at home and at the bases and on Lines of Communication Overseas. Sounds pretty good, Nina! They want clerks, typists, cooks, wine waitresses, butlers. You’d make a grand butler, Nina! You’d have to dress like Vesta Tilly, Nina!” He saw that she was blushing, and went on quickly, “Ah here we are, Motor transport services!—‘Technical women will be employed with the R.F.C. and A.S.C. Motor transport! I’d go like a shot, if I were you!”
“I do want to go, Phillip, but don’t you see, there’s Ma—Elizabeth. She depends on me so much. You won’t tell her I told you, will you?”
“Trust me! I suppose she wouldn’t pass the medical board?”
“I’m afraid not, Phil. You know about Doris, and the Land Army, I suppose? I did think that it might be the very thing for Mavis—oh dear, I must try and remember!—Elizabeth, but she says she wouldn’t like the rough work. Also, there is your mother.”
“Rough work would be the making of her!”
Mavis came through the french windows and down the steps into the garden. She was dre
ssed in a new frock. “What do you think of it, eh? Oh, hullo, Phil; you home, eh?”
“It looks awfully well on you, Elizabeth! Don’t you think so, Phillip?”
Before he could agree, Mavis said, “It’s no good asking him! He’ll only criticise it.”
“Yes, I think it looks awfully well on you, Elizabeth.”
“There, he’s being sarcastic! I know him of old!”
“I’ll leave you to it.” He went to talk to his mother, but found he could say nothing. “I think I’ll go and see Gran’pa and Aunt Marian next door, then go down to Mrs. Neville. Then I may go on the Hill.” The Canary Girls, dancing and singing—but it was Saturday afternoon. Other people would be about: it wouldn’t do to be seen talking to them in daylight. He imagined darkness, the pretty one coming to him, on her rather sweet Chinese-yellow face an expression like Sasha’s. But what was he thinking? There would never be anyone like Lily.
“You be careful!” said Mrs. Neville, when he had told her about Nina, and the Canary Girls. “Baby Week’s beginning next week, so you mind what you’re up to this time!”
He left, without having asked about Desmond.
What was there to do?
*
Nina looked unhappy when he returned from seeing Mrs. Neville.
“Had another quarrel?”
“Not exactly, Phillip. But Elizabeth is difficult, you know.”
“I suppose she’s never got over Father’s turning against her, when she ran away from home that time. Hearts do break, you know,” he said, unsteadily, to recover immediately. “Have you told her about your plans?”
“It’s that which caused the trouble. She feels that nobody wants her. Well, I’ve done my best, honestly!”
“You sound like poor old Mother, after one of Father’s cross moods. If only we could all see each other’s point-of-view! Or better still, have none of our own. But to do that, one has to—well, sink down, I suppose, like a saint.”
“Elizabeth now wonders what you and I were talking about in here when she came in.” Nina blushed again at the thought of Phillip knowing about Mavis’ accusing, I believe you’re beginning to like Phillip more than you like me! At the very thought—which she shied away from at once—she felt her face burning.
Love and the Loveless Page 21