*
Phillip lay in bed, knees drawn up to chin for warmth and companionship. The “battle of the brain”, as he had called it since childhood, was raging in his head. He was near to despair, a not unusual condition of his living.
When the worst of the “battle” was over he turned about and rearranged the sheet which he had drawn tightly about his neck. After settling down, instinctively he nipped between the edges of his lips a fold of the sheet; and feeling some relief in the smoothness of the material against his face, sighed deeply with the hope of sleep.
The habit of nipping and holding the sheet between his lips was a survival from babyhood, when in his cot he had had two objects of consolation for the loss of protecting maternal warmth: a thumb to suck, and a strip of white silk from an old petticoat of his mother’s to hold over his face. The strip was given him, at night, when he cried for his mother.
Richard in those days had wanted his wife for himself in bed; he had wanted, also, quietness at night; and though he disapproved of both thumb and silk he had not openly objected to what he had called the baby’s soporifics during the first year of the child’s life.
Soon after the first birthday anniversary he considered that the time was come for reformation. A bad habit was a bad habit; the sooner it was broken, the sooner it would be forgotten. Sonny must learn not to cry for his mother, too. So at the age of fifteen months the child was put in a room by himself, with Anky, and told that to suck Thumb was very, very naughty. If he cried, too, he would be smacked.
Thus, Richard thought, the boy would, from an early age, learn to face the hardships of life.
Chapter 2
GREY TOWERS
At eight o’clock one morning of the following week, Richard took a letter coming through the box of the front door as he passed on his way to breakfast. It was addressed to his son. The flimsy envelope from France was franked by a signature which he made out to be H. J. West, Capt., and bore the oval red rubber stamp of the Base Censor. It had been redirected from Brickhill House, Beau Brickhill, Gaultshire.
Richard had to leave the house at eight twenty-two a.m. to catch his train from Wakenham station over the hill. His daughter Mavis caught the next train, which enabled her to get to the office in time for its opening for business at half-past nine. The younger girl, Doris, was still at school, and left at twenty-five to nine.
Breakfast was usually silent. Richard, looking at The Daily Trident, spoke only when he had some fault to point out, such as taps left to drip, bedrooms left untidy “for your mother to attend to”; or the boot-cleaning box in the scullery had not been put back, with its brushes and Japanese blacking pot upright, under the scullery table.
Phillip, urged by his mother to come down for breakfast with the others, “out of courtesy to your Father, dear”, appeared just as Richard was putting his table-napkin into its ivory ring.
“Good morning, Father. Good morning, Mother. How do you do, Mavis. Hullo, Doris. Thanks for purring, Zippy.”
“There’s a letter for you, from France,” said Doris.
“Good lord! ‘Spectre’ West!” He sat down. “May I have permission to open it, sir?”
The unexpected courtesy surprised Richard.
“Good news, I hope,” he said, when his son had read the letter.
“Yes, Father. A friend of mine in hospital is getting on well.”
“I see it has been re-directed from Brickhill, Phillip,” said Hetty.
“Westy is in the Gaultshires, Mother.”
Phillip put the letter in his pocket, and added milk to his porridge. He still felt sick, and would have preferred a glass of cold water.
“Pass your brother the sugar, Mavis.”
“No thanks—really. I never have sugar——”
As soon as Richard had shut the front door behind him, Mavis cried, “Why do you pretend that you live at Brickhill, can you tell us that?”
When he did not reply, she went on, “I know! It’s because it’s a swankier address than poor old Wakenham.”
Hetty screwed up her eyes, and made a moue with her lips to Mavis, meaning be quiet. “Won’t you tell us what it says, Phillip?”
“Oh, it’s just an ordinary letter, Mother.” He went on trying to eat his porridge, while calculating from experience how long it would be before he would have to get rid of it. Not, he hoped, while Mavis was in the house.
Experience did not betray him. Afterwards, alone with his mother, he showed her the letter. “On the condition, Mother, that you do not breathe a word of what it says to anyone.”
“Well, perhaps it would be better if I did not see it, if it’s like that, dear.”
“No, it’s not that. Only it isn’t true, that’s all.”
He gave her the letter, and Hetty read with surprise that grew to tearful emotion. The writer declared that the bar to his Military Gross, “which came up with the rations”, should have gone to Phillip, and would have gone, too, if he had not left the regiment after the damned fine show he put up during the flank attack on Lone Tree Ridge.
“‘Spectre’ West wasn’t there, you see. He was hit before we started. It was all over when we got to Lone Tree. The Germans had chucked it. No more ammunition. Anyway, the Welch had already got right behind them. Itwas awful good luck for us.”
“He says he is sorry you have left the ‘Mediators’, Phillip. That surely shows——”
“I told the Colonel afterwards that I was up at Cambridge before the war. I was nervous because I had only been to a grammar school when all the other officers were public school men. So I pretended I was a ‘’varsity m’n’. I’ve got no guts, I never had any. Tell that to Father if you like, but not that other rot.”
“Why, I wonder, must you always insist on showing yourself in the worst light? Always as a boy you were without reserve of any kind. You should have more pride, Phillip.”
“Oh Mother, for God’s sake——” He hastened away to the lavatory. Later—“I feel better now. But no bacon, for heaven’s sake. Just a cup of weak tea. A large one. Put it in a basin. Here, let me get one. That’s the sort, holds a quart. Thank God tea at home doesn’t taste of chloride of lime.” The thought made him quaver; the quaver took him back to the lavatory.
“You ought never to drink spirits, you know, Phillip. You have a weak stomach. That was always your trouble as a child. Now try and eat a little dry toast, and later on I’ll make you some beef tea. It was always good for you, after train sickness, do you remember?”
“Yes, and so was brandy,” replied Phillip. “But I’d rather have some plain hot water at the moment. If it’s all the same to you, Hetty,” he added, almost jauntily.
Saturday morning; his leave was up. “Everything is flat, Des, now I’m leaving you.” Just one more drink at Freddy’s; but when they came out of Freddy’s after only two half-pints of beer, Phillip ready to run and vault into the saddle and dash away to the thuds of his open exhaust, music in his ears, there was the motor bike sunken down on its rear, with a flat tyre.
“She must have heard my very words, and taken them literally,” said Phillip. “Good old girl. Let’s shove her to Wetherley’s, and get him to mend the puncture.” The inner tube was perished. Wetherley had no replacement in stock.
A For Sale notice on a runabout motor car caught Phillip’s eye. Only £60! He bought it at once, not so much for its appearance, as the thought of his own appearance driving his own motor car. Having bought it, he asked what it was, and if it was in good condition. Mr. Wetherley assured him that it was the best 1909 model of a Swift he had driven. It had a two-cylinder water-cooled engine. The grey paint was new, and so was the varnish. Mr. Wetherley folded and put into his pocket-book the cheque for £60, and said he would try and sell the motor cycle for £15 without taking commission. The sudden transaction now had its effect; Phillip wondered if his cheque would be dishonoured by Cox & Co., his bankers.
“However, it will be all right by the first of the month. Then some fi
eld allowances are due, Mr. Wetherley, so don’t worry.”
“I do not worry, sir,” said Mr. Wetherley. “I have had the pleasure of serving your father for many years now. Indeed I sold him the first All-Black Sunbeam in the district. There is no question, sir, of doubting the word of the son of such a gentleman as Mr. Maddison.”
Phillip felt that he must hope for the best, as the garage owner showed him how to get to Hornchurch, pointing out the route on the map, by way of the Blackwall Tunnel under the Thames. This done, he explained about the oiling of the engine, by the drip feed visible behind glass on the dashboard.
“Don’t forget to push down the hand pump as soon as the oil stops dripping into the bowl.”
Mr. Wetherley checked the milled screw controlling the drip, and gave it two extra clicks.
“Don’t turn it on more unless you want to go fast, say over thirty-five. Otherwise you may oil a plug. You’ll find her a useful little runabout.”
Phillip’s two-mindedness now showed itself. “I suppose,” he said, doubtfully, “you wouldn’t let me have a test run before I actually—well, I have, haven’t I? Anyway, I think I’ll test it, before I really start off.”
“I’d be very pleased to take you for a run, sir.”
“Well, thanks. Could you take me to my home a minute? It’s quite a steep hill.” A wild hope that Helena Rolls or her mother would see the car pierced him.
Desmond was left at the garage, since three in front would be a squeeze. Mr. Wetherley drove as far as Randiswell, then Phillip took the wheel. The Swift went easily up Hillside Road, and to his alarmed delight, there was Helena coming out of her gate with her mother.
The motor was praised, then—“Why have you not been to see us, Phillip?” He could not reply; and Mrs. Rolls said, “Well, when you are next on leave, don’t forget, will you?” The full look of Helena’s eyes was upon him; he felt enveloped and dissolved, and was relieved when they had gone on down the road, for now he could release his feelings of joy, rush in and bang at the door and tell Mother the terrific news, in which the Swift was for the moment forgotten.
His mother and younger sister Doris came out to admire it, though Hetty looked a little anxious. “Are you sure you can drive it, Phillip?”
“Easily! I’ll take you all out to Reynard’s Common and the Fish Ponds when I come home next. Well, cheerho. I mustn’t keep old Wetherley waiting. Give my love to everyone.” Mr. Wetherley was on the opposite pavement, apparently interested in the sheep on the slopes of the Hill beyond the railings. Together they went down the road, the tyres crackling on the flinty surface. Waving at Mrs. Neville in her window, Phillip drove safely back to the High Street. There Desmond was awaiting him on the kerb.
Phillip had driven a motor car before, and soon he felt mastery of the Swift. With Desmond beside him he drove up the hill and on to the Heath, and down into Greenwich. At the mouth of the Blackwall Tunnel stood a military policeman on duty. He said that a brigade of field guns had just gone through, and another was expected, the tunnel being temporarily closed to all other traffic. “You have a pass, sir, of course?”
Phillip pointed to the O.H.M.S. plate tied on the side of the bonnet. Standing aside, the redcap saluted. Phillip raised a negligent hand, as a staff officer might, he thought, and praying that he would not grate the gears when starting off, let in the clutch and drove on with a wild feeling of possible self-destruction into the circular brick mouth of the tunnel.
“My God, and we’ve got no lamps!” he said to Desmond, with a laugh, as they rushed into darkness.
The car drove itself; then gradually seemed to be guided by two golden threads overhead. These were carbon-filament bulbs lining the roof, stretching away to a minuteness that dipped in the centre, the middle of the river. Suddenly he became aware of an army lorry just in front of him. The tunnel was ammoniacal with horse-dung; he too, like the solid-tyred ’bus in front, was slipping about.
With relief he drove into cold fresh air to see masts and funnels of steamers rising above rows of black and crushed-in little sooty brick houses, with black sheds and warehouses, cranes, army lorries, and, as he drove on, sudden rows of field guns, olive-green and wheel to wheel along a sort of wharf. A notice board by a tall iron gate set with spikes and barbed wire was headed East India Dock. The surface of the cobbled streets came up through the shackle bolts of the springs and reproduced myriad contours in their bones.
There was a market, with stalls and donkey shallows, a litter of paper and rotten fruit all across the road, lean dogs routing and fleeing from boys with sticks held as guns, and wearing old badgeless khaki caps. Other boys with pails were collecting horse dung.
It was a mild November day, with no wind. The river mist and smoke hung as daze in the low arc of the iodine-brown sun. Tall chimneys and towers darkened the dull skyline rising upon the ancient flats of the riverside. Smells, industrial and chemical, moved in layers upon them: paint, iodoform, picric acid, and a whiff of pear-drops, from the waterside factories of Silvertown.
“There is the great chemical concern of Brunner, Mond and Company,” said Desmond. “The Zeppelins are always trying to find it. The whole district is given over almost entirely to war work.”
They drove away from the sprawl of street and factory, coming to an open level prospect of deep brown ploughlands, of dark and stunted oak trees in sooted hedgerows, acid pastures, sad-looking stacks of hay and corn, and untidy fields of cabbages and roots—the environs of industrial London. Phillip began to feel depressed with the level colourlessness of the extending country, which seemed to have upon it the mark of death. Here the bittern and the duck among the reeds had seen the marching of the Romans, while the sails moved up the broad Thames, not then held back by wall and bank; the marshman went, and the ploughman came, and now the factories were waiting to kill the land forever with their weight of brick and steel, a countryside sentenced to industrial death.
“I suppose there is still some wildfowling down on the marshes somewhere, Desmond?”
“It’s been stopped since the war, all down this coast. My cousins on my father’s side live in Essex, and they told me.”
It was the first time Desmond had spoken to Phillip about his father’s people. Phillip wanted to hear more, and waited for him to speak. When he did not, Phillip glanced at his face. Desmond said, looking straight ahead, “My father’s people have lived in Essex for centuries.”
“Are your mother’s people from Essex, too?”
“My mother hasn’t got any relations.”
Desmond was holding his head so still, staring ahead, that Phillip wondered what was the matter. Desmond’s usually pale face was faintly pink.
Phillip drove on, silence between them. He felt slight distress that Desmond had never wanted to confide in him, his great friend. He had always shared everything with Desmond—secrets of his nests in the old days, his permits in Knollyswood Park and elsewhere, his holy-of-holies the Lake Woods—where Desmond had taken his school-friend Eugene, without first asking if he might do so. He had told Desmond everything about himself; but Desmond had never really shared any of his secrets with him.
“I say, Des, I’ve had most frightful luck.” He told his friend about the invitation from Mrs. Rolls. “I’ll call there next time I come on leave!”
Feeling happy, he stopped to examine the engine under the bonnet. Everything looked clean and polished and painted.
“It’s worth the money, don’t you think, Des?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t driven her.”
“Of course, why didn’t I think of it! You take the wheel now. After all, you let me drive your uncle’s Singer. You can take her back this afternoon, if you like. That is, if I can’t get week-end leave.”
Desmond drove on for a mile, then he put on the brake, turned the switch, and sat still. Looking at Phillip intently with his pale blue eyes he said slowly and quietly, “I’ve wanted to tell you something for a long time.”
Surp
rised by his manner, Phillip asked what it was.
“It concerns Helena Rolls.”
“Yes.”
“You may not like what I am going to say.”
“Go on, say it.”
“I consider that you are wasting yourself on something quite vain.”
“But how do you know it is quite vain?” said Phillip, feeling weak.
“Because it is obvious to everyone except yourself. She isn’t your sort. She laughs at you behind your back.”
“How do you know, Des? Who told you?”
“I shan’t say. But I do know. Just as I know that you are losing your happiness because of her. She isn’t worth it.”
Phillip hardly knew what to say. What did Desmond know? Had he been talking to someone who knew the truth? No doubt Mrs. Rolls was only being kind. She was sorry for him, that was it. The Swift, his hopes of the new life with the Navvies’ battalion, all seemed grey, like the mist over the fields.
“Why can’t we be as we were? Aren’t I enough for you?” asked Desmond.
“Well Des, of course you’re my great friend, but honestly, what I think about her does not affect you and me.”
“I say it does.”
Phillip laughed, partly from nervousness. Desmond gripped his arm.
“Does it seem a matter only for laughing, that I am concerned for our friendship?”
“Let go my arm! Aren’t you being just a little melodramatic, old chap?”
“Very well, if that’s your attitude, I’ve no more to say.”
The Swift was standing under a large oak. A labourer in front was digging in a deep ditch beside the road, on which lay many acorns, some squashed by carts which were unloading dung on the stubble field over the hedge.
“Is this the way to Becontree Heath?” Phillip called out.
“Straight on, sir, and turn left at the village.”
“What’s the name of the village?”
“Thet be Dagenham.”
The Golden Virgin Page 4