“I see, thank you,” Phillip shouted back, his foot still hard down.
Captain Kingsman shouted, “Your engine is now doing almost eleven hundred revvs!”
Phillip looked over his shoulder and shouted, “I think there must be something in your speed pills, Cox, you old rattler!”
Captain Kingsman tugged at his moustache. He was about to ask Phillip to stop, when a yellow whangee cane rapped the driver on the shoulder.
“Not so fast, one-piecee mad boy!” yelled Cox. “It’s horribly bloody cold at the back.”
“We’ll stop at a pub and get some hot Irish whiskey soon, boys!” shouted the driver. “Olley-Olley-Olley!” he yelled, as he pressed down the accelerator.
Captain Kingsman was now crouching up in his seat, hand covering moustache and mouth, as though meditating a problem—or ready to roll himself into a limp ball. His eyes were fixed on the glass cylinder containing the oil-drip. Then he tripped the switch and unscrewed the oil regulator, so that the drip became a stream; then it ceased to fall.
“Don’t declutch! Keep her in gear! Close the throttle!” He switched on. “Now declutch and let the engine idle a few moments, to get the oil circulating!”
The car came to a standstill. The water around the engine was boiling.
“Switch off, but don’t touch the radiator cap!”
Clouds of steam arose from in front. They waited until the rumbling ceased. Then Captain Kingsman said, “May I look under the bonnet? Ah, as I thought, your oil tank is empty. Another few seconds, and your big ends would have run their white metal. Have you a spare oil can? Do you mind if I look? Ah, here it is.” He poured out a little, rubbed it between finger and thumb, sniffed it, decided it was thick enough, and said, “Shall I fill your tank?”
“Thanks. I’d forgotten about the oil. Very careless of me, I’m sure.”
“This will do until we get to a garage. There’s one of sorts near Horndon-on-the-Hill.”
They got back under the scuttle.
“Not so fast this time, one-piecee mad boy,” said Cox, rapping with the cane.
The driver kept the needle at thirty-five. “How’s that for you, Rattler?”
“Bloody awful cold.”
The needle dropped to thirty. “How’s that?”
“Damned cold.”
“We don’t need a speedometer when Cox is aboard,” said Phillip to Kingsman. “At forty he’s horribly bloody cold, at thirty-five he’s bloody awful cold, at thirty, damned cold! Let’s see what speedometer says at twenty-five.”
“How are you feeling now, Cox?”
“Still cold.”
They were approaching a straw stack beside the road. The driver stopped again, and getting down, gathered an armful, which he stuffed between puttee’d legs and the interior of the dickey. Cox’s face had a bluish tinge, and the eyeglass seemed to have cut more into his flesh.
“Anyway, it’s a damned sight better than being in a flooded trench, Rattler. Here, take my British warm.”
“Don’t you want it yourself?”
“I’m inured.”
Nothing could ever be so bad as the Diehard T-trench.
Cox took the wool-and-camel-hair coat and put it over his knees, ramming it down beside his legs, watched anxiously by Phillip, who was proud of his neat coat, with the gilt stars on the shoulder-straps. He felt the more uneasy when Wigg tugged up one side of the coat to cover his knees. Cox tried to pull it back. Wigg held on. They bickered.
“Steady on, you rookies!” cried Phillip. “I think it’s no good, really. Half a mo’, I’ll get some more straw. That will be much better, like thatch, cool in summer and warm in winter.”
“But the wind will blow it away, without your coat.”
“All right, do have it, but please leave it in one-piecee.”
During this time, Captain Kingsman had sat unspeaking, looking to his front, a slightly amused expression on his face.
The engine took a lot of swinging before it would start. When it did fire, it kicked the handle, and raced backwards, as though on a spring.
“Damn, the timing must have slipped!”
“Too much aphrodisiac,” said Wigg.
“What’s that?” asked Phillip, preparing to swing the handle again.
“Speed pills,” said Cox.
“Do be careful, one can easily break one’s wrist,” said Captain Kingsman. “It’s sometimes advisable to hold the handle with the other hand. May I show you?”
He got out, and having seen that the switch was off, stopped to fill the cylinders with gas by pulling the engine over twice with his right hand; then half turning round to hold the handle with the fingers of his left hand, said “Switch on!” and gave a sudden jerk. The engine fired.
“One doesn’t risk breaking one’s thumb that way.”
“Thanks very much for the tip, Captain Kingsman.”
Phillip had been driving for a few more minutes when Captain Kingsman remarked, “There’s another tip I learned in racing—to hold the wheel at four o’clock and eight o’clock, elbows well into ribs. In that position, if a driver has a burst front tube he is in a position instantly to control a wobble.”
“Like this?”
“That’s the position. And in turning, if one passes the wheel from hand to hand, keeping the elbows down, one is in position to control the steering if one has suddenly to turn away.”
Phillip thought that Captain Kingsman corrected a fault in a way unlike that of any other man he had known. He did not say things directly, to snub you or to tick you off, but said them without putting himself between you and what you were doing.
The dull day was now being transformed; sunshine broke through the clouds, colour became alive.
“Would you like to take a turn at the wheel, Captain Kingsman?”
“I would!” cried Cox immediately. “I’ll change with you.” He heaved himself out of the dickey, while straws flew back in the eddy.
Phillip hid his feeling of being put upon as he got in beside Wigg.
“Do you mind stopping at Horndon-on-the-Hill,” said Captain Kingsman over his shoulder, to Phillip in the back. “There’s a thirteenth century wooden belfry on the church which might be worth your while to visit.”
They came to this at the beginning of a village, where stood a church with a squat belfry, in shape like the crown of a Puritan’s hat. It was being re-roofed on one side; ladders led up to scaffolding and a plank platform. No-one was about, so while Cox and Wigg went to find a pub, Captain Kingsman and Phillip climbed up.
Standing near the apex, Phillip saw shipping upon the leaden reaches of the Thames extending away to the west where the horizon of smoke and sun in haze upon London enclosed the green prospect. A finger’s breadth to the south of west was a glint in the haze, a flicker of hard bright light as of a heliograph uncertain of its message.
“I say, isn’t it simply wonderful! I’d no idea the Thames estuary could look like this. I wonder what that flickering comes from.”
“I rather think,” said Captain Kingsman, “that must be the Crystal Palace.”
Phillip felt subdued. Once he had thought that north-west Kent, now south-east London, was quite the best place to live, particularly Wakenham and the Hill, with its view of the Crystal Palace and the wonderful firework displays on Thursday summer nights, the whites of strolling tennis players glimmering in the twilight, and best of all, the real country only a few minutes’ bike ride away.
“Why did you sigh?” asked Kingsman.
“Oh, I don’t know.”
Kingsman observed the nervous look in the face beside him, and wondered what was the cause. He said nothing more. They got down the ladder and went into the church, where, resting on the floor, was a massive dark oak cage supporting the bells above.
Two slate slabs lay on the floor—one of Jasper Kingsman, who died in 1688, the other to Jonah Kingsman, both barristers of the Middle Temple.
“The older one gets, the more one
feels a sense of security through one’s forebears, particularly if one happens to be the last of one’s line. I have a feeling that I belong here, although I was born in India, and so far as I know no Kingsman has lived here for over a hundred years.”
Outside the lych-gate Phillip said, “I think I know what you mean. I was born not far from the Crystal Palace, but I feel that my real home is in Gaultshire, where my mother’s people came from. I think I would rather be buried there, than in London, though best of all, since one has to die sometime, is a battlefield grave.”
Kingsman was hesitating, as though to speak or not to speak, when Phillip said, “Do you mind if we find the others and have a drink? A short life and a merry one, that’s my motto!”
*
When the Swift stopped at a garage near the esplanade of Southend-on-Sea Cox and Wigg left for their different ways, while Phillip accompanied Captain Kingsman who had to inspect a detachment of troops on the pier. As they went down the long board walk Kingsman said, “So you knew Cox before, did you? Some of the red pepper of the East seems to have got into his system. Too much sun in China, perhaps. He was married while we were stationed here, to a girl in his billet. She lives with her people. I fancy he finds it difficult to make ends meet on a second-lieutenant’s pay.”
“I wonder what happened to his fiancée, the one he had when he was at Sevenoaks, I mean. It seemed to me rather strange to want to pick up girls, when he was engaged to be married.”
“Well, I suppose life is more difficult for some of us than for others,” said Captain Kingsman, to discourage any further gossip. He changed the subject. “This mud is all a present from London, I suppose.”
The tide was out. Black sludge extended for miles. A fresh breeze was exhilarating. Phillip thought it fun to make regular strides over the boards, and at the same time to try to avoid stepping on a crack. It was more than a mile to the end, and he had to stare intently, with constantly changing pace. At the end of the pier were buildings and huts occupied by the Royal Naval Air Service. When he stopped it was beside three old men who were fishing, and speaking to one, he saw that they were blind. They were employed at night to listen for the note of the Maybach engines, which powered the Zeppelin gondolas. Their sense of hearing was the more acute because of the loss of sight, said Kingsman.
When he had paid the detachment, and they had inspected quarters, Captain Kingsman said to Phillip that they were free, and if they left right away, they would be at his home in time for luncheon. The Swift meanwhile had had its oil drained and the sump refilled, for temporary oil, suitable for Ford engines only, had been put in at Horndon-on-the-Hill.
“Do you mind if we have a quick drink, Captain Kingsman?”
“Well, can it be a quick one?”
Coming out of an hotel, Phillip invited his company commander to drive, but Kingsman declined, saying that he so enjoyed looking at the country, particularly when there was no hurry to get from place to place. Phillip understood what he intended to convey; something as it were apprehended in the retina of the eye, and not by a frontal stare. So he drove at a steady thirty, and was pleased with himself when his company commander said, “It is paradoxical how the steadier one drives, the faster is progress made. Speed is a relative condition of movement; the more one consumes oneself to go faster, the longer seems the journey.”
“Do you mind if we stop for a drink, Captain Kingsman?”
“Well, I don’t think we shall have time. I telephoned from the pier that we would arrive about ten minutes to one. Can you wait until then for some beer?”
“Oh yes, of course, Captain Kingsman.”
At last they came to a road between thin and tall willow trees growing in parallel straight lines behind trimmed quickthorn hedges bordering the road. Kingsman explained that the heavy clays of the rodings grew the best wood for cricket bats in England. Pheasants flew up, from under oaks in a meadow.
“Are you a shooting man?”
“Only in a small way.”
“It’s remarkable how the eating qualities of a cock pheasant, a young bird particularly, vary between late October and late November, in this part of the world. In October, the barley they pick up on the stubbles puts on flesh that is inclined to be without much taste, but after a week or two of acorns, the bird has a nutty flavour, equal with a full-bodied burgundy. If they’re smoked, they’re excellent.”
“The only bird I ever smoked was a sparrow, when I tried to roast it on a green stick over a wood fire, while making tea in a billy can. Both tasted of the same smoke!”
Was his remark rather pert? He was relieved when Captain Kingsman laughed. “I tried a water-hen when I was a boy, baking it in clay, but even my puppy refused it.”
“Was that here in Essex, sir?”
“Do drop the ‘sir’, it makes me feel quite old! Call me Jasper. No, this is my wife’s country. The next turning to the right is ours. In about half a mile.”
Woods succeeded water-meadows and willows. A level area of gravel opened up on the other side of the road, with a view of a lodge with twisted brick chimney stacks of damson colour issuing smoke, tall iron railings with gilded decorations on top, and open gates of iron-work.
“In here?”
“Yes. The house is half a mile on.”
It looked as though Kingsman lived in a big country house. There would be servants; he hadn’t brought a dressing-gown, never having had one. Still, he could wear his British warm over his pyjamas when he went to the bathroom. Oh, and bedroom slippers! He had never had any of those, either. He had only twelve shillings. How much ought he to tip the butler? Then there was petrol to be bought on the way back.
The house was cream-coloured, with two huge pillars rising beside the entrance seen across a lake fringed with reeds. The drive curved round the lake, and leaving it behind went on between smooth lawns to the Palladian front of the house. As the Swift stopped, Phillip noticed a heraldic wolf’s head ensculped on the key stone of the arch above the porch, its tongue pierced by an arrow. Yes, there was a butler, opening the door.
Smiling, he drew it wide open as he walked backwards in a way that made the smile, the bow, the good-morning and the arc of the opening door all part of one motion. A sovereign tip at the very least; he was probably more used to getting fivers! With the thought of In for a penny, In for a pound, Phillip entered a hall panelled in oak, with an open hearth, on which smouldered a six-foot section of beech-tree. The chimney piece above was coloured with armorial bearings, and around the hall itself stood suits of burnished armour. A dog bounded down the stairway that was open to the light through a large southern window, and again from a glass dome far above in the roof. The dog, a setter, came gently to Phillip with feathering tail and touched his hand with its cold nose, then without pause went on to its master, talking in its throat and appearing to find some difficulty in speaking, due to excitement that was controlled. Only its tail waved more furiously; and then, overcome by the reaction of having waited all the morning for this moment, it opened its mouth wide and let out a small noise between yawn and yowl.
Mrs. Kingsman came down the stairs after the dog, smilingly towards them both. She greeted her husband as though he too were a guest, Phillip thought, with a manner that seemed artificially bright. She held out a limp hand to him, while looking into his eyes with a frail sort of lost look. Her eyes seemed to dwell upon him with vague questioning before a light came in them and she said, with sudden animation, “I am so glad you could come with Jasper, was it fun in your little motor? I do hope you had a good journey?” He saw that she carried two tallow candles in her hand.
Captain Kingsman led him down a stone-cold passage to a little room with a wash-hand basin in an iron frame, and a table on which stood a tarnished looking-glass. On a cloth were ivory-backed hair-brushes inlaid with a gold monogram. They looked to be quite new. He was left alone, and when he went back to the hall the butler was waiting for him beside a tray on a sideboard, on which were various bo
ttles of beer. He chose Bass, which was quietly poured into a long thin glass on which a hunting scene had been cut, he thought, with a diamond. He waited while the glass was placed on a silver tray and offered to him, where he stood a yard away, wondering where the others had gone. The butler with his slight bow left the room.
How could he get away? And tomorrow was Sunday, a prospect of dull and suspended life, against which his mental struggle was quelled before it began. If only he could get to a pub, if only Kingsman were not so old and staid.
As he sipped the bitter drink he heard voices above. When Mrs. Kingsman was beside him again he thought she looked less distraught, although her eyes were still far away in thought. The same remoteness of manner had come upon Kingsman, as though the easy-going, genial personality Phillip had known in the company office and the mess at Grey Towers had been subdued by the dark oak of the hall, part of the very sameness of time, beams and posts which had stood for centuries, bearing with stone mullioned arch and wall and coign the weights of a house that had stood since the Tudors, for father and son, uncle and nephew, until the present owner, the heiress who had married Jasper Kingsman.
The luncheon was very simple, it might have been one in his own home, except that it was the butler who put the fish pie on the table before Mrs. Kingsman, and not Doris. Mrs. Kingsman filled the plates which the butler took round with the same gentle gravity, following with a tureen of brussels sprouts on one side and peas on the other. He sat quietly, alert and polite to all that was said, feeling that the conversation was forced, and that it was his nervousness that was the cause of it, for he did not know what to say. He thought that he was a dull person, and suffered a little and for comfort withdrew into himself and sat on his hands part of the time, to feel less stiff and more in balance with himself. He got off his hands when Mrs. Kingsman said,
“My husband tells me you have recently come back from France, Mr. Maddison. Did you see anything of the Royal Flying Corps when you were out there?”
The Golden Virgin Page 7