The Golden Virgin

by Henry Williamson

  “It is the winged horse, Aunt Dora!”

  She was charmed by his grace and courtesy, and felt herself no longer to be the odd one out of the family. For the rest of the morning, while the young people were away enjoying themselves in the sun, she felt no longer to be a woman lost to life in her own aloneness, which had become loneliness. Soon, soon, she had been thinking, soon the young faces would be gone, and the cottage would reveal itself, in appalling moments, to be a home without atmosphere; it was an empty cottage, spiritually speaking; it was bare, without a soul. Now, it had a living soul; the world was eternally young, despite its shadows.

  Why had she allowed herself to be downcast before? Was her mood taken from the running noises of the stream below, the water everlastingly hurrying, blindly, despite its clearness when no rain had fallen, to the sea, its blind parent? The sea, “the unnumbered smile of ocean” of her youth, now blind, for ever set upon its task of reducing rock to sand, and sand to dust? Water in the end wore away the hardest stone.

  Deeply within her, Dora was afraid of her cottage; she feared something intangible about it; an indefinable remote dread haunted her, as though the Erinyes, avenging spirits of twilight, dwelt in the dark glen above the village.

  “Your colonel sounds a nice man, Boy,” she said, when they returned.

  “He’s dead now, of course. Our other colonel was a great character—‘Spectre’ West. He was a classical scholar, too.”

  It was the first time he had spoken to her of the war.

  “Do tell me more about them, if you feel like it.”

  “Jasper Kingsman was a classical scholar at Balliol. So was his friend Father Aloysius, a Catholic padre—the troops all called him ‘Father’. He went over the top with his battalion, reading his breviary. His real name is Llewellyn Vaughan-Herbert. He was also at Balliol, but later, and knew Julian Grenfell. It was wonderful to hear Father Aloysius and Jasper Kingsman talking; they were very great friends, but always so polite, in an easy sort of way, all the time.”

  “What did they say, can you remember?”

  “Well, vaguely. Jasper Kingsman saw the Christian religion as something grafted on to pagan rites, and bits of older religions, as described in Frazer’s Golden Bough. I think it was called that. He said that it was all part of man’s spiritual life; but Father Aloysius said that Christ’s coming was a complete revelation, the first, the only, the final truth revealed by God. He said the fact that other superstitions and beliefs existed, and had existed until they passed with the civilisations which had engendered them, made not the least difference: they were limited, temporary truths, while Jesus had brought the whole, or permanent truth. But they didn’t argue about that.”

  “‘Vaguely’, you say! I think you have understood the whole of what was said. And what lucidity you have, to be sure. It’s amazing to me how your outlook has developed during the past year or so. Both your Colonel and Father Aloysius seem to have been splendid men. They are both dead?”

  “Jasper Kingsman is. Another friend was ‘Spectre’ West. He gave me this book.”

  “What a splendid gift! The Everyman Library is a most excellent series.”

  “Would you like to borrow it?”

  “May I? How kind of you.”

  Dora knew it well; but she looked into it as though she had seen it for the first time.

  “I think I’ll go and find the others now, Aunt Dora. We’re going to bathe this afternoon, when the tide is right in.”

  “You will be most careful, won’t you? The currents are dangerous.”

  *

  The tides in the Bristol Channel ran so fast that they gave a permanent cant to the paddle steamers plying between Cardiff, Swansea, Ilfracombe and Lynmouth before the war. The summer sky was blue, reflecting its colour upon the waters flowing into the harbour. Walking on the quay, with its crab-pots and nets, they put up a greater black-backed gull, which flew with weighty slowness of wings to a post marking the channel, where sat another black-back, presumably its mate, for the newcomer soared up, and with wings held gracefully aloft to hold the air, dropped lightly down to sit upon the other bird’s back. For a few moments the under-gull put up with this, then giving way under the weight, dropped down and flew to the next post, leaving the usurper upon the pole.

  “You see!” said Willie. “The soldier’s philosophy also applies to the gull world.”

  “I bet she was his wife,” said Doris. “How like a man!.”

  “Here, I say,” said Percy, looking at her with simple eyes.

  “Ah, Percy, don’t forget that probably he’s been feeding her all the while she was sitting on the eggs, so why should she take his armchair? Down with votes for women!”

  “I don’t think he was very nice,” said Polly. “He thought only of himself.” She tossed her head at Phillip.

  “Apart from all rotting, Polly, it was probably the bird’s post, and the second gull was using it as a vantage point, to rob the first gull of anything it found in between the boulders at low tide. I saw a gull the other day snatch a sea-trout of over a pound, working its way up the stream.”

  “Well, what can the gull have been looking for now it’s high tide.”

  “Fish heads and guts the cottagers chuck into the river, or other things.”

  “Do they really? Then I certainly don’t want to bathe here,” said Polly.

  “Why not, Polly? What’s wrong with a fresh fish head?”

  “Anyway, if I had been the bird on that post, I would have stood up for myself,” said Doris. “I hate all bullies!”

  At this moment the bird which had been turned off its post flew back and pitched upon the back of the usurper. They all laughed at the ridiculous sight, which was interrupted by a salmon leaping straight up out of the water, a few feet from the quay. As it fell back with a smack the two black-backs, uttering gruff bass cries, flew across the harbour to the far bouldered shore, to stand together at the water’s edge.

  Phillip and Willie watched them from the quay, with Percy. The girls had gone on, to get undressed behind some boats drawn up, with a pile of crab-pots, under the cliff.

  “I wonder what made it jump like that.”

  “They say to knock off the sea-lice, Phil. The lice suck blood around the vent, and it must itch like hell. After a day up the river the lice die. They can’t live in fresh water.”

  “What a lot you know. I wish we’d lived in the country.”

  “But you know a great deal about the country.”

  “All picked up from books at the Free Library, my dear Coz!”

  “You’re jolly lucky to have one to go to!”

  This led to talk about their fathers. Both agreed that they lived extremely narrow lives. Both were in ruts. A pity that they never visited one another.

  “I believe they did once, actually, Willie, a tremendously long time ago, long before the Boer War, even. Aunt Dora had that cottage over there then—that one behind the pub,” said Phillip, pointing at the sett-stoned narrow lane leading up from the quay, to a cottage red with rambler roses. “Does Uncle John ever go to see Uncle Hilary?”

  “Father’s always saying he’ll go, but seldom leaves the library where he practically lives nowadays. He likes fishing, too, and says that Uncle Hilary’s beat on the Avon is a jolly good one, but he doesn’t care for Aunty Bee. Anyway, she’s gone. Uncle Hilary is selling his place there, and is going to buy land at Rookhurst.”

  “I wonder what for, Willie.”

  “Get it back in the family, I suppose.”

  “Oh, good. Father will be jolly glad to hear that!”

  Chapter 24

  PISTON

  The girls had bathed before, but this was Phillip’s first swim since bathing in the Ancre. He was apprehensive of the deep water, lest he got cramp in his leg. They strolled on to the boats drawn up beyond the lift. The girls, walking on ahead, were opposite the entrance when three young officers from Hollerday House appeared. Two wore bath-robes, with towels ro
und necks; the third was in plain clothes. He had been on leave when Phillip had arrived at Hollerday House; but as soon as he saw him, Phillip had recognised him as the man at the Casualty Clearing Station at Heilly who had come into the hut on the padre’s arm, and pretended to be fighting the Germans.

  His name was Piston. It was the first time he had seen the girls, but he treated them immediately as though they were old friends.

  “Hullo, dear ladies!” with a double flip of his rat’s-whisker moustaches. “Welcome to Lynmouth! Delightful spot down here, don’t you know! I’m from the same jolly old place as Phil and Bill, you know, Georgie Newnes’ shack built on Tit-Bits, and looking like it, too. These Cheap Press Wallahs get my goat. I don’t care who they are—Billy Castleton, Alf Harmsworth, Arty Pearson, Georgie Newnes—the whole bang lot of them ought to be shot in my opinion, for feeding the muck they do to the hoi polloi. They’re all yellow bellies,” he went on, with a high-class drawl. “I know quite a lot about Fleet Street. The Hidden Hand, and all that. Wang! I’d shoot the whole dam’ lot!”

  The dark eyes darted from face to face as he went on, “I was with dear old Phil in the Somme show, you know. Ac-tually, I got lifted sky-high by one of the mines in front of La Boisselle. Lost my memory, or parts of it, ever since! And the trouble is, strictly between ourselves, which parts! God knows who I am. Sometimes I don’t even know myself. Ever had the feeling of being reincarnated? If so, take my advice—don’t!”

  The speaker’s face had gone pale. He looked exhausted. With a glance at Polly, half-shy, half-furtive, he went on, “I expect you think my name sounds a bit odd. Ac-tually,” with a flip of moustaches, “one of my great-great-uncles invented something that made little old James Watt’s steam-kettle idea practicable. Few people realise that, as they equally fail to realise that Major Shrapnel invented the shell, Sir Hiram Maxim the machine-gun, and old Uncle Tom Cobley Gatling that barrel-organ thing they used on the Fuzziwuzzies in the Sudan.”

  Phillip wondered if his manner was due to his trying all the time to get away from something he could not bear to think about, so he was always talking and imagining things in order to forget what had hurt him. Perhaps he had suffered from “the battle of the brain”, when he was a boy? Had the war frightened him, literally, out of his wits? So much so, that he was pretending to be mad, in order to get out of the army? Poor devil.

  “Let me introduce you to my sister and to my cousin Miss Pickering—Mr. Piston.”

  “Somewhat belated!” said Piston, saluting. “Well, I can see that you are all straining at the leash to get on with the old trudgeon stroke, invented by a bloke called Trudgeon, by the way, a pal of mine, so I’ll leave you to it. Cheeroh! I’m unfortunately not swimming just now. Concussion!” He coughed hollowly, wheezed, and thumped his chest.

  Phillip was glad that the blue cloth of his bathing dress covered the ugly purple-red crater on his left buttock, and that the bullet hole in his foot just above the instep was hardly noticeable. Willie’s wound was through the shoulder, and had healed cleanly. They were both being worked upon twice a day by a Swedish masseuse, who pulled and pushed, to ease away any stiffness in the new muscles. He was glad, too, that both Polly and Doris looked all right: Doris in her bathing dress with its frills round neck, knees, and elbows: Polly in an overcoat. However, she should have worn a bathing cap, like Doris, her hair tucked up into it. As it was, with her white skin and black curls all over her shoulders, Polly looked rather fast, he thought. He hoped she would not attract attention from the others.

  With some uneasiness he saw, when she took off her overcoat, that Polly was wearing a boy’s bathing dress, which showed her legs above the knees, as well as an arc of her white neck; while her bosom pushed out the loose worn blue stockingette of her costume and showed the swelling of her breasts. What would people think of her?

  He was not left long in doubt. Piston, who had taken a quick, almost guilty look, which had in it some satisfaction, offered to hold Polly’s coat. Phillip began to regret that he had been so friendly towards Piston; he was going to be beastly familiar, he considered, already calling her by her christian name. The other two from the house were waiting by the little lighthouse on the quay. They ran their eyes over Polly’s figure, too. He wasn’t going to introduce them, and run the risk of having them hanging round the cottage.

  Dared he go in? The water was deep; the surface was two feet below the quay, and he might do a belly-flopper. While he waited, Polly prepared to dive. He felt anxious about currents, although at the moment there were none; the tide was still flowing in, but he knew that it began to go out strongly at the turn, and also there was much fresh water coming down from the moor. How well could she swim? He watched her getting a grip with her toes on the edge of the stone. She placed her feet together, threw back her arms, bent her knees, she sprang, he saw the pink palms of her feet, instep to instep, as she curved in, leaving only a round white ring in the water, much neater than the salmon’s. He saw her pale shadow down in the green before she bobbed up a dozen yards away, shook water out of her eyes and hair, and with swift overarm strokes made for the quay, leaving behind a wake of white water. Ignoring Piston’s hand, she drew herself up, sleek and dripping, to stand, arms by her side, one knee slightly bent, while about her feet formed a pool of water. She was as self-possessed as a statue; she was transformed, like his thoughts of her. He felt proud that she was with him; her white arms and shoulders were like the sculptures of Rodin. Could this be Polly?

  “Top hole!” said Piston, holding her coat. “I mean that, Polly!”

  The others plunged in, leaving Piston, Phillip, and Polly on the quay.

  “Don’t you swim?” said Phillip, moving between Piston and Polly.

  “No costume, old boy, there’s been a war,” said Piston, darkly. “Pity we can’t all go in starko. Why should we be ashamed of nature? It’s only the blasted beaks, all puff and paunch, that made the dam-silly laws. Your Cousin Polly is a peach. Beats Annette Kellerman, in my not so humble opinion.”

  “Are you sure you will be all right, with your leg?” said Polly, turning to Phillip.

  He wished he had gone straight in; the more he hesitated, the feebler he would look. So arms over head, and pray that it would not be a belly-flopper. It was, and it stung. Exuberance rose in him. He could still swim! He saw Doris sitting on the edge of the quay, beside Percy. “Come on in!” Then Polly dived in and rose up beside him.

  “I’m going in off the tower.”

  “No, it’s too dangerous! You might hurt yourself!”

  “Pouff!”

  “Polly, come back!”

  Polly walked on. He watched her open the door of the lighthouse, and go inside. She reappeared on the balcony, climbed upon the parapet, and stood there awhile, looking around with assumed unconcern. Was she brazen about her figure? Treading water, he saw that people up the street were looking at her. Among them was Aunt Dora, with a sunshade. Others were staring up, too. He wanted to call out that it was too risky. Supposing she hit the edge of the quay? He felt distress.

  But Polly, unknown to Phillip, was the champion swimmer of her school beside the river in Gaultshire. She crouched and swung and came down in a swallow dive into the water, leaving a small shell-splash behind her.

  “Hi-ee-o!” yelled Piston, as he jumped into the water. He swam about, singing, “My old man’s a fireman; He puts out fires!” His head was dark and sleek. Reaching for his tweed cap which was floating in the water, he flung it on to the quay. Phillip thought, after Piston had tried to duck Polly, that he was a bit too much of a good thing.

  The water in the harbour was from the Atlantic, pressing up between Cornwall and the south-east coast of Ireland. It had the chill of the ocean main; soon Phillip felt the cold strike him.

  “You stayed in too long, you know,” said Dora, seeing his face. “Now go and dress quickly, and then come back to the cottage and let me give you some hot milk. What was that odd-looking creature doing, swimm
ing about in his clothes?”

  “He hadn’t got anything else to swim in.”

  “Of course not, poor man, he has come straight from the battlefield. I must look him out something.”

  When Piston swam again he wore a heavy worsted combination suit of blue and white rings, which buttoned up from the middle of the chest. It covered all his body except his neck, head, forearms, and legs below his kneecaps. It had been left behind by Richard after the visit to Lynmouth in 1895.

  As Phillip had imagined, Piston became almost a fixture in Ionian Cottage. Still, he wasn’t such a bad chap after all. He offered to do odd jobs to help Aunt Dora, being handy with saw, nail, hammer, and mason’s trowel. He also must have peeped into the pages of A Smaller Classical Dictionary, for one afternoon after all of them had returned from fishing in a hired motor-boat, he said to Dora, “One of my ancestors was called Pistor, I’ve just remembered. I lost my memory after that show, you know. Ancestral memory goes back a long way, under stress. Funny, it all came back to me as I pulled in that pollock that it’s been a tradition in the family for God knows how long that the old boy invented a stunt of chucking out bags of quartern loaves to the old Gauls when they were besieging Rome, to make the old Gauls think the blokes inside the fortress had lashings of grub to eat. Whether old Pistor got away with it I don’t know, anyway later on one of the family came to England with the Romans, and founded the English branch of our family. That’s the rumour, anyway. Probably all bilge, like most pedigrees, you know, bars sinister and all that hoodoo.”

  Dora, who had never met anyone like him, thought that he had the innocent make-believe imagination of the child. This was shown also in the way he had made friends with various children, whose company he seemed to prefer. Then there was his strange devotion to his fire-pail, as though to some penates of his mind, a bucket he had found somewhere, perforated with a number of holes. He claimed that it was a fire-pail he had brought back with him from the trenches in Plugstreet Wood.