The Golden Virgin

by Henry Williamson

  *

  Three months later, when Phillip was back in France, Piston was invalided from the Army with a sixty per cent disability pension. Bowler-hatted, carrying an umbrella, wearing the Old Boys tie of his adopted alma mater, Captain (sometimes Major) Piston had a job in the London Area Inspectorate of the Ministry of Munitions. He visited suburban factories in garages by motor-car, being driven by a uniformed chauffeuse of the Women’s Legion, who fetched him daily from his parents’ home in Finchley, and took him back there at night. He was quite a character, she thought, and always so chivalrous that after awhile she did not think of him as a real person at all.

  Chapter 25

  A MAN OF SOCIETY

  As soon as he arrived home, Phillip went to see Mrs. Neville, to give her a detailed account of all he had done, except with Polly. He told her how he had gone up the path beside the cliff railway, which was not working at night; and then up through the fir and monkey trees to the blaze above.

  “I must be pretty fit, I got up in about ten minutes, and it’s nearly a thousand feet up, well, eight hundred anyway, and was only slightly puffed. The Lynton fire brigade arrived about the same time, with a beam pumping outfit, but their hose wasn’t long enough to reach down through the wood. I gave them a hand with the hose, and having established an alibi, appeared among the others, who seemed to think I had been burned up. Oh no, I said, I’d been helping. They found rooms for us in an hotel, but I went back to Aunt Dora’s eventually, when the fun was over. All my kit was burnt up, of course, so I’ll get a new outfit. Fortunately my old tunic was at the cottage, so I’ve got that. I like it, it’s had many adventures with me, Hornchurch, Tollemere, Northampton, Grantham, Boulogne, Etaples, Paris Plage, Amiens, Querrieu, Albert—dear old tunic, what memories it has.”

  “What goings on, to be sure,” said Mrs. Neville. “Of one thing, you know Phillip, I am certain: this world will never be the same place again when the war is over. What will become of all you boys then, I often wonder. What experiences you have lived through, to my knowledge! Well, so far Desmond has not set fire to Bognor Military Hospital! Of course, there’s no telling, he may do so yet! My son may turn out to be another Piston!” she shrieked. When she was calmer, “Well, your mother was pleased to see you, I expect. Are you going to another convalescent home?”

  “No. We were transferred to Watermouth Castle, but I asked for a Medical Board at Exeter, and was passed fit for Garrison Duty, with three weeks’ leave; and here I am.”

  “But you won’t be going out again, of course?”

  “I hope so. I want to see ‘Nosey’ Orlebar at the War Office, and ask to be posted back to the Training Centre as a transport officer. I’d rather be out there than on home duty, or Gibraltar, or Malta, or somewhere like that.”

  “Quite the soldier, aren’t you, dear?”

  Phillip went up to London, and saw Colonel Orlebar, finding him quiet, friendly, and helpful. He apologised for his lie about having been at Cambridge before the war.

  “My dear fellow, say no more about it. Westy told me the circumstances; one lives and learns, at least the good’ns do, I suppose. War finds out all our weak spots. We all get it in different ways, you know. Well, I’ll see what can be done. But you’re still B2, you know. Take it easy meanwhile. Have you seen Westy? They peppered him a bit more this time; he’ll soon be as full of holes as a colander if he goes on at this rate. Earned his gong, if ever a fellow did. I heard from him yesterday; he’s at the Duke’s place in Gaultshire. He’ll be up in town shortly, for H.M.’s Investiture at Buck House; he’d like to see you, I know. The best of luck to you, Maddison.”

  Phillip went out of the room, feeling keen and happy. He walked down the Strand to the City, to see his father. Richard was pleased to see him. Phillip invited him out to lunch, but his father said he “would rather not, thanks all the same”. The habit of frugality in the middle of the day was now set in Richard’s life. So Phillip went on to Wine Vaults Lane, and saw Mr. Howlett, who insisted on taking him to the London Tavern, where Phillip picked his own steak and saw it put on the grill above the charcoal fire before sitting down at a table with his old manager, who asked him to “tell him all about it”. Phillip found that there was nothing to tell.

  Afterwards he went on to Houndsditch, and called at the C.M. Corset factory. Eugene was delighted to see him, and they dined together at the Popular restaurant that evening, afterwards going to see The Lilac Domino at the Empire Theatre. He got home at midnight, just as Richard returned from his patrol. Phillip told him about his plans to return to Grantham, and Richard heard them with some misgiving. Was his son strong enough? He looked too fine drawn; but Richard said nothing. He was relieved to see no sign of drinking.

  “Your cabbages, Phillip, you’ll be interested to hear, are doing well, and are already hearting up. The only trouble is the white caterpillar, but I hope to settle that problem by the aid of soapy water.”

  “Oh, good.”

  Hetty, hearing amiable voices, came down in a dressing-gown to share the new feeling. Her hair looked grey and wispy, Phillip thought: she was only a small girl who had lived longer, that was all.

  “Well old man, you are ready for bed, I expect?”

  “Yes, there’s a lot to do tomorrow,” said Hetty.

  There was nothing to do, he thought with dullness, almost dread: nothing. And once more the dream of Helena Rolls held him.

  “Good night, Mother.”

  “Kiss her, Phillip! Go on, she’s your mother,” said Richard. “You’re not really too big yet, you know!”

  “Yes, you’re still our little boy,” said Hetty, with a smile that was not far from tears.

  Phillip kissed his mother hastily on the cheek, and saying good night, left the room, to wash quickly in the bathroom before Father came up.

  “Well, old girl,” said Richard, when they were alone. “What do you think of your best boy now?”

  “He seems so different,” she replied, with a half-resigned smile of loneliness. She meant that her son, the little son she always thought of, seemed to have grown away from her almost entirely. Richard smiled too; the tears were in his heart. He felt the barrier between himself and the rest of the family sometimes with despair; for unlike Hetty, he had no hope of his life changing now. The gift of cabbage plants had moved him deeply: every time he saw them, he felt tender towards the tiny boy who had climbed his knee, and once had seemed to love him.

  “Ah well,” said Richard. “The wild boy seems to have settled down. I suppose,” he added, “that we can give a certain young lady credit for the improvement?”

  This remark renewed an anxiety that Hetty had been feeling since the previous evening, when Doris had told her something as they walked home across the hill after Evensong at the church of St. Simon.

  “Mother, Phillip has no right to think of Helena Rolls any more.”

  “What is the reason, Doris? You must have some reason.”

  *

  Phillip had gone to church with his mother and sister solely in the hope of seeing, from the gallery where they usually sat, the figure of Helena Rolls in the light of incandescent gas-mantles shining down upon her rented family pew. The pew was still empty when the organ began to play. He hoped until the last moment; but when Mr. Mundy came in from the vestry with the choir, he knew they were not coming; and there was nothing to live for, once again. The years’ depressions were upon him.

  On the way home he strode ahead of his mother and sister, trying to outwalk his thoughts, to hurry on towards—what? Why had he not gone up to town, to be with Gene? At least Gene could feel the real things of life: he was alive, he loved music, he understood: a feeling that did not exist in Wakenham, except in Mrs. Neville. No, no, he must not think unkindly of the place: these people did not know what he knew. They had been stuck there all their lives.

  Striding on alone, missing the joining lines of the paving squares lest, treading across one, it bring him bad luck, he reached the gates
of the Hill, and felt some relief that the houses were left behind. Before him in the mellow light of evening he saw the grass, the railings, the seats, the row of elms—all things which once he had known better than he had known himself, for they had been intensely visible, standing out sharply in the life that was outward, every blade of grass, flake of bark, grain of wood on almost every seat. He knew them all. But the life that had been on the Hill then, had passed away. All was gone. Dully his shoes crunched the gravel of the path, as he strode in the wind which was clearing the sky of the greyness of Sunday-afternoon smoke from all the rows of houses suffocating the Hill.

  A group of young boys chivvying a group of young girls sported on the grass; challenges and laughing cries came on the wind. He thought of Uncle Hugh, thin and shambling, and his remark once to them when they were playing Robber Bands. Keep it going, boys; your race is nearly run. Had he seen the war coming? Striding on, he passed another group; the boys were trying to tear up a seat, to show off their prowess to the girls. Or were they tearing up hurtful authority? All the canings and the silences before authority? They were silent as he strode past them. Was he “an old man” to them? Just as in his boyhood, the seats of the L.C.C. were stronger: the oak bars were bolted to galvanised iron frames, which were likewise bolted to iron under concrete slabs, as in, it was said, the German concrete shelters under which their machine-guns fired. These seats had been designed to withstand the little “Erkles” of the Hill, as Shakespeare might have called them. Keep it going, boys; the war is not yet nearly run.

  On other seats, spaced along the crest, quiet couples sat, close together, wrapped in one another’s arms, unspeaking, unmoving, unseeing. He passed them without a glance, leaving them to their thoughts. Were they dreaming of happiness everlasting, so different from their parents’ lives, perhaps? Up and down to the office, twice a day over London Bridge, nearly six hundred times a year: could Love endure such sameness? Love endureth long, and is kind: Father Aloysius among the wounded: perhaps he was dead by now. Mrs. Kingsman, why had he not written to her? What could he say? That Jasper was with God? It was too late to write now, nearly ten weeks afterwards.

  Lily on the seat, by the weeping willow tree, weeping for the baby they took away, her baby wrapped in brown paper and dropped over the rustic bridge into the Randisbourne, leaving Lily with blue-glass eyes, Lily weeping diamond tears, Lily a large wax doll, and the river ran black with death. Poor Piston, promoting himself to Harrow. What fears had riddled his soul?

  Lily was gone, to make a new life for herself, to train to be an army nurse, Mrs. Neville said. Nothing was left of his old life, nothing, nothing, nothing. Damn his B2 category. He would ask for another board, and apply to be sent back to the war, to the life, to the death, of the battlefields.

  *

  Hurrying to keep the tall figure of her son in sight, Hetty said, “What is the reason, Doris? You must have some reason.”

  “I just think that Phillip ought not to go running after her anymore.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Doris.”

  “I don’t think it’s right.”

  “But why?”

  “Very well, if you promise you won’t tell a soul. Polly is going to have a baby, and Phillip is the father.”

  “Oh dear.”

  It was a shock. Hetty had hoped the liaison, as she called it to herself, between the two had long ago been ended, a single episode in fact, now forgotten. At that time she had blamed Polly as much as Phillip, for after all she had gone into his bedroom.

  “Are you quite sure it’s true, Doris? There are often irregularities when the period begins, you know.”

  “Polly’s first came on when she was thirteen, and she says she’s always been regular so far.”

  “Was it before Phillip went out to France the last time, Doris?” If so, it would be over three months.

  “Oh no, Mother. It happened at Lynmouth.”

  “We can be thankful for that small mercy, anyway. After all, Polly is still at school. I must talk to her when she comes next week.”

  “Mother, you promised!”

  “We’ll have to see what happens, dear. Now, whatever you do, don’t mention it to Mavis, will you? She is so easily upset, and is the last person to know about this. So is your father. Has Phillip spoken to you about it?”

  “I don’t think he knows. I only heard about it from Polly in her letter yesterday.”

  *

  Happy voices of three figures were coming nearer upon the gravel path of the Hill at its highest point. With a feeling almost of sickness Phillip heard a merry laugh, a throat-laugh possessed by only one person in the world, a laugh that had power to lift him momentarily out of the dullness of ordinary life. He assembled himself for the longed-for, dreaded meeting.

  “Good evening, Phillip. So you are back again. Did you have a good time in Devonshire?”

  “Oh yes, very, thank you, Mrs. Rolls.”

  “How long are you home for this time?”

  “I’ve got three weeks’ leave, then I report back for duty, sir. Then with luck I’ll be back in France again.”

  “So soon?” said Mrs. Rolls. “My dear boy! Well, you will let us see something of you before you leave, won’t you? Are you sure you’re well enough?” The voice seemed to brood over him.

  “Oh yes thank you, Mrs. Rolls.”

  Helena was looking at his face, too, he could see, as he stared at the ground. He felt lame before them, as though his leg were crippled. Then looking for a moment at her face, he saw its full beauty.

  “The secretary of the tennis club says you’re an honorary member, being in the Forces,” she said. “So do come and play, before the season ends.”

  “Oh, thank you.”

  “We must be getting along, Phillip. We’re going to sup with Mamma and Papa. Come in some evening and tell Helena and me all your adventures, will you, and bring your gramophone.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Rolls.”

  The Hill was transformed. There was no hurry onwards now. With assumed calm he waited for his mother and sister.

  *

  From just before the turn of the century until the outbreak of the war, the Hill had burned with thousands of invisible flames of shrill sound. Poor children from the slums south of the river, freed from asphalt playgrounds and narrow streets, freed from fear—of fathers, policemen, the whooshing flop of cane and underlying dread of Cat-o’-nine tails—had swarmed in summer upon what they called the ’Illies, to hear the wonder of bands playing, and to see the magic of fireworks from the Crystal Palace. Under Lord Rosebery, Chairman of the London County Council, the invisible flames of fear had been, for the moment, released upon the green and pleasant spaces of what once had been forty acres of church land.

  Few men and women of the class and generation of Flora and Gerard Rolls living in the district saw through the shrill screams and shouts, the litter of paper and orange peel, the incoherent rushing about and the not infrequent bullying and, above all, the appalling raggedness and malnutrition, to the radical causes underlying the unpleasantness. There had always been the poor, and there always would be the poor. Did not Holy Scripture declare it? Such children were not as their children; their feelings were different; they belonged to an entirely different stratum of life, which was bridgeless, except as between employer and employed.

  Flora Rolls had always been attracted by a certain look in Phillip’s face, though she had disliked many of his ways: the little ruffian who set fire to the dry grasses in the Backfield, scattered orange peel and paper thoughtlessly on the Hill (not, of course, during a paper-chase, which was permissible) and filled the bushes of the gully with broomstick rushing about and howling of his Boy Scout patrol, some of whose members were most emphatically not of the class she would have allowed him to mix with, had he been a son of hers.

  In addition to his wild behaviour as a boy, it was the swearing, the use of unmentionable words which had decided her never to invite him to
the children’s Christmas parties: a thing which had darkened Phillip’s life, convincing him that he was not good enough for them, the most beautiful people he had ever known.

  Dear Helena,

  Life was a dream before it appeared on this earth; and the look on your face is the most beautiful thing I have dreamed. Your laugh is as the music of the Lyn under the green beech leaves. Your blue-grey eyes are the Greek sea, thalassa, the sea that is the mother of man. Your straight nose and calm brow would have inspired Phidias, so serene and classic is your profile. No-one sees himself or herself as others see them. Therefore I am your poet, though I do but limp in prose. I see upon your brow, which is even as that of Aurora, the thick gold hair arising in two waves, diverging from the peak in the centre of your forehead: twin summer waves rearing upon some remote Aegean shore of white sand, the light making them green-glass-clear before the fall of thalassa, thalassa, which imitates the sound of the golden tresses of the sea.

  In ancient times the Greeks would have declared you to be the re-incarnation of the daughter of Zeus and Leda. In the Greek legends, Helena is all beauty, calm and serene as the tall summer wave falling upon a mere mortal, breaking without hurt upon the neck and shoulders, while drops glitter in the sun as they fall past his eyes; then the crash, thalassa, upon the immortal shore of the world.

  This evening of corn-coloured light you looked straightly at me, smilingly, as did your father, so tall and upright, and as Zeus himself. Now I must make a confession of ignorance: for if your Mother is Leda, I do not think your father could be Zeus, for did not Leda fall in love with a swan? So I am not sure of my similes. However, your mother is very beautiful, with perfect features, and violet-coloured eyes; she, too, has the soft throat-laughter inherited by you——

  At this point Phillip’s afflatus left him; and he scrumpled the letter, then burned it in his bedroom grate, thinking that it must be the first time that anything had been burnt in it; which was just as well, as in the old days he had hidden his tin of forbidden gunpowder up the chimney, and it was still there, forgotten.