“Never mind, Mrs. Crang, we can sleep on the floor tonight.” Then to Barley, “I’ll go and get Rusty.”
“My, what a dear l’il kitten you’m got, Miss Barley!”
“It’s an otter cub, Mrs. Crang. We found it in France, the mother had been caught in a trap.”
“What a shame! ’Tes a bootiful li’l hanimal! Will it bite?”
“No fear, it’s quite tame.”
“I hope Rusty won’t titch’n! Nor Moggy, her’s got kittens in your place, her comes in our place ivry day for milk and what us can give’n.”
Phillip walked to the Ring of Bells to fetch his dog, who by now was used to master going away. The spaniel no longer ran frantically after motor-bicycles with a low drumming exhaust note; no longer waited half-way up the steep lane for sight of master turning the corner; no longer climbed upon the church wall at one particular place, to stare towards the horizon of the land leading to the sea.
Sometimes Rusty had come down to the cottage, Mrs. Crang said, to look through the cat-hole and whine before returning up past the pump and back to his base, the Ring of Bells. Rusty had almost ceased to grieve, with that deep grief of the single-minded mammal which has been removed from its natural life and, through the agencies of food, warmth, and affection, become a vehicle for extended emotion fixed on one superior object. Rusty had found relief from mental pain in the affection of the landlord of the Ring of Bells and his wife; a feeling of safety varied by calls at the Crang’s, where, upon a mat made of scraps of coloured rags, both wool and cotton, he would stretch himself before the fire, or, if it were a day of south-west rainy wind, upon the broken armchair which Crang would give up to “th’ ould dawg”. Rusty had now spread his thoughts, usually called up by the sense of smell, the most powerful agent to influence his mind, over most of the village: his points of call at which one or another of his hind legs obligingly gave way, including the foregoing places as well as a number of garden trash heaps, coign of village shop, Methodist chapel iron gate, a field of grazing to roll on disguising sheep-dung if the wind were what fox-hunters called a good-scenting day, and the blacksmith’s shop where once master had gone to have a piece of iron welded and a rat had run out of a hole in the wall and into a pile of scrap iron.
Now the spaniel whined on seeing his master, and followed him half-way to the cottage before standing still. Phillip knew that Rusty had to thaw out, and went on home.
Barley had waited for his return before introducing the cub to Moggy. She gave it to Phillip, who let Moggy smell it before putting it on the table.
“Stand still, and watch.”
Moggy leapt upon the table, arched her back and growled. Then she crept forward cautiously, sniffing. She made as if to clout with her paw—Barley’s hand ready to stop her—while Phillip spoke to Moggy, stroking her head. Her neck lengthened, the paw went out, she tapped it, like a kitten in play. The cub uttered a faint mew, at which the pupils of the cat’s eyes were expanded full. She glanced away, as if to escape; and swearing softly, jumped off the table and went up the stairs to where her kittens were lying in the dog’s basket.
“No good,” said Phillip. “She doesn’t like its scent.”
“Wait!” replied Barley. She crept up the stairs two at a time. Moggy was sitting in the basket beside her kittens. She mewed as though in appeal as Barley lifted two kittens and returned downstairs, to put them on the table beside the cub and rub them gently together before putting them on the floor, the cub between kittens. One, feeling the cold, began to cry. Chirruping reassuringly, Moggy ran down the stairs. She made several attempts to lift it by the scruff, and looking up, clearly asked Barley to carry it up for her. Barley picked up cub and kittens together and sat on the edge of the table; and when Moggy sprang up lightly beside her, rubbed the cat’s ear. Moggy crept upon her lap. She put the cub and kittens against Moggy’s fur, they snuggled into the warmth. Moggy purred, so did the kittens. Barley pulled one from its teat, and put the cub there. It fed.
There was a whine at the door. Rusty, too fat to squeeze through the cat-hole, stood waiting. Climbing into the arm-chair, the dog went to sleep.
*
When the year opened into July, Lutra was strong and active, playing with dog, cat, and kittens, racing round the room and pulling at everything with its mouth. The cub loved water, and at first had to be kept from the stream. Barley filled a pail for the cub; it would run to it, slip over one side, slide in and turn over, and emerge from the same place, sleek and spiky-haired.
She bought a large, coffin-shaped galvanised bath, in which the cub, now as long as the cat, rolled and reversed in the water, rocking most of it over the edges. One of its joys was to lie on its back in the bath, when most of the water had been sluiced away, and clutch with stumpy forepaws at the jet poured from a watering-can.
Lutra went with them on the Norton to Malandine sands, starting the journey in the pack on Barley’s shoulders, for they were afraid of rabbit gins. Rusty sat as usual on the tank of the motor-bicycle, but halfway there Lutra sinuated out of one corner of the khaki valise, squeezing through until Barley asked Phillip to stop, fearing that the cub would hurt itself by falling on the road.
By now the otter had grown a long tapered tail. Its movements were eager and quick; it raced over the sands in a low rippling movement, sand spurting from behind short legs: suddenly it would stop in full gallop and try to slide, rolling over and over before springing away to make for one or other of its favourite pools, into which to dive.
Underwater its stumpy, rather dumpy shape was transformed to a silent, streamlined tapering from pointed nose to end of tail, smooth as ribbon-weed and as glistening when momentarily its head broke the surface. Sometimes it kicked with all four webbed paws; more often it tucked in its forepaws and kicked with hindlegs together, so that its body moved rather like a loop-caterpillar, drawing itself together for the impulse and then straightening with the thrust.
One night it slipped through the cat-hole and was gone. They spent an unhappy hour calling it all the way down the stream to the sea. At midnight, as they were going to bed, there was the familiar noise of wet fingers drawn down a window pane; and Lutra slid in through the cat-hole, to lollop up the stairs, wet, and belly filled. There was eel-slime on the dun patch of his throat.
“As long as he doesn’t get caught in a rabbit gin, I don’t mind if he goes wild,” said Barley.
As the days went on, they realised that Lutra had nothing to fear from local dogs or cats. Indeed, most cats, once they had crossed its scent, made off rapidly, their hair fluffed out.
There was another couple like themselves living in a cottage in Malandine. They had a young child. One afternoon when the Maddisons went down to the sands Lutra galloped over to see them, for they were doing something near the stream which overflowed from Malandine Mere, which filled several acres of the shallow valley. When Lutra did not return Phillip strolled over and found him frisking about in a dam made by the couple, while their child slept under a parasol near by.
“We’re seeing how high we can build this coffer dam before it bursts!” said the man. “Your otter is doing his best to wash it away, look at him!”
Lutra was rolling on his back, twisting and turning underwater, then dragging himself on his belly over the thin sandy wall.
“May I help you?”
He ran to get clods of sandy grass, to place round the arc of the dam. Lutra enjoyed this, and dragged the grass into the water. Phillip pulled him out, and told Rusty to see him off. While dog and otter were having a rough and tumble the three managed to rebuild the wall.
“Well, after your kind help, may we offer you tea?” said the mother of the baby, politely. “You are most welcome to share our Thermos and bread-and-butter. Perhaps your wife would care to join us?”
She was tall and fair, and wore a print frock with a large straw sun-hat, complete with blue ribbon tied under her chin. Her face was pale, in contrast to that of her bronzed husband, who
was smaller than his wife, and dressed, like Phillip, in shapeless old grey flannel trousers and shirt. It had seemed incongruous that she should have worked so hard on hands and knees, with that hat, more suitable for polite Deauville society (as seen in The Queen photographs).
When Barley arrived she said, “Georgie, won’t you do the honours?”
“My name is Pole-Cripps, the old pater’s rector of Mary-Tout-Saints at Queensbridge, and this is my wife,” replied Georgie. “We know who you are, in fact we thought of calling—didn’t we, Boo?—but you were here before us, so, as a matter of fact—not to make too fine a point of it—we have been expecting you to call on us! However, why stand on ceremony? Let’s all have tea together, how about it? I know you have a kettle hidden in the reeds, as a matter of fact I nearly borrowed it the other day, when you didn’t come down, and the old pater came over for the day with the mater. By the way, she got one of your books out of the library, but I haven’t read anything of yours yet. I’m doing a course of the Metropolitan School of Journalism, to help eke out my army pension, aren’t I, Boo?”
During this speech of introduction Phillip had kept a straight face. However, Georgie—“Everyone calls me that, old bean, so let’s drop formality, shall we?”—was so obviously friendly that he felt mean for regarding him as a bit of a joke.
“Please borrow the kettle whenever you want to, Georgie.”
“Thanks, Phillip.”
They went off to gather dry sticks. Two upright stones supported the kettle blackened during several seasons. Soon it was singing over flames nearly invisible in the strong light of the sun which had burnt three faces to a dark brown. George explained to them that Boo had a delicate skin, which peeled in the sun, that was why she kept her hat on.
“Isn’t that right, Boo?”
“Well, Georgie, I don’t suppose that it is of any interest——”
After tea they swam together, then lay upon the hot upper sands, the two men rubbing pennies until they gleamed bright, the while Phillip looked up repeatedly to watch the kestrel which usually hovered over the golf links towards late afternoon, its feathers seeming almost blood-coloured in the sun now standing over the cliffs to the west. Thomas Morland had such a bird in one of his books, described as with ‘blood-nourished wings’. But they looked red only when the sun was in the south-west, the bird’s front to the sun and against a blue eastern sky. Morland was half a townsman, and didn’t know; all the great writers’ details were exact, ‘precisions’ as Walter Ramal the poet had said at the Woodford’s party in Inverness Terrace when he had met him there. Ramal’s country detail in his poems was marvellous, because true.
“In your course of journalism, what sort of things do you write about, George?”
“Oh, anything! I’ve just done an article on whit-ale, which I’m brewing, by the way. I’ve got a dozen cyder flagon bottles with screw tops in the cupboard of our sitting room, it’s not mature yet, but when it is I’ll give you a bottle, and you can tell me what you think of it. It’ll be pretty potent, I must warn you, for I’ve put in all sorts of extras, including eggs, raisins, and some special yeast, haven’t I, Boo?”
“You have indeed,” said Mrs. Pole-Cripps.
“I used to make it once, but found it rather heady stuff, tangli-legs I think is the local term.”
“Oh no, that’s scrumpy cyder! But wait till you try mine! I’ve timed this brew to be mature just before my next medical board. It brings out my rheumatism. I’ve got a sixty per cent disability pension, and if I can get it increased to a hundred per cent I’ll have a chance of commuting to a lump sum, then I plan to set up an Angora Rabbit Farm, don’t I, Boo? There’s pots and pots of money in Angora hair now, all the old girls in Queensbridge are knitting jumpers with it like hell.”
*
Sometimes at night they went to the Pole-Cripps’ cottage, Phillip taking his gramophone. The carpet was rolled back, and they danced, Georgie showing considerable agility despite his sixty per cent disability.
“I’ve often wondered about the cause of rheumatism, George.”
“No doctor knows, old bean! That’s the beauty of it! No one can find out how badly you’ve got it. And I do get it pretty badly at times, don’t I, Boo?”
“You certainly do, Georgie.”
“It may be living so near the graveyard,” he went on enthusiastically. “In the old days they used to say that it’s the vapour from the corpses which infects the air. But in my case I’m pretty sure it’s inherited rheumatism. The old pater suffers from it, so did his pater before him. Though I’ll admit the old devil used to put away two bottles of port every night of his life!”
“I used to know an old sweat in my first convalescent home in early ’fifteen, a ferocious old Liverpool Irishman named O’Casey. He had rheumatism which seemed to become worse whenever matron or the doctor was about. At his medical board in Manchester he almost crawled into the room, leaning heavily on a stick. He must have been cured suddenly, for he came out, while we others were waiting to go in, cursing, upright, and throwing away the stick. They’d passed him fit for service.”
“Ah, I know those old scrimshankers! I had a lot of them in my company in the Labour Corps, but they didn’t fool me!”
Phillip thought it time to change the subject. “How’s the journalism going, George?”
“I’ve just done an article on Tramps’ Signs! They put a chalk circle somewhere near a house where one has called, if it’s a dud house, you know, only bread and cheese and an old pair of worn-out boots which they leave in the hedge. An arrowhead for a good square meal, a cross for money, and a double cross if the occupier is a mean old devil likely to set the dog at them. Boo helped me with the facts, didn’t you, Boo?”
“Only in a very small way, Georgie.” She looked at Phillip. “I had a brother who was one of the first Boy Scouts, and I remember reading about Tramp Signs in The Scout.”
So do I, thought Phillip. The difference was that George had got the signs mixed up.
“But the best article so far is one on Drake! I sent it to The West Country News, but they wouldn’t publish it. They wanted to know the sources of my information when I said that the story of Drake playing bowls when the Spanish Armada was on its way, I mean Drake going on with the game when he heard the news, was only a yarn, without foundation in fact. I’ll tell you why, if you promise never to say a word! I argued it to myself this way. You know a south-west gale was supposed to be blowing when he was playing bowls and the news came? Well, it’s simple! Have you ever walked on the Hoe at Plymouth?”
“Yes, in the summer of 1918.”
“What was the weather like, calm?”
“Hot and still.”
“Exactly! You help me to prove my point! Have you ever played bowls? Well then, I have! And the old pater has, too, often! He agrees with me that you can’t play bowls on an exposed place like the Hoe when the south-west gale is blowing. Drake wouldn’t have been playing during a gale! Simple! But the West Country News were afraid to publish it!”
“Why didn’t you suggest the possibility of the story of the bowls being related to another occasion? Then you would have covered yourself.”
“You don’t understand, old bean. The West Country News, like everyone else, is out to make money, and most of their money comes from advertisements. So you see, if they had printed my article it would have busted the story of Drake’s game of bowls; no one would want to go to Plymouth, Americans especially, and the hotels and boarding houses would suffer. They’d cease to advertise in the paper, which might face bankruptcy. So of course they refused my article!”
George opened a cupboard beside the fireplace, to reveal a dozen large bottles of whit-ale, with screw-tops, lying on their sides. He awaited Phillip’s praise for his skill.
“Wonderful sight, George!”
“They’ll be mature in August, old bean, just in time for my medical board! You must come over and help me sample them. I’ve enquired about the price
of hutches for Angoras, and there’s a chap the old pater knows in Queensbridge who is willing to sell me some of his pedigree stock to start with!”
*
The Maddisons, a little tired of George’s preoccupation with his own doings—he was an only child—found another beach, nearer Cornwall, where they went on the Norton, he driving carefully now that she was in her third month of pregnancy.
By now the milky moonlight had ceased to be fretted by the ventriloquial voices of corncrake and quail in the fields shut up with dredge-corn and hay. Among the stars pierced by the church steeple swifts screamed as they dived and turned in space. Walter Crang declared that the male birds slept on the wing.
Wild roses in the hedges were forming their yellow hips; more and more visitors were on the sands and by the quay of the town; and she was saying close to his ear, as they lay in bed at night, “I feel him kicking, darling.”
*
August 4, 1924. DEATH OF CONRAD was the headline in The Daily Crusader. Phillip avoided the others on the sands, and walked alone on the cliffs, his head filled by thoughts of the dead writer: noble Joseph Conrad, his secret sharer of many winter nights in the cottage. Now he had crossed the shadow line, having passed through the heart of his own darkness to—what? At least to the immortality of men’s minds! He felt the loneliness of life on the broken cliff he called Valhalla, high above the sea, and hurried home to his love, his love for ever and for ever.
They took up with the Pole-Cripps again, glad to be with them. “They’re both very kind, aren’t they?”
“We left you alone, Barley,” said Boo, in her modest and pleasant way, “because we knew that it was a wonderful moment for you both.”
Barley was walking beside her and wheeling the mail-cart in which lay the Cripps baby asleep, with sun-bonneted head lolling to one side and shaking to the jolts of the rough road.
It Was the Nightingale Page 4