“Hush, Phillip!”
Hetty tried not to laugh, though she thought it was rather funny, the serious way he said it. He was, in many ways, like her brother Hugh. Poor Hughie! she sighed. What a wasted life, what a tragedy! Pray God that Phillip would never make the same terrible mistake that Hughie had made. It was rather a terrible thought, but often it seemed that it was the gay, the bright ones of this world who were destined to come to a sad end. Hugh had never found happiness; nor, for that matter, had Dora, whom Hughie had loved so dearly. Ah well, troubles in this world were sent to try us.
“Mother,” Mavis was saying, a strained expression on her face. “Please make Phillip let me have the Singer in here. I must finish my sewing tonight.”
“And I must finish my homework, Mum!”
“Yes, dear, I know. Mavis, can you wait just a little while? Then when Phillip has gone to the library, you girls can have the place again to yourselves.”
“You favour Phillip, it isn’t fair!” cried Mavis. She was near to tears. “I shan’t have time to finish it now! The others have got their presents for Miss Wendover already made!”
“Fancy being so potty on a games mistress!”
“Fancy you being potty on Helena Rolls!”
“I’m not!”
“You know you are! ‘The bluebell’s blue, The rose is red, I love you true, I’m soft in the head! Ha ha!” Mavis laughed, with a quaver in her voice.
“You beastly little swine! You fool!”
Hardly had the insults been shouted, when there came a jingle of keys from the porch without, and the slight creak of paint parting from rubber beading as the front door was opened. Both children were immediately silent.
Chapter 2
IDYLL IN FOG
As he sat with Latin primer open before him on the kitchen table, Phillip heard the returning click of the Yale lock, then the soft sounds of Father’s boots being wiped on the cocoanut mat. He knew the noises with all his being. They were always the same. After the wiping of boots, the sides of each, followed by one toe, then a heel, then another toe and heel, there were the steps forward on the oil-cloth, followed by the little knock of Father’s umbrella handle striking its peg of the mahogany clothes rack; the slight blonk of the bowler hat following; the ruffle of his raincoat being withdrawn from his arms, the careful hanging of it by its black chain on another peg. Then the extra sounds tonight: rattle of match box, striking of match, little soft pop of the gas: Father pausing while he turned it down, to save gas.
Phillip waited in dread for what he knew was coming next. Father’s voice saying, “Phillip, did I hear you call your sister a fool just now?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Why, may I ask?”
“I beg your pardon, Father.”
“That’s all very well, but apologies for continual rudeness tend to lose their validity, you know. Do not let me hear you speaking like that to your sister again.”
“No, Father.”
“You will apologise to your sister, if you please.”
Well, I don’t please, muttered Phillip to himself; but aloud he said, “I beg your pardon, Mavis.”
The kitchen door opened wide.
“Anyone would think you two children were deadly enemies, to hear you speak to one another. Why,” exclaimed Richard Maddison, moving to shut the bottom of the kitchen window, “when I was a boy, neither I nor any of my brothers would have dreamt of talking to one of our sisters the way you do, Phillip. Nor would your Aunts ever have thought of retaliation, in the unlikely event of one or another of the brothers being rude to them. Where you, Phillip, get it from beats me! Not from my side of the family certainly, nor do you get it from your Mother. In future let there be a great improvement in the matter—please! Do you hear me?”
“Yes, Father.”
Hetty came cheerfully into the kitchen. “Well Dickie, I’ll soon have your meal ready. I do hope the fog did not delay you.”
“Oh, it is hardly more than a mist. Well, I was about to remark to Phillip that I saw a big dark bird flying over the Hill just now, but perhaps he is too deep in study to take it in.”
Phillip pretended to be studying gerundives, pluperfects, and past participles.
“Phillip dear, your Father——”
“Oh, don’t disturb the student——”
Phillip looked up. “Oh, I hope it was a tawny owl, Father!”
Both father and son tried to pretend to themselves that their surroundings were still part of the country.
“I fancy it was larger than a tawny owl. They live in the big trees in Twistleton Road, I have heard them ever since the time when I played tennis there, years ago. No, this bird was a big fellow—possibly an Eagle Owl, or a Snowy Owl. Are there plates of any owls in that book you got from the library last week?”
“I don’t know, Father,” Phillip replied, in a weak voice. He pretended to be studying the primer; but sat brittle and thudding.
“Has it gone back yet?”
Richard sat down to remove his boots. Phillip did not know what to answer.
“I don’t know, Father.”
“You don’t know?”
“I mean—I mean——”
“He’s trying to learn his Latin, Dickie,” said Hetty.
“Oh, I see! Your best boy has turned over a new leaf, evidently! Well, I’ll disturb him no more.”
Phillip sat easier as Father, having changed his boots for carpet slippers, went upstairs to wash. When he came down again, he wore his smoking jacket, which he put on when he was in a good mood. It was of dark blue velvet, an old one which Uncle John had sent him. Phillip felt that Father wasn’t so bad when he put on the “smoker”, as he called it. The frogs across the front made Richard think of Sherlock Holmes, of a world quite different from the one he was living.
When Father’s tray had been taken down by Mavis, and all was quiet down in the sitting room, Phillip said, to his Mother making some coffee, “I think I’ll go to the Library now, Mum.”
“Very well, dear. Don’t be late, will you?”
“No, Mum.”
Outside in the hall Polly beckoned to him. She held out the card. The sitting room door was shut. Phillip pulled the mantle chain, to get more light by which to examine the precious Valentine. There it was, on thick white album paper; a bunch of bluebells, and the poem underneath, in neat black writing. Polly had an envelope, too, addressed to Miss Helena Rolls. Was it all right? Yes, said Phillip, it was wonderful.
“Now I’ll slip up and put it in the letter box. I hope their bulldog doesn’t bark! Wish me luck, Polly. You know how I feel, don’t you?”
“I think so. She is pretty, isn’t she?” said dark little Polly.
“She’s wonderful! Of course, I’ve no chance. Still, one day, perhaps. I hope it’s foggy, then no one will see me. So long!”
He put on his coat. He was shivering. “I’ll be back in half a mo. Then I must hop along to the library, and get rid of that awful book. My lord, if I escape this time, I swear I’ll never do it again.”
“Why did you, Phillip?”
“For fun, you know. Of course it’s the Shag that’s dangerous. I could be sent away to the reformatory for that. Oh dear. What shall I do?”
“Well, deliver the Valentine first, and I’ll wait in the front room, and let you in when you come back. Then get the book, and change it, but look ordinary when you do so, then they won’t think anything’s the matter.”
“All right. See you later.”
*
If you open a letter box in a door on a cold foggy night, and you feel a warm air on your brow above your eyes and you hear charming voices and see a well-lighted hall and a dining room door open, and smell a roasting chicken—a house where they have dinner at night, and not just cold mutton for supper—it is like seeing into an enchanted palace until with a growl and a pattering of slipping claws on oil-cloth a bulldog rushes at your eyes behind the open letter-box and you turn tail and run away
in alarm into the fog, knowing that if you are not quick the thick fat spring on the gate will send it back with a clash and catch the back of your heel.
A dark figure loomed; the boy’s arm, Valentine in hand, was caught and held.
“What were you doing there?”
“Nothing, sir.”
It was Mr. Pye, who lived next door to the Rolls. The houses were attached; and Mr. Pye’s, the lower, had steps up to his front door. The steps were always well hearth-stoned.
“Who is it, Phillip?”
“Yes, Mr. Pye.”
Mr. Pye’s voice spoke quietly. “Why were you spying through the letter-box? It’s not exactly the thing to do, is it? It is not a pleasant role, that of a peeping Tom, Phillip, to add to that of a boy who has his battles fought for him by someone else, I have noticed, let me tell you!”
Phillip could not speak.
The worst happened. The door opened. Mr. Rolls stood there, the light behind him.
“Hullo!” his rich and easy voice said. “Oh, it’s you, Pye. I wondered what was happening, with Mike skidding about all over the place.”
“Oh, we just happened to meet,” replied Mr. Pye, in the same easy voice, but more level, not so rich as Mr. Rolls’. “Our young friend and I happened to meet outside your gate, in fact we bumped into each other. It’s Phillip Maddison.”
“Oh, Phillip, how are you,” said Mr. Rolls. “Not hurt, I hope? It certainly is a dark night. Well, I must not keep you. Goodnight, Pye! Good night, Phillip.”
Mr. Pye raised his big grey felt hat—a cigar hat Phillip had thought of it ever since he had seen a poster of a brown-faced jovial man on an ocean liner by the rails in such a hat, a globe-trotter smoking a cigar, the wind on his cloak. Mr. Pye sometimes wore such a cloak on the Hill when walking with his wife, who was deaf, and his children. The tweed cloak had an extra cape over the shoulders to shoot off the rain.
Phillip raised a cap that was not there. The door of Turret House closed.
“Well, young man,” said Mr. Pye, shortly, in a low voice, “I will bid you goodnight. And take my advice, don’t go spying on other people in their houses again. The next time you may not escape so easily.”
“No, sir.”
When Phillip got back, almost breathless with joy because the great Mr. Rolls had spoken so nicely to him, Polly was there to open the door for him. He told her the amazing adventure. The Valentine was still in his jacket pocket.
“You know, Polly,” he concluded his whispered story in the dim secrecy of the front room, “the funny thing is, I swear Old Pye had an envelope in his hand, and had come to put it in the letter-box! Only he didn’t! Now, if he had come to deliver a note, why didn’t he give it to Mr. Rolls? That’s what puzzles me. It’s a mystery, isn’t it? Oh, I never liked Old Pye. He’s so fat, almost oily.” Phillip thought a moment, then burst out, “Do you think he was going to slip in a Valentine, too? Do old men send them?”
“I think some do, Phil. To their old sweethearts. Perhaps it was to Mrs. Rolls, she is very pretty, isn’t she?”
“Him!” exclaimed Phillip, with disgust. “What—to Mrs. Rolls! Why, Pye’s a fat old slug! Not likely!”
“What are you going to do with yours?” asked Polly. “Go back later?”
“No jolly fear! I’ve had one narrow escape! Oh damn, now I’ve got the book to take back. Oh Lord, if I get out of this, I’ll never have another book out, I swear it!”
“Shall I come, Phil? Aunty might let me, if you ask her.”
“No, thanks. I must tackle this alone. The book’s under my bed. If I’m discovered, I shall have to run away to sea. What shall we do with the Valentine? I know, let’s give it to Mother! After all, she deserves a little consideration. Will you write out another envelope, and drop it in the hall, as though it’s come through the letter-box? It will be a nice surprise for her, won’t it? So long, Polly, you are a good sport, you know.”
He crept upstairs; and a minute later was on his way to the Free Library. He did not want Polly with him, as he had a secret meeting at the Library every Friday night with Cranmer, with whom Father had forbidden him, on pain of a caning, to associate.
Cranmer was a poor, ragged boy, living in slum-like dwellings in Skerritt’s Road, near the Library.
Chapter 3
NEW LEAF
WITHIN the past few years the Free Library had been built along the High Road, where now the wayside elms were but a memory to Phillip. Electric trams droned up and down the smooth and regularised way, to the Crystal Palace and beyond. Usually on Friday nights Phillip entered the swing doors between seven and half past, passing the scarcely-noticed bronze plaque of Andrew Carnegie upon the wall, and with the subdued air of a diffident small boy when grown-ups were about, approached the desk where books were returned.
*
He was one of several hundred boys in the neighbourhood who came, more or less regularly, to the Free Library. The subdued expression on his face was characteristic of many children of the district in the first decade of the twentieth century: a remote look in the eyes, as though the living scene were generally being evaded; a pallor upon cheek and brow, due to long hours of sunlessness in school, and to existence in a smoky, often foggy atmosphere during half the year; and on a diet the main food of which was bread whose composition lacked the beneficial germ, or “sharp”, of the wheat berry, being made of the interior filling whose whiteness had been enhanced by chemical bleaching.
Some of Phillip’s secondary or final teeth were already decayed in several places, though visits to the dentist had, supposedly, arrested the decay; while frequent exhortations by his Father, that he clean his teeth without fail before going to bed, and again when in the bathroom of an early morning, were generally ignored by the boy, who had come to regard all monitive and didactic utterances of grown-up people—except those whom he liked—to be avoided in so far as this could be done without punishment. The avoidance of all matters of what was insisted upon as his duty was not—except with his mother—accompanied by defiance; on the contrary, he was both timid and fearful, with only the least resistance to pain, or its threat, whether mental or physical. He cried as easily and as frequently as he was disobedient; truth in his life was subordinate to fear. Indeed, lying was, as his father Richard Maddison had often declared, second nature to him. That second-nature—to use the term of the period—was accompanied by occasional boasting and bullying, and an enhanced idealism centred upon an eleven-year-old girl, daughter of a near neighbour in Hillside Road.
While not, perhaps, a typical product of a lesser London suburb of the Edwardian age, Phillip Maddison bore certain characteristics of those who were being brought up in a district where the living soil had been partly suppressed by an industrial civilisation. His chaotic inner living, direct reflection from his environment, was apparent upon his features, in the melancholy cast of the countenance in repose, particularly in the drooping corners of the wide mouth, and the sad expression of the eyes.
*
At the moment of approaching the assistant librarian’s desk, to await his turn with the fair-haired young woman wearing pince-nez eye-glasses which added to the lifeless expression of her prim face, a more immediate fear was in Phillip’s eyes. His feelings were verging upon panic, arising out of guilty terror. He was quivering inwardly, struck with fear that the assistant librarian would open the book he was about to return, discover what he had written upon some of the pages, and report him for having a “depraved appetite”. That would mean only one thing—the police. He had recently looked up the meaning of the word depraved in the dictionary at home. “A state of corruption; viciousness, profligacy; perversion, degeneracy”—the words were familiar enough, from Father’s condemnations.
The Birds of the British Isles was a weighty, quarto volume illustrated with coloured plates. Phillip, having it with him in the kitchen while supposed to be doing his homework during the preceding days of the week, had read beyond his interest limited to th
ose birds with which he was familiar; and out of boredom, and a sense of fun, had composed extra verbal descriptions of those larger birds which had seemed to him to be sinister or grotesque as he regarded their portraits in colour upon the various plates.
Using a broad relief nib in his wooden pen-holder, he had added various alliterative epithets to the formal descriptions; and to disguise his writing, had penned them in large capital letters. Thus a big black bird had become the RAPSCALLION RAVEN; a thin, tall stilted wader, the HUNGRY HERON; a sea-diver with beak of several colours the PAINTPOT PUFFIN; a common grey and white sea-bird, the GOLLOPING GULL. Thereafter his fancy had taken a cloacal turn, inspired by the portrait of what to him was a rather foolish-looking fish-eating bird squatting above the sea upon a black rock almost completely whitened by its own droppings.
The bird had a narrow beak and head, with a little tuft of feathers on its crown, looking like untidy hair. Its black wings, iridescent with sheens of purple and green, were extended in an effort to gulp down into its crop various fishes, including an eel, whose tails stuck out of its open beak. Phillip had read that the upper mandible of the SHAG’S beak was hooked, the better to pierce and hold its prey seized in submarine hunting. With sudden daring, and a suppressed chuckle, the boy, seated at the scrubbed deal table with his undone homework scattered before him, had boldly limned the appropriate alliterative adjective of six letters; and several heavy blots shot off his nib around the coloured plate had followed, to show his scorn of the greedy, dirty bird, which was described by the author of the book as an enemy of fishermen.
If it had seemed frightfully funny at the time, it seemed now frightfully bad, as, trying to control his feelings, Phillip stood by the librarian’s desk, uttering a voiceless, wordless prayer to Saint Anthony, the saint most frequently evoked by his mother when she was trying to find something she had lost.
The book was taken; the date stamp examined at the front of the volume; a card swiftly sought in the index and slipped into the envelope at the back. His library ticket was returned, to his silent-shouted relief.
Young Phillip Maddison Page 3