The last one had involved the spreading of jam. Father, during tea, had gone out of the room for a moment, and while he was out, he had put some apricot jam on Father’s bread and butter. Mother had been having tea next door at Gran’pa’s. He had thought Father would regard the jam as a mystery; instead, Father had been cross.
“I wonder if Master Phillip has oiled his cycle and cleaned the chain, in preparation for our spin this afternoon.”
Phillip, under the table, waved a frantic hand at his sister to tell her not to look at him. Fortunately at the moment Mother called her to fetch the tray from the kitchen, and Father said, “Go and help your Mother, dear, like a good girl,” and then followed her out of the room, to wash his hands.
“Phew!” exclaimed Phillip, as he crept from under the table. Hearing Father’s footfalls going upstairs, he nipped into the kitchen, and washed his hands at the scullery sink. There was Timmy Rat, his pet, looking at him with pink eyes and twitching nose, behind the wire-netting of his box on the lid of the copper.
Timmy Rat was waiting to be scratched. Timmy Rat bolted out of its sleeping corner through a fret-work hole whenever it heard Phillip approaching, its tail knocking on the wood. Then standing up, its whiskered pink nose to the wire, it waited for Phillip’s finger, closing its eyes for pleasure as the tip gently touched the basic pink skin of its ear. Phillip was supposed to wash his hands after handling Timmy Rat, but he did so only when Father was about.
*
The white rat was in its third year of life. It had been a present from Richard to his son, when Phillip had won his scholarship. That he had allowed Phillip, from the first, to keep it indoors, was a great concession to his son, though no one in the house suspected it. Richard had bought the rat on an impulse of some emotion, recalled from the scene of the boy in bed, nearly in a delirium, from fear of failure, on the eve of the examination.
A concession, yes: for to Richard, cleanliness certainly was next to godliness. He had no belief in a future life, as preached in the churches, chapels, and missions of Mother Country and Empire, as he had no idea of the meaning of the epigram, God is Love. Standing alone, Richard’s whole living was devoted to doing his very best on all occasions. In money matters he was scrupulous to a farthing; his word was his bond; and whatever he did, in his own limited scope, he worked to the full extension of his powers. He lived austerely; he was a man of great loneliness, because he could not compromise with the views, or worlds, of others.
In vain this uncompromising man had tried to make his son see that the greatest care, the strictest attention to detail, combined with punctuality, cleanliness, a proper appearance, and (ironically) due regard for other people’s wishes, were the only real basis of a happy and useful life. Canings, solitary confinement in bed with bread and water the only permitted nourishment, exhortations, pleadings—none of the ordinary ways of correcting an errant child in its early years appeared to have been of any use.
Yet on one occasion at least, the slow petrifaction of self had dissolved. On the eve of the scholarship exam, when he had visited his son in bed at eleven o’clock at night and found him with a temperature and on the verge of delirium, Richard had been astonished, bewildered, and touched by the despair, and anxiety to do the right thing, revealed by the cries of the little boy. He had related the moment to his own childhood; suddenly he had seen himself in his son, so that tears had come into his eyes—which of course he had concealed—as he perceived himself to be Father, a being with almost total power of happiness, or unhappiness, over the little mother and her three small children under his roof. He was his own Father over again!
The moment of revelation had passed; to be shut-in, and forgotten in the press of material, or superficial, life. Even so, Richard had kept a white rat when he was a boy: that had been in the country, far from sewers and the diseases of a city: nevertheless, on the day following the news that his son had won a scholarship, he had visited a pets shop in Leadenhall market, under whose glass roof he had often wandered during his luncheon hour in the City. For a shilling a young albino buck rat was his, to be carried in a wooden cage and kept on the floor of the Messengers’ Box until he left the Moon Fire Office at six o’clock that evening.
Phillip had been greatly excited by the present. He had promised fervently to keep the box clean, the floor sprinkled with fresh sawdust half an inch thick, to be changed twice a week, regularly. Richard had explained about the risk of disease, with reference to the Black Plague and the cleansing Fire of London, both occasions being due to the Black Rat, he declared; for if people in the wooden City of those days had not been so insanitary and careless, neither plague nor fire would have resulted.
“And then—who knows—perhaps I should not be one of the men in the Moon! For it was only after the Great Fire that the idea of insurance was born!”
Timmy Rat, to give the rodent its baptismal (under the scullery tap) name, had lived in its box on the lid of the scullery copper for almost two years now. It was graniverous and herbivorous. It kept itself clean by frequent washing. Even so, Phillip observed that fleas managed to exist among its hairs. Timmy Rat hooked an occasional one, after rapid scratching, in one of the claws of a hindleg. The little brown tormentor was promptly cracked between Timmy’s teeth: a slight but pleasurable shrimp-eating noise, while Timmy closed his eyes with satisfaction.
*
While he scratched Timmy’s ear, Phillip was trying to puzzle out why those lighted lanterns had been hung on sticks along the woodland ride in Father’s boyhood. Returning to the kitchen, he said to Mavis, “Be a sport, my gipsy, and say you just gave me a précis of what Father said to you in the sitting room. Else he’ll suspect I was under the table. On my honour, I only went there for a lark, not to eavesdrop, so I wasn’t doing anything wrong, was I, Mum?”
“That’s what you say!” retorted Mavis. “When you say ‘on my honour’, I always know you are fibbing!”
“Mavis, Mavis!” exclaimed Hetty. To Phillip, “It is best never to hide when grown-ups are in the room, Sonny. They may want to talk about other matters, beyond children’s understanding, you see.”
“But Mavis isn’t a grown-up.”
“No, but you weren’t to know that your Father might very well have sent her out of the room, and called me down for something, were you?”
“About me, you mean?” he asked quickly, his nostrils opening wider. “What have I done now?”
“Nothing dear, there’s no need to feel alarmed, I am sure.”
“Did you oil your old bike, Father wanted to know,” said Mavis.
“I heard him, dolt!”
“Then you were eavesdropping. Wasn’t he, Mum?”
“Only accidentally, Mavis. Not deliberately, I am sure.”
“Not like you did when those girls at your school had the violets out of the haunted garden!” retorted Phillip, antagonism in his tone. “I bet I know why you went, like the copy-cat you are, to get some! To give to your beloved Miss Wendover, whom you’re sweet on! I bet she was gone when you got back, so you decided to give the violets to Richard Edward Maddison, instead! Second-hand flowers!”
“Poof, a lot you know how other people think.”
“And a fat lot you know, too, Brother Smut!”
“Hush Sonny, hush, your Father may hear you! And I won’t have you use that common expression! I’ve told you before.”
“Phillip is common himself,” declared his sister.
“I bet I’m right about them stinking violets, anyway.”
“Phillip, how dare you! I shall tell your Father if you are not a good boy.”
“Father would laugh at you, in that case, Henrietta Turney. ‘Them stinking violets’ is what Jorrocks said, if you want to know. It’s in that old red book in the bookcase.”
“Well, even if it is, it isn’t a very nice thing to say just now, dear, after the kind way Mavis brought them home.” Hetty peered at the frying pan. “I do so hope these chops are done to your Fathe
r’s liking.”
She put down the pan, and opening the gas-oven door, felt to see if the plates inside were hot. A blast of torrid air struck her face, already flushed from cooking and the slight anxiety she always felt whenever her husband returned home, lest things should go wrong, and disappoint him.
“Oh dear, I’m afraid they are too hot! And last week they were not warm enough to please your Father! Now where did I put that cloth? Mavis—Phillip—oh dear, Doris has woken up.”
The youngest child was in bed with a bilious attack. Her cry for “Mummie” came down the stairs. “Go and see what she wants dear, there’s a good girl, Mavis. The pot’s under her bed, if she wants to be sick again. Tell her I won’t be long. I mustn’t keep Father waiting for his lunch. Oh dear, no peace for the wicked!” she smiled at Phillip, as there came a knock on the front door. “Who can that be now?”
“I know, by the knock! It’s Peter Wallace!”
Phillip went to the door. It was Peter, wanting to know if he would be coming out that afternoon.
“I can’t today, Peter,” whispered Phillip. “I’ve got to go on a bike-ride with my Father.” He heard the unlocking of the bathroom door above. “Goodbye. I’ll see you sometime,” and closing the door, he darted back into the kitchen, in dread of being seen from the stairs above.
He heard his father’s footfalls down the stairs, and with relief heard him going on down into the sitting room.
“Mother,” called down Mavis, urgently from over the banisters above, “Doris’ sick has turned green! Please come at once.”
“Well, dear, it’s probably only bile. Can’t you look after her?” cried Hetty, with a rueful little laugh at Phillip, “It would happen just as I am dishing up, wouldn’t it?”, as she wiped her hands. “I’ve turned out the gas in the oven, the plates are nice and hot, I won’t be a moment. Phillip, mash these potatoes, will you, like a good boy?”
Phillip heard Mavis saying upstairs, “I did try to comfort her, Mummy, but she wouldn’t have me—she kept crying for you.”
“Mavis, mash the spuds, will you?” he said, when his sister returned. “I want to look at my bike. Mustn’t keep Father waiting after dinner.”
Bilious attacks were not uncommon in the house, for some reason. Too many cheap and nasty sweets, declared Richard, referring to the children’s bouts. He had never had a bilious attack; indeed, his wife had never known him to be ill. Overeating, he said, or bad food, was the sole cause of stomach derangement; and people who did not bother to look after themselves deserved to be ill. Hetty often wondered if her husband really believed that her frequent nervous headaches, and the awful bilious attacks which she had about twice a year, prostrating her for as much as two days at a time, while she took only nux vomica in water, were due to her bad house-keeping? For Richard declared that the remedy lay in her own hands: in the avoidance of “tainted food”. Tinned food was absolutely forbidden. It was one of the evils of Free Trade.
*
Grace having been said—“For what we are about to receive, the Lord make us truly thankful”—the meal went off without any unhappy incident. The chops were cooked to a turn, declared Richard; while Hetty, smiling with relief, said that she was so very, very glad. The spirit of the sunny April day, the prospect of a fine week-end, as shown in the mood of the master of the house, prevailed. After the mince pies, and Grace at the end, with heads bent as before—“For what we have received, the Lord make us truly thankful”—they were folding their table-napkins, and putting them into their silver rings, when Phillip said, “Please Father, may I ask a question?”
“You may, Phillip, but I shall not promise to answer it. It depends wholly on the question.”
After this not unexpected reply, Phillip hesitated.
Richard, unaware of the effect of his words, waited. “Come on, out with it.”
“It’s about the lanterns on sticks in the wood at night, when you were a boy, Father. Mavis said——”
“Ha, ha! So you want to know why, do you? Well, curiosity killed the cat, remember!” said Richard, prepared to enjoy the fun.
“Oh Dads, please be serious!”
“I am serious, Mavie. Curiosity killed many a stoat and weasel in the same place, too. There now, there’s a clue, plain as a pikestaff!”
Phillip, nervously sitting on his hands, said, “Father! Would hollowed-out turnips, like those you and Uncle John and Uncle Hilary hung up in the trees, you remember you once told us, well, if they had candles inside, and slits for eyes and mouth and nose, would they do as well as lanterns?”
“You mean would they have done as well as lanterns on sticks, in the ride, near the keeper’s cottage, as substitutes in the particular purpose for which the lanterns were used?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Well then, why did you not say so? But if you mean, is there any connexion between the hollow turnips of Hallowe’en, and the lights by the coops, then the answer is no. Does that help you?”
Phillip had forgotten what his question was. He frowned at the bread platter, as though to find answer there.
“What you really want to get at is, why were the lanterns lit at night, isn’t that so?”
Phillip hesitated.
“Answer your Father, dear,” Hetty encouraged him.
“Now Hetty!” warned Richard, “Let the boy speak for himself.”
The boy was silent.
“Come on, speak up, like a man! Don’t spoil it all by sulking, old chap.” Richard made an effort to subdue his impatience. “I’ll give you three guesses, as I gave Mavis before lunch.”
“To scare poachers,” Phillip guessed at random, hoping Father would not laugh.
“Well, you are warm, I’ll say that much! Two more guesses. Mavis, you try too, come on, everybody join in! But if you know the answer, Hetty, please do not say.”
“Of course not, dear.” Hetty tried not to laugh. Only someone who did not know the answer must give it!
“Do you know, then?”
“No Dickie, I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“Oh, I thought that your merriment indicated that you did. Very well, I’ll give you three guesses. Your turn now! Phillip has had one.”
“To keep the hens warm, I say, then!”
“Oh pouff! One lantern every hundred yards, in a damp spring night, in the open, to keep hens in coops warm! Very cold, I am afraid! Mavis, your turn.”
“For the hens to see if their eggs are hatching!”
“Quite cold. Phillip.”
Phillip began to giggle, imagining a hen with a tea-cosy on her head, to keep her warm at night. Trying to put away the ridiculous vision, he frowned, screwing up his eyes as he stared about the room, trying to force the answer out of the ceiling. He clenched his hands, and made small grunting noises as his gaze moved about, straining for the answer to come to him. Lanterns, lanterns, lanterns in the dark mysterious wood, on sticks, in a row—signals to someone, but to who? He thought of Jack-o’-Lantern, the hero in the Boy’s Life serial who rescued aristocrats from the guillotine: always being pursued by the drunken chief-of-police, Gaspard, who, in a most mysterious manner had been shot in one instalment and buried in the forest; then two instalments later he was chased on horseback through the same forest, caught, hanged to a tree, and found there the morning after, cold and stiff; yet in the fifth instalment in Boy’s Life, which for some reason had been much bigger than the others before it, nearly as long and wide as The Daily Trident, Gaspard was alive again, this time in a punt, which later had upset, and drowned him in the River Seine. Much puzzled, Phillip had waited for the mystery to be solved, but Boy’s Life, to his great disappointment, had not come out any more: and so he would never know the answer to the mystery.
Now, sitting at table, he imagined Jack-o’-Lantern thundering on a horse down the ride after tipsy Gaspard. What could he say to Father? Why did hens need lamp-posts at night? He giggled again, seeing them going out of their coops to cock their legs against th
em, like dogs. Suddenly the answer came.
“For the keeper to see they don’t get out in the darkness!”
“You’re getting warmer. Now it’s Mavis’ turn.”
“To see that they are all right, Dads.”
“A little warmer! Hetty. Come, you ought to know! What is it about chickens at night, that the hen-wife concerns herself with? I will give you a hint. What smells like a brewery?”
“I can’t imagine, Dickie, unless it is thieves who’ve been drinking, poachers I mean.”
Gaspard in the serial had once been described as smelling like a brewery, thought Phillip. Had Father read his copies of Boy’s Life? He had not forbidden them, as they had come from the same people who did The Daily Trident.
“Well yes, poachers of a sort, perhaps. Now I’ll give one more hint, my very last one. They have a very strong scent, and violets in early spring can get in the way of it.”
Them stinking violets! Jorrocks!
“Foxes!” cried Phillip. “To scare the foxes!”
“Phillip wins the prize!” said Father. “A bar of Callard and Bowser’s cherry toffee.”
“Tell us some more, Dads, you know, what you did as a boy!” said Mavis.
Richard was sitting with his back to the fireplace, wherein coals, sticks, and paper had been laid that morning by Mrs. Feeney, ready for a match should the east wind return. He was warm about the face and chest, with the last of the sun shining through the southern window—for soon the gable end of the house below would cut off the direct April light and warmth. The sun expanded his spirit, as the wings of a hibernating butterfly draw life and hope after the dark seclusions of winter, renew colour, and power of flight, from the celestial orb. The children were always eager to hear about Father when he was a boy. Father as a boy could not be realized as such; Father in the stories as a boy was faceless, bodyless, without frown, fear, or shadow. He was something in the sun, unseen and formless; a feeling of enchantment.
Young Phillip Maddison Page 7