*
The magic lasted until half-way through the Nimrod passage, when Doris, who had been sitting unnaturally still, suddenly wrinkled up her face and cried “My dolly! My dolly!” She remembered she had left that talisman of safety in the kitchen, to look after her ball of yellow wool and knitting needles, with which she was making it a camisole. Hetty told her to hush. Doris said in distress, “My dolly, Mummy, my dolly!”
Immediately Richard, his inner harmony diminished, stopped the motor.
Firm against Hetty’s pleas and apologies, he put the records back into their case, closed the veneered doors of the sound chamber, and locked the lid with a key on his ring. A special lock had been put upon the lid that afternoon, for he was not going to have Phillip’s fingers, he told himself, ruining his latest possession. There was little in the house that the boy had not, somehow or other, got to know about, with his inquisitive, mischievous ways.
“Now up to bed, all of you, please.”
“Say thank you to your Father, children, for the wonderful treat he has given you tonight.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“Thanks, Father.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“Now don’t any one of you let the occasion be an excuse to forget to brush your teeth.”
“No, Father.”
Phillip went out of the room first, followed by Mavis, and Hetty leading a subdued Doris by the hand upstairs to the front bedroom, where she slept with her mother.
Richard occupied his dressing-room almost permanently: the feeling of resentment towards his youngest child, which the music had temporarily displaced, was part of the crust of his existence.
Chapter 9
THE BIG PARADE
“O, THE beautiful, beautiful sun!” breathed Hetty to herself, as she stood at one window of what at first had been called the drawing room, but now, in the children’s language, had become the front room. She yielded herself to the sun standing high over St. Cyprian’s church, above the green shining of the grass across the road, the gleaming leaves and white trunks of the silver birches, the warm gentle breeze only just moving through the open window, stirring the leaves of her very own fern, the aspidistra given her by the rag-and-bone man in the little house in Comfort Road, long ago.
Sometimes when she saw the big, barn-like red brick building of St. Cyprian’s church across the grass she recalled, with a smile, the phrase that the Parish magazine repeated every month, as it had for years on its pale blue cover, under an etching of the church with a tall tower—Note. The tower is not yet built. That was almost as funny as Dickie’s remark, made when he first saw the magazine, “H’m, I see the ecclesiastical authorities have bitten off more than they can chew, in that tower!”
The front room was Hetty’s room. Its yellow-gold wall-paper and cream-painted window-frames and woodwork glowed with light as she stood by the middle one of the four windows, all open wide in the warm May afternoon. She had come to take a peep at her son standing in the road outside. As she leaned forward, her cheek was touched by the leaves of the aspidistra fern in the brass bowl on the tall stand; she smiled, and made the gesture of a kiss towards it—dear little fern, it had been her friend for so many years, and had shared so many of her thoughts and hopes. She felt a positive love for the fern beside her, as her nature expanded in the glowing beams of the sun, her natural joy and gaiety welling up with the light.
Thinking, as usual, of others before herself, Hetty’s present happiness was increased by the thought that her husband would have a lovely afternoon for his ride into the country. It was the only thing, beside music, which appeared to give the poor man any happiness.
*
Phillip had cycled home from school with all speed, and hurried through his dinner, because, he said, parade was ordered for two o’clock, and the patrol-leader must not be late. He had changed into his uniform, and was out in the road by five minutes before the hour. It was now ten minutes after the hour; he was still waiting for his “men” to appear. He had particularly asked her not to show herself during the parade; and “warned” Mavis not to make remarks. Knowing how seriously he regarded this first full-dress parade, Hetty had promised that no one would look. But she could not forbear to tip-toe into the front room, just to see how things were going on.
During the past week Hetty had been active with her sewing machine, in preparation for this parade. She had made six haversacks, cutting them out from an old print curtain, the pattern of flowers turned inside, of course. After running-up the flat little bags, each with its sling, Phillip had dyed them in tea. Thus the haversacks, which he had taken round to give his men, had something of the desired khaki hue. The result was not exactly khaki, rather a yellowish-brown; but it was sufficient, in Phillip’s eyes, to give concealment in stalking, tracking, and general manœuvres. Phillip’s white cricketing hat had likewise been immersed in the brew; afterwards, it had been starched and ironed, to stiffen the brim. A cricket shirt, blue shorts, black stockings and boots, and a tuppenny broomstick from Hern’s, to which was tacked a white pennant with the silhouette of a bloodhound’s head in yellow, and two yellow shoulder-ribbons, completed the uniform.
In Phillip’s eyes, this was wonderful. He was a Boy Scout! In addition, but more wonderful, was the wooden water-bottle from the Boer War which hung on one side of his belt, and a French sword-bayonet of the type manufactured for the Franco-Prussian war, from the other.
Bottle and sword had been acquired during a visit to London with Hetty and Dorrie, the previous Wednesday afternoon. The two sisters had taken Phillip to High Holborn to see his cousin Ralph, who was apprenticed to Murrage’s. This was a general outfitter’s and miscellaneous shop of many rooms, with a large export trade. Thomas Turney had some shares in it. The three visitors had seen where Ralph slept, after climbing many brass-and-wood stairs to the long dormitory under the rafters. Two rows of iron bedsteads were lined up against the walls. Coming down again, they had been shown over the rest of the building, walking through the departments on the various floors, full of suits, shirts, saddles, furniture, and other things uninteresting to Phillip … until they came to guns, stuffed birds, fishing rods on the first floor; and equally exciting, on the ground floor, several motorbikes standing round a great big motorcar which had actually won races on the Continent, a Napier-Panhard which had touched over a hundred miles an hour! “Wait for us, wait for us!” Out came Phillip’s notebook, and in a hurried hand the details were recorded and underlined, with several exclamation marks.
He was tremendously excited. There was more to come. The best display of all had been kept to the last. This was a real patrol of Boy Scouts actually camping out on the floor, behind a long plate-glass window facing the street outside. Two scouts were putting up a bivouac tent when Phillip first saw them, while a third was handling semaphore flags.
At the entrance stood a scout, on guard. He was obviously the patrol leader. From his pole hung the pennant of the Woodpeckers. Phillip gave him the scout’s salute; but the patrol leader did not so much as give him a glance. He continued to stand to attention, staring straight ahead. His pole-holding arm was covered by a khaki sleeve, with a long row of proficiency badges. No wonder he did not speak to him, thought Phillip, as he went on into the room, entranced by the tent and artificial trees; the birch-bark canoe; the camp-fire made red by hidden electric light bulbs; the billy-cans, cooking pots, and all the impedimenta of outdoor life, just as he had imagined for his own patrol.
In some excitement Phillip returned to the patrol-leader by the door, and said to him, “Hullo! I’m the patrol leader of the Bloodhounds!”
As the patrol-leader of the Woodpeckers still did not answer, Phillip looked more closely at his face and saw that he was a dummy, staring with eyes of glass, face of wax, eye-lashes of cow-hair, and wig made of tow. A pink waxen hand held the pole, a clasp-knife hung from the dummy’s belt. An awful temptation came to Phillip: dare he try and pinch that knife? Would he
be seen?
Glancing around, he spotted cousin Ralph standing, hands behind him, beside a heap of white wooden Boer-war water-bottles, of the kind advertised in The Scout for 4½d. Ralph was staring at him, a faint grin as of being found out on his face. Just then Mother and Aunt Dorrie came through the door, and they all went to talk to Ralph, who, speaking out of the corner of his mouth, and with a furtive expression, said that he was in charge of the bottles and swords.
“You look very tired, dear boy,” said Aunt Dorrie. Ralph told them the shop had opened at 8 a.m. as usual, it was now 3.30 p.m. but so far no one had bought anything. He shifted on his feet as he spoke, then complained that the hard floor made them swell, so that his boots hurt him.
Phillip knew that cousin Ralph had been expelled from the West Kent Grammar School, that was why he had entered a business career rather early. He did not know what Ralph had done to be expelled. All Mother had said about it was that it was a warning to others not to give way to wrong impulses, and to avoid bad companions.
“Coo lor, look at those swords!” exclaimed Phillip. Ralph told them that they were French bayonets, in gun-metal scabbards, from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. A notice said Souvenirs of the Entente Cordiale, useful as pokers, 1/6 each only.
“We’ll leave you two together for half an hour or so,” said Mother. “Now don’t get into mischief, Phillip. And don’t interrupt Ralph too much, in the course of his duty.”
At this Ralph winked at Phillip. When they had gone, he said, behind his hand, “What anyone can see in this bloody hole beats me. Waste of money to buy one of those old things for a poker, in my opinion. As for this Boy Sprout business, who could it appeal to but a lot of milksops? I had to help dress up that silly sodding dummy over by the door, that you spoke to when you came in. Sucked you in properly, didn’t I, my lad?”
From these remarks an onlooker older and less passionately involved than Phillip might have deduced that Ralph Cakebread’s salesmanship was hardly of the enthusiastic or persuasive kind; for Ralph, neither the customer nor the goods were ever the right ones. Even so, Phillip was his first purchaser of the day; one so persistent, indeed, that in the end Hetty, counting her small copper and silver, and against her better judgment, bought a sword-bayonet in addition to the water-bottle. In high feather Phillip carried them home, wrapped in brown paper, after tea in an A.B.C. Oh, hurry up Saturday’s big parade!
Safe in the privacy of his bedroom, he unwrapped the parcel, noticing every crease in the covering paper, its smell recalling the wonderful shop in High Holborn. First he examined the bottle, thrilling at the whiteness of the straps, the roughness of the whitened leather, the grain of the wood, even the rust of the iron bands top and bottom.
It had a black airless smell when the leaden tap, tied to a string, was unscrewed. There was a broad arrow burnt into the wood at the bottom. He saw again Uncle Hugh and Uncle Sidney Cakebread, with turned-up brims to their wide-awake hats, in khaki uniforms with leggings and spurs, bandoliers and sabres, each with a wooden water-bottle, on the night of the farewell party—he saw the sparks from the back wheels of the cab on skids taking them down Hillside Road in the night. He heard again errand boys in the street whistling Goodbye Dolly I must leave you—and now one of those wooden bottles was his! Phillip sniffed again the dark, brackish smell inside the wood, an old and faraway smell, like the times the bottle had known. He ran to the bathroom, to fill it with water and to shake it vigorously, to clean it. Always the old dark smell remained.
Returning to his bedroom, he drew the long pointed blade of the bayonet from its scabbard. The original grease was still thick and brown upon the bright unused steel. He cleaned this off with newspaper, then polished the blade with metal polish. There being some time before Father was due home, he went down to the garden, and flashed the weapon upon the lawn. Striking at the ivy on the garden fence, and stabbing the bark of the elm, where cats had scratched its fibres, he enjoyed himself hugely until a window in Mrs. Bigge’s squeaked up, and Mrs. Bigge looked out, to warn him that he might injure himself if he was not careful. Phillip said he would be; and to show her his power over the weapon, he ran at the dividing fence, and transfixed a plank. It required some tugging to pull the point out, and he fell over backwards; meanwhile Mrs. Bigge’s voice had drawn the attention of Mrs. Groat in her garden farther down, and the two women began discussing the danger, accompanied by shakings of Mrs. Groat’s head.
Phillip thought it time to go inside his own house; and pushing the blade into its scabbard with a click, he walked away, pretending not to have heard Mrs. Groat’s voice asking where he had got it from, and did his Father know about it. And all because long ago he had broken her window pane with a shot from the horse-pistol he had once owned!
“Boss-eyed fool,” he muttered to himself.
*
Hetty went away to see about Dickie’s lunch. Phillip, who had seen her peeping at him, but pretended that she was not there, was swearing to himself. He felt lonely and dispirited. It being now half past two, near Father’s time to return, he removed the sword-bayonet, and poked it into the hedge.
He was thinking of going to look for his men on the Hill when the click of a gate up the road startled him. After a glance to see if his trouser and shirt buttons were done up, and his stockings neat, he drew himself up to his full height of four feet ten and a half inches, while his heart began to beat rapidly. Could he get the sword and hang the guard on his belt in time? He was hesitating in near-panic when she came out of her gate. As she walked down the road and came near, he looked up with an assumed start of surprise, and gave her the scout’s salute.
“Good afternoon, Phillip.”
“I am just waiting for my men, we’re having a field day this afternoon, Helena.”
“Oh, are you. It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”
“Yes, if it doesn’t rain.”
Phillip felt he had made some progress recently with the Rolls family. True, he had not yet been invited into their house, but he had been next door, when Mr. Pye had invited him and his sisters one evening to see his Magic Lantern display. Helena and her small sister had been invited, too; and Gilbert and Flossie Todd from number six, and some cousins of the Todds.
Anyone from “lower down the road” was felt to be not quite good enough to know; but the Todds were all right, they gave splendid parties at Christmas, with a lighted Christmas tree, and a present for everyone. “Up the road” was occupied by the highest local society, in Phillip’s eyes; although Mr. Pye was, well, Mr. Pye. Still, he spoke like a gentleman.
Phillip was quite surprised when Mrs. Pye invited him and Mavis and Doris to see Mr. Pye’s Magic Lantern slides. And when, in their best party clothes, Phillip wearing patent-leather dancing pumps with his Etons, they arrived, and he saw the Rolls sisters there, he trembled with mixed fear, joy, and self-suppression. He was getting on!
He was still afraid of Mr. Pye, and half-hid behind his sisters when they entered the house at half past six. However, Mr. Pye spoke kindly to him, so it was not so bad as he had imagined. The Magic Lantern stood on a tall wooden tripod like a photographer’s. Chairs were ranged across the room, like a small hall. There were others there Phillip had never seen before. Mrs. Pye, who was rather deaf, sat in front with her children, and Helena’s sister, Viola; then came some strangers; the third row was occupied by the Todds and their cousins; the last row was for the Maddisons. Helena stood at the back, by the lantern.
“My little assistant,” said Mr. Pye, with a wide smile, before he turned out the gas.
There was a white sheet over the window, and a round yellow circle showed where the slides would appear. It was lovely in the dark, Phillip thought, with yellow marks on the walls and ceiling, from the chinks in the lantern. It smelled of colza oil, too, which reminded him of Beau Brickhill, when Percy had held Father’s dark lantern to look for sparrows in the ivy of the stables wall at night, and he had shot at them with the saloon gun.
&n
bsp; Once, just after a fresh coloured slide had been put in, Phillip looked sideways at Mr. Pye, and saw he was standing behind Helena. His arms were round her, and his hands were kneading her bosoms, which had grown full lately, Phillip had noticed, owing to puberty. Phillip thought of a cat working its paws on a rug before a fire, and wondered whatever Mr. Pye could be doing. He thought no more about it, and did not look again, in case Mr. Pye’s eye should fall on him, and think he was not interested in the pictures, but in Helena. Phillip still suffered from what Mr. Pye had said, when the girl had boxed his ears after he had asked her brother not to stone a sheep.
*
Helena Rolls walked on down the road, while the smile remained on the face of the patrol-leader of the Bloodhounds long after she had turned the corner. Forgotten were sword, bottle, Father, his men, as he recalled the frank blue eyes and dark lashes, the curve of cheek, the thick clusters of golden curls under her white tarn o’shanter. She had spoken so nicely to him. Was there shyness behind her smile, which would mean, as he knew from magazine stories, that she——. Trying to recall the exact amount of smile and interest in her greeting, he came to the deflating conclusion that she had remained cool and friendly only. She had looked straight at him, a level glance, which surely denoted absence of shyness or nervousness, which surely meant that she was fancy-free.
He saw his mother’s face reappear beside the old fern. She waved her hand, and smiled.
“No one turned up yet, Sonny? Never mind, dear.”
“Please don’t call me Sonny any more!” he whispered urgently, coming to the gate.
“Very well, dear, just as you like. I’ll try to remember to call you Phillip in future.”
He went into the garden, and stood under the window.
“Mother, did you see her go by? She didn’t say much, or turn back to look, at the corner. Is that, as a sign, good or bad, do you think?”
Young Phillip Maddison Page 12