The Golden Virgin (21 page)

“Ha, ha, all your affairs are either private or secret! Except what goes on in Freddy’s and the Bull!”

Mavis went out again, leaving the door a-jar. Phillip closed it violently, then faced Desmond, whose eyes were still fixed upon him.

“Will you give me your promise?”

“But why should I not see Lily again?”

“She is my friend, and I do not intend to lose her.”

“Then may I suggest that you do not treat her as you do me, or you may find that what you fear may have come to pass.”

“You are plausible, as always, and can twist anything round. I want your promise.”

“Well, don’t you twist anything too much, or you might find you’ve broken its neck. Shall we shake hands?”

“On your promise, yes.”

“No! I have said what I have said about that. I ask you to shake hands because we are friends, and only on that. And friends don’t let down friends.”

“That’s all I wanted to know.”

As they shook hands, Phillip said, “I hope that Gene won’t attack me now, because I said I wasn’t going on Saturday to his flat with those flappers. Those kids are much too young. One of them even isn’t developed.”

“In other words, you do not approve?”

“If you put it that way, yes!”

“I see. I’m not allowed to do what I want to do, since you disapprove of Lily, and Gene mustn’t invite two girls to his flat, because you don’t think it’s right?”

“Well, I’m older than you both——”

“Does it occur to you that sometimes you behave like your father, I wonder?”

“Look Des., let’s stop all this rot, shall we? How about a song?” as Doris came into the room.

Desmond had a friend in the London Electrical Engineers, an older man who was a professional singer, who had invited him to his home in North London, and given him lessons. Desmond had a light tenor voice, and sometimes Doris played for him, and Phillip. In the past they had sung duets together, songs like
Shipmate
o
’
Mine,
Friend o
’
Mine,
etc., usually with three verses, the first two expressive of loving comradeship, the third and final verse dropping into a minor key, solemn with the impending shadow of the valley of death: late Victorian ballads in the spirit of London, with its fogs and dirt and fearful competition, its dread of “going to the wall”, of loss through incurable disease, but with faith in a future life, the resounding of trumpets, and general freedom where before frustration had enclosed the spirit.

Doris sat at the piano, and opened the sheet music of
Elëanore,
by Coleridge-Taylor. This was a favourite song of Phillip’s; a medium by which he communed with the spirit of Helena. He had not heard Desmond sing since he had been taking lessons; and he was surprised at the clear enunciation of the words, which now came with an almost piercingly pure ringing quality of each note, so carefully phrased. Before, Desmond had at times been nasal in his singing; while Phillip himself was, he knew, soft and throaty,
quite hopeless. It was the same when they had sometimes boxed together: Desmond had stood and guarded his blows, which were never really serious; but when Desmond had hit, it was with determination and strength. Phillip could now feel a new power in Desmond, through his singing. There was deep sadness in it, too.

Desmond’s eyes were on the ceiling as he sang, his hands clasped before him.

“That was very beautifully sung, Desmond,” said Doris.

“Yes, thank you,” said Phillip.

“Isn’t it wonderful that Coleridge-Taylor is a black man?” said Doris. “
I
think all men are part of the same world, really, whatever the colour of their skins.”

“The purpose of life is to create beauty, in spite of everything,” said Phillip.

Desmond said nothing, as he stood there, head and eyes downheld.

“Would you two like to sing a duet now?”

Neither Phillip nor Desmond replied.

*

As they went out of the room, Hetty appeared, and said she wanted to say something to Phillip. Desmond said a laconic goodbye; and Phillip returned with his mother to the room.

“I was wondering, Phillip, about your birthday party. As you will be going back on Monday, Gran’pa says he would be pleased if you would have supper with him tomorrow night. Perhaps Desmond might like to come, too?”

“Well, I’m afraid I shan’t be able to come tomorrow, Mum, as Gene and I have arranged to go out. In fact, I was just going to ask Desmond, too.”

“Perhaps Sunday will be better, then? Would you care to ask Desmond to come then?”

“He said he was on searchlight duty on Sunday.”

“Well then, shall we have just a family party, like old times?” with a gay little laugh.

“Oh, all right,” he said, with the dullness of nearly a thousand Sundays at home in his voice.

“Very well, Phillip,” replied Hetty, with forced cheer. “I’ll tell Gran’pa that you will come on Sunday. It is a special occasion, you know. You will only be twenty-one once.”

“Not being a woman, I suppose that’s true, Mother dear.”

He gave her an unexpected kiss, arising out of joy that he and Desmond were good friends once again, and he was going down to Freddy’s bar, hoping to see him there.

*

When the front door closed behind Phillip his elder sister came downstairs. Mother and daughter went into the front room.

“Thank goodness they’re gone out! Desmond with his sentimental, lugubrious singing! Phew, the room smells like a pub with all this smoke hanging about! Why do men smoke, I can’t see anything in it? Help me clear the table, Mummie darling, will you? The light won’t last very much longer, and you know Father won’t let me use the gas, because of this beastly economy. Why hasn’t Nina come? She said she would be here at a quarter to six, and it’s past that.”

“Perhaps she has been delayed at the office, dear.”

“Oh no, she gets off at five, and promised to come straight here.”

Ornamental china bowl holding miniature orange tree was lifted
off the table, tapestry cloth folded; now they were ready to cut out, from material which Mavis had bought at the Spring Sales, the gores of the new Freedom Skirt, a pattern of which had been given away with
Weldon’s
Home
Journal.
Sewing machine, work-basket, scissors, were all ready; but where was Nina?

“We must start without her, that’s all, Mother. Take my waist measurement, will you?”

Mavis had looked forward so keenly to this occasion, that her friend’s non-appearance, together with her fear of her father coming into the room—scores of mental pictures of this had already turned the edge of the joys of anticipation—was almost a disaster. Hurry, hurry, there was so little time.

Twenty-three inches, said Hetty. This was awful news: for the tissue pattern of the gore, or long triangular piece, twelve of which were to be sewn together to make the Freedom Skirt, was for a waist of twenty-five inches. The problem, or disaster, presented two alternatives: one, to cut the material to the pattern, and allow wider margins when sewing together; the other, to reduce the paper pattern by the difference, two inches, in proportion.

“Of course, after I’ve had my tea … but I don’t always get blown out…. No! We must cut for what I am, twenty-three inches!”

“If only Nina were here! She is better at mathematics than I am. Two inches off all round, divided by twelve. That’s one-sixth of an inch. Doris! Doris! Bring your ruler, please! Quick! No time to be lost!”

Doris came in from the kitchen, where she was doing her homework. Her opinion was asked for; and immediately afterwards she was asked if Mavis’ opinion was correct. Before Doris could adjust herself to this, Mavis said, “No! It would be fatal to take off one-sixth of an inch all down each gore! Don’t you see, one-sixth of an inch at my waist would be the equivalent of ever so much more at the hem, for the hem is wide! The waist is narrow! So how can it be the same? Mother, stop laughing! Oh, you are silly! Now you’ve upset all my thoughts, and I’ll have to start again!

“I am so very sorry, Mavis,” laughed Hetty. “I know it’s ridiculous, but I saw a perfectly straight skirt, twenty-three inches all down, so that you had to hobble, like Marie Cox did when she wore her hobble skirt through Randiswell!”

“I know, and ragged boys followed her to the High Street, and jeered at poor old Marie! Little beasts! I was going to the High
School then, before I went to Thildonck. How
awful
she must have felt!”

Nina arrived at this point, flushed and out of breath, full of apologies that her train had been missed. All was well. Hetty went to make a pot of tea, the kettle already simmering on the gas—or wasting away, as Richard (and Phillip) would have said—but thank goodness both were out of the house. Raisin scones with butter, put on in thick pats, were nourishing, and would keep the girls happy until supper, which they were to have next door, with Papa and Aunt Marian. Ever optimistic in her clear moments, Hetty took the tray into what was originally her drawing-room, and still was; for Dickie, she reflected, seldom if ever went into it. To the children, of course, it was the front room, a place of withdrawal.

Three girls were working out sums on paper, with pencils: how to reduce the pattern by 2/25ths. Doris worked it out to three places of decimals, and on being scorned by her sister for this, promptly left the room, saying “Do it yourself,” and returned to her interrupted Latin “construe”, taking her ruler and two buttered scones with her.

Two minutes later Hetty joined her, laughing silently, all her suggestions and attempts to solve Mavis’ problem having been scouted. Her laughter turned to tears as she set about washing up in the scullery: why, she told herself, she did not know. The sudden revelation had been smothered: an opening upon the evaded reality of her life: that nobody wanted her for
herself
, only for her usefulness.

Apparently Mavis and Nina solved the problem, for when her smiling, cheerful face looked round the door again, the Crow Blue material, with its dark sheens, was in strips, cut to a diminished pattern.

“I think,” said Nina, in her sedate voice, which seemed at times to have been pushed back into her stocky Saxon figure, “we’ll easily be able to finish it all by next Saturday. Mavis will look wonderful in it, her figure is just right for it, don’t you think so, Mrs. Maddison?”

“Don’t waste time,” said Mavis. “We’ve got to make the jacket yet, don’t forget!”

“Don’t worry, Mavis, we’ll get it finished all right.”

*

Saturday was always a time of enjoyment for Hetty, for in the morning her dear friend and charwoman, Mrs. Feeney, came to
work with brush, pan, polish, emery paper, hearth-stone, swab, and pail, practically all of her time on her knees, but for a break at eleven o’clock, when with bread-and-cheese, and bottle of porter, she sat at the kitchen table and talked to the mis’ess sipping a cup of tea. Doris was home, too, and the April sun was shining, the hawthorns in the gulley were a pale gentle green, and little children playing happily on the grass beyond the spiked railings of the park in front of the house; and her son, still her little son, was twenty-one! How the time had flown since they had come to the house, nineteen years ago, one Saturday afternoon, to find it all new and bare, the floors so clean, and the new bathroom, and the picnic tea which they had had together, and while she had nursed her brown-eyed baby by the fire, Dickie and his little boy, who so loved him that he imitated him in nearly everything he did, played hide-and-seek in the bare rooms upstairs, and Phillip was so happy because Dickie had saved a spider which had fallen into the lavatory pan, and put it on the window sill to dry, to her little boy’s delight, “’at poor spider will find ’is mummy now, won’t ’e, Dads?”

“Now ma’am,” said Mrs. Feeney, cheerfully, “I must get on with my steps. Master Phillip must see them properly hearth-stoned for his birthday.” She understood the tears in the mis’ess’ eyes, God bless ’er.

*

Richard refrained from looking closely at the ring and the case when Phillip showed them to him on his arrival home in the afternoon. He could not help saying, “I am afraid I have no present for you; it was taken out of my hands, that is all I can say.” Then he put on his allotment boots. Wheeling away barrow and tools, kept under a tarpaulin in the front garden (well into the privet hedge against theft) he felt grievous and unwanted; but walking in the sun along Charlotte Road his heart lightened at the vision of bringing fertility back to his few rods of soil which for so long had lain acid under the smoke of London, and now were in his tenancy, at a peppercorn rent of one shilling a year.

*

While Richard was trundling his one-wheeled wooden vehicle of gardening tools past the open gates of the cemetery, another manifestation of vernal hope was showing itself in the front room of the house in Hillside Road, where Mavis and the faithful Nina were busy completing the Freedom Skirt, in the sunlit air coming
in through the open windows of the front room, and slightly stirring the leaves of the aspidistra on its tall stand.