The Golden Virgin (22 page)

Doubts, anguished and devastating, tightened within Mavis when first, in company with Hetty and Nina and Doris, she saw herself in the long looking glass in her mother’s bedroom. The skirt was a complete failure. It hung on her like a punctured balloon. And the pleats! They looked shapeless, some thin and others puffy. The skirt did not swing when she turned round, it did not swish, the pleats followed sluggishly. It was the pattern which was wrong. She had known it all along. If only Mother had not laughed, just when Nina was calculating the amount to be cut off the pattern. Now there wasn’t enough material round the hem to let the skirt down a couple of inches. It was a disaster!

“Nina, why didn’t you tell me I was cutting the skirt too close to the pattern? O, now I look a
sight
!”

Mavis was near to tears. While Nina humbly said she was very sorry, Doris proclaimed stoutly that it looked very nice. Hetty agreed. Mavis sighed, and wondered. Doris said, “I vote it looks jolly fine, Mavis.” Nina ceased to apologise and added her assurances.

“Are you sure? I wish I could see it from behind.”

Mavis twisted and peered, while her woeful face in the glass stared back at her. Her mother made a suggestion which in reverse settled the matter.

“Why not keep it, dear, a little while, and see if others are wearing it first?”

“What? And let them say I am a copy-cat? Not likely!” exclaimed Mavis, the plaintive, almost helpless tones of her voice giving way to a rougher, slightly guttural note, as she summoned up resolution. “No, I shan’t care what people say! What do I care what anyone says about me? I like it, and I’m the one to be considered!”

“Of course, dear, naturally.”

“Why not let Gramps and Aunt Marian see it,” suggested Doris, “if you can’t believe all of us?”

“Pouff, what will they know about clothes?”

“At least, Mavis, Gran’pa is interested in his granddaughter. And if he approves, you will know it is all right to wear it.”

*

The old man was sitting by the fire in his yew-wood chair, reviewing scenes of his living long past, in the kinema of his mind. Tibby, the household steer cat, lay stretched along the length of
its master’s right thigh. Its tail hung down by his groin; its paws, with claws half-sheathed, rested on the shiny, rounded blue serge trouser covering the cocked-up knee.

For more than a dozen years, ever since he had given up his country villa at Cross Au ton in Surrey to be near his daughter in the Benighted Swamp, as he called the foggy environs of the south bank of London River, Thomas Turney had worn only one kind of suit during the day; a ready-made blue serge, one or another of a score hanging in the mahogany cupboard in his bedroom. He was a short man, with a round bullet-shaped head, now almost bald. His body was not fat—his weight was constant at what he called, in his older way of speech, “Ten stun twelve pun”. Since his days of discretion, he was wont to say, he ate for nourishment only, he-he-he—the little wheezy laugh, emphasised by a chronic inflammation of the bronchial tube, was due to having smoked too many Havana cigars in the past.

His eyes closed; the kinema of his mind, its life, was dulling out; he was on the edge of sleep; only the ticking of the ormolu clock set in dark marble on the shelf above the fireplace was audible in the room. He had not yet begun to snore.

In a plush-covered armchair, with its back nearly upright, sat his eldest sister. Her eyes were open, her arms folded, her thoughts were composed; she believed implicitly in the Christian faith. At eighty-three years of age Miss Marian Turney was still active and alert. She had a mass of white hair, and a strong, resolute face, which was offset in conversation by the controlled quickness of her manner. She wore a striped flannel blouse with a stiff starched linen collar like a man’s, a thin black bow hanging from it. Whenever she spoke, it was in a decisive, firm manner. She listened to whoever was speaking with marked attention, as though what was said was important to her. Now she was resting between tea and supper.

At the click of the gate she looked up, and light came into her eyes. She rose to open the door to her niece and the two girls.

“Do come in! Tom will be so pleased to see you! Mavis, how nice you do look, dear! What is it,
le
dernier
cri
?
To be sure, it is! And Nina, too, what a pleasant surprise!”

She always made people who called feel welcome; so did her brother Tom. Their nerves were strong; centuries of work on the land had bred a generation which was uncomplicated by the constraints of urban living.

The
dernier
cri
was examined, every exterior part of it: the
material, the cut, the jacket with the roll collar, the new large hat, the parasol, the new Norvic glacé kid button boots, with patent leather toe-cap and cuban heel. O, the doubt and hope that had flowed away from Mavis, and Nina, in choosing those boots! First it had been a cloth-topped patent golosh; then a velvetta calf with mother-of-pearl buttons, until, with almost a fracture of the mind, Mavis realised that cockney pearly men and women wore such things when they drove out, with feather hats and great vulgar boas, from their awful homes on Bank Holidays, usually singing and the worse for liquor. So the unexceptionable first pair she had tried on were finally chosen … at the very stiff price of 19
s
.
6
d
.
And she had promised to pay for them on the Monday, having spent two weeks’ salary on the materials for the
ensemble.

While she was showing herself off, Phillip arrived. He
would
, she thought. If he were sarcastic, she would die!

“Good afternoon, Aunt Marian! How are you, Mother? Hullo, Nina! How do you do, sir?” Facing his grandfather, he said, “I have come to thank you for the very handsome presents you have procured for me for my birthday. Also I must ask to be taken into consideration my lapse in not having replied to your letter of six months ago, but I still keep it in my pocket case. Now do introduce me to this charming young lady, won’t you? Why, it’s you, Mavis! And wearing a Crow Blue
ensemble.
My lady friends in Debenham and Freebody’s would be envious if they saw you now. Oh yes, I know two lovely girls who are mannequins there. I was very nearly engaged to one, but that was some time ago.”

Taking solemnly his grandfather by the hand, he said in voice of the dead Hugh Turney, “I shall carry the Le Tournet crest, sir, in the Field—and faithfully maintain its traditions in the face of the enemy.” He displayed the 18-carat gold ring on a little finger. “Seriously, Gran’pa, thank you very much indeed! How’s old Tibbles? Still torturing birds in the Field—I refer to the Backfield, of course, this time.” He rubbed the cat’s ear with his finger.

Thomas Turney, not quite knowing how to take the varying moods of his grandson, said, “Well, your mother tells me that you’ve changed your Corps, once more, Phillip.”

“Yes sir, kicked out once again, this time arriving on the back of a horse.
Eheu
fugaces,
fugaces
—as Uncle Hugh used to say. I thought that it referred to the cigar smoke he used to puff out of
his mouth.
Phew—fumes,
fumes,
for the word fumes was connected in my mind with smoke, from hearing him speak of a chimney on fire, in Charlotte Road. Then of course he told me that it meant the old days gone forever. It’s a habit they have, unfortunately.”

Hetty feared that her son had been drinking: his mocking manner, too, was startlingly like that of her dead brother, Hughie. She glanced at her aunt, that tower of affection and strength.

“Let me make you a cup of tea, Phillip,” said Marian, getting up from her chair.

“Thank you, Great-Aunt, but I would not dream of putting you to any bother on my behalf.”

“No bother at all, Phillip!” said the old lady, on her way to the kitchen.

“Well, Phillip, we expected you for lunch, you know. Have you had anything to eat?”

“Yes thank you, Mother. As a matter of fact, I had lunch with some friends for whom I referee’d a hockey match this morning.”

“I bet!” scoffed Mavis. “Who were they?” she challenged.

“Some girls at the High School, if you must ask questions.”

“Ha ha, those flappers you and Desmond meet in the Gild Hall! Fancy running after flappers, at your age!”

“Mavis, how dare you,” said Hetty.

“Well, the referee must run occasionally, you know,” said Phillip.

“Will ye stay to supper?” asked Thomas Turney. “Escallops will do you good. You must not neglect the inner man, you know.”

“Well, thank you, Grandfather, but I promised to dine with some friends in London tonight.”

“Then come tomorrow night, why not?”

“Yes do, Phillip,” said Hetty, “we are so looking forward to it.”

“Thank you very much. Well, I must be off now.”

“To Freddy’s, I bet,” said Mavis.

He looked at his wristlet watch. “I must rush! Desmond and I are meeting Gene at Charing Cross in less than half an hour. Goodbye, everybody.”

Home again, Hetty said, “I think you are most unfair, Mavis, to say things like that, especially before other people. Why you do it, I can never understand.”

“There you go, always defending Phillip, and never seeing what he really is! I have told you, I am ashamed of having a
brother like him! Everyone says at Head Office that he is a coward, or words to that effect, and was sent home last time, because he was no good. And everyone there has to work extra hard, to pay the salaries of the men away at the war, and what is Phillip doing with the money? Spending it on drink, and then wasting it away down the drain! And worse than that, he goes with loose women down in the High Street, and was seen the other night standing with one for a long time, outside St. Mary’s Church, a woman called Lily Cornford, who gets drunk in the Bull and Freddy’s, and picks up with anyone in uniform that comes along.”

“Mavis, what are you saying? How dare you?”

“Well, it’s the truth, Mother! I’m not imagining it! Desmond knows her, too, he takes her to the Hippodrome. And she goes to see that awful boozy old Dash wood, too—quite shameless!”

“How do you know all this, Mavis?”

“I heard it from someone who knows Phillip very well, and has done for years.”

“Who is it? Tell me, Mavis.”

“Do you swear you’ll never tell a soul, Mother?”

“Very well, if you insist.”

“Well, it is Mr. Jenkins, who hears it from the detective-sergeant at Randiswell Police Station.”

“I did not know that you have been seeing Mr. Jenkins, Mavis!”

“I often come across him, when I go to see Nina. He goes on duty near her home.”

“Oh, I see. All the same, I wish you hadn’t told me, I wish you hadn’t,” said Hetty, feeling one of her headaches coming on.

Mavis put her arms round her mother. “Don’t you worry, darling Mummy, I love you very very much, you know. But how can I help feeling like I do, about Phillip I mean, when he upsets everybody in the house, including Father. He always did, from the very first. When he was quite tiny, he was always taking Father’s things, and causing trouble. Then when he was bigger, look how he used to get Peter Wallace to fight for him, and pick on innocent, weaker boys! Such as Albert Hawkins, who was killed at Loos with the Blackheath battalion, and I liked him very much, do you know that? Yes, he was the only boy who has ever loved me! And I loved him, too, as much as he loved me! And I can’t forget his face, all over blood, as he cried and hung for support to that little tree growing on the bank below the garden fence, where
the marn pond used to be, when Peter Wallace had punched him!”

It was now the mother’s turn to hold the daughter, shaking with sobs.

*

London, April 1916. A fine night over Piccadilly, hub of the machine-turning globe, its golden spokes covering one-fifth of the world, the British Empire, whose energy was now roused in unity for—its own destruction.

The hub was small, in the financial centre of an island; and like a device upon the hub the bronze statue of Eros, the Winged Archer, was ever about to shoot his arrow into the human beings circulating below, with their thoughts of food, fear, fornication, and death; and here and there an individual inspired by austere thoughts of love everlasting, of patriotism, of the hope of courage in the final test of duty.

Dim specks of oil-lamps on taxicabs, their bodies built high like hooded bath-chairs, and almost as slow; blue-painted street lamps above the kerbs of pavements; uniforms of the principal nations of the Entente, Britain, France, Russia, Italy; and of the Allied nations of Japan, Belgium, Montenegro, Servia, Portugal. Officers of Colonial troops from Africa, spahis and other coloured troops wearingthe fez; Australians with bushranger hats, Canadians, New Zealanders, South Africans, and the Gold Coast Regiment, the King’s African Rifles. Among the masses seeking escape and relaxation from their thoughts, three suburban friends in file pressed through the slow thronging uniforms making for a restaurant which one of them, who considered himself to be a Man about Town, had discovered. There, he declared, one could eat a very good dinner at a moderate price, and drink the finest wines in London—Tiger’s Popular Restaurant, less than one hundred yards from Eros, on the northern side of Piccadilly. Doors of wrought iron filigree and glass; golden electric lamps on tables; a carpet soft as sand, a string orchestra playing.

German submarine warfare had not yet stripped the bottoms in which money through trade had come to Great Britain: food was plentiful for those with money: the Great Push of the New Armies would end in the splendours of Victory.

*

One of the things Phillip liked about Eugene was his love of music. Eugene had heard operas with his father, and could hum many of the airs of
Bohême,
Tosca,
Butterfly,
and others. He had told Phillip
the stories of these operas, producing in his listener the emotions he himself felt. Therefore it was extra pleasure that Phillip saw Gene going to the conductor of the orchestra, to ask for selections from
Pagliacci,
with its wonderful
On
with
the
Motley,
the broken-hearted clown’s lament for his betrayal and ruined life. Phillip felt himself to be the clown and ordered for a start two bottles of claret with the porterhouse steak; which when it came was surrounded by mushrooms, fried potatoes, onions, with six poached eggs lying upon it—a South African dish Phillip had heard of from a Boer officer at Grantham. When the second bottle was empty, he proposed a toast of the Big Push, declaring that he was off to Grantham on Monday, to finish his transport course, and apply to be attached to an early company going overseas; after the third bottle, Desmond declared that he would desert to France if his transfer to a Tunnelling Company of the Royal Engineers did not soon come through; while with the fourth bottle Senhor Eugene Franco Carlo Goulart etc. was on his feet declaring that Brazil would soon be coming into the war to join the Allies and then the spirit of his famous grandfather the General would etc. At this point the manager requested him to be seated, as the other customers wanted to be quiet, he said. Not to be suppressed, Phillip ordered a fifth bottle, and when that lay under the table empty he began to see how funny the quiet people at the other tables were, and by God, the three of them ought to wake them up and begin painting the town red!