The Golden Virgin (46 page)

“You’re not going to buy that one, I hope!”

“Oh no. I just happened to see him with that bike, Mrs. Neville. I asked him what he thought about fitting a vaporiser for paraffin. ‘Not on your life,’ he said. ‘It will cause unequal over-heating, distortion will result, with consequent cracking of the cast-iron pistons, and everything will be peppered inside that isn’t smashed.’”

He went on to tell Mrs. Neville that Martin, a small dark man with a pale face and black moustache with waxed ends, had said he might find him a customer for
Helena.
Being in the A.S.C., they had no need to worry about juice.

“Well, see that you aren’t swindled, Phillip. And if you see Lily, you won’t do anything to make her really fond of you, will you? You know what I mean. She’s too good to play about with.”

“Ah, but you’ve aroused my interest, Mrs. Neville!”

“Oh, Phillip! Don’t joke, for God’s sake!”

What had she done? What a fool she was! She must say no more, never mention the name of Lily again.

“Hullo,” she said, looking out of the window, “Father’s home early from the allotment, isn’t he? He only went down to it a few minutes before you came. There he is, wheeling his barrow back, Mother beside him. I wonder what can have happened?”

*

Hetty had gone with Richard to look at his allotment, carrying a new wicker trug, a present from Hilary. For both of them it was a very special occasion; for Richard had grown the first peas since those planted in his very own garden plot which he had tended nearly fifty years before, when a little bony thing in a tartan kilt; and those peas were now to be picked in Phillip’s honour for a dinner with lamb chops that night, with a bottle of claret.

Reaching the allotment, Richard saw that most of his carrots
had been dug up and taken away, together with the new potatoes, and all the peas and most of the lettuces; while the brassica plants looked to have been trodden down deliberately. The only signs of footprints were those of a large dog across a soft patch that Richard had left fallow.

He stared unhappily. “Never mind,” said Hetty, trying to show sympathy, while hoping that she would not laugh, for the idea of a large dog helping itself to peas and carrots and potatoes arose ridiculously before her. Alas, she could not help the look in her eyes; and seeing it, Richard turned and walked back the way he had come. She caught up with him by the cemetery gates. He stood still while a funeral procession was going in.

“Well, that is the end of it. I shall not try again.”

“I am sorry I laughed, Dickie, but
could
it have been a dog?” Then she caught a glimpse of an old man in the solitary cab following the hearse, and realised that it was the funeral of Mrs. ‘Lower’ Low. After some hesitation, she asked Richard if he would mind going on alone; and then she went through the iron gates of the cemetery, to stand near the thin figure in black bowed by the grave: the only other mourner.

*

Within the flat in Charlotte Road, Phillip was listening to Mrs. Neville, while the tolling of the cemetery bell came regularly through the open window.

“You know, dear, everything in this life comes full circle. The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small, as Mr. Hudson used to say. How time flies! It seems only the other day that Purley-Prout, that cunning rogue—what a scout-master!—was sitting in the very chair you are sitting in now, with brazen effrontery suggesting to me—to
me,
mark you!—that Lenny Low had invented the whole story, in order to get a new bicycle out of him!
That
poor little mite, as Lenny was then, with his legs not quite straight from early rickets, blackmailing that great big swanking bully! Can you imagine it! Purley-Prout was in a deadly funk, of course. He thought he would be sent to prison, I could see that. But the effrontery of it! I soon sent him packing!”

At this point all trace of sardonic merriment left Mrs. Neville’s big pale face. In a subdued voice she continued, “Ah, we can laugh now, but the sequel was heart-breaking, Phillip, after Mr. Low had made Lenny return that half-sovereign Purley-Prout had given him. Lenny’s poor, poor Mother! She was in debt to the money-lender, you know. She still owed the ten shillings
she had borrowed, years and years before, to buy Lenny a winter suit, as you may remember; but the years of trying to get disentangled had left their mark on her. She came here, you know, just before her mind gave way and they took her away to the Infirmary. Her husband, she said, had refused to speak to her for years. Her heart was broken. As long as I live, I shall never forget the story that poor creature told me.”

Phillip saw tears dropping from her grey eyes. She dabbed them with her handkerchief, sighed deeply, and after a few moments continued, “Poor thing, she was worn out, trying all those years to make ends meet; for that old devil, her husband, kept her so short that she had to make artificial flowers half the night, with her failing eyes, too, by the light of a candle, for he would not let her use the gas. Do you know the rate those flowers were paid for, Phillip? Violets and buttercups, and other small flowers? Seven-pence a gross! Think of it! One hundred and forty-four to be cut out, to be tied on wire which she had already wrapped with green material; and in the end, only sevenpence to show for it all! Roses, which took her a long time, were never more than three-and-six a gross, she told me; but more often it was two shillings, or half-a-crown. She used to work all day, while Mr. Low was at his office, and seldom got more than four shillings for a week’s work. Then she had to take her flowers up by tram, paying her own fare, to Clerkenwell.”

Mrs. Neville wiped her eyes. “And all the time, Phillip, that money-lender down in Limes Grove was charging her a shilling a week interest on the ten shillings she had borrowed more than six years before. She slaved away at her flowers, so that Lenny should have enough food to eat, and proper clothes to wear. Then she was told no more flowers were required—they went out when feathers became all the rage—and so she used to make up black tulips, and ragged roses, as they were called, with scraps of black silk, for poor people to wear for mourning. She used to sell them to one of the old women outside the cemetery gates, for threepence the spray complete. It would take her, she told me, the best part of a morning to make one spray, with her failing eyesight.”

Mrs. Neville sighed. “But there, she’s at rest now, and thank God for it, I say! Her eyes had a growth on them, and it affected her brain; so they took her away. When your mother went round to see if she could help in any way—what a
kind
woman she is, Phillip!—there was old Low with his head on the table, crying.
Yes, and talking to his wife, too! Now that she was dead and it was too late! He was old when he married her, you know, and always believed that someone else was Lenny’s father. So he didn’t speak to her for years, eaten away with jealousy. Well, that is life, Phillip! My, what a morbid creature I am, crying like this, and upsetting you, and after all you have been through.”

“I understand, Mrs. Neville. Life is tragic. One has to accept it. I wonder what happened to Lenny Low.”

“Didn’t you hear? He was killed on July the First, with many others of the Blackheath battalion of the London Regiment.”

“Oh well,” said Phillip. “He’s out of it. That makes four of the old Bloodhounds gone west, Peter and David Wallace, then Horace Cranmer, now Lenny Low. I think I’ll go and cheer old Low up. D’you think he’d mind? Hullo, there’s Mother coming back. I’ll go and see Mr. Low after tea. At home, I mean. Don’t tell Mother I had another tea here first, will you? She said Father hoped I would be in to tea, though why, I can’t understand. Well, it’s been lovely seeing you again—au revoir—and many thanks!”

*

It was Phillip who helped Richard to forget the calamity of the stolen vegetables, which he heard about at the tea-table. He had seen some bundles of plants on the market stalls in the High Street as he had motored past; and leaving the table, went away on his motor cycle and was back again within five minutes, with two bundles, each of fifty. He put them into a bulb bowl he found under the kitchen sink, and having washed both bowl and plants, took them into the sitting-room.

Richard hardly knew what to say, the gift was as sudden as it was unexpected. The way it had happened made him feel resentment that the matter had been taken out of his hands: he did not want cabbages; it was not too late to sow swede turnips; he had been imagining them, pale green in beautiful rows, during his tea. It was, of course, very kind of Phillip: but why hadn’t the boy asked him first? The pale green rows wilted away; he supposed he would have to plant the cabbages instead. Then he saw the scars on his son’s hand and wrist, and his slight limp as he went round the table to his chair; and he imagined his baby son, smiling at him, liking him—and the cabbages in the bowl began to look much fresher.

“Well, that was kind of you, Phillip, I must say.”

Phillip looked at his father’s face for a moment without dropping his eyes: it was the first time he had looked without flinching,
did he but know it, since he had been beaten at three years of age for opening his father’s cases of butterflies without permission, and breaking some of the frail coloured wings in an attempt to make them like fairies.

Now Phillip looked into pale eyes, faded almost to the colour of washing ammonia, and saw friendliness, timidity, hesitation; and was amazed, and discomforted, when Father’s glance dropped first.

With determination he went round to see Mr. Low, finding him about to fry a kipper; and there he had his third tea, Mr. Low insisting on sharing the kipper with him.

Phillip, sitting in a corner of a first-class carriage,
The
Morning
Post
on lap, remembered his journey to the West Country before the war as something in a world gone for ever. Khaki now took the place of corduroy and fustian; camp after camp of tents and wooden huts, convoys of lorries on the roads, and soldiers on every station. Brooklands was an aerodrome, with several triplanes of a new type flinging themselves about in the air over the track. He hurried to the next carriage, a third, to point out the exciting news to Polly and Doris. Might he not transfer to the R.F.C.? Pilots got 20
s
. a day, plus 5
s
.
a day flying pay.

Doris had the picnic basket. After Salisbury he invited the girls into his carriage, which he called the mess, to eat with him; but no crumbs on the seats, please, or paper thrown under them; if the ticket inspector came round, they must pretend not to know him, but say they had made a mistake. Nobody disturbed them; Afterwards, to prove how fit he was, he turned inside out, holding to the luggage racks, and did various exercises, until the loose change dropped out of his pockets. It was time now for them to go back into their steerage cabin, and leave him alone to smoke the cigar he had bought at the kiosk on Waterloo Station.

Life was good. He had £110 in his account at Cox’s, his convalescence at Hollerday House would cost him nothing, he had sold
Helena
for twenty-five pounds to an officer of the A.S.C. at the Omnibus Depot, and given Sergeant Martin a fiver for his part in
the deal. They had exchanged addresses; after the war he would try his hand at motor-bike racing on Brooklands. Meanwhile life was more of an adventure than ever. Willie was coming to the convalescent home later on, and they would have a wonderful time together, fishing, swimming, and exploring the countryside. His other cousin, Percy Pickering, was also coming for part of his overseas leave. Poor old Percy, soon to be going out, a footslogger, into that hell.

Looking at his newspaper, he ran his eye down the column of
Awards,
and thus saw a familiar name, under the heading
Distinguished
Service
Order.

He hurried into the girls’ third-class compartment, waving the newspaper, crying, “There you are! Westy was right! My God, why did I ever leave the Gaultshires? The attack of July the First failed practically everywhere else, but not where dear old ‘Spectre’ was allowed to use his napper! You won’t understand what I am talking about, so goodbye!”

The train rushed on under the sun shining down upon the green fields and stubbles of Dorset, Somerset, and at last Devon. Here was the River Taw again, the thunder of carriages over iron bridges, with the brown shrunken waters of the river winding through the meadows, and then the marshes before Barnstaple. There they changed into the little light-gauge railway. Phillip started off in the first-class coach, as befitted his status; the girls in the yellow wooden third-class coach. Then, after Snapper Halt, he joined the girls. At Chelfham they all went into the glass coach. At Blackmoor Gate he rode beside the driver, and worked the throttle to Wooda Bay station. Then back into the glass coach,
with its blue upholstery, for the arrival at Lynton. For an hour and a half the squat, tank-square engine with the brass funnel had puffed on and up, rising above oakwoods and steep coombe sides to the moor; now it was running down to its destination, the little wooden platform at the very end of the line, whereon a thin, tall Aunt Dora was waiting, smiling with her teeth protruding, her eyes pale and her hair grey but her voice soft and musical as ever.

“How good to see you all! And how kind of you to come all this way to see an old woman. You must be tired, Phillip, after all your adventures. And you are little Polly, how you have grown! And Doris, you have grown too! We will go down the cliff railway, it is only a step or two away. And we shall be seeing you, Boy, when you are rested, no doubt. You know the cottage, don’t you? Was it only two years since you were here? Well, here is Buzzacott with the jingle to take you up the steep hill to Hollerday.”

Phillip wondered which was Buzzacott and which was the Jingle. Was the pony, between the shafts of a small tub-like cart, called Buzzacott? Probably, by its appearance. Then the groom, or driver, must be Jingle. Beside the pony stood a foal. Amid exclamations by the girls, who tried to stroke the leggy young animal, small enough to be carried under a man’s arm, Phillip got into the tub on wheels, to be taken forward at little more than a snail’s pace, while the driver, a man as shaggy about the head as the pony, talked a language less comprehensible than that of the animal; for at least a whinney was a whinney. Dressed in corded coat and trousers, and old bowler hat, he sported mutton-chop whiskers, shaggy brows, and teeth that were but brown stumps; even so, Jingle was evidently a privileged person, for as they crept out of the station yard he put a clay pipe, with a horrible dark brown stain half way up the bowl, between his blue lips. The bowl, gurgling and faintly screeching, gave forth an acrid smell so strong that, when the procession, in silence save for the repeated breaking of wind by Buzzacott, left the high street of the town and turned up a steep slope to a lodge beside iron gates, Phillip decided to get out and walk.

He saw before him a stony lane leading up into a gloom of trees, so steeply set that the pony could hardly pull the tub, let alone Jingle. Very slow, clack by clack, the pony went on and up, past a row of monkey-puzzle trees, coming to a gorge, where the way had apparently been blasted through rocks. Slower and
slower stepped the pony, issuing forth more and more salvoes of wind, shaking the whiskers of the driver, who sat and sucked his pipe for comfort and occasionally flipped the reins and squeaked something, in odd contrast to other expressions of a peaty, brac-keny voice. After the next bend the way got so steep that the pony, with a final detonation, stopped altogether.

“What does it work on, compressed air?” enquired Phillip. “Seriously though, don’t you think it’s too much for such a small mare? And she’s in milk, too.”

“Ooh, ’er’s used to’n maydeer. Sot yew doon in yurr beesade me,” as he opened the small door at the back.

“God’s teeth, Buzzacott can’t pull us both!”

The groom rattled and squeaked with laughter. “A’y, tes a lazy ’oss what zweats vor zee th’zaddle!” he cackled. “Yesmye! Come yew in maydeer, sot yew beesade me, yew’m zo thenza dashel.”

“I’m afraid I can’t understand what you say, Jingle. Anyway, I’ll help poor old Buzzacott by giving a shove behind.”

This offer produced a throaty cackle, a hand like a root slapping a knee, a head held back and brown teeth stumps visible. When the pony stopped again a tangle of vocal chords issued past the gurgling pipe.

“Blarm’d if I c’n unnerstan’ a bliddy word on what you’m telling maydeer! G’wan, g’wan!” The last two noises were directed towards the pony, who pecked slowly onwards, while Phillip pushed, and the driver sat still, except for an occasional shake of the reins.

The way became steeper. Phillip felt his heart thudding. As soon as he stopped pushing, the pony stopped.

“Yurr! Why don’t ee ride upalong me, maydeer? There be plenty room voor two in this yurr jingle. Come yew in and sot yew down.”

“I thought your name was Jingle!”

More laughter, and “Noomye! My name be Buzzacott.”

“Really? I thought it was a case of the pony being buzzacott by name and buzzacott by nature.”

Again the cackle, slap, and hawhawhaw of stringy laughter. Phillip went on, followed slowly by the little cart. He saw a stone house with a red-tiled roof through the thin pines. Breathing deep to steady his heart, he went to the oak door and pulled the bell. He thought it must be the matron who came, for she said, looking at his face, “Have you walked all the way up?
And you only just out of hospital with a leg wound? Where is Buzzacott? Didn’t you see him at the station?”

“Yes, but I walked up for exercise.”

“Well, I like that! We take the trouble to send the jingle down, and you walk up! Now straight to bed you go! And there you’ll remain until Dr. Minstrel comes tomorrow and gives you permission to get up!”

“But I am up already, Matron,” protested Phillip. “I’ve been up for weeks!”

“Not here, you haven’t! Come now, orders were made to be obeyed.”

“I quite agree, Matron, but might I be allowed to go down to Lynmouth and see a relation there, for a minute or two? I know the way down by the water lift, so I shan’t strain my leg by too much walking.”

“You can go tomorrow. You’ve had a tiring journey. Now I want you to take a hot bath. Dinner is at seven. You can have it on a tray in bed.”

“I am used to having cold tubs in the morning, Matron, and a hot bath might open my pores too wide, and allow influenza germs in, perhaps?”

“Aren’t you awkward! You’re the second devil we’ve had back from France. The first one who came last week is enough of a handful, what with his fire-pail filled with flotsam, and his plans to attack the Germans every night. Now be a good boy, and try and help us, will you, and do what you are told without argument. It’s my evening out tonight, and I’ve got a lot to do before then.”

“What time does Dr. Minstrel show up? Before or after dinner?”

“Dr. Minstrel will be here at eleven o’clock tomorrow. Your room is number eight, at the end of the passage on the first floor.”

He went upstairs and sat on his bed. Through the window could be seen vast levels of the Severn Sea turning purple in the westering sun. Tidal races ripped white around the feet of the Foreland precipice. The scene was one of lonely emptiness, in tune with the desolation of his life. What was life for, anyway? A mild terror of the great rocks and the sea and the sky possessed him. He must get out of the new prison as soon as he could, change into mufti, and have a few drinks. The girls and the cottage were dimmed in the feeling of universal desolation.

He looked at some books. They were by Ethel M. Dell,
Elinor Glyn, Charles Garvice, and Marie Corelli; nothing he wanted to read. Matron’s footfalls came along the passage. He was relieved to see her face again.

“You look properly tired out! And wanting to exhaust yourself further! Now be a good boy and have a bath. You’ll find a dressing-gown in the cupboard, and also a bath-robe, for if you want to go sea bathing. Dr. Minstrel’s permission must first be sought, of course.”

“Thank you, Matron. By the way, do you know when another officer of the same name as myself is coming?”

“William Beare Maddison? He’s our third wounded case, and is due next week.”

“What’s the other chap from France like?”

“Piston? Oh, he’s a mad devil.”

“I see. Are there any more patients here?”

“Certainly! But they’re all home service, thank goodness. What you need is a nice quiet time, and you’ll get it here at Hollerday.”

He felt more depressed than ever.

“Now I’ll run your bath. The smell you’ll smell will be Sanitas. It’s bracing, as well as antiseptic.”

When he had bathed he felt better. A nurse brought with his dinner tray a Late Extra copy of
The
Globe
evening newspaper, which had come all the way from London by the same train as himself. It contained a violent attack on Asquith, blaming him for the “virtual failure of the Battle of the Somme”.

At eleven o’clock next morning the doctor, who arrived on a pony, gave Phillip leave to get up, with orders to take things easily for the first week or two. As soon as he could he got out of the gloomy house and went down the cliff railway to the village below, to stroll around with the two girls until it was time to return up the watery cliff, green with ferns, for luncheon. Down again afterwards, and back in time for dinner; one more visit, up again by nine o’clock, and bed; a few pages of
Only
a
Girl
until, feeling sleepy, he turned the ivory button of the shaded lamp by his bed, and snuggled down to sleep. One more day, and Willie would be coming, and then Percy Pickering. Life could not be better.

*

Theodora Maddison had been using her cottage during the spring and summer months as a rest home in connexion with the “Mothers’ Arms”, the old public house turned into a
crêche
in
the East End, where babies could be looked after while the mothers were out to work. During the early summer she had invited some of the mothers down for a change of scenery; but this had been a mistake. They missed the familiar streets and faces which helped them to bear grief, the suspense of their men being at the front. One of her visitors had heard that her husband had been killed on the Somme; for her the green glooms of the valley had been the very loneliness of death, the sea was grief itself, with no children to give consoling warmth. So back trooped the resting mothers, to find relief in known factory smells, dolman capes, black bonnets and lined faces, by which hope flowed back again.

So let Ionian Cottage be for the young people; and here they were, five young faces around her table, Percy and Willie having arrived the evening before, Percy for but three days. As soon as he arrived Dora saw by the bright eyes of Doris, and the bloom upon her cheeks, that the two young people were in love. She felt warm liking for Percy: an honest, rosy-faced country boy, a little slow perhaps, and with an ordinary mind, but that was all to the good; there was enough nervous tautness already in the family. How little Doris, stout defender of her mother against the paternal irascibilities, had come on! How glad she was that she had invited them all, these young people with their fresh young faces, in the very springtime of life. The continuity of a family was so important: all members of a family should come together at least once a year. Let them differ, by all means; but let them hold together, let them know the feeling of belonging to a family. Could she not persuade Dicky and John and Hetty to visit her also, as they had twenty-one years ago? Twenty-one years—it seemed little more than yesterday, that summer of 1895, when Phillip had been a baby, and Willie still in the aetherial world. They should, of course, meet in the old home at Rookhurst: but brother John was hopeless, with no feeling of responsibility as head of the family.