The Golden Virgin (51 page)

Few men and women of the class and generation of Flora and Gerard Rolls living in the district saw through the shrill screams and shouts, the litter of paper and orange peel, the incoherent rushing about and the not infrequent bullying and, above all, the appalling raggedness and malnutrition, to the radical causes underlying the unpleasantness. There had always been the poor, and there always would be the poor. Did not Holy Scripture declare it? Such children were not as their children; their feelings were different; they belonged to an entirely different stratum of life, which was bridgeless, except as between employer and employed.

Flora Rolls had always been attracted by a certain look in Phillip’s face, though she had disliked many of his ways: the little ruffian who set fire to the dry grasses in the Backfield, scattered orange peel and paper thoughtlessly on the Hill (not, of course, during a paper-chase, which was permissible) and filled the bushes of the gully with broomstick rushing about and howling of his Boy Scout patrol, some of whose members were most emphatically not of the class she would have allowed him to mix with, had he been a son of hers.

In addition to his wild behaviour as a boy, it was the swearing, the use of unmentionable words which had decided her never to invite him to the children’s Christmas parties: a thing which had darkened Phillip’s life, convincing him that he was not good enough for them, the most beautiful people he had ever known.

At this point Phillip’s afflatus left him; and he scrumpled the letter, then burned it in his bedroom grate, thinking that it must be the first time that anything had been burnt in it; which was just as well, as in the old days he had hidden his tin of forbidden gunpowder up the chimney, and it was still there, forgotten.

*

When he rang the front-door bell of Turret House the next evening he heard the footfalls of Helena as she strode out of the front room, to pull the door wide and, stepping back, smile in greeting. He saw that she wore upon her white blouse the gold brooch, the Star of the Garter, that Hubert had given her. He flinched; but must go through with it.

“Come in, Phillip,” called the voice of Mrs. Rolls from the sitting-room. He heard a rumbling growl from Rastus the bloodhound as it got out of its master’s armchair. Entering, he saw the dog lifting off its square of carpet, to lay it beside the copper coal-scuttle.

“Rastus is now trained,” the caressing voice explained, as Mrs. Rolls bit a thread from the nightshirt she was sewing for the Red Cross. “Put the gramophone on the table, and come and let me look at you, Phillip.” His hand was taken affectionately. “How thin you are! You always were thin, of course, but now you are much,
much
too thin. How are you feeling in yourself?” Violet eyes looked tenderly up at him. “Draw up a chair, and sit beside me, and tell me all you have been doing. That’s right, make yourself comfortable.”

Try as he might, he could not feel at ease within himself. What could he say? He must say something to break the mask constricting him.

“What do you think of the Ancient Greeks, Mrs. Rolls?”

“Which ones, exactly, do you mean, Phillip? Have you any particular one in mind?”

Phillip mentally raced through the small print of
A
Smaller
Classical
Dictionary.
He began to dread that he might mention Zeus or Leda, for then he would surely give away his thoughts. Also, Ancient Greece now seemed to get fainter and fainter in his mind.

“Tell me about them, won’t you?” Stitch, stitch.

“Well, they fought among themselves, you know, and so destroyed what was the fairest light in the world. Phidias, you know, and all those other sculptors.”

“Yes, Lord Elgin’s marbles,” said Mrs. Rolls, knowingly. “In the British Museum. Most interesting! You should talk to our Vicar about that, Phillip. Ancient Greece is his pet hobby horse. The Archæological Society has had to give up, you know, for lack of members. Such a pity. Wasn’t your father once a member? I seem to remember him telling me something about it, oh, a long time ago now, before Gerard and I were married.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that, Mrs. Rolls.”

“A hobby is so essential for a man, to take his mind off his work, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I do.”

“You sound much more determined than you used to be. I like a man to be determined, to know what he wants, and to go straight to his goal. Don’t you?”

“Yes.” He thought of “Spectre” West getting to the third and last objective beyond Contalmaison on the first day.

“What else have you been doing? Don’t get up. You are so polite!”

Helena had come into the room. Drawing up a chair, she took her sewing.

“Well, I helped to put out a fire.” He told them about Piston, making him out to be a comic character, instead of someone riddled by fear from some early hell. Laughter removed part of the constraint.

“Phillip believes that the Ancient Greeks had a wisdom which we don’t find in the world today. What do you think, Helena?”

“I don’t think anyone would dispute that,” said Helena, stitching away.

“I was in Rome with Gerard many years ago, indeed we went there for our honeymoon, and the ruined buildings were most awe-inspiring,” remarked her mother, as she wound cotton round a button energetically, secured it with two loops, and snapped the thread. “Most impressive.”

“That was the Romans, mother!” laughed Helena.

“Well, the same sort of thing that Phillip is telling us about, surely?” said Mrs. Rolls, as she threaded another button.

“I rather fancy,” said Phillip, smoothing his hair several times, “that the Romans adopted the culture of the Greeks. Eos became Aurora, and things like that.” What a fool they must think him.

“Did they now? I know they came to Britain, and made all those wonderful straight roads. They went to Bath, too. I remember seeing the ruins there, with my parents.”

“The Barbarians came after the Romans, or rather they poured in, didn’t they?” said Helena.

“Yes, and Nero fiddled while Rome was burning, of course. Fiddling reminds me of your gramophone. What are we going to hear, now? Helena, will you fetch the coffee, darling?”

When Helena was in the kitchen, Mrs. Rolls said, “I am so glad that she has got over the worst of the shock of Hubert’s death, Phillip. She is still very young, you see, only nineteen. When the war is over, Gerard will be going to the Far East again, on business—he’s in bristles, you know—and will probably take Helena with him, to see the world. Everyone should travel when young, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” he said. Helena all in white, brilliant sunshine, gay laughter on deck, fashionable people, handsome, well-bred young men, evening dress, waltzing.

“It helps to broaden the outlook. No young person can really know his or her own mind until they have left home, and seen how wide the world is. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes,” he said again, sinking into darkness. She was letting him down gently, giving him a diplomatic hint. Thank God he had not put that letter in the box last night.

Flora Rolls saw the droop of his mouth, the corners turned down, the look on his face that she had so often seen when he was a boy. “You look tired, Phillip. I think I shall give you some Benger’s Food instead of coffee.”

“No, really, thanks, I am quite all right.”

What a mess he was making of the conversation, which he had fervently anticipated to be about music and sculpture.

“You are still depressed by your wound, I can see that. Helena! Heat some more milk, darling, will you. Phillip must have some Benger’s. You can have the coffee afterwards, if you are good!”

His spirits rose, that she was concerned that he should be well.

“May I play the gramophone?”

“Do. I adore all music, or nearly all.”

“Do you like Wagner, Mrs. Rolls?”

“No, I can’t say I do. It’s all so heavy and ponderous, don’t you think, even morbid. Gerard calls it a filthy Hun din, but then he likes Gilbert and Sullivan. Play something jolly. I’m sure you’ve got something jolly?”

“I’ve got a Harry Lauder, Mrs. Rolls.”

“Oh,
Roamin’
in
the
Gloamin
?
Or
Annie
Laurie,
perhaps?”

“No, I’m afraid it’s rather silly.”

“As long as it’s not vulgar, I don’t mind what it is.”

He was transfixed. The record was
Stop
Your
Tickling,
Jock.
It was absolutely vulgar. Hastily he put on Tosti’s
Goodbye.

the sad words, so clear and elegiac, came out of the tin concave of the open black cube.

Helena came in with a tray, on which were cups and plates and jugs, and a plum cake, at the wonderful, tempestuous climax.

“Very beautiful!” murmured Flora Rolls. “But too sad. Almost morbid, in fact. He was Count Tosti, wasn’t he? An Italian, of course.”

“I think so. The singer is John McCormack.”

“I know it well, of course. Gerard used to sing it.”

“Did Daddy actually sing
that,
Mummie? I can’t imagine it!”

“It was before we were married, dear,” said Flora Rolls, lightly. “He was terribly jealous, you see, and had morbid thoughts.”

“What, Daddy? It doesn’t sound at all like him!”

“Ah, he was in diggings then, you see. He did not need to sing for his supper, after we were married,” she laughed, turning to Phillip. “Feed the brute, that’s what I did!”

“Bravo!” he said, thinking, Food, when there is so much beauty in the world! He tried again.

“This is
The
Dance
of
the
Flowers,
by a Russian, Tchaikowsky. No, I think I’ll put on
Souvenir
de
Moscow
first. Or how about Van Biene’s
Broken
Melody
?”

“I hope they’re jolly ones,” said Helena. “What’s that I heard about Harry Lauder? Daddy likes him. So do I.”

“All right.” In for a penny, in for a pound, as he selected the record, and whizzed round the winding handle.

It was a great success, especially when Rastus lifted up his snout and joined in.

After that things went better. At half-past nine, seeing a gold tooth revealed by the tremble of a yawn starting on Mrs. Rolls’ face, promptly to be concealed in the white folds of a hospital nightshirt, Phillip thought it time to get up, and say goodnight. He must not outstay his welcome.

“Must you go so early? Well, thank you for the delightful music, and your company, too, of course, sir! Now, Helena, did I hear something about tennis tomorrow afternoon with Joe and Cherry Milton?”

“Yes. Would you like to make up a fourth at the Club, tomorrow afternoon at half-past two, Phillip?”

“Oh, thank you!”

“I suppose you’ll be going on that noisy bike of yours?”

“Oh no, Mrs. Rolls, I’ve sold it.”

“Then can you walk so far,
and
play as well?”

“Easily! Or I can borrow Father’s Sunbeam.”

“Well, do take care of it, won’t you. I know how proud he is of his ‘machine’, as he calls it.”

“Oh rather. Well, thank you for a ripping evening. Half-past two at the club, then? I’m a bit out of practice, you know, so you must excuse my bad play. Well, goodbye once again. Cheerho, Rastus, now you can have your chair.”

Rastus growled, as much as to say,
I
know
that,
as he got up,
assembled his loose bones and skin, and laying the square sample of carpet on the seat, slowly, like half of a big-skulled spider, lifted his body into place; then turning round to encircle himself, collapsed with a sigh.

*

Decca trench gramophone box under one arm, case of records in hand, Phillip almost skipped into his grandfather’s house, to tell him about the beauties of Ancient Greece.