The Golden Virgin (52 page)

To his surprise, Gran’pa had been there, years ago, making a tour with Mr. Newman, who had died of the heat in the hot summer of 1911.

“Everything comes from the energy of the sun,” said Thomas Turney, to his grandson. “The sun of the Mediterranean is bright, the sea is deep blue, the land is bare and rocky. The Greeks were great sailors when Britain was a wooded island, almost entirely covered by oak scrub, the indigenous tree of this island, that was sacred to the Druids, because of its great usefulness. It is the conditions of a land and its surrounding sea that produce religions, you know, or rather the thought from which religious systems are made. I’ve been reading a remarkable book, Frazer’s
Golden
Bough.
You must read it one day. The atmosphere of the eastern Mediterranean produced the hard bright poetry of the Greeks, and also gave them their tragic background, of exploration and war, for the two go together. This present war is a maritime war, y’know. A century ago it was Napoleon; his war was a war for the sea-lanes of commerce.”

“I didn’t know that you knew all about the Greeks, Gran’pa. Where did you pick it up?”

“Well, where did you pick up what you know, my boy?”

“Oh, here and there, but chiefly from two friends I made in the army—classical scholars of Oxford University.”

“Travel is the best university. It broadens the mind, prepares it to assimilate classical knowledge later in life. Look at my poor boy Hughie, he learned nothing at Cambridge, except to drink, and keep up with bad companions. Now if ye’ll take my advice, after this war you will learn Spanish. America is the coming continent, and especially South America. Learn Spanish.”

“Well, I’ll see, Gran’pa. Good-night, sir, good-night, Aunt Marian.”

When he had gone, the old woman said, “What a nice boy Phillip has become, Tom. How well he looks, too, after his visit to the West Country!”

Richard was delighted to lend his Sunbeam bicycle, which after a dozen years of the most careful use was still without a chip on its many coats of stove-enamellings, and its thick nickle platings. The chain, running inside the patented “Little Oil Bath”, the sprockets, the Sturmey-Archer 3-speed gear, were all as new, after more than four thousand miles on the cyclometer. Indeed, Richard was proud that his son should want to ride his “machine”, which he never rode himself nowadays.

“You’re becoming quite a man of society, aren’t you?” he said.

In whites, with pipe-clayed shoes, wearing Donegal tweed jacket and silk scarf round neck, Phillip free-wheeled down the road, waved to Mrs. Neville (who had been told, the previous night, all about the visit to Turret House), nearly fell off, his racquet being held across the handlebars, and in second gear pedalled up the slight incline of Charlotte Road, watched by his mother from her bedroom window, hidden behind lace curtains, since she knew his dislike of being observed.

“Mr. Phillip’s his old self again, ma’m,” said Mrs. Feeney, who had watched from the front-room window. “And fancy, on the master’s machine! Merry and bright, and holding himself upright like a real gentleman. Ah, but you can’t beat a uniform for smartness, ma’m! Now you can leave the house quite safe with me, and go up with Miss Doris to meet Miss Polly at Euston. I’ll wait until you come back, and get the master’s and Miss Mavis’ tea if anything happens to hold you up. So don’t you worry, ma’am,” said this poor woman of impeccable Victorian manners.

When Phillip arrived, the grass court behind the cleft-oak fence and privet hedge was empty. His first feeling was to leave: then he went through the gate and lay down on the edge of the lawn in the shadow of a linden tree, and held his face to the sun. Five minutes or so later he heard a scurr of tyres on the dusty road and the soft double pad of Helena’s alighting plimsolls. He lay still, pretending to be asleep; but his heart thudded so hard that he decided to get up, lest he be giddy when he did so in her presence. Also make-believe belonged to the past; he must act the man.

The gate clicked, she passed through, and was walking in shadow, smiling, her eyes steadily on his, and a faint blush on her cheeks that he had seen when she had looked at Bertie on the Hill that Sunday of May, 1915. No longer did the blue-grey eyes seem proud and confident; and at the sight of them he felt himself quiver, as though stricken.

They began to play a sort of pat-ball. He thought she was the nurse taking care that the patient did not do too much, so he began to serve as his father had taught him years before, pitching the ball high and striking it with the racquet so that a left spin or a right spin could be put on the ball as it was struck, with arm extended to full height, against the gutted frame. Thus the ball, descending fast over the top of the net, had swerve on it, to break away left or right of the line.

A puff of whiting on the grass, the ball was gone past Helena. Three more puffs; and game to the server.

“I say, you’re quite hot stuff, aren’t you?”

“Sorry. I’ll serve slower next time.”

“Rather not! No favours!”

Helena’s back-hand drives and volleys were as good as her forehand drives and volleys; Phillip’s were erratic. Game to Helena. One all.

She was two games ahead when Milton arrived, hatless, wearing white flannels and khaki tunic … a staff-captain! And never been to the front! How did they wangle it?
Major
Wigg,
Captain
Cox,
Captain
Milton, all with red tabs, or were Cox’s yellow, for the Chinese Labour Corps?

“Hullo, Milton, you one-piecee bad boy! Long time since I saw you.”

“Let me introduce you to my sister, Cherry. This is Mr. Maddison.”

She was as tall as her brother, but with hair, eyebrows and lashes almost the colour of silver sand. Rather delicate, he thought, as they spun for partners, and he and she paired off. He played badly, his thoughts not on the game, but on Milton and Helena opposite, as he watched for signs of something more than friendship between them. Was that an endearing glance from Helena to Milton? He began to pay attention to his partner. Why was she called Cherry? A cherry should be dark, with black shiny eyes and ringlet hair. This Cherry was not delicate, she was strong, she could hit hard, her breasts moved up and down together, quickly. Assiduously he collected the balls for her, darting after them
between the services, handing her two promptly each time, noting that Helena’s glance was often his way. This was encouraging. He played with spirit; and when it was his turn to serve, won a love game. Cherry’s “Well done, partner”, with upward glance of sea-green eyes, her rather fascinating silver-sand eyelashes and brows kindled him. Then at one particular moment he felt the clearness of himself in freedom. The shadow was no more. Could he believe it? Yes, it had actually gone! It was startling; he wanted to give an enormous shout. It was a wonderful feeling.

He swirled; and leaned upon his racquet handle.

“Are you all right? Phillip, would you like to rest?”

Cherry spoke through half-closed lips, demurely; she glanced slyly out of the corners of her eyes. “I hope you don’t mind my calling you Phillip, Mr. Maddison?”

She was a white-fleshed cherry, a white eating-Morello. There was a little down on her upper lip, the faintest little moustache, soft, downy. Gentle, soft white cherry; breasts of half cherry.

“I’ll be all right in a moment.”

“Are you sure? You can’t be very strong yet, after your leg——”

“Oh, that was nothing.”

“Nothing? The Vicar mentioned you in prayers, for three Sundays running.”

“Hi, what are you two doing?”

“Do you mind if we stop for a few moments, Helena?”

“No, I’m all right, really.”

“I want a rest anyway,” said Cherry, striking her racquet on her starched and laundered white skirt; while her brother lit a cigarette. He had a gold case, Phillip noticed, like that of Mr. Bloody Wigg.

*

After two sets they went into a room behind the parish hall, where was a trestle table and plates and cups and saucers, a gas-ring and a kettle. He felt himself to be floating in the warm friendly sunshine of the mellow September day: a most extraordinary feeling of contentment that he was no longer apart from life. He was living in the present, careless. How had it happened? Was it the presence of Milton, who showed consideration and obvious liking for him, almost a deference? Did Milton remember how he had cribbed from him in the Arithmetic paper, when their desks had adjoined in Hall during the Oxford Local examinations; and how he had not told the truth, but allowed another to be flogged instead, and so saved himself from possible expulsion?

Had Milton told his sister what a little hero he had been, and was that the reason why she was so friendly? Or was it all his fancy, and had Milton forgotten it long ago: or even believed now, if he ever thought of it, that he had told him the correct answers, as Milton had inferred to the Magister? Anyway, what did it matter, that insignificant episode of long ago? Funny how he should remember it now, after all that had happened since August, 1914.

As a fact, the injustice of the flogging in the Magister’s study in 1913 had come to the forefront of Phillip’s mind on one other occasion: when he had shouted against the Magister during the bayonet charge with the Guards Brigade against the Prussians in the wood near the Menin Road on 11 November 1914; but he had not known that he had shouted his most harming thoughts, in the midst of frenzied men shouting theirs.

*

After tea more players appeared. The Vicar came, with his wife, whom he called Miranda. Phillip remembered that Mrs. Mundy’s hair used to be red; now it was almost the colour of lead peroxide, much darker. Her eyes were still green, though the lashes were thicker, as though black cotton had been gummed on to them. Surely she did not paint, or use rouge? Mr. Mundy was quite bald, very red in the face, and rather bouncy in front, fatter in fact. He hoped he had forgotten the copy of Gould’s
British
Birds
he had taken out of the Free Library immediately after it had been returned by his wretched, schoolboy self, with the awful remarks he had scrawled on some of the plates, particularly that of the Shag.

“Coming to the dance tonight, Phillip?”

“I didn’t know there was one, sir.”

“Oh yes. It’s Leap Year, and so the gels are bringing the boys. We must see about finding you a partner.”

“Really, sir, thank you all the same, but I’m not much of a dancer.”

“I can only dance the hornpipe, but I’m coming! What about you, Cherry dear? Coming? Good, that’s settled. You’ll bring our wounded soldier boy.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” she said, when the Vicar had gone away. “I wasn’t going to come, but I will if you’d like to.” Silver-sand lashes fluttered.

“I haven’t got any dancing pumps!”

“There are some in the shops!”

“All right, I’ll get some. But I’m a cave-man dancer, I warn you!”

“How exciting!”

“What time is the hop?”

“Eight o’clock. It’s a flannel dance, by the way. Or hop, as you say. I’ll meet you here in the hall, shall I?”

“Rather. Shall I bring my trench gramophone?”

“That would be lovely. We can play it when the pianist is having a rest.”

“It’s mostly classical stuff, I’m afraid. Greig, Elgar, Brahms, and Chaminade’s
Autumn.”

“I simply adore that French woman’s stuff!”

They looked at each other delightedly.

*

St. Simon’s Parish Hall was
en
fête.
Strings of flags of the Allies crossed diagonally from the wall-plates. Bowls of chrysanthemums stood on little tables around the walk, at intervals in the rows of chairs. On each table was a candle standing on a white plate, illumining the flowers. The curtain’d windows, the rafters and beams above, the pitch-pine panelling below, gave the place a cavernous appearance, wherein white forms with happy faces and gleaming eyes passed, to the haunting lilt of Leo Fall’s
Eternal
Waltz
on the gramophone, while feet susurrated on the parquet floor made smooth, and in places almost slippery, by scatterings of french chalk.

At one end of the hall was a daïs, and on the wall at the back hung a lithographic portrait of Edward the Seventh in a red cloak trimmed in ermine, and white satin breeches, wearing the crown and holding ball and sceptre—a Coronation portrait. Beside this picture was another, of Queen Alexandra; each had its candle, for the Vicar once had been presented to both, as Prince and Princess of Wales, when he had served as a naval chaplain in a dreadnought.

Phillip was going round the floor with Cherry. He had not asked Helena to dance; he was hoping to make her keen thereby: while at the same time feeling that by continuing to ignore her, he was, as he put it, throwing away his chances. This made him feel the keen wire, on which his feelings seemed to be twisting, tighten into faint self-torture. With this was a desire to make Cherry bend to his will, as he felt her nature coming warm upon him as they pressed together.

There was an interval for coffee and cake; it was half-past ten; the hop ended at midnight, and there was, when dancing began again, only an hour and twenty minutes to go. He danced on,
with Cherry, feeling after each sitting-out period that he was destroying himself in Helena’s eyes.

At half-past eleven Mr. Mundy the vicar beckoned him into the room behind a hanging curtain, where tea had been made; and there he took a bottle of whiskey out of a cupboard, and they had a secret drink together, clinking glasses.

“Your health!”

“Cheerho!”

The bottle was hidden, and as Phillip passed under the curtain he saw Helena coming down the passage beside the platform, where sometimes amateur plays were performed. The passage was hardly wide enough for two to pass abreast, but something in Helena’s smiling face drew him on, politeness forgotten, and as they passed he realised that he was leaning forward and sideways to her at the same moment that she inclined her head towards him, and as they passed they kissed one another, hardly stopping. He went on into the hall, feeling to be gliding on air, with no desire to look back, as though a gleam of sunlight had fallen on both their heads at the same moment. With the sense of gliding on air he went to Cherry and sat beside her, feeling that he did not exist, that it was a dream, and Cherry’s face was glowing, too. Then Milton came over to them with a look of subdued contentment, and sat on the other side of him. Milton leaned forward, resting elbows on knees, and stared smilingly at the floor.

Then he turned to Phillip and said, “Congratulate me! I see you have already done so to Helena.”

Phillip’s heart seemed to explode; then it dropped away deeply beneath the floor. He controlled his breathing, and glanced at Milton, realising that he had a look of cousin Bertie on his face. He was the same build, the same broad face, relaxed and easy.

“I do congratulate you, Milton.”

Helena came back and sat beside Milton. Her face was shining. Phillip looked at her, smiling, but with tremulous lips. Then to his alarm he felt he was going to cry, and saying, “I’ll be back in a moment,” returned to the room behind the curtain. There the Vicar was helping himself to a quick one from the bottle.

“Ah, you’ve caught me, Phillip! Well, join me, dear boy.”

As they clinked glasses, Phillip said, “Did you know before, about Milton?”

“What do you think?” said the Vicar, looking over his spectacles, and smiling. “Don’t take it too hard, will you? There are others, you know.”

“I was so surprised, sir. I hardly knew what was happening just now. It was a sort of butterfly kiss, a light touch on the flower of her lips, and she was gone.”

“Helena told me, dear boy. Your health!”

“Cheerho!”

The Vicar looked at Phillip’s face, and said, “These things are made on earth, but they begin in heaven. I have known both Joe and Helena since they were kids, and they are as alike as two peas from a pod. Or should I say two finches of the same sub-species. You know, a chaffinch is a finch, but it knows better than to mate with a sparrow, or a bullfinch. Their patterns are different. Think of the confusion in nest-building! You know what I mean?”

“Yes, I think so, Vicar.”

“Of course we must not tell anyone, Phillip. Joe will have to ask her father’s permission first.”

Phillip broke into tears. Mr. Mundy put his hand on his shoulder. Phillip looked up. Soon he was smiling.

“There!” said Mr. Mundy. “The emotional constraint is gone! You are free, dear boy. Now go back and dance with Cherry. And shall you ask Helena to dance? Perhaps too much of a gesture? It’s rather strange, isn’t it, suddenly to feel an old self slipped away, like casting a slough? But that is how we develop. Suddenly our lives are changed. Go back and dance with Cherry, dear boy.”

The Vicar squeezed his arm, and in a daze where before it had been a dream, Phillip went back to the piano music, the candles, and the revolving figures in white.

*

When Mrs. Neville threw down the front-door key next morning she could see Phillip had some startling news. He came so slowly up the stairs. He was so grave and calm.

“Well, Phillip, how did the dance go?”

“Oh, quite pleasant, Mrs. Neville. The light touch, you know. I kissed a girl or two, and they kissed me, including Helena.”

“Oh no, Phillip! Oh no! It can’t be true. Don’t you dare to play any tricks on me! I couldn’t stand it!”