The Golden Virgin (53 page)

The round eyes stared at him.

She was not pretending; at least, not wholly. The
feuilleton,
the serial story of Phillip’s vain dream of Helena, had been going on in monthly, and sometimes weekly and even daily instalments, for nearly ten years. And now, unexpectedly, the climax! The habits of mind of many years are not easily relaxed. Mrs. Neville’s round
eyes stared at Phillip, as she sighed deeply, and resigned her bulk to the back of her chair.

“I’ve lived in your life, so long now, you see——”

“It’s no joke, Mrs. Neville. I just kissed her, and she just kissed me.”

“What else, Phillip? What happened next? Don’t keep me in suspense like this!” She flipped a hand at him.

“Nothing. Or everything!”

Mrs. Neville stared at him. “Were you drunk, Phillip?”

“No, but I had just had one with the Vicar, in the room behind the stage.”

“What was it? Napoleon brandy?” she cried.

“Just ordinary whiskey.”

He told her what had happened, and having sworn her to secrecy, announced the news of Helena’s engagement to Joe Milton.

“And that’s why she kissed you, Phillip! How sweet of Helena! And what a compliment to you! She must be fond of you, dear. Well, I don’t wonder! You’re attractive, you know, and have the lightest touch, a gracefulness, at times. Now what about Cherry?”

“Well, as Milton took Helena home, I took Cherry to her house, kissed her at the gate, and then we kissed again, and she ran up the path blowing kisses to me, a dim ghost. It was all like Tennyson, in those songs in
The
Princess.
So I set out for a long walk, as the night was too beautiful to go to bed. In fact, I walked about most of the night, and had an early breakfast at a carter’s pull-up in Brumley at 4 a.m. After that I walked home.”

“What did Father say?”

“I didn’t see him before he left for the office.”

“Did Polly arrive last night? Have you seen her?”

“No, she and Doris went out before I got up. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so free in my life before. I can’t realise it all yet. The way her lips parted, her eyes shone! The way her neck turned, and the chin came up, you know how rounded it is, and then the lips, slightly parted—it was so spontaneous! It should have happened in the bright sunlight of ancient Greece, where the atmosphere of eternal summer on the bare and rocky ground produces that hard bright classical poetry. Ah, if only I could write poetry, Mrs. Neville!”

*

When next Mrs. Neville tossed the key upon the terra-cotta tiled approach to the flat, the face looking up at her was as dejected as it had been exalted.

“I must see you!”

He came up the stairs so fast that she feared for his leg.

“I shall have to get married!”

“Oh, Phillip, what are you saying now? Don’t tell me Helena’s jilted Joe, and wants you!”

He collapsed into his chair, and rested his face in his hands. Mrs. Neville could see that something serious had happened. She waited. At last she said,

“Well, Phillip, what is it, dear?”

“Polly.”

“Polly? What do you mean?”

“She says she’s going to have a baby.” He looked into her face, as though expecting her to cry out; but two could play at being extremely calm.

“How very interesting life’s becoming for you, Phillip, isn’t it, when one comes to think of it? But do tell me how you know that you are going to be a father? Did Polly say so?”

“Yes.”

“Did she give any particular reason?”

“Well, yes. She said that her, you know, has stopped.”

Mrs. Neville laughed lightly. “Well, I doubt it is the first time a woman has thought she was going to have a baby, when she wasn’t. Did she give any dates?”

“No, Mrs. Neville.”

“When was the last one, did she say? About six weeks ago? A fortnight late is nothing. I was afraid at first that she was going to say from last June, just before you went out to France. Now tell me, does she know what happened at the tennis dance?”

“Only what she heard from Mavis, that I didn’t come back until half-past five the next morning. ‘Where did you go?’ she asked me. ‘In the sheep-fold?’”

Mrs. Neville shook with laughter. Now she knew where Polly had been with Phillip in the past; and the idea of Helena being there for five and a half hours during a dewy September night with Phillip, his head filled with lyrical notions, was extremely comical.

“I must say, however, that this, coming right on top of the other thing, would depress anyone. But don’t worry. Polly will be here staying with your sister how long, five or six days? Until Sunday? I see. School begins next Monday, of course. Well, before she goes, bring her to tea, and then leave her with me, and I’ll find out about Miss Polly, and how far she is gone, if any way at all! You get on with your tennis, and think no more about marriage.”

“I wouldn’t like Polly to have an illegal operation, Mrs. Neville.”

“Of course not! The very idea! But I wouldn’t mind betting it’s just an ordinary lateness; don’t you worry your head about it. Desmond will be on convalescent leave any day now, and I’m sure he’ll be only too ready to make friends again. Oh, the boys and their girls! Go and play some more tennis with that Cherry, she sounds rather nice. Kiss Cherry, by all means. What harm is there in a kiss? If there was more genuine kissing in this world, I don’t mean the Keechey sort of kissing, which is done with razors, thinking only of one thing, the rat—no, Phillip, a genuine kiss, a token of warm affection, which is what the world so sadly misses today——Oh fouff! What am I talking like this for—let’s go the whole hog and have a little drop out of the air-raid brandy bottle!”

“Yes,” she went on, “don’t take life so seriously, not girls, anyway, though what else there is in life, when you come to think of it, but men and women——Anyway, keep to your new-found light touch. And don’t, as I said, think too much of one girl, not yet, anyway. Man is a polygamous animal, at least most men are, until they find the one woman who satisfies them. Look at Byron, what he went through, trying to find happiness! Why, at one time he even had to have an affair with his half-sister, Augusta, to find out where he stood! It can’t be proved, of course, but one day something may come to light, to confirm what biographers have only surmised so far. Anyway, this Cherry sounds interesting; but don’t go and make her fond of you unless you really want her, will you? As for Helena, although she is a very nice girl, I never really thought she was your spiritual sort, dear. What has happened is that you’ve dreamed about her so long, that she became a beacon in your life. You see, Phillip, you have an imagination beyond the normal, and so you are bound to suffer when life does not appear to come up to your expectations of it. You are an idealist, you know. Try not to anticipate, take life as easily as you can. You’ve always worried far too much about things, you know; and as for being selfish, don’t you believe it! Why, you’ve been like an elder brother to Desmond and Gene, and Desmond will see it one day. When my son was young it was Phillip says this and Phillip does that, all the time. That little misunderstanding about Lily will blow over, you mark my words. She is a very nice girl; she’s been here to see me, you know. Oh yes, Lily and I are very good friends!”

“Where is she, Mrs. Neville?”

“Oh no, you don’t! You know very well that Lily is fond of you, and you don’t want her, so let her alone, Phillip.”

“I wouldn’t hurt her.”

“No, not deliberately, Phillip; but Lily has been very badly hurt, as you know, and if it were to happen again—— No, it must not happen again. Lily has found her vocation, and soon will be leaving the district.”

“Mayn’t I see her before she goes?”

“Well, you know how attractive she is, don’t you? She’s such a sweet girl, too. No; I am sure that it would be for the best if you did not see her again. Besides, she’s not really your sort, quite apart from her station in life.”

“How do you know she isn’t my sort, Mrs. Neville?”

“Well, Phillip, to be frank, I doubt if you know yourself yet. One has to find oneself, you know, by losing self-centredness. I can say this, now that you have begun to see Helena without rose-tinted spectacles. You will need someone with what the French call
sensibilité,
someone instinctively in tune with all the things you love, which are your real life. You remember Mrs. Hudson? Of course you do. You two got on well immediately, I could see that. Did you notice the way she held her hands? And her head?”

“Yes. She looked so graceful, and young somehow, in spite of her grey hair. I liked her from the first look at her.”

“She said the same thing of you, Phillip. You both have an inward grace of the spirit, you see, which informs your movements.”

“What, me, Mrs. Neville?”

“Yes, you always did have that grace, Phillip, but only lately has it begun to show itself steadily. You are so much calmer since you came back this time. I suppose it is due to many things, all of them helping to form character. That’s the other word I wanted, to describe Maude Hudson—she has character, as well as sensibility. Sensibility without character is rather like water running to waste in sand, Mr. Hudson used to say. Sensibility is kept in focus by a formed character—the most valuable thing in the world. All the great artists had it, otherwise how would they have done all the work they had to do? Genius is fairly common, Mr. Hudson used to say; but what is rare was to find one that had been sober, industrious, and in his last situation for a number of years. He got it from Bernard Shaw, of course, who often came to Maud’s
salon
in Highgate, with others of the Fabians, you know,” concluded Mrs. Neville, in her most elegant voice.

“Now don’t worry about Polly, will you? Just have a good time, and begone dull care! Oh what the devil am I talking to you like
this for? Of course you know what to do! But I will say one thing. I have a feeling that everything is going to come right for you now. You know, I was quite taken with that girl Frances, the
mannequin
you told me about. Now she seemed to be a really nice person! Have you seen her since you came back?”

“No, Mrs. Neville, but I might when Westy goes to Buck House to get his gong from H.M.”

“My, aren’t we getting up in the world, Phillip! Well, you will find your proper level one day. But you must leave Lily alone. What that girl needs is a husband, so that she can have the babies that every woman wants, Phillip.”

Phillip went down to Freddy’s bar. It would not be deceitful, he told himself, if while he was there Lily happened to come in. In his fatigue, the heaviness upon him, he longed to rest in the image of her tenderness. He could be himself with her; safe with her; he understood her, through and through. He saw that Helena, throughout the years, had been like a light at sea to a drifting hulk; a light that was the bright star in the poem by Keats; an ideal. While Mrs. Neville had been speaking of Lily, the image of her large shining eyes had seemed to hold warmth, rest, peace, tenderness. He could be himself with her, as with no other person he knew. Just by thinking of her, he felt himself to be gold-dust, like a humblebee in a yellow flower. His inner self cried to be with her, to lose itself in her tenderness, to be absorbed, his face to be covered with her hair, his spectral self to be lost in the silver-gold glow of Aurora, the dawn of new life.
Leave
Lily
alone,
said Mrs. Neville. As though he would hurt her! Physical love was nothing; it should be for children, not for triumph and conquest. Love was not love that had strain in it.

“Well, I’m very pleased to see you again, sir!”

The eyes of Freddy almost disappeared in his smile as he looked into Phillip’s face. After some time, Phillip casually mentioned the name of Lily.

“Now, isn’t that funny? The wife and I were only saying just now that we haven’t seen her all the summer. She went to be a
nurse, you know. She was down here at the Infirmary for a while, and then got moved to the London Hospital in Whitechapel. I fancy Dr. Dashwood will know if she is still there, he got her into it. Or if you don’t want to see him, her mother lives close by, in Nightingale Grove.”

He walked up and down past her house, on the opposite side of the road, unable to make up his mind; then turned away, meaning to walk to Cutler’s Pond, and so tire himself out, and be able to sleep. But the prospect was now flat and damp, not as when he had walked there, after the dance, inspired by Helena’s kiss; so he went back to Freddy’s, there to see, to his immense relief, his old school-friend Cundall. They fell upon one another, while Freddy looked on and said,

“I can’t tell you how seeing you two back again ’as cheered me up. It only wants your friend, Desmond Neville, to come in, for it to appear like old times.” Then seeing Phillip looking at the stained-glass partition of the billiard room—“You won’t see our friend there for a year or two, if ever again. Keechey got pinched by a special Investigation squad trying to induce an old woman what lived alone to make a will in ’is favour, by threats and intimidation. It was just after you went out to France the last time. The case comes up at the Sessions at the end of the month. So you won’t have any more worry from that direction.”

“And no more, I hope, from them bleedin’ gas-bags o’ yourn!” remarked Mrs. Freddy, looking at Cundall’s R.F.C. maternity jacket. “But don’t try and kid me it was you what got that one down at Cuffley, for I seen the curly-haired feller’s face in the papers, ’im to ’oom they gived the V.C.”

“But what is more,” said Cundall, “Leefe Robinson’s been given the freedom of the Piccadilly Grill. God knows what he’d have got the freedom of if it had been the redoubtable Mathy in L 31 he had sent to Valhalla. All the duchesses in London, I expect. And look at the cash he’s picked up! Cheques pouring in by every post, two thousand quid from someone called Joseph Cowen, one thousand from Lord Michelham, five hundred from a bloke called Bow, a shipbuilder of Paisley. What it is to be a national hero. He’s doomed.”

Cundall went on to tell Phillip that Robinson was in the same squadron as himself, No. 39, but in No. 2 flight stationed at Sutton’s Farm, between Hornchurch and Dagenham.

“Good lord, I know that country!”

“Robinson had all the luck, to run into that Schutte Lanz where
he did. He spotted and lost another first, over Woolwich. I was up with the second patrol, from Hainault Farm, at one o’clock. I’d got to five thousand in my B.E. 2c and saw Randy Rupert scissored between two searchlights over Woolwich. That was the one Robinson saw about the same time from thirteen thousand feet. I saw it turn north and then lost sight of it, so I went on climbing, and went for a joy-ride back over London. At twelve thousand feet I was over the north-west suburbs, and then I saw another, held between three searchlights, and Archie bursting well under it, but it was too far away. Robinson had got there first. He put a drum of alternate New Brock and Pomeroy along one side of Randy Rupert, then another drum along the other side. Nothing doing, so he gave it a third drum up its arse. I didn’t know this at the time, of course, but I knew there was something doing when archie stopped and the searchlights. Then a glow like a Chinese lantern, only red, grew into an inferno of fire with shreds of flame dropping away from it. Then all of a sudden, it was brighter than noon up there! It had a wooden frame, and burned incandescent as it rushed down. In fact, it was a comet. White, blinding. Almost screaming, the thing was. A great white comet with a tail, heading for the earth. We heard afterward that people could see to read by the light at Tunbridge Wells in Kent, at Guildford in Surrey, and at Baldock in Hertfordshire.”

“Good God!”

“I prayed, I can tell you! Also, on the principle of Cromwell, who believed in himself as well as in God, I switched off my engine, and watched Leefe Robinson diving away and pooping off red Very lights, then a parachute flare. Then I stalled, and had a most unholy feeling that I was a flamer as the thing began to break up, and turn slowly into a yellow skeleton. Then I realised I was for it, if I couldn’t start the engine, but have to force-land somewhere in the dark. When she spluttered and gave her revs. I said another prayer, promising I’d be a good boy in future. When I got back to the drome at Hainault I was a mass of sweat, and half an hour later I was up to the back teeth in whiskey. That’s the birdman’s life on the Home Front. You’ve been in the real war, I hear, so has your pal Neville. How is he?”

“He’s back, too. Got blown up. Haven’t seen him yet.”

“You heard about our conchy school chum Ching, of course? No? Well, he and lots of other Cuthberts have been combed out of Whitehall. Ching’s now in the Artist’s Rifles. When I saw him last he asked me if I could advise him how to get a commission as a kiwi.”

“What’s that?”

“Equipment officer in the R.F.C. A mere groundling who has all the fun with none of the fury.”

“I wonder if Ching really does believe all that stuff in the Bible.”

“The literature of cranks and cowards? As Bernard Shaw said, ‘The last Christian died on the Cross’. Basically, conscientious objectors want to save their own skins. Why not? If you’re a professional soldier, it’s different. He’s a man of honour. Honour is a professional bargain. You stand by me and I’ll stand by you.”

“You always were a brainy bird, Cundall. But surely Bernard Shaw is an ass? Everyone knows it.”

“You’ve been reading newspapers. Bernard Shaw is the modern Voltaire.”

“Who’s he, when he’s at home?”

“Only the greatest thinker of the eighteenth century.”

“Well, to come back to Ching. Why don’t people like him? He tries to be kind and considerate to me, yet I simply can’t stick him.”

“Ching doesn’t belong to himself. He’s grown up skew-wiff to life. No real base. He’s Jerry-built. Don’t ask me why.”

“Just like me.”

“Not on your life! Your trouble is that you always think everyone is like you. Ching’s not like you. He’s a nasty piece of work.”

“Do you think it’s born in a person, Cundall?”

“Partly. Western man is rotting, that’s the trouble. The war is the epitome of the sexual rot, the sadism, the bunk in Western man. Christian bishops quote Jesus Christ in support of it, the corrupt ones, anyway. The German bishops who have come out for the war, with the French and English bishops, are equally corrupt. They’re killing Christendom between them.”

“Where did you get all your ideas from?”

“Gibbon’s
Decline
and
Fall
of
the
Roman
Empire,
Carlyle, Havelock Ellis, Bertrand Russell, Bernard Shaw, Tolstoi, Keats, Shelley, Shakespeare, Voltaire, among others. Read them, and you’ll get a glimmer of what civilisation is heading for.”

“What is it heading for?”

“We’re all on a voyage of death. The prophets have seen through civilisation to the reality behind it—the sickness in our souls, the obscenity of present day living, because love has been lost, and fouled, in the grime of industrial fog.”

Phillip saw that Cundall’s face, always pale, was set and strained.

“Civilisation has got the death urge of self-destruction. ‘Kill Huns’ we say, to escape our own torments. We really want to escape our own death-feelings like that. We get this death-wish in our very early years. We really want to kill our fathers then, because they take away our mothers, when we are very small. We don’t realise it of course. That’s why fathers and sons are usually antagonistic. It was known by Sophocles, for his play
Oedipus
Rex
illustrates it.”

“Do you mind if we sit down? It’s rather airless in here.”

They sat on the horse-hair settee.

“I thought about all this as I watched S.L.11 going down over Cuffley the other night, when my engine was dud. Both engines, in fact: my own, and the B.E.s.”

“I think I know what you mean,” said Phillip. “Let’s have another drink. Desmond will be home next week, we must have a night out together.”

“Doubt if I’ll be able to manage it. Meddlesome Mathy and his myrmidons will be about in the dark of the hunter’s moon, with little presents from Krupps.”

*

After closing time he went round to Nightingale Grove and knocked at Mrs. Cornford’s door. She opened it and invited him in. He told her about France and she told him about Lily, saying that her girl was getting on well in her training, and would be pleased to hear that he had called to ask after her. She was ironing clothes. After asking if he minded her continuing she put on a kettle for a cup of tea. Then she made him a cheese sandwich, which he ate, hoping it would stop the old swirling feeling that he dreaded from many past experiences of swallowing too much whiskey.

“I’ll open the window, Mr. Maddison,” she said, in an even, quiet voice as she worked at the ironing board. “We have to be careful about showing a light, with the Zeppelins about, as I expect you know. Yes, Lily is getting on nicely, and will be coming home just for the Saturday night next week-end, if all goes well. That will be, let me see—” she looked at a calendar on the wall, “the 23rd of September. She has to be back at five o’clock on the Sunday afternoon. Shall I tell her you will be coming on the Saturday? Or would you rather leave it open?”

“I would like to see her, but perhaps she will have other plans—”

“None that I know of,” said the quiet, soothing voice. “I am sure she would be sorry to miss you. I usually go up to see her on
Wednesday afternoons, so I’ll tell her, if you like. How do you like your tea? Weak? Perhaps you won’t mind putting in the milk yourself? I’m sorry there isn’t a lemon, they are getting scarce, owing to the shipping losses. They say rationing will be coming in soon, have you heard anything about it? No, I don’t suppose you would want to bother your head with such things. Does my bumping with the iron disturb you?”

“Oh no, Mrs. Cornford.”

After swallowing the tea he felt the swirl, and got on his feet. “I think I ought to go, Mrs. Cornford. Father goes to bed at eleven o’clock, and he’s a bit overworked. He can’t go to sleep happily until everyone is in bed.”

“Parents seldom cease thinking of their children, Mr. Maddison. We know the Sergeant round here, of course. We can put our clocks right by his rounds, so reliable is he. No danger of lights showing while he is on duty. A greatly respected gentleman, if I may say so, is Sergeant Maddison. Lily told me he has a beautifully kept allotment.”

“Yes, Mrs. Cornford. Well, thank you for your hospitality. I will look forward to seeing Lily next Saturday.”

“I’ll give her your message. She often talks of the country ride you gave her on your motorcycle, and the woodpecker you saw. Have you still got your motor?”

“I sold it before I went out, Mrs. Cornford. I loved that expedition to the Fish Ponds.”

“You’ll be able to talk over it when you see Lily, won’t you?” said the grey haired woman in the white apron, serenely. “She comes off duty at five, and will be here, by Tube from Whitechapel to New Cross, and then tram, by about a quarter to six. It will be coming to the moonless nights then, won’t it? So if there are Zepps about she might be delayed, or even kept back to look after her patients. You’ll understand then, won’t you? I’ll give her your message when I go up to see her on Wednesday. Thank you for coming, I am so glad you could spare the time. Good night. I’ll close the door quickly, if you don’t mind, just in case there’s something about——”

The next day was Polly’s last but one before going back home, so Hetty proposed a picnic on Reynard’s Common. Would Phillip care to join them?

“Do, Phil, it will be like old days,” said Doris.

“Oh, all right.”

So far he had avoided Polly, after her announcement to him;
but meeting her unexpectedly on the landing, he said “I suppose you blame me entirely?”

“It never occurred to me to blame anyone.”

“I wish I had let sleeping dogs lie, anyway.”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to talk about.”

“Well, if you had not worn that faded, cast-off bathing dress, and shown yourself off in the way you did—As it was, metaphorically speaking, the dogs woke up and gave tongue. After all, you did ask me to dry your back with the towel in your bedroom, after we returned from the swim.”

“I called you in only because I knew you were interested in birds, and there was that little bird hopping about by the river, below my window——”

“Anyway, you had no clothes on.”

“Dear dear. Were you shocked? I never thought about it.”