Twopence Coloured

by Patrick Hamilton

  On their way to the chickens they encountered two dogs, and one cat, all of whom betrayed curt recognition of their owner: and after the chickens themselves they met a pony, who came stamping towards them as they stood at the edge of the field, and for whom he had a lump of sugar from the depths of his pocket. The pony munched this, and went immediately away. All these animals had that unique preoccupation and detachment of dumb things — a detachment which was partially a welcome, though — and although he did not speak to them, the understanding was perfect. She was all at once alive to the mystery of animals, and knew she was with a priest of these mysteries. And in the yellowing sunlight she was very happy.

  Richard was waiting for them when they reached the house again. He was, for the first time in his life, rather pathetic, she thought, standing there….

  She was introduced to the housekeeper, Mrs. Bradley, who was extremely welcoming and reassuringly stout, and who showed her her room. After this she had a cocktail with Charles and Richard in the dining-room, where a blurred but ineffable frame of mind intervened: and the next thing she knew she was sitting in the front of a car, which Charles was cranking up, and which Richard was going to drive into Brighton. In Brighton the public awaited him…. They were already late.

  They bumped down the lanes, hooted through Southshore, and whizzed along the open road by the sea. The air was fresh, her shoulder touched his vibrating shoulder, and they did not speak. She was lost in adoration of life and of him — the two were mystically blended.

  CHAPTER XVI

  CHARLES

  I

  AT the time that Jackie first met him, Charles Gissing was thirty-five years of age — one year, that is, older than his brother. Their father had died ten years ago, and he had thus, at the age of twenty-five, come into his property. This comprised the greater part of the downs for several miles around, was severely mortgaged, and in a very low condition altogether. Knottley Lodge was the Dower-house, the family place having been let, at some profit. The last ten years of Charles’ life had been given over to the steady improvement of his estate — and the results had been astonishingly good. So much so that he was now esteemed luckier than his brother, Richard, who, as a younger son, had taken an income from his father’s investments and been cast adrift.

  Charles was a very different character from his father, though strongly allied to him in temperament. His father had been a slow but indisputably benign old gentleman, who trundled about all day in the saddle advising his farmers on their crops — and who, at the age of seventy, had had a seizure in his rose-garden, at the time of sunset, and was taken into the room in which Jackie now slept, where, giving lingering, incoherent, but still loving instructions for the bringing home of the harvest, he died. The sunset was appropriate. He was said to have been one of the last of the squires. Much was said to have died with him, but actually there expired little more than the old style of entertainment at Knottley Lodge, and the practice of curtseying in the village of Old Southshore. It was from the first found impracticable to curtsey to a public-school tie. One or two of the very much older feminine generation did, as it happened, when Charles entered the village, still manage to achieve this fluttering drop, and he tolerated it as something affording recognizable pleasure to the giver: but this was becoming very rare. The younger feminine generation was not a generation of curtseyers. It was a rather touchy younger generation, on the other hand, and its forte lay, rather, in the pillion — which involved cosmetics, knees, and an air of tart superiority to one and all. A young squire might now even be expected to provide the pillion — such indeed was the case with the three young sons of the Graysing family, whose estate adjoined Charles’. Charles, however, being from the first a young man of intensely and serenely independent character, had kept his pillion to himself. He had no more taste for knees than he had for the go-up-to-London-to-see-the-Queen atmosphere they had superseded. Hence it was that, despite his leisured amiability to all, he had no great popularity in the neighbourhood, and from what remained of the local society he was permanently, though not openly, estranged. His political opinions (of which he had none) were suspicious, and although he did his hereditary duty in the way of local bazaars, and fêtes, and committees for Ex-Service-men’s clubs, etc., he could not be prevailed upon to have any dealings with the fast-rising local Fascist organizations. At Knottley Lodge he hardly ever entertained, except to tea, at which his strawberries were famous. Occasionally he shot rooks with his neighbours, but he did not hunt. He was, on the contrary, a confirmed enemy of the fox, having made himself conspicuous in a much-discussed encounter with one of these creatures, which, having entered Charles’ chicken-house one pitch-dark morning at half-past one, was discovered by an awakened and suspicious Charles at half-past three. There were seven chickens in all, two of which were consumed — the rest in a loathsome state of wreckage. An uncanny two hours. Not one had escaped, and the red animal had lost its sprightliness when found by Charles, who, in a moment of calm hatred of the bloody scene, fired two bullets from his Webley revolver into its head. This, in the opinion of his neighbours, and in view of the scarcity of the fox, was held to be an unprecedented and impermissible course of action to have adopted.

  Thus it was that Charles was voluntarily out of touch with both the modern and the elder set around Southshore. Nor did his alliance with his brother, an actor and a writer and a manifestly heretical character, improve matters here. Together they were too formidable.

  He was a quiet figure — very. He spoke little and slowly, as his father had done, and he had the appearance of having little to do throughout the day. This was partly because he rose at half-past five and got through all his correspondence and estate business before breakfast, and partly because combined slowness and skill gave an appearance of idleness. In the last few years he had been continually absent in the summer on account of his cricket. He appeared to take this talent very much for granted, but actually it was his one passion in existence. It was only lately that he had struck an odd streak of form in batting, and he was now included whenever available. Before the war he had had some notoriety as a promising young bowler, but had subsequently failed completely in that line. But he still bowled a little, and was one of the finest fields in the country.

  His response to Jackie had been immediate. He had not been with her five minutes before clearly and unemotionally apprehending that he desired to have her for his own. That this was out of the question did not perturb him. He merely recorded the fact. He was aware that, had she not had the moral weight of his brother’s approval behind her, it would have taken him much longer to realize this; but with that approval she was immediately and obviously flawless.

  As they walked in the garden he experienced no tremor — no disappointment — no envy. As she stood patting the pony’s head he looked at her and listened to her friendly speech. Every line of her face, every word she spoke, the colour of her hair, her eyes, her mouth — all conformed to his precise ideal. But this was not adoration — it was calm identification. His brother deserved no praise for discernment. The thing was patent.

  II

  She awoke at seven o’ clock to a washed blue sky and the tops of wet green trees, and a cup of tea brought her by Mrs. Bradley. And all the world was in a green conspiracy of quietude, and she was neither happy nor unhappy, but a part of that quietude around her. What the day held in store for her she could not imagine, but she was to have him the entire day.

  She was out in the garden by eight o’ clock, and amongst the roses — drunk amongst the roses. She had never seen so many roses in her life.

  It had been wet and stormy in the night, and their petals were scattered everywhere in the dew. They were roses that had had a pillow-fight overnight, and spilt their water-jugs, and distracted their sheets, and flung themselves about, and then suddenly and inconsequently gone to sleep…. Debauched roses — overblown but luscious young harlots of roses — regardless of their mess…. Jackie could have cr
ied.

  And up above in the house, various signs of life. Charles and Richard, just returned from a bathe in the sea, calling in swimmers’ voices to each other from their rooms — a girl laying the table in the dining-room — a dog in the front doorway, already prone and winking in the amber sunlight. And then the sight of a hurrying Mrs. Bradley, and the welcoming prolonged tinkling of a gong…. Every one was contented in a silent, brisk routine — a routine which came to her like a memory, and thrilled her, after a year in rooms. Particularly was she pleased by the dog. That old dog had lain winking in that light, of a morning, without her knowing it, year in and year out. He knew how to live, did that dog, but took it all for granted. This atmosphere was his. She revelled in her sudden participation in his amber secrets and wisdom.

  And the smell of bacon, and silver dishes again, and a sideboard. How could she ever face rooms and tragedies again? And two powerful young or youngish men, who, while remaining quite civil, were of the united opinion that they were in the presence of the most perfect young woman on earth. And Jackie reciprocating the sentiment, though also remaining herself. As for her love for Richard, she felt for the moment that that could wait.

  And after breakfast they strolled for a long while in the garden, seeing some more of the chickens, and some more of the pony, to whom Jackie this time (in a rather frightening moment, but it was all right if you held your hand right out flat) gave a lump of sugar — and after that they got the car, and pottered about on Charles’ business in the town of Southshore. And after that they went for a drive to Worthing, via Lancing, and then came back to lunch.

  And after lunch Richard had to go into Brighton to see Mr. Carters, and she was left alone with Charles. And they talked about books for some time (they were in perfect agreement with each other), and he showed her his collection of Richard’s books, which were seven in number and of a technical nature, and then they had another stroll, which again ended laughingly in Pony, to whom Jackie gave another lump, this time with the utmost confidence and intrepidity. And then Richard returned and they had tea, at which there were again strawberries, and at which Jackie made the same rather revolting pig of herself. And after tea they had a game of cricket.

  Charles had a nice pitch and a large net for this, at the end of one of his fields, and a very pleasant hour was had. Charles batted, and Richard bowled with a hard ball, as became a man, and Jackie bowled with a soft one, as became a woman. And Richard’s balls were treated with brusque respect, and Jackie’s balls were treated with courteous solemnity — which was rather difficult to keep up, as they were aimed at his head. For Jackie was an underhand bowler, who took great pride in her pace. After this Jackie batted herself for ten minutes or so. But as Jackie’s principles for striking the ball were to stand on one leg, close both eyes, clench thirty-two teeth, and swing the bat round violently to the sky; or, failing that, and when completely baffled by a ball, to wabble about insecurely but earnestly on a high heel, and then collapse in a defeated heap upon the ground — the play lost in pace what it gained in good nature. After this Richard batted, and she went behind the net to Watch. She enjoyed that most of all.

  And after this there was the large feeling wrought by exercise, consummated by cocktails: and then she was against the vibrating shoulder, flying back on the straight sea road to Brighton. If she had never lived in the past and would never live again, she was living now. She did not speak to him.

  CHAPTER XVII

  “FOR GOD, KING, AND COUNTRY”

  I

  ON Wednesday morning belated rehearsals were begun for “For God, King, and Country,” and work (as it was called) commenced in earnest. They were now, for five weeks, a stock company at the King’s, putting on a new show every week, rehearsing every morning, and playing twice nightly with one Thursday matinée. Jackie was unable to flatter the act of moonily lolling about on a half-lit stage from ten to two every morning with the name of work. It was, rather, a kind of deliberate and intensified form of idleness…. But, taken in conjunction with the nightly performances, it was the most laborious undertaking she was ever to experience in her career, and during the day she was only out of the theatre for four hours in the afternoon. These she spent in Brighton, either at the pictures, or with Charles, who came over expressly to entertain her. Richard was far too busy.

  For he, at the request of Mr. Carters (who was constantly absent), was undertaking the production of “For God, King, and Country,” and he was down on the stage or up in the office the entire day. He was also partially stage-managing, in conjunction with the hook-nosed young man, and filling the General’s uniform in the drama. He was, as far as Jackie could see, enjoying himself immensely, and having acquired the habit of ordering and talking, never left off talking, and at midnight supper at Knottley Lodge gobbled his food at a hideous rate.

  Jackie had the juvenile lead. She played it neither well nor ill (it being quite impossible to do either) and she gave satisfaction. Large posters in the slummier parts of the town depicted Jackie, in a dress belonging to nineteen-hundred and the arms of an officer (Mr. Grover) whose uniform was of the same period. Her first taste of fame. If she had only been playing at the Royal, she would have looked up the Langhams.

  There was no dress-rehearsal for “For God, King, and Country”: nor was there any seriousness or alarm on the first night. There never was, in Mr. Carters’ companies. Each actor was left pretty well to shift for himself, and, buoyed up with the pervading spirit of religion and patriotism, the thing was easy. Religious patriotism, and the swagger thereof, atoned for lines, which were very poor. Richard’s slogan during production was apt. “When in doubt, say ‘Never!’ and wait to be prompted.” This was quite safe, the entire play consisting of people swearing they would Never, under any circumstances, or the acutest torture, and taking an enormous bloated pride in the grandiose refusal.

  The cast of “For God, King, and Country” was not the same as that of the Western play preceding it, though many, like Jackie, stayed on. The cowboy supers were dismissed back to Jones’ corner and the under-agent-world, where some of them got crowd-work on the films, some of them starved, some of them took to window-cleaning or bar-tending, and others lived by running away from their rooms. These were replaced by a quantity of young fishermen in the Brighton sea, who worked for ninepence a performance, whose naïveté was refreshing, and who, with the historic impressionability of toilers on the deep, took the most pious interest in their parts, which were military and constabulary. These, in conjunction with a military band from Lewes, made up the number of forty, and formed one of the most impressive scenes of the play. This took place in Whitehall, the curtain rising upon two mounted guardsmen in their glorious red array. Which received, for reasons obscure to the mind, storm after storm of applause. Whether it was Whitehall which had made the hit, or whether it was the two men, it was quite impossible to say. Neither gave the secret away. Whitehall wabbled flimsily in the draught: the two men remained as stiff as stone, and it was clear that the country was saved. When this was over the comedian arrived with his wife, who made a great fuss of him in his new uniform, and beat the villain, who came on coarsely to disparage the celebrations, with her umbrella, Without, however, creating a scene in this ministerial thoroughfare, for no one else arrived until the arrival of the band, which marched on to the tune of “Colonel Bogey,” lined up on the pavement, filled the theatre with its scarlet noises, and received rather more applause than Whitehall. There was then a great stir, and the General appeared in a plumed hat, saluting vigorously. A curious crowd might now have been expected to have assembled for this portentous not to say national spectacle, but this was manifestly not the case. Firstly because the comedian was making rude faces and derisive gestures behind the General’s back (which the populace could barely have tolerated in so solemn a scene), and secondly because there was no sign of a crowd. The only solution was that some surging mass, out of the picture, was somewhere being held back by a cordon of
police. This would also account for the absence of traffic, which would have otherwise cramped a General’s style when pacing into the middle of the road to make his speech. His speech was addressed to the buildings opposite (the windows of which were doubtless thronged), and was a pleasant blending of private and public sentiment.

  “Ah — could I have been wrong,” he began, “in thus letting my son leave for the front — without a word — without letting him know that he is already forgiven in my heart? Could I have been wrong?” He evidently rather thought he had. He paced up and down, and clasped his hands behind his back, as one who says “Tut-tut.” The army, however, in the meanwhile, had an air of being kept waiting, and so he became more general. All differences, he said, were now sunk in common cause against the enemy. Every gallant lad had answered the trumpet-call of Duty, and filed up in his country’s ranks. The General was proud — yes, proud — of them all. He was proud — proud — proud…. He was prouder than he would have been if he had not forgotten his lines at this point (which he invariably did), but he was proud in any case. He expanded on the subject at great length, clearly carried away by these thoughts, which did not seem to have occurred to him before. He continued for some four minutes — every now and then, with a sweep of his arm, including the army, which possibly thought all this was very much to the point but which was looking stiffly ahead and slyly licking its lips in preparation for the brassy tune it would march off to. This, on the cue “God, King and COUNTRY!” it did; and the scene would have ended significantly did not the audience at this juncture imperiously demand an encore. This it marched back to give, with the enforced approval of the General, who put the soldier away and revealed the connoisseur, joining his hands behind his back and lifting his head in benign appraisement, as much as to say, “We‘re a musical country, and should have more of this kind of thing.” It was, however, a difficult moment for him. It was clear that his authority, though not yet defied, was being ignored. Furthermore, the War had developed into a concert, which it should not have done. The others on the stage — the comedian, his wife, the villain, and various subsidiary ladies — having no claim to authority were not in the same difficulty. They could simply look on with the rather proud pleasure of those having wangled a pass through the cordon. An astonishing spectacle altogether, only to be equalled by the spectacle which followed three scenes later. This was of a more gruesome nature, being enacted at the Front. Where this Front was it was not easy to discern (the precise War itself not being specified); but it was in a red twilight, and the villain was present, pretending like anything to be a Correspondent, but actually being a Spy (and behaving like one), and the comedian was there, and so was the General (necessarily), and the question immediately harassing the General was, Could our Lads Get Through? It was doubtful. A battle decided this. This took place on the stage, commencing with a succession of violent bangs, and a sudden glorious inrush (R.) of the army, which, flinging itself upon its belly, or taking up statuesque positions on one knee, proceeded to defend itself (prior to Getting Through) from a hypothetical enemy of obscure nationality but great redoubtability L. This army was composed of fifteen Boys, four of whom were supplied with blank cartridges, which made a great deal of noise and pink fire, and carried off the scene. The rest were forced to content themselves with dummy rifles and inspired military gestures — such as taking off one’s cap and cheering, pointing madly ahead as much as to say “Look at that one. Watch me get him!” shouting “Bang!” pretending to be wounded, or, in privileged cases, dying. Dying, indeed, was obviously the particular treat; and the Boys were difficult to control in this matter. “We can’t all die, you know,” Richard had weakly pleaded, during the short rehearsal given the Boys on Monday afternoon. But he was overruled by the incontrollable sentiment of his performers. Some, indeed, he expressly forbade to die, but all those escaping this stricture succeeded, when the heated moment came, not only in dying, but in dying several times a minute — having a miraculous faculty for abruptly surviving purely in order to experience once more the luxuries of heroic extinction. The fact that in these brief moments of renewed existence they invariably allowed themselves another shot or two must have been as discouraging to the enemy as it was outrageous to a sense of fair play. There were, however, at least thirty fatalities among fifteen men in the four minutes allotted to this battle. To supplement the din supplied by the blank cartridges, the hook-nosed stage-manager dropped an enormous quantity of scenery weights and braces time and again on to the wooden floor behind; and overlooking the battle, in a tactical and Ney-like position on a mound, stood the General (who was Richard Gissing) gazing steadily and at length through a handsome pair of opera glasses at Jackie Mortimer, who was dressed in Red Cross costume for the next scene, and who never failed to come round into the wings at this time to undergo this remarkable scrutiny. At the end of the four minutes there was a sudden cheer from the ranks at the arrival of a gun on wheels. Which gun was rushed on at a victorious pace, and was useful less as a weapon of destruction (being composed entirely of wood) than as some curb upon the popularity of dying — inasmuch as both the quick and the dead instantly arose and fought for places in wheeling it, with exulting cries, off Left — which was much more natural behaviour. The scene was now at an end. The Boys returned, cheering with their caps upon their bayonets: the hook-nosed young man indulged in a final orgy of dropping behind: and the General, deserting his mound, paced down-stage to encounter another General, whose congratulatory hand he warmly shook. The Boys, without moving an inch, had Got Through, and this was a manifestly historic reunion between two Generals. They held it, and the curtain fell.