The Innocent Moon

by Henry Williamson

  The extravagant wording of the cablegrams made him harden against the sender. He speculated vaguely, and with a certain pleasurable thrill, what would happen if Ivan were to walk into the room at that moment. Ivan might think that Barley, sitting arms folded and so still and self-contained beside him, was a blind; but even if he didn’t, Ivan might shoot him. Ivan the Terrible! How old Julian would enjoy such a story! And imagining Porky, Ivan, and Julian together in the pub, he could not help smiling inwardly. And looking up, he saw that the girl was smiling at him. Had she divined his thought?

  Irene too smiled, and said sadly, “Do you know of a quiet, secluded cottage in your village?”

  “Yes, there’s Verbena Cottage, quite near mine, but considerably larger! I’ll go and make enquiries immediately. May I take Barley on a cushion on the carrier? I’ll take great care of her, and bring her back by six o’clock.”

  Irene assured him there was no hurry; she had telegraphed because in her unhappiness she thought of him as her friend: he was so sympathetic, so understanding.

  This was flattering. He saw himself jumping between her and a bullet; and the irony of the interpretation of his act by the vulgar-minded. They had tea as usual on the sands, while he basked in the sun in his new bathing dress and told her how Julian and he had come down to write in the cottage, and how it had not worked out like that. He told her about Porky, too, and she said that life everywhere seemed to be about the same since the War.

  “I’ll see about that cottage in the morning, Irene.”

  “What a kind man you are, P.M.!”

  The next morning he sought the owner of Verbena Cottage, furnished and to let, and looked over it. “Would a guinea and a half a week be too much?” enquired the owner, a spinster lady.

  “I’ll ask at once, Ma’m.”

  It was down the hill and round the corner from his cottage, with a front garden, four bedrooms, two living-rooms, and kitchen annexe built on next to the bathroom. There was a rotary pump from a well under the kitchen.

  With bathing dress tied to the handle-bars he swung up and down and around the twisting sunken lanes to Turnstone. Walking along the sands to Irene’s rock he saw Julian sitting beside her. They were laughing. Indeed, Julian was laughing loudly. His beard was shaved. Nearby, ‘Sailor’s’ rusty push-bike was thrown down, its front wheel in a pool of sea-water. The girl sat by herself against another rock, arms folded, legs crossed at the ankle, reading a book. She got up and ran towards Phillip when she saw him. “I’m so glad you’ve come, P.M.” She took his hand, and led him to the others.

  “Ha, the village genius! Welcome, Maître!”

  “Hullo, P.M. We were just talking about you. Come and sit down,” smiled Irene, spreading the rug beside her.

  “Thanks, but I really ought to get back to work. I’ve dashed over to tell you that I think I’ve arranged about that matter you spoke of.”

  “Thank you ever so much, P.M. You are such a kind person. You’re just in time for luncheon, we were about to go up.”

  “It’s most kind of you, but I must be getting back. I have to write my weekly article for The Crusader.”

  “Can’t you write it here? You can have the drawing-room to yourself, and it’s quiet in the hotel. Must you really go? Barleybright, darling, P.M. says he must go. Such a busy man suddenly, darling.”

  “Please stay,” said the girl. “You can write your essay and then post it from here. The post goes out at half-past five.” She was by his side, seeming to have arrived there unnoticeably.

  “I think I ought to go back, really.”

  Julian looked at him with amused triumph. His red-brown hair was oiled and brushed back from his forehead.

  “Oh, before I forget, Irene, here’s the address you wanted to know about.”

  “Thanks ever so much! Barley and I will probably walk over tomorrow, and perhaps we may drop in and see your place? Sure you won’t stay?”

  A light touch on his sleeve. “Do stay, please,” said Barley.

  “I really must go.”

  “Take me,” said the girl. “Then you’ll have to come back to dinner.”

  Feeling foolish, hoping his behaviour would not be put down to jealousy, yet knowing it would be, he returned alone to Malandine. On the way back he tried to disentangle himself. Was it jealousy? Or merely a rebuff to his conceit? He had looked upon Irene as his friend; why had she taken up so easily with Julian? Was she another Eveline Fairfax? Anyway, she was not really his sort. Ought he to warn her about Julian? He decided to write her a confidential letter, telling her why he and Julian had parted—chiefly because of Julian’s debts in the village. After all, she must be hard-up after the way Ivan the Terrible had sold her furs, etc.

  Having posted the letter, he returned to his upstairs writing table, with a view through the small window of the weeds in the garden below. He tried to continue his book from where the writing had been broken off during the radiant summer weather beginning nearly three weeks before, but could not write; it was so quiet in the lime-washed room, so purposeless sitting there away from the sunlight.

  He went down to see Porky, finding him subdued in an atmosphere of tea-leaf smoke, and spent the evening there, reading what he had written to his host, surely the most sympathetic listener and appreciator in the world—when he kept away from the pubs. It was one o’clock when he walked home, clear-headed and happy under the stars.

  As he was lying in bed between eight and nine o’clock next morning Julian walked up the stairs into his bedroom. He told Phillip that he had met the postman, who had given him his letters. There were three; one in a thin, firm, flittermouse sort of handwriting that made him open the envelope over-eagerly, ripping it nearly in half, before cutting the rest of the flap meticulously with the rusty safety-pin which held a tear in his trousers.

  “Listen to this, Julian! It’s about my essay in the English Review! It’s from Walter Ramal!”

  He read the letter aloud, and then said, “What about that, old boy!”

  “Oh, quite a polite letter,” remarked Julian. “I suppose Mr. Ramal groans every day at the mass of manuscript sent to him for the self-advancement of scandent young writers hauling themselves up on his efforts. I could get a letter like that if I wanted to—only I wouldn’t want to. By the way, there’s a letter from Father, old boy. I suppose you would have no objection to handing over the doings to me? Or do you still wish to control the Privy Purse?”

  “I bloody well do not!” Phillip replied, tearing open the letter, and reading it swiftly. “Your father leaves the disposal of the allowance to my discretion—so here you are. Two pounds. And if you’re wise, you won’t get into debt.”

  “I never get into debt, Maître; but Father frequently does. Seriously, I am grateful to you for all your innumerable good intentions.” He was gnawing a fingernail, while eyeing the third envelope.

  Phillip opened it carefully. “Hullo—‘Dear Man of the Sands——’.” He glanced at the overleaf signature. “It’s from Irene. Forgive me, Julian.” He read it to himself: they had missed him, and hoped they would see him that day at the usual place. You are a queer mixture, P.M., but both Barley and I like you—if you will let us. He was pleased, and to hide his feelings screwed it up lightly and threw it on the floor. The sun was shining brightly outside. Why was he lying in bed while chaffinches were singing in the elms, and swifts flying in under the thatch? He threw off the bedclothes, and pulled on his trousers.

  Julian’s eyebrows arched themselves. “May I see Irene’s letter, old boy?”

  “Oh, there’s nothing in it.” He sluiced his face in the basin of cold water and pulled a shirt over his head.

  “Will you go over, do you think?” Julian asked casually. His voice became satirical. “‘Dear Man of the Sands’! God, you are a scream with that beard, Phillip! I was much amused by Irene’s account of your spectacular stage-suicide on the rock! She is an extraordinarily nice woman,” he added, gravely. “Don’t you think so?” />
  “Extraordinarily nice.”

  “Why do you say ‘extraordinarily nice’?” challenged Julian.

  “Why do you?”

  Julian was wearing his brown suit and brown shoes. His hair was oiled and plastered back. “Well, Maître, I won’t disturb the flow of genius. How is the book going?”

  “It isn’t. Life is greater than literature.”

  “Yes: but only very, very occasionally. This may be one of the occasions, however. Well au revoir, old boy. I’ll leave you to it.”

  On his motor-bike Phillip went into the town to visit a dentist. Between 1914 and 1919 his teeth had been entirely neglected, and probably needed attention now. Several fillings were necessary, and further appointments made. Passing a barber’s shop afterwards, he hesitated. Faces above pavements always jerked towards him, it was hateful to be stared at, and sometimes have the idiotic catch-word Beaver! called after one. He recalled Spica’s words when he had arrived at Cambridge during May Week…. “You do look a ruffian.” Should he? His friendly beard, so soft to stroke! It had almost a personality of its own. The occasional gold hairs, bleached by the sun, were pleasing.

  While he was hesitating two girls came towards him, both very pretty. One was dark, and well-developed for a school-girl, he thought; she had a long plait of hair over one shoulder. The other, older girl was fair with blue eyes. He heard her say to the dark girl, “Go on, he’s yours, Annabelle!”; but before they came abreast he said first, “No, it’s mine! Beaver!” and with the least glance at their friendly open faces—obviously visitors—he went into the barber’s shop.

  “Hair cut, sir?”

  “Shave, I think.” O damn; always in two minds—weak—irresolute. His beard, his lovely beard, was going to be cut off! Like a coward he did nothing to save it. Too late now—it was a mass of lather; then he was staring in the glass at the unpleasing pallor of a weak-looking face. Yes, a hair cut please. Snip, snip, snip—too late to ask for a trim. What an ugly head and face he had, with its sullen stare! While the barber’s back was turned he put out his tongue at the apparition in the looking-glass.

  “A little brilliantine on the hair, sir?”

  “Good God, no!”

  “Very good, sir,” said the barber, obviously not approving the particular emphasis; so Phillip spoke about Charlie Chaplin. “I’ve never seen him in a barber’s-shop scene. Have you?”

  “I don’t like Charlie Chaplin, sir. I don’t hold with anything vulgar—clean fun is what I like.”

  “Clean fun and clean shaves, what?”

  After lunch—bread and cheese and a small tankard of stout in an oak-beamed tavern—he sped away on the Norton to Malandine sands. Julian was there already. He greeted Phillip with “Hullo, ‘Dear Man of the Sands’,” in a loud satirical voice; at which Irene looked from Julian’s face to Phillip’s with a slight frown as of puzzlement.

  Phillip felt constraint in her manner and soon made an excuse to leave. She made no attempt to persuade him to stay. Nor did she say anything about walking over to inspect Verbena Cottage.

  Chapter 11

  NO ONE WINS

  Open windows and Mrs. Crang working cheerfully with scrubbing brush and pail, blankets and sheets airing on her garden line told Phillip that Verbena Cottage had been taken by Irene. In a hired car she and Julian had arrived for an inspection the afternoon before; and had left without coming to see him. He could not understand it. Was she another Eveline Fairfax?

  He went for a swim at Britannia Bay, as he called it; and on returning past their cottage at six o’clock saw that they had moved in. Was it fancy that Barley had waved to him from the balcony in a subdued way? From his window he observed Julian, coming apparently with a message to Mrs. Crang, walking with unaccustomed briskness and wearing new white flannel trousers and a white shirt with roll collar open at the neck in Byronic style. A lilac sash or scarf was round his waist: this Phillip recognised as having been loosely knotted around Irene’s shoulders when she had cried “Hi!” to him on Britannia Rock.

  About half-past eight o’clock, when it seemed that the evening meal might be over, he made up his mind to call upon Irene. With a salute to Mrs. Crang, on her way back from Verbena Cottage, he opened the garden gate and walked up the short cobbled path. The door was open. The knocker was stiff with rust, and his effort was not sufficient to make any sound; he tried again and to his alarm a loud and familiar-old-friend Bang! resounded in the empty room. Listening, he heard the noise of frying in the kitchen, and whispering. Then Irene came to the door, tall and slender and cool, and he realised his misgivings had been justified. With a blank face she said, “I think that the way you read my letter to Julian, after you had written to me about your friend’s shortcomings, is so disgraceful that I do not feel able to continue our friendship.”

  He could not speak.

  “I am grateful to you for finding me this cottage, P.M.; now we must say good-bye.”

  He went away, hardly knowing what to do to ease the despair at his own foolishness in writing the letter; and after pacing his kitchen floor for an hour or so he went upstairs with the melodramatic thought of writing until he was dead. Forty-eight hours later he had written twenty thousand words of his book, had eaten nothing and drunk only water during that time. On the third day, a Sunday, Mrs. Crang knocked hesitantly on his front door and when he went down there she stood with a plateful of rabbit, cabbage, and potatoes.

  “Excuse of me, but us thought you might like vor eat this.”

  “Thank you very much, but I’m not hungry.”

  “Oh, Mr. Maddison, how can ’ee deny ’ee’s stummick further?” Not wishing to appear to rebuff her kindness he accepted the plateful, wolfed it, and feeling cheerful again, went into the kitchen next door to thank the Crangs. There he ate some prunes and custard; and learned that Julian was still lodging with ‘Sailor’, but having his meals with Mrs. Lushington.

  “A proper lady, very kind, and with a bootiful li’l maid,” said Walter Crang. Tomorrow, said Mrs. Crang, a companion or lady-help was expected from Fishguard, but, she went on happily, she was promised the work of cleaning in the morning and washing-up. Wasn’t it lovely?

  Walter Crang was out-of-work, there was no dole for that most ill-paid worker in Britain, the agricultural labourer; so the thought of the few shillings a week coming in made husband and wife happy.

  From his window the next afternoon Phillip watched Julian, Irene, and the new lady-help getting out of the 1911 Argyll. Julian energetically helped the driver to carry in luggage. And the next morning at 7.30 as Phillip was cautiously stropping his razor he saw Julian banging mats against the wall of the raised garden. Seeing him, Julian walked over.

  “How goes the masterpiece, old boy? Yellower and yellower? We heard of the starving genius stunt with much amusement.”

  “What sort of man are you, Julian?”

  “Ah, Maître, you don’t understand women. The better man always wins, remember!”

  “I begin to understand you! I did not read to you that letter from Irene! You know very well I wasn’t aware who it was from when I opened it!”

  Julian inhaled from his gold-tipped State Express cigarette with satisfaction. “Nor did I, Maître, so we’re quits! God, she’s got a marvellous figure! You haven’t seen her bathing, have you? She was married when she was seventeen, and is a poor old dear—— I, well, I like her!”

  “Do you love her?”

  “I’m very fond of her. What, after all, is love? A Francis Thompson dream?”

  “Does she love you?”

  “Well,” said Julian, rubbing his hands together, “if she doesn’t now, she will soon! You don’t know how to treat a girl, Maître. You’re not an adult yet.”

  “Is one an adult only when one has committed adultery?”

  Julian laughed. “You are an amusing chap sometimes, Phil. You are still adolescent, of course. You prefer little girls, like Lewis Carroll. Well, I must go now—I’m supposed to be helpin
g cook breakfast. It’s a damned fine life, Maître, if you don’t weaken! So long, old boy, more power to your elbow.”

  Phillip went on the Norton to Turnstone, where, he saw with relief, several families were on the sands, come for the Easter holidays. He longed to speak to somebody, but forebore; and decided to go to Lynmouth to visit his Aunt Dora. With any luck he might find Willie in his cottage, too. Going back to the Norton he arrived just as a girl and a small boy were ending a slow-bicycle race. He recognised her as one of the two girls playing Beaver in the High Street of Queensbridge. Yes, the one called Annabelle. She was laughing and showing white even teeth as her plait swung about behind her blue serge gym dress. The two were balancing and wobbling, they clashed, mutually protesting that each would have won if the other hadn’t barged across, and recovering, the girl shoved her machine against the bank near the Norton and cried, “Come on, Marcus, let’s bathe!” She was turning to the sea when her bicycle fell against the Norton.

  “How touching,” said Phillip. “Your old iron flings herself on the mercy of my Norton, the Prince of Speed.”

  “Oh, is that yours?” She smiled widely. “I’m sorry,” she added, giving him a frank look.

  “Good heavens, nothing can affect my Falcon! Besides, it hunts down and eats mere push bikes. Seriously though, it’s quite touching, to see a pedal bicycle falling in love with a motor-bike, a sort of Cinderella story.”

  “I hope it isn’t scratched anywhere.”

  “Oh, no. Scratching follows love, I understand. Please don’t worry in the very least! When you bathe, do be careful not to go near Britannia over there at this tide, there’s a sort of back swirl of current which can be a bit tricky.” He picked up the bicycle and made as if to throw it in the stream, then put it carefully against the bank. “Good-bye!”

  He went back to his cottage. The sun was shining, several cottages had taken in families for the holidays. He thought he would play the fool, give them something to talk about, and went to see a farmer who had told him that he could ride his cob anytime he wanted to. That afternoon he rode along the sands, wearing his field boots, boned and polished, with his best fawn cavalry twill breeches with a tweed hacking coat. His hair was oiled and parted in the middle, his moustache, which had survived the shave, waxed up with candle-grease in Kaiser style.