The Innocent Moon

by Henry Williamson

  *

  Warbeck’s aunt said that Julian wasn’t in, but his father was. “Come in, bring your cousin, Maddison, we’ve heard a lot about him from Julian.”

  The meeting seemed to start well. Mr. Warbeck said that he had read Phillip’s novels. “And—I must confess it—I was considerably surprised—” he paused, while Phillip prepared to look suitably blank with modesty—“yes, I was certainly surprised, even staggered if one might employ such a word, yes, I was—er, dumbfounded is perhaps a more apposite expression—when I read certain criticisms of the book!”

  “Yes, there were one or two bad reviews, sir. The Pioneer of Allahabad said that Donkin never saved the day at football or cricket——” He liked Mr. Warbeck more for appreciating his work.

  “Bad reviews? Bad reviews? My dear fellow, I assure you that even the adverse criticisms I read were far too generous! Your novel—in my humble opinion—is a farrago of the most utter bosh and nonsense, more suitable for Comic Cuts and the wastepaper basket of an amateur vegetarian settlement’s monthly folk-sheet, than anything else I have ever had the misfortune to read, and how any self-respecting publisher was ever persuaded to print it, well—it beats me utterly!”

  “Don’t take any notice of what he says,” laughed Julian’s aunt, as she sewed comfortably by the fire. “I read it and liked it, Maddison.”

  “I don’t mind if it’s readable——”

  “Oh, Good Lord, yes,” broke in the old gentleman, pulling his grey moustache. “Don’t think, m’dear fellow, that I found it utterly unreadable! On the contrary——”

  Phillip then pleaded for Julian to be given another chance in Devon. “He’s writing a really good book, sir—we both heard some of it today, on our walk into Kent.”

  “God bless my soul, have you been with Julian? Where is he now? Lying in the ditch somewhere?”

  “He’s in the Borough Library, going on with his book. He insisted on writing for an hour, to make up for lost time on the walk.”

  “Do I hear rightly? Julian doing some work? Perish the thought!”

  “Well, I can understand how you feel, Mr. Warbeck, after all this time. But Julian has fine gifts, in my opinion.”

  “Wait a moment. Let us get this straight! Why should you think that my son, unlike the leopard, is likely to change his main characteristics? At the moment he is, by his own accounts, which I am privileged to receive from him every morning, one of the main props of Fleet Street. Every morning for the past few weeks he has been telling me an entirely original story about a job. But God bless my soul, where are my manners? Let me offer you a drink. I have whisky, beer, and sherry. Very well, sherry it shall be. What for you, Maddison minor? Sherry. Yes,” went on Mr. Warbeck. “My son’s delightful powers of invention appear to have impressed even you, who know him of old, Maddison major! Or should it be ‘Colonel’—or rather ‘Private’, according to The Kentish Mercury of a year or two back? Well, to resume. You say he is writing a good book. I must confess that I have long since wondered why he does not settle down to the comparatively respectable method of making money by writing fiction, a practice at which he excels in his living. Mark you, I have a considerable respect for your own powers of invention—but the palm must go—I am compelled to admit it—to Julian. His fictional powers are stupendous. One day he is about to get a job as sub-editor on an evening paper; another day he is on the point of selling a new literary weekly; yet another day he is about to learn to compose type; then to bind books; then to sell motor cars. His intentions, in so far as I can gather, include the writing of a revue for Mr. de Courville, and producing a play—which he is, of course, going to write first—for Matheson Lang to act. What is to me so interesting is the detail—so realistic and circumstantial—that he builds around all these hypothetical careers of his. Every day the same situation has confronted me; I am scornful; I am incredulous; I declare each visit to be the last occasion on which I—with the greatest reluctance, I tell him—shall subsidise his activities. Not that my faithful visitor isn’t grateful—oh Lord, no! He is most deferential and solicitous about my health—until he has acquired the doings, as he calls it, whereupon he leaves at once to resume his, er—h’m—artistic activities.”

  The old gentleman looked with stern unhappiness from one face to the other. He sighed deeply; and finally said that he would give Julian the wherewithal to accompany them on the morrow from Paddington.

  *

  The journey was cold, the carriage windows laced with ice. They were together until Westbury, where Willie got out to await the slow train to Colham, where he was going to collect his spaniel; the others went on to Exeter, and the branch line from Fernbridge to Queensbridge.

  Having arrived at the cottage, Julian said, “By God, Phillip, it’s just like old times!” and soon left to celebrate his return in the Ring of Bells, where he looked like spending most of the week’s allowance from his father on the first night. But when Porky came in, followed as usual by the Tanberry Hounds, now almost a dozen mixed dogs, Julian prepared to accept all he could get from Porky, who, hearing that Phillip was in the cottage, went down to drag him out. No, said Phillip, he was not being disturbed—he hadn’t been able to settle down to any work. So more old times reasserted themselves, even to the inevitable closing scene of a slanging match between Porky and Julian.

  “J. D. Woodford!” sneered Julian, swelled by nearly three gallons of ale. “Tell me, Maître, what are you on now? What, another nomme de plume? Really? Don’t tell me you have been reborn as Edgar Rice Burroughs, recreating your past life as Tarzan of the Apes? Or are you Compton Mackenzie this time?”

  “Grr! Grr! Away, away, you no-good fellow! Be off! Skedaddle! Vamoose! You’re a waster!” cried Porky flipping a hand at Julian.

  “Porky! Por-ky! Porky and Co.! Didn’t you write Porky and Co., about your schooldays at Westward Ho! before you went to India and worked on The Pioneer at Allahabad?”

  “Grr! Grr! Be off! Here, l’il bitches, see’m off! Gar’n! Gar’n! See’m off! Tally ho!”

  The little herd of mongrels pranced around Julian, wagging their tails. “Then it was you who gave me that review in The Pioneer of Pauper Spirits!” cried Phillip, trying to keep the peace, “‘Donkin never saves the day at cricket or football, and like his author is entirely devoid of humour’.”

  “No no, dear boy, that wasn’t me! I gave up reviewing some time back, after I’d taken that toss in the huntin’ field. Goo’ lor’, no! No no, that wasn’t me, Phillip. Goo’ lor’, no!”

  “But you did write Porky and Co.?” persisted Julian.

  “Go away, go away! Goo’ lor’ no, Phillip, that wasn’t me! I used to write under the nomme de plume of J. D. Whatsisname, but forget all about it, dear boy! Goo’ lor’ yes! I loved your story! Goo’ lor’ yes! That little maid, the heroine, she’s gorgeous, ol’ boy! Go on, go on, go on, get on with the goo’ work! A lovely book, a lovely book, I didn’t think you had it in you when I first saw you. You had no character, dear boy, no character. You were all to pieces, didn’t know where you were when we first met. Mixed me up with someone else, didn’t know what you were sayin’! Goodness me, you were in a mess, Phillip! I said to myself, Here’s a shell-shocked laddie, I said to myself, I must help him to forget all about that tinpot little war. Good Lord, yes, every time! I can just see dear little Donkin now, cute little beggar, congratulations, dear boy, never enjoyed a book so much since Hewlett’s Forest Lovers, Phillip. Many congratulations, dear boy? What’s that noise outside? Where’s that mad no-good fellow gone?”

  Phillip quoted, ‘“It is only the roar of a carrion crow That fills the midnight air’. Annabelle’s favourite entry in my journal!”

  “Forget her, dear boy! As I told you before, get on with another book, get on with the goo’ work, goo’ lor’ yes!”

  Porky staggered out under the glittering stars, to blunder into Julian hanging over the garden wall.

  “You no good fellow, bah!” Porky snapped fingers
at the shade of Julian. “No good fellow. Can’t carry ’is corn!”

  “Don’t talk to me, you old worn-out cheese rat!” retorted Julian.

  Yes, it was like old times: but the next day, thank God, Willie was coming from Rookhurst.

  *

  The three men set off two mornings later with the spaniels Rusty and Billjohn, to catch the train to Fernbridge Station. Snow had fallen in the night, making impracticable the planned route north by Whitehorse Hill and Cranmere pool to Okehampton. Going across the moor would have avoided all excuse to ruin the walk by midday drinking in pubs; but the snowfall had been too heavy. The plan was changed.

  At the junction they took the train to a station down the line; and alighting, set off along the road to Launceston, arriving late at night, Julian with bruised feet and aching bones. He protested against going on in the morning, but when the others left, he followed. The spaniel Billjohn, unused to walking, had been carried during the last four miles the previous night by Willie.

  They left the main road and struck off across country. It was hard going, up and down and round sunken lanes, and they had had enough when, descending from a ridge lying north and south, they arrived to see lamp-light at the head of a village built down a straight street. At the Union Inn beds were available. Eggs and thick slices of green bacon were soon sizzling in the cast-iron pan on the trivet by the open hearth. The heat made them yawn, they were glad to go to bed. Next morning they started late, owing to the reluctance of Julian to continue. Eventually they got him on his feet, and left Black Torrington at ten o’clock for the last lap to Bideford. Four hours should see them there, provided they kept going.

  Willie’s destination was a fishing village beside the estuary three miles farther on, where they were to say goodbye. He intended to cross by boat and walk across the sandhills and over the hills beyond to his cottage.

  To the surprise of the two cousins, Julian kept going. At 1.30 p.m. they reached the long bridge at Bideford, and went into an hotel. Julian refused to leave until closing time, despite Phillip urging upon him the fact that Willie had nearly another ten miles to go, over difficult country, and the night would be moonless.

  “But must he go?” asked Julian. “This old world won’t fall out of its orbit if the reconstructed ‘Policy of Reconstruction’ is published a day later than intended. And apart from the merits, if any, of such a work, one might quote W. H. Davies, another tramp poet like ourselves. ‘What is this life, If full of care, We have no time to stand and stare’, and so on and so forth. So what’s the hurry, old boy?”

  “I’ve told you, Julian. Willie wants to get to his cottage.”

  “It won’t run away. Another day won’t matter. After all, he hasn’t seen it for four years.”

  “That’s the point. He wants to get there before it’s too dark to find the way.”

  “Then why not stay here for the night?”

  “He wants to get on.”

  “But why, in God’s name?”

  “Don’t you want to finish your book?”

  “In my own time, yes.”

  There was a char-à-banc about to leave for Appledore—an ex-W.D. vehicle fitted with home-made seats knocked up by a couple of ex-officers trying to start a business. It had no hood; when it rained the driver apparently sat under a brolly. Suddenly the engine roared.

  “Well, we’re going. If you don’t want to come, by all means stay here.”

  “You give me a pain, old boy!”

  “That’s nothing to what you give me!”

  Julian followed them to the quay, and climbed up the wooden steps of the char-à-banc. They were cold after the ride.

  “Can’t we go into a pub and get warm?” asked Julian.

  “What about your crossing—do the tides matter, Willie?” asked Phillip.

  The tide was ebbing fast. Willie arranged with a fisherman to sail him across to the Point of Crow, a sandy spit a mile north of the lighthouse, when the press of sea-going water slackened. Far away to the north-east could be seen the dim white line of the Exmoor hills. In mid-estuary a brown ridge of gravel was visible, exposed by the lapsing water.

  “There’s time for a quick look round this place, Julian,” said Willie, “Then I really must get on.”

  “What beats me,” said Julian, “is your pretence of having a mission. Who wants the world to be ‘saved’? Isn’t one H. G. Wells enough, by God? These spiritual poses always collapse on the pretentious writer, who only assumes them to impress others. They have no other validity—if one can call it that, for it is really a personal conceit.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Willie. All he’s saying is that he’s barren and destructive, and can’t bear the idea of anyone else doing what he can’t do—write.”

  “You are a couple of drivellers!” retorted Julian. “Why not admit it? If I am ‘barren and destructive’, at least I try to write of what is happening, on a basis of what is.”

  Phillip began to feel sad at the idea of Willie going on alone to that derelict lime-burner’s cottage. If only he had not made the usual sentimental gesture of inviting Julian, the two of them might have stayed at the cottage, and been to each other the companion both lacked. Ah well, it was too late now. When Willie was gone he would go back to London: life in Drunkards’ Cottage with Julian, he told Willie, would be impossible.

  “Julian imposes on people, Phillip. He is intolerable, his favourite word: you are tolerant to others. You are too good, you know.”

  “I think I’ll go back to London when you’ve gone, Willie.”

  Inquiry at the chemist’s shop revealed that the Bideford-London train, across the estuary, stopped at a station there.

  “Now let’s have a final beer, then I really must get over to the lighthouse. It’s a durned long way to Rats’ Castle,” said Willie.

  They entered the Prince of Wales Inn and drank Bass’s strong brown ale, bottles of which the landlord said he had had in his cellar for some years. After drinking five bottles between them, of which Julian had three, they left.

  Julian was now declaiming Swinburne. Phillip walked ahead with Willie, depressed that the parting had come, and feeling that he could not stand another minute of Julian. As they walked towards the slip where the fisherman was waiting with his boat, a lurcher dog went up to Billjohn and bit the spaniel across the neck. Willie without hesitation lifted the lurcher up by the scruff, and turning to the owner, a young woman, asked if he might drop her dog in the sea; and on being given permission, walked down the slip and quietly put it in the water. Phillip and Julian watched as the lurcher scrambled out, expecting trouble; Willie patted it, and with a bow to the girl, walked back to where they were standing. “I’ll see you on to the ferry to Instow,” he said to Phillip. “Then I’ll sling my hook to Crow.”

  “Why are you going to Instow?” asked Julian, turning to Phillip.

  “I’m going back to London. You can go to the cottage and stay as long as you like, but I’m going back to London.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Julian. “Father bet me I wouldn’t be able to stick a week with you, and no doubt he will be pleased to pay himself a fiver!”

  *

  By the time the train got to Waterloo Phillip had transferred to six different carriages in order to avoid Julian. He ran out of the station, jumped into a taxi, saying, “Liverpool Street main line.” At Chelmsford he spent the night at an hotel. The next morning he rang up Sophy, who brought the Sunbeam and took him to Tollemere.

  “Don’t tell me you have finished the book you went away to write!”

  “Well, as a fact, I went on a walking tour, Sophy. I don’t think it’s quite the time to write such a book.”

  “Ah, I thought you would find that out! ‘Emotion recollected in tranquillity,’ isn’t that the condition for all good writing?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “You need feeding up, my dear. At any rate I can promise you regular meals! Your old room is yours for as long as you
like, and you’re free to come and go as you please. There are fast trains to London if at any time you want to see your agent.”

  “Where’s Queenie?” he asked after luncheon, meaning Annabelle.

  “Both the girls are away, Queenie and Roger are staying with ‘Woppy’s’ people in County Galway, and Annabelle’s in Leicestershire with the Talbots. You met Brian, didn’t you? So you’ll find the place fairly quiet, old man.”

  Sophy, a woman of forty-two years, of whom hitherto he had been as cautious as he had been of Queenie, seemed in the days and weeks that followed to be gentle and meditative like the Annabelle of those rare moments in the past which had impressed her image upon his imagination. Sophy, he came to believe, was a genuine friend. She seemed, too, in some ways, to be younger than Annabelle. Sophy picking violets from the cold frame in the kitchen garden looked like a happy young girl, shy as she spoke to him in a voice low and musical with happiness. He was content, in a quiet sort of negative way. Sophy repeated something she had said in the summer gone by, in a soft voice saying, “One day you will meet someone you will love and want to marry; until then,” and she flushed slightly, “I will look after you, if you would like me to.” Then as she held a bunch of warm wet violets for him to smell, she said, “I think I understand you better now.” Tenderly her fingers worked the violets into his button-hole. “‘Them stinkin’ violets’, as Jorrocks says,” she murmured. “Well, it’s just about the end of the hunting now.”

  There were threads of grey in Sophy’s dark hair. He saw Annabelle in her eyes, but eyes that were soft and so kind.

  “Will you help me feed the ducks, child?”

  “Does the General help you feed the ducks?”

  “Sometimes. Why do you ask?”

  He was ashamed of his question and giving a dissembling answer, was further humiliated when she replied quietly, “Bay is a gentleman.”

  “He’s also very lonely, Sophy.”

  “He’s not the only one.” She held the grain measure in her hand, standing still, a sad look on her face. Then she had recovered, and was smiling at him.