The Golden Virgin

by Henry Williamson

  He left the Bull, and walked round the Recreation Ground, hoping to see there the familiar figure of his friend, hoping that Desmond, seeing him, would respond with their old boyhood whistle.

  He walked round again, and frenzy rose in him as he left the darkening, friendless place that was without a soul.

  *

  Phillip had had little food since breakfast, sixteen hours before; he did not know that his feelings of desolation came from physical exhaustion.

  Trying in vain to control his feelings, he left the dark and silent grounds by the river and hurried to the place which was now more his home than the house of fear where his boyhood had been spent.

  “Freddy, Freddy, you’ve no idea how glad I am to see you! Please have a real drink with me, Freddy!”

  “Are you feeling all right?” asked Freddy. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Give me a quartern of whiskey, Freddy, and have one for yourself.”

  “Never touch it, sir. But I’ll have a gin and peppermint if I may—out of a real bottle this time! Are you sure you want a quartern? Well, you know best,” tittered Freddy. “Only you’ll have to have it in a large glass!”

  Where could he go? To Beau Brickhill? He had no tin of carbide. And there was something about Polly he did not like. Back to Grantham? Blinding through the night up the Great North Road? They would think it strange if he did, and the M.O. might get hauled over the coals. He must find Gene—there might be time before the Gild Hall closed. Swallowing the nauseatingly strong liquid, he went out and to his immense relief saw the figure of Gene getting on a ’bus outside the Cons servative Club. He ran after the ’bus, and holding to the bras-rail, leapt upon the footboard.

  “Thank God I’ve found you, Gene!”

  “I waited for you more than an hour after those two birds had gone home. Where did you get to?”

  Phillip told him, and Gene said, “You should have come back to me. I’ve tentatively fixed up with the girls to have tea next Saturday at my flat.”

  “But they are only kids,” said Phillip, feeling unhappy and reluctant.

  They got off at the Obelisk and Phillip walked with Gene to the junction station. Having seen him on his train to London, he returned by way of Mill Lane to the Hill, and down the gulley to his home, walking on tip-toe through the gate, letting himself in with his key, silently. On hands and knees he went up the stairs, out of habit, and along the passage to his room, feeling hopeless as he undressed and got into bed in the darkness. He heard Mavis in the next room turn on her mattress as though to raise herself on an elbow and listen. He lay still. Oh, why had he gone to Beau Brickhill? Now he had missed his chance of going out to France again; he would miss the Big Push, too; and a decent chance to be killed, and end it all.

  *

  “I’d rather not discuss it, if you don’t mind,” said Desmond the next day, in the yard of his headquarters in Horseferry Road.

  “But Desmond, aren’t we still great friends? Don’t we tell each other everything? What has happened to change our friendship? Won’t you please tell me?”

  “What I said to Lily, or what she said to me, is not your business.”

  “But isn’t it to do with me, when you pointedly get up and leave immediately after you know that I had come into the Bull specially to see you?”

  “Do you remember when I asked you, on the way to Hornchurch, if you were going to allow Helena Rolls to come between us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember the off-hand way you treated my question?”

  “I didn’t mean to be offhand.”

  “Well, you were. In fact, you laughed at my concern for you. Well, the position is now reversed, except that I find no cause for laughter.”

  “But I have not asked you to give up that bird.”

  “Your remark is unfortunate, but quite apart from its bad taste, whatever my friend happens to be is no concern of yours.” Desmond came to attention as a sergeant passed.

  “Well,” said Phillip lamely, “I just thought I’d call and see if you were all right, after your sudden departure last night. How about tonight? Will you be on duty?”

  “No sir,” said Desmond, stiffening to attention again as the sergeant returned. Phillip said, with assumed jocularity, “Stand easy, Sapper Neville. Look here, Des, don’t let’s fall out over nothing. Shall I come down to you after tea? How about going into the country, like the old days? The migrants will be singing now.”

  “I’m meeting Lily tonight, and we are going to the pictures.”

  Concealing this further shock, Phillip said, “I see. Well, I’ll be in Freddy’s about nine, if you call in.”

  “I shall be taking Lily home afterwards.”

  “Then we won’t be seeing one another?”

  “No.”

  “I see,” said Phillip, bleakly. “Well, so long. Have a good time,” and returning Desmond’s salute, he went back to the street and his motor cycle. He felt shaken, and with the roar of London’s iron-wheeled and shod traffic beating on his ears, stood upon the kerb and wondered where he could go to see a friendly face. Gene worked in Charles Mayer’s corset factory, he remembered. Where could he find a directory? He thought of the thick red volume on the shelf in the office of Wine Vaults Lane. He could get there by crossing over Vauxhall Bridge and finding his way behind the wharves along the south bank, to London Bridge. The cobbles were slippery with horse-dung, but with legs splayed for a touch with a boot-sole he could now control skids from the smooth tread of the back tyre. He thudded around drays and lorries, past heavy pairs of horses, and farther on, bales and bales of pressed waste-paper, which someone told him was used for making high explosive. Father took his bundles of Daily Tridents for salvage, so an accumulation of splutterings from the armchair might very well turn into one big bang over the enemy’s lines.

  Mr. Hollis looked up as he came through the glass door of the office and exclaimed, “Good God, look what’s blown in! Where’s the pantomime taking place, eh?” as he stared over his desk at Phillip’s riding boots and spurs. “Seriously, Maddison, I’m most awfully pleased to see you. Where have you sprung from? Machine guns, eh? I thought you fellows who come back from France usually got put on the Staff! Well, it’s a good war for some people, full salary plus pay. Look at Downham, a blooming major, though he’s never left England, second in command of a cyclist’s battalion, wears boots and spurs like you, though what the deuce a bicyclist wants spurs for, beats me.”

  The door opened above the lead-sheathed stairs, and the familiar slow steps of the manager began to flap down.

  “Howlett, guess who’s here? Puss in boots, having mistaken the date of the Lord Mayor’s Show. Yes, our one and only comic genius, Maddison!”

  Phillip did not mind Mr. Hollis’ banter, he was rather pleased to be thought worthy of his senior’s regard; while the face of Mr. Howlett beamed as usual, as though very glad to see him.

  Phillip found Gene’s address, and saying goodbye to Mr. Hollis, walked with a feeling of happiness down Aldgate to Houndsditch, where he was directed to the factory.

  There he was shown up some wooden stairs, and came upon Gene with stylograph and long ruled book writing down numbers called monotonously by a yellow-faced Jewish boy who was turning over and examining one large pink-paper packet after another in a huge pile on the floor, reading the labels, and then transferring the parcels to another pile on the floor.

  “Hullo, old thing,” said Gene, getting up. “All right, Morris, I shan’t want you for a few minutes.” The yellow-faced youth went away. “I’m stocktaking. I’m damned glad to see you; my stock will go up when the manager hears my friend, Lieutenant Maddison, has come to see me.”

  “Where will it go to?” laughed Phillip, thinking of a Bairns father cartoon, Our stock has gone up since a visit of Herr Krupp & Co.,—hundreds of tins of plum and apple jam flying up under a shell-burst. “Oh, it’s only a joke. I say, how about some lunch? Can you manage it?”<
br />
  “I’m off in fifteen minutes. D’you mind waiting? No smoking by the way, warehouse rules. Are you on for Saturday?”

  “Well, let’s talk about it later. I think I’ll wait outside, crowds amuse me, Gene.” The sight of so many piled pink corsets was depressing.

  Phillip had been in the London Tavern once before; now he was surprised to see many dark faces, obviously Jews, among the business men of the Lanes, some of them still wearing top hats, their faces not quite so beefy, as before the war. But steaks were still being grilled over the chef’s open charcoal fire. Gene, invited to say what he would have, after careful scrutiny of the menu, chose smoked salmon, to be followed by an underdone rump steak with fried potatoes, asparagus, watercress, and mushrooms. Asked if he would like some beer with it, he said that steak, underdone, should be eaten only with claret, and chose a bottle of 1904 Chateau Lafite. A little amused by his expensive tastes, but not put out, Phillip decided to economise by having boiled mutton with caper sauce, potatoes and mashed turnips, the cheapest dish on the card.

  “I’m surprised at you, Phil,” remarked Eugene. “You’re not taking advantage of the cuisiniere here, by having the equivalent of a cut off the joint and two veg., as in any small pub. By the way, before I forget, would you lend me a pound? I’m rather low at the moment.”

  “By all means, dear old boy,” replied Phillip, taking out his wallet. “Anything to help a pal.”

  After treacle tart Gene ordered toasted cheese; this was followed by two glasses of port each, and black coffee with brandy, and long cigars; by which time Gene was saying that before he went back to Brazil after the war and opened up an import business, he intended to put a Patent Improved Corset on the market; and if Old Phil would swear to keep the secret he would tell him what the Eugene Goulart Improved Corset would consist of.

  “Swear? Honour bright? Well, it is simple I use rubber instead of whalebone, to serve a three-fold purpose: one, to enable the skirt of the corset to sit higher up on the rump, two, to give a more svelte line for the figure, three, to enable the Nip of Admiration to be given without fear of fouling the hard marginal line of the ordinary common or garden corset.”

  “You’re rotting!” cried Phillip, when he had finished laughing at Gene’s solemn absurdity.

  “On the contrary, I am entirely serious, my dear old Phil. In my country the girls are very proud of their figures, and it is considered a compliment to put your hand on the behind of a belle you admire, with a sliding caress, of course, and nip her flesh, gently but firmly. It must be done in the right spot, not too low down, but by the point of hip. C.M. corsets cover that vital spot, and I have a theory that most Englishwomen remain cold because they have not been worked up properly before they settle down to dull domesticity!”

  Phillip thought this extremely funny.

  “Why does it seem funny to you? One does it to a horse or a steer, and one gets an immediate response of gratitude. What are women but animals, or mammals if you like? Of course, I grant you that what is natural to women of the sun would seem only impertinence to the majority of those with frosty souls and complexions in this northern country.”

  “Well, don’t let the manager of the Gild Hall see you pinching the behinds of flappers there!”

  “One does not pinch green bananas to see if they are ripe, senhor! You may laugh, but I am perfectly serious! If I found myself in a crowd coming out of, say, Piccadilly Circus Underground, and stood next to a beautiful Englishwoman in the lift, and paid her a compliment due to the female form divine, what would she do? Accept it as a tribute from a senhor whose grandfather was a general in the Brazilian Army? Not on your life! She’d shriek with indignation, and give me in charge! The average Englishwoman is frigid, a Puritan! It is the raw, foggy climate over here, most of the year. In South America we have the sun, we are alive, we haven’t the love-taboos that you have!”

  Gene stuck his cigar in his mouth, and frowning through his eyeglass, sucked thoughtfully. Then he said, “Did I ever show you the photograph of my mother’s father, the general who saved Brazil from revolution?”

  “I don’t think you did,” replied Phillip. “But don’t you have rather a lot of revolutions in Brazil?”

  “You are thinking of Mexico, maybe,” said Gene, as he fumbled in his pocket book, to bring out a dog-eared photograph of a round-faced little fat man with terrific moustaches and staring eyes, rows of medals and plumed hat and sword and spurs with rowels like Catherine wheels.

  “That is my grandfather, Eugene Roberto Franco Carlo Goulart Bolivar——”

  “No wonder he looks bowed down by some weight,” cried Phillip, unable to control his laughter at Gene’s big-cigar pride in the ridiculous pot-bellied figure.

  “If you spoke like that anywhere in Brazil,” retorted Gene, “You would have had a knife in your ribs by now. We Brazilians are very proud of our national heroes.”

  “Have another brandy, old boy, then you can put a pistol to my head as well as the knife in my ribs.”

  “No thanks. I must be getting back. I mustn’t keep my staff waiting.”

  “You sound like a general.”

  “I am the equivalent just now, being in charge while the manager is away. My father is a great friend of Charley Mayer, you know.”

  “Well, on with the corsets,” said Phillip, rising. “I suppose you don’t make bullet proof vests as well? I’ve seen advertisements of them somewhere. Not that I want one. I just wondered.”

  “Good God no! We’re C.M. Corsets, we’re the leading house in the trade!”

  The bill having been settled by Phillip, Gene asked him to walk back with him, saying ingenuously, “I want my staff to see the friend I’ve told them about, Lieutenant Maddison.”

  “Well, I’m not much to talk about——”

  “You’re an officer, and you’ve been to the front, and I want them to see me with you.”

  Phillip walked with Gene to the factory, and prepared to say goodbye to him outside, where several tallow-faced girls and youths stared silently.

  “Well old man,” said Gene (who had hidden the eyeglass as they approached, Phillip noticed), “I’ll be seeing you on Saturday at the flat, at half past three, if I don’t see you again before then? If those birds don’t turn up, it doesn’t matter; you and I can easily find two more. Well, so long!”

  Phillip saluted Gene, and turning away, took a taxicab to Liverpool Street Station, where he had left his motor cycle. There being nothing else to do, he went home, changed into plain clothes, and went for a walk on the Hill, longing to see Mrs. Neville, but not daring to call at the flat, in case she, too, had turned against him.

  *

  When he went down for early tea with his mother, she said, “I suppose you won’t be here next Saturday, will you, Phillip? You have not forgotten what that day is, have you?”

  “Oh no. Sometimes I wish I had not lived to see it.”

  “You are run down, dear, I can see that. Is anything the matter, anything serious? If you feel you cannot tell me, why not confide in your father? He complains that you never seem to want to tell him anything. And after all, he is your father.”

  “My parent would be a truer description of him. He said to me once, ‘Why can’t you be like other boys?’ when the answer was, ‘Why can’t you be like other fathers’, only of course the wretched, fearful, furtive little rat that I was then could not reply like that: only by tears from a hanged head. What sort of confidence did he ever inspire in anyone? You know that he’s critical, prejudiced, and dictatorial. I can feel it, even when he says nothing to me.”

  “Well, you must see that you don’t grow like that yourself, dear.”

  “Oh do stop dealing me, Mother! I am nearly twenty-one, and have my own life now.”

  “Yes Phillip, of course. By the way, what would you like for your birthday present? Your father and I——”

  “Nothing, really, thank you.”

  “It’s a special occasion, you kno
w. If you think nothing of it now, you will later on in life, when you are the father of a family yourself, perhaps——”

  “I shall never marry, Mother, so please don’t talk like that. It’s kind of you to suggest a present, and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, so would a signet ring be all right? A gold one. Not with a stone in it, but all gold. Some of the officers wear them. With a crest. There is a Maddison crest, isn’t there?”

  “I think that is a very good choice, Phillip. Grandpa also suggested giving you a ring, but thought that Father might like to suggest it first. So Grandpa and I thought of a silver cigarette case, with the date and your initials on it, if you would like that, of course.”

  “Yes, I would, thank you. I suppose I could not have the crest on that, too? It could be copied from the spoons and forks of the plate in Father’s box.”

  Hetty said she would ask his father when he came home. Richard said promptly that he had no licence to display armorial bearings, so it would not be right to have the crest engraved on the cigarette case. “Moreover, I consider it to be a waste of money to take one out now, under the conditions in which we live, not to mention the economies we all should practice in war time. An annual licence used to be a guinea, it may have gone up since my young days. Anyway, what does Master Phillip want a crest for?”

  “Some of the other officers have them, apparently, Dickie.”

  “Yes, and they are probably entitled to them. I am not. I consider now that I belong to the lower middle class, and crests and coat-armour have no part in the life we lead, in so far as I am concerned. To want to revive them now, would be pretentious.”

  Later Richard said to Phillip. “Oh, by the way, your mother and I have been talking about your coming-of-age. I don’t know if you will be here for the occasion, but anyway, we thought of giving you, jointly, a signet ring, with a monogram of your initials on it. What do you think?”