The Phoenix Generation

by Henry Williamson

  She told him that the magician was quite a figure in the district: in fact Mr. Gotobed Thurtle, said Penelope, was an Institution by himself. He was said to be any age between seventy five and ninety. Mr. Gotobed Thurtle, who liked to be called Professor, had shown off his tricks to children who were now grandparents. Years before the Great War, indeed before the South African War, the Professor was said to have been a professional mourning mute at funerals in Yarwich, wearing the same frock-coat, but with a band of crêpe six inches deep around his top hat.

  Penelope smiled brightly. She was a social girl again, infected by uneasiness at the sight of so many starched nannies, symbol of all that from which she had run away. She said with extra gaiety, “What do you think of Felicity’s new job? Didn’t you know? She’s secretary to Captain Runnymeade. To help him write his memoirs, or something like that. She tells me she’s rented a cottage in Staithe, and her mother is coming to live with her and Edward.” She added, “Brother Laurence, I understand, is returning to the Congo.” She looked at him. “Do you always tand like that at parties, when you are nervous?”

  “Am I nervous?”

  “You are always nervous, but sometimes more so than at others.”

  Phillip was standing on his right leg, the foot at right-angles to that of the left leg, while the weight of his head was supported on the palm of his right hand, the elbow of which was held by the other hand: an angular figure, square shouldered, looking as though he had been drawn by a T-square, with something of the heron about him.

  “Aren’t you going to talk to Melissa?”

  “I’m not sure she wants to see me.”

  “So that’s why you’re twisting yourself into a geometrical pattern.’’

  “Or go back into my crystal pattern.” To change the subject he said, “What do you think of ‘Boy’ Runnymeade? I can never feel quite certain about him.”

  “He’s our host,” she said promptly. “Did you see the Painted Ladies as you came along? There were clouds of them on the hedge. Some got in my radiator.”

  “Yes, I saw them. My father would have been excited—butterflies were his passion when a young man.”

  He thought that he had neglected his father: he had seen him only twice since his mother’s death nearly three years before.

  Polite goodbyes were being said, with varied phrases of gratitude, to Stefania Rozwitz standing beside Captain Runnymeade at the postern gate. As Phillip said goodbye, Runnymeade said, “You are expected for dinner tonight, ‘Farm Boy’. We’ll meet at the Frigate Inn for a drink at seven o’clock. Riversmill, the horse painter, is coming, and others.”

  Outside in the lane Melissa was talking to the children. He met the glance of her eyes lifted to his, and impulsively took her hand, and feeling its clasp knew that nothing had come between them. And it seemed on the way home that the Silver Eagle had never run so well, that the children had never looked so free, so gay, so light-hearted.

  *

  “Runnymeade has asked me back to dinner at the Frigate Inn, Lucy. Riversmill the painter is coming, and also George Burper the Punch artist, and his wife. Melissa will be there, too.”

  “I am so glad. You go and enjoy yourself. You deserve some relaxation after all you’ve done.”

  “What about you? I never seem to think of you, do I?”

  “You are doing so now,” replied Lucy. “I shall be perfectly happy here with the children.”

  “You once said they were all your life, d’you remember?”

  Lucy’s cheeks coloured, and she smiled an unsteady smile at Phillip. “I’m here, if ever you want me. If you are happy, that is all that matters to me.”

  “Illusion rules us all, but not you, Lucy. So while I rush back again, you remain content with the children.”

  “Oh, you’re all right,” she said, with a half laugh. “Now go you back, my man, and enjoy yourself.”

  “I am a bit of a cad, aren’t I? Be honest, now.”

  “I don’t think so,” she replied cheerfully. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself, that’s all. But you won’t do that with Melissa. Give her my love, I’m very fond of her, you know.” She added, “Have you seen the paper today? Apparently tonight there’s to be, all along this coast, a trial black-out.”

  He picked up the Crusader. Motorists were asked not to use their headlights after 10 p.m. It was not a precautionary measure, but only a routine practice for Anti-aircraft Command.

  “Wind up. Well, I’ll be off. Don’t wait up for me. Goodnight, everyone.”

  “Goodnight,” they cried, and Lucy said, “Don’t let Captain Runnymeade ply you with too much ‘hospitality’.”

  *

  Back once more along the winding coast road, passing fields of sugar-beet and barley, all with fallen or broken gates; through the back road of the decayed little town with its silted-up port; round bends between marshes and a walled park from which strayed, every hundred yards or so, a wild pheasant: the demesne wall of a park built in another century by one who had called himself Giant Despair, not because he had taken on work beyond his strength, but because it was beyond his hope when he had found himself with a wastrel son and heir who cared nothing for that work. Through the drab and faded villages, round lanes of overgrown hedges, by a water-mill rising tall above a narrow bridge where-under flowed a stream fast and deep. This was a place to stop by, and leaning over, to peer for trout in the eddies of the tail-race. He looked down into the water out of habit from past days when the mind had been free to find interest and refreshment in running water: then on his way.

  Arriving at the Frigate Inn, he left the motorcar in the yard, and went to the place marked Gentlemen; and leaving there, thought to enter by the back way to the parlour wherein Captain Runnymeade usually met his guests, a room reserved for his sole use. The door to that room was not properly closed, and peering through the space he saw the side-whiskered face of George Burper, whom he had met once before, his gentle wife beside him; and there too was Riversmill the painter, neat of figure, small of face and head, Riversmill whose mordant wit and tremendous enthusiasm always gave Phillip a feeling of wildness.

  Talking to Riversmill was another figure out of the 18th century, a stout figure in riding boots of black leather that ended halfway up the massive calves of legs in tight breeches of white moleskin giving him the appearance of a postillion. The red-faced figure wore a dark hacking-jacket of West of England cloth with high lapels, over which foamed a large white cravat.

  And Melissa. Her poise of head and grace of movement calmed the wildness, as though all dross and fatigue were lifted from himself. She wore slacks of dark blue material, the trousers tapering from her thighs down to her ankles, with a suggestion of peg-top. Without a hat, and wearing a pale blue jumper, she was more beautiful than before.

  “They’re expecting you,” said a voice behind him. In the passage stood a buxom smiling woman. “It’s the Captain’s birthday, you are just in time to drink his health.”

  “Who is the sporting chap in riding kit?” he asked. He thought she must be the cook, or someone of that station, when she replied, “Surely you know? Why, that’s Mr. Valentine Sharkey! You must have heard of him? You haven’t? Oh, you’re new in this district. Well then, that’s Mr. Valentine Sharkey of Sharkey’s Riding Academy. I thought that everyone had heard of Mr. Sharkey’s Riding Academy. Why, he and his father and grandfather, and his father, too, have taught children here to ride for the last hundred and fifty years.”

  “He sounds quite a local worthy. By the way, will my car be in the way where it is?”

  “Of course it won’t be. Besides, no motor of a friend of the Captain’s could ever possibly be in the way.”

  He went down the passage and got a boisterous greeting from Riversmill. “Here he is!”

  “Ah, ‘Farm Boy’,” said Captain Runnymeade, remaining seated in his armchair, on one arm of which sat Melissa. “Just in time to give us your opinion on a matter of some importance to our good friend
Mr. Valentine Sharkey here. Mr. Sharkey is a very famous man. This is Mr. Maddison, Mr. Sharkey.”

  Phillip said how d’you do to Riversmill, his wife, and Stefania, leaving Melissa to the last.

  Captain Runnymeade went on, “Mr. Valentine Sharkey is the fourth of his dynasty, all of them, judging by their daguerreotypes and photographs on the wall over there——” he jerked a thumb at an oblong frame with four figures in riding clothes and exactly alike—“all with hearts of oak like Mr. Valentine Sharkey the Fifth standing in the flesh before us.”

  “That’s right,” said the horsey figure, looking extremely solemn.

  “Fill your glass, Mr. Sharkey!” ‘Boy’ Runnymeade leaned over Melissa. “I’ll ring for Mabel. Ah, Mabel, just in time. Bring the same again, Mabel, will you, please? Mabel is my best friend, aren’t you, Mabel?” Without heeding Mabel’s reply, he turned to Phillip saying, “You’re a man of ink, ‘Farm Boy’, so apply your vast knowledge of Fleet Street publicity to Mr. Sharkey’s problem. It is a very serious problem, isn’t it, Mr. Sharkey?”

  “It is indeed, Capting.”

  “Stated simply, it is this. Should Mr. Sharkey change the name of his riding school, for over a century known as”—the voice pronounced the words slowly—“‘Sharkey’s Riding Academy, Livery and Bait’—into ‘The Staithe Guest House and Riding School’—or should he not?”

  “That’s it, in a nut-shell,” announced Mr. Sharkey.

  “It is a very important matter, Maddison, for Mr. Sharkey does not want his forebears up there to turn in their graves, do you, Mr. Sharkey?”

  “Too true, Capting.”

  Phillip, discomposed by Runnymeade’s drawly, semi-patronising manner, and conscious of both Melissa and Stefania looking at him, said, “Why not have both? The Guest House on the board by the gate and the old style by the stables.”

  “Bravo,” cried Riversmill. “Keep to tradition, and you can’t go wrong! It’s the same with all this formless rubbish spreading through the world in the name of Art. Look at Epstein, the sculptor. Look at——”

  “Don’t start off again on that line,” said his wife, shortly.

  “And don’t you start off on me,” replied Riversmill.

  Runnymeade, waving a hand, said, “Tell us about your pal Birkin, ‘Farm Boy’. I understand he’s now saying, ‘No war for Warsaw’.”

  Stefania Rozwitz, sitting on a straight-back chair the wrong way round, so that Runnymeade was behind her, cried out in a deep voice, “Don’t be a damned fool, ‘Boy’.”

  Phillip saw Runnymeade patting Melissa’s knee. Was Stefania jealous, he wondered. He decided that she didn’t care. Hairs were growing on her chin.

  Soon afterwards Mabel came in with a magnum of champagne. She was followed by her sister, a woman thin and retiringly modest as Mabel was stout and jolly.

  “It’s the Captain’s birthday,” she said. “I want you all to drink his health with my sister and I.”

  “Mabel,” said Runnymeade, “How can you expect me to take advantage of your great hospitality. However, as your very old friend, I intend to take advantage of it.”

  He remained seated when they drank his health, and in reply, proposed “Mabel and Maude, my oldest friends,” sipping the wine but not drinking any. Phillip remembered what an old soak in the A.S.G. had once told him in 1916, never mix malt and vine.

  “I haven’t forgot you, Captain,” said Mabel, bringing him an exceptionally tall tumbler of cut-glass holding half a pint of amber liquid. “I’ve got your special birthday drink.” To Phillip, she explained with pride, “The Captain has it once a year. It’s a real tumbler, very old. See, the bottom is round, so that it can’t be stood up.”

  Runnymeade took the tumbler and drank the contents right off.

  “Now Captain,” said Mabel, “that is the last you will take tonight. Promise me?”

  “Well, ladies and gentlemen,” said Mr. Sharkey, picking up his curly-brimmed bowler, “I must be off. Thank you, Capting, for a most enjoyable evening.”

  “Au revoir,” said Runnymeade, lifting a hand like a signal as he stared glowingly before him.

  *

  Four men and four women walking down the lane from the inn to the cottage on the edge of the marsh. A low sun casting long shadows before them on the yellow dust of the road. The wonder of evening, the close of a perfect summer day. Desmond and he walking side by side long ago, the last summer of the old world. Slanting evening sun upon the Hillies. Boys and girls sauntering through the green twilight of evening. Great box kites being hauled in. From afar a gentle singing in harmony, We were sailing along, on Moonlight Bay.

  Keep it going boys, your race is nearly run-

  ‘Boy’ Runnymeade was happy. He was a host to artists, he was living in the timeless present, he spoke seldom, his face had a pink flush, his eyes glistened.

  The dining-room was studded with sunset shells gathered upon the sea-shore and set in pattern on the wall above the sideboard where gold plate was displayed.

  “A simple little dinner,” he said, “Sit down anywhere,” as they followed Stefania’s wishes where they should sit.

  Rippingall moved with genial aloofness, serving food and wine. He looked happy; he was devoted to ‘the Captain’. He had cooked the sea-trout, caught in a longshore net in the gravel scours off the little harbour mouth. Grouse from Blubberhouses in Yorkshire. Dark red flesh, the essence of heather-tips, dark red wine, essence of limestone, sun, and tawny terraced soil above the Garonne. Bilberry tart, yellow crusty cream from Jersey cow. Mushrooms on toast. Fortune apples which must be eaten while a dry champagne is sipped, for champagne should never be drunk with anything but fruit.

  ‘Boy’ had eaten only cold bacon, drunk only whisky and soda. Edwardian splendour in fact and spirit.

  How far I have travelled since my moon-calf days of the spring and summer of 1914, in that dark little office in Wine Vaults Lane.

  By the time the port was on the table the guests were of a homogeneous happiness. Black-coated, yellow-waistcoat’d, cravat’d George Burper speaking across the table in his mild voice, sharing a gentleness of sensibility with his wife. Painter Riversmill on his feet reciting two of his ballads. When the cheering was over, George Burper saying, “You must print your ballads, Fred, before they’re lost. They are very fine indeed.”

  “How you do it, beats me,” cried Runnymeade. He waved an arm.

  “Painters usually make good writers, ‘Horse Boy’,” said Phillip. “They have the gift of sight, which is also the basis of good literary style.”

  ‘Boy’ Runnymeade, with a heavy smile, became agent-provocateur. “Tell us what is the position with the art-dealers and modern art, you Horse Painter. Let’s have something from the horse’s mouth.”

  Up rose Riversmill like a fighting Suffolk cock-partridge, churr-wocking against the oriental beaky fowls of art-dealers who bought and stored the pictures of rootless daubers who had neither sense of colour, skill in drawing, idea or form, until by agreement the racket operated, the critics were bought, and a sale arranged by which one painting was bid for by the ring and sold for a high price. Then the dealers unloaded and cashed-in.

  To this outburst Runnymeade, playing his part, cried “Damn it all, Fred, critics and dealers must live, like anybody else,” and so drew from the partridge cock what he wanted: an explosion of head, wings, body, and tail in the face of the imagined oriental vulture.

  “By God, you damned ignoramusses can laugh! You think it’s funny that these swine are ruining our English culture. That these rootless parasites who worship only the Golden Calf, control British painting. To hell with them all!”

  Riversmill’s hair shook with his roared-out rage. His wife pulled him down on his chair by his coat-tails.

  “You’re making a dam’ fool of yourself, and you know it!”

  “Not so much a fool as you’ve made of me since I married you!” yelled Riversmill, bobbing up to get on with his tirade.

  “I told
you to shut up,” said his wife, pulling him down again.

  Yet again on his feet, arms mixed-up railway signals, the painter let fly. All the four-letter Anglo-Saxon words flew into the air. Those around the table rolled about, helpless with laughter. The painter’s arms became erratic windmills. His hair stood up and fell down as his head jerked about in abandoned rage. Then with arms upheld he finally bawled, “I hope Hitler bombs the bloody lot of them! Before the blasted swine destroys our culture based on the Greek ideal of the beauty of the human mind and form!”

  “Don’t take any notice of him,” said Mrs. Riversmill. “When he’s drunk he never knows what he’s saying.”

  “You’ve never known a word of what I was saying,” cried Riversmill.

  “This is a party,” chortled ‘Boy’ Runnymeade, tipping his glass. “By God, this is a party. ‘Farm Boy’, tell us about your friend Mr. Schicklgruber. It is true that his father had Jewish blood, so that the family name was changed to Witler, or Squitler or something?”

  “Leave ‘Farm Boy’ alone, ‘Boy’,” growled Stefania, “and shut up.”

  “Shut up yourself!” yelled Riversmill, glaring at his wife.

  “I didn’t speak, you idiot!”

  “Idiot yourself!”

  “If I hadn’t looked after your money for you, you’d have thrown it all away by now, and would be lying in the gutter, you ranting fool.”

  “Oh ho ho, ho ho!” cried ‘Boy’ Runnymeade, as he drew up his sagging torso and wiped his eyes, gasping with the effects of much laughter.

  Phillip had not laughed so much for years. Only Melissa had not laughed as the others had laughed: she had smiled, a self-possessed sprite now in pale blue summery frock. She was watching Phillip. She had never before seen him laugh like that. She wanted to dance, to throw her arms round him, to hide her face against his chest, and rest, rest, rest.

  *

  Rippingall came in with the coffee. “Brother Laurence is waiting, sir.”