The bottle-bird laid up to sixteen eggs, so she would not miss one; and wrapping it carefully in his handkerchief, Phillip climbed the hedge of the bosch in which it was verboden tee gaan, and hurried to the entrance of the convent d’Ursulines.
Seeing no bell pull, he opened the church-like door and crept inside. A nun came forward, her hands clasped.
“Ah,” she said softly, looking down at him. “You must be Hetty’s boy. Your Mother is upstairs, if you will come with me.”
Cap in hand, Phillip went beside her up some stone steps, an in-church expression on his face. He passed a room with an open door in which many girls in dark uniforms like Mavis’ were sitting. They all had white starched collars like boy’s collars, and white cuffs over their wrists, as he saw in a swift glance.
They went into a room of white walls, on one of which was an altar with Virgin and Child. Before it a candle burned, newly lighted. Mother was standing there, with a very old nun with a silver chain and rosary hanging before her, on her robes. She had an old sweet face.
“Ah,” she said, in the same sort of soft voice, “here is your son, my child,” to Mother, and as she said it, Phillip felt that the old nun really did look on her as a child.
Mother was smiling. She said, “Oh yes, here he is! This is my little boy, Mère Ambroisine.”
The Mother Superior looked at him, and took his hand between her own soft, pink, wrinkled hands. Then another nun, with a larger kind of headdress, came forward, and he was introduced to her. She was shorter than the Mother Superior, with a fatter face, and a more jolly expression.
“I knew your Mamma when she was a very little girl,” she whispered, smiling and bobbing her starched white head-dress.
“Are you all right, Phillip?” asked Mother, in a very soft voice.
“Yes, thank you, Mamma,” replied Phillip, as softly, feeling that he was part of his song In the Cathedral, in a calm holy feeling, red sunset streaming … a choir-boy’s surplice over him, white and clean. Mère Ambroisine looked at him steadily, a smile on her lips. Phillip looked up at Mère Ambroisine, feeling that she was a wonderful person, rather like Grannie, but Grannie was always back, somewhere, while Mère Ambroisine was forward. He felt himself to be rain-drop clear.
“Your son is a good boy, my child,” said Mère Ambroisine, gently, smiling at Mother. “He will be a good man. I can see it in his face. He has your look, my child.”
“Oh yes, he is a very good boy, really,” said Mother, with a faraway little laugh. Phillip felt good as he looked up at the Mother Superior and smiled, feeling that when he had not been good, it was not really himself. Then Mavis came in, and hugged Mummie. Phillip saw that she had tears in her eyes.
*
Mavis was very nearly like her mother in temperament; but less unselfish, less broad in her complete submission to life. Mavis lived in a world of dreams; all her love flowed to her mother, and to her home. She saw her home as a lovely place; in her mind she went for walks on the Hill, which was ever in sunlight, birds singing in the trees and bushes, the grass green; her Father was the warm, safe Dads he had been before he had said to her, “I do not love you”; but she trembled whenever she thought of that time, and a heaviness filled her, until her mind turned away to Mother; and her love, tremulous and desperate, flowed again to the place of her home. So she prayed much at the convent, and dreamed of her house, always in sunshine; and hoped that always her mother would be happy as she worked religious texts with silken threads upon perforated white cardboard—always for Mummie.
*
Phillip thought that the convent was huge, with a church, and many large rooms and salles à manger. More rooms they passed had girls in them, all in black with white collars outside their uniforms, black bows at the throat, and white cuffs. Phillip kept his eyes on the ground, or anywhere but at the faces, to show how good and polite he was.
Mavis came back with them to Anvers. There was half an hour before déjeuner, and Gran’pa suggested they should take a walk and see the prison.
“The outside, only, of course, he-he-he!” Joseph added his haw-haw laugh. His eyes were always bright and kind, but oh, what a fool he was!
Suddenly Phillip decided to run away. When they were not looking, he went round a corner, and walked on straight down the street. The feeling drew him on, to hurt himself and Mother. He wanted to be alone, to feel as he had felt when in the wood, and when Mère Ambroisine was touching his head. He wanted to be alone with the sad but happy feeling. He crossed the road, and the rails of steam-trams, and went on towards a broad river he saw a long way in front of him. When he got there he saw it was a muddy colour, like the Thames at Greenwich. Steamships were moored along its docks, and tugs with high big bows were pressing against the tide, parting the waters and leaving creamy wakes behind them. Seagulls flew crying, seeming smaller than those at Hayling Island. They had black caps, and pink legs, and screamed more shrilly than herring gulls.
He walked down by the Scheldt, and came to a large covered shed, with open sides, extending for two hundred yards at least beside the quay. Old women were brushing something with long-handled brooms, in front. When he got nearer he saw that they were brushing the hides of bullocks, to which the tails and part of the leg-skin were still attached. There were stacks and stacks of hides. He did not connect these hides with the Geography he learnt at school, since there was no connection in his mind between the classroom and his life outside.
In the next shed were many motorcycles in rows, fixed inside wooden crates. They were painted dark green, and the letters F.N. on their tanks instantly made him think of Uncle Charley. A label tacked to one crate had written on the card, Capricorn Importers, Ltd., Cape Town, Sud Afrique. That was Uncle Charley’s company! He wanted to rush up to a group of men in peaked caps and tell them the staggering news. They were going to his Uncle! His other Uncle, and their father Mr. Turney, was at that moment at the Golden Lion!
The great news made him run back the way he had come. He missed a turning, and thought he was lost. Fear struck into him. Never to see Mother again! He had only pretended to want to be lost before; now it was real. In his mind he saw Mother’s face, and her sad smile. When she had lost anything, she always prayed to Saint Anthony. Phillip now prayed, asking to be shown the way to the Lion d’Or. There it was in front of him, but on the wrong side of the road he had imagined it to be.
He promised not to go for a walk by himself again, Mother saying that he was Gran’pa’s guest, and had kept the meal waiting. She said he would have to go without his soup; but Gran’pa said there was no need for that, the lunch was prix fixé, and he might as well have what would have to be paid for anyway, he-he-he. Then Phillip told them about the motorbikes, feeling that his news in a way made up for his lateness.
“I only hope Charley has got customers for them, and isn’t only speculating,” said Gran’pa. “And why does he choose this moment to go to New York, for a holiday? He should be attending to his business in South Africa.”
Uncle Joey said, “I suggest that we reserve judgment until we learn the facts, sir, and until then give Charley the benefit of the doubt.”
Mother said, with a smile at Petal, “Oh, I am sure Charley knows what he is doing, Papa.”
At this Gran’pa said, as he poured out some red wine for himself, his napkin tucked into the top of his waistcoat, “Well then, you are surer than I am, Hetty my girl, he-he-he.”
Petal and Mavis went back with them to Brussels. The next day they all went to watch the ice-skating from a gallery above a large rectangular rink, the place brilliant with electric light. Two string bands played in turn, one at either end of the gallery. Girls in white dresses waltzed below. Phillip recognised one of the tunes from the old Polyphone records in the front room at home. It was the Skaters’ Waltz. They were very graceful, said Mother, and how she would like to skate again. Had she ever skated? asked Phillip, much surprised.
“Of course I have, Phillip. Everyone learned t
o skate when I was a girl, and what fun it was, too. Ah well, when you have a little family, you see, you have no time for such things.”
“Did Father skate, too?”
“Yes, dear, but not with me. You see, I did not know him then.”
“I shouldn’t think so, either,” he muttered, with a shrug.
“Hush, dear,” she whispered, glancing at Gran’pa, sitting with Uncle Joey at the next table. “Do listen to the music, Phillip, isn’t it lovely?”
He thought it was; so was the confiserie. Much nicer than cakes in England; full of cream, and other luscious things, too. The patisserie shops were simply crammed with wonderful cakes. You went into one, took a fork and plate, helped yourself, and paid at the desk, then ate them standing up. One thing good about Gran’pa was that he provided plenty of pocket money. Good old Gramps, whatever Father said about him being a Turney! But then Gran’pa had a lot of money, compared with poor old Father, who entered up every ha’penny he spent in his diary at night, before locking it up again in his desk.
There were electric theatres, too, where films—Petal called them fillums—were shown, the same sort to be seen at home. Only some of the kinemas here—as the Magister of his school said they should be called from the Greek word—were named High Life, pronounced Hee Leef. They went to one, and saw the Mack Sennett Bathing Belles, and a French film in which men were constantly popping in and out of bedrooms, firing guns, falling into water-tubs, and turning hoses on frightfully funny gendarmes. One man fell off the Eiffel Tower, and splashed into the Seine; and then seeing a police launch approaching, fell all the way up again to the top of the tower. Could they have wound him up, all the way back, on an invisible wire? It was screamingly funny, and Phillip laughed all the louder to hide the fact that in the darkness his hand was resting on Petal’s warm knee. He glowed all over with the warmth of her wonderful knee.
He walked back to the Avenue Louise arm in arm with her, Mavis on his other arm; and Hetty walking arm-in-arm with Papa and Joey behind said she was so glad to see him, Phillip, coming out of himself, that was what he needed, to see the wider world. It was just like old times. Dear Papa, no one could have a better father! Then, in loyalty to Dickie, she thought that he, too, needed at times to be taken out of his cramped surroundings. Dear Dickie, so concerned for the good of his little family.
*
Phillip was sorry to be going back, sorry to have to say goodbye to Mavis, who had been quite different from what she was at home. He felt glad to have such a nice sister. He was almost proud of her, and Petal too. Uncle Joey was quite nice when you came to know him. School in five days! Ah, but the English spring was there, waiting for him! Also, he would be seeing Desmond.
Phillip had had no thought of Helena Rolls during his visit abroad.
It was a rough crossing. He was sick; and Mother was sick as well. Gran’pa said at Dover that there must have been a headwind in the Atlantic, and Charley and Flo had probably had a shaking aboard the new White Star liner anyway, as it was out for the Blue Riband.
In the train, feeling better, Phillip took out the pillbox (Mother never travelled without her little liver pills) in which, nestled in cotton-wool, lay the Belgian long-tailed tit’s egg. No one else at school in the holidays would have got such a rare specimen!
At Victoria, when they got out of the train, a newsboy was shouting something as he ran along the platform. Many people were buying papers. Feeling the pill-box in his pocket, Phillip thought that the egg would be a memento of the holiday all his life.
“Hi, boy!” cried Gran’pa beside him, “A paper!” Then Gran’pa said, “Good God, Hetty! Joey! Charley! My boy!—my boy!!
Phillip looked at the newsbill, and saw, in big red letters, the words
TITANIC
SUNK
It was a sad journey home. When they got back, a wireless telegram awaited Thomas Turney. Charley and Flo had missed the White Star boat at Southampton, and had travelled on a Canadian Pacific boat.
“He-he!” Gran’pa wheezed in laughter. “Charley, I always said, would be late for his own funeral!”
Chapter 29
GHOSTS
THE derringer pistol remained for months in the pawnshop window. Bob, Uncle Hugh’s man, said he had lost the silver cigarette box. Phillip knew that he had really stolen it, but said nothing, as he knew Bob would deny it; anyway Bob knew he would never dare to complain, as Bob knew too much about him. Bob was a rotter, and he would have nothing more to do with him. Bob was leaving Gran’pa’s service, anyway, as Uncle Hugh was now so weak that he could not walk, even while hanging to the leather strap round Bob’s waist. He was going into a nursing home, said Mother, after Christmas.
Then there was a very nice little varnished greenheart rod in the pawnshop window, price one-and-six. Phillip bought it with some of his Christmas present money, with one or two glances of regret at the little silver-plated derringer. There was a pair of boots on the counter, as he examined the rod; and after buying it, he asked, idly, how much the boots were. One-and-sixpence, said Mr. Sprunt.
When he heard that he was invited to visit his cousin Willie at Rookhurst, Phillip wondered how he should dress for the visit. He thought of the boots; they had patent leather toe-caps, and buttons; perhaps if he wore them with his best suit, and a bowler hat, it would be correct? Obsessed with the idea of correcting his inferior social status by the wearing of such boots at a country house—life in which he had read of in monthly fiction magazines—Phillip went with his mother to the shop, under the three gilt balls, and bought them. Father’s stories of his old home, and the life there, had suddenly made Phillip feel afraid of the forthcoming visit.
*
He returned from Rookhurst with enthusiastic accounts of Willie and Uncle John, and the wonderful life in the West Country—and incidentally a present of a small saloon gun firing No. 2 cartridges and bulleted-breech-caps.
This Richard confiscated. It was a lethal weapon, he declared, and a suburb was no place for such a thing. His brother John should have known better than to give him it. However, he did not want to appear censorious, so would Phillip agree to let him have it, for safe-keeping, until such time as his future was decided?
This future to Phillip now loomed like the opaque barrier closing in upon his life. The opaque barrier had always been with him, since he could remember. Sometimes it had appeared in dreams, hopelessly sad dreams in which he was always unable to move away from some final, and most fearful, catastrophe. Only once had a dream been inexpressibly sweet, in the golden light of the sun and glowing blue sky that somehow were also the hair and eyes of a smiling Helena Rolls: but on awakening, down came the opaque barrier upon the heart, like a dead and heavy weight. Nothing could be done about it: the barrier was part of life, which was sad the moment you allowed yourself to realise things. Mother sometimes said that she did not think people were meant to be happy in this life. Yes, the opaque barrier was always there. Why was it? What you wanted to do, and what life made you do—the barrier was always in between. Tears, despair, fear, hopelessness—all were of the barrier.
This barrier, this hopelessness, this dim awareness of events controlling life, was now greyly near. It was involved with the idea of leaving home, and England, for ever; more particularly in Father’s suggestion that he consider seriously emigration to Australia, to work on Uncle Hilary’s farm in New South Wales, possibly with cousin Willie. Uncle Hilary was prepared to help, said Richard; he would arrange passage for both boys, and pay their fees at the Agricultural College, Sydney. Thus an open-air life, which Phillip and Willie both wanted, was possible. Well, let Phillip think it over.
Phillip had already talked it over with Cousin Willie. Both boys had, as their Fathers would have said, shied away from the idea. They both agreed that there was no place like England. The alternative was an office in London, perhaps in the Moon. Still, they would have Saturday afternoons off, and Sundays, for watching birds, a passion the cousins shared.
Phillip said nothing, but looked dull.
“Why don’t you work with me, instead of always against me?” cried Richard in exasperation. Then he used the word he had tried to avoid—confiscate; and seeing Phillip’s face, the old irritation arose in him.
“No, not while I remain master in my own home, shall I permit a mere bit of a boy to have such a weapon!”
Richard knew about Phillip’s latest catapult, made with powerful circular elastic, from which were fired lead balls made in a bullet-mould he had bought in a shop in Maidstone, whither he had cycled one day, alone. Phillip was an expert with this weapon, and had killed several wood-pigeons with it. The lead bullets had been made on the gas-stove, from lead heated in a tin held by pincers, and poured molten into the mould, which was then plunged in cold water. The balls had a range of over three hundred yards, and Richard had had a complaint from Mrs. Groat, ever anxious for her one remaining eye; but so far he had said nothing. The saloon gun was the last straw.
*
Now that he was soon to leave school, which he had hitherto said he hated, Phillip began to feel dismay at the thought of seeing no more the familiar faces in his world of classroom and fives-court, football field, and cricket pavilion at Colt Park, as the school playing fields were called. Colt Park was ten acres enclosed within trees, and yellow brick walls of Georgian residential houses. It lay back from the Dover road. Phillip had been as undistinguished an athlete as he was a scholar, showing no particular bent for anything, as regards the curriculum; unless it were literary piracy. There was the occasion when, asked to contribute to the school magazine, he had turned in a poem, presumably his own, entitled To a Skylark, beginning
Young Phillip Maddison Page 44
