Young Phillip Maddison Page 20

  “Well, I have called to express my regrets in no uncertain fashion, Mrs. Ching.”

  “I hope you mean it, Phillip,” went on Mrs. Ching, while Phillip tried to breathe as little as possible, owing to the smell in the room. “I hope you will never do such a thing again. Let this be a lesson to you.”

  “No, I won’t, Mrs. Ching,” replied Phillip, thinking of Tom Ching spitting in his eye, and running away, the filthy hog.

  “Very well, Phillip, we will overlook it this time. Did your Father send you?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Ching.”

  “It would have been better, of course, if it had come from you, then your apology would have meant what it said.”

  Phillip tried to look suitably chastened.

  Tom Ching’s younger sister, who had a brown pigtail down her back, looked at him with saintly eyes, he thought. She smiled. She was rather nice, though her face had the pale, greasy look of all the Chings. The room smelt as though the window was never opened. Mr. Ching was shaking like a jelly on one side, his hand moving all the time.

  “Would you like a piece of cake, Phillip?” asked Mrs. Ching, after a pause.

  “No thank you,” replied Phillip. “I deeply appreciate your offer, but I must get back now. I promised to play chess with Father tonight. We are having a sort of tournament.”

  “Do you play chess, then? Fancy that! So does Mr. Ching, only he can’t get anyone to play with him. You must come round one night and give him a game.”

  “Yes I will, thank you very much,” said Phillip, with assumed enthusiasm for a game of which he was entirely ignorant; and then shaking hands all round, he departed.

  The next morning Ching was waiting for him at the top of the gully. He asked to be allowed back into the patrol.

  “I can’t answer just now. I think we are full up.”

  Phillip took long strides away from Ching, and went on to school alone. Returning that afternoon, he found Ching waiting for him beside the mill over the Randisbourne, which made dog-biscuits of weevily corn.

  “Half a mo’, Phillip.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I think we ought to try and understand one another better, Phillip. After all, we pass through this world but once.”

  “Speak for yourself,” retorted Phillip.

  Ching attempted to put his arm on Phillip’s shoulder, but the other pushed it away, saying with distaste, “Don’t paw me! I haven’t forgotten that you gobbed in my eye, even if you have!” and once again he strode away from Ching.

  Ching was persistent. He reappeared that evening at the front door, this time with a different manner. In the kitchen, as he rubbed his hands together, he said, “Have a sucker?” He pulled a quarter pound bag of American Gums from his pocket, the biggest pennyworth to be bought in any sweetstuff shop, and offered one. After hesitation, Phillip selected a black licorice gum.

  “Take two, go on! Have three.”

  “No thanks, one’s enough.”

  It was, too. Soon his teeth were locked together.

  Phillip knew that Ching had come round, hoping to see Mavis. He shut the kitchen door. Small hopes anyone like Ching had with his sister! If only it were Milton! Ching offered to pay his back subscriptions to the Tent Fund, so Phillip said, “All right, you can come back.”

  *

  The sixth boy came through Hetty’s “little woman”, who sewed for her, Mrs. “Lower” Low. She lived in one of the small terraced houses near the Randiswell Lane cemetery gates. Hetty was sorry for Mrs. “Lower” Low, and often went to see her, to cheer her up. She knew her tragic circumstances.

  Mrs. Low was a pale, fair-haired woman of about thirty, who had married a man twenty-five years older than herself, after a younger man she loved had jilted her. Hetty was in Mrs. Low’s confidence, and knew that her son Lenny had been born eight months after her marriage to Mr. Low, who was a clerk in a Mark Lane corn-merchant’s office. At first her husband had doted on the baby, said Mrs. “Lower” Low. Then one day he had remarked jokingly that the child’s eyes were unlike both his own, which were dark, and his wife’s, which were pale blue. Lenny’s eyes were grey. Where did he get his grey eyes from? What was the colour of the eyes of the fellow who had jilted her? Grey! So that was why she had married him, was it?

  What had started as an idle fancy, as time went on had become a dark figment of Mr. Low’s mind. He accused his wife of being pregnant when she had married him; of putting the onus of the child on him. She had caught him. Periodically in fall and winter, when he came home from the City tired and dispirited with long delays in foggy weather, the doubt recurred in his mind, with the inevitable question: who was Lenny’s real father? As time went on, he became captious and bitter; he kept her housekeeping allowance to the barest minimum, so that, to buy a winter suit for Lenny, which he greatly needed, Mrs. “Lower” Low one day had borrowed ten shillings from the money-lender in the High Street. Mr. Low had found out. He had never forgiven her; he had never spoken to her from that day to the present time. If he wanted anything, he wrote it on a piece of paper, and left it on the hat-stand in the hall. He took his meals in silence, afterwards sitting in a room of his own.

  Now Lenny was ten, and so afraid of Mr. Low that he would say anything rather than incur his Father’s displeasure, said Mrs. Low. His father often punished him for telling untruths. Lenny was not really deceitful by nature, he was timid, that was all.

  “Yes, I am sure that is so, Mrs. Low,” said Hetty, thinking of Phillip when he had been very small. “But things will come right, one day. We must always look on the bright side.”

  “I do try to, Mrs. Maddison, but the worst of it is that I feel Lennie is being punished for my sin in borrowing the money without the sanction of Mr. Low,” wept Mrs. Low. “‘Be sure your sin will find you out’, my own poor mother used to say to me, and only too true, I have said to myself, time and time again.”

  Mrs. Low forbore to add that the times had occurred every month since the original loan six years before. She had paid a shilling a week interest on the ten shillings for six years; and the original half-sovereign was still owing.

  It was Hetty’s idea that Lenny should join Phillip’s patrol. She was convinced that scouting had done a great deal for her own son, for it had given him ideas beyond his home and his school, both places wherein he was, she knew, never really free and happy. Still, that was the world, in which no one was, nor was it right that they should be, allowed to please himself or herself. God’s law was one of continual self-sacrifice.

  Hetty had some old clothes of Phillip’s which she gave Mrs. Low; while Grannie, who had been told of Mrs. Low’s little boy, on a visit to her grandson Ralph in Holborn, brought back a wide-awake hat, lest the child feel he was not good enough for the others.

  Thus the Bloodhounds were up to strength—Phillip, Cranmer, Desmond Neville, Tom Ching, Lenny Low, and a boy called Allen. Cranmer had got hold of a real Boer War slouch hat somehow, which, with the brim trimmed a bit, looked almost like a scout’s wide-awake. It was darker, heavier—somehow, Phillip thought, it was rather in keeping with Horace Cranmer.

  *

  A week or two after the Hallowe’en party Phillip went to fulfil an old ambition to be a choir boy. He had decided that St. Mary’s was the best church to apply to, as several boys from his school sang in the choir there; and St. Simon’s, where Milton sang the anthems, was too good for his voice, which was rather throaty. However, listening in the empty St. Mary’s to the voices in the choir-stalls near the altar, he decided to come another evening, and went instead to visit old Mr. Newman in his little house opposite the Randiswell Baths. After some interesting talk with Mr. Newman, and half a glass of port with some biscuits, he returned home, passing a green bicycle standing against the kerb under the lamp-post outside Mr. Groat’s house. The peculiar thing was that the bicycle was chained to the lamp-post.

  Immediately he thought that this must belong to the new Scoutmaster, from whom he had received a
brief letter, ending Yours in Christ, Rupert Purley-Prout, which had given him the idea, not a happy one, that perhaps Mr. Purley-Prout was a curate.

  The bike chained to the lamp-post was a queer, freakish sort of machine, the kind a man-suffragette, a food-faddist, or an absent-minded butterfly-catching professor would ride. It had a sort of hammock instead of a saddle; and there was a big hump on the hub of the back wheel, where the gears were. Father had pointed out the make to him once by the Fish Ponds on Reynard’s Common. It had been ridden by a hatless man with long hair like a girl’s, who wore sandals, a shirt of unbleached calico with wide open collar, and leather shorts with flowers on the straps and braces. They were lederhosen, Father had said. The man was a crack-pot, said Father. When he rode off, the crack-pot slung on his back a small placard, saying VOTES FOR WOMEN AND SALVATION FOR ENGLAND.

  “What did I tell you!” said Father.

  Phillip hoped that the long-haired crack-pot would not turn out to be Rupert Purley-Prout.

  When Mother opened the door she said in a whisper that Mr. Prout had called to see him. He was talking to Father in the sitting room.

  Immediately Phillip darted into the front room, beckoning his mother to follow him at once. In the safe darkness he said, “Has he got long hair, and a whopping great adam’s apple in a scrawny neck? If so, how can I get out of it? I said in the letter that my patrol would like to join his troop. I should have added ‘E. and O.E.’ to it, to make it businesslike.”

  “I think it must be someone else you are thinking of, dear. Mr. Purley-Prout is just like any other man.”

  “Is he tall and thin, rather saturnine? Does he look very stern, do you think?”

  “No dear, he says he’s at a Theological College, preparing to take Holy Orders.”

  “Oh lor’, then he’s a curate! Does he wear one of those round white collars?”

  “No, he’s in a tweed suit. But why not go down and see for yourself? I told him you had only gone to see about joining St. Mary’s choir, and would not be very long. Was everything all right, Sonny? Did they try your voice?”

  “No, they were practising, so I didn’t disturb them. I went instead to say how do you do to Mr. Newman. He showed me his birds’ eggs. He’s got ever so many, Mum. I’ve only got a thrush’s, a blackbird’s, a robin’s, and a sparrow’s in my collection. What a pity you gave me that whippoorwill’s egg you got from Canada, and the prairie hen’s, when I was too young! Why did you?”

  “Well, you asked for them so repeatedly, dear, so I gave them to you, although I was afraid they would be broken. Now you must go and see your visitor. Father is rather tired tonight, and Mr. Prout is so very enthusiastic, he talks quite a lot.”

  “I don’t want to see him! I don’t like him.”

  “But you might like him, when you see him.”

  “I don’t like the look of his bicycle, somehow.”

  “Oh Phillip, what a thing to say! Now go down to the sitting room. I expect they have heard you come home.”

  Phillip tip-toed down the stairs and along the oilcloth to the sitting room door, and listened to the voice speaking earnestly within.

  “There is, happily, a passionate minority, Mr. Maddison, among which I count myself. Briefly, we realise that in this work we have the best chance of equipping our young people with those principles, and what is more important, I think you will agree, their application in the formation of character, which, history has proved, are essential in the maintenance of a great nation. We see that we are in great danger, as a nation, in resting on our oars, of relying on our past achievements. Resting thus will not produce us men of intellect, or muscle, or character! All really thoughtful people realise that it has been in times of stress and strain that our great heroes and great men were produced. It was hardship and discipline and necessity that strengthened and tempered men’s characters and uplifted their aspirations! While luxury and ease, such as are dominating Society today, are tending in the opposite direction——”

  “Well, I would not altogether deny that there is a grain of truth in what you are saying——” said Father, but the other voice went on at once, drowning Father’s.

  “Those who remember the causes which led to the fall of the Roman Empire, see the same deteriorating influences at work amongst us Britons today, sir. And the point I would make is very simple: in Boy Scouting we have a remedy, which, if applied properly, and sincerely used, will bring back the old nobility of character, the thoughtful and considerate behaviour, the chivalry and devotion, of the old days, which we are in such danger of losing irrecoverably.”

  “Well, I hope you are right,” said Father.

  “Our underlying principle,” went on the other voice, “is ‘Be prepared to do what is right’. The Scout’s motto is brief and to the point: ‘Be prepared to do God’s will: to serve others at all times and at any cost: to be kind, loyal, obedient, cheerful, pure, thrifty, and manly: to face danger and to do any work, however difficult, uncomplainingly and successfully’.”

  Father said, “Oh.”

  Phillip’s instinct was to creep away, to go into Gran’pa’s and hide there until Mr. Purley-Prout had gone. How could he get out of it? He waited there in indecision, then listened as the voice continued,

  “It must be emphasised, Mr. Maddison, that we are Peace Scouts. We would not fight in war. Our work is to help. The Scout requires devotion, and ability, because his work is often difficult, and needs great presence of mind.”

  “Oh,” said Father, again.

  There was a pause, then the voice went on, “The question may be asked, sir”—Phillip was pleased that his Father was called “sir”—“‘What kind of work do we perform that requires such qualities, and the exercise of such care?’ Well, Scouts learn to track animals and each other, they are taught to observe and judge signs, distances, heights, numbers, objects, landscapes, etcetera; they are shown how to camp, cook, read maps, find their way in strange country, swim, row, and—most important of all!—to keep their tempers in all circumstances. They are instructed in ambulance work, to rescue from fire and drowning, and how to act in any emergency. Does this answer your question? I think it does! Just think for a minute of the vast difference there would be in the average modern Briton if he had been through a course of training as a Boy Scout! Why, Britain would be a different country! There wouldn’t be so much crowding to watch football matches or horse-racing. There would be less, far less, crime, and more brightness and cheerfulness in circles where there is now a dim kind of darkness.”

  “Oh,” said Father, and there was another pause. Then Father said, “I wonder where the boy can have got to? I must not keep you waiting here too long, Mr. Prout.”

  “I’ll give him another five minutes, sir, if I may. Now to sum up. I have not stated the disadvantages of scouting for boys, because if reasonably worked, there are none! If a boy neglects his school preparation for scouting, he is not doing his duty as a scout! He is only a tenderfoot! A greenhorn, as he would be called by our American cousins. Are there any questions you would like to ask me, sir?”

  “I don’t think so, thank you,” said Father. “Well, the boy does not seem to be coming, but I will tell him you have called——”

  At this point Phillip crept away, in agony lest he slip on the oilcloth polished by Mrs. Feeney that day; and opening the kitchen door, said with staring eyes to his mother, “Quick! Don’t say I’m home! Take my cap off the newel post by the front door, quick! Hide it! I don’t want to see Purley-Prout!” and disappearing into the scullery, Phillip took Timmy Rat from his box and went into Gran’pa’s next door, to tell him and Grannie about his latest adventure.

  *

  When he got back, Father was playing chess with Mother in the sitting room. “I left some cocoa for you, dear, on the gas in the kitchen,” said Mother. “Turn out both taps, won’t you?”

  “Well,” said Father, looking up. “What did you think of your new scoutmaster, Phillip?”

 
Phillip stared at Father, before looking down. “I don’t know, Father.”

  “Oh,” replied Father, looking at the board again. When he looked up he said, “At least you know what you have to live up to, don’t you?”

  What did Father mean?

  Later Phillip asked his Mother if Father knew he had been listening at the door.

  “I don’t know dear, he didn’t say.”

  Phillip had a letter next morning, ending in Yours in Xt, R. Purley-Prout, asking him to attend a meeting at the Headquarters in Fordesmill on that afternoon, a Saturday, with his patrol, for swearing-in.

  *

  The Headquarters of the North West Kent Troop were in a loft over an old carriage works, now idle. Mr. Purley-Prout awaited them. In Phillip’s eyes he was a powerful figure in khaki uniform, tanned of clean-shaven face, with clouded blue-grey gaze that never seemed to look at anyone directly. He had big bulging calf muscles under his brown stockings, and highly polished brown brogue shoes.

  After what Mr. Purley-Prout called a pi-jaw, they were sworn in. They went for a march, the senior patrol, the Lions, walking in front. Then came the Kangaroos. After them the Greyhounds, with the Bloodhounds last of all. Phillip was disappointed that his was the last patrol, lowest in seniority, because the Bloodhound patrol was the first, and therefore the most senior, to be formed in the district. He was unable to say this to Mr. Purley-Prout. He had, too, an idea that the new Scoutmaster did not like him.

  *

  That Mr. Purley-Prout was indeed a very strong man became evident when, having returned from the march, they went into the loft, and the Scoutmaster, taking off Sam Brown belt and wide-awake, challenged them all to hold him down on the floor.

  “Let us see who is the stronger, the entire Troop put together, or its Scoutmaster! I will lie down on the floor and you can pile up on me, as many as you like. Just to give you every chance, I’ll lie spread-eagled. Now, hats off! Clasp-knives unswivelled!”

  Mr. Purley-Prout rolled up his sleeves, so that all could see his mighty muscles. His calves were mighty, too. Phillip somehow did not want to get too near him, so he got behind the others who were waiting, with faint grins on their faces, for the coming contest. Phillip did not feel like grinning, but he grinned all the same, as though he were enjoying himself.