A Solitary War Page 23

  “A sucker,” growled Billy.

  “Well, you’ll have the farm one day, and then you do everything properly including having your own way.”

  “Not me,” cried Billy. “When I get it, I’ll sell it, and become an international finan-seer!”

  At that moment a little bag of flour whizzed past Billy’s head and burst on a desk. Another followed, of flaked maize. Peas rattled. Lids of desks were banged. The battle of the last market of the year had begun. Soon bags were being hurled everywhere. Billy cried “Yip-ee!” and dived for some on the floor. From every angle samples were criss-crossing the Hall. Phillip joined in. Rosamund began collecting bags. When the battle slowed down, she had half-a-dozen in her arms. “For Mum,” she said, exultingly, as they went out of the Hall.

  The children were hungry and it was past their lunch-time, but he dare not remain in the town, on account of the limited daylight. There was little more than three hours remaining.

  The sweet shops were still full of chocolate. He bought several half-pound slabs of nuts-and-raisins, with biscuits, apples, and cheese, a couple of bottles of barley sugar, three ham rolls, a Dundee cake, some almonds and raisins. It was pleasant to travel along the Roman road, to see again the rolling, sandy country of the heaths, with their neat and extensive plantations of fir. Rosamund and Billy sat in the seat beside the driver, for warmth. They wore flying helmets, and leather coats. They fed him as he drove.

  They made one stop, to examine a Gyrotiller which had apparently broken down in a sandy patch of land beside the road. Phillip was glad not to be farming that poor starved-looking land, where the wild grass was thin fog and even the docks were dwarf. It was an authentic breck or sandy common. Few docks grew there, because the flocks of autumn-wandering finches stripped the seeds; the thistle-heads, too, were eagerly sought by the goldfinches. What a place to explore and wander through, with no material thought in one’s head, no desires save to watch and note, with an eagerness like that of W. H. Hudson. Optimism arose in him. When the war was over, and Billy was a yeoman farmer on the beautiful fields and meadows of the farm, he would come here, and drift again through the world of trees and birds and flowers. And for the moment or two he lived in the farm of his imagination, seeing it lying under the peaceful skies of the new world to come from out the present sombre deadlock of justice and injustice, of fear, hope, tolerance, and intolerance underlying the feelings of all men of all countries. How fine a thing to see fleets of lorries bearing chalk and yellow loam to these heaths of thin and acid soils, of new villages planned and new homesteads arising in pleasant orderliness. The speculator’s jerry-built houses outside the towns of Old England would gradually be pulled down, their rubble used for the foundations of new tree-planted roads.

  “Look, Dad, what funny little houses!”

  The little colony beside the road was in a way unique, a row of railway-carriage homes. They were well-cared for, their gardens planted with trees and shrubs: a period group, representing the homes-fit-for-heroes after the Great War, when the ideals failed because the survivors of the war had no power to overcome what Birkin had called ‘the Hard-Faced Parliament’ of the early ’twenties. The swords of the survivors had not been beaten into ploughshares; the false shares of international finance had made derelict areas of their new world.

  How strange that so few people heeded the authentic voice of a decimated generation which did not believe in Britain being lost. Perhaps the defects of qualities, possessed by all men of remarkable talent, were to blame; perhaps Birkin’s truth was somewhere beyond the graves of young men still living.

  Chapter 14

  CHRISTMAS CAROL

  The door of No. 2, The Glade was opened slightly, and Phillip saw against the light the outline of a small figure wearing oversize rubber boots projecting above its kneecaps. On its head was a cocked hat like a miniature Napoleon’s. When it saw who was there its eyes opened wide and its face went pale. At the same moment another small figure running down the stairs froze to stillness and its mouth opened for an instant; then it was yelling in a hoarse, crow-like voice, “Cor, Dad’s come! And Billy! And Roz!” Then the figure began to roll on the floor.

  The miniature Napoleon, standing by the open door, went red in the face with smiles and then exploded with an imitative, “Cor Dad’s come! And Billy! And Roz!” And Jonathan joined David on the floor.

  At this two shadows were thrown in the open doorway of the dining-room and Lucy and Tim stood there.

  “Well, well, well,” said Tim. He added, after a pause, “It’s good to see you.”

  Lucy only stared at them, perplexity on her face. Phillip was cold. The journey in the last hour of darkness, fearful of fog in frost, had been tedious. He thought to return right away.

  “I was passing, and brought the children to you for Christmas, with some corn and potatoes, and also a turkey. I’ll unload them and then I must be getting back before the engine freezes.”

  “Oh, no,” said Tim, promptly. “You can’t do that. We’ll fix you up.”

  “If only you’d told me you were coming,” said Lucy.

  “I wrote three days ago.”

  “I didn’t get the letter.”

  “I’m so sorry. I meant to telegraph too, but things were a bit of a rush. In any case, I really must go back—I must finish my book.”

  “Well, I expect we can manage somehow or other to fix you all up,” said Lucy slowly. “Only it’s a bit of a shock,” she added. “You see, there simply aren’t enough blankets, and the beds aren’t aired.”

  “I brought four blankets and two sleeping bags. I’ve got your chair, by the way, and some other things I thought you might care to have. But really the journey does not take very long, and I am used to driving in the black-out.”

  “Oh, we’ll manage,” said Lucy. “You see, if I’d known, I’d have had it all nice and ready for you. I don’t like you to see it unprepared.”

  “I am afraid that I always seem to arrive without notice,” said Phillip. “I wonder what happens to my letters? Several haven’t arrived, apparently. Perhaps they’re held back by the censor.”

  “Well, the chief thing is you are here,” said Tim. “I’m sure, my dear Phil, you’d like some tea. We were just going to have some. You look cold. Come in, by the fire. Drop the coats anywhere—I’ll hang them up later. Actually, you’ve come precisely at the right moment for tea. I’ve only just got home from the works, as a matter of fact.”

  The fire was warm. Phillip was glad to sit by it, and drink a new flavour of tea, and eat a lightly boiled egg with toast. His spirits lightened.

  “It’s such a comfortable house,” said Lucy, now looking happy. “The hot water boiler is a dream, and the water-softener, after the hard village water—well, you’ve no idea of the difference it makes.”

  “I must admit I rather like luxury of that sort,” admitted Tim. “You see, it’s the first time I’ve had it in my life. Remember that horrible cracked stove at the old home, Lulu? And the oily black rainwater from the tank in the roof, the only source of our bath-water? Do you remember, Phil, volunteering to get up one day and clean it out? I remember you brought down a big black beetle to show us, in a matchbox. It nearly broke up that matchbox with its jaws.”

  “And all for nineteen shillings and sixpence a week,” went on Lucy. “When I think of the money spent on doing up that cold farmhouse, with its damp floors and dark corners——”

  “Ugh,” cried David. “Ugh. There’s ratses there on the farm.”

  “The neighbours borrow one another’s things in this little cul-de-sac community, I must tell you,” said Tim. “Apparently it’s the local custom. If we are out of bread we borrow from Mrs. Black over the way, and when she wants some milk she comes to us for it, or a tin of sardines, or some cups and saucers if people turn up unexpectedly for tea. Of course we all return what we borrow.”

  “Oh,” said Phillip. “That’s the form, is it. How fortunate you are to live among peop
le with a code of manners.”

  In the silence David said, “Do tell us the story of Quap-Quap and the gruff old kangeroo, Uncle Tim.”

  “Not tonight,” said Tim, quietly. “Another time.”

  “But you tell us about Quap-Quap and the gruff old kangeroo every night, Uncle Tim,” protested David.

  “Dad’s tired, and wants to be quiet,” said Lucy.

  “Damn Dad,” said Phillip. “Please don’t let the old horror stop the story of Quap-Quap and the irritable kangeroo, or any other antipodean psychological problems of nature.”

  His feet were now warm, he was happily dozing after staring into the darkness with the windscreen flat, icy air freezing moisture on lid and lash. Billy and Rosie had spent the final hour under the tonneau cover behind, wrapped in blankets.

  “Well, it’s only a silly little story, really,” began Tim.

  “It isn’t, it’s lovely!” cried David, his blue eyes wide and imploring. “It’s all about Quap-Quap the duck-billed platypus who lives in a panda’s nest on top of a eu-cal-ip-tus tree!”

  “Daddy’s stories are the best,” murmured Tim.

  “He doesn’t know any, do you, Dad? Please, Uncle Tim––—”

  “I feel rather grubby, may I go up and wash?” asked Phillip.

  “Yes, my dear,” said Lucy. “Would you like a hot bath? I’ve got a spare towel.” They left the room together. Then Tim, in a low near-inaudible voice, began to tell his story, while the heads of the boys drew near to his.

  When Phillip returned Rosamund was whispering to her mother about her school. Billy was reading an 1893 volume of Punch, which had been his grandfather’s. Phillip sat in the armchair, and took up The Daily Telegram and read the main article while saying to himself that that was how he ought to see the war and be single-minded.

  When the small boys were in bed, he thought to tell Lucy of his dilemma; but had he not failed to get on with her for much the same reasons that now made him fail to get on with Teddy and ‘Yipps’? He could see that Lucy and Tim were happy together; but it was plain that his coming had put a distraint on their free and light manner. As young children, when their mother had been invalid, they had been the closest friends, sharing all things and exploring together the woods and the river about their home. Nothing in their lives as they had grown up had altered their outlook, so they were still the closest friends, and when alone used their companionable code-talk. One of their utterances was Well well well! which had come from Pa, who had probably got it from his father, who had got it, whence? Shakespeare had it in Hamlet; yet at times it had annoyed him, he had misinterpreted it as a blank-minded expression; and when things had gone wrong, he had derided it. How easy to misinterpret another, how easy to hurt another’s feelings.

  Of course that expression had been part of the England Tim had dreamed of while far away under the Southern Cross, a symbol of beauty deep in the secret heart: memory of brother and sister finding a bird’s nest unexpectedly, of looking at one another, and uttering the talismanic Well well well, the more to enjoy their excitement. Ah, lost innocence!

  Now he saw the truth of Tim and Lucy: a spiritual link with the loved and dead, part of the old home, the kindly, serene glance of a vanished father; happiness of childhood; symbol deathless in the mind; sweet gesture of love. Likewise the swords of Crimea and Boer War arranged on the wall of the little hall, with the otter-masks, etchings of lost ancestral home, worn armchair that had been Pa’s—Pa who had never raised his voice, never scolded, never interfered; doing nothing to mar them; nothing to keep them …

  At least he had saved all the lares et penates of Down Close, stored them in the Gartenfeste, and handed them all over to Tim—whose brother Ernest had accused him, in a dull moment, of stealing them. But Tim would not be aware of that.

  Tim’s childhood, erratic though it may have been, was one of affection and freedom; his own had been one of—fear, and frustration. That was the answer; that was the key. From one point of view his critics, even Cabton, were right. How easily a man might deceive himself; but not other people.

  He lay with eyes closed and painful, unmoving, thinking of that time when first he had known Lucy and her brothers. It had been their gentle friendliness which had astonished him, for he could hardly believe that such a condition of harmony existed in any family. So rare a simplicity was what he had dreamed of, but never thought to find. Then, hardly more than a year later, he had begun to see the material defects of such unworldliness, and had taken upon himself the straightening of their financial muddle. Was that why he had changed, and become critical of the defects of the qualities of easy-going natures? Was easy-living a virtue, or a defect in that it was also a lack of hard thinking? Was self-criticism a defect, biologically speaking? Was the better man he who never bothered about anyone else—until the time came when others had to bother about him? Was it right to have enclosed the commons, thus to begin selective breeding of cattle which hitherto had been allowed to breed indiscriminately? What was right for one set of people was wrong for another set. For an artist, there could be only understanding of all sets. He must be detached from all sets of human prejudice. He had learned that years before. He knew the essential truth of peace and war within himself, and could render both aspects plain and clear, and so could surely indicate the truth of the war. Mere condemnations of the actions of other men were but obscurantisms of that spiritual truth without which man could not live. Jesus knew it all. His turning the other cheek was merely to use practical understanding of an opponent’s point of view, and so to make him a friend. He knew it spiritually; but he could only use his knowledge in detachment.

  One day the farm would be established; then he would be free to be a full-time writer again. All the present happenings would make a cross-section of life in those times; but emotion recollected in tranquillity, though it might be fair reading, was not reality. Yet would day-by-day reality be the truth? Didn’t one see truth only in perspective, in tranquillity? He recalled Edward Cornelius’ remark: It may be life; but is it art?

  *

  “How’s the farm going? How do you like Mr. Pinnegar and Mrs. Carfax now?” Lucy asked, adding: “Perhaps I oughtn’t to have enquired——”

  Tim picked up The Daily Telegram, an act of strict detachment, and began reading. Phillip got out of Pa’s chair.

  “Thanks so much, Tim, I’m rested now. I think I’ll stretch my legs a bit.”

  “No, you sit in it, Phil. Please do, I love to see you sitting in it, really I do.”

  “My dear Tim, I insist.”

  “As a matter of fact I find this chair almost as comfortable.”

  Tim was sitting on an affair of mahogany and purple velvet that looked as though it had spent many years of its mature life in small second hand shops.

  “Do let me sit in it, Tim. I’ve never sat in a chair of royal purple before. Neptune’s chair.”

  “Well, if you’d really like to——”

  With a concealed sigh of relief Tim sank into Pa’s comfortable early-Victorian chair and Phillip exchanged to the prim late-Victorian seaside model. It smelt strongly of fish-and-chips. He began to laugh, stupidly and happily, his merriment increasing until he had to turn about to ease the ache of risible muscles seldom used. He laughed until he fell off the chair; and getting on his knees, still laughing, he saw Lucy and Tim, Rosamund and Billy laughing with him.

  “I’ve never seen Dad laugh like that before,” exclaimed Rosamund.

  “Nor have I,” said Billy.

  “Ha, ha, ha,” laughed Phillip. “Oh dear, ha, ha, ha!”

  “What’s the joke, Phil?”

  “Oh, just a cad’s joke. ‘This one a bargain, only three and six.’ Forgive me. Ha, ha, ha.”

  “Not at all, I think it’s a comic chair myself,” said Tim. “As a matter of fact, it cost five bob.”

  After the bout of laughing he sat in the redolent chair, and felt tears of freshness, of new life, coming in his eyes, as though a spi
rit in the soiled little piece of furniture were trying to convey to him the inarticulateness of the humanity it had known—not to be laughed at. We are just ordinary little people, we make such awful mistakes, but we didn’t know any better, we did our best to get along, we know we were not much good, but you, phoenix of battlefields, should understand. Be compassionate with us; we were born, we suffered, we died. Oh Mother, when you were dying you were worrying about Father. Who will look after Father, you said, and your face puckered. I will look after him, Mother, when the farm is in order: my poor, lost, loveless father.

  “‘I, er—I think I’ll go down and get a duck’.” Billy was mimicking Teddy Pinnegar’s voice.

  “‘I, er—think I’ll go to The Hero for a drink—dear. I’ll bring something back for you—dear’.” In his own voice the boy went on, “Mum, it is funny at home now.”

  “Oh, it’s like that, is it?” smiled Lucy. “Not all of the time, surely?”

  Phillip lay back with eyes shut, as though sleeping. Billy had called it home. Dear Billy.

  “Mum, Teddy feeds the turkeys sometimes, and they come chawkling and bubble-jockling down the Home Hills when they see him with the pail, and Scrapper the cockerel you gave me—you know, the grey one with the red and yellow touches—well, Scrapper comes stalking up to meet them—and waits on the grass, pit-patting with his feet and crowing, and Teddy says—he always says the same, he says, ‘Here they come, the Polish Cavalry, look at them!’ And Mum—the stagbirds turn blue in the face when they get near Scrapper—and then they stalk him and give him a peck—but Scrapper, cor, he’s tiskey—he takes the whole lot on—fighting and scrapping like anything—and giving way only to run forward and have a dart at another. Coo, you ought to see Scrapper holding his own! ‘The bloody turkies’ says Teddy, you know like he does, through his nose. ‘I’d like to wring their bloody necks. Go on, Scrapper, knock the hell out of them.’ You know, Mum, they do sort of look funny, turkeys do, don’t they?”