The Phoenix Generation Read online

  *

  The newspapers told of struggle everywhere. Unemployed men, many without work since returning a dozen years ago from the Armies in France, Flanders, Mesopotamia, the Balkans, were sent from the Distressed Areas of the North to dig ditches in the South. Married men on the dole were paid 26s. a week, out of which rent at 7s. must be paid. Coal was 1s. 6d. a bag of 112 lbs, while the poor family’s main meal of the week was based on what was known as a butcher’s shilling bag—a bit of mutton, portion of black pudding, and scraps of stewing steak: a meal for two days. The butcher threw in ‘a bone for the dog’, out of which broth was made, with vegetables.

  Winter dullness held the valley. Frosts whitened the lawns. For three months sunshine ceased to enter the lower rooms of Monachorum House, which had dry rot under all floors. Then the top of the sun was seen again over the wooded crest of the Chase.

  Chapter 3

  HARD VOICES

  And every day at breakfast-time the sun’s curve rose a little higher over the hill. Missel-thrushes were in bold song, rooks speculating about their old nests. And with the primroses Felicity came back.

  The exterior alterations to Fawley House had been completed. The bill exceeded £1,200. One roof still required new rafters and purlins and slates.

  Every day a working party left Monachorum for Fawley, eighteen miles north on the Shakesbury-Colham road, and every night it returned. While Lucy and Felicity worked in the rooms of the old house, Phillip and Rippingall worked in the walled garden. During the back-end of the year it had been cleared, ploughed, harrowed, rolled and threeparts sown down to alsike, a pink-flowered plant of the clover family. This alsike, when dug in, would enrich the soil.

  The remaining half-acre was for tillage. Here, thought Phillip, Father will want to spend his time. He must remove the ruinous green-houses and cold frames, and so give the old boy a decent start. A small potting-shed had already been erected near the two circular lily ponds. The cast-iron garden seats were scaled and repainted dark green.

  All was now ready for Phillip’s parents to come down and occupy the ground-floor flat.

  *

  Hetty was living in a flow of excitement that soon she would be in the beautiful country near her son and his wife and the little ones; and with this feeling was an undercurrent of sadness, even of fear, that she would be leaving the house where her children had grown up—it was almost all of her life. More than thirty-five years in Wakenham: first in the little house in Comfort Road near the railway cutting, which once had been part of the Sydenham-Deptford Canal, where old Pooley, who was nearly a hundred years old when she had gone to live there with Dickie, had once seen a salmon taken on rod and line, at the time of the Napoleonic wars. Thirty years of her life had passed in the house in Hillside Road: now she was about to say goodbye to all the landmarks of her marriage—the Hill, the trees, the church across the grass, the view of the Crystal Palace from the crest of the Hill. O, those far-off summer days, and Phillip flying his kite on what he called the Hillies!

  And now everything appeared to have a life of its own, to be appealing to her to be allowed to remain as it had been when Papa and Mamma were alive, and living next door—and brother Hughie—sister Dorrie—her boys killed in the war. At such revisitations in memory Hetty prayed silently, as she stood in her bedroom with its wide brass bed, seeing the faces of the dead with instant emotion before the expunging of all personality under another vision of the white marble forests of the cemetery. Then she would laugh as she thought of the joke of Hughie, about the engraving of the church on the cover of the Parish Magazine, newly built of red brick when they had moved into their own house. The church garden was still a wilderness of grasses tangled above the yellow clay soil. Note, the words declared below the engraving of the church on the blue cover of the Parish Magazine, the tower is not yet built. And all the years had passed, and the church had never had its tower.

  Once the church had been full every Sunday. Now it was more than half-empty. People had given up going to church since the end of the Great War.

  She peered through the nearer of the two bow-fronted windows, watching her husband wheeling his barrow up Charlotte Road. Dickie still kept on his war-time allotment beyond the farther side of the cemetery. He was tidying up his rod of ground for his successor, whoever he might be, and thereby keeping himself in trim for the work ahead in the walled garden at Fawley. He had spent the past two days picking up flints and making a neat heap of them in one corner, and cleaning and digging the ground as a matter of routine; while all the time happy thoughts of returning to Rookhurst, the village where he had been born and bred, had given him secret satisfaction. He was aloofly proud, too, of his son’s success as a writer, and looked forward to ending his years happily in the dwelling place of his forefathers.

  Richard had an idea of repaying his son’s generosity by inviting him to use the house in Hillside Road as his own whenever he came to London. This was a happy solution to a problem which had been worrying him: what to do with the house. He did not want to sell it, nor yet to let it. The district was not what it was, a new class of people had been moving in during the past few years. Not that he felt that Wakenham was, or ever had been, in any sense a superior place to live in; but the newcomers generally did not care for gardening, and many were, moreover, distinctly untidy in other ways. Motor-bicycles stood on the uncut grass of lawns, paper was left to lie about, paint was not renewed. Dinginess was the word for it. No, he would not want his well-kept house and garden occupied by one of those fellows who went about with cigarettes in their mouths and hands in pockets and thought so much of themselves that they never raised their hats to a woman when they spoke to her: the sort who invariably sat about in their rooms, and at table, in their shirt-sleeves.

  He would ask the police to keep an eye on the house, and have the plate chest put in the bank. Master Phillip living there would keep the house alive. He and Lucy might want a holiday; it was handy for London, and theatres and restaurants; and since they would need a comfortable bed, he had ordered, in plenty of time, a modern one, with spiral springs and low centre of gravity, and walnut panels, from the Stores. That was to be his surprise; and when Hetty came to London to visit—whosoever she wanted to visit—she would find it the very thing for sound sleep, nervous little thing that she had always been.

  *

  Fawley having been put in order, Lucy and Felicity set about spring-cleaning at Monachorum. The swallows were back. Stimulated by the sight of these migrants, and by the habit of physical work, Felicity was confident that now she would be able to help Phillip much more than in the past. She must organise his writing room for him, as a start. Having watched him often enough pawing over the contents of a drawer, pulling out old envelopes, worn-out typewriter ribands, stumps of pencils along with shells, nails, odd stamps, German 1914–18 cartridges and bullets, and other relics supposed to be of use later on, she determined to free him of worry by tidying up his room, together with the cupboards, boxes, and contents of his kneehole desk.

  *

  Phillip sat in the shade of the cankered apple trees in the orchard, wearing dark glasses, writing pad on knee. A goldfinch had a nest in the fork of a branch. Voices floated from the house, and the noise of water gurgling down the drain; the gurgling stopped, and he knew that once more the wretchedly inadequate field-drain pipes were choked. When the paper-boy brought the morning papers he got up to meet him, and returning to the deck-chair glanced through the London paper. By this act he broke his rule never to look at the papers until after the morning stint, of a minimum thousand words, was done.

  On the front page was the news of a junior minister’s resignation from the Labour government. The name of Birkin was prominent. Where had he heard it before? Ah, at the Selfridge Election party. GREAT SPEECH TO THE HOUSE, ran the headline.

  ‘If this loan of one hundred million pounds cannot be raised,’ continued the Minister, ‘then unemployment, as an urgent and immediate problem
, cannot be dealt with. We are told by the City of London that we cannot have the money to help the workless back to work—in reclaiming land, in afforestation, in building great new roads to replace the narrow, wandering tracks that so frequently link town with town, creating obstacles for traffic and danger to life; in electrification projects; and in everything needed to bring this great country up to date in the public utility services—all these things are needed for our survival. More important still, for our true wealth lies in our people, not only should children be kept out of industry, but an ad hoc pension scheme must be instituted whereby old people shall be encouraged to retire from industry at sixty by payment of pensions of twenty-five shillings a week. Thus more jobs will go to those who urgently need them—those on the threshold of adult life who are now growing up in idleness and subject to demoralisation of every kind——

  Phillip had read so far when Lucy appeared. “Are you busy?”

  “I’m trying to formulate my thoughts, although it may appear I’m only reading the paper. No, that’s untrue, I’m not busy.”

  “I’m awfully sorry to worry you just now, but Uncle Hilary has just telephoned to say that he and Irene are on their way here, and I’ve asked them to luncheon. Of course, the kitchen drain would choke now.”

  “Where’s Rippingall?”

  “I haven’t seen him, otherwise I’d get him to do it. The washing water is all over the path.”

  It was eleven o’clock. There was an hour before they were due to arrive. He dug up the pipes and continued a trench through the turf of the lawn, then covered the trench, through which grey liquid was seeping, with nine-inch boards, bought recently to extend the garage. Having washed and changed his shirt, for he had worked neurotically fast, he went back to his seat.

  ‘The Chancellor of the Exchequer has told us that the unemployed figures have risen, that they are bad and getting worse. He has told the House that if the unemployed problem is regarded from a purely Party point of view a tremendous case can, in the light of the published figures be made out against the Government.

  ‘The solution lies in the system of an import control board. Applied to agriculture, and particularly to wheat, an import control board can increase the price to farmers by ten shillings a quarter above the present world prices without any increase in the price of bread. Many thousands of men can thereby be found employment on our derelict arable farms, and the policy of controlled imports can be applied no less to other trades. For if we are to build up a home market, it must be agreed that this nation be, to some extent, insulated from the electric shocks of present world conditions. You cannot build a higher civilisation and a standard of life which can absorb the great force of modern production if you are subject to price fluctuations from the rest of the world which dislocate your industry at every turn, and to the sport of competition from the virtually slave conditions in other countries.’

  Footfalls were coming along the garden path. He dropped the paper and took up his writing pad, ready as an excuse should this be an unwelcome caller. It was. With distaste he saw the grinning face of A. B. Cabton, a writer originally sent to him by Edward Cornelian, the critic and publisher’s reader, during Phillip’s time as an improver on his Uncle Hilary’s farm. Cabton had shot birds in June with a walking-stick gun, also trout in the Longpond. After that visitation neither Phillip nor Lucy had heard a word from him.

  “Hullo. How’s everybody? Don’t get up. Just be your natural self. How’s Lucy? Felicity still with you?”

  “I thought you lived in Cornwall, Cabton.”

  “So I do. But I thought I’d like a break. My novel is held up. You don’t mind if I fish in your river, do you?”

  “Well, I don’t really want the fish disturbed, Cabton. You see—well—I’m studying them. I haven’t fished myself yet.”

  “Studying them by reading the paper, eh? I saw you put it down and take up that pad. Why pretend?”

  He took out a packet of Bonville’s cigarettes and tossed them at Phillip. “Thought you might like them.’’

  “It’s good of you, but I have given up smoking.”

  “Keep them, anyway. I get them for nothing, my sister works in Bonville’s. What about this fishing?”

  “Well—I’ll show you a place later, at the end of my beat—I’m not watching that water particularly, just yet, anyway.”

  Cabton sat down and picked up the cigarettes.

  “Have you see Birkin’s speech in the paper, Cabton? It looks as though something will be started at last. May I read you a bit?” Without waiting for a reply, he read, “‘If then, this loan’—that is, a hundred million pounds to make new motor roads, using the unemployed, nearly three million, Cabton—‘if this loan cannot be raised in the City of London, let us confess defeat honourably and honestly; let us run up the white flag of surrender. Why is it right and desirable that British capital should go overseas to equip factories to compete against us, and by means of sweated labour to undercut our prices, to build roads in the Argentine or in Timbuktoo, while it is supposed to shake the whole basis of our financial strength if anyone dares to suggest the raising of money by the government of this country to provide work for the people of this country? In conclusion, let me say that the situation which faces us is, of course, very serious. Everybody knows that; and perhaps those who have been in office know it even better. It is not, I confidently believe, irreparable, but I feel this strongly, that the days of muddling through are over, and this time we cannot muddle through.”

  “Hear, hear,” said a voice from over the fuchsia hedge behind the summer house. Phillip saw with exasperation the weak and vacuous face of Rippingall above the shoulders of Runnymeade’s old pepper-and-salt suit.

  “Everything all reet, old dear?” Rippingall drew himself to attention and went on, with an attempt at clear articulation, “I have—just—seen—the ghost—of—the Rascal Monk—of—Mona-Mona-Monaquorum Abbey—sir.”

  Deciding to treat Rippingall as though he was his normal self, Phillip said, “Come here and meet Mr. Cabton, old soldier. I want you to show him Fossett’s pool, where I’ve given him a day’s fishing, fly only, of course. Come and listen to Birkin’s speech of resignation.”

  Rippingall walked on down the lane to the gate and came into the garden. Gravely he took off his brown bowler and bowed to Cabton, saying quietly, “Sir, Fossett’s pool—is haunted—by the Rascal Monk.” Then turning to Phillip he said, “Sir Olive Lodge—Physical Society. Sir, with respect, there are ghosts—in—the—old Abbey, sir.” He added as an afterthought, “It is said to be haunted.”

  Cabton took out his pocket knife and began to clean his nails as Phillip said to Rippingall, “This is the peroration of Birkin’s speech. He was pleading in the Commons yesterday for a hundred million pounds to make new motor roads for the future, and also to give work——”

  “—to three million unemployed,” said Cabton, inspecting the long nails with their raised half-moons.

  “Per-or-ration,” said Rippingall, solemnly. “The climax, as the Greeks would say.”

  “Do listen to this. Birkin has just said that this time we cannot muddle through, or there’ll be a smash.”

  “All politicians are crooks,” remarked Cabton.

  That comes well from you, thought Phillip. “Listen to this, Rippingall.

  “‘I feel this, indeed, from the depths of my being: I believe with all the hopes of all the soldiers of our nation who lived for a better world and died on the battlefields of the Great War—on the rolling downlands of the Aisne and the Somme—upon the vast and featureless crater-zones of Flanders—in the March retreat across the waste lands of nineteen-sixteen—in the last summer-time advances to the Hindenburg Line, which they finally breached and led the way to victory, leaving nearly a million dead on these and other battlefields—dying in the hope, in the belief of a better life for their children—and the years drift by, and those children are on the dole, and who can rally their comrades who survived,
who can mobilise and rally for a tremendous effort, and who can do that except the Government of the day?’”

  At this point Rippingall said, “I’ve seen the ghost of the murdered priest.”

  Ignoring this drunken fantasy, Phillip read on, “‘If that effort is not made, we may soon come to a crisis, to a real crisis. I do not fear that so much, for this reason: that in a crisis this nation is at its best. This people knows how to handle a crisis; it cools their heads and steels their nerves. What I fear much more than a sudden crisis is a long, slow crumbling through the years until we sink to the level of a Spain, a gradual paralysis beneath which all the vigour and energy of this country will succumb. That is a far more dangerous thing, and far more likely to happen unless some effort is made. If the effort is made, how relatively easily can disaster be averted. You have in this country resources, skilled craftsmen among the workers, design and technique among the technicians, unknown and unequalled in any other country in the world.

  “‘What a fantastic assumption it is that a nation which within the lifetime of everyone has put forth the efforts of energy and vigour unequalled in the history of the world, should succumb before an economic situation such as the present. If this situation is to be overcome, if the great powers of this country are to be mobilised and rallied for a great national effort, then the Government and Parliament must give a lead. I beg the Government tonight to give the vital forces of this country the chance that they await. I beg Parliament to give that lead’.”