The Phoenix Generation (46 page)

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-
provoca
teur
.
“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.”

“Ask him to come in.”

The friar came in and apologised for Felicity’s absence. “Her child has a temperature, Captain Runnymeade.”

“Have a drink, Brother Laurence. Help yourself. We’re having a discussion about certain matters. Now, ‘Farm Boy’, give us your views of the European crisis. Do I understand you to claim that Usury is the cause of the deteriorating international situation?”

Phillip said to himself that he was not going to be drawn.

“Come on, Phillip, speak up, man!” cried Riversmill.

“Come on, ‘Farm Boy’, give us a run for our money.”

Phillip was sitting beside Stefania Rozwitz. She put her hand protectively over his. “The fox is a gentleman,” she said. “The fox doesn’t want to hurt the feelings of those who would hunt him.”

Phillip said, “Winston Churchill wrote in his autobiography some years ago that the English power, based on world trade in English bottoms, or ships, for four hundred years has maintained that power by a policy of Divide and Rule in Europe.”

“Well, what’s wrong with that?’’ said Runnymeade. “Anyway, who is Churchill? Nobody thinks anything of him today. He finished himself over the Dardanelles in nineteen fifteen. Come on ‘Farm Boy’, tell us what Birkin says!”

“There’s a man for you!” cried Riversmill.

“Birkin says, ‘If there is another war between England and Germany, it will be money’s war, and nothing to do with the English people’.”

“Money’s war?” growled Stefania. “What about my
countrymen
? I am a Pole, do you not know that?”

“My remark was not intended personally.”

“Why not?” said Runnymeade. “Let’s have the gloves off. No holds barred.”

Stefania gave ‘Boy’ a contemptuous look before saying to Phillip, “Why Money’s war, ‘Farm Boy?’ Money is only a unit of energy, like a volt of electricity, or horse-power for an engine. You may as well say, ‘It will be a volt’s war’, because electricity comes into it, to help drive one of your friend Hitler’s tanks, or, ‘It is horse-power’s war’, because somebody gets his rations in a lorry. Think straight, ‘Farm Boy’.”