Young Phillip Maddison (5 page)

“I would like to take out this one, please. Antiquarianism is so very interesting, I think,” he said, in unconscious imitation of his mother’s manner.

The young woman gave the small boy with the soft, distinct voice an upward glance. She recognised him as the one who had raised his cap to her ten minutes earlier. Seeing his deep blue eyes and gentle smile, she was sorry for having taken no notice of him before. He had such black hair, and such a gentlemanly voice. Her face took on a gentle look, her lips lost their hard line, and lifted with a smile as she withdrew the card from the book, and having stamped it and the front page, took his ticket and said,

“You’re one of the brainy ones, I can see. Well, don’t let your brains kill you, dear.”

“Oh no, I won’t do that!”

She smiled openly with the stir of warmth that arose in her as she absorbed the look on his face, which seemed to shine from within.

Responsive to her feeling, Phillip felt clear and happy. He had turned over a new leaf! He stood smiling at the assistant, thinking that her mouth and chin and cheeks and brow were lovely in shape. His gaze dropped.

“Thank you,” he said softly, and taking the book, raised his cap, while giving her a fleeting smile, and a little bow, in imitation of his Father.

At that moment the swing doors of the Library were edged open, and the well-known parsonic figure of Mr. Mundy in black straw yard and long knitted muffler flowing from several turns around his neck—he never wore an overcoat—came through on a bicycle. He had a large wicker fishing creel, which held books, slung over one shoulder.

Leaping off the bike, Mr. Mundy greeted everyone boisterously, like old friends. He saw Phillip.

“Hullo, the very man I wanted to see! I think there is a specimen of either Nyctea Scandiaca or Bubo Bubo Bubo on the Hill! Snowy Owl, or Eagle Owl! I must write to
The
Times.
I’ve just seen Sprunt the pawn-broker, who is a great bird-man, and described it to him—my gardener saw it in the row of elms—and I’ve come to identify it. Bubo Bubo Bubo sounds terrifying, doesn’t it, m’dear?”, turning to the assistant. “It’s the classification of Linnaeus, as of course you know.”

Everyone was now looking at the vicar; heads in the reading room, seen through glass-panelled doors, were turning.

“Well, m’dear,” he went on, “I wonder if you have any books of reference—Gould’s
British
Birds
is what I want.” He stood his bicycle against a wall. “Now, Phillip—hullo—where’s he gone, I wonder?”

*

“My God, Cranmer, quick! They’re after me! Down to the cemetery!”

Cranmer ran beside Phillip, away from the Free Library. Soon the fog hid the lights behind. They stopped outside the sweet-shop opposite the Boys’ Entrance of Wakenham Road School. Then Phillip told Cranmer what had happened.

Cranmer was Phillip’s companion of many a secret walk around the fields of Joy Farm, and the allotments by the Workhouse in Randiswell. Cranmer was a faithful friend, with whom Phillip had kept up the friendship of pre-scholarship days, when they had gone to Wakenham school. Both boys would soon be fourteen. Then Cranmer, who had remained at Wakenham Road School, would start work.

Meanwhile, the light in his life was his friendship with Phillip. Cranmer had a father who spent most of his wages, when in work, in a pub called The Jack. Because Cranmer came from Skerritt Road, that place of supposed evil, most of its children in broken boots and ragged clothes, Phillip had been forbidden to see him. Hetty was never afraid of her son’s contamination. The boys therefore were chums in secret, meeting every Friday night outside the Library.

“I can’t stop tonight, I’ve got to hurry, Horace. Can you walk with me s’far’s the Cemetery gates?”

“Yus. I ain’t doin’ nothin’ t’night. Carry yer book, Phil?”

“Thanks.”

Cranmer took the volume gratefully. Phillip was pleased that Cranmer always wanted to do things for him.

As they walked upon the smooth square slabs of the new pavement, beside the iron railings of the cemetery, he told Cranmer about his fears.

“If Mr. Mundy reports me, I’m a goner, Horace. I’ll have to run away from home.”

“I’m wiv yer, Phil. Anyfink you do, I do.”

“What about your father, Horace?”

Cranmer spat. “Pah, my ole man don’t care what I do! Only what about your’n?”

“Oh, he doesn’t care either.”

Cranmer considered this.

“I don’t want to git yer in no trouble, Phil, but my bruvver knows a bloke dahn Green’ich what’s got a barge, ole piper ’e takes, bundles ’n bundles er ole piper all pressed tergewer, an’ tugs take ’m dahn ter’r piper mills in the Medway somewhere—cor, it ain’t ’arf some sport on’r Thames barge, Phil!”

Cranmer spoke through his clenched teeth, his lips parted slightly, in the approved manner of the streets where everyone was against you, and if you didn’t look after yourself, no one else would. Everyone was out after a poor boy—Cranmer had known
that from the time he could walk, and learned to hurry away from kicks, back-handers, and beltings. As he spoke he drew his lips back against his gums (half his front teeth were decayed) and his words came without facial movement—as though a slop, otherwise copper, bluebottle, or policeman, were eternally waiting to catch him.

“I ken ’alf-inch s’m tins’r stuff from ole ’Ern, an’ we kin live off’r’m an’ ’ide up among’r piper bales, Phil. No one won’t see us.”

Phillip was silent. Pinching from a shop was not right. It was all right to scrump apples, or pull carrots from the allotments near the workhouse, but taking things from a shop was stealing. Besides, Hern the grocer was a nice man, a friend who told him of his adventures in Canada. Phillip often visited him in the little room behind his shop, where Hern did his accounts at a stand-up desk. Cranmer was an errand-boy for Hern on Saturdays.

“How much do you get at Hern’s, Horace?”

“’Ern gimme tuppence, Phil, only I hev to give it to me Mum.”

Cranmer worked from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m. for that sum; but he received, in addition, odd ends of reasty bacon, a bag of broken biscuits, various chunks of stale cheese-ends, as well as other scraps, all of which he took home in an old perambulator.

“I don’t think we ought to half-inch from Hern, you know, Horace.”

“P’raps you’re right, Phil. I was on’y sort-er finkin’ of you, reely.”

“Perhaps I ought to go and see Mr. Mundy now, and confess. He’s a decent old fellow, you know.”

“I know!” cried Cranmer, “You kin say you come ter join ver Siety fer properation er gospital! Ven you can tell ’im your sin and ’e’ll forgive yer!”

“Yes, I might join the S.P.G.,” said Phillip, eager with this hope.

They became silent as the place of parting came nearer. There was a stone hidden on the wall of the cemetery; usually the boys played football on the pavement with it, quiet little dribbles, Cranmer being Woolwich Arsenal and Phillip being Aston Villa—but tonight Phillip did not feel like playing. At the cemetery gates he said, “Well, I must say so long now. See you next Friday? Same place? By the way, there is a terrific owl about now—probably flown down from the North Pole—no one
knows exactly what it is, but it may be an Eagle Owl. If so, I think many a small dog may be missing in the future near! So keep your eyes skinned. I’d like any observations to go into my notebook.”

“Blime,” said Cranmer. “Does it tike kids’s well’s dorgs?”

“I shouldn’t be surprised! Well, goodbye for now.”

Stopping at the corner of Charlotte Road, Phillip looked back. The fog was clearing, before a wind. From up the road came a long hoarse whistle, Cranmer’s speciality. Cranmer had thrust three fingers into his mouth and emptied his lungs fervently and rapidly through the finger-spaces. The result was a sort of miniature railway-engine screech. Phillip thought it was rather a common noise; he must remember to tell Cranmer not to do it in future. Also, Father might hear it; it needlessly advertised their whereabouts when together.

A lighted tram rushed past, its steel wheels seeming to whoop in the rails as the brakes were put on before the stop by the Unitarian Church on the far curve. Under a clearer, star-seen sky the driver was expressing his relief. His brown and yellow vehicle had groaned all day slowly, with clanging bell, through the traffic; while a bitter dew had lain upon his lashes, stinging the lids of his eyes, vulnerable to detritus falling from one or another of a hundred thousand chimneys of South London.

H
APPY
in his thoughts of a new beginning, Phillip hurried along Charlotte Road. When he came to St. Cyprian's church, the sight of lighted windows for the usual Friday night choir-practice gave him an idea. He would go in and join the S.P.G. right away. He hesitated. Perhaps it would be safer to join the St. Simon's branch, and throw himself on the mercy of Mr. Mundy after all, as Cranmer had suggested. St. Simon's reminded him inevitably of Helena Rolls; it was as though a lead plummet dropped in his breast. He would go over the grass of the Hill, and down through the thorns above the gully, in order to see the lighted windows of Helena Rolls' house at the top of the road.

It was thrilling to walk over the grass at night, to climb silently over the hurdle fence; and avoiding thorn twigs with slow care, to creep, in the shadow lines of the street-lamp, to cover by the park gates. While he stood there, he saw Mr. Pye's front door open, and the figure of Mr. Pye descending the steps. Phillip pressed himself against the iron post of the park gate, and kept rigidly still. He saw Mr. Pye tip-toeing up by the Rolls' hedge, pause to open their gate, pass through, close it very carefully, and go to the front door. Phillip watched him put something through the letter box, and then Mr. Pye tip-toed back to the gate. He opened and closed it very quietly, and then tiptoed back to his own house again, and up the steps to the front door he had left a little bit open.

What had Mr. Pye put through their letter-box? A Valentine? Phillip was thrilled with the mystery. Could it be, as Polly had said, that he was sweet on Mrs. Rolls? Surely not, for they were both quite old.

After a safe interval, Phillip crept down the asphalt pavement on the opposite side of the road. He walked down until he was beyond range of the lamp-post light outside Mr. Groat's in No. 9; and then, darting over the flinty road, he walked up rapidly to his own house, keeping close to the garden fences, then rushing through the gate and so to his front door as though he were being pursued.

He gave a small ring on the bell, thinking it best not to use the knocker, since Father was at home. Mother, making cocoa in the kitchen, came to the door. Observing that the sitting room door was half-open, Phillip wiped his boots carefully on the mat, hoping Father would hear; then he gave his mother the library book, saying in a voice loud enough to be heard in the sitting room, “It's most interesting, all about when you first met Father, Mum. I thought you and Father would like to look at it, as it's Antiquarianism.”

“Thank you, dear, what a very kind thought.”

In the kitchen, Hetty glanced at the book, and whispered, “Show it to your Father first, dear! I am sure he would appreciate your doing so.”

“Ah, I wonder what you are up to now!” said Mavis.

“Shut up!” hissed Phillip. “Must you glue your optics on me for ever?”

He led his mother into the scullery.

“Mum,” he whispered. “I think I will join the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel!”

Hetty looked surprised. What had he been up to now?

“Yes dear, of course, if you feel you should. Is anything the matter?”

“Of course not! I only thought I would join, that's all.”

“Very well, Sonny. Now have your cocoa, dear, and then take the book down to your Father.”

He delayed over drinking his cocoa, to put off the moment of being in Father's presence. The girls were in giggling mood: they annoyed him, taking glances at him, as though they had some secret. At last they prepared to go upstairs to have their baths, excited by the thought of all three getting into what Father always called “the tub”, together.

Phillip, calling Polly into the front room, told her what he had seen outside Turret House. Then, struck by a sudden fear, he said goodnight, and taking the book, went down to the sitting-room. Would Mr. Mundy call to see Father that night, now that the fog was gone? Or would the police be told first? Any moment there might be a knock on the front door, a loud urgent ring of the electric bell.

Father was sitting in his green leather armchair, reading
The
Daily
Trident.

“Good evening, Father.”

“Hullo, old chap. How's the fog?”

“It's cleared off, Father.”

“That is good news.”

Phillip seated himself quietly, in his usual place at the table, behind Father's chair. Father usually read the paper all through, then he had a game of chess with Mother. Phillip put the library book on the plush cloth of the table, quietly by Father's side.

Not long afterwards Hetty came down, and took up her basket of darning beside her chair. Phillip blinked at her, and indicated the book with his nose.

After a few moments, when Father did not move, he said, with another glance at her, “I think I would like to learn to play chess, you know, Mum.”

Richard put down the paper, and got on his feet, to stretch himself. Standing with back to the crackling coke fire, he looked at Phillip quizzically, and said, “Who is this I see before me?
What does this sudden glory foretell? Bless my soul, you are scarcely recognisable, Phillip.”

“I thought it a good thing to let him air his best clothes, Dickie. Tomorrow he is going to have his photograph taken.”

“For heaven's sake let the boy speak for himself, Hetty! And there is no need for you to speak in that apologetical tone of voice. After all, I merely asked a question.”

“Yes dear, of course, naturally.”

This familiar remark of Hetty's seemed to irritate Richard.

“What do you mean by that expression? I must have heard it a thousand times in my married life, and each time I have wondered what exactly you meant by it. ‘Of course' means a matter of course, or habit. But your habit is always to try and come between me and Phillip. ‘Naturally' presumably means what is natural. Is it natural for a mother always to be shielding her son?”

Hetty smiled. There was sadness and resignation, together with an unquenchable sense of fun, in her eyes. Suddenly the fun departed; acute sadness remained, a sense of tragedy, of the perpetual, unchangeable sameness of Dickie always taking the simplest thing she said, in the wrong way. “I hardly dare ever say anything,” she once confessed, in a tearful moment, to Phillip. “Father always takes it the wrong way.”

“Well, Phillip,” said Richard, turning to his son, who was sitting unnaturally still. “This is indeed a surprise. Are you intending to call on your best girl, it being St. Valentine's Eve?”

Richard spoke in the chaffing tones that always disconcerted Phillip, used as he was to a tension of resistance against his father. Richard however, was also sensitive, though in different degree; and his sense of decorum would never permit him knowingly to embarrass his son. He knew nothing of the Valentine painted by Polly Pickering; his remark came from an article he had been reading in
The
Daily
Trident
on the origins of St. Valentine, and old country beliefs about birds pairing off on that date. Phillip thought Father was chipping him. He made no reply. Then to his relief, Father said, “Well, so you want to learn to play chess, do you?”

“Yes, I would, please, Father.”

“I wonder what put that idea into your head?”

“I don't know, Father.”

“Come, old chap,” said Richard, in kindly mood, regarding the prim, wide-eyed boy. “Share the secret with me!”

Before Phillip could think, there was a ring of the front door bell. He started.

“Hullo, what have you been up to now?” said Richard, jokingly, seeing the start. “What's in the wind this time?”

Hetty saw the boy's pale face.

“Is there anything the matter, dear?” she said. “Tell Father if there is,” as she opened the sitting room door.

“Oh, be quiet!” exclaimed Richard, in mild exasperation. “Let the boy speak for himself.”

Hetty went up the stairs to the front door. With beating heart, Phillip listened.

“There's nothing to tell, Father.”

“Oh, I see.”

Richard picked up his newspaper, seated himself in his armchair, and looked again at what he had already read—the words of a big-moustached man whose photograph appeared in the middle of the article designed to rouse an apathetic nation against the danger of the projected Kiel Canal from Baltic to North Sea.
They
mean
war,
these
people,
who
rejoice
under
the
heel
of
militarism,
wrote the prophet, Robert Blatchford. Richard wondered why he wrote in
The
Daily
Trident,
since this ex-sergeant of the army was supposed to be a Socialist. However, there was some sense in what Robert Blatchford now wrote.

Richard had never forgotten what his mother, of a Bavarian family destroyed in Bismarck's war of federation, had always said about the Prussians. Sitting in the chair, his thoughts reverted to what his sister Theodora had recently written to him in a letter containing what he considered to be a farrago of nonsense about the wrongness of England generally, and in particular in the Englishman's attitude to the subject races of the Empire. And this was the very same Dora who was making a nuisance of herself in the agitation for the franchise to women. Dora, more of a crank than ever! A woman without a true vocation. She had never grown up.

But Theodora Maddison had not written to her brother what she had written to her sister-in-law. Dora had written to Hetty, among other things, these words:

When Richard looked up from his paper again, a few moments later, and turned in his chair to look at Phillip, an incredulous expression came over his face. The boy's neck was bent, his face hidden; a slight choking noise came from him. Tears were dropping upon the plush table-cloth!

“Good heavens, what's the matter now? Why are the waterworks turned on?”

Phillip hid his face the more.

“Well, I'm blowed!” said Richard. “You are a most extraordinary cuss!”

“What's the matter, Sonny, don't you feel well?” asked Hetty, returning to the room, an envelope in her hand. “What has happened, Dickie?”

“I'm blest if I can understand any of you!” cried Richard, seeing tears in his wife's eyes. “You are a weepy lot, all of you! Come on, Phillip, chuck it! Be a man! You really must learn to cease taking refuge in tears if anything goes wrong! What you will do when you grow up, and go out into the world, I hardly dare think! Come on now, old chap, tell us all about it!”

Sensible of Father's rough sympathy, Phillip felt more hopeless. He was ashamed, too. And what was the letter in Mother's hand? Was it a summons, already?

“Tell your parents, dear, if anything is wrong,” said Hetty.

Ah, it was a summons. He would kill himself. It was the end of his life. He gulped, and said the first thing that came into his
head—one, indeed, of many worries. “I can't learn my Latin, Father.”

“Why ever did you not say so at first?” said Richard, indulgently. “If that is all that is troubling you, I can assure you that it is the normal worry of every small boy when first he goes to school. Why, do you know, I could not make much headway with my Latin, when I was a boy at a private school. Just do your best, and stick it out, that's my advice to you. Things will come easier later on.”

“Yes,” said Hetty, smiling. “Everything is difficult at first. ‘If at first you don't succeed, try try again'.”

Phillip tried to look suitably grateful for this advice.

Encouraged by the look on his son's face, Richard went on, in some relief that at last the boy seemed to want to listen to him.

“Everything has to be learnt, you know, old chap. Just like riding a bicycle, or a horse. Suddenly you acquire balance, and then you wonder how you could ever have found it difficult.” He pulled out his watch. “Now Hetty, do you feel like a game of chess, old girl?”

Hetty laughed, remembering when he had objected to her asking him, once, if he felt like a boiled egg
for his tea. Dickie feeling like a boiled egg!
She laughed and laughed. The tears in her eyes had been of tenderness—how kind of the little girls to send Phillip a Valentine!

“What is tickling you now?” asked Richard. “'Pon my soul, you are a pair, you two! First the waterworks, then nothing can stop you laughing. Come on, tell a fellow the joke.”

The envelope lay on the cloth. Phillip got up and looked at it. He recognised the hand-writing.

“Why, it's for me!”

He opened it. He saw at once it was a joke—the girls, of course. Mavis' doing, obviously. There was a Cupid, in an Eton suit, looking over the shoulder of a fat man in a large black hat and black cloak, obviously Mr. Pye, who was kneeling to slip an envelope through a letter-box. Then he read the verse underneath.