The Innocent Moon (15 page)
Authors: Henry Williamson
“Is it going to be fatal, doctor?”
“No, but you must stay here for the time being. Where do you live?”
He gave the address of his South Devon cottage.
“Anyone there to look after you?”
“I live alone.”
“Aren’t you visiting anyone in London?”
“I have been, but I don’t want to worry them, or bother them.”
“You say you have a disability pension for this? Very well. Perhaps we can arrange for the military authorities to take you into a sanatorium. You’ll be X-rayed in the morning. Meanwhile don’t worry, drink this, and then go to sleep.”
Feb. 10. I am feeling much better. Have given up smoking and drinking. I really think that the crisis of my life is here now. The
flux was a warning to live a more healthy, regulated life. God knows I am trying to improve all round; to be tolerant of others, and kindlier. If my work becomes rotten, well then, so much is unfortunate: but to produce works of genius at the expense of laughter, happiness, joyousness and health—I AM NOT GOING TO DO IT. It is a ghastly fight I’m fighting: it is primarily one of the will, for conservation, or self-control, of emotion. But can I become, now,
an
entirely
different
man
? By doing so, shall I fail, or succeed as Spica suggests? Hitherto I have been terribly and appallingly weak and lacking in self-control. But clear as Venus the evening star reluming the western sky, pure as that lustre which glows and glorifies the watcher as it did Keats, bringing a sense of uplifting and a feeling of tranquillity, the star of a gentle and cherishing love burns in my heart.
So far Phillip had been paying his quarterly pension money to his mother; otherwise he existed on the £2/2/-a week for writing 400–500 words of the Motor Notes. By the end of January that had ceased, after Bloom had told him that he had no space for his half column; they had to take more advertisements. Against this was Anders Norse’s steady encouragement; whenever Phillip called at the Adelphi basement there he sat, cheery and optimistic, behind his table with piles of books on the floor and an old typewriter in front of him. He suggested that Phillip should write stories for
Pearson’s
Magazine
about the countryside, and said they would pay up to twenty guineas. Phillip told Anders that he had never forgotten the bird and animal stores by F. St. Mars, illustrated by Warwick Reynolds, which had appeared before the war. It was a shock to be told that F. St. Mars had died of consumption.
Feb. 14. No more lying in bed till 9 or 10 in the morning, running to seed, forming habits of loafing; then spasmodically walking 20 miles in a day, followed by idleness; writing 5,000 words one night, and 500 the next week.
A man’s defects
can
be conquered, as I proved to myself in March 1918, when I drove myself out of my old weak character, and forgot myself in having to think for and of others. Except for the element of chance man can control his own destiny upon this earth in the things that matter: happiness, objective thought, action and success. Ergo, a man with anything in him can always be understood by others if he develops the powers to simplify matters, and sets aside his own petty complaints.
At the Parnassus Club this evening I met a nice man nicknamed ‘Brex’, a Canadian, in spirit both young and fresh. He is literary
editor of
The
Daily
Crusader.
He lectured on journalism. The beginner’s motto, he said, should be “Faith, Hope and CLARITY”. He seems friendly to me. His lecture was derided as bourgeois, smug, and commercial by a thin youngish man who was a conscientious objector in the war, and before that used to work on the
English
Review,
when it was edited by Ford Madox Hueffer.
I walked part of the way home with this critic who informed me that he would be recognised as one of the major European novelists as soon as paper was available again. “Before the war I had more translations than any other young English author,” he said.
I didn’t think he had it in him to be a comprehensive writer; his reactionary views were narrow; he was mannered, he objected to so much, and from a political standpoint. We shall see.
Another man I have become friendly with, and his son and two daughters, is a regular contributor to
Pearson’s
Magazine.
E. J. is a bit finnicky in manner, and in talk rather dry and almost cynical. He is scornful about profiteers (his villains) but otherwise his stories are romantic and sentimental. He knew Ernest Dowson, who wrote
Cynara.
(Here I must interrupt to record how, one night when I tried to read this poem to Mother, she laughed as soon as I had started. I made four starts, each time she was laughing before I had got to the end of the first line. At last she explained that the first line of
Cynara
was, when read by me, rather funny. Thus,
Last
night,
ah
yesternight,
betwixt
her
lips
and
mine
There
fell
thy
shadow,
Cynara
…
had, as I read it, become
Last
night,
ah
yes!
tonight!
etc.
)
But to continue:
E.J.’s younger daughter is beautiful, with a big mouth, brown eyes, and I feel, very clever. She reminds me of Spica, and I almost love her. Possibly milady is 12. When I told her that I shot partridges at Husborne Abbey two years ago she was angry, and said that I was not to do it again. Decided to write a short story for her (secret!).
If I could, I would love every girl-child in the world: or perhaps I would be loved by them. This may sound strange to people like ‘Sappho’, John Crowe, etc., but not to those men and women who, for example, love Francis Thompson’s
Daisy,
Poppy,
and his poems about the Meynell children. I would like to live in a large old house in the country and have a lot of beautiful children with me, and tell them stories that would make their eyes to shine, and
then I would know that the shine was because of me, and therefore mine. How beautiful to have children of one’s own.
Miserere
me,
it will never be. I shall be too poor, or become ill before I can get married—this damned consumption, will it kill me? Or perhaps like Willie and my elder sister, I may develop fainting fits.
If Thompson could have met a greatheart when he was 23 or 24, he would have grown, not within himself as phosphorescent wood in a decaying pollard willow, but as a happy tree.
Feb. 17. I am writing newspaper articles, but cannot potboil. I
can
not.
I try, but chuck it and go for a walk.
Brex, the Literary Editor of
The
Daily
Crusader,
is a good fellow. He has taken three articles of mine,
In
the
Country,
300 words each, and paid for them beforehand, 1½ guineas each. I am sure he has done this to help me.
He gave me his novel—
Man
Plays
a
Part.
Brex could, I think, do very good things in the novel line, but he should cast several serious faults. One of them is complacency and finding material success too easily. He has the gift of graphic (but not vivid) description, a manner of gentle humour, and a noble perspective. The man is all right, but his means of conveyance are at present imperfect. I gather that Lord Otterburn thinks highly of him.
‘The Otter’ appears to be a man of great influence behind the scenes. Brex will be pushed so quickly in the damned journalistic world that he will overstep the narrow way of the artist and never find it again.
Yesterday I had a long and very kind letter from Spica, who is back at Cambridge (that’s the place to meet young men! Ignoble thought, Phillip!) and now learning jewellery work. I enclosed several MSS for her in my succinct, impersonal reply.
But I wish she would tell me if she loves me. I think it would enable me to find my happiness, and therefore health, so much more quickly. This suspended situation is sapping: like an attack projected, but delayed. Let the barrage fall! Six hours out of seven, at present, one is fighting despair.
I have been re-reading Jefferies’
Story
of
my
Heart,
which is all-in-all to Willie. I agree that in thought, or rather
aspiration,
this poor boy from an unhappy Wiltshire smallholding ranks with the great geniuses of the world, of which Jesus Christ is easily the first and most sublime, at least in the Western (or should it be Eastern?) World. But there is too much strain in Jefferies; from utter loneliness. He died of phthisis at the age of 38.
Feb. 19. Wonderful news! Willie has come on leave from France, looking very well!
The following Sunday Phillip and Willie had arranged to meet two men members of the Parnassus Club at Brumley South Station for a walk in the country. Their destination was Phillip’s deserted lime-kiln quarry on the Westerham Road. When the London train came in Phillip saw that Broughton and Quick had brought the girl he had seen with the sculptor in the Café Royal.
However, all was well. Poppett, as the others called her, explained that she had been with the sculptor after he had done her head in his studio, and he had taken offence at Anders Norse for showing her his gold sovereigns. He was, she said, a jealous creature, and since she had been his guest she had left when he had abruptly got up to go; although she would much rather have remained with him, Phillip.
After drinking beer at an inn they set out along a lane, coming eventually to the woods. Here, in single file, silently, they followed Phillip’s lead down a drive, under half-bare trees—Broughton, a free-lance journalist; Otis P. Quick, an American newspaper correspondent; Poppett, walking gracefully—she was training for the ballet; and at the rear, seldom speaking, Willie.
So through the woods, and Poppett, Phillip thought, was their queen. When they came to the common beyond the last covert the queen was holding a hand each of Broughton and Quick swinging along beside her. At the Greyhound Inn near the windmill they stopped for half-pints. Poppett asked for ginger ale, to Phillip’s secret approval.
When they got to the chalk quarry they saw a hare, disturbed in its form down one grassy slope, springing away before them. Phillip asked them to stand still. Obviously it had missed its usual run, he said, perhaps its line had been crossed earlier in the day by fox or stoat.
“If that had happened, it would have sheered off sideways with a leap,” said Willie.
They watched it racing down into the arena beyond, where the chalk sides of the quarry were sheer.
“Come on!” cried Broughton, as the hare rushed all ways
in fear, trying to leap up the precipitous sides, but always falling back. Broughton and Quick closed in on it, while the animal’s efforts grew more frenzied.
Suddenly Willie yelled, “Why don’t you bloody idiots leave it alone?” Quick, who was advancing with outspread hands, looked round as though startled. Just then the hare doubled back and passed between them, ears flat on head, great brown eyes staring back in terror as it sped away.
“Pardon me,” said Quick, “I thought we were hunting it.”
“Hasn’t enough blood already flowed on the face of the earth?” cried Willie, as he turned and walked away.
“No, don’t go after him, Quick. He’ll come back.”
Phillip had left some sticks to dry in the cottage, and soon had a fire going. When the flames were roaring up the chimney he went out and returned with Willie, who apologised for his bad temper. Sandwiches were eaten: four men and a girl enlivened by food and warmth, each man wanting to be favoured especially, but one entirely concealing the fact. They sat there until the sun went down beyond the lip of the quarry, the men sprawled upon the floor, the girl with her back to one wall, legs crossed at the ankle.
“Do you honestly intend to live here alone and write?” said Poppett, moving to Phillip’s side.
“Why not? It’s quiet, and no one ever comes here, except me.”
A noise came from the other room, like a hand tapping on a window. Willie and Phillip looked at one another, pretending to be alarmed. Poppett and the other two men refused to be scared.
“Pough, it’s only the wind,” said Broughton. He had a large face inclined to be spotty, but was sensitive and intelligent.
Phillip read a short story he had written about a falcon.
“Gee,” said Quick, “one of our American magazines will take that, I guess! It’s great, Phillip!”
Phillip hoped Poppett would say something; she was now lying with the top of her head pillow’d on his trench-coat against the wainscoting. But she made no comment. He heaped up the fire. Willie went outside into the dusk to get more sticks.
They asked about him, and Phillip said, “He’s a genius, I think. He can write brilliantly, but his mind is set on altering the entire way of thinking in the world. He thinks that Lenin has an affinity with Jesus, who was a revolutionary who failed.”
“I see Jesus as one who tried to get people to alter themselves, and so change
their
own world,” said Quick.
“So do I,” replied Phillip. “But you won’t mention what I said, will you, when he comes back?”
He felt alarmed when Willie did not return, and went outside to find him; but there was no sign of his cousin. Had Willie felt that the talk was too mundane, as he himself had felt it to be in the Trevelians’ house in Folkestone? Looking through the window he saw Broughton’s arm round Poppett. Broughton had bagged his place, damn him! With his other hand he was stroking her hair. Oh well, if she was like that——
He pottered about outside, while the rising moon’s glow made black the broken-down gate leading to the quarry. He realized that he was refusing to be one of a crowd about Poppett, to whom he was beginning to feel attracted; and after awhile went back with his armful of sticks. These kept the fire going, while he lay apart on a copy of
The
Observer.
“Why remain out in the cold?” Poppett asked. He joined the circle, sitting back to back with her and feeling confidence rising in him from that position.
The moon swam above the thorn-hedge and illumined the quarry. A pallor came through the broken casement. Quick, the American, lay on his back, talking as ever (he and Broughton had argued during most of the walk). His dark curly head lay on Poppett’s lap, and Phillip was aware of her left hand stroking it at regular intervals—a ration issue, he thought.
“I’m getting cramp,” said Poppett, after awhile. “Let’s change position.” Phillip then lay against the wall and Poppett settled herself against his chest. He put his arms round her, and leant his cheek against hers over her right shoulder. It was warm and soft. Twice she turned slightly and kissed him gently. During the walk she had told him that she was engaged to an Indian Army subaltern stationed at Quetta. By this time Phillip was a little doubtful about the validity of this engagement.
Broughton lay on Poppett’s right flank, his left cheek on her thigh, one hand on her skirt just above the knee—a strong point in the position. This party petting was quite new to Phillip; it was post-war freedom, apparently. Rather sweet, he thought.
The firelight lit the damp walls with their peeling paper; he felt a shared happiness. He quoted Jefferies’ “I should like to be loved by every beautiful woman on earth”.
Poppett said, “I should like to be loved by every man on the earth.”
He felt that they all understood what she meant. The conversation was natural, frank boy-and-girl stuff, free from mawkishness or direct sex-intention. All of them were a little starved of affection, and Poppett was their queen. As for his previous thoughts about the Indian Army subaltern at Quetta—they were puritanical and unworthy. This was innocent and—delightful.
“I’ve got another thing I wrote. Oh, but it will bore you.”
“What’s it about?” asked Poppett.
“A scene in the Café Royal in the winter of 1915/16. On two occasions I saw Tenby Jones, the painter, with a different model. I was with two beautiful
mannequins
from Debenham and Freebody’s, and Jones watched us.”
“Read it!” cried Poppett. “Tenby Jones wants to paint me.”
“Does he, by God!” exclaimed Broughton. “I know what that means!”
“So do I,” said Phillip.
“Well, why not?” said Poppett. “It’s a privilege to be painted by a great artist, isn’t it?”
“He paints in several dimensions,” suggested Phillip.
“What does that mean?”
“Well, in at least two directions. In two media, shall we say.”
“You talk in riddles.”
“While Tenby Jones does the riddling,” suggested Broughton, adding, “not if I know it!”
“Pouff!” said Poppett. “Come on, P.M., read your piece!”
He put the rest of the sticks on the fire, waited for flame to light the MSS, and then read in a low voice which became animated as the scene arose again before him.
The right arm of the painter with a red beard was extended protectively along the back of the plush settee, behind, but not touching, the neck of the young model he was courting. He was apparently absorbed in the face, with its shining eyes, of his companion; but the foxy part of his mind was also watching a couple seated half a dozen yards away from him. He had been attracted by the carriage of the young woman when she entered with the beardless boy whose ingenuous expression revealed an unformed character.
The painter, a mature man, considered that the girl with the youth was about twenty years old, a virgin, and by the protective attitude shown towards her callow companion she was ready to fall in love with him.
The painter, known among the fraternity as the Lion of Chelsea, lived for beauty in art and nature, and found much of both, not unnaturally, in first the presence and then the bodies of young women. Yet he was no mere cold-hearted copulator; on the contrary, his instinct for procreation could only truly, that is delightfully, be aroused to action by the thought of fatherhood. About forty years old, he was said to be the father of over a dozen children by his wife and constant mistress, as well as other young women, none of whom when pregnant did he desert, or seek to avoid paternity; indeed, the mothers and their babies lived together for as long as it suited them: a natural tribe, wild and happy. Consequently, among the cold-hearted of the kind from whom he had fled in his youth the painter was held to be a feckless, immoral fellow. In return, he had rejected the criticisms of the respectable and puritanical, and employing for himself a reversal of their standards, regarded their judgments as a compliment.
The eyes in the bearded face held near that of the young model often glanced impersonally in the direction of the young woman who sat upright beside the tall, thin subaltern at one of the marble-topped tables. What a neck, he was thinking, what carriage of head: with what instinctive pride did she compose, and then hold herself!
He perceived a classic regularity of line in her features, a balance of bone and flesh.
He began to imagine her nude before him, so that he might achieve one of those inspirations of line, with charcoal upon cartridge paper, in search of which the life within him was dedicated. He could see the shoulders under the jacket—itself a charmingly slender copy of a man’s jacket—the full bust, the waist with the slight swelling of the belly, the curving fullness of the thighs created to draw forth, with everlasting anguish of life within the impulse, the gametes nourished by the blood of the male. A well-bred young woman; a calm, grave vehicle of female instincts, which were spiritual, as all beauty was spiritual.
What did the inhibited youth, avoiding her with self-reflective eyes, know of the passion which upheld in life the spirit of beauty? He and hundreds of thousands like him would dung with rotten death the fields of Europe, without ever having known the reason why they had been born——
“Hi!” breathed the model beside the painter’s beard. “A penny for them!”
“I am thinking of that young fellow, and how he is barred by his upbringing from accepting the gifts of nature offered instinctively by that young virgin.”
“How do you know she is a virgin?”
“I see in her face the naturalness of a child brought up with loving care by parents who respect one another. Now in the young man’s
face I perceive Blake’s ‘marks of woe’, which have produced the puritan conscience. The puritan conscience is entoiled by romantic abstractions, the curse of art and life.”
“What does all that mean, my pet?”
“That I love you, my dove.”
The painter, his dove within one encircling arm, continued to watch with the eyes of a fox above the bracken of moustachios and beard. (Was his own father clean-shaven?)
The scene fades; maroons are heard off; the room empties, save for fox, dove, virgin, and romantic subaltern. A candle is brought by a waiter; anti-aircraft guns are heard; all electric lights go out; the candle is lit. It burns with its multi-images in the parallel wall mirrors.
A bomb is heard cork-screwing down; the air jumps, the candle flame claps out.
Silence; then mysteriously the candle flame creeps up the wick; again the painter is seen sitting there, with a new model, but similarly bright-eyed. And opposite sits the same young soldier, this time with two girls, and a Canadian in R.N.A.S. uniform. The painter recognises the original girl, the other is superficially pretty, and the soldier is attracted to her by reason of her romantic prettiness.
Painter, arm round model: “See, my dove, how the callow soldier stiffens his puritanically vacant face to the little bit of fluff—regarding the
ignis
fatuus
for the substance. The substance being that brunette.”
“Oh, that’s Frances!” exclaims the model, and then claps hand to mouth. She whispers, “With Alice! They were mannequins in Debenham and Freebody’s when I worked there!”
“Hush, my dove. Let us watch the comedy.”
The Canadian flier orders brandies in a loud, Rocky Mountain voice. The girls sip their drinks; the flier tosses back his, and smacks his lips; the young soldier pours his down his throat, then makes an involuntary wry face.
“It’s only in his head that he thinks he wants Fluffy,” whispers the fox to the dove. “The ideal of all soldiery is a little bit of fluff. This bit has a price on her virtue: a register marriage, but vaguely, because it’s the fashion to be a war-bride. She’s playing him off Canadian granite, she’s a tease. He probably wants her in the mode of
La
Vie
Parisienne.
Little boys in khaki want to creep back, for a moment’s oblivion from deracination, into the womb. They seek release from the tensions of death-thoughts through sensation. Tenderness, life in the body, giving themselves to Mother Eve, who desires their seed for her children, no! They fear the darkness. So harlots increase in war-time, and sad little funny Bairnsfather pictures about better ’oles are popular.”
The fox touches the brow of the dove with the hairs of his lip. Her shining eyes gaze back at him, smiling as she turns her head to touch with her lips the wrist of his protecting arm. So she seals him for
herself, and draws forth the magic incantation, “Would you like a baby by me?”
Her eyes close, her lips whisper, “I adore you. You are a lamb.”
All interest in the commonplace group a few yards away is gone. A miracle has occurred. The fox is now the lamb, ready to lie down with the lioness.
