The Power of the Dead (36 page)

He took out a pocket book and threw two photographs on the table. Then, saying “I need some fresh air,” he climbed out of the window.

“He’s escaping back to his native tree-tops,” said Phillip. “Whisky always makes him frisky.”

One of the photographs was of Bill Kidd in fur hat and coat standing beside a row of hanged men; the other, tinted, revealed him in blues with a row of ribands across his left breast.

“Do you think they’re stills for a film?” asked Archie Plugge,
peering over Phillip’s shoulder. “Perhaps he
is
a movie actor! I rather fancy your remark about ‘the Old Wick’ was
touché
, don’t you think?”

“I shouldn’t have made it.”

Plugge examined the nails of his left hand before asking, “What exactly did he mean about your pacifist talk to
his
men?”

“Oh, as acting second-in-command of the battalion, he was supposed to look after training. There wasn’t any time for training, anyway—we were a mixed mob of young soldiers—less than a hundred strong when we went north from the disbanded Fifth Army, to rest and refit after the March retreat. When we joined Plumer’s Second Army in Flanders we got about five hundred eighteen-year-olds straight from home. They were very frightened, so I talked to them in the huts, telling them that we were all in it together, and all equally apprehensive. So was the enemy, I said: but it wasn’t so bad in battle as it was before a battle. The Germans had already mounted a second push in Flanders, and we all knew it was coming. Just before the attack we were ordered to
withdraw
from the Wytschaete Ridge to conform with the line on our right, after the Germans had broken through at Armentières. We were to occupy the Peckham Switch, which ran down the slopes of the Wytschaete–Messines ridge. Kidd refused to come back, as I said, and stayed well forward in a pill-box, the Staenyzer Kabaret, half-drunk. I went back to report to my Brigadier, ‘Spectre’ West, and while we were talking outside his dug-out a gas-shell smashed his leg, and later he died of gas gangrene.”

“Is it true what Kidd told me, that he got the Military Cross?”

“Yes. He was captured on the twenty-first of March, but escaped and came back and did very well during the retreat to Albert. So much so, that the Kaiser praised the way the division fought, to some of the prisoners at Courtrai.”

“Then what Bill Kidd told me in the Game Pie was true?”

“More or less. Felicity, I can’t think why my wife hasn’t come back. Let me show you the geography of the place.”

He returned to Plugge. “I’m awfully sorry, Archie, but with one uncle ill in bed, and another coming to stay, I’m afraid we won’t be able to put you up. D’you know the Rising Sun in Colham?”

“I’ve been there with Piers. ‘Bosun’ Tinker, ha ha——”

“Do you mind staying there as my guest? They’re not on the telephone, or I’d ring him up.”

“Oh, I say, really—you must let me—— No? Well, it’s most awfully good of you.”

Felicity joined them in the garden. “I feel that you must have rather a lot to do just now, so shall I come back another day?”

“No, don’t go. Just let me get these two base-wallahs settled——”

When the two men had driven away Phillip and Felicity sat on the lawn, which had been resown that year. There were many weed plants among the grass—plantain, daisy, dandelion. He began to feel frustration. The mowing machine needed sharpening. The first of the nature articles for the
Sunday
Crusader
must be written. Nuncle was probably on his way. Where could he get a bottle of malt whisky? They walked to a cast-iron seat from which the Queen Victoria-Jubilee paint had almost wholly scaled.

“You won’t include anything you heard indoors in your
interview
, will you?”

“Of course not. In any case I’ll send you what I’ve written before I show it to anyone else. May I say that it really would be a pleasure to help you deal with all those letters I saw in the wooden holder.”

“Oh, that’s a bushel measure——”

He was a little discomposed by a feeling that he was being drawn to her. He knew that she felt this also when she said, “I thought your wife, when I saw her in the Aeolian Hall, was so beautiful. She had such a serene look.”

“Yes, she is always composed, I’ve never been able to attain that condition, unfortunately.”

“But you were happy when you lived at Malandine, surely?”

He said stiffly, “Yes I was so happy that I didn’t do any writing in my last year there.”

“But the year’s rest ultimately produced the beauty in
The
Water
Wanderer
—— Oh, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Why not? The book was an attempt, which failed, at
resurrection
.”

“Oh no, not failed——”

The air was uplifting, butterflies and bees were on the garden flowers. The heat of the sun had cast the distant hills of Cranborne Chase in a warm blue leaden mould at the bottom of the sky. He looked at her; she was twisting a handkerchief in her hands.

“Couldn’t you be serene again?” she said, her face pale.

“I really have a horribly critical mind. D’you hear that
squeak-
king
noise? It’s my wife coming with the baby’s push-cart down the lane. I’ve asked for it to be oiled several times. I should lubricate the axles myself, of course. Instead, I prefer to criticise Lucy. I’m what the psychologists call, in condemnation, a perfectionist. My uncle is a perfectionist, too. That’s why we don’t get on together. A perfectionist is a neurotic.”

Lucy appeared at the gate. She smiled and waved. They went to meet her.

“This is Felicity, Lucy.”

“How nice of you to come. I’m so sorry I was out when you arrived. I’ll get tea right away. I expect you’re both hungry.”

Leaving Felicity with Billy, who immediately claimed her, he went into the kitchen. “She’s offered to help me with the letters. What do you think?” He added, avoiding the impulse of his real motive, “What will Nuncle say?”

“Oh, don’t let that worry you. There’ll be a bedroom if she wants to stay here.”

“I’ll insist on paying her, of course.”

“Well then, I’ll ask her to stay. Cabton will be here then, and it will be jolly with all four of us together. We won’t bother Uncle Hilary, he’ll be fishing most of the time.”

*

Plugge had no intention of being landed with Bill Kidd for the week-end if he could help it. The problem was, where else could he spend the week-end? If the worst came to the worst, he could always get a bed at the Tofields’, pretending surprise that Piers was not home: but the prospect of a teetotal week-end with two old people was too much. Better to go back to Town. There was always Zorinda, the Coal Hole whore.

“I’m afraid I may have to see someone about a proposed
broadcast
,” he said to Bill Kidd as they approached the Rising Sun. “I do hope you will have some good sport during the week-end.”

“Leave it to me, old boy. Wherever there’s fish, I’ll get them.”

The landlord seemed to have been fixed in the same place ever since Plugge had last seen him.

“We are Mr. Maddison’s guests,” explained Plugge. “What will you drink, landlord? And you, Bill?”

When the glasses were empty, Mrs. Tinker took Bill Kidd to see his room. As soon as they had gone upstairs Plugge said, “Do you know if there are any local trains to Salisbury tonight?” He had remembered a Coal Hole acquaintance who had asked him to
try to get him a job at Savoy Hill, and given him his card. Plugge carried a variety of such cards in his note-case.

There was a train leaving the station in twenty minutes. Asking the landlord to make his apologies to Major Kidd, Plugge picked up his attaché case, and left.

“Gone, has he?” said Bill Kidd, returning to the bar. “Still, at Eton he was a dry bob, so what can you expect? Have you seen my Mad Son lately? He’s got some of the best fish in the county and never goes near the water.”

“Your mad son, did you say?” enquired Mr. Tinker, looking subdued.

“That’s right. We often talk about you as ‘Bosun’. We served in the same regiment. Phillip did well, then goes and blots his copy-book after the peace. Think he’ll make a go at farming? What are you having, ‘Bosun’?”

“Thank you, sir, I’ll take a drop of rum in me beer.”

“There you go drinkin’ again, you old toad, you!” cried Mrs. Tinker, appearing from behind a frowsy curtain. “Booze, booze, booze, that’s all you do!”

“Now now, naughty naughty,” said Bill Kidd. “Let there be peace between ’ee, midears.”

*

Sitting in Phillip’s study, Felicity was taking shorthand notes from dictation. It was difficult to keep calm: she kept telling
herself
that it was Phillip Maddison beside whom she was sitting, his soft voice sometimes hesitating, the mouth so gentle; the eyes, so deeply blue, sometimes giving her a sudden, half-timid,
half-merry
glance.

When she was left alone at his desk with the typewriter, she had to control the trembling of her hands with their bitten nails. Had he noticed them? She must stop biting them from that moment. She was beginning to sweat under the arms. If only she dare ask if she might have a cold bath, and then, as though accidentally, drop her blouse into the water. She typed on, after breathing deeply to feel calm again. She must be efficient in every way: she felt that her future—a new future at last—depended on how the work was done.

*

Felicity Ancroft barely remembered her father. He had left home when she was three years of age; later, her mother had told her that he had been killed in the war. As a fact Mr. Ancroft was
still alive, with a family of natural children. His legal wife, on religious grounds, had refused to divorce him. Mrs. Ancroft
herself
had an admirer, but retaining her principles, had not accepted his advances lest, she used to say, ‘the bright candle flame become smoky’. This admirer, ‘Fitz’, had diverted his attentions to the daughter, whom he had seduced at the age of fourteen, during one of the mother’s absences from home. At the time Felicity had seen nothing wrong in this; to her mind ‘Fitz’, who from an early age had dandled her on his lap, was like ‘Daddy Longlegs’ in the play. The situation had remained during the past four years; but now the young girl’s illusion, or fantasy of love, was transferred to Phillip.

*

Felicity had been typing for an hour when Lucy appeared at the open door.

“Can you spare a moment to say goodnight to Billy and Peter? They’ve had their baths, and are ready for bed.”

The children came into the room. She knelt on the carpet, and kissed each boy in turn on the top of the head.

“Are you staying in our house?” asked Billy.

“Only for a little while longer, Billy. Then I must go back to Shakesbury.”

Lucy said, “Oh, but won’t you stay to supper? Phillip is expecting you.”

“Oh thank you, Mrs. Maddison.”

“Have you everything you want?”

“Oh yes, thank you!” She had to control her voice. “I wonder if I might have a bath when I’ve done my letters?”

“Yes, do. Let me know if I can lend you anything.”

Felicity’s face shone as she helped Lucy with the supper.

*

Phillip was sitting beside the wooden slip half-way along the southern shore of the Longpond, watching fish. A heron was watching him in a willow half way to the spring-head. The bird was well out of gunshot. Its thoughts were on the strings of eggs forming within the lower ribs of fish. It was an old bird, and knew when the eggs would be ripe; it had taken many a slender
henfish
trying to get up the side of the spillway of the weir in early autumn. Its main enemy was man, particularly the keeper with a gun; its lesser enemies, just before the spawning season, were carrion crows. They, too, liked the egg-strings of hen fish, and the milt sacs of cock fish.

Phillip imagined himself dictating the first draft of the trout book to Felicity; the image in his mind was the outline of breasts under her white silk blouse, the long neck, and fair hair growing, like Barley’s, in two waves up from the straight forehead.

His mind wandered, with a sense of irritation, to Plugge and Kidd. How were they getting on at the Rising Sun? He regretted that he had got rid of them rather abruptly; he ought to go over and pay them a visit. He would go there after taking Felicity to her hotel, and returning by way of Colham, buy a bottle of malt whisky. He must get a motorcar, too. Perhaps he could drive the combination to London and sell it there in part exchange.

After supper he drove her to Shakesbury, and having refused the offer of a drink, said good-night after telling her that she was welcome to come over the next day if she cared to.

“I enjoy being with your family tremendously. It’s such fun with the children.”

“Shall I fetch you?”

“Please don’t put yourself out for me. I love walking; and there’s always the ’bus.”

“As you wish,” he said quietly, before driving home to the farm, wondering whether the slightly heavy feeling was—no, no, he must never fall in love again. Lucy was sitting on the sofa. He sat in the armchair, but could not rest. After awhile he got up, and telling her that he would walk over the downs to Colham, set out with dog and stick, to tire himself out.

*

In the bar of the Rising Sun the locals were enjoying themselves. The stranger was, like many another on holiday from London, ‘holding the cockpit’, with free drinks all round. He waggled his finger at ‘Bosun’ Tinker leaning on the bar, where his elbows had made two shiny patches. “You’re a friend of the dry-fly purist, ‘Bosun’, you old poacher, you get rid of the cannibals that won’t rise to a fly with your night-lines.”

“Whippin’ water,” ejaculated the landlord, belching loudly. “I’ve no time for they as whips water.” He ejaculated skilfully into the spittoon on the lime-ash floor.

“Don’t listen to ‘Bosun’”, warned the voice of Mrs. Tinker from the kitchen. “He’s been at his capers all day long. Drink, drink, drink, ’tes all he’m fit for.”

“Quite right, midear!” Bill Kidd called out. Then to the landlord, “My Uncle, ‘Tiny Tinribs’, has the best beat on the
Stour. I’ve told him that if he had any sense he’d have all fish over five pounds out of the water. Still got your night-lines, ‘Bosun’?”