Lily came to the door. For a few moments she looked at him without speaking. She did not swim from her eyes towards him; she was a different Lily.
“I am so glad that you could come.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“Won’t you come in?”
Mrs. Cornford came from the scullery to welcome him. She was impersonal, as before; contained within herself, keeping her distance with amiable reserve. He thought how very nice she was; much calmer than Mrs. Neville at her creamy best. Lily’s mother kept back her personal feelings, she was a natural lady, he thought. Lily had changed, she was like her mother now.
“Have you had tea?”
“Yes thank you.”
Lily looked at him with a smile. “Sure?”
“Well, actually I seldom have any tea.”
“We’re just going to have ours,” said Mrs. Cornford, serenely. “Perhaps you would like to join us. I must watch my toast.”
She went into the kitchen, leaving them in the sitting-room.
“I must draw the blinds. Mother is frightened of raids.”
“She doesn’t show it, she looks always so calm.”
“She was well trained as a servant, in her young days, you see.”
“Weren’t they rather hard days? I mean, it was rather a severe life, wasn’t it? below—er—I mean, in the servant’s hall?” This sounded a bit better than below stairs.
“Oh no, we all enjoyed ourselves. It wasn’t a very grand house, of course, like the county-and-town gentry live in,” said Mrs. Cornford, coming into the room, with a tea tray. “My master and mistress were quite comfortably off, as they would have said. We lived in one of the houses in the Paragon on the Heath, I expect you know it. My master was a City gentleman, with a carriage and pair. It was some time ago now, of course. He used to drive to the City wearing a deerstalker, and just before he got to Lower Thames Street he would take it off and put on his topper. They were fine old days,” she said, as she went out of the room. “I’ll bring the toast shortly.”
“Mother was trained under the housekeeper, and when the butler left she became head parlourmaid,” said Lily. “When she left service to get married, she and her mistress cried together like sisters, she always says.”
“I see,” he said, thinking of his own sisters.
“Won’t you sit down? You look tired.”
She sat at the other end of the sofa, and looked at him. “Was it very bad, out there, I mean?”
“It was for some, but not so bad for me.”
“You won’t go back for some time, I expect?”
“I want to get back as soon as I can.”
“You’re still not very happy, are you?”
“Oh, I’m quite happy, thanks.”
“Oh, Phillip,” said Lily, moving to him. “I have thought about you all the time you were away.”
“I thought about you, too,” he said, formally, feeling himself to be melting.
She took his hand, and opened the fingers, one by one. “You’ve been sitting here all the time with both hands clasped tight, as though waiting to fight something. You were like that when I first saw you. I look after little children in the ward, you see, and all the unloved ones hold themselves in at first, and hands clasped tight are one of the signs. Please don’t hold yourself away from me. I’ll never do anything to hurt you.”
“I know that.”
“It probably looks as though I’m vamping you, but I promise I’m not, and never will. For one thing, I’ve taken a vow.”
“A vow?” He was startled, and disappointed.
“Here’s mother. I’ll tell you after tea.”
He munched toast, and sipped hot tea, wishing that he could speak without feeling stilted.
Mrs. Cornford said she had to do some shopping after tea, and left the house. Sitting again on the sofa, with sudden ease he took her hand. “Were yours ever clenched tight?”
“Yes, once or twice. But I was lucky to have Mother.”
“Do you confide in her?”
“Some things, yes. But not everything. She wouldn’t like me to.”
“How do you mean?”
“She says it’s best to have a little reserve in all friendships. Don’t look at my fingers, they are very rough.”
“It’s a nice shape, your hands. I like rough hands best. They look honest. A bird’s pads are very rough.”
“Oh, I’ve often remembered our walk in the country!”
“Yes, it has often been in my mind.”
“Has it? Oh, I am so happy.” She lifted his hand to her cheek, then kissed it lightly. He put his cheek against hers, and felt its kindness like an invisible light. He thought of Keechey, and felt himself harden against the fat, buck-tooth face; and knew she had felt his thought when she said,
“I am sorry for Keechey’s wife and little children. If he goes to prison they won’t have anything to live on.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. Did you know I was thinking of him?”
“I thought so, when your hand closed up.”
“What am I thinking about now?”
“I don’t know. But is it Desmond?”
“Yes! How extraordinary! He arrived home this afternoon, but I haven’t seen him yet.”
“Are you friends again?”
“I’m afraid he’s rather adamant.”
“He’ll want to make it up again, you’ll see if I’m not right. Then I shall be ever so happy.”
“It was when I turned Roman Catholic.”
He felt fear, and loneliness. She took his hand.
“No,” he said, taking it away. Always the misfit; he did not belong anywhere.
“I made a vow to Our Lady, that I would serve Her.”
“You’re going to become a nun?”
“No, it is a private vow I made. I was selfish before, seeking happiness in the wrong way. Now I want only to serve.”
“I see,” he said bleakly.
“Don’t you see, I’ve got to make something of my life, not just drift along as I was before. So I became a nurse, and when I’m trained I hope to be sent out to France.”
“No more Freddy’s?”
She shook her head, looking at him.
“I met you too late,” he said as he got up, his hands clenched tight. “I suppose you think that I should have taken what the gods provided, like Desmond and Eugene did, and your other men friends?”
“Do you really believe that, Phillip?”
“What does it matter what anyone believes?”
“Oh, it does matter. You don’t really believe that, do you? I hope I haven’t upset you. Please don’t go. I didn’t mean anything, truly. I’ll do anything for you. You know that, don’t you?”
She looked at him humbly. “I thought you didn’t want me, because I’d been with other men. I couldn’t bear you not to like me.”
He sat down, hands still clenched.
“I’d give anything to see you happy, honest I would. Only I know I’m not good enough for you.”
“I’m not good enough for you. May I tell you something just to prove it?”
He told her about Polly.
“You didn’t love her, that’s why you acted like that. But if she really loved you, you would have felt safe with her, I think. I think she was in love with you, only.”
“Do you feel safe with me, Lily?”
“Oh, it is so lovely to hear you call me Lily! Of course I feel safe with you. Didn’t you know it?”
Touched by his unhappy look she said, “Can’t you tell when anyone is fond of you, Phillip?” Then the desperation in his face made her exclaim, “Oh, you’re so tired! Lie down awhile, why not. I’ll get you a cushion for your head. Now lie down, and rest your poor head. Dear head,” she murmured, sitting by him and stroking his brow with her finger-tips.
He held her hand and with a distraught expression in his eyes bowed his head and hid his face in the crêpe-de-chine of her blouse, feeling her warmth and softness; while as though to a child who had yielded to her, given up to her the ghost of itself, beyond the fatigue of its wilfulness, she murmured as her lips touched his hair and brow. “O, I love you, I have always loved you, my only dear, and now you have come to me. Do not be afraid, I will not harm you.”
All purposelessness fell from him with repeated sighing, and then he sat up and stroked her forehead, and her hair, touching with finger-tips her eyelids and smoothing her eyebrows, before clasping her head and feeling its ordinariness, its smallness, its skull-shape, with its curving bump at the back, so tender. It seemed that his eyes were filled with her thoughts, the sky-blue thoughts of Lily, no longer to be afraid of, for she was only a little girl, of bone and flesh and hope like himself. She was a spirit, he could feel her clear feelings, as simple as his own.
“And I was so afraid of you, little head, poor little head that worried so much, in the darkness of the Rec. Can you be the Lily I saw on that stool in the Bull? The Lily in the lamplight by the yews in the churchyard, longing for the Wings of a Dove? You are a dove, I think. You are gentle, and kind, like a dove.”
“Oh, you are sweet! You look just like you did on the Hillies, when we played cricket, and you showed me how to hold your bat,” she said, with glistening eyes turned upon him.
“Yes, I suppose we are all the same inside, really, under all the wrong things we do.” He stroked her forehead. “I love the way your eyebrows grow in straight little hairs, like silky gentle porcupines.” He put his arms round her, and kissed her cheekbone.
“I can’t believe you are here with me, at last,” she said.
He saw tears in her eyes, and touched them with his lips, tenderly.
“Did you really like me years ago?”
“I liked you very much. Then when you walked into the Bull that night I knew I could love only you.”
“I was frightened of you when I saw you on that stool between Desmond and Eugene. I was afraid of the look in your eyes. You know, I had a feeling that only beautiful courtesans, the terribly alluring kind, had eyes this colour.”
He kissed one, then the other, of her closed lids, while the corners of her lips quivered with smiles.
“Women are rather alarming, you know, very beautiful girls like you, I mean. I think I know why some men make jokes about love. It’s the same reason that Bairnsfather is popular, he jokes about what everyone really is afraid of. Tom Cundall would have a theory about that, I expect, he’s a brainy bird. Do you know him?” he asked, with a twinge of jealousy.
“I’ve only seen him with you. He looks a nice boy.”
“How about Ching?”
“I’ve only seen him in the Bull, or Freddy’s.”
“What do you think of him?”
“He’s terribly hurt in himself, isn’t he?”
“That never occurred to me. Yes, I suppose it’s true! Who else do you know?”
“Nobody else, now.”
“Were you ever sorry for Keechey?”
“At first.”
“Why?”
“He was unhappy.”
“He told you the tale, in fact!”
“But he was unhappy. Else he would not have told the tale.”
“Only the loveless tell lies, in other words. I suppose you’re right. Who else have you known beside Desmond and Eugene?”
“I’ve forgotten.”
“Come on, tell me.”
“You need not be jealous of anybody,” she said, touching his cheek with her lips.
“But did you love them?”
“I was sorry for them. Also——”
“Also what?”
“Well, the one I wanted I couldn’t find, so who I went with didn’t seem to matter.”
“Oh,” he said.
“I wanted to be liked for myself alone, but it did not seem it would ever happen. But after I saw you in the Bull I never went with any other fellow, old or new. What big eyes you have, Grandmother!”
“Grandmother! What a name!”
“Oh, I loved it, and always shall.”
“Isn’t it strange, we two being so ordinary together? Let’s wash up the things for your mother, shall we? I think it’s fun to work together.”
“Ah, but you might not feel the same when you’re gone away from me.”
“I shall always feel like this.”
He took off his signet ring. “Wear it on your little finger—but keep it a secret, won’t you?”
She stared at the ring, gave it a series of small kisses, and held it to her heart.
When he had dried the tea things and spread the cloth on the clothes horse before the fire he said, “I think I ought to go now, Lily. I promised to meet Desmond and Gene. I shall have to tell Desmond. Shall I see you tomorrow?”
“I go to mass in the morning, at St. Saviours.”
“May I come, too? I’ll meet you outside the church. What time? All right, till then. Thank your mother for me, won’t you? Au revoir. Till tomorrow!”
They kissed lightly, tremulously. Her last whispered words to him were, “You are my child.”
*
Phillip and Desmond went up to Charing Cross, then by tube to Paddington to call on Eugene in his garret flat in Westbourne Terrace. Eugene was delighted to see them; his sallow face lit up. He had just opened a tin of sardines for his supper, thinking they were not coming, he said. There it was, on the kitchen table. He eyed it thoughtfully, and said, “It will do for me tomorrow,” then he put the tin back in a box on the window-sill where he kept his grub. Having washed, he stood before a long looking-glass, adjusted his bowler hat at the correct angle for a man about town, took his yellow gloves and silver-mounted second-best ebony stick, returned to the glass to erect his blue, white-dot bow tie, and said, “I am ready. Where is it to be this time?”
“How about the usual place, Gene?”
“Well, the Popular has become too well known, since you’ve been to France. It’s crowded with all sorts of people from the suburbs nowadays.”
“Where do you suggest then? You’re the expert.”
“How about the Piccadilly Grill?”
“I’ve only got five quid.”
“That ought to do, if we don’t have vintage wines. It’s infra dig to ask them to take a cheque, of course.”
“I see. Let’s get a taxi.”
Outside the Piccadilly Hotel stood two enormous grey Mércèdes motorcars, with great brass flexible pipes snaking through the bonnets.
“The Royal Flying Corps always comes here when there’s nothing doing,” explained Gene.
The hotel foyer was full of what Phillip thought were the most beautiful girls he had ever seen. Gene took off hat and coat and gave them to the cloak attendant with what he considered to be the air of a Brazilian aristocrat, and led the way down to the grill room, where amidst masses of yellow and bronze chrysanthemums on a dais an orchestra was playing. The restaurant manager bowed him to a table; lifted a hand to a waiter, who hurried forward to draw back a gilt chair for Eugene, bowed to the other two, and withdrew; to come forward again, after an interval, with three enormous cartes de menu.
“Let me see,” said Eugene, fitting his eyeglass.
A second waiter attended. “Cocktail, m’sieu? Sherry?” Eugene shook his head, the waiter bowed and departed.
Phillip thought the prices were very high. Still, he had five pounds and a few shillings.
“Do you mind ordering, Gene? I’ve rather lost touch since coming home.”
“How about our usual porterhouse steak, with onions and fried potatoes? And a Burgundy? I’m going to lunch with Charlie Mayer at his house in Sydenham tomorrow, so I fancy something simple tonight.”
The leader of the band came forward, violin under chin, bow in hand. People clapped.
“That’s de Groot, the famous violinist,” explained Gene. “He’s made dozens of gramophone records.”
“Good lord! Of course! I’ve got his Selections from Razzle Dazzle!”
The band played selections from Chu Chin Chow. The lights, the gaiety, the food, the wine, the laughing faces were all around; yet something was absent. It was not like the old days. Since meeting again at the door of the flat, he and Desmond had not spoken much. Desmond seemed subdued; he was still, he said, passing a hand across his forehead, liable to headaches, from being blown up.
“What happened?” asked Phillip. If only Lily were with them, and they were four friends together. Polly—Percy—Jasper—Bason—no, the old days were gone.
“Oh, we were in a Russian sap, in front of the infantry, and when we blew in the end of the tunnel the blast came back and the roof fell on us,” Desmond’s low voice was saying.
“What was the idea of blowing in the end while you were still there?”
“For the infantry to debouch. It was a shallow tunnel, you see, and the end was under the German front line. The blast was supposed to lift the lid off the end, but it didn’t, so we were all trapped.”
“How long were you there?”
“I don’t remember, but it must have been a long time, for when I recovered consciousness, I was lying on a stretcher, and it was night.”
“You were lucky.”
“I know. It got me out of that hell.”
“Where were you?”
“In front of La Boisselle.”
“I was in Mash Valley. On the left of the Bapaume Road.”
“A very unhealthy place. It’s no good asking me about it, I can’t remember anything since the explosion.” Again the hand across the brow. Was Desmond doing a Piston?
“Ought you to drink wine, if your nerves are bad?” He winked at Eugene.
“Oh, that doesn’t affect me. I drank the best part of a bottle of rum last night, and was the same afterwards as before.”
“Seems rather a waste to drink wine then, doesn’t it.”
“That’s the sort of remark you would make.”
“Well, I didn’t mean it that way.”
“But you said it.”
Phillip looked at Gene, whose faint eyebrows on the edge of a slightly receding brow were lifted.
“Now then, Des, Phil didn’t mean it the way you took it. Can’t you take a joke?”
“Drink up,” said Phillip, filling the glasses. “Waiter, bring another bottle.”
At this point the R.F.C. pilots dining somewhat noisily at one of the large tables in the middle of the room got up and left, after the manager had spoken to them.
“First warning,” said Desmond.
The band went on playing, while many heads were turned to the departing officers in their riding boots and double-breasted jackets. The waiter whispered: the famous Leefe Robinson, V.C., had been among them. The life of the restaurant seemed to have departed, too. When the music stopped it was quiet, even subdued. Desmond seldom spoke. Phillip felt the secret satisfaction of his thoughts of Lily going from him. How much was Desmond putting on his having-been-blown-up mood?
After their dinner they left for the cheaper Monkey House for coffee. The vast carpeted room with its marble pillars and mirrors and chocolate-gilt decorations seemed to be filled more than before with full-lipped dark-haired people in family parties with eyes like black grapes gazing at ease among figures in khaki, a few wearing the new gold-braid wound-stripes on their left-arm sleeves, sitting with patient faces and shut-away thoughts.
Phillip was drinking coffee with his cigar and looking upon the scene into which, it seemed, music like golden-shred marmalade was being poured with the din of voices, when a fat young man wearing homburg hat on his head, a smart new overcoat with astrachan collar, and pointed yellow boots pushed past to a family party near them, and beckoning with a fat hand on which many rings showed, said something which made them all get up and walk away together. Other dark-eyed groups followed the general exodus, until khaki uniformed figures here and there with their womenfolk became prominent.
“See how they run,” said Gene. “There’s absolute panic in the Whitechapel Road when a Zepp is anywhere near. Here in Piccadilly the wealthier ones are the first to get down into the Underground. They all ride round the Inner Circle on a penny ticket until the raid is over. How about going to Hampstead by tube, and looking over London from the high ground? It will be safe up there.”
Outside in Piccadilly the crowds were thick as before, taxi-cabs with their little yellow oil-lamps, newsboys in the faint glow of the Prince of Wales theatre foyer crying the names of evening papers—Star, Globe, Pall Mall Gazette, Evening News—All the latest! Advance on the Somme continues!—Italian Victory on the Isonzo!—German Food Shortage!—All the Latest!—Hullo Dearie, looking for a Nice Girl? No thank you. Well then, push off! That’s just what I’m doing, good night. Obviously Ray, dug-in at Cherry Hinton, had graduated in Piccadilly Circus.
“It’s too bloody far to Hampstead. Let’s go and see Freddy.”
“That means I’ll have to come back to Town by myself,” said Gene.
“You can go all the way by tube to Paddington.”
Piccadilly Underground was crowded with people, so they walked to Charing Cross. Lily, would she be in Freddy’s? Had she changed her mind? He felt heavy with longing.
*
“I’ve heard nothing down this way,” said Freddy.
It was not the same place any more. He did not want to drink whiskey, and led the way to the Gild Hall. New flappers, new faces, innocent eyes and fresh complexions, young soldiers seeming smaller, shy-bold, callow. Had he once been like that?
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up
And sinks into the bosom of the lake—
He wanted to be alone, to dream of Lily, to nurse the ache within him. Was he lost again, as he had been with Helena? When Desmond suggested a game of three-handed snooker, all against all, he made his excuses.
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go home. I’m still a bit under the weather with my leg at times, so I’ll leave you two, if you don’t mind.”
“Just a minute,” said Gene, drawing Phillip aside, “I wonder if you could lend me a pound? I’m rather hard up at the moment. My quarterly allowance is due next week, at the Brazilian Bank, so I’ll be able to settle up all the other money I owe you then.”
“I’ve only got fifteen bob left, but you can have ten, if that’s any good. Righty-ho, see you soon. Thanks for coming with me tonight.”
“Don’t mention it, it’s a pleasure. You know very well how I feel about you, Phil.” Eugene pressed his hand.
He walked home, hesitating at the chinks of light around Mrs. Neville’s window; then went up Hillside Road, where the two lamp-post lights were out.
His house was dark.
“Is that you, Phillip?” How anxious the voice seemed.
“Yes, Mother.”
“Don’t make a noise, dear. I’ll come down.”
How small she was, in her bare feet and dressing-gown, her hair so thin, a grey wispy rat-tail.
“Father was called out. Don’t say a word to Mavis or Doris, will you, but Zeppelins have been reported on the way here. Doris is all right, but Mavis is terribly nervous, and she’s not well, either.”
Mavis’ voice called with wild fear from her bedroom door at the end of the house. “Who is it, Mother?”
“Only Phillip, dear.”
“I thought I heard one just now! There was a flash right across my window!”
The window looked east, towards Woolwich and Shooter’s Hill.
“It was only a tram,” said Phillip. “Don’t get the wind up.”
“You’ll wake Doris, and she’s got to take her College of Preceptors exam this term.”
“I’m awake,” said the voice of Doris. Her dim face looked over the banisters of the landing above.
“If you all go on talking I shall never get to sleep,” came the complaining voice of Mavis from down the passage. “Phillip turns night into day, just as Father says.”
“That’s better than turning night into fright, anyhow.”
“Night into getting tight, you mean!” came the satirical laughter. “Where have you come from now, eh? Freddy’s, I bet! How’s the washerwoman’s daughter?”
“I’m going for a walk on the Hill, Mother.”
“Down to Freddy’s, you mean,” Mavis called out.
“Mavis, will you stop taunting your brother!”
“Well, he began it.”
“Yes, I made the mistake of being born before you,” said Phillip, closing the door behind him.
It opened again. “You won’t be late, will you, dear?” whispered Hetty.
Outside the gate the shadowy figure of Desmond awaited him.
*
Across the North Sea from Germany nine airships were flying. Six of them, of an older type, were making for the east coast of England north of the Thames estuary. They were loaded with two-hundred-kilogram bombs and thermite canisters. Their objectives were factories, foundries, and industrial plant in the Midlands.
Three others had been ordered to bombard London, now declared to be both fortress and arsenal by the German Supreme Command. Driven at fifty miles an hour by Maybach water-cooled engines housed in gondolas suspended under rigid frames of aluminium, each of the silken envelopes contained a million and a half cubic feet of hydrogen gas. They were the new and improved type of Zeppelin, capable of a maximum air-speed of sixty miles an hour.
Shortly after six o’clock, L 31 and L 32, based on Ahlhorn, had crossed the industrial areas of the Rhineland. Far to the south the crews could see Cologne Cathedral. Then in the dusk, at six hundred feet, they continued side by side above the glimmering Belgian roads, lined with trees, which guided them as they flew by map and compass.
Darkness settled upon the earth as they rose above the gathering mists, heading for Ghent, on course for Ostend. With the coming of night, direction by wireless came to each airship from ships of the German fleet, which gave bearings from List, Nordholz, and Borkum.
The cold which had come into the air with the setting of the sun increased the buoyancy of the gas in the envelopes. A difference of three degrees in temperature meant one per cent in weight-carrying capacity, or three hundred feet in altitude.
Shortly after ten o’clock that night L 31, L 32, and L 33 were passing down the coast of Northern France. The crews saw on their port beams, like a great livid wound lying upon Europe in the darkness, the lights of the raging battlefield of the Somme. For nearly an hour the pallor in the night accompanied each man in his loneliness, remote from the turmoil upon land and sea, but not from the fear and resolution of each mind, as slowly the wan ghost receded astern, while they hung under the stars, to the throbbing of exhausts.
One of the commanders was Mathy. He had planned to make his landfall upon the coast of Kent—a dim wandering line of chalk awash with the fret of shallow waves—and then turning nor’-nor’-west through wingless darkness to follow the lines of the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway into the City. Thus he hoped to avoid the formidable defences of the guns, lights, and patrolling aircraft concentrated upon the north-east approaches to London.
*
Desmond sat upright at one end of a seat on the Hill. At the other end Phillip was lying back, feeling smoothed and selfless, neck resting on hands behind head, feet stretched upon the gravel before him. It was a warm night, with a gentle wind. Remotely above them the Milky Way lay across the depth of the sky. It was the beginning of the season of meteors and shooting stars.
Now slides the silent meteor on and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.
He could never write poetry like that. It was as unattainable as the pale star-dust of the galaxies, which had been burning aeons before man had come upon the earth, in his earliest amoebic form. Yet Love was before the stars were flames, and Love would remain when they were burned out. Love was the spirit of the universe, shining in the Abyss.
“This situation between us has got to be settled now, one way or the other.”
“I agree.”
“I’ve hardly had your betrayal of our friendship out of my mind for more than a few minutes during the past three months. I’ve been in hell. I’ve thought about it at night. It begins the moment I wake up. Now it must be settled one way or the other.”
When there was no reply, Desmond said, “I thought you would not answer. I told you before that it was in my mind to kill you, and you laughed cynically. Well, before I decide whether to kill you or not,” the low voice went on, “I’ll give you one more chance to tell me the truth. Did you see Lily tonight, before you came to see me? I want just a plain yes or no.”
Phillip wondered if the fact that Desmond had been blown up had worn down his nerves to what engineers called the flash-point of gaseous liquids such as when paraffin and petrol turned to flame. He told himself that he must be careful. Had Desmond got a revolver in his pocket?
“Yes, I did see Lily tonight. I went to say goodbye, as she is going away soon. I called to see Mrs. Cornford some days ago, and she told me her daughter was coming home, and invited me to tea. Now may I ask you a question. Why do you ask?”
“Because I also have seen Lily tonight.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Why should I? What has it to do with you?”
“I might have asked the same question, Desmond. But I didn’t. I don’t mind if you see her or not. Both of us have been friendly with her, you know; though not in the same way. I told you that before I went back to France, when you were kind enough to wish for my death. Incidentally, it might be argued that your remark was hardly that of a friend. Whether it was a betrayal of friendship, or not, you can decide for yourself.”
“As usual, you are very plausible, and can twist anything round your own way.”
“Well, everyone has his or her own point of view, you know.”
“Did you promise me on one occasion, and did you promise my mother again the other day, that you would not see Lily again? And have you broken both promises?”
“I don’t remember making definite promises.”
“Well, let me jog your memory. Do you agree that my mother asked you not to see Lily again, for her own sake, because you had made her fond of you, but did not care for her? In other words, she asked you to play the game with Lily. Do you admit that?”
“She did ask me. But the reason, as you put it, to play the game, wasn’t mentioned, so far as I recall.”
“But it was inferred?”
“Yes, in a way.”
“Would it be true to say that as soon as you got from Polly what you wanted, you had no further use for her?”
“Yes, I think that is true.”
“Furthermore, having achieved your desire at last with Helena Rolls, you promptly lost interest in her?”
“That’s probably true, too. But no harm has been done to her.”
“How do you know? You had your triumph, and that’s all that matters to you. You don’t really want love from anyone, you want to be able to gloat over them. It is what is known as diabolical possession. So if you do not leave Lily alone I shall consider it my duty to kill you. Then I shall shoot myself.”
“Well, that would not exactly be an act of friendship, would it? Also, wouldn’t Lily tend to blame herself all her life? She does now, you know; or did. She told me so. She felt she had come between us.”
“On the contrary, it is you who have come between Lily and me. Your shadow lies upon her—what the Germans call a doppelganger. She’s fascinated by you, as a dove is by a snake.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Yes, I do. I remember your power over Peter Wallace, and how you got him to fight your battles for you. He believed everything you said—until he found you out! You got him to thrash Albert Hawkins, merely because he dared to talk to Mavis behind your garden fence. What harm could that do—childhood sweethearts? By your act Albert Hawkins’ heart was broken, as well as his face. That never occurred to you, did it?”
“I don’t know why you’re talking like this. It happened a long time ago, anyway, and I admit I was a bit of a coward then.”
“Are you any different now? You may think so, perhaps. Let me remind you. Didn’t you clear off and leave your pal Martin in the lurch on Messines Ridge, in 1914?”
“How do you know that?”
“You told me yourself.”
“It’s only partly true, anyway. The Bavarians had broken through. Martin wouldn’t get up when I tried to get him up, so I retreated, with many of the others. No one knew what was happening.”
“Except Peter Wallace and his brothers, who had the guts to stay, and were killed.”
“Why are you using all that I told you against me?”
“To prove to you that you always twist everything in your own favour, regardless of the truth. You make up all the rules to suit yourself, don’t you?”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing now?”
“You’d wriggle out of anything. But you won’t wriggle out of your treachery to me over Lily so easily. You’ve seduced her spiritually—that is your power over people. I tell you now, and I swear it before God, that if you see her again, I’ll put a bullet through you, Phillip Maddison!”
Did Desmond really believe that Lily would be able to love him if the so-called diabolical influence of himself were removed? And thinking thus, he was jagged by the thought that Lily might have said that to Desmond. Lily had turned Catholic; Catholics believed what their priests told them about such things. Could Lily, after he had left her that evening, have confessed to a priest that she was being pulled back from the Love of God by himself? Well, if that was the Love of God, the sooner he was dead and in hell the better.
“Do the Catholics go to confession on Saturday night, Desmond?”
“Yes. Especially round here, because many are working all the week. Why do you ask?”
“I wondered if the idea of my diabolical nature had come from the priest’s confessional box. You are a Catholic, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but you can’t bluff me. What you really want to know is what Lily said to me.”
“Tell me if it was Lily who first talked of demoniacal possession.”
“Would it surprise you if I told you that she did?”
Phillip made no reply.
“I saw Lily tonight,” said Desmond, quietly. “I called round after I’d said goodbye to Gene.”
“Is it true that Lily said that? About me? On your honour?”
It was now Desmond’s turn to be silent.
“Answer me, Desmond! You must tell me!”
“Why should I? You don’t tell me the truth, so why should I answer your questions?”
“Then you are a wriggler, and no better than I am, are you, according to your ideas?”
“Except that I love Lily with all my heart and soul,” said Desmond. “Tonight I asked her to marry me,” he said, hardly above a whisper.
“What did she say?” Phillip said, putting away his feelings.
“I’ve told you in so many words. Your influence, or shadow, stands between us.”
The night wind moved slightly in the hawthorn standing by Phillip’s end of the seat. He heard a brown leaf dropping through the spined twigs, making the slightest of sounds, like broken sighs, as it left the parent tree for ever, its brief summer over and done with.
“Desmond.”
“Yes.”
“If it could do any good, I would go away for ever. If it would do any good between you and Lily, I mean.”
“How do I know that you will keep your word this time?”
“I said I would go away if it would do any good between you and Lily.”
“Well, I have told you it would.”
“Did Lily tell you that? Please tell me the truth.”
“You ought to know the answer.”
“Did she kiss you, Desmond? I mean, tonight?”
“Yes,” said Desmond, and at this Phillip felt black depression gripping him. But he managed to say, “If she kissed you as though she loved you, why are you worrying about me?”
“She kissed me on my forehead, she kissed me goodbye, because she’s possessed by you!” cried Desmond, as he got up and walked away in the darkness.
*
Some time later Phillip arose and walked round the Hill, filled with thoughts of Lily streaming in the night sky like meteors from the constellation Berenice’s Hair, her eyes the light of the morning, her brow the dawn, Eos of the Greeks, driving her chariot up to heaven from the River Oceanus, to announce the coming of the sun.
He had picked up these crumbs of learning from the Smaller Classical Dictionary; how Eos had carried off youths distinguished for their beauty, such as Orion, Cephalus, and Tithonus, whence she was called by Ovid Tithonia Conjux. “By the prayers of Eos (Dawn) who loved him, he obtained from the gods immortality, but not eternal youth, in consequence of which he completely shrank in his old age; whence a decrepit old man was proverbially called Tithonus.”
The fate of Orion seemed to be linked with his own conduct: for Orion the hunter had treated the maiden Merope badly, after falling in love with her. Her father in revenge had his eyes put out. But Orion recovered sight by exposing his eye-balls to the rising sun; and after death he lived among the stars, with lion’s skin, girdle, club, sword, and Sirius the hound trailing him as he bestrode the universe.
There it was, the constellation of Orion: low over the horizon: far beyond the Weald of Kent, beyond the battle raging from North Sea to Alps, beyond the sands of Africa and the coral strands of the south. Lily, Lily, be thou mine, save me from the terrors of the world. No, no; stand alone, Phillip. Even as “Spectre” West.
When he returned to the seat, he saw Desmond sitting there. Something in his humped-up attitude made Phillip say,
“Desmond, I’m awfully glad to see you back! I’ve been thinking. There’s a lot of truth in what you said to me.”
“Phillip,” said a low, quiet voice. “I’ve been talking to Mother.”
“I see.”
Desmond sighed deeply. “She says I am wrong. So I’ve come to say one thing to you, before I volunteer to go back to the front.”
After a long silence Desmond began in a voice almost inaudible.
“First, I must tell you about my mother. But before I do that, I want your word of honour never to tell anyone what I am going to say.”
“I promise.”
“My mother, when she met my father, used to haunt the promenade of the Alhambra. She was very much the same as Lily was when I first met her in Freddy’s. Lily, you know, used to go in to pubs in order to get off with men——” the deep voice quavered to a stop.
“We all seek for the one true love, Desmond.”
“My mother walked the Alhambra Promenade because she was a prostitute.”
“How do you know? Did she tell you?”
“No, I heard it from my uncle in Nottingham. He is my father’s brother. He and his sister—they are both unmarried—pay my mother a monthly allowance.”
“Forgive my asking, Desmond, but did they say that your mother took money from men?”
“No, but they inferred it.”
“Nottingham is quite close to Grantham. When I get back there, I think I’ll go and see them—not about what we’re talking about, of course.”
“I shouldn’t do that. You see, they don’t approve of you.”
“How do you know?”
“They told me so.”
Phillip felt subdued: a familiar feeling: otherwise he might have wondered how it had come about that people who had never met him could disapprove of him.
“My father,” went on Desmond, “has another family.”
“I see.”
“I know what you’re thinking. But you’re wrong. My father and mother were married. They still are, in fact.”
“I see.”
A large white brilliance opened in the darkness of the sky, low in the south-west. It hung steady, shedding its beams softly.
“Hullo!” said Desmond. “What is it?”
The light floated, swimming in its own solitary brilliance. Then a red shearing flashed upwards to the light. A few seconds later came the deep crump of a bomb. There came a shout from the silhouetted mass of the school.
“It’s a parachute flare dropped by a Zeppelin!” said Desmond.
Searchlights were now weaving about the sky, trying to pierce the ball of brightness hanging over the distant streets and houses. Shouts and cries came from the roof of the school, as a pale blade arose towards the stars. It seemed to burst, with the throbbing of the engine driving the dynamo in the sheep-fold, into a lilac blaze, reaching up until it dissolved wanly in space.
“What the hell are our guns doing? There’s a three-inch on One Tree Hill,” said Desmond. “Look! The blasted thing’s coming our way!”
A second flare scalded the sky with brightness dazzling the eyes; followed by another ruddy flash.
“Come on, under cover!” cried Desmond. “We can get over the railings into the lavatory.”
“What’s the odds? I vote we stay and watch what happens.”
“She’s making for Woolwich Arsenal,” said Desmond, listening to the growl of engines. “I bet it’s Mathy! What an idea, to blanket our lights with flares! The guns can’t spot her, either.”
Searchlights were fumbling nervously. Then one swung around in a complete arc, before making a steady point.
“They’ve spotted her!”
All the lights rushed together and clustered upon a tiny yellow length, tilting steeply, yellow-brown as its nose bored a way out of sight into a cloud.
“It was over twelve thousand feet,” said Desmond. “And rising fast. One of the new thirties. I’ll swear that’s Mathy.”
One after another the searchlights died away. The beam lancing up from the roof of the school glowed a pale pink before leaving an eye-daze upon the darkness.
“There must be an aeroplane about,” said Desmond. “Listen!”
They heard the throb of engines.
“The note is too heavy for a 90-horse Raf engine in a BE2c. Those are Maybach engines. Hark!”
The scoring hiss of a bomb travelling aslant scalded the sky. There was a leaping flash, and three to four seconds later a rending reverberation. The sword lights leapt up and pointed about the sky again.
“Swine!” cried Desmond. Phillip, too, felt hot and angry. “That one must have fallen right into the High Street.”
“Come on, man! Let’s go down and see!”
“No, I want to watch what happens. We can see best from up here. There must be a reason why the guns haven’t opened up. An aeroplane above the Zeppelin would see it against those flares you know. What’s the time?”
“A quarter to one.”
“Look, there it is! I knew there was a reason for the guns not firing!”
The rod-like yellow length was now seen in the massed beams to be as though dragging a money-spider on a gossamer, which glistened now and then.
“He’s firing tracer and incendiary!” yelled Desmond. “He’s into her! Look! In Christ’s name, look! He’s into her!”
The glistening money-spider was beside the Zeppelin. Then the searchlights flicked out once more.
“Have they lost her? Have they lost her?”
“Wait! Wait!”
Desmond gripped Phillip’s arm. “They’ve got a platform on the top, and a machine-gun mounted there. The aeroplane was visible to them, in our lights, you see!”
They waited, tense and anguished. A scarcely audible rattle, like a woodpecker drumming, came from the stars; again, and yet again. Then a wriggle of red showed in the northern sky. It moved slowly, it extended and broadened, flames were seen, growing wider until the whole of the Hill, every tree and seat, pebbles on the path, Desmond’s face, the hard bony lines of his brow and cheeks and jaw, glowed with fire. Then from all around the Hill, sounding far away, came thin flame-like cries, recalling to Phillip children screaming on Band Night, but these cries were deeper, harsher, from all the streets of London.
*
One of those streets had been opened out, and thither policemen and special constables, nurses, and ambulance men who had been waiting at police stations came hurrying; while in Randiswell fire station firemen were sliding down the polished steel pole through the holes in the floors of their quarters leading direct to their engine on the ground below. Brass helmets on heads, bell dashing its chimes into the flaming night, the engine roared down the High Street, to where men and women in nightshirts and nightgowns covered by coats, wearing slippers or bare-foot, were hurrying out of houses.
*
Special-Sergeant Richard Maddison was sitting in the gutter of Nightingale Grove, dazed. He had been walking down the road, looking for light-glints in one house after another, when he heard a high-pitched scream coming down aslant the High Street. The aerial torpedo struck a house and passed through it and continued on through the party wall of the next house and burst in a third house, blowing out the walls and causing the collapse of five houses altogether. Richard was caught in the blast which blew out windows and turned glass to dust, so that when he was helped to his feet he was white as with frost. When some people tried to help him away to hospital, he said, “Thank you, but it is my duty to attend to the injured,” for screams and cries for help were coming from the chaos of rubble and rafters and other things shattered and heaped together. But he fell over, and was unable to get up for some minutes; his sight was dazed, the stench of powdered brick and mortar sickened him, he felt weak and thin. Then the fire-engine clanged up the road, and the firemen, together with others, began to pull and lift away the masses of broken masonry. Richard got upon his feet and helped.
From the first house was withdrawn a bed, doubled up by the explosion. In it lay a woman also doubled up, with a grey face; she appeared to be sleeping. She had been killed, it was said, instantly by shock. They they found the body of a young girl. Seeing her face in the light of a torch, Dr. Dashwood, who had hurried up the road from the Conservative Club, immediately knelt beside her, to listen through his stethoscope. When the onlookers saw him take off his bowler hat, they knew that Lily Cornford was dead. At least, they said, she had gone with her mother. It was then that Richard was seen to stumble and fall. He was taken, with the other cases of shock, to the Military Hospital.
When Phillip and Desmond arrived at Nightingale Grove they saw Dr. Dashwood standing alone, tears streaming down his face, as he looked at the ruin that had been the home of Lily. They set to work with others, to help get clear those whose voices were crying for help under the bricks.
The ambulance returned. Stretcher cases were taken away.
Soon afterwards a squad of elderly civilians, with G.R. armbands—known locally as the Gorgeous Wrecks, a punning reference to Georgius Rex—arrived, and a cordon was put round the damaged buildings. Phillip and Desmond went home.
They did not speak until Phillip called out good-night to Desmond as he put his key in the door. Then, hearing Mrs. Neville’s voice in the downstairs flat, he went in. Mrs. Neville was sitting with old Mrs. Tinkey and her daughter, by a table on which stood a candle and the bottle of brandy kept for an emergency. The bottle was open, and seeing his condition, dishevelled and covered with dust, Mrs. Neville said very quietly, “Thank God you are both all right. You’ve been doing rescue work, I can see that. Help yourself to some brandy. Even if Gran’pa does write you another letter, Phillip!”
When he had finished his tot she said, “Now, dear, I won’t ask you any questions, because your mother is expecting you. Doris came to ask if you were here, saying that Mavis has fallen unconscious, so I think you ought to go home at once.”
Mrs. Neville’s big face was calm, she felt herself to be all queenly dignity, as befitted the tragic circumstances of the night.
“You’ll let Desmond and me know if we can be of any help, won’t you, Phillip? I suppose you haven’t seen Father?”
“No, Mrs. Neville. Good night, Desmond.”
Doris came to the door. She said that when the sky had turned red, lighting up everything so terribly, Mavis had screamed “Mother! Mother!” and then given a kind of wail. Doris had leapt out of bed and run to her sister’s help. As she was hurrying down the passage she heard bumping sounds in the end bedroom. Then, said Doris, Mother came.
“In the light coming through the window we saw Mavis jerking about on the floor. Her eyes were glazed, and there was blood on her lips. She had bitten her tongue.” They had lifted Mavis on to her bed; she had awakened a moment, said, “Don’t leave me, Phillip,” then fallen into a deep sleep.
“She asked me not to leave her?”
“Yes. I heard it distinctly. She said, ‘Don’t leave me, Phillip’. Ask mother if you don’t believe me.”
Phillip was sitting in the kitchen when there was a ring of the front door bell. Mr. Jenkins had come to say the sergeant had been taken to hospital, suffering from concussion.
Phillip took charge. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Jenkins. Now don’t worry, Mother, I will look after Father. The raid is over. Have some hot milk ready to heat the moment I return, for Father. And water for a bottle, for his feet. And keep calm. No fuss, please.”
He ran most of the way to the hospital, and arrived as Father was about to leave. Father seemed surprised to see him, and said it was very good of him to have come down. He was all right, except for being deaf in one ear, and his head was still ringing with the explosion. His spectacles had saved him from flying glass; he had only just put them on, he explained, to look the more carefully for any light escaping past a blind, which might very well betray to the raiders that there was a target for their campaign of frightfulness.
“It was awful, Phillip!”
“Yes, Father, I quite understand. Don’t worry any more.”
“No, oh no. Of course this is all new to me. I suppose,” he said, “you have many times experienced the effects of bursting shells? Well, this one was an eye-opener to me, I can assure you! They tell me that a splinter no bigger than an acorn went right through a pillar box, and out the other side. However, retribution has come, as no doubt you know, to one of the raiders, at least. Let us hope it is Mathy. You look very pale, Phillip. Are you sure you are all right?”
“Yes thank you, Father.”
Richard went to thank the matron. They walked through the yews of St. Mary’s churchyard.
“Well, this is a night we shall remember for the rest of our lives, Phillip!”
“Yes, Father.”
Mavis was in a deep sleep when they returned.
“She had some tripe for supper, at Nina’s, and it did not agree with her, Dickie. She was ill once before, after eating tripe. It was very foolish of her, but she won’t do it again.”
Richard remembered the time, nearly twenty-two years before, when his wife had had a similar collapse, after being knocked down by her father, when she was enceinte with Phillip, and the old man had found out about the secret marriage. That old tyrant next door had much to answer for, in his opinion.
“Well, I suppose she had better see Dr. Cave-Browne tomorrow. But why does she eat tripe, if it disagrees with her? It is beastly stuff, anyway.”
The doctor, in frock coat and silk hat, drove up Hillside Road in the morning, and advised rest, and a tonic. “It is purely functional,” he said. “She is highly strung, and should eat plenty of fresh vegetables. Cabbage is the stuff, but don’t throw away the so-called greens-water. And no more excitement, young woman. Learn to take life calmly. You’re always hurrying somewhere whenever I see you.” His hands were stained dark brown. He had been called out the night before, to help the bomb victims, and had used many handfuls of potassium permanganate on shattered flesh, to stop bleeding and infection. “Rough and ready treatment,” he said.
When the doctor had driven away, Hetty said to her son, in the privacy of the front room: “Try and be kind to Mavis, won’t you. She is your sister, after all. I wonder why you never liked her, from the earliest days you would not be reconciled. I remember when she was a tiny baby, in my arms, you tried to get her away from me. Then you once pushed her in the fire.”
“Did I? I don’t remember it, Mum. What a little swine I must have been.” He went up to his sister’s bedroom. “I’m sorry I have been so beastly to you, Mavis,” he said, and kissed her.
Afterwards he walked down to the High Street, to the Roman Catholic Church. When the service was over he bought a candle to place on the iron ring before the image of the Virgin. On the way back he called at Wetherley’s, to hire the Humberette, thinking to go that afternoon to see the fallen airship; then he went into Freddy’s bar.
The landlord leaned over the counter and said quietly, “The wrong ones were took last night over there,” as he jerked his head in the direction of Nightingale Grove. “It would have saved a lot of trouble if it’d been our friend who we all admire so much. But Keechey’s got a stretch in Wormwood Scrubs coming to him all right.”
Phillip could not help thinking about his wife and small children. As he was drinking a glass of beer Dr. Dashwood came in, and taking him aside, gave him the signet ring which, he said, he had seen on the finger of someone in the mortuary.
“I recognised it, Middleton. God bless you, God bless you,” he whispered, and then he went away without having a drink.
“I must go too,” said Phillip. “God bless you, Freddy.”