Lucifer Before Sunrise (34 page)

“They’re all Lucy’s doing.” He was a little anxious that she had not yet appeared.

“She went for a walk, she’ll be back for tea.”

Relief. At the same time he found himself wondering why Lucy had not brought any eggs. They had plenty on the farm, even
allowing for the depredations of searchlight soldiers. Perhaps she had not liked to ask him, though they were her own hens? How sad it was that they were nearly always ‘missing’ one another…

Tim showed his guest the Anderson air-raid shelter he had erected on a patch of garden behind the house. It covered a hole dug in the gravel subsoil, and would have been considered cushy in any front or support trench of the Western Front, Phillip told him. The pit was four feet deep, the corrugated elephant iron topped by a double layer of sandbags laid in the approved
header-stretcher
pattern, giving cover from splinters or bomb and
anti-
aircraft
shrapnel shell. The only flowers grown in their garden were Japanese nasturtiums, the vermilion and yellow blooms of which covered the dugout roof. Tim pointed out these flowers with pride, saying, “I really cannot claim to be much of a horticulturist, but I fancy they’ve come along quite well, considering that I regard myself as an amateur.”

Tim was on the night-shift that week, so he was free until 8 p.m. every day. Phillip thought of his father, who lived alone in a cottage on the Dorset coast. There were four tins of petrol, eight gallons, in the boot of the Ford. Would they all like a ride through the New Forest, to call on the old man?

“By Jove, yes, that would be splendid, Phil! I say, Brenda, did you hear that? Phil’s offered to take us into the country!”

“I’ll make some bacon sandwiches,” said Lucy.

“I wonder if you could spare some eggs for my father?” Phillip asked.

“Of course we must take some with us,” said Lucy. She packed a basket of eggs, butter, home-made brown bread, and a pot of honey. Phillip was now feeling free and happy; this was altogether another world.

They went through the town to the northern road at a modest 30 m.p.h., for it was not wise to attract attention to private
motoring,
which implied that petrol coupons, given only for those
‘engaged
in the war effort’, were being used for joy-riding. At a ’bus stop a civilian stepped off the pavement and nearly bumped into their near-side wing, but saved himself in time. Phillip was amused at Tim’s reaction, and heard Tim’s ‘Pa’ in the low exclamation of “Brainless ass!” the same moment as he himself apologised through the open window. Probably the cause of the pavement carelessness was war fatigue and poor feeding at that time when German submarines were sinking English supply ships in the open Atlantic; but Tim’s remark, perhaps, would not have been made had he
been driving alone. Was he trying to reassure himself, in case Phillip condemned the preoccupied fellow—as he had, in the past, condemned Tim and his brothers?

They moved at a steady 40 m.p.h. to Ringwood, through the woods, down and up again to the heaths of the Forest and so to Wimborne Minster, where Phillip turned south for the coast. His father lived alone in a small house among pine trees near the harbour where Phillip had often sailed his boat
Scylla
when he lived in the West Country. And so down a gravelled and bumpy lane, the verges of which were grown with blackberry bushes, and wildling ash and oak. This must be the cottage. Yes, there was his father, digging in his garden. The garden shed door was open, revealing spades and forks and other gardening tools all aligned, handles dark brown with linseed oil and metal parts bright.

In the garden Richard was double-spitting a light soil, to lay within the trench forkfuls of half-rotted weeds and other rubbish. He looked up and saw Phillip, and after straightening his back came forward with a smile and held out his hand saying that it was a pleasant surprise, and he hoped all was well?

“Good afternoon, Father, I’m down this way for a few days, staying the other side of Southampton, and have brought Lucy and her brother Tim with me.”

“Tim? Didn’t I see Tim some years before when you brought him and his brother Fiennes to Wakenham, on the way to take them to Tilbury, and Australia?”

The son went back with the father who invited the others into the house. Just inside the hall was a pile of newspapers, Richard’s favourite
Daily
Trident
, about five feet in height.

“Ah,” he said, “you see, Phillip, the
Trident
was right in nineteen nineteen about ‘those Prussian Junkers will cheat you yet!’ Well,” he went on after a pause, “that’s my reserve fuel if things get really bad. Now tell me, Lucy, how are all the grandchildren? And particularly Billy? He must be growing into a big fellow by now.” He smiled at Lucy, “I’m afraid I have very little to offer you after your journey. You know, for one living alone, things are not too easy.”

“Lucy brought some food, Father. Also, I’ll send you some butter when I get back. Here are some eggs from the farm. We’ll send more. And a cockerel, if you would like one now and again.”

“Oh, I couldn’t eat it, old chap, thanks all the same. My needs are modest. And of course I have all the vegetables I require.”

When they were alone, Phillip asked his father about the family
plate, which he had last seen in an iron-bound box soon after the war of 1914 had broken out.

“Oh, when my time arrives, come and take it, old man.”

He asked if it would not be better if this were left in writing.

“My dear boy, you will be the only one to benefit from my Will. I have left everything to you.”

Phillip wanted to say that it might be better if he left only the plate to him, and the rest to his sisters, but this would have been in poor taste, so he said nothing; while thinking that in due course he would see that both Elizabeth and Doris had their shares.

“Yes,” said Richard, “all will be yours to do what you like with, but if you decide to follow the same course as my father did, the family plate will be Billy’s after you.” He looked at his watch. “You will all stay to tea, won’t you?”

“Well, Father, thank you, but we are too many, perhaps. Won’t you come to tea with us in an hotel, or somewhere?”

“Well, my dear boy, I have a little friend who comes to visit me every Sunday afternoon. Now with the tuck Lucy brought over so kindly, will you not all join us? I will, by your leave, go and get the table laid.”

Lucy and Brenda helped Richard, who was slightly discomposed by having, as it were, to unset himself from habit. Everything in his kitchen and scullery was neat and clean. Phillip knew how a habit disturbed could be upsetting, so he kept out of the way while the three were inside.

He sat on the lawn with Tim, who said, “You know, Phil, I was absolutely surprised to note the difference between your father as he is now, and when I saw him fifteen years ago. He looks younger than you do.”

While they were sitting there in the sun an adolescent girl came in the gate and said “Good afternoon”. They stood up, her polite manner induced them to do this. She was self-possessed and pretty, with a small oval face under a red tam-o’-shanter below which auburn hair fell upon the shoulders of her blouse. She had grey eyes, and quick movements. She seemed intelligent. Phillip gave his name.

“Oh, you are Mr. Maddison’s son!” as she gave him a
wide-mouthed
smile which remained while her eyes showed she was thinking whether or not to go away. “I did not know Mr.
Maddison
was having company,” she said, aware that Phillip was
looking
at the red tam-o’-shanter. It was set on her head like a Scots bonnet, unlike the usual ‘tam’ worn more or less flat on the head
like a beret. Where had he seen one, half upright like that, before?

“Mr. Maddison plays the Beethoven records on his radiogram every Sunday,” she said.

“I’ll tell him you’re here.”

Richard was almost light-of-heart, as seldom Phillip had seen him in the old days. Was this due to his feeling for the young girl, hardly more than a child, just coming into bud? How old was Father? He had been just within the age limit to join the Labour Corps in 1918. What was that age limit, fifty-four? If so, Father was now seventy-five years old. Was he in what was called second-childhood? The strange thing was that he and the girl appeared to share the same spirit. But the same hopes? Poor Father, desperately alone and loveless. What a neglectful son he was. How Father had loved Elizabeth—then called by her first name, Mavis—as a child. And how suddenly, after kissing his daughter in adolescence, his puritan conscience had rejected that feeling for her. And ever afterwards it seemed, Elizabeth—and Father—were apart; and distraught.

Richard was telling Lucy news of the rest of the family. She was sitting beside him on the sofa, looking at the heavy photographic album familiar to Phillip from boyhood. There they were, his uncles and aunts, grouped around the grandparents whom he had never known—Father’s brothers John and Hilary, his sisters, Isabelle, Augusta, Victoria and Theodora.

“Only the aunts Vicky and Dora are left now, Lucy. Belle died last year—oh, you hadn’t heard, Phillip? She was rising eighty-four. We’re a long-lived family. Vicky lives not far from here, at Bournemouth. Your Uncle Hilary married again, you may remember, but it did not turn out so well as he hoped. I
understand
his wife is now a lay sister in a convent in the Pyrenees—but of course you know her! The mother of Barley….”

“How is Aunt Dora, Father?” he asked quickly.

“Ah, Dora! I understand that she still lives in Lynmouth, old man. Her ‘Babies’, as she called those two odd old women, died last year. The elder was within ten days of reaching her century. Well, that is all my family news. Now pray tell me about my grandchildren, Lucy.”

“Oh, we’re all a happy little family,” she said, her cheeks colouring. “We have our little difficulties, of course, like any other family.” She smiled at Phillip, who said, “Billy wants to join the Royal Air Force, but I’m afraid I’ll have to apply
for his reservation, as we’re short-handed, and he drives the tractor.”

Too soon it was time to go. While they were saying goodbye at the gate the young girl was standing, hesitatingly, in the doorway, as though waiting to wave as the car went away. Richard was saying to Lucy, “One day, I hope, I shall be allowed to see my grandchildren, perhaps when the war is over, and travelling becomes easier.”

“Of course, Father,” replied Phillip. “As a fact, I’ve thought of inviting you to live with us—you’d enjoy the shooting—but always the thought of our poor accommodation stopped the idea.”

But now, feeling himself once again in the flow of life, he went to him when the others were seated in the car and said, “If you feel too lonely, you can always come and live with us. The children would love it.”

“May I bring my radiogram, Phillip?”

“Of course, Father. The more the merrier! We have electricity in the farmhouse.”

“Well, thank you, old man. It is most kind of you, I must say.”

He glanced at the young girl as he said this. She was looking at Phillip. When he had started the engine Richard stood by the gate with her, and both waved together. At that moment Phillip remembered where he had seen the tam-o’-shanter before: it had belonged to his mother.

“I am so glad Father has someone to cheer him up,” said Lucy.

While Phillip was scribbling the above in his journal, air-raid sirens went. German bombers were shortly over the Southampton docks, having crossed the Channel from their airfields in Northern France. One dropped half a dozen bombs in a stick near Tim’s Spitfire works, without opposition from night-fighters or
anti-aircraft
guns. Perhaps they couldn’t be spared from the Kent
and Sussex airfields guarding London, but it was not much of a raid.

He sat on top of the air-raid shelter in the garden, taking care to avoid the stems and flowers of Tim’s Japanese nasturtiums, and watched a chandelier of bright lights dropped by a Dornier bomber. There it hung in the sky, a beautiful sight, slowly drifting down while more bombs whistled and crumped upon the earth, the sky lit by their flashes. There followed a red glow which soon went out. Only six aircraft came over; a nuisance raid.

Now all was quiet and the chandelier burnt out. He went inside and had a cup of tea with the two women. After the all-clear they walked down to where Tim worked, and found him alert and cheerful. The raiders had been after the docks.

When Lucy and he went north after two more days it was for Phillip like leaving the light for a sunless land. Not so for Lucy; she was looking forward to seeing her children. Phillip was
disturbed
about Billy, who was set on joining the Royal Air Force, Tim had told him.

A day or two after getting back he wrote to his younger sister Doris, telling her what their father had said about his Will; and that when the time came he would see that she was given a third of the probate value in cash, and Elizabeth would have another third. Doris replied at once, asking him if he would ‘sign a legal document making binding’ what he had written in his letter. She did not want the money for herself, she explained, but to help educate ‘your two nephews whom you have never come to see’. She went on to say that Elizabeth was ‘well provided for’; she had had
£
4,000 from Aunt Belle’s Will; and there was a farmer friend in Sussex whom she visited at week-ends, and might marry.

Doris was the headmistress of an infant’s school at Cross Aulton, in Surrey, where their mother had lived as a child. She wrote that she had refused to divorce her husband, Bob Willoughby, who had left her some years before the outbreak of war. Phillip replied to her letter saying that as Father was still alive, and might change his mind about his Will should he see fit to do so, such a course as she suggested would be without validity. Meanwhile, he would welcome her boys on the farm during the coming summer harvest, to help with corn carrying if they cared to come.