Authors: Henry Williamson
“Which way did they go, Denis?”
Sisley pointed across a field. “Poor brute, its tongue was hanging out and its brush dragging.”
A mud-balled fox: he had no desire to be in at the death. However, one must go on.
“See you later, Denis. Steady, ’oss!”
The hedge was thin, not more than two feet high. Too late Phillip saw the ditch on the other side. The chestnut saw it first, and stopped abruptly. Then, as in a slow-motion film, he was going down over its head, examining with detachment the reflection of his face in the water. Grinning faces greeted him as he crawled out, his back cricked, wrists, knees and elbows wet, pot hat dinted and sploshed with mud. A spectator in a dark suit cheered ironically.
“You damned well have a shot at it!” he shouted in sudden rage at the dark-suited man. The woman beside the man cried, “It serves you right, that will help to cool your blood lust!” in an angry voice, as he got back through the hedge.
“Have a drink,” said Denis, offering his flask.
Phillip took a swig, surrounded by faces. “I’ll fly that fence!”
Hounds were now giving tongue in the far distance. It sounded like a breast-high scent. Excitement discomposed him as he tried to mount, the chestnut turning in a circle. “Stand, you brute, stand!”
“Come on, Dick Turpin!” shouted another voice when he was astride. Then a long whippy hazel stick sharply struck the horse’s hindquarters. With a backward dyspeptic protest, causing more laughter, the chestnut was over and away.
By good luck he came upon the line hounds were running after he had gone through three gates. The bruise, where the branch had struck his ribs, became more painful at every undulation of the canter. He held his breath to press against the pain. Rider after rider passed him on strong, tall, well-muscled hunters. His poor hack was showing fatigue, dark with sweat, tail ropy with mud. It was sinking; before he could dismount, it had gone down, to lie in the mud.
After a rest Phillip got it up, and walked it towards the clamour of a kill arising in the damp winter air. Tall masts of the Chelmsford wireless station arose across some fields. He went through a gate and saw many riders dismounted in a circle. He came upon a most curious sight.
Hounds were within the circle with the huntsman and two whippers-in swinging their thongs, keeping the hounds away from something.
It was the fox. It stood motionless. One forefoot was advanced. Its fangs were bared. Its eyes gleamed. Only its muddy brush was depressed, curved down to the ground upon which the tip rested. No hound was nearer than three yards. The fox stood between huntsman and whip, facing south.
Phillip watched with amazement for some moments. The fox never moved; the snarl was fixed; it stared straight ahead. Gently, very gently, the upper hairs of the mud-balled brush lifted and fell with the wind.
“If only I had a camera,” said a voice.
“I’ve never seen such a thing before,” a man replied. Hounds were mournfully baying. Still the fox stood on the grass. Was it an escaped tame fox? It never moved.
Men and women seemed to take no notice of the peculiar sight as they ate sandwiches and took swigs from saddle flasks. Then, as though tired to death, the fox fell over and lay still.
He realised what had happened. Run stiff. Muscles set. Nerves not working. It lay on the grass as though frozen. Someone told him that a single hound had killed the fox in the ditch a few yards away. The huntsman, well up with the pack, had picked up the body before hounds had broken it. The whips had kept hounds away while the huntsman had put the fox on its pads. Thus it had remained, held by muscular rigidity, when the field arrived.
Phillip led the gelding home. Annabelle overtook him at a slow trot. “A good run!” she said.
“Poor mud-balled fox,” he said.
“Don’t you like hunting?”
“I was with the Fifth Army.”
She laughed over her shoulder as she trotted on. Fool, fool, he thought savagely of himself.
Some time later he saw Queenie, riding side-saddle, beside an elderly man in ratcatcher. Evidently she had known Phillip was out, for she gave him only a glance and smile as she went by. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shone. Her companion was clean-shaven, keen-faced, his hair was going grey above the ears; he seemed preoccupied, yet attentive in a serious way to what she was saying.
Idly Phillip wondered if Queenie’s companion was the man referred to by Sophy as the General. If only Queenie were Annabelle, and he beside her! He walked on, wondering if he would be able to find the place where he had left the saddle, which he must get repaired for the owner.
*
“Mrs. Selby-Lloyd’s got a crush on you, Phillip. You want to watch your step!”
“Yes,” said Georgie, “didn’t you know? It was obvious as soon as I saw her look at you, the moment we arrived.”
“What, Sophy in love with me? She’s just an extraordinarily good friend!”
“I don’t doubt it, Phillip, but if she suspects that you love Annabelle, she’ll poison her mind against you.”
Phillip, with Denis and Georgie Sisley, had just returned from luncheon at Tollemere. Frost had held up the hunting; Sophy had invited him to go and see them whenever he felt like it. He had known that she was affectionately concerned for him; but Denis’s words shocked him. He was going there after dinner to play billiards—now he thought, I won’t go. He went; on his guard between the would-be tender Sophy and evasive Annabelle, finding subtleties in remarks which normally would have passed him by. And in the days that followed he tried to treat Annabelle with pretended indifference, but could not maintain this attitude; on the contrary, when alone with her, he sought to reveal his feelings by reading Shakespeare’s thirtieth sonnet, Blake’s
Songs
of
Innocence,
and other poems. She was not always mocking; sometimes Annabelle would come and stand by him and put her arm round his shoulders. “Thank you,” his tremulous voice said; then, “The arm that bowls against Hamrow Abbey and slogs the sixes for Wyckdean!”, Annabelle said nothing; he stood quietly, adoring her, feeling small, protected. Once Queenie came unexpectedly into the room; he shut
The
Shropshire
Lad
and put it behind him. Queenie saw, and smiled slightly. “What a very intellectual atmosphere our house is acquiring,” she remarked, in her neat, quiet voice. When Queenie left the room, “Take it off!” Annabelle cried gaily, meaning the expression on Phillip’s face.
“Annabelle, come for a walk!”
“Why should I go for a walk with a solemn old owl? Besides, I don’t want to listen to any more. Take it off!”
“But Annabelle, don’t, you see how beautiful it is?’
“Don’t you ever think of anything that isn’t beautiful? You and Old Botty would get on well together. I’ll introduce you. Come back, don’t walk away. It’s rude. Shall I introduce you to your soul-mate, Old Botty?”
“Who’s Old Botty?”
“English Literature mistress. She’s quite cracked. Like you. Sorry I can’t stop any longer. I’m playing golf at eleven.”
“Who are you playing with?”
“Oh, Peter.”
“Nice fellow, Peter. You like him, do you?”
“He’s all right. Hullo, Mother. Phillip’s been giving me a literature lesson.”
Sophy—young for her forty-one years, straight of back, sympathetic, kind, poised—came into the hall. “Good morning, Phillip. Annabelle dear, Peter’s just arrived. How long have you been here, Phillip? The young people are playing golf this morning, apparently. Shall we go for a walk? How’s the writing going? Well?”
“Yes thank you, Sophy. I really ought to go now and do some more.”
“But you’ve only just come! And didn’t I hear something about a walk? How very busy you are all of a sudden.”
“Take him for a walk, Mother!”
“Would you like to walk, Phillip? You’ll stay to lunch, of course? The General’s coming. You like him, don’t you?”
“Yes, but thanks all the same, Sophy, I think really that I ought to be going back.”
“He says that every day, doesn’t he, Mummie? Then he stays to lunch, tea,
and
dinner.”
“Be quiet, Annabelle. Don’t take any notice, Phillip. She’s far too young to understand.”
“He’ll be wearing his hair long next! It’s going grey already——”
“Don’t heed the child, Phillip. She doesn’t mean half she says.”
“Don’t I! Hullo, Peter, just coming. You’ve met our Tame Author, haven’t you, Peter? He ought to write a poem called ‘The Hairy Hunter’, and send it to
Punch
.”
“Run along, Annabelle dear. Come on, Phillip, let’s leave the young people to their own devices.”
They set off, he trying to talk lightly, while a heaviness as of the clay ploughlands pressed on his heart.
“Listen, Phillip, the first lark!”
Sophy’s voice trembled, her eyes shone, she was like the conventional young girl of poetry, dewy-eyed, slender, young. But the first lark in Sophy’s company meant nothing to Phillip.
“Don’t let the ragging of a schoolgirl worry you, my dear.”
Sophy’s hand resting on the thumb-stick was sensitive, with long, thin fingers.
“I wasn’t thinking of that, Sophy.” The sigh escaped before it could be checked.
“Then you must be in love, boy! Who is she? Do I know her? Is it my little Annabelle?”
“Good lord, no! She’s only a child!”
“Yes, but she’s beginning to be a woman. Anyhow, don’t let her ragging upset you. She’s too young to understand poetry and things like that. Besides, she’s not the poetical sort, she wants to be doing things all the time. Well anyhow, my dear, if I can help in any way, remember I am your friend.”
Sophy blushed faintly, and they walked on.
*
He realized he was not the only one at Tollemere caught up in the turmoil of emotions. There was the flirtation, the nascent
affaire
of the General—whom they called ‘Bay’—with Queenie. ‘Bay’ wrote letters to her, enclosing verses. Queenie was quite open about it, when ‘Bay’ was not there.
“You know different sorts of poetry, don’t you, Phillip?” asked the demure, sleek-gold-haired Queenie of the innocent blue eyes which gave quick shy glances at men.
“Only a very few, really.”
“Tell me if you recognise this.”
She read a passage about the Cloths of Heaven, which he recognised as by W. B. Yeats. Not wanting to commit himself, or the General, he replied, “Did ‘Bay’ say he wrote it?”
“No, he just sent it. I say, don’t give me away, will you, Annabelle? And for heaven’s sake don’t say I asked you, Phillip, will you? Also, for goodness’ sake don’t let on that I’m unofficially engaged to Woppy, whatever you do, Mother.”
“‘Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel’,” said Phillip sententiously.
“Do you think, or do you feel?” asked Queenie.
“Both, Queenie. But I only think when I feel.”
He saw Annabelle’s eyes upon him, burning with grave spirit.
*
Queenie’s eyes were bright whenever the General came to the house. The General was usually cordial, sometimes brotherly, always most courteous to Phillip. His greying hair, parted in the middle, was dark with oil, and well brushed back. From Sophy Phillip had learned that the General was a widower, with a daughter as old as Queenie at a finishing school in Paris. Once as Phillip walked to the house through the rose garden he came unexpectedly upon the General and Queenie. The General looked unhappy. Queenie was flushed, very demure and wistful. “I’m going away, I can’t bear it any more——” he heard the General saying, and then the listener had a bout of coughing. He hurried past pretending not to have seen them.
Queenie had given Phillip the same demure, bright-eyed attention when he had met them in Turnstone. Attracted to her, he had shown her a poem in a recent anthology by J. C. Knight which Julian had bought and not paid for.
“But it’s the most lovely poetry!”
“Do you really like it, Queenie? Do you, honestly?” She had given him a wide-eyed, sad smile.
“I do, Phillip, really I do.”
He had felt a stir of pain, or hope, in his heart. “You look so pretty, Queenie.”
“It’s heavenly,” sighed Queenie, looking into his eyes. Then someone had walked into the hotel
foyer,
a tall golfer returning from the links; he had glanced at Queenie, whose interest immediately he had passed through had been transferred to the stranger. “Who is he, do you know? I could
feel
what he was thinking.” She left the anthology on the settee when she went upstairs.
*
The frosty spell ended; the bone went out of the ground. The sun shone, up-ended furrows dried on the outside, but remained liver within—dour and coagulated. After two more days it was hunting weather again, though scent was poor. Then gossamers appeared in the January air—fine scenting weather. Phillip hired from a Chelmsford stables, at 35/-a day, riding a 16 h.h. hunter. One late afternoon, after returning with Sophy driving the Sunbeam tourer, he went upstairs to have a bath, and walking into his bathroom saw with surprise and
delight that Annabelle was in the bath, lying back. Before a sponge was upheld as a shield he saw the loveliest face and shoulders and arms over the rim of the bath; the pink breasts, glistening with water, the hair still tied in a door-knocker. Annabelle’s even white teeth and smile, her shout of GET OUT! the sponge hurled with a watery splosh at his apologetic and precipitantly retiring self.
Dinner that evening was great fun, there was much laughter. Queenie saying continually, “Oh, you
are
a ninny, Phil!” while Annabelle was silent, her eyes smouldering and abstract.
“Annabelle dear, you
are
so tired,
do
go to bed.”
“In a minute, Mummie.”
Annabelle got up, kissed her mother goodnight, said “Goodnight, Phillip,” and went out. Her cheeks burned. He felt everything was unreal. Queenie and the General were away in the billiard room, whence occasionally came remote sounds of snooker balls in clash. Annabelle came back a minute later, standing at the half-open door.
“I can’t find any matches to light my candle. Phillip, please get me some,” she said quickly, and went away.