Authors: Henry Williamson
“Stravinsky’s
Nightingale.
First performance in England.”
“Oh—isn’t he rather cacophonous? I mean, all discords?”
“Stravinsky all discords?” exclaimed Spica. “If this new opera is anything like
Fire
Bird,
it will be marvellous!” She added with some of her eagerness gone, “My respected Papa says
Fire
Bird
is a frightful row, and forbids me to play the records on my gramophone!”
“My father loves music. He used to play the ’cello.”
“You’re fortunate!” she said, decisively. “I come from a Cornish family, cathedral close and all that sort of thing, but the Celtic sensitivity seems to have given my Papa a wide berth. He’s a doctor, by the way, a G.P., just demobbed from the R.A.M.C.”
The fireman in dark tunic, round pork-pie hat, leather knee-boots and belt came in, looked round to see if anyone was smoking, and left the side gallery just as the lights in the chandeliers hanging from the dome of the roof went out.
Sir Thomas Beecham appeared from under the stage, while clapping rippled against the tiny figure far down below. “Now! Get up on my back,” whispered Phillip, as he bent down beside the plastered pillar. “Hold on to the rim. I’ll bunk you up.” Having done this, with a jump he levered himself up and lay beside her, looking down upon the illumined figure with upraised baton.
May 6. This is one of the most wonderful nights of my life. Within half a dozen bars of the opening I was face down on the Doves’ Nest, head on arm and eyes closed, living in the darkness of the woods; and the longing of the fisherman, dim-seen in the shadows of the stage, waiting for the bird to sing to him, and the sad doubt, “She will not sing tonight”, was my own longing and doubt; then I was uplifted into the realm of the pure beauty which only genius knows. How could Stravinsky, a Russian, know
exactly
the feelings of the English woods at night, and the longing of the poet? And then the miracle—from the orchestra the voice of the nightingale suddenly broke out, in wild but dispassionate purity, a voice above all earthly passion, and the tears ran from my eyes and I knew, with wild but remote emotion, that I had the same power in me to translate the voice of the spirit of life, which was beauty come upon the planet as love, and that I was destined to walk the same lonely path, perhaps all my life.
Phillip introduced one of his gallery acquaintances, Jack O’Donovan, a part-time journalist who worked on a theatrical paper,
The
Age.
He knew a lot about music, he told Spica;
whereupon Jack O’Donovan began to tell them what the opera was about—based on a story by Hans Andersen,
The
Emperor
and
the
Nightingale.
Phillip only half-listened, preferring his own ideas aroused by the music: for him the longing and faith of the fisherman had turned the bird into a woman—the soprano in white, sitting in the orchestra pit, just visible in the dark blue-green dusk from the stage—and so into the miracle of love. The inspiration of love had created the miracle, through Stravinsky, of art in its purest, highest form: while the story Jack told was one of material gain by the rich Emperor, by which the pure flow of beauty in the nightingale’s song was muted, withered away as bricks-and-mortar had suppressed the country he had known as a boy, killing the life which was its spirit.
“You look pale,” whispered Spica, returning to his side. “Do you feel all right? It’s rather hot up here, isn’t it. Would you like to leave?”
“Oh,
no
! Don’t you love it?”
“Of course I do! But I am thinking of you.”
Even the happiest friends have within themselves a loneliness of the soul, because the soul must always sing alone. The artist is not conceited, as some people think of me: the artist is a trustee of the spirit which dwells in the temporary abode of his body.
The next day he went to see her off at Victoria station. She was to leave by the 11 o’clock boat train; but at the last moment she jumped off, saying she would catch the next train. They walked on the Embankment, and soon the time came for her to return to Victoria; then it was too late, and they went into the Tate Gallery, and sat looking at the pictures, but seeing only the image of one another under the opaque glass roof. Luncheon at a chop house in a side street was followed by an idea of going down the Thames from Westminster pier to Greenwich, for it was such a lovely day. So another telegram was sent off, saying
Arriving
tonight.
They walked through the Naval Museum, seeing the pale blue uniform of Nelson, and her eyes were large and sad when Phillip said, with the recklessness of knowledge that he now had a hole in his ribs again, “Lucky man. Nelson went at the right moment.”
“But think of Emma Hamilton, who loved him!”
“Love is an illusion.”
“It makes the world go round, anyway,” she said, her face showing a delicate pink.
“And what a world!”
“A beautiful world, when there are people in it like Nelson—and Stravinsky! Why are you so bitter, Phillip?”
“My life is half truth, half lie.”
“So is everybody’s, only few know it!” She touched his hand. “Don’t be bitter, I can’t bear it.”
“Now I’ve mucked up your day—as well as keeping you from your parents!”
“Not at all. I decided to stay, because I wanted to. After all, I am nineteen years old!”
“A child. I’m twenty-five! And I’m not at all bitter, really.”
“I’ve never known anyone so young—if he will only give himself a chance!”
They walked in Greenwich Park, and his depression gave place to a kind of exultation that he had triumphed over her, and yet with his uprising spirits was a sense of fear; which became longing entwined with pain when, standing by the 8 o’clock train, she told him that after the week-end she would be returning to the laboratory at Cambridge, and was looking forward to the May Week college balls.
“You know a lot of undergraduates, I suppose?”
“Not a lot, but I have one or two friends up at the university.”
“What sort of work do you do in the lab.?”
“I look after mice infected with syphilis, among other duties. I’ve got a tame mouse with me, would you like to see him? I call him Nig. Don’t worry!” she said, seeing Phillip’s face. “Nig’s not contaminated!”
She opened a bag, which was loosely strapped to allow entry of air, and took from a perforated box a silky grey mouse and put it on her shoulder. It sat up and washed its face.
“Sign of release of anxiety through action,” he said.
Doors were being shut, the guard was unfurling his green flag. An elderly man in a bowler hat was hurrying to find a seat, and passing them, stared at the mouse, then lifted his umbrella as though to strike it.
“Don’t worry,” said Phillip, with mock affability, “this is Nig, a Burns scholar at Cambridge. Nig’s great ancestor helped Burns to write that poem. His great ambition is to make this a Land Fit for Wee, Tim’rous beasties.”
The man walked away, with bulging eyes. “Well, have a good time in May Week, Spica. I shall be having my annual holiday then, and hope to explore the West Country.”
“I hope we meet again,” she said. “Please tell me before I go. Did you have ‘Twinkle’ shot for desertion?”
“No. I was nearly shot for desertion myself, or might have been, except for a fluke.”
They were standing at the front of the long train, the moon was rising over the buildings, and as he lifted his hat and said goodbye he saw a tear upon her lashes like an opal.
May 20. Major Pemberthy (son of Max Pemberthy) said to me in the office today (when I said I hoped to be like Galsworthy in 15 years’ time), “Why shouldn’t Galsworthy wish to be like Maddison in fifteen years’ time?” Then he added, seeing I was carrying a volume of
Songs
of
Innocence,
“William Blake is probably watching your progress, remember that!” Wherein is
much
food for thought. I thought it awfully kind of him. An ordinary man would not have said that.
I went into the Squire’s woods in the evening. Nothing remains of the little fire Spica and I kindled, near the nettle-creeper’s (or grass-bird’s) nest, but charred stick-ends and rain-flattened ash.
I am afraid I nearly trod on a little, frightened frog. My foot nearly crushed him. Who guards him? Who put him on the earth, and cannot help him if he is crushed or not? 500,000 years ago, man was like an ape. Who cared if a great forest-monster killed him? Who cares if a man is crushed by a ’bus now, except man himself? Where does the frog-spirit go, after the crushing-out? Where man goes, so the frog goes—of that I am CONVINCED. I want to read no philosophy, or system made up by any particular man’s experience. I will make my own, or rather, it will drift up
without
thought
in my soul. I am convinced that some power is trying to speak through me. I am two different men, or two kinds of men in one body.
The Floral Street Galleryites are now five—myself, Jack O’Donovan (who gets a free pass being, on the staff of
The
Age
), cousin Willie (during his week’s leave from France), Bob Willoughby, and my sister Doris.
La
Bôheme,
Tosca,
Village
Romeo
and
Juliet,
Butterfly,
Tristan
(Frank Mullings as Tristan, weak voice). Jack O’Donovan says this opera is the most sensual music ever written. Rot! Tristan to me is an honourable man, broken
between love and duty. He is all psychic love, beyond healing by earth-love. The opera is spiritual: it is
lyrical,
like Stravinsky’s
Nightingale,
the finest work this season at Convent Garden, as the porters in the local pubs call it.
Village
Romeo
is silver to
Tristan
’
s
gold.
Can’t write any more—going for my nightly walk round the Hill—hope it’s deserted—I cannot commune with the spirits of stars and silence if even lovers are on the seats.
Later.
Didn’t go for walk—even writing the above incoherency—mere effusion—has made me limp. Have just read some of my story—it
is
wishy-washy, badly written.
Notes.
The broad oak thinks of eternity.
A hazel twig, broken long since, dependent and twisted, still holds to its leaves. All things cling to life.
June 3. In evening walked to my oak in Foxgrove. Its trunk is straight and round for twenty feet; then its branches stretch into the air like arms each with hands of fingers held to the vertical. They are sturdy fingers which would grasp the sky.
Again I experienced that curious sensation under it. I felt as though my whole vitality, or spiritual energy, were suddenly gone from my body, rushed in a moment up the great moist bole of the oak, through its arms and crackling across the tips of the fingers like a wireless installation sending out waves. My backbone felt creepy, and so strong was the feeling that I almost saw, or rather sensed—as though I were being translated—the invisible snaps of electricity across the fingers. Only this tree gives me this sensation—none other, and I always experience it when I approach it. Am I deranged, I wonder? I felt momentarily exhausted afterwards—the emotion takes place in a particle of a second.
The
Journal
of
a
Disappointed
Man.
Have been reading more of this book. W. N. P. Barbellion says, in a similar way to Marie Bashkertsieff, that because a condition like acute dyspepsia can drive away all thought of beauty, or spiritual life, the body can have no soul. How shallow and thinly thought. And yet, the thought of no after-life terrifies me. Sometimes I am shaken by a terrible fear, as in the war.
Again ‘egoism’. Barbellion was, as he says, a morbid introspectionalist. Self, self, self. A great artist in function does not notice self. If he be pre-occupied, dreamy, it is because he awaits the beauty of thought that rises, involuntarily and unsummoned, from within—even if its source is from without. He is a medium. But only a little of this true inspiration arose in Barbellion, therefore
he was convinced of egotism, studying himself when not inspired, consumed at times by self (as I am, but I know it is bad).
I am constantly thinking of Spica. How will it end, I wonder.
Did not go to the Club tonight. Next Saturday is a day off from the office, also the following Whit-Monday. I have half a mind to run down to Folkestone, and boldly call on Spica’s people. Spica, who sent me a gentle little note thanking me for her entertainment in London recently, said if ever I found myself down at Folkestone again, to be sure to call and see them.
Early the next evening he arrived in Folkestone on the Norton, and arranged for a lodging in the old part of the town. He had written to Spica, at her address in one of the roads leading from the Leas; and called there shortly after six o’clock. The door was opened by an old gentleman in parson’s clothes, whom he imagined to be a relation from Cornwall. He was most affable, and as he invited the caller into the drawing-room he seemed to be washing his hands—a habit that Julian Warbeck had when pleased. Mrs. Trevelian, he said, had gone to tea with her cousin Lady Milly, in Radnor Park Gardens.
“I don’t know if I am expected, sir.”
“Oh yes, I think so. Lady Tibby got your card this mornin’.” Phillip sat uneasily for some moments, while a desire to laugh rose alarmingly in him. Had he come to the wrong house? But Dr. Trevelian’s brass plate was beside the door. As for Lady Milly in Radnor Park Gardens, the only Milly he knew was Eve’s aunt, a Miss Fairfax. There was an odd look in the old parson’s watery blue eyes, despite his manner of extreme and gracious affability. Even so, he had obviously called at an unconventional hour.
“Well, sir, I think I’d better be gettin’ on. I am only just lookin’ round Folkestone. I was here just after the war.”
“Yes, Lady Tibby was tellin’ me. You were at one of the camps, were you not? Yes, the rooks are still nestin’ in the chimney stacks, the soldiers are still holdin’ on to what they grabbed at the beginnin’ of the war. Colonel Tarr was tellin’ me only this mornin’ that he expected to be there at least until the autumn.”
This was dreadful. Old Tarr, the Flapper King, had turfed him out of the adjutant’s job less than a year before, owing to the talk about Eve and himself.
“How is Cornwall lookin’ these days, sir?”
“Cornwall? I’ve no idea. I expect the countryside is lookin’
at its best now. Ah, here is the good Monsieur le Médècin. It is time for his surgery, I fancy.” He got up as a man of about fifty years of age came peremptorily into the room, saying, “Don’t get up, don’t get up, I’m just going”, and went out again, leaving the old parson smiling a little helplessly at Phillip.
A moment later the doctor looked in the door again and said, “Maddison? Forgive my rushing away like this, I’ll be with you soon. Few of my
canaille
patients come to bother me at holiday time,” and the rather flabby face disappeared.
“I hear you and Lady Tibby have been to the opera,” said the parson, nervously clasping his fingertips. “I have always wanted to hear fine music. But, you know, the little string band in the Leas Pavilion isn’t too bad. I heard some Strauss waltzes there the other day, and very jolly they were, very jolly.”
“
The
Nightingale,
by Stravinsky, was very fine the other night, sir.”
“So Lady Tibby was tellin’ me. She said it was a capital good opera. But then she is most musical. Very gifted young woman, a great favourite of mine. We have capital fun playin’ chess together.” He washed his hands in invisible water, his ruined eyes took on a strange and painful blue, as of relief and hope. Phillip felt an impulse to leave the house, but forced himself to sit still.
The constraint was eased by the doctor reappearing with a decanter of sherry, and two glasses.
“Would you care for a glass?” he asked Phillip, while filling one, apparently, for the other man. But no; when the two were filled, the doctor kept the other for himself. He took a sip, and said, “Perhaps you would like to wash your hands? Come with me.”
In the wash room there was a sort of hospital corner bowl in glazed earthenware at which the doctor stood while Phillip washed his hands. Was he being tested, to see if he were the sort of “sahib” who would rinse them again after his turn at the pissoir? His feeling about Dr. Trevelian was confirmed immediately when the other said, “That idiot in the other room is the Honourable John Carew-Fiennes-Manfred. He’s an epileptic, but at least I get twelve guineas a week for looking after the old fool.”
The doctor observed that Phillip rinsed his hands; his manner changed, he became the gentlemanly host. “Did you have a good journey from town? You’re with the Thunderer, aren’t you? I expect you know Castleton? He’s done the country a lot of
damage, in my opinion, encouraging the hoi polloi in trying to popularise your paper. I take
The
Morning
Post
now, at least it’s edited for gentlemen, what?” The doctor’s manner changed again. “I see you’re like the Frenchman, who only washes his hands first, having great respect for his ‘bon ami’.”
May 26.
The
Whitsun
Episode
(
in
retrospect
).
The present that spins its web so fleetingly, only to be brushed and broken, becomes the past as quickly. The present that passes without conscious existence of time is happiness. But to what has happened since last I wrote in this journal:
Spica and I went down on the Norton, before breakfast, to the Hythe Canal in the early morning, when the rising sun glazed the smooth sea, and by the shore the wheatears climbed and dived, singing their falling songs. Nightingales sang of the joy that was the present, and the cuckoo called over the smooth greens of the golf course. We sat and watched the canal gleaming with mounting sky-colours, while swallows dipped and flew up as though taking song from water.
It was a drag to go back to the house; but when she had helped her mother, we returned to the low land, and went onwards to the marshes, and sat in the long meadow grasses among the golden rivets of buttercups, while the pollen was all a-blow, and feeding green beetles and coloured flies. Long we sat there, and I knew by my feeling of alarmed restlessness that love had come back to me. I put my arms round her, and laid my cheek against her face, while taking care that my breath did not touch her, or my lips her mouth. She trembled, she sighed, her eyes filled with tears, she turned away, she whispered, “No, no.” Yet I felt that she loved me. She was frightened at the new thing that had come to her, the sweet pain in her breast; instinctively she dreaded disillusion.
“No, no,” she whispered, when my arm went round her shoulder, feeling its curve under the silk blouse. “I cannot love anyone, except in my own way.”
I asked her what that way was, and all she could do was look at me. I persisted, and at last, in a soft, shy voice that trembled, she murmured, “No; if you kiss me now, you will regret when you are famous”.
I wondered. Was this the real reason? For I realised the poverty of my life without
her
; the barrenness of my work alone, deprived of her care; the emptiness of life before she came, the silent battlefield when she had gone away. Neither I, nor any other man or woman, can live without love. I thought of the unhappy parson in her father’s house, washing away his sins
instinctively
to absolve himself of the effects of obvious childish torment in his mind; and
recognising in Spica a sympathetic quality, so that he calls her, in the idiom of courtesy of a thousand years of inherited aristocracy towards the women who nourish the seed of continuity of that aristocracy, “Lady Tibby”—her real name is Tabitha.
O Tabitha, the very purity and beauty of your being makes me sad—for what am I but a hollow emptiness, a pretension to goodness?
Notes.
Spica’s mother has a sort of wild look, redeemed by sudden generosity and balance. I think she must have a bit of a struggle to make ends meet, with that not very intelligent husband of hers. And yet—she is limited, too, in understanding, as we all are in our various ways. But to facts:
She read
The
Hounds
of
Heaven,
and said that she “saw nothing in it”. From this she went on to say—this on the last evening, that my influence on her daughter was bad: she had
always
been dreamy and impracticable, and these “vices” were more apparent since she had known me. She wanted her daughter to be happy, and she knew that to be introspective and moody was a state to force oneself away from, otherwise it led to misery and unhappiness, not only for the person concerned, but also for those who cared for that person. Her little daughter (she kissed her lovingly and tenderly) she loved, and was it not a mother’s greatest wish to see her children happy?
On the first day of his holiday in the West Country, Phillip called at the house of his Uncle John at Rookhurst. He was invited to stay the night; but the atmosphere of the place, some of the rooms shut up, with white sheets over the furniture, made him feel almost imprisoned; his mind was set on arrival at his destination—Cousin Willie’s cottage on the coast of North Devon. Feeling that he could not very well refuse, he stayed; and later was glad, a feeling of new life having come from a rump steak eaten with watercress and washed down by a bottle of burgundy. Under its influence he talked about his literary ambition, to be told that it ran in the family; both his Grandfather and his Aunt Theodora had shown talent in that direction, as amateurs of course.