The Power of the Dead (47 page)

“I saw the slums die in Flanders.”

“Do you know my picture in the National War Museum?”

“It is immortal.”

The painter looked at him doubtfully. “Do you think so?”

“I know.”

Felicity had not heard what was said; but when Channerson held out his hand with the words, “We must meet again,” and added, “Give my regards to Piers Tofield when you see him,” before bowing to her distantly, she wondered if there had been perhaps some quarrel over Piers Tofield, of whom she had often heard, as the man who had run away with Anthony Crufts’ wife. According to Fleet Street many famous men, and women too, were homosexual and lesbian.

*

While she was in the ladies’ room Phillip leapt up the stairs three at a time to the bar, first looking in the supper room. Among the many faces were outbreaks of gaiety; he half-wished that he had not telephoned her, but had remained to join the fun. He went across to the bar, where the gag-writer was standing in the same place, a glass of port before his closed eyes; while at the other end of the counter stood the old tramp wearing a silk hat. Before him were ranged, in two rows, eight medium-sized khaki cigars—cheap Dutch ones—and six glasses of Irish whiskey.

Phillip ordered one for himself, and the barman said, “Club Special, sir?”

“Yes please.”

While he was sipping it a man even smaller than the gag-writer came in, and going up to the aged man in the seedy frock coat said, “Hullo, Old O’Damn. How are you tonight?”

“Go to hell.”

Phillip thought this funny, and began to laugh silently to himself.

“Be a sport, Old O’Damn, I’m not on the free list like you. You’ll only be ill if you drink all those drinks. You remember me, don’t you? I’m the librarian.”

“You’re Tom Fool.”

“Well then if you can drink all that whiskey, you can’t smoke all those cheroots.”

“Go away, bloody boy.”

The odd thing was that the librarian went away. Laughing weakly, but inaudibly, Phillip sat down in a chair with a short rounded back. Immediately the ancient man tottered towards him, and pointing a finger with a long and dirty nail at him, quavered, “You are sitting in my chair.”

“I beg your pardon, sir. I thought it was club property.”

“
I
am club property!”

Phillip hurriedly left the bar, and went laughing down the stairs. What a wonderful place London was, when you knew people.

Felicity was still away. He spoke to Flanagan, the porter, who told him that Old O’Damn was a famous character, one of the original members of the club founded in the middle of the last century.

“He must be very old.”

“Due for his century next year, sir.”

“Does he live in the club?”

“Some say he kips under the arches, others that he lives in a disused sewer what is bricked up and forgotten and what runs under the vaults of the Bank of England.”

“All life is fiction, anyway.”

He leapt up the stairs three at a time to the bar. The second little man exclaimed, “Ah, I was looking for you! You’re a new
member
, aren’t you? You didn’t come in for your month’s trial, did you? Doesn’t matter, you can stand me a drink now. I’ll have a Club Special. I’m the honorary librarian, you know. That”—he pointed to the ancient figure apparently asleep in his chair—“is Old O’Damn, I expect you’ve heard of him? I wish they’d also put me on the free list, I’ve been a member for over thirty years, and have looked after the library all that time. Here’s to your very good health. Welcome to the Barbarian Club. Oh, must you go? Isn’t it funny, everyone has to go whenever I come into the bar.”

*

They walked hand in hand to the underground station. The Thames sparkled with lights. A bright train roared in. How quickly it arrived at Ealing.

“Let’s go this way, then we can walk home on the grass. Oh, but you’ll miss the last train back.”

“I feel like walking all night.”

They came to a short terrace of Victorian gabled houses. She switched on the light in the hall, and opened the door of the sitting room.

“Oh.” She put her hand to her mouth.

A man was lying on a sofa. He got up, a smallish man, with a clean-shaven face and grey hair brushed back from his temples.

“This is my guardian, Mr. Fitzwarren,” she said to Phillip. “I’ll make some coffee.”

“Felicity stayed with us in the West Country this summer,” he said to the smallish man.

“So I heard. You’re farming, aren’t you?”

“A pupil of sorts.”

The older man removed a silk handkerchief from the breast pocket of his grey cashmere suit, opened it to blow his nose loudly, then having folded the handkerchief carefully upon the ironing marks, replaced it in the pocket so that it showed a straight line. Then saying, “Excuse me,” he left the room, closing the door
behind
him.

Phillip wondered why she hadn’t mentioned her guardian.
I’m
all
alone
here,
Mummie
is
away
for
the
night
. Perhaps he lived there, being her mother’s friend, and she had not thought it worth mentioning. Yet she had been shocked to see him there: she had turned pale. And when he had telephoned,
I
thought
at
first
it
was
someone
else
. He felt dull, and thought to leave, but stood still, listening. He could just hear the man’s voice, a full continual growl. It went on and on. At last he went down the passage and tapped on the door of the kitchen.

“I feel I mustn’t keep you up, Felicity. It’s after midnight, I think I ought to be going.”

“I’ll see you to the door,” said the man.

“Oh, don’t go,” she whispered, touching his sleeve, as the older man led the way to the front door.

“Felicity hasn’t been very well lately, and her mother asked me to keep an eye on her while she was away. Mrs. Ancroft likes her to be in bed by eleven.”

“I’m not tired, Fitz, and coffee won’t take long,” said Felicity.

“Very well. Would you mind waiting in the sitting room, Mr. Maddison? I’ll bring the coffee. I have a small matter to discuss with my ward before she goes to bed.”

He returned down the passage and found himself in the wrong room. A gas fire burned in the grate, on the shelf above were photographs; one of a smiling R.F.C. observer, others of school scenes, girls in gym clothes, and on the hockey field. There was a reproduction of Shelley’s face tinted with girlish colours, pink cheeks, brown curls, and blue eyes. A man’s black pair of silk pyjamas lay on the bed. On the dressing table was another
photograph
, of an elderly woman.
To
My
Darling
Girlie,
from
Mumsie
. Evidently it was Felicity’s bedroom.

He switched off the light hurriedly and re-entered the sitting
room with relief. So that was the set-up: Felicity had left before ‘Fitz’ was due to telephone his arrival, to make sure that the coast was clear. It explained the sad look on her face at times. What should he do? Obviously she had transferred her feelings to himself—an escape from the frying pan into the fire, because he didn’t love her. Or did he? In any case it would be the same situation for her.

‘Fitz’ came in carrying a tray. She followed, her face was powdered. She gave him a timid smile as she put down a plate of petit beurre biscuits.

“It was good of you to see Felicity home, Maddison. It seems that, as the last train has gone, you’ll have a long walk before you, unless you can find a taxi at this time of night.”

“I wonder if I might wash my hands?”

Felicity jumped up, “I’ll show you,” and led the way up the stairs.

“Please come back when he’s gone,” she said before returning down the stairs.

“Do you want to get rid of him?”

“Oh, yes!”

He drank too-hot coffee and arose to go. “Mr. Fitzwarren, if you’re going my way, perhaps you’ll show me the road to Shepherd’s Bush? It’s fairly straight once one is there.”

Standing behind ‘Fitz’, Felicity shook her head at Phillip. He waited.

The other man blew his nose, refolded the handkerchief, and tucked it back into his breast pocket.

“I understand you are a married man, Mr. Maddison? Then why do you come here after this young girl when her mother is away?”

“I merely brought her home. I’ll go now. Goodnight, Felicity.”

The other man said, with a change of manner to the gracious, “I’ll come with you, and put you on your way.”

*

The morning papers were on sale in Piccadilly when Phillip arrived there. He bought copies and with a bundle under his arm walked down to Adelphi Terrace. The old man in the top hat was wandering about the main room.

“Everyone goes to bed early nowadays,” he complained in woeful tones. “There are no Bohemians left.”

Big Ben tolled three times as Phillip went up to his bedroom.

In most of the newspapers there was a prominent review of
The
Phoenix
. Nearly all the critics had taken the book as he had felt it. A few gave it the highest praise. I knew it would happen, he thought: Edward Cornelian was right.

He looked in
The
Daily
Telegram
. Martin Beausire’s notice was disappointing. He wrote that he longed for a magic wand to wave and change all the human characters into animals.

In the morning the hall porter said he was wanted on the
telephone
. Felicity asked if he had got back all right.

“Oh yes, thanks. We said goodnight at Marble Arch. Did he come back?”

“I don’t know, I went for a long walk by myself. Do you still want me to come to lunch?”

They met outside Swan and Edgar’s in Piccadilly. Thence they walked to the Commercio in Frith Street, hoping to meet again Edward Cornelian. It was Friday, the day for the literary gathering at luncheon. The
literati
usually sat at a big table in the corner of an upstairs room, by a window. When they went into the room Edward Cornelian was already seated at the table, which was laid for a dozen places, alone. Phillip said good-
morning
, and was about to bring Felicity forward when the critic remarked that the table was reserved. So they sat at a small table for two. It so happened that on that day only three others came to the big table.

Phillip remained in London. He was invited to dinner by Felicity’s mother, who rejoiced that her daughter seemed so happy, where before she had been moody and restless. A country life was the very thing for her, she said.

The new book was a success. Ten thousand copies of the first edition had been sold, another ten thousand were at the press, and a further five thousand ordered from the printer. He met Felicity every evening, going to cinemas, the opera, and promenade concerts in the Queen’s Hall. He stayed for another week; his pockets were stuffed with Press Clippings, which came with every post. While nine out of ten were entirely favourable, two were bad. A North Country novelist reviewing for
The
Evening
News
wrote that Donkin was half-baked, while
The
Ecclesiastical
Times
declared that the book was an almost uninterrupted sequence of bad taste, wrong thinking, and blasphemy. It demanded to know what the publishers were doing in issuing the book, and reminded them, and the author, that there was such an office as that of the public prosecutor.

“Excellent,” cried Edward Cornelian, at the round table. “You are in the tradition, my dear fellow. Hardy had the same sort of thing written about
Tess
,
and again about
Jude
. Such critics, their senses repressed by pavements, are full of pretentiousness masking itself as religious sincerity.”

*

He stayed on for his regimental dinner. In the morning they walked on the Sussex downs. The year had entered the season of calm following the equinox: rest for cloud and air, an unshadowed sun. They lay on their backs above Beachy Head.

Her hand sought his, and held it. At length he said, “Felicity, I must tell you something. I feel I can never love anyone ever again.”

Ocean drew down the blue of the sky. She raised herself on an arm and said, “Your eyes are a deep blue, and O, so kind. Let me be your hand-maiden, if ever you want one.”

She took his hand and kissed it before sitting up to look at him. She patted her lap, inviting him to lay his head there, and rest. Her face was shining, she was all sweetness, smiling expectantly. How Richard Jefferies would have loved her, he thought: Felicity in
The
Dewy
Morn
, inviting love, dreaming of a child perhaps.

“You’re a nice girl, Felicity. You deserve a fine young man for a husband. You’re a kind girl, too.”

He sat up and examined her face, intrigued by the tiny gold hairs on her upper lip.

“I’ve never really looked properly at you before. Now turn your head sideways.”

She had a straight brow, her profile was Grecian. He turned her chin to full face. The fair hair grew back from the forehead like Barley’s; but where Barley had been direct and clear and
forthright
in manner, Felicity was a little withdrawn, hesitant;
appealing
, under a subdued but continuous longing, for safety: to be lapped in loving kindness.

“Which do you need more, I wonder? To be loved—or to love?

“Both of course.”

“But if you merely fell in love with me you might be in a worse position than you are with ‘Fitz’.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t be. Anyway, I’ve done with him.”

“Well, that’s honest anyway. Did he love you?”

“He says he did, now.”

“Did you love him?”

“In a way, I suppose I did.”

“Did you mind him forcing himself on you when you were fourteen?”

“I thought I might as well make the best of it.”

This frankness shocked him. He got up and walked down the sward towards the Cockchafer. She followed slowly. He waited for her, they walked on side by side unspeaking. When she could no longer contain her feelings she stopped, and staring at the ground said as though to herself, “If you don’t want me, I think I shall commit suicide.”