Love and the Loveless (24 page)

“Your sister,” said Hetty, “has asked particularly not to be called by her first name any more. She wants to be known by her second name—Elizabeth. So you will be careful, won't you, dear.”

“All right, I'll call her Liz. And now we're on the subject, would you mind not calling me ‘dear', in future? Now please!”—seeing her face—“it doesn't mean that I'm callous, or indifferent—but I'd much rather be called Phillip—if my name can be pronounced with one ‘l'!” he went on jokingly. “I'm rather fed up by people asking me why it is spelt with two ‘l's. It's too late to alter your spellin' on my birth certificate, but you will be careful to pronounce it with one ‘l' in future, will you, Hetty?”

Doris considered this in puzzlement for a few moments; then she cried, “Aren't you funny! How can you pronounce it with one ‘l', I'd like to know?”

“Easy! One ‘l' makes it quicker to say with a flip of the tongue. No lingering echoes. Actually, I'd much rather be called by my second name—Sidney. Call Father by his second name, too, why not? ‘Yes, of course, naturally Teddy.' Say it jauntily, as though you had a cloth cap on your head, and Teddy had just asked you to have a pint of thick in Freddy's. Why laugh? I'm perfectly serious! One gets rid of old clothes, one washes off the stains of the day, one cleans one's teeth, or should do. The effect
is renovating. So let's all go the whole hog in our family circle!” he said, as Mavis' footfalls came from the bedroom above.

“Phillip,” said Hetty, quietly, “be kind to your sister; she isn't very happy just now. Don't make jokes about her wish to be called Elizabeth, will you?”

“And don't call her ‘Liz',” said Doris. “She thinks that's vulgar. Anyway, Mother had her christened Eliza, but she doesn't like that either.”

“Really, Hetty!” said Phillip. “Calling your gel ‘Eliza the Thrush'. And you a Shakespearean lover!”

Hetty could not help laughing: he seemed to be his old self again.

*

Mavis was making a desperate effort to become a new person. Mavis was the name for the song-thrush, heard long ago in the Surrey lavender and herb fields of Hetty's childhood. That time had been such a happy one for her, with her brothers and sisters, that the thrush had been for her a symbol of happiness and joy. Mavis—a word spoken with love and tenderness by the mother at her baby's christening, had become, for the twenty-year-old girl filled with ruinous thoughts, a sound almost of horror. Desperately she sought to escape from herself—but how, how? She must change utterly—by will-power alone could she cure herself. Prayer was no good. Everyone must depend upon themselves, alone. Her attacks were not inevitable, they were not inherited. They were functional. The doctor said so. If she did not change herself, which meant her thoughts, she was doomed—done for! O, she would die, for very shame, if anyone in the office were to see her fall down and twist about in one of her ‘attacks' (as she and her mother, dreading the shorter, usual word, spoke of them). If only she could live away from home, and not see Father! But then, what about Mother? Poor little Mother needed her, to help her against Father. There had been a gleam of hope, of going to live with Nina, her great friend, and to see Mother once a day, in the evenings, perhaps at Gran'pa's next door—but when it was all arranged, the change to take place at Easter—Doris had spoilt it all by announcing that during her holidays from school she was going to work on a farm in East Anglia, with some other senior girls under a mistress. When Doris returned, with bright eyes, and full of eager talk about rank-harrows and seed-harrows, littering bullock yards, and pail-feeding calves, she announced that she was going to join the Women's Land Army when she left
school at the end of the summer term. When she was gone, who would Mother have to stand up for her against Father's beastliness? So the move to Nina's was off.

*

Phillip lay in a deckchair in the garden, under the elm. Doris knitted on a rug. Zippy the cat found consolation by what the girl called hurdy-gurdying—purring loudly while extending its clawed toes on her lap. Mavis was eating her lunch in the sitting room. When she finished, she called through the open french windows, “Come on, Doris, come and help Mother to wash up.” Then having taken a tray of plates and cutlery as far as the kitchen, she said, “I've asked Doris to help you. I must get ready for Nina. She'll be here any minute now!” and went on upstairs to her bedroom. Doris lifted off Zippy, dumped the cat on Phillip's lap, and went in to dry for her mother. Phillip got up, dripped Zippy over the wooden fence into the next-door garden, and went into the sitting room to play his father's gramophone.

Nina arrived. Doris opened the door to her.

“I won't be long!” the voice of Mavis called down. The bathroom door was shut again. “Phillip's in the garden, go and talk to him,” said Doris.

Nina blushed when she saw Phillip. He thought she was much prettier than when he had seen her last. She was fair, with blue eyes, a straight brow and nose, and firm chin.

“How are you getting on, Nina?”

“Very well, thank you, Phillip. And you?” He told her of his wish to transfer to the Gaultshires.

“But will you be able to stand it again, Phillip? I don't mean to interfere, but won't it be too much to go through, again?”

“You mean I'm a funk? Well, I am! Anyway, one can only be killed once.”

“Please don't talk like that, Phil!” She blushed, and changed the subject. “Tom Ching called here last night, did your mother tell you? He said he was on his final leave before going to the front. Of course he was hoping to see Mavis, but she was unexpectedly kept late at the office.” After a pause she said, “I wonder if you can give me some advice. Only please don't let Elizabeth know that I've spoken to you about it. I've been thinking for some time about joining the Women's Legion, and perhaps learning to drive a motor for an ambulance, or something. Today in the paper there's an announcement about a new Corps, the
Women's Army Auxiliary, it's to be called. I've got it here.” She gave him
The
Daily
News.

“‘Army Council Instruction',” read Phillip. “Substitution of women for soldiers in certain employments, at home and at the bases and on Lines of Communication Overseas. Sounds pretty good, Nina! They want clerks, typists, cooks, wine waitresses, butlers. You'd make a grand butler, Nina! You'd have to dress like Vesta Tilly, Nina!” He saw that she was blushing, and went on quickly, “Ah here we are, Motor transport services!—‘Technical women will be employed with the R.F.C. and A.S.C. Motor transport! I'd go like a shot, if I were you!”

“I
do
want to go, Phillip, but don't you see, there's Ma—Elizabeth. She depends on me so much. You won't tell her I told you, will you?”

“Trust me! I suppose she wouldn't pass the medical board?”

“I'm afraid not, Phil. You know about Doris, and the Land Army, I suppose? I did think that it might be the very thing for Mavis—oh dear, I must try and remember!—Elizabeth, but she says she wouldn't like the rough work. Also, there is your mother.”

“Rough work would be the making of her!”

Mavis came through the french windows and down the steps into the garden. She was dressed in a new frock. “What do you think of it, eh? Oh, hullo, Phil; you home, eh?”

“It looks awfully well on you, Elizabeth! Don't you think so, Phillip?”

Before he could agree, Mavis said, “It's no good asking him! He'll only criticise it.”

“Yes, I think it looks awfully well on you, Elizabeth.”

“There, he's being sarcastic! I know him of old!”

“I'll leave you to it.” He went to talk to his mother, but found he could say nothing. “I think I'll go and see Gran'pa and Aunt Marian next door, then go down to Mrs. Neville. Then I may go on the Hill.” The Canary Girls, dancing and singing—but it was Saturday afternoon. Other people would be about: it wouldn't do to be seen talking to them in daylight. He imagined darkness, the pretty one coming to him, on her rather sweet Chinese-yellow face an expression like Sasha's. But what was he thinking? There would never be anyone like Lily.

“You be careful!” said Mrs. Neville, when he had told her about Nina, and the Canary Girls. “Baby Week's beginning next week, so you mind what you're up to this time!”

He left, without having asked about Desmond.

What was there to do?

*

Nina looked unhappy when he returned from seeing Mrs. Neville.

“Had another quarrel?”

“Not exactly, Phillip. But Elizabeth
is
difficult, you know.”

“I suppose she's never got over Father's turning against her, when she ran away from home that time. Hearts do break, you know,” he said, unsteadily, to recover immediately. “Have you told her about your plans?”

“It's that which caused the trouble. She feels that nobody wants her. Well, I've done my best, honestly!”

“You sound like poor old Mother, after one of Father's cross moods. If only we could all see each other's point-of-view! Or better still, have none of our own. But to do that, one has to—well, sink down, I suppose, like a saint.”

“Elizabeth now wonders what you and I were talking about in here when she came in.” Nina blushed again at the thought of Phillip knowing about Mavis' accusing,
I believe you're beginning
to
like
Phillip
more
than
you
like
me!
At the very thought—which she shied away from at once—she felt her face burning.

Phillip knew what she was feeling, and why. He felt drawn towards her, but held himself back by thinking that he would feel awful afterwards if he behaved with her as he had with Polly. God, what a hypocrite he was, faithfully to Lily and yet—almost wanting to get hold of Nina.

As though having considered the problem of Nina exclusively, he said, “I think you're wise to join up. The war won't last for ever, and it's a tremendous chance to widen one's ideas of things. You might go to India, or France, or Gibraltar—anywhere! The friends you might make! Yes, Nina, you get out of the rut! That's my advice. Now I'd like to ask yours. Do you think it a good idea for me to ask Mavilabeth and Doris to dine in Town with me tonight, and do a theatre? You must come, too, of course! Good! I'll go and ask the girls now.”

Mavis said, “I suppose you ask me to come as an afterthought? You really want Nina to go with you, don't you? Come now, be honest! I saw you two talking together, from my bedroom window.”

“Very well, she needn't come if you don't want her!”

“How do you know I don't want her? She's my friend, isn't
she? Of course I'd like her to come! Only why are you asking us three, all of a sudden? What's behind it, eh?”

“Well, I'm on leave.”

“And can't get anyone else to go with you, is that it? I know
you,
you see! What's happened to Desmond, with whom you used to be so thick?”

“I've no idea.”

“I bet!”

“Oh dear. Anyway, Eugene's coming. How about it?”

“Did Nina say she would come?”

“Only if you came too.”

There was a ring at the front door bell. Hetty said, “I expect that's Gran'pa!” and went away. When she returned, it was with Tom Ching. As though knowing that he was unwanted, the caller hastened across the lawn, his hand held out in greeting, saying that it was just his luck to find Phillip at home. He seemed so glad to see him, that Phillip had not the heart to go to the station leaving Ching behind, although he knew that Ching's interest in him was only a reflection from his hopeless love for Mavis; but knowing what he must be feeling, he said to the old school-fellow he had never liked, “We're all going up to a theatre. Why not join us?”

The party went out of the house, except Phillip, who had dashed upstairs for his cigarette case.

“You will bring the girls safely back, won't you, dear, I mean Phillip—oh dear, Sidney!” she laughed.

“Yes, dear; I will, dear. Leave it to me, dear. In fact, why not come too, dear, and have some fun for once, dear?”

“Oh, I'd love to!” cried Hetty, clasping her hands. “But there's Father, you see, Phillip. He never feels easy when I go out and leave him.”

“He never appears to feel easy when you're with him, either. Still, we're all like that in our family. Each one has a battle of the brain going on all the time. That's one reason why I like being in France. It's peaceful there!”

“Perhaps we can go to the Old Vic, and see Shakespeare—one day before you go back, Phillip?”

*

Five first-class tickets to Charing Cross, a taxi to Piccadilly. It stopped beside the winged Archer on top of the fountain, and they got out beside the flower girls standing there with their great baskets of tulips, carnations, and roses. Across the wood-block
road, Eugene could be seen, standing by the Piccadilly cornerstone of Swan and Edgar's. Watching him from the kerb was one of the new policewomen. She was dressed in a plain blue coat and skirt, blue armlet with the letters WP in white and a hard type bowler hat with a wide brim. She was new to the job, but knew Piccadilly for what it was. She had been watching Gene, with an idea that he, an obvious foreigner, was waiting for an assignation.

“How funny he looks, doesn't he? Isn't he conceited? That eyeglass is sheer swank! Phillip gave it to him, because it kept dropping out of his eye, ha ha!”

“Please don't say that to him, will you? Apart from anything else, Eugene is very sensitive.”

“He can't be very sensitive, otherwise he would realise how ridiculous he is. Who is he trying to look like, Max Linder?”