Love and the Loveless (6 page)

He played
Liebestod,
by Wagner, unaware that the music was
part of an opera, or what it was about. For Phillip it was, as in boyhood when Father had played it—insisting on absolute silence, otherwise he stopped the record and locked up the gramophone—the dying sun saying goodbye to the world. Then
The
Garden
of
Sleep,
playing it three times. What could he do, where go? It would not be much fun going down to the theatre bar alone. He was thinking of going to bed when there came a knock on the door, and opening it, he saw ‘Darky’ Fenwick standing there. The thin, brooding face was welcome.

“I’m going to Sleaford to see some friends tomorrow afternoon. Would you care to come with me in the sidecar? And play billiards?”

Phillip was grateful that anyone seemed to want to be friends with him. Warmly he replied that he would like to go, very much. The next day was a Saturday, which had been a gloomy prospect, as most of the fellows in the mess went away for the week-end.

“I’m just going down to the town, would you care to come? I’ve got a pal who keeps a nice little boozer there. We could go in my Matchless.”

It was foggy outside, but stars were visible away from the
smoke-drift
of the camp. The twin-cylinder engine clattered; they bumped away over the grey pot-holed road, with its slippery mud, and soon were among the dim lights of the town. Phillip wiped the drops off his eyelashes, and wondered where the driver was heading for. It turned out to be in the lower quarter of the town.

“How about a game of whist?”

“Yes, rather!”

They played with two civilians. It was a pub used by the rank and file. Phillip examined Fenwick more closely. His head seemed smaller because his hair was cut short, as though by clippers. His jaw was lean, and dark, like his eyes. Phillip filled his pipe, passed over his crocodile pouch.

“What is it? Roadside Returns?” Fenwick made the inevitable joke, as he sniffed the tobacco. “Log Cabin. Pah, it’s scented! Give me Dobie’s Glasgow Coarse Cut every time!” as he pushed back the pouch across the table.

“Sorry. I haven’t got any.” He regretted his stiffness at
Fenwick’s
off hand manner when the other said, “Ah, but I ’ave! Help thysel’. Now let’s cut for partners. Right, you and I against these two.”

He shuffled dog-eared cards. They had been sitting there about an hour when the door opened and a sergeant and corporal of
Military Police came in. They stood and looked around for a minute, before leaving.

“Come on, Fenwick,” said Phillip, tapping out his pipe and putting it in his pocket. “We ought to sling our hook. I know the ways of those birds. One of them got me pulled in for a deserter in France, and I thought my number was up. Come on! Sorry to spoil the game——”

“But they can’t touch us, we’re not doing aught wrong, Maddison! This is a free country, isn’t it?”

“Come on! I want to see if someone is in the Angel. Come on!”

“But why go to that snobs’ place? What’s wrong wi’ ’ere?”

“Come on!” Phillip stood up, and put on his cap. He did not want to meet the A.P.M. again, lest he be reported for ‘conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman’, by playing cards in a
pot-house
. But Fenwick refused to move.

“Look, Fenwick, I must go. I’ve just remembered that I ought to see Captain Hobart, he’ll be making up his list of officers now, for his new company. I want the transport job, and now’s the time. Hobart’s in the Angel most nights.”

“Eh, I wouldn’t mind servin’ under Ho-bart. I’ll come, if you think it’s all reet? Sorry to break up the game, friends.”

Fenwick was putting on his cap when the door opened and in walked Brendon, cane under arm, hands behind back.

“What are you two officers doing in here?”

“We were just about to leave, sir.”

“Answer my question. Don’t you know this place is out of bounds for officers? You don’t? Ignorance is no excuse. Were you playing cards? Gambling is forbidden by King’s Regulations. And why are you”—to Fenwick—“smoking in public? There may be some excuse for you,” as he glanced at the D.C.M. riband, “but none for you!” to Phillip. “Follow me.”

Outside the A.P.M. said, “Well, what excuse have you for being found in there?”

“Sir!” said Fenwick, “the man who keeps the place is a friend of mine, sir.”

“Then you should visit him in a private room. I won’t have officers going into bars reserved for the men. For one thing, the men don’t like it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir!”

“As for you, young feller, there’s no excuse! I warned you to watch your step, didn’t I? Very well! Dismiss!”

They saluted, and walked away. Phillip felt constricted. Why had Fenwick been so obstinate, and slow? “I thought he would come, you know!”

“Bah, dinna’ fret yoursel’! He were only chuckin’ ’is weight about.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Captain Hobart was in the Angel. Phillip was greeted like an old friend, and Fenwick with enthusiasm when he was introduced as a friend of Pinnegar’s. The D.C.M. riband appeared to be unnoticed.

“Good! Got a company in mind?”

“No, sir.”

“Care to join us? Maddison’s in already.”

“Aye!”

“That’s settled then. Calls for a celebration!”

Later, when Fenwick had gone to the lavatory, Hobart said, “There’s a meet five miles away at half-past ten. If you’re free tomorrow morning, how about hackin’ out there together?”

“I was going to play billiards, skipper.”

“Billiards! In the morning?”

“I’ve already arranged to go out with Fenwick.”

“Oh, I see. In that case you can’t very well disappoint him. He looks a lonely sort of cove, doesn’t he? Where are you playing, here?”

“No, at a place called Sleaford—isn’t it, Fenwick?”

“That’s reet,” said Fenwick, sitting down. “But we won’t be going till tea-time. I’ve got friends there, who told me I could bring along a pal.”

“Couldn’t be better!” exclaimed Hobart. “The meet is
halfway
to Sleaford. Why not come out with me in the morning, Phil, and I can run you into Sleaford afterwards in my bus?”

“What about my horse, skipper?”

“I’ll take a groom, and he’ll bring your hunter back. I’ll see to that. You’re on? Good! I’ll see ‘Ropey’ Griggs first thing tomorrow. Be at the bottom of ‘A’ lines at 9·45 ack emma.”

In the morning, after a restless night, in which his imagination literally ran away with him on a horse for a couple of hours over all remembered illustrations of
Handley
Cross,
Mr.
Facey
Romford’s
Hounds,
and
Mr.
Sponge’s
Sporting
Tour,
Phillip pulled on boots, well-boned by his servant, and wondered whether or not to use spurs. Supposing the rowels tore Black Prince or, worse, put the
gelding out of control? He decided that, as an officer was
considered
to be naked without a belt, to go to a meet of foxhounds without spurs would reveal him to be ‘the veriest tyro’. Anyway, riding boots looked rotten without spurs.

He was nervous when he set off on Black Prince shortly before half-past nine. But nervousness gave way to jubilation; he began to sing as he cantered on the grass, and Prince, pricking up ears, began to prance against the bit. Soon the gelding was fighting, between canter and gallop, for its head; so Phillip relaxed the reins, and let it extend itself until, seeing red around the hats of three riders in the distance, he turned to the left among the trees, thinking to take Black Prince over the Riding School jumps. Steady, Black Prince, steady! as he leaned forward and patted the gelding’s neck. Steady, Prince! Then a steady pull on the reins, held low; and almost as suddenly as it had burst into speed, Prince stopped. Phillip was not ready for it, but managed to keep his seat. He remembered what Hobart had said about the possibility of Prince having come out of a mare trained to polo, the foal imitating the actions of its dam when out to paddock. Sixteen hands was high for polo; but the breeding was there.

He dismounted and adjusted girth and surcingle before going to the jumps.

“Gently, Prince! Steady, boy!” He held back the dancing horse, which shook its head as it crabbed sideways towards the first fence. Then it sprang forward, gathered itself above a dull tattoo of hooves, and flung itself and rider over. Desperately he held it from galloping away after the last fence; and keeping it to a prancing canter, brought it round again to the jumps. “Gently, Prince! Steady! Steady!” He managed to pat its neck; Black Prince responded; and went round the jumps with less dash. Involuntarily he dropped the reins on its neck,
whereupon
Prince stopped. He dismounted, and found that the trouble was a curb-chain hooked on too tight. “Poor Black Prince! That bloody groom! And bloody me, why didn’t I check the bit?” Two fingers could be passed between chin-groove and chain only with difficulty. He released it. Prince whinnied. He felt a flow of affection for the horse, and laid his cheek against the soft bulge of skin between nostril and upper lip, feeling the warmth of Prince’s breath. Playfully he breathed into the gelding’s nostril, an action that was greeted by the softest whuffle; and then with fingertips stroked the bases of Prince’s ears. It was like stroking his white rat, Timmy, in the old days. Dogs and cats liked it, too;
so had his kestrels, his tame jay, and jackdaws. The secret was tenderness, or kindness, as all the great poets knew. That was the secret of the world, to which the world could not trust itself, through fear.

It was time to make for ‘A’ lines; he must not be late. Prince took him over the grass at a gentle trotting lope, the South African triple canter. He could ride, he could ride!

After five minutes happy waiting at the bottom of ‘A’ lines Jack Hobart, with groom, rode up.

“It may rain, so I’ve brought along an extra coat,” said Jack, after greetings. “Hart will strap it to the rear of your saddle.”

They set off across the park, making for the south gate, where they turned east and trotted along a quiet country lane, the sun breaking through the mists of the morning lying over grass and ploughland. Jack sniffed the air.

“Makes life worth living, what? It’s a good scenting day—no wind—you can smell the bullock muck in the crew-yards. Pigs, too. Some of these farmers are making their fortunes out of our camp swill. Ever seen the waste food piled behind the
cookhouses
? Can’t blame anyone, really. Loaves arrive mouldy, sides of meat tainted. War’s all waste, of course. Wonder what this country will be like afterwards? I doubt if the old routine will satisfy—even if taxation don’t make it impossible—y’know, long weekends at country houses, first nights in town, all that sort of thing.”

A little later he said, “By the way, I notice you ride with the reins in one hand. All right for ceremonial, but perhaps it might be better to hold two in each hand, when we get crackin’ on a line and have to fly the bigger timber. It’s only an idea, of course. Only, if one hasn’t hunted this fairly fast country before, y’ know——”

Phillip sorted out bridoon and snaffle reins, and threaded them between second and third, and third and little fingers of each hand respectively; then saw that they were untwisted, and lying flat on Prince’s neck. Thus prepared for the worst, he tried to
rebalance
himself, feeling almost misplaced upon the saddle since now his left arm and shoulder were no longer upheld with the right arm hanging low. He felt he would not be able to keep his seat like that; but resisted the impulse to transfer the reins to his left hand. When they cantered on the grass verge of the lane, Prince following Jack’s mare, he found, after a quarter of a mile, that he could sit with a new feeling of balance.

“When you go over a fence, hold your hands low, just behind your horse’s withers,” said Jack. “A steadying touch there makes all the difference to balance, I think you’ll find.”

They trotted up a drive, passing a lodge, and came through trees to a house of red brick with many windows and twisted chimney stacks, before which, on a large gravelled space, stood horses, some mounted, others held by grooms.

Phillip had seen only one meet of hounds before, when a boy staying with his cousin Willie at Rookhurst, when the scene had been pictorial, with human figures seen without
discrimination
. Now he wondered about the people before him. Khaki predominated, most of the officers wearing badges of cavalry regiments, and those in the yeomanry with burnished
shoulder-chains
. Other riders in mufti were obviously men on leave, from their soldierly appearance. Then there were elderly farmers, by the look of them. They wore dark coats with bowlers, most with breeches and long black boots, but others with ordinary trousers held within gaiters. The more rugged and elderly ones wore stiff collars, some of them celluloid, with nondescript ties; one old boy with white hair and moustaches wore long trousers and ankle boots, with a high-crowned black hat, between bowler and topper; his horse was a big chestnut animal with a Roman nose. Other, younger farmers wore stock-ties held by gold-mounted pins seemingly made from slender quill-like bones about two inches long. They were smartly dressed, in dark West-of-England skirted coats and white breeches, and had a quiet but independent manner, as they kept to themselves, touching hat-brims lightly with finger-and-thumb when addressed by one or another of the elderly gentlemen, looking like squires wearing red coats, which he must remember to call pink. Hobart seemed to know quite a number of people, among them ladies sitting side-saddle, and wearing tall silk hats. There were some children, too, on ponies, the older ones breeched, wearing bowlers and tweed jackets. Apart from them was a group of smaller children seated in wicker baskets on long-tailed Shetlands, all dressed in black velvet caps and fawn gaiters buttoned to above the knee. Their nurses stood by them, in grey uniforms and bonnets.

More riders were arriving, among them some young women dressed like men and riding astride. They had brown faces, and appeared to be unaware of the several men, apparently temporary officers like himself, who stared at them. Words are given us to conceal our thoughts. He remembered O’Connor, who had
defended him before the subalterns’ court-martial at Heathmarket, two battles ago: likewise to conceal one’s glances, to observe with the retinae of the eyes, was good manners.