The Phoenix Generation (40 page)

“Yew don't want to cut wheat too late, else 'twill shill out,” he went on. “An yew won't go wrong if yew cart wheat when it's raining. D'yew know why?”

“No. Do tell me.”

“The wind blows through wheat straw, guv'nor. So it don't heat in the stack.”

“I've learned something, Matt.”

Sitting on the bank at the top of the New Cut he looked down the valley. He saw the sky-gleaming river, and the red roofs of the farmstead amongst the trees. Then his eye strayed to the sprawling and overgrown thorn-hedge below: and for the hundredth time a feeling of dullness overcame him. When, oh when, would they start to cut those ‘great old bull-thorns', those interlocked masses of brambles, those clusters of nettles growing eight and more yards out into the arable? They had grown like that ever since the repeal of the Corn Production Act in 1923. Their shadows poisoned more than an acre of ground. Enough sandy soil had been thrown there by rabbits to fill a dozen tumbrils. Thousands of rabbits, grey verminous rodents, were living in the woods and on the Home Hills, though nearly two thousand had been sent to market during the past two winters. From the hedges the restless mind went to the undrained meadows, and to other tasks which burdened the imagination; and trying to put them away, he got on his feet and walked down the Cut, the pale blue sea unseen through the trees below.

The wood was the haunt of pigeons to hear whose cooing was but to think of the flocks of a thousand and more that had eaten bare the tops of three acres of swedes, grown for the small ewe-flock the previous winter. Then there were the adjoining gardens of his cottage and the farmhouse—nearly an acre of ground between them—to be cleared of litter and rubbish and weeds. His own cottage damp as a dungeon, to be reconditioned. Seventy acres of arable must be spread with seven hundred tons of chalk, first picked from the face of the quarry and carted up to the several fields, as soon as the corn harvest was over.

*

A rutted cart-track led to the premises. He felt tired. He had been writing the previous night until the small hours. By the last tree in the wood, a wildling elderberry, he stopped. He had rested
there many times before. He had a feeling for the tree-spirit, which was old; only part of it was alive; a clutter and wind-rattle of old yellow bones: a tree damned like himself. No wonder elder was the black witch's tree, supposed to have supplied the wood of the cross on which Jesus was nailed. Some bird had squitted out the seed there, and the elderberry had grown. Its berries fed the redwings, migrants from Scandinavia, in winter.

“Hold on, old tree. I'm your friend,” he said aloud, with a wave of the hand.

The rough cart-track led to the farm premises, of Jacobean red brick and flint. The first building was the Hay Barn, with double doors tall enough for a loaded waggon to enter by. It was the haunt of doves. Several pairs of these gentle birds nested on the tops of the walls, and upon the wooden platform on which sacks of barley and oats for the grinding and rolling machine below were hauled up on ratchet and chain. Whenever he looked into the Hay Barn a score of white wings fluttered.

The doves were sprung from a couple which had made a nest during his first spring: strays perhaps from some race, birds tired and lost. Now he stopped at the open door, admiring the birds in a remote way—for his mind was fixed upon the needs of so much to be done. He saw herring-bone pattern of the narrow red bricks on the floor. Chinks of light entered by the pantiles of the lofty roof. The rafters were worm-eaten; all must be renewed.

He stopped on the bridge over the river, dreading what he might see of this semi-polluted chalk stream. The water ran clear over a foot or so of quiescent black mud, detritus of organic
decomposition
from scores of open drains and pitless sewers. Often the water ran murky, a-prickle with bubbles of deadly carbon-dioxide, the inert gas of asphyxiation and death. The stain of the
mud-pulling
higher up had not yet come down with the stream.

From the bridge a footpath led to the door in the courtyard wall, half fallen from its rust-thin hinges. The courtyard was green with weeds growing between the cobbles. He looked around before continuing his way to the new farmhouse. There from under the porch swallows dived and fled softly dark blue past his head. Their young were perched on a purlin, beside the nest above.

“Aren't they darlings?” said Lucy, coming out to look. “
Breakfast
is just ready.”

He sat at the long oak table. It had been polished. Silver
gleamed. Sprays of Sweet William stood in a bowl, beside another bowl holding deep blue gentians.

“Penelope gave them to me. She's just returned from the Black Forest, where she has been with her father.”

“I remember that blue, or its shadow of blue, in the Pantheon—Napoleon's tomb in Paris. That blue light coming down upon the dome. Do you know D. H. Lawrence's poem, written as he was dying,
Gentians
. Of course I've read it to you before.”

An hour later, while he was writing upstairs, he heard voices. He retreated from his table by the window. Then Lucy came round the path by the new bathroom building and called out, “George Abeline and Melissa have looked in for a moment. They're on their way to see ‘Boy' Runnymeade. They hope they're not disturbing you.”

He ran down the stairs to welcome them.

George Abeline said, “I suppose this is a call. You've got some fine coverts, Phil. Melissa and I saw them from the road. There should be some high birds, from a stand on the meadows. You must come and shoot with us in the autumn.” He laughed dryly. “That's a lead, Phil, for you to ask me over for a day with you.”

Soon they must be going. “‘Boy' Runnymeade has arranged for us to go mackerel spinning. By Jove, I must take your
photograph
, Lucy. You look like a young queen.”

Phillip had to go to the blacksmith, to get spare blades for the cutter. Melissa went with him. And then it was goodbye. What could he do? He thought to look at the meadows.

On arriving where the coastal road ran beside the river, his heart sank to see the thistles on the meadows, the choked dykes, the inert flow of the river, now dark-clouded with suspended mud. The sight was too much, he returned and walked down the street, to speak to the bricklayer about repairing the courtyard wall. Seeing him, Horatio Bugg hurried out.

“That was a pretty girl you had with you just now, when you went into the blacksmith's shop,” he said. “Who is she?”
presenting
a hand-enshelled ear for reply.

“That's right,” he called into the hand.

“Her name was Wright, you say? Where does she come from?”

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“Nor do I,” said Phillip, walking on. Looking back, he saw Bugg tapping his forehead. Phillip tapped his, then pointed to Bugg.

“No, you!” shouted the dealer, tapping his brow and pointing at Phillip. Phillip gave him the two-fingers' sign, as he went to call on Penelope.

Under the monkey tree in the carriage sweep a black Daimler was drawn up. By the open door stood a chauffeur in uniform, rug on arm. On the threshold Penelope was talking to a stout oldish man of medium height dressed in a dark overcoat obviously made in Sackville Street or Savile Row. Here was part of the financial strength of Mansion House and Guildhall; here was Penelope's father.

As Phillip walked through the gate without hesitation the chauffeur continued to attend the slightest want of his master, whose round pink face under a bowler hat looked in the direction of the visitor. Penelope's chin went up a little higher, her amiable face moved only its Cambridge-blue eyes. He imagined her assembling words as he came level with the bole of the monkey tree set with its arboreal shark-teeth. No monkey-man catchee Penelopee, he thought absurdly, to the pink face.

Whatever Penelope's father might have thought, nothing of it showed in his manner of greeting Phillip, who was impressed by his modesty and charm, which showed itself immediately in the interest the noble visitor assumed to have in what he, Phillip, had done and was doing. His courtly manners were most
impressive
, as he referred to the most interesting and inspiring
newspaper
articles pleading for a virile peasantry, and for the
unemployed
to be used for the draining and reclaiming of idle acres.

“As you will have already imagined,” went on the Earl of Skipton with smiling deference, “I am one of your innumerable town readers who looks regularly, and with anticipation, to your country writings. Penelope has told me how well you are doing your land, too. I am a farmer in a small way, and envy you your work in the open air. I would like to be your pupil, but alas, my dry-as-dust duties call me. I am so glad to have met you at last.”

“I am the one who is honoured, sir.”

“If I get an opportunity during the debate tomorrow in the Lords I shall refer, Maddison, if I may have your permission to do so, to what you wrote about the salmon smolts and the pollution of the Thames. Do you know, the value of waste products cast upon the waters of Spencer's Sweet Thames—you know the quotation, of course—below the Pool of London is in the
neighbourhood
of two hundred million pounds sterling annually? In Yorkshire we have perhaps learned to do things a little better.
From the reclaimed and treated sewage of the city of Bradford alone, enough polish to shine all the boots and shoes of the Midlands is made. Out of this waste our West Riding Transport lines grease all their omnibuses. Also a valuable compost fertiliser is prepared, and we make a substantial annual profit after the seven percentum interest on the Corporation stock is paid. So you see your article, my dear sir, is both practical and poetical, as, I would venture to say from my most limited knowledge, is the classic literature of our nation.”

Thereupon he held out his hand, and shook Phillip's warmly, while the chauffeur awaited the exact moment to help his
Lordship
into the car and put the rug over his knees.

“I've just remembered something,” Phillip made excuse to Penelope. “Do forgive me running away,” and he left father and daughter together.

Horatio Bugg, like a dog, was still on the look-out for anything interesting.

“Didn't stay long, did you? I could have told you who it was who come there if you hadn't been in such a hurry to pass me by. He's just going now.”

“Do you buy pig-meal sacks?”

“I pay eightpence a dozen.”

“They pay a shilling in Crabbe.”

“I have to take them in to town, see.”

“So do I.”

“How many bags have you got?”

“About a hundred.”

“I'll take them off of you. Will you be going to Crabbe soon with your lorry?”

“Possibly.”

“I've got some old iron I want taking in. It's up a shilling since last year. Half-a-crown now. They want it for armaments. The diddecais only pay me half a dollar, so if I can get it in to Crabbe, it will pay me, see?”

“What will it pay me?”

“You'll have to go in anyway, you said.”

“Who's going to unload your old iron?”

“I'll ride in with you, and be company for you. We're all
neighbours
, aren't we? Here,” he lifted his nose, “Come in here.” He led the way into a tarred and decrepit wooden shed, wherein hung sacks and rabbit skins above a heap of broken implement parts and other rubbish.

“Is it true what they say, that you've sold the Old Manor?”

“Ah.”

A retired industrialist from the Midlands had sold his interest in his company, together with all his stocks and shares—to avoid all taxes—for he would have no income if he lived on his capital of
£
300,000—and bought the Old Manor, together with the four acres of the grounds and gardens in which the house was set. Phillip had got
£
600. This sum had cleared off the bank
overdraft
, guaranteed by a form he had filled in, and signed, relative to the live and dead stock (tractor, implements, etc.) he possessed on Deepwater Farm. So while Phillip owed nothing, except the
mortgage
interest to Lucy, he possessed little ready cash.

“What did you get for it. Next to nothin', I reckon.”

“How do you know so much about everything, Horatio?”

“Ah, I have ways and means, you know. Here!” His nose jerked towards the darker end of his shed. “I can see you are scared of Lady Penelope's old man,” he said. “You got reason to be, I reckon,” he added, winking at Phillip. “Nice bit of skirt Lady Penelope, eh?” His elbow dug into Phillip's ribs. “You have a way with the ladies, I can see that, y'know. I admire you for it. That was a choice bit of stuff you had with you earlier this morning, and no mistake. But you're so good looking, you can get away with it. I can't,” he said, rather sadly.

“Still,” he added, drawing himself up, “I live on the interest of my money, I do.” He squared his shoulders, and hastened indoors to tell the latest news of the sale to an old mother and elderly sisters, who habitually wore black clothes of an age not yet bygone in that district of Old England.

Lady Breckland telephoned to say that a meeting of the Imperial Socialist Party was being held in the Corn Hall at Fenton on the following Sunday night.

“Do come if you can, and bring your wife to see us afterwards, won't you? I do so hope that Sir Hereward Birkin's words will be heeded. He has the only realistic policy for putting farming on its feet, and the whole country and Empire as well; while the
alternative
is an increasing depression. It is all so simple if only people would believe it——”

Phillip knew all that Lady Breckland was saying about Birkin; their minds ran in the same groove, literally upon the same grooves of Birkin's idealistic words on the gramophone record, the deep almost mystic voice concluding with the words:

“I look forward to it, Lady Breckland. I'll bring my wife, and fill the car with some of my men. Meanwhile may I have six tickets?”

“Wonderful news,” he told Lucy. “Birkin is coming on Sunday. We'll ask Penelope, shall we?”

*

Phillip had already met Birkin Hereward at Lady Breckland's house. He and Brother Laurence had been invited to dinner. Felicity had found Phillip's dress clothes in a trunk, and hung them up to dry and uncrease in the kitchen of the Old Manor, where they were then squatting.

During the day both men had worked with the concrete mixer; at night, weary but hopeful, they had found their way across
unfamiliar country, sometimes stopping by sign-posts, while Brother Laurence struck matches and Phillip examined his map in the glow of a side-light.

Birkin and his adjutant arrived during dinner. They had made a long motor journey from the North, where a meeting had been held in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. Birkin gave Phillip an immediate impression of great and controlled strength. He was tall and of powerful build, dressed in a grey suit, and looked tired. There was a ragged red scar nearly two inches long in his left temple, where he had been struck by a stone a few months before and knocked unconscious.

Phillip had read about that meeting; but the impression given by the newspapers was that Birkin's thugs had been beating up working men, and in the mix-up Birkin had received a blow. In fact about three thousand roughs had gathered around the
loudspeaker
van, many with missiles, including safety-razor blades pushed into potatoes. Such missiles on striking were capable of making superficial cuts in face and hands. Another common weapon was an old chair-leg enwound with barbed wire.
Knuckle-dusters
also were used, visible when the Communist salute of a clenched fist was given.

The man who had flung the stone which knocked out Birkin on that occasion had been arrested by the police, together with some of Birkin's bodyguard; but the assailant was let off at the Court of Summary Jurisdiction, there being no evidence given against him by Birkin, who had regarded him as a misguided Englishman, victim of semi-starvation and slum conditions.

*

Half tree-trunk, as long as a man but thicker, burned on the hearth of the dining room of the Hall. Phillip's waistcoat was tight; two years since he had worn it. Digging flints and making roads had increased his chest expansion. He sipped champagne and ate roast duck and felt he was enjoying himself after the dullness of workshop nights, making up accounts, writing articles, and trying not to feel that the undertaking was too much for him.

Lady Breckland was saying, “I asked the King why de Laszlo, who had painted more royal portraits than any other living artist, had not painted him. ‘The fellow's a cad', replied the King. ‘A cad, sir?' ‘Yes, he's a cad, and I won't be painted by him.' ‘He's supposed to be a very good painter, sir.' ‘Possibly, but when an escaped German prisoner went to him in the war, the fellow gave him money.' ‘Wouldn't you give an escaped prisoner money,
if he appealed to you, sir?' ‘Of course I would,' said the King gruffly, then he added, ‘That fellow gave him money—then he rang up the police and told them. He's a cad, and won't paint my portrait'.”

Phillip saw Birkin's face brighten at this story, while he thought that the painter, being a naturalised Austrian, would have been in two minds about his duty, first to the escaped prisoner, then to his adopted country. Also he would have suffered fears for his family in those days when feeling ran so high. Looking across to Birkin, he saw that he was reserved within himself once more. Had he seen two sides of the story, as well?

The talk at the table changed to racehorses, then to farming. At once Birkin showed interest. Lady Breckland began to declaim against the general apathy, so many on the dole, the land losing heart everywhere, a few old tenant farmers carrying on and doing things properly to keep the soil in good heart, and coming to ruin thereby.

“It's all so tragic. They won't help themselves, and turn away when I tell them the only way. They believe everything they read in their wretched newspapers, although they say in the next breath, ‘Of course, 'tis all lies'. What
can
you do with such people?”

There was silence. Phillip felt that the other guests were
wondering
how the conversation could be maintained with a light touch, for he suspected that Birkin's ideas were not accepted by them.

“What do you think, Sir Hereward?”

Birkin said evenly, quietly, “They will know the truth soon, Lady Breckland.”

“How soon?” asked an Irishman, who had been talking about Arab horses.

Birkin seemed to take a deep breath, before moving his head forward and saying, very quietly, with his eyes fixed in the centre of the table, “Within two years, at the outside. The system must crash within that time—or save itself by war.”

*

On that occasion during the first few months on the land, Brother Laurence had come with Phillip because he was anxious on Phillip's behalf. He had heard so many contradictory things about Birkin. He found Birkin withdrawn; but then he was tired after the long journey from the north in a small car. He thought that Birkin had certain powers in him, and no-one could deny his courage; but was it only the spirit of English bone, stubborn and
indomitable in war? How sensitive was he behind his reserve? Was there an awareness of the still small voice within? Certainly, by all accounts, Birkin had a voice, which was used loudly and powerfully. At times he worked himself up into a frenzy, like Hitler; was this in imitation, or due to an interior frustration from his early years? There had been trouble with his father.

“Phillip, do you remember telling me about your old Colonel, and how he dealt with the little mutinies, in many camps of soldiers returned from the front, owing to the delay in
demobilisation
? You accompanied him on his tour, you said. And how Lord Satchville's fame was so great that men of units who had never seen him listened to him when they had boo'd the Generals of Eastern Command?”

Phillip had told Brother Laurence how Lord Satchville, the great bearded blue-eyed Viking, never raised his voice in speaking to any of the thousands of officers and men of the Gaultshire Regiment: he was invariably equable and courteous.

“But the conditions weren't the same, mon père. Birkin has to shout at his open-air meetings to be heard above the din of
Communists
trying to wreck those meetings. Also, isn't the use of loud-speakers forbidden by law?”

“Only in certain parts of London, such as parks and places of recreation, Phillip: otherwise it would be Babel.”

“I know what you mean about shouting. I shout. And I know in my case that it's due to weakness.”

*

After dinner the two friends were standing talking quietly, apart from the others, in the drawing-room, when Lady Breckland led up Birkin. He listened attentively while Phillip spoke of the formation of a farming community.

Birkin said that it might well be a beginning of a renaissance, a return to the old values of true service to the land. “Such values are our greatest need today. The soil is the base of all life and culture. It is something the towns must be brought to realise. I have read your articles, Maddison, you are doing splendid work.”

Birkin went on to say that men of action who were also poets and artists had always in history been an inspiration to men of good will, who put service to others before themselves.

“We in our party believe in a classless state. Wherever talent be found, whether in cottage or castle, it must be used in the interest of the community.”

“Would an artist in such a state be free to express himself, Sir Hereward?” asked Brother Laurence.

“How else could he express himself truly, except in freedom? We believe that great reward should come to great talent. This does not mean money only, in the sense of the values of the old parties. The state will provide opportunity, as in the age of the Medicis. Our aim is nothing less than a great efflorescence of Western civilisation, based on true values of the human spirit. We go with Nature, but we aid her. We believe in the fostering hand of the Creator, above all.”

Brother Laurence asked, “Would you say that the great travellers and colonisers of the Renaissance were able to do what they did because they were alienated from themselves?”

“You mean that they were driven in protest against the material values of the age, before the birth of the new idea of leadership by the Florentine princes?”

“Not altogether, Sir Hereward. Did not the men of the
Renaissance
subjugate primitive worlds by the force of cannons? And, in so doing, added to their own confusion and alienation from the true light of the spirit?”

“I mentioned the Medicis in reference to the need for a new flowering of the spirit in this country, Brother Laurence. We British do not need to expand our territories. We do not require to find living room for our people, by the aid of force. We have in our Empire a great estate comprising one-fifth of the world, and, as we see it, it is our duty, and our privilege, to serve our fellow men, of many creeds and colours, in that Empire. There we have resources which are unlimited. These resources will enable us to withdraw from the cut-price of world trade, in order to build the greatest civilisation the world has ever known—not by alienation, but by service. Our party works for the transcendence of the little ego which cowers within all of us at times, a feeble spirit blown hither and thither by every gust of transient political manoeuvring. Men so alienated are rendered nervously anxious by every little upset in the jockeying for office and self-
advancement
. But when we of the Imperial Socialist Party come to power, the first thing we shall do is to forbid the export of British capital abroad. Then we shall command the means, which is the finance, to develop our great inheritance. Our opponents who control the Money Power know this, and employ every device to discredit us as a party of thugs and crooks.”

“You would nationalise the Bank of England?”

“This is the next step after we come to office. Then we shall impose a gradual ban on the export of British capital, except within the Empire.”

“Then it is material advance that you would put first, Sir Hereward?”

“Certainly, Brother Laurence. Man does not live by bread alone: but starving millions first must have bread. Until the body is looked after, spiritual progress to an ultimate social harmony is not possible.”

“I have recently been reading about the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century, Sir Hereward. As you know, they lived in the deserts of Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt, and were perhaps the first Christian eremites totally to forsake the values of the
marketplace
. They had the example of their Master before them. Jesus retired to the desert to find purification from direct action against the money-changers—the first and last political action He took, as far as records reveal.”

“I wonder—and I say this with the greatest respect—if the world is not too far gone to be saved only by the gestures in retirement, of a relatively few great and noble souls, Brother Laurence? What do you think, Maddison? I have read your novel,
The
Phoenix,
and found much in it which has helped me to clarify some of my thoughts.”

“I think that in avoiding further direct action against the usurers in the temple, Jesus of Nazareth—for a while anyway—saved Israel. Many of His followers expected direct action at the Passover. And in remaining silent before Pilate, Jesus did not really ‘pull his punch', but took the longer view, of going down into history as a living force in men's minds. That at least is terrestrial immortality.''

“Bernard Shaw says much the same thing in one of his plays, if you remember,” replied Birkin. “‘Had Jesus of Nazareth taken to the sword, he would have gone down to history, with Mahomet, as a bloody-minded tyrant.'”

“Perhaps only the greatest leaders can be detached from the market place,” said Brother Laurence. “One such must also be detached from himself to a degree that is beset with terrors, not least among them that of loneliness. I do not mean aloneness. There is a distinction. Such a one cannot risk attachment to his own ego, or the destructive ecstasy of self-will. He must shed all identification with his superficial, transient, and self-built self. For the true self is not self-built, or self-willed. The true self is
trans
cendent
, mysterious, the source of all strength, all harmony,
eirene,
the soul of the ancient Greeks.”