The Phoenix Generation (41 page)

With eyes downcast, and voice nearly inaudible, Birkin said,

“Our aim is nothing less than the spiritual revolution of our people. We do not go against the Church, we aid the Church. We believe that all will be achieved by the ultimate triumph of the European soul, based on two millennia of the light of Hellas, reinforced by the Christian ideal of service.”

“The means provide great difficulties, and terrors, Sir
Hereward
.”

“The means are at hand, Brother Laurence. Our Empire awaits its efflorescence. Yes, there will be great difficulties,” he said. “We do not ask those to join with us who have obligations to family, or who may suffer loss by working with us. Indeed, we can promise only the hardship of the narrow way. Many of us learned what true comradeship was on the battlefields of our youth. I believe that you served, Brother Laurence.”

“Yes, Sir Hereward. I served on the Western Front, then transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, and was shot down in Palestine by the Turks, and taken prisoner.”

“Then you will know what hardship brings out in a man, so often the best. Thus we survivors of the war generation count it a privilege to live in an age when England demands that great things shall be done—a privilege to be of the generation which learns to say, What can we give, instead of, What can we take. For thus our generation learns there are greater things than slothful ease—greater things than safety—more terrible things than death.”

*

That was in the past winter. Since then Birkin had made no real progress, Phillip thought as he lay awake in the caravan, seeing the stars above the dark pines. Which was the true way? Action, and the market place: or inaction in retreat? The farm as it had been—a nature reserve reverting to wildness, a
wilderness
so beloved by Penelope?—or the farm civilised: brought back to culture, its wild flowers to be seen as weeds to be destroyed: the snipe bogs to become meadows for milk: the reeds pulled from the grupps, and the reed-warbler homeless?

When the deserts of the world were all irrigated, to grow fine crops as in California, where would the eremite, the hermit, go?

Tom Cundall, his old schoolfellow, who had recently died of t.b. following war-time exhaustion as a Camel pilot in the R.F.C once wrote,
The
world
is
too
far
gone
for
saints.
Would the last saint
become a militant saint, and go down into history as a
bloody-minded
tyrant?

Should he write to Brother Laurence, and ask him down for the week-end?

*

“Well, to be frank I don't particularly want to hear what Birkin has to say,” said Penelope briskly. “Daddy says he is a wild man.” She went on, “I saw some duck on your meadows this afternoon. That may mean hard weather coming. I fancy some were eider. They come down from the North, don't they? And there was an all-black little fellow with a wispy black crest. I've been trying to identify him.” Volumes of Gould and Thorburn lay on the table. “It was too small for tufted duck, or scoter. And as I said, completely black.”

“Could it be a smew?”

“I hadn't thought of that, Phillip.”

“I thought I saw a marsh harrier on the end meadow, Penelope.”

“Yes, I heard one comes there. That frightful man at Bly collects rare birds, you know. Beast. Mrs. Treasure tells me that he paid that wretched poacher at the inn at Durston four pounds for a pair of quails under your Bustard Wood last summer.”

“He puts down currants with bamboo splinters in them, to choke them.”

“Who told you?”

“Jakes, who wants the rabbits.”

“Don't you let him have them. He's a poacher, too.”

“So I'm told. But Conger, at Durston, is honest.”

Mrs. Treasure came in with tea. “Help yourself, Phillip. I must identify that black duck.” She took up a heavy volume.

“No, I don't think it could have been a smew,” she said, after some minutes' search. “Is Lucy going on Sunday?”

“Yes, she wants to hear Birkin. She asked me to say that she's got a ticket for you, if you want to come.”

“That's another matter, of course. Before, I did not think it right for you to be seen with me.”

During tea the telephone rang. “If it's Daddy, please don't speak. He's rather concerned about any men in this house. No need to go—Oh, you know where the throne is, don't you?”

Phillip, having made this excuse, came back some minutes later.

“Daddy wanted to be reassured that I had not bought that land,” she said. “Apparently he saw an article of yours, about land being the cheapest for a hundred and fifty years. He was
anxious, lest I should have seen it. He asked to be remembered to you.”

“Thank you. I thought he was charming.”

Penelope was gay, she looked so young. “Daddy runs a bank, among other things. People calling to see him throughout every day, at precisely fifteen-minute intervals. He has no other life, poor darling. Well, Phillip, give Lucy my love, and thank her for asking me for next Sunday. I simply can't stand the cold in an open car—Ninian sold my saloon as soon as we were married, and bought one of those huge Bentleys, and I've never been properly warm since. So tell Lucy I'll take my car, and if she cares to come with me, it would be fun. Goodbye, and don't work too hard.”

Phillip had three tickets to spare, so he telephoned several acquaintances, but all refused. Finally he asked Matt and Luke if they would like to come. They demurred.

“Birkin isn't the devil, you know, and there are points of view other than that of the
Daily
Herald.”

“I know that, master,” said Matt. “But I got to be up five
a'-clark
tomorrow to feed me calves. I ken take two more good'ns when you go to market. Cherry's got a good bag yet.”

“How about you, Luke?”

The steward made no excuse like his father but said simply, “I dursen't.”

“Why not?”

“It's what they'd say down to Yard”—otherwise by the petrol pump owned by Horatio Lord Bugg, as the dealer was now called among the family.

“I've half a mind to ask Horatio.”

“Tes the night we do football pools,” explained Matt. “Horatio comes to ours.”

“What, on Sunday? Gambling? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Matt.”

“Now look-a you a-here, Master——” began Matt seriously,

but Phillip cut him short by hugging him and saying, “I'm only joking, you know that. Enjoy your little Sunday flutter, Matt.”

“—there be a God above, and there be a Devil here below,” said Matt, not to be put off. “An' I don't see no more wrong in football on Sundays, than in going to church or chapel,” and he gave Phillip a full look of his dark Brythonic eyes.

*

Lucy said she would invite Felicity and her father down to spend a few days with them, and telephoned to their cottage on
the coast near Chelmsford. The next day they motored up in the Toad. Felicity said she would be quite happy to look after the children.

Early on the Sunday evening the four set out, Lucy beside Penelope within her cream saloon car; Phillip driving with Brother Laurence, both enjoying the feeling of an open cockpit with the stars overhead, well-wrapped in leather coats, goggles and flying helmets. The windscreen was flat, for the night was frosty.

In the dim light of stars in a black sky they passed the aerodrome with its hangars housing the new dark green Blenheim bombers, its windows of the officers' mess and men's quarters lighted up. Through huddling villages, the headlights illuminating flint and brick walls; past fields of plough and stubble and great heaps of whitish-yellow sugar-beet beside the road: a winding road, rising and falling in gentle undulation until the straight with the woods and coverts of Sandringham, and so to the long carr-stone wall enclosing Breckland Park. Turning right-handed they entered the main road to the town, and were upon the straight and fast stretch leading away through trees to a hill-crest whence could be seen the lights of Fenton spread out below. Phillip had been there once or twice by daylight; the place gave a feeling of having been partly submerged in the floods, and then left to dry again, but with the damp and water-marks remaining. Like many another little port on that coast, it had a feeling of failure about it, despite its rows of modern houses and sporadic new industries run, he had heard, on overdrafts. As for agriculture, seventeen million pounds were owed by the farmers of the county to the banks.

*

The Corn Hall stood back from the Square. Motorcars were parked irregularly before it. The Hall shared the obsolescent look of the town: too big for the shrunken modern harvests. Two or three dozen policemen stood near a gathering of about a hundred people waiting outside, hands in pockets and collars of shabby overcoats turned up.

The two men waited for Penelope's car, and went into the hall with the two women. More people than Phillip had anticipated were sitting on benches and chairs. He felt exhilarated. There was a feeling of life, of excitement in the air. As they walked to the reserved seats in front he got the impression of many mixed stocks or races in the audience; round-faced Dutch, dark long-headed Huguenot, ruddy big-faced Dane, small-sized Saxon with fair hair,
fair-haired Scandinavian, square-headed Teuton, thin-necked Celt, small round-headed, black-haired ancient Briton.
Interbreeding
during the centuries since the Nordic invasions,
augmented
by immigration of continental fugitives had cast clear a minority of racial types, while diminishing the hybrid majority, like the smaller grains of tail-corn which came through the sieves during threshing. Here and there sat a man or youth with more assured glance; the head corn.

“I think you'll be surprised by what you hear,” he said, with happy confidence, to Penelope.

She did not reply, but wrapped her chinchilla coat about her. Phillip had brought a rug to tuck round the feet of the two women. “Don't you feel something in the air, Penelope?”

“Only the cold so far,” she replied, with a faint smile.

“You wait till Birkin speaks.”

“Oh, I've heard a lot about him.”

“What the newspapers say about Birkin is entirely
misrepresenting
.”

“I seldom read newspapers.”

Lucy smiled at Phillip. “I'm quite excited,” she whispered.

The clock on the wall of the Corn Hall pointed to ten minutes to eight. Stewards with armlets of red, white, and blue were moving up and down the aisles, selling pamphlets and party newspapers.

“I'll be back in a moment,” said Phillip as he got up, having seen ‘Boy' Runnymeade in the front row. “Come with me, mon père.”

“Hullo, Maddison. I thought I'd see you here,” said Captain Runnymeade in his drawling, slightly thick voice.

“I'm glad you could come.”

“Who's the blonde beside your wife?”

“Lady Penelope Carnoy, a friend of Lucy's.”

“Bring her over to the cottage one day and we'll have a party. Is she one of Birkin's lot?”

“No. She is only really interested in wild birds.” Seeing Runnymeade's eyebrows lift he said, “Have you met Birkin?”

“I knew his father in the regiment. He was a bit of a waster, so I'm not surprised that his son is a bit of a bolshy.”

“May I introduce Brother Laurence.”

“How d'you do. Sit down a moment, and tell Stefania all about your boy friend, Maddison, while I talk to Brother Laurence.”

Phillip remembered Stefania Rozwitz at the Castle,
ballerina
assoluta
with the Russian dancers. Now she was choreographer and
producer with a London team. She had changed. Her voice had a gruffness about it. Her once-dark hair was brass-coloured, drawn back over her brow and held by a kerchief. He supposed her to be about forty-five. Slight dark hairs sprouted on her upper lip and chin. She looked strong, compact, and vital in a confused sort of way. He felt on the defensive in her presence.

“So you are now an admirer of Fascism are you, ‘Farm Boy'?”

“I'm for Birkin and a Greater Britain.”

“And you?” Runnymeade said to Brother Laurence.

“I'm here as an observer, Captain Runnymeade.”

Phillip moved away to talk to Lady Breckland, who introduced him to a woman wearing the same sort of grey silk blouse under her coat, with the small silver badge of the party in the lapel. She bore a name which had ruled the East Anglian farming world, by prestige of two great ancestors, since the land-reclaiming days of the eighteenth century.

“Mrs. Cheffe has just started a school for young children,” said Lady Breckland.

“You must come over and see my school, Mr. Maddison. Do introduce me to your wife, won't you?”

When the two ladies had gone and the four were seated once again Penelope said to Lucy, “Mrs. Cheffe's husband is selling off some of his land. I do so want to buy ten acres of it, but Daddy won't let me. He says that land is the worst investment. I was telling Lucy, Brother Laurence, about a house I want to build. My father is the solid banker, and never speculates. Phillip, when is your man coming? It's ten minutes past eight. Is there a committee? I don't see any chairs up there.”

The platform was empty but for a table with a glass and jug of water. Against the wall behind was draped a large Union Jack rising almost to the roof. Without warning the tall figure with a slight limp walked out of the door beside the platform.
Immediately
the floor of the hall seemed to rise with many people on their feet, waving arms in salute, and cheering. Phillip turned round to watch them. Their faces were alight with happiness. Birkin climbed on the platform, smiling and acknowledging their cheers. He stood quite still in front of the table, thrusting out his chin, and breathing deep, as though to take the feeling of the people. Then under the cheers and the clapping there was a growing roar, hard and deep, and at this Birkin drew himself up and, with one hand clasping the back of the other before him, stiffened to immobility. His face was set, looking to the back of the hall.