The Power of the Dead (49 page)

*

Piers and Virginia were staying at an hotel in Milborne, for Lady Tofield would not receive a divorced woman, or one about to be divorced. They invited Lucy and Phillip to tea with them the next day. Lucy could not get away, so she proposed that Felicity go with Phillip. When she came down, having dressed for the occasion, Felicity wore rather noticeable clothes, he
considered
. She had on a blue woven fibre cloche hat to match the colour of her eyes; her frock showed off her figure rather too prominently, while the slender umbrella and high-heeled shoes, together with an embroidered and beaded silk handbag with a large silver mount was not quite the thing for the country. She knew his feelings, and seated beside him in the Cockchafer said that her mother had bought all but the hat for her, saying she must look her best when taking up her new job.

“Nice girl,” remarked Piers, when they were leaving to return home. “Hope you manage to get some work done. I thought once of having her myself.”

“There's nothing like that between us, Piers.”

“You mustn't be cruel to the girl. She loves you.”

*

The south-west gales streamed away leaves from the trees; beaters went
tap-tapping
,
in smocks, through the coverts, to the screechings of cock-pheasants and their rocketting wings. Then the shooting was over, the guests departed, including Lucy's father and brother. Ernest did not shoot; but Pa had been in fine form. It was agreed that the shoot of the day was the
bringing
down of two high pheasants from the Hanger while standing in Lobbett's, two cocks travelling at well over forty miles an hour with the wind.

‘Mister' had come over to lunch of steak-and-kidney pudding, potatoes in their jackets, cheese and burgundy, a ‘spread' in the keeper's hut at the edge of one of the coverts, afterwards wobbling
back to Ruddle Stones with a cock and hen tied to the handlebars of the ‘Onion'.

Once again the farmhouse was redolent of the scent of burning joss-sticks.

‘Mister' had brought with him a copy of
The
Ecclesiastical
Times
to give to Lucy. She left it on the parlour side-board and Hilary took it up the next day. He had already heard of the ‘attack' on Phillip's novel in a letter from his sister Viccy. After glancing at it his first impulse was to put it down; then he read it through … ‘Donkin's communist propaganda … extolling Lenin … bathing naked with children … attacking patriotism, soldierly virtues, and the sacrifice of the dead; sneers at parsons in uniform' … ‘a hero who is ceaselessly blaspheming against the Established Church and attributes the birth of Our Lord to purely physical causes' … he put the paper back on the sideboard while telling himself that while he did not share the religious beliefs of others, there was such a thing as good form, and to give needless offence to his readers was the act of a fool.

He wanted to discuss it with Irene, but hesitated. How far was she in sympathy with such ideas? Surely not with Phillip's book, which, according to the Editor of the paper… He read it over again. What in God's name was the young idiot thinking of? Whatever induced him to follow in the footsteps of his cousin Willie, who had also gone off the deep end, according to what brother John had told him in the past. What was the purpose of it? Where was the sense? Unless—and here Hilary thought he had seen the light—Phillip was indeed what they called in
The
Morning
Post
‘a pale-pink communist'. His socialist ideas had been bad enough, but this latest thing was beyond the limit.

He was still fuming over the review when Lucy came in.

“Did you know Phillip was writing this sort of thing, Lucy?”

“Oh yes, I think so.”

“What is his idea, d'you know?”

“I think he wrote it as a sort of memorial to Willie.”

“Good God! Have you read this?”

“Not yet. It only arrived here from ‘Mister', yesterday.”

“Have you read the book yourself?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think of it?”

“It made me feel rather sad.” It was an effort to add, “I thought Donkin was rather a poor one.”

“‘Donkin' is based on my nephew William?”

“Well, not altogether, Uncle Hilary.”

“I'm glad to hear that. My brother John would turn in his grave.”

He pulled down his waistcoat, the bottom of which had ridden up. He had not had a new suit since before the war.

“Have you seen Irene? She was here before I dropped off for—” he looked at his watch, “ten minutes.”

“I think she went with Phillip to see the spruce scions grafted in the nursery.”

“Did they take Billy?”

“No, Billy went with Felicity to play with the rector's children.”

Hilary walked up and down for awhile before saying, “I suppose you wouldn't care for a walk? You do far too much, you know. Can't you get a woman to live in, a cook-housekeeper? That's what Viccy has.”

“I did think of it, but it's a question of the bedrooms. And now that Felicity is coming to live with us—”

“Who is this girl, Lucy? Oh, a nurse for the children. She seems a cut above the usual run of nannies.”

He noticed that Lucy blushed as she answered, “Well, she is going to help me a little, but really she's a secretary for Phillip.”

“Then he's going to continue writing this sort of stuff?”

“Oh no. I think he wants to write about fish.”

“Has your father seen the new book?”

“Oh yes. Phillip sent him a copy from London.”

Pa had read the copy all through to the last page, and then closing the book had remarked “Ha,” as he removed it from his reading stand, to replace it with a detective story, with a remark to Ernest, reading on the sofa, “Phil's an ass.” Ernest had told Lucy this, as a joke, and Lucy had repeated it to Phillip soon after his arrival from London. She had expected him to laugh; instead, he had remained silent. Then she had changed the subject.

“What did your father think about it, Lucy?”

“Oh, I don't know. He's getting on in years, and prefers detective stories.”

*

Phillip was standing beside Irene in the nursery, which occupied a couple of acres of land behind the keeper's cottage. The area had been reclaimed from wilderness in the year following the Armistice. Plots were laid out in rows of seedling beech, oak, larch, and
spruce. Adjacent plots carried rows of 4-, 5-, and 6-year old trees, which were ready for transplanting. The area was wired against rabbits with galvanised netting 4-feet high. Occasionally a squirrel was shot, since their teeth cut the sapling conifers, he explained.

“But these clones in this row were topped by the forester, Irene. I helped to graft the scions on them nearly two years ago.”

He pointed out the scions, which had been collected during the white winter when Piers had taught him to ski.

“What exactly is a clone, Phillip?”

“It's a grafted sapling. The scions are from one of our few remaining sixty-year-old spruces. We shot them down with
swanshot
. They're old, and can produce fruit—as the forester calls the cones—while the sapling stock, being young, rapidly pushes out the scion into branches. The idea is to get fruit quickly, near the ground.”

“How long will it take these clones to produce fruit?”

“Oh, some years yet.”

Irene had been wondering how her acceptance of Hilary's offer of marriage would affect Phillip's future. She saw that the present complication might become simplified by her answer; she had given it much thought. Hilary was not normal; he had suffered, he was still suffering, from loneliness. It made him a little
overbearing
, and unkind to Phillip. He had spoken of his wish to travel again—to visit the places of his youth, particularly China—in her company. ‘Alone, I shall feel entirely lost, dear lady.' He had written to her of his future hopes of making over the estate to a trust, to provide for her present living, as well as her future. He had no wish to be one of the trustees; he wanted all to pass out of his hands, it was time that he gave up his burden.

Phillip was explaining that timber-growing was a long-term business.

“The stands, that is the mature trees, take about half a century from seed to timber-hauling.”

“That's more than a generation, isn't it?”

“Yes, provided there isn't another war, which there may be unless the die-hards like Nuncle don't change their ideas. Look how Germany was treated during the occupation of the Rhineland! Willie was there, six years ago, and told me a lot about it, how the French allowed the rival political parties to meet, and fight it out. ‘Divide and rule', of course. Our blockade caused much starvation and suffering among the poor—their bread, he told me, was half sawdust. He saw small girls of six and seven years offering
themselves
to sailors at the ports, for a cake of soap. I've put all he told me into the mouth of Donkin, the half-deranged ex-soldier in my novel,
The
Phoenix.
In it, Donkin, who is based on Willie, prophesies another war in a few years' time, arising from the hard faces of what he calls ‘the old men of Europe'.”

“I must read your book, Phillip.”

“Will you? Oh thank you. I'll give you a copy.”

They left the nursery, and went homewards. Before they went into the parlour, where Hilary was erecting his wireless set, Phillip gave Irene a copy of
The
Phoenix
;
and after she had gone to her room he went to see if he could help his uncle.

“With luck we might get Hoover's speech tonight, and hear how things are over in America, Phillip. Our economy is tied in with that of the United States.”

“Yes, I realize that it's the international money system which rules the world.”

“Why do you have to talk like that?”

“Well, it's the truth, isn't it?”

“You make it sound like a conspiracy to dominate world trade only for the sake of making money.”

“But aren't slumps and booms engineered by international
speculators, Uncle? The markets are rigged—bullion transferred—sterling finances Bombay cotton mills to put Lancashire on the dole——”

“A slump is the effect of over-production of certain commodities, a boom is the effect of under-production.”

“Isn't there a slump coming in the United States—where the dollar rules solely——”

“If America undergoes a slump I agree that it will affect our economy. If it comes, it might very well put paid to farming in this country for a year or two.”

To change the subject, Hilary went on to talk of the effect of shooting stars at that time of year, and how they might cause
wireless
interference. “They usually come from the constellation called Berenice's Hair, you know.”

“What a beautiful name, Uncle!”

“In any case it will be about eleven o'clock before we can hear Hoover, owing to the five-hour difference between Greenwich and Eastern Standard Time.”

“Oh good. I rather wanted to hear
Parsifal
on my own wireless set tonight, but it'll be over by ten-thirty.”

“By the way I heard from Colonel De'Ath that you and that ruffian Kidd had been poaching his water——”

At this point Lucy came in with Billy helping her to push the tea-trolley, and Phillip took the opportunity to go up to his room.

*

After tea Irene retired to continue her reading of Phillip's novel. At six o'clock, Greenwich Time, Hilary switched on the B.B.C. news. This was followed by the Stock Exchange prices, a message of gloom to Hilary, but a joy to Billy, whose enthusiasm was echoed by Peter. Hilary cheered up when Flotsam and Jetsam came on, the one a squeaky tenor, the other a
basso
profundo
,
to sing their usual commentary on the news in verse, to the tinkle of a piano. Everyone enjoyed this brief turn before the owner of the set switched off with the remark, “There's nothing interesting until the nine o'clock news.”

He was left alone to read his newspaper, but his attention wandered. Why was Irene avoiding him, by going to her room again? He felt hurt that she had gone for a walk with his nephew that afternoon without even letting him know that she was going. Surely she realised that he, too, was interested in the tree nursery,
and could have suggested to that selfish nephew of his that he ask him to go along with them?

When Phillip ran down the stairs from his writing room, Hilary said, “I'd like a word with you later on this evening.” He saw hesitation in his nephew's face before Phillip replied, “Yes of course, Uncle Hilary.”