E-Book, Englisch, Band 4, 336 Seiten
Williamson How Dear Is Life
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ISBN: 978-0-571-31013-5
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, Band 4, 336 Seiten
Reihe: A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight
ISBN: 978-0-571-31013-5
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Henry Williamson (1895-1977) was a prolific writer best known for Tarka the Otter which won the Hawthornden Prize in 1927. He wrote much of else of quality including The Wet Flanders Plain, The Flax of Dream tetralogy and the fifteen volume A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight all of which are being reissued in Faber Finds. His politics were unfortunate, naively and misguidedly right-wing. In truth, he was a Romantic. The critic George Painter famously said of him, 'He stands at the end of the line of Blake, Shelley and Jefferies: he is last classic and the last romantic.'
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THE DAY which he had been eagerly looking forward to came at last: half-quarter day. Many times he had imagined himself going to the grill of the cashier in the Westminster Bank, presenting his cheque, hearing the cashier say, “How would you like this?” as he had heard him ask others, while he waited to pay in the Branch’s money. Many times had he imagined the joy of being able to jingle golden sovereigns of his own in his pocket, as he walked across the Hill, later to show Mother and Mrs. Neville.
This was the moment. His heart beat faster as Mr. Howlett came down the stairs with three pink cheques in his hand. He placed one on Phillip’s desk, saying, “Here you are, my boy,” and paused a moment to enjoy the light in his junior’s face.
Phillip thanked him, before gazing at the magic piece of paper. Pay to Mr. P. S. T. Maddison the sum of Five pounds! Every stroke and curl of the letters of his name, the date of 6 May 1913, the signature of E. Rob Howlett, thin and twirly, the figure of £5 and the written words, the water-mark on the cheque, the myriads of little teeny-weeny lines of joined-up words thewestminsterbankthewestminsterbankthe right across and down the background of the pink paper—every detail was fresh, vivid, and wonderful. So was the moment when, having presented the cheque, he received a glance from the bald-headed cashier behind the grill and heard him say “How would you like this? Gold?”
“Oh,” said Phillip, as he had rehearsed several times. “Three sovereigns, three half-sovereigns, and ten shillings in silver, please.”
The gold was weighed on the polished copper scales, and then shovelled in a little copper shovel through the small hole. Three sovereigns, each with naked St. George on a rearing horse spiking the dragon; three smaller gold circles with milled edges; two half-crowns, one florin, two shillings, two sixpences—all new and bright. They jingled in his pocket, as he walked the few steps down the narrow Lane—just wide enough for one horse-dray loaded with crates of wine to pass at a time—away from the office. It was a great moment. Five pounds, earned by himself, in his pocket!
*
The narrow gorge between the tall and sombre office buildings was now filled with light. Sooted blocks of stone, glass windows, even the boot-smoothed iron-grills above basement and cellar seemed to be insubstantial, to be dissolved in a dust of soft radiance from the sun standing high in the south-west over the street which was a fen when the Romans came, and still a fen when they had gone, to march no more through their walled city, by the old gate: the Aldgate beyond which, unthought of and unrealised by Phillip on that bright afternoon of a world that was accepted unconsciously as one that would exist as it was for evermore, in streets of tenements and dark courts and blackened slums lived ‘the insured’ of L. Dicks and J. Konigswinter and their like, to whom an annual premium of two shillings was a considerable sum of money, to be saved in pennies and ha’pennies, not all smelling of fish-and-chips—as Theodora Maddison, servant of the poor among whom she now lived, knew daily, almost hourly.
*
At Lunn’s the hatters in Fenchurch Street, Phillip bought a cork-lined silk hat for 12s. 6d. about twenty minutes later that afternoon; and the shop assistant, with delicate fingers, put his straw-yard in a cardboard box for him to carry home. Then he bowed Phillip out of the shop. A hundred yards or so from Mr. Lunn’s, was Daniel’s, the watch and clock shop on the corner of Gracechurch Street. There Phillip purchased a tenpenny ha’penny safety razor; a fourpenny ha’penny shaving brush with imitation badger-hair bound by painted string to a brown-painted wooden handle; a twopenny stick of shaving soap; a one-and-threepenny nickel silver watch-chain to replace the plaited horse-hair tether which great-uncle Charley Turney had given him at Beau Brickhill; and with his purchases, turned to the south, feet firm upon pavement and cobble, waiting for the moment of Mother’s face when he arrived home.
Silk hat on the back of his head, in imitation of Mr. F. E. Smith in a cartoon, Phillip walked past the Monument and over London Bridge with an expression of inhibited superiority on his face, while inwardly thrilling at the sight of white fleecy clouds floating high in the blue sky. He carried his dark-grey raincoat folded on his arm; and entering No. 4 platform, sought an empty carriage, placed the new hat with great care upon the luggage rack, and opening The Globe, feet on cushions opposite, began to read. He had observed that several men who wore silk hats bought this evening paper. Very soon the paper was put aside, it was more interesting to look out of the window. Far away he heard the urgent clanging of the Fire Brigade bell.
Walking up Foxfield Road from the station, he decided that his black vicuna jacket might be too short for the tall hat, so he put on his raincoat, which reached below his knees. Though of dark grey mixed woollen and cotton material, this coat, with its raglan sleeves, did not really go with a topper, he felt. Mr. Tate wore his in the Lane with only a short jacket; still, Mr. Tate was big and hearty, looking as though he had had nothing but the biggest beef steaks for luncheon in the London Tavern for many many years. Some of the men in the Lane wore blue serge suits with top hats, but Mr. Hollis had explained that they put on their silk hats only when calling on one another in their offices, or meeting to do business in vault or exchange. They would not wear them with a blue serge suit outside the City. The silk hat was a compliment to the other fellow, as well as to the tradition of the City, said Mr. Hollis, in a tone that made Phillip feel that he too was of the City.
The silk hat survived its first crossing of the Hill. No small boys jeered. Indeed, no one appeared to notice it, to his relief. As he went down the gully, and approached the top of Hillside Road, his features became set, a little strained, his upper lip stiff, as he tried to think that there was nothing unusual in wearing such headgear, should he be seen by Helena, or Mr. and Mrs. Rolls, as he passed their house. After all, he was entitled to wear a silk hat; he was a man of the Lane; and one of the seven hundred and fifty thousand who kept the country going, as Mr. Hollis had said.
To his mingled relief and disappointment, none of the Rolls family were visible. Old Pye, in the next house lower down, was not in evidence, either, thank God. Now he was safe, opposite Gran’pa’s gate. He looked in, and waved. Gran’pa saw him through the window, and beckoned him in. Phillip mouthed through the glass that he would see him later: his purpose was achieved. Gran’pa had seen him in the hat, and so had Aunt Marian, who had come because of the departure of Miss Rooney, the housekeeper. He lifted it, feeling like Mr. Tate, and setting it at a slightly forward tilt, again like Mr. Tate, walked on down behind the privet hedge.
Mrs. Bigge was at her gate. He bowed, and raised what he felt was the equivalent of that splendid headgear of magazine stories, a ‘faultless Lincoln Bennett’, even if it was only a Lunn.
“Goodness me, Phillip, I thought for a moment you were your Father! Though you haven’t got a beard yet. My eyes are not what they were. Just come back from London Town?”
“Yes, Mrs. Bigge,” he said, disappointed that she had not remarked on his distinguished appearance. “There’s been a slight fire in the East India Docks this afternoon, and we are on several risks there. However, we always spread risks by guarantee.”
“Fancy that.”
“Do you like my new headgear?”
“So that’s what it is about you that was puzzling me! I knew somehow it wasn’t you, Phillip. My, you are quite a swell!”
He swept off his hat to her with a bow, and went in his gate, the hat now slightly over one brow, like Mr. Thistlethwaite wore his. He left his raincoat behind him on the wall of the porch. He rang the bell.
Mother came. She stared. He waited. Then a smile came upon her face.
“How do you do,” he said, lifting his hat slightly.
The sight of her little son, as Hetty still thought of him, standing there, so serious of face, made her laugh. Her laugh was of tenderness, of pathos, of a sense of childlike fun that her experience had not yet turned to despair and acceptance of defeat. Standing before her, he looked so comic, so much a slender, young-faced edition of Dickie, that she could not restrain her feelings. And knowing Phillip’s sense of humour at times, she felt he was giving a little parody of his father. To her dismay his expression changed.
“Well, you needn’t laugh! I don’t think it’s so funny, anyway. May I come in? Thank you.” He hung the hat on the top of the newel post and without further word went into the scullery. He always went to Timmy Rat when he felt upset, she knew.
Hearing his footfall, Timmy Rat dashed through its fretwork hole, tail knocking on box in its eagerness to be scratched. Nose pointed, whiskers trembling, pink raindrops of eyes glistening, it waited to dream as finger-tips gently rubbed its ears.
“At any rate, you don’t laugh at me,” said Phillip, loud enough for his mother to hear.
“I’m very sorry, dear, but I was not really laughing at you, you know. I was really so taken by surprise...
