The Golden Virgin by Henry Williamson

which Phillip had noticed on the other side of the hearth, of blue velvet embroidered with what looked like a flowery pattern. The dog advanced with high steps towards the newcomer, who stopped to pat it before going to Mrs. Kingsman to take her hand in both of his. Then to Kingsman; and turning to Phillip, who had stood up when the visitor arrived, was introduced as Father Aloysius.
    The newcomer brought life into the room, as he set about eating with zest the muffins from a covered dish that had been kept warm on the hearth.
    “You walked, I suppose, Lulu?”
    “Rather! It helped to clear the miasmas from my mind. I was beginning to feel like Shakespeare’s ‘vagabond flag upon the tide, that rots itself with motion’. But I was sorry to leave my many friends, I had no idea they would feel the parting as I did. I’ve spent the last two years,” he said, turning to Phillip, “in a London suburb south of the river—a place that George the Second, travelling by coach from Kent on his way to London early one morning, called ‘long lazy lousy Loos’am,’ having apparently watched door after door opening along the High Street to see his subjects yawning and scratching their heads as the Royal Coach passed by. Of course the Hanoverians, as you know, were not exactly popular then.”
    “No—I mean yes.”
    “How did you come, by Liverpool Street, Lulu?”
    “I was lucky to get a lift in a motor going over Woolwich Ferry to Chelmsford, Dolly. My word, it’s good to see the rodings ridge-and-furrow again! There’s something about a London suburb, a nervous tension, an underlying anxiety, a suppression of true living that is not of the town and certainly not of the country, which is most hard to combat.”
    Phillip wondered if this was the same Father Aloysius that hismother had spoken of, as being ‘such a good man’, the priest-in-charge of St. Saviour’s in the High Street.
    “What did you think of your chaplains in France?” went on the priest, turning to him.
    “I can hardly judge, sir, I saw only one, and he preached a sermon that told us only that Zero day was not far off. The troops call chaplains the Royal Staybacks.”
    The priest laughed. “What did your man say, can you remember?”
    “He said, ‘This is the greatest fight ever made for the Christian religion, a fight between the mailed fist and the nailed hand.”
    “That sounds like the Bishop of London.”
    It was too late to leave now; darkness had come, and there were no lamps on the Swift. His great lonely bedroom! He remembered what Father had always said about Roman Catholic priests: how they tried to control other people’s lives, and although supposedly devoted to things spiritual, they were great acquirers of property. But Father disliked Roman Catholics because his mother had come from a German Lutheran family which had suffered from persecution. Anyway, what did it matter? All religions were the same—merely made up from people’s fears and desires.
    The others began to talk about people they knew, including someone called “Margot”. The only Margot Phillip had heard of was the Prime Minister’s wife, and to his surprise this was the same person. The Kingsmans must be very high up, if they were intimate friends of the Asquiths. He must be careful not to say anything against the war.
    “The newspapers are dreadful,” said Mrs. Kingsman. “Poor Margot! That wretched canard about her visit to Donnington Hall, to play tennis with the German officer prisoners there, is still going the rounds. Even my head gardener believes it to be true. Margot says she does not even know where Donnington Hall is.”
    Phillip remembered that Mrs. Asquith’s visit was one of the things that made Father furious with the Liberal Prime Minister. He might have known it! The Daily Trident had right across its chief page, A Real British Victory at Last! on the Monday following the attack at Loos … The Daily Liar.
    “Even if she did go to visit old