The Girl in a Swing

you - how d'you know I haven't? - and are you going to

  tell me I'm wrong?' Then, suddenly, her tone lightened. 'Anyway,

  who did it? Come on, Alan, who did it? Who did it?

  Who?'

  She stamped her foot, and a moment later caught my two

  hands, swinging herself round like an eight-year-old in a

  playground and singing, 'Was it nice? Was it nice? Tell me,

  Alan, was it nice?'

  I gave up. Evidently there were two worlds - hers and

  another. But which Pretender is and which is King, God

  bless us all When

  we were indoors again she said, 'Alan, are you going

  back to the shop?'

  'M'm-h'm. I must. It's Saturday afternoon.'

  'Then I'll come too. Never mind those glasses and things.

  Spater genugt.'

  Her suitcase was still in the hall and out of it she took a

  cardboard shoe-box tied with string.

  'Look after that till I come down; and you're absolutely

  not to open it!'

  There were several customers in the shop and Mrs Taswell

  and Deirdre were both serving. Kathe, having spoken

  briefly but warmly to each of them, led the way down the

  glass passage to the office and put the shoe-box on my desk.

  'This is what I really bought at the Faringdon sale, Alan.

  As I said then, I may have been silly, but I do hope not.

  You're going to tell me now.'

  'China?'

  'Porcelain.'

  I cut the string, took off the lid and removed two folded

  layers of tissue paper. For a few moments I remained looking

  dubiously at the rather insignificant porcelain figure

  273

  bedded in cotton-wool below. Then, suddenly - just as they

  say in books - my jaw fell open and I caught my breath.

  'Kathe, what is this? Do you know? Have you found out

  already? Have you consulted anybody?'

  'No, darling, I haven't shown it to anybody. I tell you, I

  just thought it looked nice, and worth more than twenty

  pounds. I was hoping it might be Chelsea. I saw it the day

  before the sale, lying in one of those old saucepans - very

  dirty, too - so I just put the lid back on and decided to buy

  it without saying anything to anybody. Oh dear, surely I

  haven't wasted all that money, have I? I mean, it is porcelain

  and it's undamaged, and unless I'm quite wrong at least it's

  eighteenth-century English, isn't it?'

  'Yes, it's all that. But - but - oh, God, I'm afraid to say

  what I think it is! It must be a forgery.'

  'But, darling, why would a forgery be stuffed into an old

  saucepan in a job lot?'

  'I don't know. But it simply can't be what I think it is."

  Kathe, standing beside my chair, put one ringer on the

  soft glaze and rubbed it gently.

  'Why, what do you think it is, then?'

  As though the Eumenides might be somewhere about

  with a hammer, I paused for a few moments, dropped my

  voice and said 'The Girl in a Swing'.

  'The girl in a swing? Alan, I'm lost. Explain. But come on,

  take her out first and let's look at her properly.'

  I took the figure out and stood it on the desk. It was about

  six inches high and represented a girl in a round-skirted, lowcut

  dress. She was half-smiling with a rather enigmatic, teasing

  expression and leaning sideways in a swing, her arms

  raised to the ropes, which hung inward from two extremely

  improbable tree-trunks covered with great, serrated leaves

  as big as her own head. From these also projected several

  porcelain spouts or nozzles, obviously intended to hold the

  stems of flowers. The upper side of the base was plain but

  incised (and as I recognized these my breath came hard)

  with curious crescent marks, rather as though someone had

  pressed his finger-nail repeatedly into the soft paste before

  firing. The glaze was glassy and unusually close-fitting. But

  274

  what startled me more than anything else was that the

  piece was enamelled - the bodice blue, the skirt sprigged

  with flowers and with a kind of tiny trefoil motif in pink.

  The girl's hair was yellow and the bows on her shoes the

  same green as the leaves by which she was surrounded.

  I sat in silence, trying to collect my thoughts.

  'Alan,' said Kathe, 'I'm asking you to tell me. What is the

  Girl in a Swing?'

  'Well,' I answered rather slowly, picking my words, 'let's

  pretend for a moment that that figure - well, that it isn't

  there at all. The Girl in a Swing, as she's called, is one of a

  number of porcelain toys and ornaments made in London

  some time during the early seventeen-fifties. Only two figures

  of the girl herself are known to exist, though altogether,

  something like seventy or eighty of the pieces have been

  identified. One of the girls is in the Victoria and Albert and

  the other's in the Fine Arts Museum at Boston, Massachusetts.

  The thing about the girl is that she's a riddle - an

  enigma. Within living memory it was generally accepted

  that she was Chelsea - from the Sprimont factory - until

  during the 'thirties someone proved that she couldn't be,

  because of the impossibly high proportion of lead oxide in

  the paste. She had no factory-mark, but she and most of the

  other pieces are more-or-Iess unarguably the work of a single

  modeller. Since she's obviously London style but neither

  Chelsea nor Bow, she can only have come from some other

  London factory. No one has ever been able to discover where

  that factory was, how it started or who ran it.'

  'You mean they really have no idea at all?'

  'Well, they have up to a point. The theory is that some

  time about seventeen forty-nine or fifty, some of the potters

  working for Sprimont's Chelsea factory decided they could

  do better on their own and left to have a go. It's always been

  supposed that they must have set up somewhere else in

  Chelsea. We know they went bust in 1754, because Sprimont

  bought up their stock and sold it. He may have bought the

  moulds and master-models too, but if he did they were never

  used again. And that's all I can remember, without going off

  and looking it up.'

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  'So a third Girl in a Swing would be important?'

  Til say she would! But besides that, the two figures in

  Boston and the V. & A. aren't enamelled - they're just plain

  white. Only a minority of the identified Girl-in-a-Swing

  factory figures are enamelled. Two-thirds of them are plain.

  Not only is that girl on the desk enamelled, but as far as I

  can remember her colours aren't characteristic either of

  Chelsea or of Girl-in-a-Swing factory stuff at all. But I'll have

  to check that too.'

  'Do you think she's valuable?'

  'If she's not a forgery - and I must agree with you that

  I don't see how she can be - extremely: both for herself

  and for the new light she may throw on the whole problem.'

  'But - but would any ordinary person care a pfennig about

  any of this? I mean, I didn't. I just thought she was probably

  eighteenth-cent
ury porcelain and worth bidding twenty

  pounds for.'

  'No ordinary person would think more than that, if as

  much. But that's neither here nor there. If she were proved

  to be genuine, the V. & A., the English Ceramic Circle, Morgan

  Steinberg and several hundred other people on both sides

  of the Atlantic would go through the roof, nothing less.'

  Kathe, absorbing this, said nothing for a little while. Then

  she asked, 'Alan, do you know what I wished in the eye of

  the White Horse last Monday?'

  'You know I don't.'

  'I wished that I could find something of great value at the

  sale and buy it on my own.'

  We stared at one another. At last I said, 'Well, we'd better

  tackle this slowly, hadn't we? We'll take her home with us

  to-night and on Monday I'll get in touch with Mallet, the

  expert at the V. & A.'

  I picked the figure up in both hands and turned it sideways

  to put it back in the box. In doing so I caught sight of

  a mark on the under-side of the base and held it up to the

  light. It was a crude incision reading 'John Fry'.

  'Oh, good grief!' I said. 'Is this witchcraft, or what?'

  'What is it? It doesn't mean she's not real, does it?5

  Tm beginning to wonder what is real. John Fry was a chap

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  who's known to have been living near the Bow factory in the

  early seventeen-fifties. It's never actually been proved that

  he was in the porcelain racket, but it's generally supposed

  that he must have been some relation of Thomas Frye, the

  proprietor of the Bow factory.'

  'Not the Chelsea factory?'

  'No. So if she's real, it'll suggest fairly strongly that the

  Girl-in-a-Swing factory wasn't in Chelsea at all - that it was

  related not to Chelsea but to Bow. Darling, I simply can't

  get all this together. I'm lost in it - I'm completely confused.'

  'Well, I'd better make some tea. That's the proper British

  thing to do, isn't it?'

  21

  THE evening came out warm and sunny. Kathe, having

  changed into a peasant blouse and blue skirt, cleared up the

  party while I pruned and tied the dahlias and gave them a

  good soaking with the hose. Already a bud on one of the King

  Alberts was on the point of blooming. It was high summer,

  I reflected, or pretty well. Whatever might come of all this,

  one way or the other, thank God there would always be the

  blessed continuum of the seasons - lupins, dahlias, chrysanthemums:

  peas, runner beans, celery. Law, say the

  gardeners, is the sun.

  Nevertheless, excitement was burning steadily away inside

  me; so strongly, indeed, that I even forgot to ask Kathe

  for her opinion of Gerald Kingsford. I thought of Lord

  Carnarvon in his green grass grave, up on the southern skyline

  on Beacon Hill. 'Can you see anything, Carter?' 'Yes wonderful

  things!' Kathe's discovery might not set the world

  on fire like Tutankhamen's Tomb, but it would set the

  ceramic world on fire all right, no danger. I added a few

  fresh ties to the purple clematis on the trellis and went

  indoors to find Kathe just finished.

  'You know, I feel the need to talk to some bloke or other

  about this, in confidence, off the record and all that.'

  277

  'Joe Matthewson?'

  'No, he wouldn't do. Porcelain's only a side-line to him.

  I'd like to ring up someone totally committed, hard-headed

  and knowledgeable. Geoffrey Godden, Reginald Haggar someone

  like that.'

  'But what could they say, Alan? "Seeing's believing?"

  Where would that get you?'

  'Well, not far, I agree: and certainly they couldn't say

  more at this stage.'

  'I wonder you don't tell Tony. After all, you only want

  someone to share the excitement and suspense. The experts

  will be next week.'

  'You're dead right, as usual. Let's ring him up and see if

  he'll come out for a pint. It's your discovery, you miraculous

  girl, not mine. Don't you feel some suspense, too?'

  'Vielleicht.' She hung up a tea-towel to dry. 'Yes, of course

  I do, darling, but a woman can sort of hand it over to a

  man and carry on underneath, you know? And I'm a very

  irresponsible woman.'

  "You're a continuum, too, aren't you? What a splendid

  thought!'

  'Well, I've been called a lot of things at different times, but

  never that.'

  'And in Ausonian land, Men called him Mulciber.'

  'Did they now? Who was he really?"

  'Satan. This angel, who is now become a devil, is my particular

  friend. We often read the Bible together. Come on,

  let's ring Tony.'

  As luck would have it, Tony had just finished his sermon

  and was perfectly agreeable to being asked out for the second

  time that day.

  'But look, Alan, I've got to go and see a bloke out at

  Stockcross first. It won't take long. Suppose I come on to the

  'Halfway' and meet you both there in - what? - an hour and

  a half from now?'

  We had a couple of pints in the Halfway and then strolled

  down to the Kennet, spangling and glittering in cool evening

  solitude by the plank bridge at the end of the little lane. I

  caught a glimpse of a kingfisher in the willows, but it darted

  278

  away before I could point it out to Kathe and Tony. We

  crossed the bridge and sat on the open grass in the light of

  the sunset.

  For some time no one spoke, until at length Tony asked,

  'Are you going to sell it?'

  'Oh, yes. I mean, complete security - financial stability why

  be ashamed of wanting that? And - well - our children

  and so on.'

  'It'll really fetch all that much?'

  'Well, I keep crossing my fingers every time I open

  my mouth, but if there's no catch in it, it'll fetch an awful

  lot.'

  'Come on, Tony,' said Kathe, 'warn us about the evils of

  riches.'

  'Not me. Dr Johnson was dead right. Riches put it in a

  man's power to do more good. I just hope you won't be

  moving away from here or anything like that.'

  'We shan't, I can assure you.'

  'I don't want to leave Bull Banks, ever,' said Kathe, 'or the

  shop or the downs or the Kennet. This is Seligkeitl Alan, is

  that a trout rising over there, by those Erlen - what do you

  call them - alders? I just want to hide myself here for ever,

  and be safe and happy.'

  'Hide? What from?' asked Tony.

  'Oh, things that frighten me. It's dark outside, isn't it?

  I'm afraid of the dark.'

  'That reminds me of a story of Jack Cain's,' I said. 'He told

  me that when he was out in Burma during the war, apparently

  they were on church parade and some rather emotional

  padre was haranguing them. And this padre said, "You

  fellows don't have to be afraid of anything! Christ is everywhere

  - He's with you at home and abroad, in darkness and

  light. He's never absent." And the corporal next to Jack

  muttered, "Well, I 'ope 'e ain't 'angin' around whe
n I'm

  shaggin' my missus." '

  'I wouldn't mind if He was,' said Kathe. 'Might teach

  Him a thing or two.'

  'I doubt it,' said Tony. 'Christ didn't grow up a Galilean

  peasant for nothing.'

  279

  'Well, I wasn't just making fun, Tony, I assure you. I

  admire Christ. I just wish I could have talked to Him a bit

  before He started, that's all.'

  Tony burst out laughing. 'Why, what would you have

  said ?'

  'Well, He wanted people to be kind and generous to everybody,

  good and bad alike, didn't He? - a sort of sacred ach,

  was ist "Grossmut", Alan?'

  'Well, "magnanimity", I suppose.'

  'Danke. A sort of sacred magnanimity. But they can do

  that just as much as they feel themselves fulfilled and blest

  and satisfied, and they have to feel it in their bodies as well

  as their minds. People live in bodies, you know. They can't

  feel kind and merciful if they're not loving properly with

  their bodies. They've got nothing to give away then. It's

  lovers who can afford to feel generous.'

  'I think perhaps Christ knew that all right,' said Tony

  rather defensively.

  'But He didn't say it, Tony! He didn't say it!' cried Kathe

  passionately. 'He taught that spiritual love was a difficult

  business, and so it is. But He didn't say physical love was

  too - that's supposed to be easy, just - well, the satisfaction

  of an appetite, like eating. The idea of skilful, unselfish

  physical love's never been tied up with Christianity at all:

  and that's why so many people find it difficult to love their

  fellow men and women - because that particular staircase

  wasn't built into the house to begin with. They're not taught

  to attach any religious importance to it. I was looking at your

  Prayer Book the other day. There's not a word about it in

  the marriage service - and the German book's no better, you

  can take it from me.'

  'Is that why you wouldn't-' I began; but Tony interrupted

  me.

  'Do you think the ancient world's pagan cults were any

  better in that respect, then?'

  Tm certain they were.'

  'But surely," I said, 'it's not Christ's own ideas that are in

  such marked contrast to pagan fertility cults as the contemporary

  Jewish ideals of monogamy and chastity which

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  formed part of the general base from which He took off? I

  always reckon, myself, that His great innovation was the

  notion of compassion. I'm trying to recall who wrote a crack

  I remember reading somewhere or other - "From Jesus we get

  pity. From the Greeks we get almost everything else." All the

  same, Tony, you must admit Kathe's got a point. There's a

  lot that's very attractive about the ancient world's great

  fertility goddess - Aphrodite, Ashtaroth, Atargatis, whatever

  you like to call her - with all her marvellous attributes the

  water and the moon, and hares and sparrows and lime

  trees and so on. It's very numinous and beautiful.'

  'I don't deny it for a moment,' said Tony, 'but Jesus and

  His idea of pity have had such an effect on the western world

  during the last two thousand years that I doubt whether any

  of the goddess's cults that we know about would be

  tolerated if they were revived now. People stress their sexuality

  because that's attractive, naturally. But either they

  don't know about their callousness and cruelty, or else they

  conveniently forget it: the bridegroom-victim and the sacred

  drownings and the infanticide and all the rest of it. And I'd

  just hate to have got in her beautiful way, wouldn't you?

  If you were a nuisance she'd have no pity at all.'

  'But, Tony, you know people thought these things represented

  a particular aspect of divinity and the cosmos, like

  the darkness of Kali. Go on, tell Kathe that story you told

  me, about the Indian chap who saw Kali come up out of the

  river.'

  'Oh, Sri Ramakrishna?'

  'Who on earth was he?' asked Kathe.

  'Ramakrishna was a nineteenth-century Hindu mystic in

  Calcutta, a priest of the Universal Mother goddess. The

  story goes that one day, when he was meditating, he saw

  a beautiful, pregnant girl come up out of the Ganges. He

  watched her, and she gave birth to a child, there on the

  bank, and nursed it. Then, soon afterwards, she changed into

  a frightful witch, gnawed the child and swallowed it and disappeared

  back into the river. He believed that what he'd

  seen had been a profound and rarely vouchsafed vision of

  Kali.'

  281

  'Well, there you are,' I said. 'I'm being devil's advocate

  and I say that was a valid manifestation of divinity.'