“You haven’t a very good opinion of marriage yourself?”
“No. As an institution, of course, it’s excellent—but not for individuals! Not for individuals such as you or me! We weren’t either of us cut out for it—or I certainly wasn’t.”
“And yet I rather think I was,” Virginia heard herself murmuring softly.
He lay looking up at her even more intently. She had slipped into a flowered frock—a very simple, inexpensive frock—after returning from London, and her hair was like a bright frame for her face in the flattering rays of the bedside lamp. There wasn’t very much of her, he decided, and her colouring was like a mezzotint, and yet her hands were work-roughened, and he knew she was tired. Although she held herself up quite gallantly she was drooping a little.
“You’d better go to bed,” he said. “You stay up far too late, pottering about in that kitchen of yours. And thank you, Virginia, for going all the way up to town for me.”
“It was nothing,” she assured him.
“Did you like my flat?”
“It’s like you,” she answered.
He smiled, with a humorous quirk.
“I’ll be returning to it very soon now, I expect. I mustn’t intrude here too long, or take advantage of your hospitality, Virginia.”
Virginia said nothing.
He pushed her gently away from the side of the bed. “Go to bed, and dream sweet dreams. One day, perhaps, some of them will come true!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Two days later Pablo arrived once more in a hired car, and spent the whole of the day with Charles. The latter was very much better, and although they sat outside during the morning, and Virginia took them iced drinks on to the lawn, in the afternoon they shut themselves up, with her permission, in the drawing room, and remained closeted there until long after tea.
Virginia, making cakes in the kitchen, and watching a preserving-pan bubbling on the stove at the same time, heard rippling passages of piano music which reached her, from time to time, through the closed doors. It was nothing she recognised—she didn’t even recognise the composer this time—but it was delightful and pulse-quickening, and she felt sure it was Charles who was playing. Pablo had been quite right about Charles’s playing. It made her forget the cakes, and the preserving-pan, open the kitchen door and stand very still in the aperture, hungrily listening for more.
The next day Pablo returned again, and on this occasion he and Charles spent the whole of the day in the drawing-room. Nurse Howard had departed, and Virginia felt she had no right to interfere when Charles announced that he was feeling quite fit and that he and Pablo wished to be left undisturbed, because they had a lot of work to be got through.
Apparently the series of concerts at the Arcadian Hall had been successfully cancelled—Virginia had seen a notice in the evening-paper to the effect that Charles Wickham, the pianist and composer, had been the victim of an accident, and was expected to be out of action for some little while—but other things were plainly engrossing him, and with his return to health, and the renewal of his interest in the demands of his profession, he seemed to become quite a different person to Virginia. He was much more keen and alert, and a little impatient, inclined to look at her askance if she ventured an intrusion when she plainly wasn’t wanted, and his voice sounded irritable as he demanded whether it was impossible for them to be left alone. He even snapped at her once or twice, without apologising, and she realised that there were several sides to his character.
When she entered the drawing-room once it was vacated she found that a scene of mild uproar awaited her. Ornaments and knick-knacks—most of them a little unwanted, anyway, but cherished by members of her family in the past—had been swept aside to make room on polished surfaces for writing materials and reference books, and the piano top was .Jittered with rejected musical scores. A cherished vase, filled with tall sprays of larkspur, and a photograph of Iris when she was taking ballet lessons, and fancying herself as a future ballerina, had been firmly removed and deposited on the floor, as a sign that in the opinion of Charles and his accompanist pianos were not improved when such useless impedimenta were deposited on them.
Virginia, recovering the photograph, was glad that it was she and not Iris who had discovered it lying face down on the carpet. In her present slightly strung-up condition Iris might have been quite seriously upset.
Charles returned to the room just as Virginia was endeavouring to make the cushions on the settee look less like a pile of cushions destined for collection by the organisers of a jumble sale. He had plainly been running his fingers through his hair, and it looked wild and disordered, and inclined to be rebelliously curly. In spite of declaring that he was absolutely fit again, he looked distinctly jaded after his intensive day.
“Shall I get you a drink?” Virginia suggested at once. “A glass of sherry?”
But he waved the offer aside.
“No. I want to talk to you, if you don’t mind. Sit down, please.”
She sat down in one of her own chairs, and waited for him to begin. He was in his shirt sleeves, and she decided that it was the heavy crimson silk that was making him look extra pale. He had just seen Pablo off, and was obviously thinking hard.
“Virginia, will it be all right for Annette to come to lunch to-morrow?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And Martin Sutherland?”
“Of course.”
He frowned at the vase of flowers in front of him.
“I can’t think why Sutherland wants to come all the way down here. But he does want to come, and it’s going to mean extra trouble for you. But you probably won’t mind.”
“I won’t mind in the least,” she assured him.
He glanced at her for an instant, frowned, and looked away again. His expression revealed that already more important matters were occupying his whole attention.
“Would you be prepared to let me stay on here, Virginia, as a kind of paying-guest?—and Pablo as well, of course, if you could fit him in!”
Virginia looked so extremely dubious that he removed at once the necessity for her answering.
“No; I see you don’t think it’s a good plan, and, as a matter of fact, I don’t, either.” He looked towards Iris’s photograph, now restored to the piano, and the tightness of his expression gave away a good deal. “I must he absolutely undisturbed for the next month or so, and I don’t think that’s possible under existing conditions here. And your precious Colin Cameron would probably object in any case!”
He flashed her a faintly derisive glance, and then moved over to the piano and started to play softly while he continued to talk to her and outline the plan he had already discussed with Pablo.
“This is the scheme—far better!—that I’ve thought up!” She was fascinated by the movements of his hands, and wanted to watch them, and concentrate on watching them, but she had to give him her attention at the same time. “I think you need a change, Virginia, and I want to stay on here beside the river. I never realised before that a river could be so tranquil, so much like a peaceful backcloth. This house, too, is delightful, and the atmosphere is the kind of atmosphere I can work in—if I’m left undisturbed! It was probably all arranged by Fate that I should have my accident right here on your doorstep in order that I can get down to something I’ve simply got to get down to with very little delay—the music for a show that’s going to be a tremendous success! It’s a show called Summer Symphony, and the story and the lyrics are by Olaf Svenson, and Martin Sutherland is backing the whole thing. That’s one possible reason why he’s coming down here to-morrow.”
Virginia said nothing, but she went on watching his hands making rippling movements up and down the keys, and the music with which he was filling the room made her blood quicken. She wanted to cry out to him to stop talking, and just to let her listen.
But he continued:
“Sutherland has never been known to back a failure, and this thing will be a sensation�
��especially if I give it my hall-mark!”
He grinned faintly, but she realised it was not a deprecating grin. It was not in him to deprecate anything he ever did himself. He was superbly sure of himself and his abilities—almost arrogantly sure.
“The music you’re playing now—the music you played yesterday! Has that—anything to do with it?” Virginia asked, rather breathlessly.
Charles nodded.
“Do you like it?”
“I think it’s wonderful!” with an awed catch in her voice.
He looked dreamily pleased.
“Until a year or so ago I wouldn’t touch this sort of thing—I felt it was definitely beneath me!—but Annette managed to persuade me to have a shot at it. She has already appeared in one show for which I wrote the music, and this will be her second. Of course, with Annette, even a bad story and indifferent music would get by. But with Annette, a good story, and my music, the thing can’t possibly fail!” He lifted his hands from the piano for a moment and spread them in a slightly French gesture as he glanced at her over his shoulder, and then there was a crash of triumphant chords. “So you understand now, Virginia, why I have to get down to work at once?”
Virginia said faintly that it was simple to understand his desire, but she thought with a hollow feeling deep down at die heart of her that it was Annette, Annette all the time! Annette was certainly bound up with everything connected with him!
“Then you will let me this house, just as it stands, and go and live in my flat until Summer Symphony is finished?” Virginia wondered suddenly whether she was hearing right. “You can have the flat exactly as it stands, and without paying me any rent—although I’ll pay you anything you like to ask for this place! I’d even buy it off you if I thought you’d sell, but I don’t think you want to sell, do you, Virginia?”
“I—” Virginia was so taken aback that words wouldn’t formulate—“I,—er—I—no!...”
“Well, I can’t say I blame you.” He sent her a quick smile over his shoulder. “But you do recognise the importance of it to me just now? The peace, the quiet, the beauty! There’s no other corner of England so exactly suited to my requirements at the moment, and if only you’ll play, Virginia, I’m going to be tremendously grateful to you! Think of it—Summer Symphony! ... This place is a Summer Symphony. Whatever it’s like in the winter, at this time of the year it’s utterly delectable.”
Virginia stood up.
“But, Mr. Wickham—”
He turned quickly on the piano stool, and then stood up to face her. Into his smile and his look he threw so much deliberate charm and coaxing that it actually took her aback.
“I call you Virginia, so stop calling me Mr. Wickham!” he insisted. “The name is Charles.”
“But, Charles, you don’t understand—This is Iris’s home, and Midge’s.”
“If Midge is the freckled-faced boy who told me about his Auntie Jinny before ever I made her acquaintance, then he deserves some reward for what he did. And he’ll love London. You can take him to the Tower, and all those places. And Iris can spend her time looking at the shops.”
“Iris has her art classes to attend.”
“She hasn’t. You forget that the summer holidays start next week, and that applies to Midge, also. So you haven’t a single excuse, Virginia. And I’ll pay you well for the inconvenience. I’ll even leave you Harwell to look after you at the flat, if you want him.”
“Of course I wouldn’t want him,” she replied hastily. “And you’ll need him to look after you here.”
“Then you agree?” eagerly.
“I—I’ll have to think about it....”
“Then don’t take too long! I’ve got to get down to things soon, and once I really start working I can’t put up with any sort of disturbance. Your sister Iris isn’t actually a disturbance, but she irritates me. I don’t like being watched as if I represented the plum that’s out of reach.”
“So far as Iris is concerned, you are out of reach,” Virginia couldn’t prevent herself saying.
He grimaced rather wryly.
“She’s young, and she’s pretty—and too obvious!”
“And you don’t like obvious young women?”
“At the moment I’ve no time for women.” And then he looked down at her, and his expression grew rather strange. “Except you, Virginia! I’ll always have time for you! You can come down here and see me whenever you want to do so, and if I don’t welcome you with open arms—well, not exactly!” a tiny smile that was faintly audacious just touching the corners of his lips—“at least I’ll see to it that Harwell coughs up something special for you. And that means there’ll always be a lunch invitation waiting for you here—a whole day’s invitation! But I’d like to know when to expect you.”
Virginia picked up a tray of used coffee cups and moved with it to the door.
“You’ve apparently made up your mind that I’m going to fall in with your plan,” she observed rather dryly.
Charles held open the door for her, and smiled winningly.
“I know you will, Virginia,” he said confidently.
Virginia went on her way to the kitchen and wondered exactly what it was that was coming over her.
The lunch next day was a success. Annette was so beautiful, and somewhat surprisingly so appreciative, that even Iris liked her. Iris was well aware that she couldn’t hold a candle to Annette, and for that reason she felt very wistful every time she looked at her, but she did recognise that Annette had something. She had a great deal. Martin Sutherland plainly found a good deal of pleasure in just looking at her, but he also seemed to find a certain amount of pleasure in looking at Virginia.
He was quite attentive to Virginia, jumping up to hold open the door for her when she carried something into the room, and pressing her to remain and have coffee with them after lunch, although she had declined to join them at the meal. Charles also pressed Virginia to remain, dismissing her excuses that she had other things to attend to. And then the conversation turned on the house, and it seemed that Martin Sutherland was an expert on old houses, and he thought that this was an absolute gem. He went round tapping the panelled walls and examining the beams, and announced that there appeared to be no fake about it.
He smiled at Virginia and assured her that she was very lucky indeed to be the owner of such a house.
“It’s the sort of place I’d like myself,” he admitted, “to retire to one day.”
“It’s the sort of place we’d all like to retire to one day,” Charles agreed with him, holding a match to the end of the cigarette he had just supplied to Annette.
“Speak for yourselves,” Annette said suddenly, tossing back her gold head with a movement rather like that of a young and graceful pony. “When I make up my mind to retire I shall prefer modern amenities, and it has not struck me that this place exactly abounds with them. I do not think I could endure to live here for very long.”
It had already struck Virginia that Annette lost her accent when she was not desiring to make a particular impression for a particular reason, and bereft of her extremely captivating accent her charm had a different quality. It was more sophisticated, less deliberately and limpidly child-like, but it remained dangerous charm nevertheless.
Charles flickered a smile at her, and the smile seemed to contain a good deal of repressed amusement.
“That’s a pity, darling,” he said, “because you’ll probably have to see a lot of this place before the summer’s over. I’m going to rent it, lock, stock and barrel, from Miss Summers, and it’s here I propose to work for the next few weeks.”
Annette seemed quite taken aback.
“You mean you’re going to stay here—and Miss Summers is going to continue to look after you?”
“I’m afraid not.” Charles’s eyes gleamed at her, the amusement refusing to be banished. “I only wish that such an arrangement could be worked out, but Miss Summers’s close acquaintances would hardly approve! Would they, Miss S
ummers?” shooting a quizzical glance at her. “No; Miss Summers is going to occupy my flat.”
“I see.”
Annette’s tone, and her look, as it travelled across the room to Virginia, were both hostile, as the latter realised.
But Martin Sutherland, turning from a close inspection of an ancient print on the wall above a Buhl-fronted cabinet, looked quite delighted.
“By Jove!” he exclaimed. “That’s an excellent idea, Charles! You couldn’t find a more delightful spot in which to get down to concentrated work, and it will mean that Miss Summers will be coming to London! Miss Summers, I shall expect to see a great deal of you when you arrive in London?”
Virginia smiled at him, in the fashion she reserved for people she really liked, and felt no need at all to be anything but completely natural with.
“Will you?” she murmured. “But I haven’t really said I’m going to London yet, you know.”
“Oh, yes, you have—at least, you are!” But Charles was not sounding so amused, and he was studying Martin a little oddly. “The whole thing is as good as arranged.”
“If Miss Summers has any doubts—any anxieties, perhaps, connected with leaving this perfect peach of a place in your care, Charles!—let me ask her to show me the garden and try and remove them from her mind,” Martin suggested instantly, and smoothly. And although Annette was watching with very little friendliness on her smooth and perfect face he slipped his hand inside Virginia’s arm and led her out through the open french window. The two left behind heard him saying softly: “Of course you must come to London, Miss Summers! And if you don’t know very much about London, I do!”
A Nightingale in the Sycamore Page 7
