And renewing her very slight acquaintance with Charles’s flat, she decided that the decision had been a very wise one. The sight of the white leather chairs in the dining-room, which she had not really paid very much attention to before, and the immaculate condition of the paintwork prevailing throughout the flat, had convinced her that it was not a very suitable background for young boys of Midge’s type.
“But it really is a sumptuous flat, isn’t it?” Iris declared with enthusiasm, when they had made themselves some tea and carried it into the lounge, and she was curled up in the lap of the settee where Annette had once reclined. She would never be as glamorous as Annette, but she did look very attractive on the settee. “What are we going to do with ourselves now that we’re here? Oh, wouldn’t it be marvellous if we could go shopping?—Buy ourselves some really presentable new clothes!”
Virginia looked at her doubtfully. Charles had insisted on presenting her with a very fat cheque to recompense her, as he put it, for the inconvenience of being turned out of her house, as well as for his occupation of it in a completely furnished condition, and as he had bluntly refused to take any rent for the flat, financially she had benefited from the move. She had wanted to pay Charles rent for the flat, but he had been quite adamant about refusing even to discuss such a distasteful topic.
“If you’re going to be awkward about that,” he had said, “we’ll call the whole thing off, and I’ll abandon the idea of composing the music for this show.”
So Virginia had had to cease to be awkward, because she knew how eager he was to get to work, and how much Martin Sutherland wanted him to get to work. And now it meant that the condition of her bank balance justified a certain amount of extravagance, and it was true that both she and Iris needed new clothes badly. Also the idea of buying new clothes was tempting—strangely tempting since she had made the acquaintance of Annette le Clair.
“All right,” she capitulated suddenly, to Iris’s delight as well as her surprise. “We will go shopping, if that’s what you’d like to do. But it mustn’t be reckless shopping; because we haven’t come into a fortune.”
So, during the first week after their arrival in London, they spent whole days trailing round the West-End shops, growing very footsore, but adding to their wardrobes in a way Iris found very satisfactory, even if Virginia was occasionally alarmed because the sum of money they expended seemed rather more than she could really afford. Iris acquired a black grosgrain suit and a little white muslin blouse to go with it which made the most of her extreme fairness, and Virginia was persuaded to decide on a leaf-green suit for herself, and some accessories she found it impossible to resist. Amongst the accessories were some dizzily high-heeled shoes, and a little hat she knew she could never possibly wear in the country, because it was nothing if not frivolous. But when the assistant rested it lightly on her brown-gold curls, and then handed her a mirror, the thought which instantly leapt through her mind was:
“Perhaps if Charles could see me now?”
And then she handed back the mirror hastily, and Iris went into rhapsodies.
“You look lovely, Virginia! You really are lovely when you’re properly dressed! You’ve simply got to have that hat.”
So she had it—really, as she told herself, to please Iris—and then they drifted into a department displaying fascinating if quite unpractical underwear, and by the time they emerged from this department they were weighted down with parcels. They bought cotton frocks, and a sweater or two, a tartan raincoat for Iris, a knife-pleated skirt for Virginia, and the only thing Virginia flatly refused to buy was an evening-frock which Iris fell heavily in love with. As she pointed out to her younger sister she had no need at all of an evening-frock at the present stage of her existence, and when Iris pointed out in return that she had a friend who lived in the Bayswater district of London, with her parents, who was expecting her to visit her, and who might take her out somewhere for the evening—or one of her brothers might!—Virginia still wouldn’t give way.
“Wait until you actually receive an invitation justifying the inclusion of an evening dress in your wardrobe, and we’ll see what can be done,” she half-promised.
And Iris had to be content with that, and hope that someone would invite her out for a rather glamorous evening. But she did manage to inveigle Virginia into a heavenly-smelling corner of a Knightsbridge store, where they stopped in front of mouth-watering cosmetics and perfumes and aids to beauty generally, and Iris acquired a new lipstick, and a bottle of face lotion she had not really the slightest need of, since her complexion was perfect. Virginia declined to be tempted into the possession of a bright scarlet lipstick for the reason—which she knew to be pathetic!—that a man she couldn’t stop thinking of had once whispered to her about her “petal-pink lips,” and if she covered them with that particular brand of concealment they wouldn’t be petal-pink any longer.
But to please Iris she bought some mascara, and a different shade of face-powder, and then they went home and celebrated with a rather special supper, and Iris went happily off to bed with the knowledge that her built-in wardrobe and her drawers were nicely full of new things.
Virginia sat on for a little while in the lounge, half envying Iris because, being several years younger, she had had the sense not to fall too deeply for a man who had kissed her—even if he had only kissed her once! Virginia, who should have more sense—although she had certainly been kissed much more than once—had fallen so heavily that there was little hope for her complete recovery, and indeed she was sunk, submerged; floundering in feelings that frightened her.
She picked up a magazine and tried to concentrate on it, but all she could see was Charles’s face, and all she could hear above the quietly playing radio was Charles’s voice, saying with that note of gentle, thrilling command:
“Don’t talk! There’s nothing to talk about!...”
And then the telephone rang, and Charles’s voice actually spoke to her.
“How are you?” he asked. “I’ve been thinking about you very much to-night, Virginia! I wondered whether you were comfortably settled in.”
“Quite comfortably, thank you,” she returned.
She could detect a faint laugh in his voice when he spoke again.
“You don’t miss me? My flat is enough?”
“Your flat is delightful, as you know,” she replied, hoping the faint tremble in her own voice did not reach him.
Apparently it didn’t.
“I’m glad you like it,” he said smoothly, casually. “It might interest you to hear that I’ve been working extremely hard. The stuff is flowing, Virginia—simply flowing! At this rate I’ll be finished long before I anticipated. Annette came down to-day, and she’s delighted!”
“Is she?” Virginia heard herself murmuring.
“I had a job to get rid of her. In fact she’s thinking of putting up at the local. Would you recommend it for her? She’s got to be somewhere handy, and that seems as good a place as any other.”
Virginia assured him, in an ordinary, conversational tone, that Annette would find the local, as he called it—actually an enchanting little old-world inn called The Wheatsheaf—a perfectly comfortable little place in which to stay. And the landlord and his wife would look after her well.
“Good!” Charles exclaimed. There was silence for a moment, and then he said, softly, “I miss you, Virginia! I miss you in a thousand ways! You’ll come down and visit me, too, won’t you?”
“Perhaps,” she answered. “But not while you’re so busy.”
“I’m never too busy to see you! Good night, Virginia,” he said, even more softly.
When Virginia had hung up the receiver she went back to her chair and sat down in it, trembling a little as if her whole being was disturbed. Charles had told her that he was never too busy to see her—but, then, he was never too busy to see Annette, either! And Annette was going to stay near him! Annette was enraptured by his music, had every opportunity to let him know how en
raptured she was, and she was going to see him every day, soon!
Lucky, lucky Annette, thought Virginia, clenching her hands until the nails dug into her soft palms. She was so envious of Annette that her envy was a kind of anguish searing through her.
The next day Martin Sutherland arrived at the fiat unexpectedly, and insisted on taking Virginia out to lunch with him. Iris was lunching in Bayswater, and Virginia was quite alone, so there was no excuse she could think up on the spur of the moment to avoid having lunch with him. And when she thought about it afterwards she admitted to herself that she had had no real desire to think up an excuse.
“But you must give me time to change,” she said shyly, thinking with relief of the new leaf-green suit in her wardrobe. And when she was ready, with the little hat Iris had insisted on adding to their purchases sitting like a blown leaf on her shortened curls—for, also as a result of listening to Iris, she had submitted to the attention of a local hairdresser, and much of her misty-brown “crowning glory” had vanished—her new high-heeled shoes making her feel unusually tall and willowy, new suede gloves and an elegant pouch handbag completing the picture, she could tell by the look in Martin’s eyes that the transformation met with his approval.
She didn’t know quite why, but although Martin looked at her with admiration, and the admiration was quite unconcealed, and in addition there was something else—something very friendly, and good for her morale, and warming to the fibres of her being—she didn’t find it difficult to meet his eyes, in the way that she often found it difficult to meet Charles’s eyes. Perhaps it was because Charles’s eyes mocked sometimes, and even when they were not openly mocking they were gently teasing, and Martin’s passed on to her the impression that his main preoccupation in life was protecting and understanding people like herself.
With Martin she felt at ease, relaxed—conscious that, whatever happened, he would take great care of her. With Charles...
But she gave her head a mental shake and stopped thinking of Charles.
The lunch Martin provided her with was delightful. The people who surrounded them looked, to her unaccustomed eyes, delightful, too. They were so well dressed, so sure of themselves, so gay—or that was the impression she received. Martin pointed out to her film celebrities, a well-known dancer, a television personality, and even a politician. Virginia felt almost awed to be breathing the same atmosphere as so many important people, and at first she was inclined to stare with very round eyes. But gradually the effect of the choice food, the wine Martin ordered with the meal, his conversation, and the relaxation on all sides of her, caused the novelty to be banished, and she began simply to enjoy herself.
She enjoyed herself so much that she was sorry when the lunch was over, and Martin drove her back to her flat.
“We must do this sort of thing often,” he said, when they were sitting immovably .in a traffic jam. “Really often!”
“Oh, but I mustn’t take up a lot of your time,” she returned, with a simplicity that secretly amused' him, and increased the tenderness he already had for her. She recalled that Charles had said he was a well-known impressario, and that meant he must have many commitments. “I’m sure you’re a terribly busy person, and you mustn’t let me disrupt things for you just because I’ve come to London.”
He was kind, she thought, but she mustn’t take advantage of his kindness.
Martin smiled at the wheel of his big car. It was a big, sleek, cream-coloured car, low-slung and slightly rakish, and Virginia found travelling in it a joy.
“I wanted you to come to London,” he replied, “and believe me I’m not so busy that I can’t conveniently put aside a few things to devote a little time to you. And in any case, that’s what I intend to do—so long as you don’t object?”
He glanced quickly at her sideways, and she smiled at him. How could she possibly object? For the first time in her life she was tasting a little luxury, and being accorded a certain amount of attentiveness, and it was very pleasant.
They passed a hoarding, and she noted idly that it was an advertisement of a new musical show that was running in London. It made her think of Charles, and Summer Symphony. Then she noticed that beside the main advertisement there was a smaller one, and this brought her upright in her seat, because a very much enlarged portrait of Charles himself was looking down at her. He was in evening-dress and sitting at a piano, and just before they flashed past she caught the words: Recital by famous pianist. Charles Wickham at the Arcadian Hall!
She turned breathlessly to Martin.
“I’ve just seen an announcement of a recital to be given by Charles at the Arcadian Hall!” she informed him, and she had no idea that her eyes were suddenly shining most revealingly. “But I’m afraid I missed the date!”
“I can tell you that.” Martin’s smile was a little more reserved, but his voice was gentle. “It’s on the 22nd of this month—in about another fortnight’s time! Of course you’ll want to help swell his audience?”
“Oh, yes!” in that same breathless tone.
“Then we’ll have to get up a party—as a matter of fact, Charles usually gets up one himself. His mother likes to surround herself with a few of her special friends, and Annette is bound to be amongst them. You and I will probably receive an invitation automatically, but if not I’ll see that you don’t miss the great occasion.” His smile softened marvellously as he sent her another sideways look, and noted the tension of her small clasped hands on her new handbag. “By the way,” staring ahead again, “have you met Charles’s mother?”
“Yes,” Virginia admitted, and a little of the tension went out of her hands, and she felt suddenly flat. “I have met her. I went to see her at her flat and gave her an account of Charles when he was not fully recovered.”
“The trouble with young men like Charles,” Martin observed rather musingly, “is that the possession of a mother like Lady Wickham doesn’t really help them along very much. Their career, yes—it can’t do very much harm to that, and often boosts it quite considerably. But to be petted, and pampered, and spoiled, from boyhood up, doesn’t help to make a stern and reliable citizen. You’ve just got to get used to the fact that Charles is petted, and pampered, and spoiled, and admit that it’s rather a pity. But I suppose it could have had an even more disastrous effect on him.”
“His mother told me that—women pursue him,” Virginia remarked, also staring straight ahead.
Martin glanced at her whimsically.
“Even if they didn’t, she’d probably insist that they did, being quite besotted about him. But women pursue quite a lot of things, as well as the elusive male—some women!”
Virginia was silent.
“But you’d never be amongst them, Virginia. You’re the type to be pursued.”
Virginia shook her head doubtfully.
“I don’t think so. I’ve never been pursued yet.”
He laughed softly.
“You will be! Don’t grow impatient!...”
When they arrived at the flat he required very little persuasion to follow her inside and remain and have some tea, and before he left he asked her to have dinner with him the following night. Virginia remembered that she didn’t possess such a thing as an evening-frock, and said no, a trifle regretfully. He must have realised that the regret was there, for he said quickly: “The following night, then?”
“I—I’m not sure...”
Martin smiled decisively.
“I’ll call for you at eight!” He picked up one of her hands and examined it carefully, noting the slightly work-roughened palm, and the contrast afforded by delicate, naturally pink nails. “I shall look forward to it,” he assured her, and surprised her considerably by suddenly carrying her hand up to his lips and kissing it.
She was sitting in rather a thoughtful state when Iris returned. Iris, on hearing about the invitation to dinner, at once said that Virginia must have a dress for it. Of course she must have an evening-frock—and something rather spe
cial as it was a special date! Martin Sutherland was a very wealthy and well-known man, and any woman he asked to dine with him would simply have to do him justice.
Iris was so enthusiastic that Virginia was first surprised, and then amused, by her enthusiasm, not realising that any excuse for a shopping expedition appealed to her sister. They set forth the following morning to look for the frock, and discovered it in a little shop where the prices were higher than Virginia felt the occasion warranted, although Iris was all for waiving the question of expense altogether. She assured Virginia that the dress was simply “her,” and when the saleswoman displayed symptoms of going into ecstasies Virginia told herself that they couldn’t both be wrong. Unless they were both in league to deceive her, and that was most unlikely. So far as she herself was concerned she was not quite willing to believe that the vision looking back at her from the tall glass before which she was standing was herself, but if it was—well, then, both Iris and the saleswoman must be right!
The evening-frock was packed up carefully, protected by many layers of tissue paper. It was midnight-blue chiffon over an underskirt of taffeta, and there was a flimsy stole embroidered with sequins which went with it.
A Nightingale in the Sycamore Page 9
