A Nightingale in the Sycamore

by Jane Beaufort

  Virginia could imagine her, in her elegant sitting-room, surrounded by all her souvenirs of Charles’s triumphant youth, carefully inditing her congratulations on hand-made writing-paper that was redolent of very discreet perfume, and looking very relieved as she wrote. For Lady Wickham had had her doubts about Virginia, had never been quite happy about her, and there was no doubt about it she would have preferred it if Charles had never come in contact with her at all.

  But, now that she was to marry Martin Sutherland, there could be no possible danger to her son—if, indeed there ever had been! But young men of Charles’s rather curious temperament were inclined to behave a little rashly at times, and under no circumstances did they ever listen to advice. Charles’s mother had tried proffering advice very often, but had never known it to be acted upon. And if this young woman, Virginia, and Charles...!

  But, thankfully, that danger really was past now, and she had no objection to including Virginia—soon to be Mrs. Sutherland—amongst the circle of her acquaintances whom she referred to as friends, and upon whom she called, and encouraged calls from, at suitable intervals.

  Virginia also received a note from Annette le Clair, and Annette’s congratulations reflected the same sort of relief as Lady Wickham’s—only Annette was probably not aware of the fact that it really was relief she was experiencing when she saw the notice in The Times. For people like Annette, very sure of their own charms, were loath to admit the menace of a slightly different type of charm.

  Iris, when she heard the news from Virginia herself, was wildly excited. She flung her arms around her sister’s neck—and as they were not a demonstrative family, this was quite something from Iris—and assured her that it was the one thing she had been secretly hoping for above all others, and not for the reason that it would provide her with a wealthy brother-in-law.

  “I was terrified you might fall seriously for Charles Wickham, and I knew that would have been an absolute disaster from your point of view,” she admitted to Virginia, when the two girls were sharing an early pot of tea the morning after the official announcement had appeared. Iris was wearing an attractive housecoat and sitting on the kitchen table, and Virginia was wearing her old blue one and looking as if her mood matched it—it was a pensive, not in the least a jubilant mood. “From Charles’s point of view, of course, you’d be the ideal wife for him—the kind who would mother him. And Charles does need mothering! I don’t think he got very much of that sort of thing from his own mother in his early days—the Lady Wickhams of this world fuss, but they don’t fuss over!” Iris declared, with such uncanny insight into Charles’s past that Virginia looked at her in sudden amazement, and then stirred her tea thoughtfully.

  Could it be that Iris was right, and Charles had lacked something...? Something which had perhaps caused him to be the rather odd mixture that he was, self-centred and yet charming, man-of-the-world, and yet rather peevish little boy at times? Too much adulation and flattery could have done that, but his mother’s ill-considered adoration and flattery could have been even more responsible!

  “But I never wanted to see you becoming Charles’s doormat,” Iris told her, “or a prop to Charles’s amour-propre—although sometimes I’ve seen him looking at you... However,” with relief, and pouring herself another cup of tea, “that danger’s over now, and I’m absolutely delighted to think you’re going to marry Martin! Martin’s a man who’ll cherish you as I once said you needed to be cherished.” And then, as Virginia smiled a little inexplicably, and perhaps also a trifle wanly, she went on: “But there’s something I feel I can tell you now that you definitely are engaged! Something I wasn’t sure you would take awfully well before, in spite of what you said about him—”

  “About whom?” Virginia asked.

  “Colin—Colin Cameron!” Iris descended from the kitchen table and looked nervously in the refrigerator. ‘‘He—I—Oh,” she turned and confronted her sister, “he’s asked me to marry him, and I’ve said I will if—if you don’t mind, Jinny!” swallowing rather hard.

  “But, darling, that’s—wonderful!” Virginia genuinely thought it was—Iris, no longer with her head in the clouds, and as susceptible as a tall grass in a strong breeze to the charms of every fresh masculine acquaintance she made, would remove quite a burden from her sister’s shoulders. And Iris married to a man like Colin ... “But, are you quite sure?” she asked, embracing her and looking at her a little anxiously. “You’re rather young, and I certainly never thought that Colin would appeal to you.”

  “But, he does—and I, for some reason, appeal to him! Oh, I know he never noticed me until recently, but now that he has noticed me he seems to want to go on doing so.” Her eyes grew a trifle misty. “Perhaps it’s the red in his hair, but he can be very masterful, and there’s something so reassuring about a masterful man, or so I’ve suddenly discovered. And it’s bliss to be—well, really wanted!”

  Virginia wondered whether she was remembering Charles’s casual method of taking advantage of a situation, and gathering the fruit ere it was ready to leave the bough. Not but what she had offered it to him on a platter!

  “But, you, Iris—a doctor’s wife! How do you think you’ll like that?”

  Iris grimaced, and then laughed.

  “I’ll probably make a dreadful doctor’s wife, and forget to note down telephone messages, and that sort of thing, and object strongly when my husband leaves me alone evening after evening, because someone calls him out, and even fetches him out of a cinema... But I’ll enjoy getting up in the night and making him hot drinks when he’s been out on a really trying case. I’ve got an idea I’ll be like you, Jinny, and really want to fuss—fuss over!” with a shy but engaging grin.

  Virginia hugged her again.

  “So long as you remember your advice to me, and prevent the fussing-over from being carried too far!”

  “And you won’t mind if Colin comes here to see you?”

  “Of course not, darling. If he’s going to marry you I’ll have to see him sometime, won’t I? And, believe me, there was never anything between Colin and me that has left either of us with bruised or battered feelings—as witness the promptitude with which we’ve both become attached to someone else!” a little dryly.

  But when Colin came to tea at the flat, he took one look at Virginia, smiled in the fashion she had always approved, and then they were congratulating one another heartily. Iris, watching them uneasily at first, drew a deep breath of relief, and after that the discussion turned on wedding plans, for Colin was in no mood to wait, having finally made up his mind which of the two attractive Summers sisters he wished to marry.

  Martin insisted upon a shared celebration, and both girls had new and enchanting dresses for the occasion, and Iris looked absolutely radiant, while Virginia resembled her in so far as her radiance was a trifle dimmed—as were her looks—when compared with her sister’s; but even so, few people would have guessed that in her heart there was no radiance, and that already she was feeling faintly appalled by what she had done.

  Sometimes she thought of Charles’s last words—“I wonder which of us will regret it most?—” and a cold feeling stole round her heart. If Charles regretted her at all, the regret would almost certainly not last for long; but for her there might be a lifetime’s regret ahead of her!...

  Martin was so kind, and so devoted. He made her feel that at all costs she must conceal from him the fact that there were occasions when his devotion actually caused her to shrink from him a little. It was rather like being taken out to a party when one was very young and inexperienced, and being regaled with too many cream-cakes, jellies and chocolate biscuits. After a diet of that sort you thought longingly of more spartan fare, such as porridge without sugar, and even tea without milk. Tea without milk could be refreshing, as she had discovered at quite an early age.

  Perhaps it was that she was not really the type who would ever respond well to a great deal of fussing over. She had an over-developed conscience, a
nd it was always urging her to do things, and not to sit still and wait until somebody else did them. The reins of responsibility in her own home had been hers at such an early age that it was not a simple matter to just sit back and feel that there was no longer the slightest need to concern oneself about anything in particular—any one person in particular.

  Martin, who would always wind up the clocks, and look to the fastening of the front door, would see to everything else besides. It was people like Charles who expected other people to wind up the clocks, and if the front door was unsecured against intruders then it stayed unsecured.

  Virginia, surrounded by the evidences of Martin’s adoration—his flowers and his gifts, his endless arrangements for evenings she would enjoy, afternoons that would introduce her to this or that new experience—sometimes a batch of people she had never met before—his plans for their honeymoon in the Bahamas, sometimes thought longingly of her quiet kitchen at the Meadow House, and all the jars of preserves she should have been adding to her shelves at this season if the fruit in the orchard was not all going to be wasted.

  Martin was growing anxious about Summer Symphony, keen to get the thing into production before the autumn was really upon them. Nobody seemed to see very much of Charles these days, but reports filtering through to Martin’s ears were not exactly encouraging. Charles had entered upon a temperamental phase, and his music was certainly not flowing.

  Pablo Enrico, who was lunching one day at a restaurant where Martin had also taken Virginia, was looking as if he had recently stood rather a lot when the pair caught sight of him. And Virginia would have said that Mr. Enrico could take a lot from Charles, whom he adored and revered. She remembered the song of praise he had sung about Charles on the day—now, as it seemed, so long ago—that he had thrust himself into her kitchen and insisted on lunching with her, and afterwards writing her out recipes.

  Her heart felt soft with nostalgic affection for Pablo, with his bald head and pink, smooth cheeks, and collection of fobs and seals dangling from his pearl-grey waistcoat.

  She noticed that he was eating a ragout, but without enthusiasm. Possibly it didn’t come up to his own ideas of what a ragout should be, or how it should taste when it was served up; but even that could hardly account for the look of acute depression that overspread his face. And when Martin, going across to him and causing him to look up suddenly, made some sort of inquiry as to whether anything was seriously wrong, Pablo looked in his relief at being addressed by someone who might share his burden as if he would burst into tears.

  He accompanied Martin back to the table at which Virginia sat, happily abandoning the ragout, and declaring that he had recently lost his appetite, anyway. But he accepted coffee and a liqueur, and by the time. the first liqueur had been followed by a second, and a third, looked as if he was prepared to make no concealments, even in the interests of someone he had worshipped slavishly for years.

  “It is Charles!” he declared dramatically, spreading his hands, with their little fat fingers that could play the piano so beautifully. “It is Charles who has announced that he will abandon everything! Yesterday Miss le Clair she quarrelled with him, and announced, too, that she will walk out! ... Charles,” and here Pablo looked as if he would weep afresh, “was quite unrepentant, and to-day he is making plans for a trip to South America!” Pablo rolled his eyes, and spread his hands again, his shoulders heaving at the same time. “South America, where there will be no music, but only heat, and volcanoes, and poisonous insects! For he is talking of lost civilisations and Inca ruins, and if only he had stuck to his operetta ...!”

  One tear actually started to roll down Pablo’s cheek. “But, this is absurd!” Martin exclaimed. “And, anyway, Charles can’t behave like this! Unless it’s simply a burst of temperament—which it must be!”

  But Pablo insisted that if it was temperament he had never encountered anything like it before, certainly not as a result of his association with Charles. The latter had often been difficult—extremely difficult—at times. But now he was not merely difficult, he was beyond the reach of reasoning, and in some curious way he was a changed person.

  For days he had been moody, difficult to please, finding it difficult to concentrate... And then, all at once, he had blown up, as it were, and announced that he had had enough. He had abandoned work on Summer Symphony, and was not resuming it. He had been so rude and inconsiderate to Miss le Clair that she had actually burst into tears before she flew into a temper, and after she flew into a temper she had walked out! Charles had made no attempt to go after her, neither had he telephoned her in the evening. To-day he was packing—packing hard! He had told Pablo to go to the—Pablo did not confess exactly where he had been told to go to, but the others could guess. Martin’s lips tightened, and for the first time Virginia recognised that he was a man of business, and a man who was not to be trifled with, almost before and beyond anything else.

  “I’ll go down and see him,” he said. “If you’ll forgive me, my dear,” looking at Virginia, “I’ll take you back to the flat, and go down to the Meadow House this afternoon. This is something that has to be dealt with without delay.”

  But when he returned that night it was with an admission of failure. His lips were tighter and thinner than ever, and he was furious with Charles.

  Charles, he said, was behaving like an unprincipled, and an unfledged boy.

  Virginia suddenly made up her mind.

  “Let me go, Martin,” she said, very quietly. “Perhaps I can make him see reason.”

  She said several other things to Martin before she left—things she had known for a while now she had to say, and once they were said, although everything else was much as it had once been, she felt better—much more like the Virginia Summers who was accustomed to fend for herself, and was prepared to go on doing so if it was necessary.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  She approached the Meadow House across the fields, having dismissed a little way down the road, the taxi that had brought her from the station.

  It was rather a dull morning, with a touch of early frost, and the river flowed sluggishly. But even when it flowed sluggishly one could always hear it, when one was accustomed to hearing it. It couldn’t be much more than nine o’clock, because she had caught a very early train, and as yet there was no smoke rising from any of the chimneys of the Meadow House. Which meant that both the boiler and the old-fashioned kitchen-range must be but.

  She quickened her footsteps, although the field path was rough, because suddenly she was attacked by the fear that Charles had gone. The very reason why she had left early to arrive here early was because of her secret fear that Charles would slip away before she could reach him. And once having slipped away, when would she ever reach him again?

  In her hurry she ignored the mushrooms rising up and simply asking to be gathered right beside the path, and although she had been thinking of them on her way down in the train she didn’t look to see how the dahlias and the michaelmas-daisies were doing in the large herbaceous border where the lilies had once bloomed. She only knew that her heart was knocking a little as she walked up the path to the back door—if Mrs. Banks was doing her duty, and keeping up to scratch, the back door would be already unfastened—and, turning the handle, walked in.

  But there was no sign of Mrs. Banks. There was no sign of Harwell, and the kitchen looked absolutely deserted. Moreover it wore a neglected air, as if no one had touched it for several days. The fire in the range had been out for hours, there was a certain amount of debris on the draining-board, and some unwashed china in the sink. Bartholomew was mewing in the larder, having been accidentally shut in there, and when Virginia released him he rubbed gratefully round her legs. From pure force of habit she gave him some milk—although his depredations in the larder had probably been quite extensive if he had been shut in there for some time—and almost tip-toed out into the hall.

  The house was very silent. It seemed plain that Charles and Harwell had
both gone, for she could not imagine the meticulous Harwell allowing himself to oversleep. And in the normal course of events there would be preparations for breakfast going ahead.

  She peeped into the dining-room, and was shocked because it bore the remains of some sort of a meal on the table—bread, cheese, an empty tankard of some sort of beer. A nasty, cold feeling inside her, she returned to the hall, and was wondering whether to do the upstairs rooms first before she looked into the drawing-room, when the drawing-room door opened, and Charles himself stood there.

  He was wearing a dressing-gown, but beneath it he appeared to be more-or-less fully clothed. She had only seen him once before with stubble on his chin, but now there was so much stubble that he appeared to be growing a beard. His eyes were heavy and lack-lustre.

  If he was surprised to see her he didn’t show it. He merely asked ungraciously:

  “What do you want?”

  Her grey eyes brimmed with concern, and with a pity she couldn’t hide. She was wearing her little green suit, and the hat that went with it, and she looked very young and spring-like on a dull September morning.

  “Oh, Charles!” she exclaimed, moving close to him. “What’s the matter, and why isn’t Mrs. Banks here? Why isn’t Harwell looking after you?”