The Young Nightingales

by Mary Whistler

  “The district has a right to be censorious if it chooses,” he conceded. “But you must admit Miranda has had a good deal to put up with in this one.”

  Jane attempted to compose her features into an expression that revealed little of what she was actually thinking and feeling—and at that moment she felt as if the solid rock on which she had previously imagined her life was founded had become a quagmire of shifting sand, and amongst familiar things to cling on to there now appeared to be little or nothing that could provide her with support—and changed the subject altogether.

  “Are you staying the night?” she asked.

  He looked first surprised, and then extremely penitent, as if he realised that he had failed her at a vital crossroad in her life.

  “Oh, Jane!” he exclaimed, and went up to her again. But she backed a little. “Why do you and I have to quarrel about Miranda? Who is, after all, your stepmother!”

  “I am fully aware of that.” She came up against a bookcase, and was forced to allow him to lay gentle hands on her shoulders again. “But I want to know whether you’re staying the night. Helen wants to know before she makes up a bed.”

  “I really ought to return to town...”

  “Then shall I tell her you won’t be staying?”

  His frown became very noticeable.

  “It sounds almost as if you want to get rid of me!”

  “Don’t be silly.” But the soft line of her lips was unusually taut, and even hard. “Does Miranda expect you to stay?”

  “She has asked me to stay.”

  “Then you will, of course, be staying.” She turned away. “I must let Helen know. Excuse me, won’t you ... I’ll see you later when the others have all gone. There are a lot of people to say goodbye to. I never knew we had so many relatives,” attempting a mirthless smile. “All thinking hard things about poor Daddy because he took what they think was the easy way out!” She made a sinuous movement and left the room, and he strode after her—still frowning very blackly; but she had slipped away along the corridor and managed to get caught up in the general confusion in the hall.

  Later that night there was a family dinner, and the only outsider was Roger. He was impeccably dressed in a well-cut dinner-jacket, and Jane understood perfectly the reason why her stepmother appropriated him quite noticeably before dinner while they were having drinks in the drawing-room and she was acting the part of the bereaved widow quite cleverly, and even skilfully.

  She wore a cloudy black dress ornamented with jet, and by contrast with it her skin looked dazzlingly fair and her blonde hair remarkable ... which it was. She had strange, smoky grey eyes which revealed very few of her thoughts, although at times they could smile both disarmingly and alluringly. And possibly her greatest attraction was the husky charm of her voice, which was hardly ever raised in anger, and seldom entered into argument ... almost certainly because she had discovered very early in life that argument was just so much wasted effort when winning appeal could advance one so much farther along the road one wanted to tread.

  She had seen very little of Jane all day, but she understood perfectly that she was upset for some other reason apart from her father’s death and the grim ordeal of the day when she refused to accept a glass of sherry from Roger as he did the duties of host at a side table and handed her one. Jane looked slightly dazed, and she had taken little or no pains over her appearance and for once she looked almost plain. Her eyes were pink-rimmed from much crying, and her face was very pale ... the pallor that shock induces.

  Roger, on the other hand, was looking almost cheerful, and behaving as if he knew very well he was in his rightful element. He railled Jane gently as she refused the sherry.

  “Oh, come now,” he said, “it will do you good.” His hand went out to the whisky decanter. “Or would you prefer something stronger?” Jane shook her head silently.

  Roger frowned slightly.

  But, my dear girl, you’ve had a gruesome day—”

  Miranda moved forward until she stood between them. She laid a hand lightly on her stepdaughter’s shoulder.

  “Roger’s right, you know, Jane,” she said. “You have had a perfectly beastly day! We’ve all had a beastly day!”

  “I don’t need anything to drink,” Jane returned, in a flat and utterly colourless voice ... and she moved slightly so that Miranda’s hand perforce fell from her shoulder. “And it can’t have been so very beastly for Roger. Daddy was only his friend.”

  Miranda’s eyebrows went up.

  “Your father’s greatest friend,” she reminded Jane reprovingly. “And I thought he was your friend, too.”

  To this Jane returned no answer, and Miranda looked from one to the other of them with a kind of careful interest. Then she enquired lightly:

  “Not quarrelled, I hope? I thought you and Roger had known one another far too long to quarrel, or be even mildly critical of one another?”

  Jane stood biting her lower lip and looking utterly wretched, but Roger remained absolutely motionless and made no move towards her. He and Miranda exchanged glances, that was all. Then Miranda said softly, soothingly:

  “Ah, well, I think the best thing we can all do is go in to dinner and see whether some good hot food inside us will make us feel slightly better. I know I feel as if I haven’t eaten anything for days, and I’m positively hollow. I just couldn’t take very much more tonight! Come along, darling,” encircling the girl’s slim waist with what some people might have thought of as a motherly arm. “Don’t say a word until you’ve eaten ... and even after that you needn’t say anything if you don’t want to. You can go to bed early, and we’ll excuse you.”

  Jane, too, felt hollow and empty inside, but she found that she could eat nothing at all at dinner. While her stepmother exclaimed with pleasure at the roast and Roger tried to force her to drink some wine, she stared at him dumbly across the lavishly appointed table—no sign yet of any retrenchment, or any acceptance of the reason why the master of the place had died—and wondered whether perhaps she had imagined their conversation in the library, and whether the kindness in his eyes was the old kindness ... much more than the kindness of a lifelong friend, and with far, far more behind it.

  And then when she saw him turn the same look upon Miranda and fuss over her, too—an almost intolerable amount of fussing and concern lest, now that she was a widow with no husband to take care of her she was in some danger of being completely neglected and it was his job to take over the role of leading protector and prime consoler—she knew that the conversation in the library had indeed taken place, and that as a result of it nothing could ever be the same again.

  She pushed aside her untasted plate and asked to be excused.

  Irina slipped into her room before going to her own much later that night and asked in some concern whether everything was all right between her and Roger.

  “Only I thought you seemed a bit stiff with one another before you decided to go to bed,” she said. “And the idea of you and Roger being stiff with one another is laughable.”

  “Is it?”

  Jane watched her sister curl up in her favourite chair and make herself comfortable for a ‘heart-to-heart’ before retiring for the night, and dashing off to London again in the morning. “Darling—” Irina hesitated, lighting a cigarette thoughtfully—“you know we’re all expecting you and Roger to get married, and now that Daddy’s dead you’ll probably think it a good idea to get married almost immediately. After all, you need a home of your own, and someone to look after you. Conway thinks it’s a good idea that you should marry Roger quickly, and if you want to do so without any fuss and with none of us looking on we shall all understand perfectly ... Or Con and I will!”

  Jane answered mechanically:

  “Thanks.”

  Irina looked at her expectantly.

  “Well?”

  “Roger hasn’t asked me to marry him yet,” Jane said in the same unnatural voice.

  “No, but he will.”
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  “We’re just good friends.” The tight, mirthless smile on Jane’s lips startled her sister.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said impatiently. “It’s been obvious for ages that he’s in love with you...” And then her slim brows contracted and she plainly recollected something. “By the way,” she said, “is he staying the night?”

  “Yes.”

  “And at the moment he’s downstairs with Miranda?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it true that he went to Nice and brought her back home?”

  “Yes.”

  “I—I see,” Irina said, very slowly and with abruptly widening eyes. “Then you think that she—?”

  “I know that, for the moment at any rate, he’s very much concerned with Miranda. He told me so himself this afternoon.”

  Irina frowned quite blackly—for her—and went across to the bed and spoke firmly to the other girl.

  “Now listen to me, my child,” she said, seating herself on the foot of the bed. “We all know what Miranda is and of what she is capable—given the chance. Daddy made an ass of himself over her, and you and I have never trusted her from the moment she came to live here. If she’s taken a fancy to Roger you mustn’t let her have him ... After all, men are easily bowled over and they never believe the worst of a pretty woman, so for his sake as well as your own nip the affair in the bud if it seems like developing. Roger’s your property, and you’re practically engaged to him. He wouldn’t even thank you himself if you let Miranda, who is death to any :man once she really gets her hooks into him, carry him off in triumph under your eyes and wreck the whole of his future life. So for goodness’ sake, Jane, be sensible—”

  “I am sensible,” Jane assured her, blinking at the softly shaded light above her head and wishing her sister would go away so that she could put it out, “and I mean to be very, very sensible in future—the immediate future. I’ve decided that I wouldn’t marry Roger now under any circumstances!”

  Irina was aghast.

  “But you love him—”

  “I don’t. At the moment I’m not capable of loving anybody.”

  “That’s because you’re so upset about Father.”

  “Father wouldn’t wish me to marry Roger now—I know that. He’d realise that it was not intended after all. I have other things to do with my life, and marrying Roger isn’t one of them. As a matter of fact,” she added almost complacently, although she wasn’t feeling in the least complacent, “I have decided to accept a job Roger himself has offered me—a job with his aunt.”

  “A job with his aunt?” Irina echoed. “If he has an aunt alive she must be terribly old. Where does she live?”

  “In Switzerland.”

  Irina collapsed once more on to the foot of the bed.

  “You’re joking,” she said.

  But Jane managed finally to convince her that she was not.

  “I’ve always wanted to go to Switzerland,” she said, still blinking in a mesmerised fashion at the light and wondering vaguely why it was that so far not one of her holidays had taken her to Switzerland. She and her father and the rest of the family had been to France and to Italy—and even on one memorable occasion to the West Indies. But never to Switzerland! And surely that was an omission when money had never counted until now?” And if I go to Switzerland Toby can come and spend his school holidays there, and it’ll be much more fun for him than if I settled down in England—”

  Irina leaned towards her.

  “You know very well that we’ll all look after Toby,” she said. “Any spare money I have he can have. And that goes for Conway, too—we discussed it only this morning. And if you’re in this unhappy frame of mind I think you’d better come and stay with me in London before you decide upon any future course of action at all—”

  “I’ve already decided upon my course of action,” Jane assured her in that strange, empty, unconvincing tone that yet managed to convey the impression that she really had made up her mind. “I’ll tell Roger about it in the morning. I can’t wait to make the acquaintance of this unknown aunt of his!” without any irony at all, which seriously alarmed Irina.

  “Rubbish!” she exclaimed, determined to have a word with Roger herself if the opportunity arose. She was not the type to worry unduly about anyone or anything save her work, but Jane was a different type altogether from herself, and she felt there was some reason why she should start worrying about her. Whatever had happened in the library that afternoon Jane, all at once, was a different girl. She looked as if she was badly shocked. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” she said. “I’ll tackle Roger!”

  Jane looked so absolutely horrified that Irina withdrew the suggestion immediately.

  “All right, all right,” she soothed, “I won’t if you’d rather not. But Conway may think it necessary to tackle him. After all, he’s been thinking of him as a prospective brother-in-law for the last two years, when Roger started to behave in a proprietorial way towards you. And he certainly won’t want him for a stepfather!”

  “Oh, please,” Jane begged, turning away her face. “Do you mind if I put out the light now and settle down to sleep? It’s been a horrible day ... Miranda, at least, was right about that!” Irina accepted dismissal, and made her way back to her own room. But before she left she bent once more over her sister.

  “At least think it over,” she begged “before you do anything. We all know Miranda. It’s quite possible she’s merely having an affair with Roger which will fizzle out quite soon, and then he’ll turn back to you. She’s probably just dazzled him ... aroused some ardent protective quality. At heart I’m sure he’s all yours!”

  Jane said nothing but reached for the switch of her bedside light.

  Irina insisted:

  “I mean it!”

  Jane answered quietly, “I’m sure you do, but it doesn’t matter any longer anyway. Because I’ve changed. Possibly Daddy’s death has had something to do with it!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SEVERAL weeks later, when she caught her first glimpse of towering Swiss peaks against a rose-flushed evening sky, Jane faced up to the knowledge which she had in her heart that she had changed altogether since her father’s death. The shock of his death had affected her in some curious fashion that had brought about a metamorphosis.

  She felt detached, able to respond to outside influences in a way she could never have done while she was still in thrall to the compelling and sophisticated charm of her father’s closest friend. If she had been visiting Switzerland for the first time with Roger she would have wanted to share it all with him, and might even have accepted certain criticisms of his and been biased because of them from the outset. Roger was very much addicted to undervaluing things—making light of them. And he deprecated too much childish enthusiasm.

  He would have smiled at her—oh, quite charmingly—when her face lit up because of the beauty of the peaks, and the tranquil loveliness of the Alpine valleys. But he would almost certainly have reminded her that they weren’t always bathed in sunlight, and were frequently covered in mist. He would also have recommended waiting until they had seen their hotel accommodation and tested the quality of the food before going round the bend about a spectacular bit of scenery.

  Scenery could be come upon almost anywhere ... but a good hotel that looked after its patrons and provided them with first-class meals and served only the finest wines and other means of regaling oneself during a holiday was much more of a rarity.

  Jane was not particularly interested in food, and wine was not in the least important to her, so now that she was alone in her railway compartment and about to be decanted from it very soon she gave herself up to honest enjoyment of all that she could see from the carriage windows.

  The Swiss train in itself pleased her. It was so clean and comfortable, with impeccable linen covers over the backs and arms of the seats, and a sensation of airiness that was like the light over the mountain peaks.

  The guard, in his neat nav
y-blue uniform, had smiled at her when he clipped her ticket. He had said, “Welcome to Switzerland, Fraulein,” and she had been surprised at the excellence of his English. Shortly after that they had crossed into French Switzerland, and it was a French-Swiss guard who helped her with her luggage when she had to alight, and seemed regretful to see the last of her.

  Jane could have flown out, but for once in her life she had been obstinate. No, she said, she would travel in a more leisurely manner and see something of the route by which she was travelling.

  At this insistence Roger had smiled indulgently, after trying very hard to get her to change her mind. It seemed to him ridiculous that a tiresome journey involving a cross-channel ferryboat and at least two trains should be preferred to the swifter, effortless flight by air.

  But nothing he or anyone else could say had the slightest effect on Jane. She bought her tickets herself, and said she would prefer it if no one went to the station to see her off.

  But Roger insisted. He drove her to Victoria himself, bought her books and magazines, flowers and fruit—which were very awkward things to travel with—and saw her into her reserved seat on the boat-train with an air of being determined to ensure her comfort if he could.

  Jane was grateful for his attentions, but quite naturally distrait when the moment of departure arrived. She was watching the people around her, the regular travellers, the tourists who had never left England before, the excited children. She had never realised before, when she had flown abroad with her father, that travel could be so exciting ... a real adventure, as if it was the beginning of something, and once fairly launched on one’s way anything could happen.

  There were people saying farewells, kissing one another. Roger, she realised with a sudden, acute sensation of dismay, was about to stoop and kiss her, but she backed away in a kind of horror. Afterwards, when she thought about it, she didn’t understand why she had felt quite so much horror ... and it wasn’t simply that she shrank from the thought of him kissing her, because he had probably kissed Miranda the night before. It was her new self objecting, and her new self had no time or place for Roger Bowman, apart from the fact that she was grateful to him for finding her a job with his aunt.