It Was the Nightingale

by Henry Williamson

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Tim. “The sooner we connect the Works’ tank to the house tank, the better. All our bath-water, as well as that for the loo, comes from the rain-water tank on the roof. And every dashed train that passes in the cutting below the garden sends up a shower of soot which falls on the water. Our own smoke, too, makes it dirty. The tank should be covered. By Jove, you’ve given me an idea! We must do it without further delay!”

  “I’ll help you.”

  Phillip went up to examine the tank. It was nearly empty, with six inches of black slime on the bottom. He saw an immense black beetle, with fearsome jaws, swimming about in the mud. He put it in a matchbox, not an easy job, and took it with him to the luncheon table, while it seemed that the beetle was about to tear its way out of the flimsy prison.

  “Ha!” exclaimed Pa, when he saw the box on the cloth, and the head of the beetle nearly through it. His eyes lit up. “One of the Hydradephaga!”

  “Look at those jaws, sir, like secateurs!”

  “One of those beggars once cracked a pane of glass in my hot-house, Phillip, at any rate I found him dead in the gutter the next morning.”

  Ernest came into the room, and saw the beetle crawling on his empty plate. With his usual immobility of expression, Ernest said “Ha!” and sat down, as though prepared to eat the beetle should nothing else appear on his plate. Then Tim came in, and ejaculated, “By Jove! How absolutely incredible!”

  The beetle opened its black shards of horn, thrust out its wings, and in deep droning flight sailed around the room, bumping into the ceiling and falling to the table again.

  “Hydradephaga all right,” said Pa, peering with satisfaction. “Sub-species Dyticidae. Our fellow is Dyticus marginalis, I fancy.”

  He went to his study, returning with Insects at Home by the Rev. J. G. Wood. It had many engravings, some of them hand-coloured.

  “Here’s the fellow, I fancy,” he said, pointing to a wood-cut. “Yes, it’s marginalis right enough. The beggar flies from pond to pond by moonlight, and when it decides to come down, closes its wings above the water and drops in. That’s how one of my panes of glass was broken, I fancy. It mistook it in the moonlight for water.”

  “I want lunch!” said Ernest, distinctly, staring at his empty plate.

  “You shall, Ernest, you shall!” cried Lucy.

  “Mind that brute!” said Pa to Tim, who was about to pick up the beetle. “It’s got an appendage from its metasternum which is like a forked dagger. If you don’t want it,” to Phillip, “I’ll have it in my water-garden. Useful little brute to watch.”

  Phillip offered to put it in the sunken tub, where grew various water-plants, but Pa said it was no bother. With a spoon he lifted the insect into a tumbler, and bore it outside to its new home.

  “I’ll finish the tank after lunch,” Phillip said to Tim. “It’s full of excellent compost, mainly soot and dead leaves. I imagine that the railway company won’t want it added to their ancient lights.” This joke having fallen flat, he tried another subject. “If anyone wants to insure his life, I’m the man. I have applied for an agency of the Millennium Life Assurance Company, in order to get commission for my own proposed life policy, and they have appointed me. All commission, of course, will go to anyone who wants to insure.”

  “Oo ah!” said Tim. “I must consider the matter.”

  Lucy arrived with a genuine subject for conversation of sorts—a dish of sausages and mashed potatoes. Noises of approval arose. Pa came back, saying the glass was dropping, and a change in the weather was coming if he wasn’t mistaken. Bukbuk got in her usual place beside Lucy, to await scraps to be placed on the edge of the table. She now had kittens, her duties were shared by Moggy in a bee-skep in the workshop.

  Hardly had silent munching started when the bell in the kitchen, one of several in a row under the ceiling, began to jangle.

  “Oh damn.”

  “Who the deuce is it?”

  “Dashed nuisance.”

  “H’m, who’s that likely to be, I wonder.”

  “Probably ‘The Idiot’.”

  “I’ll go.” Lucy had already risen.

  The men sat still. Phillip offered to serve second helpings. This interfered with an awaited Odd Man Out, and found no response.

  Lucy came back, smiling, telegram in hand.

  “For you,” she said to Phillip.

  “Oh lor’, what does this mean?”

  “Open it and see,” said Fiennes, putting a sausage into his mouth.

  “By all means, we don’t stand on ceremony here.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  AMERICAN PUBLISHER LONDON TWO DAYS LONGER URGENTLY WANTS SEE YOU INVITATION DINNER TOMORROW 2 MAY 7 P.M. REPLY MACOURAGE ALBERT HOTEL NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE LONDON.

  He laid it down.

  “I ought to get the tank cleared as soon as possible, if rain is coming. I must go to London first thing tomorrow.”

  “Ah,” said Tim.

  “An American publisher wants to see me urgently.”

  “By Jove!” from Tim.

  “It looks as though he wants to publish my books, Tim,” while the other men were intent on their food.

  “I say, that’s good news! I’m awfully glad, really I am.”

  Under the table Phillip squeezed Lucy’s hand.

  “So I must get the tank cleaned right away!”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t bother,” said Pa. “It’s been like that some years now, and will probably be like it for a good many more to come.”

  But Phillip had plans to clean out the loo as well. He had bought a tin of Whizzitoff, a chemical which dissolved everything.

  “If you’ll forgive me, I’ll go and get ready, sir.”

  The journey would give him an opportunity to get a morning suit and topper; also Pa had asked him to get his father to send him the name and address of his solicitors, for the matter of a marriage settlement. “It’s not my suggestion, but some interfering relations have written to me about the matter.”

  Whenever Phillip had thought of that, his stomach had seemed to go hard inside. Now he could, purely formally, give the message to Father when he got to London.

  While the Boys went back to the Workshop, he got on with the cleaning of loo and water-tank. It did not take long to mop up the black residue on the bottom of the tank, and carry it in a pail to Pa’s compost heap. Then to flush everything out, with gallons brought from the well. Lucy had washed up when the job was done, and they went for a walk beside the river.

  It was an afternoon of blue skies and blowing white clouds, with lower dark clouds from which rain sprinkled, soon to blow over. The sun shone hot and bright once more. He lay contentedly on the bank of a pool, and watched the trout rising to a hatch of olive duns. Lucy sat near, knitting the last of a grey and yellow pullover which he was supposed not to look at, since it was to be a present for him. Then below the bank he saw an eel burrowing into a hole. Creeping down he scooped it up and flung it on the grass. The very thing for Pa’s water-garden!

  He made a carrier of his wet handkerchief, and when they returned put the eel in the sunken water-tub beside the rock-garden. He told Pa at tea that he had put the eel there, and to his surprise the old man got up and left the room, muttering about interference, and that he didn’t want the beastly thing in his water-garden. After tea Phillip got the scullery pail, meaning to remove the eel to return it to the river. As he went round the corner he heard Pa say to Ernest, “Maddison’s an interfering ass in my opinion.”

  *

  It rained all through the journey to Surrey. He called at his Uncle Joseph’s house cold and stiff, with sodden gloves, helmet, coat, breeches and pack. His boots too were wet, for he had foolishly wound his puttees cavalry-fashion, with the tapes round the ankles, so that the rain spilling off tank and coat had soaked down, and not off, the coils. He arrived in the late afternoon; Arthur had just come down from his office in London.

  There was no fire in the sitting-r
oom. As he sat there he wondered if his mood had affected Arthur, for his cousin was subdued. Phillip told him that the new bus went very well, and that if it had been the old belt-driven model, he would never have arrived that day. How did Arthur like his purchase? Running well? This was a hint about payment: he needed the £20 to pay part of his first premium of the £1,000 endowment policy.

  “As a matter of fact,” stammered Arthur, avoiding Phillip’s face while smoothing his hair rapidly with one hand, “I wanted to see you about that Norton.”

  “Well, here I am, old boy. Get it off your chest.”

  “You see, I—I was relying on my commission from your life assurance to pay half of what I owe you.”

  “But you didn’t tell me that when you bought the bus, did you?” When Arthur made no reply, he repeated, “Did you?”

  “I didn’t think it necessary. I thought you were a fellow who played the game.”

  “What game? Your secret game? Naturally, having worked in an insurance office, I knew there was a considerable commission on the first payment of a life insurance policy, and so as a matter of course I applied for an agency.”

  “That’s the point. You didn’t tell me. You see, I fixed up with a man to get half commission, when I found out the company which would give you the best terms, as you asked me. I consider you have not been straight with me.”

  “But does that absolve you from the fact that you owe for the Norton?”

  “I think it does.”

  “But surely the two things are separate? Now if you’d told me that you expected to place the insurance for me, on the terms you’ve now revealed, it would have been a different matter. And in law, isn’t an arrangement for secret commission illegal?”

  When Arthur did not reply, Phillip said quietly, “Aren’t you going to pay for the bus?”

  “Frankly, I don’t think I am called upon to pay you anything.”

  Was this his friend speaking, the man who was to be the best man at the wedding, the rather dreamy youth who liked poetry, and who ran the local branch of the Poetry Association? Arthur, who was, in theory, in revolt against the money-materialism of the middle classes; the soullessness of the City money-grubber? Was another friendship to go west because of money, as with Desmond Neville, to whom he had lent money whenever he had asked for it, on over seventy occasions during the war? Desmond had come into several thousand pounds in 1919, but had never offered to pay back the comparatively small sums totalling £39 10s. which he had borrowed.

  “Very well, I’ll take the Norton back, Arthur. I can sell it quite easily.”

  “Just a minute. There is another point I would like to mention. You told me the bus was in good order. Actually I’ve had a lot of trouble and expense over it. For one thing, you didn’t tell me that the magneto was dud when you brought it here.”

  “But I’d just driven it two hundred miles! It was all right when I left it with you. It had been remagnetised, and overhauled, only three months before, at the C.A.V. Works in North London.”

  “Well, I don’t agree that the magneto was in sound order when I received it. I had to have it sent away almost at once. And the bill isn’t paid yet.”

  “Very well, I’ll pay the bill! Will that satisfy you? And I’ll take back the bike. Where is it?”

  “As a matter of fact, it’s in a garage near here,” replied Arthur, avoiding his cousin’s eyes.

  “I’ll arrange to sell it. Will you give me the name of the garage? Well, why don’t you answer?”

  “I’ve already sold it to them,” Arthur said at last.

  Phillip got up.

  “Goodbye, Arthur. I’m sorry our friendship had to end like this. The rain’s stopped, so I think I’ll go on now.”

  He had only half-a-crown in his pocket, and must reach Anders Norse’s office before it closed. The way to London lay through lanes and fields spattered with brick houses to tramlines which gleamed ahead for several more miles of thickening commercial traffic to East Croydon; thence to the Crystal Palace and along wet cobble-stones past motorbuses, vans and other vehicles; past a fishmonger’s where several hundredweight of black eels writhed desperately on a wooden counter; past shops hung with portions of slaughtered animals; and halls advertising exotic female forms and primary-coloured muscular heroes (Ben Hur, catharsis for ten million repressed factory and shop serfs); past pubs and gin palaces, tea shops and skating rinks—all becoming more and more drab until he came to Vauxhall Bridge and the Embankment, to turn up Northumberland Avenue with puttees, breeches, and coat spattered by the thin black mud of London streets. Thence to the Adelphi, wondering if Anders would be in his one-room office in the basement of the corner house of the terrace. The light was on! With relief he ran down the steps, to be greeted by a smiling red face.

  “I was just signing a letter to you!” Anders exclaimed. “You’ve come up to see MacCourage, of course? He wants to be your American publisher all right! And I’ve other good news for you! This afternoon I received a cable from New York telling me that The Pictorial Review has accepted one of your animal stories, paying five hundred dollars. That’s a hundred and eight pounds for you at the present rate of exchange.

  “That clears the hundred pounds you lent me. Good!”

  They went for a drink to the bar of the Adelphi hotel. Anders let him have five pounds. “More tomorrow, when my bank opens!” Phillip explained his dilemma—wet clothes, and nowhere to sleep.

  “Then why not book a room here?”

  Why not, indeed? How very simple after all! He had forgotten that there were such things as hotels.

  “There’s a garage under the Arches. By the way, have you seen a copy of Martin Beausire’s new novel? I was told about it, and got a copy. Later I’d like to hear your comments on it—put it in your pocket. Now I’ll take you down to the garage.”

  “I say, Anders, where can I send a telegram? I’d like to ask my fiancée to come up—I can telegraph money, can’t I?”

  “Certainly.”

  Together they went across to the Strand post office where Phillip telegraphed two pounds to Lucy, asking her to come up as soon as she conveniently could. And then, Norton safely under cover, back to the hotel bedroom, puttees and boots removed, dry stockings and shoes on, breeches drying at the knees before a gas fire; to shave and wash, and with high heart walk round to Northumberland Avenue to his dinner engagement with his New York publisher!

  A short elderly man with greying beard and deprecatory, almost shy manner came to meet him as he waited at the reception desk in the warm light of the foyer. At first it was not easy to talk with him. Mr. MacCourage did not seem able to get his words out easily, he used his hands to help him, while nodding many times and smiling at what he said, nodding almost before he had made the point of what he was saying, so that Phillip wasn’t altogether sure what he was talking about.

  Then Mr. MacCourage called a waiter, and still nodding, ordered two large scotch whiskies and soda, or would Phillip like ginger ale with his? Phillip had already had one double whisky, and was uncertain about another; as he hesitated, Mr. MacCourage smiled and said in his husky tones, “Do you good, boy, I said, do you good! Bring two, waiter, bring two large scotch whiskies and soda, and waiter, don’t forget the ice. You’re tired,” he said to Phillip, moving his hands less now to help his meaning. “You’re tired, you’ve come a long way, the whisky will do you good. I guess that Britain has come a long way, too, but Britain is still very strong, yes sir! To read some British writers is to be told that the Britishers are finished.” He shook his head gravely, and looked at Phillip with the gentle eyes of a deer. “Britain is still immensely strong, yes sir! Now drink your whisky, boy, then we’ll have some dinner, and you shall tell me about your books. But if you don’t want to talk, boy, just relax—I know you already from your writings. Yes, sir!”

  The mellow whisky certainly did Phillip good, and he was glad that he had not given way to a feeling of resistance that he was being given a drink aga
inst his will. The older man, as though reading his thoughts, went on, “You’ll pardon me ordering whisky for you, but I guess I know you from your book, which I want to publish, and a little whisky at the right time is a very sound investment for tired muscles.”

  Phillip felt a sudden liking for him. Had not W. H. Hudson called him Honest John? The two had been friends in Cornwall, just as he was now becoming friends.

  He saw the dinner as a splendid kindness of one man to another. He rejoiced in the bright lights and the happy faces of the diners, in the music and the food. O, why was not Lucy already with him? He imagined her in the kitchen cutting sandwiches of bloater paste for supper. She should be sharing these hors d’æuvres, these myriad dishes in red, green, and yellow—smoked salmon, sardines, anchovies, salted herrings, prawns, eggs, tomatoes—the waiter bending over her while she chose. Then sea-trout and mayonnaise sauce with finest slices of cucumber, and his American publisher, his American publisher, asking him if he could drink a sparkling Burgundy?

  “By Jove, yes, thanks very much!”

  Secretly he drank to the Boys, to Pa, to Lucy, to his Mother, to—to—steady now, this is the present, this is today, this is a full life now. Chicken and fried potatoes, green peas, salad, yes please, everything! Would he like another bottle? With memories of hectic guest-nights the answer is, Every time! but steady on, there is no death any more up the line, and besides, if you get tight you know you’ll be beastly ill.

  “No thank you, sir! But may I have another strawberry ice-cream?”

  A bowl of delicious sweets, marzipan, crystallised rose petals, chocolates. Dare he eat rolled fried bacon wrapped around mushrooms?

  Indigestion be damned! Brandy? Thank you! Puffing a cigar, he left the dining-room with Honest John, feeling that life was pretty good, and there was no reason why a poet, or any man, need be unhappy on the earth if he used his brains. There didn’t seem anything more to talk about, and after coffee and brandy he could hardly conceal his yawns.

  “You want to go to bed, boy, you need a good night’s sleep, I guess.” Honest John shook his hand several times, smiling and beaming. “I’ll be seeing you, I said! Write me that book about the search for your tame otter. I have lost a dear wife, boy, I guess I know your thoughts. I could never love another woman, but you are young, boy. So write your pilgrimage story, and how it led you to Miss Lucy.”