Nightingale Wood

by Stella Gibbons

  Moments passed so pleasantly that they did not notice the stealthy packing of clouds across the brilliant sky, and they were a good mile from The Eagles when a voice hailed them, in a warning tone touched with complacence—

  ‘Goin’ ter rain. Spoil them pretty frocks o’ yourn.’

  Startled, they looked up, and saw the Hermit standing on a rabbit-bank beside the wood’s edge, gazing fondly down upon them. The Hermit liked female society, of which he did not get enough. He spent many hours in each week with Mrs Caker. Her draggle-tail dignity, and her memories of former Caker glories, at first made her almost unable to see the sturdy form of the Hermit in her very front-garden, but under the fire of his flattery she soon melted. She loved talking, and so did he; they would sit in the scullery (Mrs Caker would not at first have him in the parlour) engaged upon some pithering and unnecessary task such as sorting old newspapers or scraping the labels off jam-jars (which the Hermit collected) and talking themselves weak and hoarse.

  ‘Come out without yer ’ats, ain’t yer,’ continued the Hermit. ‘Sensible girls. Good for the ’air, that is. Makes it ’ealthy, like mine.’ He shook his grey curls. ‘Keeps yer from looking yer age, thick ’air does. Now ’ow old,’ to Viola, ‘would you say I was?’

  It was starting to rain.

  Tina and Viola ran to the edge of the wood and stood, as far from the Hermit as possible, under the thin canopy of beech-leaves. They looked up anxiously, the clouds hung low and thick.

  ‘Eh?’ demanded the Hermit. ‘ ’Ow old would yer say I was?’

  Viola glanced sideways at Tina, who shook her head. They both stared aloofly in front of them. Viola’s dress was darkly marked by raindrops and Tina’s ruffles were already limp.

  ‘’OW OLD WOULD YER SAY I WAS?’ suddenly roared the Hermit through his hollowed hands, standing on tiptoe.

  ‘Oh good heavens, how should we know? About sixty, I suppose,’ said Tina, jumping violently and giving him a distracted look. ‘Vi, do you think we’d better run for it? We can’t get more soaked than we’re getting here, and it’s nearly twenty to four.’

  ‘Seventy-six,’ nodded the Hermit triumphantly, standing on the rabbit-bank with his curls streaming rainwater. ‘But like a young man, I am. Like a young man. And why, you asks, am I like a young man? (in all sorts o’ ways, mind you, not only me ’air). Because I lives a natchral, ’ealthy, out o’ doors life like Gawd meant us to live. That’s Why.’

  ‘I really think we’d better run,’ said Viola, also giving the Hermit a rather distracted look; one never knew what he would say next but one could always guess. ‘I say, will there be an awful row, do you think?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said her sister-in-law grimly.

  It was nothing, really, it was only being late for tea, but Mr Wither had such a way of making nothings seem awful; and there was no doubt that they were going to be very late indeed, for when they did get to the house they would have to change all their clothes. Water was running off their faces, and their shoes and stockings were spattered. What sights we must look, thought Tina dismally, but Viola was too alarmed to think about how she looked. She had only nine pounds left: would her father-in-law turn her out because she was late for tea?

  ‘Better lay up in my place for a bit,’ advised the Hermit. ‘My little grey home in the west, as they say. Plenty of room. Yer could dry yer cloes. I wouldn’t mind if yer took ’em all off and warmed yer little selves by my fire, not me. Bleshyer. Eh? What about it?’

  Tina, biting her lip deeply, stared down at her shoes. Rain rolled slowly off the ends of her hair.

  ‘Tina!’ urgently, ‘I really think we’d better make a dash for it. It’s nearly ten to four.’

  Tina looked up; and at the instant there sounded the long, arrogant horn that Viola had heard across the darkening wood on her first evening at The Eagles, and round the curve of the road dashed a very large dark red car of the type best described as semi-sporting, its windscreen-wiper working accurately yet with an impression of fury, its lamps and nose tearing ahead of itself as though wild to go.

  Viola, awed, did not even think of raising her hand for help; besides, the car was not going their way. Tina, knowing to whom it belonged, felt that it would be folly to signal, and the Hermit had suddenly gone away. However, as they automatically turned to watch the car out of sight, it slowed down and began to back neatly and swiftly towards them, while a female head, wearing a smart and unbecoming hat, suddenly poked out from a lowered window, calling,

  ‘I say, would you like a lift?’

  ‘Well, it’s most awfully kind of you,’ cried Tina, plashing down the bank into the full flood of the rain, ‘but I don’t think you’re going our way. We want to get back to the Chesterbourne road.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right, we can turn,’ said Miss Franklin of Grassmere, confidently, and she added, to the person who sat in the driver’s seat, slewed sideways with a hand in a thick, pale glove flung across the wheel, ‘Can’t we, Victor?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Victor Spring politely, and he smiled.

  It was clear, despite the smile, that he did not want to turn.

  ‘But we really can’t …’ dithered Tina. ‘It’s most awfully good of you …’ She was strongly conscious of her own sopping rats’-tails, of Viola’s splashed shoes (which somehow looked even cheaper than they were because they were wet), of the elegance of the car and its occupants, and, most of all, of a pair of cool yet bright dark eyes regarding her derisively from the back of the car.

  ‘Get in, do,’ said Victor, showing very white teeth again and speaking just a little more quickly. ‘You’re getting so wet.’

  They bowed their heads and climbed meekly into the back of the car, which was not quite large enough to hold three people in comfort when, as in this case, some expensive suitcases were piled on the floor; and arranged themselves so that they did not drip upon the third passenger, a girl of about twenty-five whose whole presence, perfectly produced in a yellow coat and skirt with a dark fur, glowed with a subdued yet striking smartness.

  Tina, smiling nervously at this vision, was so impressed by the beautiful dark skin of which her gloves, shoes and handbag were made that for days afterwards, whenever Viola mentioned the incident, she saw in memory the dull lustre on the young lady’s toecaps and smelled the faintest breath of a perfume, hitherto unknown to her, not unlike Russia leather.

  ‘Were you out for a walk?’ asked Hetty, leaning back from her seat next to Victor and speaking to Tina but including the sopping Viola in her friendly smile.

  ‘Yes, it was such a lovely day, we never thought it would rain …’

  ‘Yes, it came up so suddenly.’

  There was a faint movement and a murmur from Viola, who was dripping over one of the vision’s ankles. The vision, smiling kindly, pulled her ankle out of the way.

  She could afford to be kind. Tina’s quiet choiceness of dress, Viola’s bloom of youth, Hetty’s touch of studentish distinction, were eclipsed utterly by the perfect grooming and poise of the dark stranger. They were just three dowdy females.

  Hetty was the only one who did not mind this. The vision was only Phyl Barlow, without two ideas in her head. She carried on a determined conversation with Tina, while the car dashed along the wet mile to The Eagles, discovering some mutual acquaintances in the neighbourhood and recalling that her aunt, Mrs Spring, had met Mrs Wither last year on the Committee for the Chesterbourne Infirmary Ball.

  She was not going to lose this opportunity of scraping acquaintance with the sad-looking younger Miss Wither, who might be most interesting psychologically, and whom she had more than once seen in the bookshop in Chesterbourne, browsing.

  ‘My sister-in-law,’ murmured Tina, remembering her duty and indicating Viola as the car drew up outside The Eagles. There was no sign of the Wither car, with Saxon and Mr Spurrey. Horror upon horror! he must have arrived early.

  Viola, who had been stealing a good look at the young god who was driving (
to Miss Barlow’s amusement), glanced round at Hetty with her cheerful smile and said, clambering out of the car:

  ‘Thanks awfully for the lift.’

  ‘Not at all,’ replied Victor, supposing that she was speaking to him when in fact she was far too impressed to dare. ‘Hope you won’t both catch cold.’ He raised his hat, indicating by his ‘both’ that he had at least taken in the fact that there were two of them, though he had not once glanced round or spoken during the drive.

  Viola, running shivering into the house, carried away a picture of so much masculine elegance that it quite overwhelmed her. Such a width of shoulder, such becoming sunburn on a hard, clear profile that was faintly military, such a tiny fair moustache and bright hazel eyes! with a quick, summing-up look under their short thick lashes.

  He’s the most marvellous-looking man I’ve ever seen, she thought, peeling off her wet clothes in the big chilly bedroom, and he does remind me of someone, now who is it? (oh dear, we’re going to be so late, I do hope it won’t be very awful, how I hate living here).

  She ran downstairs buttoning her frock, and as she turned the handle of the drawing-room door, whence came the dirge-like soughing of voices, she remembered who it was he reminded her of. The young man they always draw to advertise Llama-Pyjamas, of course, that’s who it is!

  Quite pleased, she went in.

  CHAPTER VI

  ‘Now what did you want to do that for, Het?’ interestedly inquired Victor, as the car rushed gladly away from The Eagles. ‘You are an extraordinary woman.’

  ‘Well, poor creatures, they were getting wet.’

  When Hetty talked to her social equals she was careful to keep her speech free from slang, for she enjoyed the touch of pedantry thus given to her sentences, and the contrast between her diction and that of the Springs’ friends, especially Miss Barlow’s. But when Hetty talked to Heyrick or to little Merionethshire she talked in an ordinary way: she did not want the servants to think her stuck-up, as well as queer.

  ‘We shall not be late for tea,’ she added mildly.

  Her cousin accelerated, saying nothing more. She had asked him to pull up when she caught sight of the two Miss Who-ever-they-weres sheltering under the trees, and he had done so, partly because of his slight but steady curiosity about all her actions, and partly from a less good-natured reason.

  He always liked to see what old Het-Up would do next. All the people round him behaved, as he did, in an ordinary manner; and he took it for granted that sensible people everywhere behaved like this. But Hetty often behaved oddly and she was interesting to watch; it was like having a mongrel dog about the house, without breeding but with plenty of character. Sometimes her oddities annoyed him but usually he was only amused, for he was fond of old Het-Up, who took herself so seriously; they had, after all, grown up together and she took the place of a sister.

  Miss Barlow said nothing, either. She was irritated. She knew why Victor had stopped the car; it was because she had exclaimed impatiently, ‘Oh, do let’s get on, Victor, I’ve hung about enough for one afternoon.’ He had wanted to show her that her wishes, her impatience, had no power over him and that he was not sorry for having kept her waiting three and a half minutes at the station.

  It appeared that he had stopped at a shop in the town because Hetty wanted to fetch a book she had ordered. He had told Hetty that she could stay in the bookshop for ten minutes, but Hetty had stayed twelve, and that had made them late.

  Twice, in half an hour, Hetty had held up Miss Barlow’s plans, and prevented her from moving as quickly as possible on to the next pleasure. Miss Barlow liked her life to be a steady movement towards pleasure. While she was having one, she was thinking about the next and what she should wear while she had that.

  What a little beast she is, thought the elder girl coldly, looking at the bun of hair sticking out untidily under Hetty’s hat. Thoroughly selfish, unattractive, and spoilt. I think, as soon as Victor and I are married, a good long cruise would be the best thing for Miss Hetty, since she’s so fond of travel books. She might pick up a husband that way – though I doubt it, she’s so affected. There’s nothing men hate so much as affectation.

  Miss Barlow’s own success with men (eight full-blown offers of heart, hand and fortune in five years, and numberless hints at undying devotion repressed by loyalty to marriage vows or lack of money; storesful of flowers, sweets, jewellery and minor articles of clothing, to say nothing about a ceaseless stream of invitations to dances, races, and shows) was due, she thought, chiefly to her lack of affectation.

  The word had a special meaning for her, wide enough to cover all behaviour different from her own. Thus it was affected to love reading, to like being alone, to play games professionally, to dress in the extreme of fashion. The steady pursuit of conventional pleasures, none of them lasting very long and all of them costing a good deal of money, was Phyllis’s ideal of how life should be lived.

  It was taken for granted by the Springs and by Phyllis’s family, a nest of rich stockbrokers, that she and Victor would one day marry, for they had kept up a half-attracted, half-irritated friendship since their Harrow and Roedean days, but each was always so busy making money or pursuing pleasure that so far they had had neither the time nor the inclination to undertake the bother of getting married.

  There was also the question of children. Phyllis, at fifteen, had decided that she would never have children. Children, both before and after, made one look a sight. Victor wanted children. They had never talked about this, but each had gathered the other’s views. There would be all the bore of threshing that out, too. In short, the longer they put off getting formally engaged, the pleasanter life would be. Meanwhile, they saw each other often at the flat of Phyllis’s parents in London, where there was much entertaining all the year round, and every summer Phyllis came for many weekends to Grassmere, where the Springs usually had friends staying.

  Mrs Spring liked Phyllis’s company, for they had the same interests and the same solemnity about the details of entertaining, house-decorating, and dress; but it cannot be said that Mrs Spring was fond of Miss Barlow. She felt in the younger woman’s apparently candid nature a desire to boss, and to excel, that she did not like. If any woman had to boss and excel at Grassmere it should be Mrs Spring, not Miss Barlow. Victor did both, of course, but his mother did not mind that. Victor was a man, and one did not mind being outshone by a man.

  Nevertheless, Phyllis would make a handsome, wealthy and suitable wife for Victor, and after she was married she would probably change her mind about children: girls often did. A handsome grandson, just like Victor, would be delightful!

  Mrs Spring was lying on a long chair on the veranda under a light rug, watching the sudden rainstorm beating on the pewter-coloured river at the bottom of the lawns. There were some other people staying in the house but they were out motoring. She did not feel well today, and was trying to be sensible about it, but this was difficult, for she had so much that she felt good health might just as well have been thrown in. Hetty, now, and Phyl, and Victor, they were all three as strong as horses, and took their health for granted.

  ‘Hullo, Phyllis,’ she said, looking up as the three came towards her. ‘How nice you look. (Hetty! Your hair!) I expected you half an hour ago; was the train late?’

  ‘The train was all right,’ Miss Barlow unslung the fox from her neck, smiling down at Mrs Spring, ‘but Victor was late.’

  ‘Three minutes.’ He said it over his shoulder; he was fiddling with the wireless.

  ‘And on the top of that,’ continued Miss Barlow, cautiously pressing the waves on her dark head, ‘he stopped to give some people a lift.’

  ‘Oh? Anyone we know?’

  ‘The Withers,’ put in Hetty, who had slumped into a chair.

  ‘The—? Oh, those people at The Eagles.’

  ‘We had to turn the car round,’ went on Phyllis lightly, ‘and take them right back to their front door!’

  ‘Whatever for?’<
br />
  ‘It was raining,’ drawled Hetty. ‘I asked Vic to stop. The younger Miss Wither and her sister-in-law had gone out for a walk and the rain came upon them unexpectedly, I gathered.’

  ‘The sister-in-law?’ interrupted Mrs Spring. ‘That’s the brother’s widow. He died about a year ago. She was in a shop.’

  ‘The sister-in-law was?’ asked Hetty.

  ‘Yes. Some place in the town – Thompson and something. What’s she like?’

  Mrs Spring, though now a wealthy woman with the interests of her type, had been born in a small town in Hampshire, and had the small-town woman’s interest in a local personality, however unimportant.

  ‘If she were groomed,’ said Hetty slowly, pensively staring down at her shoes, ‘she would be a beauty. She is the ethereal type, like one of Greuze’s girls, with that fine-textured skin and silky hair that men always admire.’

  ‘One of whose girls?’ said her aunt fretfully. ‘I wish you would pay more attention to your own grooming, never mind other people’s.’ She stood up, with determination, for she refused to play the invalid in front of guests unless they were old acquaintances like Phyllis Barlow, and at any moment the Randalls would come in.

  Phyllis said nothing. When tactless men asked her if she did not think Rosemary or Diana a swell doll, Phyllis said heartily that she did, though she did not. But she never on the other hand made the mistake of over-praising women to men, because she knew that men saw through that game: they were not so stupid as they were supposed to be. Victor went out of the room.

  ‘You’ve got your old room, Phyllis,’ said Mrs Spring. ‘It’s just been done up.’

  ‘Oh good!’