Nightingale Wood

by Stella Gibbons

  Mr Wither gave a slight start, as though struck by a poisoned arrow, but still he said nothing.

  ‘It can’t do any harm,’ Tina went on resolutely, in a calmer tone, two red spots on her thin cheeks. ‘Saxon can teach me in his spare time. He seems to have plenty,’ bitterly, ‘and if you ask me, I don’t think Master Saxon quite earns his hundred a year.’

  ‘Tina, you beast,’ quavered Madge, blowing her nose. ‘You know I’ve always wanted to have proper lessons. I do think you’re a rotter, cutting in in front of me like that … if you let her, Father, you’ll let me have the dog, won’t you? It wouldn’t be fair to let her learn to drive, and me—’

  ‘And Tina and I are frightfully sorry we were late for tea this afternoon,’ cut in Viola, gaspingly, leaning across and smiling at him with eyes wide open in alarm. ‘Truly, it wasn’t our fault; you see, we got caught in the rain and we had to get a lift home in someone’s car. Now if we’d had the car ourselves, and Tina had been driving—’

  ‘Shut up, Vi,’ muttered Tina. ‘Father, you might let Madge have her blessed dog, you’ll never see it if she keeps it out in the yard. As for me, I’m not so keen as all that on learning to drive, only it makes me rather sick to see Saxon idling about with so much spare time on his hands … it would kill two birds with one stone … give me something useful to do, and keep him busy …’

  ‘Why are we waiting for our pudding?’ demanded Mr Wither, lifting his head and gazing past the sea of tear-stained and agitated faces to that of Mrs Wither, who jumped three inches. ‘Or perhaps there is no pudding tonight?’

  ‘Yes, dear, of course, ground rice.’ Mrs Wither pressed the bell.

  Complete silence for three minutes while the stout parlourmaid arranged the paraphernalia for pudding. Madge tried to speak, but only made a strange noise, causing Viola to give an hysterical snort. Mr Wither, as the parlourmaid left the room, for the first time darted his daughter-in-law one dreadful glance. So, it said, you are the one who blows up the whole works in front of the servants. That is exactly what I should have expected you would do.

  ‘Ground rice, dear?’ inquired Mrs Wither of Madge, glancing tenderly, nervously, at the big, tear-stained face. Madgie was her favourite, and always had been, though it was wrong to have favourites, she knew.

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Tina?’

  A shake of the head.

  Mrs Wither glanced coldly at Viola (really, that noise she had made was too bad, quite uncontrolled, what would Fawcuss think?). ‘Will you have some ground rice pudding, Viola?’

  ‘Please,’ muttered Viola, her eyes suddenly swimming in tears. Oh! supper with Dad at home, after the shop was shut in the evening, frying tomatoes on the gas-stove while he read bits to her out of the paper, and the room was full of golden light, and laughter, and the warmness of love! She stared away, out of the window, at the mean garden where shadows were lengthening.

  Madge gulped.

  ‘Well, Father, will you let me have the dog, please? You might say one way or the other.’

  Her tone was calmer now; the shadow of disappointment at the refusal which she saw shaping itself upon her father’s lips lay over her blubbered face.

  Mr Wither looked up. With a shock of immense surprise, felt through their individual agitations, three of the women realized that he looked both tired and upset. Mrs Wither had observed this from the first, but then (as the reader shall hear) she had been prepared for it.

  ‘We’ve talked all this over before, Madge. No.’

  He pushed away his half-emptied plate, and got up.

  ‘Father! Aren’t you going to finish your pudding?’ breathed his wife, gazing at him anxiously.

  He shook his head, moving towards the door.

  ‘And what about my driving lessons, Father?’ Tina spoke firmly, raising her voice a little. ‘There’s no reason why I shouldn’t have them, is there?’

  ‘Please yourself,’ he said heavily, and shut the door behind him.

  Tina burst out crying.

  ‘Tina! What on earth’s up?’ But Tina shook off her sister-in-law’s protective young arm, and rushed out of the other door, slamming it, and leaving the other three gasping.

  The door of her father’s study was shut. It loomed black and square across the hall, where dusk was beginning to fill the tall well of the staircase. She ran lightly upstairs, crying into her cupped hands, rushed into her bedroom, and collapsed on the bed, shaking in a hysteria which was caused partly by relief, partly by an obscure feeling of shame.

  Doctor Irene Hartmüller told her readers authoritatively that the only way to get mental harmony was to face one’s desires (however degrading they might be) and, when it was possible without doing too much damage to one’s fellow-creatures, have them.

  For weeks Tina had been facing her degrading desire to sit next to Saxon in the car while they drove alone down an endless road lined by the flowering trees of summer. Now that her desire was apparently about to be gratified, without much damage to Mr Wither, she wondered that she had made such a fuss about it to herself. It was a simple enough thing to want … only it was rather an odd one.

  And it had not grown up without encouragement from him. Why had he looked at her once, so fully, with such candid friendly mischief, the chauffeur’s mask completely dropped, as though it were twelve years ago, and she were again the dainty little art student, home from London for the weekend, and he a wild boy in a ragged red jersey?

  If he had not looked at her like that, only once, as she crossed the yard one day on her way back from a walk in the little wood, she would never have let his image grow to such a height in her mind.

  No woman with a proper self-respect (thought Tina bitterly, lying on her bed with wet eyelashes), no woman who’s been decently brought up gets sentimental about her father’s chauffeur without any encouragement … even if she has known him for twelve years.

  It’s not having anyone to love, too.

  Oh, I know quite well what’s the matter with me.

  All the more reason why I should get these lessons over quickly, and as soon as I hear his Essex drawl and see that his finger-nails aren’t quite clean … his hands are beautiful, said a clear little voice in her head, I should like to walk with him hand in hand.

  She sprang up, flushing and terrified, and, walking firmly to the window, leaned out into the evening. What a sudden burst of song down there in the darkening wood! And again! so strong and clear; then silence.

  As soon as Tina had gone, Mrs Wither got up, went over to Madge, and patted her shoulder.

  ‘Mum,’ said Madge miserably, looking, despite her prowess at golf and her twelve stone, about fifteen years old.

  ‘There, there, dear. You mustn’t upset Father, you know.’

  ‘Yes, but, Mum, why won’t he let me have a dog? I promise I’ll keep it out of his way, and I know all about taking care of them, you know; I had that year at Roxbourne. They’re such jolly little beggars; I wish you could see them.’

  Mrs Wither patted her again, sighed, and stood gazing down at the floor.

  Viola, who was rather embarrassed by this family interlude, sat with her arms resting on the table, staring in a vacant and irritating way at her mother- and sister-in-law.

  ‘If you have finished, Viola, please press the bell,’ said Mrs Wither tartly; then she went out as well.

  ‘It’s rotten about your dog, Madge,’ said Viola’s soft, deep voice after a minute.

  ‘Oh, that’s all right. Sorry I made an ass of myself,’ and Madge got up, and shouldered her way out of the room as the parlourmaid came into it.

  Viola still sat over the table. She did not move until Fawcuss came at her with the crumb-brush and tray, then she stood up, yawning and stretching her slender arms. Faint music came in at the window, under the fading sunset. It was a quarter-past eight.

  ‘Is that your wireless, Fawcuss?’

  ‘No, Madam,’ said Fawcuss, after a pause intended to show Mrs Theodore
that maids also have their souls and their privacies, as well as have shopgirls living on their betters’ charity even though they had caught Mr Theodore, not that he was much catch.

  ‘Where is it, then?’

  ‘It’s over at Grassmere, Madam. Mr Spring has a party there tonight, Saxon said.’

  ‘Lovely,’ murmured Viola.

  ‘They’ve got the wireless out on the water, Saxon said,’ volunteered Fawcuss disapprovingly; like most women born in a tidy-sized river town she had only once been on what she called The Water and regarded it as dangerous and rather low to do so.

  ‘Boats, do you mean?’

  ‘Yes, Madam, so Saxon says.’

  That was why the music echoed so over the wide calm river, through the little wood in its valley, wandering about in the tranquil evening air.

  Viola went slowly upstairs.

  Mooning … the soft, long, languishing word exactly describes her state of mind as she gazed across the miniature valley, thinking of Victor Spring.

  She was not so romantic, so lacking in common sense and in experience, that she could imagine herself in love with a man seen once, for five minutes. But he had deeply printed such imagination as she had, already warmed by the legends about him that she had heard since her childhood. His good looks, the solid elegance of his car and clothes, the decisive, impatient quality of his voice, now came to dress the dream of him that she, in common with the other Chesterbourne girls, had had at the back of her mind for years.

  Below in the wood, whose tree-tops were now a warm rosy-green in the afterglow, there came a loud, sweet, strange burst of sound. What bird is that? she wondered, gazing down into the shadowy maze of branches. And again! so clear and strong; then silence.

  Mrs Wither, meanwhile, went across the hall, where the blue tiles were no longer distinguishable from black in the dusk, and tapped upon the door of Mr Wither’s study. There was no reply, so after a pause she tapped again, then firmly opened the door and went in.

  It was nearly dark in the little room; the only light was that of the dying sunset falling through the one very tall window, looped with heavy curtains. Mr Wither was sitting back in his arm-chair, with hands crossed over his stomach, and as she came in he turned his head wearily, saying:

  ‘Is that you, Emmie,’ in such a low, discouraged voice that her alarm deepened.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like the light, dear?’ She stood, hesitating, with the door half-open.

  ‘No, no. Plenty of light,’ he said impatiently. ‘Come in, do, and shut the door.’

  She did so, and sat down upon an uncomfortable little chair opposite his big one. There was silence for a while.

  ‘Don’t you feel well, dear?’

  Mrs Wither guessed what was the matter; her alarm was not because she had never seen him like this before. She had: but she had never before seen him leave his pudding unfinished in front of the girls. He would show his depression by scolding them, or by silence, but he would never break away from his usual behaviour. Pudding must be finished, though stocks fell like ninepins.

  ‘Would you like some bicarbonate, dear?’ suggested Mrs Wither at length, dutifully giving him the chance to say that he was suffering from indigestion, and thus save his pride.

  He shook his head. Mrs Wither sat patiently on, in the deepening dusk. Presently he would begin to talk about what that old Mr Spurrey had been saying.

  He was usually like this after he had been with Mr Spurrey. Mrs Wither had been prepared for the mood, and had planned to deal with it as she usually did, but she had not been prepared for Mr Wither not to finish his pudding.

  He can’t stand shocks, and bad news, and quarrels, like he used to, poor Arthur, thought Mrs Wither, sighing inside herself. It was unlucky that the girls should have chosen this evening to upset him so.

  But it’s all Mr Spurrey’s fault though, really. It’s too bad of him, really it is; too bad.

  It is difficult to decide just what use Mr Spurrey was in this world, but no one had ever asked themselves this question, because in the respectable and wealthy circles in which Mr Spurrey revolved, people do not ask themselves what is the use of a rich bachelor aged seventy-five, of quiet habit, occupying a house in Buckingham Square and waited upon by five servants.

  True, Mr Spurrey’s name appeared upon the prospectus sheets of a number of rich and reputable companies, but for all the work that Mr Spurrey did for those companies, he might as well have been dead. He had no living relatives; he was the only son of an only son, and his more distant connections had gone long ago. He had no active hobbies. He pottered about. People were nice to him. Had he lived in a savage tribe, Mr Spurrey would have been buried up to his neck in earth and left to die. Savages, we are told, are logical creatures except when dealing with their own taboos. But people were nice to Mr Spurrey.

  The world is thronged with such old creatures, without beauty, character, brains, who do not breed, who are not angels nor monsters nor even warmly human. Yet when we hear that one of these old things has a cold, we observe, ‘Poor old chap. It’s this ghastly weather,’ and when we next meet the old body, we ask it how it does, and say that we are sorry to hear it has been ill.

  This is one of the unobtrusive gifts to mankind of civilization, gentlest of the sciences. It seems small: yet if we started to be logical about the uses of the Mr Spurreys, civilization would quietly die.

  And it was not easy to be nice to Mr Spurrey because he had a disturbing habit: what he liked best of all was frightening people, and when he got alone with someone, that was what he always did.

  No sooner had the door closed upon the butler, when the liqueurs glowed upon the board or the muffin oozed upon its dish, when the fat ash tilted from the cigar or the tea was lifted to the eager lip – then did Mr Spurrey, having first seen to it that the fire was drawing nicely and there were no disturbing draughts, lean forward and, fixing upon his victim an eye surprisingly like that of a parrot, lower his chin funereally and intone in a low, hoarse voice:

  ‘Heard a shockin’ thing this morning.’

  ‘Indeed,’ or ‘Is that so?’ would feebly reply the victim, helpless under the eye, probably with their mouth full of muffin.

  ‘Shockin’,’ would repeat Mr Spurrey. ‘When I heard it – well! Give you my word I could hardly believe it, for a minute or two.’

  But he always did believe it; and so, in the end, did the victim. For though people under forty might laugh ringingly at the shocking things heard by Mr Spurrey about Abyssinia and the Means Test, about Hitler and Mussolini, and Armaments and Fascism, about Abdication and Spain, and the Special Areas and Air Defence – in the end, these very scoffers had to recall one morning on seeing the newspaper placards or opening their own journal, that Mr Spurrey had been right. Shocking, so shocking that when first you heard it you could not believe it was true … but it was.

  By George, old Spurrey told me that, weeks ago, and I laughed at him!

  But old Spurrey did not care whether you laughed at him or not; what he liked was frightening people, and by the time the nasty thing had happened and the scoffer was convinced, old Spurrey was busy frightening someone else.

  That is what he had been doing to poor Mr Wither, with the result which the gentle reader hath seen.

  ‘Was it Mr Spurrey, dear?’ at last inquired Mrs Wither, giving up pretence.

  ‘Awful things, he told me,’ said Mr Wither hoarsely. ‘Really appalling. I haven’t been to town for some months, you know, Emmie, and I had no idea …’

  ‘I don’t expect it’s true, dear,’ said Mrs Wither. ‘Shall I draw the curtains?’

  She did not ask what the things were: there was the Infirmary Ball coming off the week after next, and she did not want her anticipatory pleasure spoilt.

  ‘Oh, yes it is,’ said Mr Wither gloomily. ‘What Spurrey says is always true. Uncanny. Quite uncanny, the way he always knows what’s going to happen.’

  ‘Well, I shouldn’t worry about it if I were you,
dear,’ said Mrs Wither, who would have advanced this remedy from sheer habit if someone had just swallowed poison. ‘I don’t want to bother you when you’re so upset and worried, Arthur, but I do wish you could see your way to letting Madgie have a dog, dear. It would give her so much pleasure, and she wouldn’t worry you any more about it if she had one.’

  ‘It would get distemper.’

  ‘They don’t have distemper now, dear, Madge says; they get canine hysteria, I think she called it, instead.’

  ‘Worse,’ muttered Mr Wither. ‘Much worse.’

  ‘Oh no, dear. Not so infectious – and Saxon could nurse it if it did.’

  ‘Spurrey was much impressed with Saxon.’ Mr Wither roused himself, speaking a shade less gloomily. ‘Said what a smart boy he was, and how well he drove. He’s very dissatisfied with his own man. Says he’s getting old.’

  ‘Well, so is Mr Spurrey; I thought he looked very old this afternoon,’ said Mrs Wither spitefully, ‘and I should think his memory’s failing and he imagines things.’

  ‘Nonsense. Sound as I am.’

  ‘Well, dear … about Madgie’s dog. Don’t you think you could let her have it? She’s such a good girl.’

  Silence. Mr Wither gazed gloomily at his feet, which he could not see because the room was in darkness.

  ‘Couldn’t you, Arthur?’

  ‘Madge has everything she wants,’ he said at last. ‘A good home, pocket money, liberty. I never interfere with her playing all those games, though I’m sure they can’t be good for her.’

  Mrs Wither sighed. She knew, as a woman and a mother, that the splendours enumerated by Mr Wither were not enough. What Madge needed was something to love. But it never entered her head to tell her husband so. Not only would he not have understood, but it would have been the kind of thing that one does not say. There were ever so many things like that; most things, in fact.

  There was another long pause. The sound of gay distant music somewhere across the valley floated into the dark room, making Mrs Wither feel depressed. She shivered.