Nightingale Wood

by Stella Gibbons

  Though poor Miss Raikes had died of consumption and tight lacing, and everyone was ashamed to show their feet in those days because they had deformed their toes by wearing shoes a size and a half too small, and as for the state their hair was in, Vi, you wouldn’t believe it even if I was to tell you – Miss Cattyman had not a good word to say for the present, and yearned for the past. Weekly shampoos, handfuls of silk and elastic to hold you together, early-closing, Woolworths – Miss Cattyman admitted that all these things were good, but the past was better. She gave no reasons about why it was; it simply was. The past was always better.

  Yet Miss Cattyman enjoyed the present, even when, as just now, it was alarming. Miss Cattyman made a drama out of Burgess and Thompson’s, and had been doing so for fifty years. Instead of love, courtship, marriage, a home, children, literature and the arts, Miss Cattyman had had Burgess and Thompson’s, and had not missed any of the others. Every counter of the shop, every cupboard and box, had some memory for her, sweetened by thoughts of your dear father, Vi, and fifty years of faithful service.

  So when Viola saw Miss Cattyman, who had a strong sense of her own dignity and public position, crying openly in front of a customer and Miss Lint, who had only been there twelve years, Viola knew that the worst had happened.

  She looked up as Viola strolled in, and her face showed pleasure and relief. She began to roll up red, white and blue ribbons more rapidly, and Viola, smiling patronizingly at Miss Lint, who smiled spitefully back, sat down on one of the long-legged chairs and waited for Catty to finish with Mrs Buckle. The other assistants were at lunch. Once they used to have tea and buns in a den at the back of the shop; now they slipped out to the Bunne Shoppe or Lyons or, when they felt reckless, the Miraflor; and instead of buns and tea they had (tinned) prawn mayonnaise and coffee.

  Glancing round the shop, Viola saw many signs of Mr Burgess’s drive towards efficiency. Those paper packets whose string had to be undone every time black woollen stockings or woven combs were wanted, had gone. The combs were displayed in a counter-case (that was new, too) and carelessly scattered over them were posies of primroses from Woolworths. As for the black woollen stockings, no one wore them any more; they had just vanished. The little wooden case on an overhead wire that used to fly along with bills and change had gone, too. Viola was rather sorry about the little overhead railway; it used to fascinate her when she was a child, and she had always longed to send her tiniest dolls for rides in it. But Catty, left in charge with Viola when everyone else was at lunch, would never allow this. There were smart green bags stamped ‘Burgess and Thompson: Everything for Ladies’ and Children’s Wear’ now, instead of the former ordinary brown paper and string that came out of a tin with a hole in the lid; the old worn brown oilcloth had been replaced by a green one and on a far counter (it used to be the Haberdashery, where Viola had cried on the night before her wedding) there was a display of small woollen garments and coloured shoes for the tots and kiddies, and a large Mickey to lull their tremors while being fitted.

  I must say it all looks very nice, thought Viola placidly. There was a lot of old junk that ought to have gone years ago. Only I do hope they haven’t sacked Catty.

  But as the door closed on Mrs Buckle and six yards of red, white and blue ribbons, and Miss Cattyman came over to Viola with her wrinkled face drawn with worry and grief, she knew that they had.

  ‘So glad to see you, Vi, dear,’ reaching up to take the kiss that Viola bent to give. She added with dignity, ‘Miss Lint, please carry on for me, will you. I’m going into the office to talk to Mrs Wither for a minute.’

  Miss Lint nodded. She knew what had happened that very morning to Miss Cattyman, and was sorry. But how that Thompson girl did stick it on; you’d never think she’d been almost born in the shop, and worked there until she’d caught her precious husband.

  Viola and Miss Cattyman went into the little office at the back of the shop, where Mr Burgess did the accounts and the girls took their fifteen minutes for tea of an afternoon, and Catty, sighing deeply, sat down, and looked at Viola.

  ‘Well, dear, it’s come. This morning,’ she said, throwing up her little withered hands and letting them fall (lightly as dead leaves) on her shabby black lap. ‘The sack and the bag to put it in. I’m to go at the end of this month. He’s very sorry, of course, hasn’t got a word to say against my work, thank him very much—’

  ‘Good lord, I should hope not!’ indignantly.

  ‘… but the truth is, Vi, I’m just getting too old for the job. That’s putting it very bluntly, but there you are; it’s the truth, and you can’t get away from that, can you? Oh, he was very nice about it, I will say that for him …’

  Her expression changed, she leant forward, her old bluey-brown eyes glinting with amusement, and said in quite another voice, malicious, rich with relish:

  ‘J’ever see a bar of soap in trousers? Well, that’s just what he looked like when he told me, dear: a great, big, yellow bar of Sunlight Soap. Oh dear,’ wiping her eyes, which suddenly over-flowed, ‘I do feel so bad about it, Vi; of course I’ve always known it would have to come one day, but somehow I’d never really thought about it (you know), I’ve kept me health and me eyesight and always felt so young for me age, and I suppose I didn’t notice I was getting into an old woman, but it tells in the work. Other people notice it, if you don’t. But I do feel so bad about it, Vi; the years I’ve been here, and seen the town grow, and Woolworths come and everything and the time that wolf escaped … and your dear father, Vi,’ wiping again, ‘what he’d say I don’t know. He always promised me I’d die in harness, you know.’

  Viola was silent; and there was a pause while Miss Cattyman sniffled and wiped. Viola was remembering the little laughs she and her father used to have about poor old Catty. Old hen, her father used to call Catty; a born old maid, Viola, and then strike an attitude and sing something about lovely Letty … Viola had forgotten … and the last line was Letty died a maid unloved … oh yes … Her frozen heart her prison proved … what years and years ago that seemed! And now her father was dead; and Catty was the only person who remembered the old life, and she loved Catty because Catty reminded her of her father and how happy they had been together.

  Viola wiped her eyes; and wondered how she should get on to the subject of money. Catty was the purest natural snob; ladies did not work, ladies did not receive salaries, therefore Miss Cattyman’s salary must never be mentioned nor must its amount be known. This had been her attitude in 1887, and it was her attitude now. The world had changed beyond belief in fifty years; but still the amount of Catty’s salary was a secret to her most intimate friends. Viola, of course, knew that it was three pounds a week, because she and her father had discussed the raising of it to this sum (a handsome one for a head saleswoman, in a small draper’s in a small town) and Howard Thompson had had a battle about it with Mr Burgess.

  At last Viola said casually:

  ‘Shall you keep on your room?’

  ‘I shall have to see, dear,’ retorted Miss Cattyman, a shade sharply. ‘Things will be very different, you know. Still,’ blithely, ‘I dare say I shall manage.’

  ‘Look here, Catty,’ blurted Viola, ‘I don’t want to butt in and you mustn’t think it’s cheek, I only want to help you so you mustn’t mind my asking … but … have you got anything saved?’

  Miss Cattyman looked down at her greenish-black lap and was silent for a little while. Then she said quietly, ‘No – no, Vi, not very much, I’m afraid. That is to say, I really have very little. Mother’s illness, you know, and the funeral, that took all my savings at the time, and somehow since then I’ve never managed to get started properly again. And of course,’ perking up and speaking indignantly, ‘I always expected to die in harness. And so I should have, if some people hadn’t got it into their heads to turn everything upside down as though they were the D. of W. himself (though I for one shall always think of him as the P. of W., never could get used to his being called the K.,
he hadn’t the face for it, I always said; ought to have grown a beard at once, and then all this would never have happened) where was I? Oh yes, well, dear, you’re not to worry. I dare say I shall manage.’

  But as she hastily kissed Catty, patted her, and promised to come in again soon, then hurried away because Mr Burgess would be in any minute and he was not so friendly as he used to be to his dead partner’s daughter, Viola was very worried indeed; so worried that for the time her own troubles were driven out of her head.

  They returned for a moment while she was ordering the newspapers that might contain pictures of the Spring – Barlow wedding and telling the newsagent that she would call for them; but on the way home she could think of nothing but Catty, and wonder what was to be done about her.

  She did have a brief vision of herself pouring out the story to Mr Wither, and Mr Wither blowing his nose violently like people did in books, and saying gruffly that he would allow Miss Cattyman a hundred a year, no doubt he was an old fool to do it but there … but somehow when she shut the front door of The Eagles, the vision faded; and suddenly Mrs Wither was hurrying out into the hall, a letter in her hand, mixed indignation and excitement on her face.

  ‘Viola, what do you think?’ began Mrs Wither at once, speaking in a quite normal and family voice, so plainly was she in need of somebody to speak to. ‘That old gentleman, the one Saxon’s working for, you know – it’s Mr Spurrey.’

  ‘What? Old Mr Spurrey? Mr Wither’s friend, that was here in the summer, do you mean?’

  ‘There’s only one Mr Spurrey, dear,’ but she spoke mildly, still staring at the letter. ‘Yes, he’s been there all this time.’

  ‘But why on earth didn’t Tina tell you?’

  ‘That’s just what I cannot make out, Viola, and I can’t understand why Mr Spurrey didn’t mention it, either. It’s all so peculiar,’ said poor Mrs Wither, looking up from the letter with puzzled, faded eyes. ‘Why keep it a secret from us like that? Of course, I can’t really say that I am surprised at anything that Tina does, after everything that has happened; but I do think that Mr Spurrey might have mentioned it. It’s so unfriendly. After all, Mr Wither has known Mr Spurrey for a very long time, they were practically boys together. It’s so strange – to keep on writing about how pleased he is with his new chauffeur and asking how Tina was, and saying how sorry he was to hear that she had gone off like that, and all the time – don’t you think it very peculiar, Viola, very unnatural?’

  ‘I should darned well think so (sorry, it slipped out),’ said her daughter-in law heartily, pleased at being brought into the family circle by this crisis. To Viola, almost any affection was better than none. ‘Does Mr Wither know about it yet?’

  ‘No. Madge has driven him out to Lukesedge this morning, they went off rather early and the post was late. This,’ waving the letter, ‘is from Mr Wither’s cousin, Agnes Grice, Mrs Grice. She knows Mr Spurrey quite well. She went up to Town, it seems, from Peterborough (she lives at Peterborough) for the day to see her dentist (she’s been having trouble with her teeth, poor thing, lately) and she saw Saxon driving Mr Spurrey along Wigmore Street. She waved out of her taxi-window but Mr Spurrey didn’t see her, she says … or pretended he didn’t, more likely. She says he didn’t look at all well and she thought he might have been to see a specialist (all the big doctors are round that part, you know, Harley Street and there). I can’t get over it. Mr Spurrey! I am afraid Mr Wither will be very upset.’

  He was. He came in just as Fawcuss was ponging the gong for lunch, arguing with Madge about the route they had taken. He had wanted to take the usual road home from Lukesedge but Madge had said that another way, known to herself, was quicker. As a result they were almost late for lunch and Mr Wither was already irritable. He had granted Madge’s eager request that she might ‘take over the car’ now that Saxon had gone, partly because he felt that he could never trust a chauffeur again and partly because he found it too much trouble to keep on saying No. Mr Wither was getting old. But drives with Madge were not so soothing as drives with Saxon had been; arguments, innovations, narrow escapes and fluent excuses prevented that.

  But it was the same with everything, thought Mr Wither gloomily, coming into the hall, which echoed with the ponging of Fawcuss; there was no peace and no comfort anywhere. Mr Wither put it all down to the War.

  Then did Mrs Wither, in silence, hand him Cousin Agnes Grice’s letter.

  Cousin Agnes was wrong. Mr Spurrey had not been to see a specialist on that bright April morning, haunted by a piercing little wind. He and Saxon, inwardly excited though outwardly composed, were on their way into Buckinghamshire to try out the new Rolls.

  Mr Spurrey had been trying for years to buy a new Rolls, but Holt had been against it. Whenever Mr Spurrey, who was not a mean man, hinted at buying a new Rolls, Holt, who was another of the Stay Put Brigade, had made a certain kind of face, sucking in his breath and pushing out his lips. He did not say, ‘Shouldn’t do that if I was you, sir,’ but the face said it, and Mr Spurrey, who did not realize how easily he was dashed, said no more until the next time, when the same thing happened again.

  But Saxon’s face had lit up at Mr Spurrey’s first cautious hint about buying a new Rolls; and he had suggested the very next morning that he should drive down and make some inquiries and get some particulars; and Mr Spurrey decided to go with him. Soon ‘a’ new Rolls became ‘the’ new Rolls; then ‘it’; and finally, when Mr Spurrey and Saxon glided out on that bright windy morning, riding inside the mighty black beauty as proudly as the men who steered Cleopatra’s barge – the Rolls had become She.

  This is the life, thought Saxon, at the wheel. Power, bound and obedient and costing a large sum of money, lay under his hands. You sweet, you beauty. Oh, you bird, thought Saxon as they left London and marched rather than ran, so unobtrusive yet splendid was their pace, into the lanes of Buckinghamshire;

  Mr Spurrey, too, was content. The sun was shining (Mr Spurrey liked sunshine), there was blue sky, the Rolls was running well, and at home he had Dorothy Sayers’s latest story waiting unopened. He would read it that evening, over a decanter. In front sat Saxon, that good boy, and there was a little window that could be opened at any minute if Mr Spurrey wanted someone to talk to.

  Presently, while they were honouring Rickmansworth by passing through it, Saxon slid back the little window off his own bat and said cheerfully:

  ‘All right, sir, isn’t she?’

  ‘Very good, very good indeed,’ agreed Mr Spurrey. ‘Splendid, in fact. One can feel the difference, by George, can’t one? not only on the hills, though of course one feels it most there, but all the time, eh? Of course, I was getting thoroughly dissatisfied with the other, thoroughly dissatisfied. I remember …’

  He remembered; while Saxon, his eyes half shut, the empty sunlit lanes steadily advancing, listened, commented and drove.

  Mr Spurrey’s monologue was of so flavourless a brand, so hesitant, slow and repetitive, so full of microscopic triumphs for his own wit, courage and cunning at the expense of nameless inferior fleas usually described as The Chap or The Feller, so lacking in colour, point and distinction, that no attempt shall be made to report it.

  But Saxon was used to the old man’s jaw, and it did not get on his nerves now as it used to at first. He could not help feeling a satirical pity for Mr Spurrey, either; all that money (and not a tightwad, either) and no idea how to spend it. Mr Spurrey had always been suspicious of women and rather afraid of them, so he had not had any fun there; and men only tolerated him. Fun and jollity had a way of quietly going off the boil when he came up, even if he did not say a word. He was too sharp to tolerate toadies yet too stupid to please even ordinary kind people, and his habit of trying to frighten his hearers, when he was not excruciatingly boring them, had put the lid on; no one, all his long life, had really wanted to be with Mr Spurrey.

  But Saxon, now that he knew him, did not dislike him. For instance, he was generous; nothing of old Wither’
s save-fivepenceon-the-return-journey about Mr Spurrey. When they stopped the Rolls at last, on a hill looking over the exquisite valley of the Chess, and Mr Spurrey climbed out to stretch his legs, Saxon unpacked a luncheon basket for two that included foie gras sandwiches and a good brand of champagne. Whee! thought Saxon. Last time it was only sparkling muscatel. We’re getting on.

  ‘What’ve they given us, eh?’ inquired Mr Spurrey, coming round the majestic black shoulder of the Rolls (one of the minor joys of the rich is that they never know what is in the sandwiches), wrapped in his new spring overcoat against the bitter little wind, and peering into the basket.

  Saxon, smiling, held up the bottle.

  ‘Ha! hey! excellent! Ah yes, that was my idea. Thought we’d drink to the new Rolls, eh? Just a little surprise, eh?’

  ‘Very good idea, sir,’ said Saxon, and meant it. And he added, guessing that Mr Spurrey would recognize a slang phrase of some years ago, ‘And very nice too, as they say.’

  ‘Ha, ha! Very good!’ cried Mr Spurrey. ‘And very nice too! Yes, exactly. And very nice too!’

  Saxon spread a tweed rug on the grass and put Mr Spurrey’s waterproofed cushion on it; the rheumatism must always be remembered.

  ‘Comfortable?’ he asked, easily.

  As he settled another cushion at the old man’s back he forgot to ‘sir’ him, and Mr Spurrey did not notice it. He was only a lonely boring old man to Saxon, at that moment, enjoying the sunshine and chill spring air, looking forward to his first sip of champagne. He was not Saxon’s employer any more; he might have been one of the old boys down home who kept the darts parlour warm at the Green Lion; you always asked them how they were keeping … for some reason … not that you cared a damn. It pleased them and did you no harm.