He pulled her out of her chair and kissed her, but as though he were not thinking about her, and she saw that he was still very excited, and, for some reason, angry.
‘It doesn’t feel too good to me, so far. You’re very pleased, aren’t you?’
‘Oh no … I’m broken-hearted.’ He sat down heavily, stretched out his legs, and stared at her.
‘Now just you remember, before you start picking on me for being “pleased”, as you call it (I’m pleased all right … feel as though I’d been drinking for a month), that I’ve wanted this, all my life, more than anything. Ever since I can remember. Got that?’
She nodded, trying not to feel hurt because he had wanted it more than love.
He got up and walked across to the bookcase.
‘I can’t believe it. It’s …’ He sat down again. ‘I can’t. I’ll wake up.’
He took a biscuit off the table and began to nibble it, then put it down.
‘It’s all very well for you,’ he said roughly. ‘You’ve always had enough to eat. You’ve never had to pretend you weren’t hungry, or smash someone’s face for saying your old man boozed.’
‘I know, Saxon.’
‘All right, then.’
She watched him as he walked restlessly about the little room. He looked too big for it. She suddenly thought, calmly, that their marriage was not going to last.
‘And I don’t want anyone to be sorry for me, neither,’ he said, sitting down again. ‘I’m not whining. I’ve made my own way up till now and I’ll go on doing it. I know what you’re afraid of. You think I’ll go high hat.’
‘I do rather, Saxon.’
‘Well, I shan’t. I’ve had quite enough this afternoon to cool me down, thank you. Do you know what everybody thinks down at the solicitors’?’
Tina stared at him.
‘You won’t get it, you mean?’
‘Oh, the Will’s all right. There isn’t a loophole in it. No, they just think I was the old man’s boy friend, that’s all.’
‘Oh, Saxon, they don’t! People aren’t like that … just because you’ve heard a few jokes at the Baumers’ …’
‘They do, I tell you. Those two —— of nurses did, anyway, and so did the clerks down at the office this afternoon.’
‘It’s because you’re so good-looking,’ she said thoughtfully, studying him as he sat slouched in the chair. She was always amazed, every time she looked at him, at the romantic beauty of his body and the practical, even commonplace, way his mind worked. He was the truest realist she had ever known. She was beginning to wonder if, when she was forty-five, she might not feel a little thirsty. But perhaps thirst could be avoided by making her own mind work in the same way. If the well was not deep, at least the water was pure.
‘Oh …’ he made an impatient movement. ‘Well, that’s what they do think, anyway, and that’s what everybody’ll think. That’s enough to keep me from going high-hat. We’ll live on five hundred, and I’ll put the rest into a business.’
‘My dear, I wish you would. There’s nothing I’d like better.’
Yet pictures of herself entertaining the quietest but most intelligent people in London in a perfectly furnished house in Westminster left, as they faded, a faint feeling of disappointment.
She went on:
‘I’m so glad you’re going to be sensible about it. I thought you would, in the long run, only you seemed so excited this afternoon …’
‘Well, my God, who wouldn’t be? It’s something to be excited about. You’re a queer fish, Tina. What your friend Baumer would call ab-normal, I should say. Most women ’ud want to rush out and buy things.’
‘I do,’ announced Tina, suddenly getting up. ‘I want to go out now, before the shops shut, and get a fur coat for your mother.’
He stared.
‘But look here – steady on. I shan’t get anything for months, you know, until the Will’s gone through Probate, and I’ve got no job now, remember. We’ll have to live on your seventy quid. We can’t go—’
‘The solicitors will advance you as much as you want, Saxon. Didn’t they say so?’
‘The old boy did say something, come to think of it, but I was so mad thinking about what he was thinking, I didn’t take it in somehow. I suppose they will. God! doesn’t it seem … here, how much does a fur coat cost?’
‘We can get one that will delight your mother for about twenty pounds. I know she wants one; I saw her looking at mine that night.’
‘We can’t get twenty pounds tonight.’
‘I drew out forty this afternoon while you were out – I thought you might want to celebrate.’
‘We’ll get the coat and then see about that. I do and I don’t. Makes me feel – I don’t know. Come on.’
They were both excited now, as they hurried through the mews and into Oxford Street. Tina’s fears had died down. She allowed herself to imagine a happy future; she even imagined a Child. So far, she had not thought much about a Child, because she and Saxon (she told herself) were enough for one another; also, a Child would cost money and they had had so little. But now she pictured a dark-haired son exactly like Saxon, and the dream was delightful.
Then her thoughts turned naturally to Mr Spurrey, who had been childless.
‘Saxon,’ she said, as they waited at a pedestrian crossing, ‘did you ever think this would happen?’
‘Us be rich, do you mean?’
‘Mr Spurrey leave you anything, I really meant.’
‘Well,’ he said, half-smiling, half-defiant, a little ashamed, looking across at the façade of Bumpus’s, ‘it did just occur to me, you know, after I’d been in to see him that night, that he might. Besides, he said something. I told you. Poor old tw— chap,’ he added dutifully.
‘But you didn’t …’
‘What?’
‘Suck – try to get in with him, Saxon? Hoping he might?’
He was silent for a moment, while the lights changed from amber to green and the pedestrians meekly hurried across the, road. Then he said:
‘Not really. I did just think, once or twice, that something might come of it some day if I kept in with him. But that’s me, you know,’ squeezing her arm and smiling down at her. ‘I was like that with you once, and we’ve turned out all right, haven’t we?’
‘We have so far,’ returned Tina cautiously. She added, ‘You’re a funny mixture.’
‘So’s everybody. Now what about this fur coat?’
They chose a full rich squirrel one with a very large collar of fox. There was a sale at the Jew-shop where they found it, and they were assured that it was reduced from seventy-two guineas to twenty-three. Saxon said doubtfully that it looked kind of flashy to him and hadn’t they better get something a bit quieter that would Last? But Tina was firm. She said that what his mother would like better than anything was just this fragile, gorgeous, film-starrish coat.
‘And grand she’ll look in it,’ added Tina enthusiastically, her warm fancy glorifying the absent Mrs Caker a little.
‘She will if she washes her face first.’
‘Don’t be cruel.’
‘Well, it’s all very well, but she never liked me much and I’m not over-struck on her.’
‘Saxon … we’ve been so lucky, darling. Think.’
‘Oh … anything you like. All right. We’ll have this one,’ to the Jewish salesman, an eloquent, tired-eyed little man who was disguising an intense interest in their conversation under a bored manner.
So the coat set off that night for Essex, wrapped in many sheets of pale-rose tissue paper, and with it went a note from Saxon saying that his employer had just died and left him a bit of money, and this was the first of many good things that his mother might expect.
‘Because she’s had such a rotten time, Saxon,’ his wife informed him, ‘and it takes so little to make people happy.’
Saxon did not agree with this. It was taking twenty-three guineas to make Mrs Caker happy in this case; and he knew
that the Hermit and a bottle of beer could do the job quite as well. However, he said nothing, and after they had eaten the supper waiting at home, they went out and had a modest five shillings’ worth at the Astoria, and that was how Saxon and Tina celebrated coming into a fortune.
The next day after dinner the Hermit and Mrs Caker strolled down to the stream to see how the Hermit’s house had weathered the winter. The Hermit himself had weathered it in the cottage, with Mrs Caker, enjoying all the privileges of the late Mr Caker, but the hut had not done so well; it had fallen in.
‘There,’ observed the Hermit discontentedly, his large broken boots planted among the celandines on the bank. ‘Now what’ll I do? Can’t leave a place five minutes that something don’t ’appen.’
‘Stay wi’ me?’ suggested Mrs Caker, who had grown used to having a man about the place, and hated being alone.
‘Can’t do that.’ The Hermit shook his curls. ‘Never do, that wouldn’t.’
‘What d’ye mean, Dick Falger? Been with maye all winter, haven’t ’ee?’
‘Ah, but t’ain’t winter now. People’ll ’ull be comin’ round now, hikers and that.’
‘What difference ’ll that make?’
‘They might get torkin’.’
‘Let ’em. Gie ’em somethin’ ter do.’
‘Ah, but my old woman might ’ear about it.’
‘What?’ screamed Mrs Caker.
‘Don’t ’oller,’ reproved the Hermit. ‘My old woman, I says. Beatty. Beatty Falger. Lives near Bedford … or did, larst I ’eard of ’er.’
‘You said she was dead,’ shouted Mrs Caker, in tears, hitting him on the arm.
‘Shut up, will yer,’ with a blow on the breast that made her stagger. ‘Only ’cos you kep’ on so, makin’ such a bull-and-cow about it. She ain’t dead. Leastways, I ’ope not. ’Ope not, I’m sure. Very fond o’ Beatty, I used ter be, on’y she fair got on me nerves grizzlin’ because she never ’ad no kids (not my fault, I can tell yer). Aw, shut up, carn’t yer, Nellie? Snivvlin’. Come on ’ome, and we’ll ’ave a cup o’ Rosie.’
After they had gone a little way through the trees, Mrs Caker trailing sullenly behind him, he added thoughtfully,
‘Shouldn’t mind seein’ Beatty again. She’ll be gettin’ on now. Nearin’ seventy, Beatty’d be. I ain’t seen ’er for ’leven years. Nearer twelve.’
Mrs Caker said nothing.
The blow had made her as angry as a good-natured, feckless woman could be. Fool I was, lettin’ that owd toad get on the soft side o’ maye. Men! women can have a sight better time without ’em. He’s been comfortable enough all winter wi’ maye, and now he wants to be off. Feels he’d like a bit of a change. Well, he can go, and dirty water down a bad drain.
It was quite plain that the Hermit did mean to be off.
As soon as they got back to St Edmund’s Villas (which was down on the Vicar’s visiting list for next week, after long talks with the Vicaress and much irritation and well-George-I-do-feel-that-if-youdon’t-no-one-else-willings) the Hermit marched upstairs, and while Mrs Caker was making the tea and feeling more and more angry and unhappy, she heard him clumping about, opening drawers and singing; and presently he came down again, carrying a battered suitcase from Marks and Spencers that looked very small in one leg-o’-mutton hand. His boots were freshly tied up with string and he wore an old coat belonging to Saxon that Mrs Caker had persuaded him to wear instead of the sacking one sewn with newspaper pads, which she had burned.
‘Where be goin’?’ demanded Mrs Caker, clapping down the teapot.
‘I’m off. Been ’ere too lang as it is,’ announced the Hermit, pouring half a bottle of milk into a cup and adding four lumps of sugar. ‘Now don’ take on, Nellie. Me mind’s made up.’
‘I weren’t goin’ to take on,’ said Mrs Caker fiercely. ‘I don’t care what ’ee do, Dick Falger. I wonder I got so low as to hev ’ee here, I do. Pity I didn’t keep on the way I started wi’ ’ee, not lettin’ ’ee in the parlour at all.’
‘Kitchen does as well fer me, missus,’ draining his tea. ‘Tain’t much of a place, anyways. Drink up, Nellie.’
‘It were good enough for ’ee all winter, ungrateful owd toad of a man, an’ I’ll drink up mie tea when I please. You better be off, if you’re goin’. I want to gie the place a bit of a clean up.’
But the Hermit finished his tea without haste, while she sat at the table staring sulkily at her cooling cup. The bruise ached where he had hit her. Outside in the wood, the trees were so bright and the air so clear that they made her feel somehow ashamed of the slumocky place and her dirty dress, and the way that old tramp – he was no more, that he wasn’t – stood there swilling tea as though he were lord and master, and once she used to ride beside her father in his own pony-trap, in a sweet white muslin and a hat with poppies and wheat on it. Well, haven’t I had enough to make me slumocky, she thought, sighing, and gulped her tea.
The Hermit wiped his mouth.
‘Well – so long,’ said the Hermit, and, moved at the last, stooped as though to take a kiss. But Mrs Caker dodged, and gave him a push with all her strength that did not even rock him. The one he gave her sent her sprawling.
It would seem that the warm, dark, blood-pulsing intimacy in which the Hermit and Mrs Caker had lived during the winter had fostered neither friendship nor esteem.
Then the Hermit, bawling, ‘Serve you right, you—’ set out cheerfully for the cross-roads on his way to Beatty. In the suitcase he had his knife for carving, a pair of Saxon’s old trousers, a bundle of blackish-yellow visiting cards, bearing the names of Alma-Tadema, J. McNeill Whistler (the butterfly in one corner almost worn away), Edward L’Estrange, and Holman Hunt; also Bear with Cubs and three shillings and twopence, the property of Mrs Caker.
It was three o’clock. The busy quiet of April lay over the oak wood, filled with the chirruping and sudden flight of nesting birds. Mrs Caker staggered to her feet, crying bitterly, sat down at the table again, and rubbed her bruise. Never in all her happy-go-lucky, live-by-moments life had she felt so miserable. A womanly pride, almost buried beneath her natural generosity towards men and her slovenly habits, had been roused by the Hermit’s blows and casual departure. I’m gettin’ on fer sixty, she thought. Fifty-six, and not a bit o’ comfort nor prosperity nowhere. I’ll end up in the poorhouse, that’s what I’ll do. Oh well … that won’t stop Easter coming.
A noise outside roused her. Someone was coming up the garden path.
She looked up idly. It was Mrs Fisher from the Green Lion, very neat, with her mouth mimmed up. She was carrying, as though it were a snake, a very large cardboard box.
‘Arternoon, Mrs Fisher,’ said Mrs Caker languidly, but managing to get a smile into her drowned blue eyes. ‘Proper loaded up, aren’t ’ee. What is ut, in the name o’ goodness?’
‘It’s fer you, Mrs Caker.’ Mrs Fisher, still with her mouth mimmed, set the box down heavily on the path. ‘Post come up here a while ago, but you was out, so he come down ter us and knocked us up. Said he didn’t like ter leave it, ’case anyone was ter walk in and take it. Tramps, likely, he meant,’ ended Mrs Fisher meaningly.
‘If you mean Dick Falger, he’s gone and he didn’t steal neither,’ cried Mrs Caker, unaware of the three and twopence. ‘Fer maye? That monster?’
Her languor and depression gone, her eyes sparkling, she ran out and lifted the box, wincing as she pressed it against the bruise. ‘ ’Tisn’t very heavy, anyways.’
‘The old man gone?’ cried Mrs Fisher.
‘Aye. Just went off,’ indifferently. ‘Felt like a change, I expect. Here, gie us a hand, Mrs Fisher, ’tis all netted up.’
After they had tried for a little while to undo the string, Mrs Fisher’s curiosity got the better of her, and she cried:
‘Oh, where’s a knife? We’ll never undo these doddy knots.’
‘It’s not Saxon’s writin’,’ muttered Mrs Caker, sawing at the string. Together they lifted off the lid, M
rs Fisher’s contempt for Mrs Caker forgotten in the excitement.
Sheets of pale rose tissue were revealed.
‘Oh, what is ut?’ cried Mrs Fisher, hopping.
‘Maybe ’tis owd cloes from mie daughter-in-law—’ Mrs Caker was beginning, but her voice faded – died into a thunderstruck silence as she slowly, with arms at full length, lifted out a gorgeous dark grey squirrel coat, top-heavy with a collar of smoky fox.
‘Mercy preserve us,’ whispered Mrs Fisher, and her mouth came unmimmed. Slowly she put out a work-worn hand and touched the fur. Then she said confidently:
‘ ’Tis a mistake, Mrs Caker. Must be.’
‘It’s just mie size, Mrs Fisher! Did ’ee ever see – aye, the beauty! I must just try it on.’
‘Better not, Mrs Caker,’ croaked Mrs Fisher, circling about the coat like a warning raven. ‘Ye might soil it.’
But Mrs Caker was slipping her arms, in their dirty torn sleeves, into the silk-lined sleeves of the coat. She drew it round herself, and the soft, electric warmth of fur caressed her neck as she looked delightedly down the coat’s silvery length.
‘Do it suit maye?’
‘Looks kind o’ funny wi’out a hat.’
‘Niver mind; I’ll get one next week.’
‘You’re niver goin’ to keep it, Nellie Caker?’
‘You watch maye, Mrs Fisher!’
‘Wait a bit – here’s a letter.’
Mrs Fisher had been poking in the wrappings, as though hoping to find a hat they had overlooked, and held up an envelope.
‘Gie it ter maye.’ Mrs Caker snatched, and read.
The next instant Mrs Fisher found herself seized by the arm, and running out of the cottage and down the path. Mrs Caker, the other hand clutching the coat round herself, was crying—
‘It’s fer maye, Mrs Fisher, it’s fer maye! Saxon bought it fer maye! He’s come into a bit o’ money, he says, and it’s fer maye! Come on, quick.’
‘Where we goin’?’ panted Mrs Fisher.
‘Down to yours. You got a long glass, haven’t ’ee? Oh, Mrs Fisher, to think o’ maye in a fur coat! Oh, Mrs Fisher, a fur coat! Oh, Mrs Fisher! A fur coat!’
Nightingale Wood Page 35
