It Was the Nightingale

by Henry Williamson

  “Won’t an underground cable cost a lot?”

  “I haven’t yet gone into the matter deeply, but to be on the safe side we think we ought to get an inch and a quarter submarine cable, which will come to close on a hundred pounds. I hope they won’t find that prohibitive, for the two sisters weren’t left too much money when Colonel Jardine died, so I understand.” Tim was almost inaudible with sympathy for the two elderly spinsters, daughters of the late Colonel.

  “Why not two overhead wires, on posts? After all, it won’t be much of a voltage from your batteries.”

  “We did suggest that,” said Tim, “But they are dead against it, for their father’s sake. He loathed everything modern, I understand. In India they used to have a great many native servants, and nothing mechanical. Even two natives to work one spade, they said, one to push it into the ground, the other to pull the handle down by a string. It was a question of the caste system, I think.”

  “To share out the food, I suppose, in a land of semi-starvation and over-population. I never thought of it that way before, Tim.”

  “Nor did I, now I come to think of it.”

  “Then we’ll be seeing the two girls tomorrow night?”

  “Yes, I’ll go down first thing in the morning and tell them the good news. I am awfully grateful to you for your advice, most truly I am. Are you quite comfortable in that bed? I meant to rewire the mattress, I hope it’s all right?”

  “Oh yes, I’ve got a coal-scuttle under the middle, which supports the sagging bit. I know now how a cuckoo feels in a wren’s nest.”

  The two girls arrived before supper. Pansy was small and shy, her sister taller and apparently confident. The sister perched herself upon the edge of the table, while they were waiting for Pa to come down, swinging one long leg under a skirt which barely covered the other knee, and remained thus when Pa came in, holding out a hand to him when Tim introduced his father.

  They sat at table. Pa held up carving knife and fork, and with a genial expression said, “Pansy, there’s rabbit pie, or brawn. Which do you prefer?”

  Pansy, who had scarcely spoke so far, replied almost inaudibly, “I don’t mind what I have.”

  Knife and fork still poised, Pa said, “Well, I don’t mind either! It’s for you to say.”

  Perceiving her nervousness Phillip said, “Plump for rabbit pie, Rusty wants the bones afterwards!”

  “Rabbit pie it is,” said Pa, after which he turned to the other guest. The name of Marigold seemed to be too much for him, so he said, “And you?” disguising his fear with a quizzical glance.

  “I’ll try the brawn, if it’s all the same to you,” she replied, with a wink at Phillip, which he amiably ignored.

  Three slices were meticulously detached from the mould, and handed on a cracked Wedgwood plate of terracotta and gold with the Copleston crest on the rim.

  Phillip had bought a bottle of claret. “Ha! I’m in luck! Pansy, you must come to supper every night!” declared Pa.

  Ernest and Fiennes ate without a word. Afterwards Lucy and the girls washed up. Tim looked happy, and the five of them went for a walk by the river. The next day, as Tim was scraping the dining-room wall—the temporary office—Phillip sitting in the next room heard Pa go to him and say, “Tim, I shall have no objection to your engagement to Pansy.”

  “Oo-aa,” Phillip heard Tim reply from the top of the ladder.

  Pa went away into the garden; Tim got down from the ladder and looking round the doorway said, “Am I disturbing you, Phil!” When Phillip said not at all, Tim went on, “If you can spare a moment to come with me to The Point, I have something to impart.”

  They went together past the workshop to a small triangular parcel of semi-waste land which once had been a garden.

  Tim, expressing himself joyfully, then continued in a style and manner acquired from reading nondescript humorous fiction.

  “You see, lying before you, my dear Phil, The Point. I ask you to regard it as it is now. I think you will agree that it is a mass of weeds, and, as you will perceive if you look closely, cankered apple trees, standing among what can only be described as entirely useless blackcurrant bushes. On one side of The Point lies this lane, on the other, that deep railway cutting. From my early years this has been known as The Point; but the point about The Point is this, my dear Phil: there is every likelihood of The Point in the near future being cleared, and a new building of fabulous dimensions and floor-space arising on it!”

  “I see. But—won’t it require a certain amount of capital, Tim?”

  “Ah, that, my dear sir, is precisely to the point! Or should I say, The Scheme! It’s all rather wonderful, in a way, Phil. You see, one day we shall have a certain amount of money; and bearing this in mind, and moreover the pressing fact that treadle-lathe work at any time is dashed tiring, and most particularly so at night, as I know to my cost—do I not!—well, to cut a long story short, we have long considered that the sum of two hundred pounds, advanced against our future inheritance, would buy sundry long-felt wants, to wit, an oil engine and an extra lathe capable of taking much bigger work than the much-esteemed treadle lathe, of somewhat ancient pattern, let me add!”

  “Very good idea, Tim, but what’s this leading up to?”

  “Ah, but that is the point, my dear Phil! You see, we originally argued this way. Two hundred pounds would allow us to take more contract work for sac-machines for little men to make batteries. So we hied us to the town and went to see a certain legal luminary who has recently arrived in Shakesbury from, I am told, South Devon. The said legal luminary at once said he would make enquiries on our behalf. And lo and behold, likewise hey-presto! we learned that we could obtain much more than the sum we originally contemplated asking for! So you see, my dear future brother-in-law, Ernest, Fiennes and I have been scheming schemes, and one of them is now about to materialise, to wit, the erection of a Works at The Point, where the wheels of industry will turn upon several thousand square feet floor-space, both up and down! There is no end to the possibilities of such a scheme, my dear Phil! Such as, in addition to the aforesaid oil engine and power lathe, the very latest pattern of milling machine, an extra three-inch lathe for garage work, besides other machines absolutely necessary for the firm of Copleston Brothers. A first-floor storey will of course have benches, where later on girls can make batteries. Why indeed should we not make batteries, as well as the sac-machines for the manufacture thereof? The whole, of course, to be lit by our own electric light, which will be extended to the house!”

  “But will you have enough work, out here in the country?”

  “We have considered that deeply, I do assure you! We propose no less than a monthly standing advertisement in The Model Engineer, in lieu of merely one casual insertion, to attract budding genii and others of that ilk to send their models to be made by the Copleston Brothers. Ernest, I do assure you, is a man of remarkable skill and ingenuity; he can make absolutely anything from any blueprint ever drawn! Then we are considering the idea of a forge to be attached to the Works, and a smithy, for there is absolutely no one near to shoe horses, both farm and hunting, and of course a forge is absolutely indispensable to any engineering shop!”

  “It seems pretty good to me, Tim. Whose idea is it?”

  “Chiefly Ernest’s, with a few suggestions from me. We both have long wanted such a lay-out, Phil, but until now the wherewithal has been most conspicuously absent. But hear me to the end. I’m not boring you, am I?”

  “No, of course not! I think it’s a very fine scheme. But it will cost a good bit, won’t it? What else do you propose to have here?”

  “We think one of the new petrol pumps, also a proper well, which will of course supply the house, and so dispense with that truly beastly and horrible rain-water tank which collects soot from the railway engines, and also a great many leaves, not to mention an occasional sparrow. There is one small snag, however, which I must mention. We propose to have windows facing both east and west, and having
gone deeply into the matter with Mr. Thistlethwaite, the aforesaid legal luminary, we find that we will have to pay a rent to the railway company, for use of their light over the cutting. The railway, you see, claims what are called Ancient Lights.”

  “Thistlethwaite? I knew a solicitor at Queensbridge named Thistlethwaite!”

  “Yes, he mentioned that he knew you, and had indeed acted for you. So we considered that we could safely place our affairs in his hands.”

  “Well, I don’t know very much about him, you know. By the way, reverting to Ancient Lights, must you pay for the engine smoke which drifts over your garden and into the rooms of your house? Why put up with the railway’s rights to provide ancient darkness?”

  “Well, you see, the railway was here before the house was built! But to continue. We plan nothing less than the complete redecoration of our abode! We shall wire it ourselves for both light and power-points. We shall provide irons for ironing, kettles for tea and coffee—to be drunk, let it be understood, in rooms with walls freshly distempered and painted! And last, but by no means least, my very dear Phil, Pa can now have the latest edition of The Encyclopaedia Britannica, to help him in some of the particularly thorny problems in the crossword puzzles of The Morning Post.”

  *

  So far Phillip had been asked no questions about his family; nor had he spoken about his parents, even to Lucy. He had told only his mother about her during his visit to London before Christmas, dreading possible criticism, particularly from his sister Elizabeth, that he had forgotten Barley so soon after her death. Now he thought to break the ice by taking Lucy to meet his Uncle John at Rookhurst; he was easily the nicest of his relations. So he wrote to Fawley House, and had a reply inviting him to go over at any time, with two days’ notice.

  It was a happy occasion. Phillip felt free with Uncle John, who repeated, while Lucy was upstairs with the housekeeper-cook, that he had left everything to him in his will.

  “Not very much, I am afraid, old chap, as I am living on a purchased annuity.’

  He went on to ask Phillip what he thought of Uncle Hilary’s proposal that he should come to Rookhurst and learn to farm.

  “I think I would like to very much, Uncle John, thank you.”

  “That is splendid news, my dear boy! I shall write and tell Hilary, with your permission, at once! I expect you know that he has recently bought Skirr Farm, which I think you once visited with Willie, a year or so before the war? Oh yes, Frank Temperley gave up—he had a pretty hard time in the war to keep going, what with most of his young labourers joining the Forces. How fortunate that you have come just now, Phillip! Hilary, I understand, is going to have the farmhouse made more comfortable inside, and was proposing to let it off.”

  “Do you think he would let it to Lucy and me, Uncle John?”

  “I am certain he would! It was his idea that you should go there in the first place, but he wasn’t sure what you wanted to do with your life.”

  Phillip wrote that evening to tell his father that he was going to be married to Lucy Copleston, ‘who knows Uncle John’, but gave no particulars. He felt shaky and disturbed that his life had changed so suddenly. Had he been rash in agreeing to the farming idea? What about his writing? Would Hilary expect him to give it up? He couldn’t give it up—it was his only purpose in living.

  *

  In the period that followed, as Phillip went to and from his cottage, a three-hour journey, the Boys’ plans seemed to be materialising. Tim had already spoken enthusiastically of what he called ‘a little man who calls himself a builder’; and one afternoon, arriving from North Devon, Phillip saw him talking with Tim; literally a little man, short and thick, with round head, broad Dorset accent and a face partly hidden by long drooping moustaches under a bowler hat. Mr. Pidler had been recommended by someone Tim had met in the cooked-ham-and-beef-shop in Castle Street, Shakesbury.

  Soon single walls of red-brick were arising among the weeds. A week later these walls were twelve feet high. There was a south-west gale one night, and lying in the chalet, Phillip heard a crash. Exploring with a torch, he saw that the walls had collapsed. By noon of the next day they were going up again. Another gale blew them down once more. Up they went, Mr. Pidler having explained to Tim that when the roof frame was on, it would hold the walls up proper.

  Tim and Phillip surveyed the resurrection under a calm sky. Rusty, sniffing about, cocked his leg at the base.

  “Stop!” cried Phillip. “One Pidler is enough. And the roof isn’t on yet.”

  Tim explained that it was to be a corrugated iron roof, with steel girders. The central H-section would be strong enough to support, on an endless chain with wheels and rachet, the heaviest type of motor-car.

  “But do you think you will ever want to hoist up a motor-car, Tim?”

  “The alternative was a pit, and Fiennes objected to a pit. He once fell down an open hatch, you see, on board ship.”

  “Now about these walls. I did, as a matter of fact, wonder about their strength when I saw they were of a single-brick thickness for so high a building, but I suppose the builder knows what he is doing, Tim?”

  “Pidler assured me that it would be quite all right, as matter of fact.”

  “Didn’t you get an architect?”

  “Pidler said it wasn’t necessary, and would save us expense.”

  At that moment ‘Mister’ arrived on The Onion. He wore a crinkled oversize flying-helmet on his head, several mufflers round his neck, two overcoats, woollen gloves under leather gauntlets, trousers concealed under water-proof leggings. He had his asthma back, he explained, and couldn’t afford to take risks with the beastly complaint. He beckoned Tim aside, and the two moved away into the house; and passing through, Phillip saw ‘Mister’ putting a cheque into his pocket-book.

  ‘Mister’ then asked for a word with Phillip, and taking his arm led him away.

  “I say, old chap, have you any idea of what the Boys are spending on this building?”

  “I haven’t, ‘Mister’.”

  “They’ve no experience of money, you know. Between you and me, I don’t like the look of that builder feller. My gardener has heard things in Shakesbury, you know. Also they say that that new lawyer, Thistlethwaite, is a pretty sharp customer. Oh yes, people in a district like this soon get to know about everyone’s business, you can be sure of that. I haven’t interfered of course—it’s none of my business—but you seem to have your head screwed on the right way, so couldn’t you find out what they’ve done about their reversions of the Marriage Settlement? Only keep me out of it—you understand—I’ll rely on your discretion entirely, I know I can do that.”

  “I’ll be as discreet as you, ‘Mister’, count upon it!”

  “Thanks, old chap. Well, how is life going with you? I’m under the weather most of the time, you know.” He sighed. “The Onion needs new piston rings as well as a new piston, new bearings, and probably a new cylinder into the bargain, confound it. I hope Ernest will be able to put it right for me. I’ve got to go to Salisbury next week to see Ness. Surely I told you about her? Keep it dark, old chap, but Ness is what I suppose nowadays would be called my belle amie. I’ve known her over thirty years, so it’s no flash in the pan, I do assure you.”

  The broken sofa and Pa’s armchair went away to be re-upholstered. Half-hundredweight tins of distemper stood about, open to the March rains. Paint-brushes lay in pots and by window sills. New carpets arrived. Puddings of pink plaster lay about the rooms, solidified. Wires trailed in passages. A corrugated-iron roof hid externally the girders, spans, and principals of the Works. New woodwork staircases and panelling of tongued-and-grooved planks lined the interior upper brickwork. Two lavatories and a couple of washing basins were connected to the old septic tank, which was found to be choked. Phillip set to work to clear it out, distributing pails of black compost upon that area of the garden he had cleared of docks, thistles, nettles, and rusty tins.

  Commercial travellers began to arrive.
Following their visits, packets, cartons, and wooden crates were delivered by the Railway horse-drawn dray. The packets, cartons, and crates lay about, opened, their contents half-removed. Heavy machinery arrived by lorries. They were driven through tall double doors upon the new floor of the works, and unloaded by means of the endless chain with a breaking strain of twenty tons. Every new arrival was greeted by Tim with immense enthusiasm. Discussions followed with Ernest about where exactly the three-inch lathe, the milling machine, the power hacksaw, power drill and power grindstone and buffer should stand.

  “Confound it,” muttered Ernest. “We forgot to leave holes.”

  Tim set to work cheerfully to chip holes in the new concrete floor. It was a great moment when the oil engine arrived; followed by carboys of acid and crates containing batteries. Then the anvils and smiths’ tools for the forge, with boxes of horse-shoes and nails, packages of screws, nuts, bolts; a gross of assorted pincers, ditto of spanners; dozens of cartons containing electric-light bulbs; a gross of sparking plugs of various makes, all of them surplus Disposal Board war-time aero-engine plugs which fitted no known lorry, car, or motorbike engine; a gross of tins of anti-grease paste for cleaning hands. A till was set up in the new office to be managed by Fiennes, who locked the door when he went out and hid the key. Tim got through one of the Ancient Light windows to fill the till with petty cash, ready for the change of Sales.

  Nobody came to buy anything, so in the days that followed the ready cash was convenient for small purchases in the town such as cigarettes and cooked ham or beef—beef browner than mahogany, over-cooked and tasteless in the usual country manner—when sudden hunger told the Boys, in Tim’s words, “that the inner man must not be neglected.”