To Hear a Nightingale

by Charlotte Bingham

  Cassie had hated the school from the moment she arrived. It made no difference to her that the rules were more relaxed and the girls were allowed much more time to themselves. It was a well of loneliness and unhappiness for Cassie, full of spoilt girls whose young lives were already dominated by social competitiveness. All they talked about was who they had been to stay with, which parties they had been to, which parties their parents had been to, where they were going on vacation or what new sort of car their fathers had just bought. Cassie had no desire to be in a social register, whatever that may be, and cared even less for the fact that, as Leonora kept telling her, there was little chance of her ever being in one.

  One thing which made life easier for her was that, unlike the convent, she could do what she liked when she liked. So in order to help her endure the silence in which she was forced to live, Cassie started to read voraciously. But the subject matter was always the same: horses. She read and reread her book about breeding until she practically knew it by heart, and then she went systematically through the Academy library finding and reading every book which had anything remotely to do with Equuo Caballus. She learned about the points of the horse and its conformation. While other girls sighed over Harpers and Vogue, Cassie was reading up about stable management and stud care. And while her classmates discussed who and where they were going to get married, Cassie was making imaginary plans for the breeding of her first brood mare.

  Without the loving friendship of her contemporaries at the convent, Cassie had to find an emotional substitute to carry her through these difficult times; and she found this in her growing determination to succeed. Once she set herself things to achieve, her isolation became less unendurable and, with no one speaking to her, she began to live more and more in her head, planning for the future, which had to hold more in store for her than the loneliness and utter misery of the present.

  Cassie also decided that when she was grown up she was going to be rich. Grandmother may have determined to send her to a school which was intended to be a step up the social ladder, but without the enormous allowances the other girls enjoyed there was simply no way Cassie could hope to enter their world, even if and when they finally chose to speak to her. Whenever there was something extra planned at the Academy – an outing to a museum or a visit to the theatre – Cassie, because of her straitened circumstances, was forced to miss out, and so became the butt of a new set of jokes, based this time round on her poverty.

  There was another way she could succeed at the Academy, however, a way which did not require considerable financial backing; she could become good at sport. She had always enjoyed games at the convent particularly tennis. But now she was determined not just to become better, but to become the best. Every morning, whatever the weather, she would get up an hour before anyone else and run two miles round the athletic track. Being small and not naturally athletic, Cassie knew that the only way she could beat the more gifted girls was by being fitter than them. So she worked out a fitness programme from books she read in the library, and from an instructional pamphlet for Air Force pilots which the gym instructor gave her. Her rivals all came from homes that employed private coaches for tennis, swimming and golf, but since these rich children had everything they wanted, none of them had the burning desire Cassie had to succeed. None of them had what the gym instructor used to call ‘the killer streak’.

  Cassie did. She would work with the dumb-bells in the gym until her sweat blinded her and climb the ropes until the insides of her thighs and hands were red raw. After her early morning run, she would swim fifty lengths of the full-size swimming pool, and then do a full half-hour of isometric exercises. Then in the afternoons, when the privately coached girls used to show off their tennis on the plentiful courts, Cassie would to all intents and purposes idly watch them, as if in admiration, but in reality to note the fine detail of every properly coached overhead smash, or spun second service. Then she would go away and practise in private what she learned, working on low backhand volleys or passing shots down the line.

  No one knew what she was up to, of course, since no one, except for the gym instructor, was the slightest bit interested in the silently defiant Cassie, whom Leonora had rechristened Little Orphan Annie. The gym instructor however, a retired marine called Burt Linowitz, understood Cassie’s determination and ambitions without her ever telling him why. He grew both to like and really admire this young girl, for her spirit and her dedication. He saw she was blessed with neither a singular ability nor an outstanding physique, but under his private tutelage, harnessed to Cassie’s fierce determination, she was developing into a highly competent all-round athlete.

  He drove her hard, too – harder than he drove any of the other kids under his care. But this was because Cassie had requested him to do so, and sometimes after a particularly gruelling session on the wall bars, or the rings, Cassie would sit in the locker room, her face streaming with sweat, on the verge of giving up. Then she would catch sight of Leonora’s self-satisfied face at breakfast, as she sat and held court, and every aching muscle and moment of utter exhaustion became one hundred and one per cent worthwhile.

  ‘Oh my God, have you all heard who’s in the basketball team?’ Leonora asked the class one day. ‘Little Orphan Annie McGann! The Academy must be really desperate if they’re taking Irish!’

  Cassie ignored the taunt and turned to a fresh chapter in her book on the thoroughbred.

  ‘That’s what my father always says, anyway,’ Leonora continued. ‘That’s what he says about country clubs. They must be really desperate if they’re taking Irish.’

  It was Friday, the day Leonora always got sent a box of handmade chocolates from her grandfather. She bit into one, looked at what was in the centre, dropped it distastefully into the waste basket, then tried another one. Satisfied, next she handed the box round to the rest of the class, like she always did, until she stopped in front of Cassie, who was seated quietly in the corner, her head over her book. Leonora picked out the very worst chocolate and dropped it on the floor in front of Cassie. This, too, was part of the weekly ritual.

  ‘Come on, Dobbin,’ Leonora said. ‘Eat up your treat.’

  Cassie ignored her, as she did each Friday, and continued to read. The class laughed dutifully at Leonora’s antics, and then again when Leonora whinnied in front of Cassie. But somehow the fun was going out of Leonora’s constant persecution of the silent Cassie; most likely because Cassie refused to rise, always managing instead to maintain a dignified silence.

  The girls all trooped out behind Leonora when she decided it was time to go and listen once again to her latest Frank Sinatra record. Cassie didn’t look up until they had all left the room. Then she stared at the door, long after they had all left. Her moment would come. It was just a question of when.

  By the beginning of her second summer at Miss Truefitt’s Academy, Cassie was in a team for every sport except tennis. Not only that, she was the best athlete in whatever team she was in. Leonora, however, eschewed team games, considering them vulgar. She only bothered with tennis, which was the reason Cassie had never tried her own game in public. Leonora won at tennis whenever she played. She found the game singularly easy, having a natural talent for it. She was so superior to all her contemporaries that even in her competitive matches, she was hardly ever stretched. Her name was already engraved three times on the Academy Challenge cup and she was being talked of as a future American amateur champion.

  In that second summer term, having practised her game constantly in camera, but having played endless tough and no-quarter-asked-or-given games against Mary-Jo’s older brother Frank whenever she had been down to Locksfield to stay, Cassie was ready to throw down the gauntlet. She had to be quite sure in her mind that when she made her move against Leonora not only that there was no chance of Leonora beating her, but also that Cassie would be assured of humiliating her and making Leonora the laughing stock of all her friends. Cassie was not going to play her until she knew
Leonora would not be capable of taking one game, or even a single point off her.

  Leonora smiled when she saw Cassie McGann’s name entered in the competition for the Challenge cup. Cassie was drawn in the first round against Alice Williams, who was capable of beating everyone on a good day, except – naturally – Leonora herself. Leonora didn’t, however, smile the next day when she saw that Alice was out of the competition in the first round, beaten 6–4, 9–7. Leonora tossed her blonde hair back petulantly and went in search of Alice, to find the reason for her shock defeat. But there was none – according to Alice, who was still in a state of shock: Cassie McGann had beaten her fair and square.

  Not according to Cassie, however, who was only coasting. She could have beaten Alice to love, if she’d slipped up a gear. But she wanted Leonora to think it was a fluke, and that Alice Williams must have had an off-day. In the next round she played deliberately clumsily against the tall and powerful Lauren Benchley, apparently just scraping home with a few lucky passing shots 4–6, 8–6, 7–5. And then in the semi-final she sailed almost too close to the wind, having to go to 10–8 against Helena Franklyn in the third and final set, a game which Cassie knew she could have won as she liked in straight sets.

  But it had the required effect. In the final, Leonora was a sure thing to beat Little Orphan Annie, whom everyone, thanks to Leonora’s propaganda, considered to have had the easier passage through the competition. Cassie walked on to the court first, dressed in her old convent shorts and short-sleeved white tennis shirt. Leonora came on as if she was already playing in the final at Forest Hills. She had acquired a brand new tennis skirt, shirt, racquet and eye-shadow for the final, and her mother and other relatives had turned up in force to watch the walk-over. Everyone was there, in fact: the entire Academy and most of the pupils’ parents. Leonora’s sycophants cheered and clapped their heroine as she and Cassie knocked up. From the nervous way Cassie was knocking the ball back, either long, or usually netting it, the result was to all intents and purposes a foregone conclusion.

  Then the umpire called for play, and Cassie made the sign of the cross with her Slazenger tennis racquet, which Burt Linowitz had lent her specially for the competition. The crowd settled in silence, expecting a one-sided contest.

  They were not disappointed. The first ball served was an ace, which kicked up the paint down the centre line. The only difference was that it was Cassie McGann who served it. Leonora stared at her across the net and moved to the left-hand court. The next service kicked the paint up in the corner of the box, sizzling past Leonora’s blonde head and crashing into the back netting. The crowd gasped, and Leonora threw her racquet on the ground and looked up at the umpire.

  ‘That ball was out!’ she announced.

  ‘The ball was in,’ the umpire replied. ‘Thirty love.’

  ‘It was out I tell you!’ Leonora screamed. ‘It was out by miles!’

  ‘Thirty love,’ the umpire insisted and ordered Leonora to take up her new position.

  Cassie faulted her next service and carefully cut her second short of the line. Leonora ran on to it and hit a forehand hard at her opponent’s face. Cassie just got her racket up to it, putting it back up to Leonora’s overhand. Leonora smashed it to Cassie’s left, but Cassie, covering the ground at three times Leonora’s speed, reached it easily and jinked it back high over Leonora’s head. Leonora ran round and only just reached it, putting up a weak return for which Cassie was at the net waiting. Cassie reached up with all the time in the world and smashed it back so hard that the ball bounced high off the grass and out of the court altogether.

  It was the only closely contested point of the whole match. Afterwards, all Cassie could remember was the extraordinary feeling of calm which came over her as the match progressed and as she watched Leonora start to sweat. Cassie gave her no chance. She passed her on both sides, she lobbed her, she aced her. She drew her to the net, then drilled her returns past her down the line. She forced her to the back of the court, then dropped her return shots tantalisingly just over the net. In her desperate attempts to reach most of Cassie’s shots, Leonora fell over constantly. Her brand new tennis outfit quickly became stained with grass and sweat, and her blonde hair fell free of its restraining ribbons, plastering itself to Leonora’s shining red face. Leonora questioned every call, until she realised from the silence of the crowd that she had long since lost any support, and that for the first time in her spoilt life, she was being utterly and completely thrashed. The final game was yet another game to love, and Cassie walked off the court, as composed as she had been when she first walked on to it, the victor at 6–0, 6–0.

  Miss Truefitt managed a polite little smile for Cassie as she awarded her the cup, but Burt Linowitz grabbed her arm and squeezed it tight as Cassie made her way through the crowds.

  ‘Well done, kid,’ he said. ‘Well done. One for the little folk.’

  Cassie grinned and handed him back his racquet.

  ‘You crazy?’ Burt replied. ‘I don’t need that dam’ thing no more! You keep it! You know what it’s for!’

  Cassie twirled the racquet, then put it back in its press. She picked up her bag and made her way back to the locker room. One or two of the girls, members of some of the teams Cassie had played in, came up to her and rather shyly congratulated her, almost as if they were afraid that Cassie wouldn’t speak to them. Cassie thanked them politely, and when the other girls saw that Cassie wasn’t tearing everyone else’s hair out, they all swarmed up to her and mobbed her. Cassie accepted all their changes of heart with the due grace she had been taught by the nuns and was escorted all the way back to the school buildings by her new friends. Cassie didn’t look back in triumph. But in her mind’s eye she could still see Leonora, sitting crying and dishevelled and soaking in sweat, being coldly grilled on her failure by her furious mother.

  Cassie paid off the cab, then got out and looked up at Grandmother’s front door. It had just been repainted, and the nets hanging at the windows were freshly washed and laundered. To any other child, it would look like the ideal home to return to after the long summer term. But to Cassie, who knew it, and hated it, it looked unwelcoming. It also, at this moment in her life, looked smaller, and far less imposing.

  Cassie was growing up fast now. She was no longer the smallest girl in her class and, thanks no doubt to her obsessive period of training, she was very fit and strong. So when her grandmother opened the door, it came as a surprise to Cassie, who had not seen her all term, to see just how little she was. She was, however, just as unwelcoming as ever, and just as singularly uninterested in how Cassie had done at school.

  So Cassie was glad she had chosen to leave the tennis Challenge cup behind in the Academy trophy cupboard. That way it could remain an untarnished triumph. Grandmother would only diminish her victory by some deliberately squashing remark; or would consider that the trophy won by sweat and blood and determination was either a little on the vulgar side, or conversely not extravagant enough. She would also think little of Cassie’s achievement, since to Grandmother, sport was of no consequence.

  But the next morning, when Cassie came down a little late for breakfast having overslept, instead of finding her grandmother cross with her, she found her smiling broadly.

  Cassie sat at table, more than a little apprehensive. When her grandmother smiled, it always heralded bad news. And to Cassie’s mind, that morning’s announcement was no exception.

  ‘A girl called Leonora Von Wagner telephoned you, Cassie,’ Grandmother told her.

  Cassie at once felt uncomfortable, as she always did when on the few occasions her grandmother addressed her by her actual name.

  ‘I said you were sleeping in,’ Grandmother continued, ‘and that you would call her back later.’

  Cassie started to eat her cereal, wondering why on earth Leonora of all people should choose to telephone her.

  ‘You never mentioned that there was a Von Wagner at the Academy,’ her grandmother said, for once
unaccusingly. ‘Particularly one of the Philadelphia Von Wagners. They’re an extremely distinguished family, you know.’

  Cassie said nothing, but just finished her cereal and helped herself to some toast.

  ‘Nor did you say that their daughter was a friend of yours.’

  ‘She isn’t,’ Cassie replied simply.

  Her grandmother ignored Cassie’s contradiction as she shook out her linen napkin.

  ‘Of course I knew the Academy would prove a step up for you,’ she went on, ‘which was why I chose to further your education there and take you away from that backwater of a convent. I knew the Academy would be a step up.’

  Cassie finished the rest of her breakfast in silence, blocking out her grandmother’s litany about how wonderful Leonora’s family was and what a feather it was in Cassie’s social cap for her to be befriended by the daughter of such rich and important people.

  ‘May I get down please, Grandmother?’ she asked.

  ‘Why of course you may, Cassie,’ her grandmother smiled. ‘Off you go and ring your friend Leonora.’

  Cassie left the room, without telling her grandmother that she had absolutely no intention of calling Leonora back. She went up to her room, and sat down instead to write to Mary-Jo.

  ‘And what did your friend Leonora Von Wagner have to say, Cassie?’ Grandmother asked her at teatime, which was the next time they met.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Cassie replied, truthful as ever. ‘Because I didn’t call her back.’

  ‘Why ever not, child?’ queried her grandmother.

  ‘I told you, Grandmother,’ Cassie said. ‘Because I don’t like her.’

  There was a short silence while Grandmother digested this information, but then instead of arguing with Cassie, she got up and left the room. For one brief moment, Cassie hoped that would be an end to the matter. But that hope was soon dashed as she heard her grandmother talking into the telephone in the hall. She was ringing the Von Wagner household personally.