To Hear a Nightingale

by Charlotte Bingham

  Once again Cassie felt trapped by her childhood. The terrible thing about being a child, she had discovered, was that you were so dependent on other people. On grown ups; particularly in Cassie’s case on Grandmother. She couldn’t go anywhere or do anything without adult permission. And now Grandmother was out there in the hall making arrangements for Cassie to go and stay with Leonora Von Wagner, without even consulting her. And she, Cassie, was quite powerless to prevent it.

  Grandmother came back into the room, a smile on her face, and sat down to pour herself some more tea.

  ‘I explained that you had a slight sore throat,’ she said, ‘which was why you hadn’t called back.’

  ‘But that’s a lie, Grandmother,’ Cassie protested. ‘I didn’t call back—’

  ‘That’s quite enough, child!’ her grandmother interrupted. ‘You’re not at an age when you know what’s good for you.’

  Her tone of voice changed, into something more silky, as she went on to explain the nature of Leonora’s request.

  ‘They want you to go and stay with them,’ Grandmother told the silent Cassie. ‘At least your friend Leonora does. I spoke to her. Such a nice girl. So refined.’

  She hadn’t been so refined when she was pouring ink over Cassie’s classwork, Cassie thought. Or helping to hold Cassie’s head down a lavatory pan while the rest of her court flushed it.

  ‘They have a summer residence on Long Island,’ Grandmother continued, ‘and you’re to go stay there next week.’

  ‘I’m going to Mary-Jo’s next week!’ Cassie replied, rising to her feet.

  ‘Don’t you use that tone of voice with me, child!’ Grandmother warned her. ‘Or you won’t be going anywhere! You can go to Mary-Jo’s any time. But it’s not every day you get asked somewhere like the Von Wagners’.

  ‘I don’t like Leonora Von Wagner, Grandmother!’ Cassie pleaded. ‘She’s the most horrible bully! And she’s stuck-up!’

  Grandmother sighed and smoothed down her skirt.

  ‘You really have to get rid of this quite dreadful social inferiority of yours, child. You only feel like that because you’re not secure among people like the Von Wagners. That is why I insist that you go and stay with them.’

  Cassie stood behind her chair and eyed her grandmother venomously. She was being sent to stay with Leonora as a step up a ladder, a ladder up which she had absolutely no desire to climb.

  ‘I won’t go,’ she said, as bravely as she could muster.

  ‘I think you will, child,’ her grandmother replied. ‘Because if you cause me any further displeasure, I shall simply never let you go and stay with Mary-Jo Christiansen ever again.’

  Cassie lay in bed that night, clasping the ten-dollar bill Mary-Jo’s mother had given her. Perhaps this was one of the times Mrs Christiansen had meant when she said Cassie never knew when she might need it. She could run away the next day, and catch the train to Locksfield with the ten dollars. But as she tossed and turned in her bed, wondering what to do, she knew in her heart that it would be but a short reprieve, because sooner or later she would be sent back to Grandmother, whether or not she had temporarily escaped from staying with the dreadful Leonora.

  And so she duly capitulated, as she knew all children must do, when the adult world insists that they do something against their will. What was even worse and more despicable was that her grandmother took her on a shopping spree in Manchester, where she bought her six brand-new outfits for her forthcoming visit to the Von Wagners. Cassie found she wasn’t in the least bit grateful for the expensive new clothes, paid for out of her grandmother’s ‘savings’, since whenever she had asked her in the past for a pair of second-hand jeans or a cheap check shirt of her own to wear at Mary-Jo’s, her appeals had always fallen on deaf ears. Yet because she was to stay with the Von Wagners, everything now had to be perfect.

  Even worse, Leonora kept telephoning Cassie and gushing down the phone with excitement about her forthcoming visit. Her grandmother would stand by Cassie during their conversations, listening on the other earpiece. Leonora would explain all about the house, with its twelve-automobile garage, its two swimming pools, its housekeeper’s and chauffeur’s cottages, and even its own ballroom with a marble staircase. If this was their summer house, Cassie wondered privately, what then was their normal residence like?

  But Grandmother was visibly impressed and her smile would widen the more Leonora boasted of the Long Island house. And whenever she wasn’t on the telephone to Leonora, her grandmother would rehearse Cassie through the required social niceties. But while Cassie complied, and learned what was expected of her, her heart was rebellious when she thought of the weeks she would be missing with Mary-Jo and her family in Pennsylvania.

  Grandmother took the cab with her to the station to see her off to Leonora’s. She had overdressed Cassie as usual, and even before the train drew out of the station, Cassie felt hot and stuffy. But her grandmother insisted she kept both her gloves and her coat on, because that was how people like the Von Wagners expected their guests to dress. As the train sped through Massachusetts, Cassie wondered, as she had so often wondered since that first fateful telephone call, why Leonora was so insistent that Cassie should come to stay with her. After all she now had as much reason to hate Cassie the way Cassie had so deeply hated her. She thought of every reason she could, but it never for one moment occurred to her young and open mind that the reason Leonora wanted Cassie to come and stay with her was because she was bored.

  She changed trains at Grand Central with the help of a family who got talking to Cassie on the way through Connecticut, and who were also travelling on to Long Island. They were people very like the Christiansens, who lived on a large farm outside Hartford. There were three sisters, all with braces on their teeth, and one brother, who was bespectacled and very earnest. The father and mother spent the whole time laughing and joking both with their own children and with Cassie. When she had to bid them farewell at the end of their journey, Cassie stood for a moment on the station platform and longed even more for the chance to be a member of such a family.

  A quite different child was waiting for her outside the station in the languid shape of Leonora Von Wagner. The first sight Cassie had of her was two long blonde legs draped out of the back window of a Rolls Royce, as Leonora lay on the back seat trying to catch the sun. The chauffeur put Cassie’s bags in the trunk as Leonora waggled a foot at her.

  ‘Hi!’ she called from inside the car. ‘Get in the front, will you? I’m trying to get my legs brown!’

  Cassie did as she was told and got in beside the chauffeur, who started the car and drove them away from the station. The engine was so quiet at first that Cassie thought they must be coasting, until the chauffeur explained that the only sound you could hear in a Rolls Royce, besides Miss Von Wagner chewing gum, was the sound of the clock.

  ‘Come on!’ Leonora ordered Cassie. ‘You can climb in the back now! I’m bored sunning my legs!’

  Cassie asked the chauffeur if it was all right to climb over the seats, at which Leonora roared loudly with laughter. The chauffeur just smiled and glanced at Leonora in his mirror, but even so Cassie undid her shoes and removed them before climbing in the back.

  Leonora also made her remove her coat and jacket and roll up the sleeves of her blouse.

  ‘Christ – you must be boiled in all that!’ she exclaimed, undoing another piece of gum. ‘Jesus.’

  Cassie bit her lip at Leonora’s swearing, but even so did as she was told, because she was far, far too hot, even though all the windows of the car were down.

  ‘Our other Rolls has air-conditioning,’ Leonora explained. ‘But it’s in the garage at the moment, being overhauled.’

  Leonora sighed and pulled the pair of sunglasses she was wearing on top of her head down over her eyes. Then she stuck her legs out of the window again and blew bubbles with her gum.

  Cassie watched the unfamiliar landscape of New York city flash by, before the Rolls joined the othe
r traffic headed east on the turnpike. Leonora said nothing at all to Cassie for fully half an hour, until she suddenly turned and grinned at her.

  ‘Did you bring me any chocolates?’ she asked.

  ‘I thought we’d share a room,’ Leonora announced casually as they climbed up one side of the double staircase which swept up from the marble hall below. Behind them, two maids carried Cassie’s luggage, one bag each.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ Leonora continued. ‘But it being a strange house and rather large, I thought you might be lonely.’

  She turned to Cassie for a moment, and popped another bubble with her gum. Then she shrugged and ran ahead of Cassie up the last of the stairs. But Cassie had seen in that one moment as Leonora had turned to her who the lonely person was, and why there was a need for Cassie to share her room. In fact she was beginning to see a similarity between Leonora and herself. For although the house was even more impressive than the way Leonora had casually described it on the telephone, it was as soulless a place as Grandmother’s modest house was back in Westboro Falls; and both of them lived with grandparents. Leonora not all the time, because at least her mother was alive, but she was rarely home, because since her divorce, Leonora explained as she lay on her satin-quilted bed, she spent most of her time in Europe. In fact her visit to see the tennis competition had been the first time Leonora had seen her mother since Christmas.

  Cassie listened as she started to unpack her case.

  ‘Christ – what are you doing?’ Leonora shrieked. ‘Don’t do that for Christ’s sake! What do you think we have maids for?’

  Cassie stopped her unpacking and looked over her suitcase.

  ‘Do you have to say Christ all the time?’ she asked. ‘I’m sure you think it’s awful grown up. But it isn’t.’

  And with that she continued to unpack. Leonora stared at her. No one had ever told her what not to do before. She blew the largest bubble she could with her gum, then got up and tipped the contents of Cassie’s case on the floor.

  ‘I said the maids will do that,’ she announced. ‘Come on, let’s go have a swim.’

  She got hold of Cassie’s arm and started to drag her to the door. Cassie wrenched her arm free with ease.

  ‘When I’ve finished my unpacking,’ Cassie replied, and returned to where Leonora had spilt all her clothes on the floor.

  Leonora watched her and sighed, loudly.

  ‘It’ll be quicker if you help me,’ Cassie said.

  Leonora stood leaning against the door and blew another gum bubble. Cassie looked up at her.

  ‘I said we’ll swim quicker if you come and help me.’

  Leonora looked back at her, but Cassie could not only beat her hands down at tennis: she could also outstare her. Leonora clicked her tongue, and then went over to help clear up the mess she’d created.

  ‘Let’s annoy the maids,’ Leonora suddenly announced, breaking off from the slow foxtrot she and Cassie were dancing to the latest Pat Boone record. ‘Come on.’

  She started to go out of the play-room, but Cassie held back, ostensibly to turn off the radiogram, but in reality to try and deter Leonora from making mischief. Cassie knew from the expression on her face that Leonora was up to no good. She’d seen that expression so many countless times before at the Academy.

  ‘You still haven’t shown me the horses,’ she said hopefully.

  ‘You can see the damn old horses any time,’ Leonora retorted. ‘I want to go and annoy the maids.’

  She ran out of the room and Cassie heard her running and sliding across the hall. Reluctantly she followed, with little hope of diverting the headstrong Leonora. By the time Cassie reached Leonora and her shared bedroom, Leonora was sitting at her dressing table, smearing on a huge lipsticked mouth. She handed Cassie another lipstick and ordered her to follow suit, but Cassie just ignored the instruction and asked Leonora what she was intending to do.

  ‘Annoy the maids, dummy!’ she replied. ‘I told you!’

  With one last gleeful look at her huge red mouth, Leonora jumped up from the dressing table, and with the lipstick still in her hand, went into the adjoining bathroom. After a moment, Cassie followed her in, more from morbid curiosity at what was amusing Leonora so than from any desire to join in the sport.

  Leonora was already busy, defacing the thick white fluffy towels with red lipsticked kisses. Whenever the paint ran thin on her mouth, she would at once repair the damage in a mirror, then start up once more, planting huge kisses all over the virgin towelling.

  ‘Come on!’ she screamed at Cassie through her convulsions of laughter. ‘Don’t be such a goddam wet blanket!’

  She threw Cassie her lipstick, then continued with her vandalisation. Cassie watched appalled, then walked out of the bathroom and, picking up her book, lay on her bed reading, trying to block out the sound of Leonora’s screams of laughter.

  After a while, Leonora came back out, wiping off the final remnants of lipstick from her mouth which was now a blur of cosmetic. Then she picked up the house telephone and rang through to the housekeeper.

  ‘Mrs Larkin?’ she said, imperiously. ‘This is Miss Von Wagner here. The towels in my bathroom are a disgrace, and unless you want me to tell my grandfather, and have you all dismissed, I suggest you send the maids up to see to it at once.’

  She dropped the telephone back in its cradle, then lay back on her bed, hooting with delight, and waiting for the summoned servants to arrive.

  Cassie said nothing, but just went on reading. She was aware every now and then that Leonora was staring at her, looking for some sort of reaction or approval. But Cassie had become very skilled at ignoring Leonora’s attacks of delinquency, and she knew that rather than overreacting, if she made no comment Leonora would soon grow bored and find something else to do.

  The maids came and silently changed all the lipsticked towels for a whole fresh set. After they had gone, Leonora turned on her side, and unwrapped two fresh sticks of chewing gum, chucking one at Cassie.

  ‘Didn’t you find that funny?’ she finally asked. ‘I mean they just daren’t say a word.’

  ‘I’d rather have gone to see the stables,’ Cassie replied, still reading her book.

  Leonora groaned and turned on to her back. For a good half-hour, she just lay there, chewing gum and blowing bubbles. Finally, she bored even herself, and jumped off her bed.

  ‘OK,’ she relented. ‘Let’s go and see the damned old horses. And on the way over, we’ll go flirt with the chauffeur.’

  The two girls walked through the immaculately laid out and maintained grounds, where an army of gardeners were hard at work. Cassie could see the stable block ahead and started to make for it, but Leonora caught hold of her arm and steered her towards one of what had to be the staff cottages.

  ‘Lawrence is crazy about me,’ Leonora told her as she led her up to the cottage. ‘Didn’t you see the way when we picked you up he kept looking at me in his mirror in the car?’

  She pushed open the front door of the cottage without knocking.

  ‘He’s just crazy for me,’ she whispered.

  Cassie hung back on the porch, but Leonora grabbed her hand and pulled her into the cottage with her.

  ‘Lawrence?’ Leonora bawled. ‘It’s Miss Von Wagner!’

  There was no answer, so Leonora called again. After a moment, a man stepped out from a room into the hall. He was wearing only a fresh white singlet and pants, hitched tightly up round his narrow waist with a thin belt. With his sleeked black hair, and cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth, he looked to Cassie like somebody straight off a poster from the sort of movie her grandmother would never allow her to see.

  ‘I didn’t hear you knock,’ the chauffeur said politely, but not without point.

  Leonora ignored the nuance and, removing her gum, stuck it in an ash tray on the hall stand.

  ‘We shall be wanting to go for a drive before dinner, Lawrence,’ she ordered. ‘In the Cadillac. And make sure it’s polished.
’

  Then she turned on her heel and walked out. Cassie lingered for a moment, wanting to disassociate herself from her hostess’s insufferable rudeness, but not knowing exactly what to say. So she just stared at the chauffeur in silence, who held the door open for her, then touched his forehead once with his index finger.

  ‘Miss,’ he said, before shutting the door behind her.

  Leonora was waiting for her.

  ‘How about that!’ she hissed, catching Cassie’s arm as they started to walk away. ‘Did you see the way he looked at me when I pouted at him?’

  Cassie hadn’t. All she had noticed was the look of deep resentment in the man’s brown eyes.

  ‘I tell you, I’d just have to snap my fingers!’ Leonora exclaimed, tossing back her mane of long blonde hair. ‘He’s just dying to do it with me.’

  ‘I think you’re terribly rude, Leonora,’ Cassie said, her eyes firmly set on the stables ahead.

  ‘Because I mentioned “it”?’ Leonora asked, giggling.

  ‘The way you treat people,’ Cassie replied.

  ‘People?’ Leonora echoed disbelievingly. ‘What are you talking about, dummy? They’re servants!’

  She kicked open a door in front of her and bawled down the stone corridor.

  ‘Dex?’ she shouted. ‘Dex! It’s Miss Von Wagner!’

  Then she leant against the wall outside and chewed the edge of a fingernail.

  ‘Dex is the assistant groom,’ she explained. ‘He’ll show you the horses.’

  Cassie was looking at the yard. It was modelled on the traditional pattern for a yard – boxes in a square, so that the horses could overlook each other and could also as easily be supervised. It was immaculately kept, from the unblemished paintwork to the perfect square of grass in the middle, which surrounded a large stone fountain. There were twelve boxes in all, four along each of three sides, while the last wall, through which they’d entered under an arch, housed tack and feed rooms and accommodation for the grooms. Cassie stared at the yard in disbelief. Every box was occupied with thoroughbreds, their names figured in gold lettering on wooden plaques which were fixed above their doors.