To Hear a Nightingale

by Charlotte Bingham

  Cassie contradicted her violently. After all, all that had happened was that this lunatic Irishman had come in and bought some lingerie, for somebody else, and then walked out again.

  ‘No,’ said Gina, lolling on her bed, waving her hands in the air in order to dry her freshly applied nail varnish. ‘It’s the way that you tell it. And the look in your eyes. He’s run you over! And all this from the girl who was never going to have anything more to do with men, never ever!’

  Cassie threw a pillow at Gina, who intercepted it easily with one long shapely leg.

  ‘Let’s see you in the negligée,’ she ordered Cassie.

  ‘No way,’ Cassie retorted. ‘It’s just not me.’

  ‘OK,’ Gina laughed. ‘So make me a present of it!’

  ‘Sorry,’ Cassie replied. ‘I’m going to put it in my bottom drawer. I may grow into it yet.’

  On the third evening, while Gina was soaking in the tub after a long day’s work, Cassie, bathed and dry, tried the negligée on. It was simply gorgeous, and very sexy. She looked at herself in the full-length mirror and was astounded by the sudden rush of adrenalin through her veins. All she was wearing was a silk negligée, with a small run of swan-down at the collar and sleeves, but she suddenly felt as if she was a woman for perhaps the first time in her life. A woman who had the power to attract a man, to make love to him and to keep him in her thrall. She sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at herself in the mirror. It couldn’t just be the lingerie that was making her feel that, surely? But if it wasn’t, what else could it be?

  There was a knock on the apartment door.

  ‘That’ll be Buck!’ Gina called. ‘Let him in, could you? And tell him some funny stories!’

  Cassie grinned, and, without covering herself, went to open the door. The door was on the chain, so Cassie half-opened it, and when she saw the tall figure of someone she assumed was Buck Irvine, yet another American football player Gina had taken up with, she slipped the door off the chain and opened it.

  ‘Hi, Buck,’ she said, stepping aside to let him in.

  The figure turned round. It wasn’t Buck. It was the man.

  ‘Tyrone as a matter of fact,’ he said. ‘Tyrone Rosse, Miss McGann. May I come in?’

  Cassie drew her breath in sharply and gathered her clothes around her. It was then she remembered what she was wearing.

  ‘I’m not dressed,’ she replied.

  ‘So I can see,’ Tyrone nodded. ‘But the little you have on certainly suits you.’

  He walked past her into the apartment before Cassie could think of anything further to say. Cassie shut the door and breathed in deeply once again. Then she scuttled towards her bedroom.

  ‘I won’t be one moment!’ she cried. ‘I’ll just go and get dressed!’

  Gina came into the bedroom in a towel.

  ‘Who’s tall, dark, and handsome and helping himself to our whisky?’ she enquired.

  ‘That’s him!’ Cassie hissed, struggling into a wool dress. ‘That’s Mr Know-It-All from the Emerald Isle.’

  ‘He looks like Gary Cooper’s brother,’ Gina said. ‘Except of course much younger.’

  ‘He’s not that much younger,’ Cassie opined airily. ‘He must be well over thirty.’

  Gina peered back through the crack in their bedroom door then came back and sat on the edge of the bed, drying her hair with another towel.

  ‘Men are like wine, Cass,’ she said. ‘The longer they’re around, the better they get.’

  Cassie reddened and slipping into her shoes, went out to meet her destiny.

  ‘How did you find where I lived?’ she asked him, refilling his glass.

  Gina always kept a stock of drinks in, now that she had so many what she mockingly called ‘gentleman callers’.

  ‘My closest friend is head of the FBI,’ Tyrone replied with a perfectly straight face. ‘I asked them to put a trace on a beautiful small dark-haired Caucasian, aged about nineteen or twenty, probably wearing Bergdorf Goodman’s most expensive negligée, and hey presto.’

  ‘I suppose one of the assistants told you,’ she said, ignoring the jokes.

  ‘Every man has his price,’ Tyrone answered. ‘And so does every woman. But hers is usually wholesale.’

  Cassie had to laugh at that. Tyrone just nodded.

  ‘I knew you’d be even prettier when you laughed,’ he said. ‘And I also knew it would take some doing.’

  He drank his whisky quickly, and put the glass back down on the table.

  ‘Right,’ he continued. ‘Now where would you like to go for dinner?’

  ‘I’m afraid I already have a date,’ Cassie protested.

  ‘With whom?’ Tyrone enquired.

  ‘Well if it’s any of your business, with a friend of mine called Arnie,’ Cassie answered crossly. ‘We’re going to the Duke Ellington Concert at Carnegie Hall.’

  ‘That’s not until tomorrow,’ Tyrone announced. ‘So where would you like to go for dinner?’

  ‘How do you know it’s not until tomorrow?’ Cassie demanded. ‘You a Duke Ellington fan?’

  ‘It’s in your diary, which is open on the desk,’ Tyrone informed her calmly. ‘Tuesday the 25th, Carnegie Concert with Arnie. And it’s Count Basie you’re going to see by the way. Not the Duke. Now. Where would you like to go for dinner?’

  Cassie was for once in her recent life rendered quite speechless.

  Gina then came out of the bedroom, in a long black strapless sheath dress which clung to her like a second skin, her hair which was now dyed Titian swept and piled up on the top of her head, and a cultured pearl choker round her slender neck. Cassie found her heart sinking as she saw this vision of Vogue loveliness glide elegantly across the room. One look at Gina and Tyrone wouldn’t spare Cassie a second glance. Then she frowned. Why was she so worried? This man meant nothing to her. She didn’t even like this man.

  ‘Hi,’ her friend and room-mate said. ‘I’m Gina.’

  Tyrone took his eyes off Cassie for one moment to shake Gina’s proffered hand.

  ‘Hello there, Tina,’ he said, and then looked back at Cassie. ‘I’m still waiting to hear where you want to go for dinner.’

  Gina regarded his back then hooted with laughter.

  ‘How does the song go?’ she asked no one in particular, pouring herself a Martini. ‘But they all disappear from view – ’Cos—’

  ‘Shut up, Tina,’ Cassie said, looking past Tyrone at Gina.

  Gina smiled at her and winked. And raised her Martini glass. Cassie looked back at the man towering over her.

  ‘I’d like you to take me to Harry’s Diner,’ she told him. ‘Please.’

  Harry’s Diner was where Cassie had first worked when she had come to New York. It obviously wasn’t what such an elegant and worldly man as Mr Tyrone Rosse would have been used to, but to Cassie’s dismay, when they arrived and he saw where Cassie wanted to eat dinner, he didn’t turn a hair.

  In fact he behaved all evening as if they were dining at the Waldorf. He studiously consulted the extremely limited plastic-backed menu before deciding on Harry’s home-made meat loaf with a double portion of french fries on the side, while Cassie chose what she always had eaten when working there herself, a straight hamburger with mayonnaise and a side salad.

  Tyrone didn’t even comment on the mayonnaise. Instead he sipped his 7-Up as if it was the best claret, and discussed what Cassie’s interests were. Cassie told him she was very keen on modern jazz, and going to art museums. She made no mention of her love for and interest in horses, because since she had left Westboro Falls and changed her life, she had shut all her past and her past interests away, locking them up in a mental rosewood bureau. She told him she read a lot, particularly historical novels, and liked dancing. He told her he liked dancing as well, so why didn’t they go and do some after they had eaten? Cassie smiled at this, but said neither yes nor no, until she had found out more about the man sitting opposite her – who never took his deep blue eyes off her
all through dinner. She asked him what other interests he had; he shrugged, and replied this and that. Cassie thought either this or that could spell women, but it was not her place to ask. He said he didn’t live in America, but in Ireland and only came over on business. Cassie asked him what was his business, and Tyrone said this and that again. Buying and selling. He also had friends over here, he told her. Rich friends who were also business associates. She laughed and said he sounded as if he was a member of the Mob, and Tyrone nodded quite seriously, and said in his line of business there were connections. Cassie didn’t know whether or not he was pulling her leg. It was something she was always going to find difficult with Mr Rosse.

  Over Harry’s homemade ice cream and apple tart, he asked her if she liked working in a store. He asked her with no prejudice in his voice, nor with any innate curiosity. He simply asked her the question. Cassie said yes she did, and was it so surprising? Tyrone shook his head and said no, and there was no need to sound so defensive. He then asked her if she had any ambitions, and Cassie hesitated before replying. Then she turned the question back to him, before answering.

  ‘My ambition is to be the best at what I do,’ he told her, drinking his coffee.

  ‘I guess that’s mine too,’ Cassie replied. ‘I love my work.’

  In the cab, he asked her where she would like to go dancing. She said there was a small club on 52nd Street where the music was always good, as long as he liked jazz.

  ‘I like whatever you like, Cassie McGann,’ he replied, and directed the cab driver where to go.

  They danced until Pete the proprietor started stacking the chairs on the tables and the band packed up. Tyrone gave the pianist fifty dollars and a quart of bourbon and asked him to go on playing. The pianist laughed and said he’d have done it just for the whisky. Tyrone made Cassie choose all her favourite tunes, and she called them all, all except ‘Moonglow’.

  They walked home. Cabs passed them, but Tyrone waved them away, and with the snow beginning to fall around them, they walked all the way back to Cassie and Gina’s apartment. On the way they didn’t talk at all. Instead Tyrone sang her love songs from Ireland.

  He saw her up to her door, and waited till Cassie had unlocked it, and until she was safely inside, like the perfect gentleman he was – before he asked her to marry him. Cassie stared back at him through a door she was about to close.

  ‘Excuse me?’ she said, uncertain she had heard right.

  ‘I said will you marry me, Cassie McGann?’ came the reply. ‘And please don’t protest and say but we’ve only just met.’

  ‘Why not?’ Cassie protested. ‘We have.’

  ‘Because it’s got nothing to do with it at all, that’s why,’ Tyrone replied.

  Cassie stood staring at Tyrone and failed to think of a suitable reply.

  ‘All right,’ he nodded. ‘You’ll probably want some time to think. I’ll ring you in the morning.’

  He started down the corridor towards the elevator.

  ‘It is morning!’ Cassie called after him.

  ‘Fine,’ Tyrone called back. ‘I’ll call you later in the morning.’

  The elevator doors closed and he was gone.

  At eleven o’clock, Mrs Wellman called Cassie into her office and was pleased to inform her that she had won her promotion, and was now a junior buyer of lingerie for Bergdorf Goodman. There would be a considerable rise in her salary and furthermore there was every indication from her record so far that Cassie had a very promising future. Cassie was very pleased as well. It was exactly what she had been working so hard for, and yet she found herself only pleased rather than thrilled and delighted. Perhaps it was because she was still so tired after her night out dancing. After all, she had barely got in one hour’s sleep before it was time to get up again and get ready to go to work. Maybe when she’d had an early night and slept on the wonderful news, it would have had time to sink in and she’d feel the excitement she knew she ought to be feeling.

  But deep in her heart as she turned to leave Mrs Wellman’s office, Cassie knew the real reason for her moderate reaction to her promotion was that it was an anti-climax after the wonderful evening she had spent out on the town with Tyrone. When she had been called into her supervisor’s office, her first thought was that Tyrone had telephoned her at the store, to find out the answer to his question. So she had hurried across the department floor, only to find that Mrs Wellman had news of quite a different nature for her.

  Cassie thanked Mrs Wellman sincerely and promised she would do her very best to live up to the faith both Mrs Wellman and Bergdorf Goodman had in her. Then as she turned to leave, the telephone rang suddenly on Mrs Wellman’s desk. Cassie hesitated, and then continued out of the office, dismissing the absurd notion from her head that it could possibly be for her. Besides, now that she’d had more time to think about it, she was sure that last night Tyrone Rosse Esquire had only been pulling her leg.

  ‘Miss McGann?’ came Mrs Wellman’s voice, calling her back. ‘It’s for you.’

  Cassie returned, a puzzled look on her face.

  ‘It’s a man,’ Mrs Wellman informed her, ‘a Doctor Rosse. He says it’s very urgent.’

  Cassie bit her lip to prevent herself from smiling, and Mrs Wellman took this as a sign of anxiety.

  ‘I do hope everything’s all right at home, dear,’ she said solicitously. ‘He does sound most frightfully anxious.’

  Cassie picked up the telephone.

  ‘Well?’ said a voice in her ear, somewhat impatiently. ‘Have you arrived at your answer?’

  ‘No I’m afraid not,’ Cassie replied. ‘I didn’t realise there was quite so much urgency.’

  Hearing this, Mrs Wellman took off her spectacles and went to the office door.

  ‘I’ll leave you in private, my dear,’ she said. ‘I just hope everything’s all right.’

  Left alone, Cassie felt more at liberty to speak her mind.

  ‘You shouldn’t have called me here,’ she told Tyrone. ‘We’re not allowed to receive personal calls during work hours.’

  ‘Oh to hell with that!’ Tyrone shouted down the phone. ‘I have to fly down to Virginia today!’

  ‘You’ll be coming back, I’m quite sure,’ Cassie answered, surprised at her coolness when in fact her heart was pounding in her chest.

  ‘Of course I’ll be coming back, Cassie McGann!’ Tyrone exploded. ‘If only to fetch you and take you home with me! Now is it yes, or is it no? Or do I have to come round to that wretched shop of yours and get down on my blasted knees in front of you and that horse-arsed woman you work for!’

  Cassie took a deep breath, and closed her eyes, praying for both patience and guidance.

  ‘Well?’ Tyrone persisted.

  ‘No,’ said Cassie.

  ‘What!’ Tyrone roared back down the telephone, so loudly that Cassie was sure it rattled the windows in Mrs Wellman’s office. ‘What the hell do you mean, woman? No!’

  ‘I mean I need more time, that’s all,’ Cassie said, not meaning it at all, knowing perfectly well that if Tyrone was there in the department rather than at the other end of a telephone she would be utterly unable to resist him.

  ‘You have until the weekend,’ Tyrone replied after an endless silence. ‘Until I get back from Virginia.’

  And he slammed down the telephone. Cassie waited for a moment, as she noticed Mrs Wellman hovering outside the door.

  ‘I see, Doctor,’ she said rather loudly. ‘Thank you. Yes. Yes, I’ll wait for your call this evening.’

  Then she too replaced the telephone.

  Mrs Wellman came back into the office and looked anxiously at Cassie.

  ‘Not bad news I hope, my dear?’ she enquired. ‘I do hope it’s not bad news?’

  Cassie smiled bravely back at Mrs Wellman, instead of answering, unable to find a suitable reply as to whether Tyrone Rosse’s proposal of marriage was indeed good or bad news.

  ‘I’d best get back to my post,’ she told her employer. �
��I do apologise for Doctor Rosse ringing me here.’

  ‘Nonsense, my dear,’ Mrs Wellman replied. ‘Anyway, very soon you’ll have an office and a telephone of your own, and you won’t have to mind who calls you.’

  Cassie thanked her again and turned to leave the office. Mrs Wellman called her back, and looked at the pretty and determined girl who was staring back at her.

  ‘You look most awfully pale, dear,’ she said finally. ‘You really do. I know it’s none of my business, but something is quite obviously worrying you. So I insist you go straight home and take the rest of the day off.’

  Cassie wasn’t going to argue with that one, because even though she was young and strong, after ten hours out on the town, she was out on her feet.

  So she thanked Mrs Wellman most gratefully and went to fetch her coat and change her shoes.

  As she left the store, it was snowing more heavily than ever. So Cassie decided that what with the good news about her promotion, she’d splash out on a cab. There was one which had just pulled up, with a young woman in a fur coat leaning in the window paying off the fare, while an older and very glamorous woman was getting out of the back of the cab, holding a Bergdorf Goodman box by a neatly tied string handle. Cassie waited by the cab as the older woman strolled over to the store to gaze in the window, and puzzled to herself, because there was something familiar about the older woman, yet she couldn’t quite place her.

  A moment later she realised exactly who she was as the young woman paying off the cab extricated herself from the side window and Cassie came face to face with Leonora.

  ‘Christ!’ exclaimed Leonora with a grin. ‘Christ Almighty, Cassie McGann!’

  And she threw her arm around Cassie’s shoulder and dragged her back to the store. Cassie looked hopelessly back over her shoulder and saw someone else purloining her cab.

  ‘Mamma!’ Leonora cried. ‘For Christ’s sake will you look who’s here!’

  Mrs Von Wagner turned away from her window shopping and looked without emotion at the girl in an inexpensive brown tweed coat whom her daughter was embracing.