Victoria and the Nightingale

by Susan Barrie

  rather generous sized plateful, wouldn’t you, Johnny, after walking all the way down my two-mile drive?”

  Johnny agreed, showing a gap in his teeth as he smiled again as if he had discovered Elysium.

  “And toast and marmalade,” he added, in case it should be forgotten. “And tea. I like tea,” he confided.

  Sir Peter agreed with him that there was nothing like a pot of tea in the early morning.

  “We English don’t go in much for coffee,” he observed conversationally. “Or not seriously. Certainly not in the early morning.”

  “Victoria said we’d have breakfast at the inn, but I didn’t think we’d get there very quickly,” the child admitted, dropping his eyes to his own small feet, as if he recognized their deficiencies.

  Sir Peter laid a lead brown hand on his knee.

  “Poor Johnny!” he said.

  Then he glanced quickly over his shoulder.

  “Poor Miss Wood!” he added, before helping them both to alight.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Victoria has always thought that an English inn in the heart of really beautiful and peaceful country, with wonderful views opening out on either hand, and the scent of flowers and wood smoke and perhaps even cow manure coming in at the open front door—particularly in the early morning—was a really wonderful place.

  She didn’t frequent them, and she had only once stayed in such a place, but she considered that its picture postcard-like qualities far outweighed any inconveniences, such as the lack of running hot water in the bedrooms, and central heating in the winter time. They were traditional places, redolent of history, and when they had an enormous oak tree not far from their front porch it all added to the picturesqueness.

  Johnny was intrigued by the George and Dragon because it had a connection with one of his favorite heroes, and the waiter who brought their breakfast told him that it had once been a favorite hideout for highwaymen, and anything more exciting and satisfying than that Johnny couldn’t think of.

  He ate his breakfast with an appetite that proved he had recovered entirely from the depression that had held him from the moment he opened his eyes that morning, and while his two companions ploughed more sedately through similar fare he chattered in such a way that the silences which might have existed between the other two—at any rate, during the opening stages of the meal—were not possible under the constant fire of his questions, and his eager comments on his surroundings and the amount of toast he could consume once his early morning lassitude had departed.

  Victoria wished he wouldn’t talk quite so much since she herself felt strangely bewildered ... not entirely surprising since she had scarcely closed her eyes all night. But Peter Wycherley was obviously both amused and intrigued by the childish chatter. He encouraged

  Johnny to talk as much and as continuously as he pleased, and only when they arrived at the stage of the meal when he lit a cigarette, and Victoria declined to follow suit, did he revert to the subject of their imminent departure and the possible arrival of the bus.

  “You really are determined to take the boy back to London?” he inquired politely of Victoria. But as he sat studying her through the faint haze of smoke his cigarette had created, she was quite unconvinced by his expression that he either approved or disapproved of her decision.

  “Yes,” she answered, toying with a fragment of toast. “You don’t think the amenities at Wycherley Park are quite up to standard?”

  “Don’t be silly.” She flushed brilliantly. “Of course Wycherley Park is wonderful, and Johnny has thoroughly enjoyed staying with you. But we both know that staying at Wycherley Park is rather like living in a dream world, a purely temporary dream world. And the sooner we both return to normal the better.”

  “For you as well as Johnny?”

  “Y-yes.” Her long eyelashes hid her eyes as she stared downwards at the toast, and her nervous fingers continued to maltreat it. “For me even more than Johnny. Johnny is a child and will soon forget. He’ll adapt wherever we go.

  But I ....You see,” raising her eyes hastily to his

  strangely serene gray ones, “I used to live in the country, and I’ve always wanted to—to get back to it. I don’t really like towns.”

  “But you think Johnny does?”

  “N-no. . . .”

  “I hate towns.” Johnny spoke with emphasis. “Even the parks are not real country, and there are always park keepers who won’t let you play on the grass.”

  “And you think my head gardener doesn’t object when you damage my flower beds with your cricket balls?” His almost languid glance swept to the child.

  “I like your head gardener. He’s jolly nice.” Johnny, who had made many friends among the staff at Wycherley Park during his stay there, was emphatic on this point. “I like your cook, and Florrie, the housemaid. They’re jolly nice, too.”

  “I’m relieved to hear it.” The man’s shapely mouth smiled. “Personally, I get along very well with both of them. But one likes to have outside opinions.”

  Johnny rattled on about the cook making him gingerbread men with currants for eyes, and he seemed to have a lot of information on the subject of Florrie’s latest boyfriend—and apparently she went in for quantity rather than quality—which he was quite eager to impart, but Victoria interrupted with reminders that the bus was due at any moment, and Johnny looked dashed.

  “Do we have to catch it?” he protested. “Why can’t we wait for another?”

  “Yes, why not?” Sir Peter extracted another cigarette from his case and lighted it leisurely. “After all, what’s the hurry?”

  “We have to catch a train.” Victoria, who had looked up details of train services in the timetable, felt as if her nerves were tightly stretched pieces of wire, and Sir Peter was trying them too far. If they missed that train they would have to wait hours for another.

  “There must by any number of trains making their way to London from the provinces day after day.” Sir Peter was lying back comfortably in his chair, and he had even ordered another pot of tea. “I simply cannot understand why you have to catch one particular train.”

  “I’ve already told you, we—we’re leaving.” She fought hard to control the tremble in her voice, and the color on her cheekbones was agitated. “Don’t you see, Sir Peter . . . it’s like having a tooth extracted. The sooner you go to the dentist’s the better when you know it’s got to come out!”

  “But you’re only returning to London because you think Miss Islesworth doesn’t want you at Wycherley Park.”

  “She doesn’t.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  “She—she said so.”

  “Did she?” Sir Peter looked interested. They heard the rumble of the bus, and Johnny ran out to make absolutely certain it really was the bus and not a heavy truck that was unloading stores at the inn. As soon as he was out of earshot the owner of Wycherley Park spoke incisively. “Give the child another day, Miss Wood ... just one more day! I promise I’ll take you to the station myself if you elect to leave tomorrow, but for this one day—and it’s going to be a remarkably fine one!” glancing at the windows— “forget that you have any pressing problems, and make up your mind to relax in sylvan solitude. I’m going to take you both for a drive, and I promise to show you something interesting. I think Johnny will find it very interesting! You, too, if you’ll stop thinking about dreary places like railway stations, and London parks where the park keepers won’t let live wires like Johnny play on the strips of dried-up grass.”

  “The grass in London parks is not dried up.” Victoria felt she had to defend it... after all, she had been thankful for London parks many times in her career. “And park keepers have a lot to try them. Even Johnny can be trying sometimes.”

  “But not so trying that you wish to be separated from him?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Then I think you ought to grant me this one day at least.”

  “But won’t Miss—? What
about Miss Islesworth?”

  “Her mother is arriving by the afternoon train, and they’ll have a lot to talk about. This morning she has an appointment with the hairdresser.”

  “So you are free to devote yourself to other causes?” Victoria could have bitten out her tongue as soon as she had spoken, and she simply couldn’t understand why she was being so unfair. He had been more than good to herself and Johnny, and she had absolutely no right to feel either irritation or a most peculiar sensation that was almost like envy as she leveled what was almost an accusation. And certainly her tone was a trifle acid.

  “If you put it like that, yes.”

  They had both risen and walked to the window to look through it for Johnny, and she knew that the sudden coolness in his eyes was well merited as he turned to survey her. So was the faint hint of reproach.

  “I—I’m sorry.” In an apologetic rush the words poured out. “I don’t really know how to thank you for all you’ve done for Johnny during his stay in your house, and I realize I must sound extraordinarily ungrateful just because—”

  “Yes?” he prompted. “Just because ...?” And he went on watching her.

  “Oh, I suppose because it can’t continue.” She flushed more brilliantly than ever as she decided to be truthful. “You’ve done so much. But it has to end. I’m devoted to Johnny, and I want him to have all the advantages and the opportunities that he can get from life, but I realize he mustn’t expect to receive them at your hands. Your obligation—and it was never really an obligation—is finished, done with! When you take us to the station tomorrow you’ll probably never see either of us again.”

  “You make it sound very final,” he said.

  “Well, it is final.” She straightened her slim back against the wall. Her blue eyes were almost defiant. “Sir Peter, I think we ought to go today.”

  The bus was on the point of leaving outside the inn, and Johnny was standing in the road and having a conversation with the bus driver.

  “That child likes making contacts,” Sir Peter observed, and smiled briefly as he glanced toward him. Then he turned back to the girl with the light gold hair who was making a supreme effort not to betray the fact that she felt very much like crying because she had hardly slept all night, she was responsible for Johnny, and the future loomed ahead of her, crammed with all sorts of difficulties. Even the small sum she had in the bank was smaller than she had believed when she checked up on it the preceding day. “By the way, if you don’t mind my inquiring, how do you propose to support Johnny when you get to London?” the landowner asked. “And if on top of that the question doesn’t strike you as impertinent, where do you propose to live?”

  “We—we’ll live somewhere.”

  “But at the moment you’re not quite sure where.”

  “No.”

  “I assume that you have to have a job?”

  “Yes.”

  “At at the moment you haven’t got one?”

  “No.”

  “Yet you still think Wycherley Park is not the right place for a temporary refuge?”

  “Yes.” She was so sure of it that the amount of emphasis she laid on the word startled her.

  “Very well.” Sir Peter turned, and as Johnny came running in at the open door he took him by the hand and led him out again into the sunshine. Victoria was not really surprised that the innkeeper did not present a bill for their breakfast, and Sir Peter merely turned to him and waved a hand and said casually, “See you later, Bill.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Bill—who had been in the Merchant Navy before he took to inn keeping—answered cheerfully. The long, gleaming car was still outside the inn, and Sir

  Peter opened both doors so that they could climb in. Johnny took it for granted that he was once more to occupy the passenger seat beside the driving seat, and Victoria made herself comfortable on the rear seat. She did not actually make herself comfortable, for her backbone felt too stiff to enable her to relax, but she lay back very slightly and clasped her hands in her lap, and waited for the moment when the wind would sing past her ears and all the freshness of the day would once more encompass her.

  The car was an open one, and Sir Peter seemed to think she might need a rug over her knees. He handed her one, and she automatically laid it lightly over her knees. They started off, and the proprietor of the George and Dragon watched them with some interest from the top of the short flight of steps that led up to the inn door, and Johnny glanced back over his shoulder and waved to the man addressed as ‘Bill,’ and Victoria marveled that he seemed entirely happy. He had been promised a day out, and he was prepared to enjoy it ... the bogey of the railway train and London had receded.

  But Victoria knew this was only a very temporary reprieve.

  They returned along the road by which they had come, but when they reached the gates of Wycherley Park Sir Peter ignored them, and they swept on along the narrowing lane and deep into the heart of enchanting country.

  The day was full of gentle breezes and really strong, warm sunshine, and very soon Victoria found it necessary to discard her coat as well as the rug, and Johnny was delighted because he was not burdened with a coat. Even Sir Peter, after a time, removed his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves, and they went on like a small contingent of happy holidaymakers until the position of the sun in the sky informed Victoria that it was nearly noon. Then Sir Peter swung the car off the main road and they delved deep into a labyrinth of leafy lanes and thickets of tangled green until the silken gleam of a river showed up, and on a stretch of cool, sweet grass beside the river Sir Peter stopped the car and the passengers were invited to alight.

  Johnny needed no invitation, for he was actually out of the car and running beside the river before Victoria fully realized that this was to be a halt. Then, as she alighted slowly and somewhat stiffly, she looked up at the man for an explanation.

  “It’s very beautiful here,” she commented, “but we’ve come a long way to admire a strip of river.”

  “And now that you’re here you don’t admire it?” He glanced at her somewhat sharply.

  “But of course!” She gazed upward into the dim green of the leaves above her head, and the softest of breezes made her skin feel cool and revived, somehow. She could hear the slumbrous gurgle of the river, and occasionally something went ‘plop’—a fish most likely—and the silken surface of the water was marred by a series of ripples. She gazed at it as if it hypnotized her, and she watched a kingfisher darting among the reeds and was reminded of a brilliant brooch flashing through the air. “Of course!” she repeated, with enthusiasm, and in the iris-blue depths of her eyes a glow of appreciation showed up very plainly. “But I didn’t know you had so much time on your hands that you could afford to waste some of it by bringing Johnny and me here. ”

  “When you might have been on your way to London?” He smiled at her with an attractive little quirk at one corner of his mouth, and he went round to the back of the car and lifted out a hamper. “I asked Bill, at the George and Dragon, to put us up some lunch,” he explained. “He’s pretty good at carrying out orders—mine, at any rate—and I suspect that he’s taken into consideration the fact that Johnny has a pretty large appetite.”

  He called to Johnny.

  “Here, come and open this, and find out what we’ve got!”

  Johnny abandoned his pursuit of the kingfisher and came racing back. Eagerly he pounced on the hamper while Victoria, for a reason she herself didn’t understand, continued to make it plain that she was puzzled by the proceedings, and she was sure that Miss Islesworth, if she was aware of them, would not be at all pleased.

  Sir Peter’s brow creased as she asked him in a very direct manner whether he thought his fiancee would approve. He shrugged his shirt-clad shoulders.

  “Probably not, but I don’t seek Miss Islesworth’s approval of everything I do.” For a short while she thought there was actual impatience in his eyes as they dwelt on her, and she was surprised that the normall
y serene gray depths could display quite so much obvious irritation. And it was irritation because she was refusing to fall in with his mood ... which seemed a strange one to her, needing a certain amount of explanation. “After all, I don’t interfere with her when she goes off to the hairdresser’s, or does things she wants to do on her own. Marriage—when you’ve got as far as the stage of seriously contemplating it—is a partnership, not a sacrifice of freedom in exchange for a term of bondage.”

  “Yes, I see,” Victoria observed, regarding him thoughtfully. “That’s the way you look at it, is it?”

  “That’s the way I look at it,’” with another of his brief, one-sided smiles. For the first time faintly contemptuous, or so she thought.

  The hamper contained a cold chicken and a flask of coffee, rolls, fruits and biscuits, and Johnny for one was not slow in demolishing his share of it. Despite the enormous breakfast he had consumed he seemed to have little difficulty in accounting for the better part of a wing of chicken following a generous slice of melon, and as Bill had thoughtfully included some bottles of pop for him he was very soon lying on his small back on the turf and vowing that he wouldn’t be able to move for hours and hours.

  Sir Peter glanced at his watch from time to time, and seemed to be dwelling upon their next move even while he stared at the river. The sheer brightness of it had a soporific effect on Victoria, and although she ate far less than Johnny she would have welcomed a long, lazy period devoted to doing nothing at all—not even consciously thinking very much while the brilliance of the river exerted its influence—after the crumbs were gathered up and the cap screwed on the coffee flask. But Sir Peter, who had been the one to lead them to this halcyon spot, and had not hesitated to proclaim it ideal for whiling away the better portion of a hot summer day, seemed to become galvanized into action when he realized they were both about to close their eyes and drift into slumber.