Victoria and the Nightingale

by Susan Barrie

  And with her satin-smooth hair and her slumbrous dark glances it was wonderfully attractive.

  “Well, shall we get to the point?”

  Without being invited to do so she sank down in a chair.

  “I must say, you’re very comfortable here ... very comfortable.” A gleam of something that was not at all slumbrous appeared in her eyes. “You really have dug yourself in, haven’t you? You and the child! No wonder the whole district is talking.”

  “Talking?”

  Georgina subjected her to a glance of amazement.

  “But did it never once occur to you that people would talk? And in the country people talk louder and faster than anywhere else. Scandal just spreads like a forest fire ... and in this case I must say you deserved it. But poor Peter hasn’t really deserved to be talked about ... after all, he meant well, and he certainly meant nothing underhand. So we’ll just have to do what we can to correct the unpleasant rumors when we hear them.”

  Victoria felt as if she was being deliberately played with and kept on tenterhooks.

  “Are you trying to tell me,” she asked, moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue, “that you’ve come here with the consent and approval of Sir Peter Wycherley?”

  Miss Islesworth took a moment or two to consider this, then gave an emphatic nod of the head which sent all Victoria’s hopes of future happiness descending into a lost world of abandoned hopes and blighted prospects.

  “Well, do you honestly think I would come here at this late hour if I was acting entirely on my own initiative?” the dark girl counter-questioned. “After all—” with a smile which belied her words “—I’m not entirely heartless, and I do realize that you’re very innocent and have probably been led up the garden path, in a kind of way. Yes, Peter was so upset about the whole thing getting so badly out of hand that I had to do something tonight ... and, as a matter of fact, I’ve come here straight from Wycherley Park, where he’s pacing up and down in his library like a badly concerned tiger ... not a vicious one, but an anxious one. I do hope you’ll believe me when I say he never meant you any harm!” Victoria recoiled as if she had received an actual slap across the face.

  “He couldn’t even come and ... tell me himself?”

  “He thought it would be less painful—for both of you! — if I did. We discussed it over dinner, and over coffee afterward, and then I made the decision to come here. Yes, the decision was actually mine, but Peter agreed to it. He was, as a matter of fact, almost pathetically relieved.”

  This was something Victoria found it difficult to believe, with her knowledge of Sir Peter. But if he was capable of wilfully deceiving both her and Johnny, without any real reason why he should stoop to such duplicity, then, he was capable of almost anything.

  “What—do you want me to do?” she asked, her throat very dry.

  Georgina shrugged, but looked at her with sympathy at the same time.

  “Well, if it was me,” she said, as if she had given a great deal of thought to this piece of advice, and rehearsed her reply in advance, “I would pack up and leave here without delay. I believe you tried to get away before, but Peter stopped you. This time you mustn’t let him interfere with your plans. Remember that it’s humiliating to be dealt with as you have been dealt with, and in addition you must be feeling pretty sore ... with Peter, I mean. You don’t want to involve yourself in recriminations—and I know it’s the last thing Peter wants, because of his guilty conscience—and you do want to save some remnants of your pride. Get away while you can, and before his conscience starts troubling him afresh, and he comes here to apologize personally.” She looked aghast at the prospect. “That’s something I know I couldn’t stand, and I don’t suppose you feel much differently. Do take my advice and get away either tonight or tomorrow morning. There’s a good train in the morning, so I should wait until then. You can order a taxi tonight to pick you up first thing in the morning.”

  “How will I order a taxi?” Victoria sounded as someone other than herself was speaking. “We’re not on the village telephone here.”

  “Then I’ll order one for you myself. I know a very good man who’ll pick you up about seven o’clock and get you to the junction in good time to find seats on the train. It’s going to be a bit of a rush for you, but unless you prefer to face up

  to a possible ordeal.... ”

  “No, no, I’ll go!”

  “And I’ll order the taxi for you.”

  Miss Islesworth rose.

  “I think you’re being awfully sensible about this—” Victoria wondered afterward whether she had expected a scene—defiance, perhaps, or at any rate proof of what she said. But Victoria felt she had received proof enough, otherwise Peter would have kept his word and been there in the morning. “I won’t hold you up now, because you’ve got all your packing to do. But anything you want ... well—” she handed over a slip of pasteboard which she had removed from her handbag “—that’s the address of my London flat, where I shall be in a week’s time. And if you find yourself up against it, or need help in finding either living quarters or some sort of a job, just ring me, and I’ll make an appointment to see you. I’m perfectly certain I’ll be able to help you.”

  “Thank you,” Victoria acknowledged the offer, tonelessly.

  Having delivered herself of the reason for her late visit, Miss Islesworth seemed anxious to depart. She walked quickly to the door and let herself out, and as Victoria followed her mechanically down the garden path she waved her back.

  “No, don’t bother to see me to my car.” There was something beautifully poised and condescending about her attitude, despite her expressed sympathy. “I know you’ve got a lot to do. Don’t let me hold you up.”

  Victoria listened to her footsteps retreating down the flagged path of the cottage, and when she judged that the visitor was inside her car, she closed the front door of the cottage and bolted it automatically. Then she went upstairs to Johnny’s room and stood looking down at him with an utterly expressionless look on her face.

  She didn’t go to bed that night. She made herself some tea and then started packing her own and Johnny’s things. While she did so, she forced her mind to become a blank. Every move she made was an effort and required a conscious effort of will. For hours she felt like someone who had had all the life drained out of her, and was responding simply to some inner compulsive voice. But she managed to preserve the cotton-wool condition that had enveloped her thinking powers, and could not honestly have said afterwards if she was either deathly miserable or temporarily distracted while she did an efficient job of packing.

  It was so efficient that she very soon had everything ready and waiting in the hall. Then she went from room to room of the cottage, making absolutely certain that everything was tidy, and in order, as she had found it.

  The fact that she had no intention of sleeping in her bed enabled her to strip it and fold the sheets and arrange the blankets neatly under the bed covers. Johnny’s room

  would have to wait until he was up, but she knew it wouldn’t take her long.

  She left the flowers in the sitting-room vases, because it seemed a pity to throw them away. . . . But everything else was in apple-pie order long before the first cockerel in the district started crowing, and the mists of dawn started rising from the surrounding meadows.

  At five o’clock she made herself another pot of tea, watched the sun rise redly over the garden, climbed the stairs like someone about to undertake a most unpleasant task and aroused Johnny.

  She had decided to say nothing about the reason for leaving, apart from giving him to understand that they had to leave—later, perhaps, she would tell him a little of the truth—and he had always been an unusually easy child (in difficult moments) to manage. Apart from gazing wide-eyed he asked no questions, and therefore it was quite unnecessary to tell him any half truths.

  This morning, as always, he ate a hearty breakfast, and afterward she washed up the breakfast things and p
ut them away, then ran the carpet sweeper over the sitting-room carpet in order that it should be left immaculate.

  Then Johnny went out to the garden to say goodbye to some favorite bird friends, and release a toad that he had been trying to tame. He gazed regretfully at his small corner of the garden where the flowers that were thriving had been looked after by himself, and picked one or two of them to take away with him.

  He was returning to the house when the car shot round the bend of the lane and drew up with a faint screech of brakes outside the cottage gate. Peter Wycherley left the driving seat with the impatience of one who had already made a good deal of hurry that morning, and called out to Johnny

  when he caught sight of him.

  “You’re up early, Johnny! Couldn’t you sleep?”

  Johnny, in his best tussore silk shirt and well-pressed contrasting shorts—to say nothing of immaculate socks and shoes—turned and stared at him.

  “We’re going away,” he said.

  “Oh!” Sir Peter thrust open the gate, and looked at him grimly. “Where’s Victoria?” he asked. “Inside.”

  “Stay here while I talk to her,” his guardian ordered.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Victoria was in the kitchen when Peter entered the cottage. He was so used to finding his way about in the cottage by now that he walked straight in on her, and although he didn’t say anything she knew at once that he was standing there looking at her.

  She hadn’t heard his car stop at the gate. She hadn’t heard his footsteps on the path. Why she hadn’t done so she could never afterward quite understand, unless the truth was that she was in such a state of acute depression and strange mental inertia that she was deaf to everything that was going on around her. She was like someone moving in a dream no longer with any expectations of life, and with nothing but a dreary future ahead of her. She wasn’t even agitated by all that she had to cope with, and the responsibilities that would be hers in the future.

  But, as soon as Sir Peter arrived in the kitchen doorway, she knew. She was giving the stove a final careful wipe, and she turned with the damp cloth in her hand to confront him.

  “Good morning,” he said, with a kind of arctic

  coldness.

  Victoria dropped the damp cloth. He stooped politely and picked it up for her.

  “Where do you want this?” he asked, and cast it into the sink before she had time to answer. “You shouldn’t be doing kitchen chores in your best traveling suit,” he observed crisply. “You might spoil it.”

  She couldn’t think of anything to say to answer him. She was wondering what he was doing there at that hour, and could only conclude that he had undergone a change of mind ... and, possibly, heart. But they were only temporary changes, of course.

  “Johnny, too, seems to be wearing his best,” he continued conversationally. “He tells me you’re going away.”

  At that she managed to admit that Johnny was right.

  “Yes; we’re going away,” she said.

  “Where to? Not London? It’s usually London with you, isn’t it?”

  A temporary indignation flared up in her eyes.

  “Where else would I go with Johnny when I have to find a job to support him?” she demanded.

  He shrugged his tweed-clad shoulders slightly.

  “You could try Manchester or Birmingham, or even Edinburgh. Edinburgh isn’t much farther from here than London is. In fact, it isn’t as far.”

  He advanced to the kitchen table and set down a very small, beautifully wrapped paper package on it. It looked ridiculously small by comparison with the size of the table, and Victoria gazed at it in slight

  astonishment.

  “What is it?” she said.

  Sir Peter backed toward the door.

  “It’s for you,” he told her, in a colorless tone. “But you don’t have to open it now. In the train, perhaps, when you and Johnny are comfortably settled in your second-class carriage. After that you can pawn it or sell it, or even throw it away if you’d rather do that. So long as you don’t return it to me, since I’ve no desire whatsoever to see it again, I don’t mind. I made a journey to London to get it, and thought I’d broken all records getting back here in time to breakfast with you this morning; but apparently you haven’t any breakfast to offer me ... not even a welcome! So I’ll see if the cook can do better at the Park. At any rate, she’s not in a position to refuse me breakfast,” and he turned on his heel and swung out through the door.

  Victoria raced after him and clutched at his sleeve.

  “What do you mean? Broken all records?” she demanded breathlessly.

  He glanced at her almost disdainfully.

  “Does it matter?” he inquired icily. “Don’t let me make you miss your train. I believe I hear a taxi coming along the lane. Is that yours?”

  “I—er—yes.”

  “Then don’t keep the driver waiting. He’s probably got other fares besides you this morning.”

  And he actually shook off her hand and walked at lightning speed away down the garden path.

  Victoria, awakened almost rudely out of her lethargy, and saved from the very brink of a slough of despond, was completely uncertain about what to do next ... to race after him, or to open the package. Undoubtedly the package contained the answer to a riddle, but she had already read the answer to the riddle in Peter Wycherley’s face, and she knew that if she paused long enough to open the package she would lose him for good. She had probably lost him already, but she had to find out ... to put her fate to this final test. So, snatching up the package and grabbing Johnny by the hand as she passed him on the garden path, she flew down the path to the gate, and saw Sir Peter’s car shoot away from it just as the local taxi rolled to a halt outside it and the local taxi-man descended from his perch and greeted her with all the affability in the world.

  “Good morning, miss!” He touched his cap to her. “The lady said I was to be on time so that you wouldn’t miss the train. Lovely morning, isn’t it? Seems a pity you’re going away.”

  Victoria addressed him breathlessly.

  “Catch that car,” she said. She cast a glance of agonized dubiousness at the ancient taxi. “Do you think you can possibly managed to catch up with it? It’s Sir Peter Wycherley’s car! You must!” she added imploringly.

  The taxi man looked as dubious as her glance, but he agreed to have a good try.

  “It’s surprising, sometimes, what the old girl can do,” he said. “Just you hang on to your seats, miss, and we’ll see what we can do!”

  Sir Peter, most unfortunately, had a good start. And as, despite the bends in the lane—distinctly treacherous bends, Victoria realized, as they followed in pursuit—he was pressing his foot and his accelerator and getting all the speed he could out of a highly powerful car there seemed little hope that they would ever catch him up.

  But the taxi man had once driven in a rally, away back in his youth, and he got the excitement of the chase in his veins. He gave the antiquated vehicle its head, and they roared along the lanes in hot pursuit of the sleek and glistening Bentley, until Sir Peter suddenly realized that a determined and highly dangerous attempt was being made to catch up with him and drew into the side of the road and kindly, but with a face of granite, allowed them to draw alongside—thus effectively blocking the road.

  Sir Peter spoke briefly.

  “If you don’t want to be cut off in your prime,” he advised the grinning taxi man, “you’ll allow your passengers to come in here and get on your way.” He held open the rear door of the Bentley, but Johnny scrambled triumphantly into the vacant seat beside him. Victoria, still clutching her precious package, subsided on to the rear seat, and knew that she was trembling all over—partly with excitement, partly with inexpressible relief.

  “Send your bill to me,” Sir Peter ordered, and the other man touched his peaked cap to him. His highly gratified expression stated that it was completely all right by him.

  “The lady
said catch up with you, and I caught up with you, sir,” he revealed.

  Sir Peter simply looked astonished.

  As soon as the taxi had gone on its way Sir Peter turned and looked inquiringly at the girl on the back seat of his car.

  “The station?” he inquired coldly.

  She shook her head.

  “No, please. I want to talk to you, Peter,” she begged humbly. “Can’t we go somewhere where we can ... talk?”

  “Back to the cottage?”

  “It’s as good a place as any.”

  “Very well.”

  He turned the car, and in the space of a very few minutes they were back at the little white gate set in the high hedge, and Johnny was urged to scramble out with as much speed as he had scrambled in. He looked acutely disappointed at first, until Sir Peter, after ordering him to make himself scarce for a short while, comforted him by promising to take him for a drive in the Bentley later on.

  “When Miss Wood has handed you over to my custody,” he said with a good deal of grimness, and Johnny glanced at him in fresh alarm. But something about Sir Peter’s expression—despite its grimness— reassured him, and he ran off happily to find out whether his toad had wandered very far after all, and to recapture it if possible and provide it with its favorite lettuce leaf breakfast.

  But Victoria knew she had transgressed far beyond the bounds of being easily forgiven. She and Peter remained in the garden, and it wasn’t until he invited her that she dared to join him in the seat beside the driving seat. He noticed she was still holding on tightly to the package he had flung down on the kitchen table.

  “So you haven’t opened it,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Have you the least idea what’s inside it?”

  She didn’t make the mistake of shaking her head. It was, in a way, such an obvious package.

  “I think it’s something small,” she said.