Nightingale Wood

by Stella Gibbons

  Viola’s first thought on hearing that Saxon had come into all that money was that perhaps he might help Catty, so she wrote off at once to Tina, asking her if she would tell him about Catty, and adding that she, Viola, would be awfully grateful if he would help.

  The news by this time was all over the village. Mrs Caker’s coat had been the herald, assisted by Mrs Caker. The village did not at first know how much Saxon had come in for; of course, Mrs Caker was swanking all over the place and had said on one occasion (to the realist-barman at the Green Lion, in fact) that it might be as much as a thousand pounds. But that was a bit too much, that was, even when supported by the evidence of the fur coat, and Sible Pelden, laughing merrily, said ‘Oh yeah?’ Then Viola met Mrs Caker in the post-office in Sible Pelden and wishing, because of her plans for Catty, to stand well with Saxon’s family, schoolgirlishly introduced herself. In the course of the awkward conversation that followed, Viola said exactly how much Saxon had got: and Mrs Caker rushed off to the Green Lion to tell.

  Sible Pelden laughed louder than ever. Putting its finger against its nose, Sible Pelden refused to believe – until Tina sent her mother-in-law a newspaper cutting mentioning the sum in print, and Sible Pelden was convinced.

  And then the village quietly, angrily, withdrew from the Cakers. Like everyone else, Sible Pelden felt that Saxon’s luck was Just A Bit Too Much, and refused to discuss it. Mrs Caker found that no one would gossip with her. No one mentioned the event, except obliquely and spitefully. The fur coat was glamorous, and them up The Eagles had written and asked her to tea, but Mrs Caker was not enjoying the first few days of being a rich man’s mother.

  Tina and Saxon were not completely enjoying their money, either. The Essex village was too innocent to suspect Saxon and his late employer of the modish vice, but it was plain what their neighbours in the mews, the reporters whom Saxon refused to see, and some of the more conventionally loose-minded friends of the Baumers thought. Tina felt angrily amused, but also a little sickened. She thought that everyone who had read the Amazing Will paragraph must have come to the same conclusion. ‘Uh-huh,’ she could hear the sophisticates gently saying, from Marble Arch to Fitzroy Square. ‘Uh-huh.’

  Poor Mr Spurrey, innocent old Victorian bawdy! With what outraged amazement he would have gobbled at such an accusation. Perhaps, for more reasons than the obvious one, it was a good thing that he was dead.

  So Tina was just in the mood to be a little irritated by Viola’s letter. Their fortune had not been theirs a week yet, they had not even actual possession of it, and here was Viola on the make. True, she was on the make for someone else, and in an excellent cause, but that made her request the more irritating because it was the more difficult to refuse.

  So Tina wrote back quite crisply, explaining that Saxon was far too busy to be worried just now, and that in any case they had not got the money yet and when they did they would have to think very carefully about what they were going to do with it and could not make any promises. She added that she was very sorry and enclosed a cheque for Catty, value one pound.

  Viola was pleased to have the pound but very snubbed by the letter and wondered more than ever what was to be done for poor Catty.

  Then the pound gave her an idea. She would write to all the people she knew and try to get together a little Fund for Catty. It could be put into the Post Office and drawn out by Catty when she wanted it. By the time it was all gone she, Viola, might have managed to get some more from somewhere, though she had no idea where from, for that thirty pounds had almost gone, the last fiver having been broken into for her spring outfit, and now she was sure that she would never dare to ask her father-in-law for an allowance.

  But she might earn some. Life at The Eagles had become so dismal since Tina had left that Viola was seriously thinking about trying to get a job in London as a salesgirl. Shirley would help her. She was frightened by the idea, but at least a job in London would get her away from this one-horse place, and help her not to go all broody about Him, That Beast. (Only it was getting more and more difficult to think of him as That Beast when all she could remember was how frightfully good-looking he was and oh lord! he was getting married in a fortnight, and back came the pain. No poet has yet compared unhappy love to toothache, yet that is what it undoubtedly most resembles.)

  Then she remembered what Tina had said about sublimating your mind (it meant doing something else so that you didn’t think about what was making you miserable) and she decided that she would shut herself in the library that very afternoon and write all her letters asking people if they would send a contribution to Catty’s Fund.

  So at half-past two she came slowly downstairs carrying her fountain-pen in her mouth and a lot of Woolworth notepaper. As she crossed the hall, Mrs Wither met her, looking preoccupied.

  ‘Going to write letters, dear?’

  Her tone was absent, but sufficiently kind. The news about Saxon’s fortune seemed to have sent Tina further than ever out of her mother’s life, and naturally she turned more to Viola. They were all used to Viola now, even Madge. There was a tendency to call her Poor Viola. She was so much quieter and nicer these days, and after all it was a dreadful thing to be widowed so young.

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  ‘That’s right, dear. Well … I wish this afternoon were over.’ And Mrs Wither sighed.

  ‘I expect you do,’ said Viola sympathetically.

  ‘Well, dear, Mr Wither – Father and I felt that it is really the only thing to do. After all, if Saxon is coming down here with Tina to be received as our son-in-law we cannot very well ignore his mother, can we? And it lies with us to make the first move. After all, poor creature, she used to be respectable once. It hasn’t been all her fault. And of course, he will be making her an allowance now, as Tina said.’

  ‘Has she stopped doing washing?’

  ‘Oh dear, yes – so I heard from Mrs Parsham. She sent a little boy round to all her people telling them not to send her any more. Well, dear, run along. I shall rely on you to help me.’

  And Mrs Wither smiled and went into the drawing-room, to sit and knit and think what a lot of things had happened in the last year, and decide how she was going to cope with Mrs Caker, who was coming to tea at four o’clock.

  Viola went into the dingy little library, and shut the door.

  An hour passed quietly, while she sat at the table with her pale gold head bent over the paper and the brilliant April sunlight pouring over the faded backs of uninteresting books and the stout, ugly yellow wooden furniture. Everything was quiet except the sparrows who darted to and fro outside the window over the bright green grass. A quarter to four struck sleepily somewhere. Viola put down the pen, yawning. It was tiring, writing letters.

  She had written to Shirley, and to Mrs Colonel Phillips, to Mrs Parsham and to the chemist’s son with whom she had danced at the Infirmary Ball and whom she had since met once or twice in Chesterbourne and once had a coffee with. She had written to that friend of Shirley’s who kept a dress-shop in London, and to Irene, nicest and most generous of The Crowd (though The Crowd as a whole was anything but mean), and spent a quarter of an hour over the letter to Lady Dovewood, which was very humble and imploring. To each of these persons she had explained that Miss Edith Cattyman who had been at Burgess and Thompson’s for fifty years had been dismissed, and was leaving at the end of the month and would have no recourses. She, Viola, would be so grateful if they could see their way to sending a small donation for Miss Cattyman to go into a Fund in the Post Office and she was theirs truly, Viola Wither.

  She leant back, looking complacently at the pile of letters. Now was that everybody? Shirley, Parsham, Phillips, Dovewood, Morley, Irene, Mrs Givens … and the Springs. Of course, I ought to write to the Springs. The thought flew into her mind, and she sat staring at the writing-pad, her heart beating painfully.

  Of course I ought. They’re so rich, and Tina always said Mrs Spring’s got rotten health and that makes her very
decent about giving money to hospitals and things. She’d be sure to be sorry for Catty and send a good lot.

  And suddenly she was overwhelmed with longing to write to Victor, to put his name with ‘dear’ in front of it, to sign herself ‘yours truly’, and stick the stamp very carefully on the envelope the least bit sideways so that it meant a kiss, and go out after tea in the lovely spring evening and post the letter in the box at the cross-roads. She would be able to think, all the next day, ‘Perhaps he’s opening my letter … now he’s reading it … now he’s seen it’s from me,’ and then, of course, he would have to write back – unless he just sent a cheque with compliments. But even then, there would be the envelope with her name on it in his writing, and she could keep that for ever.

  She knew that it would do quite as well if she wrote to Mrs Spring or even to Hetty (who had been so kind that day last summer at the garden party) but the longing to write to Victor was so strong that it defeated her commonsense.

  After all, it’s quite an ordinary thing to do, she told herself, and it’s for Catty. She picked up the pen and bent again over the table.

  The letter was short. She was too afraid of boring or annoying him to write much.

  My dear Mr Spring,

  I am writing to you to ask you if you would kindly send me some money for an old friend of mine, Miss Edith Cattyman. She has just been dismissed from Burgess and Thompson’s, a Ladies’ Outfitters in Chesterbourne, after being there for fifty years without recourses. Of course the money would be put into a fund in the Post Office.

  And then the pen hesitated. She was trying to make it write those wishes for his happiness that she knew she ought to give.

  It was no use. The pen would not write. Carefully moving the letter aside, she put her arms down on the table and cried quietly, heart-brokenly, for a moment. Then with tears running down she finished the letter.

  I am,

  Yours truly,

  Viola Wither

  and put it into its envelope just as the clock struck four and the front-door bell rang.

  The letter’s first words, unfortunately, were not true: he was not her dear Mr Spring, but its last ones were true to their last shade of meaning. She was his truly, and always would be. Worse luck, she thought, carefully powdering her nose. Then she went into the drawing-room to help receive Mrs Caker.

  Mrs Caker wore the coat, and hat, shoes, stockings, gloves and handbag in grey to match. When Mrs Caker was young, ‘all to match’ was the height of elegance, and since then she had not been in a position to learn that ‘all to match’ is now regarded as the depths of dowdiness. But this did not matter, because Mrs Wither was in exactly the same state of ignorance, and she thought that, apart from the fuzzy bits of hair sticking out under her hat and her lack of teeth, Mrs Caker looked very nice. And soon Saxon would give her the money to buy some teeth, and then she would look nicer still.

  Mrs Caker was not nervous. She was too interested in her surroundings and in noticing what there was for tea and what Mrs Wither and Viola had on. She kept her feet pressed together at first and would not take her gloves off because her hands were so red, but as no one said anything about her lack of teeth or her washing, she at last took her gloves off, and as no one said anything about her hands being red, she soon forgot them and enjoyed her tea.

  Mrs Wither sometimes had gleams of common-sense. They usually came from following her instincts and forgetting what was the proper thing to do. She had one this afternoon. Instead of pretending that Mrs Caker was an ordinary caller and that nothing exciting had happened to bring her into the drawing-room at The Eagles, she plunged at once, as she handed Mrs Caker her first cup of tea, into the realities.

  ‘Well, Mrs Caker,’ said Mrs Wither, ‘I expect you’re feeling as amazed as I am about your boy’s wonderful luck,’ and Mrs Caker, accepting the tea, replied eagerly, ‘That I am, Mrs Wither. Niver had any idea o’ such a thing, can’t believe ut now,’ and then they were well away, comparing notes, discussing the character of Mr Spurrey, wondering where Tina and Saxon would live, and whether Mrs Caker, when she left the cottage, would take a flat or a small house in Chesterbourne, or live in a boarding house, and recalling the personal appearance and habits of Mrs Caker’s old father, the same by whose side she used to ride in the poppied hat. They carefully did not discuss (except for a nod and wink or two from Mrs Caker) the late Mr Caker, but otherwise they enjoyed the gossip as though there had been no social barriers between them.

  Mrs Caker, indeed, was enjoying it all, sitting there in her new rig-out, eating tea-cake and noticing everything. The squalid little place over the other side of the wood, the bundles of sour-smelling dirty clothes, her recent exuberances with the Hermit, seemed very far away. It’s quite like old times, thought Mrs Caker, when I was a bit of a girl with Dad. I wish Dick Falger could see maye now, having arternoon tea. Old bastard; I hope he dies in a ditch. I’m done wi’ all that. Goin’ ter be respectable now, thought Mrs Caker, her large limpid blue eyes fixed smilingly upon the faded ones of her hostess. Five pound a week, he said. I’ll be proper comfortable on that.

  This idyll was somewhat clouded by the arrival of Mr Wither, who sidled in, muttered over Mrs Caker’s hearty outstretched hand, sipped half a cup of tea and sidled out again, choked by embarrassment and indignation at Fate, who had forced him to receive a washerwoman at The Eagles. Chauffeurs, shopgirls, washerwomen … where were the Withers drifting?

  And down in the kitchen Fawcuss, Annie and Cook were still discussing whether they should call Mrs Caker Madam. They had been spared this humiliation today because Mrs Wither had in a most irregular manner gone herself to open the door to Mrs Caker (Mrs Wither had guessed what was being said in the kitchen) but sooner or later they were bound to be confronted by Mrs Caker, and then what would they do?

  Fawcuss said No. Duty was duty, and of course It Did Say that there was more rejoicing over one sinner that repenteth than over nine and ninety just persons, but after all, how were they to know that Mrs Caker had repented? All she had done was to turn that wicked old man out (and not before it was time, either) and go round in a fur coat that would have kept a poor family for months. No. Fawcuss would say Mrs Caker, quite pleasant-like, but Madam she would not.

  And Annie and Cook, at the close of this discussion that had gone on ever since they heard, two days ago, that Mrs Caker was coming to tea at The Eagles, decided they would do the same. Annie added a rider to the effect that she did wonder at Her havin’ that woman to the house, seein’ the whole village knew about her and that wicked old man and so must She, after that awful scene in the yard last summer.

  But Mrs Wither, making the best of a bad job, had decided that Mrs Caker was not really so bad. She had apparently turned over a new leaf since Saxon came into the money. Mr Wither reported, from spy-work carried out under his hat-brim while on his constitutional, that the Hermit seemed to have gone; his hut had fallen in and Mr Wither had not seen him outside the Green Lion nor in the cottage. With the Hermit gone, a new wardrobe bought for her by Saxon, her washerwomaning given up and an apparent desire to be thought well of by her betters, Mrs Caker was acceptable, and Mrs Wither parted from her with a pleasant feeling that difficulties had been overcome and the way smoothed for possible future meetings between the two families.

  Just before dinner Madge came in, glum and silent. She had been for a long walk with Polo, to avoid seeing Mrs Caker, for she agreed with her father that a washerwoman at The Eagles was a bit too much of a good thing. Mrs Wither had had to apologize for her absence and make some excuse that did not take in Mrs Caker in the least, for she knew Madge’s sort through and through.

  The long spring evening slowly passed. At half-past eight Viola slipped out to post her letters, loitering, because it was such a beautiful twilight, along the white road that ran beside the little oak wood. The trees were in early leaf, just as they had been on her first evening at The Eagles a year ago; the air was mild and scented by new foliage
, one star was out, and down in the dark wood a thrush was singing. It was all enough to break your heart, if your heart had not been broken already.

  She posted her letters, keeping Victor’s until the end and pushing it slowly through the letter-box, letting it fall at last into the darkness. She heard the little sound as it landed on the other letters below. She stood for a minute, staring at the box, then turned and walked slowly home.

  CHAPTER XXV

  The next day was Hetty’s twenty-first birthday, and fine and clear, though haunted by one of those bitter little winds that had killed Mr Spurrey. There was to be a garden party in the afternoon with a dinner in the evening for some of the young people living in the neighbourhood. On the breakfast table Hetty found a superb beauty-box, fitted with all the creams in creation, from Victor, and a little necklace of perfectly matched pearls with a platinum and diamond clasp from her aunt. In a discreet little round case was a pair of ear-rings to match.

  ‘They were your mother’s,’ said Mrs Spring, lifting her face to take Hetty’s slightly ashamed kiss, ‘and they’re real, of course. I had a new clasp put on them and the ear-rings made into clips. You’d better wear them tonight.’

  ‘This is most elaborate, Vic; thank you very much,’ said Hetty, examining the beauty-box and wishing irritably that her aunt had not given her a present so semi-sacred and obviously hoarded up for this occasion, for it would make it more difficult to announce, as she meant to do before the day was over, that she was shortly going to leave Grassmere for ever. ‘Did you choose it yourself?’

  ‘Yes,’ curtly. He was reading the paper with the ill-tempered expression that was natural to him nowadays, ‘but it was Phyl’s idea. I’m glad you like it.’

  ‘Why? Did Phyl think my beauty needs attention?’ Hetty’s tone was quiet, but a flush came slowly into her pale cheeks.