Nightingale Wood

by Stella Gibbons

  ‘Jobs are not so easy to get nowadays, and I don’t know what your Aunt Rose would say to a girl with enough invested income to live on trying to get a job. You see, you would be taking the work away from some girl who might need it to keep alive at all.’

  Hetty was silent. She had a feeling that she and Aunt Rose might not get on together. Aunt Rose’s principles were lofty, her taste in flowers impeccable, but she sounded as though she might be a little difficult to live with.

  ‘But that can be discussed later, of course,’ he added. ‘Your Aunt Rose will be willing – eager, even, I am sure – to discuss all your problems with you at length. Where she gives, she gives unsparingly. But what we really must decide, before I hurry off to catch my train, is whether you really do want to come to us. Now think, Hetty. Take your time. Do you, or do you not, upon reflection, want to come? Speak the truth: I shall not take it the wrong way, or misunderstand, if you change your mind.’

  They had instinctively turned aside to walk in the rhododendron shrubbery where Hetty had sat with Viola in the summer, and now halted there, out of sight of the players on the tennis courts above. Hetty looked into her uncle’s eager, commonplacishly sensitive face. He was just a little absurd, with his literary way of talking and his veneration for his wife, but Hetty knew that he could be managed, and that at a pinch he would show himself a sensible man. She had no fears about Uncle Frank. Aunt Rose was the snag. Just the kind of earnest, passionately sincere, talkative person that is not easy to deal with, thought Hetty. One is forced to respect their sincerity and that gives them an unfair hold. Suddenly it occurred to her that she could always leave Aunt Rose’s house if she did not like it. If she tries to manage my affairs, I shall just walk out, she decided. She said:

  ‘Yes, Uncle Frank, I do.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘Yes. You see, even from the little you have told me I can see that you live the kind of life I have always wanted to live.’

  He looked flattered

  ‘Yes, I can understand that. We do know a number of very interesting Left Wingers whom your Aunt Rose has met in her work for the Party – and not only Left Wingers. George Crumley often drops in (you have heard of George Crumley, I am sure, the Miner’s Friend, you know, the Quaker) and Alice MacNoughton and E. E. Tyler, and Donat Mulqueen and Roger Brindle—’

  ‘Donat Mulqueen?’

  Her tone made him glance at her sharply: then he smiled. She did not return his smile. She thought: No, he is not clever but he is not stupid. He is ingenuous, but it would not be easy to deceive him.

  ‘Do you know his work?’ asked Uncle Frank, letting his smile die in deference to her grave, rather bored look.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And admire it, I gather?’

  ‘Extremely.’

  ‘Yes; well, we know him quite well. He often comes into the shop. Your Aunt Rose feeds him, poor boy.’

  ‘Why? Hasn’t he any means?’

  ‘None, I gather, except what he earns by writing, and, of course, the commercialized papers will not touch his stuff because it is difficult, as well as obscene (I personally do not care for it, but your Aunt Rose says that he is the modern Keats) and the other papers, the intellectual ones, pay so badly, they have so little money behind them.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘And then,’ he went on, ‘what he does get, he spends on drink.’

  ‘Does he?’

  ‘All those boys – Roger Brindle, Donat, all of them, they drink all the time, Hetty. They’re never completely sober. I’ve never imagined anything like it. Drink seems to be a kind of religion with them. I cannot describe it to you. Yet they get no pleasure from it, none at all. I find it very distressing, but your Aunt Rose is more tolerant, and she sees it all as a part of the decaying capitalist system – inevitable.’

  All this sounded most promising. Nothing could be further from life at Grassmere, where everyone enjoyed their liquor and nothing was allowed to decay.

  But who the hell was Aunt Rose, to be tolerant about Donat Mulqueen? And no one but a fool would compare his work to Keats’s. It was not like anyone’s; it was only like itself.

  They were now passing slowly across the lower lawn towards the gates, and Hetty suddenly remembered her manners.

  ‘I am so sorry, Uncle Frank; I was so interested in what you were saying that I quite forgot to ask you if you will have something. Some tea, or a cocktail, perhaps? And of course you must see Aunt Edna.’

  ‘Oh no, thank you, my dear,’ he said hastily. ‘I had a cup of tea while I was waiting for the bus at Blackbourne and I don’t really think I will see your aunt, if you don’t mind; there really won’t be comfortable time. I am afraid she will think this a most peculiar visit, creeping in like this and creeping out again and upsetting you so thoroughly, but I asked for you, you see, in case she should refuse to let me see you.’

  ‘I don’t think she would have done that, but I’m very glad that I have been able to see you alone, because of what we’ve been able to arrange.’

  ‘Yes, well, Hetty, so am I – if your mind is really made up?’

  ‘It really is. You have only put the match to a fire that has been waiting for seven years.’ (Uncle Frank looked a little alarmed.) ‘Good-bye,’ holding out her hand. ‘I will write to you as soon as I know what my plans are, and then you can let me know if you can have me.’

  ‘I will do that, Hetty. Frank Franklin, Acre Street, WC2 will always find me. Good-bye.’

  She watched him go down the road. When he had gone a little way she called, almost challengingly, ‘Oh … Uncle Frank … give my regards to Aunt Rose,’ and he turned, waving and nodding.

  She walked slowly back to the party, with the disagreeable feeling in her stomach that some people have when they know that there is going to be a row.

  Mrs Spring was sitting on the veranda with one or two older people, a smart figure in black and white with hair admirably dyed to a dark chestnut-red. She had noticed Hetty’s lengthy absence, and while she talked, her pain-dulled eyes moved about, trying to find her niece. Her headache was so much worse that she wondered how she was to get through the evening’s gaieties, and she felt really bitter with Phyl and Hetty, whose tiresomeness had brought it on.

  There was Hetty, lounging down by the geranium beds with a book and looking both untidy and bored. Mrs Spring waved, calling rather tartly, and Hetty sauntered across, still feeling rather bewildered and as though Uncle Frank’s visit had been a divine visioning.

  As she looked across at her aunt’s tired, pain-drawn face that was trying to look serene and gay, Hetty felt both remorseful and angry. Mrs Spring had suppressed letters, snubbed people who only meant to be kind and done everything she could to keep Hetty away from her father’s family. Yet it had all been done, Hetty was sure, for Hetty’s good. How tiresome people were! how complicated, tortuous and impossible to judge all in one piece. And the simple ones were dull and faintly irritating. Not for the first time, Hetty decided that she preferred books.

  Victor, picking up his letters from the bamboo tray in the hall an hour later, was pounced upon by Phyllis, coming quickly downstairs. She was dressed for the evening’s party in black and yellow stripes, and suggested a slim, ill-tempered, handsome wasp.

  Victor just glanced at her, then back at his letters again. He did it on purpose; he wanted to annoy her. She got on his nerves so badly these days that he really hated the sight of her and had to show it somehow. He supposed that things would be better when they were married; he hoped so, anyway, or it was a cheerful lookout.

  Why couldn’t she leave him alone? She was everlastingly balling him out about something. Why hadn’t he said he liked the new cushions she had chosen for the (ruddy) dining-recess? Couldn’t he be there when they demonstrated the televisor; he ought to; surely he could get away for an hour in the morning? Blah … blah … blah … and for months he had been overworking steadily on the Bracing Bay scheme.

  Women we
re only there, after all, for one …

  ‘Vic,’ began Phyllis rapidly, ‘I suppose you didn’t remember my scent?’

  ‘No, I did not. I haven’t been into the West End today, anyway.’ He was walking towards the stairs, skimming his letters. He looked tired.

  ‘My dear, don’t you think you’d better see a good man or something? This morning you went off before I came down, and you knew perfectly well I’d particularly asked you last night to wait until I’d told you properly about the emerald bracelet. Those fools have made it much too big and it falls off every time I put it on.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He was reading the last of his letters. It was written on Woolworth notepaper in a childish and rather vulgar hand, yet it appeared to absorb him.

  ‘Vic.’

  ‘What?’

  He put the letter into his pocket and for the first time gave her a smile. It was as near sour as his attractive face could get. ‘New dress. Rather nice. Is that what I’m to say?’

  The funny, wrongly spelled little letter with its appeal for some old trout he’d never heard of had gone straight into his heart. He was very aware of it, tucked into his pocket. It almost felt warm, lying there. Dear little kid. Funny, sweet little kid. You’d better be careful, his hazel eyes said to Phyllis, giving her the quick summing-up look that women admired. Don’t push me too far, you bad-tempered —, said the eyes. Now what’s biting you?

  ‘You’ll be paying for them soon, so it’s just as well you approve. Now did you hear a word I said, Vic? About the bracelet?’

  ‘Yes. Too small. Won’t go on. Too bad.’ He was going upstairs, and said this to annoy her. He had heard what she said.

  ‘Too big, I said, not too small. I wish you’d listen when I speak to you. I really think you’d better take it back tomorrow; they always take more notice of a man.’

  ‘I’m rather tied up tomorrow. Can’t you go? You’re going up, aren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. Probably. You know I loathe making plans hours ahead. Anyway—’

  ‘What’s the fuss outside?’ jerking his head towards the garden.

  ‘Hetty’s twenty-first. Don’t tell me you’d forgotten?’

  ‘Oh God, so it is. Are any of them staying for dinner?’

  ‘This lot isn’t, but some more are coming in about eight-thirty. Can’t we go out to Stanton again and dance? I really can’t stand a whole evening of your girl cousin; she’s too insufferable. What do you think happened this morning? Vic – do listen. Need you walk upstairs while I’m talking to you?’

  ‘Going to change,’ he said over his shoulder.

  ‘Well, I do think you ought to do something about Hetty. I wish you’d speak to her – but of course, you never do. You always stick up for her and of course it’s quite enough for me to ask you to say anything to her for you to make up your mind you won’t.’

  He was disappearing down the corridor towards his room.

  ‘I say,’ called Phyllis, one foot on the stair, ‘did you get the ring?’

  ‘No. My secretary’ll run down tomorrow.’

  He went into his room and shut the door.

  Phyllis hurried into the morning-room as though she were late for an appointment, took out her engagement book and studied its crammed pages, then stared discontentedly out of the window.

  Of course, one expected the last days before one’s wedding to be hell; all her young married friends had warned her that they were, and how right they had been. She had been bridesmaid, too, to Anthea and Gillian, to say nothing of Rosemary, Jennifer and Anne, and had observed them getting thinner, crosser and jumpier as the day drew near. The richer they were, the jumpier they got, because the wedding was bigger and more of a fuss and the fussier it was, the more there was to go wrong.

  But neither Anthea, Gillian, Jennifer, Rosemary nor Anne had had a Victor to cope with. Their young men had not been so utterly foul and completely lacking in all decent feeling, so uninterested in the flat and in plans for the wedding and the honeymoon and everything. It was like being engaged to a stick of firewood, thought Phyllis furiously, a stupid, stocky, obstinate stick of firewood. And he hardly ever wanted to kiss her and when he did she didn’t feel like it and he was no good at kissing, anyway. She knew him too well. She even knew what he was going to say next. Once she had said it for him, and he was all hurt and surprised and got all mushy. And when he lost his temper and got bossy, she hated that worst of all, because she felt that he could knock her down and make her do what he wanted, simply, and only, because he was stronger than she was. He just made her see red, that was all there was to it. Her mind went rushing blindly round in a stifling little cage of discontent and nervous exhaustion like a slim black marmoset as she stood staring out of the window at the departing guests. All her friends went through these dark furious fits with their men, of course; many a time she had listened and given advice and smoked a great many cigarettes while she did so, but this was the first time that she had really had one about Victor. If only he would be different! quite, completely different. But she did not know what she wanted him to be.

  And there were a thousand things going wrong about the wedding, too. There were those fools with the bracelet, and now those other fools had dyed the bridesmaid’s shoes the wrong colour, and there was the most sickening delay about the hand-quilted coverlets for the twin beds, the miner’s wife down in Wales who was to have done them had had to stop work because she had just lost her baby or something, and though of course Phyllis was very sorry about the baby, the wedding was important too, wasn’t it, and Phyllis was giving the woman work, wasn’t she, and when she, Phyllis, tried to get the firm who employed the woman to give the job to someone else because there was such a rush, the firm was shocked, as though Phyllis had suggested something too awful.

  Oh, everything was too sickening, and even though Vic didn’t help, or take any interest, he’d be the first to bawl if the wedding didn’t go off without a hitch; nothing made him more furious than bad staff work.

  Sighing, she turned from the window, sat down in a chair with less than her usual athletic grace, and opened Vogue.

  The guests had all gone, by car or walking out hatless into the lovely evening, and now there was a lull until the new ones arrived about a quarter-past eight.

  Mrs Spring came in, followed by Hetty.

  ‘Well, all I can say is,’ Mrs Spring was snapping, ‘it was a very rude, queer thing to do. Everybody was asking where you were.’

  Hetty, who looked pale and excited, did not answer.

  ‘And considering it was your party, I think you might have behaved properly for once,’ Mrs Spring went on. ‘Where on earth did you get to?’

  ‘She was down in the shrubbery talking to someone who looked like a verger when I saw her,’ threw in Phyllis, not looking up from Vogue. ‘Tim and I were playing tennis, and we saw them lurking down there in the most odd manner.’

  ‘Who was that, Hetty?’ asked Mrs Spring, sharply.

  ‘If you must know – and you’ll have to know soon – it was Frank Franklin, my uncle, whom you’ve always been so very careful that I shouldn’t meet.’

  Phyllis did not look up, but one slender foot in its dark yellow satin slipper stopped swinging.

  ‘Who?’ Mrs Spring sat upright. ‘Your Uncle Frank was here? This afternoon?’ (Hetty nodded.) ‘What did he want? Why didn’t they tell me he was here? What an extraordinary thing to do. I suppose he came to see you?’ looking a little confused. ‘He can’t have stayed very long. I hope you saw that he had something before he left? Did he want to see you about anything special? I must say I think it’s very peculiar – almost sneaky. Why on earth didn’t he ask for me?’

  ‘I imagine that he was afraid (and not without reason) that you wouldn’t let him see me. He told me that he had written to you three times about me, and you never answered the letters.’

  ‘Oh, I was busy or something, I forget what happened now,’ said her aunt, looking
more and more embarrassed. ‘Now don’t make a mountain out of it, Hetty, there was never any reason why you shouldn’t see your father’s people, except that I’d rather lost touch with them since you were grown up, you know, and as a matter of fact, I didn’t particularly want you to see them. They aren’t the kind of people who can be useful to a girl. This one keeps a bookshop and the other one has a miserable little job in a public library in the north somewhere. Of course, if you’d wanted to see them, I should never have stopped you, but you never seemed to take the slightest interest in them.’ She hurried on almost nervously; as though excusing herself.

  ‘I should have, if I’d had the chance. However, it doesn’t matter now; I dare say you did it for the best. And I dare say you’ll be furious when you hear what I’m going to do, but I can’t help that. I’m going to London, to live with them, with Uncle Frank and Aunt Rose.’

  ‘Rubbish, you’re not going to do anything of the kind,’ said Mrs Spring, going red under her delicate rouge.

  Phyllis at last let Vogue fall on her lap and looked up, her eyes sparkling with malice and interest.

  ‘Yes I am, Aunt Edna. You can’t stop me. I’m of age, and I’ve got my own money.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it; I put it all into Spanish Liquorice last week and every cent’s gone,’ Victor assured her, coming in rubbing his hands and apparently in a better humour. He sat on the broad arm of Phyllis’s chair and bent over to kiss her, but she dodged.

  ‘Don’t paw me, there’s a good boy; I don’t want to do my face again before dinner.’

  ‘All right.’ He got up, and lit a cigarette, then glanced from Hetty, pale and sulky, to his mother, red and cross.

  ‘What’s going on here? Not a row, surely?’

  ‘Hetty has some absurd plan of going to London to live with her Uncle Frank Franklin,’ said his mother.

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘Yes you have, but it was so long ago you’ve forgotten, and I’m not surprised. He hasn’t seen Hetty since she was three, and now he comes sneaking round here this afternoon because he knows she’s of age today and has a bit of money of her own and he hopes to get some of it. They’re awful people, particularly the wife. Socialists and they keep a shop.’