Nightingale Wood

by Stella Gibbons

  ‘I remember now. Do you really want to leave us, Het? Don’t you like it, here, after all we’ve done for you?’

  ‘Oh, Vic, do shut up,’ snapped Phyllis, sitting up and opening fire. ‘It isn’t funny. Of course,’ to Mrs Spring, ‘I’ve seen this coming for months, only none of you would ever listen to me. I’ve always thought that Hetty hated living here and wanted to get away.’

  ‘You shut up,’ said Hetty fiercely. ‘We are quite capable of managing this, thank you, without cerebrations from you.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, but I suppose you’re being clever, as usual. It’s my business as much as anyone else’s here. If you go and live with these disgusting people you’ll always be getting into messes and then Vic will have to get you out, and that will be jolly for me, won’t it? I’m not going to sit here and listen to you getting away with anything you like, so don’t think it.’

  ‘If I do get into “messes” (by which delicate expression I suppose you mean sexual entanglements; that’s the only sort of “mess” your type recognizes) I shall get out of them as I got into them: by myself. And I don’t want anyone’s help, thank you. From now on, I’m managing my own affairs and the sooner you swallow that, the better.’

  ‘Shut up, you two,’ ordered Victor. ‘Phyl, you’d better keep out of this, you only put her back up.’

  ‘That’s right, that’s right, stick up for her!’ retorted Phyllis furiously, scrambling out of her chair. ‘Let her insult me and say anything she likes – you’ve always stuck up for her ever since we were kids. That day in the woods when she got lost and you stayed to look for her and made me go home alone – I’ve never forgotten it, and it’s been the same ever since.’

  ‘Oh God. Post-mortems now. Listen, go upstairs or something will you, there’s a dear good girl, and let Mother and I manage this? You’re only making things worse.’

  ‘No, I will not, Victor. This is my affair as much as it is yours, and I won’t be ordered upstairs as though I were the housemaid. You’re too fond of ordering people about.’

  ‘So are you … and since you’ve raised the point, I’m not your bloody errand-boy. You flew at me like a witch the minute I put my nose round the door this evening about your cursed scent or something.’

  ‘Well, good heavens, I do like that. Just because I ask you a simple—’

  ‘Not only this evening. You’re always at it … have I got this, did I remember the other. I’m fed up with it.’

  ‘Not half so fed up as I am with the way you go on – not even pretending to be interested in the wedding or anything—’

  ‘God, it isn’t my business to worry my guts out about all that, is it? That’s your affair. I’m paying for most of it, anyway. That’s what I’m for.’

  ‘There! There you go again! Just because Dad couldn’t stand us the televisor after all! I could see you were simply furious …’

  ‘Well, your sister owes me two hundred and fifty quid. I suppose I can say good-bye to that, and like it.’

  ‘You’ll get your money back, don’t worry,’ said Phyllis. ‘And here’s something else back, too.’

  He stared at her outstretched hand. In the palm was his ring.

  ‘Go on … take it … take it … I’ve been wanting to do this for months, ever since before Christmas. Oh, I’ve been so bored with you … you’re so dull … night after night, same old places, same old mush that didn’t quite come off. I wondered how I’d ever stick it when we were married and I couldn’t get away.’

  Victor, pale with rage, could only look at his mother as though appealing to her to witness what a beauty he had proposed to marry.

  ‘Go on, take it,’ she persisted. ‘If you don’t, I’ll chuck it out of the window.’

  ‘Go on, then.’

  It flew glittering through the sunlight and disappeared in a herbaceous border.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Victor. ‘Now we both feel better. You weren’t the only one who was bored; I’d sooner kiss my typist. Now will you get to hell out of here and let me finish what I was saying.’

  She went out and slammed the door, but a second later opened it again:

  ‘Edna, I can’t stay here after this. I’ll phone you in the morning. Send my things on, will you?’

  The door slammed again.

  ‘There’s a little devil for you,’ said Mrs Spring. ‘Phyl! Well, I always suspected she had a beast of a temper but – Vic, aren’t you going to – don’t you want to try and put things right? You’ll just catch her, she’s gone round to get her car, I expect.’

  ‘You heard what I said. I meant it.’

  ‘Well, I think you’ve had a very lucky escape,’ said his mother. ‘You’re well out of it, if you ask me. Oh dear … now there’ll be the invitations to cancel and the presents to send back and the flat and everything – Vic – where are you going – don’t go away, dear; we must settle this absurd notion of Hetty’s first (all the girls seem to have gone mad lately!). She’s not going, of course, that’s flat.’

  ‘Yes I am,’ said Hetty quietly. ‘Now, Aunt Edna, please don’t let’s quarrel; we’ve had enough for one evening, surely. I’m sorry if I was rude just now, but this means so much to me. Nothing you can say will make any difference, but I dislike scenes, and I don’t want any more. Just think about it quietly for a minute. Vic! isn’t this the sensible way to settle it, and do you really see any reason why I shouldn’t go?’

  ‘You can go as far as I’m concerned,’ he said. He had slouched into a chair and was staring sullenly at his gleaming pumps. ‘I think you’re a little fool, but anything for peace. I’ll go round and vet the place one day next week and see if it isn’t too impossible. When do you want to go?’

  ‘Oh, as soon as I can, please?’

  ‘All right.’ He got up heavily, and went to the door. ‘You write to them, or whatever it is you’ve arranged to do, and I’ll see about getting your money made over entirely to you.’

  ‘Victor, you surely aren’t going to let the child go off like this? without discussing it at all?’ cried Mrs Spring. ‘Hetty – I’m sorry I was irritable – do think it over, my dear. We’re going to live in London – oh dear, of course I suppose we shan’t go now … what a muddle everything is and how sickening … well, your life will be dreadfully different, you know. You’ve always been used to every comfort and it’s not so easy to do without the things you’re used to.’

  ‘I’ve done without the things I really wanted for twenty-one years, so I imagine that it won’t take me as long as that to get used to doing without my comforts.’

  ‘If she’s fed up with us, she’s quite right to say so,’ said Victor roughly, as he went out of the room. ‘Speak right out, never mind whose corns are in the way.’

  He slammed the door.

  Mrs Spring and Hetty, left together in the exhausted silence that follows a family row, looked at one another, their differences forgotten in a rush of family feeling. Mrs Spring compressed her lips and shook her head, Hetty twisted her mouth and raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Well, I’m only glad he’s out of it,’ began Mrs Spring. ‘Of course, you never liked her, did you?’

  This understatement started the ball rolling, for even Hetty could gossip when she felt at peace because she had got her own way, and for half an hour they chopped Phyllis into messes and were so happily employed that although they heard the noise of her car starting out on the London road, they did not hear Victor at the telephone in the hall.

  He stood there in the deepening twilight, frowning, with an ugly look on his attractive face. He was still so sore that he wanted to smash something. Phyllis’s taunt about being a bore had got right under his skin and was rankling. He was not only angry with every ounce of masculine vanity in his nature; he was also hurt. Old Phyl, whom he’d known since they were kids and had such grand times with (only probably she’d been ‘bored’ while he was enjoying them) … he could hardly believe it was old Phyl who had said that to him, and ca
lled his kisses mush. As he gave the number he had just looked up, he swore softly.

  Well, he knew someone who did not find him a bore and his kisses mush. Her letter was still in his pocket; he had changed it over when he changed his clothes. She was not a hard-faced bitch on the make. She was a sweet kid, and he was going to see her this evening and show her, and himself, that there were good times coming. They were going places, he and she. He finished the double whisky he had brought into the hall, and said into the telephone, whence a voice was asking who he wanted:

  ‘May I speak to Mrs Wither, please. Mrs Wither junior.’

  CHAPTER XXVI

  It happened that Mr and Mrs Wither and Madge had gone over in the car, with Madge driving, to play bridge with the Doctor Parshams. Viola had not been invited. This was because she did not play bridge, at which the Parshams excelled. So, having dined, she was sitting alone in the drawing-room re-reading The Lad with Wings, and sometimes glancing up at the window, where the trees were slowly growing darker against the fading sunset. The drawing-room, with the bearskin glimmering like a patch of snow in front of the empty grate, was in twilight except for the standard lamp by her chair, that sent soft light over her fair hair. She kept looking up at the window, because she hoped she might see a swan flying over; they sometimes did, in the spring, and she had felt an interest in swans ever since her visit to the marshes before Christmas, when the wild ones had rushed over her head. She was thinking a little about the story she was reading and worrying a little about poor Catty, and wondering whether there would be answers to any of her letters by the morning’s post and trying not to remember that in exactly a fortnight Victor would be married – when the telephone bell rang.

  Telephone calls at The Eagles in the evening were rare enough to make Viola put down her book, glance at the door, and think: who’s that? Tina, I expect. Hope nothing awful’s happened.

  But when Annie, looking rather annoyed at being summoned from the servants’ parlour and the wireless to answer the instrument, came into the drawing-room, she announced—

  ‘You’re wanted on the telephone, Mrs Theodore.’

  ‘Oh. Thanks awfully, Annie. Is it Mrs Caker?’

  ‘No, m’m. It’s,’ Annie managed to keep every whiff of expression out of her face, ‘a gentleman, m’m.’

  Viola dropped her book on the chair.

  ‘Oh! I wonder who on earth—’

  Even as she lifted the receiver, while Annie was slowly retreating to the basement, even when she said ‘Hullo?’ in her deep soft voice, she did not guess who was at the other end of the line. She had grown up so much since the autumn that she never had day-dreams now. Good lord, who can it be? was her only thought as she spoke.

  ‘Viola? Victor Spring here. I say, I got your note. I want to talk to you about it. Can you meet me in the wood, the one down the hill, in about ten minutes?’

  She hung on to the receiver, that came slowly down towards her (it was the old-fashioned kind), as though it, too, were nearly fainting. But she managed to say:

  ‘All right. But where? Where shall I meet you, I mean?’

  ‘By the stream. Near that little hut. In ten minutes, then. ‘Bye.’

  He rang off.

  Good lord, thought Viola, standing by the telephone with shaking knees and staring up at the long pale blur that was the landing window. I say – good lord. And just for a second she thought that she would not go. It was getting dark, and the maids would be sure to see her, and—

  She hesitated, but suddenly thought: If he gets there and I’m not there, he’ll think I’m not coming, and she turned and tore upstairs to get her coat.

  A moment later she slipped out, shutting the door noiselessly.

  It was that most mysterious of lights called owl-light, in which it is possible to imagine anything. All white things looked startlingly white; the road, a bush of may on the edge of the wood, Viola’s shoes, and some flowers growing out of the ditch, were white as starch. But the trees were very dark, with a bloom that was not green nor black. The night seemed to be hiding in them, not coming out of the darkness.

  She crossed the road and went down into the wood, and as she went, it got quieter and the trees shut the path in with layers of motionless leaves standing stiffly in the dusk air. An owl went leisurely over her head, flying low. Then she heard the noise of the stream, April-full, rippling over roots and the fall of stones and saw a white shirt front glimmering between the trees, and he waved to her.

  He was hatless and wore a light overcoat over evening dress. She could not help being pleased at the evening dress, it was so romantic, but she saw with dismay that he looked angry.

  He helped her across the stream, and as she reached the other side, kept her hand in his and pulled her towards him. She went without protest, and clung to him silently for a little while, returning his kisses with her eyes closed.

  At last he moved away a little, but still held her, and looked down into her lifted face. Then he started kissing her again. Neither spoke; but thoughts whirled in Viola’s head. It was so quiet and ghostly all round them, and he was so strange, his kisses were almost angry. She wanted to break the silence, but was afraid to, and as his love-making grew rougher, almost brutal, she was suddenly afraid of him. Exhausted, she pulled away from him, whispering:

  ‘I say, don’t. Please don’t.’

  ‘Why not?’ he muttered.

  ‘I’m frightened.’

  ‘Come away with me, Viola, will you?’

  She stared at him. She could not believe that he had said it. He gave her a little shake.

  ‘Did you hear what I said? I want you so much. You must come. Make some excuse, and we’ll get away somehow. We’ll fly. Go to Paris – just you and me.’

  ‘But you – what about her, I mean? That girl?’

  ‘Oh, that’s all off, thank God,’ he said roughly.

  ‘You aren’t going to marry her, do you mean?’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Really? It’s true? It isn’t – a joke, is it?’

  ‘No, it is not. Can’t you understand English? I want you to come away with me, next weekend. I’ve had enough of this,’ and he made to take her again.

  But she moved away from him a little, and fearfully, gently, put out her fingers and held his arm. It was so dark that he could only see her eyes as shadows in the pale blur that was her face. In a voice shaking with doubt, hope, longing she said:

  ‘You – you don’t want to marry me, do you?’

  ‘Thanks,’ he retorted, startlingly loud, ‘but I’m not getting tied up again just yet.’

  She burst into tears, stumbling wildly away from him.

  ‘Oh, oh, how can you be so horrible, so beastly to me! I’ve never done anything to you, I came when you asked me to … you just pick me up and drop me whenever you think you will … you’re so cruel … I’ve been so fed up I wished I was dead … asking me to go to Paris … Paris … a place like Paris … everybody knows what that means … as though I was one of those girls … you know … you don’t care a damn about me, you think because I’m a widow and I worked in a shop you can say anything to me and I won’t mind … you think I’m a bad girl, that’s what you think, but I’m not … I’m not … Oh, oh, I can’t bear it … you ought to have known, you ought … I’m not that kind of girl!’

  She turned, stumbling, sobbing, hands in her pockets and head bent, and ran up the path that led home. He made two steps after her; then stopped, shrugged, and took out his cigarette case. He could just see her white figure, silent now, hurrying out of sight among the trees.

  Sobered, doubtful, more than a little ashamed, he inhaled and sat down dejectedly on a tree-stump, so tired and depressed that he did not even think the moss would ruin his clothes. A long exhausting day, and on top of it a violent fit of rage and one of desire, had left him worn out. He yawned, sunk his chin in his hands, and shut his eyes. He could have gone off to sleep where he sat. Tomorrow there would be the flat
to dispose of, the invitations to cancel, presents to return, Phyl’s father on the telephone and if he knew anything about Phyl’s mother, her mother too, and Hetty’s new stunt to see to …

  He yawned again. It was quite dark. A delicious fresh smell floated from the spring foliage but he only smelled cigarette smoke. Women. No wonder everybody said they were the devil. What did they want? Most girls would have jumped at the chance. How was he to know she was straight? Hardly any of them were nowadays. It had given him a shock, the shock in her voice. Made him feel a swine. Poor little kid, she did cry. Such a strong wave of desire, shame and longing suddenly swept him that he got up quickly, stamped out his cigarette, and began to walk back, as quickly as he could in the confusing shadows. When he was nearly at the house he saw, from the wood’s edge, four young people getting out of a car, and remembered, with fury, the party.

  He sneaked into the house and up to his room, where he lay on the bed until he heard them go into dinner, then he rang and had some food brought up. He ate it in front of the electric fire, for he was cold, and every now and then he yawned savagely. For almost the first time in his successful, sunny, well-organized life he was miserable.

  One thought him a bore and the other thought him a blackguard.

  We live and learn, he mused, with his mouth full of smoked salmon. I shouldn’t have said I was either.

  Poor little thing. She did cry. She was shaking all over. Pretty decent of her, in a way, turning me down like that, because I’m sure it wasn’t because she didn’t want to come. No. She’s just straight, that’s all. There aren’t so many about nowadays. Little —, most of them. No, she just didn’t think it was right, and so she said no. Er … pure, that’s what she is. Funny I had her all wrong. But she likes kissing me all right, she isn’t like Phyl.

  She’s a good girl, that’s what she is. Well, my lad, you’ve often wondered what they were like, and now you know.