Nightingale Wood

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ faintly.

  Saxon shut the door, the light went out. He turned, and Tina moved towards him with a breath of sweet scent.

  ‘Oh, Saxon, about tomorrow—’ she was beginning in a quick, shaky voice, when her perfume, the look on her face and the note in her voice went straight to Saxon’s head. He smiled, put his arms round her even as she drew back, and took a long kiss.

  She heard a muttered ‘dear little thing’ or ‘little Tina’ before his mouth pressed hers, but she thought nothing clearly. She only struggled violently to get away from the body of a stranger who frightened her, yet even while she battled, saw with a pang of tenderness how youthful was the line of his cheek.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he whispered, the Essex lilt strong in his voice. ‘Don’t you like me?’

  ‘Don’t, don’t,’ turning her head distractedly from side to side, ‘oh please, please let me go. Please, Saxon, let me go.’ She was weeping.

  He let her go, and stood looking down, slowly jerking the cuffs of his jacket while she tidied her hair with shaking hands. He seemed neither sulky nor disconcerted, only thoughtful.

  In the silence a bird began to sing in the wood across the road. The wild, sharply sweet notes made Tina feel unbearably miserable. She was glad when it stopped abruptly.

  ‘I must go,’ she said at last. She could not leave him like that; she must say something.

  He looked up.

  ‘If you won’t tell your father about this, I’ll give in my notice tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’d be … obliged’ (she saw him struggling with grateful and decide not to use it) ‘if you wouldn’t. If you do, I shan’t get a reference, and I’ll have to have one, to get another job.’ He spoke to her, for the first time, as to an equal.

  Her heart seemed to turn over.

  ‘Oh, but …’ she began.

  He misunderstood.

  ‘All right, if you must, you must. I got what was coming to me, that’s all. It was mostly your fault, though. Coming down here’ (the Essex lilt again) ‘at this time o’ night, dressed like that, and expecting me not to think you wanted … me to do something about it.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I did want you to,’ said Tina, while a burning blush began to creep from the top of her head slowly down to the tips of her slippers, ‘only somehow when you did, it was so different … I …’

  ‘Didn’t like it, eh?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Maybe I was a bit sudden,’ said Saxon, with a quick delightful smile. ‘I knocked the breath out o’ you, is that it?’

  Nod.

  ‘Not used to it, are you?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘That’s funny. You’re nice to kiss,’ watching her under his eyelashes.

  ‘Am I?’ A murmur.

  ‘Yes. You’re so … kind of small.’

  (And not old? thought Tina, desperately. You didn’t feel, when you were holding me, that you were holding someone much older than you are?) She did not at all like his suggesting that she was unused to kisses, but of course she could not register indignation about that.

  ‘I was going to say,’ she began, trying to recover a cool, light, friendly but ladylike tone, ‘that I won’t tell my father. You see, as it was partly my fault … I mean, I suppose I felt silly or it was the moonlight or something,’ laughing in a most unconvincing manner, ‘I feel that you ought not to take all the blame.’

  ‘That’s only fair,’ said Saxon, making, at a single stroke, the conversation again one between equals.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tina, dropping the ladylike voice and realizing with alarm that Saxon had the situation perfectly in hand, ‘yes, I suppose it is.’

  He knows I love him, of course. That’s why he’s being so bossy, and laughing, though he’s pretending not to. How awful. Now he thinks he can do anything he likes, because I love him. He thinks he’s only got to say he’ll leave, and I’ll implore Father to ask him to stay, and raise his salary. It’s horrible, it’s an impossible situation, and I won’t put up with it. What I must do (trying to plan coolly) is to say that I won’t have any more lessons, as I’m going away soon, and tomorrow I’ll write and ask Joyce if I can go to her for a week or two.

  But when I come home, he’ll be here and things’ll be as bad as ever. Oh what shall I do? Why did I ever let myself get into this mess? Who’d have thought, when I used to see him rushing around in his old red jersey, that I’d ever feel like this about him?

  ‘Better shut the door,’ said Saxon, moving, and deftly slid it to. A quarter past one struck muffledly from within the house. Their whole conversation had taken less than ten minutes.

  Of course, I ought to have gone in the minute he let me go, thought Tina desolately, bunching up her draperies again.

  ‘What about your lesson tomorrow?’ inquired the young man, in a calm friendly voice. No ‘Miss Tina’ now; no subtle inflection of respect. Will he talk like that in front of other people? Surely he won’t dare!

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I think perhaps I won’t—’

  ‘I think you’d better, don’t you? You’re getting along so nicely now, it ’ud be a pity to stop half-way.’ (Was this an unpardonable double-meaning?)

  ‘Oh, very well then,’ sighed Tina tiredly. ‘Eleven o’clock, as usual.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ said he cheerfully. They had crossed the moonlit yard, and now stood by the open door leading into the dark house.

  Polo came out, inspected their shoes, and waddled in again.

  Beauty isn’t fair, thought poor Tina, looking at Saxon. It gives people such an advantage.

  ‘Good night,’ she said distantly, turning to go in; but he took her hand in his, pulled her unwilling face towards him, and dropped the gentlest of kisses on her cheek.

  ‘Good night, you funny little thing,’ whispered Saxon: and went home whistling through the moonlight.

  Tina crept rather than walked up to bed, so tired that she could think of nothing. She could still feel the warm soft touch of his lips on her cheek. Oh, where is this going to end, she thought, her hand on the knob of her door.

  ‘Tina!’ Madge’s cropped head was poking urgently half-way out of her room. ‘Where on earth have you been?’

  ‘Hunting in the car for my bag.’

  ‘But it’s on the hall chair.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But – oh well, so long as you’ve got it. Did Polo come out?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did he seem?’

  ‘Oh God, Madge, he seemed all right. How could he seem? You’ve got that dog on the brain.’

  ‘Well, I only wondered. He’s just at a critical age, of course; growing so fast, and learning—’

  ‘Yes. Good night.’

  Tina went into her room and shut the door. As she opened a jar of cream costing two and sixpence, she felt so wretched that she was surprised to see in her mirror that she looked pretty. Her eyes were very bright, her face had an alive, transparent look. She turned away angrily.

  Just before she dropped asleep it occurred to her that she had at least fallen in love with a young man of character.

  A floor higher up, Viola was already dreaming, with her face covered with a cream at sixpence a tube and a dance programme under her pillow.

  CHAPTER XIV

  The blankness and boredom that fell upon Viola after the Ball was over were very hard to endure, and she therefore made no attempt to endure them, but grew more depressed and discontented as the hours drew into days, the days into a week, a fortnight. She had been so sure, in spite of her small knowledge of men, that Victor was strongly attracted to her that she expected him to telephone to her or write on the day after the Ball; and when he did not, she was as puzzled as she was miserable.

  Her guess was true. He was most strongly attracted to her, but not romantically. The intentions of the Prince towards Cinderella were, in short, not honourable: and as we have seen, he thought it the prudent thing not to see her. H
e did not wonder how she felt about him. He assumed that a widow like that would have plenty of men and plenty to do with them. He knew nothing about the dullness of life at The Eagles. He only just knew Mr Wither by sight. For all he knew to the contrary, life at The Eagles might have been a whirl of gaiety, and he purposely did not ask Hetty any questions about Viola because he did not want to be mocked at.

  Hetty saw quite plainly, in fact, that he was attracted to Viola, but the situation made her so impatient and irritated that she would not think about it. How petty men and women were! getting attracted to each other, fussing over new frocks, planning parties, while the human race was living through perhaps one of the most repulsive yet interesting eras it had yet known! And Hetty took the bus to Chesterbourne to inquire if her German grammar had arrived.

  At the back of Victor’s mind was a feeling that sooner or later he was bound to run into the Merry Widow again. Couldn’t help it, surely, as she lived so near; and then, if he had a good excuse for seeing her, no one could say that he had looked her up on purpose, and things must just … work themselves out. That was how Victor put the situation to himself, when he occasionally thought about Viola in the intervals of working hard and seriously playing a lot of games.

  But Viola believed that he felt about her as she felt about him; and therefore, she could not, though she thought of every possible and impossible reason, imagine why she did not hear from him.

  She knew that he was not officially engaged to that marvellous girl; but presently the thought occurred to her that he might be unofficially engaged to her. If he is, thought Viola indignantly, then he oughtn’t to have squeezed my hand.

  Here she hit on just the sober truth; but she did not for an instant accept it as such, because it was sober.

  She did not dare to telephone him. Even Shirley, whose methods with men were unorthodox and successful, said that it was a dam’ silly thing to do to phone a man you’d only met once, unless you had a cast-iron excuse like a cinch for the Derby or the news he was a father, and even then, better not. So we can’t do anything, Viola had said dejectedly and Shirley had replied, That’s about the ticket, darling. Vote, Marie, perms, and all, we can’t do anything.

  Proper pride, of which Viola had a larger share than the better-educated and more intelligent Tina, prevented her from going near Grassmere when she went for her walks, and as she did not have the luck to meet Hetty again in the wood, she had no news of Victor, as well as no glimpse of him; and the lowness of her spirits was increased by the fact that she now had five shillings and three half-pence in the world.

  She would very much have liked a confidante; but she was shy of writing a long letter about Victor to Shirley. She did not know why, but the feeling was strong enough to prevent her from writing. Tina was the obvious person in whom to confide, and on the day after the Ball gave her an opening by saying, casually, ‘You made rather a hit with young Spring, didn’t you? What do you think of him?’ but she had seemed so low-spirited herself, and so uninterested in her own question, that Viola had only replied hastily that he danced marvellously and was awfully good-looking, wasn’t he? but that she hadn’t really thought much about him; they had only danced once. Tina had replied rather snappily that she supposed he was good-looking but he wasn’t her type, and no more was said.

  Viola never thought of analysing her own feelings, and if she had tried, she would have done it incorrectly. For the first days after the Ball she lived in a romantic, dreamy, hopeful excitement that made time fly and every-day matters delightful. She did not say to herself: I love Victor Spring, but thought about him constantly with glowing admiration; every object connected with him became dear to her and interesting, apart from the glamour of his position.

  She was full of innocent snobbery. It never entered her head to fall in love with Saxon, who was better-looking than Victor and nearer her own social and economic position. No, Saxon worked with his hands; one did not fall for someone who worked with their hands. One went up and up and on and on. Even had Saxon not been working in her father-in-law’s establishment, Viola could never have fallen in love with him, because he was a chauffeur.

  Hail, Snobbery, by mink and broadtail bounded,

  On whom the English hierarchy is founded.

  It was Tina, the would-be realist, who discerned beneath Saxon’s dangerous beauty and his low birth a quality that drew forth Love and Love’s despised elderly sister, Respect.

  The dim youthful day-dream of marrying Victor never occurred to her nowadays. She was so busy wondering if she should encounter him by chance whenever she went out, or whether that was him on the telephone, that she had no time for picture-making.

  Tina had no time for it, either. She had never much indulged herself in dreaming since she left her late twenties, because all the psychological handbooks, in one great bellow like the trumpets outside Jericho, said that day-dreaming was Pernicious; and Tina, having no religion and no husband and children, had to hang on to something and tried to hang on to Psychology. As a girl she used to day-dream, but after she took to Psychology she tried not to, and partly succeeded. She had not day-dreamed about Saxon. She had only wanted to be with him and breathe the quiet, enchanted air that his presence made for her. When she was away from him, she longed to be with him again, but she never let her fancy off the lead. She did not want to. When some women fall in love their thoughts do not go beyond the present (though it is very difficult to make men believe this) and Tina was one of them.

  On the morning after the Ball she lay, as usual, staring out of her open window, arms behind her head, while her tea cooled on the little black lacquer table. She was in a painfully agitated state, for shame, anger, love, alarm and a great many minor but disagreeable emotions were running across her nerves in exhausting waves, and she wished with all her heart that she had not told Saxon she would have her lesson that morning.

  Yet she must go, or he would think his kisses had meant more to her than a piece of moonlit impudence.

  Besides, she wanted to see him. Yet she dreaded to see him. How unpleasant violent feeling is, thought Tina angrily, forgetting for how many mornings in the past she had lain in that same position, staring at the sky as it changed with the changing seasons, and longing to feel.

  Suddenly there slid into her mind the memory of a forgotten friend, Selene’s Daughters, thrust contemptuously to the back of her stocking drawer. What would Doctor Hartmüller say about the exhausting, humiliating situation she had blundered into? I made a mess of things because I tried to mix psychology and common-sense, thought Tina. I gave way to my desire, but I tried to be ‘sensible’ as well. I ought to have been all one thing or all the other. Mixing them’s fatal. If I’m to get out of this without more misery, I must make up my mind what I want, and go all out for it, clearly, using my intelligence, not getting in a state.

  What do I want?

  She lay there, trying to get out of a state.

  It was not easy. Emotions crowded in upon her mind, and she was also rather shocked. It seemed so cold and calculating to decide what one wanted, and go all out for it. Yet one did that when one was matching embroidery silks. Why should not one do it with one’s feelings?

  Well, do I want to be sensible, or not sensible?

  Both.

  But which do I want most?

  Ah! I want to be not-sensible.

  How not sensible?

  I want … this took some thinking out. Tina frowned with the effort.

  I want to be with Saxon. I want him to kiss me (gently, not all crushed up. Oh well, I suppose I may want him to kiss me all crushed up subconsciously, but certainly not consciously, not at all). Do I want to marry him? No! no, I certainly don’t want to marry him, that would be a disaster; it always is when a woman marries ‘beneath’ her – though men seem able to do it successfully for some reason. Do I want to have an affair (beastly word!) with him, then? No, I don’t; I should hate it, it would be vulgar and horrible and spoil everything, al
l that feeling of his being part of my youth.

  I think – why – she sat up in bed in her excitement – I think I want to be friends with him. That’s it! I’ve got it. I want to be friends with him and have jokes, and go for walks and talk, as though he was a boy again in his old red jersey and I was the same age.

  Only (she fell back on the pillows) when he really was a boy, I was a girl of twenty-two.

  The thought sobered her, but not for long. Now that she knew she wanted Saxon’s friendship, there was no harm in going coolly ahead to get it. Of course, I expect he’ll think it rather peculiar at first; he may not even believe that’s all I want, but I can make him see, I’m sure I can, if I always keep the same honest, friendly attitude. I don’t see why we shouldn’t be friends. Of course, it will be difficult …

  If Father sees him kissing me, it certainly will, coarsely observed the little voice in her head. Well yes, it will, admitted Tina, glowing with will power and mental hygiene. Very difficult.

  I never thought that it wouldn’t. But surely it’s worth a bit of difficulty to begin with to get the whole thing straightened out.

  Eight o’clock. Time to get up.

  She got out of bed, calmed, strengthened and refreshed because she had faced the situation; and very determined to work coolly to win Saxon’s friendship.

  How brutal and numerous are the defeats sustained by applied psychology! It is more like a ninepin than a science.

  When she came out into the yard (pale gold in the sunlight now!) Annie was chaffering with the butcher at the back door, Madge was watering Polo, and a man had arrived to put a washer on a tap; the place, in short, was seething with people.

  And there stood Saxon by the car, his eyes wrinkled up against the morning sunlight, smiling at Polo’s antics.

  People ought to be surprised if I didn’t love him (not that I do) thought Tina, confusedly, but advancing with a friendly smile. She had on a new frock; she thought she looked rather attractive.