Nightingale Wood

  ‘No, Father. We were married at Stanton in September.’

  ‘Then you must have known about it, you sly little beast.’ Madge whirled on Viola. ‘You were there.’

  ‘I didn’t – I didn’t know a thing about it,’ stammered Viola. ‘She never told me a word.’

  ‘You must have guessed, unless you’re a born fool.’

  ‘No, I didn’t, and I’m not a born fool, either.’

  ‘Then you’re a liar, too, I expect,’ said Madge contemptuously. ‘Breeding will out. It’s like dogs.’

  ‘I’m as good as you are, even if I did work in a shop!’ cried Viola hotly.

  ‘Sh – sh—’ Mrs Wither held out a distracted hand towards them. ‘Tina, is it true?’

  ‘Of course it’s true,’ impatiently. ‘What would be the point of saying so, if it wasn’t?’

  ‘Then it’s all right about the—’

  ‘Oh, I’m not going to have a baby either, if that’s what you mean,’ said Tina crossly, stubbing out her cigarette like an early Noël Coward heroine. ‘I just said that to shock you. You seemed to want shocking, so I supplied shocks.’ She stared moodily into the fire.

  ‘That settles it,’ said Mr Wither, breathing heavily. ‘You leave this house tonight, and you don’t come back – er – you don’t come back.’

  ‘What a pity it isn’t snowing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said: it’s a pity it isn’t snowing. Oh well …’ She straightened herself, turned, and gave one long curious stare round the drawingroom. If she ever saw it again, she would see it through the eyes of a wife, the wife of a young chauffeur keeping them both on three pounds a week. She herself had about seventy pounds.

  ‘All right, Father. I’ll go over and collect my husband’ (in spite of fear, and wondering how Saxon would take this upheaval, what satisfaction there was in saying my husband! She saw disgust, struggling with some other feeling, on her sister’s face as she said it). ‘Goodbye, Mummy. We’ll go to the Coptic, and I’ll write you from there as soon as we know what we’re going to do. Will you send my clothes on and my books?’

  Mrs Wither could only sob. Mr Wither, after staring dazedly round at his womenfolk, lurched out of the room and shut the door. He had gone to his den.

  ‘Oh, Tina,’ said Viola eagerly, ‘can I help you pack?’

  ‘It would be more help if you’d look up a train for me.’

  ‘I’m awfully sorry, Tina,’ apologetically, ‘I can’t make out those time-table things.’

  Tina, half-way up the stairs, looked back impatiently.

  ‘Well, then, ring up the station.’

  Fawcuss came slowly out of the door leading to the kitchen stairs, with no expression on her face, waddled across the hall, and began to pong the gong to announce dinner.

  Viola went to the telephone and gave the station’s number, looking uneasily at Fawcuss out of the corner of her eye. Did Fawcuss know?

  Fawcuss, Annie and Cook knew All … except that Tina was married. They had heard every word that the Hermit had said, and while setting the table for dinner in the dining-room, Annie had gathered the rest from the loud voices in the drawing-room. Though they were three religious women, whose Vicar (a man with a long experience of village life) was always warning his congregation against the evils of gossip, Annie would have been an angel had she not repeated everything that she heard to Fawcuss and Cook when she got downstairs again and they would not have been human had they not listened.

  All three were very shocked and truly grieved. Little Miss Tina! whom Annie had known since her pigtail days, to whom Cook had given dough to make dollies when she was a tiny thing, whom Fawcuss had first seen as a pretty child of ten … and Saxon, that nice respectable boy! It didn’t seem hardly possible … only Miss Tina had said so herself … said awful things … that made you quite hot to overhear them. And her poor mother crying so, and Miss Madge sounding so hard and angry (she was a hard one, Miss Madge was) and the Master taking on so … and now Mrs Theodore was phoning about trains.

  Surely the Master wasn’t going to turn Miss Tina out on a night like this!

  The world seemed coming to an end.

  Tina came downstairs in her fur coat, carrying a big suitcase.

  ‘There’s an eight o’clock, gets in at nine-twenty,’ said Viola. ‘I say, can’t I come with you?’

  ‘No, thanks awfully. I’m going over to see if I can find Saxon. He’s probably on his way back here; he must know there’s been a frightful row.’

  She paused at the front door, which Viola was holding open, and glanced back across the hall. Fawcuss’s solid figure was just disappearing slowly through the door to the basement.

  ‘Fawcuss. Just a minute,’ called Tina, a shade nervously.

  ‘Yes, Miss Tina?’

  Fawcuss slowly turned and slowly came across the hall, her large pasty face all inquiry, suspicion and grief.

  ‘I just wanted you to know that Saxon and I are married,’ said Tina steadily. ‘Will you tell the others for me, please? and say goodbye to them? I’m going to London, with Saxon, and I don’t quite know when I shall be back.’

  ‘Oh yes, miss … Madam, I should say. Well, what a surprise, I’m sure! Good-bye, Madam,’ she took Tina’s outstretched hand and shook it awkwardly, then added, in a sudden emotional rush, ‘I’m so glad for you, Miss Tina, Madam, I should say. I always did say he was a nice respectable boy.’

  She slowly retreated again, looking relieved, but also perhaps the least bit disappointed.

  ‘Good-bye, Vi. Thanks awfully. Write to me sometimes, will you? I’m sorry I had to tell you such a lot of lies at Stanton, but it couldn’t be helped. I don’t know quite what we’re going to do, of course; the first thing is for Saxon to get another job, and as soon as he does, I’ll let Mother know. I expect Father’ll cool down after a bit, but the truth is that I don’t care much what he does, or Mother and Madge either. I know it sounds awful, but I never have liked them much.’

  To Viola, who had liked her own father better than anyone she had ever known, it sounded worse than awful.

  ‘I just want to get away, and start a normal life with Saxon, and never see this hole again,’ Tina went on, staring out into the dark, misty drive. ‘The last two months haven’t been much fun, you know … Well. Good-bye.’

  She kissed her hastily, and went quickly down the steps. Viola hurried after her.

  ‘I say, Tina, are you all right for money? I’ve got seven pounds, if that’s any use?’

  ‘Oh no, thanks awfully, I’ve got about three myself, and Saxon’ll have a little and I can get some from the bank in Town tomorrow. Good-bye. Run in, you’ll catch cold.’

  Viola watched her cross the damp drive by the light from the open door, a small fur-coated figure pulled sideways by the weight of the suitcase. When she saw the beam of Tina’s torch flash into the dark wood, she slowly shut the door.

  CHAPTER XXI

  Tina went down into the little valley, and the trees closed behind her.

  The path was slippery with fog-damp and it was difficult to carry the case, so heavy, in one hand and to poise the torch, so light, steadily in the other. Once or twice she slithered, and only got her balance by leaning against the wet, ridged black bole of an oak. She could see nothing but tree-trunks and slowly writhing mist, but she had known this path all her life, and soon she came to the stream and picked her way across. A fire glowed inside the Hermit’s shack. Surely he doesn’t sleep down here on nights like this, she thought, vaguely.

  She began to climb the hill on the other side, staring steadily at the path under the torch-beam, for no landscape is so wildly confusing as a wood filled with mist, even if the ground be familiar to the traveller, and on this side the path was fainter.

  She felt frightened and sad. All her anger had gone. She had cast off her family (well, they had cast her off, actually, but it came to the same thing), the house where she had been born, all the wellknown framework of her
life, and was going to trust herself to a stranger. That was what Saxon seemed to her as she climbed, drawing the chill, winter-tasting mist into her throat. Their relationship had always been romantic and secret, leading her to compare her husband to young wolves and spring gods, but suddenly these comparisons seemed ridiculous to her, and Saxon just a pleasant, friendly young man whom she took great pleasure in kissing and whom she hoped was going to come up to scratch in the present unpleasant situation.

  Her meetings with him since their return from Stanton had also been romantic, taking place in damp autumnal dells and remote teashops on the outskirts of Chesterbourne but both he and she had stopped feeling that they were romantic. It was a confounded nuisance to have to lurk around like someone in an Eberhart thriller when you had the legal right to sit by the fire calling bits to each other out of the books you were reading and sucking toffee.

  The feeling between Tina and Saxon, in short, had changed from romantic love to married love.

  (It would take too long to argue, and explain, and illustrate the difference. Everybody knows there is one. One love is as worthy of support as the other. It just depends which you prefer.)

  The change happened during the holiday at Stanton, and it happened while they were lovers but before they were married. Saxon it was who had first discovered that the natural bond for this new feeling was marriage. He had proposed to Tina and been accepted.

  He had wanted to tell Mr Wither at once, for he disliked making love in damp leaves, calling his wife Miss Tina in public, and behaving like a stealthy seducer when he was in fact a respectably married man; but Tina had got, on their return to Sible Pelden, into what used to be known as a State; had dithered weakly, putting off and putting off the day when her family should be told, and even having little quarrels with Saxon about the delay. She had wanted him to get a new job, in London, before telling her father that they were married. She so hated scenes, she hated and dreaded them, and had not wanted the first weeks of her wifehood spoilt by a hideous row with Mr Wither. She had, in fact, been nervous, pettish and thoroughly foolish about the affair. She now saw this plainly, and told herself that she was glad the bomb had burst, the scene was over, and she and Saxon free to take up the burdens and dignity of the married state.

  Nevertheless, as she stumbled along the greasy path towards a light shining among the trees, she could not feel relieved and excited. She could only feel extremely depressed. Would Saxon be the same friend and lover now that the last shreds of Romance had blown away, and he had to keep her in corselets and mutton chops?

  She put the suitcase down, rubbed her aching arm for a minute, then knocked.

  After a little while the door was opened by Mrs Caker, an old jacket huddled over her shoulders, who stared down at Tina in astonishment.

  ‘Good evening, Mrs Caker,’ began Tina, remembering how she used to be especially polite when she was a little girl to Mrs Caker when she brought home the maids’ washing, because I hear the Cakers have been having a hard time of it lately.

  ‘Good evenin’.’

  Her gaze wandered sullenly and enviously over the fur coat, its surface dark-pointed with moisture from the mist, but there was a gleam of excitement in her eyes, as well. Mrs Caker enjoyed nothing more than a bit of excitement; she had just had some, and she was now pretty sure that she was going to have some more.

  ‘Is Saxon in?’ pursued Tina resolutely, looking up out of big dark eyes in a white, drawn face.

  ‘Nay, he run out a while since. Us had a bit o’ trouble to tell yer the truth, Miss Wither. He run down the wood. Count yer might have seen him; ’twasn’t long.’

  Tina shook her head.

  ‘I didn’t. Do you mind if I come in for a little, Mrs Caker, and wait? I must speak to Saxon.’

  ‘O’ course yer can.’

  She moved aside and opened the door wider, the last trace of sullenness gone. ‘Come in an’ sit down. Place is all slumocky – ye mustn’t mind that. I been washing all day – as per usual. Here …’ sweeping a pile of dried clothes off the couch, ‘sit down and make yerself at home.’

  She shut the door, and the stuffy, cottagey smell of old stuffs, boiling clothes, and fresh beer, mingled with dust, closed round Tina, who sat on the edge of the sofa with her small muddy shoes together trying not to stare round at Saxon’s home. It was even worse than she had feared. Every moment she felt more alarmed and depressed, more cut off from her old life and shrinking from the new.

  But in spite of the squalid room, and the smell, and her mother-in-law’s slatternliness, she could feel Mrs Caker’s charm. She was so good-natured; an easy warmth was shown in her every movement. She would never disapprove, or condemn, or let anyone die gently of starvation because it was the proper thing to do. Live and let live would be her motto. Good heavens, I like her, thought Tina drearily. I suppose that’s just as well.

  ‘Mrs Caker,’ she said, looking up at the tall slut leaning against the mantelpiece and staring down at her hat and coat with the liveliest interest, ‘you must think it very funny, my coming here like this, and asking for Saxon, but—’

  ‘I know you and maye Saxon’s sweet one on t’other – you know – crazy about each other,’ interrupted her mother-in-law with an embarrassed, eager smile. ‘Count everybody round about here knows that, Miss Wither. Village people’s proper owd gossips.’ She laughed.

  ‘Do they?’ said Tina, discomfited. ‘Oh … well, that doesn’t matter now. You see, we’re married.’

  ‘Married?’ Mrs Caker brought out the word in an immensely long, sweet Essex whine, at the same time flinging up her shapely, reddened hands and taking a couple of steps backwards as though blown by the news, her mouth wide open and her eyes too. ‘Married, are ’ee? Cor, he niver said nothin’ about it ter maye, proper cunnin’ l’il owd toad he is! Married? In church, were ’ee? Proper married?’

  ‘Well, not in church,’ confessed Tina, smiling; there certainly was a taking, a charming, quality in Saxon’s mother. ‘In a registry office at Stanton, in September. Saxon came there for his holiday, you know, so that we could be there together.’

  ‘Nay, I don’t know,’ protested Mrs Caker. ‘Niver told maye a word, he didn’t. So that were it!’

  ‘And now the Herm— now it’s come out that we’re married and my father’s rather upset about it,’ went on Tina steadily, blushing as she approached the social delicacies of the situation, ‘so I’m going away from home for a bit—’

  ‘Just ter gie him time ter get over it, like,’ said Mrs Caker, nodding sympathetically. ‘Ah, they do take on so, the old ’uns, don’t they? It’s nateral, though, ain’t it? Yer Dad don’t like yer marryin’ a shuvver, is that it?’ She sat down in her favourite position at the table, her chin in her hands. ‘Seems queer ter maye, too. But he’s a proper smart boye, Saxon is; he’ll make good, as they say. P’raps yer Dad’ll git over ut. And we’re not so low as some. Mr Caker had his own mill, yer know …’

  Her indolent, sweetly whining voice went on, telling the silent listener about the mighty mill-wheel with moss and ‘toddy blue flowers’ growing over it, about her old father’s pony trap, and Cis’s death, while Tina stared round the ugly untidy little room, brightly lit by one unshaded globe, and felt utterly lonely and desolate, like a traveller lost among strange tribes, far from his home and those who talk his own language.

  As she gazed slowly about her, keeping her head down and the brim of her hat lowered so that Mrs Caker should not notice what she was doing, she caught a gleam of dingy red in a half-open cupboard.

  The rubbish of years was stuffed in there; old newspapers, and cinema papers, magazines, dirty torn clothes, a scorched ironing blanket and a roll of dirty rope; but the glow of red that caught, and then held her glance in a rapt, disbelieving stare, came from what was left of a sleeveless, stained and ravelled old red jersey.

  ‘Here’s Saxon.’ Mrs Caker stood up, looking mischievous, as the door opened violently, and Saxon, hatless, pale and unt
idy, stood staring at his mother and his wife. He was breathing as though he had been running.

  ‘I’ve been over to get you,’ he said to Tina at last. ‘Then when I found you’d gone, I tried to see your father. But he wasn’t having any. They told me you’d come over here.’

  ‘I’ve been here about twenty minutes. I’m sorry you’ve had all that for nothing. I told Mother we’d probably go to London and I’d write her from there. There’s a train at eight. That’s best, don’t you think?’

  ‘I reckon it is. Crikey, this’s been a nice old show-up, this has. Never mind; it’ll all come out in the wash, as Mother would say,’ glancing in a little embarrassment from one to the other. ‘You two been making friends? That’s right. Mum, put the kettle on; Tina’d like a cup, I expect. I’ll go up and get me things.’

  He seemed relieved. As he ran up the stairs he called, ‘You told her about us, Tina?’

  Her own name sounded strange to Tina, sounding through the cluttered dismal little room in a young man’s full, self-important voice.

  ‘Aye, she told maye,’ shouted Mrs Caker, winking at Tina. ‘That’s a nice Christmas box, that is. Proper Walton oyster, you are.’ She went into the kitchen to put the kettle on again.

  Neither she nor Saxon had any anger left about their recent quarrel; Mrs Caker’s was too day-by-dayish a nature to brood, and Saxon had other things just now to think about. Tina sat on the sofa listening to the packing and, tea-making, and felt miserable. She would have liked to go upstairs and see Saxon’s room, but she did not, because she knew that he would not want her to; he was very sensitive about the poverty and ugliness of his home.

  Presently he came down again, carrying a cheap suitcase. He dumped it on the floor, stared at it fiercely, then suddenly looked up and gave her such a delightful smile that her spirits rose to meet it.

  ‘And that’s that,’ said Saxon. ‘Now how about this cup of tea?’

  There was just time for the tea before they caught the quarter-past seven bus at the Green Lion, and they gulped it standing up, while Mrs Caker sat at the table sipping hers, and a voice in the corner said that Miss Rita Lambolle would now talk to them about Persian Music while Miss Deirdre Macdonnell would illustrate the talk with songs to the zither.