It Was the Nightingale (30 page)

“But will you have enough work, out here in the country?”

“We have considered that deeply, I do assure you! We propose no less than a monthly
standing
advertisement in
The Model Engi
neer,
in lieu of merely one casual insertion, to attract budding genii and others of that ilk to send their models to be made by the Copleston Brothers. Ernest, I do assure you, is a man of remarkable skill and ingenuity; he can make absolutely anything from any blueprint ever drawn! Then we are considering the idea of a forge to be attached to the Works, and a smithy, for there is absolutely no one near to shoe horses, both farm and hunting, and of course a forge is absolutely indispensable to any engineering shop!”

“It seems pretty good to me, Tim. Whose idea is it?”

“Chiefly Ernest’s, with a few suggestions from me. We both have long wanted such a lay-out, Phil, but until now the wherewithal has been most conspicuously absent. But hear me to the end. I’m not boring you, am I?”

“No, of course not! I think it’s a very fine scheme. But it will cost a good bit, won’t it? What else do you propose to have here?”

“We think one of the new petrol pumps, also a proper well, which will of course supply the house, and so dispense with that truly beastly and horrible rain-water tank which collects soot from the railway engines, and also a great many leaves, not to mention an occasional sparrow. There is one small snag, however,
which I must mention. We propose to have windows facing both east and west, and having gone deeply into the matter with Mr. Thistlethwaite, the aforesaid legal luminary, we find that we will have to pay a rent to the railway company, for use of their light over the cutting. The railway, you see, claims what are called Ancient Lights.”

“Thistlethwaite? I knew a solicitor at Queensbridge named Thistlethwaite!”

“Yes, he mentioned that he knew you, and had indeed acted for you. So we considered that we could safely place our affairs in his hands.”

“Well, I don’t know very much about him, you know. By the way, reverting to Ancient Lights, must you pay for the engine smoke which drifts over your garden and into the rooms of your house? Why put up with the railway’s rights to provide ancient darkness?”

“Well, you see, the railway was here before the house was built! But to continue. We plan nothing less than the complete redecoration of our abode! We shall wire it ourselves for both light and power-points. We shall provide irons for ironing, kettles for tea and coffee—to be drunk, let it be understood, in rooms with walls freshly distempered and painted! And last, but by no means least, my very dear Phil, Pa can now have the latest edition of
The
Encyclopaedia
Britannica,
to help him in some of the particularly thorny problems in the crossword puzzles of
The
Morning
Post
.”

*

So far Phillip had been asked no questions about his family; nor had he spoken about his parents, even to Lucy. He had told only his mother about her during his visit to London before Christmas, dreading possible criticism, particularly from his sister Elizabeth, that he had forgotten Barley so soon after her death. Now he thought to break the ice by taking Lucy to meet his Uncle John at Rookhurst; he was easily the nicest of his relations. So he wrote to Fawley House, and had a reply inviting him to go over at any time, with two days’ notice.

It was a happy occasion. Phillip felt free with Uncle John, who repeated, while Lucy was upstairs with the housekeeper-cook, that he had left everything to him in his will.

“Not very much, I am afraid, old chap, as I am living on a purchased annuity.’

He went on to ask Phillip what he thought of Uncle Hilary’s proposal that he should come to Rookhurst and learn to farm.

“I think I would like to very much, Uncle John, thank you.”

“That is splendid news, my dear boy! I shall write and tell Hilary, with your permission, at once! I expect you know that he has recently bought Skirr Farm, which I think you once visited with Willie, a year or so before the war? Oh yes, Frank Temperley gave up—he had a pretty hard time in the war to keep going, what with most of his young labourers joining the Forces. How fortunate that you have come just now, Phillip! Hilary, I understand, is going to have the farmhouse made more comfortable inside, and was proposing to let it off.”

“Do you think he would let it to Lucy and me, Uncle John?”

“I am certain he would! It was his idea that you should go there in the first place, but he wasn’t sure what you wanted to do with your life.”

Phillip wrote that evening to tell his father that he was going to be married to Lucy Copleston, ‘who knows Uncle John’, but gave no particulars. He felt shaky and disturbed that his life had changed so suddenly. Had he been rash in agreeing to the farming idea? What about his writing? Would Hilary expect him to give it up? He couldn’t give it up—it was his only purpose in living.

*

In the period that followed, as Phillip went to and from his cottage, a three-hour journey, the Boys’ plans seemed to be materialising. Tim had already spoken enthusiastically of what he called ‘a little man who calls himself a builder’; and one afternoon, arriving from North Devon, Phillip saw him talking with Tim; literally a little man, short and thick, with round head, broad Dorset accent and a face partly hidden by long drooping moustaches under a bowler hat. Mr. Pidler had been recommended by someone Tim had met in the cooked-ham-and-beef-shop in Castle Street, Shakesbury.

Soon single walls of red-brick were arising among the weeds. A week later these walls were twelve feet high. There was a south-west gale one night, and lying in the chalet, Phillip heard a crash. Exploring with a torch, he saw that the walls had collapsed. By noon of the next day they were going up again. Another gale blew them down once more. Up they went, Mr. Pidler having explained
to Tim that when the roof frame was on, it would hold the walls up proper.

Tim and Phillip surveyed the resurrection under a calm sky. Rusty, sniffing about, cocked his leg at the base.

“Stop!” cried Phillip. “One Pidler is enough. And the roof isn’t on yet.”

Tim explained that it was to be a corrugated iron roof, with steel girders. The central H-section would be strong enough to support, on an endless chain with wheels and rachet, the heaviest type of motor-car.

“But do you think you will ever want to hoist up a motor-car, Tim?”

“The alternative was a pit, and Fiennes objected to a pit. He once fell down an open hatch, you see, on board ship.”

“Now about these walls. I did, as a matter of fact, wonder about their strength when I saw they were of a single-brick thickness for so high a building, but I suppose the builder knows what he is doing, Tim?”

“Pidler assured me that it would be quite all right, as matter of fact.”

“Didn’t you get an architect?”

“Pidler said it wasn’t necessary, and would save us expense.”

At that moment ‘Mister’ arrived on The Onion. He wore a crinkled oversize flying-helmet on his head, several mufflers round his neck, two overcoats, woollen gloves under leather gauntlets, trousers concealed under water-proof leggings. He had his asthma back, he explained, and couldn’t afford to take risks with the beastly complaint. He beckoned Tim aside, and the two moved away into the house; and passing through, Phillip saw ‘Mister’ putting a cheque into his pocket-book.

‘Mister’ then asked for a word with Phillip, and taking his arm led him away.

“I say, old chap, have you any idea of what the Boys are spending on this building?”

“I haven’t, ‘Mister’.”

“They’ve no experience of money, you know. Between you and me, I don’t like the look of that builder feller. My gardener has heard things in Shakesbury, you know. Also they say that that new lawyer, Thistlethwaite, is a pretty sharp customer. Oh yes, people in a district like this soon get to know about everyone’s business,
you can be sure of that. I haven’t interfered of course—it’s none of my business—but you seem to have your head screwed on the right way, so couldn’t you find out what they’ve done about their reversions of the Marriage Settlement? Only keep me out of it—you understand—I’ll rely on your discretion entirely, I know I can do that.”

“I’ll be as discreet as you, ‘Mister’, count upon it!”

“Thanks, old chap. Well, how is life going with you? I’m under the weather most of the time, you know.” He sighed. “The Onion needs new piston rings as well as a new piston, new bearings, and probably a new cylinder into the bargain, confound it. I hope Ernest will be able to put it right for me. I’ve got to go to Salisbury next week to see Ness. Surely I told you about her? Keep it dark, old chap, but Ness is what I suppose nowadays would be called my
belle
amie.
I’ve known her over thirty years, so it’s no flash in the pan, I do assure you.”

The broken sofa and Pa’s armchair went away to be re-upholstered. Half-hundredweight tins of distemper stood about, open to the March rains. Paint-brushes lay in pots and by window sills. New carpets arrived. Puddings of pink plaster lay about the rooms, solidified. Wires trailed in passages. A corrugated-iron roof hid externally the girders, spans, and principals of the Works. New woodwork staircases and panelling of tongued-and-grooved planks lined the interior upper brickwork. Two lavatories and a couple of washing basins were connected to the old septic tank, which was found to be choked. Phillip set to work to clear it out, distributing pails of black compost upon that area of the garden he had cleared of docks, thistles, nettles, and rusty tins.

Commercial travellers began to arrive. Following their visits, packets, cartons, and wooden crates were delivered by the Railway horse-drawn dray. The packets, cartons, and crates lay about, opened, their contents half-removed. Heavy machinery arrived by lorries. They were driven through tall double doors upon the new floor of the works, and unloaded by means of the endless chain with a breaking strain of twenty tons. Every new arrival was greeted by Tim with immense enthusiasm. Discussions followed with Ernest about where exactly the three-inch lathe, the milling machine, the power hacksaw, power drill and power grindstone and buffer should stand.

“Confound it,” muttered Ernest. “We forgot to leave holes.”

Tim set to work cheerfully to chip holes in the new concrete floor. It was a great moment when the oil engine arrived; followed by carboys of acid and crates containing batteries. Then the anvils and smiths’ tools for the forge, with boxes of horse-shoes and nails, packages of screws, nuts, bolts; a gross of assorted pincers, ditto of spanners; dozens of cartons containing electric-light bulbs; a gross of sparking plugs of various makes, all of them surplus Disposal Board war-time aero-engine plugs which fitted no known lorry, car, or motorbike engine; a gross of tins of anti-grease paste for cleaning hands. A till was set up in the new office to be managed by Fiennes, who locked the door when he went out and hid the key. Tim got through one of the Ancient Light windows to fill the till with petty cash, ready for the change of Sales.

Nobody came to buy anything, so in the days that followed the ready cash was convenient for small purchases in the town such as cigarettes and cooked ham or beef—beef browner than mahogany, over-cooked and tasteless in the usual country manner—when sudden hunger told the Boys, in Tim’s words, “that the inner man must not be neglected.”

The food was fetched from the town in a Trojan motor-car acquired for the Works’ business. It was a year-old model, but to Tim the salesman of the Shakesbury Motor Company had explained that it was a demonstration model, and as such a very fine motor-car indeed, and well worth the full price he was asking for it; in fact he had intended to buy it for himself, but he would as a favour let them have it. Tim had thanked him for this kind act, and Fiennes wrote out a cheque for the full amount of a new car.

The signing of the cheque gave Fiennes an idea. As office manager, he would need a new motor-bicycle; so he ordered a model he had admired in
The
Motorcycle.
It arrived one day and was much admired. Now, stove-enamelled black, and nickel-plated, it stood in the Works, far too good to be used on the road. It had a new kind of sleeve-valve engine, and electric lights. ‘Mister’ asked to be allowed to ride it, was given permission and a shove off; a wobble followed; a cry.

“Too powerful for me, Fiennes old chap. To tell you the truth, I don’t feel I could manage it. I’m used to The Onion’s ways, don’t you know. It lost all compression on the way over, and there’s a noise I don’t very much like in the crankcase.”

There followed a long conversation by telephone to Salisbury, after which ‘Mister’ mooned about unhappily before going back to stare at the motionless Onion.

Phillip found Fiennes hard to talk to. When he asked him if any work had come in, Fiennes replied, “That’s my affair,” before locking the office door and going in to Shakesbury to have his hair cut. The telephone receiver was left off, so that no calls could be taken while he was away. The telephone was a bore, said Fiennes.

Another bore, according to Fiennes, was the loose, tall, prematurely bald young man who had bought a small house above the river, with a few grazing meadows. He had paid them a visit, asking questions about what the Works were for, and trying to be friendly in a gauche manner. He was, declared Fiennes, an idiot. That became his nickname, and whenever ‘The Idiot’ turned up for a talk Fiennes turned his back on him, and walked away, unheeding his remarks. Even when ‘The Idiot’ wanted petrol, at the new pump, he wasn’t served. Anyway, said Fiennes, the damned tank was half full of water.

Hetty wrote to Phillip saying that she hoped she would be allowed to meet Lucy before he was married. He replied that he had no idea when he would be married. For one thing, it was a question of money. Twenty-five pounds, he wrote, was due from Hollins when the new book was delivered to them; but it had taken rather longer than he had expected.

In fact, the novel had been abandoned more than three months now, ever since the vain attempt in the past winter to write in Pa’s study.

During the dark months, in his cottage, he had written several short stories about birds and animals, but these had not been
accepted by magazine editors in London; nor had anything been printed in America since the flying start of four years previously. Anders Norse had written to tell him that his style appeared to have changed: a little too realistic, he said. Could not he rewrite them, or better still write new stories in his old, romantic manner?

Phillip’s style had changed since reading some of cousin Willie’s books, including Barbusse’s
Le
Feu,
and other literature with a revolutionary basis or theme. One of the writers who had influenced him was H. M. Tomlinson, whose long essay
The
Nobodies,
written with irony and grief for the fate and circumstances of the common soldiers of the war, had affected him deeply; and thus Tomlinson’s radical views were woven into his life. Often to himself Phillip repeated a paragraph from Tomlinson’s essay on Kipling:

Phillip knew very little about Kipling, beyond an earlier admiration for
Plain
Tales
from
the
Hills,
and
Actions
and
Reactions.
Then on another occasion, looking at a poem containing an invocation to the Lord God of Hosts he had read no further, linking this phrase in his mind with the civilian outlook during the Great War, particularly that of self-righteous clergymen preaching from pulpits. Kipling was dismissed as a fireside-patriot until Lucy’s grandmother, during a visit there, had told him that Kipling’s poem
Recessional
had been written as a warning against false pride during the year of the Queen’s Jubilee of 1897.

“I think I am right in saying, dear Phil, that Mr. Kipling foresaw what would happen if the growing euphoria of the age of industrial expansion brought with it a feeling of false pride and even of arrogance, which would in its turn bring ruin to all the hopes of those who had dedicated their lives to the service of the many peoples of the Empire.”

“I see, Grannie.”

“I think it was the idea of Money, as an end in itself, almost a be-all and end-all, as they say, which would bring a lowering of standards, leading to corruption and eventual ruin, that Mr. Kipling was worried about.”

Mrs. Chychester went on to say that she had spent many years in India with the Regiment which her husband had commanded then, and saw for herself that the ideas of eventual self-rule were being encouraged before their time by opportunists, which, if they had their way, would lead to a general massacre between those of different religious beliefs.

After this he decided to rewrite some of his short stories, taking out the critical slant which he had absorbed from reading Tomlinson and another essay on Kipling in Arnold Bennett’s
Books
and
Persons.
It was with relief that he recast them clear of his own personal complications. What did birds and animals know of the human tragic scene? For them life and death were elemental with air, water, light, heat, and food. Life was a borrowing from the elements, death a returning. And the spirit permeating the elements was that of form, of precision, of harmony. That was God! In this revision he rewrote story after story; but when he came to human beings, he found little or no exaltation. The mess they made of the elements, of God, and of themselves! Having typed the stories, he took them to Anders’ office one morning.

*

From the Adelphi he went to see cousin Arthur in the square, dingy brick building off High Holborn which was the Firm, with its several floors of machinery working and hundreds of men in aprons and women in dull cloth caps and aprons. It was a sight from which he escaped as soon as he could, taking Arthur out to lunch at the Cheshire Cheese, where a red-and-grey African parrot had been trained, in answer to the question
What
about
the
Kaiser?
to reply with three terse words, two of which were
the
Kaiser.

“I don’t think it’s funny,” said Arthur. “I don’t like vulgarity.”

“Nor do I, Arthur. But that’s how most men regard sex, which isn’t love, only its base. By the way, I must insure my life—do you, by any chance, know what company gives the best terms for an endowment policy?”

Arthur said he would find out and let him know.

“Thanks, old chap. When are you coming down to spend another holiday with me? I’ll be leaving Devon some time this
year. Strictly between ourselves, I’m going to live at my father’s old home, at Rookhurst.”

“Yes, Aunt Hetty told me.”

“What else has she told you?”

“Only that you’re going to be married again. May I offer my congratulations?”

“Many thanks. By the way, will you be my groomsman?”

“What’s wrong with ‘best man’, Phillip?”

“Oh, it’s the older term, I suppose.”

“Does it matter?”

“Does what matter?”

“Calling it ‘best man’?”

“Not at all.”

“Then why mention it?”

“You mentioned it, surely?”

“Let’s agree to differ, shall we? By the way, if ever you decide to sell the Norton, will you give me first refusal? I mean, I can fix you up with a new model, through commission agents, suitable for a sidecar.”

“A sidecar! No fear! When I start farming I won’t want anything except the Norton. Besides a hunter, and a pony and trap for Lucy and Billy.”

He took Arthur to Cross Aulton on the motor-bike. It rained, the belt slipped. A new chain-driven model was the thing. As they lay in bed, side by side, listening to dance music on headphones, he said, “I can see that I’ll have to get a chain-driven bike, with a three-speed gear-box. Could you arrange to get me one on the Easy Payment System?”

“I could arrange it for you any time, Phillip, and give you a good discount.”

The next day Phillip agreed to let Arthur have the old Norton for twenty pounds. They shook hands on the bargain, and Phillip motored back to his cottage.

A week later the arrival of a letter from Anders Norse caused such excitement that he set off for London without waiting for breakfast. At Exeter he stopped only to send a telegram to Arthur at his office.
Will
collect
new
Norton
today
paying
cash.
Then on to Dorchester, Ringwood, and Farnham, where he stopped for a pint of ale and to read Anders’ letter once again.

For the last time he rode LW 82, touching nearly seventy across the Hog’s Back, and left it with Arthur in Surrey; then on to town by train, keen with the vision of a resplendent new model at the agents. There it stood, electric lamps, three-speed gear-box, chain-driven, in the window of the Great Portland Street agents. Anders Norse had advanced him £100; Phillip paid in £5 notes, and telephoned his cousin that he was leaving London immediately.

The new bus was so different in weight and balance from the old one that he was nervous of driving into the kerb, or a taxi; while to have to change gear from second to top seemed a fearful ordeal. Would he strip the gears, or worse, shoot forward and knock someone over? His first ride on the old Connaught two-stroke in 1915 had been diagonally across a road and into a lamp-post.

He sent a telegram to Lucy, and started off with determination to go slowly in London traffic. He drove sedately, threading in and out of solid-tyred omnibuses, horse drays and electric trams, gradually gaining confidence. The engine was not run in, and for a thousand miles or more he must go at a steady thirty to thirty-five miles an hour.

The afternoon was fine, soon he was at Staines, and on the Great West Road to Andover. The goal of Lucy was fixed in his head, so he did not stop for food. At twilight he ran free-wheel, with engine silent down the lane to her house, stopped by the iron gate, set the machine on its stand, took off goggles, and walked round to the kitchen. He felt no emotion now that the long ride of more than three hundred miles was ended.

Lucy had been waiting for some hours to greet him. After reading the telegram she had put off going on her bicycle to
Ruddle Stones for dinner. Knowing how keen he was on a new bike, the first thing she said when she saw him was, “Hurray! Where is it?”

“Outside the gate.”

“Do show it to me. Oh, it’s got foot-rests! How perfectly and
absolutely
lovely! We can go miles and miles without my getting tired!”

“Did you get very tired before?”

“Only sometimes.”

“What a selfish fool I was, not to realise it.”

“Oh, it wasn’t much,” she said. “Won’t you come in?”

“I think I ought to be getting back to my cottage.”

“Must you?”

“Well, my work is far behind. Also, I’ve got to return to London soon, to meet an American publisher. Where are the Boys?”

“Gone to Shakesbury to see Charlie Chaplin.” She added, “I was just off to Ruddle Stones for supper, when I got your telegram.”

“I’m sorry I deprived you of a good meal. I’ll take you there.”

She wondered if his remote manner was due to thoughts about his work. “Will you? How lovely! Just a moment, I’ll get a cushion.”

While he waited there, void with fatigue, Pa came out in his slippers and after the least greeting gave him a small parcel wrapped in brown paper, saying, “This is a bestial book. I have had to keep it hidden from my children,” and without further words he went back into the house.

Lucy returned. In silence they arrived at ‘Mister’s’. By the glass door he stopped. “I’ll say goodbye now.”

“Won’t you come in?”

“Sorry, but I can’t face Mrs. Smith.”

“Oh, she’s quite harmless.”

They went in.

‘Mister’ was sitting in a chair within, bent of back, twiddling his thumbs, varying this symptom of an empty life by sometimes tapping his nails on a Chinese lacquer table beside his chair. On the table was
The
Radio
Times
and a pair of headphones, for he tried to relieve marital boredom by listening to singing, gramophone records, and talks from 2LO.

By a lamp, sewing in another chair, was Mrs. à Court Smith, a squat figure with blackberry eyes beneath feathery eyebrows that emphasised a heavy face under a pile of grey hair.

On a sofa in another part of the room sat a man and a woman, obviously not at ease, and looking what they indeed were, two new paying guests who had come to enjoy a holiday in the country.

“By Jove, hullo, hullo!” cried ‘Mister’, half pulling himself out of the chair on to his long bent legs. The effort seemed too much, he compromised by slewing himself round. “If it isn’t Lucy! Well, well, well, and how are both you good people tonight? Come on in, and make yourselves at home!”

After shaking hands with Mrs. à Court Smith, Phillip was asked if he knew the paying guests. The couple rose hesitantly and awkwardly, saying that they were very well thank you in reply to an enquiry as to how did they do. Mrs. à Court Smith gave Phillip a significant glance, but he pretended not to see it, and she resumed her sewing, to enquire of Lucy, “How are Pa and the Boys?” at the same moment that Phillip said to ‘Mister’, “How’s the Onion?”

“Oh, the beastly thing’s gone wrong again,” complained ‘Mister’. “Magneto this time, I think. I wanted Ernest to come over and look at it, and sent him a telegram, but he was too busy this afternoon, I gather. So I’m stuck here, you see, old fellow.” He drummed his fingernails on the Chinese table. “Well, what’s your latest news?”

“We’re all motor-bike fiends here,” said Phillip to the paying guests.

“Go on!”

“I see you’ve got a new Norton,” said ‘Mister’. “Wish I had!”

“It’s such a beauty,” said Lucy happily.

“Lucy”, said Mrs. à Court Smith, equably, “tell me, are you going to announce your engagement in
The Morning Post
?”

Lucy looked at Phillip.

“Well,” he said, “we weren’t going to, for the present.”

“I think you ought to, you know, old chap,” said ‘Mister’. “It’s the thing, don’t you know.”

Phillip felt utterly exhausted. He made no reply until ‘Mister’ repeated his advice, then he said distinctly, “I’m not awfully keen on advertising.”

“It’s no joking matter, I assure you, my dear fellow.”

“But why
The Morning Post
?”

Mrs. à Court Smith laid down her work as she prepared to say, also distinctly, “Well, you see, after all, Lucy comes of a rather good family.”

A silence followed. The paying guests began a conversation in low voices, to show that they knew it was not the thing to eavesdrop.