Nightingale Wood (20 page)

‘Not at all, Lady Dovewood. Anything I can do for you … only too happy.’

‘… but I wonder if you know of a really good,
reliable
band? I expect you’ve heard about those disgusting Five Demons letting us down …’

‘Yes, of course. Too bad … bad show …’

‘… and there’s so little time. It must be
reliable
but
snappy
. The children want what they call a Swing band … Do
you
know anything about Swing, Mr Spring?’ ended Lady Dovewood plaintively, who liked to pretend that she lagged behind fashion.

Yes, Victor knew all about Swing, and he thought that Joe Knoedler’s Boys would fill the bill nicely if they were not booked. Would Lady Dovewood like him to fix things with Joe Knoedler’s agent? He would be in the West End that morning; and Lady Dovewood was not to bother about Knoedler being expensive. He (Victor) would be delighted to see to that.

Lady Dovewood was more than grateful to Mr Spring, and it was
most
generous of him.

‘Blast,’ said Victor, hanging up. Now he would have to go to the Infernal Ball, out of which he and Phyl had decided to wriggle. He got more bored with it every year, seeing the same faces above the same dresses, eating the same ham stuck with the same cloves from the Dovewood herb-garden, shivering in the same draughts that had moaned through the Assembly Rooms for a hundred years. The whole thing was most dreary.

But if he secured Joe Knoedler’s Boys, he supposed that he would have to turn up to see that they were doing their stuff properly, and not tight or ravishing the ladies or anything; and be thanked by Lady Dovewood. He had planned to stay up in town on the evening of the Ball with Phyl’s people, telephoning his decision to his mother at the last minute, but now he would have, he supposed, to go. It was a bore, a ruddy bore. He opened the
Daily Telegraph
and forgot it.

Though it would be more interesting, and easier, to say that the countryside was in a fever of excitement as the night of the Ball approached, it would not be true. The movies, the dog-racing track built by the Spring Developments Association outside Bracing Bay, the wireless and the fortnightly dances at the Chesterbourne Public Baths had robbed the Ball of much of its pre-War glamour. Now it was possible to be a bit gay all the year round, instead of only once a year about 14th June, and the Chesterbourne district preferred to do the former.

Nevertheless, the Ball remained firmly fixed in the affections of these country-living people who had heard their grandparents speak of it; and as the night drew near, hairdressers in Chesterbourne were busy, a good many bottles of coloured nail varnish were sold at Woolworth’s, and Thompson and Burgess sold a large number of their fine-gauge silk stockings.

There were four prices for the tickets; three-and-six, five shillings, seven-and-sixpence and half a guinea. No one got a whiff of extra food or decoration for the extra money which went direct to the Cause, the gasping, only-just-kept-alive Infirmary; but it was a point of honour to give as much for tickets as possible. Every year Lady Dovewood proudly gave a statement to the
Chesterbourne Echo
that ‘
only
so-and-so many of the cheapest tickets were sold this year’ and there was a tradition that the number grew less every year. If it did not, Lady Dovewood made it, for her politics were Machiavellian.

The gentry, of course, bought the most expensive tickets. Sometimes they doubled the price. Mr Wither always did, and Mrs Spring, who had a habit of dashing off impulsive cheques to hospitals and lying-in homes, trebled it.

The weather was very hot during the two days before the Ball, with a huge moon showering her light over the massive heads of trees in opulent summer leaf. All night the countryside did not seem to go to sleep, for the roads were busy with the tiny jewelled beetles of cars racing their owners down to the sea for a moonlit bathe, and all along the shore for miles, bungalows and beach-huts were full of golden light and laughing voices, and damp towels dragging vigorously across wet bodies. Don’t often get this kind of thing; may as well make the most of it. Unbelievably beautiful, the long silver waves rolled in, over the dark rocks of Cornwall, the white rocks of Sussex, the flat firm sands of Northumberland and the rounded baylets of Wales. Even the bathers, running screaming and splashing into the milk-warm water, felt the beauty of the sea rolling under that green magian-light.

‘Good to be alive, eh?’ they said to each other, with characteristic English unreserve. ‘Glad to be alive on a night like this, eh?’ – in a world toppling with monster guns and violent death.

Tina had given up trying to be sensible about Saxon. She was in love with him; she faced the fact and did not want it to be otherwise. For the first time in what seemed to her a very long and half-starved life she was feeling an emotion, strong as wine, satisfying as the warmth of sunrays. She did not know it, but her love was like that of earliest youth, asking nothing in return but a smile, a gentle word, and the presence of the beloved. So long as she could have her hour’s lesson every day and exchange demure little jokes with Saxon, she was completely happy, and she did not feel miserable because he did not love her. She seldom thought about his side of the affair, because she was so absorbed in romantically loving his beauty, his youth, the sound of his voice and the colour of his eyes. She wanted life to go on like this for always, in the dreamy hot weeks of early summer, seeing Saxon every day.

In the evening she would lean from her window for long spells of time, staring across the darkening wood in the valley, whence sometimes came that song! like the very voice of Love. If he ever walked the earth thousands of years ago, given form by the passionate dreams of lovers in the Ancient World, that was how his voice had sounded. He was hidden, and winged, and he sang.

Saxon was still much flattered by Miss Tina’s interest in him, but by now he was also a little disturbed. She never said anything outright, of course, or did anything, but she looked at him in a way that he found most embarrassing, though he quite liked it. What could a chap do? What
could
he do? There wasn’t any harm in it, only he did wonder what the Old Boy would say if he knew. The Sack.

Well, he’d been planning to leave, anyway, at the end of the summer. Only The Sack would mean no reference; and besides, he was not so sure that he wanted to leave now, not since this business with Miss Tina. It might be worth his while to stay on. He still did not clearly see why it might be worth his while, for his imagination was timid, and at present he saw no other way of securing that fairy money of which he day-dreamed than by working very hard for it, but he no longer felt restless and discontented at The Eagles.

There were Miss Tina’s feelings, too. He supposed (this was when the dismay crept into his mind) that she would be cut up if he left. And he would quite miss her. She was a nice little thing, even if she was a bit older than he was. Gentle, quiet, sweet little thing, with her big brown eyes and pretty smile. He began to look forward to the daily lesson. He also began to flirt with Miss Tina. Demurely, in perfect taste, he flirted just a very little. Forgotten art! pushed into the lumber-room since the psychologists told us how dreadfully dangerous it is to repress our passions, and how much healthier it is to book a double-bed at the Three Feathers and get it over. How they despise the prolonged handclasp, the lingering glance, the double meaning, and the compliment, all the old, old moves in the Prettiest Art! Poor psychologists, how solemn they are, how well they mean, and what a lot they miss.

So Saxon and Tina drifted; Tina completely happy and Saxon a little dismayed, wondering what was going to happen, and wondering too, with his cautious self-improving streak, just how he could best use the situation to his advantage.

Two of the chief female protagonists in this story had fusses made about their evening-frocks on the morning of the Ball.

At Grassmere, Mrs Spring came grumbling into Hetty’s bedroom, where her niece was on her knees in front of a bookshelf, and asked her rather sharply what she was going to wear that night.

‘I hadn’t thought. My purple, I suppose,’ said Hetty vaguely. ‘It’s got hock on it, but Davies can get that out, I suppose, can’t she?’

‘Hock?’ snapped Mrs Spring. ‘When was that? How clumsy you are, Hetty … a new frock, only worn once.’

‘It wasn’t me. It was Phyl. She knocked me.’

‘Nonsense. Phyl is never awkward.’

‘Oh yes she is, when she wants to be.’

‘Do you mean she did it on purpose?’

Hetty nodded.

Instead of looking incredulous and angry, Mrs Spring stared thoughtfully at the floor. There it was again, that disagreeable side of Phyl’s nature which would make her a trying daughter-in-law and possibly a bad wife. Mrs Spring thought Hetty a trying girl, too, but she was not a liar. If Hetty said that Phyl had purposely knocked against her to make her spill wine on a new dress, then Phyl had. Mrs Spring trusted her niece, though she disapproved of her.

(Actually Hetty was a finished liar; she had to be, or she would have had to give up her private life and be a Spring. But she never lied unnecessarily or from malice, and this time she was speaking the truth.)

The fact is (thought Mrs Spring) though Phyl is so suitable for Victor in many ways, I don’t like her much. Oh dear, why can’t girls be like men? I never had an hour’s worry with poor Harry (her husband) and Victor is just the same. They
are
much nicer than women, people can say what they like. Now here’s Hetty and Phyl, both very tiresome in different ways, when they both ought to be a comfort to me.

‘Yes, well, never mind that now …’

‘I don’t. It wasn’t a book. If she’d ruined my
Seven Pillars of Wisdom
now, I might have.’

‘… you’d better wear the white.’

‘It wants cleaning.’

‘Oh,
Hetty
! I told you to give it to Davies.’

‘I forgot.’

‘The blue, then? Is that all right?’

‘Yes, I think so. Part of it has burst out, I think.’

Mrs Spring, in silence, switched open Hetty’s wardrobe and took down the dress from its place in a row.

‘Where? Just show me.’

Hetty pointed to a minute split under one arm.

Mrs Spring shook her head. ‘No, that will spread. You can’t wear this again, you must give it to Davies.’

‘Oh, can I? Excellent.’ Hetty looked pleased. ‘She wants a new frock, she’s going to the Baths with Heyrick next week.’

‘Is she?’ Mrs Spring was interested, for she was a good mistress to her maids. She looked over her shoulder, while her hands were busily rummaging among the dresses. ‘Is she going to marry him, do you think?’

‘Oh, I would hardly say that they have got as far as that. She is always careful to tell me that he is not her Regular.’

‘Here … what about this?’ Mrs Spring pulled out a salmon-pink one. ‘Has she got a Regular?’

‘No. She says she is still turning them over. She has Heyrick, and a policeman, and the new young postman.’

‘The red-haired one? Hetty, this will do. Just slip it on, will you, and we’ll see how it looks. I think it will do very well when it’s pressed.’

Hetty listlessly peeled off her dress and wriggled into the cloud of salmon-pink frills.

‘Do stand up, child, and don’t look as though you were going to a funeral. Don’t you want to go tonight?’

Hetty shook her head. Her arms hung slackly at her sides, she stooped, and her whole posture expressed a lugubrious indifference to her fate.

‘Why not?’

‘It will be so tedious, and I dislike Bunny Andrews.’

‘Rubbish. He’s a charming boy. It’s just like you to take a dislike to one of the few really nice boys in the neighbourhood, for no reason. I suppose you would rather sit at home all evening, and frowst with a book.’

‘Indeed I would.’

‘Hetty, you’re a very discontented, ungrateful, tiresome girl, and very selfish too. Do you ever think that you might make life much pleasanter for me if you tried to be more like an ordinary girl? What do you expect to be like when you’re my age, if you’re so odd and unnatural now? You’ll never attract men, you know, or get a good time while you go on like this.’

‘I don’t want what you call a good time, thank you, nor do I wish to marry.’

‘What do you want to do then? – and don’t talk in that stupid drawl, it’s affected.’

‘I want to go to College. I want to be educated. I want to meet interesting people. And I want a job,’ said Hetty, in a savagely careful voice as though she were repeating a lesson. ‘And I see no reason – absolutely no reason at all, Aunt Edna, why I should not do those four things. That is why I don’t care for dancing or the Bunny Andrews of this world. But there is no point in prolonging this argument, is there? Shall I wear the gold shoes or the brown satin?’

‘The gold. No, you are not going to College; it’s a waste of time and you’d never pass the exams. You aren’t clever, like your mother was. One day you’ll thank me for having stopped you from wasting your time and money. Get Heyrick to cut you some of those Los Angeles roses; they’ll just match your dress.’

She hurried away, anxious not to quarrel further with Hetty, for the mention of her dead sister made her sad. This was not one of her good days, which was a nuisance, for she was looking forward to the Ball, where she would meet old acquaintances and show off her clothes and her good-looking son.

Meanwhile, at The Eagles, Mrs Wither was slowly climbing to Viola’s room, her hand dragging along the polished mahogany stair-rail and upon her face the expression worn by one who does an unpleasant duty.

She was going to find out if Viola had The Proper Clothes.

The idea that Viola might not have them had been put into her head, surprisingly, by Mr Wither. Usually Mr Wither took no interest in the wardrobe of his womenfolk, beyond telling them that they spent too much money on it; but ever since Viola had come back from London with her hair cut in that untidy, vulgar mop, Mrs Wither had noticed him keeping a very watchful eye upon his daughter-in-law. Mrs Wither knew how he felt; she felt like it, too. They could not be sure what Viola would do next; they could only be sure that they would not like it. Who would have thought that she would come back from London with her hair like that, so conspicuous, so common-looking, so unlike the hair of all the nice girls living round about? It made her look a different person. Before she had it done, when she came into the room no one noticed her, which was as it should be. Now everyone stared at her, which was very annoying. Even nowadays, when apparently all the old nice ways had gone for ever, a widow should not be conspicuous. And Viola’s manner was different, too. She laughed more often, she seemed more
self-confident
. Mr and Mrs Wither did not think this a change for the better.