Nightingale Wood (23 page)

She had to laugh, but she was annoyed as well as bored.

‘Oh, of course, if it’s like that. I should hate to take the Great Lover off the trail. I’ll stay exactly half an hour more, and then I shall get Andrews or Bill Courtney to take me home.’ Bill was an old acquaintance of the Springs who lived just outside Chesterbourne.

‘Just as you like,’ he said easily. He did not mind what she did. They were not engaged yet; and he had always resented her attempts to appropriate him. She might as well put ‘Reserved’ on him, and be done with it.

As for the little widow, she must know what she was up to, and she had a grand technique that was a new one on him. And all that had been wasted on Wither! who wouldn’t know what to do with it when he got it.

Viola went in to supper with the chemist’s disagreeable son, and sat in a dream while he told her about a fascinating scheme the Government had for preventing drains from smelling. The smell would still be there but it would be used to turn electric fans or something so as to blow itself away. Every fragment of smell would be used up. A scientist had worked it all out, with charts, said the chemist’s son, glowing. It was called the Principle of Self-consumption, or words to that effect.

Viola nodded, staring at him and not hearing a word.

Tina sat listening intelligently to Giles Bellamy’s monologue, which was interesting, and longed for the time to go home, when she would leave the hot noisy ballroom and go out into the summer night, to find Saxon waiting in the car, and he would drive her home through the dark lanes smelling of dew. She wondered, too, how he was spending his evening. There would hardly be time to drive home to the cottage at the cross-roads and then come back to the Assembly Rooms; besides, her father would have forbidden such a waste of petrol. He had probably gone to the pictures, alone. Her imagination refused to show her Saxon in a dark hall with a girl’s head on his shoulder.

The lights and the smiling, flushed faces all around made her eyes ache, and Giles Bellamy’s pleasant voice, telling her an amusing story about Wengen, jarred on her nerves like a slight but noticeable pain. She compared him with Saxon, and found him unmasculine and insipid. For the first time she felt the disadvantage of loving a common man, a servant. He had driven them to the Ball; and vanished back into his own life of which she knew nothing, and when he reappeared to drive them home, she would not be able to guess how he had spent the hours of his absence, because all the men she knew were gentlemen, whose ways of passing the time she knew about, or could guess at with a chance of being right. But of common men she knew nothing; and she began to feel unhappy.

In fact, Saxon was at a near-by pub, innocently employed in playing snooker.

‘And how is Hugh liking India?’ asked Madge of Colonel Phillips. Now that one had Polo waiting at home, safe in his kennel, growing daily larger, more obedient, and more satisfactory in every possible way, things were so much jollier that one could ask Colonel Phillips quite cheerfully and naturally how Hugh was liking India, and hear without making an ass of oneself (or at least, not so much of an ass as one used to) that, apart from the niggers and the climate, Hugh seemed to be having a very good time. He’d got his tennis and his swimming and his cricket and his polo, and in his last letter he said that there was just a chance of his regiment getting a look-in at the Waziristan show, if all went well. Here Mrs Colonel Phillips confided to Madge that she, Mrs Colonel Phillips, hoped to hear in Hugh’s next letter that she was a grandmother.

Madge expressed delight, only just refraining from slapping Mrs Colonel Phillips on the back.

(I wonder if Polo’ll be awake when we get in? Perhaps he’ll bark. Father oughtn’t to mind if he does; it’ll show he’s going to be a good house-dog. Who’d want a baby when they could have a dog?)

Supper was over. People began to move back to the ballroom, and Viola glanced round to see if she could find Victor. Yes, there he was, talking to the marvellous girl, who was standing in the doorway with a young man.

In a minute, thought Viola, I shall be dancing with him.

‘Can I have this one?’ said the chemist’s well-informed son, morosely.

‘Thanks, awfully, but I’ve got it with Mr Spring.’ She made this sound like a line of poetry. ‘Perhaps—’ but she stopped. Perhaps Victor would want the next dance, as well; it would never do to promise it away.

‘I shan’t be five minutes, Phyl; you might just as well wait,’ Victor was saying irritably. ‘You don’t want to go, do you, Bill?’

‘Oh rather, if Phyl does.’

‘Well, I must go, or my partner’ll think I’m going to cut it. Good night, Bill – thanks very much.’

Thanks very much for taking Phyl off my hands. Thanks for putting up with her bad temper on the way home, for soothing her in the car, for lighting her a cigarette and mixing her a drink and sitting with her in the moonlight until I get back.

Where’s my Merry Widow?

She was standing a little forlornly against the wall looking his way. He waved and nodded reassuringly as he went over to Joe Knoedler, and said something which Mr Knoedler, standing on his little platform, inclined his head to hear. Then Victor came down towards Viola, smiling

Thank God Phyl had cleared out. He had done his duty by asking her to stop, but now if he wanted to hold the Merry Widow close as they danced, no one would care. They might stare, but they would not care. His mother had gone into a huddle with Lady Dovewood, he could not see Hetty, and young Andrews was well away with some girl or other. He did not care in the least what they all thought, but somehow he found himself looking to see what they were all doing before he put his arm round Viola and they moved away into the dance.

It was an exciting melody, slow and dreamy and strong, with the swaying rhythm beating through it like the sea under showers of foam. Round and round they swung, Viola’s flying sandals obediently following his lead the fraction of an instant after it. She had no will, no thoughts, she knew no past and no future, going with him as lightly as a flower, her sash fluttering out and the pleats of her frock flying, her eyes half-shut and her lips parted in a little smile of happiness. He held her very close and looked down at her, but she did not once look up at him. The exquisite pleasure of swift movement to music was like a drug, and though she felt his arm holding her ever closer, and saw the firm line of his chin and mouth just above the level of her eyes, she was so lost in delight that she did not realize she was waltzing with Victor Spring. It only seemed that she had been waiting, all her life, for this moment.

The tune swayed on, pulling the dancers irresistibly like the moon dragging the tides of spring. People glanced at one another and laughed, and waded into the ocean of music as the moonlit bathers had gone out into the silver-green sea. Round and round, white crinolines swaying like the bells of flowers, cloaks swinging gallantly from young shoulders. The music swelled and fell as the waves of warm, moon-swayed water rolled round and round, and the dancers dreamed that life was beautiful, in a world toppling with monster guns and violent death.

The white crinolines whirled and the music grew faster: she spun in his arms with closed eyes, clinging to him in the dragging waves of the moon-moved sea in which she was drowning. Oh let this go on for ever – but the music clashed to its close.

‘Thank you,’ muttered Victor, wiping his forehead, staring at her ecstatic face.

‘Oh, that was
lovely
!’ she cried, eagerly joining in the clapping that broke out on all sides. ‘How
beautifully
you dance …’

‘Just thinking the same about you …’

‘I’ve never enjoyed
anything
so much …’

People were clapping louder. ‘ ’Core! ’Core!’ they shouted impatiently.

‘Oh, let’s have it again,’ cried Viola, clapping until her hands stung and standing on tiptoe to shout ‘ ’Core! ’Core!’ at Mr Knoedler.

But Mr Knoedler, that dedicated artist, did not personally care for waltzes. When asked to play a certain waltz by a rich young man like Mr Spring, who was a patron of the Cardinal Club where Mr Knoedler and the Boys mostly worked, Mr Knoedler obliged. But Mr Knoedler’s own taste was for Swing, and whacky at that, and into Swing he now burst, hauling the Boys along with him.

‘Oh …’ said Viola, disappointed; and at that very moment, like the stroke of twelve in the bemused ears of Cinderella, there sounded in her ear the voice of Mrs Wither.

‘Viola, dear,’ said Mrs Wither, standing disapprovingly at her elbow and putting two fingers on her arm. ‘Mr Wither would like to speak to you for a moment.’

Aw, scram, you old prune, thought Mr Knoedler, scowling at Mrs Wither, for he had fallen heavily for Viola, and he conducted harder than ever, hoping that the violence of Swing would drive Mrs Wither away.

But Mrs Wither stayed, her fingers upon Viola’s arm, smiling dimly upon young Mr Spring, who being also much moved by the dance and desiring to dance again, was wishing her in the hottest nook in hell.

‘Oh …’ said Viola, dismayed, glancing at Victor. ‘But …’

They were in grave danger, by this time, of being knocked endways-up by the Swing addicts (Chesterbourne had flown straight for Swing like a homing bird) so they edged their way to the wall, and into the arms of Mrs Spring and Hetty, who had been trying to get to Victor but were afraid of Swing.

‘Victor, I’m so sorry, but I shall have to go home,’ said his mother quickly in a low tone, smiling and bowing pleasantly to Mrs Wither. (‘How do you do; we haven’t met since our Committee days, have we?’) ‘Can you come at once? I really do feel rather seedy.’

‘Of course,’ he said, instantly suppressing irritation and desire, and moving towards his mother to his arm. ‘You’ve got your things – that’s right. Will you be all right with Het while I get the car?’

‘Of course.
Good
night, Mrs Wither,’ shouting courteously across the heads of two or three Swing-ites, ‘so nice to have seen you again. We must …’

The dancers shut them off.

Victor turned to smile at Viola, but she had turned away. He looked back over his shoulder long enough, however, to see her turn again and to smile at her, and give her an impudent
heil
-flick with his hand. At that, Viola’s face brightened, too, in a smile; and then they were both (in spite of the ruthless selfishness of contemporary youth) borne away by old women to whom they owed affection and duty.

‘Mr Wither is not
cross
with you, dear, about dancing to that tune,’ began Mrs Wither gently, as Viola steered her across the floor, ‘but he just wants you to come and sit quietly with us for the next two or three dances. You look so hot.’

‘What tune?’ asked Viola, still dazed by the strong magic of the waltz.

‘The waltz, dear; It was not – well, a very wise thing to do, Mr Wither thinks. Of course, we quite understand that it was difficult for you to refuse to dance when Mr Spring asked you, but that tune—’

‘
What
tune?’ demanded Viola, quite crossly for her. ‘The waltz, do you mean? Why shouldn’t I dance to it? Is there something wrong with it?’

She was trying to remember the name of the waltz, but there were two waltzes whose titles she always confused. One was the
Beautiful Blue Danube
.

‘Didn’t you know, dear? But you must have, Viola. Everybody knows
The Merry Widow
. That’s why Mr Wither thinks you’d better come for a little while and sit quietly with us.’

CHAPTER XIII

It was all over and everybody was going home. It had been, as usual, a huge success: and Lady Dovewood was telling everyone so, thereby increasing their content and softening the regret naturally felt at the end of a delightful evening.

But the choicest wine can contain bits of cork, and some of the local crab-apples were departing sourly. The chemist’s son thought the whole affair a sinful waste of money and time. Why had he been fool enough to go? Women never liked him. Roll on, the Revolution. And Mrs Wither was seriously displeased with Viola, who had made herself doubly conspicuous by her hair and by waltzing in that way, to that tune, with Mr Spring; while Tina and Madge had their own reasons for being glad that the evening was ended.

But Mr Wither was sorry. Mr Wither had enjoyed the Ball, and as he stepped creakingly into the car, helped respectfully by Saxon, he was actually humming a tune, and it was not until his glance fell upon Viola, wrapped in her big cloak, and looking dreamy, that he realized what tune it was, and stopped.

Yes, of course, Viola had been very indiscreet, very unwise to dance like that. Drawing attention to herself, making herself conspicuous. So Common. Vulgar, even. Throwing herself at young Spring’s head. But there, what else could be expected? Poor Theodore; perhaps it was as well he went when he did.

Viola, brought back to this world as violently as a suddenly aroused sleepwalker, sat staring out at the streets of Chesterbourne, moving noiselessly past the windows of the car. Mean cottages made into garages, thin, shaky Queen Anne houses, stucco villas, the gold and crimson of Woolworth’s were washed into beauty and mystery by blue-pouring moonlight. Dad died two years ago today; I oughtn’t to be so happy. It was heavenly. If I shut my eyes (she did so, turning her face to the blanched streets so that no one might see) I can feel it all again.

I wonder if I’ll ever see him again – to talk to, I mean?

Victor, having a last drink with Phyl and Hetty in the drawing-room before going up to bed, was thinking, among other things, that he wanted very much to see her again, but that it would be wiser not to, especially as he intended to get formally engaged to Phyl next month. No girl had made him feel as Viola had done since that Welsh girl four years ago. That affair had come to an inevitable and satisfying climax, because the Welsh girl was a rover without background, who knew her way about, but a young widow, living half a mile away with her husband’s people, was a very different matter.