Nightingale Wood (38 page)

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 untidy, 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.

‘Oh no she won’t,’ said Saxon, turning the switch. ‘Mum, here’s ten bob. I’ll begin sending you regularly again when I’ve got another job. Can you manage?’

‘Seems I’ll have to,’ winking again at Tina. ‘Here, hi, what about the payments on the wireless?’

‘I’d like to settle that right up for you, if I may,’ said Tina. ‘How much is it?’

‘Well, that’s proper kind of ’ee, I will say. He’s got the bills for it put away somewhere, haven’t ’ee?’

Saxon tapped his overcoat pocket, looking steadily at Tina over the top of his cup. He was happy, excited and confident. At last they were getting away! out of this one-horse place that he had always wanted to ‘show’. Suddenly he hated Sible Pelden, with all its Fatbottoms in it, and did not care if he never ‘showed’ them, nor saw them again. His boyish ambition to dazzle the disapproving neighbours had died since his marriage. Kid’s nonsense, that had been. His business now was to get a job, and make a home for Tina, and show her —— family that he was some good. And he would, too.

So the ambition quietly took another shape; and he did not notice that it had.

Awkward good-byes were said, then Tina and Saxon hurried off into the cold foggy night, while Mrs Caker stood at the door and stared after them with a jeering yet wistful look. She had never had a fur coat, and she never would.

As they waited for the bus under the sickly lights of the Green Lion, where the time-tables hung against the creamy old weatherboarding, Saxon jerked his head at the pub and said:

‘I’d take you in to have one, only he’s in there, the old swine.’

‘Who – the Hermit? (I don’t want one, thanks, I’m quite warm, and I should hate being stared at; I always think the barman, or whoever he is in there, looks so cross).’

‘That was young Heyrick, up at Springs’, gave me a hand with the old devil,’ he went on. ‘Said he tried something on with his girl, Gladys Davies, down in the wood. So Heyrick was quite ready to beat him up. She’s a parlour-maid up at Springs’, Gladys Davies.’

You ought to have married a Gladys Davies
, thought Tina.
I don’t think I’m going to be any good to you
. But she swallowed the lump in her throat, and said nothing.

He slipped his arm through her fur-clad one and peered round into her face.

‘Cheer up. Everything’ll be fine. You see.’

Tina did not feel that everything would be fine. However, she answered sensibly:

‘Oh yes, I think we shall be all right. I don’t think you’ll have much difficulty in getting a job, and I think Father’ll come round, too—’

‘We’re not going to sponge on him,’ sharply.

‘No, I know, my dear, but it will be much pleasanter if we don’t keep up a stupid feud with the family. And I can get a job, too, perhaps.’

‘Oh no you don’t. Not while I can work.’

He picked up the suitcases. The lights of the bus were coming up steadily through the mist.

‘But, Saxon, that’s so … old-fashioned.’

‘You’re telling me. It may be prehistoric; it’s right. Up you go.’

Tina, sitting dazedly beside him in the bus, understood the feelings of the late Baron Frankenstein.

Her dear monster had certainly taken charge of her affairs. Never having had a job, she had thought that a job might be ‘rather fun’, as well as being useful. But Saxon had sat on that. Oh well, housekeeping (and she had never housekept, either) might be rather fun, too. In short, her spirits were calmed and cheered by his masterfulness.

And waking in the night in the clock-ticking silence of their neat, impersonal bedroom at the Hotel Coptic in Bloomsbury, with tears on her cheeks from some vague, vast sorrow already receding rapidly into the dream world whence it had come, Tina found with exquisite relief her husband lying quietly beside her, and fell peacefully asleep again.

There had been one: and now there were two: and that (as they say) made all the difference.

Mr Gideon Spurrey, that old acquaintance of Mr Wither’s, whom we met early in the story, sat at the window of his house in Buckingham Square, feeling annoyed because his chauffeur, Holt, was dead.

Not only was Holt dead, but before he died he had been ill for a month, and put Mr Spurrey to a lot of trouble and inconvenience. He had put Mr Spurrey to some expense, too, but Mr Spurrey did not mind that, for he was not in the least mean. What he minded was Holt dying like that, and leaving Mr Spurrey at the mercy of strangers.

Holt had been with Mr Spurrey for nearly eighteen years, and knew his ways. Mr Spurrey was used to Holt, and he had mistrusted the fellow they sent to take Holt’s place when Holt first got ill; had sent him back again after a day’s trial. There was nothing the matter with him except that he was not Holt, but Mr Spurrey was fidgeted by that fact as he sat in his car and decided that he could not go on being fidgeted.

And now Holt was dead and Mr Spurrey would have to spend the morning drafting an advertisement for
The Times
instead of going off to his club, as he usually did every morning.

The room in which he sat was lofty yet dark; heavy curtains of tan velvet looped across the windows, with inner ones of dark creamy net, shut out most of the white glare thrown into the study by the mighty bulk of Buckingham Court, the new flats that were going up opposite Mr Spurrey’s residence, on the site of Buckingham House. The walls were covered with stamped tan leather and the ceiling was broken by heavy beams, varnished the same bilious shade, the heavy chairs wore a faded blue and tan tapestry copied from a Jacobean design, the carpet was a Turkey. The place smelled of cigar smoke, and breathed the oppressive atmosphere that only age, wealth and the daily performance of an unchanging domestic ritual can create. The room, the faint scent of tobacco, and Mr Spurrey sitting at the writing table and staring irritably out at the white block of flats, seemed to have been there for ever.
Wanted
(thought Mr Spurrey, staring up at the flats out of his pale grey parroty eyes),
a reliable, respectable, experienced chauffeur, must understand how to drive and
…

No. Doesn’t sound right, somehow.

Wanted
…