Nightingale Wood (51 page)

‘I say, don’t. Please don’t.’

‘Why not?’ he muttered.

‘I’m frightened.’

‘Come away with me, Viola, will you?’

She stared at him. She could not believe that he had said it. He gave her a little shake.

‘Did you hear what I said? I want you so much. You
must
come. Make some excuse, and we’ll get away somehow. We’ll fly. Go to Paris – just you and me.’

‘But you – what about her, I mean? That girl?’

‘Oh, that’s all off, thank God,’ he said roughly.

‘You aren’t going to marry her, do you mean?’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘Really? It’s true? It isn’t – a joke, is it?’

‘No, it is not. Can’t you understand English? I want you to come away with me, next weekend. I’ve had enough of this,’ and he made to take her again.

But she moved away from him a little, and fearfully, gently, put out her fingers and held his arm. It was so dark that he could only see her eyes as shadows in the pale blur that was her face. In a voice shaking with doubt, hope, longing she said:

‘You – you don’t want to marry me, do you?’

‘Thanks,’ he retorted, startlingly loud, ‘but I’m not getting tied up again just yet.’

She burst into tears, stumbling wildly away from him.

‘Oh, oh, how can you be so horrible, so beastly to me! I’ve never done anything to you, I came when you asked me to … you just pick me up and drop me whenever you think you will … you’re so
cruel
… I’ve been so fed up I wished I was dead … asking me to go to Paris …
Paris
… a place like Paris … everybody knows what that means … as though I was one of those girls … you know … you don’t care a damn about me, you think because I’m a widow and I worked in a shop you can say anything to me and I won’t mind … you think I’m a bad girl, that’s what you think, but I’m not … I’m not … Oh, oh, I can’t
bear
it … you ought to have known, you ought …
I’m not that kind of girl!
’

She turned, stumbling, sobbing, hands in her pockets and head bent, and ran up the path that led home. He made two steps after her; then stopped, shrugged, and took out his cigarette case. He could just see her white figure, silent now, hurrying out of sight among the trees.

Sobered, doubtful, more than a little ashamed, he inhaled and sat down dejectedly on a tree-stump, so tired and depressed that he did not even think the moss would ruin his clothes. A long exhausting day, and on top of it a violent fit of rage and one of desire, had left him worn out. He yawned, sunk his chin in his hands, and shut his eyes. He could have gone off to sleep where he sat. Tomorrow there would be the flat to dispose of, the invitations to cancel, presents to return, Phyl’s father on the telephone and if he knew anything about Phyl’s mother, her mother too, and Hetty’s new stunt to see to …

He yawned again. It was quite dark. A delicious fresh smell floated from the spring foliage but he only smelled cigarette smoke. Women. No wonder everybody said they were the devil. What
did
they want? Most girls would have jumped at the chance. How was he to know she was straight? Hardly any of them were nowadays. It had given him a shock, the shock in her voice. Made him feel a swine. Poor little kid, she did cry. Such a strong wave of desire, shame and longing suddenly swept him that he got up quickly, stamped out his cigarette, and began to walk back, as quickly as he could in the confusing shadows. When he was nearly at the house he saw, from the wood’s edge, four young people getting out of a car, and remembered, with fury, the party.

He sneaked into the house and up to his room, where he lay on the bed until he heard them go into dinner, then he rang and had some food brought up. He ate it in front of the electric fire, for he was cold, and every now and then he yawned savagely. For almost the first time in his successful, sunny, well-organized life he was miserable.

One thought him a bore and the other thought him a blackguard.

We live and learn, he mused, with his mouth full of smoked salmon. I shouldn’t have said I was either.

Poor little thing. She did cry. She was shaking all over. Pretty decent of her, in a way, turning me down like that, because I’m sure it wasn’t because she didn’t want to come. No. She’s just straight, that’s all. There aren’t so many about nowadays. Little —, most of them. No, she just didn’t think it was right, and so she said no. Er … pure, that’s what she is. Funny I had her all wrong. But she likes kissing me all right, she isn’t like Phyl.

She’s a good girl, that’s what she is. Well, my lad, you’ve often wondered what they were like, and now you know.

I don’t suppose she’ll ever speak to me again.

I suppose I oughtn’t to have asked her, but hell, how was I to know?

She did cry. She wasn’t sticking it on.

Oh blast. Better have a bath.

He had it.

Viola crept up the steps very quietly so that the maids should not hear her, and unlocked the front door. She was shivering with cold and her eyes were so gummed up with crying that she could only just see where she was going. The dimly lit hall with its tiled floor struck chillier than the spring twilight outside; she felt as though she could never get warm again. She only longed to creep into bed and go to sleep. He thought she was bad … he thought she was a bad girl …

Aching as though she had been beaten, without one clear thought in her head, she climbed slowly to her room, and shut herself in.

At half-past ten the revellers returned, having passed an enjoyable evening. If the writer knew anything about bridge, here is a grand chance for some twinkling asides, but as the writer was never able to make bridge out the reader must do with the bare bones that Mr Wither was five shillings up, Mrs Wither three shillings and twopence up, and Madge six shilling and tenpence down.

‘I suppose Viola has gone to bed,’ observed Mrs Wither, straightening the cushion in Viola’s chair and putting
The Lad with Wings
back on the shelf. ‘Left the light on too, careless girl. Well, dear, that was very enjoyable on the whole, was it not? Lemonade? or a little glass of port? It’s quite chilly.’

Mr Wither had the port, which he sipped for ten minutes while Mrs Wither sipped icy lemonade and Madge ate a mass of biscuits, surely the most unsustaining form of nourishment known to mankind.

The Withers felt more or less at peace. They were about to be reconciled to Tina, who was the wife of a man with a hundred and twenty thousand pounds, Madge had driven them to and from the Parsham home without mishap, the summer was coming, and they had won eight and twopence by gambling.

Accordingly they filed up to bed at ten minutes to eleven in a mood of mild content. Mr Wither even forgot, as he undressed and tweaked the blind sharply so that the crescent moon should not peep in at him and Mrs Wither, to wonder how his money was getting on, and Madge hummed a tune as she brushed her closely cropped hair and put on pyjamas with very wide stripes.

When Fawcuss, Annie and Cook had also gone up to bed and the house was in utter darkness because the crescent moon had gone down behind the trees of the little wood, a bedroom door slowly opened, and someone went quickly downstairs. Right down to the back door they went, which they fumbled at, cursed, and finally opened.’

‘Sh-sh,’ they said, warningly, to something else, that was plainly very pleased to see them. ‘Sh-sh,’ and they picked the something up, and told it to be quiet. It obeyed, and the person went cautiously upstairs again.

Something settled comfortably at the foot of a bed and two contented creatures fell asleep.

Three hours passed. The moon had gone, but the sleeping countryside was lit by thin ethereal starlight, rarest of all radiances, like darkness itself shining. And as last year, and the year before, and so back into the natural yet unutterably romantic shades of history – the wood rang with wild beautiful singing that no one heard.

Suddenly Polo began to bark.

Madge sat up in bed.

‘Shut up,’ she whispered furiously. ‘Shut
up
, Polo. Down. Good dog … quiet.’

He went on barking. He was crouching at the door, his nose to the floor, whining, wildly excited. His body shook as Madge bent over him. There was something wrong. She had had him up in her room, every night for months, and he had never done this before.

‘What is it, boy?’

Upstairs, Annie suddenly sat bolt upright in bed. That dog … waking everybody up … what was the matter …

She sniffed, staring at the darkened window, where one thin line of starlit sky showed.

Smoke … the frightening acrid smell creeping under her door, and a queer crackling noise like sticks rattling together.

Annie sniffed again. The dog was barking wildly now, and she could hear confused sounds on the next floor. Suddenly, staring now at the door, she saw a light out in the passage. It died and flared again in a horrifying red glare.

Scrambling out of bed, Annie shrieked wildly—

‘Fire! Fire! Fire!’

As she was stumbling to the door, having stubbed her toe in the dark and feeling (as she afterwards narrated) quite sick with the pain, the door was flung violently open and Cook stood there, screaming.

‘Annie? Are you there? For the dear Lord’s sake come on! The place is on fire! It’s in the old box-room – the whole place is blazing. There’s no time for that—’ Annie was tugging at the chest of drawers where she kept her few treasures. ‘Come
on
!’

Snatching up a coat from behind the door, Annie ran.

The corridor was full of smoke. The red glare came from one end.

‘Where’s Renie?’ (Fawcuss had been christened Irene).

‘She ain’t up yet. Slep’ right through it. You go and get her, I’m going down to the master. My Lord, Annie, the old box-room’s over Miss Madge! Pray heaven the ceiling don’t fall in!’

But Fawcuss, roused by the barking and the shrieks, was already coming out of her room at the end of the passage. On seeing the smoke and the glare she gave one brief, very loud shriek, then went composedly back to her room and collected her Bible, a photograph of her mother, sevenpence halfpenny and her new summer combinations. These she swept into a face towel and pattered downstairs.

The hall was full of people. White, alarmed faces still heavy with sleep gaped up at Fawcuss as she hurried down, bundle in hand. Thank the dear Lord, everybody was there, M’m, Miss Madge, Mrs Theodore. The master, with one slipper on, was at the telephone. Miss Madge had something funny under her arm; it heaved, and out of the blanket came an intelligent head, ears cocked, eyes very bright. It was That Dog. Well I never.

‘Give me the Fire Brigade. Yes … fire. Here … here. At The Eagles, near Sible Pelden, near the cross-roads. Wither is the name … I don’t know. It seems to be spreading …’

Crash! Something fell in upstairs.

‘That’ll be the box-room ceiling. A blessing you was out of it, Miss Madge!’ cried Annie.

‘
Sh-sh!
’ from the telephone. ‘Yes, will you? At once.’

He hung up the receiver.

‘Oh, Arthur,’ quavered Mrs Wither, ‘isn’t there time for anything … my garnet brooch? Hadn’t we better try and put it out … it mayn’t be so bad as—’

Crash! Something else fell in. As they stood staring up at the staircase, shivering with sick excitement, a great puff of black smoke came round the corner and rolled slowly, insolently, right down the stairs. Down it came, terrifyingly unreal, into the neat chilly hall and slowly spread in a dark haze along the walls. Coughing and choking, they retreated to the front door, which Annie opened. The sweet night air blew in.

Polo, struggling, began to bark, and Madge put him down and slipped her dressing-gown cord through his collar.

‘Oh, can’t we do
anything
?’

Mrs Wither was weeping. Tears ran down her small face, on each side of which hung a little grey pigtail. ‘Oh, Arthur – the house! All the furniture!’

The telephone bell rang, and everybody jumped.

‘Yes?’ Mr Wither’s hand shook as he held the receiver. ‘In half an
hour
? Can’t they? Oh, all right. Yes, it seems to be. Must have got a hold.’

‘Oh, Miss Madge!’ called Fawcuss, who had gone down into the drive. ‘It’s coming out of your window!’

Everybody ran down the steps and across the drive and stood staring at the fantastic spectacle of the flames leaping like devils behind the neatly curtained windows of one of the front bedrooms. The curtains were drawn, but the hellish glow could be seen between them.

‘Wonder how it started?’ said Madge, who had picked up Polo again. ‘It was in the old box-room, did you say, Annie?’

‘Yes, Miss Madge. In the old—’

‘Then it must have been the Men,’ said Mr Wither excitedly. ‘They must have got smoking up there and dropped ash and it must have smouldered all this afternoon and then broken out—’

The Men had been in that morning to finish mending a leak in the roof, widened by the recent heavy rains.

‘Yes, that must be it,’ said everybody, staring and shivering and thinking dismally of their own little possessions shrivelling in the flames.

‘Mum, you
must
have something … you’ll catch your death,’ said Madge suddenly. Though the house was blazing, and no one could think of anything else for the moment, she did not want her father suddenly to realize that Polo had been spending the night at the foot of her bed. True, it was he who had roused the house and probably saved their lives, but one never knew how Mr Wither was going to take anything. He might say that Polo had started the fire.

She shoved the end of his improvised lead into Viola’s hand and ran up the steps.

‘Margaret! Come back!’ roared Mr Wither.

She waved and shouted something and vanished into the smoky hall.

Two minutes later she appeared at the window furthest from the flames, which had been Tina’s room, but was now a dump for things that were going to the Church Army and the P.S.L.

‘It’s all right here! Safe as houses – well, safe, anyway!’ roared Madge, who appeared to be rather enjoying the fire.