It Was the Nightingale (22 page)

“What do you mean by that?”

He walked on faster, then lagged for her to catch up, having recalled to mind Martin’s opening sentence in the letter he had written at the supper table the night before.
Dear
Ursula
,
I
am
down
here
alone
with
Phillip
,
being
bored
blue
——

“How old is this girl, Phillip?”

“Oh, extremely old, like good port. You know, any port in a storm.”

“What is her name?”

“Lucy.”

“That doesn’t sound like a foreign name to me.”

Martin obviously had keen hearing, for he shouted over his shoulder, “‘Foreigner’ is a local name for anyone living a mile or two away. I told you that, coming down in the train!” He waited for them. “Both you and I are ‘foreigners’ to any Devon village chawbacon.”

“Where does Lucy come from, Devon?” continued Fiona.

“Her people live in Dorset, I think.”

“What do they do?”

“They’re gipsies, always on the move.”

“Are you joking?”

“I mean, of course, when they’re not ‘in residence’.”

“What’s that bird flying over there, a goose?” demanded Martin, as they walked on, more or less in line.

“That’s a heron.”

“I thought herons lived by water?”

“They fish in water, but not while in the air.”

“Of course I know that, you ass, but what’s it doing here?”

“Well, what are we doing here?”

“But we’re not fishing, are we?” said Fiona.

“Nor is the heron.”

“If you can be serious for a moment, Fifi, I’d like to hear from Phillip why the heron is up here on the moor, with no water about so far as I can see.”

“It’s probably flying from the Fuddicombe reservoir to the Speering Folliot duck-ponds, Martin.”

“But why, Phillip?” asked Fiona, her eyes opened wide.

“To catch fish to eat, obviously,” said Martin.

“There are rainbow trout in the duck-ponds.”

Noises of cawing floated down. “Why are those crows flying after the heron?”

“Oh, just chivvying it away from their territory, Martin.”

“But
do
crows own land, Phillip?” asked Fiona.

“Of course they do,” replied Martin. “Everything owns land, or water.”

“Fish, particularly lobsters, are very religious, Fiona.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, Victor Hugo in one of his novels speaks of the lobster as ‘the cardinal of the sea’, doesn’t he?”

“Did you know that, Poogs?” she said to Martin.

“Of course I knew it. Everyone knows it.”

“But why ‘cardinal’?”

“Because it’s red. You’ve eaten lobster, you ought to know.”

“The point is that it’s not red in the sea. It’s blue, except for the tips of its feelers,” explained Phillip.

“Then why call it a cardinal, that’s what I don’t understand?”

“Why do you wear a green hat, when your lips are red?” asked Phillip.

“But I’m not a lobster! And I still don’t understand why, if a lobster is blue when in the sea, it is called a cardinal.”

“A literary floater,” said Martin.

“But surely lobsters live on the
bottom
of the sea? Tell me, Phillip, I really
do
want to know!”

“There are many theories why the lobster’s feeler tips are red. Some say to attract fish, others that the red draws light through the water to renew sensitivity, possibly smell, or perhaps sense of touch while actually not touching, like wireless waves. All I know is that they are red at the tips. Victor Hugo made a slip when he called a lobster ‘the cardinal of the sea’. That’s all.”

*

Martin strode on ahead, visualising the scene of the next chapter of his novel, wherein the hero, misunderstood and married to a famous titled Society beauty, would go to Devon with his secretary, who was in love with him. The hero’s sense of correct behaviour and good form—Eton and Balliol—forbade him even to think of platonic love with the young woman; so they slept in separate cottages.

Martin Beausire had been educated at a small public school for the sons of middle-class parents. He wrote his biennial novels in the train to and from Fleet Street; everything he did, everyone he met, was
pot
pourri
for him. His aristocratic heroes existed, invariably lonely, in a world of
nouveau
riche
cads, poor bounders, and middle-class thrusters.

Having digested the cardinal of the sea, Fiona thirsted for more human information.

“Where exactly in Dorset do Lucy’s people live, Phillip?”

“Near Shakesbury.”

“What is her name?” demanded Martin. “Copleston? That’s one of our West Country family names,” he explained to Fiona. “It goes back to the Conquest. The Saxon Booscers were here
before them, of course, Cruwys’
Wessex
Worthies
mentions that we were hereditary food-tasters to the Saxon kings. Beowulf the Booscer was given an earldom by Ethelred the Unready.”

“Poor chap, he deserved his title, always having to eat zamzawed food!” cried Phillip.

Ignoring what he considered to be a Cockney exhibition of bad taste, Martin took another line. “Shakesbury! Good God, that brings back memories! I used to hunt the hare all over that country when I was an usher at Milborne,” he went on, his voice sounding terse under a stiff upper lip. “Before that swine Markton sacked me for saying I was condoning pederasty because I pleaded with him not to sack three boys for taking the usual adolescent interest in their own anatomy and its prospects.”

“What is pederasty, Poogs?” asked Fiona.

“Sodomy.”

“But I’m no wiser now, Poogs.”

“You don’t need to be.”

“Wasn’t Milborne the scene of
Warp
and
Woof
by——” began Phillip.

“If you want to talk about books and authors, talk to Fifi, she knows nothing about either,” Martin replied, as he strode on ahead.

“Tell me more about Lucy, Phillip. Is she very pretty? How does she do her hair?”

“In ringlets.”

“But that’s very old-fashioned, surely?”

“It’s the fashion down here.”

“Are you serious?”

“You should see the grocer’s wife, from Monday to Saturday. She regularly tears up her bedding in order to tie up her hair, which is about the same texture and quality as an Exmoor pony’s mane, into hundreds of little blobs. She does this in order to look smart in church on Sunday.”

“But I can’t believe that
Lucy
wears her hair in ringlets!”

“Either that or an Eton crop.”

“But that’s the very latest West End fashion!”

“Not down here. Ever since Cromwell forbade Christmas puddings, the basins have been used, with sheep-shears, to crop hair.”

Martin’s cackling laughter arose in front. Phillip felt himself to be almost a wit.

“Do tell me,” went on Fiona. “What colour are Lucy’s eyes?”

“My God!” yelled Martin. “Never in all my life so far, which has been spent almost exclusively among half-wits, have I had to listen to such utterly footling questions! Here we are in God’s own country and all you can talk about is human hair!” He proceeded at five m.p.h. to increase his distance from Fifi.

“When Martin’s not out in the open air, and the sun, he is never really himself,” she explained.

“But he
is
in the open air and the sun!”

“What I mean is that he was very depressed when he arrived yesterday, because it might rain all the time. But to be serious for a moment. Is Lucy’s hair
really
Eton cropped?”

Martin stopped. He pointed into the sky. “What’s that bird?”

“A buzzard.”

“What does it do?”

“Pounces on rabbits and rats. It’s a hawk, one of the short-winged species.”

“Its wings look long to me.”

“Does it take the farmers’ hens?” asked Fiona.

“No, but it will sometimes wait on walled hedges to take rats which come after the corn for the farmers’ hens. Hello, I can see the Guides’ campfire smoke! They’re behind that wall, out of the south-west wind.”

“I can’t wait to see Lucy!” said Fiona.

*

Phillip was glad that Martin seemed to like Lucy; he was proud, too, of her bearing and her beauty. Martin seemed to be an entirely different man as he laughed and talked with a genially impersonal air. Just before they went on, Fiona invited Lucy to supper that night at the Mules’ cottage.

“Phillip will fetch you, I’m sure, on his motor-cycle, and bring you back here afterwards, won’t you, Phillip?”

“I feel we would interrupt Martin’s work. He’s really fearfully busy,” he said to Lucy.

“I’d love to come, but I really think I should remain here with the Brownies,” replied Lucy, blushing. “There are only two of us to look after the camp.”

“Well, my dear,” said Martin, patting her hand between his hands, “I am glad to meet a young woman with a sense of duty.
It’s been most pleasant meeting you. Perhaps we’ll meet again some other time.”

“But why, Phillip,” asked Fiona, when they were over the skyline, “didn’t you want Lucy to come tonight? It would have made a nice foursome.”

It was now Phillip’s turn to walk on by himself.

*

Martin continued his quest for country detail after supper that night when he asked Phillip to read some of his short stories.

“Oh, they’re pretty bad, Martin. After all, I wrote them a long time ago. Won’t you let us hear what
you
’
ve
written while staying here? I am sure it would be extremely interesting.”

“My work is not of the slightest interest to anybody, including myself. Yours, on the contrary, is. You are the only really dedicated writer I know, and must have plenty of guts to have broken away to face comparative poverty. And, since I’ve come two hundred odd miles especially to see you and to hear all you have to say, I’d like to hear your stories now.”

He settled himself comfortably in the only armchair in the room, feet to fire.

Phillip read a story about a raven. Martin was enthusiastic. “That’s your line of country! Why don’t you publish your stories in one volume? They would go like stink. Read some more. Of course we’ll wait while you go to your cottage! I could sit up all night listening to you on nature and the countryside, and I wouldn’t say that to any other man or woman on earth.”

When Phillip reappeared, Martin was snoring.

“Shall we wake him up, Fifi?”

“Why wake me up when I’m not asleep?” demanded Martin, opening an eye. “But before you start, let me change my position. There’s a draught from the window.”

He lifted his stockinged feet upon Fifi’s lap. Delighted by this show of stability and affection in her first love-affair, Fifi began to massage them.

“For God’s sake leave my feet alone!” growled Beausire. “I want to listen to Phillip, not tortured to death by your tickling. Get on with your reading, you prize genius!”

It was midnight when Phillip ended the fifth story, about a heron. His reading had been interrupted by occasional snores;
but whenever he had stopped Martin had cried, “Go on! Why the hell d’you keep stopping?”

“Because you were snoring, Martin.”

“I never snore, you prize Ass!” and settling back with eyes closed, Martin began to snore again, deeply and consistently.

“He
is
asleep now, at any rate,” whispered Phillip, putting down his manuscript.

“Don’t be a bloody ass!” murmured Martin, half opening one eye. “Go on reading. What happened in the end to Old Grock the raven?”

“I finished the raven story three hours ago, Martin. Honestly, you’ve been asleep.”

“On the contrary, I’ve listened first to the story of the raven, then the buzzard, followed by the crippled ex-soldier and the otter, and then Old Wog, or whatever his blasted name is, who emptied his crop of eels, snakes, toads, newts, and rats into the crops of his young, and we left him flying off to catch some more. I want to know what happened to him.”

“That was the heron’s story, and it’s finished.”

“Of course it’s finished! Old Bog or Old Wog the heron is finished, like any other bloody fool who catches the 8.15 down to Brighton at night and the 8.58 to Fleet Street again the next morning until he becomes a corpse long before he dies. Old Sog or Old Tog or Wog or Jog or whatever his name is is finished, of course we know that, but what I want to know is, what happened to Old Crock in your first story? It ended in the air.”

“Yes, it did. Old Krog flew away to a better land, after crying his eyes out because North Devon had become a land of portly pole carriers from Sussex.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you say so before?”

Martin yawned like an old dog showing a mouthful of irregular teeth. He stood up. “Bed, Fifi, my love! Goodnight, you blue-eyed Nog!” he said, hugging Phillip with one muscular arm. “And thank you for reading. Your stories really are first class. I really am most grateful to be allowed to hear them. Don’t be late tomorrow, we leave here at 8.15 a.m. precisely, to go to Hartland. I want to see as much of you and your country as I can.” He turned to Fifi. “We love our old Phillip, don’t we, Fifikins, God knows why we do, but we do, don’t we, my precious?”
as, still holding Phillip, he hugged Fifikins with the other arm and kissed her on the cheek.

“Before I say goodnight and sweet dreams, Phillip,
do
tell me why you wouldn’t let Lucy come back with us tonight,” said Fifi.

“Sh-sh!” as he pointed to the half-open door.

“But I don’t understand! Surely the Muleses know about her?”

“Sh-sh! Please, Mrs. Beausire!”

“Do
you
know why?” she said, turning to Martin.

“I’ve not the slightest idea.”

A smile broke over Fifi’s face. “Ah,
I
know!” She touched the end of Phillip’s nose with a finger, and whispered, “It’s because of Zillah! Why, I believe you’re a dark horse after all!” Her clear eyes became puzzled. “But
why
Zillah—when you can have Lucy? She is so lovely! And such a sweet person! Why don’t you let her see Billy? My dear, if you really want her, all you have to do is to put that adorable baby in her arms!”