It Was the Nightingale (38 page)

“Mother’s put it back in the oven, it’ll be all zamzawed, then you’ll complain it’s all her fault, like when she washed your breeches for you, remember?”

“Zillah, I honestly haven’t any time to eat anything!”

“Why didn’t you let Mother and me come to help you? Look at you! A proper sight you look! Come on now and have your lunch, you were up most of the night, too. Aggie over the way saw your light from her bedroom window go on and off and on again all night, she told me. Come along, won’t you?”

She was concerned for him; he yielded, and said, “I’ll come when I’ve washed off this muck! You’re a kind girl, Zillah. You’ll make a fine wife for someone, one day.”

“Niver ’appen!” she cried, sharply, turning her back and walking away.

*

Mrs. Mules and Zillah set to work to sweep and swab the upper floor, while Phillip covered the kitchen floor with old newspapers before tackling the downstairs ceiling and walls. In the middle of this work the carrier stopped outside. He said he had a heavy package to deliver. Whatever was it, asked Zillah out of an upper window, as the two men carried it into the kitchen.

Phillip ripped off the hessian to reveal a round and dumpy armchair upholstered in thick tapestry. It had very short legs, and when he sat in it the top of the back and sides, about ten inches thick, came only to the middle of his back. He remembered telling his mother once that he liked the shape of the old-fashioned cock-fighting chairs; this was apparently a local upholsterer’s idea of one.

It was so heavy that the two men with Zillah’s help failed to
get it up the stairs, Mrs. Mules calling down from above that the stairs were hardly so wide for take down a coffin. Mules came from the graveyard to help. The chair, shaped like an enormous dough-nut, got wedged at the turn of the risers, and they had to get it down again into the kitchen, where it was lifted against one wall—the castors were too small for the weight—and left there, covered by newspapers.

Later Rusty climbed upon it and settled down amidst old
Times
Literary
Supplement,
Manchester
Guardian
and
Westminster
Gazette
weekly editions, and Brex’s new
Sunday
Crusader.
Moggy joined him, and the two slept peacefully together.

Phillip was dipping the brush in the pail of distemper, about to start on the boarded ceiling, when the railway van arrived with three packages, also sewn in hessian. They were the table and supporting drawer-sets of a mahogany knee-hole desk which had once belonged to Thomas Turney, his grandfather. A card pinned inside the main drawer below the desk said, in Hetty’s handwriting,
For
Phillip
from
his
loving
sisters
Elizabeth
and
Doris.
The
chair
is
from
me,
I
hope
it
will
keep
off
the
draughts.

He turned out the animals and sat in the chair again. It fitted so tightly around his back that no draughts would ever be able to get near him, he thought, either inside or outside the cottage. The trouble would be, when he wore thick clothes in winter, to get out of it. He would have to walk about like a snail. The fancy made him laugh, and Zillah upstairs asked what he was up to.

“‘Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel’,” he said as he lifted Moggy and Rusty into the chair.

“There you go again!”

“It means that it is better to laugh when things go wrong, rather than to cry.”

“My dear soul, what be the matter now?” called down Mrs. Mules in her panting voice.

“I think I know what it feels like to be a snail.”

“Aw, you’m mazed as a brish! ’Tidden no sense what you do say!”

At five o’clock his helpers went home to get ‘Feyther’s tea’. Phillip went over at five-thirty and returned after ten minutes to work on until with feelings near to panic he realized that the sun was going down. Swifts were whistling around the church tower,
a golden haze hung over the cottage roofs. The church clock struck nine. He got the tubby armchair upstairs by careful movements and sat before the knee-hole desk, in a kindly light from the open casements reflected upon wet walls and ceiling. What a fine character he would make out of Thos. W. Turney one day, and a sympathetic, otherwise true, one at that. The old mahogany knee-hole desk was kind and thoughtful: there was a spirit in the worn green leather top, in the hand-polished nobs, even in the dust in the corners of the drawers. The artist must always think steadily why people were as they were. He must live alone in the wilderness; or be lost to truth.

Below in the garden the bonfire was still smouldering. He went to throw earth on it.

“About time, too, I must say,” remarked a voice from a bedroom window.

“That old mattress was full of worry, pain, and fear. Its sufferings are nearly over. Thank you for watching over its last hours!”

He finished painting the upstairs woodwork by candlelight about half-past one in the morning. He lay on the wire-mattress in his clothes, so to be sure of getting up early, and fell asleep at once. When he awoke he examined his painting. It had looked even and shiny by candlelight, now it was seen to be uneven and dribbly. He had until four p.m. to finish painting downstairs. But before that he must go to the station to see if hat and morning suit had arrived. It was Y/Z day. Tomorrow he was to be married. Mother, Doris, and Anders Norse were arriving that afternoon. He had eight hours.

He felt Barley’s wedding ring, tied round his neck. At one time he had wondered if it would fit Lucy’s finger, but had recoiled from the thought.

“Do you mind my wearing it round my neck?”

“No, of course not.”

“I shall give it to Billy when he’s bigger.”

“Poor Billy, never to have known a real mother.” Soft voice, eyes downheld, a genuine feeling. He recalled to himself what Conrad had written: that a writer should write as though he saw things for the first time—‘as a child sees them—or an idiot’.

Dostoevski’s
Idiot.

Wondering what he should do if the wedding uniform wasn’t
at the station he found, to his relief, that the two packages had arrived with the first train.

The hat brim touched his chin, having first pulled down his ears, which had apparently flapped back in the roomy space under this ‘tile’. He folded several bandages of newsprint and fitted them inside the leather band, as stuffing. Four were required to fill the gap between his skull and silk-lined cork interior. Even so, the damned thing wobbled as he rehearsed a slow walk down an imaginary aisle. But relief came as he thought that one did not wear a hat in church. He would not need to wear it at all; he could carry it in his hand when he got out of the hired motor taking them to Shakesbury.

The suit fitted. This was pleasing, unlike the bill, which was lying in the box. £12/12/- for the coat; £4/4/- for the vest; £2/2/- for pair of white spats; £1/1/- for white slip; £4/4/- for a pair of striped trousers. It was a swizzle! The lining of both coat and vest was ordinary cheap cotton fabric—white with blue stripes for the vest, black for the coat. Both should have been of silk for that price. He would send them back after the wedding, plus the hat.

He finished painting by one p.m. All was done, not very well, but there was a new look about the place. Now he would put the blue ribbon guarding the ring into the Bible-box for Billy one day. Having placed it there, feeling light of heart, he closed and locked the oaken box with the big hand-made key; and broke into tears, for something seemed to be crying remotely from the darkness of the box, it was so final. He took out the ring at once, and placed it round his neck.

*

The new ring was also of red gold, engraved inside with his initials and Lucy’s. He gave it to Anders for safe keeping. After dinner of roast lamb, and a bottle of burgundy, Anders said they ought to go to bed early. They said goodnight to Hetty and Doris at ten p.m. He was glad that the calm, sensitive Anders was with him in the adjoining bedroom of the cottage.

They went for a walk in the morning, and bathed in the sea. Anders said, “Don’t keep looking at your watch. You’ve looked at it a dozen times since breakfast. Leave everything to me.” At last came the moment to dress.

His hands trembled as he pushed gold cuff-links through stiff
starched linen. The tie got stuck in the collar: pulling it round to even the ends, it burst collar from stud. He fitted a new collar. Anders fitted the tie. It remained at an angle. “It doesn’t matter, Phillip.”

Phillip tried again. It ended up as before, with one end of the collar bent. “You’ve got the wrong collar on.”

“But this kind is the latest fashion, Anders.”

“Haven’t you got a wing collar? Yes, here’s one. Try it.”

“It’s an evening collar.”

“What does that matter?”

At last, feeling slim and natty in tail-coat, vest with white slip, striped trousers, and white spats over boots feeling to be thin after nailed brogues, he got gingerly, on account of his wobbly hat, into the hired Daimler landaulette, to sit opposite his mother and sister in an atmosphere of trepidant unreality.

“We’ll stop on the way there,” said Anders, “and buy ourselves each a red carnation.”

“Doesn’t the groom wear a white one, Anders?”

“Right, wear a white carnation. It’s up to you.”

They stopped in Taunton High Street; and coming out of the shop, Phillip noticed his mother’s hat for the first time. It was of dark blue stiff cloth, and adorned by sprays of small artificial flowers, like those seen growing in Switzerland, where she had spent a holiday with Elizabeth. She saw Phillip looking at her hat, and smiled at him, while anxiety came upon her for the remote look in his eyes. Had she, after all, bought the wrong sort of hat? The assistant in Dickins and Jones had assured her that it would be the very thing for a country wedding.

Phillip was thinking of the burning sun of Spain over the Col d’Aubisque, of gentians in bloom where the snow had melted; he was hearing a voice saying
I am all your friends
. He smiled at his mother, and looked into her eyes, thinking that she, too, needed all her friends.

“That’s a pretty hat, Hetty!”

“Oh, I’m so glad you like it, Phillip!”

It was sad that so little could make such happiness. If only she did not depend on him, but on impersonal things like poetry—art. But could he? Did he? Before he had known Barley?

Hetty said gaily, “Aren’t the wayside flowers lovely? Oh, I almost feel I might be back in Cross Aulton!”

Phillip suggested that they play a game of naming flowers pointed out by each in turn.

“Your go first, Anders!”

“What is that one?” asked Anders, pointing to the feathery green plumes of a plant growing out of the rocky outcrop above the hedge of a bend in the road.

No one knew.

“Can you tell us, Phillip?”

“Well, I can, but it isn’t fair, really. You see, Lucy told me one day as we passed on the Norton. It’s used for making a sauce with mackerel. Fennel.”

“Of course, how silly of me to forget! Of course, it smells of aniseed. Oh, how well I remember it growing in the herb fields around Cross Aulton when I was a girl!”

Pink campion; honeysuckle; sow-thistle; traveller’s joy climbing the stay-wire of a telegraph pole; ferns, royal, hart’s-tongue, unknown; then trees—beech, ash, holly, elm, white and black thorn, oak, furze, pine, sycamore. Round corners and over bridges, and in no time in the distance they saw the downs.

The sun over Dorset was warm, the day was bright—almost too bright. Would there be rain later?

“I can smell the south-west wind from the Atlantic,” said Phillip as they approached Shakesbury.

“There’s forty minutes to go before we need get to the church, Phillip. So I am going to give you a glass of champagne, with some ham sandwiches. Will you mind, Mrs. Maddison, if I take Phillip into this hotel? Perhaps you would care to join us?”

Phillip concealed his feeling that it was hardly the thing to be seen drinking together before the wedding of Mrs. Chychester of Tarrant’s grand-daughter; but it would be worse if they left Mother and Doris outside, sitting in the car, like trippers waiting for their men to come out. He had a relieving idea: Would they like some coffee in the hotel?

“Mother, you know that coffee doesn’t agree with you,” said Doris.

“Just for once, dear, it won’t matter.”

They entered the Palm Court of the Chychester Arms, Phillip concealing the loose layers of paper stuffing inside his 9½-size hat.

“Don’t worry about us, Phillip, we’ll look after ourselves,” said Hetty, going to the drawing-room.

When seated in white cane armchairs, Anders ordered a bottle
of Veuve Cliquot, 1917 vintage, with sandwiches. The waiter returned and said they had only Moët, or Heidsiek.

“Which would you prefer, Phillip?”

“Oh, Moët!” as though that was the only possible brand.

Anders asked for a bottle in a bucket of ice. The waiter said there was no ice. When the bottle was brought Phillip swallowed a glass without enthusiasm, but the ham sandwiches induced optimism, whereupon the bottle was soon emptied.

“It’s a poor heart that never rejoices, Anders!”

“I agree. Where are you going for your honeymoon?”

“On Exmoor.”

“Any idea how you will get there?”

“Tim, one of Lucy’s brothers, is going to take us in the Trojan.”

“Then you’ll come back part of the way we’ve come?”

“Yes.”

“Then why not use our car? They always charge for the return journey, so it would be no extra expense.”

“Well, we’ve made the arrangements already, but thanks for the idea. I did hope to have a sidecar for the motor-bike, but it won’t come until next week. So we may walk back from Exmoor, to train for walking over the battlefields.”

“I see.” Anders looked at his watch. “We’ll have to be moving!”

At two-fifteen o’clock they approached the church where he was to be married. Fifteen minutes to go. He began to feel liquescent, and by the time they arrived outside the small church with its shingled tower holding a single bell, and saw the gathering of people there, his hat seemed to be monstrously black and hollow. Quickly he removed the paper bands—supposing one fell out in the church?