Victoria and the Nightingale (12 page)

He was obviously quite real, although at first she thought he was a figment of her imagination, and he looked as if he had deserted some important social gathering in a hurry, and was not quite sure of his reception. He looked at her with curious diffidence.

“I hope I didn’t startle you,” he said.

During her brief moment of panic her hands had gone up to her face, but she lowered them in a relaxed manner as she answered his query.

“No,” she said, not altogether truthfully.

He was staring at her. She was wearing a light blue dress, and because of the warmth of the night she was not even wearing a cardigan over it. Her pale gold hair was full of moonbeams, and her complexion was extraordinarily clear, and as pale as a moonbeam. More jerkily he spoke.

“You look like a sprite,” he said.

Victoria smiled.

“It’s the night. It’s a wonderful night, isn’t it?”

“Beautiful.”

Nothing is quite real on a night like this. I ... You—you look as if you oughtn’t to be here.”

“As a matter of fact, I oughtn’t.” He shrugged. “But after all, I’m still a free agent.”

“Meaning that you’re not yet—not yet a married man?” “Something like that.”

The diamond stud in the front of his shirt winked at her. She marveled at the utter impeccableness of his linen, and was intrigued by the dark silk handkerchief tucked in at the end of his sleeve.

“Would you—would you like to go inside?”

She was not at all sure why all at once she felt so diffident and hesitant in his presence, but she did. Also she felt peculiarly impressed by him, even slightly fascinated by his beautifully shaved appearance and the gentle shimmer on his hair.

He was a most attractive man, and apparently he hadn’t entirely forgotten her after all. Also—and for some reason she was quite sure about this—he looked upset.

His gray eyes gazed at her almost broodingly.

“Not unless you want to go inside.” He fell into step beside her as she moved along the path. “Do you make a habit of standing out here at this time of night and simply admiring

the night?”

“Yes.” She smiled up at him. “The weather has been perfectly marvelous for the last fortnight, and I absolutely adore this garden—and this time of day. I simply couldn’t go quietly up to bed while it’s all so magical out here.”

“Go to bed?” He glanced at his watch as they crossed the pocket-handkerchief lawn in the direction of a white-painted garden seat that had been placed beneath another buddleia tree. “But it’s not yet ten o’clock! Surely you don’t go to bed before ten on a summer evening?”

She shrugged.

“If it hadn’t been a fine night I would have been in bed,” she admitted. “What else is there to do in the country when you haven’t even a television set to watch?”

Instantly he started apologizing.

“I’m so sorry. I said I would do something about television, didn’t I? And a transistor radio for Johnny. This is all very remiss of me! I’m afraid I’ve been somewhat preoccupied. You’ll just have to forgive me!”

“It’s perfectly all right,” Victoria assured him. She was ashamed of herself now that she had even mentioned such a thing as a television set when he had so kindly provided them with a roof over their heads. “I only said that because you asked me why I didn’t sit up late ... and I do sometimes, as a matter of fact. On a night like this I like to roam about in the garden, and that’s much nicer than watching television. Much nicer than doing a lot of things!”

They had reached the white-painted garden seat, and he waited until she had dropped down on it before taking his place beside her. And he looked worried all at once.

“I’m not sure I approve of that,” he told her, his gray eyes plainly obviously intrigued by her slim blue shape in the moonlight. “After all, this is a lonely spot”—he glanced around him, as if aware for the first time of how extremely lonely and definitely cut off it was—“and there’s no near neighbor, or anyone like that. Considering that there are only the two of you here—and one is upstairs in bed from about six o’clock onwards—I do earnestly feel that I ought to advise you not to roam about out here in the garden when it’s as late as this. Why, you never know what might happen!”

She smiled.

“I’m not afraid.”

“But you looked afraid when I came along the path just now! Just before you recognized me you looked as if you were contemplating bolting into the house and turning the key upon me! ”

Victoria had to admit that for one moment the advisability of such an undignified course as that had crossed her mind—until she had recognized him.

“And yet you tell me you’re not afraid.”

“Well, shall we say I’m not often afraid!”

He lay back against the garden seat and she received the distinct impression that he was relaxing ... quite possibly for the first time that day. He looked up into the branches of the buddleia tree, caught a glimpse of the stars, rendered hazy by the moonlight and the faint vapor rising from the fields and the woods, and if she had been asked to give a description of his expression all at once she would have described it as extraordinarily peaceful and content. He even sighed a little.

“Well, I must say that I envy you living here,” he confessed surprisingly. “It’s a different world from the one I’ve been inhabiting all day. An enchanted world!”

Although he had not so far apologized for neglecting them—her and Johnny—she felt appeased by this tribute. For she felt precisely the same about Alder Cottage and its surroundings herself, which seemed to indicate they were on

a similar sort of wavelength.

“But Wycherley Park is a very attractive place,” she reminded him. “Your gardens are beautifully laid out and cared for, and wandering in them in the evenings is delightful, as I had an opportunity to find out for myself.”

“Did you?” He glanced at her almost sharply.

“Well, you know you provided me with sanctuary for quite a while.”

“But it wasn’t the same as this, was it?” He leaned a little toward her, insisting on finding out whether she really agreed with him. “I mean, here it is different!”

“It’s very much more humble, and, as you say, cut off.” “But a young woman like you should simply loathe being cut off from the world.”

“Well, I don’t.”

He sighed again, as if he could hardly believe her, but it was pleasant to hear such an admission if it was really true. Half wonderingly he observed, as his gray eyes roved over her:

“Well, you certainly look as if you belong here ... half woman, half vaporous creature of moonlight and magic.” His eyes smiled at her lazily. “I find you very peaceful, Victoria of Alder Cottage! Does Johnny like it here, too?” “I’m sure he loves it here.”

“Good.” He had recently lighted a fresh cigarette, and the fragrance of the tobacco in some curious way acutely emphasized the fragrance of the nicotine. “I’m sorry if I appeared to have forgotten your joint existences, but I’ve had a lot of things to think about ... a great deal on my mind.”

“Don’t apologize,” she said dryly. “An engaged man must have many things to think about.”

“Ah, but you see I’m no longer engaged!” He ran the fingers of one well-shaped hand through the trim orderliness of his hair, ruffling it considerably and destroying the satin-like shimmer. “At least, I don’t think I am! I walked out on the lady concerned about an hour and a half ago, and she told me I need make no effort to contact her again. I suppose you could interpret that as a broken engagement.”

“Oh, but I am sorry! I’m really very sorry!” Victoria certainly sounded as if she was appalled by the thought of his world lying in fragments at his feet; but in all honesty she had to admit to herself—despite her conviction that he must be really terribly upset—he didn’t look like a man who was reeling under the effects of a major disaster. He didn’t even look like a man who was afflicted by the effects of a disaster at all.

Just a little bit perturbed—almost whimsically concerned, she would have said, if she had been asked. Slightly bewildered, perhaps mildly hurt. But not shattered, not stunned.

“That’s very kind of you.” He crossed one long leg over the other, and looked upward into the branches. “Very kind. But engagements have been broken before, you know.”

“Yes; but when it happens to you personally ... I mean, it probably isn’t anything very serious. You’ll make it up again.”

“Will I?” and he glanced at her whimsically.

“I hope so. Otherwise you’re going to be very unhappy.”

“That’s a possibility, of course.”

“You mean that you’ll make it up?”

“No, that I’ll be very unhappy ... for a time, at least.”

But he was smiling in such a way that she still couldn’t believe he fully realized what it was that had happened to him. Perhaps it was a case of delayed shock. Perhaps he was already planning to make it up, and therefore the whole incident wasn’t regarded by him as very serious.

“What happened?” she inquired, hoping he would not think her impertinent. “Of course,” hurriedly, “if you don’t think you ought to discuss the matter. . . .”

“Oh, but I do,” he assured her. “I do because it was largely because of you—and Johnny, of course—that my plans have been somewhat rudely upset. Listen!” He held up a finger. “Isn’t that a nightingale singing in that coppice over there? In the whole course of my life so far there have been few occasions when a bird with a throat like that has suddenly made up its mind to entertain me. But I should think there can be hardly any doubt that that is a nightingale.”

But Victoria was appalled.

“You mean you’ve broken off your engagement because of me?” she demanded. “And Johnny?”

His gray eyes gleamed at her in an amused manner.

“Oh, I didn’t break off the engagement. It was the lady who did that,” he corrected any false impression she might have received.

“B-but because of—Johnny and me?”

“Largely, I’d say, because of you and Johnny.” He sat listening with a rapt look on his face to the nightingale’s outpourings. “No wonder you enjoy sitting out here in the garden if you can listen to that sort of thing,” he commented.

“I—I don’t quite understand why Johnny and I should have played any part in your broken engagement,” she told him. “I mean, you didn’t have to adopt Johnny. Not if Miss Islesworth was so strongly against it.”

“She wasn’t so violently opposed to my adopting Johnny as she was to my retaining you to look after him,” he admitted.

“Oh, but that—that’s terrible!”

He patted her knee.

“Don’t let it upset you. You and Johnny are indivisible, and I pointed it out.”

“We don’t have to indivisible. In any case, you could have just let us go—”

“I didn’t choose to let you go. Now, let’s devote five peaceful seconds to listening to that bird!”

At the end of the five seconds Victoria felt she had to make it clear to him that he had startled and perturbed her. After all, if she was to be the cause of ruining his life. . . . Well, it was unthinkable. Something would have to be done about it quickly.

“What happened?” she asked again. “If you won’t think me rude for demanding to know! After all, if it concerns me so closely I ought to know, and then I can do my best to put matters right. Sir Peter,” as he sat there smiling at her in that strange, placid fashion, “you must surely understand that to be the cause of interfering with a couple’s marriage plans is a most serious thing. I wouldn’t have had anything like this happen for the world if I could have prevented it.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” he agreed.

“And as I’m the unwitting cause of all the trouble I feel all the more strongly about it!”

“Don’t worry,” he said again, with that hint of complacency in his tone. “I’m not going to shoot myself, or anything like that. I may make an attempt tomorrow to patch things up.”

“Why not tonight?”

“Because Georgina’s in a very difficult humor tonight.”

“I’m not surprised if you walked out on her.”

He shrugged.

“I didn’t exactly walk out on her. She flounced out on me!

We were going out to dinner—rather an important dinner, as a matter of fact—and I called to collect her at her father’s house. It’s about a couple of miles the other side of Wycherley Park. The two estates will march well together one of these days, or so her father seems to think.”

“Never mind about the estates. What started the quarrel?”

“She asked me where I had hidden you and Johnny, and I told her.”

“Oh!”

“She made some unpleasant reference to secret love-nests, and I’m afraid I lost my temper. The argument was short, sharp, and bitter, and then I told her I hadn’t any appetite for dinner. She flew upstairs to her room and left me standing in the hall of her father’s house with no one to talk to save the butler, who looked horrified by what he had overheard, and I said good night to him politely and walked out of the house and got into my car and came here.”

“Oh!” Victoria said again.

“And here we are sitting on the lawn and listening to your nightingale, and I think you’re beginning to shiver, so we ought to go indoors.” His gray eyes watched her in a concerned fashion. “You did shiver, didn’t you?”