Nightingale Wood (6 page)

The house and grounds had that feeling (delightful or not so delightful; that depends upon whether one likes parties) of moving a little faster than other places, as though it were always upon the brink of a party. This was because cheerful, though permissible, noises sounded through the parquet-floored corridors and the luxurious rooms that did not contain a single book. A pretty maid steered the Hoover across a carpet (Mrs Spring hated plain maids; they depressed her), a burst of gay music came from a wireless that was being overhauled in readiness for next weekend’s party, a young gardener whistled as he worked, or Mrs Spring sat before her pianola playing the Handkerchief Dance. The telephone rang every half-hour or so. Vans from Harrods, from Fortnum and Mason and Cartier, came up to the house, and out of them came plain, wickedly expensive-looking parcels that were carried triumphantly indoors. These were for Mrs Spring, whose hobby was shopping.

It was money royally spent that flowed through this house like the Gulf Stream; warming the rooms, making the maids smile and the gardeners whistle, luring vans to the door. Victor treated money, not like a tyrant that must be alternately fawned upon and bullied, but as an old pal; he stood it drinks, so to speak, and it stood him more drinks in return. He had a way with it; it came to his whistle.

His father had left him a valley in Kent filled up with soft-fruit beds and a factory for canning their produce, and this brought him a very handsome income; but Victor had used the Sunny Valley Brand as a mere jumping-off point. He had (to speak moderately) extended his interests. He was a rich man, and would be richer.

Despite the lavishness of his establishment, he lived within his income and did not get into debt. Indeed, for such a rich young man, with such golden prospects of being so much richer, he lived rather modestly. His tastes were simple: he liked the best and plenty of it.

Mrs Spring, daughter of a country-town doctor and a social rung or two above her late husband, had a more than comfortable income of her own, left to her by Mr Spring. Some of it went on beauty treatments. But they were useless; her skin knew that it was fifty-two years old and stretched over a body in ill-health, and it refused to look anything but ravaged. She dressed fashionably, without forgetting her age. Her delicacy of body made her often irritable, but in her heart she was content enough. She lived from moment to moment, unharried by imagination, enjoyed entertaining her many friends, was extremely fond of Victor and tried to be patient with her niece Hetty, but did not find this easy.

She was breakfasting earlier than usual because she was going up to London for a day’s shopping. She enjoyed such excursions more than anything in the world; her only regret was that she had no daughter to enjoy them with her.

Hetty was no use at shopping. Hetty took no interest, unless Mrs Spring hurried into the book department at Harrods to buy a book of dog and horse pictures, costing 18
s
., for a friend who was keen on dogs and horses. Then, indeed, Hetty could hardly be dragged away. She was a thoroughly sickening girl. ‘Old Het-Up’, Victor called her, because she got so excited over poetry and all that sort of thing.

Nevertheless, Hetty was going to town today with her aunt because the fine weather seemed to have set in, and a gay, busy summer with many guests, parties and excursions lay ahead of Grassmere, for which its ladies must have the right clothes and plenty of them.

Mrs Spring compelled herself to relax while she sipped the juice and skimmed the anything-but-relaxing pages of the journal, but she was feeling irritable because Hetty was not there, dressed and ready to start. Hetty had eaten her breakfast and slipped off. She was always slipping off, and it annoyed Mrs Spring very much; she liked to have someone there to ask advice of, and to discuss the day’s plans with.

Besides, at the last minute Hetty might be missing; that had happened once, and the train had been missed. Even Victor had been very angry with Hetty about that: he could not believe that anyone could actually miss a train. He was not easy-going.

Today there was plenty of time, but Mrs Spring was uneasy. She rang, and said to the maid who came in, ‘Go and see if Miss Hetty is in her room, and ask her to come down.’

The girl, a very pretty little thing from Merionethshire, said, ‘Yes, Madam,’ and went out. But she did not go upstairs.

Victor’s unrelaxing standard of efficiency kept the whole of Grassmere’s interior new and spotless, and the grounds as well. But, like a king whose empire is so vast that he cannot find the time to visit certain squalid tribes on its frontiers, Victor never went into the hinterland of the vegetable garden, a desert of dumps, disused frames, manure heaps and a very large water-butt, originally painted a bright turquoise blue.

Time and weather had faded this colour to softness, and it now glowed coolly against the canopy of pale red and white blossoms in the little orchard, where the apple-trees were out. The almond-trees were flowering, and the cherry, and the pear in a waterfall of white stars, and the dark pink crab-apple. Hetty sat on three old bricks with her back against the water-butt, a book on her knees, gazing up at the youngest gardener, a comely youth tied up here and there with bast. He was saying:

‘You see, Miss Hetty, it’s Mr Spring. He likes to know every single thing as goes in, Mr Spring does.’

‘Yes, I know he does, but surely he’d never notice one more cherry-tree among all the others.’

‘He’d be sure to see me puttin’ her in, Miss Hetty. ’Sides, it ’ud take me off my reg’lar wuck. Proper lot to do there is, here.’

‘I could put it in,’ she said eagerly.

‘Not right, you couldn’t, if you’ll excuse me a-sayin’ soo, Miss Hetty. Why, even a doddy tree like that un here,’ he pointed to a little cherry close by, ‘her takes time to put in, an’ it moost be done right. If she ain’t done right, her might die, and you wouldn’t like that, would you?’

His young voice, in which the colourless vowels taught to him at school were gradually being replaced by the natural broad ones of his county, was soft and kind as though he spoke to a child, but it was also amused. Miss Hetty certainly didn’t goo on like most young ladies, and her differences were funny.

‘No, I shouldn’t,’ she answered shortly, turning her head quickly away to look at the fairy cloud of flowers. Her small blue eyes were deeply set and slightly misty from too much reading. They had a resentful look which never left them except when she saw a book or the name of a writer.

‘You see, Heyrick,’ she began again, after a pause, then stopped. Then went on, ‘Do you like music?’

‘Don’t know much about it, Miss Hetty.’

‘Well, do you know a song called
In Summertime on Bredon
?’

‘Like this, does it goo?’ and Heyrick broke into beautiful whistle, strong as a blackbird’s.

‘That’s it – that’s it! How on earth did you come to know it?’

‘On the wireless last night, Miss Hetty. Proper good ’un, that is.’

‘And the words – do you remember the words?’

He grinned widely. ‘Count I never noticed ’em, Miss Hetty.’

‘Well, never mind, only they’re very beautiful and the man who wrote them has just died. That’s why I want to plant the cherry-tree, you see. In his memory, sort of.’

Heyrick nodded, his amused look deepening.

‘He was a writer – a poet,’ she explained, hugging her knees and staring up at the starry white waterfall (
The pear stood high and snowed
). ‘A very true poet.’

‘Same as Kipling? We larned a piece by Kipling at school.
If
, it were called. Count I’ve forgotten most of it now.’

‘Not a bit like Kipling,’ corrected Hetty, ‘though Kipling’s a marvel. Only he’s out of fashion, they say (dunderheads). Oh well,’ scrambling up ungracefully and dusting her skirt, ‘thanks, Heyrick. It doesn’t matter. It’s not worth the fuss there’d be. Only I thought as a wild cherry, full standard, only costs seven and sixpence, I could just buy one and stick it in somewhere. I might have known I couldn’t … though there’s room enough.’

‘There is soo, Miss Hetty,’ said Heyrick with feeling; he was a little lazy.

Hetty grimly pulled her hat over her resentful eves, and was bending to pick up her expensive handbag from the ground when little Merionethshire came breathlessly round the water-butt.

‘Please, Miss Hetty, Madam says will you go in. She wants you.’

‘Did she send you out here?’

Hetty’s tone was alarmed. The water-butt, in the only untidy corner at Grassmere, was her poetry-reading place.

‘Indeed no, Miss Hetty, she said to go up to your room, only I thought as you’d most likely be out here, seeing it’s a nice morning and Heyrick said—’

‘All right. Thanks,’ Hetty interrupted the flow of lilting Welsh. ‘Don’t tell anyone I come here, will you, please, Davies? It’s nice to be quiet sometimes.’

‘Indeed and I won’t, Miss Hetty,’ promised Merionethshire with a trace of condescension but willingly enough, and meant what she said. A secret was a secret, even if it wasn’t about Boys. Any secret was better than none.

‘Poor Miss Hetty,’ said Merionethshire when Hetty had gone, turning a flower-like effect of carnation lips, peony cheeks and pansy-dark eyes on Heyrick. ‘She did ought to get married, I think.’

‘Count she ain’t the only one,’ and Heyrick loomed down upon little Merionethshire, who disappeared against the corduroys and bast in a storm of squeaks.

‘Where did you get to, Hetty?’ fretfully inquired Mrs Spring, pulling on her gloves. ‘I do wish you wouldn’t sneak off like that just when I want to talk to you.’

‘Sorry, Aunt Edna.’

They took their places in the car, which moved off as Mrs Spring began to talk about the day’s programme.

Hetty sat silent, in the smart coat and skirt chosen by her aunt, which she wore badly. She was a plump girl of a little over twenty, with dark hair worn in an untidy knob, a bad complexion and small, well-formed features that were unexpectedly attractive.

She was the only daughter of Mrs Spring’s only sister; her father and mother were dead, and she had lived, since she was five, with her aunt and her cousin Victor. She had some hundred pounds a year of her own left to her by her mother, but Mrs Spring did not consider this pittance enough for a girl to live on in virtue and comfort, and had insisted upon carrying Hetty off.

Mrs Spring had loved her sister very dearly; their affection had been the deepest experience in her unimaginative life, and she had hoped that Hetty, as that sister’s daughter, would be like Winnie come back again.

But Hetty had taken after her father’s side; the unsuccessful (that is, poor) Franklins who were all teachers and parsons and librarians, and as dull as ditch-water, with their noses in books, their socks in holes and their finances in muddles. Hetty was a disappointment. All that Mrs Spring could do with Hetty was to let Victor see that her investments did not go down, while she herself chose her clothes and tried to marry her off.

Not that Mrs Spring was a fanatic about girls getting married; a lot of rubbish was talked about marriage, and nowadays a girl could have a really good time (dances riding, shows, flying, parties, yachting and golf) without marriage, especially if she had money.

But Hetty had no money. Mrs Spring did not look upon one hundred pounds a year as money: she would have agreed with those gangsters who refer contemptuously to small amounts as chicken feed. Hetty was also a discontented, queer girl whom nothing pleased but rubbishy books by immoral highbrow authors. So the sooner Hetty married, the better.

As for Hetty, she had not the courage to say so, but she considered the life led at Grassmere to be tedious, futile and coarse. (She was always wondering what Doctor Johnson would have said about it, and inventing Imaginary Conversations with him about the people who came down for weekends – ‘Sir, Mr So and So is a fool, and twice a fool, for he is not aware of his folly.’) Her aunt’s interests bored her, and she found her cousin Victor’s lack of imagination unattractive.

What was the use of a man’s being handsome if he were also stupid?

She could talk to no one at Grassmere about books.

At Grassmere no one read books. They occasionally read a thriller from the Boots in Chesterbourne, but more often they looked at the
Tatler
,
Vogue
, the
Sunday Pictorial
,
Homes and Gardens
, and journals about cars and outboards. These periodicals had to compete with the wireless, the pianola, the telephone, visitors, gossip and the dogs. Usually they were defeated.

Hetty’s passion for poetry (the word, usually too strong for the taste it describes, here falls short of her feelings) had been discovered by her at school, and fostered there. Now it must be indulged in secret; or her aunt and cousin laughed, then spoke sharply. They did not like young girls to be brainy and different. Brainy, different girls, who were yet not brainy enough to have a career, were misfits. When, like Hetty, they were bad at parties, riding, tennis, skiing, flying, yachting and golf, they were a trial, thorns in the Spring flesh.

Hetty turned to stare at The Eagles as the car passed; she always liked to look at that tall dark grey house in which lived Mr Wither and his sad-looking daughter. Hetty had never spoken to any of the Withers, but she liked to muse about the inside of their house and their life; she imagined it full of strange psychological complexities, like a very modern novel.

The house, with its dreary flowerless shrubs and darkly curtained windows, was as full of romance to her as a mansion in a story by Chekov. It was so different from Grassmere, where everything was beastly
new
.

I wish I could get away, thought Hetty wistfully as the car swung into the station yard, and live in a house like The Eagles, where it’s peaceful, and life is full of a muted, melancholy beauty.

‘Hetty! Your handbag!’ exclaimed Mrs Spring.

The chauffeur bent and carefully picked it from the gutter.

CHAPTER IV