Nightingale Wood (7 page)

When Viola had been at The Eagles four days, Mr Wither made another attempt to bring off the little talk, and this time he succeeded.

His den commanded a view of the little library across the hall, and by sitting with the door half-open in a ghastly draught he had discovered that Viola went to the library every day after lunch to choose a book.

She made no attempt to organize her days at The Eagles; she went about bored and miserable, and half the time Mr Wither (whose own days were well organized in prowling after his money and bothering Major-General Breis-Cumwitt and wondering how much money other people had and how it was getting on and organizing his wife and daughters and seeing that nothing was wasted) did not know what she did with herself. But for three days now he had seen her go to the library and stand for some time flicking over the pages of books and sometimes making a scornful little face which affronted Mr Wither very much, because it implied that the books in his library were not worth reading.

On the fourth day Mr Wither gave her five minutes to get settled at her flicking and face-making, then he quietly got up from his chair and scuttled across the hall.

‘
Oh!
’ cried Viola, dropping
My Dogs and Me
by Millie Countess of Scatterby. ‘Oh, Mr Wither, how you made me jump!’

‘Choosing a book?’ inquired Mr Wither, with the smile he used when he wanted to lure people into doing something that they would dislike. ‘Well, there’s plenty of choice, plenty of choice. Getting along quite comfortably, eh? Settling down, and feeling quite at home?’

‘Yes, thank you, Mr Wither,’ muttered Viola, staring at him and desperately remembering how Shirley had warned her not to let Old Therm get her down. Stand up to him, the old heel, had been Shirley’s advice.

‘Then how about our little talk?’ suggested he, moving temptingly towards the door, even as Pan, with one eye on a nervous nymph, might have waved invitingly at the distant woods.

She gulped, muttered something, and followed him.

She had never been in his den. It was frighteningly small, especially after Mr Wither had shut the door. He patted the gloomy arm-chair and apologized for the absence of the hellish one, ‘But it was such a warm day that a fire was hardly necessary, was it?’

Viola nodded. To give herself courage she lolled back in the armchair, and this annoyed Mr Wither, because no one sprawling like that could possibly give proper attention to what he was going to say.

‘I am sure you know what I want to talk to you about,’ began Mr Wither in what was meant to be a cheerful tone but which only gave an alarmingly unnatural colour to his voice as though a fit were pending; at the same time he creaked forward and gazed at her with a fixed smile. ‘Money.’ He spoke the word reverently. ‘A little word, but a very important one.’

Viola made a faint sound, gulped, and at last brought out, with her drowsy grey eyes wide as a kitten’s with alarm, ‘I can pay for myself.’

‘Ha! Ha!’ cried Mr Wither, patting her knee and shaking his head (though, in fact, why shouldn’t she? She ate far too much butter; and he was relieved to learn that she
could
pay for herself. But that could be gone into later.)

‘No, no. Of course, there is always a little difference in the housekeeping books when another mouth comes into an establishment, especially when that mouth is a
young
mouth, ha! ha! But the situation is not serious yet, Viola, ha, ha! No (though what you suggest is not at all a bad idea, and we might bear it in mind for the future), I did not want to talk to you about that. It is about your money. Theodore’s money.’ He lowered his voice and gazed glassily at her, as though at a sacred image. ‘How much have you, my dear?’

There was a pause.

‘I haven’t anything,’ giggled Viola, pulling out a Woolworth handkerchief and blowing her nose, while her suddenly brilliant grey eyes laughed at him above the coloured cotton.

She was very frightened: but how Shirley would roar when she heard this story!

‘You haven’t
anything
?’

Mr Wither was stunned. He gazed at her with his mouth open.

‘Yes. No, I mean. Well, I’ve got—’

‘Then what do you mean by saying that you could pay for yourself?’ interrupted Mr Wither. Perhaps she was playing a joke; a wicked, senseless joke, but still, a joke. People did, he knew.

‘Well, I was going to say that I could pay for myself for a bit.’

‘For a bit?’ muttered Mr Wither, shaking his head dazedly. ‘What bit? What do you mean?’

‘For a little while, I mean. Just for a bit. I’ve got twelve pounds.’

‘Eh?’

‘I’ve got twelve pounds,’ she repeated, rather sulkily, staring into the huge black grate.

‘Is that all?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where is it?’ demanded Mr Wither, for even twelve pounds was something, and it ought to be properly taken care of. A girl like Viola might have left it lying about – in the bathroom, the car, anywhere.

‘Upstairs.’

‘Where?’

A tiny pause.

‘In my bag.’

Mr Wither opened his lips, then pressed them tightly together. Then opened them.

‘Do you mean to tell me that twelve pounds is all the money you have left, out of the sum left to you by your father?’

She nodded, still sulkily.

‘Yes, but he didn’t leave me much’

‘How much?’

A longer pause.

‘How much did your father leave you, Viola? Come, you must tell me, you know. This is very serious.’

‘Fifty pounds.’

‘A year, you mean? Fifty pounds a year?’

‘No, just fifty pounds.’

‘But the – the establishment – the shop,’ cried Mr Wither. ‘I understood from my son that your father was part proprietor.’

‘Oh well, he did used to be, only he sold it to Mr Burgess. You see,’ her eyes filled with tears, ‘Dad was absolutely mad on amateur theatricals, and he did a lot for the Chesterbourne Players, putting in new lights and all kinds of things he did for them like that, and that’s how his money went. It took a long time, of course. Years. When I was a kid we were all right. I went to the High School; I stayed there till I was sixteen. Only I don’t think Dad had much head for business, he ought to have gone on the stage, we always said, and Mr Burgess is an old beast, everybody says so. Hard as they make them, Miss Catty – everybody says. And if you ask my opinion, I think he just cheated Dad.’

She wiped her eyes, trembling.

Mr Wither said nothing for a little while. Her tears embarrassed him, but he felt that they were only proper; he gave her time to recover her composure. This concession did not prevent him from being very seriously annoyed with her, and dismayed as well.

Still, there was Teddy’s money; he had not yet heard about Teddy’s money. All might yet be well. The omens were not good, but Mr Wither thrust the omens from his mind. She might have meant only twelve pounds
in cash
.

Presently he said,

‘And Theodore’s money? How much did my son leave you?’

‘Ninety pounds,’ she sighed.

‘A year, that is? Ninety pounds a year?’

‘No. In the bank, I mean.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Yes.’

‘But,’ cried Mr Wither in anguish, ‘for twenty years Theodore never earned less than five pounds a week, and I myself, for the past year, allowed him an additional eighty pounds a year! For the last year of his life, when he married you, he was earning seven pounds a week.’

‘Did he earn seven pounds a week?’ she asked. After a pause, ‘I used to wonder how much it was, but I never thought it was as much as that.’

Mr Wither had nothing to say to this: he thought it quite proper that a wife should not know how much her husband earned.

‘But where did it all
go
?’ he cried, creaking forward and gazing at her with popping eyes. ‘What did he spend it on? He ought to have been able to save a hundred pounds a year. He never went anywhere. He was not gay, or wild. Surely
you
must know where it all went?’

‘Well, there was the rent, that was twenty-eight and sixpence a week, and he gave me thirty shillings for housekeeping, and there was the charwoman, and I had five shillings a week pocket money—’

Too much, thought Mr Wither. Unnecessary.

‘… and there were his fares and lunches and hair tonics …’

‘Hair tonics?’ exclaimed Mr Wither. Were all his children insane on the subject of hair? Tina was always complaining about
her
hair and wanting to spend money on it, and now Theodore had apparently spent about four pounds a week on his.

‘Well, lotions, you know, and Rowland’s Macassar Oil and things. His hair was …’

She stopped. Sometimes she was schoolgirlishly loyal to her husband’s memory, and such a scruple had overcome her now. It made her feel very sorry to remember that poor Teddy had worried about going bald (though she used to laugh about it with Shirley) and she did not see why his horrid old father should know everything. She was quite serious now; and did not feel like laughing any more.

‘And then there were clothes,’ she continued faintly. ‘He liked to look smart, you know. And – and of course he had to. For Business.’

Mr Wither snorted. He knew all about that particular business.

‘And lots of other things …’ she ended hastily.

Mr Wither nodded glumly, staring at her with his knees a little apart and his short red hands, darkly veined, spread over their caps. She looked quickly down at her shoes.

‘And so you haven’t anything,’ said Mr Wither at length, still glumly staring.

She shook her head.

He continued to gaze at her for a little while longer, shaking his head with compressed lips; then he bent forward abruptly and stood up.

‘Well, we shall have to see, that’s all,’ he observed.

With which comforting remark he opened the door for her, and she escaped.

When she had run quickly upstairs, he returned to the arm-chair and to his thoughts. They were not cheerful.

She had no money, she ate a great deal of butter, she was only twenty-one, and she had come, at his express and urgent request, to reside at The Eagles for life.

Viola ran all the way up to her bedroom, and flomped face downwards on the bed. She lay for a little while staring vacantly at the carpet and slowly clacking her shoes together while she waved her legs in the air. Then she got desperately up, put on her coat, and ran very quietly downstairs again.

She slipped out through the back way by the garage (late stables). She liked this side of the house, which was directly under her bedroom window, because there was always more going on there than elsewhere at The Eagles. The maids did not make much noise, but there was often a comforting smell of cooking, and sometimes Saxon was there, doing things to the car. Viola considered Saxon to be very stuck-up and too handsome for a boy, but she could not help being pleased every time she saw him because he was the only other person at The Eagles who had no wrinkles. His presence made her feel less lost in a sea of ancients.

He was there this afternoon, standing with his legs a little apart in shiny black gaiters, and a pair of very white shirt-sleeves rolled up over his arms while he polished the car. The brilliant sunlight of April, that made most faces look old, only increased the youth of his.

He saw her coming through the window of the car, and gave her such a gay, mischievous, impudent smile that she could not believe her eyes. Well! what’s up with him this afternoon, she thought, her spirits soaring at the friendliness of it: but when she came round the car, and went past him, he was as correct as though the smile had never been.

‘Good afternoon,’ she said shyly, slowing her pace a very little. She had not quite the courage to call him Saxon.

‘Good afternoon, Madam,’ responded he, respectfully.

‘Isn’t it a lovely day!’ she observed, more faintly, almost over her shoulder as she left the yard.

‘Yes, Madam, beautiful.’ He gave her a direct, respectful look but did not smile.

Feeling snubbed, and cross with him, she stuck her hands into her pockets and set out along the road beside the little wood.

He doesn’t half think no small beer of himself; been drinking pearls out of a gold cup, I should think (quoting old Miss Cattyman at the shop). I only said it was a nice day—

Don’t be so disagreeable!

I’ve only come to say

How do you do-dy, do-dy, do-dy

do-dy, do-dy-day!

That old song of Dad’s! I do think death’s awful; it’s like half of you gone away.

P’raps Saxon’s people are rich, and he’s doing it for a joke, she mused, swinging along, kicking at little stones. None of the Withers had mentioned Saxon to her since she had been there. She was surprised to see a new chauffeur at the station when Mrs Wither met her; she had not known that they had one. There had not been the usual exchange of small items of family news, which goes on in most families, between Teddy and his wife and the people at The Eagles. Teddy felt that his parents and sisters disapproved of his marriage with a shopgirl, and he had seen even less of them after his marriage, so they were almost strangers to his wife. An ageing chauffeur, to match the ageing maids, had driven Viola on the few occasions when she had been in the Wither car. Saxon was a new one on her.

No, she thought, he can’t be doing it for fun. No one ’ud come to live at The Eagles for fun.

She recalled her own disagreeable situation; and sighed.

She now wished with all her heart that she had been brave enough to take Shirley’s advice and refuse to live at The Eagles. Good lord, girl, you’ve had one marvellous escape; don’t go and tie yourself up with The Therms
again
, said Shirley. Besides, you know what old Therm is; it’s your money he wants. Only in this case want must be his master, because you haven’t got any.