It Was the Nightingale (15 page)

But later on, at Ashburton, it being market day and the pubs open from early to late, beer made the world begin again in interest and delight. And so to the village, and vertical-tail welcome from Moggy holding the fort—Moggy with five kittens in Rusty’s basket, the second safest place in the cottage, since the flimsy door leading aloft to the bedrooms had been shut.

That night they lay in bed talking, each in his own room; but it was a separation; and Phillip helped Arthur to carry the camp-bed beside his own. They were weary from the cold night on the
moor, and talked drowsily, contentedly, while tawny owls on the church tower hooted with mellow cries one to another under the wreck of the moon declining to far ocean. In the morning, after dreamless sleep, Phillip saw that Arthur’s right heel was rubbed raw, for he had been wearing new shoes; he had said nothing about it, for his was the Spartan ideal.

When they had read their letters, Arthur said, “Father was in Exeter, last night. He’ll be in Queensbridge today, and wonders if we’ll have time to see him.”

“Well, I must do an article today, Arthur. Also I must look through Massingham’s book sent to me by the
Outlook,
and post off a review. But why don’t you go on the Norton? You’ll make my apologies, won’t you?”

Phillip sent off his work by the midday post, and replied to his letters. His cousin returned in the afternoon, looking subdued.

“How did you find Uncle?”

“Oh, very well. He sent you his kind regards, by the way. He’s gone on to Plymouth.”

There was something on Arthur’s mind. While they were walking along Malandine sands Phillip asked if he was worried.

“Not particularly.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Well, I may as well tell you. Father, as you know, is a bit old-fashioned. And many of the firm’s customers are solicitors, of course.”

“Whatever are you driving at?”

“I hardly like to tell you. It may be nothing, after all.” At last he said, “Apparently there’s some talk about the nursing home, where your baby was born.”

“Well?”

“Father heard something—it’s probably only talk—of what you are supposed to have said about the midwife and her mother.”

“Both the old girl
and
her daughter went to bed and left Barley to look after the baby, from one-thirty a.m. until I found her sitting up in bed six hours later! In that time she had had the hæmorrhage!”

“I don’t doubt it, Phillip. But the point Father made was that, if I am to take over his territory when he retires, I can’t be too careful where customers are concerned.”

Phillip went straight to Porto Bello.

The midwife’s mother stood in the doorway, looking at him accusingly.

“Well, y’ung mahn, what have you to say for yourself?”

“If I did say anything which upset you both, then I am very sorry, but I don’t remember saying anything to you on that morning.”

“But you told young Mr. Pole-Cripps, the Vicar’s son, didn’t you, that your poor wife died through neglect while in this house?”

“I’m not responsible for what Mr. Cripps says, surely?”

“But you told y’ung Mr. Pole-Cripps, didn’t you?”

“I don’t remember, but I may have done.”

“My daughter, Ah’ll have you know,” went on the grim little woman, “is a licensed midwife, and very upset by what people have said! What’s more, Ah’ve taken her to see Mr. Wigfull about it, and he’s going to write you a lawyer’s letter. Ah’m leavin’ it to Mr. Wigfull, so it’s no good saying anything ’ere, y’ung mahn!”

He walked down to see Mr. Wigfull, who was out. The clerk asked him if he would like to see Mr. Thistlethwaite.

“Ah, we meet again!” said Mr. Thistlethwaite, shaking hands.

He got up and closed the door.

“Now I know very well how you feel, and it would be unkind of me not to try to help you. If you will consider making an offer to compensate them for what they have suffered in the matter, I will be prepared to pass on that offer to them.”

“But I, too, have suffered from their neglect! They both went to bed, leaving my wife sitting up to nurse a crying infant!”

“It would be very hard to prove neglect on their part, you know. Dr. MacNab, I understand, issued a certificate of death due to natural causes. Furthermore, I understand that it was a most unusual type of hæmorrhage, and one that could not be detected, as it was an interior bleeding, showing no outward sign. Also, both the good women are prepared to swear, in court if necessary, that their patient asked to be allowed to nurse the crying infant. In fact, she suggested that the midwife should have a rest, and lie down. So it would not be easy to establish the contrary in court, in view of what mother and daughter say.”

Phillip replied bitterly, “Don’t worry, Mr. Thistlethwaite, I would never sue anyone for anything!”

“I think that is the proper way to look at it.” Mr. Thistlethwaite pushed over an ash-tray. “I well remember your magnanimous
attitude, if I am allowed to call in that, in the matter of Mrs. Nunn and that tennis-club affair three years ago. You were misled, if I may say so, by the wrong advice on that occasion. Now strictly between ourselves, I’m not taking up a partnership with Wigfull. In fact I’m leaving here very shortly, and setting up on my own in Dorset. Shakesbury to be exact. But that’s between ourselves, of course. Now about this ‘Porto Bello’ business. I take it that we are both men of the world. My suggestion to you is to give the old girl a tenner, to shut her mouth! Well, what do you think?”

“I think Queensbridge is a dreadful place!”

“So do I, old man, but we don’t have to stay here! Now look here, I give you my word that I’m trying to help you. After all, the midwife has lost money on her room, you know.”

“Yes, I understand that, Mr. Thistlethwaite.”

“Good. Now may I say how very very sorry I was to hear of your recent sad loss. I do assure you that my two old girls, too, were deeply upset. They may be a couple of fuddy-duddies, but they’ve always done their best according to their lights, and as I said, Dr. MacNab’s certificate clears them of any blame They’re quite poor people, and can’t afford, really, the loss of profits due to the non-use of their only accouchement room, which was, I understand, engaged for ten days. A pound a day is not exorbitant.”

“Of course I don’t want anyone to be the loser for anything he or she has done for me. So I’ll offer seven guineas.”

“Spoken like a gentleman!” said Mr. Thistlethwaite, rising to hold out his hand. “You’ll send along your cheque, then?”

“I’ll write it out now!”

Having done this, Phillip said, “I do realise that my previous hard feelings about ‘Porto Bello’ were based on ignorance of all the circumstances. I had no idea that—that—their patient had suggested that the nurse should lie down——”

“It’s not unusual, you know, for the mother to want to hold her baby in her arms. There was, I understand, a crib beside the bed——”

“Yes, I saw that.” He steadied his voice. “I’ll go round and thank them for letting me know the truth.” He said after a pause, “She was generosity itself. I see it all now.”

“I like you,” exclaimed Thistlethwaite. “You’re North Country
by your name, I fancy. By the way, didn’t you once have a tame otter? I thought so. Someone was saying in the Club here that it got caught in a rabbit gin, and lost two of the toes on one of its front feet—pads I think is the correct expression. I ask because I was out with a pal of mine last week, following the otter hounds beside the Taw in North Devon, and they spoored one below the bank with a maimed front pad. It got away, let me add! I told someone afterwards about your tame beastie, and he said it was quite possible for it to have got up the Avon here to the moor, and then gone down the other side of the watershed, otters being nomads. I thought I’d tell you if I saw you, and now this gives me my opportunity.”

“Mr. Thistlethwaite, I am doubly glad I came to see you! Good luck to your new practice in Dorset! I’m going to North Devon to live! I feel I shall be able to write there!”

Cousin Willie’s cottage at Speering Folliot had remained empty after his death; the day was fine, he would collect Arthur and go across the moor at once.

He returned that evening the new tenant of Scur Cottage.

*

He made up his mind to burn the furniture, together with all Barley’s things, before he left; but when the time came he packed everything into his trunk while awaiting the van. Even the broken lace was taken with the sand-shoes, for she had broken it.

He had written variations of this letter during the Sunday and Monday, each version being scrapped. He had eaten nothing
since his arrival two days before. It was now the late afternoon. Soon the farmer who tilled four of the splatts in the Great Field would be passing down the lane with his horse and butt, after collecting sea-weed from the shores of the Crow shingle tongue.

He heard the clang of the falling bar of the double doors leading to his yard, followed by the rattle of butt wheels on the dry stones within.

Phillip sat in his armchair. He wore his trench coat. The kitchen door was open. He had sat there for two days, while the cries and sounds of the hamlet had floated in. He was filled by a strange comfort, a calm detachment from all life, a sensation of ease beyond the body. He floated in a vacuum, occasionally drinking water; and went to bed while the sun was still in the sky, to lie between army blankets, still with the feeling of Nirvana; to get up when the sun shone in his window and take his rest in the armchair once more, deliciously void of life.

The baker’s horse and van was approaching. It stopped. The single loaf, left there on the Saturday, was still on the table. The baker’s boy’s iron-shod boots struck upon the sett-stoned path.

“Nothing today, thanks.”

“Nice day again! Thankin’ yew!”

The boy went out again, prepared to close the door behind him. Almost anxiously Phillip cried, “No, leave it open!”

His eyes closed, he drifted, lapped in warmth.

Beyond the edge of consciousness light footfalls, as of small feet on tip-toe, came nearer, slower and slower. With eyes closed, he could sense the boy peering round the door-jamb to see if he were still there. He heard the boy creeping back.

“’A be still sittin’ thur, Mum. ’A didden move!”

Then the boy was running past, crying, “Thur be my daddy! My daddy’s corned whoam, Mis’r Mass’n!”

“Lucky boy!”

He felt the poignancy of the child’s happiness. The labourer clumped past, holding the hand of the child. The two went into their cottage next door. He heard the loving words to small daughter and baby. Then came the noises of sluicing, swish of water thrown over the garden wall, scrape of chairs drawn up on lime-ash floor, talk in low voices. The family was having tea.

He could not remember ever before having remained so still in contentment, floating on a temperature of between 100° and
101° F. Influenza was about; he had felt bad on the first night of his arrival, and gone to bed in his day clothes, to awaken with a strange feeling of comfort, a warmth and sensation of being levitated, floating upon the material illusion of life. Or was it possession by the spirit of Willie? He lay in contentment; then with a start realised that the weight of grief had lifted from him. He felt that Barley was in the room, smiling at him, wanting him to know that all was well; then it seemed that his cousin’s spirit had brought her there, to help him. How much was this his own inducement, how much arose from memory, this feeling of the presence of the dead?

*

He lay in the chair while a parallelogram of westering sun moved across the worn lime-ash floor. A late cuckoo was calling from the elms, a faltering voice beginning to crack.

Hearing footfalls, he pulled himself out of the chair. From the window he saw Mules the postman alighting from his bicycle.

Dear Mules, he had known Willie. He stood in the doorway, watching him wheeling his red machine to the side of the road, placing it carefully against the garden wall before walking forward in his slightly deprecatory manner, not so much a walk as placing one foot before the other, a loose motion which set swinging each arm and leg independently of its fellows. Even his head bobbed, as though in rehearsal of a profoundly courteous but equally shy greeting.

He felt desire to meet gentle motion with gentle motion in the sunshine, and with streaming eyes floated forward to meet Mules through the curiously unreal afternoon.

Mules appeared to be existing in an identical fourth dimension with himself, as with brown canvas post-bag slung on shoulder of blue serge tunic he stood there; and then, enclosed within these startlingly clear colours his form began to bob, to undulate, to move a hesitant hand in rehearsal of touching peak of cap.

Overwhelming gratitude arose at sight of the dear fellow with his shy upward glance and smile; sudden tears enclosed his eyes. Whatever was Mules saying?

“I’m sure I be very plaised to hear the noos. Zillah read it on th’ paper, Zillah did, read it like—the noos—on the paper,” said the postman softly, almost coyly. “Us wondered if you’d be bringin’ of’n yurr now. Zillah and my wife would be very
plaised vor look after th’ li’l fellow, very plaised like, Zillah and my wife would be to look after you and young maister, beggin’ your pardon, zur,” while touching Phillip reassuringly with a forefinger.

“I’m afraid I am very dull, I don’t quite understand, Muley dear.”

“’Tes all on th’ paper! Di’n ’ee zee th’ paper, surenuff? ’Tes all thur about young maister, the babby, surely you zeed’n?”