It Was the Nightingale (25 page)

“I don’t think it will rain, at least I hope not!”

“Hey?” he cried, standing upright and leaning back. “H’m, one doesn’t grow any younger. Get dashed stiff bending down! Oh well, I don’t care!” he said brightly, with a genial glance of his eyes.

Phillip pretended to be deeply interested in the box of wallflowers: noting almost painfully that it was old, partly dry-rotten, red potsherds over the draining holes, fibrous rootlets holding to gravel. Then he heard his voice saying, “I want to ask you something about Lucy, sir.”

“What’s that?”

“Sir, Lucy and I love each other, and would you please consider giving your consent to our engagement?”

Fear came into the eyes looking up into his: the look passed instantly. Pa slowly straightened his back, then, moving his feet away from the wooden box, he turned to Phillip and held out his hand, smiling, and said in a voice appropriately hearty, “I congratulate you! I must say I thought something was in the wind! H’m.” He felt for his cigarette case and holder—a gunmetal case, Phillip noticed—took out an Empire-tobacco cigarette, fitted it carefully into a cherry-wood holder and lit it. Phillip thought fervently that he would buy him a gold cigarette case for a Christmas
present. Pa puffed, and then said, “Well, I suppose I’ve got to do the heavy parent, and ask you about your means?”

Fortified by his humorous attitude, Phillip replied, “At the moment I have only my pen, but as regards my financial status, my agent tells me that in a year or two I shall have several thousands a year.”

“Ha! Well, that’s more than I shall ever have!” and with that Mr. Copleston went on with his work.

Phillip hurried away, appalled by his rashness in thus forecasting his future ‘financial status’. Would Pa think ‘his agent’ meant ‘land agent’? Well, he might very well inherit Rookhurst one day—Uncle Hilary had bought about a thousand acres—so it was not altogether untrue.

Jubilantly he told Fiennes what Pa had said, and Fiennes replied, “Do you or don’t you want to stay to lunch?”

“Thanks all the same, but I’ve had lunch.”

It was already nearly four o’clock, so he hurried back to Ruddle Stones.

He found Lucy in the à Court Smiths’ scullery washing up cups and plates, for both cook and maid had gone to a wedding—not their own, for the respective fathers of their infants were already married. Mrs. à Court Smith wasn’t at all conventional about such things, Lucy told Phillip.

“Good for her.”

“Oh yes, she’s very kind, really, only she’s rather extravagant, and can’t manage very well. She always orders the best food, so they are usually rather hard up,” said Lucy. “Even Pee Gees make no difference.”

Taking the drying-up cloth from her, he screwed it up and kicked it on to the scullery table, then kissed her.

“I knew Pa wouldn’t mind. He likes you, he says you’re a good worker!”

“So you’ve guessed?”

“Well, your face was like a small, happy boy’s when you came in just now!”

Her own face had the rich hue of a peach on a sunlit wall, her warm responding sweetness made him say, for the first time, “I love you, Lu. You are a turtle dove, the gentlest, kindest, and most innocent of birds. But I am a phoenix.”

Shyly she whispered that they would be like Pa and Mamma,
always happy because they were together. “We won’t bother about silly people, will we, when we are married?”

In the warmth of believing that when he was married it would be like Barley come again he clasped her small head, stroking it, his lips upon her hair, feeling as when first he had felt the warmth of his son’s fragile head on his cheek.

“Oh, my God! I quite forgot to tell Pa about my first marriage!”

“He knows already.”

“Did you tell him?”

“No. I think it was either Aunt Connie or Aunt Jo, who wrote to him.”

The next day he and Lucy went to Devon, she to stay with Aunt Connie and her Ogilvie cousins at Wildernesse, he to his cottage to try to work.

It was near the equinox; much rain fell on the Wednesday, opening day of Barnstaple Fair; again on Thursday; but on the Friday, when the highest tide of the year moved into the estuary, the rain had cleared. They had been invited to spend the night with Uncle Biff and Aunt Jo—Commander and Mrs. Gilbert—at Bideford, and thought to spend the day on the Burrows, and cross over the estuary in the afternoon.

The sky was wholly overcast when he called at Wildernesse on the Friday morning.

“Do be careful, won’t you, dears?” said Mary, as Phillip and Lucy set out. “There will be a fairly big fresh coming down both rivers, but at noon the tide will be out, and you should be able to get a boat then from Appledore without any difficulty.”

She and Phillip looked at one another: it was the second anniversary of Willie’s death.

As they walked hand in hand through the passes of the sandhills rain began to fall steadily. They were wet through long before they reached the Valley of Winds, and the rain was coming down so heavily that he decided it would be hopeless to expect anyone across a mile of rock and water to see a signal; so they turned north and looked for the cattle shippon in the grazing marsh below the sea-wall, said once to be a chapel, in which to shelter.

The sky at midday was darker than at twilight. Their shoes squelched, their clothes heavy with water. At last they were under cover in the shippon; now for a fire. He went across the marsh to collect driftwood below the sea-wall. The wood was sodden and heavy; he cut off chips with his knife and kindled them by feeding the yellow sodium flames and fanning the sullen embers for half an hour or so, until the fire gave out warmth. He removed coat, shirt, and shoes, and stood by the flames to dry his trousers.

The kettle boiled, they drank hot tea, sitting round the fire.

“You must dry your clothes, too. Why not take off your jacket and skirt?”

She did so, hanging coat and skirt among the rafters, moving boylike with bare feet and legs, in home-made bodice and dark knickers, her hair hanging to her waist.

The fire was smoky, for the high tide of early morning had borne away most of the old jetsam, and the only fuel was sea-logged wood. The inside of the shippon became brown with smoke; outside rain fell darkly.

“We may have to stop here all night. I’ll go and get all the fuel I can, Lu. The tide will now be up fairly high under the sea-wall, with lots of flotsam brought down by the river.”

He came back dragging two tree-branches, one old and easily broken. Sections were put on the fire, while the harder branch burned across its middle. Then back to the sea-wall. The estuary was flooded with wide rocking brown water, the full spate pushed against the tide.

He waited to see if the strong muddy waters would flood over the top. The wind, inert with falling rain, fortunately was still. If the south-west started to blow, the inrolling waves would pile higher the spates coming down from Dartmoor and Exmoor, the marsh would be flooded, and they would have to run for their
lives to the sandhills. How ironic if that happened on the anniversary of Willie’s death.

He kept watch on the wall, walking up and down to keep warm.

The sea came to within a foot of the top of the wall; the rain continued to fall straight and heavy. He hastened away to report; then ran back to the wall. A vast dun lake, topped by foam amidst black limbs of trees and an occasional drowned sheep, bore water-logged pleasure boats (torn from their moorings above Barnstaple bridge) moving seawards. They were safe!

They ate the last of their food, followed by a long and happy silence as they stared into the embers of their fire, before leaving the shippon. It was already dark when they reached Crow Shingle Spit; his shouts, and flares of burning newspaper, brought no flash of lantern or answering hail. What to do? Ah, the lighthouse keeper! They trudged down the shingle and asked the keeper if he would telephone for a ferry boat. The keeper said he would try; but warned that there was a big tide going down, and the wind was rising. Did they still want a boat?

“I think we ought to cross, thank you.”

Half an hour later they saw in the near-darkness a salmon boat coming aslant the tide swirling down very fast with the pressure of the combined spates of the Two Rivers. The single lug-sail was reefed to its highest cords. One of the crew of two said they had had a difficult time to cross.

“The tide be holding the Pool buoy flat, Gor’darn, th’ water be ripping auver it! Us dursen’t go back between Crow and Shrars-hook, ’tis a proper hurly-burly there!”

The roaring of the waters almost leaping seaward was growing louder every moment. Phillip began to feel apprehensive. Should he take Lucy back to the Ogilvies? Not a star was to be seen, the lights on the quay of Appledore were blurred. Every moment the sea-ward race of the tide was increasing.

“How fast is the tide?”

“I reckon ten knot, mebbe more. Gor’darn, us can’t remain yurr much longer!”

“We’ll cross.”

He helped Lucy over the gunwale and sat on a thwart beside her, their feet in bilge-water. One man pushed off and clambered aboard.

The wind was rising with the lessening of rain, blowing strongly
from the sea. The boat surged forward against the tide, driving its bows almost under. He saw, with a stab of fear, that they were moving slowly backwards. From behind could be heard the growling of the Hurly-burlies, rocks over which, in white undulations, the ebb was leaping.

“Do ’ee mind coming aft a bit,” asked the man at the tiller. “’Twill drave under else.”

He saw that water was lipping over the bows. The mast creaked with the weight of wind in the sail. He shifted to the back of the boat, remarking, “An extra lot of water coming down tonight, I fancy.”

“Aiy,” said the other man, also in a matter-of-fact voice. “Us thought one time us wouldn’t get across. Us tried to make Point o’ Crow, but the tide be rinning too strong tonight.”

Lucy and Phillip sat quietly on the back thwart, holding hands. The boat appeared to be surging ahead; yet when he looked to the left the shore seemed to be sliding forward. The lighthouse was also moving forwards.

“Gor’darn, us won’t make it!” said the man at the tiller, suddenly. “Us’ll be down to the ’urly-burlies in a minute! Take a pull at the sweeps, Jimmy.”

The other man slowly put first one sweep then the other sweep through the thole-pins, and began to pull. The shore ceased to slide forward: the puller of sweeps grunted; the thole-pins squeaked. At last they were gaining slowly. Yes, they were definitely gaining, getting farther each moment from the roar behind them.

It took several minutes to return to the place of embarkation. At Point of Crow the boat swung about as its nose pushed into the backwash of the swilling tide. Sweeps were shipped; cigarettes lit. They sailed very close inshore, carried forward fast by the backwash, then swung into the main thrust of the Taw tide and across to the opposite shore where black rocks seemed to hurtle past on the port bow. The lights of Instow came nearer and larger. Soon the noise of agitated water arose ahead. This was The String, where the ebb of Taw from Barnstaple clashed directly with ebb of Torridge from Bideford. The choppy, agitated water, dancing and jerking in the darkness, seemed thick to enter, confusing to their boat’s shape. They swung about amidst water leaping in a thousand jets, each with its splashing sound: but the
water was comparatively level, tide holding tide and leaving a luminous ribbon of froth to wander irregularly seawards in the midst of petty agitation. The noise of the tides in conflict filled Phillip with dread, and when the boat swung round, its rudder momentarily useless, he took Lucy’s other hand, fearing the worst: a repetition of cousin Willie’s fate.

“Isn’t it lovely?” she whispered.

He felt apart from her; he smothered the feeling. How could she know his thoughts?

Now the bows of the boat were pushing into the press of the opposing tide; and the Torridge ebb was too strong, they moved backwards, rocking, faster than they had crossed. And suddenly, all was calm. They were in an eddy taking them into the Pool, where the conjoined tides of Taw and Torridge were racing at possibly twelve knots to the open sea. Christ, he thought, it is going to happen after all, and my thoughts of Willie were foreknowledge? What was the helmsman doing? Was he drunk? Stiff with fear?

It looked as though they were, after all, to be carried down in the whirls and hollows of the tide, past the Lighthouse, to the swamping white water of the South Tail; but this was Phillip’s inexperience, the men knew what they were doing. Soon the boat was in the offshore backwash, a riband of water going the opposite way to the main ebb, and coming easily to the quay below
The
Royal
George.

How quiet it was there!

“Thank you very much. How much do I owe you, please?” The usual charge was a shilling a head, and he thought five shillings would be fair.

“Ten shilling it’s worth, sir. Dirty night, too.”

He gave them his last note, while wondering where he could cash a cheque on the morrow.

They walked side by side down the sett-stoned street, dark and narrow between fishermen’s cottages lit by an occasional gaunt gas-lamp.

“It’s been lovely, Pip!”

“Do you know, Lu, I almost feel that I’ve no right to be here.”

She thought that he was worried about being late, and said, “Oh, I don’t suppose Aunt Jo will mind in the very least!”

They found Commander Gilbert waiting by the fire in the hall.
He was polite but curt, and apologised for his wife having gone to bed; then led them into the dining-room and to a plate of sandwiches.

Phillip saw that it was nearly midnight.

“I must apologise to you, sir.”

He told Commander Gilbert about the rain, and the eventual telephoning for a boat from the lighthouse; and as he spoke, he realised that he had forgotten to suggest to Lucy to ring up her aunt to tell her that they would be late. The Commander showed them where coffee was being kept hot under a spirit flame. As soon as they had finished, he led the way to Phillip’s room upstairs, said he hoped he would find all he wanted in his bedroom, gave him goodnight, and went away.

*

After breakfast Mrs. Gilbert took Phillip to see the gardens, where men were at work bedding out, sweeping paths, and edging lawns. He thought she was going to ask him about himself, but it turned out that she wanted to speak about Lucy’s brothers.

“I hear that they intend to sell their reversions,” she said. “Have you any idea of how they intend to go about it?”

“I really have no idea, Mrs. Gilbert. I have heard that they are thinking of erecting some sort of engineering works in their garden.”

“How can they possibly know about engineering? What is Adrian doing to allow them ever to think of such things?”

Later, Commander Gilbert had a word with him in the smoking room.

“Ernest and Fiennes stayed here recently,” he said. “Ernest said not one word to me or to his aunt, indeed when she came into this room he continued to sit still, making no attempt to get up when he saw her. As for Fiennes, all he did was to smoke his pipe in my wife’s drawing-room, as though it were a public house. He also remained seated when my wife went there to write a letter. What is the matter with them, haven’t they any idea of manners? One has heard of young people in London behaving oddly, even with downright insolence, to their parents and others, but one hardly expects that sort of behaviour from one’s nephews.”

“The Boys seem to have an unworldly approach to life, Commander Gilbert. It’s an innocent sort of household altogether, at Down Close.”

“I should not call it innocence.” The Commander was annoyed. “I should call it something else. After all, one does expect people of our class to know what manners are. And when they had gone home we had not one word of thanks from either of them.”

“They’ve been extremely busy, often working all through the night.”

“No doubt it’s good of you to find excuses for them, Maddison, but damn it, among people of—of—our sort, such conduct is inexcusable!”

*

The scullery walls at Down Close were distempered, the ceiling was white, the larder shelves were clean. Pa had shot Bukbuk’s kittens, “the only shooting I get nowadays!”—and having returned the Purdey to the gun case, imperturbably continued his work in the lichened orchard of renewing the zinc labels which Tim, years before, had taken to make battery wet-cells.

Fiennes and Tim treadled away in the workshop, Ernest pored over blueprints that arrived from a monthly advertisement in
The
Model
Engineer
, which cost £9 every issue, Phillip had found out. Inventors wrote in, asking for models to be made—every kind of machine and gadget. Plans and sketches arrived by almost every post, to be examined, discussed—and set aside while Ernest continued to work at his selected model.

The one he was working on had already occupied Ernest more than ninety hours. Phillip asked Lucy what he would get for all that work.

“Oh, I don’t think Ernest charges very much. The ‘little men’ haven’t any money, usually.”

“Does he quote a price?”

“Oh, no. You see, the models always take much longer than he thinks they will. So he usually charges about ten shillings.”

The Boys were late with deliveries of sac-machines for the firm of Scotland-Roberts (Fakenham) Ltd. And daily frantic letters in red ink arrived from Mr. Scotland-Roberts at that East Anglian town, demanding that orders sent weeks, months before, be dispatched forthwith.

“I’m a bit overdue in my work, too. I must go to London and see my agent, Lu. I think I’ll go tomorrow.” But tomorrow was tomorrow, and tomorrow; while Phillip went on with paint brush, distemper pail, and putty knife.

“I’ve had a letter from Granny, Pip. She wants to meet you. Do you think you can spare the time to see her?”