Listening Valley (19 page)

She was still sitting there, admiring it and trying to make up her mind how much you would get for it at Sotheby's, when the door opened and an air force officer walked into the room. He was very young and fair with pink cheeks and blue eyes. Nice-looking, too, thought Nita, eyeing him appraisingly.

“Oh, I'm sorry!” he exclaimed in embarrassment and surprise. “I didn't know anyone was here. I met Tony—Mrs. Norman, I mean—in the town and she said just to come in and look for it. My name's Jim Mannering, and—”

“Look for what?” asked Nita.

“My pocketbook,” he replied, starting to search around the room, moving chairs and feeling down the sides of them. “It's sort of brown. You haven't seen it, I suppose?”

“No.”

“I must have dropped it last night when we were playing Old Witch,” declared Mannering continuing to hunt with feverish intensity. “It must have fallen out of my pocket when…but no, it must have been
afterward
, really, because of course I had it when we were settling up—Jeefer took twenty-two bob off me—so perhaps it's in the kitchen. Yes, it must be…”

He disappeared. Nita could hear him moving about in the back premises. She was smiling to herself in a slightly unpleasant manner when the door opened again and another young man came in. This one was carrying a bouquet of roses done up with tissue paper (Nita saw at a glance that he was a pilot in the American Air Force, for she was well up on the uniforms and insignia of our allies). Unlike his predecessor, he was neither surprised nor embarrassed to find a stranger in the room but smiled at Nita in a friendly manner and asked if Tony happened to be around.

“I believe Mrs. Norman is out,” said Nita coldly.

“I say, that's just too bad,” he declared with a crestfallen air.

A short silence ensued. He stood there, irresolutely, with the flowers in his hands, trying to make up his mind what to do with them. Finally he put them down on the piano.

“Maybe you would tell her,” he said, looking at Nita doubtfully (for her attitude was not cooperative). “Just say they're from Bob, that's all. I guess Tony will understand.” He vanished.

The RAF officer put his head around the door and said, “I say, would you mind telling Tony I found it?”

“I'll tell her,” said Nita grimly.

The front door banged and she heard him running down the street.

Nita waited for quite a long time after that, but she did not mind waiting. Not only had she plenty to think about, but also plenty to do. The bureau, which she had admired as a period piece, was discovered by Nita to be unlocked; there were letters tucked away in the cubbyholes. Unfortunately they were not very interesting. There was a postcard, signed Celia Dunne, announcing that its author was coming to lunch; there was a letter from Frank, couched in a reproachful vein, asking why Tonia had not answered his previous letter and what she was doing with herself in Ryddelton. There were several letters from Lou, but these were so long and so closely written that Nita could not be bothered with them. The remainder were from Janet, and these Nita had helped to compose so nothing was to be gained by rereading them.

When Tonia came in she found Nita sitting upon the sofa with an expression of resigned patience upon her face.

“Nita!” exclaimed Tonia in anything but cordial tones.

“Yes, it's me. I came to see what on earth you were doing. Mother was worried about you.”

“I'm perfectly all right. I wrote to Janet. I'm very well and I like living alone. Listen, Nita, I
like
being here. You wouldn't like it, I know, because you would find it dull. I don't feel dull. I'm not in the least lonely.”

“Lonely!” exclaimed Nita. “No, I shouldn't think you were
lonely.
I can reassure Mother about
that
.”

“Yes, please do,” said Tonia, but she said it doubtfully, for there was an unpleasant sort of feeling in the air.

“You're a hermit, I suppose. That's what you'd like to make out.”

“I'm not very sociable, I'm afraid,” said Tonia, thinking of her life with the Garlands and how glad she had been to get away.

“What a hypocrite you are!” cried Nita. “I always knew you were a dark horse, but Mother was completely taken in.”

“I don't understand—”

“I'm fed up with you! I'm not a spoilsport—as a matter of fact I like having a good time, myself—but I can't stand anything underhand,” declared Nita. “If you had said you wanted to enjoy yourself and have a good time, I wouldn't have blamed you. It's all this talk about liking a quiet country life that annoys
me
.”

“It's a nice change,” declared Tonia, trying to be patient.

Nita laughed. “Oh, it
must
be a nice change,” she agreed. “It must be a big change from living with Uncle Robert to running a sort of gambling den.”

“You're mad,” said Tonia in bewilderment.

“I shall go home and tell Mother
everything
.”

“I don't have anything to hide.”

“You had better be careful.”

“Careful of what?”

“Of men,” said Nita, rising and putting on her furs. “I suppose you don't care about your reputation…what a fool you are, Tonia.”

They were silent for a moment. Tonia's bosom was heaving. Her eyes were very bright. “I can look after myself,” she said at last. “I don't know what you mean, but anyhow it has nothing to do with you.”

“I wonder,” said Nita. “We'll see what Mother says.” She was ready to go now (Tonia did not ask her to stay to lunch) and suddenly her eyes fell on the roses lying on the piano. “From Bob,” said Nita, pointing to them. “To dear little Tony from Bob…and your other young man found his pocketbook in the kitchen. I nearly forgot to tell you.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Tonia, somewhat taken aback. “Oh…yes, some of them came in last night…”

Nita said nothing. She just smiled.

They were in the hall now, and Tonia opened the front door very wide. She would have liked to push Nita out, but she managed to refrain.

“Good-bye,” said Nita, nastily. “I shall tell Mother
all
about the merry widow.” She turned to go…and almost collided with another member of the Royal Air Force, a squadron leader this time.

They both said “Oh!” and stepped back a pace.

Tonia was so enraged with Nita that caution fled, and she introduced them, adding with dangerous sweetness, “You
must
remember each other at Miss Mann's school, when Nita put some of that violet ink of hers in our milk.” And with that she turned and went back into the house and left them to it, for she could bear no more.

***

“Well, I sent her away,” said Bay, entering the kitchen some minutes later and hoisting himself onto the dresser. “I gathered that was your intention, Butterfingers.”

“Yes…no,” said Tonia, half laughing and half crying and peeling potatoes with reckless speed. “I mean, I don't really know what I wanted. I was just—angry—”

“You look angry,” agreed Bay. “It suits you, Butterfingers.”

“It makes me feel sick,” declared Tonia.

“Don't cut your fingers.”

“Oh, Bay!” she exclaimed, laying down the knife.

“You
have
cut your fingers!”

“No, I haven't. It was only—it made me remember something.”

“Something nasty?”

“Something
horrible
,” she declared, looking at him wide-eyed. “Something that makes all this fuss seem childish and absurd. Let's not think about it anymore.”

“We ought to, really,” replied Bay. “I mean, Nita seems to think you're going to live with them, but you couldn't. Good Lord, I'd rather live with an asp! Surely you can manage to live here. It can't be costing you very much.”

“Oh, yes,” said Tonia. “I mean, it isn't costing much.” She hesitated. Bay seemed to have gotten hold of the wrong idea.

“There will be money coming in from that song,” said Bay earnestly. “It won't be long now, so if you can manage for a week or two… I'm awfully glad I showed it to Harrison and got him to take it up,” added Bay with satisfaction.

He looked so pleased at the idea, pleased that he had been able to help her, that she had not the heart to undeceive him.

“Light your pipe, Bay,” said Tonia, taking up the knife and resuming her task, but more carefully.

“In the kitchen?”

“Anywhere. I like to see you smoking. You look so nice and comfortable smoking your pipe.”

“I've lost it,” said Bay.

“Oh, Bay, I'm so sorry. Do you think you left it here, or—”

“Don't worry,” he said, smiling at her. “It often goes a-missing, but it always turns up like a bad penny.”

It was the day Celia had appointed for gathering sphagnum moss, and, fortunately for everyone concerned, it was an exceedingly fine day, with crisp, cool air and pale yellow sunshine and a light haze upon the hills. Since Tonia's arrival at Ryddelton the scene had changed. The heather was dark brown now, and the bracken was bright brown, tangled like a child's hair when it comes in from play. The trees had lost their leaves, except the conifers, which stood like tall green sentinels upon the slopes of the hills. Far in the distance a wood of larches looked like wreaths of soft brown smoke streaming up the hill between plow and pasture land.

Celia and Tonia were walking along a cart track winding through gorse bushes and trees. The leaves crackled underfoot and a startled rabbit scuttled across the path and vanished down his hole. There were squirrels here, too, little red ones with white waistcoats and long bushy tails. Behind the girls came the other pickers in twos and threes. They were all dressed in their very oldest clothes, shabby tweeds or slacks, and they all wore rubber boots and carried haversacks. Tonia had been surprised to see that they were middle-aged women, for it seemed to her that this sort of war work was more suited to the young, but Celia explained that all the young people of Ryddelton were in the Services, or munitions, or else so busy that they could not get away.

“I ought to be in the Wrens or something, myself,” continued Celia. “As a matter of fact I feel a bit of a slacker sometimes, but they exempted me because Dad is so old and Deb (my sister-in-law) isn't strong and has her work cut out looking after little Humphrey…and of course I don't know what would happen to all the voluntary work in Ryddelton if they took me away. There isn't anyone else left—anyone able-bodied, I mean—so it all seems to devolve on me. I run the VCP and the WVS and now they want me to be secretary of the local branch of the Red Cross. The sphagnum moss takes a good deal of time. We have quite a good depot where we dry and clean it.”

“Perhaps I could help you,” Tonia suggested.

“That would be splendid,” Celia replied. “You might do some collecting for the penny a week fund, and you could come to the work party once a week and help to clean the moss.”

They had reached their objective by this time. It was a bog that lay in a bowl-shaped depression among the hills. There was heather growing in places, and there were masses of tumbled gray rocks, but for the most part the terrain consisted of long, yellowish-green grass and boggy land. There were hills all around (the ground rising gradually from the boggy floor of the depression), and the hills were all much about the same height so that the tops of them, which were outlined against the pale sky, presented a definite wavy appearance. And these tops were powdered with snow, but very lightly powdered, as if an economical hand had been using the sugar sifter. The hills themselves were pale fawn and looked smooth as velvet.

“I love this country,” said Tonia with a sigh.

Celia agreed. “It satisfies something inside me. I like it better than trees or rocks or plains. Yet I've heard people say it was ugly and depressing—funny, isn't it?—but we must get to work now.”

They were all getting to work and wasting no time about it; each picker provided herself with a basket and a sack and set forth in a determined manner, wading through the bog. Tonia took a basket and a sack and attached herself to Celia, for Celia had promised to instruct her and show her the right stuff to pick.

“It's a bit difficult, at first,” said Celia. “There are so many different kinds of sphagnum, and some of them aren't much use, but you'll soon get into it, so don't worry. You can leave your haversack here. We usually pick all the afternoon and have tea when we've finished.”

The sphagnum moss grew in the wettest parts of the bog: it grew in old cuttings from which peat had been taken, it grew in banks among the heather, and it grew in pools. From a distance it looked like a smooth green carpet, but when you got closer, you saw that the carpet was made of millions of little star-shaped heads—green and brown and pink and fawn. When you picked the moss you found that each little head had a feathery stem reaching down into the bog.

“Look,” said Celia, digging her fingers into the bog and pulling out a handful. “That's the stuff we want. Look how feathery it is! You squeeze it hard…like that…and put it into your basket.”

“What about this?” asked Tonia, following her instructor's example and clawing up a handful of pale green moss.

“Well, no,” said Celia. “That isn't quite right, really. It
is
sphagnum but it isn't mature. Look how thin and skinny the stems are…see what I mean?”

Tonia saw the difference. She picked several handfuls. Some of the moss was red, some green, and some fawn. Some of the stems were woody and sparsely clothed with tiny boat-shaped leaves; others were thickly clothed, quite furry from their little heads to their roots.

“It's the furry kind we want,” said Celia. “Its proper name is
cymbifolia
papillosum
, but we call it Teddy Bear. You can feel how spongy it is when you squeeze it. Are your hands cold?”

“Simply frozen,” replied Tonia smiling.

“They'll recover if you persevere. We'll pick for an hour and then you can come with me up the hill. The shepherd is a friend of mine and he promised to have a look around and find another bog for us to pick, so I want to get hold of him if I can. Do you think you can manage now?”

Tonia was doubtful. The sphagnum looked much the same to her and it was only when she had picked a handful and squeezed it that she was able to discover whether or not it was the proper “Teddy Bear” variety. Celia seemed to know, from looking at the heads, what the stems would be like.

It's experience, I suppose, thought Tonia as she waded about, grubbing up handfuls and looking at them carefully and trying to decide whether to put them in her basket or throw them away. Her hands were warm now, and it was pleasant work. The moss was so pretty; the coloring of the moor was magnificent. The blue sky was reflected in the peaty pools, but at the end of an hour the new recruit was very thankful to straighten her back and follow her leader up the hill.

Celia found a sheep track that led upward between thick heather, and Tonia came behind. They did not talk much, for it was fairly steep; here and there an outcrop of rock rose in their path and they were forced to climb. Tonia was not used to mountaineering and she was very glad when she saw that they had nearly reached the top, but her joy was somewhat damped when she discovered that another hill, much higher, lay ahead of them.

“Don't worry,” said Celia, laughing. “We aren't going very far. In fact, we needn't go a step farther because there he is—there's Jock Tod!”

The shepherd appeared from behind the shoulder of the hill with his dog at his heels. He was an enormous man, tall and broad in proportion. Perhaps he looked even larger than he really was, for he came down the hill to meet them, striding over the heather and the tussocks of grass as if the whole countryside belonged to him. He was clad in very ancient tweeds that blended with the coloring of the moors. He had a plaid over his shoulder and a shepherd's crook in his hand.

Celia waved to him. “He's rather a wonderful person,” she said. “He's a poet. We must get him to talk. He reminds me of Noah.”

Tonia had never seen Noah, but she realized what Celia meant, for the shepherd seemed wild and free and more than life-size. His hair was long and white; it lifted in the breeze. His face was lined and weather-beaten and his eyes had the far-seeing look of men who spend their lives upon the mountains or the sea.

Celia introduced him to her companion and they shook hands.

“Aye,” said Mr. Tod, giving her a piercing glance. “Aye, you're a Melville. Ah wis hearing aboot ye.”

“You hear everything!” Celia exclaimed. “How do you hear things when you're always on the hills?”

“Och, you'd wonder,” said Mr. Tod (he had a slow deep resonant voice, and his R's came rolling out with a soft burring sound). “There's aye folks aboot, an' where there's folks there's clash.” He sat down as he spoke, settling himself upon a convenient rock, with his knees wide apart and his feet firmly placed upon the ground. The girls sat down too, for they were glad to rest after their stiff climb.

“Ah kennt yer faither,” continued Mr. Tod, looking at Tonia. “He was a grand shot when he wis a lad. It wis an ill day when the Melvilles sold the castle.” Then he turned to Celia. “I saw ye from the tops,” he said. “Those'll be your folks at the foot of Blaegill.”

“Yes, they're my moss-hags,” said Celia, smiling.

“Moass-hags!” remarked Mr. Tod with a quiet rumble of laughter. “Is that whit ye ca' yersel's? It's no' a bad name for ye, Miss Celia. Weel, noo, see here, Ah've bin keepin' ma eyes open for yon moass, an' Ah've found twa, three places where ye could get it.” He took some specimens of sphagnum moss from his pocket and laid them out on the ground. “See here,” he said gravely. “Yon's the wee bit ye gave me as a patteran, an' yon's the wee bits Ah found masel'.”

“It's the right stuff,” declared Celia, nodding.

“Och, it's the right stuff,” he agreed. “There's a wheen o' it high up on the hillside—over by Souden Gap, but ye'd not get the cairts up near it. There's a guid enough boag at Carles Knowe. D'ye ken yon wee burn, Roab's Burn, they ca' it? Weel, ye could get the cairts up there easy enough…”

Celia listened and made notes of the different places and how to get to them. It was not until the business talk was over and she had all the information she required that she turned the conversation into a different channel and asked if Mr. Tod had been making any poems lately.

“Makin'!” he said, smiling at her. “Yon's a guid auld wurrd. It was ‘makars' the auld poets were ca'ed…but Ah dinna make poems, Miss Celia. They come intae ma heid when Ah luik at the hills an' the muirs an' Ah hear the wee burns tinklin'.”

Tonia looked at him with even more interest now, for she understood exactly what he meant. Mr. Tod was a listener. She was thinking of this and wondering about it, when she heard Celia ask him for a poem; somewhat to her surprise, Mr. Tod made no trouble about granting the request. To judge from his demeanor one would have thought it the most natural request in the world; he was neither proud nor shy.

“If ye would like it, Miss Celia—” he said, and launched forth into his poem without more ado, pronouncing the lines slowly and clearly in his deep resonant voice.

The Rydd Water

Amangst the everlastin' hills

Winds doon the quiet Rydd;

The burns splash through verdant gills

Wi' sunbeams in their snid.

An' here the black-faced sheep an' lambs

Are weel content to dream;

Their meat the wiry mountain grass

Their drink the siller stream.

A thoosand floo-ers o' golden sheen

Are scattered o'er the lowes;

In caller moass-hags, pink an' green,

The starry sphagnum grows.

The lav'rock lilts abune the muir

An' shrill the curlew cries,

Wi' soochin' wind an' trinn'lin' burn

Their voices harmonize.

Man, like cloud-shadows on the braes,

Is skliffed wi' winds o' Ware;

But Rydd, amang her quiet ways

Rins on like evermair.

There was a little silence when he had finished. Celia broke it. She said, “It's the real thing. It's beautiful and—and true. Thank you very much indeed.”

“You're welcome,” said Mr. Tod gravely. He called his dog and they went away together up the hill.

Tonia said nothing. She scarcely knew whether the poem was good or bad. She only knew that in this setting it seemed quite perfect and was deeply moving. This was what he heard as he strode about on the hills he knew so well. He heard the birds call and the tinkle of the burns and the “sooch” of the wind in the grass. He heard it as poetry, and she as music. She would have liked to sit and think about it quietly for a long time, but Celia was stirring.

“Sometimes I wonder about Jock Tod,” said Celia thoughtfully. “Is his poetry really first-class or is it just everything together that makes it sound so wonderful? The man himself is so grand. And his marvelous voice…and the hills all around…”

“You can't judge dispassionately.”

Celia nodded. “Sometimes I think we ought to get the poems written down, and then I begin to wonder if that would spoil them…I should hate to be disillusioned.” She hesitated, and then continued, “I'm a prosaic sort of person but even I feel poetical when I look at the hills. I could sit here all day and watch the shadows of the clouds moving over them and the light changing. I like them even better now than when the heather is in bloom. There's something so garish about heather—it's unbelievably purple—but now, when the hills are bare, they're smooth and velvety and the color of a lion's pelt.”

“Almost,” agreed Tonia, smiling at the simile.

“Deb laughs at me, too,” said Celia, smiling back. “Deb says I'm quite mad about the hills—and to tell the truth I get madder about them every year. I don't know what I would do if I had to go to America with Courtney. Fortunately I don't have to choose between them because he's quite made up his mind to stay here with me.”

“Are you going to be married soon?” Tonia asked.

Celia did not reply for a few moments and then she said, “That depends. It depends on whether or not I can make Courtney understand my point of view. I want to be married now, but Courtney thinks we should wait until after the war. It sounds a bit odd, doesn't it?”

Tonia said nothing. She waited while Celia took out a cigarette and lit it. She had a feeling that Celia was going to tell her more.