Nightingale Wood (36 page)

‘Keep your ’ands orf me,’ roared the Hermit, staggering up. ‘You dare touch me, you little bastard, and I’ll cut— By Chrisht, I will.’

He staggered against the table and the beer bottle went over, foaming, fell on the floor and smashed. They struggled clumsily for a minute, breathing hard, slipping in the pool of beer and broken glass. Mrs Caker hovered in the doorway, screaming helpfully.

‘Shut up, can’t you, you’ll have the whole bloody cross-roads here in a minute,’ panted Saxon, crimson. The Hermit was forcing him to the door.

‘Don’t hurt him, now,’ begged Mrs Caker, seeing that Saxon was getting the worst of it. ‘Let him go, Dick; come on now, let him go.’

‘Laid ’andsh on me,’ bellowed the Hermit, his tremendous voice echoing over the dark misty valley ‘– of a boy laid ’andsh on me. All becaush I like a bit, shame as anyone else. Shame ash he doesh, dirty—. Now I
am
going to tell, shee?’ slowly pushing the scarlet, sweating and swearing Saxon out through the door. ‘Never shaid a word, sho help me, never ashked for a penny up till now, but now I’m a-goin’ to, sho help me Chrisht. Goin’ right over to Mishter Wither, I am, and I’ll shay, your jorter, I’ll shay. Thish very ni’. Wot your jorter been up to, eh?’ jerking Saxon violently over the threshold, ‘with your shuvver, eh? Goin’s-on. I know. I shee ’em. Jay after jay, I sheen ’em. Down inna wood’ … he shook off Saxon as though the tall young man had been a child, and sent him sprawling – ‘shee? Like
that
. Now I’m off to Mishter Wither.’

Shouting and singing, he plunged away into the misty darkness, and Saxon, picking himself up and brushing the mud off his uniform with trembling scratched hands, heard him blundering down the hill like a big animal, his bull-voice echoing weirdly through the fog-veiled trees.

‘Mishter Wither! Mishter Wither!’

‘There. You see,’ said Mrs Caker, shrugging her shoulders and sitting down at the table. ‘Proper upset, he is. You shouldn’t ha’ laid hands on him; he’s easy upset when he’s buzzy wi’ the drink.’

She herself was a little mellowed by the drink. Fright and anger had gone from her pretty blue eyes and lurking laughter had come back.

‘All messed up, aren’t ’ee,’ she added, staring at his muddy coat. ‘Here,’ she got up unsteadily, ‘I’ll brush ’ee down … hold still.’

He twisted angrily away from her, staring into the mist as though he did not know quite what to do. Far away on the other side of the valley a faint voice sounded:

‘Mishter Wither!’

‘I’d better go over,’ muttered Saxon anxiously, as though to himself, and started off along the path leading into the confused, misty blackness of the trees. His mother saw the beam of the torch flash out, making the trees look like ones of stone among the wandering mist-folds; then, as he went deeper into the valley, she lost sight of him.

Mrs Caker, yawning, put the kettle on for some tea. As an afterthought, while waiting for it to boil, she mopped up the broken glass and beer.

CHAPTER XX

The family at The Eagles was assembled in the drawing-room at that dreary hour when tea is long over and dinner not yet in sight. It was a tranquil scene; it would have annoyed a Communist. Five nonproductive members of the bourgeoisie sat in a room as large as a small hall, each breathing more air, warmed by more fire and getting more delight and comfort from the pictures and furniture than was strictly necessary. In the kitchen underneath them three members of the working class swinked ignobly at getting their dinner, bought with money from invested capital. But perhaps this is not a very interesting way of regarding poor Mr Wither and the rest.

Mrs Wither was knitting, Madge was reading a book about dogs’ diet, Mr Wither was dozing over the
Morning Post
, Tina was embroidering, and Viola was staring into the fire, her hands idle upon the sewing in her lap. Except for the heavy breathing of Mr Wither, the click of Mrs Wither’s needles, the breathless flutter of the flames in the fireplace and the tiny metallic sound as Tina’s silk was drawn through her canvas, the room was quiet. The faintest imaginable smell of roasting meat hovered in the air. Suddenly there broke out a loud, continuous knocking at the front door; so loud that it penetrated through the front door itself, across the hall, through the drawing-room door and into the consciousness of the five people sitting round the fire.

Mr Wither opened his eyes with a start and sat up, letting the
Morning Post
slide to the floor.

‘What on earth is that?’ exclaimed Mr Wither. No one ever knocked at the front door of The Eagles. There was a perfectly good bell.

The four women turned startled gazes on the drawing-room door.

Then the bell began to ring. Someone had got their thumb on it.

By now Mr Wither was on his feet.

‘Whoever can it be?’ demanded Mr Wither.

Mrs Wither got up, and rang.

The knocking went on, and now a voice could be heard, shouting.

The scared face of Annie, trying to look correct, came round the drawing-room door after a longish pause.

‘You rang, m’m?’

‘Annie, what
is
that noise at the front door? Where is Fawcuss? Why doesn’t she answer it?’

‘Oh, m’m – it’s that man. The Hermit, m’m. Fawcuss doesn’t like to go to the door, m’m. In case he should be in drink, m’m, I mean.’

Bang! Bang! Bang! ‘Mishter Wither! Mishter Wither!’ Whirrrrrrrrrr.

‘Has Saxon gone home?’ demanded Mr Wither, looking rather frightened, as, indeed, they all did. The front door was stout, but the Hermit was strong as an elephant and did not care in the least what he did.

‘He’s gone home, sir. He went a good half-hour ago.’

‘You said he could, Arthur, as it was too foggy to go into Chesterbourne,’ murmured Mrs Wither.

Bang! Bang! Bang! The uproar was starting to get on their nerves.

They were all standing up, the women clutching their sewing and exchanging alarmed glances.

‘We’d better—’ Mr Wither was beginning, when suddenly the knocking stopped.

‘Bloody yob,’ came a muffled roar, after a pause. ‘– of a – boy.’

‘Tina jumped and went pale, her inside turned over, but before she could say, ‘I think Saxon must be out there, too, Father,’ Fawcuss came round the drawing-room door at a staid trot, and announced breathlessly:

‘Saxon’s out there with him, m’m, he’s just come back, I saw him out of the master’s study window, m’m.’

‘Saxon’s no good, the old brute knocked him out before,’ interrupted Madge. ‘We’d better phone for the police, hadn’t we, Father?’

‘No, no, don’t want to do that, can’t bring the police down here on a night like this just for Falger. No, we’ll have to …’

‘I really think you’d better send for Roberts, Arthur,’ said Mrs Wither timidly. (Roberts was the Sible Pelden policeman.)

Mr Wither said nothing. He was listening.

Two voices could be heard loudly arguing, but though everybody strained their hearing, not a word could they make out. By this time they had moved out into the hall, and were standing close to the front door, all bending slightly forward to listen.

‘What on earth’s up, Tina, you’re quivering like an ashpan,’ loudly observed Viola, breaking the hush with a giggle. She went on, staring curiously at her sister-in-law. ‘I say, do you feel rotten? You look it.’

‘I’m all right. Sh’sh.’

They listened again.

‘… shut yer gab, see,’ came the Hermit’s voice, obstinate and thick, ‘… don’t want yer – money …’

Then Saxon’s voice, lower, speaking quickly and persuasively.

‘Good boy; smart fellow,’ nodded Mr Wither. ‘He’s talking him over, calming him down. Just as well to try a little bribery and corruption, if there’s no other way. (I wonder what he wanted. Disgraceful.) Then
I
can deal with him tomorrow … it’s gone on long enough. That’s the best way to deal with these people, you know, drunks, just argue with them, quietly and calmly …’

‘M
ISTER
W
ITHER
!!!!’ a tremendous roar that blew everybody backwards, ‘Y
OUR
J
ORTER’S CARRYING ON WITH YOUR SHUVVER
. K
ISSIN AND YOU-KNOW-WHAT
. M
ISHTER
W
ITHER
!!!’

‘Shut up, you—!’

There was a scuffle, and a roar of pain from the Hermit.

‘Your jorter. Little one. Not the fat one. Carryin’ on. Down the wood. Mishter Wither!’

Scuffling.

‘
What
did he say?’ demanded Madge, who had gone red, looking suspiciously at Tina, who had gone white.

Her father, her mother, the servants – everybody was staring at Tina except Viola, who had suddenly realized what had been going on under her nose for the last two months and, quite white herself with fright and sympathy for poor Tina, was staring fiercely at a giant seascape hanging above her sister-in-law’s head.

‘Give us a hand, will you?’ came Saxon’s voice faintly; the battle had moved down the steps.

‘Coming up!’ shouted another voice heartily. They heard someone running. Then:

‘Ah, ’tes you, is ut? dirty owd man. Puttin’ the wind up my girl in the wood – Keep off, will yer?’

More roars and scuffling.

‘Kissin’ and cuddlin’,’ roared the Hermit, despairingly, as Saxon and the unknown hustled him away. ‘Your jorter.’

Then, as the family and the three old servants (for Cook had come ponderously up to join the party) stared in silent horror at the white-faced Tina, who stared steadily back at her mother, there floated back through the foggy night one last, shocking, unmistakable Word.

It was a word known in his youth to Mr Wither, but not spoken by him for nearly forty years, a word which Madge with reddened ears had sometimes overheard the cross-roads louts tossing backwards and forwards in their coarse wise-cracking, a word entirely unknown to Mrs Wither, a word that Shirley had once or twice coolly used to the shocked yet giggling Viola, a word lumped with eight or so similar words by Fawcuss, Annie and Cook as Bad Words, a word sunk miserably from its once plain natural use and made to drudge as a vivid outcast, a poor stout peasant of a word no longer allowed to be a verb and sometimes a noun but used generally as an adjective or an oath, a word slinking below the surface of polite language and boorishly resisting the knight-errantry of certain writers who would willingly restore it to its old homely kinghood.

‘—,’ bellowed the Hermit, hoarsely, despairingly, from the edge of the wood.

And lest there should be doubt about whom the word referred to—

‘Yor jorter and yor shuvver,’ came floating faintly through the mist, as he was hauled and pushed away.

At once, with the sound of that word, the group of eight alarmed people in the hall split up; and became five employers and three servants, the employers with a shocking open secret to hide, the servants trying not to look horrified. The Withers made a general movement back towards the drawing-room, turning their embarrassed faces away from the equally embarrassed ones of the maids, and Mrs Wither, looking over her shoulder, said distantly:

‘Very well, Fawcuss. I don’t think there will be any further trouble. Dinner as usual, Cook.’

Madge shut the drawing-room door and they moved slowly over to their former places. But no one spoke, or sat down. A dreadful question hung in the room. No one could think of anything but: Is it true? And no one looked at Tina, who leant against the carved marble mantelpiece, staring into the fire.

‘Beastly cold, isn’t it?’ said Viola helpfully at last, kneeling and spreading her hands to the flames. But no one answered. The silence grew unbearable; everyone felt that someone
must
speak, yet no one could; it was as if they were all under a spell. And Tina stared into the fire, her lips pressed together and a feverish red in her cheeks.

At last Madge cleared her throat and said in a would-be sensible voice:

‘Father, that settles it. You must get something definite done about the old brute. You’d better let Saxon drive—’

She stopped, appalled.

The name fell into the room like the Bad Word itself. Viola actually jumped. Each personality seemed to rush away, crowding with a horrified rustling sound to the door – upstairs – anywhere where the facts could be faced (or ignored) in decent solitude.

But this time the Withers were not going to be allowed to run away. Mr Wither did try. He said a little hoarsely, not looking at anyone:

‘Yes, the fellow’s a disgrace to the neighbourhood—’ Then he stopped, his lips moved uncertainly, and he turned and stared piteously at his wife.

And then Madge, who was not quite such a coward as her parents and whose disgust had been roused by the Hermit’s words, said bluntly—

‘Look here, Tina, what on earth did he mean? About you and Saxon,’ going red, ‘about you and Saxon, I mean,’ blundering.

Tina looked up quickly. Just for a second her face frightened them, it was so furious, ashamed, despairing, so transformed by passion. Fifteen years of longing for love, of joylessness and cowardice, of trying to be ‘nice’ as her family wanted everything to be ‘nice’ and ‘decent’ (even mating, birth and death), of lies, of gently dying from starvation, of never using a strong word or telling the truth to anyone – she wanted to shriek her sufferings at their three frightened faces.

Then the wild look faded. Trembling, she calmed herself. It was not her family’s fault if her youth had been wasted like a cup of water poured into sand. They had done their best for her; her father had given her money to pay for the years at the art school, the journalism school, where she had hoped to meet a husband; her mother had brought her up to be modest, gentle, in careful ignorance, so that if she were to live half her life in starvation, she should at least not realize that she was starved. They had done their best: and if she could not be grateful, she must at least be just.

But she could not help wanting to see how they would take the Hermit’s story. A little of her bitterness
would
out. They were so nice, so decent, so ready to believe that she was hopelessly loose. Let them.