Nightingale Wood (43 page)

But as she hastily kissed Catty, patted her, and promised to come in again soon, then hurried away because Mr Burgess would be in any minute and he was not so friendly as he used to be to his dead partner’s daughter, Viola was very worried indeed; so worried that for the time her own troubles were driven out of her head.

They returned for a moment while she was ordering the newspapers that might contain pictures of the Spring – Barlow wedding and telling the newsagent that she would call for them; but on the way home she could think of nothing but Catty, and wonder what was to be done about her.

She did have a brief vision of herself pouring out the story to Mr Wither, and Mr Wither blowing his nose violently like people did in books, and saying gruffly that he would allow Miss Cattyman a hundred a year, no doubt he was an old fool to do it but there … but somehow when she shut the front door of The Eagles, the vision faded; and suddenly Mrs Wither was hurrying out into the hall, a letter in her hand, mixed indignation and excitement on her face.

‘Viola, what
do
you think?’ began Mrs Wither at once, speaking in a quite normal and family voice, so plainly was she in need of somebody to speak to. ‘That old gentleman, the one Saxon’s working for, you know – it’s Mr Spurrey.’

‘What?
Old
Mr Spurrey? Mr Wither’s friend, that was here in the summer, do you mean?’

‘There’s only one Mr Spurrey, dear,’ but she spoke mildly, still staring at the letter. ‘Yes, he’s been there all this time.’

‘But why on earth didn’t Tina tell you?’

‘That’s just what I cannot make out, Viola, and I can’t understand why Mr Spurrey didn’t mention it, either. It’s all so
peculiar
,’ said poor Mrs Wither, looking up from the letter with puzzled, faded eyes. ‘Why keep it a secret from us like that? Of course, I can’t really say that I am surprised at anything that Tina does, after everything that has happened; but I do think that Mr Spurrey might have mentioned it. It’s so unfriendly. After all, Mr Wither has known Mr Spurrey for a very long time, they were practically boys together. It’s so strange – to keep on writing about how pleased he is with his new chauffeur and asking how Tina was, and saying how sorry he was to hear that she had gone off like that, and all the time – don’t you think it very peculiar, Viola, very
unnatural
?’

‘I should darned well think so (sorry, it slipped out),’ said her daughter-in law heartily, pleased at being brought into the family circle by this crisis. To Viola, almost any affection was better than none. ‘Does Mr Wither know about it yet?’

‘No. Madge has driven him out to Lukesedge this morning, they went off rather early and the post was late. This,’ waving the letter, ‘is from Mr Wither’s cousin, Agnes Grice, Mrs Grice. She knows Mr Spurrey quite well. She went up to Town, it seems, from Peterborough (she lives at Peterborough) for the day to see her dentist (she’s been having trouble with her teeth, poor thing, lately) and she saw Saxon driving Mr Spurrey along Wigmore Street. She waved out of her taxi-window but Mr Spurrey didn’t see her, she says … or pretended he didn’t, more likely. She says he didn’t look at all well and she thought he might have been to see a specialist (all the big doctors are round that part, you know, Harley Street and there). I can’t get over it. Mr Spurrey! I am afraid Mr Wither will be very upset.’

He was. He came in just as Fawcuss was ponging the gong for lunch, arguing with Madge about the route they had taken. He had wanted to take the usual road home from Lukesedge but Madge had said that another way, known to herself, was quicker. As a result they were almost late for lunch and Mr Wither was already irritable. He had granted Madge’s eager request that she might ‘take over the car’ now that Saxon had gone, partly because he felt that he could never trust a chauffeur again and partly because he found it too much trouble to keep on saying No. Mr Wither was getting old. But drives with Madge were not so soothing as drives with Saxon had been; arguments, innovations, narrow escapes and fluent excuses prevented that.

But it was the same with everything, thought Mr Wither gloomily, coming into the hall, which echoed with the ponging of Fawcuss; there was no peace and no comfort anywhere. Mr Wither put it all down to the War.

Then did Mrs Wither, in silence, hand him Cousin Agnes Grice’s letter.

Cousin Agnes was wrong. Mr Spurrey had not been to see a specialist on that bright April morning, haunted by a piercing little wind. He and Saxon, inwardly excited though outwardly composed, were on their way into Buckinghamshire to try out the new Rolls.

Mr Spurrey had been trying for years to buy a new Rolls, but Holt had been against it. Whenever Mr Spurrey, who was not a mean man, hinted at buying a new Rolls, Holt, who was another of the Stay Put Brigade, had made a certain kind of face, sucking in his breath and pushing out his lips. He did not say, ‘Shouldn’t do that if I was you, sir,’ but the face said it, and Mr Spurrey, who did not realize how easily he was dashed, said no more until the next time, when the same thing happened again.

But Saxon’s face had lit up at Mr Spurrey’s first cautious hint about buying a new Rolls; and he had suggested the very next morning that he should drive down and make some inquiries and get some particulars; and Mr Spurrey decided to go with him. Soon ‘a’ new Rolls became ‘the’ new Rolls; then ‘it’; and finally, when Mr Spurrey and Saxon glided out on that bright windy morning, riding inside the mighty black beauty as proudly as the men who steered Cleopatra’s barge – the Rolls had become She.

This is the life, thought Saxon, at the wheel. Power, bound and obedient and costing a large sum of money, lay under his hands. You sweet, you beauty. Oh, you bird, thought Saxon as they left London and marched rather than ran, so unobtrusive yet splendid was their pace, into the lanes of Buckinghamshire;

Mr Spurrey, too, was content. The sun was shining (Mr Spurrey liked sunshine), there was blue sky, the Rolls was running well, and at home he had Dorothy Sayers’s latest story waiting unopened. He would read it that evening, over a decanter. In front sat Saxon, that good boy, and there was a little window that could be opened at any minute if Mr Spurrey wanted someone to talk to.

Presently, while they were honouring Rickmansworth by passing through it, Saxon slid back the little window off his own bat and said cheerfully:

‘All right, sir, isn’t she?’

‘Very good, very good indeed,’ agreed Mr Spurrey. ‘Splendid, in fact. One can feel the difference, by George, can’t one? not only on the hills, though of course one feels it most there, but all the time, eh? Of course, I was getting thoroughly dissatisfied with the other, thoroughly dissatisfied. I remember …’

He remembered; while Saxon, his eyes half shut, the empty sunlit lanes steadily advancing, listened, commented and drove.

Mr Spurrey’s monologue was of so flavourless a brand, so hesitant, slow and repetitive, so full of microscopic triumphs for his own wit, courage and cunning at the expense of nameless inferior fleas usually described as The Chap or The Feller, so lacking in colour, point and distinction, that no attempt shall be made to report it.

But Saxon was used to the old man’s jaw, and it did not get on his nerves now as it used to at first. He could not help feeling a satirical pity for Mr Spurrey, either; all that money (and not a tightwad, either) and no idea how to spend it. Mr Spurrey had always been suspicious of women and rather afraid of them, so he had not had any fun there; and men only tolerated him. Fun and jollity had a way of quietly going off the boil when he came up, even if he did not say a word. He was too sharp to tolerate toadies yet too stupid to please even ordinary kind people, and his habit of trying to frighten his hearers, when he was not excruciatingly boring them, had put the lid on; no one, all his long life, had really wanted to be with Mr Spurrey.

But Saxon, now that he knew him, did not dislike him. For instance, he was generous; nothing of old Wither’s save-fivepenceon-the-return-journey about Mr Spurrey. When they stopped the Rolls at last, on a hill looking over the exquisite valley of the Chess, and Mr Spurrey climbed out to stretch his legs, Saxon unpacked a luncheon basket for two that included foie gras sandwiches and a good brand of champagne. Whee! thought Saxon. Last time it was only sparkling muscatel. We’re getting on.

‘What’ve they given us, eh?’ inquired Mr Spurrey, coming round the majestic black shoulder of the Rolls (one of the minor joys of the rich is that they never know what is in the sandwiches), wrapped in his new spring overcoat against the bitter little wind, and peering into the basket.

Saxon, smiling, held up the bottle.

‘Ha! hey! excellent! Ah yes, that was my idea. Thought we’d drink to the new Rolls, eh? Just a little surprise, eh?’

‘Very good idea, sir,’ said Saxon, and meant it. And he added, guessing that Mr Spurrey would recognize a slang phrase of some years ago, ‘And very nice too, as they say.’

‘Ha, ha! Very good!’ cried Mr Spurrey. ‘
And very nice too!
Yes, exactly.
And very nice too!
’

Saxon spread a tweed rug on the grass and put Mr Spurrey’s waterproofed cushion on it; the rheumatism must always be remembered.

‘Comfortable?’ he asked, easily.

As he settled another cushion at the old man’s back he forgot to ‘sir’ him, and Mr Spurrey did not notice it. He was only a lonely boring old man to Saxon, at that moment, enjoying the sunshine and chill spring air, looking forward to his first sip of champagne. He was not Saxon’s employer any more; he might have been one of the old boys down home who kept the darts parlour warm at the Green Lion; you always asked them how they were keeping … for some reason … not that you cared a damn. It pleased them and did you no harm.

‘Just a little more to the left. That’s it. Thank you.’

They sat side by side, leaning against the Rolls, their mouths full, glasses in their chilled hands, staring, as they munched, away across the clear air of the valley. Cloud shadows sailed across the purple ploughed land. The larches were out, pale among the darker trees. The cries of rooks came loudly; then softly, as the wind changed. For a minute Saxon wished that Tina were there; she was so fond of scenery. Then he forgot her, for she would be waiting when he got home that evening and there was no reason for thinking about her.

‘Nice bit of country.’

Mr Spurrey, with his mouth full, waved at the prospect before them. It was so delicate, vivid and splendid, glowing through such miraculously clear air, that it was like some marvellous painting.

‘Pretty steep, that hill.’ Saxon narrowed his eyes. ‘About one in four, I sh’d say. How about trying her up that, after lunch?’

Mr Spurrey was agreeable; and after lunch was over and Mr Spurrey had smoked a little cigar and Saxon a cigarette, they did try her up that, and superbly she did it.

What with trying her up that, and others, and stopping on a hill near Marks Tey to admire the sunset, it was dark before they got back to Buckingham Square; but as he climbed stiffly out of the Rolls and turned to say good night to Saxon, Mr Spurrey felt that it had been one of the pleasantest days he had spent for years. The Rolls had done so well, the champagne had tasted so good drunk under a tree like that, the country had looked so pretty, and that boy, Saxon, was such good company. Nice, sensible boy. Knew his place, yet none of your soft-soaping. No wonder old Wither’s gel got smitten.

He turned to give his wrinkled old smile, that years of unconscious self-defence had made malicious, to the young man who sat smiling at the wheel of the splendid car.

‘Well, good night, Saxon. Pleasant day, eh?’

‘Very pleasant, sir.’

‘Must do it again some time, eh?’ He paused, nodding, one foot on the step, and added:

‘How’s your wife these days?’

‘Very well, thank you, sir.’

‘Ah … h’m. Well … give her my regards.’

‘I will, sir. Thank you. Good night, sir.’

The car glided away into the spring dusk.

Mr Spurrey let himself in, nodding to the butler, and went slowly up the stairs. It had been on the tip of his tongue to suggest to Saxon that he and Tina should come in to dinner one night … and damn what the servants thought. Two nice young people … why shouldn’t he have them in, if he wanted to? But then he thought, no. Women … always laughing, making fun of perfectly ordinary remarks, trying to get something out of a man. No. Let her stay where she was. Later on, he might have the boy in, by himself.

Thus did Mr Spurrey hide from himself that he was jealous of Saxon’s wife.

There was a good fire in the library after dinner, the decanter of port and the new Dorothy Sayers; but the fresh air had made him so sleepy that his head was nodding before he had read a chapter, and at last he dozed off. When he awoke, with a start, the fire was very low, the room chilly, and nine o’clock striking. He sat up, yawning, the book sliding to the floor. Suddenly the yawn turned to a sneeze; and Mr Spurrey shivered violently. That night in bed he could not get warm.

The next day was mild and calm, the bitter little wind had gone, but Mr Spurrey lay in bed, still trying to get warm; and in the evening Cotton, the butler, took it upon himself to send for the doctor. It was a cold, only a cold, said the doctor (as though anyone cared enough about Mr Spurrey to need reassuring) but Mr Spurrey had best stay in bed. There was a lot of flu about still, and bed was the best place, said the doctor.

The next afternoon it had turned to a feverish cold, and it got steadily worse; slowly, like a rising flood, it crawled through the old body and got hold of one part after another; his limbs ached, he shivered and burned, and then it got to the lungs; suddenly it was pneumonia, with all the stops out, full orchestra, two nurses, and grumblings in the kitchen about extra meals, shaded lights burning all night and straw down outside the house, the doctor calling twice a day and oxygen ready; and at last, on the fifth day, the doctor asking Cotton in a low voice in the hall, ‘Isn’t there anybody who ought to be told, Cotton?’ and Cotton answering almost defiantly, ‘No, sir, not that I know of, sir. I believe that Mr Spurrey has some friends living in Essex, sir, but they’re not what you might call close friends, sir, and he has no relations. Mr Spurrey is the only son of an only son, sir, or so I always understood him to say.’