Nightingale Wood (47 page)

Mrs Caker was not nervous. She was too interested in her surroundings and in noticing what there was for tea and what Mrs Wither and Viola had on. She kept her feet pressed together at first and would not take her gloves off because her hands were so red, but as no one said anything about her lack of teeth or her washing, she at last took her gloves off, and as no one said anything about her hands being red, she soon forgot them and enjoyed her tea.

Mrs Wither sometimes had gleams of common-sense. They usually came from following her instincts and forgetting what was the proper thing to do. She had one this afternoon. Instead of pretending that Mrs Caker was an ordinary caller and that nothing exciting had happened to bring her into the drawing-room at The Eagles, she plunged at once, as she handed Mrs Caker her first cup of tea, into the realities.

‘Well, Mrs Caker,’ said Mrs Wither, ‘I expect you’re feeling as amazed as I am about your boy’s wonderful luck,’ and Mrs Caker, accepting the tea, replied eagerly, ‘That I am, Mrs Wither. Niver had any idea o’ such a thing, can’t believe ut now,’ and then they were well away, comparing notes, discussing the character of Mr Spurrey, wondering where Tina and Saxon would live, and whether Mrs Caker, when she left the cottage, would take a flat or a small house in Chesterbourne, or live in a boarding house, and recalling the personal appearance and habits of Mrs Caker’s old father, the same by whose side she used to ride in the poppied hat. They carefully did not discuss (except for a nod and wink or two from Mrs Caker) the late Mr Caker, but otherwise they enjoyed the gossip as though there had been no social barriers between them.

Mrs Caker, indeed, was enjoying it all, sitting there in her new rig-out, eating tea-cake and noticing everything. The squalid little place over the other side of the wood, the bundles of sour-smelling dirty clothes, her recent exuberances with the Hermit, seemed very far away. It’s quite like old times, thought Mrs Caker, when I was a bit of a girl with Dad. I wish Dick Falger could see maye now, having arternoon tea. Old bastard; I hope he dies in a ditch. I’m done wi’ all that. Goin’ ter be respectable now, thought Mrs Caker, her large limpid blue eyes fixed smilingly upon the faded ones of her hostess. Five pound a week, he said. I’ll be proper comfortable on that.

This idyll was somewhat clouded by the arrival of Mr Wither, who sidled in, muttered over Mrs Caker’s hearty outstretched hand, sipped half a cup of tea and sidled out again, choked by embarrassment and indignation at Fate, who had forced him to receive a washerwoman at The Eagles. Chauffeurs, shopgirls, washerwomen … where were the Withers drifting?

And down in the kitchen Fawcuss, Annie and Cook were still discussing whether they should call Mrs Caker Madam. They had been spared this humiliation today because Mrs Wither had in a most irregular manner gone herself to open the door to Mrs Caker (Mrs Wither had guessed what was being said in the kitchen) but sooner or later they were bound to be confronted by Mrs Caker, and then what would they do?

Fawcuss said No. Duty was duty, and of course It Did Say that there was more rejoicing over one sinner that repenteth than over nine and ninety just persons, but after all, how were they to know that Mrs Caker had repented? All she had done was to turn that wicked old man out (and not before it was time, either) and go round in a fur coat that would have kept a poor family for months. No. Fawcuss would say
Mrs Caker
, quite pleasant-like, but Madam she would not.

And Annie and Cook, at the close of this discussion that had gone on ever since they heard, two days ago, that Mrs Caker was coming to tea at The Eagles, decided they would do the same. Annie added a rider to the effect that she did wonder at Her havin’ that woman to the house, seein’ the whole village knew about her and that wicked old man and so must She, after that awful scene in the yard last summer.

But Mrs Wither, making the best of a bad job, had decided that Mrs Caker was not really so bad. She had apparently turned over a new leaf since Saxon came into the money. Mr Wither reported, from spy-work carried out under his hat-brim while on his constitutional, that the Hermit seemed to have gone; his hut had fallen in and Mr Wither had not seen him outside the Green Lion nor in the cottage. With the Hermit gone, a new wardrobe bought for her by Saxon, her washerwomaning given up and an apparent desire to be thought well of by her betters, Mrs Caker was acceptable, and Mrs Wither parted from her with a pleasant feeling that difficulties had been overcome and the way smoothed for possible future meetings between the two families.

Just before dinner Madge came in, glum and silent. She had been for a long walk with Polo, to avoid seeing Mrs Caker, for she agreed with her father that a washerwoman at The Eagles was a bit too much of a good thing. Mrs Wither had had to apologize for her absence and make some excuse that did not take in Mrs Caker in the least, for she knew Madge’s sort through and through.

The long spring evening slowly passed. At half-past eight Viola slipped out to post her letters, loitering, because it was such a beautiful twilight, along the white road that ran beside the little oak wood. The trees were in early leaf, just as they had been on her first evening at The Eagles a year ago; the air was mild and scented by new foliage, one star was out, and down in the dark wood a thrush was singing. It was all enough to break your heart, if your heart had not been broken already.

She posted her letters, keeping Victor’s until the end and pushing it slowly through the letter-box, letting it fall at last into the darkness. She heard the little sound as it landed on the other letters below. She stood for a minute, staring at the box, then turned and walked slowly home.

CHAPTER XXV

The next day was Hetty’s twenty-first birthday, and fine and clear, though haunted by one of those bitter little winds that had killed Mr Spurrey. There was to be a garden party in the afternoon with a dinner in the evening for some of the young people living in the neighbourhood. On the breakfast table Hetty found a superb beauty-box, fitted with all the creams in creation, from Victor, and a little necklace of perfectly matched pearls with a platinum and diamond clasp from her aunt. In a discreet little round case was a pair of ear-rings to match.

‘They were your mother’s,’ said Mrs Spring, lifting her face to take Hetty’s slightly ashamed kiss, ‘and they’re real, of course. I had a new clasp put on them and the ear-rings made into clips. You’d better wear them tonight.’

‘This is most elaborate, Vic; thank you very much,’ said Hetty, examining the beauty-box and wishing irritably that her aunt had not given her a present so semi-sacred and obviously hoarded up for this occasion, for it would make it more difficult to announce, as she meant to do before the day was over, that she was shortly going to leave Grassmere for ever. ‘Did you choose it yourself?’

‘Yes,’ curtly. He was reading the paper with the ill-tempered expression that was natural to him nowadays, ‘but it was Phyl’s idea. I’m glad you like it.’

‘Why? Did Phyl think my beauty needs attention?’ Hetty’s tone was quiet, but a flush came slowly into her pale cheeks.

‘Good God, I don’t know what she thought. Can’t you two stop picking on each other for five minutes?’ and he got up, strewing the paper all round him, and went out of the room. They heard his car start up, and go off.

Hetty went on with her grapefruit, Mrs Spring with hers. Presently, as her aunt sighed, Hetty looked up and said what was expected of her:

‘Vic seems very on edge lately. I imagine it’s the strain of spending so much time with the betrothed. It would strain me, too.’

‘Engagements are always trying,’ retorted her aunt sharply, ‘and you can see for yourself how on edge Phyl is. She does too much; she’ll never keep her looks if she doesn’t learn to relax a bit. And that makes her go at Vic, because she’s worn out and won’t see it. She’s not been herself for weeks.’

‘An advantage, I cannot but feel,’ drawled Hetty, ‘were it not that the substitute is, if anything, worse than the original.’

‘Don’t speak in tha— there, Hetty, I don’t want to pick on you on your twenty-first, but you make Phyl worse, you know. She’s always nervier when she’s been down here an hour or two and bickering with you. Why can’t you leave each other alone? I know she’s trying, I find her trying myself, I don’t quite know why, I think it’s because she’s so healthy. Anyway, I wish you would try to keep the peace until the twenty-eighth. Then they’ll be going off for six weeks and you and I will have time to get ourselves comfortably settled before they come home.’

Here was Hetty’s chance, but she did not take it. Better leave it until after the garden party. She observed pensively, finishing her grapefruit:

‘I detest her. To me she typifies all the varnished vulgarity and falseness of this horrifying age. Everything that she is, poetry is not. I wish that she would die, preferably violently.’

Before her staggered aunt could reply, in marched the antithesis of Poetry, wearing a becoming shirt-dress. She glittered with superficial health and energy, but she talked faster than she used, and her voice was shriller. The strain of being a minor society beauty, preparing for her wedding, supervising the furnishing of the flat and being engaged to Victor, whom she found daily more maddening, was telling even upon her superb health.

‘Many happy returns,’ nodding at Hetty. ‘Hope you liked your beauty-box. Edna, Vic hasn’t
gone
, has he? He is too sickening; he said last night he’d wait until I came down because I wanted to give him that bracelet to take back. The fools have made it too big, it falls off every time I put it on, and I wanted to tell him about the scent, too, I
must
have it for tonight and it won’t be in, those fools said, until late this afternoon. Can I have some fresh toast, please? Had any other presents, Hetty? Oh, help … books. Who from? What a weird cover.’

‘A girl I was at school with. You would not know her.’

‘Another of your brainy colleagues, I suppose. Edna, didn’t Vic say
anything
about that bracelet? I want to wear it tonight and he knows that perfectly well, and they could easily have made it smaller today and he could have called for it and brought it back this evening if he’d taken it this morning. It really is too sickening. Hetty, I haven’t done a thing about your present yet, I’ve been rushed to death, but I thought you might have my fox, just to go on with. I haven’t got it here, Anthea’s got it at the minute, but Vic’s giving me a new one, and I thought the old one would just do for you.’

‘You are very kind,’ returned Hetty coolly, going white about the nostrils, ‘but I do not much care to wear the skins of dead animals round my neck. When the skin of the dead animal happens to have been worn round your neck for a full two years, I dislike the prospect intensely. And if you give me your fox, I shall burn it.’

There was a shattered silence.

‘Or rather,’ drawling, ‘I shall request Heyrick to burn it. In the incinerator. Then,’ concluded Hetty, tapping an egg, ‘I need not touch it.’

Phyllis laughed angrily. A red stain had got up into her smooth dark cheeks.

‘Well, you needn’t be so snooty about it, just because it isn’t new. If I hadn’t been so frightfully hard up just now I’d have got you a new one. Good thing I didn’t, if that’s how you feel about it –
you insulting, half-baked, affected little beast
’ – her voice going up shrilly.

Hetty rose to her feet

‘Be quiet – both of you!’ cried Mrs Spring very angrily. ‘You ought to be ashamed – squabbling like children! Hetty, apologize to Phyllis at once.’

Hetty shook her head, and walked out of the room.

With this pleasing skirmish the festivities for Hetty’s twenty-first birthday were launched, and it was Mrs Spring’s task to whip up a gay and carefree atmosphere to greet the guests when they arrived for tea and tennis at three o’clock. As Hetty went about the house still looking white round the nostrils while Phyllis kept up a continual splutter like a catherine-wheel about Victor and the bracelet and the scent and Hetty’s extraordinarily amusing behaviour which some people might have taken seriously but thank heaven she, Phyllis, had a sense of humour – Mrs Spring found herself, by four o’clock, with a bad headache and feeling most unlike performing that ritual known as mingling with the guests.

However, she mingled, and by six o’clock tea and cocktails were well away and a party of about thirty people gathered from Stanton, Chesterbourne, Dovewood Abbey and Lukesedge was apparently enjoying itself. So cheerful and talkative and absorbed was everybody, leaping after tennis balls in the chilly sunlight or gossiping, hatless but in coats, on the veranda and in the drawing-room where the wireless was playing, that Hetty saw no reason why she should not slip away for ten minutes to the water-butt in the vegetable garden and cut the pages of
Mithraic Emblems
, which was her school-friend’s present.

The canopy of pale red and white blossom hung once more over the deserted orchard. The almond-trees were flowering and the cherry, the pear in a waterfall of white stars and the dark pink Siberian crab-apple. Hetty sat down on the three bricks with her back against the water-butt and opened
Mithraic Emblems
; but when she had read a few fiery, jewel-like lines she let the book fall on her lap and, leaning her head against the water-butt, stared up at the pale blue sky.

How difficult life was, how complicated and poisoned! How hard it was to have courage and make steadily for the things one wanted, ignoring everything else until one got them. She had planned to tell Mrs Spring at breakfast that she was going to leave Grassmere; then she had put it off until the party should be over. Now it was half-past six in the evening of her twenty-first birthday, the day that she had been looking forward to for nearly seven years, and she had not told her aunt, and was afraid that she would not. She said to herself: I’ll tell her tonight, after the dinner party, but she knew that the words were weak, an escape and a putting off. To give herself courage, she thought of the attic room in Bloomsbury – near, perhaps, to the very house where lived Virginia Woolf herself – with the view across pale and dark chimney pots under the smoky London sky, the noise of traffic coming up faintly, the smell of coffee brewing on the gas-ring and her own eyes moving, in a trance of content, over the pages of a book.