It Was the Nightingale (7 page)

“Yes, I know what you mean. But I honestly
did
see Percy on his face. The hair wasn’t like Bob’s. I distinctly saw Percy’s curls.”

“What does it
mean,
Phil?”

“I can only tell you what I’ve heard from other people. Spirits can be earth-bound, if they arrive on the other side after some shock, such as violent death. Percy was killed at once. He would try, if he could, to get to his loved ones. He could only do this by striving to come through a living medium. Bob was his friend. He wants to come to you through Bob.”

“To live again, perhaps as a child, do you mean?”

Phillip hesitated; he tried to think; no thought would come, only the words, “Yes, I do!”

On a cold day in January, the first anniversary of their marriage, Phillip awakened and through the open casement window saw that the grass on the lawn was white with rime. Barley was lying
with her back to him, curled up: an unusual attitude for her. When she turned her head he saw that her eyes looked strained, although she smiled as usual.

“Are you all right, Barley?”

“Oh yes. It’s nothing. I’ll get up and make the tea.”

“No, let me. You rest yourself.”

He went downstairs and put the kettle on the Valor Perfection stove, and returning, saw her sitting on the side of the bed.

“I think I’ll go downstairs and put my feet up.”

He opened the bed for her to return beside him, but she sat still.

“I’ll be all right downstairs.”

“Is it your time?”

“I don’t know.”

She seemed so strange, so detached. When she was gone he saw drops of water on the floor and was alarmed. He followed her into the kitchen where she was trying to put on a sand-shoe. The lace broke, she sat up again, still. He made a fire in the hearth, putting on a whole faggot, meanwhile settling her in his armchair with her feet upon a stool. Then wheeling out the Norton he blinded to the midwife’s house in Queensbridge. It was a post-war house with three bedrooms. The name on the gate was a little forbidding—PORTO BELLO—so was the midwife, a small woman with a pale, expressionless face, who spoke with a Lancashire accent. Meticulously he gave her a report, and then said, “I’d better go and tell Dr. MacNab.”

“No need to bother doctor yet, young mahn. You can go ’ome, everything will be quite all reet.” Then seeing that he was unconvinced she repeated that there was nowt to worry about, but if the pains were still coming on by the next morning he could coom and tell her.

He accepted what she had to say against his will, or intuition, and returned to the village. Barley was doing housework, but moving slower than usual. She smiled, saying she was all right. He repeated what the midwife had said.

“Would you mind having only boiled eggs for your lunch, as well as for your breakfast? I meant to go to the shop, but haven’t been able to.”

“Sit you down yurr, my maid. I am now ‘Q’ branch. Do you feel like a boiled egg? In case you have any doubt, you don’t look like one!”

He boiled two eggs, but she could not eat her egg after capping it, so he finished it. He put the shells into the compost heap, for the garden lacked lime, and lime was essential for vegetables, to form a baby’s teeth properly.

“How do you feel now?”

“Much better.”

In the afternoon she said she would like to go for a walk across the mushroom field, from where the Channel could be seen, and the tors of Dartmoor with the Cornish hills beyond. Otter and Rusty followed them. Lutra moved in alternate gallops with pauses to stand still. Before they reached the stone-wall at the top of the field Barley said she did not think she could go on any farther.

“Don’t let me spoil your walk, I’ll go back with Lutra, and keep him and Moggy company, and have tea ready for you when you return.”

Phillip’s mind had been divided since the morning, and now he was perplexed and near-irritable. He felt the midwife was a fool; yet, he told himself, he must not allow his fears to rule him, and so to interfere in another’s job. He must discipline himself: and thus resolved he continued his walk while Rusty ran ahead, nose down to the scents of rabbits. But before reaching the cliffs he turned back abruptly, to the spaniel’s disappointment. The midwife was wrong, he knew it.

Opening the cottage door, he saw Barley walking yet more stiffly in the kitchen. Her cheeks were now pale and drawn, her eyes were larger, the irises a fuller black. He knew she was in pain, but she smiled and said, “I’m so sorry I’ve spoiled your walk. I’ll get tea for you.”

The cat, seeing the tray, meeow’d and rose on hind legs to touch her hand. Barley put the tray on the table, and sat down. She seemed to have forgotten the tea-tray. She took no notice of the cat. He made the tea, and poured out a cup for her. She smiled her gratitude, looking, he thought, like Irene. He asked, diffidently, if she were in much pain. “It’s only sometimes it’s a bit bad. But it goes away again.”

“Where’s Lutra?”

“I put him in the shed.”

“I ought to have gone to fetch MacNab.”

“Boo says he’ll be in the village tonight. She came to see me
while you were out for your walk. He’s coming with the skittles team.” She stopped talking, and after awhile went on. “There’s a match in the Ring of Bells—at half—past—six.”

Half-past six! It was a long time to go. He kept calm lest he alarm her.

*

It was dark when he went up the village street. The moon, which only a few nights before had been round and purple-silver above the church tower, would not rise for some hours. He was tense, because greatly anxious. The darkness checked his speed, he had to feel forward, judging the middle of the road by noise of his footfalls reflected from the wall of the cottage on his right, and the sound of the stream entering the culvert under the road on his left. The years of living in the village, much of those years spent in night-wandering in fields and lanes, had taught him to walk by ear more than by sight in the darkness.

Now he had no confidence in his night-sense, but groped his way forward, hands held before him. When the pub door opened he ran forward, using that yellow bit of oil-lamp light before it should be lost. The Ring of Bells was full. The skittles match was between Malandine and Queensbridge. Dr. MacNab was playing for Queensbridge. There was unusual silence in the bar-room.

Dr. MacNab moved his head round slowly to greet the newcomer with a smile. He said gently, “You’ve arrived at a very important time, Phillip.”

“Yes!”

He had left Barley with her feet propped on a stool before the fire, a cup of tea, his third brew since four o’clock, left, like the others, untouched on the table beside her.

He waited for Dr. MacNab to speak, while the doctor continued to watch as the player aimed the swing of the ball on its string suspended from the top of the stick.

“Ah!”

The first ball had ‘scatt’ only five skittles, leaving four so placed that the player could not get them with his second ball.

“Nine!” cried the umpire.

Dr. MacNab leaned over to Phillip again and whispered, “You’re going to be beaten again, you’ll see!”

Phillip could wait no longer. “I think Barley is going to have her baby to-night.”

Dr. MacNab smiled, without meeting Phillip’s eye. “Just watch the play of Billy Chugg now. He’ll go out for us this time, you’ll see.”

Skittles fell with that compact soft-rattling noise which meant a ‘floorer’—nine dropped at first ball. They were stood up again. Voices, tobacco fug, paraffin lamp, window shut, landlord and wife and their small grandson leaning over the bar, lurcher dogs moving among heavy boots and legs, rough-shouted talk, pint glasses banged on bar to be refilled, stuffed badger masks, low, yellow-stained ceiling, hot fug which made his eyes smart and his breathing uneasy. They were silent as the stocky little Queensbridge postman bent down to throw the ball again. Skittles fell, a massed shout, many voices, loud laughs, men pushing against Phillip. Twenty-seven, the exact number required to go out! The home team was beaten. He tried to appear easy as he heard Dr. MacNab saying he’d have a glass of mild.

“Have a drink, Phillip?”

“No thanks, really——”

“Do you good. Done any more to that story of Donkin you told me about?”

“Oh, it’s got to be rewritten, it’s all wrong: too satirical.”

Dr. MacNab nodded gravely; and murmured, “Get plenty of hot water, just in case.” Then aloud: “Well, here’s good luck!” They drank, the tension in Phillip gone for the moment.

On the way back he called at the Pole-Cripps’ cottage, to be reassured by Boo, while George offered the use of the Trojan to take them to the midwife’s. George was reading
The
Fur
Trade
Journal.
“I say, old bean, you remember what I told you about Angora rabbits? Well, if I can——”

“Another time, Georgie——” said Boo’s gentle voice.

He went back to the cottage, seized two pails and hurried to the pump. Then to fill the big cast-iron kettle on the open hearth, light the three burners of the oil-stove, refill one pail and put it on to heat.

Mrs. Crang would be needed. She must wash her hands. Soap, towels. He leapt upstairs and brought down three hand-towels, one each for doctor, midwife Crang, and himself. He put them beside a basin on a wooden box with a new slab of carbolic soap.

Dr. MacNab arrived. He told Barley not to get up, looked at her quizzically before turning to Phillip and saying gently, “There’s plenty of time. Better get her to the nursing home. I’ll
tell the midwife to expect you. Would you like me to send up a taxi?”

“It’s good of you, doctor, but I’ve arranged with George to take us down in his Trojan.”

“Ah, that reminds me, I have to give him a certificate for the pension people. We may as well get all we can out of the government, they take enough tax from us, don’t they? I’ll tell him you’ll both be going to Queensbridge.”

When the doctor was gone, Phillip was jubilant. All was going to be well. Hearing the doctor’s car grinding away from George’s cottage he went over and was hardly inside the door when George burst upon him with, “I say, old bean, I must tell you about my bell-ringing articles——”

“Yes, Georgie,” said Boo, as to a child, “but I think Phillip rather wants to tell us something.”

“That’s all right, Phillip, old MacNab’s already told us. He says, take her down any time before nine, so there’s bags of time. As I was saying, you remember my idea for the bell-ringing articles? Well, I had six copies made and posted them off at the same time, one each to
The
Daily
Trident,
The
Daily
News,
The
Daily
Chronicle,
The
Western
Morning
News,
The
Daily
Telegraph.
The old pater suggested
The
Church
Times,
as well. My luck was in—they were all accepted!”

“And all published?”

“That’s what I mean. Look, I’ve just had the last cheque—making fourteen guineas in all! Not bad eh, for one article?”

“The same article in each of those papers?”

“Absolutely word for word! Boo typed them out, all top copies, no carbons, didn’t you, Boo? So that each copy would look fresh. It was my idea.”

“The most brilliant start and finish in journalism!”

“What d’you mean?”

“You’ll be on the Black List after this!”

“I should worry! As a matter of fact, I’ve got a dam’ good chance of getting a hundred per cent disability pension, old MacNab says. Then if I can convert it into a lump sum, Boo and I will be able to start that Angora rabbit farm I told you about, remember?”

*

At nine o’clock Barley walked stiffly, holding an arm each of Phillip and Boo, to the Trojan while Georgie waited with a rug.
Apologising for her slowness in getting into the front seat, Barley was helped in. The driver pulled the starting handle beside the seat and a cloud of blue smoke issued from the exhaust. The friction plates whirred. Clattering noises in the frosty night were amplified from cottage walls.

“You’ll see, she’ll take Sheepnose in top,” prophesied Georgie, wrapped in a British warm, to the collar of which had been added part of an old seal-skin stole once carried by the dowager Mrs. Pole-Cripps, as Boo called her mother-in-law. It was a cold night, stars glittering above bare hedges of the sunken lane lit wanly by the unfocused electric headlights.

The engine conked three-quarters of the way up Sheepnose.

“Curse,” muttered the driver. “I can’t think why that’s happened! I’ll go back in reverse and try again.”

“Wouldn’t it get up in low gear, Georgie?” suggested Boo.

“She won’t take a tick, honestly, Boo. The engine was cold. She took it in top this morning like a bird.”

“But we’re four up now, Georgie. Don’t you think——”

Slowly George backed down Sheepnose Hill, while gingerly manipulating the steering wheel. The
équipe
zigzagged more and more until it got stuck into the bank at one place.

“Curse, that’s torn it,” muttered Georgie. “The reverse gear seems to have gone phut. And I hope to God my new cellulose paint isn’t marked!”

He went forward, the friction plates emitting a smell of burning oil. At the bottom of the hill the driver said it was only fair to the old ’bus to take it this time with a rush. This required a further fifty yards of backward movement.

Phillip was inwardly fuming. He could feel that Barley was rigid with pain.

“Might we not have the hill-test another time?” he said distinctly.

Once again Sheepnose Hill was too much for the engine. Georgie, repeating that he couldn’t understand what had happened, engaged low gear, and they reached the crest, and so down into the valley beyond.

Coal smoke in layers hung above Queensbridge. At last they were at Porto Bello. Barley was helped out by the midwife and Boo. She walked with slow stiffness into the house.

“Do you think I should go for Dr. MacNab?” Phillip asked Boo. Georgie at once replied for his wife.

“These old girls will get on better alone, old bean. After all, MacNab isn’t so hot, you know. There was that case, told to me by the old pater, of Farmer Bill Cane of Sewer who had a pain and old MacNab gave him castor oil, while all the time the poor devil had a rupture! No, take my advice, leave it to the midwife every time! After all, she’s a woman.”

Phillip went inside, determined to ask for Dr. MacNab. He found Barley being led on a conducted tour around the best room, while its treasures were pointed out—new french-polished draw-leaf table, rexine-covered armchairs and sofa, all looking as though no one ever sat in them.

“You’ll send for Dr. MacNab, of course?” he said to the midwife.