Victoria and the Nightingale (17 page)

“Can’t we go inside?” she suggested. “I didn’t exactly contemplate having a kind of heart-to-heart with you in the open.”

Victoria acquiesced without saying a word. She knew that something was worse than wrong ... not, apparently, with Sir Peter Wycherley, but with her world. In the next few seconds it was going to collapse in ruins about her ears. And in order that she shouldn’t betray her abject vulnerability and the sickening disappointment and bewilderment that was already turning her completely cold inside, she maintained her silence until she had closed the door on the two of them and switched on another wall light to add to the revealing illumination.

Then, and then only, did Georgina turn and look at her.

“You must believe me when I tell you that I’m sorry for you,” she said. “But you ought to have had more sense from the beginning. You shouldn’t have expected such a lot from any man. Least of all Peter! He’s a charmer, and I adore him, but I understand perfectly his greatest weakness.”

Victoria licked her lips.

“What is that?”

“Kindness, a desire to be generous all the time. He simply can’t bear to see anyone frustrated or in need of pity or sympathy, and in the case of the boy Johnny I understood perfectly why he wanted to do things for him. The child was rendered fatherless and he hasn’t any mother, so why shouldn’t he adopt him? It was the logical thing for him to do according to his lights. Then there was you. . . .”

Once more Victoria licked her lips.

“What about me?”

“You’re such a pathetic little thing, and you made it so obvious that you fell for him right from the outset.” She was pacing up and down in the living room of the cottage, lifting ornaments and examining them idly, picking up books and discarding them. She came to the new transistor radio and smiled as she touched it. “A present for Johnny?”

The other girl nodded. She was very white under the lights, and in an extraordinary, detached manner she was forcing herself to accept the discovery that Miss Islesworth’s coat and dress were actually pale lavender, and not lilac or pink. It was almost a bluish lavender, in fact.

And with her satin-smooth hair and her slumbrous dark glances it was wonderfully attractive.

“Well, shall we get to the point?”

Without being invited to do so she sank down in a chair.

“I must say, you’re very comfortable here ... very comfortable.” A gleam of something that was not at all slumbrous appeared in her eyes. “You really have dug yourself in, haven’t you? You and the child! No wonder the whole district is talking.”

“Talking?”

Georgina subjected her to a glance of amazement.

“But did it never once occur to you that people would talk? And in the country people talk louder and faster than anywhere else. Scandal just spreads like a forest fire ... and in this case I must say you deserved it. But poor Peter hasn’t really deserved to be talked about ... after all, he meant well, and he certainly meant nothing underhand. So we’ll just have to do what we can to correct the unpleasant rumors when we hear them.”

Victoria felt as if she was being deliberately played with and kept on tenterhooks.

“Are you trying to tell me,” she asked, moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue, “that you’ve come here with the consent and approval of Sir Peter Wycherley?”

Miss Islesworth took a moment or two to consider this, then gave an emphatic nod of the head which sent all Victoria’s hopes of future happiness descending into a lost world of abandoned hopes and blighted prospects.

“Well, do you honestly think I would come here at this late hour if I was acting entirely on my own initiative?” the dark girl counter-questioned. “After all—” with a smile which belied her words “—I’m not entirely heartless, and I do realize that you’re very innocent and have probably been led up the garden path, in a kind of way. Yes, Peter was so upset about the whole thing getting so badly out of hand that I had to do something tonight ... and, as a matter of fact, I’ve come here straight from Wycherley Park, where he’s pacing up and down in his library like a badly concerned tiger ... not a vicious one, but an anxious one. I do hope you’ll believe me when I say he never meant you any harm!” Victoria recoiled as if she had received an actual slap across the face.

“He couldn’t even come and ... tell me himself?”

“He thought it would be less painful—for both of you! — if I did. We discussed it over dinner, and over coffee afterward, and then I made the decision to come here. Yes, the decision was actually mine, but Peter agreed to it. He was, as a matter of fact, almost pathetically relieved.”

This was something Victoria found it difficult to believe, with her knowledge of Sir Peter. But if he was capable of wilfully deceiving both her and Johnny, without any real reason why he should stoop to such duplicity, then, he was capable of almost anything.

“What—do you want me to do?” she asked, her throat very dry.

Georgina shrugged, but looked at her with sympathy at the same time.

“Well, if it was me,” she said, as if she had given a great deal of thought to this piece of advice, and rehearsed her reply in advance, “I would pack up and leave here without delay. I believe you tried to get away before, but Peter stopped you. This time you mustn’t let him interfere with your plans. Remember that it’s humiliating to be dealt with as you have been dealt with, and in addition you must be feeling pretty sore ... with Peter, I mean. You don’t want to involve yourself in recriminations—and I know it’s the last thing Peter wants, because of his guilty conscience—and you do want to save some remnants of your pride. Get away while you can, and before his conscience starts troubling him afresh, and he comes here to apologize personally.” She looked aghast at the prospect. “That’s something I know I couldn’t stand, and I don’t suppose you feel much differently. Do take my advice and get away either tonight or tomorrow morning. There’s a good train in the morning, so I should wait until then. You can order a taxi tonight to pick you up first thing in the morning.”

“How will I order a taxi?” Victoria sounded as someone other than herself was speaking. “We’re not on the village telephone here.”

“Then I’ll order one for you myself. I know a very good man who’ll pick you up about seven o’clock and get you to the junction in good time to find seats on the train. It’s going to be a bit of a rush for you, but unless you prefer to face up

to a possible ordeal.... ”

“No, no, I’ll go!”

“And I’ll order the taxi for you.”

Miss Islesworth rose.

“I think you’re being awfully sensible about this—” Victoria wondered afterward whether she had expected a scene—defiance, perhaps, or at any rate proof of what she said. But Victoria felt she had received proof enough, otherwise Peter would have kept his word and been there in the morning. “I won’t hold you up now, because you’ve got all your packing to do. But anything you want ... well—” she handed over a slip of pasteboard which she had removed from her handbag “—that’s the address of my London flat, where I shall be in a week’s time. And if you find yourself up against it, or need help in finding either living quarters or some sort of a job, just ring me, and I’ll make an appointment to see you. I’m perfectly certain I’ll be able to help you.”

“Thank you,” Victoria acknowledged the offer, tonelessly.

Having delivered herself of the reason for her late visit, Miss Islesworth seemed anxious to depart. She walked quickly to the door and let herself out, and as Victoria followed her mechanically down the garden path she waved her back.

“No, don’t bother to see me to my car.” There was something beautifully poised and condescending about her attitude, despite her expressed sympathy. “I know you’ve got a lot to do. Don’t let me hold you up.”

Victoria listened to her footsteps retreating down the flagged path of the cottage, and when she judged that the visitor was inside her car, she closed the front door of the cottage and bolted it automatically. Then she went upstairs to Johnny’s room and stood looking down at him with an utterly expressionless look on her face.

She didn’t go to bed that night. She made herself some tea and then started packing her own and Johnny’s things. While she did so, she forced her mind to become a blank. Every move she made was an effort and required a conscious effort of will. For hours she felt like someone who had had all the life drained out of her, and was responding simply to some inner compulsive voice. But she managed to preserve the cotton-wool condition that had enveloped her thinking powers, and could not honestly have said afterwards if she was either deathly miserable or temporarily distracted while she did an efficient job of packing.

It was so efficient that she very soon had everything ready and waiting in the hall. Then she went from room to room of the cottage, making absolutely certain that everything was tidy, and in order, as she had found it.

The fact that she had no intention of sleeping in her bed enabled her to strip it and fold the sheets and arrange the blankets neatly under the bed covers. Johnny’s room

would have to wait until he was up, but she knew it wouldn’t take her long.

She left the flowers in the sitting-room vases, because it seemed a pity to throw them away. . . . But everything else was in apple-pie order long before the first cockerel in the district started crowing, and the mists of dawn started rising from the surrounding meadows.

At five o’clock she made herself another pot of tea, watched the sun rise redly over the garden, climbed the stairs like someone about to undertake a most unpleasant task and aroused Johnny.

She had decided to say nothing about the reason for leaving, apart from giving him to understand that they had to leave—later, perhaps, she would tell him a little of the truth—and he had always been an unusually easy child (in difficult moments) to manage. Apart from gazing wide-eyed he asked no questions, and therefore it was quite unnecessary to tell him any half truths.

This morning, as always, he ate a hearty breakfast, and afterward she washed up the breakfast things and put them away, then ran the carpet sweeper over the sitting-room carpet in order that it should be left immaculate.

Then Johnny went out to the garden to say goodbye to some favorite bird friends, and release a toad that he had been trying to tame. He gazed regretfully at his small corner of the garden where the flowers that were thriving had been looked after by himself, and picked one or two of them to take away with him.

He was returning to the house when the car shot round the bend of the lane and drew up with a faint screech of brakes outside the cottage gate. Peter Wycherley left the driving seat with the impatience of one who had already made a good deal of hurry that morning, and called out to Johnny

when he caught sight of him.

“You’re up early, Johnny! Couldn’t you sleep?”

Johnny, in his best tussore silk shirt and well-pressed contrasting shorts—to say nothing of immaculate socks and shoes—turned and stared at him.

“We’re going away,” he said.

“Oh!” Sir Peter thrust open the gate, and looked at him grimly. “Where’s Victoria?” he asked. “Inside.”

“Stay here while I talk to her,” his guardian ordered.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Victoria was in the kitchen when Peter entered the cottage. He was so used to finding his way about in the cottage by now that he walked straight in on her, and although he didn’t say anything she knew at once that he was standing there looking at her.

She hadn’t heard his car stop at the gate. She hadn’t heard his footsteps on the path. Why she hadn’t done so she could never afterward quite understand, unless the truth was that she was in such a state of acute depression and strange mental inertia that she was deaf to everything that was going on around her. She was like someone moving in a dream no longer with any expectations of life, and with nothing but a dreary future ahead of her. She wasn’t even agitated by all that she had to cope with, and the responsibilities that would be hers in the future.

But, as soon as Sir Peter arrived in the kitchen doorway, she knew. She was giving the stove a final careful wipe, and she turned with the damp cloth in her hand to confront him.

“Good morning,” he said, with a kind of arctic

coldness.

Victoria dropped the damp cloth. He stooped politely and picked it up for her.

“Where do you want this?” he asked, and cast it into the sink before she had time to answer. “You shouldn’t be doing kitchen chores in your best traveling suit,” he observed crisply. “You might spoil it.”

She couldn’t think of anything to say to answer him. She was wondering what he was doing there at that hour, and could only conclude that he had undergone a change of mind ... and, possibly, heart. But they were only temporary changes, of course.

“Johnny, too, seems to be wearing his best,” he continued conversationally. “He tells me you’re going away.”

At that she managed to admit that Johnny was right.

“Yes; we’re going away,” she said.

“Where to? Not London? It’s usually London with you, isn’t it?”

A temporary indignation flared up in her eyes.

“Where else would I go with Johnny when I have to find a job to support him?” she demanded.