Victoria and the Nightingale (3 page)

“No.”

“But he is some sort of a relative?”

“No.”

Sir Peter Wycherley moved awkwardly. Perhaps he realized that this was no time for questioning.

“My—my fiancee was a little upset just now,” he murmured. “You mustn’t think she objects to your presence in the house. As a matter of fact, she’s intensely sympathetic, and would like to provide you with everything you need during your stay here. Fortunately she, too, is staying here, and she has plenty of things with her.” He made a vague gesture with his hand. “Sleeping things and so on. She’s put everything you’ll require in your room.”

“That—that’s extraordinarily kind of her,” Victoria murmured back, and then struggled to her feet because she thought that if she didn’t reach her room soon she might disgrace herself by being sick, or fainting, or something of the sort. She stood literally swaying on her feet and added: “In fact, you’re both very kind. You’re all being very— very—very k-ki—” And then her senses deserted her quite abruptly, and Sir Peter caught her in his arms before she fell and narrowly averted a further catastrophe as a result of her head hitting the stone hearth and possibly causing concussion. He held her for a moment as if she were a baby in his arms, and he thought how exceptionally fair her hair was, and how thin and pinched her face.

Then without any further hesitation he bore her out into the hall and up his gracious curving staircase to the room that had been prepared for her.

CHAPTER THREE

Victoria felt confused the following morning when she awakened in a completely strange room with morning sunlight finding its way into it round the edges of the drawn curtains.

She lay in the pleasant twilight that filled the greater part of the room and tried to think up some convincing explanation of the reason why she was where she was, and the explanation had to include such trifling reassurances as a satisfactory excuse for her wearing a nightdress that most certainly didn’t belong to her; and for all the solid comfort and luxury that surrounded her.

She was used to reasonable comfort in her surroundings, but this was comfort run riot. Facing her was a splendid tallboy with a degree of polish that made her blink, and over in the wide window space was the kind of dressing table she had often dreamed of possessing one day but never seriously hoped to do. It stood in a petticoat of flowered satin and had an oval mirror that appeared to be framed in beaten silver standing on it, and there were a lot of silver-topped bottles and some crystal flagons and things scattered about the plate-glass surface as well.

She could see a vast wardrobe, and that, too, was shimmering as if housemaids worked on it constantly, and what she decided was a tall pier-glass or cheval mirror, and a long couch covered in the same flowered satin as that which provided a skirt for the dressing table. And there appeared to be a vast area of carpet, and it was rosily pink like a cloud; and some rugs that were white clouds floating on the pink cloud.

She frowned as she lay looking at it all and decided that this was no hotel room. Johnny’s father couldn’t possibly afford a room like this. . . . And then all at once she remembered, and with memory surging back her head began to ache.

Mrs. Grainge came quietly into the room with a tray of tea, and the first thing she did was draw the curtains, then she approached the bed and smiled at the occupant.

“Well,” she said, “and how did you sleep? You’re looking better, I must say.”

Victoria felt horribly confused still, but at least she knew now what it was all about.

“Johnny—” she asked, and the housekeeper poured her a cup of tea and smiled even more complacently.

“Doing nicely,” she assured her. “As bright as a button this morning, although a bit worried because you’re not around. Apparently you look after him, and he seems to think you’re his special property.”

“I—I do look after him,” Victoria admitted.

The housekeeper poised the sugar tongs above the sugar bowl.

“Two lumps, dear?” she asked.

Victoria nodded.

“A kind of nursery governess, is that it, dear?” the housekeeper pursued. “I’d say he’s a bit old to need a nanny.”

“Oh, it’s nothing like that. . . .” Victoria, despite the dull ache in her head, felt she ought to explain. "You see, I used to do welfare work, and I worked with children, and Johnny’s father was a widower, and needed someone to cook and look after Johnny. He was—he is,” she corrected herself for some reason that she didn’t quite understand—“a door-to-door salesman, and he doesn’t have much time to look after Johnny himself. The welfare people thought it would be a good thing for me to help him out, so I did ... I mean, I went and lived in and took charge of Johnny. We—we’re having a bit of a holiday now. . . .”

“I see,” but the housekeeper didn’t sound as if she entirely understood.

Victoria was groping her way through the confusion that clouded her brain.

“How—how is he?” she asked huskily, remembering.

Mrs. Grainge went across to the dressing table and

started busying herself by altering the position of one of the cut-glass perfume bottles, and lifting the heavy silver-backed hand mirror from the tray. She replaced it after a moment, during which she had had time to make up her mind.

“I don’t think Sir Peter has had any news from the hospital yet,” she said. “But he’ll tell you all about it when he does.”

She returned briskly to the bedside.

“Now, what would you like for breakfast?” she asked, the smooth and amiable mask on her face again. “I’m not going to let you get up yet, because I think you need a rest, and Dr. Brown wanted you to stay in bed until he’d seen you again. But I do think you need a good breakfast. What about scrambled eggs and some grapefruit beforehand? And coffee? Or would you prefer tea?”

“Tea, please.” But Victoria struggled up on her pillows and felt certain that she ought to get up at once and satisfy herself about Johnny’s condition. After all, he was surrounded by strangers, and he was not the type to make friends easily. “I ought to see Johnny—”

“After breakfast, if the doctor allows it.” Mrs. Grainge was quite firm, but she smiled pleasantly. “You must think of yourself as well as the child, you know.”

“But he’s had a dreadful shock, and I’m the only one he knows. I ought to be with him.”

“You can safely leave him to us. And believe me, he’s not at all unhappy.” Mrs. Grainge unhooked a dressing gown from off the door, and laid it across the foot of the bed in readiness for Victoria to slip into. “Miss Islesworth lent you this, and there are a lot of other things belonging to her in the wardrobe that you can wear if you want to. I’m afraid your own clothes are in a very bad condition.” For the first time that morning she looked at the girl in the bed with real sympathy in her eyes. “That was a dreadful accident you were involved in, and there’s a lot of blood and oil on your things.”

“Blood and oil?” Victoria began to feel faint again. “But Johnny and I were practically unhurt....”

Mrs. Grainge spoke quickly.

“There, there, perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned it! And in any case, we can’t be absolutely certain that it’s blood. It could be marks from the road.” She was startled by the expression in Victoria’s eyes, and she hurried out of the room. “I’ll get your breakfast,” she muttered as she went.

As soon as she was alone Victoria made a supreme effort and eased herself out of bed. Every bone in her body felt like an aching tooth, and she felt a little dizzy when she stood up. But her head was comparatively clear again.

She slipped into the dressing gown, and it was the first time in her life that she had donned anything so luxurious so early in the morning. It was a white silk sheath, and when it was fastened round her she realized that the fit was perfect. She and Miss Islesworth must be almost the same build.

She opened the door of the wardrobe and saw the clothes that had been put there for her. They, too, were unlike anything she had ever worn before. Under normal circumstances she would have been thrilled by the thought of wearing them. But now she was consumed by the urgent desire to dress and face the world, and she wasn’t at all sure how she was going to manage on her own.

She moved slowly and painfully across the thick carpet until she stood in front of the dressing table, and she looked at herself in the mirror. Her reflection startled her. She had no color at all, and her eyes looked enormous. Normally they were blue—a dreamy, delightful blue; but with distended pupils and darkened irises they could have been black.

Her small, heart-shaped face looked wan and pinched, and the livid bruise over her left cheekbone was acquiring some frightening hues. As for her hair—and she was proud of her soft, spun-silk, corn-gold hair—she had never seen it look so drab, and there were one or two burrs adhering to it that she had collected on her passage through the wood the night before.

She picked them out with unsteady fingers, and then decided that before she could eat she must have a bath. And she was actually in her bath when Mrs. Grainge returned with her breakfast tray.

The bathroom adjoined the bedroom, and the housekeeper waited with the white silk robe in her hands until she was ready to slip into it again. She shook her head at her and clucked at her as she sat down at last behind the breakfast tray, but even then she wasn’t really surprised when Victoria looked with horror at the scrambled egg, although she greedily drank three cups of tea.

The doctor arrived before Victoria had had a chance to dress, and after one long and careful look at her he insisted that she go straight back to bed. Under the influence of more sedatives she slept for the greater part of that day, and the next morning she woke feeling almost like herself, and was horrified because she had allowed herself to lie drugged and supine while Johnny was in another part of the house and possibly needing her.

But before the doctor called that morning Johnny himself arrived in her room, looking so normal that she experienced a tremendous surge of gratitude for his normality.

He climbed on to her bed in a freshly washed and mended T-shirt, and the short shorts that he had been wearing at the time of the accident, and told her that he had been having a wonderful time in the charge of one of the under-house maids, and the big bedroom in which he was sleeping was full of toys and books and everything that could possibly delight his heart. Victoria later discovered that it was part of the at present unused nursery quarters of the house, and many of the boxes of soldiers and the toy forts and train sets had been played with by Sir Peter Wycherley when he was young.

Victoria and Johnny breakfasted together on that second morning of their stay at Wycherley Park, and afterward the doctor came and looked at them both again, and Victoria was permitted to get up. She dressed herself in a selection of the garments Miss Islesworth had so generously made over to her, and afterward she consigned Johnny to the care of the under-housemaid once more and made her way downstairs to the library.

Sir Peter had sent up a message to the effect that, if she felt up to it, he would see her in the library; and perhaps because she had suddenly become hypersensitive and, indeed, a trifle clairvoyant, she knew before she reached the library that he had unpleasant tidings to convey to her.

From Mrs. Grainge she had learned nothing about Johnny’s father, or the fate of the other victims of the accident. Dr. Brown had refused to discuss the subject with her, and now it was left to Sir Peter to, put her in possession of some highly disturbing facts.

She was so sure of this that she stopped outside the library door when she reached it, having been directed to it by no less a person than Forster, the butler, himself, and drew a deep breath—a very deep breath—before knocking hesitantly on the panels of the door and waiting for a voice to call out to her to enter.

But Sir Peter didn’t call out to her to enter. He whipped open the door himself, and stood looking at her with a mixture of conflicting expressions on his face as he indicated the chair she had occupied when she first entered the library.

“You are feeling better?” She was wearing a slim little dress in navy and white, and it was deceptively simple and smelled delicately of exclusive French perfume. He made the same observation that the housekeeper had made. “You are certainly looking better.” Victoria answered in a small, awkward voice, by no means certain how she looked the night she demanded sanctuary in his home, but more or less convinced that she must have looked frightful.

“I—I’m feeling very much better, thank you.”

“And rested?”

She smiled somewhat twistedly.

“I should be. I spent the whole of yesterday in bed, and I didn't get up for breakfast this morning. I’m developing lazy habits.”

Having seen her comfortably installed in the chair Sir Peter went round the room touching books and papers in an obviously embarrassed and quite definitely constrained manner. He was not the aggressive country gentleman in his well-cut tweeds, but he did look the part he was called upon to play, and he did look as if it was natural to him to behave as a courteous and considerate host, and her suggestion that she was developing lazy habits appeared to surprise him.

“Why, do you never breakfast in bed?” he asked.

“Only when I’m ill, or threatening to be ill.”