Victoria and the Nightingale (9 page)

“That’s the way I look at it,’” with another of his brief, one-sided smiles. For the first time faintly contemptuous, or so she thought.

The hamper contained a cold chicken and a flask of coffee, rolls, fruits and biscuits, and Johnny for one was not slow in demolishing his share of it. Despite the enormous breakfast he had consumed he seemed to have little difficulty in accounting for the better part of a wing of chicken following a generous slice of melon, and as Bill had thoughtfully included some bottles of pop for him he was very soon lying on his small back on the turf and vowing that he wouldn’t be able to move for hours and hours.

Sir Peter glanced at his watch from time to time, and seemed to be dwelling upon their next move even while he stared at the river. The sheer brightness of it had a soporific effect on Victoria, and although she ate far less than Johnny she would have welcomed a long, lazy period devoted to doing nothing at all—not even consciously thinking very much while the brilliance of the river exerted its influence—after the crumbs were gathered up and the cap screwed on the coffee flask. But Sir Peter, who had been the one to lead them to this halcyon spot, and had not hesitated to proclaim it ideal for whiling away the better portion of a hot summer day, seemed to become galvanized into action when he realized they were both about to close their eyes and drift into slumber.

“We must go,” he said, leaping to his feet. “Delightful though this is, we haven’t the time to waste sitting here. We have something else to do.”

“What?” Victoria inquired, looking up at him through half-closed eyes.

He looked down at her with a quizzical expression on his face.

“Do you always have to be told everything in advance?” he asked.

A spirit of perverseness and a desire to be provocative entered into her.

“You didn’t tell me where we were going before you brought us here,” she reminded him.

“No. But then I wasn’t entirely certain I was going to bring you here.”

“Why did you bring us here?”

“Because it’s a favorite spot of mine. Because I used to come here a lot when I was—well, not much older than Johnny’s age.” He looked up and down the river with a reminiscent expression in his face. “I used to enjoy myself in those days.” He lit a cigarette thoughtfully. “I’ve also known unhappiness on this spot, and uncertainty.”

“Uncertainty?”

“Yes.” He met the limpid blueness of her eyes. “Paralyzing uncertainty.”

“But apparently you recovered from it? You discovered the way out?”

“I’m not at all certain it was the right way out. However—” he cast away the cigarette—“I choose now to believe that it was. Or I’m trying very hard to believe that it was. Shall we go?”

“If you think we ought to.”

She allowed him to help her to her feet, and as he surveyed her thoughtfully she dusted down the front of her dress with her hands.

“Where are we going? Home?”

“But you haven’t a home,” he reminded her. “Only this morning you planned to start looking for one. Remember?”

She nodded mutely. Despite his apparent kindness he could be a little cruel sometimes ... for surely it was cruel to remind her that she was temporarily without a home? Not even the most humble kind of roof over her head!

It very soon appeared to her that they were returning by the way they had come. There were the same leafy lanes closing round them, the same offshoots from those lanes, deep and silent woods. The car proceeded so cautiously after a time that Victoria began to fear they were lost— and she had more than once feared this on the outward journey.

But very soon it became apparent that they were not lost. Sir Peter had been searching for something, and after about an hour’s driving he found it—or rather, its extremely ancient roof peered at him about the top of an extremely high hedge.

Victoria looked up at the mellow red tiles and the twisted chimney pots, and she was just about to exclaim that it looked like an abode of witches—or fairies—when the car stopped. It stopped right outside a small, white-painted garden gate, and at the end of a long garden path the cottage stood waiting.

“We get out here,” Sir Peter said.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Johnny was enchanted. The heat of the afternoon and the after-effects of the generous lunch he had consumed had induced a strong feeling of drowsiness in his case, and he had been dozing intermittently for the past forty minutes, but the sight of the cottage aroused him from his slumberous condition with a kind of jerk.

He sat bolt upright in his seat beside the driver and rubbed his eyes to make certain he wasn’t seeing things.

“It looks like Hansel and Gretel’s cottage,” he observed. “Only it happens to be mine.” Sir Peter smiled at him. “Like to see over it?”

Johnny was charmed by the notion. All at once he was fully and broadly awake.

Victoria slid out of the car before Sir Peter could open the rear door for her. She was leaning on the cottage gate when he came up behind her.

“Is it really yours?” She looked up at him curiously. “The garden seems very neglected, but the cottage is adorable. I love that uneven roof. Is it very old?”

“Very old. It was almost certainly standing here when an ancestor of mine who returned from Agincourt was laying the foundations of the original Wycherley Park.”

“Then the present Wycherley Park is not the original?”

“No. Parts of it have been preserved in the present structure, but only parts.”

“This cottage—” she waved a hand to indicate it— “appears to be unoccupied, although there are curtains at the windows.”

“That’s right. I leased it to a man and his wife who own a rubber plantation in Malaya for their home leave, but that was six months ago, and it has remained untenanted since. Like to look over it?”

“Why?” She was unable to tell quite why, but she felt extremely suspicious. Although the cottage was enchanting, and she would love to see over it, she simply couldn’t understand why he should waste time on the homeward journey to even suggest they might like to look over his cottage. From her point of view time was valuable, and if she and Johnny had to catch a train after all ... after so much wasted time....

But Johnny was impatient. He hopped about on one foot and demanded that they see over the cottage as quickly as possible if Sir Peter had the key. Sir Peter produced the key from his pocket.

“You can turn it in the lock yourself, Johnny, if you like,” he said, as he opened the gate and led the way up the garden path. “I promise you there’s nothing inside to alarm you, not even a few bats, for I had it cleaned and tidied up only a week or so ago.”

For what purpose? Victoria wondered.

She received enlightenment very soon.

They prowled all over the cottage, which was genuine Tudor and as delightful a small and cosy cottage as Victoria knew she was ever likely to have the privilege of inspecting. The furnishings were very simple, but entirely adequate, and what pleased her feminine eye almost more than anything else was the condition of the doll’s-house-like kitchen, which appeared to be equipped with everything that was essential in the way of modern amenities.

The people from Malaya must have had a very pleasant time during their occupation of the cottage and they had dealt with it lovingly while they were there. There were only two bedrooms—one very small indeed, and the other not very much larger— and in the larger of the two they had left a relic of their more permanent home, a gaily-dressed Malaysian doll. It was sitting on the dressing table, and Johnny pounced on it.

Sir Peter told him he could have it if he wanted it, and while he and Victoria inspected an entirely adequate airing-cupboard, an apple storage area and a bathroom,

Johnny wandered out into the garden with his new possession. Sir Peter led the way back to the sitting room, that was bright with chintz and one or two nicely polished articles of furniture, and asked Victoria what she thought of the place.

She answered him truthfully:

“I love it. But it doesn’t really matter what I think of it, does it?”

He looked down at her a little quizzically. She was conscious of sounding ungracious, and she looked defensive.

“It does matter, because I’m about to offer it to you as a place in which to reside ... oh, only temporarily, of course.” He saw her mouth fall open, and he understood her astonishment. “Naturally, since it’s somewhat isolated, I'm not asking you to live here permanently, but your situation at the moment is that you require somewhere to live. You don’t appear to relish the idea of continuing to live at Wycherley Park, and I need someone to take charge of Johnny. I don’t mind telling you,” regarding her with rather more of a frown, “that I don’t at all approve of your intention to take Johnny to London. For one thing he is no connection of yours, and for another I intend to adopt him. So you see, you were behaving reprehensibly when you attempted to carry him off!”

“You intend to ... adopt him?” She could hardly believe the evidence of her ears.

He nodded.

“You seem surprised. But someone has to look after him, and with all the will in the world I don’t think you have the means to do so. I have the means, the will ... and the blessing of the welfare center in London where Johnny was once cared for. Naturally, it will take time before adoption papers can be made out, and Johnny is my official responsibility; but already the wheels have been set in motion to achieve that end, and my immediate problem is to find someone who will devote themselves to Johnny and insure his physical well-being until such time as I can make arrangements for him to be sent away to school. I understand that he will be nine next birthday, and it’s high time he was sent to a good character-molding school. “

“Eton, perhaps?” She said it very dryly because she knew he couldn’t possibly mean any such establishment.

“There are other schools beside Eton, although it’s true I went there myself. And it would be necessary for his name to have been put down at birth, so we’ll have to rule that one out.”

Victoria groped for a chair and sat down on it rather suddenly.

“You really mean you would—if you could—send him to Eton?” she demanded.

He shrugged.

“If I could. But I can’t, so there’s not much point in discussing what I can’t do, is there?”

“And Miss Islesworth?” Just as all roads at one time led to Rome so any discussion with Sir Peter about Johnny inevitably led to Georgina Islesworth. “Does she know about this?” Victoria inquired a trifle huskily.

Sir Peter looked vaguely irritated.

“Miss Islesworth and I plan to be married sometime next year,” he explained, “and since you insist upon knowing, I have gone into the problems of Johnny with her. She knows I intend—and I repeat intend!—to adopt him, and make myself responsible for the whole of his future. I’m afraid I’m unable to tell you that she entirely approves, but that is my resolution, and she respects it.” As Victoria stared at him: “It may seem strange to you, but there is a good deal of give and take about marriage, and Miss Islesworth has yielded ground on this particular issue. I have her word that she will not interfere.”

Victoria simply couldn’t believe it.

“And when your own children arrive ...?” She posed the question a little haltingly, and with diffidence. “What difference will that make?”

“None at all to Johnny.”

“You mean he’ll be accepted? Looked upon as a member of your own family?”

“Of course,” a certain amount of cold hauteur in his tone. “I thought I had made myself absolutely clear on that point already.”

Victoria sat gripping the arms of her chair—rather a hard wooden one that was nevertheless a period piece. Outside in the garden, among the tangle of weeds and old-fashioned roses, lilies and Virginia stock run riot, Johnny chased a butterfly and disappeared round an angle of the house. They could hear his shrill voice calling excitedly, and it was already abundantly clear that he had taken to the cottage as a duck takes to water. Wycherley Park or a small Tudor cottage enclosed by silent woods and lush

pastures ... to Johnny they were apparently one and the same, since both belonged to Sir Peter Wycherley. And in his small mind it was apparently perfectly natural that the cottage should belong to Sir Peter, and as a result he already felt at home.

Johnny had achieved security.

And, unknown to Johnny, he had achieved a very great deal of security.

But Victoria could still not believe it.

“It’s bound to lead to trouble,” she predicted. “A child like Johnny, and someone like Miss Islesworth!”

“You mean that you would prefer it if I allowed you to keep Johnny? If permission was granted to you to toil and slave for him?” But despite the picture he painted of her working hard in Johnny’s interests there was only a kind of cool, contemptuous disapproval in his voice. “Why, my dear Miss Wood,” Sir Peter pointed out, ‘you are not even married!”

“And what difference does that make?” defensively.

He shrugged again.

“No difference, since you are not nearly old enough to be Johnny’s mother. However, some people might decide you merely look young.”

She flushed.