A Nightingale Sang Read online

  The conversation he had had with the girl he had never seen, but whom he had kissed as a nightingale sang in the trees had changed his life.

  He had gone to the ball that night feeling near to despair having spent over two months vainly trying to find employment of some sort.

  But any sort of job at which he would have been proficient had either already been filled or, owing to the war, no longer existed.

  Tybalt had never got on with his uncle, the Duke, who had done very little for his younger brother except provide him and his family with a small house on the Stadhampton estate.

  Even when he was very young Tybalt had realised that his father and mother had to scrape and pinch and were always trying to make ends meet, while his uncle as Head of the Family lived in considerable affluence.

  It was typical that his father never complained.

  In fact, he took it as his brother’s right that he should have inherited everything while the younger members of the family were in comparison, to all intents and purposes, poverty-stricken.

  The Duke’s sister had fortunately married a man who was comparatively affluent, but his brother, Tybalt’s father had married for love.

  Unfortunately happiness did not pay the butcher’s bills.

  When Tybalt had left the Army, he had been determined not to go cap-in-hand to his uncle, knowing if he did so, he would in all likelihood, be refused any help, while if it was forthcoming he would have to be abjectly grateful to the point where it was humiliating.

  Pride, however, did not make it easier for him to find a job and he had gone to the ball in Berkeley Square knowing at least that he would not have to pay for his dinner and with any luck he would not be very hungry the next day.

  He had also hoped almost against hope, there might be somebody there whom he had known in the past and who might prove useful with some suggestion as to where he could look next.

  This had proved over-optimistic, for the ball was filled with young people and, although he knew some of the women who were only too willing to dance with him, they had no wish – and who would blame them – to listen to a hard luck story.

  One idea, however, had presented itself to him when he was having a drink with a man he had been at school with.

  “What are you going to do with yourself, Tybalt?” he asked.

  Tybalt shrugged his shoulders and replied,

  “I might ask you the same question.”

  “Well, I am thinking of emigrating,” his friend replied, “not to Australia, but to America.”

  “To America?”

  “Why not? They hold the money bags and there are all sorts of new developments in that country that they can afford to put into operation.”

  “I had not thought of that,” Tybalt had said quietly.

  “Our industries have been almost at a standstill except for producing munitions,” his friend continued, “but the Americans have been going ahead with new inventions, new industrial machinery and, of course, new experiments. Something like that should be up your street as you were in the Royal Engineers.”

  Tybalt had been about to ask further questions when his friend said,

  “I must go. I am dancing this one with a jolly pretty girl and I am not going to introduce you, so don’t ask me!”

  “Actually I never thought of it,” Tybalt replied, but his friend had already gone.

  He put down his half-empty glass of champagne and walked from the house across the road into the garden in the centre of the square.

  It suddenly struck him that this was the sort of idea he had been waiting for and it was as if he had suddenly seen a signpost pointing in a different direction from the way he had been exploring, giving him a definite lead that he had not had before.

  And yet insistently a great many questions came to his mind as to whether it would not be a foolhardy thing to do.

  It would take all the money he possessed to pay his fare to America and to live until he found some way of earning more.

  There was always the chance that it would prove a useless journey and he would find that the Americans had plenty of unemployed of their own, especially with their returning Servicemen, without accommodating their allies.

  Perhaps he would do better to stay at home and go on looking and hoping that one of his friends would give him a helping hand or that his own ability would find him the sort of work he was familiar with.

  It was then he had reached the little Temple in the garden and leaned against one of the pillars.

  He remembered now how talking to Aleta and hearing her soft rather frightened little voice had, in some strange way, made up his mind for him.

  Why, the Duke did not really know. It was not exactly what she had said, but what he had felt while he was talking to her.

  Then, when he kissed her goodnight, there had been an enchantment he could never forget.

  Somehow it was different from any of the kisses he had given or received in the past.

  There had been something very special and unusual about it, something that was sheer beauty, a moment of poetry or music that had made him feel that the kiss had aroused a spiritual side of himself that he did not know even existed.

  When he had walked away into the night, thinking unbelievably that a nightingale was singing in the trees, he had known that, whatever happened in the future, there was still a loveliness in the world that no war and no frightening insecurity could ever spoil.

  The Duke had often thought of Aleta when he was in America and had told himself it was because her voice had been such a contrast to the American voices that often grated on him or had sometimes a metallic sound that made him think of money.

  He had often wondered if he had made a mistake in not having asked her name and thus made it possible for him to see her again.

  Then he told himself that if he had done so, he would certainly have been disillusioned.

  She had been part of the darkness and a magic had transformed everything around them into a fantasy so that she existed out of time.

  It would be perhaps, he thought, the one illusion he had left that nothing could ever spoil.

  America, perhaps thanks to Aleta, had proved amazingly lucky for him.

  Only a week after arriving in New York he had met Mr. Wardolf in the house of a millionaire whose son he had known in France.

  It had not been a very close acquaintance, but walking down Fifth Avenue he had remembered that a Marine who had been entertained one evening in his Regimental Mess, when they were at the base, had told him when they said goodnight that they must get together after the war.

  On an impulse Tybalt had walked up the steps of the huge ugly brownstone mansion and asked if his acquaintance was by any chance at home.

  He was and he was delighted to see a wartime comrade and Tybalt was invited to dinner that very evening.

  It was a large formal party and, when the ladies had left the dining room, Tybalt found himself sitting next to a good-looking American whose name was Wardolf.

  He questioned Tybalt about the war, learned that he had been in the Royal Engineers and immediately they found a common interest.

  Two days later Tybalt was taken on the payroll of one of the Wardolf enterprises.

  It was impossible to believe his good fortune.

  At the same time he found that his previous training and the knowledge he had acquired over the four years of war could be valuable to his employer.

  Within a year and with a speed that could only have happened in America, Tybalt had risen higher and higher in the particular branch of the Wardolf Empire where he was employed.

  He found himself too continually invited to the Wardolf mansion, which was even more impressive than the house they had first met in.

  He had been well aware during that year that any interest he might have shown in Lucy-May, or she in him, would have been not only frowned upon but would doubtless have ensured that he would find himself outside the imposing front door with its bras
s knocker quicker than he had come in through it.

  Then his uncle had died and his relationship with Mr. Wardolf had changed in the passing of a second.

  The Duke was not even certain exactly how he had found himself in the position of being a prospective son-in-law to the American multi-millionaire.

  He was well aware that, despite his genial appearance, Mr. Wardolf was a determined self-propelling force, which it was difficult to circumvent.

  He had seen his methods put into operation in industry and had admired him both for his tenacity and his almost insatiable ambition.

  But he found it difficult to relate such a powerful impetus to himself and very much disliked the feeling that he was being manipulated.

  However, Mr. Wardolf had swept everything before him with the irresistibility of a hurricane, for he had long before determined that his daughter should marry a British Duke.

  When one now appeared on his doorstep, it had seemed to him like a gift from the Gods and it had never struck him that he might encounter any opposition either from his daughter or from his chosen son-in-law.

  ‘It’s fortunate that I have to return home,’ the Duke had told himself as he journeyed back to England.

  ‘I have no wish to be married,’ he thought, when Mr. Wardolf, who was in constant communication with him, informed him by cable that he and Lucy-May were coming to England.

  Yet, when he went into his uncle’s financial affairs, his opposition to Mr. Wardolf’s scheme became less forceful.

  He had had no idea how much difference two years of war could make to the Stadhampton estates.

  His uncle had been taken ill at the beginning of 1915 and because no one assumed any authority, the expenditure on the upkeep of the great houses and the estate had continued as it had done over the previous century, but unfortunately there was no longer a huge income coming in to balance the vast extravagance.

  It was obvious to the new Duke that a great many possessions would have to be sold and this presented fresh problems in that most of the pictures and the furniture were entailed.

  There were Trustees to see that each successive Duke did not dispose of his inheritance to the detriment of those who followed after them.

  Some of the pictures would obviously have to go to pay the Death Duties, and the Duke had endured long meetings and arguments, suggestions and counter-suggestions, before feeling exhausted and more than a little dispirited by the whole problem.

  Then he had accepted Mr. Wardolf’s invitation to stay at Kings Wayte.

  He had seen Lucy-May in London and he was well aware what was expected of him.

  Some obstinacy or pride prevented him from actually saying the words to her that he knew both she and her father were waiting to hear.

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ he told himself.

  He said it rather unconvincingly, aware that in fact, the sands were running out and that if he did not marry Lucy-May then a great deal of his property would have to be sold, several houses closed down and far from him enjoying himself in any expansive fashion as the fifth Duke of Stadhampton, he would have to count every penny just as his father and mother had done.

  ‘I have no wish to be beholden to my wife,’ he had protested to himself, ‘but what alternative do I have?’

  Now Mr. Wardolf had assuaged his pride by his offer to appoint him his Agent in Europe and the Duke knew well what this entailed.

  It would be possible quite legally and openly to make an enormous income – an income which without his having to call on any of Lucy-May’s money, would enable him to run his own houses and estates as he wished to.

  It was a generous offer, exceptionally generous, and he could not understand why he did not feel more elated about it.

  And yet, insistently, almost like a tune that kept on sounding in his mind, he found himself thinking of Aleta, of her hand soothing him to sleep, her voice coming to him in the darkness as he had heard it first that night in Berkeley Square.

  As he walked away from the stables, the Duke was certain in his own mind, that Aleta was somewhere at Kings Wayte.

  But if so, why was she hiding? Why had she come to him that one night when he was injured and why had he not been aware of her presence since?

  He was quite sure that she was not amongst the guests.

  There was not a girl amongst them who had a voice in the least like hers and if she was not a guest – and it was ridiculous to think she might be a servant – why had he not encountered her?

  He walked back into the house hearing the gramophone churning out the same music,

  “Times are hard and getting harder,

  Still we have fun – ”

  ‘That’s true enough,’ the Duke thought as he walked slowly up the stairs towards his own bedroom.

  He reached the top of the staircase, which was of exquisitely carved oak and which he had admired more and more every time he looked at it, thinking in fact, it was one of the most beautiful staircases he had ever seen.

  ‘If I am not careful,’ he thought, ‘it’s the sort of thing that Mr. Wardolf will wish me to export for him to America, and I am damned if I would deprive a house like this just to please some over-rich plebeian who will not appreciate it.’

  Then he told himself severely that was not the way he should be thinking about his new employer.

  At the top of the staircase he was just about to turn right towards the State rooms where he slept, when glancing to his left he saw that there were several rooms and then a green baize door in the middle of the passage.

  The Duke knew that this meant that the less important rooms and the servants’ quarters were shut off from the grander part of the house.

  On an impulse, led only by an instinct and a curiosity that he knew would never be assuaged until he learned what he wanted to know, he walked towards the green baize door, opened it and passed through it.

  He found, as he had expected, the passage beyond it was narrower and badly needed redecorating. There was also a flight of stairs going up to the next floor.

  He was looking around him when he saw a maid coming down the stairs.

  She was a country girl with rosy cheeks, her cap somewhat askew on her tightly pulled back hair and the Duke, looking at her, thought that she was very young and this must undoubtedly be her first position.

  She had almost reached the bottom of the stairs before she saw him and looked at him nervously, ready to hurry past.

  The Duke took a step towards her.

  “Will you tell me,” he asked, “where I will find Miss Aleta?”

  It was a fly cast at a venture, almost as if something outside himself prompted him to ask the question.

  “She be upstairs, sir,” the maid answered, “in the nursery at the top of the next staircase after this.”

  Then she was scurrying down the passage and the Duke with a little smile on his lips began to climb the staircase.

  *

  Aleta, having spent the morning helping Mrs. Abbott with the linen, had gone back to the nursery feeling frustrated since it was a lovely afternoon and she longed to go into the garden.

  Harry had told her so insistently over and over again that she was not to be seen and she found it nerve-racking never to leave the house except after dusk.

  Yet it was agonising to know that he could ride every morning on the horses he had bought and the unseen virtues he extolled over and over again when they were together, while she could only watch him from the window.

  She felt envious that he could go round the estate and talk to the farmers and their wives whom she had known all her life, while it was dangerous for her to leave the house.

  “It’ll be better when the Wardolfs are settled in,” Harry said consolingly. “I doubt if they will stay here in the winter and then you will be able to ride all you want.”

  It was something to look forward to. At the same time Aleta longed to be out in the sunshine, to walk through the woods and to see the improvements the numer
ous gardeners they now employed were making to the grounds.

  She only felt safe when the guests had gone to their bedrooms to dress for dinner. Then she would slip down the backstairs and out through a garden door.

  By skirting the lawns and keeping to the shadow of the yew hedges she would find her way to the cascade that ran through the shrubbery behind the house to make a water garden, which had once been very beautiful until during the war it had become overgrown and neglected.

  The gardeners were now clearing away the weeds and creepers and Aleta knew that it would soon be as lovely as it had been in the past with little waterfalls splashing onto moss-covered rocks and trailing away in a sparkling stream through banks of alpine flowers.

  Finally the water reached a huge stone basin where she had watched the goldfish swimming amongst the water lilies when she was a little girl.

  ‘It will soon be as it used to be,’ she told herself every evening as she saw the new improvements.

  But she longed to see the garden in the sunlight, although she knew that Harry would be angry with her if she risked being seen by Mr. Wardolf or his guests.

  “Why did I not become a milkmaid?” she had asked him at breakfast. “Then I could have worked on the farm during the day and no one would have noticed me.”

  Harry had laughed.

  “You don’t look in the least like a milkmaid,” he replied, “except, of course, one in a storybook.”

  Aleta had been glad that she had made him laugh.

  For the last few days Harry had seemed depressed and rather disagreeable and she wondered what was upsetting him.

  She had not asked questions as Harry disliked her doing that.

  She had tried to encourage him to tell her what was happening on the estate, but she had known when he replied to her absent-mindedly without much enthusiasm that something was perturbing him and she wondered over and over again what it could be.

  She had the feeling that he was not happy and that it was nothing to do with the house or the stables.

  He had been worried about how much there had been to do before Mr. Wardolf appeared, but that was different from what he was feeling now and he had been so excited when he had been told to put in the new bathrooms.