Nightingale Wood Read Free

presence might prevent Father from Worrying so much and so often, and Madge from arguing with him so rudely. Viola was not an exciting person, but anyone’s company, even that of a sister-in-law, was better than that of unadulterated Relations.
    After reading a book on feminine psychology called Selene’s Daughters borrowed from a school friend, Tina had decided to face the facts about her own nature, however disgusting, nay, appalling, those facts might be (the book warned its readers that the truth about themselves might disgust, nay, appal them); and one of the facts she had faced was that she did not love her family.
    She had not even loved her only brother, Teddy; and that was rather appalling, because, for three months, Teddy had been dead.
    Viola was his widow, a bride of a year, who was coming to make her home with her husband’s family at The Eagles. Whenever Tina realized that she had not loved Teddy, it made her feel worse to remember that Viola, a very young girl with plenty of young men to choose from, had chosen Teddy and loved him enough to marry him. I suppose I’m unnatural, thought Tina. Of course, we never saw much of Teddy after he was grown up. He never shared his life with us, as some men do with their sisters and parents. All the same, I must be abnormal, not to have loved my only brother.
    ‘Want me to drive you up to the station, Mum?’ offered Madge, standing at the door.
    ‘You won’t be back in time, will you, dear?’
    ‘That doesn’t matter; I’ll come back, if you’d like me to run you up.’
    Madge loved to drive the car, but as Mr Wither said that she did not know how to, she seldom got the chance.
    ‘Well, thank you, dear, but I’ve told Saxon now. He’ll bring it round about ten past twelve.’
    ‘Oh all right, if you prefer Saxon’s driving to mine.’
    ‘It isn’t that, dear. And I think Saxon really drives quite nicely now.’
    ‘So I should hope, after two cautions, a new mudguard and a fine.’
    She went out whistling, and Mrs Wither stooped for the paper, but Mr Wither, as though absently, stretched out his hand for it, and she let him have it.
    ‘Are you going to practise, Tina?’ she asked, putting her hand on her daughter’s thin shoulder on the way to the door.
    ‘I suppose so.’
    ‘Ought to go out,’ pronounced Mr Wither, coming to the surface of his gloom like a seal for air. ‘Mooning indoors won’t do you any good,’ and he submerged again.
    Mrs Wither went out.
    Tina crossed to the window and stood for a little while, looking up at the brilliantly white clouds behind the black-green branches of the monkey-puzzle. The world looked so young this morning that it made her very skin feel withered; she was conscious of every creamed and massaged wrinkle in her face, and of her hardening bones; and all she longed for, and the only thing she cared to think about on this young, light-flooded earth, was Love.
    Mr Wither went out of the room, crossed the cold blue and black tiles of the hall, and shut himself into his own snuffy den, a little room furnished with a worn carpet, a large ugly desk, financial books of reference, and a huge fireplace which gave out a hellish heat when lit, which was not often.
    This morning, however, it was lit. Mr Wither had not made up his mind in a hurry about ordering it to be lit; he had thought the matter well over, and decided that the fire would not be wasted, though an alarmingly large quantity of coal must be burned if the hellish one were not to go out about half-past two in the afternoon.
    Mr Wither intended to invite Viola into his den after lunch and have a little talk with her, and he thought that she might be easier to talk to if she were warmed. Women were continually grumbling about being cold.
    It disturbed Mr Wither to think of a silly young girl like Viola having control of her own money. True, she could not have very much; when the money that her father had left her was added to the money that Teddy had left