Nightingale Wood Read Online Free PDF

cosily! in the large arm-chair. When Viola sat down, Mr Wither planned to pat the cushion and ask her if she were quite comfortable. And then the little talk would begin.
    Mr Wither had been looking forward to it for days. He was so busy planning just what he would say and wondering exactly how much money Viola had that he looked up with a start when asked if he would take cheese, realizing that lunch was over.
    He shook his head, waving the cheese away. Now was the moment.
    He leaned over the table to Viola (who was, he observed, wastefully putting a whole ball of butter on only a quarter of dry biscuit), fastened his mournful bloodhound’s eyes upon her, and breathed in a low mysterious tone,
    ‘You and I must have a little talk.’
    Viola was very frightened. When people came at you like that and spoke of a little talk, it always meant something awful about which you had to make up your mind, and which would prevent you from enjoying anything for days because you would be thinking about it. Teddy had been the one for little talks; Viola usually had one from him every ten days, so she knew all about them.
    She gave her father-in-law one wide, startled look from her usually half-shut eyes, then gazed down at her plate, muttering, ‘Yes, Mr Wither.’
    ‘Soon,’ persisted Mr Wither, leaning further over the table. ‘No time like the present, eh? and get everything settled.’
    She nodded.
    ‘ Now ,’ said Mr Wither triumphantly, rising to his feet and beginning to move towards the door. ‘In my study.’
    But even as he moved, the corner of his eye was caught by an improper gleam of white in the garden, and he turned to look out of the window.
    Daisies, eleven of them, in the middle of the lawn, looking untidy. Saxon had been instructed that morning to get them up, but he had not. He ought to have; he must be spoken to again: and Mr Wither, turning round from the window, found that Viola was not there.
    Neither was Tina. Neither (oh, base!) was Mrs Wither. Only Madge sprawled at the table, buttering an unnecessarily big wedge of bread.
    ‘Where is Viola?’ cried Mr Wither.
    ‘Gone to get a handkerchief.’
    ‘But we were going … she did not say …’
    ‘Yes she did, only you were looking out of the window and didn’t hear.’
    ‘And your mother … Christina?’
    ‘Mum’s gone to see Saxon about the daisies, she said. Tina wants to wash her hair or something.’
    Mr Wither walked in silence from the room. At the door he paused, saying,
    ‘When Viola returns, say that I am waiting for her in my study.’
    But Viola, locked in one of The Eagles’ three lavatories with a copy of Home Chat , did not return until, from its window, she saw Mr Wither set out for a walk, with bowed head, smacking at things with a walking-stick. He wore a little check cap, shrunk in the annual rains, that matched his trousers, and a mackintosh, and he went off towards the wood, where he could be peaceful and think about money undisturbed.
    Then Viola went up to her bedroom and spent the afternoon unpacking, with Tina’s help.
    Tina was awfully kind; she admired all Viola’s clothes (though in fact her own were better, because she had a certain choiceness of taste which her sister-in-law lacked) and helped her to re-set her curls. Nevertheless, by teatime Viola felt miserable, because the house was so quiet and everybody in it was so old.
    All the afternoon, shadows of the beautiful white clouds floated quickly over rooms filled with well-kept, ugly furniture; at night the rising moon would draw her stealthy, dreary rays slowly across mahogany claw-foot tables and enormous sideboards. It must be awful here at night, thought Viola. So quiet.
    Nothing in the house seemed to have changed, or grown, for fifty years. Mr Wither, despite his dislike of spending money, believed in buying The Best when he did spend it, because The Best was the cheapest in The End; but unfortunately The Best lasted such a long time that The End never