Another Part of the Wood Page 5

  “Do I?” said Noodles, rather wishing that she could return the compliment.

  “Topping,” said the large man. “I say, did you think I’d be along this morning? Eh?”

  “Well, yes,” said Noodles.

  She would have liked, in a way, to explain that although she had even rather hoped that he’d be along this morning, this was only because it was so dull never seeing anybody. But if she were truthful, she was also polite.

  “Well, yes,” she said. “I thought you might sort of roll up.”

  “Jolly good,” said the large man, again. “I saw you from the lane down there. Eh?”

  “Did you?”

  “Rather. But I was looking out for you, you know.”

  “Were you?”

  “Yes. I hoped you’d be here.”

  (“This is a jolly stupid sort of conversation,” said Noodles to herself. “He was much more amusing than this last time. I know—I’ll ask what happened in that race he was talking about.”)

  “I say—Mr. Fitzgibbon—did that horse win yesterday?”

  “Eh?” said Mr. Fitzgibbon. “Which one?”

  “The one with the funny name. You know—the one you said was going to put you straight.”

  “It didn’t,” said Mr. Fitzgibbon. “The brute wasn’t even placed.”

  “Oh, I am sorry! But—but perhaps it wasn’t its fault.”

  “Eh?” said Mr. Fitzgibbon, in an odd sort of way. In the circles in which he usually moved one always called a horse a brute when it failed to put one straight, and he thought Noodles’s look of sympathy was all for himself. “Don’t you worry,” he said. “Luck’s bound to change.”

  “Do you think so? I do hope it will.”

  “Look at the way I’ve met you, I mean.”

  Noodles couldn’t trace the connection here.

  “Me?” she said. “What have I got to do with it?”

  Mr. Fitzgibbon looked at her in an odder way than ever.

  “A fellow gets infernally lonely, all by himself,” he said. “You don’t know what it’s like. If only I’d been brought up differently, I don’t suppose I’d be knocking about like this. But I never could stand office-work.”

  “Nor could I,” said Noodles. “I think it sounds awful.”

  “I’ve got to be in the open,” said Mr. Fitzgibbon. “My young brother’s the lucky one, you know. He’s in the navy. That’s where I ought to have been, only they never gave me the chance. Got a wife and family, too.”

  “Your brother, you mean?”

  “Yes—lucky devil. I say—won’t you play us something?”

  “I’d rather not,” said Noodles. “I’d rather hear some more of your adventures, really. What are you trying to do now?”

  Mr. Fitzgibbon looked a little startled.

  “Oh!” he said. “What am I trying to do now? Well, I told you, I thought. I’m waiting to hear from my lawyer.”

  “About your estates in Ireland, you mean?”

  Mr. Fitzgibbon half-closed his eyes.

  “Yes,” he said. “If I had my rights, Miss Brett, I’d be a rich man. But you don’t know what the Irish are like. They’re hopeless.”

  “They are, aren’t they?”

  “You’ve said it. They’re the scum of the earth.”

  “But aren’t you Irish too?”

  “Here, I say—are you making fun of me?”

  “Oh, no! Of course not, Mr. Fitzgibbon; I was only——”

  “Here, I say—don’t call me ‘Mr. Fitzgibbon’ like that. I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we’re friends, aren’t we?”

  “Yes, of course. But what am I to call you, then?”

  “Anything you like,” said Mr. Fitzgibbon. “Why not——”

  “I know,” interrupted Noodles. “I shall call you ‘Fitz.’ How’s that?”

  Fitz looked a little disappointed.

  “All right,” he said. “A lot of my pals call me that. And what shall I call you?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes.”

  Noodles didn’t see why these questions need have been raised at all, but if he wanted to call her anything then she supposed he’d better call her ‘Noodles.’ She put forward this suggestion.

  “Here, I say,” said Fitz. “Are you pulling my leg?”

  “No, of course not. Everybody calls me that. It’s a name—well, my brother invented it really, when I used to be rather stupid.”

  “Topping,” said Fitz. “Noodles. Jolly good.”

  (“Bother,” said Noodles to herself. “Why can’t he just go on talking like he did yesterday? I hate people laughing at my name who don’t understand. But he’s had awfully bad luck over that horse and his lawyer and everything, and he did come up here specially to see me. I mustn’t be unkind about him.”)

  So she wasn’t unkind about him, or to him, and if she had been—though Mr. Fitzgibbon didn’t know this—she wouldn’t have been Noodles Brett. And he began smoking cigarettes out of a paper packet and telling her more about horses and lawyers and his bad luck. And she listened dreamily and agreed with everything that he said. And once she played him a little tune on the stringed instrument, but she wouldn’t sing in case he laughed at her again like that. And presently she felt sure it must be nearly lunch-time, and she explained how sorry she was that she couldn’t ask him back to the house with her, but Mr. Cottenham didn’t like being disturbed.

  He was awfully nice about that, and said that perhaps he could call there one day, then.

  “Well,” said Noodles, frankly; “I don’t know that you could. You see, Mr. Cottenham never really wants to see anybody. It’s the way he’s made.”

  Mr. Fitzgibbon was suddenly taken very honourable, and said that he didn’t want to do anything behind Mr. Cottenham’s back.

  “Do what?” said Noodles. “What do you mean?”

  Mr. Fitzgibbon laughed, and crumpled up his empty cigarette-packet and threw it into the hedge, and took off his hat and said he must be getting back to the inn. But you never know, he said; he might be coming up this way again.

  “Oh, do,” said Noodles. “I’m always hanging about somewhere.”

  “Jolly good,” said Mr. Fitzgibbon; and went marching away through the thick grass.

  “He’s rather awful, really,” said Noodles to herself “Poor dear. But it must be horrid staying at the Blue Boar because one’s lawyer won’t send one any money. Rather horrid anyhow, in fact, if one’s used to being comfortable. You know, I don’t think Beaky’d like him at all, somehow; but then men are so awfully particular about each other always. And I’m sure he means to be nice.”

  On the evidence before us at this stage, we are inclined to agree with her. And yet we don’t really like Mr. Fitzgibbon, either.

  2

  Noodles was bowling along on the parlourmaid’s bicycle—not going anywhere definite, but just having a little practice, and keeping away from the various places where Mr. Fitzgibbon had found her “hanging about” since that second meeting at the bottom of the orchard—when she heard a low grunt from beyond the next turning in the winding lane.

  “A car,” she said to herself. “Bother! Which side shall I go?”

  The bicycle settled the matter for her by charging the off-side bank. She tried to dismount, found the conditions unfavourable, shut her eyes, rang her bell, and came to rest quite comfortably like a bas-relief against the grassy slope. “I’d better stay like this,” she decided, “till it’s gone by. I hope they won’t think I’ve had an accident.”

  But the car stopped also.

  “Yes, it is,” said a voice. “Hullo, Noodles!”

  Noodles blinked in the bright sunlight.

  “Hullo,” she said. “Who—Oh, it’s Sylvia. Hullo!”

  “It’s Noodles Brett, Mummie,” said the voice. “Wait a second, Carter. I say, what are you doing?”

  “Me?” said Noodles. “Nothing. How do you do, Mrs. Shirley?”
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br />   Mrs. Shirley looked very calm, and rocked slightly on the upholstery of the big car. Noodles gave a sort of hop, and detached herself from the bank.

  “I say,” she said; “I thought you were in London.”

  “We are,” said Sylvia.

  “Oh, how sickening,” said Noodles.

  “We’ve just come down to have a row with the architect,” said Sylvia. “Why don’t you come and have some lunch?”

  “Oh!” said Noodles. “But, I say, have you got any?”

  “Loads,” said Sylvia. “We’re going to have a picnic.”

  A curious word, that. Its mere utterance rouses half the population, irrespective of age or sex, to a wild state of excitement which no amount of disillusioning experience can check. The other half remain completely unmoved and regard the first half as more or less mad. As for Noodles, she gave a loud scream of joy, tripped over the parlourmaid’s bicycle again, and fetched up with her head through the open window of the car.

  “Oh, Mrs. Shirley—would you really mind if I came too? I’m awfully untidy, I’m afraid, but I do adore picnics. Oh, may I really?”

  Mrs. Shirley smiled the lazy smile which so ill reflected her existence of almost perpetual motion, and let her daughter answer for her.

  “Of course!” said Sylvia. “Jump in.”

  “I can’t,” said Noodles. “I’ve got this awful bicycle with me. But I’ll come wobbling after you.”

  “All right,” said Sylvia. “Not too fast, Carter.”

  The car grunted again and set off, and Noodles wobbled after it. Once she wobbled alongside and shouted in at the window.

  “I say—did you know I’ve left school?”

  “Yes,” cried Sylvia. “Don’t come so close, for Heaven’s sake.”

  “What? Oh, all right.”

  So they reached the entrance to Green Hatches, and drove and wobbled up the drive. “This is frightful fun,” said Noodles to herself. “This is far better than going nowhere, or listening to Fitzgibbon. I hope he won’t be annoyed if he doesn’t find me this morning, but really it can’t do him any harm for a change. And, besides, he’s been getting so awfully gloomy lately. I do wish the Shirleys would stay here a bit, and we could have some more tennis.”

  But Green Hatches looked absolutely uninhabitable. Fragments of the roof were off, windows were out, bricks and sand-heaps were scattered round the front door, wheelbarrows and ladders were all over the place. Invisible workmen were hammering and chipping and whistling.

  “Come on up to my room,” said Sylvia. “I want to get some things, and Mummie’ll take hours. She always does. Hullo, Mr. Everett!”

  The architect, one supposed. Guilt was written on his features, and Noodles felt quite sorry for him; only it seemed difficult to imagine Mrs. Shirley being really angry with anyone. He smiled at Sylvia, though, and said it was a fine day.

  “Divine!” said Sylvia. “Come on, Noodles.”

  “Well,” said Mrs. Shirley; “this is a fine mess you’ve made.”

  “Oh, we’re getting on splendidly,” said Mr. Everett, sounding rather like a doctor. “Mind that bucket, Mrs Shirley. Now, I’ll just show you.…”

  Their voices faded away in a fresh outburst of violent chipping and hammering, and Noodles followed Miss Shirley up the stairs. They stepped over a pile of carpet on the first landing, edged past a hanging dust-sheet, and suddenly the house was just as it had been at Christmas.

  “I wouldn’t let them touch my part,” said Sylvia. “And even as it is, we’ll be lucky if we’re in by Whitsun. This way.”

  “I adore this room,” said Noodles.

  “So do I.”

  “I say, do you think you’ll really be here for Whitsun?”

  “Well, I hope so.”

  “So do I. I say, how did you know I’d left school?”

  Miss Shirley pulled off her hat, and flung it at an armchair.

  “Beaky told me,” she said.

  Noodles screamed.

  “Oh, I say! Have you been seeing Beaky? Oh, what fun! Where did it happen?”

  “Oh, here and there,” said Sylvia.

  “He is a beast,” said Noodles. “He never told me. Did you see Snubs?”

  “Who?”

  “Snubs Tipton. Beaky’s friend that he lives with. He’s awfully sort of quiet, but he’s awfully nice. His father’s governor of some funny little island. I never can remember its name. Snubs and Beaky were at Oxford together.”

  “Oh,” said Sylvia. “No, I haven’t met him yet.”

  “Oh,” said Noodles. “Did Beaky say anything about me?”

  “Yes, he said you’d left school.”

  “I know. But he didn’t say anything about any gramophone records, did he?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter. I expect he’s been working awfully hard.”

  “He does work hard, doesn’t he?”

  “They jolly well make him,” said Noodles.

  “Frightful,” said Sylvia.

  “Oh, ghastly. I say, do you think I know you well enough to tell you something disgustingly rude?”

  Miss Shirley looked almost as guilty as Mr. Everett.

  “What?” she stammered.

  “I adore that little frock of yours.”

  “Oh!” said Miss Shirley, beginning to laugh. “Do you really? I thought—I say, what are you doing now you’ve left school?”

  “Nothing,” said Noodles. “Mr. Cottenham doesn’t seem to notice I’ve left. But perhaps he will after the holidays are over. Of course he’s been awfully busy.”

  “What about?”

  “Well, I don’t know, really. But he hates being disturbed, and after all it’s not as if I was his daughter. And of course I’d hate it if he put me into an office like Beaky. I say, Sylvia.…”

  “Yes?”

  “How do you suppose I could find out about somebody’s will?”

  Miss Shirley turned round from where she had been rummaging in a drawer.

  “Will?” said the husky voice. “And testament, do you mean?”

  “Yes; that’s it.”

  “But find out what? Whose will?”

  “Well,” said Noodles, scowling horribly; “Daddy’s, I meant.”

  Miss Brett always scowled horribly whenever she mentioned either of her dead parents, and was rather apt to growl as well. This was to show that she was making no claim on anyone’s sympathy, and was a sort of warning that they had better not look as if they felt sorry for her, and was altogether very alarming to people who couldn’t interpret such curiously misleading signals. Even Miss Mulberry was under the impression that Noodles bore some grudge against the authors of her being, which was very far from the case. But Sylvia just felt uncomfortable, and understood. For Sylvia, also, became huskier than ever when any reference was made to the late Mr. Shirley.

  “Oh,” she said. “I see. But didn’t they tell you about it?”

  “Well, they did,” said Noodles, “but I wasn’t listening. You see, I was only about ten, and it didn’t seem to matter particularly. And—well, I was just wondering.”

  “Couldn’t your guardian tell you?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly ask him. He hates being bothered about anything like that.”

  “Still, he ought to know. Oughtn’t he?”

  “Oh, of course he knows. I mean, that’s why he is my guardian—and Beaky’s—because it was all in Daddy’s will. But someone else said something about it, and it made me wonder if I couldn’t find out. It was a man I’ve been talking to. I wonder if you’ve ever heard of him?”

  “What’s he called?”

  “Fitzgibbon,” said Noodles. “He’s, not bad, really. Do you know him?”

  Sylvia shook her head.

  “But what’s it all got to do with him?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” said Noodles. “I suppose he wondered why I’d got a guardian, and all that.” She scowled again, and dismissed the whole subject. “I’m
not really worrying about it,” she said, “and, besides, I could always ask Beaky. I say—I’m awfully glad you’ve been seeing him. Don’t you adore him?”

  “There’s Mummie,” said Miss Shirley. She ran to the window, and put her head out. “All right, darling! Just coming!”

  It was an indoor picnic, after all, and they didn’t even sit on the floor as Noodles had half-hoped. But no hard-boiled eggs or slices of stale cake or tepid water out of a bottle that smelt of vinegar, or any of the conventional makeshifts and drawbacks. No wasps, either, and hardly any flies to speak of. “This is marvellous,” said Noodles to herself. “I must say, they do understand about food. It seems an awful pity that I can’t ever ask them back again, but they ought to know that by now.”

  She still felt a little shy of Mrs. Shirley, whose London clothes were rather overpowering—though again quite marvellous; but Mr. Everett, with whom a reconciliation seemed to have been effected, was awfully good at talking, and after lunch did a terribly good trick with two tumblers, and was very witty about a lot of people that Noodles had never heard of. And though they also talked about plays that she hadn’t seen, and books that she hadn’t read, they never did it in a way that made her feel out of it. And Mr. Everett said he’d never have guessed that she’d only just left school, but that he was jolly glad that she had, which was awfully nice of him. In fact, he’d really have been almost perfect if he hadn’t had little side-whiskers that looked as though they were a mistake.

  “Now for the garden,” said Mrs. Shirley, when it was all over. And Sylvia made the sort of face with her mouth at Noodles which Beaky had found so fascinating. “We can do better than that,” it implied this time, and Mrs. Shirley went off with Mr. Everett and poked at things with her parasol, but the younger generation went off to Sylvia’s sitting-room and discovered a tin of peppermints, and talked each other’s heads off.

  “This,” said Noodles to herself, “is much more what I mean by being grown-up. This is the nicest day that I’ve had since Christmas. This is just absolutely what I like.”

  But there was a fanfare on the horn of the big car, and Sylvia had to run off and put her head out of the window again.

  “All right, darling! Just coming!”

  “Bother,” said Noodles to herself. “Now it’s the end.”