To Hear a Nightingale Page 14

  Finally Leonora yawned politely behind her hand, and eyeing Cassie, told her grandfather it was past their bedtime. She kissed the old man once again on his head and nodded to Cassie. Cassie wished him a polite goodnight, and once again he totally ignored her.

  When they got upstairs to their bedroom, Leonora threw herself face down on the bed and started to laugh hysterically. Cassie, furious and ashamed with herself for being so easily duped, rushed into the bathroom, and slammed the door behind her. She grabbed a towel and removed the offending make-up, then ripped off the shaming dress. Then she washed and scrubbed her face clean, all the time conscious of Leonora’s helpless laughter.

  She came back out in her dressing gown, and collected her nightdress. Then she went to the door.

  ‘Where are you going, Cassie?’ asked Leonora in what seemed like genuine surprise. ‘Hey, you’re not cross, are you?’

  ‘I’m going to sleep in another room,’ Cassie replied. ‘And yes, I am cross. OK?’

  ‘You didn’t have to make a fool of me,’ returned Cassie, ‘just because you don’t like your grandfather.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to make a fool of you, Cassie!’ Leonora protested. ‘Honest! I guess I just wanted a bit of a laugh.’

  She suddenly dropped her voice so convincingly that Cassie was almost taken in by the change to a note of what seemed genuine regret. Then she saw that familiar dark light in Leonora’s eyes, and broke away from her to open the door.

  ‘I’ll sleep next door all the same, if you don’t mind,’ she told Leonora. ‘Maybe I’ll feel different about it in the morning.’

  Leonora followed her out onto the landing.

  ‘OK,’ she said, quite unmaliciously. ‘Maybe you will.’

  Leonora wished Cassie goodnight and disappeared into her bedroom. Cassie went into the bedroom next door and for a moment leaned her back thoughtfully against the closed door, before getting into bed and settling down to sleep.

  Cassie would have gone home at once if it hadn’t been for Dex. She had long decided never to endure any further humiliations unnecessarily, but she knew if she got back on the train of her own volition, there was more than a strong possibility that between them, Leonora and her grandmother would see to it that Cassie never saw Dex again. But also, as it happened, Leonora seemed genuinely to regret her foolish prank, and tried to make up to Cassie in all sorts of ways. She stopped sulking whenever she didn’t get her own way, encouraged Cassie in her relationship with Dex, and even gave what seemed to Cassie like some very sensible advice to her about boys and how to deal with them. Most surprising of all, Leonora even stopped being quite so high handed and arrogant with the servants.

  They were also back sleeping in the same room together. Not that Leonora had pleaded with Cassie to come back, but more because she hadn’t. Cassie couldn’t help being aware all the time of how lonely Leonora really was, all alone except for Cassie’s company in that vast house. Cassie never again saw Leonora’s grandfather after the debacle of that evening, but then neither apparently did his favourite granddaughter. So Cassie moved back in with Leonora, and very soon they were lying awake into the small hours of the morning, discussing the sorts of things which girls like to discuss.

  Cassie still loved horses, though, despite the growing strength of her feelings for Dex. She knew that maybe one day she might stop being in love with Dex, if that’s what she indeed was, although she couldn’t quite foresee such a time, but that she could never ever stop being in love with horses.

  Which was probably what made Dex love Cassie quite so desperately. He hadn’t ever before talked to a girl quite as pretty and as classy as Cassie, let alone one who could ride so brilliantly and who knew quite so much about horses. He could hardly wait until four o’clock each afternoon, for the pretty little dark-haired girl to walk into the yard, swinging her whip while quietly searching the row of boxes with her eyes to see which horse he was still ‘doing’. Just as Cassie could really only think of him, so Dex could think of nothing beyond Cassie. And when he saw her, his young heart leaped with joy.

  Cassie was even persuaded to ring her grandmother and ask if she might stay on with Leonora for a few more days, a request backed up one hundred per cent by Leonora. Grandmother naturally granted the request at once, because she fondly imagined that the reason was because Cassie had been accepted wholeheartedly into the bosom of the Von Wagner family. To Cassie’s amazement, Grandmother even sent her some more money.

  To celebrate, Leonora ordered Lawrence to drive them into town to do some shopping. Leonora wanted to buy some clothes, and Cassie wanted to buy Dex a present. While they were browsing through the department store, Lawrence waited outside, polishing the Rolls. Leonora bought two sweaters, the sort June Allyson had worn in The Glenn Miller Story, which she and Cassie had been to see three times, and a blouse like Audrey Hepburn’s in Roman Holiday. Cassie bought Dex a book called The Art of Race Riding. Before the assistant gift-wrapped it for her, Cassie wrote on the fly leaf ‘To Dexter. With love, Cassie. Summer 1955.’ Leonora looked over her shoulder without Cassie knowing, but refrained from comment.

  She gave the book to Dex after they had come back from their ride that evening. Dex was hanging up the tack and the tackroom was empty, as the rest of the boys were out beginning evening stables. Cassie was sitting having a mug of hot tea under Missie’s saddle-rack. Dex opened the present and stared at it.

  ‘I wrote something in the front,’ Cassie told him. ‘Nothing special.’

  Dex turned to the fly leaf and then stared at that too. Next he put the book back in the gift wrapping, and into his locker. Then he sat down beside Cassie, put his arm around her, and kissed her.

  It was the very first time they had kissed. It was the very first time Cassie had been kissed. She didn’t see stars, and she didn’t faint. But when Dex stopped kissing her, all she knew was she wanted to be kissed by him some more. It was only the sound of someone approaching outside which stopped them sitting there kissing each other for the rest of the evening.

  ‘I love you, Cassie,’ Dex whispered, then grinned shyly.

  ‘I think I love you too, Dex,’ Cassie replied.

  Leonora came in.’

  ‘Oh Christ I’m sorry!’ she exclaimed, when she saw the two of them side by side on the bench.

  Dex rose, his face reddening.

  ‘I was just sorting out some tack, Miss Von Wagner,’ he said, picking up Adventurer’s saddle.

  ‘I couldn’t care less what you’re doing, Dex,’ Leonora replied, actually smiling at him. ‘I was actually looking for Lawrence, and George said he thought he’d seen him coming over here. Sorry!’

  With that she was gone. But so was the moment. Cassie rose and brushed some straw off her clothes.

  ‘I’d better go and change,’ she said. ‘We’re going to a party in Patchogue.’

  ‘Sure, Cassie,’ Dex replied, swinging the saddle up over his head on to its rack. ‘See you tomorrow, right?’

  ‘You bet,’ Cassie grinned.

  ‘And thanks a million for the book, Cassie,’ Dex called after her.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Cassie said, putting her head back round the door. ‘I’ll see you at Arlington Park yet.’

  ‘Sure you will, Cassie,’ Dex replied. ‘Bringing home one of your horses.’

  They looked at each other, then Cassie blew him a kiss, and feeling very grown up, walked back up to the house.

  Cassie surprised herself by enjoying the party. She had gone prepared for an evening of spoilt rich kids noisily having what they considered fun, but in fact it had turned out very civilised. Of course it helped that the Faverlys, the family throwing the party, were practically as rich as the Von Wagners, but even so, even to someone as young as Cassie, she knew that endless wealth was not a guarantee of a good party. She’d learned that from listening to some of the perfectly dreadful experiences recounted by the girls at the Academy when they returned from vacation.

  Cassie just wished De
x could have been there, as she danced with a polite young man in a white tuxedo to a full-size swing band playing ‘Satin Doll’. They could have danced all night, close in each other’s arms, saying little or nothing. As it was, she danced with a succession of almost ruthlessly polite boys, who talked about practically anything and everything. On the one dance Cassie sat out for the evening, by choice rather than by accident, Leonora came and sat down beside her to make sure she was having fun.

  ‘Yes, I really am, thanks,’ Cassie told her. ‘It’s a great party.’

  ‘It’s not bad,’ Leonora admitted, tossing back her mane of hair. ‘Let’s have a drink.’

  ‘I don’t really want a drink,’ Cassie told her as Leonora looked for a waiter. ‘Unless it’s a Coke.’

  ‘Two punches over here!’ Leonora called over the music to a passing servant. ‘And hurry!’

  Then she turned back and grinned at Cassie.

  ‘It’s OK, really. There’s nothing in it.’

  The waiter returned with two glasses with handles and set them on the cloth-covered table. Cassie sipped her drink while Leonora watched her. Leonora was right. It tasted completely innocuous.

  ‘See?’ said Leonora. ‘Baby-juice.’

  And downed hers in one.

  For some reason the evening went even better from then on. Cassie became highly animated, and very soon the young men were queueing up to dance with her. Cassie found herself laughing at their every joke, and making what she thought were some pretty funny ones in return. And whenever she sat down to catch her breath, Leonora was there with some more punch.

  Cassie was still laughing when they tiptoed up the stairs at two o’clock in the morning. Leonora, grinning, put a finger to her lips and opened the bedroom door. Cassie went in and the next thing she knew, she collapsed on the bed in another fit of helpless laughter. Then she turned round to see what Leonora was doing and saw that she was preparing to climb out of the window on a rope of knotted sheets.

  ‘Where are you going now?’ she asked curiously, as Leonora threw the sheets out of the window.

  ‘I’m going to see Lawrence,’ Leonora whispered in return. ‘It’s all fixed. I’m going to lose it tonight.’

  Cassie sat up in horror, then swung her legs off the bed. She rushed over to the window, and nearly lost her balance as she leaned out after Leonora.

  ‘Don’t be an idiot, Leonora!’ she called down. ‘Come back here at once!’

  ‘Go to hell, Cassie McGann!’ the reply floated up from below. ‘Before you wake the whole household!’

  Cassie watched helplessly as she saw Leonora duck away through the bushes, then she half-closed the window. But she didn’t close it completely, so that Leonora could climb back up, when and if she wanted to.

  She undressed slowly for bed and put her clothes on the bed. Then as she walked back across the room without any clothes on, she suddenly felt very ill and extremely dizzy, and only just made it to the bathroom in time.

  At first Cassie thought she was dreaming when she heard the first tap on the window. She was sleeping so deeply, the sound seemed to be coming from the other side of space, so faint and distant was it. She turned over in her bed and, still asleep, gave a sigh. She was in Locksfield, with Dex and Mary-Jo, and they were all flying high above the farm, like birds, silent in the clear blue sky. Every now and then they would turn and smile at each other, and the people down below them would smile and wave up to them.

  The tapping was louder now and more persistent. Cassie turned once more in her bed, still dreaming. Now she was on a train, moving very fast through a tunnel. Grandmother was sitting opposite her, but although she was smiling and talking, Cassie knew she was dead. Grandmother then put her hand on the window of the train compartment and started knocking on it. The glass broke and there was blood everywhere.

  Cassie sat bolt upright in bed, her head pounding and her mouth as dry as dust. There was someone tapping on the bedroom window. Then she remembered Leonora, climbing down the sheets to go and see the chauffeur. So the noise must be someone trying to push up the bedroom window. Cassie got out of her bed and for a moment thought she was going to be sick again, as a wave of nausea overcame her. Then realising that she had no clothes on, she grabbed her dressing gown and, slipping into it in the dark, hurried over to the window to let Leonora in.

  But it wasn’t Leonora. It was Dex. Cassie stepped back in horror as she saw him climb through the window and then stand shyly before her in the bedroom, bathed in the still full moonlight.

  ‘Dex!’ Cassie found herself saying; barely in a whisper. ‘Dex, what in heaven’s name are you doing?’

  ‘What am I doing?’ the boy replied, fishing in the back pocket of his jeans and taking out a carefully folded sheet of paper. ‘I’m only doing what you asked me to do, Cassie.’

  Cassie backed away fearfully, pulling her dressing gown even tighter round her naked body.

  ‘I must still be dreaming,’ she said more to herself, putting the bed safely between her and Dex. ‘I never asked you to come up here.’

  Dex looked at her, and Cassie could see he was as frightened as her. He didn’t say anything in reply. Instead he just handed the note to her, leaning across the bed, but making no attempt to come any nearer.

  ‘What’s this?’ Cassie whispered, looking at the folded paper in her hand.

  ‘It’s your note,’ Dex told her. ‘The note you left in my locker.’

  Cassie suddenly went ice cold all over as she began to suspect what may have happened. She sat on the edge of the bed and quickly turned on her bedside light. As soon as she did, Dex moved away from the window and hid in the shadows, also suspecting that something was going horribly wrong.

  ‘Dear darling Dex,’ the note started. ‘I can’t get to speak to you again this evening as we are going to a party.’

  Cassie looked up at Dex, standing by the window with his back against the wall, looking sideways out of the window in case there was anyone below. Cassie quickly read through the rest of the bogus note.

  ‘We shall be back just after midnight, I should reckon, and Leonora has arranged for me to be alone in the bedroom. Please, please come up and see me, because I have to go home tomorrow, and we may never ever have another chance to be alone! It will be perfectly safe. Leonora has fixed everything, and if you come, at last I will be able to show you just how much I love you. Cassie.’

  She dropped the note on her bed, turned off her light and hurried over to Dex.

  ‘Dex!’ Cassie whispered to him, taking his hand. ‘Dex – that’s not my handwriting!’

  The boy turned back to her, fear in his hazel eyes.

  ‘But it has to be, Cassie!’ he replied. ‘I compared it with what you wrote in the book you gave me!’

  ‘So I bet did Leonora,’ Cassie said grimly. ‘She’s always copying people’s writing at school and getting them into trouble. You’d better get out of here before it’s too late!’

  She turned Dex to the window and they both looked out from behind the curtains. There was no one out there in the grounds as far as they could see. Perhaps Leonora for once had been actually playing Cupid rather than the devil.

  Dex turned back to her, still almost tearful.

  ‘Cassie,’ he pleaded. ‘Please don’t think less of me! I was only coming up here to tell you I loved you! I wasn’t going . . .’

  He looked her straight in the eyes and took both her hands.

  ‘I wasn’t going to do anything,’ he finished lamely.

  Cassie kissed him gently on his cheek.

  ‘Sure you weren’t,’ she grinned. ‘Anyhow, I wouldn’t have let you.’

  Cassie eased the window up a bit further and double-checked the grounds. She could see nothing below in the bright moonlight except the shrubbery and trees. Then she stood aside to let Dex make his escape.

  Before he started to climb out, Dex turned to her for a moment.

  ‘I love you, Cassie,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t ever for
get that.’

  ‘You bet I won’t, Dex,’ Cassie replied. ‘And I love you too.’

  Dex took hold of the top sheet and prepared to let himself out of the window. The moment he did, the people waiting below hidden in the shrubbery turned on their flashlights.

  Cassie gasped in horror and pulled Dex away from the window, flattening them both against the wall.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Dex cried. ‘Oh my God, I have been seen! Oh my God, what are we going to do now?’

  Cassie pulled him across the room to the door.

  ‘Quickly!’ she hissed. ‘They might not have seen it was you! Let’s try and get you out the back way!’

  And then still holding on to Dex’s hand, she opened the bedroom door and hurried them both out on to the landing.

  As she did so, someone threw the lights on. Cassie blinked and instinctively put her hands up to her eyes, like someone trapped in the floodlights. Then as she got used to the sudden glare, she could see the figures waiting down below in the marbled hall. Leonora’s grandfather in his pyjamas and dressing gown, seated in a wheel chair, with a nurse at his back, to one side of him Mrs Larkin the housekeeper, and to the other side, smiling back up at Cassie, Leonora.

  Dex was kicked out there and then. Deaf to Cassie’s protestations of their innocence, Leonora’s grandfather had given orders for the boy’s summary dismissal, and for Cassie herself to leave the following morning. Cassie pleaded with him and tried to explain the deception. But the old man ignored her and simply ordered his nurse to take him back to his ground-floor bedroom. Mrs Larkin was instructed to take Cassie upstairs and to lock her in the nursery until morning, lest she got any foolish notions, and to make arrangements for her to be on the first train back to New York.

  Cassie recovered her composure and shaking off Mrs Larkin’s grip on her arm, walked defiantly back up the stairs ahead of the grim-faced house-keeper. Leonora followed at a safe distance. Cassie said nothing to her as she turned away down the corridor which led to the nursery with its barred windows, but Leonora had something to say as she casually stood at the door before Mrs Larkin locked Cassie in.