Innocent Birds (11 page)

S
OMETIMES
we wonder, when those who live in fear and torment, those who are tainted with a sad and lasting distemper of the mind, are not removed from their sorrows and dreads, by the hand that is supposed to rule the world, more quickly than the usual slow-moving cruelty of life allows.

But wonder though we may, the bitter things that are written against some trembling ones have to be lived through to the end, be that end near or far, or ever the great day of liberation comes. And even this liberation, that some look forward to so kindly, may for aught we know be but a change of scene: the mere rounding of a point in the sea of time, where the memory of the old woes will beget again new torments, to be remembered again, and new-begotten again, through all eternity. But though we may wonder sometimes about it all, Mr. Solly was much too wise to do so, because his aunt was Mrs. Crocker, and because he as well as his aunt believed that God has a good gift to give.

Even though the cross of doom had shown itself in the Madder sky, Solly believed that in
the end God would pour out the whole wonder of His gift, not only upon Madder, but upon all the world. ‘But first,' thought Solly, who
preferred
to contemplate local matters rather than universal, and who also liked concrete reality, ‘but first, I should like to know what the gift will be?'

While Mr. Solly was thinking about God's gift, and considering that it must be a good gift, or else He would never have promised to give it with Mrs. Crocker so near, Maud Chick had shut herself up in the tiny cottage bedroom that used to be her own before she went to Madder rectory.

She was not much happier there than she had been anywhere else since she had taken that walk to Dodderdown. Mrs. Chick had heard of Maud's screams; Eva Billy, who had always been a little jealous of Maud, was one of the first to report about them.

Mrs. Chick liked to be amused, and a scream from Maud, if she could get her to give one, would certainly be an entertainment worth the getting. And so, when Maud was got to her room, Maud's mother knelt down and peeped under the bed, as much as to hint ‘that a man might have been there as well as in the fields.'

Maud did scream; she also crouched in a corner, and tried to hide her body with her hair, as though she fancied that she was naked.

Mrs. Chick left her, and busied herself in tidying up in preparation for the doctor, for whom Fred had been sent.

The doctor being come and gone again, Mrs. Chick opened the stairway door and called out to Maud: ‘There bain't nothing—only they wold shadows in thee's room.'

Screams more terror-stricken than ever now came from Maud, though even these became quiet after a while, for Maud covered her head with the bedclothes so that ‘they wold shadows' that her mother had so kindly noted couldn't get to her.

With those screams in her ears, and all the excitement caused by them, Mrs. Chick felt that she herself would like to be looked at for a few moments by a man. She showed so well as a large woman with her blood merry, and hoped that she hadn't grown out of being a sufficient reason for a man's desires to come out of his eyes and cover her.

Mrs. Chick went out into her garden and stood near to the stile that led to the inn. Noticing her there, and being drawn perhaps by the electrical waves that went out from her, Mr. Bugby, who was walking in his garden, came near to the stile too.

Being satisfied by her own feelings that Mr. Bugby's looks—and she hoped his hidden thoughts too—were where she wanted them to be, Mrs. Chick opened upon the
subject of Maud, a subject that all Madder was talking of.

‘'Tis they men she be afeard on,' she said. ‘An' though 'er dad bain't much of a man, she do scream at 'e too.'

Mr. Bugby lowered his eyes a little.

‘She do fancy that they bedroom shadows be after her.'

Mr. Bugby's look closed with Mrs. Chick's desires; her blood danced like a girl's.

‘Maud's notions be queer,' said Mrs. Chick, who wished to explain the matter in detail to Mr. Bugby, now that his eyes had let her go again. ‘She do fancy that she did meet a funny man in they wide fields. An' she do scream out that thik funny man were a-doing something to she.'

Mrs. Chick's blood was quieted; Mr. Bugby hardly looked at her now.

‘Doctor do say,' remarked Mrs. Chick, ‘that she's nerves be broke. “'Tain't nothing, only they nerve breakings,” 'e told I. An' Fred be now gone down to doctor's for something to stop she a-screaming at they shadows.'

Mr. Bugby leaned restfully against the stile and looked up at one of two little bedroom windows of the Chick cottage. He smiled, and hoped that Maud might chance to look out, and so notice how concerned her neighbour was about her illness. Seeing no one at the window, nor yet hearing the scream that he had hoped might
be the result of his gazing, Mr. Bugby, shaking his head slowly, said in a mournful tone, as though the sad circumstances allowed of no other: ‘'Tis religion. 'Tis religion that did take hold of maiden, an' thik man that did find she in field mid 'ave been Thomas Tucker.'

Mrs. Chick at once took this bait of scandal in true country fashion. She spread herself out nearer to Mr. Bugby and smiled.

Mr. Bugby deepened the plot.

‘'Twere to visit Farmer Andrews that I walked across to Dodderdown,' said Mr. Bugby, ‘for to pay 'e for a bit of straw for stable. I did go along by vicarage mead hedge, and so to farm. 'Twas behind hedge that I heard some one say, “It really isn't quite proper for me to go on reading about these ‘sweet flowers.' They remind me far too much of Solly's pinks and columbines——”'

‘'Twere Mr. Tucker,' said Mrs. Chick, ‘that thee did hear talking over hedge; an' 'e were telling about thik book of wickedness that 'e do read. Them shouldn't be printed, them sinful books.'

‘As I walked home,' said Mr. Bugby, ‘I did see Parson Tucker hurry across dead-man's field, after something that did shine white an' flutter in blowing wind.'

‘'Twas Maud's white scarf 'ee did see,' said Mrs. Chick excitedly.

Mr. Bugby looked away from Mrs. Chick.

Polly Wimple was hurrying along the footpath to the Chick cottage.

Mr. Bugby looked at Polly with that indrawing look that a snake is said to use when it wishes to devour a little bird.

‘Fred Pim 'ave called she out to see Maud,' remarked Mrs. Chick.

Polly now began to run; she wished to get quickly to Maud. Her girl's body, now rendered more than usually warm and tremulous by Maud's troubles, moved like a young doe's whose gentle sister had been hurt in the forest. She ran willingly, because Fred had asked her.

‘'Tis religion,' said Mr. Bugby, looking at Polly's young strong legs, ‘that do hurt they maidens.'

Mrs. Chick went to her door to greet Polly, to show her upstairs, and to see what would happen then.

Mr. Bugby walked slowly to the well in his garden.

His wife was leaning over the well drawing water. To throw her in at that moment would have been easy to so strong a man as Mr. Bugby. But he merely looked at her in a sad manner, as though he felt more than ever at that moment the weight of the world's wickedness.

‘When I do see,' remarked Mr. Bugby
mournfully
, ‘a maid that do run and show she self, I be put in remembrance of a man that do
some
times frighten a maiden. A running maid, that be a maid, do ask for Mr. Bugby.'

Mrs. Bugby crouched beside the well and shivered.

‘They skipping legs, that were lifted so pretty and showed more than maiden did know of, did ask a question. They did ask what a man be like.'

Mr. Bugby looked down at his wife's head. ‘Grey,' he said, ‘be the colour of an old one, an old one who be neither in grave nor rotted. But I were talking,' said Mr. Bugby, ‘of a maiden—of a maiden who do walk out wi' Fred Pim.'

Mrs. Bugby took her bucket and hurried with it weeping to the inn. The meagre lines of her body, cut and beaten into by every-day toil, leaned jaggedly towards the pail.

‘Don't 'ee, now,' said Mr. Bugby soothingly, ‘go an' strain thee's pretty self wi' bucket-
carrying
, for when night-time do come there won't be nothing to warm I wi'.'

Mr. Bugby thinking—and no doubt wisely—that even at night-time there wasn't likely to be much warmth in that jaded outline of a woman, decided that at the moment, and in order to give rein to thoughts—that were none of the cleanest—a half-pint of brandy would aid his happiness in life.

Mr. Bugby followed his wife indoors.

M
ISS
P
ETTIFER
had had a fine run of lady-like house-keeping with Maud Chick as her servant. No house in England, of the upper middle sort, to match the church-like doorway of Madder rectory and the red blinds, could, Miss Pettifer felt sure, have been better managed than hers.

Of course, by heinously bringing in the kitchen margarine for her mistress’ tea, Maud had thrown all her earlier hard work and careful management to the four winds of heaven; and the only excuse she could give was, that she had been frightened by something she had seen in Dead Man’s Meadow.

The result, madness and terror, proved to Miss Pettifer that God’s justice—though it was at the moment a considerable inconvenience to herself—had been righteously expended. For to be drove mad by fright, Miss Pettifer decided, was exactly how every careless servant girl should be treated if they wilfully allowed the clock to run on past tea-time while they stayed out with the men.

A rumour had reached Madder rectory, coming by way of the shop, and clinging to a packet of stamped envelopes that Miss Pettifer bought there, that Mr. Tucker had been taken, or rather
witnessed, toying wantonly with Maud in the meadow, and that Farmer Andrews had heard the girl screaming for help.

‘Mr. Tucker do read thik book,’ Mrs. Billy had said, while Miss Pettifer carefully counted the envelopes to see that all the eleven were there, ‘and that do set ’im off for to read they maids.’

Carrying the envelopes home in her gloved hand, with all the stickiness of scandal about them, Miss Pettifer thought—and not for the first time either—that one of her most praiseworthy wishes would always be, and one of her chief hopes too, to get that story-book of Mr. Tucker’s into her own hands, so that she might forward it to the bishop, with an explanatory letter enclosed about his servants and those swings.

With that book and letter posted, Miss Pettifer felt sure, her own presence in Madder would be more than justified by exposing a priest whose wicked reading had led him to do all kinds of things—Miss Pettifer gasped—with this Chick. And also, no doubt, told him how to tell all those dreadful lies about his never seeing his own waiting maids.

‘He sees all of them,’ said Miss Pettifer aloud, as she locked the envelopes with a safe click in her writing-table drawer, ‘in their
night clothes
.’

No lady knew better than Miss Pettifer did the advantages of being a mistress. She had never been so foolish as to think that a lady who
dressed the hours, as she dressed herself, in measured costumes, could fit these settled
movements
of the day without the aid of a Parsons or a Chick. No lady could do proper justice to the lord of those chairs—Mr. Hall wept when the auctioneer explained that they were but chairs, and not coffins—unless she kept up a
correspondence
with her friends, and so occupy her mornings in nice contemplation of her own
handwriting
upon half a score of letters.

The coffined one—and Mr. Hall would have been right about this last seat—would have expected no less than that his daughter, who had allowed him Oxford marmalade on Sundays, should receive in exchange for all her
letter-writing
, two or three hesitating ones; and these, not all from country gentry, by the morning and afternoon post. These, and such-like signs and wonders, with the Mayor of Weyminster’s automobile crunching her gravel as if it liked it, were enough and more to prove to the village, even without the baker’s remarks, that real money had come to her with the help of those chairs.

How to get a country girl to work was one of those questions that Miss Pettifer had found a complete answer for. She had merely to find out what the girl loved most in life, and to play upon her feelings there, in order to win the game.

There had been Maud Chick’s love of a baby, that Maud had so often talked about, that gave such a chance to Miss Pettifer.

‘You will never be able to dress and feed it, Chick, if you cannot finish the housework here by two o’clock, and be ready to answer the callers with your clothes changed.’

And now here was Polly Wimple in Miss Pettifer’s service, and all Madder knew well enough who and what it was that Polly liked most in the world. Polly was more skittish than Maud had ever been, but all her skittishness went one way—to Fred Pim. Polly’s hair had gold in it, and a sweetness as of Solly’s pinks, and Polly’s white arms were like fine summer Sundays.

For a week Miss Pettifer watched Polly
working
. When Sunday came, and Miss Pettifer bit at the bacon and Mr. Tucker, she decided that she couldn’t allow this Polly Wimple to marry young Shepherd Pim. If that were to happen, all her hopes of a Madder servant would fade again. She might even be left with the chance of her own hair being buttered, as that wicked girl Parsons had hoped it would be. But Parsons had always been a liar and a deceiver. She had told a naked lie to poor demented Mr. Hall, the preacher, by staying so still—‘And, of course, that was what she wanted,’ thought Miss Pettifer. ‘But this Fred,’ she decided, ‘must be got away from Wimple.’

That Sunday Miss Pettifer thought out a plan. This plan, or rather plot, of Miss Pettifer’s was consummated by the simple means of a message
sent by Polly to Mr. Pim and his son Fred. And so, when the first real evening’s frost of winter crisped the Madder grass, and when the last yellow leaves upon the Madder elms were
deciding
whether it is wiser to fall off oneself or to be blown down by the sea winds, Mr. Pim and his son Fred were out in the lane, dressed in their best, and moving their newly blackened boots with the full intent and purpose of visiting Miss Pettifer.

Mr. Pim, who had a simple belief in himself, as well as his one doubt, considered that as he thought about himself a good deal, other people, and especially those high ones both in earth and heaven, would think about him too. He believed Miss Pettifer to be one of the highest, because she kept a servant, drove about the country in a car, and did nothing that could be called by the vulgar name of work.

When he first received the message he said, ‘You be Mary, bain’t ’ee?’

Polly said she was.

‘A servant.’ Mr. Pim said the latter word scornfully. ‘Thik queen’s name don’t match wi’ t’ other.’

‘You’re to come,’ said Polly, ‘as soon as you’ve cleaned yourselves.’

While Pim did so, Mrs. Chick discovering his clothes like a mariner looking for new islands while he shaved his chin by the little glass downstairs, he decided that Miss Pettifer must have sent
for him because she had found the right answer to his question as to how Fred had come to be born.

Mr. Pim was by no means the kind of man to hurry a lady to explain so subtle a matter as his doubt, though he hoped she intended doing so. He merely took one of her chairs, that he moved a little for a reason only known to himself, and regarded the other chairs as if he wondered whether they had Mr. Pims sitting upon them too. Fred, out of politeness to the lady, had chosen a music stool that had been placed in a corner near to the door.

Miss Pettifer didn’t smile; the affair of
getting
Fred sent out of Madder was too serious for that; she nodded at Mr. Pim, and said, without a word about the weather, ‘Have you any idea, Pim, where the splendidly prosperous city of Derby is?’

Whether this Derby, that Miss Pettifer seemed so glad to mention, had anything to do with his doubt or no, Mr. Pim wasn’t sure; but if it wasn’t that, he was sure it must have been about his song. He supposed so, and replied with no hesitation, ‘’Tis in Spain, Miss Pettifer.’ After this geographical exposure, Mr. Pim looked curiously at Miss Pettifer’s clothes, that
consisted
of a black afternoon frock, neat stockings as far as Mr. Pim could discern, and evening shoes, size sixes. Having never seen Miss Pettifer in such garments before, because when the lady went out she wore tweeds or checks,
Mr. Pim couldn’t help thinking that he might have made a mistake about the song, and that the lady, by making use of the word Derby, had really intended to explain away his doubt by means of a personal experiment. Mr. Pim, who had only looked first at the other chairs and then at Miss Pettifer, now looked at the sofa….

Minna, in that field where the cows used to feed so restfully, and where the hedgerow grasses would shed white seeds if touched in August, had once said a funny word that had certainly no more meaning for Johnnie than Derby had. Minna had been more than usually naughty that day; she had teased little Pim about the ducks, and then she called out ‘Cockroaches!’ and ran to a bank of flowers.

‘Was Derby,’ wondered Mr. Pim, ‘merely another sound gesture with the same
interpretation
?’ though Minna did say afterwards that little boys weren’t like grandfathers.

But Miss Pettifer, who evidently noted that Pim’s eyes were wandering, brought him back to his first reasoning with a jerk by saying:

‘If Fred could only get to Derby, he would make a fortune.’

‘In from Spain.’ Mr. Pim knew his song, and he knew what the words meant now.

The meadow gate, that had taken the place of the bar parlour while the inn had been closed, had for some while now, except for a chance meeting of friends, remained silently alone. And
Pim’s song had come into its own again,
regaining
its old kingdom of pewter pots and kindly barrels.

In order to see Derby correctly as a place in rich Spain, Mr. Pim bethought him of the richest sight that his life’s history had ever shown to him.

‘The ticket to Derby,’ said Miss Pettifer, speaking very slowly, ‘costs one pound fourteen shillings and fivepence; this money I will lend to Fred.’

Mr. Pim looked up at a picture of the late Mr. Pettifer, painted a few years before his death. The lawyer was sitting in one of his chairs. But curiously enough, Mr. Pim didn’t see the lawyer as a man or even the chair as a coffin, as Mr. Hall would have done. But he saw Derby in Spain. He saw Derby as a city set upon a hill and shining as that wonderful carriage had shone that brought Annie home to Madder.

‘He will come home as a gentleman,’ said Miss Pettifer.

Mr. Pim’s pride began to rise very high, higher indeed than when he received the bill for Annie’s carriage, and near as high as when he had seen the carriage itself. He felt that this was no moment for him to express any doubt as to his fatherhood, however it had happened, and he couldn’t help feeling that he had certainly tried to do—though Annie shouldn’t have kept
laughing
so—all that Minna had hinted at during
those walks to school. And now he must needs believe.

He was Pim, and even if God Himself or that high-hatted one had a foot in it, they might have forgotten now how they managed; and if that was so, why should not he, Pim, take all the glory, if Derby city were to give it to him, by means of Fred?

‘Fred be me boy,’ remarked Mr. Pim, staring the lawyer out of himself and into Derby; ‘so Annie did say.’

‘He’s your son,’ said Miss Pettifer.

‘He’s me son,’ said Pim. ‘Though ’e mid be t’ other’s too,’ he added.

All this time Fred Pim had sat still and said nothing. After finding the stool for a seat, he found the floor to rest his eyes upon.

While he heard his future spoken of, he had found, too, an object of interest upon the carpet for his eyes to look at. This was a dead fly. The fly had fallen from the ceiling. Fred wished to pick up the fly; he knew that Polly wouldn’t like to think that this dead fly had chosen to die upon Miss Pettifer’s carpet. But what was this dead fly listening to? Something that Fred should hear.

‘Your son will be able to marry Polly when he comes home rich from Derby.’

‘But I love Polly,’ said Fred, ‘and I want her now.’

Miss Pettifer coughed. ‘You mustn’t speak like that,’ she said.

But the dead fly had loosened Fred’s tongue.

‘Farmer Barfoot do praise my work,’ he said. ‘Farmer do talk to Betty about I and about they sheep. “’Tis a good working boy Fred be,” farmer did say. “When ’e bain’t throwing up ’is cap, ’e be counting.”’

‘All the more reason for your going to Derby,’ said Miss Pettifer, ‘if you’re so clever.’

‘And there is Maud,’ said Fred; ‘she do fancy I be a small child again.’

Miss Pettifer sniffed.

Fred tried once more.

‘I love Polly,’ he said.

Mr. Pim saw Derby filled with ladies dressed in black frocks and pearl necklaces.

‘A servant bain’t nothing,’ he remarked scornfully.

‘You wish your son to go?’ Miss Pettifer said, holding the bell in her hand.

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Pim, ‘thik be me wish.’