Written With My Left Hand

by Nugent Barker

  ‘I’m comin’, Ann.’

  From the immediate answer, and the absence of any startled movement in the figure, or sign of guilt, it was clear that Mary had not been sleeping, but resting only, upon a chair; yet wasn’t that bad enough—the mere fact of taking the tiniest stick of furniture away from the door? This, of course, was what she had been going to do, a few hours earlier, when Ann had woken up to find her standing near the great pile, holding a chair in her hand!

  ‘Mary! Mary!’ But Mary would not come; and the younger woman stared at her speechlessly from the bed.

  ‘I be thinkin’ . . . thinkin’ . . .’ said Mary, and the candle went out.

  ‘Fetch another candle!’ Ann called timorously.

  ‘I wull in a moment, surelye,’ Mary whispered from the darkness.

  ‘Mary!’ cried Ann.

  ‘Yes?’ said Mary.

  The night lengthened. Sundry small voices came up from the village; old Pilbeam’s rookery was disturbed, setting up a great caw; and the wind, which had fallen away towards sunset, now began to rustle the hill-top cottage garden. But over by the doorway the silence was deep.

  ‘Mary?’

  ‘I be thinkin’ . . . thinkin’ . . .’

  The dumbness of terror seized Ann. A moonbeam, freed by the rising wind from its cloud-prison, stole through a rent in the curtain, and crept round the room. Its path was too high to show Mary; but in due course it lit upon the great pile of furniture, that monstrous barricade: and the shapeless mass stood sentinel for a long time over the two sisters, until later the moonbeam was taken away. And later still, when the wind was at its highest, and it was difficult to distinguish its wild claps from door-knocks; when hearts are lowest, and folks die—he came.

  He came in through the door, walking quietly through the carefully heaped up furniture as though it had not been there. He bore no resemblance to his pictures. Mary’s heart was tranquil; she wondered no longer what he would do. He went by her chair, and up to the bed, and with his pitying, disdainful eyes looked down upon the hidden face of Ann. Then he turned, and gazed at Mary. He walked up to her, and they smiled together.

  ‘Wull ’ee come?’ he whispered.

  Old Pilbeam’s rookery broke out again. It went up in a great cry, a chorus of voices, and ascending black wings, harsh, tender, uneasy, triumphant, reaching Heaven. . . .

  ‘Oh, lookee, my purty!’

  He bent over the chair.

  With loving fingers, Death smoothed back Mary’s dark, dishevelled hair.

  Out of Leading-Strings

  The Mirror

  MRS BARRINGTON said to Nurse Taylor one summer morning: ‘Oh, Nurse, I thought you and Pollie might like to take the children to Earl’s Court Exhibition this afternoon, while I stop at home with the baby.’

  Nurse Taylor hesitated, for Mrs Barrington had never looked after the baby through a whole afternoon; but she soon reflected that in such matters her mistress had a perfect right to do as she pleased; moreover, the baby would certainly be in the way at the Exhibition; and she accepted the proposal without any foolish show of enthusiasm, though Pollie nearly jumped out of her skin with rapture, and the little boy’s face blushed with excitement.

  On their train journey from Streatham, Nurse Taylor began to describe to the children the wonderful things they were going to see, and she spoke at some length of the Switch-back railway and the Water Chute; but the middle child took no notice of her nurse at all: there was a fat man sitting on the opposite seat, and she stared at him until his face, which at first had been cheerful and good-natured, grew almost as stolid as her own.

  The moment they had pushed through the turnstiles of the Exhibition, the two nurses clutched at the hands of the children, and the four pleasure-seekers set out along the broad, central avenue, to enjoy themselves amongst the sights and sounds. Pollie was grinning from ear to ear, and the little boy, who had scarcely begun to collect his thoughts, gripped her hand tightly in his excitement; but the middle child, holding Nurse Taylor’s hand as limply as possible, took no notice of the showmen who were shouting at the entrances of the sideshows.

  Instinct led the nurses to the Ornamental Lake, where flat-bottomed boats, having plunged down the chute, leaped again and again along the flashing water amidst a cloud of spray.

  For some time, Nurse Taylor and Pollie and the two children watched the people enjoying themselves, and listened to the shrieks of fear from the women in the boats; and every time a boat splashed into the water, Nurse Taylor turned to the children and said to them: ‘That was a good one!’—for these two were considered old enough to imagine, and even to appreciate, the thrills of the Water Chute, but too young as yet to experience them in reality. After a while, Nurse Taylor said: ‘I really ought to have a try’; so she went; and Pollie and the little boy kept her in sight for as long as they could, following her tilted straw hat in the sunshine until it became confounded with others. ‘There she is! Look! There she goes!’ cried Pollie, suddenly pointing. The boat slid down the Chute at a great pace, the splash looked larger than any that had gone before, and when Nurse Taylor came back, Pollie declared that they had heard her screaming above everybody.

  Nurse Taylor, feeling that she had been made to look rather silly, asserted that Pollie, too, must really go down the Chute; but the under-nurse refused to do so unless the little boy went with her. ‘Nonsense! He’s much too young, cried the head-nurse primly; but she very soon consented, and Pollie and the little boy went down the Chute, screaming at the tops of their voices.

  From the Water Chute they hurried to the Switch-back railway, and although Nurse Taylor preferred to look on, Pollie and the little boy enjoyed themselves immensely from start to finish. But when they turned to the middle child, she only shook her head, and they all thought that she was angry because they had not asked her, on account of her youthful age, to go down the Water Chute. And, moreover, seeing her stolid, unresponsive face, they knew that her youth was not the only reason why they had refrained from inviting her to go on the Chute or the Switch-back railway: they knew that they felt shy and ill at ease beside her, and had been shocked into silence because of her unsociability. She guessed their thoughts, for she was by far the most selfconscious, the subtlest, and in many ways the cleverest, of all the Barringtons; so that when Nurse Taylor snapped at her: ‘Why don’t you laugh, child? Others are laughing,’ she was swept at once by a secret anger, her throat grew stiff, and her fingers dug into the palms of her hands. She wouldn’t! She wouldn’t! She wouldn’t laugh! Why did they want her to laugh? She frowned at her brother, stared at his thin, satisfied face . . . listened for a moment, breathlessly, to the sounds of the Exhibition . . . And she knew now that she had always felt and behaved like this when other people were enjoying themselves.

  As she and her brother and the two nurses went from one amusement to another in the sunny grounds of the Exhibition, the feeling grew stronger—the feeling of antagonism against those who were out for enjoyment, who shared pleasure like sheep. The very heat of the sun and the glare of the white palaces annoyed her and encouraged this feeling; distant colours danced in front of her eyes.

  ‘The Magic Maze!’ cried Pollie, pointing eagerly, ‘The Magic Maze!’

  It was a series of wooden-walled, snake-like passages, lit by a roof of glass; and here, amid the echoing laughter of strangers and of her own kith and kin, the middle child succeeded in losing herself. Her clenched hands, sturdy body, and plump and freckled face were very still as she strove to revolve ideas in her mind, while in that welcome solitude she heard the head-nurse calling: ‘Where has she got to? Where is the child?’ She was quite unable to put her feelings into words: she could only be aware of them; and by this time she had begun to feel an enmity not merely against people, but also against the actual amusements of the Exhibition—she was being bombarded by them, played upon by everything that moved: by the Water Chute, the Switch-back railway, and the Mazes: yes, even this Maze was moving, subtly entw
ining itself about her, humiliating her, crushing her with its snaky walls. Well. She would have to let her body respond; but never her face. That could be always under her control. If they insisted that she should go on the Switch-back and in Mazes she would obey them . . . but her face would never alter its expression, no one must ever look for a smile on her face. For she had known, occasionally, how foolish it was to allow one’s face to respond, to slip out of control—grown-up people took advantage of one then, and one became their tool.

  As soon as the pleasure party was out in the sunshine again, Nurse Taylor renewed her authority by demanding loudly: ‘Are we all here?’ and, without looking at the middle child, she began to lead the way, though nobody knew where it led to. ‘Haw haw! Haw haw!’ Pollie kept laughing to herself, stumping along, thinking of the Magic Maze and of how she had never succeeded in reaching the centre. There were so many side-shows to be seen, and the choice was so difficult, that Nurse Taylor could not make up her mind for ages; and when the little boy realised that the afternoon was slipping away, he remembered how Pollie, a year ago, had made them laugh by pretending to walk like a horse, and he wondered whether she would do it again for them when they reached home.

  At last they came to the Hall of Distorting Mirrors. Pollie cried out at once that they must certainly go into it; and Nurse Taylor, making a joke, said: ‘Surely your face is ugly enough already, girl?’

  How she and Pollie laughed at that! And what laughter there was in front of the mirrors! ‘Oh, oh, oh-h-h!’ cried Pollie, ‘look at me! Come and hold my hand,’ she called to the little boy, ‘and let’s stand together!’ Nurse Taylor passed very quickly from mirror to mirror, in case some stranger should catch sight of the ridiculous figure that she cut in the distorted glass. But the middle child stared ahead. She was afraid to look into the mirrors. Yes, now she was caught. The mirrors did not move—not even as the Maze had moved. It was she who must move . . . the mirrors were calling her. How could she stare any longer, and not look into the mirrors?

  And very quietly, very helplessly, she looked into a mirror. The ridiculous, distorted face in the mirror was crying, but it was crying with laughter—she moved, and now it was crying with horror—she moved again, and it was crying with derision, sarcastically crying; her face, that had always been so stolid, was moving in the mirror, shaping through all the emotions of the human soul.

  While she was looking into the mirror, she heard Pollie’s footsteps behind her. Clop, clop, clop, clop. Whipped into sudden action, she faced her under-nurse.

  ‘Why, Girlie, what are you crying for?’ It was a stupid name, ‘Girlie’, a babyish name, but Pollie had often called her that, and now, for some strange reason, the little girl liked it.

  The Fence

  Of course Nurse Taylor and Pollie, the under-nurse, were not really Barringtons, but Mrs Barrington considered that anyone living for a long time in her house, whether guest or servant, became almost a Barrington, and should be treated as quite a Barrington. Nurse Taylor knew this, and agreed to it, yet was inclined to resent it, for it classed her at once with Pollie and the other servants.

  One afternoon, she and the three children were hurrying along a suburban avenue beneath the shade of the trees. They were on their way to listen to a band playing on a common; but the sun and the leaves threw so many shadows everywhere that the little boy thought he would never reach the end of the journey.

  The youngest child was riding in the dark-green perambulator, and her brother and her sister were walking on either side of their tall nurse. Presently the avenue turned to the left, but still there was neither sight of the common nor sound of the band; the hot sun filtered through the trees, and the distance in front looked as far as the distance behind.

  ‘Are you sure she didn’t tell you what it was?’ inquired Nurse Taylor thoughtfully. The little boy shook his head, and gazed into the distance.

  ‘Won’t even open his mouth today,’ thought Nurse Taylor. ‘He’s in one of his moods.’

  ‘She didn’t tell me either,’ said the middle child suddenly and quite loudly. This was true. She had seen it for herself; and although the middle child told lies whenever the occasion suited her, she found it convenient now to tell the truth. ‘Such a lovely present . . . such a beautiful present,’ she whispered. The little boy nodded his head several times in succession, very emphatically.

  ‘I wonder what it can be?’ Nurse Taylor murmured, breaking into unaccustomed softness. And she tried to picture the present that Mrs Barrington had in store for her. The colour rose into her pale cheeks, and her thin, handsome face stared up the avenue of trees. Pollie was away at her mother’s; Nurse Taylor’s hands were full today, but her head was fuller. What could her present be? It was sure to be something good, expensive . . . a reward for ‘honesty’ . . . for ‘faithful services’. She frowned a little, for she did not class herself with those who are known as ‘honest’ and ‘faithful’. She was a superior nurse in more ways than one, a lady’s nurse: yet even that scarcely described what she really was. . . .

  She had a life of her own. She had admirers—several of them. She received more letters than anyone else in the house, excepting Mrs Barrington. Pollie hardly ever heard from a soul.

  There was a great deal in common between herself and Mrs Barrington, she thought. For example: each of them knew her proper place, and kept to it. Mrs Barrington seldom interfered with the nursery: whenever she did so, Nurse Taylor admitted afterwards—sometimes to herself, always to Mrs Barrington, but never to the other servants—that her mistress was justified. It was this honesty that gave her a kind of secret fellowship with Mrs Barrington, for it showed quite clearly how faithful she was, it showed that she had the welfare of the children at heart; and for this reason she knew that the present was certain to be a good one, a little piece of jewellery, a buckle, a brooch, a bangle hung with tiny enamelled objects, such as Mrs Barrington wore . . . ‘I expect she told you not to tell me, dear!’ Nurse Taylor suggested. But still the little boy would not open his mouth in reply, and the middle child stared into the distance. So the nurse continued to think her thoughts amid the shifting lights of the avenue.

  She heard the rattle of cartwheels behind her, and a smart young butcher, dressed in blue, came and was gone in a burst of trotting and whistling. That, she knew, was Pollie’s one and only lover; and, gazing into the chequered depths of the avenue that had swallowed the shining butcher’s cart, she thought of the postmen and policemen who wanted to marry the head-nurse of the Barringtons.

  Beside her ran a wooden wall, or fence, common to suburban neighbourhoods; its high, perpendicular strips of wood were overlapping towards her, and as she walked along with the children, and her steps grew slower, she could see between the spaces, and could catch glimpses of the gardens beyond. There were flashes of white roses, and streaks of sunny lawns.

  ‘When I come to marry,’ she thought, ‘I shall be very successful, and quite happy. Mrs Barrington is sure to give me a handsome wedding-present, such as a leather dressing-case with my initials on everything . . . and I shall have a garden with striped deck-chairs under the trees. . . .’

  Her handsome face drooped a little over the perambulator. ‘Yes, dear?’ she murmured. The youngest child had lost her doll; and without thinking, Nurse Taylor extracted it gently from its hiding-place.

  But the middle child could contain herself no longer.

  ‘If you want to know what the present is, I’ll tell you,’ she whispered.

  ‘Look, Nannie, quick!’ cried the little boy, baring his teeth.

  ‘When we get home,’ said the middle child, ‘Mummie will give it to you.’

  ‘Give me what?’ Nurse Taylor almost screamed.

  ‘My tooth,’ said the little boy, pointing to the dark gap.

  ‘The first Barrington tooth,’ the middle child murmured, dropping her eyes.

  Nurse Taylor turned the perambulator, shaking the child within it, and a deep flush swept into her c
heeks. ‘We’re going home now,’ she said.

  ‘But, Nannie, we haven’t been anywhere!’

  Not been anywhere? She had. She had been a long way, farther than she had ever been before. She was truly insulted by what she had heard. She would give notice at once. Or had she no prospects in view, and must she live forever with the Barringtons? She would accept the tooth; she would even pretend that she was honoured by it; and as soon as she had reached her bedroom, she would throw the tooth under the wash-hand-stand, and never look for it again. . . .

  The high perpendicular strips of the wooden wall beside her were now closed against her, overlapping away from her, and she could see no longer into the gardens.

  Revolution

  One day Pollie electrified the Barringtons by announcing that she had a young brother named Willie, and that he was ill in the hospital; and as soon as they had succeeded in readjusting their idea of their under-nurse, the Barringtons told Pollie how pleased they all were to know that she had a young brother, and how sorry they were to hear that he was ill in the hospital. Then they all began to feel rather awed and excited about his accident, for, as Nurse Taylor explained one morning at breakfast in the nursery, no doubt Willie would have to have both his feet amputated.

  News of the projected operation soon reached Mrs Barrington, who said regretfully in her soft voice, nodding her small, dark head at her under-nurse: ‘And I am sure he would have needed his feet a lot, Pollie.’ Pollie burst into tears; and as though the doctors had heard the conversation of the Barringtons at Streatham, Willie did have both his feet amputated. There was a hard frost in London on the day that Pollie and her mother went to see him in hospital. Pollie’s mother looked pale and thin, sitting near the door of the Hammersmith bus; her gloved hands lay like wood in her lap; she was dressed very neatly in black, and appeared as though she were going to a funeral. But the little under-nurse’s cheeks were as red as apples, and the breath was puffing out of her mouth like steam from a kettle. While the horses were whacking their feet loudly on the frosty road, and the conductor was punching the passengers’ tickets, Pollie began to think more clearly than ever about her brother’s operation. She imagined the gleaming of knives, the rasping of saws, the faces of the doctors bent low down over the body; and presently she shut her eyes tightly, and wondered whether Willie had felt anything. She wanted to go back at once to the Barringtons, to talk and laugh with the children in the nursery.