The Wingless Bird

by Catherine Cookson

  Agnes was now holding the coat up before her. The material seemed to her to be a thick heavy silk. The coat, she saw, was lined, but with a different material and colour, the lining being of a slightly thicker material in deep rose pink. The contrast between the lime green and the rose pink was striking. She had never seen anything like it before. And now she was holding the dress. It was made of the same material as the coat. It had a square neck and a deep square-cut collar of the same colour as the lining. The bodice was plain and ribbed to the waist, and hanging from two loops at the side was a fine red suede belt. Except for a slight flair towards the hem, the skirt was straight.

  ‘What d’you think of it, eh? What d’you think of it, Agnes?’

  She glanced at Miss Florence and shook her head, saying, ‘I’ve…I’ve never seen anything like it before,’ and she was looking from one to the other, wondering which one it was meant to fit, when Miss Rene startled her by saying, ‘Well, get your coat and things off and try it on.’

  ‘Me?’ The word was high-pitched and the sisters glanced at each other and laughed in their different keys, and they all repeated together, ‘Me?’ and Belle, looking from Rene to Florence, said, ‘Who does she think is going to wear it, one of us?’ Again their laughter joined.

  ‘But…but I could never wear that. Where could I go to wear that?’

  ‘You could go into the city.’

  ‘What!’ She was laughing loudly herself now. ‘I’d have all the dogs after me.’

  ‘Dogs indeed! You’d have all the men after you. Get your things off.’ They now practically set upon her, pulling off her hat, her coat, and unbuttoning her dress from the back. And she, still laughing, said, ‘It’s a good job I changed my underwear yesterday.’

  ‘Well, there’s one good thing you won’t be able to wear with it and that’s three petticoats.’

  ‘I never wear three, just two.’ She nodded at Miss Rene, who came back at her quickly, saying, ‘Not even two, one will be enough, and it will have to be a lawn one, and your bloomers an’ all.’

  ‘Oh, Rene! Rene!’ the other two sisters were exclaiming.

  When a few minutes later, amid the oohs and aahs from the three women, she stood and looked at the person staring back at her from the long mirror, she couldn’t believe it was herself. She had never imagined wearing clothes like this, or that they could make such a difference.

  Her mother had always bought her clothes, or at least been with her to help her choose them: summer dresses had been plain grey or blue, the blue ones often with a small check in them. Her mother was very fond of that pattern. Winter coats had been navy or dark grey. But she had never worn colours, not real colours, not beautiful soft-glowing colours like these, lime green and rose pink and that scarlet belt. Of a sudden the room was quiet, and when she turned from the mirror and stood before the three elderly sisters, it could almost be said there were tears in their eyes, and in her own. And her voice broke a little as she said, ‘It’s beautiful, so beautiful, but…but I could never wear it, could I? Now could I?’

  ‘Yes; yes, you could.’ Miss Rene was wagging her finger in Agnes’ face. ‘You’ve got beautiful features, beautiful hair. You have never made enough of yourself. This’—she gently touched the lapel of the coat—‘has brought out your beauty; but you were always beautiful.’ She turned to her sisters now, her head bobbing. ‘I’ve said that, haven’t I? I’ve said that time and again. Jessie’s pretty in a dolly sort of way, but she could never come up to Agnes. I’ve said that, haven’t I?’

  ‘You have. You have, dear.’ They were both nodding back at her. And now they all nodded towards Agnes and Miss Florence said softly, ‘The moment we got it, dear, I said, “I know who that would suit, because she has the same figure as Mrs Bretton-Fawcett.” Didn’t I, Rene? Didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes, you did. I’ll give you that much, you did. But as for a figure, I wouldn’t say that Mrs Bretton-Fawcett has a figure, no more than Agnes here has one, because they are both like drainpipes…’

  ‘Oh, Rene! Rene.’ The two sisters sounded shocked, except that their eyes were twinkling. And Miss Belle now said, ‘But she’s right, Agnes. She’s right. You haven’t got a fashionable figure but you carry yourself well. You’ve got what I would call poise. You know what I mean?’

  ‘I know what I hope you would mean, Miss Belle; but Miss Rene’s right, I have about as many curves as a lamp-post.’

  ‘You’ve got a lovely waist, dear. And your shoulders are good. Anyway, would you like it?’

  ‘Like it? But…but it must cost the earth. I…’

  The sisters now exchanged glances, and Miss Florence, looking at the eldest one in her family, said, ‘You’d better explain, Rene.’ And Miss Rene’s retort was very sharp as she said, ‘I’ll do that after she’s tried on the brown leghorn or the mink-coloured felt. Bring them in, Florence.’

  Miss Florence seemed to skip out of the storeroom and within a minute skip back, displaying a hat on each hand. ‘Try the felt, first,’ said Miss Rene. ‘It’s a very light felt. It could be worn in the spring or the autumn.’

  Agnes stood still while Miss Rene placed the felt hat at a slight angle on her head and then, standing back, said, ‘That’s it, that’s it, except you will want lime-green ribbed-silk ribbon to match the outfit. But let’s try the straw.’

  The leghorn straw was not large for that particular type of hat and it had a brown velvet ribbon on it.

  ‘Oh, that’s nice, better than the felt, Rene. Now don’t you think so? That, with a velvet ribbon and little streamers at the back. Oh yes. And remember, Rene, you weren’t for me putting that on show, were you? You said it would never go in the window.’

  ‘Well, it hasn’t gone, has it, sister? And it still mightn’t go; it all depends on Agnes here, if she wants to buy a hat to go with it all.’

  Agnes turned now and looked in the mirror again, and she really couldn’t believe what she saw. But the longer she looked at herself the more she knew that she was going to buy this hat, or perhaps these two hats, and this beautiful, beautiful outfit. She swung round swiftly now and said, ‘But…but how much would all this cost?’

  ‘Certainly not as much as it’s worth, at least the dress and coat, because, you see, it’s this way. Mrs Bretton-Fawcett is a county lady and she has always patronised us because we have made her hats to suit her. And when she goes to London in the summer she may order as many as four or five, especially if she is attending the races. And it may surprise you to know that a number of the county people are not what they appear. I mean as regards their wealth.’

  ‘Poor as church mice, some of them.’ Florence was now stressing her words with a deep obeisance of her head.

  ‘And the ones that have the money are the worst payers.’ This was from Miss Belle.

  ‘Be that as it may’—Miss Rene’s voice had a touch of admonition in it—‘as I’m always telling you: betters do as betters do; it’s no concern of me or you.’

  ‘And I always say, sister, it is our concern when they don’t stump up.’

  Miss Rene ignored Miss Belle’s remark and, turning again to Agnes, said, ‘It should happen that Mrs Bretton-Fawcett had some bills outstanding and that she should at the same time require one or two hats for herself and an equal number for her daughter. They were going to London for some weeks: they have friends in high places, you know, and the eldest Miss Bretton-Fawcett, the daughter you know, is to come out next year. Anyway, to cut a long story short, she wondered if we would like to take payment in part with one or two garments. She assured us they had only been worn a few times. You see, people in their class cannot wear the same thing often. You understand, Agnes?’

  Agnes made no comment on this statement; yet all the while she was thinking, they shouldn’t buy things that they can’t afford, especially hats, from hard-working women like these. But Miss Rene was still talking.

  ‘And she brought this outfit’—she touched Agnes’ sleeve—‘as a sample of how s
he would pay for her hats. Of course, this alone didn’t meet the cost of the hats or the debt owing, but she said if we could find a buyer for such as this it would, in a way, alleviate some of the debt…’

  ‘And we haven’t had a penny from them for the past two years or more. Oh, more…’

  ‘Will you be quiet, Belle!’

  ‘Anyway,’ Miss Rene continued, ‘immediately we saw this we knew it was of the highest quality. I can assure you you won’t find anything in the city shops here to compare with it: it was made in London, specially modelled. It’s labelled in the back of the dress. You’ll see when you take it off.’

  ‘How much?’ There was to be no quibbling, just, ‘How much?’ for she had made up her mind that, no matter what it cost, she was going to have this outfit. She might never wear it, except in her bedroom, but she meant to have it.

  ‘Well now.’ The sisters exchanged glances, then Miss Belle and Miss Florence nodded towards their elder sister and guide, and she, turning to Agnes, said, ‘Mrs Bretton-Fawcett said we could get five pounds of anyone’s money for it. But we knew that was ridiculous. So we decided that it was worth three pounds.’

  Three pounds! She would have to work for a month for that. Her winter coat, shoes and hat together hadn’t cost that. But if it had meant working for two months she would have said immediately, as she did now, ‘I’ll have it.’

  The sisters were laughing quite gaily. ‘I knew you would. I knew you would.’ Florence was moving from one foot to the other as she helped her off with the coat. But it was Belle who said, ‘What about the hats?’

  ‘Yes, what about them?’ Her voice was full of laughter. ‘I’ll take them both, but I want discount for buying two at once, mind.’

  The laughter filled the room, it filled the shop, it even penetrated the wall into the tobacconist’s shop and made Arthur Conway wonder if the three old girls next door had gone barmy or taken to the bottle early in the day, for it was said that they took wine with their dinner. Yet, how far that was true, he didn’t know.

  The laughter had subsided, the ladies were folding the coat and dress and were about to lay it on a tissue-papered bed in a cardboard box, when Agnes said, ‘What size shoes does she take? I can’t wear rinking boots with that now, can I?’

  Miss Florence and Miss Belle leant against each other, and Miss Rene, trying to quell her own laughter, admonished her sisters: ‘Stop spluttering, you two. You’ll splash the garment.’

  Agnes’ face too was wet with her laughter. She dried her eyes, then said, ‘I’ve got to do some shopping. I’ll call back for my shipping order.’

  After putting her hat and coat back on, she looked in the mirror, and she twisted her face up and stabbed her fingers towards her reflection as she said, ‘That isn’t me! From now on that isn’t me.’ Then turning to them, she exclaimed, ‘You never told me what you wanted for the hats?’

  ‘Oh…oh, fifteen shillings for the two. But we’ll trim them up to match your outfit.’

  ‘Oh, no, no; that isn’t fair. That felt was in the window last week for twelve and six and…and leghorns are always expensive. And then there’s the yards of ribbon to go round it.’

  ‘Take it or leave it. Take it or leave it.’ Miss Rene went before her out of the storeroom, her hand waving in the air, and the other two sisters took it up chanting merrily: ‘Take it or leave it. Take it or leave it.’

  At the shop door they all stood around her, and she looked at them solemnly now and said, ‘Thank you so much. You know, when I came from’—she thumbed towards the wall—‘next door, not more than half an hour ago, I was very sad inside. Life appeared dull. I couldn’t see anything in it. No bright light in the future, just the same thing day after day. But, you know, you three dear people have changed all that: you’ve brought something new into my life with that beautiful dress and coat.’ She lifted her hand and pointed down the shop. ‘And you know, I’ve never said this, although I’ve thought it a lot: you’ve always been kind to me all down the years. From when I was small, I used to run in here when I was miserable and you, Miss Belle, used to hold me. And you, Miss Florence, used to take me upstairs and give me milk and a bun. And, Miss Rene’—she paused here and put her hand out towards the eldest of the sisters—‘you gave me my first book, a book of poems.

  “Little Orphan Annie came to our house to stay

  To chase the chickens from the porch and sweep the crumbs away.”’

  Suddenly, she bent forward and kissed them one after the other. Then, quickly she opened the door and went out and left them standing in a half circle, silent, no laughter on their faces now, just memories of what might have been if they had had a child like the little girl who used to run in to them, and a daughter as she was now.

  As Agnes hurried down the street it came to her that it had been tactless of her to talk about life being dull and with no bright future; for had they any bright future? Were their lives not dull? And yet, no, she didn’t think so. They were nearly always cheerful. And it was known that they ate well and that they patronised the theatre, and the concerts in the City Hall in Newcastle. It was also known that two of them had a day off together every week, besides Sunday. Sometimes it was Miss Rene and Miss Belle, or Miss Belle and Miss Florence, or Miss Florence and Miss Rene. They took turns. And on these occasions they would visit the museums or take a trip to Durham, or travel down the river to Shields in the ferry boat. No, their lives weren’t dull. And they had suddenly taken the dullness out of hers. But the question was, when would she be able to wear those beautiful things? Would there ever come an occasion when she could put them on, together with the leghorn hat, or the felt, and the new shoes that she would buy herself?

  Would there? She doubted it. But never mind, she could look at them and touch them and dream.

  PART TWO

  The Hall

  One

  The room was brilliantly lit by the two wrought-iron gas chandeliers, each holding eight branched lamps, and by the four candelabra on the dining table, two placed at each side of the silver epergne.

  There were seven people seated at the long table. At the head was Colonel Hugh George Bellingham Farrier, retired, owing to a war wound. At the other end of the table sat Grace May Farrier, his fair, tall, stately wife. And to her right sat her eldest son, Reginald John Hugh Farrier: a replica of what his father had once been, a tall dark-haired, dark-eyed, handsome soldier. He was twenty-nine years old, but looked much older. On her left sat her second son, Henry George Farrier, twenty-eight, a newly fledged parson of the Church of England. He was not as tall as his brother and had fair hair and grey eyes and his mother’s complexion. His face was round and his eyes merry.

  At the Colonel’s end of the table and to his right sat his daughter, Elaine, who was the antithesis in appearance of her mother, being short and plump. She was now Mrs Dawson-Porter, and the mother of three children.

  On the Colonel’s left sat his youngest son, Charles William Bellingham Farrier, who was twenty-five years old. He was a little over medium height, with the same complexion and the same dark brown eyes and hair of his elder brother Reginald. But where Reginald could be dubbed handsome, Charles was merely good-looking.

  But seated halfway down one side of the table and with no-one opposite her sat an old lady. No member of the family knew her exact age and whatever they might have guessed she would have denied flatly.

  Esther Forester was the Colonel’s half-sister, who was known affectionately in the family as Nessy. And nobody had seen her real face for years, for it was heavily rouged and powdered from the top of her eyebrows to where her wrinkled skin disappeared into the bodice of her bright-red velvet evening gown. And now she had one bony hand extended towards Charles at the top of the table and in it was her dinner fork with a piece of meat still speared on it. And she wagged it at him, saying, ‘You are an infant. You know nothing about women, my dear Charles. They have been a power behind the scene for centuries, but now they’re coming to the for
e. You mark my words. You mark my words.’

  When the piece of meat dropped from the fork everyone at the table exploded into laughter except the Colonel, who said, ‘Nessy! Behave yourself.’

  ‘You be quiet, Hughie. Grace has been the power behind your throne for years. Time you were away playing toy soldiers, who do you think looked after this house and the estate? And women all over the country are doing the same, and all over the world.’ She now directed the fork towards Elaine, saying, ‘Look at this child, made to produce children like piglets every year and still no more than one herself.’

  ‘Hear, hear, Aunt Nessy! You’re quite right, perfectly right. What do you think I should do about it?’

  ‘Make a stand, girl. Make a stand. Give him an ultimatum. Say no, or…’

  It was Grace Farrier’s voice now that cut in, low but firm, ‘Nessy!’

  There was another roar of laughter when the old lady, her voice changing, said, ‘All right, I will behave, not because you tell me to but because our dear Henry here will die of shock in a moment.’

  ‘I’ll do nothing of the sort, Aunt Nessy,’ the young parson said now. ‘You forget that I am the receiver of confessions.’

  ‘Oh my! Yes, high church. Why, in the name of God didn’t you go over to Rome and be done with it?’

  ‘I just might in the end. You never know. I could graduate…’

  ‘Graduate, you call it? My God! If you knew some of the goings-on of that lot in high places.’

  ‘Well, as I don’t, tell me about the goings-on, Aunt Nessy. I’d love…’

  ‘Henry, you’re as bad as she is. Stop it!’

  Henry looked down the table now and grinned at his mother as he said, ‘Yes, Mama.’

  ‘The quicker you get back to Paris the better, Nessy, for all concerned.’ The Colonel was nodding his head now towards his half-sister. And she came back, saying, ‘All right, you stiff-neck, I’ll return tomorrow.’