The Wingless Bird

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘That must have been funny.’ What an inane thing to say. So he had a brother; a parson. Well, she had known he wasn’t from an ordinary family; his voice had told her that from the beginning, and also his attitude towards his sister wasn’t like that of an ordinary brother towards a sister. She couldn’t explain to herself what the difference was, but it was evident right from the beginning that he came from a different class of people. She didn’t know his name or where he lived.

  It was as if he had read her thoughts because now, pulling himself to the edge of the seat, he leant his elbows on his knees and spread his hands wide as he said, ‘I know your name is Conway, at least I go by the name on the shop. What your first name is, I don’t know. And you don’t know mine. Well, I’m Charles Farrier. My family consists of mother, father, two brothers and a sister; only my sister is married. One brother, as I said, is a parson and the other is in the army. And me’—he now thumped his chest with a doubled fist—‘what do I do? Oh, something nondescript. I’m what you call a would-be…writer, but what I write about seemingly has limited interest. I love old houses and old buildings, and I go nosing around in them and do a column for a magazine or a paper or whoever wants it. At the moment I’m trying to write a book about them. It began with Florence, and then the Louvre, but I soon had to drop that because I realised it had all been done before, and much better than I could hope to do it. So now I’m sticking to England, and, you know’—he wagged his finger at her—‘our own city, Newcastle, holds some very, very fine architectural structures. Of course, you’ll know that better than I do, living there. But have you lived there all your life?’

  Before she could answer he went on, ‘Yes, of course, you did tell me you were born in the shop, I mean upstairs.’ He was smiling widely at her now. ‘Anyway, I’m perusing Newcastle and Durham now; then I plan to deal with Oxford and Cambridge; and of course, we mustn’t leave out London, must we?’

  She was looking at him, unsmiling now. He was talking to her as if she were the owner of these clothes she was wearing, as if she were a knowledgeable person, someone like Mrs Bretton-Fawcett, the lady who seasoned in London and went to Ascot, wearing expensive hats paid for with her cast-offs. But what cast-offs! Cast-offs that made one feel a lady once you stepped into them and presumably gave the impression to others that you were so. Yet he must know differently: he knew she worked in the shop. Even though they owned it, she worked in it. What was she, after all, but a shop-girl? No, she wasn’t. Why was she so emphatic about that in her mind? What about the three women next door? They were shop-girls, loving, tender, caring shop-girls. And this man knew she was a shop-girl and he was treating her as an equal.

  ‘What is it? Are you unwell?’

  He was sitting by her side now, and he had hold of her hand. What had come over her? Had she fainted again? Oh, no. She wasn’t in the habit of fainting. But for a moment she had felt strange and once again she wanted to cry.

  When his voice came softly to her, saying, ‘Are you in trouble of some sort?’ she turned her head towards him, her lids blinking rapidly to keep back the tears, as she said, ‘No, no; I’m not, but…but my sister is.’

  Oh dear God! Why had she said that? He was a stranger. No, he wasn’t, he wasn’t a stranger. He had come to the shop to see her a number of times, and she hadn’t been there. And then he had spoken to her the other night as…as if he wanted to go on speaking to her. And he had talked to her now as…well, as if he were a friend.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘No. No, thank you. There’s nothing really anyone can do. The damage is done.’

  ‘Is…is your sister ill?’

  ‘Not ill but in trouble, grave trouble.’

  ‘Oh.’ Then after a moment he again said, ‘Oh,’ as if he fully understood the circumstances. And, she thought, perhaps he did: he was a man of the world, travelled, so she judged from the little he had said.

  She proffered a little further information now by saying, ‘I am going to this unknown lady to…to see if she can help. She is the only relative we apparently have.’

  ‘I hope you will be successful, and I’m sure once you talk to her she’ll fall in with your wishes.’

  When she realised he was still holding her hand she withdrew it from his, and as she did so he looked out of the window and said, ‘We’ll soon be running in. Look.’ Again he was bending towards her, his face not more than a foot from hers as he said, ‘I don’t suppose you have any idea how long your interview with your relative will take? But what time is it now?’ He looked at his watch. ‘A quarter past two. Well, I’m to meet my brother around four. That’s the one who’s in the army, you know. He’s a very smart fellow, soldier from his cap peak to his boot caps, if you know what I mean. Quite unlike me, but a very decent fellow. Well, we’re having tea together. He’s got a little business to do, and so have I; but mine’s in the Cathedral checking up on the Galilee Chapel. But, as I said, we’re meeting for tea at four. Would you care to join us?’

  ‘I’m…I’m sorry, but you see I don’t know how long I shall be, or even whether’—she forced herself to smile now—‘I shall be thrown out immediately. I…I understand they are—’ She paused and made a little pout before she said, ‘Monied people.’

  ‘Oh.’ He mimed her pout and said, ‘Monied people. Like that, are they?’

  When she actually laughed outright he said, ‘That’s better. That’s how I remember you.’ And at this she looked away, then adjusted her hat and straightened the rose-coloured lapels of her coat before getting to her feet and saying, ‘We are here.’

  ‘Yes, we are here.’ The train stopped. He helped her down onto the platform, and they had walked some distance along it together before he said, ‘Look, what about making an appointment. If you should be free around four o’clock you could stand on the bridge and view the river. From that point you would look unobtrusive. But then I couldn’t imagine you looking unobtrusive anywhere.’

  She turned her head and asked quietly, ‘Do these clothes make such a difference? Because, you know, they are not what I usually wear; they belonged to someone else, someone who is used to wearing such.’

  His face was unsmiling as he said, ‘You know, I think you are the most honest person I’ve met in my life.’

  ‘Blunt, you mean.’

  ‘No, I don’t mean blunt.’ His voice had a harsh note to it now. ‘I mean honest. Most girls of your age would have preened themselves and cooked up some story about an outfit such as this. But let me say this, these are the kind of clothes you are made for. I mean that.’

  She wetted her lips, swallowed, and said, ‘I’m not going to refuse that compliment because it was also said to me by three dear friends who live next door in the hat shop. It was they who were the means of my having this outfit, and others too. There’s a story there.’ She smiled wryly now. ‘If you were a novelist you would be able to use it.’

  ‘Well, I will be some day. Definitely that is what I intend to be, a novelist. You must tell me the whole story some time. But now will you promise that if you can, you will be on the bridge at four o’clock? And then we shall go and have tea.’

  ‘With your brother?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, with Reg. You’ll like Reg and he’ll certainly like you.’

  A voice far away in the back of her mind was saying, Is this happening to you? Is this what you wanted to happen to you? Is this what you hoped the clothes would make happen? Well, they have, haven’t they? She smiled now as she said, ‘If possible, I shall be on the bridge, sir, at four o’clock.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ He struck a pose, touched his hat, and then said, ‘Now may I get you a cab? Have you got the address?’

  She showed him the address and he said, ‘Oh. Well now, I think that is just outside the town.’ Then he leant sideways towards her and in a stage whisper he said, ‘Well, it would be, wouldn’t it, if they have money.’

  She laughed outright at this; and he left her to go and
hail a cab. As he was helping her into it his last words were, ‘Till four o’clock, ma’am, on the bridge.’

  The cab rolled away and took him from her sight and she lay back and closed her eyes; then put her hand tight against her ribs as if in an effort to press them against her heart and so check its rapid beating.

  When the cab slowed down she knew that they were mounting a steep road; then the land levelled out again. They passed several houses, each with a nice garden, then through a country lane with fields on each side swaying with corn, and along by a tall cypress hedge before the cab stopped.

  ‘This is it, miss. Will I wait?’

  She got out of the cab unaided and looking up at the driver she said, ‘Yes, please; at least for a short time. I’ll come and tell you if I need you again.’

  ‘I can’t go through the gates, miss; they don’t like you going up their drives ’cos you block the carriages comin’ out. That’s what they say. I’ll pull in over there.’ He pointed to a broad grass verge and she said, ‘Thank you. Thank you.’ Then she went through the gates that were wide open, past a small lodge and up a drive and into some bustle, for in front of the large flat-faced, red-brick house stood an open landau and pair and down the steps towards it was approaching a lady dressed in a dark-grey alpaca coat and navy blue straw hat set straight on a high pile of grey hair.

  She stopped on the bottom step and looked at Agnes. She looked her up and down, then said, ‘You must be Miss Middleton. You’re late, and you’ve come in the wrong way.’

  Again her eyes travelled over Agnes, then, her tone lower now, she said, ‘You do know what your audience consists of, don’t you? Mothers, working women. And then there’s your subject. I…I wouldn’t have thought that your outfit’—she now flapped her hand—‘suits the occasion. No, certainly not! But nevertheless, now that you’re here you had better get on with it. Take that path.’ She pointed across the drive. ‘It will lead you through the gardens and eventually you will come to a gate, and beyond there’s the church hall. You came in the wrong drive. I gave you precise directions in my letter. And let me say now that your letter did not give me a precise description of what to expect for this lecture. Well, get on your way.’ She stepped down onto the drive and towards the landau where the coachman was holding open the door, and she had her foot on the step when she was halted by a voice saying, ‘I have no intention of going on my way, and my name is not Miss Middleton. And whoever she is, she has my sympathy. Good day to you, madam.’ And on this she passed the surprised lady, walked round by the horse’s head and down the drive.

  The cabby was leaning against a fence bordering a field. He was peacefully smoking a pipe, but he quickly knocked the dottle out and returned the pipe to his pocket as the young lady said, ‘Let’s get away, and now.’

  ‘By! that was short and sweet, miss.’

  He was mounting the cab to his seat when he bent his head towards the open window and said, ‘Better wait, the coach is comin’.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing. You’ll drive straight away. Let the coach wait.’

  ‘Just as you say, miss, just as you say.’

  ‘And if the coach is behind us,’ she ended, ‘don’t you hurry.’

  Again he shouted and, from his box now, ‘Just as you say, miss, just as you say.’

  ‘Hey up, there!’ She looked out the window to where the coachman had pulled up the horses he had just driven through the gates. And when he shouted again, ‘Hold up, there!’ she leaned out of the window and lifted her hand in an admonishing gesture which said plainly, ‘You stay where you are.’

  Obeying her orders the cabby continued to walk his horse down the lane, and through the open window of the cab she could hear the sound of the horses behind being held in check, and it wasn’t until they reached the stretch of road that was wide enough for the open landau to pass that Agnes made it her business to sit on the edge of the seat so that the occupant of the landau could look at her, as she knew she would do, as they passed. And when this happened, Agnes met the curious gaze of her mother’s cousin with the coldest stare she could conjure up. The landau having passed, she sat back and almost slumped in her seat as she thought, Well, they could wipe out that escape for Jessie, for it was a certainty that that woman would never have even listened to the suggestion of taking a pregnant girl into her home, cousin’s daughter or not. There were all kinds of snobs, but she was a very patent one for, whereas her mother’s father had been but a draughtsman in the docks, her cousin’s father had, she understood, worked in a brewery in charge of the dray horses, from which he had risen to be a sort of foreman.

  The cabman now shouted down to her, ‘Where d’you want dropping, miss?’

  And after a moment’s hesitation she called back, ‘Oh, anywhere in the centre of the town.’

  A few minutes later, when she gave him his fare and a little more, he said, ‘Pleasure meetin’ you, miss. I enjoyed wipin’ me nose on that lot.’

  She left him with a smile, then asked herself what she should do: Go straight home or wander around and wait for four o’clock? What time was it now? She took out a fob watch from her handbag; it said ten minutes to three. What should she do until four o’clock? Look around the town? But she didn’t feel like doing that; not alone, for she was aware that people were looking at her, especially men.

  She could go and sit by the river. When she had earlier passed over the bridge she noticed people sitting on seats and watching the pleasure boats coming in and going out. Well, that’s what she would do. She’d make the best of these few hours of freedom from the shop and the house above. Oh yes, from the house above.

  She went down the steps and onto the river walk and chose a seat on which were seated two women. They looked at her, then exchanged glances, after which they went on talking, or seeming to whisper to each other. But when she found them again looking at her she half-smiled at them and they returned her gesture with slight movements of their lips before rising and walking away.

  She wished she hadn’t come out dressed like this. Oh, she did, or that she had someone with her.

  She watched the two straight-backed ladies in their grey poplin, long-sleeved, tight-waisted dresses and mole-coloured straw hats walking sedately up the steps; then she looked down onto the soft folds of her own dress and it seemed that the sparkle of the sun on the water was dotting it here and there with stars. It was such a beautiful outfit, but people who dressed like this didn’t walk alone.

  It was at this point in her thinking that, as if out of the air, she heard her name called. She turned swiftly and looked up towards the bridge. But there was no-one there except two children looking down onto the river. Then there it came again: ‘Miss Conway! Miss Conway!’

  She looked towards the river now and to the boats that were making for the landing and the boatman, and there, standing in one, rocking, was Mr Charles Farrier. She said the name to herself. He was now waving wildly to her and she waved back.

  As she watched him jump from the boat and onto the quay and come hurrying towards her, she rose; and it was she who spoke first. On a laugh, she said, ‘The Galilee Chapel must have been moved.’

  He put his head back and laughed too as he said, ‘I’ve never been able to resist the river and so I thought I’d just have a little row before going up to the Cathedral. When we were young, Nann…my father used to bring us down and we’d hire two boats and race each other.’

  She noticed his hesitation and knew he had been about to say, ‘Nanny brought us down.’ His tact in trying to make himself classless seemed to widen the social gap between them, although right from the beginning she hadn’t needed any proof to know that he had been brought up in the ‘Nanny’ class.

  ‘You’ve got over your business very quickly,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, it didn’t really begin.’

  ‘Sit down.’ He put his hand on her elbow and led her back to the seat, and there he said, ‘Can…can you tell me what happened?’

&nb
sp; ‘Oh, yes, yes. I can give it word for word.’ And this she did, even including her ordering her cab driver to disregard the unwritten law that cabs should give way to private carriages.

  Although he was amused at this latter description, she thought it was a critical amusement and she said, ‘Perhaps I am stepping on toes here. You would have expected the cabby to give way, is that so?’

  ‘No. No, not at all.’ He was emphatic.

  ‘But…but your parents might have?’

  He bit on his lip, then said, ‘To be as candid as you, I must say I think perhaps Father might have at one time. Yes, at one time he might have, but not of latter years. He had to retire early; he has a wound in his leg.’

  She didn’t enquire as to his father’s rank but she said, ‘I suppose army officers are like sea captains, they expect the waves to part and let them through.’

  He was chuckling now as he replied, ‘Yes, but sea captains are inclined to strut much more so than army officers, I think, and both types shout. Father used to bellow at us, even in the house. But…but tell me what are you going to do about your sister now?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m…I’m afraid, really I am. You see, Father made her swear on the Bible that she wouldn’t see this young man again, and she complied, but without the slightest intention of keeping her oath; and I’m sure she will see him again, she’ll make every effort to see him, and he her.’

  ‘Is he such an awful fellow?’

  She looked towards the river and thought a moment; then her answer came rapidly: ‘No; no, he isn’t,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t seem like his brothers. I…I’ve met the four of them. He’s rough-spoken but I think he’s trying to be honest. They are a notorious family. And you see, when Father hit him with the…’

  She now put her hands over her eyes and, speaking much slower, she questioned herself rather than him: ‘Why am I telling you all this?’