Innocent Birds

by T. F. Powys

  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.’

  Chapter xx

  MR. TUCKER IS ASTONISHED

  MR. THOMAS TUCKER liked frosty mornings. A frosty morning made him wish to play like a kitten; and he would first admire the frost flowers upon his window and then open it wide so that he could lean out comfortably to look at the white grass as though the frost had painted it, as a surprise to please every one, and him most of all. December having come and a frosty morning, Mr. Tucker leaned out so far from his window, in order to breathe the cool freshness, that he nearly overb
alanced. Regarding this nearness to a fall as a joke, that entertained him almost as much as the putting on of his surplice always did, Mr. Tucker chuckled, dipped his body into a cold bath, and dried himself with a rough towel.

  Without his clothes Mr. Tucker looked like the figure of a fat little god in an Indian temple, but as he never saw himself in any other version except as merely ‘Old Tucker,’ he never cared what he looked like.

  After tingling his sheep’s-bell merrily, as if all the bell wethers in the world had shaken their necks in Dodderdown vicarage, Mr. Tucker ate his breakfast happily while his maid-servants laughed and chatted in the kitchen.

  In his study, beside a fierce burning fire of logs, Mr. Thomas Tucker bethought him of his story-book, wishing to see what the characters therein—very naughty ones, according to reports circulated in the district—were saying about themselves.

  Mr. Tucker felt for his book as usual in the pocket of his coat, but found nothing. Had the book been stolen? Mr. Tucker didn’t think so. He was by no means aware of the interest that all the neighbourhood took in his fancy reading; he didn’t even know that the Archdeacon had once mentioned the book with abhorrence at a meeting of pious clergymen.

  ‘No, no one,’ he thought, ‘would wish to steal this book; with its home-made cover it looked utterly unattractive. And as to the reading inside, well!!…’

  Mr. Tucker now remembered that he had the day before carried the book to Madder, and had stopped to read a little under a straw stack in one of the Madder lanes. No doubt he had forgotten to put the book into his pocket, and it had spent the night under the straw like a homeless tramp.

  ‘He wouldn’t mind lying there like an outcast,’ said Mr. Tucker, evidently referring to one of the characters in the book.

  Mr. Tucker put his hand through the hole in the door and rang the sheep’s-bell, so that any one in hearing might know that he was going out. He then stepped out of the low study window on to the frosty grass.

  Mr. Tucker walked along the high downs to Madder. The turf was firm and springy, and the stones that covered the downs shone white in the winter sun. Mr. Tucker’s feet were more than usually nimble; he carried his hat in his hand, and his gait, though not pretty, threw at least no gloomy shadow beside him.

  Going down into Madder, he reached the stack where he hoped to find the book that he loved to read, and was glad enough when he saw it safe upon the straw.

  Mr. Tucker was on the point of opening the book, at a page where a piece of straw had been put in as a marker, in order to see what happened to a man whose tragic history he was following in one of the stories—when he heard steps in the lane.

  The steps stopped in the lane near to the stack behind which Mr. Tucker was; and the two human beings who were denoted by them as being there began to say good-bye to one another. Mr. Tucker had no wish to hear what Was said; but neither did he wish to disclose himself so as to disturb them, in case they might wish to play together for the last time, ‘as happy young people should like to do,’ he hoped, ‘when they are leaving one another.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll soon come home again, Fred, and you’ll bring back a heap of money, so that we may live as well as Farmer Barfoot and his silly Betty.’

  Sometimes upon a winter’s day one hardly notices when the sun ceases to shine. The face of day is slowly changed, like a man’s face when life is withdrawn.

  ‘Miss Pettifer says there ’s heaps of money in Derby.’

  The fair crisp look of the winter’s day was grown dim now.

  ‘One, two, three, four, five; no, no, no more, no more, darling; I can’t go on counting any more. And now they are all coming so fast, I couldn’t get any farther than twenty. No, don’t, Polly, don’t cry, darling.’

  When he heard the first words spoken, Mr. Tucker pressed both hands to his ears, and buried his head in the straw stack. Coming out again after some moments were gone by, Mr. Tucker listened. There were no voices now to be heard. Mr. Tucker put his hand into his pocket and touched his book.

  He stood yet and listened, as though he expected some sound to come to him.

  It came, the deep continuous sound of distant waves falling.

  From where Mr. Tucker was standing, he could see the white road that crossed the downs and led to the world beyond. This white road was the same down which poor Annie Pim had been brought home. The figure of a traveller who carried a bundle now appeared upon the hilltop, showing clearly against the grey sky. Fred Pim was going to Derby…. Mr. Tucker’s story-book was so varied in its matter that he was certainly used to sorrowful as well as happy things happening there; so that he wasn’t altogether surprised—for he took his ideas of life from his book—that unlooked-for events, and not always kind ones, should happen in Madder.

  That Fred Pim should be leaving the village, and leaving sun-kissed Polly behind him, seemed to Mr. Tucker’s mind to show the movement of the same dire hand of destiny, that cut so deeply into the lives and characters in his story-book.

  Mr. Tucker sighed when he thought of Polly. Some one’s experiences in his book seemed to be particularly suited to Fred’s departure, and he hoped that nothing would prevent Fred and Polly from meeting again in happiness.

  The Madder elms were now all weeping in the quick thaw, and had Fred stayed he would have had as much difficulty in counting these drops from the trees as Polly’s tears.

  Mr. Tucker left the stack, walked into the lane again, and under the dripping trees.

  Going beside Mrs. Billy’s shop—he thought it unlikely that any child would want to play now the frost was gone—he heard May Billy say in a tone that certainly wasn’t a playful one, ‘They pews do get more dirty each Sunday, an’ God alone do know what Silly Susy do go to church week-days for. Maybe ’tis to take folks’ prayer-book markers.’

  Mr. Tucker stopped in the road. Madder church was in front of him, a little to the right hand. He regarded the porch as though to inquire what it was that Susy went under it for.

  May Billy came out into the road to see what Mr. Tucker was staring at so intently. She looked scornfully at the church, and brushed with quick womanly strokes her serge skirt. ‘Perhaps,’ she thought, ‘some of dirty Susy’s dust is still upon it.’

  ‘Susy be gone to church now,’ May said, pointing with her hand at the ponderous dark mass that was Susy, who waddled rather than walked up the church pathway.

  Having been rammed into the church himself, Mr. Tucker now felt that he should at least just peep in to see what Susy did there.

  ‘Perhaps she collects all the books of devotion,’ he thought, ‘and builds houses with them on the altar table.’ He hoped she did, knowing well how glad God would be to see Susy so playful and happy.

  On his way to the church, Mr. Tucker went by Gift Cottage. He there came upon Mr. Solly leaning dejectedly over the white gate and looking, as though his hope was too wonderful to be true, at Madder hill.

  Polly had passed by Gift Cottage on her way home to the rectory after she said farewell to Fred. Polly was crying.

  ‘Aunt Crocker could never tell a lie, could she?’ Solly inquired of Mr. Tucker.

  ‘Not with God listening,’ replied Mr. Tucker.

  ‘Then He will give His great gift to Fred and Polly; He never tells lies.’

  ‘Not with Mrs. Crocker listening,’ replied Mr. Tucker.

  Solly sighed softly and looked up at Madder hill.

  ‘But what of the Americans?’ asked Mr. Tucker.

  Solly was thoughtful. ‘The Americans are very near the end of their history,’ he said slowly, ‘and I fear that soon there will be nothing else for them to do but to live in the glory of their past. They are beginning to manufacture iron and steel, including machinery.’

  Mr. Thomas Tucker looked very grave.

  ‘I hope,’ remarked Mr. Solly, who appeared to be a little happier now, ‘that the Americans will not mind my burying them.’

  ‘You don’t mean to do that, do you?’ asked Mr. Tucker, putting h
is hat firmly upon his head, and then taking it off again.

  Mr. Solly turned and looked at the corner of his garden that had never been planted.

  ‘I would rather bury America in that corner,’ he said, ‘than that its noble history should be used as a mere wrap for sugar candy and patent corn cures.’ …

  Mr. Thomas Tucker invited Solly to go with him to Madder church, in order to see what Susy did there. Mr. Tucker walked in short steps, Solly in longer ones. They passed under a large Madder elm tree. Solly looked up through the branches.

  ‘His gift will be wonderful and lasting,’ he said, as if the branches were a ladder that led his thoughts to heaven.

  Mr. Tucker appeared for the moment to be sad.

  ‘If the gift is lasting,’ he said, ‘then it cannot be a child’s game.’

  The rising wind had compelled Mr. Tucker, who felt the cold now the thaw had come, to put on his hat. When they were come near to the church door, Mr. Solly remained a little way behind, while Mr. Tucker went to peep in. Soon Mr. Tucker appeared again, with his finger to his lips, and beckoned. Solly silently entered the porch.

  Kneeling before the altar railings, a great mass of faded black clothes was spread out. Behind this kneeling heap, that was Susy, there was a new brush and pan dropped in the aisle.

  Mr. Tucker went out of Madder church and leaned, in order to prevent himself from falling, against Mr. Soper’s tombstone.

  ‘Susy goes to church to pray,’ he whispered excitedly to Solly.