The Penguin Book of the British Short Story

by Philip Hensher

  The watcher from the window saw the young priest pick up the bird and walk off with it in one hand towards the boys’ gardens. He admired the decision with which Kerrigan had picked it up. He himself, he knew, would have hesitated lest the bird squawk or flutter. He would have grabbed at it ineffectively, and added to its suffering.

  Fascinated, despising himself, he saw Kerrigan reach the gardens, set down his burden, and take the pointer from his sleeve. Forcing his eyes away, he closed them, and muttered a prayer. O Lord, for all suffering things, that must forsake the light …

  When next he looked, Kerrigan had taken up a fork, and was digging vigorously.

  Sighing, the priest looked at the papers before him, and set himself to his work again. But the signs conveyed no meaning to him. He read the same half page three times over, his pencil waving, hesitating what to mark. Pulling himself harshly together, he read the question carefully, and marked it. Then he put the pencil down on the desk, and stared up at the honour boards at the far end of the hall. Somehow, he knew that what had happened was going to affect him all his life; that it had a meaning for him; that he would never be able to forget it.

  Twenty minutes after the rook flew into the old man’s garden, it lay, still warm, under two feet of dark, wet earth.

  T. F. POWYS

  The Key of the Field

  Uncle Tiddy stood in the road watching the leaves. The leaves spun around him in the wind, for the October frosts had turned them yellow, and the November blasts had shaken them from the trees.

  Uncle Tiddy watched the leaves anxiously. He believed they were speaking to him. The yellow leaves were driven here and there; there was no rest for them, for one gust followed another to whirl them about.

  Uncle Tiddy remained still and watched the leaves. The wind grew quiet and the driven leaves settled down into the shape of a key. Uncle Tiddy rejoiced. He believed that, one day, he would possess again the key of the field …

  The field belonged to Squire Jar of Madder Hall. There was no better field in the whole world than this field.

  The field consisted of twelve acres of the richest pasture. The grass grew luxuriantly, and in the middle of the field there was a fine oak-tree that gave a welcome shelter to the cows during the hot summer weather.

  The field had once – so Neddy, one of the oldest residents in Madder, used to say – been a portion of the Squire’s garden, but the Squire – a worthy man who did not wish to keep all the best of everything for himself – built a low wall, and separated the new field from his old garden, hoping that the field would give to one or other of his tenants a lasting happiness.

  But, for all the Squire’s generosity – he dearly loves those who live upon his lands – Mr Jar was a man who did not like to be too closely looked upon. And, so in order to prevent any other than his chosen tenants from walking too near his pleasure-garden where the choicest fruits and flowers grew, and where his friends were entertained all the year round, the Squire enclosed the field with high palings – the same that are used by noblemen for their deer parks – and also had a strong iron gate built, that was locked by a massive key.

  The first tenant of the field, to whom the Squire’s steward – a learned man, though somewhat old – handed the key, was Uncle Tiddy.

  Uncle Tiddy was a proper man for the field, for, besides being a good husbandman, he was never a one to pry into other people’s doings. Also his wife was dead, which may have been a reason – other than Uncle Tiddy’s honesty – for choosing him as a tenant. For Squire Jar, as all people know, is a little afraid of women.

  He had no objection, however, to Uncle Tiddy’s niece, Lily, who was hardly more than a child, being between sixteen and seventeen years old – a girl who could dance and run as well as the best, and could skip better, since she was six years old, than any other maid in the village.

  If Lily had a fault – and she was so well-grown and comely a girl that anyone might expect her to wish to be a wanton – it was that her heart was responsive to the slightest touch of love, though she seemed kinder to her uncle than to any other man.

  Who then should have been more happy than Uncle Tiddy with kind Lily to tend him, with the Squire’s favour, and with the key of the field in his possession?

  But even with a field so well worth having, Uncle Tiddy failed to prosper in his business, and old Grandmother Trott, his near neighbour, told a sad story about him, in which she said that Uncle Tiddy was little better than a sinner – indeed, she believed him to be one.

  Grandmother Trott lived with her son John – a widower – and her two grandsons, that were as good as grown men; and ever since the new field was made, the garden hedge removed, palings and a gate set up, this family had envied Uncle Tiddy and desired, with all their hearts, to take the key from him and so to have the field.

  Even before Uncle Tiddy had the key, the Trotts had hated the Tiddys, and only because the Tiddys had always been looked upon by others as honest, harmless folk, who kept a few good cows, while the Trotts had been but lean farmers, keeping only a sow or two and a few sickly hens, though now, by thieving management – for they stole the corn from Squire Jar’s granary – they grew every day more prosperous, while Uncle Tiddy became every day poorer.

  Seeing how affairs were going with Uncle Tiddy, old Grandmother Trott began to be merry, though sometimes she could be glum enough, and she would tell people – even affirming that she had heard the Squire’s steward say the very words – that in the long run the good are sure to prosper, but that every sinner will one day or other lose all that he has.

  ‘There be always ways and means to get the better of a man like Uncle Tiddy,’ Grandmother Trott told her son John; ‘and we have only to mind what we do say, and the field will be ours.’

  ‘’Tis a field,’ replied John Trott, ‘that be too good for Tiddy, for how can his few cows feed off all the rich grass, and they be old too. ’Tis a sin and wickedness that so good a field should be his. I have often seen that when all the grounds elsewhere be burnt by a hot sun as hard as a biscuit, Tiddy’s field be still green and flourishing, so that they few cows ’e do still have be always lying down.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ replied Mrs Trott angrily, ‘they do lie down, while ours be walking all day to get a bellyful, or else raging with tail on end to rid them of stinging flies.’

  Neither was it only the goodness of the grass that pleased the Trotts and made them wish for the field. They wished also to be spoken of as trusted people, as a family that was highly thought of by the Squire and his steward, so that at any holiday gathering they might hear folk tell one another: ‘’Tis they Trotts who have the best field.’

  Grandmother Trott was an ill-favoured woman. She moved uncomfortably, hunching up her shoulders as if she were always creeping in under low doorways.

  One would have thought that, if the Squire’s steward heard any tale of hers repeated to him, he would have doubted her words, but alas! now that he was grown old and his eyesight dim, he was known to listen to all the tittle-tattle of the village, which no just steward ought to do, though he would still speak to the people exactly as the Squire had spoken to him.

  One Sunday in May, when all things abroad were lovely and shining under a generous sun, Grandmother Trott found her two grandsons at play at tosspenny in the back parlour at the farm, and went in to them with her head sunk as usual between her shoulders.

  ‘Ah ha!’ she said, with a smirking sneer, ‘ain’t there no soft and young maids in the lanes for ee to tousle and tread, that thee must stay biding here like two worm-eating moles? Lily Tiddy be just tripped into wood to see what flowers she can spy. Thee be pretty men to toss a penny in a parlour! When I were young, a lusty fellow would throw a girl down time you do look at one, and take good heed that Miss did never rise same as she fell.’

  George Trott swore loudly. He put his winnings into his pocket and went out.

  George was a big handsome fellow, and he hadn’t to whisper many words to Lily
under the shade of the big trees where she was picking the bluebells, before she willingly permitted him to enjoy her.

  As soon as George began to boast at home about what he had done, Grandmother Trott decided what she should do. In a week or two she was noticed walking down the village, as if something pained her. ‘Maybe ’tis me back,’ she said, and waited beside the well until Uncle Tiddy went by on his way to the field.

  ‘Look,’ she said to Mrs Lugg, who washed the steward’s silk hood that he wore on state occasions, and so was in his confidence, ‘look, there do go Uncle Tiddy! Why, though ’tis summer weather, ’is topcoat be buttoned to ’is chin. That’s a-telling folk that he has sins to hide. He don’t look happy neither; ’e be got poor and ’tis ’is evil wickedness that won’t let ’e thrive.’

  Mrs Trott laughed. She thrust out her head at Mrs Lugg and laughed again.

  ‘’Twouldn’t do,’ she whispered, putting her mouth near to Mrs Lugg’s ear, ‘’twouldn’t do for Steward to hear what pranks Uncle Tiddy be up to. Uncle Tiddy bain’t no honest liver. No one don’t ever hear him curse and swear at thik little cunning wench who do bide wi’ ’e. No, no, ’tis all loving words and gifts from Uncle Tiddy to she. ’E don’t never strike maiden with milking-stool, as a decent man will sometimes. – ’Tis too loving they be for righteous living.’

  Lily was both kind and loving – as Grandmother Trott seemed to guess; she was also very simple and innocent, and one evening when George met her in the wood, he begged so hard to be shown one peep of the Squire’s pretty flowers over the wall, that Lily, wishing well to one who had pleased her, unlocked the gate and let him into the field.

  It was now that Grandmother Trott began to talk indeed. Whenever she went to the well – and the act of pulling up the water suited her stooping shoulders – there would be sure to be someone for her to talk to, and this is how she began:

  ‘Good folk bain’t honoured these days,’ she said. ‘They others do hide wickedness under a thin covering. Some have what they should never have had if Squire Jar knew all. Uncle Tiddy be a loving one to ’is kith and kin, and when a sort of work be begun at home ’tis continued abroad. Squire were deceived in his good man, but Steward, though ’e be near blind, do pry more closely into what be a-doing.’

  Mrs Trott had not been talking long about Uncle Tiddy before the Squire’s steward heard from Mrs Lugg what was being said, and told the Squire that Uncle Tiddy permitted the gate of the field to be unlocked and that Lily brought men into the field to look at the Squire’s garden.

  This the Squire, himself, was aware of, for once, when reading beside the pond of water-lilies and watching some pretty children at play, he knew that someone had watched him.

  When Squire Jar heard the truth, he was very angry, and said that he did not like to have his quiet, nor yet his rompings and gay jollity, watched by rude strangers – for Squire Jar can be merry at times, as well as grave – and thus it came about that the key of the field was taken from Uncle Tiddy and given to John Trott.

  That was a joyful day for John Trott when he received the key of the field.

  Mr Jar’s trusted steward, who always wore the white robes of his office when anything important was to be done, delivered the key with his own hands to John Trott, in the sight of all people. He also told him – as was proper he should – the Squire’s commands, but he hemmed and coughed a little when he said that Uncle Tiddy had disobeyed them in certain matters, for the steward had already forgotten what Uncle Tiddy had done.

  As soon as he had finished with his talk, John Trott replied briskly: ‘I will never’ – he swore on oath – ‘look over the Squire’s wall. I swear it. I have no wish to watch the Squire, whether he be merry or sad, nor yet to see how his young friends disport themselves. What others do is no business of mine; my only desire is that my family should prosper, and that I should make a fair and honest profit at my trade.’

  The reply pleased the steward, who shook John by the hand, and they ate and drank together as the custom is upon such an occasion …

  Nature works apace, and when Lily walked out one Sunday, she was carrying a baby, and the people – as people will, all the world over – nodded and gossiped.

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Mrs Sly, the wife of Nicholas, ‘many’s the time that I’ve seen Uncle Tiddy taking in the clothes frozen stiff in winter time for thik lazy maid. And the mats too, that be only straw woons, I’ve seen ’e shaking. Who does not know that one kindness do lead to another in people’s homes?’

  Uncle Tiddy was too proud a man to deny these evil tales, though he knew that he was being talked about, but, since he had been deprived of the field, he hardly cared what happened to him.

  Troubles do not sleep like quiet, well-pastured cows, and poverty – when once it gets hold – rarely lets go again. Soon Uncle Tiddy had nothing left – no cows, nor even any little pigs, nor cock nor hen. He had always spent more money than he should, and so when the evil days overtook him, he had no savings put away, and Lily was forced to work as a day-servant at the house of the steward.

  But, though Uncle Tiddy was now so poor a man as to be obliged to live upon the small wages that Lily brought to him, the Trotts still hated and still wished to torment him.

  ‘There is no trusting to Squire Jar,’ Grandmother Trott said crossly, ‘and though the good steward makes all things seem easy to us, both here and hereafter, yet that cursed Squire – a man who reaps where he has never sown – may suddenly break into our house, like a thief, and take away the key of the field and give it back again to Uncle Tiddy. Only look how Tiddy troubles us and annoys our brave children. He is for ever standing before the iron gate that leads into the field. He looks through the bars as though the field were still his own, and waits only for the key in order to go in. I have watched him more than once, and he looks so lovingly into the field, as if he tried to draw the field into his own body, and so to deprive us of it.’

  Grandmother Trott spoke the truth, for Uncle Tiddy would be always looking through the gate into the field. Any way that he took – for he went out of a morning whether the rain fell or the sun shone – would always bring him to the locked gate of the field.

  ‘You do not know,’ he would say to Lily in the evening – for they were alone again, Lily’s baby having died of the smallpox: ‘You do not know, Lily, how much I long to possess again the key of the field. Will the iron gate be locked against me for ever?’

  And Lily would then try, with all the kindness that was in her heart, to console him for the loss.

  ‘Do not sorrow overmuch,’ she said, one evening, ‘for though the steward seems to command all here, he does not always know his master’s mind. And besides, though the key of the field has been given to the Trotts, yet ’tis said that the Squire always keeps a master key at the Manor House, with which he can open, whenever he chooses, any gate upon his land.’

  ‘But the Squire passed me on the hill to-day, and he turned his face away from me,’ groaned Uncle Tiddy, ‘and unless I can take the key of the field from the Trotts I shall never get in.’

  ‘Alas!’ replied Lily, ‘I know well enough that the Squire leaves everything nowadays to his steward, an old man who only thinks of the fine house he lives in, the rich clothes he wears, and the ring upon his finger. Besides that, he drinks too much wine. Since I have been a servant within his doors, I have learned to know his ways, and he is a man very easy to deceive. My fellow-servants are always cheating him in one way or the other and they never get found out, for now he grows so blind that he hardly knows the night from the day.’

  ‘Oh, but I long for the field,’ said Uncle Tiddy, sadly; ‘though I do not want it now for any worldly profit that it gives, I only wish to get again the peace and joy of that field, so green and safe it used to be, so freed from loud noises – a place where only the sound of gentle laughter and the happy voices of the Squire’s guests are ever heard.’

  ‘I don’t suppose,’ said Lily, in a low tone, ‘that any
of us poor village people could ever get invited into the Squire’s garden.’

  Uncle Tiddy shook his head.

  ‘No, we cannot go there,’ he replied, ‘but we may get into the field if we find the key. It’s a field to delight in, a rich pasture. I remember how I used to lie under the oak, while my quiet cows fed near by. I would lie so still that my very life and being seemed to leave me, for the holy stillness of the field entered into me and I lost myself in it. The air was so very still and I lay so contentedly that I hardly knew myself to be alive.’

  ‘But do not go, I beg you,’ said Lily, ‘always to the gate of the field, for the Trotts are greedy people and are suspicious of what you do. They think that you envy their large red and white cows that feed in the field, and who’s to tell that they might not suddenly swing open the gate and crush you?’

  Uncle Tiddy hung his head and said no more.

  Grandmother Trott had noticed him going to the gate, and she feared that, if the Squire saw him there, he might be let through, and so she wished to harm him again, hoping that he might die of sorrow.

  ‘Surely,’ she said to her grandsons, ‘thee bain’t the ones to let a silly maid stay happy when once she be fallen? Where a hedge be broke ’tis easy climbing, and a second mowing be the greatest pleasure. To her again, my fine boys!’

  This time it was James who was sent to do the mischief, and very willingly he went to it. He lay among some tall bushes in wait for Lily, who had to pass along a dark lane on her way home. Seeing her come hurrying by, he laid hold of her and, by means of a blow or two with his fist, he forced her to yield herself to his pleasure.

  Lily wept much, but she did not tell her uncle what had happened; and in a few months’ time a merry word went about the village that Uncle Tiddy had been at work again, and people said that another child was to be born in his house – which happened as was foretold, only Lily died in childbed, and the babe died too.