An Episode of Sparrows

by Rumer Godden

  Father Lambert looked at the carpet for a moment. Then he said, “The boy’s mother came to me straight from the police. It’s a terrible disgrace for her and Tip, Miss Chesney.”

  “She looked to me as if disgrace would not mean much to her.”

  “You’re wrong,” said Father Lambert. He went on, “I have been busy investigating since, and I think I know the whole story now.”

  “So do we,” said Angela.

  “But we don’t!” Olivia burst in, “and we must.”

  “Olivia, please,” said Angela, and she whispered sharply, “Don’t hold your heart like that. It looks ridiculous.”

  “There was talk about some tools being lost,” said Father Lambert after a moment.

  “Stolen,” said Angela.

  “The children have tools,” said Father Lambert, “an old hand fork and a broken shovel. They found the shovel in the Malones’ yard; the girl bought the fork at Dwight’s; that’s our junk shop in the High. You wouldn’t know it, but most of us do a good deal of buying and selling there. She did buy the fork.” His face relaxed into a smile. “She bought it with money she stole from one of our candle boxes.”

  “So she’s a thief, too,” said Angela. “I’m not surprised.”

  “She’s a redeemed thief,” said Father Lambert. “Tip made her put the money back.”

  “That’s what he says.”

  “It’s what I say.” He was stern, then again that look of—tenderness? thought Olivia. “I watched it,” he said.

  “And didn’t interfere?”

  “Why should I? Tip had it in hand.” Angela sniffed but Father Lambert went on. “Mr. Dwight also has a pair of shears; they were sold to him by a man called Lucas.”

  “Lucas!” Olivia sat up in her chair.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Angela.

  “We have Mr. Dwight’s statement, and that of Lucas himself when he was taxed with it.”

  “It’s impossible,” said Angela.

  “I’m afraid startling things are not impossible, Miss Chesney.”

  “I’m not startled,” said Olivia in a loud voice. “I never did like Lucas.”

  “Olivia, please be quiet.”

  “I don’t know about the iris plants—” Father Lambert began again.

  “Lucas probably only bought half and kept the money,” said Olivia.

  “Olivia!” Olivia could see that Angela was very angry—not because Lucas stole, thought Olivia, but because she knows now that she was wrong. “We will deal with Lucas,” said Angela.

  “I’m afraid you won’t be allowed to, Miss Chesney. You have made this into a police case and—”

  “Are you trying to blackmail me?”

  “I’m not even trying to trade.” Father Lambert’s voice was still good-humoured. “I only want—”

  Angela cut across him. “What you tell me makes no difference to the boy’s case. He is charged with hurting Lucas. What Lucas has done, or not done”—she’s being deliberately insulting, thought Olivia—“doesn’t alter that,” said Angela. “It’s not our main complaint, I know that, but it’s the only way of punishing the stealing of our earth. That wasn’t a little theft, Father Lambert. They took thirteen loads—”

  “Buckets,” said Olivia. “Buckets, but of course, those are child loads.”

  “They stole them,” said Angela, ignoring Olivia.

  “There are degrees of stealing,” said Father Lambert. “To make a complete crime there must be intention, or knowledge, that it was wrong. Tip thought the earth, the actual earth, was free.”

  “Then why was it fenced?”

  “That’s what I’ve always wondered,” said Olivia. “In the country, where there is plenty, perhaps one can fence, but not here, in London, where there’s so little. It should be open.”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Angela. “It’s the other way round.”

  “Yes,” said Olivia, “and that is wrong. It’s not”—and she groped for the word—“not just. It’s grasping and horrid.” A strange rage flared up in her. “Tell him they should have bought it at the Army and Navy Stores,” she flung at Angela and turned to the window; her shoulders were shaking.

  “Tip knew they were trespassing,” said Father Lambert after a moment, “but he did not mean to steal.”

  “He did not mean to steal our earth,” said Angela bitingly. “But he knew he could get money for it, which was what he probably did.”

  “It’s dry outside now and a fine evening after the rain,” said Father Lambert. “Would you come with me? I won’t keep you very long, but there is something I think you ought to see. Will you come?” He added, “Please.”

  “The case will come into court,” said Angela. “Anything you want to show can be produced then.”

  Father Lambert smiled. “I couldn’t produce this in court.”

  “Then I fail to see—”

  “If you would only look!” For the first time he showed a hint of impatience.

  “I am very busy this evening,” said Angela. “In fact”—she looked at her watch—“in exactly ten minutes we have people coming here.”

  “Then you won’t come?” said Father Lambert.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t.” She went to the door and held it open, but the Father was looking at Olivia—“As if I were an identity,” said Olivia afterwards, but that was not the right word.

  “You mean entity,” said Angela. “Isn’t everyone that?” but Olivia shook her head. Up to that moment, or the moment that Lovejoy had taken her hand, she, Olivia, had been a shadow.

  “You won’t come?” said Father Lambert to Angela. He sounded disappointed but not disappointed as much for himself as for Angela. “You won’t come?”—as if he were giving her another chance; then he looked directly at Olivia and said, “Will you?”

  “Yes,” said Olivia breathlessly.

  •

  “You’re not going to walk through the Square in daylight with one of those!” said Ellen.

  “I am,” said Olivia. “I must.” She sounded sure and secure but she did not feel it. Her hands shook as she put on her coat and took a scarf and her gloves.

  “You are making a mountain out of a molehill,” said Angela.

  Olivia was suddenly inspired to answer, “A molehill can be a mountain to a sparrow,” and went to join Father Lambert in the hall.

  •

  There was a burr of conversation in the drawing room when Olivia came in. “You mean a buzz, surely,” Angela would have said, but no, Olivia meant a burr; something hard and difficult to break into, she thought. She burst in upon it. “Oh, Angela! Something after our own hearts!” she cried.

  Nobody heard her. The Discussion Group was relaxing, which meant, as Olivia had often found, that they all talked together instead of separately, making a great deal of noise; Ellen, not long ago, had brought sandwiches and tea in. This light, brittle talk was more dashing to Olivia than the serious discussion would have been. Why? Because to interrupt that would have been more momentous, thought Olivia

  “Another cup, David?”

  “Angela dear, these wonderful sandwiches! What do you put in them?”

  This near the table, and, all round, fragments of talk drifting, floating, thrown, shreds and scraps—like confetti, thought Olivia, confused, but not like confetti, more like the rice they throw with it, hard and pelting.

  “The convertibility of the pound depends . . .”

  “She shouldn’t have written it . . .”

  “In the second act, when that red dress . . .”

  “. . . nepotism of the worst degree . . .”

  “. . . it’s elementary psychology, my dear Lionel. The simplest reflex . . .”

  And Angela, her golden head bent above the teapot, called out gaily, “Don’t let Bernard start on reflexes, or we shall not get back to the discussion,” and then to Miss Monkton, “Fresh salmon paste, a recipe of my mother’s.”

  “Tay salmon. I knew it! I remember at Upton-on-S
evern . . .”

  “Angela, something after our own hearts,” cried Olivia again. It had lost its force, but to Angela it sounded far too loud. For a moment she had thought it was Miss Monkton still speaking; then she saw it was Olivia, Olivia with her dark face flushed, her hair untidy—in great wisps, thought Angela—her coat smudged with dirt—when Father Lambert had unlocked the churchyard door they had clambered over the rubble. Olivia’s eyes were lit up, shining—blazing, thought Angela. “You needn’t prosecute,” cried Olivia, waving her gloves. “They haven’t done anything wrong. They didn’t sell the earth. They used it for a garden.” And she cried, “Angela, wait till I tell you about the garden!”

  “Olivia dear, we are in the middle of a meeting.”

  But Olivia blundered on; the people, the meeting, did not seem to her important, only the need to reach Angela. “A little garden almost in a church,” she said, and her harsh voice was soft and full of respect. “Father Lambert watched them making it; they didn’t know that he watched; it’s made in the rubble that nobody wanted, where nobody saw. It’s careful and—innocent,” said Olivia, pleased to find the right word. “Innocent,” she repeated, her eyes on Angela.

  “If you bend down, about the height of a child, and look, then you can see what it is,” Father Lambert had said of the garden. Olivia wanted to make Angela bend down to that. She tried. “There are paths, of marble chips,” she said, “and edgings of stone, and a lawn of mustard and cress; they had a wreath-case for a flowerpot, and a little column with ivy growing up it, truly beautiful, and beds of pansies, blooming!” said Olivia. “And there, in those beds, is our earth.”

  Angela was making stabs with a small silver knife at the sandwich on her plate. Olivia, watching her, knew that a struggle was going on in Angela. She’s going to give up, thought Olivia, give up her own way, give in, and she felt a surge of love for her sister; but someone gave a titter, quickly and politely suppressed, but a titter. Well, I suppose I am comic, thought Olivia; she was astonishingly unperturbed about it; she did not suffer her customary blushing or flinching, but Angela stiffened as if she were stung. She laid the knife down, and, “At least she admits it’s our earth,” said Angela humorously.

  “Don’t joke,” said Olivia. It sounded like an injunction.

  “Then don’t talk as if this were a miracle,” snapped Angela.

  “It is, in that place, out of those children.”

  “Nonsense, all little guttersnipes make mudpies,” said Angela. “Another cup of tea, Miss Monkton?”

  For a moment Olivia stood where she was; her heart had begun its uncomfortable bumping, but she hardly noticed it; her hand holding the gloves she had waved so triumphantly tightened so that the knuckles were white; then she went out and closed the door.

  She heard bursts of laughter from the drawing room. They’re laughing at me, thought Olivia. Fools. It was the first time she had called anyone a fool but herself. Her heart was bumping so that she had to lean against the landing panelling and close her eyes, holding her hands to her breast. In a moment she knew the pain would come, and she stayed there, trying to will her heart to be quiet, shrinking from the pain. Then it swept over her so that she almost groaned. It’s different, thought Olivia. It’s worse. I wish Ellen would come, and, as it stabbed again, she did groan, “Ellen. Somebody. Please.”

  Somebody came out of the drawing room and closed the door behind him. Olivia immediately stood up. It was Mr. Wix. He’s going to soothe me down, she thought. She was right. “Olivia dear,” he said gently and earnestly, “you mustn’t be so unhappy.” He had come close to her; he could not bend over her, she was too tall for that, but he bent his head a little so that she could see how the light caught the burnish of his well-kept dark hair and shone on his good brow, his black silk vest. Angela often said, “He seems such a boy to be a rector!”—but boys shouldn’t interfere with older people, thought Olivia disagreeably, and she scowled at Mr. Wix.

  “You know,” he was saying with an attractive cameraderie, “Angela’s right. If you were accustomed to these cases you would know this was only one of a hundred.”

  “There is no case like it,” said Olivia. The fight against the pain made her sound even more blunt and rude than usual.

  “Of course I haven’t seen the garden—”

  “Then you don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Olivia.

  “You are taking this far too much to heart—”

  “Isn’t that where we should take it?” And mine hurts, hurts, thought Olivia, wishing that Ellen would come. Oh go away, she wanted to say to Mr. Wix.

  Then, remembering the children, she summoned herself. It might help if he could understand. “Mr. Wix—”

  “Call me David.”

  “David, Wix, what does it matter? What matters is that that garden is what I said, innocent.”

  “Then it will be proved so. We haven’t to judge.”

  “Angela has judged all along.”

  “That’s not fair,” said Mr. Wix. He must have seen that Olivia looked ill because he began trying to soothe her again. “We must trust,” he said. “It’s not old-fashioned to say God is good. Remember, not one sparrow can fall to the ground—”

  “But they fall all the time,” said Olivia. “We knock them down. We knock them, crush them—carelessly or carefully, it doesn’t matter which, and they fall. That’s what humans do to humans, so don’t talk to me about God.” There was a pause; Mr. Wix was silent. Then Olivia spoke and she was not talking to Mr. Wix but to herself, and her voice was not loud but uncertain. “Wait,” she said. “Humans to humans?” And, as if she had just found out something, she asked, “Is that how it works? Someone, one person at least, is meant to see the fall and care?” She was always to remember that moment, standing in the hall with Mr. Wix, with the pain stabbing her. “See and become the instrument. I have seen. I wish I hadn’t,” she said loudly, “but I have and I shall keep my eyes open, in spite of you.”

  “In spite of us? Isn’t that a little unkind?” he asked. The accustomed easiness of his voice was as insulting to Olivia as Angela’s banter. She was suddenly so angry that she trembled from head to foot and felt sick. The hall and stairs seemed to sway in as if they would fall on her; the pain went through her as she had known it presently must do, but she had the last say. “In spite of you,” said Olivia firmly, and fainted.

  •

  “Why wasn’t I sent for before?” asked Doctor Wychcliffe.

  Olivia had refused to have Angela’s pet doctor, Doctor Dagleish. “This is something I want of my own,” she had said. She had come round before Doctor Dagleish arrived, and sent him away. “He would talk me over with Angela and I won’t be talked over,” she told Ellen, and sent her to telephone the old doctor who had known them as children. “I’m the eldest,” she told Doctor Wychcliffe as she might have told him then. “I want you to tell me what it is. Me, not Angela.”

  “But you must have had this condition for years,” grumbled Doctor Wychcliffe.

  “By condition you mean illness, don’t you?” said Olivia. “You can tell me, I’m not afraid.” Nor was she, but when he had finished—Angela called him a blunt old man, but to Olivia his bluntness was truthful and not unkind—she lay still.

  “I should like,” she said at last, and politely as if she were speaking of some everyday thing, “I should like it if you could arrange, as much as you can, of course, to help me to go on a little longer. I have a reason,” said Olivia, and it seemed to her as if she never had one before, “a reason for not wanting to die just now.”

  CHAPTER XXII

  “CAN I see Tip?”

  “Holy Biddy, is that you again?” shouted Mrs. Malone.

  “Please can I see Tip?” But Mrs. Malone blocked the door.

  “You’re not going to see Tip any more,” she said. “Put that on your needles and knit it.”

  “But—”

  “Haven’t you done enough?” demanded Mrs. Malone. The Wedn
esday after the catching, as Mrs. Malone called it, they had had to take Tip to the Juvenile Court. To her dying day Mrs. Malone would remember the cut of that disgrace, but, “It’s five pounds if we don’t, Mary,” Mr. Malone had said. Not that much happened. “We have considered all the circumstances,” the chairman had said to Tip, “and we are not going to put you on probation; but you must realize that everything we have heard today has been written down in this court, and if you get into trouble again you will not be let off so easily.”

  “It was written down against him,” said Mrs. Malone, trembling, “and for what? For you!” she said to Lovejoy.

  For more than two weeks Tip had been kept away from Lovejoy. He was guarded on his way to school and back by a posse of Malones. In the evenings Mr. Malone kept him in, and on Saturdays he was escorted to Sid, and Sid was under contract to bring him back; as for Sundays, he was sent right away to Mrs. Malone’s aunt in Streatham.

  Lovejoy hung about the corners and spent long hours in the garden, waiting. She had even courted Sparkey to see if he had a message, but Sparkey’s mother pounced on her and drove her away. If the Malone girls found her they set upon her. Lovejoy had a black eye from Bridgie Malone—not really black, thought Lovejoy, purple and olive green, but very unsightly. Still, she would have borne even more than that to catch a glimpse of Tip.

  “Please can I see Tip?”

  “I told you, no.”

  “Please.”

  “No.”

  Then one day Lovejoy came, desperate, to the Malones’ basement door. “Please, Mrs. Malone. They’re going to send me away.”

  It is amazing how hard people can be when they have to protect someone else. Mrs. Malone was big and warm-hearted, but, “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” said Mrs. Malone and shut the door.

  Lovejoy had thought she knew what it was like to be shut out; she had been alone when she was lost, alone lying waiting for her mother in bed, and sitting on the stairs while the gentlemen were in the room; she had learned to manage without her mother, for a long time now she had “counted her out,” thought Lovejoy, but there had always been someone—Vincent, Mrs. Combie, then Tip. Tip! Lovejoy twisted her hands together as she looked at the closed door, gave a strangled little gulp, and fled down the Street.