The Fledgeling

by Frances Faviell

  I must tell her mother to get her some larger more substantial knickers, thought the old woman worriedly. When Linda crawled out from under the bed that young Wilson must have seen even more than I did. There was no more than an inch covered—and that not the right inch either. She had a vision of the soldier watching the house, the one who had been watching Linda and Cissie. Linda had been quite frightened of him—but now it was she herself who was uneasy. Watching the house was he? The child had been positive that it was this house he was watching. Was he out there now? And if so, why? He was a soldier Linda had said. He wore a uniform like Neil’s. Suddenly the old woman sat bolt upright.

  ‘Neil,’ she called imperiously, ‘Neil.’

  The door behind the bed opened softly and she heard her grandson’s voice. . . . ‘Is it all clear? . . . Can I come in now?’

  ‘It’s all clear. Come in.’ she said grimly.

  CHAPTER XI

  ‘WHO was it? Who?’ demanded Neil as he came in answer to her call. He was trembling with excitement and strain.

  ‘Didn’t you recognise his voice?’

  ‘No. . . . I couldn’t lean close enough to the door—that old bedstead creaks. . . .’

  ‘It was that young Wilson who came to arrest you last time. . . .’

  Neil became even paler and he swallowed twice before he could speak. . . . ‘And? What did you tell him?’

  ‘He never mentioned you. I don’t like it. He mentioned Nonie—but not you. Usually he asks Nonie how you’re getting on if he meets her. Today he said nothing. I wonder if this business of the child is merely a blind to find out if you are here? The police are wily. Some people think they are stupid—I know better.’

  ‘They can’t have missed me yet,’ said the boy, stammering a little. ‘He can’t have known about me.’

  ‘Who’s the man watching this house?’ demanded the old woman harshly.

  ‘How should I know? I’ve not seen him. Probably the kid made it up.’

  ‘So you heard what she said? That he wore a uniform exactly like yours and that he threatened her. Who is he?’

  Her searching eyes caught the flicker which passed as a small ripple over his white face. He knows, she thought. He knows who it is—or at least he’s got a very good idea. But he remained silent, looking at the floor.

  His grandmother examined him as one might examine a specimen in a case. He’s made of putty—in the image of anyone who likes to mould him she thought. Why haven’t I moulded him into something worth-while? Why? I’ve tried hard enough—and so did Len. Someone is doing that now. Someone has been at work on this weak malleable creature. Someone has taken Nona’s place in his life. He’s changed—and not for the better. He’s not only frightened of others. He’s frightened of himself. Why? What’s going on in that thin-skinned head?

  Aloud, she said relentlessly, ‘Nona will be here any minute now. Tell me quickly who that man out there is.’

  ‘I tell you—I don’t know.’

  ‘Look at me,’ she insisted. ‘You’ve not looked right at me since you came in at that window early this morning.’

  Slowly the boy raised his eyes until they met hers. It was he who looked away first. She was appalled at what she saw in them. ‘You’re lying,’ she said harshly.

  Suddenly he broke out. ‘Leave me alone . . . can’t you? Leave me alone.’

  ‘Listen. It was all I could do to stop myself from giving you away to young Wilson just now. I ought to have done so. I don’t like this story of the man over there. There’s something I don’t like about this whole business. I’m sorry I had anything to do with it.’

  ‘You wouldn’t go back on me, Gran? You wouldn’t do that?’ She felt sick at the craven fear he was displaying. As she looked at him in his sister’s clothes she could scarcely contain her anger. ‘If you want Charlie to help in this you’ll have to put your cards on the table. What’s happened up there? Why have you come home? No . . . don’t tell me that it was because of Len . . . don’t tell me that you couldn’t stick it—that’s obvious since you’ve run away—why? That’s the question. Why?’

  Neil buried his head in his arms and his slight frame shook. ‘I can’t tell you. Don’t ask me. I must get away tonight. As soon as possible. I must.’

  His grandmother regarded him with a pity which he could not see. She was moved to that terrible flooding compassion again—it had been the undoing of her strongest determinations always. It had ruined Edward. Whenever she had been most angry and most hurt by his blindness and indifference to his family he had always disarmed her with some queer childish uncertainty, some groping after truth which showed her the helplessness and weakness of all human beings, and that flood of pity, of love for all humanity would overcome her. So it was now. She was full of anger at the inability of this lad to face up to his destiny but that anger was flooded by warm compassion for that very weakness in him.

  ‘Pull yourself together, boy,’ she said gently.

  ‘Sometimes,’ he said wretchedly, ‘I begin to wonder if I’m going round the bend.’

  ‘Dangerous way of thinking. We all reach it some time or other. What’s eating you especially to make you think that now?’

  ‘Dunno. Sometimes I think I’m the wrong chap in the right skin—and at other times I know I’m the right chap in the wrong skin—but it’s never both right. I don’t fit in, Gran. I never will.’

  ‘Listen, Neil. You’ve got to grow to fit your skin—you can’t change it. Get that into your head. As to fear—it’s nothing but a skin—an empty one. As soon as you realise that the fear will be gone.’

  ‘Not mine. That’s real enough. It’s no use trying to hide it, the others can smell it—they know. I get such strange ideas at times.’

  His grandmother peered intently at him. ‘Not violent ones? You’re not getting violent are you?’

  ‘No. No. I just wonder why some people should be able to make life wretched for others. Why should the right to do that be given to great red-faced stupid men? Stupid. That’s what they are. To be afraid of a brainless clot like the sergeant up there. I despise myself—but I’m still terrified when he begins to shout at me . . . I just dissolve into jelly . . . my brain’s liquid.’

  Oh God, thought the old woman, he’s beginning to talk like Edward. It doesn’t sound like Neil. It’s someone speaking through him. Someone imposing his thoughts and ideas, his actions, perhaps, on to this weakling. She said gently, ‘Who’s been talking to you? Putting such ideas into your head?’

  ‘No one,’ he answered. ‘I’ve had time to think a bit—that’s all.’ And he relapsed into silence again.

  Now I’ve shut him up again—and I wanted him to talk. If he would go on I might have a chance to learn what sort of person this is who is taking possession of him. Could it be a woman? A girl? Had he met some girl up there?

  ‘Haven’t you got a girl near the camp?’ she asked suddenly.

  The question appeared to disconcert him—he looked astonished. ‘No. There’s no girl. There was only Mary. It’s always been her. I’d have married her some day I suppose. How old was the man she went with?’

  ‘I told you—I never saw him. He’s old enough to be her father Nonie said, but you know what girls are—always think anyone over thirty is old.’

  ‘Did you see her before she went away?’

  ‘She came to say goodbye.’

  ‘Did she say anything about me?’

  ‘Yes, she did. She said she didn’t care for this new friend of yours.’

  ‘She’s never met him.’

  ‘She knew him just the same—through your letters—Mary was smart.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘She noticed the change in you—through your letters.’

  ‘It was Mary who changed. This old man must have changed her. . . . She’s like all the others. . . .’

  ‘Like what others?’ challenged the old woman angrily. ‘You’ve never known any others. There was only Mary ever since you w
ere at school.’

  ‘They won’t wait. They want everything at once. Cash down—that’s women.’

  His grandmother looked at him again. He couldn’t have thought that out. Or could he? Had he changed more than she thought he had? Was he becoming a spinner of words like his father?

  ‘What’s come over you?’ she asked. ‘You never used to talk this way.’

  ‘Perhaps I’m growing—to fit my skin as you said I must.’

  ‘Now stop stalling. Who’s that man over there, Neil?’

  ‘I tell you I don’t know,’ he said angrily. ‘For God’s sake quit nagging at me.’

  ‘Ssh! Listen.’

  Light steps were approaching the door. ‘Nona . . .’ breathed the old woman softly. . . . ‘Keep out of sight of the door.’

  A key was inserted, the door opened very cautiously and Nona came in. Her face was flushed with hurrying, little beads of perspiration showed on her short upper lip, and her soft hair was in damp tendrils over her forehead. She flung her coat off her shoulders impatiently as she turned from the door. ‘Well?’ she said quickly, looking from one to the other. ‘What sort of a day have you had?’

  ‘Interrupted,’ said her grandmother. ‘Five visitors in all—that’s including Mrs. Danvers and old Evans wanting to come in—they’re most curious and suspicious. They’ve been told you’re home with a cold.’

  ‘Who were the others?’ Nona’s anxiety gave a pinched look to her small face, so like her brother’s.

  ‘Miss Rhodes came.’

  ‘She came in the shop.’

  ‘She saw Neil. The idiot fell through the door—that’s what comes of eavesdropping.’

  ‘So she said.’

  ‘She told you about it—in the shop?’

  ‘Yes. She warned me. I think she means to make trouble. We’ll have to get moving quickly.’

  ‘That cop Wilson was here,’ said Neil, frantically.

  Nona’s eyes widened. . . . ‘Then they know? What did you say? Did you lie? Did you say he wasn’t here?’ She turned excitedly to her grandmother.

  ‘He didn’t come about Neil. He came about Linda. He never mentioned Neil at all. He usually asks you how he’s getting on, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Yes—but I seldom see him.’

  ‘I had the strangest feeling all the time he was here that he was playing with me—that he knew all the time that Neil was behind that door there.’

  ‘He couldn’t have known. He came about that kid,’ said Neil, decidedly. ‘I sweated the whole time he was here. It was terrible holding my breath and not daring to stir . . . I must get away, Nonie. I can’t stick it much longer.’

  ‘How d’you think I felt? Don’t you think I was sweating too?’ asked the old woman. ‘And the child was terrified and hid under the bed. I had a job to coax her out.’

  ‘The child? Linda? What did he want with her? And why should he come here for her?’

  ‘She’s been taking flowers off the graves in the cemetery and bringing them to me. Those,’ she pointed to the carnations in the pink swan, ‘came from the grave of a newly-buried according to Wilson.’

  ‘Ugh! How revolting. Let’s throw them out. How can you keep them . . . what a horrible child!’

  ‘Leave them alone. Don’t touch them,’ said the old woman fiercely. ‘The child took them for me. She offered to take them back but Wilson said to leave them here.’

  ‘But why did he come here?’ Nona was bewildered.

  ‘He followed her from the cemetery. She’d been warned previously. They were watching her.’

  ‘Don’t waste time talking of the kid. We’ve no time to lose. Nonie’s right. That Miss Rhodes means trouble. I must get going. What did Charlie say, Nonie? Will he help me?’ Neil’s anxiety communicated itself quickly to his twin. She put a hand restrainingly on his arm. ‘Don’t worry so much. I spoke to Charlie at lunch-time.’

  ‘Will he do it? Will he?’ Neil, in his impatience, was almost screaming.

  ‘Quiet,’ warned his sister. ‘I don’t know, Neil. He was difficult. I’m going to work on him when he gets home.’

  ‘He must. He must. You must make him, Nonie. I’ve got to get away—and in his lorry. You can make him do it, Nonie. You know you can.’

  ‘Charlie’s not all that easy,’ said the old woman quietly. ‘Nonie doesn’t get it all her way. Oh yes . . . I can still see . . . I’ve got good eyes in my head—and good ears.’

  Nona flushed a dark ugly red. ‘You can hear right across the hall?’

  ‘The whole street can hear when Charlie gets going.’

  Neil looked at his sister’s distressed face. ‘If he treats you roughly I’ll have something to say to him,’ he said, in a bragging, bombastic voice.

  ‘Charlie is rough,’ said his sister simply. ‘I know that.’

  ‘He’s not good enough for you,’ said Neil angrily.

  ‘But he’s good enough to help you?’

  ‘Sorry, Nonie. I shouldn’t have said that.’

  Nona got up wearily. Her legs ached from eight hours’ standing at the counter. ‘I’d better see about some food, I’ll bring it in here tonight, Gran. I want to talk to Charlie before we come in. I’ll cook in our room. If you’re going to talk Neil, put the radio on. That Mrs. Danvers is upstairs now.’

  ‘If the radio is on we can’t hear anyone coming,’ objected Neil.

  ‘Take your choice. Keep quiet—or put it on.’

  She went out dispiritedly.

  ‘Nona’s properly upset by all this,’ observed her grandmother. Nona had not offered to make her bed, to help her wash, or to tidy up the room as she invariably did as soon as she got home. She said shortly to Neil. ‘Get into the room behind there. I’m going to tidy up the room—open the window wide for a while, will you?’

  ‘I’ll help you. I’ll sweep up a bit,’ he said quickly.

  ‘No. You go in there. I can manage. I’ll call you when the window must be shut.’

  He picked up a journal which Nona had dropped on the bed, and went through the door into the little closet-room and sat himself down again on the bed. It’s not much larger than the cells are, he thought. And somehow it seems even more like prison than it did there. And that was bad enough. He tried to read, but he could not concentrate on women’s interests. He was burning with fear and the impatient urgency to get away—to start on the journey to freedom. In the bedroom his grandmother was slowly and laboriously getting herself out of bed. She was acutely worried. Charlie was going to be difficult. She had seen that on Nona’s face. What sort of mess had she let them all in for? She felt ill and unable to face one of those family scenes. She was old . . . they forgot that—as she did usually.

  CHAPTER XII

  ALISON Rhodes, the neat suit hung over a chair, was dressing to go out with Rodney White. She was tired and depressed. Her day’s visits had left a taste of dust in her mouth. That boy Collins had thoroughly upset her. She suddenly felt the utter uselessness of the work she was doing—and for which she had been trained. One needed something more than training. Few of the people she visited wanted her in their homes. They accepted her offers of help sullenly and grudgingly—her advice they ignored. They would listen to her with a polite smile, eyeing her sceptically—eyeing the expensive neat suit and the neat suitable shoes, the expensive bag and gloves, as much as to say, ‘Yes, we know. We know what you think we should do—but do you know what we think? What we think of you and your sort? It would surprise you if you did.’ In the dull apathetic faces, the meaningless smiles, she read the cynicism of the disillusioned.

  Old Mrs. Collins for instance—she was an unusually intelligent woman—would listen to her with such a queer resigned smile on her finely-carved old face that Alison was reminded of the Mona Lisa. There was something so secretive and faintly derisive in it. Once she had said abruptly, ‘Where d’you go when you leave here?’

  ‘To the next house on the list,’ she had answered, startled.

  ‘No. I mean
when all the lot on the list are finished. Where d’you go then?’

  ‘To my flat,’ the social worker had replied.

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  And Miss Rhodes had found herself telling Mrs. Collins all about the lovely central-heated flat with constant hot water and the very latest decoration, each wall being differently papered or painted. She had also told her about her mother’s home in the country, about her sister Janet and the children.

  ‘So you’ve no need to do this work then?’

  ‘I feel a need to do it. I don’t need the money—no.’

  ‘I can’t imagine anyone wanting to take up work which those you want to work on resent,’ the old woman had said, but she had a reluctant respect for this girl who came from a comfortable home and chose to go into the drab, dirty and often unhappy homes of the unfortunate.

  Alison Rhodes picked up a cocktail dress and slipped it over her head. It looked awful. She tried another one—but that was worse. As she swung resentfully away from the unflattering reflection in the mirror she noticed a little fold in her neck. She lifted her head up as high as possible—then scrutinised the reflection again. No, she was not mistaken—there was a fold. A little unwanted piece of flesh was developing under the sharp line of her chin. She would soon be thirty—and she had always looked more than her age. What should she wear? What? Rodney would be here any minute now—and she looked a sight. Even as she rummaged through the wardrobe, hunting for something more flattering, the front door-bell rang imperiously. Rodney hated to be kept waiting. She pulled on a Japanese kimono and hastened to let him in.

  There were rain-marks on his light coat.

  ‘Oh,’ she said bleakly. ‘Is it raining?’

  ‘Just started,’ he said abruptly, following her into the sitting-room. ‘Won’t matter to us—I’ve got the car.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Rodney. I’m not ready. I’ll give you a drink—by the time you’ve finished it I’ll be dressed.’

  ‘I like the kimono,’ he said, eyeing her speculatively. ‘You don’t look so prim and aloof in that.’