Birdcage Walk

by Helen Dunmore

  ‘Augustus has been very good to me,’ he said with sudden seriousness. Colour rose in his white cheeks: it fascinated me that a man should be so fair, and show every feeling. ‘He is a good man.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, and in that moment I did know it. All my irritations with Augustus fell away and I saw only his kindness and dogged persistence in what he believed to be right. ‘But even so,’ I whispered, trusting to Hannah’s deafness, ‘do you not think, Mr Forrest, that for all his fine qualities Augustus does in some respects resemble that valuable creature, the sheep?’

  A spurt of laughter escaped him. ‘You should not make such jokes while I am winding wool,’ he whispered back. I could not help laughing, too.

  ‘Shall we venture upon another chimney perambulation, Miss Lizzie?’ he asked. For a moment I could not think what he meant. My mind was too much distracted. But as soon as I realised, I knew I would go. Hannah had not heard a word. I said nothing, but gave the slightest of nods.

  ‘Tomorrow, then,’ he murmured. ‘At two o’clock in the same place.’

  I had no excuse; I knew my stupidity as soon as I agreed.

  I went home with Thomas, fed him and laid him in his cradle to sleep. Philo was up and stirring, but there was no sign of Diner. I had not expected him to be at home. I must prepare our dinner, make bread, order coals and candles, clear out the grate in the drawing room, riddle the range, enquire about setting up a drying rack in the kitchen because I was sure we could not afford the washerwoman for more than another month – there was so much to do that I could not think where to begin. It will be easier when Philo can work again, I told myself, but for a moment my spirit quailed. It would go on and on like this, with Diner always absent, or seizing me fiercely to himself at night, driving himself into me until I wanted to cry out with pain, and then barely speaking to me the next morning. Thomas would always cry and want feeding and the house would grow dirty as soon as I had finished cleaning. How could it not, when every time we stepped out of the house we brought in mud from the unmade road and pavement? After the heavy rain of the autumn we were living in a swamp, a quagmire, not a street. The potholes bubbled with reddish-brown water.

  I went over to the glass in the hall. Soon, no doubt, that too would be gone. My sour weariness did not show on my face: instead, it was a blank. I tried a smile.

  ‘There, that’s better,’ Mammie would say when she knelt down to wipe the tears from my face after a fall. She’d smile, and I’d believe her and stop crying. I would come to her with a bloody knee or a friend’s spite and she would change the weather for me.

  Lucie was always smiling. I would have thought any man would be pleased to see his wife smile, since it showed that she was happy. But he had not said it with any pleasure. A week ago I would have been glad to hear him speak critically of Lucie, but now I was uneasy and did not know why. I felt as if I were blind, feeling my way into a labyrinth by a thread. I’d asked him if they were happy, and he’d replied: At first.

  The truth was that when I first met Diner I had been so mad to have him that I had seen nothing else and would have listened to no one. Mammie had let me have my way, because of her belief in my freedom.

  I leaned forward until my breath misted the glass.

  ‘Are you happy now?’ I whispered.

  19

  I was determined to buy Philo’s shawl, and see the doubt fade from her face when she saw it. The next morning I hurried to Mrs Clumber’s with Thomas tied close to me. I never entered her shop without a pang of distaste. It smelled musty and there was dirt in her fingernails as she picked over the clothes.

  ‘I am an honest woman and I run an honest business,’ she often said, forgetting that honest people rarely find it necessary to insist upon the fact. She cheated me, as she cheated everyone, but her stock was good. Some genius forewarned her of death or ruin and she would be first at the house, offering to relieve its bewildered inhabitants of gowns and shawls at the fairest price in the city.

  Thomas had fallen asleep. I looked down at his perfect eyelids, the line of them so delicate that they seemed sealed, not closed. He stirred and his face shivered, then back he went into sleep again. I wondered what babies dreamed of, I wondered what he saw in his dream.

  ‘Put him down here,’ said Mrs Clumber, and she gestured at a pile of old nightshirts.

  ‘He isn’t heavy.’

  ‘Please yourself.’

  She had bricked up two downstairs windows to save tax, and the third was small and dirty. She did not clean it, I think, because she did not want her customers to see too much. The shawls were piled by the counter. I started to search through them, but she pressed in and picked out three with a practised flick of the hands. What hands they were. Quick and strong, without an instant’s hesitation in them. She would make an excellent pickpocket. She spread the three shawls over her counter, and her eyes glinted at me sidelong.

  ‘I see you like the blue,’ she said. I hadn’t done more than glance at it, but she was right. The shade was delicate as mist, and I liked it very well. But I thought it might seem dull to Philo. She was drawn to colour like a bee, although the only bright thing she owned was a knot of scarlet ribbon I had given her, to pin to her hat on Sundays.

  ‘Or the brown is very serviceable,’ Mrs Clumber went on, and held out a fold for me to feel. It was good, thick wool and not too much worn, but it was rough to the touch. I would not want to wear it.

  ‘Serviceable indeed,’ I said. ‘How much?’

  ‘Five and six,’ she said. I allowed my eyes to widen but said nothing. I lifted the shawl again, to feel the weight of it. It smelled as if an animal had slept on it. Still holding it, I bent my head so she would not see my eyes slide to the third shawl. It was green and purple, boldly checked. The colours of those heather hills Mammie had described to me, from her visit to the Highlands of Scotland.

  ‘The brown is priced too high,’ I said. ‘Are there others you have not yet shown me?’

  She bent to rummage through the pile and quickly I reached to feel the texture of the third shawl. It was much finer than the brown, soft and dense. It lacked weight but I thought it would be just as warm.

  Mrs Clumber pulled up an armful of drab broadcloth. I looked with interest, asked her to spread it out fully, felt the fabric between thumb and finger and enquired about the price. There was a hole where the moth had been at it.

  ‘This one is a very nice quality of article, and fresh in today.’

  Fresh, indeed. It had been stripped off the back of a dying woman for sure.

  ‘Yes, it is good cloth.’

  ‘Superfine broadcloth. You won’t find better.’

  ‘Well, I will call in another day,’ I said, half turning to go.

  ‘You have not looked at this one,’ she said, shaking out the green and purple shawl. ‘I had it from a Scottish lady.’

  ‘Too bright for a servant,’ I said indifferently. ‘Such colours may do very well in Scotland.’

  She frowned. ‘The blue, then. You liked the blue.’

  ‘For myself perhaps, but I am not in need of a shawl.’

  She was pushing the green and purple shawl away, as if she wanted to get rid of it. Very likely she’d had it on her hands for some time. How Philo would love those colours.

  ‘I can offer you this at a very moderate price,’ she said.

  ‘It would have to be moderate indeed to tempt me.’

  ‘Five shillings.’

  ‘Too much for a servant’s shawl. Surely there is another in that pile which you have not shown me?’

  She glanced at the heap of shawls. For once, her true opinion showed on her face. There was nothing there for which she’d given more than ninepence.

  ‘Four and six-three,’ she said. ‘I can’t go lower.’

  ‘It is not worth more than four shillings. I should have to have it dyed before she could wear it.’

  ‘Call it four and thrippence and have done.’

  I kept my
face hesitant, as if I thought she was cheating me. We were there now. She would not go lower, although I doubted that she had paid a quarter of that, in some job lot of loss. I caught my lower lip between my teeth.

  ‘The girl must have something to wear, I suppose,’ I said. Mrs Clumber took my money, tied the shawl with string and bundled it into my arms. I took it reluctantly, as if I was already thinking better of the bargain.

  ‘I may have some shirts for you soon,’ I said to encourage her. God knew we’d all be buying our clothes from Ma Clumber if the times didn’t improve.

  I hurried home, eager to give the shawl to Philo, picturing her face when she saw it. But I was wrong. When I held it out, her face remained blank. I cut the string and the shawl spilled out of my hands.

  ‘Take it, Philo, spread it out,’ I said. ‘Let me see how it looks on you.’

  The soft material glowed on Philo’s lap. The purple was true heather and the green was like a field with dew on it. Such colours! Philo fingered the shawl, head bent, but she did not say a word.

  ‘Do you not like it?’ I asked foolishly.

  Philo’s fingers tightened. She said nothing and suddenly I felt ashamed. She did not trust me – and why should she? She would not show any liking for fear the shawl would be taken from her. It was what she had learned from earliest childhood and she would not easily unlearn it, quick as she was. How sharp her face was! She had lost weight with her illness. I smiled as if the matter was finished and began to untie my own shawl. Thomas was warm and damp and still fast asleep.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I must go out soon. Are you well enough to look after Thomas?’

  ‘Course I am.’

  ‘He’ll want his pap when he wakes. Remember not to let him gobble, or he’ll get a bellyache.’

  She nodded. ‘He’s always a good boy for me,’ she said proudly.

  ‘I know. You’re very good with him, Philo.’

  She nodded as if it was no more than her due.

  ‘I can always have the shawl dyed brown, if you don’t like the colours,’ I said casually.

  ‘No!’ she exclaimed, and her fingers gripped the folds. ‘I never had such colour.’

  ‘It will suit you, I think. Go and put it on upstairs, look in the glass in the drawing room before Thomas wakes.’

  Her waxen face flushed as she gathered the shawl to her and went. How shabby her gown was, too. She ought to have a new one, but that would cost six shillings or more. It would have to wait. I listened and thought I heard her feet tapping up and down, up and down, as she paraded before the looking glass.

  It was bright now, cold and windless. I thought of Will Forrest and his afternoon walk. Would he really steal Augustus’s coat again? Yes, I thought he would. I pictured him buttoning the coat to his chin and putting on that absurdly wide hat. He would open the front door to look up and down the street. He would hurry along with his hat pulled over his face, and glance behind him to see if he was followed. Nothing could be more obvious. He would go to the same place. He would not wait for me, precisely, but he would linger.

  When Philo came down she had taken off the shawl and put it away. She said nothing of how she had liked her reflection, but she hung about me. I gave her Thomas and busied myself with clearing the pots from the side of the sink.

  ‘Did you buy it thinking of me?’ she asked hoarsely, to my back.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, rattling the pots.

  ‘Go careful, miss, you’ll chip ’em!’

  ‘Lizzie, remember,’ I said. ‘There’s no one here but ourselves.’

  ‘I forget,’ she said.

  ‘We shall need more milk for Thomas’s pap. Can you fetch it?’

  ‘I’ll take the bab, case he wakes up and you’re working.’

  ‘If you’re sure it won’t be too much for you.’

  She glanced at me with scorn. Too much! What kind of a soft thing did I think she was?

  ‘I’ll get my shawl,’ she said, and clattered off up the kitchen stairs. When she came down again the shawl was bundled around her and folds hung to her heels. Her thin face poked out warily.

  ‘Philo, take it off a moment. Let me show you how to arrange it.’

  She looked at me suspiciously but let me double it and tie the ends behind.

  ‘There, and now you can easily hold Thomas and keep your hands free. You look lovely, Philo. I knew it would suit you.’

  She ducked her head and smiled.

  20

  I waited a few minutes after they had gone and then I fetched Philo’s old shawl, folded it over my head so that my face was hidden, and went up the area steps. It was such a beautiful afternoon. I breathed the cold air deeply and watched my breath fan out in puffs of white. There were two men working a pulley outside the end house, lifting slabs of Portland stone. They were the only sign of life along the terrace today. They called out to me, as they would have done to any servant girl huddling in her shawl. I hurried on to the Downs.

  Yes, he was there. In streaming rain the heavy coat and wide hat had been fair protection against the weather, but today it looked like a disguise. The rain had hidden us and now the brilliance of the day distinguished every feature.

  ‘You should not stand here, Mr Forrest,’ I said. ‘You are so … so exposed. And how has Augustus let you have his coat again?’

  Will Forrest laughed. ‘He has borrowed mine,’ he said. ‘It’s a fair exchange.’

  Unscrupulous man, I thought. You knew Augustus would not refuse you.

  ‘Come with me, Miss Lizzie. I have found a wonderful place where we can sit and talk. I have so much to tell you.’

  He led me to the edge of the path and glanced around. There was no one coming. ‘See there? The sheep have made a way. It’s perfectly safe; I have tried it.’

  ‘It doesn’t look safe.’

  ‘Follow me. You’re not afraid of the height? Good. Put your feet exactly where I put mine. Hold on to this whitebeam: here.’

  Below us birds sailed in the abyss of the Gorge. It was steep, but he was right: it was not impossible. We were on a little path, sheltered by rocks and wind-blown shrubs.

  ‘Take my hand here. We go this way.’

  I took it and with my other hand lifted my skirts so as not to stumble. The path was very narrow and although the slope to my left was not as sheer as further along the Gorge, I did not think I would be able to stop myself if I fell. Ahead of us a shoulder of rock jutted out, narrowing the path. Will let go of my hand and edged himself around the rock, leaning into it and treading carefully over the rough surface. It was not so very narrow perhaps.

  ‘Shall I come back and fetch you?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ It was only a few yards, and the path was quite safe, as long as I did not look down or stumble. I had never minded heights before. I tucked up my skirt so as not to trip over the hem, and began. He was ahead of me, holding out his hand. How far was it? Fifteen feet, no more. But I saw out of the corner of my eye a bird plunge down the vault of air to my left. A peregrine. I could not stop watching it or tell if it was the bird falling or the air around me. I leaned in to the wall and clung, sick and dizzy, unable to move.

  ‘Lizzie! Lizzie! Look at me!’

  I opened my eyes.

  ‘No, look at me. Nothing else. You are very close to me now. Lean in to the rock, as you were. Move your left foot, Lizzie. Just a little step. And now another. Good. One more. You are almost here. Close to the rock. No, don’t look round. Only at me. Another step, Lizzie. One more.’

  His hand caught mine. He pulled me into him and held me close, turning me, pushing me ahead of him on to the broad place where the path opened out. It was safe now. We stopped and I turned to face him.

  ‘If you had fallen!’ he exclaimed, and I understood that he was seeing it as if it had truly happened. My body tumbling over and over into the Gorge as the bird fell. He heard the cry I had not given.

  ‘It was the falcon,’ I said. ‘I should have been all right, but when
it dived—’

  ‘I should never have brought you this way.’

  I disengaged myself from him.

  ‘We shall go back a different way,’ he said. ‘Not so close to the edge. You will do very well, Lizzie.’

  I thought: If there was an easier way, why didn’t he show it to me the first time? But I could not be angry. I was overcome by relief that there would be no return around that shoulder of rock. He, too, was recovering his usual spirits. The colour was back in his face and his eyes no longer saw me spinning down and down into the gulf below us.

  ‘And now, look where we are,’ he said, as if he had brought the place into being. On our right was a shallow cave hollowed from the limestone and garlanded with ivy and old man’s beard. A tongue of smooth turf lay in front of it.

  ‘We will sit in the cave’s mouth,’ he said. ‘We shall be able to see everything, and no one will see us except the peregrine. You might live in Clifton all your life and never know that this cave was here, but I have been exploring, and the other day I found it. Look, we can sit down together.’ He bent and brushed the surface of the turf. ‘It’s perfectly dry.’

  I tucked my shawl around me and sat just in front of the little cave. It was not much more than an impression in the rock, but it sheltered us. Anyone looking down from above would see nothing. He settled himself beside me. The winter sun was low in the sky and full on us. In this hidden spot, it felt warm. I pushed back my shawl and let the warmth spread over my face.

  ‘A bird in its nest must feel like this,’ he said. ‘Safe, and secret.’

  His presence was insistent: he would not let me forget him. He had crushed me to him in his relief and I had yielded, but it was nothing like Diner’s grip and it neither frightened me nor disturbed me. I ought not to be here with him, I thought, and yet I too felt safe. The sun was so sweet and I was drowsy. Even the bare ground was not cold, because the sun had been on it. I closed my eyes and watched motes move across the veined red.

  ‘Wake up, Miss Lizzie,’ he said, ‘I must talk with you.’