Innocent Birds (10 page)

M
ISS
P
ETTIFER
had never had a better servant than Maud Chick. Not even poor frightened Annie had done the housework more carefully. Miss Pettifer blessed the good fortune that led her to revenge herself against Madder by going to live there.

A proper order of social manners was always observed at the rectory. Maud Chick fed upon margarine, while Miss Pettifer ate of those good things that her station in life provided for her, of which good things Maud was sometimes allowed a picking when Miss Pettifer had done her part with them.

Upon the same dreary afternoon when the elm trees were weeping and their tears were falling into the mud, and when Mr. Bugby had seen the strange bird and walked out for a little, Miss Pettifer decided to send her quarter’s rent to Mr. Thomas Tucker. She sent Maud with it. Miss Pettifer always liked to take her tea at half-past four, as most ladies do.

Miss Pettifer had allowed ample time, and had generously given to Maud a quarter of an hour more as a birthday present, for this day was
Maud’s birthday, to make use of as she chose during her walk to Dodderdown and back again to Madder rectory.

As soon as Maud had started, Miss Pettifer, being in a mood for it, walked out a little too, and passed Mr. Bugby, who evidently had
business
in the Dodderdown direction as well as Maud Chick. Mr. Bugby lifted his hat as he went by the lady, and this politeness drew from Miss Pettifer a nod and a smile.

When Miss Pettifer reached the rectory again—she had walked a little farther than she had intended to do when she set out—she looked at the marble clock, that was ornamented with
cornflowers
, that is to say painted ones, and saw that the time, that went always in that household according to plan, had reached half-past four. With even her birthday present, Maud ought to have been home and bringing in the tea-cloth by four-fifteen. Miss Pettifer poked the fire and rang the bell sharply. She frowned at the round table whereon the white afternoon tea-cloth, with its pretty worked flowers, should have been resting. A pair of half-open scissors and a reel of cotton were upon the table instead of her tea.

Miss Pettifer disliked these scissors ever
afterwards
. She now took them up and moved the cotton, but still the round table looked as barren as ever.

Miss Pettifer rang the bell again. She waited impatiently, and her anger against Maud made
the minutes fly as though they wanted to hurt Maud too.

Nearly an hour went by before Miss Pettifer, whose hearing was more than usually awake this afternoon, heard the back door of the rectory open and shut. Maud Chick must have come in. Miss Pettifer was ready enough to see that
something
was wrong with Maud, who came after a few moments to prepare the table.

Maud had usually come in so straightforwardly, as a girl would whose one idea in life was to earn a baby by her own industry.

‘But why,’ thought Miss Pettifer, ‘should Chick run into the room in little darts and dashes, like a scared mouse when a cat’s after it?’

Maud nearly let the teapot fall upon the table instead of putting it down with her usual care. And why had she brought the teapot only; did Maud expect Miss Pettifer to drink from the spout?

Miss Pettifer pulled the bell, very gently this time but very meaningly.

‘When a girl comes in like that,’ thought Miss Pettifer, ‘she must have been doing wicked things.’

It wasn’t Miss Pettifer’s habit to work herself up into a rage, as a more ordinary mistress would do, but instead, she would sit in an icy manner and pretend to give no heed to what the culprit was doing, almost inviting her to drop another spoon, or all the spoons, if it pleased her to do so.

But what was Maud doing now? Miss Pettifer was looking intently at the clock, and even smiled as though she were asking the minutes, not how they run, but why they had allowed
themselves
to pass her tea-time without fetching Maud in earlier. The minutes, or rather the mirror behind the clock—for Miss Pettifer had one eye upon that too—told her that Maud was
bringing
the tea things in one by one, like a rook carrying twigs to its nest. And when she put the bread-knife down, she started back as if she thought the bread-knife wished to jump after her.

When Maud tried to light the spirit-lamp the spill went out. She tried again, but with no better success, for her hands trembled so that the spill wouldn’t keep alight.

Miss Pettifer moved, with one motion, to the fire, her strong, well-nurtured, and proved body, showing off its sharp vicious points in the
movement
. She lit the lamp, and with one glance she saw what Maud had forgotten, and ordered her, in the tired voice of an injured lady, ‘to bring in the butter.’ Instead of bringing in the butter, Maud carried into the drawing-room of the Madder rectory the kitchen margarine! Miss Pettifer said nothing.

She ate her tea, when Maud was gone out of the room, in short quick bites, crunching some little stones that happened to be in the cake as though she enjoyed them. Now and again,
after taking a sip from her cup, she would stamp her foot, in a way that showed how she meditated business of a sharp, quick nature.

After Miss Pettifer had taken her usual
afternoon
nourishment, though with no butter this time—she more than once looked at the margarine—the lady went to the sofa and took up her knitting-needles. She began to knit quickly, clashing vindictively the steel needles against each other as though they were sharp swords. Her father, then, had led his careful life, and all for this! that his daughter, who had always seen to it that he had all the food he wanted, should be now served with common margarine for her tea.

Here was a Madder indeed turned against her in a vile manner; and after she had helped the people so much by taking a girl who, she was sure now, was always out with the men, into her service. She must now get rid of her, of course, and then hunt in the Madder lanes after another. She feared God didn’t make life very easy for His chosen.

The needles clicked sharply, and Miss Pettifer gazed at the lilac blossom that bloomed prettily on the chair covers. The chair covers were certainly saying as she was—that Maud must go.

Miss Pettifer laid down her knitting. She remembered Polly Wimple.

Miss Pettifer was a lady who, though she kept herself very much apart from the people, liked to
hear the village news. She had heard about Mr. Solly, and she didn’t like the idea of him. She had heard, too, about Fred Pim from Mrs. Billy, who had said, rather harmlessly for a lady with two nieces whom she wished to get married—‘that if Fred went on wi’ more of his counting of a maid’s things, ’twere best ’e had she to church.’ Miss Pettifer had not answered Mrs. Billy’s remark, and Mrs. Billy feared she had offended the lady by mentioning Fred’s sums. And so, in the hope of turning the lady’s wrath away, Mrs. Billy pointed out to Miss Pettifer an account in the local weekly paper of a ‘wanton assault,’ as it was called, by a lay Baptist preacher.

Mr. Hall was the man in trouble, the lodger in Lily Parsons’ Weyminster home. Miss Pettifer looked down the case eagerly, anticipating what she hoped would have happened to Lily. For from what Lily had told her during her time of service—and Miss Pettifer always remembered anything of this nature—the lodger, when put to it, might act as Mr. Bugby.

The preacher had excused himself by
saying
, with conviction, that he thought Lily was asleep.

‘I thought she was asleep, and that no one cared about her,’ said Mr. Hall, bowing to Mr. Pollen, the magistrate. ‘And I only did what I thought she would like me to do.’

‘Why didn’t you struggle or bite him?’ asked Mr. Pollen, who had once been bitten himself
by an animal of the same species whom he had tried to kiss.

‘I was too tired,’ sobbed Lily.

Mr. Pollen coughed.

The lodger was committed for trial. Miss Pettifer borrowed the paper. She wanted to read, she said, ‘about the Prince of Wales’ visit to Stonebridge Castle.’

It was Lily Parsons—and so Miss Pettifer had a certain right to be angry with her—who had called out to Miss Pettifer in the street ‘that she hoped she would plaster her false hair’—and Miss Pettifer’s wasn’t false—‘with stinking margarine.’

The fear of this happening—for Miss Pettifer wisely doubted her own ability to cook—made her the more anxious, now that she was resolved that Maud must go, to secure Polly Wimple.

And so Miss Pettifer went to bed thoughtfully, considering, as she looked into the glass smiling to herself, how she could get Fred Pim away from Madder, and so prevent a wedding that would, if it did nothing worse, spoil a good country servant.

The sun looked kindly in at Miss Pettifer when the new morning came, and when Maud let go the pink bedroom blinds that run up of themselves.

Maud wasn’t Maud. Miss Pettifer saw this easily enough as soon as the light came in. Maud hadn’t even dressed herself properly as a servant
should who carries a cup of tea into a lady’s
bedroom
. She hadn’t even done up her hair or fastened her print frock.

Maud was now putting the cup near to Miss Pettifer’s elbow, that stuck out sharply above the bedclothes. Miss Pettifer looked at Maud. She could hardly believe how the girl could have come in so nakedly; she didn’t seem to have anything on at all under that thin frock of hers.

Miss Pettifer stared at Maud.

‘You’re mad, Chick,’ gasped Miss Pettifer. ‘And you had better pack your box and go home. Only, dress yourself first, please,’ she added. For Miss Pettifer still remembered the pleasure that Lily used to tell her she had got from being seen by the men a little untidied. She didn’t wish, now that Maud was leaving her, that she should get even one grain of happiness.

Maud looked at Miss Pettifer with wide-open, staring eyes, and then went to the window—drawn there by the happy sunshine, no doubt—and gazed out of it.

After a moment or two of watching, Maud gave a sharp scream of terror, and ran back to Miss Pettifer, crouching down in an agony of fear beside the bed.

M
R
. S
OLLY
came down from Madder hill in a more hopeful mood than when he climbed up.

He had gone up Madder hill to look at the sky, because one of his Americans had seen a huge cross in the heavens, which told him of coming and inevitable doom. After reading about the cross, Mr. Solly had at once climbed the hill in order to see if the cross was still there.

‘He had seen enough already,’ he thought, ‘without that cross coming.’

When Solly reached the summit he looked anxiously upwards, but he only saw the blue heavens, that were clearer than usual. He sighed, and permitted his eyes to view the country around instead of the sky. He saw all the clean cool lands shining in the clear light of day.
Everywhere
there was colour and shadow—deep colour and deep shade. There were large wide spaces of green, and the further downs and heath were rich dark purple. A little cloud, like a skipping goat, covered the sun for a moment, and Solly watched the clear black body of its shadow running over the earth.

Clean beauty in form and line affected Solly in
a different way than his pinks and columbines. They were but little women, and naughty ones at that, at least the pinks were; but these other wonders of the earth and heaven moved nearer to the living God. Mr. Solly was not ashamed to pray to Him from whom all life comes. He knelt down upon the grass of that place and prayed that God might show him one day what the gift was that He intended to give to Polly Wimple and to Fred Pim.

Solly wasn’t more inquisitive than any other simple gentleman resident in the west of England, but he knew that his Aunt Crocker would like him to see what the gift was, as well as to know to whom it was to be given. When Mr. Solly had finished his prayer, and was come down from the hill, he crossed the little brook, noticing that there were still forget-me-nots in flower, and went along the lane near to the church gates.

Susy was walking up the church path with a new broom, that had been presented to her only a little while before by Mr. Thomas Tucker. Susy was walking in her usual flat-footed and bulky manner, dragging the broom behind her as if she were a product of the older world and possessed a long lizard’s tail.

Solly watched Susy to see what happened to her, for Eva Billy still complained to everybody that her Sunday frock got more soiled by the pews, than by any green grassy bank that she chanced to lie down upon when she walked
out with Sam Peach of Dodderdown. When Susy was quite near the church door she let go the broom and went into God’s house, leaving her tail—more lizard’s than lamb’s—behind her.

‘Perhaps Susy only means to set a mouse-trap to-day,’ Solly thought.

A little way on down the lane, and below the rectory, Solly stopped suddenly, and, without knowing exactly why, he looked up at Madder hill. There wasn’t a cloud upon the hill, but only a large dismal bird that flew around the lonely thorn-bush in circles. As the bird wheeled, it paused in the air; and with its wide wings and its neck stretched out, it might easily have been the very sign in the sky that the American had taken to be a cross.

Mr. Solly hoped that this winged cross of doom would fly away from Madder and never come back again.

Feeling a little tired, Solly sat down upon a root of one of the largest of the Madder elms, and waited a little nervously to see what would happen next….

In the servant’s bedroom at Madder rectory, Maud Chick was trying to pack her box. For some reason or other nothing would fit in. The hat that she had saved up so many shillings to buy, having fancied it as just the very thing for her to be churched in, while Mother Chick, sitting in the front pew, would hold the baby with all the
care that Maud’s many warnings had given her; she tried to fit the hat in beside her Sunday frock, thinking that these two at least should be friends. Maud took up the hat. She looked at it in an odd frightened way, and tried to fold it. As the hat wasn’t her holiday blouse, it resisted this new idea of Maud’s. Was the hat become a boot? No, she supposed it couldn’t be, and yet she was trying to tuck the end in as it were the higher part of a boot. Maud now began to take all her clothes, that she had already placed neatly in the box, out again. She had forgotten her workbox, that should have been placed at the very bottom. But before she reached the bottom, she had begun putting everything back again in a great hurry, as though she had seen
something
queer amongst her things that frightened her.

Although Maud was properly dressed now, her hair was fallen down again, the pins having been put in too loosely by her trembling hands. She tried to get her hair into order again, though not very successfully.

Maud dared not go to look in the glass now; she had looked once that morning, and had seen the face of a man looking at her in a horrid manner.

Maud shut her box. It was, she supposed, her own hand that had locked it. She held up her hand and looked at it a little nearer. Yes, it was a girl’s hand undoubtedly, and it was hers.
Maud sat upon her bed for a moment and looked at her box as though she wondered why it was there. Why had she dragged it out from its usual corner? Oh, nothing had happened to the box. It was only Maud Chick’s!

Maud’s little longing had always been so simple and straightforward. She had learnt all the best Madder tradition about the babies when she was little more than a baby herself, because she always felt that she was born to be a mother. She had kept herself so carefully, too, feeling sure that the father would come, and she wasn’t at all particular as to who he would be; for all that part would just mean ‘the baby’ to her.

There was no Madder custom regarding an infant’s or a growing child’s welfare that Maud didn’t know about. Maud was all ready for her baby. Every little bit of housekeeping
knowledge
was a twig for her nest. And what a proper nest it was that Maud meant to provide, so artfully made, so cautiously prepared, so intact.

But why was the box there? and some one must have packed it, too.

A bell rang sharply below stairs. That bell meant that Maud must go out somewhere—home, perhaps?

The bird that Mr. Solly had been watching had flown seawards, and Solly was upon the point of
going home to Gift Cottage when he
saw Maud Chick coming, in a hesitating way, down the lane.

Maud was one of the Madder young women that Mr. Solly would sometimes give a summer flower to, or else an autumn one. He would lean over the white gate as though he were only there by chance, and say, though not looking at Maud but up at Madder hill: ‘I hope you won’t think me rude, Maud, if I offer you these; Mr. Tucker always says that my flowers smell like Lebanon.’

And here was Maud coming, and Mr. Solly hadn’t any flowers to hold out to her. He wished he had stooped down and gathered some of the forget-me-nots that he had seen in the brook; he knew he would have enjoyed doing that, going down upon the narrow bridge and leaning over the water to reach the flowers.

Mr. Solly watched Maud coming.

She walked very slowly, hurried for a few steps, and then stopped as though the hedge had frightened her. She came along in this manner, moving and stopping, and sometimes she put her hands over her eyes as though to shut out a sight that she didn’t wish to see.

As she came nearer, Mr. Solly grew anxious, and wondered what ever could be the matter with Maud. He wished more than ever now that he had picked those forget-me-nots.

Maud didn’t notice Solly until she came quite near to him. But when she did, she gave such a
scream of terror, that he nearly fell into the nettles that surrounded the root he had chosen to rest upon. And Maud, hiding her eyes, fled past him.

Solly watched her; her dreadful scream had filled him with shame and terror.

‘I oughtn’t to have sat so quiet,’ Solly said aloud, as though trying to explain Maud’s fear. ‘I ought to have called out, “Never mind me, Maud, I’m only Mr. Solly; I’m Mrs. Crocker’s nephew—I’m nothing.”’

Solly walked slowly home to Gift Cottage, His hands trembled when he opened the white gate. In his parlour the
History
of
America
was still open upon the table. Solly looked at the book mournfully. He felt sure that both he and the Americans had seen a portent of coming doom in the sky.