The Song of the Wren

by H. E. Bates

  And there, to his surprise, over on the bank of the stream, he found the grey coat lying where she had left it when she had pulled on her stockings.

  He picked the coat up and looked at it. One of the square patch-pockets was partly torn away. The edges of the pockets and the back of the collar were worn down to the bare thread below the nap. One of the black-grey buttons was missing from the front of the coat. Another had gone from the sleeve.

  He slung the coat over his arm and took it back to the shelter. He hung it up over the bench and then, for half an hour or more, brooded over his tea. A fine white glare of late afternoon sunlight had begun to cut like acetylene light through an odd gap or two in the trees and wherever it fell it reminded him of the girl drying her white feet on the bank of the stream.

  He was so bemused whenever he thought about this that he was presently unaware of automatically breaking off lumps of bread and butter and throwing them across the threshold of the hut for the squirrels to find. Later when three of them came to eat, and then a fourth, he broke up the rest of his bread and cake and watched them, bony eyes hardly moving, without a word.

  A jingle of brass from the direction of the gateway brought him to his senses and made him remember the horse. He picked up a bucket and went back to the stream. He dipped water from the pool where the girl had sat, bathing her feet. The rim of the bucket caught the bed of the stream as he dipped and once again he stood watching the greyish churned particles of chalk clouding the water as they drifted away. Another shake of brasses from the horse woke his eyes to life again and suddenly he realized that every scrap of the chalk-bed had dispersed and settled again, leaving the water pure and clear.

  It was nearly half-past eight when he got up on the truck, put the brake half on and let the horse start down the lane. For ten minutes or more before that he had stood by the gate, looking up through the tunnel of leaves, waiting and listening, but there was no sound except the moan of an occasional pigeon, a squirrel moving in the ash-boughs or a rabbit or two among the burnt primrose leaves and papery stalks of bluebell seed.

  The sun had already disappeared by the time he was sitting in the kitchen.

  ‘Wonder as the pudden ain’t boiled dry,’ his mother said.

  ‘Had a bit o’ trouble with a belly-band.’

  ‘Oh? Took long enough to git it right then, din’t it?’ she said. ‘I seed you go past at four.’

  She was quick to look at his eyes when he had no answer, exactly as she was quick to notice the grey coat hanging above the bench the following day.

  ‘What coat’s that you got up there?’

  ‘One I found in the lane,’ he said. ‘Hanging on a gatepost.’

  He ate three or four potatoes without another word. She watched him in silence and it was not until he was filling his pipe that she went over to the bench and took the grey coat down.

  ‘Ain’t a mucher. Wouldn’t do nobody much of a turn,’ she said, ‘would it?’

  He had nothing to say in answer. She turned the coat round and round, looking at the lining and the buttons.

  ‘Whoever she is she ain’t much of a button-sewer. You can tell that.’

  He was lighting his pipe now. He was pulling at it hard so that the upper edges of tobacco glowed in fierce red coils.

  ‘When’d you find it?’

  ‘Yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Wadn’t that kept you so late,’ she said, ‘was it?’

  He pulled harder than ever at the pipe, not looking at her. The bowl of it glowed like the heart of a furnace in a smoky cloud.

  She hung the coat back in its place.

  ‘Nobody’ll look for that,’ she said. ‘Somebody said good riddance to that all right.’

  Before she could begin to pack up his dinner things he had the axe in his hand and was at the block, working.

  ‘In ’urry, ain’t you?’ she said. ‘You never finished your beer.’

  ‘I got all day.

  The coat was still there next day, and the next, but she had nothing to say of it on either day.

  On the third day, as she sat watching him eat his food, the sudden edge of a thunderstorm breaking over the hills brought rain rushing down through the woods in white, warm torrents. In half an hour the stream was gathering force down a saturated hillside, under dripping leaves.

  ‘Don’t soon let up,’ she said, ‘I s’ll have to borrow that coat to git back home.’

  Watching him, she spoke for once in a half-probing, half-joking way. He sat tense and silent, smoking his pipe, eyes not responding.

  ‘Wouldn’t keep much o’ this out though,’ she said, ‘rate it’s coming down.’

  With the storm spreading slowly down the hillside the air had closed in almost dark under the roof of the shelter. Like a squirrel she rustled about among heaps of fallen shavings, fretful of the rain, fussing to be away.

  ‘Ain’t a bad lining though.’

  She had actually taken the coat down again and was turning it over and over, then inside out, in her hands.

  ‘Might keep me dry for that step or two,’ she said. ‘Keep the thickest on it out anyway.’

  She raised the coat, opening it out, as if to put it on.

  ‘Couldn’t you sit still half a minute? It wouldn’t hurt you, would it?’ he said. ‘Vapouring up and down.’

  He did not often speak so many words at one time and she looked startled.

  ‘Who’s vapourin’?’ she said. ‘I got puddens to make. Hens to feed. Half acre o’ washin’ hangin’ out.’

  ‘Well, it’s wet all right now, ain’t it?’

  After some seconds of silence he turned to see her actually draping the coat round her shoulders. It was several sizes too big for her. It draped about her like a cloak. The little grey head rose from the big loose collar in a ludicrous, maddening way. A moment later she moved her hands as if to button it up. He dropped the bill-hook he was holding. In two strides he was across the shelter, snatching the coat out of her hands.

  ‘Leave the blame thing alone, I tell you!’ he said. ‘Leave it be. Leave it up there.’

  ‘You want me to git wet through?’

  ‘I got an old mac here,’ he said. ‘Put that on. Else put a bag over your shoulders.’

  She stood silent. She had hardly ever heard him talk so much. She watched him hang up the coat above the bench and heard his voice sharp again as he turned.

  ‘It’s somebody’s coat,’ he said. ‘Somebody’ll come back for it. And if it ain’t here when they come where do I stand?’

  Before she could move or open her mouth he went on, still sharp but his voice slower now:

  ‘Stealing by finding – police are on to you like grease lightning for a thing like that.’

  ‘Sure they must be.’

  She was watching his eyes, searching the bony whiteness for a clue, as she always did, to what he was thinking. But the whiteness seemed blanker than ever and now it baffled her.

  ‘Don’t want me to get in no trouble about it, do yer?’ he said.

  ‘No: I don’t want you to get into no trouble.’

  Ten minutes later a summer mist rising from a hot thin earth drenched by rain enfolded her grey figure as it went down the road. She had refused the mac and the bag for her shoulders. The rain was seeping down through the mist on to her bare head in a dead straight stream.

  ‘There’s wuss things ’n gittin’ wet,’ she said. ‘I don’t know as that’ll hurt me.’

  As he remembered it and stood watching her, axe in hand, he found himself half-calling after her.

  ‘Knowing,’ he said to himself. ‘Knowing – cunning – that’s what you are.’

  A week later the girl was back again.

  She came back on a Wednesday afternoon, soon after four o’clock, about the time when he usually sat feeding and talking to the squirrels, breaking bread and cake for them and sipping his tea.

  ‘Back again, like a bad penny,’ she said. ‘Think I was never going to turn up?’


  He was so slow in getting up from the box where he was sitting, all his big frame amazed, that she had actually finished counting out his money before he had taken a single step towards her.

  ‘Elevenpence I owe you,’ she said. She smiled as she held out the money in her hand. ‘And cheap at the price.’

  ‘You left your coat.’

  ‘I know. The old rag. Always forgetting something – that’s me all over.’

  The day was warm and close. Harvest had started early that summer and farther down the valley a binder was cutting corn.

  ‘Don’t you want it?’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your elevenpence. Or do you want me to count it out for you?’

  He laughed: neither very deep nor loud, but very much as if the sound were a break in a long-drawn sigh.

  ‘I was thinking more about the coat,’ he said.

  He took the money, almost unconsciously, and put it in his pocket. She looked round the hut and saw the coat hanging above the bench, where he had always left it.

  ‘About time I had another,’ she said. ‘Might do if I keep the job.’

  ‘Job?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ she said. ‘Yes, I did. That’s where I was going – that day you lent me the money for the phone call.’

  ‘Up at Hill Cross?’

  ‘You very nearly let me down,’ she said. ‘You didn’t tell me there was an Upper and a Lower Hill Cross, did you? Two of them? That’s how I got lost in the first place.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘It all came out in the wash. Got the job on a month’s trial. My first half day today – that’s why I couldn’t come down before.’

  His tea was boiling on the paraffin burner.

  ‘Is that tea?’ she said. ‘Do yourself well here, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ll get another cup.’

  ‘Here,’ she said, ‘didn’t I say to you ‘Mrs Gilbert’ when I was here last week?’

  ‘Think that’s what you said.’

  ‘Well, there’s no Mrs Gilbert. Only a Mr Gilbert and a Miss Gilbert. Two old birds. Miss is bedridden. Arthritis or something. I have to look after her and cook for the two of them.’

  He poured tea into two cups, not looking at her. He took bread and butter and cake from a biscuit tin and then closed the tin and put the food on top.

  ‘Where do we sit?’ she said. Before he could answer she was sitting on the floor, on a pile of dry chestnut shavings, her legs stretched out. ‘Arrived just in time, didn’t I?’

  Again before he could answer she bent her knees and started to untie the laces of her shoes. She was wearing a grey-blue dress and stockings now and he saw once again the level, well-shaped toes quivering through the transparent flesh-coloured nylon as she moved them up and down, relaxing.

  ‘That’s good. That’s better,’ she said, ‘I’ve got awful tender feet. They don’t like these roads.’

  He gave her a cup. She held it in both hands.

  ‘Looking at my shoes?’ she said. ‘You might well too.’

  He was not really aware of looking at her shoes and she said:

  ‘Always hardest on the left one. Not that the other one’s all that much better.’

  She picked the shoes up in one hand, turning them over, showing two gaping cracks in the soles. In the left shoe the leather was actually flapping loose.

  ‘No wonder my feet hurt,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to ask Miss if she can spare an old pair she’s done with.’ She laughed. ‘Would you believe it? I have to call them ‘Miss’ and ‘Sir’. Strict orders too.’

  ‘I could mend ’em up a bit for you,’ he said. ‘I keep a last or two down on the bench at home.’

  ‘And what would I walk in while you were mending them?’ she said. ‘Bare feet? They’re my only pair.’

  He could think of nothing to say in answer. She threw the shoes aside, shrugging her shoulders again, holding the tea cup in both hands.

  Then while she drank, he unconsciously began to break bread into small pieces, as he did every afternoon, and throw it across the threshold of the hut. At first, her face held close to the cup, she took no notice of this.

  ‘Ain’t coming today, looks like,’ he said.

  ‘Who’s not coming? she said. ‘Were you expecting somebody?’

  ‘Squirrels.’

  She turned her head sharply. She might have been seeing the quiet, simple, straightforward face, with its eyes of bone, for the first time.

  ‘What squirrels?’

  ‘They come every day,’ he said, ‘and have their teas with me.’

  ‘They do? How many?’

  Her questions were remarkably like the expression on her face: unsmiling but amused, incredulous but slightly mocking, as if she simply could not believe that a grown man could talk in that way.

  ‘Three or four,’ he said. ‘Five or six some days.’

  She sat quiet, gazing across the woodland. White cracks of sunlight broke the shadows without a flicker in places where trees had been thinned.

  ‘Given you the go-by,’ she said. ‘Gone out to tea today.’

  ‘Might be because you’re here,’ he said. ‘They’re quick on strangers.’

  She checked a laugh, looking into her empty cup.

  ‘They missed a good cup,’ she said, ‘I’ll say that. Do they take sugar?’

  The joke was lost on him.

  ‘They only eat,’ he said. ‘Take bread and cake, that’s all. What about you? I forgot to ask you. I was thinking about them all the time.’

  Like his mother she seemed startled by the unexpected number of his words. He held out the biscuit tin. Then before she could move he suddenly remembered something and made a grunt of irritation.

  ‘I’m all outa kilter today,’ he said. ‘Forget my head next. Forgot to get the watercress—’

  He half-rose to his feet, as if to start off to the stream.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Off to the brook,’ he said. ‘It grows down there. You know – where you washed your feet.’

  ‘That’s an idea,’ she said. ‘If it was deeper I don’t know that I wouldn’t jump in altogether. My lord, it’s hot. I could do with a bath – I get one bath a week up there. That’s all. My allowance. One stingy bath. How about that?’

  ‘You want some watercress?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘That’s “Miss”, that is. She’s the meany. One bath a week, that’s her idea. And I’d hardly got that one started before “Sir” came hammering on the door, telling me how much hot water cost and was I going to soak there all night? She’d sent him. Can you imagine me lying there full length, having a real good soak, just getting my shape back after a hard day’s work when all of a sudden I’ve got to drag my tired old carcass out?’

  He sat listening, everything else forgotten. The very length of what she was saying mesmerised him. He stared deeply into the woodland. He could see really nothing in the tangle of summer light and shadow except the shape of her body lying in the bath, her white legs extended, and could hear nothing except the sound of a voice he did not know asking her how much she thought hot water cost and how long she thought she was going to lie there?

  The voice and the meanness behind it angered him.

  ‘Ah, some people, some people,’ he said. ‘All they think about is money. Eat and drink money. Money on the brain.’

  ‘Ah! they’re not bad,’ she said. ‘Might be worse. It’s only “Miss”, the old trout. “Sir” isn’t too bad. He gave me half a tot of whisky one night.’

  ‘Half a tot?’

  ‘Half a tot is better than no tot at all, as the girl said.’

  ‘What girl?’

  ‘Oh! don’t you know that one?’ She laughed. ‘Well, there was this girl and a – no – perhaps I shouldn’t. Might shock you.’

  Suddenly she looked round the hut, appraising it, as if really seeing that too for the first time.
r />   ‘By the way,’ she said. ‘What do you do up here?’

  ‘Spiles,’ he said. ‘Poles.’

  ‘All the time? Nothing else?’

  ‘All the time.’

  ‘Not in winter?’

  ‘Winter just the same.’

  ‘You make a living out of that?’

  ‘Have done up to now.’

  By this time she had finished a second cup of tea. Now she sat with her knees crooked up, balancing the empty cup on the bridge they made.

  ‘Surprised it pays,’ she said. ‘Just poles. Don’t you ever get short of work?’

  ‘Never have done yet.’

  ‘Comes in steady?’

  ‘Pretty fair. Did well in the war. Everybody did.’

  ‘And spent it like rain, I’ll bet. Everybody did.’

  ‘Puzzle me. Don’t see much of it to spend.’

  ‘That’s a poor game,’ she said. ‘Who gets it to spend? Ah! I know, wifey.’

  ‘Mum takes care of it. I ain’t married.’

  As if wanting to make this small piece of information sound unimportant or trivial or offhand he started for the second time to break bread into small pieces and throw the scraps across the threshold of the hut. She waited for him to finish throwing the bread and then asked:

  ‘What’s she do with it? Tuck it away like the squirrels, I’ll bet.’

  ‘About it.’

  ‘All work and no play for you,’ she said. ‘Don’t think much of that.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘I keep steady on. I’m happy.’

  ‘Bet she is too.’

  Suddenly she stood up and started to slip her feet into her shoes.

  ‘Give me your cup if you’ve finished,’ she said, ‘and I’ll go down to the brook and wash it up.’

  ‘Oh! no. No. That’s all right. Mum’ll – she always—’

  ‘Come on, give me the cup.’

  ‘No. I’ll do it. I’ll come with you.’

  ‘Oh! come on. Cup,’ she said. ‘A girl has to have an excuse some time, doesn’t she?’

  As he watched her pick her way through clumps of hazel, rustling with sloppy shoes through the papery stalks of bluebell seed, on earth dried as thin and white as slaked lime by the heat of summer, he found himself wondering if she would stop by the brook to bathe her feet again. For a few moments his mind rested on the picture of her as he had first seen her by the water, calves white in the shadow under the trees.