THE SPARROW

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘Playing at being a ghost, Sarah?’

  ‘No. I was just being sorry for Joanna Dove.’

  Mrs Thomas thought this very unhealthy, so she said briskly:

  ‘God is taking care of Joanna.’

  Sarah looked down at the gravestone.

  ‘Why did God need her?’

  Mrs. Thomas said, even more briskly:

  ‘You had better ask your uncle to explain that to you.’

  ‘I can’t talk to my uncle about God.’

  ‘Why not?’

  The demands of Sarah’s stomach had become imperative; she must say it or be sick with the effort of holding it back.

  ‘I hate God.’

  Nothing very terrible happened, although Mrs. Thomas jerked her head back like a startled horse. Sarah said it again:

  ‘I hate God. I hate Him, I hate Him, I hate Him! He took my mummy and daddy away and I wanted them much more than He did.’

  ‘Your mummy and daddy wouldn’t like . . .’ Mrs. Thomas began.

  ‘My daddy didn’t go to church,’ Sarah shouted her down. ‘He said it was all one with the fairies.’

  She hadn’t the slightest idea what it had meant, but she remembered that it had annoyed her mother and she hoped it would annoy Mrs. Thomas, too. It did. Exasperation betrayed itself in the woman’s protuberant eyes although she tried to keep her voice bright and amused.

  ‘It’s long past your bedtime, young lady.’

  ‘I’m staying up for the Easter pageant rehearsal . . .’

  ‘But you’re not rehearsing out here. We’ll go and find your Aunt Myra.’

  ‘Mr. Wilson’s with her.’

  Sarah was not sure if this was true, but she didn’t want Mrs. Thomas to go to the house and make trouble with Aunt Myra.

  ‘I see.’

  And Mrs. Thomas looked at the vicarage as though what she saw was very interesting indeed. She seemed to have forgotten about Sarah and God.

  ‘I won’t trouble her now, then. But perhaps you could tell her that I’ll pop in during the morning.’

  When she had gone Sarah remained for a while in the graveyard. It had become quite dark. She supposed, since she had been so wicked, that she should have felt more frightened than ever, but she didn’t. It was rather disappointing, as though nothing at all had happened. She could see the light from the vicarage kitchen shining across the lawn and another light at the top of the house. She went across to the brick wall and clambered on top of it. Above her head the first stars were blinking and there was a very bright nearer star that didn’t blink and was really a planet. She sat on top of the wall for a while trying to find the Plough. Her shoes and socks were damp and the earth smelt strong where Spencer had raked over the flower beds during the day. It was getting rather cold. She gave up the search for the Plough and jumped down into the garden. She ran round the side of the house and flung open the kitchen door, making Aunt Myra jump. Aunt Myra was rolling pastry. She said, without looking up:

  ‘Don’t forget to take off your wet shoes and socks.’

  She spoke loudly because Sarah was usually halfway across the hall on her way to her room before instructions could reach her. On this occasion, however, Sarah was not in a hurry. She stood by the table, watching the movement of the rolling pin which was like so many of Aunt Myra’s movements, jerky and impatient. After a while, she said:

  ‘Mummy made nice pastry, didn’t she?’

  Aunt Myra put the rolling pin down very slowly as though it were bewitched and might jump up and hit her. She turned the pastry and then she said quietly, picking up the rolling pin again: ‘She made lovely pastry, didn’t she, darling? Much, much better than mine.’

  Sarah moved a little nearer to the table. Aunt Myra kept her eyes on the pastry, she was treating it very gently now. She Said:

  ‘Do you remember that Christmas when we came down to stay with you, and you and Mummy . . .’

  Sarah sat down at the end of the table and Aunt Myra went on talking very quietly.

  IV

  The house was empty when Ralph returned, but the kitchen was still warm because the gas had not long been turned off. There was a pleasing smell of hot pastry and some custard tarts had been laid out to cool on a wire tray. Myra’s apron hung askew over the back of a chair and a baking tin was still on the top of the stove with bits of flour and crumbs of pastry sticking to it. Myra must have got behind with her work for once in a way. He went into the hall. He did not mind being on his own, but he liked to know that there were other people somewhere about the house and he liked to have occasional distant evidence of their presence. The silence oppressed him. It was a long time since both Myra and Sarah had been out in the evening. He began to climb the stairs, intending to work in his study. A window latch rattled and there was an occasional metallic click as though an electric fire were cooling. These were pounds one only noticed when the house was empty. He hesitated. They would be at the Easter pageant rehearsal. His failure with Jill had distressed him considerably, and he needed the reassuring presence of his dear ones as he had not needed it for many years. He felt a little aggrieved that at such a time they should have left him alone. He ran down the stairs and went out, slamming the front door behind him.

  He had not stopped to put on his overcoat and the air was sharper than he had expected. The ground was hard and the grass was already white with frost. The streets lamps and the lights in the windows along the road stood out very clear and bright. They gave an impression of life and brilliance, a sense of immediacy rare to this dreary urban area. As he came round the side of the church, he heard a voice, carried clear in the frosty air.

  ‘And then came one of his disciples unto him, saying . . .’

  It was Wilson who was reading. Ralph had not realized before how pleasing the voice was, a good range, not monotonous, and with some appreciation of the beauty of the words. He could imagine the scene; Christ somewhere off-stage, the silent group listening, faces upturned. It should be effective, provided they didn’t hold it for too long—people so quickly start to fidget.

  The cold made him shiver and he regretted the lack of his overcoat. He opened the door and went quietly in, sitting unnoticed at the back of the hall.

  The scene was nearly as he had imagined it, the listening group, faces turned towards the unseen speaker. But there was one thing he had not visualized. She stood in the centre of the group, shaken, it seemed, with spasms of almost epileptic violence; for every phrase the speaker uttered she produced a different, and not always appropriate, reaction—eyes now wide, now deliriously half-closed, lips smiling, then rounded in an ‘o’ of wonder, head nodding agreement, bowed in dismay, hands clasped, unclasped, half¬upraised. She rang the changes on emotion with bewildering rapidity, fear, wonder, doubt, dismay were projected at the audience without pause as though a cinema operator had gone mad and run the whole of a tragedy through in a matter of minutes. Ralph stared, mesmerized, the words forgotten, reduced to a background noise quite unimportant in itself; if Wilson had switched to ‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen’ it would have passed unnoticed. The thing might well have become a parody but for her passionate earnestness; one had only to look at the blazing eyes staring from the contorted face to realize that there was no humour here, the whole soul was being poured into this performance. It was shocking, ludicrous, and quite heart-rending. Sarah, he found himself repeating over and over again; Sarah, my dear; my dear, dear Sarah!

  The voice died away, the group dispersed and other players took their place. Wilson came out from behind the screen and they began to rehearse a tableau. Sarah sat beside Myra. She watched the players with a bright interest in which Ralph could not fail to detect a jealous hope that no one would outshine her. No one did. Later, she was one of the women at the tomb, or, more correctly, she was the woman at the tomb. No one else existed while she wrestled with the greatest event of history which was as much beyond her comprehension as it had been beyond that of the simple woman who had first
enacted that scene. And yet, as he watched Ralph had the feeling that he was indeed witnessing the triumph of life over death; the withdrawn, almost icy child was releasing a current of energy so strong that he himself was shocked by its crude intensity. What did it mean? The possibilities were infinite. He realized that to understand Sarah would not only be a bigger, but possibly a more rewarding, task than he had imagined.

  After this episode the pageant proceeded quietly, a reverent mime of sacred events, suitably devoid of any extremity of feeling. No one noticed Ralph until the rehearsal was over. Most of the players were young and in a hurry to leave for home, they did not take much notice of the vicar; nevertheless, he felt conspicuous, as though an explanation should be given of the strange behaviour of his niece. As the hall emptied, he approached Wilson.

  ‘Does Sarah overdo things a little, do you think?’

  ‘You could put it that way.’ Wilson brandished a sword and struck an attitude, rolling his eyes heavenwards; then he laughed and tossed the sword aside. ‘A proper barnstormer, isn’t she?’

  ‘Well, yes . . .’ Ralph hesitated, and then said unhappily: ‘You don’t feel that her antics throw the whole thing out of balance?’

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘Are you going to . . . speak to her about it?’

  He could not bear the thought; but they had, after all, promised Wilson a free hand. Wilson, however, did not appear to be perturbed.

  ‘Do you want me to? I’d rather not. It’s doing her a lot of good and I don’t think it will harm anyone.’

  ‘It’s just that it’s your production, and I . . .’

  ‘Oh that!’ Wilson placed a Roman helmet in a hamper on top of a shepherd’s plaid. ‘I don’t care about the ruddy pageant.’

  Ralph’s emotions had suddenly become quite beyond his control. He felt a violent gratitude to the young man; he wanted to make him an extravagant present, but as he could think of nothing appropriate, he said:

  ‘Did you know that Jill is going away in May? You’ll probably want to see her before she goes.’

  The more rational part of him reacted with horrified disapproval. This was a betrayal of the worst possible kind. Yet as he looked at Wilson’s stricken face, he felt another surge of emotion engulfing reason. He said idiotically:

  ‘You mustn’t let yourself be so easily defeated.’

  What have I done? he asked himself as they prepared to leave the hall. Perhaps he should tell Myra about it at once and let her unravel the tangled skein of these young lives. But he seemed incapable of explaining what had happened; his intellect appeared to have been completely swamped and he could only feel. Myra glanced up at his anxious face. She put out her hand and drew him back a little so that Wilson and Sarah went ahead of them down the church path.

  ‘You’re not going to say anything to Sarah, are you?’ she asked. ‘She enjoys it so much, Ralph.’

  ‘I shan’t interfere in any way. But I hope that people won’t laugh at her.’

  ‘I don’t think she would notice. And, in any case, if anyone laughs, I shall kill them!’

  Her small, thin face was very determined. He put his arm through hers. ‘Bless you! I believe you would.’ As their arms linked close and their bodies drew together, he felt a renewed awareness of the ties that bound them, ties that he had thought so weakened that it would need only one clean slash of the knife to sever them for ever. Now he knew that it would not be as simple as that. How obstinate, how enduring a thing the family was, how deep, how incredibly tenacious its roots! The realization filled him with wonder that had in it an element of fear. How could he stand against this thing with all its ancient strength?

  ‘What is to become of us all?’ he thought as he went up the path to the house and saw the light flare in the hall as Wilson opened the front door.

  Chapter Ten

  I

  The next morning Myra was in the church hall sorting out costumes for the Easter pageant when Mrs. Thomas came in.

  ‘I met your good man at the gate on his way out and he told me you were here,’ she said.

  Myra, who was kneeling beside a trunk, pulled out a long grey skirt which smelt of moth balls.

  ‘We used that for the play about Florence Nightingale. Remember?’

  Mrs. Thomas acknowledged it with a bray of laughter.

  ‘I shouldn’t get into it now, should I?’

  Myra continued to poke around in the trunk and Mrs. Thomas stood with her feet slightly apart looking down at her.

  ‘Ralph really ought to have a curate. He is beginning to look his age.’

  Myra pulled out a straw bonnet trimmed with cherries.

  ‘That’s not so dreadful. He’s only forty-two.’

  ‘If Bill looked as drawn as that I shouldn’t be flippant about it. The parish is much too large for him to manage on his own.’

  Myra twiddled the hat round on her fingers.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Joan. No one has a curate nowadays. Certainly not in a parish like this.’

  ‘I shall raise it at the next P.C.C. meeting. There’s quite a lot of money goes into even the meanest house in this parish now.’

  ‘And you’ll get the same answer that Rutledge got when he raised Planned Giving.’

  ‘My dear! I think I’m a little more persuasive than our Stanley.’ Mrs. Thomas took the hat from Myra and rubbed at the cherries which were powdered with dust. ‘Aren’t you worried about Ralph?’

  Myra gathered up a bundle of clothes which she had put to one side on the floor.

  ‘It’s no use worrying about what can’t be altered. Will you help me to carry these things over to the vestry? I think they’ll be safer there, out of the way of the youth club, until after the pageant.’

  Mrs. Thomas picked up a rough-hewn bowl with a strange brass fixture inside it.

  ‘What on earth is this?’

  ‘It’s a lamp. Rutledge made it for one of the Wise Men. He claims it’s an authentic design! I believe it’s got oil in it, so be careful you don’t spoil your coat.’

  The vestry looked very sombre, without flowers, the cross on the side table the only decoration. It was a very small room. The two women seemed less at ease with one another now that they were at such close quarters. Mrs. Thomas set the oil lamp down on top of the low cupboard where the communion wine was kept. She paused, looking at the lamp, for a moment; anyone who did not know her opinion of him might have thought that she was admiring Rutledge’s handiwork. Myra was folding the clothes and depositing them in a neat pile in a corner. In another corner there was a stack of old hymn sheets and choir music, the paper curled and yellow, giving out a musty smell. The room was damp and chilly; the sunlight reached it only in the late afternoon when it had no power to warm the stone walls and there was only one small radiator which was never more than tepid.

  ‘I’ve been trying to persuade Ralph to have flowers on Sundays during Lent,’ Myra said. ‘They do at some churches because Sunday isn’t supposed to be included as a fast day.’

  Mrs. Thomas tilted the lamp to one side and the oil moved sludgily.

  ‘The P.C.C. would never agree. They like their Lenten gloom.’

  ‘It doesn’t hurt them. It does hurt Ralph.’

  Mrs. Thomas put down the lamp.

  ‘There are other things that could hurt him more.’

  Myra folded a shawl with particular care; then she tossed it on top of the pile, spoiling her handiwork, and dusted her hands together. As she did these things, she realized that one of the signs of shock is to appear not to be shocked. But it was too late now for the innocence of anger.

  ‘Don’t imagine that I am enjoying this,’ Mrs. Thomas said, watching her eagerly. ‘Because, as you know, I’ve been through it all myself. I know just what it feels like.’

  Myra waited.

  ‘I know how much unhappiness it can cause, too.’

  She is jealous, Myra thought. Her little affair was over so long ago and now she hasn’t the courage to sta
rt another although she is bored with Bill.

  ‘This is hardly the place to talk about your past waywardness, Joan.’

  ‘And I was wayward. My dear! When I think about it I hardly know myself.’ Pleasure lingered for a moment in her big, staring eyes. ‘And I don’t regret it, either. Not one moment of it. So don’t think I’m critical of you.’

  ‘Many thanks.’

  Myra was thinking: So we are sisters under the skin, are we? You want me to confide in you so that you can live through your vulgar, lusty passion again. How surprised you would be if I told you the truth; how dark and devious and depraved you would find my ‘love’ affair.

  Mrs. Thomas was saying: ‘It’s just that you’ve been seen around together once or twice; and people make so much of that kind of thing—especially with a woman in your position. And, you know, we do give ourselves away without realizing it. You watch him. Did you know that? During the service, and afterwards when you are talking to people in the porch . . .’

  But I mustn’t confide in her, Myra told herself desperately; however strong the urge to shock may be, this is one time when I must not give in to it. In one way we are truly sisters, she and I; neither of us has the courage to go through with our affairs. She chose Bill and security; I don’t give a damn about security but I won’t risk passion. I had passion once with Ralph, and I was grateful for it, but it is finished. So this thing must stop and I must take the first step towards ending it now.

  The room, chill and forbidding, was like a penitent’s cell. But she must tell lies and not the truth; she must offer a false confession although the humbling of pride would be real enough.

  ‘Thank you, Joan.’ Still a touch of acidity there; she must do better than that. ‘I’ve never felt for anyone as you felt for Barney.’ That, at least, was true; the sting of pain the words brought was a proof of their authenticity. It was the right thing to have said, too. The sudden brilliance of the other woman’s eyes told Myra that she would have no trouble now in convincing her of any tale she might choose to tell. ‘But he is very young, and I have never had children. So I suppose I have perhaps . . . enjoyed him too much . . . become a little possessive.’