An Episode of Sparrows

by Rumer Godden

  “But Charles, why you?”

  Charles? Lovejoy cocked an ear but it sounded right; there was, after all, Prince Charles.

  “It’s a trust,” he was saying, “for rebuilding churches and making schools—Catholic, of course. My father did it, and my grandfather. It’s called the ‘Charles Whittacker Adams Trust.’ ”

  “That’s your name.”

  “Yes. That Charles was my great-uncle.”

  Charles Whittacker Adams—it was a rounded, satisfying name and Lovejoy repeated it over to herself as they went down the steps into the church. But what was her name? wondered Lovejoy, and then Charles told her. “Careful, Liz,” he said as they came to a broken bit of step.

  Liz! could a Somebody be called Liz? “It’s short for Elizabeth, goose,” said Cassie. Nothing could be more royal than that, not even Charles, but it was a long time before Lovejoy was reconciled to Liz.

  “What a funny little church!”

  Liz stood in the doorway as Charles went in; he looked round him, then walked slowly along by the walls, looking at the floor, the ceiling, the old pillars. He stepped to the windows, craned up, and looked out; Lovejoy held her breath in case he saw the garden, but he obviously saw nothing interesting because he stepped away again.

  There were people praying, and Lovejoy slipped past Liz to light her candle; I’ll do it quickly and then I can see what they do, she thought.

  She bent her knee to the altar as Tip had taught her, and went round to the chapel, where she bobbed again and knelt by one of the chairs.

  “You mustn’t just go in and take a candle,” Tip had said. “First you must pray.”

  “Why?” asked Lovejoy, mystified.

  “Because it’s polite,” said Tip.

  “I don’t know what to say,” objected Lovejoy.

  “Say Hail Mary,” said Tip; as a cradle Catholic it had not occurred to him that any child could not know Hail Mary.

  “Hail Mary,” said Lovejoy as she would have said “How do you do,” and got up to light her candle.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Liz had walked across at the back of the church. Is she watching me? thought Lovejoy. Oh, I hope she doesn’t go before I’ve finished.

  “You mustn’t just walk out,” Tip had said. “You must go back to your place and pray.”

  “Again?” asked Lovejoy; that seemed exaggerated.

  “Yes. That’s when you do your asking.”

  “Oh!” said Lovejoy, more reconciled.

  “You can ask for anything you want,” said Tip.

  “Anything?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me get those flicking pennies quickly,” prayed Lovejoy devoutly. She said that each time, but still it was hideously slow and as she rose from her knees she sighed. There were three more candles, twelve more pennies to get, a whole shilling, and she thought it prudent to add a word. “Quickly, mind,” she said to the statue. “And do you know how quick it was?” she said to Tip now. As she had come down the side aisle Liz had smiled at her, beckoned, and given her a shilling.

  “Blimey!” said Tip.

  “It was blimey,” said Lovejoy. “And that was not all.”

  She had taken the shilling, three fourpences, the ninth, tenth, eleventh candles, and, forgetting to thank Liz, she went straight back up the church, genuflected, and bought three more candles. Then she went and knelt down. She felt Charles and Liz come up behind her. “Did you see?” Liz asked him. “I gave her a shilling, and—”

  “Ssh!” said Charles.

  “Do you think she’s a little saint?” Liz whispered.

  “Little sinner, more likely,” said Charles.

  “Now we’re quits,” Lovejoy had said to the statue, but she was not quite quit; three candles meant three prayers, or she supposed they did. “You’ve got to do it properly,” said Tip.

  “Let me get those flicking—” But that, her routine prayer, was finished. There were no more candles to get. Well, what else? thought Lovejoy. “Let Mother come back”—that would have been the prayer a short while ago but, on the whole, she thought Mother was better with the Blue Moons. “Let Mother not come back”—that was safer, and, “Let my garden grow,” that was sense, and it was suitable because now she could begin in the garden. There was one prayer left. “You can ask for anything you want, or anyone else wants,” Tip had said; she could have asked for clothes but suddenly she thought of Vincent.

  That morning Vincent had been in trouble again; he had come back from Driscoll’s with two punnets of strawberries.

  “Strawberries already?” Mrs. Combie had said.

  “All good restaurants are serving them, Ettie.”

  “How much?” said Cassie, pouncing.

  “Never you mind how much,” said Vincent, but Cassie had found out. “She looked in my private market book,” Vincent told Mrs. Combie.

  The strawberries, with their green leaves, had looked pretty in their chip punnets, but there had been a scene about them. Mrs. Combie was fired to protest. “Can you see Mr. Manley, or anybody, paying for them?” she had asked. “And there’s a chicken come in, and steaks. Oh, George!”

  “We can eat them up,” Lovejoy offered hopefully when the scene was over.

  “At six shillings a basket! I should choke,” said Mrs. Combie.

  “Ettie, somebody will come. They must,” Vincent had said desperately, and, “I used my prayer for that,” said Lovejoy. “Send the lady and gentleman to Vincent,” she had commanded.

  “Well?” said Tip. “Well?”

  “When I got up they had gone out of the church,” said Lovejoy.

  “I’ll have to go in and see the priest,” Charles had said. “We’ll need to talk, but let’s go now. I’ve seen all I need for the present.”

  “When I came out they were going down the steps,” said Lovejoy. “They got in the car and drove—” She broke off dramatically.

  “Well?” shouted Tip.

  “Drove straight to the restaurant,” said Lovejoy.

  Tip looked squarely into Lovejoy’s face. “Straight?” he asked.

  “Well, nearly straight,” said Lovejoy. The car had stopped when it was well past the restaurant, almost at the river, where it had waited a moment and then turned. “But they went to the restaurant,” said Lovejoy obstinately.

  It had been that rare thing, a perfect evening.

  If Vincent had chosen a car to stand outside his restaurant, he could not have chosen a better than the big green one, and no two people could have been nearer his dreams than Charles and Liz. Like Lovejoy, Vincent gave them attributes at once. Charles was young, rich, handsome; Liz was charming. To Vincent they were that forever and ever.

  When they walked in, the restaurant, he knew, had never looked better; driven by the quarrel, he had spent the whole day in polishing and cleaning. The flowers in the vases were extra good that day; infected by the strawberries, he had bought lilies-of-the-valley for every table.

  “How did you know you should buy them?” asked Mrs. Combie, and Vincent answered solemnly, “I was inspired.” He had lit the flame in the silver réchaud and put on the best napery.

  “On your own head be it,” Charles was saying to Liz as they came in at the door. Vincent smiled.

  “Can you give us dinner?” asked Charles. He spoke half doubtfully.

  “Of course,” said Vincent as if to say, What else? “This table?” He led the way to the best table and pulled back a chair for Liz. As they sat down he saw them looking round in surprise and pleasure, and he smiled again. “We were just driving away when we saw the bay trees,” said Liz.

  “An apéritif?” asked Vincent as he brought his pad. That was a dangerous thing to ask; he had only some sherry and Cinzano and bitter Campari—“And they would hardly ask for that.” Don’t let them ask for fancy cocktails, he prayed. They ordered sherry, “Medium dry,” said Charles; Vincent thankfully poured his best dry sack into his best glasses, brought them to the table, and took up hi
s pad again.

  No one, Mrs. Combie often said, could ever tell what Vincent would do; now some inspiration told him to be modest; to Mrs. Combie’s wonder—she had her eye to the glass panes—he did not produce his elaborately written menus but suggested something he could do easily, here and now, with what he had, and that fitted his little restaurant. “I shall make you an onion omelette,” he announced. He did not mean to announce it but he was thinking aloud; eggs and onions of course I have got, he thought. “And then a nice rump steak Bercy?” That will be easy he thought and he quickly ran over all he would need—butter, parsley, chopped shallot, lemon juice. “Unless you would rather have fish?” he asked. That was dangerous too; there was no fish, but it was Vincent’s lucky night. They ordered the steaks. “With sauté potatoes,” said Vincent, his face intense, “and a salad?”

  “What wine have you?” said Charles.

  “I’ll bring the list,” said Vincent as glibly as if he had a real list, and then stopped. “A barbera would be good with the steak,” he suggested, “or Chianti. I have a barbera ‘forty-nine—”

  Charles ordered the barbera. “The omelette will be about ten minutes,” said Vincent, then he went through the glass door and called. “Ettie,” he called. “Ettie. Ettie.”

  When Mrs. Combie came he took her in his arms, pressed a kiss on her forehead, and said, “They’ve come, Ettie. The people I’ve always wanted. They’ve come. Now help me. Help me.”

  “I’ll help you, George,” said Mrs. Combie.

  If Vincent were pressed for time he became silent and swift, he took off his coat and hung it over a chair by the restaurant door, ready to slip on again, and gave rapid, low orders. Lovejoy was sent scurrying for fresh watercress for garnishing. “Knock and make Mrs. Driscoll open,” said Vincent, “and run all the way.”

  He went back into the restaurant to clear the table Mr. Manley had just left. If they see me busy they won’t get impatient, he thought. Thank God Mr. Manley has left, thought Vincent; to think of Charles and Liz in the same room as Mr. Manley seemed to Vincent sacrilege, but he was glad of Mr. Manley’s used table. That evening he did not have to act, it was all genuine. He cleared the table and came to Charles and Liz. “Do you like your steaks rare or medium?” he asked.

  Back in the kitchen he and Mrs. Combie worked with a quiet passion until, the omelette in the pan, the plates warming, Vincent cut bread, slipped on his coat, and took it in. “Put the steaks under,” he commanded, “and pray God the potatoes brown in time.”

  A moment later he was back again, slipped off his coat, and went to the wine bin. “If we had a cellar,” he said, “the barbera would have been too cold; it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Chop the parsley, Ettie,” he said, “and the shallots finer than that; fine, I said,” and he tweaked her ear as he passed.

  To Mrs. Combie it was an onion-smelling evening. Now Vincent told her to arrange the salad, and she had to rub the bowl and the leaves lightly with garlic though her nose twitched with disgust.

  When the steaks were done the savoury butter was piled on top; as Vincent put on his coat he said, “I’ll bring the omelette plates out; come to the door and take them, then pass me the tray and the other things as I tell you. You, Lovejoy”—Lovejoy had come panting back—“pass the things to Mrs. Combie from the stove.”

  In a chain they worked, Vincent’s face absorbed, lumpy with worry as Lovejoy had seen it, but infinitely happy; Charles and Liz watched him, amused and pleased, as he slid the steaks onto their plates, garnished them with watercress—my watercress, thought Lovejoy, her eye at the glass door—served the crisp brown potatoes; then he rolled the trolley away and fetched the wine, which Mrs. Combie had kept in the hot kitchen to warm a little more after it had been shown in its cradle to Charles and carefully uncorked. “Let it breathe a few moments,” Vincent had said, and Lovejoy had looked at it, not daring to touch it; she had not known wine was alive.

  When Vincent had served the wine—and Lovejoy marked how he poured a little into Charles’s glass and then waited until Charles sipped and nodded before he served Liz; Lovejoy took in all these mysteries and was never to forget any of them—he set the wine carefully down, then began to mix the dressing for the salad at the table. “In front of them? Is that polite?” asked Mrs. Combie.

  “Very polite,” said Vincent. Back in the kitchen he had asked her to bring him a clean cloth to mop his forehead. “I’m out of training,” he said.

  “Dearie, it’s the strain.”

  “I used to serve eighteen,” he said, his voice high with excitement. “Twenty—but then I had a waiter. We’ll have a waiter, Ettie.”

  “And have you seen the car?” asked Lovejoy.

  “We’ll have rows of cars,” said Vincent.

  But—what was a car like that doing in Catford Street? thought Mrs. Combie. “It’s probably just for once, George,” she said. She had to caution him though it went to her heart to dash the hope in his eyes; it was not dashed. “They’ll come back,” said Vincent. “After this meal they’ll come back.”

  “All right?” he asked as he went back into the restaurant.

  “Superb,” said Charles.

  “He’s Charles, she’s Liz,” Lovejoy whispered to Mrs. Combie as they peeped through the door.

  A crack of reality broke through. “That’s not mink,” said Cassie—with her unerring nose for what was not her business, for what Vincent would rather she did not see, Cassie had seen Lovejoy running with the watercress and at once had arrived. “That’s not mink. That’s marmot,” said Cassie, running her eye over Liz, but Lovejoy refused to hear.

  “They’re having strawberries,” she said. Vincent brought out one of the baskets. He did not say, “I told you so,” he said solemnly, “Bring me one of the Angelica Kauffman plates.”

  “You mean two, George?”

  “No, one. For her.”

  “But—won’t he mind?”

  “You’ll see. He’ll be pleased,” said Vincent.

  When he took in the coffee cups, Liz was touching the deep red plate with her fingers; Lovejoy had chosen a red. “It’s beautiful!” said Liz.

  “I keep them for my most beautiful clients,” said Vincent. His heart beat in case Charles thought he was impertinent, but, sure enough, Charles smiled.

  “George,” said Mrs. Combie when Vincent came out. “Do you think they’re in love?”

  “A good dinner helps love,” said Vincent. “More coffee, Ettie.” He had a delighted small grin on his face that made him look like a boy and he kissed Mrs. Combie as he passed. This is what Vincent is like, thought Lovejoy, happy and sure, not little and worried and small.

  The bill came to three pounds, three shillings. “He’ll create,” said Cassie warningly as Vincent took it to Charles folded on a plate, but Charles paid it almost without looking. He put down four pound notes and when Vincent brought the change, “Congratulations to the kitchen,” said Charles and left the silver.

  “I didn’t know there were people like that,” said Cassie. For the first time there was awe in her voice.

  Vincent gave Lovejoy sixpence. “From Charles,” said Lovejoy reverently.

  “If he gave you sixpence you won’t want mine,” was all Tip said to this story.

  His voice was surly. What was the matter with him? Was he jealous? thought Lovejoy. She did not know that males do not care to be circumvented, however wonderfully, by their females.

  “And you’re a silly little girl,” said Tip. “A statue, even if it’s Our Lady, can’t do things.”

  He was impressive but Lovejoy only said, “Huh!”

  CHAPTER XV

  “IT’S TOO late to plant seeds,” said Mr. Isbister.

  “Even grass?” asked Lovejoy.

  Mr. Isbister grunted, which meant “Even grass.”

  “There, you see,” said Lovejoy bitterly to Tip, “that’s what you’ve done with your penance.”

  Lovejoy was tenacious in getting her way, even w
ith her mother—though there she had not been very successful—even with the Virgin Mary, and there she had been singularly successful. She believed she could bend most things to her will. “You can’t plant seeds now,” said Mr. Isbister.

  “What if I will?” asked Lovejoy.

  Mr. Isbister spat on the area ground before he answered. “In England,” he said, “there’s—five months when grass—will grow. April to September.” Lovejoy opened her lips. “But not in London,” said Mr. Isbister. “Least, not in Catford Street. Hot spell, ground bakes—hard as a plate unless you can water, sprinkle—the whole blasted time.”

  “We can’t,” said Lovejoy. “How could we? There’s no water where we are.”

  “Then leave grass alone,” said Mr. Isbister, “and for flowers get—seedlings.”

  “Get seedlings.” Lovejoy was beginning to learn that, as a gardener, she was one of a confraternity, moving in rhythm; as needs arose, things appeared to match them. She would once have said that not much gardening went on round Catford Street; then why, in every greengrocer’s shop, on the counters at Woolworth’s, had boxes and boxes of seedlings appeared? She tried the patience of the shopgirls asking what they were; some of the plants had flowers on them, so that she knew them, pansies—she had a particular affection for pansies, with their wise faces—geraniums, double daisies, but the others were just clumps of green.

  “What are those?”

  “Alyssum.”

  “What are those?”

  “African marigolds.”

  “What are those?”

  “Antirrhinums, snapdragons.”

  Lovejoy’s eyes raked the stiff, queer plants, trying to imagine what kind of flowers they would be.

  After a great deal of hovering with Tip’s and the dinner sixpences, she bought two marigolds, two alyssums, a daisy, and a snapdragon.

  “One?” said the shopgirl when Lovejoy bought the snapdragon. “We sell them by the dozen,” and, “Don’t ruin yourself,” said the girl when Lovejoy bought the daisy.