An Episode of Sparrows

by Rumer Godden

  “Yes.” He said it so fiercely that Olivia blushed. She was still weak and though she had come in a taxi her heart was beating painfully. She asked if she could sit down.

  Vincent—and surely he is Vincent, thought Olivia—looked at her and brought her a glass of wine. “You must let me pay for it,” she said timidly.

  “You needn’t, it isn’t mine,” said Vincent.

  Mr. Dwight had come to the restaurant. He had brought a boy with him, and the boy spent the day pasting pink labels on the furniture, on the tables and chairs, the big plated dish-cover, the hat stand, the mahogany desk, on everything; the labels had numbers printed on them.

  “Why?” asked Lovejoy.

  “The furniture’s going to be sold,” said Vincent. Lovejoy stood still. “Has it pended?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Vincent. He put a notice in the window, CLOSED, and carried in the bay trees, and Mr. Dwight’s boys put two labels on the tubs.

  “This is the last dinner we can serve for you, sir,” Vincent had said to Mr. Manley two nights before.

  “Gone bust?” said Mr. Manley. “I’m not surprised. It was a good effort all the same,” he said. He looked squarely at Vincent, and if Vincent had looked back he would have seen that Mr. Manley’s eyes were very friendly. He’s kind and good, Lovejoy could have told him. Look what he did about the pansies.

  “George,” said Mrs. Combie, “don’t you think we ought to serve Mr. Manley’s dessert on one of the Angelica plates?”

  “On a Kauffman plate? Are you mad, Ettie?”

  Mr. Manley called Vincent over to him before he left. “I need an under-steward for my house down in the country,” said Mr. Manley. “I say steward because there are valuable things there of which he would have to help take care. If it would interest you, come and see me. I should want you to cook for me occasionally when I’m down, and there would be a place for your wife with the cleaning. Think it over,” said Mr. Manley.

  Vincent did not need to think it over. When Mr. Manley said “under-steward” Vincent had heard only the “under.” “Surely ‘steward’ gave you an inkling,” said Mr. Edwards at the bank afterwards, but Vincent had had no inkling at all.

  “Imagine,” he had said to Mrs. Combie, “imagine waiting on Mr. Manley every night,” and, “No thank you,” said Vincent in answer to Mr. Manley. “It’s kind of you, sir, but I couldn’t do that.”

  “The house is Greatorex,” said Mr. Edwards. Mr. Edwards had no reason to think well of Vincent and he enjoyed being a little unkind.

  “Greatorex!” said Vincent.

  “Is that a big house?” asked Mrs. Combie.

  “Very big,” said Mr. Edwards. “A showplace. Talk of beauty!” and he said to Vincent, “It’s open to the public; you ought to go there one day and see what you’ve missed. Didn’t you know he was Lord Manley? One thing to comfort you,” said Mr. Edwards. “He’s quite a famous gourmet. If I had known he was coming to you—”

  “If I had known!” said Vincent.

  It was over now, the restaurant was closed, but an obstinacy in Vincent made him go on laying the tables, untying the bundles of forks and spoons and knives Mr. Dwight had counted—“I’ll do them up again, Ettie”—unfolding the table-cloths, hiding the labels as well as he could. There was one that showed on the chandelier; he climbed up and peeled it off and stuck it on the back of one of the cherubs’ wings. He could not help there being some strange things in the restaurant; Mrs. Combie’s sewing machine, for instance, was in one lot with the big dish-cover; “We have to put rubbish with something good,” Mr. Dwight had said. The dish-cover rubbish! Vincent had winced. There was a bundle of towels that went with the linen and an old birdcage on the desk; Mr. Dwight had wanted to bring the mangle in but there Vincent had rebelled. “What does it matter?” asked Cassie. Vincent, if he had answered at all, could almost have cried, “It’s insulting the dead.”

  “But dearie, why—?” Mrs. Combie asked when she saw him setting the tables.

  “I don’t know why,” said Vincent but he went steadily on, and when Olivia came in the restaurant looked much as it always had, though it was a little strange to find the bay trees inside.

  As Olivia finished her wine, Lovejoy came down, her hair brushed, her face and hands washed, though her toes looked dirty through her shoes. “I can’t help that,” she said helplessly. “Let’s go,” she said, but Vincent fidgeted round them; he had something private to say to Olivia, something he did not want Lovejoy to hear. If he or Olivia had been Angela or Cassie, accustomed to children, they would have told Lovejoy to go outside, but neither of them liked to do that and presently Vincent, after hovering, put a little jug of parsley on the table.

  “Don’t you think that’s good parsley?” he asked Olivia, but he did not look at the parsley, he looked at Lovejoy.

  “Very good parsley,” said Olivia and she put out a finger and, very gently, touched Lovejoy’s cheek.

  “What I admire about it is the way it keeps on,” said Vincent. Now that he was not speaking about himself, his face was not strained or bitter. “It’s had such stony ground but still it grows. I’ve grown very fond of it. It’s loyal.”

  “It’s a pity you can’t keep it,” said Olivia.

  “The rubbish heap’s no place for it,” said Vincent bitterly.

  “But Olivia did not know anything about him!” Angela was to say afterwards.

  “I once talked to him about parsley,” Olivia would have said if she had been there to say it. “That told me all I needed to know.”

  Vincent had called Mrs. Combie to see her. Olivia, putting out her hand, feeling the unexpected bigness and hardness of Mrs. Combie’s, had looked at her with respect.

  “Rubbish or not,” Olivia said as she was leaving, “you have made this.” She looked round the restaurant openly, and Vincent did not try to stop her. “You have tried, have made,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Vincent, “and what have I done”—he looked at Mrs. Combie and Lovejoy—“to them, my wife, and a child?” And he cried, “You shouldn’t make things on other people.”

  “But you said it didn’t matter about other people,” said Lovejoy.

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “You said it.”

  “Then I was silly,” said Vincent, “silly and blind.”

  “George dear.” Mrs. Combie put her hand into his.

  “Don’t, Ettie. You make it worse. When I think about the refrigerator—”

  “Don’t think about it.”

  “I must,” said Vincent. “All my life long. I must. If ever I get another chance—” His face lit up, then was sad again, “Especially if I get another chance,” he said.

  “And I still think,” said Olivia, “that it’s better to try and fail, doing what you want to do, than not to try.” She could not explain it more clearly than that but she knew it was the trying that was important; even if it fails, it goes to swell the sum total of trying, as a martyr’s faith, even if he is killed for it, swells the faith of everyone. “You make me very ashamed,” said Olivia. “I have been such a shameful, shameful coward.”

  She was a coward still. “Suppose Mrs. Malone is there?” she said tremulously to Lovejoy as they walked towards the church.

  “Bridgie said it would be Father Lambert,” said Lovejoy reassuringly. “If Mrs. Malone does come, I’ll answer her back.” But though she sounded brave Lovejoy was as nervous as Olivia and as they came to the church she said, “Keep watch for us.”

  Olivia, feeling rather like the nurse in Romeo and Juliet, sat down at the back of the church. The churchyard door was open, and Lovejoy went out into the garden; she wanted to meet Tip there.

  “I told your mother I’d not let you out of my sight,” Father Lambert said to Tip as they came. “I happen to have very long sight. Go into the garden with Lovejoy. I’ll put a chair for Miss Chesney in the vestibule and talk to her there.”

  But nothing happens as it is planned. Tip and Lovejoy had fou
ght for this moment, pleaded and longed for it; now Tip came slowly across the rubble—to begin with, it was disconcertingly formal to walk through the church door instead of coming down the wall—and found Lovejoy sitting by the lions on her accustomed stone. “Hello,” he said.

  “Hello,” said Lovejoy, and there was silence.

  “I’m going to the Arethusa,” said Tip. “I’m really going.” He said it for something to say; after all it was what he had come there to tell her. “At least I hope I am,” he corrected himself. She made no comment, and, “It’s a training ship for the Navy,” he said.

  “I hope you enjoy it,” said Lovejoy distantly.

  “It’s proper,” said Tip. “The school’s like living in a ship, and we wear sailor dress.”

  “Sailors are fashionable this year,” said Lovejoy.

  That seemed to belittle them, and Tip began to boast. “The St. Vincent boys gave a display in the Tattoo,” he said. “I don’t know if we do but probably we will, and I’ll be in it. You can come and watch.”

  “I shan’t be able to,” said Lovejoy coldly. “I shall be in a Home.”

  “My mum says you have fun in a Home,” said Tip. He meant to cheer her up but it sounded quite heartless. “You go to school, like the others, and have nice frocks. Sometimes they give you ice cream.” Lovejoy’s lips quivered but she lifted her chin and looked silently through the window at the statue. Tip wished she would talk.

  “You got the money for the pansies?” asked Tip. He knew there was trouble coming by that quivering lip.

  “What’s the good of pansies,” said Lovejoy tensely, “if you can’t water them?”

  “It was your fault I couldn’t come,” said Tip, flaring up. “It was you who got me caught.”

  “You’re talking like your mum,” Lovejoy taunted him.

  “’S true, and you left me. You ran away.”

  “I didn’t run away! It was the garden.”

  “Garden! Garden! All you think about’s that blasted garden.”

  “I can’t water it,” said Lovejoy. “I’ve broken the cider bottle. Look, the grass has all gone brown.”

  “’Tisn’t grass, it’s mustard and cress,” said Tip cruelly. He wanted to be cruel.

  “You’re not to tell her,” Father Lambert had said. “She should be gone before it happens. Now promise.” Tip had promised and swelled protectively, but now Lovejoy seemed to him not like one of Olivia’s sparrows but like a little octopus, threatening to wind round him again with her threats and tears; just as he had wanted to frighten her with the statue, to punish her, he wanted to punish her now, hurt her, thought Tip furiously; the fuss of these weeks, the being guarded and kept in, seemed clinched in this. He hated Lovejoy, his mother, his sisters, all the whole gang of them—Mary, Margaret, Clara, Bridgie, Josephine—he hated Angela, even Olivia, all women, and, “It’s no use your bothering about the garden,” he said. “There won’t be any garden soon. Get that into your nut. No garden.”

  The tears stopped as if a hand had seized Lovejoy and wrung her dry. “Why not?” she asked in a frightened voice.

  “Because they’re going to knock it down,” said Tip. “They’ve got the money to build the church.”

  “But the aeroplane’s not up.”

  “They’ve got it. The Jiminy Cricket people gave it to them.”

  “Charles and Liz?” said Lovejoy, dazed.

  “Yes. The builders are going to start at once; first they’ll knock the hut down, squash, flat,” said Tip.

  Lovejoy winced. “Who told you?”

  “Father Lambert.” Tip was wound up, and the hideous words went on. “They’ll bring a bulldozer. It’ll go over the garden, like that.” He made a flat sweep with his hand. “Over Jiminy Cricket, and the pansies and the pillar and the pot!”

  “The pansies and the pillar and the pot,” whispered Lovejoy after him. She did not mention Jiminy Cricket.

  “Yes. A lot of good it’s been, all that sweat,” said Tip, disgusted.

  Lovejoy turned her back on him. She had decided she would not, ever again, cry in front of Tip, but to suppress the crying hurt unbearably. Movements, small hard shudders, shook her. Above her, looking down through the window, was the statue; the windows were open wide, it was hot even in the church, but a pane of glass caught the bitter shudders from Lovejoy so that they seemed to pass from her into the statue; they seemed to shake it as bitterly.

  Then, “Bloody pigs,” said Lovejoy.

  “Who?” asked Tip, startled.

  “Grown-ups, all grown-ups!” cried Lovejoy and she picked up a piece of the stone coping—a big piece, thought Tip, horrified—and threw it through the window.

  The stone hit the statue midway up the robe, just where her knees would have been, thought Tip. For a moment it rocked as if it were mortally hurt, then, in front of their eyes, it slowly overbalanced from the pedestal and fell. There was a crash as it hit the floor.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  “I’LL take you round the house,” said Sister Agnes. In her black habit with a narrow white starched coif and veil, she was just a nun to Lovejoy. As with postmen, bus conductors, policemen, her uniform made her anonymous.

  “This is the dining room.” Lovejoy stared at the blue and white oilcloth-covered tables, the red beakers, the small chairs.

  “The playroom.” A doll’s house, a rocking horse, toys . . .

  “Did you bring your toys?” asked the Sister.

  “Do I have to have toys?” asked Lovejoy, startled.

  “The playground.”

  “Don’t we play in the Street?”

  “Of course not,” said Angela, and, “Our children are not allowed in the street,” said Sister Agnes.

  “Why not?”

  “We’re responsible for them,” said the Sister gently. “They might get lost or into trouble.” Lovejoy was too polite to say that she thought they must be little duffers, but a fearful thought struck her. “Won’t I go in the Street? Will I have to stay there too?” And she pointed to the netted enclosure where the sound of balls on rackets and cricket bats rose with children’s voices in the air. “You’re one of our children now,” said the Sister.

  “This will be your bedroom.”

  Small beds, with white covers, a locker by each bed, more toys, dolls and teddy bears on the pillows. “Delightfully friendly,” said Angela, “and only five beds. In some homes,” she told Lovejoy, “you sleep in a dormitory.”

  “But I’ve always had a room to myself.”

  If Lovejoy had been asked how she was behaving she would have said she was being good and sensible; she did not know that to Angela it seemed she had fought all the way—“About the clothes, for instance,” said Angela. One of Angela’s committees had given the money for the clothes. “It will save twelve pounds out of the Poor Box,” she had said.

  “Are these my clothes?” Lovejoy had asked Miss Dolben when Miss Dolben had fitted her out.

  “Your very own,” said Miss Dolben. She was well used to the vanity of girls, the difficulty of buying clothes for them, but she had never seen anything like the silent disdain of this small Lovejoy. She was pleased to see her coming round.

  “The raincoat, the gym dress, the flannel blouses, the walking shoes? And that brown—frock?” Lovejoy could not bring herself to call it a dress.

  “Your very own.”

  It was two days later that Miss Dolben had brought Lovejoy into Angela’s office. “Do you know what she has done?” Even good quiet-tempered Miss Dolben was indignant. “Do you know what she has done? Sold them,” cried Miss Dolben.

  “Sold them!” Olivia, who had seen Miss Dolben and Lovejoy come in and had stolen downstairs, was shamelessly eaves-dropping. “Sold them where? Why? To whom?” Angela’s voice was shrill. “To whom?”

  “Mr. Dwight,” said Lovejoy in surprise. Where else could she have sold them?

  “For three pounds fifteen!” moaned Miss Dolben. “The raincoat alone cost four pounds.”

/>   “Then it was cheating,” said Lovejoy sharply. “That raincoat was very badly cut.”

  “Be quiet,” said Angela even more sharply, but the next moment she asked, “What did you do with the money?”

  “Bought clothes,” said Lovejoy with dignity.

  Olivia had no business to interfere, she had had no intention of betraying herself, but now she was moved to come down the last stairs and ask, “What did you buy?”

  Lovejoy’s face lit up. “A little box coat like a reefer,” she said, speaking to Olivia, not to Angela or Miss Dolben, “not a real reefer, of course, but quite good cloth and good turnings; it was forty-three shillings, but you have to pay quite that,” said Lovejoy seriously. “Then a navy cotton skirt, not much stuff in it, but well cut; it’s on a bodice and the buttons will let down; that was nine shillings. I bought two of those American woven shirts, one is white and one white with navy stripes, they were three shillings each, that makes two pounds eighteen; and two pairs of white ankle socks for three-and-six. And these plain pumps,” said Lovejoy, showing them. “They’ll do for winter if I’m careful to keep out of puddles. They were fourteen shillings, second-hand, at Dwight’s. I think I was lucky to find them, don’t you? And with the shilling over and two of the half-crowns Tip gave me—after I’d paid for the pansies—I bought this little cap. It has a touch of the sailor about it,” said Lovejoy. “Sailors are fashionable this year”—but that made her think about Tip, and she was silent.

  Angela had taken the clothes away. “I had to,” she said when Olivia protested. “Even if we buy everything twice, that spirit must be broken.” She had given the money again—“Out of her own pocket,” said Miss Dolben—and the raincoat, the gym dress, the flannel blouses, walking shoes, and brown frock had been bought back.

  “You must learn to do as you’re told,” Angela told Lovejoy. “You’re far too cocksure and independent.”

  Angela had brought Lovejoy to the home herself. “You should do that, I know,” she said to Miss Dolben, “but perhaps you will let me; as I recommended her, I feel responsible. I hope the Sisters will be able to cope.”