The Wingless Bird Read online

  It was strange that she was in no way jealous of Jessie being her father’s choice for betterment, because Jessie herself hadn’t wanted to go to the Secretarial School, nor had her mother wanted her to go. Oh no, her mother’s opinion had been, if Jessie didn’t want to serve in the shops then she could help with the housework and learn to cook, and so save Maggie Rice’s half week’s wage of six and threepence, for Maggie was on what her mother called half-days, which started at eight and finished at one.

  Agnes often thought about the disparity in wages: while she was getting fifteen shillings a week, Arthur Peeble only got a pound, and he had a young family to bring up on that, and Nan Henderson’s wage was a niggardly eight and six for a long-day week. And Nan would be twenty next month and due for a rise, and she was hoping her father would stretch a point and make it ten shillings, for no matter what he said, Nan was a good assistant. But of course he was right about the trouser bit because Nan had a gay disposition and a very pretty face; what he wouldn’t admit to was that she brought in a lot of custom at the weekend, especially when there was a boat in and some of the sailors would make their way up from the quayside and spend freely on chocolate or toffee for their girls. Of course, these would be the ones who didn’t make straight for the pubs.

  She was now going through the door into the storeroom behind the shop when her father said, ‘Mind, close up at nine sharp, Aggie. It’s no use hanging on; anybody who’s going to spend will have spent afore then.’ She gave no reply but went on through the storeroom, whose walls were lined with shelves, some holding bottles of sweets, others boxes of all sizes, then through another door and into a corridor, from which, six feet to the right of her, a door led into the storeroom of the tobacconist shop. This door was always kept closed so that the strong odours of tobacco, cigarettes, cigars, and leather goods should not permeate into the sweetshop. Ten feet in the other direction a staircase rose directly up by the side of the end wall and she made for this. A short flight up was a landing and the stairs turned in on themselves to another short flight, which brought her to another corridor similar to the one downstairs but more than twice its length.

  The upstairs house ran above the two shops to form spacious living quarters, which were surprisingly well-furnished and comfortable. Agnes’ mother, Alice Conway, had two assets: she was an excellent cook and she was a home-maker, at least where material things were concerned. Unfortunately the home-making did not include harmony, for she was given to moods.

  Strangely, her mother’s moods, Agnes had noticed for some long time now, were more evident in the evening. During the day her mother seemed happy at times, baking, trying out fresh recipes, or changing yet again the curtains, or crocheting new chair-backs. Very often, in the middle of the evening, she would be overcome by lassitude and retire to bed, often before the shops downstairs were closed. Of course, she had a very comfortable bedroom. It was situated at the far end of the house, above the sweets storeroom. Besides a double bed, it contained a resting couch, a large easy chair, and a mahogany bedroom suite, consisting of a wardrobe, dressing table and a wash-hand stand. Next to this bedroom was a smaller one, but it was never used. In it was a single bed and also the cradle in which she and Jessie had lain many years ago. Across the corridor from the single bedroom was the modern innovation of an indoor closet. No longer did they have to go down the backstairs during the night and into the yard, and across it to where the three outdoor lavatories stood. The nearest one had been for the use of the Conways’ house, the second one was for the use of Tommy Grant and his family. Tommy had managed the little sweet factory for many years and had lived above it and brought up his family there. And he was adamantly against anything changing the pattern of his life, for, as he said, he was having no netty inside, it wasn’t decent; and just think about the effect on the sweets and the ingredients that went into their making.

  The third lavatory was for the use of the narrow, single-storey house that formed the end of the three-walled courtyard. This was a furnished house that was let periodically to travellers or First Mates or Captains or anyone who preferred a stay in a house rather than an inn or hotel. A number of seafaring men had stayed here with their wives over the years.

  The House, as it was simply called, was a profitable little concern and it had been part of Agnes’ work since she had left school six years ago to see to the laundry, and with Maggie’s help, to its cleaning.

  On the whole, Agnes enjoyed looking after the little house. Although it stood cheek by jowl with the factory, it was a place apart, a business apart, and an interest apart. She had come to look forward to the intervals between tenants, for at such times she would sit at the bedroom window that overlooked the street, which sloped swiftly to the main thoroughfare; and guided by the landmarks of St Dominic’s church and, beyond that, St Ann’s, she could look over the chimney pots and catch a glimpse of the river gleaming between the busy traffic on it.

  This was the only time she allowed herself away from the business of the shop or the house above it. Here, she would think and ask herself, again and again, what lay in the future for her? She was twenty-two years old. All the friends she had made at school were now married. Would she ever be married? She doubted it. Certainly not to a man like Pete or to Henry. Oh, never to one like Henry Stalwort. She’d have to be very hard up before she would take a man like him. Well, what would be her end? Would she be like the Miss Cardings, the three spinster ladies who kept the hat shop beyond the tobacconist’s? Or Christine Hardy, who worked in her father’s fancy bakery at the bottom of the street? Christine was in her thirties and she laughed a lot. To Agnes’ mind she laughed too much. Was it because of Emmanuel Steele, who had his shoemaking shop between the Miss Cardings and the bakery and who was well into his forties, but apparently had no use for women, inasmuch as he did his own housework in the rooms above the shop, and ate most of his meals out? The gossip in the road was that Christine had chased him until he had chased her and in terms that weren’t complimentary.

  Theirs was a short street going uphill, four shops on the right-hand side and the blank back walls of a warehouse opposite. This led into another thoroughfare, the far side of which was bordered by a high brick wall in which two iron gates were let, seemingly at the top of Spring Street, and giving entrance to a drive leading to a substantial red-brick house.

  Her father was apt to say, when her mother would mention the big house and its occupants, ‘Who bothers with such folk? Stick to your own class and the community in which you were brought up.’ And what better community could you get than in Spring Street, he would ask, for hadn’t it a shop that supplied food, and two others that fitted you out from top to bottom? And then there were his own two shops that brought a little solace to the lives of both rich and poor. When she had once laughingly asked, ‘Who supplies the meat, Father, and the clothes that go between the hats and the shoes?’ he had come back with his usual answer to her, ‘You’re too sharp by half; you’ll cut yourself one of these days.’ Anyway, everybody in the street made enough money to go outside it and buy the meat and their necessary clothing. Hadn’t he clothed them well and fed them well over the years?

  Yes, she supposed he had. But sitting up in the bedroom looking down towards the river, she was asking herself more often of late whether meat and clothing were all there was to life. Had one to work for that alone? Surely there was something more to it. But what more? What did she want?

  She was baffled when she couldn’t give herself, or wouldn’t give herself, a satisfactory answer. The nearest she would get was that she wanted time, time to herself to think, to read, to find out how other people lived; how they managed to live, how they managed to face up to the tragedies; their scraping for a living; and how they managed to cope with love. Yes, ‘love’, that word was often in her mind. Her reading of the passions of men and women in the past so often revealed that ecstatic love ended in tragedy. It seemed to her that if love was to be great it had to be paid for with
a terrible price. Perhaps she read the wrong books. Perhaps she should read the magazines, Woman’s World, Woman’s Weekly and the Woman’s Journal, like her mother did. Then she would be comforted by the thought that, once married, lovers lived happily ever after. But from when she had been sixteen and had left the dame school and stepped right into the home life above the shop, it had been borne into her that marriage was a humdrum affair: two people lived together, apparently happy, yet went their own ways, as shown by her parents; they didn’t think alike, yet they didn’t argue; they never laughed at the same things, nor did local or national events affect them in the same way. She often wondered what happened in bed at night. Were they loving and tender with each other? She had even tried to visualise what happened. But her mind presented her with two stiff figures lying side by side, not even holding hands, perhaps not even saying a polite goodnight.

  ‘What are you standing out there for?’

  Agnes started and went towards her mother, who was looking at her from the kitchen doorway.

  ‘I…I was just thinking.’

  ‘Thinking? You are doing that too often of late. It’s a wonder you can attend to the business downstairs. What were you thinking with your mouth half open?’

  Alice Conway almost jumped back into her kitchen as her daughter swung round now and yelled at her, ‘It may surprise you to know that I was thinking about you and Father and this house, and the business downstairs. And life, and asking myself if it was all worthwhile.’

  She watched her mother smooth her hair back from her brow, draw in a long breath, then say, ‘Well, well! This is a tantrum, isn’t it. What’s brought this on?’

  ‘It isn’t a tantrum, Mother. And nothing’s brought it on, as you say. I’ve been in this frame of mind for a long time, but no-one seems to notice.’

  ‘Well, then—’ Alice walked across the kitchen to the open fireplace and, bending towards the oven at the side of it, she opened the door and took out a casserole dish and placed it on the table before she went on, ‘If that’s how you’re feeling I think it’s about time you got yourself married.’

  ‘Yes, I thought that’s what you would say, Mother. And I suppose you would recommend Mr Stalwort?’

  ‘You could look further and fare worse.’

  ‘Well, I’ll do that, but it couldn’t be much worse than him.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, girl. What do you expect? You’re twenty-two and…’

  ‘Go on, say it, Mother, go on! I’m not pretty; and I haven’t the advantages of Jessie.’

  ‘You said it. You said it yourself. So you can’t pick and choose. I’m not saying you’re plain, but your disadvantage is your attitude towards men.’ She now swung round from the table and, thrusting her head out towards her daughter, she almost hissed, ‘What do you expect? You’ve got to take what you can in this world and make the best of it. Henry Stalwort is a rich man; he’s got ten times more than your father. He doesn’t only own the warehouse but has property dotted all over the city. Those two girls will soon be off his hands. Men of his age can be manipulated by anyone with a ha’p’orth of brains. If you had a ha’p’orth of brains you would have been married by now and living in Jesmond, the best end. What are you waiting for? Do you know yourself?’

  Agnes stared at her mother. All her own passion had died out of her: she felt deflated; she had the desire to laugh, and she almost did as she said, ‘Yes, I know what I want at this moment and that’s something to eat and then to get downstairs again, because, you know, it’s Father’s night for the club.’

  Alice had picked up a spoon ready to ladle out the stew onto a plate, but she paused and looked at her daughter hard as she said, ‘You don’t know what it’s all about, do you? God help you when you do.’ She finished her ladling and pushed the plate of mutton stew and dumplings towards Agnes; then, the ladle held above the casserole dish, she was about to dip it in again when Agnes said in an offhand manner, ‘What a pity you aren’t a widow, Mother, you could have had dear Henry yourself.’

  The ladle hit the stew with such force that the liquid splashed onto the white tablecloth and, almost stuttering now, Alice cried, ‘What a thing to say! What a thing to say!’ Then she did an unheard-of thing; she threw the ladle itself onto the white cloth and stalked from the room, leaving Agnes looking towards the door that had banged closed and thinking, Goodness me! Goodness me! It must have struck home in some way. But which way?

  She looked down at the steaming plate. She had no appetite for it, but she must eat; if she were any thinner she would disappear. How was it she hadn’t a bust? Nor hips like other girls, or women, of twenty-two? Look at Jessie, only eighteen, and she was all bust and hips.

  As if her thinking had conjured up her sister, the door opened again and Jessie came in, saying in a low voice, ‘Mother’s in a pet. What’s happened?’

  ‘Oh, we were just talking.’

  ‘Just talking? Arguing more like it, or rowing. She’s in the sitting room, the crocheting needles flying. She’s always like that when she’s in a bad temper. It’s odd, isn’t it? Oh, dear me!’—she was looking at the casserole dish—‘stewed mutton and dumplings. Three hot meals a day. I’m putting on weight.’

  ‘How’s things at the school?’

  ‘Oh, don’t ask me.’ Jessie shook her head. ‘I’ll never make a secretary, Aggie; I’ve got nothing up top.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘I’m not. I just can’t grasp these things. Have you ever tried to do shorthand? And think of a life ahead sitting at a machine tapping out: “Dear Sir, At your request I am forwarding twenty barrels of salted herring to your wife’s boudoir. Would you please return the casks after they have been washed.”’

  Agnes put down her knife and fork and turned her head away from the table as she began to laugh; Jessie was spluttering too as she said, ‘You’ve got no idea about some of the letters the girls make up, real naughty ones. If Father were to hear them he’d whip me out of that place much quicker than he pushed me in, I can tell you. Oh—’ Her laughter faded and she sighed before she went on, ‘I’d give anything to leave there. And I mean to leave, Aggie, and soon.’

  ‘Well, what will you do? Come down to the shop?’

  ‘No. No, I won’t; I’ll get married.’

  Again Agnes put down her knife and fork. ‘Jessie, now listen,’ she said. ‘Listen to me. Are you still seeing that Robbie Felton?’ And when Jessie didn’t answer, she went on, her words tumbling over each other now, ‘You’re mad. You mustn’t. Father would never have it; he’d go berserk. You know what the Feltons are; they’re the roughest family on the quay. One’s just come out of prison. Their women are the same.’

  ‘Robbie’s not like that. And they’re not all bad. They’re all right; they’re nice when you talk to them.’

  ‘Have you been seeing them, I mean the family?’

  ‘No, no; I only met…well, Robbie was with two of his brothers and they spoke to me and they were nice. They talk broad but they were nice. And they were respectably put on, not scruffy or anything.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Jessie. Of course they’re respectably put on. They make money in all ways. You haven’t been seeing him regular?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I have, whenever I can. And don’t look at me like that, Aggie. I…well, I like him. I more than like him, I love him. And he loves me. I know he does. He does. He does.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Agnes covered her eyes for a moment, then said flatly, ‘Has he told you so?’

  ‘Well, no, not really. But I know he does. And he waits for me.’

  ‘He waits for you? When? When can he wait for you? Father nearly always meets you at school.’

  ‘He…he waits about when we have our dinner break. Oh, Aggie, he’s…he’s different. If you would only meet him and…and he could talk to you. He’s not really rough. What I mean is…well, he’s strong, and he can be funny.’

  ‘Funny? Girl, how can you sit there and talk a
bout one of the Feltons being funny? They’re roisterers. They’re always in fights; you can hardly lift a paper up before you see their name: illicit dog fights, fisticuff battles, stealing, and pitch and toss. Oh, Jessie, of all the people you could have taken a fancy to in this world you’ve got to go and pick one of the Feltons. I’m telling you, Father will do murder. He won’t have it.’

  Jessie rose from the table now, but she didn’t move away from it; she leant her hands on the edge of it and, bending towards Agnes and in a mere whisper now, she said, ‘Father’s got to understand that I have a life of my own; I’m not a china doll to be babied.’

  Staring into the pretty face for a moment, Agnes nodded, saying, ‘That’ll come as a great surprise to him. And I wouldn’t like to be present when you express your views, if ever you do.’

  Jessie drew herself up straight. And when she said, ‘I might need to, and then I’d just walk out,’ Agnes was round the table as if she had been shot there and, holding her sister by the shoulders, she cried at her, ‘Don’t do that, Jessie! Never!—do you hear me?—because you’ll break him. He’d trace you to wherever you were and there’d be hell to pay. You don’t seem to know Father and what lies behind his jolly façade. I’m with him more than anybody and I don’t really know him, except that you’re the only one he really cares for.’

  ‘What about you? He depends upon you. You practically run the business downstairs. How can you say I’m the only one he cares for?’