The Wingless Bird Read online

  She walked hastily from him and into the storeroom, and he followed her, and they were just about to confront each other again when the back door leading into the yard opened and there, revealed in the gaslight, was Jessie.

  Jessie was surprised to see her father, as her father was surprised to see her, and coming from the yard.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’

  She came in and bolted the door, then stood with her back to it, looking from one to the other. Then glancing at Agnes, she said, ‘Aggie asked me to take some towels across to the house for the people coming in tomorrow.’

  ‘That was a damn silly thing to do at this time of night.’ He was almost bawling at Agnes now. ‘You know what happens in that yard at night when the drunks get going. And they’re not above leaving a couple of drays in there late on till first light, rather than stable them. Anyway, I thought you took it on yourself to see to everything in the house over there? And you, miss, get yourself upstairs and never go out on your own at night again. Do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’ Jessie sidled along by the racks to the door leading to the passage and the stairs. And she had hardly disappeared from view before Arthur Conway turned on Agnes, a growl in his voice now as he said, ‘What’s up with you? You know what happens out there. Supposed courting couples. There’s no gates on our yard, or hadn’t you noticed? It’s open to the scum of the earth. Anything could have happened to her…’

  ‘Oh, shut up!’

  Before his hand could reach her face she jumped back, crying, ‘You do that, Father, you do that just once and there’ll be one less for breakfast tomorrow morning, and I mean that. With all my heart I mean that. Do you hear me? You ever lift your hand to me and that’ll be the end.’

  As his arm dropped to his side his head also bowed, and with an audible intake of breath he muttered, ‘In the name of God! What’s come over us?’

  She neither gave him an answer nor waited for more reaction, but turned swiftly up the stairs and through the kitchen and along the corridor where, without knocking, she burst into Jessie’s room.

  Before she could speak, however, Jessie whimpered at her, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Aggie. But…but I couldn’t think of anything else to say. And who would have thought he would come home so early?’

  Agnes moved closer to her sister and cried at her, ‘And who would have thought you were outside consorting with one of the Feltons, eh? Just imagine if he knew that.’

  ‘Oh, Aggie, that’s why I…well, said what I did. I was frightened, petrified.’

  ‘You had a brave face on earlier tonight: you were going to lead your own life, weren’t you? Well, lead it and have the courage of your convictions: either come into the open or drop that fellow. And for his safety and yours an’ all, I would suggest you do the latter, and quickly.’

  ‘Well, I…I can’t do that, Aggie. I can’t. And anyway, after all, it was nothing to say, I mean, that I was taking the towels over for you.’

  ‘No, nothing, except that he was going to hit me.’

  Jessie stepped backwards, her face stretching, her mouth open, and when she muttered, ‘No! Never,’ Agnes said, ‘But yes. It was only my threat that stopped him because if his hand had touched me I would have walked out of this house that very minute and I wouldn’t have had to go far. The Miss Cardings next door, they would have let me stay there until I got myself sorted out. And let me tell you, this isn’t the first time I’ve thought of it, either.’ She turned now as though about to carry out her threat and went out, across the corridor and into her own room, and there, fully clothed, she dropped onto the bed and fell sidewards across the pillow.

  Happiness. Happiness. The picture of the young couple came into her mind again; and on it she thought: there must be a different way of life. There must. I have a mind, why can’t I use it to some good in a way that will give me satisfaction if nothing else? Yes, if nothing else.

  After a while she sat up and slowly began to undress to her camisole and her waist petticoat; then, turning up the gas that had been on a low jet, she went across the room to the wash-hand stand and poured water from the jug into the basin.

  The water was icy cold but she washed her arms up to the oxters, and then her face and her neck down to the top of the bodice; after which she took off the rest of her underwear and got into a calico nightdress. By the time she got into bed she was shivering.

  She hadn’t turned the light out, and now, propped up by her pillows, the bedclothes tucked under her chin, she sat staring straight ahead. This had been her room since she was six years old but there was nothing of hers in it. There was her mother’s choice of furniture, walnut in this case, consisting of a wardrobe, a marble-top wash-hand stand and a wooden-headed bed. The curtains were her mother’s choice, as were the bedcover and the carpet. There was a time when she could remember thinking it was a very nice room and that she was lucky to have a carpet on the floor and not just lino. She couldn’t actually now pinpoint the time when she began to dislike the room, the furniture, the colour of the carpet, the curtains…the ever-changing curtains.

  A moment of panic welled up in her as she cried to herself, I must get away. I must get away or I’ll be trapped here for life. I can’t bear it. If I was gone, he would have to put Jessie into the shop. Why not? Then what about her mother? Yes, what about her mother; why couldn’t she go down and take a turn? Oh, no! That would be beneath her dignity. She had always said she had never been a shop-girl and she wasn’t going to start now. No; but she’d let her daughter be a shop-girl.

  She turned her head as she heard the kitchen door click. Her father was up and was on his way to bed.

  There was no calling, ‘Goodnight, Aggie. Goodnight, Jessie,’ tonight. Would he tell her mother what had happened? She doubted it, for her mother would likely be asleep. She must have gone to bed some time ago, else Jessie wouldn’t have been able to sneak out.

  She felt sick. She’d have to take a drink of water. Reluctantly she got up and her teeth chattered as she took a dressing gown from a hook behind the bedroom door. Then, putting it on and pulling the collar tight about her throat, she lit the candle that was standing in a holder on her bedside table, and went quietly out and along the corridor to the kitchen, through it and into the scullery, where they had a running tap above a shallow stone sink. After filling a glass with water, she returned to the kitchen and sat down and slowly sipped the water. Yet the more she sipped the more sick she felt; and then she began to have a cramp in her stomach.

  She rose from the chair, muttering to herself, ‘Oh dear!’ because she knew she would have to make her way to the closet at the far end of the house.

  She’d hardly reached the closet when she heard her father’s voice. It wasn’t loud and she couldn’t distinguish anything he said, but during the time she was in the closet she could hear it droning on, with breaks here and there when her mother must be speaking.

  After a while when the sickness had subsided, she opened the door and was about to creep cautiously away, when she heard her father speak some words that halted her: ‘Who’s to blame for the club nights, I ask you?’ he was saying. Then her eyes sprang wide with the words: ‘And let me tell you something, I’m not spending any more nights on that bloody single mattress in there. And if you want the bed camouflaged in the morning you can get up and make it. And I’m giving you this ultimatum: tomorrow night I come into this bed and if you try to stop me, you’ll end up next door for the remainder of your days.’

  Now her mother’s voice, thin, piercing: ‘You try any trick like that on me, Arthur Conway, and you’ll be sorry. Those two along the corridor will then know exactly what kind of a father they have, and about the slut you keep on the side under cover of the club nights. Oh, just you try forcing yourself on me again and your world will explode. I know one who wouldn’t stand for it; she’d walk out. And then what would you do? Because it’s she who runs that business, not you. And she’s a fool not to marry Stalwort and leave you
on your backside. So, I’m warning you, you come near me and there’ll be such an explosion that you won’t know where you are. The shock I got when I found you out again will be nothing to their reaction. Oh no; I can promise you that.’

  There followed a silence in which Agnes imagined them glaring at each other. Then her father’s voice came again, saying, ‘You know what you are, Alice? You’re a bitch. You’re a vain silly bitch. You haven’t got one asset; and above all, you’re spiteful and greedy. You’ve blackmailed me into spending money these past six years. Well, now it’s my turn to use threats. That’s finished. All right, tell the girls, do your damnedest. But you know something? You needn’t worry any more, because you arouse nothing in me and haven’t done for many a year. I wouldn’t want to lay a finger on you. You’ve got nothing that would even attract a body-starved sailor; even in your young days you were really nothing. And let me tell you something finally, you can’t hold a candle to my woman. And the reason why I’m home early tonight is she’s in hospital. But there’s one thing I’ll hold to, I’ll have my own bed tomorrow night and you make your own arrangements for next door. And if you haven’t, I’ll go to the girls myself; you won’t get the opportunity of blowing the gaff, I’ll tell them. And I’ll tell them why I took a woman, and that she’s good to me. By God, she is!’

  And then her mother’s voice snapped back loudly, ‘And to a number of others, because she’s a whore! I wish you were dead, Arthur Conway, I do, I wish you were dead. But then you haven’t all that long to go, have you? You’ve had that pain under your ribs for a long time. Well, let me tell you, I’ll be here when you do go, and God! I’ll make hay with what you’ve got, every penny of it.’

  There followed a silence during which Agnes gripped the stanchion of the door and brought her chin tight into her chest, only to raise it again as she endeavoured to hear what her father was now saying quietly and with a purposeful intent, ‘You shouldn’t have said that, Alice. You’ve made a mistake. You shouldn’t have said that.’

  A movement in the room beyond caused her to fly along the corridor, and as she was passing the kitchen door she blew out the candle and groped her way to her own door.

  Once inside, she almost threw the candle onto the bedside table, then, dropping onto her knees by the side of the bed, she buried her head in her folded arms, and as her crying racked her body she groaned out her feelings; but there was no condemnation for either of her parents, only a deep sorrowing sadness. Although she knew they were both wrong she couldn’t apportion blame to either of them, not yet, at any rate; the only thing she knew at the moment was that what she had heard tied her to this house and the business as if she had signed a contract giving away her life.

  Two

  It was Christmas Eve and Agnes had wondered over the last few days if she had heard aright on the night she had gone to the closet, because the next morning her father had come blithely into the kitchen and said, ‘Your mother is having a lie-in this morning; take her a cup of tea along and a bit of toast. And by the way, I have an appointment in the city around eleven, so I may not be back to stand in for the dinner breaks. Do you think you can manage?’ She had given him no answer but had stared at him and he had come back quickly, saying, ‘That was a daft thing to say; you always manage.’ Then he had added, ‘I’ll be over at the factory if you need me before then. Old Tommy is getting beyond it. Betty Fowler said he nearly brought a pan of sugar over himself yesterday. He’ll soon have to go, I’m afraid.’

  Another time she would have protested and asked him pointedly, ‘Well, where will he go? He’s well into his seventies. He’s worked there all his life, starting with your father. Are you pensioning him?’ But she had said nothing, and she knew from the look on his face that he was thinking she was still bearing a grudge from the incident in the storeroom the previous night.

  And then again this morning he had another business engagement, but this time a different one, apparently, for he had put on his best suit and bowler hat and his black topcoat. And again he had said, ‘You can arrange their dinner hour.’

  Arthur Peeble had three quarters of an hour allowed for his dinner, but Nan Henderson’s dinner break was only half an hour. If she herself wanted any dinner she had to slip upstairs at twelve, in order that Nan could leave at half-past. Then Arthur Peeble’s dinner time started at one o’clock till quarter to two. But today he had asked if he could have a quarter of an hour extension and her father had said he would be back in time to take over.

  This morning too she had said to her father, ‘I want this afternoon off; I want to do some shopping.’ And he had said, ‘Well, you take it.

  I’ll be back at one.’

  ‘What about Nan’s rise?’ she had then asked. ‘Will I tell her she’ll have ten shillings?’

  ‘Nine and six.’

  ‘I’m going to tell her ten shillings.’

  They had stared at each other without speaking for a moment, and then she said, ‘She deserves a five-shilling Christmas box.’ But this brought a sharp reply: ‘No, by God!’ he said, ‘We’re not starting that. She’ll get the usual half-crown.’

  ‘Well, I’ll give her the other half-crown out of my pay.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ he had then said. And to this she had answered, ‘I suppose I can do what I like with my own money.’

  ‘You’re being contrary, aren’t you? This has got to stop. We can’t go on like this. I made a mistake the other night, I’m sorry. But it isn’t like you to hold it against me.’ And at that he had gone out.

  It was ten past twelve when she went upstairs. The kitchen smelt of Christmas cooking. There was a tray of mince pies on the table and a large bacon and egg pie.

  Her mother was at the stove and she didn’t turn round to ascertain who had entered the room but said, ‘I’m just doing a fry. You can have liver and bacon or you can have a piece of bacon and egg pie. Take your choice.’

  ‘I’ll have the pie. Thank you.’

  When she sat down at the table her mother said, ‘Well, you can help yourself, I’ve got my hands full here.’

  At this she cut herself a narrow wedge from the pie, and when her mother turned round from the oven and looked at her plate, she remarked, ‘You won’t get fat on that. What’s the matter with you, anyway? You’ve hardly eaten this week. And what’s more, scarce a word out of you. Are you sickening for something?’

  ‘Very likely; and I think it would come under the heading of overwork. Anyway, when Father comes back I’m taking the rest of the day off.’

  ‘You are? Making your own arrangements now?’

  ‘Yes, Mother; and not before time.’

  ‘Oh, here we go again.’

  She looked at the woman, this woman who was her mother, this woman who lived behind a façade, who wouldn’t let her husband into her bed and had caused him to take a mistress. On the night she had heard the conversation she had felt sorry for them both, but not any longer. They were both selfish individuals and she was now thinking that they deserved each other. For the last few days she had seen them, not as her parents but as two hating individuals carrying on a private war behind screens. But of the two, her father was the more proficient at acting out his part, for he could play the jolly man, the thoughtful husband, and the caring parent. And he was the caring parent, but only for one of them.

  The thought prompted her to ask, ‘Where is Jessie?’ and her mother answered, ‘Mabel Aintree called for her. They’ve gone out shopping. And there were one or two things I wanted. Will you have tea or cocoa…?’

  She had a mince pie with her tea, then went to her bedroom and changed from her shop uniform of a black alpaca dress and white apron into a grey jersey-wool dress, then she went downstairs again.

  It was now twenty-five past twelve and she said to Nan, ‘Get yourself away. And look, there’s your wage; Father’s putting you up one and six a week.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, thank you, miss. Oh, that is good. Ta. Thank you.’


  ‘And there’s your Christmas Box.’ She held out two half-crowns, pointing to them separately and saying, ‘That’s from Father and that one’s from me.’

  Nan’s pretty face crinkled and her eyes were moist as she said, ‘Oh, ta, miss. Ta. That’ll make all the difference; five bob. You are kind.’

  ‘Nonsense. You’ve worked for it. And I know your mother likes butter fudge; give her this.’ She brought a little parcel along the counter; then, lifting another, she said, ‘And I know this is your weakness. There’s some coconut ice in there and some marshmallows.’

  ‘Marshmallows! Me ma’ll be ever so pleased. Eeh! Ta, miss. Thanks. Me brother and the two bairns are coming the morrow and we’ll have a good time. He always brings a bottle with him and we’ll drink to you, miss. Aye, yes, we will, we’ll drink to you.’

  ‘Thanks, Nan. But now, get yourself away and get back on time if you want to get off early tonight. And anyway, I’ll have to go next door to take over from Arthur if my father doesn’t get back in time.’

  ‘Never fear, miss. I’ll be back on the dot. And thanks again. Oh, aye, thanks again; especially for the rise. It’ll make all the difference.’

  As Agnes saw the young girl hurrying from the shop her face beaming, she thought: one and six a week to make all the difference. And why was she getting only half an hour for dinner when he next door could have three quarters of an hour? That kind of thing irked her, as did the difference in pay between women and men for doing practically the same work. But it was the same the world over, she supposed. It’s a good job she hadn’t time to think too much about these things, else she would get angry and likely join those suffragettes. Yes, given a chance she could be one of them, the way she thought at times. Oh dear, why was she so miserable? But need she ask? Yes, need she ask?