Innocent Birds (12 page)

M
R
. T
HOMAS
T
UCKER
liked frosty mornings. A frosty morning made him wish to play like a kitten; and he would first admire the frost flowers upon his window and then open it wide so that he could lean out comfortably to look at the white grass as though the frost had painted it, as a surprise to please every one, and him most of all. December having come and a frosty
morning
, Mr. Tucker leaned out so far from his window, in order to breathe the cool freshness, that he nearly overbalanced. Regarding this
nearness
to a fall as a joke, that entertained him almost as much as the putting on of his surplice always did, Mr. Tucker chuckled, dipped his body into a cold bath, and dried himself with a rough towel.

Without his clothes Mr. Tucker looked like the figure of a fat little god in an Indian temple, but as he never saw himself in any other version except as merely ‘Old Tucker,’ he never cared what he looked like.

After tingling his sheep’s-bell merrily, as if all the bell wethers in the world had shaken their necks in Dodderdown vicarage, Mr. Tucker ate his breakfast happily while his maid-servants laughed and chatted in the kitchen.

In his study, beside a fierce burning fire of logs, Mr. Thomas Tucker bethought him of his story-book, wishing to see what the characters therein—very naughty ones, according to reports circulated in the district—were saying about themselves.

Mr. Tucker felt for his book as usual in the pocket of his coat, but found nothing. Had the book been stolen? Mr. Tucker didn’t think so. He was by no means aware of the interest that all the neighbourhood took in his fancy reading; he didn’t even know that the Archdeacon had once mentioned the book with abhorrence at a meeting of pious clergymen.

‘No, no one,’ he thought, ‘would wish to steal this book; with its home-made cover it looked utterly unattractive. And as to the reading inside, well!!…’

Mr. Tucker now remembered that he had the day before carried the book to Madder, and had stopped to read a little under a straw stack in one of the Madder lanes. No doubt he had forgotten to put the book into his pocket, and it had spent the night under the straw like a
homeless
tramp.

‘He wouldn’t mind lying there like an outcast,’ said Mr. Tucker, evidently referring to one of the characters in the book.

Mr. Tucker put his hand through the hole in the door and rang the sheep’s-bell, so that any one in hearing might know that he was going out.
He then stepped out of the low study window on to the frosty grass.

Mr. Tucker walked along the high downs to Madder. The turf was firm and springy, and the stones that covered the downs shone white in the winter sun. Mr. Tucker’s feet were more than usually nimble; he carried his hat in his hand, and his gait, though not pretty, threw at least no gloomy shadow beside him.

Going down into Madder, he reached the stack where he hoped to find the book that he loved to read, and was glad enough when he saw it safe upon the straw.

Mr. Tucker was on the point of opening the book, at a page where a piece of straw had been put in as a marker, in order to see what happened to a man whose tragic history he was following in one of the stories—when he heard steps in the lane.

The steps stopped in the lane near to the stack behind which Mr. Tucker was; and the two human beings who were denoted by them as being there began to say good-bye to one another. Mr. Tucker had no wish to hear what Was said; but neither did he wish to disclose himself so as to disturb them, in case they might wish to play together for the last time, ‘as happy young people should like to do,’ he hoped, ‘when they are leaving one another.’

‘Oh, you’ll soon come home again, Fred, and you’ll bring back a heap of money, so that
we may live as well as Farmer Barfoot and his silly Betty.’

Sometimes upon a winter’s day one hardly notices when the sun ceases to shine. The face of day is slowly changed, like a man’s face when life is withdrawn.

‘Miss Pettifer says there ’s heaps of money in Derby.’

The fair crisp look of the winter’s day was grown dim now.

‘One, two, three, four, five; no, no, no more, no more, darling; I can’t go on counting any more. And now they are all coming so fast, I couldn’t get any farther than twenty. No, don’t, Polly, don’t cry, darling.’

When he heard the first words spoken, Mr. Tucker pressed both hands to his ears, and buried his head in the straw stack. Coming out again after some moments were gone by, Mr. Tucker listened. There were no voices now to be heard. Mr. Tucker put his hand into his pocket and touched his book.

He stood yet and listened, as though he expected some sound to come to him.

It came, the deep continuous sound of distant waves falling.

From where Mr. Tucker was standing, he could see the white road that crossed the downs and led to the world beyond. This white road was the same down which poor Annie Pim had been brought home. The figure of a traveller
who carried a bundle now appeared upon the
hilltop
, showing clearly against the grey sky. Fred Pim was going to Derby…. Mr. Tucker’s story-book was so varied in its matter that he was certainly used to sorrowful as well as happy things happening there; so that he wasn’t
altogether
surprised—for he took his ideas of life from his book—that unlooked-for events, and not always kind ones, should happen in Madder.

That Fred Pim should be leaving the village, and leaving sun-kissed Polly behind him, seemed to Mr. Tucker’s mind to show the movement of the same dire hand of destiny, that cut so deeply into the lives and characters in his
story-book
.

Mr. Tucker sighed when he thought of Polly. Some one’s experiences in his book seemed to be particularly suited to Fred’s departure, and he hoped that nothing would prevent Fred and Polly from meeting again in happiness.

The Madder elms were now all weeping in the quick thaw, and had Fred stayed he would have had as much difficulty in counting these drops from the trees as Polly’s tears.

Mr. Tucker left the stack, walked into the lane again, and under the dripping trees.

Going beside Mrs. Billy’s shop—he thought it unlikely that any child would want to play now the frost was gone—he heard May Billy say in a tone that certainly wasn’t a playful one, ‘They pews do get more dirty each Sunday, an’ God
alone do know what Silly Susy do go to church week-days for. Maybe ’tis to take folks’
prayer-book
markers.’

Mr. Tucker stopped in the road. Madder church was in front of him, a little to the right hand. He regarded the porch as though to inquire what it was that Susy went under it for.

May Billy came out into the road to see what Mr. Tucker was staring at so intently. She looked scornfully at the church, and brushed with quick womanly strokes her serge skirt. ‘
Perhaps
,’ she thought, ‘some of dirty Susy’s dust is still upon it.’

‘Susy be gone to church now,’ May said, pointing with her hand at the ponderous dark mass that was Susy, who waddled rather than walked up the church pathway.

Having been rammed into the church himself, Mr. Tucker now felt that he should at least just peep in to see what Susy did there.

‘Perhaps she collects all the books of devotion,’ he thought, ‘and builds houses with them on the altar table.’ He hoped she did, knowing well how glad God would be to see Susy so playful and happy.

On his way to the church, Mr. Tucker went by Gift Cottage. He there came upon Mr. Solly leaning dejectedly over the white gate and looking, as though his hope was too wonderful to be true, at Madder hill.

Polly had passed by Gift Cottage on her way home to the rectory after she said farewell to Fred. Polly was crying.

‘Aunt Crocker could never tell a lie, could she?’ Solly inquired of Mr. Tucker.

‘Not with God listening,’ replied Mr. Tucker.

‘Then He will give His great gift to Fred and Polly; He never tells lies.’

‘Not with Mrs. Crocker listening,’ replied Mr. Tucker.

Solly sighed softly and looked up at Madder hill.

‘But what of the Americans?’ asked Mr. Tucker.

Solly was thoughtful. ‘The Americans are very near the end of their history,’ he said slowly, ‘and I fear that soon there will be nothing else for them to do but to live in the glory of their past. They are beginning to manufacture iron and steel, including machinery.’

Mr. Thomas Tucker looked very grave.

‘I hope,’ remarked Mr. Solly, who appeared to be a little happier now, ‘that the Americans will not mind my burying them.’

‘You don’t mean to do that, do you?’ asked Mr. Tucker, putting his hat firmly upon his head, and then taking it off again.

Mr. Solly turned and looked at the corner of his garden that had never been planted.

‘I would rather bury America in that corner,’ he said, ‘than that its noble history should be
used as a mere wrap for sugar candy and patent corn cures.’ …

Mr. Thomas Tucker invited Solly to go with him to Madder church, in order to see what Susy did there. Mr. Tucker walked in short steps, Solly in longer ones. They passed under a large Madder elm tree. Solly looked up through the branches.

‘His gift will be wonderful and lasting,’ he said, as if the branches were a ladder that led his thoughts to heaven.

Mr. Tucker appeared for the moment to be sad.

‘If the gift is lasting,’ he said, ‘then it cannot be a child’s game.’

The rising wind had compelled Mr. Tucker, who felt the cold now the thaw had come, to put on his hat. When they were come near to the church door, Mr. Solly remained a little way behind, while Mr. Tucker went to peep in. Soon Mr. Tucker appeared again, with his finger to his lips, and beckoned. Solly silently entered the porch.

Kneeling before the altar railings, a great mass of faded black clothes was spread out. Behind this kneeling heap, that was Susy, there was a new brush and pan dropped in the aisle.

Mr. Tucker went out of Madder church and leaned, in order to prevent himself from falling, against Mr. Soper’s tombstone.

‘Susy goes to church to pray,’ he whispered excitedly to Solly.

‘W
E
love a daisy,’ Mrs. Crocker once said when she was walking with Solly in the meadows near Weyminster, ‘because the daisy always grows in that same valley of humiliation where the shepherd boy sings his song.’

‘And where there are glow-worms,’ said Solly.

‘But if, as Christian did in that same valley we see an ugly thing, nephew, we mustn’t call it Miss Pettifer.’

Solly took his aunt’s hand and kissed it.

‘We are all ugly things sometimes, dear Solly, but let us think of our earthly bed as a safe hiding-place from all our ugliness—blessed be His name.’

Mrs. Crocker sat down upon the grass and looked at a daisy.

‘To an old woman, this mortal life—all that is left of it—is closing in upon every side; and we are forced to bow down nearer and ever nearer to the earth. But look at this daisy, Solly; it knows its times and seasons.’

Mrs. Crocker looked up at a hedge where two children in white frocks were picking May blossom.

‘Who would wish to be called Mrs. Crocker,
or even Deborah Crocker, for ever?’ she said, smiling. ‘And poor Crocker always felt his name such a burden.’

Solly looked up to try and find a lark that was singing in the sky.

‘You know’—Mrs. Crocker sighed, but not unhappily—‘that good dear Crocker collected poor rates, and when one day he called for mine, and sat gratefully upon the chair I had given him, instead of giving me the receipt at once, he said shakily, “I must get this load off, or find some one to share it.”

‘“What load?” I asked.

‘“I mean my ugly name,” he said; “but if you would be kind enough to
share it with me, we might soften it a little, so that all the rate receipts wouldn’t stare so.”

‘I had no answer ready at the moment.

‘“Do you forgive my having such a name?” he said, more timidly than ever.

‘“I will sign my own receipt with it,” I replied.’

‘Aunt,’ said Solly—the lark had stopped
singing
now—‘you like forgiveness; you even forgive Miss Pettifer.’

‘But I don’t like her,’ said Mrs. Crocker….

Going out from church one Sunday afternoon in spring time, the next spring that came to Madder after Fred Pim had left the village, Mr. Solly, seeing that the daisies were about,
bethought
him of his aunt and her words about a daisy. He had passed by Miss Pettifer, who
was waiting in the porch; and thinking more of Mrs. Crocker than of the Americans, Mr. Solly walked to Gift Cottage.

With the service over, Mr. Tucker had tried all he could to take it seriously—that gentleman was now amusing himself by peering into the vestry looking-glass on purpose to see how very funny an old bald-headed man can make himself look with a surplice on. He was winking at himself for about the twelfth time, when Wimple, the Madder clerk and sexton, crept in on tiptoe, and whispered impressively into his master’s ear, ‘that “she” was waiting.’

‘Who is waiting?’ asked Mr. Tucker.

‘Miss Pettifer,’ replied Job.

‘And ’tis ’ee,’ Job put his heels down gently, ‘that she do want.’

For such a long time now Miss Pettifer had disregarded the existence of Mr. Tucker, that he couldn’t prevent himself showing by his downcast looks his surprise to Mr. Wimple.

Seeing this surprise as so depicted, Mr. Wimple whispered again: ‘’Tis to send Maud Chick to mad-house that she be come; for Maud do often go an’ cry up at vicarage, an’ do stop Polly working—so Miss Pettifer do say.’

Instead of amusing himself any more with the glass, Mr. Tucker now looked longingly at the vestry window.

‘They small bees do fly in,’ said Wimple, in a
helpful tone, noticing where his master’s eyes went.

‘I believe I could fly out,’ said Mr. Tucker.

‘Thee bain’t going to try, be ’ee?’ remarked Wimple, whose tone of voice expressed the horror he felt at his master’s suggestion. ‘Best to bide in cupboard till she be gone, for thee bain’t a small bee.’

Mr. Tucker lifted the vestry table near to the window and climbed upon it. Forgetting, in the excitement of his escape, to take off his surplice, he, with his legs going first, squeezed through the window; the last view of him being a broad grin, to which grin Mr. Wimple touched his forehead with his forefinger, as became a good and faithful church servant. With this vision still in his head of his departing rector, Mr. Wimple silently finished his own duties in the vestry, and departed too, putting on his hat in the church so as to be able to take it off to Miss Pettifer in the porch.

‘I wish to speak to Mr. Tucker,’ said Miss Pettifer. ‘How much longer am I to wait for him?’

‘’E be a-reading of ’is book,’ Wimple replied innocently, ‘an’ ’ave a-got to page forty-nine, chapter six.’

Even though Polly had tried in every possible way to procrastinate, in order to keep the
cabbage
from being burnt, when Miss Pettifer did at last arrive at the table, in no very
ami
able
frame of mind, there was no hiding the fact, after so much warming up, that the dinner was spoilt.

When she had done with it, Miss Pettifer rang the bell in two sharp angry pulls.

‘I am not at home,’ she said, when Polly came, ‘to any callers; but you must be.’ Polly usually went out on Sundays. ‘I intend to write a letter to the bishop about the wicked book that Mr. Tucker reads all day long in the vestry.’

If a gentleman, who happens to escape from a lady who has something nasty to say to him, is wearing a surplice as he scrambles through the hedges of good Farmer Barfoot, it is most likely that he will be greeted with laughter by any one who sees him.

Mr. Tucker liked laughter. But the day being Sunday, and having been rammed into the decorum as well as into the doctrine of the church, he modestly chose the deserted upland meadows instead of the lower lanes in his walk home to Dodderdown. Descending into a narrow green valley, somewhere between the two villages, that was dotted with daisies that reminded Mr. Tucker of shining hailstones, he could not avoid giving a skip or two of pleasure: a mere modest caper, during which he held up his surplice to prevent himself from treading upon it. But, and Mr. Tucker stopped himself in a meditated skip over a gorse bush, he was not
alone. In the bottom of the valley, sitting amongst the shining daisies, there was some one crying. Mr. Tucker put his hand to his pocket to see if his story-book was there. Maud’s tears reminded him of some one in his story who once wept. Mr. Tucker’s happy excitement now changed its manners. Mr. Tucker looked at Maud and wept too….

Mr. Tucker liked to see children playing but not crying, so after crying a little himself—as the character that he loved best in his book had done—he went a little nearer to Maud, sat down upon the grass, and looked at the daisies. Mr. Tucker knew more about the troubles of a human mind than most of us do; his book was full of those troubles as well as, according to the Miss Pettifers of the world, of obscenities.

Mr. Tucker wisely thought that in order to quiet Maud’s tears he must needs begin by stilling his own.

He looked at the daisies. He had once wanted—he remembered this now—to make a
daisy-chain
. And here were the daisies.

Mr. Tucker put his hat upon the grass; he picked two daisies and knotted the stalks together. He held these up and looked at them, wondering how best he could tie another one on; for those two alone wouldn’t go very far round a lady’s hair. Mr. Tucker picked another, and tried to bind that one with a piece of grass to the other two. This third daisy fell off at once.

But Maud Chick had been watching him; her tears were quieted now, and she stood beside Mr. Tucker and saw his trouble. Maud smiled.

Mr. Tucker began to pick the daisies. He gave them to Maud.

Maud, in a manner that is only told to children by the fairies, soon made a long chain of the daisies.

Mr. Tucker placed the chain round her hair. Maud’s hair was white.

Soon after her walk to Dodderdown, the
afternoon
when Miss Pettifer’s clock went faster than Maud, Maud’s hair had begun to grow grey. It was now white. With the daisy-chain around her hair, Maud allowed herself to be led by the hand.

Mr. Tucker led her through the village of Dodderdown towards the vicarage garden…. Whether or no it was the effect of the
story-book
that Mr. Tucker carried in his pocket, or whether innocent madness is itself something that frightens a certain kind of man out of its path, we cannot say: but two men, Mr. Bugby and James Andrews, who were standing near the farmyard gate, and talking of the price of straw — for Mr. Bugby wanted some — now moved, when they saw Mr. Tucker and Maud Chick coming, into the stable.

‘They clergy bain’t religious,’ Mr. Bugby remarked, peeping through the stable window.

Farmer Andrews laughed….

In the vicarage garden, tender and shining new-born leaves gave Maud and her daisy-chain a welcome. And Mr. Tucker, who had his own idea about her madness, hoped that his garden pond might, on such a warm day, give him a chance to cure her, because little boys bathed in it. He led her there, hoping for the best.

A few Dodderdown boys were happy splashing one another in the pond: merry because their clothes were off, and happy because they were chasing the frogs.

‘See how they splash,’ said Mr. Tucker, and left Maud to watch them, while he went to ring his bell, so that he might advise one of his maid-servants to lead Maud home to Madder again.

Maud watched the boys; she wasn’t frightened, but she looked at them curiously. Soon she caught a frog for them and threw it into the pond. The boys splashed and laughed, and Maud Chick laughed too. Her fear had left her, as Mr. Tucker—who had learnt a little about madness from his book—hoped it would; but alas, only to change the tenor of her madness.

Maud smiled kindly at the boys. The eldest of them came near to her, laughing. He gave her a little water-beetle to look at.

Maud looked curiously at the beetle. She threw it away.

‘No, no,’ she said, ‘I don’t want a beetle, but please give me a baby.’

The boys looked at Maud. They stopped splashing the water, and went away behind the trees to where their clothes were left.