Complete Short Story

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 207, 21 November 1927, Page 14

Complete Short Story

THE PIGEON

(By

Mollie Jamieson)

People were apt to complain of Clarissa Mainwaring that surely it was sheer affectation on her part that ng voung man had as yet been found fortunate enough to appeal to her. A regrettable thing it was for Clarissa, they whispered among themselves, that she had not been married and settled long before this. As a pretty girl home from school and, indeed, even later, she could have had the pick of the countryside, but now—now —no one, be he ever so ardent a wooer, would willingly link his fortunes with those of the ruined house of Mainwaring.

For Clarissa’s father, now dead, had not departed this life with the imperturbability and unruffled calm which befitted one of his race and name. When ruin, black and overwhelming, stared him in the face, he had taken the matter into his own hands, and hastened his going with what speed lie might, leaving his widow and only daughter to face the storm alone. They had faced it those last sad couple of month.'- were facing it still with the him valour of which mere womankind is not seldom capable. Her mother &ad tailed utterly under this last sad

buffet which fate had dealt them, and it was Clarissa who was now the leader, instead of the sheltered, petted only daughter, shielded by her fond parents from every rough wind which blew.

They sat together that stormy summer evening, mother and daughter, in Clarissa’s own little snuggery, set high in the tower, and looking out over the purple moors, already darkening to twilight. Instinctively in those sad days both women avoided the lower rooms of the old house, now so drearily silent, lacking the presence of him who was gone. They were talking over ways and means—so little else there was to talk of nowadays. Clarissa nodded her fair head. "The old place will have to go. dear; yes, I know it will almost break your heart, you poor darling: but what else is there that we can do? Jolly sort of ‘adventure’ if one read about it in a book: but somehow it’s different when it strikes home, as it’s doing now. We’ll go right away—London it had better be—and I’ll learn typing, same as the storybook heroines always do. Oh! Alums, Alums, do you think we’re

dreaming, and that presently we’ll wake to find it all nothing more than a horrible nightmare?" She rose, and passing to the window stood looking out over the desolate, far-stretching scene without. No, Clarissa determined, she wasn’t going to be a coward; she wasn’t going lo break down, and that just when dear, darling Mums needed her most. There must be some way out of the bog into which Fate had, willy-nilly, pitched them, if only one could find it. Clarissa told herself that she didn’t mind half so much for herself, if only dear, darling Alums needn’t suffer, too. "The storm’s rising," was all that she said, however, as an even more furious gust shook the old house and the trees without rocked and shrieked in very sympathy. "And I’m an illnatured little wretch, aren’t I, to be grumbling like this, when instead I ought to be remembering that, up till now, I’ve had the very loveliest time that ever a girl had. Cold, darling? Wait till I throw some more logs on the fire. It’s no end jolly having you here to keep me company.” "You’re so brave; you’re always so brave, Clarissa," the elder woman said. She leant back in her chair, watching the girl as she knelt at the fire, the ruddy glow kissing into brightness the fair, waveless hair, and lending an added shining to the grey, serious eyet* "I could bear it better, darling, if you could only have your youth—your happiness. Aly poor little girl, to whom your father would have given everything if he could, and now to think of this—this ’* Clarissa sat back upon her heels, facing her mother squarely and resolutely. "Now, Alums, dearest, you know quite well that we were never going t > look back, but just right forward. What’s the good of crying over spilt milk, as old nurse used to say, when no amount of grumbling and complaining will ever gather it up again? There’s

no use pretending we aren’t sorry to leave the old place; but lots of people before us have had even more to be sorry about, and have always managed to win through. Such a gust again—there!—one would almost think it was something or someone knocking against the window. Just a moment, dear, H !1 I open it and see if any of the tree branches have blown down.” But when Clarissa, rising, had .iut.g the latiteed French window widely ajar, she told herself that she must have been mistaken. Then her eyes, momentarily dazzled by the ruddy glow of the fire, grew accustomed to the twilight without. She gave a little cry, stretching out her hand. "It’s a bird, a poor, iost, beaten bird, taken cover from the storm on the window sill. So frightened it is—see, it lets me touch it. Why, darling—well, if you’d rather not; but it’s really quite tame. Such a poor, lost, beaten bird couldn’t do anyone any harm.’’ "A bird? Oh, child, child, surely you remember?’’ Airs. Alain waring said, and shivered a little as she spoke. But Clarissa only smiled. holding the draggled, shivering pigeon against her as she came back into the room. “That old legend? Oh, my dear, wise, sensible Alums; I never thought you’d be so superstitious. Yes. I know quite well that people used to call this ‘The House of the Bird’ in old days, and that there was some story about the appearance of one always presagring death or ill-luck. But no more evil fortune than has befallen us can come now, darling, -and even though it could, well, I’m ready to risk it, for the sake of saving this helpless thing. Just see how it seems to trust me, for all that its little, timorous heart is beating with such fear. I’d rather think of it as a dove of peace than a bird of illomen—a dove of peace, bringing us happiness and comfort and joy." "You silly child, who is superstitious now?" tTue mother said. But she raised no further protest when Clarissa had

established the forlorn wayfarer in the waste-paper basket by the fire and was feeding it with crumbled biscuit and warm milk, in default of any more suitable food. Presently, as the pigeon began to preen its ruffled plumage, a tiny roll of paper, hitherto unnoticed, caught her eye. “A carrier pigeon, instead of being merely Noah’6 dove of peace. Ought I to read the message?—yes, I think I’d better; for, after all, perhaps it’s something that matters.” Very gently she was detaching the paper from the worn and weary little messenger, and examining it by the light of the fire. A moment or two later she looked up, the criss-cross lines showing betwixt her level brows. “Listen to this, Mums, and see if you can make out just exactly what it means. Looks as though someone was in difficulties, and had sent the pigeon for help. I’ll read it, and then you can tell me what you think we ought to do. Phone to someone—police, perhaps, first ” “Accident at Misty Law. Please send help.—Michael.” “Yes, I’ll phone right away, Mums, so that no time may be lost. I'll come back directly and tell you wliat they say.” But when, after the lapse of some five minutes, Clarissa came back to the turret-room, it was only with the tale of a new difficulty to be faced. The storm had broken down the telephone connection, and, isolated as they were from the village, it was useless to think of sending a message there. Clarissa crossed over .to the window, and stood gazing perplexedly out to where, beyond the far-stretching purple moorland, Misty Law, a lonely mountain in an otherwise flat and undulating country, raised its stately, cloudcapped head. “Tell you what, dear; I’ll just run down to the lodge and see if they can go or send to the village for help. I’ll take my cycle, so that if John isn’t there I may perhaps manage myself. I

cant’ bear to think of this poor, unknown Michael (and there may be more of them) out on such a night as this. The pigeon may have wandered tar enough in the storm before it managed to bring us the message.” Clarissa ran downstairs, only pausing to tell old Mary, the solitary servant now left to them out of so many, to go and bear her mother company till her return. To wheel her cycle out of the now empty stables was the work of a few moments, and presently, holding her head down to avoid the blast as best she might, she was flying down the long avenue, beneath the swaying, bending trees. At the cottage door the lodgekeeper’s wife, listening to her story, only shook her head. “John went over to the village himself, Miss Clarissa, hours back, and nobbut knows when the storm’ll let him come home. Deary, dear! and what’s to be done now, I’m wondering? You go back to the house, anyway, love, and let them that’s strangers look after themselves. Martin’s lad, that was passing a while back, says he heard the bridge is down; so that, saving the longer road, there’s no way the village can be .reached.” “Then, what am I to do? Oh! I wonder what am 1 to do?” Clarissa said and almost wrung her hands in her despair. For the old “House of the Bird. ’ distant from the village, had for its nearest neighbour Misty Law, and ha ”2 s > she felt ’ la y the saferv, if not the life, of this unknown Michael, who, across the distant moorland, had* cried to her for aid. She turned awav from the lodge door, cogitating as she went. Inow that the old house had fallen upon evil days, its staff of servants dispersed, there was none whom she could send, and precious time was being wasted, were she herself fighting the storm as best she could to seek the village > for help. . Then suddenly Clai issa s face lightened, and she thew back her head.

“J’lJ so myself to .Misty —gßy

shouldn’t 1, who knows every step of the way? I mayn’t be able to do much, but someone—anyone—is better than nothing, and I can take word back when I really know what is wrong. The path across the moors—it’s rough—but still I think I can find it—ride it. It may be a life that’s at stake, and isn’t that worth putting up a fight for?” With Clarissa, to plan was to do. A couple of minutes later she had turned away from the lodge gates, and with head bent and every nerve strained against the wild wind, which threatened to overwhelm her, was riding with what soeed she might toward the already darkening moors and frowning Misty Law. The adventure was a desperate one; but Clarissa Mainwaring did not come of a long line of soldier ancestors for nothing. She had put her hand, metaphorically speaking, to the plough, and for her there was to be no looking back. But, after all, to the old “House of the Bird,” that particular pigeon brought only good fortune, and that of the very best. For by its intervention .. had brought Clarissa to Michael Michael to Clarissa, and what more remains to be said? The village folk, nodding approval, said that, after all. Miss Clarissa had waited to purpose in achieving both a husband and a purchaser for her house at the time. American millionaires didn’t grow on every bush: only why she should make such a work over that pigeon ” For that, after all, is Clarissa’s secret, and the pigeon, preening itself in its new home, which might be its old, so accustomed has it grown to it in these later days, may be relied upon never to tell them the true rights of the story. It could, if it cared—very much more could the pigeon tell—-of sorrows past, of shadows fled for ever, and of the joy that its coming brought to the old “House of the Bird” on a certain long-past, stormy summer night,