THE BIRD OF TIME.

Otago Witness, Issue 3829, 2 August 1927, Page 80

THE BIRD OF TIME.

By

C. R. Allen.

(Copyright.—For the Otago Witness.) Mrs Ponsonby popped her head round corner > an< l called the names of two children out of the four survivors. Cora Middleton and Harry Grant.” Cora and Harry were ‘shepherded through the oaken door with its Arabian arras. There was a gust of laughter and applause as they disappeared with their cicerone. It came to the remaining two children like a length cut off from the spool of a kinematograph. The door closed on the three retreating figures. ■ was leffc alon ® with the little girl the flame-coloured frock. He had been thinking it was a very silly party. The 1 onsonbys were always devising these queer distractions. The small guests had been herded into the hall and two by two had been ushered into the library. u hat happened there only Mrs Ponsonby could have divulged, and she was as inscrutable a s the figures on the arras. Cora had called he r “ the angel of death ” and had giggled. David was thankful he had not been left with Cora. If it had been a dance, he would have had conversational leads scribbled on his shirtcu“- n? h a d recently been promoted to cul.s. They were by way of concomitant to Ihey were the concomitant to his new Eton suit. He had not reckoned on being left alone with a little girl for five minutes. Little Claire Mainwaring had looked like some exotic bloom in a garden of English flowers, when the quests assembled in the hall. The Mainawirngs had Italian blood in them. They were queer. So David had heard his sister say. He hoped that Claire would not start being queer before it was time for them to be summoned to the unknown, lie wished he could think of something to say. Claire was wishing that, too. The blue eyes and the brown began to wander they ht simultaneously on the cuckoo clock. ‘‘Two minutes to 9,” s aid David. 1 wonder who’ll come first,” said Claire in a soft small voice, “ the cuckoo or Mrs Ponsonby?” David laughed in his sudden explosive way. Coras jest about the angel of death had seemed malapropos to him. He had not laughed then. He had paid the joke the tribute of a wan smile. Ho could not tell why Claire’s remark should have hit him in the diaphragm. Little Claire did not seem to know why, either. A little pucker appeared between her brown eves. It almost seemed to David that she squinted. He understood that the remark had voiced a serious speculation. It was his joke, not hens. David found himself hoping quite furiously that Mrs Ponsonby and the cuckoo would bide their time. He was becoming interested in this swarthy, serious little girl, who kept so silent when the hall had been thronged. Claire’s black hair was parted in the middle, and tied in two braids. She wore a tiny crucifix at her breast. This was odd and out of the way. It attracted David, who had been bred to a terror of Popish practices by an ultra-Protestant nurse. David’s own family had put nothing in the place of the Shorter Catechism which bad served their forefathers. His father was a doctor, with a greater interest in pharmacopoeia than in creeds. Once David had played a furtive visit to the red brick basilica at the end of their street. He had gone there with his sister, who, in the absence of a mother, was the sole counteracting influence to the ultraProtestant nurse. Theyhad been prompted by a healthy curiosity concerning other folks’ ways of thought and of being. David had been overcome with a desire for the open. No sooner had lie gained the street and the white light of day, however, than he was overcome with a desire to return to the basilica. That was, in some measure, the instinct of little Claire. ‘‘Was I rude to laugh?” David asked. Th e question seemed to be forced from him, as Claire’s eyes began to wander again. Claire smiled. “ You couldn’t help it,” she said. “ I suppose it was a funny thing to say.” Then her eyes narrowed. David felt sure she was going to be fej r . to say something queer. If it had not been for the crucifix she would have looked like a pixie. i “ You didn’t laugh at Cora’s joke.” she I Said, ‘‘and yet you laugh at me. That’s funny. I wonder what you’d say if you were really going to die when the cuckoo came out.” It was David’s turn to narrow his eyes. tt “l wouldn’t say anything,” he said. “There wouldn’t be anything to say.” Thus spake David, the Stoic. Little Claire could squint as much as she liked. He -wasn't afraid of her, any more than he was afraid of the basilica. Yet he hoped Mrs Ponsonby would not hurrv. He found Claire’s squint more interesting than Coras level blue gaze. She had looked at him like a china doll. Little Claire had hardly looked at him at all Nie had spent most of the time looking at the clock. “I think it’s funny about time” she said nresentlv. “What’s funny?” demanded David Claire brushed a dark little hand across her forehead. Since I saw a bird ” she began. But at that moment Mrs Ponsonby and ‘ the cuckoo made a dead heat of it. The little bird came out and blessed them,

like a priest, but they were hurried by heir hostess into the adjoining room betore the mechanism of the clock had returned to its wonted routine. In the dining room they were greeted by Major lonsonby, vested in the rector’s gown and. tiencher, which had been borrowed for the occasion. I t transpired that the unknown consisted of an ingenious viva voce coupled with a kind of glorified Kim’s Game.

“ What is a cylinder?” demanded Major Ponsonby of the two. With one accord their arms began to ?i yra « , s( ycmnly. Ninety-nine per cent, of the British-speaking race will answer the question thus, unless they have been forewarned, and it usually amuses the remaining per cent. Everyone laughed at Claire and David.

In the Kim’s game, David and Claire showed themselves far less observant than Cora, and Harry. There was a dreamy reminiscent light in the little girl’s eyes which David was intent upon, when‘he should really have been computing the number of beans in a bottle or discriminating between the respective odours of lavender, heliotrope, and parma violet. He thought it was the silliest partv he bad ever attended. He did not care in the least how many beans made five. He to know about the bird that little Claire had seen. He encountered her for a few minutes at supper. What were you going to say when Mrs Ponsonby interrupted you? ” he asked.

Little Claire stowed away the last segment of a meringue. I don t know,” she replied looking straight at him with brown, lucent eves. Excuse me contradicting you,” said David. Claire began to squint again. Oh, about time, and—and the way birds fly. It’s funny isn’t it, how they nv? ”

“ I think it’s funnier how men fly,” said David.

« said Claire.” that’s machinery. Men will never fly.” Then Major Ponsonby whisked Claire off to her mother, and David was sent empty away. What was it that she was going to tell him, there by the cuckoo clock?

Claire’s father moaned and tossed on the narrow camp bed. She watched and ministered to him, while there beat on in her brain a monotonous kind of distress that she felt could only be allayed by some external happening. She was expectant of relief as was the fevered man, but relief must come from without. She rose and gave him to drink. He began to croon a snatch from “El Palliacci.” Thus he would often croon to himself when his wife had come to the end of a song. He probably mistook Claire for his dead wife. So much she. might have gathered from his disjointed talk, had she been, disposed to listen.

But she was listening for something else. She was listening for the sound of the aeroplane that would bring help from the coast. The young scientist, in whoso lonely habitation they now lodged, bad gone off some days ago in quest of a surgeon.

There were British troops on the coast. Their surgeon was a young man, but report spoke goldenlv of him. So the scientist had gone off, leaving his guests in charge of a few natives. It was the best he could do for them. The Mainwarings had brought this upon their own heads by venturing thus far into an unknown tropical region. They were a pair of crazy idealists. The man had been following up a clue in the botanical world that promised a cure for the very malady that had struck him down. The girl Lad followed him whore ro white woman should have ventured. The scientist had not stayed to analyse her motive. Claire watched bv her father’s side. It. seemed she was coming to the end of her nervous resources. It seemed an eternity since she bad heard the engine drone away to nothingness in the direction of the coast. A black woman pulled aside the curtain of disinfected shooting over the. door. She grinned at Claire, benignly enough. _ Claire wanted to scream back at the black face. The woman signified her willingness to relieve her at her post. Claire knew ’t would be wise to accept the offer. She must have something in hand when the doctor came. When he c’me! Would he ever come? Ont in tbo veranda she took a d«ep draught of the scented tronical air. She was suddenly reminded of that right, vea.rs back, when she worn the flamecolonrod dress at the Ponsonhv’s. David had called heliotrope lavender in th» Kim’s game. She was wondering what the boy in the Eton suit would have made of the contending aromas that assailed her now. A little wav off. an aloe tree had flowered. Someone had told her that an aloe tree flowered only in 100 years, and that, when it did so love came. It was probably a two-fold lie.

Down in the compound the native hovs were foregathering. The sound of their tomtoms started her off on another reminiscent quest. Of what did it remind her? Yes, she had it: the rhythmical complaint of a. loosened cowl upon the chimnev of her old Sussex home. That was a far erv indeed. She was so tired of the blank and the noiseless feet that padded. Hobnail boots in a Sussex lane, that was a sound for which there was no equivalent in this place. Once she had tramned home by her father’s side to an afternoon of firelight and books. Tt was on +hat afternoon that there had happened a something of

which she had tried to sneak to her partner at the Ponsonbys. She could not tell why she had tried to let Davin know about it. There really was so little for him to know. On' ? that wet and windy Sussex afternoon she had looked up from her book, and a bird had flashed past the window’. That was positively all there was to it. It happened to everybody to see a bird at the window. It happened to Noah. Only with Noah the bird was a dove, and it rested. Her bird had been a swallow, and it had flashed past the window. But here was the thing she could never have told David, never have explained. She could not explain how she went yith the swallow and returned to the familiardimensions of the room, as it were, all in a breath. She should never have started to explain. It was a mercy that Sirs Ponsonby had come ■when she did. Cora had called her the angel of death. Perhaps death was merciful, like that, setting us free from the terrible necessity of explaining. And yet, perhaps, there was something more terrible in not being able to explain. Time was always dragging you off, just as you were on the point of comprehension with someone. The boy’s blue eyes had looked straight into hers, and everything had seemed to come to rest. It was just as it had been on that gusty afternoon in Sussex when she and the swallow had rested, rested in flight. The throbbing in her head had ceased. There came to her ears the far-off drone of the aeroplane. Help was coming, an end of waiting and ot doubt. Their host was returning with his quarny. Someone else would be taking over Claire s vigil —the doctor from the coast. She hurried indoors to forewarn the black

woman. Then she stood at her post and waited. She could see the aloe tree from where she stood. The doctor would have to come that way. Outside the tomtoms beat on faintly. . They made her think of Vachell Lmuzay’s poem: “Mumbo jumbo. Boom Voom Boom.” Her father stirred and began to talk incoherently. There was something he wanted to explain. Would there be time before the summons came? “What is it, daddy? lam here,

Claire.” . But Gabriel Mainwarmg rambled on. It was an inchoate mass of words and images. ■ She turned from him and saw two figures against the aloe tree. . One she recognised as the host. She did not at -first recognise the other as David Grant. That recognition came late when he had saved her father.

“ We’ve half an hour left, dearest. Will you play to me?” “ No, David. Let’s go and sit in the hall. Music’s an evasion.” “ You do say the rummiest things, Claire.” “Do you think you vc wasted jour leave, David?” “ Wasted ? It’s been precious, every moment. We’ve nothing to show for it in the way of programmes or menu cards, or good works, even. We’ve simply been together.” “That’s why I want to wait by the cuckoo clock. We waited by a clock oncc~ before, and the little wooden bird came out.”

“ Have you remembered that night at the Ponsonby’s all this while?’ “Haven’t you?” “ Well, I suppose I have. You were wearing a little red frock, and a. crucifix, and you were in the middle of saying something when Mrs Ponsonby poked her head round the door.” “Was 1?” “ Yes, you reminded me of it then. It was about a bird.” “ I must have been thinking of old Omar — The bird of time has but a litde way To fly, and 10l the bird is on the wing. “ You hadn’t heard of Omar then, dearest.” “ No, I suppose I hadn’t. I must of been thinking of something else. It’s funny-, I was thinking of the same thing when I heard the aeroplane, and knew that the doctor was coming to save daddy.” “You didn’t know I was going to he the doctor. Tell me what you were thinking about, and—l won’t ask you to play. Come along.” David led the way into the hall. It was smaller than the Ponsonby’s, and did not boast hunting trophies. But the cuckoo clock was there. “ There’s nothing to tell, really,” Claire began when they had sat down on the brightly coloured ottoman, a trophy of travel rather than sport. “ When 1 was a little girl I saw a swallow fly past my nursery window. That’s all there is to it, David.”

“ was wrong with the swallow?” David Saxon’s countenance expressed comic bewilderment.

Claire laughed. It was good to laugh in the face of those merciless little pointers on the clock. “ Nothing,” she said. “It was the Tightest, swallow in the-workl." “ Well. You are the most whimsicalwhomsical person I ever in<-t. 1 thought I was in for a yarn.” “ Then I’ve bored you,” said Claire. “Dearest!” “ When first we wore left alone together—at the Ponsonbys’—l thought five minutes would be an eternity.” “ And now eternity seems like five minutes to me,” said Davi.'

“ Surely this that we have found isn’t the episode that people call love.” “ All lovers are affronted by time,” said Claire.

They sat in silence for a while. . . . Presently David coughed, like a man who had been hit.

“ I’d like to smash that clock,” he said. She laughed a little wildly. “ I never thought of you as a cave man,” she said. “ You’re so schooled, so anchored to good old creeds. I don’t think you could break that clock any more than you could break your word to the regiment.” “ For your sake, Claire, I’d smash the cosmos,” he began.

Then he suddenly caught her expression, and the words died on his lips. She was staring out of the door that stood ajar at the end of the hall. He followed her gaze. He "was aw-are of a momentary shadow on the lawn, the shadow of a bird’s wing. It was gone in the twinkling of an eye. They sat and listened to the voices of a garden upon a summer evening. “ A late lark twittered.” There was a faint and desultory noise of crickets. Then two cyclists passed upon the road below. “Hello, Ginger. Isn’t it light for 9 o’clock?”

David sprang to his feet with a question in his eyes. Claire was very pale. “ I’ve put all the clocks back —and your watch,” she said. “ I thought I’d cheated time, but that wing out there ” David began to talk, rapidly and dispassionately, as he was wont to do at an operation. “ I’ve missed my train,” he said. “ Let me see. Hankins starts from the ’drome at 9.30. It’s funny how men can fly.” There came the “ chunk-chunk ” of a motor cycle by the road. David pushed through the open door, and started down the little drive at a run. Claire, sat and listened. - She heard his peremptory hail, and the cyclist stopped. Then once more the “ chunk-chunk,” a little more deliberate. The machine drove heavily. Claire waited submissively for the little wooden bird to emerge. At last it came, opening it’s wings. She had fancied that it would have opened them in blessing. By what secret casuistry she had come to believe such a thing? Her swallow was very wise. David had gone off without a word of farewell. “If you were going to die when the cuckoo came out,” little Claire had questioned the boy in the Eton sr.it, what would you say?” "I wouldn’t say anything,” he had replied. “ There wouldn’t be anything to say.”