A DAY OF GROWTH
Fly sat on the wall in the wood at the back of the garden simmering
with excitement. Two wonderful things had happened to her, each of
which by itself would have been enough to make her happy for a week.
First, she had got a letter in the morning addressed to herself. She
was so pleased that she did not think of opening it till Jane took it
from her. The inside, however, was still more delightful. Somebody
called Janette Black said she had a little present for Fly, and was
bringing it to Rowallan that afternoon. Lull said Miss Black was Fly's
godmother. She used to live at Rose Cottage years ago, but for a long
time she had been away in Dublin. Fly was too much excited to eat her
breakfast. The others as they watched her dancing round the room could
not help being a little bit envious at her good fortune. They had
never heard of anybody before, except Cinderella, who had had a visit
from a godmother. Their godmothers were all dead, or away in England.
Fly in her happiness had a pang of regret that she could not share this
delightful relative with the others. She said she would share the
gift. She had thought that morning would never pass. Lull was getting
the drawing-room ready for the visitor, and once or twice she had
warned Fly that she might be disappointed.
"I wouldn't marvel if she niver come near the place at all," she said.
"She's a bird-witted ould lady, an' niver in the wan way a' thinkin'
two minutes thegether." But Fly could not have been calm if she had
tried. She had spent her time going backwards and forwards to look at
the kitchen clock. Now the time had come, dinner was over, Fly had her
clean pinafore on, the godmother was, perhaps, already in the house,
but Fly was so busy thinking of something else that she had almost
forgotten her. The second wonderful thing had happened. There were
days, Fly told herself, when things took jumps--when, instead of
growing up at the usual pace, so slow you could not feel it, something
happened that made you older and richer and cleverer all in a minute.
To-day life had taken two jumps. As she was sitting there quietly on
the wall, thinking only of her godmother, a big yellow cat had come out
of the wood. Everybody at Rowallan hated cats--they were deadly
enemies, poachers, and destroyers. Andy had been in trouble for the
past week over the wickedness of a cat who, night after night, had been
at the rabbits in his traps. Rabbits were a source of income to
Rowallan, and it was a serious matter when six rabbits were destroyed
in one night. Fly had been in the kitchen that morning when Andy came
in to tell Lull his trouble.
"I niver seen the cat that could get the better av me afore," he said
dejectedly. "I'm thinkin' I'm gettin' too ould for this game." Fly
remembered this as she watched the cat coming towards her through the
wood. If only Andy were there now with his gun. It was a terrible
pity that such a chance should be lost. She sat quite still, waiting
to see what the cat would do. It never seemed to notice her, but came
boldly on, with no sense of shame, straight towards her, till it was
beneath her feet. The wall was high, and the cat had jumped before Fly
realised that it meant to use her legs as a ladder to the top.
Indignation on Andy's account now gave place to wild rage at personal
injury. The cat's claws were in her leg. She kicked it off, then,
quick as thought, seized a big flat stone off the top of the wall, and
dropped it on the cat's neck. The yellow head bowed, and without a
sound the body rolled over on the grass. Fly saw that she had killed
it. Her heart jumped for joy. She could hardly believe she had really
done this wonderful thing. Andy's enemy lay dead at her feet, struck
down by her unerring aim. What would the others say? What would Andy
say? How they would all praise her! She felt that God had helped her.
It must be He who had brought the cat within her reach and given her
power to kill it with one blow of a stone. Honeybird's voice called
from the garden. Fly gave a little gasp--her heart was beating so
quickly with excitement. To find a godmother and to kill a cat in one
day!--had anybody else ever had such happiness? She got down from the
wall, and took the dead cat in her arms. She must go to the godmother
now, and wait till she had gone before she could tell the others.
There was nobody at home to tell except Honeybird, for Jane had gone
with Andy on the car to bring Mick and Patsy home from school. She
would hide the cat in the stables, she thought, and when the others
came home she would produce it dramatically, and see what they would
do. On the way through the garden she met Honeybird coming to find her.
"She's come," said Honeybird, "in a wee donkey carriage an' a furry
cloak; but I'm feared she's got nuthin' with her, 'cause I walked all
round her to see."
Fly held up the cat. "I've just kilt it with wan blow av a stone," she
said.
"Well done you," said Honeybird joyfully. "Bad auld divil," addressing
the dead cat, "what for did ye eat the neck out a' Andy's rabbits?"
Then her tone changed. "Give him to me, Fly, to play feeneral with.
Sure, you've got a godmother, an' I've got nuthin' at all." Fly had
not the heart to refuse. She gave Honeybird the dead cat, but
explained that she must be allowed to dig it up again to show it to
Andy. Then she ran quickly towards the house. A smell of pancakes
came from the kitchen. Lull was getting tea ready for the visitor.
Fly felt that life was richer than she had ever known it to be. At the
drawing-room door she paused to mutter a little prayer of thanksgiving.
She hardly knew what she had been expecting, but she was a little bit
disappointed when she opened the door and went in. Her godmother was
sitting on a sofa. She was a little woman, dressed in dull black; an
old-fashioned fur-lined cloak fell from her shoulders; a lace veil,
turned over her bonnet, hung down like a curtain behind. She wore
gloves several sizes too big for her, and the ends of the fingers were
twisted into spikes. But her voice pleased Fly's ear. She had been to
see Mrs Darragh, she said, but had only stayed a minute. In spite of
her disappointment there was something about the little lady that
attracted Fly's fancy. Her eyes were just the colour of the sea on a
clear, sunny day. She talked a good deal, holding Fly's hand and
patting it all the time. Fly did not understand much of what she
said--she mentioned so many people Fly had never heard of before.
"You know you are my only god-child," she said; "when I die you shall
have all my money if you are a good girl." Fly thought this was very
kind, but she begged her godmother not to think of dying for years yet.
The little lady smiled. Then she began to talk again about people Fly
did not know, nodding and smiling as though it were all very funny.
Fly wondered when she would come to the gift.
"There now, I've talked enough," she said at last. "Tell me all about
yourself and the other dear children now."
Fly told her everything she could remember. Miss Black said "Yes,
yes," "How delightful," "How pleasant," but she did not seem to be
listening; her eyes were looking all round the room, and once she said
"How pleasant" when Fly was telling her about the time Patsy hurt his
foot. Fly was in the middle of the tale of Andy's trouble that morning
when Miss Black interrupted her.
"You must come and see me, my dear, and bring the others with you, and
you shall make the acquaintance of my darling Phoebus."
Here was another person Fly had never heard of. She wondered who he
could be.
"Naughty darling Phoebus," Miss Black went on. "Oh, he has been so
naughty since we left Dublin. Out for hours by himself, frightening me
into fits. But he doesn't care how anxious I am."
He must be her son, Fly thought; rather a horrid little boy to frighten
his mother like that. She asked Miss Black if he were her only child.
Miss Black laughed. "He is, indeed, my darling only one; you must come
and see him. You will be sure to love him. He is not very fond of
children, but I shall tell him he must love you and not scratch."
Fly thought she would not love him at all, but she was too polite to
say so. She wished Miss Black would say something about her present.
But Miss Black went on talking about Phoebus. She called him her
golden boy, her heart's delight and only treasure. Fly was rather
bewildered by this talk. It seemed to her that Phoebus must be a very
nasty little boy: he ate nothing but kidney and fish, his mother said,
and never a bite of bread with it.
Lull brought in tea, and when Miss Black had finished her tea she
became silent. Fly did not like to speak. She thought her godmother
must be thinking of something important. She waited a little while,
then, as Miss Black continued silent, she cautiously introduced the
subject of godmothers. It might, perhaps, remind the little lady of
what her letter had promised. She told Miss Black about the other
children's godmothers, and how lucky the others thought she was to have
a godmother alive and in Ireland. Miss Black patted her hand absently,
and gazed round the room.
"I know there is something I wanted to remember," she said at last.
Fly waited eagerly. She knew what it was, though, of course, she could
not say so. "I have it," said Miss Black. "I wanted to ask for a
rabbit for Phoebus. He has no appetite, these days. This morning he
touched nothing but his saucerful of cream. Do you think you could get
me a rabbit, my dear? Phoebus adores rabbit."
"To be sure I can get ye wan," said Fly, swallowing her disappointment.
"I'll get ye wan to-morra from Andy."
Miss Black got up to go. "That is kind of you," she said; "and, now
that I remember, I had a little gift for you, but I forgot to bring it.
Come to-morrow, and you shall have it. And don't forget the rabbit for
Phoebus."
"I'll hould ye I'll not forgit," said Fly. "We've been havin' bad luck
this wee while back with the rabbits. Some ould cat's been spoilin'
them on us. But just a minute before you came I kilt the ould baste."
Fly looked for applause, but her godmother's attention had wandered
again.
"How very pleasant," she said. Then suddenly she looked at Fly. "What
did you say, dear child?"
"I said I kilt an ould thief of a cat," said Fly proudly.
The godmother grasped her by the arm. "Killed a----" Her voice was
almost a scream. "Merciful heavens! what do you mean?"
Fly was frightened. Her godmother seemed to have changed into another
person. She looked at Fly with burning eyes.
"Wicked, wicked, cruel child!"
"I couldn't help it," Fly stammered. "I done it by accident." Had she
all unconsciously done some awful thing? Surely everybody killed cats.
They were like rats--a plague to be exterminated.
"What was it like?" demanded her godmother.
"The nastiest-lukin' baste I iver set eyes on," said Fly earnestly.
"If it had been Phoebus I think I should have killed you," said Miss
Black.
Fly looked at her in a bewildered way.
"You are quite sure it wasn't Phoebus--not my darling cat?" said her
godmother sternly.
A horrid fear seized Fly. Phoebus was not a boy, he was a cat--surely,
surely not that yellow cat--such a thing would be too terrible.
"Was it a large, dignified creature with yellow fur?" her godmother
questioned.
"It was not," said Fly emphatically. "It was a wee, scraggy cat, black
all over, with a white spot on its tail."
"Thank God for it," said Miss Black. "If it had been Phoebus I should
have died."
Fly was shaking all over; she felt like a murderess. If only her
godmother knew the truth! It was, of course, hopeless to ask God to
make the cat alive again. The only thing was to get her godmother
safely away from Rowallan, and pray that she might never come back.
Anxiously she watched the lady go down the steps. The donkey carriage
was waiting. In another minute she would be gone; but, with her foot
on the step of the carriage, Miss Black paused.
"I must see the garden; it was so pretty once, and I may never be back
again," she said. Fly led the way. The burden on her chest lifted a
little as she heard that her godmother would not be likely to come
again. It would not take long to see the garden, and then she would go
for ever. When they were half way down the path the garden gate
opened, and Honeybird came through, wheeling a barrow. She had Lull's
old crape bonnet on her head. Fly had a moment of sickening fright.
"I'm comin' home from a feeneral," Honeybird called out cheerfully.
"I've just been buryin' my ould husband, an' now I'm a widdy woman."
Fly breathed again: Phoebus was safely buried.
"How very nice," said Miss Black.
"Ye wouldn't say that if ye knowed who her husband was," Fly thought.
"Would ye 'a' liked to be a mourner?" Honeybird asked, with a smile at
Miss Black. "'Cause if ye would I can dig him up, an' bury him again."
Fly grimaced at her in an agony of terror. "Lull wants ye this very
minute," she said hurriedly. Honeybird nodded to them, and took her
barrow again, and went on round the house.
By this time the sun had set, and the garden was full of that strange,
luminous twilight that comes with frost in the air.
A cluster of late roses in Patsy's garden glowed against the fuchsia
hedge; a white flower stood out in almost startling distinctness.
Above the pear-tree the sky was clear, cold green; a flush of red
mounted from the south-west. The garden, shut in by the convent wall
and high hedge, seemed to Fly like a box without a lid at the bottom of
a deep well of clear sky.
She sniffed the cold air. Her happiness had gone from her, but she had
been mercifully delivered from her trouble. Suddenly a hand gripped
her. Her godmother pointed with the spiked finger of a black kid glove
to Honeybird's garden. It was a bare patch--nothing grew there--for
what Honeybird planted one day she dug up the next. To-day Honeybird
evidently had made a new bed-centre, and bordered it with cockle
shells. Fly's knees shook under her. In the middle of that bed,
coming up through the newly-turned earth, with a ring of cockle shells
round its neck, was the head of a big yellow cat. It was here
Honeybird had buried her husband--buried him, unfortunately, as she
always buried birds, with his head out, in case he felt lonely in the
dark. Miss Black was down on her knees, clearing the earth away. Fly
never thought of escape. She felt as though she were tied to the path.
She stood there while her godmother lifted the dead cat in her arms and
tenderly brushed the earth from its fur. Then the little lady turned
round. "Now she'll kill me," Fly thought. She lifted her terrified
eyes to Miss Black's face. How would she do it, she wondered. But her
godmother never seemed to notice her. Without a word she turned, and
walked quickly from the garden. A moment later Fly heard the gate
shut. She was too bewildered to move. The sound of wheels going down
the avenue roused her to the fact that her godmother had gone. She had
been found out, and no awful punishment had followed, but to her
surprise there was no relief in this. Fly felt as miserable as ever.
She looked up at the sky. A star showed above the pear-tree. She had
not meant to do anything wrong, but she had hurt somebody terribly.
Whose fault was it? Almighty God's or her own? The donkey carriage
was going slowly up the road; she could hear the whacking of a stick
and the driver's "gone a' that." Suddenly through the frosty air her
ear caught the sound of bitter weeping. Then Fly turned, and ran from
the garden, dashing wildly through Patsy's flower-bed in her haste to
get away from that heart-breaking sound.