Innocent Birds by T. F. Powys Page A

something had been left behind by the old one upon the bar parlour table.
    This was a black glove.
    Although so much dust and dirt that befitted a deserted residence lay about, the general dustiness appeared to have avoided this black glove, that lay upon the table exactly as Mr. Told had left it.
    Mr. Bugby tried the glove on—it might have been made for him.
    By means of the glove his thoughts went further. He saw himself a widower. ‘A widower‚’ he murmured, ‘who be in need of a servant maiden.’ He saw himself handing out beer to the bearers in the generous manner of a man who can do what he likes with his own. Perhaps Maud would be the servant to draw the drink, and talk about the poor drowned Mrs. Bugby, and about how kind she used to be, in mournful murmurs.
    And afterwards, he would ask Miss Maud to step upstairs and put the glove in the dressing-table drawer.
    Mr. Bugby’s fancy followed her there.

Chapter xii
MISS PETTIFER COMES
TO MADDER
    I T was because Miss Pettifer bore a grudge against Madder that she wished to live there. Miss Pettifer always took a fine pride in this novel way of taking her revenge. She had practised it for years, and had found it very telling, as a means of utterly destroying her enemies; or, if not quite that, of at least putting them into the right way of not repeating the same fault again.
    If she heard that any friends had spoken against her, she would quarter herself upon them, with her green car and her walking-stick, until they chose to show by their behaviour to her that they repented.
    Miss Pettifer wished to go to Madder because of Mr. Pim’s honesty in paying the debt he owed for his wife’s heaven. Mr. Pim, his own pride flattered to the highest when he sent each payment, had paid back to the town ladies, through Miss Pettifer, all that they had advanced.
    Miss Pettifer herself had lent a little, but she had a soul—so she always said—that was above money; and she had hoped that Pim would forget to pay. Miss Pettifer always had the true well-being of England imprinted upon her actionsin life. She hoped—and no doubt correctly—that if those other town ladies who had lent to Mr. Pim, and were very much poorer than she, lost their money, they would be forced to give their help or maid-servant margarine instead of butter.
    Miss Pettifer believed that all servants should eat margarine, and she believed that she helped to save the empire from disaster by enforcing upon them this imperial duty. If Mr. Pim had not paid back that money to those poorer ladies, it would certainly mean that the fresh butter, ordered at Parly’s, would be changed, and become margarine in those kitchen mouths. Besides blaming Mr. Pim, and all Madder too, in consequence of his honesty, she also blamed Mrs. Crocker, who, though dead, was always brought up in Miss Pettifer’s mind to be bitten when anything annoyed her.
    Miss Pettifer never forgot any person, whether dead or alive, who in times past had insulted her. She did not make clay images of them to stick pins into, because she could never have got a near enough likeness to please her taste, which was practical. Instead of doing that, she wrote their names, in a determined and practised hand, in her prayer book—that wasn’t too small a one. She would also mix them, in a sacramental way, with her fried bacon for breakfast. Miss Pettifer had a happy appetite, as a healthy lady of sixty, with a very English mind, would be likely tohave. And she liked fried bacon. And in order to make it taste the better, even though it might sometimes be a little burnt, she would put her enemies between the rashers and bite them too.
    Although Miss Pettifer might now and again forget one or other of her enemies at breakfast time, she never forgot Mrs. Crocker, because Mrs. Crocker had once taken a servant into her home after Miss Pettifer had put the girl into the road.
    Another nice one to bite was Mr. Tucker, who, besides Mrs. Crocker, helped her to