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diff --git a/8914-h/8914-h.htm b/8914-h/8914-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..534e71e --- /dev/null +++ b/8914-h/8914-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,12638 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of England, My England, by D.H. 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Lawrence</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: England, My England</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: D.H. Lawrence</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 24, 2003 [eBook #8914]<br /> +[Most recently updated: September 17, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Distributed Proofreaders</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLAND, MY ENGLAND ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="cover " /> +</div> + +<h1>England, My England</h1> + +<h4>AND OTHER STORIES</h4> + +<h2 class="no-break">by D.H. Lawrence</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">ENGLAND, MY ENGLAND</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">TICKETS, PLEASE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">THE BLIND MAN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">MONKEY NUTS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">WINTRY PEACOCK</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">YOU TOUCHED ME</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">SAMSON AND DELILAH</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">THE PRIMROSE PATH</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">THE HORSE DEALER’S DAUGHTER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">FANNY AND ANNIE</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>ENGLAND, MY ENGLAND</h2> + +<p> +He was working on the edge of the common, beyond the small brook that ran in +the dip at the bottom of the garden, carrying the garden path in continuation +from the plank bridge on to the common. He had cut the rough turf and bracken, +leaving the grey, dryish soil bare. But he was worried because he could not get +the path straight, there was a pleat between his brows. He had set up his +sticks, and taken the sights between the big pine trees, but for some reason +everything seemed wrong. He looked again, straining his keen blue eyes, that +had a touch of the Viking in them, through the shadowy pine trees as through a +doorway, at the green-grassed garden-path rising from the shadow of alders by +the log bridge up to the sunlit flowers. Tall white and purple columbines, and +the butt-end of the old Hampshire cottage that crouched near the earth amid +flowers, blossoming in the bit of shaggy wildness round about. +</p> + +<p> +There was a sound of children’s voices calling and talking: high, +childish, girlish voices, slightly didactic and tinged with domineering: +“If you don’t come quick, nurse, I shall run out there to where +there are snakes.” And nobody had the <i>sang-froid</i> to reply: +“Run then, little fool.” It was always, “No, darling. Very +well, darling. In a moment, darling. Darling, you <i>must</i> be +patient.” +</p> + +<p> +His heart was hard with disillusion: a continual gnawing and resistance. But he +worked on. What was there to do but submit! +</p> + +<p> +The sunlight blazed down upon the earth, there was a vividness of flamy +vegetation, of fierce seclusion amid the savage peace of the commons. Strange +how the savage England lingers in patches: as here, amid these shaggy gorse +commons, and marshy, snake infested places near the foot of the south downs. +The spirit of place lingering on primeval, as when the Saxons came, so long +ago. +</p> + +<p> +Ah, how he had loved it! The green garden path, the tufts of flowers, purple +and white columbines, and great oriental red poppies with their black chaps and +mulleins tall and yellow, this flamy garden which had been a garden for a +thousand years, scooped out in the little hollow among the snake-infested +commons. He had made it flame with flowers, in a sun cup under its hedges and +trees. So old, so old a place! And yet he had re-created it. +</p> + +<p> +The timbered cottage with its sloping, cloak-like roof was old and forgotten. +It belonged to the old England of hamlets and yeomen. Lost all alone on the +edge of the common, at the end of a wide, grassy, briar-entangled lane shaded +with oak, it had never known the world of today. Not till Egbert came with his +bride. And he had come to fill it with flowers. +</p> + +<p> +The house was ancient and very uncomfortable. But he did not want to alter it. +Ah, marvellous to sit there in the wide, black, time-old chimney, at night when +the wind roared overhead, and the wood which he had chopped himself sputtered +on the hearth! Himself on one side the angle, and Winifred on the other. +</p> + +<p> +Ah, how he had wanted her: Winifred! She was young and beautiful and strong +with life, like a flame in sunshine. She moved with a slow grace of energy like +a blossoming, red-flowered bush in motion. She, too, seemed to come out of the +old England, ruddy, strong, with a certain crude, passionate quiescence and a +hawthorn robustness. And he, he was tall and slim and agile, like an English +archer with his long supple legs and fine movements. Her hair was nut-brown and +all in energic curls and tendrils. Her eyes were nut-brown, too, like a +robin’s for brightness. And he was white-skinned with fine, silky hair +that had darkened from fair, and a slightly arched nose of an old country +family. They were a beautiful couple. +</p> + +<p> +The house was Winifred’s. Her father was a man of energy, too. He had +come from the north poor. Now he was moderately rich. He had bought this fair +stretch of inexpensive land, down in Hampshire. Not far from the tiny church of +the almost extinct hamlet stood his own house, a commodious old farmhouse +standing back from the road across a bare grassed yard. On one side of this +quadrangle was the long, long barn or shed which he had made into a cottage for +his youngest daughter Priscilla. One saw little blue-and-white check curtains +at the long windows, and inside, overhead, the grand old timbers of the +high-pitched shed. This was Prissy’s house. Fifty yards away was the +pretty little new cottage which he had built for his daughter Magdalen, with +the vegetable garden stretching away to the oak copse. And then away beyond the +lawns and rose trees of the house-garden went the track across a shaggy, wild +grass space, towards the ridge of tall black pines that grew on a dyke-bank, +through the pines and above the sloping little bog, under the wide, desolate +oak trees, till there was Winifred’s cottage crouching unexpectedly in +front, so much alone, and so primitive. +</p> + +<p> +It was Winifred’s own house, and the gardens and the bit of common and +the boggy slope were hers: her tiny domain. She had married just at the time +when her father had bought the estate, about ten years before the war, so she +had been able to come to Egbert with this for a marriage portion. And who was +more delighted, he or she, it would be hard to say. She was only twenty at the +time, and he was only twenty-one. He had about a hundred and fifty pounds a +year of his own—and nothing else but his very considerable personal +attractions. He had no profession: he earned nothing. But he talked of +literature and music, he had a passion for old folk-music, collecting +folk-songs and folk-dances, studying the Morris-dance and the old customs. Of +course in time he would make money in these ways. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile youth and health and passion and promise. Winifred’s father was +always generous: but still, he was a man from the north with a hard head and a +hard skin too, having received a good many knocks. At home he kept the hard +head out of sight, and played at poetry and romance with his literary wife and +his sturdy, passionate girls. He was a man of courage, not given to +complaining, bearing his burdens by himself. No, he did not let the world +intrude far into his home. He had a delicate, sensitive wife whose poetry won +some fame in the narrow world of letters. He himself, with his tough old +barbarian fighting spirit, had an almost child-like delight in verse, in sweet +poetry, and in the delightful game of a cultured home. His blood was strong +even to coarseness. But that only made the home more vigorous, more robust and +Christmassy. There was always a touch of Christmas about him, now he was well +off. If there was poetry after dinner, there were also chocolates and nuts, and +good little out-of-the-way things to be munching. +</p> + +<p> +Well then, into this family came Egbert. He was made of quite a different +paste. The girls and the father were strong-limbed, thick-blooded people, true +English, as holly-trees and hawthorn are English. Their culture was grafted on +to them, as one might perhaps graft a common pink rose on to a thornstem. It +flowered oddly enough, but it did not alter their blood. +</p> + +<p> +And Egbert was a born rose. The age-long breeding had left him with a +delightful spontaneous passion. He was not clever, nor even +“literary”. No, but the intonation of his voice, and the movement +of his supple, handsome body, and the fine texture of his flesh and his hair, +the slight arch of his nose, the quickness of his blue eyes would easily take +the place of poetry. Winifred loved him, loved him, this southerner, as a +higher being. A <i>higher</i> being, mind you. Not a deeper. And as for him, he +loved her in passion with every fibre of him. She was the very warm stuff of +life to him. +</p> + +<p> +Wonderful then, those days at Crockham Cottage, the first days, all alone save +for the woman who came to work in the mornings. Marvellous days, when she had +all his tall, supple, fine-fleshed youth to herself, for herself, and he had +her like a ruddy fire into which he could cast himself for rejuvenation. Ah, +that it might never end, this passion, this marriage! The flame of their two +bodies burnt again into that old cottage, that was haunted already by so much +by-gone, physical desire. You could not be in the dark room for an hour without +the influences coming over you. The hot blood-desire of by-gone yeomen, there +in this old den where they had lusted and bred for so many generations. The +silent house, dark, with thick, timbered walls and the big black chimney-place, +and the sense of secrecy. Dark, with low, little windows, sunk into the earth. +Dark, like a lair where strong beasts had lurked and mated, lonely at night and +lonely by day, left to themselves and their own intensity for so many +generations. It seemed to cast a spell on the two young people. They became +different. There was a curious secret glow about them, a certain slumbering +flame hard to understand, that enveloped them both. They too felt that they did +not belong to the London world any more. Crockham had changed their blood: the +sense of the snakes that lived and slept even in their own garden, in the sun, +so that he, going forward with the spade, would see a curious coiled brownish +pile on the black soil, which suddenly would start up, hiss, and dazzle rapidly +away, hissing. One day Winifred heard the strangest scream from the flower-bed +under the low window of the living room: ah, the strangest scream, like the +very soul of the dark past crying aloud. She ran out, and saw a long brown +snake on the flower-bed, and in its flat mouth the one hind leg of a frog was +striving to escape, and screaming its strange, tiny, bellowing scream. She +looked at the snake, and from its sullen flat head it looked at her, +obstinately. She gave a cry, and it released the frog and slid angrily away. +</p> + +<p> +That was Crockham. The spear of modern invention had not passed through it, and +it lay there secret, primitive, savage as when the Saxons first came. And +Egbert and she were caught there, caught out of the world. +</p> + +<p> +He was not idle, nor was she. There were plenty of things to be done, the house +to be put into final repair after the workmen had gone, cushions and curtains +to sew, the paths to make, the water to fetch and attend to, and then the slope +of the deep-soiled, neglected garden to level, to terrace with little terraces +and paths, and to fill with flowers. He worked away, in his shirt-sleeves, +worked all day intermittently doing this thing and the other. And she, quiet +and rich in herself, seeing him stooping and labouring away by himself, would +come to help him, to be near him. He of course was an amateur—a born +amateur. He worked so hard, and did so little, and nothing he ever did would +hold together for long. If he terraced the garden, he held up the earth with a +couple of long narrow planks that soon began to bend with the pressure from +behind, and would not need many years to rot through and break and let the soil +slither all down again in a heap towards the stream-bed. But there you are. He +had not been brought up to come to grips with anything, and he thought it would +do. Nay, he did not think there was anything else except little temporary +contrivances possible, he who had such a passion for his old enduring cottage, +and for the old enduring things of the bygone England. Curious that the sense +of permanency in the past had such a hold over him, whilst in the present he +was all amateurish and sketchy. +</p> + +<p> +Winifred could not criticize him. Town-bred, everything seemed to her splendid, +and the very digging and shovelling itself seemed romantic. But neither Egbert +nor she yet realised the difference between work and romance. +</p> + +<p> +Godfrey Marshall, her father, was at first perfectly pleased with the ménage +down at Crockham Cottage. He thought Egbert was wonderful, the many things he +accomplished, and he was gratified by the glow of physical passion between the +two young people. To the man who in London still worked hard to keep steady his +modest fortune, the thought of this young couple digging away and loving one +another down at Crockham Cottage, buried deep among the commons and marshes, +near the pale-showing bulk of the downs, was like a chapter of living romance. +And they drew the sustenance for their fire of passion from him, from the old +man. It was he who fed their flame. He triumphed secretly in the thought. And +it was to her father that Winifred still turned, as the one source of all +surety and life and support. She loved Egbert with passion. But behind her was +the power of her father. It was the power of her father she referred to, +whenever she needed to refer. It never occurred to her to refer to Egbert, if +she were in difficulty or doubt. No, in all the <i>serious</i> matters she +depended on her father. +</p> + +<p> +For Egbert had no intention of coming to grips with life. He had no ambition +whatsoever. He came from a decent family, from a pleasant country home, from +delightful surroundings. He should, of course, have had a profession. He should +have studied law or entered business in some way. But no—that fatal three +pounds a week would keep him from starving as long as he lived, and he did not +want to give himself into bondage. It was not that he was idle. He was always +doing something, in his amateurish way. But he had no desire to give himself to +the world, and still less had he any desire to fight his way in the world. No, +no, the world wasn’t worth it. He wanted to ignore it, to go his own way +apart, like a casual pilgrim down the forsaken sidetracks. He loved his wife, +his cottage and garden. He would make his life there, as a sort of epicurean +hermit. He loved the past, the old music and dances and customs of old England. +He would try and live in the spirit of these, not in the spirit of the world of +business. +</p> + +<p> +But often Winifred’s father called her to London: for he loved to have +his children round him. So Egbert and she must have a tiny flat in town, and +the young couple must transfer themselves from time to time from the country to +the city. In town Egbert had plenty of friends, of the same ineffectual sort as +himself, tampering with the arts, literature, painting, sculpture, music. He +was not bored. +</p> + +<p> +Three pounds a week, however, would not pay for all this. Winifred’s +father paid. He liked paying. He made her only a very small allowance, but he +often gave her ten pounds—or gave Egbert ten pounds. So they both looked +on the old man as the mainstay. Egbert didn’t mind being patronized and +paid for. Only when he felt the family was a little <i>too</i> condescending, +on account of money, he began to get huffy. +</p> + +<p> +Then of course children came: a lovely little blonde daughter with a head of +thistle-down. Everybody adored the child. It was the first exquisite blonde +thing that had come into the family, a little mite with the white, slim, +beautiful limbs of its father, and as it grew up the dancing, dainty movement +of a wild little daisy-spirit. No wonder the Marshalls all loved the child: +they called her Joyce. They themselves had their own grace, but it was slow, +rather heavy. They had everyone of them strong, heavy limbs and darkish skins, +and they were short in stature. And now they had for one of their own this +light little cowslip child. She was like a little poem in herself. +</p> + +<p> +But nevertheless, she brought a new difficulty. Winifred must have a nurse for +her. Yes, yes, there must be a nurse. It was the family decree. Who was to pay +for the nurse? The grandfather—seeing the father himself earned no money. +Yes, the grandfather would pay, as he had paid all the lying-in expenses. There +came a slight sense of money-strain. Egbert was living on his father-in-law. +</p> + +<p> +After the child was born, it was never quite the same between him and Winifred. +The difference was at first hardly perceptible. But it was there. In the first +place Winifred had a new centre of interest. She was not going to adore her +child. But she had what the modern mother so often has in the place of +spontaneous love: a profound sense of duty towards her child. Winifred +appreciated her darling little girl, and felt a deep sense of duty towards her. +Strange, that this sense of duty should go deeper than the love for her +husband. But so it was. And so it often is. The responsibility of motherhood +was the prime responsibility in Winifred’s heart: the responsibility of +wifehood came a long way second. +</p> + +<p> +Her child seemed to link her up again in a circuit with her own family. Her +father and mother, herself, and her child, that was the human trinity for her. +Her husband—? Yes, she loved him still. But that was like play. She had +an almost barbaric sense of duty and of family. Till she married, her first +human duty had been towards her father: he was the pillar, the source of life, +the everlasting support. Now another link was added to the chain of duty: her +father, herself, and her child. +</p> + +<p> +Egbert was out of it. Without anything happening, he was gradually, +unconsciously excluded from the circle. His wife still loved him, physically. +But, but—he was <i>almost</i> the unnecessary party in the affair. He +could not complain of Winifred. She still did her duty towards him. She still +had a physical passion for him, that physical passion on which he had put all +his life and soul. But—but— +</p> + +<p> +It was for a long while an ever-recurring <i>but</i>. And then, after the +second child, another blonde, winsome touching little thing, not so proud and +flame-like as Joyce; after Annabel came, then Egbert began truly to realise how +it was. His wife still loved him. But—and now the but had grown +enormous—her physical love for him was of secondary importance to her. It +became ever less important. After all, she had had it, this physical passion, +for two years now. It was not this that one lived from. No, no—something +sterner, realer. +</p> + +<p> +She began to resent her own passion for Egbert—just a little she began to +despise it. For after all there he was, he was charming, he was lovable, he was +terribly desirable. But—but—oh, the awful looming cloud of that +<i>but!</i>—He did not stand firm in the landscape of her life like a +tower of strength, like a great pillar of significance. No, he was like a cat +one has about the house, which will one day disappear and leave no trace. He +was like a flower in the garden, trembling in the wind of life, and then gone, +leaving nothing to show. As an adjunct, as an accessory, he was perfect. Many a +woman would have adored to have him about her all her life, the most beautiful +and desirable of all her possessions. But Winifred belonged to another school. +</p> + +<p> +The years went by, and instead of coming more to grips with life, he relaxed +more. He was of a subtle, sensitive, passionate nature. But he simply +<i>would</i> not give himself to what Winifred called life, <i>Work</i>. No, he +would not go into the world and work for money. No, he just would not. If +Winifred liked to live beyond their small income—well, it was her +look-out. +</p> + +<p> +And Winifred did not really want him to go out into the world to work for +money. Money became, alas, a word like a firebrand between them, setting them +both aflame with anger. But that is because we must talk in symbols. Winifred +did not really care about money. She did not care whether he earned or did not +earn anything. Only she knew she was dependent on her father for three-fourths +of the money spent for herself and her children, that she let that be the +<i>casus belli</i>, the drawn weapon between herself and Egbert. +</p> + +<p> +What did she want—what did she want? Her mother once said to her, with +that characteristic touch of irony: “Well, dear, if it is your fate to +consider the lilies, that toil not, neither do they spin, that is one destiny +among many others, and perhaps not so unpleasant as most. Why do you take it +amiss, my child?” +</p> + +<p> +The mother was subtler than her children, they very rarely knew how to answer +her. So Winifred was only more confused. It was not a question of lilies. At +least, if it were a question of lilies, then her children were the little +blossoms. They at least <i>grew</i>. Doesn’t Jesus say: “Consider +the lilies <i>how they grow</i>.” Good then, she had her growing babies. +But as for that other tall, handsome flower of a father of theirs, he was full +grown already, so she did not want to spend her life considering him in the +flower of his days. +</p> + +<p> +No, it was not that he didn’t earn money. It was not that he was idle. He +was <i>not</i> idle. He was always doing something, always working away, down +at Crockham, doing little jobs. But, oh dear, the little jobs—the garden +paths—the gorgeous flowers—the chairs to mend, old chairs to mend! +</p> + +<p> +It was that he stood for nothing. If he had done something unsuccessfully, and +<i>lost</i> what money they had! If he had but striven with something. Nay, +even if he had been wicked, a waster, she would have been more free. She would +have had something to resist, at least. A waster stands for something, really. +He says: “No, I will not aid and abet society in this business of +increase and hanging together, I will upset the apple-cart as much as I can, in +my small way.” Or else he says: “No, I will <i>not</i> bother about +others. If I have lusts, they are my own, and I prefer them to other +people’s virtues.” So, a waster, a scamp, takes a sort of stand. He +exposes himself to opposition and final castigation: at any rate in +story-books. +</p> + +<p> +But Egbert! What are you to do with a man like Egbert? He had no vices. He was +really kind, nay generous. And he was not weak. If he had been weak Winifred +could have been kind to him. But he did not even give her that consolation. He +was not weak, and he did not want her consolation or her kindness. No, thank +you. He was of a fine passionate temper, and of a rarer steel than she. He knew +it, and she knew it. Hence she was only the more baffled and maddened, poor +thing. He, the higher, the finer, in his way the stronger, played with his +garden, and his old folk-songs and Morris-dances, just played, and let her +support the pillars of the future on her own heart. +</p> + +<p> +And he began to get bitter, and a wicked look began to come on his face. He did +not give in to her; not he. There were seven devils inside his long, slim, +white body. He was healthy, full of restrained life. Yes, even he himself had +to lock up his own vivid life inside himself, now she would not take it from +him. Or rather, now that she only took it occasionally. For she had to yield at +times. She loved him so, she desired him so, he was so exquisite to her, the +fine creature that he was, finer than herself. Yes, with a groan she had to +give in to her own unquenched passion for him. And he came to her +then—ah, terrible, ah, wonderful, sometimes she wondered how either of +them could live after the terror of the passion that swept between them. It was +to her as if pure lightning, flash after flash, went through every fibre of +her, till extinction came. +</p> + +<p> +But it is the fate of human beings to live on. And it is the fate of clouds +that seem nothing but bits of vapour slowly to pile up, to pile up and fill the +heavens and blacken the sun entirely. +</p> + +<p> +So it was. The love came back, the lightning of passion flashed tremendously +between them. And there was blue sky and gorgeousness for a little while. And +then, as inevitably, as inevitably, slowly the clouds began to edge up again +above the horizon, slowly, slowly to lurk about the heavens, throwing an +occasional cold and hateful shadow: slowly, slowly to congregate, to fill the +empyrean space. +</p> + +<p> +And as the years passed, the lightning cleared the sky more and more rarely, +less and less the blue showed. Gradually the grey lid sank down upon them, as +if it would be permanent. +</p> + +<p> +Why didn’t Egbert do something, then? Why didn’t he come to grips +with life? Why wasn’t he like Winifred’s father, a pillar of +society, even if a slender, exquisite column? Why didn’t he go into +harness of some sort? Why didn’t he take <i>some</i> direction? +</p> + +<p> +Well, you can bring an ass to the water, but you cannot make him drink. The +world was the water and Egbert was the ass. And he wasn’t having any. He +couldn’t: he just couldn’t. Since necessity did not force him to +work for his bread and butter, he would not work for work’s sake. You +can’t make the columbine flowers nod in January, nor make the cuckoo sing +in England at Christmas. Why? It isn’t his season. He doesn’t want +to. Nay, he <i>can’t</i> want to. +</p> + +<p> +And there it was with Egbert. He couldn’t link up with the world’s +work, because the basic desire was absent from him. Nay, at the bottom of him +he had an even stronger desire: to hold aloof. To hold aloof. To do nobody any +damage. But to hold aloof. It was not his season. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps he should not have married and had children. But you can’t stop +the waters flowing. +</p> + +<p> +Which held true for Winifred, too. She was not made to endure aloof. Her family +tree was a robust vegetation that had to be stirring and believing. In one +direction or another her life <i>had</i> to go. In her own home she had known +nothing of this diffidence which she found in Egbert, and which she could not +understand, and which threw her into such dismay. What was she to do, what was +she to do, in face of this terrible diffidence? +</p> + +<p> +It was all so different in her own home. Her father may have had his own +misgivings, but he kept them to himself. Perhaps he had no very profound belief +in this world of ours, this society which we have elaborated with so much +effort, only to find ourselves elaborated to death at last. But Godfrey +Marshall was of tough, rough fibre, not without a vein of healthy cunning +through it all. It was for him a question of winning through, and leaving the +rest to heaven. Without having many illusions to grace him, he still <i>did</i> +believe in heaven. In a dark and unquestioning way, he had a sort of faith: an +acrid faith like the sap of some not-to-be-exterminated tree. Just a blind +acrid faith as sap is blind and acrid, and yet pushes on in growth and in +faith. Perhaps he was unscrupulous, but only as a striving tree is +unscrupulous, pushing its single way in a jungle of others. +</p> + +<p> +In the end, it is only this robust, sap-like faith which keeps man going. He +may live on for many generations inside the shelter of the social establishment +which he has erected for himself, as pear-trees and currant bushes would go on +bearing fruit for many seasons, inside a walled garden, even if the race of man +were suddenly exterminated. But bit by bit the wall-fruit-trees would gradually +pull down the very walls that sustained them. Bit by bit every establishment +collapses, unless it is renewed or restored by living hands, all the while. +</p> + +<p> +Egbert could not bring himself to any more of this restoring or renewing +business. He was not aware of the fact: but awareness doesn’t help much, +anyhow. He just couldn’t. He had the stoic and epicurean quality of his +old, fine breeding. His father-in-law, however, though he was not one bit more +of a fool than Egbert, realised that since we are here we may as well live. And +so he applied himself to his own tiny section of the social work, and to doing +the best for his family, and to leaving the rest to the ultimate will of +heaven. A certain robustness of blood made him able to go on. But sometimes +even from him spurted a sudden gall of bitterness against the world and its +make-up. And yet—he had his own will-to-succeed, and this carried him +through. He refused to ask himself what the success would amount to. It +amounted to the estate down in Hampshire, and his children lacking for nothing, +and himself of some importance in the world: and <i>basta!</i>—Basta! +Basta! +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless do not let us imagine that he was a common pusher. He was not. He +knew as well as Egbert what disillusion meant. Perhaps in his soul he had the +same estimation of success. But he had a certain acrid courage, and a certain +will-to-power. In his own small circle he would emanate power, the single power +of his own blind self. With all his spoiling of his children, he was still the +father of the old English type. He was too wise to make laws and to domineer in +the abstract. But he had kept, and all honour to him, a certain primitive +dominion over the souls of his children, the old, almost magic prestige of +paternity. There it was, still burning in him, the old smoky torch or paternal +godhead. +</p> + +<p> +And in the sacred glare of this torch his children had been brought up. He had +given the girls every liberty, at last. But he had never really let them go +beyond his power. And they, venturing out into the hard white light of our +fatherless world, learned to see with the eyes of the world. They learned to +criticize their father, even, from some effulgence of worldly white light, to +see him as inferior. But this was all very well in the head. The moment they +forgot their tricks of criticism, the old red glow of his authority came over +them again. He was not to be quenched. +</p> + +<p> +Let the psychoanalysts talk about father complex. It is just a word invented. +Here was a man who had kept alive the old red flame of fatherhood, fatherhood +that had even the right to sacrifice the child to God, like Isaac. Fatherhood +that had life-and-death authority over the children: a great natural power. And +till his children could be brought under some other great authority as girls; +or could arrive at manhood and become themselves centres of the same power, +continuing the same male mystery as men; until such time, willy-nilly, Godfrey +Marshall would keep his children. +</p> + +<p> +It had seemed as if he might lose Winifred. Winifred had <i>adored</i> her +husband, and looked up to him as to something wonderful. Perhaps she had +expected in him another great authority, a male authority greater, finer than +her father’s. For having once known the glow of male power, she would not +easily turn to the cold white light of feminine independence. She would hunger, +hunger all her life for the warmth and shelter of true male strength. +</p> + +<p> +And hunger she might, for Egbert’s power lay in the abnegation of power. +He was himself the living negative of power. Even of responsibility. For the +negation of power at last means the negation of responsibility. As far as these +things went, he would confine himself to himself. He would try to confine his +own <i>influence</i> even to himself. He would try, as far as possible, to +abstain from influencing his children by assuming any responsibility for them. +“A little child shall lead them—” His child should lead, +then. He would try not to make it go in any direction whatever. He would +abstain from influencing it. Liberty!— +</p> + +<p> +Poor Winifred was like a fish out of water in this liberty, gasping for the +denser element which should contain her. Till her child came. And then she knew +that she must be responsible for it, that she must have authority over it. +</p> + +<p> +But here Egbert silently and negatively stepped in. Silently, negatively, but +fatally he neutralized her authority over her children. +</p> + +<p> +There was a third little girl born. And after this Winifred wanted no more +children. Her soul was turning to salt. +</p> + +<p> +So she had charge of the children, they were her responsibility. The money for +them had come from her father. She would do her very best for them, and have +command over their life and death. But no! Egbert would not take the +responsibility. He would not even provide the money. But he would not let her +have her way. Her dark, silent, passionate authority he would not allow. It was +a battle between them, the battle between liberty and the old blood-power. And +of course he won. The little girls loved him and adored him. “Daddy! +Daddy!” They could do as they liked with him. Their mother would have +ruled them. She would have ruled them passionately, with indulgence, with the +old dark magic of parental authority, something looming and unquestioned and, +after all, divine: if we believe in divine authority. The Marshalls did, being +Catholic. +</p> + +<p> +And Egbert, he turned her old dark, Catholic blood-authority into a sort of +tyranny. He would not leave her her children. He stole them from her, and yet +without assuming responsibility for them. He stole them from her, in emotion +and spirit, and left her only to command their behaviour. A thankless lot for a +mother. And her children adored him, adored him, little knowing the empty +bitterness they were preparing for themselves when they too grew up to have +husbands: husbands such as Egbert, adorable and null. +</p> + +<p> +Joyce, the eldest, was still his favourite. She was now a quicksilver little +thing of six years old. Barbara, the youngest, was a toddler of two years. They +spent most of their time down at Crockham, because he wanted to be there. And +even Winifred loved the place really. But now, in her frustrated and blinded +state, it was full of menace for her children. The adders, the poison-berries, +the brook, the marsh, the water that might not be pure—one thing and +another. From mother and nurse it was a guerilla gunfire of commands, and +blithe, quicksilver disobedience from the three blonde, never-still little +girls. Behind the girls was the father, against mother and nurse. And so it +was. +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t come quick, nurse, I shall run out there to where +there are snakes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Joyce, you <i>must</i> be patient. I’m just changing +Annabel.” +</p> + +<p> +There you are. There it was: always the same. Working away on the common across +the brook he heard it. And he worked on, just the same. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly he heard a shriek, and he flung the spade from him and started for the +bridge, looking up like a startled deer. Ah, there was Winifred—Joyce had +hurt herself. He went on up the garden. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” +</p> + +<p> +The child was still screaming—now it was—“Daddy! Daddy! +Oh—oh, Daddy!” And the mother was saying: +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be frightened, darling. Let mother look.” +</p> + +<p> +But the child only cried: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” +</p> + +<p> +She was terrified by the sight of the blood running from her own knee. Winifred +crouched down, with her child of six in her lap, to examine the knee. Egbert +bent over also. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t make such a noise, Joyce,” he said irritably. +“How did she do it?” +</p> + +<p> +“She fell on that sickle thing which you left lying about after cutting +the grass,” said Winifred, looking into his face with bitter accusation +as he bent near. +</p> + +<p> +He had taken his handkerchief and tied it round the knee. Then he lifted the +still sobbing child in his arms, and carried her into the house and upstairs to +her bed. In his arms she became quiet. But his heart was burning with pain and +with guilt. He had left the sickle there lying on the edge of the grass, and so +his first-born child whom he loved so dearly had come to hurt. But then it was +an accident—it was an accident. Why should he feel guilty? It would +probably be nothing, better in two or three days. Why take it to heart, why +worry? He put it aside. +</p> + +<p> +The child lay on the bed in her little summer frock, her face very white now +after the shock, Nurse had come carrying the youngest child: and little Annabel +stood holding her skirt. Winifred, terribly serious and wooden-seeming, was +bending over the knee, from which she had taken his blood-soaked handkerchief. +Egbert bent forward, too, keeping more <i>sang-froid</i> in his face than in his +heart. Winifred went all of a lump of seriousness, so he had to keep some +reserve. The child moaned and whimpered. +</p> + +<p> +The knee was still bleeding profusely—it was a deep cut right in the +joint. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better go for the doctor, Egbert,” said Winifred +bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no! Oh, no!” cried Joyce in a panic. +</p> + +<p> +“Joyce, my darling, don’t cry!” said Winifred, suddenly +catching the little girl to her breast in a strange tragic anguish, the +<i>Mater Dolorata</i>. Even the child was frightened into silence. Egbert +looked at the tragic figure of his wife with the child at her breast, and +turned away. Only Annabel started suddenly to cry: “Joycey, Joycey, +don’t have your leg bleeding!” +</p> + +<p> +Egbert rode four miles to the village for the doctor. He could not help feeling +that Winifred was laying it on rather. Surely the knee itself wasn’t +hurt! Surely not. It was only a surface cut. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor was out. Egbert left the message and came cycling swiftly home, his +heart pinched with anxiety. He dropped sweating off his bicycle and went into +the house, looking rather small, like a man who is at fault. Winifred was +upstairs sitting by Joyce, who was looking pale and important in bed, and was +eating some tapioca pudding. The pale, small, scared face of his child went to +Egbert’s heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor Wing was out. He’ll be here about half past two,” +said Egbert. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want him to come,” whimpered Joyce. +</p> + +<p> +“Joyce, dear, you must be patient and quiet,” said Winifred. +“He won’t hurt you. But he will tell us what to do to make your +knee better quickly. That is why he must come.” +</p> + +<p> +Winifred always explained carefully to her little girls: and it always took the +words off their lips for the moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Does it bleed yet?” said Egbert. +</p> + +<p> +Winifred moved the bedclothes carefully aside. +</p> + +<p> +“I think not,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Egbert stooped also to look. +</p> + +<p> +“No, it doesn’t,” she said. Then he stood up with a relieved +look on his face. He turned to the child. +</p> + +<p> +“Eat your pudding, Joyce,” he said. “It won’t be +anything. You’ve only got to keep still for a few days.” +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t had your dinner, have you, Daddy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nurse will give it to you,” said Winifred. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll be all right, Joyce,” he said, smiling to the child +and pushing the blonde hair off her brow. She smiled back winsomely into his +face. +</p> + +<p> +He went downstairs and ate his meal alone. Nurse served him. She liked waiting +on him. All women liked him and liked to do things for him. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor came—a fat country practitioner, pleasant and kind. +</p> + +<p> +“What, little girl, been tumbling down, have you? There’s a thing +to be doing, for a smart little lady like you! What! And cutting your knee! +Tut-tut-tut! That <i>wasn’t</i> clever of you, now was it? Never mind, +never mind, soon be better. Let us look at it. Won’t hurt you. Not the +least in life. Bring a bowl with a little warm water, nurse. Soon have it all +right again, soon have it all right.” +</p> + +<p> +Joyce smiled at him with a pale smile of faint superiority. This was <i>not</i> +the way in which she was used to being talked to. +</p> + +<p> +He bent down, carefully looking at the little, thin, wounded knee of the child. +Egbert bent over him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dear, oh, dear! Quite a deep little cut. Nasty little cut. Nasty +little cut. But, never mind. Never mind, little lady. We’ll soon have it +better. Soon have it better, little lady. What’s your name?” +</p> + +<p> +“My name is Joyce,” said the child distinctly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, really!” he replied. “Oh, really! Well, that’s a +fine name too, in my opinion. Joyce, eh?—And how old might Miss Joyce be? +Can she tell me that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m six,” said the child, slightly amused and very +condescending. +</p> + +<p> +“Six! There now. Add up and count as far as six, can you? Well, +that’s a clever little girl, a clever little girl. And if she has to +drink a spoonful of medicine, she won’t make a murmur, I’ll be +bound. Not like <i>some</i> little girls. What? Eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“I take it if mother wishes me to,” said Joyce. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, there now! That’s the style! That’s what I like to hear +from a little lady in bed because she’s cut her knee. That’s the +style—” +</p> + +<p> +The comfortable and prolix doctor dressed and bandaged the knee and recommended +bed and a light diet for the little lady. He thought a week or a fortnight +would put it right. No bones or ligatures damaged—fortunately. Only a +flesh cut. He would come again in a day or two. +</p> + +<p> +So Joyce was reassured and stayed in bed and had all her toys up. Her father +often played with her. The doctor came the third day. He was fairly pleased +with the knee. It was healing. It was healing—yes—yes. Let the +child continue in bed. He came again after a day or two. Winifred was a trifle +uneasy. The wound seemed to be healing on the top, but it hurt the child too +much. It didn’t look quite right. She said so to Egbert. +</p> + +<p> +“Egbert, I’m sure Joyce’s knee isn’t healing +properly.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it is,” he said. “I think it’s all +right.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d rather Doctor Wing came again—I don’t feel +satisfied.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you trying to imagine it worse than it really is?” +</p> + +<p> +“You would say so, of course. But I shall write a post-card to Doctor +Wing now.” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor came next day. He examined the knee. Yes, there was inflammation. +Yes, there <i>might</i> be a little septic poisoning—there might. There +might. Was the child feverish? +</p> + +<p> +So a fortnight passed by, and the child <i>was</i> feverish, and the knee was +more inflamed and grew worse and was painful, painful. She cried in the night, +and her mother had to sit up with her. Egbert still insisted it was nothing, +really—it would pass. But in his heart he was anxious. +</p> + +<p> +Winifred wrote again to her father. On Saturday the elderly man appeared. And +no sooner did Winifred see the thick, rather short figure in its grey suit than +a great yearning came over her. +</p> + +<p> +“Father, I’m not satisfied with Joyce. I’m not satisfied with +Doctor Wing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Winnie, dear, if you’re not satisfied we must have further +advice, that is all.” +</p> + +<p> +The sturdy, powerful, elderly man went upstairs, his voice sounding rather +grating through the house, as if it cut upon the tense atmosphere. +</p> + +<p> +“How are you, Joyce, darling?” he said to the child. “Does +your knee hurt you? Does it hurt you, dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“It does sometimes.” The child was shy of him, cold towards him. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, dear, I’m sorry for that. I hope you try to bear it, and not +trouble mother too much.” +</p> + +<p> +There was no answer. He looked at the knee. It was red and stiff. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” he said, “I think we must have another +doctor’s opinion. And if we’re going to have it, we had better have +it at once. Egbert, do you think you might cycle in to Bingham for Doctor +Wayne? I found him very satisfactory for Winnie’s mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can go if you think it necessary,” said Egbert. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly I think it necessary. Even if there <i>is</i> nothing, we can +have peace of mind. Certainly I think it necessary. I should like Doctor Wayne +to come this evening if possible.” +</p> + +<p> +So Egbert set off on his bicycle through the wind, like a boy sent on an +errand, leaving his father-in-law a pillar of assurance, with Winifred. +</p> + +<p> +Doctor Wayne came, and looked grave. Yes, the knee was certainly taking the +wrong way. The child might be lame for life. +</p> + +<p> +Up went the fire and fear and anger in every heart. Doctor Wayne came again the +next day for a proper examination. And, yes, the knee had really taken bad +ways. It should be X-rayed. It was very important. +</p> + +<p> +Godfrey Marshall walked up and down the lane with the doctor, beside the +standing motor-car: up and down, up and down in one of those consultations of +which he had had so many in his life. +</p> + +<p> +As a result he came indoors to Winifred. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Winnie, dear, the best thing to do is to take Joyce up to London, +to a nursing home where she can have proper treatment. Of course this knee has +been allowed to go wrong. And apparently there is a risk that the child may +even lose her leg. What do you think, dear? You agree to our taking her up to +town and putting her under the best care?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, father, you <i>know</i> I would do anything on earth for her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know you would, Winnie darling. The pity is that there has been this +unfortunate delay already. I can’t think what Doctor Wing was doing. +Apparently the child is in danger of losing her leg. Well then, if you will +have everything ready, we will take her up to town tomorrow. I will order the +large car from Denley’s to be here at ten. Egbert, will you take a +telegram at once to Doctor Jackson? It is a small nursing home for children and +for surgical cases, not far from Baker Street. I’m sure Joyce will be all +right there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, father, can’t I nurse her myself!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, darling, if she is to have proper treatment, she had best be in a +home. The X-ray treatment, and the electric treatment, and whatever is +necessary.” +</p> + +<p> +“It will cost a great deal—” said Winifred. +</p> + +<p> +“We can’t think of cost, if the child’s leg is in +danger—or even her life. No use speaking of cost,” said the elder +man impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +And so it was. Poor Joyce, stretched out on a bed in the big closed +motor-car—the mother sitting by her head, the grandfather in his short +grey beard and a bowler hat, sitting by her feet, thick, and implacable in his +responsibility—they rolled slowly away from Crockham, and from Egbert who +stood there bareheaded and a little ignominious, left behind. He was to shut up +the house and bring the rest of the family back to town, by train, the next +day. +</p> + +<p> +Followed a dark and bitter time. The poor child. The poor, poor child, how she +suffered, an agony and a long crucifixion in that nursing home. It was a bitter +six weeks which changed the soul of Winifred for ever. As she sat by the bed of +her poor, tortured little child, tortured with the agony of the knee, and the +still worse agony of these diabolic, but perhaps necessary modern treatments, +she felt her heart killed and going cold in her breast. Her little Joyce, her +frail, brave, wonderful, little Joyce, frail and small and pale as a white +flower! Ah, how had she, Winifred, dared to be so wicked, so wicked, so +careless, so sensual. +</p> + +<p> +“Let my heart die! Let my woman’s heart of flesh die! Saviour, let +my heart die. And save my child. Let my heart die from the world and from the +flesh. Oh, destroy my heart that is so wayward. Let my heart of pride die. Let +my heart die.” +</p> + +<p> +So she prayed beside the bed of her child. And like the Mother with the seven +swords in her breast, slowly her heart of pride and passion died in her breast, +bleeding away. Slowly it died, bleeding away, and she turned to the Church for +comfort, to Jesus, to the Mother of God, but most of all, to that great and +enduring institution, the Roman Catholic Church. She withdrew into the shadow +of the Church. She was a mother with three children. But in her soul she died, +her heart of pride and passion and desire bled to death, her soul belonged to +her church, her body belonged to her duty as a mother. +</p> + +<p> +Her duty as a wife did not enter. As a wife she had no sense of duty: only a +certain bitterness towards the man with whom she had known such sensuality and +distraction. She was purely the <i>Mater Dolorata</i>. To the man she was +closed as a tomb. +</p> + +<p> +Egbert came to see his child. But Winifred seemed to be always seated there, +like the tomb of his manhood and his fatherhood. Poor Winifred: she was still +young, still strong and ruddy and beautiful like a ruddy hard flower of the +field. Strange—her ruddy, healthy face, so sombre, and her strong, heavy, +full-blooded body, so still. She, a nun! Never. And yet the gates of her heart +and soul had shut in his face with a slow, resonant clang, shutting him out for +ever. There was no need for her to go into a convent. Her will had done it. +</p> + +<p> +And between this young mother and this young father lay the crippled child, +like a bit of pale silk floss on the pillow, and a little white pain-quenched +face. He could not bear it. He just could not bear it. He turned aside. There +was nothing to do but to turn aside. He turned aside, and went hither and +thither, desultory. He was still attractive and desirable. But there was a +little frown between his brow as if he had been cleft there with a hatchet: +cleft right in, for ever, and that was the stigma. +</p> + +<p> +The child’s leg was saved: but the knee was locked stiff. The fear now +was lest the lower leg should wither, or cease to grow. There must be +long-continued massage and treatment, daily treatment, even when the child left +the nursing home. And the whole of the expense was borne by the grandfather. +</p> + +<p> +Egbert now had no real home. Winifred with the children and nurse was tied to +the little flat in London. He could not live there: he could not contain +himself. The cottage was shut-up—or lent to friends. He went down +sometimes to work in his garden and keep the place in order. Then with the +empty house around him at night, all the empty rooms, he felt his heart go +wicked. The sense of frustration and futility, like some slow, torpid snake, +slowly bit right through his heart. Futility, futility: the horrible +marsh-poison went through his veins and killed him. +</p> + +<p> +As he worked in the garden in the silence of day he would listen for a sound. +No sound. No sound of Winifred from the dark inside of the cottage: no sound of +children’s voices from the air, from the common, from the near distance. +No sound, nothing but the old dark marsh-venomous atmosphere of the place. So +he worked spasmodically through the day, and at night made a fire and cooked +some food alone. +</p> + +<p> +He was alone. He himself cleaned the cottage and made his bed. But his mending +he did not do. His shirts were slit on the shoulders, when he had been working, +and the white flesh showed through. He would feel the air and the spots of rain +on his exposed flesh. And he would look again across the common, where the +dark, tufted gorse was dying to seed, and the bits of cat-heather were coming +pink in tufts, like a sprinkling of sacrificial blood. +</p> + +<p> +His heart went back to the savage old spirit of the place: the desire for old +gods, old, lost passions, the passion of the cold-blooded, darting snakes that +hissed and shot away from him, the mystery of blood-sacrifices, all the lost, +intense sensations of the primeval people of the place, whose passions seethed +in the air still, from those long days before the Romans came. The seethe of a +lost, dark passion in the air. The presence of unseen snakes. +</p> + +<p> +A queer, baffled, half-wicked look came on his face. He could not stay long at +the cottage. Suddenly he must swing on to his bicycle and go—anywhere. +Anywhere, away from the place. He would stay a few days with his mother in the +old home. His mother adored him and grieved as a mother would. But the little, +baffled, half-wicked smile curled on his face, and he swung away from his +mother’s solicitude as from everything else. +</p> + +<p> +Always moving on—from place to place, friend to friend: and always +swinging away from sympathy. As soon as sympathy, like a soft hand, was reached +out to touch him, away he swerved, instinctively, as a harmless snake swerves +and swerves and swerves away from an outstretched hand. Away he must go. And +periodically he went back to Winifred. +</p> + +<p> +He was terrible to her now, like a temptation. She had devoted herself to her +children and her church. Joyce was once more on her feet; but, alas! lame, with +iron supports to her leg, and a little crutch. It was strange how she had grown +into a long, pallid, wild little thing. Strange that the pain had not made her +soft and docile, but had brought out a wild, almost maenad temper in the child. +She was seven, and long and white and thin, but by no means subdued. Her blonde +hair was darkening. She still had long sufferings to face, and, in her own +childish consciousness, the stigma of her lameness to bear. +</p> + +<p> +And she bore it. An almost maenad courage seemed to possess her, as if she were +a long, thin, young weapon of life. She acknowledged all her mother’s +care. She would stand by her mother for ever. But some of her father’s +fine-tempered desperation flashed in her. +</p> + +<p> +When Egbert saw his little girl limping horribly—not only limping but +lurching horribly in crippled, childish way, his heart again hardened with +chagrin, like steel that is tempered again. There was a tacit understanding +between him and his little girl: not what we would call love, but a weapon-like +kinship. There was a tiny touch of irony in his manner towards her, contrasting +sharply with Winifred’s heavy, unleavened solicitude and care. The child +flickered back to him with an answering little smile of irony and recklessness: +an odd flippancy which made Winifred only the more sombre and earnest. +</p> + +<p> +The Marshalls took endless thought and trouble for the child, searching out +every means to save her limb and her active freedom. They spared no effort and +no money, they spared no strength of will. With all their slow, heavy power of +will they willed that Joyce should save her liberty of movement, should win +back her wild, free grace. Even if it took a long time to recover, it should be +recovered. +</p> + +<p> +So the situation stood. And Joyce submitted, week after week, month after month +to the tyranny and pain of the treatment. She acknowledged the honourable +effort on her behalf. But her flamy reckless spirit was her father’s. It +was he who had all the glamour for her. He and she were like members of some +forbidden secret society who know one another but may not recognise one +another. Knowledge they had in common, the same secret of life, the father and +the child. But the child stayed in the camp of her mother, honourably, and the +father wandered outside like Ishmael, only coming sometimes to sit in the home +for an hour or two, an evening or two beside the camp fire, like Ishmael, in a +curious silence and tension, with the mocking answer of the desert speaking out +of his silence, and annulling the whole convention of the domestic home. +</p> + +<p> +His presence was almost an anguish to Winifred. She prayed against it. That +little cleft between his brow, that flickering, wicked, little smile that +seemed to haunt his face, and above all, the triumphant loneliness, the Ishmael +quality. And then the erectness of his supple body, like a symbol. The very way +he stood, so quiet, so insidious, like an erect, supple symbol of life, the +living body, confronting her downcast soul, was torture to her. He was like a +supple living idol moving before her eyes, and she felt if she watched him she +was damned. +</p> + +<p> +And he came and made himself at home in her little home. When he was there, +moving in his own quiet way, she felt as if the whole great law of sacrifice, +by which she had elected to live, were annulled. He annulled by his very +presence the laws of her life. And what did he substitute? Ah, against that +question she hardened herself in recoil. +</p> + +<p> +It was awful to her to have to have him about—moving about in his +shirt-sleeves, speaking in his tenor, throaty voice to the children. Annabel +simply adored him, and he teased the little girl. The baby, Barbara, was not +sure of him. She had been born a stranger to him. But even the nurse, when she +saw his white shoulder of flesh through the slits of his torn shirt, thought it +a shame. +</p> + +<p> +Winifred felt it was only another weapon of his against her. +</p> + +<p> +“You have other shirts—why do you wear that old one that is all +torn, Egbert?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I may as well wear it out,” he said subtly. +</p> + +<p> +He knew she would not offer to mend it for him. She <i>could</i> not. And no, +she would not. Had she not her own gods to honour? And could she betray them, +submitting to his Baal and Ashtaroth? And it was terrible to her, his +unsheathed presence, that seemed to annul her and her faith, like another +revelation. Like a gleaming idol evoked against her, a vivid life-idol that +might triumph. +</p> + +<p> +He came and he went—and she persisted. And then the great war broke out. +He was a man who could not go to the dogs. He could not dissipate himself. He +was pure-bred in his Englishness, and even when he would have killed to be +vicious, he could not. +</p> + +<p> +So when the war broke out his whole instinct was against it: against war. He +had not the faintest desire to overcome any foreigners or to help in their +death. He had no conception of Imperial England, and Rule Britannia was just a +joke to him. He was a pure-blooded Englishman, perfect in his race, and when he +was truly himself he could no more have been aggressive on the score of his +Englishness than a rose can be aggressive on the score of its rosiness. +</p> + +<p> +No, he had no desire to defy Germany and to exalt England. The distinction +between German and English was not for him the distinction between good and +bad. It was the distinction between blue water-flowers and red or white +bush-blossoms: just difference. The difference between the wild boar and the +wild bear. And a man was good or bad according to his nature, not according to +his nationality. +</p> + +<p> +Egbert was well-bred, and this was part of his natural understanding. It was +merely unnatural to him to hate a nation <i>en bloc</i>. Certain individuals he +disliked, and others he liked, and the mass he knew nothing about. Certain +deeds he disliked, certain deeds seemed natural to him, and about most deeds he +had no particular feeling. +</p> + +<p> +He had, however, the one deepest pure-bred instinct. He recoiled inevitably +from having his feelings dictated to him by the mass feeling. His feelings were +his own, his understanding was his own, and he would never go back on either, +willingly. Shall a man become inferior to his own true knowledge and self, just +because the mob expects it of him? +</p> + +<p> +What Egbert felt subtly and without question, his father-in-law felt also in a +rough, more combative way. Different as the two men were, they were two real +Englishmen, and their instincts were almost the same. +</p> + +<p> +And Godfrey Marshall had the world to reckon with. There was German military +aggression, and the English non-military idea of liberty and the +“conquests of peace”—meaning industrialism. Even if the +choice between militarism and industrialism were a choice of evils, the elderly +man asserted his choice of the latter, perforce. He whose soul was quick with +the instinct of power. +</p> + +<p> +Egbert just refused to reckon with the world. He just refused even to decide +between German militarism and British industrialism. He chose neither. As for +atrocities, he despised the people who committed them as inferior criminal +types. There was nothing national about crime. +</p> + +<p> +And yet, war! War! Just war! Not right or wrong, but just war itself. Should he +join? Should he give himself over to war? The question was in his mind for some +weeks. Not because he thought England was right and Germany wrong. Probably +Germany was wrong, but he refused to make a choice. Not because he felt +inspired. No. But just—war. +</p> + +<p> +The deterrent was, the giving himself over into the power of other men, and +into the power of the mob-spirit of a democratic army. Should he give himself +over? Should he make over his own life and body to the control of something +which he <i>knew</i> was inferior, in spirit, to his own self? Should he commit +himself into the power of an inferior control? Should he? Should he betray +himself? +</p> + +<p> +He was going to put himself into the power of his inferiors, and he knew it. He +was going to subjugate himself. He was going to be ordered about by petty +<i>canaille</i> of non-commissioned officers—and even commissioned +officers. He who was born and bred free. Should he do it? +</p> + +<p> +He went to his wife, to speak to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I join up, Winifred?” +</p> + +<p> +She was silent. Her instinct also was dead against it. And yet a certain +profound resentment made her answer: +</p> + +<p> +“You have three children dependent on you. I don’t know whether you +have thought of that.” +</p> + +<p> +It was still only the third month of the war, and the old pre-war ideas were +still alive. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course. But it won’t make much difference to them. I shall be +earning a shilling a day, at least.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better speak to father, I think,” she replied heavily. +</p> + +<p> +Egbert went to his father-in-law. The elderly man’s heart was full of +resentment. +</p> + +<p> +“I should say,” he said rather sourly, “it is the best thing +you could do.” +</p> + +<p> +Egbert went and joined up immediately, as a private soldier. He was drafted +into the light artillery. +</p> + +<p> +Winifred now had a new duty towards him: the duty of a wife towards a husband +who is himself performing his duty towards the world. She loved him still. She +would always love him, as far as earthly love went. But it was duty she now +lived by. When he came back to her in khaki, a soldier, she submitted to him as +a wife. It was her duty. But to his passion she could never again fully submit. +Something prevented her, for ever: even her own deepest choice. +</p> + +<p> +He went back again to camp. It did not suit him to be a modern soldier. In the +thick, gritty, hideous khaki his subtle physique was extinguished as if he had +been killed. In the ugly intimacy of the camp his thoroughbred sensibilities +were just degraded. But he had chosen, so he accepted. An ugly little look came +on to his face, of a man who has accepted his own degradation. +</p> + +<p> +In the early spring Winifred went down to Crockham to be there when primroses +were out, and the tassels hanging on the hazel-bushes. She felt something like +a reconciliation towards Egbert, now he was a prisoner in camp most of his +days. Joyce was wild with delight at seeing the garden and the common again, +after the eight or nine months of London and misery. She was still lame. She +still had the irons up her leg. But she lurched about with a wild, crippled +agility. +</p> + +<p> +Egbert came for a week-end, in his gritty, thick, sand-paper khaki and puttees +and the hideous cap. Nay, he looked terrible. And on his face a slightly impure +look, a little sore on his lip, as if he had eaten too much or drunk too much +or let his blood become a little unclean. He was almost uglily healthy, with +the camp life. It did not suit him. +</p> + +<p> +Winifred waited for him in a little passion of duty and sacrifice, willing to +serve the soldier, if not the man. It only made him feel a little more ugly +inside. The week-end was torment to him: the memory of the camp, the knowledge +of the life he led there; even the sight of his own legs in that abhorrent +khaki. He felt as if the hideous cloth went into his blood and made it gritty +and dirty. Then Winifred so ready to serve the <i>soldier</i>, when she +repudiated the man. And this made the grit worse between his teeth. And the +children running around playing and calling in the rather mincing fashion of +children who have nurses and governesses and literature in the family. And +Joyce so lame! It had all become unreal to him, after the camp. It only set his +soul on edge. He left at dawn on the Monday morning, glad to get back to the +realness and vulgarity of the camp. +</p> + +<p> +Winifred would never meet him again at the cottage—only in London, where +the world was with them. But sometimes he came alone to Crockham perhaps when +friends were staying there. And then he would work awhile in his garden. This +summer still it would flame with blue anchusas and big red poppies, the +mulleins would sway their soft, downy erections in the air: he loved mulleins: +and the honeysuckle would stream out scent like memory, when the owl was +whooing. Then he sat by the fire with the friends and with Winifred’s +sisters, and they sang the folk-songs. He put on thin civilian clothes and his +charm and his beauty and the supple dominancy of his body glowed out again. But +Winifred was not there. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of the summer he went to Flanders, into action. He seemed already to +have gone out of life, beyond the pale of life. He hardly remembered his life +any more, being like a man who is going to take a jump from a height, and is +only looking to where he must land. +</p> + +<p> +He was twice slightly wounded, in two months. But not enough to put him off +duty for more than a day or two. They were retiring again, holding the enemy +back. He was in the rear—three machine-guns. The country was all +pleasant, war had not yet trampled it. Only the air seemed shattered, and the +land awaiting death. It was a small, unimportant action in which he was +engaged. +</p> + +<p> +The guns were stationed on a little bushy hillock just outside a village. But +occasionally, it was difficult to say from which direction, came the sharp +crackle of rifle-fire, and beyond, the far-off thud of cannon. The afternoon +was wintry and cold. +</p> + +<p> +A lieutenant stood on a little iron platform at the top of the ladders, taking +the sights and giving the aim, calling in a high, tense, mechanical voice. Out +of the sky came the sharp cry of the directions, then the warning numbers, then +“Fire!” The shot went, the piston of the gun sprang back, there was +a sharp explosion, and a very faint film of smoke in the air. Then the other +two guns fired, and there was a lull. The officer was uncertain of the +enemy’s position. The thick clump of horse-chestnut trees below was +without change. Only in the far distance the sound of heavy firing continued, +so far off as to give a sense of peace. +</p> + +<p> +The gorse bushes on either hand were dark, but a few sparks of flowers showed +yellow. He noticed them almost unconsciously as he waited, in the lull. He was +in his shirt-sleeves, and the air came chill on his arms. Again his shirt was +slit on the shoulders, and the flesh showed through. He was dirty and unkempt. +But his face was quiet. So many things go out of consciousness before we come +to the end of consciousness. +</p> + +<p> +Before him, below, was the highroad, running between high banks of grass and +gorse. He saw the whitish muddy tracks and deep scores in the road, where the +part of the regiment had retired. Now all was still. Sounds that came, came +from the outside. The place where he stood was still silent, chill, serene: the +white church among the trees beyond seemed like a thought only. +</p> + +<p> +He moved into a lightning-like mechanical response at the sharp cry from the +officer overhead. Mechanism, the pure mechanical action of obedience at the +guns. Pure mechanical action at the guns. It left the soul unburdened, brooding +in dark nakedness. In the end, the soul is alone, brooding on the face of the +uncreated flux, as a bird on a dark sea. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing could be seen but the road, and a crucifix knocked slanting and the +dark, autumnal fields and woods. There appeared three horsemen on a little +eminence, very small, on the crest of a ploughed field. They were our own men. +Of the enemy, nothing. +</p> + +<p> +The lull continued. Then suddenly came sharp orders, and a new direction of the +guns, and an intense, exciting activity. Yet at the centre the soul remained +dark and aloof, alone. +</p> + +<p> +But even so, it was the soul that heard the new sound: the new, deep +“papp!” of a gun that seemed to touch right upon the soul. He kept +up the rapid activity at the machine-gun, sweating. But in his soul was the +echo of the new, deep sound, deeper than life. +</p> + +<p> +And in confirmation came the awful faint whistling of a shell, advancing almost +suddenly into a piercing, tearing shriek that would tear through the membrane +of life. He heard it in his ears, but he heard it also in his soul, in tension. +There was relief when the thing had swung by and struck, away beyond. He heard +the hoarseness of its explosion, and the voice of the soldier calling to the +horses. But he did not turn round to look. He only noticed a twig of holly with +red berries fall like a gift on to the road below. +</p> + +<p> +Not this time, not this time. Whither thou goest I will go. Did he say it to +the shell, or to whom? Whither thou goest I will go. Then, the faint whistling +of another shell dawned, and his blood became small and still to receive it. It +drew nearer, like some horrible blast of wind; his blood lost consciousness. +But in the second of suspension he saw the heavy shell swoop to earth, into the +rocky bushes on the right, and earth and stones poured up into the sky. It was +as if he heard no sound. The earth and stones and fragments of bush fell to +earth again, and there was the same unchanging peace. The Germans had got the +aim. +</p> + +<p> +Would they move now? Would they retire? Yes. The officer was giving the last +lightning-rapid orders to fire before withdrawing. A shell passed unnoticed in +the rapidity of action. And then, into the silence, into the suspense where the +soul brooded, finally crashed a noise and a darkness and a moment’s +flaming agony and horror. Ah, he had seen the dark bird flying towards him, +flying home this time. In one instant life and eternity went up in a +conflagration of agony, then there was a weight of darkness. +</p> + +<p> +When faintly something began to struggle in the darkness, a consciousness of +himself, he was aware of a great load and a clanging sound. To have known the +moment of death! And to be forced, before dying, to review it. So, fate, even +in death. +</p> + +<p> +There was a resounding of pain. It seemed to sound from the outside of his +consciousness: like a loud bell clanging very near. Yet he knew it was himself. +He must associate himself with it. After a lapse and a new effort, he +identified a pain in his head, a large pain that clanged and resounded. So far +he could identify himself with himself. Then there was a lapse. +</p> + +<p> +After a time he seemed to wake up again, and waking, to know that he was at the +front, and that he was killed. He did not open his eyes. Light was not yet his. +The clanging pain in his head rang out the rest of his consciousness. So he +lapsed away from consciousness, in unutterable sick abandon of life. +</p> + +<p> +Bit by bit, like a doom came the necessity to know. He was hit in the head. It +was only a vague surmise at first. But in the swinging of the pendulum of pain, +swinging ever nearer and nearer, to touch him into an agony of consciousness +and a consciousness of agony, gradually the knowledge emerged—he must be +hit in the head—hit on the left brow; if so, there would be +blood—was there blood?—could he feel blood in his left eye? Then +the clanging seemed to burst the membrane of his brain, like death-madness. +</p> + +<p> +Was there blood on his face? Was hot blood flowing? Or was it dry blood +congealing down his cheek? It took him hours even to ask the question: time +being no more than an agony in darkness, without measurement. +</p> + +<p> +A long time after he had opened his eyes he realised he was seeing +something—something, something, but the effort to recall what was too +great. No, no; no recall! +</p> + +<p> +Were they the stars in the dark sky? Was it possible it was stars in the dark +sky? Stars? The world? Ah, no, he could not know it! Stars and the world were +gone for him, he closed his eyes. No stars, no sky, no world. No, No! The thick +darkness of blood alone. It should be one great lapse into the thick darkness +of blood in agony. +</p> + +<p> +Death, oh, death! The world all blood, and the blood all writhing with death. +The soul like the tiniest little light out on a dark sea, the sea of blood. And +the light guttering, beating, pulsing in a windless storm, wishing it could go +out, yet unable. +</p> + +<p> +There had been life. There had been Winifred and his children. But the frail +death-agony effort to catch at straws of memory, straws of life from the past, +brought on too great a nausea. No, No! No Winifred, no children. No world, no +people. Better the agony of dissolution ahead than the nausea of the effort +backwards. Better the terrible work should go forward, the dissolving into the +black sea of death, in the extremity of dissolution, than that there should be +any reaching back towards life. To forget! To forget! Utterly, utterly to +forget, in the great forgetting of death. To break the core and the unit of +life, and to lapse out on the great darkness. Only that. To break the clue, and +mingle and commingle with the one darkness, without afterwards or forwards. Let +the black sea of death itself solve the problem of futurity. Let the will of +man break and give up. +</p> + +<p> +What was that? A light! A terrible light! Was it figures? Was it legs of a +horse colossal—colossal above him: huge, huge? +</p> + +<p> +The Germans heard a slight noise, and started. Then, in the glare of a +light-bomb, by the side of the heap of earth thrown up by the shell, they saw +the dead face. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>TICKETS, PLEASE</h2> + +<p> +There is in the Midlands a single-line tramway system which boldly leaves the +county town and plunges off into the black, industrial countryside, up hill and +down dale, through the long ugly villages of workmen’s houses, over +canals and railways, past churches perched high and nobly over the smoke and +shadows, through stark, grimy cold little market-places, tilting away in a rush +past cinemas and shops down to the hollow where the collieries are, then up +again, past a little rural church, under the ash trees, on in a rush to the +terminus, the last little ugly place of industry, the cold little town that +shivers on the edge of the wild, gloomy country beyond. There the green and +creamy coloured tram-car seems to pause and purr with curious satisfaction. But +in a few minutes—the clock on the turret of the Co-operative Wholesale +Society’s Shops gives the time—away it starts once more on the +adventure. Again there are the reckless swoops downhill, bouncing the loops: +again the chilly wait in the hill-top market-place: again the breathless +slithering round the precipitous drop under the church: again the patient halts +at the loops, waiting for the outcoming car: so on and on, for two long hours, +till at last the city looms beyond the fat gas-works, the narrow factories draw +near, we are in the sordid streets of the great town, once more we sidle to a +standstill at our terminus, abashed by the great crimson and cream-coloured +city cars, but still perky, jaunty, somewhat dare-devil, green as a jaunty +sprig of parsley out of a black colliery garden. +</p> + +<p> +To ride on these cars is always an adventure. Since we are in war-time, the +drivers are men unfit for active service: cripples and hunchbacks. So they have +the spirit of the devil in them. The ride becomes a steeple-chase. Hurray! we +have leapt in a clear jump over the canal bridges—now for the four-lane +corner. With a shriek and a trail of sparks we are clear again. To be sure, a +tram often leaps the rails—but what matter! It sits in a ditch till other +trams come to haul it out. It is quite common for a car, packed with one solid +mass of living people, to come to a dead halt in the midst of unbroken +blackness, the heart of nowhere on a dark night, and for the driver and the +girl conductor to call, “All get off—car’s on fire!” +Instead, however, of rushing out in a panic, the passengers stolidly reply: +“Get on—get on! We’re not coming out. We’re stopping +where we are. Push on, George.” So till flames actually appear. +</p> + +<p> +The reason for this reluctance to dismount is that the nights are howlingly +cold, black, and windswept, and a car is a haven of refuge. From village to +village the miners travel, for a change of cinema, of girl, of pub. The trams +are desperately packed. Who is going to risk himself in the black gulf outside, +to wait perhaps an hour for another tram, then to see the forlorn notice +“Depot Only,” because there is something wrong! Or to greet a unit +of three bright cars all so tight with people that they sail past with a howl +of derision. Trams that pass in the night. +</p> + +<p> +This, the most dangerous tram-service in England, as the authorities themselves +declare, with pride, is entirely conducted by girls, and driven by rash young +men, a little crippled, or by delicate young men, who creep forward in terror. +The girls are fearless young hussies. In their ugly blue uniform, skirts up to +their knees, shapeless old peaked caps on their heads, they have all the +<i>sang-froid</i> of an old non-commissioned officer. With a tram packed with +howling colliers, roaring hymns downstairs and a sort of antiphony of +obscenities upstairs, the lasses are perfectly at their ease. They pounce on +the youths who try to evade their ticket-machine. They push off the men at the +end of their distance. They are not going to be done in the eye—not they. +They fear nobody—and everybody fears them. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, Annie!” +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, Ted!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, mind my corn, Miss Stone. It’s my belief you’ve got a +heart of stone, for you’ve trod on it again.” +</p> + +<p> +“You should keep it in your pocket,” replies Miss Stone, and she +goes sturdily upstairs in her high boots. +</p> + +<p> +“Tickets, please.” +</p> + +<p> +She is peremptory, suspicious, and ready to hit first. She can hold her own +against ten thousand. The step of that tram-car is her Thermopylæ. +</p> + +<p> +Therefore, there is a certain wild romance aboard these cars—and in the +sturdy bosom of Annie herself. The time for soft romance is in the morning, +between ten o’clock and one, when things are rather slack: that is, +except market-day and Saturday. Thus Annie has time to look about her. Then she +often hops off her car and into a shop where she has spied something, while the +driver chats in the main road. There is very good feeling between the girls and +the drivers. Are they not companions in peril, shipments aboard this careering +vessel of a tram-car, for ever rocking on the waves of a stormy land? +</p> + +<p> +Then, also, during the easy hours, the inspectors are most in evidence. For +some reason, everybody employed in this tram-service is young: there are no +grey heads. It would not do. Therefore the inspectors are of the right age, and +one, the chief, is also good-looking. See him stand on a wet, gloomy morning, +in his long oil-skin, his peaked cap well down over his eyes, waiting to board +a car. His face is ruddy, his small brown moustache is weathered, he has a +faint impudent smile. Fairly tall and agile, even in his waterproof, he springs +aboard a car and greets Annie. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, Annie! Keeping the wet out?” +</p> + +<p> +“Trying to.” +</p> + +<p> +There are only two people in the car. Inspecting is soon over. Then for a long +and impudent chat on the foot-board, a good, easy, twelve-mile chat. +</p> + +<p> +The inspector’s name is John Thomas Raynor—always called John +Thomas, except sometimes, in malice, Coddy. His face sets in fury when he is +addressed, from a distance, with this abbreviation. There is considerable +scandal about John Thomas in half a dozen villages. He flirts with the girl +conductors in the morning, and walks out with them in the dark night, when they +leave their tram-car at the depôt. Of course, the girls quit the service +frequently. Then he flirts and walks out with the newcomer: always providing +she is sufficiently attractive, and that she will consent to walk. It is +remarkable, however, that most of the girls are quite comely, they are all +young, and this roving life aboard the car gives them a sailor’s dash and +recklessness. What matter how they behave when the ship is in port. Tomorrow +they will be aboard again. +</p> + +<p> +Annie, however, was something of a Tartar, and her sharp tongue had kept John +Thomas at arm’s length for many months. Perhaps, therefore, she liked him +all the more: for he always came up smiling, with impudence. She watched him +vanquish one girl, then another. She could tell by the movement of his mouth +and eyes, when he flirted with her in the morning, that he had been walking out +with this lass, or the other, the night before. A fine cock-of-the-walk he was. +She could sum him up pretty well. +</p> + +<p> +In this subtle antagonism they knew each other like old friends, they were as +shrewd with one another almost as man and wife. But Annie had always kept him +sufficiently at arm’s length. Besides, she had a boy of her own. +</p> + +<p> +The Statutes fair, however, came in November, at Bestwood. It happened that +Annie had the Monday night off. It was a drizzling ugly night, yet she dressed +herself up and went to the fair ground. She was alone, but she expected soon to +find a pal of some sort. +</p> + +<p> +The roundabouts were veering round and grinding out their music, the side shows +were making as much commotion as possible. In the cocoanut shies there were no +cocoanuts, but artificial war-time substitutes, which the lads declared were +fastened into the irons. There was a sad decline in brilliance and luxury. None +the less, the ground was muddy as ever, there was the same crush, the press of +faces lighted up by the flares and the electric lights, the same smell of +naphtha and a few fried potatoes, and of electricity. +</p> + +<p> +Who should be the first to greet Miss Annie on the showground but John Thomas? +He had a black overcoat buttoned up to his chin, and a tweed cap pulled down +over his brows, his face between was ruddy and smiling and handy as ever. She +knew so well the way his mouth moved. +</p> + +<p> +She was very glad to have a “boy”. To be at the Statutes without a +fellow was no fun. Instantly, like the gallant he was, he took her on the +dragons, grim-toothed, round-about switchbacks. It was not nearly so exciting +as a tram-car actually. But, then, to be seated in a shaking, green dragon, +uplifted above the sea of bubble faces, careering in a rickety fashion in the +lower heavens, whilst John Thomas leaned over her, his cigarette in his mouth, +was after all the right style. She was a plump, quick, alive little creature. +So she was quite excited and happy. +</p> + +<p> +John Thomas made her stay on for the next round. And therefore she could hardly +for shame repulse him when he put his arm round her and drew her a little +nearer to him, in a very warm and cuddly manner. Besides, he was fairly +discreet, he kept his movement as hidden as possible. She looked down, and saw +that his red, clean hand was out of sight of the crowd. And they knew each +other so well. So they warmed up to the fair. +</p> + +<p> +After the dragons they went on the horses. John Thomas paid each time, so she +could but be complaisant. He, of course, sat astride on the outer +horse—named “Black Bess”—and she sat sideways, towards +him, on the inner horse—named “Wildfire”. But of course John +Thomas was not going to sit discreetly on “Black Bess”, holding the +brass bar. Round they spun and heaved, in the light. And round he swung on his +wooden steed, flinging one leg across her mount, and perilously tipping up and +down, across the space, half lying back, laughing at her. He was perfectly +happy; she was afraid her hat was on one side, but she was excited. +</p> + +<p> +He threw quoits on a table, and won for her two large, pale-blue hat-pins. And +then, hearing the noise of the cinemas, announcing another performance, they +climbed the boards and went in. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, during these performances pitch darkness falls from time to time, +when the machine goes wrong. Then there is a wild whooping, and a loud smacking +of simulated kisses. In these moments John Thomas drew Annie towards him. After +all, he had a wonderfully warm, cosy way of holding a girl with his arm, he +seemed to make such a nice fit. And, after all, it was pleasant to be so held: +so very comforting and cosy and nice. He leaned over her and she felt his +breath on her hair; she knew he wanted to kiss her on the lips. And, after all, +he was so warm and she fitted in to him so softly. After all, she wanted him to +touch her lips. +</p> + +<p> +But the light sprang up; she also started electrically, and put her hat +straight. He left his arm lying nonchalantly behind her. Well, it was fun, it +was exciting to be at the Statutes with John Thomas. +</p> + +<p> +When the cinema was over they went for a walk across the dark, damp fields. He +had all the arts of love-making. He was especially good at holding a girl, when +he sat with her on a stile in the black, drizzling darkness. He seemed to be +holding her in space, against his own warmth and gratification. And his kisses +were soft and slow and searching. +</p> + +<p> +So Annie walked out with John Thomas, though she kept her own boy dangling in +the distance. Some of the tram-girls chose to be huffy. But there, you must +take things as you find them, in this life. +</p> + +<p> +There was no mistake about it, Annie liked John Thomas a good deal. She felt so +rich and warm in herself whenever he was near. And John Thomas really liked +Annie, more than usual. The soft, melting way in which she could flow into a +fellow, as if she melted into his very bones, was something rare and good. He +fully appreciated this. +</p> + +<p> +But with a developing acquaintance there began a developing intimacy. Annie +wanted to consider him a person, a man; she wanted to take an intelligent +interest in him, and to have an intelligent response. She did not want a mere +nocturnal presence, which was what he was so far. And she prided herself that +he could not leave her. +</p> + +<p> +Here she made a mistake. John Thomas intended to remain a nocturnal presence; +he had no idea of becoming an all-round individual to her. When she started to +take an intelligent interest in him and his life and his character, he sheered +off. He hated intelligent interest. And he knew that the only way to stop it +was to avoid it. The possessive female was aroused in Annie. So he left her. +</p> + +<p> +It is no use saying she was not surprised. She was at first startled, thrown +out of her count. For she had been so <i>very</i> sure of holding him. For a +while she was staggered, and everything became uncertain to her. Then she wept +with fury, indignation, desolation, and misery. Then she had a spasm of +despair. And then, when he came, still impudently, on to her car, still +familiar, but letting her see by the movement of his head that he had gone away +to somebody else for the time being, and was enjoying pastures new, then she +determined to have her own back. +</p> + +<p> +She had a very shrewd idea what girls John Thomas had taken out. She went to +Nora Purdy. Nora was a tall, rather pale, but well-built girl, with beautiful +yellow hair. She was rather secretive. +</p> + +<p> +“Hey!” said Annie, accosting her; then softly, “Who’s +John Thomas on with now?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Nora. +</p> + +<p> +“Why tha does,” said Annie, ironically lapsing into dialect. +“Tha knows as well as I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I do, then,” said Nora. “It isn’t me, so +don’t bother.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s Cissy Meakin, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is, for all I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hasn’t he got a face on him!” said Annie. “I +don’t half like his cheek. I could knock him off the foot-board when he +comes round at me.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’ll get dropped-on one of these days,” said Nora. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, he will, when somebody makes up their mind to drop it on him. I +should like to see him taken down a peg or two, shouldn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t mind,” said Nora. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got quite as much cause to as I have,” said Annie. +“But we’ll drop on him one of these days, my girl. What? +Don’t you want to?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind,” said Nora. +</p> + +<p> +But as a matter of fact, Nora was much more vindictive than Annie. +</p> + +<p> +One by one Annie went the round of the old flames. It so happened that Cissy +Meakin left the tramway service in quite a short time. Her mother made her +leave. Then John Thomas was on the <i>qui-vive</i>. He cast his eyes over his +old flock. And his eyes lighted on Annie. He thought she would be safe now. +Besides, he liked her. +</p> + +<p> +She arranged to walk home with him on Sunday night. It so happened that her car +would be in the depôt at half past nine: the last car would come in at 10.15. +So John Thomas was to wait for her there. +</p> + +<p> +At the depôt the girls had a little waiting-room of their own. It was quite +rough, but cosy, with a fire and an oven and a mirror, and table and wooden +chairs. The half dozen girls who knew John Thomas only too well had arranged to +take service this Sunday afternoon. So, as the cars began to come in, early, +the girls dropped into the waiting-room. And instead of hurrying off home, they +sat around the fire and had a cup of tea. Outside was the darkness and +lawlessness of war-time. +</p> + +<p> +John Thomas came on the car after Annie, at about a quarter to ten. He poked +his head easily into the girls’ waiting-room. +</p> + +<p> +“Prayer-meeting?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay,” said Laura Sharp. “Ladies only.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s me!” said John Thomas. It was one of his favourite +exclamations. +</p> + +<p> +“Shut the door, boy,” said Muriel Baggaley. +</p> + +<p> +“On which side of me?” said John Thomas. +</p> + +<p> +“Which tha likes,” said Polly Birkin. +</p> + +<p> +He had come in and closed the door behind him. The girls moved in their circle, +to make a place for him near the fire. He took off his great-coat and pushed +back his hat. +</p> + +<p> +“Who handles the teapot?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Nora Purdy silently poured him out a cup of tea. +</p> + +<p> +“Want a bit o’ my bread and drippin’?” said Muriel +Baggaley to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, give us a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +And he began to eat his piece of bread. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no place like home, girls,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +They all looked at him as he uttered this piece of impudence. He seemed to be +sunning himself in the presence of so many damsels. +</p> + +<p> +“Especially if you’re not afraid to go home in the dark,” +said Laura Sharp. +</p> + +<p> +“Me! By myself I am.” +</p> + +<p> +They sat till they heard the last tram come in. In a few minutes Emma Houselay +entered. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, my old duck!” cried Polly Birkin. +</p> + +<p> +“It <i>is</i> perishing,” said Emma, holding her fingers to the +fire. +</p> + +<p> +“But—I’m afraid to, go home in, the dark,” sang Laura +Sharp, the tune having got into her mind. +</p> + +<p> +“Who’re you going with tonight, John Thomas?” asked Muriel +Baggaley, coolly. +</p> + +<p> +“Tonight?” said John Thomas. “Oh, I’m going home by +myself tonight—all on my lonely-O.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s me!” said Nora Purdy, using his own ejaculation. +</p> + +<p> +The girls laughed shrilly. +</p> + +<p> +“Me as well, Nora,” said John Thomas. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t know what you mean,” said Laura. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I’m toddling,” said he, rising and reaching for his +overcoat. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay,” said Polly. “We’re all here waiting for +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve got to be up in good time in the morning,” he said, in +the benevolent official manner. +</p> + +<p> +They all laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay,” said Muriel. “Don’t leave us all lonely, John +Thomas. Take one!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll take the lot, if you like,” he responded gallantly. +</p> + +<p> +“That you won’t either,” said Muriel, “Two’s +company; seven’s too much of a good thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay—take one,” said Laura. “Fair and square, all above +board, and say which.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay,” cried Annie, speaking for the first time. “Pick, John +Thomas; let’s hear thee.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay,” he said. “I’m going home quiet tonight. Feeling +good, for once.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whereabouts?” said Annie. “Take a good un, then. But +tha’s got to take one of us!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, how can I take one,” he said, laughing uneasily. “I +don’t want to make enemies.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d only make <i>one</i>,” said Annie. +</p> + +<p> +“The chosen <i>one</i>,” added Laura. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my! Who said girls!” exclaimed John Thomas, again turning, as +if to escape. “Well—good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, you’ve got to make your pick,” said Muriel. “Turn +your face to the wall, and say which one touches you. Go on—we shall only +just touch your back—one of us. Go on—turn your face to the wall, +and don’t look, and say which one touches you.” +</p> + +<p> +He was uneasy, mistrusting them. Yet he had not the courage to break away. They +pushed him to a wall and stood him there with his face to it. Behind his back +they all grimaced, tittering. He looked so comical. He looked around uneasily. +</p> + +<p> +“Go on!” he cried. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re looking—you’re looking!” they shouted. +</p> + +<p> +He turned his head away. And suddenly, with a movement like a swift cat, Annie +went forward and fetched him a box on the side of the head that sent his cap +flying and himself staggering. He started round. +</p> + +<p> +But at Annie’s signal they all flew at him, slapping him, pinching him, +pulling his hair, though more in fun than in spite or anger. He, however, saw +red. His blue eyes flamed with strange fear as well as fury, and he butted +through the girls to the door. It was locked. He wrenched at it. Roused, alert, +the girls stood round and looked at him. He faced them, at bay. At that moment +they were rather horrifying to him, as they stood in their short uniforms. He +was distinctly afraid. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, John Thomas! Come on! Choose!” said Annie. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you after? Open the door,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“We shan’t—not till you’ve chosen!” said Muriel. +</p> + +<p> +“Chosen what?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Chosen the one you’re going to marry,” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +He hesitated a moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Open the blasted door,” he said, “and get back to your +senses.” He spoke with official authority. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got to choose!” cried the girls. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on!” cried Annie, looking him in the eye.” Come on! +Come on!” +</p> + +<p> +He went forward, rather vaguely. She had taken off her belt, and swinging it, +she fetched him a sharp blow over the head with the buckle end. He sprang and +seized her. But immediately the other girls rushed upon him, pulling and +tearing and beating him. Their blood was now thoroughly up. He was their sport +now. They were going to have their own back, out of him. Strange, wild +creatures, they hung on him and rushed at him to bear him down. His tunic was +torn right up the back, Nora had hold at the back of his collar, and was +actually strangling him. Luckily the button burst. He struggled in a wild +frenzy of fury and terror, almost mad terror. His tunic was simply torn off his +back, his shirt-sleeves were torn away, his arms were naked. The girls rushed +at him, clenched their hands on him and pulled at him: or they rushed at him +and pushed him, butted him with all their might: or they struck him wild blows. +He ducked and cringed and struck sideways. They became more intense. +</p> + +<p> +At last he was down. They rushed on him, kneeling on him. He had neither breath +nor strength to move. His face was bleeding with a long scratch, his brow was +bruised. +</p> + +<p> +Annie knelt on him, the other girls knelt and hung on to him. Their faces were +flushed, their hair wild, their eyes were all glittering strangely. He lay at +last quite still, with face averted, as an animal lies when it is defeated and +at the mercy of the captor. Sometimes his eye glanced back at the wild faces of +the girls. His breast rose heavily, his wrists were torn. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, then, my fellow!” gasped Annie at length. “Now +then—now—” +</p> + +<p> +At the sound of her terrifying, cold triumph, he suddenly started to struggle +as an animal might, but the girls threw themselves upon him with unnatural +strength and power, forcing him down. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—now, then!” gasped Annie at length. +</p> + +<p> +And there was a dead silence, in which the thud of heart-beating was to be +heard. It was a suspense of pure silence in every soul. +</p> + +<p> +“Now you know where you are,” said Annie. +</p> + +<p> +The sight of his white, bare arm maddened the girls. He lay in a kind of trance +of fear and antagonism. They felt themselves filled with supernatural strength. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly Polly started to laugh—to giggle +wildly—helplessly—and Emma and Muriel joined in. But Annie and Nora +and Laura remained the same, tense, watchful, with gleaming eyes. He winced +away from these eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Annie, in a curious low tone, secret and deadly. +“Yes! You’ve got it now! You know what you’ve done, +don’t you? You know what you’ve done.” +</p> + +<p> +He made no sound nor sign, but lay with bright, averted eyes, and averted, +bleeding face. +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to be <i>killed</i>, that’s what you ought,” said +Annie, tensely. “You ought to be <i>killed</i>.” And there was a +terrifying lust in her voice. +</p> + +<p> +Polly was ceasing to laugh, and giving long-drawn Oh-h-hs and sighs as she came +to herself. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s got to choose,” she said vaguely. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, he has,” said Laura, with vindictive decision. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you hear—do you hear?” said Annie. And with a sharp +movement, that made him wince, she turned his face to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you hear?” she repeated, shaking him. +</p> + +<p> +But he was quite dumb. She fetched him a sharp slap on the face. He started, +and his eyes widened. Then his face darkened with defiance, after all. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you hear?” she repeated. +</p> + +<p> +He only looked at her with hostile eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Speak!” she said, putting her face devilishly near his. +</p> + +<p> +“What?” he said, almost overcome. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got to <i>choose!</i>” she cried, as if it were some +terrible menace, and as if it hurt her that she could not exact more. +</p> + +<p> +“What?” he said, in fear. +</p> + +<p> +“Choose your girl, Coddy. You’ve got to choose her now. And +you’ll get your neck broken if you play any more of your tricks, my boy. +You’re settled now.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause. Again he averted his face. He was cunning in his overthrow. +He did not give in to them really—no, not if they tore him to bits. +</p> + +<p> +“All right, then,” he said, “I choose Annie.” His voice +was strange and full of malice. Annie let go of him as if he had been a hot +coal. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s chosen Annie!” said the girls in chorus. +</p> + +<p> +“Me!” cried Annie. She was still kneeling, but away from him. He +was still lying prostrate, with averted face. The girls grouped uneasily +around. +</p> + +<p> +“Me!” repeated Annie, with a terrible bitter accent. +</p> + +<p> +Then she got up, drawing away from him with strange disgust and bitterness. +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t touch him,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +But her face quivered with a kind of agony, she seemed as if she would fall. +The other girls turned aside. He remained lying on the floor, with his torn +clothes and bleeding, averted face. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, if he’s chosen—” said Polly. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want him—he can choose again,” said Annie, +with the same rather bitter hopelessness. +</p> + +<p> +“Get up,” said Polly, lifting his shoulder. “Get up.” +</p> + +<p> +He rose slowly, a strange, ragged, dazed creature. The girls eyed him from a +distance, curiously, furtively, dangerously. +</p> + +<p> +“Who wants him?” cried Laura, roughly. +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody,” they answered, with contempt. Yet each one of them waited +for him to look at her, hoped he would look at her. All except Annie, and +something was broken in her. +</p> + +<p> +He, however, kept his face closed and averted from them all. There was a +silence of the end. He picked up the torn pieces of his tunic, without knowing +what to do with them. The girls stood about uneasily, flushed, panting, tidying +their hair and their dress unconsciously, and watching him. He looked at none +of them. He espied his cap in a corner, and went and picked it up. He put it on +his head, and one of the girls burst into a shrill, hysteric laugh at the sight +he presented. He, however, took no heed, but went straight to where his +overcoat hung on a peg. The girls moved away from contact with him as if he had +been an electric wire. He put on his coat and buttoned it down. Then he rolled +his tunic-rags into a bundle, and stood before the locked door, dumbly. +</p> + +<p> +“Open the door, somebody,” said Laura. +</p> + +<p> +“Annie’s got the key,” said one. +</p> + +<p> +Annie silently offered the key to the girls. Nora unlocked the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Tit for tat, old man,” she said. “Show yourself a man, and +don’t bear a grudge.” +</p> + +<p> +But without a word or sign he had opened the door and gone, his face closed, +his head dropped. +</p> + +<p> +“That’ll learn him,” said Laura. +</p> + +<p> +“Coddy!” said Nora. +</p> + +<p> +“Shut up, for God’s sake!” cried Annie fiercely, as if in +torture. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m about ready to go, Polly. Look sharp!” said +Muriel. +</p> + +<p> +The girls were all anxious to be off. They were tidying themselves hurriedly, +with mute, stupefied faces. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>THE BLIND MAN</h2> + +<p> +Isabel Pervin was listening for two sounds—for the sound of wheels on the +drive outside and for the noise of her husband’s footsteps in the hall. +Her dearest and oldest friend, a man who seemed almost indispensable to her +living, would drive up in the rainy dusk of the closing November day. The trap +had gone to fetch him from the station. And her husband, who had been blinded +in Flanders, and who had a disfiguring mark on his brow, would be coming in +from the outhouses. +</p> + +<p> +He had been home for a year now. He was totally blind. Yet they had been very +happy. The Grange was Maurice’s own place. The back was a farmstead, and +the Wernhams, who occupied the rear premises, acted as farmers. Isabel lived +with her husband in the handsome rooms in front. She and he had been almost +entirely alone together since he was wounded. They talked and sang and read +together in a wonderful and unspeakable intimacy. Then she reviewed books for a +Scottish newspaper, carrying on her old interest, and he occupied himself a +good deal with the farm. Sightless, he could still discuss everything with +Wernham, and he could also do a good deal of work about the place—menial +work, it is true, but it gave him satisfaction. He milked the cows, carried in +the pails, turned the separator, attended to the pigs and horses. Life was +still very full and strangely serene for the blind man, peaceful with the +almost incomprehensible peace of immediate contact in darkness. With his wife +he had a whole world, rich and real and invisible. +</p> + +<p> +They were newly and remotely happy. He did not even regret the loss of his +sight in these times of dark, palpable joy. A certain exultance swelled his +soul. +</p> + +<p> +But as time wore on, sometimes the rich glamour would leave them. Sometimes, +after months of this intensity, a sense of burden overcame Isabel, a weariness, +a terrible <i>ennui</i>, in that silent house approached between a colonnade of +tall-shafted pines. Then she felt she would go mad, for she could not bear it. +And sometimes he had devastating fits of depression, which seemed to lay waste +his whole being. It was worse than depression—a black misery, when his +own life was a torture to him, and when his presence was unbearable to his +wife. The dread went down to the roots of her soul as these black days +recurred. In a kind of panic she tried to wrap herself up still further in her +husband. She forced the old spontaneous cheerfulness and joy to continue. But +the effort it cost her was almost too much. She knew she could not keep it up. +She felt she would scream with the strain, and would give anything, anything, +to escape. She longed to possess her husband utterly; it gave her inordinate +joy to have him entirely to herself. And yet, when again he was gone in a black +and massive misery, she could not bear him, she could not bear herself; she +wished she could be snatched away off the earth altogether, anything rather +than live at this cost. +</p> + +<p> +Dazed, she schemed for a way out. She invited friends, she tried to give him +some further connexion with the outer world. But it was no good. After all +their joy and suffering, after their dark, great year of blindness and solitude +and unspeakable nearness, other people seemed to them both shallow, prattling, +rather impertinent. Shallow prattle seemed presumptuous. He became impatient +and irritated, she was wearied. And so they lapsed into their solitude again. +For they preferred it. +</p> + +<p> +But now, in a few weeks’ time, her second baby would be born. The first +had died, an infant, when her husband first went out to France. She looked with +joy and relief to the coming of the second. It would be her salvation. But also +she felt some anxiety. She was thirty years old, her husband was a year +younger. They both wanted the child very much. Yet she could not help feeling +afraid. She had her husband on her hands, a terrible joy to her, and a +terrifying burden. The child would occupy her love and attention. And then, +what of Maurice? What would he do? If only she could feel that he, too, would +be at peace and happy when the child came! She did so want to luxuriate in a +rich, physical satisfaction of maternity. But the man, what would he do? How +could she provide for him, how avert those shattering black moods of his, which +destroyed them both? +</p> + +<p> +She sighed with fear. But at this time Bertie Reid wrote to Isabel. He was her +old friend, a second or third cousin, a Scotchman, as she was a Scotchwoman. +They had been brought up near to one another, and all her life he had been her +friend, like a brother, but better than her own brothers. She loved +him—though not in the marrying sense. There was a sort of kinship between +them, an affinity. They understood one another instinctively. But Isabel would +never have thought of marrying Bertie. It would have seemed like marrying in +her own family. +</p> + +<p> +Bertie was a barrister and a man of letters, a Scotchman of the intellectual +type, quick, ironical, sentimental, and on his knees before the woman he adored +but did not want to marry. Maurice Pervin was different. He came of a good old +country family—the Grange was not a very great distance from Oxford. He +was passionate, sensitive, perhaps over-sensitive, wincing—a big fellow +with heavy limbs and a forehead that flushed painfully. For his mind was slow, +as if drugged by the strong provincial blood that beat in his veins. He was +very sensitive to his own mental slowness, his feelings being quick and acute. +So that he was just the opposite to Bertie, whose mind was much quicker than +his emotions, which were not so very fine. +</p> + +<p> +From the first the two men did not like each other. Isabel felt that they +<i>ought</i> to get on together. But they did not. She felt that if only each +could have the clue to the other there would be such a rare understanding +between them. It did not come off, however. Bertie adopted a slightly ironical +attitude, very offensive to Maurice, who returned the Scotch irony with English +resentment, a resentment which deepened sometimes into stupid hatred. +</p> + +<p> +This was a little puzzling to Isabel. However, she accepted it in the course of +things. Men were made freakish and unreasonable. Therefore, when Maurice was +going out to France for the second time, she felt that, for her husband’s +sake, she must discontinue her friendship with Bertie. She wrote to the +barrister to this effect. Bertram Reid simply replied that in this, as in all +other matters, he must obey her wishes, if these were indeed her wishes. +</p> + +<p> +For nearly two years nothing had passed between the two friends. Isabel rather +gloried in the fact; she had no compunction. She had one great article of +faith, which was, that husband and wife should be so important to one another, +that the rest of the world simply did not count. She and Maurice were husband +and wife. They loved one another. They would have children. Then let everybody +and everything else fade into insignificance outside this connubial felicity. +She professed herself quite happy and ready to receive Maurice’s friends. +She was happy and ready: the happy wife, the ready woman in possession. Without +knowing why, the friends retired abashed and came no more. Maurice, of course, +took as much satisfaction in this connubial absorption as Isabel did. +</p> + +<p> +He shared in Isabel’s literary activities, she cultivated a real interest +in agriculture and cattle-raising. For she, being at heart perhaps an emotional +enthusiast, always cultivated the practical side of life, and prided herself on +her mastery of practical affairs. Thus the husband and wife had spent the five +years of their married life. The last had been one of blindness and unspeakable +intimacy. And now Isabel felt a great indifference coming over her, a sort of +lethargy. She wanted to be allowed to bear her child in peace, to nod by the +fire and drift vaguely, physically, from day to day. Maurice was like an +ominous thunder-cloud. She had to keep waking up to remember him. +</p> + +<p> +When a little note came from Bertie, asking if he were to put up a tombstone to +their dead friendship, and speaking of the real pain he felt on account of her +husband’s loss of sight, she felt a pang, a fluttering agitation of +re-awakening. And she read the letter to Maurice. +</p> + +<p> +“Ask him to come down,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Ask Bertie to come here!” she re-echoed. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—if he wants to.” +</p> + +<p> +Isabel paused for a few moments. +</p> + +<p> +“I know he wants to—he’d only be too glad,” she +replied. “But what about you, Maurice? How would you like it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should like it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—in that case—— But I thought you didn’t +care for him—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know. I might think differently of him now,” the +blind man replied. It was rather abstruse to Isabel. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, dear,” she said, “if you’re quite +sure—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure enough. Let him come,” said Maurice. +</p> + +<p> +So Bertie was coming, coming this evening, in the November rain and darkness. +Isabel was agitated, racked with her old restlessness and indecision. She had +always suffered from this pain of doubt, just an agonizing sense of +uncertainty. It had begun to pass off, in the lethargy of maternity. Now it +returned, and she resented it. She struggled as usual to maintain her calm, +composed, friendly bearing, a sort of mask she wore over all her body. +</p> + +<p> +A woman had lighted a tall lamp beside the table, and spread the cloth. The +long dining-room was dim, with its elegant but rather severe pieces of old +furniture. Only the round table glowed softly under the light. It had a rich, +beautiful effect. The white cloth glistened and dropped its heavy, pointed lace +corners almost to the carpet, the china was old and handsome, creamy-yellow, +with a blotched pattern of harsh red and deep blue, the cups large and +bell-shaped, the teapot gallant. Isabel looked at it with superficial +appreciation. +</p> + +<p> +Her nerves were hurting her. She looked automatically again at the high, +uncurtained windows. In the last dusk she could just perceive outside a huge +fir-tree swaying its boughs: it was as if she thought it rather than saw it. +The rain came flying on the window panes. Ah, why had she no peace? These two +men, why did they tear at her? Why did they not come—why was there this +suspense? +</p> + +<p> +She sat in a lassitude that was really suspense and irritation. Maurice, at +least, might come in—there was nothing to keep him out. She rose to her +feet. Catching sight of her reflection in a mirror, she glanced at herself with +a slight smile of recognition, as if she were an old friend to herself. Her +face was oval and calm, her nose a little arched. Her neck made a beautiful +line down to her shoulder. With hair knotted loosely behind, she had something +of a warm, maternal look. Thinking this of herself, she arched her eyebrows and +her rather heavy eyelids, with a little flicker of a smile, and for a moment +her grey eyes looked amused and wicked, a little sardonic, out of her +transfigured Madonna face. +</p> + +<p> +Then, resuming her air of womanly patience—she was really fatally +self-determined—she went with a little jerk towards the door. Her eyes +were slightly reddened. +</p> + +<p> +She passed down the wide hall, and through a door at the end. Then she was in +the farm premises. The scent of dairy, and of farm-kitchen, and of farm-yard +and of leather almost overcame her: but particularly the scent of dairy. They +had been scalding out the pans. The flagged passage in front of her was dark, +puddled and wet. Light came out from the open kitchen door. She went forward +and stood in the doorway. The farm-people were at tea, seated at a little +distance from her, round a long, narrow table, in the centre of which stood a +white lamp. Ruddy faces, ruddy hands holding food, red mouths working, heads +bent over the tea-cups: men, land-girls, boys: it was tea-time, feeding-time. +Some faces caught sight of her. Mrs. Wernham, going round behind the chairs +with a large black teapot, halting slightly in her walk, was not aware of her +for a moment. Then she turned suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, is it Madam!” she exclaimed. “Come in, then, come in! +We’re at tea.” And she dragged forward a chair. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I won’t come in,” said Isabel, “I’m afraid I +interrupt your meal.” +</p> + +<p> +“No—no—not likely, Madam, not likely.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hasn’t Mr. Pervin come in, do you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure I couldn’t say! Missed him, have you, Madam?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I only wanted him to come in,” laughed Isabel, as if shyly. +</p> + +<p> +“Wanted him, did ye? Get you, boy—get up, now—” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Wernham knocked one of the boys on the shoulder. He began to scrape to his +feet, chewing largely. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe he’s in top stable,” said another face from the +table. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! No, don’t get up. I’m going myself,” said Isabel. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you go out of a dirty night like this. Let the lad go. Get +along wi’ ye, boy,” said Mrs. Wernham. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” said Isabel, with a decision that was always obeyed. +“Go on with your tea, Tom. I’d like to go across to the stable, +Mrs. Wernham.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did ever you hear tell!” exclaimed the woman. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t the trap late?” asked Isabel. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, no,” said Mrs. Wernham, peering into the distance at the +tall, dim clock. “No, Madam—we can give it another quarter or +twenty minutes yet, good—yes, every bit of a quarter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! It seems late when darkness falls so early,” said Isabel. +</p> + +<p> +“It do, that it do. Bother the days, that they draw in so,” +answered Mrs. Wernham. “Proper miserable!” +</p> + +<p> +“They are,” said Isabel, withdrawing. +</p> + +<p> +She pulled on her overshoes, wrapped a large tartan shawl around her, put on a +man’s felt hat, and ventured out along the causeways of the first yard. +It was very dark. The wind was roaring in the great elms behind the outhouses. +When she came to the second yard the darkness seemed deeper. She was unsure of +her footing. She wished she had brought a lantern. Rain blew against her. Half +she liked it, half she felt unwilling to battle. +</p> + +<p> +She reached at last the just visible door of the stable. There was no sign of a +light anywhere. Opening the upper half, she looked in: into a simple well of +darkness. The smell of horses, and ammonia, and of warmth was startling to her, +in that full night. She listened with all her ears, but could hear nothing save +the night, and the stirring of a horse. +</p> + +<p> +“Maurice!” she called, softly and musically, though she was afraid. +“Maurice—are you there?” +</p> + +<p> +Nothing came from the darkness. She knew the rain and wind blew in upon the +horses, the hot animal life. Feeling it wrong, she entered the stable, and drew +the lower half of the door shut, holding the upper part close. She did not +stir, because she was aware of the presence of the dark hindquarters of the +horses, though she could not see them, and she was afraid. Something wild +stirred in her heart. +</p> + +<p> +She listened intensely. Then she heard a small noise in the distance—far +away, it seemed—the chink of a pan, and a man’s voice speaking a +brief word. It would be Maurice, in the other part of the stable. She stood +motionless, waiting for him to come through the partition door. The horses were +so terrifyingly near to her, in the invisible. +</p> + +<p> +The loud jarring of the inner door-latch made her start; the door was opened. +She could hear and feel her husband entering and invisibly passing among the +horses near to her, in darkness as they were, actively intermingled. The rather +low sound of his voice as he spoke to the horses came velvety to her nerves. +How near he was, and how invisible! The darkness seemed to be in a strange +swirl of violent life, just upon her. She turned giddy. +</p> + +<p> +Her presence of mind made her call, quietly and musically: +</p> + +<p> +“Maurice! Maurice—dea-ar!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he answered. “Isabel?” +</p> + +<p> +She saw nothing, and the sound of his voice seemed to touch her. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello!” she answered cheerfully, straining her eyes to see him. He +was still busy, attending to the horses near her, but she saw only darkness. It +made her almost desperate. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you come in, dear?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I’m coming. Just half a minute. <i>Stand over—now!</i> +Trap’s not come, has it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet,” said Isabel. +</p> + +<p> +His voice was pleasant and ordinary, but it had a slight suggestion of the +stable to her. She wished he would come away. Whilst he was so utterly +invisible she was afraid of him. +</p> + +<p> +“How’s the time?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet six,” she replied. She disliked to answer into the dark. +Presently he came very near to her, and she retreated out of doors. +</p> + +<p> +“The weather blows in here,” he said, coming steadily forward, +feeling for the doors. She shrank away. At last she could dimly see him. +</p> + +<p> +“Bertie won’t have much of a drive,” he said, as he closed +the doors. +</p> + +<p> +“He won’t indeed!” said Isabel calmly, watching the dark +shape at the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me your arm, dear,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +She pressed his arm close to her, as she went. But she longed to see him, to +look at him. She was nervous. He walked erect, with face rather lifted, but +with a curious tentative movement of his powerful, muscular legs. She could +feel the clever, careful, strong contact of his feet with the earth, as she +balanced against him. For a moment he was a tower of darkness to her, as if he +rose out of the earth. +</p> + +<p> +In the house-passage he wavered, and went cautiously, with a curious look of +silence about him as he felt for the bench. Then he sat down heavily. He was a +man with rather sloping shoulders, but with heavy limbs, powerful legs that +seemed to know the earth. His head was small, usually carried high and light. +As he bent down to unfasten his gaiters and boots he did not look blind. His +hair was brown and crisp, his hands were large, reddish, intelligent, the veins +stood out in the wrists; and his thighs and knees seemed massive. When he stood +up his face and neck were surcharged with blood, the veins stood out on his +temples. She did not look at his blindness. +</p> + +<p> +Isabel was always glad when they had passed through the dividing door into +their own regions of repose and beauty. She was a little afraid of him, out +there in the animal grossness of the back. His bearing also changed, as he +smelt the familiar, indefinable odour that pervaded his wife’s +surroundings, a delicate, refined scent, very faintly spicy. Perhaps it came +from the pot-pourri bowls. +</p> + +<p> +He stood at the foot of the stairs, arrested, listening. She watched him, and +her heart sickened. He seemed to be listening to fate. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s not here yet,” he said. “I’ll go up and +change.” +</p> + +<p> +“Maurice,” she said, “you’re not wishing he +wouldn’t come, are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t quite say,” he answered. “I feel myself +rather on the <i>qui vive</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can see you are,” she answered. And she reached up and kissed +his cheek. She saw his mouth relax into a slow smile. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you laughing at?” she said roguishly. +</p> + +<p> +“You consoling me,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay,” she answered. “Why should I console you? You know we +love each other—you know <i>how</i> married we are! What does anything +else matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing at all, my dear.” +</p> + +<p> +He felt for her face, and touched it, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You’re</i> all right, aren’t you?” he asked, +anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m wonderfully all right, love,” she answered. +“It’s you I am a little troubled about, at times.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why me?” he said, touching her cheeks delicately with the tips of +his fingers. The touch had an almost hypnotizing effect on her. +</p> + +<p> +He went away upstairs. She saw him mount into the darkness, unseeing and +unchanging. He did not know that the lamps on the upper corridor were +unlighted. He went on into the darkness with unchanging step. She heard him in +the bathroom. +</p> + +<p> +Pervin moved about almost unconsciously in his familiar surroundings, dark +though everything was. He seemed to know the presence of objects before he +touched them. It was a pleasure to him to rock thus through a world of things, +carried on the flood in a sort of blood-prescience. He did not think much or +trouble much. So long as he kept this sheer immediacy of blood-contact with the +substantial world he was happy, he wanted no intervention of visual +consciousness. In this state there was a certain rich positivity, bordering +sometimes on rapture. Life seemed to move in him like a tide lapping, and +advancing, enveloping all things darkly. It was a pleasure to stretch forth the +hand and meet the unseen object, clasp it, and possess it in pure contact. He +did not try to remember, to visualize. He did not want to. The new way of +consciousness substituted itself in him. +</p> + +<p> +The rich suffusion of this state generally kept him happy, reaching its +culmination in the consuming passion for his wife. But at times the flow would +seem to be checked and thrown back. Then it would beat inside him like a +tangled sea, and he was tortured in the shattered chaos of his own blood. He +grew to dread this arrest, this throw-back, this chaos inside himself, when he +seemed merely at the mercy of his own powerful and conflicting elements. How to +get some measure of control or surety, this was the question. And when the +question rose maddening in him, he would clench his fists as if he would +<i>compel</i> the whole universe to submit to him. But it was in vain. He could +not even compel himself. +</p> + +<p> +Tonight, however, he was still serene, though little tremors of unreasonable +exasperation ran through him. He had to handle the razor very carefully, as he +shaved, for it was not at one with him, he was afraid of it. His hearing also +was too much sharpened. He heard the woman lighting the lamps on the corridor, +and attending to the fire in the visitor’s room. And then, as he went to +his room he heard the trap arrive. Then came Isabel’s voice, lifted and +calling, like a bell ringing: +</p> + +<p> +“Is it you, Bertie? Have you come?” +</p> + +<p> +And a man’s voice answered out of the wind: +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, Isabel! There you are.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you had a miserable drive? I’m so sorry we couldn’t +send a closed carriage. I can’t see you at all, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m coming. No, I liked the drive—it was like Perthshire. +Well, how are you? You’re looking fit as ever, as far as I can +see.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” said Isabel. “I’m wonderfully well. How are +you? Rather thin, I think—” +</p> + +<p> +“Worked to death—everybody’s old cry. But I’m all +right, Ciss. How’s Pervin?—isn’t he here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, he’s upstairs changing. Yes, he’s awfully well. +Take off your wet things; I’ll send them to be dried.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how are you both, in spirits? He doesn’t fret?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—no, not at all. No, on the contrary, really. We’ve been +wonderfully happy, incredibly. It’s more than I can understand—so +wonderful: the nearness, and the peace—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! Well, that’s awfully good news—” +</p> + +<p> +They moved away. Pervin heard no more. But a childish sense of desolation had +come over him, as he heard their brisk voices. He seemed shut out—like a +child that is left out. He was aimless and excluded, he did not know what to do +with himself. The helpless desolation came over him. He fumbled nervously as he +dressed himself, in a state almost of childishness. He disliked the Scotch +accent in Bertie’s speech, and the slight response it found on +Isabel’s tongue. He disliked the slight purr of complacency in the +Scottish speech. He disliked intensely the glib way in which Isabel spoke of +their happiness and nearness. It made him recoil. He was fretful and beside +himself like a child, he had almost a childish nostalgia to be included in the +life circle. And at the same time he was a man, dark and powerful and +infuriated by his own weakness. By some fatal flaw, he could not be by himself, +he had to depend on the support of another. And this very dependence enraged +him. He hated Bertie Reid, and at the same time he knew the hatred was +nonsense, he knew it was the outcome of his own weakness. +</p> + +<p> +He went downstairs. Isabel was alone in the dining-room. She watched him enter, +head erect, his feet tentative. He looked so strong-blooded and healthy, and, +at the same time, cancelled. Cancelled—that was the word that flew across +her mind. Perhaps it was his scars suggested it. +</p> + +<p> +“You heard Bertie come, Maurice?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—isn’t he here?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s in his room. He looks very thin and worn.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose he works himself to death.” +</p> + +<p> +A woman came in with a tray—and after a few minutes Bertie came down. He +was a little dark man, with a very big forehead, thin, wispy hair, and sad, +large eyes. His expression was inordinately sad—almost funny. He had odd, +short legs. +</p> + +<p> +Isabel watched him hesitate under the door, and glance nervously at her +husband. Pervin heard him and turned. +</p> + +<p> +“Here you are, now,” said Isabel. “Come, let us eat.” +</p> + +<p> +Bertie went across to Maurice. +</p> + +<p> +“How are you, Pervin,” he said, as he advanced. +</p> + +<p> +The blind man stuck his hand out into space, and Bertie took it. +</p> + +<p> +“Very fit. Glad you’ve come,” said Maurice. +</p> + +<p> +Isabel glanced at them, and glanced away, as if she could not bear to see them. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” she said. “Come to table. Aren’t you both +awfully hungry? I am, tremendously.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid you waited for me,” said Bertie, as they sat +down. +</p> + +<p> +Maurice had a curious monolithic way of sitting in a chair, erect and distant. +Isabel’s heart always beat when she caught sight of him thus. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she replied to Bertie. “We’re very little later +than usual. We’re having a sort of high tea, not dinner. Do you mind? It +gives us such a nice long evening, uninterrupted.” +</p> + +<p> +“I like it,” said Bertie. +</p> + +<p> +Maurice was feeling, with curious little movements, almost like a cat kneading +her bed, for his place, his knife and fork, his napkin. He was getting the +whole geography of his cover into his consciousness. He sat erect and +inscrutable, remote-seeming Bertie watched the static figure of the blind man, +the delicate tactile discernment of the large, ruddy hands, and the curious +mindless silence of the brow, above the scar. With difficulty he looked away, +and without knowing what he did, picked up a little crystal bowl of violets +from the table, and held them to his nose. +</p> + +<p> +“They are sweet-scented,” he said. “Where do they come +from?” +</p> + +<p> +“From the garden—under the windows,” said Isabel. +</p> + +<p> +“So late in the year—and so fragrant! Do you remember the violets +under Aunt Bell’s south wall?” +</p> + +<p> +The two friends looked at each other and exchanged a smile, Isabel’s eyes +lighting up. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t I?” she replied. “<i>Wasn’t</i> she +queer!” +</p> + +<p> +“A curious old girl,” laughed Bertie. “There’s a streak +of freakishness in the family, Isabel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah—but not in you and me, Bertie,” said Isabel. “Give +them to Maurice, will you?” she added, as Bertie was putting down the +flowers. “Have you smelled the violets, dear? Do!—they are so +scented.” +</p> + +<p> +Maurice held out his hand, and Bertie placed the tiny bowl against his large, +warm-looking fingers. Maurice’s hand closed over the thin white fingers +of the barrister. Bertie carefully extricated himself. Then the two watched the +blind man smelling the violets. He bent his head and seemed to be thinking. +Isabel waited. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t they sweet, Maurice?” she said at last, anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Very,” he said. And he held out the bowl. Bertie took it. Both he +and Isabel were a little afraid, and deeply disturbed. +</p> + +<p> +The meal continued. Isabel and Bertie chatted spasmodically. The blind man was +silent. He touched his food repeatedly, with quick, delicate touches of his +knife-point, then cut irregular bits. He could not bear to be helped. Both +Isabel and Bertie suffered: Isabel wondered why. She did not suffer when she +was alone with Maurice. Bertie made her conscious of a strangeness. +</p> + +<p> +After the meal the three drew their chairs to the fire, and sat down to talk. +The decanters were put on a table near at hand. Isabel knocked the logs on the +fire, and clouds of brilliant sparks went up the chimney. Bertie noticed a +slight weariness in her bearing. +</p> + +<p> +“You will be glad when your child comes now, Isabel?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She looked up to him with a quick wan smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I shall be glad,” she answered. “It begins to seem +long. Yes, I shall be very glad. So will you, Maurice, won’t you?” +she added. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I shall,” replied her husband. +</p> + +<p> +“We are both looking forward so much to having it,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, of course,” said Bertie. +</p> + +<p> +He was a bachelor, three or four years older than Isabel. He lived in beautiful +rooms overlooking the river, guarded by a faithful Scottish man-servant. And he +had his friends among the fair sex—not lovers, friends. So long as he +could avoid any danger of courtship or marriage, he adored a few good women +with constant and unfailing homage, and he was chivalrously fond of quite a +number. But if they seemed to encroach on him, he withdrew and detested them. +</p> + +<p> +Isabel knew him very well, knew his beautiful constancy, and kindness, also his +incurable weakness, which made him unable ever to enter into close contact of +any sort. He was ashamed of himself, because he could not marry, could not +approach women physically. He wanted to do so. But he could not. At the centre +of him he was afraid, helplessly and even brutally afraid. He had given up +hope, had ceased to expect any more that he could escape his own weakness. +Hence he was a brilliant and successful barrister, also <i>littérateur</i> of +high repute, a rich man, and a great social success. At the centre he felt +himself neuter, nothing. +</p> + +<p> +Isabel knew him well. She despised him even while she admired him. She looked +at his sad face, his little short legs, and felt contempt of him. She looked at +his dark grey eyes, with their uncanny, almost childlike intuition, and she +loved him. He understood amazingly—but she had no fear of his +understanding. As a man she patronized him. +</p> + +<p> +And she turned to the impassive, silent figure of her husband. He sat leaning +back, with folded arms, and face a little uptilted. His knees were straight and +massive. She sighed, picked up the poker, and again began to prod the fire, to +rouse the clouds of soft, brilliant sparks. +</p> + +<p> +“Isabel tells me,” Bertie began suddenly, “that you have not +suffered unbearably from the loss of sight.” +</p> + +<p> +Maurice straightened himself to attend, but kept his arms folded. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said, “not unbearably. Now and again one struggles +against it, you know. But there are compensations.” +</p> + +<p> +“They say it is much worse to be stone deaf,” said Isabel. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe it is,” said Bertie. “Are there +compensations?” he added, to Maurice. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. You cease to bother about a great many things.” Again Maurice +stretched his figure, stretched the strong muscles of his back, and leaned +backwards, with uplifted face. +</p> + +<p> +“And that is a relief,” said Bertie. “But what is there in +place of the bothering? What replaces the activity?” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause. At length the blind man replied, as out of a negligent, +unattentive thinking: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know. There’s a good deal when you’re not +active.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is there?” said Bertie. “What, exactly? It always seems to +me that when there is no thought and no action, there is nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +Again Maurice was slow in replying. +</p> + +<p> +“There is something,” he replied. “I couldn’t tell you +what it is.” +</p> + +<p> +And the talk lapsed once more, Isabel and Bertie chatting gossip and +reminiscence, the blind man silent. +</p> + +<p> +At length Maurice rose restlessly, a big, obtrusive figure. He felt tight and +hampered. He wanted to go away. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mind,” he said, “if I go and speak to Wernham?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—go along, dear,” said Isabel. +</p> + +<p> +And he went out. A silence came over the two friends. At length Bertie said: +</p> + +<p> +“Nevertheless, it is a great deprivation, Cissie.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is, Bertie. I know it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Something lacking all the time,” said Bertie. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know. And yet—and yet—Maurice is right. There is +something else, something <i>there</i>, which you never knew was there, and +which you can’t express.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is there?” asked Bertie. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know—it’s awfully hard to define it—but +something strong and immediate. There’s something strange in +Maurice’s presence—indefinable—but I couldn’t do +without it. I agree that it seems to put one’s mind to sleep. But when +we’re alone I miss nothing; it seems awfully rich, almost splendid, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” said Bertie. +</p> + +<p> +They talked desultorily. The wind blew loudly outside, rain chattered on the +window-panes, making a sharp, drum-sound, because of the closed, mellow-golden +shutters inside. The logs burned slowly, with hot, almost invisible small +flames. Bertie seemed uneasy, there were dark circles round his eyes. Isabel, +rich with her approaching maternity, leaned looking into the fire. Her hair +curled in odd, loose strands, very pleasing to the man. But she had a curious +feeling of old woe in her heart, old, timeless night-woe. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose we’re all deficient somewhere,” said Bertie. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose so,” said Isabel wearily. +</p> + +<p> +“Damned, sooner or later.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” she said, rousing herself. “I feel +quite all right, you know. The child coming seems to make me indifferent to +everything, just placid. I can’t feel that there’s anything to +trouble about, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“A good thing, I should say,” he replied slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, there it is. I suppose it’s just Nature. If only I felt I +needn’t trouble about Maurice, I should be perfectly +content—” +</p> + +<p> +“But you feel you must trouble about him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—I don’t know—” She even resented this much +effort. +</p> + +<p> +The evening passed slowly. Isabel looked at the clock. “I say,” she +said. “It’s nearly ten o’clock. Where can Maurice be? +I’m sure they’re all in bed at the back. Excuse me a moment.” +</p> + +<p> +She went out, returning almost immediately. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all shut up and in darkness,” she said. “I wonder +where he is. He must have gone out to the farm—” +</p> + +<p> +Bertie looked at her. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose he’ll come in,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose so,” she said. “But it’s unusual for him to +be out now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you like me to go out and see?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—if you wouldn’t mind. I’d go, but—” +She did not want to make the physical effort. +</p> + +<p> +Bertie put on an old overcoat and took a lantern. He went out from the side +door. He shrank from the wet and roaring night. Such weather had a nervous +effect on him: too much moisture everywhere made him feel almost imbecile. +Unwilling, he went through it all. A dog barked violently at him. He peered in +all the buildings. At last, as he opened the upper door of a sort of +intermediate barn, he heard a grinding noise, and looking in, holding up his +lantern, saw Maurice, in his shirt-sleeves, standing listening, holding the +handle of a turnip-pulper. He had been pulping sweet roots, a pile of which lay +dimly heaped in a corner behind him. +</p> + +<p> +“That you, Wernham?” said Maurice, listening. +</p> + +<p> +“No, it’s me,” said Bertie. +</p> + +<p> +A large, half-wild grey cat was rubbing at Maurice’s leg. The blind man +stooped to rub its sides. Bertie watched the scene, then unconsciously entered +and shut the door behind him, He was in a high sort of barn-place, from which, +right and left, ran off the corridors in front of the stalled cattle. He +watched the slow, stooping motion of the other man, as he caressed the great +cat. +</p> + +<p> +Maurice straightened himself. +</p> + +<p> +“You came to look for me?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Isabel was a little uneasy,” said Bertie. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll come in. I like messing about doing these jobs.” +</p> + +<p> +The cat had reared her sinister, feline length against his leg, clawing at his +thigh affectionately. He lifted her claws out of his flesh. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope I’m not in your way at all at the Grange here,” said +Bertie, rather shy and stiff. +</p> + +<p> +“My way? No, not a bit. I’m glad Isabel has somebody to talk to. +I’m afraid it’s I who am in the way. I know I’m not very +lively company. Isabel’s all right, don’t you think? She’s +not unhappy, is she?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think so.” +</p> + +<p> +“What does she say?” +</p> + +<p> +“She says she’s very content—only a little troubled about +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps afraid that you might brood,” said Bertie, cautiously. +</p> + +<p> +“She needn’t be afraid of that.” He continued to caress the +flattened grey head of the cat with his fingers. “What I am a bit afraid +of,” he resumed, “is that she’ll find me a dead weight, +always alone with me down here.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think you need think that,” said Bertie, though this +was what he feared himself. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Maurice. “Sometimes I feel it +isn’t fair that she’s saddled with me.” Then he dropped his +voice curiously. “I say,” he asked, secretly struggling, “is +my face much disfigured? Do you mind telling me?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is the scar,” said Bertie, wondering. “Yes, it is a +disfigurement. But more pitiable than shocking.” +</p> + +<p> +“A pretty bad scar, though,” said Maurice. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Sometimes I feel I am horrible,” said Maurice, in a low voice, +talking as if to himself. And Bertie actually felt a quiver of horror. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s nonsense,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Maurice again straightened himself, leaving the cat. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no telling,” he said. Then again, in an odd tone, he +added: “I don’t really know you, do I?” +</p> + +<p> +“Probably not,” said Bertie. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mind if I touch you?” +</p> + +<p> +The lawyer shrank away instinctively. And yet, out of very philanthropy, he +said, in a small voice: “Not at all.” +</p> + +<p> +But he suffered as the blind man stretched out a strong, naked hand to him. +Maurice accidentally knocked off Bertie’s hat. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you were taller,” he said, starting. Then he laid his +hand on Bertie Reid’s head, closing the dome of the skull in a soft, firm +grasp, gathering it, as it were; then, shifting his grasp and softly closing +again, with a fine, close pressure, till he had covered the skull and the face +of the smaller man, tracing the brows, and touching the full, closed eyes, +touching the small nose and the nostrils, the rough, short moustache, the +mouth, the rather strong chin. The hand of the blind man grasped the shoulder, +the arm, the hand of the other man. He seemed to take him, in the soft, +travelling grasp. +</p> + +<p> +“You seem young,” he said quietly, at last. +</p> + +<p> +The lawyer stood almost annihilated, unable to answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Your head seems tender, as if you were young,” Maurice repeated. +“So do your hands. Touch my eyes, will you?—touch my scar.” +</p> + +<p> +Now Bertie quivered with revulsion. Yet he was under the power of the blind +man, as if hypnotized. He lifted his hand, and laid the fingers on the scar, on +the scarred eyes. Maurice suddenly covered them with his own hand, pressed the +fingers of the other man upon his disfigured eye-sockets, trembling in every +fibre, and rocking slightly, slowly, from side to side. He remained thus for a +minute or more, whilst Bertie stood as if in a swoon, unconscious, imprisoned. +</p> + +<p> +Then suddenly Maurice removed the hand of the other man from his brow, and +stood holding it in his own. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my God’ he said, “we shall know each other now, +shan’t we? We shall know each other now.” +</p> + +<p> +Bertie could not answer. He gazed mute and terror-struck, overcome by his own +weakness. He knew he could not answer. He had an unreasonable fear, lest the +other man should suddenly destroy him. Whereas Maurice was actually filled with +hot, poignant love, the passion of friendship. Perhaps it was this very passion +of friendship which Bertie shrank from most. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re all right together now, aren’t we?” said +Maurice. “It’s all right now, as long as we live, so far as +we’re concerned?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Bertie, trying by any means to escape. +</p> + +<p> +Maurice stood with head lifted, as if listening. The new delicate fulfilment of +mortal friendship had come as a revelation and surprise to him, something +exquisite and unhoped-for. He seemed to be listening to hear if it were real. +</p> + +<p> +Then he turned for his coat. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” he said, “we’ll go to Isabel.” +</p> + +<p> +Bertie took the lantern and opened the door. The cat disappeared. The two men +went in silence along the causeways. Isabel, as they came, thought their +footsteps sounded strange. She looked up pathetically and anxiously for their +entrance. There seemed a curious elation about Maurice. Bertie was haggard, +with sunken eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve become friends,” said Maurice, standing with his feet +apart, like a strange colossus. +</p> + +<p> +“Friends!” re-echoed Isabel. And she looked again at Bertie. He met +her eyes with a furtive, haggard look; his eyes were as if glazed with misery. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so glad,” she said, in sheer perplexity. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Maurice. +</p> + +<p> +He was indeed so glad. Isabel took his hand with both hers, and held it fast. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll be happier now, dear,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +But she was watching Bertie. She knew that he had one desire—to escape +from this intimacy, this friendship, which had been thrust upon him. He could +not bear it that he had been touched by the blind man, his insane reserve +broken in. He was like a mollusc whose shell is broken. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>MONKEY NUTS</h2> + +<p> +At first Joe thought the job O.K. He was loading hay on the trucks, along with +Albert, the corporal. The two men were pleasantly billeted in a cottage not far +from the station: they were their own masters, for Joe never thought of Albert +as a master. And the little sidings of the tiny village station was as pleasant +a place as you could wish for. On one side, beyond the line, stretched the +woods: on the other, the near side, across a green smooth field red houses were +dotted among flowering apple trees. The weather being sunny, work being easy, +Albert, a real good pal, what life could be better! After Flanders, it was +heaven itself. +</p> + +<p> +Albert, the corporal, was a clean-shaven, shrewd-looking fellow of about forty. +He seemed to think his one aim in life was to be full of fun and nonsense. In +repose, his face looked a little withered, old. He was a very good pal to Joe, +steady, decent and grave under all his “mischief”; for his mischief +was only his laborious way of skirting his own <i>ennui</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Joe was much younger than Albert—only twenty-three. He was a tallish, +quiet youth, pleasant looking. He was of a slightly better class than his +corporal, more personable. Careful about his appearance, he shaved every day. +“I haven’t got much of a face,” said Albert. “If I was +to shave every day like you, Joe, I should have none.” +</p> + +<p> +There was plenty of life in the little goods-yard: three porter youths, a +continual come and go of farm wagons bringing hay, wagons with timber from the +woods, coal carts loading at the trucks. The black coal seemed to make the +place sleepier, hotter. Round the big white gate the station-master’s +children played and his white chickens walked, whilst the stationmaster +himself, a young man getting too fat, helped his wife to peg out the washing on +the clothes line in the meadow. +</p> + +<p> +The great boat-shaped wagons came up from Playcross with the hay. At first the +farm-men waggoned it. On the third day one of the land-girls appeared with the +first load, drawing to a standstill easily at the head of her two great horses. +She was a buxom girl, young, in linen overalls and gaiters. Her face was ruddy, +she had large blue eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Now that’s the waggoner for us, boys,” said the corporal +loudly. +</p> + +<p> +“Whoa!” she said to her horses; and then to the corporal: +“Which boys do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“We are the pick of the bunch. That’s Joe, my pal. Don’t you +let on that my name’s Albert,” said the corporal to his private. +“I’m the corporal.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I’m Miss Stokes,” said the land-girl coolly, “if +that’s all the boys you are.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know you couldn’t want more, Miss Stokes,” said Albert +politely. Joe, who was bare-headed, whose grey flannel sleeves were rolled up +to the elbow, and whose shirt was open at the breast, looked modestly aside as +if he had no part in the affair. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you on this job regular, then?” said the corporal to Miss +Stokes. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know for sure,” she said, pushing a piece of hair +under her hat, and attending to her splendid horses. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, make it a certainty,” said Albert. +</p> + +<p> +She did not reply. She turned and looked over the two men coolly. She was +pretty, moderately blonde, with crisp hair, a good skin, and large blue eyes. +She was strong, too, and the work went on leisurely and easily. +</p> + +<p> +“Now!” said the corporal, stopping as usual to look round, +“pleasant company makes work a pleasure—don’t hurry it, +boys.” He stood on the truck surveying the world. That was one of his +great and absorbing occupations: to stand and look out on things in general. +Joe, also standing on the truck, also turned round to look what was to be seen. +But he could not become blankly absorbed, as Albert could. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Stokes watched the two men from under her broad felt hat. She had seen +hundreds of Alberts, khaki soldiers standing in loose attitudes, absorbed in +watching nothing in particular. She had seen also a good many Joes, quiet, +good-looking young soldiers with half-averted faces. But there was something in +the turn of Joe’s head, and something in his quiet, tender-looking form, +young and fresh—which attracted her eye. As she watched him closely from +below, he turned as if he felt her, and his dark-blue eye met her straight, +light-blue gaze. He faltered and turned aside again and looked as if he were +going to fall off the truck. A slight flush mounted under the girl’s +full, ruddy face. She liked him. +</p> + +<p> +Always, after this, when she came into the sidings with her team, it was Joe +she looked for. She acknowledged to herself that she was sweet on him. But +Albert did all the talking. He was so full of fun and nonsense. Joe was a very +shy bird, very brief and remote in his answers. Miss Stokes was driven to +indulge in repartee with Albert, but she fixed her magnetic attention on the +younger fellow. Joe would talk with Albert, and laugh at his jokes. But Miss +Stokes could get little out of him. She had to depend on her silent forces. +They were more effective than might be imagined. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, on Saturday afternoon, at about two o’clock, Joe received a +bolt from the blue—a telegram: “Meet me Belbury Station 6.00 p.m. +today. M.S.” He knew at once who M.S. was. His heart melted, he felt weak +as if he had had a blow. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the trouble, boy?” asked Albert anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“No—no trouble—it’s to meet somebody.” Joe lifted +his dark-blue eyes in confusion towards his corporal. +</p> + +<p> +“Meet somebody!” repeated the corporal, watching his young pal with +keen blue eyes. “It’s all right, then; nothing wrong?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—nothing wrong. I’m not going,” said Joe. +</p> + +<p> +Albert was old and shrewd enough to see that nothing more should be said before +the housewife. He also saw that Joe did not want to take him into confidence. +So he held his peace, though he was piqued. +</p> + +<p> +The two soldiers went into town, smartened up. Albert knew a fair number of the +boys round about; there would be plenty of gossip in the market-place, plenty +of lounging in groups on the Bath Road, watching the Saturday evening shoppers. +Then a modest drink or two, and the movies. They passed an agreeable, casual, +nothing-in-particular evening, with which Joe was quite satisfied. He thought +of Belbury Station, and of M.S. waiting there. He had not the faintest +intention of meeting her. And he had not the faintest intention of telling +Albert. +</p> + +<p> +And yet, when the two men were in their bedroom, half undressed, Joe suddenly +held out the telegram to his corporal, saying: “What d’you think of +that?” +</p> + +<p> +Albert was just unbuttoning his braces. He desisted, took the telegram form, +and turned towards the candle to read it. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Meet me Belbury Station 6.00 p.m. today. M.S.</i>,” he read, +<i>sotto voce</i>. His face took on its fun-and-nonsense look. +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s M.S.?” he asked, looking shrewdly at Joe. +</p> + +<p> +“You know as well as I do,” said Joe, non-committal. +</p> + +<p> +“M.S.,” repeated Albert. “Blamed if I know, boy. Is it a +woman?” +</p> + +<p> +The conversation was carried on in tiny voices, for fear of disturbing the +householders. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Joe, turning. He looked full at Albert, +the two men looked straight into each other’s eyes. There was a lurking +grin in each of them. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m—<i>blamed!</i>” said Albert at last, +throwing the telegram down emphatically on the bed. +</p> + +<p> +“Wha-at?” said Joe, grinning rather sheepishly, his eyes clouded +none the less. +</p> + +<p> +Albert sat on the bed and proceeded to undress, nodding his head with mock +gravity all the while. Joe watched him foolishly. +</p> + +<p> +“What?” he repeated faintly. +</p> + +<p> +Albert looked up at him with a knowing look. +</p> + +<p> +“If that isn’t coming it quick, boy!” he said. “What +the blazes! What ha’ you bin doing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing!” said Joe. +</p> + +<p> +Albert slowly shook his head as he sat on the side of the bed. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t happen to me when I’ve bin doin’ nothing,” +he said. And he proceeded to pull off his stockings. +</p> + +<p> +Joe turned away, looking at himself in the mirror as he unbuttoned his tunic. +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t want to keep the appointment?” Albert asked, in a +changed voice, from the bedside. +</p> + +<p> +Joe did not answer for a moment. Then he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I made no appointment.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not saying you did, boy. Don’t be nasty about it. I mean +you didn’t want to answer the—unknown person’s +summons—shall I put it that way?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Joe. +</p> + +<p> +“What was the deterring motive?” asked Albert, who was now lying on +his back in bed. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Joe, suddenly looking round rather haughtily. “I +didn’t want to.” He had a well-balanced head, and could take on a +sudden distant bearing. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t want to—didn’t cotton on, like. +Well—<i>they be artful, the women</i>—” he mimicked his +landlord. “Come on into bed, boy. Don’t loiter about as if +you’d lost something.” +</p> + +<p> +Albert turned over, to sleep. +</p> + +<p> +On Monday Miss Stokes turned up as usual, striding beside her team. Her +“whoa!” was resonant and challenging, she looked up at the truck as +her steeds came to a standstill. Joe had turned aside, and had his face averted +from her. She glanced him over—save for his slender succulent tenderness +she would have despised him. She sized him up in a steady look. Then she turned +to Albert, who was looking down at her and smiling in his mischievous turn. She +knew his aspects by now. She looked straight back at him, though her eyes were +hot. He saluted her. +</p> + +<p> +“Beautiful morning, Miss Stokes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very!” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +“Handsome is as handsome looks,” said Albert. +</p> + +<p> +Which produced no response. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Joe, come on here,” said the corporal. “Don’t +keep the ladies waiting—it’s the sign of a weak heart.” +</p> + +<p> +Joe turned, and the work began. Nothing more was said for the time being. As +the week went on all parties became more comfortable. Joe remained silent, +averted, neutral, a little on his dignity. Miss Stokes was off-hand and +masterful. Albert was full of mischief. +</p> + +<p> +The great theme was a circus, which was coming to the market town on the +following Saturday. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll go to the circus, Miss Stokes?” said Albert. +</p> + +<p> +“I may go. Are you going?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly. Give us the pleasure of escorting you.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thanks.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what I call a flat refusal—what, Joe? You don’t +mean that you have no liking for our company, Miss Stokes?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know,” said Miss Stokes. “How many are +there of you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only me and Joe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, is that all?” she said, satirically. +</p> + +<p> +Albert was a little nonplussed. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t that enough for you?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Too many by half,” blurted out Joe, jeeringly, in a sudden fit of +uncouth rudeness that made both the others stare. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’ll stand out of the way, boy, if that’s it,” +said Albert to Joe. Then he turned mischievously to Miss Stokes. “He +wants to know what M. stands for,” he said, confidentially. +</p> + +<p> +“Monkeys,” she replied, turning to her horses. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s M.S.?” said Albert. +</p> + +<p> +“Monkey-nuts,” she retorted, leading off her team. +</p> + +<p> +Albert looked after her a little discomfited. Joe had flushed dark, and cursed +Albert in his heart. +</p> + +<p> +On the Saturday afternoon the two soldiers took the train into town. They would +have to walk home. They had tea at six o’clock, and lounged about till +half past seven. The circus was in a meadow near the river—a great +red-and-white striped tent. Caravans stood at the side. A great crowd of people +was gathered round the ticket-caravan. +</p> + +<p> +Inside the tent the lamps were lighted, shining on a ring of faces, a great +circular bank of faces round the green grassy centre. Along with some comrades, +the two soldiers packed themselves on a thin plank seat, rather high. They were +delighted with the flaring lights, the wild effect. But the circus performance +did not affect them deeply. They admired the lady in black velvet with +rose-purple legs who leapt so neatly on to the galloping horse; they watched +the feats of strength and laughed at the clown. But they felt a little +patronizing, they missed the sensational drama of the cinema. +</p> + +<p> +Half-way through the performance Joe was electrified to see the face of Miss +Stokes not very far from him. There she was, in her khaki and her felt hat, as +usual; he pretended not to see her. She was laughing at the clown; she also +pretended not to see him. It was a blow to him, and it made him angry. He would +not even mention it to Albert. Least said, soonest mended. He liked to believe +she had not seen him. But he knew, fatally, that she had. +</p> + +<p> +When they came out it was nearly eleven o’clock; a lovely night, with a +moon and tall, dark, noble trees: a magnificent May night. Joe and Albert +laughed and chaffed with the boys. Joe looked round frequently to see if he +were safe from Miss Stokes. It seemed so. +</p> + +<p> +But there were six miles to walk home. At last the two soldiers set off, +swinging their canes. The road was white between tall hedges, other stragglers +were passing out of the town towards the villages; the air was full of pleased +excitement. +</p> + +<p> +They were drawing near to the village when they saw a dark figure ahead. +Joe’s heart sank with pure fear. It was a figure wheeling a bicycle; a +land girl; Miss Stokes. Albert was ready with his nonsense. Miss Stokes had a +puncture. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me wheel the rattler,” said Albert. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said Miss Stokes. “You <i>are</i> kind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’d be kinder than that, if you’d show me how,” +said Albert. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you sure?” said Miss Stokes. +</p> + +<p> +“Doubt my words?” said Albert. “That’s cruel of you, +Miss Stokes.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Stokes walked between them, close to Joe. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you been to the circus?” she asked him. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he replied, mildly. +</p> + +<p> +“Have <i>you</i> been?” Albert asked her. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I didn’t see you,” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +“What!—you say so! Didn’t see us! Didn’t think us worth +looking at,” began Albert. “Aren’t I as handsome as the +clown, now? And you didn’t as much as glance in our direction? I call it +a downright oversight.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never <i>saw</i> you,” reiterated Miss Stokes. “I +didn’t know you saw me.” +</p> + +<p> +“That makes it worse,” said Albert. +</p> + +<p> +The road passed through a belt of dark pine-wood. The village, and the branch +road, was very near. Miss Stokes put out her fingers and felt for Joe’s +hand as it swung at his side. To say he was staggered is to put it mildly. Yet +he allowed her softly to clasp his fingers for a few moments. But he was a +mortified youth. +</p> + +<p> +At the cross-road they stopped—Miss Stokes should turn off. She had +another mile to go. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll let us see you home,” said Albert. +</p> + +<p> +“Do me a kindness,” she said. “Put my bike in your shed, and +take it to Baker’s on Monday, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll sit up all night and mend it for you, if you like.” +</p> + +<p> +“No thanks. And Joe and I’ll walk on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—ho! Oh—ho!” sang Albert. “Joe! Joe! What do +you say to that, now, boy? Aren’t you in luck’s way. And I get the +bloomin’ old bike for my pal. Consider it again, Miss Stokes.” +</p> + +<p> +Joe turned aside his face, and did not speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well! I wheel the grid, do I? I leave you, boy—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not keen on going any further,” barked out Joe, in an +uncouth voice. “She hain’t my choice.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl stood silent, and watched the two men. +</p> + +<p> +“There now!” said Albert. “Think o’ that! If it was +<i>me</i> now—” But he was uncomfortable. “Well, Miss Stokes, +have me,” he added. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Stokes stood quite still, neither moved nor spoke. And so the three +remained for some time at the lane end. At last Joe began kicking the +ground—then he suddenly lifted his face. At that moment Miss Stokes was +at his side. She put her arm delicately round his waist. +</p> + +<p> +“Seems I’m the one extra, don’t you think?” Albert +inquired of the high bland moon. +</p> + +<p> +Joe had dropped his head and did not answer. Miss Stokes stood with her arm +lightly round his waist. Albert bowed, saluted, and bade good-night. He walked +away, leaving the two standing. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Stokes put a light pressure on Joe’s waist, and drew him down the +road. They walked in silence. The night was full of scent—wild cherry, +the first bluebells. Still they walked in silence. A nightingale was singing. +They approached nearer and nearer, till they stood close by his dark bush. The +powerful notes sounded from the cover, almost like flashes of light—then +the interval of silence—then the moaning notes, almost like a dog faintly +howling, followed by the long, rich trill, and flashing notes. Then a short +silence again. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Stokes turned at last to Joe. She looked up at him, and in the moonlight +he saw her faintly smiling. He felt maddened, but helpless. Her arm was round +his waist, she drew him closely to her with a soft pressure that made all his +bones rotten. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile Albert was waiting at home. He put on his overcoat, for the fire was +out, and he had had malarial fever. He looked fitfully at the <i>Daily +Mirror</i> and the <i>Daily Sketch</i>, but he saw nothing. It seemed a long +time. He began to yawn widely, even to nod. At last Joe came in. +</p> + +<p> +Albert looked at him keenly. The young man’s brow was black, his face +sullen. +</p> + +<p> +“All right, boy?” asked Albert. +</p> + +<p> +Joe merely grunted for a reply. There was nothing more to be got out of him. So +they went to bed. +</p> + +<p> +Next day Joe was silent, sullen. Albert could make nothing of him. He proposed +a walk after tea. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going somewhere,” said Joe. +</p> + +<p> +“Where—Monkey-nuts?” asked the corporal. But Joe’s brow +only became darker. +</p> + +<p> +So the days went by. Almost every evening Joe went off alone, returning late. +He was sullen, taciturn and had a hang-dog look, a curious way of dropping his +head and looking dangerously from under his brows. And he and Albert did not +get on so well any more with one another. For all his fun and nonsense, Albert +was really irritable, soon made angry. And Joe’s stand-offish sulkiness +and complete lack of confidence riled him, got on his nerves. His fun and +nonsense took a biting, sarcastic turn, at which Joe’s eyes glittered +occasionally, though the young man turned unheeding aside. Then again Joe would +be full of odd, whimsical fun, outshining Albert himself. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Stokes still came to the station with the wain: Monkey-nuts, Albert called +her, though not to her face. For she was very clear and good-looking, almost +she seemed to gleam. And Albert was a tiny bit afraid of her. She very rarely +addressed Joe whilst the hay-loading was going on, and that young man always +turned his back to her. He seemed thinner, and his limber figure looked more +slouching. But still it had the tender, attractive appearance, especially from +behind. His tanned face, a little thinned and darkened, took a handsome, +slightly sinister look. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, Joe!” the corporal urged sharply one day. +“What’re you doing, boy? Looking for beetles on the bank?” +</p> + +<p> +Joe turned round swiftly, almost menacing, to work. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a different fellow these days, Miss Stokes,” said +Albert to the young woman. “What’s got him? Is it Monkey-nuts that +don’t suit him, do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +“Choked with chaff, more like,” she retorted. “It’s as +bad as feeding a threshing machine, to have to listen to some folks.” +</p> + +<p> +“As bad as what?” said Albert. “You don’t mean me, do +you, Miss Stokes?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she cried. “I don’t mean you.” +</p> + +<p> +Joe’s face became dark red during these sallies, but he said nothing. He +would eye the young woman curiously, as she swung so easily at the work, and he +had some of the look of a dog which is going to bite. +</p> + +<p> +Albert, with his nerves on edge, began to find the strain rather severe. The +next Saturday evening, when Joe came in more black-browed than ever, he watched +him, determined to have it out with him. +</p> + +<p> +When the boy went upstairs to bed, the corporal followed him. He closed the +door behind him carefully, sat on the bed and watched the younger man +undressing. And for once he spoke in a natural voice, neither chaffing nor +commanding. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s gone wrong, boy?” +</p> + +<p> +Joe stopped a moment as if he had been shot. Then he went on unwinding his +puttees, and did not answer or look up. +</p> + +<p> +“You can hear, can’t you?” said Albert, nettled. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I can hear,” said Joe, stooping over his puttees till his +face was purple. +</p> + +<p> +“Then why don’t you answer?” +</p> + +<p> +Joe sat up. He gave a long, sideways look at the corporal. Then he lifted his +eyes and stared at a crack in the ceiling. +</p> + +<p> +The corporal watched these movements shrewdly. +</p> + +<p> +“And <i>then</i> what?” he asked, ironically. +</p> + +<p> +Again Joe turned and stared him in the face. The corporal smiled very slightly, +but kindly. +</p> + +<p> +“There’ll be murder done one of these days,” said Joe, in a +quiet, unimpassioned voice. +</p> + +<p> +“So long as it’s by daylight—” replied Albert. Then he +went over, sat down by Joe, put his hand on his shoulder affectionately, and +continued, “What is it, boy? What’s gone wrong? You can trust me, +can’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +Joe turned and looked curiously at the face so near to his. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s nothing, that’s all,” he said laconically. +</p> + +<p> +Albert frowned. +</p> + +<p> +“Then who’s going to be murdered?—and who’s going to do +the murdering?—me or you—which is it, boy?” He smiled gently +at the stupid youth, looking straight at him all the while, into his eyes. +Gradually the stupid, hunted, glowering look died out of Joe’s eyes. He +turned his head aside, gently, as one rousing from a spell. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want her,” he said, with fierce resentment. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you needn’t have her,” said Albert. “What do you +go for, boy?” +</p> + +<p> +But it wasn’t as simple as all that. Joe made no remark. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s a smart-looking girl. What’s wrong with her, my boy? I +should have thought you were a lucky chap, myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want ’er,” Joe barked, with ferocity and +resentment. +</p> + +<p> +“Then tell her so and have done,” said Albert. He waited awhile. +There was no response. “Why don’t you?” he added. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I don’t,” confessed Joe, sulkily. +</p> + +<p> +Albert pondered—rubbed his head. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re too soft-hearted, that’s where it is, boy. You want +your mettle dipping in cold water, to temper it. You’re too +soft-hearted—” +</p> + +<p> +He laid his arm affectionately across the shoulders of the younger man. Joe +seemed to yield a little towards him. +</p> + +<p> +“When are you going to see her again?” Albert asked. For a long +time there was no answer. +</p> + +<p> +“When is it, boy?” persisted the softened voice of the corporal. +</p> + +<p> +“Tomorrow,” confessed Joe. +</p> + +<p> +“Then let me go,” said Albert. “Let me go, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +The morrow was Sunday, a sunny day, but a cold evening. The sky was grey, the +new foliage very green, but the air was chill and depressing. Albert walked +briskly down the white road towards Beeley. He crossed a larch plantation, and +followed a narrow by-road, where blue speedwell flowers fell from the banks +into the dust. He walked swinging his cane, with mixed sensations. Then having +gone a certain length, he turned and began to walk in the opposite direction. +</p> + +<p> +So he saw a young woman approaching him. She was wearing a wide hat of grey +straw, and a loose, swinging dress of nigger-grey velvet. She walked with slow +inevitability. Albert faltered a little as he approached her. Then he saluted +her, and his roguish, slightly withered skin flushed. She was staring straight +into his face. +</p> + +<p> +He fell in by her side, saying impudently: +</p> + +<p> +“Not so nice for a walk as it was, is it?” +</p> + +<p> +She only stared at him. He looked back at her. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve seen me before, you know,” he said, grinning +slightly. “Perhaps you never noticed me. Oh, I’m quite nice +looking, in a quiet way, you know. What—?” +</p> + +<p> +But Miss Stokes did not speak: she only stared with large, icy blue eyes at +him. He became self-conscious, lifted up his chin, walked with his nose in the +air, and whistled at random. So they went down the quiet, deserted grey lane. +He was whistling the air: “I’m Gilbert, the filbert, the colonel of +the nuts.” +</p> + +<p> +At last she found her voice: +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s Joe?” +</p> + +<p> +“He thought you’d like a change: they say variety’s the salt +of life—that’s why I’m mostly in pickle.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is he?” +</p> + +<p> +“Am I my brother’s keeper? He’s gone his own ways.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, how am I to know? Not so far but he’ll be back for +supper.” +</p> + +<p> +She stopped in the middle of the lane. He stopped facing her. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s Joe?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +He struck a careless attitude, looked down the road this way and that, lifted +his eyebrows, pushed his khaki cap on one side, and answered: +</p> + +<p> +“He is not conducting the service tonight: he asked me if I’d +officiate.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why hasn’t he come?” +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t want to, I expect. <i>I</i> wanted to.” +</p> + +<p> +She stared him up and down, and he felt uncomfortable in his spine, but +maintained his air of nonchalance. Then she turned slowly on her heel, and +started to walk back. The corporal went at her side. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not going back, are you?” he pleaded. “Why, me +and you, we should get on like a house on fire.” +</p> + +<p> +She took no heed, but walked on. He went uncomfortably at her side, making his +funny remarks from time to time. But she was as if stone deaf. He glanced at +her, and to his dismay saw the tears running down her cheeks. He stopped +suddenly, and pushed back his cap. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, you know—” he began. +</p> + +<p> +But she was walking on like an automaton, and he had to hurry after her. +</p> + +<p> +She never spoke to him. At the gate of her farm she walked straight in, as if +he were not there. He watched her disappear. Then he turned on his heel, +cursing silently, puzzled, lifting off his cap to scratch his head. +</p> + +<p> +That night, when they were in bed, he remarked: “Say, Joe, boy; strikes +me you’re well-off without Monkey-nuts. Gord love us, beans ain’t +in it.” +</p> + +<p> +So they slept in amity. But they waited with some anxiety for the morrow. +</p> + +<p> +It was a cold morning, a grey sky shifting in a cold wind, and threatening +rain. They watched the wagon come up the road and through the yard gates. Miss +Stokes was with her team as usual; her “Whoa!” rang out like a +war-whoop. +</p> + +<p> +She faced up at the truck where the two men stood. +</p> + +<p> +“Joe!” she called, to the averted figure which stood up in the +wind. +</p> + +<p> +“What?” he turned unwillingly. +</p> + +<p> +She made a queer movement, lifting her head slightly in a sipping, +half-inviting, half-commanding gesture. And Joe was crouching already to jump +off the truck to obey her, when Albert put his hand on his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“Half a minute, boy! Where are you off? Work’s work, and nuts is +nuts. You stop here.” +</p> + +<p> +Joe slowly straightened himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Joe!” came the woman’s clear call from below. +</p> + +<p> +Again Joe looked at her. But Albert’s hand was on his shoulder, detaining +him. He stood half averted, with his tail between his legs. +</p> + +<p> +“Take your hand off him, you!” said Miss Stokes. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Major,” retorted Albert satirically. +</p> + +<p> +She stood and watched. +</p> + +<p> +“Joe!” Her voice rang for the third time. +</p> + +<p> +Joe turned and looked at her, and a slow, jeering smile gathered on his face. +</p> + +<p> +“Monkey-nuts!” he replied, in a tone mocking her call. +</p> + +<p> +She turned white—dead white. The men thought she would fall. Albert began +yelling to the porters up the line to come and help with the load. He could +yell like any non-commissioned officer upon occasion. +</p> + +<p> +Some way or other the wagon was unloaded, the girl was gone. Joe and his +corporal looked at one another and smiled slowly. But they had a weight on +their minds, they were afraid. +</p> + +<p> +They were reassured, however, when they found that Miss Stokes came no more +with the hay. As far as they were concerned, she had vanished into oblivion. +And Joe felt more relieved even than he had felt when he heard the firing +cease, after the news had come that the armistice was signed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>WINTRY PEACOCK</h2> + +<p> +There was thin, crisp snow on the ground, the sky was blue, the wind very cold, +the air clear. Farmers were just turning out the cows for an hour or so in the +midday, and the smell of cow-sheds was unendurable as I entered Tible. I +noticed the ash-twigs up in the sky were pale and luminous, passing into the +blue. And then I saw the peacocks. There they were in the road before me, three +of them, and tailless, brown, speckled birds, with dark-blue necks and ragged +crests. They stepped archly over the filigree snow, and their bodies moved with +slow motion, like small, light, flat-bottomed boats. I admired them, they were +curious. Then a gust of wind caught them, heeled them over as if they were +three frail boats opening their feathers like ragged sails. They hopped and +skipped with discomfort, to get out of the draught of the wind. And then, in +the lee of the walls, they resumed their arch, wintry motion, light and +unballasted now their tails were gone, indifferent. They were indifferent to my +presence. I might have touched them. They turned off to the shelter of an open +shed. +</p> + +<p> +As I passed the end of the upper house, I saw a young woman just coming out of +the back door. I had spoken to her in the summer. She recognised me at once, +and waved to me. She was carrying a pail, wearing a white apron that was longer +than her preposterously short skirt, and she had on the cotton bonnet. I took +off my hat to her and was going on. But she put down her pail and darted with a +swift, furtive movement after me. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mind waiting a minute?” she said. “I’ll be out +in a minute.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave me a slight, odd smile, and ran back. Her face was long and sallow and +her nose rather red. But her gloomy black eyes softened caressively to me for a +moment, with that momentary humility which makes a man lord of the earth. +</p> + +<p> +I stood in the road, looking at the fluffy, dark-red young cattle that mooed +and seemed to bark at me. They seemed happy, frisky cattle, a little impudent, +and either determined to go back into the warm shed, or determined not to go +back, I could not decide which. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the woman came forward again, her head rather ducked. But she looked +up at me and smiled, with that odd, immediate intimacy, something witch-like +and impossible. +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said. “Shall we stand in +this cart-shed—it will be more out of the wind.” +</p> + +<p> +So we stood among the shafts of the open cart-shed that faced the road. Then +she looked down at the ground, a little sideways, and I noticed a small black +frown on her brows. She seemed to brood for a moment. Then she looked straight +into my eyes, so that I blinked and wanted to turn my face aside. She was +searching me for something and her look was too near. The frown was still on +her keen, sallow brow. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you speak French?” she asked me abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +“More or less,” I replied. +</p> + +<p> +“I was supposed to learn it at school,” she said. “But I +don’t know a word.” She ducked her head and laughed, with a +slightly ugly grimace and a rolling of her black eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“No good keeping your mind full of scraps,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +But she had turned aside her sallow, long face, and did not hear what I said. +Suddenly again she looked at me. She was searching. And at the same time she +smiled at me, and her eyes looked softly, darkly, with infinite trustful +humility into mine. I was being cajoled. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you mind reading a letter for me, in French,” she said, her +face immediately black and bitter-looking. She glanced at me, frowning. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a letter to my husband,” she said, still scrutinizing. +</p> + +<p> +I looked at her, and didn’t quite realise. She looked too far into me, my +wits were gone. She glanced round. Then she looked at me shrewdly. She drew a +letter from her pocket, and handed it to me. It was addressed from France to +Lance-Corporal Goyte, at Tible. I took out the letter and began to read it, as +mere words. “<i>Mon cher Alfred</i>”—it might have been a bit +of a torn newspaper. So I followed the script: the trite phrases of a letter +from a French-speaking girl to an English soldier. “I think of you +always, always. Do you think sometimes of me?” And then I vaguely +realised that I was reading a man’s private correspondence. And yet, how +could one consider these trivial, facile French phrases private! Nothing more +trite and vulgar in the world, than such a love-letter—no newspaper more +obvious. +</p> + +<p> +Therefore I read with a callous heart the effusions of the Belgian damsel. But +then I gathered my attention. For the letter went on, “<i>Notre cher +petit bébé</i>—our dear little baby was born a week ago. Almost I died, +knowing you were far away, and perhaps forgetting the fruit of our perfect +love. But the child comforted me. He has the smiling eyes and virile air of his +English father. I pray to the Mother of Jesus to send me the dear father of my +child, that I may see him with my child in his arms, and that we may be united +in holy family love. Ah, my Alfred, can I tell you how I miss you, how I weep +for you. My thoughts are with you always, I think of nothing but you, I live +for nothing but you and our dear baby. If you do not come back to me soon, I +shall die, and our child will die. But no, you cannot come back to me. But I +can come to you, come to England with our child. If you do not wish to present +me to your good mother and father, you can meet me in some town, some city, for +I shall be so frightened to be alone in England with my child, and no one to +take care of us. Yet I must come to you, I must bring my child, my little +Alfred to his father, the big, beautiful Alfred that I love so much. Oh, write +and tell me where I shall come. I have some money, I am not a penniless +creature. I have money for myself and my dear baby—” +</p> + +<p> +I read to the end. It was signed: “Your very happy and still more unhappy +Élise.” I suppose I must have been smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“I can see it makes you laugh,” said Mrs. Goyte, sardonically. I +looked up at her. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a love-letter, I know that,” she said. +“There’s too many ‘Alfreds’ in it.” +</p> + +<p> +“One too many,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes—And what does she say—Eliza? We know her +name’s Eliza, that’s another thing.” She grimaced a little, +looking up at me with a mocking laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Where did you get this letter?” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Postman gave it me last week.” +</p> + +<p> +“And is your husband at home?” +</p> + +<p> +“I expect him home tonight. He’s been wounded, you know, and +we’ve been applying for him home. He was home about six weeks +ago—he’s been in Scotland since then. Oh, he was wounded in the +leg. Yes, he’s all right, a great strapping fellow. But he’s lame, +he limps a bit. He expects he’ll get his discharge—but I +don’t think he will. We married? We’ve been married six +years—and he joined up the first day of the war. Oh, he thought +he’d like the life. He’d been through the South African War. No, he +was sick of it, fed up. I’m living with his father and +mother—I’ve no home of my own now. My people had a big +farm—over a thousand acres—in Oxfordshire. Not like here—no. +Oh, they’re very good to me, his father and mother. Oh, yes, they +couldn’t be better. They think more of me than of their own daughters. +But it’s not like being in a place of your own, is it? You can’t +<i>really</i> do as you like. No, there’s only me and his father and +mother at home. Before the war? Oh, he was anything. He’s had a good +education—but he liked the farming better. Then he was a chauffeur. +That’s how he knew French. He was driving a gentleman in France for a +long time—” +</p> + +<p> +At this point the peacocks came round the corner on a puff of wind. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, Joey!” she called, and one of the birds came forward, on +delicate legs. Its grey speckled back was very elegant, it rolled its full, +dark-blue neck as it moved to her. She crouched down. “Joey, dear,” +she said, in an odd, saturnine caressive voice, “you’re bound to +find me, aren’t you?” She put her face forward, and the bird rolled +his neck, almost touching her face with his beak, as if kissing her. +</p> + +<p> +“He loves you,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +She twisted her face up at me with a laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she said, “he loves me, Joey does,”—then, +to the bird—“and I love Joey, don’t I. I <i>do</i> love +Joey.” And she smoothed his feathers for a moment. Then she rose, saying: +“He’s an affectionate bird.” +</p> + +<p> +I smiled at the roll of her “bir-rrd’. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, he is,” she protested. “He came with me from my +home seven years ago. Those others are his descendants—but they’re +not like Joey—<i>are they, dee-urr?</i>” Her voice rose at the end +with a witch-like cry. +</p> + +<p> +Then she forgot the birds in the cart-shed and turned to business again. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you read that letter?” she said. “Read it, so +that I know what it says.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s rather behind his back,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, never mind him,” she cried. “He’s been behind my +back long enough—all these four years. If he never did no worse things +behind my back than I do behind his, he wouldn’t have cause to grumble. +You read me what it says.” +</p> + +<p> +Now I felt a distinct reluctance to do as she bid, and yet I +began—“My dear Alfred.” +</p> + +<p> +“I guessed that much,” she said. “Eliza’s dear +Alfred.” She laughed. “How do you say it in French? +<i>Eliza?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +I told her, and she repeated the name with great contempt—<i>Élise</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“Go on,” she said. “You’re not reading.” +</p> + +<p> +So I began—“I have been thinking of you sometimes—have you +been thinking of me?”— +</p> + +<p> +“Of several others as well, beside her, I’ll wager,” said +Mrs. Goyte. +</p> + +<p> +“Probably not,” said I, and continued. “A dear little baby +was born here a week ago. Ah, can I tell you my feelings when I take my darling +little brother into my arms—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll bet it’s <i>his</i>,” cried Mrs. Goyte. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I said. “It’s her mother’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you believe it,” she cried. “It’s a blind. +You mark, it’s her own right enough—and his.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I said, “it’s her mother’s.” +“He has sweet smiling eyes, but not like your beautiful English +eyes—” +</p> + +<p> +She suddenly struck her hand on her skirt with a wild motion, and bent down, +doubled with laughter. Then she rose and covered her face with her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m forced to laugh at the beautiful English eyes,” she +said. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t his eyes beautiful?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes—<i>very!</i> Go on!—<i>Joey, dear, dee-urr, +Joey!</i>”—this to the peacock. +</p> + +<p> +—“Er—We miss you very much. We all miss you. We wish you were +here to see the darling baby. Ah, Alfred, how happy we were when you stayed +with us. We all loved you so much. My mother will call the baby Alfred so that +we shall never forget you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course it’s his right enough,” cried Mrs. Goyte. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I said. “It’s the mother’s.” +Er—“My mother is very well. My father came home yesterday—on +leave. He is delighted with his son, my little brother, and wishes to have him +named after you, because you were so good to us all in that terrible time, +which I shall never forget. I must weep now when I think of it. Well, you are +far away in England, and perhaps I shall never see you again. How did you find +your dear mother and father? I am so happy that your wound is better, and that +you can nearly walk—” +</p> + +<p> +“How did he find his dear <i>wife!</i>” cried Mrs. Goyte. “He +never told her he had one. Think of taking the poor girl in like that!” +</p> + +<p> +“We are so pleased when you write to us. Yet now you are in England you +will forget the family you served so well—” +</p> + +<p> +“A bit too well—eh, <i>Joey!</i>” cried the wife. +</p> + +<p> +“If it had not been for you we should not be alive now, to grieve and to +rejoice in this life, that is so hard for us. But we have recovered some of our +losses, and no longer feel the burden of poverty. The little Alfred is a great +comfort to me. I hold him to my breast and think of the big, good Alfred, and I +weep to think that those times of suffering were perhaps the times of a great +happiness that is gone for ever.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but isn’t it a shame, to take a poor girl in like that!” +cried Mrs. Goyte. “Never to let on that he was married, and raise her +hopes—I call it beastly, I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know,” I said. “You know how anxious women +are to fall in love, wife or no wife. How could he help it, if she was +determined to fall in love with him?” +</p> + +<p> +“He could have helped it if he’d wanted.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” I said, “we aren’t all heroes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but that’s different! The big, good Alfred!—did ever you +hear such tommy-rot in your life! Go on—what does she say at the +end?” +</p> + +<p> +“Er—We shall be pleased to hear of your life in England. We all +send many kind regards to your good parents. I wish you all happiness for your +future days. Your very affectionate and ever-grateful Élise.” +</p> + +<p> +There was silence for a moment, during which Mrs. Goyte remained with her head +dropped, sinister and abstracted. Suddenly she lifted her face, and her eyes +flashed. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but I call it beastly, I call it mean, to take a girl in like +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay,” I said. “Probably he hasn’t taken her in at all. +Do you think those French girls are such poor innocent things? I guess +she’s a great deal more downy than he.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he’s one of the biggest fools that ever walked,” she +cried. +</p> + +<p> +“There you are!” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s his child right enough,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think so,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well,” I said, “if you prefer to think that way.” +</p> + +<p> +“What other reason has she for writing like that—” +</p> + +<p> +I went out into the road and looked at the cattle. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is this driving the cows?” I said. She too came out. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the boy from the next farm,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well,” said I, “those Belgian girls! You never know +where their letters will end. And, after all, it’s his affair—you +needn’t bother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—!” she cried, with rough scorn—“it’s +not <i>me</i> that bothers. But it’s the nasty meanness of it—me +writing him such loving letters”—she put her hand before her face +and laughed malevolently—“and sending him parcels all the time. You +bet he fed that gurrl on my parcels—I know he did. It’s just like +him. I’ll bet they laughed together over my letters. I bet anything they +did—” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay,” said I. “He’d burn your letters for fear +they’d give him away.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a black look on her yellow face. Suddenly a voice was heard calling. +She poked her head out of the shed, and answered coolly: +</p> + +<p> +“All right!” Then turning to me: “That’s his mother +looking after me.” +</p> + +<p> +She laughed into my face, witch-like, and we turned down the road. +</p> + +<p> +When I awoke, the morning after this episode, I found the house darkened with +deep, soft snow, which had blown against the large west windows, covering them +with a screen. I went outside, and saw the valley all white and ghastly below +me, the trees beneath black and thin looking like wire, the rock-faces dark +between the glistening shroud, and the sky above sombre, heavy, yellowish-dark, +much too heavy for this world below of hollow bluey whiteness figured with +black. I felt I was in a valley of the dead. And I sensed I was a prisoner, for +the snow was everywhere deep, and drifted in places. So all the morning I +remained indoors, looking up the drive at the shrubs so heavily plumed with +snow, at the gateposts raised high with a foot or more of extra whiteness. Or I +looked down into the white-and-black valley that was utterly motionless and +beyond life, a hollow sarcophagus. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing stirred the whole day—no plume fell off the shrubs, the valley +was as abstracted as a grove of death. I looked over at the tiny, half-buried +farms away on the bare uplands beyond the valley hollow, and I thought of Tible +in the snow, of the black witch-like little Mrs. Goyte. And the snow seemed to +lay me bare to influences I wanted to escape. +</p> + +<p> +In the faint glow of the half-clear light that came about four o’clock in +the afternoon, I was roused to see a motion in the snow away below, near where +the thorn-trees stood very black and dwarfed, like a little savage group, in +the dismal white. I watched closely. Yes, there was a flapping and a +struggle—a big bird, it must be, labouring in the snow. I wondered. Our +biggest birds, in the valley, were the large hawks that often hung flickering +opposite my windows, level with me, but high above some prey on the steep +valleyside. This was much too big for a hawk—too big for any known bird. +I searched in my mind for the largest English wild birds, geese, buzzards. +</p> + +<p> +Still it laboured and strove, then was still, a dark spot, then struggled +again. I went out of the house and down the steep slope, at risk of breaking my +leg between the rocks. I knew the ground so well—and yet I got well +shaken before I drew near the thorn-trees. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, it was a bird. It was Joey. It was the grey-brown peacock with a blue +neck. He was snow-wet and spent. +</p> + +<p> +“Joey—Joey, de-urr!” I said, staggering unevenly towards him. +He looked so pathetic, rowing and struggling in the snow, too spent to rise, +his blue neck stretching out and lying sometimes on the snow, his eye closing +and opening quickly, his crest all battered. +</p> + +<p> +“Joey dee-uur! Dee-urr!” I said caressingly to him. And at last he +lay still, blinking, in the surged and furrowed snow, whilst I came near and +touched him, stroked him, gathered him under my arm. He stretched his long, +wetted neck away from me as I held him, none the less he was quiet in my arm, +too tired, perhaps, to struggle. Still he held his poor, crested head away from +me, and seemed sometimes to droop, to wilt, as if he might suddenly die. +</p> + +<p> +He was not so heavy as I expected, yet it was a struggle to get up to the house +with him again. We set him down, not too near the fire, and gently wiped him +with cloths. He submitted, only now and then stretched his soft neck away from +us, avoiding us helplessly. Then we set warm food by him. I <i>put</i> it to +his beak, tried to make him eat. But he ignored it. He seemed to be ignorant of +what we were doing, recoiled inside himself inexplicably. So we put him in a +basket with cloths, and left him crouching oblivious. His food we put near him. +The blinds were drawn, the house was warm, it was night. Sometimes he stirred, +but mostly he huddled still, leaning his queer crested head on one side. He +touched no food, and took no heed of sounds or movements. We talked of brandy +or stimulants. But I realised we had best leave him alone. +</p> + +<p> +In the night, however, we heard him thumping about. I got up anxiously with a +candle. He had eaten some food, and scattered more, making a mess. And he was +perched on the back of a heavy arm-chair. So I concluded he was recovered, or +recovering. +</p> + +<p> +The next day was clear, and the snow had frozen, so I decided to carry him back +to Tible. He consented, after various flappings, to sit in a big fish-bag with +his battered head peeping out with wild uneasiness. And so I set off with him, +slithering down into the valley, making good progress down in the pale shadow +beside the rushing waters, then climbing painfully up the arrested white +valleyside, plumed with clusters of young pine trees, into the paler white +radiance of the snowy, upper regions, where the wind cut fine. Joey seemed to +watch all the time with wide anxious, unseeing eye, brilliant and inscrutable. +As I drew near to Tible township he stirred violently in the bag, though I do +not know if he had recognised the place. Then, as I came to the sheds, he +looked sharply from side to side, and stretched his neck out long. I was a +little afraid of him. He gave a loud, vehement yell, opening his sinister beak, +and I stood still, looking at him as he struggled in the bag, shaken myself by +his struggles, yet not thinking to release him. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Goyte came darting past the end of the house, her head sticking forward in +sharp scrutiny. She saw me, and came forward. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you got Joey?” she cried sharply, as if I were a thief. +</p> + +<p> +I opened the bag, and he flopped out, flapping as if he hated the touch of the +snow now. She gathered him up, and put her lips to his beak. She was flushed +and handsome, her eyes bright, her hair slack, thick, but more witch-like than +ever. She did not speak. +</p> + +<p> +She had been followed by a grey-haired woman with a round, rather sallow face +and a slightly hostile bearing. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you bring him with you, then?” she asked sharply. I answered +that I had rescued him the previous evening. +</p> + +<p> +From the background slowly approached a slender man with a grey moustache and +large patches on his trousers. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got ’im back ’gain, ah see,” he said to +his daughter-in-law. His wife explained how I had found Joey. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” went on the grey man. “It wor our Alfred scared him +off, back your life. He must’a flyed ower t’valley. Tha ma’ +thank thy stars as ’e wor fun, Maggie. ’E’d a bin froze. They +a bit nesh, you know,” he concluded to me. +</p> + +<p> +“They are,” I answered. “This isn’t their +country.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, it isna,” replied Mr. Goyte. He spoke very slowly and +deliberately, quietly, as if the soft pedal were always down in his voice. He +looked at his daughter-in-law as she crouched, flushed and dark, before the +peacock, which would lay its long blue neck for a moment along her lap. In +spite of his grey moustache and thin grey hair, the elderly man had a face +young and almost delicate, like a young man’s. His blue eyes twinkled +with some inscrutable source of pleasure, his skin was fine and tender, his +nose delicately arched. His grey hair being slightly ruffled, he had a debonair +look, as of a youth who is in love. +</p> + +<p> +“We mun tell ’im it’s come,” he said slowly, and +turning he called: “Alfred—Alfred! Wheer’s ter gotten +to?” +</p> + +<p> +Then he turned again to the group. +</p> + +<p> +“Get up then, Maggie, lass, get up wi’ thee. Tha ma’es too +much o’ th’ bod.” +</p> + +<p> +A young man approached, wearing rough khaki and kneebreeches. He was Danish +looking, broad at the loins. +</p> + +<p> +“I’s come back then,” said the father to the son; +“leastwise, he’s bin browt back, flyed ower the Griff Low.” +</p> + +<p> +The son looked at me. He had a devil-may-care bearing, his cap on one side, his +hands stuck in the front pockets of his breeches. But he said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall you come in a minute, Master,” said the elderly woman, to +me. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, come in an’ ha’e a cup o’ tea or summat. +You’ll do wi’ summat, carrin’ that bod. Come on, Maggie +wench, let’s go in.” +</p> + +<p> +So we went indoors, into the rather stuffy, overcrowded living-room, that was +too cosy, and too warm. The son followed last, standing in the doorway. The +father talked to me. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie put out the tea-cups. The mother went into the dairy again. +</p> + +<p> +“Tha’lt rouse thysen up a bit again, now, Maggie,” the +father-in-law said—and then to me: “’ers not bin very bright +sin’ Alfred came whoam, an’ the bod flyed awee. ’E come whoam +a Wednesday night, Alfred did. But ay, you knowed, didna yer. Ay, ’e +comed ’a Wednesday—an’ I reckon there wor a bit of a to-do +between ’em, worn’t there, Maggie?” +</p> + +<p> +He twinkled maliciously to his daughter-in-law, who was flushed, brilliant and +handsome. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, be quiet, father. You’re wound up, by the sound of you,” +she said to him, as if crossly. But she could never be cross with him. +</p> + +<p> +“’Ers got ’er colour back this mornin’,” +continued the father-in-law slowly. “It’s bin heavy weather +wi’ ’er this last two days. Ay—’er’s bin +northeast sin ’er seed you a Wednesday.” +</p> + +<p> +“Father, do stop talking. You’d wear the leg off an iron pot. I +can’t think where you’ve found your tongue, all of a sudden,” +said Maggie, with caressive sharpness. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah’ve found it wheer I lost it. Aren’t goin’ ter come +in an’ sit thee down, Alfred?” +</p> + +<p> +But Alfred turned and disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +“’E’s got th’ monkey on ’is back ower this letter +job,” said the father secretly to me. “Mother, ’er knows nowt +about it. Lot o’ tom-foolery, isn’t it? Ay! What’s good +o’ makkin’ a peck o’ trouble over what’s far enough +off, an’ ned niver come no nigher. No—not a smite o’ use. +That’s what I tell ’er. ’Er should ta’e no notice +on’t. Ty, what can y’ expect.” +</p> + +<p> +The mother came in again, and the talk became general. Maggie flashed her eyes +at me from time to time, complacent and satisfied, moving among the men. I paid +her little compliments, which she did not seem to hear. She attended to me with +a kind of sinister, witch-like graciousness, her dark head ducked between her +shoulders, at once humble and powerful. She was happy as a child attending to +her father-in-law and to me. But there was something ominous between her +eyebrows, as if a dark moth were settled there—and something ominous in +her bent, hulking bearing. +</p> + +<p> +She sat on a low stool by the fire, near her father-in-law. Her head was +dropped, she seemed in a state of abstraction. From time to time she would +suddenly recover, and look up at us, laughing and chatting. Then she would +forget again. Yet in her hulked black forgetting she seemed very near to us. +</p> + +<p> +The door having been opened, the peacock came slowly in, prancing calmly. He +went near to her and crouched down, coiling his blue neck. She glanced at him, +but almost as if she did not observe him. The bird sat silent, seeming to +sleep, and the woman also sat hulked and silent, seemingly oblivious. Then once +more there was a heavy step, and Alfred entered. He looked at his wife, and he +looked at the peacock crouching by her. He stood large in the doorway, his +hands stuck in front of him, in his breeches pockets. Nobody spoke. He turned +on his heel and went out again. +</p> + +<p> +I rose also to go. Maggie started as if coming to herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Must you go?” she asked, rising and coming near to me, standing in +front of me, twisting her head sideways and looking up at me. +“Can’t you stop a bit longer? We can all be cosy today, +there’s nothing to do outdoors.” And she laughed, showing her teeth +oddly. She had a long chin. +</p> + +<p> +I said I must go. The peacock uncoiled and coiled again his long blue neck, as +he lay on the hearth. Maggie still stood close in front of me, so that I was +acutely aware of my waistcoat buttons. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well,” she said, “you’ll come again, won’t +you? Do come again.” +</p> + +<p> +I promised. +</p> + +<p> +“Come to tea one day—yes, do!” +</p> + +<p> +I promised—one day. +</p> + +<p> +The moment I went out of her presence I ceased utterly to exist for +her—as utterly as I ceased to exist for Joey. With her curious +abstractedness she forgot me again immediately. I knew it as I left her. Yet +she seemed almost in physical contact with me while I was with her. +</p> + +<p> +The sky was all pallid again, yellowish. When I went out there was no sun; the +snow was blue and cold. I hurried away down the hill, musing on Maggie. The +road made a loop down the sharp face of the slope. As I went crunching over the +laborious snow I became aware of a figure striding down the steep scarp to +intercept me. It was a man with his hands in front of him, half stuck in his +breeches pockets, and his shoulders square—a real farmer of the hills; +Alfred, of course. He waited for me by the stone fence. +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me,” he said as I came up. +</p> + +<p> +I came to a halt in front of him and looked into his sullen blue eyes. He had a +certain odd haughtiness on his brows. But his blue eyes stared insolently at +me. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know anything about a letter—in French—that my wife +opened—a letter of mine—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said I. “She asked me to read it to her.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked square at me. He did not know exactly how to feel. +</p> + +<p> +“What was there in it?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” I said. “Don’t you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“She makes out she’s burnt it,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Without showing it you?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +He nodded slightly. He seemed to be meditating as to what line of action he +should take. He wanted to know the contents of the letter: he must know: and +therefore he must ask me, for evidently his wife had taunted him. At the same +time, no doubt, he would like to wreak untold vengeance on my unfortunate +person. So he eyed me, and I eyed him, and neither of us spoke. He did not want +to repeat his request to me. And yet I only looked at him, and considered. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly he threw back his head and glanced down the valley. Then he changed +his position—he was a horse-soldier. Then he looked at me confidentially. +</p> + +<p> +“She burnt the blasted thing before I saw it,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” I answered slowly, “she doesn’t know herself +what was in it.” +</p> + +<p> +He continued to watch me narrowly. I grinned to myself. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t like to read her out what there was in it,” I +continued. +</p> + +<p> +He suddenly flushed so that the veins in his neck stood out, and he stirred +again uncomfortably. +</p> + +<p> +“The Belgian girl said her baby had been born a week ago, and that they +were going to call it Alfred,” I told him. +</p> + +<p> +He met my eyes. I was grinning. He began to grin, too. +</p> + +<p> +“Good luck to her,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Best of luck,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“And what did you tell <i>her</i>?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“That the baby belonged to the old mother—that it was brother to +your girl, who was writing to you as a friend of the family.” +</p> + +<p> +He stood smiling, with the long, subtle malice of a farmer. +</p> + +<p> +“And did she take it in?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“As much as she took anything else.” +</p> + +<p> +He stood grinning fixedly. Then he broke into a short laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Good for <i>her</i>” he exclaimed cryptically. +</p> + +<p> +And then he laughed aloud once more, evidently feeling he had won a big move in +his contest with his wife. +</p> + +<p> +“What about the other woman?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Who?” +</p> + +<p> +“Élise.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh”—he shifted uneasily—“she was all +right—” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll be getting back to her,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at me. Then he made a grimace with his mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“Not me,” he said. “Back your life it’s a plant.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t think the <i>cher petit bébé</i> is a little +Alfred?” +</p> + +<p> +“It might be,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Only might?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—an’ there’s lots of mites in a pound of +cheese.” He laughed boisterously but uneasily. +</p> + +<p> +“What did she say, exactly?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +I began to repeat, as well as I could, the phrases of the letter: +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Mon cher Alfred— Figure-toi comme je suis +desolée</i>—” +</p> + +<p> +He listened with some confusion. When I had finished all I could remember, he +said: +</p> + +<p> +“They know how to pitch you out a letter, those Belgian lasses.” +</p> + +<p> +“Practice,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“They get plenty,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well,” he said. “I’ve never got that letter, +anyhow.” +</p> + +<p> +The wind blew fine and keen, in the sunshine, across the snow. I blew my nose +and prepared to depart. +</p> + +<p> +“And <i>she</i> doesn’t know anything?” he continued, jerking +his head up the hill in the direction of Tible. +</p> + +<p> +“She knows nothing but what I’ve said—that is, if she really +burnt the letter.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe she burnt it,” he said, “for spite. She’s a +little devil, she is. But I shall have it out with her.” His jaw was +stubborn and sullen. Then suddenly he turned to me with a new note. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” he said. “Why didn’t you wring that +b—— peacock’s neck—that b—— Joey?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” I said. “What for?” +</p> + +<p> +“I hate the brute,” he said. “I had a shot at +him—” +</p> + +<p> +I laughed. He stood and mused. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor little Élise,” he murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“Was she small—<i>petite</i>?” I asked. He jerked up his +head. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said. “Rather tall.” +</p> + +<p> +“Taller than your wife, I suppose.” +</p> + +<p> +Again he looked into my eyes. And then once more he went into a loud burst of +laughter that made the still, snow-deserted valley clap again. +</p> + +<p> +“God, it’s a knockout!” he said, thoroughly amused. Then he +stood at ease, one foot out, his hands in his breeches pockets, in front of +him, his head thrown back, a handsome figure of a man. +</p> + +<p> +“But I’ll do that blasted Joey in—” he mused. +</p> + +<p> +I ran down the hill, shouting with laughter. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>YOU TOUCHED ME</h2> + +<p> +The Pottery House was a square, ugly, brick house girt in by the wall that +enclosed the whole grounds of the pottery itself. To be sure, a privet hedge +partly masked the house and its ground from the pottery-yard and works: but +only partly. Through the hedge could be seen the desolate yard, and the +many-windowed, factory-like pottery, over the hedge could be seen the chimneys +and the outhouses. But inside the hedge, a pleasant garden and lawn sloped down +to a willow pool, which had once supplied the works. +</p> + +<p> +The Pottery itself was now closed, the great doors of the yard permanently +shut. No more the great crates with yellow straw showing through, stood in +stacks by the packing shed. No more the drays drawn by great horses rolled down +the hill with a high load. No more the pottery-lasses in their clay-coloured +overalls, their faces and hair splashed with grey fine mud, shrieked and larked +with the men. All that was over. +</p> + +<p> +“We like it much better—oh, much better—quieter,” said +Matilda Rockley. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” assented Emmie Rockley, her sister. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure you do,” agreed the visitor. +</p> + +<p> +But whether the two Rockley girls really liked it better, or whether they only +imagined they did, is a question. Certainly their lives were much more grey and +dreary now that the grey clay had ceased to spatter its mud and silt its dust +over the premises. They did not quite realise how they missed the shrieking, +shouting lasses, whom they had known all their lives and disliked so much. +</p> + +<p> +Matilda and Emmie were already old maids. In a thorough industrial district, it +is not easy for the girls who have expectations above the common to find +husbands. The ugly industrial town was full of men, young men who were ready to +marry. But they were all colliers or pottery-hands, mere workmen. The Rockley +girls would have about ten thousand pounds each when their father died: ten +thousand pounds’ worth of profitable house-property. It was not to be +sneezed at: they felt so themselves, and refrained from sneezing away such a +fortune on any mere member of the proletariat. Consequently, bank-clerks or +nonconformist clergymen or even school-teachers having failed to come forward, +Matilda had begun to give up all idea of ever leaving the Pottery House. +</p> + +<p> +Matilda was a tall, thin, graceful fair girl, with a rather large nose. She was +the Mary to Emmie’s Martha: that is, Matilda loved painting and music, +and read a good many novels, whilst Emmie looked after the house-keeping. Emmie +was shorter, plumper than her sister, and she had no accomplishments. She +looked up to Matilda, whose mind was naturally refined and sensible. +</p> + +<p> +In their quiet, melancholy way, the two girls were happy. Their mother was +dead. Their father was ill also. He was an intelligent man who had had some +education, but preferred to remain as if he were one with the rest of the +working people. He had a passion for music and played the violin pretty well. +But now he was getting old, he was very ill, dying of a kidney disease. He had +been rather a heavy whisky-drinker. +</p> + +<p> +This quiet household, with one servant-maid, lived on year after year in the +Pottery House. Friends came in, the girls went out, the father drank himself +more and more ill. Outside in the street there was a continual racket of the +colliers and their dogs and children. But inside the pottery wall was a +deserted quiet. +</p> + +<p> +In all this ointment there was one little fly. Ted Rockley, the father of the +girls, had had four daughters, and no son. As his girls grew, he felt angry at +finding himself always in a house-hold of women. He went off to London and +adopted a boy out of a Charity Institution. Emmie was fourteen years old, and +Matilda sixteen, when their father arrived home with his prodigy, the boy of +six, Hadrian. +</p> + +<p> +Hadrian was just an ordinary boy from a Charity Home, with ordinary brownish +hair and ordinary bluish eyes and of ordinary rather cockney speech. The +Rockley girls—there were three at home at the time of his +arrival—had resented his being sprung on them. He, with his watchful, +charity-institution instinct, knew this at once. Though he was only six years +old, Hadrian had a subtle, jeering look on his face when he regarded the three +young women. They insisted he should address them as Cousin: Cousin Flora, +Cousin Matilda, Cousin Emmie. He complied, but there seemed a mockery in his +tone. +</p> + +<p> +The girls, however, were kind-hearted by nature. Flora married and left home. +Hadrian did very much as he pleased with Matilda and Emmie, though they had +certain strictnesses. He grew up in the Pottery House and about the Pottery +premises, went to an elementary school, and was invariably called Hadrian +Rockley. He regarded Cousin Matilda and Cousin Emmie with a certain laconic +indifference, was quiet and reticent in his ways. The girls called him sly, but +that was unjust. He was merely cautious, and without frankness. His Uncle, Ted +Rockley, understood him tacitly, their natures were somewhat akin. Hadrian and +the elderly man had a real but unemotional regard for one another. +</p> + +<p> +When he was thirteen years old the boy was sent to a High School in the County +town. He did not like it. His Cousin Matilda had longed to make a little +gentleman of him, but he refused to be made. He would give a little +contemptuous curve to his lip, and take on a shy, charity-boy grin, when +refinement was thrust upon him. He played truant from the High School, sold his +books, his cap with its badge, even his very scarf and pocket-handkerchief, to +his school-fellows, and went raking off heaven knows where with the money. So +he spent two very unsatisfactory years. +</p> + +<p> +When he was fifteen he announced that he wanted to leave England and go to the +Colonies. He had kept touch with the Home. The Rockleys knew that, when Hadrian +made a declaration, in his quiet, half-jeering manner, it was worse than +useless to oppose him. So at last the boy departed, going to Canada under the +protection of the Institution to which he had belonged. He said good-bye to the +Rockleys without a word of thanks, and parted, it seemed, without a pang. +Matilda and Emmie wept often to think of how he left them: even on their +father’s face a queer look came. But Hadrian wrote fairly regularly from +Canada. He had entered some electricity works near Montreal, and was doing +well. +</p> + +<p> +At last, however, the war came. In his turn, Hadrian joined up and came to +Europe. The Rockleys saw nothing of him. They lived on, just the same, in the +Pottery House. Ted Rockley was dying of a sort of dropsy, and in his heart he +wanted to see the boy. When the armistice was signed, Hadrian had a long leave, +and wrote that he was coming home to the Pottery House. +</p> + +<p> +The girls were terribly fluttered. To tell the truth, they were a little afraid +of Hadrian. Matilda, tall and thin, was frail in her health, both girls were +worn with nursing their father. To have Hadrian, a young man of twenty-one, in +the house with them, after he had left them so coldly five years before, was a +trying circumstance. +</p> + +<p> +They were in a flutter. Emmie persuaded her father to have his bed made finally +in the morning-room downstairs, whilst his room upstairs was prepared for +Hadrian. This was done, and preparations were going on for the arrival, when, +at ten o’clock in the morning the young man suddenly turned up, quite +unexpectedly. Cousin Emmie, with her hair bobbed up in absurd little bobs round +her forehead, was busily polishing the stair-rods, while Cousin Matilda was in +the kitchen washing the drawing-room ornaments in a lather, her sleeves rolled +back on her thin arms, and her head tied up oddly and coquettishly in a duster. +</p> + +<p> +Cousin Matilda blushed deep with mortification when the self-possessed young +man walked in with his kit-bag, and put his cap on the sewing machine. He was +little and self-confident, with a curious neatness about him that still +suggested the Charity Institution. His face was brown, he had a small +moustache, he was vigorous enough in his smallness. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Well</i>, is it Hadrian!” exclaimed Cousin Matilda, wringing +the lather off her hand. “We didn’t expect you till +tomorrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“I got off Monday night,” said Hadrian, glancing round the room. +</p> + +<p> +“Fancy!” said Cousin Matilda. Then, having dried her hands, she +went forward, held out her hand, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“How are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite well, thank you,” said Hadrian. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re quite a man,” said Cousin Matilda. +</p> + +<p> +Hadrian glanced at her. She did not look her best: so thin, so large-nosed, +with that pink-and-white checked duster tied round her head. She felt her +disadvantage. But she had had a good deal of suffering and sorrow, she did not +mind any more. +</p> + +<p> +The servant entered—one that did not know Hadrian. +</p> + +<p> +“Come and see my father,” said Cousin Matilda. +</p> + +<p> +In the hall they roused Cousin Emmie like a partridge from cover. She was on +the stairs pushing the bright stair-rods into place. Instinctively her hand +went to the little knobs, her front hair bobbed on her forehead. +</p> + +<p> +“Why!” she exclaimed, crossly. “What have you come today +for?” +</p> + +<p> +“I got off a day earlier,” said Hadrian, and his man’s voice +so deep and unexpected was like a blow to Cousin Emmie. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you’ve caught us in the midst of it,” she said, with +resentment. Then all three went into the middle room. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Rockley was dressed—that is, he had on his trousers and +socks—but he was resting on the bed, propped up just under the window, +from whence he could see his beloved and resplendent garden, where tulips and +apple-trees were ablaze. He did not look as ill as he was, for the water puffed +him up, and his face kept its colour. His stomach was much swollen. He glanced +round swiftly, turning his eyes without turning his head. He was the wreck of a +handsome, well-built man. +</p> + +<p> +Seeing Hadrian, a queer, unwilling smile went over his face. The young man +greeted him sheepishly. +</p> + +<p> +“You wouldn’t make a life-guardsman,” he said. “Do you +want something to eat?” +</p> + +<p> +Hadrian looked round—as if for the meal. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“What shall you have—egg and bacon?” asked Emmie shortly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I don’t mind,” said Hadrian. +</p> + +<p> +The sisters went down to the kitchen, and sent the servant to finish the +stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t he <i>altered</i>?” said Matilda, <i>sotto voce</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t he!” said Cousin Emmie. “<i>What</i> a little +man!” +</p> + +<p> +They both made a grimace, and laughed nervously. +</p> + +<p> +“Get the frying-pan,” said Emmie to Matilda. +</p> + +<p> +“But he’s as cocky as ever,” said Matilda, narrowing her eyes +and shaking her head knowingly, as she handed the frying-pan. +</p> + +<p> +“Mannie!” said Emmie sarcastically. Hadrian’s new-fledged, +cock-sure manliness evidently found no favour in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he’s not bad,” said Matilda. “You don’t want +to be prejudiced against him.” +</p> + +<p> +I’m not prejudiced against him, I think he’s all right for +looks,” said Emmie, “but there’s too much of the little +mannie about him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fancy catching us like this,” said Matilda. +</p> + +<p> +“They’ve no thought for anything,” said Emmie with contempt. +“You go up and get dressed, our Matilda. I don’t care about him. I +can see to things, and you can talk to him. I shan’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’ll talk to my father,” said Matilda, meaningful. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Sly—!</i>” exclaimed Emmie, with a grimace. +</p> + +<p> +The sisters believed that Hadrian had come hoping to get something out of their +father—hoping for a legacy. And they were not at all sure he would not +get it. +</p> + +<p> +Matilda went upstairs to change. She had thought it all out how she would +receive Hadrian, and impress him. And he had caught her with her head tied up +in a duster, and her thin arms in a basin of lather. But she did not care. She +now dressed herself most scrupulously, carefully folded her long, beautiful, +blonde hair, touched her pallor with a little rouge, and put her long string of +exquisite crystal beads over her soft green dress. Now she looked elegant, like +a heroine in a magazine illustration, and almost as unreal. +</p> + +<p> +She found Hadrian and her father talking away. The young man was short of +speech as a rule, but he could find his tongue with his “uncle”. +They were both sipping a glass of brandy, and smoking, and chatting like a pair +of old cronies. Hadrian was telling about Canada. He was going back there when +his leave was up. +</p> + +<p> +“You wouldn’t like to stop in England, then?” said Mr. +Rockley. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I wouldn’t stop in England,” said Hadrian. +</p> + +<p> +“How’s that? There’s plenty of electricians here,” said +Mr. Rockley. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. But there’s too much difference between the men and the +employers over here—too much of that for me,” said Hadrian. +</p> + +<p> +The sick man looked at him narrowly, with oddly smiling eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it, is it?” he replied. +</p> + +<p> +Matilda heard and understood. “So that’s your big idea, is it, my +little man,” she said to herself. She had always said of Hadrian that he +had no proper <i>respect</i> for anybody or anything, that he was sly and +<i>common</i>. She went down to the kitchen for a <i>sotto voce</i> confab with +Emmie. +</p> + +<p> +“He thinks a rare lot of himself!” she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s somebody, he is!” said Emmie with contempt. +</p> + +<p> +“He thinks there’s too much difference between masters and men, +over here,” said Matilda. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it any different in Canada?” asked Emmie. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes—democratic,” replied Matilda, “He thinks +they’re all on a level over there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, well he’s over here now,” said Emmie dryly, “so he +can keep his place.” +</p> + +<p> +As they talked they saw the young man sauntering down the garden, looking +casually at the flowers. He had his hands in his pockets, and his +soldier’s cap neatly on his head. He looked quite at his ease, as if in +possession. The two women, fluttered, watched him through the window. +</p> + +<p> +“We know what he’s come for,” said Emmie, churlishly. Matilda +looked a long time at the neat khaki figure. It had something of the +charity-boy about it still; but now it was a man’s figure, laconic, +charged with plebeian energy. She thought of the derisive passion in his voice +as he had declaimed against the propertied classes, to her father. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know, Emmie. Perhaps he’s not come for +that,” she rebuked her sister. They were both thinking of the money. +</p> + +<p> +They were still watching the young soldier. He stood away at the bottom of the +garden, with his back to them, his hands in his pockets, looking into the water +of the willow pond. Matilda’s dark-blue eyes had a strange, full look in +them, the lids, with the faint blue veins showing, dropped rather low. She +carried her head light and high, but she had a look of pain. The young man at +the bottom of the garden turned and looked up the path. Perhaps he saw them +through the window. Matilda moved into shadow. +</p> + +<p> +That afternoon their father seemed weak and ill. He was easily exhausted. The +doctor came, and told Matilda that the sick man might die suddenly at any +moment—but then he might not. They must be prepared. +</p> + +<p> +So the day passed, and the next. Hadrian made himself at home. He went about in +the morning in his brownish jersey and his khaki trousers, collarless, his bare +neck showing. He explored the pottery premises, as if he had some secret +purpose in so doing, he talked with Mr. Rockley, when the sick man had +strength. The two girls were always angry when the two men sat talking together +like cronies. Yet it was chiefly a kind of politics they talked. +</p> + +<p> +On the second day after Hadrian’s arrival, Matilda sat with her father in +the evening. She was drawing a picture which she wanted to copy. It was very +still, Hadrian was gone out somewhere, no one knew where, and Emmie was busy. +Mr. Rockley reclined on his bed, looking out in silence over his evening-sunny +garden. +</p> + +<p> +“If anything happens to me, Matilda,” he said, “you +won’t sell this house—you’ll stop here—” +</p> + +<p> +Matilda’s eyes took their slightly haggard look as she stared at her +father. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we couldn’t do anything else,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know what you might do,” he said. +“Everything is left to you and Emmie, equally. You’do as you like +with it—only don’t sell this house, don’t part with +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“And give Hadrian my watch and chain, and a hundred pounds out of +what’s in the bank—and help him if he ever wants helping. I +haven’t put his name in the will.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your watch and chain, and a hundred pounds—yes. But you’ll +be here when he goes back to Canada, father.” +</p> + +<p> +“You never know what’ll happen,” said her father. +</p> + +<p> +Matilda sat and watched him, with her full, haggard eyes, for a long time, as +if tranced. She saw that he knew he must go soon—she saw like a +clairvoyant. +</p> + +<p> +Later on she told Emmie what her father had said about the watch and chain and +the money. +</p> + +<p> +“What right has <i>he”—he</i>—meaning +Hadrian—“to my father’s watch and chain—what has it to +do with him? Let him have the money, and get off,” said Emmie. She loved +her father. +</p> + +<p> +That night Matilda sat late in her room. Her heart was anxious and breaking, +her mind seemed entranced. She was too much entranced even to weep, and all the +time she thought of her father, only her father. At last she felt she must go +to him. +</p> + +<p> +It was near midnight. She went along the passage and to his room. There was a +faint light from the moon outside. She listened at his door. Then she softly +opened and entered. The room was faintly dark. She heard a movement on the bed. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you asleep?” she said softly, advancing to the side of the +bed. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you asleep?” she repeated gently, as she stood at the side of +the bed. And she reached her hand in the darkness to touch his forehead. +Delicately, her fingers met the nose and the eyebrows, she laid her fine, +delicate hand on his brow. It seemed fresh and smooth—very fresh and +smooth. A sort of surprise stirred her, in her entranced state. But it could +not waken her. Gently, she leaned over the bed and stirred her fingers over the +low-growing hair on his brow. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t you sleep tonight?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +There was a quick stirring in the bed. “Yes, I can,” a voice +answered. It was Hadrian’s voice. She started away. Instantly, she was +wakened from her late-at-night trance. She remembered that her father was +downstairs, that Hadrian had his room. She stood in the darkness as if stung. +</p> + +<p> +“It is you, Hadrian?” she said. “I thought it was my +father.” She was so startled, so shocked, that she could not move. The +young man gave an uncomfortable laugh, and turned in his bed. +</p> + +<p> +At last she got out of the room. When she was back in her own room, in the +light, and her door was closed, she stood holding up her hand that had touched +him, as if it were hurt. She was almost too shocked, she could not endure. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said her calm and weary mind, “it was only a mistake, +why take any notice of it.” +</p> + +<p> +But she could not reason her feelings so easily. She suffered, feeling herself +in a false position. Her right hand, which she had laid so gently on his face, +on his fresh skin, ached now, as if it were really injured. She could not +forgive Hadrian for the mistake: it made her dislike him deeply. +</p> + +<p> +Hadrian too slept badly. He had been awakened by the opening of the door, and +had not realised what the question meant. But the soft, straying tenderness of +her hand on his face startled something out of his soul. He was a charity boy, +aloof and more or less at bay. The fragile exquisiteness of her caress startled +him most, revealed unknown things to him. +</p> + +<p> +In the morning she could feel the consciousness in his eyes, when she came +downstairs. She tried to bear herself as if nothing at all had happened, and +she succeeded. She had the calm self-control, self-indifference, of one who has +suffered and borne her suffering. She looked at him from her darkish, almost +drugged blue eyes, she met the spark of consciousness in his eyes, and quenched +it. And with her long, fine hand she put the sugar in his coffee. +</p> + +<p> +But she could not control him as she thought she could. He had a keen memory +stinging his mind, a new set of sensations working in his consciousness. +Something new was alert in him. At the back of his reticent, guarded mind he +kept his secret alive and vivid. She was at his mercy, for he was unscrupulous, +his standard was not her standard. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her curiously. She was not beautiful, her nose was too large, her +chin was too small, her neck was too thin. But her skin was clear and fine, she +had a high-bred sensitiveness. This queer, brave, high-bred quality she shared +with her father. The charity boy could see it in her tapering fingers, which +were white and ringed. The same glamour that he knew in the elderly man he now +saw in the woman. And he wanted to possess himself of it, he wanted to make +himself master of it. As he went about through the old pottery-yard, his +secretive mind schemed and worked. To be master of that strange soft delicacy +such as he had felt in her hand upon his face,—this was what he set +himself towards. He was secretly plotting. +</p> + +<p> +He watched Matilda as she went about, and she became aware of his attention, as +of some shadow following her. But her pride made her ignore it. When he +sauntered near her, his hands in his pockets, she received him with that same +commonplace kindliness which mastered him more than any contempt. Her superior +breeding seemed to control him. She made herself feel towards him exactly as +she had always felt: he was a young boy who lived in the house with them, but +was a stranger. Only, she dared not remember his face under her hand. When she +remembered that, she was bewildered. Her hand had offended her, she wanted to +cut it off. And she wanted, fiercely, to cut off the memory in him. She assumed +she had done so. +</p> + +<p> +One day, when he sat talking with his “uncle”, he looked straight +into the eyes of the sick man, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“But I shouldn’t like to live and die here in Rawsley.” +</p> + +<p> +“No—well—you needn’t,” said the sick man. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think Cousin Matilda likes it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should think so.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t call it much of a life,” said the youth. “How +much older is she than me, Uncle?” +</p> + +<p> +The sick man looked at the young soldier. +</p> + +<p> +“A good bit,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Over thirty?” said Hadrian. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, not so much. She’s thirty-two.” +</p> + +<p> +Hadrian considered a while. +</p> + +<p> +“She doesn’t look it,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Again the sick father looked at him. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think she’d like to leave here?” said Hadrian. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, I don’t know,” replied the father, restive. +</p> + +<p> +Hadrian sat still, having his own thoughts. Then in a small, quiet voice, as if +he were speaking from inside himself, he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I’d marry her if you wanted me to.” +</p> + +<p> +The sick man raised his eyes suddenly, and stared. He stared for a long time. +The youth looked inscrutably out of the window. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You!</i>” said the sick man, mocking, with some contempt. +Hadrian turned and met his eyes. The two men had an inexplicable understanding. +</p> + +<p> +“If you wasn’t against it,” said Hadrian. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay,” said the father, turning aside, “I don’t think +I’m against it. I’ve never thought of it. But—But +Emmie’s the youngest.” +</p> + +<p> +He had flushed, and looked suddenly more alive. Secretly he loved the boy. +</p> + +<p> +“You might ask her,” said Hadrian. +</p> + +<p> +The elder man considered. +</p> + +<p> +“Hadn’t you better ask her yourself?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“She’d take more notice of you,” said Hadrian. +</p> + +<p> +They were both silent. Then Emmie came in. +</p> + +<p> +For two days Mr. Rockley was excited and thoughtful. Hadrian went about +quietly, secretly, unquestioning. At last the father and daughter were alone +together. It was very early morning, the father had been in much pain. As the +pain abated, he lay still, thinking. +</p> + +<p> +“Matilda!” he said suddenly, looking at his daughter. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I’m here,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay! I want you to do something—” +</p> + +<p> +She rose in anticipation. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, sit still. I want you to marry Hadrian—” +</p> + +<p> +She thought he was raving. She rose, bewildered and frightened. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, sit you still, sit you still. You hear what I tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you don’t know what you’re saying, father.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, I know well enough. I want you to marry Hadrian, I tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +She was dumbfounded. He was a man of few words. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll do what I tell you,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“What put such an idea in your mind?” she said proudly. +</p> + +<p> +“He did.” +</p> + +<p> +Matilda almost looked her father down, her pride was so offended. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, it’s disgraceful,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +She watched him slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you ask me for?” she said. “It’s +disgusting.” +</p> + +<p> +“The lad’s sound enough,” he replied, testily. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better tell him to clear out,” she said, coldly. +</p> + +<p> +He turned and looked out of the window. She sat flushed and erect for a long +time. At length her father turned to her, looking really malevolent. +</p> + +<p> +“If you won’t,” he said, “you’re a fool, and +I’ll make you pay for your foolishness, do you see?” +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly a cold fear gripped her. She could not believe her senses. She was +terrified and bewildered. She stared at her father, believing him to be +delirious, or mad, or drunk. What could she do? +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you,” he said. “I’ll send for Whittle tomorrow +if you don’t. You shall neither of you have anything of mine.” +</p> + +<p> +Whittle was the solicitor. She understood her father well enough: he would send +for his solicitor, and make a will leaving all his property to Hadrian: neither +she nor Emmie should have anything. It was too much. She rose and went out of +the room, up to her own room, where she locked herself in. +</p> + +<p> +She did not come out for some hours. At last, late at night, she confided in +Emmie. +</p> + +<p> +“The sliving demon, he wants the money,” said Emmie. “My +father’s out of his mind.” +</p> + +<p> +The thought that Hadrian merely wanted the money was another blow to Matilda. +She did not love the impossible youth—but she had not yet learned to +think of him as a thing of evil. He now became hideous to her mind. +</p> + +<p> +Emmie had a little scene with her father next day. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mean what you said to our Matilda yesterday, do you, +father?” she asked aggressively. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he replied. +</p> + +<p> +“What, that you’ll alter your will?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t,” said his angry daughter. +</p> + +<p> +But he looked at her with a malevolent little smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Annie!” he shouted. “Annie!” +</p> + +<p> +He had still power to make his voice carry. The servant maid came in from the +kitchen. +</p> + +<p> +“Put your things on, and go down to Whittle’s office, and say I +want to see Mr. Whittle as soon as he can, and will he bring a +will-form.” +</p> + +<p> +The sick man lay back a little—he could not lie down. His daughter sat as +if she had been struck. Then she left the room. +</p> + +<p> +Hadrian was pottering about in the garden. She went straight down to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Here,” she said. “You’d better get off. You’d +better take your things and go from here, quick.” +</p> + +<p> +Hadrian looked slowly at the infuriated girl. +</p> + +<p> +“Who says so?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>We</i> say so—get off, you’ve done enough mischief and +damage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does Uncle say so?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he does.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go and ask him.” +</p> + +<p> +But like a fury Emmie barred his way. +</p> + +<p> +“No, you needn’t. You needn’t ask him nothing at all. We +don’t want you, so you can go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Uncle’s boss here.” +</p> + +<p> +“A man that’s dying, and you crawling round and working on him for +his money!—you’re not fit to live.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” he said. “Who says I’m working for his +money?” +</p> + +<p> +“I say. But my father told our Matilda, and <i>she</i> knows what you +are. <i>She</i> knows what you’re after. So you might as well clear out, +for all you’ll get—guttersnipe!” +</p> + +<p> +He turned his back on her, to think. It had not occurred to him that they would +think he was after the money. He <i>did</i> want the money—badly. He +badly wanted to be an employer himself, not one of the employed. But he knew, +in his subtle, calculating way, that it was not for money he wanted Matilda. He +wanted both the money and Matilda. But he told himself the two desires were +separate, not one. He could not do with Matilda, <i>without</i> the money. But +he did not want her <i>for</i> the money. +</p> + +<p> +When he got this clear in his mind, he sought for an opportunity to tell it +her, lurking and watching. But she avoided him. In the evening the lawyer came. +Mr. Rockley seemed to have a new access of strength—a will was drawn up, +making the previous arrangements wholly conditional. The old will held good, if +Matilda would consent to marry Hadrian. If she refused then at the end of six +months the whole property passed to Hadrian. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Rockley told this to the young man, with malevolent satisfaction. He seemed +to have a strange desire, quite unreasonable, for revenge upon the women who +had surrounded him for so long, and served him so carefully. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell her in front of me,” said Hadrian. +</p> + +<p> +So Mr. Rockley sent for his daughters. +</p> + +<p> +At last they came, pale, mute, stubborn. Matilda seemed to have retired far +off, Emmie seemed like a fighter ready to fight to the death. The sick man +reclined on the bed, his eyes bright, his puffed hand trembling. But his face +had again some of its old, bright handsomeness. Hadrian sat quiet, a little +aside: the indomitable, dangerous charity boy. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s the will,” said their father, pointing them to the +paper. +</p> + +<p> +The two women sat mute and immovable, they took no notice. +</p> + +<p> +“Either you marry Hadrian, or he has everything,” said the father +with satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +“Then let him have everything,” said Matilda boldly. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s not! He’s not!” cried Emmie fiercely. +“He’s not going to have it. The guttersnipe!” +</p> + +<p> +An amused look came on her father’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“You hear that, Hadrian,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t offer to marry Cousin Matilda for the money,” said +Hadrian, flushing and moving on his seat. +</p> + +<p> +Matilda looked at him slowly, with her dark-blue, drugged eyes. He seemed a +strange little monster to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you liar, you know you did,” cried Emmie. +</p> + +<p> +The sick man laughed. Matilda continued to gaze strangely at the young man. +</p> + +<p> +“She knows I didn’t,” said Hadrian. +</p> + +<p> +He too had his courage, as a rat has indomitable courage in the end. Hadrian +had some of the neatness, the reserve, the underground quality of the rat. But +he had perhaps the ultimate courage, the most unquenchable courage of all. +</p> + +<p> +Emmie looked at her sister. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well,” she said. “Matilda—don’t bother. Let +him have everything, we can look after ourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know he’ll take everything,” said Matilda, abstractedly. +</p> + +<p> +Hadrian did not answer. He knew in fact that if Matilda refused him he would +take everything, and go off with it. +</p> + +<p> +“A clever little mannie—!” said Emmie, with a jeering +grimace. +</p> + +<p> +The father laughed noiselessly to himself. But he was tired.... +</p> + +<p> +“Go on, then,” he said. “Go on, let me be quiet.” +</p> + +<p> +Emmie turned and looked at him. +</p> + +<p> +“You deserve what you’ve got,” she said to her father +bluntly. +</p> + +<p> +“Go on,” he answered mildly. “Go on.” +</p> + +<p> +Another night passed—a night nurse sat up with Mr. Rockley. Another day +came. Hadrian was there as ever, in his woollen jersey and coarse khaki +trousers and bare neck. Matilda went about, frail and distant, Emmie +black-browed in spite of her blondness. They were all quiet, for they did not +intend the mystified servant to learn anything. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Rockley had very bad attacks of pain, he could not breathe. The end seemed +near. They all went about quiet and stoical, all unyielding. Hadrian pondered +within himself. If he did not marry Matilda he would go to Canada with twenty +thousand pounds. This was itself a very satisfactory prospect. If Matilda +consented he would have nothing—she would have her own money. +</p> + +<p> +Emmie was the one to act. She went off in search of the solicitor and brought +him with her. There was an interview, and Whittle tried to frighten the youth +into withdrawal—but without avail. The clergyman and relatives were +summoned—but Hadrian stared at them and took no notice. It made him +angry, however. +</p> + +<p> +He wanted to catch Matilda alone. Many days went by, and he was not successful: +she avoided him. At last, lurking, he surprised her one day as she came to pick +gooseberries, and he cut off her retreat. He came to the point at once. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t want me, then?” he said, in his subtle, +insinuating voice. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to speak to you,” she said, averting her face. +</p> + +<p> +“You put your hand on me, though,” he said. “You +shouldn’t have done that, and then I should never have thought of it. You +shouldn’t have touched me.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you were anything decent, you’d know that was a mistake, and +forget it,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I know it was a mistake—but I shan’t forget it. If you wake +a man up, he can’t go to sleep again because he’s told to.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you had any decent feeling in you, you’d have gone away,” +she replied. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t want to,” he replied. +</p> + +<p> +She looked away into the distance. At last she asked: +</p> + +<p> +“What do you persecute me for, if it isn’t for the money. I’m +old enough to be your mother. In a way I’ve been your mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “You’ve been no mother +to me. Let us marry and go out to Canada—you might as +well—you’ve touched me.” +</p> + +<p> +She was white and trembling. Suddenly she flushed with anger. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s so <i>indecent</i>,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“How?” he retorted. “You touched me.” +</p> + +<p> +But she walked away from him. She felt as if he had trapped her. He was angry +and depressed, he felt again despised. +</p> + +<p> +That same evening she went into her father’s room. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she said suddenly. “I’ll marry him.” +</p> + +<p> +Her father looked up at her. He was in pain, and very ill. +</p> + +<p> +“You like him now, do you?” he said, with a faint smile. +</p> + +<p> +She looked down into his face, and saw death not far off. She turned and went +coldly out of the room. +</p> + +<p> +The solicitor was sent for, preparations were hastily made. In all the interval +Matilda did not speak to Hadrian, never answered him if he addressed her. He +approached her in the morning. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve come round to it, then?” he said, giving her a +pleasant look from his twinkling, almost kindly eyes. She looked down at him +and turned aside. She looked down on him both literally and figuratively. Still +he persisted, and triumphed. +</p> + +<p> +Emmie raved and wept, the secret flew abroad. But Matilda was silent and +unmoved, Hadrian was quiet and satisfied, and nipped with fear also. But he +held out against his fear. Mr. Rockley was very ill, but unchanged. +</p> + +<p> +On the third day the marriage took place. Matilda and Hadrian drove straight +home from the registrar, and went straight into the room of the dying man. His +face lit up with a clear twinkling smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Hadrian—you’ve got her?” he said, a little hoarsely. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Hadrian, who was pale round the gills. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, my lad, I’m glad you’re mine,” replied the dying +man. Then he turned his eyes closely on Matilda. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s look at you, Matilda,” he said. Then his voice went +strange and unrecognisable. “Kiss me,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She stooped and kissed him. She had never kissed him before, not since she was +a tiny child. But she was quiet, very still. +</p> + +<p> +“Kiss him,” the dying man said. +</p> + +<p> +Obediently, Matilda put forward her mouth and kissed the young husband. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s right! That’s right!” murmured the dying man. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>SAMSON AND DELILAH</h2> + +<p> +A man got down from the motor-omnibus that runs from Penzance to St +Just-in-Penwith, and turned northwards, uphill towards the Polestar. It was +only half past six, but already the stars were out, a cold little wind was +blowing from the sea, and the crystalline, three-pulse flash of the lighthouse +below the cliffs beat rhythmically in the first darkness. +</p> + +<p> +The man was alone. He went his way unhesitating, but looked from side to side +with cautious curiosity. Tall, ruined power-houses of tin-mines loomed in the +darkness from time to time, like remnants of some by-gone civilization. The +lights of many miners’ cottages scattered on the hilly darkness twinkled +desolate in their disorder, yet twinkled with the lonely homeliness of the +Celtic night. +</p> + +<p> +He tramped steadily on, always watchful with curiosity. He was a tall, +well-built man, apparently in the prime of life. His shoulders were square and +rather stiff, he leaned forwards a little as he went, from the hips, like a man +who must stoop to lower his height. But he did not stoop his shoulders: he bent +his straight back from the hips. +</p> + +<p> +Now and again short, stump, thick-legged figures of Cornish miners passed him, +and he invariably gave them goodnight, as if to insist that he was on his own +ground. He spoke with the west-Cornish intonation. And as he went along the +dreary road, looking now at the lights of the dwellings on land, now at the +lights away to sea, vessels veering round in sight of the Longships Lighthouse, +the whole of the Atlantic Ocean in darkness and space between him and America, +he seemed a little excited and pleased with himself, watchful, thrilled, +veering along in a sense of mastery and of power in conflict. +</p> + +<p> +The houses began to close on the road, he was entering the straggling, +formless, desolate mining village, that he knew of old. On the left was a +little space set back from the road, and cosy lights of an inn. There it was. +He peered up at the sign: “The Tinners’ Rest”. But he could +not make out the name of the proprietor. He listened. There was excited talking +and laughing, a woman’s voice laughing shrilly among the men’s. +</p> + +<p> +Stooping a little, he entered the warmly-lit bar. The lamp was burning, a buxom +woman rose from the white-scrubbed deal table where the black and white and red +cards were scattered, and several men, miners, lifted their faces from the +game. +</p> + +<p> +The stranger went to the counter, averting his face. His cap was pulled down +over his brow. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-evening!” said the landlady, in her rather ingratiating +voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-evening. A glass of ale.” +</p> + +<p> +“A glass of ale,” repeated the landlady suavely. “Cold +night—but bright.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” the man assented, laconically. Then he added, when nobody +expected him to say any more: “Seasonable weather.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite seasonable, quite,” said the landlady. “Thank +you.” +</p> + +<p> +The man lifted his glass straight to his lips, and emptied it. He put it down +again on the zinc counter with a click. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s have another,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +The woman drew the beer, and the man went away with his glass to the second +table, near the fire. The woman, after a moment’s hesitation, took her +seat again at the table with the card-players. She had noticed the man: a big +fine fellow, well dressed, a stranger. +</p> + +<p> +But he spoke with that Cornish-Yankee accent she accepted as the natural twang +among the miners. +</p> + +<p> +The stranger put his foot on the fender and looked into the fire. He was +handsome, well coloured, with well-drawn Cornish eyebrows, and the usual dark, +bright, mindless Cornish eyes. He seemed abstracted in thought. Then he watched +the card-party. +</p> + +<p> +The woman was buxom and healthy, with dark hair and small, quick brown eyes. +She was bursting with life and vigour, the energy she threw into the game of +cards excited all the men, they shouted, and laughed, and the woman held her +breast, shrieking with laughter. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my, it’ll be the death o’ me,” she panted. +“Now, come on, Mr. Trevorrow, play fair. Play fair, I say, or I +s’ll put the cards down.” +</p> + +<p> +“Play fair! Why who’s played unfair?” ejaculated Mr. +Trevorrow. “Do you mean t’accuse me, as I haven’t played +fair, Mrs. Nankervis?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do. I say it, and I mean it. Haven’t you got the queen of +spades? Now, come on, no dodging round me. <i>I</i> know you’ve got that +queen, as well as I know my name’s Alice.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—if your name’s Alice, you’ll have to have +it—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, now—what did I say? Did you ever see such a man? My word, but +your missus must be easy took in, by the looks of things.” +</p> + +<p> +And off she went into peals of laughter. She was interrupted by the entrance of +four men in khaki, a short, stumpy sergeant of middle age, a young corporal, +and two young privates. The woman leaned back in her chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my!” she cried. “If there isn’t the boys back: +looking perished, I believe—” +</p> + +<p> +“Perished, Ma!” exclaimed the sergeant. “Not yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Near enough,” said a young private, uncouthly. +</p> + +<p> +The woman got up. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure you are, my dears. You’ll be wanting your suppers, +I’ll be bound.” +</p> + +<p> +“We could do with ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s have a wet first,” said the sergeant. +</p> + +<p> +The woman bustled about getting the drinks. The soldiers moved to the fire, +spreading out their hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Have your suppers in here, will you?” she said. “Or in the +kitchen?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s have it here,” said the sergeant. “More +cosier—<i>if</i> you don’t mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall have it where you like, boys, where you like.” +</p> + +<p> +She disappeared. In a minute a girl of about sixteen came in. She was tall and +fresh, with dark, young, expressionless eyes, and well-drawn brows, and the +immature softness and mindlessness of the sensuous Celtic type. +</p> + +<p> +“Ho, Maryann! Evenin’, Maryann! How’s Maryann, now?” +came the multiple greeting. +</p> + +<p> +She replied to everybody in a soft voice, a strange, soft <i>aplomb</i> that +was very attractive. And she moved round with rather mechanical, attractive +movements, as if her thoughts were elsewhere. But she had always this dim +far-awayness in her bearing: a sort of modesty. The strange man by the fire +watched her curiously. There was an alert, inquisitive, mindless curiosity on +his well-coloured face. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll have a bit of supper with you, if I might,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him, with her clear, unreasoning eyes, just like the eyes of some +non-human creature. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll ask mother,” she said. Her voice was soft-breathing, +gently singsong. +</p> + +<p> +When she came in again: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she said, almost whispering. “What will you +have?” +</p> + +<p> +“What have you got?” he said, looking up into her face. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s cold meat—” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s for me, then.” +</p> + +<p> +The stranger sat at the end of the table and ate with the tired, quiet +soldiers. Now, the landlady was interested in him. Her brow was knit rather +tense, there was a look of panic in her large, healthy face, but her small +brown eyes were fixed most dangerously. She was a big woman, but her eyes were +small and tense. She drew near the stranger. She wore a rather loud-patterned +flannelette blouse, and a dark skirt. +</p> + +<p> +“What will you have to drink with your supper?” she asked, and +there was a new, dangerous note in her voice. +</p> + +<p> +He moved uneasily. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’ll go on with ale.” +</p> + +<p> +She drew him another glass. Then she sat down on the bench at the table with +him and the soldiers, and fixed him with her attention. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve come from St Just, have you?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her with those clear, dark, inscrutable Cornish eyes, and answered +at length: +</p> + +<p> +“No, from Penzance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Penzance!—but you’re not thinking of going back there +tonight?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—no.” +</p> + +<p> +He still looked at her with those wide, clear eyes that seemed like very bright +agate. Her anger began to rise. It was seen on her brow. Yet her voice was +still suave and deprecating. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>thought</i> not—but you’re not living in these parts, +are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—no, I’m not living here.” He was always slow in +answering, as if something intervened between him and any outside question. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I see,” she said. “You’ve got relations down +here.” +</p> + +<p> +Again he looked straight into her eyes, as if looking her into silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +He did not say any more. She rose with a flounce. The anger was tight on her +brow. There was no more laughing and card-playing that evening, though she kept +up her motherly, suave, good-humoured way with the men. But they knew her, they +were all afraid of her. +</p> + +<p> +The supper was finished, the table cleared, the stranger did not go. Two of the +young soldiers went off to bed, with their cheery: +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night, Ma. Good-night, Maryann.” +</p> + +<p> +The stranger talked a little to the sergeant about the war, which was in its +first year, about the new army, a fragment of which was quartered in this +district, about America. +</p> + +<p> +The landlady darted looks at him from her small eyes, minute by minute the +electric storm welled in her bosom, as still he did not go. She was quivering +with suppressed, violent passion, something frightening and abnormal. She could +not sit still for a moment. Her heavy form seemed to flash with sudden, +involuntary movements as the minutes passed by, and still he sat there, and the +tension on her heart grew unbearable. She watched the hands of the dock move +on. Three of the soldiers had gone to bed, only the crop-headed, terrier-like +old sergeant remained. +</p> + +<p> +The landlady sat behind the bar fidgeting spasmodically with the newspaper. She +looked again at the clock. At last it was five minutes to ten. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen—the enemy!” she said, in her diminished, furious +voice. “Time, please. Time, my dears. And good-night all!” +</p> + +<p> +The men began to drop out, with a brief good-night. It was a minute to ten. The +landlady rose. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” she said. “I’m shutting the door.” +</p> + +<p> +The last of the miners passed out. She stood, stout and menacing, holding the +door. Still the stranger sat on by the fire, his black overcoat opened, +smoking. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re closed now, sir,” came the perilous, narrowed voice of +the landlady. +</p> + +<p> +The little, dog-like, hard-headed sergeant touched the arm of the stranger. +</p> + +<p> +“Closing time,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +The stranger turned round in his seat, and his quick-moving, dark, jewel-like +eyes went from the sergeant to the landlady. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m stopping here tonight,” he said, in his laconic +Cornish-Yankee accent. +</p> + +<p> +The landlady seemed to tower. Her eyes lifted strangely, frightening. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! indeed!” she cried.” Oh, indeed! And whose orders are +those, may I ask?” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her again. +</p> + +<p> +“My orders,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Involuntarily she shut the door, and advanced like a great, dangerous bird. Her +voice rose, there was a touch of hoarseness in it. +</p> + +<p> +“And what might <i>your</i> orders be, if you please?” she cried. +“Who might <i>you</i> be, to give orders, in the house?” +</p> + +<p> +He sat still, watching her. +</p> + +<p> +“You know who I am,” he said. “At least, I know who you +are.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you do? Oh, do you? And who am <i>I</i> then, if you’ll be so +good as to tell me?” +</p> + +<p> +He stared at her with his bright, dark eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re my Missis, you are,” he said. “And you know it, +as well as I do.” +</p> + +<p> +She started as if something had exploded in her. +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes lifted and flared madly. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Do</i> I know it, indeed!” she cried. “I know no such +thing! I know no such thing! Do you think a man’s going to walk into this +bar, and tell me off-hand I’m his Missis, and I’m going to believe +him?—I say to you, whoever you may be, you’re mistaken. I know +myself for no Missis of yours, and I’ll thank you to go out of this +house, this minute, before I get those that will put you out.” +</p> + +<p> +The man rose to his feet, stretching his head towards her a little. He was a +handsomely built Cornishman in the prime of life. +</p> + +<p> +“What you say, eh? You don’t know me?” he said, in his +singsong voice, emotionless, but rather smothered and pressing: it reminded +one of the girl’s. “I should know you anywhere, you see. I should! +I shouldn’t have to look twice to know you, you see. You see, now, +don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +The woman was baffled. +</p> + +<p> +“So you may say,” she replied, staccato. “So you may say. +That’s easy enough. My name’s known, and respected, by most people +for ten miles round. But I don’t know <i>you</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +Her voice ran to sarcasm. “I can’t say I know <i>you</i>. +You’re a <i>perfect</i> stranger to me, and I don’t believe +I’ve ever set eyes on you before tonight.” +</p> + +<p> +Her voice was very flexible and sarcastic. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you have,” replied the man, in his reasonable way.” +Yes, you have. Your name’s my name, and that girl Maryann is my girl; +she’s my daughter. You’re my Missis right enough. As sure as +I’m Willie Nankervis.” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke as if it were an accepted fact. His face was handsome, with a strange, +watchful alertness and a fundamental fixity of intention that maddened her. +</p> + +<p> +“You villain!” she cried. “You villain, to come to this house +and dare to speak to me. You villain, you down-right rascal!” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay,” he said, unmoved. “All that.” He was uneasy +before her. Only he was not afraid of her. There was something impenetrable +about him, like his eyes, which were as bright as agate. +</p> + +<p> +She towered, and drew near to him menacingly. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re going out of this house, aren’t you?”—She +stamped her foot in sudden madness. “<i>This minute!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +He watched her. He knew she wanted to strike him. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said, with suppressed emphasis. “I’ve told +you, I’m stopping here.” +</p> + +<p> +He was afraid of her personality, but it did not alter him. She wavered. Her +small, tawny-brown eyes concentrated in a point of vivid, sightless fury, like +a tiger’s. The man was wincing, but he stood his ground. Then she +bethought herself. She would gather her forces. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll see whether you’re stopping here,” she said. And +she turned, with a curious, frightening lifting of her eyes, and surged out of +the room. The man, listening, heard her go upstairs, heard her tapping at a +bedroom door, heard her saying: “Do you mind coming down a minute, boys? +I want you. I’m in trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +The man in the bar took off his cap and his black overcoat, and threw them on +the seat behind him. His black hair was short and touched with grey at the +temples. He wore a well-cut, well-fitting suit of dark grey, American in style, +and a turn-down collar. He looked well-to-do, a fine, solid figure of a man. +The rather rigid look of the shoulders came from his having had his collar-bone +twice broken in the mines. +</p> + +<p> +The little terrier of a sergeant, in dirty khaki, looked at him furtively. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s your Missis?” he asked, jerking his head in the +direction of the departed woman. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, she is,” barked the man. “She’s that, sure +enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not seen her for a long time, haven’t ye?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sixteen years come March month.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hm!” +</p> + +<p> +And the sergeant laconically resumed his smoking. +</p> + +<p> +The landlady was coming back, followed by the three young soldiers, who entered +rather sheepishly, in trousers and shirt and stocking-feet. The woman stood +histrionically at the end of the bar, and exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“That man refuses to leave the house, claims he’s stopping the +night here. You know very well I have no bed, don’t you? And this house +doesn’t accommodate travellers. Yet he’s going to stop in spite of +all! But not while I’ve a drop of blood in my body, that I declare with +my dying breath. And not if you men are worth the name of men, and will help a +woman as has no one to help her.” +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes sparkled, her face was flushed pink. She was drawn up like an Amazon. +</p> + +<p> +The young soldiers did not quite know what to do. They looked at the man, they +looked at the sergeant, one of them looked down and fastened his braces on the +second button. +</p> + +<p> +“What say, sergeant?” asked one whose face twinkled for a little +devilment. +</p> + +<p> +“Man says he’s husband to Mrs. Nankervis,” said the sergeant. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s no husband of mine. I declare I never set eyes on him before +this night. It’s a dirty trick, nothing else, it’s a dirty +trick.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you’re a liar, saying you never set eyes on me before,” +barked the man near the hearth. “You’re married to me, and that +girl Maryann you had by me—well enough you know it.” +</p> + +<p> +The young soldiers looked on in delight, the sergeant smoked imperturbed. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” sang the landlady, slowly shaking her head in supreme +sarcasm, “it sounds very pretty, doesn’t it? But you see we +don’t believe a word of it, and <i>how</i> are you going to prove +it?” She smiled nastily. +</p> + +<p> +The man watched in silence for a moment, then he said: +</p> + +<p> +“It wants no proof.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, but it does! Oh, yes, but it does, sir, it wants a lot of +proving!” sang the lady’s sarcasm. “We’re not such +gulls as all that, to swallow your words whole.” +</p> + +<p> +But he stood unmoved near the fire. She stood with one hand resting on the +zinc-covered bar, the sergeant sat with legs crossed, smoking, on the seat +halfway between them, the three young soldiers in their shirts and braces stood +wavering in the gloom behind the bar. There was silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know anything of the whereabouts of your husband, Mrs. Nankervis? +Is he still living?” asked the sergeant, in his judicious fashion. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly the landlady began to cry, great scalding tears, that left the young +men aghast. +</p> + +<p> +“I know nothing of him,” she sobbed, feeling for her pocket +handkerchief. “He left me when Maryann was a baby, went mining to +America, and after about six months never wrote a line nor sent me a penny bit. +I can’t say whether he’s alive or dead, the villain. All I’ve +heard of him’s to the bad—and I’ve heard nothing for years +an’ all, now.” She sobbed violently. +</p> + +<p> +The golden-skinned, handsome man near the fire watched her as she wept. He was +frightened, he was troubled, he was bewildered, but none of his emotions +altered him underneath. +</p> + +<p> +There was no sound in the room but the violent sobbing of the landlady. The +men, one and all, were overcome. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you think as you’d better go, for tonight?” said +the sergeant to the man, with sweet reasonableness. “You’d better +leave it a bit, and arrange something between you. You can’t have much +claim on a woman, I should imagine, if it’s how she says. And +you’ve come down on her a bit too sudden-like.” +</p> + +<p> +The landlady sobbed heart-brokenly. The man watched her large breasts shaken. +They seemed to cast a spell over his mind. +</p> + +<p> +“How I’ve treated her, that’s no matter,” he replied. +“I’ve come back, and I’m going to stop in my own +home—for a bit, anyhow. There you’ve got it.” +</p> + +<p> +“A dirty action,” said the sergeant, his face flushing dark. +“A dirty action, to come, after deserting a woman for that number of +years, and want to force yourself on her! A dirty action—as isn’t +allowed by the law.” +</p> + +<p> +The landlady wiped her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Never you mind about law nor nothing,” cried the man, in a +strange, strong voice. “I’m not moving out of this public +tonight.” +</p> + +<p> +The woman turned to the soldiers behind her, and said in a wheedling, sarcastic +tone: +</p> + +<p> +“Are we going to stand it, boys?—Are we going to be done like this, +Sergeant Thomas, by a scoundrel and a bully as has led a life beyond +<i>mention</i>, in those American mining-camps, and then wants to come back and +make havoc of a poor woman’s life and savings, after having left her with +a baby in arms to struggle as best she might? It’s a crying shame if +nobody will stand up for me—a crying shame—!” +</p> + +<p> +The soldiers and the little sergeant were bristling. The woman stooped and +rummaged under the counter for a minute. Then, unseen to the man away near the +fire, she threw out a plaited grass rope, such as is used for binding bales, +and left it lying near the feet of the young soldiers, in the gloom at the back +of the bar. +</p> + +<p> +Then she rose and fronted the situation. +</p> + +<p> +“Come now,” she said to the man, in a reasonable, coldly-coaxing +tone, “put your coat on and leave us alone. Be a man, and not worse than +a brute of a German. You can get a bed easy enough in St Just, and if +you’ve nothing to pay for it sergeant would lend you a couple of +shillings, I’m sure he would.” +</p> + +<p> +All eyes were fixed on the man. He was looking down at the woman like a +creature spell-bound or possessed by some devil’s own intention. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got money of my own,” he said. “Don’t you +be frightened for your money, I’ve plenty of that, for the time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then,” she coaxed, in a cold, almost sneering propitiation, +“put your coat on and go where you’re wanted—be a <i>man</i>, +not a brute of a German.” +</p> + +<p> +She had drawn quite near to him, in her challenging coaxing intentness. He +looked down at her with his bewitched face. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I shan’t,” he said. “I shan’t do no such +thing. <i>You’ll</i> put me up for tonight.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I!” she cried. And suddenly she flung her arms round him, +hung on to him with all her powerful weight, calling to the soldiers: +“Get the rope, boys, and fasten him up. Alfred—John, quick +now—” +</p> + +<p> +The man reared, looked round with maddened eyes, and heaved his powerful body. +But the woman was powerful also, and very heavy, and was clenched with the +determination of death. Her face, with its exulting, horribly vindictive look, +was turned up to him from his own breast; he reached back his head frantically, +to get away from it. Meanwhile the young soldiers, after having watched this +frightful Laocoon swaying for a moment, stirred, and the malicious one darted +swiftly with the rope. It was tangled a little. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me the end here,” cried the sergeant. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile the big man heaved and struggled, swung the woman round against the +seat and the table, in his convulsive effort to get free. But she pinned down +his arms like a cuttlefish wreathed heavily upon him. And he heaved and swayed, +and they crashed about the room, the soldiers hopping, the furniture bumping. +</p> + +<p> +The young soldier had got the rope once round, the brisk sergeant helping him. +The woman sank heavily lower, they got the rope round several times. In the +struggle the victim fell over against the table. The ropes tightened till they +cut his arms. The woman clung to his knees. Another soldier ran in a flash of +genius, and fastened the strange man’s feet with the pair of braces. +Seats had crashed over, the table was thrown against the wall, but the man was +bound, his arms pinned against his sides, his feet tied. He lay half fallen, +sunk against the table, still for a moment. +</p> + +<p> +The woman rose, and sank, faint, on to the seat against the wall. Her breast +heaved, she could not speak, she thought she was going to die. The bound man +lay against the overturned table, his coat all twisted and pulled up beneath +the ropes, leaving the loins exposed. The soldiers stood around, a little +dazed, but excited with the row. +</p> + +<p> +The man began to struggle again, heaving instinctively against the ropes, +taking great, deep breaths. His face, with its golden skin, flushed dark and +surcharged, he heaved again. The great veins in his neck stood out. But it was +no good, he went relaxed. Then again, suddenly, he jerked his feet. +</p> + +<p> +“Another pair of braces, William,” cried the excited soldier. He +threw himself on the legs of the bound man, and managed to fasten the knees. +Then again there was stillness. They could hear the clock tick. +</p> + +<p> +The woman looked at the prostrate figure, the strong, straight limbs, the +strong back bound in subjection, the wide-eyed face that reminded her of a calf +tied in a sack in a cart, only its head stretched dumbly backwards. And she +triumphed. +</p> + +<p> +The bound-up body began to struggle again. She watched fascinated the muscles +working, the shoulders, the hips, the large, clean thighs. Even now he might +break the ropes. She was afraid. But the lively young soldier sat on the +shoulders of the bound man, and after a few perilous moments, there was +stillness again. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said the judicious sergeant to the bound man, “if we +untie you, will you promise to go off and make no more trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll not untie him in here,” cried the woman. “I +wouldn’t trust him as far as I could blow him.” +</p> + +<p> +There was silence. +</p> + +<p> +“We might carry him outside, and undo him there,” said the soldier. +“Then we could get the policeman, if he made any bother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the sergeant. “We could do that.” Then +again, in an altered, almost severe tone, to the prisoner. “If we undo +you outside, will you take your coat and go without creating any more +disturbance?” +</p> + +<p> +But the prisoner would not answer, he only lay with wide, dark, bright, eyes, +like a bound animal. There was a space of perplexed silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, do as you say,” said the woman irritably. “Carry +him out amongst you, and let us shut up the house.” +</p> + +<p> +They did so. Picking up the bound man, the four soldiers staggered clumsily +into the silent square in front of the inn, the woman following with the cap +and the overcoat. The young soldiers quickly unfastened the braces from the +prisoner’s legs, and they hopped indoors. They were in their +stocking-feet, and outside the stars flashed cold. They stood in the doorway +watching. The man lay quite still on the cold ground. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said the sergeant, in a subdued voice, “I’ll +loosen the knot, and he can work himself free, if you go in, Missis.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave a last look at the dishevelled, bound man, as he sat on the ground. +Then she went indoors, followed quickly by the sergeant. Then they were heard +locking and barring the door. +</p> + +<p> +The man seated on the ground outside worked and strained at the rope. But it +was not so easy to undo himself even now. So, with hands bound, making an +effort, he got on his feet, and went and worked the cord against the rough edge +of an old wall. The rope, being of a kind of plaited grass, soon frayed and +broke, and he freed himself. He had various contusions. His arms were hurt and +bruised from the bonds. He rubbed them slowly. Then he pulled his clothes +straight, stooped, put on his cap, struggled into his overcoat, and walked +away. +</p> + +<p> +The stars were very brilliant. Clear as crystal, the beam from the lighthouse +under the cliffs struck rhythmically on the night. Dazed, the man walked along +the road past the churchyard. Then he stood leaning up against a wall, for a +long time. +</p> + +<p> +He was roused because his feet were so cold. So he pulled himself together, and +turned again in the silent night, back towards the inn. +</p> + +<p> +The bar was in darkness. But there was a light in the kitchen. He hesitated. +Then very quietly he tried the door. +</p> + +<p> +He was surprised to find it open. He entered, and quietly closed it behind him. +Then he went down the step past the bar-counter, and through to the lighted +doorway of the kitchen. There sat his wife, planted in front of the range, +where a furze fire was burning. She sat in a chair full in front of the range, +her knees wide apart on the fender. She looked over her shoulder at him as he +entered, but she did not speak. Then she stared in the fire again. +</p> + +<p> +It was a small, narrow kitchen. He dropped his cap on the table that was +covered with yellowish American cloth, and took a seat with his back to the +wall, near the oven. His wife still sat with her knees apart, her feet on the +steel fender and stared into the fire, motionless. Her skin was smooth and rosy +in the firelight. Everything in the house was very clean and bright. The man +sat silent, too, his head dropped. And thus they remained. +</p> + +<p> +It was a question who would speak first. The woman leaned forward and poked the +ends of the sticks in between the bars of the range. He lifted his head and +looked at her. +</p> + +<p> +“Others gone to bed, have they?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +But she remained closed in silence. +</p> + +<p> +“’S a cold night, out,” he said, as if to himself. +</p> + +<p> +And he laid his large, yet well-shapen workman’s hand on the top of the +stove, that was polished black and smooth as velvet. She would not look at him, +yet she glanced out of the corners of her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +His eyes were fixed brightly on her, the pupils large and electric like those +of a cat. +</p> + +<p> +“I should have picked you out among thousands,” he said. +“Though you’re bigger than I’d have believed. Fine flesh +you’ve made.” +</p> + +<p> +She was silent for some time. Then she turned in her chair upon him. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think of yourself,” she said, “coming back on me +like this after over fifteen years? You don’t think I’ve not heard +of you, neither, in Butte City and elsewhere?” +</p> + +<p> +He was watching her with his clear, translucent, unchallenged eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said. “Chaps comes an’ goes—I’ve +heard tell of you from time to time.” +</p> + +<p> +She drew herself up. +</p> + +<p> +“And what lies have you heard about <i>me</i>?” she demanded +superbly. +</p> + +<p> +“I dunno as I’ve heard any lies at all—’cept as you was +getting on very well, like.” +</p> + +<p> +His voice ran warily and detached. Her anger stirred again in her violently. +But she subdued it, because of the danger there was in him, and more, perhaps, +because of the beauty of his head and his level drawn brows, which she could +not bear to forfeit. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s more than I can say of <i>you</i>,” she said. +“I’ve heard more harm than good about <i>you</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, I dessay,” he said, looking in the fire. It was a long time +since he had seen the furze burning, he said to himself. There was a silence, +during which she watched his face. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you call yourself a <i>man</i>?” she said, more in contemptuous +reproach than in anger. “Leave a woman as you’ve left me, you +don’t care to what!—and then to turn up in <i>this</i> fashion, +without a word to say for yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +He stirred in his chair, planted his feet apart, and resting his arms on his +knees, looked steadily into the fire, without answering. So near to her was his +head, and the close black hair, she could scarcely refrain from starting away, +as if it would bite her. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you call that the action of a <i>man</i>?” she repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said, reaching and poking the bits of wood into the fire +with his fingers. “I didn’t call it anything, as I know of. +It’s no good calling things by any names whatsoever, as I know of.” +</p> + +<p> +She watched him in his actions. There was a longer and longer pause between +each speech, though neither knew it. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>wonder</i> what you think of yourself!” she exclaimed, with +vexed emphasis. “I <i>wonder</i> what sort of a fellow you take yourself +to be!” She was really perplexed as well as angry. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he said, lifting his head to look at her, “I guess +I’ll answer for my own faults, if everybody else’ll answer for +theirs.” +</p> + +<p> +Her heart beat fiery hot as he lifted his face to her. She breathed heavily, +averting her face, almost losing her self-control. +</p> + +<p> +“And what do you take <i>me</i> to be?” she cried, in real +helplessness. +</p> + +<p> +His face was lifted watching her, watching her soft, averted face, and the +softly heaving mass of her breasts. +</p> + +<p> +“I take you,” he said, with that laconic truthfulness which +exercised such power over her, “to be the deuce of a fine +woman—darn me if you’re not as fine a built woman as I’ve +seen, handsome with it as well. I shouldn’t have expected you to put on +such handsome flesh: ’struth I shouldn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Her heart beat fiery hot, as he watched her with those bright agate eyes, +fixedly. +</p> + +<p> +“Been very handsome to <i>you</i>, for fifteen years, my sakes!” +she replied. +</p> + +<p> +He made no answer to this, but sat with his bright, quick eyes upon her. +</p> + +<p> +Then he rose. She started involuntarily. But he only said, in his laconic, +measured way: +</p> + +<p> +“It’s warm in here now.” +</p> + +<p> +And he pulled off his overcoat, throwing it on the table. She sat as if +slightly cowed, whilst he did so. +</p> + +<p> +“Them ropes has given my arms something, by Ga-ard,” he drawled, +feeling his arms with his hands. +</p> + +<p> +Still she sat in her chair before him, slightly cowed. +</p> + +<p> +“You was sharp, wasn’t you, to catch me like that, eh?” he +smiled slowly. “By Ga-ard, you had me fixed proper, proper you had. Darn +me, you fixed me up proper—proper, you did.” +</p> + +<p> +He leaned forwards in his chair towards her. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think no worse of you for it, no, darned if I do. Fine +pluck in a woman’s what I admire. That I do, indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +She only gazed into the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“We fet from the start, we did. And, my word, you begin again quick the +minute you see me, you did. Darn me, you was too sharp for me. A darn fine +woman, puts up a darn good fight. Darn me if I could find a woman in all the +darn States as could get me down like that. Wonderful fine woman you be, truth +to say, at this minute.” +</p> + +<p> +She only sat glowering into the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“As grand a pluck as a man could wish to find in a woman, true as +I’m here,” he said, reaching forward his hand and tentatively +touching her between her full, warm breasts, quietly. +</p> + +<p> +She started, and seemed to shudder. But his hand insinuated itself between her +breasts, as she continued to gaze in the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“And don’t you think I’ve come back here a-begging,” he +said. “I’ve more than <i>one</i> thousand pounds to my name, I +have. And a bit of a fight for a how-de-do pleases me, that it do. But that +doesn’t mean as you’re going to deny as you’re my +Missis....” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>THE PRIMROSE PATH</h2> + +<p> +A young man came out of the Victoria station, looking undecidedly at the +taxi-cabs, dark-red and black, pressing against the kerb under the glass-roof. +Several men in greatcoats and brass buttons jerked themselves erect to catch +his attention, at the same time keeping an eye on the other people as they +filtered through the open doorways of the station. Berry, however, was occupied +by one of the men, a big, burly fellow whose blue eyes glared back and whose +red-brown moustache bristled in defiance. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you <i>want</i> a cab, sir?” the man asked, in a half-mocking, +challenging voice. +</p> + +<p> +Berry hesitated still. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you Daniel Sutton?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” replied the other defiantly, with uneasy conscience. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you are my uncle,” said Berry. +</p> + +<p> +They were alike in colouring, and somewhat in features, but the taxi driver was +a powerful, well-fleshed man who glared at the world aggressively, being really +on the defensive against his own heart. His nephew, of the same height, was +thin, well-dressed, quiet and indifferent in his manner. And yet they were +obviously kin. +</p> + +<p> +“And who the devil are you?” asked the taxi driver. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m Daniel Berry,” replied the nephew. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m damned—never saw you since you were a kid.” +</p> + +<p> +Rather awkwardly at this late hour the two shook hands. +</p> + +<p> +“How are you, lad?” +</p> + +<p> +“All right. I thought you were in Australia.” +</p> + +<p> +“Been back three months—bought a couple of these damned +things,”—he kicked the tyre of his taxi-cab in affectionate disgust. +There was a moment’s silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but I’m going back out there. I can’t stand this +cankering, rotten-hearted hell of a country any more; you want to come out to +Sydney with me, lad. That’s the place for you—beautiful place, oh, +you could wish for nothing better. And money in it, too.—How’s your +mother?” +</p> + +<p> +“She died at Christmas,” said the young man. +</p> + +<p> +“Dead! What!—our Anna!” The big man’s eyes stared, and +he recoiled in fear. “God, lad,” he said, “that’s three +of ’em gone!” +</p> + +<p> +The two men looked away at the people passing along the pale grey pavements, +under the wall of Trinity Church. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, strike me lucky!” said the taxi driver at last, out of +breath. “She wor th’ best o’ th’ bunch of ’em. I +see nowt nor hear nowt from any of ’em—they’re not worth it, +I’ll be damned if they are—our sermon-lapping Adela and +Maud,” he looked scornfully at his nephew. “But she was the best of +’em, our Anna was, that’s a fact.” +</p> + +<p> +He was talking because he was afraid. +</p> + +<p> +“An’ after a hard life like she’d had. How old was she, +lad?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fifty-five.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fifty-five....” He hesitated. Then, in a rather hushed voice, he +asked the question that frightened him: +</p> + +<p> +“And what was it, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Cancer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cancer again, like Julia! I never knew there was cancer in our family. +Oh, my good God, our poor Anna, after the life she’d had!—What, +lad, do you see any God at the back of that?—I’m damned if I +do.” +</p> + +<p> +He was glaring, very blue-eyed and fierce, at his nephew. Berry lifted his +shoulders slightly. +</p> + +<p> +“God?” went on the taxi driver, in a curious intense tone, +“You’ve only to look at the folk in the street to know +there’s nothing keeps it going but gravitation. Look at ’em. Look +at him!”—A mongrel-looking man was nosing past. +“Wouldn’t <i>he</i> murder you for your watch-chain, but that +he’s afraid of society. He’s got it <i>in</i> him.... Look at +’em.” +</p> + +<p> +Berry watched the towns-people go by, and, sensitively feeling his +uncle’s antipathy, it seemed he was watching a sort of <i>danse +macabre</i> of ugly criminals. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever see such a God-forsaken crew creeping about! It gives you +the very horrors to look at ’em. I sit in this damned car and watch +’em till, I can tell you, I feel like running the cab amuck among +’em, and running myself to kingdom come—” +</p> + +<p> +Berry wondered at this outburst. He knew his uncle was the black-sheep, the +youngest, the darling of his mother’s family. He knew him to be at outs +with respectability, mixing with the looser, sporting type, all betting and +drinking and showing dogs and birds, and racing. As a critic of life, however, +he did not know him. But the young man felt curiously understanding. “He +uses words like I do, he talks nearly as I talk, except that I shouldn’t +say those things. But I might feel like that, in myself, if I went a certain +road.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got to go to Watmore,” he said. “Can you take +me?” +</p> + +<p> +“When d’you want to go?” asked the uncle fiercely. +</p> + +<p> +“Now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, then. What d’yer stand gassin’ on th’ +causeway for?” +</p> + +<p> +The nephew took his seat beside the driver. The cab began to quiver, then it +started forward with a whirr. The uncle, his hands and feet acting +mechanically, kept his blue eyes fixed on the highroad into whose traffic the +car was insinuating its way. Berry felt curiously as if he were sitting beside +an older development of himself. His mind went back to his mother. She had been +twenty years older than this brother of hers whom she had loved so dearly. +“He was one of the most affectionate little lads, and such a curly head! +I could never have believed he would grow into the great, coarse bully he +is—for he’s nothing else. My father made a god of him—well, +it’s a good thing his father is dead. He got in with that sporting gang, +that’s what did it. Things were made too easy for him, and so he thought +of no one but himself, and this is the result.” +</p> + +<p> +Not that “Joky” Sutton was so very black a sheep. He had lived idly +till he was eighteen, then had suddenly married a young, beautiful girl with +clear brows and dark grey eyes, a factory girl. Having taken her to live with +his parents he, lover of dogs and pigeons, went on to the staff of a sporting +paper. But his wife was without uplift or warmth. Though they made money +enough, their house was dark and cold and uninviting. He had two or three dogs, +and the whole attic was turned into a great pigeon-house. He and his wife lived +together roughly, with no warmth, no refinement, no touch of beauty anywhere, +except that she was beautiful. He was a blustering, impetuous man, she was +rather cold in her soul, did not care about anything very much, was rather +capable and close with money. And she had a common accent in her speech. He +outdid her a thousand times in coarse language, and yet that cold twang in her +voice tortured him with shame that he stamped down in bullying and in becoming +more violent in his own speech. +</p> + +<p> +Only his dogs adored him, and to them, and to his pigeons, he talked with +rough, yet curiously tender caresses while they leaped and fluttered for joy. +</p> + +<p> +After he and his wife had been married for seven years a little girl was born +to them, then later, another. But the husband and wife drew no nearer together. +She had an affection for her children almost like a cool governess. He had an +emotional man’s fear of sentiment, which helped to nip his wife from +putting out any shoots. He treated his children roughly, and pretended to think +it a good job when one was adopted by a well-to-do maternal aunt. But in his +soul he hated his wife that she could give away one of his children. For after +her cool fashion, she loved him. With a chaos of a man such as he, she had no +chance of being anything but cold and hard, poor thing. For she did love him. +</p> + +<p> +In the end he fell absurdly and violently in love with a rather sentimental +young woman who read Browning. He made his wife an allowance and established a +new ménage with the young lady, shortly after emigrating with her to Australia. +Meanwhile his wife had gone to live with a publican, a widower, with whom she +had had one of those curious, tacit understandings of which quiet women are +capable, something like an arrangement for provision in the future. +</p> + +<p> +This was as much as the nephew knew. He sat beside his uncle, wondering how +things stood at the present. They raced lightly out past the cemetery and along +the boulevard, then turned into the rather grimy country. The mud flew out on +either side, there was a fine mist of rain which blew in their faces. Berry +covered himself up. +</p> + +<p> +In the lanes the high hedges shone black with rain. The silvery grey sky, +faintly dappled, spread wide over the low, green land. The elder man glanced +fiercely up the road, then turned his red face to his nephew. +</p> + +<p> +“And how’re you going on, lad?” he said loudly. Berry noticed +that his uncle was slightly uneasy of him. It made him also uncomfortable. The +elder man had evidently something pressing on his soul. +</p> + +<p> +“Who are you living with in town?” asked the nephew. “Have +you gone back to Aunt Maud?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” barked the uncle. “She wouldn’t have me. I +offered to—I want to—but she wouldn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re alone, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m not alone.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned and glared with his fierce blue eyes at his nephew, but said no more +for some time. The car ran on through the mud, under the wet wall of the park. +</p> + +<p> +“That other devil tried to poison me,” suddenly shouted the elder +man. “The one I went to Australia with.” At which, in spite of +himself, the younger smiled in secret. +</p> + +<p> +“How was that?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Wanted to get rid of me. She got in with another fellow on the ship.... +By Jove, I was bad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where?—on the ship?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” bellowed the other. “No. That was in Wellington, New +Zealand. I was bad, and got lower an’ lower—couldn’t think +what was up. I could hardly crawl about. As certain as I’m here, she was +poisoning me, to get to th’ other chap—I’m certain of +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what did you do?” +</p> + +<p> +“I cleared out—went to Sydney—” +</p> + +<p> +“And left her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I thought begod, I’d better clear out if I wanted to +live.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you were all right in Sydney?” +</p> + +<p> +“Better in no time—I <i>know</i> she was putting poison in my +coffee.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hm!” +</p> + +<p> +There was a glum silence. The driver stared at the road ahead, fixedly, +managing the car as if it were a live thing. The nephew felt that his uncle was +afraid, quite stupefied with fear, fear of life, of death, of himself. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re in rooms, then?” asked the nephew. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m in a house of my own,” said the uncle defiantly, +“wi’ th’ best little woman in th’ Midlands. She’s +a marvel.—Why don’t you come an’ see us?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will. Who is she?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, she’s a good girl—a beautiful little thing. I was clean +gone on her first time I saw her. An’ she was on me. Her mother lives +with us—respectable girl, none o’ your....” +</p> + +<p> +“And how old is she?” +</p> + +<p> +“—how old is she?—she’s twenty-one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>She’s</i> right enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d marry her—getting a divorce—?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall marry her.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a little antagonism between the two men. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s Aunt Maud?” asked the younger. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s at the Railway Arms—we passed it, just against +Rollin’s Mill Crossing.... They sent me a note this morning to go +an’ see her when I can spare time. She’s got consumption.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good Lord! Are you going?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—” +</p> + +<p> +But again Berry felt that his uncle was afraid. +</p> + +<p> +The young man got through his commission in the village, had a drink with his +uncle at the inn, and the two were returning home. The elder man’s +subject of conversation was Australia. As they drew near the town they grew +silent, thinking both of the public-house. At last they saw the gates of the +railway crossing were closed before them. +</p> + +<p> +“Shan’t you call?” asked Berry, jerking his head in the +direction of the inn, which stood at the corner between two roads, its sign +hanging under a bare horse-chestnut tree in front. +</p> + +<p> +“I might as well. Come in an’ have a drink,” said the uncle. +</p> + +<p> +It had been raining all the morning, so shallow pools of water lay about. A +brewer’s wagon, with wet barrels and warm-smelling horses, stood near the +door of the inn. Everywhere seemed silent, but for the rattle of trains at the +crossing. The two men went uneasily up the steps and into the bar. The place +was paddled with wet feet, empty. As the bar-man was heard approaching, the +uncle asked, his usual bluster slightly hushed by fear: +</p> + +<p> +“What yer goin’ ta have, lad? Same as last time?” +</p> + +<p> +A man entered, evidently the proprietor. He was good-looking, with a long, +heavy face and quick, dark eyes. His glance at Sutton was swift, a start, a +recognition, and a withdrawal, into heavy neutrality. +</p> + +<p> +“How are yer, Dan?” he said, scarcely troubling to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Are yer, George?” replied Sutton, hanging back. “My nephew, +Dan Berry.—Give us Red Seal, George.” +</p> + +<p> +The publican nodded to the younger man, and set the glasses on the bar. He +pushed forward the two glasses, then leaned back in the dark corner behind the +door, his arms folded, evidently preferring to get back from the watchful eyes +of the nephew. +</p> + +<p> +“—’s luck,” said Sutton. +</p> + +<p> +The publican nodded in acknowledgement. Sutton and his nephew drank. +</p> + +<p> +“Why the hell don’t you get that road mended in Cinder +Hill—,” said Sutton fiercely, pushing back his driver’s cap +and showing his short-cut, bristling hair. +</p> + +<p> +“They can’t find it in their hearts to pull it up,” replied +the publican, laconically. +</p> + +<p> +“Find in their hearts! They want settin’ in barrows an’ +runnin’ up an’ down it till they cried for mercy.” +</p> + +<p> +Sutton put down his glass. The publican renewed it with a sure hand, at ease in +whatsoever he did. Then he leaned back against the bar. He wore no coat. He +stood with arms folded, his chin on his chest, his long moustache hanging. His +back was round and slack, so that the lower part of his abdomen stuck forward, +though he was not stout. His cheek was healthy, brown-red, and he was muscular. +Yet there was about him this physical slackness, a reluctance in his slow, sure +movements. His eyes were keen under his dark brows, but reluctant also, as if +he were gloomily apathetic. +</p> + +<p> +There was a halt. The publican evidently would say nothing. Berry looked at the +mahogany bar-counter, slopped with beer, at the whisky-bottles on the shelves. +Sutton, his cap pushed back, showing a white brow above a weather-reddened +face, rubbed his cropped hair uneasily. +</p> + +<p> +The publican glanced round suddenly. It seemed that only his dark eyes moved. +</p> + +<p> +“Going up?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +And something, perhaps his eyes, indicated the unseen bed-chamber. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay—that’s what I came for,” replied Sutton, shifting +nervously from one foot to the other. “She’s been asking for +me?” +</p> + +<p> +“This morning,” replied the publican, neutral. +</p> + +<p> +Then he put up a flap of the bar, and turned away through the dark doorway +behind. Sutton, pulling off his cap, showing a round, short-cropped head which +now was ducked forward, followed after him, the buttons holding the strap of +his great-coat behind glittering for a moment. +</p> + +<p> +They climbed the dark stairs, the husband placing his feet carefully, because +of his big boots. Then he followed down the passage, trying vaguely to keep a +grip on his bowels, which seemed to be melting away, and definitely wishing for +a neat brandy. The publican opened a door. Sutton, big and burly in his +great-coat, went past him. +</p> + +<p> +The bedroom seemed light and warm after the passage. There was a red eider-down +on the bed. Then, making an effort, Sutton turned his eyes to see the sick +woman. He met her eyes direct, dark, dilated. It was such a shock he almost +started away. For a second he remained in torture, as if some invisible flame +were playing on him to reduce his bones and fuse him down. Then he saw the +sharp white edge of her jaw, and the black hair beside the hollow cheek. With a +start he went towards the bed. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, Maud!” he said. “Why, what ye been +doin’?” +</p> + +<p> +The publican stood at the window with his back to the bed. The husband, like +one condemned but on the point of starting away, stood by the bedside staring +in horror at his wife, whose dilated grey eyes, nearly all black now, watched +him wearily, as if she were looking at something a long way off. +</p> + +<p> +Going exceedingly pale, he jerked up his head and stared at the wall over the +pillows. There was a little coloured picture of a bird perched on a bell, and a +nest among ivy leaves beneath. It appealed to him, made him wonder, roused a +feeling of childish magic in him. They were wonderfully fresh, green ivy +leaves, and nobody had seen the nest among them save him. +</p> + +<p> +Then suddenly he looked down again at the face on the bed, to try and recognise +it. He knew the white brow and the beautiful clear eyebrows. That was his wife, +with whom he had passed his youth, flesh of his flesh, his, himself. Then those +tired eyes, which met his again from a long way off, disturbed him until he did +not know where he was. Only the sunken cheeks, and the mouth that seemed to +protrude now were foreign to him, and filled him with horror. It seemed he lost +his identity. He was the young husband of the woman with the clear brows; he +was the married man fighting with her whose eyes watched him, a little +indifferently, from a long way off; and he was a child in horror of that +protruding mouth. +</p> + +<p> +There came a crackling sound of her voice. He knew she had consumption of the +throat, and braced himself hard to bear the noise. +</p> + +<p> +“What was it, Maud?” he asked in panic. +</p> + +<p> +Then the broken, crackling voice came again. He was too terrified of the sound +of it to hear what was said. There was a pause. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll take Winnie?” the publican’s voice interpreted +from the window. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you bother, Maud, I’ll take her,” he said, +stupefying his mind so as not to understand. +</p> + +<p> +He looked curiously round the room. It was not a bad bedroom, light and warm. +There were many medicine bottles aggregated in a corner of the +washstand—and a bottle of Three Star brandy, half full. And there were +also photographs of strange people on the chest of drawers. It was not a bad +room. +</p> + +<p> +Again he started as if he were shot. She was speaking. He bent down, but did +not look at her. +</p> + +<p> +“Be good to her,” she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +When he realised her meaning, that he should be good to their child when the +mother was gone, a blade went through his flesh. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll be good to her, Maud, don’t you bother,” he said, +beginning to feel shaky. +</p> + +<p> +He looked again at the picture of the bird. It perched cheerfully under a blue +sky, with robust, jolly ivy leaves near. He was gathering his courage to +depart. He looked down, but struggled hard not to take in the sight of his +wife’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“I s’ll come again, Maud,” he said. “I hope +you’ll go on all right. Is there anything as you want?” +</p> + +<p> +There was an almost imperceptible shake of the head from the sick woman, making +his heart melt swiftly again. Then, dragging his limbs, he got out of the room +and down the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +The landlord came after him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll let you know if anything happens,” the publican said, +still laconic, but with his eyes dark and swift. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, a’ right,” said Sutton blindly. He looked round for his +cap, which he had all the time in his hand. Then he got out of doors. +</p> + +<p> +In a moment the uncle and nephew were in the car jolting on the level crossing. +The elder man seemed as if something tight in his brain made him open his eyes +wide, and stare. He held the steering wheel firmly. He knew he could steer +accurately, to a hair’s breadth. Glaring fixedly ahead, he let the car +go, till it bounded over the uneven road. There were three coal-carts in a +string. In an instant the car grazed past them, almost biting the kerb on the +other side. Sutton aimed his car like a projectile, staring ahead. He did not +want to know, to think, to realise, he wanted to be only the driver of that +quick taxi. +</p> + +<p> +The town drew near, suddenly. There were allotment-gardens with dark-purple +twiggy fruit-trees and wet alleys between the hedges. Then suddenly the streets +of dwelling-houses whirled close, and the car was climbing the hill, with an +angry whirr,—up—up—till they rode out on to the crest and +could see the tram-cars, dark-red and yellow, threading their way round the +corner below, and all the traffic roaring between the shops. +</p> + +<p> +“Got anywhere to go?” asked Sutton of his nephew. +</p> + +<p> +“I was going to see one or two people.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come an’ have a bit o’ dinner with us,” said the +other. +</p> + +<p> +Berry knew that his uncle wanted to be distracted, so that he should not think +nor realise. The big man was running hard away from the horror of realisation. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” Berry agreed. +</p> + +<p> +The car went quickly through the town. It ran up a long street nearly into the +country again. Then it pulled up at a house that stood alone, below the road. +</p> + +<p> +“I s’ll be back in ten minutes,” said the uncle. +</p> + +<p> +The car went on to the garage. Berry stood curiously at the top of the stone +stairs that led from the highroad down to the level of the house, an old stone +place. The garden was dilapidated. Broken fruit-trees leaned at a sharp angle +down the steep bank. Right across the dim grey atmosphere, in a kind of valley +on the edge of the town, new suburb-patches showed pinkish on the dark earth. +It was a kind of unresolved borderland. +</p> + +<p> +Berry went down the steps. Through the broken black fence of the orchard, long +grass showed yellow. The place seemed deserted. He knocked, then knocked again. +An elderly woman appeared. She looked like a housekeeper. At first she said +suspiciously that Mr. Sutton was not in. +</p> + +<p> +“My uncle just put me down. He’ll be in in ten minutes,” +replied the visitor. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, are you the Mr. Berry who is related to him?” exclaimed the +elderly woman. “Come in—come in.” +</p> + +<p> +She was at once kindly and a little bit servile. The young man entered. It was +an old house, rather dark, and sparsely furnished. The elderly woman sat +nervously on the edge of one of the chairs in a drawing-room that looked as if +it were furnished from dismal relics of dismal homes, and there was a little +straggling attempt at conversation. Mrs. Greenwell was evidently a working +class woman unused to service or to any formality. +</p> + +<p> +Presently she gathered up courage to invite her visitor into the dining-room. +There from the table under the window rose a tall, slim girl with a cat in her +arms. She was evidently a little more lady-like than was habitual to her, but +she had a gentle, delicate, small nature. Her brown hair almost covered her +ears, her dark lashes came down in shy awkwardness over her beautiful blue +eyes. She shook hands in a frank way, yet she was shrinking. Evidently she was +not sure how her position would affect her visitor. And yet she was assured in +herself, shrinking and timid as she was. +</p> + +<p> +“She must be a good deal in love with him,” thought Berry. +</p> + +<p> +Both women glanced shamefacedly at the roughly laid table. Evidently they ate +in a rather rough and ready fashion. +</p> + +<p> +Elaine—she had this poetic name—fingered her cat timidly, not +knowing what to say or to do, unable even to ask her visitor to sit down. He +noticed how her skirt hung almost flat on her hips. She was young, scarce +developed, a long, slender thing. Her colouring was warm and exquisite. +</p> + +<p> +The elder woman bustled out to the kitchen. Berry fondled the terrier dogs that +had come curiously to his heels, and glanced out of the window at the wet, +deserted orchard. +</p> + +<p> +This room, too, was not well furnished, and rather dark. But there was a big +red fire. +</p> + +<p> +“He always has fox terriers,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she answered, showing her teeth in a smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you like them, too?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes”—she glanced down at the dogs. “I like Tam better +than Sally—” +</p> + +<p> +Her speech always tailed off into an awkward silence. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve been to see Aunt Maud,” said the nephew. +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes, blue and scared and shrinking, met his. +</p> + +<p> +“Dan had a letter,” he explained. “She’s very +bad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it horrible!” she exclaimed, her face crumbling up +with fear. +</p> + +<p> +The old woman, evidently a hard-used, rather down-trodden workman’s wife, +came in with two soup-plates. She glanced anxiously to see how her daughter was +progressing with the visitor. +</p> + +<p> +“Mother, Dan’s been to see Maud,” said Elaine, in a quiet +voice full of fear and trouble. +</p> + +<p> +The old woman looked up anxiously, in question. +</p> + +<p> +“I think she wanted him to take the child. She’s very bad, I +believe,” explained Berry. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, we should take Winnie!” cried Elaine. But both women seemed +uncertain, wavering in their position. Already Berry could see that his uncle +had bullied them, as he bullied everybody. But they were used to unpleasant +men, and seemed to keep at a distance. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you have some soup?” asked the mother, humbly. +</p> + +<p> +She evidently did the work. The daughter was to be a lady, more or less, always +dressed and nice for when Sutton came in. +</p> + +<p> +They heard him heavily running down the steps outside. The dogs got up. Elaine +seemed to forget the visitor. It was as if she came into life. Yet she was +nervous and afraid. The mother stood as if ready to exculpate herself. +</p> + +<p> +Sutton burst open the door. Big, blustering, wet in his immense grey coat, he +came into the dining-room. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello!” he said to his nephew, “making yourself at +home?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” replied Berry. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, Jack,” he said to the girl. “Got owt to grizzle +about?” +</p> + +<p> +“What for?” she asked, in a clear, half-challenging voice, that had +that peculiar twang, almost petulant, so female and so attractive. Yet she was +defiant like a boy. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a wonder if you haven’t,” growled Sutton. And, +with a really intimate movement, he stooped down and fondled his dogs, though +paying no attention to them. Then he stood up, and remained with feet apart on +the hearthrug, his head ducked forward, watching the girl. He seemed +abstracted, as if he could only watch her. His great-coat hung open, so that +she could see his figure, simple and human in the great husk of cloth. She +stood nervously with her hands behind her, glancing at him, unable to see +anything else. And he was scarcely conscious but of her. His eyes were still +strained and staring, and as they followed the girl, when, long-limbed and +languid, she moved away, it was as if he saw in her something impersonal, the +female, not the woman. +</p> + +<p> +“Had your dinner?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“We were just going to have it,” she replied, with the same curious +little vibration in her voice, like the twang of a string. +</p> + +<p> +The mother entered, bringing a saucepan from which she ladled soup into three +plates. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down, lad,” said Sutton. “You sit down, Jack, an’ +give me mine here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, aren’t you coming to table?” she complained. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I tell you,” he snarled, almost pretending to be disagreeable. +But she was slightly afraid even of the pretence, which pleased and relieved +him. He stood on the hearthrug eating his soup noisily. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you going to take your coat off?” she said. +“It’s filling the place full of steam.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not answer, but, with his head bent forward over the plate, he ate his +soup hastily, to get it done with. When he put down his empty plate, she rose +and went to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Do take your coat off, Dan,” she said, and she took hold of the +breast of his coat, trying to push it back over his shoulder. But she could +not. Only the stare in his eyes changed to a glare as her hand moved over his +shoulder. He looked down into her eyes. She became pale, rather +frightened-looking, and she turned her face away, and it was drawn slightly +with love and fear and misery. She tried again to put off his coat, her thin +wrists pulling at it. He stood solidly planted, and did not look at her, but +stared straight in front. She was playing with passion, afraid of it, and +really wretched because it left her, the person, out of count. Yet she +continued. And there came into his bearing, into his eyes, the curious smile of +passion, pushing away even the death-horror. It was life stronger than death in +him. She stood close to his breast. Their eyes met, and she was carried away. +</p> + +<p> +“Take your coat off, Dan,” she said coaxingly, in a low tone meant +for no one but him. And she slid her hands on his shoulder, and he yielded, so +that the coat was pushed back. She had flushed, and her eyes had grown very +bright. She got hold of the cuff of his coat. Gently, he eased himself, so that +she drew it off. Then he stood in a thin suit, which revealed his vigorous, +almost mature form. +</p> + +<p> +“What a weight!” she exclaimed, in a peculiar penetrating voice, as +she went out hugging the overcoat. In a moment she came back. +</p> + +<p> +He stood still in the same position, a frown over his fiercely staring eyes. +The pain, the fear, the horror in his breast were all burning away in the new, +fiercest flame of passion. +</p> + +<p> +“Get your dinner,” he said roughly to her. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve had all I want,” she said. “You come an’ +have yours.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at the table as if he found it difficult to see things. +</p> + +<p> +“I want no more,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She stood close to his chest. She wanted to touch him and to comfort him. There +was something about him now that fascinated her. Berry felt slightly ashamed +that she seemed to ignore the presence of others in the room. +</p> + +<p> +The mother came in. She glanced at Sutton, standing planted on the hearthrug, +his head ducked, the heavy frown hiding his eyes. There was a peculiar braced +intensity about him that made the elder woman afraid. Suddenly he jerked his +head round to his nephew. +</p> + +<p> +“Get on wi’ your dinner, lad,” he said, and he went to the +door. The dogs, which had continually lain down and got up again, uneasy, now +rose and watched. The girl went after him, saying, clearly: +</p> + +<p> +“What did you want, Dan?” +</p> + +<p> +Her slim, quick figure was gone, the door was closed behind her. +</p> + +<p> +There was silence. The mother, still more slave-like in her movement, sat down +in a low chair. Berry drank some beer. +</p> + +<p> +“That girl will leave him,” he said to himself. “She’ll +hate him like poison. And serve him right. Then she’ll go off with +somebody else.” +</p> + +<p> +And she did. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>THE HORSE DEALER’S DAUGHTER</h2> + +<p> +“Well, Mabel, and what are you going to do with yourself?” asked +Joe, with foolish flippancy. He felt quite safe himself. Without listening for +an answer, he turned aside, worked a grain of tobacco to the tip of his tongue, +and spat it out. He did not care about anything, since he felt safe himself. +</p> + +<p> +The three brothers and the sister sat round the desolate breakfast table, +attempting some sort of desultory consultation. The morning’s post had +given the final tap to the family fortunes, and all was over. The dreary +dining-room itself, with its heavy mahogany furniture, looked as if it were +waiting to be done away with. +</p> + +<p> +But the consultation amounted to nothing. There was a strange air of +ineffectuality about the three men, as they sprawled at table, smoking and +reflecting vaguely on their own condition. The girl was alone, a rather short, +sullen-looking young woman of twenty-seven. She did not share the same life as +her brothers. She would have been good-looking, save for the impassive fixity +of her face, “bull-dog”, as her brothers called it. +</p> + +<p> +There was a confused tramping of horses’ feet outside. The three men all +sprawled round in their chairs to watch. Beyond the dark holly-bushes that +separated the strip of lawn from the highroad, they could see a cavalcade of +shire horses swinging out of their own yard, being taken for exercise. This was +the last time. These were the last horses that would go through their hands. +The young men watched with critical, callous look. They were all frightened at +the collapse of their lives, and the sense of disaster in which they were +involved left them no inner freedom. +</p> + +<p> +Yet they were three fine, well-set fellows enough. Joe, the eldest, was a man +of thirty-three, broad and handsome in a hot, flushed way. His face was red, he +twisted his black moustache over a thick finger, his eyes were shallow and +restless. He had a sensual way of uncovering his teeth when he laughed, and his +bearing was stupid. Now he watched the horses with a glazed look of +helplessness in his eyes, a certain stupor of downfall. +</p> + +<p> +The great draught-horses swung past. They were tied head to tail, four of them, +and they heaved along to where a lane branched off from the highroad, planting +their great hoofs floutingly in the fine black mud, swinging their great +rounded haunches sumptuously, and trotting a few sudden steps as they were led +into the lane, round the corner. Every movement showed a massive, slumbrous +strength, and a stupidity which held them in subjection. The groom at the head +looked back, jerking the leading rope. And the calvalcade moved out of sight up +the lane, the tail of the last horse, bobbed up tight and stiff, held out taut +from the swinging great haunches as they rocked behind the hedges in a +motionlike sleep. +</p> + +<p> +Joe watched with glazed hopeless eyes. The horses were almost like his own body +to him. He felt he was done for now. Luckily he was engaged to a woman as old +as himself, and therefore her father, who was steward of a neighbouring estate, +would provide him with a job. He would marry and go into harness. His life was +over, he would be a subject animal now. +</p> + +<p> +He turned uneasily aside, the retreating steps of the horses echoing in his +ears. Then, with foolish restlessness, he reached for the scraps of bacon-rind +from the plates, and making a faint whistling sound, flung them to the terrier +that lay against the fender. He watched the dog swallow them, and waited till +the creature looked into his eyes. Then a faint grin came on his face, and in a +high, foolish voice he said: +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t get much more bacon, shall you, you little +b——?” +</p> + +<p> +The dog faintly and dismally wagged its tail, then lowered his haunches, +circled round, and lay down again. +</p> + +<p> +There was another helpless silence at the table. Joe sprawled uneasily in his +seat, not willing to go till the family conclave was dissolved. Fred Henry, the +second brother, was erect, clean-limbed, alert. He had watched the passing of +the horses with more <i>sang-froid</i>. If he was an animal, like Joe, he was +an animal which controls, not one which is controlled. He was master of any +horse, and he carried himself with a well-tempered air of mastery. But he was +not master of the situations of life. He pushed his coarse brown moustache +upwards, off his lip, and glanced irritably at his sister, who sat impassive +and inscrutable. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll go and stop with Lucy for a bit, shan’t you?” +he asked. The girl did not answer. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see what else you can do,” persisted Fred Henry. +</p> + +<p> +“Go as a skivvy,” Joe interpolated laconically. +</p> + +<p> +The girl did not move a muscle. +</p> + +<p> +“If I was her, I should go in for training for a nurse,” said +Malcolm, the youngest of them all. He was the baby of the family, a young man +of twenty-two, with a fresh, jaunty <i>museau</i>. +</p> + +<p> +But Mabel did not take any notice of him. They had talked at her and round her +for so many years, that she hardly heard them at all. +</p> + +<p> +The marble clock on the mantel-piece softly chimed the half-hour, the dog rose +uneasily from the hearthrug and looked at the party at the breakfast table. But +still they sat on in ineffectual conclave. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, all right,” said Joe suddenly, <i>à propos</i> of nothing. +“I’ll get a move on.” +</p> + +<p> +He pushed back his chair, straddled his knees with a downward jerk, to get them +free, in horsy fashion, and went to the fire. Still he did not go out of the +room; he was curious to know what the others would do or say. He began to +charge his pipe, looking down at the dog and saying, in a high, affected voice: +</p> + +<p> +“Going wi’ me? Going wi’ me are ter? Tha’rt goin’ +further than tha counts on just now, dost hear?” +</p> + +<p> +The dog faintly wagged its tail, the man stuck out his jaw and covered his pipe +with his hands, and puffed intently, losing himself in the tobacco, looking +down all the while at the dog with an absent brown eye. The dog looked up at +him in mournful distrust. Joe stood with his knees stuck out, in real horsy +fashion. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you had a letter from Lucy?” Fred Henry asked of his sister. +</p> + +<p> +“Last week,” came the neutral reply. +</p> + +<p> +“And what does she say?” +</p> + +<p> +There was no answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Does she <i>ask</i> you to go and stop there?” persisted Fred +Henry. +</p> + +<p> +“She says I can if I like.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, you’d better. Tell her you’ll come on +Monday.” +</p> + +<p> +This was received in silence. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what you’ll do then, is it?” said Fred Henry, +in some exasperation. +</p> + +<p> +But she made no answer. There was a silence of futility and irritation in the +room. Malcolm grinned fatuously. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll have to make up your mind between now and next +Wednesday,” said Joe loudly, “or else find yourself lodgings on the +kerbstone.” +</p> + +<p> +The face of the young woman darkened, but she sat on immutable. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s Jack Fergusson!” exclaimed Malcolm, who was looking +aimlessly out of the window. +</p> + +<p> +“Where?” exclaimed Joe, loudly. +</p> + +<p> +“Just gone past.” +</p> + +<p> +“Coming in?” +</p> + +<p> +Malcolm craned his neck to see the gate. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +There was a silence. Mabel sat on like one condemned, at the head of the table. +Then a whistle was heard from the kitchen. The dog got up and barked sharply. +Joe opened the door and shouted: +</p> + +<p> +“Come on.” +</p> + +<p> +After a moment a young man entered. He was muffled up in overcoat and a purple +woollen scarf, and his tweed cap, which he did not remove, was pulled down on +his head. He was of medium height, his face was rather long and pale, his eyes +looked tired. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, Jack! Well, Jack!” exclaimed Malcolm and Joe. Fred Henry +merely said, “Jack.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s doing?” asked the newcomer, evidently addressing Fred +Henry. +</p> + +<p> +“Same. We’ve got to be out by Wednesday.—Got a cold?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have—got it bad, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you stop in?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Me</i> stop in? When I can’t stand on my legs, perhaps I shall +have a chance.” The young man spoke huskily. He had a slight Scotch +accent. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a knock-out, isn’t it,” said Joe, boisterously, +“if a doctor goes round croaking with a cold. Looks bad for the patients, +doesn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +The young doctor looked at him slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“Anything the matter with <i>you</i>, then?” he asked +sarcastically. +</p> + +<p> +“Not as I know of. Damn your eyes, I hope not. Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you were very concerned about the patients, wondered if you +might be one yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Damn it, no, I’ve never been patient to no flaming doctor, and +hope I never shall be,” returned Joe. +</p> + +<p> +At this point Mabel rose from the table, and they all seemed to become aware of +her existence. She began putting the dishes together. The young doctor looked +at her, but did not address her. He had not greeted her. She went out of the +room with the tray, her face impassive and unchanged. +</p> + +<p> +“When are you off then, all of you?” asked the doctor. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m catching the eleven-forty,” replied Malcolm. “Are +you goin’ down wi’ th’ trap, Joe?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I’ve told you I’m going down wi’ th’ trap, +haven’t I?” +</p> + +<p> +“We’d better be getting her in then.—So long, Jack, if I +don’t see you before I go,” said Malcolm, shaking hands. +</p> + +<p> +He went out, followed by Joe, who seemed to have his tail between his legs. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, this is the devil’s own,” exclaimed the doctor, when +he was left alone with Fred Henry. “Going before Wednesday, are +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the orders,” replied the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Where, to Northampton?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it.” +</p> + +<p> +“The devil!” exclaimed Fergusson, with quiet chagrin. +</p> + +<p> +And there was silence between the two. +</p> + +<p> +“All settled up, are you?” asked Fergusson. +</p> + +<p> +“About.” +</p> + +<p> +There was another pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I shall miss yer, Freddy, boy,” said the young doctor. +</p> + +<p> +“And I shall miss thee, Jack,” returned the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss you like hell,” mused the doctor. +</p> + +<p> +Fred Henry turned aside. There was nothing to say. Mabel came in again, to +finish clearing the table. +</p> + +<p> +“What are <i>you</i> going to do, then, Miss Pervin?” asked +Fergusson. “Going to your sister’s, are you?” +</p> + +<p> +Mabel looked at him with her steady, dangerous eyes, that always made him +uncomfortable, unsettling his superficial ease. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what in the name of fortune <i>are</i> you going to do? Say what +you mean to do,” cried Fred Henry, with futile intensity. +</p> + +<p> +But she only averted her head, and continued her work. She folded the white +table-cloth, and put on the chenille cloth. +</p> + +<p> +“The sulkiest bitch that ever trod!” muttered her brother. +</p> + +<p> +But she finished her task with perfectly impassive face, the young doctor +watching her interestedly all the while. Then she went out. +</p> + +<p> +Fred Henry stared after her, clenching his lips, his blue eyes fixing in sharp +antagonism, as he made a grimace of sour exasperation. +</p> + +<p> +“You could bray her into bits, and that’s all you’d get out +of her,” he said, in a small, narrowed tone. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor smiled faintly. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s she <i>going</i> to do, then?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Strike me if I know!” returned the other. +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause. Then the doctor stirred. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll be seeing you tonight, shall I?” he said to his friend. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay—where’s it to be? Are we going over to Jessdale?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. I’ve got such a cold on me. I’ll come +round to the Moon and Stars, anyway.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let Lizzie and May miss their night for once, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it—if I feel as I do now.” +</p> + +<p> +“All’s one—” +</p> + +<p> +The two young men went through the passage and down to the back door together. +The house was large, but it was servantless now, and desolate. At the back was +a small bricked house-yard, and beyond that a big square, gravelled fine and +red, and having stables on two sides. Sloping, dank, winter-dark fields +stretched away on the open sides. +</p> + +<p> +But the stables were empty. Joseph Pervin, the father of the family, had been a +man of no education, who had become a fairly large horse dealer. The stables +had been full of horses, there was a great turmoil and come-and-go of horses +and of dealers and grooms. Then the kitchen was full of servants. But of late +things had declined. The old man had married a second time, to retrieve his +fortunes. Now he was dead and everything was gone to the dogs, there was +nothing but debt and threatening. +</p> + +<p> +For months, Mabel had been servantless in the big house, keeping the home +together in penury for her ineffectual brothers. She had kept house for ten +years. But previously, it was with unstinted means. Then, however brutal and +coarse everything was, the sense of money had kept her proud, confident. The +men might be foul-mouthed, the women in the kitchen might have bad reputations, +her brothers might have illegitimate children. But so long as there was money, +the girl felt herself established, and brutally proud, reserved. +</p> + +<p> +No company came to the house, save dealers and coarse men. Mabel had no +associates of her own sex, after her sister went away. But she did not mind. +She went regularly to church, she attended to her father. And she lived in the +memory of her mother, who had died when she was fourteen, and whom she had +loved. She had loved her father, too, in a different way, depending upon him, +and feeling secure in him, until at the age of fifty-four he married again. And +then she had set hard against him. Now he had died and left them all hopelessly +in debt. +</p> + +<p> +She had suffered badly during the period of poverty. Nothing, however, could +shake the curious sullen, animal pride that dominated each member of the +family. Now, for Mabel, the end had come. Still she would not cast about her. +She would follow her own way just the same. She would always hold the keys of +her own situation. Mindless and persistent, she endured from day to day. Why +should she think? Why should she answer anybody? It was enough that this was +the end, and there was no way out. She need not pass any more darkly along the +main street of the small town, avoiding every eye. She need not demean herself +any more, going into the shops and buying the cheapest food. This was at an +end. She thought of nobody, not even of herself. Mindless and persistent, she +seemed in a sort of ecstasy to be coming nearer to her fulfilment, her own +glorification, approaching her dead mother, who was glorified. +</p> + +<p> +In the afternoon she took a little bag, with shears and sponge and a small +scrubbing brush, and went out. It was a grey, wintry day, with saddened, +dark-green fields and an atmosphere blackened by the smoke of foundries not far +off. She went quickly, darkly along the causeway, heeding nobody, through the +town to the churchyard. +</p> + +<p> +There she always felt secure, as if no one could see her, although as a matter +of fact she was exposed to the stare of everyone who passed along under the +churchyard wall. Nevertheless, once under the shadow of the great looming +church, among the graves, she felt immune from the world, reserved within the +thick churchyard wall as in another country. +</p> + +<p> +Carefully she clipped the grass from the grave, and arranged the pinky-white, +small chrysanthemums in the tin cross. When this was done, she took an empty +jar from a neighbouring grave, brought water, and carefully, most scrupulously +sponged the marble headstone and the coping-stone. +</p> + +<p> +It gave her sincere satisfaction to do this. She felt in immediate contact with +the world of her mother. She took minute pains, went through the park in a +state bordering on pure happiness, as if in performing this task she came into +a subtle, intimate connexion with her mother. For the life she followed here in +the world was far less real than the world of death she inherited from her +mother. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor’s house was just by the church. Fergusson, being a mere hired +assistant, was slave to the countryside. As he hurried now to attend to the +outpatients in the surgery, glancing across the graveyard with his quick eye, +he saw the girl at her task at the grave. She seemed so intent and remote, it +was like looking into another world. Some mystical element was touched in him. +He slowed down as he walked, watching her as if spell-bound. +</p> + +<p> +She lifted her eyes, feeling him looking. Their eyes met. And each looked again +at once, each feeling, in some way, found out by the other. He lifted his cap +and passed on down the road. There remained distinct in his consciousness, like +a vision, the memory of her face, lifted from the tombstone in the churchyard, +and looking at him with slow, large, portentous eyes. It <i>was</i> portentous, +her face. It seemed to mesmerise him. There was a heavy power in her eyes which +laid hold of his whole being, as if he had drunk some powerful drug. He had +been feeling weak and done before. Now the life came back into him, he felt +delivered from his own fretted, daily self. +</p> + +<p> +He finished his duties at the surgery as quickly as might be, hastily filling +up the bottles of the waiting people with cheap drugs. Then, in perpetual +haste, he set off again to visit several cases in another part of his round, +before teatime. At all times he preferred to walk, if he could, but +particularly when he was not well. He fancied the motion restored him. +</p> + +<p> +The afternoon was falling. It was grey, deadened, and wintry, with a slow, +moist, heavy coldness sinking in and deadening all the faculties. But why +should he think or notice? He hastily climbed the hill and turned across the +dark-green fields, following the black cinder-track. In the distance, across a +shallow dip in the country, the small town was clustered like smouldering ash, +a tower, a spire, a heap of low, raw, extinct houses. And on the nearest fringe +of the town, sloping into the dip, was Oldmeadow, the Pervins’ house. He +could see the stables and the outbuildings distinctly, as they lay towards him +on the slope. Well, he would not go there many more times! Another resource +would be lost to him, another place gone: the only company he cared for in the +alien, ugly little town he was losing. Nothing but work, drudgery, constant +hastening from dwelling to dwelling among the colliers and the iron-workers. It +wore him out, but at the same time he had a craving for it. It was a stimulant +to him to be in the homes of the working people, moving as it were through the +innermost body of their life. His nerves were excited and gratified. He could +come so near, into the very lives of the rough, inarticulate, powerfully +emotional men and women. He grumbled, he said he hated the hellish hole. But as +a matter of fact it excited him, the contact with the rough, strongly-feeling +people was a stimulant applied direct to his nerves. +</p> + +<p> +Below Oldmeadow, in the green, shallow, soddened hollow of fields, lay a +square, deep pond. Roving across the landscape, the doctor’s quick eye +detected a figure in black passing through the gate of the field, down towards +the pond. He looked again. It would be Mabel Pervin. His mind suddenly became +alive and attentive. +</p> + +<p> +Why was she going down there? He pulled up on the path on the slope above, and +stood staring. He could just make sure of the small black figure moving in the +hollow of the failing day. He seemed to see her in the midst of such obscurity, +that he was like a clairvoyant, seeing rather with the mind’s eye than +with ordinary sight. Yet he could see her positively enough, whilst he kept his +eye attentive. He felt, if he looked away from her, in the thick, ugly falling +dusk, he would lose her altogether. +</p> + +<p> +He followed her minutely as she moved, direct and intent, like something +transmitted rather than stirring in voluntary activity, straight down the field +towards the pond. There she stood on the bank for a moment. She never raised +her head. Then she waded slowly into the water. +</p> + +<p> +He stood motionless as the small black figure walked slowly and deliberately +towards the centre of the pond, very slowly, gradually moving deeper into the +motionless water, and still moving forward as the water got up to her breast. +Then he could see her no more in the dusk of the dead afternoon. +</p> + +<p> +“There!” he exclaimed. “Would you believe it?” +</p> + +<p> +And he hastened straight down, running over the wet, soddened fields, pushing +through the hedges, down into the depression of callous wintry obscurity. It +took him several minutes to come to the pond. He stood on the bank, breathing +heavily. He could see nothing. His eyes seemed to penetrate the dead water. +Yes, perhaps that was the dark shadow of her black clothing beneath the surface +of the water. +</p> + +<p> +He slowly ventured into the pond. The bottom was deep, soft clay, he sank in, +and the water clasped dead cold round his legs. As he stirred he could smell +the cold, rotten clay that fouled up into the water. It was objectionable in +his lungs. Still, repelled and yet not heeding, he moved deeper into the pond. +The cold water rose over his thighs, over his loins, upon his abdomen. The +lower part of his body was all sunk in the hideous cold element. And the bottom +was so deeply soft and uncertain, he was afraid of pitching with his mouth +underneath. He could not swim, and was afraid. +</p> + +<p> +He crouched a little, spreading his hands under the water and moving them +round, trying to feel for her. The dead cold pond swayed upon his chest. He +moved again, a little deeper, and again, with his hands underneath, he felt all +around under the water. And he touched her clothing. But it evaded his fingers. +He made a desperate effort to grasp it. +</p> + +<p> +And so doing he lost his balance and went under, horribly, suffocating in the +foul earthy water, struggling madly for a few moments. At last, after what +seemed an eternity, he got his footing, rose again into the air and looked +around. He gasped, and knew he was in the world. Then he looked at the water. +She had risen near him. He grasped her clothing, and drawing her nearer, turned +to take his way to land again. +</p> + +<p> +He went very slowly, carefully, absorbed in the slow progress. He rose higher, +climbing out of the pond. The water was now only about his legs; he was +thankful, full of relief to be out of the clutches of the pond. He lifted her +and staggered on to the bank, out of the horror of wet, grey clay. +</p> + +<p> +He laid her down on the bank. She was quite unconscious and running with water. +He made the water come from her mouth, he worked to restore her. He did not +have to work very long before he could feel the breathing begin again in her; +she was breathing naturally. He worked a little longer. He could feel her live +beneath his hands; she was coming back. He wiped her face, wrapped her in his +overcoat, looked round into the dim, dark-grey world, then lifted her and +staggered down the bank and across the fields. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed an unthinkably long way, and his burden so heavy he felt he would +never get to the house. But at last he was in the stable-yard, and then in the +house-yard. He opened the door and went into the house. In the kitchen he laid +her down on the hearthrug, and called. The house was empty. But the fire was +burning in the grate. +</p> + +<p> +Then again he kneeled to attend to her. She was breathing regularly, her eyes +were wide open and as if conscious, but there seemed something missing in her +look. She was conscious in herself, but unconscious of her surroundings. +</p> + +<p> +He ran upstairs, took blankets from a bed, and put them before the fire to +warm. Then he removed her saturated, earthy-smelling clothing, rubbed her dry +with a towel, and wrapped her naked in the blankets. Then he went into the +dining-room, to look for spirits. There was a little whisky. He drank a gulp +himself, and put some into her mouth. +</p> + +<p> +The effect was instantaneous. She looked full into his face, as if she had been +seeing him for some time, and yet had only just become conscious of him. +</p> + +<p> +“Dr. Fergusson?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“What?” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +He was divesting himself of his coat, intending to find some dry clothing +upstairs. He could not bear the smell of the dead, clayey water, and he was +mortally afraid for his own health. +</p> + +<p> +“What did I do?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Walked into the pond,” he replied. He had begun to shudder like +one sick, and could hardly attend to her. Her eyes remained full on him, he +seemed to be going dark in his mind, looking back at her helplessly. The +shuddering became quieter in him, his life came back in him, dark and +unknowing, but strong again. +</p> + +<p> +“Was I out of my mind?” she asked, while her eyes were fixed on him +all the time. +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe, for the moment,” he replied. He felt quiet, because his +strength had come back. The strange fretful strain had left him. +</p> + +<p> +“Am I out of my mind now?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you?” he reflected a moment. “No,” he answered +truthfully, “I don’t see that you are.” He turned his face +aside. He was afraid now, because he felt dazed, and felt dimly that her power +was stronger than his, in this issue. And she continued to look at him fixedly +all the time. “Can you tell me where I shall find some dry things to put +on?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you dive into the pond for me?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he answered. “I walked in. But I went in overhead as +well.” +</p> + +<p> +There was silence for a moment. He hesitated. He very much wanted to go +upstairs to get into dry clothing. But there was another desire in him. And she +seemed to hold him. His will seemed to have gone to sleep, and left him, +standing there slack before her. But he felt warm inside himself. He did not +shudder at all, though his clothes were sodden on him. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I didn’t want you to do such a foolish thing,” he +said. +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t foolish,” she said, still gazing at him as she lay +on the floor, with a sofa cushion under her head. “It was the right thing +to do. <i>I</i> knew best, then.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go and shift these wet things,” he said. But still he +had not the power to move out of her presence, until she sent him. It was as if +she had the life of his body in her hands, and he could not extricate himself. +Or perhaps he did not want to. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly she sat up. Then she became aware of her own immediate condition. She +felt the blankets about her, she knew her own limbs. For a moment it seemed as +if her reason were going. She looked round, with wild eye, as if seeking +something. He stood still with fear. She saw her clothing lying scattered. +</p> + +<p> +“Who undressed me?” she asked, her eyes resting full and inevitable +on his face. +</p> + +<p> +“I did,” he replied, “to bring you round.” +</p> + +<p> +For some moments she sat and gazed at him awfully, her lips parted. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you love me then?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +He only stood and stared at her, fascinated. His soul seemed to melt. +</p> + +<p> +She shuffled forward on her knees, and put her arms round him, round his legs, +as he stood there, pressing her breasts against his knees and thighs, clutching +him with strange, convulsive certainty, pressing his thighs against her, +drawing him to her face, her throat, as she looked up at him with flaring, +humble eyes, of transfiguration, triumphant in first possession. +</p> + +<p> +“You love me,” she murmured, in strange transport, yearning and +triumphant and confident. “You love me. I know you love me, I +know.” +</p> + +<p> +And she was passionately kissing his knees, through the wet clothing, +passionately and indiscriminately kissing his knees, his legs, as if unaware of +everything. +</p> + +<p> +He looked down at the tangled wet hair, the wild, bare, animal shoulders. He +was amazed, bewildered, and afraid. He had never thought of loving her. He had +never wanted to love her. When he rescued her and restored her, he was a +doctor, and she was a patient. He had had no single personal thought of her. +Nay, this introduction of the personal element was very distasteful to him, a +violation of his professional honour. It was horrible to have her there +embracing his knees. It was horrible. He revolted from it, violently. And +yet—and yet—he had not the power to break away. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him again, with the same supplication of powerful love, and that +same transcendent, frightening light of triumph. In view of the delicate flame +which seemed to come from her face like a light, he was powerless. And yet he +had never intended to love her. He had never intended. And something stubborn +in him could not give way. +</p> + +<p> +“You love me,” she repeated, in a murmur of deep, rhapsodic +assurance. “You love me.” +</p> + +<p> +Her hands were drawing him, drawing him down to her. He was afraid, even a +little horrified. For he had, really, no intention of loving her. Yet her hands +were drawing him towards her. He put out his hand quickly to steady himself, +and grasped her bare shoulder. A flame seemed to burn the hand that grasped her +soft shoulder. He had no intention of loving her: his whole will was against +his yielding. It was horrible. And yet wonderful was the touch of her +shoulders, beautiful the shining of her face. Was she perhaps mad? He had a +horror of yielding to her. Yet something in him ached also. +</p> + +<p> +He had been staring away at the door, away from her. But his hand remained on +her shoulder. She had gone suddenly very still. He looked down at her. Her eyes +were now wide with fear, with doubt, the light was dying from her face, a +shadow of terrible greyness was returning. He could not bear the touch of her +eyes’ question upon him, and the look of death behind the question. +</p> + +<p> +With an inward groan he gave way, and let his heart yield towards her. A sudden +gentle smile came on his face. And her eyes, which never left his face, slowly, +slowly filled with tears. He watched the strange water rise in her eyes, like +some slow fountain coming up. And his heart seemed to burn and melt away in his +breast. +</p> + +<p> +He could not bear to look at her any more. He dropped on his knees and caught +her head with his arms and pressed her face against his throat. She was very +still. His heart, which seemed to have broken, was burning with a kind of agony +in his breast. And he felt her slow, hot tears wetting his throat. But he could +not move. +</p> + +<p> +He felt the hot tears wet his neck and the hollows of his neck, and he remained +motionless, suspended through one of man’s eternities. Only now it had +become indispensable to him to have her face pressed close to him; he could +never let her go again. He could never let her head go away from the close +clutch of his arm. He wanted to remain like that for ever, with his heart +hurting him in a pain that was also life to him. Without knowing, he was +looking down on her damp, soft brown hair. +</p> + +<p> +Then, as it were suddenly, he smelt the horrid stagnant smell of that water. +And at the same moment she drew away from him and looked at him. Her eyes were +wistful and unfathomable. He was afraid of them, and he fell to kissing her, +not knowing what he was doing. He wanted her eyes not to have that terrible, +wistful, unfathomable look. +</p> + +<p> +When she turned her face to him again, a faint delicate flush was glowing, and +there was again dawning that terrible shining of joy in her eyes, which really +terrified him, and yet which he now wanted to see, because he feared the look +of doubt still more. +</p> + +<p> +“You love me?” she said, rather faltering. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” The word cost him a painful effort. Not because it +wasn’t true. But because it was too newly true, the <i>saying</i> seemed +to tear open again his newly-torn heart. And he hardly wanted it to be true, +even now. +</p> + +<p> +She lifted her face to him, and he bent forward and kissed her on the mouth, +gently, with the one kiss that is an eternal pledge. And as he kissed her his +heart strained again in his breast. He never intended to love her. But now it +was over. He had crossed over the gulf to her, and all that he had left behind +had shrivelled and become void. +</p> + +<p> +After the kiss, her eyes again slowly filled with tears. She sat still, away +from him, with her face drooped aside, and her hands folded in her lap. The +tears fell very slowly. There was complete silence. He too sat there motionless +and silent on the hearthrug. The strange pain of his heart that was broken +seemed to consume him. That he should love her? That this was love! That he +should be ripped open in this way!—Him, a doctor!—How they would +all jeer if they knew!—It was agony to him to think they might know. +</p> + +<p> +In the curious naked pain of the thought he looked again to her. She was +sitting there drooped into a muse. He saw a tear fall, and his heart flared +hot. He saw for the first time that one of her shoulders was quite uncovered, +one arm bare, he could see one of her small breasts; dimly, because it had +become almost dark in the room. +</p> + +<p> +“Why are you crying?” he asked, in an altered voice. +</p> + +<p> +She looked up at him, and behind her tears the consciousness of her situation +for the first time brought a dark look of shame to her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not crying, really,” she said, watching him half +frightened. +</p> + +<p> +He reached his hand, and softly closed it on her bare arm. +</p> + +<p> +“I love you! I love you!” he said in a soft, low vibrating voice, +unlike himself. +</p> + +<p> +She shrank, and dropped her head. The soft, penetrating grip of his hand on her +arm distressed her. She looked up at him. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to go,” she said. “I want to go and get you some dry +things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” he said. “I’m all right.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I want to go,” she said. “And I want you to change your +things.” +</p> + +<p> +He released her arm, and she wrapped herself in the blanket, looking at him +rather frightened. And still she did not rise. +</p> + +<p> +“Kiss me,” she said wistfully. +</p> + +<p> +He kissed her, but briefly, half in anger. +</p> + +<p> +Then, after a second, she rose nervously, all mixed up in the blanket. He +watched her in her confusion, as she tried to extricate herself and wrap +herself up so that she could walk. He watched her relentlessly, as she knew. +And as she went, the blanket trailing, and as he saw a glimpse of her feet and +her white leg, he tried to remember her as she was when he had wrapped her in +the blanket. But then he didn’t want to remember, because she had been +nothing to him then, and his nature revolted from remembering her as she was +when she was nothing to him. +</p> + +<p> +A tumbling, muffled noise from within the dark house startled him. Then he +heard her voice:—“There are clothes.” He rose and went to the +foot of the stairs, and gathered up the garments she had thrown down. Then he +came back to the fire, to rub himself down and dress. He grinned at his own +appearance when he had finished. +</p> + +<p> +The fire was sinking, so he put on coal. The house was now quite dark, save for +the light of a street-lamp that shone in faintly from beyond the holly trees. +He lit the gas with matches he found on the mantel-piece. Then he emptied the +pockets of his own clothes, and threw all his wet things in a heap into the +scullery. After which he gathered up her sodden clothes, gently, and put them +in a separate heap on the copper-top in the scullery. +</p> + +<p> +It was six o’clock on the clock. His own watch had stopped. He ought to +go back to the surgery. He waited, and still she did not come down. So he went +to the foot of the stairs and called: +</p> + +<p> +“I shall have to go.” +</p> + +<p> +Almost immediately he heard her coming down. She had on her best dress of black +voile, and her hair was tidy, but still damp. She looked at him—and in +spite of herself, smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like you in those clothes,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Do I look a sight?” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +They were shy of one another. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll make you some tea,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I must go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Must you?” And she looked at him again with the wide, strained, +doubtful eyes. And again, from the pain of his breast, he knew how he loved +her. He went and bent to kiss her, gently, passionately, with his heart’s +painful kiss. +</p> + +<p> +“And my hair smells so horrible,” she murmured in distraction. +“And I’m so awful, I’m so awful! Oh, no, I’m too +awful.” And she broke into bitter, heart-broken sobbing. “You +can’t want to love me, I’m horrible.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be silly, don’t be silly,” he said, trying to +comfort her, kissing her, holding her in his arms. “I want you, I want to +marry you, we’re going to be married, quickly, quickly—tomorrow if +I can.” +</p> + +<p> +But she only sobbed terribly, and cried: +</p> + +<p> +“I feel awful. I feel awful. I feel I’m horrible to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I want you, I want you,” was all he answered, blindly, with +that terrible intonation which frightened her almost more than her horror lest +he should <i>not</i> want her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>FANNY AND ANNIE</h2> + +<p> +Flame-lurid his face as he turned among the throng of flame-lit and dark faces +upon the platform. In the light of the furnace she caught sight of his drifting +countenance, like a piece of floating fire. And the nostalgia, the doom of +homecoming went through her veins like a drug. His eternal face, flame-lit now! +The pulse and darkness of red fire from the furnace towers in the sky, lighting +the desultory, industrial crowd on the wayside station, lit him and went out. +</p> + +<p> +Of course he did not see her. Flame-lit and unseeing! Always the same, with his +meeting eyebrows, his common cap, and his red-and-black scarf knotted round his +throat. Not even a collar to meet her! The flames had sunk, there was shadow. +</p> + +<p> +She opened the door of her grimy, branch-line carriage, and began to get down +her bags. The porter was nowhere, of course, but there was Harry, obscure, on +the outer edge of the little crowd, missing her, of course. +</p> + +<p> +“Here! Harry!” she called, waving her umbrella in the twilight. He +hurried forward. +</p> + +<p> +“Tha’s come, has ter?” he said, in a sort of cheerful +welcome. She got down, rather flustered, and gave him a peck of a kiss. +</p> + +<p> +“Two suit-cases!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Her soul groaned within her, as he clambered into the carriage after her bags. +Up shot the fire in the twilight sky, from the great furnace behind the +station. She felt the red flame go across her face. She had come back, she had +come back for good. And her spirit groaned dismally. She doubted if she could +bear it. +</p> + +<p> +There, on the sordid little station under the furnaces, she stood, tall and +distinguished, in her well-made coat and skirt and her broad grey velour hat. +She held her umbrella, her bead chatelaine, and a little leather case in her +grey-gloved hands, while Harry staggered out of the ugly little train with her +bags. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a trunk at the back,” she said in her bright voice. +But she was not feeling bright. The twin black cones of the iron foundry +blasted their sky-high fires into the night. The whole scene was lurid. The +train waited cheerfully. It would wait another ten minutes. She knew it. It was +all so deadly familiar. +</p> + +<p> +Let us confess it at once. She was a lady’s maid, thirty years old, come +back to marry her first-love, a foundry worker: after having kept him dangling, +off and on, for a dozen years. Why had she come back? Did she love him? No. She +didn’t pretend to. She had loved her brilliant and ambitious cousin, who +had jilted her, and who had died. She had had other affairs which had come to +nothing. So here she was, come back suddenly to marry her first-love, who had +waited—or remained single—all these years. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t a porter carry those?” she said, as Harry strode with +his workman’s stride down the platform towards the guard’s van. +</p> + +<p> +“I can manage,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +And with her umbrella, her chatelaine, and her little leather case, she +followed him. +</p> + +<p> +The trunk was there. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll get Heather’s greengrocer’s cart to fetch it +up,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t there a cab?” said Fanny, knowing dismally enough that +there wasn’t. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll just put it aside o’ the penny-in-the-slot, and +Heather’s greengrocers’ll fetch it about half past eight,” he +said. +</p> + +<p> +He seized the box by its two handles and staggered with it across the +level-crossing, bumping his legs against it as he waddled. Then he dropped it +by the red sweet-meats machine. +</p> + +<p> +“Will it be safe there?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay—safe as houses,” he answered. He returned for the two +bags. Thus laden, they started to plod up the hill, under the great long black +building of the foundry. She walked beside him—workman of workmen he was, +trudging with that luggage. The red lights flared over the deepening darkness. +From the foundry came the horrible, slow clang, clang, clang of iron, a great +noise, with an interval just long enough to make it unendurable. +</p> + +<p> +Compare this with the arrival at Gloucester: the carriage for her mistress, the +dog-cart for herself with the luggage; the drive out past the river, the +pleasant trees of the carriage-approach; and herself sitting beside Arthur, +everybody so polite to her. +</p> + +<p> +She had come home—for good! Her heart nearly stopped beating as she +trudged up that hideous and interminable hill, beside the laden figure. What a +come-down! What a come-down! She could not take it with her usual bright +cheerfulness. She knew it all too well. It is easy to bear up against the +unusual, but the deadly familiarity of an old stale past! +</p> + +<p> +He dumped the bags down under a lamp-post, for a rest. There they stood, the +two of them, in the lamplight. Passers-by stared at her, and gave good-night to +Harry. Her they hardly knew, she had become a stranger. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re too heavy for you, let me carry one,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“They begin to weigh a bit by the time you’ve gone a mile,” +he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me carry the little one,” she insisted. +</p> + +<p> +“Tha can ha’e it for a minute, if ter’s a mind,” he +said, handing over the valise. +</p> + +<p> +And thus they arrived in the streets of shops of the little ugly town on top of +the hill. How everybody stared at her; my word, how they stared! And the cinema +was just going in, and the queues were tailing down the road to the corner. And +everybody took full stock of her. “Night, Harry!” shouted the +fellows, in an interested voice. +</p> + +<p> +However, they arrived at her aunt’s—a little sweet-shop in a side +street. They “pinged” the door-bell, and her aunt came running +forward out of the kitchen. +</p> + +<p> +“There you are, child! Dying for a cup of tea, I’m sure. How are +you?” +</p> + +<p> +Fanny’s aunt kissed her, and it was all Fanny could do to refrain from +bursting into tears, she felt so low. Perhaps it was her tea she wanted. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve had a drag with that luggage,” said Fanny’s +aunt to Harry. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay—I’m not sorry to put it down,” he said, looking at +his hand which was crushed and cramped by the bag handle. +</p> + +<p> +Then he departed to see about Heather’s greengrocery cart. +</p> + +<p> +When Fanny sat at tea, her aunt, a grey-haired, fair-faced little woman, looked +at her with an admiring heart, feeling bitterly sore for her. For Fanny was +beautiful: tall, erect, finely coloured, with her delicately arched nose, her +rich brown hair, her large lustrous grey eyes. A passionate woman—a woman +to be afraid of. So proud, so inwardly violent! She came of a violent race. +</p> + +<p> +It needed a woman to sympathise with her. Men had not the courage. Poor Fanny! +She was such a lady, and so straight and magnificent. And yet everything seemed +to do her down. Every time she seemed to be doomed to humiliation and +disappointment, this handsome, brilliantly sensitive woman, with her nervous, +overwrought laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“So you’ve really come back, child?” said her aunt. +</p> + +<p> +“I really have, Aunt,” said Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Harry! I’m not sure, you know, Fanny, that you’re not +taking a bit of an advantage of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Aunt, he’s waited so long, he may as well have what he’s +waited for.” Fanny laughed grimly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, child, he’s waited so long, that I’m not sure it +isn’t a bit hard on him. You know, I <i>like</i> him, Fanny—though +as you know quite well, I don’t think he’s good enough for you. And +I think he thinks so himself, poor fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you be so sure of that, Aunt. Harry is common, but +he’s not humble. He wouldn’t think the Queen was any too good for +him, if he’d a mind to her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—It’s as well if he has a proper opinion of +himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“It depends what you call proper,” said Fanny. “But +he’s got his good points—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he’s a nice fellow, and I like him, I do like him. Only, as I +tell you, he’s not good enough for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve made up my mind, Aunt,” said Fanny, grimly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” mused the aunt. “They say all things come to him who +waits—” +</p> + +<p> +“More than he’s bargained for, eh, Aunt?” laughed Fanny +rather bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +The poor aunt, this bitterness grieved her for her niece. +</p> + +<p> +They were interrupted by the ping of the shop-bell, and Harry’s call of +“Right!” But as he did not come in at once, Fanny, feeling +solicitous for him presumably at the moment, rose and went into the shop. She +saw a cart outside, and went to the door. +</p> + +<p> +And the moment she stood in the doorway, she heard a woman’s common +vituperative voice crying from the darkness of the opposite side of the road: +</p> + +<p> +“Tha’rt theer, ar ter? I’ll shame thee, Mester. I’ll +shame thee, see if I dunna.” +</p> + +<p> +Startled, Fanny stared across the darkness, and saw a woman in a black bonnet +go under one of the lamps up the side street. +</p> + +<p> +Harry and Bill Heather had dragged the trunk off the little dray, and she +retreated before them as they came up the shop step with it. +</p> + +<p> +“Wheer shalt ha’e it?” asked Harry. +</p> + +<p> +“Best take it upstairs,” said Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +She went up first to light the gas. +</p> + +<p> +When Heather had gone, and Harry was sitting down having tea and pork pie, +Fanny asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Who was that woman shouting?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, I canna tell thee. To somebody, I’s’d think,” +replied Harry. Fanny looked at him, but asked no more. +</p> + +<p> +He was a fair-haired fellow of thirty-two, with a fair moustache. He was broad +in his speech, and looked like a foundry-hand, which he was. But women always +liked him. There was something of a mother’s lad about +him—something warm and playful and really sensitive. +</p> + +<p> +He had his attractions even for Fanny. What she rebelled against so bitterly +was that he had no sort of ambition. He was a moulder, but of very commonplace +skill. He was thirty-two years old, and hadn’t saved twenty pounds. She +would have to provide the money for the home. He didn’t care. He just +didn’t care. He had no initiative at all. He had no vices—no +obvious ones. But he was just indifferent, spending as he went, and not caring. +Yet he did not look happy. She remembered his face in the fire-glow: something +haunted, abstracted about it. As he sat there eating his pork pie, bulging his +cheek out, she felt he was like a doom to her. And she raged against the doom +of him. It wasn’t that he was gross. His way was common, almost on +purpose. But he himself wasn’t really common. For instance, his food was +not particularly important to him, he was not greedy. He had a charm, too, +particularly for women, with his blondness and his sensitiveness and his way of +making a woman feel that she was a higher being. But Fanny knew him, knew the +peculiar obstinate limitedness of him, that would nearly send her mad. +</p> + +<p> +He stayed till about half past nine. She went to the door with him. +</p> + +<p> +“When are you coming up?” he said, jerking his head in the +direction, presumably, of his own home. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll come tomorrow afternoon,” she said brightly. Between +Fanny and Mrs. Goodall, his mother, there was naturally no love lost. +</p> + +<p> +Again she gave him an awkward little kiss, and said good-night. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t wonder, you know, child, if he doesn’t seem so +very keen,” said her aunt. “It’s your own fault.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Aunt, I couldn’t stand him when he was keen. I can do with him +a lot better as he is.” +</p> + +<p> +The two women sat and talked far into the night. They understood each other. +The aunt, too, had married as Fanny was marrying: a man who was no companion to +her, a violent man, brother of Fanny’s father. He was dead, Fanny’s +father was dead. +</p> + +<p> +Poor Aunt Lizzie, she cried woefully over her bright niece, when she had gone +to bed. +</p> + +<p> +Fanny paid the promised visit to his people the next afternoon. Mrs. Goodall +was a large woman with smooth-parted hair, a common, obstinate woman, who had +spoiled her four lads and her one vixen of a married daughter. She was one of +those old-fashioned powerful natures that couldn’t do with looks or +education or any form of showing off. She fairly hated the sound of correct +English. She <i>thee’d</i> and <i>tha’d</i> her prospective +daughter-in-law, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“I’m none as ormin’ as I look, seest ta.” +</p> + +<p> +Fanny did not think her prospective mother-in-law looked at all orming, so the +speech was unnecessary. +</p> + +<p> +“I towd him mysen,” said Mrs. Goodall, “’Er’s +held back all this long, let ’er stop as ’er is. ’E’d +none ha’ had thee for <i>my</i> tellin’—tha hears. No, +’e’s a fool, an’ I know it. I says to him, ‘Tha looks a +man, doesn’t ter, at thy age, goin’ an’ openin’ to her +when ter hears her scrat’ at th’ gate, after she’s done +gallivantin’ round wherever she’d a mind. That looks rare an’ +soft.’ But it’s no use o’ any talking: he answered that +letter o’ thine and made his own bad bargain.” +</p> + +<p> +But in spite of the old woman’s anger, she was also flattered at +Fanny’s coming back to Harry. For Mrs. Goodall was impressed by +Fanny—a woman of her own match. And more than this, everybody knew that +Fanny’s Aunt Kate had left her two hundred pounds: this apart from the +girl’s savings. +</p> + +<p> +So there was high tea in Princes Street when Harry came home black from work, +and a rather acrid odour of cordiality, the vixen Jinny darting in to say +vulgar things. Of course Jinny lived in a house whose garden end joined the +paternal garden. They were a clan who stuck together, these Goodalls. +</p> + +<p> +It was arranged that Fanny should come to tea again on the Sunday, and the +wedding was discussed. It should take place in a fortnight’s time at +Morley Chapel. Morley was a hamlet on the edge of the real country, and in its +little Congregational Chapel Fanny and Harry had first met. +</p> + +<p> +What a creature of habit he was! He was still in the choir of Morley +Chapel—not very regular. He belonged just because he had a tenor voice, +and enjoyed singing. Indeed his solos were only spoilt to local fame because +when he sang he handled his aitches so hopelessly. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“And I saw ’eaven hopened<br/> +And be’old, a wite ’orse——” +</p> + +<p> +This was one of Harry’s classics, only surpassed by the fine outburst of +his heaving: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Hangels—hever bright an’ fair——” +</p> + +<p> +It was a pity, but it was inalterable. He had a good voice, and he sang with a +certain lacerating fire, but his pronunciation made it all funny. And nothing +could alter him. +</p> + +<p> +So he was never heard save at cheap concerts and in the little, poorer chapels. +The others scoffed. +</p> + +<p> +Now the month was September, and Sunday was Harvest Festival at Morley Chapel, +and Harry was singing solos. So that Fanny was to go to afternoon service, and +come home to a grand spread of Sunday tea with him. Poor Fanny! One of the most +wonderful afternoons had been a Sunday afternoon service, with her cousin +Luther at her side, Harvest Festival in Morley Chapel. Harry had sung solos +then—ten years ago. She remembered his pale blue tie, and the purple +asters and the great vegetable marrows in which he was framed, and her cousin +Luther at her side, young, clever, come down from London, where he was getting +on well, learning his Latin and his French and German so brilliantly. +</p> + +<p> +However, once again it was Harvest Festival at Morley Chapel, and once again, +as ten years before, a soft, exquisite September day, with the last roses pink +in the cottage gardens, the last dahlias crimson, the last sunflowers yellow. +And again the little old chapel was a bower, with its famous sheaves of corn +and corn-plaited pillars, its great bunches of grapes, dangling like tassels +from the pulpit corners, its marrows and potatoes and pears and apples and +damsons, its purple asters and yellow Japanese sunflowers. Just as before, the +red dahlias round the pillars were dropping, weak-headed among the oats. The +place was crowded and hot, the plates of tomatoes seemed balanced perilously on +the gallery front, the Rev. Enderby was weirder than ever to look at, so long +and emaciated and hairless. +</p> + +<p> +The Rev. Enderby, probably forewarned, came and shook hands with her and +welcomed her, in his broad northern, melancholy singsong before he mounted the +pulpit. Fanny was handsome in a gauzy dress and a beautiful lace hat. Being a +little late, she sat in a chair in the side-aisle wedged in, right in front of +the chapel. Harry was in the gallery above, and she could only see him from the +eyes upwards. She noticed again how his eyebrows met, blond and not very +marked, over his nose. He was attractive too: physically lovable, very. If +only—if only her <i>pride</i> had not suffered! She felt he dragged her +down. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Come, ye thankful people come,<br/> +Raise the song of harvest-home.<br/> +All is safely gathered in<br/> +Ere the winter storms begin——” +</p> + +<p> +Even the hymn was a falsehood, as the season had been wet, and half the crops +were still out, and in a poor way. +</p> + +<p> +Poor Fanny! She sang little, and looked beautiful through that inappropriate +hymn. Above her stood Harry—mercifully in a dark suit and dark tie, +looking almost handsome. And his lacerating, pure tenor sounded well, when the +words were drowned in the general commotion. Brilliant she looked, and +brilliant she felt, for she was hot and angrily miserable and inflamed with a +sort of fatal despair. Because there was about him a physical attraction which +she really hated, but which she could not escape from. He was the first man who +had ever kissed her. And his kisses, even while she rebelled from them, had +lived in her blood and sent roots down into her soul. After all this time she +had come back to them. And her soul groaned, for she felt dragged down, dragged +down to earth, as a bird which some dog has got down in the dust. She knew her +life would be unhappy. She knew that what she was doing was fatal. Yet it was +her doom. She had to come back to him. +</p> + +<p> +He had to sing two solos this afternoon: one before the “address” +from the pulpit and one after. Fanny looked at him, and wondered he was not too +shy to stand up there in front of all the people. But no, he was not shy. He +had even a kind of assurance on his face as he looked down from the choir +gallery at her: the assurance of a common man deliberately entrenched in his +commonness. Oh, such a rage went through her veins as she saw the air of +triumph, laconic, indifferent triumph which sat so obstinately and recklessly +on his eyelids as he looked down at her. Ah, she despised him! But there he +stood up in that choir gallery like Balaam’s ass in front of her, and she +could not get beyond him. A certain winsomeness also about him. A certain +physical winsomeness, and as if his flesh were new and lovely to touch. The +thorn of desire rankled bitterly in her heart. +</p> + +<p> +He, it goes without saying, sang like a canary this particular afternoon, with +a certain defiant passion which pleasantly crisped the blood of the +congregation. Fanny felt the crisp flames go through her veins as she listened. +Even the curious loud-mouthed vernacular had a certain fascination. But, oh, +also, it was so repugnant. He would triumph over her, obstinately he would drag +her right back into the common people: a doom, a vulgar doom. +</p> + +<p> +The second performance was an anthem, in which Harry sang the solo parts. It +was clumsy, but beautiful, with lovely words. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“They that sow in tears shall reap in joy,<br/> +He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed<br/> +Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with +him—” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall doubtless come, Shall doubtless come—” softly intoned +the altos—“Bringing his she-e-eaves with him,” the trebles +flourished brightly, and then again began the half-wistful solo: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“They that sow in tears shall reap in joy—” +</p> + +<p> +Yes, it was effective and moving. +</p> + +<p> +But at the moment when Harry’s voice sank carelessly down to his close, +and the choir, standing behind him, were opening their mouths for the final +triumphant outburst, a shouting female voice rose up from the body of the +congregation. The organ gave one startled trump, and went silent; the choir +stood transfixed. +</p> + +<p> +“You look well standing there, singing in God’s holy house,” +came the loud, angry female shout. Everybody turned electrified. A stoutish, +red-faced woman in a black bonnet was standing up denouncing the soloist. +Almost fainting with shock, the congregation realised it. “You look well, +don’t you, standing there singing solos in God’s holy house, you, +Goodall. But I said I’d shame you. You look well, bringing your young +woman here with you, don’t you? I’ll let her know who she’s +dealing with. A scamp as won’t take the consequences of what he’s +done.” The hard-faced, frenzied woman turned in the direction of Fanny. +“<i>That’s</i> what Harry Goodall is, if you want to know.” +</p> + +<p> +And she sat down again in her seat. Fanny, startled like all the rest, had +turned to look. She had gone white, and then a burning red, under the attack. +She knew the woman: a Mrs. Nixon, a devil of a woman, who beat her pathetic, +drunken, red-nosed second husband, Bob, and her two lanky daughters, grown-up +as they were. A notorious character. Fanny turned round again, and sat +motionless as eternity in her seat. +</p> + +<p> +There was a minute of perfect silence and suspense. The audience was +open-mouthed and dumb; the choir stood like Lot’s wife; and Harry, with +his music-sheet, stood there uplifted, looking down with a dumb sort of +indifference on Mrs. Nixon, his face naïve and faintly mocking. Mrs. Nixon sat +defiant in her seat, braving them all. +</p> + +<p> +Then a rustle, like a wood when the wind suddenly catches the leaves. And then +the tall, weird minister got to his feet, and in his strong, bell-like, +beautiful voice—the only beautiful thing about him—he said with +infinite mournful pathos: +</p> + +<p> +“Let us unite in singing the last hymn on the hymn-sheet; the last hymn +on the hymn-sheet, number eleven. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘Fair waved the golden corn,<br/> +In Canaan’s pleasant land.’” +</p> + +<p> +The organ tuned up promptly. During the hymn the offertory was taken. And after +the hymn, the prayer. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Enderby came from Northumberland. Like Harry, he had never been able to +conquer his accent, which was very broad. He was a little simple, one of +God’s fools, perhaps, an odd bachelor soul, emotional, ugly, but very +gentle. +</p> + +<p> +“And if, O our dear Lord, beloved Jesus, there should fall a shadow of +sin upon our harvest, we leave it to Thee to judge, for Thou art judge. We lift +our spirits and our sorrow, Jesus, to Thee, and our mouths are dumb. O, Lord, +keep us from forward speech, restrain us from foolish words and thoughts, we +pray Thee, Lord Jesus, who knowest all and judgest all.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus the minister said in his sad, resonant voice, washed his hands before the +Lord. Fanny bent forward open-eyed during the prayer. She could see the +roundish head of Harry, also bent forward. His face was inscrutable and +expressionless. The shock left her bewildered. Anger perhaps was her dominating +emotion. +</p> + +<p> +The audience began to rustle to its feet, to ooze slowly and excitedly out of +the chapel, looking with wildly-interested eyes at Fanny, at Mrs. Nixon, and at +Harry. Mrs. Nixon, shortish, stood defiant in her pew, facing the aisle, as if +announcing that, without rolling her sleeves up, she was ready for anybody. +Fanny sat quite still. Luckily the people did not have to pass her. And Harry, +with red ears, was making his way sheepishly out of the gallery. The loud noise +of the organ covered all the downstairs commotion of exit. +</p> + +<p> +The minister sat silent and inscrutable in his pulpit, rather like a +death’s-head, while the congregation filed out. When the last lingerers +had unwillingly departed, craning their necks to stare at the still seated +Fanny, he rose, stalked in his hooked fashion down the little country chapel +and fastened the door. Then he returned and sat down by the silent young woman. +</p> + +<p> +“This is most unfortunate, most unfortunate!” he moaned. “I +am so sorry, I am so sorry, indeed, indeed, ah, indeed!” he sighed +himself to a close. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a sudden surprise, that’s one thing,” said Fanny +brightly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—yes—indeed. Yes, a surprise, yes. I don’t know the +woman, I don’t know her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know her,” said Fanny. “She’s a bad one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well! Well!” said the minister. “I don’t know her. I +don’t understand. I don’t understand at all. But it is to be +regretted, it is very much to be regretted. I am very sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +Fanny was watching the vestry door. The gallery stairs communicated with the +vestry, not with the body of the chapel. She knew the choir members had been +peeping for information. +</p> + +<p> +At last Harry came—rather sheepishly—with his hat in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” said Fanny, rising to her feet. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve had a bit of an extra,” said Harry. +</p> + +<p> +“I should think so,” said Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +“A most unfortunate circumstance—a most <i>unfortunate</i> +circumstance. Do you understand it, Harry? I don’t understand it at +all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I understand it. The daughter’s goin’ to have a childt, +an’ ’er lays it on to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“And has she no occasion to?” asked Fanny, rather censorious. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no more mine than it is some other chap’s,” said +Harry, looking aside. +</p> + +<p> +There was a moment of pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Which girl is it?” asked Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +“Annie—the young one—” +</p> + +<p> +There followed another silence. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think I know them, do I?” asked the minister. +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t think so. Their name’s Nixon—mother +married old Bob for her second husband. She’s a tanger—’s +driven the gel to what she is. They live in Manners Road.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what’s amiss with the girl?” asked Fanny sharply. +“She was all right when I knew her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay—she’s all right. But she’s always in an’ out +o’ th’ pubs, wi’ th’ fellows,” said Harry. +</p> + +<p> +“A nice thing!” said Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +Harry glanced towards the door. He wanted to get out. +</p> + +<p> +“Most distressing, indeed!” The minister slowly shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“What about tonight, Mr. Enderby?” asked Harry, in rather a small +voice. “Shall you want me?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Enderby looked up painedly, and put his hand to his brow. He studied Harry +for some time, vacantly. There was the faintest sort of a resemblance between +the two men. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I think. I think we must take no +notice, and cause as little remark as possible.” +</p> + +<p> +Fanny hesitated. Then she said to Harry. +</p> + +<p> +“But <i>will</i> you come?” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, I s’ll come,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Then he turned to Mr. Enderby. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, good-afternoon, Mr. Enderby,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-afternoon, Harry, good-afternoon,” replied the mournful +minister. Fanny followed Harry to the door, and for some time they walked in +silence through the late afternoon. +</p> + +<p> +“And it’s yours as much as anybody else’s?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay,” he answered shortly. +</p> + +<p> +And they went without another word, for the long mile or so, till they came to +the corner of the street where Harry lived. Fanny hesitated. Should she go on +to her aunt’s? Should she? It would mean leaving all this, for ever. +Harry stood silent. +</p> + +<p> +Some obstinacy made her turn with him along the road to his own home. When they +entered the house-place, the whole family was there, mother and father and +Jinny, with Jinny’s husband and children and Harry’s two brothers. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve been having yours ears warmed, they tell me,” said +Mrs. Goodall grimly. +</p> + +<p> +“Who telled thee?” asked Harry shortly. +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie and Luke’s both been in.” +</p> + +<p> +“You look well, don’t you!” said interfering Jinny. +</p> + +<p> +Harry went and hung his hat up, without replying. +</p> + +<p> +“Come upstairs and take your hat off,” said Mrs. Goodall to Fanny, +almost kindly. It would have annoyed her very much if Fanny had dropped her son +at this moment. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s ’er say, then?” asked the father secretly of +Harry, jerking his head in the direction of the stairs whence Fanny had +disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +“Nowt yet,” said Harry. +</p> + +<p> +“Serve you right if she chucks you now,” said Jinny. +“I’ll bet it’s right about Annie Nixon an’ you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tha bets so much,” said Harry. +</p> + +<p> +“Yi—but you can’t deny it,” said Jinny. +</p> + +<p> +“I can if I’ve a mind.” +</p> + +<p> +His father looked at him inquiringly. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no more mine than it is Bill Bower’s, or Ted +Slaney’s, or six or seven on ’em,” said Harry to his father. +</p> + +<p> +And the father nodded silently. +</p> + +<p> +“That’ll not get you out of it, in court,” said Jinny. +</p> + +<p> +Upstairs Fanny evaded all the thrusts made by his mother, and did not declare +her hand. She tidied her hair, washed her hands, and put the tiniest bit of +powder on her face, for coolness, there in front of Mrs. Goodall’s +indignant gaze. It was like a declaration of independence. But the old woman +said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +They came down to Sunday tea, with sardines and tinned salmon and tinned +peaches, besides tarts and cakes. The chatter was general. It concerned the +Nixon family and the scandal. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, she’s a foul-mouthed woman,” said Jinny of Mrs. Nixon. +“She may well talk about God’s holy house, <i>she</i> had. +It’s first time she’s set foot in it, ever since she dropped off +from being converted. She’s a devil and she always was one. Can’t +you remember how she treated Bob’s children, mother, when we lived down +in the Buildings? I can remember when I was a little girl she used to bathe +them in the yard, in the cold, so that they shouldn’t splash the house. +She’d half kill them if they made a mark on the floor, and the language +she’d use! And one Saturday I can remember Garry, that was Bob’s +own girl, she ran off when her stepmother was going to bathe her—ran off +without a rag of clothes on—can you remember, mother? And she hid in +Smedley’s closes—it was the time of mowing-grass—and nobody +could find her. She hid out there all night, didn’t she, mother? Nobody +could find her. My word, there was a talk. They found her on Sunday +morning—” +</p> + +<p> +“Fred Coutts threatened to break every bone in the woman’s body, if +she touched the children again,” put in the father. +</p> + +<p> +“Anyhow, they frightened her,” said Jinny. “But she was +nearly as bad with her own two. And anybody can see that she’s driven old +Bob till he’s gone soft.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, soft as mush,” said Jack Goodall. “’E’d +never addle a week’s wage, nor yet a day’s if th’ chaps +didn’t make it up to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“My word, if he didn’t bring her a week’s wage, she’d +pull his head off,” said Jinny. +</p> + +<p> +“But a clean woman, and respectable, except for her foul mouth,” +said Mrs. Goodall. “Keeps to herself like a bull-dog. Never lets anybody +come near the house, and neighbours with nobody.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wanted it thrashed out of her,” said Mr. Goodall, a silent, +evasive sort of man. +</p> + +<p> +“Where Bob gets the money for his drink from is a mystery,” said +Jinny. +</p> + +<p> +“Chaps treats him,” said Harry. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he’s got the pair of frightenedest rabbit-eyes you’d +wish to see,” said Jinny. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, with a drunken man’s murder in them, <i>I</i> think,” +said Mrs. Goodall. +</p> + +<p> +So the talk went on after tea, till it was practically time to start off to +chapel again. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll have to be getting ready, Fanny,” said Mrs. Goodall. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not going tonight,” said Fanny abruptly. And there was a +sudden halt in the family. “I’ll stop with <i>you</i> tonight, +Mother,” she added. +</p> + +<p> +“Best you had, my gel,” said Mrs. Goodall, flattered and assured. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLAND, MY ENGLAND ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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