The White Peacock (27 page)

Over the fence of the spinney was the hillside, scattered with old thorn
trees. There the little grey lichens held up ruby balls to us unnoticed.
What did it matter, when all the great red apples were being shaken from
the Tree to be left to rot.

"If I were a man," said Lettie, "I would go out west and be free. I
should love it."

She took the scarf from her head and let it wave out on the wind; the
colour was warm in her face with climbing, and her curls were freed by
the wind, sparkling and rippling.

"Well—you're not a man," he said, looking at her, and speaking with
timid bitterness.

"No," she laughed, "if I were, I would shape things—oh, wouldn't I have
my own way!"

"And don't you now?"

"Oh—I don't want it particularly—when I've got it. When I've had my
way, I
do want
somebody to take it back from me."

She put her head back and looked at him sideways, laughing through the
glitter of her hair.

They came to the kennels. She sat down on the edge of the great stone
water trough, and put her hands in the water, moving them gently like
submerged flowers through the clear pool.

"I love to see myself in the water," she said, "I don't mean
on
the
water, Narcissus—but that's how I should like to be out west, to have a
little lake of my own, and swim with my limbs quite free in the water."

"Do you swim well?" he asked.

"Fairly."

"I would race you—in your little lake."

She laughed, took her hands out of the water, and watched the clear
drops trickle off. Then she lifted her head suddenly, at some thought or
other. She looked across the valley, and saw the red roofs of the Mill.

"What's that?" he said.

"Nothing."

"That's a private trough," exclaimed a thin voice, high like a peewit's
cry. We started in surprise to see a tall, black–bearded man looking at
us and away from us nervously, fidgeting uneasily some ten yards off.

"Is it?" said Lettie, looking at her wet hands, which she proceeded to
dry on a fragment of a handkerchief.

"You mustn't meddle with it," said the man in the same reedy, oboe
voice. Then he turned his head away, and his pale grey eyes roved the
countryside——when he had courage, he turned his back to us, shading
his eyes to continue his scrutiny. He walked hurriedly, a few steps,
then craned his neck, peering into the valley, and hastened a dozen
yards in another direction, again stretching and peering about. Then he
went indoors.

"He is pretending to look for somebody," said Lettie, "but it's only
because he's afraid we shall think he came out just to look at us"—and
they laughed.

Suddenly a woman appeared at the gate; she had pale eyes like the
mouse–voiced man.

"You'll get Bright's disease sitting on that there damp stone," she said
to Lettie, who at once rose apologetically.

"I ought to know," continued the mouse–voiced woman, "my own mother died
of it."

"Indeed," murmured Lettie, "I'm sorry."

"Yes," continued the woman, "it behooves you to be careful. Do you come
from Strelley Mill Farm?" she asked suddenly of George, surveying his
shameful déshabille with bitter reproof.

He admitted the imputation.

"And you're going to leave, aren't you?"

Which also he admitted.

"Humph!—we s'll 'appen get some neighbours. It's a dog's life for
loneliness. I suppose you knew the last lot that was here."

Another brief admission.

"A dirty lot—a dirty beagle she must have been. You should just ha'
seen these grates."

"Yes," said Lettie, "I have seen them."

"Faugh—the state! But come in—come in, you'll see a difference."

They entered, out of curiosity. The kitchen was indeed different. It was
clean and sparkling, warm with bright red chintzes on the sofa and on
every chair cushion. Unfortunately the effect was spoiled by green and
yellow antimaccassars, and by a profusion of paper and woollen flowers.
There were three cases of woollen flowers, and on the wall, four fans
stitched over with ruffled green and yellow paper, adorned with yellow
paper roses, carnations, arum lilies, and poppies; there were also wall
pockets full of paper flowers; while the wood outside was loaded with
blossom. "Yes," said Lettie, "there is a difference." The woman swelled,
and looked round. The black–bearded man peeped from behind the Christian
Herald—those long blaring trumpets!—and shrank again. The woman darted
at his pipe, which he had put on a piece of newspaper on the hob, and
blew some imaginary ash from it. Then she caught sight of
something—perhaps some dust—on the fireplace.

"There!" she cried, "I knew it; I couldn't leave him one second! I
haven't work enough burning wood, but he must be poke——poke——"

"I only pushed a piece in between the bars," complained the mouse–voice
from behind the paper.

"Pushed a piece in!" she re–echoed, with awful scorn, seizing the poker
and thrusting it over his paper. "What do you call that, sitting there
telling your stories before folks——"

They crept out and hurried away. Glancing round, Lettie saw the woman
mopping the doorstep after them, and she laughed. He pulled his watch
out of his breeches' pocket; it was half–past three.

"What are you looking at the time for?" she asked.

"Meg's coming to tea," he replied.

She said no more, and they walked slowly on.

When they came on to the shoulder of the hill, and looked down on to the
mill, and the mill–pond, she said:

"I will not come down with you—I will go home."

"Not come down to tea!" he exclaimed, full of reproach and amazement.
"Why, what will they say?"

"No, I won't come down—let me say farewell—'jamque Vale! Do you
remember how Eurydice sank back into Hell?"

"But"—he stammered, "you must come down to tea—how can I tell them?
Why won't you come?"

She answered him in Latin, with two lines from Virgil. As she watched
him, she pitied his helplessness, and gave him a last cut as she said,
very softly and tenderly:

"It wouldn't be fair to Meg."

He stood looking at her; his face was coloured only by the grey–brown
tan; his eyes, the dark, self–mistrustful eyes of the family, were
darker than ever, dilated with misery of helplessness; and she was
infinitely pitiful. She wanted to cry in her yearning.

"Shall we go into the wood for a few minutes?" she said in a low,
tremulous voice, as they turned aside.

The wood was high and warm. Along the ridings the forget–me–nots were
knee deep, stretching, glimmering into the distance like the Milky Way
through the night. They left the tall, flower–tangled paths to go in
among the bluebells, breaking through the close–pressed flowers and
ferns till they came to an oak which had fallen across the hazels, where
they sat half screened. The hyacinths drooped magnificently with an
overweight of purple, or they stood pale and erect, like unripe ears of
purple corn. Heavy bees swung down in a blunder of extravagance among
the purple flowers. They were intoxicated even with the sight of so much
blue. The sound of their hearty, wanton humming came clear upon the
solemn boom of the wind overhead. The sight of their clinging,
clambering riot gave satisfaction to the soul. A rosy campion flower
caught the sun and shone out. An elm sent down a shower of flesh–tinted
sheaths upon them.

"If there were fauns and hamadryads!" she said softly, turning to him to
soothe his misery. She took his cap from his head, ruffled his hair,
saying:

"If you were a faun, I would put guelder roses round your hair, and make
you look Bacchanalian." She left her hand lying on his knee, and looked
up at the sky. Its blue looked pale and green in comparison with the
purple tide ebbing about the wood. The clouds rose up like towers, and
something had touched them into beauty, and poised them up among the
winds. The clouds passed on, and the pool of sky was clear.

"Look," she said, "how we are netted down—boughs with knots of green
buds. If we were free on the winds!—But I'm glad we're not." She turned
suddenly to him, and with the same movement, she gave him her hand, and
he clasped it in both his. "I'm glad we're netted down here; if we were
free in the winds—Ah!"

She laughed a peculiar little laugh, catching her breath.

"Look!" she said, "it's a palace, with the ash–trunks smooth like a
girl's arm, and the elm–columns, ribbed and bossed and fretted, with the
great steel shafts of beech, all rising up to hold an embroidered
care–cloth over us; and every thread of the care–cloth vibrates with
music for us, and the little broidered birds sing; and the hazel–bushes
fling green spray round us, and the honeysuckle leans down to pour out
scent over us. Look at the harvest of bluebells—ripened for us! Listen
to the bee, sounding among all the organ–play—if he sounded exultant
for us!" She looked at him, with tears coming up into her eyes, and a
little, winsome, wistful smile hovering round her mouth. He was very
pale, and dared not look at her. She put her hand in his, leaning softly
against him. He watched, as if fascinated, a young thrush with full pale
breast who hopped near to look at them—glancing with quick, shining
eyes.

"The clouds are going on again," said Lettie.

"Look at that cloud face—see—gazing right up into the sky. The lips
are opening—he is telling us something.—now the form is slipping
away—it's gone—come, we must go too."

"No," he cried, "don't go—don't go away."

Her tenderness made her calm. She replied in a voice perfect in
restrained sadness and resignation.

"No, my dear, no. The threads of my life were untwined; they drifted
about like floating threads of gossamer; and you didn't put out your
hand to take them and twist them up into the chord with yours. Now
another has caught them up, and the chord of my life is being twisted,
and I cannot wrench it free and untwine it again—I can't. I am not
strong enough. Besides, you have twisted another thread far and tight
into your chord; could you get free?"

"Tell me what to do—yes, if you tell me."

"I can't tell you—so let me go."

"No, Lettie," he pleaded, with terror and humility. "No, Lettie; don't
go. What should I do with my life? Nobody would love you like I do—and
what should I do with my love for you?—hate it and fear it, because
it's too much for me?"

She turned and kissed him gratefully. He then took her in a long,
passionate embrace, mouth to mouth. In the end it had so wearied her
that she could only wait in his arms till he was too tired to hold her.
He was trembling already.

"Poor Meg!" she murmured to herself dully, her sensations having become
vague.

He winced, and the pressure of his arms slackened. She loosened his
hands and rose half dazed from her seat by him. She left him, while he
sat dejected, raising no protest.

When I went out to look for them, when tea had already been waiting on
the table half an hour or more, I found him leaning against the gatepost
at the bottom of the hill. There was no blood in his face, and his tan
showed livid; he was haggard as if he had been ill for some weeks.

"Whatever's the matter?" I said. "Where's Lettie?"

"She's gone home," he answered, and the sound of his own voice, and the
meaning of his own words made him heave.

"Why?" I asked in alarm.

He looked at me as if to say "What are you talking about? I cannot
listen!"

"Why?" I insisted.

"I don't know," he replied.

"They are waiting tea for you," I said.

He heard me, but took no notice.

"Come on," I repeated, "there's Meg and everybody waiting tea for you."

"I don't want any," he said.

I waited a minute or two. He was violently sick.

I thought to myself.

When the sickness passed over, he stood up away from the post, trembling
and lugubrious. His eyelids drooped heavily over his eyes, and he looked
at me, and smiled a faint, sick smile.

"Come and lie down in the loft," I said, "and I'll tell them you've got
a bilious bout."

He obeyed me, not having energy to question; his strength had gone, and
his splendid physique seemed shrunken; he walked weakly. I looked away
from him, for in his feebleness he was already beginning to feel
ludicrous.

We got into the barn unperceived, and I watched him climb the ladder to
the loft. Then I went indoors to tell them.

I told them Lettie had promised to be at Highclose for tea, that George
had a bilious attack, and was mooning about the barn till it was over;
he had been badly sick. We ate tea without zest or enjoyment. Meg was
wistful and ill at ease; the father talked to her and made much of her;
the mother did not care for her much.

"I can't understand it," said the mother, "he so rarely has anything the
matter with him—why, I've hardly known the day! Are you sure it's
nothing serious, Cyril? It seems such a thing—and just when Meg
happened to be down—just when Meg was coming——"

About half–past six I had again to go and look for him, to satisfy the
anxiety of his mother and his sweetheart. I went whistling to let him
know I was coming. He lay on a pile of hay in a corner, asleep. He had
put his cap under his head to stop the tickling of the hay, and he lay
half curled up, sleeping soundly. He was still very pale, and there was
on his face the repose and pathos that a sorrow always leaves. As he
wore no coat I was afraid he might be chilly, so I covered him up with a
couple of sacks, and I left him. I would not have him disturbed—I
helped the father about the cowsheds, and with the pigs.