The White Peacock (10 page)

She laid her sewing in her lap, and looked up.

The next day, Sunday, broke wet and dreary. Breakfast was late, and
about ten o'clock we stood at the window looking upon the impossibility
of our going to church.

There was a driving drizzle of rain, like a dirty curtain before the
landscape. The nasturtium leaves by the garden walk had gone rotten in a
frost, and the gay green discs had given place to the first black flags
of winter, hung on flaccid stalks, pinched at the neck. The grass plot
was strewn with fallen leaves, wet and brilliant: scarlet splashes of
Virginia creeper, golden drift from the limes, ruddy brown shawls under
the beeches, and away back in the corner, the black mat of maple leaves,
heavy soddened; they ought to have been a vivid lemon colour.
Occasionally one of these great black leaves would loose its hold, and
zigzag down, staggering in the dance of death.

"There now!" said Lettie suddenly.

I looked up in time to see a crow close his wings and clutch the topmost
bough of an old grey holly tree on the edge of the clearing. He flapped
again, recovered his balance, and folded himself up in black resignation
to the detestable weather.

"Why has the old wretch settled just over our noses," said Lettie
petulantly. "Just to blot the promise of a sorrow."

"Your's or mine?" I asked.

"He is looking at me, I declare."

"You can see the wicked pupil of his eye at this distance," I
insinuated.

"Well," she replied, determined to take this omen unto herself. "I saw
him first."

"—You may bet he's only a messenger in advance. There'll be three more
shortly, and you'll have your four," said I, comforting.

"Do you know," she said, "it is very funny, but whenever I've
particularly noticed one crow, I've had some sorrow or other."

"And when you notice four?" I asked.

"You should have heard old Mrs. Wagstaffe," was her reply. "She declares
an old crow croaked in their apple tree every day for a week before
Jerry got drowned."

"Great sorrow for her," I remarked.

"Oh, but she wept abundantly. I felt like weeping too, but somehow I
laughed. She hoped he had gone to heaven—but—I'm sick of that word
'but'—it is always tangling one's thoughts."

"But, Jerry!" I insisted.

"Oh, she lifted up her forehead, and the tears dripped off her nose. He
must have been an old nuisance, Syb. I can't understand why women marry
such men. I felt downright glad to think of the drunken old wretch
toppling into the canal out of the way."

She pulled the thick curtain across the window, and nestled down in it,
resting her cheek against the edge, protecting herself from the cold
window pane. The wet, grey wind shook the half naked trees, whose leaves
dripped and shone sullenly. Even the trunks were blackened, trickling
with the rain which drove persistently.

Whirled down the sky like black maple leaves caught up aloft, came two
more crows. They swept down and clung hold of the trees in front of the
house, staying near the old forerunner. Lettie watched them, half
amused, half melancholy. One bird was carried past. He swerved round and
began to battle up the wind, rising higher, and rowing laboriously
against the driving wet current.

"Here comes your fourth," said I.

She did not answer, but continued to watch. The bird wrestled
heroically, but the wind pushed him aside, tilted him, caught under his
broad wings and bore him down. He swept in level flight down the stream,
outspread and still, as if fixed in despair. I grieved for him. Sadly
two of his fellows rose and were carried away after him, like souls
hunting for a body to inhabit, and despairing. Only the first ghoul was
left on the withered, silver–grey skeleton of the holly.

"He won't even say 'Nevermore'," I remarked.

"He has more sense," replied Lettie. She looked a trifle lugubrious.
Then she continued: "Better say 'Nevermore' than 'Evermore.'"

"Why?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know. Fancy this 'Evermore.'"

She had been sure in her own soul that Leslie would come—now she began
to doubt:—things were very perplexing.

The bell in the kitchen jangled; she jumped up. I went and opened the
door. He came in. She gave him one bright look of satisfaction. He saw
it, and understood.

"Helen has got some people over—I have been awfully rude to leave them
now," he said quietly.

"What a dreadful day!" said mother.

"Oh, fearful! Your face
is
red, Lettie! What have you been doing?"

"Looking into the fire."

"What did you see?"

"The pictures wouldn't come plain—nothing."

He laughed. We were silent for some time.

"You were expecting me?" he murmured.

"Yes—I knew you'd come."

They were left alone. He came up to her and put his arm around her, as
she stood with her elbow on the mantelpiece.

"You do want me," he pleaded softly.

"Yes," she murmured.

He held her in his arms and kissed her repeatedly, again and again, till
she was out of breath, and put up her hand, and gently pushed her face
away.

"You are a cold little lover—you are a shy bird," he said, laughing
into her eyes. He saw her tears rise, swimming on her lids, but not
falling.

"Why, my love, my darling—why!"—he put his face to her's and took the
tear on his cheek:

"I know you love me," he said, gently, all tenderness.

"Do you know," he murmured. "I can positively feel the tears rising up
from my heart and throat. They are quite painful gathering, my love.
There—you can do anything with me."

They were silent for some time. After a while, a rather long while, she
came upstairs and found mother—and at the end of some minutes I heard
my mother go to him.

I sat by my window and watched the low clouds reel and stagger past. It
seemed as if everything were being swept along—I myself seemed to have
lost my substance, to have become detached from concrete things and the
firm trodden pavement of everyday life. Onward, always onward, not
knowing where, nor why, the wind, the clouds, the rain and the birds and
the leaves, everything whirling along—why?

All this time the old crow sat motionless, though the clouds tumbled,
and were rent and piled, though the trees bent, and the window–pane
shivered with running water. Then I found it had ceased to rain; that
there was a sickly yellow gleam of sunlight, brightening on some great
elm–leaves near at hand till they looked like ripe lemons hanging. The
crow looked at me—I was certain he looked at me.

"What do you think of it all?" I asked him.

He eyed me with contempt: great featherless, half winged bird as I was,
incomprehensible, contemptible, but awful. I believe he hated me.

"But," said I, "if a raven could answer, why won't you?"

He looked wearily away. Nevertheless my gaze disquieted him. He turned
uneasily; he rose, waved his wings as if for flight, poised, then
settled defiantly down again.

"You are no good," said I, "you won't help even with a word."

He sat stolidly unconcerned. Then I heard the lapwings in the meadow
crying, crying. They seemed to seek the storm, yet to rail at it. They
wheeled in the wind, yet never ceased to complain of it. They enjoyed
the struggle, and lamented it in wild lament, through which came a sound
of exultation. All the lapwings cried, cried the same tale, "Bitter,
bitter, the struggle—for nothing, nothing, nothing,"—and all the time
they swung about on their broad wings, revelling.

"There," said I to the crow, "they try it, and find it bitter, but they
wouldn't like to miss it, to sit still like you, you old corpse."

He could not endure this. He rose in defiance, flapped his wings, and
launched off, uttering one "Caw" of sinister foreboding. He was soon
whirled away.

I discovered that I was very cold, so I went downstairs.

Twisting a curl round his finger, one of those loose curls that always
dance free from the captured hair, Leslie said:

"Look how fond your hair is of me; look how it twines round my finger.
Do you know, your hair—the light in it is like—oh—buttercups in the
sun."

"It is like me—it won't be kept in bounds," she replied.

"Shame if it were—like this, it brushes my face—so—and sets me
tingling like music."

"Behave! Now be still, and I'll tell you what sort of music you make."

"Oh—well—tell me."

"Like the calling of throstles and blackies, in the evening, frightening
the pale little wood–anemones, till they run panting and swaying right
up to our wall. Like the ringing of bluebells when the bees are at them;
like Hippomenes, out–of–breath, laughing because he'd won."

He kissed her with rapturous admiration.

"Marriage music, sir," she added.

"What golden apples did I throw?" he asked lightly.

"What!" she exclaimed, half mocking.

"This Atalanta," he replied, looking lovingly upon her, "this
Atalanta—I believe she just lagged at last on purpose."

"You have it," she cried, laughing, submitting to his caresses. "It was
you—the apples of your firm heels—the apples of your eyes—the apples
Eve bit—that won me—hein!"

"That was it—you are clever, you are rare. And I've won, won the ripe
apples of your cheeks, and your breasts, and your very fists—they can't
stop me—and—and—all your roundness and warmness and softness—I've
won you, Lettie."

She nodded wickedly, saying:

"All those—those—yes."

"All—she admits it—everything!"

"Oh!—but let me breathe. Did you claim everything?"

"Yes, and you gave it me."

"Not yet. Everything though?"

"Every atom."

"But—now you look——"

"Did I look aside?"

"With the inward eye. Suppose now we were two angels——"

"Oh, dear—a sloppy angel!"

"Well—don't interrupt now—suppose I were one—like the 'Blessed
Damosel.'"

"With a warm bosom——!"

"Don't be foolish, now—I a 'Blessed Damosel' and you kicking the brown
beech leaves below thinking——"

"What
are
you driving at?"

"Would you be thinking—thoughts like prayers?"

"What on earth do you ask that for? Oh—I think I'd be cursing—eh?"

"No—saying fragrant prayers—that your thin soul might mount up——"

"Hang thin souls, Lettie! I'm not one of your souly sort. I can't stand
Pre–Raphaelities. You—You're not a Burne–Jonesess—you're an Albert
Moore. I think there's more in the warm touch of a soft body than in a
prayer. I'll pray with kisses."

"And when you can't?"

"I'll wait till prayer–time again. By Jove, I'd rather feel my arms full
of you; I'd rather touch that red mouth—you grudger!—than sing hymns
with you in any heaven."

"I'm afraid you'll never sing hymns with me in heaven."

"Well—I have you here—yes, I have you now."

"Our life is but a fading dawn?"

"Liar!—Well, you called me! Besides, I don't care; 'Carpe diem', my
rosebud, my fawn. There's a nice Carmen about a fawn. 'Time to leave its
mother, and venture into a warm embrace.' Poor old Horace—I've
forgotten him."

"Then poor old Horace."

"Ha! Ha!—Well, I shan't forget
you
. What's that queer look in your
eyes?"

"What is it?"

"Nay—you tell me. You are such a tease, there's no getting to the
bottom of you."

"You can fathom the depth of a kiss——"

"I will—I will——"

After a while he asked:

"When shall we be properly engaged, Lettie?"

"Oh, wait till Christmas—till I am twenty–one."

"Nearly three months! Why on earth——"

"It will make no difference. I shall be able to choose thee of my own
free choice then."

"But three months!"

"I shall consider thee engaged—it doesn't matter about other people."

"I thought we should be married in three months."

"Ah—married in haste——. But what will your mother say?"

"Say! Oh, she'll say it's the first wise thing I've done. You'll make a
fine wife, Lettie, able to entertain, and all that."

"You will flutter brilliantly."

"We will."

"No—you'll be the moth—I'll paint your wings—gaudy feather–dust. Then
when you lose your coloured dust, when you fly too near the light, or
when you play dodge with a butterfly net—away goes my part—you can't
fly—I—alas, poor me! What becomes of the feather–dust when the moth
brushes his wings against a butterfly net?"

"What are you making so many words about? You don't know now, do you?"

"No—that I don't."

"Then just be comfortable. Let me look at myself in your eyes."

"Narcissus, Narcissus!—Do you see yourself well? Does the image flatter
you?—Or is it a troubled stream, distorting your fair lineaments."

"I can't see anything—only feel you looking—you are laughing at
me.—What have you behind there—what joke?"

"I—I'm thinking you're just like Narcissus—a sweet, beautiful youth."

"Be serious—do."

"It would be dangerous. You'd die of it, and I—I should——"

"What!"

"Be just like I am now—serious."

He looked proudly, thinking she referred to the earnestness of her love.

In the wood the wind rumbled and roared hoarsely overhead, but not a
breath stirred among the saddened bracken. An occasional raindrop was
shaken out of the trees; I slipped on the wet paths. Black bars striped
the grey tree–trunks, where water had trickled down; the bracken was
overthrown, its yellow ranks broken. I slid down the steep path to the
gate, out of the wood.