The White Peacock (25 page)

"Well," he said, smiling faintly again after a time. "You are naughty to
give us such rough times—is it for the pleasure of making up, bad
little Schnucke—aren't you?"

She kept close to him, and he did not see the wince and quiver of her
lips.

"I wish I was strong again—couldn't we go boating—or ride on
horseback—and you'd have to behave then. Do you think I shall be strong
in a month? Stronger than you?"

"I hope so," she said.

"Why, I don't believe you do, I believe you like me like this—so that
you can lay me down and smooth me—don't you, quiet girl?"

"When you're good."

"Ah, well, in a month I shall be strong, and we'll be married and go to
Switzerland—do you hear, Schnucke—you won't be able to be naughty any
more then. Oh—do you want to go away from me again?"

"No—only my arm is dead," she drew it from beneath him, standing up,
swinging it, smiling because it hurt her.

"Oh, my darling—what a shame! oh, I am a brute, a kiddish brute. I wish
I was strong again, Lettie, and didn't do these things."

"You boy—it's nothing." She smiled at him again.

During Leslie's illness I strolled down to the mill one Saturday
evening. I met George tramping across the yard with a couple of buckets
of swill, and eleven young pigs rushing squealing about his legs,
shrieking in an agony of suspense. He poured the stuff into a trough
with luscious gurgle, and instantly ten noses were dipped in, and ten
little mouths began to slobber. Though there was plenty of room for ten,
yet they shouldered and shoved and struggled to capture a larger space,
and many little trotters dabbled and spilled the stuff, and the ten
sucking, clapping snouts twitched fiercely, and twenty little eyes
glared askance, like so many points of wrath. They gave uneasy, gasping
grunts in their haste. The unhappy eleventh rushed from point to point
trying to push in his snout, but for his pains he got rough squeezing,
and sharp grabs on his ears. Then he lifted up his face and screamed
screams of grief and wrath unto the evening sky.

But the ten little gluttons only twitched their ears to make sure there
was no danger in the noise, and they sucked harder, with much spilling
and slobbing. George laughed like a sardonic Jove, but at last he gave
ear, and kicked the ten gluttons from the trough, and allowed the
residue to the eleventh. This one, poor wretch, almost wept with relief
as he sucked and swallowed in sobs, casting his little eyes
apprehensively upwards, though he did not lift his nose from the trough,
as he heard the vindictive shrieks of ten little fiends kept at bay by
George. The solitary feeder, shivering with apprehension, rubbed the
wood bare with his snout, then, turning up to heaven his eyes of
gratitude, he reluctantly left the trough. I expected to see the ten
fall upon him and devour him, but they did not; they rushed upon the
empty trough, and rubbed the wood still drier, shrieking with misery.

"How like life," I laughed.

"Fine litter," said George; "there were fourteen, only that damned
she–devil, Circe, went and ate three of 'em before we got at her."

The great ugly sow came leering up as he spoke.

"Why don't you fatten her up, and devour her, the old gargoyle? She's an
offence to the universe."

"Nay—she's a fine sow."

I snorted, and he laughed, and the old sow grunted with contempt, and
her little eyes twisted towards us with a demoniac leer as she rolled
past.

"What are you going to do to–night!" I asked. "Going out?"

"I'm going courting," he replied, grinning.

"Oh!—wish
I
were!"

"You can come if you like—and tell me where I make mistakes, since
you're an expert on such matters."

"Don't you get on very well then?" I asked.

"Oh, all right—it's easy enough when you don't care a damn. Besides,
you can always have a Johnny Walker. That's the best of courting at the
Ram Inn. I'll go and get ready."

In the kitchen Emily sat grinding out some stitching from a big old
hand–machine that stood on the table before her: she was making shirts
for Sam, I presumed. That little fellow, who was installed at the farm,
was seated by her side firing off words from a reading book. The machine
rumbled and rattled on, like a whole factory at work, for an inch or
two, during which time Sam shouted in shrill explosions like irregular
pistol shots: "Do—not—pot——" "Put!" cried Emily from the machine;
"put——" shrilled the child, "the soot—on—my—boot,"——there the
machine broke down, and, frightened by the sound of his own voice, the
boy stopped in bewilderment and looked round.

"Go on!" said Emily, as she poked in the teeth of the old machine with
the scissors, then pulled and prodded again. He began
"—boot—but—you——" here he died off again, made nervous by the sound
of his voice in the stillness. Emily sucked a piece of cotton and pushed
it through the needle.

"Now go on," she said, "—'but you may'."

"But—you—may—shoot":—he shouted away, reassured by the rumble of the
machine: "Shoot—the—fox. I—I—It—is—at—the—rot——"

"Root," shrieked Emily, as she guided the stuff through the doddering
jaws of the machine.

"Root," echoed the boy, and he went off with these crackers:
"Root—of—the—tree."

"Next one!" cried Emily.

"Put—the—ol——" began the boy.

"What?" cried Emily.

"Ole—on——"

"Wait a bit!" cried Emily, and then the machine broke down.

"Hang!" she ejaculated.

"Hang!" shouted the child.

She laughed, and leaned over to him:

"'Put the oil in the pan to boil, while I toil in the soil—Oh, Cyril, I
never knew you were there! Go along now, Sam: David 'll be at the back
somewhere."

"He's in the bottom garden," said I, and the child ran out.

Directly George came in from the scullery, drying himself. He stood on
the hearthrug as he rubbed himself, and surveyed his reflection in the
mirror above the high mantelpiece; he looked at himself and smiled. I
wondered that he found such satisfaction in his image, seeing that there
was a gap in his chin, and an uncertain moth–eaten appearance in one
cheek. Mrs. Saxton still held this mirror an object of dignity; it was
fairly large, and had a well–carven frame; but it left gaps and spots
and scratches in one's countenance, and even where it was brightest, it
gave one's reflection a far–away dim aspect. Notwithstanding, George
smiled at himself as he combed his hair, and twisted his moustache.

"You seem to make a good impression on yourself," said I.

"I was thinking I looked all right—sort of face to go courting with,"
he replied, laughing: "You just arrange a patch of black to come and
hide your faults—and you're all right."

"I always used to think," said Emily, "that the black spots had
swallowed so many faces they were full up, and couldn't take any
more—and the rest was misty because there were so many faces lapped one
over the other—reflected."

"You do see yourself a bit ghostish——" said he, "on a background of
your ancestors. I always think when you stop in an old place like this
you sort of keep company with your ancestors too much; I sometimes feel
like a bit of the old building walking about; the old feelings of the
old folks stick to you like the lichens on the walls; you sort of get
hoary."

"That's it—it's true," asserted the father, "people whose families have
shifted about much don't know how it feels. That's why I'm going to
Canada."

"And I'm going in a Pub," said George, "where it's quite
different—plenty of life."

"Life!" echoed Emily with contempt.

"That's the word, my wench," replied her brother, lapsing into the
dialect. "That's what I'm after. We known such a lot, an' we known
nöwt."

"You do——" said the father, turning to me, "you stay in one place,
generation after generation, and you seem to get proud, an' look on
things outside as foolishness. There's many a thing as any common man
knows, as we haven't a glimpse of. We keep on thinking and feeling the
same, year after year, till we've only got one side; an' I suppose
they've done it before us."

"It's 'Good–night an' God bless you,' to th' owd place, granfeythers an'
grammothers," laughed George as he ran upstairs—"an' off we go on the
gallivant," he shouted from the landing.

His father shook his head, saying:

"I can't make out how it is, he's so different. I suppose it's being in
love——"

We went into the barn to get the bicycles to cycle over to Greymede.
George struck a match to look for his pump, and he noticed a great
spider scuttle off into the corner of the wall, and sit peeping out at
him like a hoary little ghoul.

"How are you, old chap?" said George, nodding to him—"Thought he looked
like an old grandfather of mine," he said to me, laughing, as he pumped
up the tyres of the old bicycle for me.

It was Saturday night, so the bar parlour of the Ram Inn was fairly
full.

"Hello, George—come co'tin'?" was the cry, followed by a nod and a
"Good evenin'," to me, who was a stranger in the parlour.

"It's raïght for thaïgh," said a fat young fellow with an unwilling
white mustache, "—tha can co'te as much as ter likes ter 'ae, as well
as th' lass, an' it costs thee nöwt——" at which the room laughed,
taking pipes from mouths to do so. George sat down, looking round.

"'Owd on a bit," said a black–whiskered man, "tha mun 'a 'e patience
when to 't co'tin' a lass. Ow's puttin' th' owd lady ter bed—'ark
thee—can t' ear—that wor th' bed latts goin' bang. Ow'll be dern in a
minnit now, gie 'er time ter tuck th' owd lady up. Can' ter 'ear 'er say
'er prayers."

"Strike!" cried the fat young man, exploding:

"Fancy th' owd lady sayin' 'er prayers!—it 'ud be enough ter ma'e 'er
false teeth drop out."

The room laughed.

They began to tell tales about the old landlady. She had practised
bone–setting, in which she was very skilful. People came to her from
long distances that she might divine their trouble and make right their
limbs. She would accept no fee.

Once she had gone up to Dr. Fullwood to give him a piece of her mind,
inasmuch as he had let a child go for three weeks with a broken
collar–bone, whilst treating him for dislocation. The doctor had tried
the high hand with her, since when, wherever he went the miners placed
their hands on their shoulders, and groaned: 'Oh my collar–bone!'

Here Meg came in. She gave a bright, quick, bird like look at George,
and flushed a brighter red.

"I thought you wasn't cummin," she said.

"Dunna thee bother—'e'd none stop away," said the black–whiskered man.

She brought us glasses of whisky, and moved about supplying the men, who
chaffed with her honestly and good–naturedly. Then she went out, but we
remained in our corner. The men talked on the most peculiar subjects:
there was a bitter discussion as to whether London is or is not a
seaport—the matter was thrashed out with heat; then an embryo artist
set the room ablaze by declaring there were only three colours, red,
yellow, and blue, and the rest were not colours, they were mixtures:
this amounted almost to atheism and one man asked the artist to dare to
declare that his brown breeches were not a colour, which the artist did,
and almost had to fight for it; next they came to strength, and George
won a bet of five shillings, by lifting a piano; then they settled down,
and talked sex, sotto voce, one man giving startling accounts of
Japanese and Chinese prostitutes in Liverpool. After this the talk split
up: a farmer began to counsel George how to manage the farm attached to
the Inn, another bargained with him about horses, and argued about
cattle, a tailor advised him thickly to speculate, and unfolded a fine
secret by which a man might make money, if he had the go to do it—so
on, till eleven o'clock. Then Bill came and called "time!" and the place
was empty, and the room shivered as a little fresh air came in between
the foul tobacco smoke, and the smell of drink, and foul breath.

We were both affected by the whisky we had drunk. I was ashamed to find
that when I put out my hand to take my glass, or to strike a match, I
missed my mark, and fumbled; my hands seemed hardly to belong to me, and
my feet were not much more sure. Yet I was acutely conscious of every
change in myself and in him; it seemed as if I could make my body drunk,
but could never intoxicate my mind, which roused itself and kept the
sharpest guard. George was frankly half drunk: his eyelids sloped over
his eyes and his speech was thick; when he put out his hand he knocked
over his glass, and the stuff was spilled all over the table; he only
laughed. I, too, felt a great prompting to giggle on every occasion, and
I marvelled at myself.

Meg came into the room when all the men had gone.

"Come on, my duck," he said, waving his arm with the generous flourish
of a tipsy man. "Come an' sit 'ere."

"Shan't you come in th' kitchen?" she asked, looking round on the tables
where pots and glasses stood in little pools of liquor, and where spent
matches and tobacco–ash littered the white wood.

"No—what for?—come an' sit 'ere!"—he was reluctant to get on his
feet; I knew it and laughed inwardly; I also laughed to hear his thick
speech, and his words which seemed to slur against his cheeks.

She went and sat by him, having moved the little table with its spilled
liquor.

"They've been tellin' me how to get rich," he said, nodding his head and
laughing, showing his teeth, "An' I'm goin' ter show 'em. You see, Meg,
you see—I'm goin' ter show 'em I can be as good as them, you see."

"Why," said she, indulgent, "what are you going to do?"

"You wait a bit an' see—they don't know yet what I can do—they don't
know—
you
don't know—none of you know."

"An' what shall you do when we're rich, George?"

"Do?—I shall do what I like. I can make as good a show as anybody else,
can't I?"—he put his face very near to hers, and nodded at her, but she
did not turn away.—"Yes—I'll see what it's like to have my fling.
We've been too cautious, our family has—an' I have; we're frightened of
ourselves, to do anything. I'm goin' to do what I like, my duck, now—I
don't care—— I don't care—that!"—he brought his hand down heavily on
the table nearest him, and broke a glass. Bill looked in to see what was
happening.

"But you won't do anything that's not right, George!"

"No—I don't want to hurt nobody—but I don't care—that!"

"You're too good–hearted to do anybody any harm."

"I believe I am. You know me a bit, you do, Meg—you don't think I'm a
fool now, do you?"

"I'm sure I don't—who does?"

"No—you don't—I know you don't. Gi'e me a kiss—thou'rt a little
beauty, thou art—like a ripe plum! I could set my teeth in thee,
thou'rt that nice—full o' red juice"—he playfully pretended to bite
her. She laughed, and gently pushed him away.