The White Peacock (39 page)

She had finally smoothed his hair, so she lifted her hands and put back
her head.

"There!" she said. "It looks fair fine, as Alice would say. Raven's
wings are raggy in comparison."

He did not pay any attention to her.

"Aren't you going to look at yourself?" she said, playfully reproachful.
She put her finger–tips under his chin. He lifted his head and they
looked at each other, she smiling, trying to make him play, he smiling
with his lips, but not with eyes, dark with pain.

"We can't go on like this, Lettie, can we?" he said softly.

"Yes," she answered him, "Yes; why not?"

"It can't!" he said, "It can't, I couldn't keep it up, Lettie."

"But don't think about it," she answered. "Don't think of it."

"Lettie," he said. "I have to set my teeth with loneliness."

"Hush!" she said. "No! There are the children. Don't say anything—do
not be serious, will you?"

"No, there are the children," he replied, smiling dimly.

"Yes! Hush now! Stand up and look what a fine parting I have made in
your hair. Stand up, and see if my style becomes you."

"It is no good, Lettie," he said, "we can't go on."

"Oh, but come, come, come!" she exclaimed. "We are not talking about
going on; we are considering what a fine parting I have made you down
the middle, like two wings of a spread bird——" she looked down,
smiling playfully on him, just closing her eyes slightly in petition.

He rose and took a deep breath, and set his shoulders.

"No," he said, and at the sound of his voice, Lettie went pale and also
stiffened herself.

"No!" he repeated. "It is impossible. I felt as soon as Fred came into
the room—it must be one way or another."

"Very well then," said Lettie, coldly. Her voice was "muted" like a
violin.

"Yes," he replied, submissive. "The children." He looked at her,
contracting his lips in a smile of misery.

"Are you sure it must be so final?" she asked, rebellious, even
resentful. She was twisting the azurite jewels on her bosom, and
pressing the blunt points into her flesh. He looked up from the
fascination of her action when he heard the tone of her last question.
He was angry.

"Quite sure!" he said at last, simply, ironically.

She bowed her head in assent. His face twitched sharply as he restrained
himself from speaking again. Then he turned and quietly left the room.
She did not watch him go, but stood as he had left her. When, after some
time, she heard the grating of his dog–cart on the gravel, and then the
sharp trot of hoofs down the frozen road, she dropped herself on the
settee, and lay with her bosom against the cushions, looking fixedly at
the wall.

Leslie won the conservative victory in the general election which took
place a year or so after my last visit to "Highclose."

In the interim the Tempests had entertained a continuous stream of
people. I heard occasionally from Lettie how she was busy, amused, or
bored. She told me that George had thrown himself into the struggle on
behalf of the candidate of the Labour Party; that she had not seen him,
except in the streets, for a very long time.

When I went down to Eberwich in the March succeeding the election, I
found several people staying with my sister. She had under her wing a
young literary fellow who affected the "Doady" style—Dora Copperfield's
"Doady." He had bunches of half–curly hair, and a romantic black cravat;
he played the impulsive part, but was really as calculating as any man
on the stock–exchange. It delighted Lettie to "mother" him. He was so
shrewd as to be less than harmless. His fellow guests, a woman much
experienced in music and an elderly man who was in the artistic world
without being of it, were interesting for a time. Bubble after bubble of
floating fancy and wit we blew with our breath in the evenings. I rose
in the morning loathing the idea of more bubble–blowing.

I wandered around Nethermere, which had now forgotten me. The daffodils
under the boat–house continued their golden laughter, and nodded to one
another in gossip, as I watched them, never for a moment pausing to
notice me. The yellow reflection of daffodils among the shadows of grey
willow in the water trembled faintly as they told haunted tales in the
gloom. I felt like a child left out of the group of my playmates. There
was a wind running across Nethermere, and on the eager water blue and
glistening grey shadows changed places swiftly. Along the shore the wild
birds rose, flapping in expostulation as I passed, peewits mewing
fiercely round my head, while two white swans lifted their glistening
feathers till they looked like grand double water–lilies, laying back
their orange beaks among the petals, and fronting me with haughty
resentment, charging towards me insolently.

I wanted to be recognised by something. I said to myself that the dryads
were looking out for me from the wood's edge. But as I advanced they
shrank, and glancing wistfully, turned back like pale flowers falling in
the shadow of the forest. I was a stranger, an intruder. Among the
bushes a twitter of lively birds exclaimed upon me. Finches went leaping
past in bright flashes, and a robin sat and asked rudely: "Hello! Who
are you?"

The bracken lay sere under the trees, broken and chavelled by the
restless wild winds of the long winter.

The trees caught the wind in their tall netted twigs, and the young
morning wind moaned at its captivity. As I trod the discarded oak–leaves
and the bracken they uttered their last sharp gasps, pressed into
oblivion. The wood was roofed with a wide young sobbing sound, and
floored with a faint hiss like the intaking of the last breath. Between,
was all the glad out–peeping of buds and anemone flowers and the rush of
birds. I, wandering alone, felt them all, the anguish of the bracken
fallen face–down in defeat, the careless dash of the birds, the sobbing
of the young wind arrested in its haste, the trembling, expanding
delight of the buds. I alone among them could hear the whole succession
of chords.

The brooks talked on just the same, just as gladly, just as boisterously
as they had done when I had netted small, glittering fish in the
rest–pools. At Strelley Mill a servant girl in a white cap, and white
apron–bands, came running out of the house with purple prayer–books,
which she gave to the elder of two finicking girls who sat
disconsolately with their black–silked mother in the governess cart at
the gate, ready to go to church. Near Woodside there was barbed–wire
along the path, and at the end of every riding it was tarred on the
tree–trunks, "Private."

I had done with the valley of Nethermere. The valley of Nethermere had
cast me out many years before, while I had fondly believed it cherished
me in memory.

I went along the road to Eberwich. The church bells were ringing
boisterously, with the careless boisterousness of the brooks and the
birds and the rollicking coltsfoots and celandines.

A few people were hastening blithely to service. Miners and other
labouring men were passing in aimless gangs, walking nowhere in
particular, so long as they reached a sufficiently distant public house.

I reached the 'Hollies.' It was much more spruce than it had been. The
yard, however, and the stables had again a somewhat abandoned air. I
asked the maid for George.

"Oh, master's not up yet," she said, giving a little significant toss of
her head, and smiling. I waited a moment.

"But he rung for a bottle of beer about ten minutes since, so I should
think——" she emphasised the word with some ironical contempt, "—he
won't be very long," she added, in tones which conveyed that she was not
by any means sure. I asked for Meg.

"Oh, Missis is gone to church—and the children—But Miss Saxton is in,
she might——"

"Emily!" I exclaimed.

The maid smiled.

"She's in the drawing–room. She's engaged, but perhaps if I tell
her——"

"Yes, do," said I, sure that Emily would receive me.

I found my old sweetheart sitting in a low chair by the fire, a man
standing on the hearthrug pulling his moustache. Emily and I both felt a
thrill of old delight at meeting.

"I can hardly believe it is really you," she said, laughing me one of
the old intimate looks. She had changed a great deal. She was very
handsome, but she had now a new self–confidence, a fine, free
indifference.

"Let me introduce you. Mr. Renshaw, Cyril. Tom, you know who it is you
have heard me speak often enough of Cyril. I am going to marry Tom in
three weeks' time," she said, laughing.

"The devil you are!" I exclaimed involuntarily.

"If he will have me," she added, quite as a playful afterthought.

Tom was a well–built fair man, smoothly, almost delicately tanned. There
was something soldierly in his bearing, something self–conscious in the
way he bent his head and pulled his moustache, something charming and
fresh in the way he laughed at Emily's last preposterous speech.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked.

"Why didn't you ask me?" she retorted, arching her brows.

"Mr. Renshaw," I said. "You have out–manoeuvred me all unawares, quite
indecently."

"I am very sorry," he said, giving one more twist to his moustache, then
breaking into a loud, short laugh at his joke.

"Do you really feel cross?" said Emily to me, knitting her brows and
smiling quaintly.

"I do!" I replied, with truthful emphasis.

She laughed, and laughed again, very much amused.

"It is such a joke," she said. "To think you should feel cross now, when
it is—how long is it ago——?

"I will not count up," said I.

"Are you not sorry for me?" I asked of Tom Renshaw.

He looked at me with his young blue eyes, eyes so bright, so naïvely
inquisitive, so winsomely meditative. He did not know quite what to say,
or how to take it.

"Very!" he replied in another short burst of laughter, quickly twisting
his moustache again and looking down at his feet.

He was twenty–nine years old; had been a soldier in China for five
years, was now farming his father's farm at Papplewick, where Emily was
schoolmistress. He had been at home eighteen months. His father was an
old man of seventy who had had his right hand chopped to bits in the
chopping machine. So they told me. I liked Tom for his handsome bearing
and his fresh, winsome way. He was exceedingly manly: that is to say he
did not dream of questioning or analysing anything. All that came his
way was ready labelled nice or nasty, good or bad. He did not imagine
that anything could be other than just what it appeared to be:—and with
this appearance, he was quite content. He looked up to Emily as one
wiser, nobler, nearer to God than himself.

"I am a thousand years older than he," she said to me, laughing. "Just
as you are centuries older than I."

"And you love him for his youth?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. "For that and—he is wonderfully sagacious—and so
gentle."

"And I was never gentle, was I?" I said.

"No! As restless and as urgent as the wind," she said, and I saw a last
flicker of the old terror.

"Where is George?" I asked.

"In bed," she replies briefly. "He's recovering from one of his orgies.
If I were Meg I would not live with him."

"Is he so bad?" I asked.

"Bad!" she replied. "He's disgusting, and I'm sure he's dangerous. I'd
have him removed to an inebriate's home."

"You'd have to persuade him to go," said Tom, who had come into the room
again. "He does have dreadful bouts, though! He's killing himself, sure
enough. I feel awfully sorry for the fellow."

"It seems so contemptible to me," said Emily, "to become enslaved to one
of your likings till it makes a beast of you. Look what a spectacle he
is for his children, and what a disgusting disgrace for his wife."

"Well, if he can't help it, he can't, poor chap," said Tom. "Though I do
think a man should have more backbone."

We heard heavy noises from the room above.

"He is getting up," said Emily. "I suppose I'd better see if he'll have
any breakfast." She waited, however. Presently the door opened, and
there stood George with his hand on the knob, leaning, looking in.

"I thought I heard three voices," he said, as if it freed him from a
certain apprehension. He smiled. His waistcoat hung open over his
woollen shirt, he wore no coat and was slipperless. His hair and his
moustache were dishevelled, his face pale and stupid with sleep, his
eyes small. He turned aside from our looks as from a bright light. His
hand as I shook it was flaccid and chill.

"How do you come to be here, Cyril?" he said subduedly, faintly smiling.

"Will you have any breakfast?" Emily asked him coldly.

"I'll have a bit if there's any for me," he replied.

"It has been waiting for you long enough," she answered. He turned and
went with a dull thud of his stockinged feet across to the dining–room.
Emily rang for the maid, I followed George, leaving the betrothed
together. I found my host moving about the dining–room, looking behind
the chairs and in the corners.

"I wonder where the devil my slippers are!" he muttered explanatorily.
Meanwhile he continued his search. I noticed he did not ring the bell to
have them found for him. Presently he came to the fire, spreading his
hands over it. As he was smashing the slowly burning coal the maid came
in with the tray. He desisted, and put the poker carefully down. While
the maid spread his meal on one corner of the table, he looked in the
fire, paying her no heed. When she had finished:

"It's fried white–bait," she said. "Shall you have that?"

He lifted his head and looked at the plate.

"Ay," he said. "Have you brought the vinegar?"

Without answering, she took the cruet from the sideboard and set it on
the table. As she was closing the door, she looked back to say:

"You'd better eat it now, while it's hot."

He took no notice, but sat looking in the fire.

"And how are you going on?" he asked me.

"I? Oh, very well! And you——?"

"As you see," he replied, turning his head on one side with a little
gesture of irony.

"As I am very sorry to see," I rejoined.

He sat forward with his elbows on his knees, tapping the back of his
hand with one finger, in monotonous two–pulse like heart–beats.

"Aren't you going to have breakfast?" I urged. The clock at that moment
began to ring a sonorous twelve. He looked up at it with subdued
irritation.

"Ay, I suppose so," he answered me, when the clock had finished
striking. He rose heavily and went to the table. As he poured out a cup
of tea he spilled it on the cloth, and stood looking at the stain. It
was still some time before he began to eat. He poured vinegar freely
over the hot fish, and ate with an indifference that made eating ugly,
pausing now and again to wipe the tea off his moustache, or to pick a
bit of fish from off his knee.

"You are not married, I suppose?" he said in one of his pauses.

"No," I replied. "I expect I shall have to be looking round."

"You're wiser not," he replied, quiet and bitter.

A moment or two later the maid came in with a letter.

"This came this morning," she said, as she laid it on the table beside
him. He looked at it, then he said:

"You didn't give me a knife for the marmalade."

"Didn't I?" she replied. "I thought you wouldn't want it. You don't as a
rule."

"And do you know where my slippers are?" he asked.

"They ought to be in their usual place." She went and looked in the
corner. "I suppose Miss Gertie's put them somewhere. I'll get you
another pair."

As he waited for her he read the letter. He read it twice, then he put
it back in the envelope, quietly, without any change of expression. But
he ate no more breakfast, even after the maid had brought the knife and
his slippers, and though he had had but a few mouthfuls.

At half–past twelve there was an imperious woman's voice in the house.
Meg came to the door. As she entered the room, and saw me, she stood
still. She sniffed, glanced at the table, and exclaimed, coming forward
effusively:

"Well I never, Cyril! Who'd a thought of seeing you here this morning!
How are you?"

She waited for the last of my words, then immediately she turned to
George, and said:

"I must say you're in a nice state for Cyril to see you! Have you
finished?—if you have, Kate can take that tray out. It smells quite
sickly. Have you finished?"