The White Peacock (5 page)

"Here?"—the woman waved her hand round the room. It contained the great
mahogany bedstead naked of hangings, a desk, and an oak chest, and two
or three mahogany chairs. "I couldn't get him upstairs; he's only been
here about a three week."

"Where's the key to the desk?" said my mother loudly in the woman's ear.

"Yes," she replied—"it's his desk." She looked at us, perplexed and
doubtful, fearing she had misunderstood us. This was dreadful.

"Key!" I shouted. "Where is the key?"

Her old face was full of trouble as she shook her head. I took it that
she did not know.

"Where are his clothes?
Clothes
" I repeated pointing to my coat. She
understood, and muttered, "I'll fetch 'em ye."

We should have followed her as she hurried upstairs through a door near
the head of the bed, had we not heard a heavy footstep in the kitchen,
and a voice saying: "Is the old lady going to drink with the Devil?
Hullo, Mrs. May, come and drink with me!" We heard the tinkle of the
liquor poured into a glass, and almost immediately the light tap of the
empty tumbler on the table.

"I'll see what the old girl's up to," he said, and the heavy tread came
towards us. Like me, he stumbled at the little step, but escaped
collision with the table.

"Damn that fool's step," he said heartily. It was the doctor—for he
kept his hat on his head, and did not hesitate to stroll about the
house. He was a big, burly, red–faced man.

"I beg your pardon," he said, observing my mother. My mother bowed.

"Mrs. Beardsall?" he asked, taking off his hat.

My mother bowed.

"I posted a letter to you. You are a relative of his—of poor old
Carlin's?"—he nodded sideways towards the bed.

"The nearest," said my mother.

"Poor fellow—he was a bit stranded. Comes of being a bachelor, Ma'am."

"I was very much surprised to hear from him," said my mother.

"Yes, I guess he's not been much of a one for writing to his friends.
He's had a bad time lately. You have to pay some time or other. We bring
them on ourselves—silly devils as we are.—I beg your pardon."

There was a moment of silence, during which the doctor sighed, and then
began to whistle softly.

"Well—we might be more comfortable if we had the blind up," he said,
letting daylight in among the glimmer of the tapers as he spoke.

"At any rate," he said, "you won't have any trouble settling up—no
debts or anything of that. I believe there's a bit to leave—so it's not
so bad. Poor devil—he was very down at the last; but we have to pay at
one end or the other. What on earth is the old girl after?" he asked,
looking up at the raftered ceiling, which was rumbling and thundering
with the old lady's violent rummaging.

"We wanted the key of his desk," said my mother.

"Oh—I can find you that—and the will. He told me where they were, and
to give them you when you came. He seemed to think a lot of you. Perhaps
he might ha' done better for himself——"

Here we heard the heavy tread of the old lady coming downstairs. The
doctor went to the foot of the stairs.

"Hello, now—be careful!" he bawled. The poor old woman did as he
expected, and trod on the braces of the trousers she was trailing, and
came crashing into his arms. He set her tenderly down, saying, "Not
hurt, are you?—no!" and he smiled at her and shook his head.

"Eh, doctor—Eh, doctor—bless ye, I'm thankful ye've come. Ye'll see to
'em now, will ye?"

"Yes—" he nodded in his bluff, winning way, and hurrying into the
kitchen, he mixed her a glass of whisky, and brought one for himself,
saying to her, "There you are—'twas a nasty shaking for you."

The poor old woman sat in a chair by the open door of the staircase, the
pile of clothing tumbled about her feet. She looked round pitifully at
us and at the daylight struggling among the candle light, making a
ghostly gleam on the bed where the rigid figure lay unmoved; her hand
trembled so that she could scarcely hold her glass.

The doctor gave us the keys, and we rifled the desk and the drawers,
sorting out all the papers. The doctor sat sipping and talking to us all
the time.

"Yes," he said, "he's only been here about two years. Felt himself
beginning to break up then, I think. He'd been a long time abroad; they
always called him Frenchy." The doctor sipped and reflected, and sipped
again, "Ay—he'd run the rig in his day—used to dream dreadfully. Good
thing the old woman was so deaf. Awful, when a man gives himself away in
his sleep; played the deuce with him, knowing it." Sip, sip, sip—and
more reflections—and another glass to be mixed.

"But he was a jolly decent fellow—generous, open–handed. The folks
didn't like him, because they couldn't get to the bottom of him; they
always hate a thing they can't fathom. He was close, there's no
mistake—save when he was asleep sometimes." The doctor looked at his
glass and sighed.

"However—we shall miss him—shan't we, Mrs. May?" he bawled suddenly,
startling us, making us glance at the bed.

He lit his pipe and puffed voluminously in order to obscure the
attraction of his glass. Meanwhile we examined the papers. There were
very few letters—one or two addressed to Paris. There were many bills,
and receipts, and notes—business, all business.

There was hardly a trace of sentiment among all the litter. My mother
sorted out such papers as she considered valuable; the others, letters
and missives which she glanced at cursorily and put aside, she took into
the kitchen and burned. She seemed afraid to find out too much.

The doctor continued to colour his tobacco smoke with a few pensive
words.

"Ay," he said, "there are two ways. You can burn your lamp with a big
draught, and it'll flare away, till the oil's gone, then it'll stink and
smoke itself out. Or you can keep it trim on the kitchen table, dirty
your fingers occasionally trimming it up, and it'll last a long time,
and sink out mildly." Here he turned to his glass, and finding it empty,
was awakened to reality.

"Anything I can do, Madam?" he asked.

"No, thank you."

"Ay, I don't suppose there's much to settle. Nor many tears to
shed—when a fellow spends his years an' his prime on the Lord knows
who, you can't expect those that remember him young to feel his loss too
keenly. He'd had his fling in his day, though, ma'am. Ay—must ha' had
some rich times. No lasting satisfaction in it though—always wanting,
craving. There's nothing like marrying—you've got your dish before you
then, and you've got to eat it." He lapsed again into reflection, from
which he did not rouse till we had locked up the desk, burned the
useless papers, put the others into my pockets and the black bag, and
were standing ready to depart. Then the doctor looked up suddenly and
said:

"But what about the funeral?"

Then he noticed the weariness of my mother's look, and he jumped up, and
quickly seized his hat, saying:

"Come across to my wife and have a cup of tea. Buried in these dam holes
a fellow gets such a boor. Do come—my little wife is lonely—come just
to see her."

My mother smiled and thanked him. We turned to go. My mother hesitated
in her walk; on the threshold of the room she glanced round at the bed,
but she went on.

Outside, in the fresh air of the fading afternoon, I could not believe
it was true. It was not true, that sad, colourless face with grey beard,
wavering in the yellow candle–light. It was a lie,—that wooden
bedstead, that deaf woman, they were fading phrases of the untruth. That
yellow blaze of little sunflowers was true, and the shadow from the
sun–dial on the warm old almshouses—that was real. The heavy afternoon
sunlight came round us warm and reviving; we shivered, and the untruth
went out of our veins, and we were no longer chilled.

The doctor's house stood sweetly among the beech trees, and at the iron
fence in front of the little lawn a woman was talking to a beautiful
Jersey cow that pushed its dark nose through the fence from the field
beyond. She was a little, dark woman with vivid colouring; she rubbed
the nose of the delicate animal, peeped right into the dark eyes, and
talked in a lovable Scottish speech; talked as a mother talks softly to
her child.

When she turned round in surprise to greet us there was still the
softness of a rich affection in her eyes. She gave us tea, and scones,
and apply jelly, and all the time we listened with delight to her voice,
which was musical as bees humming in the lime trees. Though she said
nothing significant we listened to her attentively.

Her husband was merry and kind. She glanced at him with quick glances of
apprehension, and her eyes avoided him. He, in his merry, frank way,
chaffed her, and praised her extravagantly, and teased her again. Then
he became a trifle uneasy. I think she was afraid he had been drinking;
I think she was shaken with horror when she found him tipsy, and
bewildered and terrified when she saw him drunk. They had no children. I
noticed he ceased to joke when she became a little constrained. He
glanced at her often, and looked somewhat pitiful when she avoided his
looks, and he grew uneasy, and I could see he wanted to go away.

"I had better go with you to see the vicar, then," he said to me, and we
left the room, whose windows looked south, over the meadows, the room
where dainty little water–colours, and beautiful bits of embroidery, and
empty flower vases, and two dirty novels from the town library, and the
closed piano, and the odd cups, and the chipped spout of the teapot
causing stains on the cloth—all told one story.

We went to the joiner's and ordered the coffin, and the doctor had a
glass of whisky on it; the graveyard fees were paid, and the doctor
sealed the engagement with a drop of brandy; the vicar's port completed
the doctor's joviality, and we went home.

This time the disquiet in the little woman's dark eyes could not dispel
the doctor's merriment. He rattled away, and she nervously twisted her
wedding ring. He insisted on driving us to the station, in spite of our
alarm.

"But you will be quite safe with him," said his wife, in her caressing
Highland speech. When she shook hands at parting I noticed the hardness
of the little palm;—and I have always hated an old, black alpaca dress.

It is such a long way home from the station at Eberwich. We rode part
way in the bus; then we walked. It is a very long way for my mother,
when her steps are heavy with trouble.

Rebecca was out by the rhododendrons looking for us. She hurried to us
all solicitous, and asked mother if she had had tea.

"But you'll do with another cup," she said, and ran back into the house.

She came into the dining–room to take my mother's bonnet and coat. She
wanted us to talk; she was distressed on my mother's behalf; she noticed
the blackness that lay under her eyes, and she fidgeted about, unwilling
to ask anything, yet uneasy and anxious to know.

"Lettie has been home," she said.

"And gone back again?" asked mother.

"She only came to change her dress. She put the green poplin on. She
wondered where you'd gone."

"What did you tell her?"

"I said you'd just gone out a bit. She said she was glad. She was as
lively as a squirrel."

Rebecca looked wistfully at my mother. At length the latter said:

"He's dead, Rebecca. I have seen him."

"Now thank God for that—no more need to worry over him."

"Well!—He died all alone, Rebecca—all alone."

"He died as you've lived," said Becky with some asperity.

"But I've had the children, I've had the children—we won't tell Lettie,
Rebecca."

"No 'm." Rebecca left the room.

"You and Lettie will have the money," said mother to me. There was a sum
of four thousand pounds or so. It was left to my mother; or, in default
to Lettie and me.

"Well, mother—if it's ours, it's yours."

There was silence for some minutes, then she said, "You might have had a
father——"

"We're thankful we hadn't, mother. You spared us that."

"But how can you tell?" said my mother.

"I can," I replied. "And I am thankful to you."

"If ever you feel scorn for one who is near you rising in your throat,
try and be generous, my lad."

"Well——" said I.

"Yes," she replied, "we'll say no more. Sometime you must tell
Lettie—you tell her."

I did tell her, a week or so afterwards.

"Who knows?" she asked, her face hardening.

"Mother, Becky, and ourselves."

"Nobody else?"

"No."

"Then it's a good thing he is out of the way if he was such a nuisance
to mother. Where is she?"

"Upstairs."

Lettie ran to her.

The death of the man who was our father changed our lives. It was not
that we suffered a great grief; the chief trouble was the unanswered
crying of failure. But we were changed in our feelings and in our
relations; there was a new consciousness, a new carefulness.

We had lived between the woods and the water all our lives, Lettie and
I, and she had sought the bright notes in everything. She seemed to hear
the water laughing, and the leaves tittering and giggling like young
girls; the aspen fluttered like the draperies of a flirt, and the sound
of the wood–pigeons was almost foolish in its sentimentality.

Lately, however, she had noticed again the cruel pitiful crying of a
hedgehog caught in a gin, and she had noticed the traps for the fierce
little murderers, traps walled in with a small fence of fir, and baited
with the guts of a killed rabbit.

On an afternoon a short time after our visit to Cossethay, Lettie sat in
the window seat. The sun clung to her hair, and kissed her with
passionate splashes of colour brought from the vermilion, dying creeper
outside. The sun loved Lettie, and was loath to leave her. She looked
out over Nethermere to Highclose, vague in the September mist. Had it
not been for the scarlet light on her face, I should have thought her
look was sad and serious. She nestled up to the window, and leaned her
head against the wooden shaft. Gradually she drooped into sleep. Then
she became wonderfully childish again—it was the girl of seventeen
sleeping there, with her full pouting lips slightly apart, and the
breath coming lightly. I felt the old feeling of responsibility; I must
protect her, and take care of her.

There was a crunch of the gravel. It was Leslie coming. He lifted his
hat to her, thinking she was looking. He had that fine, lithe physique,
suggestive of much animal vigour; his person was exceedingly attractive;
one watched him move about, and felt pleasure. His face was less
pleasing than his person. He was not handsome; his eyebrows were too
light, his nose was large and ugly, and his forehead, though high and
fair, was without dignity. But he had a frank, good–natured expression,
and a fine, wholesome laugh.

He wondered why she did not move. As he came nearer he saw. Then he
winked at me and came in. He tiptoed across the room to look at her. The
sweet carelessness of her attitude, the appealing, half–pitiful
girlishness of her face touched his responsive heart, and he leaned
forward and kissed her cheek where already was a crimson stain of
sunshine.

She roused half out of her sleep with a little, petulant "Oh!" as an
awakened child. He sat down behind her, and gently drew her head against
him, looking down at her with a tender, soothing smile. I thought she
was going to fall asleep thus. But her eyelids quivered, and her eyes
beneath them flickered into consciousness.

"Leslie!—oh!—Let me go!" she exclaimed, pushing him away. He loosed
her, and rose, looking at her reproachfully. She shook her dress, and
went quickly to the mirror to arrange her hair.

"You are mean!" she exclaimed, looking very flushed, vexed, and
dishevelled.

He laughed indulgently, saying, "You shouldn't go to sleep then and look
so pretty. Who could help?"

"It is not nice!" she said, frowning with irritation.

"We are not 'nice'—are we? I thought we were proud of our
unconventionality. Why shouldn't I kiss you?"

"Because it is a question of me, not of you alone."

"Dear me, you
are
in a way!"

"Mother is coming."

"Is she? You had better tell her."

Mother was very fond of Leslie.

"Well, sir," she said, "why are you frowning?"

He broke into a laugh.

"Lettie is scolding me for kissing her when she was playing 'Sleeping
Beauty.'"

"The conceit of the boy, to play Prince!" said my mother.

"Oh, but it appears I was sadly out of character," he said ruefully.

Lettie laughed and forgave him.

"Well," he said, looking at her and smiling, "I came to ask you to go
out."

"It is a lovely afternoon," said mother.

She glanced at him, and said:

"I feel dreadfully lazy."

"Never mind!" he replied, "you'll wake up. Go and put your hat on."

He sounded impatient. She looked at him.

He seemed to be smiling peculiarly.

She lowered her eyes and went out of the room.

"She'll come all right," he said to himself, and to me. "She likes to
play you on a string."

She must have heard him. When she came in again, drawing on her gloves,
she said quietly:

"You come as well, Pat."

He swung round and stared at her in angry amazement.

"I had rather stay and finish this sketch," I said, feeling
uncomfortable.

"No, but do come, there's a dear." She took the brush from my hand, and
drew me from my chair. The blood flushed into his cheeks. He went
quietly into the hall and brought my cap.

"All right!" he said angrily. "Women like to fancy themselves
Napoleons."

"They do, dear Iron Duke, they do," she mocked.

"Yet, there's a Waterloo in all their histories," he said, since she had
supplied him with the idea.

"Say Peterloo, my general, say Peterloo."

"Ay, Peterloo," he replied, with a splendid curl of the lip—"Easy
conquests!"

"'He came, he saw, he conquered,'" Lettie recited.

"Are you coming?" he said, getting more angry.

"When you bid me," she replied, taking my arm.

We went through the wood, and through the dishevelled border–land to the
high road, through the border–land that should have been park–like, but
which was shaggy with loose grass and yellow mole–hills, ragged with
gorse and bramble and briar, with wandering old thorn–trees, and a queer
clump of Scotch firs.

On the highway the leaves were falling, and they chattered under our
steps. The water was mild and blue, and the corn stood drowsily in
"stook."

We climbed the hill behind Highclose, and walked on along the upland,
looking across towards the hills of arid Derbyshire, and seeing them
not, because it was autumn. We came in sight of the head–stocks of the
pit at Selsby, and of the ugly village standing blank and naked on the
brow of the hill.

Lettie was in very high spirits. She laughed and joked continually. She
picked bunches of hips and stuck them in her dress. Having got a thorn
in her finger from a spray of blackberries, she went to Leslie to have
it squeezed out. We were all quite gay as we turned off the high road
and went along the bridle path, with the woods on our right, the high
Strelley hills shutting in our small valley in front, and the fields and
the common to the left. About half way down the lane we heard the slurr
of the scythestone on the scythe. Lettie went to the hedge to see. It
was George mowing the oats on the steep hillside where the machine could
not go. His father was tying up the corn into sheaves.

Straightening his back, Mr. Saxton saw us, and called to us to come and
help. We pushed through a gap in the hedge and went up to him.

"Now then," said the father to me, "take that coat off," and to Lettie:
"Have you brought us a drink? No;—come, that sounds bad! Going a walk I
guess. You see what it is to get fat," and he pulled a wry face as he
bent over to tie the corn. He was a man beautifully ruddy and burly, in
the prime of life.

"Show me, I'll do some," said Lettie.

"Nay," he answered gently, "it would scratch your wrists and break your
stays. Hark at my hands"—he rubbed them together—"like sandpaper!"

George had his back to us, and had not noticed us. He continued to mow.
Leslie watched him.

"That's a fine movement!" he exclaimed.

"Yes," replied the father, rising very red in the face from the tying,
"and our George enjoys a bit o' mowing. It puts you in fine condition
when you get over the first stiffness."

We moved across to the standing corn. The sun being mild, George had
thrown off his hat, and his black hair was moist and twisted into
confused half–curls. Firmly planted, he swung with a beautiful rhythm
from the waist. On the hip of his belted breeches hung the scythestone;
his shirt, faded almost white, was torn just above the belt, and showed
the muscles of his back playing like lights upon the white sand of a
brook. There was something exceedingly attractive in the rhythmic body.

I spoke to him, and he turned round. He looked straight at Lettie with a
flashing, betraying smile. He was remarkably handsome. He tried to say
some words of greeting, then he bent down and gathered an armful of
corn, and deliberately bound it up.

Like him, Lettie had found nothing to say. Leslie, however, remarked:

"I should think mowing is a nice exercise."

"It is," he replied, and continued, as Leslie picked up the scythe, "but
it will make you sweat, and your hands will be sore."

Leslie tossed his head a little, threw off his coat, and said briefly:

"How do you do it?" Without waiting for a reply he proceeded. George
said nothing, but turned to Lettie.

"You are picturesque," she said, a trifle awkwardly, "Quite fit for an
Idyll."

"And you?" he said.

She shrugged her shoulders, laughed, and turned to pick up a scarlet
pimpernel.

"How do you bind the corn?" she asked.

He took some long straws, cleaned them, and showed her the way to hold
them. Instead of attending, she looked at his hands, big, hard, inflamed
by the snaith of the scythe.

"I don't think I could do it," she said.

"No," he replied quietly, and watched Leslie mowing. The latter who was
wonderfully ready at everything, was doing fairly well, but he had not
the invincible sweep of the other, nor did he make the same crisp
crunching music.

"I bet he'll sweat," said George.

"Don't you?" she replied.

"A bit—but I'm not dressed up."

"Do you know," she said suddenly, "your arms tempt me to touch them.
They are such a fine brown colour, and they look so hard."

He held out one arm to her. She hesitated, then she swiftly put her
finger tips on the smooth brown muscle, and drew them along. Quickly she
hid her hand into the folds of her skirt, blushing.

He laughed a low, quiet laugh, at once pleasant and startling to hear.

"I wish I could work here," she said, looking away at the standing corn,
and the dim blue woods. He followed her look, and laughed quietly, with
indulgent resignation.

"I do!" she said emphatically.

"You feel so fine," he said, pushing his hand through his open shirt
front, and gently rubbing the muscles of his side. "It's a pleasure to
work or to stand still. It's a pleasure to yourself—your own physique."

She looked at him, full at his physical beauty, as if he were some great
firm bud of life.

Leslie came up, wiping his brow.

"Jove," said he, "I do perspire."

George picked up his coat and helped him into it; saying:

"You may take a chill."

"It's a jolly nice form of exercise," said he.

George, who had been feeling one finger tip, now took out his pen–knife
and proceeded to dig a thorn from his hand.

"What a hide you must have," said Leslie.

Lettie said nothing, but she recoiled slightly.

The father, glad of an excuse to straighten his back and to chat, came
to us.

"You'd soon had enough," he said, laughing to Leslie.

George startled us with a sudden, "Holloa." We turned, and saw a rabbit,
which had burst from the corn, go coursing through the hedge, dodging
and bounding the sheaves. The standing corn was a patch along the
hill–side some fifty paces in length, and ten or so in width.

"I didn't think there'd have been any in," said the father, picking up a
short rake, and going to the low wall of the corn. We all followed.

"Watch!" said the father, "if you see the heads of the corn shake!"

We prowled round the patch of corn.

"Hold! Look out!" shouted the father excitedly, and immediately after a
rabbit broke from the cover.

"Ay—Ay—Ay," was the shout, "turn him—turn him!" We set off full pelt.
The bewildered little brute, scared by Leslie's wild running and crying,
turned from its course, and dodged across the hill, threading its
terrified course through the maze of lying sheaves, spurting on in a
painful zigzag, now bounding over an untied bundle of corn, now swerving
from the sound of a shout. The little wretch was hard pressed; George
rushed upon it. It darted into some fallen corn, but he had seen it, and
had fallen on it. In an instant he was up again, and the little creature
was dangling from his hand.

We returned, panting, sweating, our eyes flashing, to the edge of the
standing corn. I heard Lettie calling, and turning round saw Emily and
the two children entering the field as they passed from school.

"There's another!" shouted Leslie.

I saw the oat–tops quiver. "Here! Here!" I yelled. The animal leaped
out, and made for the hedge. George and Leslie, who were on that side,
dashed off, turned him, and he coursed back our way. I headed him off to
the father who swept in pursuit for a short distance, but who was too
heavy for the work. The little beast made towards the gate, but this
time Mollie, with her hat in her hand and her hair flying, whirled upon
him, and she and the little fragile lad sent him back again. The rabbit
was getting tired. It dodged the sheaves badly, running towards the top
hedge. I went after it. If I could have let myself fall on it I could
have caught it, but this was impossible to me, and I merely prevented
its dashing through the hole into safety. It raced along the hedge
bottom. George tore after it. As he was upon it, it darted into the
hedge. He fell flat, and shot his hand into the gap. But it had escaped.
He lay there, panting in great sobs, and looking at me with eyes in
which excitement and exhaustion struggled like flickering light and
darkness. When he could speak, he said, "Why didn't you fall on top of
it?"