The White Peacock (15 page)

"See—there is a chair that will be in the way," she replied calmly; but
she flushed, and bowed her head. She turned away, and he dragged an
armful of rugs into a corner.

When the actors came in, Lettie was moving a vase of flowers. While they
played, she sat looking on, smiling, clapping her hands. When it was
finished Leslie came and whispered to her, whereon she kissed him
unobserved, delighting and exhilarating him more than ever. Then they
went out to prepare the next act.

George did not return to her till she called him to help her. Her colour
was high in her cheeks.

"How do you know you did not count?" she said nervously, unable to
resist the temptation to play this forbidden game.

He laughed, and for a moment could not find any reply.

"I do!" he said. "You knew you could have me any day, so you didn't
care."

"Then we're behaving in quite the traditional fashion," she answered
with irony.

"But you know," he said, "you began it. You played with me, and showed
me heaps of things—and those mornings—when I was binding corn, and
when I was gathering the apples, and when I was finishing the
straw–stack—you came then—I can never forget those mornings—things
will never be the same—You have awakened my life—I imagine things that
I couldn't have done."

"Ah!—I am very sorry, I am so sorry."

"Don't be!—don't say so. But what of me?"

"What?" she asked rather startled. He smiled again; he felt the
situation, and was a trifle dramatic, though deadly in earnest.

"Well," said he, "you start me off—then leave me at a loose end. What
am I going to do?"

"You are a man," she replied.

He laughed. "What does that mean?" he said contemptuously.

"You can go on—which way you like," she answered.

"Oh, well," he said, "we'll see."

"Don't you think so?" she asked, rather anxious.

"I don't know—we'll see," he replied.

They went out with some things. In the hall, she turned to him, with a
break in her voice, saying: "Oh, I am so sorry—I am so sorry."

He said, very low and soft,—"Never mind—never mind."

She heard the laughter of those preparing the charade. She drew away and
went in the drawing room, saying aloud:

"Now I think everything is ready—we can sit down now."

After the actors had played the last charade, Leslie came and claimed
her.

"Now, Madam—are you glad to have me back?"

"That I am," she said. "Don't leave me again, will you?"

"I won't," he replied, drawing her beside him. "I have left my
handkerchief in the dining–room," he continued; and they went out
together.

Mother gave me permission for the men to smoke.

"You know," said Marie to Tom, "I am surprised that a scientist should
smoke. Isn't it a waste of time?"

"Come and light me," he said.

"Nay," she replied, "let science light you."

"Science does—Ah, but science is nothing without a girl to set it
going—Yes—Come on—now, don't burn my precious nose."

"Poor George!" cried Alice. "Does he want a ministering angel?"

He was half lying in a big arm chair.

"I do," he replied. "Come on, be my box of soothing ointment. My matches
are all loose."

"I'll strike it on my heel, eh? Now, rouse up, or I shall have to sit on
your knee to reach you."

"Poor dear—he shall beluxurious," and the dauntless girl perched on his
knee.

"What if I singe your whiskers—would you send an Armada?
Aw—aw—pretty!—You do look sweet—doesn't he suck prettily?"

"Do you envy me?" he asked, smiling whimsically.

"Ra—ther!"

"Shame to debar you," he said, almost with tenderness.

"Smoke with me."

He offered her the cigarette from his lips. She was surprised, and
exceedingly excited by his tender tone. She took the cigarette.

"I'll make a heifer—like Mrs. Daws," she said.

"Don't call yourself a cow," he said.

"Nasty thing—let me go," she exclaimed.

"No—you fit me—don't go," he replied, holding her.

"Then you must have growed. Oh—what great hands—let go. Lettie, come
and pinch him."

"What's the matter?" asked my sister.

"He won't let me go."

"He'll be tired first," Lettie answered.

Alice was released, but she did not move. She sat with wrinkled forehead
trying his cigarette. She blew out little tiny whiffs of smoke, and
thought about it; she sent a small puff down her nostrils, and rubbed
her nose.

"It's not as nice as it looks," she said.

He laughed at her with masculine indulgence.

"Pretty boy," she said, stroking his chin.

"Am I?" he murmured languidly.

"Cheek!" she cried, and she boxed his ears. Then "Oh, pore fing!" she
said, and kissed him.

She turned round to wink at my mother and at Lettie. She found the
latter sitting in the old position with Leslie, two in a chair. He was
toying with her arm; holding it and stroking it.

"Isn't it lovely?" he said, kissing the forearm, "so warm and yet so
white. Io—it reminds one of Io."

"Somebody else talking about heifers," murmured Alice to George.

"Can you remember," said Leslie, speaking low, "that man in Merimée who
wanted to bite his wife and taste her blood?"

"I do," said Lettie. "Have you a strain of wild beast too?"

"Perhaps," he laughed, "I wish these folks had gone. Your hair is all
loose in your neck—it looks lovely like that though——"

Alice, the mocker, had unbuttoned the cuff of the thick wrist that lay
idly on her knee, and had pushed his sleeve a little way.

"Ah!" she said. "What a pretty arm, brown as an overbaked loaf!"

He watched her smiling.

"Hard as a brick," she added.

"Do you like it?" he drawled.

"No," she said emphatically, in a tone that meant "yes." "It makes me
feel shivery." He smiled again.

She superposed her tiny pale, flower–like hands on his.

He lay back looking at them curiously.

"Do you feel as if your hands were full of silver?" she asked almost
wistfully, mocking.

"Better than that," he replied gently.

"And your heart full of gold?" she mocked.

"Of hell!" he replied briefly.

Alice looked at him searchingly.

"And am I like a blue–bottle buzzing in your window to keep your
company?" she asked.

He laughed.

"Good–bye," she said, slipping down and leaving him.

"Don't go," he said—but too late.

The irruption of Alice into the quiet, sentimental party was like taking
a bright light into a sleeping hen–roost. Everybody jumped up and wanted
to do something. They cried out for a dance.

"Emily—play a waltz—you won't mind, will you, George? What! You don't
dance, Tom? Oh, Marie!"

"I don't mind, Lettie," protested Marie.

"Dance with me, Alice," said George, smiling "and Cyril will take Miss
Tempest."

"Glory!—come on—do or die!" said Alice.

We began to dance. I saw Lettie watching, and I looked round. George was
waltzing with Alice, dancing passably, laughing at her remarks. Lettie
was not listening to what her lover was saying to her; she was watching
the laughing pair. At the end she went to George.

"Why!" she said, "You can——"

"Did you think I couldn't?" he said. "You are pledged for a minuet and a
valeta with me—you remember?"

"Yes."

"You promise?"

"Yes. But——"

"I went to Nottingham and learned."

"Why—because?—Very well, Leslie, a mazurka. Will you play it,
Emily—Yes, it is quite easy. Tom, you look quite happy talking to the
Mater."

We danced the mazurka with the same partners. He did it better than I
expected—without much awkwardness—but stiffly. However, he moved
quietly through the dance, laughing and talking abstractedly all the
time with Alice.

Then Lettie cried a change of partners, and they took their valeta.
There was a little triumph in his smile.

"Do you congratulate me?" he said.

"I am surprised," she answered.

"So am I. But I congratulate myself."

"Do you? Well, so do I."

"Thanks! You're beginning at last."

"What?" she asked.

"To believe in me."

"Don't begin to talk again," she pleaded sadly, "nothing vital."

"Do you like dancing with me?" he asked

"Now, be quiet—
that's
real," she replied.

"By Heaven, Lettie, you make me laugh!"

"Do I?" she said—"What if you married Alice—soon."

"I—Alice!—Lettie!! Besides, I've only a hundred pounds in the world,
and no prospects whatever. That's why—well—I shan't marry
anybody—unless its somebody with money."

"I've a couple of thousand or so of my own——"

"Have you? It would have done nicely," he said smiling.

"You are different to–night," she said, leaning on him.

"Am I?" he replied—"It's because things are altered too. They're
settled one way now—for the present at least."

"Don't forget the two steps this time," said she smiling, and adding
seriously, "You see, I couldn't help it."

"No, why not?"

"Things! I have been brought up to expect it—everybody expected it—and
you're bound to do what people expect you to do—you can't help it. We
can't help ourselves, we're all chess–men," she said.

"Ay," he agreed, but doubtfully.

"I wonder where it will end," she said.

"Lettie!" he cried, and his hand closed in a grip on her's.

"Don't—don't say anything—it's no good now, it's too late. It's done;
and what is done, is done. If you talk any more, I shall say I'm tired
and stop the dance. Don't say another word."

He did not—at least to her. Their dance came to an end. Then he took
Marie who talked winsomely to him. As he waltzed with Marie he regained
his animated spirits. He was very lively the rest of the evening, quite
astonishing and reckless. At supper he ate everything, and drank much
wine.

"Have some more turkey, Mr. Saxton."

"Thanks—but give me some of that stuff in brown jelly, will you? It's
new to me."

"Have some of this trifle, Georgie?"

"I will—you are a jewel."

"So will you be—a yellow topaz tomorrow!"

"Ah! tomorrow's tomorrow!"

After supper was over, Alice cried:

"Georgie, dear—have you finished?—don't die the death of a king—King
John—I can't spare you, pet."

"Are you so fond of me?"

"I am—Aw! I'd throw my best Sunday hat under a milk–cart for you, I
would!"

"No; throw yourself into the milk–cart—some Sunday, when I'm driving."

"Yes—come and see us," said Emily.

"How nice! Tomorrow you won't want me, Georgie dear, so I'll come. Don't
you wish Pa would make Tono–Bungay? Wouldn't you marry me then?"

"I would," said he.

When the cart came, and Alice, Madie, Tom and Will departed, Alice bade
Lettie a long farewell—blew Georgie many kisses—promised to love him
faithful and true—and was gone.

George and Emily lingered a short time.

Now the room seemed empty and quiet, and all the laughter seemed to have
gone. The conversation dribbled away; there was an awkwardness.

"Well," said George heavily, at last. "To–day is nearly gone—it will
soon be tomorrow. I feel a bit drunk! We had a good time to–night."

"I am glad," said Lettie.

They put on their clogs and leggings, and wrapped themselves up, and
stood in the hall.

"We must go," said George, "before the clock strikes,—like
Cinderella—look at my glass slippers—" he pointed to his clogs.
"Midnight, and rags, and fleeing. Very appropriate. I shall call myself
Cinderella who wouldn't fit. I believe I'm a bit drunk—the world looks
funny."

We looked out at the haunting wanness of the hills beyond Nethermere.
"Good–bye, Lettie; good–bye."

They were out in the snow, which peered pale and eerily from the depths
of the black wood.

"Good–bye," he called out of the darkness. Leslie slammed the door, and
drew Lettie away into the drawing–room. The sound of his low, vibrating
satisfaction reached us, as he murmured to her, and laughed low. Then he
kicked the door of the room shut. Lettie began to laugh and mock and
talk in a high strained voice. The sound of their laughter mingled was
strange and incongruous. Then her voice died down.

Marie sat at the little piano—which was put in the
dining–room—strumming and tinkling the false, quavering old notes. It
was a depressing jingling in the deserted remains of the feast, but she
felt sentimental, and enjoyed it.

This was a gap between to–day and tomorrow, a dreary gap, where one sat
and looked at the dreary comedy of yesterdays, and the grey tragedies of
dawning tomorrows, vacantly, missing the poignancy of an actual to–day.

The cart returned.

"Leslie, Leslie, John is here, come along!" called Marie.

There was no answer.

"Leslie—John is waiting in the snow."

"All right."

"But you must come at once." She went to the door and spoke to him. Then
he came out looking rather sheepish, and rather angry at the
interruption. Lettie followed, tidying her hair. She did not laugh and
look confused, as most girls do on similar occasions; she seemed very
tired.

At last Leslie tore himself away, and after more returns for a farewell
kiss, mounted the carriage, which stood in a pool of yellow light,
blurred and splotched with shadows, and drove away, calling something
about tomorrow.

Winter lay a long time prostrate on the earth. The men in the mines of
Tempest, Warrall and Co. came out on strike on a question of the
rearranging of the working system down below. The distress was not
awful, for the men were on the whole wise and well–conditioned, but
there was a dejection over the face of the country–side, and some
suffered keenly. Everywhere, along the lanes and in the streets,
loitered gangs of men, unoccupied and spiritless. Week after week went
on, and the agents of the Miner's Union held great meetings, and the
ministers held prayer–meetings, but the strike continued. There was no
rest. Always the crier's bell was ringing in the street; always the
servants of the company were delivering handbills, stating the case
clearly, and always the people talked and filled the months with bitter,
and then hopeless, resenting. Schools gave breakfasts, chapels gave
soup, well–to–do people gave teas—the children enjoyed it. But we, who
knew the faces of the old men and the privations of the women, breathed
a cold, disheartening atmosphere of sorrow and trouble.

Determined poaching was carried on in the Squire's woods and warrens.
Annable defended his game heroically. One man was at home with a leg
supposed to be wounded by a fall on the slippery roads—but really, by a
man–trap in the woods. Then Annable caught two men, and they were
sentenced to two months' imprisonment.

On both the lodge gates of Highclose—on our side and on the far
Eberwich side—were posted notices that trespassers on the drive or in
the grounds would be liable to punishment. These posters were soon
mudded over, and fresh ones fixed.

The men loitering on the road by Nethermere, looked angrily at Lettie as
she passed, in her black furs which Leslie had given her, and their
remarks were pungent. She heard them, and they burned in her heart. From
my mother she inherited democratic views, which she now proceeded to
debate warmly with her lover.

Then she tried to talk to Leslie about the strike. He heard her with
mild superiority, smiled, and said she did not know. Women jumped to
conclusions at the first touch of feeling; men must look at a thing all
round, then make a decision—nothing hasty and impetuous—careful,
long–thought–out, correct decisions. Women could not be expected to
understand these things, business was not for them; in fact, their
mission was above business—etc., etc., Unfortunately Lettie was the
wrong woman to treat thus.

"So!" said she, with a quiet, hopeless tone of finality.

"There now, you understand, don't you, Minnehaha, my Laughing Water—So
laugh again, darling, and don't worry about these things. We will not
talk about them any more, eh?"

"No more."

"No more—that's right—you are as wise as an angel. Come here—pooh,
the wood is thick and lonely! Look, there is nobody in the world but us,
and you are my heaven and earth!"

"And hell?"

"Ah—if you are so cold—how cold you are!—it gives me little shivers
when you look so—and I am always hot—Lettie!"

"Well?"

"You are cruel! Kiss me—now—No, I don't want your cheek—kiss me
yourself. Why don't you say something?"

"What for? What's the use of saying anything when there's nothing
immediate to say?"

"You are offended!"

"It feels like snow to–day," she answered.

At last, however, winter began to gather her limbs, to rise, and drift
with saddened garments northward.

The strike was over. The men had compromised. It was a gentle way of
telling them they were beaten. But the strike was over.

The birds fluttered and dashed; the catkins on the hazel loosened their
winter rigidity, and swung soft tassels. All through the day sounded
long, sweet whistlings from the brushes; then later, loud, laughing
shouts of bird triumph on every hand.

I remember a day when the breast of the hills was heaving in a last
quick waking sigh, and the blue eyes of the waters opened bright. Across
the infinite skies of March great rounded masses of cloud had sailed
stately all day, domed with a white radiance, softened with faint,
fleeting shadows as if companies of angels were gently sweeping past;
adorned with resting, silken shadows like those of a full white breast.
All day the clouds had moved on to their vast destination, and I had
clung to the earth yearning and impatient. I took a brush and tried to
paint them, then I raged at myself. I wished that in all the wild valley
where cloud shadows were travelling like pilgrims, something would call
me forth from my rooted loneliness. Through all the grandeur of the
white and blue day, the poised cloud masses swung their slow flight, and
left me unnoticed.

At evening they were all gone, and the empty sky, like a blue bubble
over us, swam on its pale bright rims.

Leslie came, and asked his betrothed to go out with him, under the
darkening wonderful bubble. She bade me accompany her, and, to escape
from myself, I went.

It was warm in the shelter of the wood and in the crouching hollows of
the hills. But over the slanting shoulders of the hills the wind swept,
whipping the redness into our faces.

"Get me some of those alder catkins, Leslie," said Lettie, as we came
down to the stream.

"Yes, those, where they hang over the brook. They are ruddy like new
blood freshening under the skin. Look, tassels of crimson and gold!" She
pointed to the dusty hazel catkins mingled with the alder on her bosom.
Then she began to quote Christina Rossetti's "A Birthday."

"I'm glad you came to take me a walk," she continued—"Doesn't Strelley
Mill look pretty? Like a group of orange and scarlet fungi in a fairy
picture. Do you know, I haven't been, no, not for quite a long time.
Shall we call now?"

"The daylight will be gone if we do. It is half past five—more! I saw
him—the son—the other morning."

"Where?"

"He was carting manure—I made haste by."

"Did he speak to you—did you look at him?"

"No, he said nothing. I glanced at him—he's just the same, brick
colour—stolid. Mind that stone—it rocks. I'm glad you've got strong
boots on."

"Seeing that I usually wear them——"

She stood poised a moment on a large stone, the fresh spring brook
hastening towards her, deepening, sidling round her.

"You won't call and see them, then?" she asked.

"No. I like to hear the brook tinkling, don't you?" he replied.

"Ah, yes—it's full of music."

"Shall we go on?" he said, impatient but submissive.

"I'll catch up in a minute," said I.

I went in and found Emily putting some bread into the oven.

"Come out for a walk," said I.

"Now? Let me tell mother—I was longing——"

She ran and put on her long grey coat and her red tam–o–shanter. As we
went down the yard, George called to me.

"I'll come back," I shouted.

He came to the crew–yard gate to see us off. When we came out onto the
path, we saw Lettie standing on the top bar of the stile, balancing with
her hand on Leslie's head. She saw us, she saw George, and she waved to
us. Leslie was looking up at her anxiously. She waved again, then we
could hear her laughing, and telling him excitedly to stand still, and
steady her while she turned. She turned round, and leaped with a great
flutter, like a big bird launching, down from the top of the stile to
the ground and into his arms. Then we climbed the steep hill–side—Sunny
Bank, that had once shone yellow with wheat, and now waved black
tattered ranks of thistles where the rabbits ran. We passed the little
cottages in the hollow scooped out of the hill, and gained the highlands
that look out over Leicestershire to Charnwood on the left, and away
into the mountain knob of Derbyshire straight in front and towards the
right.

The upper road is all grassy, fallen into long disuse. It used to lead
from the Abbey to the Hall; but now it ends blindly on the hill–brow.
Half way along is the old White House farm, with its green mounting
steps mouldering outside. Ladies have mounted here and ridden towards
the Vale of Belvoir—but now a labourer holds the farm.

We came to the quarries, and looked in at the lime–kilns.

"Let us go right into the wood out of the quarry," said Leslie. "I have
not been since I was a little lad."

"It is trespassing," said Emily.

"We don't trespass," he replied grandiloquently.

So we went along by the hurrying brook, which fell over little cascades
in its haste, never looking once at the primroses that were glimmering
all along its banks. We turned aside, and climbed the hill through the
woods. Velvety green sprigs of dog–mercury were scattered on the red
soil. We came to the top of a slope, where the wood thinned. As I talked
to Emily I became dimly aware of a whiteness over the ground. She
exclaimed with surprise, and I found that I was walking, in the first
shades of twilight, over clumps of snowdrops. The hazels were thin, and
only here and there an oak tree uprose. All the ground was white with
snowdrops, like drops of manna scattered over the red earth, on the
grey–green clusters of leaves. There was a deep little dell, sharp
sloping like a cup, and white sprinkling of flowers all the way down,
with white flowers showing pale among the first inpouring of shadow at
the bottom. The earth was red and warm, pricked with the dark, succulent
green of bluebell sheaths, and embroidered with grey–green clusters of
spears, and many white flowerets. High above, above the light tracery of
hazel, the weird oaks tangled in the sunset. Below, in the first
shadows, drooped hosts of little white flowers, so silent and sad; it
seemed like a holy communion of pure wild things, numberless, frail, and
folded meekly in the evening light. Other flower companies are glad;
stately barbaric hordes of bluebells, merry–headed cowslip groups, even
light, tossing wood–anemones; but snowdrops are sad and mysterious. We
have lost their meaning. They do not belong to us, who ravish them. The
girls bent among them, touching them with their fingers, and symbolising
the yearning which I felt. Folded in the twilight, these conquered
flowerets are sad like forlorn little friends of dryads.

"What do they mean, do you think?" said Lettie in a low voice, as her
white fingers touched the flowers, and her black furs fell on them.

"There are not so many this year," said Leslie.

"They remind me of mistletoe, which is never ours, though we wear it,"
said Emily to me.

"What do you think they say—what do they make you think, Cyril?" Lettie
repeated.

"I don't know. Emily says they belong to some old wild lost religion.
They were the symbol of tears, perhaps, to some strange hearted Druid
folk before us."

"More than tears," said Lettie. "More than tears, they are so still.
Something out of an old religion, that we have lost. They make me feel
afraid."

"What should you have to fear?" asked Leslie.

"If I knew I shouldn't fear," she answered. "Look at all the
snowdrops"—they hung in dim, strange flecks among the dusky
leaves—"look at them—closed up, retreating, powerless. They belong to
some knowledge we have lost, that I have lost and that I need. I feel
afraid. They seem like something in fate. Do you think, Cyril, we can
lose things off the earth—like mastodons, and those old
monstrosities—but things that matter—wisdom?"

"It is against my creed," said I.

"I believe I have lost something," said she.

"Come," said Leslie, "don't trouble with fancies. Come with me to the
bottom of this cup, and see how strange it will be, with the sky marked
with branches like a filigree lid."

She rose and followed him down the steep side of the pit, crying, "Ah,
you are treading on the flowers."

"No," said he, "I am being very careful."

They sat down together on a fallen tree at the bottom. She leaned
forward, her fingers wandering white among the shadowed grey spaces of
leaves, plucking, as if it were a rite, flowers here and there. He could
not see her face.

"Don't you care for me?" he asked softly.

"You?"—she sat up and looked at him, and laughed strangely. "You do not
seem real to me," she replied, in a strange voice.

For some time they sat thus, both bowed and silent. Birds "skirred" off
from the bushes, and Emily looked up with a great start as a quiet,
sardonic voice said above us:

"A dove–cot, my eyes if it ain't! It struck me I 'eered a cooin', an'
'ere's th' birds. Come on, sweethearts, it's th' wrong place for billin'
an' cooin', in th' middle o' these 'ere snowdrops. Let's 'ave yer names,
come on."

"Clear off, you fool!" answered Leslie from below, jumping up in anger.

We all four turned and looked at the keeper. He stood in the rim of
light, darkly; fine, powerful form, menacing us. He did not move, but
like some malicious Pan looked down on us and said:

"Very pretty—pretty! Two—and two makes four. 'Tis true, two and two
makes four. Come on, come on out o' this 'ere bridal bed, an' let's 'ave
a look at yer."

"Can't you use your eyes, you fool," replied Leslie, standing up and
helping Lettie with her furs. "At any rate you can see there are ladies
here."

"Very sorry, Sir! You can't tell a lady from a woman at this distance at
dusk. Who may you be, Sir?"

"Clear out! Come along, Lettie, you can't stay here now."

They climbed into the light.

"Oh, very sorry, Mr. Tempest—when yer look down on a man he never looks
the same. I thought it was some young fools come here dallyin'—"

"Damn you—shut up!" exclaimed Leslie—"I beg your pardon, Lettie. Will
you have my arm?"

They looked very elegant, the pair of them. Lettie was wearing a long
coat which fitted close; she had a small hat whose feathers flushed
straight back with her hair.