The White Peacock (34 page)

"By jove, here's Harry Jackson come for me. I will finish this letter
when I get back.

"——I have got back, we have turned out, but I cannot finish. I cannot
tell you all about it. I've had a little row with Meg. Oh, I've had a
rotten time. But I cannot tell you about it to–night, it is late, and I
am tired, and have a headache. Some other time perhaps——

The spring came bravely, even in south London, and the town was filled
with magic. I never knew the sumptuous purple of evening till I saw the
round arc–lamps fill with light, and roll like golden bubbles along the
purple dusk of the high road. Everywhere at night the city is filled
with the magic of lamps: over the river they pour in golden patches
their floating luminous oil on the restless darkness; the bright lamps
float in and out of the cavern of London Bridge Station like round
shining bees in and out of a black hive; in the suburbs the street lamps
glimmer with the brightness of lemons among the trees. I began to love
the town.

In the mornings I loved to move in the aimless street's procession,
watching the faces come near to me, with the sudden glance of dark eyes,
watching the mouths of the women blossom with talk as they passed,
watching the subtle movements of the shoulders of men beneath their
coats, and the naked warmth of their necks that went glowing along the
street. I loved the city intensely for its movement of men and women,
the soft, fascinating flow of the limbs of men and women, and the sudden
flash of eyes and lips as they pass. Among all the faces of the street
my attention roved like a bee which clambers drunkenly among blue
flowers. I became intoxicated with the strange nectar which I sipped out
of the eyes of the passers–by.

I did not know how time was hastening by on still bright wings, till I
saw the scarlet hawthorn flaunting over the road, and the lime–buds lit
up like wine drops in the sun, and the pink scarves of the lime–buds
pretty as louse–wort a–blossom in the gutters, and a silver–pink tangle
of almond boughs against the blue sky. The lilacs came out, and in the
pensive stillness of the suburb, at night, came the delicious tarry
scent of lilac flowers, wakening a silent laughter of romance.

Across all this, strangely, came the bleak sounds of home. Alice wrote
to me at the end of May:

"Cyril dear, prepare yourself. Meg has got twins—yesterday. I went up
to see how she was this afternoon, not knowing anything, and there I
found a pair of bubs in the nest, and old ma Stainwright bossing the
show. I nearly fainted. Sybil dear, I hardly knew whether to laugh or to
cry when I saw those two rummy little round heads, like two larch cones
cheek by cheek on a twig. One is a darkie, with lots of black hair, and
the other is red, would you believe it, just lit up with thin red hair
like a flicker of firelight. I gasped. I believe I did shed a few tears,
though what for, I don't know.

"The old grandma is a perfect old wretch over it. She lies chuckling and
passing audible remarks in the next room, as pleased as punch really,
but so mad because ma Stainwright wouldn't have them taken in to her.
You should have heard her when we took them in at last. They are both
boys. She did make a fuss, poor old woman. I think she's going a bit
funny in the head. She seemed sometimes to think they were hers, and you
should have heard her, the way she talked to them, it made me feel quite
funny. She wanted them lying against her on the pillow, so that she
could feel them with her face. I shed a few more tears, Sybil. I think I
must be going dotty also. But she came round when we took them away, and
began to chuckle to herself, and talk about the things she'd say to
George when he came—awful shocking things, Sybil, made me blush
dreadfully.

"Georgie didn't know about it then. He was down at Bingham, buying some
horses, I believe. He seems to have got a craze for buying horses. He
got in with Harry Jackson and Mayhew's sons—you know, they were horse
dealers—at least their father was. You remember he died bankrupt about
three years ago. There are Fred and Duncan left, and they pretend to
keep on the old business. They are always up at the Ram, and Georgie is
always driving about with them. I don't like it—they are a loose lot,
rather common, and poor enough now.

"Well, I thought I'd wait and see Georgie. He came about half–past five.
Meg had been fidgeting about him, wondering where he was, and how he
was, and so on. Bless me if I'd worry and whittle about a man. The old
grandma heard the cart, and before he could get down she shouted—you
know her room is in the front—'Hi, George, ma lad, sharpen thy shins
an' com' an' a'e a look at 'em—thee'r's two on 'em, two on 'em!' and
she laughed something awful.

"''Ello Granma, what art ter shoutin' about?' he said, and at the sound
of his voice Meg turned to me so pitiful, and said:

"' He's been wi' them Mayhews."

"'Tha's gotten twins, a couple at a go ma lad!' shouted the old woman,
and you know how she gives squeal before she laughs! She made the horse
shy, and he swore at it something awful. Then Bill took it, and Georgie
came upstairs. I saw Meg seem to shrink when she heard him kick at the
stairs as he came up, and she went white. When he got to the top he came
in. He fairly reeked of whisky and horses. Bah, a man is hateful when he
reeks of drink! He stood by the side of the bed grinning like a fool,
and saying, quite thick:

"' You've bin in a bit of a 'urry, 'aven't you Meg. An' how are ter
feelin' then?'

"'Oh, I'm a' right,' said Meg.

"'Is it twins, straight?' he said, 'wheer is 'em?'

"Meg looked over at the cradle, and he went round the bed to it, holding
to the bed–rail. He had never kissed her, nor anything. When he saw the
twins, asleep with their fists shut tight as wax, he gave a laugh as if
he was amused, and said:

"' Two right enough—an' one on 'em red! Which is the girl, Meg, the
black un?'

"'They're both boys,' said Meg, quite timidly.

"He turned round, and his eyes went little.

"'Blast 'em then!' he said. He stood there looking like a devil. Sybil
dear, I did not know our George could look like that. I thought he could
only look like a faithful dog or a wounded stag. But he looked fiendish.
He stood watching the poor little twins, scowling at them, till at last
the little red one began to whine a bit. Ma Stainwright came pushing her
fat carcass in front of him and bent over the baby, saying:

"'Why, my pretty, what are they doin' to thee, what are they?—what are
they doin' to thee?'

"Georgie scowled blacker than ever, and went out, lurching against the
wash–stand and making the pots rattle till my heart jumped in my throat.

"'Well, if you don't call that scandylos——!' said old Ma Stainwright,
and Meg began to cry. You don't know, Cyril! She sobbed fit to break her
heart. I felt as if I could have killed him.

"That old gran'ma began talking to him, and he laughed at her. I do hate
to hear a man laugh when he's half drunk. It makes my blood boil all of
a sudden. That old grandmother backs him up in everything, she's a
regular nuisance. Meg has cried to me before over the pair of them. The
wicked, vulgar old thing that she is——"

I went home to Woodside early in September. Emily was staying at the
Ram. It was strange that everything was so different. Nethermere even
had changed. Nethermere was no longer a complete, wonderful little world
that held us charmed inhabitants. It was a small, insignificant valley
lost in the spaces of the earth. The tree that had drooped over the
brook with such delightful, romantic grace was a ridiculous thing when I
came home after a year of absence in the south. The old symbols were
trite and foolish.

Emily and I went down one morning to Strelley Mill. The house was
occupied by a labourer and his wife, strangers from the north. He was
tall, very thin, and silent, strangely suggesting kinship with the rats
of the place. She was small and very active, like some ragged domestic
fowl run wild. Already Emily had visited her, so she invited us into the
kitchen of the mill, and set forward the chairs for us. The large room
had the barren air of a cell. There was a small table stranded towards
the fireplace, and a few chairs by the walls; for the rest, desert
spaces of flagged floor retreating into shadow. On the walls by the
windows were five cages of canaries, and the small sharp movements of
the birds made the room more strange in its desolation. When we began to
talk the birds began to sing, till we were quite bewildered, for the
little woman spoke Glasgow Scotch, and she had a hare lip. She rose and
ran toward the cages, crying herself like some wild fowl, and flapping a
duster at the warbling canaries.

"Stop it, stop it!" she cried, shaking her thin weird body at them.
"Silly little devils, fools, fools, fools!!" and she flapped the duster
till the birds were subdued. Then she brought us delicious scones and
apple jelly, urging us, almost nudging us with her thin elbows to make
us eat.

"Don't you like 'em, don't you? Well eat 'em, eat 'em then. Go on Emily,
go on, eat some more. Only don't tell Tom—don't tell Tom when 'e comes
in,"—she shook her head and laughed her shrilling, weird laughter.

As we were going she came out with us, and went running on in front. We
could not help noting how ragged and unkempt was her short black skirt.
But she hastened around us, hither and thither like an excited fowl,
talking in her high–pitched, unintelligible manner. I could not believe
the brooding mill was in her charge. I could not think this was the
Strelley Mill of a year ago. She fluttered up the steep orchard bank in
front of us. Happening to turn round and see Emily and me smiling at
each other she began to laugh her strident, weird laughter saying, with
a leer:

"Emily, he's your sweetheart, your sweetheart Emily! You never told me!"
and she laughed aloud.

We blushed furiously. She came away from the edge of the sluice gully,
nearer to us, crying:

"You've been here o' nights, haven't you Emily—haven't you?" and she
laughed again. Then she sat down suddenly, and pointing above our heads,
shrieked:

"Ah, look there"—we looked and saw the mistletoe. "Look at her, look
at her! How many kisses a night, Emily?—Ha! Ha! kisses all the year!
Kisses o' nights in a lonely place."

She went on wildly for a short time, then she dropped her voice and
talked in low, pathetic tones. She pressed on us scones and jelly and
oat–cakes, and we left her.

When we were out on the road by the brook Emily looked at me with
shamefaced, laughing eyes. I noticed a small movement of her lips, and
in an instant I found myself kissing her, laughing with some of the
little woman's wildness.

George was very anxious to receive me at his home. The Ram had as yet
only a six days licence, so on Sunday afternoon I walked over to tea. It
was very warm and still and sunny as I came through Greymede. A few
sweethearts were sauntering under the horse–chestnut trees, or crossing
the road to go into the fields that lay smoothly carpeted after the
hay–harvest.

As I came round the flagged track to the kitchen door of the Inn I heard
the slur of a baking tin and the bang of the oven door, and Meg saying
crossly:

"No, don't you take him Emily—naughty little thing! Let his father hold
him!"

One of the babies was crying.

I entered, and found Meg all flushed and untidy, wearing a large white
apron, just rising from the oven. Emily, in a cream dress, was taking a
red–haired, crying baby from out of the cradle. George sat in the small
arm–chair, smoking and looking cross.

"I can't shake hands," said Meg, rather flurried. "I am all floury. Sit
down, will you——" and she hurried out of the room. Emily looked up
from the complaining baby to me and smiled a woman's rare, intimate
smile, which says: "See, I am engaged thus for a moment, but I keep my
heart for you all the time."

George rose and offered me the round arm–chair. It was the highest
honour he could do me. He asked me what I would drink. When I refused
everything, he sat down heavily on the sofa, frowning, and angrily
cudgelling his wits for something to say—in vain.

The room was large and comfortably furnished with rush–chairs, a
glass–knobbed dresser, a cupboard with glass doors, perched on a shelf
in the corner, and the usual large sofa whose cosy loose–bed and pillows
were covered with red cotton stuff. There was a peculiar reminiscence of
victuals and drink in the room; beer, and a touch of spirits, and bacon.
Teenie, the sullen, black–browed servant girl came in carrying the other
baby, and Meg called from the scullery to ask her if the child were
asleep. Meg was evidently in a bustle and a flurry, a most uncomfortable
state.

"No," replied Teenie, "he's not for sleep this day."

"Mend the fire and see to the oven, and then put him his frock on,"
replied Meg testily. Teenie set the black–haired baby in the second
cradle. Immediately he began to cry, or rather to shout his
remonstrance. George went across to him and picked up a white furry
rabbit, which he held before the child:

"Here, look at bun–bun! Have your nice rabbit! Hark at it squeaking!"

The baby listened for a moment, then, deciding that this was only a
put–off, began to cry again. George threw down the rabbit and took the
baby, swearing inwardly. He dandled the child on his knee.

"What's up then?—What's up wi' thee? Have a ride
then—dee–de–dee–de–dee!"

But the baby knew quite well what was the father's feeling towards him,
and he continued to cry.

"Hurry up, Teenie!" said George as the maid rattled the coal on the
fire. Emily was walking about hushing her charge, and smiling at me, so
that I had a peculiar pleasure in gathering for myself the honey of
endearment which she shed on the lips of the baby. George handed over
his child to the maid, and said to me with patient sarcasm:

"Will you come in the garden?"

I rose and followed him across the sunny flagged yard, along the path
between the bushes. He lit his pipe and sauntered along as a man on his
own estate does, feeling as if he were untrammeled by laws or
conventions.

"You know," he said, "she's a dam rotten manager."

I laughed, and remarked how full of plums the trees were.

"Yes!" he replied heedlessly—"you know she ought to have sent the girl
out with the kids this afternoon, and have got dressed directly. But no,
she must sit gossiping with Emily all the time they were asleep, and
then as soon as they wake up she begins to make cake——"

"I suppose she felt she'd enjoy a pleasant chat, all quiet," I answered.

"But she knew quite well you were coming, and what it would be. But a
woman's no dam foresight."

"Nay, what does it matter!" said I.

"Sunday's the only day we can have a bit of peace, so she might keep 'em
quiet then."

"I suppose it was the only time, too, that she could have a quiet
gossip," I replied.

"But you don't know," he said, "there seems to be never a minute of
freedom. Teenie sleeps in now, and lives with us in the kitchen—Oswald
as well—so I never know what it is to have a moment private. There
doesn't seem a single spot anywhere where I can sit quiet. It's the kids
all day, and the kids all night, and the servants, and then all the men
in the house—I sometimes feel as if I should like to get away. I shall
leave the pub as soon as I can—only Meg doesn't want to."

"But if you leave the public–house—what then?"

"I should like to get back on a farm. This is no sort of a place,
really, for farming. I've always got some business on hand, there's a
traveller to see, or I've got to go to the brewers, or I've somebody to
look at a horse, or something. Your life's all messed up. If I had a
place of my own, and farmed it in peace——"

"You'd be as miserable as you could be," I said.

"Perhaps so," he assented, in his old reflective manner. "Perhaps so!
Anyhow, I needn't bother, for I feel as if I never shall go back—to the
land."

"Which means at the bottom of your heart you don't intend to," I said
laughing.

"Perhaps so!" he again yielded. "You see I'm doing pretty well
here—apart from the public–house: I always think that's Meg's. Come and
look in the stable. I've got a shire mare and two nags: pretty good. I
went down to Melton Mowbray with Tom Mayhew, to a chap they've had
dealings with. Tom's all right, and he knows how to buy, but he is such
a lazy careless devil, too lazy to be bothered to sell——"

George was evidently interested. As we went round to the stables, Emily
came out with the baby, which was dressed in a new silk frock. She
advanced, smiling to me with dark eyes:

"See, now he is good! Doesn't he look pretty?"

She held the baby for me to look at. I glanced at it, but I was only
conscious of the near warmth of her cheek, and of the scent of her hair.

"Who is he like?" I asked, looking up and finding myself full in her
eyes. The question was quite irrelevant: her eyes spoke a whole clear
message that made my heart throb; yet she answered.

"Who is he? Why, nobody, of course! But he
will
be like father, don't
you think?"

The question drew my eyes to hers again, and again we looked each other
the strange intelligence that made her flush and me breathe in as I
smiled.

"Ay! Blue eyes like your father's—not like yours——"

Again the wild messages in her looks.

"No!" she answered very softly. "And I think he'll be jolly, like
father—they have neither of them our eyes, have they?"

"No," I answered, overcome by a sudden hot flush of tenderness. "No—not
vulnerable. To have such soft, vulnerable eyes as you used makes one
feel nervous and irascible. But you have clothed over the sensitiveness
of yours, haven't you?—like naked life, naked defenceless protoplasm
they were, is it not so?"

She laughed, and at the old painful memories she dilated in the old way,
and I felt the old tremor at seeing her soul flung quivering on my pity.

"And were mine like that?" asked George, who had come up.

He must have perceived the bewilderment of my look as I tried to adjust
myself to him. A slight shadow, a slight chagrin appeared on his face.

"Yes," I answered, "yes—but not so bad. You never gave yourself away so
much—you were most cautious: but just as defenceless."

"And am I altered?" he asked, with quiet irony, as if he knew I was not
interested in him.

"Yes, more cautious. You keep in the shadow. But Emily has clothed
herself, and can now walk among the crowd at her own gait."

It was with an effort I refrained from putting my lips to kiss her at
that moment as she looked at me with womanly dignity and tenderness.
Then I remembered, and said:

"But you are taking me to the stable George! Come and see the horses
too, Emily."

"I will. I admire them so much," she replied, and thus we both indulged
him.

He talked to his horses and of them, laying his hand upon them, running
over their limbs. The glossy, restless animals interested him more than
anything. He broke into a little flush of enthusiasm over them. They
were his new interest. They were quiet and yet responsive; he was their
master and owner. This gave him real pleasure.

But the baby became displeased again. Emily looked at me for sympathy
with him.

"He is a little wanderer," she said, "he likes to be always moving.
Perhaps he objects to the ammonia of stables too," she added, frowning
and laughing slightly, "it is not very agreeable, is it?"

"Not particularly," I agreed, and as she moved off I went with her,
leaving him in the stables. When Emily and I were alone we sauntered
aimlessly back to the garden. She persisted in talking to the baby, and
in talking to me about the baby, till I wished the child in Jericho.
This made her laugh, and she continued to tantalise me. The holly–hock
flowers of the second whorl were flushing to the top of the spires. The
bees, covered with pale crumbs of pollen, were swaying a moment outside
the wide gates of the florets, then they swung in with excited hum, and
clung madly to the fury white capitols, and worked riotously round the
waxy bases. Emily held out the baby to watch, talking all the time in
low, fond tones. The child stretched towards the bright flowers. The sun
glistened on his smooth hair as on bronze dust, and the wondering blue
eyes of the baby followed the bees. Then he made small sounds, and
suddenly waved his hands, like rumpled pink holly–hock buds.

"Look!" said Emily, "look at the little bees! Ah, but you mustn't touch
them, they bite. They're coming!" she cried, with sudden laughing
apprehension, drawing the child away. He made noises of remonstrance.
She put him near to the flowers again till he knocked the spire with his
hand and two indignant bees came sailing out. Emily drew back quickly
crying in alarm, then laughing with excited eyes at me, as if she had
just escaped a peril in my presence. Thus she teased me by flinging me
all kinds of bright gages of love while she kept me aloof because of the
child. She laughed with pure pleasure at this state of affairs, and
delighted the more when I frowned, till at last I swallowed my
resentment and laughed too, playing with the hands of the baby, and
watching his blue eyes change slowly like a softly sailing sky.

Presently Meg called us in to tea. She wore a dress of fine blue stuff
with cream silk embroidery, and she looked handsome, for her hair was
very hastily dressed.

"What, have you had that child all this time?" she exclaimed, on seeing
Emily. "Where is his father?"

"I don't know—we left him in the stable, didn't we Cyril? But I like
nursing him, Meg. I like it ever so much," replied Emily.

"Oh, yes, you may be sure George would get off it if he could. He's
always in the stable. As I tell him, he fair stinks of horses. He's not
that fond of the children, I can tell you. Come on, my pet—why, come to
its mammy."

She took the baby and kissed it passionately, and made extravagant love
to it. A clean shaven young man with thick bare arms went across the
yard.

"Here, just look and tell George as tea is ready," said Meg.

"Where is he?" asked Oswald, the sturdy youth who attended to the farm
business.

"You know where to find him," replied Meg, with that careless freedom
which was so subtly derogatory to her husband.

George came hurrying from the out–building. "What, is it tea already?"
he said.

"It's a wonder you haven't been crying out for it this last hour," said
Meg.

"It's a marvel you've got dressed so quick," he replied.

"Oh, is it?" she answered—"well, it's not with any of your help that
I've done it, that is a fact. Where's Teenie?"

The maid, short, stiffly built, very dark and sullen looking, came
forward from the gate.

"Can you take Alfy as well, just while we have tea?" she asked. Teenie
replied that she should think she could, whereupon she was given the
ruddy–haired baby, as well as the dark one. She sat with them on a seat
at the end of the yard. We proceeded to tea.

It was a very great spread. There were hot cakes, three or four kinds of
cold cakes, tinned apricots, jellies, tinned lobster, and trifles in the
way of jam, cream, and rum.

"I don't know what those cakes are like," said Meg. "I made them in such
a fluster. Really, you have to do things as best you can when you've got
children—especially when there's two. I never seem to have time to do
my hair up even—look at it now."

She put up her hands to her head, and I could not help noticing how
grimy and rough were her nails.

The tea was going on pleasantly when one of the babies began to cry.
Teenie bent over it crooning gruffly. I leaned back and looked out of
the door to watch her. I thought of the girl in Tchekoff's story, who
smothered her charge, and I hoped the grim Teenie would not be driven to
such desperation. The other child joined in this chorus. Teenie rose
from her seat and walked about the yard, gruffly trying to soothe the
twins.

"It's a funny thing, but whenever anybody comes they're sure to be
cross," said Meg, beginning to simmer.

"They're no different from ordinary," said George, "it's only that
you're forced to notice it then."

"No, it is not!" cried Meg in a sudden passion: "Is it now, Emily? Of
course, he has to say something! Weren't they as good as gold this
morning, Emily?—and yesterday!—why they never murmured, as good as
gold they were. But he wants them to be as dumb as fishes: he'd like
them shutting up in a box as soon as they make a bit of noise."