The White Peacock (41 page)

"There's nothing the matter with him—physically, is there?" I asked.

"I don't know," she replied, as she went to the oven to turn a pie that
was baking. She put her arm to her forehead and brushed aside her hair,
leaving a mark of flour on her nose. For a moment or two she remained
kneeling on the fender, looking into the fire and thinking. "He was in a
poor way when he came here, could eat nothing, sick every morning. I
suppose it's his liver. They all end like that." She continued to wipe
the large black plums and put them in the dish.

"Hardening of the liver?" I asked. She nodded.

"And is he in bed?" I asked again.

"Yes," she replied. "It's as I say, if he'd get up and potter about a
bit, he'd get over it. But he lies there skulking."

"And what time will he get up?" I insisted.

"I don't know. He may crawl down somewhere towards tea–time. Do you want
to see him? That's what you came for, isn't it?"

She smiled at me with a little sarcasm, and added: "You always thought
more of him than anybody, didn't you? Ah, well, come up and see him."

I followed her up the back stairs, which led out of the kitchen, and
which emerged straight in a bedroom. We crossed the hollow–sounding
plaster–floor of this naked room and opened a door at the opposite side.
George lay in bed watching us with apprehensive eyes.

"Here is Cyril come to see you," said Emily, "so I've brought him up,
for I didn't know when you'd be downstairs."

A small smile of relief came on his face, and he put out his hand from
the bed. He lay with the disorderly clothes pulled up to his chin. His
face was discoloured and rather bloated, his nose swollen.

"Don't you feel so well this morning?" asked Emily, softening with pity
when she came into contact with his sickness.

"Oh, all right," he replied, wishing only to get rid of us.

"You should try to get up a bit, it's a beautiful morning, warm and
soft—" she said gently. He did not reply, and she went downstairs.

I looked round to the cold, whitewashed room, with its ceiling curving
and sloping down the walls. It was sparsely furnished, and bare of even
the slightest ornament. The only things of warm colour were the cow and
horse skins on the floor. All the rest was white or grey or drab. On one
side, the roof sloped down so that the window was below my knees, and
nearly touching the floor, on the other side was a larger window, breast
high. Through it one could see the jumbled, ruddy roofs of the sheds and
the skies. The tiles were shining with patches of vivid orange lichen.
Beyond was the corn–field, and the men, small in the distance, lifting
the sheaves on the cart.

"You will come back to farming again, won't you?" I asked him, turning
to the bed. He smiled.

"I don't know," he answered dully.

"Would you rather I went downstairs?" I asked.

"No, I'm glad to see you," he replied, in the same uneasy fashion.

"I've only just come back from France," I said.

"Ah!" he replied, indifferent.

"I am sorry you're ill," I said.

He stared unmovedly at the opposite wall. I went to the window and
looked out. After some time, I compelled myself to say, in a casual
manner:

"Won't you get up and come out a bit?"

"I suppose Is'll have to," he said, gathering himself slowly together
for the effort. He pushed himself up in bed.

When he took off the jacket of his pajamas to wash himself I turned
away. His arms seemed thin, and he had bellied, and was bowed and
unsightly. I remembered the morning we swam in the mill–pond. I
remembered that he was now in the prime of his life. I looked at his
bluish feeble hands as he laboriously washed himself. The soap once
slipped from his fingers as he was picking it up, and fell, rattling the
pot loudly. It startled us, and he seemed to grip the sides of the
washstand to steady himself. Then he went on with his slow, painful
toilet. As he combed his hair he looked at himself with dull eyes of
shame.

The men were coming in from the scullery when we got downstairs. Dinner
was smoking on the table. I shook hands with Tom Renshaw, and with the
old man's hard, fierce left hand. Then I was introduced to Arthur
Renshaw, a clean–faced, large, bashful lad of twenty. I nodded to the
man, Jim, and to Jim's wife, Annie. We all sat down to table.

"Well, an' 'ow are ter feelin' by now, like?" asked the old man heartily
of George. Receiving no answer, he continued, "Tha should 'a gor up an'
com' an' gen us a 'and wi' th' wheat, it 'ud 'a done thee good."

"You will have a bit of this mutton, won't you?" Tom asked him, tapping
the joint with the carving knife. George shook his head.

"It's quite lean and tender," he said gently.

"No, thanks," said George.

"Gi'e 'im a bit, gi'e 'im a bit!" cried the old man. "It'll do 'im
good—it's what 'e wants, a bit o' strengthenin' nourishment."

"It's no good if his stomach won't have it," said Tom, in mild reproof,
as if he were speaking of a child. Arthur filled George's glass with
beer without speaking. The two young men were full of kind, gentle
attention.

"Let 'im 'a'e a spoonful o' tonnup then," persisted the old man. "I
canna eat while 'is plate stands there emp'y."

So they put turnip and onion sauce on George's plate, and he took up his
fork and tasted a few mouthfuls. The men ate largely, and with zest. The
sight of their grand satisfaction, amounting almost to gusto, sickened
him.

When at last the old man laid down the dessert spoon which he used in
place of a knife and fork, he looked again at George's plate, and said:

"Why tha 'asna aten a smite, not a smite! Tha non goos th' raight road
to be better."

George maintained a stupid silence.

"Don't bother him, father," said Emily.

"Tha art an öwd whittle, feyther," added Tom, smiling good–naturedly. He
spoke to his father in dialect, but to Emily in good English. Whatever
she said had Tom's immediate support. Before serving us with pie, Emily
gave her brother junket and damsons, setting the plate and the spoon
before him as if he were a child. For this act of grace Tom looked at
her lovingly, and stroked her hand as she passed.

After dinner, George said, with a miserable struggle for an indifferent
tone:

"Aren't you going to give Cyril a glass of whisky?"

He looked up furtively, in a conflict of shame and hope. A silence fell
on the room.

"Ay!" said the old man softly. "Let 'im 'ave a drop."

"Yes!" added Tom, in submissive pleading.

All the men in the room shrank a little, awaiting the verdict of the
woman.

"I don't know," she said clearly, "that Cyril wants a glass."

"I don't mind." I answered, feeling myself blush. I had not the courage
to counteract her will directly. Not even the old man had that courage.
We waited in suspense. After keeping us so for a few minutes, while we
smouldered with mortification, she went into another room, and we heard
her unlocking a door. She returned with a decanter containing rather
less than half a pint of liquor. She put out five tumblers.

"Tha nedna gi'e me none," said the old man. "Ah'm non a proud chap. Ah'm
not."

"Nor me neither," said Arthur.

"You will Tom?" she asked.

"Do you want me to?" he replied, smiling.

"I don't," she answered sharply. "I want nobody to have it, when you
look at the results of it. But if Cyril is having a glass, you may as
well have one with him."

Tom was pleased with her. She gave her husband and me fairly stiff
glasses.

"Steady, steady!" he said. "Give that George, and give me not so much.
Two fingers, two of your fingers, you know."

But she passed him the glass. When George had had his share, there
remained but a drop in the decanter.

Emily watched the drunkard coldly as he took this remainder.

George and I talked for a time while the men smoked. He, from his glum
stupidity, broke into a harsh, almost imbecile loquacity.

"Have you seen my family lately?" he asked, continuing. "Yes! Not badly
set up, are they, the children? But the little devils are soft,
mard–soft, every one of 'em. It's their mother's bringin' up—she marded
'em till they were soft, an' would never let me have a say in it. I
should 'a brought 'em up different, you know I should."

Tom looked at Emily, and, remarking her angry contempt, suggested that
she should go out with him to look at the stacks. I watched the tall,
square–shouldered man leaning with deference and tenderness towards his
wife as she walked calmly at his side. She was the mistress, quiet and
self–assured, he her rejoiced husband and servant.

George was talking about himself. If I had not seen him, I should hardly
have recognised the words as his. He was lamentably decayed. He talked
stupidly, with vulgar contumely of others, and in weak praise of
himself.

The old man rose, with a:

"Well, I suppose we mun ma'e another dag at it," and the men left the
house.

George continued his foolish, harsh monologue, making gestures of
emphasis with his head and his hands. He continued when we were walking
round the buildings into the fields, the same babble of bragging and
abuse. I was wearied and disgusted. He looked, and he sounded, so
worthless.

Across the empty cornfield the partridges were running. We walked
through the September haze slowly, because he was feeble on his legs. As
he became tired he ceased to talk. We leaned for some time on a gate, in
the brief glow of the transient afternoon, and he was stupid again. He
did not notice the brown haste of the partridges, he did not care to
share with me the handful of ripe blackberries, and when I pulled the
bryony ropes off the hedges, and held the great knots of red and green
berries in my hand, he glanced at them without interest or appreciation.

"Poison–berries, aren't they?" he said dully.

Like a tree that is falling, going soft and pale and rotten, clammy with
small fungi, he stood leaning against the gate, while the dim afternoon
drifted with a flow of thick sweet sunshine past him, not touching him.

In the stackyard, the summer's splendid monuments of wheat and grass
were reared in gold and grey. The wheat was littered brightly round the
rising stack. The loaded wagon clanked slowly up the incline, drew near,
and rode like a ship at anchor against the scotches, brushing the stack
with a crisp, sharp sound. Tom climbed the ladder and stood a moment
there against the sky, amid the brightness and fragrance of the gold
corn, and waved his arm to his wife who was passing in the shadow of the
building. Then Arthur began to lift the sheaves to the stack, and the
two men worked in an exquisite, subtle rhythm, their white sleeves and
their dark heads gleaming, moving against the mild sky and the corn. The
silence was broken only by the occasional lurch of the body of the
wagon, as the teamer stepped to the front, or again to the rear of the
load. Occasionally I could catch the blue glitter of the prongs of the
forks. Tom, now lifted high above the small wagon load, called to his
brother some question about the stack. The sound of his voice was strong
and mellow.

I turned to George, who also was watching, and said:

"You ought to be like that."

We heard Tom calling, "All right!" and saw him standing high up on the
tallest corner of the stack, as on the prow of a ship.

George watched, and his face slowly gathered expression. He turned to
me, his dark eyes alive with horror and despair.

"I shall soon—be out of everybody's way!" he said. His moment of fear
and despair was cruel. I cursed myself for having roused him from his
stupor.

"You will be better," I said.

He watched again the handsome movement of the men at the stack.

"I couldn't team ten sheaves," he said.

"You will in a month or two," I urged.

He continued to watch, while Tom got on the ladder and came down the
front of the stack.

"Nay, the sooner I clear out, the better," he repeated to himself.

When we went in to tea, he was, as Tom said, "downcast." The men talked
uneasily with abated voices. Emily attended to him with a little,
palpitating solicitude. We were all uncomfortably impressed with the
sense of our alienation from him. He sat apart and obscure among us,
like a condemned man.