After having sent this off, Connie sat and wept awhile, and then felt better. After all, if one stuck to what one most sincerely felt, and if one were not afraid, and if one put one’s chief trust in the destiny of oneself and the man, one need not be lost. It was a great relief to her that that vague, yet very profound class-mistrust which had lain like a negating serpent at the bottom of her soul, was now gone. Vitally, organically, in the old organic sense of society, there were no more classes. That organic system had collapsed. So she need not have any class-mistrust of Parkin, and he need have none of her.
And following this came the new hope and the new relief, of an undefined, unknown, yet sacred mutual destiny between him and her. One could not be immortal, alone. If, in the beginning of time men and women had been joined together in one body, as Aristophanes said to Plato, and only later time had cleft them in two, then somehow, in the immortal they were one again: there was no I: there was no he and she. The two came together and formed one immortality, in which the I, the wearisome solitary individualistic I, disappeared and became a whole. She felt so acutely, and so achingly, the fragmentariness of the I. She was sick of single individuality.
But she felt, tentatively, and timidly, a mutual destiny between herself and Parkin, because of the kindling together of their bodies. Bodily, and in the passionate soul, they were the makers of one destiny between them. The rest was circumstance.
Circumstance was a strange clutch one had to submit to. Even if he had got into bed with Bertha Coutts — the thought rankled, though she did not believe he had, but even if he had, it was the chain of circumstance, and not the dim breeze of destiny.
She saw herself and him like two sailing vessels crossing a sea to the same port. They were not steamers, to churn the same wake. The steamers are the proletariat. But she and he were like two sailing ships. Each captain handles his vessel in a different manner, and the ships stay apart, for their own safety. Only in a smooth sea can the jolly-boat row from one to another. And after a squall, the morning finds them blown far apart, out of sight, so they seem to be lost to one another, in the empty seas. But steering always to the same point in the west, the one rises over the horizon to the other, and they go on.
So it must be: a voyage apart, in the same direction. Grapple the two vessels together, lash them side by side, and the first storm will smash them to pieces. That is marriage, in the bad weather of modern civilization. But leave the two vessels apart, to make their voyage to the same port, each according to its own skill and power, and an unseen life connects them, a magnetism which cannot be forced. And that is marriage as it will be, when this is broken down.
She had a letter from Clifford: ‘I am delighted to hear you are actually leaving that place. Once you set your face north I shall feel you are really coming. We miss you, Wragby misses you. You are an essential here, for some reason which not even you could explain. Of course I don’t for an instant complain of your absence. I have been looked after most assiduously by the excellent Mrs Bolton. But it is a grey day, while you are away: and the house is like a room with no fire in it.
‘Mrs Bolton is a queer cut. The longer I live, the more I realise what very strange animals human beings are. They are weird, some of them might just as well have a hundred 1egs, like a centipede, or six, like a lobster. The human consistency and unity which one has led oneself to expect from one’s fellow man seem not really to exist. One doubts if they exist to any startling degree in oneself.
‘I am regaled with a great amount of Tevershall gossip. Mrs Bolton must talk. She reminds me of a fish, which seems as if it were breathing silent speech, endless speeches. And like a fish, she takes all water indiscriminately through the sieve of her gills. Nothing really surprises her or shocks her. She only gets pleasantly excited at times. She takes the offensive Mrs Parkin Junior as calmly as she takes you or me, in spite of her exclamations of horror, and the secret misdeeds of Parkin himself, though she does not mention them to me, provide her with merely a slight mental thrill. I did not know that people were essentially unmoral, and that practically all their morality is worn as a secret costume. After an hour of her gossip, I find myself slowly rising to the surface again, to the comparative paradise of Plotinus or of Hegel, even. And there I breathe again.
‘It seems to me absolutely true, that our world, which appears to us as a surface, is only really the bottom of a deep sea; all our trees are submarine growths, and we are weird, two-legged submarine fauna, creeping like shrimps. Only occasionally the soul rises gasping through the fathomless fathoms under which we live, far up into the other world at last, where there is true air. I verily believe the air we normally breathe is a form of water, deep-sea water at that.
‘But sometimes the soul comes up from below like a kittiwake that shoots into the air with ecstasy, after having preyed upon the submerged fishes. It is our mortal destiny, I suppose, to prey upon the awful subaqueous fauna of the human submarine jungle. But our immortal destiny is to escape, once we have swallowed our catch, up into the bright ether, bursting out from the surface tension of old Ocean, into real light. And then one realises.
‘When I talk to Mrs Bolton, I feel myself plunging down, down, seizing the wriggling fish of the human secret; then up, up again, out of the liquid into the ethereal, where one knows, and is calm. It is a great game. To you I can tell the whole process. But with Mrs Bolton I only feel the downward plunge, down, awfully, among the sea weeds and the pallid monsters of the very bottom. And till she has gone, I can’t come up again. I cannot rise. If she were always physically present, I should suffocate like a diver whose air-tubes are tangled and stopped.
‘We have a great lashing of little monsters in our own particular pool of ocean. I mentioned the Parkin scandal to you. I don’t know if I told you how the truant wife came back to him, or rather, came back at him, to use an Americanism, and lay stark in his bed like a succubus, when he came home from the wood. He beat a retreat, after we know not what scrimmage and has since lived more or less in retirement behind his mother. The truant wife fortified herself in the cottage, but I had her evicted. Since then, she has been sleeping somewhere or other in Tevershall, and spending her waking hours raising Cain. She besieged old Mrs Parkin’s house one day, and seized upon her own daughter, as that chip of the female block was returning from school. The little one, being true kitten of the cat, bit her mother’s hand with such force that she received a smack in the face which sent her into the gutter, whence she was rescued by the indignant grandmother. The village women turning out in force, Parkin’s gentle spouse beat a retreat.
‘She has, however, blown off so much steam, as the colliers say, in her own defence, that a good part of the village is disposed to look on her as the poor victim of her husband’s enormities and mal-practice. She has, apparently, aired in minute detail all those incidents in her conjugal life which are usually buried, by married couples, in the deepest grave of decent silence. But she has chosen to exhume them, after ten years time, and a weird sight it is, an extraordinary recital. Of course I have nothing of this from Mrs Bolton, who only says “it is too shameful to mention.” But Linley, Burroughs, who is now J.P., and the rector have all been to me about the business. They want to get rid of Parkin, and to close the mouth of his wife. A dozen years ago, of course, the decent colliers and the decent colliers’ wives would have suppressed such talk effectively. But there is no body of public decency of that sort any more. Everybody listens: as I do myself. Nevertheless, it is deplorable, highly so. Dr Smith, who is a humorist in these matters, has brought me most of the tit-bits. I must confess, I find them. rather funny, like some of the Cent Nouvelles, and some of the modern dirty French stories. — It is a curious, almost mediaeval assortment of sexual extravagance and minor sexual perversities with which I suppose every enquiring mind is familiar, but which is not often made a subject of popular gossip. I pretend to be shocked, but I find I am more amused. These minor sexual perversities are of all time and circum
stances, like fleas or bald heads. They even enter the animal kingdom. But I had thought the colliers were too entirely unimaginative, to diverge from the straight and narrow path of sex. They always seem to me like the stud bull, who jumps in and out, and it is over. — So we have at least to credit our friend Parkin with some imagination, even if it is a dirty one. I had thought him too commonplace for such transgressions, or digressions, whichever you will. But apparently he has in him a touch of the great Rabelais. Nemmens male!
‘I have had to interview him several times about this uproar, and now I find him a curious specimen of subaqueous monster. He goes about with his old air of insolent I-care-for-nobody, but I think he feels somewhat like a dog with a tin can tied to its tail: a plucky enough dog, that since he can’t escape the tin can, pretends it isn’t there. — Of course all Tevershall look upon him as a monster, and mothers draw their children from his approach as if he were the Marquis de Sade in person. He pretends to bluff it out, and to despise them in turn. But as I say, the tin can is firmly tied to his tail, and I think he feels like Don Rodrigo in the Spanish ballad, when the serpent of infernal vengeance seized him: “Ah, now it bites me where I most have sinned!”
‘But as I say, he braves it out, with impudence, though I am not sure he doesn’t run some physical risk of tar and feathers, or a sound drubbing. Anyhow, in our interviews, though I have heard some faint tinkle now and then, of the tin can tied to his tail, I pretend I hear nothing. When I told him I heard there was a lot of talk buzzing in the village, he said: “Ay, maybe there is! Folks should do their own fuckin’, and not listen to clatfart about other folkses!” — Which, though coarse, is perhaps just.
‘I have sent him to Pilbeam, as a good lawyer, and he will make proper application for a divorce from the offending wife. But meanwhile I am afraid I shall have to look for another game-keeper. Burroughs and the rector are determined to silence the woman, if it means a few months’ goal for her. But they insist also that the man had better go away. Of course I wanted to keep him, for the affair amuses me, and he is a good keeper. But he himself is determined to leave. I said to him: “You shouldn’t let a little talk drive you away,” whereupon he replied: “Neither am I! But I’m going, and I wish you’d tell her ladyship same.”—I asked him: “But if you’re not ashamed, why are you going?”—He replied to this, “I’m not ashamed. Fuckin’s fuckin’, an’ every man should stan’ by his own. — But I’m goin’ because I don’t want to live here any more.” — I said nothing to this; but I suppose I must have been smiling at his aphorism, because the next thing he said was: “Nay, Sir Clifford, it’s not for a man in the shapes you’re in, to be laughin’ at me for havin’ a cod atween my legs.” — He said it in a nettled tone, and I considered it impudence. I said to him: “Any man who walks with his shirt hanging out, let alone his cod, will find himself laughed at.” And he replied: “Ay! Yo’ mun button your breeches buttons, but you can’t button the mouth of a bad woman. An’ them as listens shows a dirty shirt-tail, ask me anything —” And at that I stopped him and sent him off, reminding him that no-one had asked him anything. But he gave me a nasty look. He is a born bolshevist, so perhaps it is as well he goes. But he must, or I must, find another keeper first. The callow Joe I am afraid is inadequate as the job is a pretty tough one.
‘Well, I have spilled enough ink over this squalid affair. But we are deep-sea monsters, and even a lobster stirs up mud, when he takes a walk—’
The peculiar cruelty which came out of this letter pierced poor Connie’s heart, which was feeling particularly tender at the moment. She was angry, and she wept, and she waited sullenly to depart. In three days she would be gone.
Mrs Bolton wrote rather hastily:
‘I saw Mr Parkin yesterday, looking rather poorly. I had to go to his mother’s, to give him your message, and I found him up, but sitting in a chair saying nothing. I gave him your message, but he made no answer.
‘I suppose you heard the latest! I’m sure it’s shameful! Mr Parkin was passing the Three Tuns on Saturday afternoon just at turning-out time, and the colliers were standing about as they do, when they’re not at work, which is the best place for them. That great hulking Dan Coutts was there, among a set of his pals, having drunk himself nasty. It seems he stopped Mr Parkin and told him to take his jacket off, as he was going to give him a dusting. Mr Parkin said, “Why what’s amiss with you?” —You know they used to be very thick together, as boys. However, Dan Coutts told him to shut his measly face, and take his jacket off, or he’d take it off for him. So it seems they went back into Slater’s back-yard and had a fight, stripped to the waist. That Dan Coutts is about twice the size of Mr Parkin, and punished him cruel, though I hear Mr Parkin broke his nose for him, so he’ll bear the mark, as well he ought. But Mrs Slater came down from the house, fetched by one of the children, and she said it was an awful sight, both of them all over blood, and those hulking colliers standing round. And then Mr Parkin got a blow that sent him backwards with his head bang on one of the iron rails of the little railroad. She said she made sure he was dead, and ran for the policeman, and Sergeant Bower came himself. When they got back they found Mr Parkin on his feet as white as death, ready for another round. Sergeant Bower told them to stop it, and go home, but Coutts told him to s—t! So Sergeant Bower sent a boy for the Constable, and he told them again to stop it. And Coutts said: “Not till that b. goes on his knees,” and he squared up again, and Mr Parkin too. Then Sergeant Bower said he’d arrest them if they didn’t put their shirts on, and Coutts said s—t! again, and they began to fight. The sergeant was in a rage, and seized hold of Coutts, who gave him a hit on the jaw, and there seems to have been a free fight, till the Constable came, and Mr Parkin and Coutts were marched off and locked up in the police station. Well then it seems Mr Parkin started retching and vomiting, and retching something awful and it went on all afternoon, till Mrs Bower ran for the doctor. It seems there was a slight concussion of the brain, and the doctor said they’d better send him home, or to the hospital at Uthwaite. So they had a talk and decided to take him home, So they carried him on a stretcher, retching and not conscious. I went to help his mother that night, Sir Clifford let me go, and it was hours before we could get the retching to stop, and get his eyes right. And a pitiful sight he looked, with his face all bruised and swollen, and mouth cut, and two teeth gone, and his eyes so queer. Really, I thought sometimes he was going. But at last, in the night he went quiet, and then went to sleep. So we let him sleep while ever he would, and he didn’t wake till next day at tea-time. The doctor said he’d be all right now, but oh dear, it was a time. So when I went the next day, I found him up, and sadly disfigured, sitting in the arm-chair and saying never a word. I could tell he was feeling bad, so I didn’t bother him. I just gave him your message, that you’d be home at the week-end, and he just looked at me.
‘That Dan Coutts is sent to Uthwaite gaol, for assaulting the Sergeant, and we hope that Coutts. family will have a stopper put to it.
‘I hope you’ll get this before you leave, to prepare you for the worst. Indeed I hope the worst is over, for we’ve had enough of this affair. It will seem like peace and happiness again, to have you back, and everything settled down once more —’
The next day, Connie was leaving. She waited for the mail to come in. And it brought her a note addressed by Duncan Forbes. But the handwriting inside was ill-formed and aslant. ‘My mother opened your letter, the day I was bad, when I knocked my head. I have got over it all right. I shan’t go till Sunday night, then I am going to Sheffield to work. I shall stop at Bill Tewson’s. I hope you will have a pleasant journey, and all will be very pleased to see you back. But I am leaving Tevershall. Hoping to see you again, Yours sincerely O.P. — My mother didn’t make anything of your letter.’
Connie put this letter in her bag, and went down to the car. But she found the physical effort of smiling her last goodbyes almost did something to her face: as if, as children say, it would set
.
CHAPTER XIV
Constance and Hilda drove away alone, their father had chosen to go by train. They took the road to Bordeaux and Tours, intending to go straight to Dieppe, omitting Paris. Hilda drove quickly, they travelled far in a day. And the country rushed by, almost unobserved Hilda suddenly was anxious to get back to her children, and Connie, too, was pressed.
It was full summer, end of hay harvest, almost time to cut the corn, but the grapes were not yet dark under the leaves. But in some places, apricots and peaches were ripe and warm from the sun. France was almost always strange and remote, holding aloof, as ancient Gaul must have held aloof. Sometimes when Connie and Hilda ate in some inn where the peasants and workmen sat drinking their wine, talking in their guttural dialect, sitting with strong knees apart, and open, sleeping thighs, having a sleeping, half-clenched fist lying on the board, Connie would be overcome with the nostalgia of the old life, that is not nervous nor mechanical. But the new life was coming over these peasants and sea-folk, like an electric glare, to make them, ghastly. Soon, the warm life would be dead in them. Man is a column of blood; or else a column of bitter thin brine, netted with nerves and mechanically muscled.
John Thomas and Lady Jane Page 35