Heritage

by Vita Sackville-West

  ‘ “Father doesn’t hold with dancing,” she replied.

  ‘ “He isn’t here to see,” I said. “Won’t you try a step?”

  ‘She blushed. It was a pretty sight to see her blush.

  ‘ “I don’t know how,” she said awkwardly, looking away from me into the glass as she wound the scarf round her neck.

  ‘ “Well,” I said, “will you learn if I have you taught?”

  ‘She burst into the shrill laugh of the common girl, and cried, “Get along with you, Mr Malory! making fun of a poor girl like me.”

  ‘Concha was gone, but I struggled to revive her, without conviction, and with a queer blankness in my heart. At least,’ said Malory, correcting himself, ‘it wasn’t my heart, but my mind, my sense of rightness, that was disappointed.

  ‘ “I mean it,” I said. “I’ll have you taught the dances of Spain.”

  ‘ “Spain?” she echoed, with a frown genuinely puzzled, so remote from her was all thought of the land of her wandering forefathers.

  ‘I risked a bold remark.

  ‘ “Your great-grandmother, I’ve no doubt, could give you a hint of the Spanish dances.”

  ‘Then she remembered, but the recollection came to her, I could see, from afar off, with the unreality of a date in history, poignant enough at the time.

  ‘At that moment a knock fell upon the door, and Rawdon Westmacott came in without waiting to be bidden. He saw Ruth standing there, and stopped. Then he caught sight of me by the wide fireplace. His eyes travelled swiftly between us, and I saw the rage and the prompt conclusion spring into them. In fact, I never saw a man so suddenly full of barely contained anger. He would have given a great deal, I am sure, to have insulted me openly.

  ‘We stood for a moment in silence, the three of us, then, Westmacott’s voice came out of space to break the moment’s eternity.

  ‘ “That’s fine toggery, Ruth, you’ve got on,” he said.

  ‘She looked at him without answering, her breath beginning to come a little quicker. I watched them both; I was angry, but not too angry to be interested. I felt the man’s power; his brutality; and I remember thinking that something in her – was it primitive woman – responded to something – was it primitive man? – in him. At the same time I knew that waves of hatred vibrated between them; that, if she was attracted, she was no less repelled. Did I touch then, in an unexpected moment of insight, the vital spot of that enigma? I believe that I was very near the truth. I knew that the situation was not by any means an important one, but it was nevertheless a battle, a clash of wills, and as such I thought it significant.

  ‘I saw her hand travel upward, and slowly begin to unwind the scarf.

  ‘ “It’s ill becoming you, my girl,” he went on, with the threatening note rising in his voice. “I’d sooner see you simple, Ruth,” and I thought of the lashing sea when the wind begins to swirl like a dragon’s tail along the beach.

  ‘I tried to intervene.

  ‘ “I brought . . .” I began to say, but catching the glance which Ruth turned upon me I was silent.

  ‘ “You’d best take them off,” Westmacott said.

  ‘Slowly she took off the scarf, and laid it on the table, slowly she unfastened the rings and laid them beside the scarf. I could have wrung his neck, but for the sake of the girl I remained quiet; I knew that she would have to pay for my championship, and, besides, I was ignorant of what understanding existed between them. Underneath my anger, I was conscious of a vague irritation creeping over me, that she had taken his bullying so meekly and had not flown out at him, with her brass earrings clanking in her ears, as she had flown out at me on the day of Penshurst.

  ‘Westmacott was clever enough to ignore the obvious fact that I had been the giver of the ornaments. He swept them off the table into his pocket, and, I presume, threw them into the horse-pond, and would have liked to throw me after; but that Ruth should not go without a present I ordered for her a pair of mice in a cage, a brown mouse and a Japanese waltzing mouse. She thought it extremely diverting to see the black and white mouse turning unceasingly after its tail, while the brown mouse watched it in perplexity mingled with disapproval from a corner of the cage.’

  Chapter Four

  ‘Either Westmacott did not notice these new inhabitants of the kitchen window-sill, for there they lived, among the pots of red geranium, or he considered he had humiliated me sufficiently; at any rate he made no allusions to the cage. As for Ruth and I, we went for several uncomfortable days without reference to the scene, but there it was between us, an awkward bond, until she broke the silence.

  ‘We were in the dairy; I had brought in the newly-filled milk pails, and she stood churning butter upon a marble slab. I liked the dairy, with its great earthenware pans of milk, its tiled floor, and its cleanliness like the cleanliness of a ship. Today it was full of the smell of the butter-milk.

  ‘ “Mr Malory,” said Ruth suddenly turning to me. “I’ve never thanked you for understanding me the other night. I didn’t think any the worse of you, I’d like to say, for keeping back your words.”

  ‘ “So long as you didn’t think I was afraid of your savage young friend . . .” I said.

  ‘ “No, no, I didn’t think that,” she answered with her quick blush. “He says more than he means, Rawdon does, if he’s roused, and it’s best to give in.”

  ‘ “You give in a good deal to people,” I said with that same irritation at her meekness.

  ‘ “It’s easier . . .” she murmured.

  ‘Ah? so that was it? not tameness of spirit, but mere indolence? I felt strangely comforted. At the same time I thought I would take advantage of our enforced confidences to make some remark about the young man of whom her parents had disapproved.

  ‘ “Westmacott.” I said. “He must be a difficult man to deal with? Even for you, whose word should be law to him?”

  ‘But my attempt wasn’t a success, for she shut up like a box with a spring in the lid. I saw that I should never get her to discuss Rawdon Westmacott with me, and I came to the conclusion that she must be fond of the fellow, and I could understand it, regrettable as I thought it, for he was an attractive man in his dare-devil way.

  ‘I soon had cause to regret my conclusion more, for I surprised the secret of a young handy-man who worked sometimes on the farm and for whom I had always had a great liking. He came to fell timber when old Pennistan wanted him, and he also did the thatching of the smaller, out-lying stacks. I went to help him at this work one day when his mate was laid up with a sprained ankle. He told me he had learnt his craft from his father, who had been a thatcher for fifty years; it gave me great satisfaction to think that a man could spend half a century on so monotonous a craft, constantly crawling on the sloping tops of ricks, with a bit of carpet tied round his knees, and his elementary tools — a mallet, a long wooden comb, a bundle of sticks, and a pocketful of pegs — always ready to his hand, while his mate on the ground pulled out the straw from the golden truss, made the ends even, and lifted the prepared bundle on a pitchfork up to the thatcher. My young friend told me the art of thatching was dying out. I tried my hand at it, but the straw blew about, and I found I could not lay two consecutive strands in place.

  ‘He was a fine young man, whose knowledge of the country seemed as instinctive as it was extensive. I said I surprised his secret. I should not have used the word surprise. It shouted itself out from his candid eyes as he rested them on Ruth; she had brought out his dinner, and leaned against his ladder for a moment’s talk; he looked down at her from where he knelt on the rick, and if ever I saw adoration in a man’s face I saw it on his just then. I felt angry with Ruth in her serene unconsciousness. She had no right to disturb men with her more than beauty. I wondered whether she was or was not pledged to Rawdon Westmacott, and the more of a riddle she appeared to me the angrier I felt
against her.

  ‘I was dissatisfied with the whole situation; I could not manipulate my puppets as I would; I felt that I held a handful of scattered pearls, and could find no string on which to hang them. In my discontent I went into the kitchen to look at the mice, they were still and huddled in separate corners. Amos and his wife were sitting at the table drinking large cups of tea, Amos, full-bearded, and in his shirt sleeves and red braces as I had first seen him. As I turned to go they stopped me.

  ‘ “Mr Malory,” Amos said, “we’d like to ask your advice. We’re right moidered about our girl. We’ve seen how it is between her and young Westmacott. Now we’ll not have young Westmacott in our family if we can help it, and we’re wondering whether it would be best to forbid him the place, and forbid Ruth to hold any further truck with him, or to trust her good sense to send him about his business in the end.”

  ‘I reflected, then I considered that Westmacott was probably more attractive present than absent, and spoke.

  ‘ “I hardly like to interfere in what isn’t really my affair at all, but as you’ve asked me I’ll say that if Ruth were my daughter I should forbid him the farm.”

  ‘ “That clinches it,” said Amos, bringing his hand down on the table. “We’ll have the girl in and tell it her straight away. You’ve voiced my own feelings, sir, and I’m grateful to you.”

  ‘Here Mrs Pennistan began to cry.

  ‘ “My poor Ruth! and what if she’s fond of the boy?”

  ‘ “Better for her to shed a dozen tears for him now than a hundred thousand in years to come. I’ll call her in.”

  ‘She came, wiping her hands on her blue apron. ‘ “Father, the butter’ll spoil.”

  ‘ “Never mind the butter. Now listen here, my girl, we’ve been talking about you, your mother and I, and we’ve decided that you and Rawdon have seen more of each other than is good for you. So I’m going to tell him that he’s to keep over at his own place in the future, and I expect you to keep over here; that is, I won’t have you slipping out and meeting that young good-for-nothing when the fancy takes you.”

  ‘What a gentleman he is, I thought to myself, to have kept my name out of it.

  ‘I looked at Ruth, wondering what she would do, and hoping, yes, hoping that she would rebel.

  ‘ “Very well, dad,” was all she said, and she looked perfectly composed, and was not even twisting her apron as she stood there before the court of justice.

  ‘I think Amos was a little surprised, a little disappointed, at her compliance.

  ‘ “You understand?” he said, trying to emphasise the point which he had already gained. “No skylarking.”

  ‘ “I understand, dad,” she said, still in that quiet and perfectly respectable voice.

  “There’s a good girl,” said Mrs Pennistan, and she got up and kissed her daughter, who submitted passively.

  “Now perhaps Mr Malory’ll lend me a hand with the butter, or it’ll spoil,” said Ruth, looking at me, and I followed her out to the dairy, expecting, I must confess, that she would turn upon me and rend me. But she remained severely practical as she set me to my task.

  ‘I could bear it no longer.

  ‘ “Ruth,” I said, “I must be honest with you, even though it makes you angry. Your father asked my advice in this business, and I gave it him.”

  ‘ “You shouldn’t stop,” she said, “the butter’ll never set properly.”

  ‘I returned to my churn.

  ‘ “But, Ruth, do you understand what I say? I am partly responsible for Westmacott’s dismissal.”

  ‘Her hand and arm continued their rotary movement, but she turned her large eyes upon me.

  ‘ “Why?” she inquired, with disconcerting simplicity.

  ‘ “I don’t like him,” I muttered. “How could I live here, knowing you married to a man I dislike and mistrust?”

  ‘To my surprise she said no more, but bent to her work, and I saw a great blush like a wave creep slowly over her half hidden face and down where her unfastened dress revealed her throat.

  ‘ “Ruth,” I said humbly, “are you angry with me?”

  ‘I heard a “No,” that glided out with her breath.

  ‘ “I hope you don’t care for him too much? He isn’t worthy of you.”

  ‘ “Can you lift that pail for me?” she said, pointing, and I lifted the heavy pail, and poured it as she directed into the separator, a smooth Niagara of milk.

  ‘About three days later my thatcher unbosomed himself to me. Westmacott had disappeared from the farm, and of course every one for five miles round knew that Pennistan had turned him out. I don’t know how they knew it, but country people seem to know things like a swallow knows its way to Egypt.

  ‘I recommended my thatcher to speak privately to Amos first, which he did, and received that good man’s sanction and approval.

  ‘Then Ruth came to me, or, rather, I met her with the pig pail in her hand, and she stopped me. A distant reaper was singing on its way somewhere in the summer evening.

  ‘ “I’ve seen Leslie Dymock,” she said abruptly. “Is it true that you . . .”

  ‘ “I didn’t discourage him,” I said as she paused.

  ‘Again she put to me that disconcerting question, “Why?”

  ‘ “He’s a good fellow,” I answered warmly. “He cares for you. He didn’t tell me. I guessed.”

  ‘ “How?” she asked.

  ‘ “Heavens!” I cried, taking the pig pail angrily from her, “you positively rout me with your direct questions. Why? How? As if one’s actions could hold in a single why or how. Don’t you know that the stars of the Milky Way are as nothing compared with the complexity of men’s motives?”

  ‘She gazed at me, and as I looked into her eyes I felt that I had been a fool, and that with certain human beings a single motive could sail serenely like a rising planet in the evening sky. Then I remembered that I was still holding the pail. I set it down.

  ‘ “I am sorry,” I said more gently, “I ought not to answer you like that. I like, I respect, and I trust Leslie Dymock, and for that reason I should at least be glad to see you consider his claim. As for my guessing, I had only to look at his face when you came.”

  ‘ “I see,” she said slowly. She bent to recover her pail. “I must be getting on to the pigs,” and indeed those impatient animals were shrieking discordantly from the stye.

  ‘Next day,’ said Malory as though in parenthesis, and with a reminiscent smile on his face, ‘I remember that a butcher came to buy the pigs. He fastened a big hook on to the beams of the ceiling in a little, dark, disused cottage, and we drove the pigs, three of them, into the cottage for the purpose of weighing them alive, and Ruth looked on from outside, through the much cobwebbed window. It was a scene both farcical and Flemish. All the farm dogs gathered round barking; the pigs, who were terrified into panic, made an uproar such as you cannot imagine if you have never heard a pig screaming. The butcher and his mate drove them into sacks, head first, and as he got the snout neatly into one corner of the sack, and the feet into as many corners as were left to accommodate them, the sack took on the exact semblance of a pig dragging itself with restraint and difficulty along the ground. One after the other they were hoisted into the air and suspended yelling from the hook. I went out to see whether Ruth was scared by the noise. She was not. She was laughing as I had never seen her laugh before, her hands pressed to her hips, tears in her eyes, her white teeth gleaming in the shadows. I was interested, because I thought I understood the inevitable introduction of farcical interludes into medieval drama. Now I think I understand better, that Ruth, who entirely lacked a sense of the humorous in life, was rich in the truly Latin sense of farce. I practised on her on several occasions after that, and never failed to draw the laugh I expected. The physical imposition of the automatic was
unvarying in its results. And she had no feminine sentimentality about the sufferings of the pigs — not she. She rather liked to see animals baited.’

  Yes, my friend, thought I as he paused, and I understand you even better than you profess to have understood the girl. You have no spark of real humour in your composition.

  Just as Malory reached this point in his story, I was obliged to go away to Turin for a couple of days, but my mind ran more on the Weald of Kent than on my own affairs: I felt that the summer days were slipping by, that the corn would be cut and set up in stooks, if not already carted, by the time I got back, and that Leslie Dymock might have made such good use of his time as to be actually betrothed. As soon as I reached Sampiero and had changed from my travelling decency into my habitual flannels, I rushed out to find Malory, who was sitting with his pipe in his mouth beside the stream fishing.

  He greeted me, ‘I’ve caught two trout.’

  ‘No? We’ll have them for breakfast,’ and I threw myself upon the ground beside him, and watched his lazy line rocking on the water.

  ‘What it is to be a fisherman!’ Malory said. ‘To wade out into a great, broad river, and stand there isolated from men, with the water swirling round your knees, and crying “Come! come away from the staid and stupid land out to the sea, and exchange the shackles of life for the liberty of death.” When the voice of the water has become too insistent, I have all but bent my knees and given myself up to the rhythm of the stream. Fishing, like nothing else, begets serenity of spirit. Serenity of spirit,’ he repeated, ‘and turbulence of action – that should make up the sum of man’s life.’

  He cast his fly and began to murmur some lines over to himself,—

  ‘Give me a spirit that on life’s rough sea

  Loves t’ have his sails filled with a lusty wind,

  Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack,

  And his rapt ship run on her side so low