Turf or Stone

by Evans, Margiad

  ‘If you were called by your right name it would be “coward”…’

  ‘And “bully”…’

  ‘And “brute”.’

  His face flamed so suddenly into fury that she fled, banging the door after her, as the Bible flung by her husband crashed against it and fell open to the floor in a rustle of thin pages.

  Trembling all over, he stooped and picked it up.

  ‘Behold thou art fair, my love; thou hast dove’s eyes.’

  Matt shook as if he were moved to the very heart. There were deep furrows of pain in his face; he stood breathing in great sighs and his eyes were closed.

  As a result, the next day he rode over to Davis’ and remained a week, drinking persistently, although his carousals were even more spiritless than usual, and the memory of Mary, which haunted his senses, lay like a vision in the bottom of his cups. Mrs Davis was away with Marge; the two men kept to one room of the ill-kept old house, a room which was largely taken up with an incubator and smelt of straw. There was a grey pall of dust everywhere, and lumps of mud lay on the floor brought in by their boots. Davis’ mongrel was always whining to get in or out, or lying in his basket, yawning like a crocodile and growling at Matt. Davis would pick him up; he would sit on his master’s knee with his long snout pushed into Davis’ ear, making the most horrible grunts while his eye rolled and glittered like a glass ball. Davis himself was not particularly lively, as he had taken a woman and kept lachrymosely wondering what his wife would say to it if she knew.

  One evening he brought her in, a tall, stout, pale girl with dancing eyes, dirty hands, and ragged skin round her nails. She kissed Matt. He pushed her away, and Davis laughed, and they danced light-heartedly; but when she was gone he was more depressing than ever, and said he should give her up.

  ‘I know I should take these things as they come,’ he lamented, ‘but I don’t suppose Jean would like it, and for the life of me I can’t help thinking what she’d say.’

  At last, one night Matt went out and saddled his horse. There was a moon giving out a pale bluish light which made everything look hard and cold. It was just above the chimney stack and wavered like a reflection in rushing water as the invisible smoke shimmered across it.

  Davis came running up.

  ‘Why, where are you off to?’

  ‘I’m going home.’

  Davis remarked the shaking hand, the hag-ridden expression.

  ‘Never – it’s too late. Wait till the morning.’

  ‘I cannot wait.’

  Davis was startled by the fervent tone, and slightly offended.

  ‘’Ave you forgot summat you ’ad ought to ’ave remembered last week?’

  Matt mounted unsteadily.

  ‘“I have left undone those things which I ought to have done, and I have done those things which I ought not to have done, and there is no health in me.” Goodnight, Davis; many thanks for the respite, although I’ve been in teeming hell.’

  His horse moved, Matt swaying forward over its withers. He rode into his own yard at midnight. A lantern was burning in the saddle room; a thin line of amber light showed under the door and, where a board was broken, escaped in a single, soft ray across the cobbles. Matt called out: ‘Hallo there – Easter!’

  Easter emerged, looking wild with a glitter in his eyes. He strode up to the horse and, laying his left hand on Matt’s knee, made a curious abrupt gesture with the right, almost as though he were pointing at him.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I think my wife’s gone, sir.’

  ‘Gone?’

  ‘Run off.’

  * * *

  It was quite true. Ever since Shannon’s birth Mary had made up her mind to leave Easter. Only weakness tied her to The Gallustree; directly she was strong enough to go she went.

  Her plans were simple: in the bank she had forty pounds of her own which would enable her to live until she could find and undertake work. She would go to friends in Shrewsbury whom she vaguely hoped might help her. She knew she could easily be found, but she would refuse point blank to return, and if pushed to it, she would try to get a separation. In reality she had not recovered sufficiently to contemplate sustained work of any kind, but the fact was mind and body alike were temporarily undermined, and she was incapable of arranging details.

  The effort proved abortive from the start. She put the baby into the pram and wheeled him to the Chepsford road where she intended to get on the first bus that overtook her.

  It happened to be early closing day in Chepsford, and no bus appeared. At eight o’clock in the evening she was still pushing wearily, having been nearly an hour and three quarters on the road. She was almost done.

  She decided to spend the night at the nearest roadside inn. Ten minutes later, when no house or building of any sight was within view, a wheel came off the pram. She drew one deep sigh of bitter exasperation and fatigue, lifted the baby in her arms and walked distractedly on. Very little farther there was a crossroads, or rather, a place where two narrow lanes branched off, and, lifting her jaded glance to the signpost, she read: Weir End; Gillow.

  Afterwards considering the state she was in, her plight, and the time that had passed since she met him, she could never understand how her mind had leapt so quickly to William Dallett, whose gun-metal ring on her finger was the only sign of her wifehood to another man. She thought at once: ‘I’ll go to him.’

  She walked back to the pram, opened a gate, and lifted it into a field, where it would not be seen from the road. Then once more, and with a long breath, she took up the child whom she had laid on the ground, and went on.

  She went painfully slowly, for she was practically exhausted. All the time she saw Matt. She could not think of him ardently any more than she could have passionately clasped him, for she was too weak even to imagine action. Had he been near she would have gone to him and wound his arm about her, and leant upon him.

  Lifting her head which hung almost upon the baby’s breast, she moved him from one arm to the other. Two girls on bicycles were approaching her. They were laughing, shaking their machines all over, playing the fool. Their light dresses blew about and they held their hats in their hands.

  ‘Can you tell me where William Dallett lives?’ she asked as they passed.

  ‘Next cottage.’

  ‘Is it far?’

  ‘Just round the corner.’

  She saw it. That helped her.

  The cottage was ugly, of grey stone, slate-roofed. There was a narrow flower bed under the front windows, and a green wooden fence dividing it from the road. A little girl in a red dress with a bandaged leg was standing on a pile of stones, dipping her hands into a corrugated-iron water butt. A little way behind the cottage was a small, dark spinney enclosed by wire.

  ‘Does Mr Dallett live here?’

  The child ducked her head and did not answer.

  Mary pursued: ‘Is he your father?’

  The little girl sprang away and ran behind the house. Mary went up to the open door. It led straight into a littered kitchen. A flaming fire burned in the high grate; the table was spread with a blue cloth on which were plates, a loaf on a folded newspaper, and a pot of jam. Another girl, a little older than the first, was kneeling on a chair, vigorously flapping a cloth to keep off the flies. There was a smell of hotpot.

  Mary repeated her question. This child, who considered herself quite grown up, answered her in a mincing, responsible little voice.

  ‘Yes, Mr Dallett lives ’ere.’

  ‘Can I speak to him?’

  ‘No, because ’e aren’t at home.’

  Mary could hardly bear the pang of despair occasioned by this self-possessed announcement.

  She faltered: ‘Where is he?’

  This time the child hesitated, as if she were becoming embarrassed. She seldom spoke to strangers. At last she said her father must be at the pub.

  ‘Is that far?’

  Silence.

  Mary would have tried
to coax her, but she felt only impatience. Had she been aware that her eyes were fixed on the little girl with the same stare she was accustomed to meet with in an impetuous schoolteacher, she might have softened her tone. She repeated, was it far?

  But the child had come to the end of her resources. She stopped, waving her arm over the jam pot, and her face turned red. There were steps outside. A thin girl with short, rough, brown curls and glittering eyes was approaching slowly, carrying a bucket of water. She was dragged sideways, one arm in the air, her teeth set. She appeared to be about fourteen years old. She was so very short-sighted that she had to go right up to Mary to find out what sort of a person this was.

  ‘Did you want anything, ma’am?’ she asked, setting down her burden on the doorstep.

  ‘I want to speak to Mr Dallett.’

  ‘’E’s down at the Three Magpies. It’s only a step.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She made a slow movement.

  ‘Oh I can’t carry the baby any farther!’ she broke out. ‘May I leave him here on the sofa? He’ll be good. He never cries.’

  The girl stared at her, biting her finger, then nodded.

  ‘Yes, leave ’un, do. I’ll mind ’un. Aren’t ’e small? ’E won’t be more than a few weeks old?’

  ‘Two months. How shall I get to the Three Magpies?’

  ‘Look ’ere, Alice’ll fetch dad up. Sit down, ma’am.’

  She fetched a chair, and as soon as Alice had run off after a whispered conversation behind the door, bent over Shannon and begged that she might be allowed to pick him up.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mary listlessly.

  The flies were crawling all over the table, the heat was terrific. Dallett’s daughter held Shannon, devouring him with her glittering, short-sighted eyes.

  Alice stood under the deep wooden porch of the Three Magpies afraid to knock because of a little liver-coloured dog curled up on the mat. Above her head a faded sign swung from a hook. The dog barked lazily without moving. Presently the landlady came to the door.

  ‘Well then, Alice, you seem in a hurry. What d’you want?’

  ‘I want dad.’

  ‘Bill, ’ere’s a lady wants yer,’ said the man on the bench nearest the door.

  Dallett came forward, rubbing his flank. He was in a dirty magenta shirt, the sleeves rolled up above the elbows, corduroys, and a large flat, straw hat famous all over the parish.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked. But Alice had fits of silence when she would open her mouth for nobody, and she would not reply.

  ‘’Ere, missus, I’m off,’ he said. ‘Something’s amiss perhaps.’

  He nodded and walked away.

  ‘Shall us drink up tha’ pint, Bill?’ shouted a voice from within.

  ‘Ay, an’ treat me another day.’

  When they were close to the cottage, Alice found her tongue.

  ‘There’s a lady with a baby at ’ome,’ she exclaimed, throwing her father into the most profound astonishment. He hurried on, leaving her behind.

  So, more or less prepared for something extraordinary, he entered his kitchen with a dead cigarette in his mouth and saw Mary lying back on the old sofa, the baby beside her.

  ‘Eh… you!’ he exclaimed, ‘you be in a way. Whatever’s wrong?’

  Involuntarily his eyes fell on her left hand. His ring was there. He pitched the cigarette in the fire and, going close to her, stooped and said: ‘Now, mum, what can Bill Dallett do for you? Don’t you be afraid to ask.’

  She started up: ‘Come out and I’ll tell you.’

  Dallett restrained her, and told the children to go outside. Mary wept.

  ‘My husband’s cruel to me… I’ve left him…’ speaking in a breathless, disconnected way, she clasped his arm between her two hands and turned her worn, alluring face up to him. She wore the same expression that had so touched and charmed him months before when she told him of her marriage. He would do anything to please her. As she rose, one hand covering her eyes, he looked at her compassionately.

  ‘Ah, I can see as you haven’t done well for yourself! You’d best lean your weight on me. There now…’

  He went on after a deep pause: ‘My missus is dead an’ my home aren’t fit for you.’

  ‘I’m going on.’

  ‘No, no, that won’t do. Why, look at the baby! You can’t go on tonight, nor tomorrow either. When you’ve drunk a cup of tea I’ll take you down to the Magpies. And mind, whatever they ask – say nowt. They won’t get nothing out o’ me.’

  In a passion of gratitude, humbler than she had ever been in her life, she put her lips to his bare arm and kissed him.

  * * *

  The landlady of the Three Magpies ran about, waiting on Mary and Shannon, who lay upstairs in the big bedroom. She admired the picture while she absorbed the roughness of Mary’s hands, her delicate, haughty speech, and the fine quality of her linen.

  Nature had been very reserved over the landlady: nothing in her rather vacant, flat countenance, tied up in its morning glory of a pink cotton duster, betrayed her inquiring propensities. Dallett understood her, as he understood most people, and Mary did well to follow his directions. The landlady’s mind ground on short commons; she was sour with the customers that day, inclined to flounce and snap. The big bedroom was a sensitive, moody room, where the light changed from hour to hour. In the morning a sun-ray, quivering on the low ceiling, took a peculiar shape like a bony arm and hand, weaving a long golden thread; the fingers moved, the wrist turned and the thread twisted. Towards midday it disappeared, the sun with it. Behind the lace curtains the room settled to shadowless afternoon.

  Mary lay with her back to the child, her hair all twisted and wild. As the hours drew towards evening her mental pain increased. It was a simple, repeated agony of longing for Matt which she could have put into three words without any difficulty whatever.

  At six o’clock she bathed Shannon in the basin. She had him at the breast when she heard a horse descending the pitch, disturbing the loose flints which had made walking so difficult for her the night before.

  She went to the window and saw that it was Matt.

  Such a nervous tremor of anticipation ran through her whole body that the child rejected her and burst into a suffering wail. From that moment there was no question of a continued flight. She put Shannon on the bed and began hastily to dress. She was only half clothed, standing in her petticoat, her hands in her hair, when, scarcely pausing to knock, he walked straight into the room and with one distraught glance at her, sprang forward and seized her in his arms. She felt his lips on her cheek, and desiring only to meet his mouth with her own, turned her head in a moment as violent as his advance, and her hand behind his neck, pressed his face down upon hers.

  Two hours later he was riding back to The Gallustree in a triumph of love.

  The evening was solemn; the hills lay like lions in the fields.

  VII

  Dorothy took Rosamund and Philip to Torquay for the first three weeks of September. It was cool, and in the hotel they were obliged to put on subdued behaviour. They were glad to return.

  Dorothy had been well amused. At first she thought she would keep it to herself, but in the end she told Matt about her admirers at the hotel.

  ‘Look,’ she said, throwing herself back in her chair, blowing out her stomach, extending her legs and pointing her toes, ‘he used to sit like that and say I was charming! Every minute I thought he’d fall asleep in the middle of a compliment. Oh!’ she laughed, sprang up, and threw her arms in their elaborate sleeves round Matt’s neck. Matt smiled. He was turning things over in his head, very far from heeding her adventures. Matters needed a little readjusting at The Gallustree. Between furtive transports it was necessary to arrange the periodical absence of Easter in a natural, inevitable manner which could not be questioned.

  Matt and Mary were not a frank, cold-blooded pair of lovers; they preferred to keep the relationship more or less spontaneous, and to discuss the dispo
sal of Easter would have disgusted Mary, who was turning out surprisingly romantic. The whole of the responsibility therefore devolved on Matt. He rose to the occasion.

  The stabling at The Gallustree consisted of five loose boxes and four horses were kept. Matt, with sudden extravagance which Dorothy bitterly upbraided, bought another hack and two more hunters.

  At the conclusion of a long, angry conversation, she ran out of the room. However, she was no sooner out of the door than she returned, for she had really made up her mind to try to be more patient. Matt had not moved. She sat down again and lit a cigarette.

  ‘What on earth are you going to do with so many horses?’

  ‘Well, you’ve done away with the hounds, so I shall keep horses instead. Have you any objection?’

  ‘Oh, none, if you can afford it.’

  ‘Thank you so much. That’s kind.’

  There she sat, pulling at the end of her hair and sending out sickly fumes of Turkish tobacco. His violent, hidden happiness kept bursting like breakers; the room was dark, she could not see the transformation.

  ‘But where are you going to keep them?’

  ‘Well, at first I thought of Davis’. But that’s too tumble-down. In fact, it wouldn’t do at all. So I’ve arranged to have them over at Sidney Jones’, Pendoig.’

  ‘Pendoig, Matt! That’s five miles away!’ she said, amazed.

  ‘True, oh Queen! You’re always complaining that our Easter has too little to do. Now he’ll have plenty.’

  ‘I don’t complain that he has too little to do; my complaint is that he should have anything – here.’

  ‘Then you’ve changed your song.’

  ‘You are disagreeable. You used to make yourself pleasant to me sometimes.’

  ‘The fault’s not altogether mine,’ he said gloomily.

  They were silent until a charred log fell flaming to the hearth and the bitter smoke found its way into their eyes. Matt lifted it into its place. He remained leaning forward, his profile exposed in the red light.

  Dorothy continued: ‘You’ll have to get another man. More expense. Really…’