by H. E. Bates
She sat on the box at his feet and buried her face in her hands. ‘Oh, if you knew what it was like! I’m tired. Last night I didn’t go to bed until twelve, and this morning I got up in darkness. And the heat this afternoon! Then he grows meaner every day and expects me to be mean, too.’
She poured out her grief, quietly, regretfully, into his breast, talking about the dreariness, the drudgery, the mournfulness of her life in that oppressive bake-house, the avariciousness of her husband, overwhelming him with secret confidences, the full, unrestrained speech of a woman suddenly aroused to the magnanimity and wonder of a past lover. And gradually her head sank to his breast. There she could smell the fine freshness of his clothes, feel the coolness of the watch-chain against her neck, and hear even the thump of his heart and the tick of the minutes. And it seemed to her, as he caressed her listless head, that their love-affair of three or four years before was the only worthy, beautiful thing in her life, and her quarrel with him and her marriage, in a fit of desperation and spite to the baker, the most foolish and deadly. She remembered how he had lavished gifts upon her, given her books to read, made her sing, until it seemed that she would become a cultured, refined and beautiful woman. But now she had forgotten the songs, had no time to read anything, and never went anywhere. She remembered, too, and with silent bursts of ecstasy like those of the earlier day, evenings on his farm, afternoons in the wood, by the river, and a single Easter Sunday when they had lolled all day under the damson-trees, just coming out in blossom, in his long orchard sloping towards the sun, listening to each other’s voices, with the larks keeping up a perpetual anthem far up in the serene sky; and Amos, the old servant, had brought food to her very lap, and talked to her about her mother.
Now in the gloominess of the shut-in stall, she let him embrace and kiss her. She could not remember when she had been kissed last, and she held his head against hers for a long time.
‘How old are you?’ he whispered.
‘Twenty-seven. In a year or two I shall be thirty. Sometimes I cry up in the hay-loft, then come down and talk with the horse, because I think he’s tired, too.’
Her voice trailed off. It seemed to both that the only fortification against her existence was silence; and at last they let their fingers fall from each other’s shoulders. Suddenly the thought of the baker brought them both to their feet.
‘He’ll have to be found,’ she said. ‘I’ll get the money together. Go and harness the horse.’
They rode out of the fair-ground in silence, Sinclair driving. Up the wide streets of the town swam dark streams of people. In the market square a torchlight procession was forming up, throwing a smoky light into the windows and on the bright faces of the girls and their men. Above them gaudy strings of triangular flags dipped from tree to tree. Noisy crowds of men and women sat drinking beer in the sultry air outside the inns. Now and then a rocket would scratch the black summer sky with its swift white point before bursting into green and vermilion stars.
The baker was sprawled across a table under an inn archway when they found him. His head rested calmly in a pool of beer. Some one had crowned him with a straw-hat no bigger than a saucer, and an arrogant blue feather was stuck in his button-hole. As Janet approached, a white-faced barmaid lifted up his head, wiped away the beer with a towel, then let it fall again and vanished with the air of one having performed the last rites.
‘Who’s that?’ mumbled the baker. ‘Eh?’
‘It’s Janet.’
‘Come take me home?’ he muttered.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re a good gal. You’re a good gal. You are.’ He groped unsuccessfully for her arm. ‘You catch hold of me arm, catch hold, good gal; can’t manage without – catch hold! Got th’ money? That’s all right. Bit dark now, now ain’t it? Catch hold. Good gal.’
‘It’s a long journey. Mind the step.’
They pushed him up into the trap. He sank down without grace or spirit, silent except for a groan or two.
She whispered into the face of the farmer when he began to condole with her. ‘It happened last year, and the year before. He doesn’t often get drunk, only now and again. That’s all.’
The sorrowfulness of the words seemed to pass into her eyes and reflect itself in his face.
‘You can’t do anything.’ Suddenly she caught his sleeve and poured out a torrent of beseeching whispers: ‘Now go away. Go away. I can’t bear to see you stand there looking as if you’d lost something. Go away. It’s a long journey, and we must go. He’ll sleep all the way home, and I shall think of nothing but you.’
‘Every day I walk in the woods—’
She muttered as when they had first met: ‘Impossible – work, work – I could never come. It’s all over.’
‘Forgive me.’
Her lips parted. Astonishment made her eyes larger and more beautiful. ‘Don’t speak like that.’ Her words became disjointed again. ‘It’s too late, it’s awful, everything’s gone, it’s lost, there’s nothing.’
‘I could give you anything, I’ll send you things—’
She sprang up into the cart and drove away with feverish haste among the crowd, past the torch-light procession, and clear of the town. In the cool night air her husband fell into a doze. The image of Sinclair, as she had last seen him, troubled and pained in the glow of the inn lights, travelled with her like the sound of the horse’s feet. Glancing back at the great circle of light lying in a soft arch over the town, she remembered the clean smell of his clothes, the tick of his watch, the panorama of lights in his eyes and his attentive silence to all the outpouring of her grief. She recalled, too, their quarrel, its tragically insignificant cause – a swift word or two, the Easter day beneath the damson-trees, and all her life of three, four and five years past.
The click-click of one of her husband’s feet against an iron fitting woke her from her remembrances. At the sound her anger woke too: anger against the meanness and pettiness of her existence, against the baker, the low, oppressive bake-house, against the long road ahead and against herself for having married him. She lashed the horse in her rage. It sprang forward as if shot. Her husband’s head sank lower on his breast with a groan. At the head of the hill a great mass of trees took them swiftly into its bosom. The ping of the lash on the horse’s flank gave her a sort of fierce joy, and they flew down the hill as Sinclair had flown up it in the morning. Her hair unloosed itself and blew across her eyes. She drove half-blindly. Stones lying in the road shot away as if terrified; and terror began to shine in her own eyes, too, and it seemed that nothing mattered except her anger and remorse.
Then, as they dashed and lurched across a great curve over the brook at the bottom, her husband moved his head and muttered:
‘What’s matter? What’s the matter? Careful! – upset the blasted lot, upset the blasted lot!’ He shrieked awfully, ‘Janet!’
She tried to steady the horse. What had he said? Upset them? The reins tightened in her hands. Upset them? Her anger, abating suddenly, left her with a clear, dispassionate view of what might have happened, a vision of his young, dead face, reproachful, pitiful even in its avariciousness, the blood pouring from his temples into his eyes which she had once imagined kind, drowning their light; and then she saw by contrast, steadily and without emotion, what must go on – that for perhaps another thirty, forty, or even fifty years she must live and work and care for the thing lying at her side.
And suddenly she wept, tears streamed down her face, and bending her head under the weight of her grief she began to drive slowly, the reins tight in her hands.
The Birthday
For three years Nicoll had been at the university. On coming home in the autumn of his last year he was invited and went to a birthday-party of his sister’s friend, where he found himself not only at a loss to explain why he had been invited but why the birthday should be kept at all. And as he looked down the table, which had been crowned by a cake bearing sixteen candles, he felt suddenly a faint,
superior disgust for all creatures who kept birthdays, for the twenty people assembled there and for the oblong sea of sickly coloured food stretching before him. And he thought only of how soon it would be possible to get away.
To make it worse, before the eating began there arose some difficulty about lighting the candles, there was a hubbub, and an unknown girl in a red dress got up and, after shouting his name, tossed back her jet hair and smiled at him. A little girl began to cry, an old man narrowly escaped burning his beard in the broken ring of flames and kept saying:
‘Irene, my dear, this is nothing to what it will be when you’re twenty-one!’
But Irene was not in the room and this saying became a joke to all but the man himself. A little old woman at Nicoll’s side, nearly submerged in shadows, kept chuckling to herself and declaring: ‘She’s like her mother,’ and not caring that no one agreed with her. Every one laughed and talked together. A little round-faced boy, with wonder-stricken eyes, blew out the matches when the candles had been lit, and then when the meal began, cried out, injured: ‘I can’t see to eat my jelly, I can’t see to eat anything!’
But no one heeded him, the noise increased and some one cried in astonishment:
‘She’s really sixteen!’
And another: ‘It doesn’t seem long since she was born! Sixteen!’
‘I can’t see to eat anything!’ complained the little boy.
‘My dear,’ said the old man, ‘this is nothing to what it will be when you’re twenty-one!’
And because Irene was still not in the room, every one laughed again. The table shook, the little boy banged his fists on his knees. Then suddenly, without warning, a candle fell from the cake, burnt a hole in the white cloth, and spluttered out.
A silence followed. Nicoll heard the old woman breathing as if her throat needed oiling and wondered why the quietness was so sombre and significant. And then, at that moment, the red-frocked girl cried out in dismay: ‘Oh, I say! That’s bad luck! That’s bad luck!’
The commotion, as if under the urge of this omen, became terrific and to Nicoll the room seemed hot, his head stifled and the spoon in his hand like a burning wire. Every one talked of the fallen candle, of Irene and what she would think. Some one shouted her name, but she did not come and the old woman in shadows muttered some excuse for her. Nicoll stared at a red pool of fruit on his plate, sick and depressed by the idea of night going on indefinitely. Again and again he wished it were all over, all the superstitious talk, the hot room and the candle-light which made the heads of the old men look like yellow cheeses. And at last it seemed he could bear it no longer.
Then Irene came in and, only half-noticed, lit two lamps at the other end of the room.
Nicoll sat watching her. As she blew out the taper and stood regarding her guests, the smoke swam up leisurely before her face and was reflected in her eyes. At that moment he could only think:
‘How tall she is!’
Then, as if step by step, he began ascending to other thoughts and impressions about her, and though not thinking consciously of her beauty, it seemed to him that in the hot noisy room her throat and arms gave out a coolness that transformed her into something singular and lovely. Under the lamp-glow her skin shone deep cream in colour. In her stillness she looked not only impressive but transient, too. And because of this Nicoll found that his boredom and the insufferable shallow chatter on all sides seemed to pass into forgetfulness. The unbearable atmosphere cast by the candles and the stagnant air of the room vanished as if blown away by a fresh wind and he was filled with a desire to whisper to her and ask her to answer him.
He fell into a long, dreamy contemplation about her, ate nothing, watched with joy every flicker that went across her face and was annoyed only when he heard the girl in red mouth in her ear: ‘A candle fell off the cake, Irene. It’s bad luck.’
He noticed she said nothing in return but began carrying away the empty fruit bowls with a serious, preoccupied air. She passed near him but did not smile and with every movement seemed to grow sadder and graver, as if in mourning for the irrecoverable year which the party celebrated.
Soon she vanished, the candles were one by one blown out by the ecstatic breath of the little boy. Pipes were lit, the old man coughed and hummed tunes, every one sighed. But Nicoll was conscious of nothing except that every few moments something beautiful passed and repassed him, making him glowing and sensitive.
‘You’d never dream she was sixteen,’ whispered the old woman. ‘She’s like her mother, too.’
‘Yes. And how tall she is,’ was all he answered.
But the old woman said nothing in return, and he sat in silence, watching the door where he expected Irene to come in.
He was invited to join some sort of game but refused, folded his hands over his knees and sat with an air of resignation. Then the door opened and a draught blew in various sounds. Among them he heard a voice calling ‘Irene, Irene!’ a sound of pattering feet, and some crockery set down.
The door was shut and for a long time never opened again. At his side the old woman grumbled in whispers about the chilly nights, the little boy talked to himself, and at Nicoll the girl in red would now and then smile. There was a song, he applauded unconsciously and noticed the men were playing whist in one corner. The door was opened. Irene’s mother came in. He was disappointed.
He began to wonder where the secret of her beauty lay. Then some one came in and said it was raining, and immediately he thought of the September dusk, the trees moving gently as if shrugging their dark shoulders against the falling dampness, and the ground drenched and hidden by leaves giving out fragrance. And just as it was impossible to say where the secret of that beauty lay he once more sat in contemplation about her.
Soon afterwards he suddenly went out. In the dark passage he heard her voice and, seeing light coming from under a door in a sharp streak, went in without waiting to discover who was there. He asked:
‘Will you give me a drink of water?’
Irene smiled and disappeared. As if in a dream he heard the glass filling fiercely and in the room behind voices mixed with the moan of a violin some one had just struck up. Irene seemed gone for a long time. When he saw her return it was with a sensation of fear, as if he expected her to dash the water into his face and wake him. Sagging drops still hung on the lip of the glass as she held it just under his face.
For a minute nothing happened and, as though listening to the violin, they each stood there with an air of anticipation. Then Nicoll took the glass and without drinking said to her:
‘It’s been very long since I saw you.’
Because his remark seemed foolish and mundane he gulped some of the water quickly, then stared at her, saw her murmur ‘Yes,’ and return his stare. He could say nothing.
‘It’s been five years,’ she said at last.
He found her voice quiet and that it went with the rest of her being as harmoniously as the colour of a flower with its plant and made her beauty singular and touching.
‘And you’re sixteen, to-day!’ he exclaimed. ‘I can’t imagine it. It’s not possible.’
‘That’s grandfather playing the violin,’ she said. ‘When you think of it, that seems just as silly, but it’s true.’
He laughed, held up the glass, saw pinkish, shadowy shapes swimming behind and in it and drank.
‘I ought to have wished you many happy returns long ago,’ he said.
She smiled as if in a flood of bewilderment, which he could not understand, and suddenly asked:
‘Is it true a candle fell off the cake? Is it? I wasn’t there. Is it true?’
‘Yes. It’s quite right,’ he replied. ‘It burnt a hole in the table-cloth, that’s all.’
‘It’s bad luck!’
‘Oh! that’s so silly. It doesn’t mean anything. You mustn’t take notice.’
‘No, no,’ she persisted. ‘It means something is going to happen to me. Perhaps I’m going—’
‘O
h! it’s all nonsense,’ he said. ‘It means nothing. It’s all nonsense, really.’
‘No. It means something,’ she repeated. ‘Why should it fall off, unless?’
He made no answer and all the time he was silent imagined she looked on him as a boy. He wanted to tell her this but dare not. In the room behind the violin ceased, a dreary silence fell, and in the silence a moth brushed noisily against the lamp. Another lay with wings pressed like death on the window. Nicoll heard it raining outside, the leaves whispering and somewhere a tap dripping.
‘I ought to go back,’ she said.
‘Not yet!’
She went to the lamp. By its light he saw her fingers tremble and asked:
‘What’s the matter, Irene?’
‘Nothing!’ she said; and then, ‘You’ve forgotten a candle fell off the cake. That means something.’
With three angry puffs she put the room in darkness. He groped about saying, ‘Where are you? Irene! Where are you?’ Then he heard the swish of her dress and a laugh. The next moment he ran his hands against the wall and then on to her breast. It so happened she was pinioned by his arms and looked up at him reproachfully. In contrast with the hardness of the wall behind, her neck seemed unearthly and soft. And without a word of warning he kissed her twice.
Nothing was said. The birthday party went on noisily behind them, Nicoll heard the rain, the tap dripping and a moth booming somewhere fiercely. He thought of the candle which had fallen from the cake, wondered if it betokened anything, and then felt her suddenly squeeze his hand, saw her run away and disappear through a flash of light at the other door.
Soon afterwards he followed her, the violin began again, whist by the men went on in the corner, he was ogled by the girl in red and saw that nothing in the room had changed.
He sought out Irene and watched her. But little by little her spiritual and fresh beauty seemed to undergo a change and no longer impress him. Suddenly, the talk, the laughter, the rain, the violin and the lights were changed too. The idea of beauty was itself transient. The thought of this and that Irene would never be sixteen again and appear to him as she had appeared in the dark kitchen, made him tired and sad, too.