by H. E. Bates
In a day or two she would no longer be able to bring the children up the lane in the evening. Before long she would be forced to move about quietly, to live through a horror of expectation, an oppression of fears, to deny herself, yet to appear calm and fearless, as if nothing were about to happen. She knew this with an unclouded understanding. For her it was an experience not to be dreaded because unprecedented, because unknown, but for the simple reason that it had happened to her before. She was aware so certainly what fears it brought, what remembrances, what agony, even the sounds, the silences – every detail, even the odours, even the attention of the nurse to her bodily needs.
Sometimes the thing more awful than all these, the inevitability of it all, made her cold with fear. It would be as if the night dew had fallen with unnatural heaviness on her alone, so that she felt cold in a world of sultry airs, of luxurious scents, of warm fruits and leaves. It became so that she was never deceived – that there were no illusions of miraculous escape from this new presence.
Dusk began to cover everything, like an oppressive, luxuriant bloom. The trees weighed down heavily beneath it, the grasses shone dimly with wetness. From a great distance came the sound of the wagons rumbling uphill. The reaper had ceased. Clouds with a dim amber light behind them had risen from beyond the hill, and in a little while the moon would be up.
She was very silent. Suddenly she recalled some words spoken to her long ago.
‘My little one, I promise you – no burdens, no troubles – only happiness.’
She remembered also the speaker’s face with the same clearness. It seemed that if she had said in return, ‘I promise you, I will keep a perfect image of you,’ she could not have been more faithful. Now it seemed to her changed: in those days it had been not merely a face but the embodiment of all her tenderest, most feminine ideals. She remembered not only this circumstance, but others when she had believed just so utterly in her husband’s kindness, his trust, his magnanimity, and when she had even, in this rapturous faith, invented for him fresh and more wonderful virtues.
And this was so no longer: she thought of him now as her husband, a being from whom she no longer expected promises and assurances.
Dusk kept falling about her, the trees hung like dark curtains against the sky. The heart of the evening gave up its sounds: the cries of her children, the rumble of wagons, sometimes the stir of leaves and the late voice of a grasshopper.
She began to whisper to herself, ‘No burdens, no troubles.’
She got no further. It seemed to her suddenly that both this thought and the promise which had given rise to it were futile and unnatural. Not all these wishes, she thought, could upset the inevitability of what was about to happen to her. Dreamily, as if she had begun to wander in her mind, she thought of the orchards she had passed in the lane, the damson-trees, the apples, the long ropes of pears, the plums she had seen in the grass.
The weight of these on the uncomplaining arms of the trees made her think slowly, ‘It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter.’
What was it that didn’t matter? she asked herself. She did not know. She bent her head on the gate.
Then, knowing how late it was, she aroused herself. The dusk had grown heavier and heavier. An orange light pervaded the east; minute by minute there were more stars.
She raised her voice and called her children. She thought that on no other night had she stayed so long.
‘It’s late! – quickly, quickly!’
Their indistinct figures seemed to move with terrible slowness across the darkened field. She remembered suddenly the things she must do before bedtime: little George had torn his shirt, a button had come off Edith’s chemise. She must see that each of the children washed themselves and ate something and went to bed.
Out of the gloom, with the ominous glow from the east spreading through it, she saw them coming slowly. She called half-frantically:
‘Quickly! Quickly! Where have you been?’
The excitement caused a pain in her side. For a moment she held herself quite still, watching the children advance just as before. She felt weak. Everything about her seemed heavy and still, a world unexpectedly overburdened with its own luxuriance and fruitfulness.
Suddenly the children paused not far off. Something showed white on the ground between them. It was the basket, she thought.
‘It’s too heavy!’ they called to her. ‘It’s full – we can’t carry it!’
She hurried to them and lifted the basket with its burden of wild apples, blackberries and mushrooms. The children seized her skirts, her free hand and the handle of the basket.
‘You carry it, Mother!’
Their voices fell loudly into the world of autumnal softness and gloom, disturbing echoes that ran from the heavy trees to the cornfields afar off. ‘You carry it, Mother, you carry it!’
The Barge
He leaned dejectedly over the high stern end of the barge, trying to accustom himself to the smell of smoke, tar and oil, to the desolate sky and the shadowy river-banks retreating slowly past, and to every fresh swerve of the churlish waters.
The long space from where the boy stood to where the nose of the barge tore sullenly through the water was a confusion of dark shapes, of hatches and buckets, all kinds of light and heavy gear, of ropes and a sort of deck-house, squat and awry, from which smoke was pouring. Now and then, from among these shapes, shadowy figures appeared and vanished again. And like the constant slapping of water against the sides, its faint wash on the clay banks, the bridge and the five or six massive tree-trunks chained floating behind; like the damp, white mists unfolding across the water, the distant curves of the cold stream, and the smell of something wet, oily and rotten, these figures were to the boy bewildering and strange.
Now and then, watching these men, he would wonder why they never noticed him. And the look of doubt, wonderment and fear which had settled on his face soon after the departure of the barge from the coaling-station, would become deeper.
It was autumn; the air was damp and melancholy, dew was falling like small, chill rain, and on the banks the rushes would make dry, dead sounds.
The boy shivered. And on shivering he thought that up in his village, behind the coaling-station, nuts were falling in the woods, blackberries and mushrooms were plentiful, and the orchards mellow and heavy.
And then, at that moment, the barge darkened, seemed to tear at the water with a louder hiss, and passed under a bridge. The boy was alarmed, sat down with a jerk and bending his head murmured aloud. The darkness, the noise and the sense of danger were terrifying. From the black arch of the bridge smoke poured down, reaching the water and up through the smoke, reflected in the blackness, shone the light of the barge.
Suddenly, as they passed from under the bridge, a voice exclaimed:
‘You’ll get over it!’
Somebody laughed and the boy, hearing this unexpected voice, stood up at once and tried to appear as if he were used to it, as if the damp, oily and rotten smell, the cold river and the noisy darkness under the bridge had all made no impression on him.
He glanced up. A black neckerchief, some hard, dark and sunken features, long lips and dirty red eyes, seemed to be very near him. And once again the voice drawled:
‘You’ll get over, yes, you will, soon enough.’
The boy stood still, watching how on all sides black, relentless waters separated him from the land.
Then he was suddenly asked: ‘Where did you come on? At Shetsoe?’
‘Yes, at Shetsoe,’ he replied.
‘What’d you come on for? Been on a barge before? First job? Ah! in twenty years you’ll get used to it. You won’t be so sick then. You’ll be sick enough though when you’ve gone up and down, day and night, for that time. Something to be sick for, then. Yes! Not frightened, are you?’
‘No, I ain’t frightened.’
‘What’s your father?’
‘He does odd jobs on the wharf. We live in the village. He got me
on here. He was glad to see the back of me.’
The black figure murmured and spat.
A silence fell. On the banks, far away, some lights appeared, danced and vanished.
Suddenly the figure moved away too, drawling: ‘You go below when you like. Plenty of time – plenty of time. You go and find out what it’s like first, down there.’
The boy nodded and, alone, kept telling himself that soon he would go down, look at the cabin and after that eat something and perhaps sleep. But he did not go, and looking out over the dark, unreflecting water, at the banks and the blurred shapes of willows, rushes and trees, tried to think of them all as a dream.
He would ask himself: ‘What river is this? My own, where my father worked?’ Yes, but it had changed, he would answer, it was the same no longer.
Three figures, talking and swearing in husky voices, came on deck. A little afterwards the boy stumbled forward and at the gangway stooped and went below.
Below a long, single cabin stretched, with walls varnished brown and hung with oilskins and jackets, pans, dirty rags and shirts. In the roof an oil-lamp swung, burning very low. First on one side, then another, and then on all sides, the harsh voice of the engine moaned and roared. The stench of oil, sour cooking, of spirits and smoke was here heavier, more sickening and more permanent, and now of the fresh, damp smell of the river there was no trace at all.
The boy sat down on an iron stool, looked at the bunks where he expected he must sleep and thought of nothing.
From above voices reached him. Though he could not tell what was said, it seemed he heard again the voice which had drawled:
‘You’ll get over it soon enough!’
At the sound of this voice he grew more dejected, and bending his head, felt stinging tears come. Where was he going? And on all the long, endless journeys up and down of the barge, what would he do?
He thought of lying down, but was not sleepy and only covered his face and sat still. Sometimes he fancied he heard the wind whining above.
Long afterwards he climbed the dark stairs, came out on deck and heard again with unmistakable clearness the voices of the men, the slap-slap of the river on all sides, and the melancholy noise of the wind across dark fields and water.
It began to rain. The wind whistled and struck the water like a flail. Two of the men, laughing and swearing, advanced and stumbled below. The boy, awed, had a fleeting notion that some day he would grow like them, become black and indifferent and cease to be sick without avail for something he could not tell.
As he crouched by the deck-house it seemed to him that he must be passing through that strange, desolate land of which he had dreamed in nightmares. He tried to comfort himself by thinking that here the sky, the wind and the clouds were the same as at home, in the village above the river. But all the time he felt they were not the same but had grown unfriendly and spiteful.
He shut his eyes against the rain. Soon afterwards, glancing up, he saw that down the river lights were twinkling. Shapes of a bridge, houses and a wharf had sprung out of the desolation. There reached him the barking of a dog.
And suddenly the desire to stop at this town or village, sleep, eat and then travel no more till daylight, filled him with a trembling desperation and pain. Astern only a cold blackness spread itself, but ahead were lights, houses and a wharf, and there too he fancied existed peace, comfort and warmth.
‘If we stop there!’ he thought. Suddenly he felt convinced of this, where before he had only longed for it.
Then conviction, longing and a fear of not stopping grew into confusion again.
The barge seemed doubly clumsy and slow. ‘Are we pulling in, are we moving?’ he asked. Only the dark banks, the willows and horizon gliding past showed that the barge was approaching the lights and would pass under the bridge.
Gradually, from a desolate, rainy darkness the barge drew from beneath the bridge into a darkness which, though rainy too, was split by lights and shapes, by silver drops, by dancing reflections and eddies on the black waters. In the shadow of the jetty strings of boats were moored and above the light, above everything, could be seen a church, like a shrouded mast, against the sky.
All these, too, began to glide past as the willows, the reedy banks and the horizon had done. The only difference seemed to be that they passed more stealthily, more steadily and inevitably, and, if possible, more soundlessly, too.
No one came on deck. The barge passed beyond the jetty, out of reach of first the reflections of the light, then the lights themselves, dragging its long burdens and itself with a swishing sound and a moan.
The lights vanished utterly. The boy became aware again of blackness on all sides and an unceasing advance into blackness; of a feeling of disappointment, then sadness, then despair; of recurring willows, bends and bleak meadows; and suddenly of a deep, unconquerable longing for the face of his father, who had been glad to get rid of him, the filthy cottage where he had quarrelled and slept with his brothers, the red woods with their falling nuts, and the village where all the streets were now in darkness, so unlike this, so unlike all others.
It seemed to grow colder. From below he caught the sound of voices. But to get up, go down and confront these faces he did not know but already hated seemed too much for him. Most of all he felt he could not face the figure who had drawled: ‘You’ll get over it!’
And he lay still. The rain beat steadily over his face, the barge and the black waters, and fell among the reeds, hissing. The wind whined down the river. And every now and then the barge would give a sudden and greater lurch forward, as if impatient to be nearer morning, daylight and the open sea.
The Lesson
Miss Stephens, the music mistress, had all day taken the strictest measures to preserve her self-control. For instance she acted slowly, frequently bit her lips and between the lessons ran from the room, hurriedly dabbed her eyes with wet finger-tips and then dried them with careful dabs of the towel. But the moment Miss Beam saw and reprimanded her this had to stop.
‘You really mustn’t scamper about between lessons, Miss Stephens, you really mustn’t!’
‘I’ve a headache,’ she excused herself.
‘Then calmness and self-control are the best things, not this running about!’
‘It’s annoying,’ Miss Stephens told herself on walking back. ‘I can’t tell whether the children sing A or A flat, I really can’t do it.’
Nevertheless she would frantically beat some sort of time while the children, with heads back and mouths gaping like suffering fish, sang songs and exercises to her as if she were a goddess.
‘A little higher!’ she would bawl above the din. ‘A little high-er! You’re not on the pitch. The pitch, now! … Stop!’
The chorus would cease raggedly.
‘It’s important,’ she would say. ‘It’s very important that you should open your mouths. Not only that, but open them in the correct way. Now sing “Ah!”’
‘A-a-a-a-h!’ sang the children.
‘Now oooh!’
‘O-o-o-o-h,’ boomed the children.
She cut them off abruptly.
‘The mouth must be rounded in the right way. Don’t sing through your teeth. That’s as bad as singing in prison! You must have freedom. Now once more, “Ah!”’
‘A-a-a-a-h!’
‘Stop! There’s no freedom. You’re not in prison. Open wide!’
Thus it had gone on all the morning.
Now, after what seemed an eternity, afternoon had come. Long panels of light lay sleepily across the floor of the room, and into the thick summer air the children’s voices soared in dreamy tones. Miss Stephens beat time with a little black baton that was like a bird bobbing up and down in mockery. With her other hand she did nothing and it lay in the left-hand pocket of her skirt as if the wrist were sprained.
Even when she beat frenziedly at the faces of the children and yelled ‘Higher! there’s still no freedom!’ the other hand remained utterly still and invisibl
e.
But in the drowsiness no one seemed to see it. As if it were too much to notice moving things like the baton, let alone the still ones, some of the children sang with eyes shut. But she let them go on without reprimand. Sometimes she even forgot they were singing to her and everything suddenly became of the substance and significance of a dream, in which it seemed she was a witch stirring mobs of spirits to madness. She actually imagined she saw them begin a caper, but everything went drowsy again, the faces of the children seemed to shimmer like under great heat and she could think of nothing to do but bawl:
‘Higher! more freedom!’ and gesticulate furiously with one hand while the other lay out of sight and still.
At the end of the lessons she no longer bathed her eyes but sat dreamily near the piano, where she drew out her left hand and began to read the note it held. As it flashed a reflection in the dark surface of the piano flank she tried to invest it all with fresh meaning.
The note was hard, its firmly constructed sentences she read in a dazed way: ‘I’m sure you would not wish me to continue a deception which for some time past has been painful to me. I no longer love you. If there is anything you think I could do at any time …’
The letters seemed to shiver from their own coldness and in the polished darkness of the piano the reflections went absolutely still. Some one came in and said, ‘Miss Stephens, I want “Blow, blow thou winter wind!”’ but on getting no answer within a minute went away again. She seemed to shrink into an infinitely small heap even at the thought of being asked to move.
‘A deception painful to me,’ rang in her mind.
And she did not move. At one of the windows a sparrow tapped, spoilt her composure and set her thinking. She remembered the years she had known him, the day when he had first said ‘I promise, on my honour, I love no one else,’ and running a finger-nail down the parting of her hair had called her Anthea, then Daphne, which she liked more and thought in keeping with her tall figure.