“Yes,” George replied. “Good night” — and he turned away. She stood for a moment in the same drooping, graceful attitude watching him, then she turned round slowly. She seemed hardly to notice Leslie.
“Who was that you were talking to?” he asked.
“He has gone now,” she replied irrelevantly, as if even then she seemed hardly to realise it.
“It appears to upset you — his going — who is it?”
“He! — Oh — why, it’s George Saxton.”
“Oh, him!”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“Eh? What did he want? Oh, nothing.”
“A mere trysting — in the interim, eh!” he said this laughing, generously passing off his annoyance in a jest.
“I feel so sorry,” she said.
“What for?”
“Oh — don’t let us talk about him — talk about something else. I can’t bear to talk about — him.”
“All right,” he replied — and after an awkward little pause, “What sort of a time had you in Nottingham?”
“Oh, a fine time.”
“You’ll enjoy yourself in the shops between now and — July. Some time I’ll go with you and see them.”
“Very well.”
“That sounds as if you don’t want me to go. Am I already in the way on a shopping expedition, like an old husband?”
“I should think you would be.”
“That’s nice of you! Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Yes you do.”
“Oh, I suppose you’d hang about.”
“I’m much too well brought up.”
“Rebecca has lighted the hall lamp.”
“Yes, it’s grown quite dark. I was here early. You never gave me a good word for it.”
“I didn’t notice. There’s a light in the dining-room, we’ll go there.”
They went into the dining-room. She stood by the piano and carefully took off the wrap. Then she wandered listlessly about the room for a minute.
“Aren’t you coming to sit down?” he said, pointing to the seat on the couch beside him.
“Not just now,” she said, trailing aimlessly to the piano. She sat down and began to play at random, from memory. Then she did that most irritating thing — played accompaniments to songs, with snatches of the air where the voice should have predominated.
“I say Lettie...” he interrupted after a time.
“Yes,” she replied, continuing to play.
“It’s not very interesting...”
“No?” — she continued to play.
“Nor very amusing...”
She did not answer. He bore it for a little time longer, then he said:
“How much longer is it going to last, Lettie?”
“What?”
“That sort of business...”
“The piano? — I’ll stop playing if you don’t like it.” She did not, however, cease.
“Yes — and all this dry business.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you? — you make me.”
There she went on, tinkling away at “If I built a world for you, dear”.
“I say, stop it, do!” he cried.
She tinkled to the end of the verse, and very slowly closed the piano.
“Come on — come and sit down,” he said.
“No, I don’t want to — I’d rather have gone on playing.”
“Go on with your damned playing then, and I’ll go where there’s more interest.”
“You ought to like it.”
He did not answer, so she turned slowly round on the stool, opened the piano, and laid her fingers on the keys. At the sound of the chord he started up, saying: “Then I’m going.”
“‘t’s very early — why?” she said, through the calm jingle of “Meine Ruh is hin — ”
He stood biting his lips. Then he made one more appeal. “Lettie!”
“Yes?”
“Aren’t you going to leave off — and be — amiable?”
“Amiable?”
“You are a jolly torment. What’s upset you now?”
“Nay, it’s not I who am upset.”
“I’m glad to hear it — what do you call yourself?”
“I? — nothing.”
“Oh, well, I’m going then.”
“Must you? — so early tonight?”
He did not go, and she played more and more softly, languidly, aimlessly. Once she lifted her head to speak, but did not say anything.
“Look here!” he ejaculated all at once, so that she started, and jarred the piano, “What do you mean by it?”
She jingled leisurely a few seconds before answering, then she replied:
“What a worry you are!”
“I suppose you want me out of the way while you sentimentalise over that milkman. You needn’t bother. You can do it while I’m here. Or I’ll go and leave you in peace. I’ll go and call him back for you, if you like — if that’s what you want — ”
She turned on the piano stool slowly and looked at him, smiling faintly.
“It is very good of you!” she said.
He clenched his fists and grinned with rage.
“You tantalising little — ” he began, lifting his fists expressively. She smiled. Then he swung round, knocked several hats flying off the stand in the hall, slammed the door, and was gone.
Lettie continued to play for some time, after which she went up to her own room.
Leslie did not return to us the next day, nor the day after. The first day Marie came and told us he had gone away to Yorkshire to see about the new mines that were being sunk there, and was likely to be absent for a week or so. These business visits to the north were rather frequent. The firm, of which Mr Tempest was director and chief shareholder, were opening important new mines in the other county, as the seams at home were becoming exhausted or unprofitable. It was proposed that Leslie should live in Yorkshire when he was married, to superintend the new workings. He at first rejected the idea, but he seemed later to approve of it more.
During the time he was away Lettie was moody and cross-tempered. She did not mention George nor the mill; indeed, she preserved her best, most haughty and ladylike manner.
On the evening of the fourth day of Leslie’s absence we were out in the garden. The trees were “uttering joyous leaves”. My mother was in the midst of her garden, lifting the dusky faces of the auriculas to look at the velvet lips, or tenderly taking a young weed from the black soil. The thrushes were calling and clamouring all round. The japonica flamed on the wall as the light grew thicker; the tassels of white cherry-blossom swung gently in the breeze.
“What shall I do, Mother?” said Lettie, as she wandered across the grass to pick at the japonica flowers. “What shall I do? There’s nothing to do.”
“Well, my girl — what do you want to do? You have been moping about all day — go and see somebody.”
“It’s such a long way to Eberwich.”
“Is it? Then go somewhere nearer.”
Lettie fretted about with restless, petulant indecision.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said, “And I feel as if I might just as well never have lived at all as waste days like this. I wish we weren’t buried in this dead little hole — I wish we were near the town — it’s hateful having to depend on about two or three folk for your — your — your pleasure in life.”
“I can’t help it, my dear — you must do something for yourself.”
“And what can I do? — I can do nothing.”
“Then I’d go to bed.”
“That I won’t — with the dead weight of a wasted day on me. I feel as if I’d do something desperate.”
“Very well, then,” said Mother, “do it, and have done.”
“Oh, it’s no good talking to you — I don’t want — ” She turned away, went to the laurestinus, and began pulling off it the long red berries. I expected
she would fret the evening wastefully away. I noticed all at once that she stood still. It was the noise of a motor-car running rapidly down the hill towards Nethermere — a light, quick-clicking sound. I listened also. I could feel the swinging drop of the car as it came down the leaps of the hill. We could see the dust trail up among the trees. Lettie raised her head and listened expectantly. The car rushed along the edge of Nethermere — then there was the jar of brakes, as the machine slowed down and stopped. In a moment with a quick flutter of sound, it was passing the lodge gates and whirling up the drive, through the wood, to us. Lettie stood with flushed cheeks and brightened eyes. She went towards the bushes that shut off the lawn from the gravelled space in front of the house, watching. A car came racing through the trees. It was the small car Leslie used on the firm’s business — now it was white with dust. Leslie suddenly put on the brakes, and tore to a standstill in front of the house. He stepped to the ground. There he staggered a little, being giddy and cramped with the long drive. His motor-jacket and cap were thick with dust.
Lettie called to him, “Leslie!” — and flew down to him. He took her into his arms, and clouds of dust rose round her. He kissed her, and they stood perfectly still for a moment. She looked up into his face — then she disengaged her arms to take off his disfiguring motor-spectacles. After she had looked at him a moment, tenderly, she kissed him again. He loosened his hold of her, and she said, in a voice full of tenderness:
“You are trembling, dear.”
“It’s the ride. I’ve never stopped.”
Without further words she took him into the house.
“How pale you are — see, lie on the couch — never mind the dust. All right, I’ll find you a coat of Cyril’s. Oh, Mother, he’s come all those miles in the car without stopping — make him lie down.”
She ran and brought him a jacket, and put the cushions round, and made him lie on the couch. Then she took off his boots and put slippers on his feet. He lay watching her all the time; he was white with fatigue and excitement.
“I wonder if I shall be had up for scorching — I can feel the road coming at me yet,” he said.
“Why were you so headlong?”
“I felt as if I should go wild if I didn’t come — if I didn’t rush. I didn’t know how you might have taken me, Lettie when I said — what I did.”
She smiled gently at him, and he lay resting, recovering, looking at her.
“It’s a wonder I haven’t done something desperate — I’ve been half mad since I said — Oh, Lettie, I was a damned fool and a wretch — I could have torn myself in two. I’ve done nothing but curse and rage at myself ever since. I feel as if I’d just come up out of hell. You don’t know how thankful I am, Lettie, that you’ve not — oh — turned against me for what I said.”
She went to him and sat down by him, smoothing his hair from his forehead, kissing him, her attitude tender, suggesting tears, her movements impulsive, as if with a self-reproach she would not acknowledge, but which she must silence with lavish tenderness. He drew her to him, and they remained quiet for some time, till it grew dark.
The noise of my mother stirring in the next room disturbed them. Lettie rose, and he also got up from the couch.
“I suppose,” he said, “I shall have to go home and get bathed and dressed — though,” he added in tones which made it clear he did not want to go, “I shall have to get back in the morning — I don’t know what they’ll say.”
“At any rate,” she said, “You could wash here — ”
“But I must get out of these clothes — and I want a bath.”
“You could — you might have some of Cyril’s clothes — and the water’s hot. I know. At all events, you can stay to supper — ”
“If I’m going I shall have to go soon — or they’d not like it, if I go in late; — they have no idea I’ve come; — they don’t expect me till next Monday or Tuesday — ”
“Perhaps you could stay here — and they needn’t know.” They looked at each other with wide, smiling eyes — like children on the brink of a stolen pleasure.
“Oh, but what would your mother think! — no, I’ll go.”
“She won’t mind a bit.”
“Oh, but — ”
“I’ll ask her.”
He wanted to stay far more than she wished it, so it was she who put down his opposition and triumphed.
My mother lifted her eyebrows, and said very quietly: “He’d better go home — and be straight.”
“But look how he’d feel — he’d have to tell them...and how would he feel! It’s really my fault, in the end. Don’t be piggling and mean and Grundyish, Matouchka.”
“It is neither meanness nor Grundyishness — ”
“Oh, Ydgrun, Ydgrun — !” exclaimed Lettie, ironically. “He may certainly stay if he likes,” said Mother, slightly nettled at Lettie’s gibe.
“All right, Mutterchen — and be a sweetling, do!”
Lettie went out a little impatient at my mother’s unwillingness, but Leslie stayed, nevertheless.
In a few moments Lettie was up in the spare bedroom, arranging and adorning, and Rebecca was running with hot-water bottles, and hurrying down with clean bedclothes. Lettie hastily appropriated my best brushes — which she had given me — and took the suit of pyjamas of the thinnest, finest flannel and discovered a new tooth-brush — and made selections from my shirts and handkerchiefs and underclothing — and directed me which suit to lend him. Altogether I was astonished, and perhaps a trifle annoyed, at her extraordinary thoughtfulness and solicitude.
He came down to supper, bathed, brushed, and radiant. He ate heartily and seemed to emanate a warmth of physical comfort and pleasure. The colour was flushed again into his face, and he carried his body with the old independent, assertive air. I have never known the time when he looked handsomer, when he was more attractive. There was a certain warmth about him, a certain glow that enhanced his words, his laughter, his movements; he was the predominant person, and we felt a pleasure in his mere proximity. My mother, however, could not quite get rid of her stiffness, and soon after supper she rose, saying she would finish her letter in the next room, bidding him good-night, as she would probably not see him again. The cloud of this little coolness was the thinnest and most transitory. He talked and laughed more gaily than ever, and was ostentatious in his movements, throwing back his head, taking little attitudes which displayed the broad firmness of his breast, the grace of his well-trained physique. I left them at the piano; he was sitting pretending to play, and looking up all the while at her, who stood with her hand on his shoulder.
In the morning he was up early, by six o’clock downstairs and attending to the car. When I got down I found him very busy, and very quiet.
“I know I’m a beastly nuisance,” he said, “but I must get off early.”
Rebecca came and prepared breakfast, which we two ate alone. He was remarkably dull and wordless.
“It’s a wonder Lettie hasn’t got up to have breakfast with you — she’s such a one for raving about the perfection of the early morning — its purity and promises and so forth,” I said.
He broke his bread nervously, and drank some coffee as if he were agitated, making noises in his throat as he swallowed.
“It’s too early for her, I should think,” he replied, wiping his moustache hurriedly. Yet he seemed to listen for her. Lettie’s bedroom was over the study, where Rebecca had laid breakfast, and he listened now and again, holding his knife and fork suspended in their action. Then he went on with his meal again.
When he was laying down his serviette, the door opened. He pulled himself together, and turned round sharply. It was Mother. When she spoke to him, his face twitched with a little frown, half of relief, half of disappointment.
“I must be going now,” he said — ”thank you very much — Mother.”
“You are a harum-scarum boy. I wonder why Lettie doesn’t come down. I know she is up.”
“Yes,” h
e replied. “Yes, I’ve heard her. Perhaps she is dressing. I must get off.”
“I’ll call her.”
“No — don’t bother her — she’d come if she wanted — ”
But Mother had called from the foot of the stairs. “Lettie, Lettie — he’s going.”
“All right,” said Lettie, and in another minute she came downstairs. She was dressed in dark, severe stuff, and she was somewhat pale. She did not look at any of us, but turned her eyes aside.
“Good-bye,” she said to him, offering him her cheek. He kissed her, murmuring, “Good-bye — my love.”
He stood in the doorway a moment, looking at her with beseeching eyes. She kept her face half averted, and would not look at him, but stood pale and cold, biting her under-lip. He turned sharply away with a motion of keen disappointment, set the engines of the car into action, mounted, and drove quickly away.
Lettie stood pale and inscrutable for some moments. Then she went in to breakfast and sat toying with her food, keeping her head bent down, her face hidden.
In less than an hour he was back again, saying he had left something behind. He ran upstairs, and then, hesitating, went into the room where Lettie was still sitting at table. “I had to come back,” he said.
She lifted her face towards him, but kept her eyes averted, looking out of the window. She was flushed.
“What had you forgotten?” she asked.
“I’d left my cigarette-case,” he replied.
There was an awkward silence.
“But I shall have to be getting off,” he added.
“Yes, I suppose you will,” she replied.
After another pause, he asked:
“Won’t you just walk down the path with me?”
She rose without answering. He took a shawl and put it round her carefully. She merely allowed him. They walked in silence down the garden.
“You — are you — are you angry with me?” he faltered. Tears suddenly came to her eyes.
“What did you come back for?” she said, averting her face from him. He looked at her.
“I knew you were angry and — ” he hesitated.
“Why didn’t you go away?” she said impulsively. He hung his head and was silent.
“I don’t see why — why it should make trouble between us, Lettie,” he faltered. She made a swift gesture of repulsion, whereupon, catching sight of her hand, she hid it swiftly against her skirt again.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 21