We dined one evening at Highclose with the Tempests. It was dull as usual, and we left before ten o’clock. Lettie had changed her shoes and put on a fine cloak of greenish blue. We walked over the frost-bound road. The ice on Nethermere gleamed mysteriously in the moonlight, and uttered strange, half-audible whoops and yelps. The moon was very high in the sky, small and brilliant like a vial full of the pure white liquid of light. There was no sound in the night save the haunting movement of the ice, and the clear twinkle of Lettie’s laughter.
On the drive leading to the wood we saw someone approaching. The wild grass was grey on either side, the thorn trees stood with shaggy black beards sweeping down, the pine trees were erect like dark soldiers. The black shape of the man drew near, with a shadow running at its feet. I recognised George, obscured as he was in his cap and his upturned collar. Lettie was in front with her husband. As George was passing, she said, in bright clear tones:
“A Happy New Year to you.”
He stopped, swung round, and laughed.
“I thought you wouldn’t have known me,” he said.
“What, is it you, George?” cried Lettie in great surprise — ”Now, what a joke! How are you?” — she put our her white hand from her draperies. He took it, and answered, “I am very well — and you — ?” However meaningless the words were, the tone was curiously friendly, intimate, informal.
“As you see,” she replied, laughing, interested in his attitude — ”but where are you going?”
“I am going home,” he answered, in a voice that meant “have you forgotten that I too am married”?
“Oh, of course!” cried Lettie. “You are now mine host of the Ram. You must tell me about it. May I ask him to come home with us for an hour, Mother? — It is New Year’s Eve, you know.”
“You have asked him already,” laughed Mother.
“Will Mrs Saxton spare you for so long?” asked Lettie of George.
“Meg? Oh, she does not order my comings and goings.”
“Does she not?” laughed Lettie. “She is very unwise. Train up a husband in the way he should go, and in after life — I never could quote a text from end to end. I am full of beginnings, but as for a finish — — -! Leslie, my shoe-lace is untied — shall I wait till I can put my foot on the fence?”
Leslie knelt down at her feet. She shook the hood back from her head, and her ornaments sparkled in the moonlight. Her face with its whiteness and its shadows was full of fascination, and in their dark recesses her eyes thrilled George with hidden magic. She smiled at him along her cheeks while her husband crouched before her. Then, as the three walked along towards the wood she flung her draperies into loose eloquence and there was a glimpse of her bosom white with the moon. She laughed and chattered, and shook her silken stuffs, sending out a perfume exquisite on the frosted air. When we reached the house Lettie dropped her draperies and rustled into the drawing-room. There the lamp was low-lit, shedding a yellow twilight from the window space. Lettie stood between the firelight and the dusky lamp-glow, tall and warm between the lights. As she turned laughing to the two men, she let her cloak slide over her white shoulder and fall with silk splendour of a peacock’s gorgeous blue over the arm of the large settee. There she stood, with her white hand upon the peacock of her cloak, where it tumbled against her dull orange dress. She knew her own splendour, and she drew up her throat laughing and brilliant with triumph. Then she raised both her arms to her head and remained for a moment delicately touching her hair into order, still fronting the two men. Then with a final little laugh she moved slowly and turned up the lamp, dispelling some of the witchcraft from the room. She had developed strangely in six months. She seemed to have discovered the wonderful charm of her womanhood. As she leaned forward with her arm outstretched to the lamp, as she delicately adjusted the wicks with mysterious fingers, she seemed to be moving in some alluring figure of a dance, her hair like a nimbus clouding the light, her bosom lit with wonder. The soft outstretching of her hand was like the whispering of strange words into the blood, and as she fingered a book the heart watched silently for the meaning.
“Won’t you take off my shoes, darling?” she said, sinking among the cushions of the settee. Leslie kneeled again before her, and she bent her head and watched him.
“My feet are a tiny bit cold,” she said plaintively, giving him her foot, that seemed like gold in the yellow silk stocking. He took it between his hands, stroking it.
“It is quite cold,” he said, and he held both her feet in his hands.
“Ah, you dear boy!” she cried with sudden gentleness, bending forward and touching his cheek.
“Is it great fun being mine host of ‘Ye Ramme Inne’!” she said playfully to George. There seemed a long distance between them now as she sat, with the man in evening dress crouching before her putting golden shoes on her feet.
“It is rather,” he replied, “the men in the smoke-room say such rum things. My word, you hear some tales there.”
“Tell us, do!” she pleaded.
“Oh! I couldn’t. I never could tell a tale, and even if I could — well — ”
“But I do long to hear,” she said, “what the men say in the smoke-room of ‘Ye Ramme Inne’. Is it quite untellable?”
“Quite!” he laughed.
“What a pity! See what a cruel thing it is to be a woman, Leslie: we never know what men say in smoke-rooms, while you read in your novels everything a woman ever uttered. It is a shame! George, you are a wretch, you should tell me. I do envy you — ”
“What do you envy me, exactly?” he asked, laughing always at her whimsical way.
“Your smoke-room. The way you see life — or the way you hear it, rather.”
“But I should have thought you saw life ten times more than me,” he replied.
“I! I only see manners — good manners and bad manners. You know ‘manners maketh a man’. That’s when a woman’s there. But you wait a while, you’ll see.”
“When shall I see?” asked George, flattered and interested.
“When you have made the fortune you talked about,” she replied.
He was uplifted by her remembering the things he had said.
“But when I have made it — when!” — he said sceptically — ”even then — well, I shall only be, or have been, landlord of ‘Ye Ramme Inne’.” He looked at her, waiting for her to lift up his hopes with her gay balloons.
“Oh, that doesn’t matter! Leslie might be landlord of some ‘Ram Inn’ when he’s at home, for all anybody would know — mightn’t you, hubby, dear?”
“Thanks!” replied Leslie, with good-humoured sarcasm.
“You can’t tell a publican from a peer, if he’s a rich publican,” she continued. “Money maketh the man, you know.”
“Plus manners,” added George, laughing.
“Oh, they are always There — where I am. I give you ten years. At the end of that time you must invite us to your swell place — say the Hall at Eberwich — and we will come — ’with all our numerous array’.”
She sat among her cushions smiling upon him. She was half ironical, half sincere. He smiled back at her, his dark eyes full of trembling hope, and pleasure, and pride.
“How is Meg?” she asked. “Is she as charming as ever — or have you spoiled her?”
“Oh, she is as charming as ever,” he replied. “And we are tremendously fond of one another.”
“That is right! — I do think men are delightful,” she added, smiling.
“I am glad you think so,” he laughed.
They talked on brightly about a thousand things. She touched on Paris, and pictures, and new music, with her quick chatter, sounding to George wonderful in her culture and facility. And at last he said he must go.
“Not until you have eaten a biscuit and drunk good luck with me,” she cried, catching her dress about her like a dim flame and running out of the room. We all drank to the New Year in the cold champagne.
“To the Vita Nuova
!” said Lettie, and we drank, smiling. “Hark!” said George, “the hooters.”
We stood still and listened. There was a faint booing noise far away outside. It was midnight. Lettie caught up a wrap and we went to the door. The wood, the ice, the grey dim hills lay frozen in the light of the moon. But outside the valley, far away in Derbyshire, away towards Nottingham, on every hand the distant hooters and buzzers of mines and ironworks crowed small on the borders of the night, like so many strange, low voices of cockerels bursting forth at different pitch, with different tone, warning us of the dawn of the New Year.
CHAPTER III
THE FIRST PAGES OF SEVERAL ROMANCES
I found a good deal of difference in Leslie since his marriage. He had lost his assertive self-confidence. He no longer pronounced emphatically and ultimately on every subject, nor did he seek to dominate, as he had always done, the company in which he found himself. I was surprised to see him so courteous and attentive to George. He moved unobtrusively about the room while Lettie was chattering, and in his demeanour there was a new reserve, a gentleness and grace. It was charming to see him offering the cigarettes to George, or, with beautiful tact, asking with his eyes only whether he should refill the glass of his guest, and afterward replacing it softly close to the other’s hand.
To Lettie he was unfailingly attentive, courteous, and undemonstrative.
Towards the end of my holiday he had to go to London on business, and we agreed to take the journey together. We must leave Woodside soon after eight o’clock in the morning. Lettie and he had separate rooms. I thought she would not have risen to take breakfast with us, but at a quarter-past seven, just as Rebecca was bringing in the coffee, she came downstairs. She wore a blue morning-gown, and her hair was as beautifully dressed as usual.
“Why, my darling, you shouldn’t have troubled to come down so early,” said Leslie, as he kissed her.
“Of course, I should come down,” she replied, lifting back the heavy curtains and looking out on the snow where the darkness was wilting into daylight. “I should not let you go away into the cold without having seen you take a good breakfast. I think it is thawing. The snow on the rhododendrons looks sodden and drooping. Ah, well, we can keep out the dismal of the morning for another hour.” She glanced at the clock — ”just an hour!” she added. He turned to her with a swift tenderness. She smiled to him, and sat down at the coffee-maker. We took our places at table.
“I think I shall come back tonight,” he said quietly, almost appealingly.
She watched the flow of the coffee before she answered. Then the brass urn swung back, and she lifted her face to hand him the cup.
“You will not do anything so foolish, Leslie,” she said calmly. He took his cup, thanking her, and bent his face over the fragrant steam.
“I can easily catch the 7.15 from St Pancras,” he replied, without looking up.
“Have I sweetened to your liking Cyril?” she asked, and then, as she stirred her coffee she added, “It is ridiculous, Leslie! You catch the 7.15 and very probably miss the connection at Nottingham. You can’t have the motor-car there, because of the roads. Besides, it is absurd to come toiling home in the cold slushy night when you can just as well stay in London and be comfortable.”
“At any rate I should get the 10.30 down to Lawton Hill,” he urged.
“But there is no need,” she replied, “there is not the faintest need for you to come home tonight. It is really absurd of you. Think of all the discomfort! Indeed I should not want to come trailing dismally home at midnight, I should not indeed. You would be simply wretched. Stay and have a jolly evening with Cyril.”
He kept his head bent over his plate and did not reply. His persistence irritated her slightly.
“That is what you can do!” she said. “Go to the pantomime. Or wait — go to Maeterlinck’s ‘Blue Bird’. I am sure that is on somewhere. I wonder if Rebecca has destroyed yesterday’s paper. Do you mind touching the bell, Cyril?” Rebecca came, and the paper was discovered. Lettie carefully read the notices, and planned for us with zest a delightful programme for the evening. Leslie listened to it all in silence.
When the time had come for our departure Lettie came with us into the hall to see that we were well wrapped up. Leslie had spoken very few words. She was conscious that he, was deeply offended, but her manner was quite calm, and she petted us both brightly.
“Good-bye dear!” she said to him, when he came mutely to kiss her. “You know it would have been miserable for you to sit all those hours in the train at night. You will have ever such a jolly time. I know you will. I shall look for you tomorrow. Good-bye, then, good-bye!”
He went down the steps and into the car without looking at her. She waited in the doorway as we moved round. In the black-grey morning she seemed to harbour the glittering blue sky and the sunshine of March in her dress and her luxuriant hair. He did not look at her till we were curving to the great, snow-cumbered rhododendrons, when, at the last moment he stood up in a sudden panic to wave to her. Almost as he saw her the bushes came between them and he dropped dejectedly into his seat.
“Good-bye!” we heard her call cheerfully and tenderly like a blackbird.
“Good-bye!” I answered, and: “Good-bye Darling, goodbye!” he cried, suddenly starting up in a passion of forgiveness and tenderness.
The car went cautiously down the soddened white path, under the trees.
I suffered acutely the sickness of exile in Norwood. For weeks I wandered the streets of the suburb, haunted by the spirit of some part of Nethermere. As I went along the quiet roads where the lamps in yellow loneliness stood among the leafless trees of the night I would feel the feeling of the dark, wet bit of path between the wood meadow and the brooks. The spirit of that wild little slope to the Mill would come upon me, and there in the suburb of London I would walk wrapt in the sense of a small wet place in the valley of Nethermere. A strange voice within me rose and called for the hill path; again I could feel the wood waiting for me, calling and calling, and I crying for the wood, yet the space of many miles was between us. Since I left the valley of home I have not much feared any other loss. The hills of Nethermere had been my walls, and the sky of Nethermere my roof overhead. It seemed almost as if, at home, I might lift my hand to the ceiling of the valley, and touch my own beloved sky, whose familiar clouds came again and again to visit me, whose stars were constant to me, born when I was born, whose sun had been all my father to me. But now the skies were strange over my head, and Orion walked past me unnoticing, he who night after night had stood over the woods to spend with me a wonderful hour. When does day now lift up the confines of my dwelling place, when does the night throw open her vastness for me, and send me the stars for company? There is no night in a city. How can I lose myself in the magnificent forest of darkness when night is only a thin scattering of the trees of shadow with barrenness of lights between!
I could never lift my eyes save to the Crystal Palace, crouching, cowering wretchedly among the yellow-grey clouds, pricking up its two round towers like pillars of anxious misery. No landmark could have been more foreign to me, more depressing, than the great dilapidated palace which lay for ever prostrate above us, fretting because of its own degradation and ruin.
I watched the buds coming on the brown almond trees; I heard the blackbirds, and saw the restless starlings; in the streets were many heaps of violets, and men held forward to me snowdrops whose white mute lips were pushed upwards in a bunch: but these things had no meaning for me, and little interest.
Most eagerly I waited for my letters. Emily wrote to me very constantly:
“Don’t you find it quite exhilarating, almost intoxicating, to be so free? I think it is quite wonderful. At home you cannot live your own life. You have to struggle to keep even a little apart for yourself. It is so hard to stand aloof from our mothers, and yet they are only hurt and insulted if you tell them what is in your heart. It is such a relief not to have to be anything to anybody, bu
t just to please yourself. I am sure Mother and I have suffered a great deal from trying to keep up our old relations. Yet she would not let me go. When I come home in the evening and think that I needn’t say anything to anybody, nor do anything for anybody, but just have the evening for myself, I am overjoyed.
“I have begun to write a story — ”
Again, a little later, she wrote:
“As I go to school by Old Brayford village in the morning the birds are thrilling wonderfully and everything seems stirring. Very likely there will be a set-back, and after that spring will come in truth.
“When shall you come and see me? I cannot think of a spring without you. The railways are the only fine exciting things here — one is only a few yards away from school. All day long I am watching the great Midland trains go south. They are very lucky to be able to rush southward through the sunshine.
“The crows are very interesting. They flap past all the time we’re out in the yard. The railways and the crows make the charm of my life in Brayford. The other day I saw no end of pairs of crows. Do you remember what they say at home? — ’One for sorrow.’ Very often one solitary creature sits on the telegraph wires. I almost hate him when I look at him. I think my badge for life ought to be — one crow — ”
Again, a little later:
“I have been home for the week-end. Isn’t it nice to be made much of, to be an important cherished person for a little time? It is quite a new experience for me.
“The snowdrops are full out among the grass in the front garden — and such a lot. I imagined you must come in the sunshine of the Sunday afternoon to see them. It did not seem possible you should not. The winter aconites are out along the hedge. I knelt and kissed them. I have been so glad to go away, to breathe the free air of life, but I felt as if I could not come away from the aconites. I have sent you some — are they much withered?
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 31