“My little girl!” he answered. Then he continued, “And you know, I couldn’t endure complete darkness, I couldn’t. It’s the solitariness.”
“You mustn’t talk like this,” she said. “You know you mustn’t.” She put her hand on his head and ran her fingers through the hair he had so ruffled.
“It is as thick as ever, your hair,” she said.
He did not answer, but kept his face bent out of sight. She rose from her seat and stood at the back of his low armchair. Taking an amber comb from her hair, she bent over him, and with the translucent comb and her white fingers she busied herself with his hair.
“I believe you would have a parting,” she said softly.
He laughed shortly at her playfulness. She continued combing, just touching, pressing the strands in place with the tips of her fingers.
“I was only a warmth to you,” he said, pursuing the same train of thought. “So you could do without me. But you were like the light to me, and otherwise it was dark and aimless. Aimlessness is horrible.”
She had finally smoothed his hair, so she lifted her hands and put back her head.
“There!” she said. “It looks fair fine, as Alice would say. Raven’s wings are raggy in comparison.”
He did not pay any attention to her.
“Aren’t you going to look at yourself?” she said, playfully reproachful. She put her finger-tips under his chin. He lifted his head and they looked at each other, she smiling, trying to make him play, he smiling with his lips, but not with eyes, dark with pain.
“We can’t go on like this, Lettie, can we?” he said softly. “Yes,” she answered him, “Yes; why not?”
“It can’t!” he said, “it can’t, I couldn’t keep it up, Lettie.”
“But don’t think about it,” she answered. “Don’t think of it.”
“Lettie,” he said. “I have to set my teeth with loneliness.”
“Hush!” she said. “No! There are the children. Don’t say anything — do not be serious, will you?”
“No, there are the children,” he replied, smiling dimly.
“Yes! Hush now! Stand up and look what a fine parting I have made in your hair. Stand up, and see if my style becomes you.”
“It is no good, Lettie,” he said, “we can’t go on.”
“Oh, but come, come, come!” she exclaimed. “We are not talking about going on; we are considering what a fine parting I have made down the middle, like two wings of a spread bird — ” she looked down, smiling playfully on him, just closing her eyes slightly in petition.
He rose and took a deep breath, and set his shoulders.
“No,” he said, and at the sound of his voice, Lettie went pale and also stiffened herself.
“No!” he repeated. “It is impossible. I felt as soon as Fred came into the room — it must be one way or another.”
“Very well then,” said Lettie, coldly. Her voice was “muted” like a violin.
“Yes,” he replied, submissive. “The children.” He looked at her, contracting his lips in a smile of misery.
“Are you sure it must be so final?” she asked, rebellious, even resentful. She was twisting the azurite jewels on her bosom, and pressing the blunt points into her flesh. He looked up from the fascination of her action when he heard the tone of her last question. He was angry.
“Quite sure!” he said at last, simply, ironically.
She bowed her head in assent. His face twitched sharply as he restrained himself from speaking again. Then he turned and quietly left the room. She did not watch him go, but stood as he had left her. When, after some time, she heard the grating of his dog-cart on the gravel, and then the sharp trot of hoofs down the frozen road, she dropped herself on the settee, and lay with her bosom against the cushions, looking fixedly at the wall.
CHAPTER VII
THE SCARP SLOPE
Leslie won the conservative victory in the general election which took place a year or so after my last visit to Highclose.
In the interim the Tempests had entertained a continuous stream of people. I heard occasionally from Lettie how she was busy, amused, or bored. She told me that George had thrown himself into the struggle on behalf of the candidate of the Labour Party; that she had not seen him, except in the streets, for a very long time.
When I went down to Eberwich in the March succeeding the election, I found several people staying with my sister. She had under her wing a young literary fellow who affected the “Doady” style — Dora Copperfield’s “Doady”. He had bunches of half-curly hair, and a romantic black cravat; he played the impulsive part, but was really as calculating as any man on the stock-exchange. It delighted Lettie to “mother” him. He was so shrewd as to be less than harmless. His fellow guests, a woman much experienced in music and an elderly man who was in the artistic world without being of it, were interesting for a time. Bubble after bubble of floating fancy and wit we blew with our breath in the evenings. I rose in the morning loathing the idea of more bubble-blowing.
I wandered around Nethermere, which had now forgotten me. The daffodils under the boat-house continued their golden laughter, and nodded to one another in gossip, as I watched them, never for a moment pausing to notice me. The yellow reflection of daffodils among the shadows of grey willow in the water trembled faintly as they told haunted tales in the gloom. I felt like a child left out of the group of my playmates. There was a wind running across Nethermere, and on the eager water blue and glistening grey shadows changed places swiftly. Along the shore the wild birds rose, flapping in expostulation as I passed, peewits mewing fiercely round my head, while two white swans lifted their glistening feathers till they looked like grand double water-lilies, laying back their orange beaks among the petals, and fronting me with haughty resentment, charging towards me insolently.
I wanted to be recognised by something. I said to myself that the dryads were looking out for me from the wood’s edge. But as I advanced they shrank, and glancing wistfully, turned back like pale flowers falling in the shadow of the forest. I was a stranger, an intruder. Among the bushes a twitter of lively birds exclaimed upon me. Finches went leaping past in bright flashes, and a robin sat and asked rudely, “Hello! Who are you?”
The bracken lay sere under the trees, broken and chavelled by the restless wild winds of the long winter.
The trees caught the wind in their tall netted twigs, and the young morning wind moaned at its captivity. As I trod the discarded oak-leaves and the bracken they uttered their last sharp gasps, pressed into oblivion. The wood was roofed with a wide young sobbing sound, and floored with a faint hiss like the intaking of the last breath. Between, was all the glad out-peeping of buds and anemone flowers and the rush of birds. I, wandering alone, felt them all, the anguish of the bracken fallen face down in defeat, the careless dash of the birds, the sobbing of the young wind arrested in its haste, the trembling, expanding delight of the buds. I alone among them could hear the whole succession of chords.
The brooks talked on just the same, just as gladly, just as boisterously as they had done when I had netted small, glittering fish in the rest-pools. At Strelley Mill a servant girl in a white cap, and white apron-bands, came running out of the house with purple prayer-books, which she gave to the elder of two finicking girls who sat disconsolately with their blacksilked mother in the governess cart at the gate, ready to go to church. Near Woodside there was barbed-wire along the path, and at the end of every riding it was tarred on the tree-trunks, “Private”.
I had done with the valley of Nethermere. The valley of Nethermere had cast me out many years before, while I had fondly believed it cherished me in memory.
I went along the road to Eberwich. The church bells were ringing boisterously, with the careless boisterousness of the brooks and the birds and the rollicking coltsfoots and celandines.
A few people were hastening blithely to service. Miners and other labouring men were passing in aimless gangs, walking nowhere in particular, s
o long as they reached a sufficiently distant public-house.
I reached the Hollies. It was much more spruce than it had been. The yard, however, and the stables had again a somewhat abandoned air. I asked the maid for George.
“Oh, master’s not up yet,” she said, giving a little significant toss of her head, and smiling. I waited a moment.
“But he rung for a bottle of beer about ten minutes since, so I should think — ” she emphasised the word with some ironical contempt, “ — he won’t be very long,” she added, in tones which conveyed that she was not by any means sure. I asked for Meg.
“Oh, Missis is gone to church — and the children — but Miss Saxton is in, she might — ”
“Emily!” I exclaimed.
The maid smiled.
“She’s in the drawing-room. She’s engaged, but perhaps if I tell her — ”
“Yes, do,” said I, sure that Emily would receive me.
I found my old sweetheart sitting in a low chair by the fire, a man standing on the hearth-rug pulling his moustache. Emily and I both felt a thrill of old delight at meeting.
“I can hardly believe it is really you,” she said, laughing me one of the old intimate looks. She had changed a great deal. She was very handsome, but she had now a new self-confidence, a fine, free indifference.
“Let me introduce you. Mr Renshaw, Cyril. Tom, you know who it is; you have heard me speak often enough of Cyril. I am going to marry Tom in three weeks’ time,” she said, laughing.
“The devil you are!” I exclaimed involuntarily.
“If he will have me,” she added, quite as a playful afterthought.
Tom was a well-built fair man, smoothly, almost delicately tanned. There was something soldierly in his bearing, something self-conscious in the way he bent his head and pulled his moustache, something charming and fresh in the way he laughed at Emily’s last preposterous speech.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“Why didn’t you ask me?” she retorted, arching her brows. “Mr Renshaw,” I said. “You have out-manoeuvred me all unawares, quite indecently.”
“I am very sorry,” he said, giving one more twist to his moustache, then breaking into a loud, short laugh at his joke.
“Do you really feel cross?” said Emily to me, knitting her brows and smiling quaintly.
“I do!” I replied, with truthful emphasis.
She laughed, and laughed again, very much amused.
“It is such a joke,” she said. “To think you should feel cross now, when it is — how long is it ago — ?”
“I will not count up,” said I.
“Are you not sorry for me?” I asked of Tom Renshaw.
He looked at me with his young blue eyes, eyes so bright, so naïvely inquisitive, so winsomely meditative. He did not know quite what to say, or how to take it.
“Very!” he replied in another short burst of laughter, quickly twisting his moustache again and looking down at his feet.
He was twenty-nine years old; had been a soldier in China for five years, was now farming his fathers’ farm at Papplewick, where Emily was schoolmistress. He had been at home eighteen months. His father was an old man of seventy who had had his right hand chopped to bits in the chopping machine. So they told me. I liked Tom for his handsome bearing and his fresh, winsome way. He was exceedingly manly: that is to say, he did not dream of questioning or analysing anything. All that came his way was ready labelled nice or nasty, good or bad. He did not imagine that anything could be other than just what it appeared to be — and with this appearance, he was quite content. He looked up to Emily as one wiser, nobler, nearer to God than himself.
“I am a thousand years older than he,” she said to me, laughing. “Just as you are centuries older than I.”
“And you love him for his youth?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “For that and — he is wonderfully sagacious — and so gentle.”
“And I was never gentle, was I?” I said.
“No! As restless and as urgent as the wind,” she said, and I saw a last flicker of the old terror.
“Where is George?” I asked.
“In bed,” she replies briefly. “He’s recovering from one of his orgies. If I were Meg I would not live with him.”
“Is he so bad?” I asked.
“Bad!” she replied. “He’s disgusting, and I’m sure he’s dangerous. I’d have him removed to an inebriates’ home.”
“You’d have to persuade him to go,” said Tom, who had come into the room again. “He does have dreadful bouts, though! He’s killing himself, sure enough. I feel awfully sorry for the fellow.”
“It seems so contemptible to me,” said Emily, “to become enslaved to one of your likings till it makes a beast of you. Look what a spectacle he is for his children, and what a disgusting disgrace for his wife.”
“Well, if he can’t help it, he can’t, poor chap,” said Tom. “Though I do think a man should have more backbone.” We heard heavy noises from the room above.
“He is getting up,” said Emily. “I suppose I’d better see if he’ll have any breakfast.” She waited, however. Presently the door opened, and there stood George with his hand on the knob, leaning, looking in.
“I thought I heard three voices,” he said, as if it freed him from a certain apprehension. He smiled. His waistcoat hung open over his woollen shirt, he wore no coat and was slipper-less. His hair and his moustache were dishevelled, his face pale and stupid with sleep, his eyes small. He turned aside from our looks as from a bright light. His hand as I shook it was flaccid and chill.
“How do you come to be here, Cyril?” he said subduedly, faintly smiling.
“Will you have any breakfast?” Emily asked him coldly. “I’ll have a bit if there’s any for me,” he replied.
“It has been waiting for you long enough,” she answered. He turned and went with a dull thud of his stockinged feet across to the dining-room. Emily rang for the maid, I followed George, leaving the betrothed together. I found my host moving about the dining-room, looking behind the chairs and in the corners.
“I wonder where the devil my slippers are!” he muttered explanatorily. Meanwhile he continued his search. I noticed he did not ring the bell to have them found for him. Presently he came to the fire, spreading his hands over it. As he was smashing the slowly burning coal the maid came in with the tray. He desisted, and put the poker carefully down. While the maid spread his meal on one corner of the table, he looked in the fire, paying her no heed. When she had finished:
“It’s fried white-bait,” she said. “Shall you have that?”
He lifted his head and looked at the plate.
“Ay,” he said. “Have you brought the vinegar?”
Without answering, she took the cruet from the sideboard and set it on the table. As she was closing the door, she looked back to say:
“You’d better eat it now, while it’s hot.”
He took no notice, but sat looking in the fire.
“And how are you going on?” he asked me.
“I? Oh, very well! And you — ?”
“As you see,” he replied, turning his head on one side with a little gesture of irony.
“As I am very sorry to see,” I rejoined.
He sat forward with his elbows on his knees, tapping the back of his hand with one finger, in monotonous two-pulse like heart-beats.
“Aren’t you going to have breakfast?” I urged. The clock at that moment began to ring a sonorous twelve. He looked up at it with subdued irritation.
“Ay, I suppose so,” he answered me, when the clock had finished striking. He rose heavily and went to the table. As he poured out a cup of tea he spilled it on the cloth, and stood looking at the stain. It was still some time before he began to eat. He poured vinegar freely over the hot fish, and ate with an indifference that made eating ugly, pausing now and again to wipe the tea off his moustache, or to pick a bit of fish from off his knee.
&nb
sp; “You are not married, I suppose?” he said in one of his pauses.
“No,” I replied. “I expect I shall have to be looking round.”
“You’re wiser not,” he replied, quiet and bitter.
A moment or two later the maid came in with a letter. “This came this morning,” she said, as she laid it on the table beside him. He looked at it, then he said:
“You didn’t give me a knife for the marmalade.”
“Didn’t I?” she replied. “I thought you wouldn’t want it. You don’t as a rule.”
“And do you know where my slippers are?” he asked.
“They ought to be in their usual place.” She went and looked in the corner. “I suppose Miss Gertie’s put them somewhere. I’ll get you another pair.”
As he waited for her he read the letter. He read it twice, then he put it back in the envelope, quietly, without any change of expression. But he ate no more breakfast, even after the maid had brought the knife and his slippers, and though he had had but a few mouthfuls.
At half-past twelve there was an imperious woman’s voice in the house. Meg came to the door. As she entered the room, and saw me, she stood still. She sniffed, glanced at the table, and exclaimed, coming forward effusively:
“Well I never, Cyril! Who’d a thought of seeing you here this morning! How are you?”
She waited for the last of my words, then immediately she turned to George, and said:
“I must say you’re in a nice state for Cyril to see you! Have you finished? — If you have, Kate can take that tray out. It smells quite sickly. Have you finished?”
He did not answer, but drained his cup of tea and pushed it away with the back of his hand. Meg rang the bell, and having taken off her gloves, began to put the things on the tray, tipping the fragments of fish and bones from the edge of his plate to the middle with short, disgusted jerks of the fork. Her attitude and expression were of resentment and disgust. The maid came in.
“Clear the table, Kate, and open the window. Have you opened the bedroom windows?”
“No’m — not yet” — she glanced at George as if to say he had only been down a few minutes.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 37