“We’re not fixed on the spot, but we’re fixed up all right, otherwise,” said Alec, in a slight tone of resentment, as he rose from Grace’s side.
“Oh, have you and Grace fixed it up!” exclaimed Monica, with a false vagueness and innocence. “I’m awfully glad. I’m awfully glad, Grace.”
“I am,” said Grace, with a faint touch of resentment, and she rose and took Alec’s arm.
They were already like a married couple armed against that witch. Had she been flirting with Alec, and then pushed him over on to Grace? Jack sensed it with the sixth sense which divines these matters.
Monica appeared at his side.
“It’s just twelve. Come and hold my hand in the ring. Mary can hold your other hand. Come on! Come on, Alec, as well. I don’t want any strangers next to me to-night.”
Jack smiled sardonically to himself as she impulsively caught hold of his hand. Monica was “a circumstance over which we have no control,” Lennie said. Jack felt that he had a certain control.
They all took hands as she directed, and moved into the barn to link up with the rest of the chain. There in the soft light of the big chamber, Easu suddenly appeared, without collar or cravat, his hair ruffled, his white suit considerably creased. But he lurched up in his usual aggressive way, with his assertive good humour, demanding to break in between Jack and Monica. Jack held on, and Monica said:
“You mustn’t break in, you know it makes enemies.”
“Does it!” grinned Easu. And with sardonic good humour he lurched away to an unjoined part of the ring. He carried about with him a sense of hostile power. But Jack was learning to keep within himself another sort of power, small and concentrated and fixed like a stone, the sort of power that ultimately would break through the bulk of Easu’s domineering.
The ring complete at last, they all began to sing: “Cheer, Boys, Cheer!” and “God Bless the Prince of Wales,” “John Brown’s Body,” and “Britons, Never, Never, Never.”
Then Easu bawled: “Midnight!” There was a moment’s frightened pause. Joe Low blasted on the cornet, his toe beating time madly all the while. Fiddles, whistles, concertinas, Jew’s harps raggedly began to try out the tune. The clasped hands began to rock, and taking Easu’s shouting lead, they all began to sing, in the ring:
“Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
An’ never brought to min’?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?
“For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet
For days of auld lang syne.”
They all sang heartily and with feeling. There was a queer Scottish tang in the colony, that made the Scottish emotion dominant. Jack disliked it. There was no auld acquaintance, or auld lang syne, at least for him. And he didn’t care for these particular cups of kindness, in one ring with Easu, black Lily, Dr. Rackett and Monica, and all. He didn’t like the chain of emotion and supposed pathetic clanship. It was worse here even than on shipboard.
Why start the New Year like this? As a matter of fact he wanted to forget most of his own Auld Acquaintance, and start something a little different. And any rate, the emotion was spurious, the chain was artificial, the flow was false.
Monica seemed to take a wicked pleasure in it, and sang more emotionally than anybody, in a sweet but smallish voice. And poor little Mary, with her half-audible murmur, had her eyes full of tears and seemed so moved.
Auld lang syne!
Old Long Since.
Why not put it in plain English?
IV
The celebration did not end with Auld Lang Syne. By half-past two most of the ladies had retired, though some ardent dancers still footed the floor, and a chaperone or two, like crumpled rag-bags, slept on their boxes. A good number of young men and boys were asleep with Herbert on the sacks, handkerchiefs knotted round their throats in place of collars. The concertina, the cornet, the fiddles and the rest of the band had gone down to demolish the remains of the cold collation, whilst Tom, Ross, and Ned sat on the barn step singing as uproariously as they could, though a little hoarse, for the last dancers to dance to. Someone was whistling very sweetly.
Where was Easu? Jack wondered as he wandered aimlessly out into the night. Where was Easu? For Jack had it on his mind that he ought to fight him. Felt he would be a coward if he didn’t tackle him this very night.
But it was three o’clock, the night was very still and rich, still warm, rather close, but not oppressive. The strange heaviness of the hot summer night, with the stars thick in clouds and clusters overhead, the moon being gone. Jack strayed aimlessly through the motionless, dark, warm air, till he came to the paddock gate, and there he leaned with his chin on his arms, half asleep. It seemed to be growing cooler, and a dampness was bringing out the scent of the scorched grass, the essence of the earth, like incense. There was a half-wild bush with a few pale pink roses near the gate. He could just get their fragrance. If it were as it should be, Monica would be here, in one of her wistful, her fiercely wistful moments! When she looked at him with her yellow eyes and her fierce, naive look of yearning, he was ready to give all his blood to her. If things were as they should be, she would be clinging to him now like that, and nestling against his breast. If things were as they should be!
He didn’t want to go to sleep. He wanted what he wanted. He wanted the night, the young, changeable, yearning Monica, and an answer to his own awake young blood. He insisted on it. He would not go to sleep, he would insist on an answer. And he wanted to fight Easu. He ought to fight Easu. His manhood depended on it.
He could hear the cattle stirring down the meadow. Soon it would begin to be day. What was it now? It was night, dark night towards morning, with a faint breathing of air from the sea. And where was he? He was in Australia, leaning on the paddock gate and seeing the stars and the dim shape of the gum-tree. There was a faint scent of eucalyptus in the night. His mother was far away. England was far away. He was alone there leaning on the paddock gate, in Australia.
After all, perhaps the very best thing was to be alone. Better even than having Monica or fighting Easu. Because where you are alone you are at one with your own God. The spirit in you is God in you. And when you are alone you are one with the spirit of God inside you. Other people are chiefly an interruption.
And moreover, he could never say he was lonely while he was at Wandoo, while there were Tom and Lennie, and Monica, and all the rest. He hoped he would have them all his life. He hoped he would never, in all his life, say good-bye to them.
No, he would take up land as near this homestead as possible and build a brick house on it. And he would have a number of fine horses, better than anyone else’s, and some sheep that would pay, and a few cows. Always milk and butter with the wheat-meal damper.
What was that? Only a more-pork. He laid his head on his arms again, on the gate. He wanted a place of his own, now. He would have it now if he had any money. And marry Monica. Would he marry Monica? Would he marry anybody? He much preferred the whole family. But he wanted a place of his own. If he could hurry up his father. And old Mr. George. He might persuade Mr. George to be on his side. Why was there never any money? No money! A father ought to have some money for a son.
What was that? He saw a dim white figure stealing across the near distance. Pah! must have been a girl sitting out under the photosphorum tree. When he had thought he was quite alone.
The thought upset him. And he ought to find Easu. Obstinately he insisted to himself that he ought to find Easu.
He drifted towards the shed near the cubby, where Mr. Ellis kept the tools. Somebody unknown and unauthorised had put a barrel of beer inside the shed. Men were there drinking, as he knew they would be.
“Have a pot, youngster?”
“Thanks.”
He sat down on a case beside the door, and drank the rather warm beer. His head began to drop. He knew he was
almost asleep.
Easu loomed up from the dark, coatless, hatless, with his shirt front open, asking for a drink. He was thirsty. Easu was thirsty. How could you be angry with a thirsty man! And he wasn’t so bad after all. No, Easu wasn’t so bad after all! What did it matter! What did it all matter, anyhow?
Jack slipped to the ground and lay there fast asleep.
CHAPTER X
SHADOWS BEFORE
I
But in the morning memory was back, and the unquenched smouldering of passion. Easu had insulted him. Easu had insulted him, and that should never be forgiven. And he had this new, half painful, more than half painful desire to see Monica, to be near her, to touch her hand; a sort of necessity, upon him all the while which he was not used to. It made him restless, uneasy, and for the first time in his life, a little melancholy. He was used to feeling angry: a steady, almost blithe sort of anger. And beyond that he had always been able to summon up an indifference to things, cover them with oblivion: to retreat upon himself and insulate himself from contact.
Now he could no longer do this, and it fretted him, made him accessible to melancholy. The hot, hot January days, all dry flaming heat, and flies, and mosquitoes, passed over him leaving him strange even to himself. There was work, the drudging work of the farm, all the while. And one just sweated. He learned to submit to it, to the sweating all the time during the day, and the mosquitoes at night. It was like a narcotic. The old, English alertness grew darker and darker. He seemed to be moving, a dim consciousness and an unyielding will, in a dark cloud of heat, in a perspiring, dissolving body. He could feel his body, the English cool body of his being, slowly melting down and being invaded by a new tropical quality. Sometimes, he said to himself, he was sweating his soul away. That was how it felt: as if he were sweating his soul away. And he let his soul go, let it slowly melt away out of his wet, hot body.
Any man who has been in the tropics, unless he has kept all his mind and his consciousness focussed homewards, fixed towards the old people of home, will know how this feels. Now Jack did not turn homewards, back to England. He never wanted to go back. There was in him a slow, abiding anger against this same “home.” Therefore he let himself go down the dark tide of the heat. He did not cling on to his old English soul, the soul of an English gentleman. He let that dissolve out of him, leaving what residuum of a man it might leave. But out of very obstinacy he hung on to his own integrity: a small, dark, obscure integrity.
Usually he was too busy perspiring, panting, and working to think about anything. His mind also seemed dissolving away in perspiration and in the curious eucalyptus solvent of the Australian air. He was too busy and too much heat-oppressed even to think of Monica or of Easu, though Monica was a live wire in his body. Only on Sundays he seemed to come half out of his trance. And then everything went queer and strange, a little uncanny.
Dad was back again for the harvest, but his heart was no better, and a queer frightening cloud seemed over him. And Gran, they said, was failing. Somehow Gran was the presiding deity of the house. Her queer spirit controlled, even now. And she was failing. She adored Lennie, but he was afraid of her.
“Gran’s the limit,” he asserted. “She’s that wilful. Always the same with them women when they gets well on in years. I clear out from her if I can, she’s that obstropulous — tells y’t’wipe y’nose, pull up y’pants, brush y’teeth, not sniff: golly, I can’t stand it!”
Sunday was the day when you really came into contact with the family. The rule was, that each one took it in turns to get up and make breakfast, while everybody else stayed on in bed, for a much-needed rest. If it was your turn, you rolled out of bed at dawn when Timothy banged on the wall, you slipped on your shirt and pants and went to the “everlasting” fire. Raking the ashes together with a handful of sticks, you blew a blaze and once more smelt the burning eucalyptus leaves. You filled the black iron kettle at the pump, and set it over the flame. Then you washed yourself. After which you carved bread and butter: tiny bits for Gran, moderate pieces for upstairs, and doorsteps for the cubby. After which you made the tea, and holloa’d! while you poured it out. One of the girls, with a coat over her nighty and her hair in a chignon, would come barefoot to carry the trays, to Gran and to the upstairs. This was just the preliminary breakfast: the Sunday morning luxury. Just tea in bed.
Later the boys were shouting for clean shirts and towels, and the women were up. Proceeded the hair-cutting, nail-paring, button-sewing, and general murmur, all under the supervision of Ma. Then down to the sand-bagged pool for a dip. After which, clean and in clean raiment, you went to the parlour to hear Dad read the lessons.
The family Bible was carefully kept warm in the parlour, during the week, under a woollen crochet mat. A crochet mat above, and a crochet mat below. Nothing must ever stand on that book, nothing whatever. The children were quite superstitious about it.
Lennie, the Benjamin of his father Jacob, each Sunday went importantly into the drawing-room, in a semi-religious silence, and fetched the ponderous brass-bound book. He put it on the table in front of Dad. Gran came in with her stick and her lace cap, and sat in the arm-chair near the window. Mrs. Ellis and the children folded their hands like saints. Mr. Ellis wiped his spectacles, cleared his throat, looked again at the little church calendar of the lessons, found the place, and proceeded in a droning voice. Nobody looked at him, except Mrs. Ellis. Everybody looked another way. Gran usually gazed sideways at the floor. Tick, tock! went the clock. It was a little eternity.
Jack knew the Bible pretty well, as a well-brought-up nephew of his Aunts. He had no objection to the Bible. On the contrary it supplied his imagination with a chief stock of images, his ear with the greatest solemn pleasure of words, and his soul with a queer heterogeneous ethic. He never really connected the Bible with Christianity proper, the Christianity of Aunts and clergymen. He had no use for Christianity proper: just dismissed it. But the Bible was perhaps the foundation of his consciousness. Do what seems good to you in the sight of the Lord. This was the moral he always drew from Bible lore. And since the Lord, for him, was always the Lord Almighty, Almighty God, Maker of Heaven and Earth, Jesus being only a side-issue; since the Lord was always Jehovah the great and dark, for him, one might do as David did, in the sight of the Lord, or as Jacob, or as Abraham or Moses or Joshua or Isaiah, in the sight of the Lord. The sight of the Lord was a vast strange scope of vision, in the semi-dark.
Gran always listened the same, leaning on her stick and looking sideways to the ground, as if she did not quite see the stout and purple-faced Jacob, her son, as the mouthpiece of the Word. As a matter of fact, the way he read Scripture irritated her. She wished Lennie could have read the lessons. But Dad was head of the house, and she was fond of him, poor old Jacob.
And Jack always furtively watched Gran. She frightened him, and he had a little horror of her: but she fascinated him too. She was like Monica, at the great distance of her years. Her lace cap was snowy white, with little lavender ribbons. Her face was pure ivory, with fine-shaped features, that subtly arched nose, like Monica’s. Her silver hair came over her dead-looking ears. And her dry, shiny, blue-veined hand remained fixed over the pommel of her black stick. How awful, how unspeakably awful, Jack felt, to be so old! No longer human. And she seemed so little inside her clothes. And one never knew what she was thinking. But surely some strange, uncanny, dim non-human thoughts.
Sunday was full of strange, half-painful impressions of death and of life. After lessons the boys would escape to the yards, and the stables, and lounge about. Or they would try the horses, or take a gun into the uncleared bush. Then came the enormous Sunday dinner, when everyone ate himself stupid.
In the afternoon Tom and Jack wandered to the loft, to the old concertina. Up there among the hay, they squeezed and pulled the old instrument, till at last, after much practice, they could draw forth tortured hymnal sounds from its protesting internals.
“Ha-a-appy Ho-ome! Ha-appy Ho-ome!
Oh Haa-py Ho-me! Oh Haa-py Ho-me!
In Paradise with thee!”
Over and over again the same tune, till Tom would drop off to sleep, and Jack would have a go at it. And this yearning sort of hymn always sent a chill to his bowels. They were like Gran, on the brink of the grave. In fact the word Paradise made him shudder worse than the word coffin. Yet he would grind away at the tune. Till he too fell asleep.
And then they would wake in the heat to the silence of the suspended, fiercely hot afternoon. Only to feel their own sweat trickling, and to hear the horses, the draft-horses which were in stable for the day, chop-chopping underneath. So, in spite of sweat and heat, another go at the fascinating concertina.
II
One Sunday Jack strolled in an hour early for tea. He had made a mistake, as one does sometimes when one sleeps in the afternoon. Gran was sitting by a little fire in the dark living room. She had to have a little fire to look at. It was like life to her. “Come here, Jack Grant,” she said in her thin, imperious voice. He went on reluctant feet, for he had a dread of her years and her strange femaleness. What did she want of him?
“Did y’hear Mr. George get my son to promise to make a will, when y’were in Perth?”
“No, marm,” said Jack promptly.
“Well, take it from me, if he promised, he hasn’t done it. He never signed a paper in his life, unless it was his marriage register. And but for my driving, he’d never have signed that. Sit down!”
Jack sat on the edge of a chair, his heart in his boots.
“I told you before I’d ha’ married your grandfather, if he hadn’t been married already. I wonder where you’d ha’ been then! Just as well I didn’t, for he wouldn’t look at me after he took my leg off. Just come here a minute.”
Jack got up and went to her side. She put her soft, dry, dead old hand on his face and stroked it, pressing on the cheekbones.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 399