Fred washed and proceeded to dress. They could not persuade him to use paint or soot. He rolled his sleeves up to the shoulder, and wrapped himself in a great striped horse rug. Then be tied a white cloth round his head, as the Bedouins do, and pulled out his moustache to fierce points. He looked at himself with approval, took an old sword from the wall, and held it in one naked, muscular arm.
‘Decidedly,’ he thought, ‘it is very picturesque, and I look very fine.’
‘Oh, that is grand,’ said his mother as he entered the kitchen. His dark eyes glowed with pleasure to hear her say it. He seemed somewhat excited, this bucolic young man. His tanned skin shone rich and warm under the white cloth, its coarseness hidden by the yellow lamplight. His eyes glittered like a true Arab’s, and it was to be noticed that the muscles of his sun-browned arms were tense with the grip of the broad hand.
It was remarkable how the dark folds of the rug and the flowing burnous glorified this young farmer, who, in his best clothes looked awkward and ungainly, and whose face a linen collar showed coarse, owing to exposure to the weather, and long application to heavy labour.
They set out to cross the two of their own fields, and two of their neighbour’s, which separated their home from the mill. A few uncertain flakes of snow were eddying down, melting as they settled. The ground was wet, and the night very dark. But they knew the way well, and were soon at the gate leading to the mill yard. The dog began to bark furiously, but they called to him, ‘Trip, Trip,’ and knowing their voices, he was quieted.
Henry gave a thundering knock, and bawled in stentorian tones,
‘Dun yer want guysers?’
A man came to the door, very tall, very ungainly, very swarthy.
‘We non want yer.’ he said, talking down his nose.
‘Here comes Beelzebub,’ banged away Henry thumping a pan which he carried. ‘Here comes Beelzebub, an’ he’s come to th’ right place.’
A big, bonny farm girl came to the door.
‘Who is it?’ she asked.
‘Beelzebub, you know him well.’ was the answer.
‘I’ll ask Miss Ellen it she wants you.’
Henry winked a red and black wink at the maid, saying, ‘Never keep Satan on the doorstep,’ and he stepped into the scullery.
The girl ran away, and soon was heard a laughing, and bright talking of women’s voices drawing nearer to the kitchen.
‘Tell them to come in,’ said a voice.
The three trooped in and glanced round the big kitchen. They could only see Betty, seated as near to them as possible on the squab, her father, black and surly, in his armchair, and two women’s figures in the deep shadows of one of the great ingle-nook seats.
‘Ah,’ said Beelzebub, ‘this is a bit more like it, a bit hotter. The Devil feels at home here.’
They began the ludicrous old Christmas play that everyone knows so well. Beelzebub acted with much force, much noise, and some humour. St. George, that is Fred, played his part with zeal and earnestness most amusing, but at one of the most crucial moments he entirely forgot his speech, which, however, was speedily rectified by Beelzebub. Arthur was nervous and awkward, so that Beelzebub supplied him with most of his speeches.
After much horseplay, stabbing, falling on the floor, bangings of dripping-pans, and ludicrous striving to fill in the blanks, they came to an end.
They waited in silence.
‘Well what next?’ asked a voice from the shadows.
‘It’s your turn,’ said Beelzebub.
‘What do you want?’
‘As little as you have the heart to give.’
‘But,’ said another voice, one they knew well, ‘we have no heart to give at all.’
‘You did not know your parts well,’ said Blanche, the stranger. ‘The big fellow in the blanket deserves nothing.’
‘What about me?’ asked Arthur.
‘You,’ answered the same voice, ‘oh you’re a nice boy, and a lady’s thanks are enough reward for you.’
He blushed, and muttered something unintelligible.
‘There’ll be the Devil to pay,’ suggested Beelzebub.
‘Give the Devil his dues, Nell,’ said Blanche choking again with laughter. Nellie threw a large silver coin on the flagstone floor, but she was nervous and it rolled to the feet of Preston in his arm-chair.
‘’Alf-a-crern!’ he exclaimed, ‘gie em thrippence, an’ they’re non worth that much.’
This was too much for the chivalrous St. George. He could bear no longer to stand in this ridiculous garb before his scornful lady-love and her laughing friend.
He snatched off his burnous and his robe, flung them over one arm, and with the other caught back Beelzebub, who would have gone to pick up the money. There he stood, St. George metamorphosed into a simple young farmer, with ruffled curly black hair, a heavy frown and bare arms.
‘Won’t you let him have it?’ asked Blanche. ‘Well, what do you want?’ she continued.
‘Nothing, thanks. I’m sorry we troubled you.’
‘Come on,’ he said, drawing the reluctant Beelzebub, and the three made their exit. Blanche laughed and laughed again to see the discomfited knight tramp out, rolling down his shirt sleeves.
Nellie did not laugh. Seeing him turn, she saw him again as a child, before her father had made money by the cattle-dealing, when she was a poor, wild little creature. But her father had grown rich and the mill was a big farm, and when the old cattle dealer had died, she became sole mistress. Then Preston, their chief man, came with Betty and Sarah, to live in, and take charge of the farm.
Nellie had seen little of her old friends since then. She had stayed a long time in town, and when she called on them after her return found them cool and estranged. So she had not been again, and now it was almost a year since she had spoken many words to Fred.
Her brief meditations were disturbed by a scream from Betty in the scullery, followed by the wild rush of that damsel into the kitchen.
‘What’s up?’ asked her father.
‘There’s somebody there got hold of my legs.’
Nellie felt suddenly her own loneliness. Preston struck a match and investigated. He returned with a bunch of glittering holly, thick with scarlet berries.
‘Here’s yer somebody,’ said he, flinging the bunch down on the table.
‘Oh, that is pretty,’ exclaimed Blanche. Nellie rose, looked, then hurried down the passage to the sitting-room, followed by her friend. There, to the consternation of Blanche, she sat down and began to cry.
‘Whatever is the matter?’ asked Blanche.
It was some time before she had a reply, then, ‘It’s so miserable,’ faltered Nellie, ‘and so lonely. I do think Will and Harry and Louie and all the others were mean not to come, then this wouldn’t have happened. It was such a shame — such a shame.’
‘What was a shame?’ asked Blanche.
‘Why, when he had got me that holly, and come down to see —’ she ended blushing.
‘Whom do you mean — the Bedouin?’
‘And I had not seen him for months, and he will think I am just a mean, proud thing.’
‘You don’t mean to say you care for him?’
Nellie’s tears began to flow again. ‘I do, and I wish this miserable farm and bit of money had never come between us. He’ll never come again, never, I know.’
‘Then,’ said Blanche, ‘you must go to him.’
‘Yes, and I will.’
‘Come along, then.’
In the meantime, the disappointed brothers had reached home. Fred had thrown down his Bedouin wardrobe, and put on his coat, muttering something about having a walk up the village. Then he had gone out, his mother’s eyes watching his exit with helpless grief, his father looking over his spectacles in a half-surprised paternal sympathy. However, they heard him tramp down the yard and enter the barn, and they knew he would soon recover. Then the lads went out, and nothing was heard in the kitchen save the beat of the clock and the ru
stle of the newspaper, or the rattle of the board, as the mother rolled out paste for the mince-pies.
In the pitch-dark barn, the rueful Bedouin told himself that he expected no other than this, and that it was high time he ceased fooling himself with fancies, that he was well-cured, that even if she had invited him to stay, how could he; how could he have asked her; she must think he wanted badly to become master of Ramsley Mill. What a fool he had been to go — what a fool!
‘But,’ he argued, ‘let her think what she likes. I don’t care. She may remember if she can that I used to sole her boots with my father’s leather, and she went home in mine. She can remember that my mother taught her how to write and sew decently. I should think she must sometimes.’
Then he admitted to himself that he was sure she did not forget. He could feel quite well that she was wishing that this long estrangement might cease.
‘But,’ came the question, ‘why doesn’t she end it? Pah, It’s only my conceit; she thinks more of those glib, grinning fellows from the clerks’ stools. Let her, what do I care!’
Suddenly he heard voices from the field at the back, and sat up listening.
‘Oh, it’s a regular slough,’ said someone. ‘We can never get through the gate. See, let us climb the stockyard fence. They’ve put some new rails in. Can you manage, Blanche? Here, just between the lilac bush and the stack. What a blessing they keep Chris at the front! Mind, bend under this plum tree. Dare we go, Blanche?’
‘Go on, go on,’ whispered Blanche, and they crept up to the tiny window, through which the lamplight streamed uninterrupted. Fred stole out of the barn and hid behind the great water-butt. He saw them stoop and creep to the window and peep through. In the kitchen sat the father, smoking and appearing to read, but really staring into the fire. The mother was putting the top crusts on the little pies, but she was interrupted by the need to wipe her eyes.
‘Oh, Blanche,’ whispered Nellie, ‘he’s gone out.’
‘It looks like it,’ assented the other.
‘Perhaps he’s not, though,’ resumed the former bravely. ‘He’s very likely only in the parlour.’
‘That’s all right, then.’ said Blanche. ‘I thought we should have seen him looking so miserable. But, of course, he wouldn’t let his mother see it.’
‘Certainly not,’ said Blanche.
Fred chuckled.
‘But,’ she continued doubtfully, ‘If he has gone out, whatever shall we do? What can we tell his mother?’
‘Tell her we came up for fun.’
‘But if he’s out?’
‘Stay till he comes home.’
‘If it’s late?’
‘It’s Christmas Eve.’
‘Perhaps he doesn’t care after all.’
‘You think he does, so do I; and you’re quite sure you want him.’
‘You know I do, Blanche, and I always have done.’
‘Let us begin, then.’
‘What? ‘Good King Wenceslas?’’
The mother and father started as the two voices suddenly began to carol outside. She would have run to the door, but her husband waved her excitedly back. ‘Let them finish,’ his eyes shining. ‘Let them finish.’
The girls had retired from the window lest they should be seen, and stood near the water-butt. When the old carol was finished, Nellie began the beautiful song of Giordani’s:
Turn once again, heal thou my pain,
Parted from thee, my heart is sore.
As she sang she stood holding a bough of the old plum tree, so close to Fred that by leaning forward he could have touched her coat. Carried away by the sweet pathos of her song, he could hardly refrain from rising and flinging his arms around her.
She finished, the door opened, showing a little woman holding out her hands.
Both girls made a motion towards her, but —
‘Nell, Nell,’ he whispered, and caught her in his arms. She gave a little cry of alarm and delight. Blanche stepped into the kitchen, and shut the door, laughing.
She sat in the low rocking-chair swinging to and fro in a delighted excitement, chattering brightly about a hundred things. And with a keen woman’s eye, she noticed the mother put her hands on her husband’s as she sat on the sofa by his chair, and saw him hold the shining stiffened hand in one of his, and stroke it with old, undiminished affection.
Soon the two came in, Nellie all blushing. Without a word she ran and kissed the little mother, lingering a moment over her before she turned to the quiet embrace of the father. Then she took off her hat, and brushed back the brown tendrils all curled so prettily by the damp.
Already she was at home.
A FLY IN THE OINTMENT
MURIEL had sent me some mauve primroses, slightly weather-beaten, and some honeysuckle — twine threaded with grey-green rosettes, and some timid hazel catkins. They had arrived in a forlorn little cardboard box just as I was rushing off to school.
‘Stick ’em in water!’ I said to Mrs Williams; and I left the house. But those mauve primroses had set my tone for the day: I was dreamy and reluctant; school and the sounds of the boys were unreal, unsubstantial; beyond these were the realities of my poor winter — trodden prim-roses and the pale hazel catkins that Muriel had sent me. Altogether the boys must have thought me a vacant fool; I regarded them as a punishment upon me.
I rejoiced exceedingly when night came, with the evening star, and the sky flushed dark blue, purple over the golden pomegranates of the lamps. I was as glad as if I had been hurrying home to Muriel, as if she would open the door to me, would keep me a little while in the fire-glow, with the splendid purple of the evening against the window, before she laughed and drew up her head proudly and flashed on the light over the tea-cups. But Eleanor, the girl, opened the door to me, and I poured out my tea in solitary state.
Mrs Williams had set out my winter posy for me on the table, and I thought of all the beautiful things we had done, Muriel and I, at home in the Midlands, of all the beautiful ways she had looked at me, of all the beautiful things I had said to her — or had meant to say. I went on imagining beautiful things to say to her, while she looked at me with her wonderful eyes from among the fir boughs in the wood. Meanwhile, I talked to my landlady about the neighbours.
Although I had much work to do, and although I laboured away at it, in the end there was nothing done. Then I felt very miserable, and sat still and sulked. At a quarter to eleven I said to myself:
‘This will never do,’ and I took up my pen and wrote a letter to Muriel.
‘It was not fair to send me those robins’ — we called the purple primroses ‘robins’, for no reason, unless that they bloomed in winter — ‘they have bewitched me. Their wicked, bleared little pinkish eyes follow me about, and I have to think of you and home, instead of doing what I’ve got to do. All the time while I was teaching I had a grasshopper chirruping away in my head and the arithmetic rattled like the carts on the street. Poor lads! I read their miserable pieces of composition on “Pancakes” over and over, and never saw them, thinking “the primroses flower now because it is so sheltered under the plum-trees — those old trees with gummy bark”. You like biting through a piece of hard, bright gum. If your lips did not get so sticky. . .’
I will not say at what time I finished my letter. I can recall a sensation of being dim, oblivious of everything, smiling to myself as I sealed the envelope; of putting my books and papers in their places without the least knowledge of so doing, keeping the atmosphere of Strelley Mill close round me in my London lodging. I cannot remember turning off the electric light. The next thing of which I am conscious is pushing at the kitchen door.
The kitchen is at the back of the house. Outside in the dark was a little yard and a hand’s breadth of garden hacked by the railway embankment. I had come down the passage from my room in the front of the house, and stood pushing at the kitchen door to get a glass for some water. Evidently the oilcloth had turned up a little, and the edge of the door was under it. I
woke up irritably, swore a little, pushed harder, and heard the oilcloth rip. Then I bent and put my hand through the small space of the door to flatten the oilcloth.
The kitchen was in darkness save for the red embers lying low in the stove. I started, but rather from sleepy wonder than anything else. The shock was not quite enough to bring me to. Pressing himself flat into the corner between the stove and the wall was a fellow. I wondered, and was disturbed; the greater part of me was away in the Midlands still. So I stood looking and blinking.
‘Why?’ I said helplessly. I think this very mildness must have terrified him. Immediately he shrank together and began to dodge about between the table and stove, whining, snarling, with an incredibly mongrel sound:
‘Don’t yer touch me! Don’t yer come grabbin’ at me! I’ll hit you between the eyes with this poker. I ain’t done nothin’ to you. Don’t yer touch me, yer bloody coward!’
All the time he was writhing about in the space in which I had him trapped, between the table and stove. I was much too dazed to do anything but stare. Then my blood seemed to change its quality. I came awake, sick and sharp with pain. It was such a display as I had seen before in school, and I felt again the old misery of helplessness and disgust. He dared not, I knew, strike, unless by trying to get hold of him I terrified him to the momentary madness of such a slum-rat.
‘Stop your row!’ I said, standing still and leaving him his room. ‘Shut your miserable row! Do you want to waken the children?’
‘Ah, but don’t you touch me, don’t you come no nearer!’
He had stopped writhing about, and was crouching at the defensive. The little frenzy, too, had gone out of his voice.
‘Put the poker down, you fool’ — I pointed to the corner of the stove, where the poker used to stand. I supplied him with the definite idea of placing the poker in the corner, and in his crazy witless state he could not reject it. He did as I told him, but indefinitely, as if the action were secondhand. The poker, loosely dropped into the corner, slid to the ground with a clatter.
I looked from it to him, feeling him like a burden upon me, and in some way I was afraid of him, for my heart began to beat heavily. His own indefinite clumsiness, and the jangle of the poker on the hearth, and then my sudden spiritual collapse, unnerved him still more. He crouched there abjectly.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 571