"Do you find any with nuts in?" I asked.
"Not many--here--here are two, three. You have them. No--I don't care about them."
I stripped one of its horny brown coat and gave it to her. She opened her mouth slightly to take it, looking up into my eyes. Some people, instead of bringing with them clouds of glory, trail clouds of sorrow; they are born with "the gift of Sorrow"; "Sorrows," they proclaim, "alone are real. The veiled grey angels of sorrow work out slowly the beautiful shapes. Sorrow is beauty, and the supreme blessedness." You read it in their eyes, and in the tones of their voices. Emily had the gift of sorrow. It fascinated me, but it drove me to rebellion.
We followed the soft, smooth-bitten turf road under the old beeches. The hillside fell away, dishevelled with thistles and coarse grass. Soon we were in sight of the Kennels, the red old Kennels which had been the scene of so much animation in the time of Lord Byron. They were empty now, overgrown with weeds. The barred windows of the cottages were grey with dust; there was no need now to protect the windows from cattle, dog or man. One of the three houses was inhabited. Clear water trickled through a wooden runnel into a great stone trough outside near the door.
"Come here," said I to Emily. "Let me fasten the back of your dress."
"Is it undone?" she asked, looking quickly over her shoulder, and blushing.
As I was engaged in my task, a girl came out of the cottage with a black kettle and a tea-cup. She was so surprised to see me thus occupied that she forgot her own duty, and stood open-mouthed.
"S'r Ann! S'r Ann," called a voice from inside. "Are ter goin' ter come in an' shut that door?"
Sarah Ann hastily poured a few cupfuls of water into the kettle, then she put down both utensils and stood holding her bare arms to warm them. Her chief garment consisted of a skirt with grey bodice and red flannel skirt, very much torn. Her black hair hung in wild tails on to her shoulders.
"We must go in here," said I, approaching the girl. She, however, hastily seized the kettle and ran indoors with an "Oh, Mother--!"
A woman came to the door. One breast was bare, and hung over her blouse, which, like a dressing-jacket, fell loose over her skirt. Her fading, red-brown hair was all frowsy from the bed. In the folds of her skirt clung a swarthy urchin with a shockingly short shirt. He stared at us with big black eyes, the only portion of his face undecorated with egg and jam. The woman's blue eyes questioned us languidly. I told her our errand.
"Come in--come in," she said, "but dunna look at th' 'ouse. Th' childers not been long up. Go in, Billy, wi' nowt on!"
We entered, taking the forgotten kettle lid. The kitchen was large, but scantily furnished save, indeed, for children. The eldest, a girl of twelve or so, was standing toasting a piece of bacon with one hand, and holding back her night-dress in the other. As the toast hand got scorched, she transferred the bacon to the other, gave the hot fingers a lick to cool them, and then held back her night-dress again. Her auburn hair hung in heavy coils down her gown. A boy sat on the steel fender, catching the dropping fat on a piece of bread. "One, two, three, four, five, six drops," and he quickly bit off the tasty corner, and resumed the task with the other hand. When we entered he tried to draw his shirt over his knees, which caused the fat to fall wasted. A fat baby, evidently laid down from the breast, lay kicking on the squab, purple in the face, while another lad was pushing bread and butter into its mouth. The mother swept to the sofa, poked out the bread and butter, pushed her finger into the baby's throat, lifted the child up, punched its back, and was highly relieved when it began to yell. Then she administered a few sound spanks to the naked buttocks of the crammer. He began to howl, but stopped suddenly on seeing us laughing. On the sack-cloth which served as hearth-rug sat a beautiful child washing the face of a wooden doll with tea, and wiping it on her night-gown. At the table, an infant in a high chair sat sucking a piece of bacon, till the grease ran down his swarthy arms, oozing through his fingers. An old lad stood in the big armchair, whose back was hung with a calf-skin, and was industriously pouring the dregs of the tea-cups into a basin of milk. The mother whisked away the milk, and made a rush for the urchin, the baby hanging over her arm the while.
"I could half kill thee," she said, but he had slid under the table--and sat serenely unconcerned.
"Could you"--I asked when the mother had put her bonny baby again to her breast--"could you lend me a knitting-needle?"
"Our S'r Ann, wheer's thy knittin'-needles?" asked the woman, wincing at the same time, and putting her hand to the mouth of the sucking child. Catching my eye, she said:
"You wouldn't credit how he bites. 'E's nobbut two teeth, but they like six needles." She drew her brows together and pursed her lips, saying to the child, "Naughty lad, naughty lad! Tha' shanna hae it, no, not if ter bites thy mother like that."
The family interest was now divided between us and the private concerns in process when we entered--save, however, that the bacon-sucker had sucked on stolidly, immovable, all the time.
"Our Sam, wheer's my knittin', tha's 'ad it?" cried S'r Ann after a little search.
"'A 'e na," replied Sam from under the table.
"Yes, tha' 'as," said the mother, giving a blind prod under the table with her foot.
"'A 'e na then!" persisted Sam.
The mother suggested various possible places of discovery, and at last the knitting was found at the back of the table drawer, among forks and old wooden skewers.
"I 'an ter tell yer wheer ivrythink is," said the mother in mild reproach. S'r Ann, however, gave no heed to her parent. Her heart was torn for her knitting, the fruit of her labours; it was a red woollen cuff for the winter; a corkscrew was bored through the web, and the ball of red wool was bristling with skewers.
"It's a' thee, our Sam," she wailed. "I know it's a' thee an' thy A. B. C."
Samuel, under the table, croaked out in a voice of fierce monotony:
"P. is for Porkypine, whose bristles so strong Kill the bold lion by pricking 'is tongue."
The mother began to shake with quiet laughter.
"His father learnt him that--made it all up," she whispered proudly to us--and to him.
"Tell us what 'B' is, Sam."
"Shonna," grunted Sam.
"Go on, there's a duckie; an' I'll ma' 'e a treacle-puddin'."
"Today?" asked S'r Ann eagerly.
"Go on, Sam, my duck," persisted the mother.
"Tha' 'as na got no treacle," said Sam conclusively.
The needle was in the fire; the children stood about watching. "Will you do it yourself?" I asked Emily.
"I!" she exclaimed, with wide eyes of astonishment, and she shook her head emphatically.
"Then I must." I took out the needle, holding it in my handkerchief. I took her hand and examined the wound. But when she saw the hot glow of the needle, she snatched away her hand, and looked into my eyes, laughing in a half-hysterical fear and shame. I was very serious, very insistent. She yielded me her hand again, biting her lips in imagination of the pain, and looking at me. While my eyes were looking into hers she had courage; when I was forced to pay attention to my cauterising, she glanced down, and with a sharp "Ah!" ending in a little laugh, she put her hands behind her, and looked again up at me with wide brown eyes, all quivering with apprehension, and a little shame, and a laughter that held much pleading.
One of the children began to cry.
"It is no good," said I, throwing the fast cooling needle on to the hearth.
I gave the girls all the pennies I had--then I offered Sam, who had crept out of the shelter of the table, a sixpence.
"Shonna a'e that," he said, turning from the small coin.
"Well--I have no more pennies, so nothing will be your share."
I gave the other boy a rickety knife I had in my pocket. Sam looked fiercely at me. Eager for revenge, he picked up the "porkypine quill" by the hot end. He dropped it with a shout of rage, and, seizing a cup off the table, flung it at the fortunate Jack. It smashed agains
t the fireplace. The mother grabbed at Sam, but he was gone. A girl, a little girl, wailed, "Oh, that's my rosey mug--my rosey mug." We fled from the scene of confusion. Emily had already noticed it. Her thoughts were of herself, and of me.
"I am an awful coward," said she humbly.
"But I can't help it--" She looked beseechingly. "Never mind," said I.
"All my flesh seems to jump from it. You don't know how I feel."
"Well--never mind."
"I couldn't help it, not for my life."
"I wonder," said I, "if anything could possibly disturb that young bacon-sucker? He didn't even look round at the smash."
"No," said she, biting the tip of her finger moodily.
Further conversation was interrupted by howls from the rear. Looking round we saw Sam careering after us over the close-bitten turf, howling scorn and derision at us. "Rabbit-tail, rabbit-tail," he cried, his bare little legs twinkling, and his Hittle shirt fluttering in the cold morning air. Fortunately, at Hast he trod on a thistle or a thorn, for when we looked round again to see why he was silent, he was capering on one leg, holding his wounded foot in his hands.
CHAPTER VII - LETTIE PULLS DOWN THE SMALL GOLD GRAPES
During the falling of the leaves Lettie was very wilful. She uttered many banalities concerning men, and love, and marriage; she taunted Leslie and thwarted his wishes. At Hast he stayed away from her. She had been several times down to the mill, but because she fancied they were very familiar, receiving her on to their rough plane like one of themselves, she stayed away. Since the death of our father she had been restless; since inheriting her little fortune she had become proud, scornful, difficult to please. Difficult to please in every circumstance; she, who had always been so rippling in thoughtless life, sat down in the window-sill to think, and her strong teeth bit at her handkerchief till it was torn in holes. She would say nothing to me; she read all things that dealt with modern women.
One afternoon Lettie walked over to Eberwich. Leslie had not been to see us for a fortnight. It was a grey, dree afternoon. The wind drifted a clammy fog across the hills, and the roads were black and deep with mud. The trees in the wood slouched sulkily. It was a day to be shut out and ignored if possible. I heaped up the fire, and went to draw the curtains and make perfect the room. Then I saw Lettie coming along the path quickly, very erect. When she came in her colour was high.
"Tea not laid?" she said briefly.
"Rebecca has just brought in the lamp," said I.
Lettie took off her coat and furs, and flung them on the couch. She went to the mirror, lifted her hair, all curled by the fog, and stared haughtily at herself. Then she swung round, looked at the bare table, and rang the bell.
It was so rare a thing for us to ring the bell from the dining-room, that Rebecca went first to the outer door. Then she came in the room saying:
"Did you ring?"
"I thought tea would have been ready," said Lettie coldly. Rebecca looked at me, and at her, and replied:
"It is but half-past four. I can bring it in."
Mother came down hearing the clink of the tea-cups. "Well," she said to Lettie, who was unlacing her boots, "and did you find it a pleasant walk?"
"Except for the mud," was the reply.
"Ah, I guess you wished you had stayed at home. What a state for your boots!--and your skirts too, I know. Here, let me take them into the kitchen."
"Let Rebecca take them," said Lettie--but Mother was out of the room.
When Mother had poured out the tea, we sat silently at table. It was on the tip of our tongues to ask Lettie what ailed her, but we were experienced and we refrained, After a while she said:
"Do you know, I met Leslie Tempest."
"Oh," said Mother tentatively. "Did he come along with you?"
"He did not look at me."
"Oh!" exclaimed Mother, and it was speaking volumes; then, after a moment, she resumed:
"Perhaps he did not see you."
"Or was it a stony Britisher?" I asked.
"He saw me," declared Lettie, "or he wouldn't have made such a babyish show of being delighted with Margaret Raymond."
"It may have been no show--he still may not have seen you."
"I felt at once that he had; I could see his animation was extravagant. He need not have troubled himself. I was not going to run after him."
"You seem very cross," said I.
"Indeed I am not. But he knew I had to walk all this way home, and he could take up Margaret, who has only half the distance."
"Was he driving?"
"In the dog-cart." She cut her toast into strips viciously. We waited patiently.
"It was mean of him, wasn't it, Mother?"
"Well, my girl, you have treated him badly."
"What a baby! What a mean, manly baby! Men are great infants."
"And girls," said Mother, "do not know what they want."
"A grown-up quality," I added.
"Nevertheless," said Lettie, "he is a mean fop, and I detest him."
She rose and sorted out some stitchery. Lettie never stitched unless she was in a bad humour. Mother smiled at me, sighed, and proceeded to Mr Gladstone for comfort; her breviary and missal were Morley's Life of Gladstone.
I had to take a letter to Highclose to Mrs Tempest--from my mother, concerning a bazaar in process at the church. "I will bring Leslie back with me," said I to myself.
The night was black and hateful. The lamps by the road from Eberwich ended at Nethermere; their yellow blur on the water made the cold, wet inferno of the night more ugly.
Leslie and Marie were both in the library--half a library, half a business office; used also as a lounge room, being cosy. Leslie lay in a great arm-chair by the fire, immune among clouds of blue smoke. Marie was perched on the steps, a great volume on her knee. Leslie got up in his cloud, shook hands, greeted me curtly, and vanished again. Marie smiled me a quaint, vexed smile, saying:
"Oh, Cyril, I'm so glad you've come. I'm so worried, and Leslie says he's not a pastry-cook, though I'm sure I don't want him to be one, only he need not be a bear."
"What's the matter?"
She frowned, gave the big volume a little smack and said:
"Why, I do so much want to make some of those Spanish tartlets of your mother's that are so delicious, and of course Mabel knows nothing of them, and they're not in my cookery book, and I've looked through page upon page of the encyclopaedia, right through 'Spain', and there's nothing yet, and there are fifty pages more, and Leslie won't help me, though I've got a headache, because he's frabous about something." She looked at me in comical despair.
"Do you want them for the bazaar?"
"Yes--for tomorrow. Cook has done the rest, but I had fairly set my heart on these. Don't you think they are lovely?"
"Exquisitely lovely. Suppose I go and ask Mother."
"If you would. But no, oh no, you can't make all that journey this terrible night. We are simply besieged by mud. The men are both out--William has gone to meet Father--and Mother has sent George to carry some things to the vicarage. I can't ask one of the girls on a night like this. I shall have to let it go--and the cranberry tarts too--it cannot be helped. I am so miserable."
"Ask Leslie," said I.
"He is too cross," she replied, looking at him.
He did not deign a remark.
"Will you, Leslie?"
"What?"
"Go across to Woodside for me?"
"What for?"
"A recipe. Do, there's a dear boy."
"Where are the men?"
"They are both engaged--they are out."
"Send a girl, then."
"At night like this? Who would go?"
"Cissy."
"I shall not ask her. Isn't he mean, Cyril? Men are mean."
"I will come back," said I. "There is nothing at home to do. Mother is reading, and Lettie is stitching. The weather disagrees with her, as it does with Leslie."
"But it is not fair--" she
said, looking at me softly. Then she put away the great book and climbed down.
"Won't you go, Leslie?" she said, laying her hand on his shoulder.
"Women!" he said, rising as if reluctantly. "There's no end to their wants and their caprices."
"I thought he would go," said she warmly. She ran to fetch his overcoat. He put one arm slowly in the sleeve, and then the other, but he would not lift the coat on to his shoulders.
"Well!" she said, struggling on tiptoe, "you are a great creature. Can't you get it on, naughty child?"
"Give her a chair to stand on," he said.
She shook the collar of the coat sharply, but he stood like a sheep, impassive.
"Leslie, you are too bad. I can't get it on, you stupid boy." I took the coat and jerked it on.
"There," she said, giving him his cap. "Now don't be long."
"What a damned dirty night!" said he, when we were out.
"It is," said I.
"The town, anywhere's better than this hell of a country."
"Ha! How did you enjoy yourself?"
He began a long history of three days in the metropolis. I listened, and heard little. I heard more plainly the cry of some night birds over Nethermere, and the peevish, wailing, yarling cry of some beast in the wood. I was thankful to slam the door behind me, to stand in the light of the hall.
"Leslie!" exclaimed Mother, "I am glad to see you."
"Thank you," he said, turning to Lettie, who sat with her lap full of work, her head busily bent.
"You see I can't get up," she said, giving him her hand, adorned as it was by the thimble. "How nice of you to come! We did not know you were back."
"But...!" he exclaimed, then he stopped.
"I suppose you enjoyed yourself," she went on calmly. "Immensely, thanks."
Snap, snap, snap went her needle through the new stuff. Then, without looking up, she said:
"Yes, no doubt. You have the air of a man who has been enjoying himself."
The White Peacock Page 9