The White Peacock Part 47

"Why-what's up-really?"

He laughed bitterly, saying, "Come and sit down."

He led me off to a seat by the north door, between two pews, very black and silent. There we sat, he putting his gun carefully beside him. He remained perfectly still, thinking.

"Whot's up?" he said at last, "Why-I'll tell you. I went to Cambridge-my father was a big cattle dealer-he died bankrupt while I was in college, and I never took my degree. They persuaded me to be a parson, and a parson I was.

I went a curate to a little place in Leicestershire-a bonnie place with not many people, and a fine old church, and a great rich parsonage. I hadn't overmuch to do, and the rector-he was the son of an Earl-was generous. He lent me a horse and would have me hunt like the rest. I always think of that place with a smell of honeysuckle while the gra.s.s is wet in the morning. It was fine, and I enjoyed myself, and did the parish work all right. I believe I was pretty good.

A cousin of the rector's used to come in the hunting season-a Lady Crystabel, lady in her own right. The second year I was there she came in June. There wasn't much company, so she used to talk to me-I used to read then-and she used to pretend to be so childish and unknowing, and would get me telling her things, and talking to her, and I was hot on things. We must play tennis together, and ride together, and I must row her down the river. She said we were in the wilderness and could do as we liked. She made me wear flannels and soft clothes. She was very fine and frank and unconventional-ripping, I thought her. All the summer she stopped on. I should meet her in the garden early in the morning when I came from a swim in the river-it was cleared and deepened on purpose-and she'd blush and make me walk with her. I can remember I used to stand and dry myself on the bank full where she might see me-I was mad on her-and she was madder on me.

We went to some caves in Derbyshire once, and she would wander from the rest, and loiter, and, for a game, we played a sort of hide and seek with the party. They thought we'd gone, and they went and locked the door. Then she pretended to be frightened and clung to me, and said what would they think, and hid her face in my coat. I took her and kissed her, and we made it up properly. I found out afterwards-she actually told me-she'd got the idea from a sloppy French novel-the Romance of A Poor Young Man. I was the Poor Young Man.

We got married. She gave me a living she had in her parsonage, and we went to live at her Hall. She wouldn't let me out of her sight.

Lord!-we were an infatuated couple-and she would choose to view me in an aesthetic light. I was Greek statues for her, bless you: Croton, Hercules, I don't know what! She had her own way too much-I let her do as she liked with me.

Then gradually she got tired-it took her three years to be really glutted with me. I had a physique then-for that matter I have now."

He held out his arm to me, and bade me try his muscle. I was startled.

The hard flesh almost filled his sleeve.

"Ah," he continued, "You don't know what it is to have the pride of a body like mine. But she wouldn't have children-no, she wouldn't-said she daren't. That was the root of the difference at first. But she cooled down, and if you don't know the pride of my body you'd never know my humiliation. I tried to remonstrate-and she looked simply astounded at my cheek. I never got over that amazement.

She began to get souly. A poet got hold of her, and she began to affect Burne-Jones-or Waterhouse-it was Waterhouse-she was a lot like one of his women-Lady of Shalott, I believe. At any rate, she got souly, and I was her animal-son animal-son boeuf. I put up with that for above a year. Then I got some servants' clothes and went.

I was seen in France-then in Australia-though I never left England. I was supposed to have died in the bush. She married a young fellow. Then I was proved to have died, and I read a little obituary notice on myself in a woman's paper she subscribed to. She wrote it herself-as a warning to other young ladies of position not to be seduced by plausible "Poor Young Men."

Now she's dead. They've got the paper-her paper-in the kitchen down there, and it's full of photographs, even an old photo of me-"an unfortunate misalliance." I feel, somehow, as if I were at an end too. I thought I'd grown a solid, middle-aged-man, and here I feel sore as I did at twenty-six, and I talk as I used to.

One thing-I have got some children, and they're of a breed as you'd not meet anywhere. I was a good animal before everything, and I've got some children."

He sat looking up where the big moon swam through the black branches of the yew.

"So she's dead-your poor peac.o.c.k!" I murmured.

He got up, looking always at the sky, and stretched himself again. He was an impressive figure ma.s.sed in blackness against the moonlight, with his arms outspread.

"I suppose," he said, "it wasn't all her fault."

"A white peac.o.c.k, we will say," I suggested.

He laughed.

"Go home by the top road, will you!" he said. "I believe there's something on in the bottom wood."

"All right," I answered, with a quiver of apprehension.

"Yes, she was fair enough," he muttered.

"Ay," said I, rising. I held out my hand from the shadow. I was startled myself by the white sympathy it seemed to express, extended towards him in the moonlight. He gripped it, and cleaved to me for a moment, then he was gone.

I went out of the churchyard feeling a sullen resentment against the tousled graves that lay inanimate across my way. The air was heavy to breathe, and fearful in the shadow of the great trees. I was glad when I came out on the bare white road, and could see the copper lights from the reflectors of a pony-cart's lamps, and could hear the amiable chat-chat of the hoofs trotting towards me. I was lonely when they had pa.s.sed.

Over the hill, the big flushed face of the moon poised just above the treetops, very majestic, and far off-yet imminent. I turned with swift sudden friendliness to the net of elm-boughs spread over my head, dotted with soft cl.u.s.ters winsomely. I jumped up and pulled the cool soft tufts against my face for company; and as I pa.s.sed, still I reached upward for the touch of this budded gentleness of the trees. The wood breathed fragrantly, with a subtle sympathy. The firs softened their touch to me, and the larches woke from the barren winter-sleep, and put out velvet fingers to caress me as I pa.s.sed. Only the clean, bare branches of the ash stood emblem of the discipline of life. I looked down on the blackness where trees filled the quarry and the valley bottoms, and it seemed that the world, my own home-world, was strange again.

Some four or five days after Annable had talked to me in the churchyard, I went out to find him again. It was Sunday morning. The larch-wood was afloat with clear, lyric green, and some primroses scattered whitely on the edge under the fringing boughs. It was a clear morning, as when the latent life of the world begins to vibrate afresh in the air. The smoke from the cottage rose blue against the trees, and thick yellow against the sky. The fire, it seemed, was only just lighted, and the wood-smoke poured out.

Sam appeared outside the house, and looked round. Then he climbed the water-trough for a better survey. Evidently unsatisfied, paying slight attention to me, he jumped down and went running across the hillside to the wood. "He is going for his father," I said to myself, and I left the path to follow him down hill across the waste meadow, crackling the blanched stems of last year's thistles as I went, and stumbling in rabbit holes. He reached the wall that ran along the quarry's edge, and was over it in a twinkling.

When I came to the place, I was somewhat nonplussed, for sheer from the stone fence, the quarry-side dropped for some twenty or thirty feet, piled up with unmortared stones. I looked round-there was a plain dark thread down the hillside, which marked a path to this spot, and the wall was scored with the marks of heavy boots. Then I looked again down the quarry-side, and I saw-how could I have failed to see?-stones projecting to make an uneven staircase, such as is often seen in the Derbyshire fences. I saw this ladder was well used, so I trusted myself to it, and scrambled down, clinging to the face of the quarry wall. Once down, I felt pleased with myself for having discovered and used the unknown access, and I admired the care and ingenuity of the keeper, who had fitted and wedged the long stones into the uncertain pile.

It was warm in the quarry: there the sunshine seemed to thicken and sweeten; there the little mounds of overgrown waste were aglow with very early dog-violets; there the sparks were coming out on the bits of gorse, and among the stones the colt-foot plumes were already silvery.

Here was spring sitting just awake, unloosening her glittering hair, and opening her purple eyes.

I went across the quarry, down to where the brook ran murmuring a tale to the primroses and the budding trees. I was startled from my wandering among the fresh things by a faint clatter of stones.

"What's that young rascal doing?" I said to myself, setting forth to see. I came towards the other side of the quarry: on this, the moister side, the bushes grew up against the wall, which was higher than on the other side, though piled the same with old dry stones. As I drew near I could hear the sc.r.a.pe and rattle of stones, and the vigorous grunting of Sam as he laboured among them. He was hidden by a great bush of sallow catkins, all yellow, and murmuring with bees, warm with spice. When he came in view I laughed to see him lugging and grunting among the great pile of stones that had fallen in a ma.s.s from the quarry-side; a pile of stones and earth and crushed vegetation. There was a great bare gap in the quarry wall. Somehow, the lad's labouring earnestness made me anxious, and I hurried up.

He heard me, and glancing round, his face red with exertion, eyes big with terror, he called, commanding me:

"Pull 'em off 'im-pull 'em off!" Suddenly my heart beating in my throat nearly suffocated me. I saw the hand of the keeper lying among the stones. I set to tearing away the stones, and we worked for some time without a word. Then I seized the arm of the keeper and tried to drag him out. But I could not.

"Pull it off 'im!" whined the lad, working in a frenzy.

When we got him out I saw at once he was dead, and I sat down trembling with exertion. There was a great smashed wound on the side of the head.

Sam put his face against his father's and snuffed round him like a dog, to feel the life in him. The child looked at me:

"He won't get up," he said, and his little voice was hoa.r.s.e with fear and anxiety.

I shook my head. Then the boy began to whimper. He tried to close the lips which were drawn with pain and death, leaving the teeth bare; then his fingers hovered round the eyes, which were wide open, glazed, and I could see he was trembling to touch them into life.

"He's not asleep," he said, "because his eyes is open-look!"

I could not bear the child's questioning terror. I took him up to carry him away, but he struggled and fought to be free.

"Ma'e 'im get up-ma'e 'im get up," he cried in a frenzy, and I had to let the boy go.

He ran to the dead man, calling "Feyther! Feyther!" and pulling his shoulder; then he sat down, fascinated by the sight of the wound; he put out his finger to touch it, and shivered.

"Come away," said I.

"Is it that?" he asked, pointing to the wound. I covered the face with a big silk handkerchief.

"Now," said I, "he'll go to sleep if you don't touch him-so sit still while I go and fetch somebody. Will _you_ run to the Hall?"

He shook his head. I knew he would not. So I told him again not to touch his father, but to let him lie still till I came back. He watched me go, but did not move from his seat on the stones beside the dead man, though I know he was full of terror at being left alone.

I ran to the Hall-I dared not go to the Kennels. In a short time I was back with the squire and three men. As I led the way, I saw the child lifting a corner of the handkerchief to peep and see if the eyes were closed in sleep. Then he heard us, and started violently. When we removed the covering, and he saw the face unchanged in its horror, he looked at me with a look I have never forgotten.