The White Peacock Part 64

As we went up the orchard side we saw three wide displays of coloured pieces of pots arranged at the foot of three trees.

"Look," said Emily, "those are the children's houses. You don't know how our Mollie gets all Sam's pretty bits-she is a cajoling hussy!"

The two looked at each other again, smiling. Up on the pond-side, in the full glitter of light, we looked round where the blades of cl.u.s.tering corn were softly healing the red bosom of the hill. The larks were overhead among the sunbeams. We straggled away across the gra.s.s. The field was all afroth with cowslips, a yellow, glittering, shaking froth on the still green of the gra.s.s. We trailed our shadows across the fields, extinguishing the sunshine on the flowers as we went. The air was tingling with the scent of blossoms.

"Look at the cowslips, all shaking with laughter," said Emily, and she tossed back her head, and her dark eyes sparkled among the flow of gauze. Lettie was on in front, flitting darkly across the field, bending over the flowers, stooping to the earth like a sable Persephone come into freedom. George had left her at a little distance, hunting for something in the gra.s.s. He stopped, and remained standing in one place.

Gradually, as if unconsciously, she drew near to him, and when she lifted her head, after stooping to pick some chimney-sweeps, little gra.s.s flowers, she laughed with a slight surprise to see him so near.

"Ah!" she said. "I thought I was all alone in the world-such a splendid world-it was so nice."

"Like Eve in a meadow in Eden-and Adam's shadow somewhere on the gra.s.s," said I.

"No-no Adam," she a.s.serted, frowning slightly, and laughing.

"Who ever would want streets of gold," Emily was saying to me, "when you can have a field of cowslips! Look at that hedgebottom that gets the South sun-one stream and glitter of b.u.t.tercups."

"Those Jews always had an eye to the filthy lucre-they even made Heaven out of it," laughed Lettie, and, turning to him, she said, "Don't you wish we were wild-hark, like wood-pigeons-or larks-or, look, like peewits? Shouldn't you love flying and wheeling and sparkling and-courting in the wind?" She lifted her eyelids, and vibrated the question. He flushed, bending over the ground.

"Look," he said, "here's a larkie's."

Once a horse had left a hoofprint in the soft meadow; now the larks had rounded, softened the cup, and had laid there three dark-brown eggs.

Lettie sat down and leaned over the nest; he leaned above her. The wind running over the flower heads, peeped in at the little brown buds, and bounded off again gladly. The big clouds sent messages to them down the shadows, and ran in raindrops to touch them.

"I wish," she said, "I wish we were free like that. If we could put everything safely in a little place in the earth-couldn't we have a good time as well as the larks?"

"I don't see," said he, "why we can't."

"Oh-but I can't-you know we can't"-and she looked at him fiercely.

"Why can't you?" he asked.

"You know we can't-you know as well as I do," she replied, and her whole soul challenged him. "We have to consider things" she added. He dropped his head. He was afraid to make the struggle, to rouse himself to decide the question for her. She turned away, and went kicking through the flowers. He picked up the blossoms she had left by the nest-they were still warm from her hands-and followed her. She walked on towards the end of the field, the long strands of her white scarf running before her. Then she leaned back to the wind, while he caught her up.

"Don't you want your flowers?" he asked humbly.

"No, thanks-they'd be dead before I got home-throw them away, you look absurd with a posy."

He did as he was bidden. They came near the hedge. A crab-apple tree blossomed up among the blue.

"You may get me a bit of that blossom," said she, and suddenly added-"no, I can reach it myself," whereupon she stretched upward and pulled several sprigs of the pink and white, and put it in her dress.

"Isn't it pretty?" she said, and she began to laugh ironically, pointing to the flowers-"pretty, pink-cheeked petals, and stamens like yellow hair, and buds like lips promising something nice"-she stopped and looked at him, flickering with a smile. Then she pointed to the ovary beneath the flower, and said: "Result: Crab-apples!"

She continued to look at him, and to smile. He said nothing. So they went on to where they could climb the fence into the spinney. She climbed to the top rail, holding by an oak bough. Then she let him lift her down bodily.

"Ah!" she said, "you like to show me how strong you are-a veritable Samson!"-she mocked, although she had invited him with her eyes to take her in his arms.

We were entering the spinney of black poplar. In the hedge was an elm tree, with myriads of dark dots pointed against the bright sky, myriads of cl.u.s.ters of flaky green fruit.

"Look at that elm," she said, "you'd think it was in full leaf, wouldn't you? Do you know why it's so prolific?"

"No," he said, with a curious questioning drawl of the monosyllable.

"It's casting its bread upon the winds-no, it is dying, so it puts out all its strength and loads its boughs with the last fruit. It'll be dead next year. If you're here then, come and see. Look at the ivy, the suave smooth ivy, with its fingers in the trees' throat. Trees know how to die, you see-we don't."

With her whimsical moods she tormented him. She was at the bottom a seething confusion of emotion, and she wanted to make him likewise.

"If we were trees with ivy-instead of being fine humans with free active life-we should hug our thinning lives, shouldn't we?"

"I suppose we should."

"You, for instance-fancy _your_ sacrificing yourself-for the next generation-that reminds you of Schopenhauer, doesn't it?-for the next generation, or love, or anything!"

He did not answer her; she was too swift for him. They pa.s.sed on under the poplars, which were hanging strings of green beads above them. There was a little open s.p.a.ce, with tufts of bluebells. Lettie stooped over a wood-pigeon that lay on the ground on its breast, its wings half spread.

She took it up-its eyes were bursten and b.l.o.o.d.y; she felt its breast, ruffling the dimming iris on its throat.

"It's been fighting," he said.

"What for-a mate?" she asked, looking at him.

"I don't know," he answered.

"Cold-he's quite cold, under the feathers! I think a wood-pigeon must enjoy being fought for-and being won especially if the right one won.

It would be a fine pleasure to see them fighting-don't you think?" she said, torturing him.

"The claws are spread-it fell dead off the perch," he replied.

"Ah, poor thing-it was wounded-and sat and waited for death-when the other had won. Don't you think life is very cruel, George-and love the cruellest of all?"

He laughed bitterly under the pain of her soft, sad tones.

"Let me bury him-and have done with the beaten lover. But we'll make him a pretty grave."

She scooped a hole in the dark soil, and s.n.a.t.c.hing a handful of bluebells, threw them in on top of the dead bird. Then she smoothed the soil over all, and pressed her white hands on the black loam.

"There," she said, knocking her hands one against the other to shake off the soil, "he's done with. Come on."

He followed her, speechless with his emotion.

The spinney opened out; the ferns were serenely uncoiling, the bluebells stood grouped with blue curls mingled. In the freer s.p.a.ces forget-me-nots flowered in nebulae, and dog-violets gave an undertone of dark purple, with primroses for planets in the night. There was a slight drift of woodruff, sweet new-mown hay, scenting the air under the boughs. On a wet bank was the design of golden saxifrage, glistening unholily as if varnished by its minister, the snail. George and Lettie crushed the veined belles of wood-sorrel and broke the silken mosses.

What did it matter to them what they broke or crushed.

Over the fence of the spinney was the hillside, scattered with old thorn trees. There the little grey lichens held up ruby b.a.l.l.s to us unnoticed.

What did it matter, when all the great red apples were being shaken from the Tree to be left to rot.

"If I were a man," said Lettie, "I would go out west and be free. I should love it."