The White Peacock Part 81

He laughed slightly.

"It's all right," he said, "it's only the excitement of London, and that little man in the park, and that woman on the seat-I wonder where she is to-night, poor devil-and then Lettie. I seem thrown off my balance.-I think really, I ought to have made something of myself--"

"What?" I asked, as he hesitated.

"I don't know," he replied slowly, "-a poet or something, like Burns-I don't know. I shall laugh at myself for thinking so, to-morrow. But I am born a generation too soon-I wasn't ripe enough when I came. I wanted something I hadn't got. I'm something short. I'm like corn in a wet harvest-full, but pappy, no good. Is'll rot. I came too soon; or I wanted something that would ha' made me grow fierce. That's why I wanted Lettie-I think. But am I talking d.a.m.n rot? What am I saying? What are you making me talk for? What are you listening for?"

I rose and went across to him, saying: "I don't want you to talk! If you sleep till morning things will look different."

I sat on his bed and took his hand. He lay quite still.

"I'm only a kid after all, Cyril," he said, a few moments later.

"We all are," I answered, still holding his hand. Presently he fell asleep.

When I awoke the sunlight was laughing with the young morning in the room. The large blue sky shone against the window, and the birds were calling in the garden below, shouting to one another and making fun of life. I felt glad to have opened my eyes. I lay for a moment looking out on the morning as on a blue bright sea in which I was going to plunge.

Then my eyes wandered to the little table near the couch. I noticed the glitter of George's cigarette case, and then, with a start, the whisky decanter. It was nearly empty. He must have drunk three-quarters of a pint of liquor while I was dozing. I could not believe it. I thought I must have been mistaken as to the quant.i.ty the bottle contained. I leaned out to see what it was that had startled me by its fall the night before. It was the large, heavy drinking gla.s.s which he had knocked down but not broken. I could see no stain on the carpet.

George was still asleep. He lay half uncovered, and was breathing quietly. His face looked inert like a mask. The pallid, uninspired clay of his features seemed to have sunk a little out of shape, so that he appeared rather haggard, rather ugly, with grooves of ineffectual misery along his cheeks. I wanted him to wake, so that his inert, flaccid features might be inspired with life again. I could not believe his charm and his beauty could have forsaken him so, and left his features dreary, sunken clay.

As I looked he woke. His eyes opened slowly. He looked at me and turned away, unable to meet my eyes. He pulled the bedclothes up over his shoulders, as though to cover himself from me, and he lay with his back to me, quite still, as if he were asleep, although I knew he was quite awake; he was suffering the humiliation of lying waiting for his life to crawl back and inhabit his body. As it was, his vitality was not yet sufficient to inform the muscles of his face and give him an expression, much less to answer by challenge.

CHAPTER V

PISGAH

When her eldest boy was three years old Lettie returned to live at Eberwich. Old Mr. Tempest died suddenly, so Leslie came down to inhabit "Highclose." He was a very much occupied man. Very often he was in Germany or in the South of England engaged on business. At home he was unfailingly attentive to his wife and his two children. He had cultivated a taste for public life. In spite of his pressure of business he had become a County Councillor, and one of the prominent members of the Conservative a.s.sociation. He was very fond of answering or proposing toasts at some public dinner, of entertaining political men at "Highclose," of taking the chair at political meetings, and finally, of speaking on this or that platform. His name was fairly often seen in the newspapers. As a mine owner, he spoke as an authority on the employment of labour, on royalties, land-owning and so on.

At home he was quite tame. He treated his wife with respect, romped in the nursery, and domineered the servants royally. They liked him for it-her they did not like. He was noisy, but un.o.bservant, she was quiet and exacting. He would swear and bl.u.s.ter furiously, but when he was round the corner they smiled. She gave her orders and pa.s.sed very moderate censure, but they went away cursing to themselves. As Lettie was always a very good wife, Leslie adored her when he had the time, and when he had not, forgot her comfortably.

She was very contradictory. At times she would write to me in terms of pa.s.sionate dissatisfaction: she had nothing at all in her life, it was a barren futility.

"I hope I shall have another child next spring," she would write, "there is only that to take away the misery of this torpor. I seem full of pa.s.sion and energy, and it all fizzles out in day to day domestics--"

When I replied to her urging her to take some work that she could throw her soul into, she would reply indifferently. Then later:

"You charge me with contradiction. Well, naturally. You see I wrote that screeching letter in a mood which won't come again for some time.

Generally I am quite content to take the rain and the calm days just as they come, then something flings me out of myself-and I am a trifle demented:-very, very blue, as I tell Leslie."

Like so many women, she seemed to live, for the most part contentedly, a small indoor existence with artificial light and padded upholstery. Only occasionally, hearing the winds of life outside, she clamoured to be out in the black, keen storm. She was driven to the door, she looked out and called into the tumult wildly, but feminine caution kept her from stepping over the threshold.

George was flourishing in his horse-dealing.

In the morning, processions of splendid shire horses, tied tail and head, would tramp grandly along the quiet lanes of Eberwich, led by George's man, or by Tom Mayhew, while in the fresh clean sunlight George would go riding by, two restless nags dancing beside him.

When I came home from France five years after our meeting in London I found him installed in the "Hollies." He had rented the house from the Mayhews, and had moved there with his family, leaving Oswald in charge of the "Ram." I called at the large house one afternoon, but George was out. His family surprised me. The twins were tall lads of six. There were two more boys, and Meg was nursing a beautiful baby-girl about a year old. This child was evidently mistress of the household. Meg, who was growing stouter, indulged the little creature in every way.

"How is George?" I asked her.

"Oh, he's very well," she replied. "He's always got something on hand.

He hardly seems to have a spare moment; what with his socialism, and one thing and another."

It was true, the outcome of his visit to London had been a wild devotion to the cause of the down-trodden. I saw a picture of Watt's "Mammon," on the walls of the morning-room, and the works of Blatchford, Masterman, and Chiozza Money on the side table. The socialists of the district used to meet every other Thursday evening at the "Hollies" to discuss reform.

Meg did not care for these earnest souls.

"They're not my sort," she said, "too jerky and b.u.mptious. They think everybody's slow-witted but them. There's one thing about them, though, they don't drink, so that's a blessing."

"Why!" I said, "Have you had much trouble that way?"

She lowered her voice to a pitch which was sufficiently mysterious to attract the attention of the boys.

"I shouldn't say anything if it wasn't that you were like brothers," she said. "But he did begin to have dreadful drinking bouts. You know it was always spirits, and generally brandy:-and that makes such work with them. You've no idea what he's like when he's evil-drunk. Sometimes he's all for talk, sometimes he's laughing at everything, and sometimes he's just snappy. And then--" here her tones grew ominous, "--he'll come home evil-drunk."

At the memory she grew serious.

"You couldn't imagine what it's like, Cyril," she said. "It's like having Satan in the house with you, or a black tiger glowering at you.

I'm sure n.o.body knows what I've suffered with him--"

The children stood with large awful eyes and paling lips, listening.

"But he's better now?" I said.

"Oh, yes-since Gertie came,"-she looked fondly at the baby in her arms-"He's a lot better now. You see he always wanted a girl, and he's very fond of her-isn't he, pet?-are you your Dadda's girlie?-and Mamma's too, aren't you?"

The baby turned with sudden coy shyness, and clung to her mother's neck.

Meg kissed her fondly, then the child laid her cheek against her mother's. The mother's dark eyes, and the baby's large, hazel eyes looked at me serenely. The two were very calm, very complete and triumphant together. In their completeness was a security which made me feel alone and ineffectual. A woman who has her child in her arms is a tower of strength, a beautiful, una.s.sailable tower of strength that may in its turn stand quietly dealing death.

I told Meg I would call again to see George. Two evenings later I asked Lettie to lend me a dog-cart to drive over to the "Hollies." Leslie was away on one of his political jaunts, and she was restless. She proposed to go with me. She had called on Meg twice before in the new large home.

We started about six o'clock. The night was dark and muddy. Lettie wanted to call in Eberwich village, so she drove the long way round Selsby. The horse was walking through the gate of the "Hollies" at about seven o'clock. Meg was upstairs in the nursery, the maid told me, and George was in the dining-room getting baby to sleep.

"All right!" I said, "we will go in to him. Don't bother to tell him."

As we stood in the gloomy, square hall we heard the rumble of a rocking-chair, the stroke coming slow and heavy to the tune of "Henry Martin," one of our Strelley Mill folk songs. Then, through the man's heavily-accented singing floated the long light crooning of the baby as she sang, in her quaint little fashion, a mischievous second to her father's lullaby. He waxed a little louder; and without knowing why, we found ourselves smiling with piquant amus.e.m.e.nt. The baby grew louder too, till there was a shrill ring of laughter and mockery in her music.

He sang louder and louder, the baby shrilled higher and higher, the chair swung in long, heavy beats. Then suddenly he began to laugh. The rocking stopped, and he said, still with laughter and enjoyment in his tones:

"Now that is very wicked! Ah, naughty Girlie-go to boh, go to bohey!-at once."

The baby chuckled her small, insolent mockery.

"Come, Mamma!" he said, "come and take Girlie to bohey!"

The baby laughed again, but with an uncertain touch of appeal in her tone. We opened the door and entered. He looked up very much startled to see us. He was sitting in a tall rocking-chair by the fire, coatless, with white shirtsleeves. The baby, in her high-waisted, tight little night-gown, stood on his knee, her wide eyes fixed on us, wild wisps of her brown hair brushed across her forehead and glinting like puffs of bronze dust over her ears. Quickly she put her arms round his neck and tucked her face under his chin, her small feet poised on his thigh, the night-gown dropping upon them. He shook his head as the puff of soft brown hair tickled him. He smiled at us, saying:

"You see I'm busy!"

Then he turned again to the little brown head tucked under his chin, blew away the luminous cloud of hair, and rubbed his lips and his moustache on the small white neck, so warm and secret. The baby put up her shoulders, and shrank a little, bubbling in his neck with hidden laughter. She did not lift her face or loosen her arms.