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David Herbert Lawrence

DH Lawrence – The Mortal Coil & Other Stories

 

For many of us DH Lawrence was a schoolboy hero. Who can forget sniggering in class at the mention of ‘Women In Love’ or ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’?   Lawrence was a talented if nomadic writer whose novels were passionately received, suppressed at times and generally at odds with Establishment values.  This of course did not deter him.  

At his death in 1930 at the young age of 44 he was more often thought of as a pornographer but in the ensuing years he has come to be more rightly regarded as one of the most imaginative writers these shores have produced. 

As well as his novels he was also a masterful poet (he wrote over 800 of them), a travel writer as well as an author of many classic short stories. 

Here we publish ‘The Mortal Coil & Other Stories’. Once again Lawrence shows his hand as a brilliant writer. Delving into situations and peeling them back to reveal the inner heart.

 

 

Index Of Contents

Her Turn

Strike Pay

The Mortal Coil

A Fragment of Stained Glass
The White Stocking
Odour of Chrysanthemums
England, My England
Monkey Nute
Wintry Peacock
Samson and Delilah
The Primose Path
DH Lawrence – A Short Biography
DH Lawrence – A Concise bibliography

 

 

 

HER TURN

 

She was his second wife, and so there was between them that truce which is never held between a man and his first woman.

 

He was one for the women, and as such, an exception among the colliers.  In spite of their prudery, the neighbour women liked him; he was big, naïve, and very courteous with them; he was so, even to his second wife.

 

Being a large man of considerable strength and perfect health, he earned good money in the pit.  His natural courtesy saved him from enemies, while his fresh interest in life made his presence always agreeable.  So he went his own way, had always plenty of friends, always a good job down pit.

 

He gave his wife thirty-five shillings a week.  He had two grown-up sons at home, and they paid twelve shillings each.  There was only one child by the second marriage, so Radford considered his wife did well.

 

Eighteen months ago, Bryan and Wentworth's men were out on strike for eleven weeks.  During that time, Mrs. Radford could neither cajole nor entreat nor nag the ten shillings strike-pay from her husband.  So that when the second strike came on, she was prepared for action.

 

Radford was going, quite inconspicuously, to the publican's wife at the "Golden Horn".  She is a large, easy-going lady of forty, and her husband is sixty-three, moreover crippled with rheumatism.  She sits in the little bar-parlour of the wayside public-house, knitting for dear life, and sipping a very moderate glass of Scotch.  When a decent man arrives at the three-foot width of bar, she rises, serves him, surveys him over, and, if she likes his looks, says:

 

"Won't you step inside, sir?"

 

If he steps inside, he will find not more than one or two men present.  The room is warm, quite small.  The landlady knits.  She gives a few polite words to the stranger, then resumes her conversation with the man who interests her most.  She is straight, highly-coloured, with indifferent brown eyes.

 

"What was that you asked me, Mr. Radford?"

 

"What is the difference between a donkey's tail and a rainbow?" asked Radford, who had a consuming passion for conundrums.

 

"All the difference in the world," replied the landlady.

 

"Yes, but what special difference?"

 

"I s'll have to give it up again.  You'll think me a donkey's head, I'm afraid."

 

"Not likely.  But just you consider now, wheer . . ."

 

The conundrum was still under weigh, when a girl entered.  She was swarthy, a fine animal.  After she had gone out:

 

"Do you know who that is?" asked the landlady.

 

"I can't say as I do," replied Radford.

 

"She's Frederick Pinnock's daughter, from Stony Ford.  She's courting our Willy."

 

"And a fine lass, too."

 

"Yes, fine enough, as far as that goes.  What sort of a wife'll she make him, think you?"

 

"You just let me consider a bit," said the man.  He took out a pocket-book and a pencil.  The landlady continued to talk to the other guests.

 

Radford was a big fellow, black-haired, with a brown moustache, and darkish blue eyes.  His voice, naturally deep, was pitched in his throat, and had a peculiar, tenor quality, rather husky, and disturbing.  He modulated it a good deal as he spoke, as men do who talk much with women.  Always, there was a certain indolence in his carriage.

 

"Our mester's lazy," his wife said.  "There's many a bit of a jab wants doin', but get him to do it if you can."

 

But she knew he was merely indifferent to the little jobs, and not lazy.

 

He sat writing for about ten minutes, at the end of which time, he read:

 

"I see a fine girl full of life.

 

I see her just ready for wedlock,

 

But there's jealousy between her eyebrows

 

And jealousy on her mouth.

 

I see trouble ahead.

 

Willy is delicate.

 

She would do him no good.

 

She would never see when he wasn't well,

 

She would only see what she wanted."

 

So, in phrases, he got down his thoughts.  He had to fumble for expression, and therefore anything serious he wanted to say he wrote in "poetry", as he called it.

 

Presently, the landlady rose, saying:

 

"Well, I s'll have to be looking after our mester.  I s'll be in again before we close."

 

Radford sat quite comfortably on.  In a while, he too bade the company good-night.

 

When he got home, at a quarter-past eleven, his sons were in bed, and his wife sat awaiting him.  She was a woman of medium height, fat and sleek, a dumpling.  Her black hair was parted smooth, her narrow-opened eyes were sly and satirical, she had a peculiar twang in her rather sleering voice.

 

"Our missis is a puss-puss," he said easily, of her.  Her extraordinarily smooth, sleek face was remarkable.  She was very healthy.

 

He never came in drunk.  Having taken off his coat and his cap, he sat down to supper in his shirt-sleeves.  Do as he might, she was fascinated by him.  He had a strong neck, with the crisp hair growing low.  Let her be angry as she would yet she had a passion for that neck of his, particularly when she saw the great vein rib under the skin.

 

"I think, missis," he said, "I'd rather ha'e a smite o' cheese than this meat."

 

"Well, can't you get it yourself?"

 

"Yi, surely I can," he said, and went out to the pantry.

 

"I think, if yer comin' in at this time of night, you can wait on yourself," she justified herself.

 

She moved uneasily in her chair.  There were several jam-tarts alongside the cheese on the dish he brought.

 

"Yi, Missis, them tan-tafflins'll go down very nicely," he said.

 

"Oh, will they!  Then you'd better help to pay for them," she said, amiably, but determined.

 

"Now what art after?"

 

"What am I after?  Why, can't you think?" she said sarcastically.

 

"I'm not for thinkin', missis."

 

"No, I know you're not.  But wheer's my money?  You've been paid the Union to-day.  Wheer do I come in?"

 

"Tha's got money, an' tha mun use it."

 

"Thank yer.  An' 'aven't you none, as well?"

 

"I hadna, not till we was paid, not a ha'p'ny."

 

"Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself to say so."

 

"'Appen so."

 

"We'll go shares wi' th' Union money," she said.  "That's nothing but what's right."

 

"We shonna.  Tha's got plenty o' money as tha can use."

 

"Oh, all right," she said.  "I will do."

 

She went to bed.  It made her feel sharp that she could not get at him.

 

The next day, she was just as usual.  But at eleven o'clock she took her purse and went up town.  Trade was very slack.  Men stood about in gangs, men were playing marbles everywhere in the streets. It was a sunny morning.  Mrs. Radford went into the furnisher-and-upholsterer's shop.

 

"There's a few things," she said to Mr. Allcock, "as I'm wantin' for the house, and I might as well get them now, while the men's at home, and can shift me the furniture."

 

She put her fat purse on to the counter with a click.  The man should know she was not wanting "strap".  She bought linoleum for the kitchen, a new wringer, a breakfast-service, a spring mattress, and various other things, keeping a mere thirty shillings, which she tied in a corner of her handkerchief.  In her purse was some loose silver.

 

Her husband was gardening in a desultory fashion when she got back home.  The daffodils were out.  The colts in the field at the end of the garden were tossing their velvety brown necks.

 

"Sithee here, missis," called Radford, from the shed which stood halfway down the path.  Two doves in a cage were cooing.

 

"What have you got?" asked the woman, as she approached.  He held out to her in his big, earthy hand a tortoise.  The reptile was very, very slowly issuing its head again to the warmth.

 

"He's wakkened up betimes," said Radford.

 

"He's like th' men, wakened up for a holiday," said the wife. Radford scratched the little beast's scaly head.

 

"We pleased to see him out," he said.

 

They had just finished dinner, when a man knocked at the door.

 

"From Allcock's!" he said.

 

The plump woman took up the clothes-basket containing the crockery she had bought.

 

"Whativer hast got theer?" asked her husband.

 

"We've been wantin' some breakfast-cups for ages, so I went up town an' got 'em this mornin'," she replied.

 

He watched her taking out the crockery.

 

"Hm!" he said.  "Tha's been on th' spend, seemly."

 

Again there was a thud at the door.  The man had put down a roll of linoleum.  Mr. Radford went to look at it.

 

"They come rolling in!" he exclaimed.

 

"Who's grumbled more than you about the raggy oilcloth of this kitchen?" said the insidious, cat-like voice of the wife.

 

"It's all right, it's all right," said Radford.

 

The carter came up the entry with another roll, which he deposited with a grunt at the door.

 

"An' how much do you reckon this lot is?" he asked.

 

"Oh, they're all paid for, don't worry," replied the wife.

 

"Shall yer gi'e me a hand, mester?" asked the carter.

 

Radford followed him down the entry, in his easy, slouching way. His wife went after.  His waistcoat was hanging loose over his shirt.  She watched his easy movement of well-being as she followed him, and she laughed to herself.

 

The carter took hold of one end of the wire mattress, dragged it forth.

 

"Well, this is a corker!" said Radford, as he received the burden.

 

"Now the mangle!" said the carter.

 

"What dost reckon tha's been up to, missis?" asked the husband.

 

"I said to myself last wash-day, if I had to turn that mangle again, tha'd ha'e ter wash the clothes thyself."

 

Radford followed the carter down the entry again.  In the street, women were standing watching, and dozens of men were lounging round the cart.  One officiously helped with the wringer.

 

"Gi'e him thrippence," said Mrs. Radford.

 

"Gi'e him thysen," replied her husband.

 

"I've no change under half a crown."

 

Radford tipped the carter, and returned indoors.  He surveyed the array of crockery, linoleum, mattress, mangle, and other goods crowding the house and the yard.

 

"Well, this is a winder!" he repeated.

 

"We stood in need of 'em enough," she replied.

 

"I hope tha's got plenty more from wheer they came from," he replied dangerously.

 

"That's just what I haven't."  She opened her purse.  "Two half-crowns, that's every copper I've got i' th' world."

 

He stood very still as he looked.

 

"It's right," she said.

 

There was a certain smug sense of satisfaction about her.  A wave of anger came over him, blinding him.  But he waited and waited. Suddenly his arm leapt up, the fist clenched, and his eyes blazed at her.  She shrank away, pale and frightened.  But he dropped his fist to his side, turned, and went out, muttering.  He went down to the shed that stood in the middle of the garden.  There he picked up the tortoise, and stood with bent head, rubbing its horny head.

 

She stood hesitating, watching him.  Her heart was heavy, and yet there was a curious, cat-like look of satisfaction round her eyes. Then she went indoors and gazed at her new cups, admiringly.

 

The next week he handed her his half-sovereign without a word.

 

"You'll want some for yourself," she said, and she gave him a shilling.  He accepted it.

 

 

 

STRIKE-PAY

 

Strike-money is paid in the Primitive Methodist Chapel.  The crier was round quite early on Wednesday morning to say that paying would begin at ten o'clock.

 

The Primitive Methodist Chapel is a big barn of a place, built, designed, and paid for by the colliers themselves.  But it threatened to fall down from its first form, so that a professional architect had to be hired at last to pull the place together.

 

It stands in the Square.  Forty years ago, when Bryan and Wentworth opened their pits, they put up the "squares" of miners' dwellings. They are two great quadrangles of houses, enclosing a barren stretch of ground, littered with broken pots and rubbish, which forms a square, a great, sloping, lumpy playground for the children, a drying-ground for many women's washing.

 

Wednesday is still wash-day with some women.  As the men clustered round the Chapel, they heard the thud-thud-thud of many pouches, women pounding away at the wash-tub with a wooden pestle.  In the Square the white clothes were waving in the wind from a maze of clothes-lines, and here and there women were pegging out, calling to the miners, or to the children who dodged under the flapping sheets.

 

Ben Townsend, the Union agent, has a bad way of paying.  He takes the men in order of his round, and calls them by name.  A big, oratorical man with a grey beard, he sat at the table in the Primitive school-room, calling name after name.  The room was crowded with colliers, and a great group pushed up outside.  There was much confusion.  Ben dodged from the Scargill Street list to the Queen Street.  For this Queen Street men were not prepared. They were not to the fore.

 

"Joseph Grooby, Joseph Grooby!  Now, Joe, where are you?"

 

"Hold on a bit, Sorry!" cried Joe from outside.  "I'm shovin' up."

 

There was a great noise from the men.

 

"I'm takin' Queen Street.  All you Queen Street men should be ready.  Here you are, Joe," said the Union agent loudly.

 

"Five children!" said Joe, counting the money suspiciously.

 

"That's right, I think," came the mouthing voice.  "Fifteen shillings, is it not?"

 

"A bob a kid," said the collier.

 

"Thomas Sedgwick. How are you, Tom?  Missis better?"

 

"Ay, 'er's shapin' nicely.  Tha'rt hard at work to-day, Ben."  This was sarcasm on the idleness of a man who had given up the pit to become a Union agent.

 

"Yes.  I rose at four to fetch the money."

 

"Dunna hurt thysen," was the retort, and the men laughed.

 

"No, John Merfin!"

 

But the colliers, tired with waiting, excited by the strike spirit, began to rag.  Merfin was young and dandiacal.  He was choir-master at the Wesleyan Chapel.

 

"Does your collar cut, John?" asked a sarcastic voice out of the crowd.

 

"Hymn Number Nine.

 

'Diddle-diddle dumpling, my son John      
Went to bed with his best suit on,'"

 

came the solemn announcement.

 

Mr. Merfin, his white cuffs down to his knuckles, picked up his half-sovereign, and walked away loftily.

 

"Sam Coutts!" cried the paymaster.

 

"Now, lad, reckon it up," shouted the voice of the crowd, delighted.

 

Mr. Coutts was a straight-backed ne'er-do-well.  He looked at his twelve shillings sheepishly.

 

"Another two-bob, he had twins a-Monday night, get thy money, Sam, tha's earned it, tha's addled it, Sam; dunna go be-out it.  Let him ha' the two bob for 'is twins, mister," came the clamour from the men around.

 

Sam Coutts stood grinning awkwardly.

 

"You should ha' given us notice, Sam," said the paymaster suavely. "We can make it all right for you next week."

 

"Nay, nay, nay," shouted a voice.  "Pay on delivery, the goods is there right enough."

 

"Get thy money, Sam, tha's addled it," became the universal cry, and the Union agent had to hand over another florin, to prevent a disturbance.  Sam Coutts grinned with satisfaction.

 

"Good shot, Sam," the men exclaimed.

 

"Ephraim Wharmby," shouted the pay-man.

 

A lad came forward.

 

"Gi' him sixpence for what's on t'road," said a sly voice.

 

"Nay, nay," replied Ben Townsend; "pay on delivery."

 

There was a roar of laughter.  The miners were in high spirits.

 

In the town they stood about in gangs, talking and laughing.  Many sat on their heels in the market-place.  In and out of the public-houses they went, and on every bar the half-sovereigns clicked.

 

"Comin' ter Nottingham wi' us, Ephraim?" said Sam Coutts to the slender, pale young fellow of about twenty-two.

 

"I'm non walkin' that far of a gleamy day like this."

 

"He has na got the strength," said somebody, and a laugh went up.

 

"How's that?" asked another pertinent voice.

 

"He's a married man, mind yer," said Chris Smitheringale, "an' it ta'es a bit o' keepin' up."

 

The youth was teased in this manner for some time.

 

"Come on ter Nottingham wi's; tha'll be safe for a bit," said Coutts.

 

A gang set off, although it was only eleven o'clock.  It was a nine-mile walk.  The road was crowded with colliers travelling on foot to see the match between Notts and Aston Villa.  In Ephraim's gang were Sam Coutts, with his fine shoulders and his extra florin, Chris Smitheringale, fat and smiling, and John Wharmby, a remarkable man, tall, erect as a soldier, black-haired and proud; he could play any musical instrument, he declared.

 

"I can play owt from a comb up'ards.  If there's music to be got outer a thing, I back I'll get it.  No matter what shape or form of instrument you set before me, it doesn't signify if I nivir clapped eyes on it before, I's warrant I'll have a tune out of it in five minutes."

 

He beguiled the first two miles so.  It was true, he had caused a sensation by introducing the mandoline into the townlet, filling the hearts of his fellow-colliers with pride as he sat on the platform in evening dress, a fine soldierly man, bowing his black head, and scratching the mewing mandoline with hands that had only to grasp the "instrument" to crush it entirely.

 

Chris stood a can round at the "White Bull" at Gilt Brook.  John Wharmby took his turn at Kimberley top.

 

"We wunna drink again," they decided, "till we're at Cinder Hill. We'll non stop i' Nuttall."

 

They swung along the high-road under the budding trees.  In Nuttall churchyard the crocuses blazed with yellow at the brim of the balanced, black yews.  White and purple crocuses dipt up over the graves, as if the churchyard were bursting out in tiny tongues of flame.

 

"Sithee," said Ephraim, who was an ostler down pit, "sithee, here comes the Colonel.  Sithee at his 'osses how they pick their toes up, the beauties!"

 

The Colonel drove past the men, who took no notice of him.

 

"Hast heard, Sorry," said Sam, "as they're com'n out i' Germany, by the thousand, an' begun riotin'?"

 

"An' comin' out i' France simbitar," cried Chris.

 

The men all gave a chuckle.

 

"Sorry," shouted John Wharmby, much elated, "we oughtna ter go back under a twenty per cent rise."

 

"We should get it," said Chris.

 

"An' easy!  They can do nowt bi-out us, we'n on'y ter stop out long enough."

 

"I'm willin'," said Sam, and there was a laugh.  The colliers looked at one another.  A thrill went through them as if an electric current passed.

 

"We'n on'y ter stick out, an' we s'll see who's gaffer."

 

"Us!" cried Sam.  "Why, what can they do again' us, if we come out all over th' world?"

 

"Nowt!" said John Wharmby.  "Th' mesters is bobbin' about like corks on a cassivoy a'ready."  There was a large natural reservoir, like a lake, near Bestwood, and this supplied the simile.

 

Again there passed through the men that wave of elation, quickening their pulses.  They chuckled in their throats.  Beyond all consciousness was this sense of battle and triumph in the hearts of the working-men at this juncture.

 

It was suddenly suggested at Nuttall that they should go over the fields to Bulwell, and into Nottingham that way.  They went single file across the fallow, past the wood, and over the railway, where now no trains were running.  Two fields away was a troop of pit ponies.  Of all colours, but chiefly of red or brown, they clustered thick in the field, scarcely moving, and the two lines of trodden earth patches showed where fodder was placed down the field.

 

"Theer's the pit 'osses," said Sam.  "Let's run 'em."

 

"It's like a circus turned out.  See them skewbawd 'uns, seven skewbawd," said Ephraim.

 

The ponies were inert, unused to freedom.  Occasionally one walked round.  But there they stood, two thick lines of ruddy brown and piebald and white, across the trampled field.  It was a beautiful day, mild, pale blue, a "growing day", as the men said, when there was the silence of swelling sap everywhere.

 

"Let's ha'e a ride," said Ephraim.

 

The younger men went up to the horses.

 

"Come on, co-oop, Taffy, co-oop, Ginger."

 

The horses tossed away.  But having got over the excitement of being above-ground, the animals were feeling dazed and rather dreary.  They missed the warmth and the life of the pit.  They looked as if life were a blank to them.

 

Ephraim and Sam caught a couple of steeds, on whose backs they went careering round, driving the rest of the sluggish herd from end to end of the field.  The horses were good specimens, on the whole, and in fine condition.  But they were out of their element.

 

Performing too clever a feat, Ephraim went rolling from his mount. He was soon up again, chasing his horse.  Again he was thrown. Then the men proceeded on their way.

 

They were drawing near to miserable Bulwell, when Ephraim, remembering his turn was coming to stand drinks, felt in his pocket for his beloved half-sovereign, his strike-pay.  It was not there. Through all his pockets he went, his heart sinking like lead.

 

"Sam," he said, "I believe I'n lost that ha'ef a sovereign."

 

"Tha's got it somewheer about thee," said Chris.

 

They made him take off his coat and waistcoat.  Chris examined the coat, Sam the waistcoat, whilst Ephraim searched his trousers.

 

"Well," said Chris, "I'n foraged this coat, an' it's non theer."

 

"An' I'll back my life as th' on'y bit a metal on this wa'scoat is the buttons," said Sam.

 

"An' it's non in my breeches," said Ephraim.  He took off his boots and his stockings.  The half-sovereign was not there.  He had not another coin in his possession.

 

"Well," said Chris, "we mun go back an' look for it."

 

Back they went, four serious-hearted colliers, and searched the field, but in vain.

 

"Well," said Chris, "we s'll ha'e ter share wi' thee, that's a'."

 

"I'm willin'," said John Wharmby.

 

"An' me," said Sam.

 

"Two bob each," said Chris.

 

Ephraim, who was in the depths of despair, shamefully accepted their six shillings.

 

In Bulwell they called in a small public-house, which had one long room with a brick floor, scrubbed benches and scrubbed tables.  The central space was open.  The place was full of colliers, who were drinking.  There was a great deal of drinking during the strike, but not a vast amount drunk.  Two men were playing skittles, and the rest were betting.  The seconds sat on either side the skittle-board, holding caps of money, sixpences and coppers, the wagers of the "backers".

 

Sam, Chris, and John Wharmby immediately put money on the man who had their favour.  In the end Sam declared himself willing to play against the victor.  He was the Bestwood champion.  Chris and John Wharmby backed him heavily, and even Ephraim the Unhappy ventured sixpence.

 

In the end, Sam had won half a crown, with which he promptly stood drinks and bread and cheese for his comrades.  At half-past one they set off again.

 

It was a good match between Notts and Villa, no goals at half-time, two-none for Notts at the finish.  The colliers were hugely delighted, especially as Flint, the forward for Notts, who was an Underwood man well known to the four comrades, did some handsome work, putting the two goals through.

 

Ephraim determined to go home as soon as the match was over.  He knew John Wharmby would be playing the piano at the "Punch Bowl", and Sam, who had a good tenor voice, singing, while Chris cut in with witticisms, until evening.  So he bade them farewell, as he must get home.  They, finding him somewhat of a damper on their spirits, let him go.

 

He was the sadder for having witnessed an accident near the football-ground.  A navvy, working at some drainage, carting an iron tip-tub of mud and emptying it, had got with his horse on to the deep deposit of ooze which was crusted over.  The crust had broken, the man had gone under the horse, and it was some time before the people had realised he had vanished.  When they found his feet sticking out, and hauled him forth, he was dead, stifled dead in the mud.  The horse was at length hauled out, after having its neck nearly pulled from the socket.

 

Ephraim went home vaguely impressed with a sense of death, and loss, and strife.  Death was loss greater than his own, the strike was a battle greater than that he would presently have to fight.

 

He arrived home at seven o'clock, just when it had fallen dark.  He lived in Queen Street with his young wife, to whom he had been married two months, and with his mother-in-law, a widow of sixty-four.  Maud was the last child remaining unmarried, the last of eleven.

 

Ephraim went up the entry.  The light was burning in the kitchen. His mother-in-law was a big, erect woman, with wrinkled, loose face, and cold blue eyes.  His wife was also large, with very vigorous fair hair, frizzy like unravelled rope.  She had a quiet way of stepping, a certain cat-like stealth, in spite of her large build.  She was five months pregnant.

 

"Might we ask wheer you've been to?" inquired Mrs. Marriott, very erect, very dangerous.  She was only polite when she was very angry.

 

"I' bin ter th' match."

 

"Oh, indeed!" said the mother-in-law.  "And why couldn't we be told as you thought of jaunting off?"

 

"I didna know mysen," he answered, sticking to his broad Derbyshire.

 

"I suppose it popped into your mind, an' so you darted off," said the mother-in-law dangerously.

 

"I didna.  It wor Chris Smitheringale who exed me."

 

"An' did you take much invitin'?"

 

"I didna want ter goo."

 

"But wasn't there enough man beside your jacket to say no?"

 

He did not answer.  Down at the bottom he hated her.  But he was, to use his own words, all messed up with having lost his strike-pay and with knowing the man was dead.  So he was more helpless before his mother-in-law, whom he feared.  His wife neither looked at him nor spoke, but kept her head bowed.  He knew she was with her mother.

 

"Our Maud's been waitin' for some money, to get a few things," said the mother-in-law.

 

In silence, he put five-and-sixpence on the table.

 

"Take that up, Maud," said the mother.

 

Maud did so.

 

"You'll want it for us board, shan't you?" she asked, furtively, of her mother.

 

"Might I ask if there's nothing you want to buy yourself, first?"

 

"No, there's nothink I want," answered the daughter.

 

Mrs. Marriott took the silver and counted it.

 

"And do you," said the mother-in-law, towering upon the shrinking son, but speaking slowly and statelily, "do you think I'm going to keep you and your wife for five and sixpence a week?"

 

"It's a' I've got," he answered sulkily.

 

"You've had a good jaunt, my sirs, if it's cost four and sixpence. You've started your game early, haven't you?"

 

He did not answer.

 

"It's a nice thing!  Here's our Maud an' me been sitting since eleven o'clock this morning!  Dinner waiting and cleared away, tea waiting and washed up; then in he comes crawling with five and sixpence.  Five and sixpence for a man an' wife's board for a week, if you please!"

 

Still he did not say anything.

 

"You must think something of yourself, Ephraim Wharmby!" said his mother-in-law.  "You must think something of yourself.  You suppose, do you, I'M going to keep you an' your wife, while you make a holiday, off on the nines to Nottingham, drink an' women."

 

"I've neither had drink nor women, as you know right well," he said.

 

"I'm glad we know summat about you.  For you're that close, anybody'd think we was foreigners to you.  You're a pretty little jockey, aren't you?  Oh, it's a gala time for you, the strike is. That's all men strike for, indeed.  They enjoy themselves, they do that.  Ripping and racing and drinking, from morn till night, my sirs!"

 

"Is there on'y tea for me?" he asked, in a temper.

 

"Hark at him!  Hark-ye!  Should I ask you whose house you think you're in?  Kindly order me about, do.  Oh, it makes him big, the strike does.  See him land home after being out on the spree for hours, and give his orders, my sirs!  Oh, strike sets the men up, it does.  Nothing have they to do but guzzle and gallivant to Nottingham.  Their wives'll keep them, oh yes.  So long as they get something to eat at home, what more do they want!  What more SHOULD they want, prithee?  Nothing!  Let the women and children starve and scrape, but fill the man's belly, and let him have his fling. My sirs, indeed, I think so!  Let tradesmen go, what do they matter!  Let rent go.  Let children get what they can catch.  Only the man will see HE'S all right.  But not here, though!"

 

"Are you goin' ter gi'e me ony bloody tea?"

 

His mother-in-law started up.

 

"If tha dares ter swear at me, I'll lay thee flat."

 

"Are yer, goin' ter, gi'e me, any blasted, rotten, còssed, blòody tèa?" he bawled, in a fury, accenting every other word deliberately.

 

"Maud!" said the mother-in-law, cold and stately, "If you gi'e him any tea after that, you're a trollops."  Whereupon she sailed out to her other daughters.

 

Maud quietly got the tea ready.

 

"Shall y'ave your dinner warmed up?" she asked.

 

"Ay."

 

She attended to him.  Not that she was really meek.  But, he was HER man, not her mother's.

 

 

THE MORTAL COIL

 

I

 

She stood motionless in the middle of the room, something tense in her reckless bearing.  Her gown of reddish stuff fell silkily about her feet; she looked tall and splendid in the candlelight.  Her dark-blond hair was gathered loosely in a fold on top of her head, her young, blossom-fresh face was lifted.  From her throat to her feet she was clothed in the elegantly-made dress of silky red stuff, the colour of red earth.  She looked complete and lovely, only love could make her such a strange, complete blossom.  Her cloak and hat were thrown across a table just in front of her.

 

Quite alone, abstracted, she stood there arrested in a conflict of emotions.  Her hand, down against her skirt, worked irritably, the ball of the thumb rubbing, rubbing across the tips of the fingers. There was a slight tension between her lifted brows.

 

About her the room glowed softly, reflecting the candlelight from its whitewashed walls, and from the great, bowed, whitewashed ceiling.  It was a large attic, with two windows, and the ceiling curving down on either side, so that both the far walls were low. Against one, on one side, was a single bed, opened for the night, the white over-bolster piled back.  Not far from this was the iron stove.  Near the window closest to the bed was a table with writing materials, and a handsome cactus-plant with clear scarlet blossoms threw its bizarre shadow on the wall.  There was another table near the second window, and opposite was the door on which hung a military cloak.  Along the far wall, were guns and fishing-tackle, and some clothes too, hung on pegs, all men's clothes, all military.  It was evidently the room of a man, probably a young lieutenant.

 

The girl, in her pure red dress that fell about her feet, so that she looked a woman, not a girl, at last broke from her abstraction and went aimlessly to the writing-table.  Her mouth was closed down stubbornly, perhaps in anger, perhaps in pain.  She picked up a large seal made of agate, looked at the ingraven coat of arms, then stood rubbing her finger across the cut-out stone, time after time. At last she put the seal down, and looked at the other things, a beautiful old beer-mug used as a tobacco-jar, a silver box like an urn, old and of exquisite shape, a bowl of sealing wax.  She fingered the pieces of wax.  This, the dark-green, had sealed her last letter.  Ah, well!  She carelessly turned over the blotting book, which again had his arms stamped on the cover.  Then she went away to the window.  There, in the window-recess, she stood and looked out.  She opened the casement and took a deep breath of the cold night air.  Ah, it was good!  Far below was the street, a vague golden milky way beneath her, its tiny black figures moving and crossing and re-crossing with marionette, insect-like intentness.  A small horse-car rumbled along the lines, so belittled, it was an absurdity.  So much for the world! . . . he did not come.

 

She looked overhead.  The stars were white and flashing, they looked nearer than the street, more kin to her, more real.  She stood pressing her breast on her arms, her face lifted to the stars, in the long, anguished suspense of waiting.  Noises came up small from the street, as from some insect-world.  But the great stars overhead struck white and invincible, infallible.  Her heart felt cold like the stars.

 

At last she started.  There was a noisy knocking at the door, and a female voice calling:

 

"Anybody there?"

 

"Come in," replied the girl.

 

She turned round, shrinking from this intrusion, unable to bear it, after the flashing stars.

 

There entered a thin, handsome dark girl dressed in an extravagantly-made gown of dark purple silk and dark blue velvet. She was followed by a small swarthy, inconspicuous lieutenant in pale-blue uniform.

 

"Ah YOU! . . . alone?" cried Teresa, the newcomer, advancing into the room.  "Where's the Fritz, then?"

 

The girl in red raised her shoulders in a shrug, and turned her face aside, but did not speak.

 

"Not here!  You don't know where he is?  Ach, the dummy, the lout!" Teresa swung round on her companion.

 

"Where is he?" she demanded.

 

He also lifted his shoulders in a shrug.

 

"He said he was coming in half an hour," the young lieutenant replied.

 

"Ha! half an hour!  Looks like it!  How long is that ago, two hours?"

 

Again the young man only shrugged.  He had beautiful black eye-lashes, and steady eyes.  He stood rather deprecatingly, whilst his girl, golden like a young panther, hung over him.

 

"One knows where he is," said Teresa, going and sitting on the opened bed.  A dangerous contraction came between the brows of Marta, the girl in red, at this act.

 

"Wine, Women and Cards!" said Teresa, in her loud voice.  "But they prefer the women on the cards.

 

'My love he has four Queenies,      

Four Queenies has my lo-o-ove,'"

 

she sang.  Then she broke off, and turned to Podewils.  "Was he winning when you left him, Karl?"

 

Again the young baron raised his shoulders.

 

"Tant pis que mal,' he replied, cryptically.

 

"Ah, YOU!" cried Teresa, "with your tant pis que mal!  Are YOU tant pis que mal?"  She laughed her deep, strange laugh.  "Well," she added, "he'll be coming in with a fortune for you, Marta."

 

There was a vague, unhappy silence.

 

"I know his fortunes," said Marta.

 

"Yes," said Teresa, in sudden sober irony, "he's a horse-shoe round your neck, is that young jockey. But what are you going to do, Matzen dearest?  You're not going to wait for him any longer?  Don't dream of it!  The idea, waiting for that young gentleman as if you were married to him! Put your hat on, dearest, and come along with us . . .  Where are we going, Karl, you pillar of salt? Eh? Geier's? To Geier's, Marta, my dear.  Come, quick, up, you've been martyred enough, Marta, my martyr, haw! haw!! put your hat on.  Up, away!"

 

Teresa sprang up like an explosion, anxious to be off.

 

"No, I'll wait for him," said Marta, sullenly.

 

"Don't be such a fool!" cried Teresa, in her deep voice.  "Wait for him!  I'D give him wait for him.  Catch this little bird waiting." She lifted her hand and blew a little puff across the fingers. "Choo-fly!" she sang, as if a bird had just flown.

 

The young lieutenant stood silent with smiling dark eyes.  Teresa was quick, and golden as a panther.

 

"No, but really, Marta, you're not going to wait any more, really! It's stupid for you to play Gretchen, your eyes are much too green. Put your hat on, there's a darling."

 

"No," said Marta, her flower-like face strangely stubborn.  "I'll wait for him.  He'll have to come some time."

 

There was a moment's uneasy pause.

 

"Well," said Teresa, holding her long shoulders for her cloak, "so long as you don't wait as long as Lenora-fuhr-ums-Morgenrot! Adieu, my dear, God be with you."

 

The young lieutenant bowed a solicitous bow, and the two went out, leaving the girl in red once more alone.

 

She went to the writing table, and on a sheet of paper began writing her name in stiff Gothic characters, time after time:

 

Marta Hohenest

 

Marta Hohenest

 

Marta Hohenest.

 

The vague sounds from the street below continued.  The wind was cold.  She rose and shut the window.  Then she sat down again.

 

At last the door opened, and a young officer entered.  He was buttoned up in a dark-blue great-coat, with large silver buttons going down on either side of the breast.  He entered quickly, glancing over the room, at Marta, as she sat with her back to him. She was marking with a pencil on paper.  He closed the door.  Then with fine beautiful movements he divested himself of his coat and went to hang it up.  How well Marta knew the sound of his movements, the quick light step!  But she continued mechanically making crosses on the paper, her head bent forward between the candles, so that her hair made fine threads and mist of light, very beautiful.  He saw this, and it touched him.  But he could not afford to be touched any further.

 

"You have been waiting?" he said formally.  The insulting futile question!  She made no sign, as if she had not heard.  He was absorbed in the tragedy of himself, and hardly heeded her.

 

He was a slim, good-looking youth, clear-cut and delicate in mould. His features now were pale, there was something evasive in his dilated, vibrating eyes.  He was barely conscious of the girl, intoxicated with his own desperation, that held him mindless and distant.

 

To her, the atmosphere of the room was almost unbreathable, since he had come in.  She felt terribly bound, walled up.  She rose with a sudden movement that tore his nerves.  She looked to him tall and bright and dangerous, as she faced round on him.

 

"Have you come back with a fortune?" she cried, in mockery, her eyes full of dangerous light.

 

He was unfastening his belt, to change his tunic.  She watched him up and down, all the time.  He could not answer, his lips seemed dumb.  Besides, silence was his strength.

 

"Have you come back with a fortune?" she repeated, in her strong, clear voice of mockery.

 

"No," he said, suddenly turning.  "Let it please you that, that I've come back at all."

 

He spoke desperately, and tailed off into silence.  He was a man doomed.  She looked at him: he was insignificant in his doom.  She turned in ridicule.  And yet she was afraid; she loved him.

 

He had stood long enough exposed, in his helplessness.  With difficulty he took a few steps, went and sat down at the writing-table.  He looked to her like a dog with its tail between its legs.

 

He saw the paper, where her name was repeatedly written.  She must find great satisfaction in her own name, he thought vaguely.  Then he picked up the seal and kept twisting it round in his fingers, doing some little trick.  And continually the seal fell on to the table with a sudden rattle that made Marta stiffen cruelly.  He was quite oblivious of her.

 

She stood watching as he sat bent forward in his stupefaction.  The fine cloth of his uniform showed the moulding of his back.  And something tortured her as she saw him, till she could hardly bear it: the desire of his finely-shaped body, the stupefaction and the abjectness of him now, his immersion in the tragedy of himself, his being unaware of her.  All her will seemed to grip him, to bruise some manly nonchalance and attention out of him.

 

"I suppose you're in a fury with me, for being late?" he said, with impotent irony in his voice.  Her fury over trifles, when he was lost in calamity!  How great was his real misery, how trivial her small offendedness!

 

Something in his tone burned her, and made her soul go cold.

 

"I'm not exactly pleased," she said coldly, turning away to a window.

 

Still he sat bent over the table, twisting something with his fingers.  She glanced round on him.  How nervy he was!  He had beautiful hands, and the big topaz signet-ring on his finger made yellow lights.  Ah, if only his hands were really dare-devil and reckless!  They always seemed so guilty, so cowardly.

 

"I'm done for now," he said suddenly, as if to himself, tilting back his chair a little.  In all his physical movement he was so fine and poised, so sensitive!  Oh, and it attracted her so much!

 

"Why?" she said, carelessly.

 

An anger burned in him.  She was so flippant.  If he were going to be shot, she would not be moved more than about half a pound of sweets.

 

"Why!" he repeated laconically.  "The same unimportant reason as ever."

 

"Debts?" she cried, in contempt.

 

"Exactly."

 

Her soul burned in anger.

 

"What have you done now? lost more money?"

 

"Three thousand marks."

 

She was silent in deep wrath.

 

"More fool you!" she said.  Then, in her anger, she was silent for some minutes.  "And so you're done for, for three thousand marks?" she exclaimed, jeering at him.  "You go pretty cheap."

 

"Three thousand, and the rest," he said, keeping up a manly sang froid."

 

"And the rest!" she repeated in contempt.  "And for three thousand and the rest, your life is over!"

 

"My career," he corrected her.

 

"Oh," she mocked, "only your career!  I thought it was a matter of life and death.  Only your career?  Oh, only that!"

 

His eyes grew furious under her mockery.

 

"My career IS my life," he said.

 

"Oh, is it! You're not a MAN then, you are only a career?"

 

"I am a gentleman."

 

"Oh, are you!  How amusing!  How very amusing, to be a gentleman, and not a man! I suppose that's what it means, to be a gentleman, to have no guts outside your career?"

 

"Outside my honour, none."

 

"And might I ask what IS your honour?"  She spoke in extreme irony.

 

"Yes, you may ask," he replied coolly.  "But if you don't know without being told, I'm afraid I could never explain it."

 

"Oh, you couldn't!  No, I believe you, you are incapable of explaining it, it wouldn't bear explaining."  There was a long, tense pause.  "So you've made too many debts, and you're afraid they'll kick you out of the army, therefore your honour is gone, is it? And what then, what after that?"

 

She spoke in extreme irony.  He winced again at her phrase "kick you out of the army".  But he tilted his chair back with assumed nonchalance.

 

"I've made too many debts, and I KNOW they'll kick me out of the army," he repeated, thrusting the thorn right home to the quick. "After that, I can shoot myself.  Or I might even be a waiter in a restaurant, or possibly a clerk, with twenty-five shillings a week."

 

"Really! All those alternatives! Well, why not, why not be a waiter in the Germania?  It might be awfully jolly."

 

"Why not?" he repeated ironically.  "Because it wouldn't become me."

 

She looked at him, at his aristocratic fineness of physique, his extreme physical sensitiveness.  And all her German worship for his old, proud family rose up in her.  No, he could not be a waiter in the Germania: she could not bear it.  He was too refined and beautiful a thing.

 

"Ha!" she cried suddenly.  "It wouldn't come to that, either.  If they kick you out of the army, you'll find somebody to get round, you're like a cat, you'll land on your feet."

 

But this was just what he was not.  He was not like a cat.  His self-mistrust was too deep.  Ultimately he had no belief in himself, as a separate isolated being.  He knew he was sufficiently clever, an aristocrat, good-looking, the sensitive superior of most men.  The trouble was, that apart from the social fabric he belonged to, he felt himself nothing, a cipher.  He bitterly envied the common working-men for a certain manly aplomb, a grounded, almost stupid self-confidence he saw in them.  Himself, he could lead such men through the gates of hell, for what did he care about danger or hurt to himself, whilst he was leading?  But, cut him off from all this, and what was he?  A palpitating rag of meaningless human life.

 

But she, coming from the people, could not fully understand.  And it was best to leave her in the dark.  The free indomitable self-sufficient being which a man must be in his relation to a woman who loves him, this he could pretend.  But he knew he was not it.  He knew that the world of man from which he took his value was his mistress beyond any woman.  He wished, secretly, cravingly, almost cravenly, in his heart, it was not so.  But so it was.

 

Therefore, he heard her phrase "you're like a cat," with some bitter envy.

 

"Whom shall I get round? some woman, who will marry me?" he said.

 

This was a way out.  And it was almost the inevitable thing, for him.  But he felt it the last ruin of his manhood, even he.

 

The speech hurt her mortally, worse than death.  She would rather he died, because then her own love would not turn to ash.

 

"Get married, then, if you want to," she said, in a small broken voice.

 

"Naturally," he said.

 

There was a long silence, a foretaste of barren hopelessness.

 

"Why is it so terrible to you," she asked at length, "to come out of the army and trust to your own resources?  Other men are strong enough."

 

"Other men are not me," he said.

 

Why would she torture him?  She seemed to enjoy torturing him.  The thought of his expulsion from the army was an agony to him, really worse than death.  He saw himself in the despicable civilian clothes, engaged in some menial occupation.  And he could not bear it.  It was too heavy a cross.

 

Who was she to talk?  She was herself, an actress, daughter of a tradesman.  He was himself.  How should one of them speak for the other?  It was impossible.  He loved her.  He loved her far better than men usually loved their mistresses.  He really cared. And he was strangely proud of his love for her, as if it were a distinction to him . . .  But there was a limit to her understanding.  There was a point beyond which she had nothing to do with him, and she had better leave him alone.  Here in this crisis, which was HIS crisis, his downfall, she should not presume to talk, because she did not understand. But she loved to torture him, that was the truth.

 

"Why should it hurt you to work?" she reiterated.

 

He lifted his face, white and tortured, his grey eyes flaring with fear and hate.

 

"Work!" he cried.  "What do you think I am worth? Twenty-five shillings a week, if I am lucky."

 

His evident anguish penetrated her.  She sat dumbfounded, looking at him with wide eyes.  He was white with misery and fear; his hand, that lay loose on the table, was abandoned in nervous ignominy.  Her mind filled with wonder, and with deep, cold dread. Did he really care so much?  But did it REALLY matter so much to him?  When he said he was worth twenty-five shillings a week, he was like a man whose soul is pierced.  He sat there, annihilated. She looked for him, and he was nothing then.  She looked for the man, the free being that loved her.  And he was not, he was gone, this blank figure remained.  Something with a blanched face sat there in the chair, staring at nothing.

 

His amazement deepened with intolerable dread.  It was as if the world had fallen away into chaos.  Nothing remained.  She seemed to grasp the air for foothold.

 

He sat staring in front of him, a dull numbness settled on his brain.  He was watching the flame of the candle.  And, in his detachment, he realized the flame was a swiftly travelling flood, flowing swiftly from the source of the wick through a white surge and on into the darkness above.  It was like a fountain suddenly foaming out, then running on dark and smooth.  Could one dam the flood?  He took a piece of paper, and cut off the flame for a second.

 

The girl in red started at the pulse of the light.  She seemed to come to, from some trance.  She saw his face, clear now, attentive, abstract, absolved.  He was quite absolved from his temporal self.

 

"It isn't true," she said, "is it?  It's not so tragic, really? It's only your pride is hurt, your silly little pride?"  She was rather pleading.

 

He looked at her with clear steady eyes.

 

"My pride!" he said.  "And isn't my pride ME?  What am I without my pride?"

 

"You are YOURSELF," she said.  "If they take your uniform off you, and turn you naked into the street, you are still YOURSELF."

 

His eyes grew hot.  Then he cried:

 

"What does it mean, MYSELF!  It means I put on ready-made civilian clothes and do some dirty drudging elsewhere: that is what MYSELF amounts to."

 

She knitted her brows.

 

"But what you are TO ME, that naked self which you are to me, that is something, isn't it? everything," she said.

 

"What is it, if it means nothing?" he said:  "What is it, more than a pound of chocolate dragées? It stands for nothing, unless as you say, a petty clerkship, at twenty-five shillings a week."

 

These were all wounds to her, very deep.  She looked in wonder for a few moments.

 

"And what does it stand for now?" she said.  "A magnificent second-lieutenant!"

 

He made a gesture of dismissal with his hand.

 

She looked at him from under lowered brows.

 

"And our love!" she said.  "It means nothing to you, nothing at all?"

 

"To me as a menial clerk, what does it mean?  What does love mean! Does it mean that a man shall be no more than a dirty rag in the world? What worth do you think I have in love, if in life I am a wretched inky subordinate clerk?"

 

"What does it matter?"

 

"It matters everything."

 

There was silence for a time, then the anger flashed up in her.

 

"It doesn't matter to you what I feel, whether I care or not," she cried, her voice rising.  "They'll take his little uniform with buttons off him, and he'll have to be a common little civilian, so all he can do is to shoot himself! It doesn't matter that I'm there."

 

He sat stubborn and silent.  He thought her vulgar.  And her raving did not alter the situation in the least.

 

"Don't you see what value you put on ME, you clever little man?" she cried in fury.  "I've loved you, loved you with all my soul, for two years, and you've lied, and said you loved me.  And now, what do I get?  He'll shoot himself, because his tuppenny vanity is wounded. Ah, FOOL!"

 

He lifted his head and looked at her.  His face was fixed and superior.

 

"All of which," he said, "leaves the facts of the case quite untouched!"

 

She hated his cool little speeches.

 

"Then shoot yourself," she cried, "and you'll be worth LESS than twenty-five shillings a week!"

 

There was a fatal silence.

 

"THEN there'll be no question of worth," he said.

 

"Ha!" she ejaculated in scorn.

 

She had finished.  She had no more to say.  At length, after they had both sat motionless and silent, separate, for some time, she rose and went across to her hat and cloak.  He shrank in apprehension.  Now, he could not bear her to go.  He shrank as if he were being whipped.  She put her hat on, roughly, then swung her warm plaid cloak over her shoulders.  Her hat was of black glossy silk, with a sheeny heap of cocks-feathers, her plaid cloak was dark green and blue, it swung open above her clear harsh-red dress. How beautiful she was, like a fiery Madonna!

 

"Good-bye," she said, in her voice of mockery.  "I'm going now."

 

He sat motionless, as if loaded with fetters.  She hesitated, then moved towards the door.

 

Suddenly, with a spring like a cat, he was confronting her, his back to the door.  His eyes were full and dilated, like a cat's, his face seemed to gleam at her.  She quivered, as some subtle fluid ran through her nerves.

 

"Let me go," she said dumbly.  "I've had enough."  His eyes, with a wide, dark electric pupil, like a cat's, only watched her objectively.  And again a wave of female submissiveness went over her.

 

"I want to go," she pleaded.  "You know it's no good. You know this is no good."

 

She stood humbly before him.  A flexible little grin quivered round his mouth.

 

"You know you don't want me," she persisted.  "You know you don't really want me. You only do this to show your power over me, which is a mean trick."

 

But he did not answer, only his eyes narrowed in a sensual, cruel smile.  She shrank, afraid, and yet she was fascinated.

 

"You won't go yet," he said.

 

She tried in vain to rouse her real opposition.

 

"I shall call out," she threatened.  "I shall shame you before people."

 

His eyes narrowed again in the smile of vindictive, mocking indifference.

 

"Call then," he said.

 

And at the sound of his still, cat-like voice, an intoxication ran over her veins.

 

"I WILL," she said, looking defiantly into his eyes.  But the smile in the dark, full, dilated pupils made her waver into submission again.

 

"Won't you let me go?" she pleaded sullenly.

 

Now the smile went openly over his face.

 

"Take your hat off," he said.

 

And with quick, light fingers he reached up and drew out the pins of her hat, unfastened the clasp of her cloak, and laid her things aside.

 

She sat down in a chair.  Then she rose again, and went to the window.  In the street below, the tiny figures were moving just the same.  She opened the window, and leaned out, and wept.

 

He looked round at her in irritation as she stood in her long, clear-red dress in the window-recess, leaning out.  She was exasperating.

 

"You will be cold," he said.

 

She paid no heed.  He guessed, by some tension in her attitude, that she was crying.  It irritated him exceedingly, like a madness. After a few minutes of suspense, he went across to her, and took her by the arm.  His hand was subtle, soft in its touch, and yet rather cruel than gentle.

 

"Come away," he said.  "Don't stand there in the air, come away."

 

He drew her slowly away to the bed, she sat down, and he beside her.

 

"What are you crying for?" he said in his strange, penetrating voice, that had a vibration of exultancy in it.  But her tears only ran faster.

 

He kissed her face, that was soft, and fresh, and yet warm, wet with tears.  He kissed her again, and again, in pleasure of the soft, wet saltness of her.  She turned aside and wiped her face with her handkerchief, and blew her nose.  He was disappointed, yet the way she blew her nose pleased him.

 

Suddenly she slid away to the floor, and hid her face in the side of the bed, weeping and crying loudly:

 

"You don't love me. Oh, you don't love me, I thought you did, and you let me go on thinking it, but you don't, no, you don't, and I can't bear it. Oh, I can't bear it."

 

He sat and listened to the strange, animal sound of her crying. His eyes flickered with exultancy, his body seemed full and surcharged with power.  But his brows were knitted in tension.  He laid his hand softly on her head, softly touched her face, which was buried against the bed.

 

She suddenly rubbed her face against the sheets, and looked up once more.

 

"You've deceived me," she said, as she sat beside him.

 

"Have I?  Then I've deceived myself."  His body felt so charged with male vigour, he was almost laughing in his strength.

 

"Yes," she said enigmatically, fatally.  She seemed absorbed in her thoughts.  Then her face quivered again.

 

"And I loved you so much," she faltered, the tears rising.  There was a clangour of delight in his heart.

 

"I love YOU," he said softly, softly touching her, softly kissing her, in a sort of subtle, restrained ecstasy.

 

She shook her head stubbornly.  She tried to draw away.  Then she did break away, and turned to look at him, in fear and doubt.  The little, fascinating, fiendish lights were hovering in his eyes like laughter.

 

"Don't hurt me so much," she faltered, in a last protest.

 

A faint smile came on his face.  He took her face between his hands and covered it with soft, blinding kisses, like a soft, narcotic rain.  He felt himself such an unbreakable fountain-head of powerful blood.  He was trembling finely in all his limbs, with mastery.

 

When she lifted her face and opened her eyes, her face was wet, and her greenish-golden eyes were shining, it was like sudden sunshine in wet foliage.  She smiled at him like a child of knowledge, through the tears, and softly, infinitely softly he dried her tears with his mouth and his soft young moustache.

 

"You'd never shoot yourself, because you're mine, aren't you!" she said, knowing the fine quivering of his body, in mastery.

 

"Yes," he said.

 

"Quite mine?" she said, her voice rising in ecstasy.

 

"Yes."

 

"Nobody else but mine, nothing at all?"

 

"Nothing at all," he re-echoed.

 

"But me?" came her last words of ecstasy.

 

"Yes."

 

And she seemed to be released free into the infinite of ecstasy.

 

II

 

They slept in fulfilment through the long night.  But then strange dreams began to fill them both, strange dreams that were neither waking nor sleeping; only, in curious weariness, through her dreams, she heard at last a continual low rapping.  She awoke with difficulty.  The rapping began again, she started violently.  It was at the door, it would be the orderly rapping for Friedeburg. Everything seemed wild and unearthly.  She put her hand on the shoulder of the sleeping man, and pulled him roughly, waited a moment, then pushed him, almost violently, to awake him.  He woke with a sense of resentment at her violent handling.  Then he heard the knocking of the orderly.  He gathered his senses.

 

"Yes, Heinrich!" he said.

 

Strange, the sound of a voice!  It seemed a far-off tearing sound. Then came the muffled voice of the servant.

 

"Half past four, Sir."

 

"Right!" said Friedeburg, and automatically he got up and made a light.  She was suddenly as wide awake as if it were daylight.  But it was a strange, false day, like a delirium.  She saw him put down the match, she saw him moving about, rapidly dressing.  And the movement in the room was a trouble to her.  He himself was vague and unreal, a thing seen but not comprehended.  She watched all the acts of his toilet, saw all the motions, but never saw him.  There was only a disturbance about her, which fretted her, she was not aware of any presence.  Her mind, in its strange, hectic clarity, wanted to consider things in absolute detachment.  For instance, she wanted to consider the cactus plant.  It was a curious object with pure scarlet blossoms.  Now, how did these scarlet blossoms come to pass, upon that earthly-looking unliving creature?  Scarlet blossoms!  How wonderful they were!  What were they, then, how could one lay hold on their being?  Her mind turned to him.  Him, too, how could one lay hold on him, to have him?  Where was he, what was he?  She seemed to grasp at the air.

 

He was dipping his face in the cold water, the slight shock was good for him.  He felt as if someone had stolen away his being in the night, he was moving about a light, quick shell, with all his meaning absent.  His body was quick and active, but all his deep understanding, his soul was gone.  He tried to rub it back into his face.  He was quite dim, as if his spirit had left his body.

 

"Come and kiss me," sounded the voice from the bed.  He went over to her automatically.  She put her arms around him and looked into his face with her clear brilliant, grey-green eyes, as if she too were looking for his soul.

 

"How are you?" came her meaningless words.

 

"All right."

 

"Kiss me."

 

He bent down and kissed her.

 

And still her clear, rather frightening eyes seemed to be searching for him inside himself.  He was like a bird transfixed by her pellucid, grey-green, wonderful eyes.  She put her hands into his soft, thick, fine hair, and gripped her hands full of his hair.  He wondered with fear at her sudden painful clutching.

 

"I shall be late," he said.

 

"Yes," she answered.  And she let him go.

 

As he fastened his tunic he glanced out of the window.  It was still night: a night that must have lasted since eternity.  There was a moon in the sky.  In the streets below the yellow street-lamps burned small at intervals.  This was the night of eternity.

 

There came a knock at the door, and the orderly's voice.

 

"Coffee, Sir."

 

"Leave it there."

 

They heard the faint jingle of the tray as it was set down outside.

 

Friedeburg sat down to put on his boots.  Then, with a man's solid tread, he went and took in the tray.  He felt properly heavy and secure now in his accoutrement.  But he was always aware of her two wonderful, clear, unfolded eyes, looking on his heart, out of her uncanny silence.

 

There was a strong smell of coffee in the room.

 

"Have some coffee?"  His eyes could not meet hers.

 

"No, thank you."

 

"Just a drop?"

 

"No, thank you."

 

Her voice sounded quite gay.  She watched him dipping his bread in the coffee and eating quickly, absently.  He did not know what he was doing, and yet the dipped bread and hot coffee gave him pleasure.  He gulped down the remainder of his drink, and rose to his feet.

 

"I must go," he said.

 

There was a curious, poignant smile in her eyes.  Her eyes drew him to her.  How beautiful she was, and dazzling, and frightening, with this look of brilliant tenderness seeming to glitter from her face. She drew his head down to her bosom, and held it fast prisoner there, murmuring with tender, triumphant delight:  "Dear!  Dear!"

 

At last she let him lift his head, and he looked into her eyes, that seemed to concentrate in a dancing, golden point of vision in which he felt himself perish.

 

"Dear!" she murmured.  "You love me, don't you?"

 

"Yes," he said mechanically.

 

The golden point of vision seemed to leap to him from her eyes, demanding something.  He sat slackly, as if spellbound.  Her hand pushed him a little.

 

"Mustn't you go?" she said.

 

He rose.  She watched him fastening the belt round his body, that seemed soft under the fine clothes.  He pulled on his great-coat, and put on his peaked cap.  He was again a young officer.

 

But he had forgotten his watch.  It lay on the table near the bed. She watched him slinging it on his chain.  He looked down at her. How beautiful she was, with her luminous face and her fine, stray hair!  But he felt far away.

 

"Anything I can do for you?" he asked.

 

"No, thank you, I'll sleep," she replied, smiling.  And the strange golden spark danced on her eyes again, again he felt as if his heart were gone, destroyed out of him.  There was a fine pathos too in her vivid, dangerous face.

 

He kissed her for the last time, saying:

 

"I'll blow the candles out, then?"

 

"Yes, my love, and I'll sleep."

 

"Yes, sleep as long as you like."

 

The golden spark of her eyes seemed to dance on him like a destruction, she was beautiful, and pathetic.  He touched her tenderly with his finger-tips, then suddenly blew out the candles, and walked across in the faint moonlight to the door.

 

He was gone.  She heard his boots click on the stone stairs, she heard the far below tread of his feet on the pavement.  Then he was gone.  She lay quite still, in a swoon of deathly peace.  She never wanted to move any more.  It was finished.  She lay quite still, utterly, utterly abandoned.

 

But again she was disturbed.  There was a little tap at the door, then Teresa's voice saying, with a shuddering sound because of the cold:

 

"Ugh! I'm coming to you, Marta my dear.  I can't stand being left alone."

 

"I'll make a light," said Marta, sitting up and reaching for the candle.  "Lock the door, will you, Resie, and then nobody can bother us."

 

She saw Teresa, loosely wrapped in her cloak, two thick ropes of hair hanging untidily.  Teresa looked voluptuously sleepy and easy, like a cat running home to the warmth.

 

"Ugh!" she said, "it's cold!"

 

And she ran to the stove.  Marta heard the chink of the little shovel, a stirring of coals, then a clink of the iron door.  Then Teresa came running to the bed, with a shuddering little run, she puffed out the light and slid in beside her friend.

 

"So cold!" she said, with a delicious shudder at the warmth.  Marta made place for her, and they settled down.

 

"Aren't you glad you're not them?" said Resie, with a little shudder at the thought.  "Ugh! poor devils!"

 

"I am," said Marta.

 

"Ah, sleep, sleep, how lovely!" said Teresa, with deep content. "Ah, it's so good!"

 

"Yes," said Marta.

 

"Good morning, good night, my dear," said Teresa, already sleepily.

 

"Good night," responded Marta.

 

Her mind flickered a little.  Then she sank unconsciously to sleep. The room was silent.

 

Outside, the setting moon made peaked shadows of the high-roofed houses; from twin towers that stood like two dark, companion giants in the sky, the hour trembled out over the sleeping town.  But the footsteps of hastening officers and cowering soldiers rang on the frozen pavements.  Then a lantern appeared in the distance, accompanied by the rattle of a bullock wagon.  By the light of the lantern on the wagon-pole could be seen the delicately moving feet and the pale, swinging dewlaps of the oxen.  They drew slowly on, with a rattle of heavy wheels, the banded heads of the slow beasts swung rhythmically.

 

Ah, this was life!  How sweet, sweet each tiny incident was!  How sweet to Friedeburg, to give his orders ringingly on the frosty air, to see his men like bears shambling and shuffling into their places, with little dancing movements of uncouth playfulness and resentment, because of the pure cold.

 

Sweet, sweet it was to be marching beside his men, sweet to hear the great thresh-thresh of their heavy boots in the unblemished silence, sweet to feel the immense mass of living bodies co-ordinated into oneness near him, to catch the hot waft of their closeness, their breathing.  Friedeburg was like a man condemned to die, catching at every impression as at an inestimable treasure.

 

Sweet it was to pass through the gates of the town, the scanty, loose suburb, into the open darkness and space of the country. This was almost best of all.  It was like emerging in the open plains of eternal freedom.

 

They saw a dark figure hobbling along under the dark side of a shed.  As they passed, through the open door of the shed, in the golden light were seen the low rafters, the pale, silken sides of the cows, evanescent.  And a woman with a red kerchief bound round her head lifted her face from the flank of the beast she was milking, to look at the soldiers threshing like multitudes of heavy ghosts down the darkness.  Some of the men called to her, cheerfully, impudently.  Ah, the miraculous beauty and sweetness of the merest trifles like these!

 

They tramped on down a frozen, rutty road, under lines of bare trees.  Beautiful trees!  Beautiful frozen ruts in the road!  Ah, even, in one of the ruts there was a silver of ice and of moon-glimpse.  He heard ice tinkle as a passing soldier purposely put his toe in it.  What a sweet noise!

 

But there was a vague uneasiness.  He heard the men arguing as to whether dawn were coming.  There was the silver moon, still riding on the high seas of the sky.  A lovely thing she was, a jewel!  But was there any blemish of day?  He shrank a little from the rawness of the day to come.  This night of morning was so rare and free.

 

Yes, he was sure.  He saw a colourless paleness on the horizon. The earth began to look hard, like a great, concrete shadow.  He shrank into himself.  Glancing at the ranks of his men, he could see them like a company of rhythmic ghosts.  The pallor was actually reflected on their livid faces.  This was the coming day. It frightened him.

 

The dawn came.  He saw the rosiness of it hang trembling with light, above the east.  Then a strange glamour of scarlet passed over the land.  At his feet, glints of ice flashed scarlet, even the hands of the men were red as they swung, sinister, heavy, reddened.

 

The sun surged up, her rim appeared, swimming with fire, hesitating, surging up.  Suddenly there were shadows from trees and ruts, and grass was hoar and ice was gold against the ebony shadow. The faces of the men were alight, kindled with life.  Ah, it was magical, it was all too marvellous!  If only it were always like this!

 

When they stopped at the inn for breakfast, at nine o'clock, the smell of the inn went raw and ugly to his heart: beer and yesterday's tobacco!

 

He went to the door to look at the men biting huge bites from their hunks of grey bread, or cutting off pieces with their clasp-knives. This made him still happy.  Women were going to the fountain for water, the soldiers were chaffing them coarsely.  He liked all this.

 

But the magic was going, inevitably, the crystal delight was thawing to desolation in his heart, his heart was cold, cold mud. Ah, it was awful.  His face contracted, he almost wept with cold, stark despair.

 

Still he had the work, the day's hard activity with the men. Whilst this lasted, he could live.  But when this was over, and he had to face the horror of his own cold-thawing mud of despair: ah, it was not to be thought of.  Still, he was happy at work with the men: the wild desolate place, the hard activity of mock warfare. Would to God it were real: war, with the prize of death!

 

By afternoon the sky had gone one dead, livid level of grey.  It seemed low down, and oppressive.  He was tired, the men were tired, and this let the heavy cold soak in to them like despair.  Life could not keep it out.

 

And now, when his heart was so heavy it could sink no more, he must glance at his own situation again.  He must remember what a fool he was, his new debts like half thawed mud in his heart.  He knew, with the cold misery of hopelessness, that he would be turned out of the army.  What then? what then but death?  After all, death was the solution for him.  Let it be so.

 

They marched on and on, stumbling with fatigue under a great leaden sky, over a frozen dead country.  The men were silent with weariness, the heavy motion of their marching was like an oppression.  Friedeburg was tired too, and deadened, as his face was deadened by the cold air.  He did not think any more; the misery of his soul was like a frost inside him.

 

He heard someone say it was going to snow.  But the words had no meaning for him.  He marched as a clock ticks, with the same monotony, everything numb and cold-soddened.

 

They were drawing near to the town.  In the gloom of the afternoon he felt it ahead, as unbearable oppression on him.  Ah the hideous suburb!  What was his life, how did it come to pass that life was lived in a formless, hideous grey structure of hell!  What did it all mean?  Pale, sulphur-yellow lights spotted the livid air, and people, like soddened shadows, passed in front of the shops that were lit up ghastly in the early twilight.  Out of the colourless space, crumbs of snow came and bounced animatedly off the breast of his coat.

 

At length he turned away home, to his room, to change and get warm and renewed, for he felt as cold-soddened as the grey, cold, heavy bread which felt hostile in the mouths of the soldiers.  His life was to him like this dead, cold bread in his mouth.

 

As he neared his own house, the snow was peppering thinly down.  He became aware of some unusual stir about the house-door.  He looked, a strange, closed-in wagon, people, police.  The sword of Damocles that had hung over his heart, fell.  O God, a new shame, some new shame, some new torture!  His body moved on.  So it would move on through misery upon misery, as is our fate.  There was no emergence, only this progress through misery unto misery, till the end. Strange, that human life was so tenacious!  Strange, that men had made of life a long, slow process of torture to the soul.  Strange, that it was no other than this!  Strange, that but for man, this misery would not exist.  For it was not God's misery, but the misery of the world of man.

 

He saw two officials push something white and heavy into the cart, shut the doors behind with a bang, turn the silver handle, and run round to the front of the wagon.  It moved off.  But still most of the people lingered.  Friedeburg drifted near in that inevitable motion which carries us through all our shame and torture.  He knew the people talked about him.  He went up the steps and into the square hall.

 

There stood a police-officer, with a note-book in his hand, talking to Herr Kapell, the housemaster.  As Friedeburg entered through the swing door, the housemaster, whose brow was wrinkled in anxiety and perturbation, made a gesture with his hand, as if to point out a criminal.

 

"Ah! the Herr Baron von Friedeburg!" he said, in self-exculpation.

 

The police officer turned, saluted politely, and said, with the polite, intolerable suffisance of officialdom:

 

"Good evening!  Trouble here!"

 

"Yes?" said Friedeburg.

 

He was so frightened, his sensitive constitution was so lacerated, that something broke in him, he was a subservient, murmuring ruin.

 

"Two young ladies found dead in your room," said the police-official, making an official statement.  But under his cold impartiality of officialdom, what obscene unction!  Ah, what obscene exposures now!

 

"Dead!" ejaculated Friedeburg, with the wide eyes of a child.  He became quite child-like, the official had him completely in his power.  He could torture him as much as he liked.

 

"Yes."  He referred to his note-book.  "Asphyxiated by fumes from the stove."

 

Friedeburg could only stand wide-eyed and meaningless.

 

"Please, will you go upstairs?"

 

The police-official marshalled Friedburg in front of himself.  The youth slowly mounted the stairs, feeling as if transfixed through the base of the spine, as if he would lose the use of his legs. The official followed close on his heels.

 

They reached the bedroom.  The policeman unlocked the door.  The housekeeper followed with a lamp.  Then the official examination began.

 

"A young lady slept here last night?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Name, please?"

 

"Marta Hohenest."

 

"H-o-h-e-n-e-s-t," spelled the official.  "And address?"

 

Friedeburg continued to answer.  This was the end of him.  The quick of him was pierced and killed.  The living dead answered the living dead in obscene antiphony.  Question and answer continued, the note-book worked as the hand of the old dead wrote in it the replies of the young who was dead.

 

The room was unchanged from the night before.  There was her heap of clothing, the lustrous, pure-red dress lying soft where she had carelessly dropped it.  Even, on the edge of the chair-back, her crimson silk garters hung looped.

 

But do not look, do not see.  It is the business of the dead to bury their dead.  Let the young dead bury their own dead, as the old dead have buried theirs.  How can the dead remember, they being dead?  Only the living can remember, and are at peace with their living who have passed away.

 

 

A FRAGMENT OF STAINED GLASS

Beauvale is, or was, the largest parish in England. It is thinly populated, only just netting the stragglers from shoals of houses in three large mining villages. For the rest, it holds a great tract of woodland, fragment of old Sherwood, a few hills of pasture and arable land, three collieries, and, finally, the ruins of a Cistercian abbey. These ruins lie in a still rich meadow at the foot of the last fall of woodland, through whose oaks shines a blue of hyacinths, like water, in May-time. Of the abbey, there remains only the east wall of the chancel standing, a wild thick mass of ivy weighting one shoulder, while pigeons perch in the tracery of the lofty window. This is the window in question.

 

The vicar of Beauvale is a bachelor of forty-two years. Quite early in life some illness caused a slight paralysis of his right side, so that he drags a little, and so that the right corner of his mouth is twisted up into his cheek with a constant grimace, unhidden by a heavy moustache. There is something pathetic about this twist on the vicar's countenance: his eyes are so shrewd and sad. It would be hard to get near to Mr Colbran. Indeed, now, his soul had some of the twist of his face, so that, when he is not ironical, he is satiric. Yet a man of more complete tolerance and generosity scarcely exists. Let the boors mock him, he merely smiles on the other side, and there is no malice in his eyes, only a quiet expression of waiting till they have finished. His people do not like him, yet none could bring forth an accusation against him, save, that "You never can tell when he's having you."

 

I dined the other evening with the vicar in his study. The room scandalizes the neighbourhood because of the statuary which adorns it: a Laocoon and other classic copies, with bronze and silver Italian Renaissance work. For the rest, it is all dark and tawny.

 

Mr Colbran is an archaeologist. He does not take himself seriously, however, in his hobby, so that nobody knows the worth of his opinions on the subject.

 

"Here you are," he said to me after dinner, "I've found another paragraph for my great work."

 

"What's that?" I asked.

 

"Haven't I told you I was compiling a Bible of the English people, the Bible of their hearts, their exclamations in presence of the unknown? I've found a fragment at home, a jump at God from Beauvale."

 

"Where?" I asked, startled.

 

The vicar closed his eyes whilst looking at me.

 

"Only on parchment," he said.

 

Then, slowly, he reached for a yellow book, and read, translating as he went:

 

"Then, while we chanted, came a crackling at the window, at the great east window, where hung our Lord on the Cross. It was a malicious covetous Devil wrathed by us, rended the lovely image of the glass. We saw the iron clutches of the fiend pick the window, and a face flaming red like fire in a basket did glower down on us. Our hearts melted away, our legs broke, we thought to die. The breath of the wretch filled the chapel.

 

"But our dear Saint, etc., etc., came hastening down heaven to defend us. The fiend began to groan and bray, he was daunted and beat off.

 

"When the sun uprose, and it was morning, some went out in dread upon the thin snow. There the figure of our Saint was broken and thrown down, whilst in the window was a wicked hole as from the Holy Wounds the Blessed Blood was run out at the touch of the Fiend, and on the snow was the Blood, sparkling like gold. Some gathered it up for the joy of this House. . . ."

 

"Interesting," I said. "Where's it from?"

 

"Beauvale records, fifteenth century."

 

"Beauvale Abbey," I said; "they were only very few, the monks. What frightened them, I wonder."

 

"I wonder," he repeated.

 

"Somebody climbed up," I supposed, "and attempted to get in."

 

"What?" he exclaimed, smiling.

 

"Well, what do you think?"

 

"Pretty much the same," he replied. "I glossed it out for my book."

 

"Your great work? Tell me."

 

He put a shade over the lamp so that the room was almost in darkness.

 

"Am I more than a voice?" he asked.

 

"I can see your hand," I replied. He moved entirely from the circle of light. Then his voice began, sing-song, sardonic:

 

"I was a serf in Rollestoun's Newthorpe Manor, master of the stables I was. One day a horse bit me as I was grooming him. He was an old enemy of mine. I fetched him a blow across the nose. Then, when he got a chance, he lashed out at me and caught me a gash over the mouth. I snatched at a hatchet and cut his head. He yelled, fiend as he was, and strained for me with all his teeth bare. I brought him down.

 

"For killing him they flogged me till they thought I was dead. I was sturdy, because we horse-serfs got plenty to eat. I was sturdy, but they flogged me till I did not move. The next night I set fire to the stables, and the stables set fire to the house. I watched and saw the red flame rise and look out of the window, I saw the folk running, each for himself, master no more than one of a frightened party. It was freezing, but the heat made me sweat. I saw them all turn again to watch, all rimmed with red. They cried, all of them when the roof went in, when the sparks splashed up at rebound. They cried then like dogs at the bagpipes howling. Master cursed me, till I laughed as I lay under a bush quite near.

 

"As the fire went down I got frightened. I ran for the woods, with fire blazing in my eyes and crackling in my ears. For hours I was all fire. Then I went to sleep under the bracken. When I woke it was evening. I had no mantle, was frozen stiff. I was afraid to move, lest all the sores of my back should be broken like thin ice. I lay still until I could bear my hunger no longer. I moved then to get used to the pain of movement, when I began to hunt for food. There was nothing to be found but hips.

 

"After wandering about till I was faint I dropped again in the bracken. The boughs above me creaked with frost. I started and looked round. The branches were like hair among the starlight. My heart stood still. Again there was a creak, creak, and suddenly a whoop, that whistled in fading. I fell down in the bracken like dead wood. Yet, by the peculiar whistling sound at the end, I knew it was only the ice bending or tightening in the frost. I was in the woods above the lake, only two miles from the Manor. And yet, when the lake whooped hollowly again, I clutched the frozen soil, every one of my muscles as stiff as the stiff earth. So all the night long I dare not move my face, but pressed it flat down, and taut I lay as if pegged down and braced.

 

"When morning came still I did not move, I lay still in a dream. By afternoon my ache was such it enlivened me. I cried, rocking my breath in the ache of moving. Then again I became fierce. I beat my hands on the rough bark to hurt them, so that I should not ache so much. In such a rage I was I swung my limbs to torture till I fell sick with pain. Yet I fought the hurt, fought it and fought by twisting and flinging myself, until it was overcome. Then the evening began to draw on. All day the sun had not loosened the frost. I felt the sky chill again towards afternoon. Then I knew the night was coming, and, remembering the great space I had just come through, horrible so that it seemed to have made me another man, I fled across the wood.

 

"But in my running I came upon the oak where hanged five bodies. There they must hang, bar-stiff, night after night. It was a terror worse than any. Turning, blundering through the forest, I came out where the trees thinned, where only hawthorns, ragged and shaggy, went down to the lake's edge.

 

"The sky across was red, the ice on the water glistened as if it were warm. A few wild geese sat out like stones on the sheet of ice. I thought of Martha. She was the daughter of the miller at the upper end of the lake. Her hair was red like beech leaves in a wind. When I had gone often to the mill with the horses she had brought me food.

 

"'I thought,' said I to her, ''twas a squirrel sat on your shoulder. 'Tis your hair fallen loose.'

 

"'They call me the fox,' she said.

 

"'Would I were your dog,' said I. She would bring me bacon and good bread, when I called at the mill with the horses. The thought of cakes of bread and of bacon made me reel as if drunk. I had torn at the rabbit holes, I had chewed wood all day. In such a dimness was my head that I felt neither the soreness of my wounds nor the cuts of thorns on my knees, but stumbled towards the mill, almost past fear of man and death, panting with fear of the darkness that crept behind me from trunk to trunk.

 

"Coming to the gap in the wood, below which lay the pond, I heard no sound. Always I knew the place filled with the buzz of water, but now it was silent. In fear of this stillness I ran forward, forgetting myself, forgetting the frost. The wood seemed to pursue me. I fell, just in time, down by a shed wherein were housed the few wintry pigs. The miller came riding in on his horse, and the barking of dogs was for him. I heard him curse the day, curse his servant, curse me, whom he had been out to hunt, in his rage of wasted labour, curse all. As I lay I heard inside the shed a sucking. Then I knew that the sow was there, and that the most of her sucking pigs would be already killed for tomorrow's Christmas. The miller, from forethought to have young at that time, made profit by his sucking pigs that were sold for the mid-winter feast.

 

"When in a moment all was silent in the dusk, I broke the bar and came into the shed. The sow grunted, but did not come forth to discover me. By and by I crept in towards her warmth. She had but three young left, which now angered her, she being too full of milk. Every now and again she slashed at them and they squealed. Busy as she was with them, I in the darkness advanced towards her. I trembled so that scarce dared I trust myself near her, for long dared not put my naked face towards her. Shuddering with hunger and fear, I at last fed of her, guarding my face with my arm. Her own full young tumbled squealing against me, but she, feeling her ease, lay grunting. At last I, too, lay drunk, swooning.

 

"I was roused by the shouting of the miller. He, angered by his daughter who wept, abused her, driving her from the house to feed the swine. She came, bowing under a yoke, to the door of the shed. Finding the pin broken she stood afraid, then, as the sow grunted, she came cautiously in. I took her with my arm, my hand over her mouth. As she struggled against my breast my heart began to beat loudly. At last she knew it was I. I clasped her. She hung in my arms, turning away her face, so that I kissed her throat. The tears blinded my eyes, I know not why, unless it were the hurt of my mouth, wounded by the horse, was keen.

 

"'They will kill you,' she whispered.

 

"'No,' I answered.

 

"And she wept softly. She took my head in her arms and kissed me, wetting me with her tears, brushing me with her keen hair, warming me through.

 

"'I will not go away from here,' I said. 'Bring me a knife, and I will defend myself.'

 

"'No,' she wept. 'Ah, no!'

 

"When she went I lay down, pressing my chest where she had rested on the earth, lest being alone were worse emptiness than hunger.

 

"Later she came again. I saw her bend in the doorway, a lanthorn hanging in front. As she peered under the redness of her falling hair, I was afraid of her. But she came with food. We sat together in the dull light. Sometimes still I shivered and my throat would not swallow.

 

"'If,' said I, 'I eat all this you have brought me, I shall sleep till somebody finds me.'

 

"Then she took away the rest of the meat.

 

"'Why,' said I, 'should I not eat?' She looked at me in tears of fear.

 

"'What?' I said, but still she had no answer. I kissed her, and the hurt of my wounded mouth angered me.

 

"'Now there is my blood,' said I, 'on your mouth.' Wiping her smooth hand over her lips, she looked thereat, then at me.

 

"'Leave me,' I said, 'I am tired.' She rose to leave me.

 

"'But bring a knife,' I said. Then she held the lanthorn near my face, looking as at a picture.

 

"'You look to me,' she said, 'like a stirk that is roped for the axe. Your eyes are dark, but they are wide open.'

 

"'Then I will sleep,' said I, 'but will not wake too late.'

 

"'Do not stay here,' she said.

 

"'I will not sleep in the wood,' I answered, and it was my heart that spoke, 'for I am afraid. I had better be afraid of the voice of man and dogs, than the sounds in the woods. Bring me a knife, and in the morning I will go. Alone will I not go now.'

 

"'The searchers will take you,' she said.

 

"'Bring me a knife,' I answered.

 

"'Ah, go,' she wept.

 

"'Not now, I will not -'

 

"With that she lifted the lanthorn, lit up her own face and mine. Her blue eyes dried of tears. Then I took her to myself, knowing she was mine.

 

"'I will come again,' she said.

 

"She went, and I folded my arms, lay down and slept.

 

"When I woke, she was rocking me wildly to rouse me.

 

"'I dreamed,' said I, 'that a great heap, as if it were a hill, lay on me and above me.'

 

"She put a cloak over me, gave me a hunting-knife and a wallet of food, and other things I did not note. Then under her own cloak she hid the lanthorn.

 

"'Let us go,' she said, and blindly I followed her.

 

"When I came out into the cold someone touched my face and my hair.

 

"'Ha!' I cried, 'who now?' Then she swiftly clung to me, hushed me.

 

"'Someone has touched me,' I said aloud, still dazed with sleep.

 

"'Oh hush!' she wept. ''Tis snowing.' The dogs within the house began to bark. She fled forward, I after her. Coming to the ford of the stream she ran swiftly over, but I broke through the ice. Then I knew where I was. Snowflakes, fine and rapid, were biting at my face. In the wood there was no wind nor snow.

 

"'Listen,' said I to her, 'listen, for I am locked up with sleep.'

 

"'I hear roaring overhead,' she answered. 'I hear in the trees like great bats squeaking.'

 

"'Give me your hand,' said I.

 

"We heard many noises as we passed. Once as there uprose a whiteness before us, she cried aloud.

 

"'Nay,' said I, 'do not untie thy hand from mine,' and soon we were crossing fallen snow. But ever and again she started back from fear.

 

"'When you draw back my arm,' I said, angry, 'you loosed a weal on my shoulder.'

 

"Thereafter she ran by my side, like a fawn beside its mother.

 

"'We will cross the valley and gain the stream,' I said. 'That will lead us on its ice as on a path deep into the forest. There we can join the outlaws. The wolves are driven from this part. They have followed the driven deer.'

 

"We came directly on a large gleam that shaped itself up among flying grains of snow.

 

"'Ah!' she cried, and she stood amazed.

 

"Then I thought we had gone through the bounds into faery realm, and I was no more a man. How did I know what eyes were gleaming at me between the snow, what cunning spirits in the draughts of air? So I waited for what would happen, and I forgot her, that she was there. Only I could feel the spirits whirling and blowing about me.

 

"Whereupon she clung upon me, kissing me lavishly, and, were dogs or men or demons come upon us at that moment, she had let us be stricken down, nor heeded not. So we moved forward to the shadow that shone in colours upon the passing snow. We found ourselves under a door of light which shed its colours mixed with snow. This Martha had never seen, nor I, this door open for a red and brave issuing like fires. We wondered.

 

"'It is faery,' she said, and after a while, 'Could one catch such. Ah, no!'

 

"Through the snow shone bunches of red and blue.

 

"'Could one have such a little light like a red flower, only a little, like a rose-berry scarlet on one's breast! then one were singled out as Our Lady.'

 

"I flung off my cloak and my burden to climb up the face of the shadow. Standing on rims of stone, then in pockets of snow, I reached upward. My hand was red and blue, but I could not take the stuff. Like colour of a moth's wing it was on my hand, it flew on the increasing snow. I stood higher on the head of a frozen man, reached higher my hand. Then I felt the bright stuff cold. I could not pluck it off. Down below she cried to me to come again to her. I felt a rib that yielded, I struck at it with my knife. There came a gap in the redness. Looking through I saw below as it were white stunted angels, with sad faces lifted in fear. Two faces they had each, and round rings of hair. I was afraid. I grasped the shining red, I pulled. Then the cold man under me sank, so I fell as if broken on to the snow.

 

"Soon I was risen again, and we were running downwards towards the stream. We felt ourselves eased when the smooth road of ice was beneath us. For a while it was resting, to travel thus evenly. But the wind blew round us, the snow hung upon us, we leaned us this way and that, towards the storm. I drew her along, for she came as a bird that stems lifting and swaying against the wind. By and by the snow came smaller, there was not wind in the wood. Then I felt nor labour, nor cold. Only I knew the darkness drifted by on either side, that overhead was a lane of paleness where a moon fled us before. Still, I can feel the moon fleeing from me, can feel the trees passing round me in slow dizzy reel, can feel the hurt of my shoulder and my straight arm torn with holding her. I was following the moon and the stream, for I knew where the water peeped from its burrow in the ground there were shelters of the outlaw. But she fell, without sound or sign.

 

"I gathered her up and climbed the bank. There all round me hissed the larchwood, dry beneath, and laced with its dry-fretted cords. For a little way I carried her into the trees. Then I laid her down till I cut flat hairy boughs. I put her in my bosom on this dry bed, so we swooned together through the night. I laced her round and covered her with myself, so she lay like a nut within its shell.

 

"Again, when morning came, it was pain of cold that woke me. I groaned, but my heart was warm as I saw the heap of red hair in my arms. As I looked at her, her eyes opened into mine. She smiled, from out of her smile came fear. As if in a trap she pressed back her head.

 

"'We have no flint,' said I.

 

"'Yes, in the wallet, flint and steel and tinder box,' she answered.

 

"'God yield you blessing,' I said.

 

"In a place a little open I kindled a fire of larch boughs. She was afraid of me, hovering near, yet never crossing a space.

 

"'Come,' said I, 'let us eat this food.'

 

"'Your face,' she said, 'is smeared with blood.'

 

"I opened out my cloak.

 

"'But come,' said I, 'you are frosted with cold.'

 

"I took a handful of snow in my hand, wiping my face with it, which then I dried on my cloak.

 

"'My face is no longer painted with blood, you are no longer afraid of me. Come here then, sit by me while we eat.'

 

"But as I cut the cold bread for her, she clasped me suddenly, kissing me. She fell before me, clasped my knees to her breast, weeping. She laid her face down to my feet, so that her hair spread like a fire before me. I wondered at the woman. 'Nay,' I cried. At that she lifted her face to me from below. 'Nay,' I cried, feeling my tears fall. With her head on my breast, my own tears rose from their source, wetting my cheek and her hair, which was wet with the rain of my eyes.

 

"Then I remembered and took from my bosom the coloured light of that night before. I saw it was black and rough.

 

"'Ah,' said I, 'this is magic.'

 

"'The black stone!' she wondered.

 

"'It is the red light of the night before,' I said.

 

"'It is magic,' she answered.

 

"'Shall I throw it?' said I, lifting the stone, 'shall I throw it away, for fear?'

 

"'It shines!' she cried, looking up. 'It shines like the eye of a creature at night, the eye of a wolf in the doorway.'

 

"''Tis magic,' I said, 'let me throw it from us.' But nay, she held my arm.

 

"'It is red and shining,' she cried.

 

"'It is a bloodstone,' I answered. 'It will hurt us, we shall die in blood.'

 

"'But give it to me,' she answered.

 

"'It is red of blood,' I said.

 

"'Ah, give it to me,' she called.

 

"'It is my blood,' I said.

 

"'Give it,' she commanded, low.

 

"'It is my life-stone,' I said.

 

"'Give it me,' she pleaded.

 

"'I gave it her. She held it up, she smiled, she smiled in my face, lifting her arms to me. I took her with my mouth, her mouth, her white throat. Nor she ever shrank, but trembled with happiness.

 

"What woke us, when the woods were filling again with shadow, when the fire was out, when we opened our eyes and looked up as if drowned, into the light which stood bright and thick on the tree-tops, what woke us was the sound of wolves. . . ."

 

 "Nay," said the vicar, suddenly rising, "they lived happily ever after."

 

"No," I said.

 

 

THE WHITE STOCKING

I

 

"I'm getting up, Teddilinks," said Mrs Whiston, and she sprang out of bed briskly.

 

"What the Hanover's got you?" asked Whiston.

 

"Nothing. Can't I get up?" she replied animatedly.

 

It was about seven o'clock, scarcely light yet in the cold bedroom. Whiston lay still and looked at his wife. She was a pretty little thing, with her fleecy, short black hair all tousled . . . He watched her as she dressed quickly, flicking her small, delightful limbs, throwing her clothes about her. Her slovenliness and untidiness did not trouble him. When she picked up the edge of her petticoat, ripped off a torn string of white lace, and flung it on the dressing-table, her careless abandon made his spirit glow. She stood before the mirror and roughly scrambled together her profuse little mane of hair. He watched the quickness and softness of her young shoulders, calmly, like a husband, and appreciatively.

 

"Rise up," she cried, turning to him with a quick wave of her arm -"and shine forth."

 

They had been married two years. But still, when she had gone out of the room, he felt as if all his light and warmth were taken away, he became aware of the raw, cold morning. So he rose himself, wondering casually what had roused her so early. Usually she lay in bed as late as she could.

 

Whiston fastened a belt round his loins and went downstairs in shirt and trousers. He heard her singing in her snatchy fashion. The stairs creaked under his weight. He passed down the narrow little passage, which she called a hall, of the seven and sixpenny house which was his first home.

 

He was a shapely young fellow of about twenty-eight, sleepy now and easy with well-being. He heard the water drumming into the kettle, and she began to whistle. He loved the quick way she dodged the supper cups under the tap to wash them for breakfast. She looked an untidy minx, but she was quick and handy enough.

 

"Teddilinks," she cried.

 

"What?"

 

"Light a fire, quick."

 

She wore an old, sack-like dressing-jacket of black silk pinned across her breast. But one of the sleeves, coming unfastened, showed some delightful pink upper-arm.

 

"Why don't you sew your sleeve up?" he said, suffering from the sight of the exposed soft flesh.

 

"Where?" she cried, peering round. "Nuisance," she said, seeing the gap, then with light fingers went on drying the cups.

 

The kitchen was of fair size, but gloomy. Whiston poked out the dead ashes.

 

Suddenly a thud was heard at the door down the passage.

 

"I'll go," cried Mrs Whiston, and she was gone down the hall.

 

The postman was a ruddy-faced man who had been a soldier. He smiled broadly, handing her some packages.

 

"They've not forgot you," he said impudently.

 

"No, lucky for them," she said, with a toss of the head. But she was interested only in her envelopes this morning. The postman waited inquisitively, smiling in an ingratiating fashion. She slowly, abstractedly, as if she did not know anyone was there, closed the door in his face, continuing to look at the addresses on her letters.

 

She tore open the thin envelope. There was a long, hideous, cartoon valentine. She smiled briefly and dropped it on the floor. Struggling with the string of a packet, she opened a white cardboard box, and there lay a white silk handkerchief packed neatly under the paper lace of the box, and her initial, worked in heliotrope, fully displayed. She smiled pleasantly, and gently put the box aside. The third envelope contained another white packet, apparently a cotton handkerchief neatly folded. She shook it out. It was a long white stocking, but there was a little weight in the toe. Quickly, she thrust down her arm, wriggling her fingers into the toe of the stocking, and brought out a small box. She peeped inside the box, then hastily opened a door on her left hand, and went into the little, cold sitting-room. She had her lower lip caught earnestly between her teeth.

 

With a little flash of triumph, she lifted a pair of pearl ear-rings from the small box, and she went to the mirror. There, earnestly, she began to hook them through her ears, looking at herself sideways in the glass. Curiously concentrated and intent she seemed as she fingered the lobes of her ears, her head bent on one side.

 

Then the pearl ear-rings dangled under her rosy, small ears. She shook her head sharply, to see the swing of the drops. They went chill against her neck, in little, sharp touches. Then she stood still to look at herself, bridling her head in the dignified fashion. Then she simpered at herself. Catching her own eye, she could not help winking at herself and laughing.

 

She turned to look at the box. There was a scrap of paper with this posy:

 

"Pearls may be fair, but thou art fairer.

Wear these for me, and I'll love the wearer."

 

She made a grimace and a grin. But she was drawn to the mirror again, to look at her ear-rings.

 

Whiston had made the fire burn, so he came to look for her. When she heard him, she started round quickly, guiltily. She was watching him with intent blue eyes when he appeared.

 

He did not see much, in his morning-drowsy warmth. He gave her, as ever, a feeling of warmth and slowness. His eyes were very blue, very kind, his manner simple.

 

"What ha' you got?" he asked.

 

"Valentines," she said briskly, ostentatiously turning to show him the silk handkerchief. She thrust it under his nose. "Smell how good," she said.

 

"Who's that from?" he replied, without smelling.

 

"It's a valentine," she cried. "How da I know who it's from?"

 

"I'll bet you know," he said.

 

"Ted! I don't!" she cried, beginning to shake her head, then stopping because of the ear-rings.

 

He stood still a moment, displeased.

 

"They've no right to send you valentines, now," he said.

 

"Ted! Why not? You're not jealous, are you? I haven't the least idea who it's from. Look, there's my initial" she pointed with an emphatic finger at the heliotrope embroidery -

 

"E for Elsie,

Nice little gelsie,"

 

she sang.

 

"Get out," he said. "You know who it's from."

 

"Truth, I don't," she cried.

 

He looked round, and saw the white stocking lying on a chair.

 

"Is this another?" he said.

 

"No, that's a sample," she said. "There's only a comic." And she fetched in the long cartoon.

 

He stretched it out and looked at it solemnly.

 

"Fools!" he said, and went out of the room.

 

She flew upstairs and took off the ear-rings. When she returned, he was crouched before the fire blowing the coals. The skin of his face was flushed, and slightly pitted, as if he had had small-pox. But his neck was white and smooth and goodly. She hung her arms round his neck as he crouched there, and clung to him. He balanced on his toes.

 

"This fire's a slow-coach," he said.

 

"And who else is a slow-coach?" she said.

 

"One of us two, I know," he said, and he rose carefully. She remained clinging round his neck, so that she was lifted off her feet.

 

"Ha! swing me," she cried.

 

He lowered his head, and she hung in the air, swinging from his neck, laughing. Then she slipped off.

 

"The kettle is singing," she sang, flying for the teapot. He bent down again to blow the fire. The veins in his neck stood out, his shirt collar seemed too tight.

 

"Doctor Wyer,

Blow the fire,

Puff! puff! puff!"

 

she sang, laughing.

 

He smiled at her.

 

She was so glad because of her pearl ear-rings.

 

Over the breakfast she grew serious. He did not notice. She became portentous in her gravity. Almost it penetrated through his steady good-humour to irritate him.

 

"Teddy!" she said at last.

 

"What?" he asked.

 

"I told you a lie," she said, humbly tragic.

 

His soul stirred uneasily.

 

"Oh aye?" he said casually.

 

She was not satisfied. He ought to be more moved.

 

"Yes," she said.

 

He cut a piece of bread.

 

"Was it a good one?" he asked.

 

She was piqued. Then she considered, was it a good one? Then she laughed.

 

"No," she said, "it wasn't up to much."

 

"Ah!" he said easily, but with a steady strength of fondness for her in his tone. "Get it out then."

 

It became a little more difficult.

 

"You know that white stocking," she said earnestly. "I told you a lie. It wasn't a sample. It was a valentine."

 

A little frown came on his brow.

 

"Then what did you invent it as a sample for?" he said. But he knew this weakness of hers. The touch of anger in his voice frightened her.

 

"I was afraid you'd be cross," she said pathetically.

 

"I'll bet you were vastly afraid," he said.

 

"I was, Teddy."

 

There was a pause. He was resolving one or two things in his mind.

 

"And who sent it?" he asked.

 

"I can guess," she said, "though there wasn't a word with it, except -"

 

She ran to the sitting-room and returned with a slip of paper.

 

"Pearls may be fair, but thou art fairer.

Wear these for me, and I'll love the wearer."

 

He read it twice, then a dull red flush came on his face.

 

"And who do you guess it is?" he asked, with a ringing of anger in his voice.

 

"I suspect it's Sam Adams," she said, with a little virtuous indignation.

 

Whiston was silent for a moment.

 

"Fool!" he said. "An' what's it got to do with pearls? and how can he say 'wear these for me' when there's only one? He hasn't got the brain to invent a proper verse."

 

He screwed the sup of paper into a ball and flung it into the fire.

 

"I suppose he thinks it'll make a pair with the one last year," she said.

 

"Why, did he send one then?"

 

"Yes. I thought you'd be wild if you knew."

 

His jaw set rather sullenly.

 

Presently he rose, and went to wash himself, rolling back his sleeves and pulling open his shirt at the breast. It was as if his fine, clear-cut temples and steady eyes were degraded by the lower, rather brutal part of his face. But she loved it. As she whisked about, clearing the table, she loved the way in which he stood washing himself. He was such a man. She liked to see his neck glistening with water as he swilled it. It amused her and pleased her and thrilled her. He was so sure, so permanent, he had her so utterly in his power. It gave her a delightful, mischievous sense of liberty. Within his grasp, she could dart about excitingly.

 

He turned round to her, his face red from the cold water, his eyes fresh and very blue.

 

"You haven't been seeing anything of him, have you?" he asked roughly.

 

"Yes," she answered, after a moment, as if caught guilty. "He got into the tram with me, and he asked me to drink a coffee and a Benedictine in the Royal."

 

"You've got it off fine and glib," he said sullenly. "And did you?"

 

"Yes," she replied, with the air of a traitor before the rack.

 

The blood came up into his neck and face, he stood motionless, dangerous.

 

"It was cold, and it was such fun to go into the Royal," she said.

 

"You'd go off with a nigger for a packet of chocolate," he said, in anger and contempt, and some bitterness. Queer how he drew away from her, cut her off from him.

 

"Ted, how beastly!" she cried. "You know quite well -" She caught her lip, flushed, and the tears came to her eyes.

 

He turned away, to put on his necktie. She went about her work, making a queer pathetic little mouth, down which occasionally dripped a tear.

 

He was ready to go. With his hat jammed down on his head, and his overcoat buttoned up to his chin, he came to kiss her. He would be miserable all the day if he went without. She allowed herself to be kissed. Her cheek was wet under his lips, and his heart burned. She hurt him so deeply. And she felt aggrieved, and did not quite forgive him.

 

In a moment she went upstairs to her ear-rings. Sweet they looked nestling in the little drawer, sweet! She examined them with voluptuous pleasure, she threaded them in her ears, she looked at herself, she posed and postured and smiled, and looked sad and tragic and winning and appealing, all in turn before the mirror. And she was happy, and very pretty.

 

She wore her ear-rings all morning, in the house. She was self-conscious, and quite brilliantly winsome, when the baker came, wondering if he would notice. All the tradesmen left her door with a glow in them, feeling elated, and unconsciously favouring the delightful little creature, though there had been nothing to notice in her behaviour.

 

She was stimulated all the day. She did not think about her husband. He was the permanent basis from which she took these giddy little flights into nowhere. At night, like chickens and curses, she would come home to him, to roost.

 

Meanwhile Whiston, a traveller and confidential support of a small firm, hastened about his work, his heart all the while anxious for her, yearning for surety, and kept tense by not getting it.

 

 

II

 

She had been a warehouse girl in Adams's lace factory before she was married. Sam Adams was her employer. He was a bachelor of forty, growing stout, a man well dressed and florid, with a large brown moustache and thin hair. From the rest of his well-groomed, showy appearance, it was evident his baldness was a chagrin to him. He had a good presence, and some Irish blood in his veins.

 

His fondness for the girls, or the fondness of the girls for him, was notorious. And Elsie, quick, pretty, almost witty little thing, she seemed witty, although, when her sayings were repeated, they were entirely trivial, she had a great attraction for him. He would come into the warehouse dressed in a rather sporting reefer coat, of fawn colour, and trousers of fine black-and-white check, a cap with a big peak and a scarlet carnation in his button-hole, to impress her. She was only half impressed. He was too loud for her good taste. Instinctively perceiving this, he sobered down to navy blue. Then a well-built man, florid, with large brown whiskers, smart navy blue suit, fashionable boots, and manly hat, he was the irreproachable. Elsie was impressed.

 

But meanwhile Whiston was courting her, and she made splendid little gestures, before her bedroom mirror, of the constant-and-true sort.

 

"True, true till death -"

 

That was her song. Whiston was made that way, so there was no need to take thought for him.

 

Every Christmas Sam Adams gave a party at his house, to which he invited his superior work-people, not factory hands and labourers, but those above. He was a generous man in his way, with a real warm feeling for giving pleasure.

 

Two years ago Elsie had attended this Christmas-party for the last time. Whiston had accompanied her. At that time he worked for Sam Adams.

 

She had been very proud of herself, in her close-fitting, full-skirted dress of blue silk. Whiston called for her. Then she tripped beside him, holding her large cashmere shawl across her breast. He strode with long strides, his trousers handsomely strapped under his boots, and her silk shoes bulging the pockets of his full-skirted overcoat.

 

They passed through the park gates, and her spirits rose. Above them the Castle Rock looked grandly in the night, the naked trees stood still and dark in the frost, along the boulevard.

 

They were rather late. Agitated with anticipation, in the cloak-room she gave up her shawl, donned her silk shoes, and looked at herself in the mirror. The loose bunches of curls on either side her face danced prettily, her mouth smiled.

 

She hung a moment in the door of the brilliantly lighted room. Many people were moving within the blaze of lamps, under the crystal chandeliers, the full skirts of the women balancing and floating, the side-whiskers and white cravats of the men bowing above. Then she entered the light.

 

In an instant Sam Adams was coming forward, lifting both his arms in boisterous welcome. There was a constant red laugh on his face.

 

"Come late, would you," he shouted, "like royalty."

 

He seized her hands and led her forward. He opened his mouth wide when he spoke, and the effect of the warm, dark opening behind the brown whiskers was disturbing. But she was floating into the throng on his arm. He was very gallant.

 

"Now then," he said, taking her card to write down the dances, "I've got carte blanche, haven't I?"

 

"Mr Whiston doesn't dance," she said.

 

"I am a lucky man!" he said, scribbling his initials. "I was born with an amourette in my mouth."

 

He wrote on, quietly. She blushed and laughed, not knowing what it meant.

 

"Why, what is that?" she said.

 

"It's you, even littler than you are, dressed in little wings," he said.

 

"I should have to be pretty small to get in your mouth," she said.

 

"You think you're too big, do you!" he said easily.

 

He handed her her card, with a bow.

 

"Now I'm set up, my darling, for this evening," he said.

 

Then, quick, always at his ease, he looked over the room. She waited in front of him. He was ready. Catching the eye of the band, he nodded. In a moment, the music began. He seemed to relax, giving himself up.

 

"Now then, Elsie," he said, with a curious caress in his voice that seemed to lap the outside of her body in a warm glow, delicious. She gave herself to it. She liked it.

 

He was an excellent dancer. He seemed to draw her close in to him by some male warmth of attraction, so that she became all soft and pliant to him, flowing to his form, whilst he united her with him and they lapsed along in one movement. She was just carried in a kind of strong, warm flood, her feet moved of themselves, and only the music threw her away from him, threw her back to him, to his clasp, in his strong form moving against her, rhythmically, deliriously.

 

When it was over, he was pleased and his eyes had a curious gleam which thrilled her and yet had nothing to do with her. Yet it held her. He did not speak to her. He only looked straight into her eyes with a curious, gleaming look that disturbed her fearfully and deliriously. But also there was in his look some of the automatic irony of the roué. It left her partly cold. She was not carried away.

 

She went, driven by an opposite, heavier impulse, to Whiston. He stood looking gloomy, trying to admit that she had a perfect right to enjoy herself apart from him. He received her with rather grudging kindliness.

 

"Aren't you going to play whist?" she asked.

 

"Aye," he said. "Directly."

 

"I do wish you could dance."

 

"Well, I can't," he said. "So you enjoy yourself."

 

"But I should enjoy it better if I could dance with you."

 

"Nay, you're all right," he said. "I'm not made that way."

 

"Then you ought to be!" she cried.

 

"Well, it's my fault, not yours. You enjoy yourself," he bade her. Which she proceeded to do, a little bit irked.

 

She went with anticipation to the arms of Sam Adams, when the time came to dance with him. It was so gratifying, irrespective of the man. And she felt a little grudge against Whiston, soon forgotten when her host was holding her near to him, in a delicious embrace. And she watched his eyes, to meet the gleam in them, which gratified her.

 

She was getting warmed right through, the glow was penetrating into her, driving away everything else. Only in her heart was a little tightness, like conscience.

 

When she got a chance, she escaped from the dancing-room to the card-room. There, in a cloud of smoke, she found Whiston playing cribbage. Radiant, roused, animated, she came up to him and greeted him. She was too strong, too vibrant a note in the quiet room. He lifted his head, and a frown knitted his gloomy forehead.

 

"Are you playing cribbage? Is it exciting? How are you getting on?" she chattered.

 

He looked at her. None of these questions needed answering, and he did not feel in touch with her. She turned to the cribbage-board.

 

"Are you white or red?" she asked.

 

"He's red," replied the partner.

 

"Then you're losing," she said, still to Whiston. And she lifted the red peg from the board. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Right up there you ought to jump -"

 

"Now put it back in its right place," said Whiston.

 

"Where was it?" she asked gaily, knowing her transgression. He took the little red peg away from her and stuck it in its hole.

 

The cards were shuffled.

 

"What a shame you're losing!" said Elsie.

 

"You'd better cut for him," said the partner.

 

She did so, hastily. The cards were dealt. She put her hand on his shoulder, looking at his cards.

 

"It's good," she cried, "isn't it?"

 

He did not answer, but threw down two cards. It moved him more strongly than was comfortable, to have her hand on his shoulder, her curls dangling and touching his ears, whilst she was roused to another man. It made the blood flame over him.

 

At that moment Sam Adams appeared, florid and boisterous, intoxicated more with himself, with the dancing, than with wine. In his eyes the curious, impersonal light gleamed.

 

"I thought I should find you here, Elsie," he cried boisterously, a disturbing, high note in his voice.

 

"What made you think so?" she replied, the mischief rousing in her.

 

The florid, well-built man narrowed his eyes to a smile.

 

"I should never look for you among the ladies," he said, with a kind of intimate, animal call to her. He laughed, bowed, and offered her his arm.

 

"Madam, the music waits."

 

She went almost helplessly, carried along with him, unwilling, yet delighted.

 

That dance was an intoxication to her. After the first few steps, she felt herself slipping away from herself. She almost knew she was going, she did not even want to go. Yet she must have chosen to go. She lay in the arm of the steady, close man with whom she was dancing, and she seemed to swim away out of contact with the room, into him. She had passed into another, denser element of him, an essential privacy. The room was all vague around her, like an atmosphere, like under sea, with a flow of ghostly, dumb movements. But she herself was held real against her partner, and it seemed she was connected with him, as if the movements of his body and limbs were her own movements, yet not her own movements, and oh, delicious! He also was given up, oblivious, concentrated, into the dance. His eye was unseeing. Only his large, voluptuous body gave off a subtle activity. His fingers seemed to search into her flesh. Every moment, and every moment, she felt she would give way utterly, and sink molten: the fusion point was coming when she would fuse down into perfect unconsciousness at his feet and knees. But he bore her round the room in the dance, and he seemed to sustain all her body with his limbs, his body, and his warmth seemed to come closer into her, nearer, till it would fuse right through her, and she would be as liquid to him, as an intoxication only.

 

It was exquisite. When it was over, she was dazed, and was scarcely breathing. She stood with him in the middle of the room as if she were alone in a remote place. He bent over her. She expected his lips on her bare shoulder, and waited. Yet they were not alone, they were not alone. It was cruel.

 

"'Twas good, wasn't it, my darling?" he said to her, low and delighted. There was a strange impersonality about his low, exultant call that appealed to her irresistibly. Yet why was she aware of some part shut off in her? She pressed his arm, and he led her towards the door.

 

She was not aware of what she was doing, only a little grain of resistant trouble was in her. The man, possessed, yet with a superficial presence of mind, made way to the dining-room, as if to give her refreshment, cunningly working to his own escape with her. He was molten hot, filmed over with presence of mind, and bottomed with cold disbelief.

 

In the dining-room was Whiston, carrying coffee to the plain, neglected ladies. Elsie saw him, but felt as if he could not see her. She was beyond his reach and ken. A sort of fusion existed between her and the large man at her side. She ate her custard, but an incomplete fusion all the while sustained and contained her within the being of her employer.

 

But she was growing cooler. Whiston came up. She looked at him, and saw him with different eyes. She saw his slim, young man's figure real and enduring before her. That was he. But she was in the spell with the other man, fused with him, and she could not be taken away.

 

"Have you finished your cribbage?" she asked, with hasty evasion of him.

 

"Yes," he replied. "Aren't you getting tired of dancing?"

 

"Not a bit," she said.

 

"Not she," said Adams heartily. "No girl with any spirit gets tired of dancing. Have something else, Elsie. Come, sherry. Have a glass of sherry with us, Whiston."

 

Whilst they sipped the wine, Adams watched Whiston almost cunningly, to find his advantage.

 

"We'd better be getting back, there's the music," he said. "See the women get something to eat, Whiston, will you, there's a good chap."

 

And he began to draw away. Elsie was drifting helplessly with him. But Whiston put himself beside them, and went along with them. In silence they passed through to the dancing-room. There Adams hesitated, and looked round the room. It was as if he could not see.

 

A man came hurrying forward, claiming Elsie, and Adams went to his other partner. Whiston stood watching during the dance. She was conscious of him standing there observant of her, like a ghost, or a judgment, or a guardian angel. She was also conscious, much more intimately and impersonally, of the body of the other man moving somewhere in the room. She still belonged to him, but a feeling of distraction possessed her, and helplessness. Adams danced on, adhering to Elsie, waiting his time, with the persistence of cynicism.

 

The dance was over. Adams was detained. Elsie found herself beside Whiston. There was something shapely about him as he sat, about his knees and his distinct figure, that she clung to. It was as if he had enduring form. She put her hand on his knee.

 

"Are you enjoying yourself?" he asked.

 

"Ever so," she replied, with a fervent, yet detached tone.

 

"It's going on for one o'clock," he said.

 

"Is it?" she answered. It meant nothing to her.

 

"Should we be going?" he said.

 

She was silent. For the first time for an hour or more an inkling of her normal consciousness returned. She resented it.

 

"What for?" she said.

 

"I thought you might have had enough," he said.

 

A slight soberness came over her, an irritation at being frustrated of her illusion.

 

"Why?" she said.

 

"We've been here since nine," he said.

 

That was no answer, no reason. It conveyed nothing to her. She sat detached from him. Across the room Sam Adams glanced at her. She sat there exposed for him.

 

"You don't want to be too free with Sam Adams," said Whiston cautiously, suffering. "You know what he is."

 

"How, free?" she asked.

 

"Why, you don't want to have too much to do with him."

 

She sat silent. He was forcing her into consciousness of her position. But he could not get hold of her feelings, to change them. She had a curious, perverse desire that he should not.

 

"I like him," she said.

 

"What do you find to like in him?" he said, with a hot heart.

 

"I don't know, but I like him," she said.

 

She was immutable. He sat feeling heavy and dulled with rage. He was not clear as to what he felt. He sat there unliving whilst she danced. And she, distracted, lost to herself between the opposing forces of the two men, drifted. Between the dances, Whiston kept near to her. She was scarcely conscious. She glanced repeatedly at her card, to see when she would dance again with Adams, half in desire, half in dread. Sometimes she met his steady, glaucous eye as she passed him in the dance. Sometimes she saw the steadiness of his flank as he danced. And it was always as if she rested on his arm, were borne along, upborne by him, away from herself. And always there was present the other's antagonism. She was divided.

 

The time came for her to dance with Adams. Oh, the delicious closing of contact with him, of his limbs touching her limbs, his arm supporting her. She seemed to resolve. Whiston had not made himself real to her. He was only a heavy place in her consciousness.

 

But she breathed heavily, beginning to suffer from the closeness of strain. She was nervous. Adams also was constrained. A tightness, a tension was coming over them all. And he was exasperated, feeling something counteracting physical magnetism, feeling a will stronger with her than his own, intervening in what was becoming a vital necessity to him.

 

Elsie was almost lost to her own control. As she went forward with him to take her place at the dance, she stooped for her pocket-handkerchief. The music sounded for quadrilles. Everybody was ready. Adams stood with his body near her, exerting his attraction over her. He was tense and fighting. She stooped for her pocket-handkerchief, and shook it as she rose. It shook out and fell from her hand. With agony, she saw she had taken a white stocking instead of a handkerchief. For a second it lay on the floor, a twist of white stocking. Then, in an instant, Adams picked it up, with a little, surprised laugh of triumph.

 

"That'll do for me," he whispered, seeming to take possession of her. And he stuffed the stocking in his trousers pocket, and quickly offered her his handkerchief.

 

The dance began. She felt weak and faint, as if her will were turned to water. A heavy sense of loss came over her. She could not help herself anymore. But it was peace.

 

When the dance was over, Adams yielded her up. Whiston came to her.

 

"What was it as you dropped?" Whiston asked.

 

"I thought it was my handkerchief, I'd taken a stocking by mistake," she said, detached and muted.

 

"And he's got it?"

 

"Yes."

 

"What does he mean by that?"

 

She lifted her shoulders.

 

"Are you going to let him keep it?" he asked.

 

"I don't let him."

 

There was a long pause.

 

"Am I to go and have it out with him?" he asked, his face flushed, his blue eyes going hard with opposition.

 

"No," she said, pale.

 

"Why?"

 

"No, I don't want to say anything about it."

 

He sat exasperated and nonplussed.

 

"You'll let him keep it, then?" he asked.

 

She sat silent and made no form of answer.

 

"What do you mean by it?" he said, dark with fury. And he started up.

 

"No!" she cried. "Ted!" And she caught hold of him, sharply detaining him.

 

It made him black with rage.

 

"Why?" he said.

 

Then something about her mouth was pitiful to him. He did not understand, but he felt she must have her reasons.

 

"Then I'm not stopping here," he said. "Are you coming with me?"

 

She rose mutely, and they went out of the room. Adams had not noticed.

 

In a few moments they were in the street.

 

"What the hell do you mean?" he said, in a black fury.

 

She went at his side, in silence, neutral.

 

"That great hog, an' all," he added.

 

Then they went a long time in silence through the frozen, deserted darkness of the town. She felt she could not go indoors. They were drawing near her house.

 

"I don't want to go home," she suddenly cried in distress and anguish. "I don't want to go home."

 

He looked at her.

 

"Why don't you?" he said.

 

"I don't want to go home," was all she could sob.

 

He heard somebody coming.

 

"Well, we can walk a bit further," he said.

 

She was silent again. They passed out of the town into the fields. He held her by the arm, they could not speak.

 

"What's a-matter?" he asked at length, puzzled.

 

She began to cry again.

 

At last he took her in his arms, to soothe her. She sobbed by herself, almost unaware of him.

 

"Tell me what's a-matter, Elsie," he said. "Tell me what's a-matter, my dear, tell me, then -"

 

He kissed her wet face, and caressed her. She made no response. He was puzzled and tender and miserable.

 

At length she became quiet. Then he kissed her, and she put her arms round him, and clung to him very tight, as if for fear and anguish. He held her in his arms, wondering.

 

"Ted!" she whispered, frantic. "Ted!"

 

"What, my love?" he answered, becoming also afraid.

 

"Be good to me," she cried. "Don't be cruel to me."

 

"No, my pet," he said, amazed and grieved. "Why?"

 

"Oh, be good to me," she sobbed.

 

And he held her very safe, and his heart was white-hot with love for her. His mind was amazed. He could only hold her against his chest that was white-hot with love and belief in her. So she was restored at last.

 

 

III

 

She refused to go to her work at Adams's any more. Her father had to submit and she sent in her notice, she was not well. Sam Adams was ironical. But he had a curious patience. He did not fight.

 

In a few weeks, she and Whiston were married. She loved him with passion and worship, a fierce little abandon of love that moved him to the depths of his being, and gave him a permanent surety and sense of realness in himself. He did not trouble about himself any more: he felt he was fulfilled and now he had only the many things in the world to busy himself about. Whatever troubled him, at the bottom was surety. He had found himself in this love.

 

They spoke once or twice of the white stocking.

 

"Ah!" Whiston exclaimed. "What does it matter?"

 

He was impatient and angry, and could not bear to consider the matter. So it was left unresolved.

 

She was quite happy at first, carried away by her adoration of her husband. Then gradually she got used to him. He always was the ground of her happiness, but she got used to him, as to the air she breathed. He never got used to her in the same way.

 

Inside of marriage she found her liberty. She was rid of the responsibility of herself. Her husband must look after that. She was free to get what she could out of her time.

 

So that, when, after some months, she met Sam Adams, she was not quite as unkind to him as she might have been. With a young wife's new and exciting knowledge of men, she perceived he was in love with her, she knew he had always kept an unsatisfied desire for her. And, sportive, she could not help playing a little with this, though she cared not one jot for the man himself.

 

When Valentine's day came, which was near the first anniversary of her wedding day, there arrived a white stocking with a little amethyst brooch. Luckily Whiston did not see it, so she said nothing of it to him. She had not the faintest intention of having anything to do with Sam Adams, but once a little brooch was in her possession, it was hers, and she did not trouble her head for a moment how she had come by it. She kept it.

 

Now she had the pearl ear-rings. They were a more valuable and a more conspicuous present. She would have to ask her mother to give them to her, to explain their presence. She made a little plan in her head. And she was extraordinarily pleased. As for Sam Adams, even if he saw her wearing them, he would not give her away. What fun, if he saw her wearing his ear-rings! She would pretend she had inherited them from her grandmother, her mother's mother. She laughed to herself as she went down town in the afternoon, the pretty drops dangling in front of her curls. But she saw no one of importance.

 

Whiston came home tired and depressed. All day the male in him had been uneasy, and this had fatigued him. She was curiously against him, inclined, as she sometimes was nowadays, to make mock of him and jeer at him and cut him off. He did not understand this, and it angered him deeply. She was uneasy before him.

 

She knew he was in a state of suppressed irritation. The veins stood out on the backs of his hands, his brow was drawn stiffly. Yet she could not help goading him.

 

"What did you do wi' that white stocking?" he asked, out of a gloomy silence, his voice strong and brutal.

 

"I put it in a drawer, why?" she replied flippantly.

 

"Why didn't you put it on the fire back?" he said harshly. "What are you hoarding it up for?"

 

"I'm not hoarding it up," she said. "I've got a pair."

 

He relapsed into gloomy silence. She, unable to move him, ran away upstairs, leaving him smoking by the fire. Again she tried on the earrings. Then another little inspiration came to her. She drew on the white stockings, both of them.

 

Presently she came down in them. Her husband still sat immovable and glowering by the fire.

 

"Look!" she said. "They'll do beautifully."

 

And she picked up her skirts to her knees, and twisted round, looking at her pretty legs in the neat stockings.

 

He filled with unreasonable rage, and took the pipe from his mouth.

 

"Don't they look nice?" she said. "One from last year and one from this, they just do. Save you buying a pair."

 

And she looked over her shoulders at her pretty calves, and the dangling frills of her knickers.

 

"Put your skirts down and don't make a fool of yourself," he said.

 

"Why a fool of myself?" she asked.

 

And she began to dance slowly round the room, kicking up her feet half reckless, half jeering, in a ballet-dancer's fashion. Almost fearfully, yet in defiance, she kicked up her legs at him, singing as she did so. She resented him.

 

"You little fool, ha' done with it," he said. "And you'll backfire them stockings, I'm telling you." He was angry. His face flushed dark, he kept his head bent. She ceased to dance.

 

"I shan't," she said. "They'll come in very useful."

 

He lifted his head and watched her, with lighted, dangerous eyes.

 

"You'll put 'em on the fire back, I tell you," he said.

 

It was a war now. She bent forward, in a ballet-dancer's fashion, and put her tongue between her teeth.

 

"I shan't backfire them stockings," she sang, repeating his words, "I shan't, I shan't, I shan't."

 

And she danced round the room doing a high kick to the tune of her words. There was a real biting indifference in her behaviour.

 

"We'll see whether you will or not," he said, "trollops! You'd like Sam Adams to know you was wearing 'em, wouldn't you? That's what would please you."

 

"Yes, I'd like him to see how nicely they fit me, he might give me some more then."

 

And she looked down at her pretty legs.

 

He knew somehow that she would like Sam Adams to see how pretty her legs looked in the white stockings. It made his anger go deep, almost to hatred.

 

"Yer nasty trolley," he cried. "Put yer petticoats down, and stop being so foul-minded."

 

"I'm not foul-minded," she said. "My legs are my own. And why shouldn't Sam Adams think they're nice?"

 

There was a pause. He watched her with eyes glittering to a point.

 

"Have you been havin' owt to do with him?" he asked.

 

"I've just spoken to him when I've seen him," she said. "He's not as bad as you would make out."

 

"Isn't he?" he cried, a certain wakefulness in his voice. "Them who has anything to do wi' him is too bad for me, I tell you."

 

"Why, what are you frightened of him for?" she mocked.

 

She was rousing all his uncontrollable anger. He sat glowering. Every one of her sentences stirred him up like a red-hot iron. Soon it would be too much. And she was afraid herself; but she was neither conquered nor convinced.

 

A curious little grin of hate came on his face. He had a long score against her.

 

"What am I frightened of him for?" he repeated automatically. "What am I frightened of him for? Why, for you, you stray-running little bitch."

 

She flushed. The insult went deep into her, right home.

 

"Well, if you're so dull -" she said, lowering her eyelids, and speaking coldly, haughtily.

 

"If I'm so dull I'll break your neck the first word you speak to him," he said, tense.

 

"Pf!" she sneered. "Do you think I'm frightened of you?" She spoke coldly, detached.

 

She was frightened, for all that, white round the mouth.

 

His heart was getting hotter.

 

"You will be frightened of me, the next time you have anything to do with him," he said.

 

"Do you think you'd ever be told, ha!"

 

Her jeering scorn made him go white-hot, molten. He knew he was incoherent, scarcely responsible for what he might do. Slowly, unseeing, he rose and went out of doors, stifled, moved to kill her.

 

He stood leaning against the garden fence, unable either to see or hear. Below him, far off, fumed the lights of the town. He stood still, unconscious with a black storm of rage, his face lifted to the night.

 

Presently, still unconscious of what he was doing, he went indoors again. She stood, a small stubborn figure with tight-pressed lips and big, sullen, childish eyes, watching him, white with fear. He went heavily across the floor and dropped into his chair.

 

There was a silence.

 

"You're not going to tell me everything I shall do, and everything I shan't," she broke out at last.

 

He lifted his head.

 

"I tell you this," he said, low and intense. "Have anything to do with Sam Adams, and I'll break your neck."

 

She laughed, shrill and false.

 

"How I hate your word 'break your neck'," she said, with a grimace of the mouth. "It sounds so common and beastly. Can't you say something else -"

 

There was a dead silence.

 

"And besides," she said, with a queer chirrup of mocking laughter, "what do you know about anything? He sent me an amethyst brooch and a pair of pearl ear-rings."

 

"He what?" said Whiston, in a suddenly normal voice. His eyes were fixed on her.

 

"Sent me a pair of pearl ear-rings, and an amethyst brooch," she repeated, mechanically, pale to the lips.

 

And her big, black, childish eyes watched him, fascinated, held in her spell.

 

He seemed to thrust his face and his eyes forward at her, as he rose slowly and came to her. She watched transfixed in terror. Her throat made a small sound, as she tried to scream.

 

Then, quick as lightning, the back of his hand struck her with a crash across the mouth, and she was flung back blinded against the wall. The shock shook a queer sound out of her. And then she saw him still coming on, his eyes holding her, his fist drawn back, advancing slowly. At any instant the blow might crash into her.

 

Mad with terror, she raised her hands with a queer clawing movement to cover her eyes and her temples, opening her mouth in a dumb shriek. There was no sound. But the sight of her slowly arrested him. He hung before her, looking at her fixedly, as she stood crouched against the wall with open, bleeding mouth, and wide-staring eyes, and two hands clawing over her temples. And his lust to see her bleed, to break her and destroy her, rose from an old source against her. It carried him. He wanted satisfaction.

 

But he had seen her standing there, a piteous, horrified thing, and he turned his face aside in shame and nausea. He went and sat heavily in his chair, and a curious ease, almost like sleep, came over his brain.

 

She walked away from the wall towards the fire, dizzy, white to the lips, mechanically wiping her small, bleeding mouth. He sat motionless. Then, gradually, her breath began to hiss, she shook, and was sobbing silently, in grief for herself. Without looking, he saw. It made his mad desire to destroy her come back.

 

At length he lifted his head. His eyes were glowing again, fixed on her.

 

"And what did he give them you for?" he asked, in a steady, unyielding voice.

 

Her crying dried up in a second. She also was tense.

 

"They came as valentines," she replied, still not subjugated, even if beaten.

 

"When, to-day?"

 

"The pearl ear-rings to-day, the amethyst brooch last year."

 

"You've had it a year?"

 

"Yes."

 

She felt that now nothing would prevent him if he rose to kill her. She could not prevent him any more. She was yielded up to him. They both trembled in the balance, unconscious.

 

"What have you had to do with him?" he asked, in a barren voice.

 

"I've not had anything to do with him," she quavered.

 

"You just kept 'em because they were jewellery?" he said.

 

A weariness came over him. What was the worth of speaking any more of it? He did not care any more. He was dreary and sick.

 

She began to cry again, but he took no notice. She kept wiping her mouth on her handkerchief. He could see it, the blood-mark. It made him only more sick and tired of the responsibility of it, the violence, the shame.

 

When she began to move about again, he raised his head once more from his dead, motionless position.

 

"Where are the things?" he said.

 

"They are upstairs," she quavered. She knew the passion had gone down in him.

 

"Bring them down," he said.

 

"I won't," she wept, with rage. "You're not going to bully me and hit me like that on the mouth."

 

And she sobbed again. He looked at her in contempt and compassion and in rising anger.

 

"Where are they?" he said.

 

"They're in the little drawer under the looking-glass," she sobbed.

 

He went slowly upstairs, struck a match, and found the trinkets. He brought them downstairs in his hand.

 

"These?" he said, looking at them as they lay in his palm.

 

She looked at them without answering. She was not interested in them any more.

 

He looked at the little jewels. They were pretty.

 

"It's none of their fault," he said to himself.

 

And he searched round slowly, persistently, for a box. He tied the things up and addressed them to Sam Adams. Then he went out in his slippers to post the little package.

 

When he came back she was still sitting crying.

 

"You'd better go to bed," he said.

 

She paid no attention. He sat by the fire. She still cried.

 

"I'm sleeping down here," he said. "Go you to bed."

 

In a few moments she lifted her tear-stained, swollen face and looked at him with eyes all forlorn and pathetic. A great flash of anguish went over his body. He went over, slowly, and very gently took her in his hands. She let herself be taken. Then as she lay against his shoulder, she sobbed aloud:

 

"I never meant -"

 

"My love, my little love -" he cried, in anguish of spirit, holding her in his arms.

 

 

ODOUR OF CHRYSANTHEMUMS

 

I

 

The small locomotive engine, Number 4, came clanking, stumbling down from Selston with seven full waggons. It appeared round the corner with loud threats of speed, but the colt that it startled from among the gorse, which still flickered indistinctly in the raw afternoon, outdistanced it at a canter. A woman, walking up the railway line to Underwood, drew back into the hedge, held her basket aside, and watched the footplate of the engine advancing. The trucks thumped heavily past, one by one, with slow inevitable movement, as she stood insignificantly trapped between the jolting black waggons and the hedge; then they curved away towards the coppice where the withered oak leaves dropped noiselessly, while the birds, pulling at the scarlet hips beside the track, made off into the dusk that had already crept into the spinney. In the open, the smoke from the engine sank and cleaved to the rough grass. The fields were dreary and forsaken, and in the marshy strip that led to the whimsey, a reedy pit-pond, the fowls had already abandoned their run among the alders, to roost in the tarred fowl-house. The pit-bank loomed up beyond the pond, flames like red sores licking its ashy sides, in the afternoon's stagnant light. Just beyond rose the tapering chimneys and the clumsy black head-stocks of Brinsley Colliery. The two wheels were spinning fast up against the sky, and the winding-engine rapped out its little spasms. The miners were being turned up.

 

The engine whistled as it came into the wide bay of railway lines beside the colliery, where rows of trucks stood in harbour.

 

Miners, single, trailing and in groups, passed like shadows diverging home. At the edge of the ribbed level of sidings squat a low cottage, three steps down from the cinder track. A large bony vine clutched at the house, as if to claw down the tiled roof. Round the bricked yard grew a few wintry primroses. Beyond, the long garden sloped down to a bush-covered brook course. There were some twiggy apple trees, winter-crack trees, and ragged cabbages. Beside the path hung dishevelled pink chrysanthemums, like pink cloths hung on bushes. A woman came stooping out of the felt-covered fowl-house, half-way down the garden. She closed and padlocked the door, then drew herself erect, having brushed some bits from her white apron.

 

She was a till woman of imperious mien, handsome, with definite black eyebrows. Her smooth black hair was parted exactly. For a few moments she stood steadily watching the miners as they passed along the railway: then she turned towards the brook course. Her face was calm and set, her mouth was closed with disillusionment. After a moment she called:

 

"John!" There was no answer. She waited, and then said distinctly:

 

"Where are you?"

 

"Here!" replied a child's sulky voice from among the bushes. The woman looked piercingly through the dusk.

 

"Are you at that brook?" she asked sternly.

 

For answer the child showed himself before the raspberry-canes that rose like whips. He was a small, sturdy boy of five. He stood quite still, defiantly.

 

"Oh!" said the mother, conciliated. "I thought you were down at that wet brook, and you remember what I told you -"

 

The boy did not move or answer.

 

"Come, come on in," she said more gently, "it's getting dark. There's your grandfather's engine coming down the line!"

 

The lad advanced slowly, with resentful, taciturn movement. He was dressed in trousers and waistcoat of cloth that was too thick and hard for the size of the garments. They were evidently cut down from a man's clothes.

 

As they went slowly towards the house he tore at the ragged wisps of chrysanthemums and dropped the petals in handfuls along the path.

 

"Don't do that, it does look nasty," said his mother. He refrained, and she, suddenly pitiful, broke off a twig with three or four wan flowers and held them against her face. When mother and son reached the yard her hand hesitated, and instead of laying the flower aside, she pushed it in her apron-band. The mother and son stood at the foot of the three steps looking across the bay of lines at the passing home of the miners. The trundle of the small train was imminent. Suddenly the engine loomed past the house and came to a stop opposite the gate.

 

The engine-driver, a short man with round grey beard, leaned out of the cab high above the woman.

 

"Have you got a cup of tea?" he said in a cheery, hearty fashion.

 

It was her father. She went in, saying she would mash. Directly, she returned.

 

"I didn't come to see you on Sunday," began the little grey-bearded man.

 

"I didn't expect you," said his daughter.

 

The engine-driver winced; then, reassuming his cheery, airy manner, he said:

 

"Oh, have you heard then? Well, and what do you think?"

 

"I think it is soon enough," she replied.

 

At her brief censure the little man made an impatient gesture, and said coaxingly, yet with dangerous coldness:

 

"Well, what's a man to do? It's no sort of life for a man of my years, to sit at my own hearth like a stranger. And if I'm going to marry again it may as well be soon as late, what does it matter to anybody?"

 

The woman did not reply, but turned and went into the house. The man in the engine-cab stood assertive, till she returned with a cup of tea and a piece of bread and butter on a plate. She went up the steps and stood near the footplate of the hissing engine.

 

"You needn't 'a' brought me bread an' butter," said her father. "But a cup of tea", he sipped appreciatively, "it's very nice." He sipped for a moment or two, then: "I hear as Walter's got another bout on," he said.

 

"When hasn't he?" said the woman bitterly.

 

"I heered tell of him in the 'Lord Nelson' braggin' as he was going to spend that b---- afore he went: half a sovereign that was."

 

"When?" asked the woman.

 

"A' Sat'day night, I know that's true."

 

"Very likely," she laughed bitterly. "He gives me twenty-three shillings."

 

"Aye, it's a nice thing, when a man can do nothing with his money but make a beast of himself!" said the grey-whiskered man. The woman turned her head away. Her father swallowed the last of his tea and handed her the cup.

 

"Aye," he sighed, wiping his mouth. "It's a settler, it is -"

 

He put his hand on the lever. The little engine strained and groaned, and the train rumbled towards the crossing. The woman again looked across the metals. Darkness was settling over the spaces of the railway and trucks: the miners, in grey sombre groups, were still passing home. The winding-engine pulsed hurriedly, with brief pauses. Elizabeth Bates looked at the dreary flow of men, then she went indoors. Her husband did not come.

 

The kitchen was small and full of firelight; red coals piled glowing up the chimney mouth. All the life of the room seemed in the white, warm hearth and the steel fender reflecting the red fire. The cloth was laid for tea; cups glinted in the shadows. At the back, where the lowest stairs protruded into the room, the boy sat struggling with a knife and a piece of whitewood. He was almost hidden in the shadow. It was half-past four. They had but to await the father's coming to begin tea. As the mother watched her son's sullen little struggle with the wood, she saw herself in his silence and pertinacity; she saw the father in her child's indifference to all but himself. She seemed to be occupied by her husband. He had probably gone past his home, slunk past his own door, to drink before he came in, while his dinner spoiled and wasted in waiting. She glanced at the clock, then took the potatoes to strain them in the yard. The garden and fields beyond the brook were closed in uncertain darkness. When she rose with the saucepan, leaving the drain steaming into the night behind her, she saw the yellow lamps were lit along the high road that went up the hill away beyond the space of the railway lines and the field.

 

Then again she watched the men trooping home, fewer now and fewer.

 

Indoors the fire was sinking and the room was dark red. The woman put her saucepan on the hob, and set a batter pudding near the mouth of the oven. Then she stood unmoving. Directly, gratefully, came quick young steps to the door. Someone hung on the latch a moment, then a little girl entered and began pulling off her outdoor things, dragging a mass of curls, just ripening from gold to brown, over her eyes with her hat.

 

Her mother chid her for coming late from school, and said she would have to keep her at home the dark winter days.

 

"Why, mother, it's hardly a bit dark yet. The lamp's not lighted, and my father's not home."

 

"No, he isn't. But it's a quarter to five! Did you see anything of him?"

 

The child became serious. She looked at her mother with large, wistful blue eyes.

 

"No, mother, I've never seen him. Why? Has he come up an' gone past, to Old Brinsley? He hasn't, mother, 'cos I never saw him."

 

"He'd watch that," said the mother bitterly, "he'd take care as you didn't see him. But you may depend upon it, he's seated in the 'Prince o' Wales'. He wouldn't be this late."

 

The girl looked at her mother piteously.

 

"Let's have our teas, mother, should we?" said she.

 

The mother called John to table. She opened the door once more and looked out across the darkness of the lines. All was deserted: she could not hear the winding-engines.

 

"Perhaps," she said to herself, "he's stopped to get some ripping done."

 

They sat down to tea. John, at the end of the table near the door, was almost lost in the darkness. Their faces were hidden from each other. The girl crouched against the fender slowly moving a thick piece of bread before the fire. The lad, his face a dusky mark on the shadow, sat watching her who was transfigured in the red glow.

 

"I do think it's beautiful to look in the fire," said the child.

 

"Do you?" said her mother. "Why?"

 

"It's so red, and full of little caves, and it feels so nice, and you can fair smell it."

 

"It'll want mending directly," replied her mother, "and then if your father comes he'll carry on and say there never is a fire when a man comes home sweating from the pit. A public-house is always warm enough."

 

There was silence till the boy said complainingly: "Make haste, our Annie."

 

"Well, I am doing! I can't make the fire do it no faster, can I?"

 

"She keeps wafflin' it about so's to make 'er slow," grumbled the boy.

 

"Don't have such an evil imagination, child," replied the mother.

 

Soon the room was busy in the darkness with the crisp sound of crunching. The mother ate very little. She drank her tea determinedly, and sat thinking. When she rose her anger was evident in the stern unbending of her head. She looked at the pudding in the fender, and broke out:

 

"It is a scandalous thing as a man can't even come home to his dinner! If it's crozzled up to a cinder I don't see why I should care. Past his very door he goes to get to a public-house, and here I sit with his dinner waiting for him -"

 

She went out. As she dropped piece after piece of coal on the red fire, the shadows fell on the walls, till the room was almost in total darkness.

 

"I canna see," grumbled the invisible John. In spite of herself, the mother laughed.

 

"You know the way to your mouth," she said. She set the dustpan outside the door. When she came again like a shadow on the hearth, the lad repeated, complaining sulkily:

 

"I canna see."

 

"Good gracious!" cried the mother irritably, "you're as bad as your father if it's a bit dusk!"

 

Nevertheless she took a paper spill from a sheaf on the mantelpiece and proceeded to light the lamp that hung from the ceiling in the middle of the room. As she reached up, her figure displayed itself just rounding with maternity.

 

"Oh, mother!" exclaimed the girl.

 

"What?" said the woman, suspended in the act of putting the lamp glass over the flame. The copper reflector shone handsomely on her, as she stood with uplifted arm, turning to face her daughter.

 

"You've got a flower in your apron!" said the child, in a little rapture at this unusual event.

 

"Goodness me!" exclaimed the woman, relieved. "One would think the house was afire." She replaced the glass and waited a moment before turning up the wick. A pale shadow was seen floating vaguely on the floor.

 

"Let me smell!" said the child, still rapturously, coming forward and putting her face to her mother's waist.

 

"Go along, silly!" said the mother, turning up the lamp. The light revealed their suspense so that the woman felt it almost unbearable. Annie was still bending at her waist. Irritably, the mother took the flowers out from her apron-band.

 

"Oh, mother, don't take them out!" Annie cried, catching her hand and trying to replace the sprig.

 

"Such nonsense!" said the mother, turning away. The child put the pale chrysanthemums to her lips, murmuring:

 

"Don't they smell beautiful!"

 

Her mother gave a short laugh.

 

"No," she said, "not to me. It was chrysanthemums when I married him, and chrysanthemums when you were born, and the first time they ever brought him home drunk, he'd got brown chrysanthemums in his button-hole."

 

She looked at the children. Their eyes and their parted lips were wondering. The mother sat rocking in silence for some time. Then she looked at the clock.

 

"Twenty minutes to six!" In a tone of fine bitter carelessness she continued: "Eh, he'll not come now till they bring him. There he'll stick! But he needn't come rolling in here in his pit-dirt, for I won't wash him. He can lie on the floor. Eh, what a fool I've been, what a fool! And this is what I came here for, to this dirty hole, rats and all, for him to slink past his very door. Twice last week, he's begun now -"

 

She silenced herself, and rose to clear the table.

 

While for an hour or more the children played, subduedly intent, fertile of imagination, united in fear of the mother's wrath, and in dread of their father's home-coming, Mrs Bates sat in her rocking-chair making a 'singlet' of thick cream-coloured flannel, which gave a dull wounded sound as she tore off the grey edge. She worked at her sewing with energy, listening to the children, and her anger wearied itself, lay down to rest, opening its eyes from time to time and steadily watching, its ears raised to listen. Sometimes even her anger quailed and shrank, and the mother suspended her sewing, tracing the footsteps that thudded along the sleepers outside; she would lift her head sharply to bid the children 'hush', but she recovered herself in time, and the footsteps went past the gate, and the children were not flung out of their playing world.

 

But at last Annie sighed, and gave in. She glanced at her waggon of slippers, and loathed the game. She turned plaintively to her mother.

 

"Mother!" but she was inarticulate.

 

John crept out like a frog from under the sofa. His mother glanced up.

 

"Yes," she said, "just look at those shirt-sleeves!"

 

The boy held them out to survey them, saying nothing. Then somebody called in a hoarse voice away down the line, and suspense bristled in the room, till two people had gone by outside, talking.

 

"It is time for bed," said the mother.

 

"My father hasn't come," wailed Annie plaintively. But her mother was primed with courage.

 

"Never mind. They'll bring him when he does come, like a log." She meant there would be no scene. "And he may sleep on the floor till he wakes himself. I know he'll not go to work tomorrow after this!"

 

The children had their hands and faces wiped with a flannel. They were very quiet. When they had put on their nightdresses, they said their prayers, the boy mumbling. The mother looked down at them, at the brown silken bush of intertwining curls in the nape of the girl's neck, at the little black head of the lad, and her heart burst with anger at their father who caused all three such distress. The children hid their faces in her skirts for comfort.

 

When Mrs Bates came down, the room was strangely empty, with a tension of expectancy. She took up her sewing and stitched for some time without raising her head. Meantime her anger was tinged with fear.

 

 

II

 

The clock struck eight and she rose suddenly, dropping her sewing on her chair. She went to the stairfoot door, opened it, listening. Then she went out, locking the door behind her.

 

Something scuffled in the yard, and she started, though she knew it was only the rats with which the place was overrun. The night was very dark. In the great bay of railway lines, bulked with trucks, there was no trace of light, only away back she could see a few yellow lamps at the pit-top, and the red smear of the burning pit-bank on the night. She hurried along the edge of the track, then, crossing the converging lines, came to the stile by the white gates, whence she emerged on the road. Then the fear which had led her shrank. People were walking up to New Brinsley; she saw the lights in the houses; twenty yards further on were the broad windows of the 'Prince of Wales', very warm and bright, and the loud voices of men could be heard distinctly. What a fool she had been to imagine that anything had happened to him! He was merely drinking over there at the 'Prince of Wales'. She faltered. She had never yet been to fetch him, and she never would go. So she continued her walk towards the long straggling line of houses, standing blank on the highway. She entered a passage between the dwellings.

 

"Mr Rigley? Yes! Did you want him? No, he's not in at this minute."

 

The raw-boned woman leaned forward from her dark scullery and peered at the other, upon whom fell a dim light through the blind of the kitchen window.

 

"Is it Mrs Bates?" she asked in a tone tinged with respect.

 

"Yes. I wondered if your Master was at home. Mine hasn't come yet."

 

"'Asn't 'e! Oh, Jack's been 'ome an 'ad 'is dinner an' gone out. E's just gone for 'alf an hour afore bedtime. Did you call at the 'Prince of Wales'?"

 

"No -"

 

"No, you didn't like -! It's not very nice." The other woman was indulgent. There was an awkward pause. "Jack never said nothink about, about your Mester," she said.

 

"No! I expect he's stuck in there!"

 

Elizabeth Bates said this bitterly, and with recklessness. She knew that the woman across the yard was standing at her door listening, but she did not care. As she turned:

 

"Stop a minute! I'll just go an' ask Jack if e' knows anythink," said Mrs Rigley.

 

"Oh, no, I wouldn't like to put -!"

 

"Yes, I will, if you'll just step inside an' see as th' childer doesn't come downstairs and set theirselves afire."

 

Elizabeth Bates, murmuring a remonstrance, stepped inside. The other woman apologized for the state of the room.

 

The kitchen needed apology. There were little frocks and trousers and childish undergarments on the squab and on the floor, and a litter of playthings everywhere. On the black American cloth of the table were pieces of bread and cake, crusts, slops, and a teapot with cold tea.

 

"Eh, ours is just as bad," said Elizabeth Bates, looking at the woman, not at the house. Mrs Rigley put a shawl over her head and hurried out, saying:

 

"I shanna be a minute."

 

The other sat, noting with faint disapproval the general untidiness of the room. Then she fell to counting the shoes of various sizes scattered over the floor. There were twelve. She sighed and said to herself, "No wonder!" glancing at the litter. There came the scratching of two pairs of feet on the yard, and the Rigleys entered. Elizabeth Bates rose. Rigley was a big man, with very large bones. His head looked particularly bony. Across his temple was a blue scar, caused by a wound got in the pit, a wound in which the coal-dust remained blue like tattooing.

 

"Asna 'e come whoam yit?" asked the man, without any form of greeting, but with deference and sympathy. "I couldna say wheer he is, 'e's non ower theer!" he jerked his head to signify the 'Prince of Wales'.

 

"'E's 'appen gone up to th' 'Yew'," said Mrs Rigley.

 

There was another pause. Rigley had evidently something to get off his mind:

 

"Ah left 'im finishin' a stint," he began. "Loose-all 'ad bin gone about ten minutes when we com'n away, an' I shouted, 'Are ter comin', Walt?' an' 'e said, 'Go on, Ah shanna be but a'ef a minnit,' so we com'n ter th' bottom, me an' Bowers, thinkin' as 'e wor just behint, an' 'ud come up i' th' next bantle -"

 

He stood perplexed, as if answering a charge of deserting his mate. Elizabeth Bates, now again certain of disaster, hastened to reassure him:

 

"I expect 'e's gone up to th' 'Yew Tree', as you say. It's not the first time. I've fretted myself into a fever before now. He'll come home when they carry him."

 

"Ay, isn't it too bad!" deplored the other woman.

 

"I'll just step up to Dick's an' see if 'e is theer," offered the man, afraid of appearing alarmed, afraid of taking liberties.

 

"Oh, I wouldn't think of bothering you that far," said Elizabeth Bates, with emphasis, but he knew she was glad of his offer.

 

As they stumbled up the entry, Elizabeth Bates heard Rigley's wife run across the yard and open her neighbour's door. At this, suddenly all the blood in her body seemed to switch away from her heart.

 

"Mind!" warned Rigley. "Ah've said many a time as Ah'd fill up them ruts in this entry, sumb'dy 'll be breakin' their legs yit."

 

She recovered herself and walked quickly along with the miner.

 

"I don't like leaving the children in bed, and nobody in the house," she said.

 

"No, you dunna!" he replied courteously. They were soon at the gate of the cottage.

 

"Well, I shanna be many minnits. Dunna you be frettin' now, 'e'll be all right," said the butty.

 

"Thank you very much, Mr Rigley," she replied.

 

"You're welcome!" he stammered, moving away. "I shanna be many minnits."

 

The house was quiet. Elizabeth Bates took off her hat and shawl, and rolled back the rug. When she had finished, she sat down. It was a few minutes past nine. She was startled by the rapid chuff of the winding-engine at the pit, and the sharp whirr of the brakes on the rope as it descended. Again she felt the painful sweep of her blood, and she put her hand to her side, saying aloud, "Good gracious! it's only the nine o'clock deputy going down," rebuking herself.

 

She sat still, listening. Half an hour of this, and she was wearied out.

 

"What am I working myself up like this for?" she said pitiably to herself, "I s'll only be doing myself some damage."

 

She took out her sewing again.

 

At a quarter to ten there were footsteps. One person! She watched for the door to open. It was an elderly woman, in a black bonnet and a black woollen shawl his mother. She was about sixty years old, pale, with blue eyes, and her face all wrinkled and lamentable. She shut the door and turned to her daughter-in-law peevishly.

 

"Eh, Lizzie, whatever shall we do, whatever shall we do!" she cried.

 

Elizabeth drew back a little, sharply.

 

"What is it, mother?" she said.

 

The elder woman seated herself on the sofa.

 

"I don't know, child, I can't tell you!" she shook her head slowly. Elizabeth sat watching her, anxious and vexed.

 

"I don't know," replied the grandmother, sighing very deeply. "There's no end to my troubles, there isn't. The things I've gone through, I'm sure it's enough!" She wept without wiping her eyes, the tears running.

 

"But, mother," interrupted Elizabeth, "what do you mean? What is it?"

 

The grandmother slowly wiped her eyes. The fountains of her tears were stopped by Elizabeth's directness. She wiped her eyes slowly.

 

"Poor child! Eh, you poor thing!" she moaned. "I don't know what we're going to do, I don't, and you as you are, it's a thing, it is indeed!"

 

Elizabeth waited.

 

"Is he dead?" she asked, and at the words her heart swung violently, though she felt a slight flush of shame at the ultimate extravagance of the question. Her words sufficiently frightened the old lady, almost brought her to herself.

 

"Don't say so, Elizabeth! We'll hope it's not as bad as that; no, may the Lord spare us that, Elizabeth. Jack Rigley came just as I was sittin' down to a glass afore going to bed, an' 'e said, ''Appen you'll go down th' line, Mrs Bates. Walt's had an accident. 'Appen you'll go an' sit wi' 'er till we can get him home.' I hadn't time to ask him a word afore he was gone. An' I put my bonnet on an' come straight down, Lizzie. I thought to myself, 'Eh, that poor blessed child, if anybody should come an' tell her of a sudden, there's no knowin' what'll 'appen to 'er.' You mustn't let it upset you, Lizzie, or you know what to expect. How long is it, six months, or is it five, Lizzie? Ay!" the old woman shook her head, "time slips on, it slips on! Ay!"

 

Elizabeth's thoughts were busy elsewhere. If he was killed, would she be able to manage on the little pension and what she could earn? she counted up rapidly. If he was hurt, they wouldn't take him to the hospital, how tiresome he would be to nurse! but perhaps she'd be able to get him away from the drink and his hateful ways. She would, while he was ill. The tears offered to come to her eyes at the picture. But what sentimental luxury was this she was beginning? She turned to consider the children. At any rate she was absolutely necessary for them. They were her business.

 

"Ay!" repeated the old woman, "it seems but a week or two since he brought me his first wages. Ay, he was a good lad, Elizabeth, he was, in his way. I don't know why he got to be such a trouble, I don't. He was a happy lad at home, only full of spirits. But there's no mistake he's been a handful of trouble, he has! I hope the Lord'll spare him to mend his ways. I hope so, I hope so. You've had a sight o' trouble with him, Elizabeth, you have indeed. But he was a jolly enough lad wi' me, he was, I can assure you. I don't know how it is . . ."

 

The old woman continued to muse aloud, a monotonous irritating sound, while Elizabeth thought concentratedly, startled once, when she heard the winding-engine chuff quickly, and the brakes skirr with a shriek. Then she heard the engine more slowly, and the brakes made no sound. The old woman did not notice. Elizabeth waited in suspense. The mother-in-law talked, with lapses into silence.

 

"But he wasn't your son, Lizzie, an' it makes a difference. Whatever he was, I remember him when he was little, an' I learned to understand him and to make allowances. You've got to make allowances for them -"

 

It was half-past ten, and the old woman was saying: "But it's trouble from beginning to end; you're never too old for trouble, never too old for that -" when the gate banged back, and there were heavy feet on the steps.

 

"I'll go, Lizzie, let me go," cried the old woman, rising. But Elizabeth was at the door. It was a man in pit-clothes.

 

"They're bringin' 'im, Missis," he said. Elizabeth's heart halted a moment. Then it surged on again, almost suffocating her.

 

"Is he, is it bad?" she asked.

 

The man turned away, looking at the darkness:

 

"The doctor says 'e'd been dead hours. 'E saw 'im i' th' lamp-cabin."

 

The old woman, who stood just behind Elizabeth, dropped into a chair, and folded her hands, crying: "Oh, my boy, my boy!"

 

"Hush!" said Elizabeth, with a sharp twitch of a frown. "Be still, mother, don't waken th' children: I wouldn't have them down for anything!"

 

The old woman moaned softly, rocking herself. The man was drawing away. Elizabeth took a step forward.

 

"How was it?" she asked.

 

"Well, I couldn't say for sure," the man replied, very ill at ease. "'E wor finishin' a stint an' th' butties 'ad gone, an' a lot o' stuff come down atop 'n 'im."

 

"And crushed him?" cried the widow, with a shudder.

 

"No," said the man, "it fell at th' back of 'im. 'E wor under th' face, an' it niver touched 'im. It shut 'im in. It seems 'e wor smothered."

 

Elizabeth shrank back. She heard the old woman behind her cry:

 

"What? what did 'e say it was?"

 

The man replied, more loudly: "'E wor smothered!"

 

Then the old woman wailed aloud, and this relieved Elizabeth.

 

"Oh, mother," she said, putting her hand on the old woman, "don't waken th' children, don't waken th' children."

 

She wept a little, unknowing, while the old mother rocked herself and moaned. Elizabeth remembered that they were bringing him home, and she must be ready. "They'll lay him in the parlour," she said to herself, standing a moment pale and perplexed.

 

Then she lighted a candle and went into the tiny room. The air was cold and damp, but she could not make a fire, there was no fireplace. She set down the candle and looked round. The candle-light glittered on the lustre-glasses, on the two vases that held some of the pink chrysanthemums, and on the dark mahogany. There was a cold, deathly smell of chrysanthemums in the room. Elizabeth stood looking at the flowers. She turned away, and calculated whether there would be room to lay him on the floor, between the couch and the chiffonier. She pushed the chairs aside. There would be room to lay him down and to step round him. Then she fetched the old red tablecloth, and another old cloth, spreading them down to save her bit of carpet. She shivered on leaving the parlour; so, from the dresser-drawer she took a clean shirt and put it at the fire to air. All the time her mother-in-law was rocking herself in the chair and moaning.

 

"You'll have to move from there, mother," said Elizabeth. "They'll be bringing him in. Come in the rocker."

 

The old mother rose mechanically, and seated herself by the fire, continuing to lament. Elizabeth went into the pantry for another candle, and there, in the little penthouse under the naked tiles, she heard them coming. She stood still in the pantry doorway, listening. She heard them pass the end of the house, and come awkwardly down the three steps, a jumble of shuffling footsteps and muttering voices. The old woman was silent. The men were in the yard.

 

Then Elizabeth heard Matthews, the manager of the pit, say: "You go in first, Jim. Mind!"

 

The door came open, and the two women saw a collier backing into the room, holding one end of a stretcher, on which they could see the nailed pit-boots of the dead man. The two carriers halted, the man at the head stooping to the lintel of the door.

 

"Wheer will you have him?" asked the manager, a short, white-bearded man.

 

Elizabeth roused herself and came from the pantry carrying the unlighted candle.

 

"In the parlour," she said.

 

"In there, Jim!" pointed the manager, and the carriers backed round into the tiny room. The coat with which they had covered the body fell off as they awkwardly turned through the two doorways, and the women saw their man, naked to the waist, lying stripped for work. The old woman began to moan in a low voice of horror.

 

"Lay th' stretcher at th' side," snapped the manager, "an' put 'im on th' cloths. Mind now, mind! Look you now -!"

 

One of the men had knocked off a vase of chrysanthemums. He stared awkwardly, then they set down the stretcher. Elizabeth did not look at her husband. As soon as she could get in the room, she went and picked up the broken vase and the flowers.

 

"Wait a minute!" she said.

 

The three men waited in silence while she mopped up the water with a duster.

 

"Eh, what a job, what a job, to be sure!" the manager was saying, rubbing his brow with trouble and perplexity. "Never knew such a thing in my life, never! He'd no business to ha' been left. I never knew such a thing in my life! Fell over him clean as a whistle, an' shut him in. Not four foot of space, there wasn't, yet it scarce bruised him."

 

He looked down at the dead man, lying prone, half naked, all grimed with coal-dust.

 

"''Sphyxiated,' the doctor said. It is the most terrible job I've ever known. Seems as if it was done o' purpose. Clean over him, an' shut 'im in, like a mouse-trap", he made a sharp, descending gesture with his hand.

 

The colliers standing by jerked aside their heads in hopeless comment.

 

The horror of the thing bristled upon them all.

 

Then they heard the girl's voice upstairs calling shrilly: "Mother, mother, who is it? Mother, who is it?"

 

Elizabeth hurried to the foot of the stairs and opened the door:

 

"Go to sleep!" she commanded sharply. "What are you shouting about? Go to sleep at once, there's nothing -"

 

Then she began to mount the stairs. They could hear her on the boards, and on the plaster floor of the little bedroom. They could hear her distinctly:

 

"What's the matter now? what's the matter with you, silly thing?" her voice was much agitated, with an unreal gentleness.

 

"I thought it was some men come," said the plaintive voice of the child. "Has he come?"

 

"Yes, they've brought him. There's nothing to make a fuss about. Go to sleep now, like a good child."

 

They could hear her voice in the bedroom, they waited whilst she covered the children under the bedclothes.

 

"Is he drunk?" asked the girl, timidly, faintly.

 

"No! No, he's not! He, he's asleep."

 

"Is he asleep downstairs?"

 

"Yes, and don't make a noise."

 

There was silence for a moment, then the men heard the frightened child again:

 

"What's that noise?"

 

"It's nothing, I tell you, what are you bothering for?"

 

The noise was the grandmother moaning. She was oblivious of everything, sitting on her chair rocking and moaning. The manager put his hand on her arm and bade her "Sh-sh!!"

 

The old woman opened her eyes and looked at him. She was shocked by this interruption, and seemed to wonder.

 

"What time is it?" the plaintive thin voice of the child, sinking back unhappily into sleep, asked this last question.

 

"Ten o'clock," answered the mother more softly. Then she must have bent down and kissed the children.

 

Matthews beckoned to the men to come away. They put on their caps and took up the stretcher. Stepping over the body, they tiptoed out of the house. None of them spoke till they were far from the wakeful children.

 

When Elizabeth came down she found her mother alone on the parlour floor, leaning over the dead man, the tears dropping on him.

 

"We must lay him out," the wife said. She put on the kettle, then returning knelt at the feet, and began to unfasten the knotted leather laces. The room was clammy and dim with only one candle, so that she had to bend her face almost to the floor. At last she got off the heavy boots and put them away.

 

"You must help me now," she whispered to the old woman. Together they stripped the man.

 

When they arose, saw him lying in the naïve dignity of death, the women stood arrested in fear and respect. For a few moments they remained still, looking down, the old mother whimpering. Elizabeth felt countermanded. She saw him, how utterly inviolable he lay in himself. She had nothing to do with him. She could not accept it. Stooping, she laid her hand on him, in claim. He was still warm, for the mine was hot where he had died. His mother had his face between her hands, and was murmuring incoherently. The old tears fell in succession as drops from wet leaves; the mother was not weeping, merely her tears flowed. Elizabeth embraced the body of her husband, with cheek and lips. She seemed to be listening, inquiring, trying to get some connection. But she could not. She was driven away. He was impregnable.

 

She rose, went into the kitchen, where she poured warm water into a bowl, brought soap and flannel and a soft towel.

 

"I must wash him," she said.

 

Then the old mother rose stiffly, and watched Elizabeth as she carefully washed his face, carefully brushing the big blond moustache from his mouth with the flannel. She was afraid with a bottomless fear, so she ministered to him. The old woman, jealous, said:

 

"Let me wipe him!" and she kneeled on the other side drying slowly as Elizabeth washed, her big black bonnet sometimes brushing the dark head of her daughter. They worked thus in silence for a long time. They never forgot it was death, and the touch of the man's dead body gave them strange emotions, different in each of the women; a great dread possessed them both, the mother felt the lie was given to her womb, she was denied; the wife felt the utter isolation of the human soul, the child within her was a weight apart from her.

 

At last it was finished. He was a man of handsome body, and his face showed no traces of drink. He was blonde, full-fleshed, with fine limbs. But he was dead.

 

"Bless him," whispered his mother, looking always at his face, and speaking out of sheer terror. "Dear lad, bless him!" She spoke in a faint, sibilant ecstasy of fear and mother love.

 

Elizabeth sank down again to the floor, and put her face against his neck, and trembled and shuddered. But she had to draw away again. He was dead, and her living flesh had no place against his. A great dread and weariness held her: she was so unavailing. Her life was gone like this.

 

"White as milk he is, clear as a twelve-month baby, bless him, the darling!" the old mother murmured to herself. "Not a mark on him, clear and clean and white, beautiful as ever a child was made," she murmured with pride. Elizabeth kept her face hidden.

 

"He went peaceful, Lizzie, peaceful as sleep. Isn't he beautiful, the lamb? Ay, he must ha' made his peace, Lizzie. 'Appen he made it all right, Lizzie, shut in there. He'd have time. He wouldn't look like this if he hadn't made his peace. The lamb, the dear lamb. Eh, but he had a hearty laugh. I loved to hear it. He had the heartiest laugh, Lizzie, as a lad -"

 

Elizabeth looked up. The man's mouth was fallen back, slightly open under the cover of the moustache. The eyes, half shut, did not show glazed in the obscurity. Life with its smoky burning gone from him, had left him apart and utterly alien to her. And she knew what a stranger he was to her. In her womb was ice of fear, because of this separate stranger with whom she had been living as one flesh. Was this what it all meant, utter, intact separateness, obscured by heat of living? In dread she turned her face away. The fact was too deadly. There had been nothing between them, and yet they had come together, exchanging their nakedness repeatedly. Each time he had taken her, they had been two isolated beings, far apart as now. He was no more responsible than she. The child was like ice in her womb. For as she looked at the dead man, her mind, cold and detached, said clearly: "Who am I? What have I been doing? I have been fighting a husband who did not exist. He existed all the time. What wrong have I done? What was that I have been living with? There lies the reality, this man." And her soul died in her for fear: she knew she had never seen him, he had never seen her, they had met in the dark and had fought in the dark, not knowing whom they met nor whom they fought. And now she saw, and turned silent in seeing. For she had been wrong. She had said he was something he was not; she had felt familiar with him. Whereas he was apart all the while, living as she never lived, feeling as she never felt.

 

In fear and shame she looked at his naked body, that she had known falsely. And he was the father of her children. Her soul was torn from her body and stood apart. She looked at his naked body and was ashamed, as if she had denied it. After all, it was itself. It seemed awful to her. She looked at his face, and she turned her own face to the wall. For his look was other than hers, his way was not her way. She had denied him what he was, she saw it now. She had refused him as himself. And this had been her life, and his life. She was grateful to death, which restored the truth. And she knew she was not dead.

 

And all the while her heart was bursting with grief and pity for him. What had he suffered? What stretch of horror for this helpless man! She was rigid with agony. She had not been able to help him. He had been cruelly injured, this naked man, this other being, and she could make no reparation. There were the children, but the children belonged to life. This dead man had nothing to do with them. He and she were only channels through which life had flowed to issue in the children. She was a mother, but how awful she knew it now to have been a wife. And he, dead now, how awful he must have felt it to be a husband. She felt that in the next world he would be a stranger to her. If they met there, in the beyond, they would only be ashamed of what had been before. The children had come, for some mysterious reason, out of both of them. But the children did not unite them. Now he was dead, she knew how eternally he was apart from her, how eternally he had nothing more to do with her. She saw this episode of her life closed. They had denied each other in life. Now he had withdrawn. An anguish came over her. It was finished then: it had become hopeless between them long before he died. Yet he had been her husband. But how little!

 

"Have you got his shirt, 'Lizabeth?"

 

Elizabeth turned without answering, though she strove to weep and behave as her mother-in-law expected. But she could not, she was silenced. She went into the kitchen and returned with the garment.

 

"It is aired," she said, grasping the cotton shirt here and there to try. She was almost ashamed to handle him; what right had she or anyone to lay hands on him; but her touch was humble on his body. It was hard work to clothe him. He was so heavy and inert. A terrible dread gripped her all the while: that he could be so heavy and utterly inert, unresponsive, apart. The horror of the distance between them was almost too much for her, it was so infinite a gap she must look across.

 

At last it was finished. They covered him with a sheet and left him lying, with his face bound. And she fastened the door of the little parlour, lest the children should E see what was lying there. Then, with peace sunk heavy on her heart, she went about making tidy the kitchen. She knew she submitted to life, which was her immediate master. But from death, her ultimate master, she winced with fear and shame.

 

ENGLAND, MY ENGLAND

 

He was working on the edge of the common, beyond the small brook that ran in the dip at the bottom of the garden, carrying the garden path in continuation from the plank bridge on to the common. He had cut the rough turf and bracken, leaving the grey, dryish soil bare. But he was worried because he could not get the path straight, there was a pleat between his brows. He had set up his sticks, and taken the sights between the big pine trees, but for some reason everything seemed wrong. He looked again, straining his keen blue eyes, that had a touch of the Viking in them, through the shadowy pine trees as through a doorway, at the green-grassed garden-path rising from the shadow of alders by the log bridge up to the sunlit flowers. Tall white and purple columbines, and the butt-end of the old Hampshire cottage that crouched near the earth amid flowers, blossoming in the bit of shaggy wildness round about.

 

There was a sound of children's voices calling and talking: high, childish, girlish voices, slightly didactic and tinged with domineering: 'If you don't come quick, nurse, I shall run out there to where there are snakes.' And nobody had the sangfroid to reply: 'Run then, little fool.' It was always, 'No, darling. Very well, darling. In a moment, darling. Darling, you must be patient.'

 

His heart was hard with disillusion: a continual gnawing and resistance. But he worked on. What was there to do but submit!

 

The sunlight blazed down upon the earth, there was a vividness of flamy vegetation, of fierce seclusion amid the savage peace of the commons. Strange how the savage England lingers in patches: as here, amid these shaggy gorse commons, and marshy, snake infested places near the foot of the south downs. The spirit of place lingering on primeval, as when the Saxons came, so long ago.

 

Ah, how he had loved it! The green garden path, the tufts of flowers, purple and white columbines, and great oriental red poppies with their black chaps and mulleins tall and yellow, this flamy garden which had been a garden for a thousand years, scooped out in the little hollow among the snake-infested commons. He had made it flame with flowers, in a sun cup under its hedges and trees. So old, so old a place! And yet he had re-created it.

 

The timbered cottage with its sloping, cloak-like roof was old and forgotten. It belonged to the old England of hamlets and yeomen. Lost all alone on the edge of the common, at the end of a wide, grassy, briar-entangled lane shaded with oak, it had never known the world of today. Not till Egbert came with his bride. And he had come to fill it with flowers.

 

The house was ancient and very uncomfortable. But he did not want to alter it. Ah, marvellous to sit there in the wide, black, time-old chimney, at night when the wind roared overhead, and the wood which he had chopped himself sputtered on the hearth! Himself on one side the angle, and Winifred on the other.

 

Ah, how he had wanted her: Winifred! She was young and beautiful and strong with life, like a flame in sunshine. She moved with a slow grace of energy like a blossoming, red-flowered bush in motion. She, too, seemed to come out of the old England, ruddy, strong, with a certain crude, passionate quiescence and a hawthorn robustness. And he, he was tall and slim and agile, like an English archer with his long supple legs and fine movements. Her hair was nut-brown and all in energic curls and tendrils. Her eyes were nut-brown, too, like a robin's for brightness. And he was white-skinned with fine, silky hair that had darkened from fair, and a slightly arched nose of an old country family. They were a beautiful couple.

 

The house was Winifred's. Her father was a man of energy, too. He had come from the north poor. Now he was moderately rich. He had bought this fair stretch of inexpensive land, down in Hampshire. Not far from the tiny church of the almost extinct hamlet stood his own house, a commodious old farmhouse standing back from the road across a bare grassed yard. On one side of this quadrangle was the long, long barn or shed which he had made into a cottage for his youngest daughter Priscilla. One saw little blue-and-white check curtains at the long windows, and inside, overhead, the grand old timbers of the high-pitched shed. This was Prissy's house. Fifty yards away was the pretty little new cottage which he had built for his daughter Magdalen, with the vegetable garden stretching away to the oak copse. And then away beyond the lawns and rose trees of the house-garden went the track across a shaggy, wild grass space, towards the ridge of tall black pines that grew on a dyke-bank, through the pines and above the sloping little bog, under the wide, desolate oak trees, till there was Winifred's cottage crouching unexpectedly in front, so much alone, and so primitive.

 

It was Winifred's own house, and the gardens and the bit of common and the boggy slope were hers: her tiny domain. She had married just at the time when her father had bought the estate, about ten years before the war, so she had been able to come to Egbert with this for a marriage portion. And who was more delighted, he or she, it would be hard to say. She was only twenty at the time, and he was only twenty-one. He had about a hundred and fifty pounds a year of his own, and nothing else but his very considerable personal attractions. He had no profession: he earned nothing. But he talked of literature and music, he had a passion for old folk-music, collecting folk-songs and folk-dances, studying the Morris-dance and the old customs. Of course in time he would make money in these ways.

 

Meanwhile youth and health and passion and promise. Winifred's father was always generous: but still, he was a man from the north with a hard head and a hard skin too, having received a good many knocks. At home he kept the hard head out of sight, and played at poetry and romance with his literary wife and his sturdy, passionate girls. He was a man of courage, not given to complaining, bearing his burdens by himself. No, he did not let the world intrude far into his home. He had a delicate, sensitive wife whose poetry won some fame in the narrow world of letters. He himself, with his tough old barbarian fighting spirit, had an almost child-like delight in verse, in sweet poetry, and in the delightful game of a cultured home. His blood was strong even to coarseness. But that only made the home more vigorous, more robust and Christmassy. There was always a touch of Christmas about him, now he was well off. If there was poetry after dinner, there were also chocolates and nuts, and good little out-of-the-way things to be munching.

 

Well then, into this family came Egbert. He was made of quite a different paste. The girls and the father were strong-limbed, thick-blooded people, true English, as holly-trees and hawthorn are English. Their culture was grafted on to them, as one might perhaps graft a common pink rose on to a thornstem. It flowered oddly enough, but it did not alter their blood.

 

And Egbert was a born rose. The age-long breeding had left him with a delightful spontaneous passion. He was not clever, nor even 'literary'. No, but the intonation of his voice, and the movement of his supple, handsome body, and the fine texture of his flesh and his hair, the slight arch of his nose, the quickness of his blue eyes would easily take the place of poetry. Winifred loved him, loved him, this southerner, as a higher being. A higher being, mind you. Not a deeper. And as for him, he loved her in passion with every fibre of him. She was the very warm stuff of life to him.

 

Wonderful then, those days at Crockham Cottage, the first days, all alone save for the woman who came to work in the mornings. Marvellous days, when she had all his tall, supple, fine-fleshed youth to herself, for herself, and he had her like a ruddy fire into which he could cast himself for rejuvenation. Ah, that it might never end, this passion, this marriage! The flame of their two bodies burnt again into that old cottage, that was haunted already by so much by-gone, physical desire. You could not be in the dark room for an hour without the influences coming over you. The hot blood-desire of by-gone yeomen, there in this old den where they had lusted and bred for so many generations. The silent house, dark, with thick, timbered walls and the big black chimney-place, and the sense of secrecy. Dark, with low, little windows, sunk into the earth. Dark, like a lair where strong beasts had lurked and mated, lonely at night and lonely by day, left to themselves and their own intensity for so many generations. It seemed to cast a spell on the two young people. They became different. There was a curious secret glow about them, a certain slumbering flame hard to understand, that enveloped them both. They too felt that they did not belong to the London world any more. Crockham had changed their blood: the sense of the snakes that lived and slept even in their own garden, in the sun, so that he, going forward with the spade, would see a curious coiled brownish pile on the black soil, which suddenly would start up, hiss, and dazzle rapidly away, hissing. One day Winifred heard the strangest scream from the flower-bed under the low window of the living room: ah, the strangest scream, like the very soul of the dark past crying aloud. She ran out, and saw a long brown snake on the flower-bed, and in its flat mouth the one hind leg of a frog was striving to escape, and screaming its strange, tiny, bellowing scream. She looked at the snake, and from its sullen flat head it looked at her, obstinately. She gave a cry, and it released the frog and slid angrily away.

 

That was Crockham. The spear of modern invention had not passed through it, and it lay there secret, primitive, savage as when the Saxons first came. And Egbert and she were caught there, caught out of the world.

 

He was not idle, nor was she. There were plenty of things to be done, the house to be put into final repair after the workmen had gone, cushions and curtains to sew, the paths to make, the water to fetch and attend to, and then the slope of the deep-soiled, neglected garden to level, to terrace with little terraces and paths, and to fill with flowers. He worked away, in his shirt-sleeves, worked all day intermittently doing this thing and the other. And she, quiet and rich in herself, seeing him stooping and labouring away by himself, would come to help him, to be near him. He of course was an amateur, a born amateur. He worked so hard, and did so little, and nothing he ever did would hold together for long. If he terraced the garden, he held up the earth with a couple of long narrow planks that soon began to bend with the pressure from behind, and would not need many years to rot through and break and let the soil slither all down again in a heap towards the stream-bed. But there you are. He had not been brought up to come to grips with anything, and he thought it would do. Nay, he did not think there was anything else except little temporary contrivances possible, he who had such a passion for his old enduring cottage, and for the old enduring things of the bygone England. Curious that the sense of permanency in the past had such a hold over him, whilst in the present he was all amateurish and sketchy.

 

Winifred could not criticize him. Town-bred, everything seemed to her splendid, and the very digging and shovelling itself seemed romantic. But neither Egbert nor she yet realized the difference between work and romance.

 

Godfrey Marshall, her father, was at first perfectly pleased with the ménage down at Crockham Cottage. He thought Egbert was wonderful, the many things he accomplished, and he was gratified by the glow of physical passion between the two young people. To the man who in London still worked hard to keep steady his modest fortune, the thought of this young couple digging away and loving one another down at Crockham Cottage, buried deep among the commons and marshes, near the pale-showing bulk of the downs, was like a chapter of living romance. And they drew the sustenance for their fire of passion from him, from the old man. It was he who fed their flame. He triumphed secretly in the thought. And it was to her father that Winifred still turned, as the one source of all surety and life and support. She loved Egbert with passion. But behind her was the power of her father. It was the power of her father she referred to, whenever she needed to refer. It never occurred to her to refer to Egbert, if she were in difficulty or doubt. No, in all the serious matters she depended on her father.

 

For Egbert had no intention of coming to grips with life. He had no ambition whatsoever. He came from a decent family, from a pleasant country home, from delightful surroundings. He should, of course, have had a profession. He should have studied law or entered business in some way. But no, that fatal three pounds a week would keep him from starving as long as he lived, and he did not want to give himself into bondage. It was not that he was idle. He was always doing something, in his amateurish way. But he had no desire to give himself to the world, and still less had he any desire to fight his way in the world. No, no, the world wasn't worth it. He wanted to ignore it, to go his own way apart, like a casual pilgrim down the forsaken sidetracks. He loved his wife, his cottage and garden. He would make his life there, as a sort of epicurean hermit. He loved the past, the old music and dances and customs of old England. He would try and live in the spirit of these, not in the spirit of the world of business.

 

But often Winifred's father called her to London: for he loved to have his children round him. So Egbert and she must have a tiny flat in town, and the young couple must transfer themselves from time to time from the country to the city. In town Egbert had plenty of friends, of the same ineffectual sort as himself, tampering with the arts, literature, painting, sculpture, music. He was not bored.

 

Three pounds a week, however, would not pay for all this. Winifred's father paid. He liked paying. He made her only a very small allowance, but he often gave her ten pounds, or gave Egbert ten pounds. So they both looked on the old man as the mainstay. Egbert didn't mind being patronized and paid for. Only when he felt the family was a little too condescending, on account of money, he began to get huffy.

 

Then of course children came: a lovely little blonde daughter with a head of thistle-down. Everybody adored the child. It was the first exquisite blonde thing that had come into the family, a little mite with the white, slim, beautiful limbs of its father, and as it grew up the dancing, dainty movement of a wild little daisy-spirit. No wonder the Marshalls all loved the child: they called her Joyce. They themselves had their own grace, but it was slow, rather heavy. They had everyone of them strong, heavy limbs and darkish skins, and they were short in stature. And now they had for one of their own this light little cowslip child. She was like a little poem in herself.

 

But nevertheless, she brought a new difficulty. Winifred must have a nurse for her. Yes, yes, there must be a nurse. It was the family decree. Who was to pay for the nurse? The grandfather, seeing the father himself earned no money. Yes, the grandfather would pay, as he had paid all the lying-in expenses. There came a slight sense of money-strain. Egbert was living on his father-in-law.

 

After the child was born, it was never quite the same between him and Winifred. The difference was at first hardly perceptible. But it was there. In the first place Winifred had a new centre of interest. She was not going to adore her child. But she had what the modern mother so often has in the place of spontaneous love: a profound sense of duty towards her child. Winifred appreciated her darling little girl, and felt a deep sense of duty towards her. Strange, that this sense of duty should go deeper than the love for her husband. But so it was. And so it often is. The responsibility of motherhood was the prime responsibility in Winifred's heart: the responsibility of wifehood came a long way second.

 

Her child seemed to link her up again in a circuit with her own family. Her father and mother, herself, and her child, that was the human trinity for her. Her husband? Yes, she loved him still. But that was like play. She had an almost barbaric sense of duty and of family. Till she married, her first human duty had been towards her father: he was the pillar, the source of life, the everlasting support. Now another link was added to the chain of duty: her father, herself, and her child.

 

Egbert was out of it. Without anything happening, he was gradually, unconsciously excluded from the circle. His wife still loved him, physically. But, but, he was almost the unnecessary party in the affair. He could not complain of Winifred. She still did her duty towards him. She still had a physical passion for him, that physical passion on which he had put all his life and soul. But, but -

 

It was for a long while an ever-recurring but. And then, after the second child, another blonde, winsome touching little thing, not so proud and flame-like as Joyce, after Annabel came, then Egbert began truly to realize how it was. His wife still loved him. But, and now the but had grown enormous, her physical love for him was of secondary importance to her. It became ever less important. After all, she had had it, this physical passion, for two years now. It was not this that one lived from. No, no, something sterner, realer.

 

She began to resent her own passion for Egbert, just a little she began to despise it. For after all there he was, he was charming, he was lovable, he was terribly desirable. But, but, oh, the awful looming cloud of that but! he did not stand firm in the landscape of her life like a tower of strength, like a great pillar of significance. No, he was like a cat one has about the house, which will one day disappear and leave no trace. He was like a flower in the garden, trembling in the wind of life, and then gone, leaving nothing to show. As an adjunct, as an accessory, he was perfect. Many a woman would have adored to have him about her all her life, the most beautiful and desirable of all her possessions. But Winifred belonged to another school.

 

The years went by, and instead of coming more to grips with life, he relaxed more. He was of a subtle, sensitive, passionate nature. But he simply would not give himself to what Winifred called life, Work. No, he would not go into the world and work for money. No, he just would not. If Winifred liked to live beyond their small income, well, it was her look-out.

 

And Winifred did not really want him to go out into the world to work for money. Money became, alas, a word like a firebrand between them, setting them both aflame with anger. But that is because we must talk in symbols. Winifred did not really care about money. She did not care whether he earned or did not earn anything. Only she knew she was dependent on her father for three-fourths of the money spent for herself and her children, that she let that be the casus belli, the drawn weapon between herself and Egbert.

 

What did she want, what did she want? Her mother once said to her, with that characteristic touch of irony: 'Well, dear, if it is your fate to consider the lilies, that toil not, neither do they spin, that is one destiny among many others, and perhaps not so unpleasant as most. Why do you take it amiss, my child?'

 

The mother was subtler than her children, they very rarely knew how to answer her. So Winifred was only more confused. It was not a question of lilies. At least, if it were a question of lilies, then her children were the little blossoms. They at least grew. Doesn't Jesus say: 'Consider the lilies how they grow.' Good then, she had her growing babies. But as for that other tall, handsome flower of a father of theirs, he was full grown already, so she did not want to spend her life considering him in the flower of his days.

 

No, it was not that he didn't earn money. It was not that he was idle. He was not idle. He was always doing something, always working away, down at Crockham, doing little jobs. But, oh dear, the little jobs, the garden paths, the gorgeous flowers, the chairs to mend, old chairs to mend!

 

It was that he stood for nothing. If he had done something unsuccessfully, and lost what money they had! If he had but striven with something. Nay, even if he had been wicked, a waster, she would have been more free. She would have had something to resist, at least. A waster stands for something, really. He says: 'No, I will not aid and abet society in this business of increase and hanging together, I will upset the apple-cart as much as I can, in my small way.' Or else he says: 'No, I will not bother about others. If I have lusts, they are my own, and I prefer them to other people's virtues.' So, a waster, a scamp, takes a sort of stand. He exposes himself to opposition and final castigation: at any rate in story-books.

 

But Egbert! What are you to do with a man like Egbert? He had no vices. He was really kind, nay generous. And he was not weak. If he had been weak Winifred could have been kind to him. But he did not even give her that consolation. He was not weak, and he did not want her consolation or her kindness. No, thank you. He was of a fine passionate temper, and of a rarer steel than she. He knew it, and she knew it. Hence she was only the more baffled and maddened, poor thing. He, the higher, the finer, in his way the stronger, played with his garden, and his old folk-songs and Morris-dances, just played, and let her support the pillars of the future on her own heart.

 

And he began to get bitter, and a wicked look began to come on his face. He did not give in to her; not he. There were seven devils inside his long, slim, white body. He was healthy, full of restrained life. Yes, even he himself had to lock up his own vivid life inside himself, now she would not take it from him. Or rather, now that she only took it occasionally. For she had to yield at times. She loved him so, she desired him so, he was so exquisite to her, the fine creature that he was, finer than herself. Yes, with a groan she had to give in to her own unquenched passion for him. And he came to her then, ah, terrible, ah, wonderful, sometimes she wondered how either of them could live after the terror of the passion that swept between them. It was to her as if pure lightning, flash after flash, went through every fibre of her, till extinction came.

 

But it is the fate of human beings to live on. And it is the fate of clouds that seem nothing but bits of vapour slowly to pile up, to pile up and fill the heavens and blacken the sun entirely.

 

So it was. The love came back, the lightning of passion flashed tremendously between them. And there was blue sky and gorgeousness for a little while. And then, as inevitably, as inevitably, slowly the clouds began to edge up again above the horizon, slowly, slowly to lurk about the heavens, throwing an occasional cold and hateful shadow: slowly, slowly to congregate, to fill the empyrean space.

 

And as the years passed, the lightning cleared the sky more and more rarely, less and less the blue showed. Gradually the grey lid sank down upon them, as if it would be permanent.

 

Why didn't Egbert do something, then? Why didn't he come to grips with life? Why wasn't he like Winifred's father, a pillar of society, even if a slender, exquisite column? Why didn't he go into harness of some sort? Why didn't he take some direction?

 

Well, you can bring an ass to the water, but you cannot make him drink. The world was the water and Egbert was the ass. And he wasn't having any. He couldn't: he just couldn't. Since necessity did not force him to work for his bread and butter, he would not work for work's sake. You can't make the columbine flowers nod in January, nor make the cuckoo sing in England at Christmas. Why? It isn't his season. He doesn't want to. Nay, he can't want to.

 

And there it was with Egbert. He couldn't link up with the world's work, because the basic desire was absent from him. Nay, at the bottom of him he had an even stronger desire: to hold aloof. To hold aloof. To do nobody any damage. But to hold aloof. It was not his season.

 

Perhaps he should not have married and had children. But you can't stop the waters flowing.

 

Which held true for Winifred, too. She was not made to endure aloof. Her family tree was a robust vegetation that had to be stirring and believing. In one direction or another her life had to go. In her own home she had known nothing of this diffidence which she found in Egbert, and which she could not understand, and which threw her into such dismay. What was she to do, what was she to do, in face of this terrible diffidence?

 

It was all so different in her own home. Her father may have had his own misgivings, but he kept them to himself. Perhaps he had no very profound belief in this world of ours, this society which we have elaborated with so much effort, only to find ourselves elaborated to death at last. But Godfrey Marshall was of tough, rough fibre, not without a vein of healthy cunning through it all. It was for him a question of winning through, and leaving the rest to heaven. Without having many illusions to grace him, he still did believe in heaven. In a dark and unquestioning way, he had a sort of faith: an acrid faith like the sap of some not-to-be-exterminated tree. Just a blind acrid faith as sap is blind and acrid, and yet pushes on in growth and in faith. Perhaps he was unscrupulous, but only as a striving tree is unscrupulous, pushing its single way in a jungle of others.

 

In the end, it is only this robust, sap-like faith which keeps man going. He may live on for many generations inside the shelter of the social establishment which he has erected for himself, as pear-trees and currant bushes would go on bearing fruit for many seasons, inside a walled garden, even if the race of man were suddenly exterminated. But bit by bit the wall-fruit-trees would gradually pull down the very walls that sustained them. Bit by bit every establishment collapses, unless it is renewed or restored by living hands, all the while.

 

Egbert could not bring himself to any more of this restoring or renewing business. He was not aware of the fact: but awareness doesn't help much, anyhow. He just couldn't. He had the stoic and epicurean quality of his old, fine breeding. His father-in-law, however, though he was not one bit more of a fool than Egbert, realized that since we are here we may as well live. And so he applied himself to his own tiny section of the social work, and to doing the best for his family, and to leaving the rest to the ultimate will of heaven. A certain robustness of blood made him able to go on. But sometimes even from him spurted a sudden gall of bitterness against the world and its make-up. And yet, he had his own will-to-succeed, and this carried him through. He refused to ask himself what the success would amount to. It amounted to the estate down in Hampshire, and his children lacking for nothing, and himself of some importance in the world: and basta! Basta! Basta!

 

Nevertheless do not let us imagine that he was a common pusher. He was not. He knew as well as Egbert what disillusion meant. Perhaps in his soul he had the same estimation of success. But he had a certain acrid courage, and a certain will-to-power. In his own small circle he would emanate power, the single power of his own blind self. With all his spoiling of his children, he was still the father of the old English type. He was too wise to make laws and to domineer in the abstract. But he had kept, and all honour to him, a certain primitive dominion over the souls of his children, the old, almost magic prestige of paternity. There it was, still burning in him, the old smoky torch or paternal godhead.

 

And in the sacred glare of this torch his children had been brought up. He had given the girls every liberty, at last. But he had never really let them go beyond his power. And they, venturing out into the hard white light of our fatherless world, learned to see with the eyes of the world. They learned to criticize their father, even, from some effulgence of worldly white light, to see him as inferior. But this was all very well in the head. The moment they forgot their tricks of criticism, the old red glow of his authority came over them again. He was not to be quenched.

 

Let the psycho-analyst talk about father complex. It is just a word invented. Here was a man who had kept alive the old red flame of fatherhood, fatherhood that had even the right to sacrifice the child to God, like Isaac. Fatherhood that had life-and-death authority over the children: a great natural power. And till his children could be brought under some other great authority as girls; or could arrive at manhood and become themselves centres of the same power, continuing the same male mystery as men; until such time, willy-nilly, Godfrey Marshall would keep his children.

 

It had seemed as if he might lose Winifred. Winifred had adored her husband, and looked up to him as to something wonderful. Perhaps she had expected in him another great authority, a male authority greater, finer than her father's. For having once known the glow of male power, she would not easily turn to the cold white light of feminine independence. She would hunger, hunger all her life for the warmth and shelter of true male strength.

 

And hunger she might, for Egbert's power lay in the abnegation of power. He was himself the living negative of power. Even of responsibility. For the negation of power at last means the negation of responsibility. As far as these things went, he would confine himself to himself. He would try to confine his own influence even to himself. He would try, as far as possible, to abstain from influencing his children by assuming any responsibility for them. 'A little child shall lead them.' His child should lead, then. He would try not to make it go in any direction whatever. He would abstain from influencing it. Liberty!

 

Poor Winifred was like a fish out of water in this liberty, gasping for the denser element which should contain her. Till her child came. And then she knew that she must be responsible for it, that she must have authority over it.

 

But here Egbert silently and negatively stepped in. Silently, negatively, but fatally he neutralized her authority over her children.

 

There was a third little girl born. And after this Winifred wanted no more children. Her soul was turning to salt.

 

So she had charge of the children, they were her responsibility. The money for them had come from her father. She would do her very best for them, and have command over their life and death. But no! Egbert would not take the responsibility. He would not even provide the money. But he would not let her have her way. Her dark, silent, passionate authority he would not allow. It was a battle between them, the battle between liberty and the old blood-power. And of course he won. The little girls loved him and adored him. 'Daddy! Daddy!' They could do as they liked with him. Their mother would have ruled them. She would have ruled them passionately, with indulgence, with the old dark magic of parental authority, something looming and unquestioned and, after all, divine: if we believe in divine authority. The Marshalls did, being Catholic.

 

And Egbert, he turned her old dark, Catholic blood-authority into a sort of tyranny. He would not leave her her children. He stole them from her, and yet without assuming responsibility for them. He stole them from her, in emotion and spirit, and left her only to command their behaviour. A thankless lot for a mother. And her children adored him, adored him, little knowing the empty bitterness they were preparing for themselves when they too grew up to have husbands: husbands such as Egbert, adorable and null.

 

Joyce, the eldest, was still his favourite. She was now a quicksilver little thing of six years old. Barbara, the youngest, was a toddler of two years. They spent most of their time down at Crockham, because he wanted to be there. And even Winifred loved the place really. But now, in her frustrated and blinded state, it was full of menace for her children. The adders, the poison-berries, the brook, the marsh, the water that might not be pure, one thing and another. From mother and nurse it was a guerilla gunfire of commands, and blithe, quicksilver disobedience from the three blonde, never-still little girls. Behind the girls was the father, against mother and nurse. And so it was.

 

'If you don't come quick, nurse, I shall run out there to where there are snakes.'

 

'Joyce, you must be patient. I'm just changing Annabel.'

 

There you are. There it was: always the same. Working away on the common across the brook he heard it. And he worked on, just the same.

 

Suddenly he heard a shriek, and he flung the spade from him and started for the bridge, looking up like a startled deer. Ah, there was Winifred, Joyce had hurt herself. He went on up the garden.

 

'What is it?'

 

The child was still screaming, now it was, 'Daddy! Daddy! Oh, oh, Daddy!' And the mother was saying:

 

'Don't be frightened, darling. Let mother look.'

 

But the child only cried:

 

'Oh, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!'

 

She was terrified by the sight of the blood running from her own knee. Winifred crouched down, with her child of six in her lap, to examine the knee. Egbert bent over also.

 

'Don't make such a noise, Joyce,' he said irritably. 'How did she do it?'

 

'She fell on that sickle thing which you left lying about after cutting the grass,' said Winifred, looking into his face with bitter accusation as he bent near.

 

He had taken his handkerchief and tied it round the knee. Then he lifted the still sobbing child in his arms, and carried her into the house and upstairs to her bed. In his arms she became quiet. But his heart was burning with pain and with guilt. He had left the sickle there lying on the edge of the grass, and so his first-born child whom he loved so dearly had come to hurt. But then it was an accident, it was an accident. Why should he feel guilty? It would probably be nothing, better in two or three days. Why take it to heart, why worry? He put it aside.

 

The child lay on the bed in her little summer frock, her face very white now after the shock, Nurse had come carrying the youngest child: and little Annabel stood holding her skirt. Winifred, terribly serious and wooden-seeming, was bending over the knee, from which she had taken his blood-soaked handkerchief. Egbert bent forward, too, keeping more sangfroid in his face than in his heart. Winifred went all of a lump of seriousness, so he had to keep some reserve. The child moaned and whimpered.

 

The knee was still bleeding profusely, it was a deep cut right in the joint.

 

'You'd better go for the doctor, Egbert,' said Winifred bitterly.

 

'Oh, no! Oh, no!' cried Joyce in a panic.

 

'Joyce, my darling, don't cry!' said Winifred, suddenly catching the little girl to her breast in a strange tragic anguish, the Mater Dolorata. Even the child was frightened into silence. Egbert looked at the tragic figure of his wife with the child at her breast, and turned away. Only Annabel started suddenly to cry: 'Joycey, Joycey, don't have your leg bleeding!'

 

Egbert rode four miles to the village for the doctor. He could not help feeling that Winifred was laying it on rather. Surely the knee itself wasn't hurt! Surely not. It was only a surface cut.

 

The doctor was out. Egbert left the message and came cycling swiftly home, his heart pinched with anxiety. He dropped sweating off his bicycle and went into the house, looking rather small, like a man who is at fault. Winifred was upstairs sitting by Joyce, who was looking pale and important in bed, and was eating some tapioca pudding. The pale, small, scared face of his child went to Egbert's heart.

 

'Doctor Wing was out. He'll be here about half past two,' said Egbert.

 

'I don't want him to come,' whimpered Joyce.

 

'Joyce, dear, you must be patient and quiet,' said Winifred. 'He won't hurt you. But he will tell us what to do to make your knee better quickly. That is why he must come.'

 

Winifred always explained carefully to her little girls: and it always took the words off their lips for the moment.

 

'Does it bleed yet?' said Egbert.

 

Winifred moved the bedclothes carefully aside.

 

'I think not,' she said.

 

Egbert stooped also to look.

 

'No, it doesn't,' she said. Then he stood up with a relieved look on his face. He turned to the child.

 

'Eat your pudding, Joyce,' he said. 'It won't be anything. You've only got to keep still for a few days.'

 

'You haven't had your dinner, have you, Daddy?'

 

'Not yet.'

 

'Nurse will give it to you,' said Winifred.

 

'You'll be all right, Joyce,' he said, smiling to the child and pushing the blonde hair off her brow. She smiled back winsomely into his face.

 

He went downstairs and ate his meal alone. Nurse served him. She liked waiting on him. All women liked him and liked to do things for him.

 

The doctor came, a fat country practitioner, pleasant and kind.

 

'What, little girl, been tumbling down, have you? There's a thing to be doing, for a smart little lady like you! What! And cutting your knee! Tut-tut-tut! That wasn't clever of you, now was it? Never mind, never mind, soon be better. Let us look at it. Won't hurt you. Not the least in life. Bring a bowl with a little warm water, nurse. Soon have it all right again, soon have it all right.'

 

Joyce smiled at him with a pale smile of faint superiority. This was not the way in which she was used to being talked to.

 

He bent down, carefully looking at the little, thin, wounded knee of the child. Egbert bent over him.

 

'Oh, dear, oh, dear! Quite a deep little cut. Nasty little cut. Nasty little cut. But, never mind. Never mind, little lady. We'll soon have it better. Soon have it better, little lady. What's your name?'

 

'My name is Joyce,' said the child distinctly.

 

'Oh, really!' he replied. 'Oh, really! Well, that's a fine name too, in my opinion. Joyce, eh? And how old might Miss Joyce be? Can she tell me that?'

 

'I'm six,' said the child, slightly amused and very condescending.

 

'Six! There now. Add up and count as far as six, can you? Well, that's a clever little girl, a clever little girl. And if she has to drink a spoonful of medicine, she won't make a murmur, I'll be bound. Not like some little girls. What? Eh?'

 

'I take it if mother wishes me to,' said Joyce.

 

'Ah, there now! That's the style! That's what I like to hear from a little lady in bed because she's cut her knee. That's the style.'

 

The comfortable and prolix doctor dressed and bandaged the knee and recommended bed and a light diet for the little lady. He thought a week or a fortnight would put it right. No bones or ligatures damaged, fortunately. Only a flesh cut. He would come again in a day or two.

 

So Joyce was reassured and stayed in bed and had all her toys up. Her father often played with her. The doctor came the third day. He was fairly pleased with the knee. It was healing. It was healing, yes, yes. Let the child continue in bed. He came again after a day or two. Winifred was a trifle uneasy. The wound seemed to be healing on the top, but it hurt the child too much. It didn't look quite right. She said so to Egbert.

 

'Egbert, I'm sure Joyce's knee isn't healing properly.'

 

'I think it is,' he said. 'I think it's all right.'

 

'I'd rather Doctor Wing came again, I don't feel satisfied.'

 

'Aren't you trying to imagine it worse than it really is?'

 

'You would say so, of course. But I shall write a post-card to Doctor Wing now.'

 

The doctor came next day. He examined the knee. Yes, there was inflammation. Yes, there might be a little septic poisoning, there might. There might. Was the child feverish?

 

So a fortnight passed by, and the child was feverish, and the knee was more inflamed and grew worse and was painful, painful. She cried in the night, and her mother had to sit up with her. Egbert still insisted it was nothing, really, it would pass. But in his heart he was anxious.

 

Winifred wrote again to her father. On Saturday the elderly man appeared. And no sooner did Winifred see the thick, rather short figure in its grey suit than a great yearning came over her.

 

'Father, I'm not satisfied with Joyce. I'm not satisfied with Doctor Wing.'

 

'Well, Winnie, dear, if you're not satisfied we must have further advice, that is all.'

 

The sturdy, powerful, elderly man went upstairs, his voice sounding rather grating through the house, as if it cut upon the tense atmosphere.

 

'How are you, Joyce, darling?' he said to the child. 'Does your knee hurt you? Does it hurt you, dear?'

 

'It does sometimes.' The child was shy of him, cold towards him.

 

'Well, dear, I'm sorry for that. I hope you try to bear it, and not trouble mother too much.'

 

There was no answer. He looked at the knee. It was red and stiff.

 

'Of course,' he said, 'I think we must have another doctor's opinion. And if we're going to have it, we had better have it at once. Egbert, do you think you might cycle in to Bingham for Doctor Wayne? I found him very satisfactory for Winnie's mother.'

 

'I can go if you think it necessary,' said Egbert.

 

'Certainly I think it necessary. Even if there if nothing, we can have peace of mind. Certainly I think it necessary. I should like Doctor Wayne to come this evening if possible.'

 

So Egbert set off on his bicycle through the wind, like a boy sent on an errand, leaving his father-in-law a pillar of assurance, with Winifred.

 

Doctor Wayne came, and looked grave. Yes, the knee was certainly taking the wrong way. The child might be lame for life.

 

Up went the fire and fear and anger in every heart. Doctor Wayne came again the next day for a proper examination. And, yes, the knee had really taken bad ways. It should be X-rayed. It was very important.

 

Godfrey Marshall walked up and down the lane with the doctor, beside the standing motor-car: up and down, up and down in one of those consultations of which he had had so many in his life.

 

As a result he came indoors to Winifred.

 

'Well, Winnie, dear, the best thing to do is to take Joyce up to London, to a nursing home where she can have proper treatment. Of course this knee has been allowed to go wrong. And apparently there is a risk that the child may even lose her leg. What do you think, dear? You agree to our taking her up to town and putting her under the best care?'

 

'Oh, father, you know I would do anything on earth for her.'

 

'I know you would, Winnie darling. The pity is that there has been this unfortunate delay already. I can't think what Doctor Wing was doing. Apparently the child is in danger of losing her leg. Well then, if you will have everything ready, we will take her up to town tomorrow. I will order the large car from Denley's to be here at ten. Egbert, will you take a telegram at once to Doctor Jackson? It is a small nursing home for children and for surgical cases, not far from Baker Street. I'm sure Joyce will be all right there.'

 

'Oh, father, can't I nurse her myself!'

 

'Well, darling, if she is to have proper treatment, she had best be in a home. The X-ray treatment, and the electric treatment, and whatever is necessary.'

 

'It will cost a great deal,' said Winifred.

 

'We can't think of cost, if the child's leg is in danger, or even her life. No use speaking of cost,' said the elder man impatiently.

 

And so it was. Poor Joyce, stretched out on a bed in the big closed motor-car, the mother sitting by her head, the grandfather in his short grey beard and a bowler hat, sitting by her feet, thick, and implacable in his responsibility, they rolled slowly away from Crockham, and from Egbert who stood there bareheaded and a little ignominious, left behind. He was to shut up the house and bring the rest of the family back to town, by train, the next day.

 

Followed a dark and bitter time. The poor child. The poor, poor child, how she suffered, an agony and a long crucifixion in that nursing home. It was a bitter six weeks which changed the soul of Winifred for ever. As she sat by the bed of her poor, tortured little child, tortured with the agony of the knee, and the still worse agony of these diabolic, but perhaps necessary modern treatments, she felt her heart killed and going cold in her breast. Her little Joyce, her frail, brave, wonderful, little Joyce, frail and small and pale as a white flower! Ah, how had she, Winifred, dared to be so wicked, so wicked, so careless, so sensual.

 

'Let my heart die! Let my woman's heart of flesh die! Saviour, let my heart die. And save my child. Let my heart die from the world and from the flesh. Oh, destroy my heart that is so wayward. Let my heart of pride die. Let my heart die.'

 

So she prayed beside the bed of her child. And like the Mother with the seven swords in her breast, slowly her heart of pride and passion died in her breast, bleeding away. Slowly it died, bleeding away, and she turned to the Church for comfort, to Jesus, to the Mother of God, but most of all, to that great and enduring institution, the Roman Catholic Church. She withdrew into the shadow of the Church. She was a mother with three children. But in her soul she died, her heart of pride and passion and desire bled to death, her soul belonged to her church, her body belonged to her duty as a mother.

 

Her duty as a wife did not enter. As a wife she had no sense of duty: only a certain bitterness towards the man with whom she had known such sensuality and distraction. She was purely the Mater Dolorata. To the man she was closed as a tomb.

 

Egbert came to see his child. But Winifred seemed to be always seated there, like the tomb of his manhood and his fatherhood. Poor Winifred: she was still young, still strong and ruddy and beautiful like a ruddy hard flower of the field. Strange, her ruddy, healthy face, so sombre, and her strong, heavy, full-blooded body, so still. She, a nun! Never. And yet the gates of her heart and soul had shut in his face with a slow, resonant clang, shutting him out for ever. There was no need for her to go into a convent. Her will had done it.

 

And between this young mother and this young father lay the crippled child, like a bit of pale silk floss on the pillow, and a little white pain-quenched face. He could not bear it. He just could not bear it. He turned aside. There was nothing to do but to turn aside. He turned aside, and went hither and thither, desultory. He was still attractive and desirable. But there was a little frown between his brow as if he had been cleft there with a hatchet: cleft right in, for ever, and that was the stigma.

 

The child's leg was saved: but the knee was locked stiff. The fear now was lest the lower leg should wither, or cease to grow. There must be long-continued massage and treatment, daily treatment, even when the child left the nursing home. And the whole of the expense was borne by the grandfather.

 

Egbert now had no real home. Winifred with the children and nurse was tied to the little flat in London. He could not live there: he could not contain himself. The cottage was shut-up, or lent to friends. He went down sometimes to work in his garden and keep the place in order. Then with the empty house around him at night, all the empty rooms, he felt his heart go wicked. The sense of frustration and futility, like some slow, torpid snake, slowly bit right through his heart. Futility, futility: the horrible marsh-poison went through his veins and killed him.

 

As he worked in the garden in the silence of day he would listen for a sound. No sound. No sound of Winifred from the dark inside of the cottage: no sound of children's voices from the air, from the common, from the near distance. No sound, nothing but the old dark marsh-venomous atmosphere of the place. So he worked spasmodically through the day, and at night made a fire and cooked some food alone.

 

He was alone. He himself cleaned the cottage and made his bed. But his mending he did not do. His shirts were slit on the shoulders, when he had been working, and the white flesh showed through. He would feel the air and the spots of rain on his exposed flesh. And he would look again across the common, where the dark, tufted gorse was dying to seed, and the bits of cat-heather were coming pink in tufts, like a sprinkling of sacrificial blood.

 

His heart went back to the savage old spirit of the place: the desire for old gods, old, lost passions, the passion of the cold-blooded, darting snakes that hissed and shot away from him, the mystery of blood-sacrifices, all the lost, intense sensations of the primeval people of the place, whose passions seethed in the air still, from those long days before the Romans came. The seethe of a lost, dark passion in the air. The presence of unseen snakes.

 

A queer, baffled, half-wicked look came on his face. He could not stay long at the cottage. Suddenly he must swing on to his bicycle and go, anywhere. Anywhere, away from the place. He would stay a few days with his mother in the old home. His mother adored him and grieved as a mother would. But the little, baffled, half-wicked smile curled on his face, and he swung away from his mother's solicitude as from everything else.

 

Always moving on, from place to place, friend to friend: and always swinging away from sympathy. As soon as sympathy, like a soft hand, was reached out to touch him, away he swerved, instinctively, as a harmless snake swerves and swerves and swerves away from an outstretched hand. Away he must go. And periodically he went back to Winifred.

 

He was terrible to her now, like a temptation. She had devoted herself to her children and her church. Joyce was once more on her feet; but, alas! lame, with iron supports to her leg, and a little crutch. It was strange how she had grown into a long, pallid, wild little thing. Strange that the pain had not made her soft and docile, but had brought out a wild, almost maenad temper in the child. She was seven, and long and white and thin, but by no means subdued. Her blonde hair was darkening. She still had long sufferings to face, and, in her own childish consciousness, the stigma of her lameness to bear.

 

And she bore it. An almost maenad courage seemed to possess her, as if she were a long, thin, young weapon of life. She acknowledged all her mother's care. She would stand by her mother for ever. But some of her father's fine-tempered desperation flashed in her.

 

When Egbert saw his little girl limping horribly, not only limping but lurching horribly in crippled, childish way, his heart again hardened with chagrin, like steel that is tempered again. There was a tacit understanding between him and his little girl: not what we would call love, but a weapon-like kinship. There was a tiny touch of irony in his manner towards her, contrasting sharply with Winifred's heavy, unleavened solicitude and care. The child flickered back to him with an answering little smile of irony and recklessness: an odd flippancy which made Winifred only the more sombre and earnest.

 

The Marshalls took endless thought and trouble for the child, searching out every means to save her limb and her active freedom. They spared no effort and no money, they spared no strength of will. With all their slow, heavy power of will they willed that Joyce should save her liberty of movement, should win back her wild, free grace. Even if it took a long time to recover, it should be recovered.

 

So the situation stood. And Joyce submitted, week after week, month after month to the tyranny and pain of the treatment. She acknowledged the honourable effort on her behalf. But her flamy reckless spirit was her father's. It was he who had all the glamour for her. He and she were like members of some forbidden secret society who know one another but may not recognize one another. Knowledge they had in common, the same secret of life, the father and the child. But the child stayed in the camp of her mother, honourably, and the father wandered outside like Ishmael, only coming sometimes to sit in the home for an hour or two, an evening or two beside the camp fire, like Ishmael, in a curious silence and tension, with the mocking answer of the desert speaking out of his silence, and annulling the whole convention of the domestic home.

 

His presence was almost an anguish to Winifred. She prayed against it. That little cleft between his brow, that flickering, wicked, little smile that seemed to haunt his face, and above all, the triumphant loneliness, the Ishmael quality. And then the erectness of his supple body, like a symbol. The very way he stood, so quiet, so insidious, like an erect, supple symbol of life, the living body, confronting her downcast soul, was torture to her. He was like a supple living idol moving before her eyes, and she felt if she watched him she was damned.

 

And he came and made himself at home in her little home. When he was there, moving in his own quiet way, she felt as if the whole great law of sacrifice, by which she had elected to live, were annulled. He annulled by his very presence the laws of her life. And what did he substitute? Ah, against that question she hardened herself in recoil.

 

It was awful to her to have to have him about, moving about in his shirt-sleeves, speaking in his tenor, throaty voice to the children. Annabel simply adored him, and he teased the little girl. The baby, Barbara, was not sure of him. She had been born a stranger to him. But even the nurse, when she saw his white shoulder of flesh through the slits of his torn shirt, thought it a shame.

 

Winifred felt it was only another weapon of his against her.

 

'You have other shirts, why do you wear that old one that is all torn, Egbert?' she said.

 

'I may as well wear it out,' he said subtly.

 

He knew she would not offer to mend it for him. She could not. And no, she would not. Had she not her own gods to honour? And could she betray them, submitting to his Baal and Ashtaroth? And it was terrible to her, his unsheathed presence, that seemed to annul her and her faith, like another revelation. Like a gleaming idol evoked against her, a vivid life-idol that might triumph.

 

He came and he went, and she persisted. And then the great war broke out. He was a man who could not go to the dogs. He could not dissipate himself. He was pure-bred in his Englishness, and even when he would have killed to be vicious, he could not.

 

So when the war broke out his whole instinct was against it: against war. He had not the faintest desire to overcome any foreigners or to help in their death. He had no conception of Imperial England, and Rule Britannia was just a joke to him. He was a pure-blooded Englishman, perfect in his race, and when he was truly himself he could no more have been aggressive on the score of his Englishness than a rose can be aggressive on the score of its rosiness.

 

No, he had no desire to defy Germany and to exalt England. The distinction between German and English was not for him the distinction between good and bad. It was the distinction between blue water-flowers and red or white bush-blossoms: just difference. The difference between the wild boar and the wild bear. And a man was good or bad according to his nature, not according to his nationality.

 

Egbert was well-bred, and this was part of his natural understanding. It was merely unnatural to him to hate a nation en bloc. Certain individuals he disliked, and others he liked, and the mass he knew nothing about. Certain deeds he disliked, certain deeds seemed natural to him, and about most deeds he had no particular feeling.

 

He had, however, the one deepest pure-bred instinct. He recoiled inevitably from having his feelings dictated to him by the mass feeling. His feelings were his own, his understanding was his own, and he would never go back on either, willingly. Shall a man become inferior to his own true knowledge and self, just because the mob expects it of him?

 

What Egbert felt subtly and without question, his father-in-law felt also in a rough, more combative way. Different as the two men were, they were two real Englishmen, and their instincts were almost the same.

 

And Godfrey Marshall had the world to reckon with. There was German military aggression, and the English non-military idea of liberty and the 'conquests of peace', meaning industrialism. Even if the choice between militarism and industrialism were a choice of evils, the elderly man asserted his choice of the latter, perforce. He whose soul was quick with the instinct of power.

 

Egbert just refused to reckon with the world. He just refused even to decide between German militarism and British industrialism. He chose neither. As for atrocities, he despised the people who committed them as inferior criminal types. There was nothing national about crime.

 

And yet, war! War! Just war! Not right or wrong, but just war itself. Should he join? Should he give himself over to war? The question was in his mind for some weeks. Not because he thought England was right and Germany wrong. Probably Germany was wrong, but he refused to make a choice. Not because he felt inspired. No. But just war.

 

The deterrent was, the giving himself over into the power of other men, and into the power of the mob-spirit of a democratic army. Should he give himself over? Should he make over his own life and body to the control of something which he knew was inferior, in spirit, to his own self? Should he commit himself into the power of an inferior control? Should he? Should he betray himself?

 

He was going to put himself into the power of his inferiors, and he knew it. He was going to subjugate himself. He was going to be ordered about by petty canaille of non-commissioned officers, and even commissioned officers. He who was born and bred free. Should he do it?

 

He went to his wife, to speak to her.

 

'Shall I join up, Winifred?'

 

She was silent. Her instinct also was dead against it. And yet a certain profound resentment made her answer:

 

'You have three children dependent on you. I don't know whether you have thought of that.'

 

It was still only the third month of the war, and the old pre-war ideas were still alive.

 

'Of course. But it won't make much difference to them. I shall be earning a shilling a day, at least.'

 

'You'd better speak to father, I think,' she replied heavily.

 

Egbert went to his father-in-law. The elderly man's heart was full of resentment.

 

'I should say,' he said rather sourly, 'it is the best thing you could do.'

 

Egbert went and joined up immediately, as a private soldier. He was drafted into the light artillery.

 

Winifred now had a new duty towards him: the duty of a wife towards a husband who is himself performing his duty towards the world. She loved him still. She would always love him, as far as earthly love went. But it was duty she now lived by. When he came back to her in khaki, a soldier, she submitted to him as a wife. It was her duty. But to his passion she could never again fully submit. Something prevented her, for ever: even her own deepest choice.

 

He went back again to camp. It did not suit him to be a modern soldier. In the thick, gritty, hideous khaki his subtle physique was extinguished as if he had been killed. In the ugly intimacy of the camp his thoroughbred sensibilities were just degraded. But he had chosen, so he accepted. An ugly little look came on to his face, of a man who has accepted his own degradation.

 

In the early spring Winifred went down to Crockham to be there when primroses were out, and the tassels hanging on the hazel-bushes. She felt something like a reconciliation towards Egbert, now he was a prisoner in camp most of his days. Joyce was wild with delight at seeing the garden and the common again, after the eight or nine months of London and misery. She was still lame. She still had the irons up her leg. But she lurched about with a wild, crippled agility.

 

Egbert came for a week-end, in his gritty, thick, sand-paper khaki and puttees and the hideous cap. Nay, he looked terrible. And on his face a slightly impure look, a little sore on his lip, as if he had eaten too much or drunk too much or let his blood become a little unclean. He was almost uglily healthy, with the camp life. It did not suit him.

 

Winifred waited for him in a little passion of duty and sacrifice, willing to serve the soldier, if not the man. It only made him feel a little more ugly inside. The week-end was torment to him: the memory of the camp, the knowledge of the life he led there; even the sight of his own legs in that abhorrent khaki. He felt as if the hideous cloth went into his blood and made it gritty and dirty. Then Winifred so ready to serve the soldier, when she repudiated the man. And this made the grit worse between his teeth. And the children running around playing and calling in the rather mincing fashion of children who have nurses and governesses and literature in the family. And Joyce so lame! It had all become unreal to him, after the camp. It only set his soul on edge. He left at dawn on the Monday morning, glad to get back to the realness and vulgarity of the camp.

 

Winifred would never meet him again at the cottage, only in London, where the world was with them. But sometimes he came alone to Crockham perhaps when friends were staying there. And then he would work awhile in his garden. This summer still it would flame with blue anchusas and big red poppies, the mulleins would sway their soft, downy erections in the air: he loved mulleins: and the honeysuckle would stream out scent like memory, when the owl was whooing. Then he sat by the fire with the friends and with Winifred's sisters, and they sang the folk-songs. He put on thin civilian clothes and his charm and his beauty and the supple dominancy of his body glowed out again. But Winifred was not there.

 

At the end of the summer he went to Flanders, into action. He seemed already to have gone out of life, beyond the pale of life. He hardly remembered his life any more, being like a man who is going to take a jump from a height, and is only looking to where he must land.

 

He was twice slightly wounded, in two months. But not enough to put him off duty for more than a day or two. They were retiring again, holding the enemy back. He was in the rear, three machine-guns. The country was all pleasant, war had not yet trampled it. Only the air seemed shattered, and the land awaiting death. It was a small, unimportant action in which he was engaged.

 

The guns were stationed on a little bushy hillock just outside a village. But occasionally, it was difficult to say from which direction, came the sharp crackle of rifle-fire, and beyond, the far-off thud of cannon. The afternoon was wintry and cold.

 

A lieutenant stood on a little iron platform at the top of the ladders, taking the sights and giving the aim, calling in a high, tense, mechanical voice. Out of the sky came the sharp cry of the directions, then the warning numbers, then 'Fire!' The shot went, the piston of the gun sprang back, there was a sharp explosion, and a very faint film of smoke in the air. Then the other two guns fired, and there was a lull. The officer was uncertain of the enemy's position. The thick clump of horse-chestnut trees below was without change. Only in the far distance the sound of heavy firing continued, so far off as to give a sense of peace.

 

The gorse bushes on either hand were dark, but a few sparks of flowers showed yellow. He noticed them almost unconsciously as he waited, in the lull. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and the air came chill on his arms. Again his shirt was slit on the shoulders, and the flesh showed through. He was dirty and unkempt. But his face was quiet. So many things go out of consciousness before we come to the end of consciousness.

 

Before him, below, was the highroad, running between high banks of grass and gorse. He saw the whitish muddy tracks and deep scores in the road, where the part of the regiment had retired. Now all was still. Sounds that came, came from the outside. The place where he stood was still silent, chill, serene: the white church among the trees beyond seemed like a thought only.

 

He moved into a lightning-like mechanical response at the sharp cry from the officer overhead. Mechanism, the pure mechanical action of obedience at the guns. Pure mechanical action at the guns. It left the soul unburdened, brooding in dark nakedness. In the end, the soul is alone, brooding on the face of the uncreated flux, as a bird on a dark sea.

 

Nothing could be seen but the road, and a crucifix knocked slanting and the dark, autumnal fields and woods. There appeared three horsemen on a little eminence, very small, on the crest of a ploughed field. They were our own men. Of the enemy, nothing.

 

The lull continued. Then suddenly came sharp orders, and a new direction of the guns, and an intense, exciting activity. Yet at the centre the soul remained dark and aloof, alone.

 

But even so, it was the soul that heard the new sound: the new, deep 'papp!' of a gun that seemed to touch right upon the soul. He kept up the rapid activity at the machine-gun, sweating. But in his soul was the echo of the new, deep sound, deeper than life.

 

And in confirmation came the awful faint whistling of a shell, advancing almost suddenly into a piercing, tearing shriek that would tear through the membrane of life. He heard it in his ears, but he heard it also in his soul, in tension. There was relief when the thing had swung by and struck, away beyond. He heard the hoarseness of its explosion, and the voice of the soldier calling to the horses. But he did not turn round to look. He only noticed a twig of holly with red berries fall like a gift on to the road below.

 

Not this time, not this time. Whither thou goest I will go. Did he say it to the shell, or to whom? Whither thou goest I will go. Then, the faint whistling of another shell dawned, and his blood became small and still to receive it. It drew nearer, like some horrible blast of wind; his blood lost consciousness. But in the second of suspension he saw the heavy shell swoop to earth, into the rocky bushes on the right, and earth and stones poured up into the sky. It was as if he heard no sound. The earth and stones and fragments of bush fell to earth again, and there was the same unchanging peace. The Germans had got the aim.

 

Would they move now? Would they retire? Yes. The officer was giving the last lightning-rapid orders to fire before withdrawing. A shell passed unnoticed in the rapidity of action. And then, into the silence, into the suspense where the soul brooded, finally crashed a noise and a darkness and a moment's flaming agony and horror. Ah, he had seen the dark bird flying towards him, flying home this time. In one instant life and eternity went up in a conflagration of agony, then there was a weight of darkness.

 

When faintly something began to struggle in the darkness, a consciousness of himself, he was aware of a great load and a clanging sound. To have known the moment of death! And to be forced, before dying, to review it. So, fate, even in death.

 

There was a resounding of pain. It seemed to sound from the outside of his consciousness: like a loud bell clanging very near. Yet he knew it was himself. He must associate himself with it. After a lapse and a new effort, he identified a pain in his head, a large pain that clanged and resounded. So far he could identify himself with himself. Then there was a lapse.

 

After a time he seemed to wake up again, and waking, to know that he was at the front, and that he was killed. He did not open his eyes. Light was not yet his. The clanging pain in his head rang out the rest of his consciousness. So he lapsed away from consciousness, in unutterable sick abandon of life.

 

Bit by bit, like a doom came the necessity to know. He was hit in the head. It was only a vague surmise at first. But in the swinging of the pendulum of pain, swinging ever nearer and nearer, to touch him into an agony of consciousness and a consciousness of agony, gradually the knowledge emerged, he must be hit in the head, hit on the left brow; if so, there would be blood, was there blood? could he feel blood in his left eye? Then the clanging seemed to burst the membrane of his brain, like death-madness.

 

Was there blood on his face? Was hot blood flowing? Or was it dry blood congealing down his cheek? It took him hours even to ask the question: time being no more than an agony in darkness, without measurement.

 

A long time after he had opened his eyes he realized he was seeing something, something, something, but the effort to recall what was too great. No, no; no recall!

 

Were they the stars in the dark sky? Was it possible it was stars in the dark sky? Stars? The world? Ah, no, he could not know it! Stars and the world were gone for him, he closed his eyes. No stars, no sky, no world. No, No! The thick darkness of blood alone. It should be one great lapse into the thick darkness of blood in agony.

 

Death, oh, death! The world all blood, and the blood all writhing with death. The soul like the tiniest little light out on a dark sea, the sea of blood. And the light guttering, beating, pulsing in a windless storm, wishing it could go out, yet unable.

 

There had been life. There had been Winifred and his children. But the frail death-agony effort to catch at straws of memory, straws of life from the past, brought on too great a nausea. No, No! No Winifred, no children. No world, no people. Better the agony of dissolution ahead than the nausea of the effort backwards. Better the terrible work should go forward, the dissolving into the black sea of death, in the extremity of dissolution, than that there should be any reaching back towards life. To forget! To forget! Utterly, utterly to forget, in the great forgetting of death. To break the core and the unit of life, and to lapse out on the great darkness. Only that. To break the clue, and mingle and commingle with the one darkness, without afterwards or forwards. Let the black sea of death itself solve the problem of futurity. Let the will of man break and give up.

What was that? A light! A terrible light! Was it figures? Was it legs of a horse colossal, colossal above him: huge, huge?

The Germans heard a slight noise, and started. Then, in the glare of a light-bomb, by the side of the heap of earth thrown up by the shell, they saw the dead face.
 
 

 

MONKEY NUTS

 

At first Joe thought the job O.K. He was loading hay on the trucks, along with Albert, the corporal. The two men were pleasantly billeted in a cottage not far from the station: they were their own masters, for Joe never thought of Albert as a master. And the little sidings of the tiny village station was as pleasant a place as you could wish for. On one side, beyond the line, stretched the woods: on the other, the near side, across a green smooth field red houses were dotted among flowering apple trees. The weather being sunny, work being easy, Albert, a real good pal, what life could be better! After Flanders, it was heaven itself.

 

Albert, the corporal, was a clean-shaven, shrewd-looking fellow of about forty. He seemed to think his one aim in life was to be full of fun and nonsense. In repose, his face looked a little withered, old. He was a very good pal to Joe, steady, decent and grave under all his 'mischief'; for his mischief was only his laborious way of skirting his own ennui.

 

Joe was much younger than Albert, only twenty-three. He was a tallish, quiet youth, pleasant looking. He was of a slightly better class than his corporal, more personable. Careful about his appearance, he shaved every day. 'I haven't got much of a face,' said Albert. 'If I was to shave every day like you, Joe, I should have none.'

 

There was plenty of life in the little goods-yard: three porter youths, a continual come and go of farm wagons bringing hay, wagons with timber from the woods, coal carts loading at the trucks. The black coal seemed to make the place sleepier, hotter. Round the big white gate the station-master's children played and his white chickens walked, whilst the stationmaster himself, a young man getting too fat, helped his wife to peg out the washing on the clothes line in the meadow.

 

The great boat-shaped wagons came up from Playcross with the hay. At first the farm-men waggoned it. On the third day one of the land-girls appeared with the first load, drawing to a standstill easily at the head of her two great horses. She was a buxom girl, young, in linen overalls and gaiters. Her face was ruddy, she had large blue eyes.

 

'Now that's the waggoner for us, boys,' said the corporal loudly.

 

'Whoa!' she said to her horses; and then to the corporal: 'Which boys do you mean?'

 

'We are the pick of the bunch. That's Joe, my pal. Don't you let on that my name's Albert,' said the corporal to his private. 'I'm the corporal.'

 

'And I'm Miss Stokes,' said the land-girl coolly, 'if that's all the boys you are.'

 

'You know you couldn't want more, Miss Stokes,' said Albert politely. Joe, who was bare-headed, whose grey flannel sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, and whose shirt was open at the breast, looked modestly aside as if he had no part in the affair.

 

'Are you on this job regular, then?' said the corporal to Miss Stokes.

 

'I don't know for sure,' she said, pushing a piece of hair under her hat, and attending to her splendid horses.

 

'Oh, make it a certainty,' said Albert.

 

She did not reply. She turned and looked over the two men coolly. She was pretty, moderately blonde, with crisp hair, a good skin, and large blue eyes. She was strong, too, and the work went on leisurely and easily.

 

'Now!' said the corporal, stopping as usual to look round, 'pleasant company makes work a pleasure, don't hurry it, boys.' He stood on the truck surveying the world. That was one of his great and absorbing occupations: to stand and look out on things in general. Joe, also standing on the truck, also turned round to look what was to be seen. But he could not become blankly absorbed, as Albert could.

 

Miss Stokes watched the two men from under her broad felt hat. She had seen hundreds of Alberts, khaki soldiers standing in loose attitudes, absorbed in watching nothing in particular. She had seen also a good many Joes, quiet, good-looking young soldiers with half-averted faces. But there was something in the turn of Joe's head, and something in his quiet, tender-looking form, young and fresh, which attracted her eye. As she watched him closely from below, he turned as if he felt her, and his dark-blue eye met her straight, light-blue gaze. He faltered and turned aside again and looked as if he were going to fall off the truck. A slight flush mounted under the girl's full, ruddy face. She liked him.

 

Always, after this, when she came into the sidings with her team, it was Joe she looked for. She acknowledged to herself that she was sweet on him. But Albert did all the talking. He was so full of fun and nonsense. Joe was a very shy bird, very brief and remote in his answers. Miss Stokes was driven to indulge in repartee with Albert, but she fixed her magnetic attention on the younger fellow. Joe would talk with Albert, and laugh at his jokes. But Miss Stokes could get little out of him. She had to depend on her silent forces. They were more effective than might be imagined.

 

Suddenly, on Saturday afternoon, at about two o'clock, Joe received a bolt from the blue, a telegram: 'Meet me Belbury Station 6.00 p.m. today. M.S.' He knew at once who M.S. was. His heart melted, he felt weak as if he had had a blow.

 

'What's the trouble, boy?' asked Albert anxiously.

 

'No, no trouble, it's to meet somebody.' Joe lifted his dark-blue eyes in confusion towards his corporal.

 

'Meet somebody!' repeated the corporal, watching his young pal with keen blue eyes. 'It's all right, then; nothing wrong?'

 

'No, nothing wrong. I'm not going,' said Joe.

 

Albert was old and shrewd enough to see that nothing more should be said before the housewife. He also saw that Joe did not want to take him into confidence. So he held his peace, though he was piqued.

 

The two soldiers went into town, smartened up. Albert knew a fair number of the boys round about; there would be plenty of gossip in the market-place, plenty of lounging in groups on the Bath Road, watching the Saturday evening shoppers. Then a modest drink or two, and the movies. They passed an agreeable, casual, nothing-in-particular evening, with which Joe was quite satisfied. He thought of Belbury Station, and of M.S. waiting there. He had not the faintest intention of meeting her. And he had not the faintest intention of telling Albert.

 

And yet, when the two men were in their bedroom, half undressed, Joe suddenly held out the telegram to his corporal, saying: 'What d'you think of that?'

 

Albert was just unbuttoning his braces. He desisted, took the telegram form, and turned towards the candle to read it.

 

'Meet me Belbury Station 6.00 p.m. today. M.S.,' he read, sotto voce. His face took on its fun-and-nonsense look.

 

'Who's M.S.?' he asked, looking shrewdly at Joe.

 

'You know as well as I do,' said Joe, non-committal.

 

'M.S.,' repeated Albert. 'Blamed if I know, boy. Is it a woman?'

 

The conversation was carried on in tiny voices, for fear of disturbing the householders.

 

'I don't know,' said Joe, turning. He looked full at Albert, the two men looked straight into each other's eyes. There was a lurking grin in each of them.

 

'Well, I'm blamed!' said Albert at last, throwing the telegram down emphatically on the bed.

 

'Wha-at?' said Joe, grinning rather sheepishly, his eyes clouded none the less.

 

Albert sat on the bed and proceeded to undress, nodding his head with mock gravity all the while. Joe watched him foolishly.

 

'What?' he repeated faintly.

 

Albert looked up at him with a knowing look.

 

'If that isn't coming it quick, boy!' he said. 'What the blazes! What ha' you bin doing?'

 

'Nothing!' said Joe.

 

Albert slowly shook his head as he sat on the side of the bed.

 

'Don't happen to me when I've bin doin' nothing,' he said. And he proceeded to pull off his stockings.

 

Joe turned away, looking at himself in the mirror as he unbuttoned his tunic.

 

'You didn't want to keep the appointment?' Albert asked, in a changed voice, from the bedside.

 

Joe did not answer for a moment. Then he said:

 

'I made no appointment.'

 

'I'm not saying you did, boy. Don't be nasty about it. I mean you didn't want to answer the unknown person's summons, shall I put it that way?'

 

'No,' said Joe.

 

'What was the deterring motive?' asked Albert, who was now lying on his back in bed.

 

'Oh,' said Joe, suddenly looking round rather haughtily. 'I didn't want to.' He had a well-balanced head, and could take on a sudden distant bearing.

 

'Didn't want to, didn't cotton on, like. Well, they be artful, the women,' he mimicked his landlord. 'Come on into bed, boy. Don't loiter about as if you'd lost something.'

 

Albert turned over, to sleep.

 

On Monday Miss Stokes turned up as usual, striding beside her team. Her 'whoa!' was resonant and challenging, she looked up at the truck as her steeds came to a standstill. Joe had turned aside, and had his face averted from her. She glanced him over, save for his slender succulent tenderness she would have despised him. She sized him up in a steady look. Then she turned to Albert, who was looking down at her and smiling in his mischievous turn. She knew his aspects by now. She looked straight back at him, though her eyes were hot. He saluted her.

 

'Beautiful morning, Miss Stokes.'

 

'Very!' she replied.

 

'Handsome is as handsome looks,' said Albert.

 

Which produced no response.

 

'Now, Joe, come on here,' said the corporal. 'Don't keep the ladies waiting, it's the sign of a weak heart.'

 

Joe turned, and the work began. Nothing more was said for the time being. As the week went on all parties became more comfortable. Joe remained silent, averted, neutral, a little on his dignity. Miss Stokes was off-hand and masterful. Albert was full of mischief.

 

The great theme was a circus, which was coming to the market town on the following Saturday.

 

'You'll go to the circus, Miss Stokes?' said Albert.

 

'I may go. Are you going?'

 

'Certainly. Give us the pleasure of escorting you.'

 

'No, thanks.'

 

'That's what I call a flat refusal, what, Joe? You don't mean that you have no liking for our company, Miss Stokes?'

 

'Oh, I don't know,' said Miss Stokes. 'How many are there of you?'

 

'Only me and Joe.'

 

'Oh, is that all?' she said, satirically.

 

Albert was a little nonplussed.

 

'Isn't that enough for you?' he asked.

 

'Too many by half,' blurted out Joe, jeeringly, in a sudden fit of uncouth rudeness that made both the others stare.

 

'Oh, I'll stand out of the way, boy, if that's it,' said Albert to Joe. Then he turned mischievously to Miss Stokes. 'He wants to know what M. stands for,' he said, confidentially.

 

'Monkeys,' she replied, turning to her horses.

 

'What's M.S.?' said Albert.

 

'Monkey nuts,' she retorted, leading off her team.

 

Albert looked after her a little discomfited. Joe had flushed dark, and cursed Albert in his heart.

 

On the Saturday afternoon the two soldiers took the train into town. They would have to walk home. They had tea at six o'clock, and lounged about till half past seven. The circus was in a meadow near the river, a great red-and-white striped tent. Caravans stood at the side. A great crowd of people was gathered round the ticket-caravan.

 

Inside the tent the lamps were lighted, shining on a ring of faces, a great circular bank of faces round the green grassy centre. Along with some comrades, the two soldiers packed themselves on a thin plank seat, rather high. They were delighted with the flaring lights, the wild effect. But the circus performance did not affect them deeply. They admired the lady in black velvet with rose-purple legs who leapt so neatly on to the galloping horse; they watched the feats of strength and laughed at the clown. But they felt a little patronizing, they missed the sensational drama of the cinema.

 

Half-way through the performance Joe was electrified to see the face of Miss Stokes not very far from him. There she was, in her khaki and her felt hat, as usual; he pretended not to see her. She was laughing at the clown; she also pretended not to see him. It was a blow to him, and it made him angry. He would not even mention it to Albert. Least said, soonest mended. He liked to believe she had not seen him. But he knew, fatally, that she had.

 

When they came out it was nearly eleven o'clock; a lovely night, with a moon and tall, dark, noble trees: a magnificent May night. Joe and Albert laughed and chaffed with the boys. Joe looked round frequently to see if he were safe from Miss Stokes. It seemed so.

 

But there were six miles to walk home. At last the two soldiers set off, swinging their canes. The road was white between tall hedges, other stragglers were passing out of the town towards the villages; the air was full of pleased excitement.

 

They were drawing near to the village when they saw a dark figure ahead. Joe's heart sank with pure fear. It was a figure wheeling a bicycle; a land girl; Miss Stokes. Albert was ready with his nonsense. Miss Stokes had a puncture.

 

'Let me wheel the rattler,' said Albert.

 

'Thank you,' said Miss Stokes. 'You are kind.'

 

'Oh, I'd be kinder than that, if you'd show me how,' said Albert.

 

'Are you sure?' said Miss Stokes.

 

'Doubt my words?' said Albert. 'That's cruel of you, Miss Stokes.'

 

Miss Stokes walked between them, close to Joe.

 

'Have you been to the circus?' she asked him.

 

'Yes,' he replied, mildly.

 

'Have you been?' Albert asked her.

 

'Yes. I didn't see you,' she replied.

 

'What! you say so! Didn't see us! Didn't think us worth looking at,' began Albert. 'Aren't I as handsome as the clown, now? And you didn't as much as glance in our direction? I call it a downright oversight.'

 

'I never saw you,' reiterated Miss Stokes. 'I didn't know you saw me.'

 

'That makes it worse,' said Albert.

 

The road passed through a belt of dark pine-wood. The village, and the branch road, was very near. Miss Stokes put out her fingers and felt for Joe's hand as it swung at his side. To say he was staggered is to put it mildly. Yet he allowed her softly to clasp his fingers for a few moments. But he was a mortified youth.

 

At the cross-road they stopped, Miss Stokes should turn off. She had another mile to go.

 

'You'll let us see you home,' said Albert.

 

'Do me a kindness,' she said. 'Put my bike in your shed, and take it to Baker's on Monday, will you?'

 

'I'll sit up all night and mend it for you, if you like.'

 

'No thanks. And Joe and I'll walk on.'

 

'Oh, ho! Oh, ho!' sang Albert. 'Joe! Joe! What do you say to that, now, boy? Aren't you in luck's way. And I get the bloomin' old bike for my pal. Consider it again, Miss Stokes.'

 

Joe turned aside his face, and did not speak.

 

'Oh, well! I wheel the grid, do I? I leave you, boy.'

 

'I'm not keen on going any further,' barked out Joe, in an uncouth voice. 'She hain't my choice.'

 

The girl stood silent, and watched the two men.

 

'There now!' said Albert. 'Think o' that! If it was me now.' But he was uncomfortable. 'Well, Miss Stokes, have me,' he added.

 

Miss Stokes stood quite still, neither moved nor spoke. And so the three remained for some time at the lane end. At last Joe began kicking the ground, then he suddenly lifted his face. At that moment Miss Stokes was at his side. She put her arm delicately round his waist.

 

'Seems I'm the one extra, don't you think?' Albert inquired of the high bland moon.

 

Joe had dropped his head and did not answer. Miss Stokes stood with her arm lightly round his waist. Albert bowed, saluted, and bade good-night. He walked away, leaving the two standing.

 

Miss Stokes put a light pressure on Joe's waist, and drew him down the road. They walked in silence. The night was full of scent, wild cherry, the first bluebells. Still they walked in silence. A nightingale was singing. They approached nearer and nearer, till they stood close by his dark bush. The powerful notes sounded from the cover, almost like flashes of light, then the interval of silence, then the moaning notes, almost like a dog faintly howling, followed by the long, rich trill, and flashing notes. Then a short silence again.

 

Miss Stokes turned at last to Joe. She looked up at him, and in the moonlight he saw her faintly smiling. He felt maddened, but helpless. Her arm was round his waist, she drew him closely to her with a soft pressure that made all his bones rotten.

 

Meanwhile Albert was waiting at home. He put on his overcoat, for the fire was out, and he had had malarial fever. He looked fitfully at the Daily Mirror and the Daily Sketch, but he saw nothing. It seemed a long time. He began to yawn widely, even to nod. At last Joe came in.

 

Albert looked at him keenly. The young man's brow was black, his face sullen.

 

'All right, boy?' asked Albert.

 

Joe merely grunted for a reply. There was nothing more to be got out of him. So they went to bed.

 

Next day Joe was silent, sullen. Albert could make nothing of him. He proposed a walk after tea.

 

'I'm going somewhere,' said Joe.

 

'Where, Monkey nuts?' asked the corporal. But Joe's brow only became darker.

 

So the days went by. Almost every evening Joe went off alone, returning late. He was sullen, taciturn and had a hang-dog look, a curious way of dropping his head and looking dangerously from under his brows. And he and Albert did not get on so well any more with one another. For all his fun and nonsense, Albert was really irritable, soon made angry. And Joe's stand-offish sulkiness and complete lack of confidence riled him, got on his nerves. His fun and nonsense took a biting, sarcastic turn, at which Joe's eyes glittered occasionally, though the young man turned unheeding aside. Then again Joe would be full of odd, whimsical fun, outshining Albert himself.

 

Miss Stokes still came to the station with the wain: Monkey-nuts, Albert called her, though not to her face. For she was very clear and good-looking, almost she seemed to gleam. And Albert was a tiny bit afraid of her. She very rarely addressed Joe whilst the hay-loading was going on, and that young man always turned his back to her. He seemed thinner, and his limber figure looked more slouching. But still it had the tender, attractive appearance, especially from behind. His tanned face, a little thinned and darkened, took a handsome, slightly sinister look.

 

'Come on, Joe!' the corporal urged sharply one day. 'What're you doing, boy? Looking for beetles on the bank?'

 

Joe turned round swiftly, almost menacing, to work.

 

'He's a different fellow these days, Miss Stokes,' said Albert to the young woman. 'What's got him? Is it Monkey nuts that don't suit him, do you think?'

 

'Choked with chaff, more like,' she retorted. 'It's as bad as feeding a threshing machine, to have to listen to some folks.'

 

'As bad as what?' said Albert. 'You don't mean me, do you, Miss Stokes?'

 

'No,' she cried. 'I don't mean you.'

 

Joe's face became dark red during these sallies, but he said nothing. He would eye the young woman curiously, as she swung so easily at the work, and he had some of the look of a dog which is going to bite.

 

Albert, with his nerves on edge, began to find the strain rather severe. The next Saturday evening, when Joe came in more black-browed than ever, he watched him, determined to have it out with him.

 

When the boy went upstairs to bed, the corporal followed him. He closed the door behind him carefully, sat on the bed and watched the younger man undressing. And for once he spoke in a natural voice, neither chaffing nor commanding.

 

'What's gone wrong, boy?'

 

Joe stopped a moment as if he had been shot. Then he went on unwinding his puttees, and did not answer or look up.

 

'You can hear, can't you?' said Albert, nettled.

 

'Yes, I can hear,' said Joe, stooping over his puttees till his face was purple.

 

'Then why don't you answer?'

 

Joe sat up. He gave a long, sideways look at the corporal. Then he lifted his eyes and stared at a crack in the ceiling.

 

The corporal watched these movements shrewdly.

 

'And then what?' he asked, ironically.

 

Again Joe turned and stared him in the face. The corporal smiled very slightly, but kindly.

 

'There'll be murder done one of these days,' said Joe, in a quiet, unimpassioned voice.

 

'So long as it's by daylight,' replied Albert. Then he went over, sat down by Joe, put his hand on his shoulder affectionately, and continued, 'What is it, boy? What's gone wrong? You can trust me, can't you?'

 

Joe turned and looked curiously at the face so near to his.

 

'It's nothing, that's all,' he said laconically.

 

Albert frowned.

 

'Then who's going to be murdered? and who's going to do the murdering? me or you, which is it, boy?' He smiled gently at the stupid youth, looking straight at him all the while, into his eyes. Gradually the stupid, hunted, glowering look died out of Joe's eyes. He turned his head aside, gently, as one rousing from a spell.

 

'I don't want her,' he said, with fierce resentment.

 

'Then you needn't have her,' said Albert. 'What do you go for, boy?'

 

But it wasn't as simple as all that. Joe made no remark.

 

'She's a smart-looking girl. What's wrong with her, my boy? I should have thought you were a lucky chap, myself.'

 

'I don't want 'er,' Joe barked, with ferocity and resentment.

 

'Then tell her so and have done,' said Albert. He waited awhile. There was no response. 'Why don't you?' he added.

 

'Because I don't,' confessed Joe, sulkily.

 

Albert pondered, rubbed his head.

 

'You're too soft-hearted, that's where it is, boy. You want your mettle dipping in cold water, to temper it. You're too soft-hearted -'

 

He laid his arm affectionately across the shoulders of the younger man. Joe seemed to yield a little towards him.

 

'When are you going to see her again?' Albert asked. For a long time there was no answer.

 

'When is it, boy?' persisted the softened voice of the corporal.

 

'Tomorrow,' confessed Joe.

 

'Then let me go,' said Albert. 'Let me go, will you?'

 

The morrow was Sunday, a sunny day, but a cold evening. The sky was grey, the new foliage very green, but the air was chill and depressing. Albert walked briskly down the white road towards Beeley. He crossed a larch plantation, and followed a narrow by-road, where blue speedwell flowers fell from the banks into the dust. He walked swinging his cane, with mixed sensations. Then having gone a certain length, he turned and began to walk in the opposite direction.

 

So he saw a young woman approaching him. She was wearing a wide hat of grey straw, and a loose, swinging dress of nigger-grey velvet. She walked with slow inevitability. Albert faltered a little as he approached her. Then he saluted her, and his roguish, slightly withered skin flushed. She was staring straight into his face.

 

He fell in by her side, saying impudently:

 

'Not so nice for a walk as it was, is it?'

 

She only stared at him. He looked back at her.

 

'You've seen me before, you know,' he said, grinning slightly. 'Perhaps you never noticed me. Oh, I'm quite nice looking, in a quiet way, you know. What?'

 

But Miss Stokes did not speak: she only stared with large, icy blue eyes at him. He became self-conscious, lifted up his chin, walked with his nose in the air, and whistled at random. So they went down the quiet, deserted grey lane. He was whistling the air: 'I'm Gilbert, the filbert, the colonel of the nuts.'

 

At last she found her voice:

 

'Where's Joe?'

 

'He thought you'd like a change: they say variety's the salt of life, that's why I'm mostly in pickle.'

 

'Where is he?'

 

'Am I my brother's keeper? He's gone his own ways.'

 

'Where?'

 

'Nay, how am I to know? Not so far but he'll be back for supper.'

 

She stopped in the middle of the lane. He stopped facing her.

 

'Where's Joe?' she asked.

 

He struck a careless attitude, looked down the road this way and that, lifted his eyebrows, pushed his khaki cap on one side, and answered:

 

'He is not conducting the service tonight: he asked me if I'd officiate.'

 

'Why hasn't he come?'

 

'Didn't want to, I expect. I wanted to.'

 

She stared him up and down, and he felt uncomfortable in his spine, but maintained his air of nonchalance. Then she turned slowly on her heel, and started to walk back. The corporal went at her side.

 

'You're not going back, are you?' he pleaded. 'Why, me and you, we should get on like a house on fire.'

 

She took no heed, but walked on. He went uncomfortably at her side, making his funny remarks from time to time. But she was as if stone deaf. He glanced at her, and to his dismay saw the tears running down her cheeks. He stopped suddenly, and pushed back his cap.

 

'I say, you know -' he began.

 

But she was walking on like an automaton, and he had to hurry after her.

 

She never spoke to him. At the gate of her farm she walked straight in, as if he were not there. He watched her disappear. Then he turned on his heel, cursing silently, puzzled, lifting off his cap to scratch his head.

 

That night, when they were in bed, he remarked: 'Say, Joe, boy; strikes me you're well-off without Monkey nuts. Gord love us, beans ain't in it.'

 

So they slept in amity. But they waited with some anxiety for the morrow.

 

It was a cold morning, a grey sky shifting in a cold wind, and threatening rain. They watched the wagon come up the road and through the yard gates. Miss Stokes was with her team as usual; her 'Whoa!' rang out like a war-whoop.

 

She faced up at the truck where the two men stood.

 

'Joe!' she called, to the averted figure which stood up in the wind.

 

'What?' he turned unwillingly.

 

She made a queer movement, lifting her head slightly in a sipping, half-inviting, half-commanding gesture. And Joe was crouching already to jump off the truck to obey her, when Albert put his hand on his shoulder.

 

'Half a minute, boy! Where are you off? Work's work, and nuts is nuts. You stop here.'

 

Joe slowly straightened himself.

 

'Joe!' came the woman's clear call from below.

 

Again Joe looked at her. But Albert's hand was on his shoulder, detaining him. He stood half averted, with his tail between his legs.

 

'Take your hand off him, you!' said Miss Stokes.

 

'Yes, Major,' retorted Albert satirically.

 

She stood and watched.

 

'Joe!' Her voice rang for the third time.

 

Joe turned and looked at her, and a slow, jeering smile gathered on his face.

 

'Monkey nuts!' he replied, in a tone mocking her call.

 

She turned white, dead white. The men thought she would fall. Albert began yelling to the porters up the line to come and help with the load. He could yell like any non-commissioned officer upon occasion.

 

Some way or other the wagon was unloaded, the girl was gone. Joe and his corporal looked at one another and smiled slowly. But they had a weight on their minds, they were afraid.

 

They were reassured, however, when they found that Miss Stokes came no more with the hay. As far as they were concerned, she had vanished into oblivion. And Joe felt more relieved even than he had felt when he heard the firing cease, after the news had come that the armistice was signed.

 

 

 

WINTRY PEACOCK

 

There was thin, crisp snow on the ground, the sky was blue, the wind very cold, the air clear. Farmers were just turning out the cows for an hour or so in the midday, and the smell of cow-sheds was unendurable as I entered Tible. I noticed the ash-twigs up in the sky were pale and luminous, passing into the blue. And then I saw the peacocks. There they were in the road before me, three of them, and tailless, brown, speckled birds, with dark-blue necks and ragged crests. They stepped archly over the filigree snow, and their bodies moved with slow motion, like small, light, flat-bottomed boats. I admired them, they were curious. Then a gust of wind caught them, heeled them over as if they were three frail boats opening their feathers like ragged sails. They hopped and skipped with discomfort, to get out of the draught of the wind. And then, in the lee of the walls, they resumed their arch, wintry motion, light and unballasted now their tails were gone, indifferent. They were indifferent to my presence. I might have touched them. They turned off to the shelter of an open shed.

 

As I passed the end of the upper house, I saw a young woman just coming out of the back door. I had spoken to her in the summer. She recognized me at once, and waved to me. She was carrying a pail, wearing a white apron that was longer than her preposterously short skirt, and she had on the cotton bonnet. I took off my hat to her and was going on. But she put down her pail and darted with a swift, furtive movement after me.

 

'Do you mind waiting a minute?' she said. 'I'll be out in a minute.'

 

She gave me a slight, odd smile, and ran back. Her face was long and sallow and her nose rather red. But her gloomy black eyes softened caressively to me for a moment, with that momentary humility which makes a man lord of the earth.

 

I stood in the road, looking at the fluffy, dark-red young cattle that mooed and seemed to bark at me. They seemed happy, frisky cattle, a little impudent, and either determined to go back into the warm shed, or determined not to go back, I could not decide which.

 

Presently the woman came forward again, her head rather ducked. But she looked up at me and smiled, with that odd, immediate intimacy, something witch-like and impossible.

 

'Sorry to keep you waiting,' she said. 'Shall we stand in this cart-shed, it will be more out of the wind.'

 

So we stood among the shafts of the open cart-shed that faced the road. Then she looked down at the ground, a little sideways, and I noticed a small black frown on her brows. She seemed to brood for a moment. Then she looked straight into my eyes, so that I blinked and wanted to turn my face aside. She was searching me for something and her look was too near. The frown was still on her keen, sallow brow.

 

'Can you speak French?' she asked me abruptly.

 

'More or less,' I replied.

 

'I was supposed to learn it at school,' she said. 'But I don't know a word.' She ducked her head and laughed, with a slightly ugly grimace and a rolling of her black eyes.

 

'No good keeping your mind full of scraps,' I answered.

 

But she had turned aside her sallow, long face, and did not hear what I said. Suddenly again she looked at me. She was searching. And at the same time she smiled at me, and her eyes looked softly, darkly, with infinite trustful humility into mine. I was being cajoled.

 

'Would you mind reading a letter for me, in French,' she said, her face immediately black and bitter-looking. She glanced at me, frowning.

 

'Not at all,' I said.

 

'It's a letter to my husband,' she said, still scrutinizing.

 

I looked at her, and didn't quite realize. She looked too far into me, my wits were gone. She glanced round. Then she looked at me shrewdly. She drew a letter from her pocket, and handed it to me. It was addressed from France to Lance-Corporal Goyte, at Tible. I took out the letter and began to read it, as mere words. 'Mon cher Alfred', it might have been a bit of a torn newspaper. So I followed the script: the trite phrases of a letter from a French-speaking girl to an English soldier. 'I think of you always, always. Do you think sometimes of me?' And then I vaguely realized that I was reading a man's private correspondence. And yet, how could one consider these trivial, facile French phrases private! Nothing more trite and vulgar in the world, than such a love-letter, no newspaper more obvious.

 

Therefore I read with a callous heart the effusions of the Belgian damsel. But then I gathered my attention. For the letter went on, 'Notre cher petit bébé, our dear little baby was born a week ago. Almost I died, knowing you were far away, and perhaps forgetting the fruit of our perfect love. But the child comforted me. He has the smiling eyes and virile air of his English father. I pray to the Mother of Jesus to send me the dear father of my child, that I may see him with my child in his arms, and that we may be united in holy family love. Ah, my Alfred, can I tell you how I miss you, how I weep for you. My thoughts are with you always, I think of nothing but you, I live for nothing but you and our dear baby. If you do not come back to me soon, I shall die, and our child will die. But no, you cannot come back to me. But I can come to you, come to England with our child. If you do not wish to present me to your good mother and father, you can meet me in some town, some city, for I shall be so frightened to be alone in England with my child, and no one to take care of us. Yet I must come to you, I must bring my child, my little Alfred to his father, the big, beautiful Alfred that I love so much. Oh, write and tell me where I shall come. I have some money, I am not a penniless creature. I have money for myself and my dear baby -'

 

I read to the end. It was signed: 'Your very happy and still more unhappy Élise.' I suppose I must have been smiling.

 

'I can see it makes you laugh,' said Mrs. Goyte, sardonically. I looked up at her.

 

'It's a love-letter, I know that,' she said. 'There's too many "Alfreds" in it.'

 

'One too many,' I said.

 

'Oh, yes. And what does she say, Eliza? We know her name's Eliza, that's another thing.' She grimaced a little, looking up at me with a mocking laugh.

 

'Where did you get this letter?' I said.

 

'Postman gave it me last week.'

 

'And is your husband at home?'

 

'I expect him home tonight. He's been wounded, you know, and we've been applying for him home. He was home about six weeks ago, he's been in Scotland since then. Oh, he was wounded in the leg. Yes, he's all right, a great strapping fellow. But he's lame, he limps a bit. He expects he'll get his discharge, but I don't think he will. We married? We've been married six years, and he joined up the first day of the war. Oh, he thought he'd like the life. He'd been through the South African War. No, he was sick of it, fed up. I'm living with his father and mother, I've no home of my own now. My people had a big farm, over a thousand acres, in Oxfordshire. Not like here, no. Oh, they're very good to me, his father and mother. Oh, yes, they couldn't be better. They think more of me than of their own daughters. But it's not like being in a place of your own, is it? You can't really do as you like. No, there's only me and his father and mother at home. Before the war? Oh, he was anything. He's had a good education, but he liked the farming better. Then he was a chauffeur. That's how he knew French. He was driving a gentleman in France for a long time.'

 

At this point the peacocks came round the corner on a puff of wind.

 

'Hello, Joey!' she called, and one of the birds came forward, on delicate legs. Its grey speckled back was very elegant, it rolled its full, dark-blue neck as it moved to her. She crouched down. 'Joey, dear,' she said, in an odd, saturnine caressive voice, 'you're bound to find me, aren't you?' She put her face forward, and the bird rolled his neck, almost touching her face with his beak, as if kissing her.

 

'He loves you,' I said.

 

She twisted her face up at me with a laugh.

 

'Yes,' she said, 'he loves me, Joey does,' then, to the bird, 'and I love Joey, don't I. I do love Joey.' And she smoothed his feathers for a moment. Then she rose, saying: 'He's an affectionate bird.'

 

I smiled at the roll of her 'bir-rrd'.

 

'Oh, yes, he is,' she protested. 'He came with me from my home seven years ago. Those others are his descendants, but they're not like Joey, are they, dee-urr?' Her voice rose at the end with a witch-like cry.

 

Then she forgot the birds in the cart-shed and turned to business again.

 

'Won't you read that letter?' she said. 'Read it, so that I know what it says.'

 

'It's rather behind his back,' I said.

 

'Oh, never mind him,' she cried. 'He's been behind my back long enough, all these four years. If he never did no worse things behind my back than I do behind his, he wouldn't have cause to grumble. You read me what it says.'

 

Now I felt a distinct reluctance to do as she bid, and yet I began, 'My dear Alfred.'

 

'I guessed that much,' she said. 'Eliza's dear Alfred.' She laughed. 'How do you say it in French? Eliza?'

 

I told her, and she repeated the name with great contempt, Élise.

 

'Go on,' she said. 'You're not reading.'

 

So I began, 'I have been thinking of you sometimes, have you been thinking of me?'

 

'Of several others as well, beside her, I'll wager,' said Mrs. Goyte.

 

'Probably not,' said I, and continued. 'A dear little baby was born here a week ago. Ah, can I tell you my feelings when I take my darling little brother into my arms.'

 

'I'll bet it's his,' cried Mrs. Goyte.

 

'No,' I said. 'It's her mother's.'

 

'Don't you believe it,' she cried. 'It's a blind. You mark, it's her own right enough, and his.'

 

'No,' I said, 'it's her mother's.' 'He has sweet smiling eyes, but not like your beautiful English eyes.'

 

She suddenly struck her hand on her skirt with a wild motion, and bent down, doubled with laughter. Then she rose and covered her face with her hand.

 

'I'm forced to laugh at the beautiful English eyes,' she said.

 

'Aren't his eyes beautiful?' I asked.

 

'Oh, yes, very! Go on! Joey, dear, dee-urr, Joey!' this to the peacock.

 

'Er, We miss you very much. We all miss you. We wish you were here to see the darling baby. Ah, Alfred, how happy we were when you stayed with us. We all loved you so much. My mother will call the baby Alfred so that we shall never forget you.'

 

'Of course it's his right enough,' cried Mrs. Goyte.

 

'No,' I said. 'It's the mother's.' Er, 'My mother is very well. My father came home yesterday, on leave. He is delighted with his son, my little brother, and wishes to have him named after you, because you were so good to us all in that terrible time, which I shall never forget. I must weep now when I think of it. Well, you are far away in England, and perhaps I shall never see you again. How did you find your dear mother and father? I am so happy that your wound is better, and that you can nearly walk.'

 

'How did he find his dear wife!' cried Mrs. Goyte. 'He never told her he had one. Think of taking the poor girl in like that!'

 

'We are so pleased when you write to us. Yet now you are in England you will forget the family you served so well.'

 

'A bit too well, eh, Joey!' cried the wife.

 

'If it had not been for you we should not be alive now, to grieve and to rejoice in this life, that is so hard for us. But we have recovered some of our losses, and no longer feel the burden of poverty. The little Alfred is a great comfort to me. I hold him to my breast and think of the big, good Alfred, and I weep to think that those times of suffering were perhaps the times of a great happiness that is gone for ever.'

 

'Oh, but isn't it a shame, to take a poor girl in like that!' cried Mrs. Goyte. 'Never to let on that he was married, and raise her hopes, I call it beastly, I do.'

 

'You don't know,' I said. 'You know how anxious women are to fall in love, wife or no wife. How could he help it, if she was determined to fall in love with him?'

 

'He could have helped it if he'd wanted.'

 

'Well,' I said, 'we aren't all heroes.'

 

'Oh, but that's different! The big, good Alfred! did ever you hear such tommy-rot in your life! Go on, what does she say at the end?'

 

'Er. We shall be pleased to hear of your life in England. We all send many kind regards to your good parents. I wish you all happiness for your future days. Your very affectionate and ever-grateful Élise.'

 

There was silence for a moment, during which Mrs. Goyte remained with her head dropped, sinister and abstracted. Suddenly she lifted her face, and her eyes flashed.

 

'Oh, but I call it beastly, I call it mean, to take a girl in like that.'

 

'Nay,' I said. 'Probably he hasn't taken her in at all. Do you think those French girls are such poor innocent things? I guess she's a great deal more downy than he.'

 

'Oh, he's one of the biggest fools that ever walked,' she cried.

 

'There you are!' said I.

 

'But it's his child right enough,' she said.

 

'I don't think so,' said I.

 

'I'm sure of it.'

 

'Oh, well,' I said, 'if you prefer to think that way.'

 

'What other reason has she for writing like that.'

 

I went out into the road and looked at the cattle.

 

'Who is this driving the cows?' I said. She too came out.

 

'It's the boy from the next farm,' she said.

 

'Oh, well,' said I, 'those Belgian girls! You never know where their letters will end. And, after all, it's his affair, you needn't bother.'

 

'Oh!' she cried, with rough scorn, 'it's not me that bothers. But it's the nasty meanness of it, me writing him such loving letters', she put her hand before her face and laughed malevolently, 'and sending him parcels all the time. You bet he fed that gurrl on my parcels, I know he did. It's just like him. I'll bet they laughed together over my letters. I bet anything they did.'

 

'Nay,' said I. 'He'd burn your letters for fear they'd give him away.'

 

There was a black look on her yellow face. Suddenly a voice was heard calling. She poked her head out of the shed, and answered coolly:

 

'All right!' Then turning to me: 'That's his mother looking after me.'

 

She laughed into my face, witch-like, and we turned down the road.

 

When I awoke, the morning after this episode, I found the house darkened with deep, soft snow, which had blown against the large west windows, covering them with a screen. I went outside, and saw the valley all white and ghastly below me, the trees beneath black and thin looking like wire, the rock-faces dark between the glistening shroud, and the sky above sombre, heavy, yellowish-dark, much too heavy for this world below of hollow bluey whiteness figured with black. I felt I was in a valley of the dead. And I sensed I was a prisoner, for the snow was everywhere deep, and drifted in places. So all the morning I remained indoors, looking up the drive at the shrubs so heavily plumed with snow, at the gateposts raised high with a foot or more of extra whiteness. Or I looked down into the white-and-black valley that was utterly motionless and beyond life, a hollow sarcophagus.

 

Nothing stirred the whole day, no plume fell off the shrubs, the valley was as abstracted as a grove of death. I looked over at the tiny, half-buried farms away on the bare uplands beyond the valley hollow, and I thought of Tible in the snow, of the black witch-like little Mrs. Goyte. And the snow seemed to lay me bare to influences I wanted to escape.

 

In the faint glow of the half-clear light that came about four o'clock in the afternoon, I was roused to see a motion in the snow away below, near where the thorn trees stood very black and dwarfed, like a little savage group, in the dismal white. I watched closely. Yes, there was a flapping and a struggle, a big bird, it must be, labouring in the snow. I wondered. Our biggest birds, in the valley, were the large hawks that often hung flickering opposite my windows, level with me, but high above some prey on the steep valleyside. This was much too big for a hawk, too big for any known bird. I searched in my mind for the largest English wild birds, geese, buzzards.

 

Still it laboured and strove, then was still, a dark spot, then struggled again. I went out of the house and down the steep slope, at risk of breaking my leg between the rocks. I knew the ground so well, and yet I got well shaken before I drew near the thorn-trees.

 

Yes, it was a bird. It was Joey. It was the grey-brown peacock with a blue neck. He was snow-wet and spent.

 

'Joey, Joey, de-urr!' I said, staggering unevenly towards him. He looked so pathetic, rowing and struggling in the snow, too spent to rise, his blue neck stretching out and lying sometimes on the snow, his eye closing and opening quickly, his crest all battered.

 

'Joey dee-uur! Dee-urr!' I said caressingly to him. And at last he lay still, blinking, in the surged and furrowed snow, whilst I came near and touched him, stroked him, gathered him under my arm. He stretched his long, wetted neck away from me as I held him, none the less he was quiet in my arm, too tired, perhaps, to struggle. Still he held his poor, crested head away from me, and seemed sometimes to droop, to wilt, as if he might suddenly die.

 

He was not so heavy as I expected, yet it was a struggle to get up to the house with him again. We set him down, not too near the fire, and gently wiped him with cloths. He submitted, only now and then stretched his soft neck away from us, avoiding us helplessly. Then we set warm food by him. I put it to his beak, tried to make him eat. But he ignored it. He seemed to be ignorant of what we were doing, recoiled inside himself inexplicably. So we put him in a basket with cloths, and left him crouching oblivious. His food we put near him. The blinds were drawn, the house was warm, it was night. Sometimes he stirred, but mostly he huddled still, leaning his queer crested head on one side. He touched no food, and took no heed of sounds or movements. We talked of brandy or stimulants. But I realized we had best leave him alone.

 

In the night, however, we heard him thumping about. I got up anxiously with a candle. He had eaten some food, and scattered more, making a mess. And he was perched on the back of a heavy arm-chair. So I concluded he was recovered, or recovering.

 

The next day was clear, and the snow had frozen, so I decided to carry him back to Tible. He consented, after various flappings, to sit in a big fish-bag with his battered head peeping out with wild uneasiness. And so I set off with him, slithering down into the valley, making good progress down in the pale shadow beside the rushing waters, then climbing painfully up the arrested white valleyside, plumed with clusters of young pine trees, into the paler white radiance of the snowy, upper regions, where the wind cut fine. Joey seemed to watch all the time with wide anxious, unseeing eye, brilliant and inscrutable. As I drew near to Tible township he stirred violently in the bag, though I do not know if he had recognized the place. Then, as I came to the sheds, he looked sharply from side to side, and stretched his neck out long. I was a little afraid of him. He gave a loud, vehement yell, opening his sinister beak, and I stood still, looking at him as he struggled in the bag, shaken myself by his struggles, yet not thinking to release him.

 

Mrs. Goyte came darting past the end of the house, her head sticking forward in sharp scrutiny. She saw me, and came forward.

 

'Have you got Joey?' she cried sharply, as if I were a thief.

 

I opened the bag, and he flopped out, flapping as if he hated the touch of the snow now. She gathered him up, and put her lips to his beak. She was flushed and handsome, her eyes bright, her hair slack, thick, but more witch-like than ever. She did not speak.

 

She had been followed by a grey-haired woman with a round, rather sallow face and a slightly hostile bearing.

 

'Did you bring him with you, then?' she asked sharply. I answered that I had rescued him the previous evening.

 

From the background slowly approached a slender man with a grey moustache and large patches on his trousers.

 

'You've got'im back 'gain, ah see,' he said to his daughter-in-law. His wife explained how I had found Joey.

 

'Ah,' went on the grey man. 'It wor our Alfred scared him off, back your life. He must'a flyed ower t'valley. Tha ma' thank thy stars as 'e wor fun, Maggie. 'E'd a bin froze. They a bit nesh, you know,' he concluded to me.

 

'They are,' I answered. 'This isn't their country.'

 

'No, it isna,' replied Mr. Goyte. He spoke very slowly and deliberately, quietly, as if the soft pedal were always down in his voice. He looked at his daughter-in-law as she crouched, flushed and dark, before the peacock, which would lay its long blue neck for a moment along her lap. In spite of his grey moustache and thin grey hair, the elderly man had a face young and almost delicate, like a young man's. His blue eyes twinkled with some inscrutable source of pleasure, his skin was fine and tender, his nose delicately arched. His grey hair being slightly ruffled, he had a debonair look, as of a youth who is in love.

 

'We mun tell 'im it's come,' he said slowly, and turning he called: 'Alfred, Alfred! Wheer's ter gotten to?'

 

Then he turned again to the group.

 

'Get up then, Maggie, lass, get up wi' thee. Tha ma'es too much o' th'bod.'

 

A young man approached, wearing rough khaki and kneebreeches. He was Danish looking, broad at the loins.

 

'I's come back then,' said the father to the son; 'leastwise, he's bin browt back, flyed ower the Griff Low.'

 

The son looked at me. He had a devil-may-care bearing, his cap on one side, his hands stuck in the front pockets of his breeches. But he said nothing.

 

'Shall you come in a minute, Master,' said the elderly woman, to me.

 

'Ay, come in an' ha'e a cup o' tea or summat. You'll do wi' summat, carrin' that bod. Come on, Maggie wench, let's go in.'

 

So we went indoors, into the rather stuffy, overcrowded living-room, that was too cosy, and too warm. The son followed last, standing in the doorway. The father talked to me.

 

Maggie put out the tea-cups. The mother went into the dairy again.

 

'Tha'lt rouse thysen up a bit again, now, Maggie,' the father-in-law said, and then to me: ''ers not bin very bright sin' Alfred came whoam, an' the bod flyed awee. 'E come whoam a Wednesday night, Alfred did. But ay, you knowed, didna yer. Ay, 'e comed 'a Wednesday, an' I reckon there wor a bit of a to-do between 'em, worn't there, Maggie?'

 

He twinkled maliciously to his daughter-in-law, who was flushed, brilliant and handsome.

 

'Oh, be quiet, father. You're wound up, by the sound of you,' she said to him, as if crossly. But she could never be cross with him.

 

''Ers got 'er colour back this mornin',' continued the father-in-law slowly. 'It's bin heavy weather wi' 'er this last two days. Ay, 'er's bin northeast sin 'er seed you a Wednesday.'

 

'Father, do stop talking. You'd wear the leg off an iron pot. I can't think where you've found your tongue, all of a sudden,' said Maggie, with caressive sharpness.

 

'Ah've found it wheer I lost it. Aren't goin' ter come in an' sit thee down, Alfred?'

 

But Alfred turned and disappeared.

 

''E's got th' monkey on 'is back ower this letter job,' said the father secretly to me. 'Mother, 'er knows nowt about it. Lot o' tom-foolery, isn't it? Ay! What's good o' makkin' a peck o' trouble over what's far enough off, an' ned niver come no nigher. No, not a smite o' use. That's what I tell 'er. 'Er should ta'e no notice on't. Ty, what can y' expect.'

 

The mother came in again, and the talk became general. Maggie flashed her eyes at me from time to time, complacent and satisfied, moving among the men. I paid her little compliments, which she did not seem to hear. She attended to me with a kind of sinister, witch-like graciousness, her dark head ducked between her shoulders, at once humble and powerful. She was happy as a child attending to her father-in-law and to me. But there was something ominous between her eyebrows, as if a dark moth were settled there, and something ominous in her bent, hulking bearing.

 

She sat on a low stool by the fire, near her father-in-law. Her head was dropped, she seemed in a state of abstraction. From time to time she would suddenly recover, and look up at us, laughing and chatting. Then she would forget again. Yet in her hulked black forgetting she seemed very near to us.

 

The door having been opened, the peacock came slowly in, prancing calmly. He went near to her and crouched down, coiling his blue neck. She glanced at him, but almost as if she did not observe him. The bird sat silent, seeming to sleep, and the woman also sat hulked and silent, seemingly oblivious. Then once more there was a heavy step, and Alfred entered. He looked at his wife, and he looked at the peacock crouching by her. He stood large in the doorway, his hands stuck in front of him, in his breeches pockets. Nobody spoke. He turned on his heel and went out again.

 

I rose also to go. Maggie started as if coming to herself.

 

'Must you go?' she asked, rising and coming near to me, standing in front of me, twisting her head sideways and looking up at me. 'Can't you stop a bit longer? We can all be cosy today, there's nothing to do outdoors.' And she laughed, showing her teeth oddly. She had a long chin.

 

I said I must go. The peacock uncoiled and coiled again his long blue neck, as he lay on the hearth. Maggie still stood close in front of me, so that I was acutely aware of my waistcoat buttons.

 

'Oh, well,' she said, 'you'll come again, won't you? Do come again.'

 

I promised.

 

'Come to tea one day, yes, do!'

 

I promised, one day.

 

The moment I went out of her presence I ceased utterly to exist for her, as utterly as I ceased to exist for Joey. With her curious abstractedness she forgot me again immediately. I knew it as I left her. Yet she seemed almost in physical contact with me while I was with her.

 

The sky was all pallid again, yellowish. When I went out there was no sun; the snow was blue and cold. I hurried away down the hill, musing on Maggie. The road made a loop down the sharp face of the slope. As I went crunching over the laborious snow I became aware of a figure striding down the steep scarp to intercept me. It was a man with his hands in front of him, half stuck in his breeches pockets, and his shoulders square, a real farmer of the hills; Alfred, of course. He waited for me by the stone fence.

 

'Excuse me,' he said as I came up.

 

I came to a halt in front of him and looked into his sullen blue eyes. He had a certain odd haughtiness on his brows. But his blue eyes stared insolently at me.

 

'Do you know anything about a letter, in French, that my wife opened, a letter of mine?'

 

'Yes,' said I. 'She asked me to read it to her.'

 

He looked square at me. He did not know exactly how to feel.

 

'What was there in it?' he asked.

 

'Why?' I said. 'Don't you know?'

 

'She makes out she's burnt it,' he said.

 

'Without showing it you?' I asked.

 

He nodded slightly. He seemed to be meditating as to what line of action he should take. He wanted to know the contents of the letter: he must know: and therefore he must ask me, for evidently his wife had taunted him. At the same time, no doubt, he would like to wreak untold vengeance on my unfortunate person. So he eyed me, and I eyed him, and neither of us spoke. He did not want to repeat his request to me. And yet I only looked at him, and considered.

 

Suddenly he threw back his head and glanced down the valley. Then he changed his position, he was a horse-soldier. Then he looked at me confidentially.

 

'She burnt the blasted thing before I saw it,' he said.

 

'Well,' I answered slowly, 'she doesn't know herself what was in it.'

 

He continued to watch me narrowly. I grinned to myself.

 

'I didn't like to read her out what there was in it,' I continued.

 

He suddenly flushed so that the veins in his neck stood out, and he stirred again uncomfortably.

 

'The Belgian girl said her baby had been born a week ago, and that they were going to call it Alfred,' I told him.

 

He met my eyes. I was grinning. He began to grin, too.

 

'Good luck to her,' he said.

 

'Best of luck,' said I.

 

'And what did you tell her?' he asked.

 

'That the baby belonged to the old mother, that it was brother to your girl, who was writing to you as a friend of the family.'

 

He stood smiling, with the long, subtle malice of a farmer.

 

'And did she take it in?' he asked.

 

'As much as she took anything else.'

 

He stood grinning fixedly. Then he broke into a short laugh.

 

'Good for her' he exclaimed cryptically.

 

And then he laughed aloud once more, evidently feeling he had won a big move in his contest with his wife.

 

'What about the other woman?' I asked.

 

'Who?'

 

'Élise.'

 

'Oh', he shifted uneasily, 'she was all right.'

 

'You'll be getting back to her,' I said.

 

He looked at me. Then he made a grimace with his mouth.

 

'Not me,' he said. 'Back your life it's a plant.'

 

'You don't think the cher petit bébé is a little Alfred?'

 

'It might be,' he said.

 

'Only might?'

 

'Yes, an' there's lots of mites in a pound of cheese.' He laughed boisterously but uneasily.

 

'What did she say, exactly?' he asked.

 

I began to repeat, as well as I could, the phrases of the letter:

 

'Mon cher Alfred. Figure-toi comme je suis desolée -'

 

He listened with some confusion. When I had finished all I could remember, he said:

 

'They know how to pitch you out a letter, those Belgian lasses.'

 

'Practice,' said I.

 

'They get plenty,' he said.

 

There was a pause.

 

'Oh, well,' he said. 'I've never got that letter, anyhow.'

 

The wind blew fine and keen, in the sunshine, across the snow. I blew my nose and prepared to depart.

 

'And she doesn't know anything?' he continued, jerking his head up the hill in the direction of Tible.

 

'She knows nothing but what I've said, that is, if she really burnt the letter.'

 

'I believe she burnt it,' he said, 'for spite. She's a little devil, she is. But I shall have it out with her.' His jaw was stubborn and sullen. Then suddenly he turned to me with a new note.

 

'Why?' he said. 'Why didn't you wring that b---- peacock's neck-that b---- Joey?'

 

'Why?' I said. 'What for?'

 

'I hate the brute,' he said. 'I had a shot at him.'

 

I laughed. He stood and mused.

 

'Poor little Elise,' he murmured.

'Was she small, petite?' I asked. He jerked up his head.

'No,' he said. 'Rather tall.'

'Taller than your wife, I suppose.'

Again he looked into my eyes. And then once more he went into a loud burst of laughter that made the still, snow-deserted valley clap again.

'God, it's a knockout!' he said, thoroughly amused. Then he stood at ease, one foot out, his hands in his breeches pockets, in front of him, his head thrown back, a handsome figure of a man.

'But I'll do that blasted Joey in, ' he mused.

I ran down the hill, shouting with laughter.

 

SAMSON AND DELILAH

 

A man got down from the motor-omnibus that runs from Penzance to St Just-in-Penwith, and turned northwards, uphill towards the Polestar. It was only half past six, but already the stars were out, a cold little wind was blowing from the sea, and the crystalline, three-pulse flash of the lighthouse below the cliffs beat rhythmically in the first darkness.

 

The man was alone. He went his way unhesitating, but looked from side to side with cautious curiosity. Tall, ruined power-houses of tin-mines loomed in the darkness from time to time, like remnants of some by-gone civilization. The lights of many miners' cottages scattered on the hilly darkness twinkled desolate in their disorder, yet twinkled with the lonely homeliness of the Celtic night.

 

He tramped steadily on, always watchful with curiosity. He was a tall, well-built man, apparently in the prime of life. His shoulders were square and rather stiff, he leaned forwards a little as he went, from the hips, like a man who must stoop to lower his height. But he did not stoop his shoulders: he bent his straight back from the hips.

 

Now and again short, stump, thick-legged figures of Cornish miners passed him, and he invariably gave them goodnight, as if to insist that he was on his own ground. He spoke with the west-Cornish intonation. And as he went along the dreary road, looking now at the lights of the dwellings on land, now at the lights away to sea, vessels veering round in sight of the Longships Lighthouse, the whole of the Atlantic Ocean in darkness and space between him and America, he seemed a little excited and pleased with himself, watchful, thrilled, veering along in a sense of mastery and of power in conflict.

 

The houses began to close on the road, he was entering the straggling, formless, desolate mining village, that he knew of old. On the left was a little space set back from the road, and cosy lights of an inn. There it was. He peered up at the sign: 'The Tinners' Rest'. But he could not make out the name of the proprietor. He listened. There was excited talking and laughing, a woman's voice laughing shrilly among the men's.

 

Stooping a little, he entered the warmly-lit bar. The lamp was burning, a buxom woman rose from the white-scrubbed deal table where the black and white and red cards were scattered, and several men, miners, lifted their faces from the game.

 

The stranger went to the counter, averting his face. His cap was pulled down over his brow.

 

'Good-evening!' said the landlady, in her rather ingratiating voice.

 

'Good-evening. A glass of ale.'

 

'A glass of ale,' repeated the landlady suavely. 'Cold night, but bright.'

 

'Yes,' the man assented, laconically. Then he added, when nobody expected him to say any more: 'Seasonable weather.'

 

'Quite seasonable, quite,' said the landlady. 'Thank you.'

 

The man lifted his glass straight to his lips, and emptied it. He put it down again on the zinc counter with a click.

 

'Let's have another,' he said.

 

The woman drew the beer, and the man went away with his glass to the second table, near the fire. The woman, after a moment's hesitation, took her seat again at the table with the card-players. She had noticed the man: a big fine fellow, well dressed, a stranger.

 

But he spoke with that Cornish-Yankee accent she accepted as the natural twang among the miners.

 

The stranger put his foot on the fender and looked into the fire. He was handsome, well coloured, with well-drawn Cornish eyebrows, and the usual dark, bright, mindless Cornish eyes. He seemed abstracted in thought. Then he watched the card-party.

 

The woman was buxom and healthy, with dark hair and small, quick brown eyes. She was bursting with life and vigour, the energy she threw into the game of cards excited all the men, they shouted, and laughed, and the woman held her breast, shrieking with laughter.

 

'Oh, my, it'll be the death o' me,' she panted. 'Now, come on, Mr. Trevorrow, play fair. Play fair, I say, or I s'll put the cards down.'

 

'Play fair! Why who's played unfair?' ejaculated Mr. Trevorrow. 'Do you mean t'accuse me, as I haven't played fair, Mrs. Nankervis?'

 

'I do. I say it, and I mean it. Haven't you got the queen of spades? Now, come on, no dodging round me. I know you've got that queen, as well as I know my name's Alice.'

 

'Well, if your name's Alice, you'll have to have it.'

 

'Ay, now, what did I say? Did you ever see such a man? My word, but your missus must be easy took in, by the looks of things.'

 

And off she went into peals of laughter. She was interrupted by the entrance of four men in khaki, a short, stumpy sergeant of middle age, a young corporal, and two young privates. The woman leaned back in her chair.

 

'Oh, my!' she cried. 'If there isn't the boys back: looking perished, I believe.'

 

'Perished, Ma!' exclaimed the sergeant. 'Not yet.'

 

'Near enough,' said a young private, uncouthly.

 

The woman got up.

 

'I'm sure you are, my dears. You'll be wanting your suppers, I'll be bound.'

 

'We could do with 'em.'

 

'Let's have a wet first,' said the sergeant.

 

The woman bustled about getting the drinks. The soldiers moved to the fire, spreading out their hands.

 

'Have your suppers in here, will you?' she said. 'Or in the kitchen?'

 

'Let's have it here,' said the sergeant. 'More cosier, if you don't mind.'

 

'You shall have it where you like, boys, where you like.'

 

She disappeared. In a minute a girl of about sixteen came in. She was tall and fresh, with dark, young, expressionless eyes, and well-drawn brows, and the immature softness and mindlessness of the sensuous Celtic type.

 

'Ho, Maryann! Evenin', Maryann! How's Maryann, now?' came the multiple greeting.

 

She replied to everybody in a soft voice, a strange, soft aplomb that was very attractive. And she moved round with rather mechanical, attractive movements, as if her thoughts were elsewhere. But she had always this dim far-awayness in her bearing: a sort of modesty. The strange man by the fire watched her curiously. There was an alert, inquisitive, mindless curiosity on his well-coloured face.

 

'I'll have a bit of supper with you, if I might,' he said.

 

She looked at him, with her clear, unreasoning eyes, just like the eyes of some non-human creature.

 

'I'll ask mother,' she said. Her voice was soft-breathing, gently singsong.

 

When she came in again:

 

'Yes,' she said, almost whispering. 'What will you have?'

 

'What have you got?' he said, looking up into her face.

 

'There's cold meat.'

 

'That's for me, then.'

 

The stranger sat at the end of the table and ate with the tired, quiet soldiers. Now, the landlady was interested in him. Her brow was knit rather tense, there was a look of panic in her large, healthy face, but her small brown eyes were fixed most dangerously. She was a big woman, but her eyes were small and tense. She drew near the stranger. She wore a rather loud-patterned flannelette blouse, and a dark skirt.

 

'What will you have to drink with your supper?' she asked, and there was a new, dangerous note in her voice.

 

He moved uneasily.

 

'Oh, I'll go on with ale.'

 

She drew him another glass. Then she sat down on the bench at the table with him and the soldiers, and fixed him with her attention.

 

'You've come from St Just, have you?' she said.

 

He looked at her with those clear, dark, inscrutable Cornish eyes, and answered at length:

 

'No, from Penzance.'

 

'Penzance! but you're not thinking of going back there tonight?'

 

'No, no.'

 

He still looked at her with those wide, clear eyes that seemed like very bright agate. Her anger began to rise. It was seen on her brow. Yet her voice was still suave and deprecating.

 

'I thought not, but you're not living in these parts, are you?'

 

'No, no, I'm not living here.' He was always slow in answering, as if something intervened between him and any outside question.

 

'Oh, I see,' she said. 'You've got relations down here.'

 

Again he looked straight into her eyes, as if looking her into silence.

 

'Yes,' he said.

 

He did not say any more. She rose with a flounce. The anger was tight on her brow. There was no more laughing and card-playing that evening, though she kept up her motherly, suave, good-humoured way with the men. But they knew her, they were all afraid of her.

 

The supper was finished, the table cleared, the stranger did not go. Two of the young soldiers went off to bed, with their cheery:

 

'Good-night, Ma. Good-night, Maryann.'

 

The stranger talked a little to the sergeant about the war, which was in its first year, about the new army, a fragment of which was quartered in this district, about America.

 

The landlady darted looks at him from her small eyes, minute by minute the electric storm welled in her bosom, as still he did not go. She was quivering with suppressed, violent passion, something frightening and abnormal. She could not sit still for a moment. Her heavy form seemed to flash with sudden, involuntary movements as the minutes passed by, and still he sat there, and the tension on her heart grew unbearable. She watched the hands of the dock move on. Three of the soldiers had gone to bed, only the crop-headed, terrier-like old sergeant remained.

 

The landlady sat behind the bar fidgeting spasmodically with the newspaper. She looked again at the clock. At last it was five minutes to ten.

 

'Gentlemen, the enemy!' she said, in her diminished, furious voice. 'Time, please. Time, my dears. And good-night all!'

 

The men began to drop out, with a brief good-night. It was a minute to ten. The landlady rose.

 

'Come,' she said. 'I'm shutting the door.'

 

The last of the miners passed out. She stood, stout and menacing, holding the door. Still the stranger sat on by the fire, his black overcoat opened, smoking.

 

'We're closed now, sir,' came the perilous, narrowed voice of the landlady.

 

The little, dog-like, hard-headed sergeant touched the arm of the stranger.

 

'Closing time,' he said.

 

The stranger turned round in his seat, and his quick-moving, dark, jewel-like eyes went from the sergeant to the landlady.

 

'I'm stopping here tonight,' he said, in his laconic Cornish-Yankee accent.

 

The landlady seemed to tower. Her eyes lifted strangely, frightening.

 

'Oh! indeed!' she cried.' Oh, indeed! And whose orders are those, may I ask?'

 

He looked at her again.

 

'My orders,' he said.

 

Involuntarily she shut the door, and advanced like a great, dangerous bird. Her voice rose, there was a touch of hoarseness in it.

 

'And what might your orders be, if you please?' she cried. 'Who might you be, to give orders, in the house?'

 

He sat still, watching her.

 

'You know who I am,' he said. 'At least, I know who you are.'

 

'Oh, you do? Oh, do you? And who am I then, if you'll be so good as to tell me?'

 

He stared at her with his bright, dark eyes.

 

'You're my Missis, you are,' he said. 'And you know it, as well as I do.'

 

She started as if something had exploded in her.

 

Her eyes lifted and flared madly.

 

'Do I know it, indeed!' she cried. 'I know no such thing! I know no such thing! Do you think a man's going to walk into this bar, and tell me off-hand I'm his Missis, and I'm going to believe him? I say to you, whoever you may be, you're mistaken. I know myself for no Missis of yours, and I'll thank you to go out of this house, this minute, before I get those that will put you out.'

 

The man rose to his feet, stretching his head towards her a little. He was a handsomely built Cornishman in the prime of life.

 

'What you say, eh? You don't know me?' he said, in his sing-song voice, emotionless, but rather smothered and pressing: it reminded one of the girl's. 'I should know you anywhere, you see. I should! I shouldn't have to look twice to know you, you see. You see, now, don't you?'

 

The woman was baffled.

 

'So you may say,' she replied, staccato. 'So you may say. That's easy enough. My name's known, and respected, by most people for ten miles round. But I don't know you.'

 

Her voice ran to sarcasm. 'I can't say I know you. You're a perfect stranger to me, and I don't believe I've ever set eyes on you before tonight.'

 

Her voice was very flexible and sarcastic.

 

'Yes, you have,' replied the man, in his reasonable way.' Yes, you have. Your name's my name, and that girl Maryann is my girl; she's my daughter. You're my Missis right enough. As sure as I'm Willie Nankervis.'

 

He spoke as if it were an accepted fact. His face was handsome, with a strange, watchful alertness and a fundamental fixity of intention that maddened her.

 

'You villain!' she cried. 'You villain, to come to this house and dare to speak to me. You villain, you down-right rascal!'

 

He looked at her.

 

'Ay,' he said, unmoved. 'All that.' He was uneasy before her. Only he was not afraid of her. There was something impenetrable about him, like his eyes, which were as bright as agate.

 

She towered, and drew near to him menacingly.

 

'You're going out of this house, aren't you?' She stamped her foot in sudden madness. 'This minute!'

 

He watched her. He knew she wanted to strike him.

 

'No,' he said, with suppressed emphasis. 'I've told you, I'm stopping here.'

 

He was afraid of her personality, but it did not alter him. She wavered. Her small, tawny-brown eyes concentrated in a point of vivid, sightless fury, like a tiger's. The man was wincing, but he stood his ground. Then she bethought herself. She would gather her forces.

 

'We'll see whether you're stopping here,' she said. And she turned, with a curious, frightening lifting of her eyes, and surged out of the room. The man, listening, heard her go upstairs, heard her tapping at a bedroom door, heard her saying: 'Do you mind coming down a minute, boys? I want you. I'm in trouble.'

 

The man in the bar took off his cap and his black overcoat, and threw them on the seat behind him. His black hair was short and touched with grey at the temples. He wore a well-cut, well-fitting suit of dark grey, American in style, and a turn-down collar. He looked well-to-do, a fine, solid figure of a man. The rather rigid look of the shoulders came from his having had his collar-bone twice broken in the mines.

 

The little terrier of a sergeant, in dirty khaki, looked at him furtively.

 

'She's your Missis?' he asked, jerking his head in the direction of the departed woman.

 

'Yes, she is,' barked the man. 'She's that, sure enough.'

 

'Not seen her for a long time, haven't ye?'

 

'Sixteen years come March month.'

 

'Hm!'

 

And the sergeant laconically resumed his smoking.

 

The landlady was coming back, followed by the three young soldiers, who entered rather sheepishly, in trousers and shirt and stocking-feet. The woman stood histrionically at the end of the bar, and exclaimed:

 

'That man refuses to leave the house, claims he's stopping the night here. You know very well I have no bed, don't you? And this house doesn't accommodate travellers. Yet he's going to stop in spite of all! But not while I've a drop of blood in my body, that I declare with my dying breath. And not if you men are worth the name of men, and will help a woman as has no one to help her.'

 

Her eyes sparkled, her face was flushed pink. She was drawn up like an Amazon.

 

The young soldiers did not quite know what to do. They looked at the man, they looked at the sergeant, one of them looked down and fastened his braces on the second button.

 

'What say, sergeant?' asked one whose face twinkled for a little devilment.

 

'Man says he's husband to Mrs. Nankervis,' said the sergeant.

 

'He's no husband of mine. I declare I never set eyes on him before this night. It's a dirty trick, nothing else, it's a dirty trick.'

 

'Why, you're a liar, saying you never set eyes on me before,' barked the man near the hearth. 'You're married to me, and that girl Maryann you had by me, well enough you know it.'

 

The young soldiers looked on in delight, the sergeant smoked imperturbed.

 

'Yes,' sang the landlady, slowly shaking her head in supreme sarcasm, 'it sounds very pretty, doesn't it? But you see we don't believe a word of it, and how are you going to prove it?' She smiled nastily.

 

The man watched in silence for a moment, then he said:

 

'It wants no proof.'

 

'Oh, yes, but it does! Oh, yes, but it does, sir, it wants a lot of proving!' sang the lady's sarcasm. 'We're not such gulls as all that, to swallow your words whole.'

 

But he stood unmoved near the fire. She stood with one hand resting on the zinc-covered bar, the sergeant sat with legs crossed, smoking, on the seat halfway between them, the three young soldiers in their shirts and braces stood wavering in the gloom behind the bar. There was silence.

 

'Do you know anything of the whereabouts of your husband, Mrs. Nankervis? Is he still living?' asked the sergeant, in his judicious fashion.

 

Suddenly the landlady began to cry, great scalding tears, that left the young men aghast.

 

'I know nothing of him,' she sobbed, feeling for her pocket handkerchief. 'He left me when Maryann was a baby, went mining to America, and after about six months never wrote a line nor sent me a penny bit. I can't say whether he's alive or dead, the villain. All I've heard of him's to the bad, and I've heard nothing for years an' all, now.' She sobbed violently.

 

The golden-skinned, handsome man near the fire watched her as she wept. He was frightened, he was troubled, he was bewildered, but none of his emotions altered him underneath.

 

There was no sound in the room but the violent sobbing of the landlady. The men, one and all, were overcome.

 

'Don't you think as you'd better go, for tonight?' said the sergeant to the man, with sweet reasonableness. 'You'd better leave it a bit, and arrange something between you. You can't have much claim on a woman, I should imagine, if it's how she says. And you've come down on her a bit too sudden-like.'

 

The landlady sobbed heart-brokenly. The man watched her large breasts shaken. They seemed to cast a spell over his mind.

 

'How I've treated her, that's no matter,' he replied. 'I've come back, and I'm going to stop in my own home, for a bit, anyhow. There you've got it.'

 

'A dirty action,' said the sergeant, his face flushing dark. 'A dirty action, to come, after deserting a woman for that number of years, and want to force yourself on her! A dirty action, as isn't allowed by the law.'

 

The landlady wiped her eyes.

 

'Never you mind about law nor nothing,' cried the man, in a strange, strong voice. 'I'm not moving out of this public tonight.'

 

The woman turned to the soldiers behind her, and said in a wheedling, sarcastic tone:

 

'Are we going to stand it, boys? Are we going to be done like this, Sergeant Thomas, by a scoundrel and a bully as has led a life beyond mention, in those American mining-camps, and then wants to come back and make havoc of a poor woman's life and savings, after having left her with a baby in arms to struggle as best she might? It's a crying shame if nobody will stand up for me, a crying shame!'

 

The soldiers and the little sergeant were bristling. The woman stooped and rummaged under the counter for a minute. Then, unseen to the man away near the fire, she threw out a plaited grass rope, such as is used for binding bales, and left it lying near the feet of the young soldiers, in the gloom at the back of the bar.

 

Then she rose and fronted the situation.

 

'Come now,' she said to the man, in a reasonable, coldly-coaxing tone, 'put your coat on and leave us alone. Be a man, and not worse than a brute of a German. You can get a bed easy enough in St Just, and if you've nothing to pay for it sergeant would lend you a couple of shillings, I'm sure he would.'

 

All eyes were fixed on the man. He was looking down at the woman like a creature spell-bound or possessed by some devil's own intention.

 

'I've got money of my own,' he said. 'Don't you be frightened for your money, I've plenty of that, for the time.'

 

'Well, then,' she coaxed, in a cold, almost sneering propitiation, 'put your coat on and go where you're wanted, be a man, not a brute of a German.'

 

She had drawn quite near to him, in her challenging coaxing intentness. He looked down at her with his bewitched face.

 

'No, I shan't,' he said. 'I shan't do no such thing. You'll put me up for tonight.'

 

'Shall I!' she cried. And suddenly she flung her arms round him, hung on to him with all her powerful weight, calling to the soldiers: 'Get the rope, boys, and fasten him up. Alfred, John, quick now.'

 

The man reared, looked round with maddened eyes, and heaved his powerful body. But the woman was powerful also, and very heavy, and was clenched with the determination of death. Her face, with its exulting, horribly vindictive look, was turned up to him from his own breast; he reached back his head frantically, to get away from it. Meanwhile the young soldiers, after having watched this frightful Laocoon swaying for a moment, stirred, and the malicious one darted swiftly with the rope. It was tangled a little.

 

'Give me the end here,' cried the sergeant.

 

Meanwhile the big man heaved and struggled, swung the woman round against the seat and the table, in his convulsive effort to get free. But she pinned down his arms like a cuttlefish wreathed heavily upon him. And he heaved and swayed, and they crashed about the room, the soldiers hopping, the furniture bumping.

 

The young soldier had got the rope once round, the brisk sergeant helping him. The woman sank heavily lower, they got the rope round several times. In the struggle the victim fell over against the table. The ropes tightened till they cut his arms. The woman clung to his knees. Another soldier ran in a flash of genius, and fastened the strange man's feet with the pair of braces. Seats had crashed over, the table was thrown against the wall, but the man was bound, his arms pinned against his sides, his feet tied. He lay half fallen, sunk against the table, still for a moment.

 

The woman rose, and sank, faint, on to the seat against the wall. Her breast heaved, she could not speak, she thought she was going to die. The bound man lay against the overturned table, his coat all twisted and pulled up beneath the ropes, leaving the loins exposed. The soldiers stood around, a little dazed, but excited with the row.

 

The man began to struggle again, heaving instinctively against the ropes, taking great, deep breaths. His face, with its golden skin, flushed dark and surcharged, he heaved again. The great veins in his neck stood out. But it was no good, he went relaxed. Then again, suddenly, he jerked his feet.

 

'Another pair of braces, William,' cried the excited soldier. He threw himself on the legs of the bound man, and managed to fasten the knees. Then again there was stillness. They could hear the clock tick.

 

The woman looked at the prostrate figure, the strong, straight limbs, the strong back bound in subjection, the wide-eyed face that reminded her of a calf tied in a sack in a cart, only its head stretched dumbly backwards. And she triumphed.

 

The bound-up body began to struggle again. She watched fascinated the muscles working, the shoulders, the hips, the large, clean thighs. Even now he might break the ropes. She was afraid. But the lively young soldier sat on the shoulders of the bound man, and after a few perilous moments, there was stillness again.

 

'Now,' said the judicious sergeant to the bound man, 'if we untie you, will you promise to go off and make no more trouble.'

 

'You'll not untie him in here,' cried the woman. 'I wouldn't trust him as far as I could blow him.'

 

There was silence.

 

'We might carry him outside, and undo him there,' said the soldier. 'Then we could get the policeman, if he made any bother.'

 

'Yes,' said the sergeant. 'We could do that.' Then again, in an altered, almost severe tone, to the prisoner. 'If we undo you outside, will you take your coat and go without creating any more disturbance?'

 

But the prisoner would not answer, he only lay with wide, dark, bright, eyes, like a bound animal. There was a space of perplexed silence.

 

'Well, then, do as you say,' said the woman irritably. 'Carry him out amongst you, and let us shut up the house.'

 

They did so. Picking up the bound man, the four soldiers staggered clumsily into the silent square in front of the inn, the woman following with the cap and the overcoat. The young soldiers quickly unfastened the braces from the prisoner's legs, and they hopped indoors. They were in their stocking-feet, and outside the stars flashed cold. They stood in the doorway watching. The man lay quite still on the cold ground.

 

'Now,' said the sergeant, in a subdued voice, 'I'll loosen the knot, and he can work himself free, if you go in, Missis.'

 

She gave a last look at the dishevelled, bound man, as he sat on the ground. Then she went indoors, followed quickly by the sergeant. Then they were heard locking and barring the door.

 

The man seated on the ground outside worked and strained at the rope. But it was not so easy to undo himself even now. So, with hands bound, making an effort, he got on his feet, and went and worked the cord against the rough edge of an old wall. The rope, being of a kind of plaited grass, soon frayed and broke, and he freed himself. He had various contusions. His arms were hurt and bruised from the bonds. He rubbed them slowly. Then he pulled his clothes straight, stooped, put on his cap, struggled into his overcoat, and walked away.

 

The stars were very brilliant. Clear as crystal, the beam from the lighthouse under the cliffs struck rhythmically on the night. Dazed, the man walked along the road past the churchyard. Then he stood leaning up against a wall, for a long time.

 

He was roused because his feet were so cold. So he pulled himself together, and turned again in the silent night, back towards the inn.

 

The bar was in darkness. But there was a light in the kitchen. He hesitated. Then very quietly he tried the door.

 

He was surprised to find it open. He entered, and quietly closed it behind him. Then he went down the step past the bar-counter, and through to the lighted doorway of the kitchen. There sat his wife, planted in front of the range, where a furze fire was burning. She sat in a chair full in front of the range, her knees wide apart on the fender. She looked over her shoulder at him as he entered, but she did not speak. Then she stared in the fire again.

 

It was a small, narrow kitchen. He dropped his cap on the table that was covered with yellowish American cloth, and took a seat with his back to the wall, near the oven. His wife still sat with her knees apart, her feet on the steel fender and stared into the fire, motionless. Her skin was smooth and rosy in the firelight. Everything in the house was very clean and bright. The man sat silent, too, his head dropped. And thus they remained.

 

It was a question who would speak first. The woman leaned forward and poked the ends of the sticks in between the bars of the range. He lifted his head and looked at her.

 

'Others gone to bed, have they?' he asked.

 

But she remained closed in silence.

 

''S a cold night, out,' he said, as if to himself.

 

And he laid his large, yet well-shapen workman's hand on the top of the stove, that was polished black and smooth as velvet. She would not look at him, yet she glanced out of the corners of her eyes.

 

His eyes were fixed brightly on her, the pupils large and electric like those of a cat.

 

'I should have picked you out among thousands,' he said. 'Though you're bigger than I'd have believed. Fine flesh you've made.'

 

She was silent for some time. Then she turned in her chair upon him.

 

'What do you think of yourself,' she said, 'coming back on me like this after over fifteen years? You don't think I've not heard of you, neither, in Butte City and elsewhere?'

 

He was watching her with his clear, translucent, unchallenged eyes.

 

'Yes,' he said. 'Chaps comes an' goes, I've heard tell of you from time to time.'

 

She drew herself up.

 

'And what lies have you heard about me?' she demanded superbly.

 

'I dunno as I've heard any lies at all, 'cept as you was getting on very well, like.'

 

His voice ran warily and detached. Her anger stirred again in her violently. But she subdued it, because of the danger there was in him, and more, perhaps, because of the beauty of his head and his level drawn brows, which she could not bear to forfeit.

 

'That's more than I can say of you,' she said. 'I've heard more harm than good about you.'

 

'Ay, I dessay,' he said, looking in the fire. It was a long time since he had seen the furze burning, he said to himself. There was a silence, during which she watched his face.

 

'Do you call yourself a man?' she said, more in contemptuous reproach than in anger. 'Leave a woman as you've left me, you don't care to what! and then to turn up in this fashion, without a word to say for yourself.'

 

He stirred in his chair, planted his feet apart, and resting his arms on his knees, looked steadily into the fire, without answering. So near to her was his head, and the close black hair, she could scarcely refrain from starting away, as if it would bite her.

 

'Do you call that the action of a man?' she repeated.

 

'No,' he said, reaching and poking the bits of wood into the fire with his fingers. 'I didn't call it anything, as I know of. It's no good calling things by any names whatsoever, as I know of.'

 

She watched him in his actions. There was a longer and longer pause between each speech, though neither knew it.

 

'I wonder what you think of yourself!' she exclaimed, with vexed emphasis. 'I wonder what sort of a fellow you take yourself to be!' She was really perplexed as well as angry.

 

'Well,' he said, lifting his head to look at her, 'I guess I'll answer for my own faults, if everybody else'll answer for theirs.'

 

Her heart beat fiery hot as he lifted his face to her. She breathed heavily, averting her face, almost losing her self-control.

 

'And what do you take me to be?' she cried, in real helplessness.

 

His face was lifted watching her, watching her soft, averted face, and the softly heaving mass of her breasts.

 

'I take you,' he said, with that laconic truthfulness which exercised such power over her, 'to be the deuce of a fine woman, darn me if you're not as fine a built woman as I've seen, handsome with it as well. I shouldn't have expected you to put on such handsome flesh: 'struth I shouldn't.'

 

Her heart beat fiery hot, as he watched her with those bright agate eyes, fixedly.

 

'Been very handsome to you, for fifteen years, my sakes!' she replied.

 

He made no answer to this, but sat with his bright, quick eyes upon her.

 

Then he rose. She started involuntarily. But he only said, in his laconic, measured way:

 

'It's warm in here now.'

 

And he pulled off his overcoat, throwing it on the table. She sat as if slightly cowed, whilst he did so.

 

'Them ropes has given my arms something, by Ga-ard,' he drawled, feeling his arms with his hands.

 

Still she sat in her chair before him, slightly cowed.

 

'You was sharp, wasn't you, to catch me like that, eh?' he smiled slowly. 'By Ga-ard, you had me fixed proper, proper you had. Darn me, you fixed me up proper, proper, you did.'

 

He leaned forwards in his chair towards her.

 

'I don't think no worse of you for it, no, darned if I do. Fine pluck in a woman's what I admire. That I do, indeed.'

 

She only gazed into the fire.

 

'We fet from the start, we did. And, my word, you begin again quick the minute you see me, you did. Darn me, you was too sharp for me. A darn fine woman, puts up a darn good fight. Darn me if I could find a woman in all the darn States as could get me down like that. Wonderful fine woman you be, truth to say, at this minute.'

 

She only sat glowering into the fire.

 

'As grand a pluck as a man could wish to find in a woman, true as I'm here,' he said, reaching forward his hand and tentatively touching her between her full, warm breasts, quietly.

 

She started, and seemed to shudder. But his hand insinuated itself between her breasts, as she continued to gaze in the fire.

 

'And don't you think I've come back here a-begging,' he said. 'I've more than one thousand pounds to my name, I have. And a bit of a fight for a how-de-do pleases me, that it do. But that doesn't mean as you're going to deny as you're my Missis....'

 

 

 

THE PRIMROSE PATH

 

A young man came out of the Victoria station, looking undecidedly at the taxi-cabs, dark-red and black, pressing against the kerb under the glass-roof. Several men in greatcoats and brass buttons jerked themselves erect to catch his attention, at the same time keeping an eye on the other people as they filtered through the open doorways of the station. Berry, however, was occupied by one of the men, a big, burly fellow whose blue eyes glared back and whose red-brown moustache bristled in defiance.

 

'Do you want a cab, sir?' the man asked, in a half-mocking, challenging voice.

 

Berry hesitated still.

 

'Are you Daniel Sutton?' he asked.

 

'Yes,' replied the other defiantly, with uneasy conscience.

 

'Then you are my uncle,' said Berry.

 

They were alike in colouring, and somewhat in features, but the taxi driver was a powerful, well-fleshed man who glared at the world aggressively, being really on the defensive against his own heart. His nephew, of the same height, was thin, well-dressed, quiet and indifferent in his manner. And yet they were obviously kin.

 

'And who the devil are you?' asked the taxi driver.

 

'I'm Daniel Berry,' replied the nephew.

 

'Well, I'm damned, never saw you since you were a kid.'

 

Rather awkwardly at this late hour the two shook hands.

 

'How are you, lad?'

 

'All right. I thought you were in Australia.'

 

'Been back three months, bought a couple of these damned things', he kicked the tyre of his taxi-cab in affectionate disgust. There was a moment's silence.

 

'Oh, but I'm going back out there. I can't stand this cankering, rotten-hearted hell of a country any more; you want to come out to Sydney with me, lad. That's the place for you, beautiful place, oh, you could wish for nothing better. And money in it, too. How's your mother?'

 

'She died at Christmas,' said the young man.

 

'Dead! What! our Anna!' The big man's eyes stared, and he recoiled in fear. 'God, lad,' he said, 'that's three of 'em gone!'

 

The two men looked away at the people passing along the pale grey pavements, under the wall of Trinity Church.

 

'Well, strike me lucky!' said the taxi driver at last, out of breath. 'She wor th' best o' th' bunch of 'em. I see nowt nor hear nowt from any of 'em, they're not worth it, I'll be damned if they are, our sermon-lapping Adela and Maud,' he looked scornfully at his nephew. 'But she was the best of 'em, our Anna was, that's a fact.'

 

He was talking because he was afraid.

 

'An' after a hard life like she'd had. How old was she, lad?'

 

'Fifty-five.'

 

'Fifty-five ...' He hesitated. Then, in a rather hushed voice, he asked the question that frightened him:

 

'And what was it, then?'

 

'Cancer.'

 

'Cancer again, like Julia! I never knew there was cancer in our family. Oh, my good God, our poor Anna, after the life she'd had! What, lad, do you see any God at the back of that? I'm damned if I do.'

 

He was glaring, very blue-eyed and fierce, at his nephew. Berry lifted his shoulders slightly.

 

'God?' went on the taxi driver, in a curious intense tone, 'You've only to look at the folk in the street to know there's nothing keeps it going but gravitation. Look at 'em. Look at him!' A mongrel-looking man was nosing past. 'Wouldn't he murder you for your watch-chain, but that he's afraid of society. He's got it in him.... Look at 'em.'

 

Berry watched the towns-people go by, and, sensitively feeling his uncle's antipathy, it seemed he was watching a sort of danse macabre of ugly criminals.

 

'Did you ever see such a God-forsaken crew creeping about! It gives you the very horrors to look at 'em. I sit in this damned car and watch 'em till, I can tell you, I feel like running the cab amuck among 'em, and running myself to kingdom come.'

 

Berry wondered at this outburst. He knew his uncle was the black-sheep, the youngest, the darling of his mother's family. He knew him to be at outs with respectability, mixing with the looser, sporting type, all betting and drinking and showing dogs and birds, and racing. As a critic of life, however, he did not know him. But the young man felt curiously understanding. 'He uses words like I do, he talks nearly as I talk, except that I shouldn't say those things. But I might feel like that, in myself, if I went a certain road.'

 

'I've got to go to Watmore,' he said. 'Can you take me?'

 

'When d'you want to go?' asked the uncle fiercely.

 

'Now.'

 

'Come on, then. What d'yer stand gassin' on th' causeway for?'

 

The nephew took his seat beside the driver. The cab began to quiver, then it started forward with a whirr. The uncle, his hands and feet acting mechanically, kept his blue eyes fixed on the highroad into whose traffic the car was insinuating its way. Berry felt curiously as if he were sitting beside an older development of himself. His mind went back to his mother. She had been twenty years older than this brother of hers whom she had loved so dearly. 'He was one of the most affectionate little lads, and such a curly head! I could never have believed he would grow into the great, coarse bully he is, for he's nothing else. My father made a god of him, well, it's a good thing his father is dead. He got in with that sporting gang, that's what did it. Things were made too easy for him, and so he thought of no one but himself, and this is the result.'

 

Not that 'Joky' Sutton was so very black a sheep. He had lived idly till he was eighteen, then had suddenly married a young, beautiful girl with clear brows and dark grey eyes, a factory girl. Having taken her to live with his parents he, lover of dogs and pigeons, went on to the staff of a sporting paper. But his wife was without uplift or warmth. Though they made money enough, their house was dark and cold and uninviting. He had two or three dogs, and the whole attic was turned into a great pigeon-house. He and his wife lived together roughly, with no warmth, no refinement, no touch of beauty anywhere, except that she was beautiful. He was a blustering, impetuous man, she was rather cold in her soul, did not care about anything very much, was rather capable and close with money. And she had a common accent in her speech. He outdid her a thousand times in coarse language, and yet that cold twang in her voice tortured him with shame that he stamped down in bullying and in becoming more violent in his own speech.

 

Only his dogs adored him, and to them, and to his pigeons, he talked with rough, yet curiously tender caresses while they leaped and fluttered for joy.

 

After he and his wife had been married for seven years a little girl was born to them, then later, another. But the husband and wife drew no nearer together. She had an affection for her children almost like a cool governess. He had an emotional man's fear of sentiment, which helped to nip his wife from putting out any shoots. He treated his children roughly, and pretended to think it a good job when one was adopted by a well-to-do maternal aunt. But in his soul he hated his wife that she could give away one of his children. For after her cool fashion, she loved him. With a chaos of a man such as he, she had no chance of being anything but cold and hard, poor thing. For she did love him.

 

In the end he fell absurdly and violently in love with a rather sentimental young woman who read Browning. He made his wife an allowance and established a new ménage with the young lady, shortly after emigrating with her to Australia. Meanwhile his wife had gone to live with a publican, a widower, with whom she had had one of those curious, tacit understandings of which quiet women are capable, something like an arrangement for provision in the future.

 

This was as much as the nephew knew. He sat beside his uncle, wondering how things stood at the present. They raced lightly out past the cemetery and along the boulevard, then turned into the rather grimy country. The mud flew out on either side, there was a fine mist of rain which blew in their faces. Berry covered himself up.

 

In the lanes the high hedges shone black with rain. The silvery grey sky, faintly dappled, spread wide over the low, green land. The elder man glanced fiercely up the road, then turned his red face to his nephew.

 

'And how're you going on, lad?' he said loudly. Berry noticed that his uncle was slightly uneasy of him. It made him also uncomfortable. The elder man had evidently something pressing on his soul.

 

'Who are you living with in town?' asked the nephew. 'Have you gone back to Aunt Maud?'

 

'No,' barked the uncle. 'She wouldn't have me. I offered to, I want to, but she wouldn't.'

 

'You're alone, then?'

 

'No, I'm not alone.'

 

He turned and glared with his fierce blue eyes at his nephew, but said no more for some time. The car ran on through the mud, under the wet wall of the park.

 

'That other devil tried to poison me,' suddenly shouted the elder man. 'The one I went to Australia with.' At which, in spite of himself, the younger smiled in secret.

 

'How was that?' he asked.

 

'Wanted to get rid of me. She got in with another fellow on the ship.... By Jove, I was bad.'

 

'Where? on the ship?'

 

'No,' bellowed the other. 'No. That was in Wellington, New Zealand. I was bad, and got lower an' lower, couldn't think what was up. I could hardly crawl about. As certain as I'm here, she was poisoning me, to get to th' other chap, I'm certain of it.'

 

'And what did you do?'

 

'I cleared out, went to Sydney.'

 

'And left her?'

 

'Yes, I thought begod, I'd better clear out if I wanted to live.'

 

'And you were all right in Sydney?'

 

'Better in no time, I know she was putting poison in my coffee.'

 

'Hm!'

 

There was a glum silence. The driver stared at the road ahead, fixedly, managing the car as if it were a live thing. The nephew felt that his uncle was afraid, quite stupefied with fear, fear of life, of death, of himself.

 

'You're in rooms, then?' asked the nephew.

 

'No, I'm in a house of my own,' said the uncle defiantly, 'wi' th' best little woman in th' Midlands. She's a marvel. Why don't you come an' see us?'

 

'I will. Who is she?'

 

'Oh, she's a good girl, a beautiful little thing. I was clean gone on her first time I saw her. An' she was on me. Her mother lives with us, respectable girl, none o' your....'

 

'And how old is she?'

 

'How old is she? she's twenty-one.'

 

'Poor thing.'

 

'She's right enough.'

 

'You'd marry her, getting a divorce?'

 

'I shall marry her.'

 

There was a little antagonism between the two men.

 

'Where's Aunt Maud?' asked the younger.

 

'She's at the Railway Arms, we passed it, just against Rollin's Mill Crossing.... They sent me a note this morning to go an' see her when I can spare time. She's got consumption.'

 

'Good Lord! Are you going?'

 

'Yes.'

 

But again Berry felt that his uncle was afraid.

 

The young man got through his commission in the village, had a drink with his uncle at the inn, and the two were returning home. The elder man's subject of conversation was Australia. As they drew near the town they grew silent, thinking both of the public-house. At last they saw the gates of the railway crossing were closed before them.

 

'Shan't you call?' asked Berry, jerking his head in the direction of the inn, which stood at the corner between two roads, its sign hanging under a bare horse-chestnut tree in front.

 

'I might as well. Come in an' have a drink,' said the uncle.

 

It had been raining all the morning, so shallow pools of water lay about. A brewer's wagon, with wet barrels and warm-smelling horses, stood near the door of the inn. Everywhere seemed silent, but for the rattle of trains at the crossing. The two men went uneasily up the steps and into the bar. The place was paddled with wet feet, empty. As the bar-man was heard approaching, the uncle asked, his usual bluster slightly hushed by fear:

 

'What yer goin' ta have, lad? Same as last time?'

 

A man entered, evidently the proprietor. He was good-looking, with a long, heavy face and quick, dark eyes. His glance at Sutton was swift, a start, a recognition, and a withdrawal, into heavy neutrality.

 

'How are yer, Dan?' he said, scarcely troubling to speak.

 

'Are yer, George?' replied Sutton, hanging back. 'My nephew, Dan Berry. Give us Red Seal, George.'

 

The publican nodded to the younger man, and set the glasses on the bar. He pushed forward the two glasses, then leaned back in the dark corner behind the door, his arms folded, evidently preferring to get back from the watchful eyes of the nephew.

 

'- 's luck,' said Sutton.

 

The publican nodded in acknowledgement. Sutton and his nephew drank.

 

'Why the hell don't you get that road mended in Cinder Hill,' said Sutton fiercely, pushing back his driver's cap and showing his short-cut, bristling hair.

 

'They can't find it in their hearts to pull it up,' replied the publican, laconically.

 

'Find in their hearts! They want settin' in barrows an' runnin' up an' down it till they cried for mercy.'

 

Sutton put down his glass. The publican renewed it with a sure hand, at ease in whatsoever he did. Then he leaned back against the bar. He wore no coat. He stood with arms folded, his chin on his chest, his long moustache hanging. His back was round and slack, so that the lower part of his abdomen stuck forward, though he was not stout. His cheek was healthy, brown-red, and he was muscular. Yet there was about him this physical slackness, a reluctance in his slow, sure movements. His eyes were keen under his dark brows, but reluctant also, as if he were gloomily apathetic.

 

There was a halt. The publican evidently would say nothing. Berry looked at the mahogany bar-counter, slopped with beer, at the whisky-bottles on the shelves. Sutton, his cap pushed back, showing a white brow above a weather-reddened face, rubbed his cropped hair uneasily.

 

The publican glanced round suddenly. It seemed that only his dark eyes moved.

 

'Going up?' he asked.

 

And something, perhaps his eyes, indicated the unseen bed-chamber.

 

'Ay, that's what I came for,' replied Sutton, shifting nervously from one foot to the other. 'She's been asking for me?'

 

'This morning,' replied the publican, neutral.

 

Then he put up a flap of the bar, and turned away through the dark doorway behind. Sutton, pulling off his cap, showing a round, short-cropped head which now was ducked forward, followed after him, the buttons holding the strap of his great-coat behind glittering for a moment.

 

They climbed the dark stairs, the husband placing his feet carefully, because of his big boots. Then he followed down the passage, trying vaguely to keep a grip on his bowels, which seemed to be melting away, and definitely wishing for a neat brandy. The publican opened a door. Sutton, big and burly in his great-coat, went past him.

 

The bedroom seemed light and warm after the passage. There was a red eider-down on the bed. Then, making an effort, Sutton turned his eyes to see the sick woman. He met her eyes direct, dark, dilated. It was such a shock he almost started away. For a second he remained in torture, as if some invisible flame were playing on him to reduce his bones and fuse him down. Then he saw the sharp white edge of her jaw, and the black hair beside the hollow cheek. With a start he went towards the bed.

 

'Hello, Maud!' he said. 'Why, what ye been doin'?'

 

The publican stood at the window with his back to the bed. The husband, like one condemned but on the point of starting away, stood by the bedside staring in horror at his wife, whose dilated grey eyes, nearly all black now, watched him wearily, as if she were looking at something a long way off.

 

Going exceedingly pale, he jerked up his head and stared at the wall over the pillows. There was a little coloured picture of a bird perched on a bell, and a nest among ivy leaves beneath. It appealed to him, made him wonder, roused a feeling of childish magic in him. They were wonderfully fresh, green ivy leaves, and nobody had seen the nest among them save him.

 

Then suddenly he looked down again at the face on the bed, to try and recognize it. He knew the white brow and the beautiful clear eyebrows. That was his wife, with whom he had passed his youth, flesh of his flesh, his, himself. Then those tired eyes, which met his again from a long way off, disturbed him until he did not know where he was. Only the sunken cheeks, and the mouth that seemed to protrude now were foreign to him, and filled him with horror. It seemed he lost his identity. He was the young husband of the woman with the clear brows; he was the married man fighting with her whose eyes watched him, a little indifferently, from a long way off; and he was a child in horror of that protruding mouth.

 

There came a crackling sound of her voice. He knew she had consumption of the throat, and braced himself hard to bear the noise.

 

'What was it, Maud?' he asked in panic.

 

Then the broken, crackling voice came again. He was too terrified of the sound of it to hear what was said. There was a pause.

 

'You'll take Winnie?' the publican's voice interpreted from the window.

 

'Don't you bother, Maud, I'll take her,' he said, stupefying his mind so as not to understand.

 

He looked curiously round the room. It was not a bad bedroom, light and warm. There were many medicine bottles aggregated in a corner of the washstand, and a bottle of Three Star brandy, half full. And there were also photographs of strange people on the chest of drawers. It was not a bad room.

 

Again he started as if he were shot. She was speaking. He bent down, but did not look at her.

 

'Be good to her,' she whispered.

 

When he realized her meaning, that he should be good to their child when the mother was gone, a blade went through his flesh.

 

'I'll be good to her, Maud, don't you bother,' he said, beginning to feel shaky.

 

He looked again at the picture of the bird. It perched cheerfully under a blue sky, with robust, jolly ivy leaves near. He was gathering his courage to depart. He looked down, but struggled hard not to take in the sight of his wife's face.

 

'I s'll come again, Maud,' he said. 'I hope you'll go on all right. Is there anything as you want?'

 

There was an almost imperceptible shake of the head from the sick woman, making his heart melt swiftly again. Then, dragging his limbs, he got out of the room and down the stairs.

 

The landlord came after him.

 

'I'll let you know if anything happens,' the publican said, still laconic, but with his eyes dark and swift.

 

'Ay, a' right,' said Button blindly. He looked round for his cap, which he had all the time in his hand. Then he got out of doors.

 

In a moment the uncle and nephew were in the car jolting on the level crossing. The elder man seemed as if something tight in his brain made him open his eyes wide, and stare. He held the steering wheel firmly. He knew he could steer accurately, to a hair's breadth. Glaring fixedly ahead, he let the car go, till it bounded over the uneven road. There were three coal-carts in a string. In an instant the car grazed past them, almost biting the kerb on the other side. Sutton aimed his car like a projectile, staring ahead. He did not want to know, to think, to realize, he wanted to be only the driver of that quick taxi.

 

The town drew near, suddenly. There were allotment-gardens with dark-purple twiggy fruit-trees and wet alleys between the hedges. Then suddenly the streets of dwelling-houses whirled close, and the car was climbing the hill, with an angry whirr, up, up till they rode out on to the crest and could see the tram-cars, dark-red and yellow, threading their way round the corner below, and all the traffic roaring between the shops.

 

'Got anywhere to go?' asked Sutton of his nephew.

 

'I was going to see one or two people.'

 

'Come an' have a bit o' dinner with us,' said the other.

 

Berry knew that his uncle wanted to be distracted, so that he should not think nor realize. The big man was running hard away from the horror of realization.

 

'All right,' Berry agreed.

 

The car went quickly through the town. It ran up a long street nearly into the country again. Then it pulled up at a house that stood alone, below the road.

 

'I s'll be back in ten minutes,' said the uncle.

 

The car went on to the garage. Berry stood curiously at the top of the stone stairs that led from the highroad down to the level of the house, an old stone place. The garden was dilapidated. Broken fruit-trees leaned at a sharp angle down the steep bank. Right across the dim grey atmosphere, in a kind of valley on the edge of the town, new suburb-patches showed pinkish on the dark earth. It was a kind of unresolved borderland.

 

Berry went down the steps. Through the broken black fence of the orchard, long grass showed yellow. The place seemed deserted. He knocked, then knocked again. An elderly woman appeared. She looked like a housekeeper. At first she said suspiciously that Mr. Sutton was not in.

 

'My uncle just put me down. He'll be in in ten minutes,' replied the visitor.

 

'Oh, are you the Mr. Berry who is related to him?' exclaimed the elderly woman. 'Come in, come in.'

 

She was at once kindly and a little bit servile. The young man entered. It was an old house, rather dark, and sparsely furnished. The elderly woman sat nervously on the edge of one of the chairs in a drawing-room that looked as if it were furnished from dismal relics of dismal homes, and there was a little straggling attempt at conversation. Mrs. Greenwell was evidently a working class woman unused to service or to any formality.

 

Presently she gathered up courage to invite her visitor into the dining-room. There from the table under the window rose a tall, slim girl with a cat in her arms. She was evidently a little more lady-like than was habitual to her, but she had a gentle, delicate, small nature. Her brown hair almost covered her ears, her dark lashes came down in shy awkwardness over her beautiful blue eyes. She shook hands in a frank way, yet she was shrinking. Evidently she was not sure how her position would affect her visitor. And yet she was assured in herself, shrinking and timid as she was.

 

'She must be a good deal in love with him,' thought Berry.

 

Both women glanced shamefacedly at the roughly laid table. Evidently they ate in a rather rough and ready fashion.

 

Elaine, she had this poetic name, fingered her cat timidly, not knowing what to say or to do, unable even to ask her visitor to sit down. He noticed how her skirt hung almost flat on her hips. She was young, scarce developed, a long, slender thing. Her colouring was warm and exquisite.

 

The elder woman bustled out to the kitchen. Berry fondled the terrier dogs that had come curiously to his heels, and glanced out of the window at the wet, deserted orchard.

 

This room, too, was not well furnished, and rather dark. But there was a big red fire.

 

'He always has fox terriers,' he said.

 

'Yes,' she answered, showing her teeth in a smile.

 

'Do you like them, too?'

 

'Yes', she glanced down at the dogs. 'I like Tam better than Sally.'

 

Her speech always tailed off into an awkward silence.

 

'We've been to see Aunt Maud,' said the nephew.

 

Her eyes, blue and scared and shrinking, met his.

 

'Dan had a letter,' he explained. 'She's very bad.'

 

'Isn't it horrible!' she exclaimed, her face crumbling up with fear.

 

The old woman, evidently a hard-used, rather down-trodden workman's wife, came in with two soup-plates. She glanced anxiously to see how her daughter was progressing with the visitor.

 

'Mother, Dan's been to see Maud,' said Elaine, in a quiet voice full of fear and trouble.

 

The old woman looked up anxiously, in question.

 

'I think she wanted him to take the child. She's very bad, I believe,' explained Berry.

 

'Oh, we should take Winnie!' cried Elaine. But both women seemed uncertain, wavering in their position. Already Berry could see that his uncle had bullied them, as he bullied everybody. But they were used to unpleasant men, and seemed to keep at a distance.

 

'Will you have some soup?' asked the mother, humbly.

 

She evidently did the work. The daughter was to be a lady, more or less, always dressed and nice for when Sutton came in.

 

They heard him heavily running down the steps outside. The dogs got up. Elaine seemed to forget the visitor. It was as if she came into life. Yet she was nervous and afraid. The mother stood as if ready to exculpate herself.

 

Sutton burst open the door. Big, blustering, wet in his immense grey coat, he came into the dining-room.

 

'Hello!' he said to his nephew, 'making yourself at home?'

 

'Oh, yes,' replied Berry.

 

'Hello, Jack,' he said to the girl. 'Got owt to grizzle about?'

 

'What for?' she asked, in a clear, half-challenging voice, that had that peculiar twang, almost petulant, so female and so attractive. Yet she was defiant like a boy.

 

'It's a wonder if you haven't,' growled Sutton. And, with a really intimate movement, he stooped down and fondled his dogs, though paying no attention to them. Then he stood up, and remained with feet apart on the hearthrug, his head ducked forward, watching the girl. He seemed abstracted, as if he could only watch her. His great-coat hung open, so that she could see his figure, simple and human in the great husk of cloth. She stood nervously with her hands behind her, glancing at him, unable to see anything else. And he was scarcely conscious but of her. His eyes were still strained and staring, and as they followed the girl, when, long-limbed and languid, she moved away, it was as if he saw in her something impersonal, the female, not the woman.

 

'Had your dinner?' he asked.

 

'We were just going to have it,' she replied, with the same curious little vibration in her voice, like the twang of a string.

 

The mother entered, bringing a saucepan from which she ladled soup into three plates.

 

'Sit down, lad,' said Sutton. 'You sit down, Jack, an' give me mine here.'

 

'Oh, aren't you coming to table?' she complained.

 

'No, I tell you,' he snarled, almost pretending to be disagreeable. But she was slightly afraid even of the pretence, which pleased and relieved him. He stood on the hearthrug eating his soup noisily.

 

'Aren't you going to take your coat off?' she said. 'It's filling the place full of steam.'

 

He did not answer, but, with his head bent forward over the plate, he ate his soup hastily, to get it done with. When he put down his empty plate, she rose and went to him.

 

'Do take your coat off, Dan,' she said, and she took hold of the breast of his coat, trying to push it back over his shoulder. But she could not. Only the stare in his eyes changed to a glare as her hand moved over his shoulder. He looked down into her eyes. She became pale, rather frightened-looking, and she turned her face away, and it was drawn slightly with love and fear and misery. She tried again to put off his coat, her thin wrists pulling at it. He stood solidly planted, and did not look at her, but stared straight in front. She was playing with passion, afraid of it, and really wretched because it left her, the person, out of count. Yet she continued. And there came into his bearing, into his eyes, the curious smile of passion, pushing away even the death-horror. It was life stronger than death in him. She stood close to his breast. Their eyes met, and she was carried away.

 

'Take your coat off, Dan,' she said coaxingly, in a low tone meant for no one but him. And she slid her hands on his shoulder, and he yielded, so that the coat was pushed back. She had flushed, and her eyes had grown very bright. She got hold of the cuff of his coat. Gently, he eased himself, so that she drew it off. Then he stood in a thin suit, which revealed his vigorous, almost mature form.

 

'What a weight!' she exclaimed, in a peculiar penetrating voice, as she went out hugging the overcoat. In a moment she came back.

 

He stood still in the same position, a frown over his fiercely staring eyes. The pain, the fear, the horror in his breast were all burning away in the new, fiercest flame of passion.

 

'Get your dinner,' he said roughly to her.

 

'I've had all I want,' she said. 'You come an' have yours.'

 

He looked at the table as if he found it difficult to see things.

 

'I want no more,' he said.

 

She stood close to his chest. She wanted to touch him and to comfort him. There was something about him now that fascinated her. Berry felt slightly ashamed that she seemed to ignore the presence of others in the room.

 

The mother came in. She glanced at Sutton, standing planted on the hearthrug, his head ducked, the heavy frown hiding his eyes. There was a peculiar braced intensity about him that made the elder woman afraid. Suddenly he jerked his head round to his nephew.

 

'Get on wi' your dinner, lad,' he said, and he went to the door. The dogs, which had continually lain down and got up again, uneasy, now rose and watched. The girl went after him, saying, clearly:

 

'What did you want, Dan?'

 

Her slim, quick figure was gone, the door was closed behind her.

 

There was silence. The mother, still more slave-like in her movement, sat down in a low chair. Berry drank some beer.

 

'That girl will leave him,' he said to himself. 'She'll hate him like poison. And serve him right. Then she'll go off with somebody else.'

 

And she did.

 

 

 

D H Lawrence – A Short Biography

 

David Herbert Lawrence was born on the 11th September 1885 to Arthur John Lawrence and Lydia (née Bearsall). His father was nearly illiterate and his mother trained as a teacher until she was forced to take a job in a lace factory due to her family’s difficult financial situation. He was born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, a coal mining town. There was tension between his parents, likely stemming from the harsh realities of their life as part of the working class. Lawrence would draw inspiration from both these aspects of his difficult childhood throughout his artistic career. Indeed, he wrote about the area, describing it as “the country of [his] heart”, and set a large amount of his fiction there.

 

As a young boy he was schooled at Beauvale Board School from 1891-98. He was the area’s first boy to win a scholarship from the County Council to attend Nottingham High School, which he did from 1898-1901 at which time he left in favour of a job as a junior clerk in Haywood’s surgical appliances factory. He showed early signs of promise in this career, though it was cut short by a severe case of pneumonia. He frequently visited Hagg’s Farm during his recovery, where he became friends with Jessie Chambers who lived at the farm with her parents. They shared a love of books, and were part of a small circle of friends all of whom were avid readers. Lawrence was able to continue his literary education by engaging in discussion with this group of likeminded adolescents, until he took up a teacher training position at the British School, Eastwood, from 1902-06. He became a full time student again and received his teaching qualification in 1908 from University College, Nottingham. By now he had begun writing and was working on early drafts of his first poems, short stories and a draft of Laetitia, which materialised as The White Peacock. His first literary recognition came in the form of success at a 1907 short story competition held by the Nottingham Guardian.

 

On receiving his qualification from Nottingham University he left for London where he took up a teaching post in Davidson Road School in Croydon. He continued his writing alongside his teaching career and soon garnered the attention of Ford Madox Ford, then editor of The English Review, an influential literary review. Jessie Chambers had sent the poems in to him and he commissioned Lawrence to write Odour of Chrysanthemums which was published in that magazine in 1911. It was noticed by the publishing group Heinemann, who asked Lawrence for more of his writing. Though he continued teaching for a further year, his workload as a published author was sufficient to call this the real beginning of his literary career.

 

However, his mother had died of cancer shortly before the White Peacock was published and this had a profound effect on him, leaving him devastated and incapable of writing for several months, a period of time which he would later describe as his “sick year”. The effect of her death on him can be found represented in 1913’s Sons and Lovers, a work considered largely autobiographical, at the effect of the death of the character Mrs. Morel on her son Paul.

 

As Lawrence’s mourning period ended he was given the private diaries of Helen Corke, his teaching colleague, which contained an account of an unhappy, doomed love affair, which formed the basis of his second novel, The Trespasser, which was published in 1912. Meanwhile he was introduced to Edward Garnett, who worked as a publisher’s reader, and who became Lawrence’s mentor and later friend. He completed the first draft of Paul Morel, which became Sons and Lovers, under the guidance of Garnett. Lawrence met Frieda Weekley, née von Richthofen, in 1912. She was six years his senior and married to his former modern languages professor at Nottingham, Ernest Weekley, with three young children. Together they eloped to Metz, a garrison town in Germany and home to her parents. It was near to the disputed border with France and there Lawrence witnessed first hand the political and military tension between France and Germany. He was arrested on the accusation of being a spy for the British, though Frieda’s father’s intervention secured him his release.

 

Following this incident Lawrence and Frieda relocated to a village near Munich, where they enjoyed a “honeymoon” which later inspired the collection of poems Look! We Have Come Through!” which were published in 1917. While here Lawrence completed his first ever play, The Daughter-in-Law, which was the first of what he named his ‘mining plays’. It was written in Nottingham dialect, and neither performed nor published in his lifetime. They left Germany in the end of 1912 and travelled to Italy across the Alps, a journey later recorded in Twilight in Italy, in which “the happiest part of his genius found expression - his curiosity, his spontaneity and the sense of fun he showed more often in life than in his novels”. It was while he was in Italy that he finally completed Sons and Lovers, though by now he was so exasperated by the novel that he handed it over to Garett without complaint at the knowledge of Garett’s intention to cut approximately one hundred pages.

 

In 1913 Lawrence and Frieda made a brief return visit to Britain where they befriended the critic John Middleton Murry and the popular short story writer Katherine Mansfield. Lawrence also successfully arranged a meeting with W. H. Davies, a Welsh tramp poet, of whose nature-inspired works he was a great admirer. The admiration was in some ways mutual, for Davies, a keen collector of autographs, insisted that he take Lawrence’s, perhaps seeing in the young Lawrence the future literary giant he would become. Though Lawrence was so taken by Davies on their meeting that he invited him to visit Frieda and himself in Germany, his opinion changed when he read Davies’s Foliage and Nature Poems and found them to be “so thin, one can hardly feel them”. Shortly after this meeting they returned to Italy where they took residence in a cottage in Fiascherino on the Gulf of Spezia. It was while they were staying there that Lawrence began working on the first draft of a novel which would later transform into two of his best-known works, The Rainbow (1915) and Women in Love (1920).

 

In early 1914 Frieda obtained her divorce from Ernest Weekley and she and Lawrence returned to Britain to be married on the 13th of July 1914, days before the outbreak of the First World War. At the time of their marriage he was working alongside various intellectual thinkers and writers based in London such as T. S. Eliot, Dora Marsden, Ezra Pound, and others, on The Egoist, a pivotal modernist literary magazine in which some of his work was published. He was simultaneously working on an adaptation of Fillipo Tommaso Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto, a work which celebrated the machinery and industry of the future, and the violence and speed of youth. Owing to Frieda’s German parentage, and his public dislike of militarism and violence, the couple were treated with contempt and suspicion in view of the onset of war with Germany. They were living in Cornwall at this time, in quite severe circumstances, and were accused of spying and signalling to German submarines.

 

The Rainbow was investigated in 1915 for its profanity and ultimately its publication was suppressed. Lawrence completed Women in Love in 1916, though it was not published until 1920 thanks to its bleak view of humanity’s destructive tendencies. It is now widely considered to be one of the English language’s most finely observed, delicately crafted and subtly intellectual novels.

 

While he was writing in Cornwall Lawrence began a strong relationship with William Henry Hocking, a farmer. Though the nature of their relationship is unknown, Frieda was convinced that it was sexual. Indeed, homosexuality is an overt theme in Women in Love, and Lawrence had previously written in a letter “I should like to know why nearly every man that approaches greatness tends to homosexuality, whether he admits it or not”, and “I believe the nearest I’ve come to perfect love was with a young coal-miner when I was about sixteen.” Lawrence and Frieda were constantly hassled by the armed forces authorities throughout the war and in late 1917 they were given three days’ notice to leave Cornwall under the terms of the Defence of the Realm Act. He detailed this exile in a chapter of Kangaroo, a Australian novel, published in 1923.

 

The couple moved to Hermitage, a village near the town of Newbury in Berkshire, and then to Derbyshire where they lived out the remainder of the war at Mountain Cottage, Middleton-by-Wirksworth. It was here that he wrote The White Peacock. The couple were extremely poor and Lawrence almost succumbed to a bout of influenza as they could barely afford adequate medical attention.

 

Lawrence’s reputation in England was by now heavily tarnished, met only by his own disdain for the country. He and Frieda flew the country in November 1919, the earliest politically possible opportunity, and made for Abruzzi in Italy before continuing to Capri and the Fontana Vecchia in Taormina, Sicily. From there he travelled widely across Europe including Sardinia, Malta, Austria and Germany. Much of this period of travelling is detailed in his writing, particularly in Twilight in Italy. He called his travelling his ‘savage pilgrimage’ and considered it a voluntary exile from Britain. He only returned to Britain twice in the rest of his life, each time for a brief visit. Instead, he and Frieda spent the remainder of their lives travelling, reaching Australia, Ceylon, Mexico and the United States. He continued his fiction alongside his travel writing, winning the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction for 1920’s The Lost Girl. He wrote short stories such as The Captain’s Doll, The Ladybird and The Fox, poetry such as that collected in Birds, Beasts and Flowers, and several travel journals, particularly Sea and Sardinia. He was obliged to publish his textbook Movements in European History under a pseudonym owing to his unfavourable reputation in England.

 

Lawrence and Frieda departed for America in February 1922, sailing East to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and on to Australia. While in Australia Lawrence completed Kangaroo, dealing with local politics and his experience of the war in England. They continued to America and arrived in September of that year, acquiring Kiowa Ranch in New Mexico, making payment with the manuscript of Sons and Lovers.

 

They made their final visit to England at the end of 1923 but quickly returned to their ranch, considering his life and career in England effectively over. In March 1925 he visited Mexico and suffered a severe attack of malaria which nearly killed him. He was instructed to convalesce in Europe and so he and Frieda returned to Italy where they took a home in a villa near Florence. Here he wrote The Virgin and the Gypsy and Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which brought renewed notoriety to his name for its controversially sexual subject matter. He addressed his critics head on with satirical poems and a piece entitled Pornography and Obscenity. While in Italy he bolstered his friendship with the author Aldous Huxley and renewed his interest in oil painting. An exhibition in 1929 was raided by the police and several works confiscated.

 

David Herbert Lawrence died of complications arising from a bout of tuberculosis on the 2nd of March 1930 in Vence, France.

 

 

 

D. H. Lawrence – A Concise Bibliography

 

Novels

The White Peacock (1911)

The Trespasser (1912)

Sons and Lovers (1913)

The Rainbow (1915)

Women in Love (1920)

The Lost Girl (1920)

Aaron's Rod (1922)

Kangaroo (1923)

The Boy in the Bush (1924)

The Plumed Serpent (1926)

Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

The Escaped Cock (1929), later re-published as The Man Who Died

 

 

Short Story Collections

The Prussian Officer and Other Stories (1914)

England, My England and Other Stories (1922)

The Horse Dealer's Daughter (1922)

The Fox, The Captain's Doll, The Ladybird (1923)

St Mawr and other stories (1925)

The Woman who Rode Away and other stories (1928)

The Rocking-Horse Winner (1926)

The Virgin and the Gipsy and Other Stories (1930)

Love Among the Haystacks and other stories (1930)

 

 

Poetry Collections

Love Poems and others (1913)

Amores (1916)

Look! We have come through! (1917)

New Poems (1918)

Bay: a book of poems (1919)

Tortoises (1921)

Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923)

The Collected Poems of D H Lawrence (1928)

Pansies (1929)

Nettles (1930)

Last Poems (1932)

Fire and other poems (1940)

 

Plays

The Daughter-in-Law (1912)

The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd (1914)

Touch and Go (1920)

David (1926)

The Fight for Barbara (1933)

A Collier's Friday Night (1934)

The Married Man (1940)

The Merry-Go-Round (1941)

 

 

Non Fiction & Pamphlets

Study of Thomas Hardy and other essays (1914),

Movements in European History (1921),

Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious and Fantasia of the Unconscious (1921/1922)

Studies in Classic American Literature (1923)

Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and other essays (1925)

A Propos of Lady Chatterley's Lover (1929)

Apocalypse and the writings on Revelation (1931)

Phoenix: The Posthumous Papers of D. H. Lawrence (1936)

 

 

Travel Books

Twilight in Italy and Other Essays (1916)

Sea and Sardinia (1921)

Mornings in Mexico and Other Essays (1927),

Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian essays (1932)

 

 

Works translated by Lawrence

Lev Isaakovich Shestov All Things are Possible (1920)

Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin The Gentleman from San Francisco (1922), tr. with S. S. Koteliansky

Giovanni Verga Mastro-Don Gesualdo (1923)

Giovanni Verga Little Novels of Sicily (1925)

Giovanni Verga Cavalleria Rusticana and other stories (1928)

Antonio Francesco Grazzini The Story of Doctor Manente (1929)

 

 

Manuscripts and early drafts of published novels and other works

Paul Morel (1911–12), an early manuscript version of Sons and Lovers

The First Women in Love (1916–17)

Mr Noon, (unfinished novel) Parts I and II

The Symbolic Meaning: The Uncollected Versions of Studies in Classic American Literature

Quetzalcoatl (1925), edited by Louis L Martz. Early draft of The Plumed Serpent

The First and Second Lady Chatterley novels

 

 

Paintings

The Paintings of D. H. Lawrence, London: Mandrake Press, 1929.