The White Peacock

  "How do you mean?"

  "A kind of guilty--or shall I say embarrassed--look. Don't you notice it, Mother?"

  "I do!" said my mother.

  "I suppose it means we may not ask him questions," Lettie concluded, always very busily sewing.

  He laughed. She had broken her cotton, and was trying to thread the needle again.

  "What have you been doing this miserable weather?" he enquired awkwardly.

  "Oh, we have sat at home desolate. 'Ever of thee I'm fo-o-ondly dreaming'--and so on. Haven't we, Mother?"

  "Well," said Mother, "I don't know. We imagined him all sorts of lions up there."

  "What a shame we may not ask him to roar his old roars over for us," said Lettie.

  "What are they like?" he asked.

  "How should I know? Like a sucking dove, to judge from your present voice. 'A monstrous little voice.'"

  He laughed uncomfortably.

  She went on sewing, suddenly beginning to sing to herself:

  "Pussy cat, Pussy cat, where have you been? I've been up to London to see the fine queen: Pussy cat, Pussy cat, what did you there-- I frightened a little mouse under a stair."

  "I suppose," she added, "that may be so. Poor mouse!--but I guess she's none the worse. You did not see the queen, though?"

  "She was not in London," he replied sarcastically.

  "You don't--" she said, taking two pins from between her teeth. "I suppose you don't mean by that, she was in Eberwich--your queen?"

  "I don't know where she was," he answered angrily.

  "Oh!" she said, very sweetly, "I thought perhaps you had met her in Eberwich. When did you come back?"

  "Last night," he replied.

  "Oh--why didn't you come and see us before?"

  "I've been at the offices all day."

  "I've been up to Eberwich," she said innocently.

  "Have you?"

  "Yes. And I feel so cross because of it. I thought I might see you. I felt as if you were at home."

  She stitched a little, and glanced up secretly to watch his face redden, then she continued innocently, "Yes--I felt you had come back. It is funny how one has a feeling occasionally that someone is near; when it is someone one has a sympathy with." She continued to stitch, then she took a pin from her bosom, and fixed her work, all without the least suspicion of guile.

  "I thought I might meet you when I was out--" another pause, another fixing, a pin to be taken from her lips--"but I didn't."

  "I was at the office till rather late," he said quickly. She stitched away calmly, provokingly.

  She took the pin from her mouth again, fixed down a fold of stuff, and said softly:

  "You little liar."

  Mother had gone out of the room for her recipe book.

  He sat on his chair dumb with mortification. She stitched swiftly and unerringly. There was silence for some moments. Then he spoke:

  "I did not know you wanted me for the pleasure of plucking this crow," he said.

  "I wanted you!" she exclaimed, looking up for the first time. "Who said I wanted you?"

  "No one. If you didn't want me I may as well go."

  The sound of stitching alone broke the silence for some moments, then she said deliberately:

  "What made you think I wanted you?"

  "I don't care a damn whether you wanted me or whether you didn't."

  "It seems to upset you! And don't use bad language. It is the privilege of those near and dear to one."

  "That's why you begin it, I suppose."

  "I cannot remember--" she said loftily.

  He laughed sarcastically.

  "Well--if you're so beastly cut up about it--" He put this tentatively, expecting the soft answer. But she refused to speak, and went on stitching. He fidgeted about, twisted his cap uncomfortably, and sighed. At last he said:

  "Well--you--have we done then?"

  She had the vast superiority, in that she was engaged in ostentatious work. She could fix the cloth, regard it quizzically, rearrange it, settle down and begin to sew before she replied. This humbled him. At last she said:

  "I thought so this afternoon."

  "But, good God, Lettie, can't you drop it?"

  "And then?"--the question startled him.

  "Why!--forget it," he replied.

  "Well?"--she spoke softly, gently. He answered to the call like an eager hound. He crossed quickly to her side as she sat sewing, and said, in a low voice:

  "You do care something for me, don't you, Lettie?"

  "Well"--it was modulated kindly, a sort of promise of assent.

  "You have treated me rottenly, you know, haven't you? You know I--well, I care a good bit."

  "It is a queer way of showing it." Her voice was now a gentle reproof, the sweetest of surrenders and forgiveness. He leaned forward, took her face in his hands, and kissed her, murmuring:

  "You are a little tease."

  She laid her sewing in her lap, and looked up.

  The next day, Sunday, broke wet and dreary. Breakfast was late, and about ten o'clock we stood at the window looking upon the impossibility of our going to church.

  There was a driving drizzle of rain, like a dirty curtain before the landscape. The nasturtium leaves by the garden walk had gone rotten in a frost, and the gay green discs had given place to the first black flags of winter, hung on flaccid stalks, pinched at the neck. The grass plot was strewn with fallen leaves, wet and brilliant: scarlet splashes of Virginia creeper, golden drift from the limes, ruddy brown shawls under the beeches, and away back in the corner, the black mat of maple leaves, heavy soddened; they ought to have been a vivid lemon colour. Occasionally one of these great black leaves would loose its hold, and zigzag down, staggering in the dance of death.

  "There now!" said Lettie suddenly.

  I looked up in time to see a crow close his wings and clutch the topmost bough of an old grey holly tree on the edge of the clearing. He flapped again, recovered his balance, and folded himself up in black resignation to the detestable weather.

  "Why has the old wretch settled just over our noses," said Lettie petulantly. "Just to blot the promise of a sorrow."

  "Yours or mine?" I asked.

  "He is looking at me, I declare."

  "You can see the wicked pupil of his eye at this distance," I insinuated.

  "Well," she replied, determined to take this omen unto herself, "I saw him first."

  "'One for sorrow, two for joy, Three for a letter, four for a boy, Five for silver, six for gold, And seven for a secret never told.'

  "--You may bet he's only a messenger in advance. There'll be three more shortly, and you'll have your four," said I, comforting.

  "Do you know," she said, "it is very funny, but whenever I've particularly noticed one crow, I've had some sorrow or other."

  "And when you notice four?" I asked.

  "You should have heard old Mrs Wagstaffe," was her reply. "She declares an old crow croaked in their apple tree every day for a week before Jerry got drowned."

  "Great sorrow for her," I remarked.

  "Oh, but she wept abundantly. I felt like weeping too, but somehow I laughed. She hoped he had gone to heaven--but I'm sick of that word 'but'--it is always tangling one's thoughts."

  "But, Jerry!" I insisted.

  "Oh, she lifted up her forehead, and the tears dripped off her nose. He must have been an old nuisance, Syb. I can't understand why women marry such men. I felt downright glad to think of the drunken old wretch toppling into the canal out of the way."

  She pulled the thick curtain across the window, and nestled down in it, resting her cheek against the edge, protecting herself from the cold window-pane. The wet, grey wind shook the half-naked trees, whose leaves dripped and shone sullenly. Even the trunks were blackened, trickling with the rain which drove persistently.

  Whirled down the sky like black maple leaves caught up aloft, came two more crows. They swept down and clung hold of the trees in front of the house, staying
near the old forerunner. Lettie watched them, half amused, half melancholy. One bird was carried past. He swerved round and began to battle up the wind, rising higher, and rowing laboriously against the driving wet current.

  "Here comes your fourth," said I.

  She did not answer, but continued to watch. The bird wrestled heroically, but the wind pushed him aside, tilted him, caught under his broad wings and bore him down. He swept in level flight down the stream, outspread and still, as if fixed in despair. I grieved for him. Sadly two of his fellows rose and were carried away after him, like souls hunting for a body to inhabit, and despairing. Only the first ghoul was left on the withered, silver-grey skeleton of the holly.

  "He won't even say 'Nevermore'," I remarked.

  "He has more sense," replied Lettie. She looked a trifle lugubrious. Then she continued: "Better say 'Nevermore' than 'Evermore'."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Oh, I don't know. Fancy this 'Evermore'."

  She had been sure in her own soul that Leslie would come--now she began to doubt:--things were very perplexing.

  The bell in the kitchen jangled, she jumped up. I went and opened the door. He came in. She gave him one bright look of satisfaction. He saw it, and understood.

  "Helen has got some people over--I have been awfully rude to leave them now," he said quietly.

  "What a dreadful day!" said Mother.

  "Oh, fearful! Your face is red, Lettie! What have you been doing?"

  "Looking into the fire."

  "What did you see?"

  "The pictures wouldn't come plain--nothing."

  He laughed. We were silent for some time.

  "You were expecting me?" he murmured.

  "Yes--I knew you'd come."

  They were left alone. He came up to her and put his arms round her, as she stood with her elbow on the mantelpiece.

  "You do want me," he pleaded softly.

  "Yes," she murmured.

  He held her in his arms and kissed her repeatedly, again and again, till she was out of breath, and put up her hand, and gently pushed her face away.

  "You are a cold little lover--you are a shy bird," he said, laughing into her eyes. He saw her tears rise, swimming on her lids, but not falling.

  "Why, my love, my darling--why!"--he put his face to her's and took the tear on his cheek:

  "I know you love me," he said, gently, all tenderness.

  "Do you know," he murmured. "I can positively feel the tears rising up from my heart and throat. They are quite painful gathering, my love. There--you can do anything with me."

  They were silent for some time. After a while, a rather long while, she came upstairs and found Mother--and at the end of some minutes I heard my mother go to him.

  I sat by my window and watched the low clouds reel and stagger past. It seemed as if everything were being swept along--I myself seemed to have lost my substance, to have become detached from concrete things and the firm trodden pavement of everyday life. Onward, always onward, not knowing where, nor why, the wind, the clouds, the rain and the birds and the leaves, everything whirling along--why?

  All this time the old crow sat motionless, though the clouds tumbled, and were rent and piled, though the trees bent, and the window-pane shivered with running water. Then I found it had ceased to rain; that there was a sickly yellow sunlight, brightening on some great elm leaves near at hand till they looked like ripe lemons hanging. The crow looked at me--I was certain he looked at me.

  "What do you think of it all?" I asked him.

  He eyed me with contempt: great featherless, half-winged bird as I was, incomprehensible, contemptible, but awful. I believe he hated me.

  "But," said I, "if a raven could answer, why won't you?" He looked wearily away. Nevertheless my gaze disquieted him. He turned uneasily; he rose, waved his wings as if for flight, poised, then settled defiantly down again.

  "You are no good," said I, "you won't help even with a word."

  He sat stolidly unconcerned. Then I heard the lapwings in the meadow crying, crying. They seemed to seek the storm, yet to rail at it. They wheeled in the wind, yet never ceased to complain of it. They enjoyed the struggle, and lamented it in wild lament, through which came a sound of exultation. All the lapwings cried, cried the same tale, "Bitter, bitter, the struggle--for nothing, nothing, nothing"--and all the time they swung about on their broad wings, revelling.

  "There," said I to the crow, "they try it, and find it bitter, but they wouldn't like to miss it, to sit still like you, you old corpse."

  He could not endure this. He rose in defiance, flapped his wings, and launched off, uttering one "Caw" of sinister foreboding. He was soon whirled away.

  I discovered that I was very cold, so I went downstairs.

  Twisting a curl round his finger, one of those loose curls that always dance free from the captured hair, Leslie said:

  "Look how fond your hair is of me; look how it twines round my finger. Do you know, your hair--the light in it is like--oh--buttercups in the sun."

  "It is like me--it won't be kept in bounds," she replied. "Shame if it were--like this, it brushes my face--so--and sets me tingling like music."

  "Behave! Now be still, and I'll tell you what sort of music you make."

  "Oh--well--tell me."

  "Like the calling of throstles and blackies, in the evening, frightening the pale little wood-anemones, till they run panting and swaying right up to our wall. Like the ringing of bluebells when the bees are at them; like Hippomenes, out-of-breath, laughing because he'd won."

  He kissed her with rapturous admiration.

  "Marriage music, sir," she added.

  "What golden apples did I throw?" he asked lightly. "What!" she exclaimed, half mocking.

  "This Atalanta," he replied, looking lovingly upon her, "this Atalanta--I believe she just lagged at last on purpose."

  "You have it," she cried, laughing, submitting to his caresses. "It was you--the apples of your firm heels--the apples of your eyes--the apples Eve bit--that won me--hein!"

  "That was it--you are clever, you are rare. And I've won, won the ripe apples of your cheeks, and your breasts, and your very fists--they can't stop me--and--and--all your roundness and warmness and softness--I've won you, Lettie."

  She nodded wickedly, saying:

  "All those--those--yes."

  "All--she admits it--everything!"

  "Oh!--but let me breathe. Did you claim everything?"

  "Yes, and you gave it me."

  "Not yet. Everything though?"

  "Every atom."

  "But--now you look--"

  "Did I look aside?"

  "With the inward eye. Suppose now we were two angels--"

  "Oh, dear--a sloppy angel!"

  "Well--don't interrupt now--suppose I were one--like the 'Blessed Damosel'."

  "With a warm bosom--!"

  "Don't be foolish, now--I a 'Blessed Damosel' and you kicking the brown beech leaves below thinking--"

  "What are you driving at?"

  "Would you be thinking--thoughts like prayers?"

  "What on earth do you ask that for? Oh--I think I'd be cursing--eh?"

  "No--saying fragrant prayers--that your thin soul might mount up--"

  "Hang thin souls, Lettie! I'm not one of your souly sort. I can't stand Pre-Raphaelities. You--You're not a Burne-Jonesess--you're an Albert Moore. I think there's more in the warm touch of a soft body than in a prayer. I'll pray with kisses."

  "And when you can't?"

  "I'll wait till prayer-time again. By. Jove, I'd rather feel my arms full of you; I'd rather touch that red mouth--you grudger!--than sing hymns with you in any heaven."

  "I'm afraid you'll never sing hymns with me in heaven."

  "Well--I have you here--yes, I have you now."

  "Our life is but a fading dawn?"

  "Liar!--Well, you called me! Besides, I don't care; 'Carpe diem', my rosebud, my fawn. There's a nice Carmen about a fawn. 'Time to leave its mothe
r, and venture into a warm embrace.' Poor old Horace--I've forgotten him."

  "Then poor old Horace."

  "Ha! Ha!--Well, I shan't forget you. What's that queer look in your eyes?"

  "What is it?"

  "Nay--you tell me. You are such a tease, there's no getting to the bottom of you."

  "You can fathom the depth of a kiss--"

  "I will--I will--"

  After a while he asked:

  "When shall we be properly engaged, Lettie?"

  "Oh, wait till Christmas--till I am twenty-one."

  "Nearly three months! Why on earth--"

  "It will make no difference. I shall be able to choose thee of my own free choice then."

  "But three months!"

  "I shall consider thee engaged--it doesn't matter about other people."

  "I thought we should be married in three months."

  "Ah--married in haste--But what will your mother say?"

  "Say! Oh, she'll say it's the first wise thing I've done. You'll make a fine wife, Lettie, able to entertain, and all that."

  "You will flutter brilliantly."

  "We will."

  "No--you'll be the moth--I'll paint your wings--gaudy feather-dust. Then when you lose your coloured dust, when you fly too near the light, or when you play dodge with a butterfly-net--away goes my part--you can't fly--I--alas, poor me! What becomes of the feather-dust when the moth brushes his wings against a butterfly-net?"

  "What are you making so many words about? You don't know now, do you?"

  "No--that I don't."

  "Then just be comfortable. Let me look at myself in your eyes."

  "Narcissus, Narcissus!--Do you see yourself well? Does the image flatter you?--Or is it a troubled stream, distorting your fair lineaments?"

  "I can't see anything--only feel you looking--you are laughing at me.--What have you behind there--what joke?"

  "I--I'm thinking you're just like Narcissus--a sweet, beautiful youth."

  "Be serious--do."

  "It would be dangerous. You'd die of it, and I--I should--"

  "What!"

  "Be just like I am now--serious."

  He looked proudly, thinking she referred to the earnestness of her love.

  In the wood the wind rumbled and roared hoarsely overhead, but not a breath stirred among the saddened bracken. An occasional raindrop was shaken out of the trees; I slipped on the wet paths. Black bars striped the grey tree-trunks, where water had trickled down; the bracken was overthrown, its yellow ranks broken. I slid down the steep path to the gate, out of the wood.