Armies of cloud marched in rank across the sky, heavily laden, almost brushing the gorse on the common. The wind was cold and disheartening. The ground sobbed at every step. The brook was full, swirling along, hurrying, talking to itself, in absorbed intent tones. The clouds darkened; I felt the rain. Careless of the mud, I ran, and burst into the farm kitchen.
The children were painting, and they immediately claimed my help.
"Emily--and George--are in the front room," said the mother quietly, for it was Sunday afternoon. I satisfied the little ones; I said a few words to the mother, and sat down to take off my clogs.
In the parlour, the father, big and comfortable, was sleeping in an arm-chair. Emily was writing at the table--she hurriedly hid her papers when I entered. George was sitting by the fire, reading. He looked up as I entered, and I loved him when he looked up at me, and as he lingered on his quiet "Hullo!" His eyes were beautifully eloquent--as eloquent as a kiss.
We talked in subdued murmurs, because the father was asleep, opulently asleep, his tanned face as still as a brown pear against the wall. The clock itself went slowly, with languid throbs. We gathered round the fire, and talked quietly, about nothing--blissful merely in the sound of our voices, a murmured, soothing sound--a grateful, dispassionate love trio.
At last George rose, put down his book--looked at his father--and went out.
In the barn there was a sound of the pulper crunching the turnips. The crisp strips of turnip sprinkled quietly down on to a heap of gold which grew beneath the pulper. The smell of pulped turnips, keen and sweet, brings back to me the feeling of many winter nights, when frozen hoof-prints crunch in the yard, and Orion is in the south; when a friendship was at its mystical best.
"Pulping on Sunday!" I exclaimed.
"Father didn't do it yesterday; it's his work; and I didn't notice it. You know--Father often forgets--he doesn't like to have to work in the afternoon--now."
The cattle stirred in their stalls; the chains rattled round the posts; a cow coughed noisily. When George had finished pulping, and it was quiet enough for talk, just as he was spreading the first layers of chop and turnip and meal--in ran Emily--with her hair in silken, twining confusion, her eyes glowing--to bid us go in to tea before the milking was begun. It was the custom to milk before tea on Sunday--but George abandoned it without demur--his father willed it so, and his father was master, not to be questioned on farm matters, however one disagreed.
The last day in October had been dreary enough; the night could not come too early. We had tea by lamplight, merrily, with the father radiating comfort as, the lamp shone yellow light. Sunday tea was imperfect without a visitor; with me, they always declared, it was perfect. I loved to hear them say so. I smiled, rejoicing quietly into my teacup when the father said:
"It seems proper to have Cyril here at Sunday tea, it seems natural."
He was most loath to break the delightful bond of the lamp-lit tea-table; he looked up with a half-appealing glance when George at last pushed back his chair and said he supposed he'd better make a start.
"Ay," said the father in a mild, conciliatory tone, "I'll be out in a minute."
The lamp hung against the barn wall, softly illuminating the lower part of the building, where bits of hay and white dust lay in the hollows between the bricks, where the curled chips of turnip scattered orange gleams over the earthen floor; the lofty roof, with its swallows' nests under the tiles, was deep in shadow, and the corners were full of darkness, hiding, half hiding, the hay, the chopper, the bins. The light shone along the passages before the stalls, glistening on the moist noses of the cattle, and on the whitewash of the walls.
George was very cheerful; but I wanted to tell him my message. When he had finished the feeding, and had at last sat down to milk, I said:
"I told you Leslie Tempest was at our house when I came away."
He sat with the bucket between his knees, his hands at the cow's udder, about to begin to milk. He looked up a question at me.
"They are practically engaged now," I said.
He did not turn his eyes away, but he ceased to look at me. As one who is listening for a far-off noise, he sat with his eyes fixed. Then he bent his head, and leaned it against the side of the cow, as if he would begin to milk. But he did not. The cow looked round and stirred uneasily. He began to draw the milk, and then to milk mechanically. I watched the movement of his hands, listening to the rhythmic clang of the jets of milk on the bucket, as a relief. After a while the movement of his hands became slower, thoughtful--then stopped.
"She has really said yes?"
I nodded.
"And what does your mother say?"
"She is pleased."
He began to milk again. The cow stirred uneasily, shifting her legs. He looked at her angrily, and went on milking. Then, quite upset, she shifted again, and swung her tail in his face.
"Stand still!" he shouted, striking her on the haunch. She seemed to cower like a beaten 'woman. He swore at her, and continued to milk. She did not yield much that night; she was very restive; he took the stool from beneath him and gave her a good blow; I heard the stool knock on her prominent hipbone. After that she stood still, but her milk soon ceased to flow.
When he stood up, he paused before he went to the next beast, and I thought he was going to talk. But just then the father came along with his bucket. He looked in the shed, and, laughing in his mature, pleasant way, said:
"So you're an onlooker today, Cyril--I thought you'd have milked a cow or two for me by now."
"Nay," said I, "Sunday is a day of rest--and milking makes your hands ache."
"You only want a bit more practice," he said, joking in his ripe fashion. "Why, George, is that all you've got from Julia?"
"It is."
"H'm--she's soon going dry. Julia, old lady, don't go and turn skinny."
When he had gone, and the shed was still, the air seemed colder. I heard his good-humoured "Stand over, old lass," from the other shed, and the drum-beats of the first jets of milk on the pail.
"He has a comfortable time," said George, looking savage. I laughed. He still waited.
"You really expected Lettie to have him," I said.
"I suppose so," he replied, "then she'd made up her mind to it. It didn't matter--what she wanted--at the bottom."
"You?" said I.
"If it hadn't been that he was a prize--with a ticket--she'd have had--"
"You!" said I.
"She was afraid--look how she turned and kept away--"
"From you?" said I.
"I should like to squeeze her till she screamed."
"You should have gripped her before, and kept her," said I. "She--she's like a woman, like a cat--running to comforts--she strikes a bargain. Women are all tradesmen."
"Don't generalise, it's no good."
"She's like a prostitute--"
"It's banal! I believe she loves him."
He started, and looked at me queerly. He looked quite childish in his doubt and perplexity.
"She what--
"Loves him--honestly."
"She'd 'a loved me better," he muttered, and turned to his milking. I left him and went to talk to his father. When the latter's four beasts were finished, George's light still shone in the other shed.
I went and found him at the fifth, the last cow. When at length he had finished he put down his pail, and going over to poor Julia, stood scratching her back, and her poll, and her nose, looking into her big, startled eye and murmuring. She was afraid; she jerked her head, giving him a good blow on the cheek with her horn.
"You can't understand them," he said sadly, rubbing his face, and looking at me with his dark, serious eyes.
"I never knew I couldn't understand them. I never thought about it--till--"
"But you know, Cyril, she led me on." I laughed at his rueful appearance.
CHAPTER VIII - THE RIOT OF CHRISTMAS
For some weeks, during the latter part of November
and the beginning of December, I was kept indoors by a cold. At last came a frost which cleared the air and dried the mud. On the second Saturday before Christmas the world was transformed; tall, silver and pearl-grey trees rose pale against a dim blue sky, like trees in some rare, pale Paradise; the whole woodland was as if petrified in marble and silver and snow; the holly-leaves and long leaves of the rhododendron were rimmed and spangled with delicate tracery.
When the night came clear and bright, with a moon among the hoar-frost, I rebelled against confinement, and the house. No longer the mists and dank weather made the home dear; tonight even the glare of the distant little iron works was not visible, for the low clouds were gone, and pale stars blinked from beyond the moon.
Lettie was staying with me; Leslie was in London again. She tried to remonstrate in a sisterly fashion when I said I would go out.
"Only down to the Mill," said I. Then she hesitated a while--said she would come too. I suppose I looked at her curiously, for she said:
"Oh--if you would rather go alone--!"
"Come--come--yes, come!" said I, smiling to myself.
Lettie was in her old animated mood. She ran, leaping over rough places, laughing, talking to herself in French. We came to the Mill. Gyp did not bark. I opened the outer door and we crept softly into the great dark scullery, peeping into the kitchen through the crack of the door.
The mother sat by the hearth, where was a big bath half full of soapy water, and at her feet, warming his bare legs at the fire, was David, who had just been bathed. The mother was gently rubbing his fine fair hair into a cloud. Mollie was combing out her brown curls, sitting by her father, who, in the fire-seat, was reading aloud in a hearty voice, with quaint precision. At the table sat Emily and George: she was quickly picking over a pile of little yellow raisins, and he, slowly, with his head sunk, was stoning the large raisins. David kept reaching forward to play with the sleepy cat--interrupting his mother's rubbing. There was no sound but the voice of the father, full of zest; I am afraid they were not all listening carefully. I clicked the latch and entered.
"Lettie!" exclaimed George.
"Cyril!" cried Emily.
"Cyril, 'ooray!" shouted David.
"Hullo, Cyril!" said Mollie.
Six large brown eyes, round with surprise, welcomed me. They overwhelmed me with questions, and made much of us. At length they were settled and quiet again.
"Yes, I am a stranger," said Lettie, who had taken off her hat and furs and coat. "But you do not expect me often, do you? I may come at times, eh?"
"We are only too glad," replied the mother. "Nothing all day long but the sound of the sluice--and mists, and rotten leaves. I am thankful to hear a fresh voice."
"Is Cyril really better, Lettie?" asked Emily softly.
"He's a spoiled boy--I believe he keeps a little bit ill so that we can cade him. Let me help you--let me peel the apples--yes, yes--I will."
She went to the table, and occupied one side with her apple-peeling. George had not spoken to her. So she said:
"I won't help you, George, because I don't like to feel my fingers so sticky, and because I love to see you so domesticated."
"You'll enjoy the sight a long time, then, for these things are numberless."
"You should eat one now and then--I always do."
"If I ate one I should eat the lot."
"Then you may give me your one."
He passed her a handful without speaking.
"That is too many, your mother is looking. Let me just finish this apple. There, I've not broken the peel!"
She stood up, holding up a long curling strip of peel. "How many times must I swing it, Mrs Saxton?"
"Three times--but it's not All Hallows' Eve."
"Never mind! Look!--" She carefully swung the long band of green peel over her head three times, letting it fall the third. The cat pounced on it, but Mollie swept him off again.
"What is it?" cried Lettie, blushing.
"G," said the father, winking and laughing--the mother looked daggers at him.
"It isn't nothink," said David naïvely, forgetting his confusion at being in the presence of a lady in his shirt. Mollie remarked in her cool way:
"It might be a 'hess'--if you couldn't write."
"Or an 'L'," I added. Lettie looked over at me imperiously, and I was angry.
"What do you say, Emily?" she asked.
"Nay," said Emily. "It's only you can see the right letter."
"Tell us what's the right letter," said George to her.
"I!" exclaimed Lettie. "Who can look into the seeds of Time?"
"Those who have set 'em and watched 'em sprout," said I. She flung the peel into the fire, laughing a short laugh, and went on with her work.
Mrs Saxton leaned over to her daughter and said softly, so that he should not hear, that George was pulling the flesh out of the raisins.
"George!" said Emily sharply, "you're leaving nothing but the husks."
He too was angry.
"'And he would fain fill his belly with the husks that the swine did eat,'" he said quietly, taking a handful of the fruit he had picked and putting some in his mouth. Emily snatched away the basin.
"It is too bad!" she said.
"Here," said Lettie, handing him an apple she had peeled. "You may have an apple, greedy boy."
He took it and looked at it. Then a malicious smile twinkled round his eyes--as he said:
"If you give me the apple, to whom will you give the peel?"
"The swine," she said, as if she only understood his first reference to the Prodigal Son. He put the apple on the table. "Don't you want it?" she said.
"Mother," he said comically, as if jesting. "She is offering me the apple like Eve."
Like a flash, she snatched the apple from him, hid it in her skirts a moment, looking at him with dilated eyes, and then she flung it at the fire. She missed, and the father leaned forward and picked it off the hob, saying:
"The pigs may as well have it. You were slow, George--when a lady offers you a thing you don't have to make mouths."
"A ce qu'il paraît," she cried, laughing now at her ease, boisterously.
"Is she making love, Emily?" asked the father, laughing suggestively.
"She says it too fast for me," said Emily.
George was leaning back in his chair, his hands in his breeches pockets.
"We shall have to finish his raisins after all, Emily," said Lettie brightly. "Look what a lazy animal he is."
"He likes his comfort," said Emily, with irony.
"The picture of content--solid, healthy, easy-moving content--" continued Lettie. As he sat thus, with his head thrown back against the end of the ingle-seat, coatless, his red neck seen in repose, he did indeed look remarkably comfortable.
"I shall never fret my fat away," he said stolidly. "No--you and I--we are not like Cyril. We do not burn our bodies in our heads--or our hearts, do we?"
"We have it in common," said he, looking at her indifferently beneath his lashes, as his head was tilted back.
Lettie went on with the paring and coring of her apples--then she took the raisins. Meanwhile, Emily was making the house ring as she chopped the suet in a wooden bowl. The children were ready for bed. They kissed us all "Good night"--save George. At last they were gone, accompanied by their mother. Emily put down her chopper, and sighed that her arm was aching, so I relieved her. The chopping went on for a long time, while the father read, Lettie worked, and George sat tilted back looking on. When at length the mincemeat was finished we were all out of work. Lettie helped to clear away--sat down--talked a little with effort--jumped up and said:
"Oh, I'm too excited to sit still--it's so near Christmas--let us play at something."
"A dance?" said Emily.
"A dance--a dance!"
He suddenly sat straight and got up.
"Come on!" he said.
He kicked off his slippers, regardless of the holes in his stocking feet, and put away
the chairs. He held out his arm to her--she came with a laugh, and away they went, dancing over the great flagged kitchen at an incredible speed. Her light flying steps followed his leaps; you could hear the quick light tap of her toes more plainly than the thud of his stockinged feet. Emily and I joined in. Emily's movements are naturally slow, but we danced at great speed. I was hot and perspiring, and she was panting, when I put her in a chair. But they whirled on in the dance, on and on till I was giddy, till the father, laughing, cried that they should stop. But George continued the dance; her hair was shaken loose, and fell in a great coil down her back; her feet began to drag; you could hear a light slur on the floor; she was panting--I could see her lips murmur to him, begging him to stop; he was laughing with open mouth, holding her tight; at last her feet trailed; he lifted her, clasping her tightly, and danced twice round the room with her thus. Then he fell with a crash on the sofa, pulling her beside him. His eyes glowed like coals; he was panting in sobs, and his hair was wet and glistening. She lay back on the sofa, with his arm still around her, not moving; she was quite overcome. Her hair was wild about her face. Emily was anxious; the father said, with a shade of inquietude:
"You've overdone it--it is very foolish."
When at last she recovered her breath and her life, she got up, and laughing in a queer way, began to put up her hair. She went into the scullery where were the brush and combs, and Emily followed with a candle. When she returned, ordered once more, with a little pallor succeeding the flush, and with a great black stain of sweat on her leathern belt where his hand had held her, he looked up at her from his position on the sofa, with a peculiar glance of triumph, smiling.
"You great brute," she said, but her yoke was not as harsh as her words. He gave a deep sigh, sat up, and laughed quietly. "Another?" he said.
"Will you dance with me?"
"At your pleasure."
"Come then--a minuet."
"Don't know it."
"Nevertheless, you must dance it. Come along."