The White Peacock

  Emily was bathing the cheek of a little girl, who lifted up her voice and wept loudly when she saw the speck of blood on the cloth. But presently she became quiet too, and Emily could empty the water from the late instrument of castigation, and at last light the lamp.

  I found Sam under the table in a little heap. I put out my hand for him, and he wriggled away, like a lizard, into the passage. After a while I saw him in a corner, lying whimpering with little savage cries of pain. I cut off his retreat and captured him, bearing him struggling into the kitchen. Then, weary with pain, he became passive.

  We undressed him, and found his beautiful white body all discoloured with bruises. The mother began to sob again, with a chorus of babies. The girls tried to soothe the weeping, while I rubbed butter into the silent, wincing boy. Then his mother caught him in her arms, and kissed him passionately, and cried with abandon. The boy let himself be kissed--then he too began to sob, till his little body was all shaken. They folded themselves together, the poor dishevelled mother and the half-naked boy, and wept themselves still. Then she took him to bed, and the girls helped the other little ones into their nightgowns, and soon the house was still.

  "I canna manage 'em, I canna," said the mother mournfully. "They growin' beyont me--I dunna know what to do wi' 'em. An' niver a 'and does 'e lift ter 'elp me--no--'e cares not a thing for me--not a thing--nowt but makes a mock an' a sludge o' me."

  "Ah, baby!" said Lettie, setting the bonny boy on his feet, and holding up his trailing nightgown behind him, "do you want to walk to your mother--go then--Ah!"

  The child, a handsome little fellow of some sixteen months, toddled across to his mother, waving his hands as he went, and laughing, while his large hazel eyes glowed with pleasure. His mother caught him, pushed the silken brown hair back from his forehead, and laid his cheek against hers.

  "Ah!" she said, "tha's got a funny Dad, tha' has, not like another man, no, my duckie. 'E's got no 'art ter care for nobody, 'e 'asna, ma pigeon--no--lives like a stranger to his own flesh an' blood."

  The girl with the wounded cheek had found comfort in Leslie. She was seated on his knee, looking at him with solemn blue eyes, her solemnity increased by the quaint round head, whose black hair was cut short.

  "'S my chalk, yes it is, 'n our Sam says as it's 'issen, an' 'e ta'es it and marks it all gone, so I wouldna gie 't' 'im,"--she clutched in her fat little hand a piece of red chalk. "My Dad gen it me, ter mark my dolly's face red, what's on'y wood--I'll show yer."

  She wriggled down, and holding up her trailing gown with one hand, trotted to a corner piled with a child's rubbish, and hauled out a hideous carven caricature of a woman, and brought it to Leslie. The face of the object was streaked with red.

  'Ere sh' is, my dolly, what my Dad make me--'er name's Lady Mima."

  "Is it?" said Lettie, "and are these her cheeks? She's not pretty, is she?"

  "Um--sh' is. My Dad says sh' is--like a lady."

  "And he gave you her rouge, did he?"

  "Rouge!" she nodded.

  "And you wouldn't let Sam have it?"

  "No--an' mi movver says, Dun gie 't 'im'--'n 'e bite me."

  "What will your father say?"

  "Me Dad?"

  "'E'd nobbut laugh," put in the mother, "an' say as a bite's bett'r'n a kiss."

  "Brute!" said Leslie feelingly.

  "No, but 'e never laid a finger on' em--nor me neither. But 'e 's not like another man--niver tells yer nowt. He's more a stranger to me this day than 'e wor th' day I first set eyes on 'im."

  "Where was that?" asked Lettie.

  "When I wor a lass at th' 'All--an' 'im a new man come--fair a gentleman, an' a, an' a! Ond even now can read an' talk like a gentleman--but 'e tells me nothing--Oh no--what am I in 'is eyes but a sludge bump?--'e 's above me, 'e is, an' above 'is own childer. God a-mercy, 'e '11 be in in a minute. Come on 'ere!"

  She hustled the children to bed, swept the litter into a corner, and began to lay the table. The cloth was spotless, and she put him a silver spoon in the saucer.

  We had only just got out of the house when he drew near. I saw his massive figure in the doorway, and the big, prolific woman moved subserviently about the room.

  "Hullo, Proserpine--had visitors?"

  "I never axed 'em--they come in 'earin' th' childer cryin'. I never encouraged 'em--"

  We hurried away into the night.

  "Ah, it's always the woman bears the burden," said Lettie bitterly.

  "If he'd helped her--wouldn't she have been a fine woman now--splendid? But she's dragged to bits. Men are brutes--and marriage just gives scope to them," said Emily.

  "Oh, you wouldn't take that as a fair sample of marriage," replied Leslie. "Think of you and me, Minnehaha."

  "Ay."

  "Oh--I meant to tell you--what do you think of Greymede old vicarage for us?"

  "It's a lovely old place!" exclaimed Lettie, and we passed out of hearing.

  We stumbled over the rough path. The moon was bright, and we stepped apprehensively on the shadows thrown from the trees, for they lay so black and substantial. Occasionally a moonbeam would trace out a suave white branch that the rabbits had gnawed quite bare in the hard winter. We came out of the woods into the full heavens. The northern sky was full of a gush of green light; in front, eclipsed Orion leaned over his bed, and the moon followed.

  "When the northern lights are up," said Emily, "I feel so strange--half eerie--they do fill you with awe, don't they?"

  "Yes," said I, "they make you wonder, and look, and expect something."

  "What do you expect?" she said softly, and looked up, and saw me smiling, and she looked down again, biting her lips.

  When we came to the parting of the roads, Emily begged them just to step into the mill--just for a moment--and Lettie consented.

  The kitchen window was uncurtained, and the blind, as usual, was not drawn. We peeped in through the cords of budding honeysuckle. George and Alice were sitting at the table playing chess; the mother was mending a coat, and the father, as usual, was reading. Alice was talking quietly, and George was bent on the game. His arms lay on the table.

  We made a noise at the door, and entered. George rose heavily, shook hands, and sat down again.

  "Hullo, Lettie Beardsall, you are a stranger," said Alice. "Are you so much engaged?"

  "Ay--we don't see much of her nowadays," added the father in his jovial way.

  "And isn't she a toff, in her fine hat and furs and snowdrops. Look at her, George, you've never looked to see what a toff she is."

  He raised his eyes, and looked at her apparel and at her flowers, but not at her face:

  "Ay, she is fine," he said, and returned to the chess.

  "We have been gathering snowdrops," said Lettie, fingering the flowers in her bosom.

  "They are pretty--give me some, will you?" said Alice, holding out her hand. Lettie gave her the flowers.

  "Check!" said George deliberately.

  "Get out!" replied his opponent, "I've got some snowdrops--don't they suit me, an innocent little soul like me? Lettie won't wear them--she's not meek and mild and innocent like me. Do you want some?"

  "If you like--what for?"

  "To make you pretty, of course, and to show you an innocent little meekling."

  "You're in check," he said.

  "Where can you wear them?--there's only your shirt. Aw!--there!--she stuck a few flowers in his ruffled black hair--"

  "Look, Lettie, isn't he sweet?"

  Lettie laughed with a strained little laugh:

  "He's like Bottom and the ass's head," she said.

  "Then I'm Titania--don't I make a lovely fairy queen, Bully Bottom?--and who's jealous Oberon?"

  "He reminds me of that man in Hedda Gabler--crowned with vine leaves--oh yes, vine leaves," said Emily.

  "How's your mare's sprain, Mr Tempest?" George asked, taking no notice of the flowers in his hair.

  "Oh--she'll soon be all right, thanks."

  "Ah-
-George told me about it," put in the father, and he held Leslie in conversation.

  "Am I in check, George?" said Alice, returning to the game. She knitted her brows and cogitated:

  "Pooh!" she said, "that's soon remedied!"--she moved her piece, and said triumphantly, "Now, Sir!"

  He surveyed the game, and, with deliberation moved. Alice pounced on him; with a leap of her knight she called, "Check!"

  "I didn't see it--you may have the game now," he said.

  "Beaten, my boy!--don't crow over a woman any more. Stalemate--with flowers in your hair!"

  He put his hand to his head, and felt among his hair, and threw the flowers on the table.

  "Would you believe it--!" said the mother, coming into the room from the dairy.

  "What?" we all asked.

  "Nickie Ben's been and eaten the sile-cloth. Yes! When I went to wash it, there sat Nickie Ben gulping, and wiping the froth off his whiskers."

  George laughed loudly and heartily. He laughed till he was tired. Lettie looked and wondered when he would be done.

  "I imagined," he gasped, "how he'd feel with half a yard of muslin creeping down his throttle."

  This laughter was most incongruous. He went off into another burst. Alice laughed too--it was easy to infect her with laughter. Then the father began--and in walked Nickie Ben, stepping disconsolately--we all roared again, till the rafters shook. Only Lettie looked impatiently for the end. George swept his bare arms across the table, and the scattered little flowers fell broken to the ground.

  "Oh--what a shame!" exclaimed Lettie.

  "What?" said he, looking round. "Your flowers? Do you feel sorry for them?--You're too tender-hearted; isn't she, Cyril?"

  "Always was--for dumb animals, and things," said I.

  "Don't you wish you was a little dumb animal, Georgie?" said Alice.

  He smiled, putting away the chess-men.

  "Shall we go, dear?" said Lettie to Leslie.

  "If you are ready," he replied, rising with alacrity.

  "I am tired," she said plaintively.

  He attended to her with little tender solicitations.

  "Have we walked too far?" he asked.

  "No, it's not that. No--it's the snowdrops, and the man, and the children--and everything. I feel just a bit exhausted." She kissed Alice, and Emily, and the mother.

  "Good night, Alice," she said. "It's not altogether my fault we're strangers. You know--really--I'm just the same--really. Only you imagine, and then what can I do?"

  She said farewell to George, and looked at him through a quiver of suppressed tears.

  George was somewhat flushed with triumph over Lettie: She had gone home with tears shaken from her eyes unknown to her lover; at the farm George laughed with Alice.

  We escorted Alice home to Eberwich--"Like a blooming little monkey dangling from two boughs," as she put it, when we swung her along on our arms. We laughed and said many preposterous things. George wanted to kiss her at parting, but she tipped him under the chin and said, "Sweet!" as one does to a canary. Then she laughed with her tongue between her teeth, and ran indoors.

  "She is a little devil," said he.

  We took the long way home by Greymede, and passed the dark schools.

  "Come on," said he, "let's go in the 'Ram Inn', and have a look at my cousin Meg."

  It was half-past ten when he marched me across the road and into the sanded passage of the little inn. The place had been an important farm in the days of George's grand-uncle, but since his decease it had declined, under the governance of the widow and a man-of-all-work. The old grand-aunt was propped and supported by a splendid granddaughter. The near kin of Meg were all in California, so she, a bonny delightful girl of twenty-four, stayed near her grandma.

  As we tramped grittily down the passage, the red head of Bill poked out of the bar, and he said as he recognised George: "Good ev'nin'--go forward--'er's non abed yit."

  We went forward, and unlatched the kitchen door. The great-aunt was seated in her little, round-backed arm-chair sipping her "night-cap".

  "Well, George, my lad!" she cried, in her querulous voice. "Tha' niver says it's thai, does ter? That's com'n for summat, for sure, else what brings thee ter see me?"

  "No," he said. "Ah'n corn ter see thee, nowt else. Wheer's Meg?"

  "Ah!--Ha--Ha--Ah!--Me, did ter say?--come ter see me?--Ha--wheer's Meg!--an' who's this young gentleman?"

  I was formally introduced, and shook the clammy corded hand of the old lady.

  "Tha' looks delikit," she observed, shaking her cap and its scarlet geraniums sadly: "Cum now, sit thee down, an' dunna look so long o' th' leg."

  I sat down on the sofa, on the cushions covered with blue and red checks. The room was very hot, and I stared about uncomfortably. The old lady sat peering at nothing, in reverie. She was a hard-visaged, bosomless dame, clad in thick black cloth-like armour, and wearing an immense twisted gold brooch in the lace at her neck.

  We heard heavy, quick footsteps above.

  "'Er's commin'," remarked the old lady, rousing from her apathy. The footsteps came downstairs--quickly, then cautiously round the bend. Meg appeared in the doorway. She started with surprise, saying:

  "Well, I 'eered sumbody, but I never thought it was you." More colour still flamed into her glossy cheeks, and she smiled in her fresh, frank way. I think I have never seen a woman who had more physical charm; there was a voluptuous fascination in her every outline and movement; one never listened to the words that came from her lips, one watched the ripe motion of those red fruits.

  "Get 'em a drop o' whisky, Meg--you'll 'a'e a drop?" I declined firmly, but did not escape.

  "Nay," declared the old dame.. "I s'll ha'e none o' thy no's. Should ter like it 'ot?--Say th' word, an' tha' 'as it."

  I did not say the word.

  "Then gi'e 'im claret," pronounced my hostess, "though it's thin-bellied stuff ter go ter bed on"--and claret it was.

  Meg went out again to see about closing. The grand-aunt sighed, and sighed again, for no perceptible reason but the whisky.

  "It's well you've come ter see me now," she moaned, "for you'll none 'a'e a chance next time you come' n;--No--I'm all gone but my cap--"

  She shook that geraniumed erection, and I wondered what sardonic fate left it behind.

  "An' I'm forced ter say it, I s'll be thankful to be gone," she added, after a few sighs.

  This weariness of the flesh was touching. The cruel truth is, however, that the old lady clung to life like a louse to a pig's back. Dying, she faintly, but emphatically declared herself, "a bit better--a bit better. I s'll be up tomorrow."

  "I should a gone before now," she continued, "but for that blessed wench--I canna abear to think o' leavin' 'er--come drink up, my lad, drink up--nay, tha' 'rt nobbut young yet, tha' 'rt none topped up wi' a thimbleful."

  I took whisky in preference to the acrid stuff.

  "Ay," resumed the grand-aunt. "I canna go in peace till 'er's settled--an' 'er's that tickle o' choosin'. Th' right sort 'asn't th' gumption ter ax' 'er."

  She sniffed, and turned scornfully to her glass. George grinned and looked conscious; as he swallowed a gulp of whisky it crackled in his throat. The sound annoyed the old lady.

  "Tha' might be scar'd at summat," she said. "Tha' niver 'ad six drops o' spunk in thee."

  She turned again with a sniff to her glass. He frowned with irritation, half filled his glass with liquor, and drank again.

  "I dare bet as tha' niver kissed a wench in thy life--not proper"--and she tossed the last drops of her toddy down her skinny throat.

  Here Meg came along the passage.

  "Come, Gran'ma," she said. "I'm sure it's time as you was in bed--come on."

  "Sit thee down an' drink a drop wi's--it's not ivry night as we 'a'e cumpny."

  "No, let me take you to bed--I'm sure you must be ready."

  "Sit thee down 'ere, I say, an' get thee a drop o' port. Come--no argy-bargyin'."

  Meg fetched more
glasses and a decanter. I made a place for her between me and George. We all had port wine. Meg, naïve and unconscious, waited on us deliciously. Her cheeks gleamed like satin when she laughed, save when the dimples held the shadow. Her suave, tawny neck was bare and bewitching. She turned suddenly to George as he asked her a question, and they found their faces close together. He kissed her, and when she started back, jumped and kissed her neck with warmth.

  "La--là--dy--dà--là--dy--dà--dy--dà," cried the old woman in delight, and she clutched her wineglass.

  "Come on--chink!" she cried, "all together--chink to him!"

  We four chinked and drank. George poured wine in a tumbler, and drank it off. He was getting excited, and all the energy and passion that normally were bound down by his caution and self-instinct began to flame out.

  "Here, Aunt!" said he, lifting his tumbler, "here's to what you want--you know!"

  "I knowed tha' wor as spunky as ony on'em," she cried.

  "Tha' nobbut wanted warmin' up. I'll see as you're all right. It's a bargain. Chink again, iverybody."

  "A bargain," said he before he put his lips to the glass. "What bargain's that?" said Meg.

  The old lady laughed loudly and winked at George, who, with his lips wet with wine, got up and kissed Meg soundly, saying: