The White Peacock

She laughed, and laughed again, very much amused.

  "It is such a joke," she said. "To think you should feel cross now, when it is--how long is it ago--?"

  "I will not count up," said I.

  "Are you not sorry for me?" I asked of Tom Renshaw.

  He looked at me with his young blue eyes, eyes so bright, so naïvely inquisitive, so winsomely meditative. He did not know quite what to say, or how to take it.

  "Very!" he replied in another short burst of laughter, quickly twisting his moustache again and looking down at his feet.

  He was twenty-nine years old; had been a soldier in China for five years, was now farming his fathers' farm at Papplewick, where Emily was schoolmistress. He had been at home eighteen months. His father was an old man of seventy who had had his right hand chopped to bits in the chopping machine. So they told me. I liked Tom for his handsome bearing and his fresh, winsome way. He was exceedingly manly: that is to say, he did not dream of questioning or analysing anything. All that came his way was ready labelled nice or nasty, good or bad. He did not imagine that anything could be other than just what it appeared to be--and with this appearance, he was quite content. He looked up to Emily as one wiser, nobler, nearer to God than himself.

  "I am a thousand years older than he," she said to me, laughing. "Just as you are centuries older than I."

  "And you love him for his youth?" I asked.

  "Yes," she replied. "For that and--he is wonderfully sagacious--and so gentle."

  "And I was never gentle, was I?" I said.

  "No! As restless and as urgent as the wind," she said, and I saw a last flicker of the old terror.

  "Where is George?" I asked.

  "In bed," she replies briefly. "He's recovering from one of his orgies. If I were Meg I would not live with him."

  "Is he so bad?" I asked.

  "Bad!" she replied. "He's disgusting, and I'm sure he's dangerous. I'd have him removed to an inebriates' home."

  "You'd have to persuade him to go," said Tom, who had come into the room again. "He does have dreadful bouts, though! He's killing himself, sure enough. I feel awfully sorry for the fellow."

  "It seems so contemptible to me," said Emily, "to become enslaved to one of your likings till it makes a beast of you. Look what a spectacle he is for his children, and what a disgusting disgrace for his wife."

  "Well, if he can't help it, he can't, poor chap," said Tom. "Though I do think a man should have more backbone." We heard heavy noises from the room above.

  "He is getting up," said Emily. "I suppose I'd better see if he'll have any breakfast." She waited, however. Presently the door opened, and there stood George with his hand on the knob, leaning, looking in.

  "I thought I heard three voices," he said, as if it freed him from a certain apprehension. He smiled. His waistcoat hung open over his woollen shirt, he wore no coat and was slipper-less. His hair and his moustache were dishevelled, his face pale and stupid with sleep, his eyes small. He turned aside from our looks as from a bright light. His hand as I shook it was flaccid and chill.

  "How do you come to be here, Cyril?" he said subduedly, faintly smiling.

  "Will you have any breakfast?" Emily asked him coldly. "I'll have a bit if there's any for me," he replied.

  "It has been waiting for you long enough," she answered. He turned and went with a dull thud of his stockinged feet across to the dining-room. Emily rang for the maid, I followed George, leaving the betrothed together. I found my host moving about the dining-room, looking behind the chairs and in the corners.

  "I wonder where the devil my slippers are!" he muttered explanatorily. Meanwhile he continued his search. I noticed he did not ring the bell to have them found for him. Presently he came to the fire, spreading his hands over it. As he was smashing the slowly burning coal the maid came in with the tray. He desisted, and put the poker carefully down. While the maid spread his meal on one corner of the table, he looked in the fire, paying her no heed. When she had finished:

  "It's fried white-bait," she said. "Shall you have that?"

  He lifted his head and looked at the plate.

  "Ay," he said. "Have you brought the vinegar?"

  Without answering, she took the cruet from the sideboard and set it on the table. As she was closing the door, she looked back to say:

  "You'd better eat it now, while it's hot."

  He took no notice, but sat looking in the fire.

  "And how are you going on?" he asked me.

  "I? Oh, very well! And you--?"

  "As you see," he replied, turning his head on one side with a little gesture of irony.

  "As I am very sorry to see," I rejoined.

  He sat forward with his elbows on his knees, tapping the back of his hand with one finger, in monotonous two-pulse like heart-beats.

  "Aren't you going to have breakfast?" I urged. The clock at that moment began to ring a sonorous twelve. He looked up at it with subdued irritation.

  "Ay, I suppose so," he answered me, when the clock had finished striking. He rose heavily and went to the table. As he poured out a cup of tea he spilled it on the cloth, and stood looking at the stain. It was still some time before he began to eat. He poured vinegar freely over the hot fish, and ate with an indifference that made eating ugly, pausing now and again to wipe the tea off his moustache, or to pick a bit of fish from off his knee.

  "You are not married, I suppose?" he said in one of his pauses.

  "No," I replied. "I expect I shall have to be looking round."

  "You're wiser not," he replied, quiet and bitter.

  A moment or two later the maid came in with a letter. "This came this morning," she said, as she laid it on the table beside him. He looked at it, then he said:

  "You didn't give me a knife for the marmalade."

  "Didn't I?" she replied. "I thought you wouldn't want it. You don't as a rule."

  "And do you know where my slippers are?" he asked.

  "They ought to be in their usual place." She went and looked in the corner. "I suppose Miss Gertie's put them somewhere. I'll get you another pair."

  As he waited for her he read the letter. He read it twice, then he put it back in the envelope, quietly, without any change of expression. But he ate no more breakfast, even after the maid had brought the knife and his slippers, and though he had had but a few mouthfuls.

  At half-past twelve there was an imperious woman's voice in the house. Meg came to the door. As she entered the room, and saw me, she stood still. She sniffed, glanced at the table, and exclaimed, coming forward effusively:

  "Well I never, Cyril! Who'd a thought of seeing you here this morning! How are you?"

  She waited for the last of my words, then immediately she turned to George, and said:

  "I must say you're in a nice state for Cyril to see you! Have you finished?--If you have, Kate can take that tray out. It smells quite sickly. Have you finished?"

  He did not answer, but drained his cup of tea and pushed it away with the back of his hand. Meg rang the bell, and having taken off her gloves, began to put the things on the tray, tipping the fragments of fish and bones from the edge of his plate to the middle with short, disgusted jerks of the fork. Her attitude and expression were of resentment and disgust. The maid came in.

  "Clear the table, Kate, and open the window. Have you opened the bedroom windows?"

  "No'm--not yet"--she glanced at George as if to say he had only been down a few minutes.

  "Then do it when you have taken the tray," said Meg. "You don't open this window," said George churlishly. "It's cold enough as it is."

  "You should put a coat on then if you're starved," replied Meg contemptuously. "It's warm enough for those that have got any life in their blood. You do not find it cold, do you, Cyril?"

  "It is fresh this morning," I replied.

  "Of course it is, not cold at all. And I'm sure this room needs airing."

  The maid, however, folded the cloth and went out without approaching the w
indows.

  Meg had grown stouter, and there was a certain immovable confidence in her. She was authoritative, amiable, calm. She wore a handsome dress of dark green, and a toque with opulent ostrich feathers. As she moved about the room she seemed to dominate everything, particularly her husband, who sat ruffled and dejected, his waistcoat hanging loose over his shirt.

  A girl entered. She was proud and mincing in her deportment. Her face was handsome, but too haughty for a child. She wore a white coat, with ermine tippet, muff, and hat. Her long brown hair hung twining down her back.

  "Has Dad only just had his breakfast?" she exclaimed in high censorious tones as she came in.

  "He has!" replied Meg.

  The girl looked at her father in calm, childish censure.

  "And we have been to church, and come home to dinner," she said, as she drew off her little white gloves. George watched her with ironical amusement.

  "Hello!" said Meg, glancing at the opened letter which lay near his elbow. "Who is that from?"

  He glanced round, having forgotten it. He took the envelope, doubled it and pushed it in his waistcoat pocket.

  "It's from William Housley," he replied.

  "Oh! And what has he to say?" she asked.

  George turned his dark eyes at her.

  "Nothing!" he said.

  "Hm-Hm!" sneered Meg. "Funny letter, about nothing!"

  "I suppose," said the child, with her insolent, high-pitched superiority, "it's some money that he doesn't want us to know about."

  "That's about it!" said Meg, giving a small laugh at the child's perspicuity.

  "So's he can keep it for himself, that's what it is," continued the child, nodding her head in rebuke at him.

  "I've no right to any money, have I?" asked the father sarcastically.

  "No, you haven't," the child nodded her head at him dictatorially, "you haven't, because you only put it in the fire."

  "You've got it wrong," he sneered. "You mean it's like giving a child fire to play with."

  "Um!--and it is, isn't it, Mam?"--the small woman turned to her mother for corroboration. Meg had flushed at his sneer, when he quoted for the child its mother's dictum.

  "And you're very naughty!" preached Gertie, turning her back disdainfully on her father.

  "Is that what the parson's been telling you?" he asked, a grain of amusement still in his bitterness.

  "No, it isn't!" retorted the youngster. "If you want to know you should go and listen for yourself. Everybody that goes to church looks nice--" she glanced at her mother and at herself, pruning herself proudly, "--and God loves them," she added. She assumed a sanctified expression, and continued after a little thought, "Because they look nice and are meek."

  "What!" exclaimed Meg, laughing, glancing with secret pride at me.

  "Because they're meek!" repeated Gertie, with a superior little smile of knowledge.

  "You're off the mark this time," said George.

  "No, I'm not, am I, Mam? Isn't it right, Mam? 'The meek shall inevit the erf'?"

  Meg was too much amused to answer.

  "The meek shall have herrings on earth," mocked the father, also amused. His daughter looked dubiously at him. She smelled impropriety.

  "It's not, Mam, is it?" she asked, turning to her mother. Meg laughed.

  "The meek shall have herrings on earth," repeated George with soft banter.

  "No, it's not, Mam, is it?" cried the child in real distress.

  "Tell your father he's always teaching you something wrong," answered Meg.

  Then I said I must go. They pressed me to stay.

  "Oh yes--do stop to dinner," suddenly pleaded the child, smoothing her wild ravels of curls after having drawn off her hat. She asked me again and again, with much earnestness.

  "But why?" I asked.

  "So's you can talk to us this afternoon--an' so's Dad won't be so dis'greeable," she replied plaintively, poking the black spots on her muff.

  Meg moved nearer to her daughter with a little gesture of compassion.

  "But," said I, "I promised a lady I would be back for lunch, so I must. You have some more visitors, you know."

  "Oh, well!" she complained. "They go in another room, and Dad doesn't care about them."

  "But come!" said I.

  "Well, he's just as dis'greeable when Auntie Emily's here--he is with her an' all."

  "You are having your character given away," said Meg brutally, turning to him.

  I bade him good-bye. He did me the honour of coming with me to the door. We could neither of us find a word to say, though we were both moved. When at last I held his hand and was looking at him as I said "Good-bye", he looked back at me for the first time during our meeting. His eyes were heavy, and as he lifted them to me, seemed to recoil in an agony of shame.

  CHAPTER VIII - A PROSPECT AMONG THE MARSHES OF LETHE

  George steadily declined from this time. I went to see him two years later. He was not at home. Meg wept to me as she told me of him, how he let the business slip, how he drank, what a brute he was in drink, and how unbearable afterwards. He was ruining his constitution, he was ruining her life and the children's. I felt very sorry for her as she sat, large and ruddy, brimming over with bitter tears. She asked me if I did not think I might influence him. He was, she said, at the Ram. When he had an extra bad bout on he went up there, and stayed sometimes for a week at a time, with Oswald, coming back to the Hollies when he had recovered--"though," said Meg, "he's sick every morning and almost after every meal." All the time Meg was telling me this, sat curled up in a large chair their youngest boy, a pale, sensitive, rather spoiled lad of seven or eight years, with a petulant mouth and nervous dark eyes. He sat watching his mother as she told her tale, heaving his shoulders and settling himself in a new position when his feelings were nearly too much for him. He was full of wild, childish pity for his mother, and furious, childish hate of his father, the author of all their trouble. I called at the Ram and saw George. He was half drunk.

  I went up to Highclose with a heavy heart. Lettie's last child had been born, much to the surprise of everybody, some few months before I came down. There was a space of seven years between her youngest girl and this baby. Lettie was much absorbed in motherhood.

  When I went up to talk to her about George, I found her in the bedroom nursing the baby, who was very good and quiet on her knee. She listened to me sadly, but her attention was caught away by each movement made by the child. As I was telling her of the attitude of George's children towards their father and mother, she glanced from the baby to me, and exclaimed:

  "See how he watches the light flash across your spectacles when you turn suddenly--Look!"

  But I was weary of babies. My friends had all grown up and married and inflicted them on me. There were storms of babies. I longed for a place where they would be obsolete, and young, arrogant, impervious mothers might be a forgotten tradition. Lettie's heart would quicken in answer to only one pulse, the easy, light ticking of the baby's blood.

  I remembered, one day as I sat in the train hastening to Charing Cross on my way from France, that that was George's birthday. I had the feeling of him upon me, heavily, and I could not rid myself of the depression. I put it down to travel fatigue, and tried to dismiss it. As I watched the evening sun glitter along the new corn-stubble in the fields we passed, trying to describe the effect to myself, I found myself asking, "But--what's the matter? I've not had bad news, have I, to make my chest feel so weighted?"

  I was surprised when I reached my lodging in New Malden to find no letters for me, save one fat budget from Alice. I knew her squat, saturnine handwriting on the envelope, and I thought I knew what contents to expect from the letter.

  She had married an old acquaintance who had been her particular aversion. This young man had got himself into trouble, so that the condemnations of the righteous pursued him like clouds of gnats on a summer evening. Alice immediately rose to sting back his vulgar enemies, and having rendered him a
service, felt she could only wipe out the score by marrying him. They were fairly comfortable. Occasionally, as she said, there were displays of small fireworks in the back yard. He worked in the offices of some iron foundries just over the Erewash in Derbyshire. Alice lived in a dirty little place in the valley a mile and a half from Eberwich, not far from his work. She had no children, and practically no friends; a few young matrons for acquaintances. As wife of a superior clerk, she had to preserve her dignity among the work-people. So all her little crackling fires were sodded down with the sods of British respectability. Occasionally she smouldered a fierce smoke that made one's eyes water. Occasionally, perhaps once a year, she wrote me a whole venomous budget, much to my amusement.

  I was not in any haste to open this fat letter until, after supper, I turned to it as a resource from my depression.

  "Oh dear, Cyril, I'm in a bubbling state, I want to yell, not write. Oh, Cyril, why didn't you marry me, or why didn't our Georgie Saxton, or somebody. I'm deadly sick. Percival Charles is enough to stop a clock. Oh, Cyril, he lives in an eternal Sunday suit, holy broadcloth and righteous three inches of cuffs! He goes to bed in it. Nay, he wallows in Bibles when he goes to bed. I can feel the brass covers of all his family Bibles sticking in my ribs as I lie by his side. I could weep with wrath, yet I put on my black hat and trot to chapel with him like a lamb.

  "Oh, Cyril, nothing's happened. Nothing has happened to me all these years. I shall die of it. When I see Percival Charles at dinner, after having asked a blessing, I feel as if I should never touch a bit at his table again. In about an hour I shall hear him hurrying up the entry--prayers always make him hungry--and his first look will be on the table. But I'm not fair to him--he's really a good fellow--I only wish he wasn't.

  "It's George Saxton who's put this Seidlitz powder in my marital cup of cocoa. Cyril, I must a tale unfold. It is fifteen years since our George married Meg. When I count up, and think of the future, it nearly makes me scream. But my tale, my tale!

  "Can you remember his faithful-dog, wounded-stag, gentle-gazelle eyes? Cyril, you can see the whisky or the brandy combusting in them. He's got d.t.'s, blue-devils--and I've seen him, and I'm swarming myself with little red devils after it. I went up to Eberwich on Wednesday afternoon for a pound of fry for Percival Charles' Thursday dinner. I walked by that little path which you know goes round the back of the Hollies--it's as near as any way for me. I thought I heard a row in the paddock at the back of the stables, so I said I might as well see the fun. I went to the gate, basket in one hand, ninepence in coppers in the other, a demure deacon's wife. I didn't take in the scene at first.