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THE WHITE PEACOCK
“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 fl esh
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?”
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“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 fi nger 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 fi rst 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 fi gure in the doorway, and the big, prolifi c
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.
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THE WHITE PEACOCK
“Ah, it’s always the woman bears the burden,” said Lettie
bitterly.
“If he’d helped her – wouldn’t she have been a fi ne 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 fi ll 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.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
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 fi ne 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
fl owers, but not at her face:
“Ay, she is fi ne,” he said, and returned to the chess.
“We have been gathering snowdrops,” said Lettie, fi ngering the fl owers in her bosom.
“They are pretty – give me some, will you?” said Alice,
holding out her hand. Lettie gave her the fl owers.
“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?”
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THE WHITE PEACOCK
“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 fl owers in his ruffl ed 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 fl owers 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 fl owers in your hair!”
He put his hand to his head, and felt among his hair, and
threw the fl owers on the table.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“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
fl owers fell broken to the ground.
“Oh – what a shame!” exclaimed Lettie.
“What?” said he, looking round. “Your fl owers? 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.
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THE WHITE PEACOCK
“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 fl ushed 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
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
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 cau-
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THE WHITE PEACOCK
tiously 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 fl amed 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 fi rmly, 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 fl esh was touching. The cruel truth
is, however, that the old lady clung to life like a louse to a pig’s
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
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 fi lled 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’.”
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