Добавил:
ivanov666
Опубликованный материал нарушает ваши авторские права? Сообщите нам.
Вуз:
Предмет:
Файл:The White Peacock
.pdf
THE WHITE PEACOCK
He lay down again with his head among the green violet
leaves, saying:
“I ought to work, because it all counts in the valuation. But
I don’t care.”
He lay looking at me for some time. Then he said:
“I don’t suppose I shall have above twenty pounds left
when we’ve sold up – but she’s got plenty of money to start
with – if she has me – in Canada. I could get well off – and
she could have – what she wanted – I’m sure she’d have what
she wanted.”
He took it all calmly as if it were realised. I was somewhat
amused.
“What frock will she have on when she comes to meet me?”
he asked.
“I don’t know. The same as she’s gone to Nottingham in,
I suppose – a sort of gold-brown costume with a rather tightfi tting coat. Why?”
“I was thinking how she’d look.”
“What chickens are you counting now?” I asked.
“But what do you think I look best in?” he replied.
“You? Just as you are – no, put that old smooth cloth coat
on – that’s all.” I smiled as I told him, but he was very serious.
“Shan’t I put my new clothes on?”
“No – you want to leave your neck showing.”
He put his hand to his throat, and said naïvely:
“Do I?” – and it amused him.
Then he lay looking dreamily up into the tree. I left him,
and went wandering round the fi elds fi nding fl owers and
bird’s nests.
241
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
When I came back, it was nearly four o’clock. He stood up
and stretched himself. He pulled out his watch.
“Good Lord,” he drawled, “I’ve lain there thinking all afternoon. I didn’t know I could do such a thing. Where have you
been? It’s with being all upset, you see. You left the violets –
here, take them, will you; and tell her; I’ll come when it’s getting dark. I feel like somebody else – or else really like myself.
I hope I shan’t wake up to the other things – you know, like
I am always – before them.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, I don’t know – only I feel as if I could talk straight off
without arranging – like birds, without knowing what note is
coming next.”
When I was going he said:
“Here, leave me that book – it’ll keep me like this – I mean
I’m not the same as I was yesterday, and that book’ll keep me
like it. Perhaps it’s a bilious bout – I do sometimes have one, if
something very extraordinary happens. When it’s getting dark
then!”
Lettie had not arrived when I went home. I put the violets
in a little vase on the table. I remembered he had wanted her
to see the drawings – it was perhaps as well he had kept them.
She came about six o’clock – in the motor-car with Marie.
But the latter did not descend. I went out to assist with the
parcels. Lettie had already begun to buy things; the wedding
was fi xed for July.
The room was soon over-covered with stuffs: table linen,
underclothing, pieces of silken stuff and lace stuff, patterns
for carpets and curtains, a whole gleaming, glowing array. Let-
242
THE WHITE PEACOCK
tie was very delighted. She could hardly wait to take off her
hat, but went round cutting the string of her parcels, opening
them, talking all the time to my mother.
“Look, Little Woman. I’ve got a ready-made underskirt –
isn’t it lovely. Listen!” and she ruffl ed it through her hands.
“Shan’t I sound splendid! Frou-Frou! But it is a charming shade,
isn’t it, and not a bit bulky or clumsy anywhere?” She put the
band of the skirt against her waist, and put forward her foot,
and looked down, saying, “It’s just the right length, isn’t it,
Little Woman? – and they said I was tall – it was a wonder.
Don’t you wish it were yours, Little? – oh, you won’t confess
it. Yes, you like to be as fi ne as anybody – that’s why I bought
you this piece of silk – isn’t it sweet, though? – you needn’t
say there’s too much lavender in it, there is not. Now!” She
pleated it up and held it against my mother’s chin. “It suits you
beautifully – doesn’t it? Don’t you like it, Sweet? You don’t
seem to like it a bit, and I’m sure it suits you – makes you look
ever so young. I wish you wouldn’t be so old-fashioned in your
notions. You do like it, don’t you?”
“Of course I do – I was only thinking what an extravagant
mortal you are when you begin to buy. You know you mustn’t
keep on always –”
“Now – now, Sweet, don’t be naughty and preachey. It’s
such a treat to go buying. You will come with me next time,
won’t you? Oh, I have enjoyed it – but I wished you were
there – Marie takes anything, she’s so easy to suit – I like to
have a good buy – Oh, it was splendid! – and there’s lots more
yet. Oh, did you see this cushion-cover – these are the colours
I want for that room – gold and amber –”
243
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
This was a bad opening. I watched the shadows darken farther and farther along the brightness, hushing the glitter of
the water. I watched the golden ripeness come upon the west,
and thought the rencontre was never to take place. At last,
however, Lettie fl ung herself down with a sigh, saying she was
tired.
“Come into the dining-room and have a cup of tea,” said
Mother. “I told Rebecca to mash when you came in.”
“All right. Leslie’s coming up later on, I believe – about
half-past eight, he said. Should I show him what I’ve bought?”
“There’s nothing there for a man to see.”
“I shall have to change my dress, and I’m sure I don’t want
the fag. Rebecca, just go and look at the things I’ve bought –
in the other room – and, Becky, fold them up for me, will you,
and put them on my bed?”
As soon as she’d gone out, Lettie said:
“She’ll enjoy doing it, won’t she, Mother, they’re so nice! Do
you think I need dress, Mother?”
“Please yourself – do as you wish.”
“I suppose I shall have to; he doesn’t like blouses and skirts
of an evening, he says; he hates the belt. I’ll wear that old cream
cashmere; it looks nice now I’ve put that new lace on it. Don’t
those violets smell nice? – who got them?”
“Cyril brought them in.”
“George sent them you,” said I.
“Well, I’ll just run up and take my dress off. Why are we
troubled with men!”
“It’s a trouble you like well enough,” said Mother. “Oh, do
I? such a bother!” and she ran upstairs.
244
THE WHITE PEACOCK
The sun was red behind Highclose. I kneeled in the window seat and smiled at Fate and at people who imagine that
strange states are near to the inner realities. The sun went
straight down behind the cedar trees, deliberately, and, it
seemed as I watched, swiftly lowered itself behind the trees,
behind the rim of the hill.
“I must go,” I said to myself, “and tell him she will not
come.”
Yet I fi dgeted about the room, loth to depart. Lettie came
down, dressed in white – or cream – cut low round the neck.
She looked very delightful and fresh again, with a sparkle of
the afternoon’s excitement still.
“I’ll put some of these violets on me,” she said, glancing at
herself in the mirror, and then taking the fl owers from their
water, she dried them, and fastened them among her lace.
“Don’t Lettie and I look nice tonight?” she said, smiling,
glancing from me to her refl ection which was like a light in
the dusky room.
“That reminds me,” I said, “George Saxton wanted to see
you this evening.”
“Whatever for?”
“I don’t know. They’ve got notice to leave their farm, and
I think he feels a bit sentimental.”
“Oh, well – is he coming here?”
“He said would you go just a little way in the wood to meet
him.”
“Did he! Oh, indeed! Well, of course I can’t.”
“Of course not – if you won’t. They’re his violets you’re
wearing, by the way.”
245
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“Are they – let them stay, it makes no difference. But whatever did he want to see me for?”
“I couldn’t say, I assure you.”
She glanced at herself in the mirror, and then at the clock.
“Let’s see,” she remarked, “it’s only a quarter to eight. Threequarters of an hour – ! But what can he want me for? – I never
knew anything like it.”
“Startling, isn’t it!” I observed satirically.
“Yes.” She glanced at herself in the mirror.
“I can’t go out like this.”
“All right, you can’t then.”
“Besides – it’s nearly dark, it will be too dark to see in the
wood, won’t it?”
“It will directly.”
“Well, I’ll just go to the end of the garden, for one moment – run and fetch that silk shawl out of my wardrobe – be
quick, while it’s light.”
I ran and brought the wrap. She arranged it carefully over
her head.
We went out, down the garden path. Lettie held her skirts
carefully gathered from the ground. A nightingale began to
sing in the twilight; we stepped along in silence as far as the
rhododendron bushes, now in rosy bud.
“I cannot go into the wood,” she said.
“Come to the top of the riding” – and we went round the
dark bushes.
George was waiting. I saw at once he was half distrustful of
himself now. Lettie dropped her skirts and trailed towards him.
He stood awkwardly awaiting her, conscious of the clownish-
246
THE WHITE PEACOCK
ness of his appearance. She held out her hand with something
of a grand air.
“See.” she said, “I have come.”
“Yes – I thought you wouldn’t – perhaps” – he looked at
her, and suddenly gained courage.
“You have been putting white on – you, you do look nice –
though not like –”
“What? – Who else?”
“Nobody else – only I – well, I’d – I’d thought about it different – like some pictures.”
She smiled with a gentle radiance, and asked indulgently,
“And how was I different?”
“Not all that soft stuff – plainer.”
“But don’t I look very nice with all this soft stuff, as you call
it?” – and she shook the silk away from her smiles.
“Oh, yes – better than those naked lines.”
“You are quaint tonight – what did you want me for – to
say good-bye?”
“Good-bye?”
“Yes – you’re going away, Cyril tells me. I’m very sorry –
fancy horrid strangers at the Mill! But then I shall be gone
away soon, too. We are all going, you see, now we’ve grown
up” – she kept hold of my arm.
“Yes.”
“And where will you go – Canada? You’ll settle there and
be quite a patriarch, won’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You are not really sorry to go, are you?”
“No, I’m glad.”
247
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“Glad to go away from us all.”
“I suppose so – since I must.”
“Ah, Fate – Fate! It separates you whether you want it or
not.”
“What?”
“Why, you see, you have to leave. I mustn’t stay out here –
it is growing chilly. How soon are you going?”
“I don’t know.”
“Not soon then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then I may see you again?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh yes, I shall. Well, I must go. Shall I say good-bye now? –
that was what you wanted, was it not?”
“To say good-bye?”
“Yes.”
“No – it wasn’t – I wanted, I wanted to ask you –”
“What?” she cried.
“You don’t know, Lettie, now the old life’s gone, everything – how I want you – to set out with – it’s like beginning
life, and I want you.”
“But what could I do – I could only hinder – what help
should I be?”
“I should feel as if my mind was made up – as if I could do
something clearly. Now it’s all hazy – not knowing what to do
next.”
“And if – if you had – what then?”
“If I had you I could go straight on.”
“Where?”
248
THE WHITE PEACOCK
“Oh – I should take a farm in Canada –”
“Well, wouldn’t it be better to get it fi rst and make sure
– ?”
“I have no money.”
“Oh! – so you wanted me – ?”
“I only wanted you, I only wanted you. I would have given
you –”
“What?”
“You’d have me – you’d have all me, and everything you
wanted.”
“That I paid for – a good bargain! No, oh no, George, I beg
your pardon. This is one of my fl ippant nights. I don’t mean it
like that. But you know it’s impossible – look how I’m fi xed –
it is impossible, isn’t it now?”
“I suppose it is.”
“You know it is. – Look at me now, and say if it’s not impossible – a farmer’s wife – with you in Canada.”
“Yes – I didn’t expect you like that. Yes, I see it is impossible. But I’d thought about it, and felt as if I must have you.
Should have you . . . Yes, it doesn’t do to go on dreaming. I think
it’s the fi rst time, and it’ll be the last. Yes, it is impossible. Now
I have made up my mind.”
“And what will you do?”
“I shall not go to Canada.”
“Oh, you must not – you must not do anything rash.”
“No – I shall get married.”
“You will? Oh, I am glad. I thought – you – you were too
fond – . But you’re not – of yourself, I meant. I am so glad.
Yes – do marry!”
249
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“Well, I shall – since you are –”
“Yes,” said Lettie. “It is best. But I thought that you she
smiled at him in sad reproach.
“Did you think so?” he replied, smiling gravely.
“Yes,” she whispered. They stood looking at one another.
He made an impulsive movement towards her. She, however,
drew back slightly, checking him.
“Well – I shall see you again some time – so good-bye,” he
said, putting out his hand.
We heard a foot crunching on the gravel. Leslie halted at
the top of the riding. Lettie, hearing him, relaxed into a kind of
feline graciousness, and said to George:
“I am so sorry you are going to leave – it breaks the old life
up. You said I would see you again –” She left her hand in his
a moment or two.
“Yes,” George replied. “Good night” – and he turned away.
She stood for a moment in the same drooping, graceful attitude watching him, then she turned round slowly. She seemed
hardly to notice Leslie.
“Who was that you were talking to?” he asked.
“He has gone now,” she replied irrelevantly, as if even then
she seemed hardly to realise it.
“It appears to upset you – his going – who is it?”
“He! – Oh – why, it’s George Saxton.”
“Oh, him!”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“Eh? What did he want? Oh, nothing.”
250
Соседние файлы в предмете [НЕСОРТИРОВАННОЕ]