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THE WHITE PEACOCK
“A mere trysting – in the interim, eh!” he said this laughing, generously passing off his annoyance in a jest.
“I feel so sorry,” she said.
“What for?”
“Oh – don’t let us talk about him – talk about something
else. I can’t bear to talk about – him.”
“All right,” he replied – and after an awkward little pause,
“What sort of a time had you in Nottingham?”
“Oh, a fi ne time.”
“You’ll enjoy yourself in the shops between now and –
July. Some time I’ll go with you and see them.”
“Very well.”
“That sounds as if you don’t want me to go. Am I already in
the way on a shopping expedition, like an old husband?”
“I should think you would be.”
“That’s nice of you! Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Yes you do.”
“Oh, I suppose you’d hang about.”
“I’m much too well brought up.”
“Rebecca has lighted the hall lamp.”
“Yes, it’s grown quite dark. I was here early. You never gave
me a good word for it.”
“I didn’t notice. There’s a light in the dining-room, we’ll go
there.”
They went into the dining-room. She stood by the piano
and carefully took off the wrap. Then she wandered listlessly
about the room for a minute.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“Aren’t you coming to sit down?” he said, pointing to the
seat on the couch beside him.
“Not just now,” she said, trailing aimlessly to the piano. She
sat down and began to play at random, from memory. Then
she did that most irritating thing – played accompaniments
to songs, with snatches of the air where the voice should have
predominated.
“I say Lettie . . . ” he interrupted after a time.
“Yes,” she replied, continuing to play.
“It’s not very interesting . . . ”
“No?” – she continued to play.
“Nor very amusing . . . ”
She did not answer. He bore it for a little time longer, then
he said:
“How much longer is it going to last, Lettie?”
“What?”
“That sort of business . . . ”
“The piano? – I’ll stop playing if you don’t like it.” She did
not, however, cease.
“Yes – and all this dry business.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you? – you make me.”
There she went on, tinkling away at “If I built a world for
you, dear”.
“I say, stop it, do!” he cried.
She tinkled to the end of the verse, and very slowly closed
the piano.
“Come on – come and sit down,” he said.
“No, I don’t want to – I’d rather have gone on playing.”
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THE WHITE PEACOCK
“Go on with your damned playing then, and I’ll go where
there’s more interest.”
“You ought to like it.”
He did not answer, so she turned slowly round on the
stool, opened the piano, and laid her fi ngers on the keys. At
the sound of the chord he started up, saying: “Then I’m going.”
“‘t’s very early – why?” she said, through the calm jingle of
“Meine Ruh is hin –”
He stood biting his lips. Then he made one more appeal.
“Lettie!”
“Yes?”
“Aren’t you going to leave off – and be-amiable?”
“Amiable?”
“You are a jolly torment. What’s upset you now?”
“Nay, it’s not I who am upset.”
“I’m glad to hear it – what do you call yourself?”
“I? – nothing.”
“Oh, well, I’m going then.”
“Must you? – so early tonight?”
He did not go, and she played more and more softly, languidly, aimlessly. Once she lifted her head to speak, but did not
say anything.
“Look here!” he ejaculated all at once, so that she started,
and jarred the piano, “What do you mean by it?”
She jingled leisurely a few seconds before answering, then
she replied:
“What a worry you are!”
“I suppose you want me out of the way while you sentimentalise over that milkman. You needn’t bother. You can do
253
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
it while I’m here. Or I’ll go and leave you in peace. I’ll go and
call him back for you, if you like – if that’s what you want –”
She turned on the piano stool slowly and looked at him,
smiling faintly.
“It is very good of you!” she said.
He clenched his fi sts and grinned with rage.
“You tantalising little –” he began, lifting his fi sts expressively. She smiled. Then he swung round, knocked several hats
fl ying off the stand in the hall, slammed the door, and was
gone.
Lettie continued to play for some time, after which she
went up to her own room.
Leslie did not return to us the next day, nor the day after.
The fi rst day Marie came and told us he had gone away to Yorkshire to see about the new mines that were being sunk there,
and was likely to be absent for a week or so. These business
visits to the north were rather frequent. The fi rm, of which Mr
Tempest was director and chief shareholder, were opening important new mines in the other county, as the seams at home
were becoming exhausted or unprofi table. It was proposed
that Leslie should live in Yorkshire when he was married, to
superintend the new workings. He at fi rst rejected the idea,
but he seemed later to approve of it more.
During the time he was away Lettie was moody and crosstempered. She did not mention George nor the mill; indeed,
she preserved her best, most haughty and ladylike manner.
On the evening of the fourth day of Leslie’s absence we
were out in the garden. The trees were “uttering joyous leaves”.
My mother was in the midst of her garden, lifting the dusky
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THE WHITE PEACOCK
faces of the auriculas to look at the velvet lips, or tenderly taking a young weed from the black soil. The thrushes were calling and clamouring all round. The japonica fl amed on the wall
as the light grew thicker; the tassels of white cherry-blossom
swung gently in the breeze.
“What shall I do, Mother?” said Lettie, as she wandered
across the grass to pick at the japonica fl owers. “What shall
I do? There’s nothing to do.”
“Well, my girl – what do you want to do? You have been
moping about all day – go and see somebody.”
“It’s such a long way to Eberwich.”
“Is it? Then go somewhere nearer.”
Lettie fretted about with restless, petulant indecision.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said, “And I feel as if I might
just as well never have lived at all as waste days like this. I wish
we weren’t buried in this dead little hole – I wish we were
near the town – it’s hateful having to depend on about two or
three folk for your – your – your pleasure in life.”
“I can’t help it, my dear – you must do something for yourself.”
“And what can I do? – I can do nothing.”
“Then I’d go to bed.”
“That I won’t – with the dead weight of a wasted day on
me. I feel as if I’d do something desperate.”
“Very well, then,” said Mother, “do it, and have done.”
“Oh, it’s no good talking to you – I don’t want –” She
turned away, went to the laurestinus, and began pulling off
it the long red berries. I expected she would fret the evening
wastefully away. I noticed all at once that she stood still. It
255
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
was the noise of a motor-car running rapidly down the hill
towards Nethermere – a light, quick-clicking sound. I listened
also. I could feel the swinging drop of the car as it came down
the leaps of the hill. We could see the dust trail up among
the trees. Lettie raised her head and listened expectantly. The
car rushed along the edge of Nethermere – then there was
the jar of brakes, as the machine slowed down and stopped.
In a moment with a quick fl utter of sound, it was passing the
lodge gates and whirling up the drive, through the wood, to
us. Lettie stood with fl ushed cheeks and brightened eyes. She
went towards the bushes that shut off the lawn from the gravelled space in front of the house, watching. A car came racing
through the trees. It was the small car Leslie used on the fi rm’s
business – now it was white with dust. Leslie suddenly put on
the brakes, and tore to a standstill in front of the house. He
stepped to the ground. There he staggered a little, being giddy
and cramped with the long drive. His motor-jacket and cap
were thick with dust.
Lettie called to him, “Leslie!” – and fl ew down to him. He
took her into his arms, and clouds of dust rose round her. He
kissed her, and they stood perfectly still for a moment. She
looked up into his face – then she disengaged her arms to take
off his disfi guring motor-spectacles. After she had looked at
him a moment, tenderly, she kissed him again. He loosened his
hold of her, and she said, in a voice full of tenderness:
“You are trembling, dear.”
“It’s the ride. I’ve never stopped.”
Without further words she took him into the house.
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THE WHITE PEACOCK
“How pale you are – see, lie on the couch – never mind
the dust. All right, I’ll fi nd you a coat of Cyril’s. Oh, Mother,
he’s come all those miles in the car without stopping – make
him lie down.”
She ran and brought him a jacket, and put the cushions
round, and made him lie on the couch. Then she took off his
boots and put slippers on his feet. He lay watching her all the
time; he was white with fatigue and excitement.
“I wonder if I shall be had up for scorching – I can feel the
road coming at me yet,” he said.
“Why were you so headlong?”
“I felt as if I should go wild if I didn’t come – if I didn’t
rush. I didn’t know how you might have taken me, Lettie when
I said – what I did.”
She smiled gently at him, and he lay resting, recovering,
looking at her.
“It’s a wonder I haven’t done something desperate – I’ve
been half mad since I said – Oh, Lettie, I was a damned fool
and a wretch – I could have torn myself in two. I’ve done nothing but curse and rage at myself ever since. I feel as if I’d just
come up out of hell. You don’t know how thankful I am, Lettie,
that you’ve not – oh – turned against me for what I said.”
She went to him and sat down by him, smoothing his hair
from his forehead, kissing him, her attitude tender, suggesting
tears, her movements impulsive, as if with a self-reproach she
would not acknowledge, but which she must silence with lavish tenderness. He drew her to him, and they remained quiet
for some time, till it grew dark.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
The noise of my mother stirring in the next room disturbed
them. Lettie rose, and he also got up from the couch.
“I suppose,” he said, “I shall have to go home and get bathed
and dressed – though,” he added in tones which made it clear
he did not want to go, “I shall have to get back in the morning – I don’t know what they’ll say.”
“At any rate,” she said, “You could wash here –”
“But I must get out of these clothes – and I want a bath.”
“You could – you might have some of Cyril’s clothes – and
the water’s hot. I know. At all events, you can stay to supper –”
“If I’m going I shall have to go soon – or they’d not like it, if
I go in late; – they have no idea I’ve come; – they don’t expect
me till next Monday or Tuesday –”
“Perhaps you could stay here – and they needn’t know.”
They looked at each other with wide, smiling eyes – like children on the brink of a stolen pleasure.
“Oh, but what would your mother think! – no, I’ll go.”
“She won’t mind a bit.”
“Oh, but –”
“I’ll ask her.”
He wanted to stay far more than she wished it, so it was she
who put down his opposition and triumphed.
My mother lifted her eyebrows, and said very quietly: “He’d
better go home – and be straight.”
“But look how he’d feel – he’d have to tell them . . . and
how would he feel! It’s really my fault, in the end. Don’t be
piggling and mean and Grundyish, Matouchka.”
“It is neither meanness nor Grundyishness –”
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THE WHITE PEACOCK
“Oh, Ydgrun, Ydgrun – !” exclaimed Lettie, ironically. “He
may certainly stay if he likes,” said Mother, slightly nettled at
Lettie’s gibe.
“All right, Mutterchen – and be a sweetling, do!”
Lettie went out a little impatient at my mother’s unwillingness, but Leslie stayed, nevertheless.
In a few moments Lettie was up in the spare bedroom, arranging and adorning, and Rebecca was running with hot-water bottles, and hurrying down with clean bedclothes. Lettie
hastily appropriated my best brushes – which she had given
me – and took the suit of pyjamas of the thinnest, fi nest fl annel and discovered a new tooth-brush – and made selections
from my shirts and handkerchiefs and underclothing – and
directed me which suit to lend him. Altogether I was astonished, and perhaps a trifl e annoyed, at her extraordinary
thoughtfulness and solicitude.
He came down to supper, bathed, brushed, and radiant. He
ate heartily and seemed to emanate a warmth of physical comfort and pleasure. The colour was fl ushed again into his face,
and he carried his body with the old independent, assertive
air. I have never known the time when he looked handsomer, when he was more attractive. There was a certain warmth
about him, a certain glow that enhanced his words, his laughter, his movements; he was the predominant person, and we
felt a pleasure in his mere proximity. My mother, however,
could not quite get rid of her stiffness, and soon after supper
she rose, saying she would fi nish her letter in the next room,
bidding him good-night, as she would probably not see him
again. The cloud of this little coolness was the thinnest and
259
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
most transitory. He talked and laughed more gaily than ever,
and was ostentatious in his movements, throwing back his
head, taking little attitudes which displayed the broad fi rmness of his breast, the grace of his well-trained physique. I left
them at the piano; he was sitting pretending to play, and looking up all the while at her, who stood with her hand on his
shoulder.
In the morning he was up early, by six o’clock downstairs
and attending to the car. When I got down I found him very
busy, and very quiet.
“I know I’m a beastly nuisance,” he said, “but I must get off
early.”
Rebecca came and prepared breakfast, which we two ate
alone. He was remarkably dull and wordless.
“It’s a wonder Lettie hasn’t got up to have breakfast with
you – she’s such a one for raving about the perfection of the
early morning – its purity and promises and so forth,” I said.
He broke his bread nervously, and drank some coffee as if
he were agitated, making noises in his throat as he swallowed.
“It’s too early for her, I should think,” he replied, wiping his moustache hurriedly. Yet he seemed to listen for her.
Lettie’s bedroom was over the study, where Rebecca had laid
breakfast, and he listened now and again, holding his knife
and fork suspended in their action. Then he went on with his
meal again.
When he was laying down his serviette, the door opened.
He pulled himself together, and turned round sharply. It was
Mother. When she spoke to him, his face twitched with a little
frown, half of relief, half of disappointment.
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