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THE WHITE PEACOCK
her from long distances that she might divine their trouble and
make right their limbs. She would accept no fee.
Once she had gone up to Dr Fullwood to give him a piece of
her mind, inasmuch as he had let a child go for three weeks with
a broken collar-bone, whilst treating him for dislocation. The
doctor had tried the high hand with her, since when, wherever
he went, the miners placed their hands on their shoulders, and
groaned: “Oh my collar-bone!”
Here Meg came in. She gave a bright, quick, bird-like look at
George, and fl ushed a brighter red.
“I thought you wasn’t cummin’,” she said.
“Dunna thee bother – ‘e’d none stop away,” said the blackwhiskered man.
She brought us glasses of whisky, and moved about supplying the men, who chaffed with her honestly and good-naturedly. Then she went out, but we remained in our corner. The men
talked on the most peculiar subjects: there was a bitter discussion as to whether London is or is not a seaport – the matter
was thrashed out with heat; then an embryo artist set the room
ablaze by declaring there were only three colours, red, yellow.
and blue, and the rest were not colours, they were mixtures: this
amounted almost to atheism and one man asked the artist to
dare to declare that his brown breeches were not a colour, which
the artist did, and almost had to fi ght for it; next they came to
strength, and George won a bet of fi ve shillings, by lifting a piano; then they settled down, and talked sex, sotto voce, one man
giving startling accounts of Japanese and Chinese prostitutes in
Liverpool. After this the talk split up: a farmer began to counsel
George how to manage the farm attached to the inn, another
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
bargained with him about horses, and argued about cattle, a tailor advised him thickly to speculate, and unfolded a fi ne secret
by which a man might make money, if he had the go to do it – so
on, till eleven o’clock. Then Bill came and called “time!” and the
place was empty, and the room shivered as a little fresh air came
in between the foul tobacco smoke, and the smell of drink, and
foul breath.
We were both affected by the whisky we had drunk. I was
ashamed to fi nd that when I put out my hand to take my glass,
or to strike a match, I missed my mark, and fumbled; my hands
seemed hardly to belong to me, and my feet were not much
more sure. Yet I was acutely conscious of every change in myself
and in him; it seemed as if I could make my body drunk, but
could never intoxicate my mind, which roused itself and kept
the sharpest guard. George was frankly half drunk: his eyelids
sloped over his eyes and his speech was thick; when he put out
his hand he knocked over his glass, and the stuff was spilled all
over the table; he only laughed. I, too, felt a great prompting to
giggle on every occasion, and I marvelled at myself.
Meg came into the room when all the men had gone.
“Come on, my duck,” he said, waving his arm with the generous fl ourish of a tipsy man. “Come an’ sit ’ere.”
“Shan’t you come in th’ kitchen?” she asked, looking round
on the tables where pots and glasses stood in little pools of liquor, and where spent match and tobacco-ash littered the white
wood.
“No – what for? – come an’ sit ’ere!” – he was reluctant to
get on his feet; I knew it and laughed inwardly; I also laughed
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THE WHITE PEACOCK
to hear his thick speech, and his words which seemed to slur
against his cheeks.
She went and sat by him, having moved the little table with
its spilled liquor.
“They’ve been tellin’ me how to get rich,” he said, nodding
his head and laughing, showing his teeth, “An’ I’m goin’ ter
show ’em. You see, Meg, you see – I’m goin’ ter show ’em I can
be as good as them, you see.”
“Why,” said she, indulgent, “what are you going to do?”
“You wait a bit an’ see – they don’t know yet what I can do –
they don’t know – you don’t know – none of you know.”
“An’ what shall you do when we’re rich, George?”
“Do? – I shall do what I like. I can make as good a show as
anybody else, can’t I?” – he put his face very near to hers, and
nodded at her, but she did not turn away. “Yes – I’ll see what
it’s like to have my fl ing. We’ve been too cautious, our family
has – an’ I have; we’re frightened of ourselves, to do anything.
I’m goin’ to do what I like, my duck, now – I don’t care – I don’t
care – that!” – he brought his hand down heavily on the table
nearest him, and broke a glass. Bill looked in to see what was
happening.
“But you won’t do anything that’s not right, George!”
“No – I don’t want to hurt nobody – but I don’t care – that!”
“You’re too good-hearted to do anybody any harm.”
“I believe I am. You know me a bit, you do, Meg – you don’t
think I’m a fool now, do you?”
“I’m sure I don’t – who does?”
“No – you don’t – I know you don’t. Gi’e me a kiss – thou’rt
a little beauty, thou art – like a ripe plum! I could set my teeth
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
in thee, thou’rt that nice – full o’ red juice” – he playfully pretended to bite her. She laughed, and gently pushed him away.
“Tha likest me, doesna to?” he asked softly.
“What do you want to know for?” she replied, with a tender
archness.
“But tha does – say now, tha does.”
“I should a’ thought you’d a’ known, without telling.”
“Nay, but I want to hear thee.”
“Go on,” she said, and she kissed him.
“But what should you do if I went to Canada and left you?”
“Ah – you wouldn’t do that.”
“But I might – and what then?”
“Oh, I don’t know what I should do. But you wouldn’t do it,
I know you wouldn’t – you couldn’t.” He quickly put his arms
round her and kissed her, moved by the trembling surety of her
tone:
“No, I wouldna – I’d niver leave thee – tha’d be as miserable
as sin, shouldna ta, my duck?”
“Yes,” she murmured.
“Ah,” he said, “tha’rt a warm little thing – tha loves me, eh?”
“Yes,” she murmured, and he pressed her to him, and kissed
her, and held her close.
“We’ll be married soon, my bird – are ter glad? – in
a bittha’rt glad, aren’t ta?”
She looked up at him as if he were noble. Her love for him
was so generous that it beautifi ed him.
He had to walk his bicycle home, being unable to ride; his
shins, I know, were a good deal barked by the pedals.
CHAPTER VII
THE FASCINATION
OF THE FORBIDDEN APPLE
On the fi rst Sunday in June, when Lettie knew she would
keep her engagement with Leslie, and when she was having
a day at home from Highclose, she got ready to go down to the
mill. We were in mourning for an aunt, so she wore a dress
of fi ne black voile, and a black hat with long feathers. Then,
when I looked at her fair hands, and her arms closely covered in the long black cuffs of her sleeves, I felt keenly my old
brother-love shielding, indulgent.
It was a windy, sunny day. In shelter the heat was passionate, but in the open the wind scattered its fi re. Every now and
then a white cloud broad based, blue shadowed, travelled
slowly along the sky-road after the forerunner small in the
distance, and trailing over us a chill shade, a gloom which
we watched creep on over the water, over the wood and the
hill. These royal, rounded clouds had sailed all day along the
same route, from the harbour of the south to the wastes in the
northern sky, following the swift wild geese. The brook hurried along singing, only here and there lingering to whisper
to the secret bushes, then setting off afresh with a new snatch
of song.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
The fowls pecked staidly in the farmyard, with Sabbath decorum. Occasionally a lost, sportive wind-puff would wander
across the yard and ruffl e them, and they resented it. The pigs
were asleep in the sun, giving faint grunts now and then from
sheer luxury. I saw a squirrel go darting down the mossy garden wall, up into the laburnum tree, where he lay fl at along
the bough, and listened. Suddenly away he went, chuckling
to himself. Gyp all at once set off barking, but I soothed her
down; it was the unusual sight of Lettie’s dark dress that startled her, I suppose.
We went quietly into the kitchen. Mrs Saxton was just putting a chicken, wrapped in a piece of fl annel, on the warm hob
to coax it into life; it looked very feeble. George was asleep,
with his head in his arms on the table; the father was asleep on
the sofa, very comfortable and admirable; I heard Emily fl eeing
upstairs, presumably to dress.
“He stays out so late – up at the Ram Inn,” whispered the
mother in a high whisper, looking at George, “and then he’s
up at fi ve – he doesn’t get his proper rest.” she turned to the
chicks, and continued in her whisper – “the mother left them
just before they hatched out, so we’ve been bringing them on
here. This one’s a bit weak – I thought I’d hot him up a bit,”
she laughed with a quaint little frown of deprecation. Eight
or nine yellow, fl uffy little mites were cheeping and scuffl ing
in the fender. Lettie bent over them to touch them; they were
tame, and ran among her fi ngers.
Suddenly George’s mother gave a loud cry, and rushed to
the fi re. There was a smell of singed down. The chicken had
toddled into the fi re, and gasped its faint gasp among the red-
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THE WHITE PEACOCK
hot cokes. The father jumped from the sofa; George sat up with
wide eyes; Lettie gave a little cry and a shudder; Trip rushed
round and began to bark. There was a smell of cooked meat.
“There goes number one!” said the mother, with her queer
little laugh. It made me laugh too.
“What’s a matter – what’s a matter?” asked the father excitedly.
“It’s a chicken been and walked into the fi re – I put it on
the hob to warm,” explained his wife.
“Goodness – I couldn’t think what was up!” he said, and
dropped his head to trace gradually the border between sleeping and waking.
George sat and smiled at us faintly, he was too dazed to
speak. His chest still leaned against the table, and his arms
were spread out thereon, but he lifted his face, and looked
at Lettie with his dazed, dark eyes, and smiled faintly at her.
His hair was all ruffl ed, and his shirt collar unbuttoned. Then
he got up slowly, pushing his chair back with a loud noise,
and stretched himself, pressing his arms upwards with a long,
heavy stretch.
“Oh – h – h!” he said, bending his arms and then letting
them drop to his sides. “I never thought you’d come today.”
“I wanted to come and see you – I shan’t have many more
chances,” said Lettie, turning from him and yet looking at him
again.
“No, I suppose not,” he said, subsiding into quiet. Then
there was silence for some time. The mother began to enquire
after Leslie, and kept the conversation up till Emily came
down, blushing and smiling and glad.
307
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“Are you coming out?” said she, “there are two or three
robins’ nests, and a spinkie’s –”
“I think I’ll leave my hat,” said Lettie, unpinning it as she
spoke, and shaking her hair when she was free. Mrs Saxton insisted on her taking a long white silk scarf; Emily also wrapped
her hair in a gauze scarf, and looked beautiful.
George came out with us, coatless, hatless, his waistcoat all
unbuttoned, as he was. We crossed the orchard, over the old
bridge, and went to where the slopes ran down to the lower
pond, a bank all covered with nettles, and scattered with a hazel bush or two. Among the nettles old pans were rusting, and
old coarse pottery cropped up.
We came upon a kettle heavily coated with lime. Emily
bent down and looked, and then we peeped in. There were
the robin birds with their yellow beaks stretched so wide apart
I feared they would never close them again. Among the naked
little mites, that begged from us so blindly and confi dently,
were huddled three eggs.
“They are like Irish children peeping out of a cottage,” said
Emily, with the family fondness for romantic similes.
We went on to where a tin lay with the lid pressed back,
and inside it, snug and neat, was another nest, with six eggs,
cheek to cheek.
“How warm they are,” said Lettie, touching them, “you can
fairly feel the mother’s breast.”
He tried to put his hand into the tin, but the space was
too small, and they looked into each other’s eyes and smiled.
“You’d think the father’s breast had marked them with red,”
said Emily.
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THE WHITE PEACOCK
As we went up the orchard side we saw three wide displays
of coloured pieces of pots arranged at the foot of three trees.
“Look,” said Emily, “those are the children’s houses. You
don’t know how our Mollie gets all Sam’s pretty bits – she is
a cajoling hussy!”
The two looked at each other again, smiling. Up on the
pond-side, in the full glitter of light, we looked round where
the blades of clustering corn were softly healing the red bosom of the hill. The larks were overhead among the sunbeams.
We straggled away across the grass. The fi eld was all afroth
with cowslips, a yellow, glittering, shaking froth on the still
green of the grass. We trailed our shadows across the fi elds,
extinguishing the sunshine on the fl owers as we went. The air
was tingling with the scent of blossoms.
“Look at the cowslips, all shaking with laughter,” said Emily, and she tossed back her head, and her dark eyes sparkled
among the fl ow of gauze. Lettie was on in front, fl itting darkly across the fi eld, bending over the fl owers, stooping to the
earth like a sable Persephone come into freedom. George had
left her at a little distance, hunting for something in the grass.
He stopped, and remained standing in one place.
Gradually, as if unconsciously, she drew near to him, and
when she lifted her head, after stooping to pick some chimneysweeps, little grass fl owers, she laughed with a slight surprise
to see him so near.
“Ah!” she said. “I thought I was all alone in the world –
such a splendid world – it was so nice.”
“Like Eve in a meadow in Eden – and Adam’s shadow
somewhere on the grass,” said I.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“No – no Adam,” she asserted, frowning slightly, and
laughing.
“Who ever would wants streets of gold,” Emily was saying
to me, “when you can have a fi eld of cowslips! Look at that
hedgebottom that gets the south sun – one stream and glitter
of buttercups.”
“Those Jews always had an eye to the fi lthy lucre – they
even made heaven out of it,” laughed Lettie, and, turning
to him, she said, “Don’t you wish we were wild – hark, like
woodpigeons – or larks – or, look, like peewits? Shouldn’t you
love fl ying and wheeling and sparkling and – courting in the
wind?” She lifted her eyelids, and vibrated the question. He
fl ushed, bending over the ground.
“Look,” he said, “here’s a larkie’s.”
Once a horse had left a hoof-print in the soft meadow; now
the larks had rounded, softened the cup, and had laid there
three dark-brown eggs. Lettie sat down and leaned over the
nest; he leaned above her. The wind running over the fl owerheads, peeped in at the little brown buds, and bounded off
again gladly. The big clouds sent messages to them down the
shadows, and ran in raindrops to touch them.
“I wish,” she said, “I wish we were free like that. If we could
put everything safely in a little place in the earth – . couldn’t
we have a good time as well as the larks?”
“I don’t see,” said he, “why we can’t.”
“Oh – but I can’t – you know we can’t” – and she looked
at him fi ercely.
“Why can’t you?” he asked.
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