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THE WHITE PEACOCK
I wandered around Nethermere, which had now forgotten
me. The daffodils under the boat-house continued their golden laughter, and nodded to one another in gossip, as I watched
them, never for a moment pausing to notice me. The yellow
refl ection of daffodils among the shadows of grey willow in the
water trembled faintly as they told haunted tales in the gloom.
I felt like a child left out of the group of my playmates. There
was a wind running across Nethermere, and on the eager water blue and glistening grey shadows changed places swiftly.
Along the shore the wild birds rose, fl apping in expostulation
as I passed, peewits mewing fi ercely round my head, while two
white swans lifted their glistening feathers till they looked
like grand double water-lilies, laying back their orange beaks
among the petals, and fronting me with haughty resentment,
charging towards me insolently.
I wanted to be recognised by something. I said to myself
that the dryads were looking out for me from the wood’s edge.
But as I advanced they shrank, and glancing wistfully, turned
back like pale fl owers falling in the shadow of the forest. I was
a stranger, an intruder. Among the bushes a twitter of lively
birds exclaimed upon me. Finches went leaping past in bright
fl ashes, and a robin sat and asked rudely, “Hello! Who are
you?”
The bracken lay sere under the trees, broken and chavelled
by the restless wild winds of the long winter.
The trees caught the wind in their tall netted twigs, and
the young morning wind moaned at its captivity. As I trod the
discarded oak-leaves and the bracken they uttered their last
sharp gasps, pressed into oblivion. The wood was roofed with
451
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
a wide young sobbing sound, and fl oored with a faint hiss like
the intaking of the last breath. Between, was all the glad outpeeping of buds and anemone fl owers and the rush of birds.
I, wandering alone, felt them all, the anguish of the bracken
fallen face down in defeat, the careless dash of the birds, the
sobbing of the young wind arrested in its haste, the trembling,
expanding delight of the buds. I alone among them could hear
the whole succession of chords.
The brooks talked on just the same, just as gladly, just as
boisterously as they had done when I had netted small, glittering fi sh in the rest-pools. At Strelley Mill a servant girl in
a white cap, and white apron-bands, came running out of the
house with purple prayer-books, which she gave to the elder
of two fi nicking girls who sat disconsolately with their blacksilked mother in the governess cart at the gate, ready to go to
church. Near Woodside there was barbed-wire along the path,
and at the end of every riding it was tarred on the tree-trunks,
“Private”.
I had done with the valley of Nethermere. The valley of
Nethermere had cast me out many years before, while I had
fondly believed it cherished me in memory.
I went along the road to Eberwich. The church bells were
ringing boisterously, with the careless boisterousness of the
brooks and the birds and the rollicking coltsfoots and celandines.
A few people were hastening blithely to service. Miners
and other labouring men were passing in aimless gangs, walking nowhere in particular, so long as they reached a suffi ciently distant public-house.
452
THE WHITE PEACOCK
I reached the Hollies. It was much more spruce than it had
been. The yard, however, and the stables had again a somewhat abandoned air. I asked the maid for George.
“Oh, master’s not up yet,” she said, giving a little signifi cant
toss of her head, and smiling. I waited a moment.
“But he rung for a bottle of beer about ten minutes since,
so I should think –” she emphasised the word with some ironical contempt, “ – he won’t be very long,” she added, in tones
which conveyed that she was not by any means sure. I asked
for Meg.
“Oh, Missis is gone to church – and the children – but
Miss Saxton is in, she might –”
“Emily!” I exclaimed.
The maid smiled.
“She’s in the drawing-room. She’s engaged, but perhaps if
I tell her –”
“Yes, do,” said I, sure that Emily would receive me.
I found my old sweetheart sitting in a low chair by the fi re,
a man standing on the hearth-rug pulling his moustache. Emily and I both felt a thrill of old delight at meeting.
“I can hardly believe it is really you,” she said, laughing me
one of the old intimate looks. She had changed a great deal.
She was very handsome, but she had now a new self-confi dence, a fi ne, free indifference.
“Let me introduce you. Mr Renshaw, Cyril. Tom, you know
who it is; you have heard me speak often enough of Cyril. I am
going to marry Tom in three weeks’ time,” she said, laughing.
“The devil you are!” I exclaimed involuntarily.
453
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“If he will have me,” she added, quite as a playful afterthought.
Tom was a well-built fair man, smoothly, almost delicately
tanned. There was something soldierly in his bearing, something self-conscious in the way he bent his head and pulled
his moustache, something charming and fresh in the way he
laughed at Emily’s last preposterous speech.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“Why didn’t you ask me?” she retorted, arching her brows.
“Mr Renshaw,” I said. “You have out-manoeuvred me all unawares, quite indecently.”
“I am very sorry,” he said, giving one more twist to his
moustache, then breaking into a loud, short laugh at his joke.
“Do you really feel cross?” said Emily to me, knitting her
brows and smiling quaintly.
“I do!” I replied, with truthful emphasis.
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 fi ve years, was now farming his fathers’ farm at Papplewick, where Emily was schoolmistress. He had been at home
454
THE WHITE PEACOCK
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 fl icker of the old terror.
“Where is George?” I asked.
“In bed,” she replies briefl y. “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.”
455
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“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 slipperless. 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 fl accid
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.
456
THE WHITE PEACOCK
“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 fi re, 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 fi re, paying her no heed. When she had fi nished:
“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 fi re.
“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 fi nger, 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
fi nished striking. He rose heavily and went to the table. As he
457
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
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 fi sh, 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 fi sh 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:
458
THE WHITE PEACOCK
“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 fi nished? – If you have, Kate can take that tray out. It
smells quite sickly. Have you fi nished?”
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 fi sh 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 fi nd 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.”
459
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
The maid, however, folded the cloth and went out without
approaching the windows.
Meg had grown stouter, and there was a certain immovable
confi dence 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 ruffl ed 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!”
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