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THE WHITE PEACOCK
“It does make you mad, though, to touch the fur, and not be
able to grab him” – he laughed quietly.
Emily moved off in disgust. Lettie opened her mouth sharply to speak, but remained silent.
“I don’t know,” said Leslie. “When it comes to killing it
goes against the stomach.”
“If you can run,” said George, “you should be able to run to
death. When your blood’s up, you don’t hang half-way.”
“I think a man is horrible,” said Lettie, “who can tear the
head off a little mite of a thing like a rabbit, after running it in
torture over a fi eld.”
“When he is nothing but a barbarian to begin with –” said
Emily.
“If you began to run yourself – you’d be the same,” said
George.
“Why, women are cruel enough,” said Leslie, with a glance
at Lettie. “Yes,” he continued, “they’re cruel enough in their
way” – another look, and a comical little smile.
“Well,” said George, “what’s the good fi nicking! If you feel
like doing a thing – you’d better do it.”
“Unless you haven’t courage,” said Emily, bitingly.
He Hooked up at her with dark eyes, suddenly full of anger.
“But,” said Lettie – she could not hold herself from asking,
“Don’t you think it’s brutal, now – now that you do think –
isn’t it degrading and mean to run the poor little things down?”
“Perhaps it is,” he replied, “but it wasn’t an hour ago.”
“You have no feeling,” she said bitterly.
He laughed deprecatingly, but said nothing.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
We fi nished tea in silence, Lettie reading, Emily moving
about the house. George got up and went out at the end. A moment or two after we heard him across the yard with the milkbuckets, singing “The Ash Grove”.
“He doesn’t care a scrap for anything,” said Emily with accumulated bitterness. Lettie looked out of the window across
the yard, thinking. She looked very glum.
After a while we went out also, before the light faded altogether from the pond. Emily took us into the lower garden
to get some ripe plums. The old garden was very low. The soil
was black. The cornbind and goosegrass were clutching at the
ancient gooseberry bushes, which sprawled by the paths. The
garden was not very productive, save of weeds, and, perhaps,
tremendous lank artichokes or swollen marrows. But at the
bottom, where the end of the farm buildings rose high and
grey, there was a plum tree which had been crucifi ed to the
wall, and which had broken away and leaned forward from
bondage. Now under the boughs were hidden great mistbloomed, crimson treasures, splendid globes. I shook the old,
ragged trunk, green, with even the fresh gum dulled over, and
the treasures fell heavily, thudding down among the immense
rhubarb leaves below. The girls laughed, and we divided the
spoil, and turned back to the yard. We went down to the edge
of the garden, which skirted the bottom pond, a pool chained
in a heavy growth of weeds. It was moving with rats, the father
had said. The rushes were thick below us; opposite, the great
bank fronted us, with orchard trees climbing it like a hillside. The lower pond received the overfl ow from the upper by
a tunnel from the deep black sluice.
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THE WHITE PEACOCK
Two rats ran into the black culvert at our approach. We
sat on some piled, mossy stones to watch. The rats came out
again, ran a little way, stopped, ran again, listened, were reassured, and slid about freely, dragging their long naked tails.
Soon six or seven grey beasts were playing round the mouth of
the culvert, in the gloom. They sat and wiped their sharp faces, stroking their whiskers. Then one would give a little rush
and a little squirm of excitement and would jump vertically
into the air, alighting on four feet, running, sliding into the
black shadow. One dropped with an ugly plop into the water, and swam towards us, the hoary imp, his sharp snout and
his wicked little eyes moving at us. Lettie shuddered. I threw
a stone into the dead pool, and frightened them all. But we had
frightened ourselves more, so we hurried away, and stamped
our feet in relief on the free pavement of the yard.
Leslie was looking for us. He had been inspecting the yard
and the stock under Mr Saxton’s supervision.
“Were you running away from me?” he asked.
“No,” she replied. “I have been to fetch you a plum. Look!”
And she showed him two in a leaf.
“They are too pretty to eat!” said he.
“You have not tasted yet,” she laughed.
“Come,” he said, offering her his arm. “Let us go up to the
water.” She took his arm.
It was a splendid evening, with the light all thick and yellow lying on the smooth pond. Lettie made him lift her on to
a leaning bough of willow. He sat with his head resting against
her skirts. Emily and I moved on. We heard him murmur
something, and her voice reply, gently, caressingly:
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“No – let us be still – it is all so still – I love it best of all
now.”
Emily and I talked, sitting at the base of the alders, a little
way on. After an excitement, and in the evening, especially in
autumn, one is inclined to be sad and sentimental. We had
forgotten that the darkness was weaving. I heard in the little
distance Leslie’s voice begin to murmur like a fl ying beetle
that comes not too near. Then, away down in the yard, George
began singing the old song, “I sowed the seeds of love”.
This interrupted the fl ight of Leslie’s voice, and as the singing came nearer, the hum of low words ceased. We went forward to meet George. Leslie sat up, clasping his knees, and did
not speak. George came nearer, saying:
“The moon is going to rise.”
“Let me get down,” said Lettie, lifting her hands to him
to help her. He, mistaking her wish, put his hands under her
arms, and set her gently down, as one would a child. Leslie got
up quickly, and seemed to hold himself separate, resenting the
intrusion.
“I thought you were all four together,” said George quietly.
Lettie turned quickly at the apology:
“So we were. So we are – fi ve now. Is it there the moon will
rise?”
“Yes – I like to see it come over the wood. It lifts slowly up
to stare at you. I always think it wants to know something, and
I always think I have something to answer, only I don’t know
what it is,” said Emily.
Where the sky was pale in the east over the rim of wood
came the forehead of the yellow moon. We stood and watched
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THE WHITE PEACOCK
in silence. Then, as the great disc, nearly full, lifted and looked
straight upon us, we were washed off our feet in a vague sea of
moonlight. We stood with the light like water on our faces.
Lettie was glad, a little bit exalted; Emily was passionately
troubled; her lips were parted, almost beseeching; Leslie was
frowning, oblivious, and George was thinking, and the terrible, immense moonbeams braided through his feeling. At
length Leslie said softly, mistakenly:
“Come along, dear” – and he took her arm.
She let him lead her along the bank of the pond, and across
the plank over the sluice.
“Do you know,” she said, as we were carefully descending
the steep bank of the orchard, “I feel as if I wanted to laugh, or
dance – something rather outrageous.”
“Surely not like that now,” Leslie replied in a low voice,
feeling really hurt.
“I do though! I will race you to the bottom.”
“No, no, dear!” He held her back. When he came to the
wicket leading on to the front lawns, he said something to her
softly, as he held the gate.
I think he wanted to utter his half-fi nished proposal, and
so bind her.
She broke free, and, observing the long lawn which lay in
grey shadow between the eastern and western glows, she cried:
“Polka! – a polka – one can dance a polka when the grass
is smooth and short – even if there are some fallen leaves. Yes,
yes – how jolly!”
She held out her hands to Leslie, but it was too great a shock
to his mood. So she called to me, and there was a shade of anxi-
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
ety in her voice, lest after all she should be caught in the toils
of the night’s sentiment.
“Pat – you’ll dance with me – Leslie hates a polka.” I danced
with her. I do not know the time when I could not polka –
it seems innate in one’s feet, to dance that dance. We went
fl ying round, hissing through the dead leaves. The night, the
low-hung yellow moon, the pallor of the west, the blue cloud
of evening overhead went round and through the fantastic
branches of the old laburnum, spinning a little madness. You
cannot tire Lettie; her feet are wings that beat the air. When
at last I stayed her she laughed as fresh as ever, as she bound
her hair.
“There!” she said to Leslie, in tones of extreme satisfaction.
“That was lovely. Do you come and dance now.”
“Not a polka,” said he, sadly, feeling the poetry in his heart
insulted by the jigging measure.
“But one cannot dance anything else on wet grass, and
through shuffl ing dead leaves. You, George?”
“Emily says I jump,” he replied.
“Come on – come on” – and in a moment they were
bounding across the grass. After a few steps she fell in with
him, and they spun round the grass. It was true, he leaped,
sprang with large strides, carrying her with him. It was a tremendous, irresistible dancing. Emily and I must join, making
an inner ring. Now and again there was a sense of something
white fl ying near, and wild rustle of draperies, and a swish of
disturbed leaves as they whirled past us. Long after we were
tired they danced on.
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THE WHITE PEACOCK
At the end, he looked big, erect, nerved with triumph, and
she was exhilarated like a Bacchante.
“Have you fi nished?” Leslie asked.
She knew she was safe from his question that day.
“Yes,” she panted. “You should have danced. Give me my
hat, please. Do I look very disgraceful?”
He took her hat and gave it to her.
“Disgraceful?” he repeated.
“Oh, you are solemn tonight! What is it?”
“Yes, what is it?” he repeated ironically.
“It must be the moon. Now, is my hat straight? Tell me
now – you’re not looking. Then put it level. Now then! Why,
your hands are quite cold, and mine so hot! I feel so impish,”
and she laughed.
“There – now I’m ready. Do you notice those little chrysanthemums trying to smell sadly; when the old moon is laughing
and winking through those boughs. What business have they
with their sadness!” She took a handful of petals and fl ung
them into the air: “There – if they sigh they ask for sorrow –
I like things to wink and look wild.”
CHAPTER VI
THE EDUCATION OF GEORGE
As I have said, Strelley Mill lies at the north end of the long
Nethermere valley. On the northern slopes lay its pasture and
arable lands. The shaggy common, now closed, and the cultivated land was bounded on the east by the sharp dip of the
brook course, a thread of woodland broadening into a spinney
and ending at the upper pond; beyond this, on the east, rose
the sharp, wild, grassy hillside, scattered with old trees, ruinous with the gaunt, ragged bones of old hedge-rows, grown
into thorn trees. Along the rim of the hills, beginning in the
north-west, were dark woodlands, which swept round east and
south till they raced down in riot to the very edge of southern
Nethermere, surrounding our house. From the eastern hillcrest, looking straight across, you could see the spire of Selsby
church, and a few roofs, and the head-stocks of the pit.
So on three sides the farm was skirted by woods, the dens of
rabbits, and the common held another warren.
Now the squire of the estate, head of an ancient, once even
famous, but now decayed house, loved his rabbits. Unlike the
family fortunes, the family tree fl ourished amazingly; Sherwood could show nothing comparable. Its ramifi cations were
stupendous; it was more like a banyan than a British oak. How
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THE WHITE PEACOCK
was the good squire to nourish himself and his lady, his name,
his tradition, and his thirteen lusty branches on his meagre
estates? An evil fortune discovered to him that he could sell
each of his rabbits, those bits of furry vermin, for a shilling or
thereabout in Nottingham; since which time the noble family
subsisted by rabbits.
Farms were gnawed away; corn and sweet grass departed
from the face of the hills; cattle grew lean, unable to eat the
defi led herbage. Then the farm became the home of a keeper,
and the country was silent, with no sound of cattle, no clink of
horses, no barking of lusty dogs.
But the squire loved his rabbits. He defended them against
the snares of the despairing farmer, protected them with gun
and notices to quit. How he glowed with thankfulness as he
saw the dishevelled hillside heave when the gnawing hosts
moved on!
“Are they not quails and manna?” said he to his sporting
guest, early one Monday morning, as the high meadow broke
into life at the sound of his gun. “Quails and manna – in this
wilderness?”
“They are, by Jove!” assented the sporting guest as he took
another gun, while the saturnine keeper smiled grimly. Meanwhile, Strelley Mill began to suffer under this gangrene. It was
the outpost in the wilderness. It was an understood thing that
none of the squire’s tenants had a gun.
“Well,” said the squire to Mr Saxton, “you have the land for
next to nothing – next to nothing – at a rent really absurd.
Surely the little that the rabbits eat –”
89
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“It’s not a little – come and look for yourself,” replied the
farmer. The squire made a gesture of impatience.
“What do you want?” he inquired.
“Will you wire me off?” was the repeated request.
“Wire is – what does Halkett say – so much per yard –
and it would come to – what did Halkett tell me now? – but
a Harge sum. No, I can’t do it.”
“Well, I can’t live like this.”
“Have another glass of whisky? Yes, yes, I want another
glass myself, and I can’t drink alone – so if I am to enjoy my
glass – That’s it! Now surely you exaggerate a little. It’s not so
bad.”
“I can’t go on like it, I’m sure.”
“Well, we’ll see about compensation – we’ll see. I’ll have
a talk with Halkett, and I’ll come down and have a look at you.
We all fi nd a pinch somewhere – it’s nothing but humanity’s
heritage.”
I was born in September, and love it best of all the months.
There is no heat, no hurry, no thirst and weariness in corn harvest as there is in the hay. If the season is late, as is usual with
us, then mid-September sees the corn still standing in stook.
The mornings come slowly. The earth is like a woman married
and fading; she does not leap up with a laugh for the fi rst fresh
kiss of dawn, but slowly, quietly, unexpectantly lies watching
the waking of each new day. The blue mist, like memory in the
eyes of a neglected wife, never goes from the wooded hill, and
only at noon creeps from the near hedges. There is no bird
to put a song in the throat of morning; only the crow’s voice
speaks during the day. Perhaps there is the regular breathing
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