The White Peacock Part 78

"It's a marvel you've got dressed so quick," he replied.

"Oh, is it?" she answered-"well, it's not with any of your help that I've done it, that is a fact. Where's Teenie?"

The maid, short, stiffly built, very dark and sullen looking, came forward from the gate.

"Can you take Alfy as well, just while we have tea?" she asked. Teenie replied that she should think she could, whereupon she was given the ruddy-haired baby, as well as the dark one. She sat with them on a seat at the end of the yard. We proceeded to tea.

It was a very great spread. There were hot cakes, three or four kinds of cold cakes, tinned apricots, jellies, tinned lobster, and trifles in the way of jam, cream, and rum.

"I don't know what those cakes are like," said Meg. "I made them in such a fl.u.s.ter. Really, you have to do things as best you can when you've got children-especially when there's two. I never seem to have time to do my hair up even-look at it now."

She put up her hands to her head, and I could not help noticing how grimy and rough were her nails.

The tea was going on pleasantly when one of the babies began to cry.

Teenie bent over it crooning gruffly. I leaned back and looked out of the door to watch her. I thought of the girl in Tchekoff's story, who smothered her charge, and I hoped the grim Teenie would not be driven to such desperation. The other child joined in this chorus. Teenie rose from her seat and walked about the yard, gruffly trying to soothe the twins.

"It's a funny thing, but whenever anybody comes they're sure to be cross," said Meg, beginning to simmer.

"They're no different from ordinary," said George, "it's only that you're forced to notice it then."

"No, it is not!" cried Meg in a sudden pa.s.sion: "Is it now, Emily? Of course, he has to say something! Weren't they as good as gold this morning, Emily?-and yesterday!-why they never murmured, as good as gold they were. But he wants them to be as dumb as fishes: he'd like them shutting up in a box as soon as they make a bit of noise."

"I was not saying anything about it," he replied.

"Yes, you were," she retorted. "I don't know what you call it then--"

The babies outside continued to cry.

"Bring Alfy to me," called Meg, yielding to the mother feeling.

"Oh, no, d.a.m.n it!" said George, "let Oswald take him."

"Yes," replied Meg bitterly, "let anybody take him so long as he's out of your sight. You never ought to have children, you didn't--"

George murmured something about "to-day."

"Come then!" said Meg with a whole pa.s.sion of tenderness, as she took the red-haired baby and held it to her bosom, "Why, what is it then, what is it, my precious? Hush then pet, hush then!"

The baby did not hush. Meg rose from her chair and stood rocking the baby in her arms, swaying from one foot to the other.

"He's got a bit of wind," she said.

We tried to continue the meal, but everything was awkward and difficult.

"I wonder if he's hungry," said Meg, "let's try him."

She turned away and gave him her breast. Then he was still, so she covered herself as much as she could, and sat down again to tea. We had finished, so we sat and waited while she ate. This disjointing of the meal, by reflex action, made Emily and me more accurate. We were exquisitely attentive, and polite to a nicety. Our very speech was clipped with precision, as we drifted to a discussion of Strauss and Debussy. This of course put a breach between us two and our hosts, but we could not help it; it was our only way of covering over the awkwardness of the occasion. George sat looking glum and listening to us. Meg was quite indifferent. She listened occasionally, but her position as mother made her impregnable. She sat eating calmly, looking down now and again at her baby, holding us in slight scorn, babblers that we were. She was secure in her high maternity; she was mistress and sole authority. George, as father, was first servant; as an indifferent father, she humiliated him and was hostile to his wishes. Emily and I were mere intruders, feeling ourselves such. After tea we went upstairs to wash our hands. The grandmother had had a second stroke of paralysis, and lay inert, almost stupified. Her large bulk upon the bed was horrible to me, and her face, with the muscles all slack and awry, seemed like some cruel cartoon. She spoke a few thick words to me.

George asked her if she felt all right, or should he rub her. She turned her old eyes slowly to him.

"My leg-my leg a bit," she said in her strange guttural.

He took off his coat, and pus.h.i.+ng his hand under the bed-clothes, sat rubbing the poor old woman's limb patiently, slowly, for some time. She watched him for a moment, then without her turning her eyes from him, he pa.s.sed out of her vision and she lay staring at nothing, in his direction.

"There," he said at last, "is that any better then, mother?"

"Ay, that's a bit better," she said slowly.

"Should I gi'e thee a drink?" he asked, lingering, wis.h.i.+ng to minister all he could to her before he went.

She looked at him, and he brought the cup. She swallowed a few drops with difficulty.

"Doesn't it make you miserable to have her always there?" I asked him, when we were in the next room. He sat down on the large white bed and laughed shortly.

"We're used to it-we never notice her, poor old gran'ma."

"But she must have made a difference to you-she must make a big difference at the bottom, even if you don't know it," I said.

"She'd got such a strong character," he said musing, "-she seemed to understand me. She was a real friend to me before she was so bad.

Sometimes I happen to look at her-generally I never see her, you know how I mean-but sometimes I do-and then-it seems a bit rotten--"

He smiled at me peculiarly, "-it seems to take the s.h.i.+ne off things,"

he added, and then, smiling again with ugly irony-"She's our skeleton in the closet." He indicated her large bulk.

The church bells began to ring. The grey church stood on a rise among the fields not far away, like a handsome old stag looking over towards the inn. The five bells began to play, and the sound came beating upon the window.

"I hate Sunday night," he said restlessly.

"Because you've nothing to do?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said. "It seems like a gag, and you feel helpless. I don't want to go to church, and hark at the bells, they make you feel uncomfortable."

"What do you generally do?" I asked.

"Feel miserable-I've been down to Mayhew's these last two Sundays, and Meg's been pretty mad. She says it's the only night I could stop with her, or go out with her. But if I stop with her, what can I do?-and if we go out, it's only for half an hour. I hate Sunday night-it's a dead end."

When we went downstairs, the table was cleared, and Meg was bathing the dark baby. Thus she was perfect. She handled the bonny, naked child with beauty of gentleness. She kneeled over him n.o.bly. Her arms and her bosom and her throat had a n.o.bility of roundness and softness. She drooped her head with the grace of a Madonna, and her movements were lovely, accurate and exquisite, like an old song perfectly sung. Her voice, playing and soothing round the curved limbs of the baby, was like water, soft as wine in the sun, running with delight.

We watched humbly, sharing the wonder from afar.

Emily was very envious of Meg's felicity. She begged to be allowed to bathe the second baby. Meg granted her bounteous permission:

"Yes, you can wash him if you like, but what about your frock?"

Emily, delighted, began to undress the baby whose hair was like crocus petals. Her fingers trembled with pleasure as she loosed the little tapes. I always remember the inarticulate delight with which she took the child in her hands, when at last his little s.h.i.+rt was removed, and felt his soft white limbs and body. A distinct, glowing atmosphere seemed suddenly to burst out around her and the child, leaving me outside. The moment before she had been very near to me, her eyes searching mine, her spirit clinging timidly about me. Now I was put away, quite alone, neglected, forgotten, outside the glow which surrounded the woman and the baby.

"Ha!-Ha-a-a!" she said with a deep throated vowel, as she put her face against the child's small b.r.e.a.s.t.s, so round, almost like a girl's, silken and warm and wonderful. She kissed him, and touched him, and hovered over him, drinking in his baby sweetnesses, the sweetness of the laughing little mouth's wide, wet kisses, of the round, waving limbs, of the little shoulders so winsomely curving to the arms and the b.r.e.a.s.t.s, of the tiny soft neck hidden very warm beneath the chin, tasting deliciously with her lips and her cheeks all the exquisite softness, silkiness, warmth, and tender life of the baby's body.

A woman is so ready to disclaim the body of a man's love; she yields him her own soft beauty with so much gentle patience and regret; she clings to his neck, to his head and his cheeks, fondling them for the soul's meaning that is there, and shrinking from his pa.s.sionate limbs and his body. It was with some perplexity, some anger and bitterness that I watched Emily moved almost to ecstasy by the baby's small, innocuous person.