Unclay

by T. F. Powys

Mr. Hayhoe bowed to the company, wished Daisy good night, opened the street door, and withdrew.

  Lord Bullman glared fiercely at Death.

  “Why don’t you go too?” he asked him angrily.

  “Because,” answered Death, “I prefer to stay here.”

  Daisy fled upstairs; she did not like to see men quarrel. Lord Bullman laid hold of Death by the shoulder, intending to force him into the street. But he had hardly touched him before he loosed him again. Lord Bullman shuddered.

  A curious scent filled the room—a scent not altogether unknown to humankind—the smell of corruption. The odour had risen slowly, as the mist used to rise from Joe Bridle’s pond.

  At first it was but a faint, sweet smell, that is often dreamed of, and resembled slightly the scent of dead flowers that have remained long in water that has not been changed. At first the scent might have been but the mere stuffiness of a cottage room in summer, where the windows are shut and the thatch rests heavily upon the roof. But soon the smell became more noticeable. The atmosphere of the parlour became horrible; a stench rose up.

  Lord Bullman moved away from Death.

  “Who is dead here?” he asked angrily. “Why did you not tell me there is a corpse upstairs? Is old Huddy dead?”

  “Step up and see for yourself,” replied Death.

  The dread smell increased.

  Lord Bullman opened the street door and hurried out. He mounted the horse his servant held, and galloped away.

  “It’s only a dead rat,” Death called after him.

  XXVII

  * * *

  * * *

  * * *

  Susie Dawe

  Susie Dawe had always been obedient to her father. Ever since she could remember, a word from him had been a law to her. Whatever a man may be outside, he is always the moving power in a country cottage; though he is but a poor sort of god, worship, of a kind, is always given to him.

  Susie would never have dared to contradict or to dispute the will of her father. In a girl’s way, she even loved him. He had made her life; he had digged into a pit, and had drawn out this girl child. The reason for all that she did came from him, in every way he controlled her doings, and the least rebuke from him made her feel ashamed.

  He had queer ways, but they only showed the difference between him and other fathers. Susie liked to see him as different. She had certainly nothing to blame herself for with regard to her conduct to him. Ever since she had been a little child she had done nothing else but work for him. Even while at school she had always risen early to do the housework, and hurried home to get his meals.

  Mrs. Moggs could remember how Susie used to go to her shop to buy the groceries, when she was too tiny to see over the counter, and before that, Susie herself could just recollect a woman—a Mrs. Sheet—coming to clean the house and look to her, when she was a baby. But, as soon as Susie could toddle, the woman was sent away.

  Susie was only a very little thing when her father sent her off into the fields and hedgerows to gather what might be had without money and without price. No maid had quicker hands than Susie; no one in all Dodder could pick blackberries as quickly. She gathered with both hands, and stripped the hedges into great baskets, as if she milked them.

  As to James Dawe himself, he appeared to do nothing for a living. He only crept about like an old wolf, seeing, hearing, and watching. If it were possible, he never liked to use what was his own. The very water that he had in his own well he did not like to dip out, and he would send Susie to fetch water from Mr. Bridle’s pond rather than diminish his own supply. Had he been able to, he would have hoarded the very air that he breathed, and he had often sent Susie to a neighbour’s dung-heap to bring back as much as she could carry in pails, to his garden.

  James Dawe wore cord trousers and a leathern coat, and Susie had never seen him in any other garments. Neither did she ever see any of the wealth that people said he possessed. She was never allowed to enter the room where he slept, and no man ever came into the house unless Dawe invited him—which was very seldom. James Dawe ate the cheapest food—soaked bread, powdered with salt and pepper, and for dinner, boiled vegetables and sometimes a little green bacon. He drank only tea.

  Leading such a hard and meagre life, it is a surprise to learn that Susie was happy. But if a young life be but a natural one, joy will somehow or other find a way to creep into it. Even though the environment may be dreary, a child’s heart can yet dance and sing. She will skip, however muddy the road is, and laugh at the sad rain that beats upon the gravestones in the churchyard.

  Perhaps it is in a child’s soul that God plays, allowing Himself for the moment to be unmindful of His troubles and of the sad sorrows that He has created for Man. Perhaps He sometimes leaves Himself and becomes Winnie Huddy.

  Though Susie had been kept so close, yet her father was not always in the way to keep her continually engaged. She found time now and again to run down to the shop and talk to Mrs. Moggs. And often, too—for Miss Susie planted no nut-trees around herself—she would be found at the gate when Joe Bridle was passing, and would sometimes even say a merry word to Mr. Solly, that always caused him to stare hard at the ground, when he came by upon a Sunday.

  She was glad that Joe Bridle talked to her. He was the kind of man that any young girl might look up to and wish to marry. And yet he did not altogether please her, though she hardly knew herself why he did not. Perhaps it was a certain slowness in Joe, an unusual harmony, that was hard to disturb, she did not like.

  Susie was doubtful whether he could ever lose his reserve and become enraged or lustful. She had never once seen him strike his horse, or storm and curse because the cows would not hurry home. He was not the sort of man to do those things. He had never, so far as she knew, been engaged in a tavern row, offering to fight a Dady or Dillar, neither had he been found drunk in a ditch, nor seen cracking home-bred fleas in the road. Nor had he ever been known to visit Daisy Huddy.

  But who is it that can tell where a girl’s fancy can run to? It is as hard to follow as the flight of a swallow in the air. What is it that she seeks, what does she want in a man? Beauty it certainly is not, nor staidness, nor honesty, nor yet a loving heart. Neither can it be baseness that she prefers. Nor foolish pride. It is never goodness that she wishes to wed.

  She wishes to possess something that she only can call her own—all other things matter not. She is a thief; she wishes to steal from a man something that she wants to be hers, and that she can hand to her offspring as hers alone. She wants to pretend that what she has stolen from the man is her own in the child. She wishes her husband to be neither superior, grander, nor cleverer than another, but only different.

  She wishes to rob a man of something that she sees he has, yet he knows not that he has it. And she will make him believe that she weds him for every reason except the true one alone.

  In the choice of a husband, a girl is guided by a sure instinct—she chooses for the future, her choice is towards a new development. She notices some trait or other about a man that may become an heirloom for her descendants. Though she steals this from a man, she will say that it is hers. What she robs a man of, she never gives back to him. A woman is a bad sharer. She wants something for herself that no other woman can ever have. She would have every child of hers marked with her mark, so that she should be pointed out as the mother. She will hunt out a man only because she believes that something can come from her womb, by the use of him, that will be hers only. A woman longs to live wholly in her child, as herself alone.

  Or else, is a young girl guided by the stars in the choice of a husband? Do they lead her, those magic signs in the sky? Do they make signs to her? Do their far lights point out the man who may please her the most, open her womb, and cause life to dance to a new measure?

  She, and not the man, breaks the new ground. To produce a fairy is her wish—a kind of immortal. Or she
may wish to bear a toad, and so she marries a wealthy banker. What, indeed, has the power of love in a girl’s heart to do with the matter? A wise girl distrusts all fine, high-lifting thoughts; she would rather dig like a mole than fly like an eagle.

  Joseph Bridle was a good, easy, merry fellow, straight-limbed and well to look at, with a faithful eye that a girl could find comfort in, as well as pleasure. And, by the look of him, he could be wanton too, if the occasion were proper. Though his feelings were amorous, his thoughts were chaste—the right man for a merry girl to marry.

  To live under Madder Hill, and to feel its influence, had made Bridle more kind than many. Children would run to him, and he would give them what pennies he had in his pocket. And, though Susie could see what a fine father he would make, yet she had her eyes elsewhere.…

  James Dawe had seen his daughter grow, and he waited his time. The time was nearly come.

  When a man waits, expecting to gain, he sometimes grows impatient. Dawe grew more silent to his girl, but, in the evening, when she went to bed, he would go to his bedroom, too.

  Dawe scarcely seemed human. Had he beaten Susie a little and loved her a little, matters might have been different. A father’s manners are very odd to watch. But still Dawe looked. He did no more than that. He was not a likely man to lose money by any folly of his own. And besides, he hated his daughter.

  There were a number of simple truths that James Dawe was aware of. He knew that if you leave butter in the sun it will melt; he also knew that all women—both young and old—are sly cats. God has many wants—so a poet once said—but James Dawe had but one now. He wanted Joseph Bridle’s field.

  He liked to think, too, of how he would get the field. He would have pleasure both ways, in the giving and in the receiving. To give a sweet body of flesh—all those timid corners and delights, all the fair beauty of a girl—and to receive in exchange a field of cold sods. He liked that.

  If ever a religious thought came into James Dawe’s mind, it came to him now. To every man, sooner or later, a chance comes of Salvation. A chance to gain all by one deal. Once the offer is made, and once only. To pass by the opportunity is to lose all. A man is suddenly aware that something must be laid hold of—now or never. Let the one moment go, and heavy darkness closes over our heads, the waves cover us. In the midst of the great storm, a silence comes. Some one speaks. Our chance has come. Amid all the rush and clamour of desire, all that we wish for, we may then take. A Divine revelation is shown—a momentous bliss.

  Mr. Dawe’s chance had come—a treasure might be his. But God does not appear to every one in the same manner. Dawe knew Him as the treasure in Bridle’s field; Winnie Huddy believed He was Mr. Solly’s nuts.

  And to him who loiters late upon a summer’s down—because then a little gale moves and scents the air with thyme—if he be ready to breathe deep, a blessed wonder will pass over him and promise a perfect joy and utter forgetfulness.

  To another that walks upon the mountains comes a young doe of excellent shape and with the fairest limbs, who bids the man rejoice for ever in her loveliness. But, peradventure, he turns aside from her. A shady tavern beside the highway invites the weary traveller to rest a little. He has silver money to pay for the red wine, and yet he does not enter, but goes sadly on his way to destruction. He has missed his chance. When he passes that way again, the tavern will not be there. The shady trees will be cut down, the arbour levelled, the Inn sign cast to the ground.…

  Mr. Dawe was sure of himself, he would have the field, he would dig up the treasure, and what a fine rich son-in-law Farmer Mere would be! He had two large manors, he had certain other odd fancy possessions, and a dog—Tom.

  A father’s kindness can sometimes be too kind. Often, because he does not lust after his daughter, he hates her instead. Sometimes he does both. And he may also be, as well, a little jealous of her—and headstrong, too, when his own will is opposed.

  Susie had never wilfully opposed her father, but once or twice she had pretended to, and for that he had never forgiven her.

  Once when he was out, a creditor had brought him money in a letter. For some reason or other Dawe took up the letter, looked at the envelope, but did not carry it into his room. Then he went out again.…

  Susie thought that money was a silly thing because her father made so much of it. That was but natural. For every child thinks that what a father makes much of must be foolish. Even Judah thought his father’s concubine was stupid, and so he crept into his father’s bed. Judah did not do so because he liked the woman, but merely because his father’s bed was the most comfortable in the house. It was the woman who complained, because Judah was tired and went at once to sleep.

  Susie smiled to herself when her father went out, and slipped the letter into her workbasket. When Dawe returned and looked for the letter he could not find it. Susie said that she was sure it must be somewhere in the house, though perhaps it might have slipped through a hole in the floor. The miser’s soft hairy face became purple with rage, but he did not beat Susie. He sat down upon the floor and howled like Mr. Mere’s dog. Susie, who only intended to hide the letter as a little joke, was terrified at her father’s behaviour.

  But often a little joke can have a terrible ending. A boy points a gun at a sister and shoots her dead. A miner lights a match to frighten a comrade and the mine blows up.

  Susie did not know what to do. She could only look at her father, who howled and beat his head against the floor. Then he rose up, went into the woodshed, and fetched an ax and crowbar. With these tools, he began to pull the house to pieces, to find the letter. All that came in his way he began to tear up. Had he supposed the letter to be hid in the Dodder churchyard, he would have rooted out, one by one, every coffined corpse, until he found what he had lost.

  Dawe meant to find the letter. He pushed the furniture to one side, and began to wrench up the boards with the crowbar. Soon he would have laid the whole cottage flat.

  After tearing up some of the boards, he looked at his girl, who stood trembling. He ordered her to undress—but the letter was not hidden under her clothes. He took up the ax again, but with his next blow he overturned the table where the workbasket was, and out fell the letter.

  He never spoke to Susie; he only returned the boards to their places, and went out of the house. But his thoughts were not kind. Though the Son of God could be crucified, yet a human father is not allowed to crucify his daughter, even though he may wish to do so.

  But there are lawful institutions besides a cross and great rusty nails that can be nearly as useful for a nice revenge. Marriage is one of them. Sometimes a young girl may not fancy—however much it may be praised by the poets—the carnal act of copulation. It is then that the fun begins. To keep a modest innocence in every young woman is highly desirable, but the well of cruelty is deep, and natural longings are not always fed by kindness alone.

  Because Susie had hidden the letter, James Dawe intended to destroy her, and what better weapon could he use than Mr. Mere’s cruelty? He wished Mere to be hanged too, but one thing, he knew, leads to another. He would trap them both—the old fox and the lamb—in the same snare.

  One evening he gave Mere a hint. They had met near to the churchyard wall, and Dawe began to speak of the many ways in which a simple creature could be given pain. He said that pain makes a woman long. They arranged a day when Susie should be left alone in the house.

  Dawe looked at Mere cunningly; they nodded to one another.

  XXVIII

  * * *

  * * *

  * * *

  Mr. Mere Makes a Beginning

  A simple creature is very easy to catch; she never expects anything unpleasant to happen, and so is never ready to defend herself. Amongst a litter of crumbs a small mouse might easily feed in safety, and yet she will run further, climb up to a shelf, and nibble a musty piece of cheese—the bait.

  God
is the great hunter. In order to fill His larder, He scatters mouldy cheese about—carnal desire. The sun is above, and all the fair flowers of the valley glisten with dew. The trap looks pleasant.

  Then there is the bait—woman. Her wiles are inconceivable, her arts manifold, her desires everlasting. My friend, you are caught. An infant cries. He is bound in the eternal bonds; he has become a living soul. A laugh is heard in the sky, and for a while the child plays happily, all unconscious that he is trapped.

  But he soon learns that the fair earth is but a mortuary. He is enclosed fast in a prison. He beats his head against the walls, he looks this way and that, but there is no escape. He must die in the prison. The trap, that at first seemed so wide, he now knows to be very small. The distant stars close in upon him, he is suffocated; the tomb opens, the trapped rat squeals.…

  No month can be more lovely than June. All the country ways are then at their best. A wonderful beauty moves in the sods, and at the opening of every new flower a bird sings a happy song. A June evening has no rival in loveliness, for the heavy languor of the full summer has not yet come.

  In Dodder village the white and red roses bloomed in the hedges, as Mr. Mere walked down the street. Though the roses had not been noticed by the dwellers in Dodder, yet Mr. Mere was seen. Dillar was at his window, shaving. Half his face was covered by soap. He looked into the road and smiled.

  “There’s wold b—— Mere,” he called to his wife, who was skinning a rabbit in the back kitchen. “’E be going down to talk to Susie; she be the one to entertain the old men.”

  Mrs. Dillar laughed loudly. Her hands were bloody. Close behind Mr. Mere there walked Tom, his dog.

  Tom was in fine fettle that evening; he had dined off buried lamb. He stank like a fox. He appeared aware, too, by the way that he looked up at his master, that they were out for a frolic. Perhaps he was going to be given something else to bite—sweet flesh, maybe—not filthy, buried carrion, but firm, living meat.