‘And will you like it, do you think, being here?’
‘Oh, I can contrive to get along, anywhere. It takes a lot to make me feel uncomfortable.’
He laughed in an easy-going, yet self-conscious way. Tough as he was, he seemed all the time to be putting up a front against possible criticism.
‘I hope you’ll be all right!’ said Connie. ‘You know I have a key to the hut, don’t you? I sit here sometimes.’
‘Yes Mam. Mr Parkin here has told me that. Oh, it’s a dandy little shanty: make a cute little home for a man, out west among the timber, if you put a stove in!’
He spoke with such curious precision, and sounded his ‘h’s’ so distinctly, he might almost have been a gentleman by education. And yet his manner was so unattractive, and somehow ill-bred. It was nervous without being sensitive, punctilious without ease.
Parkin meanwhile had stood by passive, in his Sunday suit. He would no more wear the velveteen corduroy coat with baggy skirts, nor the breeches and leggings, nor carry the gun. He was a little artisan in navy-blue with a dark red tie. And Albert, as a colonial, would not condescend to the velveteen coat either. In fact he wore no coat at all, but a cloth hunting shirt with pockets on the breast, khaki-coloured and spruce: and a black silk tie. He had a certain stringy elegance.
Flossie was roaming round in nervous excitement.
‘I expect you’ll find th’ milk by th’ warren gate by now,’ said Parkin in an aside voice, to Albert. ‘They milk early, Sundays. —An’ if you’ll call Flossie, we’ll make her follow.’
‘Well, I’ll say good-day!’ said Albert, lifting his hat to Connie. ‘Goodbye then!’ he added to Parkin, shaking hands with him. ‘Thanks for putting me in the know here. And good luck, you sure can do with it!’
‘Ay!’ said Parkin. ‘I s’ll come over an’ see how yer gettin’ on.’
‘Fine! Fine! You know where you’re welcome! Well —’
‘Ca’ th’ dog!’ said Parkin.
Albert gave a short, sharp, imperious whistle. Flossie looked round, and immediately cringed to the ground, as if her bones had gone soft, Albert strode off to the path, and whistled again, looking round. Flossie, as if smitten with paralysis, was creeping along the ground towards Parkin.
‘Go!’ he said fiercely, pointing towards Albert.
The dog only collapsed on to the earth entirely, and lay pretending she could not move, only watching Parkin with her yellow eyes.
‘Get up, you fool of a bitch!’ he said angrily.
Albert whistled again. But the dog lay motionless.
Parkin strode up to her rapidly. She winced down on to the earth, but it was obvious she would rather take a beating than follow the other man.
‘Go with him!’ said Parkin, standing above her and pointing fiercely at Albert. But Flossie only lay inert, her yellow eyes fixed on her master’s face, her silky hair glistening in a heap.
‘Of all the damned and blasted fools!’ he said, in a little voice of angry pain.
And suddenly, while she lay absolutely motionless, he stooped and picked her up and swung her after Albert. She fell in a flurried little heap, and he, running with sudden frenzy, seized a thick oak stick and rushed towards her. Casting an eye of real terror behind her now, she loped with a cringing run, her hind quarters dropped and her tail pressed under her belly, into the path after Albert, still looking behind her. Parkin waited there, with the stick in his hand, white with anger and emotion, ready to fling the stick at her if she returned. But she did not return. They heard the voice of Albert speaking to her in the distance, with that colonial geniality which has no warmth. Then Parkin flung aside his stick and pushed back his hat.
‘Poor Flossie!’ said Connie, with a little blurt of laughter, that was almost tears. It was indeed pathetic and ridiculous at the same time. ‘Couldn’t you have kept her?’
It was some moments before he replied, in a blanched small voice:
‘How could I?’
He knew himself he had cared too much for his dog. And he knew it was ridiculous.
Connie felt a certain resentment against him. He should have managed better, about the dog.
‘It will be nice for me to see her,’ she said. ‘I shall have her for a friend.’
‘You might keep an eye on her,’ he answered, his voice still anxious.
‘Oh yes! And if she’s not happy, I’ll take her.’
He pondered this for a time.
‘Ay!’ he said. ‘If yer’d have her.’
He was evidently terribly downcast about his dog. It irritated Connie a little. Parting with Flossie upset him more than parting with herself.
‘I think Albert is quite nice,’ she said.
‘Oh ay!’
‘Not interesting, but nice. One will feel safe with him. Is his wife pleasant?’
‘Yes, she seems a nice enough woman.’
There was a long pause. It was still and hot in the wood, and the flies were a pestering nuisance. Under the oak-trees, the bracken spread like a sea, reflecting a dullish light on the great fronds. All was green, and dense and still, with a scent of bracken.
‘Let us go and sit somewhere in the wood — not here!’ she said.
They walked slowly to the hazel-thicket, then he wound through the hazels to a place where the bracken rose high, and the great oaks were undisturbed.
‘Here?’ he said.
‘Yes!’
He threw off his coat and hat, and they sat down under a big oak-tree, with the huge bracken sloping over their heads.
‘Yes, it’s lovely here!’ she said. She was thinking how he would miss the wood, that he knew so well.
Everything was green, green, with aching, over-riding vegetation of branched fern, and the smell of fern-seed. It was like being in a sea whose waves branched overhead. He sat motionless and silent, in a moment of acute depression. They were deep in the wood.
‘You mind going very much, don’t you?’ she said, taking his hand.
He did not answer. His heart was dead, for the moment.
Look at me!’ she said, ‘Why do you always turn your face away?’
He glanced at her, but turned his face aside again, flapping away the flies, which irritated him.
‘Have you got friends in Sheffield?’ she asked him.
‘Yes! That’s why I’m goin’. I’ve got Bill, as was my pal in th’ war.’
‘Is he married?’
‘Wi’ three children.’
‘And will you stay with them?’
‘For a bit. I s’ll have lodgings there.’
There was a curious thick lisp in his speech.
‘Have you lost a tooth?’ she asked him.
‘Yes.’
‘Let me look!’
She put her hand on his chin and turned his face to her. Then she pushed back his swollen lips, and saw where two of the front teeth were gone from the lacerated gums. It was a nasty disfiguring mess.
‘What a shame!’ she said, as anger rose in her heart. ‘But never mind, it’s not really hurt you. You can easily have two teeth put in.’
He did not say anything.
‘Kiss me!’ she pleaded.
‘Why?’ he said. ‘I’ve got no kisses in me, just now.’
‘Why not? Why not? Are you cross with me as well as with everything else? — Be cross with everything except me —’ she coaxed.
But he did not answer.
‘I want to tell you,’ she whispered. ‘I think I’m going to have a child.’
He looked at her sharply.
‘Have yer told Sir Clifford?’ he asked.
‘No! Not yet! I don’t want to tell him yet.’
‘An’ what when yer have to?’
‘He’ll think I had a lover when I was abroad.’
He turned and looked at her, with a faint smile of derision.
‘An’ he’ll take it on, will he?’ he asked.
‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Do you despise him for it? Would you like hi
m better if he wanted to cut me off from life altogether?’
He pondered for a while.
‘No!’ he said. ‘Seeing things is as they are, I expect he’s right. Yer won’t tell him whose child it is, though, shall yer?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘If yer did, he’d never swallow it,’ he said, with another cruel smile.
‘Why do you hate Clifford?’ she said.
‘I don’t.’
‘Yes, you hate everybody,’ she said, miserably.
He did not answer for a while. Then he turned to her:
‘I hate everybody just now, you’re right,’ he said. ‘An’ I feel as if I’d swallowed poison, and had a bellyful of it.’
‘How horrid!’ she said.
But he turned his face aside, and did not answer.
‘But it’s so horrid of you to hate me as well,’
‘I don’t! Only I’ve a bellyful. I expect I shall work it off.’
His face shut again.
‘Do you hate going to work in Sheffield?’
He did not answer for a time. He hated being catechised. She waited.
‘Yes, I hate it.’
‘Would you have liked to stay here?’
He pondered awhile, sullenly. She knew quite well he would have liked it.
‘I knowed I couldn’t. I always knowed this ’ud come to an end. I always knowed I should get chucked out o’ this wood. It couldn’t last.’
‘But listen! Why don’t you let me get a little farm, and you work it for us? And I could come and stay sometimes. Don’t go to Sheffield and be a workman, a labourer! It’s not right for you. It’s not your nature. Don’t do that! Let us look for a little place, that would be our own.’
He pondered this for some time.
‘Why —’ he said. ‘It doesn’t seem to me right for a man to make his life off a woman.’
‘But how! In Jephson’s Steel Works you’ll have to make a living off the company. There’s my money. Let’s use it. You’re not afraid, are you?’
‘No,’ be said stiffly. ‘I’m not afraid. Only let me try what I can do by mysen. An’ if I canna ma’e no headway — why, I maun come to thee.’ He said it with real resentment.
‘How much will you earn in Sheffield?’
‘Seven an’ six a day! And I have to gi’e my mother fifteen shillin’ a week, for th’ girl. — But Bill’s goin’ to try an’ get me a lorry-driver’s job, an’ then I get three pounds a week start.’
‘It does seem awfully little,’ said Connie.
‘If you’ve been used to more, it does,’ he said.
She was thinking how awful it must be, to be cramped for ever within three pounds a week, and never any hope, never any getting out: chained down to a job, for three pounds week!
‘I’m so afraid,’ she said. ‘You’ll just be miserable and out of place, being a workman like that, and then you’ll have a collapse of some sort.’
His ominous silence showed that he feared the same.
‘Well — we can but see!’ he said, obstinately.
‘And you promise me — you promise — look at me! — you promise, if you’re really unhappy, you’ll let me find some way of making a living. Thank heaven I have that money of my mother’s! — You promise, don’t you?’
He looked her in the eyes for a moment, and his body relaxed with infinite sadness.
‘Yes!’ he said. ‘It’s better to be beholden to a woman, than live a life o’ misery. I’m not like other chaps: I’m miserable when I can’t be by myself. My mother allers said as I was on’y ha’ef a man. ’Appen I am! ’Appen I am! An’ if I am, I mun manage at that.’
‘But why should you be like other men?’ she cried. ‘They’re only stupid. Why shouldn’t you be different, and more lonely! Don’t try and force yourself to be just like other men, will you? Promise you won’t! You’ll only ruin what you are.’
‘It’s no good if I do!’ he said. ‘I’m never no better, so I needn’t try an’ force myself. If I’ve got too much of a woman in me, I have, an’ I’d better abide by it. And if I can’t fend for myself, I’ll come to you —‘
He spoke with intense bitterness. The idea that he was too womanly was terribly humiliating to him and manliness meant stupid, unimaginative insentience to him.
‘Why do you mind?’ she said, tears coming to her eyes. ‘It’s foofish! You say you have too much of a woman in you, you only mean you are more sensitive than stupid people like Dan Coutts. You ought to be proud that you are sensitive, and have that much of a woman’s good qualities. It’s very good for a man to have a touch of woman’s sensitiveness. I hate your stupid hard-headed clowns who think they are so very manly —’
She was angry, angry at the implied insult to womanhood, and his stupidity regarding himself.
‘Ay!’ he said, ‘I know — Ca’ it sensitive, Ca’ it what you like, I canna get on wheer other chaps gets on. I canna get on wi’ other chaps. I want ter be by mysen. I dunna want to work, neither at pit nor nowhere. This job suited me, so I knowed I should get sack. — But if I’m handicapped, I’m handicapped. Sir Clifford’s handicapped another road. I sh’d ‘ave liked to go to Canada — to get away, an’ ’appen make somethink of my life — out there. On’y you don’t want to go — an’ you don’t want me to go—just yet?’
He looked into her face with tormented, unyielding eyes.
‘No!’ she said hastily. ‘Don’t go to Canada yet! You won’t, will you? Trust me first, won’t you? I’ve been to Canada and America, and I know I don’t want to live there. You wouldn’t like it. Perhaps you’d be able to be alone — but you wouldn’t like it. It would kill something in you — the most sensitive bit of you, it would kill it. I know! You have got a gift — a gift of life. Don’t spoil it. And don’t take it away from me. You’ve got to help me to live, too. Don’t have silly ideas about being manly. You’ve got a gift of life, which so few men have. Don’t destroy it. Do trust me! We only want to live. It’s not a’ question of making something of your life. It’s a question of living it. Look at all the colliers! — they don’t live. They only exist in a sort of greyness. Promise me not to spoil the life in you. Promise me you’ll trust me. Promise me faithfully you’ll come to me, before you let yourself be really damaged. Oh thank God I’ve got that money of my mother’s! Promise me you’ll never be obstinate. Promise me that!’
He hung his head in silence for a long time. Then he said quietly:
‘Ay! I’ve got nowt but my life, when a’s said an’ done. An if I hire it to Jephson’s for seven-and-six a day, I could hire it to you for less. If I do gamekeepin’ for Sir Clifford, I could do farm-labourin’ for you, an’ feel none the worse. Work’s work! I don’t mind workin’ — but the thought of workin’ at a job is like death. I want to be by mysen, on my own. — An’ if you bought a farm, or rented one, I could work it for you, ’appen without feelin’ as if you’d rented me as well. I’ve got no money, an’ I’ve got to live an’ to keep my child. If I’ve got to work for a capitalist, you might as well be th’ capitalist as any other. Only f’r a’ that, I wish I could be independent, an’ earn my living by myself—’
He looked at her still with a touch of resistance.
‘I don’t care!’ she said. ‘I’ll give you all the money tomorrow, and let you buy what you like, if you’ll take it.’
‘No no!’ he said, sinking into sullen silence. Then he looked up suddenly, beginning in a harsh voice, then breaking suddenly into broad dialect: ‘I love — Ah luv thee! Ah luv thee!’ He took her hand and pressed it against his belly. ‘But tha wunna want ter ma’e me feel sma’, shall ter? Let me be mysen, an’ let me feel as if tha wor littler than me! Dunna ma’e me feel sma’, an’ down! — else I canna stop wi’ thee. Let me luv thee my own road, let me, I canna be no diff’rent an’ be right. I’ve got ter feel as if I was bringin’ the money ’ome, I canna help it. Tha can laugh at me — but dunna want ter ma’e me feel sma’! Laugh at me — I like thee ter
laugh at me! But be nice to me, an’ dunna be big! For I feel I’ve got no place in the world, an’ no mortal worth to nobody, if not to thee. An’ I dunna want ter hate everything. It ma’es me feel as if I’d swallowed poison, an’ had a bellyful, I dunna want to hate even Bertha — nor Sir Clifford. I do hate ’em, in a way. But I don’t want it to lie in my belly an’ I can’t get rid of it. No no! Tha’rt good to me, an’ that frightens me a bit But I’m neither made clever nor rich. I’m not even a good cricketer like my own father. Yet I feel I’m not a liar, an’ that’s a’ as I can say I am. An’ I believe I should soon be dead, even then, but for thee just now.’
He held her hand close against him, and suddenly she turned and clung to his breast. It was true, he was nothing but a man. And if his dignity as a man was really hurt, he would die. She didn’t care much about anything, however, except his physical presence. That was essential to her.
‘I’d better work i’ Sheffield while I get my divorce,’ he said, after a pause. ‘An’ then see —’
‘When will that be?’
‘It doesn’t come on till September. An’ if it goes through all right, it’s another six month after that afore it’s final. End o’ March o’ next year, you may say.’
This seemed to her a long time, ‘Do you care so much about a divorce?’ she said.
‘Yes! Yes! I must get clear o’ Bertha. I must! I must be clear of ’er, if ever I’m to breathe.’
‘So you’ll have to be careful, till there’s a decree absolute,’ said Connie, with some indifference.
‘Yes, I s’ll have to mind.’
She put her arms round his waist and clung to his body. That was what she chiefly wanted: to feel him alive and breathing, close to hers He held her folded, quietly. She could tell he was still tormented: his heart seemed to beat sadly.
She suddenly lifted her head and looked at him.
‘Take me if you want me,’ she murmured, her eyes glistening.
He looked into her eyes and shook his head slowly.
‘You don’t want me,’ he said.
Her face fell a little. It was true.
‘Why don’t I?’ she said, half anxious.
‘Maybe you’re thinking of the child,’ he said quietly.
She buried her face against him, and clung to him fast.
John Thomas and Lady Jane Page 38
