“How strange these picturesque old villages are, Louise!” she said, with a duskiness around her sharp, well-bred nose. “How easy it all seems, all on a definite pattern. And how false! And underneath, how corrupt!”
She gave that queer, triumphant leer from her grey eyes, and queer demonish wrinkles seemed to twitter on her face.
Lou shrank away. She was beginning to be afraid of her mother’s insatiable curiosity, that always looked for the snake under the flowers. Or rather, for the maggots.
Always this same morbid interest in other, people and their doings, their privacies, their dirty linen. Always this air of alertness for personal happenings, personalities, personalities, personalities. Always this subtle criticism and appraisal of other people, this analysis of other people’s motives. If anatomy presupposes a corpse, then psychology presupposes a world of corpses. Personalities, which means personal criticism and analysis, presuppose a whole world laboratory of human psyches waiting to be vivisected. If you cut a thing up, of course it will smell. Hence, nothing raises such an infernal stink, at last, as human psychology.
Mrs. Witt was a pure psychologist, a fiendish psychologist. And Rico, in his way, was a psychologist too. But he had a formula. “Let’s know the worst, dear! But let’s look on the bright side, and believe the best.”
“Isn’t the Dean a priceless old darling!” said Rico at breakfast.
And it had begun. Work had started in the psychic vivisection laboratory.
“Isn’t he wonderful!” said Lou vaguely.
“So delightfully worldly! — Some of us are not born to make money, dear boy. Luckily for us, we can marry it.” — Rico made a priceless face.
“Is Mrs. Vyner so rich?” asked Lou.
“She is quite a wealthy woman — in coal,” replied Mrs. Witt. “But the Dean is surely worth his weight even in gold. And he’s a massive figure. I can imagine there would be great satisfaction in having him for a husband.”
“Why, mother?” asked Lou.
“Oh, such a presence! One of these old Englishmen that nobody can put in their pocket. You can’t imagine his wife asking him to thread her needle. Something after all so robust! So different from young Englishmen, who all seem to me like ladies, perfect ladies.”
“Somebody has to keep up the tradition of the perfect lady,” said Rico.
“I know it,” said Mrs. Witt. “And if the women won’t do it, the young gentlemen take on the burden. They bear it very well.”
It was in full swing, the cut and thrust. And poor Lou, who had reached the point of stupefaction in the game, felt she did not know what to do with herself.
Rico and Mrs. Witt were deadly enemies, yet neither could keep clear of the other. It might have been they who were married to one another, their duel and their duet were so relentless.
But Rico immediately started the social round: first the Manbys: then motor twenty miles to luncheon at Lady Tewkesbury’s: then young Mr. Burns came flying down in his aeroplane from Chester: then they must motor to the sea to Sir Edward Edwards’s place, where there was a moonlight bathing party. Everything intensely thrilling, and so innerly wearisome, Lou felt.
But back of it all was St. Mawr, looming like a bonfire in the dark. He really was a tiresome horse to own. He worried the mares, if they were in the same paddock with him, always driving them round. And with any other horse he just fought with definite intent to kill. So he had to stay alone.
“That St. Mawr, he’s a bad horse,” said Phoenix.
“Maybe!” said Lewis.
“You don’t like quiet horses?” said Phoenix.
“Most horses is quiet,” said Lewis. “St. Mawr, he’s different.”
“Why don’t he never get any foals?”
“Doesn’t want to, I should think. Same as me.”
“What good is a horse like that? Better shoot him, before he kill somebody.”
“What good’ll they get, shooting St. Mawr?” said Lewis. “If he kills somebody!” said Phoenix.
But there was no answer.
The two grooms both lived over the stables, and Lou, from her window, saw a good deal of them. They were two quiet men, yet she was very much aware of their presence, aware of Phoenix’s rather high square shoulders and his fine, straight, vigorous black hair that tended to stand up assertively on his head, as he went quietly drifting about his various jobs. He was not lazy, but he did everything with a sort of diffidence, as if from a distance, and handled his horses carefully, cautiously, and cleverly, but without sympathy. He seemed to be holding something back all the time, unconsciously, as if in his very being there was some secret. But it was a secret of will. His quiet, reluctant movement as if he never really wanted to do anything; his long, flat-stepping stride; the permanent challenge in his high cheek-bones, the Indian glint in his eyes, and his peculiar stare, watchful and yet unseeing, made him unpopular with the women servants.
Nevertheless, women had a certain fascination for him: he would stare at the pretty young maids with an intent blank stare when they were not looking. Yet he was rather overbearing, domineering with them, and they resented him. It was evident to Lou that he looked upon himself as belonging to the master, not to the servant class. When he flirted with the maids, as he very often did, for he had a certain crude ostentatiousness, he seemed to let them feel that he despised them as inferiors, servants, while he admired their pretty charms, as fresh, country maids.
“I’m fair nervous of that Phoenix,” said Fanny, the fair-haired girl. “He makes you feel what he’d do to you if he could.”
“He’d better not try with me,” said Mabel. “I’d scratch his cheeky eyes out. Cheek! — for it’s nothing else! He’s nobody — common as they’re made!”
“He makes you feel you was there for him to trample on,” said Fanny.
“Mercy, you are soft! If anybody’s that it’s him. Oh, my, Fanny, you’ve no right to let a fellow make you feel like that! Make them feel that they’re dirt, for you to trample on: which they are!”
Fanny, however, being a shy little blonde thing, wasn’t good at assuming the trampling role. She was definitely nervous of Phoenix. And he enjoyed it. An invisible smile seemed to creep up his cheek-bones, and the glint moved in his eyes as he teased her. He tormented her by his very presence, as he knew.
He would come silently up when she was busy, and stand behind her perfectly still, so that she was unaware of his presence. Then, silently, he would make her aware. Till she glanced nervously round, and with a scream saw him.
One day Lou watched the little play. Fanny had been picking over a bowl of blackcurrants, sitting on the bench under the maple tree in a corner of the yard. She didn’t look round till she had picked up her bowl to go to the kitchen. Then there was a scream and a crash.
When Lou came out, Phoenix was crouching down silently gathering up the currants, which the little maid, scarlet and trembling, was collecting into another bowl. Phoenix seemed to be smiling down his back.
“Phoenix!” said Lou. “I wish you wouldn’t startle Fanny!” He looked up and she saw the glint of ridicule in his eyes.
“Who, me?” he said.
“Yes, you. You go up behind Fanny to startle her. You’re not to do it.”
He slowly stood erect and lapsed into his peculiar invisible silence. Only for a second his eyes glanced at Lou’s, and then she saw the cold anger, the gleam of malevolence and contempt. He could not bear being commanded, or reprimanded, by a woman.
Yet it was even worse with a man.
“What’s that, Lou?” said Rico, appearing all handsome and in the picture, in white flannels with an apricot silk shirt.
“I’m telling Phoenix he’s not to torment Fanny!”
“Oh!” — and Rico’s voice immediately became his father’s, the important government official’s. “Certainly not! Most certainly not!” He looked at the scattered currants and the broken bowl. Fanny melted into tears. “This, I suppose, is some of the results! Now l
ook here, Phoenix, you’re to leave the maids strictly alone. I shall ask them to report to me whenever, or if ever, you interfere with them. But I hope you won’t interfere with them — in any way. You understand?”
As Rico became more and more Sir Harry and the government official, Lou’s bones melted more and more into discomfort. Phoenix stood in his peculiar silence, the invisible smile on his cheek-bones.
“You understand what I’m saying to you?” Rico demanded, in intensified acid tones.
But Phoenix only stood there, as it were behind a cover of his own will, and looked back at Rico with a faint smile on his face and the glint moving in his eyes.
“Do you intend to answer?” Rico’s upper lip lifted nastily. “Mrs. Witt is my boss,” came from Phoenix.
The scarlet flew up Rico’s throat and flushed his face, his eyes went glaucous. Then quickly his face turned yellow.
Lou looked at the two men: her husband, whose rages, over-controlled, were organically terrible: the half-breed, whose dark-coloured lips were widened in a faint smile of derision, but in whose eyes caution and hate were playing against one another. She realised that Phoenix would accept her reprimand, or her mother’s, because he could despise the two of them as mere women. But Rico’s business aroused murder pure and simple.
She took her husband’s arm.
“Come, dear!” she said in her half-plaintive way. “I’m sure Phoenix understands. We all understand. Go to the kitchen, Fanny, never mind the currants. There are plenty more in the garden.”
Rico was always thankful to be drawn quickly, submissively away from his own rage. He was afraid of it. He was afraid lest he should fly at the groom in some horrible fashion. The very thought horrified him. But in actuality he came very near to it.
He walked stiffly, feeling paralysed by his own fury. And those words, Mrs. Witt is my boss, were like hot acid in his brain. An insult!
“By the way, Belle-Mère!” he said when they joined Mrs. Witt — she hated being called Belle-Mère, and once said: “If I’m the bell-mare, are you one of the colts?” — She also hated his voice of smothered fury — ”I had to speak to Phoenix about persecuting the maids. He took the liberty of informing me that you were his boss, so perhaps you had better speak to him.”
“I certainly will. I believe they’re my maids, and nobody else’s, so it’s my duty to look after them. Who was he persecuting?”
“I’m the responsible one, mother,” said Lou.
Rico disappeared in a moment. He must get out: get away from the house. How? Something was wrong with the car. Yet he must get away, away. He would go over to Corrabach. He would ride St. Mawr. He had been talking about the horse, and Flora Manby was dying to see him. She had said: “Oh, I can’t wait to see that marvellous horse of yours.”
He would ride him over. It was only seven miles. He found Lou’s maid Elena, and sent her to tell Lewis. Meanwhile, to soothe himself, he dressed himself most carefully in white riding-breeches and a shirt of purple silk crepe, with a flowing black tie spotted red like a ladybird, and black riding-boots. Then he took a chic little white hat with a black band.
St. Mawr was saddled and waiting, and Lewis had saddled a second horse.
“Thanks, Lewis, I’m going alone!” said Rico.
This was the first time he had ridden St. Mawr in the country, and he was nervous. But he was also in the hell of a smothered fury. All his careful dressing had not really soothed him. So his fury consumed his nervousness.
He mounted with a swing, blind and rough. St. Mawr reared.
“Stop that!” snarled Rico, and put him to the gate.
Once out in the village street, the horse went dancing sideways. He insisted on dancing at the sidewalk, to the exaggerated terror of the children. Rico, exasperated, pulled him across. But no, he wouldn’t go down the centre of the village street. He began dancing and edging on to the other sidewalk, so the foot-passengers fled into the shops in terror.
The devil was in him. He would turn down every turning where he was not meant to go. He reared with panic at a furniture van. He insisted on going down the wrong side of the road. Rico was riding him with a martingale, and he could see the rolling, bloodshot eye.
“Damn you, go!” said Rico, giving him a dig with the spurs. And away they went, down the high-road, in a thunderbolt. It was a hot day, with thunder threatening, so Rico was soon in a flame of heat. He held on tight, with fixed eyes, trying all the time to rein in the horse. What he really was afraid of was that the brute would shy suddenly as he galloped. Watching for this, he didn’t care when they sailed past the turning to Corrabach.
St. Mawr flew on, in a sort of élan. Marvellous the power and life in the creature. There was really a great joy in the motion. If only he wouldn’t take the corners at a gallop, nearly swerving Rico off! Luckily the road was clear. To ride, to ride at this terrific gallop, on into eternity!
After several miles, the horse slowed down, and Rico managed to pull him into a lane that might lead to Corrabach. When all was said and done, it was a wonderful ride. St. Mawr could go like the wind, but with that luxurious heavy ripple of life which is like nothing else on earth. It seemed to carry one at once into another world, away from the life of the nerves.
So Rico arrived, after all, something of a conqueror at Corrabach. To be sure, he was perspiring, and so was his horse. But he was a hero from another, heroic world.
“Oh, such a hot ride!” he said, as he walked on to the lawn at Corrabach Hall. “Between the sun and the horse, really! — between two fires!”
“Don’t you trouble, you’re looking dandy, a bit hot and flushed like,” said Flora Manby. “Let’s go and see your horse.”
And he exclamation was: “Oh, he’s lovely! He’s fine! I’d love to try him once — ”
Rico decided to accept the invitation to stay overnight at Corrabach. Usually he was very careful, and refused to stay, unless Lou was with him. But they telephoned to the post office at Chomesbury, would Mr. Jones please send a message to Lady Carrington that Sir Henry was staying the night at Corrabach Hall, but would be home next day. Mr. Jones received the request with unction, and said he would go over himself to give the message to Lady Carrington.
Lady Carrington was in the walled garden. The peculiarity of Mrs. Witt’s house was that, for grounds proper, it had the churchyard.
“I never thought, Louise, that one day I should have an old English churchyard for my lawns and shrubbery and park, and funeral mourners for my herds of deer. It’s curious. For the first time in my life a funeral has become a real thing to me. I feel I could write a book on them.”
But Louise only felt intimidated.
At the back of the house was a flagged courtyard, with stables and a maple tree in a corner, and big doors opening on to the village street. But at the side was a walled garden, with fruit trees and currant bushes and a great bed of rhubarb, and some tufts of flowers, peonies, pink roses, sweet williams. Phoenix, who had a certain taste for gardening, would be out there thinning the carrots or tying up the lettuce. He was not lazy. Only he would not take work seriously, as a job. He would be quite amused tying up lettuces, and would tie up head after head, quite prettily. Then, becoming bored, he would abandon his task, light a cigarette, and go and stand on the threshold of the big doors, in full view of the street, watching, and yet completely indifferent.
After Rico’s departure on St. Mawr, Lou went into the garden. And there she saw Phoenix working in the onion-bed. He was bending over, in his own silence, busy with nimble, amused fingers among the grassy young onions. She thought he had not seen her, so she went down another path to where a swing bed hung under the apple tree. There she sat with a book and a bundle of magazines. But she did not read.
She was musing vaguely. Vaguely, she was glad that Rico was away for a while. Vaguely, she felt a sense of bitterness, of complete futility: the complete futility of her living. This left her drifting in a sea of utter chagrin. And Rico seemed to h
er the symbol of the futility. Vaguely, she was aware that something else existed, but she didn’t know where it was or what it was.
In the distance she could see Phoenix’s dark, rather tall-built head, with its black, fine, intensely-living hair tending to stand on end, like a brush with long, very fine black bristles. His hair, she thought, betrayed him as an animal of a different species. He was growing a little bored by weeding onions: that also she could tell. Soon he would want some other amusement.
Presently Lewis appeared. He was small, energetic, a little bit bow-legged, and he walked with a slight strut. He wore khaki riding-breeches, leather gaiters, and a blue shirt. And, like Phoenix, he rarely had any cap or hat on his head. His thick black hair was parted at the side and brushed over heavily sideways, dropping on his forehead at the right. It was very long, a real mop, under which his eyebrows were dark and steady.
“Seen Lady Carrington?” he asked of Phoenix.
“Yes, she’s sitting on that swing over there — she’s been there quite a while.”
The wretch — he had seen her from the very first!
Lewis came striding over, looking towards her with his pale-grey eyes, from under his mop of hair.
“Mr. Jones from the post office wants to see you, my Lady, with a message from Sir Henry.”
Instantly alarm took possession of Lou’s soul.
“Oh! — Does he want to see me personally? — What message? Is anything wrong?” — And her voice trailed out over the last word, with a sort of anxious nonchalance.
“I don’t think it’s anything amiss,” said Lewis reassuringly.
“Oh! You don’t,” the relief came into her voice. Then she looked at Lewis with a slight, winning smile in her unmatched eyes. “I’m so afraid of St. Mawr, you know.” Her voice was soft and cajoling. Phoenix was listening in the distance.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated) Page 541
