“Have you fastened the door?” he asked quietly, because of the landlady.
“Yes. Wait a minute.”
She rose and turned the lock, afraid he would burst it. She felt hatred towards him, because he did not leave her free. He entered, his pipe between his teeth, and she returned to her old position on the bed. He closed the door and stood with his back to it.
“What’s the matter?” he asked determinedly.
She was sick with him. She could not look at him.
“Can’t you leave me alone?” she replied, averting her face from him.
He looked at her quickly, fully, wincing with ignominy. Then he seemed to consider for a moment.
“There’s something up with you, isn’t there?” he asked definitely.
“Yes,” she said, “but that’s no reason why you should torment me.”
“I don’t torment you. What’s the matter?”
“Why should you know?” she cried, in hate and desperation.
Something snapped. He started and caught his pipe as it fell from his mouth. Then he pushed forward the bitten-off mouth-piece with his tongue, took it from off his lips, and looked at it. Then he put out his pipe, and brushed the ash from his waistcoat. After which he raised his head.
“I want to know,” he said. His face was greyish pale, and set uglily.
Neither looked at the other. She knew he was fired now. His heart was pounding heavily. She hated him, but she could not withstand him. Suddenly she lifted her head and turned on him.
“What right have you to know?” she asked.
He looked at her. She felt a pang of surprise for his tortured eyes and his fixed face. But her heart hardened swiftly. She had never loved him. She did not love him now.
But suddenly she lifted her head again swiftly, like a thing that tries to get free. She wanted to be free of it. It was not him so much, but it, something she had put on herself, that bound her so horribly. And having put the bond on herself, it was hardest to take it off. But now she hated everything and felt destructive. He stood with his back to the door, fixed, as if he would oppose her eternally, till she was extinguished. She looked at him. Her eyes were cold and hostile. His workman’s hands spread on the panels of the door behind him.
“You know I used to live here?” she began, in a hard voice, as if wilfully to wound him. He braced himself against her, and nodded.
“Well, I was companion to Miss Birch of Torril Hall — she and the rector were friends, and Archie was the rector’s son.” There was a pause. He listened without knowing what was happening. He stared at his wife. She was squatted in her white dress on the bed, carefully folding and re-folding the hem of her skirt. Her voice was full of hostility.
“He was an officer — a sub-lieutenant — then he quarrelled with his colonel and came out of the army. At any rate” — she plucked at her skirt hem, her husband stood motionless, watching her movements which filled his veins with madness — ”he was awfully fond of me, and I was of him — awfully.”
“How old was he?” asked the husband.
“When — when I first knew him? Or when he went away? — ”
“When you first knew him.”
“When I first knew him, he was twenty-six — now — he’s thirty-one — nearly thirty-two — because I’m twenty-nine, and he is nearly three years older — ”
She lifted her head and looked at the opposite wall.
“And what then?” said her husband.
She hardened herself, and said callously:
“We were as good as engaged for nearly a year, though nobody knew — at least — they talked — but — it wasn’t open. Then he went away — ”
“He chucked you?” said the husband brutally, wanting to hurt her into contact with himself. Her heart rose wildly with rage. Then “Yes”, she said, to anger him. He shifted from one foot to the other, giving a “Ph!” of rage. There was silence for a time.
“Then,” she resumed, her pain giving a mocking note to her words, “he suddenly went out to fight in Africa, and almost the very day I first met you, I heard from Miss Birch he’d got sunstroke — and two months after, that he was dead — ”
“That was before you took on with me?” said the husband.
There was no answer. Neither spoke for a time. He had not understood. His eyes were contracted uglily.
“So you’ve been looking at your old courting places!” he said. “That was what you wanted to go out by yourself for this morning.”
Still she did not answer him anything. He went away from the door to the window. He stood with his hands behind him, his back to her. She looked at him. His hands seemed gross to her, the back of his head paltry.
At length, almost against his will, he turned round, asking:
“How long were you carrying on with him?”
“What do you mean?” she replied coldly.
“I mean how long were you carrying on with him?”
She lifted her head, averting her face from him. She refused to answer. Then she said:
“I don’t know what you mean, by carrying on. I loved him from the first days I met him — two months after I went to stay with Miss Birch.”
“And do you reckon he loved you?” he jeered.
“I know he did.”
“How do you know, if he’d have no more to do with you?”
There was a long silence of hate and suffering.
“And how far did it go between you?” he asked at length, in a frightened, stiff voice.
“I hate your not-straightforward questions,” she cried, beside herself with his baiting. “We loved each other, and we were lovers — we were. I don’t care what you think: what have you got to do with it? We were lovers before ever I knew you — ”
“Lovers — lovers,” he said, white with fury. “You mean you had your fling with an army man, and then came to me to marry you when you’d done — ”
She sat swallowing her bitterness. There was a long pause.
“Do you mean to say you used to go — the whole hogger?” he asked, still incredulous.
“Why, what else do you think I mean?” she cried brutally.
He shrank, and became white, impersonal. There was a long, paralysed silence. He seemed to have gone small.
“You never thought to tell me all this before I married you,” he said, with bitter irony, at last.
“You never asked me,” she replied.
“I never thought there was any need.”
“Well, then, you should think.”
He stood with expressionless, almost childlike set face, revolving many thoughts, whilst his heart was mad with anguish.
Suddenly she added:
“And I saw him today,” she said. “He is not dead, he’s mad.”
Her husband looked at her, startled.
“Mad!’ he said involuntarily.
“A lunatic,” she said. It almost cost her her reason to utter the word. There was a pause.
“Did he know you?” asked the husband in a small voice.
“No,” she said.
He stood and looked at her. At last he had learned the width of the breach between them. She still squatted on the bed. He could not go near her. It would be violation to each of them to be brought into contact with the other. The thing must work itself out. They were both shocked so much, they were impersonal, and no longer hated each other. After some minutes he left her and went out.
THE WHITE STOCKING
I
“I’m getting up, Teddilinks,” said Mrs Whiston, and she sprang out of bed briskly.
“What the Hanover’s got you?” asked Whiston.
“Nothing. Can’t I get up?” she replied animatedly.
It was about seven o’clock, scarcely light yet in the cold bedroom. Whiston lay still and looked at his wife. She was a pretty little thing, with her fleecy, short black hair all tousled . . . He watched her as she dressed quickly, flicking her small, delightful limbs, throwing her clothes
about her. Her slovenliness and untidiness did not trouble him. When she picked up the edge of her petticoat, ripped off a torn string of white lace, and flung it on the dressing-table, her careless abandon made his spirit glow. She stood before the mirror and roughly scrambled together her profuse little mane of hair. He watched the quickness and softness of her young shoulders, calmly, like a husband, and appreciatively.
“Rise up,” she cried, turning to him with a quick wave of her arm — ”and shine forth.”
They had been married two years. But still, when she had gone out of the room, he felt as if all his light and warmth were taken away, he became aware of the raw, cold morning. So he rose himself, wondering casually what had roused her so early. Usually she lay in bed as late as she could.
Whiston fastened a belt round his loins and went downstairs in shirt and trousers. He heard her singing in her snatchy fashion. The stairs creaked under his weight. He passed down the narrow little passage, which she called a hall, of the seven and sixpenny house which was his first home.
He was a shapely young fellow of about twenty-eight, sleepy now and easy with well-being. He heard the water drumming into the kettle, and she began to whistle. He loved the quick way she dodged the supper cups under the tap to wash them for breakfast. She looked an untidy minx, but she was quick and handy enough.
“Teddilinks,” she cried.
“What?”
“Light a fire, quick.”
She wore an old, sack-like dressing-jacket of black silk pinned across her breast. But one of the sleeves, coming unfastened, showed some delightful pink upper-arm.
“Why don’t you sew your sleeve up?” he said, suffering from the sight of the exposed soft flesh.
“Where?” she cried, peering round. “Nuisance,” she said, seeing the gap, then with light fingers went on drying the cups.
The kitchen was of fair size, but gloomy. Whiston poked out the dead ashes.
Suddenly a thud was heard at the door down the passage.
“I’ll go,” cried Mrs Whiston, and she was gone down the hall.
The postman was a ruddy-faced man who had been a soldier. He smiled broadly, handing her some packages.
“They’ve not forgot you,” he said impudently.
“No — lucky for them,” she said, with a toss of the head. But she was interested only in her envelopes this morning. The postman waited inquisitively, smiling in an ingratiating fashion. She slowly, abstractedly, as if she did not know anyone was there, closed the door in his face, continuing to look at the addresses on her letters.
She tore open the thin envelope. There was a long, hideous, cartoon valentine. She smiled briefly and dropped it on the floor. Struggling with the string of a packet, she opened a white cardboard box, and there lay a white silk handkerchief packed neatly under the paper lace of the box, and her initial, worked in heliotrope, fully displayed. She smiled pleasantly, and gently put the box aside. The third envelope contained another white packet — apparently a cotton handkerchief neatly folded. She shook it out. It was a long white stocking, but there was a little weight in the toe. Quickly, she thrust down her arm, wriggling her fingers into the toe of the stocking, and brought out a small box. She peeped inside the box, then hastily opened a door on her left hand, and went into the little, cold sitting-room. She had her lower lip caught earnestly between her teeth.
With a little flash of triumph, she lifted a pair of pearl ear-rings from the small box, and she went to the mirror. There, earnestly, she began to hook them through her ears, looking at herself sideways in the glass. Curiously concentrated and intent she seemed as she fingered the lobes of her ears, her head bent on one side.
Then the pearl ear-rings dangled under her rosy, small ears. She shook her head sharply, to see the swing of the drops. They went chill against her neck, in little, sharp touches. Then she stood still to look at herself, bridling her head in the dignified fashion. Then she simpered at herself. Catching her own eye, she could not help winking at herself and laughing.
She turned to look at the box. There was a scrap of paper with this posy:
“Pearls may be fair, but thou art fairer.
Wear these for me, and I’ll love the wearer.”
She made a grimace and a grin. But she was drawn to the mirror again, to look at her ear-rings.
Whiston had made the fire burn, so he came to look for her. When she heard him, she started round quickly, guiltily. She was watching him with intent blue eyes when he appeared.
He did not see much, in his morning-drowsy warmth. He gave her, as ever, a feeling of warmth and slowness. His eyes were very blue, very kind, his manner simple.
“What ha’ you got?” he asked.
“Valentines,” she said briskly, ostentatiously turning to show him the silk handkerchief. She thrust it under his nose. “Smell how good,” she said.
“Who’s that from?” he replied, without smelling.
“It’s a valentine,” she cried. “How da I know who it’s from?”
“I’ll bet you know,” he said.
“Ted! — I don’t!” she cried, beginning to shake her head, then stopping because of the ear-rings.
He stood still a moment, displeased.
“They’ve no right to send you valentines, now,” he said.
“Ted! — Why not? You’re not jealous, are you? I haven’t the least idea who it’s from. Look — there’s my initial” — she pointed with an emphatic finger at the heliotrope embroidery —
“E for Elsie,
Nice little gelsie,”
she sang.
“Get out,” he said. “You know who it’s from.”
“Truth, I don’t,” she cried.
He looked round, and saw the white stocking lying on a chair.
“Is this another?” he said.
“No, that’s a sample,” she said. “There’s only a comic.” And she fetched in the long cartoon.
He stretched it out and looked at it solemnly.
“Fools!” he said, and went out of the room.
She flew upstairs and took off the ear-rings. When she returned, he was crouched before the fire blowing the coals. The skin of his face was flushed, and slightly pitted, as if he had had small-pox. But his neck was white and smooth and goodly. She hung her arms round his neck as he crouched there, and clung to him. He balanced on his toes.
“This fire’s a slow-coach,” he said.
“And who else is a slow-coach?” she said.
“One of us two, I know,” he said, and he rose carefully. She remained clinging round his neck, so that she was lifted off her feet.
“Ha! — swing me,” she cried.
He lowered his head, and she hung in the air, swinging from his neck, laughing. Then she slipped off.
“The kettle is singing,” she sang, flying for the teapot. He bent down again to blow the fire. The veins in his neck stood out, his shirt collar seemed too tight.
“Doctor Wyer,
Blow the fire,
Puff! puff! puff!”
she sang, laughing.
He smiled at her.
She was so glad because of her pearl ear-rings.
Over the breakfast she grew serious. He did not notice. She became portentous in her gravity. Almost it penetrated through his steady good-humour to irritate him.
“Teddy!” she said at last.
“What?” he asked.
“I told you a lie,” she said, humbly tragic.
His soul stirred uneasily.
“Oh aye?” he said casually.
She was not satisfied. He ought to be more moved.
“Yes,” she said.
He cut a piece of bread.
“Was it a good one?” he asked.
She was piqued. Then she considered — was it a good one? Then she laughed.
“No,” she said, “it wasn’t up to much.”
“Ah!” he said easily, but with a steady strength of fondness for her in his tone. “Get it out then.”
>
It became a little more difficult.
“You know that white stocking,” she said earnestly. “I told you a lie. It wasn’t a sample. It was a valentine.”
A little frown came on his brow.
“Then what did you invent it as a sample for?” he said. But he knew this weakness of hers. The touch of anger in his voice frightened her.
“I was afraid you’d be cross,” she said pathetically.
“I’ll bet you were vastly afraid,” he said.
“I was, Teddy.”
There was a pause. He was resolving one or two things in his mind.
“And who sent it?” he asked.
“I can guess,” she said, “though there wasn’t a word with it — except — ”
She ran to the sitting-room and returned with a slip of paper.
“Pearls may be fair, but thou art fairer.
Wear these for me, and I’ll love the wearer.”
He read it twice, then a dull red flush came on his face.
“And who do you guess it is?” he asked, with a ringing of anger in his voice.
“I suspect it’s Sam Adams,” she said, with a little virtuous indignation.
Whiston was silent for a moment.
“Fool!” he said. “An’ what’s it got to do with pearls? — and how can he say ‘wear these for me’ when there’s only one? He hasn’t got the brain to invent a proper verse.”
He screwed the sup of paper into a ball and flung it into the fire.
“I suppose he thinks it’ll make a pair with the one last year,” she said.
“Why, did he send one then?”
“Yes. I thought you’d be wild if you knew.”
His jaw set rather sullenly.
Presently he rose, and went to wash himself, rolling back his sleeves and pulling open his shirt at the breast. It was as if his fine, clear-cut temples and steady eyes were degraded by the lower, rather brutal part of his face. But she loved it. As she whisked about, clearing the table, she loved the way in which he stood washing himself. He was such a man. She liked to see his neck glistening with water as he swilled it. It amused her and pleased her and thrilled her. He was so sure, so permanent, he had her so utterly in his power. It gave her a delightful, mischievous sense of liberty. Within his grasp, she could dart about excitingly.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 613
