by E. F. Benson
Mollie Pentreath had heard enough of this, and now she pushed back her chair and got up.
“Have done with it, John,” she said. “You’ve spoken all that. Get you to bed.”
Her voice rose suddenly and shrill, drowning his.
“It’s struck ten,” she cried, “and you go on like a mill-wheel, creaking round and round for ever and aye. Get up from your knees, and Nancy and Dennis shall take you to your room, for you’re drunk, drunk, drunk, and I won’t listen no more to your maunderings, and you can finish what the Lord has laid on you to say all alone with Him, for perhaps He’s more patient than me. For all your cursings the seed potatoes must be got in to-morrow, and you’ve told about the witches.”
John looked up with the ludicrous solemnity of a tipsy man at the sound of her voice. “Wailing and weeping and the gnashing of teeth, hast Thou appointed for them—” he began.
“’Tis enough,” cried his wife pointing at him. “Take him along, Dennis, and you, Nancy.”
Dennis got on one side of him and his mother on the other, and they lifted him under the arms, and got him to his feet and supported his staggering steps. Gales of his sour-sweet breath blew on them as he continued to bawl out his petitions, tightly clasping his two supporters; a ludicrous sight indeed. “God, Thou knowest my down-sittings and my uprisings,” he boomed out, “and my heart is open to Thee. A broken and a contrite heart Thou wilt not despise, and sore I repent me of my evil ways. Have mercy, too, on this poor Jezebel, and ’tis but a pure fatherly kiss-ah, you turn away your head, you slut, do you? ... My God, Dennis, you’ve got the Pentreath muscles over your loins same as me. Twins, lad, get you twins when you take a wife for yourself, and show yourself a man. And have mercy on my loneliness, O Lord, and give me the comfort of Thy help again, and drive far from me all snares of the enemy—”
They laid him on his bed in the room adjoining his wife’s, and Nancy unloosed his collar.
“We1l, that’s done,” she said, “and there’s a pretty Sunday evening! Put his basin by the side of his bed, Dennis, for he’ll be sick soon, I shouldn’t wonder, and that’ll relieve his stomach, and he’ll sleep and be as fit as a flea again in the morning. Leave the lamp with him, poor old dear, but out of his reach, or we’ll have the house on fire. Why, if that isn’t Mrs. Pentreath come to see him put away.”
Mollie had followed the staggering procession upstairs, and had listened to all that was said.
“Thank you kindly, Nancy,” she said, “for looking after the old man; I’ve seldom seen him as bad as this, and the more drink he has the more Lord God we’ve got to put up with. But he’ll sleep it off now.”
Nell had followed in the wake of this procession, and while Nancy locked herself into her room opposite, she went with Dennis up to the far end of the passage, where their rooms lay adjoining each other. Originally they had been one room with two windows, but a wooden partition had been put up when; as a boy, he had a room to himself, and Nell slept on the other side of it. The passage was dark, for the oil-lamp which lit it had been carried into John’s room, and Dennis drew a matchbox from his pocket to light Nell to her candle.
“God, the grandfather was properly boozed tonight,” he said, as he discreetly closed Nell’s door, without latching it, and held the struck match between his hands. “That was a rare praying; witches and whores and wanton youths, which is you and me. He might have prayed for a drunken old devil while he was about it. Where’s your candle?”
Nell looked about.
“I must have left it downstairs,” she said. “You’ll be burning yourself with that match all to no purpose.”
The cave of his joined hands was rosy from the light within them.
“Why, that’s pretty,” she said. “Your fingers are sort of red and transparent. There! It’s gone out!”
The room was not dark, for the blind was up, and a splash of moonlight lay on the floor. They moved towards the open window, tiptoeing across the room, and the magic of the clean springtime poured in on them. It was still outside, scarcely a breath of wind moved in the warm air, and the moon rode high and full. Neither spoke, but drew a little closer to each other. Then from somewhere near an owl hooted, and that broke the enchantment.
“That’s a bit of ill-luck,” said the girl.
“Don’t you believe it,” said he. “Grandfather was hot on witches to-night, though. What came over him?”
“Nigh on a bottle of whisky was the way of it,” said Nell. “But down in St. Columb’s they do say that they owls are the spirits of those as have been witches, and they fly around to see them as are likeminded on earth.”
Dennis’s mouth expanded with noiseless laughter.
“There’s a bit of foolishness,” he whispered.
“Do you think it’s come to see my Granny? A pack of nonsense, Nell.”
From down the passage came the sound of a turned door-handle, and the girl laid her finger on her lips.
“Hist! Get you gone, Dennis,” she whispered. “That’s the handle of Aunt Mollie’s door, for it needs a drop of oil and it slipped my mind. Take off your shoes and go quick and quiet to your room. The passage is dark and she won’t see you.”
Dennis’s blue eyes looked black in the moonlight. “Why shouldn’t I be staying and talking to you, Nell?” he asked.
“Nay, ’twould never do. She mustn’t find you here.”
Dennis slipped out, and crept shadow-like to his room next door, and peering out stood there a moment looking down the passage. He could see at the far end of it Mollie’s figure outlined against the unblinded window over the stairs up which they had just hoisted John Pentreath. She stood there listening, and then went down again as noiseless as himself. From close at hand there was the creak of a drawn bolt and he knew that Nell had shut herself in.
It was not worth while lighting his candle, for he had but to throw off his clothes and get into bed, and jerking aside the curtain so that the light might wake him betimes in the morning, he pulled off his Sunday coat and his shirt, and standing by the open window sniffed the damp -coolness of the night. The air was clean and sweet on his skin after that reeking kitchen, and from next door he could hear the soft tread of Nell as she moved about. Then with a quickening of his breath and his heart-beat he pictured her undressing too, till she stood white in the dusk of her room. He puckered up his lips and whistled the tune they had crooned together this afternoon, and paused listening for her echo. Often he made such a signal as he went to bed; and often he heard her take up the air next door. But to-night there was no reply.
He leant out of the window: the moon flooded the garden with light. Away to the right in the shadow was the seat where his grandfather had read his Bible this afternoon, and now, peering out, Dennis saw that it was tenanted again: Mollie Pentreath was sitting there. That was in no way surprising, for often, though all day she had hugged the -fire, she strolled or sat there after dark. Then a shadow crossed the moon, and Dennis saw a great brown owl circling low over the garden and lower yet, till it flew right under the ash-tree by the door into the farmyard. Shy birds that they were, it was odd that it did not wheel off away from the figure that sat on the bench so close by. Perhaps it did not see her, for she sat very still.
CHAPTER II. NANCY
NANCY PENTREATH’S room looked out, away from the garden, on to the pasture-land. It was a big room, sparsely furnished, but, like herself, highly and tawdrily decorated. The one good feature of its embellishment was that there were quantities of flowers there: washstand, dressing-table and chimney-piece were alike gay with them. A wicker rocking-chair had bows of magenta ribands on its arms; there was a pink bedspread, and a dripping of dirty blue muslin over the sides of the dressing-table, and a china ornament of two cupids playing see-saw. What she prized most of all her furniture was a tall looking-glass, swinging on hinges, in which she could survey all her figure. By shifting this she could obtain a view of her back in the mirror on her dressing-table. The room smelt faintl
y of musk and she shut the window that had been left ajar, and drew the curtain over it.
Nancy had guessed very well to whom her father-in-law had alluded when at those drunken prayers he had spoken of harlots and whores, but she bore him no ill-will for that, for to her good-natured easy code it wasn’t kind to hold a poor old tipsy-cake like him responsible for what he had said. Besides, though he had alluded to her as Jezebel on the way upstairs, he had wanted to kiss her. That was gratifying to her vanity, and vanity and good nature were the two really strong traits in her character. He had pinched her black and blue (an exaggeration) as he clung to her, and that was a much truer expression of his feelings towards her than the more uncompromising matter in his prayers. He was keen on her: and though, of course, it was shocking that a man should want to cuddle his own son’s widow, Nancy was easily capable of getting over such shocks when there was a tribute to her charms behind them, and why shouldn’t an “old feller” like that have a bit of a feeling for a woman still? She could look after herself, and knew where to draw the line. Lately he had taken to giving her a kiss at night, when she went up to bed, but she had always turned her head a bit, so that he got her cheek only. But she wondered how long it was that old Mrs. Pentreath had been wanted like that. She wouldn’t have refused her mouth, if he had sought it. Poor old dear! There was a hungry look about her: any woman could tell what that meant. It was “a shime” that she should go wanting when she had a husband still fit and strong; though to be sure she would be a grim sort of bedfellow.
It was only just after ten when Mrs. Pentreath had broken up the prayer-meeting, and there was time for the rites which Nancy so often practised when she was alone. She had a private store of candles for this purpose, for had she used the household stock there would soon have been an inquiry as to where all the candles went, and now she lit a couple on her dressing-table and put two more short ends in the holders of the looking-glass. She touched up the rouge on her cheeks and refashioned the bow of her lips with a stick of red cosmetic. She put a puce-coloured velvet riband, rather lacking in nap, like her father-in-law’s top-hat, in her hair, and enhanced the pretty effect by pinning to it a shell-cameo of a naked nymph in a pinchbeck setting. There was violet powder for the tip of her nose, an adjusting of her gown in order to show a little more of her neck, and being thorough in her methods where the display of her own attractions was concerned, she put on a pair of faded satin shoes. A tattered fan that smelt of her favourite perfume, and two long white gloves that wanted cleaning completed her costume. The shoes, the fan and the gloves were ancient relics, brought out only for this ritual from the trunk under her bed, which had never made a journey since, twenty years ago, it had brought her belongings from London.
Not once as she made these embellishments had she surveyed herself in the big mirror, for it was her custom to let the splendid reflection burst on her when the toilet was finished. Then with a smile that showed the tips of her white teeth, she whisked round and revelled in the contemplation of her own image. Certainly it was alluring, for even the puce riband and the cameo could not mar her extremely comely face, and her figure still had the vigour of youth. Dennis had come rightly by his stature and his yellow hair and the turquoise-blue of his eyes, and indeed both in eyes and hair his mother’s lustre rivalled that of his youth. A pity that there was no one here to share the pretty picture with her!
But now it was growing late, and, with the candle ends on each side of the mirror flaring and dipping into their sockets! Nancy began undressing for bed. She had got to make up her mind on a question of great importance to her, and as yet she really did not know what she was going to say to the proposal that Mr. Harry Giles had made to her this very afternoon. He was an artist who had lately joined the colony at St. Columb’s, and Nancy thought she had never seen such a “perfect gentleman.” They had first met a month ago, quite by accident, as she recited to herself, on the narrow path that led through the fields between St. Columb’s and the farm, and, most politely, he had stepped aside into the wet grass to give her the path. It was only natural that she should lift her eyes to him with a glance of acknowledgment, and in turn he raised his hat with such an admiring smile. It followed that, after walking on ten yards or so, she bent down to do up a shoelace, and there he was still looking after her. So they went on their ways, and no lady and gentleman, thought Nancy, could have behaved more properly.
Then came developments, and, since they led up to the decision she had to make, she reviewed them with verbal distinctness in her mind, telling herself the exciting story. “So it was no surprise to me, “ ran her thoughts, «that if it wasn’t the next day, it was the day after, that there he was again on the path; sitting on an artist’s stool, doing a sketch. So interested he was in his painting that I got quite close before he saw me at all, so I got a good look at him. He had his hat off, nice greyish hair, quite a mop of it, and I took to him instanter. Forty-five or so, I guessed, p’raps a bit more, but give me a man with some experience, one as wants more than an apple-faced girl, and for my part I never really liked boys, for they’re hot stuff to-day, and just how-der-do to-morrow if they’ve seen something else as takes their fancy. But there was Mr. Giles, a fine figure of a man, and something steady about him. He was quite taken up with his picture, him and it blocking up the whole of the path and him not seeing me yet. But when he did, lor’, how quick and brisk he was, begging my pardon for having set there like that, and me saying pray don’t mention it. After that, I couldn’t do less than look at his sketch; beautiful it was, with the path just true to life, puddles and all, so that you could have fancied yourself a-walking on it, and the blackthorn in bloom already and the roof of the farm behind. Didn’t I think, he asked me, that it wanted a figure standing by the blackthorn? I saw what he was after, and so of course I agreed, and said I’d stand there for a few minutes, if that would be any use to him.
“That was just what he wanted: very kind of me,” he said, and he sat himself down again, after excusing himself, so polite, for sitting in the presence of a lady. And in ten minutes there I was in the picture, standing under the blackthorn, with my arm akimbo, and I’m sure, for all that it was so little, anyone could have seen it was me. And then, as we were both going down to St. Columb’s, nothing would serve him but that we must walk down together, him carrying my basket, and me telling him that as often as not I went down to the village round about three of the afternoon, and so it all commenced.”
The sequel was up to the same fine standard of felicity as the commencement Mr. Giles had taken the house at the corner of the Kenrith lane, which was on the direct route from the farm into St. Columb’s, and naturally, next day, he was sitting in his garden after lunch. Rain threatened, but Nancy set off from the farm before it had begun to fall. Nothing could have been luckier than her timing, for just as she came opposite his house the first heavy drops of a. Downpour hissed on the path, and so he had begged her to rake shelter in his studio, for she had no umbrella, until the rain stopped. In she went, and he asked her her opinion of the unfinished sketches there, and since the rain continued, he was ever so keen to make a charcoal sketch of her head. A sitting, of course, to be paid for, he said: he would not dream of it otherwise, and on her consenting, he had brought out a half-bottle of champagne for her refreshment. Pop went the cork, and the bubbly stuff went creaming into her glass. Nancy had “heard tell” of champagne; it came in the novels she read beside the kitchen fire at the farm, and a very tasty drink it was, she thought, and him making no more of opening it for her than if it had been a bottle of beer.
That had been a pleasant half-hour, for he had such agreeable conversation, and positively refused to believe that Dennis, that big handsome boy whom he had seen ploughing in the field where the circle of stones stood, was her son. Impossible, he said, and all the time as he drew, he was casting those quick, admiring glances at her; it was evident that he thought a lot of her looks. And the champagne and all, and his hopes that he was no
t boring her (he need not have been afraid of that), and his good luck at having been out in the garden just as she passed, and just as the rain began...
Harry Giles was equally pleased with his sitter: she struck him as being an admirable example of a type which he had been on the look-out for, but which it was not easy to find. A whore, no doubt, he said to himself, at heart: voluptuously good-looking, superlatively common, but one who had arrived at middle-age without having become completely coarsened. Perhaps she had not had the opportunity for unlimited indulgence, or perhaps there was in her some sort of fastidiousness that had kept her from degenerating into a mere animal who will do anything to assuage her unsatiated femininity. He fancied he read that into her face, and it was just what he wanted for a picture that had long been simmering in his mind. As was the fashion of the day, it was to be a picture that told a story: “Leicester Square, 11 p.m.” would be the approximate title of it. The audience was emerging from a music-hall, light drizzle was falling, and in the foreground on the wet pavement, where the street lights were reflected, was standing a woman, just of this type, gaudily dressed in the manner of her kind. A man in evening clothes and top-hat was accosting her, and though it was clear enough why she had taken up her place there, she drew back from him: her face was not of one who was willing to go off with anyone who beckoned. She was not yet promiscuous nor wholly ravenous...There was the idea, and, thought Giles, you can put anything into a picture if you know how, but what had stood in his way was to find a model whose face conveyed that mixture of welcome and withholding.
But when he saw Nancy first on the path from the farm, he guessed that he had found the face which he wanted, and now, when for half an hour he had studied her as she sat for the charcoal sketch, sipping her champagne, and purring at his admiration, he felt certain of it. She had a beautiful figure, too, mature and vigorous, deep-breasted, with flowing curves of firm flesh. He imagined that she would be a splendid model for the nude, but as yet he was not concerned with that, nor with any personal relation that might develop between them; his picture was the immediate objective.
