By the big gate of the railway, in the fence, was a little gate, that he kept
locked. As he unfastened it, he watched the kitchen light that shone on to the
bushes and the snow outside. It was a candle burning till night set in, he
thought to himself. He slid down the steep path to the level below. He liked
making the first marks in the smooth snow. Then he came through the bushes to
the house. The two women heard his heavy boots ring outside on the scraper, and
his voice as he opened the door:
“How much worth of oil do you reckon to save by that candle,
mother?” He liked a good light from the lamp.
He had just put down his bottle and snap-bag and was hanging his coat behind
the scullery door, when Miss Louisa came upon him. He was startled, but he
smiled.
His eyes began to laugh—then his face went suddenly straight, and he was
afraid.
“Your mother’s had an accident,” she said.
“How?” he exclaimed.
“In the garden,” she answered. He hesitated with his coat in his
hands. Then he hung it up and turned to the kitchen.
“Is she in bed?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Miss Louisa, who found it hard to deceive him. He was
silent. He went into the kitchen, sat down heavily in his father’s old
chair, and began to pull off his boots. His head was small, rather finely
shapen. His brown hair, close and crisp, would look jolly whatever happened. He
wore heavy moleskin trousers that gave off the stale, exhausted scent of the
pit. Having put on his slippers, he carried his boots into the scullery.
“What is it?” he asked, afraid.
“Something internal,” she replied.
He went upstairs. His mother kept herself calm for his coming. Louisa felt his
tread shake the plaster floor of the bedroom above.
“What have you done?” he asked.
“It’s nothing, my lad,” said the old woman, rather hard.
“It’s nothing. You needn’t fret, my boy, it’s nothing
more the matter with me than I had yesterday, or last week. The doctor said
I’d done nothing serious.”
“What were you doing?” asked her son.
“I was pulling up a cabbage, and I suppose I pulled too hard; for,
oh—there was such a pain——”
Her son looked at her quickly. She hardened herself.
“But who doesn’t have a sudden pain sometimes, my boy. We all
do.”
“And what’s it done?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “but I don’t suppose
it’s anything.”
The big lamp in the corner was screened with a dark green, so that he could
scarcely see her face. He was strung tight with apprehension and many emotions.
Then his brow knitted.
“What did you go pulling your inside out at cabbages for,” he
asked, “and the ground frozen? You’d go on dragging and dragging,
if you killed yourself.”
“Somebody’s got to get them,” she said.
“You needn’t do yourself harm.”
But they had reached futility.
Miss Louisa could hear plainly downstairs. Her heart sank. It seemed so
hopeless between them.
“Are you sure it’s nothing much, mother?” he asked,
appealing, after a little silence.
“Ay, it’s nothing,” said the old woman, rather bitter.
“I don’t want you to—to—to be badly—you
know.”
“Go an’ get your dinner,” she said. She knew she was going to
die: moreover, the pain was torture just then. “They’re only
cosseting me up a bit because I’m an old woman. Miss Louisa’s
very good—and she’ll have got your dinner ready, so
you’d better go and eat it.”
He felt stupid and ashamed. His mother put him off. He had to turn away. The
pain burned in his bowels. He went downstairs. The mother was glad he was gone,
so that she could moan with pain.
He had resumed the old habit of eating before he washed himself. Miss Louisa
served his dinner. It was strange and exciting to her. She was strung up tense,
trying to understand him and his mother. She watched him as he sat. He was
turned away from his food, looking in the fire. Her soul watched him, trying to
see what he was. His black face and arms were uncouth, he was foreign. His face
was masked black with coal-dust. She could not see him, she could not even know
him. The brown eyebrows, the steady eyes, the coarse, small moustache above the
closed mouth—these were the only familiar indications. What was he, as he
sat there in his pit-dirt? She could not see him, and it hurt her.
She ran upstairs, presently coming down with the flannels and the bran-bag, to
heat them, because the pain was on again.
He was half-way through his dinner. He put down the fork, suddenly nauseated.
“They will soothe the wrench,” she said. He watched, useless and
left out.
“Is she bad?” he asked.
“I think she is,” she answered.
It was useless for him to stir or comment. Louisa was busy. She went upstairs.
The poor old woman was in a white, cold sweat of pain. Louisa’s face was
sullen with suffering as she went about to relieve her. Then she sat and
waited. The pain passed gradually, the old woman sank into a state of coma.
Louisa still sat silent by the bed. She heard the sound of water downstairs.
Then came the voice of the old mother, faint but unrelaxing:
“Alfred’s washing himself—he’ll want his back
washing——”
Louisa listened anxiously, wondering what the sick woman wanted.
“He can’t bear if his back isn’t washed——”
the old woman persisted, in a cruel attention to his needs. Louisa rose and
wiped the sweat from the yellowish brow.
“I will go down,” she said soothingly.
“If you would,” murmured the sick woman.
Louisa waited a moment. Mrs Durant closed her eyes, having discharged her duty.
The young woman went downstairs. Herself, or the man, what did they matter?
Only the suffering woman must be considered.
Alfred was kneeling on the hearthrug, stripped to the waist, washing himself in
a large panchion of earthenware. He did so every evening, when he had eaten his
dinner; his brothers had done so before him. But Miss Louisa was strange in the
house.
He was mechanically rubbing the white lather on his head, with a repeated,
unconscious movement, his hand every now and then passing over his neck. Louisa
watched. She had to brace herself to this also. He bent his head into the
water, washed it free of soap, and pressed the water out of his eyes.
“Your mother said you would want your back washing,” she said.
Curious how it hurt her to take part in their fixed routine of life! Louisa
felt the almost repulsive intimacy being forced upon her. It was all so common,
so like herding. She lost her own distinctness.
He ducked his face round, looking up at her in what was a very comical way. She
had to harden herself.
“How funny he looks with his face upside down,” she thought. After
all, there was a difference between her and the common people. The water in
which his arms were plunged was quite black, the soap-froth was darkish. She
could scarcely conceive him as human. Mechanically, under the influence of
habit, he groped in the black water, fished out soap and flannel, and handed
them backward to Louisa. Then he remained rigid and submissive, his two arms
thrust straight in the panchion, supporting the weight of his shoulders. His
skin was beautifully white and unblemished, of an opaque, solid whiteness.
Gradually Louisa saw it: this also was what he was. It fascinated her. Her
feeling of separateness passed away: she ceased to draw back from contact with
him and his mother. There was this living centre. Her heart ran hot. She had
reached some goal in this beautiful, clear, male body. She loved him in a
white, impersonal heat. But the sun-burnt, reddish neck and ears: they were
more personal, more curious. A tenderness rose in her, she loved even his queer
ears. A person—an intimate being he was to her. She put down the towel
and went upstairs again, troubled in her heart. She had only seen one human
being in her life—and that was Mary. All the rest were strangers. Now her
soul was going to open, she was going to see another. She felt strange and
pregnant.
“He’ll be more comfortable,” murmured the sick woman
abstractedly, as Louisa entered the room. The latter did not answer. Her own
heart was heavy with its own responsibility. Mrs Durant lay silent awhile, then
she murmured plaintively:
“You mustn’t mind, Miss Louisa.”
“Why should I?” replied Louisa, deeply moved.
“It’s what we’re used to,” said the old woman.
And Louisa felt herself excluded again from their life. She sat in pain, with
the tears of disappointment distilling her heart. Was that all?
Alfred came upstairs. He was clean, and in his shirt-sleeves. He looked a
workman now. Louisa felt that she and he were foreigners, moving in different
lives. It dulled her again. Oh, if she could only find some fixed relations,
something sure and abiding.
“How do you feel?” he said to his mother.
“It’s a bit better,” she replied wearily, impersonally. This
strange putting herself aside, this abstracting herself and answering him only
what she thought good for him to hear, made the relations between mother and
son poignant and cramping to Miss Louisa. It made the man so ineffectual, so
nothing. Louisa groped as if she had lost him. The mother was real and
positive—he was not very actual. It puzzled and chilled the young woman.
“I’d better fetch Mrs Harrison?” he said, waiting for his
mother to decide.
“I suppose we shall have to have somebody,” she replied.
Miss Louisa stood by, afraid to interfere in their business. They did not
include her in their lives, they felt she had nothing to do with them, except
as a help from outside. She was quite external to them. She felt hurt and
powerless against this unconscious difference. But something patient and
unyielding in her made her say:
“I will stay and do the nursing: you can’t be left.”
The other two were shy, and at a loss for an answer.
“Wes’ll manage to get somebody,” said the old woman wearily.
She did not care very much what happened, now.
“I will stay until tomorrow, in any case,” said Louisa. “Then
we can see.”
“I’m sure you’ve no right to trouble yourself,” moaned
the old woman. But she must leave herself in any hands.
Miss Louisa felt glad that she was admitted, even in an official capacity. She
wanted to share their lives. At home they would need her, now Mary had come.
But they must manage without her.
“I must write a note to the vicarage,” she said.
Alfred Durant looked at her inquiringly, for her service. He had always that
intelligent readiness to serve, since he had been in the Navy. But there was a
simple independence in his willingness, which she loved. She felt nevertheless
it was hard to get at him. He was so deferential, quick to take the slightest
suggestion of an order from her, implicitly, that she could not get at the man
in him.
He looked at her very keenly. She noticed his eyes were golden brown, with a
very small pupil, the kind of eyes that can see a long way off. He stood alert,
at military attention. His face was still rather weather-reddened.
“Do you want pen and paper?” he asked, with deferential suggestion
to a superior, which was more difficult for her than reserve.
“Yes, please,” she said.
He turned and went downstairs. He seemed to her so self-contained, so utterly
sure in his movement. How was she to approach him? For he would take not one
step towards her. He would only put himself entirely and impersonally at her
service, glad to serve her, but keeping himself quite removed from her. She
could see he felt real joy in doing anything for her, but any recognition would
confuse him and hurt him. Strange it was to her, to have a man going about the
house in his shirt-sleeves, his waistcoat unbuttoned, his throat bare, waiting
on her. He moved well, as if he had plenty of life to spare. She was attracted
by his completeness. And yet, when all was ready, and there was nothing more
for him to do, she quivered, meeting his questioning look.
As she sat writing, he placed another candle near her. The rather dense light
fell in two places on the overfoldings of her hair till it glistened heavy and
bright, like a dense golden plumage folded up. Then the nape of her neck was
very white, with fine down and pointed wisps of gold. He watched it as it were
a vision, losing himself. She was all that was beyond him, of revelation and
exquisiteness. All that was ideal and beyond him, she was that—and he was
lost to himself in looking at her. She had no connection with him. He did not
approach her. She was there like a wonderful distance. But it was a treat,
having her in the house. Even with this anguish for his mother tightening about
him, he was sensible of the wonder of living this evening. The candles
glistened on her hair, and seemed to fascinate him. He felt a little awe of
her, and a sense of uplifting, that he and she and his mother should be
together for a time, in the strange, unknown atmosphere. And, when he got out
of the house, he was afraid. He saw the stars above ringing with fine
brightness, the snow beneath just visible, and a new night was gathering round
him. He was afraid almost with obliteration. What was this new night ringing
about him, and what was he? He could not recognize himself nor any of his
surroundings. He was afraid to think of his mother. And yet his chest was
conscious of her, and of what was happening to her. He could not escape from
her, she carried him with her into an unformed, unknown chaos.
