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to declare that his brown breeches were not a colour, which the artist did, and almost had to fight for it; next they came to strength, and George won a bet of five shillings, by lifting a piano; then they settled down, and talked sex, sotto voce, one man giving startling accounts of Japanese and Chinese prostitutes in Liverpool. After this the talk split up: a farmer began to counsel George how to manage the farm attached to the inn, another bargained with him about horses, and argued about cattle, a tailor advised him thickly to speculate, and unfolded a fine secret by which a man might make money, if he had the go to do it — so on, till eleven o’clock. Then Bill came and called “time!” and the place was empty, and the room shivered as a little fresh air came in between the foul tobacco smoke, and the smell of drink, and foul breath.
We were both affected by the whisky we had drunk. I was ashamed to find that when I put out my hand to take my glass, or to strike a match, I missed my mark, and fumbled; my hands seemed hardly to belong to me, and my feet were not much more sure. Yet I was acutely conscious of every change in myself and in him; it seemed as if I could make my body drunk, but could never intoxicate my mind, which roused itself and kept the sharpest guard. George was frankly half drunk: his eyelids sloped over his eyes and his speech was thick; when he put out his hand he knocked over his glass, and the stuff was spilled all over the table; he only laughed. I, too, felt a great prompting to giggle on every occasion, and I marvelled at myself.
Meg came into the room when all the men had gone.
“Come on, my duck,” he said, waving his arm with the generous flourish of a tipsy man. “Come an’ sit ’ere.”
“Shan’t you come in th’ kitchen?” she asked, looking round on the tables where pots and glasses stood in little pools of liquor, and where spent match and tobacco-ash littered the white wood.
“No — what for? — come an’ sit ’ere!”— he was reluctant to get on his feet; I knew it and laughed inwardly; I also laughed to hear his thick speech, and his words which seemed to slur against his cheeks.
She went and sat by him, having moved the little table with its spilled liquor.
“They’ve been tellin’ me how to get rich,” he said, nodding his head and laughing, showing his teeth, “An’ I’m goin’ ter show ’em. You see, Meg, you see — I’m goin’ ter show ’em I can be as good as them, you see.”
“Why,” said she, indulgent, “what are you going to do?”
“You wait a bit an’ see — they don’t know yet what I can do — they don’t know — you don’t know — none of you know.”
“An’ what shall you do when we’re rich, George?”
“Do? — I shall do what I like. I can make as good a show as anybody else, can’t I?”— he put his face very near to hers, and nodded at her, but she did not turn away. “Yes — I’ll see what it’s like to have my fling. We’ve been too cautious, our family has — an’ I have; we’re frightened of ourselves, to do anything. I’m goin’ to do what I like, my duck, now — I don’t care — I don’t care — that!”— he brought his hand down heavily on the table nearest him, and broke a glass. Bill looked in to see what was happening.
“But you won’t do anything that’s not right, George!”
“No — I don’t want to hurt nobody — but I don’t care — that!”
“You’re too good-hearted to do anybody any harm.”
“I believe I am. You know me a bit, you do, Meg — you don’t think I’m a fool now, do you?”
“I’m sure I don’t — who does?”
“No — you don’t — I know you don’t. Gi’e me a kiss — thou’rt a little beauty, thou art — like a ripe plum! I could set my teeth in thee, thou’rt that nice — full o’ red juice”— he playfully pretended to bite her. She laughed, and gently pushed him away.
“Tha likest me, doesna to?” he asked softly.
“What do you want to know for?” she replied, with a tender archness.
“But tha does — say now, tha does.”
“I should a’ thought you’d a’ known, without telling.”
“Nay, but I want to hear thee.”
“Go on,” she said, and she kissed him.
“But what should you do if I went to Canada and left you?”
“Ah — you wouldn’t do that.”
“But I might — and what then?”
“Oh, I don’t know what I should do. But you wouldn’t do it, I know you wouldn’t — you couldn’t.” He quickly put his arms round her and kissed her, moved by the trembling surety of her tone:
“No, I wouldna — I’d niver leave thee — tha’d be as miserable as sin, shouldna ta, my duck?”
“Yes,” she murmured.
“Ah,” he said, “tha’rt a warm little thing — tha loves me, eh?”
“Yes,” she murmured, and he pressed her to him, and kissed her, and held her close.
“We’ll be married soon, my bird — are ter glad? — in a bittha’rt glad, aren’t ta?”
She looked up at him as if he were noble. Her love for him was so generous that it beautified him.
He had to walk his bicycle home, being unable to ride; his shins, I know, were a good deal barked by the pedals.
Chapter 7
The Fascination of the Forbidden Apple
On the first Sunday in June, when Lettie knew she would keep her engagement with Leslie, and when she was having a day at home from Highclose, she got ready to go down to the mill. We were in mourning for an aunt, so she wore a dress of fine black voile, and a black hat with long feathers. Then, when I looked at her fair hands, and her arms closely covered in the long black cuffs of her sleeves, I felt keenly my old brother-love shielding, indulgent.
It was a windy, sunny day. In shelter the heat was passionate, but in the open the wind scattered its fire. Every now and then a white cloud broad based, blue shadowed, travelled slowly along the sky-road after the forerunner small in the distance, and trailing over us a chill shade, a gloom which we watched creep on over the water, over the wood and the hill. These royal, rounded clouds had sailed all day along the same route, from the harbour of the south to the wastes in the northern sky, following the swift wild geese. The brook hurried along singing, only here and there lingering to whisper to the secret bushes, then setting off afresh with a new snatch of song.
The fowls pecked staidly in the farmyard, with Sabbath decorum. Occasionally a lost, sportive wind-puff would wander across the yard and ruffle them, and they resented it. The pigs were asleep in the sun, giving faint grunts now and then from sheer luxury. I saw a squirrel go darting down the mossy garden wall, up into the laburnum tree, where he lay flat along the bough, and listened. Suddenly away he went, chuckling to himself. Gyp all at once set off barking, but I soothed her down; it was the unusual sight of Lettie’s dark dress that startled her, I suppose.
We went quietly into the kitchen. Mrs Saxton was just putting a chicken, wrapped in a piece of flannel, on the warm hob to coax it into life; it looked very feeble. George was asleep, with his head in his arms on the table; the father was asleep on the sofa, very comfortable and admirable; I heard Emily fleeing upstairs, presumably to dress.
“He stays out so late — up at the Ram Inn,” whispered the mother in a high whisper, looking at George, “and then he’s up at five — he doesn’t get his proper rest.”