He laughed painfully, not able to look at her.
“You know,” he said, and his voice was low and difficult “I have needed you for a light. You will soon be the only light again.”
“Who is the other?” she asked.
“My little girl!” he answered. Then he continued, “And you know, I couldn’t endure complete darkness, I couldn’t. It’s the solitariness.”
“You mustn’t talk like this,” she said. “You know you mustn’t.” She put her hand on his head and ran her fingers through the hair he had so ruffled.
“It is as thick as ever, your hair,” she said.
He did not answer, but kept his face bent out of sight. She rose from her seat and stood at the back of his low armchair. Taking an amber comb from her hair, she bent over him, and with the translucent comb and her white fingers she busied herself with his hair.
“I believe you would have a parting,” she said softly.
He laughed shortly at her playfulness. She continued combing, just touching, pressing the strands in place with the tips of her fingers.
“I was only a warmth to you,” he said, pursuing the same train of thought. “So you could do without me. But you were like the light to me, and otherwise it was dark and aimless. Aimlessness is horrible.”
She had finally smoothed his hair, so she lifted her hands and put back her head.
“There!” she said. “It looks fair fine, as Alice would say. Raven’s wings are raggy in comparison.”
He did not pay any attention to her.
“Aren’t you going to look at yourself?” she said, playfully reproachful. She put her finger-tips under his chin. He lifted his head and they looked at each other, she smiling, trying to make him play, he smiling with his lips, but not with eyes, dark with pain.
“We can’t go on like this, Lettie, can we?” he said softly. “Yes,” she answered him, “Yes; why not?”
“It can’t!” he said, “it can’t, I couldn’t keep it up, Lettie.”
“But don’t think about it,” she answered. “Don’t think of it.”
“Lettie,” he said. “I have to set my teeth with loneliness.”
“Hush!” she said. “No! There are the children. Don’t say anything — do not be serious, will you?”
“No, there are the children,” he replied, smiling dimly.
“Yes! Hush now! Stand up and look what a fine parting I have made in your hair. Stand up, and see if my style becomes you.”
“It is no good, Lettie,” he said, “we can’t go on.”
“Oh, but come, come, come!” she exclaimed. “We are not talking about going on; we are considering what a fine parting I have made down the middle, like two wings of a spread bird —” she looked down, smiling playfully on him, just closing her eyes slightly in petition.
He rose and took a deep breath, and set his shoulders.
“No,” he said, and at the sound of his voice, Lettie went pale and also stiffened herself.
“No!” he repeated. “It is impossible. I felt as soon as Fred came into the room — it must be one way or another.”
“Very well then,” said Lettie, coldly. Her voice was “muted” like a violin.
“Yes,” he replied, submissive. “The children.” He looked at her, contracting his lips in a smile of misery.
“Are you sure it must be so final?” she asked, rebellious, even resentful. She was twisting the azurite jewels on her bosom, and pressing the blunt points into her flesh. He looked up from the fascination of her action when he heard the tone of her last question. He was angry.
“Quite sure!” he said at last, simply, ironically.
She bowed her head in assent. His face twitched sharply as he restrained himself from speaking again. Then he turned and quietly left the room. She did not watch him go, but stood as he had left her. When, after some time, she heard the grating of his dog-cart on the gravel, and then the sharp trot of hoofs down the frozen road, she dropped herself on the settee, and lay with her bosom against the cushions, looking fixedly at the wall.
Chapter 7
The Scarp Slope
Leslie won the conservative victory in the general election which took place a year or so after my last visit to Highclose.
In the interim the Tempests had entertained a continuous stream of people. I heard occasionally from Lettie how she was busy, amused, or bored. She told me that George had thrown himself into the struggle on behalf of the candidate of the Labour Party; that she had not seen him, except in the streets, for a very long time.
When I went down to Eberwich in the March succeeding the election, I found several people staying with my sister. She had under her wing a young literary fellow who affected the “Doady” style — Dora Copperfield’s “Doady”. He had bunches of half-curly hair, and a romantic black cravat; he played the impulsive part, but was really as calculating as any man on the stock-exchange. It delighted Lettie to “mother” him. He was so shrewd as to be less than harmless. His fellow guests, a woman much experienced in music and an elderly man who was in the artistic world without being of it, were interesting for a time. Bubble after bubble of floating fancy and wit we blew with our breath in the evenings. I rose in the morning loathing the idea of more bubble-blowing.
I wandered around Nethermere, which had now forgotten me. The daffodils under the boat-house continued their golden laughter, and nodded to one another in gossip, as I watched them, never for a moment pausing to notice me. The yellow reflection of daffodils among the shadows of grey willow in the water trembled faintly as they told haunted tales in the gloom. I felt like a child left out of the group of my playmates. There was a wind running across Nethermere, and on the eager water blue and glistening grey shadows changed places swiftly. Along the shore the wild birds rose, flapping in expostulation as I passed, peewits mewing fiercely round my head, while two white swans lifted their glistening feathers till they looked like grand double water-lilies, laying back their orange beaks among the petals, and fronting me with haughty resentment, charging towards me insolently.
I wanted to be recognised by something. I said to myself that the dryads were looking out for me from the wood’s edge. But as I advanced they shrank, and glancing wistfully, turned back like pale flowers falling in the shadow of the forest. I was a stranger, an intruder. Among the bushes a twitter of lively birds exclaimed upon me. Finches went leaping past in bright flashes, and a robin sat and asked rudely, “Hello! Who are you?”
The bracken lay sere under the trees, broken and chavelled by the restless wild winds of the long winter.
The trees caught the wind in their tall netted twigs, and the young morning wind moaned at its captivity. As I trod the discarded oak-leaves and the bracken they uttered their last sharp gasps, pressed into oblivion. The wood was roofed with a wide young sobbing sound, and floored with a faint hiss like the intaking of the last breath. Between, was all the glad out-peeping of buds and anemone flowers and the rush of birds. I, wandering alone, felt them all, the anguish of the bracken fallen face down in defeat, the careless dash of the birds, the sobbing of the young wind arrested in its haste, the trembling, expanding delight of the buds. I alone among them could hear the whole succession of chords.
The brooks talked on just the same, just as gladly, just as boisterously as they had done when I had netted small, glittering fish in the rest-pools. At Strelley Mill a servant girl