Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated), page 54
Up towards Arundel the cornfields of red wheat were heavy with gold. It was evening, when the green of the trees went out, leaving dark shapes proud upon the sky; but the red wheat was forged in the sunset, hot and magnificent. Siegmund almost gloated as he smelled the ripe corn, and opened his eyes to its powerful radiation. For a moment he forgot everything, amid the forging of red fields of gold in the smithy of the sunset. Like sparks, poppies blew along the railway-banks, a crimson train. Siegmund waited, through the meadows, for the next wheat-field. It came like the lifting of yellow-hot metal out of the gloom of darkened grass-lands.
Helena was reassured by the glamour of evening over ripe Sussex. She breathed the land now and then, while she watched the sky. The sunset was stately. The blue-eyed day, with great limbs, having fought its victory and won, now mounted triumphant on its pyre, and with white arms uplifted took the flames, which leaped like blood about its feet. The day died nobly, so she thought.
One gold cloud, as an encouragement tossed to her, followed the train.
‘Surely that cloud is for us,’ said she, as she watched it anxiously. Dark trees brushed between it and her, while she waited in suspense. It came, unswerving, from behind the trees.
‘I am sure it is for us,’ she repeated. A gladness came into her eyes. Still the cloud followed the train. She leaned forward to Siegmund and pointed out the cloud to him. She was very eager to give him a little of her faith.
‘It has come with us quite a long way. Doesn’t it seem to you to be travelling with us? It is the golden hand; it is the good omen.’
She then proceeded to tell him the legend from ‘Aylwin’.
Siegmund listened, and smiled. The sunset was handsome on his face.
Helena was almost happy.
‘I am right,’ said he to himself. I am right in my conclusions, and Helena will manage by herself afterwards. I am right; there is the hand to confirm it.’
The heavy train settled down to an easy, unbroken stroke, swinging like a greyhound over the level northwards. All the time Siegmund was mechanically thinking the well-known movement from the Valkyrie Ride, his whole self beating to the rhythm. It seemed to him there was a certain grandeur in this flight, but it hurt him with its heavy insistence of catastrophe. He was afraid; he had to summon his courage to sit quiet. For a time he was reassured; he believed he was going on towards the right end. He hunted through the country and the sky, asking of everything, ‘Am I right? Am I right?’ He did not mind what happened to him, so long as he felt it was right. What he meant by ‘right’ he did not trouble to think, but the question remained. For a time he had been reassured; then a dullness came over him, when his thoughts were stupid, and he merely submitted to the rhythm of the train, which stamped him deeper and deeper with a brand of catastrophe.
The sun had gone down. Over the west was a gush of brightness as the fountain of light bubbled lower. The stars, like specks of froth from the foaming of the day, clung to the blue ceiling. Like spiders they hung overhead, while the hosts of the gold atmosphere poured out of the hive by the western low door. Soon the hive was empty, a hollow dome of purple, with here and there on the floor a bright brushing of wings — a village; then, overhead, the luminous star-spider began to run.
‘Ah, well!’ thought Siegmund — he was tired — ’if one bee dies in a swarm, what is it, so long as the hive is all right? Apart from the gold light, and the hum and the colour of day, what was I? Nothing! Apart from these rushings out of the hive, along with swarm, into the dark meadows of night, gathering God knows what, I was a pebble. Well, the day will swarm in golden again, with colour on the wings of every bee, and humming in each activity. The gold and the colour and sweet smell and the sound of life, they exist, even if there is no bee; it only happens we see the iridescence on the wings of a bee. It exists whether or not, bee or no bee. Since the iridescence and the humming of life are always, and since it was they who made me, then I am not lost. At least, I do not care. If the spark goes out, the essence of the fire is there in the darkness. What does it matter? Besides, I have burned bright; I have laid up a fine cell of honey somewhere — I wonder where? We can never point to it; but it is so — what does it matter, then!’
They had entered the north downs, and were running through Dorking towards Leatherhead. Box Hill stood dark in the dusky sweetness of the night. Helena remembered that here she and Siegmund had come for their first walk together. She would like to come again. Presently she saw the quick stilettos of stars on the small, baffled river; they ran between high embankments. Siegmund recollected that these were covered with roses of Sharon — the large golden St John’s wort of finest silk. He looked, and could just distinguish the full-blown, delicate flowers, ignored by the stars. At last he had something to say to Helena:
‘Do you remember,’ he asked, ‘the roses of Sharon all along here?’
‘I do,’ replied Helena, glad he spoke so brightly. ‘Weren’t they pretty?’
After a few moments of watching the bank, she said:
‘Do you know, I have never gathered one? I think I should like to; I should like to feel them, and they should have an orangy smell.’
He smiled, without answering.
She glanced up at him, smiling brightly.
‘But shall we come down here in the morning, and find some?’ she asked. She put the question timidly. ‘Would you care to?’ she added.
Siegmund darkened and frowned. Here was the pain revived again.
‘No,’ he said gently; ‘I think we had better not.’ Almost for the first time he did not make apologetic explanation.
Helena turned to the window, and remained, looking out at the spinning of the lights of the towns without speaking, until they were near Sutton. Then she rose and pinned on her hat, gathering her gloves and her basket. She was, in spite of herself, slightly angry. Being quite ready to leave the train, she sat down to wait for the station. Siegmund was aware that she was displeased, and again, for the first time, he said to himself, ‘Ah, well, it must be so.’
She looked at him. He was sad, therefore she softened instantly.
‘At least,’ she said doubtfully, ‘I shall see you at the station.’
‘At Waterloo?’ he asked.
‘No, at Wimbledon,’ she replied, in her metallic tone.
‘But — ’ he began.
‘It will be the best way for us,’ she interrupted, in the calm tone of conviction. ‘Much better than crossing London from Victoria to Waterloo.’
‘Very well,’ he replied.
He looked up a train for her in his little time-table.
‘You will get in Wimbledon 10.5 — leave 10.40 — leave Waterloo 11.30,’ he said.
‘Very good,’ she answered.
The brakes were grinding. They waited in a burning suspense for the train to stop.
‘If only she will soon go!’ thought Siegmund. It was an intolerable minute. She rose; everything was a red blur. She stood before him, pressing his hand; then he rose to give her the bag. As he leaned upon the window-frame and she stood below on the platform, looking up at him, he could scarcely breathe. ‘How long will it be?’ he said to himself, looking at the open carriage doors. He hated intensely the lady who could not get a porter to remove her luggage; he could have killed her; he could have killed the dilatory guard. At last the doors slammed and the whistle went. The train started imperceptibly into motion.
‘Now I lose her,’ said Siegmund.
She looked up at him; her face was white and dismal.
‘Good-bye, then!’ she said, and she turned away.
Siegmund went back to his seat. He was relieved, but he trembled with sickness. We are all glad when intense moments are done with; but why did she fling round in that manner, stopping the keen note short; what would she do?
CHAPTER 22
Siegmund went up to Victoria. He was in no hurry to get down to Wimbledon. London was warm and exhausted after the hot day, but this peculiar lukewarmness was not unpleasant to him. He chose to walk from Victoria to Waterloo.
The streets were like polished gun-metal glistened over with gold. The taxi-cabs, the wild cats of the town, swept over the gleaming floor swiftly, soon lessening in the distance, as if scornful of the other clumsy-footed traffic. He heard the merry click-clock of the swinging hansoms, then the excited whirring of the motor-buses as they charged full-tilt heavily down the road, their hearts, as it seemed, beating with trepidation; they drew up with a sigh of relief by the kerb, and stood there panting — great, nervous, clumsy things. Siegmund was always amused by the headlong, floundering career of the buses. He was pleased with this scampering of the traffic; anything for distraction. He was glad Helena was not with him, for the streets would have irritated her with their coarse noise. She would stand for a long time to watch the rabbits pop and hobble along on the common at night; but the tearing along of the taxis and the charge of a great motor-bus was painful to her. ‘Discords,’ she said, ‘after the trees and sea.’ She liked the glistening of the streets; it seemed a fine alloy of gold laid down for pavement, such pavement as drew near to the pure gold streets of Heaven; but this noise could not be endured near any wonderland.
Siegmund did not mind it; it drummed out his own thoughts. He watched the gleaming magic of the road, raced over with shadows, project itself far before him into the night. He watched the people. Soldiers, belted with scarlet, went jauntily on in front. There was a peculiar charm in their movement. There was a soft vividness of life in their carriage; it reminded Siegmund of the soft swaying and lapping of a poised candle-flame. The women went blithely alongside. Occasionally, in passing, one glanced at him; then, in spite of himself, he smiled; he knew not why. The women glanced at him with approval, for he was ruddy; besides, he had that carelessness and abstraction of despair. The eyes of the women said, ‘You are comely, you are lovable,’ and Siegmund smiled.
When the street opened, at Westminster, he noticed the city sky, a lovely deep purple, and the lamps in the square steaming out a vapour of grey-gold light.
‘It is a wonderful night,’ he said to himself. ‘There are not two such in a year.’
He went forward to the Embankment, with a feeling of elation in his heart. This purple and gold-grey world, with the fluttering flame-warmth of soldiers and the quick brightness of women, like lights that clip sharply in a draught, was a revelation to him.
As he leaned upon the Embankment parapet the wonder did not fade, but rather increased. The trams, one after another, floated loftily over the bridge. They went like great burning bees in an endless file into a hive, past those which were drifting dreamily out, while below, on the black, distorted water, golden serpents flashed and twisted to and fro.
‘Ah!’ said Siegmund to himself; ‘it is far too wonderful for me. Here, as well as by the sea, the night is gorgeous and uncouth. Whatever happens, the world is wonderful.’
So he went on amid all the vast miracle of movement in the city night, the swirling of water to the sea, the gradual sweep of the stars, the floating of many lofty, luminous cars through the bridged darkness, like an army of angels filing past on one of God’s campaigns, the purring haste of the taxis, the slightly dancing shadows of people. Siegmund went on slowly, like a slow bullet winging into the heart of life. He did not lose this sense of wonder, not in the train, nor as he walked home in the moonless dark.
When he closed the door behind him and hung up his hat he frowned. He did not think definitely of anything, but his frown meant to him: ‘Now for the beginning of Hell!’
He went towards the dining-room, where the light was, and the uneasy murmur. The clock, with its deprecating, suave chime, was striking ten, Siegmund opened the door of the room. Beatrice was sewing, and did not raise her head. Frank, a tall, thin lad of eighteen, was bent over a book. He did not look up. Vera had her fingers thrust in among her hair, and continued to read the magazine that lay on the table before her. Siegmund looked at them all. They gave no sign to show they were aware of his entry; there was only that unnatural tenseness of people who cover their agitation. He glanced round to see where he should go. His wicker arm-chair remained by the fireplace; his slippers were standing under the sideboard, as he had left them. Siegmund sat down in the creaking chair; he began to feel sick and tired.
‘I suppose the children are in bed,’ he said.
His wife sewed on as if she had not heard him; his daughter noisily turned over a leaf and continued to read, as if she were pleasantly interested and had known no interruption. Siegmund waited, with his slipper dangling from his hand, looking from one to another.
‘They’ve been gone two hours,’ said Frank at last, still without raising his eyes from his book. His tone was contemptuous, his voice was jarring, not yet having developed a man’s fullness.
Siegmund put on his slipper, and began to unlace the other boot. The slurring of the lace through the holes and the snacking of the tag seemed unnecessarily loud. It annoyed his wife. She took a breath to speak, then refrained, feeling suddenly her daughter’s scornful restraint upon her. Siegmund rested his arms upon his knees, and sat leaning forward, looking into the barren fireplace, which was littered with paper, and orange-peel, and a banana-skin.
‘Do you want any supper?’ asked Beatrice, and the sudden harshness of her voice startled him into looking at her.
She had her face averted, refusing to see him. Siegmund’s heart went down with weariness and despair at the sight of her.
‘Aren’t you having any?’ he asked.
The table was not laid. Beatrice’s work-basket, a little wicker fruit-skep, overflowed scissors, and pins, and scraps of holland, and reels of cotton on the green serge cloth. Vera leaned both her elbows on the table.
Instead of replying to him, Beatrice went to the sideboard. She took out a table-cloth, pushing her sewing litter aside, and spread the cloth over one end of the table. Vera gave her magazine a little knock with her hand.
‘Have you read this tale of a French convent school in here, Mother?’ she asked.
‘In where?’
In this month’s Nash’s.’
‘No,’ replied Beatrice. ‘What time have I for reading, much less for anything else?’
‘You should think more of yourself, and a little less of other people, then,’ said Vera, with a sneer at the ‘other people’. She rose. ‘Let me do this. You sit down; you are tired, Mother,’ she said.
Her mother, without replying, went out to the kitchen. Vera followed her. Frank, left alone with his father, moved uneasily, and bent his thin shoulders lower over his book. Siegmund remained with his arms on his knees, looking into the grate. From the kitchen came the chinking of crockery, and soon the smell of coffee. All the time Vera was heard chatting with affected brightness to her mother, addressing her in fond tones, using all her wits to recall bright little incidents to retail to her. Beatrice answered rarely, and then with utmost brevity.
Presently Vera came in with the tray. She put down a cup of coffee, a plate with boiled ham, pink and thin, such as is bought from a grocer, and some bread-and-butter. Then she sat down, noisily turning over the leaves of her magazine. Frank glanced at the table; it was laid solely for his father. He looked at the bread and the meat, but restrained himself, and went on reading, or pretended to do so. Beatrice came in with the small cruet; it was conspicuously bright.
Everything was correct: knife and fork, spoon, cruet, all perfectly clean, the crockery fine, the bread and butter thin — in fact, it was just as it would have been for a perfect stranger. This scrupulous neatness, in a household so slovenly and easy-going, where it was an established tradition that something should be forgotten or wrong, impressed Siegmund. Beatrice put the serving knife and fork by the little dish of ham, saw that all was proper, then went and sat down. Her face showed no emotion; it was calm and proud. She began to sew.
‘What do you say, Mother?’ said Vera, as if resuming a conversation. ‘Shall it be Hampton Court or Richmond on Sunday?’
‘I say, as I said before,’ replied Beatrice: ‘I cannot afford to go out.’
‘But you must begin, my dear, and Sunday shall see the beginning. Dîtes donc!’
‘There are other things to think of,’ said Beatrice.
‘Now, maman, nous avons changé tout cela! We are going out — a jolly little razzle!’ Vera, who was rather handsome, lifted up her face and smiled at her mother gaily.
‘I am afraid there will be no razzle’ — Beatrice accented the word, smiling slightly — ’for me. You are slangy, Vera.’
‘Un doux argot, ma mère. You look tired.’
Beatrice glanced at the clock.
‘I will go to bed when I have cleared the table,’ she said.
Siegmund winced. He was still sitting with his head bent down, looking in the grate. Vera went on to say something more. Presently Frank looked up at the table, and remarked in his grating voice:
‘There’s your supper, Father.’
The women stopped and looked round at this. Siegmund bent his head lower. Vera resumed her talk. It died out, and there was silence.
Siegmund was hungry.
‘Oh, good Lord, good Lord! bread of humiliation tonight!’ he said to himself before he could muster courage to rise and go to the table. He seemed to be shrinking inwards. The women glanced swiftly at him and away from him as his chair creaked and he got up. Frank was watching from under his eyebrows.
Siegmund went through the ordeal of eating and drinking in presence of his family. If he had not been hungry, he could not have done it, despite the fact that he was content to receive humiliation this night. He swallowed the coffee with effort. When he had finished he sat irresolute for some time; then he arose and went to the door.
