 White Goods by Fanny Hearst On a slope a white sprinkling of wood anemones lay spread like a patch of linen bleaching in the sun. From a valley a lark cut a swift diagonal upward with a coloratura burst of song. A stream slipped its ice and took up its murmur where it had left off. A truant squelched his toes in the warm mud and let it ooze luxuriously over and between them. A mole stirred in his hole and because spring will find a way, even down in the bargain basement of the Titanic's door, which is far below the level of the mole, Sadie Barnette, who had never seen a wooden amony, and never sniffed of thaw, or the wet wild smell of violets, felt the blood rise in her veins like sap, and across the aisle behind the White Goods counter, Max Meltzer, writhed in his woollen, and Sadie Barnette presided over a bin of specially-priced mill-ins out mid-isle between the White Goods and the muslin underwear, leaned toward him, and her smile was as vivid as her lips. Say, Max, guess why I think you like a brab-a-band! Classic Delphi was never more ready with ambiguous retort. He'd a stack of Joy of the Loom, bedsheets, Max Meltzer, groped for a regular divination, and his heartbeats fluttered in his voice. Like a brab-a-band? Yeah. Give up. Ah, give a guess. Well, I don't know, Miss Sadie, unless it's because I'm stuck on you. To not, ascetic reader, gag at the unsocratic plain, true Max Meltzer had neither the grain nor the leisure of a sophist, a capacity for tenses or an appreciation of cant. He had never built a bridge, led a Bible class, or attempted the first inch of the five-foot bookshelf. But on a two-figure salary he subscribed an annual donation to a skin-and-cancer hospital, wore non-reversible collars, and maintained a smile that turned upward, like the corners of a cycle moon. Remember then, ascetic reader, that a rich man once kicked a leper, cant's own heart that it might turn the world's heart outward burst of pain, and in the granite canyon of Wall Street one smile in every three score in ten turns upward. Miss Sadie Barnett met Max Meltzer's cycle moon smile with the blazing eyes of scorn, and her lips, quivering to a smile, met in a straight line that almost ironed out the curves. "'Cause you're stuck on me, that's, well, guess, gee, you're as funny as a saw-buah!' The words scuttered from her lips like sharp hailstones, and she glanced at him sidewise, over a hump of uplifted shoulder, and down the length of one akimbo arm. "'Cause you're stuck on me, huh?' Max Meltzer leaned across a counter-display of fringed breakfast napkins. "'Ain't that a good reason, Miss Sadie? It's a true one. You're one swell little guess that you are, not. You couldn't get inside a riddle with a can opener. "'Cause you're stuck on me, gee, well, I am. I didn't ask you why you was like a bottle of glue. I asked you why you was like a rubber band. "'Uh, give up, Miss Sadie. "'Cause you're so stretchy, see, cause you're so stretchy, you'll yawn your arm off if you don't watch it.'" Max Meltzer collapsed in an attitude of mock prostration against a stock shelf. "'Gee, that must have been cracked before the first nut.' Smotty." Across the specially-priced mill ends she flashed the full line of her teeth, and with an intensity his features ill-concealed he noted how sweet her throat as it arched. "'It's the spring fever gets inside of me, and makes me so stretchy, Miss Sadie. It's a good thing trade is slow down here in the basement today, because it's the same with me every year. This Saturday before spring opening week, I just get to feeling like all outdoors. "'Wait till you see me with the new red satin bows stuck on my last summer's shape. Dady's got to lend me the price for two yards of three-inch red satin ribbon for my spring opening.'" His breath rose in his throat. "'Bet you look as well in red, Miss Sadie, but a girl like you looks well in anything.'" "'Red's my color. Dady says my mama was a gay one, too, when it came to color. Had to have a red bow-pen somewheres around all the months. She was in bed, and up to the very night she died. Give me red every time. Dady's the one that's always kicking against red. She says I got too flashy taste. Say, if she keeps bossin' and bossin' at you, what do you keep on livin' with her for? Wouldn't you live with your own mother's sister if she raised you from a kid? What am I going to do? Put her in cold storage, now that her eyes are going back on her? Up in the ribbon she can't hardly keep her colors graduated no more. That's how blind she's getting. Only yesterday a dame brought back some lavender ribbon and wiped up the whole apartment with Dady for putting it over on her as blue. What am I going to do?' Honest, Miss Sadie. I didn't know that she was your aunt, and that her eyes were bad. I've seen you two together a lot, and noticed her thick lenses, but I just didn't think. Well, now I'm telling you. I just thought she was some old girl up in the ribbons you was livin' with for company. Honest, I didn't know she had bad eyes. Gee. No, they ain't bad. Only she's so blind she reads her paper upside down and gets sore if you tell her about it, and me thinkin' she was nothin' but a nearsighted old grouch with a name like a sparrow. Miss Burnett laughed with an upward trill. Ha! Dady ain't her real name. When I was a kid, and she took me to Rays, that's the way I used to pronounce Aunt Edith. Gee, you don't think Dady was the name they sprinkled on her when they christened her, did you? Max Meltzer leaned to the breath of her laughter as he would fill his lungs with it. Gee, but you're a cute little lady when you laugh like that. Say, and ain't you the freshie? Just because you're going to be promoted to Bia for your department won't get your picture in the Sunday supplement. No white goods Bia I know of ever had to build white marble libraries or present a bread-line to the city to get rid of his pen-money. I bet you was a cute little black-eyed red-cheeked little youngster, all righty. I wasn't so wise. Like I tell Dady the way she's held me down and indoors evenings, it's a wonder a kid like me grew up with any pep at all. Poor little lady. It's like Dady says, though, I never was cut out for life behind the counter. Gee, I'd suck my pillow and gasoline every night in the week if it would make me dream I'm automobiling. Poor little lady. Say, ain't it hot? With the opening on Monday, they better get the fans working. Last year three girls killed. Honest, sometimes I think I'd rather spend the summer under the daisies out on the hill than down here in this basement. Don't I wish I had an auto to take you spinning in tonight? You ought to see the flyer a friend of mine has got. A mercury six with a limousine top like a grand opera box. Your friend? Yes. He's that slick-looking little fat fellow that's a cousin to may me grant up in the ready-to-wares. He was down here talking to me the other day. I seen him. Jay, you ought to fill yourself in his mercury six. Let me die, I says, to him the last time I was in it. Just let me close my eyes right in here and die happy, I says, cut it up in the red leather seat with a cornucopia of daffodils tickling my nose and a streetcar full of strap-hangers riding alongside of us. I guess if you got swell friends like that, a boat excursion down the river ain't got much of a sound for you. He says he's got a launch in summer. Honest, Miss Sadie, I'd just been trying for the better part of two weeks to ask permission if I could come and call on you some evening, Miss Sadie. But whoops, ain't he the daredevil? The first boat of the season, Miss Sadie, a swell new one they call the White Gull, goes down to Coney tonight, and it being real springtime, and you feeling kind of full of it, I thought maybe it being the first boat of the season, maybe you would take a river ride this grand April night, Miss Sadie. Her glance landed toward him, full of quirks. My Aunt Dee Dee, Miss DeMeltza, she's right strict with me. She don't think I ought to keep company with any boys that don't come to see me first at my house. I know it, Miss Sadie, that's the right way to do it. But I think I can get around her all right. Wasn't she down here in the basement the day I first heard about my promotion? And didn't she give me the glad hand, and seem right friendly to me? I can get around her all right, Miss Sadie. I can always tell if a person likes me or not. Anyway, if her eyes ain't too bad, Miss DeMeltza, I got a date with my friend. If his car is out of the shop from having the limousine top taken off, we're going for a little spin. A quick red belied her insouciance, and she made a little foray into the bin of mill ins. Gee, if I've made three cells this live long day, I don't know nothing about two of them. Max Meltzer met her dancing gauge, bennoning it with his own quiet eyes. You're right to pick out the lucky fellows who can buy a good time. A little girl like you ought to have every enjoyment there is. If I could give it to you, do you think I would let the other fellows beat me to it? The best ain't none too good for a little lady like you. Awe, Miss DeMeltza, her bosom filled and waned. Awe, Miss DeMeltza, I mean it. An electric bell grilled through his words. Miss Burnett sprang reflexly from the harness of an eight-hour day. Awe, Luka, and I wanted to sneak up before closing and get deity to snip me two yards of red satin, and she won't cut an inch after the bell. Ain't that luck for you? Ain't that luck? Her lips drew to a pout. Let me get it for you, Miss Sadie. I know a girl up in the ribbons. No, no, Miss DeMeltza. I—I got to charge it to deity. And anyways, she gets mad like anything if I keep a-waiting. I gotta go. Night, Miss DeMeltza, night. She was off through the maze of the emptying-store in the very act of pinning on her little hat with its jaunty imitation, fur pompon. And he breathed in as she passed, as if of the perfume of her personality. At the ribbon counter, on the main floor, the last of a streamlet of outgoing women, detached herself from the file, as Miss Burnett ascended the staircase. Hurry up, Sadie. Deity! How'd you girls up here get on your dud so soon? I thought maybe if I'd hurry upstairs you'd find time to cut me a two-yard piece of three-inch-red satin for my hat. Deity! Tomorrow being Sunday, two yards, Deity. And that'll make two sixty-nine I owe you. Aw, Deity! It won't take a minute—tomorrow, Sunday, and all. Aw, Deity! Miss Barnett slid ingratiating fingers into the curve of the older woman's arm. Her voice was smooth as salve. Aw, Deity! Who ever heard of wearing fur on a hat in April? I gotta stick a red bow on my last on a sailor, Deity! Miss Edith Wart stiffened so that the muscles sprang out in the crook of her arm and the cords in her long, yellowing neck. Years had dried on her face, leaving ravages, and through her high-power spectacles her pale eyes might have been staring through film and straining to sea. Please, Deity! Miss Barnett held backward, a little singsong note of appeal running through her voice. Miss Wart jerked forward toward the open door. April dusk, the color of cold dish-water, showed through it. The dusk in the city comes sadly, crowding into narrow streets, and riddled with an immediate quick-shot of electric bulbs. Ain't you got no sense in that curly head of yawn, but ruination notions? Aw, Deity! They were in the flood-tide, which burst through the dam at six o'clock like a human torrent flooding the streets, then spreading, thinning, and finally seeping into homes, hall-bedrooms, and harlem flats. Miss Edith Wart turned her sparse face toward the downtown tide, and against a light wind that tasted of rain and napped her skirts around her thin legs. Watch out, Deity! Step down! There's a cub. I don't need you. It's luck to you care if I go blind down the spot. Deity! God! If I didn't have nothing to worry me but red ribbons, I told the doctor today, while he was putting the drops in my eyes, that if he'd let me go blind, I—I—Now, now, Deity, ain't you see him better these last few days? If you had heard what the doctor told me today, when he put the drops in my eyes, you'd have something to think about besides red ribbon, all righty. I forgot, Deity, today was your eye doctor day. He's always scaring you up. Just don't pay no attention. I forgot it was your day. Sure you forgot, but you won't forget if I wake up alone in the dark some day. Deity! You won't forget then. You won't forget to nag me, even then, for duds, to go automobiling with fly men that can't bring you no good. Deity, I ain't been but one night this week. I've been saving up all my nights for—for—tonight. Tonight. Say, I can't keep you from going to the devil on skates of— It's only the second time this week, Deity, and I—I promised you'll have the limousine top off, tonight, and feel it is just like summer. A girl's got to have a little something once in a while. What do I got to have but slave and work? It's different with you, Deity—your older, even then my momma was—and didn't you say, when you and her were girls together, there wasn't a livelier two sisters? But didn't you, Deity? In a respectable way, yes. But there wasn't the oily-mouthed, bald-headed, dwarced man alive, with little rat eyes and ugly lips, who could have took me, or your momma, out auto-riding, before or after dark. We was working girls, too. But there wasn't a man who didn't take off his hat to us, even if he was bald-headed, and it was twenty below zero. Or—yes, or—you keep running around with the kind of men that don't look at a guile, unless you served up with rum sauce, and see where it lands you. Just keep running if you want to, but my money don't buy you no red ribbon to help to drive you to the devil. The way you keep fussing at me, when I don't even go to dances like the other guiles, I sometimes I just wish I was dead. The way I got to watch the clock, like it was a taximeter the whole time I'm out anywheres, it's the limit. Even Max Meltzer gave me the laugh today. You'd never hear me say, watch the clock, if you'd keep company with a boy like Max Meltzer, a straight, clean boy with honest intentions, by a guile, looking right out of his face. You let a boy like Max Meltzer begin to keep steady with you and see what I say. You don't see no yellow streak in his face. He's as white as the goods he sells. I know, I know. You think now, because he's going to be made buyer for the white goods in September, he's the whole show. Jay, nowadays, that ain't so muchy-much for a fellow to be. Now I think the kind of fellows that fresh Mamie Grant gets you acquainted with are muchy-much. I'm strong for the old rat-eyed sports like Jerry Beck that ain't got an honest thought in his head. I bet he gives you the creeps, too. Only you're the kind of guile. God help you. That's so crazy for luxury, you could forget the devil had horns if he hid them under an automobile cap. Sure I am. I ain't seen nothing but slavin' and dredgin' and pension all my life, while other girls are strutin' the avenue in their fuzz and sleeping mornings as long as they want under either down quilts. When a man like Jerry Beck comes along with carriage-check instead of a subway ticket, I can thaw up to him like water-ice, and I ain't ashamed of it, neither. They turned into a narrow aisle of street, lined with unbroken rows of steep, narrow-faced houses. Miss Wart withdrew her arms sharply, and plunged ahead, her lips rye and on the verge of trembling. When a girl gets twenty like you, it ain't none of my put in no more. Only I hope to God your mother up there is witness that if ever a woman slaved to keep a girl straight and done her duty by her, it was me. That man ain't got no good intentions by— Oh, ain't you—Ain't you a mean-thinkin' thing, ain't you? What kind of guile do you think I am? If he didn't have the right intentions by me, do you think? Oh, I guess he'll marry you, if he can't get you no other way. Them kind always do, if they can't help themselves. A divorced old guy like him, with a couple of kids and his mean little eyes, knows he's got to pay up if he wants a young girl like you. Oh, I—ouch! Oh, ouch! Dede, take my arm. That was only an ash-can you bumped into. It's the drops he puts in your eyes makes him so bad tonight, I guess. Go on, take my arm, Dede. Here we are home. Let me lead you upstairs. It's nothing but the drops, Dede. They turned in and up, and threw a foggy length of long hallway. Spring had not entered here. At the top of a second flight of stairs, a slavy sat back on her heels, and twisted a dribble of gray water from her cloth into her bucket. At the last and third landing, an empty coal scuttle stood just outside a door, as if nosing for entrance. Watch out, Dede, the scuttle. Let me go on in first. Gee, it's cold in doors, and warm out, ain't it? Wait till I light up. There. Let me alone. I can see. An immemorial federation of landlady's had combined against Hestia to preserve the musty traditions of the furnished room. Love in a cottage is fostered by subdivision promoters and practiced by commuters on a five hundred dollars-down monthly payment basis. Marble halls have been celebrated in song, but the furnished room we have with us always at three cents per agate line. You with your feet on your library fender, stupefied with contentment and your souls scorching, your heart is not black. It is only fat. How can it know the lean formality of the furnished room? Your little stenographer, who must wear a smile and fluted collars on eight dollars a week, knows it. The book agent at your door, who earns eighteen cents on each life of Lincoln, knows it. Chambermaids know it when they knock thrice, and only the faint and nauseous fumes of escaping gas answer them through the plugged keyhole. Coroners know it. Sadie Barnett and Edith Ward know it, too. And put out a hand here and there to allay it. A comforting spread of gay chants covered the sag in their white iron bed. A photograph or two stuck upright between the dresser mirror and its frame, and tacked full flair against the wall, was a Japanese fan, autographed many times over with the gay personnel of the Titanic store's annual picnic. Jay Diddy, six twenty already, I got to hurry, unhook me while I sow in this rutching. Going for supper? Yeah, he invited me. This is a cottage-putting night. Tell old Lady Finch, when I ain't home for supper, you've got two desserts coming to you. I don't want no supper. Ah, now, Diddy! Miss Ward dropped her dark cape from her shoulders, hung it with her hat on a door-peg, and sat heavily on the edge of the bed. God, my feet! So come! Miss Barnette peeled off her shirt-waste, her bosom, strong and flat as a boy's, rose white from her cheaply dainty under-bottice. At her shoulders the flesh began to deepen, and her arms were round and full of curves. He had Diddy. I'm so nervous when I hurry. You sow in this rutch. You've got time before the supper-bell. See, right along the edge, like that. Miss Ward aimed for the eye of the needle, moistening the end of the thread with her tongue, and her fluttering fingers close to her eyes. God! God! I just ain't got the eyes no more. I can't see Sadie. I can't find the needle. Sadie Barnette paused in the act of brushing out the cloud of her dark hair, and with a strong young gesture ran the thread through the needle, knotting its end with a quirk of thumb and forefinger. It's a drop-steady and this gas-light all blurry from the curling iron in the flame makes you see bad. Miss Ward nodded and closed her eyes as if she would press back the tears and let them drip inward. Yeah, I know, I know. Sure, here, let me do it, Diddy. I won't stay out late, dearie. If your eyes are bad, we're only going out for a little spin. Miss Ward lay back on the chintz bedspread and turned her face to the wall. I should worry if you come home, or if you don't, all the comfort you are to me. You stay that to me many more times, and you watch and see what I do. You watch and see. The sooner the better. In the act of fluting the soft rush out about her neck so that her fresh little face rose like a bud from its callix, Miss Barnette turned to the full length of back which faced her from the bed. That's just the way I feel about it. The sooner the better. Then we think alike. You ain't been such a holy saint to me that I got to pay you up to you for it all in my life. That's the thanks I get. You only raised me because you had to. I've been working for my own living ever since I was so little I had to lie to the inspectors about my age. Except what you begged out of my wages. I've been as much to you as you've been to me, and I don't have to stand this no longer. Sure, I can get out, and the sooner the better. I'm sick of getting down on my knees to you every time I want to squeeze a little good time out of life. I've tired paying up for the few dollars you give me out of your envelope. If I had any sense, I wouldn't never take it from you. Know how. The way you throw it up to me all the time. The sooner the better is what I say, too. The sooner the better. That's the thanks I get. That's the, ah, I know all that line of talk by heart. You don't need to ram it down me. You've got to quit insinuating about my ways to me. I'm as straight as you are, and you. You take off that ivory-hand breast-pen. That ain't yours. Sure, I'll take it off. In this roost, you give me the money to buy. In this red bracelet, you give me. And every old thing you ever give me. Sure, I'll take them all off. I wish I could take off these great top shoes you paid a dollar toward. And I would, too, if I didn't have to go barefoot. It's the last time I borrow from. Ah, you commenced that line of talk when you was 10. I mean it. Well, if you do, take off them gloves that I bought for myself, and you beg right off my hands. Just take them off and go barehanded with your little headed friend. Maybe he can buy. You, oh, I wish I was dead. I'll go barehanded to a snowball face rather than wear your duds. There's your old gloves there. Tears were streaming and leaving the ravages on the smooth surface of her cheeks. I just wish I was dead. I know you don't. There's him now with a horn on his auto that makes a noise like the devil yelling. There's your little rat-eyed, low-life fellow now. You don't wish you was dead now, do you? Go to him, and his two divorces, and his little round head. That's where you belong. That's where girls on the road to the devil belong, with them kind. There he is now, waiting to ride you to the devil. He don't need to hock, hock so loud. He knows you're ready and waiting for him. Miss Barnett fastened on her little hat with fingers that fumbled. Give me the key. I know you don't. When you come home tonight, you knock. No more tiptoe. Nightkey business like last time. I knew you was lying to me about the clock. You give me that key. I don't want you to have to get up with all your kicking. To open the door for me, you give me the key. If you want to get in this room, when you come home tonight, you knock like any self-respecting goel ain't afraid to do. You? Oh, you! With a shivering intake of breath Miss Barnett flung wide the door, slamming it after her until the windows and the blue glass face on the mantelpiece and Miss Wart stretched full length on the bed, shivered. Two flights down she flung open the front door. There came from the curb the bleed of a siren, wild for speed. Stars had come out, a fine powdering of them, and the moist evening atmosphere was sweet, even heavy. She stood for a moment in the embrasure of the door, senting. Do I need my heavy coat, Jerry? The dim figure and the tonneau, with his arms flung out their length across the back of the seat, moved from the center to the side. No, you don't. Hurry up. I'll keep you warm if you need a coat. Climb in here, right next to me, peachy. Give me that robe from the front there, George. Now, didn't I say I was going to keep you warm? Quit you squirmin'. Touchy, I won't bite. Ready, George? Up to the palisade in, and let out some miles there. Jay, Jerry, you got the limousine top off. Ain't this swell for summer? Mr. Jerome back, settled back in the roomy embrasure of the seat, and exhaled, loudly, his shoulder and shoe touching hers. She settled herself out of their range. Now, now, snuck all up a little peachy. She shifted back to her first position. That's better. Ain't it swell tonight? Now, a comfy egg. They were nosing through a snarl of traffic, and over streets wet and slimy with thaw. Men with overcoats flung over their arms, sidestepped the snout of the car. Delicatessen and candy shop doors stood wide open. Children shrilled in the grim shadows of thousand tenant, tenement houses. Well, peachy, how are you? Peachy is just the name for you, eh? Because I'd like to take a bite right out of you, eh? Peachy, how are you? Fine and dandy. Look at me. Look at me, I say, you pretty little peach with them devilish black eyes of yours and them lips that's got a cherry on them. She met his gaze with an uncertain smile trembling on her lips. Honest, you're the limit. What's your eyes red for? They, they ain't. Crying? Like fun. You know what I'd do if I thought you'd been crying. I'd just kiss them tears right away. Yes, you would. Not, little devil. Quit calling me that. But she colored, as if his tribute had been a sheath of lilies. They veered a corner sharply, skidding on the wet asphalt, and all but grazing the rear wheels of a recurrent taxi cab. Yeah, George, you black devil, you, why don't you watch out what you're doing? But, ah, none of your black back talk. Cherry, she was shivering, and a veil of tears formed over her hot, mortified eyes. Gee, what are you made of? You seen he couldn't help it when that taxi turned into us so sudden. He relaxed against her. Did I scare the little peachy? That's the way they got to be handled. I ain't ready by a long shot to let a black devil spill my brains. Shh, he couldn't. Sure he could if he watched. He's a bargain I picked up cheap. Anyways, because he's lame, and can't hold down heavy work. And bargains don't always pay. But I'll break his black back for him if, ah, no, no. Did I scare the little peach? Gee. I couldn't do nothing but kill you with kindness if you was driving for me. I'd just let you run me right off this road into the Hudson Ocean if you was driving for me. They were out toward the frayed edge of the city, where great stretches of sign plastered vacant lots began to yawn between isolated patches of buildings. And the river ran close enough alongside of them to reflect their leftwarder lights. She smiled, but as if her lips were bruised. It ain't none of my put in, but he couldn't help it. And I hate for you to yell at anybody like that, Jerry. Did I scare the little peachy? Watch me show the little tootsie. How nice I can be when I want to. Ah, ah, quit. She blinked back the ever-recurring tears. All tied out, too. All tied out. Wait till you see what I'm going to buy you tonight, a great big beef steak with mushrooms as big as dollars and piping hot German fried potatoes and onions. And more bubbles than you can wink your eye at. Ah, ah, such poor cold little hands and no gloves for such cold little hands. Here, let me warm them. Wouldn't I just love to wrap a little peachy like you up in a great big fur coat and put them little cold hands in a great big muff and hang some great big headlater earrings in them little bitsie is? Wouldn't I, though? Poor cold little hands. Her wreath of a smile dissolved in a spurt of hot tears, which flowed over her words. Gee, ain't I the nut to cry? I'll be all right in a minute. I knew when I seen them red eyes that a little peachy wasn't up to snuff in a cute little devilish-like ways. What's hot in you tootsie, bent-bounced? You should worry. I'm going to steal you out of that cell, anyways. Bent-bounced? No. The old hag ain't been making it up for you, has she? Gee. Gad, that old hag, gets my fur up. I had a mother-in-law once tried them tricks on me till I learned her that they wouldn't work. But the old hag of Yon, it's her eyes. The doctor must have scared her up again today. When she gets scared like that about him, she acts up so honest. Sometimes I just wish I was dead. She don't think a girl ought to have no life. Forget it. You just wait. She's going to wake up some morning soon and find a little surprise party for herself. I know just how to handle a little bird like her. Sometimes she's just so good to me. And then again, when she gets so all like tonight and with a nagging and fussing at me, I don't care if she is my ad. I just hate her. We're going to give her a little surprise party. Beneath the lap-robe, his hand slid towards hers. She could feel the movement of the arm that directed it at her own track away. But ain't I the limit, Jerry, airing my troubles to you, like you was a policeman? Now, now. Quit, leg on my hand. They were spinning noiselessly along a road that curved for the moment away from the river into the velvet shadows of trees. He leaned forward suddenly, enveloping her. I got it. Why don't you let me kidnap you, kiddo? What? Let me kidnap you tonight and give the old hag the surprise of her life when she wakes up and finds you stolen. I'm some little kidnapper when it comes to kidnapping. I am kiddo. Say, wouldn't I like to take you, writing all wrapped up in a fur coat with nothing but your cute little face sticking out? Ah, you're just fooling me. Fooling? Let me prove it tonight. Let me kidnap you this very night. I, she withdrew, stiff-backed against his embrace. Is that what you mean by kidnapping me? Sure. There ain't nothing I'd rather do. Are you on peaches? A sensible little queen like you knows which side her bread is buttered on. There ain't nothing I want more than to see you all bundled up in a fur coat with headlights in your little bitsy pink ears. She sprang the width of the seat from him. You, what kind of girl do you think I am? Oh, God, what kind of girl does he think I am? Take me home. Take me. What kind of girl do you think I am? He leaned toward her with a quick readjustment of tone. Just what I said, PG, what I meant was I'd marry you tonight. If we could get a license, I'd just kidnap you tonight if we could get one. You, you didn't mean that. Sure, I did, PG. Say, with a little girl of my own, I ain't one of them guys that you think I am. Ain't you ashamed of yourself, PG? Now, ain't you? The color flowed back into her face, and her lips parted. Jerry, only a girl like me's got to be careful. That's what all I meant. Jerry, Jerry, he scooped her in his short arms and kissed her lips with her small face crumpled up against his shoulder, and she lay quiescent enough in his embrace. When sang in her ears as they rushed swiftly and surely along the oiled road, but the two small fists she pressed against his coat lapels did not relax. Ah, now, PG, you mustn't treat a fellow cold no more. Ain't I going to marry you? Ain't I going to set you up right in my house, out in Newton Heights? Ain't I going to give you a swell 10-room house? Ain't you going to live right in the house with my girl? And ain't she going to have you for a little stepmother? Jerry, the little girl, I wonder if she wants. Sure she does. Her mother gets her every other month. I'd let her go for good. If you don't want her, except it would do her mother too much good. The courts give it to me every other month, and I'll have her down to the last minute of the last hour a bust. Jerry, that's what I got to keep up the house out there for. The court says I got to give her a home, and that's why I want a little queen like you in it. Gad won't her mother's throw a red-headed fit when she sees the little queen I picked, Gad. Oh, Jerry, her, your first wife and all, want it seem funny my going in her house and living with a kid? Funny nothing. Clunin won't think it's funny when I tell her she's finished running my house for me. Funny nothing. Tomorrow's Sunday, and I'm going to take you out in the afternoon and show you the place. And Monday, instead of going to your bargain, Ben, we're going down for a license. And you kiss the old hag goodbye for me, too. Hey, how's that for one day's work? Jay, and Monday, the spring opening, and me not there. Jerry, I can't get over me being a lady in my own house. Me, me that hates ugliness, and ugly clothes, and ugly living soul. Me that hates street cars, and always even hated boat excursions, because they was poor folks' pleasures. Me, a lady in my own house. Oh, Jerry. She quivered in his arms, and he kissed her again with his moist lips, pressed flat against hers. Ten rooms, peachy. That's the way I do things. They were curving up a gravel way, and through the lacy foliage of spring lights gleamed. And there came the remoter strands of syncopated music. She sat up and brushed back her hair. Is this the place? Righto. Now for that steak smothered in mushrooms, and gad, I could manage a sweetbread salad on the side if you asked me right hard. They drew up in the floodlight of the entrance. And I told you not to open the door for me, George. I don't need no black hand reaching back here to turn the handle for me. That'll make up for bad driving black hands off. Jerry. They alighted with an uncramping and unbending of limbs. How'd some Lin Havens taste you for a stada and peachy? Fine. Whatever they are. A liveried attendant bowed them up the steps. A woman in blue velvet, her white arms bare to the shoulder, and stars in her hair, paused in the doorway to drop her cloak. Her heavy perfume drifted out to meet them. Sadie Barnett's clutch of her companion's arm quickened, and her thoughts ran forward. Jerry. Jay. Wouldn't I look swelling and a dress like that? Jay. Jerry. Stars in all. The cords in the muscles of his arms rose under her fingers. Them a one, two, three, six, to the duds I'm going to hang on you. I know her. She's an old-timer. Them duds ain't one, two, three, six. She. Jerry. In the heart of a silence as deep as a bottomless pool, with the black hours that tiptoe on the heels of midnight shrouding her like a nun's wimple, limbs trembling and her hands reluctant, Sadie Barnett knocked lightly at her door once, twice, thrice, and between each wrap her heart beat with twice its tempo against her breast. Then her stealthy hand turned the white china knob and released it so that it sprang backward with a click. Who's that? Me, daddy. Her voice was swathed in a whisper. She could hear the plong of the bed-spring, the patter of bare feet across the floor, still the slight aperture of the opening door. She oozed through the slit. All right, deedie. God, I must have been sought to sleep. What time is it? It isn't late, deedie. Light the gas. I can undress in the dark. Light the gas. I light it, I say. It's lit, deedie. The figure in the center of the room in her high-necked, long-sleeved night-dress, her sparse hair drawn with unpleasant tension from her brow, her pale eyes wide, moved forward a step, one bare foot, calloused even across the instep, extended. Lit? Deedie, what's the matter? Gimme my glasses. She took them from Miss Barnett's trembling fingers and curved them about her ears. Quit your nonsense now, and light the gas. I ain't no humor for your foolin'. Quit wavin' that little spark in front of me. Light the gas. I ain't gonna look at the clock. I'm done worryin' about your carry-ins on. I'm done. Light the gas, Sadie. There's a good girl. Light the gas. Deedie, my God, deedie, I tell you, it's lit, big. There's a good girl, Sadie. Helpful, y'all, to add. See, Deedie, I ain't fallin'. See the gas jet here beside the dresser. Look, I can't turn it no higher. Here it's singin' splutter. You ain't awake good yet, Deedie. Silence. The ear-splitting silence that all in its brief moment is crammed with years and years upon years. A cold gray wash seemed suddenly to flow over Miss Wurt's face. Put my finger next to the gas flame. You lie into me to fool your old aunt. Let me feel my finger get butt. They moved these two across the floor, their blanched faces straining ahead, with a sudden sting of heat finally across her palm reddening it. Miss Wurt flung wide her arms and her head backward, and her voice tore out without restraint. God, God, God! And she fell to trembling, so that her knees gave way under her, and she crouched on the floor with her face bare to the ceiling, rocking herself back and forth, beating her fists against her flat breasts. God, God, God! Deedie! Deedie! My darling, my darling! Oh God, oh God, oh God! Deedie, darling. It ain't nothin'. A little too much strain. That's all. Sh! Let me bathe them. Sh! My darling. Oh my God. Darling. Sh! Let me go. Let me go. He told me today it would come like this. Only he didn't say, how soon. Not how soon. I'm done for, I tell you. I'm done. Kill me, Sadie. If you love me, kill me. He told me. And I wouldn't believe it. Kill me, girl. And put me out of it. I can't breathe in the dark. I can't. I can't. I'll live in the dark with my eyes open. Kill me, girl. Put me out of it. Kill me. Kill me! Deedie, my darling, ain't I right here with you? Didn't you always say, darling, when it came, you'd face it. Like St. Cecilia who could not die. She crouched. And the curve of her back rose and fell. Oh God. Oh! Good. Ah, darling, keep your head down here next to me. Feel how close I am. Dee Dee, right here, next to you. Shhh. Oh, God. Dee Dee, darling, you'll kill yourself going on like that. Don't pull at your hair. Darling, don't. Oh, my God, don't. I'm done. Kill me. Kill me. Don't make me live in the dark with my eyes open. Don't. There's a good girl, Sadie. Don't. Don't. Don't. In the room adjoining her came a rattling at the bar door between. Cut it in there. This ain't no bar room. Go tell your DTs to a policeman. They crouched closer and trembling. Shhh. Dee Dee, darling, try to be easy and not raise the house. Try. Miss Ward lay back exhausted against Miss Barnet's engulfing arms. Her passion ebbed suddenly, and her words came scant and coherent and full of breath. No use. No use. He told me today he wouldn't operate. He told me. No. No. All the colors so pale, even the reds so pale, lavender and blue, I just couldn't tell. I couldn't. So pale. Two yards she brought back next day, kicking it. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Shhh, darling. Don't take on so. Wait till morning, and we'll get no drops from him. Shhh. It's only strain. I know. I'm in the dock for good, Sadie. Oh, my God. I'm in the dock. Except that her face was withered. She was like Ifogenia, praying for death. Let me die. Let me die. Shhh, darling. That's it. Rest quiet. Suddenly Miss Ward flung up one arm about Sadie Barnet's neck, pressing her head downward until their faces touched. Dady, darling, you—you heard. You won't never leave me, Sadie. Like you said you would. You wouldn't leave me alone in the dock, Sadie. No. No, my darling. You know I won't. Never. Never. You'll keep me with you always. Promise me that, Sadie. Promise me that. On the curl of your mother's hair you wear on your locket. Promise me, little Sadie. You won't leave your Aunt Dady alone in the dock. My poor little girl. Just leave me alone in the dock. I can't see, Sadie. I can't see no more. Promise me, Sadie. Promise me. Promise me. From Sadie Barnet's heart, weakening, her like loss of blood, flowed her tears. She kissed the heart of Edith Ward where it beat like a clock beneath the high-necked nightdress. She made of her bosom a pillow of mercy and drew the head up to its warmth. I—I promised, Dady. On a curl of hair, sure I promise, always will I keep you with me, darling, always, always. So help me, always. Along the road to Newton Heights, spring and her firstlings crept out tenderly, even close up to the rim of the oiled highway itself, an occasional colony of wood violets dared to show their heads for the brief moment before they suffocated. The threat of rain still lay on the air, but the Sunday rank and file of motors threw back tops, lowered windshields, and turned shining noses toward the greening fields. In the red leather tonneau, with her little-faced wind blown and bared to the kiss in the air, Sadie Barnet turned to her companion and peered under the visor of his checked cap and up into his small inset eyes. Is that the house up on the hill there, Jerry? Not yet. It's right around the next bend. Jay, my—my hands are like ice. I—I'm that nervous. Let me feel. No. That's a swell way to treat a fellow, as promised, Maria. You—you must excuse me today, Jerry, honest, without a wink of sleep last night. You must excuse me today. I—I'm so upset with poor Dee Dee, and on top of that, I'm so nervous about your little girl and the house and everything. And Dee Dee, when I think of Dee Dee—don't think, Peechie, that's the way to get around it. I—I can't help it. You ought to have seen her at the doctors this morning, how—how the poor thing lost her nerve when he told her that there—there wasn't no hope. I—now, cut the soft stuff, Peechie. I—I can't help it. Nobody can. That's the trouble. Say, what kind of little queen will they think you are if I bring you home all soppy with crying? I ought not to have come, Jerry. I'm no kind of company today. Only all of a sudden she's got so—so soft with me, and she made me come while she—she tried to take a nap. Poor old Dee Dee. Yeah, and poor old devil. Maybe she's just getting what's due to her. Jerry. Sure, I believe every one of us gets what's coming to us. She—here we are, Tootsie—see, Peechie, that's the house I bought her and her mother, and they was kicking at it before the plaster was dry. Oh, oh, that's a concrete front, neat, ain't it? That's a mosaic floor porch, too. I built on a year after her and her mother, Vamust. It's a beautiful house, Jerry. You're the land of a kid that knows how to appreciate a home when she gets it, but her, with a she-devil of a mother, they no sooner got in than they began to side with each other against me—her and her old mother trying to learn me how to run my own she-bang. Where? Yeah, they're living in a dirty Harlem flat now and trying to put it over on me that they're better off in it. Bah! If I had to double up on the alimony, I wouldn't give her a smell at this house—not a smell. Say, but ain't it pretty, Jerry? Right up over the river and country all around, and right over there and back the streetcars for the city when you want them? This is going to be your streetcar peachy—a six-cylinder one. She called it like a wild rose. Oh, Jerry, I keep forgetting. By God! It's a good thing I'm going to give up my city rooms and come out here to watch my peas and queues—Gosh, don her neck! I told her to quit cluttering up that side-yard turf with a gosh-don little flowerbeds—Gosh, don her neck! I never was a servant worth her hide. Jerry, why, they're beautiful. They just look beautiful, those pansies. And is that the little girl sitting up there on the porch steps? Is that Maisie? They drew to a stop before the box-shaped ornate house. It's rough concrete front, pretentiously, and laid over the doors and windows with a design of pebbles stuck like dates on a cake and perched primally on the topmost step of the square veranda the inert figure of a small girl. Ah, ain't she cute? Miss Barnette sprang lightly to the sidewalk, and beside her Mr. Jerome Beck flecked the dust of travel from the bay of his west cut, shaking his trouser's knees into place. This has got you twenty-third street dump, beat a mile, and then some, ain't it, peachy? Jerry, call her here, the little girl, you tell her who, who I am. Tell her gently, Jerry, and how good I'm going to be to her. And ah, ain't I too silly, though, to feel so trembling. The child on the step regarded their approach with unsmiling eyes, nor did she move except to draw aside her dark-stuffed skirts, and close her knees until they touched. Hello there, moping again, eh? Get up. Didn't I tell you not to let me catch you not out playing, and all helpin' clonin' around? Say howdy to this lady. She's comin' out here to live. Come here, and say howdy to her. The child shrank to the new old post, her narrow little face overtaken with an agony of shyness. Can I cut your tongue? Say howdy. Quit breathing through your mouth like a fish. Say howdy. That's a good girl. Don't fuss and, Jerry. She's bashful. Ain't you, dearie? Ain't you, Maisie? Moping, you mean? If it was her month in the dirty, hollam flat, she'd be spry enough. She knows what I mean when I say that. And she knows she'd better cut out this poutin. Quit breathing through your mouth, or I'll stick a cork in it. Ah, Jerry, she can't help that. Can't cut your tongue? Where's clonin'? The child's little face quivered and screwed, each feature drawing itself into position for tears. Her eyes disappeared, her nostrils distended, her mouth opened to a quivering rectangle, and she fell into a silent weeping. Come here, darling. Come here to me, Maisie. Come, dearie. But the child slid past the extended arms, down the wooden steps, and around a corner of the house, her arm held up across her eyes. Ah, Jerry, honest, you can be awful mean. I'll get that out of her, or know the reason why they poisoned her against me. That's about how it is in a nutshell. I'll get that poutin to be in that dirty, hollam hole with her mother and grandmother out of her, or know the reason why. Jerry, look, this is the front hall. Guess this ain't got that sty in twenty-third street, beat some. Look, how do you like it? This way to the palla in the dining-room. Sadie Burnett smiled through the shadows in her eyes. Jerry, say, ain't this beautiful? An upright piano and gold chairs, and why Jerry, why Jerry? Look in here. The dining-room. Her and her mother shopped three weeks to get this oak set. And see this fancy cabinet full of china? Slick, ain't it? Her fingers curled in a soft clutch around her throat, as if her breath came too fast. Jerry, it's just grand. He marshaled her in all the pride of ownership. Look, Butler's pantry, exposed plumbing. Oh, oh, kitchen. Oh, oh. Here, Clunin, I told you I was going to bring somebody out to take a hold, and sit on you, and your bills, didn't I? This lady's coming out here tomorrow, bag and baggage. Hand over your account book to her, and I bet she does better with it. See that you fix us up in honeymoon style, too. Bag and baggage were coming. Savvy, the figure beside the ill-kept stove, bowl in lap and paring potatoes with the long, fleshless hands of a bird, raised a still more fleshless face. Howdy. Clunin's been running this shebang for two years now, PG, and there ain't nothing much she can't learn you about my ways. They ain't hard. Look, porcelain line sink. It's got 23rd Street beats on. Ain't it? Yes, Jerry. Fix us a beef steak supper, Clunin, and let me weigh up the groceries I sent out. And let me see your book afterward. Come, PG, here, up these stairs. This is the second floor. Pretty neat, ain't it? Her and her mother shopped three more weeks on this oak bed set. Some little move out here from 23rd Street for a little Roman house queen like you, eh? Neat little bedroom, eh, PG, eh? His face was close to her, and Claret read with an expression she did not dare to face. And what's this next room here, Jerry? Ain't it sweet and quiet looking? Spare room, ain't it pretty with them little white curtains? Quit, quit, Jerry. You mustn't, you mustn't. She broke from his embrace. Confusion muddling her movements. Is this the spare room? It is now. It used to be the old woman's till I laid down on the mother-in-law game and squealed. Yeah, I used to have a little mother-in-law in our house. There was some mother-in-law, believe me. She makes that old devil a yarn look like a prize angel. I, this'll be just the room for Dee Dee, Jerry, where she can feel the morning sun and hear the street cars over there when she gets lonesome. She ought to have the sunniest room, because it's something she can feel without saying poor thing. This will be a swell room for her. For poor old blind Dee Dee, won't it, Jerry? Won't it, Jerry, dear? Cut the comedy, peachy. There's a neat free ward waiting for her just the other direction from the city, the Newton Heights. Cut the comedy, peachy. Jerry, I got to have her with me. I, now that she's in the dark, she couldn't stand an institution, Jerry. She just couldn't. That's what they all say, but they get over it. I know her. She couldn't, Jerry. She ain't had much in her life, but she's always had a roof over her head that wasn't charity, and she always said, Jerry, that she couldn't never stand an institution. She can take any other room you say, Jerry. Maybe there's a little one upstairs in the third story. We could fix up comfy for her, but she's in the dark now, Jerry, and my God, Jerry, she just couldn't stand an institution. He patted her shoulder and drew her arm through his. You let me take care of that. She don't need to know nothing about it. We'll tell her we're sending her for a visit to the country for a while. After the second day, she'll be as snug as a bug and a rug, dead good to him in those places, good as gold. No, no, Jerry, no, no. I got to have her with me. She raised me from a kid and she couldn't stand it, Jerry. I got to have her. I got her. I want her. His mouth sagged downward suddenly and on an oblique. Say, somebody must have given you a few lessons in nagging yourself. Them's the line she used to recite to me about how she double of a mother, too. God, she used to hang on her mother's apron strings like she was tied. Jerry, I... Come, PG, don't get me sore. Come, let's talk about tomorrow. We got to get the license first, and... Jerry, I promise me I can have her with me first. I just a little, yes, is all I want. Jerry, dear, just a little, yes. A frown gathered and a triple furrow on his brow. Now, kiddo, you've got to cut that with me and cut it quick. If there's two things I can't stand, it's nagging and pouting. Clonin can tell you what pouting can drive me to. I'll beat it out of that girl in mine before she's through with me, and I won't stand it from no one else. Now, cut it, PG, that's a nice guile. He paced the carpeted space of floor between the dresser and bed, his mouth still on the oblique. Now, cut it, PG, I said, and cut it quick. She stood palpitating beside the window, her eyes flashing to his face and fastening there. God, I want to go. Where? Her glance flashed past him out of the window and across the patch of rear lawn. A streetcar bobbed across the country. She followed it with eager eyes. I want to go, he advanced, conciliatory. Ah, now, PG, a row just the day before we are married. You don't want to stop out making me train you just like you was a little kid. If he was a little guile, I could beat you a little ways out of you, but I want to be on the level with you and show you how nice I can be, all the things I'm going to give you all. Quit, quit you, I want to go, I want to go. You're gonna go to hell for my part. I'm gonna get a steak inside of me before we budge. Quit you foolin', see you nearly got me sore there. Come, the car won't be back for us until six. Come, PG, come. She was past him and panting down the stairs out across the patch of rear lawn and toward the bobbing streetcar, the streamer of ribbon at her throat flying backward over her shoulder. In the bargain basement of the Titanic store, the first day of this spring opening, dragged to its close. In a meadow beside a round pond, a tree dripped apple blossoms, each so frail a thing that it fluttered out and away too light to anchor. In careless similitude, the bargain basement of the Titanic store resuscitated from its storerooms and from spring openings long gone by, dusty garlands of cotton made blossoms festooning them between the great white supporting pillars of the basement and intertwining them. Over the white goods counter and over Sunday, as it were, a paper mache pergola of green latticework and more cottonback may blossoms had sprung up as if the great God Wotan had built it with a word. Cascades of summer linens, the apple green and the butter yellow flowed from counters and improvised tables. Sadie Barnett's own mid-isle bin had blossomed into a sacrificial sale of lawn remnants and toward the close of the day her stock lay low depleted. Max Melza leaned out of his bower and how muted his voice as if it came from an inner throat that only spoke when the heart baited. Little one, them remnants, went like hotcakes, didn't they? Hotcakes, well, I guess. You'd have thought there was a millen sale on postage stamps and if you don't look all tired out and if you just don't. The ready tears swam in her voice. It's been awful, me away from her all day like this, but anyways I got news for her when I go home to-night about her five weeks' benefit money. Old Criggs was grand. He's going to send the committee to see her. Anyways, that's some good news for her. I just can't get her out of my mind, neither. Seems like I just can see her poor, blind face all the time. Me too. They say the girls up in the ribbon's been crying all day. She was no lovebird, but they say she wasn't bad underneath. God knows she wasn't. That's the way with some folks, they're hard on top, but everybody knows hard shell crabs have got sweeter meat than soft. Nobody knows that she was a rough diamond better than me. I got swat had some times, but I know she was always there when I needed her already. Now, now, little girl, don't cry, you're all worn out. She was always there to stand by me and a pinch. Honest, Miss Sadie, you look just like a pretty little ghost. What you need is some spring air, girlie, some spring air for a tonic. Wouldn't I just love to take you all by a little self down the river tonight on one of the new Coney boats where we could be right quiet, say, wouldn't I? No, no. I want to talk to you, Miss Sadie. Catch a guess, I want to get you all by yourself and talk to you right in your little air. Shhh, you mustn't talk like that. That's the only way I have at trying to tell you how, how I feel, Miss Sadie, dearie. When I call you that, it means, well, you know, dearie, you know, that's why I want to take you tonight, dearie, all by a little self and no, no, no, Mr. Meltzer, I can't leave her alone like that. I promised I would never leave her alone in the dark if I could help it. Ain't I the dub? Sure you can't leave her. We've got to stick by her now, dearie. Ain't we? Ain't we? A red seepage of blood surged across his face and under his hair. Beneath his little hedge of moustache his lips quivered as if at their own daring. We've got to stick by her, dearie. All her senses swam, nor could she control the fluttering of her hands. Oh, Mr. Meltzer, Max! What you and poor old Dee Dee need is some of the spring air. Gee, wouldn't I love to take you? And her, down to the river tonight, on one of the new Coney boats. Gee, would I? Just you and her. Max! Oh, Max, dearie! End of White Goods by Fanny Hurst. Wintry Peacock by D. H. Lawrence This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Wintry Peacock by D. H. Lawrence There was thin, crisp snow on the ground, the sky was blue, the wind very cold, the air clear. Farmers were just turning out the cows for an hour or so in the midday, and the smell of cowsheds was unendurable as they entered Tybal. I noticed the ash twigs up in the sky were pale and luminous, passing into the blue. And then I saw the peacocks. There they were in the road before me, three of them, and talus-brown speckled birds with dark blue necks and ragged crests. They stepped archly over the filigree snow, and their bodies moved with slow motion, like small, light, flat-bottomed boats. I admired them. They were curious. Then a gust of wind caught them, healed them over as if they were three frail boats, opening their feathers like ragged sails. They hopped and skipped with discomfort to get out of the draft of the wind. And then, in the lee of the walls, they resumed their arch, wintry motion, light and unballasted now their tails were gone, indifferent. They were indifferent to my presence. I might have touched them. They turned off to the shelter of an open shed. As I passed the end of the upper house, I saw a young woman just coming out of the back door. I had spoken to her in the summer. She recognized me at once and waved to me. She was carrying a pail, wearing a white apron that was longer than her preposterously short skirt, and she had on the cotton bottomed. I took off my hat to her and was going on. She put down her pail and darted with a swift, furtive movement after me. "'Do you mind waiting a minute?' she said. "'I'll be out in a minute.' She gave me a slight, odd smile and ran back. Her face was long and sallow, and her nose rather red. But her gloomy black eyes softened caressively to me for a moment, with that momentary humility which makes a man lord of the earth. I stood in the road, looking at the fluffy, dark red young cattle that moved and seemed to bark at me. They seemed happy, frisky cattle, a little impudent, and either determined to go back into the warm shed, or determined not to go back. I could not decide which. Presently the woman came forward again, her head rather ducked. But she looked up at me and smiled with that odd, immediate intimacy, something witch-like and impossible. "'Sorry to keep you waiting,' she said. "'Shall we stand in this cart shed? It will be more out of the wind.' So we stood among the shafts of the open cart shed that faced the road. Then she looked down at the ground a little sideways, and I noticed a small black frown on her brows. She seemed to brood for a moment. Then she looked straight into my eyes, so that I blinked and wanted to turn my face aside. She was searching me for something, and her look was too near. The frown was still on her keen, sallow brow. "'Can you speak French?' she asked me abruptly. "'More or less,' I replied. "'I was supposed to learn it at school,' she said. But I don't know a word.' She ducked her head and laughed with a slightly ugly grimace and a rolling of her black eyes. "'No good keeping your mind full of scraps,' I answered. But she had turned aside her sallow long face and did not hear what I said. Suddenly again she looked at me. She was searching. And at the same time she smiled at me, and her eyes looked softly, darkly, with infinite trustful humility into mine. I was being cajoled. "'Would you mind reading a letter for me in French?' She said, her face immediately black and bitter-looking. She glanced at me, frowning. "'Not at all,' I said. "'It's a letter to my husband,' she said, still scrutinizing. I looked at her and didn't quite realize. She looked too far into me. My wits were gone. She glanced round. Then she looked at me, shrewdly. She drew a letter from her pocket and handed it to me. It was addressed from France to M. Alfred Goit at Tybal. I took out the letter and began to read it as mere words. Mon cher Alfred. It might have been a bit of a torn newspaper. So I followed the script, the trite phrases of a letter from a French-speaking girl to an Englishman. "'I think of you always, always. Do you think sometimes of me?' And then I vaguely realized that I was reading a man's private correspondence. And yet how could one consider these trivial, facile French phrases private? Nothing more trite and vulgar in the world than such a love-letter. No newspaper more obvious. Therefore I read with a callous heart the effusions of the Belgian damsel. But then I gathered my attention. For the letter went on, Our dear little baby was born a week ago. Almost I died, knowing you were far away, and perhaps forgetting the fruit of our perfect love. But the child comforted me. He has the smiling eyes and virile air of his English father. I prayed to the mother of Jesus to send me the dear father of my child, that I may see him with my child in his arms, and that we may be united in holy family love. Ah, my Alfred, can I tell you how I miss you? How I weep for you? My thoughts are with you always. I think of nothing but you. I live for nothing but you and our dear baby. If you do not come back to me soon, I shall die, and our child will die. But no, you cannot come back to me. But I can come to you. I can come to England with our child. If you do not wish to present me to your good mother and father, you can meet me in some town, some city, for I shall be so frightened to be alone in England with my child, and no one to take care of us. Yet I must come to you. I must bring my child, my little Alfred, to his father, the big beautiful Alfred that I love so much. Oh, write and tell me where I shall come. I have some money. I am not a penniless creature. I have money for myself and my dear baby. I read to the end. It was signed, You are very happy and still more unhappy, Elise. I suppose I must have been smiling. I can see it makes you laugh, said Mrs. Goit sardonically. I looked up at her. It's a love letter. I know that, she said. There's too many Alfreds in it. One too many, I said. Oh, yes. And what does she say? Eliza? We know her name's Eliza. That's another thing. She grimaced a little, looking up at me with a mocking laugh. Where did you get this letter? I said. Postman gave it to me last week. And is your husband at home? I expect him home to-night. He had an accident and hurt his leg. He's been abroad most of his time for this last four years. He chauffeured to a gentleman who travels about in one country and another, on some sort of business. Married? We married? Why, six years. And I tell you I've seen little enough of him for four of them. But he was always a rake. He went through the South African War and stopped out there for five years. Living with his father and mother. I've no home of my own now. My people had a big farm, over a thousand acres, in Oxfordshire. Not like here. No. Oh, they're very good to me, his father and mother. Oh, yes, they couldn't be better. They think more of me than of their own daughters. But it's not like being in a place of your own, is it? You can't really do as you like. No, there's only me and his father and his mother at home. Always a chauffeur? No. He's been all sorts of things. Was to be a farm bailiff by rights. He's had a good education. But he liked the motors better. Then he was five years in the cape-mounted police. I met him when he came back from there and married him. More fool me. At this point the peacocks came round the corner on a puff of wind. Hello, Joey! she called, and one of the birds came forward on delicate legs. Its gray speckled back was very elegant. It rolled its full dark-blue neck as it moved to her. She crouched down. Joey, dear! she said, in an odd, Saturnine, caressive voice. You're bound to find me, aren't you? She put her face downward, and the bird rolled his neck almost touching her face with his beak as if kissing her. He loves you, I said. She twisted her face up at me with a laugh. Yes, she said. He loves me, Joey does. Then to the bird. And I love Joey, don't I? I do love Joey! And she smoothed his feathers for a moment. Then she rose, saying, He's an affectionate bird. I smiled at the role of her bird. Oh, yes he is! She protested. He came with me from my home seven years ago. Those others are his descendants. But they're not like Joey. Are they, dear? Her voice rose at the end with a witchlike cry. Then she forgot the birds in the cart shed and turned to business again. Won't you read that letter? She said. Read it so that I know what it says. It's rather behind his back, I said. Oh, never mind him. She cried. He's been behind my back long enough. If he never did no worse things behind my back than I do behind his, he wouldn't have caused to grumble. You read me what it says. Now I felt a distinct reluctance to do as she bid and yet I began. My dear Alfred. I guessed that much, she said. Eliza's dear Alfred. She laughed. How do you say it in French? Eliza? I told her and she repeated the name with great contempt. Elise. Go on, she said. You're not reading. So I began. I have been thinking of you sometimes. Have you been thinking of me? Of several others as well besides her, I'll wager. Said Mrs. Goit. Probably not, said I and continued. A dear little baby was born here a week ago. Ah, can I tell you my feelings when I take this darling little brother into my arms? I'll bet it's his! cried Mrs. Goit. No, I said. It's her mother's. Don't you believe it? She cried. It's a blind. You mark. It's her own right enough. And his. No, I said. It's her mother's. He has sweet smiling eyes, but not like your beautiful English eyes. She suddenly struck her hand on her skirt with a wild motion and bent down, doubled with laughter. Then she rose and covered her face with her hand. I'm forced to laugh at the beautiful English eyes. She said. Aren't his eyes beautiful? I asked. Oh, yes, very. Go on. Joey dear, dear Joey. This to the peacock. We miss you very much. We all miss you. We wish you were here to see the darling baby. Ah, Alfred, how happy we were when you stayed with us. We all loved you so much. My mother will call the baby Alfred so that we shall never forget you. Of course it's his right enough, cried Mrs. Goit. No, I said. It's the mother's. My mother is very well. My father came home yesterday from Lille. He is delighted with his son, my little brother, and wishes to have him named after you, because you were so good to us all in that terrible time, which I shall never forget. I must weep now when I think of it. Well, you are far away in England, and perhaps I shall never see you again. How did you find your dear mother and father? I am so happy that your leg is better and that you can nearly walk. How did he find his dear wife? cried Mrs. Goit. He never told her that he had one. Think of taking the poor girl in like that. We are so pleased when you write to us, yet now you are in England you will forget the family you serve so well. Ah, bit too well. Eh, Joey! cried the wife. If it had not been for you we should not be alive now, to grieve and to rejoice in this life that is so hard for us. But we have recovered some of our losses and no longer feel the burden of poverty. The little Alfred is a great comforter to me. I hold him to my breast and think of the big, good Alfred, and I weep to think that those times of suffering were perhaps the times of a great happiness that has gone for ever. Oh, but isn't it a shame to take a poor girl in like that? cried Mrs. Goit. Never to let on he was married and raise her hopes. I call it beastly, I do. You don't know, I said. You know how anxious women are to fall in love wife or no wife. How could he help it if she was determined to fall in love with him? He could have helped it if he wanted to. Well, I said, we aren't all heroes. Oh, but that's different, the big, good Alfred. Did you ever hear such Tommy rot in your life? Go on, what does she say at the end? Um... We shall be pleased to hear of your life in England. We all send many kind regards to your good parents. I wish you all happiness for your future days. You're very affectionate and ever-grateful Elise. There was silence for a moment during which Mrs. Goit remained with her head drooped, sinister and abstracted. Suddenly she lifted her face and her eyes flashed. Oh, but I call it beastly, I call it mean to take a girl in like that. Nay, I said, probably he hasn't taken her in at all. Do you think those French girls are such poor innocent things? I guess she's a great deal more downy than he. Oh, he's one of the biggest fools that ever walked. She cried. There you are, said I. But it's his child right enough, she said. I don't think so, said I. I'm sure of it. Oh, well, I said, if you prefer to think that way. What other reason has she for writing like that? I went out into the road and looked at the cattle. Who was driving the cows? I said. She too came out. It's the boy from the next farm, she said. Oh, well, said I. Those Belgian girls, you never know where their letters will end. And after all, it's his affair. You needn't bother. Oh, she cried with rough scorn. It's not me that bothers, but it's the nasty meanness of it. Me writing him such loving letters. She put her hands before her face and laughed malevolently. And sending him nice little cakes and bits I thought he'd fancy all the time. You bet he fed that girl on my things. I know he did. It's just like him. I'll bet they laughed together over my letters. I'll bet anything they did. Nay, said I. He'd burn your letters for fear they'd give him away. There was a black look on her yellow face. Suddenly a voice was heard calling. She poked her head out of the shed and answered coolly. All right! Then turning to me. That's his mother looking after me. She laughed into my face, witch-like, and we turned down the road. When I awoke, the morning after this episode, I found the house darkened with deep, soft snow, which had blown against the large west windows, covering them with a screen. I went outside and saw the valley all white and ghastly below me, the trees beneath black and thin-looking like wire, the rock faces dark between the glistening shroud, and the sky above somber, heavy, yellowish dark, much too heavy for the world below of hollow, bluey whiteness figured with black. I felt I was in a valley of the dead, and I sensed I was a prisoner, for the snow was everywhere deep and drifted in places. So all the morning I remained indoors, looking up the drive at the shrubs so heavily plumed with snow, at the gate-posts raised high with a foot or more of extra whiteness, or I looked down into the white and black valley that was utterly motionless and beyond life, a hollow sarcophagus. Nothing stirred the whole day. No plume fell off the shrubs, the valley was as abstracted as a grove of death. I looked over at the tiny half-buried farms away on the bare uplands beyond the valley hollow, and I thought of Tybal in the snow, of the black witch-like little Mrs. Goit, and the snow seemed to lay me bare to influences I wanted to escape. In the faint glow of half-clear light came about four o'clock in the afternoon. I was roused to see a motion in the snow away below, near where the thorn-trees stood very black and dwarfed, like a little savage group in the dismal white. I watched closely. Yes, there was a flapping and a struggle. A big bird it must be laboring in the snow. I wondered. Our biggest birds in the valley were the large hawks that often hung flickering opposite my windows, level with me, but high above some prey on the steep valley side. This was much too big for a hawk, too big for any known bird. I searched in my mind for the largest English wild birds, geese, buzzards. Still it labored in strove, then was still a dark spot, then struggled again. I went out of the house and down the steep slope at risk of breaking my leg between the rocks. I knew the ground so well, and yet I got well shaken before I drew near the thorn-trees. Yes, it was a bird. It was Joey. It was the grey-brown peacock with a blue neck. He was snow-wet and spent. Joey! Joey dear! I said, staggering unevenly towards him. He looked so pathetic, rowing and struggling in the snow, too spent to rise, his blue neck stretching out and lying sometimes on the snow, his eyes closing and opening quickly, his crest all battered. Joey dear! I said caressingly to him. And at last he lay still, blinking, in the surged and furrowed snow, whilst I came near and touched him, stroked him, gathered him under my arm. He stretched his long, wetted neck away from me as I held him, nonetheless he was quiet in my arm, too tired perhaps to struggle. Still he held his poor, crested head away from me, and seemed sometimes to droop, to wilt, as if he might suddenly die. He was not so heavy as I expected, yet it was a struggle to get up to the house with him again. We set him down, not too near the fire, and gently wiped him with cloths. He submitted, only now and then stretched his soft neck away from us, avoiding us helplessly. Then we sat warm food by him. I put it to his beak, tried to make him eat. But he ignored it. He seemed to be ignorant of what we were doing, recoiled inside himself inexplicably. So he put him in a basket with cloths and left him crouching oblivious. His food we put near him. The blinds were drawn. The house was warm. It was night. Sometimes he stirred, but mostly he huddled still, leaning his queer, crested head on one side. He touched no food and took no heed of sounds or movements. We talked of brandy or stimulants, but I realized we had best leave him alone. In the night, however, we heard him thumping about. I got up anxiously with a candle. He had eaten some food and scattered more, making a mess. And he was perched on the back of a heavy armchair. So I concluded he was recovered or recovering. The next day was clear and the snow had frozen, so I decided to carry him back to Tybal. He consented, after various flappings, to sit in a big fish-bag with its battered head peeping out with wild uneasiness. And so I set off with him, slithering down into the valley, making good progress down in the pale shadows beside the rushing waters, then climbing painfully up the arrested white valley side, plumed with clusters of young pine trees, into the paler white radiance of the snowy upper regions where the wind cut fine. Joey seemed to watch all the time with wide, anxious, unseeing eyes, brilliant and inscrutable. As I drew near to Tybal township, he stirred violently in the bag, though I do not know if he had recognized the place. Then, as I came to the sheds, he looked sharply from side to side and stretched his neck out long. I was a little afraid of him. He gave a loud vehement yell, opening his sinister beak, and I stood still, looking at him as he struggled in the bag, shaking myself by his struggles, yet not thinking to release him. Mrs. Goit came darting past the end of the house, her head sticking forward in sharp scrutiny. She saw me and came forward. Have you got, Joey? She cried sharply as if I were a thief. I opened the bag and he flopped out, flapping as if he hated the touch of the snow now. She gathered him up and put her lips to his beak. She was flushed and handsome, her eyes bright, her hair slack, thick, but more witch-like than ever. She did not speak. She had been followed by a grey-haired woman with a round, rather shallow face and a slightly hostile bearing. Did you bring him with you, then? She asked sharply. I answered that I had rescued him the previous evening. From the background slowly approached a slender man with a grey mustache and large patches on his trousers. You've got him back again, I see! He said to his daughter-in-law. His wife explained how I had found Joey. Ah! went on the grey man. It wore our Alfred's skirt him off back your life. He must have fled o'er to valley. Thou might thank thy stars as airt wharfon, Maggie. It had been froze. They're a bit niche, you know, he concluded to me. They are, I answered. This isn't their country. No, it is not, replied Mr. Goit. He spoke very slowly and deliberately, quietly, as if the soft pedal were always down in his voice. He looked at his daughter-in-law as she crouched, flushed and dark, before the peacock, which would lay its long blue neck for a moment along her lap. In spite of his grey mustache and thin grey hair, the elderly man had a face young and almost delicate, like a young man's. His blue eyes twinkle with some inscrutable source of pleasure. His skin was fine and tender. His nose delicately arched. His grey hair being slightly ruffled, he had a debonair look as of a youth who is in love. We won't tell him it's come, he said slowly, and turning he called, Alfred, Alfred, where's to gotten to? Then he turned again to the group. Get up then, Maggie Lass, get up with thee. There may's too much of the bird. A young man approached, limping, wearing a thick short coat and knee-breaches. He was Danish-looking, broad at the loins. He's come back then, said the father to the son. Least wise he's been brought back, fly'd over the griff low. The son looked at me. He had a devil may care bearing his cap on one side, his hands stuck in the front pockets of his breeches, but he said nothing. Shall you come in a minute, master? said the elderly woman to me. I come in and have a cup of tea or summit. You'll do with summit, Karen the bud. Come on, Maggie Witch, let's go in. So he went indoors, into the rather stuffy, overcrowded living-room that was too cozy and too warm. The son followed last, standing in the doorway. The father talked to me. Maggie put out the tea-cups. The mother went into the dairy again. Thou'd roused thine self up a bit again now, Maggie, the father-in-law said. And then to me. There's not been very bright since Alfred came home, and the bird fly'd away. He come home a Wednesday night, Alfred did. But I, you know, din' yer. I he come to Wednesday, and I reckon there were a bit of a to-do between him. Weren't there, Maggie? He twinkled maliciously to his daughter-in-law, who was flushed brilliant and handsome. Oh, be quiet, Father. You're wound up by the sound of you. She said to him, as if crossly, but she could never be cross with him. There got his color back this mornin', continued the father-in-law slowly. It's been heavy weather with her this last two days. I, it's been northeast, since her seed you a Wednesday. Father, do stop talking. You'd wear the leg off an iron pot. I can't think where you've found your tongue all of a sudden, said Maggie, with caressive sharpness. I've found it where I lost it. Aren't going to come in and sit thee down, Alfred?" But Alfred turned and disappeared. He's got the monkey on his back, or this letter job, said the father secretly to me. Mother, er knows nowt about it. Lot a tomfoolery, isn't it? Hey! What's good o' makin' a peck o' trouble o'er what's far enough off? And they'd never come ne'er. And they'd never come no nire. No, not a smite of use. That's what I tell er. Er shouldn't take no notice on it. I, what can you expect? The mother came in again, and the talk became general. Maggie flashed her eyes at me from time to time, complacent and satisfied, moving among the men. I paid her little compliments, which she did not seem to hear. She attended to me with a kind of sinister, witch-like graciousness. Her dark head ducked between her shoulders, at once humble and powerful. She was happy as a child attending to her father-in-law and to me. But there was something ominous between her eyebrows, as if a dark moth were settled there, something ominous in her bent, hulking bearing. She sat on a low stool by the fire, near her father-in-law. Her head was dropped, she seemed in a state of abstraction. From time to time she would suddenly recover, and look up at us, laughing and chatting. Then she would forget again. Yet in her hulked, black forgetting, she seemed very near to us. The door having been opened, the peacock came slowly in, prancing calmly. He went near to her and crouched down, coiling his blue neck. She glanced at him, but almost as if she did not observe him. The bird sat silent, seeming to sleep, and the woman also sat huddled and silent, seeming oblivious. Then once more there was a heavy step, and Alfred entered. He looked at his wife, and he looked at the peacock crouching by her. He stood large in the doorway, his hands stuck in front of him, in his breeches' pockets. Nobody spoke. He turned on his heel and went out again. I rose also to go. Maggie started, as if coming to herself. Must you go? She asked, rising and coming near to me, standing in front of me, twisting her head sideways and looking up at me. Can't you stop a bit longer? We can all be cozy today. There's nothing to do outdoors." And she laughed, showing her teeth oddly. She had a long chin. I said I must go. The peacock uncoiled and coiled again his long blue neck as he lay on the hearth. Maggie still stood close in front of me so that I was acutely aware of my waistcoat buttons. Oh, well, she said. You'll come again, won't you? Do come again. I promised. Come to tea one day. Yes, do. I promised one day. The moment I was out of her presence, I ceased utterly to exist for her. As utterly as I ceased to exist for Joey. With her curious abstractedness, she forgot me again immediately. I knew it as I left her. But she seemed almost in physical contact with me while I was with her. The sky was all pallid again, yellowish. When I went out there was no sun. The snow was blue and cold. I hurried away down the hill, musing on Maggie. The road made a loop down the sharp face of the slope. As I went crunching over the laborious snow, I became aware of a figure striding awkwardly down the steep scarf to intercept me. It was a man with his hands in front of him, half stuck in his breeches' pockets, and his shoulders square, a real knock-about fellow. Alfred, of course, he waited for me by the stone fence. "'Excuse me,' he said, as I came up. I came to a halt in front of him and looked into his sullen blue eyes. He had a certain odd haughtiness on his brows. But his blue eyes stared insolently at me. "'Do you know anything about a letter in French that my wife opened, a letter of mine?' "'Yes,' said I. She asked me to read it to her. He looked square at me. He did not know exactly how to feel. "'What was there in it?' he asked. "'Why?' I said. "'Don't you know?' "'She makes out she's burnt it,' he said. "'Without showing it you?' I asked.' He nodded slightly. He seemed to be meditating as to what line of action he should take. He wanted to know the contents of the letter. He must know, and therefore he must ask me, for evidently his wife had taunted him. At the same time, no doubt, he would like to wreak untold vengeance on my unfortunate person. So he eyed me, and I eyed him, and neither of us spoke. He did not want to repeat his request to me, and yet I only looked at him and considered. Suddenly he threw back his head and glanced down the valley. Then he changed his position and looked at me more confidentially. "'She burnt the blasted thing before I saw it,' he said. "'Well,' I answered slowly, "'she doesn't know herself what was in it.' He continued to watch me narrowly. I grinned to myself. "'I didn't like to read her out what there was in it,' I continued. He suddenly flushed out so that the veins in his neck stood out, and he stirred again uncomfortably. The Belgian girl said her baby had been born a week ago, and that they were going to call it Alfred,' I told him. He met my eyes. I was grinning. He began to grin, too. "'Good luck to her,' he said. "'Best of luck,' said I. "'And what did you tell her?' he asked. "'That the baby belonged to the old mother, that it was brother to your girl, who was writing to you as a friend of the family.' He stood smiling with the long, subtle malice of a farmer. "'And did she take it in?' he asked. "'As much as she took anything else.' He stood grinning fixedly. Then he broke into a short laugh. "'Good for her,' he exclaimed cryptically. And then he laughed aloud once more, evidently feeling he had won a big move in his contest with his wife. "'What about the other woman?' I asked. "'Who?' "'Elise.' "'Oh,' he shifted uneasily. "'She was all right.' "'You'll be getting back to her,' I said. He looked at me. Then he made a grimace with his mouth. "'Not me,' he said. "'Back your life. It's a plant.' "'You don't think the Cher Petit-Be-Be is a little Alfred?' "'It might be,' he said. "'Only might?' "'Yes, and there's lots of mites and a pound of cheese.' He laughed boisterously but uneasily. "'What did she say exactly?' he asked. "'I began to repeat, as well as I could, the phrases of the letter. "'Mon cher Alfred, figure-toi comme je suis désolé.' He listened with some confusion. When I had finished all I could remember, he said, "'They know how to pitch you out a letter those Belgian lasses.' "'Practice,' said I. "'They get bloody,' he said. There was a pause. "'Oh, well,' he said. "'I've never got that letter anyhow.' The wind blew fine and keen in the sunshine across the snow. I blew my nose and prepared to depart. "'And she doesn't know anything,' he continued, jerking his head up the hill in the direction of Tybalt. "'She knows nothing but what I've said, that is, if she really burnt the letter.' "'I believe she burnt it,' he said, for spite. "'She's a little devil, she is. But I shall have it out with her.' His jaw was stubborn and sullen. Then suddenly he turned to me with a new note. "'Why?' he said. "'Why didn't you ring that blasted peacock's neck, that blasted Joey?' "'Why?' I said. "'What for?' "'I hate the brute,' he said. "'I let fly at him the night I got back.' I laughed. He stood and mused. "'Poor little Elise,' he murmured. "'Was she small, petite?' I asked. He jerked up his head. "'No,' he said. "'Rather tall.' "'Taller than your wife, I suppose.' Again he looked into my eyes, and then once more he went into a loud burst of laughter that made the still, snow-deserted valley clap again. "'God, it's a knock-out,' he said, thoroughly amused. Then he stood at ease, one foot out, his hands in his breech's pocket in front of him, and had thrown back a handsome figure of a man. "'But I'll do that blasted Joey in,' he mused. I ran down the hill, shouting also with laughter. End of Wintry Peacock by D. H. Lawrence.