The White Peacock Part 24

"And then?"-the question startled him.

"Why!-forget it," he replied.

"Well?"-she spoke softly, gently. He answered to the call like an eager hound. He crossed quickly to her side as she sat sewing, and said, in a low voice:

"You do care something for me, don't you, Lettie?"

"Well,"-it was modulated kindly, a sort of promise of a.s.sent.

"You have treated me rottenly, you know, haven't you? You know I-well, I care a good bit."

"It is a queer way of showing it." Her voice was now a gentle reproof, the sweetest of surrenders and forgiveness. He leaned forward, took her face in his hands, and kissed her, murmuring:

"You are a little tease."

She laid her sewing in her lap, and looked up.

The next day, Sunday, broke wet and dreary. Breakfast was late, and about ten o'clock we stood at the window looking upon the impossibility of our going to church.

There was a driving drizzle of rain, like a dirty curtain before the landscape. The nasturtium leaves by the garden walk had gone rotten in a frost, and the gay green discs had given place to the first black flags of winter, hung on flaccid stalks, pinched at the neck. The gra.s.s plot was strewn with fallen leaves, wet and brilliant: scarlet splashes of Virginia creeper, golden drift from the limes, ruddy brown shawls under the beeches, and away back in the corner, the black mat of maple leaves, heavy soddened; they ought to have been a vivid lemon colour.

Occasionally one of these great black leaves would loose its hold, and zigzag down, staggering in the dance of death.

"There now!" said Lettie suddenly.

I looked up in time to see a crow close his wings and clutch the topmost bough of an old grey holly tree on the edge of the clearing. He flapped again, recovered his balance, and folded himself up in black resignation to the detestable weather.

"Why has the old wretch settled just over our noses," said Lettie petulantly. "Just to blot the promise of a sorrow."

"Your's or mine?" I asked.

"He is looking at me, I declare."

"You can see the wicked pupil of his eye at this distance," I insinuated.

"Well," she replied, determined to take this omen unto herself. "I saw him first."

"'One for sorrow, two for joy, Three for a letter, four for a boy, Five for silver, six for gold, And seven for a secret never told.'

"-You may bet he's only a messenger in advance. There'll be three more shortly, and you'll have your four," said I, comforting.

"Do you know," she said, "it is very funny, but whenever I've particularly noticed one crow, I've had some sorrow or other."

"And when you notice four?" I asked.

"You should have heard old Mrs. Wagstaffe," was her reply. "She declares an old crow croaked in their apple tree every day for a week before Jerry got drowned."

"Great sorrow for her," I remarked.

"Oh, but she wept abundantly. I felt like weeping too, but somehow I laughed. She hoped he had gone to heaven-but-I'm sick of that word 'but'-it is always tangling one's thoughts."

"But, Jerry!" I insisted.

"Oh, she lifted up her forehead, and the tears dripped off her nose. He must have been an old nuisance, Syb. I can't understand why women marry such men. I felt downright glad to think of the drunken old wretch toppling into the ca.n.a.l out of the way."

She pulled the thick curtain across the window, and nestled down in it, resting her cheek against the edge, protecting herself from the cold window pane. The wet, grey wind shook the half naked trees, whose leaves dripped and shone sullenly. Even the trunks were blackened, trickling with the rain which drove persistently.

Whirled down the sky like black maple leaves caught up aloft, came two more crows. They swept down and clung hold of the trees in front of the house, staying near the old forerunner. Lettie watched them, half amused, half melancholy. One bird was carried past. He swerved round and began to battle up the wind, rising higher, and rowing laboriously against the driving wet current.

"Here comes your fourth," said I.

She did not answer, but continued to watch. The bird wrestled heroically, but the wind pushed him aside, tilted him, caught under his broad wings and bore him down. He swept in level flight down the stream, outspread and still, as if fixed in despair. I grieved for him. Sadly two of his fellows rose and were carried away after him, like souls hunting for a body to inhabit, and despairing. Only the first ghoul was left on the withered, silver-grey skeleton of the holly.

"He won't even say 'Nevermore'," I remarked.

"He has more sense," replied Lettie. She looked a trifle lugubrious.

Then she continued: "Better say 'Nevermore' than 'Evermore.'"

"Why?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know. Fancy this 'Evermore.'"

She had been sure in her own soul that Leslie would come-now she began to doubt:-things were very perplexing.

The bell in the kitchen jangled; she jumped up. I went and opened the door. He came in. She gave him one bright look of satisfaction. He saw it, and understood.

"Helen has got some people over-I have been awfully rude to leave them now," he said quietly.

"What a dreadful day!" said mother.

"Oh, fearful! Your face _is_ red, Lettie! What have you been doing?"

"Looking into the fire."

"What did you see?"

"The pictures wouldn't come plain-nothing."

He laughed. We were silent for some time.

"You were expecting me?" he murmured.

"Yes-I knew you'd come."

They were left alone. He came up to her and put his arm around her, as she stood with her elbow on the mantelpiece.

"You do want me," he pleaded softly.