sorry he dared not tell Nicholas the rest of the story, but Nicholas
was inexpressibly severe and prudish; he would not have approved of
the scenes in the barn, neither of the knock-about scene of tickling
and squealing amongst the hay, nor of the subsequent scene, when
Olver had laid his hand over Daisy’s mouth, and, half-strangled, she
had spluttered against his hand, and the wetness of her mouth had
mingled with the wetness of her tears to inflame his rustic senses,
and in the indifference to her misery she had not resisted him. He
smiled to himself as he remembered, but he knew better than to tell
this to Nicholas. Only once had he seen Nicholas really violent, on
one occasion when he had come artlessly to his brother with the tale
of his first exploit; Nicholas’ explosion of anger was a thing Olver
had never forgotten. It remained lurking, a thing which at any moment
might flare up again. He kept such stories now for his mother’s ear
alone; the old woman, enchanted at this surreptitious alliance against
Nicholas’ hateful authority, would cackle in sympathy, and, making
her hand a trumpet to her ear, invite Olver to pour out in a whisper
details increasingly succulent, and so passed hours, Olver with an eye
constantly on the door, lest Nicholas should unexpectedly return, but
turning always again to whisper to his mother, who with her “Hee! hee!
and did you so? good lad!” and similar ejaculations, would puff him
up to thinking himself a man where he was most an animal. Lovel was
thinking only of how he might best delude his brother’s shrewdness,
and how discover whether the girl was scattering this gossip broadcast
over the village. He had always disliked the girl,--her red hair, pale
blue eyes, loose mouth, and freckles,--nor was it likely that he would
turn to civility now in order to coax her into discretion. He was
inexpressibly concerned, perplexed and discouraged, and the longer did
he remain brooding over the fire, the more convinced did Olver grow
that Daisy’s hysterical theory was the true one.
They heard the rapping of their mother’s stick on the floor overhead;
it was the signal that she needed something. The dogs raised their
heads and began to growl. Lovel, wrenched back to the actualities of
his daily life, said, “Go, you, Olver.”
He sat on after Olver had gone, but he was not allowed to pursue his
reflections, for the sounds of violent quarrelling reached him from
overhead: his mother’s voice raised to a scream, and Olver’s to an
indignant bellow. He knew that he must go up and separate them. The
cause of their quarrels never transpired; the outburst was puerile,
violent, and senseless, and came to an end with the same childish
suddenness as it had begun. Lovel never knew which he dreaded most,
and which most filled him with anxiety and distaste: their alliance or
their hostility.
He rose, and taking the candle he went upstairs to his mother’s room.
He went with an extreme weariness and repugnance, feeling that the
burden he had to carry was too heavy when private sorrow was added to
it, and wishing for once, strong though he was, that he might lay it
down and be seen no more in that country. The sound of the quarrelling
voices continued as he made his way along the upstairs passage, but
they fell into an abrupt silence in the presence of his authority. He
stood in the doorway and they looked at him guiltily. The old woman,
huddled in her chair, muttered something under her breath. He took in
the squalid disorder of the badly-lighted room.
“Go down to the kitchen, Olver,” he said.
Olver slunk away. Lovel came forward, and patiently began setting the
room to rights; although he was too practical a man to indulge himself
in the fastidiousness which might have been his by nature, he was often
sickened by the loathsomeness of the many tasks he had to perform for
his mother: he was sickened now. She was utterly without regard for
decency; but for her son, she would have wallowed contentedly in the
squalor of her room; it was amazing to him how, helpless though she
was, and able to travel about only by propelling herself in her wheeled
chair, she yet contrived during his short absences to reduce the room
she inhabited to the appearance of a hovel.
“Can Olver not fetch away your supper, but you must start quarrelling
with the lad?” he said.
Immediately she broke into a torrent of grievances, in the high, shrill
voice of her petulance, which Lovel knew so well; and he regretted that
he had not let the matter pass uncommented, since it was irremediable.
He waited until she had finished, then bent over and said with his
usual gentleness, “Come, mother, let me help you to bed.”
She allowed him to raise her from her chair, first throwing back
the old miscellaneous shawls and coverings, and, half lifting, half
carrying her across the room, he deposited her on her bed. She kept up
meanwhile a continual grumble: where had he been all day, that he had
so neglected her? Since early morning he had not been near her; she had
been dependent upon Olver for her food and her company; but Olver was
a good lad; he did not go off all day like Nicholas did, wenching, no
doubt,--Nicholas pressed his hands tightly together, to keep himself
silent,--Olver had sat with her that afternoon, and they had talked;
where would she be, without Olver for company?
During this complaining and muttering Lovel had busied himself with
making her comfortable in bed; he covered her over, arranged her pillow
for her, placed a glass of water within her reach,--she always wanted
matches too, but was not allowed them;--he now looked down upon her
as she lay, her helpless form under the shapeless heap of bedclothes
and her scant grey locks straggling over the pillow. She had the same
eyes as her sons, in what must have been a fine bony face; and the same
cunning look frequently stole into them as stole into Olver’s.
“I hope you have not again been filling the lad’s head with the rubbish
I have so often forbidden,” said Lovel anxiously in reply to her last
remark.
“A nice way for you to speak to your mother!” she croaked. “Olver
doesn’t speak so to me; forbidden, indeed! Never you mind what Olver
and I have been saying. If I had only been given Olver to myself I
could have made him into something better than a mere simpleton, as
you all dub him; but no, I wasn’t to have Olver to myself: there was
always Nicholas between us, with his ‘forbidden’ ... forbidden....
Anyhow, Nicholas hasn’t won altogether,” she muttered, not quite daring
to speak too distinctly; “there are hours every day when Nicholas isn’t
at home.”
“I can always get Olver to tell me the truth,” said Lovel, “and if I
find you have been at your tricks I shall have to keep him away from
your room.”
The old woman laughed; a grating and unpleasant laugh, between fear and
amusement.
“And to do that you will have to stay at home, and then where will the
money come from, my pretty boy?”
“True,” said Lovel, “I am obliged to go out to work to make money for
you and Olver, but Olver can come with me, and so he shall.”
“And leave me alone here to die, if so be,” said the old woman,
beginning to whimper, and she snuffled into her bed-clothes, and said
that Nicholas was a cruel son to her.
“The remedy lies with you,” he said quietly; and then, straightening
the clothes for her again, he told her that he would not take Olver
away from her unless she obliged him to. “But I am responsible for
Olver,” he added, “and we are ill enough looked upon in the village
already; you know, mother, that I must keep Olver in order, and his
brain is too weak to be trusted with dangerous matter.” He wondered
why he took the trouble to say this, since he knew that it was useless
attempting to appeal to the old woman’s good sense or better feelings,
as she had neither.
She only laughed again. He paused beside her for a moment, but there
was nothing more to say, and wishing her good-night he took up the
candle and left the room. Out in the passage he heard her voice calling
him back.
“Matches, Nicholas: let me have the matches to-night.” He shook his
head in refusal. “Cruel to me, Nicholas; and my own son too: cruel and
hard; he bullies us both....” Lovel shut the door and went downstairs,
but the mumble of her complaining pursued him still.
Olver crouched by the fire between the dogs, his curls almost as matted
as their pelt. He eyed his brother from under his brows, as though
he expected to be scolded. Lovel however only said quietly, “I shall
remain at home to-morrow, and if you choose you can go to the Manor
House for me.” He let fall this remark in the midst of his occupation
of clearing the room before going to bed; he let it fall so casually
that no trace appeared of the effort it cost him. “But if you should
see Miss Warrener,” he added, “you must breathe no word of the folly
you uttered to me. I must have your word on that, you have never yet
broken your word to me.”
“I will not tell Miss Warrener,” said Olver.
Lovel was satisfied.
Olver set out early on the following morning, carrying his basket of
tools slung on his back, and a number of clean new planks, smelling
of resin, under his arm. Nicholas stood at the door to watch him go,
envious, regretful, but sturdy in his determination. Olver walked
quickly up the village street; the morning was bright; he felt good and
competent this morning, and full of importance: not only had Nicholas
trusted him to do his work, but he was full of a private intention to
spy out the land at the Manor House; if Nicholas wanted Clare, why,
then Nicholas must have what he wanted; it seemed to Olver quite simple
and direct. He turned in at the gates of the Manor House, pleased by
the pretty garden and the cool house with its long windows and open
shutters. The lowering mood which was usual to him receded further and
further; it was pleasant to feel so good; he looked all round him as
he walked, smiling. The door was opened to him by Martha Sparrow in a
clean cap and apron; he wanted to kiss her soft old face, which looked
as though it smelt of soap, but instead of doing that he pulled off
his cap very civilly and said that he had come to fix the bookshelves
since his brother was unable. Martha Sparrow looked at his tight curls
and thought with surprise that he was an agreeable-looking lad; telling
him to wait a moment, she left him on the doorstep and went to Mr.
Warrener. “Young Lovel, sir,” she said, “have sent the zany in his
stead.”
Mr. Warrener had forgotten all about the book-shelves; he pushed his
spectacles up on his forehead and stared at Martha.
“Sent the zany, Martha? What for?”
Martha respectfully and patiently reminded him.
“To be sure, to be sure.” He turned and surveyed with a helpless
resentment the books piled up in a corner of his room. “Bring him in,
Martha,” he said, resignedly.
“You’ll have him in the room, sir, then?” said Martha dubiously.
“Why not? why not? to be sure, he has to put up the shelves,” replied
Mr. Warrener, scenting disapproval.
“These gipsies, sir ... and the zany as naughty as a magpie?”
“I’ll stop with him, Martha,” said Mr. Warrener, who before the rebuke
of his old servant instantly became a great coward.
He could not, however, endure the noise of sawing and nailing which
began as soon as Olver had spread out his dust-sheet on the floor, but
took his bee-hive hat and stole quietly away from the room. He greatly
preferred that Olver should do the work wrong, or even that he should
pilfer in the room, than that he should himself have to remain at
hand to supervise or to furnish any further directions. He therefore
retreated to a bench at the remotest corner of the garden, hoping
that Martha would not detect him, where, taking his book from his
pocket, he gave himself up to his interrupted reading, to the pleasant
accompaniment of the bees busy in the limes, and of the distant small
noises of a summer day. He had soon forgotten Martha’s remonstrance,
and vaguely relied as usual on Clare guessing his wishes, as indeed she
always seemed to do, and seeing to it on his behalf that Olver Lovel
made no impossible mistake over the shelves.
Before Olver had been at work very long he became aware that Mr.
Warrener was no longer in the room. He sat back on his heels and
examined his surroundings. The soft carpet and deep chairs especially
took his fancy, and he was much impressed by the spacious writing table
littered with so many papers, and the number of reference books, held
open at a special page by various incongruous objects, this one by a
piece of flint, that one by a ruler, and yet a third by the shoe-horn
brought down from Mr. Warrener’s dressing-table. Olver rose to his
feet, and tip-toed about, looking at the books and at the specimens
of pottery, bones, arrow-heads, and what not, in the show cases which
composed Mr. Warrener’s little museum. Arrived at the chimney piece he
came to a pause, for here he discovered an object which pleased him
more than anything he had ever seen, namely a small circular mirror,
mounted on a handle, which by reason of its convexity had the property
of reflecting everything in a slight distortion,--small, brilliant,
precise and peculiar. He was so fascinated by this toy that he ventured
to pick it up; first he looked at his own face in it, and laughed
childishly to see the widened cheek-bones, the slanting and Puckish
eyes; then he turned it this way and that, to make it reflect different
corners of the room; and finally he got a tiny picture of the garden in
it, seen through the windows, with a miniature Mr. Warrener sitting on
a bench, slightly out of focus, in the background. So absorbed was he
that he did not notice the entrance of Clare; she came in, wearing a
dress of sprigged muslin, and swinging her hat by its ribbons from her
hand, and she entered with just that degree of nonchalance which would
have led a shrewd observer to the certainty that she expected to find
in the room some person other than the person she actually found. So it
was that they both appeared, and Olver gaped at her, very much taken
aback at being discovered on the side of the room opposite to his work,
and with the mirror in his hand.
“Why, I understand Martha to say that Lovel was here,” Clare said
inconsequently.
Olver seemed to find no reply; he stood, holding the mirror, and
scrutinizing Clare as though he beheld an unbelievable vision, and
yet wished to be certain of recollecting that vision in every detail.
In the diversion of the mirror he had momentarily forgotten not only
his work, but also the ulterior motive for which he had come. He
now remembered both. So this was the lass that Nicco wanted! Olver,
envisaging such desires with the utmost crudeness, was not in the
least surprised. He would not have cared for the lass himself,--she was
too limber of build for him,--but he could see her very well as the
complement of Nicco, his swarthiness and her fairness side by side.
“He could not come; I am here for him,” he replied at last, thinking
himself very artful for saying “he could not” instead of “he would not.”
“Was he busy?” asked Clare.
“No,” said Olver heedlessly, for he was now thinking of the mirror and
wondering how he could dispose of it before she should observe it in
his hand, “he has stayed at home.”
“Oh,” said Clare. She saw the mirror. “Why, what are you doing with
that?” she asked, amused, and she looked brightly and interrogatively
at him.
Seeing that she was not angry, he gave a shy smile and looked into the
mirror once again, laughing delightedly at the little picture of his
own face, and glancing at Clare.
“Do you like it? you may have it for your own if you like,” she said,
partly because he was simple, and partly because he was her friend
Lovel’s brother, and she knew that he would show it to Lovel.
“For my own? But can you give it to me?” said Olver, clasping his
treasure and grinning.
“Yes, it is mine, so I can give it to you. Would you like it?”
“But this is Mr. Warrener’s room.”
“Yes, but the mirror is mine for all that--_was_ mine, I should say,
since it is yours now.”
“Really and truly mine? to take home with me? to break if I like?”
“Really and truly yours; but you must try not to break it: a broken
mirror brings bad luck on a house.”
“There is bad luck enough on our house already without that,” said
Olver, suddenly gloomy.
“Bad luck,--how do you mean?”
“I don’t know; Nicco says so sometimes, when he has a black fit on him.”
“Nicco?”
“My brother.”
It was a little shock to her to find that Lovel, whom she knew only as
a figure so detached and self-reliant, should own a childish name. It
seemed to make him suddenly human; her eyes softened.
“Does he often have a black fit on him?” she pursued, but as soon as
she had spoken the words her loyalty repented of them, and she said,
“No, you should not tell me.”
“There is no harm,” said Olver, thinking that he saw a chance to
interest her; and he went on, steering away from direct allusion to his
brother until he should see a chance to draw round again insensibly to
that subject. “My mother says always that our house is unlucky, and,
according to her interpretation, ’tis because of the stones that built
it,--sacrificial stones, you know they be, Miss Warrener, angered at
the desecration. So says my mother, and she should know, seeing that
her mother was hanged for a witch, as is common talk hereabouts, and
for once the common talk is true. But for my part I have never been
able to see that our house was unlucky; we have enough to eat, and
a fire to warm ourselves by, though, indeed,” he added, as though
the idea had but just now occurred to him, “that is thanks to my
brother, and I do not know how my mother and myself would fare but for
him,--hee! hee!”
Clare was far too honest to wish to play the spy upon Lovel, yet she
was so much impressed by this suggestion of the half-wit youth and his
bedridden mother being left to their own devices, and feeling moreover
that the most scrupulous conscience could not accuse her of spying upon
Lovel when she was to hear something to his credit, that she did not
forbear from encouraging Olver, “I have heard that his devotion to you
both was extreme.”
Olver needed no encouragement.
“Without him, I should die. It is true that sometimes he is stern, and
he sits staring into the fire, and I can get no word from him, but I
have learnt that at those times he is unhappy. But he is so gentle,
Miss Warrener, you would not believe; at one moment he will seem
withdrawn and angry, and the next moment he is all pity. He gives his
life up to us; he does not say so, but I know he does. Once when I was
a child the village boys threw stones at me, as they might at a dog,
but Nicholas he came and beat them all with his fists and carried me
home in his arms, and never left me till I was mended.”
“He has a great affection for you,” said Clare, not knowing what to say.
“Oh no,--that is quite impossible,” Olver replied naïvely, surprised at
the suggestion.
Clare was touched by his humility, so obviously genuine. It seemed to
him, indeed impossible that the demi-god who in his eyes was Lovel,
should stoop to any feelings other than pity and obligation towards
a poor contemptible burden like himself. Clare began to catch the
infection of this idealisation of Lovel; she saw him through Olver’s
eyes: humane where he need only have been conscientious; generous where
he need only have been just; yet preserving always that aloofness and
detachment which safeguarded him from all true contact with sordid
things. When she had met him on the highway, or on the Downs, she had
not wondered much about the background of his life; she had accepted
him as an isolated and romantic figure, organic with the Downs
themselves; to her, he was the rider on the skyline, the shepherd of
the folds.
“There’s a girl in the village would give five years of life for a kind
word from Nicholas,” Olver pursued, considering himself meanwhile in
his mirror with an air of great detachment, “but Nicholas has no eye
for girls. Oh, see,” he broke off, pointing at the mirror, “my face is
like seen in water,--stretched wide. I often saw it so in a spoon, but
I never dreamt of so pretty a toy as this. Has it magical properties,
do you think? It should have, to match its freakishness. Could I look
into it, do you think, in the moonlight, and see the picture, all pale,
of what you were doing, Miss Warrener, in the face of the mirror, round
like another little moon itself?”
Clare was startled by his outburst, and the laughter that accompanied
it. Until then she had almost forgotten that he was reputed mad.
“I’ll ask my mother,” he added, forgetting his prudence in his
excitement. “Nicco does not like my learning of her, so we have to
whisper it when he is away from the house, and you could not believe
the things she tells me. And shows me, too. Why, I can make an object
travel towards me, without touching it; and I have seen visions in a
pool of water. It is our secret. Shall I show you? Watch the curtains:
I will make them belly out, though no wind blows them.”
“No ...” said Clare, stretching out her hand. “If you love your brother
as you appear to,” she said rapidly, “don’t do what he disapproves;
don’t, Olver Lovel. I am sure he is right to disapprove; I am sure he
is wise. Respect him. I am sure he deserves your respect.”
She spoke with energy. “Why?” said Olver suspiciously. “Do you know
anything of such things? Would you not like to see the curtains move
towards me? My mother says, that with a hair from the head of a person,
she could bring that person, willy-nilly, to her. She has tried it
with Nicholas, but she could not bring him. He is too strong. He is so
strong, that, if he gave his mind to it, he could bring any one; yes,
Miss Warrener, he could bring you. He could bring you to him on the
Downs, at midnight or when he would.”
“For pity’s sake, Olver Lovel!” cried Clare.
He came close up to her.
“Don’t fear my brother, Miss Warrener. There are powers in our
family,--but he does not practise them. I think he does not believe.
He is scornful,--and busy. Oh, he is a fool; that girl I was telling
you of, he turns away from her and half a dozen more. A dandy lad, they
say, and are angry. But that is not the reason. I could tell you the
reason, if I would. But I shan’t. No, Miss Warrener, I keep my counsel.”
He leered at her. “Give me your hand,” he said, catching it, “and I
will show you something.”
“No,” said Clare, trying to draw it away. “Look at your bookshelves,”
she added, to distract his ideas, “you are leaving them unfinished, and
my father will be in presently, to ask why they are not done. If he
takes it into his head to be annoyed, he will complain to your brother.”
“Nicholas won’t listen to complaints about me,” Olver returned
loftily. “He may curse me within our own doors, but no one from outside
may say a word against me. If Mr. Warrener complains, he will only tell
him not to employ me again. We don’t care whether we are given work or
not, Nicholas and I don’t.”
“You forget,” said Clare, “that my father sent for your brother and not
for you.”
“Ah, but he wouldn’t come, would he?” said Olver, highly amused. She
was relieved to see that he had got out of his sinister mood and was
again prepared to laugh and be childish. “You don’t know, because you
didn’t see him, Miss Warrener, how he sat glowering at the fire last
night, and ended by telling me that I could come here in his place. You
don’t see him at nights, when he comes home tired and has to be patient
with our mother. He’s patient with her, yes; but he’d get on better if
he humoured her more: he’s too unbending.”
“How shrewd you are, Olver,” Clare was surprised into saying.
“Hoi, hoi,” said Olver, wagging his head. “I know my Nicholas; he’ll
break sooner than bend. I told him he could come, and take the chance
of not meeting--the person he didn’t want to meet; but he wouldn’t
have that, not he. He’s stayed at home, to dig in the garden. Time and
again, he takes a day or an afternoon off to do that, for he’s mighty
fond of the garden, and that’s queer, seeing that his days are spent
on the bare Downs, whether or not his business sends him there, where
nothing grew that I ever saw, but sorrel and poor grasses.”
Clare wondered how she could best end the conversation, in which Olver
hovered evidently around some topic he might not broach, but she did
not forbear from smiling when he mentioned Lovel in his garden; she had
often seen the garden at the end of the long, tunnel-like passage as
she turned down the village street; and the little picture of Lovel’s
affection for it was like discovering a patch of sun in a thunderous
landscape. Olver meanwhile had turned back to his planks and tools; he
was fingering the latter; the little round mirror he had put carefully
into his pocket. “I am a good carpenter, you know, Miss Warrener,” he
said, as though he were letting her into a secret, and she saw that his
attention had changed its object.