A POEM OF FRIENDSHIP
The magnificent promise of spring was broken before the May-blossom was
fully out. All through the beloved month the wind rushed in upon us
from the north and north-east, bringing the rain fierce and heavy. The
tender-budded trees shuddered and moaned; when the wind was dry, the
young leaves flapped limp. The grass and corn grew lush, but the light
of the dandelions was quite extinguished, and it seemed that only a
long time back had we made merry before the broad glare of these
flowers. The bluebells lingered and lingered; they fringed the fields
for weeks like purple fringe of mourning. The pink campions came out
only to hang heavy with rain; hawthorn buds remained tight and hard as
pearls, shrinking into the brilliant green foliage; the forget-me-nots,
the poor pleiades of the wood, were ragged weeds. Often at the end of
the day the sky opened, and stately clouds hung over the horizon
infinitely far away, glowing, through the yellow distance, with an
amber lustre. They never came any nearer, always they remained far off,
looking calmly and majestically over the shivering earth, then
saddened, fearing their radiance might be dimmed, they drew away, and
sank out of sight. Sometimes, towards sunset, a great shield stretched
dark from the west to the zenith, tangling the light along its edges.
As the canopy rose higher, it broke, dispersed, and the sky was
primrose coloured, high and pale above the crystal moon. Then the
cattle crouched among the gorse, distressed by the cold, while the
long-billed snipe flickered round high overhead, round and round in
great circles, seeming to carry a serpent from its throat, and crying a
tragedy, more painful than the poignant lamentations and protests of
the peewits. Following these evenings came mornings cold and grey.
Such a morning I went up to George, on the top fallow. His father was
out with the milk—he was alone; as I came up the hill I could see him
standing in the cart, scattering manure over the bare red fields; I
could hear his voice calling now and then to the mare, and the creak
and clank of the cart as it moved on. Starlings and smart wagtails were
running briskly over the clods, and many little birds flashed,
fluttered, hopped here and there. The lapwings wheeled and cried as
ever between the low clouds and the earth, and some ran beautifully
among the furrows, too graceful and glistening for the rough field.
I took a fork and scattered the manure along the hollows, and thus we
worked, with a wide field between us, yet very near in the sense of
intimacy. I watched him through the wheeling peewits, as the low clouds
went stealthily overhead. Beneath us, the spires of the poplars in the
spinney were warm gold, as if the blood shone through. Further gleamed
the grey water, and below it the red roofs. Nethermere was half hidden
and far away. There was nothing in this grey, lonely world but the
peewits swinging and crying, and George swinging silently at his work.
The movement of active life held all my attention, and when I looked
up, it was to see the motion of his limbs and his head, the rise and
fall of his rhythmic body, and the rise and fall of the slow waving
peewits. After a while, when the cart was empty, he took a fork and
came towards me, working at my task.
It began to rain, so he brought a sack from the cart, and we crushed
ourselves under the thick hedge. We sat close together and watched the
rain fall like a grey striped curtain before us, hiding the valley; we
watched it trickle in dark streams off the mare’s back, as she stood
dejectedly; we listened to the swish of the drops falling all about; we
felt the chill of the rain, and drew ourselves together in silence. He
smoked his pipe, and I lit a cigarette. The rain continued; all the
little pebbles and the red earth glistened in the grey gloom. We sat
together, speaking occasionally. It was at these times we formed the
almost passionate attachment which later years slowly wore away.
When the rain was over, we filled our buckets with potatoes, and went
along the wet furrows, sticking the spritted tubers in the cold ground.
Being sandy, the field dried quickly. About twelve o’clock, when nearly
all the potatoes were set, he left me, and fetching up Bob from the far
hedge-side, harnessed the mare and him to the ridger, to cover the
potatoes. The sharp light plough turned the soil in a fine furrow over
the potatoes; hosts of little birds fluttered, settled, bounded off
again after the plough. He called to the horses, and they came
downhill, the white stars on the two brown noses nodding up and down,
George striding firm and heavy behind. They came down upon me; at a
call the horses turned, shifting awkwardly sideways; he flung himself
against the plough, and leaning well in, brought it round with a sweep:
a click, and they are off uphill again. There is a great rustle as the
birds sweep round after him and follow up the new turned furrow.
Untackling the horses when the rows were all covered, we tramped behind
them down the wet hillside to dinner.
I kicked through the drenched grass, crushing the withered cowslips
under my clogs, avoiding the purple orchids that were stunted with
harsh upbringing, but magnificent in their powerful colouring, crushing
the pallid lady smocks, the washed-out wild gillivers. I became
conscious of something near my feet, something little and dark, moving
indefinitely. I had found again the larkie’s nest. I perceived the
yellow beaks, the bulging eyelids of two tiny larks, and the blue lines
of their wing quills. The indefinite movement was the swift rise and
fall of the brown fledged backs, over which waved long strands of fine
down. The two little specks of birds lay side by side, beak to beak,
their tiny bodies rising and falling in quick unison. I gently put down
my fingers to touch them; they were warm; gratifying to find them warm,
in the midst of so much cold and wet. I became curiously absorbed in
them, as an eddy of wind stirred the strands of down. When one
fledgling moved uneasily, shifting his soft ball, I was quite excited;
but he nestled down again, with his head close to his brother’s. In my
heart of hearts, I longed for someone to nestle against, someone who
would come between me and the coldness and wetness of the surroundings.
I envied the two little miracles exposed to any tread, yet so serene.
It seemed as if I were always wandering, looking for something which
they had found even before the light broke into their shell. I was
cold; the lilacs in the Mill garden looked blue and perished. I ran
with my heavy clogs and my heart heavy with vague longing, down to the
Mill, while the wind blanched the sycamores, and pushed the sullen
pines rudely, for the pines were sulking because their million creamy
sprites could not fly wet-winged. The horse-chestnuts bravely kept
their white candles erect in the socket of every bough, though no sun
came to light them. Drearily a cold swan swept up the water, trailing
its black feet, clacking its great hollow wings, rocking the frightened
water hens, and insulting the staid black-necked geese. What did I want
that I turned thus from one thing to another?
At the end of June the weather became fine again. Hay harvest was to
begin as soon as it settled. There were only two fields to be mown this
year, to provide just enough stuff to last until the spring. As my
vacation had begun I decided I would help, and that we three, the
father, George and I, would get in the hay without hired assistance.
I rose the first morning very early, before the sun was well up. The
clear sound of challenging cocks could be heard along the valley. In
the bottoms, over the water and over the lush wet grass, the night mist
still stood white and substantial. As I passed along the edge of the
meadow the cow-parsnip was as tall as I, frothing up to the top of the
hedge, putting the faded hawthorn to a wan blush. Little, early birds—I
had not heard the lark—fluttered in and out of the foamy meadow-sea,
plunging under the surf of flowers washed high in one corner, swinging
out again, dashing past the crimson sorrel cresset. Under the froth of
flowers were the purple vetch-clumps, yellow milk vetches, and the
scattered pink of the wood-betony, and the floating stars of
marguerites. There was a weight of honeysuckle on the hedges, where
pink roses were waking up for their broad-spread flight through the
day.
Morning silvered the swaths of the far meadow, and swept in smooth,
brilliant curves round the stones of the brook; morning ran in my
veins; morning chased the silver, darting fish out of the depth, and I,
who saw them, snapped my fingers at them, driving them back.
I heard Trip barking, so I ran towards the pond. The punt was at the
island, where from behind the bushes I could hear George whistling. I
called to him, and he came to the water’s edge half dressed.
“Fetch a towel,” he called, “and come on.”
I was back in a few moments, and there stood my Charon fluttering in
the cool air. One good push sent us to the islet I made haste to
undress, for he was ready for the water, Trip dancing round, barking
with excitement at his new appearance.
“He wonders what’s happened to me,” he said, laughing, pushing the dog
playfully away with his bare foot. Trip bounded back, and came leaping
up, licking him with little caressing licks. He began to play with the
dog, and directly they were rolling on the fine turf, the laughing,
expostulating, naked man, and the excited dog, who thrust his great
head on to the man’s face, licking, and, when flung away, rushed
forward again, snapping playfully at the naked arms and breasts. At
last George lay back, laughing and panting, holding Trip by the two
fore feet which were planted on his breast, while the dog, also
panting, reached forward his head for a flickering lick at the throat
pressed back on the grass, and the mouth thrown back out of reach. When
the man had thus lain still for a few moments, and the dog was just
laying his head against his master’s neck to rest too, I called, and
George jumped up, and plunged into the pond with me, Trip after us.
The water was icily cold, and for a moment deprived me of my senses.
When I began to swim, soon the water was buoyant, and I was sensible of
nothing but the vigorous poetry of action. I saw George swimming on his
back laughing at me, and in an instant I had flung myself like an
impulse after him. The laughing face vanished as he swung over and
fled, and I pursued the dark head and the ruddy neck. Trip, the wretch,
came paddling towards me, interrupting me; then all bewildered with
excitement, he scudded to the bank. I chuckled to myself as I saw him
run along, then plunge in and go plodding to George. I was gaining. He
tried to drive off the dog, and I gained rapidly. As I came up to him
and caught him, with my hand on his shoulder, there came a laughter
from the bank. It was Emily.
I trod the water, and threw handfuls of spray at her. She laughed and
blushed. Then Trip waded out to her and she fled swiftly from his
shower-bath. George was floating just beside me, looking up and
laughing.
We stood and looked at each other as we rubbed ourselves dry. He was
well proportioned, and naturally of handsome physique, heavily limbed.
He laughed at me, telling me I was like one of Aubrey Beardsley’s long,
lean ugly fellows. I referred him to many classic examples of
slenderness, declaring myself more exquisite than his grossness, which
amused him.
But I had to give in, and bow to him, and he took on an indulgent,
gentle manner. I laughed and submitted. For he knew how I admired the
noble, white fruitfulness of his form. As I watched him, he stood in
white relief against the mass of green. He polished his arm, holding it
out straight and solid; he rubbed his hair into curls, while I watched
the deep muscles of his shoulders, and the bands stand out in his neck
as he held it firm; I remembered the story of Annable.
He saw I had forgotten to continue my rubbing, and laughing he took
hold of me and began to rub me briskly, as if I were a child, or
rather, a woman he loved and did not fear. I left myself quite limply
in his hands, and, to get a better grip of me, he put his arm round me
and pressed me against him, and the sweetness of the touch of our naked
bodies one against the other was superb. It satisfied in some measure
the vague, indecipherable yearning of my soul; and it was the same with
him. When he had rubbed me all warm, he let me go, and we looked at
each other with eyes of still laughter, and our love was perfect for a
moment, more perfect than any love I have known since, either for man
or woman.
We went together down to the fields, he to mow the island of grass he
had left standing the previous evening, I to sharpen the machine knife,
to mow out the hedge-bottoms with the scythe, and to rake the swaths
from the way of the machine when the unmown grass was reduced to a
triangle. The cool, moist fragrance of the morning, the intentional
stillness of everything, of the tall bluish trees, of the wet, frank
flowers, of the trustful moths folded and unfolded in the fallen
swaths, was a perfect medium of sympathy. The horses moved with a still
dignity, obeying his commands. When they were harnessed, and the
machine oiled, still he was loth to mar the perfect morning, but stood
looking down the valley.
“I shan’t mow these fields any more,” he said, and the fallen, silvered
swaths flickered back his regret, and the faint scent of the limes was
wistful. So much of the field was cut, so much remained to cut; then it
was ended. This year the elder flowers were widespread over the corner
bushes, and the pink roses fluttered high above the hedge. There were
the same flowers in the grass as we had known many years; we should not
know them any more.
“But merely to have mown them is worth having lived for,” he said,
looking at me.
We felt the warmth of the sun trickling through the morning’s mist of
coolness.
“You see that sycamore,” he said, “that bushy one beyond the big
willow? I remember when father broke off the leading shoot because he
wanted a fine straight stick, I can remember I felt sorry. It was
running up so straight, with such a fine balance of leaves—you know how
a young strong sycamore looks about nine feet high—it seemed a cruelty.
When you are gone, and we are left from here, I shall feel like that,
as if my leading shoot were broken off. You see, the tree is spoiled.
Yet how it went on growing. I believe I shall grow faster. I can
remember the bright red stalks of the leaves as he broke them off from
the bough.”
He smiled at me, half proud of his speech. Then he swung into the seat
of the machine, having attended to the horses’ heads. He lifted the
knife.
“Good-bye,” he said, smiling whimsically back at me. The machine
started. The bed of the knife fell, and the grass shivered and dropped
over. I watched the heads of the daisies and the splendid lines of the
cocksfool grass quiver, shake against the crimson burnet, and
drop-over. The machine went singing down the field, leaving a track of
smooth, velvet green in the way of the swath-board. The flowers in the
wall of uncut grass waited unmoved, as the days wait for us. The sun
caught in the uplicking scarlet sorrel flames, the butterflies woke,
and I could hear the fine ring of his “Whoa!” from the far corner. Then
he turned, and I could see only the tossing ears of the horses, and the
white of his shoulder as they moved along the wall of high grass on the
hill slope. I sat down under the elm to file the sections of the knife.
Always as he rode he watched the falling swath, only occasionally
calling the horses into line. It was his voice which rang the morning
awake. When we were at work we hardly noticed one another. Yet his
mother had said:
“George is so glad when you’re in the field—he doesn’t care how long
the day is.”
Later, when the morning was hot, and the honeysuckle had ceased to
breathe, and all the other scents were moving in the air about us, when
all the field was down, when I had seen the last trembling ecstasy of
the harebells, trembling to fall; when the thick clump of purple vetch
had sunk; when the green swaths were settling, and the silver swaths
were glistening and glittering as the sun came along them, in the hot
ripe morning we worked together turning the hay, tipping over the
yesterday’s swaths with our forks, and bringing yesterday’s fresh,
hidden flowers into the death of sunlight.
It was then that we talked of the past, and speculated on the future.
As the day grew older and less wistful, we forgot everything, and
worked on, singing, and sometimes I would recite him verses as we went,
and sometimes I would tell him about books. Life was full of glamour
for us both.