DULCE DOMUM
1.
Phœbe was sweeping the flagged yard next morning when a trap driven by
one of Mr. Jerrold’s men turned up the drive and stopped with a
flourish. But it was with no flourish that Mr. Jerrold himself
descended, rather with the wincing and suppressed groans of one stiff
with lumbago. Leaning on a stick, he came towards her, his dark brow
puckered.
“Is Mr. Vale in?” he asked.
“He is indeed, sir,” answered Phœbe, leaning on her broom and speaking
breathlessly, “and I suppose you’ve heard of the goings-on here. He’s
never stirred out of the parlour since yesterday morning, and he must be
drunk as a lord now with all the whisky he’s carried in there. And as
for that Fawnie—and it goes against the grain for me to ‘Mrs. Vale’
her—she’s getting so arrogant there’s no knowing what she’ll do. This
morning she carries down a bundle of soiled clothes and tells me to wash
’em. ‘Here, Phœbe, you wash these clothes and see you wash ’em clean,’
says she. Oh, I like her cheek, I do. ‘Me wash for a Nindian!’ says I.
‘Am I Mrs. Vale or ain’t I?’ says she. ‘You do what I say or you can get
out.’ That’s the way she talked to me, sir, and if you was to have got
out of that trap and hit me over the head with a bludgeon, I shouldn’t
have been knocked more of a heap. A gentleman must have a margin, as I
say to Hughie, but when it comes to a Nindian wife . . .”
“And did you wash the clothes?”
“I did, sir, and there they hang on the line enough to scare the crows
with their rags an’ tags.”
“It’s too bad,” said Mr. Jerrold, commiseratingly, “but do the best you
can for Mr. Vale’s sake.”
“Shall I tell him you’re here, sir?”
“No, I’ll go straight in.”
He limped to the door of the parlour and opened it, after tapping on the
panel.
The shutters were closed and the room lay in a stuffy haze of tobacco
smoke. He felt sure that Vale had put a decanter out of sight at the
sound of his rap. Certainly he smelled strongly of whisky and looked as
though he had slept in his clothes.
“Phew,” said Mr. Jerrold, “may I open a window? There’s a breeze rising
outside that’s not half bad. We’re in for a devil of a storm. As a
matter of fact, I doubt whether the rain will be in time to save the
crops. There. Isn’t that nice?” He had thrown open the shutters, and a
breeze, fresh and uneasy, swept into the room. He sat down on the
piano-stool and faced Vale, trying to smile unconcernedly.
“Well,” said Vale, “what do you think of my latest?”
“I’m staggered. We’re all staggered. All I can say is that if I had
known in time, Ramsey should have married you only over my dead body.
You could not have known what you were doing.”
“I did know, though. It’s all right. I’m not kicking. I’m just trying to
get used to the idea of having a squaw for a wife.”
“But why, in God’s name, did you bring her into your house in the first
place?”
“Have you heard nothing?”
“They say the old woman had beaten her.”
“So she did. Horribly.”
“That’s nothing. A put-up job. You’re too easy. Then after you brought
her here there was that charivari.”
“Yes. Then Chard and the minister came.”
“You didn’t mind them, surely?”
“No, but I did mind Ramsey. I don’t mean that I was afraid of him,
but—well, I was tired, and couldn’t think for the heat, and there was
the kid. And everyone saying I should make it right.”
“Did Ramsey say I even hinted such a thing?”
“No, but——”
“Oh, he said Gay did, eh?”
“He said she hoped I’d do the right thing.”
“Meaning she hoped you’d put your head in a noose. Why didn’t you come
to see us and find out what we thought for yourself?”
“I was going to. I started out but——”
“Well?”
“Oh, Lord, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why didn’t you come, Vale?”
“I met your daughter on the road. She was driving—and she——”
“Didn’t speak?”
“No. Turned her head away. So I came home.”
“Oh, you young fool! What if the girl didn’t speak? She was upset. She
told me about it. After she had driven down the road a bit she made the
man turn back. She thought she would overtake you, but you had
disappeared. And, after all, man, what if she didn’t speak? You would
scarcely expect her to—after what happened. But I am different. Why in
God’s name didn’t you come to me?”
Derek shook himself impatiently. “I don’t know,” he said. Then he looked
into Mr. Jerrold’s face pleadingly. “Don’t talk about it any more. I’m
stupid as an owl to-day. My brain won’t work. . . . I’ve done it, and
there’s nothing more to be said. I’m going to stand by it. Will you have
a drink?”
“No, it’s too hot. I’ll never forgive Ramsey for this. I’ll make him
sorry, too. I was going to buy a new carpet for the church, and I’m
dashed if I will, now.” He stared angrily out of the window. He added in
a moment, “Just look at those clouds, Vale, over the lake. Menacing,
aren’t they? I must be getting home.”
“Better stay till it’s over.”
“No, I’ll have to go. Grace is very nervous about storms, and this is
going to be a bad one.” He got up and leant on his stick. “But remember,
I’m your friend, always. And if I can do anything—look here! Why can’t
you pay her off and get rid of her?”
“I’m not going to do anything,” shouted Derek, suddenly, “but sit here
and soak. It’s all I’m good for. Talk, talk, talk—I’m utterly sick of
talk.” He glared at his friend with rather pathetic hostility.
A heavy sound of thunder rolled above the lake.
“I suppose you are,” concurred Mr. Jerrold. “Well, good-bye. And, I say,
that note is just about due. I can meet it all right.”
“I’d forgotten it.”
“Well, I hadn’t.”
“How are things going?”
“Pretty rotten, just now. But they’ll be looking up soon. They’re bound
to. I have grand young stock coming on. I want you to see them. Will you
come over?”
“Of course I shall. And look here, if I’ve acted like a grouchy brute
to-day, don’t imagine that I’m not appreciating your coming over here
like this—when you’re suffering.”
“Good God, I’d have come on my hands and knees to have prevented this!”
“Oh, it may not turn out so badly. The thing is just to get shaken down
to the new conditions. And—tell Miss Grace, will you? not to worry over
that little encounter of ours. I understand. It was the only thing she
could do.”
A flash of lightning quivered over the darkened fields, flooding them
with sombre gold. A violent crash of thunder at the same moment
terrified Mr. Jerrold’s horse into a rampant position, so that against
the deep purple of the lake it looked like some impressive beast of
heraldry.
Mr. Jerrold snatched his hat, and, growling with pain, hurried out.
2.
After the long drought, after the inertia of weeks of tropic heat, the
storm rushed up from the lake as a deliverer to loose the chafing,
burning bonds. Land and sky, in a torrent of rain, seemed to clasp each
other like long separated lovers. Now there was such blackness that a
face across the room could not be seen; now a vivid pinkish light
disclosed the very cracks in the old paintings. The tops of the great
trees were agitated into wild disorder, yet their rough trunks expressed
invincible resistance. Nevertheless, before long, with a shivering jar,
one of them fell across the driveway.
The rain beat it down, as it lay prostrate, its foliage drooping on the
sand, its branches, where only this morning Derek had watched a family
of young squirrels wantonly frisking, now crumpled against the ground.
Why had it been selected for disaster? Had it invited the turbulent
embrace of the wind? He was sorry to see it fallen, and, from pitying
it, he came to pitying himself. It seemed to him that in some mysterious
way he had been made the plaything of a cruel and capricious fate. . . .
A sudden scream from the dining-room made him start. “What’s the matter
now?” he asked irritably as he hurried out. Fawnie was rocking her body
in fear, her arms clasping her head. Phœbe sat nursing the baby. One of
Fawnie’s little brothers, the one who was accustomed to carry the idiot
boy, stood in a dark corner, the whites of his eyes prominent with fear.
“What’s the matter?” repeated Derek. “Was it the tree? That’s all right.
There are plenty more.” He went to Fawnie and took her arms from her
head. She threw herself against his shoulder, sobbing, “Oh, I am so
scared! I am so scared! Another of them will fall and smash the roof.
Oo—I wish I was in the shack! It’s this high ceiling—if it was to fall
on us, from so far, it’d kill us sure.”
“Nonsense,” said Derek. “It’s a very low ceiling. See, I can almost
touch it with my hand.” Still Fawnie cried.
“She’s worse than the baby,” said Phœbe. “He’s a lamb, ain’t ye, my pet?
A lamb, if ever there was one. Look at his eyes dancin’, Mr. Vale. Blue,
ain’t they? Look at his little hands. Hello, fat fingers!”—she mumbled
his chubby fists and dandled him.
“What is Lisgar doing here?” asked Derek of Fawnie. He did not want her
family hanging about the house.
“He was gettin’ a point of milk when the storm came on. I brought him in
here out of the kitchen ’cause that ole Snailem, and Hugh, and some
Mistwell fellers was teasin’ him. I’ll put him out in the storm, if you
like, Derek.”
“No, no. It’s all right. Get him a piece of cake, Phœbe, and he’ll
forget to be afraid.”
Phœbe, the baby tucked under her arm, went to the kitchen. She brought
back a tray covered with tea-cups, a pot of tea, and a plate heaped with
seed-cake. A sound of scraping chairs came from the kitchen as the men
drew up to the table for a like refreshment. Lisgar’s bright eyes grew
round and he drew near the tray, yet, when Derek had put a piece of cake
in his hand, he was still too frightened to eat, and stood, motionless
as a bronze statue, his gaze intensely fixed on the streaming window, as
he watched for the next terrifying flash. Rain thundered on the roof,
and spattered in the fireplace. Phœbe returned to the kitchen to eat
with the men. She took the baby with her, talking unintelligibly to him.
Fawnie had established herself beside the teapot. She was calm now, even
playful, because the storm was easing, and she felt protected by Derek’s
presence. The cake and tea tasted very good to Derek, for he had eaten
nothing since his breakfast the morning before. His spirits rose, and
when Fawnie clapped her hands as a glimmer of sunlight gained the room,
he smiled at her as a child and said:
“Going to be a good girl?”
“You bet,” she replied, nodding her head emphatically. “And Phœbe’s got
to mind the baby and call me Mrs. Vale every time she speaks to me, and
not laugh at my clothes. Kin I buy some new clothes right away, Derek?”
“Yes, but you must not be sharp with Phœbe or she’ll leave, and God
knows what we should do then.”
“I’d get another servant, an Indian girl, and I’d slap her face if she
was saucy, and pull her hair, and make her scrub the floor five times a
day, hey, Lisgar, wouldn’t I?”
“Sure,” said Lisgar, “you’d likely kill her.”
“In the meantime,” Derek made his tone severe, “you’re not to order
Phœbe about too freely. She won’t stand it, and I want to keep her.”
Rising, he shook himself impatiently, strode to the door and threw it
open. A moist, cool breeze swept into the room. Large, bright drops
still fell from the eaves and splashed on the flagstones below, but the
clouds, massed into dark towers and sinister battlements, were receding
southward. Overhead the sky was a drenched and tender blue.
“Oh, see the rainbow!” cried Fawnie, “like a fonny bridge across the
lake.”
“A good omen, Fawnie.”
“World without end. Omen,” she repeated, remembering the marriage
service.
“I thought you said you didn’t understand a word the clergyman said,”
laughed Derek.
“Don’ you believe everything I say. I say what comes into my head. Let’s
go out.”
It was delicious out of doors. The dripping grass was sweet and cool to
tread on; delicate clouds of pink and gold floated like banners of peace
above the tree-tops. They went to the fallen tree and examined it.
Lisgar began to walk the length of its splendid tapering trunk. A brood
of half-grown chickens had taken shelter beneath its leaves. They ran
out now, shaking themselves and stretching their long legs joyously.
Yet, last of all came one who moved stiffly, half dead from wet and
chill. He had never feathered as he should; in fact, he had no feathers
except on his head and wings, and a little ridiculous down on his red,
sunburnt body. Now he staggered forth, grotesque, yet pitiable. Derek
picked him up. “He’s positively indecent,” he said. “I suppose I ought
to wring his neck. He’ll never be any good.”
“Give him to Lisgar. The ole woman’ll put him in the pot.”
That settled it. Derek carried him to the kitchen and made Phœbe wrap
him in warm flannel, and give him a little milk. Soon he looked out
brightly enough from his wrapper and opened his beak for more milk.
“Snailem found three poults behind the apple-house, flattened right out
by the rain, dead as door-nails,” said Phœbe.
“Better dead,” muttered Snailem, shifting his tobacco, “better dead than
livin’ to be et.”
3.
Derek had felt that he must get away from the house with its strange
associations—the atmosphere of his marriage clung like stale incense to
the rooms. After a few turns on the driveway, he had followed the path
into the orchard.
It was dark as a crow’s wing there, a good place to wander unseen. The
lantern hanging before the shack only served to intensify the richness
of the night, as a jewel the raven hair of a woman.
He lighted his pipe, and paced up and down under the wet trees, enjoying
the coolness of the night and the movement of his body after the long
hours in the parlour. He could hear voices near the lantern, and, as he
approached the shack, he saw figures of several men about the table
under the lantern. Then he heard the rattle of dice and a low laugh from
Jammery. The other men never laughed audibly. Concealed by the trees, he
drew nearer and saw their faces clearly as they bent over the table.
Isaac and Enoch, the sons-in-law; Charley, the grown-up son; and
handsome Jammery, his even features and slender moustache in contrast
with the rough-hewn, bony faces of Isaac and Enoch, and the round,
boyish face of Charley. Inside the shack he could see a group of women
and boys. The old woman was plucking a fowl which was tied to the
ceiling by its feet.
Jammery was winning, for he drew a little pile of coins to him, and
looked in at the door with another laugh. Perhaps he had promised one of
the girls a present if he won, for one quickly darted out and put her
arms about his neck and kissed him. Derek’s pipe had gone out and he
refilled it, cautiously striking a match and shielding it under his
coat. But he had in mind the senses of the white man, not the brown. In
an instant the face of every Indian was turned towards him; Jammery got
up and came over.
“It’s you, is it, Mr. Vale?” he said. “I saw the light on your face, and
recognized you. It’s nice in the orchard, isn’t it, since the rain?”
“Yes. I was just taking a stroll.”
“I hope you won’t mind us having a little game. Just a few dollars pass
between us of an evening.”
“I don’t mind. I’ll come over and watch you for a bit.”
Jammery’s eyebrows went up, but he answered politely: “Yes, do. We’d be
pleased to have you, and I can offer you a glass of whisky that’s not
too bad if you would not be above drinking with Indians.”
Derek gave a reckless laugh. “Above drinking with Indians! Why should I
be? You’re my brothers-in-law now, aren’t you? All one family!”
“Yes, I suppose that’s so.”
Derek caught him by the arm. “Come along, then, brother-in-law, let’s
have a drink together. I’ve been drinking for two days, but that doesn’t
matter.”
“I guess you’re the sort that can stand a lot,” said Jammery,
admiringly. “Half a dozen drinks would make those fellows wild, and even
I couldn’t stand what you can.”
“I’m as sober as a judge,” said Derek, truculently.
“Anyone can see that. I’m glad I have something respectable to offer
you.”
The men at the table showed no surprise at Derek’s advent, but the old
squaw, after a sharp look into Jammery’s face, slammed the door of the
shack. Enoch, a quiet, slow Indian, rose and offered his place on the
bench to Derek.
“Thanks,” said Derek, taking it. “Go on with your game. I’ll watch.”
Jammery produced a bottle from under the table, and going to the
cupboard in the lean-to, returned with a tumbler which Derek recognized
as one from his own house. “It’s the only glass we have,” explained
Jammery, “we like it just as well out of tin mugs.”
Derek took the glass that Jammery handed him and sipped it critically.
The flavour was so like his own that the thought crossed his mind that
probably Fawnie had had something to do with the presence of this good
Scotch in the shack. Nevertheless, he took his drink philosophically. He
liked to watch the Indians as they played, their deep-set eyes
glittering like jewels in their immobile, swarthy faces, the movements
of their hands as they shook the dice. Jammery continued to win.
Presently young Charley began to pay his debts in packets of red
picker’s tickets with the name of Derek’s uncle printed on them. At last
they were gone, and the boy rose sulkily from the table, saying a few
words in Indian to Jammery.
“Very well,” replied Jammery, in English, “go to bed. Perhaps Mr. Vale
would like to take your place.”
“I shouldn’t mind,” said Derek. As a matter of fact, he had been wanting
to take a hand for some time. . . .
So Grimstone folded him closer in its woods, and orchards, and streams,
and in the lives of the aboriginal people who had once so barbarously
dwelt there.
The women went to their bunks; and a slight silver moon rose above the
orchard. An owl cried repeatedly in a mournful, downward trill. The men
at the table noticed none of these things. Derek had had a considerable
amount of money in his pockets and he was losing it slowly but surely to
Jammery and Isaac. He did not mind, for Jammery kept his glass full and
it was the excitement of the play he craved. He played wildly, his
cheeks flushed by drink, and his fair face contrasting strangely with
the bronze countenances about him.
Snailem had cleaned out the apple-house that day, and thrown a few
bushels of withered apples from last year’s crop into a corner of the
orchard for the pigs. They had been up finishing these by moonlight, and
now, attracted by the light of the lantern, they came running and
stamping through the trees to the very feet of the gamblers. They
crowded closely around them, snuffling and snorting, their coarse pink
snouts wet with apple juice turned up towards the men’s faces. A big
Yorkshire sow peered quizzically up at Derek, chewing something with
relish, in short, quick smacks. He stared at her in surprise.
“Damned if I ever saw such intelligent fache, as fache on thish sow,” he
said. “Look at her, Jammery.”
Enoch and Isaac began to drive the pigs away with kicks, and blows with
a stick.
“I liked thish—I’ll come again,” said Derek, as he got up to go.
“I’ll walk through the orchard with you,” Jammery said, gently taking
his arm.
“No; don’t wannany help. Leggo my arm.”
He shook himself free and marched steadily down the orchard path, the
pigs darting here and there, out of his way. He was in good spirits, and
broke into a song that he and two Halifax friends had often sung as a
trio:
“A little farm well tilled,
A little barn well filled,
A little wife well willed—
Give me, give me.”
His good baritone voice, rich with emotion, echoed against the grey
walls of Grimstone. . . . He was looking up at Fawnie’s window, when, in
a tone deepened by melancholy, he sang the last verse:
“I like the farm well tilled,
And I like the house well filled,
But no wife at all—
Give me, give me.”
The locust flowers fell about him; the lake lapped musically upon the
shingle; a cockerel crowed feebly in the barn. Derek laid his head
against the grey wall and wept.