CHAPTER XII
Threedays have run by, and only that I have had no word from Clarissa, I have scarcely been conscious of their passing. Three days, and we have come into a new month, a more wonderful month even than that through which we have just passed; the most wonderful month in the year, were it not that June, July, August, September and October all follow after it.
I watched a lark this morning rise from a tuft of thick sea-grass, such as grows out on the slopes of the cliffs. The whole sea was of quicksilver, throwing back the bright light of a glorious sun. It spread far out to the line of sky, and they met in that haze of heat which makes the horizon so full of mystery. A mile out from shore a mass of gulls were crooshting, filling the distance with their hunger-cries as they flung themselves into themêléefighting for their food. I lay watching them, and even from that distance I could see the black body of a cormorant in their midst, diving and diving again, where the gulls could only feed upon the surface. He reminded me of the people who eat in the London restaurants, who have five meals a day; the people who are able to dive into their pockets and pay for food they never want, while the match-sellers and the flower-sellers, the crossing-sweepers and the beggars outside are whispering their hunger cries like the gulls upon the surface.
"I've come to the conclusion that I don't like the cormorant," I said to Bellwattle.
She was lying back on a bed of heather roots. Her eyes were closed. She might have been asleep. I said it softly, therefore, lest it should wake her. She did not open her eyes, but she answered me.
"That's a man who eats too much, isn't it?" said she.
Of course, it may be that she had read my thoughts before I uttered them. I judge her quite capable of it. It was better than thinking she did not know.
"That's why I don't like him," said I. "Sit up a minute. You can see one there in that crowd of gulls. He keeps diving down and gorging himself in the underground grill-room while all those poor wretches are shivering on the pavement."
She sat up quickly, looking at me in amazement.
"Whatever are you talking about?" said she.
"That cormorant," I replied—"in the midst of those gulls."
"But I thought a cormorant was a man who ate too much."
"So he is—he's a bird as well."
"But we call those billy-divers."
"It would make no difference if you called them English gentlemen," said I.
She began to try and think it out; but in the midst of her meditation, she saw a rabbit sitting on an ant-hill, brushing its nose.
"Look—there's a rabbit," she whispered. "Look at his little white tail! And there's another—further on. Why, there are hundreds of them!"
I followed the direction of her finger, and sure enough there were two rabbits.
"I wonder why it is permissible," I began, "for a woman to talk in hundreds of what she only sees in twos?"
"Well—I expect there are hundreds," said Bellwattle.
I admitted the truth of every word she said.
"If there are two rabbits, there are bound to be hundreds," said I. "It's the nature of the beast."
"The creatures!" she exclaimed, suddenly finding it in her heart to be mother unto all of them.
"The only thing I regret," I continued, "is that I can't see them with such generosity of sight as you do."
She closed that one eye again, the eye that betokens her suspicion, and looked at me. When I betrayed nothing, she lay back on her bed of heather roots once more and at that moment the lark shot up from his tuft of sea-grass and went soaring away and away—up into the still blue of the vault of heaven.
There is nothing in life quite to equal it, that song and flight of the lark; nothing quite so magnificent in its simplicity. If the grandeur of monarchy were as simple as this, there would be no need of revolution; if the simplicity of republics could ever be so grand, there would be no need of kings.
I, too, lay down upon my back, with my hands clasped loosely behind my head and watched him climb, quivering step by quivering step, up that long ladder of light. And ceaselessly with every breath, in-taken or out-spent, he poured forth his tireless song of praise. Up into the bright air that song rose with him; then, like a fountain playing in the heat, fell fast in glittering drops of sound that splashed upon our ears till we were drenched in it.
"I wonder who taught him," said Bellwattle, presently, below her breath.
"Surely there's no teaching in that," I replied. "It's just the unlearnt power to be one's self. If a man could make his home of dried grass and twigs and be content to build it fresh with every year; if he could live so close to the earth and be so little chained to it—he could do something as simply and as grandly as that without being taught."
Bellwattle looked round at me. There is a quality in her which is truly engaging. Whenever one talks seriously to her, she takes it seriously. She takes it literally, too.
"Would he be able to sing like that?" she asked.
"There are some men I know," said I, "who wouldn't."
"What could he do, then?"
"Among other things, be contented."
"Why don't you live like that, then?" she asked. "Cruikshank does. I don't think he'd care if the house fell to the ground to-morrow."
"So long as his garden was not destroyed," I suggested.
"No, he wouldn't mind if his garden was ruined, too. It's making a garden he likes. Building his nest afresh, I suppose. There's a little cottage up behind the farm that belongs to us. It stands in a hollow on the cliffs. I'll show it you one day. He's going to make a garden there. If he were shipwrecked on a desert island, he'd begin the next day to choose a site. Is it site? How do you spell it? S-i-g-h-t?"
"It can be spelt that way," said I.
"Well, it's very silly," she continued. "I should have spelt it c-i-t-e. Can't see what they want the g-h for. But that's what he'd do anyhow—look out for a site for his garden, the very next day."
"And if you were shipwrecked with him," I asked, "what would you do?"
"Would there be any animals on the island?" she inquired.
"Most likely—little monkeys, parrots."
"Little monkeys! I should be all right. Besides, there's Cruikshank. When he's making a garden he's just too sweet for anything. He talks about it as if he was building a city, and we make out where all the flowers are going to live. It's like being God in little—making the whole world over again."
"He described it like that to me once."
"He always feels it like that—so do I."
I turned away, letting my eyes set out to that far line of sky and sea, for again I felt the sense of covetousness stealing over me. It was just the same as when I had envied my electrician and his little nursery maid. Now I was envying Cruikshank and his Bellwattle, grudging them nothing it is true, yet wishing I had won their secret of things, that I could make the magic garden of contentment as undoubtedly as had they.
"Do you know," she said, suddenly, sitting up as she spoke and resting her chin upon her knees. "Do you know I believe London is not really a place to be happy in. I don't know how to explain it, but I know what I mean. I always lived in London, you know, until we married. I was born in London."
"And you were never happy?"
"Oh—I've had the jolliest times imaginable—splendid times."
"Well—isn't that being happy?" said I.
She paused for just a moment and then, with an emphatic shake of her head, she said "No!"
"Could they really have been splendid times?"
"Yes—yes—they were splendid. I shall never have times like them again. They made me forget everything. Oh, why is it so difficult to explain? But it is that—it's just—" She stumbled, piteously at a loss for words. It was all there within her, bubbling to her very lips, dancing in her eyes. Only the words were wanting, and in the need of them her forehead wrinkled, all her features screwed themselves up into a comical expression of pain. It was not really comical. It was more like some dumb animal—like Dandy, in whose eyes sometimes I almost fancy that I see tears because he cannot express in words the emotion which is a torrent within him. But at least I understand what he would say, and when it comes to such a pass I tell him so. I could not tell Bellwattle. To begin with, I did not know myself. She was driving towards some point which was vivid and real enough to her, whereas, there was only the dimmest conjecture in my mind. In such a case it is best to ask questions. Give her something to contradict, and in the excitement of being misunderstood a woman may hit upon her meaning unawares.
"If they made you forget everything," I began.
"Yes; but don't you see! That's just it! You're not meant to forget. It isn't forgetting that's happiness. It's remembering. I can see you don't understand what I mean. I didn't mean remembering things that have happened a long while ago, but being conscious—that's the word I want—being conscious of things while they're going on. Like that lark up there being conscious that it's singing like that; being conscious that it's the first of May, that the sun's shining, that the sky is blue, that the sea is—is like that—" she pointed to it glittering there below us. "That—oh, that God's in his Heaven—that's being happy. Trying to forget everything is only pleasure. And that's all they do in London. My splendid times were when I forgot, not when I remembered. When I remembered, I was conscious of things—conscious that people were poor and starving, that I was only just one in a crowd, all crushing to see something that would make us forget there was drunkenness and filthiness and crime everywhere. Every newspaper placard in the street reminded me of it. The only times when I could get away from it were at a theatre or a jolly good dance or something like that; then, I forgot—then those times were splendid. But I wasn't happy. I lie back here now on this heather and I look up at that lark—miles and miles up in the heavens and I don't want to forget a note of it—I don't want to forget that life is going on all around me. I should hate to forget it, because here it's all wonderful. If any one here committed murder it would be whispered among the villagers in awed voices. No one would dare go shouting it down the main street. His own mother wouldn't recognize him afterwards if he did. Men get drunk, I know; they beat their wives, they starve them, they starve themselves and their children—life isn't any different, but things like that take their proper place. If a lark were to soar up into the heavens out of the heart of London, there would be just one man to see it, the man who writes toThe Times; but all the other thousands would never know of it. There's no light in London, there's no air, there's no sound; it's only darkness and smell and noise. No wonder you want to forget when you live there, and I've had splendid times—forgetting. But I wouldn't change it for this—this waking in the morning and feeling another day to be conscious of everything, another day to see the sky and the clouds, another day to feel the wind from the sea on your face. I remember so well the feeling of waking in London, the counting up what things could be done to make the time wear out until it came to the priceless hours of sleep and utter oblivion. Is oblivion right? What I want to say is forgetfulness, but I've said it so often."
She stopped, breathless almost, with her cheeks flushed, her eyes alight. I never heard her talk like that before. I shall probably never hear her talk like it again. Women are unexpected creatures; far more unexpected are they than incomprehensible. It had never been in the training of her to express herself; wherefore, in her own quaint ways, she had thought these things out in silence to herself, sometimes speaking them aloud in the mornings as she dressed, at night when she was going to bed. Cruikshank tells me she is one of those who talks incessantly to herself when alone. Sometimes he has thought she has been in conversation with some one, but on going to her room has found her alone, doing her hair, holding an animated argument with her reflection in the mirror.
But it was not so much the sudden expression of her thoughts and her philosophy that arrested my interest. It was the philosophy itself. Something echoed in me that it was true; that she had found for me the secret of my discontentment. I wanted to pursue it then, at once; for philosophy is an elusive thing. Often your fingers may clutch just the hem of its garment and still it escapes your grasp.
"Then here," said I, "do you never forget? Are you always remembering—always being conscious?"
She nodded her head emphatically.
"Always."
"How about winter? The lark doesn't soar in winter. There are no flowers—all the birds are frightened and hungry. You never see the sea or feel the sun like this in winter. Don't you want to forget then? Wouldn't you be glad of a theatre or a restaurant—a street with crowds of people, a gay glittering of lights or the noise of life? Isn't the whole world too still in winter? Don't you want to forget then that you're just one little solitary two-legged creature in a wild desert of a world—don't you want to huddle up close to all the others whose company makes this life seem less lonely?"
She gazed at me for a long, long while in silence.
"That's just whatyoufeel—isn't it?" she said at length. "That's why you live in London on your fifteen hundred a year. You like the country well enough in the summer—I can see you do. You love it even more than you think. But in the winter, you believe you'd be miserable. You've grown into the habit of your theatres and your restaurants which really you hate. Look what you said about the cormorant. You can't do without your crowds of people, and you tell yourself that human nature is the most interesting and most lovable thing in the world. But do you think that you ever see so much of human nature in a crowd as you do in one single individual? Do you think if we saw a whole flight of larks—flight or whatever they call it—do you think we should appreciate them like we do that little fellow up there?"
"This doesn't dispose of winter," said I.
She put her chin on her knees once more, and once more she stared out at sea.
"There is no winter," she said, "except in people's hearts."
"There are no dead," I whispered to myself. In the suddenness of hearing her say it, it sounded as true as that.
"Explain that," said I.
"I can't," she replied. "It's just there is no winter. It's only a word—like saying it's twelve o'clock. There is no twelve o'clock. It's only that the sun's somewhere or other. That's just what it is in winter. In winter the sun's far away—it rains, the sky is grey, the sea is green. Cruikshank and I put on strong boots and mackintoshes and go out for miles into the country and all the time we keep saying, 'Do you remember the primroses in that ditch—do you remember the furze blossom on that bush?' Always 'Do you remember?' and not because they are gone for ever, but because we know that in that very spot we shall see those primroses again, that they are there, warm under the earth, ready and waiting to come up again, more luxuriant"—she screwed up her face over this word—"more luxuriant than ever."
"You're a wonderful woman," said I, suddenly.
What a fool I was. That broke the spell of it all. For suddenly she remembered that she was a woman; suddenly she became conscious of her sex. It was as though I had thrust a gag into her mouth, had frightened her into silence. I shall never succeed in making her talk like that again.