Wintry Peacock | Page 6

His blue eyes
twinkled with some inscrutable source of pleasure, his skin was fine
and tender, his nose delicately arched. His grey hair being slightly
ruffled, he had a debonnair look, as of a youth who is in love.
"We mun tell 'im it's come," he said slowly, and turning he called:
"Alfred--Alfred! Wheer's ter gotten to?"
Then he turned again to the group.
"Get up, then, Maggie, lass, get up wi' thee. Tha ma'es too much o' th'
bod."
A young man approached, limping, wearing a thick short coat and
knee-breeches. He was Danish-looking, broad at the loins.
"I's come back, then," said the father to the son--"leastwise, he's bin
browt back, flyed ower the Griff Low."
The son looked at me. He had a devil-may-care bearing, his cap on one
side, his hands stuck in the front pockets of his breeches. But he said
nothing.
"Shall you come in a minute, Master?" said the elderly woman, to me.

"Ay, come in an' ha'e a cup o' tea or summat. You'll do wi' summat,
carryin' that bod. Come on, Maggie wench, let's go in."
So we went indoors, into the rather stuffy, overcrowded living-room,
that was too cosy and too warm. The son followed last, standing in the
doorway. The father talked to me. Maggie put out the tea-cups. The
mother went into the dairy again.
"Tha'lt rouse thysen up a bit again now, Maggie," the father-in-law
said--and then to me: "'Er's not bin very bright sin' Alfred come whoam,
an' the bod flyed awee. 'E come whoam a Wednesday night, Alfred did.
But ay, you knowed, didna yer. Ay, 'e comed 'a Wednesday--an' I
reckon there wor a bit of a to-do between 'em, worn't there, Maggie?"
He twinkled maliciously to his daughter-in-law, who was flushed
brilliant and handsome.
"Oh, be quiet, father. You're wound up, by the sound of you," she said
to him, as if crossly. But she could never be cross with him.
"'Er's got 'er colour back this mornin'," continued the father-in-law
slowly. "It's bin heavy weather wi' 'er this last two days. Ay--'er's bin
north-east sin 'er seed you a Wednesday."
"Father, do stop talking. You'd wear the leg off an iron pot. I can't think
where you've found your tongue, all of a sudden," said Maggie, with
caressive sharpness.
"Ah've found it wheer I lost it. Aren't goin' ter come in an' sit thee down,
Alfred?"
But Alfred turned and disappeared.
"'E's got th' monkey on 'is back, ower this letter job," said the father
secretly to me. "Mother 'er knows nowt about it. Lot o' tomfoolery, isn't
it? Ay! What's good o' makin' a peck o' trouble ower what's far enough
off, an' ned niver come no nigher. No--not a smite o' use. That's what I
tell 'er. 'Er should ta'e no notice on't. Ay, what can y'expect."

The mother came in again, and the talk became general. Maggie flashed
her eyes at me from time to time, complacent and satisfied, moving
among the men. I paid her little compliments, which she did not seem
to hear. She attended to me with a kind of sinister, witch-like
gracious-ness, her dark head ducked between her shoulders, at once
humble and powerful. She was happy as a child attending to her
father-in-law and to me. But there was something ominous between her
eyebrows, as if a dark moth were settled there--and something ominous
in her bent, hulking bearing.
She sat on a low stool by the fire, near her father-in-law. Her head was
dropped, she seemed in a state of abstraction. From time to time she
would suddenly recover, and look up at us, laughing and chatting. Then
she would forget again. Yet in her hulked black forgetting she seemed
very near to us.
The door having been opened, the peacock came slowly in, prancing
calmly. He went near to her, and crouched down, coiling his blue neck.
She glanced at him, but almost as if she did not observe him. The bird
sat silent, seeming to sleep, and the woman also sat huddled and silent,
seeming oblivious. Then once more there was a heavy step, and Alfred
entered. He looked at his wife, and he looked at the peacock crouching
by her. He stood large in the doorway, his hands stuck in front of him,
in his breeches pockets. Nobody spoke. He turned on his heel and went
out again.
I rose also to go. Maggie started as if coming to herself.
"Must you go?" she asked, rising and coming near to me, standing in
front of me, twisting her head sideways and looking up at me. "Can't
you stop a bit longer? We can all be cosy to-day, there's nothing to do
outdoors." And she laughed, showing her teeth oddly. She had a