Chapter 2

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 long chin.

I said I must go. The peacock uncoiled and coiled again his long blue neck as he lay on the hearth. Maggie still stood close in front of me, so that I was acutely aware of my waistcoat buttons.

“Oh, well,” she said, “you'll come again, won't you? Do come again.”

I promised.

“Come to tea one day--yes, do!”

I promised--one day.

The moment I was out of her presence I ceased utterly to exist for her--as utterly as I ceased to exist for Joey. With her curious abstractedness she forgot me again immediately. I knew it as I left her. Yet she seemed almost in physical contact with me while I was with her.

The sky was all pallid again, yellowish. When I went out there was no sun; the snow was blue and cold. I hurried away down the hill, musing on Maggie. The road made a loop down the sharp face of the slope. As I went crunching over the laborious snow I became aware of a figure striding awkwardly down the steep scarp to intercept me. It was a man with his hands in front of him, half stuck in his breeches pockets, and his shoulders square--a real knock-about fellow. Alfred, of course. He waited for me by the stone fence.

“Excuse me,” he said as I came up.

I came to a halt in front of him and looked into his sullen blue eyes. He had a certain odd haughtiness on his brows. But his blue eyes stared insolently at me.

“Do you know anything about a letter--in French--that my wife opened--a letter of mine?”

“Yes,” said I. “She asked me to read it to her.”

He looked square at me. He did not know exactly how to feel.

“What was there in it?” he asked.

“Why?” I said. “Don't you know?”

“She makes out she's burnt it,” he said.

“Without showing it you?” I asked.

He nodded slightly. He seemed to be meditating as to what line of action he should take. He wanted to know the contents of the letter: he must know: and therefore he must ask me, for evidently his wife had taunted him. At the same time, no doubt, he would like to wreak untold vengeance on my unfortunate person. So he eyed me, and I eyed him, and neither of us spoke. He did not want to repeat his request to me. And yet I only looked at him, and considered.

Suddenly he threw back his head and glanced down the valley. Then he changed his position and he looked at me more confidentially.

“She burnt the blasted thing before I saw it,” he said.

“Well,” I answered slowly, “she doesn't know herself what was in it.”

He continued to watch me narrowly. I grinned to myself.

“I didn't like to read her out what there was in it,” I continued.

He suddenly flushed out so that the veins in his neck stood out, and he stirred again uncomfortably.

“The Belgian girl said her baby had been born a week ago, and that they were going to call it Alfred,” I told him.

He met my eyes. I was grinning. He began to grin, too.

“Good luck to her,” he said.

“Best of luck,” said I.

“And what did you tell _her_?” he asked.

“That the baby belonged to the old mother--that it was brother to your girl, who was writing to you as a friend of the family.”

He stood smiling, with the long, subtle malice of a farmer.

“And did she take it in?” he asked.

“As much as she took anything else.”

He stood grinning fixedly. Then he broke into a short laugh.

“Good for _her_!” he exclaimed cryptically.

And then he laughed aloud once more, evidently feeling he had won a big move in his contest with his wife.

“What about the other woman?” I asked.

“Who?”

“Elise.”

“Oh”--he shifted uneasily--“she was all right------”

“You'll be getting back to her,” I said.

He looked at me. Then he made a grimace with his mouth.

“Not me,” he said. “Back your life it's a plant.”

“You don't think the _cher petit bébé_ is a little Alfred?”

“It might be,” he said.

“Only might?”

“Yes--an' there's lots of mites in a pound of cheese.” He laughed boisterously but uneasily.

“What did she say, exactly?” he asked.

I began to repeat, as well as I could, the phrases of the letter:

“Mon cher Alfred,--Figure-toi comme je suis désolée----”

He listened with some confusion. When I had finished all I could remember, he said:

“They know how to pitch you out a letter, those Belgian lasses.”

“Practice,” said I.

“They get plenty,” he said.

There was a pause.

“Oh well,” he said. “I've never got that letter, anyhow.”

The wind blew fine and keen, in the sunshine, across the snow. I blew my nose and prepared to depart.

“And _she_ doesn't know anything?” he continued, jerking his head up the hill in the direction of Tible.

“She knows nothing but what I've said--that is, if she really burnt the letter.”

“I believe she burnt it,” he said, “for spite. She's a little devil, she is. But I shall have it out with her.” His jaw was stubborn and sullen. Then suddenly he turned to me with a new note.

“Why?” he said. “Why didn't you wring that b---- peacock's neck--that b----Joey?”

“Why?” I said. “What for?”

“I hate the brute,” he said. “I let fly at him the night I got back----”

I laughed. He stood and mused.

“Poor little Elise,” he murmured.

“Was she small--petite?” I asked. He jerked up his head.

“No,” he said. “Rather tall.”

“Taller than your wife, I suppose.”

Again he looked into my eyes. And then once more he went into a loud burst of laughter that made the still, snow-deserted valley clap again.

“God, it's a knockout!” he said, thoroughly amused. Then he stood at ease, one foot out, his hands in his breeches pocket, in front of him, his head thrown back, a handsome figure of a man.

“But I'll do that blasted Joey in----” he mused, I ran down the hill, shouting also with laughter.