Part 2, Chapter 5

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Part two, chapter five of The White Peacock by D. H. Lawrence.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
Simon Evers, Part two, chapter five, An Arrow from the
Impatient God. On an afternoon, three or four days after
the recovery of sam Matters became complicated, George, as usual,

(00:23):
discovered that he had been dawdling in the portals of
his desires when the doors came too with a bang.
Then he hastened to knock tell her, He said, I
will come up to morrow after milking. Tell her I
am coming to see her on the evening that morrow.
The first person to put in an appearance was a
garrulous spinster who called, ostensibly to inquire into the absence

(00:46):
of the family from church. I said to Elizabeth, now,
what a thing. If anything happens to them just now
and the wedding is put off, I felt I must
come and make myself sure that nothing had happened. We
all feel so interested, and let you just now. I'm
sure everybody is talking of her. She seems in the air.
I really think we shall have thunder. I hope we sha'n't. Yes,

(01:07):
we're all so glad that mister Tempest is content with
a wife from at home. The others his father and
mister Robarts, and the rest. They were, none of them
to be suited at home, though to be sure, the
wise they brought were nothing. Indeed they were not, as
many of one said. Missus Robart was a paltry choice,
neither in looks or manner. Had she anything to boast
of if her family was older than mine. And it
wasn't much to make up for what she lacked in

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other things that I could easily have supplied her with.
And oh, dear, what an object she is now, with
her wisp of hair and her spectacles. She for one,
hasn't kept much of her youth. But when is the
exact date? Dear? Some say this, and some say that,
But as I always say, I never trust her. They say,
it is so nice that you have that cousin a
Cannon to come down for the service, Missus Beardsall, and
Sir Walter Houghton for the groom's man. What you don't

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think so? Oh? But I know, dear, I know you
do like to treasure up these secrets, don't you? You
are greedy for all the good things just now, she
shook her head at Letty, and the jet ornaments on
her bonnet twittered like a thousand wagging little tongues. Then
she sighed. I was about to recommence her song when
she happened to turn her head and to aspire a

(02:12):
telegraph boy coming up the path. Well, I hope nothing
is wrong, dear, I hope nothing is wrong. I always
feel so terrified of a telegram. You'd better not open
it yourself, Dear, don't now let your brother go. Letty,
who had turned pale, hurried to the door. The sky
was very dark. There was a mutter of thunder. It's
all right, said Letty, trembling it only to say he's

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coming to night. I'm very thankful, very thankful, cried the spinster.
It might have been so much worse. I'm sure I
never opened a telegram without feeling it as if I
was opening a death blow. I'm so glad, Dear. It
must have upset you. What news to take back to
the village, Supposing something had happened. She sighed again, and
the jet drops twinkled ominously in the thunder light, as

(02:57):
if declaring they would make something of it. Yet it
was six o'clock. The air relaxed a little, and the
thunder was silent. George would be coming about seven, and
the spinscer showed no signs of departure, and Lesley might
arrive at any moment. Betty fretted and fidgeted, and the
old woman gabbled on. I looked out of the window

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at the water and the sky. The day had been uncertain.
In the morning, it was warm, and the sunshine had
played and raced among the cloud shadows on the hills. Later,
great cloud masses had stalked up from the northwest and
crowded thick across the sky. In this little night, sleet
and wind and rain whirled furiously. Then the sky had

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laughed at us again. In the sunshine came the spinster.
But as she talked over the hilltop rose the wide
forehead of the cloud, rearing slowly, ominously higher. A first
messenger of storm passed darkly over the sky, leaving the
way clear again. I will go round to hide close,
said Netty. I'm sure it will restore me again. Are

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you coming down the road, miss Latter, or do you
mind if I leave you? I will go, dear, if
you think there is going to be another storm, I dreaded,
so perhaps i'd better wait. Oh, it will not come
over for an hour. I'm sure we be the weather
well out here, don't we. Cyril, you'll come with me,
won't you. We three set off the gossip, leaning on
her toes, tripping between us. She was much gratified by

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Letty's information concerning the proposals for the new home. We
left her in a glow of congratulatory smiles on the highway,
but the clouds had uper eared and stretched in two
great arms, reaching overhead. The little spinster hided along, but
the black hands of the clouds kept pace and clutched her.
A sudden gust of winds shuddered in the trees and

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rushed upon her cloak, blowing its bugles. An icy rain
drop smote into her cheek. She hurried on, praying fervently
for her bonnet's sake, that she might reach Widow Harriman's
cottage before the burst came. But the thunder crashed in
her ear, and a host of hailstones flew at her.
In despair and anguish, she fled from under the ash trees.

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She reached the widow's garden gate, where out leapt the
lightning full at her put me in the stair hole.
She cried, where is the stair hole? Dancing wildly round,
she saw a ghost. It was the reflection of the
sainted spincer hild Us Slater in the widow's mirror, a
flection with a bonnet fallen backwards, and to it attached
a thick rope of gray brown hair. The author of

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the ghost instinctively twisted to look at the back of
her head. She saw some ends of gray hair, and
fled into the open stair hole as into a grave.
We had gone back home till the storm was over,
and then, restless, afraid of the arrival of George, we
set out again into the wet evening. It was fine
and chilly, and already a mist was rising from Nethermere,

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bading the far the shore, where the trees rose loftily,
suggesting grows beyond the nile. The birds were singing ratously.
The fresh green hedge glistened vividly and glowed again with
intense green. Looking at the water, I perceived a delicate
flush from the west, hiding along it. The mists licked

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and wreathed up the shores from the hidden white distance
came the mournful cry of water fowl. We went slowly
along behind a heavy cart, which clanked and rattled under
the dripping trees, with the hoofs of the horse moving
with broad thuds in front. We passed over black patches
where the ash flowers were beaten down, and under great

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massed clouds of green sycamore. At the sudden curve of
the road near the foot of the hill, I stopped
to break off a spray of larch, where the soft
cones were heavy as raspberries and gay like flowers with petals.
The shaken bough spat at a heavy shower on my face,
and dropped so cold that they seemed to sink into
my blood and chill it, hark, said Letty. As I

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was drying my face, there was the quick patter of
a motor car coming down hill. The heavy cart was
drawn across the road to rest, and the driver hurried
to turn the horse back. It moved with painful slowness,
and we stood in the road in suspense. Suddenly, before
we knew it, the car was dropping down on us,
coming at us in a curve. Having rounded the horse

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and cart, Letty stood faced with terror. Leslie saw her
and swung round the wheels on the sharp curving hillside,
looking only to see that he should miss her. The
car slid sideways, the mud crackled on the wheels, and
the machine went crashing into another mare. He caught the
edge of the old stone wall with a smash. Then,
for a few moments I think I was blind. When
I saw again Leslie was lying across the broken hedge,

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his head hanging down the bank, his face covered with blood.
The car rested strangely on the brink of the water,
crumpled as if it had sunk down to rest. Letty,
with hands shuddering, was wiping the blood from his eyes
with a piece of our underskirt. In a moment, she said,
he is not dead. Let us take him home, Let
us take him quickly. I ran and took the wicket

(08:09):
gate off its hinges and laid him on that. His
legs trailed down, but we carried him thus. She at
the feet, ay at the head. She made me stop
and put him down. I thought the way was too
much for her. But it was not that I can't
bear to see his hand hanging knocking against the bushes
and things. It was not many yards to the house.
A maid servant saw us, came running out and went

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running back, like the frightened lap wing from the wounded cat.
We waited until the doctor came. There was a deep
graze down the side of the head, serious but not dangerous.
There was a cut across a cheek bone that would
leave a scar, and the collar bone was broken. I
stayed until he had recovered consciousness. Letty. He wanted Letty,

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so she had to remain at high close all night.
I went home to tell my mother. When I went
to bed, I looked across at the lighted windows of
high clothes, and the lights trailed mistily to walls me
across the water. The cedar stood dark, guard against the house. Bright.
The windows were like the stars, and like the stars,

(09:12):
covering their torment in brightness. The sky was glittering with
sharp lights. They are too far off to take trouble
for us, so little, little, almost to nothingness. All the
great hollow, vastness roars overhead, and the stars are only
sparks that whirl and spin in the restless space. The

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Earth must listen to us. She covers her face with
a thin veil of mist, and is sad. She soaks
up our blood tenderly in the darkness, grieving, and in
the light she soothes and reassures us. Here on our
earth is sympathy and hope. The heavens have nothing but distances.

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A corn crake talked to me across the valley, talked
and talked endlessly, asking and answering in hoarse tones from
the sleeping mist hidden meadows. The monotonous voice that on
past summer evenings had had pleasant notes of romance, now
was intolerable to me. Its inflexible harshness and cacophony seemed

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like the voice of fate speaking out its tuneless perseverance
in the night. In the morning, Letty came home one
sad eyed and self reproachful. After a short time, they
came for her as he wanted her again. When in
the evening I went to see George, he too was
very despondent. It's no good, now, said I. You should

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have insisted and mate your own destiny. Yes, perhaps so,
he drawled, in his best reflective manner. I would have
had her. She'd have been glad if you'd done as
you wanted with her. She won't live him till he's strong,
and he'll marry her. Before then, you should have had
the courage to risk yourself. You're always too careful of
yourself and your own poor feelings. You never could brace

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yourself up to a shower bath of contempt and hard usage.
So you've saved your feelings and lost not much. I
suppose you couldn't. But he began not looking up, and
I laughed at him. Go on, I said, well, she
was engaged to him. Ah, you thought you were too
good to be rejected. He was very pale, and when

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he was pale, the tan on his skin looked sickly.
He regarded me with his dark eyes, which were now
full of misery and a child's big despair, and nothing
else I completed, with which the little exhausted gun mote
of my anger wrecked and sank utterly. Yet no thoughts
would spread sail on the sea of my pity. I

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was like water that heaves were yearning and is still.
Lesley was very ill for some time. He had a
slight brain fever and was delirious, insisting that Letty was
leaving him. She stayed most of her days at high close.
One day in June he lay resting on a deck
chair in the shade of a cedar, and she was

(12:07):
sitting by him. It was a yellow, sultry day, and
all the atmosphere seemed inert, and all things were languid.
Don't you think, dear, she said, it would be better
for us not to marry. He lifted his head nervously
from the cushions. His face was emblazoned with a livid
red bar on a field of white, and he looked warm, wistful.

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You mean not yet, he asked, yes, and perhaps perhaps
never Humph, he laughed, sinking down again. I must be
getting like myself again if you begin to tease me.
But she said, struggling valiently, I'm not sure I ought
to marry you. He laughed again, though a little apprehensively.

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Are you afraid I shall always be weak in my nottle?
He asked, But you wait a month? No, that doesn't
bother me, Oh doesn't it, silly boy? No, it's myself.
I'm sure I've made no complaint about you. Not likely,
But I wish you'd let me go. I'm a strong
man to hold you, aren't I look at my muscular paw.

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He held out his hands, frail and white with sickness.
You know you hold me, and I want you to
let me go. I don't want to to what to
get married at all? Let me be, let me go?
What for? Oh, for my sake? You mean you don't
love me? Love love? I don't know anything about it,

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but I can't We can't mean. Don't you see? What
do they say? Flesh of one flesh? Why? He whispered,
like a child that has told some tale of mystery.
She looked at him as he lay propped upon his elbow,
turned towards her, his white face of fear and perplexity,
like a child that cannot understand and is afraid. A

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mons to cry. Then slowly tears gathered full in her eyes,
and she wept from pity and despair. This excited him terribly.
He got up from his chair, and the cushions fell
on to the grass. What's the matter, what's the matter, Oh, letty?
Is it be that you want me? Now? Is that it?

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Tell me? Tell me, now, tell me. He grasped her
wrists and tried to pull her hands from her face.
The tears were running down his cheeks. She felt him trembling,
and the sound of his voice alarmed her from herself.
She hastily smeared the tears from her eyes, got up
and put her arms round him. He hid his head
on her shoulder and sobbed while she bent over him.

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And so they cried out their cries till they were ashamed,
looking round to see if anyone were near. Then she
hurried about picking up the cushions, making him lie down,
and arranging him comfortably so that she might be busy.
He was querulous, like a sick indulged child. He would
have her arm under his shoulders and her face near

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his well, he said, smiling faintly. Again, after a time,
you are naughty to give us such rough times. Is
it for the pleasure of making up bad as a schnucker,
aren't you? She kept close to him, and he did
not see the WinCE and quiver of her lips. I

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wish I was strong again. Couldn't we go boating or
ride on horseback? And you'd have to behave then? Do
you think I should be strong in a month, stronger
than you? I hope? So, she said, Why I don't
believe you do? I believe you like me like this
so that you can lay me down and smooth me,
don't you quiet girl? When you're good? Ah word, In

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a month, I shall be strong and we'll be married
and go to Switzerland. Do you hear, Schnugger, You won't
be able to be naughty any more? Then? Oh, do
you want to go away from me again? No? And
in my arm is dead. She drew it from beneath him,
standing up, swinging it, smiling because it hurt her. Oh,
my darling, what a shame. Oh I am a brutal,

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kiddish brute. I wish I was strong again Letty and
didn't do these things. You boy, it's nothing. She smiled
at him again. End of Part two, Chapter five,