The Drunkard

The house, with its gravel-sweep giving directly on to the unfenced orchard, was long and low. The stones were mellowed by time, and orange, olive, and ash-coloured lichens clung to them. The roof was of tiles, warm red and green with age, the windows mullioned, the chimney-stack, which cut deep into the roof, high and with the grace of Tudor times.

The place was called the "Old House" in the village and was a veritable sixteenth century cottage, rather spoilt by repairs and minor extensions, but still, in the silent summer morning, with something of the grace and fragrance of an Elizabethan song. It was quite small, really, a large cottage and nothing more, but it had a personality of its own and it was always very tranquil.

On such a summer dawn as this with the rabbits frisking in the pearl-hung grass, on autumn days of brown and purple, or keen spring mornings when the wind fifed a tune among the bare branches of the apple-trees; on dead winter days when sea-birds from the marshes flitted against the grey sky like sudden drifts of snow, a deep peace ever brooded over the house.

The air began to grow fresher and the mists to disperse as the breeze came over the great marshes a mile beyond the village. Out on the mud-flats with their sullen tidal creeks the sun was rising like a red Host from the far sea which tolled like a Mass bell. The curlews with their melancholy voices were beginning to fly inland from the marshes, high up in the still sky. The plovers were calling, the red-shanks piping in the marrum grass, and a sedge of herons shouted their hoarse "frank, frank" as they clanged away over the saltings.

Only the birds were awake in this remote Norfolk village, the cows in the meadows had but just turned in their sleep, and not even the bees were yet a-wing. Peace, profound and brooding, lay over the Poet's house.

Dawn blossomed into perfect morning, all gold and blue. It began, early as it was, to grow hot. Trust came out of his barrel and began to pad round his little yard with bright brown eyes.

There was a sound of some one stirring in the silent house, and presently the back door, in the recess near the entrance gates, was flung wide open and a housemaid with untidy hair and eyes still heavy with sleep, stood yawning upon the step. There was a rattle of cinders and the cracking of sticks as the fire was lit in the kitchen beyond. Trust, in the orchard, heard the sound. He could smell the wood-smoke from the chimney. Presently one of the Great Ones, the Beloved Ones, would let him out for a scamper in the dew. Then there would be biscuits for the dog Trust.

And now brisk footsteps were heard upon the road outside the entrance gates. In a moment more these were pushed open with a rattle, and Tumpany swung in humming a little tune.

Tumpany was a shortish thick-set man of fifty, with a red clean-shaven face. He walked with his body bent forward, his arms hanging at his sides, and always seemed about to break into a short run. It was five years since he had retired even from the coast-guard, but Royal Navy was written large all over him, and would be until he tossed off his last pint of beer and sailed away to Fidler's Green – "Nine miles to windward of Hell," as he loved to explain to the housemaid and the cook.

Tumpany's wife kept a small shop in the village, and he himself did the boots and knives, cleaned Gilbert's guns and went wild-fowling with him in the winter, was the more immediate Providence of the Dog Trust, and generally a most important and trusted person in the little household of the Poet.

There was an almost exaggerated briskness in Tumpany's walk and manner as he turned into the kitchen. Blanche, the housemaid, was now "doing" the dining-room, in the interior of the house, but Phoebe, the cook – a stalwart lass of three and twenty – had just got the fire to her liking and was giving a finishing touch of polish to the range.

"Morning, my girl!" said Tumpany in a bluff, cheery voice.

Phoebe did not answer, but went on polishing the handle of the oven door.

He repeated the salutation, a shade less confidently.

The girl gave a final leisurely twist of the leather, surveyed her work critically for a moment, and then rose to her feet.

"There are them knives," she said shortly, pointing to a basket upon the table, "and the boots is in the back kitchen."

"You needn't be so short with a man, Phoebe."

"You needn't have been so beastly drunk last night. Then them knives wouldn't want doing this morning. If it hadn't been for me the dog wouldn't have had no food. If the mistress knew she would have given you what for, as I expect your missis have already if the truth were known."

"Damn the mistress!" said Tumpany. He adored Mary Lothian, as Phoebe very well knew, but his head burned and he was in the uncertain temper of the "morning after." The need of self-assertion was paramount.

"Now, no beastly language in my kitchen," said the girl. "You go and do your damning – and them knives – in the outhouse. I wonder you've the face to come here at all, Master being away too. Get out, do!"

With a very red and sulky face, Tumpany gathered up the knives and shambled away to his own particular sanctum.

The ex-sailor was confused in his mind. There was a buzzing in his head like that of bees in a hive. He had a faint recollection of being turned out of the Mortland Arms just before ten o'clock the night before. His muddy memories showed him the stern judicial face of the rather grim old lady who kept the Inn. He seemed to feel her firm hands upon his shoulders yet.

But had he come back to the Old House? He was burning to ask the cook. One thing was satisfactory. His mistress had not seen him or else Phoebe's threat would have meant nothing. Yet what had happened in his own house? He had woke up in the little parlour behind the shop. Some one had covered him with an overcoat. He had not dared to go upstairs to his wife. He hoped – here he began to rub a knife up and down the board with great vigour – he did hope that he hadn't set about her. There was a sick fear in the man's heart as he polished his knives.

In many ways a better fellow never breathed. He was extremely popular in the village, Gilbert Lothian swore by him, Mary Lothian liked him very well. He was a person of some consequence in the village community where labourers worked early and late for a wage of thirteen shillings a week. His pension was a good one, the little shop kept by his wife was not unprosperous, Lothian was generous. He only got drunk now and then – generally at the time when he drew his pension – but when he did his wife suffered. He would strike her, not knowing what he did. The dreadful marks would be on her face in the morning and he would suffer an agony of dull and inarticulate remorse.

So, even in the pretty cottage of this prosperous and popular man – so envied by his poorer neighbours —surgit amari aliquid!

.. If only things had been all right last night!

Tumpany put down his knife with a bang. He slipped from his little outhouse, and slunk across the orchard. Then he opened the iron gate of the dog's kennel.

The dog Trust exploded over Tumpany like a shell of brown fur. He leapt at him in an ecstasy of love and greeting and then, unable to express his feelings in any other way, rolled over on his back with his long pink tongue hanging out, and his eyes blinking in the sun.

"Goodorg," said Tumpany, a little comforted, and then both he and Trust slunk back to the outhouse. There was a sympathetic furtiveness in the animal also. It was as though the Dog Trust quite understood.

Tumpany resumed his work. Two rabbits which he had shot the day before were hanging from the roof, and Trust looked up at them with eager eyes. A rabbit represented the unattainable to Trust. He was a hard-working and highly-trained sporting dog, a wild-fowling dog especially, and he was never allowed to retrieve a rabbit for fear of spoiling the tenderness of his mouth. When one of the delicious little creatures bolted under his very nose, he must take no notice of it at all. Trust held the (wholly erroneous) belief that if only he had the chance he could run down a rabbit in the open field. He did not realise that a dog who will swim over a creek with a snipe or tiny ring-plover in his mouth and drop it without a bone being broken must never touch fur. His own greatness forbade these baser joys, but like the Prince in the story who wanted to make mud pies with the beggar children, he was unconscious of his position, and for him too – on this sweet morning – surgit amari aliquid.

But life has many compensations. The open door of the brick shed was darkened suddenly. Phoebe, who in reality had a deep admiration for Mr. Tumpany, had relented, and in her hand was a mug of beer.

"There!" she said with a grin, "and take care it don't hiss as it goes down. Pipes red hot I expect! Lord what fools men are!"

Tumpany said nothing, but the deep "gluck gluck" of satisfaction as he drank was far more eloquent than words.

Phoebe watched him with a pitying and almost maternal wonder in her simple mind.

"A good thing you've come early, and Mistress ain't up yet," she said. "I went into the cellar as quiet as a cat, and I held a dish-cloth over the spigot when I knocked it in again so as to deaden the sound. You can hear the knock all over the house else!"

"Thank ye, Phoebe, my dear. That there beer's in lovely condition; and I don't mind saying I wanted it bad."

"Well, take care, as you don't want it another day so early. I see your wife last night!"

She paused, maliciously enjoying the anxiety which immediately clouded the man's round, red face.

"It's all right," she said at length. "She was out when you come home from the public, and she found you snoring in the parlour. There was no words passed. I must get to work."

She hurried back to her kitchen. Tumpany began to whistle.

The growing warmth of the morning had melted the congealed blood which hung from the noses of the rabbits. One or two drops fell upon the flags of the floor and the Dog Trust licked them up with immense relish.

Thus day began for the humbler members of the Poet's household.

At a few minutes before eight o'clock, the mistress of the house came down stairs, crossed the hall and went into the dining room.

Mary Lothian was a woman of thirty-eight. She was tall, of good figure, and carried herself well. She was erect, without producing any impression of stiffness. She walked firmly, but with grace.

Her abundant hair was pale gold in colour and worn in a simple Greek knot. The nose, slightly aquiline, was in exact proportion to the face. This was of an oval contour, though not markedly so, and was just a little thin. The eyes under finely drawn brows, were a clear and steadfast blue.

In almost every face the mouth is the most expressive feature. If the eyes are the windows of the soul, the mouth is its revelation. It is the true indication of what is within. The history of a man or woman's life lies there. For those who can read, its subtle changing curves at some time or another, betray all secrets of evil or of good. It is the first feature that sensual vices coarsen or self-control refines. The sin of pride moulds it into shapes that cannot be hidden. Envy, hatred and malice must needs write their superscription there, and the blood stirs about our hearts when we read of an angelic smile.

The Greeks knew this, and when their actors trod the marble stage of Dionysius at Athens, or the theatre of Olympian Zeus by the hill Kronian, their faces were masked. The lips of Hecuba were always frozen into horror. The mouths of the heralds of the Lysistrata were set in one curve of comedy throughout the play. Voices of gladness or sorrow came from lips of wax or clay, which never changed as the living lips beneath them needs must do. A certain sharpness and reality, as of life suddenly arrested at one moment of passion, was aimed at. Men's real mouths were too mobile and might betray things alien to the words they chanted.

The mouth of Mary Lothian was beautiful. It was rather large, well-shaped without possessing any purely æsthetic appeal, and only a very great painter could have realised it upon canvas. In a photograph it was nothing, unless a pure accident of the camera had once in a way caught its expression. The mouth of this woman was absolutely frank and kind. Its womanly dignity was overlaid with serene tenderness, a firm sweetness which never left it. In repose or in laughter – it was a mouth that could really laugh – this kindness and simplicity was always there. Always it seemed to say "here is a good woman and one without guile."

The whole face was capable without being clever. No freakish wit lurked in the calm, open eyes, there was nothing of the fantastic, little of the original in the quiet comely face. All kind and simple people loved Mary Lothian and her —

"Sweet lips, whereon perpetually did reign