The White Peacock

by D. H. Lawrence

He led me off to a seat by the north door, between two pews, very black and silent. There we sat, he putting his gun carefully beside him. He remained perfectly still, thinking.

“Whot’s up?” he said at last, “Why—I’ll tell you. I went to Cambridge—my father was a big cattle dealer—he died bankrupt while I was in college, and I never took my degree. They persuaded me to be a parson, and a parson I was.

I went a curate to a little place in Leicestershire—a bonnie place with not many people, and a fine old church, and a great rich parsonage. I hadn’t overmuch to do, and the rector—he was the son of an Earl—was generous. He lent me a horse and would have me hunt like the rest. I always think of that place with a smell of honeysuckle while the grass is wet in the morning. It was fine, and I enjoyed myself, and did the parish work all right. I believe I was pretty good.

A cousin of the rector’s used to come in the hunting season—a Lady Crystabel, lady in her own right. The second year I was there she came in June. There wasn’t much company, so she used to talk to me—I used to read then—and she used to pretend to be so childish and unknowing, and would get me telling her things, and talking to her, and I was hot on things. We must play tennis together, and ride together, and I must row her down the river. She said we were in the wilderness and could do as we liked. She made me wear flannels and soft clothes. She was very fine and frank and unconventional—ripping, I thought her. All the summer she stopped on. I should meet her in the garden early in the morning when I came from a swim in the river—it was cleared and deepened on purpose—and she’d blush and make me walk with her. I can remember I used to stand and dry myself on the bank full where she might see me—I was mad on her—and she was madder on me.

We went to some caves in Derbyshire once, and she would wander from the rest, and loiter, and, for a game, we played a sort of hide and seek with the party. They thought we’d gone, and they went and locked the door. Then she pretended to be frightened and clung to me, and said what would they think, and hid her face in my coat. I took her and kissed her, and we made it up properly. I found out afterwards—she actually told me—she’d got the idea from a sloppy French novel—the Romance of A Poor Young Man. I was the Poor Young Man.

We got married. She gave me a living she had in her parsonage, and we went to live at her Hall. She wouldn’t let me out of her sight. Lord!—we were an infatuated couple—and she would choose to view me in an aesthetic light. I was Greek statues for her, bless you: Croton, Hercules, I don’t know what! She had her own way too much—I let her do as she liked with me.

Then gradually she got tired—it took her three years to be really glutted with me. I had a physique then—for that matter I have now.”

He held out his arm to me, and bade me try his muscle. I was startled. The hard flesh almost filled his sleeve.

“Ah,” he continued, “You don’t know what it is to have the pride of a body like mine. But she wouldn’t have children—no, she wouldn’t—said she daren’t. That was the root of the difference at first. But she cooled down, and if you don’t know the pride of my body you’d never know my humiliation. I tried to remonstrate—and she looked simply astounded at my cheek. I never got over that amazement.

She began to get souly. A poet got hold of her, and she began to affect Burne-Jones—or Waterhouse—it was Waterhouse—she was a lot like one of his women—Lady of Shalott, I believe. At any rate, she got souly, and I was her animal—son animal—son boeuf. I put up with that for above a year. Then I got some servants’ clothes and went.