Grey Wethers: A Romantic Novel

by V. Sackville-West

“Go on,” Nicholas answered.

“Then she said she had been hiding behind a rick somewhere up near the Grey Wethers, and she had seen you come riding along with Miss Warrener. She said you got off your horses when you came to the Wethers, and sat down on one of the stones, and stayed there till the sun began to sink; then you caught your horses and rode away, very close together. She said you had talked all the time as though a week was too little for all you had to say. She said she had seen you both at Marlborough market, too. Then she began to cry; she cried so loud I was afraid Farmer Morland would come in to see what was ado, so I held my hand over her mouth until she stopped. She said you were breaking her heart, and she cared nothing what became of her. She said she was reckless. What’s the meaning of it all?”

“Jealousy,” said Lovel, with suppressed fury.

Olver said nothing, but his conviction remained sagely the same. He was sorry he dared not tell Nicholas the rest of the story, but Nicholas was inexpressibly severe and prudish; he would not have approved of the scenes in the barn, neither of the knock-about scene of tickling and squealing amongst the hay, nor of the subsequent scene, when Olver had laid his hand over Daisy’s mouth, and, half-strangled, she had spluttered against his hand, and the wetness of her mouth had mingled with the wetness of her tears to inflame his rustic senses, and in the indifference to her misery she had not resisted him. He smiled to himself as he remembered, but he knew better than to tell this to Nicholas. Only once had he seen Nicholas really violent, on one occasion when he had come artlessly to his brother with the tale of his first exploit; Nicholas’ explosion of anger was a thing Olver had never forgotten. It remained lurking, a thing which at any moment might flare up again. He kept such stories now for his mother’s ear alone; the old woman, enchanted at this surreptitious alliance against Nicholas’ hateful authority, would cackle in sympathy, and, making her hand a trumpet to her ear, invite Olver to pour out in a whisper details increasingly succulent, and so passed hours, Olver with an eye constantly on the door, lest Nicholas should unexpectedly return, but turning always again to whisper to his mother, who with her “Hee! hee! and did you so? good lad!” and similar ejaculations, would puff him up to thinking himself a man where he was most an animal. Lovel was thinking only of how he might best delude his brother’s shrewdness, and how discover whether the girl was scattering this gossip broadcast over the village. He had always disliked the girl,—her red hair, pale blue eyes, loose mouth, and freckles,—nor was it likely that he would turn to civility now in order to coax her into discretion. He was inexpressibly concerned, perplexed and discouraged, and the longer did he remain brooding over the fire, the more convinced did Olver grow that Daisy’s hysterical theory was the true one.

They heard the rapping of their mother’s stick on the floor overhead; it was the signal that she needed something. The dogs raised their heads and began to growl. Lovel, wrenched back to the actualities of his daily life, said, “Go, you, Olver.”

He sat on after Olver had gone, but he was not allowed to pursue his reflections, for the sounds of violent quarrelling reached him from overhead: his mother’s voice raised to a scream, and Olver’s to an indignant bellow. He knew that he must go up and separate them. The cause of their quarrels never transpired; the outburst was puerile, violent, and senseless, and came to an end with the same childish suddenness as it had begun. Lovel never knew which he dreaded most, and which most filled him with anxiety and distaste: their alliance or their hostility.

He rose, and taking the candle he went upstairs to his mother’s room. He went with an extreme weariness and repugnance, feeling that the burden he had to carry was too heavy when private sorrow was added to it, and wishing for once, strong though he was, that he might lay it down and be seen no more in that country. The sound of the quarrelling voices continued as he made his way along the upstairs passage, but they fell into an abrupt silence in the presence of his authority. He stood in the doorway and they looked at him guiltily. The old woman, huddled in her chair, muttered something under her breath. He took in the squalid disorder of the badly-lighted room.

“Go down to the kitchen, Olver,” he said.