The Horse Dealer27s Daughter.doc

The Horse Dealers Daughter By D. H . Lawrence (1885-1930)Well, Mabel, and what are you going to do with yourself? asked Joe, with foolish flippancy. He felt quite safe himself. Without listening for an answer, he turned aside, worked a grain of tobacco to the tip of his tongue, and spat it out. He did not care about anything, since he felt safe himself.The three brothers and the sister sat round the desolate breakfast-table, attempting some sort of desultory consultation. The mornings post had given the final tap to the family fortunes, and all was over. The dreary dining-room itself, with its heavy mahogany furniture, looked as if it were waiting to be done away with. But the consultation amounted to nothing. There was a strange air of ineffectuality about the three men, as they sprawled at table, smoking and reflecting vaguely on their own condition. The girl was alone, a rather short, sullen-looking young woman of twenty-seven. She did not share the same life as her brothers. She would have been good-looking, save for the impressive fixity of her face, bull-dog, as her brothers called it.There was a confused tramping of horses feet outside. The three men all sprawled round in their chairs to watch. Beyond the dark holly bushes that separated the strip of lawn from the high-road, they could see a cavalcade of shire horses swinging out of their own yard, being taken for exercise. This was the last time. These were the last horses that would go through their hands. The young men watched with critical, callous look. They were all frightened at the collapse of their lives, and the sense of disaster in which they were involved left them no inner freedom.Yet they were three fine, well-set fellows enough. Joe, the eldest, was a man of thirty-five, broad and handsome in a hot flushed way. His face was red, he twisted his black moustache over a thick finger, his eyes were shallow and restless. HE had a sensual way of uncovering his teeth when he laughed, and his bearing was stupid. Now he watched the horses with a glazed look of helplessness in his eyes, a certain stupor of downfall.The great drought-horses swung past. They were tied head to tail, four of them, and they heaved along to where a lane branched off from the high-road, planting their great roofs flouting in the fine black mud, swinging their great rounded haunches sumptously, and trotting a few sudden steps as they were led into the lane, round the corner. Every movement showed a massive, slumberous strength, and a stupidity which held them in subjection. The groom at the head looked back, jerking the leading rope. And the cavalcade moved out of sight up the lane, the tail of the last horse, bobbed up tight and stiff, held out taut from the swinging great haunches as they rocked behind the hedges in a motion-like sleep. Joe watched with glazed hopeless eyes. The horses were almost like his own body to him. He felt he was done for now. Luckily he was engaged to a woman as old as himself, and therefore her father, who was steward of a neighbouring estate, would provide him with a job. He would marry and go into harness. His life was over, he would be a subject animal now.He turned uneasily aside, the retreating steps of the horses echoing in his ears. Then, with foolish restlessness, he reached for the scraps of bacon-rind from the plates, and making a faint whistling sound, flung them to the terrier that lay against the fender. He watched the dog swallow them, and waited till the creature looked into his eyes. Then a faint grin came on his face, and in a high, foolish voice he said:You wont get much more bacon, shall you, you little b-?The dog faintly and dismally wagged its tail, then lowered its haunches, circled round, and lay down again.There was another hopeless silence at the table. Joe sprawled uneasily in his seat, not willing to go till the family conclave was dissolved. Fred Henry, the second brother, was erect, clean-limbed, alert. He had watched the passing of the horses with more sang-froid. If he was an animal, like Joe, he was an animal which controls, not one which is controlled. He was master of any horse, and he carried himself with a well-tempered air of mastery. But he was not master of the situation of life. He pushed his coarse brown moustache upwards, off his lip, and glanced irritably at his sister, who sat impassive and inscrutable.Youll go and stop with Lucy for a bit, shant you? he asked. The girl did not answer.I dont see what else you can do, persisted Fred Henry.Go as a skivvy, Joe interpolated laconically.The girl did not move a muscle.If I was her, I should go in for training for a nurse, said Malcolm, the youngest of them all. He was the baby of the family, a young man of twenty-two, with a fresh, jaunty museau.But Mabel did not take any notice of him. They had talked at her and round her for so many years, that she hardly heard them at all.The marble clock on the mantel piece softly chimed the half-hour, the dog rose uneasily from the hearth-rug and looked at the party at the breakfast-table. But still they sat on in ineffectual conclave.Oh, all right, said Joe suddenly, apropos of nothing. Ill get a move on.He pushed back his chair, straddled his knees with a downward jerk, to get them free, in horsey fashion, and went to the fire. Still, he did not go out of the room; he was curious to know what the others would do or say. He began to charge his pipe, looking down at the dog and saying in a high affected voice:Going wi me? Going wi me are ter? Thart goin further than tha counts on just now, dost hear?The dog faintly wagged its tail, the man stuck out his jaw and covered his pipe with his hands, and puffed intently, losing himself in the tobacco, looking down all the while at the dog with an absent brown eye. The dog looked up at him in mournful distrust. Joe stood with his knees stuck out, in real horsey fashion.Have you had a letter from Lucy? Fred Henry asked of his sister.Last week, came the neutral reply.And what does she say?There was no answer.Does she ask you to go and stop there? persisted Fred Henry.She says I can if I like.Well, then, youd better. Tell her youll come on Monday.This was received in silence.Thats what youll do then, is it? said Fred Henry, in some exasperation.But she made no answer. There was a silence of futility and irritation in the room. Malcolm grinned fatuously.Youll have to make up your mind between now and next Wednesday, said Joe loudly, or else find your lodgings on the kerbstone.The face of the young woman darkened, but she sat on immutable.Heres Jack Fergusson! exclaimed Malcolm, who was looking aimlessly out of the window.Where? exclaimed Joe loudly.Just gone past.Coming in?Malcolm craned his neck to see the gate.Yes, he said.There was a silence. Mabel sat on like one condemned, at the head of the table. Then a whistle was heard from the kitchen. The dog got up and barked sharply. Joe opened the door and shouted:Come on.After a moment a young man entered. He was muffled in overcoat and a purple woollen scarf, and his tweed cap, which he did not remove, was pulled down on his head. He was of medium height, his face was rather long and pale, his eyes looked tired.Hello, Jack! Well, Jack! exclaimed Malcolm and Joe. Fred Henry merely said: Jack.Whats doing? asked the newcomer, evidently addressing Fred Henry.Same. Weve got to be out by Wednesday. Got a cold?I have - got it bad, too.Why dont you stop in?Me stop in? When I cant stand on my legs, perhaps I shall have a chance. The young man spoke huskily. He had a slight Scotch accent.Its a knock-out, isnt it, said Joe, boisterously, if a doctor goes round croaking with a cold. Looks bad for the patients, doesnt it?The young doctor looked at him slowly.Anything the matter with you then? he asked sarcastically.Not as I know of. Damn your eyes, I hope not. Why?I thought you were very concerned about the patients, wondered if you might be one yourself.Damn it, no, Ive never been a patient to no flaming doctor, and hope I never shall be, returned Joe.At this point Mabel rose from the table, and they all seemed to become aware of their existence. She began putting the dishes together. The young doctor looked at her, but did not address her. He had not greeted her. She went out the room with the tray, her face impassive and unchanged.When are you off then, all of you? asked the doctor.Im catching the eleven-forty, replied Malcolm. Are you goin down wi th trap, Joe?Yes, Ive told you Im going down wi th trap, havent I?Wed better be getting in then. So long, Jack, if I dont see you before I go, said Malcolm, shaking hands.He went out, followed by Joe, who seemed to have his tail between his legs.Well, this is the devils own, exclaimed the doctor, when he was left alone with Fred Henry. Going before Wednesday, are you?Thats the orders, replied the other.Where, to Northampton?Thats it.The devil! exclaimed Fergusson, with quiet chagrin.And there was silence between the two.All settled up, are you? asked Fergusson.About.There was another pause.Well, I shall miss yer, Freddy, boy, said the young doctor.And I shall miss thee, Jack, returned the other.Miss you like hell, mused the doctor.Fred Henry turned aside. There was nothing to say. Mabel came in again, to finish clearing the table.What are you going to do, then, Miss Pervin? asked Fergusson. Going to your sisters, are you?Mabel looked at him with her steady, dangerous eyes, that always made him uncomfortable, unsettling his superficial ease.No, she said.Well, what in the name of fortune are you going to do? Say what you mean to do, cried Fred Henry, with futile intensity.But she only averted her head, and continued her work. She folded the white table-cloth, and put on the chenille cloth.The sulkiest bitch that ever trod! muttered her brother.But she finished her task with perfectly impassive face, the young doctor watching her interestedly all the while. Then she went out. Fred Henry stared after her, clenching his lips, his blue eyes fixing in sharp antagonism, as he made a grimace of sour exasperation.You could bray her into bits, and thats all youd get out of her, he said, in a small, narrowed tone.The doctor smiled faintly.Whats she going to do, then? he asked.Strike me if I know! returned the other.There was a pause. Then the doctor stirred.Ill be seeing you to-night, shall I? he said to his friend.Ay - wheres it to be? Are we going over to Jessdale?I dont know. Ive got such a cold on me. Ill come round to the Moon and Stars, anyway.Let Lizzie and May miss their night for once, eh?Thats it - if I feel as I do now.Alls one - The two young men went through the passage and down to the back door together.The house was large, but it was servantless now, and desolate. At the back was a small bricked house-yard and beyond that a big square, gravelled fine and red, and having stables on two sides. Sloping, dank, winter-dark fields stretched away on the open sides. But the stables were empty. Joseph Pervin, the father of the family, had been a man of no education, who had become a fairly large horse-dealer. The stables had been full of horses, there was a great turmoil and come-and-go of horses and of dealers and grooms. Then the kitchen was full of servants. But of late things has declined. The old man had married a second time, to retrieve his fortunes. Now he was dead and everything was gone to the dogs, there was nothing but debt and threatening.For months, Mabel had been servantless in the big house, keeping the home together in penury for her ineffectual brothers. She had kept house for ten years. But previously it was with unstinted means. Then, however brutal and coarse everything was, the sense of money had kept her proud, confident. The men might be foul-mouthed, the women in the kitchens might have bad reputations, her brothers might have illegitimate children. But so long as there was money, the girl felt herself established, and brutally proud, reserved. No company came to the house, save dealers and coarse men. Mabel had no associates of her own sex, after her sister went away. But she did not mind. She went regularly to church, she attended to her father. And she lived in the memory of her mother, who had died when she was fourteen, and whom she had loved. She had loved her father, too, in a different way, depending upon him, and feeling secure in him, until at the age of fifty-four he married again. And then she had set hard against him. Now he had died and left them all hopelessly in debt. She had suffered badly during the period of poverty. Nothing, however, could shake the curious, sullen, animal pride that dominated each member of the family. Now, for Mabel, the end had come. Still she would not cast about her. She would follow her own way just the same. She would always hold the keys of her own situation. Mindless and persistent, she endured from day to day. Why should she think? Why should she answer anybody? It was enough that this was the end, and there was no way out. She need not pass any more darkly along the main street of the small town, avoiding every eye. She need not pass any more darkly along the main street of the small town, avoiding every eye. She need not demean herself any more, going into the shops and buying the cheapest food. This was at an end. She thought of nobody, not even herself. Mindless and persistent, she seemed in a sort of ecstasy to be coming nearer to her fulfilment, her own glorification, approaching her dead mother, who was glorified. In the afternoon she took a little bag, with shears and sponge and a small scrubbing-brush, and went out. It was a grey, wintry day, with saddened, dark green fields and an atmosphere blackened by the smoke of foundries not far off. She went quickly, darkly along the causeway, heeding nobody, through the town to the churchyard. There she always felt secure, as if no one could see her, although as a matter of fact she was exposed to the stare of everyone who passed along the churchyard wall. Nevertheless, once under the shadow of the great looming church, among the graves, she felt immune from the world, reserved within the thick churchyard wall as in another country.Carefully she clipped the grass from the grave, and arranged the pinky white, small chrysanthemums in the tin cross. When this was done, she took an empty jar from a neighbouring grave, brought water, and carefully, most scrupulously sponged the marble headstone and the coping-stone. It gave her sincere satisfaction to do this. She felt in immediate contact with the world of her mother. She took minute pains, went through the park in a state bordering on pure happiness, as if in performing this task she came into a subtle, intimate connection with her mother. For the life she followed here in the world was far less real than the world of death she inherited from her mother.The doctors house was just by the church. Fergusson, being a mere hired assistant, was slave to the country-side. As he hurried now to attend to the out-patients in the surgery, glancing across the graveyard with his quick eye, he saw the girl at task at the grave. She seemed so intent and remote, it was looking into another world. Some mystical element was touched in him. He slowed down as he walked, watching her as if spellbound.She lifted her eyes, feeling him looking. Their eyes met. And each looked again at once, each feeling, in some way, found out by the other. He lifted his cap and passed on down the road. There remained distinct in consciousness, like a vision, the memory of her face, lifted from the tombstone in the churchyard, and looking at him with slow, large, portentous eyes. It was portentous, her face. It seemed to mesmerise him. There was a heavy power in her eyes which laid hold of his whole being, as if he had drunk some powerful drug. He had been feeling weak and done before. Now the life came back into him, he felt delivered from his own fretted, daily self.He finished his duties at the surgery as quickly as might be, hastily filling up the bottles of the waiting people with cheap drugs. Then, in perpetual haste, he set off again to visit several cases in another part of his round, before tea-time. At all times he preferred to walk if he could, but particularly, when he was not well. He fancied the motion restored him.The afternoon was falling. It was grey, deadened, and wintry, with a slow, moist, heavy coldness sinking in and deadening all the faculties. But why should he think or notice? He hastily climbed the hill and turned across the dark green fields, following the black cinder-track. In the distance, across a shallow dip in the country, the small town was clustered like smouldering ash, a tower, a spire, a heap of low, raw, extinct houses. And on the nearest fringe of the town, sloping into the dip, was Oldmeadow, the Pervins house.He could see the stables and the outbuildings distinctly, as they lay towards him on the slope. Well, he would not go there many more times! Another resource would be lost to him, another place gone: the only company he cared for in the alien, ugly little town he was losing. Nothing but work, drudgery, constant hastening from dwelling to dwelling among the colliers and the iron-workers. It wore him out, but at the same time he had a craving for it. It was a stimulant to him to be in the bones of the working people, moving, as it were, through the innermost body of their life. His nerves were excited and gratified. He could come so near, into the very lives of the rough, inarticulate, powerfully emotiona