Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/71

Rh “Come across to my wife and have a cup of tea. Buried in these dam holes a fellow gets such a boor. Do come—my little wife is lonely—come just to see her.”

My mother smiled and thanked him. We turned to go. My mother hesitated in her walk; on the threshold of the room she glanced round at the bed, but she went on.

Outside, in the fresh air of the fading afternoon, I could not believe it was true. It was not true, that sad, colourless face with grey beard, wavering in the yellow candle-light. It was a lie,—that wooden bedstead, that deaf woman, they were fading phrases of the untruth. That yellow blaze of little sunflowers was true, and the shadow from the sun-dial on the warm old almshouses—that was real. The heavy afternoon sunlight came round us warm and reviving; we shivered, and the untruth went out of our veins, and we were no longer chilled.

The doctor’s house stood sweetly among the beech trees, and at the iron fence in front of the little lawn a woman was talking to a beautiful Jersey cow that pushed its dark nose through the fence from the field beyond. She was a little, dark woman with vivid colouring; she rubbed the nose of the delicate animal, peeped right into the dark eyes, and talked in a lovable Scottish speech; talked as a mother talks softly to her child.

When she turned round in surprise to greet us there was still the softness of a rich affection in her eyes. She gave us tea, and scones, and apply jelly, and all the time we listened with delight to her voice, which was musical as bees humming in the lime