Turf or Stone Read online

  Before misfortune had overtaken her she would not have spoken to them.

  They threw up their chins and trudged on up the hill, exchanging glances.

  Mary could not understand herself: it seemed as if she wished to descend as far as possible, to roll in the mud.

  Rounding the bend, the church came into view, a small, renovated edifice with a Saxon tower. A straight walk, shaded by cut yews, led up to the porch, where the man she was about to marry stood talking to the vicar. She approached them nervously and the bridegroom, Easter Probert, came towards her swinging his arms.

  He was peculiar in appearance. He did not look like a man who had ever had anything to do with horses except in a thieving, gypsyish, wayside kind of way. He might very easily have been a travelling kettle-mender. He was small; his skin shone faintly, through a yellow-brown tan, and his large black eyes protruded from the sockets, although they were set deep in the skull. His square-seamed forehead was marked by strong brows a shade lighter than the hair, which grew stiffly and tuftily back from the broad temples. The features were harsh, the cheekbones prominent, the mouth sunken. A mauve scar, triangular in shape, showed clearly a little below the right eye. When he talked or laughed his upper lip lifted at the corner, exposing beautifully sound teeth. A strange wary face, alert, hungry, malicious, subtly mournful. His movements, as he went to meet Mary, were very graceful, but suggested insolence; for a short man he took long strides, which lent him a rakish, high cockalorum air.

  The same odd individuality marked his clothes: he wore a greenish coat, brown trousers, old and dirty, and a thick, twisted, silver ring on a little finger. It was said that his mother had been a gypsy, but of this no one could be certain, as he was a love child and she was dead.

  He strode towards Mary and took her hand as he turned to walk beside her. They walked so to the door, where the vicar stood pulling his lips and staring at them dimly.

  The vicar, an old man of seventy-odd, recalled some corrupt, degenerate idol which had decayed in a jungle. Fat, bloated, yet withered, he stood, his legs shaking visibly beneath the cassock, his head sunk between shoulders which had lost their outline and become mere pads of flesh. He wore a smile. Having attained his object he felt ready to be affable; he wished to speak kindly, but Easter’s expression was so ferocious, Mary’s so defiant, that a doubt crept into his negligible mind: ‘Surely this is wrong and cruel! These people do not love each other,’ he said to himself.

  Then he thought of the child.

  ‘No, it is too late. But God help them,’ he concluded his momentary reflection.

  He held out his hand. Mary took it, let it go, and drew a pair of clean gloves from her pocket. As she began to put them on she noticed the loss of her prayer book which Miss Tressan had given her years ago on her confirmation. Tears again rose to her eyes. The vicar saw them. In spite of himself he pitied her profoundly, following them into the dark church.

  She lifted a prayer book from the shelf. ‘You will not need that,’ the vicar informed her. She dropped it again in a confused and hasty manner.

  The verger, sniffing, stepped from a pew under the pulpit, where he had been sitting half asleep, and the clerk who was to be the other witness, came out of the vestry with an impatient air. He cast a hurried glance through the open door as he passed it, for he had tied his dog to a tombstone, and feared that it might howl. But it was lying quietly asleep on the grass.

  Fown Mill church stands on the road, and there is a short cut to Salus through the churchyard. Being market day the parish was astir, so that throughout the service people were continually passing. Their conversation could be clearly overheard, and one or two looked in at the door. A small boy stood for some time by the font with his cap on, while the clerk made energetic signs to him to remove it. He grimaced, swung on his heel, and walked out, screwing up his nose. The clerk boiled with futile anger.

  When the time came for Easter to fit the ring on Mary’s finger it was discovered that he was without one. She turned paler, bit her lips, stared stonily at the altar. The service paused. Easter suddenly drew off the silver ring and slipped it on her finger. She was obliged to shut her hand to prevent it from falling to the ground. The ceremony concluded without the vicar taking the couple to the altar. This he had determined he would not do. When Mary took a step forward he shook his head, folding his lips tightly and moved resolutely towards the vestry; the clerk and the verger, who were prepared, followed the couple ungraciously. The church had not been heated. Mary trembled visibly with the cold, her very heart beat languidly and her hands shook so that she could hardly sign the register.

  The verger had built up a fire in the vestry, a weak, smoky slack fire which smelt acrid. The smoke blew out and tasted bitter in their mouths. She dropped on her knees before it, holding out her hands. Seeing the ring she began to cry again, bending her head to hide her face from the men.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ said the vicar in a low consoling murmur. He leant forward and touched her shoulder.

  ‘Why are you crying? Come on, let’s go,’ Easter suggested, stepping restlessly to the vestry door. He looked at the east window, pretentious painted glass, purple, blue, and red, with no depths to the colours, at the varnished pews roped off with red cords for the important families, the arrogant brass eagle beating the open Bible, the pale pulpit, the snowdrops on the altar. Mary wept and wept, heedless of whispers and sympathetic glances. He wished he were outside in the wind.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he repeated impatiently. The vicar glanced at him reproachfully, rolling his dull eyes under which showed livid smears. ‘Can’t you wait a little until your wife is better?’

  Easter spoke harshly: ‘Give over, Mary.’

  She took no notice. His voice was affliction. Lifting his eyes he caught sight of the thick bell ropes which hung temptingly near his hand. He seized one in both hands and gave it a strong pull. Above their heads an unseen bell vibrated like a huge gong. It made Easter think of his master’s, hanging in the hall, a bland brass circle between two foxes’ masks with pointed teeth…. ‘Dinner!’ he shouted.

  The verger clutched his shoulder, the vicar was scandalised, but Easter laughed aloud as he shook himself free. Again he tugged – he’d give them something to remember! This time the bell rang out full and true.

  ‘What are you doing?’ the clerk stammered, shocked. A fantastic humour possessed Easter and gleamed in his puckered eyes. He felt it glowing, he felt he wanted to outrage and distract these stuffy people who had tied him up to that crouching woman: they stank, like the church itself they reeked of damp cold stone and the clammy tombs of dead institutions. Again he pulled the gay red and white bell-rope, interspersing himself between the verger who reached out to grab his wrists. The verger retreated.

  ‘I’ll ring my own wedding peal!’

  Booming, the bell answered him. Mary lifted her head, her face shining with tears.

  ‘Easter!’

  ‘He’s drunk,’ said the vicar angrily. His practical ignorance was colossal.

  At that moment the bell’s powerful motion wrenched the rope from Easter’s unpractised grip; with a terrific swing it leapt the vestry partition. The verger and the clerk both held the vicar, who had quite lost his head. They forced him down.

  ‘Be careful, sir, it’s coming back,’ the clerk cried, and they all cowered to avoid the blow. The rope slapped against the wall, jerked once or twice and became still. The bell vibrated. Easter pulled up his trousers and jeered at the vicar. The vicar puffed out his cheeks and his eyes were vicious.

  ‘This is outrageous…. I must speak to you outside,’ he expostulated, smoothing the top of his head.

  They went out.

  The verger pushed a poker under the fire and it burst into roaring flame. Mary drew back from the heat. Her head ached, and, forgetting that she was in a church, she took off her hat, which had pressed her beautiful red hair close to the sides of her head: it clung to her temples and the delicate, prominent bones
below her ears. The clerk watching her thought of Mary Magdalen, for to his mind this woman with her pale, miserable face still wet from tears, her full trembling mouth, her wan and working features, resembled his favourite saint. He poked the fire again and touched the cold hand lying in her lap. Like the carter earlier in the day, and the vicar, his pity stirred.

  In the porch the vicar repeated that he considered Easter’s behaviour outrageous: he really could find no other word to describe it. It seemed poor enough to a man of Easter’s violent vocabulary. He smiled.

  The wind blew the vicar’s cassock against his legs and he wished he had not left the vestry without putting on his coat. He turned blue – the veins showed on his cheeks, he rubbed his freezing hands.

  Easter disliked men, who were, most of them, larger than himself. As a rule he avoided them. When that was impossible he quarrelled with them, or ignored them. He felt neither shame nor repentance: he regarded the vicar boldly, not troubling to dispel his disapprobation, and making no attempt at a connected conversation, he broke into speech abruptly.

  ‘I want my ring back. And then I must go. You’ve married us, there’s no more to be done in there? Well, then, we’ll be off. I gave the money to the clerk.’

  The vicar flushed: ‘In this case I shall of course, accept no fee. Good heavens, don’t you feel the disgrace,’ he burst out in a flood of indignation.

  Easter smiled at him, cruelly, enigmatically silent. The vicar examined the face before him, the half-bared upper teeth, the dangerous eyes, and his mind grasped at reassurance.

  ‘I hope you will be good to your wife?’

  Easter raised his shoulders. He walked away between the trimmed yews to the gate, leaned over it, spat into the road, and taking out a cigarette, stood waiting for Mary.

  The vicar returned to the vestry: ‘A pariah,’ he muttered full of resentment. Mary was standing up. The vicar went up to her as close as he could, so that he might probe the texture of her skin with his dim eyes… women fascinated him.

  ‘Your husband is waiting for you. But don’t hurry,’ he added vindictively. Once more he held out his hand, which almost trembled with emotional sympathy, and taking it, Mary said dully: ‘Thank you, I’ll go,’ fixing her swollen eyes on his face as if she were dazed from her weeping. He continued to hold the outstretched hand, slightly squeezing the palm and working his fingers towards her wrist, bare and warm above her glove.

  ‘My child…’ he murmured. His voice was tender, but he could not go on because Mary’s vague gaze was so indifferent. He felt too embarrassed.

  The clerk and the verger thinking he wished to be alone with her, took up their hats and went away, rather downcast by the doleful ceremony. The clerk untied his dog, which jumped up at him playfully, then leapt the churchyard wall and ran up the road, ahead of his master.

  * * *

  Easter turned back to the church, scowling and blowing smoke.

  Would Mary never give over? What in hell could he do? He was beginning to be very angry when at last she appeared.

  ‘Come on,’ he said.

  As they walked away together the vicar watched them, distressed and helpless. He was obliged to tell himself that he had done the right thing. He said it once, and that was enough for him. Later he repeated it three times to his wife, and still she was not convinced.

  Easter said: ‘I want my ring back.’

  ‘Take your ring then.’

  He put the ring on his finger and looked at his wife as she walked sadly in the wind, wrapping her loose coat about her, hard and desolate. And she looked at him with disgust; at that moment they both remembered the night of their mating, she shameful of her traitorous flesh, he quickening to desire. Her tears were no longer falling, but she could hardly speak. Her voice sounded rough and thick, her breath shuddered: her features were slightly swollen, her under lip was moist and parted from the upper; the tear marks, though dry, still glistened on her pale skin. Her eyes, heavy and cast down, were sullenly averted.

  He had taken her when for a while she had put aside her airs and abandoned herself to caresses. She seemed with out airs now… she wanted to yield, she would yield….

  Easter loved women who were sad and gentle, and suffered him. He came close to her, put his open hand on her side: ‘Let’s go home, Mary.’

  She hastily retreated. He pursued until she pressed against the frosty hedge and cold flakes fell on her upturned bitter face. He threw one arm around her, his large eyes burning eagerly, approached her own. She pushed him away, evading the kiss.

  In an instant he was enraged, and no longer wanted her. He pinched her arm, wrenching at her clothes in spite, and gave her a rough shove which caused her to stumble. She fell sideways to the ground, on the frozen grass and mud. Easter’s teeth gleamed.

  Then she cried out; she complained aloud in tense misery between groaning and screaming. On market days buses run along the country roads to and from Salus. A few minutes later one approached. Easter stopped it, and leapt in, leaving Mary standing shaking the frosty leaves off her coat.

  ‘You can go home by yourself – or not at all. No loss,’ he shouted.

  Mary was aghast at his brutality. He had been a peculiar unsatisfied lover. He bid fair to make a terrifying husband. She stared through the windows of the bus, and women leaning over their heaped-up baskets stared back openly.

  The bus moved on. Mary stood absolutely still until it had gone. Then she followed. She walked to Salus by the river. Before the frost had set in there had been floods, and they had left the low water meadows gritty and littered with rotten sticks. Bundles of brushwood like untidy nests were tangled in the withy branches, draggling in the red swift river, whose turbid water poured with solid volume through the arches of the bridge. The path through the meadows was solitary; beneath the rusty wishing-gates which squeaked and creaked on their bent hinges, were puddles of ice; the grass, the empty iron seats, all were the same dismal brownish hue. A few ponies with their long, youthful manes flowing, hung their faces mournfully over a gate into the high road.

  * * *

  The carter, having concluded his business, stood with his arm on the rough counter of the canteen in the cattle market, his hand on an empty pint measure which he was pushing across to the man on the other side. The man, huge, a tower of fat and irritability, was a bit of a bruiser. You had to be careful what you said to him! He grabbed the measure and attended to other men.

  The carter’s eyes swept over the market square. A little boy was running the length of the pig pens, switching every pig in reach with a thin, supple stick; a cow was bellowing; across on the greensward two cheapjacks were trying to shout each other down. Their hoarse blaring voices cut across the general din. A crowd had assembled about them, throwing in words now and then, jeering or facetious, but seldom buying. Pink and grey pigeons waddled between the marketers’ feet, pecking at wisps of straw from the cheapjacks’ crates, and sidling in a deliberate heavy fashion away from the traffic. Close to him three or four men in leggings and heavy boots inclined their heads towards a drover who was binding his hand with a green handkerchief. The carter saw big blood stains forming. The man must have a bad cut….

  He did not want another drink yet. He strolled out of the market up the steep hill, into the Town. Salus was busy – thronged with women in groups on the pavements, an outer circle of parcels and baskets projecting so far from their backs that it was impossible to get by without stepping into the road. The market hall swarmed. It was too early in the year for the colourful flower stalls… the bartering was for carcasses and butter and eggs.

  The women held all the centre of the town. In the high street before The George, men spread right across the road. The glass doors opened and shut; it was barely twelve o’clock and custom was waxing.

  Neither nature nor necessity hurried the carter: leisurely in movement, as in disposition, he made his way to The George and drank another pint. Emerging, he saw Mary on the opposite side of the stre
et, by the saddler’s. She was walking away from him fast; before he could get clear of the crowd she was a long way ahead, work as he would with his powerful, thrusting shoulders, in spite of the unexpected sinuousness he displayed in gliding through narrow apertures, where rough and ready shoving would have been the only means employed by smaller and more avid persons. He attained the opposite pavement in time to see her turn into a teashop which had been newly established in the Ticestor Road. He followed her, feeling conspicuous and ashamed. He stayed several minutes outside the shop before he could make up his mind to go in, gazing through the glass window at the people inside… he saw an expectant-looking waitress in a green linen dress standing with her eyes fixed on the door, and another very young girl who, with her slender arm stretched out, hung intent over the tray of cakes in the window. Behind her there were hints of easy forms reclining in coloured cane chairs, cigarette smoke floating lightly up to the ceiling. These sights interested him, but now his errand seemed ridiculous. He hesitated: ‘What, frightened of the women? Shall I stand here and wait till she comes out and then hand her the prayer book? No, I’ll go in. I’ll buy a bag of doughnuts for the children!’ His face lightened at the thought; he pushed the door open. A woman in furs was coming out, with a little veil dropping from her hat over half her face. Beneath, her painted mouth was parted. He stood aside to let her pass, and she was so close to him that he smelt a sweet dusty perfume, and saw the line of rouge along her lips. She turned her head over her shoulder, smiled at him, simply and gaily. This farther encouraged him, and he entered without awkwardness.

  While the fragile ladylike waitress piled doughnuts into the bag with surprisingly thick fingers, he looked around the room for Mary.

  She was sitting at a small table in the corner, drinking coffee, and holding a cigarette in her drooping hand. She looked cold and pale, with dry lips and heavy eyes. The carter regarded her, sighed, and took his doughnuts absently: he drew the prayer book from his pocket and, going across to her, laid it on the table beside her plate as the best means of indicating his presence and the reason for it.