FROM AN INKWELL

Southland Times, Issue 20225, 9 July 1927, Page 13 (Supplement)

FROM AN INKWELL

VII.—ADOLESCENCE (By Brunnhilde.). There was a tiny clump of violets growing outside the kitchen window which Liza was watching anxiously. The day their slender buds first appeared she shed a few tears over them, and after that she was not so anxious. There must have been over a dozen of the sweet-scented flowers before she wanted them. For Charlie was coming home for the second term holidays. Every morning since she had received the letter she had made a solmen resolve to read it to his father. But there was always too much to be done in these shadowless early mornings, in the sickening half-light which changed by gradual stages into morning, and even before she knew it she was heaving an immense sigh of relief as Jake’s figure blended with the horizon of the fartherest fields. This she would not admit even to herself; but she was glad she had not told him, glad that only she knew. It was not till the tea was all prepared and cooking in the evening, in those few minutes of waiting before it was time to dish up, that her apprehension would return at what was before her. The feel of the thick paper against her flesh would reassure, and she would move deliberately so that the sharp corners could prick and comfort her. During the meal there was certainly very little chance of opening the subject. In these days there was always the extra man at the table, whom Jake had been obliged to hire because in the spring there was so much to be done. His coming Jake had never mentioned; Liza had been obliged to set another place for dinner one day, that was all. After they had gone back to their work, she had wasted many minutes staring with pained eyes into a space which threatened to engulf her, until the rattle of the dishes as her hands moved mechanically amongst them brought her back to the present, and drove the blackness from her mind.

She began to study her husband with new perplexity, in which her sympathy strove to make her understanding. For the first time for months she tried to get nearer him, and occasional momentary vision revealed to her a little of what he was suffering. There was one wild impulse she had to force out the thoughts fermenting in him by the revelation of herself. For a moment she thought she could do it, and she began to assure herself that it was not too late for them to start again. Then came Charlie’s letter, and something in the carefully filial tone of his reference to Jake’s welfare snapped the cords of pity in her heart. She buried the letter beneath her blouse as she buried her hopes in the promise of future days with her son. She had tried with Jake, and failed; because he would not bend, with her, before the welfare of their son; because he refused to seek, with her, for understanding. The pricks of the sharp corner of her* letter gave her some delicious moments.

As the days wandered by, as her days were developing a habit of doing, she knew that she must tell Jake that Charlie was coming home. The thought was insistent,.! and worried her. It was such a little' thing; yet there were times when she cleared her throat with a halting growl to begin, and she could not go on. Then she would ask him about bacon that needed curing, or a hen’s nest that she could not find. Sometimes she would ask him almost shyly about his crops, or the new lambs as they appeared. And his answers were always deliberate, in the broken monosyllables that served him as sentences. And always his eyes would be fixed on the pipe he was filling, or cleaning; and there were times when only a restless movement of a foot was any indication that he was not unconscious. After that Liza would go out into the sharp spring night and kneel by her violet patch. The fragrance of the flowers intoxicated her. They were associated insever ably with Charlie, so that her thoughts were all of him. Jake would look out at her dim, kneeling figure, faintly haloed by the light of the kitehen lamp, with no indication that he saw it, or could see. The smoke from his pipe curled about his face seductively; but rebuffed by the uncompromising furrows and their lack of response, they took on a bluish haze and wandered indefinitely into the world outside.

The face with its furrows ceased to disturb Liza. The days were going by. The day of the boy’s arrival came. To Liza there had never been such beauty as the violets steeped in the early morning dew. A desire to sing shook her with its intensity, so that she clasped her hands tightly in an ecstasy of control. Later in the morning she listened to a sparrow teaching its noisy offspring to chirrup. Her face flushed as if she had been bending over the stove. But in the afternoon she was disturbed by the silence, and-when she climbed up the ladder and peered into the nest in an angle of the chimney, it was empty. Stupid mother, she thought, to teach them to fly so soon. But her face blanched, nevertheless, and the fleeting hunted look stayed in her eyes longer than usual. They were sitting at their tea when the boy arrived, an hour before she had expected him. When he appeared in the doorway her heart jumped, and was still. She wanted to look at Jake, but she could not take her eyes off Charlie. Subconsciously she was aware that Jake took another bite.

“Mother,” said Charlie, and flung his arms about her as she was half-risen from the chair. But the movement was awkward, and it was huskiness his voice lacked, not heartiness. When he released her, she clung to him for many seconds more, and when he looked at her the tears were coursing down her cheeks in crooked lines. It might have been embarrassment that caused him to break away and approach his father. “Hullo, dad,” he said, “hope you’re surprised to see me. I walked over from the train, instead of waiting for the bus. Thought it’d do me good. You're looking jolly fit.” Jake surrendered his hand dumbly, but there was that in his eyes which Charlie did not fail to see, and it frightened him. His hand felt cold and clammy, unlike his father’s hard, horny hand at which he had so often marvelled. Dad’s getting old, he thought, and thereafter his eyes, when they encountered him, brooded over thoughts he did not define.

Liza was laying a place for him in her old methodical manner. The exultation of the morning had gone, and she found herself listening for the chirruping from the nest in the angle of the chimney. Her eyes stole fearfully from Charlie to Jake, and back again. She turned the egg in the pan because she remembered that Charlie liked it fried on both sides. As she broke a second egg the yolk fell apart and spread over the pan. Mechanically she basted it. Two violets fell from her dress on to the hearth, and as she moved forward to reach for a plate her foot crushed them beneath it. Charlie, coming in with dripping hands from the tap, noticed for .the first time that his mother’s ankles were very thick.