She came round the rough balks of the side of the stable upon Gunning, seated on the stone-sill of the door, cutting with a broad-bladed clasp-knife considerable chunks out of a large meat pasty. She surveyed his extended leggings, his immense be-mired boots and his unshaven countenance and remarked in French that the shepherds of Admetus were probably differently dressed. They certainly were in all the performances of the Alceste that she had seen. But perhaps he served his turn.
Gunning said that he supposed he had to go on duty again. She, he supposed, was going to bottle off the cider or she would not have had him bring down that ‘ere cask. She was to be careful to tie the carks tight; it would get itself a ‘ed, proper.
She said that if she, a Norman of a hundred generations did not know how to handle cider it would be a strange thing and he said that it would be a pity if that cider went wrong after all the trouble they ’ad ’ad.
He brushed the crumbs of his demolished pipe off the cords of his breeches, carefully picking up the larger fragments of crust and inserting them into his mouth between his broad, red lips. He asked if ’er Ladyship knew whether the Cahptn wanted the mare that afternoon. If not ‘e might’s well turn ’er on the Common. She said that she did not know; the Captain had said nothing to her about it. He said he supposed ’e might’s well. Cramp said ’e would not have the settee ready to go to the station ‘fore mornin’. If she would wait there he would go git some tepid water and they would moisten the eggs. She did not ask better.
He scrambled to his feet and lumbered down the stone path towards the house. She stood in the bright day regarding the long grass of the orchard, the gnarled, whitened trunks of the fruit trees, the little lettuces like aligned rosettes in the beds, and the slope of the land towards the old stones of the house that the boughs of the apple trees mostly hid. And she acknowledged that, in effect, she did not ask better. A Norman, if Mark had died in the ordinary course, she would no doubt have gone back to the neighbourhood either of Falaise or Bayeux from which place came the families of her grandmother and grandfather respectively. She would probably have married a rich farmer or a rich grazier and, by choice, she would have pursued a life of bottling off cider and moistening the eggs of sitting hens. She had had her training as a coryhée at the Paris Opera and no doubt if she had not made her visit to London with the Paris Opera troupe and if Mark had not picked her up in the Edgeware road where her lodgings had been, she would have lived with some man in Clichy or Auteuil until with her economies she would have been able, equally, to retire to one or other of the pays of her families, and marry a farmer, a butcher, or a grazier. She acknowledged, for the matter of that, that she would probably not have raised more succulent poulets au grain or more full-bodied cider than came from the nest-boxes and the presses here and that she was leading no other life than that which she had always contemplated. Nor indeed would she have wanted any other henchman than Gunning who if you had given him a blue-blouse with stitchery and a casquette with a black leather peak would have passed for any peasant in Caen market.
He swung up the path, carrying gingerly a large blue bowl, just as if his blouse bellied out round him; he had the same expression of the mouth, the same intonation. It was nothing that she obstinately spoke French to him. On his subjects he could tell by intuition what her answers to his questions were and by now she understood him well enough.
He said that he had better take the ’ens off the nesteses fer fear they peck ’er ’ands and giving her the bowl, brought out from the shadows a protesting, ruffled and crooning hen before which he dropped a handful of bran paste and a lettuce leaf. He came out with another and another. Many more! Then he said she could go in and sprinkle the eggs. He said that it always bothered him to turn the eggs; his clumsy ol’ ’ands bruk ’em ’s often as not. He said:
“Wait whilst I brings out ol’ mare. Bit o’ grass wunt do’er much mischief.”
The hens swollen to an enormous size paraded hostilely against one another about her feet; they clucked, crooned, pecked at lumps of paste, drank water eagerly from an iron dog-trough. With an exaggerated clatter of hoofs old mare emerged from the stable. She was aged nineteen, obstinate, bitter, very dark bay, extremely rawboned. You might fill her with oats and mash five times a day, but she would not put on flesh. She emerged into the light from the door with the trot of a prima donna, for she knew she had once been a famous creature. The hens fled; she bit into the air showing immense teeth. Gunning opened the orchard gate, just at hand; she went out at a canter, checked, crumpled her knees together, fell on her side and rolled and rolled; her immense lean legs were incongruous, up in the air.
“Yes,” Marie Léonie said, “pour moi-même je ne demanderais pas mieux!”
Gunning remarked:
“Don’t show ‘er age, do she? Gambolling like a five-day lamb!” His voice was full of pride, his grey face joyful. ‘Is Lordship once sed thet ol’ mare had orter be put in the ’Orse Show up to Lunnon. Some yeers ago that was!
She went into the dark, warm, odorous depths of the hen-house-stable shed; the horse-box being divided off from the hen half by wire netting, nest-boxes, blankets extended on use-poles. She had to bend down to get into the hen-half. The cracks of light between the uprights of the walls blinked at her. She carried the bowl of tepid water gingerly, and thrust her hand into the warm hay hollows. The eggs were fever-heat or thereabouts; she turned them and sprinkled in the tepid water; thirteen, fourteen, fourteen, eleven — that hen was a breaker! — and fifteen. She emptied out the tepid water and from other nests took out egg after egg. The acquisition gratified her.
In an upper box a hen brooded low. It crooned menacingly, then screamed with the voice of poultry disaster as her hand approached it. The sympathetic voices of other hens outside came to her, screaming with poultry disaster — and other hens on the Common. A rooster crowed.
She repeated to herself that she did not demand a better life than this. But was it not the self-indulgence to be so contented? Ought she not to be, still, taking steps for her future — near Falaise or Bayeux? Did one not owe that to oneself? How long would this life last here? And, still more, when it broke up, how would it break up? What would Ils — the strange people —do to her, her savings, her furs, trunks, pearls, turquoises, statuary, and newly gilt Second Empire chairs and clocks? When the Sovereign died what did the Heir, his concubines, courtiers, and sycophants do to the Maintenon of the day? What precautions ought she not to be taking against that wrath to come? There must be French lawyers in London….
Was it to be thought that Il — Christopher Tietjens, clumsy, apparently slow-witted, but actually gifted with the insight of the supernatural… Gunning would say: The Captain, he never says anything, but who knows what he thinks? He perceives everything…. Was it to be thought then that, once Mark was dead and he actual owner of the place called Groby and the vast stretch of coal-bearing land that the newspaper had spoken of, Christopher Tietjens would maintain his benevolent and frugal dispositions of to-day? It was truly thinkable. But, just as he appeared slow-witted and was actually gifted with the insight of the supernatural, so he might well now maintain this aspect of despising wealth and yet develop into a true Harpagon as soon as he held the reins of power. The rich are noted for hardness of heart, and brother will prey upon brother’s widow sooner than on another.