Aaron's Rod

CHAPTER III. “THE LIGHTED TREE”-1

CHAPTER III. “THE LIGHTED TREE”

It is remarkable how many odd or extraordinary people there are in England. We hear continual complaints of the stodgy dullness of the English. It would be quite as just to complain of their freakish, unusual characters. Only en masse the metal is all Britannia.

In an ugly little mining town we find the odd ones just as distinct as anywhere else. Only it happens that dull people invariably meet dull people, and odd individuals always come across odd individuals, no matter where they may be. So that to each kind society seems all of a piece.

At one end of the dark tree-covered Shottle Lane stood the “Royal Oak” public house; and Mrs. Houseley was certainly an odd woman. At the other end of the lane was Shottle House, where the Bricknells lived; the Bricknells were odd, also. Alfred Bricknell, the old man, was one of the partners in the Colliery firm. His English was incorrect, his accent, broad Derbyshire, and he was not a gentleman in the snobbish sense of the word. Yet he was well-to-do, and very stuck-up. His wife was dead.

Shottle House stood two hundred yards beyond New Brunswick Colliery. The colliery was imbedded in a plantation, whence its burning pit-hill glowed, fumed, and stank sulphur in the nostrils of the Bricknells. Even war-time efforts had not put out this refuse fire. Apart from this, Shottle House was a pleasant square house, rather old, with shrubberies and lawns. It ended the lane in a dead end. Only a field-path trekked away to the left.

On this particular Christmas Eve Alfred Bricknell had only two of his children at home. Of the others, one daughter was unhappily married, and away in India weeping herself thinner; another was nursing her babies in Streatham. Jim, the hope of the house, and Julia, now married to Robert Cunningham, had come home for Christmas.

The party was seated in the drawing-room, that the grown-up daughters had made very fine during their periods of courtship. Its walls were hung with fine grey canvas, it had a large, silvery grey, silky carpet, and the furniture was covered with dark green silky material. Into this reticence pieces of futurism, Omega cushions and Van-Gogh-like pictures exploded their colours. Such chic would certainly not have been looked for up Shottle Lane.

The old man sat in his high grey arm-chair very near an enormous coal fire. In this house there was no coal-rationing. The finest coal was arranged to obtain a gigantic glow such as a coal-owner may well enjoy, a great, intense mass of pure red fire. At this fire Alfred Bricknell toasted his tan, lambs-wool-lined slippers.

He was a large man, wearing a loose grey suit, and sprawling in the large grey arm-chair. The soft lamp-light fell on his clean, bald, Michael-Angelo head, across which a few pure hairs glittered. His chin was sunk on his breast, so that his sparse but strong-haired white beard, in which every strand stood distinct, like spun glass lithe and elastic, curved now upwards and inwards, in a curious curve returning upon him. He seemed to be sunk in stern, prophet-like meditation. As a matter of fact, he was asleep after a heavy meal.

Across, seated on a pouffe on the other side of the fire, was a cameo-like girl with neat black hair done tight and bright in the French mode. She had strangely-drawn eyebrows, and her colour was brilliant. She was hot, leaning back behind the shaft of old marble of the mantel-piece, to escape the fire. She wore a simple dress of apple-green satin, with full sleeves and ample skirt and a tiny bodice of green cloth. This was Josephine Ford, the girl Jim was engaged to.

Jim Bricknell himself was a tall big fellow of thirty-eight. He sat in a chair in front of the fire, some distance back, and stretched his long legs far in front of him. His chin too was sunk on his breast, his young forehead was bald, and raised in odd wrinkles, he had a silent half-grin on his face, a little tipsy, a little satyr-like. His small moustache was reddish.

Behind him a round table was covered with cigarettes, sweets, and bottles. It was evident Jim Bricknell drank beer for choice. He wanted to get fat—that was his idea. But he couldn't bring it off: he was thin, though not too thin, except to his own thinking.

His sister Julia was bunched up in a low chair between him and his father. She too was a tall stag of a thing, but she sat bunched up like a witch. She wore a wine-purple dress, her arms seemed to poke out of the sleeves, and she had dragged her brown hair into straight, untidy strands. Yet she had real beauty. She was talking to the young man who was not her husband: a fair, pale, fattish young fellow in pince-nez and dark clothes. This was Cyril Scott, a friend.

The only other person stood at the round table pouring out red wine. He was a fresh, stoutish young Englishman in khaki, Julia's husband, Robert Cunningham, a lieutenant about to be demobilised, when he would become a sculptor once more. He drank red wine in large throatfuls, and his eyes grew a little moist. The room was hot and subdued, everyone was silent.

“ I say,” said Robert suddenly, from the rear—“anybody have a drink? Don't you find it rather hot?”

“ Is there another bottle of beer there?” said Jim, without moving, too settled even to stir an eye-lid.

“ Yes—I think there is,” said Robert.

“ Thanks—don't open it yet,” murmured Jim.

“ Have a drink, Josephine?” said Robert.

“ No thank you,” said Josephine, bowing slightly.

Finding the drinks did not go, Robert went round with the cigarettes. Josephine Ford looked at the white rolls.

“ Thank you,” she said, and taking one, suddenly licked her rather full, dry red lips with the rapid tip of her tongue. It was an odd movement, suggesting a snake's flicker. She put her cigarette between her lips, and waited. Her movements were very quiet and well bred; but perhaps too quiet, they had the dangerous impassivity of the Bohemian, Parisian or American rather than English.

“ Cigarette, Julia?” said Robert to his wife.

She seemed to start or twitch, as if dazed. Then she looked up at her husband with a queer smile, puckering the corners of her eyes. He looked at the cigarettes, not at her. His face had the blunt voluptuous gravity of a young lion, a great cat. She kept him standing for some moments impassively. Then suddenly she hung her long, delicate fingers over the box, in doubt, and spasmodically jabbed at the cigarettes, clumsily raking one out at last.

“ Thank you, dear—thank you,” she cried, rather high, looking up and smiling once more. He turned calmly aside, offering the cigarettes to Scott, who refused.

“ Oh!” said Julia, sucking the end of her cigarette. “Robert is so happy with all the good things—aren't you dear?” she sang, breaking into a hurried laugh. “We aren't used to such luxurious living, we aren't—ARE WE DEAR—No, we're not such swells as this, we're not. Oh, ROBBIE, isn't it all right, isn't it just all right?” She tailed off into her hurried, wild, repeated laugh. “We're so happy in a land of plenty, AREN'T WE DEAR?”

“ Do you mean I'm greedy, Julia?” said Robert.

“ Greedy!—Oh, greedy!—he asks if he's greedy?—no you're not greedy, Robbie, you're not greedy. I want you to be happy.”

“ I'm quite happy,” he returned.

“ Oh, he's happy!—Really!—he's happy! Oh, what an accomplishment! Oh, my word!” Julia puckered her eyes and laughed herself into a nervous twitching silence.

Robert went round with the matches. Julia sucked her cigarette.

“ Give us a light, Robbie, if you ARE happy!” she cried.

“ It's coming,” he answered.

Josephine smoked with short, sharp puffs. Julia sucked wildly at her light. Robert returned to his red wine. Jim Bricknell suddenly roused up, looked round on the company, smiling a little vacuously and showing his odd, pointed teeth.

“ Where's the beer?” he asked, in deep tones, smiling full into Josephine's face, as if she were going to produce it by some sleight of hand. Then he wheeled round to the table, and was soon pouring beer down his throat as down a pipe. Then he dropped supine again. Cyril Scott was silently absorbing gin and water.

“ I say,” said Jim, from the remote depths of his sprawling. “Isn't there something we could do to while the time away?”

Everybody suddenly laughed—it sounded so remote and absurd.

“ What, play bridge or poker or something conventional of that sort?” said Josephine in her distinct voice, speaking to him as if he were a child.

“ Oh, damn bridge,” said Jim in his sleep-voice. Then he began pulling his powerful length together. He sat on the edge of his chair-seat, leaning forward, peering into all the faces and grinning.

“ Don't look at me like that—so long—” said Josephine, in her self-contained voice. “You make me uncomfortable.” She gave an odd little grunt of a laugh, and the tip of her tongue went over her lips as she glanced sharply, half furtively round the room.

“ I like looking at you,” said Jim, his smile becoming more malicious.

“ But you shouldn't, when I tell you not,” she returned.

Jim twisted round to look at the state of the bottles. The father also came awake. He sat up.

“ Isn't it time,” he said, “that you all put away your glasses and cigarettes and thought of bed?”

Jim rolled slowly round towards his father, sprawling in the long chair.

“ Ah, Dad,” he said, “tonight's the night! Tonight's some night, Dad.—You can sleep any time—” his grin widened—“but there aren't many nights to sit here—like this—Eh?”

He was looking up all the time into the face of his father, full and nakedly lifting his face to the face of his father, and smiling fixedly. The father, who was perfectly sober, except for the contagion from the young people, felt a wild tremor go through his heart as he gazed on the face of his boy. He rose stiffly.

“ You want to stay?” he said. “You want to stay!—Well then—well then, I'll leave you. But don't be long.” The old man rose to his full height, rather majestic. The four younger people also rose respectfully—only Jim lay still prostrate in his chair, twisting up his face towards his father.

“ You won't stay long,” said the old man, looking round a little bewildered. He was seeking a responsible eye. Josephine was the only one who had any feeling for him.

“ No, we won't stay long, Mr. Bricknell,” she said gravely.

“ Good night, Dad,” said Jim, as his father left the room.

Josephine went to the window. She had rather a stiff, poupee walk.

“ How is the night?” she said, as if to change the whole feeling in the room. She pushed back the thick grey-silk curtains. “Why?” she exclaimed. “What is that light burning? A red light?”

“ Oh, that's only the pit-bank on fire,” said Robert, who had followed her.

“ How strange!—Why is it burning now?”

“ It always burns, unfortunately—it is most consistent at it. It is the refuse from the mines. It has been burning for years, in spite of all efforts to the contrary.”

“ How very curious! May we look at it?” Josephine now turned the handle of the French windows, and stepped out.

“ Beautiful!” they heard her voice exclaim from outside.

In the room, Julia laid her hand gently, protectively over the hand of Cyril Scott.

“ Josephine and Robert are admiring the night together!” she said, smiling with subtle tenderness to him.

“ Naturally! Young people always do these romantic things,” replied Cyril Scott. He was twenty-two years old, so he could afford to be cynical.

“ Do they?—Don't you think it's nice of them?” she said, gently removing her hand from his. His eyes were shining with pleasure.

“ I do. I envy them enormously. One only needs to be sufficiently naive,” he said.