Cup of Gold by Steinbeck, John

Sometimes he dreamed of her, and waked in agony lest she should ever know his dream. And sometimes it was a strange, shadowy composite of Elizabeth and his mother that came to him in the night. After such a dream, the day brought loathing of himself and her. He considered himself an unnatural monster and her a kind of succubus incarnate. And he could tell no one of these things. The people would shun him.

He thought perhaps he would like to see her before he left. There was a strange power in her this year, a drawing yet repelling power which swayed his desire like a wind­blown reed. Other boys might have gone to her in the night and kissed her, after they had boasted a little of their going; but then, the other boys did not dream as he did, nor did they think of her, as he sometimes did, as a loath­some being. There was surely something monstrous about him, for he could not distinguish between desire and dis­gust. And then, she could embarrass him so easily.

No, certainly, he would not go to her. Where had Mer­lin—where had any one—caught the idea that he cared a farthing for her, the daughter of a poor tenant? Not worth bothering about!

Footsteps were coming down the path behind him, loud clashes in the quiet night, and soon a quick, thin figure came up with him.

“Might it be William?” Henry asked politely, while the road-mender stopped in the path and shifted his pick from one shoulder to the other.

“It’s William right enough. And what are you doing on the path, and the dark come?”

“I’ve been to see Merlin and to hear him talk.”

“Pest on him! That’s all he ever does now. Once he made songs—good, sweet songs as I could repeat to you if I’d a mind to—but now he roosts up on that Crag-top like an old molted eagle. Once when I was going past I spoke to him about it, too, as I can prove by him. I’m not a man to be holding my tongue when I’ve been thinking.

“Why are you making no more songs?’ I said to him in a tone like that. ‘Why are you making no more songs?’ ‘I have grown to be a man,’ he answered, ‘and there be no songs in a man. Only children make songs—children and idiots.’ Pest on him! It’s an idiot himself, is the thought is on me. But what did he say to you, the old whitebeard?”

“Why, you see, I’m going to the Indies and—”

“The Indies, and are you? Ah, well—I was at London once. And all the people at London are thieves, dirty thieves. There was a man with a board and little flat sticks on it. ‘Try your skill, friend?’ he says. ‘What stick has a black mark on the underside of it?’ ‘That one,’ says I; and so it was. But the next time—Ah, well, he was a thief, too; all of them thieves.

“People there are at London, and they do nothing but drive about and about in carriages, up one street and down another, bowing to each other, while good men sweat out their lives in the fields and the mines to keep them bowing there. What chance have I or you, say, with all the fine, soft places taken up by robbers? And can you tell me the thieving price of an egg at London?”

“I must take this road now,” said Henry. “I must go home.”

“Indies.” The road-mender sighed with longing. Then he spat in the trail. “Ah, well—I’ll stake it’s all thieves there, too.”

The night was very black when Henry came at last to the poor hut where Elizabeth lived. There was a fire in the middle of the floor, he knew, and the smoke drifted up and tried to get out at a small hole in the thatch. The house had no flooring, but only rushes strewn on the packed ground, and when the family slept they wrapped themselves in sheepskins and lay in a circle with their feet to the fire.

The windows were not glazed nor curtained. Henry could see old black-browed Twym and his thin, nervous wife, moving about inside. He watched for Elizabeth to pass the window, and when at last she did, he whistled a shrill bird-call. The girl stopped and looked out, but Henry was quiet in the dark. Then Elizabeth opened the door and stood framed against the inside light. The fire was behind her. Henry could see the black outline of her figure through her dress. He saw the fine curve of her legs and the swell of her hips. A wild shame filled him, for her and for himself. Without thought and without reason he ran away into the dark, gasping and almost sobbing under his breath.

V

Old Robert looked up hopefully when the boy came into the room, and then the hope died away and he turned quickly to the fire. But Mother Morgan jumped from her seat and went angrily to Henry.

“What is this foolishness? You going to the Indies!” she demanded.

“But, Mother, I must go; truly I must—and father under­stands. Can’t you hear how the Indies are calling to me?”

“That I cannot! It’s wicked nonsense is in it. A little child you are, and not to be trusted from home at all. Be­sides, your own father is going to tell you it may not be.”

The strong jaw of the boy set like a rock and the muscles stood out in his cheeks. Suddenly there came a flash of anger into his eyes.

“Then, Mother, if you will not understand, I tell you that I am going the morrow—in spite of all of you.”

Hurt pride chased incredulity from her face, and that, too, passed, leaving only pain. She shrank from the be­wildering hurt. And Henry, when he saw what his words had done, went quickly to her.

“I’m sorry, Mother—so very sorry; but why can you not let me go as my father can? I don’t want to hurt you, but I must go. Won’t you see that?” He put his arm about her, but she would not look at him. Her eyes stared blankly straight in front of her.

She was so sure that her view was right. Throughout her life she had insulted and browbeaten and scolded her fami­ly, and they had known her little tyranny to be the out­cropping of her love for them. But now that one of them, and he the child, had used the tone she spoke with every hour, it made a grim hurt that might never be quite healed again.

“You spoke with Merlin? What did he say to you? asked Robert from the hearth.

Henry’s mind flashed quickly to Elizabeth. “He talked of things that are not in my belief,” he said.

“Well—it was only a chance,” murmured Robert. “You’ve hurt your mother badly, boy,” he went on. “I’ve never seen her so—so quiet.” Then Robert straightened himself and his voice became firm.

“I have five pounds for you, son. It’s little enough; I suppose I might give you a small matter more, but not enough to help much. And here is a letter recommending you to my brother, Sir Edward. He went out before the king was murdered, and for some reason—perhaps because he was quiet—old Cromwell has let him stay. If he is there when you come to Jamaica, you may present this letter; but it’s a cold, strange man who takes great pride in his rich acquaintance, and might be a little annoyed with a poor relative. And so I do not know that good will come of this letter. He would dislike you unless you were able to see nothing funny in a man who looks like me, only strides about with a silver sword and plumes on his head. I laughed once, and he has not been a near brother to me since. But keep the letter, it may help you with other peo­ple if not with your uncle.”

He looked at his wife sitting huddled in the shadow. “Will we not have supper, Mother?”

She made no sign that she heard him, and Robert him­self poured the pot and brought the food to the table.

It is a cruel thing to lose a son for whom you have lived continuously. Somehow, she had imagined him always be­side her—a little boy, and always beside her. She tried to think of the coming days, and Henry not there, but the thought was shattered on the bleak wall of a lean imagina­tion. She attempted to consider him ungrateful so to run away from her; she recalled the harsh blow he had dealt her—but always the mind snapped back. Henry was her little boy, and, naturally, he could not be mean nor treach­erous. In some way, when all this talk and pain had drifted into the thin air, he would be yet beside her, deliciously underfoot.