THE WOMAN'S PART
§ 1.
An elegy of oats.
Reuben's oats were a dismal failure. All the warm thrilling hopes which
he had put into the ground with the seed and the rape cake, all the
watching and expectation which had imparted as many delights as Naomi to
the first weeks of his married life--all had ended in a few rows of
scraggy, scabrous murrainous little shoots, most of which wilted as if
with shame directly they appeared above the ground, while the others,
after showing him and a derisive neighbourhood all that oats could do in
the way of tulip-roots, sedge-leaves, and dropsical husk, shed their
seeds in the first summer gale, and started July as stubble.
There was no denying it. Boarzell had beaten Reuben in this their first
battle. That coarse, shaggy, unfruitful land had refused to submit to
husbandry. Backfield had not yet taken Leviathan as his servant. His
defeat stimulated local wit.
"How's the peas gitting on, Mäaster?" Ditch of Totease would facetiously
enquire. "I rode by that new land of yours yesterday, and, says I,
there's as fine a crop of creeping plants as ever I did see."
"'Täun't peas, thick 'un," Vennal would break in uproariously, "it's
turnips--each of 'em got a root like my fist."
"And here wur I all this time guessing as it wur cabbages acause of the
leaves," old Ginner would finish, not to be outdone in badinage.
Reuben always accepted such chaff good-humouredly, for he knew it was
prompted by envy, and he would have scorned to let these men know how
much he had been hurt. Also, though defeated, he was quite undaunted. He
was not going to be beaten. That untractable slope of marl should be
sown as permanent pasture in the spring, and he would grow oats on the
new piece he would buy at the end of the year with his wife's fortune.
Naomi's money had been the greatest possible help. He had roofed the
Dutch barn, and retarred the oasts, he had bought a fine new plough
horse and a waggon, and he was going to buy another piece of
Boarzell--ten or twelve acres this time, of the more fruitful clay-soil
by the Glotten brook. Naomi was pleased to see all the new things. The
barn looked so spick-and-span with its scarlet tiles, and the oasts
shone like polished ebony, she loved to stroke the horse's brown,
snuffling nose, and "Oh, what a lovely blue!" she said when she saw the
waggon.
She could not take much interest in Reuben's ambitions, indeed she only
partly understood them. What did he want Boarzell for?--it was so rough
and dreary, she was sure nothing would grow there. She loved the farm,
with the dear faces of the cows, and the horses, and the poultry, and
even the pigs, but talk of crops and acres only bored her. Sometimes
Reuben's enthusiasm would spill over, and sitting by the fire with her
in the evening, he would enlarge on all he was going to do with
Boarzell--this year, next year, ten years hence. Then she would nestle
close to him, and murmur--"Yes, dear" ... "yes, dear" ... "that will be
glorious"--while all the time she was thinking of his long lashes, his
strong brown neck, the clear weight of his arm on her shoulder, and the
kiss that would be hers when he took his pipe out of his mouth.
From this it may be gathered that the sorrow and hate of Naomi's
wedding night had been but the reaction of a moment. Indeed she woke the
next morning to find herself a very happy wife. She fell back into her
old attitude towards Reuben--affection, trust, and compliance, with
which was mixed this time a little innocent passion. She loved being
with him, was scrupulously anxious to please him, and would have worked
her hands to pieces for his sake.
But Reuben did not want her to work. She was rather surprised at this at
first, for she had expected that she would go on helping Mrs. Backfield
as she had done before her marriage. Reuben, however, was quite
firm--his wife was not to redden her skin by stooping over fires, or
coarsen her hands by dabbling them in soapsuds. An occasional visit to
the dairy or some half-playful help on bread-baking days was all he
would allow.
"But won't it be too hard for mother?" Naomi had objected.
"Mother?--she's used to it, and she's tougher than you, liddle
creature."
"But I could help just a bit."
"No, no--I wöan't have you go wearing yourself out. Döan't let's hear no
more about it."
Naomi had submitted, as she always submitted, and after a while
obedience was made easy. In August she realised that she was going to
have a child and any conscientious desires which might have twinged her
at the sight of Mrs. Backfield's seaming face and bending shoulders,
were lost in the preoccupations of her own condition.
At first she had not been pleased. She was only nineteen, not
particularly robust, and resented the loss of her health and freedom;
but after a while sweet thoughts and expectations began to warm in her.
She loved little babies, and it would be delicious to have one of her
own. She hoped it would be a girl, and thought of beautiful names for
it--Victoria, Emilia, Marianna, and others that she had seen in the
Keepsake. But her delight was nothing to Reuben's. She had been
surprised, overwhelmed by his joy when she told him her news. He,
usually so reserved, had become transported, emotional, almost
lyrical--so masterful, had humbled himself before her and had knelt at
her feet with his face hidden in her gown.
She could never guess what that child meant to Reuben. It meant a fellow
labourer on his farm, a fellow fighter on Boarzell, and after he was
dead a Man to carry on his work and his battle. At last he would have
someone to share his ambition--that child should be trained up in the
atmosphere of enterprise; as other fathers taught their children to love
and serve God, so Reuben would teach this son to love and serve Odiam.
He would no longer strive alone, he would have a comrade, a soldier with
him. And after this boy there would be other boys, all growing up in the
love of Odiam, to live for it.
He treated his wife like a queen, he would not allow her the smallest
exertion. He waited on her hand and foot and expected his mother to do
the same. Every evening, or, later in the year, in the afternoon, he
would come home early from his work, and take her out for a walk on his
arm. He would not allow her to go alone, for fear that she might
overtire herself or that anything might frighten her. He insisted on her
having the daintiest food, and never eating less than a certain quantity
every day; he decided that the Odiam chairs were too hard, and bought
her cushions at Rye. In fact he pampered her as much as he denied
everybody else and himself.
Naomi soon came to enjoy her coddling, even though occasionally his
solicitude was inclined to be tiresome. As time wore on he would not let
her walk up and down stairs, but carried her up to bed himself, and
down again in the morning. She grew fat, white, and languorous. She
would lie for hours with her hands folded on her lap, now and then
picking up a bit of sewing for a few minutes, then dropping it again.
She was proud of her position in comparison with other farmers' wives in
the same circumstances. Their men kept them working up to the last week.
During this time she saw very little of Harry and scarcely ever thought
of him. She no longer had any doubts as to his being quite mad.
§ 2.
In the autumn Reuben bought ten more acres of Boarzell--a better piece
of land than the first, more sheltered, with more clay in the soil. Hops
would do well on the lower part of it down by the brook.
He also bought three Jersey cows; they would improve the small dairy
business he had established, and their milk would be good for Naomi. His
watchfulness of his wife had now almost become tyranny. He scolded her
if she stooped to pick up her scissors, and would not let her walk even
in the garden without him.
Naomi submitted languidly. Her days passed in a comfortable heaviness,
and though she occasionally felt bored, on the whole she enjoyed being
fussed over and waited on. During those months her relations with
Reuben's mother became subtly changed. Before her marriage there had
been a certain friendship and equality between them, but now the elder
woman took more the place of a servant. It was not because she waited on
Naomi, fetched and carried--Reuben did that, and was her master still.
It was rather something in her whole attitude. She had ceased to confide
in Naomi, ceased perhaps to care for her very much, and this gave a
certain menial touch to her services. It would be hard to say what had
separated the two women--perhaps it was because one toiled all day while
the other lay idle, perhaps it was a twinge of maternal jealousy on Mrs.
Backfield's part, for Reuben was beginning to notice her less and less.
After a time Naomi realised this estrangement, and though at first she
did not care, later on it came to distress her. Somehow she did not like
the idea of being without a woman associate--in spite of her love for
Reuben, now more passive and more languid, like every other emotion, she
craved instinctively for someone of her own sex in whom she could
confide and on whom she could rely.
The year dipped into winter, then rose again into spring. Lambs began to
bleat in the pens, and with the last of them in March came Naomi's baby.
Reuben was nearly mad with anxiety. His mother's calm, the doctor's
leisureliness, the midwife's bustling common sense, struck him as
callous and unnatural. Even Naomi greeted him with a wan, peaceful
smile, when frantic with waiting, he stole up to her room. Did they all
realise, he wondered, what was at stake? Suppose anything should
happen.... In vain the doctor assured him that everything was normal and
going on just as it should.
He went out and did a little work, but after an hour or so flung down
the chicken-coop he was making, and rushed into the house. His usual
question received its usual answer. He thought the doctor a hemmed fraud
and the doctor thought him a damned fool.
The sun set, and Reuben had given up even the attempt to work. He
wandered on Boarzell till the outline of its crest was lost in the black
pit of night. Then a new anxiety began to fret him. Possibly all was
going well since everybody said so, but--suppose the child was a girl!
Up till now he had scarcely thought of such a thing, he had made sure
that his child would be a boy, someone to help him in his struggle and
to reap the fruits of it after he was gone. But, suppose, after all, it
should be a girl! Quite probably it would be--why should he think it
would not? The sweat stood on Reuben's forehead.
Then suddenly he saw something white moving in the darkness. It was
coming towards him. It was his mother's apron.
He ran to meet her, for his legs tottered so that he could not walk. He
could not frame his question, but she answered it:
"All's well ... it's a boy."
§ 3.
Naomi spent a peaceful and happy convalescence. Everything combined for
her blessedness. The soft April days scattered their scent and sunshine
on her bed, where she lay with her baby, full of drowsy hopes. Even
Boarzell's firs had a mellowness about them, as if her motherhood had
sweetened not only herself and those about her, but the grim face of
nature militant.
Her memories of those days were full of the smell of daffodils blown in
at her window from the garden and of primroses set by Reuben in a bowl
beside the bed--of Reuben stooping over her, smoothing back her hair,
and stroking her face with hands that quivered strangely, or holding the
baby as if it were made of fire and glass.
As soon as she was well enough the christening took place in Peasmarsh
church. The heir of all the Backfields was important enough to receive
three Christian names--Reuben after his father, Thomas after old Gasson,
and Albert after the Prince Consort. "I shall call him Albert," said
Naomi.
That spring and summer Reuben worked with a light heart. His fatherhood
made him proud and expansive. He would boast about the baby to Beatup,
tell him how many ounces it had gained in the week, enlarge on its
strength and energy, with intimate details concerning its digestion--all
of which were received open-mouthed by Beatup who knew pretty well as
much about babies as he did about oecumenical councils.
"He'll soon be able to do a bit of work wud us, Beatup," said Reuben
apocalyptically.--"I'll have him on when he's ten or thereabouts, and at
fifteen he'll be doing full man's work. I shouldn't wonder as how I'd
never want another hand but you--we could manage the pläace, I reckon,
till the lad's old enough, and then there'll be others...."
"Yus, Mäaster," said Beatup.
The second piece of land had thriven better than the first. The hops
were sturdy and promising beside the brook, and on the higher grounds
the new pastures fattened. Reuben had decided to dig up a couple of his
old grass meadows and prepare them for grain-sowing in the autumn. The
soil was good, and it was only his father's want of enterprise which had
kept so much of Odiam as mere grazing land. As for the cows, there was
ample provision for them on the new pastures, which Boarzell would
continue to yield, even if it refused oats--"But I'll have oats there
some day, I reckon," said Reuben, "oats, and barley, and maybe wheat."
He pictured Odiam chiefly as a great grain farm--though there might be
more money in fruit or milk, these would be mere temporary profit-making
concerns, means to an end; for glory and real permanent fortune lay in
wheat. He was terribly anxious lest the Corn Laws should be repealed, a
catastrophe which had threatened farming for several years. For the
first time he began to take an interest in politics and follow the trend
of public opinion. He could not read, so was forced to depend on Naomi
to read him the newspaper he occasionally had three days old from Rye.
The Backfields had always been Tory, just as they had always been
Church, because Liberalism and Dissent were "low," and unworthy of
yeomen farmers. But they had never felt very keenly about politics,
which, except at election times, had not come much into their lives.
Even at the elections the interest had been slight, because up till ten
years ago Rye had been a pocket borough, and its Radical member went up
to Parliament without any of the pamphlet-writing, bill-sticking,
mud-throwing, or free-fighting, which stirred the blood in other towns.
Now, however, having vital interests at stake, Reuben became an absorbed
and truculent Conservative. He never called in at the Cocks without
haranguing the company on the benefits of the wheat-tax, and cursing
Cobden and Bright. On the occasion of the '42 election, he abandoned
important obstetric duties in the cow-stable to Beatup, and rode into
Rye to record his vote for the unsuccessful Tory candidate. The
neighbourhood was of Whig tendencies, spoon-fed from the Manor, but the
Backfields had never submitted to Bardon politics; and now even the fact
that the Squire held Reuben's land of promise, failed to influence him.
The Bardons were strongly anti-Corn Law, but their opposition had that
same touch of inefficiency which characterised all their dealings and
earned Reuben's contempt. In spite of their Liberalism they had been
driven for financial considerations to inclose Boarzell--then even the
inclosure had failed, and they were now, also against their will,
surrendering the land piecemeal to a man who was in every way their
opposite and antagonist. They agitated feebly for Repeal, but were
unable to make themselves heard. They visited the poor, and doled out
relief in ineffectual scraps. Reuben despised them. They were an old
line--effete--played out. He and his race would show them what was a
Man.
§ 4.
That summer Naomi realised that she was going to have another child. She
was sorry, for her maternal instincts were satisfied for the present,
and she had begun to value her new-returned health. It would be hard to
have to go back to bondage again.
However, there was no help for it. Reuben was overjoyed, and once more
she slipped under his tyranny. This time she found it irksome, his
watchfulness was a nuisance, his anxiety was absurd. However, she did
not complain. She was too timid, and too fond of him.
"I hope it'll be a girl this time," she said one afternoon, when
according to custom she was walking along Totease Lane, his arm under
hers.
"A girl---- Oh, no! I want another boy."
"But we've got a boy, Reuben. It would be nice to have a girl now."
"Why, liddle creature?"
"Oh, I justabout love baby girls. They're so sweet--and all their
dresses and that.... Besides we don't want two boys."
To her surprise Reuben stopped in the road, and burst out laughing.
"Two boys!--not want two boys!--Why, we want ten boys! if I cud have
twenty, I shudn't grumble."
"What nonsense you're talking, Backfield," said Naomi primly.
"I äun't talking nonsense, I'm talking sound sense. How am I to run the
farm wudout boys? I want boys to help me work all that land. I'm going
to have the whole of Boarzell, as I've told you a dunnamany times, and
I'll want men wud me on it. So döan't you go talking o' girls. Wot use
are girls?--none! They just spannel about, and then go off and get
married."
"But a girl 'ud be useful in the house--she could help mother when she's
older."
"No, thankee. However hard she works she äun't worth half a boy. You
give me ten boys, missus, and then I döan't mind you having a girl or so
to please yourself."
Naomi was disgusted. Reuben had once or twice offended her by his
coarseness, but she could never get used to it.
"Oh, how can you speak to me so!" she gulped.
"Now, you silly liddle thing, wot are you crying for? Mayn't I have a
joke?"
"But you're so vulgar!"
Reuben looked a little blank. None of the details of his great desire
had hitherto struck him as vulgar.
"Vulgar, am I?" he said ruefully. "No matter, child, we wöan't go
quarrelling. Come, dry your dear eyes, and maybe to-morrow I'll drive
you over to Rye to see the market."
Naomi obediently dried her eyes, but it was rather hard to keep them
from getting wet again. For in her heart she knew that it was not the
vulgarity of Reuben's joke which had upset her, but a certain horrible
convincingness about it. It was not so merely a joke as he would have
her think.
During the days that followed her attitude towards him changed subtly,
almost subconsciously. A strange fear of him came over her. Would he
insist on her bearing child after child to help him realise his great
ambition? It was ridiculous, she knew, and probably due to her state of
health, but sometimes she found herself thinking of him not so much as a
man as a thing; she saw in him no longer the loving if tyrannical
husband, but a law, a force, to which she and everyone else must bow.
She even noticed a kind of likeness between him and Boarzell--swart,
strong, cruel, full of an irrepressible life.
§ 5.
The following spring Naomi gave birth to twin boys. With these twins
really started the epic of her maternity. She was not to be one of those
women for whom motherhood is a little song of baby shoes and blue
sashes, and games and kisses and rockings to sleep. Hers was altogether
a sterner business, her part in a battle--it was motherhood for a
definite purpose, man and woman taking a leaf out of nature's book,
playing her game to their own advantage, using her methods only to crush
her at last. In a word it was epic--and the one drawback was that Naomi
had never been meant for an epic part in life. She of all women had been
meant for baby shoes and blue sashes, and here she was with her shoulder
against Reuben's, helping him in the battle which even he found hard....
However, as yet there were few misgivings. That faintness of spirit
which had come over her during the last few months of her pregnancy,
faded like a ghost in the first joyous days of her deliverance. Reuben's
pride, delight, and humble gratitude were enough to make any woman
happy, even without those two dear fat little babies which the doctor
said were the finest twins he had ever seen. Naomi was one of those
women who, even without very strong maternal instincts, cannot resist a
baby. The soft limbs, the big downy heads, the groping wet mouths of her
boys were a sheer physical delight to her. She even forgot to regret
that one of them was not a girl.
She made a quick recovery, and Robert and Peter were christened at
Easter-time. Naomi looked every inch the proud mother. Her slight figure
had acquired more matronly lines, and she even affected a more elderly
style of dress. For some time afterwards, proud and beloved, she really
felt that motherhood was her vocation, and when in the course of the
summer she realised that her experiences were to be repeated, she was
not so sorry as she had been before. She hoped desperately it would be a
girl--but this time said nothing to Reuben.
Once more her attitude towards him had changed. She no longer felt the
timid passion of the first months after her marriage, but she also no
longer felt that sinister dread and foreboding which had succeeded it.
She looked upon him less as her husband, inspiring alternately love and
terror, than as the father of her children. She saw him, so to speak,
through them. She loved him because they were his as well as hers. She
spoke less of "I" and "he," and more of "us," "we," and "ours."
All the same she was bitterly disappointed when the following year
another boy was born. She sobbed into her pillow, and even Reuben's
delight and little Richard's soft kicks against her breast, could not
comfort her. In fact she felt secretly angry with Reuben for his joy. He
did not think of her and what she wanted. He thought only of his dirty
old farm, and that dreary, horrible Boarzell.
As time wore on, and her hopes were once more roused, she became quite
obsessed by the idea of having a girl. She thought of nothing but the
little frocks, the ribbons with which she would tie the pretty hair. She
pictured the times she and her daughter would have together, the
confidences they would exchange--for old Mrs. Backfield grew more and
more silent and unreceptive, and her neighbours were not of her mould.
They would tell each other everything ... she had dreams of an
impossible little pink-and-white girl like a doll, with golden curls and
blue eyes and a white muslin frock. In her dreams she would stretch out
her arms to this ached-for child, and would wake sobbing, with the tears
running down her face.
Then, at last, after experiences which had had boredom added to their
pain by repetition, she murmured--"What is it, mother?"--and a real,
breathing, living, crying, little girl was put into her arms.
§ 6.
The positions of husband and wife were now reversed. It was Reuben who
sulked and gloomed, looking at the baby askance, while Naomi moved in a
daydream of peace and rapture and desire satisfied. She was too happy to
care much about her husband's disappointment. She would never have
believed it if anyone had told her in the first weeks of her marriage
that she could have a joy and not mind if he did not share it, a child
and not fret if he did not love it. But now her child sufficed her, or
rather she had learned the lesson of wives, to suffice herself, and
could love and rejoice without a comrade.
She had forgotten the Arabellas and Mariannas of the Keepsake, and the
baby was called Fanny after Naomi's own mother, whom she dimly
remembered. Fanny became the centre of Naomi's life; she was not as
healthy as the other children, and her little pains and illnesses were
all so many cords drawing her closer to her mother's heart. Though she
required twice as much attention as the boys, Naomi never fretted or
grew weary, as she had sometimes done in the service of the other little
ones--on the contrary, she bloomed into a new beauty, and recovered the
youthfulness she had begun to lose.
Strange to say, Harry, who had paid little attention to the earlier
babies, seemed drawn to this one. He would hang round Naomi when she had
her in her lap, and sometimes gingerly put out a hand and stroke the
child's limbs. Naomi could not bear that he should touch her; but he
amused Fanny, so she tolerated him. He had fallen into the habit of many
half-witted people and occasionally made strange faces, which though
repulsive to everyone else, filled Fanny with hilarious delight. Indeed
they were the first thing she "noticed."
"Oh, the pretty baby! save the pretty baby!"--Harry would mutter and
shriek, and he would wander about the house crying--"Save the pretty
baby!" till Naomi declared that he gave her the shivers.
"Keep him out of the way, can't you, Backfield?" she said to her
husband.
In Reuben's eyes Naomi was just as irritating and ridiculous as Harry.
She made foolish clothes for Fanny, quite unfit for a child in her
position--muslins and ribbon bows, little knitted shoes, which she was
forever pulling off to kiss the baby's feet. She would seat her on some
high big chair in which she lolled with grotesque importance, and would
kneel before her and call her "Miss Fanny."
"There, Miss Fanny--see what a grand baby you are. Soon all the boys
will be courting you--see if they don't. You shall always wear silk and
muslins and sit on cushions, and you will always love your mother, won't
you, dear little miss?"
Reuben was revolted--also a little hurt. It seemed to him that Naomi was
neglecting the boys he was so proud of. Albert was nearly four years
old, a fine sturdy child, worth a dozen puling Fannys, and Robert and
Pete were vigorous crawlers and adventurers, who ought to rejoice any
mother's heart. Richard was still in an uninteresting stage--but, hem it
all! he was a boy.
Nearly as bad as her indifference to the children she had already borne,
was her indifference to the child she was about to bear. She was
expecting her confinement in the spring, but she did not seem to take
the slightest interest in it or the slightest care of herself. Again and
again she would start up from the sofa where she had lain down by his
orders, because she heard Fanny crying upstairs. She risked injuring
herself by continually carrying her about or by stooping over her as she
rolled on the floor.
Reuben often spoke to her severely, but with no result. There was a time
when he could never chide her without her crying, but now she hardly
seemed to care.
As the autumn wore on Fanny became more and more ailing and Naomi more
and more preoccupied. There were doctor's visits to be paid for, and on
one or two occasions Naomi had sent for him unnecessarily. It maddened
Reuben to think that he was not master of his own household, but though
he could always enforce obedience in person, he was compelled
continually to be out of doors, even sometimes away from the farm, and
he could not control what went on in his absence.
Odiam was passing through anxious times. The expected and dreaded had
happened--the Corn Laws had been repealed, and cursing farmers grubbed
up their wheatfields, hoping no more from grain. Reuben was bitterly
disappointed, the whole future of Odiam was bound up with grain, the
most honourable and--in the long run--most profitable of a farm's
concerns. In his dreams he had seen wind-rippled waves of wheat rolling
up to Boarzell's very crest, he had seen the threshed corn filling his
barn, or rumbling to Iden Mill. Now the cheap abundant foreign grain
would fight his home-sown harvests. He would have to depend for revenue
on milk and hops, and grow wheat only as an expensive decoration. Peel
was a traitor; he had betrayed the staunch grain-growing Tories who had
inconvenienced themselves with muddy rides to vote for his supporters.
For a year or so Reuben hated the Conservatives, and would not vote at
all at the next election.
He had trouble, too, with his new grass. One of his Jersey cows suddenly
died, and it turned out that it had eaten some poisonous plant which
had insinuated itself into the pasture. It was as if Boarzell fought
treacherously--with stabbings in the dark as well as blastings in the
open. The night the Jersey died, Reuben sat with his head buried in his
arms on the kitchen table, while Naomi carried her Miss Fanny about the
room, and told her about the beautiful silk gowns she would wear when
she grew up.
§ 7.
That autumn he had sown catch-crops of Italian rye grass, which gave the
stock a good early winter feed. He had grown sharper in his dealings
with the land, he knew how to take it at a disadvantage, snatch out a
few roots. Every inch of the farm was now at work, for every blade of
grass now counted. He had even dug up the garden, casting aside
rose-bushes, sweet-peas, and dahlias for dull rows of drum-head
cabbages, potatoes, kale, and beans. And manure ... there was manure
everywhere, lying under the very parlour windows, sending up its
effluvium on the foggy winter air till it crept into even the close-shut
bedroom, making Naomi conscious of Reuben in her dreams.
She was inclined to be sulky in those days. She disliked the smell of
manure, she disliked being made to dream of Reuben, towards whom she now
felt a vague hostility. What business had he to go and saddle her with
another child? Surely she had enough--four boys and a girl. What
business had he to make her languid and delicate just when she needed
all her health for the ailing Fanny? He was so unsympathetic about
Fanny, too, one really might think he did not care what the poor little
creature suffered.
Naomi began to complain about him to the neighbours. She joined in those
wifely discussions, wherein every woman plaintively abused her own man,
and rose at once in fury if another woman ventured to do so.
"Backfield he scarcely takes any notice of me now--always thinking
about his farm. Talks of nothing but hops and oats. Would you believe
it, Mrs. Ditch, but he hardly ever looks at this dear little Fanny. He
cares for his boys right enough, because when they're grown up they'll
be able to work for him, but he justabout neglects his girlie--that's
what he does, he neglects her. The other night, there she was crying and
sobbing her little heart out, and he wouldn't let me send for the
doctor. Says he can't afford to have the doctor here for nothing.
Nothing, indeed!..."
So Naomi would maunder to her acquaintance; with Reuben she confined
herself to hints and innuendoes. Sometimes she complained to Mrs.
Backfield, but her husband's mother was unsympathetic.
"You döan't know when you're in luck," she said as she thumped the
dough--"nothing to do but bath and dress the children, and yet you
grumble. If you had to work like me--"
"I don't know why you do it. Make Backfield get a girl to help you."
"And pay eight shillings a month when he wants the money so badly! No,
if a woman can't work fur her son, I döan't see much good in her. Some
women"--rather venomously--"even work fur their husbands."
"You know well enough he won't let me work for him."
"I never said as you ought to work fur him--all I said wur as you
shouldn't ought to grumble."
A loud wail from Fanny in her cradle drove the retort from Naomi's lips.
She sprang from the arm-chair where she had been resting, and ran
heavily across the room to the baby's side.
"What's the matter, my darling? Come to mother, little Miss Fanny. Oh, I
know something's wrong with her, or she wouldn't cry so. She's got such
a sweet temper really."
She picked the child out of the cradle, and began to walk up and down
the room, rocking it in her arms. Fanny's wails grew louder, more
long-drawn, and more plaintive.
Reuben came in, and his brows contracted when he saw what his wife was
doing. There was a slight moisture on her forehead, and she strained the
child violently to her breast.
"Come, Naomi, put her down. It's bad for you to carry her about like
this."
"Oh, Reuben, I'm sure she's ill. Can't we send Beatup over for the
doctor?"
"No, we can't. There's naun the matter wud her really. She's always
crying."
Naomi faced him almost spitefully.
"If one of the boys had hurt his little finger you'd have doctor in at
once. It's only because it's Fanny. You don't love her, you----"
"Now none o' that, missus," said Reuben roughly--"you put the child back
in her cradle, and go and lie down yourself. I döan't want to have to
fetch doctor in to _you_."
Naomi had not acquired the art of flouting him openly. She tearfully put
Fanny into her cradle, and lay and sulked on the sofa for the rest of
the evening.
That night she dreamed that her new baby was born, and that Reuben had
taken away Fanny and given her to Beatup. Beatup was carrying her down
to the pond to drown her as he drowned the kittens, and Naomi stood in
the garden with immovable weights on every limb listening to the
despairing shrieks of her little girl. They were dreadful shrieks, not
like a baby's at all.
They still sounded when Naomi woke. She sat up in bed, uncertain as to
whether she were dreaming or not. Then from Fanny's little bed beside
the big one came something terrible--a low long wail like an animal's
dying into a moan. It seemed as if her heart stopped beating. She felt
the sweat rush out all over her body. The next minute she was out of
bed, groping for Fanny in the darkness.
She found her and lifted her in her arms; once more that dreadful
wailing moan came from the little body, mingling this time with a snore
from Reuben. Naomi, still grasping Fanny, managed to light a candle. The
child's face was deadly white and drawn in a strange way, while her lips
were blue.
"Reuben!" shrieked Naomi.
He did not wake. Worn out with hard work and his anxiety about his farm,
he still slept heavily, rolled in the blanket. A sick insane rage seized
Naomi. She sprang on the bed, tore the clothes off him, shook him, beat
him, pulled his hair, while all the time she grasped the now silent
Fanny convulsively between her left arm and her breast.
"My child's dying. Get up, you brute. Fetch the doctor. My child's
dying!"
For a moment Reuben was bewildered with his sudden waking, but he soon
came to himself at the sight of his wife's distorted face and the
inanimate lop-headed baby. He sprang up, pulled on his trousers, and in
two minutes had bundled the half-conscious but utterly willing Beatup
out of his attic, and sent him off on the fastest horse to Rye. Then he
came back into the bedroom. Naomi was sitting on the floor, her hair
falling over her shoulders, the baby unconscious on her lap.
"Give her to me, child--let me look."
"No, no--get away," and Naomi once more caught up Fanny to her breast.
"I'll go and fetch mother."
Mrs. Backfield arrived in a washed-out bed-gown. A fire was lit and
water put on to boil. Fanny's, however, did not seem just an ordinary
case of "fits"; she lay limp in her mother's arms, strangely blue round
the mouth, her eyes half open.
"Oh, what is it?--what is it?" wailed Naomi--"can't we do anything? Oh,
why doesn't the doctor come?"
Suddenly the baby stiffened on her lap. The limbs became rigid, the face
black. Then something rasped in its throat.
"Bring the water!--Bring the water!" screamed Naomi, hardly knowing what
she said.
Mrs. Backfield poured the water into a basin, and Naomi lifted Miss
Fanny to put her into the steaming bath.
"It's no use," said Reuben. He knew the child was dead.
But Naomi insisted on putting Fanny into the basin. She held her up in
it for a moment. Then suddenly let her drop, and fell forward, wailing.
Reuben and Mrs. Backfield tried in vain to soothe her, and put her back
to bed. She was like a mad woman. She who had always been so timid and
gentle, peevish at the worst, now shouted, kicked and raved.
"You've killed her! it's your doing ... you're a murderer!" she screamed
at Reuben.
He lifted her bodily and laid her on the bed. But she was still half
insane--
"I hate you! I hate you!" she cried, and threw herself about.
When the doctor arrived an hour later, his services were needed after
all. For Naomi gave birth to a little boy at dawn.
§ 8.
Naomi had met her tragedy. In course of time she recovered from her
confinement, but all the joy of life and motherhood had gone from her.
It was inexplicable to Reuben that she could mourn so hopelessly over
the death of a little weak girl, who would have been nothing but a care
and an expense if she had lived. It was inexplicable that she could
take no interest in young Benjamin, a sound, well-made little fellow in
spite of his premature birth. For the first time she was unable to
suckle her baby, and Reuben was forced to engage a nurse, not liking the
responsibility of bringing him up by hand.
But he was very good to Naomi. He tried to forget her indifference to
his beloved boys, and to soothe and strengthen her into something like
her old self. She did not repulse him. All the violence and the
desperation in her had burnt themselves out during that night of frenzy.
She lay in bed hour after hour without moving, her long hair--which was
now beginning to come out in handfuls when she brushed it--spread over
the pillow. Her muscles were slack, she lay without any suppleness,
heavy against the mattress. After some weeks she was able to get up, and
go about her duties with the children. She never spoke of her misery,
she ate, she sewed, she even gossiped with the neighbours, as before.
But something was gone from her--her eye sometimes had a vacant, roving
look, her shoulders stooped, and her skin grew sallow.
She was still fond of her children, but in a listless, mechanical way.
Sometimes when she had them all gathered round her, for their bedtime or
a bath, she would find the tears welling up in her eyes till all the
little faces were blurred. Poor mites! what future lay ahead of them?
They were their father's slaves as well as she--the utmost would be
ground out of them as it had been ground out of her.
Once more she had taken up her unwilling part in Boarzell's epic. She
was expecting another child for the following spring. This would be her
seventh.
She was no longer merely dissatisfied. In her heart she passionately
rebelled. She hated herself, and her condition, for now she hated
Reuben. The vague hostility she had felt towards him during Fanny's
short life had given place to a definite hatred. She looked upon Reuben
as the murderer of her child, and she hated him. During the first days
of her grief he had been so kind to her that she had grown dependent on
him and hatred was delayed, but now dependence and dazed gratitude had
passed away, and in their place was a sick, heavy loathing for the man
whose neglect and indifference she believed had killed her child. She
could not endure the thought of giving him another. Sometimes she
thought she would like to kill herself, but she was too weak a soul for
anything desperate.
In those days she could not bear the sound of Harry's fiddle, and he was
told he must not play it in the house.
§ 9.
The Repeal of the Corn Laws did not have such a bad effect on Odiam as
Reuben had feared. The harvests in '46 and '47 were unusually good, and
a general revival of prosperity throughout the country atoned for the
low price of grain. It was not to be expected, however, that he would
forgive at once the party which had betrayed agricultural interests. He
transferred his political allegiance to Disraeli, whose feudalistic
attitude won his entire respect. It was a great trial to him that he
could not read the newspapers, for nowadays he did not care to have
Naomi read to him. She used to sometimes, but her utter lack of interest
and understanding was no longer atoned for by a voice love-modulated or
a soft hand stroking his. He resolved that none of his children should
share his disabilities, and already the infant Albert toddled daily to a
little house in the village where two vague-looking sisters taught the
rising generation mysteries hidden from their parents. Reuben could
spell out one or two words, and could write "Reuben Backfield" in big
printing letters at the bottom of any document he had to sign, but he
had no time to educate himself further.
He was now twenty-seven, looking in some ways strangely older, in
others far younger, than his age. The boy in him had not had much chance
of surviving adolescence. Life had come down too hard on him. A grim
struggle does not nourish youth, and mentally Reuben was ten or twelve
years ahead of twenty-seven. His splendid health and strength, however,
had maintained a physical boyishness, expressing itself in zeal and high
spirits, a keen appetite, a boundless capacity for work, an undaunted
enterprise. He was always hungry, he fell asleep directly his head
touched the pillow, and slept like a child beside the tossing and
wakeful Naomi.
His work had made him splendid. His skin was the colour of the soil he
tilled, a warm ruddy brown, his hair was black, growing low on the
forehead, and curling slightly behind the ears. The moulding of his neck
and jaw, his eyes, dark, bright, and not without laughter in them, his
teeth, big, white, and pointed, like an animal's--all spoke of clean and
vigorous manhood. He was now unmistakably a finer specimen than Harry.
Harry had lost to a great measure his good looks. Not only had the
vacancy of his face robbed it of much of its attraction--for more
beautiful than shape or colouring or feature had been the free spirit
that looked out of his eyes--but his constant habit of making hideous
grimaces had worked it into lines, while the scar of his burning
sometimes showed across his cheek. Add to this a stoop and a shambling
gait, and it is no longer "Beautiful Harry," nor even the ghost of him,
so much as some changeling, some ill-done counterfeit image, set up by
vindictive nature in his stead.
Harry was no more his mother's favourite son. She was not the type of
woman to whom a maimed child is dearer than half a dozen healthy ones.
On the contrary he filled her with a vague terror and repulsion. She
spoke to him gently, tended him carefully, even sometimes forced
herself to caress him--but for the most part she avoided him, feeling as
she did so a vague shame and regret.
On the other hand, her devotion to Reuben grew more and more absorbing
and submissive. Her type was obviously the tyrant-loving, the more
primitive kind, which worships the strong of the tribe and recoils
instinctively from the weak. Where many a woman, perhaps rougher and
harder than she, would have flung all the love and sweetness of her
nature upon the blasted Harry, she turned instead to the strong,
stalwart Reuben, who tyrannised over her and treated her with less and
less consideration ... and this after twenty years of happy married
life, during which she had idled and been waited on, and learned a
hundred dainty ways.
She had no patience with Naomi's simmering rebellion; she scoffed at her
complaints, and always took Reuben's part against her.
"As long as there's men and women in the world, the men 'ull be top and
the women bottom."
"Why?" asked Naomi.
"Because it wur meant so. If we'd bin meant fur masters d'you think we'd
have bin made so liddle and dentical like?"
"But we're a sight smarter than men."
"Yes--that makes up to us a bit, but it döan't do us any real good ...
only helps us git round a man sometimes when we can't git over him."
"Then it does us some good after all. A sad state we'd be in if the men
always had their own way."
"You take it from me that it's much better when a man has his own way
than when he hasn't. Then he's pleased wud you and makes life warm and
easy for you. It's women as are always going against men wot are
unhappy. Please men and they'll be good to you and you'll be happy,
döan't please them and they'll be bad to you and you'll be miserable.
But women who're for ever grumbling, and making a fuss about doing wot
they've got to do whether they like it or not, and are cross-grained
wives, and unwilling mothers ..." and so on, and so on.
Yet Mrs. Backfield did not, any more than Naomi, understand Reuben's
great ambition.
§ 10.
That autumn Naomi entered on a time of black depression--an utter gloom
and weariness of body and mind. It was no mere dull staggering under
blows, merciful in its blindness and lack of acute feeling--it was a
clear-eyed misery, in which every object was as distinct as it was dark,
like one of those sudden clearings of a stormy landscape, when trees,
hedges, meadows, loom under the frowning sky, outstanding and black in
detail, more vivid than in sunshine.
She saw now what she was--her husband's victim, the tool of his
enterprise. He had never really loved her. He had been attracted by
her--her beauty, her gentleness, her breeding, had appealed to him. But
that was not why he had married her. He had married her for her money,
which he was now spending on his farm, and he had married her because he
wanted children and she was the most suitable mother he could find. He
had never really loved her.
And she had never really loved him. That was another of the things she
saw clearly. She had married him because his strength and good looks,
his ardent wooing, had turned her head, because she had been weak and he
had been masterful. But she had never loved him.
She had been a fool, and now she was paying the price of folly, which is
always so much heavier than the price of sin. Here she was at
twenty-five, prematurely old, exhausted, sick of life, and utterly
alone. There was no one to turn to in her wretchedness. Her neighbours
were incapable of giving her real help or sympathy, Mrs. Backfield
invariably took Reuben's part and resented the slightest criticism of
him, old Gasson was hard and selfish, and not particularly interested in
his daughter.
She wished, with all the wormwood that lies in useless regrets, that she
had never married. Then, paradoxically, she would not have been so
utterly alone. She would have had at least the help of sweet memories
undefiled. She could have taken refuge in them from her sorrow, built
them perhaps at last into hope. Now she had to thrust them from her, for
they were one and all soiled by her unfaithfulness.
For the first time she began definitely to reproach herself for her
treatment of Harry. Though she could never have married him, she could
at least have been faithful to him.
"O why, because sickness hath wasted my body,
Should you do me to death with your dark treacherie?
O why, because brothers and friends all have left me,
Should you leave me too, O my faithless ladie!"
Moreover, she still sometimes had a vague feeling that at the start
Harry had not been quite so mad as people thought, that he might perhaps
have recovered if she had made him understand that she was true to him,
still hoping. No doubt that was all nonsense, but she could not quite
smother the idea that she had betrayed Harry. Perhaps it was partly
because even before his accident she had cast longing eyes at Reuben.
Once again she called up memories of him cutting down willows on his new
land, and she acknowledged miserably to herself that in that hour she
had already been unfaithful to Harry in her heart, and that all that
came afterwards was but the following up of that initial act of
treachery. A strong arm, a broad back, a blue shirt in the January
twilight ... and Naomi had set out on a road every step of which was
now over rough stones and broken shards.
In February her child was born--another girl. But this time Reuben was
not sorry, for he realised that his mother would not last for ever, and
that he must have a girl to take her place. It might have been expected
that a baby girl would comfort Naomi for the lost Fanny, but such was
not the case. It seemed as if with Fanny she had lost all power of
loving and of rising again. Once more she was unable to feed the child,
and her convalescence was dragging and miserable. When at last she was
able to go about, a permanent ill-health seemed to have settled on her,
the kind that rides tired women, making their faces sallow, their hair
scanty, filling their backs with strange pains. She grew fretful, too,
and her temper was none of the best.
§ 11.
That year Reuben bought ten more acres of Boarzell, and limed them for
oats. He felt that now he had strength to return to his first battle,
and wring a grain crop out of that grudging soil. The new piece of
ground abutted the Odiam lands on the Flightshot side, and he could see
it from his window. Before going to bed at night, he would lean out and
feast his eyes on it as it lay there softly covered in the dark, or
glimmering in the faint star-dazzle of spring. Sometimes it seemed
almost as if a breath came from it, a fragrance of sleep, and he would
sit there inhaling it till Naomi peevishly begged him to shut the window
and come to bed. Then in the mornings, when he woke according to healthy
habit at five, he would sit up, and even from the bed he could see his
land, waiting for him in the cold whiteness of dawn, silently calling
him out to the freshness of its many dews.
He still kept the farm modestly, for he was anxious to be able to do
without help except from Beatup. His young family were also an expense.
For a few years more he must expect to have them rather heavily on his
hands ... then Albert and the twins would be able to do a little work,
and gradually both the capacity and number of his labourers would
increase, till at last perhaps he would be able to discharge Beatup, and
Backfield alone fight Backfield's battle.
Meantime he was worried about Naomi. It says much for the
ineffectiveness of her emotions that he had not till just then realised
her hostility towards him. Now that he saw it, he put it down to her
ill-health, and re-established the tyrannous watch over her which he had
kept up in the old days. He was sorry for her, and knew now that he had
made a mistake in marrying her. He should have chosen a sturdier, more
ambitious mate. However, there was no help for it, he could not give up
the battle because his fellow-fighter had no stomach for it. He was
grieved for the loss of her beauty, and would make things as easy for
her as possible, but he could not let her off altogether. She must do
her share in the struggle which was so much greater than either of them.
She had rested from child-bearing a year, but he still longed
desperately for children, and she became a mother again at the end of
'49.
The baby was a girl, and Reuben was bitterly disappointed. One girl was
quite enough, and he badly wanted more boys. Besides, Naomi was very
ill, and the doctor told him in private that she ought not to have any
more children, at least for some time.
"She never was a strong woman, and these repeated confinements have
quite worn her out. You have seven children, Mr. Backfield, and I think
that ought to be enough for any man."
"But two of them are girls--it's boys I want, surelye!"
"Aren't five boys enough for you?"
"No--they äun't."
"Well, of course, if she has a thorough rest from all work and worry,
and recovers her health in the meantime, I don't say that in three or
four years.... But she's not a strong subject, Mr. Backfield, and you'd
do well to remember it."
§ 12.
Reuben was very kind to Naomi during her illness. He helped his mother
to nurse her, and spent by her side all the time he could spare from the
farm. He was too strong to vent on her personally the rage and
disappointment with which circumstances had filled him. He pitied her
fragility, he even pitied her for the antagonism which he saw she still
felt towards him.
At nights he slept upstairs in one of the attics, which always smelt of
apples, because it was next to the loft where the apples were stored. He
was happy there, in spite of some dark hours when the deadlock of his
married life kept him awake. He wondered if there was a woman in the
world who could share his ambitions for Odiam. He expected not, for
women were an ambitionless race. If Naomi had had a single spark of zeal
for the great enterprise in which he and she were engaged, she would not
now be lying exhausted by her share in it. He had honoured her by asking
her to join him in this splendid undertaking, and all she had done had
been to prove that she had no fight in her.
He could now gaze out on Boarzell uninterrupted. The sight of the great
Moor made his blood tingle; his whole being thrilled to see it lying
there, swart, unconquered, challenging. How long would it be, he
wondered, before he had subdued it? Surely in all Sussex, in all
England, there had never been such an undertaking as this ... and when
he was triumphant, had achieved his great ambition, won his heart's
desire, how proud, how glorious he would be among his children....
The wind would carry him the scent of gorse, like peaches and apricots.
There was something in that scent which both mocked and delighted him.
It was an irony that the huge couchant beast of Boarzell should smell so
sweet--surely the wind should have brought him a pungent ammoniacal
smell like the smell of stables ... or perhaps the smell of blood.
But, after all, this subtle gorse-fragrance had its suitableness, for
though gorse may cast out the scent of soft fruit from its flowers, its
stalks are wire and its roots iron, its leaves are so many barbs for
those who would lay hands on its sweetness. It was like Boarzell itself,
which was Reuben's delight and his dread, his beloved and his enemy.
The day would come when Boarzell would no longer drench the night with
perfume, when the gorse would be torn out of its hide to make room for
the scentless grain. Then Reuben would no longer lean out of his window
and dream of it, for dreams, like the peach-scent of the gorse, would go
when the corn came. But those days were not yet.
Naomi's illness dragged. Sometimes Reuben suspected her of malingering,
she so obviously did not want to get well. He guessed her reasons, and
took an opportunity to tell her of the doctor's verdict. The struggle
was in abeyance--at least her share of it. Nature--which was really what
he was fighting in Boarzell--had gained a temporary advantage, and his
outposts had been forced to retire.
Naomi began now decidedly to improve. She put on flesh, and showed a
faint interest in life. Towards the end of April she was able to come
downstairs. She was obviously much better, and old Mrs. Backfield hinted
that she was even better than she looked. Reuben watched over her
anxiously, delighted to notice day by day fresh signs of strength. She
began to do little things for the children, she even seemed proud of
them. They were splendid children, but it was the first time that she
had realised it. She helped the scholastic elders with their sums and
made frocks for the little girls. She even allowed baby Mathilda to wear
Fanny's shoes.
The summer wore on. The sallow tints in Naomi's skin were exchanged for
the buttery ones which used to be before her marriage. Her hair ceased
to fall, her cheeks plumped out, her voice lost its weak shrillness. She
made herself a muslin gown, and Reuben bought ribbons for it at Rye.
The husband and wife now lived quite independently. They no longer made
even the pretence of walking on the same path. Naomi played with the
children, did a little sewing and housework--exactly what she chose--and
occasionally went over to Totease or Burntbarns for a chat with the
neighbours. She once even spent a couple of nights at her father's, the
first time since her marriage that she had slept away from Odiam.
As for Reuben, he worked as hard as ever, but never spoke of it to his
wife. He seemed to enjoy her society at meals, and now and then would
take her out for a stroll along the lanes, or sit with her in the
evening by the kitchen fire. Once more he liked to have her read him the
papers; and though she understood no more than she had ever done, her
voice had ceased to be dull and fretful. Then at night he would go up to
his attic and drink in the smell of gorse at the window, till he grew
drowsy and shut himself in with the smell of apples.
After a time they began to notice a convergence in these independent
ways. It seemed as if only by running apart had they learned at last to
run together. A certain friendliness and comradery began to establish
itself between them. Reuben began to talk to Naomi about politics and
agricultural doings, and gradually her character underwent a strange
blossoming. She became far more adult in her opinions; she took interest
in matters outside her household and immediate surroundings. He never
spoke to her of his plans for Boarzell, for that would have brought them
back into the old antagonism and unrest; but when she read the papers to
him he would discuss them with her, occasionally interrupt her with
comments, and otherwise show that he had to do with an intelligent
being. She in her turn would enquire into the progress of the hops or
the oats, ask him if his new insect-killer was successful, or whether
Ditch had done well with his harvest, or how much Realf's had fetched at
the corn-market.
Three months passed in this new way. Reuben would never have believed
that Naomi could be a companion to him, especially after the last few
hostile years. As for her, she looked young and pretty again; delicious
slim lines had come into her figure--no longer the slack curves and
emaciation of recent months, or the matronly fullness of earlier times.
Her health seemed completely restored.
Then came a day early in December, when they were walking home together
through the mud of Totease Lane, their faces whipped into redness by the
south-west wind. Naomi wore a russet cloak and hood, and her hair, on
which a few rain-drops glistened, was teasing her eyes. She held
Reuben's arm, for the ruts were treacherous, and he noticed the spring
and freedom of her walk. A sudden turn of the lane brought them round
due west, and between them and the sunset stood Boarzell, its club of
firs knobbily outlined against the grape-red sky. It smote itself upon
Reuben's eyes almost as a thing forgotten--there, half blotting out the
sunset with its blackness. Unconsciously his arm with Naomi's hand on it
contracted against his side, while the colour deepened on his
cheek-bones.
"Naomi."
"What is it?"
"Boarzell."
She lifted her eyes to the shape between her and the sky, and as
unconsciously he had flushed so unconsciously she shuddered.
"Well, what about it?" she asked in a voice that stuck a little.
"It's wunnerful ..." he murmured, "all that great big dark Moor, wot's
going to be mine."
She did not speak.
"Mine!" he repeated almost fiercely.
Then suddenly she began to plead:
"Can't you let it alone, Reuben?--we--we've been so happy these last
months not worrying about it. Must we ever start again?"
Her voice came anxiously, timidly like a child's. He dropped her hand
from his arm.
"Yes--we must," he said shortly.
They reached Odiam, both feeling that the glory of those last three
months had departed. The sight of Boarzell, lying black and hullish
across their path, had made them realise that their happiness was but an
interval, an interlude between more significant, more sinister things.
Naomi had lost her peace and confidence, she seemed to avoid her
husband, was tongue-tied in his presence, gave him a hurried good night
from the door. Reuben was silent and meditative--when his eyes rested on
Naomi they were half regretful.
That night he lay awake long hours in the smell of apples. He pondered
many things. Those past months had been sweet in their revived
tenderness, their simple freedom. But Boarzell had reasserted
itself--Naomi was now quite well again--she must no longer shirk her
duties. She must have more children.
It was cruel, he knew. She had already given him seven, she could not
realise that her task was not yet done. She had just felt what it was
to be well and strong again after long months of illness. It would be
cruel to impose on her once more the pains and weariness of motherhood.
It would be cruel.--But, hem it all! was not the thing he was fighting
cruel? Was not Boarzell cruel, meeting his endeavours with every form of
violence and treachery? If he was to conquer it he too must be cruel,
must harden his heart, and press forward, without caring how much he or
anyone bled on the way. He could not stop to consider even his nearest
and dearest when his foe had neither mercy nor ruth for him.
§ 13.
It was the August of another year. Reuben's new land on Boarzell was
tawny with oats. He had at last broken into that defiant earth and taken
handfuls of its treasure. To-day he inspected his crop, and planned for
its reaping. With parted lips and a faint sensuous gleam in his eyes he
watched it bow and ripple before the little breeze that stole over the
hedges from Tiffenden. He drank in the scent of the baking awns, the
heat of the sun-cracked earth. It was all dear to him--all ecstasy. And
he himself was dear to himself because the beauty of it fell upon him
... his body, strong and tired, smelling a little of sweat, his back
scorched by the heat in which he had bent, his hand strong as iron upon
his sickle. Oh Lord! it was good to be a man, to feel the sap of life
and conquest running in you, to be battling with mighty forces, to be
able to fight seasons, elements, earth, and nature....
He turned and walked slowly homewards, a smile on his lips. As he passed
the orchard, where a crop of plums was ripening, the shrill whir of a
bird-rattle made him look up. There in the long grass stood his young
Albert, dutifully scaring sparrows from the trees. He had been there all
the afternoon, and Reuben beckoned to him to come in to tea. Further
on, in the yard, he encountered Robert feeding the chickens out of an
enormous bowl carried by Pete, whose arms with difficulty embraced its
girth. He summoned these two in. His family trotted after him at a
respectful distance. They did not speak, except to say "Oo" occasionally
to each other.
In the kitchen a substantial meal was prepared. It was the children's
supper, and was to last Reuben till he came in at nine o'clock and had a
bowl of broth before going to bed. Old Mrs. Backfield was settling the
children round the table. Caro and Tilly showed only their heads above
the cloth, a piece of neck proclaimed Benjamin's extra inches, while
Richard had quite two buttons to his credit. Harry sat at the bottom
beside Caroline; when he heard Albert's rattle, he seized it and began
making a hideous din. Caro and Tilly began to cry, and Reuben snatched
the rattle away.
He sat down, and immediately his mother put a plate of hot bacon before
him. She was vexed because it was the only meat he allowed himself on
week-days. The children ate bread and milk, and thrived on it, to judge
by their round healthy faces. Reuben was proud of them. They were fine
children, and he hoped that the one that was coming would be as sturdy.
"How is she?" he asked Mrs. Backfield.
"She slept a bit this afternoon. I took her a cup of tea at five, but I
think the heat tries her."
"I'll go up and see her soon as I've finished--Harry, täake your hand
out of the baby's pläate."
As soon as the supper was over, Reuben still munching bread and bacon
went up to his wife's room. The sunlight was gone, but the sky was
blood-red behind Boarzell's hulk, and a flushed afterglow hung on the
ceiling and moved slowly like a fire over the bed. The corners of the
room, the shadows cast by the furniture, were black and smoky. On
Naomi's face, on her body outlined under the sheet, the lights
crimsoned and smouldered. There was a strange fiery reflection in her
eyes as she turned them to the door.
"Well, my dear, how are you?"
"I'm very well, thank you, Backfield."
She always said that.
He came over to the bed and looked down on her. Her eyes were haunting
... and the vestiges of youth about her face. But he no longer pitied or
spared. Boarzell had taught him his first lesson--that only the hard
shall triumph in the hard fight, and that he who would spare his brother
shall do no better than he who would spare himself.
He sat down beside her and took her hand.
"I hear you had some sleep this afternoon."
"Yes--I slept for an hour. I think I'm better."
Her voice was submissive--or indifferent.
"I've bin on the new land all to-day. It's doing justabout splendid.
Those oats are as dentical as wheat--not a sedge-leaf adin them."
She made a faint sound to show that she had heard him.
"Albert's bin in the orchard scaring sparrers, and Robert and Pete wur
helping wud the chickens. My family's gitting quite valiant now, Mrs.
Backfield."
"Yes."
"I'll soon be able to have Richard on, and then there's still Jemmy to
foller--and George."
"Mmm."
"Now döan't you put me off wud Georgina."
Her mouth stretched mechanically into a smile, and at the same time a
tear slid out of the corner of her eye, and rolled slowly over her thin
cheeks. In the red, smouldering light of the sky behind Boarzell it
looked like a tear of blood.
§ 14.
Early in September George arrived. Reuben's face kindled when the doctor
told him he had escaped Georgina.
The doctor, however, did not look pleased.
"Perhaps now you have enough boys?" he said rather truculently.
"Well, there's six...."
"I hope that's enough to satisfy you. Because there won't be any
more---- She's dying."
"Dying!"
He repeated the word almost stupidly.
"Yes"--said Dr. Espinette. He did not feel inclined to mince matters
with Backfield.
"But--but--can't you do anything for her, surelye?"
"I'm afraid not. Of course, one can never speak with absolute certainty
even in a case like this. But----" and the doctor wasted some medical
technicalities on Reuben.
The young man turned from him, half-dazed. Dying! Naomi! A sudden wild
pang smote through his heart for the mother of his children.
"Do something for her! you can--you must."
"I'm going over to Gablehook now, but I'll call in on the way back. I'm
afraid there's not much hope; however, I'll do my best."
Reuben's sudden pallor and blank eyes had softened his heart a little.
But, he reflected the next moment, there was no sense in pitying
Backfield.
Reuben did not wait any longer--he dashed out of the room and upstairs
to his wife's door.
He knocked. From within came a faint sound of moaning. He knocked again.
The midwife opened the door.
"Go away," she said, "we can't let you in."
"I want to see Naomi."
"You can't."
"I must. Hem it! äun't I her husband?"
"You can come back in an hour or two. But you must go now--" and she
shut the door in his face.
Reuben slunk away, angry and miserable.
He pottered about the farm all the morning. Somehow these terrible
events reminded him of the birth of his first child, when he had moped
and fretted and sulked--and all for nothing. That seemed twenty years
ago. Now he did not fret for nothing. His wife was dying, still young,
still sometimes beautiful. His mind was full of jumbled memories of
her--he saw her as Harry's sweetheart, sitting with him on Boarzell
while he sang; he saw her in the dairy where he had first kissed her
stooping over the cream; he saw her as his bride, flushed and timid
beside him at the wedding-feast, as the mother of his boys, proud and
full-bosomed. But mostly his thoughts were more trivial and
tattered--memories of her in certain gowns, in a cap she had bought
because, having three little boys, she thought she must "dress older";
memories of little things she had said--"Why don't you keep bees,
Reuben? Why don't you keep bees? They're such pretty things, and I like
the honey...."
Towards two in the afternoon he came in, tired and puff-eyed with
misery, his brain all of a jangle. "Why don't you keep bees, Reuben? Why
don't you keep bees?"
He sat down at the table which the children had left, and mechanically
began to eat. His healthy young body claimed its dues, and almost
without knowing it he cleared the plate before him. Harry sat in the
chimney corner, murmuring, "Why döan't you kip bees, Reuben? Why döan't
you kip bees?"--showing that he had uttered his thoughts aloud, just as
the empty platters showed him he had made a very good dinner.
At last, strengthened by the food, he went up to Naomi's room again.
This time he was admitted.
She lay propped high on the pillows, and he was astonished to see how
well she looked, much better than before the baby was born. The infant
George lay like a rather ugly doll on his grandmother's lap. He was not
so healthy as the other children, indeed for a time it had been doubtful
whether he would live.
Naomi smiled feebly, and that smile, so wan, so patient, so utterly
wistful, so utterly unregretful, with which almost every mother first
greets the father of her child, went straight to Reuben's heart. He fell
on his knees by the bed, and covered her hand and her thin arm with
kisses.
"Naomi, my darling, my love, git well--you mustn't die and leave me."
Actually his tears fell on her hand, and a rather bitter compassion for
him drove away the more normal mood. He had killed her, and he was sorry
for it. But if he had it all to do over again he would do it, for the
sake of the land which was so much more to him than her life.
"My sweet," he murmured, holding her palm against his mouth, "my liddle
creature, my liddle sweet. Git well, and you shan't never have to go
through this agäun. Six boys is all I'll want to help me, surelye--and
you shall rest and be happy, liddle wife, and be proud of your children
and the gurt things they're going to do."
She smiled with that same bitter compassion, and stroked his head with
her feeble hand.
"How thick your hair is," she said, and weakly took a handful of it, as
she had sometimes done when she was well.
When he left her, ten minutes later, she struck him as better. He could
not quite smother the hope that Dr. Espinette was mistaken and that she
would recover with nursing and care. After all, even the doctor himself
had said that one could never be certain. He felt his spirits revive,
and called Beatup to go with him to the hop-fields.
Naomi heard him tramp off, talking of "goldings" and "fuggles." She lay
very still, hoping that the light would soon go, and give rest to her
tired eyes--but she was too utterly weary to ask Mrs. Backfield to draw
the curtains. Her mother-in-law put the baby back in its cradle, then
sat down at the foot of the bed, folding her arms over her breast. She
was tired after her labours in the house and in the sick-room, and soon
she began to doze. Naomi felt more utterly alone than before.
Her fingers plucked nervously at the sheet. There seemed to be a strange
tickling irritation in her skin, while her feet were dreadfully cold.
She wondered rather dully about the baby--she supposed he could not come
to any harm over there in the cradle by himself, but really she did not
care much--it was all one to her what happened to him.
Gradually the sun slanted and glowed, and a faint ripple of air stole
into the room, lifting the hair on her forehead, tangled and damp. It
struck her that she must be looking very ugly--she who had used to be
such a pretty girl.
The light trembled and pearled, and in a swift last clearness she saw
the great Moor rolling up against the sky, purple with heather, golden
with gorse, all strength and life. It seemed to mock her savagely--"I
live--you die. You die--I live." It was this hateful land which had
killed her, to which she had been sacrificed, and now it seemed to
flaunt its beauty and life and vigour before her dying eyes. "I
live--you die. You die--I live."
Yes, she was dying--and she hoped that she would die before Reuben came
back. She did not want to feel again that strange, half-bitter
compassion for him. The tears ran quite fast down her cheeks, and her
eyes were growing dim. This was the end, and she knew it. The evening
was full of tender life, but for her it was the end. Ambition and folly
had stolen her out of all this freshness before the spring of her life
had run. She was like a young birch tree blighted with its April leafage
half uncurled.
The tears splashed and dribbled on, till at last for some purely
physical reason they stopped. Then a familiar tune swam into her head.
She had been told of people who heard music when they were dying.
"At last when your pride shall have brought you to sorrow,
And years of remorse and despair been your fate,
Perhaps your cold heart will remember Seth's Manor,
And turn to your true love--and find it too late."
But her mind was too dim even for regrets. Instead, she seemed to see
herself dancing with Reuben at Boarzell Fair, when the dusk had been
full of strange whirling lights, whispers, and kisses.
Dancing!... dancing!... Dying!... dying! Even the tune had faded now,
and she could see nothing--only a grey patch where the window had been.
She was not frightened, only very lonely. Her legs were like ice, and
the inside of her mouth felt all rough and numb.
... Even the window had faded. Her head had fallen sideways on the
pillow, and behind Boarzell the sky had kindled into a sheet of soaring
triumphant flame.
"I live--you die. You die--I live."