than its predecessors, for Reuben had now no expectations to sustain
him. His position was really becoming serious. In '68 he had bought more
land than he could afford, for fear that Grandturzel would buy it if he
did not, and in '71 he had started his accursed milk-round, which had
proved nothing but an expense and a failure. He still clung to it, for
the shop by the Landgate gave him prestige, and he had always hoped that
affairs would mend, but he was gradually coming to realise that prestige
can be bought too dear, and that his affairs were too heavily clogged to
improve of their own accord.
He must take steps, he must make some sacrifice. He resolved to sell the
milk-round. It was either that or a mortgage, and a mortgage was far the
greater ignominy. After all he had not had the round more than two or
three years, it had never flourished, and the parting wrench would not
be a bad one. Of course his reputation would suffer, but hard cash was
at the present moment more valuable than reputation.
Unfortunately it was also more difficult to get. Those years had been
bad for everybody, and none of the surrounding farmers seemed disposed
to add to his burdens by so uncertain a deal. If the thing had not
thriven with Backfield it was not likely to thrive with anyone else. For
the first time Reuben cursed his own renown.
However, he hoped better things from the next spring. If lambing was
good and the season promising, farmers would not be so cautious.
Meantime he would keep Odiam in chains, he would save every penny, skim,
pare, retrench, and learn the lesson of his lean years.
Unfortunately he had reckoned without Rose--Rose saw no need for such
drastic measures. Because her man had been venturesome and stupid, made
rash speculations, and counted on a quite unwarranted legacy, that was
no reason for her to go without her new spring gown or new covers for
her parlour chairs. She was once more expecting motherhood, and
considered that as a reward for such self-sacrifice the most expensive
luxuries were inadequate.
At the same time, feeling quite at ease about herself and Handshut, she
led Reuben a freakish dance of jealousy, going to extravagant lengths in
the hope of breaking down his resistance and goading him into
compliance. But she did not find jealousy such a good weapon as it had
used to be. Reuben would grow furious, thundery and abusive, but she
never caught him, as formerly, in the softness of reaction, nor did the
fear of a rival stimulate any more profitable emotion than rage.
The truth was that Reuben had now become desperate. He could not give in
to Rose. If he sacrificed his farm to her in the smallest degree he ran
the risk of ruin. He was torn in two by the most powerful forces of his
life. On one side stood Odiam, trembling on the verge of catastrophe,
needing every effort, every sacrifice of his, every drop of his sweat,
every drop of his blood. On the other stood Rose, the dearest human
thing, who demanded that for her sake he should forget his farm and the
hopes bound up in it. He would not do so--and at the same time he would
not lose Rose. Though her love no longer gave him the gift of peace, he
still clung to it; her presence, her voice, her touch, still fired and
exalted him. He would not let her go--and he would not let Odiam go.
The struggle was terrible; it wore him out. He fought it desperately--to
neither side would he surrender an inch. Sometimes with Rose's arms
about him, her soft cheek against his and her perfidy forgotten, he
would be on the brink of giving her the pretty costly thing, whatever it
was, that she wanted at the expense of Odiam. At others, out in his
fields, or on the slope of Boarzell--half wild, half tamed--with all
those unconquered regions swelling above him, he would feel that he
could almost gladly lose Rose altogether, if to keep her meant the
sacrifice of one jot of his ambition, one tittle of his hope. Then he
would go home, and find her ogling Handshut through the window, or
giving tea in her most seductive manner to some young idiot with clean
hands--and round would go the wheel again--round and round....
As a matter of fact he had never been so secure of Rose as then; the
very shamelessness of her flirtations was a proof of it--a whoop of joy,
so to speak, at finding herself free of what she had feared would be a
devastating passion. But who could expect Reuben to guess that? He saw
only the freak of a treacherous nature, turning from him to men younger
and more compliant than himself. Jealousy, from a fit, became a habit.
He grew restless and miserable--he would run in suddenly from his work
to see what his wife was doing, he would cross-examine Caro, he would
even ask Pete to keep an eye on her. Sometimes he thought of dismissing
Handshut, but the lad was an excellent drover, and Reuben had bursts of
sanity in which he saw the foolishness of such a sacrifice. Rose flirted
nowadays with every man she met--she was, he told himself furiously, a
thoroughly light and good-for-nothing girl--she was not worth the loss
of a fellow like Handshut.
Thus the days dragged on wretchedly for everyone except Rose, and in
time they grew wretched for her too. She began to tire of the cracklings
of the flame she had kindled, of Reuben's continued distrust and
suspicion, of Caro's goggle-eyed disapproval, of Peter's spying
contempt. The time of her lying-in drew nearer, she had to give up her
gay doings, and felt frightened and alone. Everyone was against her,
everyone disapproved of her. She began to wish that she had not found
her love for Handshut to be an illusion, to wish that the kiss beside
the Glotten brook had been in reality what she had dreamed it.... After
all, is it not better to embrace the god and die than to go through the
unhappy days in darkness?
§ 15.
One evening when Reuben was out inspecting a sick cow, Rose lay on the
sofa languidly shelling peas. Once more it was June, and a rusty heat
was outside blurring the orchard. Her fingers often lay idle in the bowl
of peas, for though her task relieved the sweltering boredom which had
weighed on her all day, every now and then a great lassitude would sweep
over her, slacking her muscles, slacking her thoughts, till she drooped
into a vague stagnation of sorrow.
She felt horribly, uselessly tired, her gay spirits had trickled from
her in sheer physical discomfort, and in her heart an insistent question
writhed like a little flame.
Two tears formed slowly in the corners of her eyes, welled at last over
the silky, spidery lashes, and rolled down her cheeks. In themselves
they were portents--for Rose hardly ever cried. More wonderful still,
she did not know that she was crying, she merely became stupidly
conscious of a smudging of those motionless trees beyond the garden, and
a washing of the hard, copper-coloured sky.
She feebly put up her hand and brushed the veil away--already something
strange had loomed through it, whipping her curiosity. A man was at the
window, his head and shoulders dark against the sunset.
"Handshut!"
"Yes, ma'am."
She frowned, for she seemed to catch a ring of mockery in the respectful
words. She wondered if it had always been there.
"Where's master?"
"In the shed with Brindle."
"And how is she?"
"I dunno--we've sent for the veterinary."
There was silence. Outside the flowers rustled in the slow hot breeze.
The background of trees was growing dim, a web of shadow at the foot of
the garden.
Handshut still leaned on the sill, and she realised that if his words
were decorous, his attitude was not. Surely he had something better to
do than hang in at her window. Half his face was in shadow, half was
reddened by the smouldering sky--it was the face of a young gipsy,
brown, sullen, and mocking. She suddenly pulled herself into a sitting
posture.
"What are you staying for?--I reckon the master wants you."
"No--it's you that wants me, surelye."
The blood ebbed from her lips. She felt afraid, and yet glad. Then
suddenly she realised what was happening and dragged herself back into
dignity and anger.
"I don't want you."
"Yes you do."
"Kindly go at once, or I shall call someone."
"Rose!"
Once more she fell back into her state of terror and delight. His
coolness seemed to paralyse her--she could not act. She could only lie
and watch him, trembling. Why had he changed so?--he, who had never
faltered in his attitude of stiff respect under her most outrageous and
flirtatious digs.
"Rose," he said again, and his voice quivered as he said it, "you do
want me a liddle bit now."
"What--what makes you think so?"
He shrugged his shoulders--there must have been some foreign streak in
his yokel's blood.
"I döan't think it--I know. A year agone you dudn't want me, so I kipt
back, I wurn't a-going to mäake you suffer. You wur frightened of that
kiss...."
He had spoken it--her terror. "Don't!" she cried.
"You wur frightened, so I saw you wurn't ready, and I tried to mäake you
feel as naun had happened."
"Yes, I thought you were a gentleman," she said with a sudden rap of
anger.
"I äun't that. I'm just a poor labouring man, wot loves you, and wot you
love."
She tried to speak, but the words burnt up in her mouth.
"And a labouring man you love's worth more than a mäaster you döan't
love, I reckon."
She shrank back on the sofa, folding her arms over her breast and
gripping her shoulders.
"You needn't look so frightened. I'm only saying it. It wöan't mäake no
difference--unless you want it to."
"How dare you speak to me like this?"
"Because I see you're justabout miserable, and I thought I'd say as how
I'm beside you--only that."
"How--how d'you know I'm miserable?"
"Plain enough."
The sky had faded behind him and a crimson moon looked over his
shoulder.
"Plain enough," he repeated, "but you needn't be scared. I'll do naun
you döan't want; I'll come no nearer you than I am now--unless you call
me."
She burst into tears.
He did not move. His head and shoulders were now nothing but a dark
block against the purple and blue of the sky. The moon hung just above
him like a copper dish.
"Döan't cry," he said slowly--"I'm only looking in at the window."
She struggled to her feet, sobs shaking and tearing her, and stumbled
through the darkness to the door. Still sobbing she dragged herself
upstairs, clinging to the rail, and every now and then stopping and
bending double. Her loud sobs rang through the house, and soon the
womenfolk were about her, questioning her, soothing her, and in the end
putting her, still weeping, to bed. While outside in the barn Reuben
watched in agony beside a sick cow.
§ 16.
When late the next morning a woman ran out of the house into the
cow-stable, and told Reuben that his wife had given him a fine boy, he
merely groaned and shook his head.
He sat on a stool at the foot of Brindle's stall, and watched her as she
lay there, slobbering her straw. His face was grim and furrowed, lines
scored it from nose to mouth and across the forehead; his hair was damp
and rough on his temples, his eyes were dull with sleeplessness.
"Wöan't yer have summat t'eat, mäaster?" asked Beatup, looking in.
All Reuben said was:
"Has the Inspector come?"
"No, mäaster--I'll bring him räound soon as he does. Wöan't you have a
bite o' cheese if I fetch it?"
Reuben shook his head.
"Mäaster----" continued the man after a pause.
"Well?"
"I hear as how it's a liddle son...."
Reuben mumbled something inarticulate, and Beatup took himself off. His
master's head fell between his clenched hands, and as the cow gave a
sudden slavering cough in the straw, a shudder passed over his skin, and
he hunched himself more despairingly.
Odiam had triumphed at last. Just when Reuben's unsettled allegiance
should have been given entirely to the wife who had borne him a son, his
farm had suddenly snatched from him all his thought, all his care, his
love, and his anxiety, all that should have been hers. It seemed almost
as if some malignant spirit had controlled events, and for Rose's stroke
prepared a counter-stroke that should effectually drive her off the
field. The same evening that Rose had gone weeping and shuddering
upstairs, Reuben had interviewed the vet. from Rye and heard him say
"excema epizootica." This had not conveyed much, so the vet. had
translated brutally:
"Foot-and-mouth disease."
The most awful of a farmer's dooms had fallen on Reuben. The new
Contagious Diseases of Animals Act made it more than probable that all
his herd would have to be slaughtered. Of course, there would be a
certain amount of compensation, but government compensation was never
adequate, and with the multitudinous expenses of disinfecting and
cleansing he was likely to sustain some crippling losses, just when
every penny was vital to Odiam. He knew of a man who had been ruined by
an outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia, of another who had been forced by
swine-fever to sell half his farm. Besides, any hope of a deal over his
milk-round was now at an end. His dairy business, whether in town or
country, was destroyed, and his reputation would be probably as
unjustly damaged, so that he would not be able to adventure on that road
for years--perhaps never again.
Small wonder, then, that the birth of a son brought no joy. The child
was born to an inheritance of shame, the heir of disaster. Reuben's head
bowed nearly to his knees. He felt old and broken. He began to see that
it was indeed dreadfully possible that he had thriven all these years,
conquered waste lands, and enriched fat lands, only to be overthrown at
last by a mere arbitrary piece of ill-luck. How the disease had broken
out he could not tell--he had bought no foreign cattle, indeed recently
he had bought no cattle at all. He could not blame himself in the
smallest degree; it was just a malignant capricious thrust--as if fate
had wanted to show him that what had taken him years of labour and
battle and sacrifice to build up, could be destroyed in as many days.
A little hope sustained him till the Inspector's visit--the vet. might
have been mistaken, the Inspector might not order a wholesale
destruction. But these faint sparks were soon extinguished. The loathed
epidemic had undoubtedly lifted up its head at Odiam, and Reuben's
entire herd of Jersey, Welsh, and Sussex cattle was doomed to slaughter.
The next few days were like a horrible jumbled nightmare, something
malignant, preposterous, outside experience. Three men came over from
the slaughterhouse at Rye, and plied their dreadful work till evening.
The grey and dun-coloured Jerseys with their mild, protruding eyes, the
sturdy Welsh with their little lumpy horns, the Sussex all coloured like
a home-county landscape in reds and greys and browns--bowed their meek
heads under the ox-killer, and became mere masses of meat and horn and
hide. Profitless masses, too, for all the carcases were ordered to be
burned.
The nightmare had its appropriate ending. Sixty dead beasts were burned
in lime. Boarzell became Hinnom--it was the most convenient open space,
so Reuben's herd was burned on it. From a dozen different pyres
streamers of white smoke flew along the wind, and a strange terrible
smell and tickling of the nostrils troubled the labourer on the westward
lands by Flightshot or Moor's Cottage.
The neighbourhood sat up in thrilled dismay, and watched Odiam pass
through its hour. The farm was shut off from civilisation by a barrier
of lime--along every road that flanked it, outside every gate that
opened on it, the stuff of fiery purification was spread. The fields
with their ripening oats and delicately browned wheat, the orchards
where apples trailed the boughs into the grass, the snug red house, and
red and brown barns, the black, turrets of the oasts, all cried
"Unclean! Unclean!"
Odiam was a leper. None might leave it without rubbing his boots in
lime, no beasts could be driven beyond its hedges. More, the curse
afflicted the guiltless--the markets at Rye and Battle were forbidden,
the movements of cattle were restricted, and Coalbran once indignantly
showed Reuben a certificate which he found he must have ready to produce
every time he moved his single cow across the lane from the hedge
pasture to the stream fallow.
Public opinion was against Backfield, and blamed him surlily for the
local inconvenience.
"Döan't tell me," said Coalbran in the bar, "as it wurn't his fault.
Foot-and-mouth can't just drop from heaven. He must have bought some
furriners, and they've carried it wud 'em, surelye."
"Serve un right," said Ticehurst.
"Still, I'm sorry for him," said Realf of Grandturzel--"he's the only
man hereabouts wot's really made a serious business of farming, and it's
a shame he should get busted."
"He äun't busted yet," said Coalbran.
"But you mark my words, he will be," said Ticehurst; "anyways I shud lik
him to be, fur he's a high-stomached man, and only deserves to be put
down."
"He's down enough now, surelye! I saw him only yesterday by the Glotten
meadows, and there was a look in his eye as I'll never forget."
"And yit he's as proud as the Old Un himself. I met him on Thursday, and
I told him how unaccountable sorry we all wur fur him, and he jest
spat."
"I offered to help him wud his burning," said Realf, "and he said as
he'd see me and my lousy farm burnt first."
"He's a tedious contradictious old feller--he desarves all he's got.
Let's git up a subscription fur him--that ud cut him to the heart, and
he wudn't täake it, so it ud cost us naun, nuther."
The rest of the bar seemed to think, however, that Reuben might take the
money out of spite, so Coalbran's charitable suggestion collapsed for
lack of support.
Meantime, so fast bound in the iron of his misery that he scarcely felt
the prick of tongues, Reuben lived through the final stages of his
nightmare--those final stages of shock and upheaval when the fiery
torment of the dream dies down into the ashes of waking. He wandered
over his land in his lime-caked boots, scarcely talking to those at work
on it, directing with mere mechanical activity the labour which now
seemed to him nothing but the writhings of a crushed beetle. Everyone
felt a little afraid of him, everyone avoided him as much as
possible--he was alone.
His nostrils were always full of the smart of lime, and the stench of
those horrible furnaces belching away on the slopes of the Moor. Would
that burning never be done? For days the yellowy white pennons of
destruction had flown on Boarzell, and that acrid reek polluted the
harvest wind. Boarzell was nothing but a huge funeral pyre, a smoking
hell.... "And the smoke of her went up for ever and ever."
§ 17.
An atmosphere of gloom lay over Odiam; Reuben brought it with him
wherever he went, and fogged the house with it as well as the barns.
Even Rose felt an aching pity for her strong man, something quite
different from the easy gushes of condolence which had used to be all
she could muster in the way of sympathy.
But Reuben did not take much notice of Rose, nor even of his little son.
Now and then he would look at them together, sigh impatiently, then go
out of the room.
Sometimes he would be more interested, and, in a fit of reaction from
his proud loneliness, turn to her as of old for comfort. But those were
the bitterest hours of all, for in them he would glimpse a difference,
an aloofness. She had been much quieter since the birth of the second
boy, she had not recovered her health so rapidly, and her eyes were big
in the midst of bistred rings. She had given up flirting with Handshut,
or with the young men from Rye, but she did not turn from them to her
husband. Though he could see she was sorry for him, he felt--vaguely,
uncertainly, yet tormentingly--that she was not all his, as she had been
in brighter months. Sometimes he did not much care--sometimes a dreadful
passion would consume him, and once he caught her to his breast and
bruised her in his arms, crying--"I wöan't lose you--I wöan't lose you
too."
Rose could not read his mood; one day she would feel her husband had
been alienated from her by his sorrow, another that his need of her was
greater than ever. She herself carried a heavy heart, and in her mind a
picture of the man who was "only looking in at the window." She seemed
to see him standing there, with the moon rising over his shoulder,
while from behind him something in the garden, in the night, called ...
and called.
She could still hear that call, muted, tender, wild--the voice of her
youth and of her love, calling to her out of the velvet night, bidding
her leave the house where the hearth was piled with ashes, and feel the
rain and the south wind on her lips. There was no escape in sleep, for
her dreams showed her that window framing a sky soft and dark as a
grape, with the blackness of her lover's bulk against it, while the moon
rose over his shoulder, red, like a fiery pan....
She felt afraid, and did not know where to turn. She avoided Handshut,
who stood remote; and though her husband sometimes overwhelmed her with
miserable hungry love, he often scarcely seemed to notice her or her
children, and she knew that she counted far less than his farm. He was
terribly harsh with her now, frowning by the hour over her
account-books, forbidding this or that, and in his gloom scarcely
noticing her submission.
July passed. Odiam was no longer cut off from the rest of the world by
lime. Reuben with the courage of despair began to organise his shattered
strength. He discharged Piper--now that his cows were gone he could
easily do with a hand less. He sometimes wondered why he had not
discharged Handshut, but the answer was always ready--Handshut was far
the better workman, and Odiam now came easily before Rose. Not that
Reuben's jealousies had left him--they still persisted, though in a
different form. The difference lay in the fact that now he would not
sacrifice to them the smallest scrap of Odiam's welfare.
He sometimes asked himself why he was still jealous. Rose no longer gave
him provocation, she was much quieter than she had used to be, and
seemed busy with her children and straitened house-keeping. It was once
more a case of instinct, of a certain vague sensing of her aloofness.
Often he did not trouble about it, but sometimes it seared through him
like a hot bar.
One evening he came home particularly depressed. He had just finished
the most degrading transaction of his life--the raising of a mortgage on
the Flightshot side of his land. It was horrible, but it was
unavoidable. He could not now sell his milk-round, and yet he absolutely
must have ready money if he was to stand up against circumstances. The
mortgagee was a wealthy Rye butcher, and Reuben had hopes that the
disgraceful affair might be kept secret, but also an uneasy suspicion
that it was at that moment being discussed in every public-house.
He went straight to find Rose, for that mood was upon him. The due of
loneliness which his shame demanded had been paid during the drive home
from Rye, and now he quite simply and childishly wanted his wife. She
was in the kitchen, stooping over some child's garment, the little
frills of which she was pleating in her fingers. She lifted her head
with a start as he came in, and he saw that her face was patched with
tearstains.
"Wot've you bin crying for?" he asked as he slid a chair close to hers.
He wondered if the humiliation of Odiam had at last come to mean to her
a little of what it meant to him.
"I haven't been crying."
"But your face ..."
"That's the heat."
He drew back from her a little. Why should she lie to him about her
tears?
"Oh, well, if you döan't choose to tell me ... But I've eyes in my
head."
She seemed anxious to propitiate him.
"How did it go off? Have you settled with Apps?"
He nodded.
"It's all over now--I've touched bottom."
"Nonsense, Ben. You mustn't say that. After all there's nothing
extraordinary about a mortgage--uncle had one for years on a bit of his
farm at Rowfant. Besides, think of all you've got left."
He laughed bitterly. "I äun't got much left."
Then suddenly he turned towards her as she sat there by him, her head
bowed over her work--her delicate, rather impertinent nose outlined
against the firelight, her cheek and neck bewitched with running
shadows.
"But I've got you."
A great tenderness transported him, a great melting. He put his arm
round her waist, and made as if to pull her close.
She drew back from him with a shudder.
It was only for a moment--the next she yielded. But he had seen her
reluctance, felt the shiver of repulsion go through her limbs. He rose,
and pushed back his chair.
"I'm sorry," he said in a low thick voice--"I'm sorry I interrupted
your--crying."
Then he went out, and gave Handshut a week's notice.
§ 18.
Rose was intensely relieved. She felt that at last and for ever the
tormenting mystery would have gone from her life. Once Handshut was
away, she told herself, she would slip back into the old groove--a
little soberer and softer perhaps, but definitely free of that Reality
which had been so terribly different from its toy-counterfeit.
Once Handshut was gone, her heart would not pursue him. It was his
continual presence that tormented. True, he never sought her out, or
persecuted her, or even spoke to her without her speaking first--he only
looked in at the window.... But a woman soon learns what it means to
have a man's face between her and the simplicities of life in her
garden, between her and the divinities of the stars and moon.
Rose did not find in her love a sweetness to justify the bitterness of
its circumstances. The fact that it had been awakened by a man who was
her inferior in the social-agricultural scale, who could give her
nothing of the material prosperity she so greatly prized, instead of
inspiring her with its beauty, merely convinced her of its folly. She
saw herself a woman crazed, obsessed, bewitched, and she looked eagerly
forward to the day when the spell should be removed and she should go
back chastened to the common, comfortable things of life.
But meantime a strange restlessness consumed her, tinctured by a
horrible boldness. There were moments when she no longer was afraid of
Handshut, when she felt herself impelled to seek him out, and make the
most of the short time they had together. There could be no danger, for
he was going so soon ... so few more words, so few more glances.... Thus
her mind worked.
She was generally able to control these impulses, but as the days
slipped by they grew too strong for her untrained resistance. She felt
that she must make the most of her chances because they were so
limited--before he went for ever she must have one more memory of his
voice, his look--his touch ... oh, no! her thoughts had carried her
further than she had intended.
She found herself beginning to haunt the places where she would be
likely to meet him--the edge of the horse-pond or the Glotten brook, the
door of the huge, desolate cow-stable, where six cheap Suffolks
emphasised the empty stalls. Reuben did not seem to take any notice of
her, he had relieved his feelings by dismissing Handshut, and his farm
had swallowed him up again. Rose felt defiant and forlorn. Both her
husband and her lover seemed to avoid her. She would lean against the
great wooden posts of the door, in the listless weary attitude of a
woman's despair.
Then two days before the end he came. As she was standing by the barn
door he appeared at the horse-pond, and crossed over to her at once. He
had seen that she was waiting for him--perhaps he had seen it on half a
dozen other occasions when she had not seen him.
Rose could calm the silly jumps of her heart only by telling herself
that this was quite an accidental meeting. She made an effort to be
commonplace.
"How's Topsy's foal?"
"Doing valiant. Will you come out wud me to-morrow evenun to see the
toll-burning?"
She flushed at his audacity.
"No!--how can I?"
"You can quite easy, surelye. Mäaster's going to Cranbrook Fair, and
wöan't be home till läate. It's the last night, remember."
She made a gallant effort to be the old Rose.
"What's that to me?--you've got some cheek!"
"I'm only not pretending as much as you are. Why shud you pretend?
Pretending 'ull give you naun sweet to remember when I'm gone."
"What tolls are they going to burn?"
"The gëates up at Leasan and Mockbeggar, and then over the marsh to
Thornsdale. It 'ud be a shame fur you to miss it, and mäaster can't
täake you, since he's going to Cranbrook."
"It would never do if people saw us."
"Why? Since your husband can't go, wot's more likely than he shud send
his man to täake you?"
Rose shuddered. "I'm not coming."
Handshut turned on his heel.
§ 19.
Already the turnpike gates had disappeared from the greater part of
Sussex, but they still lingered in the Rye district, for various
reasons, not always bearing close inspection. There had been an
anti-toll party both before and after the famous Scott's Float gate had
catastrophically ended Reuben's political career--and at last this had
carried the day. All the gates were to come down except those on the
Military Road, and the neighbourhood was to celebrate their abolition by
burning them in tar.
Reuben, still proud and sore, stood aloof from local jollities--besides,
he had heard that there were to be some cheap milkers for sale at
Cranbrook Fair, and he was anxious to add a little to his dairy stock.
Though a large milk-round was out of the question, the compensation
money he had received from Government would allow him to carry on a
small dairy business, as in humbler days. Of course, the fact that he
had lost over sixty cows from foot-and-mouth disease would materially
damage his prospects even in a limited sphere, but a farm which let its
dairy rot was doomed to failure, and Reuben was still untamed by
experience, and hoped much from small beginnings.
So early that morning he drove off in his gig, accompanied by Pete, who
had a good eye for cattle, and had moreover challenged the Canterbury
Kid for a purse of five guineas. Rose watched them go, and waved
good-bye unnoticed to her man, as he leaned forward over the reins,
thinking only of how much he could spare for a yearling. She went back
into the house, and stoned plums. After dinner she mended the children's
clothes, with a little grimace for the faded ribbons and tattered frills
which Reuben would not allow her to renew. Then she took the baby and
little David for an airing in the orchard--Handshut, raking
unromantically in the midden, saw her sitting, a splash of faded violet
under an apple tree--then she bathed them and put them to bed.
All this was a propitiatory offering to the god of the hearth, who,
however, did not take the slightest notice, or stay as he so easily
might (so the scripture saith) that hunger for her beloved which was
gnawing at the young wife's heart. Instead, it seemed to grow in its
devouring pain--her domesticity stimulated rather than deadened it, and
by the time her day's tasks were over it had eaten up her poor heart
like a dainty, and she was its unresisting prey.
After the children were in bed she changed her dress, putting on the
best she had--a washing silk with pansies sewn over it, one of her
wedding gowns. She frowned at it as she had frowned at the babies'
dresses--it was so old-fashioned, and worn in places. She suddenly found
herself wishing that she loved Reuben so much as not to mind wearing old
clothes for his sake. For the first time she could visualise such a
state of affairs, for she had met the man for whom she would have worn
rags. If only that man had been Reuben, her lawful husband, instead of
another! "But I'll be true to him! I'll be true to him!" she murmured,
and found comfort in the words till she realised that it was the first
time that she had ever glimpsed the possibility of not being true.
She went down into the kitchen, where Caro was baking suet.
"Caro, I'm going out to see the gates burned. I expect I'll be back
before Ben is, but if I'm not, tell him where I'm gone."
"You can't go by yourself--he wudn't like it."
"I'm not going by myself--Handshut's taking me."
Caro's suety hands fell to her sides.
"Rose--you know--how can you?--that's worse than alone, surelye!"
"Nonsense! What's more natural that one of my servants should come with
me, since my husband can't?"
"Your servant...."
"Yes, my servant."
Caro, regardless of the suet on her hands, hid her face in them.
"Oh, Rose, I can't tell him--I daren't. Why, he turned away Handshut
because of you."
"He did not, miss--you're impudent!"
"Well, why shud fäather git shut of the best drover he ever had on his
farm, if it äun't----"
"Be quiet! I won't hear such stuff. I'm not going to be a prisoner, and
miss my fun just because you and Ben are jealous fools."
"But I daren't tell him where you've agone."
"I dare say you won't have to--I'm not staying out all night."
She laughed one of her coarse screaming laughs, with the additional
drawback of mirthlessness; then she went out of the room, leaving Caro
sobbing into suety palms.
Outside in the yard, Handshut stood by the pump, apparently absorbed in
studying the first lights of Triangulum as they kindled one by one in
the darkening sky.
Rose pattered up to him in the shabby white kid shoes that had been so
trim and smart five years ago.
"I've changed my mind."
"Then you äun't coming."
"Yes, I am."
"Then you haven't changed it."
§ 20.
The roads outside Rye were dark with people. A procession was forming up
at Rye Foreign, and another at the foot of Cadborough Hill. Outside the
railway station a massed band played something rather like the
Marseillaise, while the grass-grown, brine-smelling streets were spotted
with stragglers, hurrying up from all quarters, some carrying torches
that flung shifting gleams on windows and gable-ends.
Immense barrels of tar had been loaded on four waggons, to which four of
the most prosperous farmers of the district had harnessed teams. Odiam
was of course not represented, nor was Grandturzel, but three
bell-ringing sorrels had come all the way from Kitchenhour, while the
marsh farms of Leasan, the Loose, and Becket's House, accounted for the
rest.
The crowd surged round the waggons, cheered, joked, sang. The whole of
Rye was there--prosperous tradesmen from the High Street or Station
Road, innkeepers, farmers, shop-assistants, chains of fishermen in high
boots, jerseys, and gold ear-rings, coast-guards from the Camber, and
one or two scared-looking women clinging to stalwart arms.
Rose shrank close to Handshut, though she did not take his arm.
Sometimes the crowd would fling them together, so that they were close
as in an embrace, at others they would stand almost apart, linked only
by sidelong glances. The flare of a torch would suddenly slide over
Handshut's face, showing her its dark gipsy profile, and she would turn
away her eyes as from something too bright to bear.
Every now and then the crowd would start singing inanely:
"Soles, plaice, and dabs,
Rate, skate, and crabs.
God save the Queen!"
It was like a muddled dream--people seemed to have no reason for what
they did or shouted; they just ebbed and flowed, jostled and jambed, ran
hither and thither, sang and laughed and swore. Rose looked round her to
see if she could recognise anyone; now and then a face glowed on her in
the torch-light, then died away, once she thought she saw the back of a
tradesman's daughter whom she knew--but her chief feeling was of an
utter isolation with her loved one, as if he and she stood alone on some
sea-pounded island against which the tides of the world roared in vain.
At last the crowd began to move. The band had crushed through to the
front of it, and was braying Rule Britannia up Playden Hill; then came
the waggons, then the stout champions of freedom, singing at the pitch
of their lungs:
"Soles, plaice, and dabs,
Rate, skate, and crabs.
God save the Queen!"
The stars winked on the black zenith, while troubled winds sped and
throbbed over the fields that huddled in mystery and silence on either
side of the road--where noise and skirmish and darting lights, with the
odours of warm human bodies, and the thudding and scrabbling of a
thousand feet, proclaimed the People's holiday.
They flowed through Playden like a torrent through an open sluice,
sweeping up and carrying on all sorts of flotsam--villagers from cottage
doors, ploughboys from the farms down by the Military Canal, gipsies
from Iden Wood ... a mixed multitude, which the central mass absorbed,
till all was one steaming and shouting blackness.
The first gate was at Mockbeggar, where the road to Iden joins that
which crosses the Marsh by Corkwood and Baron's Grange. In a minute it
was off its hinges, and swealing in tar, while lusty arms pulled twigs,
branches, even whole bushes out of the hedges to build its pyre.
Rose shrank close to Handshut, so close that the clover scents of her
laces were drowned in the smell of the cowhouse that came from his
clothes. She found herself liking it, drinking in that soft, mixed,
milky odour ... till a cloud of stifling tar-smoke swept suddenly over
them, and she reeled against him suffocating, while all round them
people choked and gasped and sneezed.
The fire was lighted, a great crimson tongue screamed up in front of
two motionless poplars, leaped as high as their tops, then spread
fan-shaped, roaring. Men and women joined hands and danced round the
blaze--in the distance, above the surging pack of heads, Rose could see
them jumping and capering, with snatches of song that became screams
every minute.
The fire roared like a storm, and the wood crackled with sudden yelping
reports. The dancing girls' hats flew off, their hair streamed wide,
their skirts belled and swirled ... there was laughter and obscene
remarks from the onlookers. Many from the rear pressed forward to join
the dance, and those who were trampled on screamed or cursed, while one
or two women fainted. Rose felt as if she would faint in the heat and
reek of it all. She leaned heavily against Handshut and closed her eyes
... then she realised that his arm was round her. He held her against
him, supporting her, while either she heard or thought she heard him
say--"Döan't be scared, liddle Rose--I'm wud you. I wöan't let you
fall."
She opened her eyes. The people were moving. The Mockbeggar gate had
been accounted for, and they rolled on towards Thornsdale. The jamb was
not so alarming, for a good many revellers had been left behind, dancing
round the remains of the bonfire, crowding into the public-house, or
scattering in couples over the fields.
But though the jostling was no longer dangerous, Handshut still kept his
arm about Rose, and held her close to his side. Now and then she made a
feeble effort as if to free herself, but he held her fast, and she never
put out her full strength. They walked as if in a dream, they two
together, not speaking to anyone, not speaking to each other. Rose saw
as if in a dream the Sign of Virgo hanging above Stone. The dipping of
the lane showed the Kentish marshes down in the valley, with the hills
of Kent beyond them, twinkling with lights. The band lifted the strains
of Hearts of Oak and Cheer, Boys, Cheer above the thud of marching feet,
or occasionally drifted into sentiment with Love's Pilgrim--while every
now and then, regardless of what was being played, two hundred throats
would bray:
"Soles, plaice, and dabs,
Rate, skate, and crabs.
God save the Queen!"
It was about nine o'clock when they came to Thornsdale, down on the
Rother levels; the moon had risen and the marsh was smeethed in white.
The air was thick with a strong-scented miasma, and beside the dykes
long lines of willows faded into the mist. Here another orgy was
started, in grotesque contrast with the pallid sleep of water. The gate
that barred the Kent road was torn down, the bonfire prepared, the dance
begun.
The mists became patched with leaping shadows, and a dull crimson wove
itself into the prevailing whiteness. Flaming twigs and sparks hissed
into the dykes, rolls of acrid tar-smoke spread like a pall over the
river and the Highnock Sewer, under which their waters were spotted with
fire. The ground was soon pulped and poached with the jigging feet, and
mud and water spurted into the dancers' faces.
It was all rather ugly and ridiculous, and as before at Mockbeggar, the
crowd began to straggle. This time there was no public-house to swallow
up strays, but the marsh spread far and wide, a Land of Promise for
lovers, who began to slink off two by two into the mists. Some who were
not lovers formed themselves into noisy groups, and bumped about the
lanes--waking the farmers' wives from Bosney to Marsh Quarter.
Rose felt Handshut's arm clinging more tenderly about her, and she knew
that he wanted to lead her away from the noise and glare, to the
coolness and loneliness of the waterside. She wanted to go--her head
ached, her nostrils tingled, and her eyes were sore with the fumes of
tar, her ears wearied with the din.
"Let's go home," she said faintly--"it's getting late."
"We can go back by Corkwood across the marshes. It'll be quicker, and we
shan't have no crowd spanneling round."
They elbowed their way into the open, and soon the noise had died into a
subdued roar, not so loud as the sigh of the reeds, while the bonfire
showed only as a crimson stain on the eastward piling fogs.
In time the contrast of silence grew quite painful. It ached. Only the
sough of the wind in the reeds troubled it--the feet of Rose and
Handshut were noiseless on the grass, they breathed inaudibly, only the
breath of the watching night was heard.
They skirted the Corkwood dyke, from which rose the stupefying, sodden,
almost flavorous, smell of dying reeds--a waterfowl suddenly croaked
among them, and another answered her with a wail from beyond Ethnam. The
willows were shimmering silver dreams, bathed in the light of the moon
which hung above the Fivewatering and had washed nearly all the stars
out of the sky--only Sirius hung like a dim lamp over Great Knell, while
Lyra was faint above Reedbed in the north.
Rose walked half leaning against Handshut. She felt a very little feeble
thing in the power of that great amorous night. The warm breath of the
wind in her hair, the caress of moonlight on her eyes, the throbbing,
miasmic, night-sweet scents of water and grass, the hush, the great
sleep ... all tore at her heart, all weakened her with their huge soft
strength, all crushed with their languors the poor resistance of her
will.
The tears began to roll down her cheeks, they shone on her face in the
moonlight--they fell quite fast as she walked on gripped against her
lover's heart. She was leaning more and more heavily against him, for
her strength was ebbing fast--oh, if he would only speak!--she could not
walk much further, and yet she dared not rest beside him on that haunted
ground.
At last they came to where the high land rose out of the levels like a
shore out of the sea, with a lick of road on it, winding up to
Peasmarsh. It was here that Rose's uncertain strength failed her, she
lurched against Handshut, and still encircled by his arms slid to the
grass.
They were in a huge meadow, sloping upwards to mysterious, night-wrapped
hedges. The moonlight still trembled over the marsh, kindling sudden
streaks of water, steeping fogs, silvering pollards and reeds. One could
distinctly see the little houses on the Kent side of the Rother, Ethnam,
and Lossenham, and Lambstand, some with lights blinking from them,
others just black patches on the moon-grey country. Rose looked out
towards them, and tried to picture in each a hearth beside which a
husband and wife sat united ... then suddenly they were blotted out, as
Handshut's face loomed dark between her and them, and his lips slowly
fastened on her own.
For a moment she yielded to the kiss, then suddenly tore herself away.
"Rose ..."
"Let me go--I can't."
"Rose, why shud you pretend? You döan't love the mäaster, and you do
love me. Why shudn't we be happy together?"
"We--I can't."
"Why?--I love you, and you love me. Come away wud me--you shan't have a
hard life----"
"--It's not that."
"Wot is it then?"
"It's--oh, I can't--I'm his wife."
She pushed him from her as he tried to take her in his arms again, and
stumbled to her feet.
"It's late--I--I must go home."
"Rose, you queer me."
He had risen too, and stood before her in mingled pain and surprise. He
thought her resistance mere coyness, and suddenly flung his arms round
her as she stood.
She began to cry.
"No, no--don't be so cruel! Let me go!--I'm his wife."
§ 21.
The walk home was dreary, for Rose and Handshut misunderstood each
other, and yet loved each other too. She was silent, almost shamefaced,
and he was a little disgusted with her--he felt that she had misled him,
and in his soreness added "willingly."
They scarcely spoke, and the night spread round them its web of
pondering silence. Aldebaran guttered above Kent, and the blurred patch
of the Pleiades hung over the curded fogs that hid the Rother. There was
no wind, but every now and then the grass rippled and the leaves
fluttered, while a low hissing sound went through the trees. Sometimes
from the distance came the shouts of some revellers still at large,
echoing weirdly over the moon-steeped fields, and divinely purged by
space and night.
Sobs were still thick in Rose's throat, when they came to Handshut's
cottage, a little tumble-down place, shaped like a rabbit's head. She
stopped.
"Don't come any further."
"Why?"
"It would be better if I wasn't seen with you."
He looked at her white face.
"You're frighted."
"No."
"Yes--and I'm coming wud you, surelye."
"I should be frightened if you came."
She managed to persuade him to go his different way--though the actual
moment of their parting was always a blur in her memory. Afterwards she
could not remember if they had kissed, touched hands, or parted without
a word. Her throat was still full of sobs when she came to Odiam; she
was panting, too, for she had run all the way--she did not know why.
The house was swimming in the light of the western moon. Its strange
curves and bulges, its kiln-shaped ends, and great waving sprawl of roof
all shone in a white glassy brilliance, which was somehow akin to peace.
There was a soft flutter of wind in the orchard and in the sentinel
poplars, while now and then came that distant night-purged scrap of
song:
"Soles, plaice, and dabs,
Rate, skate, and crabs.
God save the Queen!"
Rose wondered uneasily what time it was. Surely it could not be very
late, and yet the house was shut up and the windows dark.
She gently rattled the door-handle. There was no denying it--the house
was locked up. It must be later than she thought--that walk on the
Rother levels must have been longer than it had seemed to her thirsty
love. A thrill of fear went through her. She hoped Reuben would not be
angry. She was his dutiful wife.
She stood hesitating on the doorstep. Should she knock? Then a terrible
thought struck her. Reuben must have meant to lock her out. Otherwise he
would have sat up for her, however late she had been. She started
trembling all over, and felt her skin grow damp.
She began to knock, first softly, then more desperately. She must get
in. Nothing was to be heard except her own despairing din--the house
seemed plunged in sleep. Rose's fear grew, spread black bat's wings,
and darkened all her thoughts--for she knew that someone must have heard
her, she could not make all this racket quite unheard.
What could she do? Caro slept at the back of the house, and it struck
her that she had better go round, and throw up some earth at her window.
Perhaps Caro would let her in. She stepped back from the door, and was
just turning the corner of the house when a window suddenly shot open
above her, and Reuben's tousled head looked out.
"There's no use your trying to git in."
Rose gave a faint scream. In the moonlight her husband's face looked
distorted, while his voice came thick and unnatural.
"Ben!"
"Go away. Go away to where you've come from. I shan't let you in."
"You can't keep me out here. It isn't my fault I'm late--and I'm not so
very late, either."
"It's one o'clock o' the marnun."
She felt her heart grow sick. If she had been happy for four hours, why,
in God's name, had they not passed like four hours instead of like four
minutes?
"Ben, I swear I didn't know. I was up to no harm, I promise you. Please,
please--oh please let me in!"
"Not I--at one o'clock o' the marnun--after you've bin all night wud
a----"
"Ben, I swear I'm your true wife."
She fell against the wall, and her hair, disordered by embraces,
suddenly streamed over her shoulders. The sight of it made Reuben wild.
"Git off--before I täake my gun and shoot you."
"Oh, Ben!..."
"Höald your false tongue. You're no wife o' mine from this day forrard.
I wöan't be cuckolded in my own house."
His face was swollen, his eyes rolled--he looked almost as if he had
been drinking.
"Ben, don't drive me away. I've been true to you, indeed I have, and
Handshut's going to-morrow. Let me in--please let me in. I swear I've
been true."
"I want none o' your lying swears--at one o'clock o' the marnun. Go back
to the man you've come from--he'll believe you easier nor I."
"Ben, I'm your wife."
"I tell you, you're no wife of mine. I'm shut of you--you false, fair,
lying, scarlet woman. You needn't cry and weep, nuther--none 'ull say as
Ben Backfield wur a soft man fur woman's tears."
He shut the window with a slam. For some moments Rose stood leaning
against the wall, her sobs shaking her. Then, still sobbing, she turned
and walked away.
She walked slowly down the drive till she came to the little path that
led across the fields to Handshut's cottage. A light gleamed from the
window, and she crept towards it through tall moon-smudged grass--while
from the distance came for the last time:
"Soles, plaice, and dabs,
Rate, skate, and crabs.
God save the Queen!"
§ 22.
A glassy yellow broke into the sky like a curse. It shone on Reuben's
eyes, and he opened them. They were pink and puffed round the rims, and
the whites were shot with little blood-vessels. His cheeks were yellow,
and round his mouth was an odd greyish tinge. He had lain dressed on his
bed, and was surprised to find that he had slept. But the sleep had
brought no refreshment--there was a bad taste in his mouth, and his
tongue felt rough and thick.
He sat up on the tumbled bed and looked round him. Rose's nightgown was
folded on her pillow, and over a chair lay a pair of the thin useless
stockings he had often scolded her for wearing. A drawer was open, and
from it came the soft perfume that adhered to everything she put on. He
suddenly sprang out of bed and shut it with a kick.
"Durn her!" he said, and then two sobs tore their way painfully up his
throat, shaking his whole body.
An hour later he went down. He had washed and tidied himself, none the
less he disconcerted the household. Caro had lain awake all night,
partly from misery, partly because of the baby, which she had been
obliged to take charge of in the mother's absence. She had brought it
down into the kitchen with her, and it had lain kicking in its cradle
while she prepared the breakfast. She was worn out already after her
sleepless night, and could not prevent the tears from trickling down her
face as she cut bread for the meal.
"Stop that!" said Reuben roughly.
Except for this, he did not speak--nor after a few attempts on the
former's part did Pete and Caro. They sat and gulped down their food in
silence. Even Harry seemed to realise the general unrest. He would not
sit at table, but wandered aimlessly up and down the room, murmuring, as
was now his habit in times of domestic upheaval, "Another wedding--deary
me! We're always having weddings in this house."
Then the baby began to howl because it was hungry. Rose had nursed it
herself, and its wants had not occurred to the unhappy Caro or her
father. There was delay and confusion while a bottle was fetched and
milk prepared, and then--to crown all--cow's milk upset it, and it was
sick. But Reuben escaped this final tragedy--he had left the room after
a few mouthfuls, and gone to Handshut's cottage.
He could not restrain himself any longer. He must see Rose, and vent on
her all the miserable rage with which his heart was seething. He longed
to strike her--he longed to beat her, for the wanton that she was. And
he longed to clasp her in his arms and weep on her breast and caress
her, for the woman that she was.
But the cottage was shut. With its red-rotting roof between two tall
chimneys it looked exactly like a rabbit's head between its ears; the
windows were blind, though it was past seven o'clock, and though Reuben
knocked at the door loudly, there was no one to be seen. He prowled once
or twice round the house, fumbling handles and window-latches, but there
was no way of getting in. He listened, but he could not hear a sound. He
pictured Rose and Handshut in each other's arms, laughing at him in his
wretchedness and their bliss--and all the time he wanted the woman's
blood more than the man's.
At last he wandered desperately away, treading the furrows of his new
ground on Boarzell, reckless that he trod the young seed harrowed into
them. In that black moment even his winter crops were nothing to him. He
saw, thought of, realised only one thing--and that was Rose, the false,
the gay, the wanton, and the beautiful--oh the beautiful!--laughing at
him from another man's arms. He could see her laughing, see just how her
lips parted, just how her teeth shone--those little teeth, so regular
except for the pointed canines--just how the dimples came at the corners
of her mouth, those dear little hollows which he had dug with his
kisses....
He ground his heel into the soft harrowed earth, and it cast up its
smell into his nostrils unheeded. But the day of Boarzell was
coming--its rival had been cleared out of the field, and the great hump
with its knob of firs seemed to be lying in wait, till the man had
pulled himself out of the pit of a false woman's love and given himself
back to it, the strong, the faithful enemy.
About an hour later Reuben was down again at Handshut's cottage, but
this time a change had worked itself. The door hung wide open--and the
place was empty. He went through the two miserable little rooms, but
there was no one, and nowhere for anybody to hide. The remains of a meal
of bread and tea were on the table, and a fire of sticks was dying on
the hearth. The lovers had flown--to laugh at him from a safe distance.
All the rest of the day he prowled aimlessly about his land. His men
were afraid, for it was the first time they had seen him spend a day
without work. He touched neither spade nor pitchfork, he gave no orders,
just wandered restlessly about the fields and barns. He ate no supper,
but locked himself into his room, while the baby's thin wail rose
through the beams of the kitchen ceiling, and little David cried
fractiously for "mother."
The next day Caro, haggard after another night made sleepless by her
charges, knocked at his door. He had not come down to breakfast, and at
eight o'clock the postman had brought a letter.
"It's from Rose," said Caro timidly.
"To me?"
"No, to me."
"Read it."
Caro read it. Rose was in London, but left that day for Liverpool.
Handshut had saved a little money, and they were going to Canada. "I
don't ask Ben to forgive me, for I know he never will."
"She's right there," said Reuben grimly.
Caro stood before him, creasing the letter nervously. Her father's wrath
broke upon her, for want of his proper victim.
"Git out, can't yer--wot are you dawdling here for? You women are all
the same--you'd be as bad as her if you cud only git a man."
Caro shrank from the jibe as if from a blow, and Reuben laughed
brutally. He had made one woman suffer anyway.
§ 23.
Of course the neighbourhood gloated; and the rustic convention was set
aside in Rose's favour, and all the shame of her elopement heaped on
Reuben.
"No wäonder as she cudn't stick to him--hard, queer chap as he be."
"And thirty year older nor she, besides."
"Young Handshut wur a präaper lad, and valiant. I äun't surprised as
she'd rather have un wudout a penny than old Ben wud all his gold."
"And he äun't got much o' that now, nuther. They say as he'll be bust by
next fall."
Heads were shaken in triumphant commiseration, and the stones which
according to all decent tradition should have been flung at Rose,
hurtled round her husband instead.
Far away at Cheat Land, Alice Jury watched them fall--Alice Jury five
years older than when she had struggled with Boarzell for Reuben before
he married Rose. Her parents thought he had treated her badly, even
though they did not know of the evening when she had humbled herself to
plead for her happiness and his. She remembered that moment uneasily--it
hurt her pride. But she could not regret having used her most desperate
effort to win him, and she felt sure that he had understood her motive
and realised that it was for him as well as for her that she had spoken.
Now, when she heard of his catastrophe, she wondered if he would come
back. Did men come back?--and if they did, was she the type of woman
they came back to? Perhaps she was too quick, too antagonistic. She told
herself miserably that a softer woman could have saved Reuben, and yet,
paradoxically, a softer woman would not have wished to do so.
She had seen very little of him or of Rose since their marriage. Rose
and she had never been friends, and Reuben she knew was shy of her. He
had been angry with her too, because she had not carried her aching
heart on her sleeve. Outwardly she had worn no badge of sorrow--she was
just as quick, just as combative, just as vivaciously intellectual as
she had always been. Though she knew that she had lost him through these
very characteristics, with which she had also attracted him, she made no
effort to force herself into a different mould. She refused to regret
anything, to be ashamed of anything, to change anything. If he came back
he should find the same woman as he had left.
She felt that he would come--he would return to her in the reaction that
swung him from Rose. But would she be able to keep him? She did not feel
so sure of that--for that did not depend on her or on him, but on that
mysterious force outside themselves with which they had both already
struggled in vain.
§ 24.
Reuben scarcely knew what brought him to Cheat Land. It was about a week
after the blow fell that he found himself treading the once familiar
lane, lifting the latch of the garden gate, and knocking at the green
house-door. Nothing had changed, except to fade a little and show some
signs of wear and tear. Alice herself had not changed, nor had she
faded, though her cheeks might have fallen in a trifle and a few lines
traced themselves round her mouth.
"Welcome," she said, and laughed.
He took her hand, and forgot to be angry because she had laughed.
"Come in, and we'll have a talk. Father's out, and mother's upstairs."
She led the way into the queer little kitchen, which was also unchanged
except for the fading of the curtains, and the introduction of one or
two new books on the shelves. Alice pulled forward his old chair, and
sat down opposite him on the settle. She wore one of her long
wrapper-pinafores, this time of a warm clay-colour, which seemed to put
a glow into her cheeks.
"Well, Alice," he said huskily.
"Well, Reuben, I'm glad to see you."
"You've heard?"
She nodded. Then she said gently:
"Poor Rose."
Reuben flushed.
"One o' my victims, eh?"
"Well, I knew you'd rather I said that than 'poor Reuben.'"
"Reckon I would. I remember as how you wur always trying to make out as
my lazy good-fur-naun sons wur my victims, and as how I'd sacrificed
them all to my farm; now I reckon you're trying to do the same wud
Rose."
"Where is she?"
"I dunno. Somewheres between here and Canada. May she rot there lik a
sheep on its back, and her man too. Now say 'poor Rose.'"
He turned on her almost fiercely, his lips curled back from his teeth in
a sneer.
"If you speak like that I'll say 'poor Reuben.'"
"Well, say it--you wöan't be far wrong. Wot sort o' chap am I to have
pride? My farm's ruined, my wife's run away, my children have left
me--wot right have I to be proud?"
"Because, though all those things have happened, you're holding your
head up still."
"But I äun't--yesterday I wur fair crying and sobbing in front of all
the children. In the kitchen, it wur--after supper--I put down my head
on the table, and----"
"Hush, I don't want to hear any more. I can guess what you must have
suffered. I expect you miss Rose."
"I do--justabout."
"So should I in your place."
"She wur a beautiful woman, Alice."
Alice nodded.
"Oh, and her liddle dentical ways!"
Alice nodded again.
"You döan't mind me talking to you of her?"
"No, of course not."
"She wur the beautifullest I've known, and gay, and sweet, and a woman
to love. But she deceived me. I married her expecting money, and there
wur none--I married her fur her body, and she's given it to another."
"Well, you're not a hypocrite, anyway. You don't pretend you married her
for any but the lowest motives."
"Wot should I have married her fur, then?"
"Some people marry for love."
"Love I--no. I've loved but one woman."
"Me!"
They had both said more than they intended, and suddenly realised it.
Though the self-betrayal meant most to Alice, she was the first to
recover a steady voice.
"But that does not matter now," she said calmly.
He leaned suddenly forward and took her hand.
"Alice."
Her hand lay in his, a very small thing, and her head bent towards it.
She did not want him to see her cheeks flush and her eyes fill at this
his first caress.
"Alice--how did you know?"
"I'm not a fool."
"I guessed too."
"Of course you did. I--I gave myself away. I pleaded with you."
He raised her hand slowly to his lips.
"I forgot you all the time I wur wud Rose," he remarked naively.
"You needn't tell me that."
"But now I--well, it's too late anyhow. I'm a married man, no matter
that my wife's in Canada. Of course, I could git a divorce--but I
wöan't."
"No--it would cost money."
"More than I could spare."
Alice laughed.
"I never looked upon Rose as my rival--I always knew my real rival was
your farm, and though now Rose is out of the way, that still stands
between us."
Reuben was silent. He sat leaning forward in his chair, holding Alice's
hand. Then he abruptly rose to his feet.
"Well, I must be going. It's done me good, our talk. Not that you've
said anything particular comforting, but then you never did. It's good
anyway to sit wud a woman wot's not lik a fat stroked cat--not a thin
kicked one, nuther," he added viciously, remembering Caro. "You're lik a
liddle tit-bird, Alice. I love you. But I'm not sorry I didn't marry
you, for you'd have busted me same as Rose, only in a different way."
"Most likely."
She laughed again. He stooped forward and kissed her forehead, and the
laugh died on her lips.
§ 25.
The rest of that day Reuben was a little happier. He felt comforted and
stimulated, life was not so leaden. In the evening he worked a little in
the hop-gardens. They were almost cleared now, and the smoke of the
drying furnaces was streaming through the cowls of the oasts, shedding
into the dusk a drowsy, malt-sweetened perfume. When the moon hung like
a yellow splinter above Iden Wood, the pickers went home, and Reuben
turned in to his supper, which for the first time since Rose's flight he
ate with hearty pleasure.
He could not tell exactly what it was that had invigorated him, and
jerked him out of his despair. It would seem as if Alice's presence
alone had tonic qualities. Perhaps the secret lay in her
unchangeableness. He had gone back to her after an absence of five
years, and found her just the same, still loving him, still fighting
him, the old Alice. Everything else had changed--his farm which in the
former days had been the thriving envy of the countryside was now little
better than a ruin, his home life had been turned inside out, but in the
woman over at Cheat Land nothing had altered, love and strength and
faithfulness still flourished in her. It was as if a man stumbling in
darkness should suddenly hear a loved, familiar voice say "Here I am."
The situation summed itself up in three words--She was there; and his
heart added--"for me to take if I choose."
In spite of his revived spirits he could not sleep, but he went up early
to his room, for he wanted to think. During the evening the idea had
gained on him that he could still have Alice if he wanted her, and with
the idea had grown the sensation that he wanted her with all his heart.
His return had been complete. All that she had ever had and lost of
empire had re-established itself during that hour at Cheat Land. He
wanted her as he had wanted her before he met Rose, but with a renewed
intensity, for he was no longer mystified by his desire. He no longer
asked himself how he could possibly love "a liddle stick of a woman like
her," for he saw how utterly love-worthy she was and had always been.
For the first time he saw as his, if only he would take it, a great
woman's faithful love. This love of Alice Jury's had nothing akin to
Naomi's poor little fluttering passion, or to Rose's fascination, half
appetite, half game. Someone loved him truly, strongly, purely, deeply,
with a fire that could be extinguished only by death or--he realised in
a dim way--her own will. The question was, should he pay the price this
love demanded, take it to himself at the cost of the ambitions that had
fed his life for forty years?
He sat down by the open window, leaning his elbow on the sill. The night
was as soft as honey, and dark as a bowl of wine. The stars were
scattered and dim, the moon had dipped into a belt of fogs, the fields
were bloomed with darkness and sleep. The ridge of Boarzell was just
visible under the Dog Star--the lump of firs stood motionless, for the
wind had dropped, and not even a whisper from the orchard proclaimed its
sleeping place.
Reuben's eyes swept the dim outlines of his farm--the yard, the barns,
the oasts, the fields beyond, up to where his boundaries scarred the
waste. It was all blurred and blanketed in the darkness, but his mind
could see it in every detail. He saw the cow-stable empty except for the
six cheap Suffolks which just supplied his household and one or two
gentry with milk; he saw doors split and unhinged that he could not
afford to mend, gaping roofs that he could not afford to retile, while
the martins stole his thatch for their autumn broods; he saw his
oat-harvest mostly straw, his hop-harvest gathered at a loss, his hay
spoiled with sorrel; he saw himself short of labour, one man turned off,
another run away; and he saw all the flints and shards and lime of
Boarzell breaking his plough, choking his winter wheat, while on the
lower ground runnels of clay made his corn sedgy, and everywhere the
tough, wiry fibres of the gorse drank all the little there was of
goodness out of the ground and scattered it from its blossoms in useless
fragrance.
This was what his forty years of struggle had brought him to. He saw
himself in the midst of a huge ambitious ruin. He had failed, his hopes
were blighted--what could he expect to pull out of this wreck. It would
be far better and wiser if he gave up the dreary uncertain battle, and
took the sure rest at hand. If he sold some of the more fruitful part of
his land he would be able to divorce Rose, then he could marry Alice and
live with her a quiet, shorn, unambitious life. No one would buy the new
ground on Boarzell, but he could easily sell the low fields by the
Glotten brook; that would leave him with twenty or thirty acres of
fairly good land round the farm, and all his useless encroachments on
Boarzell which he would allow to relapse into their former state. He
would have enough to live upon, to support his children and his delicate
wife--he would be able to take no risks and make no ventures, but he
would be comfortable.
His old father's words came back to him--"I've no ambitions, so I'm a
happy man. I döan't want nothing I haven't got, so I haven't got nothing
I döan't want." Perhaps his father had been right. After all, what had
he, Reuben, got by being ambitious? Comfort, peace, home-life, wife,
children, were all so many bitter words to him, and his great plans
themselves had crumbled into failure--he had lost everything to gain
nothing.
Far better give up the struggle while there was the chance of an
honourable retreat. He realised that he was at the turning point--a step
further along his old course and he would lose Alice, a step along the
road she pointed, and he would lose Boarzell. After all he had not won
Boarzell, most likely never would win it--if he persisted on his old
ways they would probably only lead him to ruin, and later there might be
no Alice to turn to. If he renounced her now, he would be definitely
pledging himself to Boarzell and all his soaring, tottering schemes--he
would not be able to "come back" a second time.
If he lost Alice now he might be losing her for a dream, a bubble, a
will-o'-the-wisp. Surely he would be wise to pull what he could out of
the wreck, take her, and forget all else. Only a fool would turn away
from her now, and press forward. In the old days it had been different,
he had been successful then--now he was a failure, and saw his chance to
fail honourably. Better take it before it was too late.
His mind painted him a picture it had never dared paint before--the
comfortable red house basking in sunshine, with a garden full of
flowers, a cow or two at pasture in the meadow, the little hop-field his
only tilth--his dear frail wife sitting in the porch, his children
playing at her feet or reading at her knee--perhaps they were hers too,
perhaps they were not. He saw himself contented, growing stout, wanting
nothing he hadn't got, so having nothing he didn't want ... he was
leaning over her chair, and gazing away into the southern distance where
Boarzell lay against the sky, all patched with heather and thorns, all
golden with gorse, unirrigated, uncultivated, without furrow or
fence....
... A shudder passed through Reuben, a long shudder of his flesh, for in
at the open window had drifted the scent of the gorse on Boarzell. It
came on no wind, the night was windless as before. It just seemed to
creep to him over the fields, to hang on the air like a reproach. It was
the scent of peaches and apricots, of sunshine caught and distilled. He
leaned forward out of the window, and thought he could see the glimmer
of the gorse-clumps under the stars.
The edge of Boarzell was outlined black against the faintly paler
sky--he traced it from the woods in which it rose, up to its crest of
firs, then down into the woods again. Once more it lay between him and
the soft desires of his weakness; as long ago at Cheat Land, it called
him back to his allegiance like a love forsaken. In the black quiet it
lay hullish like some beast--but it was more than a beast to-night. It
was like the gorse on its heights, delicate perfume as well as
murderous fibre, sweetness as well as ferocity. The scent, impregnating
the motionless air, seemed to remind him that Boarzell was his love as
well as his enemy--more, far more to him than Alice.
His ambition flared up like a damped furnace, and he suddenly saw
himself a coward ever to have thought of rest. Boarzell was more to him
than any woman in the world. For the sake of one weak woman he was not
going to sacrifice all his hopes and dreams and enterprises, the great
love of his life.
Boarzell, not Alice, should be his. He muttered the words aloud as he
strained his eyes into the darkness, tracing the beloved outline. He
despised himself for having wavered even in thought. Through blood and
tears--others' and his own--he would wade to Boarzell, and conquer it at
last. From that night all would be changed, the past should be thrust
behind him, he would pull himself together, make himself a man. Alice
must go where everything else had gone--mother, wife, children, friends,
and love. Thank God! Boarzell was worth more to him than all these.
Leaning out of the window, he breathed in the scent of his slumbering
land. His lips parted, his eyes brightened, the lines of care and age
grew softer on his face. With his darling ambition, he seemed to recover
his youth--once more he felt the blood glowing in his veins, while zeal
and adventure throbbed together in his heart. He had conquered the
softer mood, and banished the sweet unworthy, dreams for ever.
Alice--who had nearly vanquished him--should go the way of all enemies.
_And the last enemy to be destroyed is Love._