The news that New Bowden had ‘joined up’ reached the village
simultaneously with the report that Steer had ‘shot’ him in London for
three hundred pounds and costs for breaking his promise to Molly Winch.
The double sensation was delicious. Honours seemed so easy that no one
could see which had come off best. It was fairly clear, however, that
Molly Winch and the girl Pansy had come off worst. And there was great
curiosity to see them. This was not found possible, for Molly Winch
was at Weston-super-Mare and the girl Pansy invisible, even by those
whose business took them to Bowden’s yard. Bowden himself put in his
customary appearance at ‘The Three Stars,’ where he said quite openly
that Steer would never see a penny of that money; Steer his customary
appearances at church, where he was a warden, and could naturally say
nothing. Christmas passed, and the New Year wore on through colourless
February and March, when every tree was bare, the bracken’s russet had
gone dark-dun, and the hedgerows were songless.
Steer’s victory had lost him his niece; she had displayed invincible
reluctance to return as a conquering heroine, and had gone into an
office. Bowden’s victory had lost him his son, whose training would
soon be over now, and whose battalion was in Flanders. Neither of
the neighbouring enemies showed by word or sign that they saw any
connection between gain and loss; but the schoolmistress met them one
afternoon at the end of March seated in their carts face to face in a
lane so narrow that some compromise was essential to the passage of
either. They had been there without movement long enough for their
mares to have begun grazing in the hedge on either hand. Bowden was
sitting with folded arms and an expression as of his own bull on his
face. Steer’s teeth and eyes were bared very much like a dog’s when it
is going to bite.
The schoolmistress, who had courage, took hold of Bowden’s mare and
backed her.
“Now, Mr. Steer,” she said, “pull in to your left, please. You can’t
stay here all day, blocking the lane for everybody.”
Steer, who after all prized his reputation in the parish, jerked the
reins and pulled in to the hedge. And the schoolmistress, without more
ado, led Bowden’s mare past, foot by foot. The wheels scraped, both
carts jolted slightly; the two farmers’ faces, so close together,
moved no muscle, but when the carts had drawn clear, each, as if by
agreement, expectorated to his right. The schoolmistress loosed the
head of Bowden’s mare and said:
“You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, Mr. Bowden; you and Mr. Steer.”
“How’s that?” said Bowden.
“How’s that indeed? Everybody knows the state of things between you. No
good can come of it. In war-time too, when we ought all to be united.
Why can’t you shake hands and be friends?”
Bowden laughed.
“Shake ’ands with that chap? I’d suner shake ’ands with a dead pig. Let
’im get my son back out o’ the Army.”
The schoolmistress looked up at him.
“And I hope you’re going to look after that poor girl when her time
comes,” she said.
Bowden nodded.
“Never fear! I’d suner the child was hers than that niece of Steer’s.”
The schoolmistress was silent.
“Well,” she said at last, “it’s an unchristian state of mind.”
“Yu go to Steer, ma’am, an’ see whether he’ll be more Christian-like.
He ’olds the plate out Sundays.”
This was precisely what the good lady did, more perhaps from curiosity
than in proselytizing mood.
“What!” said Steer, who was installing a beehive; “when that God-darned
feller put his son up to jilting my niece!”
“And you a Christian, Mr. Steer!”
“There’s a limit to that, ma’am,” said Steer dryly. “In my opinion, not
even our Lord could have put up with that feller. Don’t you waste your
breath trying to persuade me.”
“Dear me!” murmured the schoolmistress. “I don’t know which of you is
worst.”
The only people, in fact, who did know were Steer and Bowden, whose
convictions about each other increased as the spring came in with song
and leaf and sunshine, and there was no son to attend to the sowing and
the calving, and no niece to make the best butter in the parish.
Towards the end of May, on a ‘brave’ day, when the wind was lively in
the ash-trees and the buttercups bright gold, the girl Pansy had her
hour; and on the following morning Bowden received this letter from his
son.
“DEAR FATHER,
“They don’t let us tell where we are so all I can say is there’s
some crumps come over that stop at nothing and you could bury a
waggon where they hit. The grub is nothing to complain of. Hope
you have done well with calves. The green within sight of here
wouldn’t keep a rabbit alive half a day. The thing I wish to say
is If I have a son by you know who--call it Edward, after you and
me. It makes you think out here. She would like to hear perhaps
that I will marry her if I come back so as not to have it on my
mind. There is some German prisoners in our section--big fellows
and proper swine with their machine-guns I can tell you. Hope
you are well as this leaves me. Has that swine Steer given over
asking for his money? I would like to see the old farm again.
Tell granma to keep warm. No more now from
“Your loving son
“NED.”
After standing for some minutes by the weighing machine trying to
make head or tail of his own sensations, Bowden took the letter up to
the girl Pansy, lying beside her offspring in her narrow cabin of a
room. In countrymen who never observe themselves, a letter or event
which ploughs up fallow land of feeling, or blasts the rock of some
prejudice, causes a prolonged mental stammer or hiatus. So Ned wanted
to marry the girl if he came home! The Bowdens were an old family, the
girl cross-bred. It wasn’t fitting! And the news that Ned had it on his
mind brought home to Bowden as never before the danger his son was in.
With profound instinct he knew that compunction did not seriously visit
those who felt life sure and strong within them; so that there was a
kind of superstition in the way he took the letter up to the girl.
After all, the child was as much bone of Ned’s bone and of his own as
if the girl had been married in church--a boy too. He gave it her with
the words: “Here’s a present for yu and Edward the seventh.”
The village widow, accustomed to attend these simple cases, stepped
outside, and while the girl was reading, Bowden sat down on the low
seat beneath the little window. The ceiling just touched his head if he
remained standing. Her coarse nightgown fell back from her strong arms
and neck, her hair showed black and lustreless on the coarse pillow; he
could not see her face for the letter, but he heard her sigh. Somehow
he felt sorry.
“Shid ought to du yu gude,” he said.
Dropping the letter, so that her eyes met his, the girl spoke.
“Tisn’ nothin’ to me; Ned don’t care for me no more.”
Something inexpressibly cheerless in the tone of her voice, and
uncannily searching in her dark gaze, disturbed Bowden.
“Cheer up!” he murmured; “yu’m got a monstrous baby there, all to
yureself.”
Going up to the bed, he clucked his tongue, and held his finger out to
the baby. He did it softly and with a sort of native aptitude.
“He’m a proper little man.” Then he took up the letter, for there
‘wasn’t,’ he felt, ‘no yuse in leavin’ it there against Ned if an’ in
case he should change his mind when he came safe ’ome.’ But as he went
out he saw the girl Pansy put the baby to her breast, and again he felt
that disturbance, as of pity. With a nod to the village widow, who
was sitting on an empty grocery box reading an old paper by the light
coming through half a skylight, Bowden descended the twisting stairs to
the kitchen. His mother was seated where the sunlight fell, her bright
little dark eyes moving among their mass of wrinkles. Bowden stood a
moment watching her.
“Well, Granny,” he said, “yu’m a great-granny now.”
The old lady nodded, mumbled her lips a little in a smile, and rubbed
one hand on the other. Bowden experienced a shock.
“There ain’t no sense in et all,” he muttered to himself, without
knowing too well what he meant.