§ 1
The George was King George the Third, and the Crown was Queen Anne’s
Crown, and they faced each other across the street of Bullockdean. The
George had a face of stucco, cracked and discoloured with age and the
mists of the Ouse Valley, and a parapet behind which its old roof rose
rakish and wrinkled. The Crown’s face was of ruddy brick, gashed with
long, deep-set windows, and topped by a huge pediment of new-painted
whiteness.
So close and friendly were they that from one bar-parlour you could
almost see what was going on in the other--that is, if you cared to
look; but on the whole the doings in the bar of the George had very
little interest for the bar of the Crown, and contrariwise. The Crown
catered chiefly for sedate farmers and good class visitors from Lewes,
Newhaven and Eastbourne--the George catered for the rowdier elements of
all three towns, which frequented it at race-time, and the more
disreputable, poaching class of farm-labourer. The only occasion when
the two inns had had any manner of warfare was when Mr. Munk, the
landlord of the Crown, sent over a dignified protest at the noise made
by the George’s dispersing drunks at closing-time; whereat Mr. Sheather,
the landlord of the George, had retorted that the sight of the Crown’s
lady visitors undressing with the blind up was demoralizing his family.
On the whole the neighbourhood disapproved of the George and approved of
the Crown, though both were equally frequented by different elements of
local society. The stain on the George’s sign was drunkenness, and, it
was whispered, betting too. Still, as everyone said, what could you
expect from a man like Tom Sheather, who had gone roving in his youth
and brought back a wife from foreign parts? It was his own fault if the
George was but a sorry pub, while the Crown was very nearly an hotel,
with visitors staying all the summer. Visitors would never stay at the
George, even if there was room for them, which there was not. Tom
Sheather filled the place up with his roughs, such as decent farmers
would not drink with. He’d have racing-men from Lewes, a drunken, sharky
lot--he’d have sailormen from Newhaven, making a night of it in a hired
shay. The Oddfellows had given up meeting at the George ever since the
crew of a Margate trawler had insisted on playing their piano for them;
and if the Buffaloes still met there it was only because Mr. Batup,
their Grand Master, had a liking for old Tom in spite of his rotten
ales.
As a matter of fact, most people liked Tom Sheather, though it was
agreed that you could never quite trust him, and that you felt sorry for
his second boy Daniel, who was always having to play policeman to his
dad. The eldest son was married, and had a sad little farm over at
Brakey Bottom, beyond Telscombe, while the third boy, Christopher, was
no good to anybody. His mother spoilt him, and gossip accused her of
having kept him at home by disreputable means, when other women’s sons
and her own elder boys had gone to the war.
The war had dealt hardly with the George. The suspension of racing, the
limitation of the hours in which liquor could be sold, the no-treating
order--all had been bad for the George’s particular constitution,
whereas the Crown had thriven on high prices and a congested population.
Also James Munk had money come to him through his wife, who at her death
had left her entire fortune to his enjoyment and disposal. While Tom
Sheather had none, for his parents at their death, shortly before the
war, were shown not to have dealt very wisely with the landlords of
streets, and of the little that they left, nothing remained after a few
years’ fluency in Tom’s hands. It was obvious that he had not realized
his ambition of busting the Crown. But if there was little comfort in
the thought that he owed his failure largely to his own mismanagement,
there was considerable alleviation in the fact that it troubled him not
at all. He still thought the George was a better pub than the Crown--he
would rather be in debt to his brewer and have a good crowd of boys
round him, than be solvent and honourable like James Munk, and have
nothing but a couple of old maids dozing in his parlour--which he had
let off to them, so that he and his son Ernley had to sit in the
kitchen.
Anyhow Tom was better off in his home and family than poor Munk, whose
wife was dead and whose elder son had been killed in the war, leaving
him with no one but Ernley, whom everybody knew was rotten--an officer
and a gentleman, but rotten. Whereas Tom had a tidy little wife--even if
she was growing a bit sharp-tongued these days and inclined to snap her
old man’s head off--and three spanking boys: Len, who was clever as you
made ’em, for all he hadn’t been educated at Lancing College like some
folks’ sons; Dan, who was the stoutest, handiest chap between Lewes and
the sea; and Chris, who was the handsomest.... He was glad they’d all
three come safe through the war, and if ever he wished that the old
George was a better paying concern, it was for their sakes.... He’d have
liked to be able to buy Len some new machinery for that farm of his,
which wouldn’t produce more than one quarter to the acre--and Chris had
been badgering him for months because he wanted new breeches and
leggings--and it wouldn’t have been a bad thing if old Dan could have
had a boy to help him in the yard.... But there you were--times were bad
for innkeepers, unless they were foxy like old Munk--and anyhow, it was
good to have his three boys under his roof, even if he couldn’t give
them all he and they wanted. He liked to see them sitting in his bar.
§ 2
They were all three sitting there that evening in February, just twenty
minutes before six and opening-time. Len had come over from Telscombe to
an auction at Tarring Neville, and was on his way back, disappointed
because of high prices. Dan had just come back from Batchelors’ Hall
over by the Dicker--where he had gone ostensibly to sell a pig, but
really, as everyone knew, to court Belle Shackford. Now he was helping
Christopher and his mother polish glasses in readiness for six o’clock.
The three young Sheathers were much of a middle-size, but they were very
different in face and colouring. Leonard and Daniel were both dark, but
whereas the former had his mother’s sharp nose and chin, the latter had
the broad face, short nose and wide mouth of his Saxon fathers.
Christopher was blue-eyed and flaxen, with a weaker version of Dan’s
blunt nose, and a sulky, inviting mouth.
There was a shuffling, scurrying sound outside, followed by a rap on the
door.
“Go see who that is, Dan,” said Kitty. “We aren’t open yet.”
Dan unlocked the door, and revealed an ancient shepherd in charge of
some muddy tegs.
“Hullo, Mr. Gadgett! What brings you round at this time?”
“‘Tis gone six o’clock, Maas’ Sheather.”
“Not for half an hour,” called Kitty from the bar.
Mr. Gadgett consulted an elderly turnip.
“My watch says three o’clock, which means ten minutes past six,” he
affirmed.
“And my clock says half-past five, which means half-past five,” said
Kitty.
The old man heaved a deep sigh.
“I comed all the way from Brakey Bottom, and there’s a wunnerful lot of
mud on the roads. Leastways it wur wunst on the roads--reckon it’s all
on my boots now.”
“Poor old chap,” said Tom. “I can’t see any harm in serving him. It’s
nearly opening time.”
“Oh no, dad, it isn’t,” said Daniel.
“Besides, if it was,” said Len--“even if it was only two minutes to six,
you’d be breaking the damn law just the same. The law’s a fine thing,
ain’t it, Mr. Gadgett?”
The shepherd looked confused and weary.
“Wot wud six o’clock, and two o’clock and ten o’clock, I’m wunnerful
muddled.”
Dan felt sorry for him.
“Maybe we could let you have a cup of tea since it’s too early for
beer,” he suggested.
“Well, you go into the kitchen and make it,” said his mother, “since
you’re the only one who’s doing nothing.”
This statement was open to challenge, but Dan accepted it
good-humouredly.
“I’m a fine handy one with the tea, ain’t I, mum? You come around to the
kitchen door, Mr. Gadgett, and I’ll give you as good as ale.”
When he was gone, Leonard took his pipe out of his mouth.
“This is an all-fool’s game with the clock. I wonder you stick it, dad.
If I was you I’d kick for my right to sell my own beer at my own time.”
“It ain’t my own beer, seeing I haven’t paid for it yet.”
“Maybe you could pay for it easy enough if they didn’t tie you hand and
foot in your trade. I tell you, this sort of thing makes me sick. Us
working like slaves, and getting nothing but abuse and interference ...
they said ‘Come and fight for your country, and we’ll give you a country
fit for heroes.’ Now they say ‘You’ve fought for your
country--thanks--now get out of it.’ They tell us strong chaps to go and
emigrate, and I’m----”
“Well, I’d do it for two pins.”
“Don’t you make him think of it,” cried Kitty.
“He won’t be such a fool. Besides, it isn’t the same for him as for me.
He didn’t lose four years mucking about, though it wasn’t his fault,
like some----”
“Now, don’t you go hitting at me,” said Chris.
“I’m not hitting at you. It wasn’t your fault, neither--and I’d never
blame a young boy of eighteen for not choosing to go out and get killed.
But I blame those chaps that hid in Government offices, and wore
uniforms, and got a thousand a year, and call themselves major and
colonel these days, and say to us poor fellows who were fools enough to
get sent out to France----”
“Oh, chuck it, Len,” said Chris.
“You’re a fine chap to say ‘chuck it.’”
“You said you never blame him,” broke in his mother.
“No more I do, but he’s got to let me talk.”
And talk he did.
§ 3
Meanwhile in the kitchen Dan made tea for old Mr. Gadgett. He had none
of the normal awkwardness and shame of a man making tea. The special
complications of his life had taught him to be handy at most things. He
blew up the dying fire into a roar, filled the kettle with fresh water,
fetched tea from the caddy and a cup from the shelf just as efficiently
and a good deal more graciously than his mother would have done. Old
Gadgett watched him from the chair where he sat stiffly, as one unused
to rest.
“You’re a wunnerful kind young chap, Maas’ Sheather, and some day if
you’ll come around to my house I’ll show you what I ain’t shown nobody
yet.”
“And what may that be?” asked Daniel.
“My teeth.”
“Your teeth!”
“Yes, you come around to my house and I’ll show you my teeth.”
“But I didn’t know as you had any,” said Dan, with a rather tactless
stare at the thin, receding old mouth.
“No, there ain’t many as knows; there’s doctor, and there’s Miss Belle,
and now there’s yourself--that’s all. I don’t go wearing them about the
place. But I’ve a wunnerful fine set of teeth.”
“Got ’em at the hospital?” asked Dan, as he set the tea on the table.
Mr. Gadgett, with deliberate, shaking hands, emptied his cup into his
saucer, and supped a few mouthfuls before answering impressively:
“No--not I. I made ’em myself.”
“Reckon that was smart of you. How did you do it?”
“It’s taken me nigh on ten year. They’re sheep’s teeth, wot I’ve picked
up on the hill, and rubbed ’em and filed ’em till they’re a proper
size. And I’ve strung ’em on two wires, and I hitch ’em around two old
stumps I’ve got ... you never saw the like.”
Dan was properly impressed.
“Reckon you’re a hem clever man, Mr. Gadgett; and I bet you find ’em
useful at supper time.”
Mr. Gadgett looked superior.
“Oh, I’d never use ’em for eating. They ain’t that kind of teeth--and I
don’t say as I can rightly speak wud ’em. I wear ’em for the looks of
things. Some day I mean to have my likeness took wud them in. But if you
come around to my house I’ll show ’em to you.”
“I’ll come one day when I’m at Batchelors’. I’ll be proud.”
“Reckon it ain’t everyone I’d show ’em to. But you’ve done me a kindness
to-day, Maas’ Sheather, and it ain’t the fust. I often wish as my poor
Ellen cud see my teeth, for many’s the time she’s said, ‘If we cud only
get you fitted for a set of teeth, maaster.’ ... Maybe it’s wot put the
notion into my head, and I’m larmentable sorry she didn’t live to see
wot I done. Howsumdever, they may have told her where’s she’s gone....
There’s my dog barking--reckon the sheep’s uneasy; I mun be off, or I’ll
lose the moon before I get to Batchelors’. Thank you kindly for the tea,
Maas’ Sheather.”
He went out, comfortable and slaked. It was now nearly six--a few more
minutes would have seen him in legal enjoyment of a glass of beer; but,
reflected Daniel, a cup of tea was better for these old chaps. He
wished the George would provide it as a matter of course, instead of
selling only brewers’ stuff. They’d never get on that way; but dad cared
for nothing but messing about in the bar, and mother said she’d work
enough without waiting on strangers.... Dan shrugged and whistled
himself into his overcoat, then went back into the taproom.
“Where are you going, Dan?” asked Kitty.
“Just round to the Parsonage to fix that henhouse, and then I’ll go and
see old Ernley for a bit.”
“You’re never at home. Is it not enough you going out all day without
being out half the night as well?”
“The evening’s my best time for seeing my friends.”
“And a fine set of friends you have--a clergyman who has holes in his
coat, and a young girl who already makes herself the talk of the place
with your other friend; and he’s a lazy, fine, wicked, extravagant young
boy, who rides about the country on a motor-bike and keeps an inn that
he says is better than ours.”
“And so it is, if you go by class. I’m unaccountable fond of old Ernley,
anyway. And reckon no one’s any call to say anything against Miss
Shackford--for it ain’t true, and I won’t listen to it neither. And as
for Mr. Marchbanks, he pays me for what I do for him, and it ain’t
much.”
“Oh, you be off, then. I got Christopher to help me. Thank God I got
one son who stays at home.”
“Thank God you haven’t got two,” said Daniel good-humouredly, “or the
bills ’ud never get paid.”
“Now, don’t you get saucy.”
“He ain’t saucy, Kit,” put in his father; “he’s only reminding you that
all his outings ain’t for pleasure. The boy’s a good boy, sure enough.”
Dan looked deprecatingly at his mother. He wondered what she would do if
he took her in his arms and cuddled her. He had often wanted to, but
something about her made him shy. She would not like it from him as she
would from Chris. He had often seen Chris put his arms round his mother
and lay his cheek against her shoulder.... He wanted to do that.
But--well, he didn’t like to, somehow. He pulled his cap over the thick,
shiny, black hair which was brushed back undivided from his forehead,
and went out with rather a sheepish look in her direction.
“You’ll be back before closing time,” his father called after him.
“Yes, I’ll be back.”
His voice came to them with the chiming of the church clock as it struck
six.
“Open the bar!” cried Tom Sheather.
§ 4
It was nearly dark when Daniel went out. A sheet of lingering red in the
west showed up the masses of Fore Hill and Bullock Down, but the rest of
the sky was a dim, lightless grey, pricked with a few stars, and the
valley beneath was grey, with the river dark among the mists, save where
its waters held one faint glimmer at the Shine.
Dan blew on his hands, for he was cold; but his work at the Parsonage
would soon warm him. He must get on with that henhouse ... and if the
bulbs were to go in, they’d better go in now. He wanted the garden to
look nice by springtime.... It would want a bit of manure; he would see
if he couldn’t get some from Place....
Bullockdean Parsonage was a big, ramshackle house, where the unmarried
rector camped like some squatter in the vastness of the prairie. Its few
tokens of care and ornament--that is to say, a bright blue gate and
windows and doors in the piecemeal process of becoming blue, also an
artistic flower-bed border of bottle glass and scallop shells--were the
fruits of Daniel’s industry. Daniel “had an arrangement” with Mr.
Marchbanks; that is to say, he had quasi-sole charge of the house and
the garden for ten shillings a week. This worked out to the rector’s
advantage in that he would never have found anyone else to do half the
work for twice the money; so he was willing to put up with a certain
growing eccentricity in the appearance of his domain. It also worked out
to Daniel’s advantage, for he could come and go as he pleased, suiting
his hours to the demands of the George. At the same time it helped
lighten that house’s financial burden, for ten shillings a week, he
knew, went far in his mother’s thrifty housekeeping.
To-night he stood for a moment at the gate, contemplating his handiwork
with a satisfied smile. One of the lower windows was lighted, and he
could see through its uncurtained panes a young man stooping over a
writing-table covered with books and papers. Mr. Marchbanks was busy,
and Dan had better get on with his jobs without troubling him.
Dan had an almost maternal feeling for Mr. Marchbanks, who had not been
in Bullockdean more than two years. He came from a big church in Oxford,
where, by report, he had spent his time in study and in writing books.
Why he had chosen to leave it for the care of an obscure Sussex parish
was his own private adventure. He was still, after two years’ residence,
inclined to be shy of his country parishioners, whose ways were so
unlike the ways of Oxford; and they, on their side, were inclined to
look down on him for his lack of clerical state. Also, immediately after
his arrival, he had made an almost fatal mistake. He had failed to see
the devotional aspect of a composition known as White-Wilcox in C, which
had been sung at harvest festivals in Bullockdean from the days they
were first started. All unknowing the enormity he was contemplating, and
having already made, without outcry, several small changes in the
direction of simplicity, he abolished White-Wilcox’s crashes and
quavers, and substituted plainsong. The earth shook, the skies roared,
the heavens fell. More literally, the choir went on strike, the people’s
warden joined the Wesleyans, and a protest was drawn up by the
Oddfellows in the bar of the Crown, and then taken across to be signed
by the Buffaloes in the bar of the George, providing yet another
instance of the Odium Gregorianum.
Then Mr. Marchbanks made a still worse blunder. He retracted. Moved with
pity for the simple souls he had offended, and realizing that he had
really dethroned the local god, whose identity he had at first been at
some loss to discover, he restored White-Wilcox in C to all his former
glory. As he confined himself almost entirely to the repeated statement
that “Lebanon skips like a calf, Sirion also like a young unicorn,”
there was nothing that made him unfit for Christmas, Easter or Whitsun
or other occasions of rejoicing. Once more his familiar arpeggios
wheezed forth on the organ, once more Mr. Pilbeam’s alto took, even
though it could not hold, notes above the stave, while cantori and
decani became antiphonally calves and unicorns, and old Auntie Harman
“joined in” as usual from her pew, and you heard, as usual, her nieces
Jess and Maudie “shushing her down.” Mr. Marchbanks thought he had
re-established himself. But, on the contrary, he had only doubled his
error. His congregation would now more than ever talk regretfully of
“the old days” which had been before he came. The “old reverend” would
never have taken away White-Wilcox in C, but if he had, he would most
certainly never have put him back again; he’d have seen the entire
congregation Wesleyans first.
It was during these months of crisis that the rector and Daniel Sheather
became friends. Dan had no special devotion to White-Wilcox, and he had
never loved the “old reverend,” who had once thrashed him for putting a
firework in the hinge of the parsonage gate. He was sorry for Mr.
Marchbanks, who so obviously didn’t know his job, and so obviously
wanted looking after by a sensible chap. There being no mistress at the
rectory made him particularly vulnerable to the form of attack which Dan
called “helping around.” He had soon obtained control of all the outside
of the house and of the parson’s boots as well.
This evening he used the last of the fading light for planting
bulbs--hyacinths and tulips, whose origin in the borders of Place Farm
might have distressed the rector had he known of it. Then when it grew
too dark to see he went into the shed, and, lighting a candle, tinkered
away at the henhouse he was making. He had decided that Mr. Marchbanks
was going to keep fowls, and had arranged with the chicken boy at Upper
Barndean to supply him with one or two good pullets for a start.
§ 5
At eight o’clock he stopped work, put away his tools, locked up the shed
and went quietly off. It was now very cold indeed. A snap of frost made
the stars shiver above the black ridges of the Downs, and Daniel walked
quickly, with his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his overcoat,
and his collar turned up to his red ears. It was bad luck never having
quite enough clothes to keep you warm.... However, it would be warm
enough at the Crown. Ernley always had a good fire, and often a good
drink of something hot as well.
The bar of the Crown was altogether a superior affair to the bar of the
George. The sawdust on the floor was thicker, the windows were covered
with cosy, bright red curtains, and there were one or two comfortable
chairs about. Moreover, behind the counter stood pleasant Maudie Harman,
with her slow, pretty ways and welcoming smile.
“Good evening, Mr. Sheather,” she greeted him. “It’s some days since
you’ve been in.”
“Good evening, Miss Harman. How are you? And how’s auntie and your
sister Jess?”
“Oh, we’re all fine. Jess is looking after Doctor Penny’s children now.
She gets six bob a week and her dinner.”
“Say, that’s good! I bet your auntie’s pleased, with the two of you
doing so well.”
“Oh, she’s pleased inside, I reckon, though she don’t say much out,
’cept that we’re hussies, for we both bought lace collars last week.”
“And uncommon smart you look in them. I saw them in church on Sunday.”
“Well, I tell auntie that we must dress a bit, seeing as everybody knows
us.... Yes, Mr. Luck, two sherries in a minute.”
She hastily took her elbows off the counter and became professional. Dan
saw that James Munk had come into the bar.
“Evening,” he said glumly. “Is Ernley in?”
He hated James Munk for a variety of reasons, the chief one of which was
that he wielded a weapon against which Daniel Sheather, like most of his
class, stood helpless--the weapon of sarcasm. He never knew whether or
not the landlord of the Crown was “getting at him”; his simplest remarks
were full of danger, his praise was barbed, his blame two-edged. Dan in
his presence became a mumbling oaf.
“Evening,” repeated Munk, in tones of courtesy. “Ernley is in his room.”
“Well, I’d better go upstairs.”
“Yes, I think that would be the best way to get there.”
Munk did not like having the young Sheathers in his bar; his comfort was
that they never stayed there long. Daniel was now half-way up the
stairs, stumbling in the darkness, and wondering exactly where he had
been stung. The Crown people were almost like gentry with their talk and
their ways. The queer thing was that he didn’t in the least mind old
Ernley’s imitation of a gentleman, though he hated his father’s.
He knocked at Ernley’s door. It was merely a consoling fiction of Tom
Sheather’s that James and his son had to sit in the kitchen because
their parlour was let to visitors. It was often so let, it is true, but
Ernley would never have sat in it. He had a room of his own, a long,
low, comfortable room that ran along the frontage of the Crown, and
looked out over its sign at the village street. A bright wood fire
burned luxuriously in the grate, showing the thick carpet and
comfortable chairs, and Ernley’s bed with its warm quilt--lighting up
his pictures and dancing on the covers of his books.
“Hallo, Dan! That you?”
“Hallo, Ernley!”
Dan came in and sat down on the other side of the fire.
“What’ll you have to drink?”
“Oh, I dunno.”
“May as well have the port out--you look cold.”
“It’s turned cold.”
Ernley fetched a bottle and glasses out of the cupboard. He was a tall,
well-made, well-dressed young man, with a dark complexion and queer,
restless eyes. He and Daniel had been in the same battalion of the
Sussex Regiment. They had joined up about the same time, and they had
been together in the second battle of Ypres, where Ernley had been
wounded and gassed. Soon afterwards he had been given a commission, and
his way and Dan’s had parted, but their friendshi--psuperseding a mere
distrustful acquaintanceship--had remained. There was a world of
difference between them--difference in birth, for Ernley’s mother at
least had been well-born; in education, for Ernley had been to Lancing
College and Daniel to the council school; and in character, for Ernley
had queer, dark, hidden ways and moody adventures in which Dan could not
share. But the friendship stood firm, built on a double set of
memories--memories of childhood spent in the same village, of games and
jealousies and quests, and memories of the black and ravaged soil of
Flanders, of horrors and dangers and terrors and squalors, lit up by
queer gleams of human laughter ... it was strange, thought Daniel, that
he should have remembered all the jokes he and Ernley used to have
together, about rats and dud crumps and the corporal and plum-and-apple
jam, and should have forgotten all the rest--except at the distressed
end of sleep.... He did not think Ernley had forgotten so much, and that
was perhaps why he was often difficult and mood-ridden, requiring the
whole of his friend’s toleration.
“Why didn’t you come yesterday?” asked Ernley. “I was expecting you.”
“I went over to Brakey Bottom. Len was that done over his pigs, and Em
having a headache and all----”
“Which did you look after, Em or the pigs?”
“Both,” said Dan innocently. “I give Em her mixture, seeing old Len’s in
a terrification, and heated her a brick, to draw it out of her feet; and
as for the pigs, I tell Len straight they’ve got pneumonia, and he may
as well kill ’em quick before they die.”
“Then there’s no use strafing you because you didn’t come to me, but I
wish you hadn’t quite so many people to look after, or that you’d count
me in as one of them.”
“I do count you in--not that you want looking after as much as some.”
“But I do. That’s where you make a mistake--you put too much stress on
physical comfort. If a chap’s got good boots you never think there’s
anything more he can want.”
“Well, you seem to have a lot besides boots. Howsumever, Emley, you
can’t say I haven’t done my bit to help in other ways--it’s only that
things being so muddled up these times----”
“I know--I know. I’ll never forget, old chap, how you worked through
that awful business. By the way”--carelessly--“have you seen her at all
of late?”
“I saw her this afternoon.”
“The devil you did--and how is she?”
“Oh, she looked fine.”
“Oh--I say, do you think she’s heard anything about me and Pearl?”
“I don’t think she has. Anyway, she didn’t speak of it.”
There was a moment’s silence. Dan broke it first.
“Are you still so keen on Pearl?”
“Of course, I am. The affair’s only just starting.”
“And she on you?”
Ernley smiled reminiscently. “She seems willing enough.”
“Going to see her again soon?”
“I’m taking her to a _thé-dansant_ in Eastbourne to-morrow.”
“Lor!” Dan was impressed by this aristocratic wooing. Then he gulped a
little, and turned red.
“Then you aren’t sweet on Belle any more, Ernley?”
“Good lord, man, no. I’ve cut that off clean. It’s over and done with,
thank God!”
He got up and took a turn across the room, passing into the shadows
beyond the firelight.
“She hasn’t sent a message--said anything to you, has she?” he asked,
“because I tell you I’m through with with it all. I’ve had enough of
kissing and making it up. I tell you it’s done with now. There’s no good
her trying to whistle me back again.”
“She ain’t trying, Ernley. She never spoke of you. It’s only I’m
thinking that if you’ve really stopped caring and have got someone else,
I--I’d have a shot at courting her myself.”
Ernley suddenly stopped his pacing. He turned and faced Daniel, but as
he was still in the shadow, young Sheather could not read his face.
“I’ve been sweet on her for months,” continued the boy, “but I wouldn’t
speak a word, seeing as you hadn’t got properly shut of each other. It’s
only when you started courting Pearl I thought it really must be the
end.”
“It is the end. But you’re a fool, Daniel, if you think Belle Shackford
will have you.”
His voice came cruelly at Dan. Ernley could sometimes speak like
that--all fierce and cruel--but it was better than being sarcastic.
“Why shouldn’t she have me?” asked Daniel, much hurt. “I’ve got as much
chance as anyone else, haven’t I?”
“I’m sorry, old chap. I didn’t mean to be offensive. What I meant to say
is this--that we’re so different; it’s hardly reasonable to expect a
girl who’s liked me to like you, and t’other way round. And anyhow, it’s
only three weeks since our break. You’re a much more cynical fellow than
I thought if you can expect any girl to console herself so soon.”
“But that’s just it,” said Dan sagely. “It’s the rebound. They’re more
likely to take up with someone else in the first month than afterwards.
Look at Mrs. Light, look at Letty Pilbeam--look at yourself, Ernley.”
Ernley flushed.
“I’ve had a sickener. It’s a relief to turn to a girl who’s not always
tearing passion to tatters, who knows how to keep cool, and doesn’t
always want to get more than she gives.”
“Come, Ernley, that ain’t fair on Belle. Reckon she gave a lot. She
ain’t the sort of girl for you, that’s all, and I’m glad you’ve got a
different. She couldn’t understand your ways--she’d no notion of putting
up with you.”
“Thanks,” said Ernley.
“Well, reckon folks have always got to put up with each other. I’m not
saying there weren’t faults on both sides. But I’m quite a different
sort of chap--more comfortable like--more easy going--you understand
what I mean. I’m as different from you as your Pearl is different from
her--and if you like the change I don’t see why she shouldn’t.”
“Is there anything--anything in her manner to make you think she’d take
you?”
“Yes,” said Dan confidently, “there is.”
“Oh ... it’s easy-come easy-go, is it?”
“No, Ernley, you misjudge her. It’s simply as she’s worn out, and I’m a
comfortable chap. Reckon she don’t want no more passions, just a homely
sort of affair as this ud be.”
“Are you able to marry her?”
“If she don’t mind putting up with the George, I am. Dad and mum ud have
her and welcome if she’d help with the place--and though it ain’t fine,
it won’t be any worse than Batchelors’ these days. And maybe some time
we’ll do better--with Belle to help, mum wouldn’t be so set against us
having a tea-place and apartments and all.”
“A damn fine life for her,” sneered Ernley.
“Well, leastways, I’ll be marrying her and treating her proper.”
“Now don’t start getting at me. You know why I couldn’t marry her--you
know the way dad treats me--that I haven’t a bean of my own, and my only
hope is to work round dad so that he takes me into the business. If
Belle ud have waited we could have done it some day.”
“She’s not the sort as waits.”
“Evidently not.”
He came out of the shadows, and sat down opposite Daniel beside the
fire.
“I tell you, Dan, being in love is hell--it’s like having your skin
off--it’s damned--it’s--well, thank God, I’m out of it, and you think
twice before you go in.”
“Ain’t you in love with Pearl, then?”
“Not in that way--never again in that way--my God, no!”
“Well, then, maybe I shan’t be in that way. I hope not, I’m sure.”
He stuck out his legs to the fire, and stared into it, silent and
satisfied. He was glad he had told Ernley about his feelings, for until
then he had had an uneasy suspicion that his friend still cared, and
while there was a chance of that he would not speak to Belle. But now
Ernley had practically said “go in and win”; he had also implied:
“You’ll be likelier and luckier to lose.” Well, time would show that.
Anyhow, Dan was not afraid of love. He did not expect it to burn him up
as it had burnt up Belle and Ernley. He wasn’t such a combustible sort
of chap. Maybe some people would say that what he felt wasn’t love at
all. But it did well enough for him, and he hoped it would do well
enough for Belle.
The clock in the tap-room below struck ten. Daniel sprang out of his
dream.
“Losh! I must be getting back. I promised dad I’d be back by
closing-time. It’s awkward for him if there’s anyone drunk and won’t go.
Mother won’t have Chris chuck ’em out, and I ain’t so bad at it.”
He began buttoning up his coat.
“So you’re still wearing your army coat,” said Ernley. “I thought it
would have been done by now.”
“So it is--done in, as you might say. I’d meant to get myself a new one
this fall--seen it in Lewes--but mum wanted parlour curtains, and reckon
her old curtains were worse than my old coat.”
“Would you like my British warm? Dad’s giving me a new one this season.”
“Ernley, old chap, you don’t mean it!”
“Of course I do--it’s not new, but there’s a lot of comfort in it yet,
and if you like to have it, it’s yours.”
“Would I like to have it?” asked Dan. “Oh, no, of course not!”
He went home muffled in Ernley’s British warm. His humility in receiving
gifts was one of the things that made their friendship delightful to
both of them. But some people thought Dan Sheather was too ready to
accept Ernley Munk’s cast-off possessions.
§ 6
The next day broke as cold as the night had been. An early frost had
touched the Downs and given a faint bite to their pale colours, and the
sun that rose behind Mount Caburn raked long orange beams across the
Brooks.
Daniel was up before the sun, lighting the kitchen fire. This was his
daily task, as his mother did not care these days for early rising, and
the nondescript assistance known as “the girl” did not arrive till eight
o’clock. So Daniel lit the fire, put the kettle on to boil, gave the cat
its breakfast and went out to feed the fowls and the pony, by which time
the house was astir, noisily shaking itself into activity. First Tom
Sheather came thundering down the stairs, yelling after Daniel to ask if
he’d remembered to order the sherry, as if not he’d have to drive into
Lewes and fetch it; then Kitty Sheather shouted to her husband that she
wasn’t going to fold his night-shirt, and he could come back and do it
himself; and, last of all, Chris Sheather came yawning and stretching
his supple limbs and laughing at Dan because his face was dirty.
“And I’d like to know what yours ud be if you’d been down raking out
the fire instead of laying in bed like a lady.”
“Well, Daniel, if you grudge helping me, I know Chris will do it,” said
his mother.
“I reckon he won’t. Nothing ull get Chris out of bed before half-past
seven. He’s Miss Flossie Fluff of the Pinktights Theatre, I reckon.”
“D’you want to have your head punched?” asked Christopher.
“Yes,” said Daniel. “You come on and do it.”
Two hours’ hard work on an empty stomach had not improved his temper;
besides, it always did him good to knock Chris about.
But the battle was not to be. At the mere thought of it Kitty Sheather
threw her arms round her darling’s neck and burst into tears. She would
not let him fight Dan any more than she had let him fight the Germans.
So Daniel had to sit down unrelieved, and eat his bread and cold bacon
to the accompaniment of his mother’s scolding.
“Whew!” said his father, after breakfast, as he followed him into the
stable.
When the family “took sides,” it was always Dan and Tom on one side and
Chris and Kitty on the other, though in his heart Dan would rather have
had a different alliance.
“I sometimes think,” continued Tom, “that I shall have to leg it.”
“Leg it! What do you mean?”
“Beat it--sling my hook. I can’t stand being treated like this.”
“But you aren’t treated like anything, dad. We all have to mind mother.
It’s I who got it in the neck this morning.”
“Well, I don’t see why you should, for you’re as good a boy as ever
breathed.”
“I ain’t. And, anyways, it won’t help me much if you clear out. It’ll be
worse having to stick it alone.”
“But I shan’t have to watch you sitting there being wigged for what
ain’t your fault--me the master of my own house and not able to say a
word.”
“It’s because you’re scared.”
“That’s just it--I’m scared--scared in my own house; and I won’t put up
with it. I’m beginning to think I was a fool to leave the sea.”
“The sea! But, father, you’ve left the sea almost a lifetime ago. You’d
never go back to it.”
“A lifetime! I like your cheek. Your lifetime, maybe, but not a man’s,
not mine. I’m only forty-six, and as strong as a dromedary. I tell you
I’m wasted here, having to sit and listen to my boy being slated, when
I’m not being slated myself. I’m not master in my own house.”
“And would you be master on board a ship?”
“No, I shouldn’t. But I shouldn’t have a woman over me. It’s that what
stings, having a woman ordering you about all day. It ain’t right. God
made man the head of the woman. It says so in the Bible--and look at me.
Am I your mother’s head? And she promised to obey me, too--and though
she said it in French it’s just as good as if she’d said it in English.
I asked the minister and he told me.”
“Father, I think you shouldn’t ought to speak so of mother before me.”
“Well, I can’t help it. I must let out before someone or I’ll bust. And
it’s better than letting out before the chaps in the bar. You’re a good
boy, Daniel. I say, what if you and me was to go away together and get a
sea job? Then you wouldn’t have to stick it alone--and you’d like the
sea, I know, for you’re handy as they make ’em.”
“Father! Have done, do!” Dan was aghast at such treason.
“Well, and why not?”
“You should ought to be ashamed of yourself. How’s poor mother to get on
without us? and us leaving her in debt to the brewers and all--and Chris
no good, and no woman ever fit to manage a pub. Father, you shouldn’t
ought to speak so. I’m ashamed of you.”
“Lor! you’ve got your mother’s own tongue. You take after her in that
way if you don’t in no other. Reckon I’m to be pitied. Howsumever, I
shan’t ask you for any more sympathy.”
“Oh, father, I’m ready enough if it’s only sympathy you’re wanting. But
when you talk like that about going away, all I can say is that it’s
wicked.”
“Well, I won’t talk about it any more, since you feel bad about it.”
“And you won’t do anything, neither?”
“Not I. What should I do now after twenty-five years ashore? I was only
joking, and wishing I hadn’t been such a mortal fool as to--howsumever,
you’d say that was wicked too.”