§ 1
At Batchelors’ Hall Belle Shackford lay on her bed. She was tired. All
the morning she had worked in the house and in the yard, cooking and
dusting, feeding and milking. They were short-handed to-day, for her
father had gone early to Lewes for market, taking Tim with him, and the
day’s care had fallen entirely on the three girls with the couple of
elderly farm-hands. Belle did not as a rule get tired easily, but to-day
she was worn out--not only in body but in mind. Her body ached with
moving, bending, stretching and turning, and her mind was sick of pails
and mops and brooms, of straw and milk and snouts and beaks. She was
done.
Her room was a tall, narrow slat in the “new part,” partitioned off the
hugeness of a Georgian best-bedroom, and looking out into the tops of
Batchelors’ trees. The walls were bright with her clothes hung on them;
she had no cupboard, only here and there a bit of curtain, from under
which sprayed out the greens and mauves and blues of her
attire--crumpled muslins of summer’s wear, frayed jerseys of this
winter, bits of silk and lace in want of mending--blouses hung by an
armhole, chemises hung by a shoulder-strap, knickers striding the peg
with dangling frills--hats like flowery nests and hats like flaming
wheels. She had a great many clothes--more signs of them protruded in
coloured tongues from the three drawers of her washstand, where a
silver-mounted scent spray stood beside the cracked white earthenware of
her common use.
As she lay stretched full length on the bed, a woman’s magazine crumpled
under her body, her face hid in the pillow, Belle knew why she was
tired. She was tired as a woman starved must always be tired. For more
than a month now she had gone hungry--and it seemed a year.
She could not believe that it was only a month since she had seen
Ernley. His going was like a death, a loss which time makes heavier
rather than easier, for with the days the emptiness grows. It is true
that for the last six months their friendship had been disruptive--he
had been moody, remorseful, doubtful--she had been jealous, frantic and
wearying. It had not been the kind of affair she wanted, though it was
with the man she wanted. Perhaps that was the very reason why. It had
been easy enough to have these adventures with men whom she did not
want, men who were only the vessels of love, without personality,
without being, save in so far as they brought her those rapturous dark
moments which from her first tasting them had been the immortal ichor of
her life. But Ernley had brought her something more--he had brought her
himself, and her quarrel with him had been because he had not given her
himself, but only those moments which now, without himself, were not
enough.
When she had first met him and known that he would never be like the
others she had felt sure that he would give her what he promised. His
circumstances seemed to point to settlement and quiet possession. But
she was soon to discover that his circumstances were treacherous and
that he was their slave. His father would not hear of the marriage--he
planned better things than Belle Shackford for the Crown--and without
his father Ernley was penniless and tradeless, adrift in the great
overcrowded market of post-war England, with the poison he had breathed
in Flanders still infecting his body and his mind. They must wait--for
something, anything, nothing--and at first Belle had been content, not
knowing how much of Ernley would remain ungiven. But the content could
not last--they both wanted too much of each other--she reproached him
for weakness, he accused her of distrust--she was jealous of him so much
away from her, he resented her jealousy. There were quarrels---
reconciliations--the stocky figure of Daniel Sheather was seen tramping
over the down between Bullockdean and Batchelors’ Hall ... then more
Daniel, less Ernley ... more and more Daniel, less and less Ernley ...
and now all Daniel and no Ernley.
She began to cry as she thought of Dan--pity melted the ice of her
grief. Poor Dan who was so sure of her, when he ought to be sure of
nothing but his own disappointment. Did he really think she was so
easily and so quickly to be comforted? She was conscious of a faint
thrill of anger against him in the midst of her pity--anger for his
stupidity, for his groundless assurance, as maddening in its way as
Ernley’s groundless doubts, for his imagining that she would ever deign
to become part of the household furniture of the George ... though,
after all, why not? People who were not good enough for the Crown
usually went to the George, so Dan was only acting upon precedent. The
Crown had turned poor, penniless, lovely, careless Belle Shackford out
of doors, and it would not perhaps be so stupid of her to cross the road
to where the meaner inn stood open and lighted to welcome her.
Dan might have been wise in rushing his courtship into her first month
of desolation. A few months later he might have found her hardened,
indifferent to shelter--and, as he had dimly guessed, it was in his
promise of comfort and shelter that his hope lay. He was so different
from Ernley that nothing about him would ever remind her of the lost
days ... to be loved by him would be like seeking forgetfulness in a new
country--and that was what she wanted more than
everything--forgetfulness. After all, he could give her much that was
sweet. She remembered his kiss at the foot of the Bostal Way--the boy’s
shy lips quickening against her own. He would be a good lover, and he
would give her, besides, a tenderness, a protecting care, that Ernley
had never given.
But she wrenched her mind from the thought, not so much out of her
surviving love for Ernley as out of her almost maternal compassion for
Dan. Poor little soul! Poor little presumptuous ass! She must not hurt
him by giving him love as hard cash in exchange for protection and
oblivion. She must not seek comfort at his expense. She had no right to
have given him that kiss--she would have given it to any man who had
been kind to her, to any man who was young and comely and
tender-hearted--but he would never know that. He was probably thrilling
with it now. Poor baby!
Belle sat up on her bed and thrust back the hair from her face. One
piece of practical action lay before her with the promise of such relief
as practical action brings. She must get rid of Daniel ... she must send
him marching--in common fairness. Though susceptible, easy, careless of
her own dignity, Belle was no devourer of men. The men she had known
hitherto had wanted the same sort of things as herself, and she had felt
no special responsibility towards them. But here was a man who wanted
something different--or rather, who wanted from her what she could give
only to another man. She could not bear to hurt him. She liked him.
Belle liked all men.
In spite of many sad experiences she still liked them--though the manner
of her liking had changed. When she had known men only from books and
hearsay she had pictured them as strong, aloof, rather majestic beings,
on a plane above the frailties and reactions of her femininity. The
woman’s paper which her inert body had crushed for the last hour was
full of print and pictures of strong, silent men in heather-mixture
tweeds, with jutting chins and bulldog pipes hanging from their clenched
teeth--pictures of masculine magnanimity, honour, truthfulness and
protection. And such till a very few years ago she had imagined them,
and had lived through some bitter times while her idol was in process of
being shattered by experience. Yet out of the smash there had risen a
fresh reconstruction of the masculine image--as of a being frail,
erratic, sensitive, perverse, unreliable, helpless, and as such calling
for more of the maternal quality of her love than any of those broken
idols of tweed and iron. It was out of this infinite pity, bought of
experience in exchange for respect, that she resolved to send Daniel
away.
§ 2
Primed with this resolution, she went down to tea--a twilight tea, for
the Shackfords must be economical with their lamps--a tea with the cloth
a white stare in the grey dimness of the room, and the cups and saucers
all soft spots and gleams, and the high, uncurtained window a great pool
of grey light.
Her father and brother were back, tired and hungry and unsuccessful.
“Not a colt you could buy,” said Shackford, “except at ruination price.
We must hang on with Queen and Swaddy a bit longer for the plough.
They’ll take us through another year, anyway.”
“I hate to see those poor old horses work,” said Belle.
“But I tell you there was nothing we could buy--not half a dozen
possible colts in the market, and they all at impossible prices. One of
you girls should marry a millionaire, and then we could buy a
motor-plough and do without horses.”
“Guess who we saw in Lewes to-day,” said Timothy in his sedate,
old-man’s voice.
“Edgar,” guessed Lucy, with a glance at her pearl-set engagement ring.
“No, he wasn’t yours,” said Tim; “he was one of Belle’s.”
“How ‘one of mine’?” cried Belle.
“Well, he was your last but one, Ernley Munk.”
“Oh!...”
“What was he doing?” asked Lucy.
“He was taking out his new girl,” said Tim owlishly.
“His new girl--you don’t mean to say he’s got a new girl so quick?”
“Well, Belle’s got a new boy--why shouldn’t Ernley Munk have a new
girl?”
“I haven’t got a new boy,” cried Belle fiercely.
“Oh, no, of course not--my mistake--Daniel Sheather comes to see me and
Nell.”
“Now, don’t let’s have any of your sauce.”
“Sauce ... sauce?” queried Tim.
Belle half rose in her seat, then sat down again. She saw the wisdom of
agreeing with her adversary while she was in the way of getting
information out of him. She wiped her mouth and tried to speak steadily.
“I can’t help Dan Sheather coming to see me--I don’t encourage him. Did
you see Ernley, father? Who had he got?”
“I don’t know who she was, but she was a stepper--silk stockings and fur
coat and everything. They were having lunch at the White Hart.”
“And he called her ‘Kid,’” said Timothy--“I heard him.”
“Oh, I think he’s consoled himself right enough,” said Shackford,
feeling that the occasion might be helpful in dispelling any surviving
hankerings after her old lover that might survive in his daughter’s
breast.
“He was holding her foot between his under the table--I saw him,” piped
Tim.
“You seem to have seen and heard a lot,” snapped Belle.
“I always do,” the child retorted blandly.
“Did you speak to him, dad? Did he tell you who she was?”
“Yes; we had a word about the weather; and he introduced me to Miss
Pearl Jenner. He said he was taking her down to Bullockdean in his
side-car to spend the evening.”
A gesture of defiance on Ernley’s part?
“Sounds as if they were going to get married,” said Lucy.
“I don’t say they’ll get married--he never was the chap for settling
down. But you could see he was gone on the girl. And my! she was a
corker--you should have seen her nails shine!”
Belle rose from the table. She felt sick--physically sick with physical
jealousy and physical humiliation. The thought of Ernley entertaining
that girl at the White Hart ... it was at the White Hart that she and
Ernley had met and found paradise before they found it in the dark,
reedy places of the Cuckmere ... they used to have lunch, with wine ...
she felt the fierce, sweet taste of the wine upon her lips, mixed with
the taste of cigarettes and Ernley’s kisses.... And now perhaps this
girl, this stepper, this smasher, in her fur coat and silk stockings,
with her silk ankle held between Ernley’s under the table--this unknown
female, better looking, better dressed and better loved than Belle
Shackford--perhaps she now had that dry, sweet, smoky taste upon her
lips--cold, yet burning....
Belle was in the passage, tearing one of the milk and manure smelling
overcoats off the pegs, wrapping herself in it and going out. She wanted
air--breath--or she would be ill. She walked quickly across the yard,
splashing recklessly into the pools that lay between the cobblestones,
though they gleamed their warning in the light of the dusk. Her breast
was seething with the alchemy of love and hate. She had never felt it
before--this hate, this jealousy--shaking her, burning her.
She wanted to kill Ernley--she wanted to kill that dim, mocking figure
of the girl her mind had dressed up. He was taking her home--to where he
had never taken Belle--to his own home, his fireside. He would marry
her--she would have him for ever--him, the real Ernley, whom passion
alone could not give ... she could not bear it.... She was
sobbing--screaming--she must go in somewhere and hide her shame.
Halfway down the farm drive an old cowhouse stood open and empty. Belle
went blindly in and sank down on the floor. Bowing herself into a hoop,
she sobbed and sobbed--first fearlessly and then with tears that scalded
her face and blinded her eyes and finally exhausted her into motionless
silence.
§ 3
About an hour later, her mind bled of all thought and her heart bled of
all feeling, she walked feebly back into the yard, huddling the overcoat
round her and shivering. She had only physical sensations left.
A lighted patch gleamed in the house, and suddenly her sister Nellie
filled it, calling from the doorway:
“Come on, Belle--come on. Where have you been? Your young man says he
can’t wait any longer.”
Her young man. Daniel Sheather.
Lucy stood in the passage.
“Here she is,” she called through the drawing-room door--then to Belle.
“Do take off that awful old coat. What are you thinking of? You can’t go
in like that. It smells of cow-dung.”
Belle slid the coat from her shoulders and hung it up. Then she went
into the drawing-room. For a moment she stood in the door, swaying a
little on her muddy feet. Her skirt was muddied at the hem and torn in
two places, and in taking off her coat she had pulled her jersey off one
shoulder, which gleamed large and golden in the lamplight.
Daniel, who was sitting at the far end of the room, sprang up and came
towards her.
“Oh, Belle, I was so afraid you wouldn’t come in before I had to go. I
promised I’d be back early to-night--but I had to come over to--to----”
The words poured out of him, then dried as he saw her close. “Belle,
dear, what’s the matter? Has anything happened? Are you ill?”
“No, Dan, only--only ... I’ve been out walking, and slipped in the
dark.”
She tried to finish the sentence in everyday words with an everyday
voice, but though she managed the words, the voice failed her. She said
“slipped in the dark” in the voice of a terrified child.
“My poor little Belle.”
His arms spread out maternally, and before she could grow up again they
were round her. He rocked her to him, and in the sudden comfort of him
her stiffness melted--her body relaxed and her heart began to feel
again. It was at first a feeling of sheer dependence, of the huddling
love of a child against the parent’s breast; she thrust her head into
the warm hollow of his shoulder and shivered like a child.
“Oh, Danny, save me--such dreadful thoughts ... of Ernley ... help me to
forget him. I never hated him before ... I’m frightened. Oh, I can’t
bear it alone.”
“You shan’t bear it alone,” he murmured. “I’ll take care of you, lovely
one. I will, I will. You’ll be all mine and I’ll take care of
you--you’ll be all mine--won’t you, Belle?”
She had forgotten the promise she had made to herself and to him as she
lay on her bed upstairs. That ghastly hour of hatred and physical
jealousy, turning for the first time her tragedy into horror, seemed to
have mown down her life like a scythe. She was starting afresh, in a
bare field, unimpeded by old resolutions. All she knew was that she must
have comfort, tenderness and protection, and that, surprisingly, little
Dan Sheather could give them to her. She knew that she must have honour
and truth to restore her self-respect and the respect of her family, who
had guessed her humiliation. She knew that she must have some armour
against Ernley’s wounding, or, after a few more blows, he would wound
her to death.
“Danny,” she cried--“Danny, save me.”
He promised that he would, though he did not yet know from what or from
whom.