THE FRUITFUL GROUND
"I really think you might have had more common sense, Mr. Coast," said
Mary. "It isn't as if the boys had never had a holiday for brassocking
before. I really don't see that you have any right to stop a thing that
has gone on for so long."
The schoolmaster smiled.
"That's just what you all think about here, Mrs. Robson. No one has
a right to stop anything that's gone on for any length of time. It
doesn't matter whether a thing's good or bad so long as it's old."
"Well, it wouldn't be old if it wasn't good, would it? Some one would
have stopped it long ago. The boys are all going to be labourers in a
year or two. It wouldn't have done them any harm to have a day or two's
holiday in the fields."
"It wouldn't have done them any harm to play football in your field,
Mrs. Robson, but as they had always managed without a proper playground
I suppose it was right that they should continue to do so."
"That has nothing to do with it. And I told you last year I had made up
my mind about the field."
"Naturally in that case there's nothing more to say, is there?"
Mary looked at Mr. Coast and Mr. Coast looked at Mary.
She thought he would have irritated her less if his black coat had
fitted him properly. Once, any sign of poverty or pathos appealed to
her. Lately it had only aroused a grudging annoyance that anyone should
be silly enough to add to the world's accumulation of misery.
"Of course there's nothing further to say." Though she knew quite well
it would be better if she could leave things alone, she added: "Oh,
except that it may have escaped your notice that the lock on the door
of the class room cupboard, where we keep the tea-things, is broken. I
can send the joiner up to mend it if you like."
Coast turned away.
"I have already attended to the matter," he replied.
A whist drive was in progress at the village school. Fourteen
collapsible tables, with a fixed determination to fulfil their destiny
by collapsing at every possible moment, filled the room where, five
months ago, the Christmas Tree had stood. Fifty-six ladies and
gentlemen from Anderby and the country sat around, intent and upright,
clutching the fateful cards on which hung their chance of possessing
a silver-plated toast-rack, a pair of gent's gloves, size 8-1/2, or a
currant loaf.
Mr. Coast presided over the entertainment. At intervals that seemed all
too short for perspiring players desperately pursuing the odd trick, he
blew a shrill whistle, and fifty-six wooden chairs shrieked and grated
along the well scrubbed boards.
Mrs. Robson was not playing. Instead she stood near the door, now
talking to the schoolmaster, now vanishing into the adjoining class
room to superintend the making of coffee, the arrangement of tarts and
jellies, and the fair distribution of ham and chicken sandwiches that
awaited the supper interval.
The vicar, arriving shortly after nine o'clock, approached the
schoolmaster as the one unengrossed person in the room.
"Dear me, yes. A nice gathering you have here to-night. A very nice
little gathering. I have just spoken to Mrs. Robson in the passage.
Very, good supper there--ha? Very good indeed."
"Excuse me," remarked Coast dryly, and blew the whistle.
The chairs scraped. Miss Taylor, who was left for the seventh
consecutive game at the corner table, sighed expansively.
"Oh, dear, isn't that just too bad now?" she lamented. "If only Mr.
Armstrong had returned my lead in diamonds we should have got the odd
that time. Mr. Slater, isn't it just vexing that when I get to the only
broken chair in the room I should be kept sitting on it seven times
running? I'll be sprouting roots into it if I don't get a move on soon."
"Clubs," gloomily announced Mrs. Armstrong, turning up the last card,
and frowning at Miss Taylor.
"Well, of all the dreadful luck! When I haven't----"
"If you talked less, Miss Taylor," suggested Coast severely, "both
you and your partner might have more chance of moving on, unless, of
course, you want to get the booby prize."
Miss Taylor flushed, and bent disconsolately over her cards.
"Never mind, Miss Taylor." Mary had returned from the class room. "Luck
in cards isn't everything. I never saw the supper room more prettily
arranged, and if you can decorate as nicely as that you deserve the
toast-rack at least, even if you don't make the highest score."
"May I beg you not to talk to the players, while the game is in
progress, Mrs. Robson? Strictly a matter of formality of course, but
rules are rules."
"Ha ha! we can't have our hostess called to order, can we, Miss
Taylor?" laughed the vicar jocularly. "Not before supper anyway, Mr.
Coast. She might go off with all the jellies--and the chocolate moulds,
ha? Mustn't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs."
"Oh, good evening, Mr. Slater." The schoolmaster might not have existed
for all the attention Mary paid him. "Have you seen how charmingly Mrs.
Coast and Miss Taylor have decorated the class room? Come and look."
She led the way from the room.
Coast stood, watch in hand, waiting for the time to blow the whistle.
Through the open door he could see Mrs. Robson standing beside the
laden table. Her tall figure, in its plain, black gown, was outlined
against the delicate green of budding branches, fastened at each end
of the supper-table. Paper lanterns of scarlet and blue swung from
the pliant saplings like vivid flowers. Among the creams and trifles,
three great bowls of daffodils lit the table with a golden glory. All
this springtide elegance was Mrs. Robson's device and Mrs. Robson's
gift to the village. The name whispered most frequently by the players,
in the little bursts of conversation that heralded the union of fresh
partnerships, was that of Mrs. Robson. She had given the prizes; she
was the foremost contributor to the supper-table; she had organized
the last whist drive before the approach of summer, in aid of the
children's annual holiday to the seaside. But that the real burden
of responsibility lay on the shoulders of quite another person, the
schoolmaster knew well. The chief sufferer from the inconvenience of
disarranging the whole school, of upsetting the precarious equilibrium
of Miss Taylor's temperament, of settling down, after the departure of
the last card player, to tidy the room, was Mr. Coast. But, of course,
no one thought of him!
He did not doubt the efficiency of his handiwork, only the adequacy of
its reward.
Of course with his miserable salary he couldn't send creams and trifles
to grease the throats of these toadying villagers. He couldn't fatten
his cows on the grass that should have been the school playground. He
could only work the skin off his hands, serving an ungrateful society.
He blew the whistle with savage but ineffectual violence two whole
minutes before its time.
"Oh, Mr. Coast, I've just got my cards gathered together, and I had
such a lovely hand!" protested Miss Taylor.
"I think that was a little too early, Mr. Coast," said Mary. "Don't you
think they can play on for the other two minutes?"
They played on.
Two hours later the last whistle had blown, the prizes had been
presented, and the card players were struggling for hats and coats in
the crowded lobby. The schoolroom was almost empty. Three tables, which
had collapsed irretrievably, lay huddled in one corner. The scattered
cards lent the scene an air of unwonted dissipation. Coast stood,
frowning at the wreckage and wondering how long it would be before he
could cross the asphalt yard to his own house and bed. He was tired,
and the atmosphere of the crowded room had brought upon him one of his
worst attacks of neuralgia.
The vicar was saying good-bye to Mrs. Robson.
"Well, a most satisfactory evening. I think I can congratulate you on a
really successful evening. Fifty-six multiplied by two shillings--let
me see. Very good indeed, very. What should we do without her, eh,
Coast?"
Coast had already done his duty to Mrs. Robson. Before she presented
the prizes he had praised her many virtues in a masterly speech. He had
said enough.
A little hammer of hot iron seemed to be thumping at his right temple
with maddening regularity.
"You look tired, Mrs. Robson," said the vicar. "Mustn't do too much. We
can't afford to have you ill, you know--can't afford it, can we, Mr.
Coast?"
"Oh, I'm all right," said Mary wearily. "I've been rather off colour
the last few days. It's nothing--indigestion I expect, and the warmer
weather."
She began to gather up her coat and scarf from the chair beside her.
The vicar groped clumsily for them.
"Let me help. Mr. Coast, those are Mrs. Robson's gloves over there I
believe, if you don't mind."
"I'm sorry. I have to clear the room. Got to hurry up."
Really, if he had to fetch and carry for the woman!
"Oh, I'll stay and help," suggested Mary mechanically, laying aside her
coat.
"Please don't trouble. I can manage better by myself. Mrs. Coast and
Miss Taylor will help me."
"Very well."
Mrs. Robson plainly did not care whether she stayed or went.
Indeed, from her listless movements it was clear and she did not much
mind what happened at all.
The two men watched her go. The vicar rubbed his hands.
"Capital woman. One of the best. Splendid worker. Example to the whole
parish, ha? But doesn't look well. I should say--mark you, I don't
know, but I should say--she had been overdoing things."
Coast's self-control deserted him.
"No wonder, when she can't let the wind blow without puffing it on a
bit! If she minded her own business a bit more and other people's a bit
less, she might look better. I believe she thinks the Almighty can't
get along without a deputy providence."
"Really, Mr. Coast!" said the vicar.
It was two o'clock in the morning before Coast locked behind him the
heavy door of the school and turned towards his own house. It was a
moonless night, and he stumbled across the yard, scraping his shins for
the hundredth time against the low parapet near the gate.
His neuralgia was worse than ever.
Mrs. Coast trotting timidly behind him sighed forlornly.
"Well, that's done! But what ever shall we do about those tables?
And did you hear Miss Taylor say she hadn't prepared her lessons for
to-morrow yet? But what a lovely supper--only poor Mrs. Robson doesn't
look well, does she?"
"Oh, don't talk. Can't you see I have a headache? Where did you put the
matches? Are there never any matches in this confounded house?"
"Aren't you coming upstairs, Ernie? You must be tired."
"Oh, for God's sake leave me alone! Go to bed. And how many thousand
times have I told you not to call me 'Ernie'?"
"Oh, I'm sure I didn't mean anything. Only I'm sure you're tired. Would
you like a cup of cocoa, Ern--Mr. Coast?"
"Cocoa! Cocoa!" His voice rose to a shrill scream. The headache was
closing in upon him now in a swirling horror of nausea. "Get out. Get
out for Heaven's sake!"
Mrs. Coast fled.
Coast sat in the parlour, his head on his hands, his elbows on the
table. He knew that there was something at the back of his memory which
would console him, if only this cursed pain would stop for a moment
and let him think. Ah! He rose unsteadily and went to the table in the
window. On a woollen mat, in the shade of an aspidistra plant, lay a
copy of the _Northern Clarion_. He spread it on the table before him.
Slowly he re-read an already familiar article, repeating softly the
words, as though he found consolation in them. Rossitur, of course,
was a fool. He had known that after half an hour's conversation with
him. Enthusiasm was all very well; but enthusiasm totally detached from
common sense was about as useful as a bell without a clapper. Why, the
man didn't know what he was talking about. He wanted to turn the whole
world into a sort of socialistic Sunday School with every one singing
"Oh happy band of pilgrims" to the tune of the "Red Flag." Of flesh and
blood and men with passionate and petty jealousies, with magnificent
desires and sordid greeds, he knew nothing.
Still, even fools were sometimes useful.
Pictures chased each other through his mind. Mrs. Robson standing more
like a stuffed duchess and handing Bert Armstrong's young woman a
plated toast-rack. She thought there was no one like her in the whole
East Riding; Mrs. Robson, sitting in that room, saying "The Field is
mine. I will not sell"; Mrs. Robson walking down the village street,
raising up and putting down whomsoever she would, acting deputy God.
How would she like one day to discover that she was only a cog in a
worn-out economic machine? Now that chap, Hunting, talked sense. An
agricultural labourer's union would soon show Mrs. Robson her place in
society. Hunting seemed a practical chap. No nonsense about him. Said
what he meant. He'd know just how to deal with a woman like Mrs. Robson.
Coast, holding one hand to his aching head, drew towards him a sheet
of note-paper and dipped his pen in the inkpot. There was no ink. What
on earth was the use of marrying a wife who never filled the inkpots?
He wasted ten minutes groping about on shelves and cupboards before he
found a sixpenny bottle behind Mrs. Coast's workbasket.
It was nearly four o'clock when he finally began his letter.
"To W. Hunting, Esq.,
Organizing Secretary of the Farm Labourers' Union. Northern Branch.
"Dear Sir...."
Two days later David sat in a small but comfortable eating-house in
Manchester. He was combining, without marked success, the complicated
operations of disintegrating a particularly tough piece of steak and
composing the final sentence of his article for next week's _Clarion_.
There was a smudge of ink on his nose, because his fountain pen
always leaked, and a similar smudge of gravy on his cuff, but he was
happily absorbed and quite annoyed when some one touched his arm and
summoned his attention. Looking up, he saw a dark cadaverous person,
in an aggressively ready-made suit, who inquired, with a pronounced
Manchester accent, whether he was Mr. Rossitur who wrote for the
_Clarion_.
"Er--yes, I think I am. At least, I sometimes do." David was not sure
whether he ought to be deferential, or affable, or non-committal. He
always found it hard work to differentiate between the manners one
assumed when dealing with editors, fellow journalists, labour delegates
and creditors. Also he was not sure whether there really was a smudge
of ink on his nose.
The person went straight to the point.
"My name's Hunting. I am the Secretary of the Northern Branch of the
F.L.U. You may have seen a letter I wrote to the _Clarion_ a fortnight
ago, as it appeared immediately below an article of yours."
"Oh, I know. On the possibility of working up the East Riding. I
thought it was splendid--at least, I liked the idea of getting a union
started there. Please sit down. Have you had lunch?"
"Yes, thank you." Hunting sat.
"Do you mind if I go on with mine? I had a rather sketchy breakfast.
It's just as well that you have lunched, because this is a very hard
steak. Do you know whether they ever try to unfreeze meat before they
put it on the table? I think this a piece of fossilized dynosaurus.
However," with a sigh, "it's a good exercise for the digestive organs,
I suppose." He resumed his labours.
"I hear you went for a tour round East Yorkshire this spring?"
"Oh, no, not spring. March, if you like, and the beginning of April,
but nothing even remotely connected with spring, I do assure you. If
you could have seen some of those roads, and felt the wind across the
hills----! Not spring, Mr. Hunting."
"You went to observe the conditions among the labourers and to do a
certain amount of propaganda on our behalf, I believe?"
"You seem to know a lot about me." David looked sideways at a speck of
dust floating on his beer. He was not very favourably impressed by this
intimidating person, with his determination to avoid side-issues.
"I rang up your chief this morning. I want some information." He drew
from his pocket an envelope, a small black notebook and a fountain pen.
"Now then."
David felt uncomfortably reminded of his Oxford days, when, confronted
by four insatiable examiners, he had racked his brains to supply them
with information that was not forthcoming.
"I received a letter yesterday from the schoolmaster of a village
called Anderby in the East Riding of Yorkshire, asking me if I can
offer any assistance in the way of forming a branch of the agricultural
labourers' union. He says you have visited the village and that the men
were interested in your statements."
He looked rather incredulously at David, who was rolling bread balls
with inefficient absorption.
"I shouldn't have thought it," murmured David.
Hunting's glance seemed to say "Neither should I," but aloud he
continued, "I should like to know something more about that village."
David stopped playing with his bread and turned to Hunting.
"Well?"
"Perhaps you will be good enough to read this letter."
"From Coast?"
He had been attending, then, in spite of the bread balls.
"Yes. That's the fellow's name. Rather intelligent. Got quite a sense
of practical issues."
Hunting's praise implied a reproach to David, whose unfinished article
was blowing about the floor in scattered leaves and who was evidently
without much sense of practical issues.
David read the letter.
"Well, what do you think of it? Eh?"
"I'm not sure," said David thoughtfully, turning over the paper.
"Well, but what do you think? You know the man. Is he to be trusted?
What do you think about my going up there for a bit of looking round
and seeing what can be done? You've heard of my work in the Midlands?"
David nodded.
He was not sure. There was some bitter taint of egotism in Coast
which he distrusted. The men at Anderby had seemed on the whole more
prosperous, less prepared for change than in other places. They had
on the whole not been very interested in what he said. Only Coast and
Waite--neither of them quite disinterested. In a year or two....
"Well, well?" Hunting's sharp voice sounded impatient. "What do you
think?"
After all David had sown the seed. What right had he to declare
which should be the fruitful ground? The love of humanity must be
honest--must not wince at every contact with imperfection. If not
he--then some one perhaps less suitable....
"I wish it wasn't Coast," said David.
"Why? Isn't the man all right? What is there against him?"
Hunting's relentless little eyes flashed from David to his notebook.
"I don't like his moustache," said David--which was true, but not the
whole truth, because by this time he had decided that Hunting was one
of those people to whom one cannot tell the whole truth. He was too
relevant.
Hunting shrugged his shoulders.
"Is that all?" he asked with determined patience.
David reached for his hat, and hurriedly collected the fugitive leaves
of his article.
"Not quite all," he said, smiling. "But, if you don't mind coming round
the corner to my digs, I'll give you all the information I can. I think
your work is needed."