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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 w?onder as she cudn't stick to him—hard, queer chap as he be.
And thirty year older nor she, besides.
Young Handshut wur a pr?aper lad, and valiant. I ?un't surprised as she'd rather have un wudout a penny than old Ben wud all his gold.
And he ?un'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.
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 w?an'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 ?un'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 d?an'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 w?an'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.
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 d?an't want nothing I haven't got, so I haven't got nothing I d?an'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.
That night was a purging. From thenceforward Reuben was to press on straight to his goal, with no more slackenings or diversions.
He had learned one sound lesson, which was the superfluousness of women in the scheme of life. From henceforward he was "shut of" them. Long ago he had denied himself women in their more casual aspect, using them entirely for practical purposes, but now he realised that women no longer had any practical purpose as far as he was concerned. The usefulness of woman was grossly overrated. It is true that she produced offspring, but he thought irritably that Providence might have found some more satisfactory way of perpetuating the human race. Everything a woman did was bound to go wrong somehow. She was nothing but a parasite and an incubus, a blood-sucking triviality, an expense and a snare. So he tore woman out of his life as he tore up the gorse on Boarzell.
It was wonderful how soon he adapted himself to his new conditions. At first he missed Rose, but by the time he had got rid of her clothes and swept the perfume of her out of his room, he had ceased to hunger. He never heard of her again—he never knew what life she led in the new land, whether the reality of love brought her as much happiness as the game, or whether her old taste for luxury and pleasure reasserted itself and ruined both love and lover.
As for Alice, he found to his surprise that she was not so dangerous even as Rose, for an ideal is never so enslaving as a habit. He avoided Cheat Land, and there was nothing to bring her across his path as long as he did not seek her. So the yoke of woman dropped from Reuben's neck, leaving him a free man.
He formed a plan of campaign. The large unreclaimed tracts of Boarzell must be left for a time, while he devoted his attention to the land already cultivated. He must economise in labour, so he hired no one in Handshut's place, but divided his work among the other men. His rekindled zeal was hot enough to ignite even the dry sticks of their enterprise, and Odiam toiled as it had never toiled before. Even Harry was pressed for service, and helped feed the pigs and calves, besides proving himself a most efficient scarecrow.
Early the next spring Reuben had a stroke of luck, for he was able to sell the remainder of his lease of the Landgate shop to a greengrocer. With the proceeds he bought half a dozen more cows, and grounded his dairy business more firmly. In spite of his increased herd he still had several acres of superfluous pasture, and pocketing his pride, advertised "keep" for stock, which resulted in his pocketing also some much-needed cash. His most immediate ambition was to pay off the mortgage he had raised a year ago, and restore to Odiam its honourable freedom.
It seemed almost as if his luck had turned, for the harvests that year were exceedingly good. In most of his fields there were two hay-crops, while the oats and wheat yielded generously, even on Boarzell. As for the hops, he reaped a double triumph, for not only did his hop-gardens bring in more than the average to the acre, but almost everyone else in the neighbourhood did badly, so prices rose in a gratifying way.
Under this encouragement, part of the old adventurous spirit revived, and Reuben bought a Highly Commended bull at Lewes Fair, and advertised him for service. In spite of catastrophe, he still believed cattle-rearing to be the most profitable part of a farmer's business, and resolved to build up his own concern on its old lines. With regard to the dairy, Caro was an excellent dairy woman, besides looking after the two little children, and Odiam had a fair custom for its dairy produce, also for fruit and vegetables.
Thus, in a very small way, and with continual hard work and anxiety, the farm was beginning to revive. Reuben felt that he was recapturing his prestige in the neighbourhood, and, when his labours allowed him, assisted the good work by drinking slow glasses of sherry in the bar of the Cocks, and making patronising remarks about his neighbours' concerns.
He was glad from the bottom of his heart that he had not been wooed from his ambition, in a moment of weakness, by softer dreams which he now looked upon as so much dust.
In the course of the following year Reuben had news of all his absent sons, except Benjamin, who was never heard of again.
One day Caro came home from Rye, where she had gone with the vegetables to market, and said that she had met Bessie Lamb. Bessie was on her way to the station, where she would take the train for Southampton. Robert had written that he was now able to have her with him in Australia, and she had at once packed up her few belongings and set out to join him in the unknown.
Bessie was now thirty, and looked older, for she had lost a front tooth and her pretty hair had faded: but she was as confident of Robert's love as ever. He had written to her by every mail, she told Caro, and they had both saved and scraped and waited and counted the days till they could consummate the love born in those fields eternally fixed in twilight by their memory. There had been no intercourse between Odiam and Eggs Hole, so, as Robert had never written to his family, Caro heard for the first time of the sheep-farm in Queensland and its success. He had done badly at first, Bessie said, what with the drought and many other things against him, but now he was well established, and she would be far better off and more comfortable as the felon's wife than she had ever been as the daughter of honest parents.
She left Caro with a restless aching in her heart. In spite of the lost front tooth and the faded hair, she had impressed her in much the same way as Rose on her wedding night. Here was another woman sure of love looking confidently into a happy future, wooed and sought after, a man's bride.... Jolting home in the empty vegetable cart beside Peter, one or two tears found their way down Caro's cheek. Oh, if only some man, no matter whom, tyrant, criminal, no matter what, would love her, give her for one moment those divine sensations which she had seen other women enjoy! Why must she alone, of all the women she knew, be loveless?
It was her father's fault, he had kept her to work for him, he had starved her purposely of men's society—and now her youth was departing, she was twenty-nine, and she had never heard a man speak words of love, or felt his arms about her, or the sweetness of his lips on hers.
When they came to Odiam, she told Reuben what she had heard about Robert.
Would you believe it, he has a hundred sheep—and a man working under him—and money coming in quite easy now. It wur hard at first, Bessie says, and he wur in tedious heart over it all, but he pulled through his bad times, and now he's doing valiant.
And who has he got to thank fur it, I'd lik to know? Who taught him how to run a farm, and work, and never spare himself and pull things through? There he wur, wud no sperrit in him, grudging every str?ake he did fur Odiam. If I hadn't kept him to it, where 'ud he be now?
News of Richard came a few months later. He was heard of as a barrister on the Southern Circuit, and defended a gipsy on trial for turnip-stealing at Lewes. Rumours of him began to spread in the neighbourhood—he was doing well, Anne Bardon was working for him, and he was likely to be a credit to her. At the Cocks he was the subject of much respectful comment, and for the first time Reuben found himself bathed in glory reflected from one of his children. He could not help feeling proud of him, but wished he did not owe anything to the Bardons.
Tedious argumentatious liddle varmint he wur—I'm not surprised as he's turned a lawyer. And he had good training fur it, too. There's naun to sharpen the wits lik a farmer's life, and I kept him at it, tough and rough, though he'd have got away if he cud. Many's the time I've wopped him near a jelly fur being a lazy-bones, and particular, which you can't be and a lawyer too. But I reckon he thinks it's all that Bardon woman's doing.
A few weeks later Richard wrote himself, breaking the silence of years. Success had made him feel more kindly towards his father. He forgave the frustrations and humiliations of his youth, and enquired after his brothers and sisters and the progress of the old farm. Anne Bardon had kept him fairly well posted in Backfield history, but though he knew of Reuben's unlucky marriage and of the foot-and-mouth catastrophe, he had evidently lost count of absconding sons, for he seemed to think Pete had run away too, which Reuben considered an unjustifiable aspersion on his domestic order. However, the general tone of his letter was conciliatory, and his remarks on the cattle-plague "most pr?aper."
As for himself, his life had been full of hard work and the happiness of endeavour crowned at last by success. Anne Bardon he referred to as an angel, which made Reuben chuckle grimly. He had already had a brief, though he was called to the bar only two years ago—which struck his father as very slow business.
He also gave news of Albert, but not good news. He had kept more or less in touch with his brother, and had done what he could to help him, yet Albert had made a mess of his literary life, partly through incapacity, partly through dissipation. He had wasted his money and neglected his chances, and his friends could do little for him. Richard had come more than once to the rescue, but it was impossible to give real help to one of his weak nature—also Richard was still poor, and anxious to pay off his debts to Anne Bardon.
I reckon, said Reuben, "as how they'd all have been better off if they'd stayed at home."
Soon afterwards a letter came from Albert, asking for money, but again Reuben forbade any notice to be taken of it. For one thing he could not afford to help anyone, for another he would not even in years of plenty have helped a renegade like Albert. His blood still boiled when he remembered the boy's share in his political humiliation. He had shamed his father and his father's farm. Let him rot!
So Albert's letter remained unanswered—Caro felt that Reuben was unjust. She had grown very critical of him lately, and a smarting dislike coloured her judgments. After all, it was he who had driven everybody to whatever it was that had disgraced him. He was to blame for Robert's theft, for Albert's treachery, for Richard's base dependence on the Bardons, for George's death, for Benjamin's disappearance, for Tilly's marriage, for Rose's elopement—it was a heavy load, but Caro put the whole of it on Reuben's shoulders, and added, moreover, the tragedy of her own warped life. He was a tyrant, who sucked his children's blood, and cursed them when they succeeded in breaking free.
Caro had been much unhappier since Rose's flight. She had loved her in an erratic envious way, and Rose's gaiety and flutters of generosity had done much to brighten her humdrum life. Now she was left to her brooding. She felt lonely and friendless. Once or twice she went over to Grandturzel, but the visits were always difficult to manage, and somehow the sight of her sister's happiness made her sore without enlivening her.
It was only lately that her longing for love and freedom had become a torment. Up till a year or two ago her desires had been merely wistful. Now a restless hunger gnawed at her heart, setting her continually searching after change and brightness. She had come to hate her household duties and the care of the little boys. She wanted to dance—dance—dance—to dance at fairs and balls, to wear pretty clothes, and be admired and courted. Why should she not have these things? She was not so ugly as many girls who had them. It was cruel that she should never have been allowed to know a man, never allowed to enjoy herself or have her fling. Even the sons of the neighbouring farmers had been kept away from her—by her father, greedy for her work. Tilly, by a lucky chance, had found a man, but lucky chances never came to Caro. She saw herself living out her life as a household drudge, dying an old maid, all coarsened by uncongenial work, all starved of love, all sick of, yet still hungry for, life.
Sometimes she would be overwhelmed by self-pity, and would weep bitterly over whatever task she was doing at the time, so that her tears were quite a usual sauce to pies and puddings if only Reuben had known it.
The year passed, and the new year came, showing the farm still on the upward struggle, with everyone hard at work, and no one, except Reuben, enjoying it particularly. Luck again favoured Odiam—the lambing of that spring was the best for years, and as the days grew longer the furrows bloomed with tender green sproutings, and hopes of another good harvest ran high.
Caro watched the year bud and flower—May came and creamed the hedges with blossom and rusted the grass with the first heats. Then June whitened the fields with big moon-daisies and frothed the banks with chervil and fennel. The evenings were tender, languorous, steeped in the scent of hay. They hurt Caro with their sweetness, so that she scarcely dared lift her eyes to the purpling twilight sky, or breathe the wind that swept up heavy with hay and roses from the fields. July did nothing to heal her—its yellow, heat-throbbing dawns smote her with despair—its noons were a long-drawn ache, and when in the evening hay and dust and drooping chervil troubled the air with shreds and ghosts of scent, something almost akin to madness would twist her heart.
She felt as one whose memory calls and yet has nothing to remember, whose thoughts run to and fro and yet has nothing to think of, whose hopes pile themselves, and yet is hopeless, whose love cries out from the depths, and yet is loveless.
One evening at the beginning of August she wandered out of the kitchen for a breath of fresh air in the garden before going up to bed. Her head ached, and her cheeks burned from the fire. She did not know it, but the flush and fever made her nearly beautiful. She was not a bad-looking woman, though a trifle too dark and heavy-featured, and now the glow on her cheeks and the restless brilliancy of her eyes had kindled her almost into loveliness.
She picked one or two roses that drooped untended against the fence, she held them to her breast, and the tears came into her eyes. It was nearly dark, and the lustreless cobalt sky held only one star—Aldebaran, red above Boarzell's firs. A puff of wind came from the west, and with it a snatch of song. Someone was singing on the Moor, and the far-away voice wove itself into the web of trouble and yearning that dimmed her heart.
She moved down to the gate and leaned over it, while her eyes roved the twilight unseeing. The voice on the Moor swelled clearer. It was a man's voice, low-pitched and musical:
"Farewell, farewell, you jolly young girls! We're off to Rio Bay!
"She remembered that there had been a wedding at Gablehook. One of the farmer's girls had married a Rye fisherman, and this was probably a guest on his way home, a little the worse for drink.
"At Vera Cruz the days are fine— Farewell to Jane and Caroline!
"The song with its hearty callousness broke strangely into the dusk and Caro's palpitating dreams. Something about it enticed and troubled her; the singer was coming nearer.
"At Nombre de Dios the skies are blue— Farewell to Moll, farewell to Sue!
"She stood at the gate and could see him as a blot on the Moor. He was coming towards Odiam, and she watched him as he plunged through the heather, singing at the pitch of his lungs:
"At Santiago love is kind, And we'll forget those left behind— So kiss us long, and kiss us well, Polly and Meg and Kate and Nell— Farewell, farewell, you jolly young girls! We're off to Rio Bay.
"He had struck the path that ran by the bottom of the garden, and swaggered along it with the seaman's peculiar rolling gait, accentuated by strong liquor. Caro felt him coming nearer, and told herself uneasily that she had better go back into the house. He was drunk, and he might speak to her. Still she did not move, she found herself clinging to the gate, leaning her breast against it, while her tongue felt thick and dry in her mouth.
He was quite close—she could hear the thud of his step on the soft earth. Her hands grasped the two gate-posts, and she leaned forward over the gate, so that her face caught the faint radiance that still lingered in the zenith. He had stopped singing, but she could see him now distinctly—a tall, loosely-built figure, with dark face, and woolly hair like a nigger's, while his seaman's earrings caught the starlight.
He drew level with her, not seeing her. She did not move, she scarcely breathed, and he had almost passed her ... then suddenly his eyes turned and met hers.
Hello, Susan!
He stood swaying before her on his heels, his hands in his trouser-pockets, his head a little on one side. Caro did not speak—she could not.
What time is it, dear?
I—I dunno, she faltered, her voice sounding squeaky and unlike her own: "it might be nine."
"It might be Wales or Madagasky, It might be Rio de Janeiro.
"
he trolled, and Caro was suddenly afraid lest someone should hear in the house. She glanced back uneasily over her shoulder.
Papa on the look-out?
She coloured, and began to stutter something.
I've been to a wedding, he said conversationally; "a proper wedding with girls and kisses."
He suddenly leaned over the gate and kissed Caro on the lips.
She gave a little scream and started back from him. For a moment earth, sky, and trees seemed to reel together in one crazy dance. She was conscious of nothing but the kiss, her first kiss; it had smelt and tasted strongly of brandy, if the truth were told, but it had none the less been a kiss, and her sacrament of initiation. She stood there in the darkness with parted lips and shining eyes. The dusk was kind to her, and she pleased the sailor.
Come out for a walk, he said, and lifted the latch.
Caro trembled so that she could hardly move, and once again came the feeling that she ought to turn and run back into the house. But she was powerless in the clutch of her long-thwarted emotions. The tipsy sailor became God to her, and she followed him out on to the Moor.
After all he was not really drunk, only a little fuddled. He walked straight, and his roll was natural to him, while though he was exceedingly cheerful, and often burst into song, his words were not jumbled, and he generally seemed to have a fair idea of what he was saying.
She wondered if she were awake—everything seemed so strange, so new, and yet paradoxically so natural. Was she the same Caro who had washed the babies and cooked the supper and resigned herself to dying an old maid? She could not ponder things, ask herself how it was that a man who had not known her ten minutes could love her—all she realised was his arm round her waist, and in her heart a seethe of happy madness.
"When the stars are up above the Main And winking in the sea, 'Tis then I dream of thee, Emilee! And my dreams are full of pain.
"—sang the sailor sentimentally. His arm crept up from her waist to her shoulder and lay heavy there. They strolled on along the narrow path, and the darkness stole down on them from the Moor, wrapping them softly together. They told each other their names—his was Joe Dansay, and he was a sailorman of Rye, who had been on many voyages to South America and the Coral Seas. He looked about twenty-five, though he was tanned and weather-beaten all over. His eyes were dark and foreign-looking, so was his hair. His mouth was a trifle too wide, his nose short and stubborn.
He was now leaning heavily on Caro as he walked, and too shy, and perhaps reluctant, to ask him to lift his arm, she naively suggested that they should sit down and rest. Dansay was delighted—she was not the timid little bird he had thought, and directly they had sunk into the heather he seized her in his arms, and began kissing her violently on neck and lips.
Caro was frightened, horrified—she broke free, and scrambled to her feet. She nearly wept, and it was clear even to his muddled brain that her invitation had been merely the result of innocence more profound than that which had stimulated her shyness. Rough seaman though he was, he was touched, and managed to soothe her, for she was too bashful and frightened to be really indignant. They walked a few yards further along the path, then at her request turned back towards Odiam.
They parted uneasily, without any arrangement to meet again.
For the first few hours of her sleepless night, Caro's happiness outweighed her regret. Her mind sucked her little experience like a sugar-plum and filled her thoughts with sweetness. She lived over the adventure from its birth in a song on Boarzell to its consummation in the blessedness of a kiss. Afterwards it became a little smudged, a little terrifying, and the end had not been in keeping with the beginning. None the less, the fact remained that she had been kissed, that she had tasted at last of the glories of love, felt the touch of a man's lips, of his arm about her ... she was no longer without knowledge; when other women spoke of these things, an answering thrill would creep into her heart, and words of experience to her tongue.
Then she asked herself—would he come again? Her joy seemed almost too divine to be renewed, she could hardly picture such a profanity as its repetition. Yet as the night wore on, the question began to loom larger than all her blessed certainties—and with it came a growing tendency to dwell on the latter part of her experience, on the awkward aloofness of the walk home, and the uneasy parting at the gate. It struck her that she had been a fool to take fright at his violence. After all, if he loved her so much ... it was wonderful how quickly he had fallen in love, and quick things are more apt to be violent than slow ones. Besides, men were inclined to be rough and fierce by nature. Thus she reassured and reproached herself. Perhaps she had driven him away, perhaps her timidity had made him doubt her love. Perhaps she had been too squeamish. After all....
She rose the next morning with a bad headache and her eyes staring rather plaintively out of black saucers. None the less she was happy, even in spite of her regrets. She loved and had been loved, so she told herself over and over again as she dressed David and Bill and prepared the breakfast. Why, even if, when he got home, Joe Dansay discovered that he did not really love her, she would still have had his love, and as for herself, she would go on loving him for ever—"for ever and ever and ever," she repeated in a low, trembling voice as she cut her father's bacon.
During the rest of the day it was the same—she moved in a kind of exalted dream. The most common objects thrilled her, and gave her unexpected tokens of divinity. Her work was consuming, her leisure beatific. The children loved her, for that day she could do what she had never done properly to their mind, and that is—play; while with Harry, dribbling and muttering, she was tender, as no one but Naomi had been.
Towards evening uneasiness sprang up again, with the old question—would he return? She told herself that if he did, she would not hold back, she would not let her inexperience and timidity rob her or him of their love. She would let him kiss her as he pleased—love was too good a thing to risk for a few qualms. But would he come?—would he give her the chance of reparation? The sun dipped behind Castweasel, the hot sky cooled into a limpid green—stars specked it in the north, and the moon came up behind Iden Woods, huge and dim.
Caro ran out once or twice into the garden; the flowers hung pale and stirless on their stems, and from the orchard, full of the babble of a hidden wind, came a faint scent of plums. The old walls of Odiam seemed to smell of the sunshine they had caught and held during the day. The gable-ends broke into the stars, and the windows gleamed in the yellowing light of the moon. Up towards the south the mass of Boarzell rose hullish and deserted—far away at Ellenwhorne a dog was barking, but all else was still.
There was no doubt that Joe Dansay had got drunk at Willie Tailleur's wedding. The fact was cruelly emphasised by the headache with which he woke up the next morning. He thought it very hard luck, for after all, he had not got nearly so drunk as he might have, as he often had. However, he had been forced into abstinence by a long voyage from Sierra Leone, and put down his sufferings to nature's mutiny at such an unwholesome state of affairs.
At present he lodged with some relations in Watchbell Street, and round him were all the Dansays and Tailleurs and Espinettes and Perrots, the Rye fisher tribe, of French origin—which was still traceable in their names, in their brown eyes, and the sensitiveness of their mouths. He nearly always went to his people between voyages, for the Rye girls took his fancy. There was at this moment a charmer in Wish Ward on whom a good part of his pay had already been spent. Sometimes he went out in his uncle Bob Dansay's fishing boat, for he was not above handling a net between his ventures on the high seas.
He mumbled curses as he dressed, and bathed his head in cold water. He did not deserve this visitation—usually he regarded an after-debauch headache as one of the marvellous acts of Providence, in which he, like most sailormen, believed with a faith which though conveniently removed from works was deeply tinged with admiration. But yesterday he had not been really drunk—why, he could remember nearly everything that had happened, the dancing, the songs, the girls, how he had walked home singing "Rio Bay," and how he had met that queer girl at the farmhouse gate, and thought he was going to have some fun with her and been disappointed.
Though he had spent, on and off, some years in Rye, he had seen very little of the surrounding country, and did not know that Odiam was the farm of his adventure. Caro had told him her name, and he had heard of Ben Backfield, but did not remember much about him. The episode did not affect him very deeply. At dinner he asked his aunt the name of Backfield's farm, and forgot it as he walked down Wish Ward that evening, wearing his best guernsey and breeches, his hands in his pockets, his pipe in his mouth, his earrings glittering in the forest of his hair.
His headache had passed off, and he felt a man again; so he sought the woman. She lived in a small old house wedged tight between two new ones; her window was dark, and her threshold silent, though he knocked again and again. He walked up and down once or twice in front of the cottage whistling "Ropes and Rum"—perhaps she had gone to do some shopping; he saw himself sitting down to a feast of pickled herrings in her kitchen.
Then when he was about a hundred feet from the house the door opened stealthily and a man slunk out. The gleam of a street lamp passed over his face, and Dansay rushed at him with his fists up.
The story of Joe Dansay has nothing to do with us except so far as it affects Caro Backfield, so there will be no digression to explain why he and Albert Cock fought each other up and down Wish Ward till the police came running up and hauled them off to gaol. The next morning he came before the magistrate, and was fined ten shillings and costs or fourteen days. He was able to find the money, but it was not the fine which made him drag his footsteps and hang his head as he walked home, it was the sight of his victim of the night before leaving the court arm-in-arm with a certain pretty witness.
Evening came, the dusk fell, stars floated up out of the mists that piled themselves along the shore, the bleat of sheep came from the marsh, and the eye of Dungeness Lighthouse flashed off the Point into the fogs. Inland the country was wrapt in a tender haze, perfumed with hops and harvest. The moon rose above the Fivewatering, and bronzed the dark masses of wood huddling northward. The scented wind seemed to sigh to him of a woman's hair and lips, of the softness of a woman's hand in his, of her silly little voice talking love and nonsense. But the house in Wish Ward was shut to him—perfidious woman had added yet another perfidy to her score. For about the twentieth time his love dream had been shattered. Now she was eating pickled herrings with another man.
A kind of defiance, a kind of swagger possessed him. He would show her and himself how little he cared. He would find another woman this very night. He remembered the dark-browed, demure little thing of the farmhouse gate. He would go back to her, and she would not be so timid this time—they never were.
Oh, I thought you wur never coming back.
She murmured it over and over again as he kissed her, and she clung to him like a child. There was something about her words and about herself as she quivered in his arms that touched him inexpressibly. He swore that he loved her, and forgot all about the woman in Wish Ward.
That evening Caro remembered her own counsels and did not draw back from his love. She let him kiss her as much as he chose, though he saw with amusement that he frightened her sometimes. They wandered on Boarzell through webs of star-fretted mist, they drank the night together, and sacramental silences. It was only when she realised that her father would be shutting up the house that Caro was able to tear herself away, and this time they parted with many kisses and vows to meet again.
He came nearly every night. If she was not at the gate he would whistle a few bars of "Rio Bay," and she would steal out as soon as she could do so without rousing suspicion. Boarzell became theirs, their accomplice in some subtle, beautiful way. There was a little hollow on the western slope where they would crouch together and sniff the apricot scent of the gorse, which was ever afterwards to be the remembrancer of their love, and watch the farmhouse lights at Castweasel gleam and gutter beside Ramstile woods.
Sometimes he would talk to her of the strange voyages he had made—how he had lived on ships ever since he was a boy of twelve, and had seen nearly the whole world, from the fiery steaming forests of Equador to the Northern Lights that make a mock day in Spitzbergen. He told her strange tales of wooded atolls in the South Seas, painting a fairyland she had scarcely dreamed, of palms motionless in the aromatic air, of pink and white shores, and lagoons full of fish all winged and frilled and iridescent—of the sudden swift sunrises and sunsets between Cancer and Capricorn, of the great ice-wall in the south, below Tasmania, which he had longed to penetrate, for who knew what lay beyond it in the Unknown? "And there's another like it what I've seen from Franz Josef Land—maybe there's countries beyond it, with gold." Then he told her of the terrible storms south of the Horn, of the uncharted Nelson Strait—of northern Baffin Land, where he had once gone on a whaler, of Rio Grande and the buried city of Tenoctitlan—"where there's gold." Gold seemed to be hidden in large quantities all over the world according to Dansay, and Caro once asked him why he had never brought any back. "Because I love what's better than gold," he answered, and drew her, happy and quivering, into his arms.
She became inexpressibly dear to him during those meetings. Her timidity and innocence charmed him so completely that he preserved them longer than he had at first felt inclined to do. His vanity was tickled to think that though she was past thirty he was the first man who had kissed her. She was not bad-looking, either, with her straight black brows and huge eyes—in spite of toil she did not look her years, and during the weeks of his courtship she seemed to grow younger and prettier, she grew daintier. Yet she largely retained the qualities that had first attracted him, her admiration for him was unbounded and guilelessly expressed—she would listen in tender reverence to his yarns, and received his caresses with a humble gratitude that went straight to his heart.
As for Caro, life was a rainbow dream. The hardships of the day were gladly lived through in expectation of the joys of the evening. She felt very few qualms of conscience, even when the barrier was past which she had thought impassable. Somehow love seemed to alter her whole point of view, or rather stripped her of one altogether—after all, her point of view had never been more than the acceptance of other people's. Besides, there were things in love that she had never guessed; nobody had ever done anything to make her realise that there was beauty in it—Rose's flirtations, her father's jealous passion had never suggested such a thing. But now her life was brimmed with beauty, unimaginable beauty that welled up into the commonest things and suffused them with light. Also, about it all was that surprising sense of naturalness; which almost always comes to women when they love for the first time, the feeling of "For this I was born."
Sometimes she would have anxious moments, a strange sense of fear. "I'm a bad woman," she would repeat to herself, and she would dread the thought of her sister Tilly. But the terrors did not last, they were driven away by the remembrance of what her life had been before she met Joe—its drabness, its aimless toil, its lassitude, its humiliations. She would have been a fool to spurn her golden chance when it came. It had been her only chance; after all it was not as if she ever could have married. She had had to choose between the life she had led up to that August evening and the life she was leading now, and she could not regret her choice.
She never asked Dansay to marry her. He had given her pretty clearly to understand that he was not a marrying man, and she was terrified of doing or saying anything that might turn him against her. One of the things about her that charmed him most was the absence of all demand upon him. She never asked for presents, and the few things he bought her stimulated both her humble gratitude and her alarm lest he should have spent too much money. One day he suggested that he should take her to Boarzell Fair.
Oh, Joe, would you really!
Of course, if you can manage it without us being spotted.
I reckon I cud, for f?ather ?un't going this year, he's got an auction at Appledore.
Then you come along; I'll take you, and we'll have some fun.
But I d?an't want you to waste your money.
It won't be wasting it. Why, Lord love ye, I'd rather spend it on you than anything in the world.
Her look of surprise and adoration was his reward.
Boarzell Fair was in many ways a mark of the passage of the years and a commentary on history. Not only did the atmosphere and persons of it change very much as the nineteenth century changed, but the side-shows were so many lights cast on popular opinion, politics, and progress.
For instance, in the year 1878, the Panorama which had started with the Battle of Trafalgar and the Royal Gardens of Vauxhall, now gave thrilling if belated episodes of the Siege of Paris, and a gorgeous picture of the Queen being declared Empress of India at Delhi. The merry-go round not only went by steam, but was accompanied by a steam organ playing "The Swell Commercial" and "Married to a Mermaid" unfalteringly from noon till night. In the shooting gallery men potted Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Dillon, and Charles Peace, instead of the Russian Czar or Nana Sahib of their youth, or the hated Boney of their fathers. It all moved with the times, and yet remained four or five years behind them. One came in contact with movements which had just ebbed from the country, waves that had rolled back everywhere except in these lonely rural districts where interests and hatreds came later and lingered longer than in more accessible parts.
The population had altered too. Old Gideon Teazel had died some years ago, and his son Jasper was boss in his place. He was unlike his father both in character and physique, an undersized little ruffian, seasoned by a long career in horse-stealing, who beat his wife openly on the caravan steps, and boasted that he had landed more flats at thimble-rig than any thimble-engro in England. He would have cheated the shirt off any man at the Show, and established a sort of ascendancy through sheer dread of his cunning. The only man who did not fear him was Mexico Bill, a half-breed in charge of the cocoanut shie. Mexico Bill feared only the man who could knock him out, and that man had not yet been found in Boarzell Fair. As a matter of fact he was usually pretty genial and docile, but he had been wounded in the head by Indians long ago, and sometimes went mad and ran amok. On these occasions the only thing to do was to trip him up, and enrol as many volunteers as possible to sit on him till he came to his senses.
There was no longer any fiddler at the Fair. Harry Backfield's successor had been a hurdy-gurdy which played dance music louder and more untiringly than any human arm could do. Dancing was still a vital part of the festivities, but it was more decorous than in the days when Reuben and Naomi had danced together to the tune of "Seth's House," or Robert and Bessie to "My Decided Decision." Only in the evening it became rowdy, when the sun had set and the mists had walled in the Show with nacreous battlements.
Joe and Caro joined the dancers on their arrival. It was the first time in her life that Caro had danced at the Fair, and the experience thrilled her as wonderfully as if it had not been just a link in the chain of a hundred new experiences. The hurdy-gurdy was playing "See me Dance the Polka," and off they skipped, to steps of their own, betraying in Dansay's case a hornpipe origin.
She saw people that she knew, but had no fear of betrayal, unless from Pete, who was, however, safe in the fighting-booth, now conveniently banished by public opinion to the outskirts of the Fair. Pete would "tell on" her, she knew, but no one else cared enough for Reuben to betray his daughter to him. She looked with kindly eyes on all the world as her accomplice—that all the world loves a lover is primarily the lover's point of view.
Besides, she was lost in the crowd which jigged and clumped around her, not even daunted by the unfamiliar waltz that the hurdy-gurdy struck up next. Nobody, except fanatics, bothered about steps, so one could dance to any tune.
In time Caro grew tired, and they wandered off to the shooting-gallery and the merry-go-round. They patronised the cocoanut shie, and won a gilt saucer at the hoop-là stall. In the gipsy's tent Caro was told that she would ride in a carriage with a lord, and have six fine children, all boys, while Dansay was promised such wealth that he would be able to throw gold to crossing-sweepers. They sat in the Panorama till it stuck fast at a gorgeous tableau of Britannia ruling the waves from what looked like a bath chair. Joe bought Caro a pie at the refreshment stall, and himself ate many beef rolls. She was overwhelmed by the lavish way he spent his money, and quite relieved for his sake when they went back to the dancing green.
The day had slipped by, and twilight was settling down on the Fair. The stalls flared up, a red glow streamed into the sky, and patched the shagginess of Boarzell's firs with crimson shreds. The dancing had become more disorderly, the decent folk had retired, and left the madder element to its revels. The mass of the dancers was blurred, confused in the grey smeeth. It seemed to invite Joe and Caro, for now in the thick of it one could give and take surreptitious kisses; some of the kisses were not even surreptitious—the love-making was becoming nearly as open as in the days when Reuben and Naomi had danced together. Caro was no longer shocked at the "goings-on," which had used to scandalise her in earlier years when she knew them scarcely more than by hearsay. Her very innocence had made her easier to corrupt, and she now joined in the revel with a delight scarcely less abandoned, if more na?ve, than that of the cottage wantons who bumped round her. It was all so new, and yet so natural, this kicking and capering to a jigging tune. Who would have imagined that the lonely bitter Caro, enviously watching the fun in earlier years, should now have both a partner and a lover? She laughed like a child at the thought.
Then suddenly her laughter died; her expression became fixed, and she swayed a little in Joe's arms, as she stared into the crowd of spectators. They were on the outskirts of the dancers, and quite close to them stood Pete. He had come out of the fighting-booth, still in his bruiser's dressing-gown, evidently to watch the fun. He was looking straight at Caro as she danced dishevelled, and both he and Dansay knew that he had recognised her. They saw his lips tighten, and an angry look came on his face which his profession had not made more benevolent than Nature intended.
Quick, muttered Joe, and he guided her cleverly enough through the pack of dancers, leading her out on the opposite side.
Oh, Joe, he's seen us.
Dansay bit his lip—he was afraid so.
Caro began to cry.
My f?ather will kill me, surelye.
She knew for certain that Pete would tell him, and then almost quite as certainly she would lose the adventure which had become life itself to her. She would be driven back into the old prison, the old loneliness, the old despair. She clung to Dansay, weeping and frantic:
Oh, Joe—d?an't let them find me. I can't lose you—I w?an't lose you—I love you so.
He was leading her away from the people, to the back of the stalls. He was nearly as miserable and aghast as she. For he had become extraordinarily fond of her during those few weeks, and the thought of losing her turned him cold. He had been a fool to bring her to the Fair.
You must come away with me, he said abruptly.
Oh, Joe!
It was a bold step, but he saw that none other would serve, and he realised that she was not the kind of woman to take advantage of him and make herself a permanent encumbrance.
Yes—there's nothing for it but that. We'll go down and stay at the Camber. You'll be safe with me, and I've got a little money put by.
Considering how much she had already given him, it was perhaps strange that she shuddered a little at this open venture.
You'll be good to me, Joe!
Won't I, just!
Something in the wistfulness and humility of her appeal had touched him to the heart; he clasped her to him with a passion for once free from roughness, and for one moment at least had every intention of sticking to her for ever.