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Reuben had bought thirty-five more acres of Boarzell in '81, and thirty in '84. The first piece was on the Flightshot side of the Moor, by Cheat Land, the second stretched from the new ground by Totease over to Burntbarns. Now only about fifty acres, including the Fair-place and the crest, remained to be won outside the Grandturzel inclosure. Bardon publicly announced his intention never to sell the Fair-place to Backfield. Flightshot and Odiam had not been drawn together by Richard's marriage. At first Reuben had feared that the Squire might take liberties on the strength of it, and had been stiffer than ever in his unavoidable intercourse with the Manor. But Bardon had been, if anything, stiffer still. He thoroughly disapproved of Backfield as an employer of labour—some of his men were housed, with their families, in two old barns converted into cottages at the cheapest rate—and as he was too hard up to refuse to sell him Boarzell, he could express his disgust only by his attitude. Fine shades of manner were apt to be lost on Reuben, but about the refusal to sell the Fair-place there could be no mistake.
Meantime he cast covetous and hopeful eyes on the Grandturzel inclosure. Realf was doing nothing with it, and his affairs were not so prosperous as they used to be. His abandonment of the struggle had not changed his luck, and a run of bad luck—the usual farmer's tale of poor harvests, dead cows, blighted orchards, and low prices—had plunged Grandturzel nearly as deep as Odiam had once been. Realf had shown himself without recuperative powers; he economised, but inefficiently, and Reuben foresaw that the day would come when he would be forced to part with some of his land. He was in no immediate hurry for this, as he would be all the readier to spend his money in a few years' time, but occasionally he gave himself the treat of going up to the Grandturzel inclosure and inspecting it from the fence, planning exactly what he would do with it when it was his.
More than once Realf and Tilly saw him in the distance, a tall, sinister figure, haunting their northern boundaries.
F?ather's after our land, said Tilly, and shuddered.
The little boys grew big and went to school. This time it was not to the dame's school in the village, for that had collapsed before the new board-school which had risen to madden Reuben's eyes with the spectacle of an educated populace. They went to Rye Grammar School and learned Latin and Greek like gentlemen. There was something new in Reuben's attitude towards these boys, for his indulgence had deeper roots than expediency. Sometimes of an evening he would go to the bottom of the Totease lane, where it joins the Peasmarsh road, and wait there for his sons' return. They would see him afar off, and run to meet him, and they would all three walk home together, arm-in-arm perhaps.
He would have been exceedingly indignant if in bygone days anyone had ever hinted that he did not love the sons and daughters whom he had beaten, kicked out of doors, frustrated, suppressed, or driven to calamity. All the same, he acknowledged that there was a difference between his feelings towards Rose's children and Naomi's. Though Naomi was the wife more pleasant to remember, Rose's were the children he loved best. They had not grown up in the least like her, and he was glad of that, for he would have hated to confront again her careless, lovely face, or the provoking little teeth of her smile; they were Backfields, dark of hair and swarthy of skin, David with grey eyes, William with brown.
When he saw them running along the lane from school, or tramping the fields together—they were always together—or helping with the hops or the hay, his heart would stir with a warm, unwonted sense of fatherhood, not just the proud paternal impulse which had visited him when he held his new-born babies in his arms, but something belonging more to the future than the present, to the days when they should carry on Odiam after his death. For the first time he had sons whom he looked upon not merely as labourers to help him in his work, but as men created in his own image to inherit that work and reap its fruits when he was gone.
He was pleased to see their evident love of the farm. They begged him not to keep them too long at school, for they wanted to come home and work on Odiam. So he took David away when he was sixteen, and William when he was fifteen the next year.
Meantime it seemed as if in spite of his absorption in his new family he was not to be entirely cut off from the old. In the summer of '87, just after the Jubilee, he had a letter from Richard, announcing that he and his wife were coming for a week or so to Rye. Reuben had not heard of Richard for some years, and had not seen him since he left Odiam—he had been asked to the wedding, but had refused to go. Now Richard expressed the hope that he would soon see his father. His was a nature that mellows and softens in prosperity, and though he had not forgotten the miseries of his youth, he was too happy to let them stand between him and Reuben now that they were only memories.
Anne was not so disposed to forgive—she had her brother's score as well as her husband's to settle, and concealed from no one that she thought her father-in-law a brutal and conscienceless old slave-driver whose success was a slur on the methods of Providence. She refused to accompany Richard on his first visit to Odiam, but spent the afternoon at Flightshot, while he tramped with Reuben over the land that had once been so hateful to him.
Reuben, though he would not have confessed it, was much taken with his son's appearance. Richard looked taller, which was probably because he held himself better, more proudly erect; his face seemed also subtly changed; he had almost a legal profile, due partly no doubt to a gold-rimmed pince-nez. He looked astonishingly clean-shaven, he wore good clothes, and his hands were slim and white, not a trace of uncongenial work remaining. He had quite lost his Sussex accent, and Reuben vaguely felt that he was a credit to him.
Their attitude, at first constrained, soon became more cordial than either would have thought possible in earlier days. Richard made no tactless references to his brothers and sisters, and admired and praised everything, even the pigsties that had used to make him sick. They went out into the fields and inspected the late lambs, Richard showing that he had lost every trace of shepherd-lore that had ever been his. His remarks on shearing gave Reuben a very bad opinion of the English Bar; however, they parted in a riot of mutual civility, and Richard asked his father to dine with him at the Mermaid in a couple of days.
Anne was furious when she heard of the invitation.
You know I don't want to meet your father—and I'm sure he'll disgrace us.
He's more likely to amuse us, said Richard; "he's a character, and I shall enjoy studying him for the first time from an unbiassed view-point."
It won't be unbiassed if he disgraces us.
However, Reuben did not disgrace them. On the contrary, more than one admiring glance drifted to the Backfields' table, and remarks were overheard about "that picturesque old man." Reuben had dressed himself with care in a suit of dark grey cloth and the flowered waistcoat he had bought when he married Rose. His collar was so high and stiff that he could hardly get his chin over it, his hair was brushed and oiled till its grey thickness shone like the sides of a man-o'-war, and his hands looked quite clean by artificial light.
Richard had invited his young half-brothers too, for they had been at school when he visited Odiam. They struck him as quite ordinary-looking boys, dressed in modern reach-me-downs, and only partially inheriting their father's good looks. As for them, they were cowed and abashed past all words. It seemed incredible that this resplendent being in the white shirt-front and gold-rimmed eye-glasses was their brother, and the lady with the hooked nose and the diamonds their sister-in-law. They scarcely ventured to speak, and were appalled by the knives and forks and glasses that lay between them and their dinner.
Reuben too was appalled by them, but would not for worlds have shown it. He attacked the knives and forks with such vigour that he did not get really involved in them till the joint, and as he refused no drink the waiter offered he soon had all his glasses harmlessly occupied. Nor was he at a loss for conversation. He was resolved that neither Richard nor Anne should ignore the greatness of his farm; if only he could stir up a spark of home-sickness in his son's white-shirted breast, his triumph would be complete.
I reckon I'm through wud my bad luck now—Odiam's doing valiant. I'm shut of all the lazy-bones, Grandturzel's beat, and I've naun to stand ag?unst me.
What about Nature? asked Richard, readjusting his pince-nez and thrusting forward his chin, whereby it was always known in court that he meant to "draw out" the witness.
Nature! snorted Reuben—"wot's Nature, I'd lik to know?"
The last word on most subjects, said Richard.
Well, is it? I reckon it ?un't the last word on your wife.
I beg your pardon!—Anne's chin came forward so like Richard's that one might gather he had borrowed the trick from her.
Well, 'carding to Nature, ma'am, and saving your presence, you're forty-five year if you're a day. I remember the very 'casion you wur born. Well, if I may be so bold, you d?an't look past thirty. How's that? Just because you know some dodges worth two of Nature's, you've a way of gitting even wud her. Now if a lady can bust Nature at her dressing-t?able, I reckon I can bust her on my farm.
This is most interesting, said Anne icily, raising her lorgnette and looking at Reuben as if he were a bad smell.
He means to be complimentary, said Richard.
Reckon I do! cried Reuben genially, warmed by various liquors—"naun shall say I d?an't know a fine woman when I see one. And I reckon as me and my darter-in-law are out after the s?um thing—and that's the beating of Nature, wot you seem to set such a store by, Richard."
Well, she'll have you both in the end, anyhow.
She! no—she w?an't git me.
She'll get you when you die.
Oh, I d?an't count that—that's going to good earth.
Perhaps she'll get you before then.
Reuben banged the table with his fist.
I'm hemmed if she does. She'd have got me long ago if she'd ever been going to—when I wur young and my own hot blood wur lik to betray me. But I settled her then, and I'll settle her to the end of time. Mark my words, Richard my boy, there's always some way of gitting even wud her. Wot's nature?—nature's a thing; and a man's a—why he's a man, and he can always go one better than a thing. Nature m?akes potato-blight, so man m?akes Bordeaux spray; nature m?akes calf-husk, so man m?akes linseed oil; nature m?akes lice, so man m?akes lice-killer. Man's the better of nature all along, and I d?an't mind proving it.
Having thus delivered himself under the combined fire of the lorgnette and the pince-nez, Reuben poured himself out half a tumblerful of crème de menthe and drank the healths of them both with their children, whereat Anne rose quickly from the table and sought refuge in the drawing-room.
It was after ten o'clock when her father-in-law and his two silent boys climbed into their trap and started homewards over the clattering cobbles of Mermaid Street. In the trap the two silent boys found their tongues, and fell to discussing their brother Richard in awestruck voices. They whispered about his dinner, his wife, his hands, his eye-glasses, his voice, while old Dorrington picked his way up Playden Hill in the white starshine. Reuben heard them as if in a dream as he leaned forward over the reins, his eyes fixed on Capella, bright and cold above Bannister's Town. He had drunk more liberally and more variously than he had ever drunk in his life, but he carried his liquor well, and all he was conscious of was a slight exaltation, a feeling of triumph, as if all these huddled woods, lightless farms, and cold winking stars were in some strange way his by conquest, the tokens of his honour. The wind lapped round him, baffing at his neck—it sighed in the woods, and rocked them gently towards the east. In the south Orion hung above Stonelink, with Sirius at the end of his sword ... the constellation of the Ram was high....
Then suddenly his sons' voices floated up to him in his dream.
I wish I could be like Richard, Bill.
So do I—but I reckon we never shall.
Not if we stick to the farm. Did you notice that ring on his little finger?
Yes, quite a plain one, but it looked justabout fine.
And he had a gold watch-chain across his waistcoat.
I reckon he's done well fur himself by running away.
Yes, if he'd stayed he'd never have married Miss Bardon and had his name in all the papers.
We'll never do anything fur ourselves if we stay at Odiam.
No—but we'll have to stay. F?ather will make us.
He couldn't make Richard stay.
Reuben listened as if in a nightmare—the blood in his veins seemed to turn to ice. He could hardly believe his ears.
Richard's made his fortune by quitting Odiam. 'Tis a good place, but he'd never have done half so valiant for himself if he'd stayed.
Reuben pulled himself together, and swinging round cuffed both speakers unaccustomedly.
D?an't let me hear another word of that hemmed nonsense. If you think as Richard's bettered himself by running away from Odiam, you're unaccountable mistaken. Wot's a dirty lawyer compared wud a farmer as farms three hundred acres, and owns 'em into the bargain? All my boys have busted and ruined them selves by running away—Richard's the only one that's done anything wotsumdever ... and if he's done well, there's one as has done better, and that's his f?ather wot stayed at home.
About three years later Sir Ralph Bardon died. He died of typhus caught on one of Reuben's insanitary cottages, where he had been nursing a sick boy. The village was inclined to look upon him as a martyr and Reuben as his murderer, but Reuben himself preserved a contemptuous attitude. "If I'd wanted anything as much as he wanted them houses o' mine, I'm hemmed if I wudn't have had 'em," he said, "and all he could do wur to die of 'em"—and he spat.
Sir Ralph had never married and there was no direct heir; Anne was about as likely to produce offspring as a Latin grammar, and the property went to a distant cousin, Eustace Fleet. The very name of Bardon was now extinct. For two hundred years it had been coupled with Flightshot and Whig politics and the idea of a gentleman, till the last had finally been the downfall of the other two. The race of Bardon had died of its own virtues.
Reuben's hopes of the Fair-place now revived, and he at once approached the new Squire with a view to purchase; but Sir Eustace turned out to be quite as wrong-headed as Sir Ralph on the matter of popular rights.
Of course I know the Fair has no legal title to this ground, but one must respect public feeling. I will sell you the forty acres adjoining the crest with pleasure, Mr. Backfield, they are no use to me, and you certainly seem to do wonders with the land when you get it—but the Place itself must be preserved for the people. I'm sure you understand.
Reuben didn't, nor pretended that he did.
He started licking his forty acres into shape, with many inward vows that he would have the rest of them soon, he was hemmed if he didn't. He was on the high ground now, he could throw a stone into the clump of firs which still mocked his endeavours. The soil was all hard and flinty, matted with heather roots and the fibres of gorse. Reuben's men grumbled and cursed as the earth crumbled and rattled against their spades, which sometimes broke on the big flints and bits of limestone. They scoffed incredulously when old Beatup told them that the lower pastures and the Totease oatfields had once been like this.
Boarzell was almost unrecognisable now. When one climbed the Forstal Hill behind Peasmarsh and looked southward, one no longer saw a great roughness of Moor couching like something wild and untrapped in the midst of the tame fields and domestic cottages. The fields had licked up its sides till all they had left was the brown and golden crest with its central clump of firs. Behind this to the north was the Grandturzel inclosure, but Reuben's land was nibbling round the edge of it, and everyone knew that Grandturzel would not be able to hold out much longer.
Opinion in Peasmarsh was divided. There was a general grudging admiration of the man who seemed able, in defiance of the Scriptures, to make Leviathan his servant. No one could deny that Backfield had performed a job which the neighbourhood from the first had declared to be impossible. He was disliked—not because anyone particularly envied him the land he bought so eagerly and so strenuously shaped, but because of his utter disregard of what other men prized and his willingness to sacrifice it for the sake of what they did not prize at all. He was a living insult to their hearths, their homes, their wives, their children, their harmless recreations, the delights of their flesh, all those things which he had so readily set aside to win his great ambition. It was not for what he wanted that they hated him so much as for the things he did not want.
However, everyone viewed with dislike and suspicion his covetous eye cast on the Fair-place. He might have the rest of Boarzell and welcome, for no other man had any use for flints, but the Fair was sacred to them through the generations, and they gauged his sacrilegious desire to rob them of it for his own ends. He might have the Grandturzel inclosure, though all the village sympathised with the beaten Realf—beaten, they said, because he hadn't it in him to be as hard-hearted as the old Gorilla, and sacrifice his wife and children to his farm—but they would far rather see Grandturzel swallowed up than Boarzell Fair.
When his failure to buy the crest became known there were great rejoicings throughout Peasmarsh. The Fair that year was more than usually crowded, and the merriment was increased by the sight of Reuben stalking among the booths, and glaring at them as if he wished them all at blazes.
The boys were now sixteen and eighteen, fine, manly young fellows, working cheerfully on Odiam and rejoicing their father's heart. Reuben watched over them sometimes with an odd kind of anxiety—they were so satisfactory that he felt it could not last. He remembered that conversation he had overheard in the trap on the way home from Rye, and though nothing had happened since to remind him of it or cause him fresh alarm, he could never quite shake off the cold thrills it had given him.
Besides, David and William had come to a dangerous age, they were beginning to form opinions and ideas of their own, they were beginning to choose their own friends and pastimes. But what Reuben distrusted most was their affection for each other, it was more fundamental to his anxieties than any outside independence. From childhood they had been inseparable, but in past years he had put this down to the common interests of their play, for there were few boys of their own age on the neighbouring farms. But now they were grown up the devotion persisted—they still did everything together, work or play. Reuben knew that they had secrets from him, their union gave him a sense of isolation. They were fond of him, but he was not to them what they were to each other, and his remoteness seemed to grow with the years.
In his alarm he made plans to separate them. He discovered that the big attic they slept in was not healthy, and moved their beds to two rooms divided by his own. He now felt that he had put an end to those bedtime conferences which must have done so much to unite the brothers and set him at a distance.
His vigilance increased when their first love affairs began. At first they would gabble innocently to him about pretty girls they had seen in Rye, but they soon found out such conversation was most unwelcome. Reuben looked upon love as the biggest curse and snare of life; if David and William fell in love they would lose interest in Odiam, they would do something silly like Robert, or mad like Caro, or bad like Rose. Love was the enemy of Odiam, and Reuben having trodden it down himself was not going to see it rise and stamp on his boys. He gave them the benefit of his experience in no measured terms:
If you fall in love wud a gal you can't say no to her, and she'll find it out lamentable soon. When either of you boys finds a nice strong, sensible gal, wud a bit o' money, and not self-willed, such as 'ull be a good darter-in-law' to me, I shan't have nothing to say ag?unst it. But d?an't you go running after petticoats and m?ake fools of yourselves and disgrace Odiam, and call it being in love. Love m?akes you soft, and if you're soft you might just as well be buried fur all the good you're likely to do yourself.
David and William seemed much impressed, and Reuben congratulated himself. Two days later he went into the dairy to give an order, and saw one of the dairy girls bending over a pan of cream. Something in her attitude and in the soft curly down on the nape of her neck reminded him of Naomi and that early courting scene, now nearly fifty years ago; but before he had time to recall it, David came in by another door, not seeing his father, and running lightly up to the dairymaid suddenly kissed the back of her neck and ran away. She turned round with a scream, just in time to see him disappearing through one door, while in the other stood Reuben with grimly folded arms. He gave her a week's wages and sent her away.
Where's Agnes? asked David with laboured carelessness a day or two later.
She wasted her time, said Reuben, "so I got shut of her."
She's gone!
Yes—back to her parents at Tonbridge—and Reuben grinned.
David said no more, but for the rest of the day he seemed glum and abstracted. In the evening Reuben found him sitting at the corn accounts, staring through the open window into the dusk.
Wot's fretting you, boy? he asked.
Naun—I'm thinking.
Once or twice Reuben caught him in the same mood, and questioned him. But David still answered:
I'm thinking.
That autumn David and William went to Newhaven to see the Rye Football Club play the West Sussex United. They had more than once gone on such jaunts together, and on this occasion, trains being difficult, they put up for the night at a small hotel near the port. It was the first time they had spent a night away from Odiam, and a certain thrill attached to it.
When the match was over they went for a stroll on the parade. There was not much daylight left, but the evening was warm, and the parade was crowded with saunterers. The young men were glad to think that there was no homeward train to be caught, or account of the day's doings to be given to their father. He always asked minutely how they spent their time, and it annoyed them a little.
To-night they would walk and sit on the parade till supper time, then go to some coffee-house, and wind up at a music-hall. It was a gay programme and they discussed it happily, glanced at the passers-by, inspected the empty bandstand, and finally sat down on one of the seats to watch the fishing-boats trim their lamps in the amethyst fog of the sea. For some time they talked about the terrible licking the United had given Rye, arguing about this or that player, and speculating as to what would be the Club's fate at Hythe next week.
It was David who drew William's attention to the woman sitting at the other end of their seat. David piqued himself on his knowledge of the world.
She's a—you know, he said.
William peeped round his brother's shoulder.
How can you tell?
Why, you kid, it's as plain as the nose on your face—look at her paint.
Bill looked, his eyes opening wider than ever. She certainly was a disreputable female, or there was no judging by appearances. She wore a big frowsy hat trimmed with roses and ears of corn, under which her thick black hair was held up by several tawdry pins; her face was more lavishly than artistically adorned with rouge and blanc de perle, and she pulled a cape of lavender velvet closely round her shoulders as if she were cold—which might well have been, for, as far as they could see, her bodice consisted almost entirely of lace.
It's early for her to be prowling, said the man of the world. "I reckon she's having just a breath of fresh air before she starts work."
Where'll she go then? asked Billy.
Oh, to the more crowded streets, round about the pubs and that.
I wonder how much she m?akes at it.
Not much, I reckon. She's a very low-class sort, and not at all young.
T?ake care—she might hear you.
Oh, don't you worry, said the lady blandly; "I like listening to you, and I was only waiting till you'd stopped before I introduced myself."
Bill gasped, and David forgot that he was a man of the world, and sidled against his brother.
Don't you know me? continued the siren, tilting her hat back from her face.
No-o-o.
Ever heard of your sister Caro?
Both boys started, and stared at her in utter blankness.
Well, it wasn't to be expected as you'd recognise me. You were only little boys, and I've changed a bit. Maybe I shouldn't have spoken to you—got no decent feelings, some people would say; but I justabout couldn't help it. I heard you call each other David and Bill, and talk about Odiam and that, so I'd have known you even if you hadn't been the dead spit of your father.
The boys still didn't seem to have much to say, so she continued:
I heard of your brother Pete the other day—never knew he'd left home till I saw his name down to preach at Piddinghoe Mission Hall last month. He's called Salvation Pete now, as I daresay you know, and I half thought of going to hear him, only times are so bad I couldn't afford an evening off. When did he leave Odiam?—I should like some news of home.
He quitted years ago, when we were little chaps. Salvation got him.
I reckon that must have come hard on f?ather—he always was unaccountable set on Pete. Heard anything of Tilly lately?
No, nothing particular. But f?ather's going to buy the Grandturzel inclosure.
And Rose?
Who's Rose?
Your mother, my precious innocents. But look here, you shall ask me to supper—it'll only be doing the decent thing by me—and you shall tell me about them all at Odiam—as used to be at Odiam, rather, for I reckon there's nobody but yourselves there now.
David and William looked at each other uneasily; however, there was nothing else to be done, and also a certain excitement and curiosity inspired them. So they set out with Caro to an eating-house chosen by herself in a small fish-smelling back street. They were much too embarrassed to order supper, so Caro good-naturedly did this for them—fish and chips, and three bottles of six ale.
I don't often come here, she said—"this is a bit too classy for me. I go mostly to the coffee stalls down by the harbour. You mustn't think as I'm coining money at this, you know. I work mostly among the fishermen, and they're a seedy lot. I started up town, but I'm not so young as I was, and sometimes even at the harbour I find it unaccountable hard to git off."
With the gas-light flaring on her raddled face, showing up mercilessly the tawdriness and shoddiness of her clothes, which reeked of a cheap scent, the boys did not find it hard to believe that she often had a struggle to "git off "—indeed, it was a mystery how any man, however unfastidious, however fuddled, could kiss or take kisses from this bundle of rags and bones and paint. Caro seemed to notice the disparaging look.
Oh, I'm a bit off colour to-night, but I can tell you I was a fine girl when I went away with Joe—and all the time I lived with him, too, first at the Camber and then at New Romney; there was many as 'ud have been proud to git me from him. But I stuck to him faithful, I did, till one morning I woke up and found him gone, off on a voyage to Australia—wonder if he met Robert—having given me over to a pal of his for five pounds and a set of oilskins. Oh, I can tell you I took on something awful—I wasn't used to men in those days. But Joe's pal he was a decent chap—there was nothing the matter with him save that he wasn't Joe. He was unaccountable good to me, and I stayed with him three years—and then I hooked it, scarcely knew why. I got a post as barmaid in Seaford, but the landlord took up with me and his missus chucked me out. And now I'm here.
Have—have you been here long? stammered David, feeling he must say something.
Three year or so. I started up town. But we've spoken enough about me. Let's hear about you, and the farm. How's Richard?
The boys told her; they described their prosperous brother with his white shirt-front, his pince-nez, his ring, and his high-born wife. As they talked they grew more at their ease.
Well, said Caro, "I reckon he got away in time."
From what?
From Odiam, of course. I stayed too long. I stayed till I was half killed by the place. If I'd gone off as a young girl I reckon I'd have done well by myself, but I waited on till I was ready to take anything that was going, and when you're like that it's too late.
I shouldn't think Richard was sorry he left.
No—and mark you, nor am I. It 'ud have been worse for me if I'd stayed. I'm miserable in a different way from what I was there—somehow the life's easier. I'm not happy, but I'm jolly. I'm not good, but I'm pleasant-like. It's all a change for the better. See?
Then you don't wish as you wur back again?
Back! Back with f?ather! Not me! Now let's hear some more about him—does he ever speak to you of your mother?
For the rest of the meal they discussed the absent ones—Rose, Robert, Albert, Benjamin, Tilly, the boys hearing a great deal that had never come to their ears before. Caro ordered two more bottles of six, and in the end the party became quite convivial, and David and William, forgetting the strangeness of it all, were sorry when their sister at last stood up and announced that she must wobble off or she'd be late.
You'll tell father you met me? she said as they left the eating-house.
David and William looked at each other, and hesitated.
You've no call to be ashamed of me, said Caro rather irritably.
We—we ?un't ashamed of you.
That's right—for you've no call to be. I was driven to this, couldn't help myself. Besides, I'm no worse than a lot of women wot you call respectable—at least, I put some sort of a price on myself, if it's only five shillings. Now good night, young men, and thank you for a very pleasant evening. I don't suppose as you'll ever see me again. And mind—you tell father as, no matter the life I lead and the knocks I get, I've never once, not once, regretted the day I ran off from his old farm. Now mind—you tell him that.
The boys told him. Reuben listened in silence save for one ejaculation of "the dirty bitch!"
David nudged William.
And she asked us particular to say as she'd never regretted the day she left Odiam, or wished herself back there, nuther.
She wur purty s?afe to say that—for who'd have her back, I'd lik to know? Larmentable creature she always wur, spanneling around lik a mangy cat. Always thin and always miserable—I'm glad to be shut of her. But she seemed cheery when you saw her?
Unaccountable cheery—and she drank three bottles of six ale.
Um, said Reuben.
The boys had one or two secret talks about Caro. She also stimulated that habit of "thinking" which their father so thoroughly disapproved of. Somehow their encounter with her, combined with their encounter with Richard, seemed to have modified their enthusiasm for Odiam. They could not help comparing that supper at Newhaven with that dinner at Rye, and wondering if it was true what she had said about Richard having got away in time, whereas she had been too late.
And yet she was glad she'd gone—she'd rather be free too late than not at all.
Bill, do you think that if we stay here, Odiam 'ull' do for us wot it did for Caro?
I d?an't think so. F?ather was much harder on Caro than he is on us.
He's not hard on us—but he's unaccountable interfering; it maddens me sometimes.
Seems as if he didn't trust us—seems sometimes as if he was afraid we'd go off like the others.
Reckon he is—he saw how we envied Richard.
Davy, it 'ud be cruel of us to go and leave him.
I d?an't say as I want to do that.
Besides, it ?un't likely as we'd do as well fur ourselves as Richard. We've no Miss Bardon to trouble about us—reckon we'd come to grief like Albert.
Maybe we would.
Four years later Reuben bought the farmstead of Totease. Brazier died, and the Manor, anxious as usual for ready money, put up his farm for sale. It was a good place of about sixty acres, with some beautiful hop gardens and plenty of water. Reuben felt that it would be unwise to neglect such an opportunity for enlarging the boundaries of Odiam. He outbid one or two small farmers, put the place under repair, engaged more hands, and set to work to develop a large business in hops.
His enthusiasm was immense; he saw quicker returns from hops than from anything else, and the sheltered position of Totease made it possible to cover the whole of it with goldings and fuggles. He built a couple of new oasts with concrete roofs, and announced his intention of engaging London pickers that autumn. There was great perturbation at the Rectory—the Manor had long since abandoned social crusades—because Reuben housed these pickers indiscriminately in a barn. It was also said that he underpaid them. The rector was quite insensible to his argument that if a man were fool enough to work for two shillings a day, why should wise men lose money by preventing him? Also he compelled no one to come, so the indiscriminate sleepers were only, so to speak, volunteers—and when the rector persisted he became coarse on the subject.
His temper had grown a little difficult of late years—it had never been a particularly pleasant one, but it had been fierce rather than quick. His sons felt uneasily that they were partly responsible for this—they irritated him by asserting their independence. Also he suspected them of a lack of enthusiasm. He had tried to arrange a marriage for David with the daughter of the new farmer at Kitchenhour. She was ten years older than he, and not strikingly beautiful, but she satisfied Reuben's requirements by being as strong as a horse and having a hundred a year of her own. His indignation was immense when David refused this prize.
I can't abear the sight of her.
You'll git used to her, lad.
Well, I want something better than that.
She's got a hundred a year, and that 'ud m?ake our fortunes at Odiam.
Odiam's doing splendid—you don't want no more.
I justabout do. I shan't be satisfied till I've bought up Grandturzel s?um as I've bought Totease.
Well, I'm not going to sacrifice myself for Odiam, and you've no right to ask me, dad.
If I haven't got a right to ask you that, wot have I, I'd lik to know?
In the spring of '99 old Jury died over at Cheat Land. His wife had died a year or two earlier—Reuben had meant to go over and see Alice, but the untimely calving of a new Alderney had put the idea entirely out of his head. On this occasion, however, he attended the funeral, with the other farmers of the district, and at the churchyard gate had a few words with Alice before she went home.
She was a middle-aged woman now, but her eyes were as bright as ever, which made her look strangely young. Her hair had turned very prettily grey, she was fatter in the face, and on the whole looked well and happy, in spite of her father's death. She told him she was going to live at Rye—she had a tiny income, derived from Jury's life insurance, and she meant to do art needlework for an ecclesiastical firm. Reuben experienced a vague sense of annoyance—not that he wanted her to be unhappy, but he felt that she had no right to happiness, going out into the world, poor and alone, her parents dead, her life's love missed....
That summer the country was shaken by rumours of war, Reuben; having more leisure on his hands, spent it in the study of his daily paper. He could now read simple sentences, and considered himself quite an educated man. When war at last broke out in South Africa he was delighted. It was the best of all possible wars, organised by the best of all possible Governments, under the best of all possible ministers. Chamberlain became his hero—not that he understood or sympathised with his Imperialism, but he admired him for his attitude towards the small nations. He hated all talk about preserving the weak—such was not nature's way, the way of farms; there the weakest always went to the wall, and he could not see why different methods should obtain in the world at large. If Reuben had been a politician he would have kept alive no sick man of Europe, protected no down-trodden Balkan States. One of the chief reasons why he wanted to see the Boers wiped out was because they had muddled their colonisation, failed to establish themselves, or to make of the arid veldt what he had made of Boarzell.
They're no good, them Boers, he announced at the Cocks; "there they've bin fur years and years, and they say as how that Transvaal's lik a desert. They've got mizzling liddle farms such as I wudn't give sixpence for—and all that gurt veldt's lik the palm of my hand, naun growing. They d?an't deserve to have a country."
He expressed himself so eloquently in this fashion that the member for the Rye division of Sussex—the borough had been disenfranchised in '85—asked him to speak at a recruiting meeting at the Court Hall. Unluckily Reuben's views on recruiting were peculiar.
Now's your chance, he announced to the assembled yokels; "corn prices is going up, and every man who wants to do well by himself had better grub his pastures and sow grain. Suppose we wur ever to fight the French—who are looking justabout as ugly at us now as they did in Boney's time—think wot it 'ud be if we had grain-stocks in the country, and cud settle our own prices. My advice to the men of Rye is the same as wot I gave in this very hall thirty-five years ago—sow grain, and grain, and more grain."
The member, the colonel of the volunteers, and others present, pointed out to Reuben afterwards that the situation was military, not agricultural; but it was characteristic of him to see all situations from the agricultural point of view. His old ideas of an agricultural combine, which had fallen miserably to pieces in '65, now revived in all their strength. He saw East Sussex as a country of organised corn-growing, Odiam at the head. His rather eclectic newspaper reading had impressed him with the idea that England was on the verge of war with one or two European Powers, notably the French, whose ribald gloatings over British disasters stirred up all the fury of the man who had been born within range of the Napoleonic wars and bred on tales of Boney and his atrocities.
He was dismayed by the lack of local enthusiasm. He dug up one or two of his own pastures and planted wheat; he even sacrificed ten acres of his precious hops, but nobody seemed inclined to follow his example. The neighbourhood was ornately patriotic, flags flew from the oast-houses at Socknersh, union Jacks washed to delicate pastel shades by the chastening rain—while the Standard misleadingly proclaimed that the Royal Family was in residence at Burntbarns. On Odiam the boys sang:
"Goodbye, Dolly, I must leave you Though it breaks my heart to go— Something tells me I am wanted At the Front to drive away the foe.
"Some of them in fact did go. Others remained, and sang:
"Good-bye, my Bluebell, farewell to you, One last long look into your eyes of blue— 'Mid camp-fires gleaming, 'mid shot and shell, I will be dreaming of my own Bluebell.
"Quite early in the war David and William walked home in silence after seeing a troop-train off from Rye, then suddenly, when they came to Odiam, shook hands.
It's our chance, said Bill.
We've waited for it long enough.
I couldn't have stood much more, and this will be a good excuse.
The old man 'ull take on no end—wot with his corn-growing plans and that.
Funny how he never seems to think of anything but Odiam.
Strikes me as he's mad—got what you call a fixed idea, same as mad people have.
He's sensible enough—but he's unaccountable hard to live with.
Yes—he's fair made me hate Odiam. I liked the place well enough when I was a little lad, but he's made me sick of it. It's all very well living on a farm and working on it, but when you're supposed to give up your whole life to it and think of nothing else, well, it's too much.
We won't tell him that, though, Davy—we'll make out as it's pure patriotic feeling on our part.
Yes; I don't want him to think we're set on getting away—but, by gum, Bill! we are.
If this war hadn't happened we'd have had to have thought of something else.
So they went and broke their news to Reuben. They were careful and considerate—but he was knocked out by the blow.
Going!—both of you! he cried.
We feel we've got to. They want all the young men.
But you could help your country just as well by staying at h?ame and growing corn.
You can grow corn without us—we're wanted out there.
But you're all I've got—one go, and t'other stay.
No, we must stick together.
Oh, I know, I know—you've always thought more of each other than of your father or of Odiam.
Don't say that, dad—we care for you very much, and we're coming back.
There's no one gone from here as has ever come back.
For the first time they noticed something of the cracked falsetto of old age in his voice, generally so firm and ringing. Their hearts smote them, but the instinct of self-preservation was stronger than pity. They knew now for certain that if they stayed Odiam would devour them, or at best they would escape maimed and only half alive. Either they must go at once—in time, like Richard, or go in a few years—too late, like Caro. Besides, the war called to their young blood; they thought of guns and bayonets, camp-fires and battlefields, glory and victory. Their youth called them, and even their father's game and militant old age could not silence its bugles and fifes.
The next day they left Odiam for the recruiting station at Rye. Reuben and the farm-hands watched them as they marched off whistling "Good-bye, Dolly, I must leave you," shaking their shoulders in all the delight of their new freedom. They had gone—as Albert had gone, as Robert, as Richard, as Tilly, as Benjamin, as Caro, as Pete had gone. Reuben stood erect and stiff, his eyes following them as they turned out of the drive and disappeared down the Peasmarsh road.
When they were out of sight he walked slowly to the new ground near the crest of Boarzell, which was being prepared for the winter wheat. He made a sign to the man who was guiding the plough, and taking the handles himself, shouted to the team. The plough went forward, the red earth turned, sprinkled, creamed into long furrows, and soothed Reuben's aching fatherhood with its moist fertile smell. It was the faithful earth, which was his enemy and yet his comforter—which was always there, though his children forsook him—the good earth to which he would go at last.
Reuben was now alone at Odiam—for the first time. Of course Harry was with him still, but Harry did not count. There was an extraordinary vitality in him, none the less; it was as if the energies unused by his brain were diverted to keep together his crumbled body. He grew more shrivelled, more ape-like every day, and yet he persisted in life. He still scraped at his fiddle, and would often sit for hours at a time mumbling—"Only a poor old man—a poor old man—old man—old man," over and over again, sometimes with a sudden shrill cry of "Salvation's got me!" or "Another wedding!—we're always having weddings in this house." His brother avoided him, and did his best to ignore him—he was the scar of an old wound.
His loneliness seemed to drive Reuben closer to the earth. He still had that divine sense of the earth being at once his enemy and his only friend. Just as the gorse which murders the soil with its woody fibres sweetens all the air with its fragrance, so Reuben when he fought the harsh strangling powers of the ground also drank up its sweetness like honey. He did not work so hard as formerly, though he could still dig his furrow with the best of them—he knew that the days had come when he must spare himself. But he maintained his intercourse with the earth by means of long walks in the surrounding country.
Hitherto he had not gone much afield. If affairs had called him to Battle, Robertsbridge, or Cranbrook, he had driven or ridden there as a matter of business—he had seldom walked in the more distant bye-lanes, or followed the field-paths beyond the marshes. Now he tramped over nearly the whole country within a radius of ten miles—he was a tireless walker, and when he came home knew only the healthy fatigue which is more delight than pain and had rewarded his dripping exertions as a young man.
He would walk southwards to Eggs Hole and Dinglesden, then across the Tillingham marshes to Coldblow and Pound House, then over the Brede River to Snailham, and turning up by Guestling Thorn, look down on Hastings from the mill by Batchelor's Bump. Or he would go northwards to strange ways in Kent, down to the Rother Marshes by Methersham and Moon's Green, then over to Lambstand, and by side-tracks and bostals to Benenden—back by Scullsgate and Nineveh, and the lonely Furnace road.
He learned to love the moving shadows of clouds travelling over a sunlit view—to love ridged distances fading from dark bice, through blue, to misty grey. He used to watch for the sparkle of light on far cottage windows, the white sheen of farmhouse walls and the capped turrets of oasts. But he loved best of all to feel the earth under his cheek when he cast himself down, the smell of her teeming sap, the sensation that he lay on a kind breast, generous and faithful. It was strange that the result of all his battles should be this sense of perfect union, this comfort in his loneliness. Reuben was not ashamed at eighty years old to lie full length in some sun-hazed field, and stretch his body over the grass, the better to feel that fertile quietness and moist freshness which is the comfort of those who make the ground their bed.
He never let anyone see him in these moments—somehow they were almost sacred to him, the religion of his godless old age. But soon the more distant cottagers came to know him by sight, and watch for the tall old man who so often tramped past their doors. He always walked quickly, his head erect, a stout ash stick in his hand. He was always alone—not even a dog accompanied him. He wore dark corduroys, and either a wide-brimmed felt hat, or no hat at all, proud of the luxuriance of his iron-grey hair. They soon came to know who he was.
'Tis old Mus' Backfield from Odiam farm by Peasmarsh. They say as he's a hard man.
They say as he's got the purtiest farm in Sussex—he's done w?onders fur Odiam, surelye.
But his wife and children's run away.
They say he's a hard man.
And he's allus al?an.
He d?an't seem to care for nobody—never gives you the good marnun.
It's larment?able to see an old feller lik that all al?an, wudout friend nor kin.
He's straight enough in spite of it all—game as a youngster he is.
Meanwhile the South African War dragged its muddled length from Stormberg to Magersfontein, through Colenso to Spion Kop. It meant more to Reuben than any earlier war—more than the Crimea, for then there were no newspaper correspondents, more than the Indian Mutiny, for that was with blacks, or the Franco-Prussian, for that was between furriners. Besides, there were two additional factors of tremendous importance—he could now spell out a good deal of his daily paper, and his sons were both fighting. They had gone out early in November, and were very good about writing to him.
They could afford to be generous now they were free, so they sent him long letters, carefully printed out, as he could not read running hand. They told him wonderful stories of camps and bivouacs, of skirmishes and snipings. They enlarged on the grilling fierceness of the December sun which had burnt their faces brick-red and peeled their noses—on the flies which swarmed thicker by far than over Odiam midden—on the awful dysentery that grabbed at half their pals—on the hypocritical Boers, who read the Bible and used dum-dum bullets.
They came safely through Magersfontein, the only big encounter in which they were both engaged. David was made a sergeant soon afterwards. Reuben sent them out tobacco and chocolate, and contributed to funds for supplying the troops with woollen comforts. He felt himself something of a patriot, and would talk eagerly about "My son the Sergeant," or "My boys out at the Front."
He was very busy over his new corn scheme, and as time went on came to resent the attitude of the European Powers in not attacking England and forcing her to subsist on her own grain supplies. All Europe hated Britain, so his newspapers said, so why did not all Europe attack Britain with its armies as well as with its Press? We would beat it, of course—what was all Europe but a set of furriners?—meantime our foreign wheat supplies would be cut off by the prowling navies of France, Germany, Russia and everywhere else, which Reuben imagined crowding the seas, while the true-born sons of Britain, sustaining themselves for the first time on British-grown corn, and getting drunk for the first time on beer innocent of foreign hop-substitutes, would drive upstart Europe to its grave, and start a millennium of high prices and heavy grain duties.
However, Europe was disobliging; corn prices hardly rose at all, and Reuben was driven to the unwelcome thought that the only hope of the British farmer was milk—at least, that was not likely ever to be imported from abroad.
The year wore on. Kimberley and Ladysmith were relieved. Rye hung out its flags, and sang "Dolly Grey" louder than ever. Then Mafeking was saved, and a bonfire was lit up at Leasan House, in which a couple of barns and some stables were accidentally involved. Everyone wore penny medallion portraits of officers—Roberts and Baden-Powell were the favourites at Odiam, which nearly came to blows with Burntbarns over the rival merits of French. While Reuben himself bought a photograph of Kitchener in a red, white, and blue frame.
Then suddenly an honour fell on Odiam. The War Office itself sent it a telegram. But the honour was taken sadly, for the telegram announced that Sergeant David Backfield had been killed in action at Laing's Nek.
It was not the first time death had visited Reuben, but it was the first time death had touched him. His father's death, his mother's, George's, Albert's, had all somehow seemed much more distant than this very distant death in Africa. Even Naomi's had not impressed him so much with sorrow for her loss as sorrow for the inadequacy of her life.
But David's death struck home. David and William were the only two children whom he had really loved. They were his hope, his future. Once again he tasted the agonies of bereaved fatherhood, with the added tincture of hopelessness. He would never again see David's brown, strong, merry face, hear his voice, build plans for him. For some days the paternal feeling was so strong that he craved for his boy quite apart from Odiam, just for himself. It had taken eighty years and his son's death to make a father of him.
An added grief was the absence of a funeral. Reuben did not feel this as the relief it would have been to some. He had given handsome and expensive funerals to those not half so dear as this young man who had been hurried into his soldier's grave on the lonely veldt. In course of time William sent him a snapshot of the place, with its little wooden cross. Reuben dictated a tremendously long letter through Maude the dairy-woman, in which he said he wanted a marble head-stone put up, and "of Odiam, Sussex," added to the inscription.
The neighbourhood pitied him in his loss. There was indeed something rather pathetic about this old man of eighty, who had lost nearly all his kith and kin, yet now tasted bereavement for the first time. They noticed that he lost some of the erectness which had distinguished him, the corners of his mouth drooped, and his hair, though persistently thick, passed from iron grey to a dusty white.
One day when he was walking through the village he heard a woman say as he passed—"There he goes! I pity un, poor old man!" The insult went into him like a knife. He turned round and gave the woman his fiercest scowl. Old indeed! Had one ever heard of such a thing! old!—and he could guide the plough and dig furrows in the marl, and stack, and reap with any of 'em. Old!—why, he was only—
—He was eighty. He suddenly realised that, after all, he was old. He did not carry himself as erectly as he had used; there were pains and stiffness in his limbs and rheumatic swellings in his joints. His hair was white, and his once lusty arms were now all shrivelled skin and sinew, with the ossified veins standing out hard and grey. He was what Harry was always calling himself—"only a poor old man"—a poor old man who had lost his son, whom cottage women pitied from their doorsteps—and be hemmed to them, the sluts!
Meantime affairs at Grandturzel were going from bad to worse. Reuben did not speak much about Grandturzel, but he watched it all the same, and as time wore on a look of quiet satisfaction would overspread his face when it was mentioned at the Cocks. He watched the tiles drip gradually off its barn roofs, he watched the thatch of its haggards peel and moult, he watched the oasts lose their black coats of tar, while the wind battered off their caps, and the skeleton poles stuck up forlornly from their turrets. Holes wore in the neat house-front, windows were broken and not mended, torn curtains waved signals of distress. It was only a question of waiting.
Reuben often went to the Cocks, for he had heard it said that one's beer-drinking capacities diminished with old age, and he was afraid that if he stayed away, men would think it was on that account. So he went frequently, particularly if the weather was of a kind to keep old people at home. He did not talk much, preferring to listen to what was said, sitting quietly at his table in the corner, with the quart of Barclay and Perkins's mild which had been his evening drink from a boy.
It was at the Cocks that he learned most of Grandturzel's straits, though he occasionally made visits of inspection. Realf had messed his hops that autumn, and the popular verdict was that he could not possibly hold out much longer.
Wot'll become of him, I w?onder? asked Hilder, the new man at Socknersh.
Someone 'ull buy him up, I reckon, and young Coalbran, who had succeeded his father at Doozes, winked at the rest of the bar, and the bar to a man turned round and stared at old Reuben, who drew himself up, but said nothing.
Wot d'you think of Grandturzel, Mus' Backfield? someone asked waggishly.
Naun, said Reuben; "I'm waiting."
He did not have to wait long. A few days later he was told that somebody wanted to see him, and in the parlour found his daughter Tilly.
He had seen Tilly at intervals through the years, but as he had never allowed himself to give her more than a withering glance, he had not a very definite idea of her. She was now nearly fifty-five, and more than inclined to stoutness—indeed, her comfortable figure was almost ludicrous compared with her haggard, anxious face, scored with lines and patched with shadows. Her grey hair was thin, and straggled on her forehead, her eyes had lost their brightness; yet there was nothing wild or terrible about her face, it was just domesticity in desperation.
Father, she said as Reuben came into the room.
Well?
Henry d?an't know I've come, she murmured helplessly.
Wot have you come fur?
To ask you—to ask you—Oh, f?ather! she burst into tears, her broad bosom heaved under her faded gown, and she pressed her hands against it as if to keep it still.
D?an't t?ake on lik that, said Reuben, "tell me wot you've come fur."
I dursn't now—it's no use—you're a hard man.
Then d?an't come sobbing and howling in my parlour. You can go if you've naun more to say.
She pulled herself together with an effort.
I thought you might—perhaps you might help us ...
Reuben said nothing:
We're in a larmentable way up at Grandturzel.
Her father still said nothing.
I d?an't know how we shall pull through another year.
Nor do I.
Oh, f?ather, d?an't be so hard!
You said I wur a hard man.
But you'll—you'll help us jest this once. I know you're angry wud me, and maybe I've treated you badly. But after all, I'm your daughter, and my children are your grandchildren.
How many have you got?
Five—the youngest's rising ten.
There was a pause. Reuben walked over to the window and looked out. Tilly stared at his back imploringly. If only he would help her with some word or sign of understanding! But he would not—he had not changed; she had forsaken him and married his rival, and he would never forget or forgive.
She had been a fool to come, and she moved a step or two towards the door. Then suddenly she remembered the anguish which had driven her to Odiam. She had been frantic with grief for her husband and children; only the thought of their need had made it possible for her to override her inbred fear and dislike of Reuben and beg him to help them. She had come, and since she had come it must not be in vain; the worst was over now that she was actually here, that she had actually pleaded. She would face it out.
F?ather! she called sharply.
He turned round.
I thought maybe you'd lend us some money—just fur a time—till we're straight ag?un.
You'd better ask somebody else.
There's no one round here as can lend us wot we need—it's—it's a good deal as we'll want to see us through.
Can't you mortgage?
We are mortgaged—the last foot—and she burst into tears again.
Reuben watched her for a minute or two in silence.
You've bin a bad daughter, he said at last, "and you've got no right to call on me. But I've had my plans for Grandturzel this long while."
She shuddered.
This mortgage business alters 'em a bit. I'll have to think it over. Maybe I'll let you hear to-morrow mornun.
Oh, f?ather, if only you'll do anything fur us, we'll bless you all our lives.
I d?an't want you to bless me—and maybe you w?an't t?ake my terms.
I reckon we haven't much choice, she said sorrowfully.
Well, you've only got wot you desarve, said Reuben, turning to the door.
Tilly opened her mouth to say something, but was wise, and held her tongue.