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Polling day broke gloomily on Rye Tories. The country voters were brought into town at the Candidates' expense, having received according to custom printed notices that the Colonel, or the Captain, "would endeavour to ensure to every elector access to the poll free from every sort of insult."
In Rye bells were ringing and bands were playing, and the town looked quite strange with huge crowds surging through its grass-grown streets, which were, moreover, blocked with every kind of trap, gig, cart, and wain. About three hundred special constables had been enrolled for the occasion, and it was likely that they would be needed, for all the public-houses had been thrown open by the candidates.
In the market-place, where the hustings stood, a dense throng was packing itself, jostling and shoving, and—Reuben saw to his dismay as he drove up to the London Trader—showing strong Radical tendencies. Several Conservative banners waved from the windows of the public-house—"MacDonald the Farmer's Friend"—"MacDonald and Protection"—"Wheat at seventy shillings a quarter"—"Ratepayers! beware of Radical pickpockets." These had all been prepared at the beginning of the contest. The Radical banners bore but one device—"The Scott's Float Toll-gate." It waved everywhere, and any other banner which appeared in the streets was immediately seized and broken, the bearer being made to suffer so horribly for his convictions, that soon nobody could be found to carry one.
Every now and then the crowd would break into the latest rhymings of MacKinnon's poet:
"Who fill their pockets at Scott's Float, And on their private Toll-gate doat, While o'er our hard-earned pence they gloat? The Tories.
"Reuben felt his heart sink, and his beer nearly choked him. Soon a vast struggle was raging round the hustings, as the voters fought their way through fists and sticks, often emerging—especially the Conservatives—with their clothes half torn off their backs and quite ruined by garbage. The special constables were useless, for their own feelings betrayed them, and unluckily even in their ranks the Radicals predominated. The state of the poll at ten-thirty was twenty-seven for Captain MacKinnon and only eleven for Colonel MacDonald.
Speeches were made from time to time, but were lost in the general hubbub. One of the local butchers had delivered over his entire stock of entrails, skin and hoof cuttings, and old blood-puddings to the Radical cause, and Conservative Speakers were soon a sight to behold. When Reuben stood up his voice was drowned in shouts of "Ben the Gorilla! Stop the dirty animal!" while a bleeding sheep's head caught him full on the chest. Too proud to take his dismissal from the mob, he spoke unheard for five minutes, at the end of which he was silenced by half a brick, which hit his temple and stunned him sufficiently for Ditch and MacDonald to pull him away.
At twelve the poll stood at a hundred and one for the Captain and sixty-five for the Colonel. The Tories were getting desperate—they threw into the crowd handbills wet from the printers, declaring that MacDonald's toll-gate should not stand an hour after he was elected. But the crowd only sang derisively:
"Who fill their pockets at Scott's Float, And on their private Toll-gate doat, While o'er our hard-earned pence they gloat? The Tories.
"At three o'clock the poll stood at two hundred and twelve and eighty-three. Then came the close—Captain MacKinnon elected by a majority of sixty-nine.
Loud cheers rose up from the struggling, drunken mass in the market-place.
Hurray for MacKinnon!—Down with the Tollkeepers!
In the Court-house the beaten Conservatives heard the shouts and turned fiercely—on one another.
It's that hemmed g?ate of yourn—lost everything! cried Reuben.
By God, it's not my gate—it's your wheat.
My wheat!—wot d'you mean, sir?
I mean that, thanks to you, we wasted about three weeks talking to those damned fools about a matter they don't care twopence about. You worked up a false interest, and the result is, that when anything that really touches them is brought forward, the whole campaign drops to pieces.
It's unaccountable easy to put the blame on me, when it's your hemmed g?ate——
I tell you, sir, it's your damned wheat——
And your damned son! furiously cried Ditch of Totease.
My son!—Reuben swung round on the men who had once rallied under his leadership, but now stood scowling at him and muttering to themselves. "My son!"
Yes, said Coalbran of Doozes, "you know as well as us as how it wur your Albert wrote them verses about the g?ate, wot have bust up everything."
You're a liar! cried Reuben.
You dare miscall me, and the two men, mad with private hate and public humiliation, flew at each other's throats.
Ditch and the Colonel pulled them apart.
Hang it all, Coalbran, we don't know it's his son. But we do know it's his wheat. Good God, sir—if only you'd kept your confounded self out of politics——
Reuben did not wait to hear more. He pushed his way out of the room and downstairs to where his trap was waiting. The crowd surged round him as he climbed into it. An egg burst against his ear, and the filthy yolk ran down his cheek to mingle with the spatter of blood on his neck and shirt-front.
Ben the Gorilla! Ben the Gorilla! Give him tar and feathers!
Reuben struck his horse with the whip, and the animal sprang forward. A man who had been trying to climb into the gig, fell off, and was nearly trampled on. Reuben flogged his way through the pack, a shower of missiles hurtling round him, while his ears burned with the abuse which had once been his badge of pride, but now in the hour of defeat smote him with a sick sense of impotence and degradation. "Ben the Gorilla! Ben the Gorilla!"
He was free of them at last, galloping down the Landgate hill towards Rye Foreign.
I'm hemmed, he muttered, grinding his teeth, "if I ever touch their dirty politics again—from this day forward—so help me God!"
On reaching Odiam, Reuben did not go into the kitchen where his children were gathered, expectant and curious. He went straight upstairs. Caro, who caught a glimpse of him in the passage, ran away in terror—he looked so dreadful, his face all dabbled with blood and yolk of egg.
He went up to Albert's room. He had furiously given Ditch the lie in the Courthouse, but he had never trusted his son, and the accusation had poured over him a flood of shame which could be quelled only by its proof or its refutation. If Albert's guilt were proved—which Reuben, now bathing in this luminous shame, saw was quite probable—then he knew what to do to clean the smirch off Odiam; if, on the other hand, his innocence were established, then he would punish those swine who threw mud at him and his farm.
Albert slept in one of the attics with Jemmy and Pete. Reuben had no intention of meeting him till he had something to confront him with, for he was pretty sure that the boy would lie to him. He began turning the room topsy-turvy, and had soon found in a drawer a heap of papers scrawled over with writing. It was unlucky that he could not read, for he could not even tell whether the handwriting were Albert's—these might be some letters he had received. Suddenly, however, a word caught his eye which he had seen a hundred times on hoardings, letters, bills, and other documents—MacKinnon. He could trace it out quite clearly. What had Albert to do with MacKinnon? Reuben clenched the papers together in his fist, and went downstairs to the kitchen.
Albert was not there. All the better! Reuben strode up to Tilly, unaware of how terrible he looked with the traces of his battle not yet washed from his face, and banged the papers down in front of her.
Wot's all this?
Tilly was frightened.
It's—it's only poetry, f?ather.
Read me some of it.
It's only Albert's.
That's why I want to hear wot it's about. You read it.
Tilly began to read in a faltering voice:
"If you'd know what the Colonel is, pray travel over The Sluice at Scott's Float—and then drive on to Dover— You'll find yourself quickly brought up by a Gate....
"Reuben struck his fist on the table, and she dropped the paper with a little cry.
It's true, then! Oh Lard! it's true!
Wot, f?ather?
Them's Albert's verses right enough?
Yes, f?ather, but——
Fetch him here.
Tilly was more frightened than ever. She had never heard anything about the great Gate controversy, and could not understand why Reuben was so angry with Albert. The verses seemed to her quite harmless, they were not even about love. However, she could not disobey her father, so she ran and fetched Albert out of the corn-chamber, begging him to be careful what he said, "fur f?ather's unaccountable vrothered to-night about something."
How did the Election go?
I never asked.
Oh, you gals! Well, I expect that's wot's the matter. The Liberal's got in.
But why should that m?ake f?ather angry wud you?
Albert stuck out his chest and looked important, as he invariably did before an encounter with Reuben, in spite of the fact that these always ended most ingloriously as far as he was concerned.
He's bin reading some poetry of yours, Bertie, continued his sister, "and he's justabout dreadful, all his cl?athes tore about, and a nasty mess of blood and yaller stuff on his face."
Albert suddenly began to look uneasy.
Oh Lard! perhaps I'd better bolt fur it.—No, I'll square him out. You'll stand by me, Tilly?
Yes, but d?an't m?ake him angry—he might beat you.
Bertie's pride was wounded by this suggestion, which was, however, soundly based on precedent, and he entered the kitchen with something very like a swagger.
Reuben was standing by the table, erect, and somehow dignified in spite of the mess he was in.
Well, he said slowly, "well—MacKinnon's hound!"
Albert saw the heap of scribbled paper on the table, and blenched.
Reuben walked up to him, took him by the shoulders, and shook him as a dog might shake a rabbit.
You hemmed, scummy, lousy Radical!
Albert could not speak, for he felt as if his brains and teeth were rattling about inside his head. The rest of the family hunched together by the door, the boys gaping idiotically, the girls in tears.
Well, wot've you got to say fur yourself before I kick you round the table?
I'll write wot I please, surelye, growled Albert, trying rather unsuccessfully to resume his swagger.
Oh, will you! Well, there'll be naun to prevent you when you're out of this house—and out you go to-night; I'll have no Radical hogs on my farm. I'm shut of you!
F?ather! cried Tilly.
Hold your tongue! Does anyone here think I'm going to have a Radical fur my son?—and a tedious lying traitor, too, wot helps his f?ather's enemies, and busts up the purtiest election that wur ever fought at Rye. Do you say you didn't write those lousy verses wot have lost us everything?
No—I d?an't say it. I did write 'em. But it's all your fault that I did—so you've no right to miscall me.
My fault!—Reuben's jaw dropped as he faced the upstart.
Yes. You've allus treated me lik a dog, and laughed at my writing and all I wanted to do. Then chaps came along as didn't laugh, and promised me all sorts o' things if I'd write fur them.
Wot sort o' things?
Mr. Hedges, the Liberal agent, promised that if I'd write fur him, he'd git me work on a London paper, and I could m?ake my fortune and be free of all this.
All wot?
Odiam! shrieked Albert.
Reuben faced him with straight lips and dilated nostrils; the boy was now quivering with passion, hatred seemed to have purged him of terror.
Yes—Odiam! he continued, clenching his fists—"that blasted farm of yourn wot's the curse of us all. Here we're made to work, and never given a penny fur our labour—we're treated worse than the lowest farm-hands, like dogs, we are. Robert stole money to git away, and can you wonder that when I see my chance I should t?ake it. I'm no Radical—I d?an't care one way or t'other—but when the Radicals offered me money to write verses fur 'em, I wurn't going to say 'no.' They promised to m?ake my fortun, and save me from you and your old farm, which I wish was in hell."
Stop your ranting and tell me how the hogs got you.
I met Mr. Hedges at the pub——
Wur it you or him wot thought of the Scott's Float G?ate?
I heard of it from old Pitcher down at Loose, and I t?ald Hedges. I justabout——
A terrific blow from Reuben cut him short.
The rest of the family had gone to bed, though scarcely to sleep. Reuben had washed the blood and filth off his face, and had stripped to his shirt, but he felt too sick and restless to lie down. He sat at his window, staring out into the dark gulf of the night.
His skin burned, his pulses throbbed, in his head was a buzzing and humming.
Wished my farm wur in hell, dud he? He cursed my farm, dud he? The young whelp!
He peered out into the blackness. Was that something he saw moving against the sky on the shoulder of Boarzell? It was too dark for him to make sure. Where had Albert gone? To his Radical friends, of course. They had offered to make his fortune—well, let them make it, and durn them!
Two sons were gone now. Life was hitting him hard. But he would have no traitors in his camp. Albert was his son no longer.
He bowed his head on the sill, and his throbbing brain revisualised the whole horrible day. He owed the humiliation and defeat of it all to Albert, who for the sake of money and a milk-and-water career, had betrayed Odiam's glory, and foully smirched its name.
There was no denying it—he had been basely dealt with by his elder children. Robert was in prison, Albert existed no longer except in the memory of a bitter disgrace, Richard was contemptuous, and, his father suspected, up to nothing good.... And he had looked to them all to stand and fight by his side, to feel his ambition, and share his conquest. Pete was a good lad, but what was one where there should have been four? He could not deny it—his elder children had failed him.
Something almost like a sob shook Reuben. Then, ashamed of his weakness, he raised his head, and saw that behind Boarzell the night had lifted, and a cowslip paleness was creeping into the sky. The great dark hump of the Moor showed clearly against it with its tuft of firs. A faint thrill stole through Reuben's tired limbs. Boarzell was always there to be loved and fought for, even if he had no heart or arm but his own. Gradually hope stirred as the dawn crept among the clouds. The wind came rustling and whiffling to him over the heather, bringing him the rich damp smell of the earth he loved.
Oh, Boarzell, Boarzell!... his love, his dream, his promised land, lying there in the cold white hope of morning! No degenerate sons could rob him of his Moor, though they might leave him terribly alone on it. After all, better be alone with his ambition, than share it with their defiling thoughts, their sordid, humdrum, milk-and-water schemes. In future he would try no more to interest his children in Boarzell. He had tried to thrill Robert and Albert and Richard with his glorious enterprise, and they had all forsaken him—one for love, one for fame, and one for some still unknown unworthiness. He would not trouble about the others; they should serve him for no other reason but that he was a hard master. He had been hard with the three boys, but he had been exciting and confiding too. Now he would drop all that. He would cease to look for comradeship in his children, as years ago he had ceased to look for it in his wife. It would be enough if they were just slaves working under his whip. He had been a fool to expect sympathy.... Boarzell, looming blacker and blacker against the glowing pinks and purples of the sky, seemed to mock at sympathy and its cheap colours, seemed to bid him Be Hard, Be Strong, Be Remorseless—Be Alone.
Reuben's domestic catastrophes might be summed up in the statement that he had lost two farm hands. It is true that Albert had never been much good—if he had his father would probably not have turned him away—but he had been better than nothing, and now Reuben would have to hire a substitute. One would be enough, for Jemmy and George were now able to do a man's full work each. So another hand was engaged for Odiam—Piper, a melancholy, lean-jowled cowman from Moor's Cottage.
The family was forbidden to speak of the absent sons. No one ever wrote to Robert in Lewes gaol or to Albert living on London's cruel tender-mercies. The shame of them was to be starved by silence. Soon most of the children had forgotten them, and they lived solely in Tilly's unhappy thoughts or Richard's angry ones, or in certain bitter memories of their father's, sternly fought.
Reuben had learnt his first lesson from experience. Quietly but decidedly he altered his conduct. He no longer made the slightest appeal to his family's enterprise or ambition, he no longer interrupted his chidings with those pathetic calls to their enthusiasm which had mystified or irritated them in times past. On the other hand he was twice as hard, twice as fierce, twice as ruthless and masterful as he had ever been.
Old Mrs. Backfield was getting very decrepit. She could not walk without a stick, and her knotted hands were of little use either in the kitchen or the dairy. Reuben was anxious to avoid engaging anyone to help her, yet the developments of her sphere made such help most necessary. Odiam now supplied most of the neighbouring gentry with milk, butter, and eggs; the poultry-yard had grown enormously since it had been a mere by-way of Mrs. Backfield's labours, and she and the girls also had charge of the young calves and pigs, which needed constant attention, and meant a great deal of hard work. Besides this, there was all the housework to do, sweeping, dusting, cooking, baking, and mending and washing for the males.
It occurred to Reuben that Harry might be of some use to the women. Since he had given up fiddling he was entirely on the wrong side of Odiam's accounts; it would do much to justify his existence if he could help a little in the house and thus save engaging extra labour.
Unfortunately Harry's ideas of work were fantastic, and he was, besides, hindered by his blindness. Any use he could be put to was more than balanced by the number of things he broke. His madness had of late developed both a terrible and an irritating side. He was sometimes consumed by the idea that the house was burning, and had on one or two occasions scared the family by jumping out of bed in the middle of the night and running about the passages shouting—"The house is afire! the house is afire! Oh, God save us all!" After he had done this once or twice, young Piper was made to sleep in his room, but even so he was often visited by his terrors during the day, and would interrupt work or meals with shrieks of—"The house is afire! Oh, wot shall we do! The house is afire, and the children are burning."
Another habit of his, less alarming, but far more annoying, was to repeat some chance word or sentence over and over again for hours. If his mother said "Take these plates into the kitchen, Harry," he would spend the rest of the day murmuring, "Take these plates into the kitchen, Harry," till those about him were driven nearly as mad as he.
It was soon found that he hindered rather than helped the work, so Reuben had to cast about for fresh plans. He felt utterly ruthless now, and was resolved to make his daughters manage the house alone. He redistributed the labour, and by handing over the poultry, calves, and pigs to Beatup, and taking some of his work upon his own shoulders, made it physically possible for Caro and Tilly to run the house and dairy with the feeble help of old Mrs. Backfield. He told them that he could not afford to engage a woman, and that they must do without her—making no appeal to their interest or ambition as he might have done six months ago.
Caro and Tilly did not rebel. Somehow or other their young backs did not break under the load of household toil, nor, more strangely, did their young hearts, in the loneliness of their hard, uncared-for lives.
Tilly was now nearly eighteen. She had always been like her mother, but as she grew older the likeness became more and more pronounced, till sometimes it seemed to Reuben as if it were Naomi herself with her milky skin and fleeting rose-bloom who sat at his table and moved about his house. The only difference lay in a certain prominence of the chin which gave her an air of decision that Naomi had lacked. Not that Tilly was ever anything but docile, but occasionally Reuben felt that some time or other she might take her stand—a fear which had never troubled him with Naomi.
Caro was not like her sister; she was of larger build, yet thinner, and much darker, inheriting her father's swarthy skin and thick black hair. She did not give Reuben the same anxiety as Tilly—she was heavy and coltish, and, he felt, would not appeal to men. But Tilly, especially when the summer heats had melted together the little freckles over her nose, struck his masculine eye in a way that made him half proud, half fearful.
No young men ever visited Odiam. The young Ditches, the young Vennals, or Coalbrans, or Ginners, who had business to transact with Backfield, did so only at a safe distance. Reuben could not as yet afford to lose his housemaids. Some day, he told himself, he would see that the girls married to the honour of his farm, but at present he could not do without them.
They did not murmur, for they had known no different life. They had never, like other girls, wandered with bevies of young people through the lanes at dusk, or felt in the twilight a man's hand grope for theirs. They had not had suitors to visit them on Sundays, to sit very stiff and straight in the parlour, and pass decorous remarks about the weather all the while their eyes were eating up a little figure from toe to hair.
Nevertheless when they worked side by side in the kitchen or dairy, skimming milk, churning butter, watching puddings bubble and steam, or when they made Reuben's great bed together, they had queer, half-shy, half-intimate talks—in which their heads came very close and their voices sank very low, and an eavesdropper might have often caught the word "lover," uttered mysteriously and sometimes with an odd little sigh.
That spring the news flew round from inn to inn and farm to farm that Realf of Grandturzel had bought a shire stallion, and meant to start horse-breeding. This was a terrible shock to Reuben, for not only was horse-breeding extremely profitable to those who could afford it, but it conferred immeasurable honour. It seemed now as if Odiam were seriously threatened. If Realf prospered at his business he could afford to fight Reuben for Boarzell.
As a man in love will sometimes see in every other man a plotter for his beloved, and would never believe it if he were told that he alone sees charm in her and that to others she is undesirable, so Reuben could not conceive ambition apart from the rugged, tough, unfruitful Boarzell, whom no man desired but he. He at once started negotiations for buying another twenty acres, though at present he could ill afford it, owing to the expenses involved by his family misfortunes and his new mania for prestige.
He watched Grandturzel's developments with a stern and anxious eye, and kept pace with them as well as he could. The farm consisted of about fifty-five acres of grass and tilth, apart from the forty acres of Boarzell, which neither Realf nor his father had ever attempted to cultivate, using them merely for fuel and timber, or as pasturage for the ewes when their lambs were taken from them. Old Realf had allowed the place to acquire a dilapidated rakish look, but his son at once began to smarten it up. He tarred the two oast-houses till they shone blue with the reflected sky, he painted his barn doors green, and re-roofed the Dutch Barn with scarlet tiles that could be seen all the way from Tiffenden Hill. He enriched his poultry-yard with a rare strain of Orpington, and was the only farmer in the district besides Reuben to do his reaping and hay-making by machinery.
Realf was about twenty-five, a tall, well-set-up young fellow, with certain elegancies about him. In business he was of a simple, open-temperament, genuinely proud of his farm, and na?ve enough to boast of its progress to Backfield himself.
Indeed he was so na?ve that it was not till Reuben had once or twice sneered at him in public that he realised there was any friction between Grandturzel and Odiam, and even then he scarcely grasped its importance, for one night at the Cocks, Coalbran said rather maliciously to Reuben:
Which of your gals is it that young Realf is sweet on?
My gals! Neither of 'em. Wot d'you mean?
Only that he walks home wud them from church every Sunday, and f?alkses are beginning to wonder which he's going to m?ake Mrs. Realf, surelye!
Reuben turned brick-red with indignation.
Neither of my gals is going to be Mrs. Realf. I'd see her dead fust! And the fellers as spread about such ugly lying tales, I'll—— and Reuben scowled thunderously at Coalbran, whom he had never forgiven since the scene in Rye Court-house.
He slanders my sons and he slanders my daughters, he muttered to himself as he went home, "and I reckon as this time it ?un't true."
However, next Sunday he astonished his family by saying he would accompany them to church. Hitherto Reuben's churchmanship had been entirely political, he had hardly ever been inside Peasmarsh church since his marriage, except for the christenings of his children—though he considered himself one of the pillars of the Establishment. His family were exceedingly suspicious of this change of heart, and the girls whispered guiltily together. "He's found out," said Caro, and Tilly sighed.
There was much turning of heads when Ben Backfield was seen to take his place with his children in their pew.... "Wot's he arter now?"—"Summat to do wud his farm you may be sartain."—"He's heard about his gals and young Realf."—"Ho, the wicked old sinner! I wish as Passon 'ud tip it to un straight."
Realf of Grandturzel sat a little way ahead on the opposite side, and Reuben watched him all through the service. Times had changed since Robert had hurled his big voice among the rafters with the village choir. The choir now sat in the chancel and wore surplices; the Parson too wore a surplice when he preached; for the Oxford Movement had spread to Peasmarsh, and Mr. Barnaby, the new clergyman, lived at the Rectory, instead of appointing a curate to do so, and unheard-of things happened in the way of week-day services and Holy Communion at eight o'clock in the morning. Reuben, however, scarcely noticed the changes, so absorbed was he in young Realf. Occasionally the boy would turn his head on his shoulder and rashly contemplate the Backfield pew. Reuben invariably met him with a stare and a scowl.
All through the sermon he sat with his eyes fixed on Realf's profile. There was his rival, the man with whom he would have to reckon most during the difficult future, with whom he was fighting for Boarzell. He looked marvellously young and comely as he sat there in the fretted light, and suddenly for the first time Reuben realised that he was not as young as he had been. He was forty-six—he was getting old.
Something thick and icy seemed to creep into his blood, and he gripped the edge of the pew, as he stared at Realf, sitting there so unconsciously, his damped and brushed hair gleaming ruddily in the light that poured through some saint's aureole. He must not let this youngster beat him.... Beat him?—the ice in his blood froze thicker—after all he had not done so very much during the twenty-six years he had toiled and struggled; he had won only a hundred acres of Boarzell—little more than Realf had to start with ... and Realf was only twenty-five.
Caro and Tilly, sitting carefully so as not to crush their muslins, both their heads slewed round a little towards Realf, noticed how their father's throat was working, how hot flows of colour rushed up and ebbed away under the tan on his cheeks. For the first time Reuben was contemplating failure, looking that livid horror full in the face, seeing himself beaten, after all his toil and heartache, by a younger man.
But the next moment he cast the coward feeling from him. His experience had given him immeasurable advantage over this babe. Realf who had never felt the sweat pouring like water down his tired body, who had never swooned asleep from sheer exhaustion, or lain awake all night from sheer anxiety, who had not sacrificed wife and children and friends and self to one dear, loved, darling ambition ... bah! what could he do against the man who had done all these things, and was prepared to go on doing them to the end?
When the congregation rose to sing Reuben held his head proudly and his shoulders square. He felt himself a match for any youngster.
That summer old Mrs. Backfield became completely bedridden. The gratefulness of sunshine to her old bones was counteracted by the clammy fogs that streamed up every night round the farm. It was an exceptionally wet and misty summer—a great deal of Reuben's wheat rotted in the ground, and he scarcely took any notice when Tilly announced one morning that grandmother was too ill to come downstairs.
When the struggle on the lower slopes of Boarzell between the damp earth and the determined man had ended in the earth's sludgy victory and a pile of rotten straw which should have been the glory of the man—then Reuben had time to think of what was going on in the house. He sent for the doctor—not Dr. Espinette, but a Cockney successor who boiled his instruments and washed his hands in carbolic—and heard from him that Mrs. Backfield's existence was no longer justified. She could not expect to work again.
Reuben was grieved, but not so much grieved as if she had been cut down in her strength—for a long time she had been pretty useless on the farm. He handed her over to the nursing of the girls, though they were too busy to do more for her than the barest necessities. Now and then he went up himself and sat by her bed, restlessly cracking his fingers, and fretting to be out again at his work.
Sometimes Harry would sit by her. He had wandered in one day when she was feeling especially ill and lonely, and in her desperation she had begged him to stay. At all events he was someone—a human being, or very nearly so. He shuffled restlessly round and round the room, fingering her little ornaments and pictures, and muttering to himself, "Stay wud me, Harry."
He liked her room, for she had a dozen things he could finger and play with—little vases with flowers modelled over them, woolly mats, a velvet pincushion, and other survivals of her married life, all very dusty and faded now. Soon she began to find a strange comfort in having him there; the uneasiness and vague repulsion with which he had filled her, died down, and she began to see in him something of the old Harry whom she had loved so much better than Reuben in days gone by.
As the summer wore on she grew steadily worse. She lay stiff and helpless, through the long August days, watching the sunlight creep up the wall, slip along the ceiling, and then vanish into the pale, heat-washed sky that gleamed with it even after the stars had come. She did not fret much, or think much—she watched things. She watched the sunshine from its red kindling to its red scattering, she watched the moon slide across the window, and haunt the mirror after it had passed—or the sign of the Scales dangling in the black sky. Sometimes the things she looked at seemed to fade, and she would see a room in which she and her husband were sitting or a lane along which they were walking ... but just as she had begun to wonder whether she were not really still young and happy and married and this vision the fact and the sickness and loneliness the dream, then suddenly everything would pass away like smoke, and she would be back in her bed, watching the travelling sun, or the haunting moon, or the hanging stars.
In October a steam-thresher came to Odiam. The wheat had been bad, but there was still plenty of grain to thresh, and for a whole day the machine sobbed and sang under the farmhouse walls—"Urrr-um—Urrr-um—Urrr-um."
Mrs. Backfield lay listening to it. She felt very ill, but everyone was too busy to come to her—Reuben was out in the yard feeding his monster, while the boys gathered up and sacked what it vomited out; Caro and Tilly were washing blankets. Harry had gone off on some trackless errand of his own.
The afternoon was very still and soft. It was full of the smell of apples—of apples warm and sunny on the trees, of apples fallen and rotting in the grass, of apples dry and stored in the loft. There were little apples on the walls of the house, and their skins were warm and bursting in the heat.
The thresher purred and panted under the window—"Urrr-um—Urrr-um." Now and then Reuben would call out sharply, "Now then! mind them genuines—they're mixing wud the seconds!" or "Kip them sacks closed, Beatup." But for most of the afternoon the stillness was broken only by the hum of the machine which sometimes almost seemed a part of it.
Mrs. Backfield according to her custom watched the sun. It bathed the floor at first, but gradually she saw the square of the window paint itself on the wall, and then slide slowly up towards the ceiling. Her eyes mechanically followed it; then suddenly it blazed, filmed, flowed out into a wide spread of light, in the midst of which she saw the kitchen at Odiam as it used to be, with painted fans on the chimney-piece and pots of flowers on the window-sill. Her husband sat by the fire, smoking his pipe, while Harry was helping her tidy her workbasket.
There now! she said to him, "I knew as it really wur a dream."
Wot? he asked her, and she, in her dream, felt a spasm of delight, for it was all happening so naturally—it must be true.
About f?ather being dead, and you being blind, and Ben having the farm.
Of course it's a dream—f?ather ?un't dead, and I ?un't blind, and Ben's picking nuts over at Puddingcake.
You couldn't spik to me lik this if it wur a dream, Harry—could you, dear?
He didn't answer—and then suddenly he turned on her and shouted:
Sack your chaff, now—can't you sack your chaff?
Harry! Harry! she cried, and came to herself in the little sun-smouldering room, while outside Reuben stormed at his boys to "sack their chaff," and the machine purred and sang—"Urrr-um—Urrr-um."
A sudden terrible lucidity came to Mrs. Backfield.
It's machines as he wants, she said to herself, "it's machines as he wants...."
Then a gentle darkness stole upon her eyes, as her overworked machine of flesh and blood ran down and throbbed slowly into stillness and peace.
Outside the great fatigueless machine of steel and iron sang on—"Urrr-um—Urrr-um—Urrr-um."
The girls cried a great deal at their grandmother's death—she had never taken up enough room in the boys' lives for them to miss her much. As for Reuben, though he had been fond of her, he could not sincerely regret her, since for the last few months she had, so to speak, been carried on entirely at a loss.
He needed every penny and every minute more desperately than ever, for Grandturzel ran Odiam closer and closer in the race. Realf now plainly saw how matters stood. As yet there was no open breach between him and Reuben—when one of them came into the public-house the other always waited a decent interval before clearing out—but if there was no open breach, there was open rivalry. All the neighbourhood knew of it, and many a bet was made.
The odds were generally on Reuben. It was felt that a certain unscrupulousness was necessary to the job, and in that Backfield had the advantage. "Young Realf wudn't hurt a fly," his champions had to acknowledge. Though the money was with Reuben, the sympathy was mostly with Realf, for the former's dealings had scarcely made him popular. He was a hard man to his customers, he never let them owe him for grain or roots or fodder; his farm-hands, when drunk, spoke of him as a monster, and a not very tender-hearted peasantry worked itself sentimental over his treatment of his children.
For some months the antagonism between Odiam and Grandturzel remained in this polite state, most of the fighting being done by their champions. The landlord of the Cocks grew quite tired of chucking out Odiamites and Grandturzelites who could not, like their leaders, confine their war to words. But it only wanted some cause, however trivial, to make the principals show their fists. The time that Reuben would stay in the bar after Realf had entered it grew shorter and shorter, and his pretexts for leaving more and more flimsy. Realf himself, though a genial, good-tempered young man, could not help resenting the scorn with which he was treated. He once told Ginner that Backfield was an uncivilised brute, and Ginner took care to forward this remark to the proper quarter.
At last the gods, who are more open-handed than ungrateful people suppose, took pity on the rivals, and gave them something to fight about. The pretext was in itself trivial, but when the gunpowder is laid nothing bigger than a match is needed. This particular pretext was a barrow of roots which had been ordered from Kitchenhour by Reuben and sent by mistake to Grandturzel. Realf's shepherd, not seeing any cause for doubt, gave the roots as winter fodder to his ewes, and said nothing about them. When Reuben tramped over to Kitchenhour and asked furiously why his roots had never been sent, the mistake was discovered. He came home by Grandturzel, and found his precious roots, all thrown out on the fields, being nibbled by Realf's ewes.
Realf himself was away, but Reuben left such a stinging message for him, that apology was impossible except in a form that could only be regarded as a fresh insult. An apology in this shape reached Odiam at dinner-time, and Reuben at once sent off Beatup with an acceptance of it that was very nearly obscene. The result was that Realf himself arrived about three o'clock furiously demanding an explanation of his neighbour's insulting conduct.
The two men met in the kitchen, Peter backing up his father, and for a long time the scene was stormy, the word "roots" whirling about the conversation, with the prefix "my good" or "your hemmed" as the case might be. Realf was genuinely angry—Reuben's attitude of mingled truculence and scorn had wounded even his easy pride.
You're justabout afeard of me, that's wot you are. You think I'll bust up your old farm and show myself a better man than you. You're afeard of me because I'm a younger man than you.
Ho, afeard of you, am I?—and because you're a youngster? I'll justabout show you wot a youngster's worth. A better man, are you?—Put up your fists, and we'll see who's the better man.
Reuben began to take off his coat—young Realf drew back almost in disgust.
I'm not going to fight a man old enough to be my father, he said, flushing.
Ho, ?un't you?—Come on, you puppy-dog, and see fur yourself if you need t?ake pity on my old age.
He had flung off his coat, and squared up to Realf, who, seeing no alternative, began to strip.
Peter interposed:
Let me t?ake him on, f?ather. I'll show him a thing or two.
Reuben turned on him savagely.
Stand clear!—who wants your tricks? I'm going to show him wot a man's worth—a man wot's had his beard longer than this puppy's bin in the warld.
But you're out of training.
I'm in training enough to whip boys. Stand clear!
Pete stood clear, as the two combatants closed. Neither knew much of the game. Realf had been born too late for boxing to have been considered a necessary part of his education, and Reuben had been taught in an old school—the school of Bendigo and Deaf Burke—mighty bashers, who put their confidence in their strength, despised finesse, and counted their victories in pints of blood.
He fairly beat down on Realf, who was lithe enough generally to avoid him, but not experienced enough to do so as often as he might. Every time Reuben struck him, the floor seemed to rush up to his eyes, and the walls to sag, and the house to fill with smoke. Pete danced round them silently, for while his sympathies were with his father his sporting instincts bade him keep outwardly impartial. He was disgusted with their footwork, indeed their whole style outraged his bruising ideals; but it pleased him to see how much Reuben was the better man.
They hardly ever clinched—on the other hand, there was much plunging and rushing. Reuben brought down Realf three times and Realf brought down Reuben once. It was noticeable that if the younger man fell more easily he also picked himself up more quickly. Between the rounds they leaned exhausted against the wall, Pete prowling about between them, longing to take his father on his knee, but still resolved to see fair play.
It was not likely that the fight would be a long one, for both combatants were already winded. Realf, moreover, was bleeding from the nose, and Reuben's left eye was swollen. Once he caught a hit flush on the mouth which cut his nether lip in two, and, owing to his bad footwork, brought him down. But he was winning all the same.
For once that Realf managed to land a blow, Reuben landed a couple, and with twice as much weight behind them. The younger man soon began to look green and sick, he staggered about, and flipped, while the sweat poured off his forehead into his eyes. Reuben breathed stertorously and could scarcely see out of his left eye, but was otherwise game. Pete felt prouder of him than ever.
Suddenly Backfield's fist crashed into Realf's body, full on the mark. The wind rushed out of him as out of a bellows, and he doubled up like a screen. This time he made no effort to rise; he lay motionless, one arm thrown out stiff and jointless as a bough, while a little blood-flecked foam oozed from between his teeth.
You've done it! cried Pete.
Reuben had flopped down in a heap on the settle, and his son ran off for help. He flung open the door, and nearly fell over Tilly who was cowering behind it.
Here—bring some water! cried Peter, too much relieved to see her to be surprised at it.
Tilly flung one wide-eyed glance over her shoulder into the room where young Realf lay, and dashed off for water and towels, while Pete fetched a piece of raw meat out of the larder.
It was a minute or two before Realf opened his swollen, watering eyes, and gazed up bewildered into the face of the woman he had said his prayers to for a dozen Sundays. She held his head in the crook of her arm, and wiped the froth and blood from his lips.
Better now? asked Pete.
Realf suddenly seemed to shrink into himself. The next minute he was swaying unsteadily on his legs, refusing the hands held out to support him.
I'm going home, he mumbled through his bruised lips.
I'll t?ake you, said Pete cheerily.
But Realf of Grandturzel shook his head. His humiliation was more than he could bear. Without another look at Pete or Tilly, or at Reuben holding the raw chop to his eye, he turned and walked out of the room with bent head and dragging footsteps.
For a moment Pete looked as if he would follow him, but Reuben impatiently called him back.
Leave the cub alone, can't you? Let him go and eat grass.
Tilly stood motionless in the middle of the room, her little nose wrinkled with horror at the bloodstains on the floor and at Reuben whose face was all bruised and swollen and shiny with the juice of the raw meat. Pete saw her shudder, and resented it.
It wur a pr?aper fight, he declared. "You want to manage them feet of yourn a bit slicker, f?ather—but you wur justabout smart wud your fists."
Tilly's blood ran thick with disgust; she turned from them suddenly—that coarse, bloodthirsty, revolting pair—and ran quickly out of the room.
She ran out of the house. Away on Boarzell a man plodded and stumbled. She saw him stagger as the wind battered him, reel and nearly fall among the treacheries of the dead heather. He was like a drunken man, and she knew that he was drunk with shame.
All flushed with pity she realised the bitterness of his fate—he who was so young and strong and clean and gay, had been degraded, shamed by her father, whom in that moment she looked upon entirely as a brute. It must not be. He had been so good to her, so friendly and courteous in their Sunday walks—she must not let him go away from her shamed and beaten.
She gathered up her skirts and ran across the garden, out on to the Moor. She ran through the heather, stumbling in the knotted thickness. The spines tore her stockings, and in one clump she lost her shoe. But she did not wait. Her little chin was thrust forward in the obstinacy of her pursuit, and when she came closer to him she called—"Mr. Realf! Mr. Realf!"
He stopped and looked round, and the next minute she was at his side. Her hair was all blown about her face, her cheeks were flushed the colour of bell-heather, and her breast heaved like a wave. She could not speak, but her eyes were blessing him, and then suddenly both her hands were in his.
§ 6.
Early in the next year Sir Miles Bardon died, and his son Ralph became Squire. Reuben had now, as he put it, lived through three Bardons. He despised the enfeebled and effete race with its short life-times, and his own body became straighter when he thought of Sir Miles's under the earth.
For every reason now, Odiam was being forced on. Realf had sought comfort for his personal humiliation in making his farm more spick and span than ever. Reuben became aware of a certain untidiness about Odiam, and spent much on paint and tar—just as the frills of a younger rival might incite to extravagance a woman who had hitherto despised the fashions. He painted his waggons a beautiful blue, and his oasts were even blacker and shinier than Grandturzel's. He had wooden horses to dance on their pointers, whereupon Realf put cocks on his.
The thought of Tilly did not check the young man in this beggar-my-neighbour, for he knew that her father's ambition meant her slavery. So when Reuben added a prize Jersey heifer to his stock, Realf bought a Newlands champion milker, and when Reuben launched desperately on a hay-rope twister, Realf ran him up with a wurzel-cutter. Finally Reuben bought twenty acres, of Boarzell, in which Realf did not attempt to rival him, for he already had forty which he did not know what to do with. Reuben's strugglings with Boarzell struck him as pathetic rather than splendid, an aberration of ambition which would finally spoil the main scheme.
So Realf's answer took the form of an extra cowman, whereupon Reuben hired a couple of new hands, causing his family to leap secretly and silently for joy and to bless the man who by his rivalry had lightened their yoke. As a matter of fact, Reuben would have been forced to engage one man, anyhow; for the new piece of land had at once to be prepared for cultivation, and gave even more trouble than the pieces which had already been cultivated but showed a distressing proneness to relapse into savagery. The lower slope of Boarzell was now covered with fields, where corn grew, as the neighbours said, "if one wur careful not to spik too loud," and the ewes could pasture safely if their shepherd were watchful. But it somehow seemed as if all these things were only on sufferance, and that directly Reuben rested his tired arm Boarzell would snatch them back to itself, to be its own for ever.
Reuben swaggered a little about his new farm-hands, especially as Realf showed no signs of going any further in hirelings. One man, Boorman, came from Shoyswell near Ticehurst, and was said to be an authority on the diseases of roots, while the other, Handshut, came from Cheat Land on the western borders of Peasmarsh. Reuben went over to get his "character" from Jury the tenant—and that was how he met Alice Jury.
The door was opened to him by a tall young woman in a grey dress covered by an apron. Reuben was struck by that apron, for it was not the sacking kind to which he was accustomed, or the plain white muslin which his women-folk wore on Sundays, but a coarse brick-coloured cotton, hanging from her shoulders like a pinafore. The girl's face above it was not pretty, but exceptionally vivid—"vivid" was the word, not prominent in Reuben's vocabulary, which flashed into his mind when he saw her. Her colouring was pale, and her features were small and irregular, her hair was very frizzy and quite black, while her grey eyes were at once the narrowest and the liveliest he had ever seen.
I'm sorry—father's not at home, she said in answer to his question.
But I t?ald him as I wur coming over—it's about that Handshut.
She smiled.
I'm afraid father forgets things. But come in, he's bound to be home to his dinner soon.
Reuben grumbled and muttered to himself as he crossed the threshold—small fry like these Jurys must not be allowed to think that he had any time to spare. The young woman led him into the kitchen and offered him a seat. Reuben took it and crossed his legs, looking appraisingly round the room, which was poorly furnished, but beautifully kept, with some attempts at decoration. There was a print of Rossetti's "Annunciation" above the meal-chest, and a shelf of books by the fireplace. It all struck him as strange and rather contemptible. He remembered what he had been told about the Jurys, who had only just come to Cheat Land. Tom Jury had, so rumour said, kept a bookshop in Hastings, but trade had gone badly, and as his health demanded an outdoor life and country air, charitable friends had established him on a small holding. He had an invalid wife, and one daughter, who was not very strong either—an ignoble family.
The daughter must be the girl who was talking to him now. She sat on a little stool by the fire, and had brought out some sewing.
You come from Odiam, don't you? she asked.
Yes, that's it.
Is Odiam that farm near Totease?
Reuben looked as if he had swallowed the poker. He stared at her to see if she were making fun of him, but her bright eyes were quite innocent.
Yes, he said huskily—"it is."
We've only been here a month, so I haven't got the neighbourhood quite clear. You see I can't often go out, as my mother's generally in bed, and I have all the house-work to do. That's why my father has to have a man to help him out of doors. It's a pity, for wages are so high—Handshut's leaving us because we could do with someone cheaper and less experienced.
Reuben liked her voice, with its town modulation, the only vestige of Sussex taint being a slight drawl. It struck him that Alice Jury was a "lady," and that he was not condescending very much in speaking to her.
It's unaccountable hard to know what to do about labour. Now as these fellers are gitting eddicated they think no end of theirselves and 'ull ask justabout anything in wages—as if a man hoed turnups any better for being able to read and write.
But don't you think he does?
No—I d?an't. I'm all ag?unst teaching poor people anything and setting them above theirselves. It's different fur their betters. Now I've got six boys, and they can all read and write and cast accounts.
Six boys, have you? Are they grown up?
Yes, the youngest's sixteen.
And do they help you on the farm?
Yes—leastways four of 'em do. Two have—have left home.
I suppose they didn't care for farming?
One's in prison, and t'other I turned away.
Reuben had no idea why he said this. It must have been the way her eyes were fixed on him, glowing above bistred shadows.
Oh, indeed!—how sad.
He flushed the colour of her apron. What a fool he was!—and yet after all she would be bound to hear the truth sooner or later; he had only been beforehand. All the same he was surprised at himself. A sudden tide of anger went over him.
Sad fur them, I reckon, but not fur me. I'm well shut of them.
Don't you miss them at all?
Naun particular. Robert he wur good and plodding-like, but you couldn't trust his stacking, and he'd be all nohow wud the horses—and Albert he'd shirk everything wotsumdever, he'd go off into dreams in the middle of killing a pig—surelye!
But in themselves, I mean.
Wot's that—in themselves?
Well, as boys, as sons, not as farm-servants.
I d?an't never think of them that way. One's no good to me wudout t'other.
Alice Jury said nothing, and Reuben began to feel vaguely uncomfortable. What queer eyes she had!—they seemed to bore into him like nails. He suddenly rose to his feet.
See here—I must be going.
But father won't be long now.
I'm sorry—I can't wait. I've a load of field-bean coming in. I'll be round ag?un to-morrow.
What time?—and I'll promise father shall be here to see you.
About eleven, say. Good-bye, miss.
Good-bye.
She went with him to the door. A great lump of phlox grew on either side of it. She stood between them, and suddenly pointed out over Jury's miserable little root-patch towards Boarzell, heaving its great hummocks against the east.
What's that? she asked.
Reuben came away from Cheat Land with odd feelings of annoyance, perplexity, and exhilaration. Alice Jury was queer, and she had insulted him, nevertheless those ten minutes spent with her had left him tingling all over with a strange excitement.
He could not account for it. Women had excited him before, but merely physically. He took it for granted that they had minds and souls like men, but he had not thought much about that aspect of them or allowed it to enter his calculations. Of late he had scarcely troubled about women at all, having something better to think of.
Now he found himself thrown into a kind of dazzle by Alice Jury. He could not explain it. Her personal beauty was negligible—"a liddle stick of a thing," he called her; their conversation had been limited almost entirely to her tactless questions and his forbearing answers.
She ?un't my sort, he mumbled as he walked home, "she ?un't at all my sort. Dudn't know where Odiam wur—never heard of Boarzell—oh, yes, seems as she remembered hearing something when I t?ald her"—and Reuben's lip curled ironically.
He had not told her of his ambitions with regard to Boarzell, and now he found himself wishing that he had done so. He had been affronted by her ignorance, but as his indignation cooled he longed to confide in her. Why, he could not say, for unmistakably she "wasn't his sort"; it was not likely that she would sympathise, and yet he wanted to pour all the treasures of his hope into her indifference. He had never felt like this towards anyone before.
He spent the day restlessly, and the next morning walked over to Cheat Land before half-past ten. Alice Jury opened the door, and looked surprised to see him.
You said you were coming at eleven. I'm afraid father's out again.
I wur passing this way, so thought I'd call in on the chance, said Reuben guiltily—"I d?an't mind waiting."
She called a long-legged boy who was weeding among the turnips, and bade him go over to Puddingcake and fetch the master. Then she led the way to the kitchen, which smelled deliciously of baking bread.
You don't mind if I go on with my baking? I've twelve loaves in the oven.
Oh, no, said Reuben, sitting in yesterday's chair, and gazing up at the Rossetti.
Do you like pictures? asked Alice, thumping dough.
Some, said Reuben, "but I like 'em coloured best."
I paint a little myself, said Alice—"when I've time."
Wot sort o' things do you paint?
Oh, landscapes mostly. That's mine—and she pointed to a little water-colour sketch of a barn.
Could you paint a picture of Odiam?
I expect I could—not really well, you know, just something like this.
Could you paint Boarzell?
He leaned towards her over the back of his chair.
Yes, I dare say.
Could you do it wud all the colours on it and all that?—all the pinks you git on it sometimes, and the lovely yaller the gorse m?akes?
She was surprised at his enthusiasm. His eyes were kindling, and a blush was creeping under his sunburn.
Oh, I could try! Do you want a picture of Boarzell?
I'd like one if you could really do it to look natural.
She smiled. "Perhaps I could. But why do you think so much of Boarzell?"
Because I'm going to m?ake it mine.
Yours!
Yes—I mean to have the whole of it.
But can you grow anything on a waste like that?
I can. I've got near a hundred acres sown already ... and then all the floodgates that had been shut for so long were burst, and the tides of his confidence rolled out to her, moaning—all the ache of his ambition which nobody would share.
Her eyes were fixed on him with their strange spell, and her sharp little face was grave. He knew that she did not sympathise—he had not expected it. But he was glad he had told her.
Her first words startled him.
Do you think it's worth while?
Wot's worth while?
To give up so much for the sake of a piece of land. Reuben gaped at her.
I've no right to preach to you; but I think I may be allowed to ask you—'is it worth while?'
He was too flabbergasted to be angry. The question had simply never come into his experience. Many a man had said, "Do you think you'll do it?" but no one had ever said, "Do you think it's worth while?"
Alice saw her blunder. She saw that she had insulted his ambition; and yet, though she now understood the ferocities of that ambition, it filled her with a definite hostility which made her want to fight and fight and fight it with all the strength she had. At the same time, as his surprise collapsed, his own antagonism rose up. He felt a sudden hatred, not for the girl, but for the forces which somehow he knew she was bringing to oppose him. They faced each other, their eyes bright with challenge, their breasts heaving with a stormier, earthlier emotion—and the white flame of antagonism which divided them seemed at the same time to fuse them, melt them into each other.