Chapter XXXIV: Part THIRTY-TWO: End—or Beginning?

§ 1

Rightly to understand what follows—which is the ending (or the beginning, according to standpoint) of romance—you must recall to memory that Peter the First, grandfather of our Mr. Jameson, who left the country for the town at the commencement of the great English manufacturing era about eighteen hundred and forty, tried his luck in the City of London, and ended his days on the tobacco-farm in Guanabacoa, Cuba; also Peter the Second, father of our Mr. Jameson, and founder of Jameson & Co., Lime Street. Nor must you quite forget Captain “Chips” Bradley, Tessa Bradley, and the exotic Hebraic strain of the Miraflores. For all these played their ghostly parts in the mind of their descendant as he walked that debatable paddock in the warm sunshine of a late May morning ten days after the death of old man Tebbits. . . .

Fry had dug up half-an-acre of that paddock; and already the mauve potato-flower was in bloom above its dark leaves. “Confound it,” thought Peter, “I’m not going to be done out of this paddock. I paid to have it dug up, didn’t I?”

He looked at the two chicken-houses. They would have to be moved. It would take Fry half-a-day to move them. Half-a-day at thirty shillings a week. . . .

And immediately the word “business” formed itself in Peter’s brain. He had never before considered the country in the light of business: the country had been for him a place where town-people made holiday; a rather jolly picturesque kind of place—scenery among which one rode, or killed pheasants, or drove golf-balls. Now he saw the country as the peasant sees it—but the peasant in Peter had been sharpened by a half-a-generation among townsfolk.

“It isn’t just _a_ business,” he thought. “It’s _the_ business. The greatest business in the world. And I’ve been living right in the middle of it for six months without grasping that simple fact.”

Then the Jew in Peter said, quite distinctly, “My boy, there’s money in this.”

Prudence the pig grunted a hint of feeding-time. But to Peter she was Prudence the pig no longer: she was Prudence the breeding sow, and the sooner she went to the boar the better. Pigs! “Little pigs pays all right,” he seemed to hear old man Tebbits speaking. Then imagination outran Tebbits; if little pigs paid to sell, big hogs paid to rear. “Question of feeding cost,” remarked the ghost of Peter the First. . . .

The man in the white flannel trousers, with the belted shooting-coat and the Old Etonian tie, looked at the woods beyond the paddock. Beeches! There were beeches in those woods; beech-mast, roots, all sorts of pig-fodder. He saw an endless procession of hogs, running through the paddock to feed in those woods.

“Damn it,” said Peter, “I’ve got to have the paddock. . . .”

Three hens fluttered up onto the wire-netting round the potato-patch; swayed there a moment; dropped over among the potato-plants. Patricia couldn’t make hens pay. Of course she couldn’t. They were bad hens. And chicken food was too dear. But if one grew one’s own corn. . . .

“Self-supporting,” thought Peter suddenly. “Cut the middle-man’s profit.”

A cow lowed from across the road. Thought process went on. Peasant, soldier, Jew and business-man met round the board-room table of Peter’s brain. First the land; then the men to work the land. “Don’t pay rent. Buy outright,” said Business. “Keep ’em in order,” rasped the soldier. “Crops and stock,” said the peasant, “crops and stock, stock and crops.” “And your markets,” whispered the Jew, “never forget your markets. Work to your markets—supply and demand, demand and supply.” . . . All of which counsels the old Etonian crystallized into the words, “Why not become a gentleman-farmer?”

“Snobbish idea”—this time Peter spoke aloud. “Gentleman farmer—gentleman business-man—discharged officer would like to sell wine and cigars on commission. Rubbish! A job’s a job. The man who does his job is a gentleman: the man who plays with his job is. . . .” The Expeditionary Force epithet sailed bluely into the country air.

From abstract ideas, thought switched automatically to Tebbits’ Farm. The position, as far as he could gather from Harry, was this: the Colonel (“damn that Colonel,” thought Peter, “why hasn’t his wife called on Pat?”) did not want to renew old man Tebbits’ lease; the Colonel wanted to sell his land; Harry Tebbits couldn’t afford to buy it. But he, Peter, could afford to buy it; and if he didn’t—here the peasant in Peter grew very angry—somebody else might do him out of this very paddock. “Then sue Tebbits’ estate for damage,” counselled the Jew. “You don’t know anything about farming. You’ll make a hash of it like your brother Arthur. Farming’s a difficult business, my boy. Why not lend Harry the money? Six per cent and no risk. If he can’t make it pay, you foreclose. . . .”

Peter walked slowly back to the house; but the next morning, and the next, and the morning after that, he spent in the paddock. The more he considered this business of farming, the wider its scope appeared. It embraced everything he needed: plenty of work, limitless opportunities, a bit of a fight, a bit of a gamble, men to boss, horses to ride. And if one could learn to be a gunner in six months, surely one could learn to be a farmer. . . . “In how long?” asked Reason: and Peter realized for the first time his utter practical ignorance. . . .

For two days he abandoned the scheme. Then a milking-time visit to Tebbits’ brought the whole business back. He might not know much about farming; but any ass could see _this_ wasn’t right. “Filthy,” said the soldier in Peter, “filthy! Flies and filth and a dung-heap round the corner. That milk would poison a regiment.”

Finally, he decided to talk the whole thing out with Harry. If Harry would come into partnership; if Harry would listen to reason. . . . For already the business-man in Peter had realized that farming on Tebbits lines was a thing of the past; a picturesque anachronism.

“Farming”—Peter must have said this to himself at least a hundred times during those few days—“isn’t just _a_ business. It’s _the_ business. And like all businesses it’s got to be big. All this talk about small holdings is blather. The small-holder works himself to death for less wages than a dock-labourer.” . . .

It must be admitted that Peter’s first talk with Harry Tebbits frightened that worthy almost as much as “our Mr. Jameson” had frightened Turkovitch in Nirvana days. Still, Harry listened. “Yes, I know we don’t produce as cheap as we might, nor sell as dear as we could,” admitted Harry. “’Tis the Government’s fault, I’m thinking.”

Peter laughed. “They don’t grow much hay in Westminster, Harry. No English Government ever helped a business-man yet. We’ve got to help ourselves. Now about the milk. Sealed bottles _and_ our own deliveries, ‘guaranteed pure,’ ‘from the cow to the kid.’ Ford cars to Reading and Henley. Eggs too, _and_ vegetables. Bacon. . . .”

“Bacon!” ejaculated Harry.

“Of course. If little pigs pay, big hogs pay; if it pays people to buy big hogs, it will pay us to kill, cure, smoke _and_ retail ’em.”

“We can’t do anything this side of Michaelmas. Lease isn’t up till then,” said Harry, hardly convinced.

“No; but we can do an awful lot of _thinking_.” . . .

. . . And, thinking, thought expanded. With fourteen thousand pounds of capital; and the key-industry of life—what couldn’t a man accomplish? Peter sent for books, pamphlets; buried himself in statistics;—and the more he read the more he convinced himself that the secret of farming was no secret at all. Farming was just like any other business: it depended on two questions—“How cheaply can I produce? How dearly can I sell?”

“Machinery and marketing,” said Peter. “Same old problem.”

The spectre of “labour” did not frighten him. Eliminate the middle-man, and there would be enough surplus profits, in the particular business of farming, to give “labour” all it wanted. “Provided,” added Peter, “that ‘labour’ will do its job.” Besides, the Tebbits-Jameson farm would be run on co-partnership lines, as the Nirvana factory was to have been. “Share and share,” said our Mr. Jameson, “I’ll do my job if they’ll do theirs. . . .”

At which exact point in his schemes for the future—Peter Jameson fell head over ears in love with his own wife!

How the thing happened: whether he had always been “in love” with her and only just discovered the fact; whether the example of Francis and Beatrice, emerging from the seclusion of honeymoon, influenced him; whether leisure, returning health, heredity, environment, or his growing affection for Sunflowers first started the wheels of passion—it is impossible to say. Remains the fact that he did fall in love with her, head over heels, madly, crazily and unreasonably in love. To elaborate a slang expression much in vogue at the time, “he dived in at the deep end.”

§ 2

Peter “dived in” at exactly five o’clock on a gorgeous afternoon in earliest June. They were having tea on the sunk lawn—she, he, Francis, Beatrice, and the two children. And quite suddenly, watching her as she bent over the table, he knew an insane impulse. He wanted to cuddle his own wife, in full sunshine, shamelessly; he wanted “these people” out of the way. Instead, he asked her for another cup of tea!

But this “insane impulse” (so he phrased it to himself) refused to be suppressed. It recurred constantly that day, the next day and the day after. It became an obsession. He argued with it: “Don’t be a fool, P.J. She’ll think you’ve gone crazy. You _have_ gone crazy. . . .”

Then, he began to _think_ about her, as Heron Baynet had taught him to think, in pictures. He saw her kneeling at the altar, on their honeymoon, in Lowndes Square, at Brighton, in Harley Street. Always, she had been his pal. Damn it, he didn’t want her for his pal—he wanted to cuddle her. She became of a sudden so attractive that he could hardly sit opposite to her at the dinner-table. . . .

He said to himself: “But what _more_ do you want of her? She’s yours, isn’t she?” . . .

Followed self-reproach. What a wife she’d been to him! What a wife!! But had he ever appreciated her? No, he had not. He’d been a perfect cad to her. . . . What a wife! Had she ever grumbled? No, she had not. Had he ever grumbled? Yes, he had. When he lost his money, did she complain? No, she didn’t. Did he? Yes, he did . . . et caetera, et caetera. . . .

But the most amazing incident of those most amazing days was the simultaneous recurrence of two mind-pictures. In one picture, he lay on a bed, screens round it, and she looked down on him, love unmistakable in her eyes. In the other—but the other was incredible. He refused to believe that other. “I _have_ gone crazy,” he repeated, “perfectly crazy.” . . .

He decided himself the victim of hallucinations; and went on with his farming-plans. . . . But farming-plans could not exorcise the desire to cuddle Patricia, to hold her hand, to tell her that she was the only woman in the world, that he loved her madly. . . .

Finally, he determined to risk it. At the worst, she would only laugh. He realized that if she laughed he would hit her. Courage braced to the sticking-point, he waited his opportunity. . . .

And no opportunity came! They were never alone—except late at night, and “late at night” wouldn’t do. It wasn’t a “late at night” mood. It wasn’t a married mood at all. “Damn it!” said Peter Jameson, “can’t a man cuddle his own wife in the middle of the day if he wants to?”

But he couldn’t! Something or somebody always interfered: servants, children, visitors, Fry, the house. He began to hate “the house.” “The house” spoiled everything. He must get her away from the house, from Fanny and Elizabeth, from the children, from Fry and “those damn chickens” and Prudence the pig. . . .

At last, the great idea came. To himself, he called it their “second honeymoon”: to her, he said he wanted a “holiday.” The river in June and July was “top-hole”; he’d always wanted to punt—nothing but a punt seemed adequate—from Goring to Oxford, well not exactly Oxford, beyond Oxford, say Godstone. They might punt to Godstone and see Arthur. They might go further up Thames. It depended how he felt. He’d not been feeling very well lately. He wanted a change.

She demurred: one couldn’t leave the children. He sulked—cannily. Then he went to see Beatrice.

“You wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on things when we’re away?”

“But _why_ do you want to go?” asked Francis’ wife. She had installed herself in the oak-panelled morning-room; looked like a _blonde cendrée_ lily in the mellow gloom of its beeswaxed walls.

“Just for a holiday,” prevaricated Peter; but he blushed faintly as he spoke.

“Don’t English people ever tell the truth?” she said understandingly.

He hesitated the fraction of a second before answering: “Very rarely—about that sort of thing.”

Two days later, perfectly unconscious of the web which had been woven round her, Patricia yielded; and they started on the twelfth of June: two very ordinary people with two very ordinary suit-cases and a large luncheon-basket: he in white duck trousers, brogued buskin shoes, and flannel blazer; she in shantung coat and skirt, remnant of Lodden Lodge holidays—écru velours hat, Beatrice’s gift, shading her slumbrous eyes. . . .

§ 3

If you take punt at Hobbs’ Wharf, which banks the mill-creek beside Goring Lock; and glide out through some great morning of river-sunshine, under the white willows of “Nun’s Acre,” past Cleeve Lock ablaze with roses, into that long reach which runs lockless between oak and elm as far as Wallingford: (you will find at Molesey ferry a pleasant hostelry yclept “The Beetle and Wedge,” set a-purpose to hearten weary punters ere they pass under the almost ugliness of a red-brick railroad-causeway): and if, having rested at Wallingford, you pole on, by the narrow cleft of Benson’s Lock; and on, over the broad river-highway, through Shillingford; you will come in the fulness of even-time, past over-arching woods, to the vaulted spans of Clifton Hampden Bridge. . . .

Clifton Hampden’s self is a village of honeysuckled cottages, and quiet lost housen of quiet lost gentlefolk who climb o’ Sundays to the belled Church which looks down on Clifton Hampden’s Bridge and Clifton Hampden’s “Barley Mow.” . . .

But if you love our Thames, who is the father of England even as the sea is England’s great mother (and these twain mate in London Pool for all the world to see), you will not rest overlong at the “Barley Mow.” Father Thames will draw you on, against his own current, past Sutton Courtney’s foaming weirs and Wittenham’s “Plough,” and the mouth of the “Thame” (which is not the Thames, though it serpentines cunningly through flat fields to Dorchester, where, in an Abbey of olden stone, rest the bones of many a saint and many a Norman knight and dame); and on past Dorchester to Abingdon. . . .

At Abingdon, rest you one night—even as Peter and Patricia rested—yet rest not over-late. For beyond Abingdon (and this is a glory of wood and waterland you shall scarce believe) Radley’s flag flaunts, bright as colours at a girl’s bosom, among the bosoming downs of English oak. . . . Yet even this glory, Father Thames—if he loves you—will bid you leave behind. It shall dwindle astern as the steady pole dives from your hand and the taut body presses you onwards. . . .

Thus, ere river-afternoon is river-evening, shall you raise the plumed smoke-stack of Sandford Mills; and, lingering not, make Iffley, and the meadow-banks beyond Iffley, and Magdalen Tower, and the mellow dome of the Bodleian Library. And haply _you_ shall see the old-time Oxford of dreaming spires and leisured youth—not Patricia’s khaki-haunted, headstrong, hurrying town. . . .

Oxford passed (and this passing is a sadness, for sloven houses creep down to Thames bank, and Victorian factories blacken the clear stream, and children such as should not be in England dabble thin legs in the mud), Father Thames hesitates among meadow-flats—as you will hesitate between the “Perch” and the “Trout,” neither of which will allure you, for the one is of the beanfeaster and the other (though it was a guest-house in days when Fair Rosamond languished a bow-shot away at Godstone) resounds all day to the drone of the circling ’plane. . . . Wherefore, pole up beyond Godstone: and there, where Father Thames runs young between flag-flower-stems and faded meadow-sweet and sharpening bulrush-spears, may his river-nymphs be as benign for you as they were for Peter and his Patricia on that windless evening of an English June-time. . . .

It seemed to them that they had scarce left Sunflowers behind; and yet it seemed to them as though not only Sunflowers but all their known life lay so far behind them as to be almost out of memory. They had glided out of life, over endless rippleless water, through endless sunshine, into love’s own land. But no word of love had these two yet spoken. . . .

The fog of the years still hid them, each from each: only now the fog was all irradiated, a mist of sun-motes; and through the shimmering radiance of that clearing mist, their souls, not yet full-visioned, came peering and afraid. . . .

Many times, in those days of river-sunshine, their souls had caught glimpses of each other; touched, even as their bodies touched in the fragrance of the river-nights. But fulfilment and full-visioning had not yet been given. A strange shy tenderness separated them; locking Peter’s lips. . . .

But already, Patricia knew! The knowledge lay deep down in her heart—maiden-knowledge. Her womanhood, her experience, the reasoning powers on which she had prided herself so long, played no part in this secret awareness of love. It seemed to her that she had never been his wife; never borne his children nor tended his house; that she would come to him virgin. And as virgins are aware, so she knew that she would be aware of the time and place appointed for her bridal. . . .

§ 4

“I say, Pat, what about tea?”

Peter ran the long racing-punt skilfully to the slip-stage of Eynsham Weir; stood balanced on slanting pole.

She looked up from the cushions. “If you like, dear. Are you feeling tired?”

“A little,” he admitted.

The weir-man (there are few locks on the upper Thames) strolled down to help them out; took the luncheon-basket.

“Have to take those bags out before we run her over, I’m afraid, sir. She’ll be liable to break her back if we don’t.”

“Tie her up where she is for a bit. We’re not in any hurry.” Peter, coat over arm, followed his wife up the slipway.

“Nice,” he said, eyes on the river.

To her it was more than “nice.” Thames flowed down to them, circling willow-fringed through lush meadowlands, spanned in near distance by a humped bridge of mellow stone. At bridge-end, below toll-house, a farm nestled red among scant trees. Left of them, twin hillocks crested to blue of sky. At their feet, Thames plunged in gurgling gold to the weir-pool, foam-flecked under deep banks. Hitherside the stream, dyked pasturage glowed in the sun. . . .

And not thirty yards from the weir-pool—flies rolled-up, flap open—stood a tent: a perfectly good, apparently unoccupied tent!

All the time they were having their meal—the weir-man indicated a tiny arbour; boiled them hot water on the stove in his one-roomed cabin—thought of that tent obsessed their minds. To whom did that tent belong? Why shouldn’t they use that tent? River-inns were hot stuffy places, whereas a tent. . . .

Peter, balancing his third cup of tea on white-flannelled leg, approached the subject diffidently. “I say, Pat,” he began, “have you ever thought of camping-out? Rather jolly—camping-out. That tent reminded me. . . .”

“Oh, but we couldn’t possibly use _that_ tent”—Patricia started packing-up the tea-things—“it’s sure to belong to somebody.”

“One might as well find out.” He rose from the rough bench of the tiny arbour; lounged away; came back in a few minutes, face a little flushed, eyes twinkling.

“The weir-man says that we can use it if we like. ‘The gentleman isn’t coming down till tomorrow evening.’”

“What gentleman?” asked Patricia.

“The gentleman who owns the tent, I suppose. I say, Pat, do let’s! It’d be a fearful lark. We could go into the town and buy our rations. . . .”

There and then, they settled the matter. The weir-man produced mattresses, blankets, a rug; unpacked the punt; directed them across the dyked pasturage towards Eynsham. And at Eynsham—which is the least interesting, ugliest village between Gravesend and Cricklade—they bought them eggs, and tinned foods, and a loaf of bread, and butter, and candles, and a huge basket of strawberries which Peter discovered hidden away in the dark of a greengrocer’s shop.

Evening began as they dawdled back, parcel-laden, along the high road; turned off from high road across the dyked pasturage. Now, willows screened the ugly village behind. They could see only the bridge, and the two hillocks beyond, and their tent—their very own tent—marking the river-bank. . . .

“It’ll be a frightful lark,” said Peter.

“Won’t it?” she answered.

Of the thing each had at heart, neither dared speech. . . .

§ 5

Twilight had come in gold and gone in crimson: only faintest hints of greens and lilacs still lingered low down on the horizon. Eynsham Bridge was a humped black shadow across the dulled silver of the stream. Eynsham hills stood out in clear sepia against a turquoise sky.

“Good-night,” called the weir-man.

“Good-night,” they called back to him.

Now, they were utterly alone. The weir plunged and gurgled; a fish leaped in the pool. Darker it grew, and darker.

They could hardly see each other across the rug which had served them for dinner-table.

“Shall I light the candles in the tent?” he asked.

“If you like, dear.”

He rose slowly to his feet; and she watched his flannelled figure disappear in the gloom. Light winked from the tent-flap; the tent glowed suddenly, a cone of saffron radiance. . . .

He came back to her, picking his way quietly across the grass; saw that she had not moved. She was aware of him, dropping down beside her in the gloom.

“Pat darling,”—his voice held a new tenderness; his hand, as it sought hers, seemed to tremble—“I’ve been wanting to tell you something ever since we started.”

Their fingers trembled together, met and twined. His left arm slipped round her shoulders.

“What have you wanted to tell me?”

He drew her close to him. His heart throbbed against her shoulder-blades.

“I don’t quite know how to say it.” She could feel him blush in the darkness. “It—it isn’t the sort of thing one says to one’s wife. . . .”

He couldn’t go on: he was afraid she would laugh at him.

“What isn’t, Peter?” The whisper hardly reached him.

“I mean”—words came stumblingly—“I mean—the thing I wanted to tell you. . . . Pat darling, it isn’t very much. It’s—it’s just that I love you. And you mustn’t laugh at me for it.”

“Why should I laugh at you, boy?” she whispered.

“I don’t know. Why shouldn’t you laugh at me? Don’t you remember—before we got married—you said that being in love was all nonsense; that husband and wife ought to be. . . .”

“Don’t, Peter, don’t!”—he knew, though in all his life he had never heard her cry, that she was crying. “You make me so ashamed. It’s been my own fault—every bit of it has been my own fault”—he couldn’t understand—he only knew that suddenly happiness had come to them both—she crept into his arms—“Peter?”

“Yes, darling.”

“Am I the only woman you’ve ever tried to make love to? . . . .”

Was she laughing now? or crying? He couldn’t understand—he couldn’t understand at all.

“Do answer me, boy?”

“Of course you are. I’ve never loved anybody but you in my life.”

“Honestly?” she asked.

“On my dying oath, Pat.”

Suddenly, he felt her hand on his shoulder; heard her say: “Oh, boy, boy, I believe you. . . . You’re such a rotten lover, boy. . . . You haven’t even asked me whether I love you. . . .”

“I—” he began.

“Don’t. I’m—I’m rather glad you’re such a rotten lover, boy. I—I love you for it.”

Very tenderly, their lips met in the darkness. . . .

* * * * *

Tent on the river-bank glowed saffron among the shadows. . . . Light vanished from the tent. . . . Moon, riding over Eynsham Bridge, saw it, a gray ghost by the gurgling weir. . . . Moon dipped behind the willows. . . . Sky lightened. . . . Stars faded. . . . Dyked pastures silvered to the dawn-gleams. . . . Sun-rim peeped over Eynsham Hills. . . . The tent-flap parted. . . .

And out of the tent, stepping quietly lest she waken her sleeping mate, came a woman, golden hair unbound, white feet bare to the dew. . . . Very quietly she came, like a nymph in the dawn. . . . Very quietly, she sank to her white knees, alone on the river-bank by the gurgling weir. . . . Very quietly, she raised her white hands to the rising day. . . .

“O God,” prayed Patricia, “dear God—let me give him a son.”