Chapter XII: Book V: Almost Under (2)

Reuben did not speak. His hands were clenched on the arms of his chair, and for the first time Rose noticed that he looked old. A faint feeling of disgust came over her. She shivered, and took a step backwards as if she would leave him. Then her warm good nature and her gratitude to the man who had made her so happy, drove away the unnatural mood. She came close, and slipped her soft arms round his neck, pressing her lips to his.

He groaned.

"You mustn't fret, Reuben."

"How can I help it?--they're all gone now save one ... my boys...."

"Perhaps there'll be others."

She had slid back to his knee, and the weight and warmth of her comforted him a little. He lifted his head quickly at her words.

"Others?"

"Yes, why not?"

Her bold sweet eyes were looking into his and her mouth was curved like a heart.

"Rose, Rose--my dear, my liddle dear--you döan't mean----"

"Of course I mean. You needn't look so surprised. Such a thing has been known to happen."

"Döan't go laughing at me, but tell me--when?"

"In October."

"Oh, God! oh, God!"

His rapture and excitement alarmed her. His eyes blazed--he threw back his head and laughed in ecstasy. Then he seized her, and crumpled her to him, covering her face, her neck, her hair, her ears, with kisses, murmuring broken phrases of adoration and gratitude.

Rose was definitely frightened, and broke free with some violence.

"Oh, stop it, Ben! can't you see you're spoiling my dress? Why should you get in such a taking? You've had children before, and they've all been failures--I expect this one will only be like the rest."

§ 10.

Rose's child was born towards the end of October. Once more Reuben had a son, and as he looked down on the little red hairless thing all his hopes and dreams were built anew. He had always lived too near the earth to let experience thump him into cynicism. He raised as glorious dreams over this baby as he had raised over the others, and seen crumble into ashes. Indeed, the fact that his earlier hopes had failed made him warm himself more gratefully at this rekindling. He saw himself at last raised out of the pit of difficulty--he would not lose this boy as he had lost the others, he would perhaps be softer and more indulgent, he would at all events be wiser, and the child should indeed be a son to him and to Odiam. "Unto Us--Reuben and Odiam--a child is born; unto Us a son is given."

He was soon confirmed in his idea that the birth had brought him luck. Before little David was a week old, the welcome news came that Lardner had died. For some time he had been able to swallow only milk food, and his speech had been reduced to a confused roaring, but his death at this juncture seemed to Reuben a happy coincidence, an omen of good fortune for himself and his son.

He was so pleased that he forgot to veil his pleasure before Rose, whose grief reminded him of the fact that Lardner was a near and dear relation, whose death must be looked upon as a chastisement from heaven. In a fit of compunction for his behaviour, he ordered a complete suit of mourning, in which he attended the funeral. He was soft and benign to all men now, and soothed Rose's ruffled spirit by showing himself to her in all the glory of a top-hat with crape weepers before setting out for Starvecrow.

He himself had helped plan the obsequies, which were carried out with all possible pomp by a Rye undertaker. After the ceremony there was a funeral meal at Starvecrow, where sedate joints and solemn whiskies were partaken of in the right spirit by the dozen or so men and women who were privileged to hear old Lardner's will. This was read by the deceased's lawyer, and one or two pleased malicious glances were darted at Reuben from under decorously lowered lids. He sat with his fists doubled upon his knees, hearing as if in a nightmare:

"I bequeath the farm of Starvecrow, with all lands, stock, and
tools pertaining thereto, also the house and fixtures, together
with seven thousand pounds to Henry Robert Crick of Lone Mills,
Ontario, Canada, my dear son by Marion Crick.... My household
furniture and fifty pounds free of legacy duty I bequeath to my
niece, Rose Backfield, wife of Reuben Backfield of Odiam."

Reuben felt dazed and sick, the solemn faces of the mourners seemed to leer at him, he was seized by a contemptuous hatred of his kind. There was some confused buzzing talk, but he did not join in it. He shook hands deliriously with the lawyer, muttered something about having to get back, and elbowed his way out of the room. Pete had driven over to fetch him in his gig, as befitted the dignity of a yeoman farmer and nephew-by-marriage of the deceased, but Reuben angrily bade him go home alone. He could not sit still, he must walk, stride off his fury, the frenzy of rage and disgust and disappointment that consumed him.

What business had old Lardner to have a natural son? Never had the laws of morality seemed to Reuben so august and necessary as then, or their infringement more contemptible. He was filled with a righteous loathing of this crapulous libertine who perpetuated the vileness of some low intrigue by bequeathing his worldly goods to his bastard. Meantime his virtuously married niece was put off with fifty pounds and some trashy furniture. Reuben fairly grovelled before the seventh commandment that afternoon.

He staggered blindly along the road. His head swam with rage, and also, it must be confessed, with something else--for he was not used to drinking whisky, which some obscure local tradition considered the only decent beverage at funerals. His face was flushed, and every now and then something would be whirled round by the wind and whip his cheeks and blind him momentarily in a black cloud. At first he was too confused to grapple with it, but when two long black arms suddenly wound themselves about his neck, nearly choking him, he remembered his hat with the crape weepers, and his rage from red-hot became white-hot and cinerating. He tore off the hat with its long black tails, and flung it into the ditch with a volley of those emasculate oaths which are all the swearing of a Sussex man.

Afterwards he felt better, but he was still fuming when he came to Odiam, and dashed up straight to Rose's bedroom, where she lay with the ten-days-old David and a female friend from Rye, who had come in to hear details about her confinement. Both, not to say all three, were startled by Reuben's sudden entrance, crimson and hatless, his collar flying, the dust all over him.

"Here! Wot d'you think?" he shouted; "if that old man äun't left all his money to a bastard."

"Don't be so excited, Ben," said Rose; "you've no business to come bursting in here like this."

"Remember your wife's delicate," said the lady friend.

"Well, wot I want to know is why you dudn't tell me all this afore."

"How could I? I didn't know how uncle was going to leave his money."

"You might have found out, and not let me in fur all this. Here I've bin and gone and spent all your settlements on a milk-round, which I'd never have done if I hadn't thought summat more 'ud be coming in later."

"Well, I can't help it. I expect that as uncle knew I was well provided for, married and settled and all that, he thought he'd rather leave his stuff to someone who wasn't."

"I like that--and you the most expensive woman to keep as ever was.

"Hold your tongue, Ben. I'm surprised at you."

"I justabout will speak. A purty mess you've got me into. You ought to have told me before we married as he had a son out in Canada."

"I didn't know. This is the first I've heard of it. Anyhow, you surely don't mean to say you married me for my money."

"Well, I wouldn't have married you if you hadn't got none."

"For Shame!" said the lady friend.

Rose burst into tears, and young David, interrupted in the midst of an excellent meal, sent up a piercing wail.

"You'd better go downstairs till you know how to speak to your wife properly," said the female from Rye.

"My wife's deceived me!" shouted Reuben. "I made sure as she'd come in fur thousands of pounds when old Lardner died, and all she's got out of him is fifty pounds and his lousy furniture."

"Furniture?" said Rose, brisking up; "why from what you said I thought there was nothing. I could do with some furniture. I want a bedstead with brass knobs."

"Well, you shan't have it. I'll justabout sell the whole lot. You can't prevent me."

Rose's sobs burst forth afresh. Her friend ran up to her and took her in her arms, badly squeezing poor David, who became purple and entirely animal in his remonstrances.

Then the two women fairly stormed at Reuben. They told him he was a money-grubber, an unnatural father, that he had been drinking, that he ought to be ashamed of himself, that he had only got what he deserved. Reuben tried to stand up to them, but Rose had an amazing power of invective, and her friend, who was a spinster, but sometimes forgot it, filled in the few available pauses so effectively that in the end the wretched husband was driven from the room, feeling that the world held even worse things than wealthy and perfidious libertines.

§ 11.

Of course there was a reconciliation. Such things had begun to loom rather large in Reuben's married life. He had never had reconciliations with Naomi--the storms had not been fierce enough to warrant a special celebration of the calms. But he and Rose were always being reconciled. At first he had looked upon these episodes as sweets of matrimony, more blessed than any amount of honeymoon, but now he had gone a stage further and saw them merely as part of the domestic ritual--that very evening when he held Rose and the baby together in his big embrace he knew that in a day or two he would be staling the ceremony by another repetition.

He now began to crave for her active interest in his concerns. Hitherto he had not much missed it, it had been enough for him if when he came in tired and dispirited from his day's work, she had kissed him and rumpled back the hair from his forehead and called him her "poor old man." Her caresses and sympathy had filled the gap left by her help and understanding. But now he began to want something more. He saw the hollowness of her endearments, for she did nothing to make his burden lighter. She refused to realise the seriousness of his position--left stranded with an under taking which he would never have started if he had not been certain of increased capital in the near future. She was still extravagant and fond of pleasure, she either could not or would not master the principles of economy; she saw the fat lands of Odiam round her, and laughed at her husband when he told her that he was crippled with expenses, and in spite of crops and beasts and barns must live as if he were a poor man.

Of course, he had been rash--he saw now that he had been a fool to speculate with the future. But who could have foretold that heir of Lardner's?--no one had ever heard of him in Peasmarsh, and most people were as astonished as Reuben though not so disgusted. Sometimes he had an uneasy feeling that Lardner himself had not thought much about his distant son till a year or two ago. He remembered how the old man had disapproved of the way Rose's settlements were spent, and horrible conjectures would assail him that some earlier will had been revoked, and Rose disinherited because her uncle did not wish to put more money into her husband's pocket.

After all, fifty pounds and some furniture was very little to leave his only niece, who had lived with him, and had been married from his house. It was nonsense to plead the excuse that she was comfortably settled and provided for--the old man knew that Backfield had made a desperate plunge and could not recoup himself properly without ready money. He must have drawn up his will in the spirit of malice--Reuben could imagine him grinning away in his grave. "Well, Ben Backfield, I've justabout sold you nicely, haven't I?--next to no capital, tedious heavy expenses, and a wife who döan't know the difference between a shilling and a soverun. You thought you'd done yourself unaccountable well, old feller, I reckon. Now you've found out your mistake. And you can't git even wud me where I am. He! He!"

Reuben would imagine the corpse saying all sorts of insulting things to him, and he had horrible nightmares of its gibes and mockery. One night Rose woke in the dubious comfort of the new brass bed--which she had wheedled Reuben into sparing from the auction--to find her husband kneeling on his pillow and pinning some imaginary object against the wall while he shouted--"I've got you, you old grinning ghosty--now we'll see who's sold!"

She thought this immensely funny, and retailed it with glee to her female friends who continued to invade the place. The multitude of these increased as time went by, for Rose had the knack of attaching women to herself by easy bonds. She was extremely confidential on intimate subjects, and she was interested in clothes--indeed in that matter she was even practical, and a vast amount of dressmaking was done on the kitchen table, much to the disorganisation of Caro's cooking.

Sometimes there would be males too, and Reuben found that he could be jealous on occasion. It annoyed him to see a young counter-jumper from Rye sitting in the parlour with an unmanly tea-cup, and he would glare on such aristocracy as a bank-clerk or embryo civil servant, whose visits Rose considered lent a glamour to Odiam. Like a wise woman she used her husband's jealousy to her own advantage. She soon grew extremely skilful in manipulating it, and by its means wrung a good deal out of him which would not otherwise have been hers.

It was true that her young men were not always on the spot when she wanted them most, but on these occasions she used the drover Handshut, a comely, well-set-up young fellow, of independent manners. Reuben more than once had to drive him out of the kitchen.

"I wöan't have my lads fooling it in the house," he said to his wife, when he found her winding a skein of wool off Handshut's huge brown paws--"they've work enough to do outside wudout spannelling after you women."

Rose smiled to herself, and when she next had occasion to punish Reuben, invited his drover to a cup of tea.

Then there was an angry scene, stormings and tears, regrets, taunts, and abuse--and another reconciliation.

§ 12.

In time, as these battles became more usual, the family were forced to take sides. Peter supported Reuben, Caro supported Rose. There had been an odd kind of friendship between the downtrodden daughter and the gay wife ever since they had unpacked the latter's trunks together on her wedding night and Caro had cried because Rose had what she might never have.

Rose approved of this attitude--she liked to be envied; also Caro was useful to her in many ways, helping her in the house, taking the burden of many irksome duties off her shoulders, leaving her free to entertain her friends or mix complexion washes. Moreover, there was something in Caro which appealed in itself, a certain heavy innocence which tickled the humour of the younger, more-experienced woman. Once her stepdaughter had asked her what it felt like to be kissed, which had sent Rose into rockings of laughter and a carnival of reminiscence. She liked to dazzle this elderly child with her "affairs," she liked to shock her a little too. She soon discovered that Caro was deeply scandalised at the thought of a married woman having men friends to visit her, so she encouraged the counter-jumpers and the clerks for Caro's benefit as well as Reuben's.

It never occurred to her to throw these young people together, and give the girl a chance of fighting her father and satisfying the vague longings for adventure and romance which had begun to put torment into her late twenties. She often told her it was a scandal that she had never been allowed to know men, but her own were too few and useful to be sacrificed to the forlorn. Besides, Caro had an odd shy way with men which sometimes made them laugh at her. She had little charm, and though not bad-looking in a heavy black-browed style, she had no feminine arts, and always appeared to the very worst advantage.

Those were not very good times for Caro. She envied Rose, and at the same time she loved her, as women will so often love those they envy. Rose's attitude was one of occasional enthusiasm and occasional neglect. Sometimes she would give her unexpected treats, make her presents of clothes, or take her to a fair or to see the shops; at others she would seem to forget all about her. She thought Caro a poor thing for not standing up to Reuben, and despised her for her lack of feminine wiles. At the same time she would often be extremely confidential, she would pour out stories of love and kisses by moonlight, of ardent words, of worship, of ecstasy, and send Caro wandering over strange paths, asking strange questions of herself and fate, and sometimes--to the other's delight--of Rose.

"Wot do you do to make a man kiss you?"

"Oh, I dunno. I just look at him like this with my eyes half shut. Then if that isn't enough I part my lips--so."

The two women had been bathing. It was one of Rose's complaints that Odiam did not make enough provision for personal cleanliness in the way of baths and tubs. Reuben objected if she made the servant run up and downstairs ten times or so with jugs of hot water to fill a wash-tub in her bedroom--they had once had a battle royal about it, during which Rose had said some humorous things about her man's washing--so in summer she relieved the tension by bathing in the Glotten brook, where it ran temporarily limpid and reclused at the foot of the old hop-garden. She had persuaded Caro to join her in this adventure--according to her ideas it was not becoming for a woman to bathe alone; so Caro had conquered her objections to undressing behind a bush, and tasted for the first time the luxury of a daily, or all but daily, bath.

Now they were dry and dressed once more, all except their stockings, for Rose loved to splash her bare feet in the water--she adored the caress of water on her skin. It was a hot day, the sun blinked through the heavy green of the sallows, dabbling the stream with spots and ripples of light. June had come, with a thick swarthiness in the fields, and the scent of hayseed scorching into ripeness.

Rose leaned back against a trunk, a froth of fine linen round her knees. She splashed and kicked her feet in the stream.

"Yes--I've only to look at a man like this ... and he always does it."

"But not now!" cried Caro.

"What do you mean by 'not now'?"

"Now you're married."

"Oh, no--I'm talking of before. All the same...."

"Wot!"

"Nothing. You'd be shocked."

Caro looked gloomily at the water. She did not like being told she would be shocked, though she knew she would be.

At that moment there was a sound of "git back" and "woa" beyond the hedge. The next minute two horses stepped into the Glotten just by the bend.

"That must be Handshut," said Rose.

It was. He came knee-deep into the water with the horses, and, not seeing the women, plunged his head into the cool reed-sweetened stickle.

"Take care--he'll see us!"--and Caro sharply gathered up her legs under her blue and red striped petticoat. Rose continued to dabble hers in the water, even after Handshut had lifted his head and looked in her direction.

"Rose!" cried Caro.

"Well, why shouldn't he see my legs? They're unaccountable nice ones."

"All the more reason----"

"Not at all, Miss Prude."

Caro went crimson to the roots of her hair, and began pulling on her stockings. Rose continued to splash her feet in the water, glancing sidelong at Handshut.

"He's a nice lad, ain't he?"

Caro vouchsafed no reply.

"Reuben knows he's a nice lad, and he knows I know he's a nice lad. Hasn't he got a lovely brown skin?"

"Hush."

But Rose was in a devilish mood.

"Look here," she said suddenly, "I'm going to prove the truth of what I told you just now. I'm going to make that boy kiss me."

"Indeed you äun't."

"Yes I am. I'll go down and talk to him at the bend, and you can creep along and watch us through the hedge; and I'll shut my eyes and maybe part my lips, and he'll kiss me, you see if he don't."

"I won't see anything of the kind. I'm ashamed of you."

"Nonsense--it's only fun--we'll make a bet on it. If I fail, I'll give you my new white petticoat with the lace edging. And I'll allow myself ten minutes to do it in; that's quite fair, for it usually takes me longer."

"And what am I to give you if you succeed?"

"Nothing--the kiss'll be enough for me. I've been wanting to know what he was like to kiss for many a long day."

"Well, I'm justabout ashamed of you, and I wöan't have anything to do with it."

"You can keep out then."

"Wot if I tell fäather?"

"You wouldn't tell him--you wouldn't be such a sneak. After all, what's a man for, if it isn't to have a bit of fun with? I don't mean anything serious--it's just a joke."

"What'll Handshut think it?"

"Just a joke too. You're so glum, Caro--you take everything so seriously. There's nothing really serious in a kiss."

"Oh, äun't there!"

"No--it's just something one enjoys, same as cakes and bull's-eyes. I've kissed dozens of people in my time and meant nothing by it, nor they either. It's because you've no experience of these things that you think such a lot of 'em. They're quite unimportant really, and it's silly to make a fuss."

For some obscure reason Caro did not like to see herself credited with the harshness of inexperience. She did her best to assume an air of worldly toleration.

"Well, of course if it's only fun.... But fäather wudn't think it that."

"No, and I shouldn't like him to. You _are_ funny, Caro. Don't watch me if you're shocked--you can know nothing about it, and then you won't be to blame. But I'm going to have my lark in spite of you."

"Put on your stockings first," said Caro sternly.

Rose made a face at her, but pulled on a pair of gauzy stockings, securing them with garters of pale blue ribbon. Then she scrambled to her feet and edged her way through the reeds and bushes to where young Handshut stood at the bend.

He was not visible from where Caro sat, for he had come out of the water, and for a minute or two she vowed that she would have nothing to do with Rose's disgraceful spree. But after a time her curiosity got the better of her. Would Rose be able to do as she said--persuade her husband's drover to kiss her, simply by looking at him through half-closed eyes? Of course Handshut was very forward, Caro told herself, she had often disliked his attitude towards his mistress--he would not want much encouragement. All the same she wanted to see if Rose succeeded, and if she succeeded--how. She craned her neck, but could see nothing till she had crept a few yards through the reeds. Then she saw Rose and Handshut sitting just beyond the hedge, by the water's rim.

The horses were drowsing in the stream, flicking at the flies with their tails. Rose's dress made a brave blue splash against the green, and the gold-flecked chestnut of her hair was very close to Handshut's brown curls. Caro could dimly hear their voices, though she could not distinguish what they said. Five minutes had passed, and still, though close, there was a decent space between them. Then there was a little lull in the flow of talk. They were looking at each other. Caro crept nearer, something like a hot cinder in her heart.

They were still looking at each other. Then Handshut began to speak in a lower voice than usual; he stopped--and suddenly their heads stooped together, the gold and the brown touched, mingled, lingered, then drew slowly apart.

Caro sprang to her feet. The couple in the field had risen too, but they did not see her through the hedge. Her heart beat fiercely with an uncontrollable anger. She could have shouted, screamed at them--at her rather, this gay, comfortable, plump, spoilt wife, who had so many kisses that she could look upon one more or less as fun.

Rose's merry, rather strident laugh rang out on the hushed noon. Handshut stood facing her with his head held down; then she turned away from him and laughed again. Her laugh rose, fluttered--then suddenly broke.

It snapped like a broken knife. She turned back towards Handshut, and they faced each other once more. Then Caro saw a strange and rather terrible thing. She saw those two who had kissed for fun stumble together in an embrace which was not for fun at all, and kiss with kisses that were closer to tears than laughter.

§ 13.

There was a convention of silence between Caro and Rose. From that day forward neither made any allusion to the escapade which had ended so unexpectedly. At the same time it was from the other's silence that each learned most; for Caro knew that if her eyes had deceived her and that last kiss been like the first, for fun, Rose would have spoken of it--while Rose knew that Caro had seen the transmutation of her joke into earnest, because if she had not she would have been full of comments, questions, and scoldings.

Sometimes Caro in her innocence would think that she ought to speak to Rose, warn her, and plead with her to go carefully. But a vague fright sealed her lips, and she was held at a distance by the reserve in which the merry communicative Rose had suddenly wrapped herself. Those few minutes by the brookside had changed her, though it would be hard to say exactly in what the change lay. Caro was both repelled and baffled by it. A more skilled observer would say that Rose had become suddenly adult in her outlook as well as her emotions. For the first time she had seen in its sorrowful reality the force which she had played with for so many years. The shock disorganised her, drove her into a strange silence. Love and she had always been hail-fellow-well-met, they had romped and rollicked together through life; she had never thought that her good comrade could change, or rather--more unimaginable still--that she should suddenly discover that she had never really known him.

She was sobered. Her attitude towards things insensibly altered--to her husband, her child, her servants she was different, and yet in such a manner that none could possibly lay hands on the difference. Reuben's jealousies and suspicions were increased. She avoided Handshut, and she flourished the shopmen and clerks but feebly, yet he mistrusted her in a way he had never done when her enthusiasms were flagrant. This was not due to any psychological deduction, rather to a vague kind of guess, an intuition, an uneasiness that communicated itself from her to him.

Rose had begun to question her attitude towards her husband. She had hitherto never doubted for a moment that she loved him--of course she loved him! But now she asked herself--"If I love him, how is it that our most tender moments have never meant so much to me as that second kiss of Handshut's?" None of Reuben's kisses stood out in her memory as that kiss, he had never made the thrill of life go through her, he had never filled her heart to bursting with joy so infinite that it was sorrow, and sorrow so exquisite that it was joy. She would observe Reuben, and she would see him--old. He was fifty-four, and his hair was grey; there were crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes, and straight lines between his brows, where he had furrowed them as the pitiless sun beat down upon his face. There were other lines too, seamed and scored by hard struggles. He was strong as an ox, but she told herself he was beginning to move a bit stiffly. He had exposed himself so ruthlessly to the wet and cold that his joints had become rheumatic. It was nothing very much, but he liked to have her rub them occasionally, and up till then she had liked it too. Now she suddenly saw something dreary and preposterous in it--here she was married to a man thirty years older than herself, his chattel, his slave. She did not really love him--how could she, with all those years between them? She was fond of him, that was all--and he was getting older, and horribly cantankerous; and she was young--oh, God! she had never known till then how young.

Then suddenly it all changed. One day she found herself alone with Handshut--and nothing happened. His manner was quite that of the respectful servant towards his mistress, he made no allusion to the scene by the brook, spoke entirely of indifferent things. And she, she herself--that was the biggest, best surprise of all--did not feel the slightest embarrassment, or the slightest pang. On the contrary, all the passion which had scorched and withered her heart since the day of the kiss, seemed to die away, leaving her the old Rose, gay, confident, and at peace with all men.

She had been a fool--she had brooded over a little trivial incident till it had assumed unwarranted proportions and frightened her. Nothing whatever had happened to her and Handshut--they had shared a joke, that was all. She did not love him, she loved her husband, and she was a fool to have thought anything else. Love was not a drama or a tragedy, but a game and a lark, or at times a comfortable emotion towards one's lawful husband, who was the best and finest man in the world.

The joy of this discovery quite restored Rose, and she flirted with Handshut so outrageously in front of Reuben, that afterwards they had one of the biggest quarrels of their lives.

§ 14.

'Seventy-four was another bad year for Odiam, and it was more hopeless than its predecessors, for Reuben had now no expectations to sustain him. His position was really becoming serious. In '68 he had bought more land than he could afford, for fear that Grandturzel would buy it if he did not, and in '71 he had started his accursed milk-round, which had proved nothing but an expense and a failure. He still clung to it, for the shop by the Landgate gave him prestige, and he had always hoped that affairs would mend, but he was gradually coming to realise that prestige can be bought too dear, and that his affairs were too heavily clogged to improve of their own accord.

He must take steps, he must make some sacrifice. He resolved to sell the milk-round. It was either that or a mortgage, and a mortgage was far the greater ignominy. After all he had not had the round more than two or three years, it had never flourished, and the parting wrench would not be a bad one. Of course his reputation would suffer, but hard cash was at the present moment more valuable than reputation.

Unfortunately it was also more difficult to get. Those years had been bad for everybody, and none of the surrounding farmers seemed disposed to add to his burdens by so uncertain a deal. If the thing had not thriven with Backfield it was not likely to thrive with anyone else. For the first time Reuben cursed his own renown.

However, he hoped better things from the next spring. If lambing was good and the season promising, farmers would not be so cautious. Meantime he would keep Odiam in chains, he would save every penny, skim, pare, retrench, and learn the lesson of his lean years.

Unfortunately he had reckoned without Rose--Rose saw no need for such drastic measures. Because her man had been venturesome and stupid, made rash speculations, and counted on a quite unwarranted legacy, that was no reason for her to go without her new spring gown or new covers for her parlour chairs. She was once more expecting motherhood, and considered that as a reward for such self-sacrifice the most expensive luxuries were inadequate.

At the same time, feeling quite at ease about herself and Handshut, she led Reuben a freakish dance of jealousy, going to extravagant lengths in the hope of breaking down his resistance and goading him into compliance. But she did not find jealousy such a good weapon as it had used to be. Reuben would grow furious, thundery and abusive, but she never caught him, as formerly, in the softness of reaction, nor did the fear of a rival stimulate any more profitable emotion than rage.

The truth was that Reuben had now become desperate. He could not give in to Rose. If he sacrificed his farm to her in the smallest degree he ran the risk of ruin. He was torn in two by the most powerful forces of his life. On one side stood Odiam, trembling on the verge of catastrophe, needing every effort, every sacrifice of his, every drop of his sweat, every drop of his blood. On the other stood Rose, the dearest human thing, who demanded that for her sake he should forget his farm and the hopes bound up in it. He would not do so--and at the same time he would not lose Rose. Though her love no longer gave him the gift of peace, he still clung to it; her presence, her voice, her touch, still fired and exalted him. He would not let her go--and he would not let Odiam go.

The struggle was terrible; it wore him out. He fought it desperately--to neither side would he surrender an inch. Sometimes with Rose's arms about him, her soft cheek against his and her perfidy forgotten, he would be on the brink of giving her the pretty costly thing, whatever it was, that she wanted at the expense of Odiam. At others, out in his fields, or on the slope of Boarzell--half wild, half tamed--with all those unconquered regions swelling above him, he would feel that he could almost gladly lose Rose altogether, if to keep her meant the sacrifice of one jot of his ambition, one tittle of his hope. Then he would go home, and find her ogling Handshut through the window, or giving tea in her most seductive manner to some young idiot with clean hands--and round would go the wheel again--round and round....

As a matter of fact he had never been so secure of Rose as then; the very shamelessness of her flirtations was a proof of it--a whoop of joy, so to speak, at finding herself free of what she had feared would be a devastating passion. But who could expect Reuben to guess that? He saw only the freak of a treacherous nature, turning from him to men younger and more compliant than himself. Jealousy, from a fit, became a habit. He grew restless and miserable--he would run in suddenly from his work to see what his wife was doing, he would cross-examine Caro, he would even ask Pete to keep an eye on her. Sometimes he thought of dismissing Handshut, but the lad was an excellent drover, and Reuben had bursts of sanity in which he saw the foolishness of such a sacrifice. Rose flirted nowadays with every man she met--she was, he told himself furiously, a thoroughly light and good-for-nothing girl--she was not worth the loss of a fellow like Handshut.

Thus the days dragged on wretchedly for everyone except Rose, and in time they grew wretched for her too. She began to tire of the cracklings of the flame she had kindled, of Reuben's continued distrust and suspicion, of Caro's goggle-eyed disapproval, of Peter's spying contempt. The time of her lying-in drew nearer, she had to give up her gay doings, and felt frightened and alone. Everyone was against her, everyone disapproved of her. She began to wish that she had not found her love for Handshut to be an illusion, to wish that the kiss beside the Glotten brook had been in reality what she had dreamed it.... After all, is it not better to embrace the god and die than to go through the unhappy days in darkness?

§ 15.

One evening when Reuben was out inspecting a sick cow, Rose lay on the sofa languidly shelling peas. Once more it was June, and a rusty heat was outside blurring the orchard. Her fingers often lay idle in the bowl of peas, for though her task relieved the sweltering boredom which had weighed on her all day, every now and then a great lassitude would sweep over her, slacking her muscles, slacking her thoughts, till she drooped into a vague stagnation of sorrow.

She felt horribly, uselessly tired, her gay spirits had trickled from her in sheer physical discomfort, and in her heart an insistent question writhed like a little flame.

Two tears formed slowly in the corners of her eyes, welled at last over the silky, spidery lashes, and rolled down her cheeks. In themselves they were portents--for Rose hardly ever cried. More wonderful still, she did not know that she was crying, she merely became stupidly conscious of a smudging of those motionless trees beyond the garden, and a washing of the hard, copper-coloured sky.

She feebly put up her hand and brushed the veil away--already something strange had loomed through it, whipping her curiosity. A man was at the window, his head and shoulders dark against the sunset.

"Handshut!"

"Yes, ma'am."

She frowned, for she seemed to catch a ring of mockery in the respectful words. She wondered if it had always been there.

"Where's master?"

"In the shed with Brindle."

"And how is she?"

"I dunno--we've sent for the veterinary."

There was silence. Outside the flowers rustled in the slow hot breeze. The background of trees was growing dim, a web of shadow at the foot of the garden.

Handshut still leaned on the sill, and she realised that if his words were decorous, his attitude was not. Surely he had something better to do than hang in at her window. Half his face was in shadow, half was reddened by the smouldering sky--it was the face of a young gipsy, brown, sullen, and mocking. She suddenly pulled herself into a sitting posture.

"What are you staying for?--I reckon the master wants you."

"No--it's you that wants me, surelye."

The blood ebbed from her lips. She felt afraid, and yet glad. Then suddenly she realised what was happening and dragged herself back into dignity and anger.

"I don't want you."

"Yes you do."

"Kindly go at once, or I shall call someone."

"Rose!"

Once more she fell back into her state of terror and delight. His coolness seemed to paralyse her--she could not act. She could only lie and watch him, trembling. Why had he changed so?--he, who had never faltered in his attitude of stiff respect under her most outrageous and flirtatious digs.

"Rose," he said again, and his voice quivered as he said it, "you do want me a liddle bit now."

"What--what makes you think so?"

He shrugged his shoulders--there must have been some foreign streak in his yokel's blood.

"I döan't think it--I know. A year agone you dudn't want me, so I kipt back, I wurn't a-going to mäake you suffer. You wur frightened of that kiss...."

He had spoken it--her terror. "Don't!" she cried.

"You wur frightened, so I saw you wurn't ready, and I tried to mäake you feel as naun had happened."

"Yes, I thought you were a gentleman," she said with a sudden rap of anger.

"I äun't that. I'm just a poor labouring man, wot loves you, and wot you love."

She tried to speak, but the words burnt up in her mouth.

"And a labouring man you love's worth more than a mäaster you döan't love, I reckon."

She shrank back on the sofa, folding her arms over her breast and gripping her shoulders.

"You needn't look so frightened. I'm only saying it. It wöan't mäake no difference--unless you want it to."

"How dare you speak to me like this?"

"Because I see you're justabout miserable, and I thought I'd say as how I'm beside you--only that."

"How--how d'you know I'm miserable?"

"Plain enough."

The sky had faded behind him and a crimson moon looked over his shoulder.

"Plain enough," he repeated, "but you needn't be scared. I'll do naun you döan't want; I'll come no nearer you than I am now--unless you call me."

She burst into tears.

He did not move. His head and shoulders were now nothing but a dark block against the purple and blue of the sky. The moon hung just above him like a copper dish.

"Döan't cry," he said slowly--"I'm only looking in at the window."

She struggled to her feet, sobs shaking and tearing her, and stumbled through the darkness to the door. Still sobbing she dragged herself upstairs, clinging to the rail, and every now and then stopping and bending double. Her loud sobs rang through the house, and soon the womenfolk were about her, questioning her, soothing her, and in the end putting her, still weeping, to bed. While outside in the barn Reuben watched in agony beside a sick cow.

§ 16.

When late the next morning a woman ran out of the house into the cow-stable, and told Reuben that his wife had given him a fine boy, he merely groaned and shook his head.

He sat on a stool at the foot of Brindle's stall, and watched her as she lay there, slobbering her straw. His face was grim and furrowed, lines scored it from nose to mouth and across the forehead; his hair was damp and rough on his temples, his eyes were dull with sleeplessness.

"Wöan't yer have summat t'eat, mäaster?" asked Beatup, looking in.

All Reuben said was:

"Has the Inspector come?"

"No, mäaster--I'll bring him räound soon as he does. Wöan't you have a bite o' cheese if I fetch it?"

Reuben shook his head.

"Mäaster----" continued the man after a pause.

"Well?"

"I hear as how it's a liddle son...."

Reuben mumbled something inarticulate, and Beatup took himself off. His master's head fell between his clenched hands, and as the cow gave a sudden slavering cough in the straw, a shudder passed over his skin, and he hunched himself more despairingly.

Odiam had triumphed at last. Just when Reuben's unsettled allegiance should have been given entirely to the wife who had borne him a son, his farm had suddenly snatched from him all his thought, all his care, his love, and his anxiety, all that should have been hers. It seemed almost as if some malignant spirit had controlled events, and for Rose's stroke prepared a counter-stroke that should effectually drive her off the field. The same evening that Rose had gone weeping and shuddering upstairs, Reuben had interviewed the vet. from Rye and heard him say "excema epizootica." This had not conveyed much, so the vet. had translated brutally:

"Foot-and-mouth disease."

The most awful of a farmer's dooms had fallen on Reuben. The new Contagious Diseases of Animals Act made it more than probable that all his herd would have to be slaughtered. Of course, there would be a certain amount of compensation, but government compensation was never adequate, and with the multitudinous expenses of disinfecting and cleansing he was likely to sustain some crippling losses, just when every penny was vital to Odiam. He knew of a man who had been ruined by an outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia, of another who had been forced by swine-fever to sell half his farm. Besides, any hope of a deal over his milk-round was now at an end. His dairy business, whether in town or country, was destroyed, and his reputation would be probably as unjustly damaged, so that he would not be able to adventure on that road for years--perhaps never again.

Small wonder, then, that the birth of a son brought no joy. The child was born to an inheritance of shame, the heir of disaster. Reuben's head bowed nearly to his knees. He felt old and broken. He began to see that it was indeed dreadfully possible that he had thriven all these years, conquered waste lands, and enriched fat lands, only to be overthrown at last by a mere arbitrary piece of ill-luck. How the disease had broken out he could not tell--he had bought no foreign cattle, indeed recently he had bought no cattle at all. He could not blame himself in the smallest degree; it was just a malignant capricious thrust--as if fate had wanted to show him that what had taken him years of labour and battle and sacrifice to build up, could be destroyed in as many days.

A little hope sustained him till the Inspector's visit--the vet. might have been mistaken, the Inspector might not order a wholesale destruction. But these faint sparks were soon extinguished. The loathed epidemic had undoubtedly lifted up its head at Odiam, and Reuben's entire herd of Jersey, Welsh, and Sussex cattle was doomed to slaughter.

The next few days were like a horrible jumbled nightmare, something malignant, preposterous, outside experience. Three men came over from the slaughterhouse at Rye, and plied their dreadful work till evening. The grey and dun-coloured Jerseys with their mild, protruding eyes, the sturdy Welsh with their little lumpy horns, the Sussex all coloured like a home-county landscape in reds and greys and browns--bowed their meek heads under the ox-killer, and became mere masses of meat and horn and hide. Profitless masses, too, for all the carcases were ordered to be burned.

The nightmare had its appropriate ending. Sixty dead beasts were burned in lime. Boarzell became Hinnom--it was the most convenient open space, so Reuben's herd was burned on it. From a dozen different pyres streamers of white smoke flew along the wind, and a strange terrible smell and tickling of the nostrils troubled the labourer on the westward lands by Flightshot or Moor's Cottage.

The neighbourhood sat up in thrilled dismay, and watched Odiam pass through its hour. The farm was shut off from civilisation by a barrier of lime--along every road that flanked it, outside every gate that opened on it, the stuff of fiery purification was spread. The fields with their ripening oats and delicately browned wheat, the orchards where apples trailed the boughs into the grass, the snug red house, and red and brown barns, the black, turrets of the oasts, all cried "Unclean! Unclean!"

Odiam was a leper. None might leave it without rubbing his boots in lime, no beasts could be driven beyond its hedges. More, the curse afflicted the guiltless--the markets at Rye and Battle were forbidden, the movements of cattle were restricted, and Coalbran once indignantly showed Reuben a certificate which he found he must have ready to produce every time he moved his single cow across the lane from the hedge pasture to the stream fallow.

Public opinion was against Backfield, and blamed him surlily for the local inconvenience.

"Döan't tell me," said Coalbran in the bar, "as it wurn't his fault. Foot-and-mouth can't just drop from heaven. He must have bought some furriners, and they've carried it wud 'em, surelye."

"Serve un right," said Ticehurst.

"Still, I'm sorry for him," said Realf of Grandturzel--"he's the only man hereabouts wot's really made a serious business of farming, and it's a shame he should get busted."

"He äun't busted yet," said Coalbran.

"But you mark my words, he will be," said Ticehurst; "anyways I shud lik him to be, fur he's a high-stomached man, and only deserves to be put down."

"He's down enough now, surelye! I saw him only yesterday by the Glotten meadows, and there was a look in his eye as I'll never forget."

"And yit he's as proud as the Old Un himself. I met him on Thursday, and I told him how unaccountable sorry we all wur fur him, and he jest spat."

"I offered to help him wud his burning," said Realf, "and he said as he'd see me and my lousy farm burnt first."

"He's a tedious contradictious old feller--he desarves all he's got. Let's git up a subscription fur him--that ud cut him to the heart, and he wudn't täake it, so it ud cost us naun, nuther."

The rest of the bar seemed to think, however, that Reuben might take the money out of spite, so Coalbran's charitable suggestion collapsed for lack of support.

Meantime, so fast bound in the iron of his misery that he scarcely felt the prick of tongues, Reuben lived through the final stages of his nightmare--those final stages of shock and upheaval when the fiery torment of the dream dies down into the ashes of waking. He wandered over his land in his lime-caked boots, scarcely talking to those at work on it, directing with mere mechanical activity the labour which now seemed to him nothing but the writhings of a crushed beetle. Everyone felt a little afraid of him, everyone avoided him as much as possible--he was alone.

His nostrils were always full of the smart of lime, and the stench of those horrible furnaces belching away on the slopes of the Moor. Would that burning never be done? For days the yellowy white pennons of destruction had flown on Boarzell, and that acrid reek polluted the harvest wind. Boarzell was nothing but a huge funeral pyre, a smoking hell.... "And the smoke of her went up for ever and ever."

§ 17.

An atmosphere of gloom lay over Odiam; Reuben brought it with him wherever he went, and fogged the house with it as well as the barns. Even Rose felt an aching pity for her strong man, something quite different from the easy gushes of condolence which had used to be all she could muster in the way of sympathy.

But Reuben did not take much notice of Rose, nor even of his little son. Now and then he would look at them together, sigh impatiently, then go out of the room.

Sometimes he would be more interested, and, in a fit of reaction from his proud loneliness, turn to her as of old for comfort. But those were the bitterest hours of all, for in them he would glimpse a difference, an aloofness. She had been much quieter since the birth of the second boy, she had not recovered her health so rapidly, and her eyes were big in the midst of bistred rings. She had given up flirting with Handshut, or with the young men from Rye, but she did not turn from them to her husband. Though he could see she was sorry for him, he felt--vaguely, uncertainly, yet tormentingly--that she was not all his, as she had been in brighter months. Sometimes he did not much care--sometimes a dreadful passion would consume him, and once he caught her to his breast and bruised her in his arms, crying--"I wöan't lose you--I wöan't lose you too."

Rose could not read his mood; one day she would feel her husband had been alienated from her by his sorrow, another that his need of her was greater than ever. She herself carried a heavy heart, and in her mind a picture of the man who was "only looking in at the window." She seemed to see him standing there, with the moon rising over his shoulder, while from behind him something in the garden, in the night, called ... and called.