Chapter ONE: § 1

Sussex was as golden-brown as Sark, and from the downs came the same scent of hot thyme as came from the cliffs above Saignie. Otherwise there was nothing in the Ouse Valley to remind Daniel of the Norman isle. The twilight was full of mist, lying between the faintly curved ridges of the downs--there was no glamour save in the sky, where the west was the colour of a grape and the east was the colour of pale green leaves.

Daniel had economically taken the ’bus which ran several times a day between Lewes and Newhaven, leaving his luggage to follow by carrier the next morning. He felt tired after his journey, and a little sick--for under the oily blue calms of the surface heavy swells had moved and shuddered over the sea’s bed, and his change from boat to train at Southampton had only added to his discomfort, by depriving him of the fresh air. Now it was queer to smell the dust instead of the sea--the fine, white dust of the Newhaven road--and he had that curious, cradled feeling which he had so often known among the downs, watching their soft ridges lying above him against the sky.

He also had the same feeling as when he had come home after the war--the feeling of never having been away. The past two and a half years lay behind him like a dream, and the present hour seemed to close up with those tragic hours at the George, when he had just lost Belle, as the hour of waking closes with the hour of falling asleep. Indeed he was conscious of his loss of Belle as he had never been conscious during the last two years, and as he was not conscious of his loss of the girl who had really belonged to him--of Rose “_la chère épouse de Daniel Le Couteur ... nous n’avons rien apporté dans ce monde, et il est evident que nous n’en pouvons rien emporter_.” ... It seemed as if even his memory of her had stayed behind in Sark, and slept within sound of the sea under the white stone. No--it was not quite like that. There was something of her which he had brought away--one survival of that sea-blue interlude which was still with him now that he had returned to the main grey road of life. He looked down at Thomas Helier Sheather, asleep in his arms.

The baby was considerably less tired than his father. He had travelled comfortably, wrapped in his big white shawl, and he had not fared too ill by masculine attendance. Daniel had not miscalculated--a big tight-bodiced woman had taken charge of him on the _Lorena_, had given him his bottle after it had been warmed by the second-class stewardess, and attended to even more baffling wants, finally handing him over to a sister-woman, travelling in the coast-train, so that Daniel had not had actually the sole charge of him till Brighton. This had given him the happy illusion that babies are easily managed, and he looked down affectionately at Thomas Helier, cradled in his arms, and thought how good it would be to watch the little chap growing up, to see him beginning to look like his mother, perhaps ... _notre Helier_ ... he squeezed him in a passion of goodwill....

They were set down at the sign-post where the Telscombe lane starts on its brief roaming. At first Daniel had a moment of qualm, when he thought that Len had failed to meet him and that he would have to trudge with Thomas Helier three miles across the down. But the next minute he saw his brother’s trap coming round a bend--old bay Meg between the shafts, so different from the sad-eyed mules that had been his beasts of draught and burden for two years.

“Hullo!” said Dan.

“Hullo!” said Len.

“Whew!” he added, at the nearer sight of Thomas Helier.

“I squeezed him by mistake, and he’s been sick,” said Dan. “I wish you’d brought Emmie along.”

“Never mind. Jump up, and we’ll be at Brakey Bottom in half an hour. How old is he?”

“Six months. He was born the eleventh of April, and his mother died the same night.”

Len nodded sadly.

“We’ve all seen a bit of trouble since we were together last.”

“How’s Mum?”

“Oh, she’s well enough. Pretty sick with dad, as all of us are. She’ll be pleased to have the child.”

Daniel wondered.

“I can’t help thinking,” continued Len, “that none of this would have happened if you hadn’t gone away. You kept things just within bounds while you was at home, but directly you’d gone, nothing would stop dad ruining the business--and I can’t see that you’ve done much for yourself by going. Haven’t made a fortune out there, have you?”

“No--but I couldn’t very well have stayed at home with my last young lady living only just across the road as another man’s wife.”

“We never know what we can do till we try,” said Len oracularly.

§ 2

At Brakey Bottom his welcome was very much what he had expected. His mother kissed him and reproached him for having gone away, Christopher--whose good looks had become more striking in the last two years--gave him some languid attention, Emmie swooped in cordial competence upon Thomas Helier, and the children were friendly and noisy, even after it was discovered that Uncle Daniel had not brought any sweets.

“You don’t seem to have brought anything at all except yourself and the kid,” said Len. “Where’s your luggage?”

“Following on to-morrow from Lewes.”

“How are you off for money?”

“I’ve got a shilling.”

“And how d’you propose to live on that?”

“I don’t propose to live on it--nor on you, neither, so don’t worry. To-morrow I’m going out to look for work.”

“And it’s precious hard to find.”

“I know that--but I’ll find it somehow. I’ll take anything that’s going.”

“Well, I hope you’ll consider us, and not disgrace yourself too thoroughly. I’m just beginning to pull the farm up in spite of everything, and I’d as soon my brother wasn’t a railway porter or a dustman.”

“I’d be thankful if I could get as good a job as either--it’s more like to be cleaning sewers in Newhaven, or driving around a laundry cart.”

“Well, I don’t see anything to laugh about--what’s happened to you? You’ve come back in a fine good humour--our affairs don’t seem to bother you much.”

“He’s fallen in love again, perhaps,” shrilled Kitty; “he’s fallen in love with someone he met on the boat.”

“No fear, mum. I haven’t been widowed six months.”

“Then maybe it’s your marriage that has changed you. You look different--more set up.”

“You’re lucky to have been out of all our troubles,” said Leonard; “we’ve had some fine times here without you, and not a word from father since he sailed.”

“Oh, your father,” groaned Kitty; “he take me away from my dear country and my dear family and then he leave me. Did your uncles send me any message, Daniel?”

Daniel gave what ought to have been the messages of Uncle Philip and Uncle Eugene but were not.

His mother sat by him while he had his supper--the others had finished theirs--and he told her about the Pêche à Agneau and his cousins and a little about Moie Fano and Rose. But she did not really listen much; her mind was full of her own trouble. She spoke of Tom Sheather as if he had deserted her six months after their marriage, instead of thirty years.

“Oh, you men are cruel and faithless to us poor women, who work for you.”

“No, mum, we ain’t,” said Christopher, who was sitting at the table beside his mother. He rubbed his head against her shoulder--but she pushed him away.

“You do not love me--you are courting.”

“What, Chris courting?--who is she?”

“She’s Mary Wright at Exceat, and soon I shan’t have even him left----” and her tears flowed.

“You will--you will,” cried young Christopher. “Maybe I shan’t marry her, and if I do, she’ll have to say you’ll live along of us.”

“That always leads to trouble--the wife is always jealous of her husband’s mother.”

“Well, I don’t know as I shall marry her. I haven’t asked her yet, and seeing the way most marriages turn out, maybe I never will. Why, your girl, Dan, that you used to be so struck on, Belle Shackford that was, reckon she leads poor Ernley Munk a proper life--reckon he wouldn’t be so sorry to have his single days again.”

“What! ain’t they happy?” asked Daniel, uneasy.

Kitty shrugged.

“As happy as most, maybe--but there’s few men wouldn’t like to see their single days again soon after marriage. They all go off and leave us sooner or later.”

“But there’s been no trouble--no quarrel--has there?”

“Not that I know of--but most like a lot that I don’t.”

Daniel could not be sure whether his mother was speaking from the bitterness of her own grievance, or whether she really had grounds for her suspicions. He decided to let the matter drop for the moment, but Chris pursued it rather mercilessly.

“I remember how gone you used to be on her, Dan. Three years ago you’d have wanted to punch my head if I’d told you that you’d soon be marrying another woman.”

“Yes--thank God it all come to nothing!” cried Kitty; “and it is somebody else’s son who marries a woman who is not a lady.”

“What are you talking about, mother?”

“Well, no one can say Belle Shackford was ever a lady. I know how a lady should behave; and other people know--that is why they did not let their rooms for this September at the Crown. She’s a big scrambling thing--and she let the visitors see her with her hair down.... I myself see her with her hair hanging on her cheeks like straw, and her dress all undone at the back, so as you could see right through to her stays.”

Daniel blinked--somehow his mother’s broken words had called up an almost agonizing picture of Belle.

“Thank God you did not marry her,” continued Kitty. “And thank God you did not marry a Carré or a Hamon. I have nothing against the Falles, and I should have been pleased to meet your poor wife if she had not been taken. But she has been taken, and I hope that some day you will marry again, for the sake of the child. Christopher shall take you to see his Mary Wright.”

Daniel could not help laughing.

“Christopher, may I marry your Mary Wright?”

“You know I did not mean that,” sulked Kitty.

“Come, ma,” broke in Em Sheather, who had begun to clear the table; “I reckon Daniel’s tired after his journey and wants to go to bed. I’ve had to put you in with the children, Danny--I know you don’t mind, and I haven’t got room for you anywheres else.”

§ 3

The next morning Daniel went over to Bullockdean. He wanted to see Mr. Marchbanks and to see Ernley, and perhaps Belle. He would go to the rectory first, but before he went to it he must pass between the two inns that stared at each other across the village street. There they were--the George and the Crown; the creak of their signs in the wind seemed a familiar music, but he knew that the hearts of both had changed.

The Crown had changed outwardly too. It had grown a new wing, of red brick like the rest of the house, with clematis and virginia creeper already beginning to hide its crude contrast with the mellow, time-worn bricks of the old dwelling. The George had not changed--it looked cracked and mean as ever, and peering through the taproom window, Dan saw the bar as it always had been, except for a strange young man in his shirt-sleeves, serving Messrs. Hobday and Hitch’s beer to a couple of silent farm-hands.

Young Sheather could not resist the temptation to walk in and spend fourpence on a glass of the old bad ale. The man behind the bar was inclined to be friendly. He was the new landlord, he told Daniel--the former landlord had got into a mess with the police and had gone away to sea. He himself came from Rottingdean, where he had been a gentleman’s servant. The old man had died and left him a bit of money, and he’d been tempted to take a little place like this, and his wife’s father had helped him. So here he was and he hoped he’d do well, though the place was a poor sort of place. He was evidently glad to have someone to talk to--having no doubt suffered from the local prejudice against “furriners,” and Dan, moved to sympathy by his own recent experiences, had another glass, which reduced his capital to fourpence.

He then went up the village to the rectory. Here were more changes, though perhaps they were less changes than intensifications. The house seemed more deeply sunk than usual into its orchard and garden--due, Daniel censoriously felt, to his successor’s defective pruning--its roof and its lawn had a shaggy, unkempt look, and the rector kept a pig, judging by the smell that floated round from the backyard. Daniel rang the bell disapprovingly.

After a time the door was opened by Mr. Marchbanks himself.

“What! Daniel!” he cried. “I didn’t know you were back yet. Come in.”

“I came back last night.”

“But you haven’t written to me for a year.”

“No more I have,” said Daniel sheepishly.

“Well, come in and have some dinner. I’m just getting it ready. Jess Harman has gone into Lewes for the day.”

The kitchen was pleasant with the smell of frying bacon. Daniel took the pan, while the rector laid the table; he also made some tea, and with that, and bread and cheese, they had a fine dinner, which Brakey Bottom would have despised.

“I wrote to you four or five days ago,” said the parson. “I expect you’d left before my letter arrived.”

“Reckon I had.”

Mr. Marchbanks was very shy; so he did not question Daniel as to the reason for his long silence--indeed, he had been long enough in Bullockdean to guess that the reason might be only one of penmanship, the difficulty of getting thoughts or even words to flow in channels of ink. Daniel, on his side, felt a little ashamed of himself. He might at least have sent Mr. Marchbanks a card at Christmas--there had been cards for sale at De Cartaret’s shop. These feelings made them both a little awkward with each other during the meal, but when it was over and they had taken out their pipes, they both grew more talkative. Daniel told his friend about Sark and the Le Couteurs and Rose and the cottage at Moie Fano, and why he had come back with Thomas Helier, and how he must now set about and look for work. The rector, in his turn, told him about the struggle he had had in church and parsonage since Daniel went away. Tommy Pilbeam, his immediate successor, had lapsed from house and altar after a few months, and since then there had been a difficult variety of doubtful youths, till at last, in self-defence, Mr. Marchbanks had become his own gardener and sacristan.

“That’s why the place looks so awful,” he said ruefully. “I can cope with the church, but the garden is beyond me. Jess Harman’s a splendid girl, but she’s got more than enough to do indoors--and I’d arranged to sell the pig when I heard you were expected home.”

“I dunno as I’ve got much home now. At least, it’s only Brakey Bottom, and I don’t see as I can look properly after the pig and you if I live over there.”

“No--that does make it rather difficult. I wish we could think of something. It would be simple enough if I wasn’t so stony, but I can’t afford to pay you more than ten bob a week--indeed, I don’t see how I can even manage that now that I’m paying twelve to Jess Harman--there she is, by the way,” as a flowered hat went past the window. “I wonder what’s brought her back so early?”

As he finished speaking the door opened, and Jess walked in, elegantly dressed in a saxe-blue coat and skirt and a picture hat trimmed with a wreath of silk roses, to which, either from neglect or pride, the price-ticket still adhered, to show the destination of three and elevenpence of the rector’s twelve shillings.

“I heard down at auntie’s that you’d come home, Daniel,” she said as she shook hands, “so I thought I’d run back and have a look at you.”

Evidently she saw no necessity to maintain the relations of employer and employed out of working hours; she sat down beside Daniel and fired off a round of Bullockdean news.

“Reckon we’re all glad to see you home,” she finished, “and uncommon glad to see you here. The place has been all mussed up by those louts of boys, and we’re looking to you to put us straight again.”

“But I don’t see how he’s to do it,” said Mr. Marchbanks--“he’s living over at Brakey Bottom.”

“Why can’t he live here? You’ve eleven empty rooms, as I scrub the floors of only. You could let him have one of those, or the lot if he likes.”

“But how about furniture?”

“Reckon we could manage that. It isn’t as if he’d need much--he’s not used to anything special. There’s a chair in here we don’t use, and a box ud do for a washstand--and a few hooks we’d want ... and maybe I could get hold of a bed somewhere.”

“But I’ve got a baby with me, you know,” said Dan deprecatingly.

“So you have!--that’ll be just sweet. I could do with a kid to mind. Look here”--she addressed her employer--“if you let him have a room, furnished, and his meals, and I look after the kid, then he can work the outside for us, and you needn’t pay him nothing. I don’t say it’s grand, but it’ll do while he looks around for something better. What about it, Daniel?”

“Reckon it ud suit me very well. But I dunno how Mr. Marchbanks feels about it.”

“Oh, I should be delighted. I wish I could offer you a proper job, but this ud be better than nothing.”

They discussed details, and at last everything was settled, since all three were eager that the plan should materialize. Daniel thought it a first-class plan, since it would spare him dependence on Len’s anxious charity during the search for work, which he felt would probably be a long one; and when he got work it meant that he would be able to afford quite a good sum every week for his mother, and wipe off the stigma he wore in her eyes. He was overcome by Jess’s resource and Mr. Marchbanks’s generosity, and felt obliged to embark on an explanation as to why he had not written to either of them for so long--an explanation which involved him in such embarrassments that in the middle of it Mr. Marchbanks felt urged to remember the pig’s dinner, and they both went out.

That afternoon Daniel cleaned the pigsty, and then, very necessarily, himself, and afterwards set off towards Brakey Bottom to make his final arrangements with Len, and spend his last night in the disturbing if beloved society of Len’s children. But on his way he would call at the Crown.

§ 4

When he came to the inn for the second time he saw that in the new wing was a properly equipped front door, with a bell and a letter-box, but somehow he shrank from approaching it, and turned to his old entrance through the bar, even though he knew it would be closed against him.

He knocked, and the door was opened by Maudie Harman.

“Hallo! Daniel!--this is good. I heard you’d been in the village, but I never thought you’d come around here. How are you?”

“Oh, I’m fine. How are you?”

“Fine, too. Reckon you’ll have seen Jess at the Rectory. She’s quite the lady now with her twelve bob a week.”

“I could see that. I’m to live at the Rectory, Maudie, till I find work. Reckon it’s a good idea, for there ain’t room for me at Brakey Bottom.”

“What sort of work are you looking for?”

“Any sort I can get. I’ve a kid to support now, you know.”

“Yes, I heard you’d got a kid--fancy you, Danny, with a kid!” and Maudie rocked with laughter. “What’s he like, Daniel?”

“Well, he ain’t like much just yet. Em says he takes after me.”

“Was his mother dark or fair?”

“She wasn’t neither----” he suddenly found that he did not want to talk to Maudie about Rose. “Who’s in just now?”

“They’re both in, and ull be unaccountable glad to see you. But you shouldn’t ought to have come in this way. There’s a front door now, and a servant to answer the bell--in a cap, too. I’m sorry you missed her.”

“I’m glad. Let me in this way, Maudie--it’s the way I always used to come.”

“Come on, then. But I’m going to show you the new smoking-room. You’ve got to see that. Reckon it ain’t to be beat outside Eastbourne.”

She ushered Daniel into a long, low room with French windows, cream walls, and saddle-bag armchairs. It was hung with sporting prints, and with his own eyes he saw the glories of Ernley’s electric light. Maudie switched it on to make the splendour complete.

“There now! See what the Crown has got to! I’m lucky to be still here--I feel the next thing ull be a barman in a white coat and cocktails. Now don’t you touch anything while I go and find the boss--your hands don’t look over-clean.”

A whimpering sound came from the room above.

“Babies,” said Maudie as she went out--“we have ’em, too. Everybody’s got ’em now, seemingly.”

She had not been gone a minute before steps sounded in the passage, and the next moment Ernley was in the room, gripping both Daniel’s hands in his own.

“Thank heaven you’re back. This is splendid, Dan. And you’ve not changed a bit--except that you look bigger, somehow. I wonder why?”

“I dunno--maybe it’s having been married.”

Ernley laughed thinly.

“Most men find it makes ’em smaller.... Well, anyhow, I’m glad you haven’t quarrelled with me, old chap--like Leonard.”

“Reckon I’d be sorry to do that.”

“I’m glad to hear you say it. I don’t really know why he was so mad with me, except that I honestly thought and said this wretched thing wouldn’t have happened if your father’s family had looked after him.”

“It might or it mightn’t,” said Dan sagely, sitting down with extreme care and consciousness of his dirty breeches on the edge of one of the leather armchairs.

“It’s easy enough to stop gambling, you know--and people getting drunk, too.... I believe there was a lot of that.”

“Always was.”

“But we never have it here--it’s a thing that can easily be stopped. You used to stop it yourself when you were at home. You should never have gone away--a silly idea that was going to stay with your mother’s people. They’re just a lot of savages. Didn’t you think ’em so?”

“Yes, I did, and they thought the same of me.”

“Well, I hope they haven’t turned you into one. You look different, somehow--cheekier ... and now I suppose you’re out of a job. What do you propose to do?”

“I was wondering if you’d take me on as barman.”

“The devil you did. But, joking apart, Daniel, it’s a rotten show, looking for work these days. I know many a good chap who’s been landed on his uppers. I’m damn lucky to have this place--though sometimes I feel I’d like to burn it down.”

“But you’re doing well, ain’t you?”

“We’re doing famously. Think--we’re let for Christmas already.... Hallo, Belle!”

“Hallo, Daniel,” said Belle.

Dan rose scramblingly out of the armchair as she came into the room.

§ 5

His first impression was that Belle had changed--she had a sleek, trimmed look about her, somehow, different from her old opulent blowziness. Her hair was all smooth and coiled--it must have been in a forgetful moment that Kitty Sheather had seen it hanging on her cheeks like straw--her dress had elegant lines and no immodest gapes, her ankles were silk and her feet shining. Dan had a supreme sensation of awkwardness, of being just a common boy, a common country boy in common clothes, with common, clumsy manners--as he scrambled out of the leather armchair, treading on his hat which he had laid beside him on the floor. His hand, clean with that painful scrubbed cleanness which is so much more damning than dirt, was in Belle’s--and then he knew that she wasn’t really sleek and trimmed--she only looked it. She had only brushed herself up a bit in his honour and in honour of the Crown, she was really just the old Belle, in spite of her changed life and looks, just as he, in spite of his, was just the old Daniel.

“I’m pleased to see you again, Belle,” he said, gripping her hand.

“And I to see you, I’m sure.”

She gave a nervous giggle, and he wondered how he ever could have thought her fine.

“I heard your babies crying a minute ago,” he said, friendly. “You’ve got a pair of ’em, I’m told.”

“Yes--Jill and Peter. You have one, too, haven’t you, Daniel?”

“Yes--Thomas Helier, named after his two grandfathers. I’ll show him to you, Belle, some day. You’ll let me see yourn, won’t you?”

Ernley laughed.

“They’re not much to look at--I think all children under twelve should be farmed out. It’s too humiliating to be reminded at every turn that the early stages of one’s life were so entirely animal.”

Daniel was shocked at such speech.

“Reckon I’d sooner have a kid about me than most things.”

“Don’t tell me you’re fond of yours.”

“Reckon I am--and you of yours, for all your talk.”

“I don’t deny that I shall be some day. But I’m not now. They’re too animal, without an animal’s cheapness and independence. Besides, they’re a nuisance in a house like this--scare people off--I’ll always say that it was because of them we didn’t let for October.”

“Oh, Ernley, you know they only cancelled it because the gentleman had doctor’s orders for the South of France.”

“That’s what they said--but I’ve a good idea they’d heard from the Rolands that our youngsters howl o’ nights.”

“I don’t see why the Rolands should complain--their rooms were right on the other side of the house.”

“But your precious Jill and Peter made enough noise to raise both sides of the house. I’m not complaining--there’s no use complaining of the inevitable--I’m merely pointing to facts, and it’s a fact that children in a hotel are bad business.”

“But you’re doing well, aren’t you, Ernley?” said Dan. “Seeing as you’re let for Christmas.”

“Yes, I’ve the whole place let for Christmas, which certainly isn’t bad.”

“How many can you hold?”

“Not more than a dozen--but I shall build on a bit more in the spring. We were full all the summer, though we’ve only a few here now.”

“Well, you’ve gone up while we’ve gone down, I reckon.”

“Yes, and I’m sorry for it--for your side of it, I mean. As for me--well, it’s nothing to shout about. I’ve turned a decent country pub into a decent country hotel--that’s all. It isn’t much when one comes to think of it. When I was crawling over the mud at Wipers I’d have been devilish upset if someone had told me that was all I’d do with my life--maybe I shouldn’t have been so anxious not to stop a bullet.”

Daniel thought Ernley’s attitude unthankful. After all, the problems of existence seemed wondrously settled for the landlord of the Crown. He looked round the comfortable room with the saddle-bag armchairs and the sporting prints on the walls--he looked at Ernley, and detected just the faint sketching of a curve under his waistcoat--and then at Belle, with her glowing face under her gleaming hair, and thought of her as Ernley’s wife, as Ernley’s rich and comfortable possession.... And there was he, without a home or money or a job or a wife ... some words were ringing in his ears: “And yet the dogs shall eat the crumbs....”

“A penny for your thoughts,” said Ernley jocosely.

“You’re welcome--I could do with it. I was only thinking I was a bit unlucky--that’s all.”

“Yes, you’ve had a pretty stiff time in some ways. But it ull change--you’re not the sort to keep down. I wish I could think of something for you, though. I’ve a plan in my head for buying the stream field and starting a few head of poultry and a couple of cows--‘Eggs and milk from the home farm,’ you know--but it won’t be for a great while yet. Can’t Len give you a bit of work, just for your board and keep?”

“No--he’s doing that for Christopher.”

“Well, he’ll house you till you’ve found something, I reckon.”

“I’m going to live along of Mr. Marchbanks.”

“The devil you are. Well, you must manage your own affairs.”

“What’s the matter with this?”

“Oh, nothing. I don’t care for Marchbanks, that’s all. Visitors don’t like his sort--they like a family at the rectory. Marchbanks doesn’t even live like a gentleman.”

“He can’t afford to.”

“Then he shouldn’t have taken the living--always bad for a place if the parson doesn’t live in proper style.”

“Well, I’d be in a bad way if it wasn’t for him, whatever his style. Len hasn’t got house-room for me, and I must go somewhere--I reckon Mr. Marchbanks ull keep me till I find work, in exchange for my doing a bit about the garden.”

He rose to go, feeling ruffled at Ernley’s criticism of his benefactor. Also it would be past tea-time at Brakey Bottom.... As he rose he met Belle’s eyes.

“Won’t you stay?” she said--“and have a cup of tea with us and see the children.”

But her eyes weren’t saying that. They were saying: “Please go--I can’t bear to see you, all poor and homeless as you are, while I have silk dresses and silk stockings. I’m very sorry for you, Danny, so please go.”