Chapter TWO: § 1

The next morning Daniel moved his son and his other belongings over to Bullockdean, borrowing the Brakey Bottom trap. His family were obviously relieved to find that he was making some sort of a home for himself, though they, too, were inclined to be contemptuous of the poverty and celibacy of Bullockdean Parsonage. There was no denying that, as it happened, the whole thing was mighty convenient.... Em, of course, was miserable at having to part with Thomas Helier, and for some time continued to assert tearfully that she could have found room for the two of them somewhere--but Len mistrusted his brother’s presence for practical reasons. His temperament brooded over the troubles of the “out-of-work”; he foresaw Dan for long weeks unemployed--in winter too, when he could be of no use on the farm--and finally in desperation taking a job under the Sewage Department of the Newhaven Corporation.... It was better that his brother should go where he could at least make some appreciable return for his board and keep, and would not be driven into the hasty acceptance of menial offers.

As it happened, Dan’s life at the Parsonage involved much of what Len would have thought menial if he had known its details. He had started with the idea that he would look after the pig and garden, clean the boots and carry the coals, while Jess Harman worked indoors, with the scrubbing, dusting, cooking and the care of Thomas Helier. But after a week or two their positions altered. Dan had always been secretly fond of housework, and on an occasion when Jess was away again in Lewes, it was discovered that he was very much the better cook of the two. Not in vain had he cooked for his Rose at Moie Fano.... Also he had learned to make coffee in the same school, and for months Mr. Marchbanks had been drinking Jess’s tea as the lesser of two evils.... So after some friendly discussion the matter was resettled. Jess still had charge of Thomas Helier, except at nights, when she went home to her auntie’s, also of the cleaning and bed-making; but instead of cooking she took over the lighter part of Dan’s gardening job, pushed the lawnmower, and trimmed the borders, while he stood in the kitchen, with her sacking apron tied round his waist and his sleeves rolled above his elbows, spelling out slowly from the cookery book which guided his more ambitious efforts.

For as a cook Daniel was ambitious in a way that he had never been as a man. He could not very substantially gratify his ambition on a housekeeping allowance of two pounds a week, but his imagination soared above the hashes and milk-puddings that Jess considered a suitable diet for a country clergyman. He brooded much over the “Entrée” division of the cookery-book, he produced a curry and a hot-pot, he attempted, and after three attempts achieved, a rabbit pie.

“Daniel fancies himself, don’t he?” Jess would say, when in her capacity of parlourmaid she would set his latest production before her master.

On the whole the scheme worked well. Daniel liked living with Mr. Marchbanks, and liked working for him. Their friendship was a sound one, for it was accompanied by a certain shyness, which made each appreciate and respectfully leave standing the barriers between them. On one side was Eton and Oxford and a theological college--on the other was the son of the inn, the chucker-out of drunken men, the country boy working with his hands, never quite clean, his mind holding the confused dregs of a board-school education. They met on the common ground of their poverty, both living by contrivance from day to day, Dan bringing his friend the gift of his willing service, and in return sitting at his feet for the greater necessities of life, the good things he had forgotten while he was in Sark.

He was fond of Jess Harman, too, and they went through the day’s work as comrades. Soon all difference disappeared between the male and the female tasks, and Mr. Marchbanks never knew whether it was Dan or Jess who would feed the pig or make the beds or mow the lawn or take Thomas Helier out in his push-cart. Jess had produced the push-cart from some unknown source, also the furniture she had promised for their bedroom--a camp-bed, a crate, a packing-case or two, a few hooks, a jug and basin and a chair. He in his turn had covered everything with a “polished-oak” stain, so successfully that he had been encouraged to apply the treatment to the rest of the house--indeed, he became so enterprising in the way of stains that Mr. Marchbanks was forced into one of his rare acts of self-defence, and shut his study door against the advancing tide of decoration.

Dan found those first weeks of autumn very happy ones, in spite of his continued failure to hear of a job, and a certain feeling of sadness that his mother could so contentedly let him go and live five miles away, when perhaps her intervention would have kept him near her. But he had always tacitly accepted the fact of her preference for Christopher, and his moments of revolt were only occasional and queerly uncomplicated by jealousy--though sometimes he allowed himself the luxury of wondering what she would do when Christopher had married his Mary Wright.

As October wore on into November he became anxious on the score of his unemployment. It is true that he worked hard for his keep, but he was not actually saving the rector’s money, as he knew that he and the child together cost more than the few shillings Mr. Marchbanks would have paid Tommy Pilbeam or Freddie Pont for the outside work. Thomas Helier was a glutton for milk, and Dan knew that he himself ate a terrible lot--he couldn’t help it. He called at the Labour Exchange in Lewes two or three times a week, and regularly studied the advertisement columns in the _East Sussex Herald_ and the _Sussex Daily News_; but it was a bad time to be out of work--winter was at hand, with stagnation on the farms, and everywhere money was short, economy rife, and labour profuse and rampant.

He soon gave up the hope of finding honourable work on a farm or at an inn, and in time his ambition sank even below the status of corporation employee, which Len had despised. He was not proud--he would stick at nothing--all the same he could not help wondering what his brothers and his mother, or even Jess and Mr. Marchbanks, would think when at last he found a job as conductor of a motor-bus plying between Newhaven and Uckfield.

§ 2

The first person he told about it was Belle. When he came back from the motor-bus company’s offices in Lewes Mr. Marchbanks was out, and Jess was sweeping in some distant part of the house, having left Thomas Helier asleep in his soap-box cradle. Daniel was an adventurous father, and unimpressed by the advantages of a sleeping child, he decided to take his son out for an airing in the push-cart. To be rudely awakened, to have your woolly cap crammed over your head by a well-meaning but male hand, and finally to be strapped sitting up into a push-cart intended for a child three times your age, are an accumulation of pains not to be suffered in silence, and Thomas Helier was not silent.

“What are you doing, Dan?” shouted Jess out of an upstairs window, as they went down the parsonage drive.

“Taking out the kid.”

“That’s plain enough--poor little mite! Why couldn’t you leave him alone? He was sleeping beautiful.”

“It ain’t healthy for him to be always indoors.”

“He ain’t always indoors. You are a meddler, Daniel.”

“Well, he’s my own child. I can do what I like with him.”

“Oh, hark to that now! There’s a Christian father! Poor little soul, his cap’s right over his face. Really, I’ll be thankful when you’ve got a job and won’t come interfering....”

Dan walked out of earshot, rather haughtily, and as soon as he saw he was out of eyeshot, too, he stopped and pulled the baby’s cap off his eyes, tickled his neck, and otherwise tried to propitiate him. But Thomas Helier still howled mightily, and at that moment Belle appeared.

“Hullo, Daniel!--and you’ve got the baby!”

She came and stooped over the push-cart. Dan wished she could have found his son in a more engaging mood, but he saw that her eyes were both eager and tender as she looked into the crimson, furious little face.

“Poor little soul! He isn’t comfortable. May I lift him out, Daniel?”

“Of course you may, Belle.”

“He isn’t old enough really to sit up in a push-cart. There, there, my beautiful--I’ve got you. Isn’t that better, my gem?”

The soft curve of her arm was under Thomas Helier’s backbone--his yelling died suddenly down.

“Is this the first time you’ve seen him?” asked Daniel.

“Oh, I’ve seen him about now and then, but this is the first time I’ve held him--there’s a sweet--there’s a lovely boy.”

“I never knew you was fond of children,” said Daniel idiotically.

“I don’t know that I ever thought about them much till I had them of my own. You like my Jill and Peter, don’t you?”

“Reckon I do, though I haven’t seen much of them, either.”

“You haven’t seen much of any of us. I expect you’ve been busy.”

“Yes--I’ve had a lot to do for Mr. Marchbanks, and I’ve been looking for work besides.”

“Haven’t you heard of anything yet?”

“I’ve just got a job this morning.”

“What sort of a job?”

“Oh, a grand job. I’m to be conductor on the Downs Omnibus Company’s ’bus between Newhaven and Uckfield. I shall wear a fine coat with brass buttons. You’ll be proud to know me.”

He laughed without malice. She was wearing a fur coat, and a velvet cap pulled low over the golden hanks of her hair. Beside her was a man who was glad to get thirty shillings a week as conductor of a country ’bus--a man who had loved her, whose arms had held her, before she wore fur and velvet.

“Well, I’m glad you’ve found something, though I wish it had been better. Will your hours be long?”

“Nine till seven--and I’ve got to get to and from Newhaven.”

“It sounds heavy--but I suppose you’ll have half a day off and your Sundays.”

“Yes, I’ll have that.”

“You must come and see us when you’re free. Ernley was saying only yesterday that he’s scarcely seen you since you came back to Bullockdean.”

“I’ve been cooking for them at the rectory, and doing a lot of work besides, as well as going in to the Labour Exchange three times a week. I’ve meant to come round a dunnamany times. Now I’ve got a job maybe I’ll be able to look in now and then after supper.”

“Come and have supper with us.”

“Reckon you’ll have too grand suppers for me these days.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Daniel. We won’t have it with the visitors--not that we think you aren’t ‘grand’ enough, but we’d much rather be by ourselves.”

“Don’t you like the visitors?”

Belle shrugged, and laughed a little ruefully.

“I dunno--they scare me, somehow--at least our sort do. Such ladies and gentlemen!... ‘Do you know that your chambermaid doesn’t wipe out the basins when she empties them?’--I’d never heard of such a thing till I came here, though I never let on I hadn’t--not even to Ernley. Dan, I wasn’t meant to be a hotel-keeper’s wife.”

“It’s a difficult job, but you look very well on it, Belle.”

“Do I?” she asked, almost eagerly. “Do you think I’ve improved?”

“Yes--you’re more elegant, somehow. And I like your clothes--not but that I didn’t like the old ones.”

“Oh, they were rubbish, and I was always untidy. I’m often untidy still, but Ernley’s taught me a lot. He’s dreadfully particular about what I wear and what I look like.”

“Well, reckon he must be pleased, anyway.”

She seemed touched by his goodwill.

“Dan, you don’t--I mean, you’ve quite forgiven me for the way I treated you all that time ago?”

Perhaps she ought not to have said it till they had knit together more strands of their severed acquaintance, but she could not help it.

“It wasn’t forgiving I had to do, but forgetting,” he said slowly.

“But you’ve done that.”

“Yes, I’ve done it now--sure enough.”

There was a moment’s awkward silence. Then he said:

“Anyways I’m uncommon glad we’re friends again. It was terrible being shut of you and Ernley.... I must come around and see old Ernley as soon as ever I can.”

“Come and see him now. He’ll be in by tea-time, and till then we can sit in the nursery and watch the babies. I’d like to see how mine and yours get on together.”

The idea pleased Daniel, and they walked on towards the Crown, Belle still carrying the peaceful Thomas Helier. It was rather wonderful, Daniel thought, that, after all, she should carry his child in her arms.

§ 3

The nursery at the Crown was in the new wing, a beautiful room with a frieze of nursery rhymes, and a crawling-pen beside the fire. Dan’s eyes opened wide at the sight of it and at the sight of the nurse in uniform.

“Lord, but you are fine, Belle!--reckon this is a grand place for kids ... and look at their toys, too.”

He realized for the first time that Thomas Helier had no toys. He was rather young for any, it is true; nevertheless Dan experienced his first real pang of envy as he looked at the shelf on which sat a Teddy-bear, Pip and Squeak, and other more indefinite animals.

Belle sat down by the fire with Thomas Helier on her knee, and held up a woolly ball before him. He stretched out his hands, and kicked delightedly. It was wonderful how she managed him, thought Daniel--better than Jess, better certainly than his poor father. As he looked at her it seemed as if the lines of her face had changed, had grown softer, more maternal. From a wanton Belle had become a mother. Had her heart roved only till it had found this, its real desire?

Her own children were two fair, sturdy little creatures, one about two years old, the other the same age as Thomas Helier. They wore little silk smocks that made Dan painfully conscious of his son’s limitations as a well-dressed baby. It was a pity that he would kick in that ecstatic way and show what inevitably suggested comparisons. He tried to straighten his legs upon Belle’s lap, but Thomas Helier only kicked harder, while otherwise grossly testifying his delight in the situation.

“What a darling he is!--come and look at him, Jill. Look at the dear little baby.”

But the little Munks were as uninterested as small children usually are in each other. Their curiosity centred in Daniel.

“Tick-tick,” demanded Jill.

“Ain’t got none,” said Dan.

But Jill’s experience did not so far include man as apart from watch; once more she demanded:

“Tick-tick.”

“Don’t bother him, darling--he hasn’t got a tick-tick. But he’s got a dear little boy just Peter’s age. Come and look at him.”

“Ugh,” said Jill at the sight of Thomas Helier. Then she gripped Dan’s trouser-leg and repeated--“tick-tick.”

Both Dan and Belle laughed.

“Aren’t children funny!” said Belle. “I’m glad you’re laughing, Daniel. But don’t let her worry you--I’m afraid I don’t always realize what a nuisance she is. Ernley says these two annoy the visitors, and the trouble is I can’t see it, so don’t stop it.”

He noticed that she seemed unable to speak of Ernley without some sort of self-depreciation.

“Well, you can’t keep children in a house as if they was rabbits,” he remarked sagely--“they’re bound to spannel about a bit. Look at mine--he almost fills the rectory, as you might say. It’s lucky Mr. Marchbanks don’t mind, though sometimes he’ll yell o’nights as if it was blue murder. If Mr. Marchbanks don’t mind, I don’t see why Ernley should, seeing as he’s the father, which Mr. Marchbanks ain’t, though he’s got to put up with it all the same.”

“Oh, Ernley doesn’t mind for himself. It’s for the visitors. You’ve no idea what a difference it’s made, him having charge of this hotel. While his father was alive and ran it, he didn’t bother about it much, but now it’s all the world to him.... Hark! there he is, I believe,” as a motor-cycle was heard in the street. “We’ll go downstairs, if it is, Daniel, as he likes to find his tea ready.”

§ 4

The motor-cyclist proved to be Ernley, and he was delighted to see Daniel, and they all three had a comfortable, friendly tea together in the smoking-room of the Crown. They talked about Dan’s new work, which amused Ernley very much.

“I’ll come for a ride in your ’bus--we both will. But look here, my boy; directly I settle about that river land and start the farm, you’ll come to me. That’s settled.”

“I’d be glad to come, Ernley, but reckon I ain’t experienced enough--you’ll want someone more used to that kind of job. I’ve been a barman and a fisherman and I’ll have been a ’bus conductor, but I guess none of them ull show me how to look after chickens.”

“Nonsense--you’ve kept poultry at the George and a pig at the parsonage, to say nothing of having helped on your uncle’s farm in Sark. I shan’t run a big affair--only a few fowls and pigs, and a cow or two. But maybe it’ll all come to nothing--it depends on the price Lord Gage ull take. We haven’t got a terrible lot of capital at the Crown--all the money goes in improvements....” Dan was beginning to discover that the subject of the Crown was a bottomless well into which dropped most of Ernley’s conversations. This one went in deeper and deeper, till at last Dan began to have uneasy thoughts of Thomas Helier’s bedtime and Jess Harman’s wrath at its delay.

“Reckon I must be taking the kid back home. Thank you, Belle, for the cup of tea--glad to have seen you, Ernley.”

Ernley tried to keep him, but Belle, knowing the importance of a baby’s bed-time, herself fetched Thomas Helier and packed him as comfortably as might be into the push-cart. Then at the last moment she stooped and put beside him the woolly ball.

“Let him take it home. He loved playing with it so.”

For a moment Dan had no voice to thank her. Thomas Helier’s reproach among babies had been taken away--and taken away by Belle, with a gesture which made him realize how little of her he had really lost.