Chapter FOURTEEN: § 1

“Tickets, please”--Daniel stooped over the fat woman in the corner and waited while she fumbled in her pocket and then in her bag and then in her basket--“sixpence to Whitesmith. Thank you, ma’am.... Tickets, please.”

He had picked up this lot at Bullockdean Throws, where he had set down Belle, and while he was helping them in with their bundles she had walked off up the lane towards the village and the inn that straddled the way. He had not even been able to turn round and see the last of her disappearing. The day was grey and windy, and she had been in it like a flame, and like a flame she had gone out.

He thought of their breakfast together in the half-light of the little sitting-room. They had scarcely talked and she had seemed angry, but--when their maimed excuses and explanations had gone to Mrs. Gain--Belle had insisted on accompanying him when he took Thomas Helier to the crèche, and at parting she had kissed the baby and he had taken and held for a moment a handful of her coarse yellow hair. Then they had walked together to the ’bus, and Dan had punched Belle’s ticket for her, and then gone out on the step. He did not dare look at her as she sat there like a sunflower. Not that he was afraid of her any more--that madness had passed--but when he looked at her he was ashamed.

“Bullockdean Corner”--he pulled the bell. The ’bus stopped. She climbed down, with her hand upon his wrist like any other passenger. He passed out her bag. Other passengers crowded in--she was gone--and when the ’bus had started again and he looked round he could not see her. He might never see her again--he did not know. Already the ways of land were tiring him, and as his tongue, in the interests of his passengers, busied itself with names like Swanborough Manor, Beddingham Throws, the Brooks, his mind was resting in names like Elphick’s Tree, Les Ridens, and other names of the land which is under the sea, where the Geordies go, sailing out of the mouth of the Ouse.

Here was Ouse River, flowing through Lewes. The streets of Lewes Town piled themselves on either side of it, and the downs rose beyond the streets, while in the south stood Firle Beacon and Mount Caburn, pillars of the Gate of Lewes.... Here they were at the very bottom of the pit, the well of the downs and the well of the streets, and Ouse River flowing under the bridge, under the streets, away from Lewes ... out through the Brooks, down the valley past Bullockdean and Southease and Piddinghoe, into the grey of Newhaven streets, under Newhaven Bridge, down through the armies of the ships with their lances in rest, and then out into the new country of winds and waves and waters, the free river that has found the sea.

§ 2

“Reckon you’ve done the right thing this time,” said Jess Harman.

She stood facing Dan as he sat by the kitchen table in Bullockdean parsonage, with Thomas Helier on his knee.

“I’m glad you approve of me at last.”

“I won’t say I’ve always disapproved, but then I haven’t always approved, neither.”

“You never approved of me and Belle.”

“Never--she isn’t your sort, as you’ve been uncommon slow to understand.”

“Why isn’t she my sort?”

“You’ve asked me that question a dunnamany times before, and I’ve told you a dunnamany times in answer that she isn’t comfortable enough for you. You want a comfortable woman, and Belle isn’t a comfortable woman. Whatever she does she does uncomfortably--if she loves a man she gives him hell, if she marries a man she gives him hell, if she loves her children she gives everybody hell because of it. Now some men like that style--Ernley Munk does--so that’s why it’s good that she should marry him and stick to him. All these rows they have don’t matter--they only keep ’em going. Neither Belle nor Ernley could live without rows and feeling ill-treated, so it’s just as well they’ve got each other. Now if you’d taken Belle away from Ernley and been good to her, she’d have been dead of dullness in a year. It’s her sort to make rows. And all that fuss about Pearl Jenner was only a row she’d made to keep herself lively. And Ernley just about loves to think he’s ill-used and blighted--so reckon it was a godsend to him to have his wife run away with another man, so long as she comes back and gives him the fun of forgiving her.”

Dan had not meant to tell Jess so much about himself. He had come to Bullockdean with the intention of opening his grief to Mr. Marchbanks, which was one of the good things his friend had taught him. Between two Norman pillars in Bullockdean church the events of the last few months had slipped into new places, and--as had so often happened before--Dan saw his splash of folly as little more than the spate cast up by a treacherous sea, in the waves of which he might have drowned while he feared only the foam.

When he got back to the parsonage, Jess was waiting to give him tea, and comforted and a little exalted, he found himself pouring out his tale anew to her, though with different stresses. He wanted to hear about the family at the inn. Ernley had taken his wife away to foreign parts. Business was slack and they were going to have a holiday--another honeymoon. When they came back the amalgamation of the two inns, the George and the Crown, would be complete, a new life would be beginning; and Daniel Sheather, out of the old life, would be safely busy on board a Geordie coaster, working and whistling in his galley that smelt of soup and the sea.

“Is it all fixed?” asked Jess.

“Yes--it’s fixed. Dad’s old man says he’s unaccountable pleased to have me. Reckon dad’s been pitching him no end of a yarn about my cooking. May I take your book with me, Jess?”

“You’ve got a nerve. What will I do without my book?”

“Much better than I’ll do with it. Reckon I must cut some sort of a figure this first voyage--and Mr. Marchbanks don’t notice what you give him.”

“That’s true. Well, you can have the book, Daniel. But bring it back when you come ashore.”

“Reckon I’ll bring you a new one. I’ll have some cash to spare them, though I’m stony-broke just now. The sea pays better than the land.”

“And when do you start?”

“I go north to-morrow--the nine o’clock from Lewes.”

“Have you said good-bye to your mother?”

“I’ll call at Hoddern this evening on my way back.”

“And you’re leaving baby at Brakey Bottom?”

“Yes--that’s to-night, too.”

Then suddenly Jess’s face changed--her manner changed--she was a new Jess, and coming round the side of the table, she knelt down beside Daniel’s chair and put her arms round the baby that he held upon his knee.

“Leave him with me, Daniel. Let me take care of him for you.”

Her voice came with a sudden husky sweetness, reminding him of Belle’s.

“But, Jess--how can I? How could you possibly look after him?”

“Easy. I can have him with me here, same as I had when you lived along of us, and I can take him home to auntie’s in the evening. Reckon they won’t be sorry at Brakey Bottom, and you can give me what you would have given them, so as I can manage for him. Oh, Dan, I love him so, and it’s been such misery losing him when you were at Newhaven. I’ll be so good to him--I’ll love him and pet him and take care of him, same as if I was his mother.”

For some reason he found himself trembling, and his hand came down upon her shoulder as she knelt beside him with her arms round the child. He said, almost without knowing it:

“But, Jess, I think now that I’m always going to live on the sea.”

“But you’ll be ashore in between whiles.”

“Yes--but the sea’s going to be my country. I don’t belong here any more--at least, not till I’m old. The sea’s better than the land, my dear, and it’s in my blood to go to sea.”

“You can go to sea and I’ll stay on the land, for sometimes you’ve got to come home.”

In that moment he felt it would be easier and better to think of home at Bullockdean than at Brakey Bottom, among the wranglings and strugglings of his kin. Perhaps Jess would not take such good care of Thomas Helier as Emmy would have done--but Len was sour.... Jess was taking him out of love, and there would always be love at Bullockdean. It seemed as if Rose Falla’s legacy to her husband had been a legacy of love. When she had given him “Notre Helier” she had given him the power of building romance anew....

“Let him stay just this once,” pleaded Jess, “and if you don’t think I’ve done well by him when you come back, you can change. But let me try.”

“Very well, Jess. You try.”

Thomas Helier’s good manners broke down under the sudden squeeze that she gave him.

“I’m sorry, dearie, that’s a bad beginning. But you’re used to it with your dad and me. There, don’t cry, my pet--there, there.”

She had lifted him off Daniel’s knee and held him cuddled against her neck.

“Mum ... Mum,” murmured Thomas Helier, comforted.

“And now, Dan,” said Jess, “you must be getting off, for you’ve a power of things to get through to-night. I’ll walk with you as far as the pub, and we’ll go in and have a glass of ale together. You can get a Number One Bass there now--no more of those Hobday and Hitch’s swipes. We’ll go down together and have a drink to your good luck.”

§3

Two hours later Dan knelt by his mother’s side in the firelight at Hoddern. Kitty’s arm was around him, for she felt and dealt tenderly in this moment of farewell.

“You always were your father’s son, Dan--and it is only what I expected that you should go to him, but you’ve been a good boy to me all the same.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that, mum.”

“Yes, you’ve been good and done your best when that rascal he went off. It was not your fault that you could not help me more. Now I shall not see you very often, I expect.”

“Whenever I’m ashore, mum.”

“But you leave your child at Bullockdean and you go where your child is. Ah, she is a clever girl, that Jess Harman.”

“How do you mean?”

“If you have not the wit to understand me I will not explain. Poor Daniel, you were not happy in your marriage.”

“Mum, I was happy.”

“Ah, but she died.”

He did not speak, for he could not tell his mother what he felt about Rose.

“Marriage is not a happy thing,” continued Kitty--“our men grow up and cease to love us--they forsake us, and we live only in our children.”

“Oh, mother, don’t speak so--some men make good husbands.”

“You would make a good husband, Daniel.”

“I hope I didn’t make a bad one.”

“You are the sort of man who’d make a good husband to any girl except one.”

“Except one?”

“Except Belle Munk--Belle Shackford that was. She belongs to one man only, though he will never be much good to her. Still, she belongs. And I knew it long ago when you wanted her so much.”

Dan did not believe his mother knew anything of the kind, still he thought her words were wise, and he listened as she continued:

“Some men and women are like that--for one person only, and others are for everyone. You are among the others.”

“What do you mean, mum?”

“You could be happy married to any good girl, for what you really want is not love but marriage. When you come home you will marry again.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you were made for marriage, and for a man marriage is easy.”

A step sounded in the passage, and his mother’s expression changed. She withdrew her arm from his shoulder and looked up. He knew that Christopher had come home.

He rose and kissed her hastily, anxious to take leave before his brother appeared.

“Say good-bye to Chris from me.”

Outside the big stars hung over the Ouse Valley, where the windings of the river showed pale in the darkness. Dan felt vaguely disturbed by what his mother had said. It seemed to rob him of his last claim to be interesting and romantic, if he had ever had any. Was it indeed true, then, that the woman of his dream who sat in an inn stable with her child upon her knee, was not Belle, nor even Rose, but just any woman, every woman, whose heart was warm and whose eyes were kind? Was that all he craved for?--Only a home, and a wife and a child. If so, it was strange to go seeking them upon the sea. But there is a star of the sea.... A woman sits in the stable of an inn with her child upon her knee and a star in the sky above her to lead the wise man to her feet.

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