Chapter XIII: Book V: Almost Under (3)

She could still hear that call, muted, tender, wild--the voice of her youth and of her love, calling to her out of the velvet night, bidding her leave the house where the hearth was piled with ashes, and feel the rain and the south wind on her lips. There was no escape in sleep, for her dreams showed her that window framing a sky soft and dark as a grape, with the blackness of her lover's bulk against it, while the moon rose over his shoulder, red, like a fiery pan....

She felt afraid, and did not know where to turn. She avoided Handshut, who stood remote; and though her husband sometimes overwhelmed her with miserable hungry love, he often scarcely seemed to notice her or her children, and she knew that she counted far less than his farm. He was terribly harsh with her now, frowning by the hour over her account-books, forbidding this or that, and in his gloom scarcely noticing her submission.

July passed. Odiam was no longer cut off from the rest of the world by lime. Reuben with the courage of despair began to organise his shattered strength. He discharged Piper--now that his cows were gone he could easily do with a hand less. He sometimes wondered why he had not discharged Handshut, but the answer was always ready--Handshut was far the better workman, and Odiam now came easily before Rose. Not that Reuben's jealousies had left him--they still persisted, though in a different form. The difference lay in the fact that now he would not sacrifice to them the smallest scrap of Odiam's welfare.

He sometimes asked himself why he was still jealous. Rose no longer gave him provocation, she was much quieter than she had used to be, and seemed busy with her children and straitened house-keeping. It was once more a case of instinct, of a certain vague sensing of her aloofness. Often he did not trouble about it, but sometimes it seared through him like a hot bar.

One evening he came home particularly depressed. He had just finished the most degrading transaction of his life--the raising of a mortgage on the Flightshot side of his land. It was horrible, but it was unavoidable. He could not now sell his milk-round, and yet he absolutely must have ready money if he was to stand up against circumstances. The mortgagee was a wealthy Rye butcher, and Reuben had hopes that the disgraceful affair might be kept secret, but also an uneasy suspicion that it was at that moment being discussed in every public-house.

He went straight to find Rose, for that mood was upon him. The due of loneliness which his shame demanded had been paid during the drive home from Rye, and now he quite simply and childishly wanted his wife. She was in the kitchen, stooping over some child's garment, the little frills of which she was pleating in her fingers. She lifted her head with a start as he came in, and he saw that her face was patched with tearstains.

"Wot've you bin crying for?" he asked as he slid a chair close to hers. He wondered if the humiliation of Odiam had at last come to mean to her a little of what it meant to him.

"I haven't been crying."

"But your face ..."

"That's the heat."

He drew back from her a little. Why should she lie to him about her tears?

"Oh, well, if you döan't choose to tell me ... But I've eyes in my head."

She seemed anxious to propitiate him.

"How did it go off? Have you settled with Apps?"

He nodded.

"It's all over now--I've touched bottom."

"Nonsense, Ben. You mustn't say that. After all there's nothing extraordinary about a mortgage--uncle had one for years on a bit of his farm at Rowfant. Besides, think of all you've got left."

He laughed bitterly. "I äun't got much left."

Then suddenly he turned towards her as she sat there by him, her head bowed over her work--her delicate, rather impertinent nose outlined against the firelight, her cheek and neck bewitched with running shadows.

"But I've got you."

A great tenderness transported him, a great melting. He put his arm round her waist, and made as if to pull her close.

She drew back from him with a shudder.

It was only for a moment--the next she yielded. But he had seen her reluctance, felt the shiver of repulsion go through her limbs. He rose, and pushed back his chair.

"I'm sorry," he said in a low thick voice--"I'm sorry I interrupted your--crying."

Then he went out, and gave Handshut a week's notice.

§ 18.

Rose was intensely relieved. She felt that at last and for ever the tormenting mystery would have gone from her life. Once Handshut was away, she told herself, she would slip back into the old groove--a little soberer and softer perhaps, but definitely free of that Reality which had been so terribly different from its toy-counterfeit.

Once Handshut was gone, her heart would not pursue him. It was his continual presence that tormented. True, he never sought her out, or persecuted her, or even spoke to her without her speaking first--he only looked in at the window.... But a woman soon learns what it means to have a man's face between her and the simplicities of life in her garden, between her and the divinities of the stars and moon.

Rose did not find in her love a sweetness to justify the bitterness of its circumstances. The fact that it had been awakened by a man who was her inferior in the social-agricultural scale, who could give her nothing of the material prosperity she so greatly prized, instead of inspiring her with its beauty, merely convinced her of its folly. She saw herself a woman crazed, obsessed, bewitched, and she looked eagerly forward to the day when the spell should be removed and she should go back chastened to the common, comfortable things of life.

But meantime a strange restlessness consumed her, tinctured by a horrible boldness. There were moments when she no longer was afraid of Handshut, when she felt herself impelled to seek him out, and make the most of the short time they had together. There could be no danger, for he was going so soon ... so few more words, so few more glances.... Thus her mind worked.

She was generally able to control these impulses, but as the days slipped by they grew too strong for her untrained resistance. She felt that she must make the most of her chances because they were so limited--before he went for ever she must have one more memory of his voice, his look--his touch ... oh, no! her thoughts had carried her further than she had intended.

She found herself beginning to haunt the places where she would be likely to meet him--the edge of the horse-pond or the Glotten brook, the door of the huge, desolate cow-stable, where six cheap Suffolks emphasised the empty stalls. Reuben did not seem to take any notice of her, he had relieved his feelings by dismissing Handshut, and his farm had swallowed him up again. Rose felt defiant and forlorn. Both her husband and her lover seemed to avoid her. She would lean against the great wooden posts of the door, in the listless weary attitude of a woman's despair.

Then two days before the end he came. As she was standing by the barn door he appeared at the horse-pond, and crossed over to her at once. He had seen that she was waiting for him--perhaps he had seen it on half a dozen other occasions when she had not seen him.

Rose could calm the silly jumps of her heart only by telling herself that this was quite an accidental meeting. She made an effort to be commonplace.

"How's Topsy's foal?"

"Doing valiant. Will you come out wud me to-morrow evenun to see the toll-burning?"

She flushed at his audacity.

"No!--how can I?"

"You can quite easy, surelye. Mäaster's going to Cranbrook Fair, and wöan't be home till läate. It's the last night, remember."

She made a gallant effort to be the old Rose.

"What's that to me?--you've got some cheek!"

"I'm only not pretending as much as you are. Why shud you pretend? Pretending 'ull give you naun sweet to remember when I'm gone."

"What tolls are they going to burn?"

"The gëates up at Leasan and Mockbeggar, and then over the marsh to Thornsdale. It 'ud be a shame fur you to miss it, and mäaster can't täake you, since he's going to Cranbrook."

"It would never do if people saw us."

"Why? Since your husband can't go, wot's more likely than he shud send his man to täake you?"

Rose shuddered. "I'm not coming."

Handshut turned on his heel.

§ 19.

Already the turnpike gates had disappeared from the greater part of Sussex, but they still lingered in the Rye district, for various reasons, not always bearing close inspection. There had been an anti-toll party both before and after the famous Scott's Float gate had catastrophically ended Reuben's political career--and at last this had carried the day. All the gates were to come down except those on the Military Road, and the neighbourhood was to celebrate their abolition by burning them in tar.

Reuben, still proud and sore, stood aloof from local jollities--besides, he had heard that there were to be some cheap milkers for sale at Cranbrook Fair, and he was anxious to add a little to his dairy stock. Though a large milk-round was out of the question, the compensation money he had received from Government would allow him to carry on a small dairy business, as in humbler days. Of course, the fact that he had lost over sixty cows from foot-and-mouth disease would materially damage his prospects even in a limited sphere, but a farm which let its dairy rot was doomed to failure, and Reuben was still untamed by experience, and hoped much from small beginnings.

So early that morning he drove off in his gig, accompanied by Pete, who had a good eye for cattle, and had moreover challenged the Canterbury Kid for a purse of five guineas. Rose watched them go, and waved good-bye unnoticed to her man, as he leaned forward over the reins, thinking only of how much he could spare for a yearling. She went back into the house, and stoned plums. After dinner she mended the children's clothes, with a little grimace for the faded ribbons and tattered frills which Reuben would not allow her to renew. Then she took the baby and little David for an airing in the orchard--Handshut, raking unromantically in the midden, saw her sitting, a splash of faded violet under an apple tree--then she bathed them and put them to bed.

All this was a propitiatory offering to the god of the hearth, who, however, did not take the slightest notice, or stay as he so easily might (so the scripture saith) that hunger for her beloved which was gnawing at the young wife's heart. Instead, it seemed to grow in its devouring pain--her domesticity stimulated rather than deadened it, and by the time her day's tasks were over it had eaten up her poor heart like a dainty, and she was its unresisting prey.

After the children were in bed she changed her dress, putting on the best she had--a washing silk with pansies sewn over it, one of her wedding gowns. She frowned at it as she had frowned at the babies' dresses--it was so old-fashioned, and worn in places. She suddenly found herself wishing that she loved Reuben so much as not to mind wearing old clothes for his sake. For the first time she could visualise such a state of affairs, for she had met the man for whom she would have worn rags. If only that man had been Reuben, her lawful husband, instead of another! "But I'll be true to him! I'll be true to him!" she murmured, and found comfort in the words till she realised that it was the first time that she had ever glimpsed the possibility of not being true.

She went down into the kitchen, where Caro was baking suet.

"Caro, I'm going out to see the gates burned. I expect I'll be back before Ben is, but if I'm not, tell him where I'm gone."

"You can't go by yourself--he wudn't like it."

"I'm not going by myself--Handshut's taking me."

Caro's suety hands fell to her sides.

"Rose--you know--how can you?--that's worse than alone, surelye!"

"Nonsense! What's more natural that one of my servants should come with me, since my husband can't?"

"Your servant...."

"Yes, my servant."

Caro, regardless of the suet on her hands, hid her face in them.

"Oh, Rose, I can't tell him--I daren't. Why, he turned away Handshut because of you."

"He did not, miss--you're impudent!"

"Well, why shud fäather git shut of the best drover he ever had on his farm, if it äun't----"

"Be quiet! I won't hear such stuff. I'm not going to be a prisoner, and miss my fun just because you and Ben are jealous fools."

"But I daren't tell him where you've agone."

"I dare say you won't have to--I'm not staying out all night."

She laughed one of her coarse screaming laughs, with the additional drawback of mirthlessness; then she went out of the room, leaving Caro sobbing into suety palms.

Outside in the yard, Handshut stood by the pump, apparently absorbed in studying the first lights of Triangulum as they kindled one by one in the darkening sky.

Rose pattered up to him in the shabby white kid shoes that had been so trim and smart five years ago.

"I've changed my mind."

"Then you äun't coming."

"Yes, I am."

"Then you haven't changed it."

§ 20.

The roads outside Rye were dark with people. A procession was forming up at Rye Foreign, and another at the foot of Cadborough Hill. Outside the railway station a massed band played something rather like the Marseillaise, while the grass-grown, brine-smelling streets were spotted with stragglers, hurrying up from all quarters, some carrying torches that flung shifting gleams on windows and gable-ends.

Immense barrels of tar had been loaded on four waggons, to which four of the most prosperous farmers of the district had harnessed teams. Odiam was of course not represented, nor was Grandturzel, but three bell-ringing sorrels had come all the way from Kitchenhour, while the marsh farms of Leasan, the Loose, and Becket's House, accounted for the rest.

The crowd surged round the waggons, cheered, joked, sang. The whole of Rye was there--prosperous tradesmen from the High Street or Station Road, innkeepers, farmers, shop-assistants, chains of fishermen in high boots, jerseys, and gold ear-rings, coast-guards from the Camber, and one or two scared-looking women clinging to stalwart arms.

Rose shrank close to Handshut, though she did not take his arm. Sometimes the crowd would fling them together, so that they were close as in an embrace, at others they would stand almost apart, linked only by sidelong glances. The flare of a torch would suddenly slide over Handshut's face, showing her its dark gipsy profile, and she would turn away her eyes as from something too bright to bear.

Every now and then the crowd would start singing inanely:

"Soles, plaice, and dabs,
Rate, skate, and crabs.
God save the Queen!"

It was like a muddled dream--people seemed to have no reason for what they did or shouted; they just ebbed and flowed, jostled and jambed, ran hither and thither, sang and laughed and swore. Rose looked round her to see if she could recognise anyone; now and then a face glowed on her in the torch-light, then died away, once she thought she saw the back of a tradesman's daughter whom she knew--but her chief feeling was of an utter isolation with her loved one, as if he and she stood alone on some sea-pounded island against which the tides of the world roared in vain.

At last the crowd began to move. The band had crushed through to the front of it, and was braying Rule Britannia up Playden Hill; then came the waggons, then the stout champions of freedom, singing at the pitch of their lungs:

"Soles, plaice, and dabs,
Rate, skate, and crabs.
God save the Queen!"

The stars winked on the black zenith, while troubled winds sped and throbbed over the fields that huddled in mystery and silence on either side of the road--where noise and skirmish and darting lights, with the odours of warm human bodies, and the thudding and scrabbling of a thousand feet, proclaimed the People's holiday.

They flowed through Playden like a torrent through an open sluice, sweeping up and carrying on all sorts of flotsam--villagers from cottage doors, ploughboys from the farms down by the Military Canal, gipsies from Iden Wood ... a mixed multitude, which the central mass absorbed, till all was one steaming and shouting blackness.

The first gate was at Mockbeggar, where the road to Iden joins that which crosses the Marsh by Corkwood and Baron's Grange. In a minute it was off its hinges, and swealing in tar, while lusty arms pulled twigs, branches, even whole bushes out of the hedges to build its pyre.

Rose shrank close to Handshut, so close that the clover scents of her laces were drowned in the smell of the cowhouse that came from his clothes. She found herself liking it, drinking in that soft, mixed, milky odour ... till a cloud of stifling tar-smoke swept suddenly over them, and she reeled against him suffocating, while all round them people choked and gasped and sneezed.

The fire was lighted, a great crimson tongue screamed up in front of two motionless poplars, leaped as high as their tops, then spread fan-shaped, roaring. Men and women joined hands and danced round the blaze--in the distance, above the surging pack of heads, Rose could see them jumping and capering, with snatches of song that became screams every minute.

The fire roared like a storm, and the wood crackled with sudden yelping reports. The dancing girls' hats flew off, their hair streamed wide, their skirts belled and swirled ... there was laughter and obscene remarks from the onlookers. Many from the rear pressed forward to join the dance, and those who were trampled on screamed or cursed, while one or two women fainted. Rose felt as if she would faint in the heat and reek of it all. She leaned heavily against Handshut and closed her eyes ... then she realised that his arm was round her. He held her against him, supporting her, while either she heard or thought she heard him say--"Döan't be scared, liddle Rose--I'm wud you. I wöan't let you fall."

She opened her eyes. The people were moving. The Mockbeggar gate had been accounted for, and they rolled on towards Thornsdale. The jamb was not so alarming, for a good many revellers had been left behind, dancing round the remains of the bonfire, crowding into the public-house, or scattering in couples over the fields.

But though the jostling was no longer dangerous, Handshut still kept his arm about Rose, and held her close to his side. Now and then she made a feeble effort as if to free herself, but he held her fast, and she never put out her full strength. They walked as if in a dream, they two together, not speaking to anyone, not speaking to each other. Rose saw as if in a dream the Sign of Virgo hanging above Stone. The dipping of the lane showed the Kentish marshes down in the valley, with the hills of Kent beyond them, twinkling with lights. The band lifted the strains of Hearts of Oak and Cheer, Boys, Cheer above the thud of marching feet, or occasionally drifted into sentiment with Love's Pilgrim--while every now and then, regardless of what was being played, two hundred throats would bray:

"Soles, plaice, and dabs,
Rate, skate, and crabs.
God save the Queen!"

It was about nine o'clock when they came to Thornsdale, down on the Rother levels; the moon had risen and the marsh was smeethed in white. The air was thick with a strong-scented miasma, and beside the dykes long lines of willows faded into the mist. Here another orgy was started, in grotesque contrast with the pallid sleep of water. The gate that barred the Kent road was torn down, the bonfire prepared, the dance begun.

The mists became patched with leaping shadows, and a dull crimson wove itself into the prevailing whiteness. Flaming twigs and sparks hissed into the dykes, rolls of acrid tar-smoke spread like a pall over the river and the Highnock Sewer, under which their waters were spotted with fire. The ground was soon pulped and poached with the jigging feet, and mud and water spurted into the dancers' faces.

It was all rather ugly and ridiculous, and as before at Mockbeggar, the crowd began to straggle. This time there was no public-house to swallow up strays, but the marsh spread far and wide, a Land of Promise for lovers, who began to slink off two by two into the mists. Some who were not lovers formed themselves into noisy groups, and bumped about the lanes--waking the farmers' wives from Bosney to Marsh Quarter.

Rose felt Handshut's arm clinging more tenderly about her, and she knew that he wanted to lead her away from the noise and glare, to the coolness and loneliness of the waterside. She wanted to go--her head ached, her nostrils tingled, and her eyes were sore with the fumes of tar, her ears wearied with the din.

"Let's go home," she said faintly--"it's getting late."

"We can go back by Corkwood across the marshes. It'll be quicker, and we shan't have no crowd spanneling round."

They elbowed their way into the open, and soon the noise had died into a subdued roar, not so loud as the sigh of the reeds, while the bonfire showed only as a crimson stain on the eastward piling fogs.

In time the contrast of silence grew quite painful. It ached. Only the sough of the wind in the reeds troubled it--the feet of Rose and Handshut were noiseless on the grass, they breathed inaudibly, only the breath of the watching night was heard.

They skirted the Corkwood dyke, from which rose the stupefying, sodden, almost flavorous, smell of dying reeds--a waterfowl suddenly croaked among them, and another answered her with a wail from beyond Ethnam. The willows were shimmering silver dreams, bathed in the light of the moon which hung above the Fivewatering and had washed nearly all the stars out of the sky--only Sirius hung like a dim lamp over Great Knell, while Lyra was faint above Reedbed in the north.

Rose walked half leaning against Handshut. She felt a very little feeble thing in the power of that great amorous night. The warm breath of the wind in her hair, the caress of moonlight on her eyes, the throbbing, miasmic, night-sweet scents of water and grass, the hush, the great sleep ... all tore at her heart, all weakened her with their huge soft strength, all crushed with their languors the poor resistance of her will.

The tears began to roll down her cheeks, they shone on her face in the moonlight--they fell quite fast as she walked on gripped against her lover's heart. She was leaning more and more heavily against him, for her strength was ebbing fast--oh, if he would only speak!--she could not walk much further, and yet she dared not rest beside him on that haunted ground.

At last they came to where the high land rose out of the levels like a shore out of the sea, with a lick of road on it, winding up to Peasmarsh. It was here that Rose's uncertain strength failed her, she lurched against Handshut, and still encircled by his arms slid to the grass.

They were in a huge meadow, sloping upwards to mysterious, night-wrapped hedges. The moonlight still trembled over the marsh, kindling sudden streaks of water, steeping fogs, silvering pollards and reeds. One could distinctly see the little houses on the Kent side of the Rother, Ethnam, and Lossenham, and Lambstand, some with lights blinking from them, others just black patches on the moon-grey country. Rose looked out towards them, and tried to picture in each a hearth beside which a husband and wife sat united ... then suddenly they were blotted out, as Handshut's face loomed dark between her and them, and his lips slowly fastened on her own.

For a moment she yielded to the kiss, then suddenly tore herself away.

"Rose ..."

"Let me go--I can't."

"Rose, why shud you pretend? You döan't love the mäaster, and you do love me. Why shudn't we be happy together?"

"We--I can't."

"Why?--I love you, and you love me. Come away wud me--you shan't have a hard life----"

"--It's not that."

"Wot is it then?"

"It's--oh, I can't--I'm his wife."

She pushed him from her as he tried to take her in his arms again, and stumbled to her feet.

"It's late--I--I must go home."

"Rose, you queer me."

He had risen too, and stood before her in mingled pain and surprise. He thought her resistance mere coyness, and suddenly flung his arms round her as she stood.

She began to cry.

"No, no--don't be so cruel! Let me go!--I'm his wife."

§ 21.

The walk home was dreary, for Rose and Handshut misunderstood each other, and yet loved each other too. She was silent, almost shamefaced, and he was a little disgusted with her--he felt that she had misled him, and in his soreness added "willingly."

They scarcely spoke, and the night spread round them its web of pondering silence. Aldebaran guttered above Kent, and the blurred patch of the Pleiades hung over the curded fogs that hid the Rother. There was no wind, but every now and then the grass rippled and the leaves fluttered, while a low hissing sound went through the trees. Sometimes from the distance came the shouts of some revellers still at large, echoing weirdly over the moon-steeped fields, and divinely purged by space and night.

Sobs were still thick in Rose's throat, when they came to Handshut's cottage, a little tumble-down place, shaped like a rabbit's head. She stopped.

"Don't come any further."

"Why?"

"It would be better if I wasn't seen with you."

He looked at her white face.

"You're frighted."

"No."

"Yes--and I'm coming wud you, surelye."

"I should be frightened if you came."

She managed to persuade him to go his different way--though the actual moment of their parting was always a blur in her memory. Afterwards she could not remember if they had kissed, touched hands, or parted without a word. Her throat was still full of sobs when she came to Odiam; she was panting, too, for she had run all the way--she did not know why.

The house was swimming in the light of the western moon. Its strange curves and bulges, its kiln-shaped ends, and great waving sprawl of roof all shone in a white glassy brilliance, which was somehow akin to peace. There was a soft flutter of wind in the orchard and in the sentinel poplars, while now and then came that distant night-purged scrap of song:

"Soles, plaice, and dabs,
Rate, skate, and crabs.
God save the Queen!"

Rose wondered uneasily what time it was. Surely it could not be very late, and yet the house was shut up and the windows dark.

She gently rattled the door-handle. There was no denying it--the house was locked up. It must be later than she thought--that walk on the Rother levels must have been longer than it had seemed to her thirsty love. A thrill of fear went through her. She hoped Reuben would not be angry. She was his dutiful wife.

She stood hesitating on the doorstep. Should she knock? Then a terrible thought struck her. Reuben must have meant to lock her out. Otherwise he would have sat up for her, however late she had been. She started trembling all over, and felt her skin grow damp.

She began to knock, first softly, then more desperately. She must get in. Nothing was to be heard except her own despairing din--the house seemed plunged in sleep. Rose's fear grew, spread black bat's wings, and darkened all her thoughts--for she knew that someone must have heard her, she could not make all this racket quite unheard.

What could she do? Caro slept at the back of the house, and it struck her that she had better go round, and throw up some earth at her window. Perhaps Caro would let her in. She stepped back from the door, and was just turning the corner of the house when a window suddenly shot open above her, and Reuben's tousled head looked out.

"There's no use your trying to git in."

Rose gave a faint scream. In the moonlight her husband's face looked distorted, while his voice came thick and unnatural.

"Ben!"

"Go away. Go away to where you've come from. I shan't let you in."

"You can't keep me out here. It isn't my fault I'm late--and I'm not so very late, either."

"It's one o'clock o' the marnun."

She felt her heart grow sick. If she had been happy for four hours, why, in God's name, had they not passed like four hours instead of like four minutes?

"Ben, I swear I didn't know. I was up to no harm, I promise you. Please, please--oh please let me in!"

"Not I--at one o'clock o' the marnun--after you've bin all night wud a----"

"Ben, I swear I'm your true wife."

She fell against the wall, and her hair, disordered by embraces, suddenly streamed over her shoulders. The sight of it made Reuben wild.

"Git off--before I täake my gun and shoot you."

"Oh, Ben!..."

"Höald your false tongue. You're no wife o' mine from this day forrard. I wöan't be cuckolded in my own house."

His face was swollen, his eyes rolled--he looked almost as if he had been drinking.

"Ben, don't drive me away. I've been true to you, indeed I have, and Handshut's going to-morrow. Let me in--please let me in. I swear I've been true."

"I want none o' your lying swears--at one o'clock o' the marnun. Go back to the man you've come from--he'll believe you easier nor I."

"Ben, I'm your wife."

"I tell you, you're no wife of mine. I'm shut of you--you false, fair, lying, scarlet woman. You needn't cry and weep, nuther--none 'ull say as Ben Backfield wur a soft man fur woman's tears."

He shut the window with a slam. For some moments Rose stood leaning against the wall, her sobs shaking her. Then, still sobbing, she turned and walked away.

She walked slowly down the drive till she came to the little path that led across the fields to Handshut's cottage. A light gleamed from the window, and she crept towards it through tall moon-smudged grass--while from the distance came for the last time:

"Soles, plaice, and dabs,
Rate, skate, and crabs.
God save the Queen!"

§ 22.

A glassy yellow broke into the sky like a curse. It shone on Reuben's eyes, and he opened them. They were pink and puffed round the rims, and the whites were shot with little blood-vessels. His cheeks were yellow, and round his mouth was an odd greyish tinge. He had lain dressed on his bed, and was surprised to find that he had slept. But the sleep had brought no refreshment--there was a bad taste in his mouth, and his tongue felt rough and thick.

He sat up on the tumbled bed and looked round him. Rose's nightgown was folded on her pillow, and over a chair lay a pair of the thin useless stockings he had often scolded her for wearing. A drawer was open, and from it came the soft perfume that adhered to everything she put on. He suddenly sprang out of bed and shut it with a kick.

"Durn her!" he said, and then two sobs tore their way painfully up his throat, shaking his whole body.

An hour later he went down. He had washed and tidied himself, none the less he disconcerted the household. Caro had lain awake all night, partly from misery, partly because of the baby, which she had been obliged to take charge of in the mother's absence. She had brought it down into the kitchen with her, and it had lain kicking in its cradle while she prepared the breakfast. She was worn out already after her sleepless night, and could not prevent the tears from trickling down her face as she cut bread for the meal.

"Stop that!" said Reuben roughly.

Except for this, he did not speak--nor after a few attempts on the former's part did Pete and Caro. They sat and gulped down their food in silence. Even Harry seemed to realise the general unrest. He would not sit at table, but wandered aimlessly up and down the room, murmuring, as was now his habit in times of domestic upheaval, "Another wedding--deary me! We're always having weddings in this house."

Then the baby began to howl because it was hungry. Rose had nursed it herself, and its wants had not occurred to the unhappy Caro or her father. There was delay and confusion while a bottle was fetched and milk prepared, and then--to crown all--cow's milk upset it, and it was sick. But Reuben escaped this final tragedy--he had left the room after a few mouthfuls, and gone to Handshut's cottage.

He could not restrain himself any longer. He must see Rose, and vent on her all the miserable rage with which his heart was seething. He longed to strike her--he longed to beat her, for the wanton that she was. And he longed to clasp her in his arms and weep on her breast and caress her, for the woman that she was.

But the cottage was shut. With its red-rotting roof between two tall chimneys it looked exactly like a rabbit's head between its ears; the windows were blind, though it was past seven o'clock, and though Reuben knocked at the door loudly, there was no one to be seen. He prowled once or twice round the house, fumbling handles and window-latches, but there was no way of getting in. He listened, but he could not hear a sound. He pictured Rose and Handshut in each other's arms, laughing at him in his wretchedness and their bliss--and all the time he wanted the woman's blood more than the man's.

At last he wandered desperately away, treading the furrows of his new ground on Boarzell, reckless that he trod the young seed harrowed into them. In that black moment even his winter crops were nothing to him. He saw, thought of, realised only one thing--and that was Rose, the false, the gay, the wanton, and the beautiful--oh the beautiful!--laughing at him from another man's arms. He could see her laughing, see just how her lips parted, just how her teeth shone--those little teeth, so regular except for the pointed canines--just how the dimples came at the corners of her mouth, those dear little hollows which he had dug with his kisses....

He ground his heel into the soft harrowed earth, and it cast up its smell into his nostrils unheeded. But the day of Boarzell was coming--its rival had been cleared out of the field, and the great hump with its knob of firs seemed to be lying in wait, till the man had pulled himself out of the pit of a false woman's love and given himself back to it, the strong, the faithful enemy.

About an hour later Reuben was down again at Handshut's cottage, but this time a change had worked itself. The door hung wide open--and the place was empty. He went through the two miserable little rooms, but there was no one, and nowhere for anybody to hide. The remains of a meal of bread and tea were on the table, and a fire of sticks was dying on the hearth. The lovers had flown--to laugh at him from a safe distance.

All the rest of the day he prowled aimlessly about his land. His men were afraid, for it was the first time they had seen him spend a day without work. He touched neither spade nor pitchfork, he gave no orders, just wandered restlessly about the fields and barns. He ate no supper, but locked himself into his room, while the baby's thin wail rose through the beams of the kitchen ceiling, and little David cried fractiously for "mother."

The next day Caro, haggard after another night made sleepless by her charges, knocked at his door. He had not come down to breakfast, and at eight o'clock the postman had brought a letter.

"It's from Rose," said Caro timidly.

"To me?"

"No, to me."

"Read it."

Caro read it. Rose was in London, but left that day for Liverpool. Handshut had saved a little money, and they were going to Canada. "I don't ask Ben to forgive me, for I know he never will."

"She's right there," said Reuben grimly.

Caro stood before him, creasing the letter nervously. Her father's wrath broke upon her, for want of his proper victim.

"Git out, can't yer--wot are you dawdling here for? You women are all the same--you'd be as bad as her if you cud only git a man."

Caro shrank from the jibe as if from a blow, and Reuben laughed brutally. He had made one woman suffer anyway.

§ 23.

Of course the neighbourhood gloated; and the rustic convention was set aside in Rose's favour, and all the shame of her elopement heaped on Reuben.

"No wäonder as she cudn't stick to him--hard, queer chap as he be."

"And thirty year older nor she, besides."

"Young Handshut wur a präaper lad, and valiant. I äun't surprised as she'd rather have un wudout a penny than old Ben wud all his gold."

"And he äun't got much o' that now, nuther. They say as he'll be bust by next fall."

Heads were shaken in triumphant commiseration, and the stones which according to all decent tradition should have been flung at Rose, hurtled round her husband instead.

Far away at Cheat Land, Alice Jury watched them fall--Alice Jury five years older than when she had struggled with Boarzell for Reuben before he married Rose. Her parents thought he had treated her badly, even though they did not know of the evening when she had humbled herself to plead for her happiness and his. She remembered that moment uneasily--it hurt her pride. But she could not regret having used her most desperate effort to win him, and she felt sure that he had understood her motive and realised that it was for him as well as for her that she had spoken.

Now, when she heard of his catastrophe, she wondered if he would come back. Did men come back?--and if they did, was she the type of woman they came back to? Perhaps she was too quick, too antagonistic. She told herself miserably that a softer woman could have saved Reuben, and yet, paradoxically, a softer woman would not have wished to do so.

She had seen very little of him or of Rose since their marriage. Rose and she had never been friends, and Reuben she knew was shy of her. He had been angry with her too, because she had not carried her aching heart on her sleeve. Outwardly she had worn no badge of sorrow--she was just as quick, just as combative, just as vivaciously intellectual as she had always been. Though she knew that she had lost him through these very characteristics, with which she had also attracted him, she made no effort to force herself into a different mould. She refused to regret anything, to be ashamed of anything, to change anything. If he came back he should find the same woman as he had left.

She felt that he would come--he would return to her in the reaction that swung him from Rose. But would she be able to keep him? She did not feel so sure of that--for that did not depend on her or on him, but on that mysterious force outside themselves with which they had both already struggled in vain.

§ 24.

Reuben scarcely knew what brought him to Cheat Land. It was about a week after the blow fell that he found himself treading the once familiar lane, lifting the latch of the garden gate, and knocking at the green house-door. Nothing had changed, except to fade a little and show some signs of wear and tear. Alice herself had not changed, nor had she faded, though her cheeks might have fallen in a trifle and a few lines traced themselves round her mouth.

"Welcome," she said, and laughed.

He took her hand, and forgot to be angry because she had laughed.

"Come in, and we'll have a talk. Father's out, and mother's upstairs."

She led the way into the queer little kitchen, which was also unchanged except for the fading of the curtains, and the introduction of one or two new books on the shelves. Alice pulled forward his old chair, and sat down opposite him on the settle. She wore one of her long wrapper-pinafores, this time of a warm clay-colour, which seemed to put a glow into her cheeks.

"Well, Alice," he said huskily.

"Well, Reuben, I'm glad to see you."

"You've heard?"

She nodded. Then she said gently:

"Poor Rose."

Reuben flushed.

"One o' my victims, eh?"

"Well, I knew you'd rather I said that than 'poor Reuben.'"

"Reckon I would. I remember as how you wur always trying to make out as my lazy good-fur-naun sons wur my victims, and as how I'd sacrificed them all to my farm; now I reckon you're trying to do the same wud Rose."

"Where is she?"

"I dunno. Somewheres between here and Canada. May she rot there lik a sheep on its back, and her man too. Now say 'poor Rose.'"

He turned on her almost fiercely, his lips curled back from his teeth in a sneer.

"If you speak like that I'll say 'poor Reuben.'"

"Well, say it--you wöan't be far wrong. Wot sort o' chap am I to have pride? My farm's ruined, my wife's run away, my children have left me--wot right have I to be proud?"

"Because, though all those things have happened, you're holding your head up still."

"But I äun't--yesterday I wur fair crying and sobbing in front of all the children. In the kitchen, it wur--after supper--I put down my head on the table, and----"

"Hush, I don't want to hear any more. I can guess what you must have suffered. I expect you miss Rose."

"I do--justabout."

"So should I in your place."

"She wur a beautiful woman, Alice."

Alice nodded.

"Oh, and her liddle dentical ways!"

Alice nodded again.

"You döan't mind me talking to you of her?"

"No, of course not."

"She wur the beautifullest I've known, and gay, and sweet, and a woman to love. But she deceived me. I married her expecting money, and there wur none--I married her fur her body, and she's given it to another."

"Well, you're not a hypocrite, anyway. You don't pretend you married her for any but the lowest motives."

"Wot should I have married her fur, then?"

"Some people marry for love."

"Love I--no. I've loved but one woman."

"Me!"

They had both said more than they intended, and suddenly realised it. Though the self-betrayal meant most to Alice, she was the first to recover a steady voice.

"But that does not matter now," she said calmly.

He leaned suddenly forward and took her hand.

"Alice."

Her hand lay in his, a very small thing, and her head bent towards it. She did not want him to see her cheeks flush and her eyes fill at this his first caress.

"Alice--how did you know?"

"I'm not a fool."

"I guessed too."

"Of course you did. I--I gave myself away. I pleaded with you."

He raised her hand slowly to his lips.

"I forgot you all the time I wur wud Rose," he remarked naively.

"You needn't tell me that."

"But now I--well, it's too late anyhow. I'm a married man, no matter that my wife's in Canada. Of course, I could git a divorce--but I wöan't."

"No--it would cost money."

"More than I could spare."

Alice laughed.

"I never looked upon Rose as my rival--I always knew my real rival was your farm, and though now Rose is out of the way, that still stands between us."

Reuben was silent. He sat leaning forward in his chair, holding Alice's hand. Then he abruptly rose to his feet.

"Well, I must be going. It's done me good, our talk. Not that you've said anything particular comforting, but then you never did. It's good anyway to sit wud a woman wot's not lik a fat stroked cat--not a thin kicked one, nuther," he added viciously, remembering Caro. "You're lik a liddle tit-bird, Alice. I love you. But I'm not sorry I didn't marry you, for you'd have busted me same as Rose, only in a different way."

"Most likely."

She laughed again. He stooped forward and kissed her forehead, and the laugh died on her lips.

§ 25.

The rest of that day Reuben was a little happier. He felt comforted and stimulated, life was not so leaden. In the evening he worked a little in the hop-gardens. They were almost cleared now, and the smoke of the drying furnaces was streaming through the cowls of the oasts, shedding into the dusk a drowsy, malt-sweetened perfume. When the moon hung like a yellow splinter above Iden Wood, the pickers went home, and Reuben turned in to his supper, which for the first time since Rose's flight he ate with hearty pleasure.

He could not tell exactly what it was that had invigorated him, and jerked him out of his despair. It would seem as if Alice's presence alone had tonic qualities. Perhaps the secret lay in her unchangeableness. He had gone back to her after an absence of five years, and found her just the same, still loving him, still fighting him, the old Alice. Everything else had changed--his farm which in the former days had been the thriving envy of the countryside was now little better than a ruin, his home life had been turned inside out, but in the woman over at Cheat Land nothing had altered, love and strength and faithfulness still flourished in her. It was as if a man stumbling in darkness should suddenly hear a loved, familiar voice say "Here I am." The situation summed itself up in three words--She was there; and his heart added--"for me to take if I choose."

In spite of his revived spirits he could not sleep, but he went up early to his room, for he wanted to think. During the evening the idea had gained on him that he could still have Alice if he wanted her, and with the idea had grown the sensation that he wanted her with all his heart.

His return had been complete. All that she had ever had and lost of empire had re-established itself during that hour at Cheat Land. He wanted her as he had wanted her before he met Rose, but with a renewed intensity, for he was no longer mystified by his desire. He no longer asked himself how he could possibly love "a liddle stick of a woman like her," for he saw how utterly love-worthy she was and had always been. For the first time he saw as his, if only he would take it, a great woman's faithful love. This love of Alice Jury's had nothing akin to Naomi's poor little fluttering passion, or to Rose's fascination, half appetite, half game. Someone loved him truly, strongly, purely, deeply, with a fire that could be extinguished only by death or--he realised in a dim way--her own will. The question was, should he pay the price this love demanded, take it to himself at the cost of the ambitions that had fed his life for forty years?

He sat down by the open window, leaning his elbow on the sill. The night was as soft as honey, and dark as a bowl of wine. The stars were scattered and dim, the moon had dipped into a belt of fogs, the fields were bloomed with darkness and sleep. The ridge of Boarzell was just visible under the Dog Star--the lump of firs stood motionless, for the wind had dropped, and not even a whisper from the orchard proclaimed its sleeping place.

Reuben's eyes swept the dim outlines of his farm--the yard, the barns, the oasts, the fields beyond, up to where his boundaries scarred the waste. It was all blurred and blanketed in the darkness, but his mind could see it in every detail. He saw the cow-stable empty except for the six cheap Suffolks which just supplied his household and one or two gentry with milk; he saw doors split and unhinged that he could not afford to mend, gaping roofs that he could not afford to retile, while the martins stole his thatch for their autumn broods; he saw his oat-harvest mostly straw, his hop-harvest gathered at a loss, his hay spoiled with sorrel; he saw himself short of labour, one man turned off, another run away; and he saw all the flints and shards and lime of Boarzell breaking his plough, choking his winter wheat, while on the lower ground runnels of clay made his corn sedgy, and everywhere the tough, wiry fibres of the gorse drank all the little there was of goodness out of the ground and scattered it from its blossoms in useless fragrance.

This was what his forty years of struggle had brought him to. He saw himself in the midst of a huge ambitious ruin. He had failed, his hopes were blighted--what could he expect to pull out of this wreck. It would be far better and wiser if he gave up the dreary uncertain battle, and took the sure rest at hand. If he sold some of the more fruitful part of his land he would be able to divorce Rose, then he could marry Alice and live with her a quiet, shorn, unambitious life. No one would buy the new ground on Boarzell, but he could easily sell the low fields by the Glotten brook; that would leave him with twenty or thirty acres of fairly good land round the farm, and all his useless encroachments on Boarzell which he would allow to relapse into their former state. He would have enough to live upon, to support his children and his delicate wife--he would be able to take no risks and make no ventures, but he would be comfortable.

His old father's words came back to him--"I've no ambitions, so I'm a happy man. I döan't want nothing I haven't got, so I haven't got nothing I döan't want." Perhaps his father had been right. After all, what had he, Reuben, got by being ambitious? Comfort, peace, home-life, wife, children, were all so many bitter words to him, and his great plans themselves had crumbled into failure--he had lost everything to gain nothing.

Far better give up the struggle while there was the chance of an honourable retreat. He realised that he was at the turning point--a step further along his old course and he would lose Alice, a step along the road she pointed, and he would lose Boarzell. After all he had not won Boarzell, most likely never would win it--if he persisted on his old ways they would probably only lead him to ruin, and later there might be no Alice to turn to. If he renounced her now, he would be definitely pledging himself to Boarzell and all his soaring, tottering schemes--he would not be able to "come back" a second time.

If he lost Alice now he might be losing her for a dream, a bubble, a will-o'-the-wisp. Surely he would be wise to pull what he could out of the wreck, take her, and forget all else. Only a fool would turn away from her now, and press forward. In the old days it had been different, he had been successful then--now he was a failure, and saw his chance to fail honourably. Better take it before it was too late.

His mind painted him a picture it had never dared paint before--the comfortable red house basking in sunshine, with a garden full of flowers, a cow or two at pasture in the meadow, the little hop-field his only tilth--his dear frail wife sitting in the porch, his children playing at her feet or reading at her knee--perhaps they were hers too, perhaps they were not. He saw himself contented, growing stout, wanting nothing he hadn't got, so having nothing he didn't want ... he was leaning over her chair, and gazing away into the southern distance where Boarzell lay against the sky, all patched with heather and thorns, all golden with gorse, unirrigated, uncultivated, without furrow or fence....