Chapter 56

The Fat Man Takes His Ticket

In Cuckmere, that quiet village between the Weald and the sea, in which there was the normal amount of lying, thieving, drunkenness, low-living, back-biting, and slander, there dwelt two souls who had fought steadfastly and unobtrusively for twenty years to raise the moral and material standards of the community.

One was the vicar of the parish, and the other Mrs. Woodburn. The two worked together for the common end unknown except to each other and those they helped.

Mr. Haggard was something of a saint and something of a scholar. Mrs. Woodburn had been born among the people, knew them, their family histories, and failings; was wise, tolerant, and liberal alike in purse and judgment. Her practical capacity made a good counterpoise to the other's benevolence and generous impetuosity.

When the vicar was in trouble about a case, he always went to Mrs. Woodburn long before he went to the Duke; and he rarely went in vain.

The parlour at Putnam's had seen much intimate communion between these two high and tranquil spirits over causes that were going ill and souls reluctant to be saved. The vicar always came to Putnam's: Mrs. Woodburn never went to the Vicarage. That was partly because the vicar's wife was a stout and strenuous churchwoman who cherished a genuine horror of what she called "chapel" as the most insidious and deadly foe of the spirit, and still more because Mrs. Haggard was a woman, and a jealous one at that.

* * * * *

It was a few days after the National that the vicar made one of his calls at Putnam's.

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Woodburn in her direct and simple way after the first greeting.

She knew he never came except on business.

"It's that wretched fellow Joses," he answered. "He's been in some scrape at the National, I gather, and got himself knocked about. Somehow he crawled back to his earth. I rather believe Mr. Silver paid his train-fare and saw him through."

"Is he dying?" asked Mrs. Woodburn.

The vicar replied that the parish nurse thought he was in a very bad way.

"Is she seeing to him?"

"She's doing what she can."

"We'd better ask Dr. Pollock to go round and look at him," said Mrs. Woodburn. "Don't you bother any more, Mr. Haggard. I'll see that the best is done."

She telephoned to the Polefax doctor.

That afternoon he called at Putnam's and made his report.

"He's in a very bad way, Mrs. Woodburn," he said. "Advanced arterial deterioration. And the condition is complicated by some deep-seated fear-complex."

The doctor was young, up-to-date, and dabbling in psycho-therapy.

"Fear of death?" asked Mrs. Woodburn.

"Fear of life, I think," the other answered. "He wouldn't talk to me. And I can't, of course, attempt a mental analysis."

Mrs. Woodburn had no notion what he meant, and believed, perhaps rightly, that he did not know himself.

"He's been unfortunate," she said.

"So I guessed," answered the young man. "He asked me who sent me, and when I told him said he'd be grateful if you'd call on him."

"I'll go round."

Toward evening she called at the cottage.

Mrs. Boam showed her up.

Joses lay on a bed under the slope of the roof, his head at the window so that he could look out.

His face was faintly livid, and he breathed with difficulty.

Mrs. Woodburn's heart went out to him at the first glance.

"I'm sorry to see you like this, Mr. Joses," she said gently. "You wanted to see me?"

"Well," he answered, "it was _Miss_ Woodburn I wanted to see." He looked at her wistfully out of eyes that women had once held beautiful. "D'you think she'd come?"

"I'm sure she will," the other answered reassuringly.

Joses lay with his mop of red hair like a dingy and graying aureole against the pillow.

"D'you mind?" he asked.

Her eyes filled with kindness. He seemed to her so much a child.

"What! Her coming to see you here?"

"Yes."

She smiled at him in her large and loving way.

"Of course I don't," she said, and added almost archly: "And if I did I'm not sure it would make much difference."

He found himself laughing.

She moved about the room, ordering it.

Then she returned to Putnam's to seek her daughter.

* * * * *

After the National Boy had emerged from the cloud which had long covered her.

She returned home, radiant and impenitent.

"I've been thinking things over," she said on the morning after her return. "And I'll forgive you, mother, for your lack of faith."

"Thank you, my dear," replied the other laconically.

"This once," added Boy firmly. "Now, mind!"

* * * * *

Mrs. Woodburn now gave her daughter Joses's message.

The girl said nothing, but visited the cottage next morning.

She stood in the door, firm and fresh, the colour in her hair, the bloom on her cheeks, and looked at that mass of decaying man upon the bed.

"Are you bad?" she asked, anxious as a child.

"I suppose I'm not very good," he answered.

She snatched her eyes away.

"Well, I congratulate you," he said at last, quietly.

She sought for irony in his voice and eyes, and detected none.

"What on?"

"Your victory."

Her face softened.

"Thank you."

"You deserved to win," continued the other, with genuine admiration. "You rode a great race. I couldn't have believed a girl could have got the course if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes." His gaze met hers quite honestly. "You see I didn't count on the double fake. I knew you were going to ride as Albert, but I'd quite forgotten the corollary--that Albert might dress as you. That's where you beat me."

The girl's chest was rising and falling.

"Mr. Joses," she said, "I didn't ride the horse."

His eyes sought hers, dissatisfied, and then wandered to the window.

"Well, well," he said. "We won't argue about it. Anyway, you won."

Boy looked out of the window.

"I _did_ try and deceive you into thinking I was going to ride," she said with a quake in her voice. "That was partly deviltry and partly to put you off. I thought if you believed you could get back on us _after_ the race you'd not try it on before. Besides, I could never ride the course. Three miles was my limit over fences at racing speed when I was at my best, and that's some years since."

He was quite unconvinced.

"I give you best, Miss Woodburn," he said. "But Albert could never have ridden that race. Never! It was a good win. And you deserved it. But it wasn't that I wanted to see you about." He looked round the little room. "It's not much of a place perhaps, you may think. But there's the window, and the sight of grass, and cows grazing and folks passing on the path. And in this house there's Mrs. Boam, and Jenny, and the pussy-cat. I should miss it." He lifted those suffering eyes of his. "I don't want to pass what little time I've left in the cage."

"But they won't hurt you now," cried Boy. "They couldn't."

The other laughed his dreadful laughter.

"Couldn't they?" he said. "You don't know 'em. It's the cat-and-mouse business all the time. I'm the mouse. I've been there."

"But you've done nothing," said Boy.

Joses moved his head on the pillow.

"There's just one thing," he said, dropping his voice. "Mr. Silver's got a little bit of paper that might make trouble for me."

"But he shall give it up!" cried the girl.

"Will he?" grunted the other.

"Of course he will. He's as kind as kind."

Joses shook a dubious head.

"Men are men," he said. "And when men get across each other they are tigers."

"He's a tame one," said the girl. "I'll see to that."

"He might be," muttered the other. "In the hands of the right tamer."

Boy went straight back to Putnam's and discovered Mr. Silver smoking in the saddle-room.

She told him what had passed.

"I know," he said. "Here it is." He produced the bit of paper. "I'll burn it," and he held it to the bowl of his pipe.

"No!" cried the girl. "Give it me."

She took it straight back to the sick man.

He lit a match and watched it burn with eyes that were almost covetous.

"That's the last of 'em," he said. "Now I shall die in the open like a gentleman."

He was, in fact, dying very fast.

It did not need Dr. Pollock's assurance to make the girl aware of that.

She longed to help him.

"Would you like to see Mr. Haggard?" she asked awkwardly.

He shook his head, amused.

"He'd come the parson over me."

"I don't think he would."

"He couldn't help it if he was true to his cloth."

"I'm not sure he is," said Boy doubtfully.

"You're the same," he said.

She glanced up at him swiftly.

His eyes were mischievous, almost roguish.

"What d'you mean?"

"You want me to repent."

She coloured guiltily, and he laughed like a boy, delighted with his own cleverness.

"There's one thing Mr. Haggard might do for me," he said. "Lend me Clutton Brock's _Shelley_, if he would. He's got it, I know."

The girl made a mental note, wrinkling her brow.

"Shelley's _Clutton Brock_," she said. "I'll remember."

She sat beside his bed. His eyes dwelt on her keen, earnest young face, and the blue eyes gazing thoughtfully out of the window.

"You're a Philistine," he said at last. "But you're clean. Philistines are. That's the best of them."

"What's a Philistine?" she asked.

He did not answer her.

"You're the cleanest thing I've met," he continued. "There's a flame burning in you all the time that devours all your rubbish. Mine accumulates and corrupts."

"I don't like you to talk like that," said the girl, withdrawing.

"There's only one thing that'll purge me," the other continued.

"What's that?"

"Fire."

The girl's eyes darkened.

"Are you afraid?" she asked swiftly.

"Of Hell with a large H?"

She nodded, and he laughed.

"What I've had I've paid for across the counter and got the receipt stamped and signed by the Almighty. No, it's not the fires of Hell; it's the power of the old sun working on my vile body through the ages that'll renew me with beauty and youth in time. Life's eternal, sure enough; but not on the lines the parsons tell us."

A little later she rose to go.

He detained her.

"Shall you come and see me again?" he asked her.

She gave him a shy and brilliant smile.

"Rather," she said. "So'll mother."

He kissed her hand, and there was beauty in his eyes.

Next day she called with the book from Mr. Haggard.

Dr. Pollock was coming down the path.

"He's out of pain," he said gravely.

Boy returned to Putnam's and picked some violets.

Then she came back to the cottage.

Mrs. Boam was weeping as she opened.

"May I see him?" said the girl.

"Yes, Miss," answered the other. "We shall miss him, Jenny and me. He were that lovable."

Boy went upstairs and entered.

Joses was at peace: the dignity of death upon him.

She laid the violets on his breast.