Part 4

A tramp came through a cutting by old Jerry Shindle’s nursery, and crossing the stile, stepped into the glare of the white road. He was a tall swarthy man with stubbly red whiskers which appeared to conceal the whole of his face, except a small portion under each eye about the size of a two shilling piece. His skin showed through the rents in a filthy old black green garment, and was the same colour as his face, a livid bronze. His toes protruded from his boots, which seemed to be homemade contraptions of canvas and string. He carried an ash stick, and the rest of his worldly belongings in a spotted red and white handkerchief. His worldly belongings consisted of some rags, a door-knob, a portion of a foot-rule, a tin mug stolen from a workhouse, half a dozen date stones, a small piece of very old bread, a raw onion, the shutter of a camera, and two empty matchboxes.

He looked up and down the road as though uncertain of his direction. To the north it curved under the wooded opulence of Crawshay Park. To the south it stretched like a white ribbon across a bold vista of shadeless downs. He was hungry and he eyed, critically, the potential possibilities of a cottage standing back from the road. It was a shabby little three-roomed affair with fowls running in and out of the front door, some washing on a line, and the sound of a child crying within. While he was hesitating, a farm labourer came through a gate to an adjoining field, and walked toward the cottage. He, too, carried property tied up in a red handkerchief. His other hand balanced a steel fork across his left shoulder. He was a thick-set, rather dour-looking man. As he came up the tramp said:

“Where does this road lead to, mate?”

The labourer replied brusquely:

“Pondhurst.”

“How far?”

“Three and a half miles.”

Without embroidering this information any further he walked stolidly across the road and entered the garden of the cottage. The tramp watched him put the fork down by the lintel of the door. He saw him enter the cottage, and he heard a woman’s voice. He sighed and muttered into his stubbly red beard: “Lucky devil!” Then, hunching his shoulders, he set out with long flat-footed strides down the white road which led across the downs.

II

Having kicked some mud off his boots, the labourer, Martin Crosby, said to his wife:

“Dinner ready?”

Emma Crosby was wringing out some clothes. Her face was shiny with the steam and the heat of the day. She answered petulantly:

“No, it isn’t. You’ll have to wait another ten minutes, the ’taters aren’t cooked. I’ve enough to do this morning I can tell yer, what with the washing, and Lizzie screaming with her teeth, and the biler going wrong.”

“Ugh! There’s allus somethin’.”

Martin knew there was no appeal against delay. He had been married four years; he knew his wife’s temper and mode of life sufficiently well. He went out into the garden and lighted his pipe. The fowls clucked round his feet and he kicked them away. He, too, was hungry. However, there would be food of a sort--in time. Some greasy pudding and potatoes boiled to a liquid mash, a piece of cheese perhaps. Well, there it was. When you work in the open air all day you can eat anything. The sun was pleasant on his face, the shag pungent and comforting. If only old Emma weren’t such a muddler! A good enough piece of goods when at her best, but always in a muddle, always behind time, no management, and then resentful because things went wrong. Lizzie: seven months old and two teeth through already and another coming. A lovely child, the spit and image of--what her mother must have been. Next time it would be a boy. Life wasn’t so bad--really.

The gate clicked, and the tall figure of Ambrose Baines appeared. He was dressed in a corduroy coat and knickers, stout brown gaiters and square thick boots. Tucked under his arm was a gun with its two barrels pointing at the ground. He was the gamekeeper to Sir Septimus Letter. He stood just inside the gate and called out:

“Mornin’, Martin.”

Martin replied: “Mornin’.”

“I was just passin’. The missus says you can have a cookin’ or so of runner beans if you wants ’em. We’ve got more than enough, and I hear as yours is blighty.”

“Oh!... ay, thank’ee.”

“Middlin’ hot to-day.”

“Ay ... terrible hot.”

“When’ll you be comin’?”

“I’ll stroll over now. There’s nowt to do. I’m waitin’ dinner. I ’specks it’ll be a half-hour or so. You know what Emm is.”

He went inside and fetched a basket. He said nothing to his wife, but rejoined Baines in the road. They strolled through the cutting and got into the back of the gamekeeper’s garden just inside the wood. Martin went along the row and filled his basket. Baines left him and went into his cottage. He could hear Mrs. Baines singing and washing up.

Of course _they_ had had their dinner. It would be like that. Mrs. Baines was a marvel. On one or two occasions Martin had entered their cottage. Everything was spick and span, and done on time. The two children always seemed to be clean and quiet. There were pretty pink curtains and framed oleographs. Mrs. Baines could cook, and she led the hymns at church--so they said. Even the garden was neat, and trim, and fruitful. Of course _their_ runner beans would be prolific whilst his failed. Mrs. Baines appeared at the door and called out:

“Mornin’, Mr. Crosby.”

He replied gruffly: “Mornin’, Mrs. Baines.”

“Middlin’ hot.”

“Ay ... terrible hot.”

She was not what you would call a pretty, attractive woman; but she was natty, competent, irrepressibly cheerful. She would make a shilling go as far as Emma would a pound. The cottage had five rooms, all in a good state of repair. The roof had been newly thatched. All this was done for him, of course, by his employer. He paid no rent; Martin had to pay five shillings a week, and then the roof leaked, and the boiler never worked properly--but perhaps that was Emm’s fault. He picked up his basket and strolled toward the outer gate. As he did so, he heard the two children laughing, and Baines’s voice joining in.

“Some people do have luck,” Martin murmured, and went back to his wife.

III

Jack and Jill went up the hill To fetch a pail of water; Jack fell down and broke his crown And Jill came tumbling after!

It was very pretty--the way Winny Baines sang that, balancing the smaller boy on her knee, and jerking him skyward on the last word. Not what the world would call a pretty woman, but pretty enough to Ambrose, with her clear skin, kind motherly eyes, and thin brown hair. Her voice had a quality which somehow always expressed her gentle and unconquerable nature.

“She’s too good for me,” Ambrose would think at odd moments. “She didn’t ought to be a gamekeeper’s wife. She ought to be a lady--with carriages, and comforts, and well-dressed friends.”

The reflection would stir in him a feeling of sullen resentment, tempered with pride. She was a wonderful woman. She managed so well; she never complained. Of course, so far as the material necessities were concerned, there was enough and to spare. The cottage was comfortable, and reasonably well furnished--so far as he could determine. Of food there was abundance; game, rabbits, vegetables, eggs, fruit. The only thing he had to buy in the way of food was milk from the farm, and a few groceries from Mr. Meads’s shop. He paid nothing for the cottage and yet--he would have liked to have made things better for Winny. His wages were small, and there were clothes to buy, all kinds of little incidental expenses. There never seemed a chance to save and soon there would be the boy’s schooling.

In spite of the small income, Winny always managed to keep herself and the children neat and smart, and even to help others like the more unfortunate Crosbys. She did all the work of the cottage, the care of the children, the mending and washing, and still found time to make jam, to preserve fruit, to grow flowers, and to sing in the church choir. She was the daughter of a piano-tuner at Bladestone, and the glamour of this early connection always hung between Ambrose and herself. To him a piano-tuner appeared a remote and romantic figure. It suggested a world of concerts, theatres, and Bohemian life. He was never quite clear about the precise functions of a piano-tuner, but he regarded his wife as the daughter of a public man, coming from a world far removed from the narrow limits of the life she was forced to lead with him.

In spite of her repeated professions of happiness, Ambrose always felt a shade suspicious, not of her, but of his own ability to satisfy her every demand. Sometimes he would observe her looking round the little rooms, as though she were visualizing what they might contain. Perhaps she wanted a grand piano, or some inlaid chairs, or embroidered coverings. He had not the money to buy these things, and he knew that she would never ask for them; but still it was there--that queer gnawing sense of insecurity. At dawn he would wander through the coppices, drenched in dew, the gun under his arm, and the dog close to heel. The sunlight would come rippling over the jewelled leaves, and little clumps of primroses and violets would reveal themselves. Life would be good then, and yet somehow--it was not Winny’s life. Only through their children did they seem to know each other.

Jack and Jill went up the hill To fetch a pail of water; Jack fell down and broke his crown And Jill came tumbling after!

“Oo--Ambrose,” the other boy was tugging at his beard, when Winny spoke. He pretended to scream with pain before he turned to his wife.

“Yes, my dear?”

“Will you be passing Mr. Meads’s shop? We have run out of candles.”

“Oh? Roight be, my love. I’ll be nigh there afore sundown. I have to order seed from Crumblings.”

He was later than he expected at Mr. Meads’s shop. He had to wait whilst several women were being served. The portly owner’s new cash register went “tap-tapping!” five times before he got a chance to say:

“Evenin’, Mr. Meads, give us a pound of candles, will ye?”

Mrs. Meads came in through a parlour at the back, in a rustling black dress. She was going to a welfare meeting at the vicar’s. She said:

“Good evening, Mr. Baines, hope you are all nicely.”

A slightly disturbing sight met the eye of Ambrose. The parlour door was open, and he could see a maid in a cap and apron clearing away tea things in the gaily furnished room. The Meads had got a servant! He knew that Meads was extending his business. He had a cheap clothing department now, and he was building a shed out at the back with the intention of supplying petrol to casual motorists, but--a servant!

He picked up his packet of candles and muttered gruffly:

“Good evenin’.”

Before he had reached the door he heard “Tap-tapping!” _His_ one and twopence had gone into the box. As he swung down the village street, he muttered to himself:

“God! I wish I had his money!”

IV

When Mrs. Meads returned from the welfare meeting at half-past eight, she found Mr. Meads waiting for her in the parlour, and the supper laid. There was cold veal and beetroot, apple pie, cheese and stout.

“I’m sorry I’m late, dear,” she said.

“That’s all right, my love,” replied Mr. Meads, not looking up from his newspaper.

“We had a lovely meeting--Mrs. Wonnicott was there, and Mrs. Beal, and Mrs. Edwin Pillcreak, and Mrs. James, and Ada, and both the Jamiesons, and the Vicar was perfectly sweet. He made two lovely speeches.”

“Oh, that was nice,” said Mr. Meads, trying to listen and read a piquant paragraph about a divorce case at the same time.

“I should think you want your supper.”

“I’m ready when you are, my love.”

Mr. Meads put down his newspaper, and drawing his chair up to the table, began to set about the veal. He was distinctly a man for his victuals. He carved rapidly for her, and less rapidly for himself. From this you must not imagine that he treated his wife meanly. On the contrary, he gave her a large helping, but a close observer could not help detecting that when carving for himself he seemed to take more interest in his job. Then he rang a little tinkly hand-bell and the new maid appeared.

“Go into the shop, my dear,” he said, “and get me a pot of pickled walnuts from the second shelf on the left before you come to them bales of calico.”

The maid went, and Mrs. Meads clucked:

“Um--being a bit extravagant to-night, John.”

“The labourer is worthy of his hire,” quoted Mr. Meads sententiously. He put up a barrage of veal in the forefront of his mouth--he had no back teeth, but managed to penetrate it with an opaque rumble of sound. “Besides we had a good day to-day--done a lot of business. Pass the stout----”

“I’m glad to hear it,” replied Mrs. Meads. “It’s about time things began to improve, considerin’ what we’ve been through. Mrs. Wonnicott was wearin’ her biscuit-coloured taffeta with a new lace yoke. She looked smart, but a bit stiff for the Welfare to my way of thinkin’.”

“Ah!” came rumbling through the veal.

“Oh, and did I tell you Mrs. Mounthead was there, too? She was wearing her starched ninon--no end of a swell she looked.”

Mr. Meads’s eyes lighted with a definite interest at last. Mrs. Mounthead was the wife of James Mounthead, the proprietor of that handsome hostelry, “The Die is Cast.” When his long day’s work was over Mr. Meads would not infrequently pop into “The Die is Cast” for an hour or so before closing time and have a long chat with Mr. James Mounthead. He swallowed half a glass of stout at a gulp, and helped himself liberally to the pickled walnuts which the maid had just brought in. Eyeing the walnuts thoughtfully, he said:

“Oh, so she’s got into it, too, has she?”

“Yes, she’s really quite a pleasant body. She told me coming down the street that her husband has just bought Bolder’s farm over at Pondhurst. He’s setting up his son there who’s marrying Kate Steyning. Her people have got a bit of money, too, so they’ll be all right. By the way, we haven’t heard from Charlie for nearly three weeks.”

Mr. Meads sighed. Why were women always like that? There was Edie. He was trying to tell her that things were improving, going well in fact. The shed for petrol and motor accessories was nearly finished; the cheap clothing department was in full swing; he had indulged in pickled walnuts for supper (her supper, too); and there she must needs talk about--Charlie! Everybody in the neighbourhood knew that their son Charlie was up in London, and not doing himself or anybody else any good. And almost in the same breath she must needs talk about old Mounthead’s son. Everyone knew that young Mounthead was a promising, industrious fellow. Oh! and so James had bought him Bolder’s farm, had he? That cost a pretty penny, he knew. Just bought a farm, had he? Not put the money into his business; just bought it in the way that he, Sam Meads, might buy a gramophone, or an umbrella. Psaugh!

“I don’t want no tart,” he said, on observing Edie begin to carve it.

“No tart!” she exclaimed. “Why, what’s wrong?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied. “Don’t feel like it--working too hard--bit flatulent. I’ll go out for a stroll after supper.”

An hour later he was leaning against the bar of “The Die is Cast,” drinking gin and water, and listening to Mr. Mounthead discourse on dogs. The bar of “The Die is Cast” was a self-constituted village club. Other cronies drifted in. They were all friends of both Mr. Meads and Mr. Mounthead. Mrs. Mounthead seldom appeared in the bar, but there was a potman and a barmaid named Florrie; and somewhere in the rear a cook, two housemaids, a scullerymaid, a boy for knives and boots, and an ostler. Mr. Mounthead had a victoria and a governess car, as well as a van for business purposes, a brown mare and a pony. He also had his own farm well stocked with pigs, cattle, and poultry. While taking his guests’ money in a sleepy leisurely way, he regaled them with the rich fruits of his opinions and experiences. Later on he dropped casually that he was engaging an overseer at four hundred a year to take his son’s place. And Mr. Meads glanced round the bar and noted the shining glass and pewter, the polished mahogany, the little pink and green glasses winking at him insolently.

“He doesn’t know what work is either,” suddenly occurred to him. Mr. Mounthead’s work consisted mostly in a little bookkeeping, and in ordering people about. He only served in the shop as a kind of social relaxation. If he, Sam Meads, didn’t serve in his shop himself all day from early morning till late evening, goodness knows what would happen to the business. Besides--the pettiness of it all! Little bits of cheese, penny tins of mustard, string, weighing out sugar and biscuits, cutting bacon, measuring off ribbons and calico, and flannelette. People gossiping all day, and running up little accounts it was always hard to collect. But here--oh, the snappy quick profit. Everybody paying on the nail, served in a second, and what a profit! Enough to buy a farm for a son as though it was--an umbrella. Walking home, a little dejectedly, later on, he struck the road with his stick, and muttered:

“Damn that man!”

V

Mrs. James Mounthead was rather pleased with her starched ninon. She leant back luxuriously in the easy chair, yawned, and pressed her hands along the sides of her well-fitting skirt. Gilt bangles round her wrists rattled pleasantly during this performance. A paste star glittered on her ample bosom. She heard James moving ponderously on the landing below; the bar had closed. He came puffily up the stairs and opened the door.

“A nightcap, Queenie?” he wheezed through the creaking machinery of his respiratory organs.

Mrs. Mounthead smiled brightly. “I think I will to-night, Jim.”

He went to a cabinet and poured out two mixed drinks. He handed his wife one, and raising the other to his lips, said:

“Well, here’s to the boy!”

“Here’s to James the Second!” she replied, and drank deeply. Her eyes sparkled. Mrs. Mounthead was excited. The bangles clattered against the glass as she set it down.

“Come and give me a kiss, old dear”, she said, leaning back.

Without making any great show of enthusiasm, James did as he was bidden. He, too, was a little excited, but his excitement was less amorous than commercial. He had paid nearly twelve hundred pounds less for Bolder’s farm than he had expected. The news of his purchase was all over the neighbourhood. It had impressed everyone. People looked at him differently. He was becoming a big man, _the_ big man in those parts. He could buy another farm to-morrow, and it wouldn’t break him. And the boy--the boy was a good boy; he would do well, too.

A little drink easily affected Mrs. Mounthead. She became garrulous.

“I had a good time at the Welfare, though some of the old cats didn’t like me, I know. Ha, ha, ha, what do I care? We could buy the whole lot up if we wanted to, except perhaps the Wonnicotts. Mine was the only frock worth a tinker’s cuss. Lord! You should have seen old Mrs. Meads! Looked like a washerwoman on a Sunday. The vicar was ever so nice. He called me madam, and said he ’oped I often come. I gave a fiver to the fund. Ha, ha, ha, I didn’t tell ’em that I made it backing ‘Ringcross’ for the Nunhead Stakes yesterday! They’d have died.”

During this verbal explosion, James Mounthead thoughtfully regarded his glass. And he thought to himself: “Um. It’s a pity Queenie gives herself away sometimes.” He didn’t particularly want to hear about the Welfare. He wanted to talk about “James the Second” and the plans for the future. He wanted to indulge in the luxury of talking about their success, but he didn’t want to boast about wealth in quite that way. He had queer ambitions not unconnected with the land he lived on. He had not always been in the licensing trade. His father had been a small landed proprietor and a stock breeder; a man of stern, unrelenting principles. From his father he, James Mounthead, had inherited a kind of reverence for the ordered development of land and cattle, an innate respect for the sanctity of tradition, caste, property and fair dealing. His wife had always been in the licensing trade. She was the daughter of a publican at Pondhurst. As a girl she had served in the bar. All her relations were licensing people. When she had a little to drink--she was apt to display her worst side, to give herself away. James sighed.

“Did Mrs. Wonnicott say anything about her husband?” he asked, to change the subject.

“You bet she did. Tried to put it across us--when I told her about us buying Bolder’s farm--said her old man had thought of bidding for it, but he knew it was poor in root crops and the soil was no good for corn, and that Sturge had neglected the place too long. The old cat! I said: ‘Yes, and p’raps it wouldn’t be convenient to pay for it just now, after ’aving bought a lawn mower!’ Ha, ha, ha. He, he, he. O my!”

“I shouldn’t have said that,” mumbled Mr. Mounthead, who knew, however, that anything was better than one of Queenie’s violent reactions to quarrelsomeness. “Come on, let’s go and turn in, old girl.”

An hour later, James Mounthead was tossing restlessly between the sheets. Queenie’s reference to the Wonnicotts had upset him. He could read between what she had said sufficiently to envisage a scene, which he himself deplored. Queenie, of course, had given herself away again to Mrs. Wonnicott. He knew that both the Wonnicotts despised her, and through her, him. He had probably as much money as Lewis Wonnicott, if not more. He certainly had a more fluid and accumulative way of making it, but there the matter stopped. Wonnicott was a gentleman; his wife a lady. He, James, might have been as much a gentleman as Wonnicott if--circumstances had been different. Queenie could never be a lady in the sense that Mrs. Wonnicott was a lady. Wonnicott led the kind of life _he_ would like to live--a gentleman farmer, with hunters, a little house property, and some sound vested interests; a man with a great knowledge of land, horses, finance, and politics.

He loved Queenie in a queer enduring kind of way. She had been loyal to him, and she satisfied most of his needs. She loved him, but he knew that he could never attain the goal of his vague ambitions, with her clinging to his heels. He thought of Lewis Wonnicott sleeping in his white panelled bedroom with chintz curtains and old furniture, and his wife in the adjoining room, where the bay window looked out on to the downs; and the heart of James became bitter with envy.

VI

“I don’t think I shall attend those Welfare meetings any more,” remarked Mrs. Lewis Wonnicott with a slight drawl. She gathered up her letters from the breakfast table and walked to the window.

In the garden below, Leach, the gardener, was experimenting with a new mower on the well-clipped lawns. The ramblers on the pergola were at their best. Her husband in a broad check suit and a white stock, looked up from _The Times_ and said:

“Oh, how is that, my dear?”

“They are getting such awful people in. That dreadful woman, the wife of Mounthead, the publican, has joined.”

“Old Mounthead’s all right--not a bad sort. He knows a gelding from a blood mare.”

“That may be, but his wife is the limit. I happened to say something about the new mower, and she was simply rude. An awful vulgar person, wears spangles, and boasts about the money her husband makes out of selling whisky.”

“By gad! I bet he does, too. I wouldn’t mind having a bit in his pub. Do you see Canadian Pacifics are still stagnant?”

“Lewis, I sometimes wish you wouldn’t be so material. You think about nothing but money.”

“Oh, come, my dear, I’m interested in a crowd of other things--things which I don’t make money out of, too.”

“For instance?”