CHAPTER XIX

PITCHED BATTLE

Mrs. Trubb happened on Ernie's mother next day in Church Street. The surgeon's wife, whenever she met Mrs. Edward Caspar, acted always deliberately on the assumption, which she knew to be unfounded, that relations between Ruth and her mother-in-law were normal.

"It's a nuisance this about Ernie," she now said. "Such a worry for Ruth."

The hard woman with the snow-white hair and fierce black eye-brows made a little sardonic moue.

"She's all right," she answered. "You needn't worry for her. There's a chap payin her rent."

Mrs. Trupp changed colour.

"I don't believe it," she said sharply.

"You mayn't believe it," retorted the other sourly. "It's true all the same. Alf's her landlord. He told me."

Mrs. Trupp, greatly perturbed, reported the matter to her husband. He tackled Alf, who at the moment was driving for his old employer again in the absence of the regular chauffeur.

Alf admitted readily enough that the charge against his sister-in-law was true.

"That's it, sir," he said. "It's that chap Burt. And he don't do what he done for nothin, I'll lay; a chap like that don't."

He produced his book from his pocket, and held it out for the other to see, half turning away with becoming modesty.

"I don't like it, sir--me own sister-in-law. And I've said so to Reverend Spink. Makes talk, as they say. Still it's no concern of mine."

Mrs. Trupp, on hearing her husband's report, went down at once to see Ruth and point out the extraordinary unwisdom of her action.

Ruth met her, fierce and formidable as Mrs. Trupp had never known her.

"It's a lie," she said, deep and savage as a tigress.

"It may be," Mrs. Trupp admitted. "But Alfred did show Mr. Trupp his book. And the rent had been paid down to last Monday. I think you should ask Mr. Burt."

That evening when Joe came up Ruth straightway tackled him.

She was so cold, so terrible, that the engineer was frightened, and lied.

"Not as I'd ha blamed you if you had," said Ruth relaxing ever so little. "It's not your fault I'm put to it and shamed afore em all."

The bitterness of the position in which Ern had placed her was eating her heart away. That noon for the first time she had taken the three elder children to the public dinner for necessitous children at the school. Anne Caspar who had been there helping to serve had smirked.

When Joe saw that the weight of her anger was turned against Ernie and not him, he admitted his fault.

"A may ha done wrong," he said. "But A acted for the best. Didn't want to see you in young Alf's clutches."

"You bide here," Ruth said, "and keep house along o little Alice. I'll be back in a minute."

Hatless and just as she was, she marched up to the Manor-house.

"You were right, 'M," she told Mrs. Trupp. "It were Joe. He just tell me. Only I didn't knaw nothin of it."

"It'll never do for you to be in his debt, Ruth," said the lady.

"No," Ruth admitted sullenly.

Mrs. Trupp went to her escritoire and took out sixteen shillings. Ruth took it.

"Thank-you," was all she said, and she said that coldly. Then she returned home with the money and paid Joe.

An hour later Ernie came in.

Ruth was standing at the table waiting him, cold, tall, and inexorable.

"Anything?" she asked.

Surly in self-defence, he shook his head and sat down.

She gave him not so much as a crumb of sympathy.

"No good settin down," she told him. "You ain't done yet. You'll take that clock down to Goldmann's after dark, and you'll get sixteen shillings for it. If he won't give you that for it, you'll pop your own great coat."

Ernie stared at her. He was uncertain whether to show fight or not.

"Dad's clock?--what he give me when I married?"

"Yes. Dad's clock."

She regarded him with eyes in which resentment flamed sullenly.

"Can I feed six on the shilling a week he gives me--rent and all?"

Ernie went out and brought back the money. She took it without a word, and wrapping it up in a little bit of paper, left it at the Manor-house.

Mrs. Trupp, who was holding a council with Bess and Bobby Chislehurst, unwrapped the packet and showed the money.

"She's put something up the spout," said the sage Bobby.

The three talked the situation over. There was only one thing to be done. Somebody must go round to Mr. Pigott and intercede for Ernie. Bobby was selected.

"You'll get him round if anybody can," Bess told her colleague encouragingly.

Bobby, shaking a dubious head, went. Mr. Pigott, like everybody else in Old Town, was devoted to the young curate; but he presented a firm face now to the other's entreaties.

"Every chance I've given him." he said, and scolded and growled as he paced to and fro in the little room looking across Victoria Drive on to the allotments. "He's a lost soul, is Ernie Caspar. That's my view, if you care for it."

Bobby retreated, not without hope, and bustled round to Ruth.

"You must go and see him!" he rapped out almost imperiously--"yourself--this evening--after work--at 6.30--to the minute." He would be praying at that hour.

Ruth, who was fighting for her life now, went.

Mr. Pigott, at the window, saw her coming.

"Here she comes," he murmured. "O dear me! You women, you know, you're the curse of my life. I'd be a good and happy man only for you."

Mrs Pigott was giggling at his elbow.

"She'll get round you, all right, my son," she said. "She'll roll you up in two ticks till you're just a little round ball of nothing in particular, and then gulp you down."

"She won't!" the other answered truculently. "You don't know me!" And he swaggered masterfully away to meet the foe.

Mrs. Pigott proved, of course, right.

Ruth's simplicity and beauty were altogether too much for the susceptible old man. He put up no real fight at all; but after a little bluff and bounce surrendered unconditionally with a good many loud words to salve his conscience and cover his defeat.

"It's only postponing the evil day, I'm afraid," he said; but he agreed to take the sinner back at a lower wage to do a more menial job--if he'd come.

"He'll come, sir," said Ruth. "He's humble. I will say that for Ern."

"Send him to me," said the old schoolmaster threateningly. "I'll dress him down. What he wants is to get religion."

"He's got religion, sir," answered simple Ruth. "Only where it is it's no good to him."

That evening, when Ern entered, heavy once again with defeat, she told him the news. At the moment she was standing at the sink washing up, and did not even turn to face him. He made as though to approach her and then halted. Something about her back forbade him.

"It shan't happen again, Ruth," he said.

She met him remorseless as a rock of granite.

"No, not till next time," she answered.

He stood a moment eyeing her back hungrily. Then he went out.

He was hardly gone when his father lumbered into the kitchen. The old gentleman's eyes fell at once on the clock-deserted mantel-piece.

"Gone to be mended," he said to himself, and took out of his waistcoat pocket the huge old gold watch with a coat of arms on the back, beloved of the children, that had itself some fifteen years before made a romantic pilgrimage to Mr. Goldmann's in Sea-gate. Then he bustled to the cupboard where was the box containing a hammer and a few tools. He put a nail in the wall, hammered his thumb, sucked it with a good deal of slobber, but got the nail in at last.

"Without any help too," he said to himself, not without a touch of complacency as he hung the watch on it. Ruth watched him with wistful affection. Pleased with himself and his action, as is only the man who rarely uses his hands, he stood back and admired his work.

"There!" he said. "Didn't know I was a handy man, did you? It'll keep you going anyway till the clock comes back."

He left more hurriedly than usual, and when he was gone Ruth found two shillings on the mantel-piece.

The old man's kindness and her own sense of humiliation were too much for Ruth. She went out into the back-yard; and there Joe found her, standing like a school-girl, her hands behind her, looking up at the church-tower.

Quietly he came to her and peeped round at her face, which was crumpled and furrowed, the tears pouring down.

"I'd as lief give up all together for all the good it is," she gulped between her sobs.

He put out his hand to gather her. She turned on him, her eyes smouldering and sullen beneath the water-floods.

"Ah, you, would you?" she snarled.

As she faced him he saw that the brooch she usually wore at her throat was gone, and her neck, round and full, was exposed.

She saw the direction of his eyes.

"Yes," she said, "that's gone too. I'll be lucky soon if I'm left the clothes I stand up in."

He put out a sturdy finger and stroked her bare throat. She struck it aside with ferocity.

"What _do_ you want then?" he asked.

"You know what I want," she answered huskily.

"What's that?"

"A man--to make a home and keep the children."

"Well, here's one a-waitin."

She flung him off and moved heavily into the kitchen.

Just then there was a tap at the window. It was little Alice calling for her mother to come and tuck her up.