CHAPTER XXXVI

RUTH FACES THE STORM

That night as the Colonel sat on the loggia chewing his pipe, long after Mrs. Lewknor had retired, he was aware of a pillar of blackness, erect against the dull sea and star-lit sky, on the edge of the cliff, at the very spot where he had seen it on the night of the declaration of war.

Electric torch in hand, he stole out on the pair. Oblivious of all things save each other, they remained locked in each other's arms. He flashed the torch full in their faces.

"O, Joe!" came a familiar voice.

The Colonel was taken a-back.

"That you, Anne?" he muttered.

"Yes, sir," his parlour-maid answered. "Me and my Joe. He come up to say goodbye. Joining up to-morrow, he is."

The Colonel mumbled something about spies, and apologised.

"No harm done, sir," laughed Anne, quietly. "It's nothing to some of them. Turn their search-light full glare on you just when you don't want, and never a by-your-leave--same as they done war-night! _If that's war_, I says to Joe, _better ha done with it afore you begin_, I says."

The Colonel retired indoors, doubly humiliated: he had made a fool of himself before his own parlour-maid, and in his mind he had gravely wronged Ruth Caspar.

Next day he started off for Old Town to find out if there was any way by which he could make amends to his own conscience and, unknown to her, to the woman he had maligned.

She met him with kind eyes, a little wistful.

"We're all friends now, sir," she said, as she shook hands. "Got to be, I reckon."

If it is true, as is said to-day, that old men make wars and young men pay for them, it is also true that the mothers, wives, sisters, and sweethearts of the young men bear their share of the burthen.

Ruth was left with four children and a debt.

She faced the situation as hundreds of thousands of women up and down Europe in like case were doing at that moment--quiet, courageous, uncomplaining as an animal under the blows that Life, the inexplicable, rained upon her. One thought constantly recurred to her. In her first tragedy she had stood alone against the world. Now there were millions undergoing the same experience. And she derived from that thought comfort denied to others.

There were no complications about her economic situation.

That at least was very simple.

She owed several weeks' rent, had debts outstanding to the tune of several shillings--mostly boots for the children; and a little cash in coppers in hand.

Two nights after Ernie's departure, Alf came round for his back-rent. He came stealthily, Ruth noticed; and she knew why. Public opinion in the Moot, which might at any moment find explosive self-expression through the fists of Reuben Deadman, was against him. It was against all landlords. Ern moreover was still a hero in the eyes of the Moot and would remain so for several days yet; and Ruth received the consideration due to the wife of such.

Alf was dogged, with downcast eyes. There was no nonsense, no persiflage about him. He went straight to the point.

"I come for my money," he said.

Ruth rallied him maliciously.

"Money!" she cried, feigning surprise. "I thart it was accommodation you was a'ter."

"And I mean to have it," Alf continued sullenly.

"Even a landlord's got to live these times. I got to have it or you got to go. That's straight."

Ruth had her back to the wall.

"Ah, you must have that out with the Government," she said coolly. "It's got nothing to do with me."

"Government!" cried Alf sharply. "What's the Government got to do with it."

"They're passin some law to protect the women and children of them that's joined up," Ruth answered.

"Who said so?"

"The Colonel."

"Anyway it's not passed yet."

"No," retorted Ruth. "So you'd best wait till it is. Make you look a bit funny like to turn me out, and put some one else in, and then have to turn them out and put me back again, say in a fortnight, and all out o your own pocket. Not to talk o the bit of feeling, and them and me taking damages off o you as like as not, I should say."

That evening Ruth went up to see Mr. Pigott.

The Manager said he would pay her half Ern's wages while the war lasted; and he paid her the first instalment then and there.

"Will the Government do anything for the women and children sir?" she asked.

Mr. Pigott shook his grizzled head.

As the years went by he had an always diminishing faith in the power and will of Governments to right wrongs.

"The old chapel's the thing," he would say.

Ruth put the same question to Mr. Trupp whom she met on her way home to the Moot.

"They will if they're made to," the doctor answered, and as he saw the young woman's face fall, he added more sympathetically, "They're trying to do something locally. I don't know what'll come of it. Keep in touch with Mrs. Trupp. She'll let you know. I believe there's to be a meeting at the Town Hall."

He rolled on, grumbling and grousing to himself. Call ourselves a civilised country, and leave the women and children to take their luck! Chaos--as usual! ... Chaos backed and justified by cant! ... Would cant organise Society? ... Would cant feed the women and children? ... Would cant take the place of Scientific Method? ...

Ruth went home with her eleven shillings and sixpence and an aching heart, to find that little Alice had already arranged her brood in their bibs around the tea-table, and was only waiting for mother to come and tilt the kettle which she might not touch.

The other fledgelings hammered noisily on the table with their spoons.

"My dears," she said, as she went round the table, kissing the rosy faces uplifted to hers.

"What is it, Mum?" asked little Alice, who had something of her mother's quick sympathy and power of intuition. "Is daddy shotted at the war?"

"Not yet, my pretty," her mother answered. "It's only nothing you can understand. Now help me get the tea."

Next day brought a lawyer's letter giving her notice to quit.

That evening Ruth took the letter up to the Manor-house.

The maid told her Mr. and Mrs. Trupp had just started off to a meeting at the Town Hall.

"Something to do with the women and children, I believe," she added. "Prince o Wales's Fund or something."

Ruth turned down the steps disconsolate.

Just then she saw Joe Burt getting off the motor-bus opposite the _Star_. She had not seen him since he had come up on the evening of Ern's departure to give her the latest news of her husband. Now he came striding towards her, blowing into her life with the vigour of Kingsley's wild Nor'-easter. At the moment the politician was on top--she noted it with thankful heart.

"Coom on, ma lass!" he said. "You're the very one I'm after. We want you. We want em all. You got to coom along o me to this meeting."

"But I aren't got my hat, Joe!" pleaded Ruth, amused yet deprecating.

The engineer would take no excuses.

"Your children are worth more'n your hat, I reck'n," he said. "Coom on!--Coom on!--No time to be lost!"

And in a moment she was walking briskly at his side down the hill up which he had just come.

The strength, the resolution, the certainty of her companion swept all her clouds away and renewed her faith.

She told him of the notice she had received.

"All the better," he said. "Another trump for us to play. Don't you worrit. The Labour Party in Parliament's disappointed all its supporters so far, but it's going to justify itself at last. One thing. They can't trample on us this time, the Fats canna. We're too well organised."

They walked down the hill together.

At the stile opposite the Drill Hall where six months before she had rescued Ernie, drenched and dripping, from the police, they turned off into Saffrons Croft in the direction of the Town Hall.

Joe, as he trod the grass beneath his feet, became sombre, silent. The woman sweeping along at his side, her shawl about her head, felt his change of mood. The Other was coming to the top again--the One she feared. She was right. The Other it was who spoke surlily and growling, out of his deeps, like the voice of a yard-dog from his kennel.

"Well, what's it going to be?"

Her heart galloped but she met him gaily.

"What you mean, Joe?"

"You know what I mean," bearing down on her remorselessly.

She made a half halt.

"O Joe!"

"Aye, you may O Joe me! That wunna better it."

"And after what you promised him solemn that night and all."

He answered moodily.

"He forced me to it. Took advantage. Shouldn't ha done it. Springin it on me without a word. That's not the game."

Ruth turned on him.

"You're the one to talk, aren't you?" she said, flashing the corner of an eye at him. "Playing the game prarper, you are?"

He barged ahead, sullen as a bull and as obstinate.

"A don't know; and A don't care. A know what A want and A know A'm going to get it."

She met him light as a rapier thrust.

"I thart you was a man, Joe."

"Better'n a no-man anyway."

She stopped dead and faced him.

"Where's my no-man now then?" she cried. "And where are you?"

That time she had planted her dart home. He glared at her savage, sullen, and with lowered head.

"Thou doesna say A'm a coward?"

Slowly she answered,

"I'm none so sure.--Ern's my soldier, Ern is."

He gripped her arm.

"I'll go home," she said, curt as the cut of a whip.

He relaxed.

"Nay," he answered. "If we're to fight for your children yo mun help."

She threw off his arm with a gesture of easy dignity. Then they walked on again together down Saffrons Road towards the Town Hall.