Part 30

‘You ought to have known the name that chap has with women. There’s Mr Hind’s daughter over at the Pound House; there’s George Malpas’s wife, not counting those that was never found out. He’s a proper young bull, that Fellows, and no mistake!’

The farmer left him in a fury. He found Marion laying the supper-table in the dining-room. Ethel was crouched by the fire reading a book of fairy-tales.

‘You go out into the kitchen, Ethel,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to Marion.’

‘I’m so comfy here, dad,’ said the child sleepily.

‘Do as you’re bid!’ he shouted, and Ethel, frightened, left the room.

‘You’ve scared her,’ said Marion. ‘She’s not used to being spoken to like that.’

‘No,’ said he, ‘and it ’ld be better for the both of you if you were. Just you put those things down and tell me the truth about Fellows.’

‘What do you mean, father?’ she asked. ‘I’ve told you he did all he could. He sat up with her.’

‘And that’s a damned lie to start with! Sat up with her, did he? Sat up spooning in the kitchen along with you. That’s more like it!’

She blushed, then straightened herself and faced him with her hands clasped before her. He was almost frightened of her burning eyes.

‘Who told you that?’ she said quietly.

‘Never you mind who told me. They that told me saw it with their own eyes. Saw you behaving like a labourer’s girl in a hedge. That’s a fine thing to come to! You deny it if you can!’

‘I’m not going to deny it,’ she said.

‘Then you’ve no shame left in you. Thank God your poor mother hasn’t lived to see it! I never thought to hear a daughter of mine speak like that!’

He waited for her to defend herself; but she stood as though petrified, cold, with a furnace of emotions flaming inside her. He took her by the arm, roughly, and shook her.

‘Don’t dad!’ she whispered.

‘Here, tell me how far it’s gone.’

She wouldn’t answer him.

‘You’d better make a clean breast of it. How long has it been going on? There’s nothing wrong with you, eh? Better tell me straight!’

The implication affronted her modesty, for though she had fearfully imagined physical passion and its admonitions had found their way into her dreams, the least suggestion of crudity shocked her. Her father’s words made her want to cover her face for shame. Her resolution wavered. In a piercing moment of revelation she saw the scene in which she was taking a part: the hard, tasteless room, with its steel engravings of sporting pictures and its horsehair-covered furniture, the coarse cutlery that she had been putting on the table, the metallic ticking bronze clock on the mantelpiece, the worn hearthrug, and, in front of her, the angry, flushed face of her father, the face of a man inflamed by passion and the prejudices of his class. And she saw herself, a farmer’s daughter in a print overall, discovered, shamed, in a gross affair with a labouring man. How many times in the history of the countryside had the same scene been enacted? How many women of her kind had been pestered with the same urgent questions? And still he pressed her.

‘What’s done can’t be mended. Better tell me straight, my girl!’

All her suppressed idealism rose in revolt against him, against her surroundings, against her whole manner of life. She hated her father and utterly despised him.

‘I won’t have you talking to me like that,’ she said. ‘I’m not a child, and you shan’t treat me like one. I’m a woman. I’m nearly thirty. Do you think a woman can go on living this miserable, separated life and settle down into an old maid like Aunt Isabel without feeling anything? No . . . people like you don’t think that a woman should have any feelings. You think as long as you’re well fed and get your glass of whisky at night and all your books kept up to date, you think that’s enough life for a woman, you think that it’s a privilege for her to spend her days looking after you. Do you think a woman never wants a man?’

Prosser gasped. ‘I think you’ve taken leave of your senses, Marion,’ he said.

‘I’ve a life to live as well as you!’ she cried. ‘You call yourself a farmer, but you’ve no more idea of nature . . .’ She could say no more, but threw her hands wide in a gesture of despair.

It slowly dawned on him that she was defending herself. He saw himself shamed among his fellows. There had never been a scandal at The Dyke in his time. He said: ‘Good God! Good God!’ then helped himself to another glass of whisky and took a stiff gulp. ‘Well, I never thought it of you,’ was all he could say. He poured out another tot.

A sudden gust of anger swept over Marion. Scarcely knowing what she did, she picked up the cut-glass whisky decanter and sent it crashing into the fire. The flames roared up the chimney; blue tongues of lighted spirit ran out over the hearthrug.

‘Marion! My God, you’re mad!’ he cried. ‘You’ll set the house afire! What do you think you’re doing?’

He snatched a rug from the sofa and went down on his knees stifling the flame. She burst out into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. He stared at her, frightened. ‘What are you laughing at?’ he cried.

‘I don’t know,’ she said weakly. ‘I felt I must break something. What an awful mess!’ The outburst had sobered her, and more than that the sight of her father’s scared and innocent face.

‘It’s all right now,’ she said. ‘I’ll fetch a cloth from the kitchen.’

He looked so bewildered that she couldn’t help laughing at him.

‘I’m damned if I can make you out,’ he said.

‘Of course you can’t. You’ve not the least idea. . .’

‘Then it’s all right?’ he said solemnly.

The dawning relief in his face was too much for her. She knelt down on the carpet beside him and kissed his head.

‘Oh, dad, you’re too killing!’ she said. ‘Do you think I can’t look after myself?’

‘Well, thank Heaven for that!’ was all he could say.

They talked the matter out more soberly that evening over the embers of the fire when Ethel had been sent off to bed. They were as happy in each other’s company and as tender as lovers who have quarrelled and made it up again. The moment of vision had faded for ever. The room in which they sat had regained its old familiarity in Marion’s eyes, forcing itself to be accepted as her home; Mr Prosser was no longer a coarse, fair-whiskered man with more than a drop of whisky in him, but the father whom she had always known; the sombre life of The Dyke, with its slow, rich comfort, was the life to which she had been born. And she considered what would be the effect on that life of her marrying Abner Fellows, for if her father’s suspicions had been justified there was no doubt but that he would have compelled the lover to make an honest woman of her. No happiness worth the daring lay in that direction. She knew that she could hope for nothing but a continual clashing of the two men’s wills and herself a buffer between them. Her father had a long memory for his hates. There could never be any peace in the house till he died. Rather than submit to such a humiliation she would cut herself free from The Dyke and share Abner’s life. Love in a cottage with a vengeance! But did he love her? She had no real reason to believe it. And did she love him? She could not say. Better, far better, cling to the certainties, whatever they might be.

‘We’ll say no more about it,’ said Mr Prosser. ‘Let bygones be bygones, eh?’

She nodded her head slowly at the fire. A piece of the shattered decanter that had escaped her brush suddenly caught a gleam of light. It meant no more to her now than a flake of the stone-men’s flint of the kind that she and Ethel found on their picnics at Castel Ditches.

‘Of course Fellows must go,’ said Mr Prosser. ‘I reckon I can find another man by the end of the week.’

‘Yes,’ Marion murmured. ‘At the end of the week.’

‘Luckily there’s no scarcity of labour,’ said Mr Prosser happily.

Marion’s thoughts turned idly to Wolfpits. She shut the idea of Wolfpits out of her mind. It was wrong, she thought, that Mary Malpas should ever have come again into her life. It was always wrong to uncover the past. They sat for a long time in silence. She crouched on the floor at her father’s side and his arm was thrown carelessly over her shoulder. His head nodded and he fell asleep, but Marion still stared into the embers, seeing nothing. It was nearly midnight when Mr Prosser woke with a start and rubbed his eyes.

‘I think I must have dropped off,’ he said. ‘Why, look at the clock!’ He kissed her good-night.

‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I saw young Fred Maddy over at Craven Arms. He talked about riding over for tea Sunday. He’s doing pretty well, is Fred Maddy, since his father died.’

He stood blinking at her curiously; but she made him no reply.

‘Will you put out the light in the kitchen, dad, and see to the doors?’ she said.

Next morning, when he had listened to Abner’s own version of Daisy’s death and stood for a few moments in contemplation of the carcass, Mr Prosser told him without offering any explanation that he would not be wanted at The Dyke after the end of the week. Abner took it for granted that the loss of the cow explained his dismissal. It was a piece of bad luck, and no more was to be said for it. The blow was a heavy one, for he had felt that his position on the farm was secure and that the fortunes of Wolfpits were safe for the winter. He would have to begin his search for work all over again, and this at a time when the demand for labour was at its lowest. What made him particularly savage was the look of triumph that he now saw on Harris’s face. No doubt the ploughman had managed to put a word in against him with Mr Prosser. Well, a man who had taken such a hammering as Harris got on the night of the harvest home had a right to get his own back, particularly when fortune had given his enemy a trip.

What puzzled Abner more was the strangeness of Marion’s attitude. He did not attach any great importance to her breakdown in the farm kitchen and the tender moment that followed: that was the kind of thing that might happen with any woman: but he did find it rather shabby of her to abandon him as soon as he was down on his luck, for he had always felt that she was his friend and supporter, and knew, indeed, that he had owed his job to her from the beginning. Still, he believed that it was in keeping with human—and even more with feminine nature—to kick a man when he was down. The school in which he had been brought up had left him with few romantic illusions: so, instead of brooding over her defection, he went on steadily with his work until the day of his departure.

On the last evening they met, for one moment only. She came into the byre at milking-time and took up her old station in the doorway, watching him as he worked. He looked round and found her standing there: it was too dark for him to see her face. She handed him the pails in silence, and when he had finished and stood wiping his hands on his trousers, she said, almost timidly:

‘This is the last time.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and I’m sorry to go.’

‘I’m sorry too,’ she said, though she could not be sure that she was speaking the truth. ‘You’ve been a great help to us.’

He gave an uneasy laugh. ‘If that old Daisy hadn’t gone and catched cold,’ he said.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked abruptly.

‘That’s a hard one to answer,’ he said.

‘I wish I could help you.’ She found it difficult to speak without wounding his delicacy. ‘If you’re in want of money at any time . . .’ She felt it was her duty to give him anything she possessed. It was necessary for her own self-esteem that she should not feel under any obligation to him.

‘Money’s no use to me,’ he said, falling back on one of Mick Connor’s characteristic phrases.

‘But if ever you’re in need?’ she persisted. ‘I know that Mrs Malpas and her children are dependent on you.’

It was the second time that she had ever mentioned Mary’s name. She compelled herself to do so now because in this way she could make it quite clear that the incident of the other night was forgotten and that he could not build on it. She wanted to clear herself at any price. Even as she spoke the consciousness of her own motives filled her with shame. She held out her hand.

‘You won’t forget that, will you?’ she said.

‘No, Miss Marion, you’ve been a good friend to me.’ And he took her hand in his.

His unexpected use of the respectful prefix emboldened her and made her feel surer of herself. In a moment the indefiniteness of the situation had gone. They were back on their old footing of servant and mistress. Her heart gave a leap of thankfulness. She felt that she was saved. The man whose rough hand her fingers now touched for a moment was no longer the symbol of an ideal but simply a farm-labourer whom her father had dismissed. She withdrew her own hand hurriedly.

‘I’ll say good-bye, then,’ she said.

‘Good-bye, miss, and thank ’ee,’ said Abner, and touched his cap.

The idea of leaving The Dyke had shocked him; but when he passed down the drive for the last time, with Prosser’s money in his pocket, Abner experienced a sudden feeling of relief. It was probable that hard times were ahead of him, and yet he had never felt so free since the day when he left his father’s house at Halesby. When he got home he told Mary with an affectation of lightness that he had got the sack. Her first impulse was one of fear for their finances, but almost as quickly she found herself thankful that Abner was no longer in touch with Marion Prosser. The world in which she and Marion had been friends was so far behind and spoke to her so poignantly of a lost content that she was glad to be wholly freed from it. She could not disguise the fact that she was jealous of Marion, not only for this but for other reasons. She put on a bold and heartening front.

‘I’ve a nice bit of money in hand,’ she said. ‘That shows how wise we were to go easy.’

Her show of cheerfulness and courage pleased him. ‘I thought it ‘d put you out a bit,’ he said.

‘We ought to be used to uncertainty by this time,’ she replied. ‘I’m glad you won’t have that long walk there and back. It was enough to take the strength out of any man.’

‘It’s a rum thing,’ he said, ‘but I don’t mind it any more than you do, leaving The Dyke.’

‘You must get a job nearer home now,’ she said. ‘You’re quite a stranger.’

‘Ay, I’ll have a look round to-morrow,’ he said.

When the day came he had not the heart to set out in quest of work. Instead of doing so he lounged all morning, and after dinner took the children out for a long walk over the stark, wintry fields. They were wildly excited to go with him, for it was now many months since they had known such a holiday. Mary watched them, smiling as they left Wolfpits. She saw that they were happy, and marvelled at her own happiness. Abner and the children made their way through the silent larchwoods to the top of Castel Ditches and sat there gazing idly down upon the river valleys. About the time when cohorts of starlings wheeled through the sky above the reed-beds of the Barbel where they made their nightly roosting place, the three of them dropped down the slope towards the waterworks. There Abner found a diminished gang still working on the last details of the track. The sidings, the cranes, and the engines were gone, and in place of the trenches on which Abner had worked a year before, he now saw trim walls, culverts, and bridges of stone. A single wooden hut remained standing, and there he found the Gunner rubbing his hands over a bucket of coke. He stared at Abner as though he were a stranger.

‘Well, our Abner,’ he cried, when he recognised him, ‘how goes it? I thought you’d left these parts long ago. What have you been up to?’

‘Farm-labouring, up at The Dyke,’ Abner told him.

‘That’s a poor game,’ said the Gunner, shaking his head.

‘Don’t I know it!’ said Abner. ‘I’ve just finished with it. . . Can’t you give us a job here?’

‘No, my son . . . nor any one else,’ said the Gunner. ‘We’re just clearing up like. I’ve got ten men of the old gang left, but in another week we shall have finished the lot. Don’t you imagine I’m sorry for it either. I’ve had enough of Mainstone to last me for a bit.’

‘Well, I’ve got to get a job somehow,’ said Abner.

‘Then you won’t get it here. This place is dead, my son, and that’s the truth! You’d best get back to dear old Brum. Or Coventry, that’s the place for you. Everybody’s going mad on these here motor-cars the same as they did on bicycles. Coventry’s your ticket!’

He gave the children a red-cheeked apple apiece. Abner bade him good-night and turned homewards.

‘Did you hear about our wedding at the Pound House?’ the foreman shouted after him. ‘Whisky? You could have swum in it! Pity old Mick wasn’t about.’

It was dusk when Abner reached Wolfpits.

He began his quest for a new job hopefully, undeterred by the foreman’s warning or the still gloomier prophecies of old man Drew. He knew that work was scarce at that season; but it could not well be scarcer than it had been when he found continued employment at The Dyke. Abner felt that luck would come to him in much the same unexpected way.

His first attempts seemed full of promise. At the time when he had set out canvassing before, he had always been received with a kind of negative pessimism that he learned to consider as the normal attitude toward life of the border farmer. Now, he noticed that the farm-people, and particularly the women, listened to his applications with more interest, remembered his name, asked him questions about himself, and even appeared to regard his person with curiosity. He took this as a good sign; but though he was encouraged his hopes came no nearer to realisation. One after another the local farmers or their wives heard his story, had a good look at him, and turned him down.

The reason for their interest was not far to seek. In spite of Mr Prosser’s anxiety to keep dark the true cause of Abner’s dismissal and the scandal that it implied, Harris, the ploughman, had not been able to resist the temptation of making public his enemy’s discomfiture, and though nobody dared to whisper to the principal actors in the comedy that they knew what had happened, the whole story of Marion Prosser’s infatuation for her father’s cowman went the rounds of the neighbourhood. At Ludlow market it passed for a good tale against Prosser, who was envied for his possessions, and Marion, whose aloofness had made her unpopular.

In the most frequent version of the story Abner had been caught out with Marion in the byre at a time when that astute young woman had arranged for her father to stay the night at Craven Arms for his health’s sake. Marion, it was said, had refused, for the most pressing of reasons, to give her cowman up; but Prosser’s family pride—a well-known quantity—had been so deeply wounded that he had threatened to shoot the fellow on the spot and let his daughter’s name go hang. The men enjoyed the joke against Prosser; the women were agreed that proud creatures such as Marion usually found their own level by some such violent means. The principal question of interest that remained was where Marion would go to hide her shameful condition.

In every stratum of local society from that of Lesswardine Court to that of the newly-married Mrs Badger at the Pentre, the incident was discussed; but nobody in the district heard it with more triumph and satisfaction than old Mrs Malpas of the Buffalo. By this time the whole village was so used to her vilifications of Mary that they were scarcely taken seriously, for village opinion, even when it is censorious in expression, is, as a rule, charitable in deed. Now that she found herself armed with a new enormity to reinforce the old, she set herself steadily to the task of making it impossible for Abner to find work. She determined to drive him out of the district, for in this way she knew that Mary and her children must undergo the suffering that they deserved and that Abner’s devotion had spared them.

With incredible patience she made it her business to interview every farmer within five miles of Lesswardine and to beg him, or failing him his wife, to refuse employment to such a scandalous character. The Wesleyan minister at Chapel Green, who regarded Mrs Malpas as one of the principal pillars of his church, helped her in this, and only the laziness of the vicar of Mainstone prevented his wife from making him a party to the same plan. Abner, in his ignorance, was faced by a deliberate boycott. The men who spoke him fairly, when he asked them for work were prepared to see him and the family that he supported starve before they gave it to him.

For a whole month this heart-breaking business went on. When first Abner began to look for work Mary had greeted him every evening with enquiring eyes, Now she no longer dared ask him what had happened during the day. The monotony of unfulfilled promises told on him. He began to avoid her society and to shrink from that of the children, trying to exhaust his strength with long walks afield and cutting wood for Mrs Mamble and old Drew as well as for their own household. She pitied him with all her heart, but dared not show him pity lest it should tax his courage too heavily. Money was running short. She starved herself in order that he and the children might not lack, and thus found herself dragged into a vicious circle, for her sacrifice lessened her own resistance and made her temper uneven and liable to be irritated by Abner’s moroseness. They did not speak of their troubles, but neither of them could see what the end would be.

Wolfpits, in its utter isolation, was the last place in the district that rumour ever reached. It was five weeks after Abner had left The Dyke when Mrs Mamble heard the cause of Abner’s dismissal and whispered it to Mary. In a normal state she might have borne it, but her exhaustion made her an easy prey to jealousy. One evening Abner found her unusually pale and speechless, and asked her what was the matter with her.

‘I’ve only just heard the truth,’ she said, scarcely controlling her passion.

‘What about?’ he asked innocently.

‘About why you left The Dyke. Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I did tell you. You know as well as I do.’

‘You never said a word about Marion. Not one word!’

‘Who’s been putting that rubbidge into your head?’ said Abner angrily.

‘Rubbish!’ she repeated. ‘You can call it that now! But if you’d left the girl alone we shouldn’t be where we are now, not knowing where to look for a shilling and the children likely to want for bread.’

‘You’ve got a maggot in your head, missus,’ he said. ‘Why I left The Dyke’s got nothing to do with Miss Marion, so don’t you think it.’

‘Oh, I’m tired of you!’ she cried. ‘It’s no use your telling off your lies to me. I’m dead sick of you and your women . . . you and your Susie Hinds and Marion Prossers! Running after loose women with your eyes shut and never a thought for those that keep themselves decent like me. And if there was another caught your eye to-morrow, you’d be up and away after her the same. You’re no better than an animal! Like the rest of men: they’re all the same!’

She stood up to him, trembling with rage. At that moment she was ugly, and rising to the violence of her challenge, he hated her. He lost sight of her weakness. All he saw was her impudent provocation. An answering anger fumed up into his head and carried him away so that he could easily have struck her. He came towards her with his hand lifted.

‘Don’t! Don’t!’ she shrieked in terror.