Part 33

He shivered. For some reason his newly-pressed clothes hung loose and damp upon him. He must have lost flesh. Of course he had lost flesh. Who wouldn’t after fourteen months in jail? A cart came slowly past him with a load of horse manure. A good smell . . . a country smell! The driver cracked his whip, and the noise made George Malpas jump. That was a bad sign surely! The sooner he got a drink and steadied his nerves the better. He looked up and down the road for the sign of a public-house. A hundred yards away a strip of hoarding with gilt letters topped the sky-line of a red brick building. Astill’s Celebrated Entire, it said. Brummagem beer was better than nothing. He crossed the road with long strides, but a dog-cart driven fast down the middle of the street made him pause. There was a bicycle behind it, and he did not think he could avoid both. People should not be allowed to drive so furiously.

He reached the public-house and thanked God for his escape. He felt that in gaining the shelter of its walls he was doing more than sheltering from the bitter wind and the dust. He grew surer of himself, cracked a joke with the barmaid, and paid for his beer. The florin that she tendered him in change for a half-crown looked like a foreign coin. He examined it suspiciously.

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘One of these new ones. It’s quite a change to get the Prince of Wales’ head, isn’t it? I don’t think he looks half the man of King Edward.’

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘No, he don’t.’ He examined the coin, bewildered. Then, fearing that she must read the whole of his story in his ignorance, he pocketed his money and darted out into the street again. It was strange how a broken habit reasserted itself. He put his hand in his unfamiliar waistcoat pocket and pulled out his watch. Nine o’clock. That was impossible. He laughed, realising that his watch had run down at its usual winding time on the night of his arrest.

‘I’m like a fool,’ he thought. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m dull, useless. I want another drink.’

Gradually, under the influence of the liquor, his confidence returned. It must be market day in Shrewsbury, he thought, for the streets were so full of people; but reflection told him that Shrewsbury market is not held on a Monday and that the crowd that moved on the pavements of the steep high street was no more than the normal week-day traffic. It gave him a thrill of pleasure to realise that people were not staring at him. He was encouraged to slacken his pace, to walk no longer as if some one were pursuing him. He stared in several shop windows, and at last found himself gazing at his own image in a long mirror. It gave him a start to find himself facing an elongated lath of a man that he did not know, until he realised that the mirror was a convex affair placed as an advertisement outside an eating-house to emphasise the contrast between a man who had fed there and one who had not. It was not such a bad idea. He would go in and eat his first square meal.

The place was nearly empty, for Shrewsbury does not dine till one o’clock. They brought him steak and kidney pudding, the best that he had ever tasted, and a pint of half and half. He began to feel a man again. He called the waiter for a second drink and ordered, with it, a local time-table. Looking through it at leisure he found that the trains to Llandwlas had not been altered, though there was now time to get a drink in the change at Craven Arms. If he caught the afternoon train he would have time to look about Shrewsbury for another two hours and see to certain business matters that were in the back of his mind.

He paid his bill, gave the waiter a liberal tip, and walked up the hill past the half-timbered houses to the main street. He wondered if the place was where it used to be. Yes, it was still there. It pleased him to think that he hadn’t lost his memory. Nothing would have surprised him after all those useless, numbing months. Above the shop door was the inscription: ‘Emigration Office.’ Inside, a long counter, backed by posters of shipping companies, and a single yawning clerk who had been left in charge during the luncheon hour. He asked George what he could do for him.

‘Canada,’ said George. ‘I want to know all about it.’

The young man produced a sheaf of circulars and began to explain. He found it difficult to place the applicant, his pale face, his hat jammed on his head to hide the prison crop, his equivocal hands.

‘Are you a mechanic?’ he asked.

‘No. Farmer.’

The clerk stared at him. ‘Farmer? You want to buy land?’

‘No, I don’t. I want to work on it. I have a little money.’

‘Married?’

‘Yes.’

‘Taking the missus with you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And children?’

‘No children.’

‘You have to get two references for an assisted passage, you know,’ said the clerk, producing a form.

‘Never mind that. I can’t wait for any rubbish of that kind. What’s the fare, steerage?’

The clerk looked it up. ‘Liverpool, Quebec. That’s what you want,’ he said. ‘Then you get right over to Calgary if you take my advice. I’ll write it all down for you.’

He did so, in a sloped, flourishing hand, on the back of one of the circulars. ‘You’ll get the Allan boat from Liverpool Saturday week,’ he said. George thanked him and plunged out into the street.

At the station he bought a daily paper, the North Bromwich _Courier_. As usual on Monday it was full of football. Albion at the top of the first league: Notts Forest, second. Strange clubs from the Southern League had invaded that sanctuary: the season was half over, and they were shaping well. He read words that meant nothing to him. He could not concentrate, for he had drunk as much as was good for him. The platform seemed to him a noisy, exposed situation; for he could not yet be at his ease in a crowd. He started at the sound of a familiar voice speaking the word Lesswardine. A man passed him in a drab covert-coat: Mr Prosser of The Dyke, talking to young Maddy. They had not recognised him. He slipped into a urinal to avoid them and waited there till he heard the south-bound train roll in. Then he made a dash for a non-smoking carriage and hid himself behind his newspaper in the corner. The train was not full, and to his great relief no one entered his compartment.

They started smoothly and soon left Shrewsbury behind. A wintry landscape unfolded on either side of him: the low bow of the Wrekin; Caer Caradoc, a sheer crag on the left; the cloven bastions of the Long Mynd. He threw up the window and drank in great draughts of hill air. He laughed to see the green of the fields and the gray, monstrous hills. But he knew that he was a stranger. The country that he rejoiced to see had rejected him. If he lived to be a hundred not a single man of his acquaintance would forget that he had spent a year in jail. As soon as he should have left Craven Arms the hills would fold him in, draw him within the confines of his old life. He was free, but this could never be a real freedom. A wider country, a new life, Canada. . . . He was dying for a drink.

At Craven Arms the satisfaction of this desire did not seem easy, for others were before him in the Refreshment Room and every moment his chance of meeting Lesswardine people increased. He took a flask of brandy from the counter and paid for it without waiting for the change. The local train stood humbly in the siding. He chose a carriage already full of Radnor farmers whom he did not know. He drank down the whole of his flask of brandy, and then fell into a kind of doze lulled by the sing-song voices of his companions. The train twisted along the valley in the dark, pulling up with a jolt at every upland station. At Llandwlas he turned out in a hurry and handed his ticket to a new porter, who stood at the gate in the dusk swinging a lantern. Men were shouting, driving bullocks into a pen. A trap was waiting with the lamps already lit. He avoided their light, but guessed by the colour of the horse and the erect figure of the driver that Marion was waiting for Mr Prosser. A year before he might have dared to ask for a lift to Chapel Green. God, how strange, how hauntingly strange the country smelt!

An hour later he staggered into the bar at the Buffalo. Mrs Malpas, a withered, pathetic figure, half the size of the woman whom he remembered, gave a cry and ran to meet him.

‘My son, my son!’

He kissed her, laughing heavily, blowing gusts of brandy into her eyes. She would not think of the spirit in his breath. Her hands caressed his face. She turned him to the light to see if he were changed.

‘Oh, George, you’re that thin! They haven’t fed you proper.’

He freed himself from her. ‘How’s dad?’ he asked.

‘The same as ever, George.’

‘Poor old devil!’ he said.

She drew him into the bar-parlour where the old man was sitting.

‘It’s George, my dear,’ she cried excitedly. ‘It’s our George!’

George slapped his father on the back: ‘Don’t you know me, dad?’

The old man only mumbled.

‘He’s gone downhill,’ said George. ‘You’ve been with him all the time. You don’t see the change like I do.’

‘Perhaps,’ she said listlessly. She could not keep her eyes from her son. ‘You’re thin, George, so thin!’

‘Then give us a drop of beer, mother. That’ll help fatten me.’

She could not refuse him. While she was filling the tankard at the counter old Drew and another labourer from the Pentre who had been driving Williams’s bullocks to Llandwlas station came into the bar.

‘My son’s home,’ she told them gaily. ‘And so thin! It’s a scandal. They starve them.’

‘So I’ve always heard tell, ma’am,’ said Drew, with a wink. ‘Here’s his health.’

‘Who’s that?’ George asked anxiously. He still found it difficult to resist the impulse of hiding himself.

‘I didn’t see,’ Mrs Malpas lied.

She gave George his beer, and he settled down to it. The two labourers spoke spasmodically in the bar.

‘Well, mother,’ he said at last. ‘Tell us how things have been going on.’

Mrs Malpas pursed her lips. ‘Going on! That’s the word. I wrote to you, George. You got my letter?’

‘Yes, I got that all right.’

Mrs Malpas grew intense. Her hands trembled with emotion. ‘She’s a bad woman, George. Downright bad. I told you so before.’

‘There’s not another kid waiting for me, no surprise packet of that kind?’

‘No. But she’s that deceitful, George. She’s no better than her father. She couldn’t have used you worse than she has. So open! You never made a worse mistake.’

‘You let me teach her!’ said George between his teeth. ‘I’ll learn her her bleeding duty!’

‘Don’t swear, George!’

‘You ought to be more shocked at her than me!’

‘And that Fellows is no better. Rotten bad. Always going after women. There’s Susie Hind.’

‘God! He’s welcome!’

‘And Mr Prosser’s daughter. They had to turn him off The Dyke.’

‘Her?’ George laughed. ‘He’s a proper young bull!’

‘And all the time living as man and wife with Mary. Laughing at you, the two of them, behind your back.’

‘I’ll see to that!’ said George grimly. The liquor was spreading in hot fumes through his brain.

‘But you won’t go up to-night, George,’ she said anxiously.

‘Won’t I? You bet I will.’

‘You’d best stay here, George. Don’t you go near her. She’ll talk you round.’

‘I’ll shut her mouth for her. And I’ll get level with him too!’

The old woman grew alarmed.

‘Don’t go near them, George,’ she pleaded. ‘There’s a home for you here. Leave them to it. They’re not worth taking the notice of.’

‘What about the kids, eh?’

‘Fellows will have set them again you. They won’t know you. You see!’

‘That’s what I’m going to do.’ He grew excited. ‘And I tell you, if I have to do time again I’m going to put that b— on his back!’

He put down his tankard with another oath. One of the drinkers in the bar knocked at the counter.

‘Keep still till I’m back, George. I won’t be a minute,’ she said.

‘Get us another pint, then,’ George grumbled.

She took his tankard, and having given the labourers their change and wished them good-night, she brought it back to him filled. God would forgive her this sin. Even if he were drunk she wanted to keep him at the Buffalo, for she dreaded Abner’s strength. When she returned he was still on his feet, talking indistinctly to the old man, who was shaken by a fit of coughing that choked him. She thumped his back.

‘That’s right, dad,’ said George. ‘Better out than in!’ The joke appeared to please him.

She drew him down gently to his chair and gave him the tankard.

‘Sit down, my dear,’ she said. ‘I want to talk to you.’

‘I’ve done talking,’ said George obstinately. ‘Let me get at him: that’s what I want. Let me get at the dirty pair of them!’

She bent over him and whispered in his ear.

‘The money, George,’ she said. ‘Where did you put it? She told me you hadn’t hid it in the house, but I reckon she lied to me, or they couldn’t have lived all this time with him out of work. They must have got at it. Where did you put it, my son?’

He stared at her with affected stupidity. ‘What money?’

‘Fifty pounds. Out of my box. I guessed it was you that had it. That’s why I didn’t dare tell the police.’

He laughed. ‘Good old woman! I knew you wouldn’t. You’re a good mother. I’ll say that for you.’

‘Then you can give it back to me. Give it to me, my son.’

His cunning returned to him.

‘I’ve lost it, mother. Every penny. It’s gone.’

‘Gone? Fifty pounds? You couldn’t lose it, George.’

‘You try backing horses, and you’ll see,’ he said.

‘Racing, too!’ she cried. ‘Oh, George, George! It was all I had.’

‘Well, you’ve got me, mother,’ he said. ‘What more do you want? It’s no good crying over spilt milk.’

She came to his arms, weakly sobbing, and clung to him.

‘Now don’t go crying all over me,’ he said thickly. ‘Loose me! I’m going.’

‘George, you mustn’t go, dear. You’re not fit.’

‘I tell you I’m going. Leave hold of me!’

‘George!’

‘Do you say I’m drunk? I’ll show you if I’m drunk!’

Still she clung to him. He gave her a push and she went over into the hearth with a clatter of fire-irons. The old man began to wail in a high-pitched voice: ‘Help! Help!’

‘Shut your damned mouth, you!’ said George.

He blundered out into the bar, knocking against the end of the counter and bringing down a tray of glasses with a crash. A freakish idea seized him. He took the key from the door and locked it on the outside. He shook with laughter at the joke.

A young moon sank slowly over the misty woodland. He stopped in the middle of the road and solemnly turned over the packet of banknotes in his pocket for luck. Drunk? Not he! He was sharp enough to think of everything. He turned his uncertain steps toward Wolfpits.

Before him, with half an hour in hand, old Drew went pounding along the same road as fast as his rheumatic knees would let him. He reached Wolfpits breathless and knocked violently at Mary’s kitchen door. She was upstairs, putting the children to bed. Morgan was tucked in already, and Gladys was having her hair brushed. Panic seized Mary when she heard the old man’s knock. Those rapid blows seemed to her to herald catastrophe. She ran downstairs and came to the door with an ashen face.

‘Hey, missus,’ Drew panted. ‘Be Abner in there with ’ee?’

‘No, he’s not back yet,’ she said, relieved. Then, as a new fear chilled her: ‘Isn’t he at the Pentre?’

‘Most like he be,’ said Drew, slowly regaining his breath and leaning on the doorpost. ‘I’ve been a driving they bullocks to Llandwlas station.’

She looked at the clock. It was a little earlier than Abner’s usual hour of return.

‘Better wait if you want him. Take a seat, Mr Drew. He’ll be back in a few minutes.’

‘You must stop ’en . . . you must stop ’en!’ said the old man impressively. ‘If he come down over the field I shall meet ’en myself. But often he do come by the road. You must send some one to stop ’en that way.’

‘Stop him? What do you mean?’ she cried.

‘You must stop ’en. Your George be coming up from the Buffalo, mad with the drink. You must stop Abner. Keep him away, or there’ll be murder done, sure ‘nuff! Murder! You take my word for it!’

‘How can I stop him? What can I do, Mr Drew?’ she cried.

‘Go yourself, missus. Or send Mrs Mamble. Her’ll run along for ’ee.’

‘No. I must wait for George,’ she said.

An inspiration came to her. She took a piece of paper and scribbled a note to Abner, telling him that George was coming, begging him, for her sake, to keep out of the way until she had seen him. Then she called upstairs: ‘Gladys!’ and the child came down with her hair plaited for the night.

‘Come here, my darling,’ she said. ‘Put your shoes on. I want you to go down to the corner and meet Abner and give this to him.’

‘Isn’t it rather dark, mam?’ said Gladys, thrilled by the prospect of adventure. She shivered.

‘No, my darling. There’s a lovely moon, isn’t there, Mr Drew? Just wait at the bottom of the drive till he comes, or go a little way up the road. Let me put your coat on.’

She helped the child into her overcoat and kissed her. Gladys took the note. ‘Won’t our Abner be surprised?’ she said, as she went.

‘I’d best bide along with you, missus,’ said old Drew darkly.

‘I’d rather you went, Mr Drew,’ she replied. ‘I know you mean it kindly.’

‘Well, my dear, I’ll be going on up to the Pentre. Maybe I’ll meet Abner up the fields. Shall I send Mrs Mamble in to ’ee?’

‘No. Mrs Mamble’s out: gone to the shops in Lesswardine. I’d rather be alone when he comes. It was good of you to warn me.’

He left her, and she waited. Her brain followed the messenger down the avenue step by step. She realised that the most awful moment of her life was upon her. She wondered if she ought to pray. She could not pray. What right had she, a guilty woman, to call on Divine help? She must fight for herself. She looked at the clock. Barely two minutes had passed since she had looked before. Surely Abner could not be long.

Her strained ears heard steps in the distance. She peered out into the moonlight. Two dim figures were visible. Abner, in his obstinate folly, had seen her note and refused her warning. Even now there was time to stop him. She dared not call, for it struck her that George might well be coming up behind him. She stood, trembling with impatience, waiting for him to come within earshot. The figures of the man and the child became more distinct. His gait was unsteady but too fast for Gladys, who ran at his side. He carried her note unfolded. The paper showed white in the moonlight. They came toward her, and she saw that it was George. A cry came from her lips. He left the child behind him, stalked straight into the kitchen and flung his hat on the table. He was as pale as death; his cropped head shaped like a skull. The walk had partially sobered him.

‘Go straight upstairs, Gladys,’ she called.

‘It’s dad, mam. I give him Abner’s note.’

‘Go upstairs as I tell you!’

Gladys’s mouth fell. ‘Why, mam?’ she faltered.

George pulled a chair toward him and flopped into it. ‘You be said!’ he shouted.

The child ran upstairs, frightened. George sat on, his eyes staring savagely at her out of his sunken orbits.

‘Well, Mary,’ he said at last. ‘This is a bloody fine game!’

She could not speak for her increasing terror. She had never felt so frightened of him in her life. ‘He looks like a criminal,’ she thought.

‘Speak up,’ he said. ‘What’ve you got to say for yourself. What’s the meaning of this?’ He held out her note. ‘Tell him to keep away, would you? You dirty bitch!’

‘George,’ she said. ‘You mustn’t believe all people tell you. You know your mother’s against me!’

‘Hold your noise about my mother! She’s a good woman, she is, and a good wife. The likes of you’s not fit to go near her. I know what’s been going on here without her telling me. Sleeping with the lodger! Don’t you deny it, or I’ll bash your mouth in for you!’

‘Never, George, never!’ she cried, passionately righteous. ‘I swear by God as I’m standing here, it never came to that.’

‘You can swear by the devil for all I care. I’ve finished with you. It’s him I want!’ His voice left him. He cleared his throat and spat viciously in the fire.

Mary pulled her senses together. ‘George,’ she said, ‘have you ever known me tell you a lie?’

‘I never knew a woman who wouldn’t,’ he said, with a laugh.

She let his speech pass. ‘Imagine the hard times we’ve had,’ she went on, ‘and not so much as a word from you! Not a penny in the house! The way he’s worked for us and suffered for us, and all for the sake of the word he gave you. There’s not a man in a million who’d have done it! And all for nothing!’

‘All for nothing!’ he mocked: ‘tell that to some one else!’

‘Without him we should have starved . . . me and the children. Can’t you see that for yourself? And yet you believe the first word that’s spoken against him and me. You ought to go down on your knees to him and thank him for what he’s done. If it hadn’t been for him you’d have found us all in the workhouse. George, you must believe me!’

‘Oh, shut your bloody mouth!’ he said, rising clumsily.

‘George, you must!’ she repeated. She put her hand on his shoulder, but he pushed her away. Both of them heard a step on the path. She made a last, desperate effort. ‘George, if you touch him . . . ‘ she cried. ‘If you . . .!

Abner stood in the doorway. His face was solemn and heavily lined. The sight of Malpas did not seem to disturb him.

‘Hallo, George,’ he said, in a thick voice. ‘How goes it?’

‘Don’t you talk to me!’ said George, threateningly. ‘You wait till I’ve told you what I think of you, you damned swine!’

Abner flushed.

‘Steady, George! Go steady! We’ve got to talk this over. You sit down.’

‘There’s a sight too much talk about the both of you,’ George snarled. ‘When you’ve broke up a man’s home behind his back and then tell him to take a seat in it. I’m going to give you your lesson before you get kicked out!’

He made a threatening movement toward Abner, who watched him closely. Spider came dancing into the room. She leapt up at Abner with little yelps of joy at his return, licking his hand. At this sight the anger that smouldered in George’s brain leapt into flame.

‘Not only the wife and the kids,’ he cried. ‘You’ve got round the lot of them, even the bleeding dog!’

He snatched up the poker and hit out at Spider. Abner took the blow on his thigh.

‘Here, drop that!’ he cried.

But George’s senses had left him. He flew at Abner, raining desperate blows at his head.

‘George! You’ll kill him!’ Mary screamed.

Abner had picked up a chair and protected himself as best he could. For a second the two men stood staring at one another, panting for breath. Then another gust of anger swept over George and he made for Abner again. Mary tried to throw herself between them, but Abner flung her aside. The legs of the chair were splintered under George’s blows. He continued to lash out, and it was as much as Abner could do to defend himself. He saw that the man’s flushed brain meant murder, nothing less. Somehow he must put an end to this madness. George’s hobnails slithered on the stone flags. Abner took his chance, and timed his blow. George went down with a groan: his poker sang like a tuning fork on the floor.

‘Abner, Abner, what have you done?’ Mary cried. She ran to George and bent over him, pulling up his head. Abner, with black blood dripping from a bruised vein on his forehead, stood back. The corners of his mouth twitched with his violent breathing: he still held his chair uplifted.

‘It was him or me,’ he panted.

‘He’s dead! You’ve killed him!’

‘Not he! That sort don’t die.’

But he himself was anxious for a moment and stooped over George’s body, breathing heavily.