CHAPTER LV

THE POOL

Ernie was up and away early next morning.

It was Sunday; and there was nobody about except the few hurrying to early service in the parish-church.

Amongst these he noted Alf turning into the porch.

At Billing's Corner he met the Archdeacon, who passed him with disapproving eye, and the sour remark,

"You're off early, Caspar."

"Yes, sir," brightly. "I'm away over the hill."

"Ah," smirked the Archdeacon, "there are better ways of passing the Sabbath, I believe."

"Yes, sir," answered Ernie. "You'll find Alf awaitin you inside. He's doin it for us both."

The Archdeacon had never quite made up his mind whether Ernie was ingenuous or impertinent or both. But then he had never made up his mind about Ernie's father, though he had disliked his impalpable neighbour and feared him secretly for thirty years.

Ernie now turned into Rectory Walk, and paused outside No. 60.

The habits of the inmates he knew to a minute, and had timed himself accordingly.

His mother would be in the kitchen, preparing breakfast in her blue wrapper, while his father would be dressing.

Standing in the tiny square of garden among the tall tobacco plants, he tossed a cautious pebble through the upper window which was open.

"Dad!" he called, low.

The old man, spectacled, but collarless, in all the purity of a clean Sunday shirt, thrust out a touzled head.

"Found her," whispered Ernie.

His father nodded down benevolently. Then there sparkled in his eyes that remote and frosty twinkle which was the outward and visible sign of the change that had been wrought in him.

"And finding's keeping," he said.

In the glorious morning Ernie took the hill, marching through the gorse to the song of larks. On the one hand the Weald lay spread beneath him like a green lagoon, dimming to blue; and on the other the great waters rose up to meet and mingle with the greater sky.

It was still early when he dropped down kestrel-haunted Wind-hover, over the corn-covered foothills, into the Brooks.

A white hand-bridge on red girders crossed the stream just under the mound on which stood the short-backed cathedral church with its thick-set tower, half-hidden by ash and sycamore.

On the bridge Ernie paused and looked across towards the village lying in the morning sunlight, a tumble of russet roofs hugger-mugger among gardens on the hill, the old brown tiles crudely patched here and there with raw red ones; beyond the roofs the bare Downs; and at the foot of the hill, just across the green, tiny Frogs' Hall with the honeysuckle about the door, and Mus Boam sitting as always on his bricks, spectacles on nose, and Book spread on his knees.

Then Ernie was aware of a movement in the water underneath him and glanced down. Just beside the bridge a willow leaned over the stream.

Here in a pool, sheltered by bridge and tree, a young woman stood, her skirts kilted, and the water to her knees.

She wore the same orange scarf as on the previous evening, and the same earth-coloured gabardine; but her arms were bare; and in them was a naked babe.

Standing amid water-weeds, the stream glancing in the sunshine about her, and the lights and shadows dappling her face as the willow above her stirred, she dipped the child and cooed, and dipped and cooed again, while the babe kicked and flung its arms and laughed.

Beyond the stream heifers, black and red and white, moved leisurely in the flat green water-meadow or flicked their tails in the shadow of the straggling hedge that divided the Brooks from the long foot-hill, of the form and colour of a rainbow, which curved against the background of smooth Windhover.

Ernie, on the bridge, himself unseen, watched the young woman, with contented eyes.

Happy in her motherhood, Ruth had clearly forgotten for the moment her troubles and her tragedy.

Quietly Ernie moved off the bridge and took his stand beside the willow on the bank.

Ruth saw him now, smiled a casual greeting, and continued her labours.

Suffering, it was clear, had crushed all self-consciousness out of her. She knew no shyness, no false shame; performing her natural functions simple as a creature of the Wilderness.

Then she came wading towards him, her baby wet and slippery in her arms. The sun had burnt her a rich olive hue, deepening the red in her cheek, touching her throat to gold. With her orange turban crowning her swarthy hair she looked a gypsy Juno.

More massive than of old, matured in face and figure, she was a woman now and not a girl: one who had fought and suffered and endured, and bore on her body the stigmata of her ordeal. There was no laughter in her, and no trace of coquetry. Almost austere, nobly indifferent, she was facing life without fear and with little hope.

Ernie was shy and self-conscious as she was the reverse.

"You don't go to the Lock then?" he said stupidly.

"Nay," Ruth answered. "The Lock's for the lads. This'n's for baby and me. More loo like."

"She seems to favour it," said Ernie.

"Aye, she's unaccountable fond of the water, same as her mother." Her speech had taken once again the tone of her village environment.

The young mother sat down on the bank, and turning the child face down, began to stroke her back with strong caressing rhythmical sweep.

Ernie, watching, was amazed at the skill and easy masterfulness of her motions.

"Who learned you that?" he asked.

"Seems to coom like," she answered. "I doos it most days in general."

"She likes that," said Ernie wisely, watching the squirming rogue.

"Doosn't do her no harm anyways," answered the mother.

She put the little naked thing to sprawl and crawl and scramble on the grass beside her.

"Sun and wind and water," she said. "Give a child them three; and she wun't need for no'hun else--only food. That's what Mr. Trupp says. And I reck'n he says right."

Standing up, the water still covering her feet, she dropped her skirt.

He gave her his hand to help her on to the bank.

"The sun's burnt you," he remarked.

"Aye," she answered. "I been in the hay these three weeks past. We've carried all now, only Pook's Pasture."

Her humming voice soothed and satisfied him as of old. He listened to it as to a familiar song heard again after many years. He did not catch the words of the song, nor care to. It was the air and its associations that held his heart. Then he woke from his dream to find the woman at his side saying:

"I shall wait over harvest. I promised Mr. Gander that. See I work good as a man. Better'n some, hap," with a gleam of the old Ruth and a little backward toss of the head. "Then I shall goo."

Ernie roused swiftly.

"Where'll you goo then?"

"Back to service."

Ernie was staggered.

"And what about her?" nodding at the baby gurgling and squirming in the grass.

Ruth answered nothing, but her face stiffened.

He felt in her the fierce and formidable power he had felt on the previous evening beside the stream.

Here was not the Ruth he had known. Nature had roused in the mother forces, beautiful but terrible, of which the maid had not been conscious.

She stood with high head, like a roused stag, looking across the water-meadows to the foothills.

Then her chest began to heave.

"There's not enough," she said deeply. "I been home more'n a twal month now. Dad's got the pension, and there's what the Squire allows him and the cottage; and I doos the milkin at the Barton and earns well at whiles in the hay and harvest. But 'taren't enough. We can't make out--not the four of us and a growin child. I must just goo back to service. I made the mistake, and I must pay--not them."

Ernie came closer.

"No, you won't," he said masterfully. "You'll marry me."

She shook her head, swallowing her tears. Then she laid her hand upon his arm.

"Thank-you, Ernie," she said. "I just can't do that."

"Why not then?" fiercely.

"Ern," she panted, "if I married any I'd marry you. But I'll marry no'hun now."

She sat down under the willow and began to dress her babe.

Ern stood above her, dogged and determined.

"Say! why can't you marry me then?" he persisted.

As though in answer she dandled the child. Then she lifted her face to his, and in her eyes there was the flash and challenge of a love so fierce that Ernie felt himself suddenly afraid.

"I doosn't regret it," she said. "Never!--I'd goo through it all again for her sake and glad. She's worth it--every dimple of her!" And she laid her lips upon the child's with a passion that was almost terrible.

"You done no wrong, whoever did," mumbled Ernie, awed still by this eruption of reality. "'Twarn't no fault o yours--or hers for the matter of that."

Ruth rose and tossed her baby over her shoulder with an easy careless motion that frightened Ernie as much as it thrilled him. The child lying now face down, and doubled like a sack, sucked her thumb and regarded him with the blue eyes of her father.

Together they walked across the field towards the yellow-daubed cottage with the steep brown roof and mass of honeysuckle over the door, standing with its back to the tumbled houses on the hill behind.

"Mind, Ruth. I won't take no," insisted Ernie. "You need protection. A young woman like you do."

"Never!" said Ruth.

Ernie, unconscious of his companion's irony, ploughed on his ox-like way.

"You don't know what men are," he continued.

Her brown eyes flashed, and then dwelt on him with wistful humour.

"I should," she said. "This last two year and all," she added with solemn bitterness. "I knaw now why girls go down. They makes one mistake, then the Alfs get em. And when the Alfs get em they're done. They're like stoats, Alfs are; and we're the rabbits. Hunt you down, jump on you, and then suck the blood out of your brain. Often I've seen em at it in the hawth."

"Alf!" cried Ernie, his blood a maelstrom within him.

He tried to halt, but she marched on.

"What's he been doin to you?" hoarsely pursuing.

She answered painfully.

"You knaw yesterday?"

"Yes."

There was a harsh, almost cruel note in his voice.

She turned on him, anger and laughter battling in her eyes. Then she saw a look upon his face, dark, sullen, and suffering, such as she had never seen there before.

"I done no wrong, Ern," she said. "No need to be that savage wi me."

He became quiet; and she resumed.

"He's been goin on at me a year now--tryin to get me."

"Does he want to marry you?"

Ruth drew back her upper lip till the teeth gleamed white. She looked splendidly scornful.

"Marry me!" she sneered. "That isn't Alf. He wants me--for his sport. Alfs don't marry--not the likes o' me anyways. That ties em down. They want the pleasure, but they won't pay the price."

They had reached Frogs' Hall, mounted the high step, and entered.

Ruth put the child to bed, and then rejoined Ernie in the kitchen.

"Tell the rest," said Ernie. He was white and dogged.

Again she gave him battle with her eyes; and again marked the look upon his face and relented.

"Last week he wrote. Asked me to meet him in the willow-clump by the Lock at sun-down. I thought best goo and have it out with him. It's been goin on over a year now."

"Wasn't you afraid?" asked Ernie in awe and admiration.

"Afraid of him?" she scoffed, and stripped her arm that was smooth as marble, thick as a cable, and sinuous as a snake. "I can load against the men in the hay. You ask Mus Gander. And I knaw Alf." ...

An envelope was in her hand.

"Here's the latter."

She gave it him.

It was undated, and typewritten, and torn, but on the top there was still left enough of the heading to be decipherable--_Caspar's Garage, Saffrons Croft, Beachbourne_.

The letter contained an assignation, an indecent suggestion, and a threat; and it was signed _Little Cock Robin_.

A small fire spluttered in the grate.

Ernie flung the letter on to it, and held it down in the flame with vicious heel.

Ruth was on her knees in a moment, trying to rescue the charred fragments.

"Eh, but you shouldn't ha done that, Ernie!" she cried.

"Why not then?" flashed the other. "Hell's filth, flame's food."

Ruth rose, her attempt at salvage having failed.

"Ah," she said, "you're simple. You doosn't knaw men. You think they're all same as you. I've learned other. There's a kind of man who when he's got the sway over you there's only one way with him."

"And what's that?"

"Get the sway over him."

He looked at her sternly and with devouring eyes.

"Has Alf got the sway over you?"

She was stirred and tumultuous, the chords of her being swept by a mighty wind.

"He thinks he has," she panted. "That's one why I'm gooin into service--to get away."

"You could never leave the child!" cried Ernie.

"It's just her I'm thinking of."

He came closer.

"I claim her!" he cried passionately. "I've a right to her--and to her mother too."

She smiled at him wistfully.

"Ah, you think you're strong!"

"Aye, I'm strong enough when I like. Trouble with me is I don't often like."

She shook her head; but he felt the resistance dying out of her.

"Goo away now, Ernie!" she pleaded, choking. "Don't tempt a poor girl! There's a dear lad!"

"I'll goo away if you'll think it over."

"I'll think it over--if you'll goo away."

She threw up her head.

Beneath her eyelids the tears welled down.

He drew her to him: his lips were close to hers; his eyes on hers.

Gently she disengaged.

"Nay, lad, you mustn't," she said. "I must just reap where I've sown, as the old Book says, and make amends as best I can. No need to drag down all I love along o me." She added on that new note which thrilled him so strangely, "Not as I regrets my child. Never!"