Chapter 12

Reuben was pleased with the results of that Fair Day. Harry had been a complete success. Even on the day itself he was engaged to fiddle at a local wedding, and thenceforth no festival was complete without him. He became the fashion in Peasmarsh. His birth and family gave proceedings an air of gentility, and his tragic story imparted romance. Also his real musical gifts were appreciated by some, as well as his tirelessness and good nature. Occasionally he would have fits of crazy ill-temper, but only required firm handling. Reuben saw that his brother, instead of being entirely on the debit side of Odiam's accounts, would add materially to its revenues. He became exceedingly kind to Harry, and gave him apples and sweets.

That autumn he had sown his oats. He sowed English Berlie, after wavering for some time between that and Barbachlaw. Quantities of rape cake had been delivered in the furrows with the seed, and now the fields lay, to the eye, wet and naked—to the soul, to Reuben's farmer-soul, full of the hidden promise which should sprout with May.

He had a man to help him on the farm, Beatup, an uncouth coltish lad, with an unlimited capacity for work. Reuben never let him touch the new ground, but kept him busy in barn and yard with the cattle. Mrs. Backfield worked in the house as usual, and she now also had charge of the poultry; for Reuben having given them up to her when he was single-handed, had not taken them back—he had to look after Beatup, who wanted more watching than Harry, and he also had bought two more pigs as money-makers. He was saving, stinting, scraping to buy more land.

Mrs. Backfield sometimes had Naomi to help her. Naomi often came to stay at Odiam. She did not know why she came; it was not for love of Mrs. Backfield,[Pg 66] and the sight of Harry wrung her heart. She had fits of weeping alternating with a happy restlessness.

Ever since the day of the Fair a strange feeling had possessed her, sometimes just for fitful moments, sometimes for long days of panic—the feeling of being pursued. She felt herself being hunted, slowly, but inevitably, by one a dozen times more strong, more knowing, more stealthy than herself. She heard his footsteps in the night, creeping after her down long labyrinths of thought, sometimes his shadow sped before her with her own. And she knew that one day he would seize her—though she struggled, wept and fled, she knew that one day she would be his at last, and of her own surrender. The awful part of that seizing would be that it would be a matter of her will as well as his....

She was afraid of Reuben, she fled before him like a poor little lamb, trembling and bleating—and yet she would sometimes long for the inevitable day when he would grasp her and fling her across his shoulders.

She could not discipline her attitude towards him—sometimes she was composed, distant even in her thoughts; at others a kind of delirious excitement possessed her, she flushed and held down her head in his presence, could not speak to him, and groped blindly for escape. She would, on these occasions, end by returning to Rye, but away from Reuben a restless misery tormented her, driving her back to Odiam.

She sometimes asked herself if she loved him, and in cold blood there was only one answer to that question—No. What she felt for him was not love, but obsession—if she had never loved she might have mistaken it, but with her memories of Harry she could not. And the awful part of it was that her heart was still Harry's, though everything else was Reuben's. Her desires, her thoughts, her will were all Reuben's—by a slow remorseless process he was making them his own—but her heart,[Pg 67] the loving, suffering part of her, was still Harry's, and might always be his.

She was not continuously conscious of this—sometimes she forgot Harry, sometimes he repulsed her, often she was afraid of him. But in moments of quiet her heart always gave her the same message, like distant music, drowned in a storm.

One day she was in the dairy at Odiam, skimming the cream-pans. The sunshine, filtered to a watery yellow by the March afternoon, streamed in on her, putting a yellow tinge into her white skin and white apron. Her hair was the colour of fresh butter, great pats and cakes of which stood on the slabs beside her. There was a smell of butter and standing milk in the cold, rather damp air. Naomi skimmed the cream off the pans and put it into a brown bowl.

Suddenly she realised that Reuben had come into the dairy, and was standing beside her, a little way behind.

"Hullo, Ben," she said nervously—it was one of her nervous days.

"How's the cream to-day?"

"Capital."

He dipped his finger into the pan, and sucked it.

"Oughtn't it to stand a bit longer?"

"I don't think so."

"Taste it——"

He dipped his finger again, and suddenly thrust it between her lips.

She drew her head away almost angrily, and moved to the next pan.

Then he stooped and kissed her quite roughly on the neck, close to the nape.

She cried out and turned round on him, but he walked out of the dairy.

For a moment Naomi stood stockish, conscious only of two sensations in her body—the taste of cream on her lips, and a little cold place at the back of her neck.[Pg 68] She began to tremble, then suddenly the colour left her cheeks, for in the doorway of the wash-house, three yards off, stood Harry.

He did not move, and for some unaccountable reason she felt sure that he knew Reuben had kissed her. A kind of sickness crept up to her heart; she held out her hands before her, and tottered a little. She felt faint.

"Harry!" she called.

He came shuffling up to her, and for a moment stood straining his blind eyes into her face.

"Harry—will you—will you take this basin of cream to your mother?"

He was still looking into her eyes, and she was visited by a terrible feeling that came to her sometimes and went as quickly—that he was not so mad as people thought.

"Will you take it?"

He nodded.

She gave him the cream bowl. Their hands accidentally touched; she pulled hers away, and the bowl fell and was broken.