Chapter 2

In the autumn Reuben bought ten more acres of Boarzell—a better piece of land than the first, more sheltered, with more clay in the soil. Hops would do well on the lower part of it down by the brook.

He also bought three Jersey cows; they would improve the small dairy business he had established, and their milk would be good for Naomi. His watchfulness of his wife had now almost become tyranny. He scolded her if she stooped to pick up her scissors, and would not let her walk even in the garden without him.

Naomi submitted languidly. Her days passed in a comfortable heaviness, and though she occasionally felt bored, on the whole she enjoyed being fussed over and waited on. During those months her relations with Reuben's mother became subtly changed. Before her marriage there had been a certain friendship and equality between them, but now the elder woman took more the place of a servant. It was not because she waited on Naomi, fetched and carried—Reuben did that, and was her master still. It was rather something in her whole attitude. She had ceased to confide in Naomi, ceased perhaps to care for her very much, and this gave a certain menial touch to her services. It would be hard[Pg 83] to say what had separated the two women—perhaps it was because one toiled all day while the other lay idle, perhaps it was a twinge of maternal jealousy on Mrs. Backfield's part, for Reuben was beginning to notice her less and less. After a time Naomi realised this estrangement, and though at first she did not care, later on it came to distress her. Somehow she did not like the idea of being without a woman associate—in spite of her love for Reuben, now more passive and more languid, like every other emotion, she craved instinctively for someone of her own sex in whom she could confide and on whom she could rely.

The year dipped into winter, then rose again into spring. Lambs began to bleat in the pens, and with the last of them in March came Naomi's baby.

Reuben was nearly mad with anxiety. His mother's calm, the doctor's leisureliness, the midwife's bustling common sense, struck him as callous and unnatural. Even Naomi greeted him with a wan, peaceful smile, when frantic with waiting, he stole up to her room. Did they all realise, he wondered, what was at stake? Suppose anything should happen.... In vain the doctor assured him that everything was normal and going on just as it should.

He went out and did a little work, but after an hour or so flung down the chicken-coop he was making, and rushed into the house. His usual question received its usual answer. He thought the doctor a hemmed fraud and the doctor thought him a damned fool.

The sun set, and Reuben had given up even the attempt to work. He wandered on Boarzell till the outline of its crest was lost in the black pit of night. Then a new anxiety began to fret him. Possibly all was going well since everybody said so, but—suppose the child was a girl! Up till now he had scarcely thought of such a thing, he had made sure that his child would be a boy, someone to help him in his struggle and to[Pg 84] reap the fruits of it after he was gone. But, suppose, after all, it should be a girl! Quite probably it would be—why should he think it would not? The sweat stood on Reuben's forehead.

Then suddenly he saw something white moving in the darkness. It was coming towards him. It was his mother's apron.

He ran to meet her, for his legs tottered so that he could not walk. He could not frame his question, but she answered it:

"All's well ... it's a boy."