Chapter 11

Of course there was a reconciliation. Such things had begun to loom rather large in Reuben's married life. He had never had reconciliations with Naomi—the storms had not been fierce enough to warrant a special celebration of the calms. But he and Rose were always being[Pg 277] reconciled. At first he had looked upon these episodes as sweets of matrimony, more blessed than any amount of honeymoon, but now he had gone a stage further and saw them merely as part of the domestic ritual—that very evening when he held Rose and the baby together in his big embrace he knew that in a day or two he would be staling the ceremony by another repetition.

He now began to crave for her active interest in his concerns. Hitherto he had not much missed it, it had been enough for him if when he came in tired and dispirited from his day's work, she had kissed him and rumpled back the hair from his forehead and called him her "poor old man." Her caresses and sympathy had filled the gap left by her help and understanding. But now he began to want something more. He saw the hollowness of her endearments, for she did nothing to make his burden lighter. She refused to realise the seriousness of his position—left stranded with an under taking which he would never have started if he had not been certain of increased capital in the near future. She was still extravagant and fond of pleasure, she either could not or would not master the principles of economy; she saw the fat lands of Odiam round her, and laughed at her husband when he told her that he was crippled with expenses, and in spite of crops and beasts and barns must live as if he were a poor man.

Of course, he had been rash—he saw now that he had been a fool to speculate with the future. But who could have foretold that heir of Lardner's?—no one had ever heard of him in Peasmarsh, and most people were as astonished as Reuben though not so disgusted. Sometimes he had an uneasy feeling that Lardner himself had not thought much about his distant son till a year or two ago. He remembered how the old man had disapproved of the way Rose's settlements were spent, and horrible conjectures would assail him that some earlier will had been revoked, and Rose disinherited because her[Pg 278] uncle did not wish to put more money into her husband's pocket.

After all, fifty pounds and some furniture was very little to leave his only niece, who had lived with him, and had been married from his house. It was nonsense to plead the excuse that she was comfortably settled and provided for—the old man knew that Backfield had made a desperate plunge and could not recoup himself properly without ready money. He must have drawn up his will in the spirit of malice—Reuben could imagine him grinning away in his grave. "Well, Ben Backfield, I've justabout sold you nicely, haven't I?—next to no capital, tedious heavy expenses, and a wife who d?an't know the difference between a shilling and a soverun. You thought you'd done yourself unaccountable well, old feller, I reckon. Now you've found out your mistake. And you can't git even wud me where I am. He! He!"

Reuben would imagine the corpse saying all sorts of insulting things to him, and he had horrible nightmares of its gibes and mockery. One night Rose woke in the dubious comfort of the new brass bed—which she had wheedled Reuben into sparing from the auction—to find her husband kneeling on his pillow and pinning some imaginary object against the wall while he shouted—"I've got you, you old grinning ghosty—now we'll see who's sold!"

She thought this immensely funny, and retailed it with glee to her female friends who continued to invade the place. The multitude of these increased as time went by, for Rose had the knack of attaching women to herself by easy bonds. She was extremely confidential on intimate subjects, and she was interested in clothes—indeed in that matter she was even practical, and a vast amount of dressmaking was done on the kitchen table, much to the disorganisation of Caro's cooking.

Sometimes there would be males too, and Reuben[Pg 279] found that he could be jealous on occasion. It annoyed him to see a young counter-jumper from Rye sitting in the parlour with an unmanly tea-cup, and he would glare on such aristocracy as a bank-clerk or embryo civil servant, whose visits Rose considered lent a glamour to Odiam. Like a wise woman she used her husband's jealousy to her own advantage. She soon grew extremely skilful in manipulating it, and by its means wrung a good deal out of him which would not otherwise have been hers.

It was true that her young men were not always on the spot when she wanted them most, but on these occasions she used the drover Handshut, a comely, well-set-up young fellow, of independent manners. Reuben more than once had to drive him out of the kitchen.

"I w?an't have my lads fooling it in the house," he said to his wife, when he found her winding a skein of wool off Handshut's huge brown paws—"they've work enough to do outside wudout spannelling after you women."

Rose smiled to herself, and when she next had occasion to punish Reuben, invited his drover to a cup of tea.

Then there was an angry scene, stormings and tears, regrets, taunts, and abuse—and another reconciliation.