Chapter 17

An atmosphere of gloom lay over Odiam; Reuben brought it with him wherever he went, and fogged the house with it as well as the barns. Even Rose felt an aching pity for her strong man, something quite different from the easy gushes of condolence which had used to be all she could muster in the way of sympathy.

But Reuben did not take much notice of Rose, nor even of his little son. Now and then he would look at them together, sigh impatiently, then go out of the room.

Sometimes he would be more interested, and, in a fit of reaction from his proud loneliness, turn to her as of old for comfort. But those were the bitterest hours of all, for in them he would glimpse a difference, an aloofness. She had been much quieter since the birth of the second boy, she had not recovered her health so rapidly, and her eyes were big in the midst of bistred rings. She had given up flirting with Handshut, or with the young men from Rye, but she did not turn from them to her husband. Though he could see she was sorry for him, he felt—vaguely, uncertainly, yet tormentingly—that she was not all his, as she had been in brighter months. Sometimes he did not much care—sometimes a dreadful passion would consume him, and once he caught her to his breast and bruised her in his arms, crying—"I w?an't lose you—I w?an't lose you too."

Rose could not read his mood; one day she would feel her husband had been alienated from her by his sorrow, another that his need of her was greater than ever. She herself carried a heavy heart, and in her mind a picture of the man who was "only looking in at the window." She seemed to see him standing there, with the moon[Pg 300] rising over his shoulder, while from behind him something in the garden, in the night, called ... and called.

She could still hear that call, muted, tender, wild—the voice of her youth and of her love, calling to her out of the velvet night, bidding her leave the house where the hearth was piled with ashes, and feel the rain and the south wind on her lips. There was no escape in sleep, for her dreams showed her that window framing a sky soft and dark as a grape, with the blackness of her lover's bulk against it, while the moon rose over his shoulder, red, like a fiery pan....

She felt afraid, and did not know where to turn. She avoided Handshut, who stood remote; and though her husband sometimes overwhelmed her with miserable hungry love, he often scarcely seemed to notice her or her children, and she knew that she counted far less than his farm. He was terribly harsh with her now, frowning by the hour over her account-books, forbidding this or that, and in his gloom scarcely noticing her submission.

July passed. Odiam was no longer cut off from the rest of the world by lime. Reuben with the courage of despair began to organise his shattered strength. He discharged Piper—now that his cows were gone he could easily do with a hand less. He sometimes wondered why he had not discharged Handshut, but the answer was always ready—Handshut was far the better workman, and Odiam now came easily before Rose. Not that Reuben's jealousies had left him—they still persisted, though in a different form. The difference lay in the fact that now he would not sacrifice to them the smallest scrap of Odiam's welfare.

He sometimes asked himself why he was still jealous. Rose no longer gave him provocation, she was much quieter than she had used to be, and seemed busy with her children and straitened house-keeping. It was once more a case of instinct, of a certain vague sensing of her[Pg 301] aloofness. Often he did not trouble about it, but sometimes it seared through him like a hot bar.

One evening he came home particularly depressed. He had just finished the most degrading transaction of his life—the raising of a mortgage on the Flightshot side of his land. It was horrible, but it was unavoidable. He could not now sell his milk-round, and yet he absolutely must have ready money if he was to stand up against circumstances. The mortgagee was a wealthy Rye butcher, and Reuben had hopes that the disgraceful affair might be kept secret, but also an uneasy suspicion that it was at that moment being discussed in every public-house.

He went straight to find Rose, for that mood was upon him. The due of loneliness which his shame demanded had been paid during the drive home from Rye, and now he quite simply and childishly wanted his wife. She was in the kitchen, stooping over some child's garment, the little frills of which she was pleating in her fingers. She lifted her head with a start as he came in, and he saw that her face was patched with tearstains.

"Wot've you bin crying for?" he asked as he slid a chair close to hers. He wondered if the humiliation of Odiam had at last come to mean to her a little of what it meant to him.

"I haven't been crying."

"But your face ..."

"That's the heat."

He drew back from her a little. Why should she lie to him about her tears?

"Oh, well, if you d?an't choose to tell me ... But I've eyes in my head."

She seemed anxious to propitiate him.

"How did it go off? Have you settled with Apps?"

He nodded.

"It's all over now—I've touched bottom."

"Nonsense, Ben. You mustn't say that. After all[Pg 302] there's nothing extraordinary about a mortgage—uncle had one for years on a bit of his farm at Rowfant. Besides, think of all you've got left."

He laughed bitterly. "I ?un't got much left."

Then suddenly he turned towards her as she sat there by him, her head bowed over her work—her delicate, rather impertinent nose outlined against the firelight, her cheek and neck bewitched with running shadows.

"But I've got you."

A great tenderness transported him, a great melting. He put his arm round her waist, and made as if to pull her close.

She drew back from him with a shudder.

It was only for a moment—the next she yielded. But he had seen her reluctance, felt the shiver of repulsion go through her limbs. He rose, and pushed back his chair.

"I'm sorry," he said in a low thick voice—"I'm sorry I interrupted your—crying."

Then he went out, and gave Handshut a week's notice.