Chapter 2

In the course of the following year Reuben had news of all his absent sons, except Benjamin, who was never heard of again.

One day Caro came home from Rye, where she had gone with the vegetables to market, and said that she had met Bessie Lamb. Bessie was on her way to the station, where she would take the train for Southampton. Robert had written that he was now able to have her with him in Australia, and she had at once packed up her few belongings and set out to join him in the unknown.

Bessie was now thirty, and looked older, for she had lost a front tooth and her pretty hair had faded: but she was as confident of Robert's love as ever. He had[Pg 334] written to her by every mail, she told Caro, and they had both saved and scraped and waited and counted the days till they could consummate the love born in those fields eternally fixed in twilight by their memory. There had been no intercourse between Odiam and Eggs Hole, so, as Robert had never written to his family, Caro heard for the first time of the sheep-farm in Queensland and its success. He had done badly at first, Bessie said, what with the drought and many other things against him, but now he was well established, and she would be far better off and more comfortable as the felon's wife than she had ever been as the daughter of honest parents.

She left Caro with a restless aching in her heart. In spite of the lost front tooth and the faded hair, she had impressed her in much the same way as Rose on her wedding night. Here was another woman sure of love looking confidently into a happy future, wooed and sought after, a man's bride.... Jolting home in the empty vegetable cart beside Peter, one or two tears found their way down Caro's cheek. Oh, if only some man, no matter whom, tyrant, criminal, no matter what, would love her, give her for one moment those divine sensations which she had seen other women enjoy! Why must she alone, of all the women she knew, be loveless?

It was her father's fault, he had kept her to work for him, he had starved her purposely of men's society—and now her youth was departing, she was twenty-nine, and she had never heard a man speak words of love, or felt his arms about her, or the sweetness of his lips on hers.

When they came to Odiam, she told Reuben what she had heard about Robert.

"Would you believe it, he has a hundred sheep—and a man working under him—and money coming in quite easy now. It wur hard at first, Bessie says, and[Pg 335] he wur in tedious heart over it all, but he pulled through his bad times, and now he's doing valiant."

"And who has he got to thank fur it, I'd lik to know? Who taught him how to run a farm, and work, and never spare himself and pull things through? There he wur, wud no sperrit in him, grudging every str?ake he did fur Odiam. If I hadn't kept him to it, where 'ud he be now?"

News of Richard came a few months later. He was heard of as a barrister on the Southern Circuit, and defended a gipsy on trial for turnip-stealing at Lewes. Rumours of him began to spread in the neighbourhood—he was doing well, Anne Bardon was working for him, and he was likely to be a credit to her. At the Cocks he was the subject of much respectful comment, and for the first time Reuben found himself bathed in glory reflected from one of his children. He could not help feeling proud of him, but wished he did not owe anything to the Bardons.

"Tedious argumentatious liddle varmint he wur—I'm not surprised as he's turned a lawyer. And he had good training fur it, too. There's naun to sharpen the wits lik a farmer's life, and I kept him at it, tough and rough, though he'd have got away if he cud. Many's the time I've wopped him near a jelly fur being a lazy-bones, and particular, which you can't be and a lawyer too. But I reckon he thinks it's all that Bardon woman's doing."

A few weeks later Richard wrote himself, breaking the silence of years. Success had made him feel more kindly towards his father. He forgave the frustrations and humiliations of his youth, and enquired after his brothers and sisters and the progress of the old farm. Anne Bardon had kept him fairly well posted in Backfield history, but though he knew of Reuben's unlucky marriage and of the foot-and-mouth catastrophe, he had evidently lost count of absconding sons, for he[Pg 336] seemed to think Pete had run away too, which Reuben considered an unjustifiable aspersion on his domestic order. However, the general tone of his letter was conciliatory, and his remarks on the cattle-plague "most pr?aper."

As for himself, his life had been full of hard work and the happiness of endeavour crowned at last by success. Anne Bardon he referred to as an angel, which made Reuben chuckle grimly. He had already had a brief, though he was called to the bar only two years ago—which struck his father as very slow business.

He also gave news of Albert, but not good news. He had kept more or less in touch with his brother, and had done what he could to help him, yet Albert had made a mess of his literary life, partly through incapacity, partly through dissipation. He had wasted his money and neglected his chances, and his friends could do little for him. Richard had come more than once to the rescue, but it was impossible to give real help to one of his weak nature—also Richard was still poor, and anxious to pay off his debts to Anne Bardon.

"I reckon," said Reuben, "as how they'd all have been better off if they'd stayed at home."