Chapter 12

Bucksteep Manor was the smaller kind of country-house, smuggled away from the cross-roads in a larch plantation, with a tennis lawn at the back, and a more open view swinging over a copsed valley to Rushlake Green. It had once been a farmhouse, but a wing had been added in modern style, and inside, the low raftering had been swept away, so that when Tom stood in the dimly-lighted hall, which had once been the kitchen, he could look up to a ceiling dizzily high to his sag-roofed experience.

The Lambs were the aristocracy of Dallington, a neighbourhood strikingly empty of “society” in the country-house sense. They had themselves been yeoman [55] farmers a couple of generations back, and the present squire still interested himself shamefacedly in Bucksteep’s hundred acres. The Beatups had but little truck with the Manor; precarious yeomen, no rents or dues demanded intercourse, and Mus’ Beatup had often been heard to say that some folks were no better than other folks, for all their airs and acres.

Tom had given his letter to a rustling parlourmaid, and stood meekly waiting for an answer, his large bovine eyes blinking with sleepiness. From an adjoining room came the throaty music of a gramophone, playing:

“When we wind up the Watch on the Rhine
Everything will be Potsdam fine....”

There was girls’ laughter, too—probably Miss Marian Lamb and Mus’ Archie’s intended—and every now and then he heard Mrs. Lamb’s voice go rocketing up. He did not feel envious of all this jollity, neither did it grate upon him; he just stood and waited under the shaded lamps of the hall, and had nearly fallen asleep on his legs when suddenly the door opened, with a flood of light and noise, and shut again behind Mus’ Archie.

“Good evening, Beatup. Sorry to have kept you waiting. I couldn’t make this out at first—had no idea your young brother was one of the culprits to-night, or I shouldn’t have played that trick on ’em.”

“It doan’t matter, sir. Harry desarved it. It’s only as we can’t afford to lose the clothes.”

“No, no, of course not. Come with me and pick his out of the pile, and you can take them home.”

“Thank you, Mus’ Archie.”

He followed young Lamb into a little gun-room opening on the hall, and was able to pick out Harry’s rather bobtail toilet from a muddle of Sinden and Pix raiment.

[56]

“That’s all, is it? Wan’t anything to wrap ’em in?”

“No, sir, it aun’t worth it. Thank you kindly for letting me have the things.”

“There was never any question of you not having them. I’ve no right to keep ’em. So you’re joining up to-morrow?”

He was in uniform, but without his belt. Somehow to Tom he seemed a burlier, browner man than the young squire whom before the war he used to see out hunting, or shooting, or driving girls in his car.

“Yes, I’m joining up, as they say.”

“You don’t seem over-pleased about it.”

“I aun’t, particular.”

“Well, I’m not going to tell you it’s the grandest job on earth, and that all the chaps out there are having the time of their lives. It wouldn’t be true, though I expect the Tribunal told you so.”

“Yessir; they said as if they were only ten years younger they’d all be in it.”

“Of course they did. Well, I’ve been out there, and I’ve seen.... But never mind; you’ll find that out for yourself, Beatup. However, I’ll say this much—it isn’t a nice job, or a grand job, or even a good job; but it’s a job that’s got to be done, and when it’s done we’ll like to think that Sussex chaps helped do it.”

Tom’s heart warmed a little towards Mus’ Archie. He was making him feel as he had felt when Bill Putland said, “We’re all eighteenth Sussex hereabouts.”

[

“It aun’t the going as un vrother me, if it wurn’t fur leaving Worge. I’m fretted as the plaace ull land at the auctioneer’s if I’m long away. You see, I’ve always done most of the work, in my head as well as wud my hands. Faather, he aun’t a healthy man, and the others aun’t much help nuther. There’s only Harry lik to be any use, and he’s such an unaccountable limb of wickedness—for ever at his tricks—to-night’s only one of them.”

“Perhaps he’ll pull himself together and work for Worge when he sees you’ve gone to fight for it.”

This was new light on the matter for Tom. Hitherto he had always thought of himself as deserting Worge in its hour of need—it had never occurred to him that his going was the going of a champion, not of a traitor.

“Maybe it’s as you say, Mus’ Archie. Leastways, we’ll hope so.”

They were in the hall again now, and the gramophone was singing in its spooky voice. “You called me Baby Doll a year ago.” Tom slowly turned the handle of the front door, sidling out on to the step.

“Thank you for the clothes, Mus’ Archie. I’ll try and talk some sense into Harry before I go.”

“Good night, Beatup, and good luck to you. I expect I’ll see some more of you in the near future. All the chaps round here seem to be drafted into the eighteenth. Bill Putland will be in our little crowd, and Jerry Sumption—there’ll be quite a Dallington set at Waterheel.”

“I hope I’ll be with you, Mus’ Archie.”

“I hope you will, Beatup. Good night.”

“Good night, sir.”

The door shut, and he was out in the drive, where the larches swung against the moon.

Archie Lamb went back into the drawing-room, and put a new record on the gramophone.

“Queer chap, Beatup,” he said to his mother. “I don’t know how he’ll shape. He looks strong and steady, but I should say about as smart as a mangold-wurzel.”