Chapter 4

The last days of Tom’s fortnight seemed to rush by in spate; they blew before the March wind like the dust. Thyrza hurried on her little preparations for his departure—she was making him new shirts, and with loving hands repairing all of his that was frayed and worn, from his shirt to his soul.... For even Tom’s simple soul had been touched by the blight of war, and there was a look at the back of his eyes which came from things he never spoke of ... things he had seen out there in the land of horrors, which the folk at home did not realise—and he was unaccountable glad they did not. Thyrza’s love had driven that look to the back of his eyes and those memories to the back of his heart, though probably she would never be able to drive either the look or the memories quite away. Such things were now the lot of boys....

He still went occasionally to Worge, and sat with his father and mother in the kitchen, or gave Harry a hand on the farm. He persuaded Mus’ Beatup to engage a lad for cow and stable work, so that his brother’s burden was made lighter. One day Ivy came over with Sergeant Staples. The slow formalities of his discharge were crawling on, and she hoped to be married and to sail for Canada before the summer was out. It struck Tom that she had sweetened and sobered since he saw her last. Rumours of her affair with Seagrim had reached him, [253] and he was glad to have her settled down. “Ricky’s a valiant pal,” she said once, and the words struck the difference between her love for him and the love she had had for Seagrim, and would have explained, if anyone had cared for an explanation, the comparative ease and quickness with which she had turned from one to the other. Seagrim had never been a pal—he had been a spell, a marvel, a magic that would never come back, a wonder which a woman’s heart must know but can seldom keep. Ricky, with his red hair and grinning monkeyish face, would never throw over Ivy’s world the glamour of those weeks with Seagrim, he would never transfigure the earth or turn pots to gold.... On the other hand, as Ivy said, he was better to jog along with, and she was certainly born for the ardours and endurances of a colonial’s wife—“So that’s settled and done with,” she thought to herself with a contented sigh—“and I reckon I’m a middling lucky girl. It’s queer how Nell and me have seemingly done just the saum—lost our hearts to one man and then gone and married another. But I kept my head and did it sensible, while she, reckon she lost hers and did it unsensible. Poor Nell! ... but I told her straight as Kadwell wur a swine.”

Nell had left the farm about four days after Tom’s return. Her husband had suddenly claimed her, and had fetched her away to spend his last leave with him in London. He expected to go to France in a week or two now. Tom did not dislike his new brother-in-law; he thought him a “good feller,” and considered him wonderfully forbearing with Nell when she cried on saying good-bye to her mother, and went away with her pretty face all marbled and blotched with tears.

“I’ve got no patience wud girls wot taake on them silly maidenish airs,” he said to Thyrza. “You never [254] cried when you caum to me, surelye.”

“I’d no mother to say good-bye to. Some girls always cry when they say good-bye to their mothers.”

“Nell never used to be so set on mother in the oald times.”

“But it’s different now—it always is,” said Thyrza wisely—“that’s why some folks ud sooner have a darter than a son. When a son goes marrying he turns away from his parents, but a girl, the more she loves outside the more she loves at home.”

Tom pondered her words, and found himself beginning to feel a little guilty.

“Maybe you’re right. I hope Will woan’t go and disremember us when he weds.”

“Reckon he will,” said Thyrza—“it’s only nature.”

Tom went up to Worge every evening till the end of his leave.