Chapter 12

Three hours later he woke, to find Mrs. Hubble’s big wooden wash-tub in front of the fire.

“Up you get,” said the Reverend Mr. Sumption, “and into that bath, and I’ll take your clothes down to be cleaned and mended before you go to the station.”

“I’m not going to the station.”

“You’re going there two hours from now, or you won’t be in Waterheel to-night.”

“I don’t want to be in Waterheel ever again.”

But Mr. Sumption was not having any nonsense. A large hairy paw like a gorilla’s shot out and swung Jerry by the collar on to the floor. “Now strip, you ungodly good-for-nothing, and I’ll send you out looking like a clergyman’s son.”

Jerry, groaning and moaning to himself, got into the bath, while Mr. Sumption took his dirty bundle of clothes down to Mrs. Hubble’s kitchen, where a long and noisy argument followed on her abilities to make bricks without straw, as she called his request to make his son look decent. He returned to the study to find Jerry less stiff in the joints, but growing every minute more defiant and miserable as the steaming water cleared the fogs of sleep from his brain.

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“I’m not going back to camp. I’d die if I was to go there—with Ivy lost. It was bad enough when I had her to think of and all——But now ... I’d justabout break my heart.”

“Maybe after a time you can write to her again——”

“I can’t, I tell you. You don’t understand. I’ve lost her for ever. I frightened her—I made her scream.”

“You’re a beast,” said his father.

“Reckon I am, and reckon you’re treating me like one.”

“If you stay behind, they’ll nab you for an absentee.”

“I don’t care if they do. I’d sooner be locked up, than a soldier any more.”

“For shame, boy!”

“Well, how’d you like to be a soldier?—sworn at all day by bloody sergeants, and always fatigue and C.B. I’m fed up, I tell you, and I’m not going back.”

“You’ll go back, if I have to pull you all the way by the ears.”

“You’re the cruellest father I ever heard of.”

Mr. Sumption lost his temper, and cuffed Jerry’s head as he sat in the tub. Luckily the boy’s defiance had been only the false flare of damp spirits, and instead of receiving the blow with an explosion of anger, he was merely cowed by it. Whereat Mr. Sumption’s heart melted, and he saw the piteousness of this poor little soldier, whose heart was black with some evil beyond his help.

The rest of the time passed amicably, till Mrs. Hubble, with many contemptuous sniffs, brought up Jerry’s uniform brushed and mended, and after he was dressed he did not look so bad, especially as the bath had had the humiliating result of making his skin look several shades lighter.

Breakfast followed, and afterwards he and his father set out for Senlac Station, taking the longer North Road by Woods Corner and Darwell Hole, instead of that shorter, more dangerous, way past the gate of Worge. [102] It was a morning of clear, golden distances, with pillars and towers and arches of cloud moving solemnly before the wind across a borage-blue sky. Drops of dew fell from the trees on the backs of the two men, and the air was full of the smell of earth and wet leaves, and that faint mocking smell of spring which sometimes comes in autumn.

As they tramped along the North Road, away from the Obelisk by Lobden’s House, which allows a Dallington man to see his village for miles after he has left it, Mr. Sumption spoke very patiently and kindly to his son.

“Keep good and straight,” he said, “for you’re a good woman’s son, and some day you’ll find a woman whom you’ll love as I loved your mother. May she be to you all that your mother was to me, and may you keep her longer. But don’t go running after strange women, or think to forget love in wantonness. One day, if you trust the Lord, you’ll meet a girl that has been worth keeping good for, that you’ll find lovelier than Ivy Beatup, and ull think herself honoured to marry a clergyman’s son.”

“Clergyman’s son ...” murmured Jerry, in tones that made Mr. Sumption swoop round on him with uplifted hand, to see a look on his face that made him thrust it back into his pocket.

His eyes were still full of his mysterious trouble, but he did not speak of it so much. He just plodded on beside his father like a calf to slaughter, and at last they came to Senlac Town, with the houses like barley-stacks in the sunshine. They were early, and had half an hour to wait at the station. A train had just come in, and as they crossed the bridge they suddenly met Tom Beatup.

“Tom!” cried the minister, cracking his joints with delight. “Who’d have thought to meet you! I’d no idea you were coming home.”

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“Nor had I till yesterday—seven days’ leave before I go to France. I sent off a telegram, but I reckon it was too late for them to get it last night. Hullo, Jerry! Enjoyed yourself?”

“Unaccountable,” said Jerry with a leer.

“Wait for me, Tom,” said Mr. Sumption, “and we’ll walk home together. I shan’t be more than twenty minutes or so.”

“I’m justabout sorry, but I must git off this wunst. Reckon I’ll see you again soon.”

“Come round to the Horselunges one evening.”

“I will, surelye”—and Tom was off, whistling “Sussex by the Sea.”

It seemed to Mr. Sumption that he looked a bigger, older man than the Tom Beatup of five months ago. He seemed to have grown and filled out, he had lost his yokel shuffle, and his uniform was smart and neat. The minister glanced down at Jerry, who stood beside him, small, untidy, cowed and furtive. Jerry undoubtedly did not look his best in uniform—it seemed to exaggerate the worst of those gipsy characteristics which he had inherited from the Rossarmescroes or Hearns. Now, in civvies he used not to look so bad—he was a well-made, graceful little chap....

“Jerry,” said Mr. Sumption, “why can’t you look like Tom Beatup?”

“I reckon it’s because I’m Jerry Sumption—the clergyman’s son.”

And again there was that look on his face which prevented retaliation.