Chapter 11

On his last evening, he went up to Worge to say good-bye. He felt already as if he did not belong to the place. Harry’s drastic dealings with the tilth seemed to have taken the fields away from him—he no longer felt even a distant guardianship of those brown-ribbed acres which had been green when he worked on them. He felt, too, with a sense of estrangement, the dirt and litter of the house, the muddling business which at six o’clock had Ivy swilling out the scullery and Mrs. Beatup still struggling with the washing. Thyrza never did a stroke of housework after dinner, and yet her morning’s tasks were never hurried; she never had Ivy’s flushed, red face and tousled hair, or Mrs. Beatup’s forehead shiny with sweat.

His family were conscious of this—conscious that he now had a standard of comparison by which to measure their short-comings, and it made them sulkily suspicious in their attitude. He was already the alien—the bird that has left the nest, the puppy that has grown up and gone a-hunting on his own. But this sense of estrangement [148] only seemed to make his parting sadder, for he vaguely felt as if he had left them before he need, had already divided himself from them by an earlier good-bye, of which this was only the echo and the ghost.

Mrs. Beatup enquired politely after Thyrza, and sent Ivy out to fetch in the others. Zacky climbed on Tom’s knee and asked him to send him home a German helmet, and Harry—whose heart was really very warm and loving towards Tom—stood shyly behind his chair and could not speak a word. Mus’ Beatup gave Tom an account of the Battle of the Ancre, but failed to create the usual respectful impression.

“You see, faather, I was out there, and I know that it happened different. St. Quentin aun’t anywhere near the Rhine.”

“There’s more’n one St. Quentin, saum as there’s more’n one Mockbeggar, and more’n one Iden Green. How do you know as there’s no St. Quentin on the Rhine? You’ve never bin there, and you’ll never be there, nuther.”

“I reckon I’ll be there before I’m many months older.”

“You woan’t,” said Mus’ Beatup solemnly, “it’s more likely as the Germans ull be crossing the River Cuckmere than as you’ll ever be crossing the River Rhine. Now, be quiet, Nell, and a-done do, fur I tell you it’s bin proved as we’ll never git to the River Rhine, so where’s the sense of going on wud the war, I’d like to know?”

“To prevent the Germans crossing the River Cuckmere,” snapped Nell.

“Oh, doan’t go talking such tar’ble stuff,” moaned Mrs. Beatup. “If the Germans caum here I’d die of fits.”

“They woan’t come here,” said her husband, “and [149] we’ll never git there, so wot’s the sense of all this vrother, and giving up our lads and ploughing up our grass and going short of beer, all to end where we started? If this war had bin a-going to do us any good, it ud a-done it before now, surelye; but it’s a lousy, tedious, lamentaable war, and the sooner we git shut of it the better.”

“Well, I must be going,” said Tom, standing up. He felt rather angry with his father, who, he thought, talked like a “conscientious objector,” and was prostrating his mighty intellect to base uses. “But maybe the beer has addled him—he’s had a regular souse this winter, by his looks.”

He said good-bye to the family, refusing his mother’s invitation to stay to supper, as he had promised to take Thyrza for a walk that evening. However, he asked her to come with him to the door, as there was something he wanted to say to her alone.

Mrs. Beatup felt pleased at this mark of confidence, but all Tom had to say as he kissed her on the threshold was—

“Mother, if anything wur to happen to me ... out there, you know ... you’d be good to Thyrza?”

“Oh, Tom—you aun’t expecting aught?”

“I hope not, surelye—but how am I to know?”

Her face wrinkled for crying.

“You didn’t use to spik lik that....”

“Come, mother—be sensible. There aun’t no sense spikking different, things being wot they are. I dudn’t use to be married ... it’s being married that maakes a chap think of wot might happen.”

“You’d want me to taake Thyrza to live here?...”

“Reckon I wouldn’t. She’ll have her liddle bit of money, thank God, and maybe a pension besides. It aun’t money as I’m thinking of—it’s just—it’s just as she’ll break her heart.”

“And I’ll break mine, too, I reckon.”

Tom groaned.

[150]

“You’re a valiant help to me, mother. I ask you a thing to maake me a bit easier, and all you do is to vrother me the more.”

“Doan’t you go abusing your mother, Tom—wud your last breath. If Thyrza’s heart gits broke I’ll give her a bit of mine to mend it with—but no good ever caum of talking of such things.”

“I woan’t talk of them no more. Only, it had to be done—you see, mother, there might be a little ’un as well as Thyrza....”

“Oh, Tom, a liddle baby fur you!”

He blushed—“There aun’t no knowing, and I’d be easier if....”

“Oh, but I’d justabout love a liddle grandchild. You need never fret over that, Tom. I’d give my days to a liddle young un of yourn.”

He kissed her, and they parted in love.