Chapter 4

It was odd that Jerry’s cowed retreat should have caused her more fear than his swaggering aggression—nevertheless, all that day she could not get rid of her uneasiness, and with the arbitrariness of superstition linked the evening’s catastrophe with the earlier foreboding.

She had run down to the Shop, to buy some washing soda, and have a chat with Thyrza, and on her return was met in the passage by Nell, who looked at her hard and said—

“There’s someone come to see you—a Mrs. Seagrim.”

Ivy’s heart jumped. She wished that there had not been quite such a wind to blow about her hair, and that she had had time to mend the hole in her skirt that morning. If Willie’s mother had come to inspect his choice ... howsumdever, he had often spoken of his mother as a kind soul.

But the woman in the kitchen with Mrs. Beatup was only a few years older than Ivy—a tall, slim creature, with reddish hair, and a beautiful pale face. She was dressed like a lady, too, in a neat coat and skirt, with gloves and cloth-topped boots. Ivy felt the blood drain from her heart, and yet she had anticipated Mrs. Beatup with no definite thought when the latter said—

“Ivy, this is Corporal Seagrim’s wife.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Ivy heard someone say, and it must have been herself, for the next moment she was shaking hands with Mrs. Seagrim.

There was a moment’s pause, during which the two women stared at Ivy, then the corporal’s wife remarked, with a North-country accent that came startlingly from her elegance, that it was gey dirty weather.

“Thicking up fur thunder, I reckon,” said Mrs. Beatup.

[166]

“Yo get it gey thick and saft down here, A’m thinking.”

“Unaccountable,” said Mrs. Beatup, and squinted nervously at Ivy.

Ivy’s wits had at first been blown to the four winds, and she sat during this conversation with her mouth open, but gradually resolve began to form in her sickened heart; she felt her brain and body stiffen—she would fight....

“A chose a bad week t’coom Sooth,” started Mrs. Seagrim, “but ’twas all the choice A had—A hae t’roon my man’s business now he’s sojering. Yo’ mither tells me, Miss Beatup, as nane here knaws he’s marrit. But marrit he is, and has twa bonny bairns.”

“I know,” said Ivy—“he toald me.”

“He toald you!” broke in Mrs. Beatup. “You said naun to me about it.”

“I disremember. He wur only here the twice.”

Mrs. Seagrim looked at her curiously.

“Weel, maist folk didn’t sim t’knaw. A took a room in Hailsham toon, and the gude woman said as how t’Corporal had allus passed for a bachelor man, and was coorting a lass up t’next village.”

“Maybe she thinks he wur a-courting me,” snapped Ivy, “but he dud naun of the like. He toald me he was married the fust day I set eyes on un.”

“Weel, that was on’y reet. So many of those marrit sojer chaps go and deceive puir lasses. A hear there’s been a mort of trouble and wickedness done that way.”

“Maybe,” said Ivy—“women are gurt owls, most of them.”

“And,” continued Mrs. Seagrim, “it’s only reet and [167] kind of the wives of such men to go and tell any poor body as is like to be deceived by them.”

“That’s true enough. But your trouble’s thrown away on me. I knew all about un from the fust.”

“Weel, A’ve done ma duty ony way,” and Mrs. Seagrim rose, extending a gloved hand, “and A’m reet glad as Seagrim was straight with yo’, when he seems to have passed as single with everyone else.”

“It must be a tar’ble trial to have a man lik that,” said Ivy. “He’ll cost you a dunnamany shilluns and pounds if you’ve got to go trapesing after him everywheres, to tell folk he’s wed.”

Mrs. Seagrim smiled.

When Ivy had shown her out of the front-door, she would have liked to escape to her bedroom, but Mrs. Beatup filled the passage.

“Ivy—you might have toald me. I maade sure as he’d deceived you.”

“And I tell you he dudn’t. He toald me he wur wed, and about his childer, and that dress-up hop-pole of a wife of his’n.”

“And you went walking out wud a married man, for all the Street to see!”

“Why not? There wur no harm done.”

“No harm! I tell you it wurn’t simly.”

“He’d no friends in these parts, and a man liks a woman he can talk to.”

“He’d got his wife, surelye.”

“Not hereabouts. He wur middling sick wud lonesomeness.”

Mrs. Beatup sniffed.

“Well, you can justabout git shut of him now. Your faather and me woan’t have you walking out wud a married man. So maake up your mind to that.”

Ivy muttered something surly and thick—the tears were already in her throat, and pushing past her mother, she ran upstairs.

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Once alone, her feelings overcame her, and she threw herself upon the bed, sobbing with grief and rage. Seagrim had deceived her, had meant to deceive her—that was quite plain. Though he had never definitely spoken of marriage, he had quite definitely posed to her as a single man. She gathered from Mrs. Seagrim that he made a habit of these escapades. Lord! what a fool she had been—and yet, why should she have doubted him whom she loved so utterly?

Her hair, matted into her eyes, was soaked with tears, as she rolled her head to and fro on the pillow, thinking of the man she had loved, loved still, and yet hated and despised. He had played her false—she was unable to get over this fact, as a more sophisticated nature might have done. Her confidence, her devotion, her passion, he had paid with treachery and lies. She had not fought her battle with Mrs. Seagrim in his defence—at least not principally—she had fought it to save herself from humiliation in the eyes of this woman, of her mother, and of Sunday Street.

Yet she cried to him out of the deep—“Oh, Willie, Willie....” She thought of him in his strength and grizzled beauty—she remembered particularly his neck and his hands. “Oh, Willie, Willie....” She had loved him as she had loved no other man. No other man had filled the day and the night and brought the stars to earth for her and made earth a shining heaven. Her love was crude and physical, but it is one of the paradoxes of love that the greater its materialism the greater its spiritual power, that passion can open a mystic paradise to which romance and affection have not the key. Ivy had seen the heavens open to this clumsy soldier of hers—to this man who had tricked her, bubbled her, brought her to shame.

She wondered if he knew of his wife’s visit—perhaps [169] he was with her now. Did he love her?... and those two youngsters up in the North—a moan dragged from her lips. His wife was dressed like a lady, but she talked queer, though maybe they all talked like that up North. Had she believed Ivy when she said she had always known Seagrim was a married man? Had her mother believed her? Would Sunday Street believe her?

She sat up on the bed, and pushed the damp hair back from her eyes. She would face them out, anyhow. No one should point at her in scorn—or at Seagrim, either, even though she could never trust him or love him again. She would give the lie to all who mocked or pitied. No one should pry into her aching heart. Ivy Beatup wasn’t the one to be poor-deared or serve-her-righted. She crossed the room, and plunged her face into the basin, slopping her tear-stained cheeks with cold water. Then she brushed back and twisted up her hair, smoother her gown, and went downstairs with no traces of her grief save an unnatural tidiness.