The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy

J >> John Galsworthy >> The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy


"That's all very well; but, you see, it's only a necessary incident of
property-holding. You can't interfere with plain rights."

"You mean--an evil inherent in property-holding?"

"If you like; I don't split words. The lesser of two evils. What's your
remedy? You don't want to abolish property; you've confessed that
property gives YOU your independence!"

Again that curious quiver and flash!

"Yes; but if people haven't decency enough to see for themselves how the
law favors their independence, they must be shown that it doesn't pay to
do to others as they would hate to be done by."

"And you wouldn't try reasoning?"

"They are not amenable to reason."

Stanley took up his hat.

"Well, I think some of us are. I see your point; but, you know, violence
never did any good; it isn't--isn't English."

She did not answer. And, nonplussed thereby, he added lamely: "I should
have liked to have seen Tod and your youngsters. Remember me to them.
Clara sent her regards"; and, looking round the room in a rather lost
way, he held out his hand.

He had an impression of something warm and dry put into it, with even a
little pressure.

Back in the car, he said to his chauffeur, "Go home the other way,
Batter, past the church."

The vision of that kitchen, with its brick floor, its black oak beams,
bright copper pans, the flowers on the window-sill, the great, open
hearth, and the figure of that woman in her blue dress standing before
it, with her foot poised on a log, clung to his mind's eye with curious
fidelity. And those three kids, popping out like that--proof that the
whole thing was not a rather bad dream! 'Queer business!' he thought;
'bad business! That woman's uncommonly all there, though. Lot in what
she said, too. Where the deuce should we all be if there were many like
her!' And suddenly he noticed, in a field to the right, a number of men
coming along the hedge toward the road--evidently laborers. What were
they doing? He stopped the car. There were fifteen or twenty of them,
and back in the field he could see a girl's red blouse, where a little
group of four still lingered. 'By George!' he thought, 'those must be
the young Tods going it!' And, curious to see what it might mean,
Stanley fixed his attention on the gate through which the men were bound
to come. First emerged a fellow in corduroys tied below the knee, with
long brown moustaches decorating a face that, for all its haggardness,
had a jovial look. Next came a sturdy little red-faced, bow-legged man in
shirt-sleeves rolled up, walking alongside a big, dark fellow with a cap
pushed up on his head, who had evidently just made a joke. Then came two
old men, one of whom was limping, and three striplings. Another big man
came along next, in a little clearance, as it were, between main groups.
He walked heavily, and looked up lowering at the car. The fellow's eyes
were queer, and threatening, and sad--giving Stanley a feeling of
discomfort. Then came a short, square man with an impudent, loquacious
face and a bit of swagger in his walk. He, too, looked up at Stanley and
made some remark which caused two thin-faced fellows with him to grin
sheepishly. A spare old man, limping heavily, with a yellow face and
drooping gray moustaches, walked next, alongside a warped, bent fellow,
with yellowish hair all over his face, whose expression struck Stanley as
half-idiotic. Then two more striplings of seventeen or so, whittling at
bits of sticks; an active, clean-shorn chap with drawn-in cheeks; and,
last of all, a small man by himself, without a cap on a round head
covered with thin, light hair, moving at a 'dot-here, dot-there' walk, as
though he had beasts to drive.

Stanley noted that all--save the big man with the threatening, sad eyes,
the old, yellow-faced man with a limp, and the little man who came out
last, lost in his imaginary beasts--looked at the car furtively as they
went their ways. And Stanley thought: 'English peasant! Poor devil!
Who is he? What is he? Who'd miss him if he did die out? What's the
use of all this fuss about him? He's done for! Glad I've nothing to do
with him at Becket, anyway! "Back to the land!" "Independent peasantry!"
Not much! Shan't say that to Clara, though; knock the bottom out of her
week-ends!' And to his chauffeur he muttered:

"Get on, Batter!"

So, through the peace of that country, all laid down in grass, through
the dignity and loveliness of trees and meadows, this May evening, with
the birds singing under a sky surcharged with warmth and color, he sped
home to dinner.




CHAPTER XX

But next morning, turning on his back as it came dawn, Stanley thought,
with the curious intensity which in those small hours so soon becomes
fear: 'By Jove! I don't trust that woman a yard! I shall wire for
Felix!' And the longer he lay on his back, the more the conviction bored
a hole in him. There was a kind of fever in the air nowadays, that women
seemed to catch, as children caught the measles. What did it all mean?
England used to be a place to live in. One would have thought an old
country like this would have got through its infantile diseases!
Hysteria! No one gave in to that. Still, one must look out! Arson was
about the limit! And Stanley had a vision, suddenly, of his plough-works
in flames. Why not? The ploughs were not for the English market. Who
knew whether these laboring fellows mightn't take that as a grievance, if
trouble began to spread? This somewhat far-fetched notion, having
started to burrow, threw up a really horrid mole-hill on Stanley. And it
was only the habit, in the human mind, of saying suddenly to fears: Stop!
I'm tired of you! that sent him to sleep about half past four.

He did not, however, neglect to wire to Felix:

"If at all possible, come down again at once; awkward business at
Joyfields."

Nor, on the charitable pretext of employing two old fellows past ordinary
work, did he omit to treble his night-watchman. . .

On Wednesday, the day of which he had seen the dawn rise, Felix had
already been startled, on returning from his constitutional, to discover
his niece and nephew in the act of departure. All the explanation
vouchsafed had been: "Awfully sorry, Uncle Felix; Mother's wired for us."
Save for the general uneasiness which attended on all actions of that
woman, Felix would have felt relieved at their going. They had disturbed
his life, slipped between him and Nedda! So much so that he did not even
expect her to come and tell him why they had gone, nor feel inclined to
ask her. So little breaks the fine coherence of really tender ties! The
deeper the quality of affection, the more it 'starts and puffs,' and from
sheer sensitive feeling, each for the other, spares attempt to get back
into touch!

His paper--though he did not apply to it the word 'favorite,' having that
proper literary feeling toward all newspapers, that they took him in
rather than he them--gave him on Friday morning precisely the same news,
of the rick-burning, as it gave to Stanley at breakfast and to John on
his way to the Home Office. To John, less in the know, it merely brought
a knitting of the brow and a vague attempt to recollect the numbers of
the Worcestershire constabulary. To Felix it brought a feeling of
sickness. Men whose work in life demands that they shall daily whip
their nerves, run, as a rule, a little in advance of everything. And
goodness knows what he did not see at that moment. He said no word to
Nedda, but debated with himself and Flora what, if anything, was to be
done. Flora, whose sense of humor seldom deserted her, held the more
comfortable theory that there was nothing to be done as yet. Soon enough
to cry when milk was spilled! He did not agree, but, unable to suggest a
better course, followed her advice. On Saturday, however, receiving
Stanley's wire, he had much difficulty in not saying to her, "I told you
so!" The question that agitated him now was whether or not to take Nedda
with him. Flora said: "Yes. The child will be the best restraining
influence, if there is really trouble brewing!" Some feeling fought
against this in Felix, but, suspecting it to be mere jealousy, he decided
to take her. And, to the girl's rather puzzled delight, they arrived at
Becket that day in time for dinner. It was not too reassuring to find
John there, too. Stanley had also wired to him. The matter must indeed
be serious!

The usual week-end was in progress. Clara had made one of her greatest
efforts. A Bulgarian had providentially written a book in which he
showed, beyond doubt, that persons fed on brown bread, potatoes, and
margarine, gave the most satisfactory results of all. It was a discovery
of the first value as a topic for her dinner-table--seeming to solve the
whole vexed problem of the laborers almost at one stroke. If they could
only be got to feed themselves on this perfect programme, what a saving
of the situation! On those three edibles, the Bulgarian said--and he had
been well translated--a family of five could be maintained at full
efficiency for a shilling per day. Why! that would leave nearly eight
shillings a week, in many cases more, for rent, firing, insurance, the
man's tobacco, and the children's boots. There would be no more of that
terrible pinching by the mothers, to feed the husband and children
properly, of which one heard so much; no more lamentable deterioration in
our stock! Brown bread, potatoes, margarine--quite a great deal could be
provided for seven shillings! And what was more delicious than a
well-baked potato with margarine of good quality? The carbohydrates--or
was it hybocardrates--ah, yes! the kybohardrates--would be present in
really sufficient quantity! Little else was talked of all through dinner
at her end of the table. Above the flowers which Frances Freeland always
insisted on arranging--and very charmingly--when she was there--over bare
shoulders and white shirt-fronts, those words bombed and rebombed. Brown
bread, potatoes, margarine, carbohydrates, calorific! They mingled with
the creaming sizzle of champagne, with the soft murmur of well-bred
deglutition. White bosoms heaved and eyebrows rose at them. And now and
again some Bigwig versed in science murmured the word 'Fats.' An
agricultural population fed to the point of efficiency without
disturbance of the existing state of things! Eureka! If only into the
bargain they could be induced to bake their own brown bread and cook
their potatoes well! Faces flushed, eyes brightened, and teeth shone. It
was the best, the most stimulating, dinner ever swallowed in that room.
Nor was it until each male guest had eaten, drunk, and talked himself
into torpor suitable to the company of his wife, that the three brothers
could sit in the smoking-room together, undisturbed.

When Stanley had described his interview with 'that woman,' his glimpse
of the red blouse, and the laborers' meeting, there was a silence before
John said:

"It might be as well if Tod would send his two youngsters abroad for a
bit."

Felix shook his head.

"I don't think he would, and I don't think they'd go. But we might try
to get those two to see that anything the poor devils of laborers do is
bound to recoil on themselves, fourfold. I suppose," he added, with
sudden malice, "a laborers' rising would have no chance?"

Neither John nor Stanley winced.

"Rising? Why should they rise?"

"They did in '32."

"In '32!" repeated John. "Agriculture had its importance then. Now it
has none. Besides, they've no cohesion, no power, like the miners or
railway men. Rising? No chance, no earthly! Weight of metal's dead
against it."

Felix smiled.

"Money and guns! Guns and money! Confess with me, brethren, that we're
glad of metal."

John stared and Stanley drank off his whiskey and potash. Felix really
was a bit 'too thick' sometimes. Then Stanley said:

"Wonder what Tod thinks of it all. Will you go over, Felix, and advise
that our young friends be more considerate to these poor beggars?"

Felix nodded. And with 'Good night, old man' all round, and no shaking
of the hands, the three brothers dispersed.

But behind Felix, as he opened his bedroom door, a voice whispered:

"Dad!" And there, in the doorway of the adjoining room, was Nedda in her
dressing-gown.

"Do come in for a minute. I've been waiting up. You ARE late."

Felix followed her into her room. The pleasure he would once have had in
this midnight conspiracy was superseded now, and he stood blinking at her
gravely. In that blue gown, with her dark hair falling on its lace
collar and her face so round and childish, she seemed more than ever to
have defrauded him. Hooking her arm in his, she drew him to the window;
and Felix thought: 'She just wants to talk to me about Derek. Dog in the
manger that I am! Here goes to be decent!' So he said:

"Well, my dear?"

Nedda pressed his hand with a little coaxing squeeze.

"Daddy, darling, I do love you!"

And, though Felix knew that she had grasped what he was feeling, a sort
of warmth spread in him. She had begun counting his fingers with one of
her own, sitting close beside him. The warmth in Felix deepened, but he
thought: 'She must want a good deal out of me!' Then she began:

"Why did we come down again? I know there's something wrong! It's hard
not to know, when you're anxious." And she sighed. That little sigh
affected Felix.

"I'd always rather know the truth, Dad. Aunt Clara said something about
a fire at the Mallorings'."

Felix stole a look at her. Yes! There was a lot in this child of his!
Depth, warmth, and strength to hold to things. No use to treat her as a
child! And he answered:

"My dear, there's really nothing beyond what you know--our young man and
Sheila are hotheads, and things over there are working up a bit. We must
try and smooth them down."

"Dad, ought I to back him whatever he does?"

What a question! The more so that one cannot answer superficially the
questions of those whom one loves.

"Ah!" he said at last. "I don't know yet. Some things it's not your
duty to do; that's certain. It can't be right to do things simply
because he does them--THAT'S not real--however fond one is."

"No; I feel that. Only, it's so hard to know what I do really
think--there's always such a lot trying to make one feel that only what's
nice and cosey is right!"

And Felix thought: 'I've been brought up to believe that only Russian
girls care for truth. It seems I was wrong. The saints forbid I should
be a stumbling-block to my own daughter searching for it! And
yet--where's it all leading? Is this the same child that told me only
the other night she wanted to know everything? She's a woman now! So
much for love!' And he said:

"Let's go forward quietly, without expecting too much of ourselves."

"Yes, Dad; only I distrust myself so."

"No one ever got near the truth who didn't."

"Can we go over to Joyfields to-morrow? I don't think I could bear a
whole day of Bigwigs and eating, with this hanging--"

"Poor Bigwigs! All right! We'll go. And now, bed; and think of
nothing!"

Her whisper tickled his ear:

"You are a darling to me, Dad!"

He went out comforted.

And for some time after she had forgotten everything he leaned out of his
window, smoking cigarettes, and trying to see the body and soul of night.
How quiet she was--night, with her mystery, bereft of moon, in whose
darkness seemed to vibrate still the song of the cuckoos that had been
calling so all day! And whisperings of leaves communed with Felix.




CHAPTER XXI

What Tod thought of all this was, perhaps, as much of an enigma to Tod as
to his three brothers, and never more so than on that Sunday morning when
two police constables appeared at his door with a warrant for the arrest
of Tryst. After regarding them fixedly for full thirty seconds, he said,
"Wait!" and left them in the doorway.

Kirsteen was washing breakfast things which had a leadless glaze, and
Tryst's three children, extremely tidy, stood motionless at the edge of
the little scullery, watching.

When she had joined him in the kitchen Tod shut the door.

"Two policemen," he said, "want Tryst. Are they to have him?"

In the life together of these two there had, from the very start, been a
queer understanding as to who should decide what. It had become by now
so much a matter of instinct that combative consultations, which bulk so
large in married lives, had no place in theirs. A frowning tremor passed
over her face.

"I suppose they must. Derek is out. Leave it to me, Tod, and take the
tinies into the orchard."

Tod took the three little Trysts to the very spot where Derek and Nedda
had gazed over the darkening fields in exchanging that first kiss, and,
sitting on the stump of the apple-tree he had cut down, he presented each
of them with an apple. While they ate, he stared. And his dog stared at
him. How far there worked in Tod the feelings of an ordinary man
watching three small children whose only parent the law was just taking
into its charge it would be rash to say, but his eyes were extremely blue
and there was a frown between them.

"Well, Biddy?" he said at last.

Biddy did not reply; the habit of being a mother had imposed on her,
together with the gravity of her little, pale, oval face, a peculiar
talent for silence. But the round-cheeked Susie said:

"Billy can eat cores."

After this statement, silence was broken only by munching, till Tod
remarked:

"What makes things?"

The children, having the instinct that he had not asked them, but
himself, came closer. He had in his hand a little beetle.

"This beetle lives in rotten wood; nice chap, isn't he?"

"We kill beetles; we're afraid of them." So Susie.

They were now round Tod so close that Billy was standing on one of his
large feet, Susie leaning her elbows on one of his broad knees, and
Biddy's slender little body pressed against his huge arm.

"No," said Tod; "beetles are nice chaps."

"The birds eats them," remarked Billy.

"This beetle," said Tod, "eats wood. It eats through trees and the trees
get rotten."

Biddy spoke:

"Then they don't give no more apples." Tod put the beetle down and Billy
got off his foot to tread on it. When he had done his best the beetle
emerged and vanished in the grass. Tod, who had offered no remonstrance,
stretched out his hand and replaced Billy on his foot.

"What about my treading on you, Billy?" he said.

"Why?"

"I'm big and you're little."

On Billy's square face came a puzzled defiance. If he had not been early
taught his station he would evidently have found some poignant retort.
An intoxicated humblebee broke the silence by buzzing into Biddy's
fluffed-out, corn-gold hair. Tod took it off with his hand.

"Lovely chap, isn't he?"

The children, who had recoiled, drew close again, while the drunken bee
crawled feebly in the cage of Tod's large hand.

"Bees sting," said Biddy; "I fell on a bee and it stang me!"

"You stang it first," said Tod. "This chap wouldn't sting--not for
worlds. Stroke it!"

Biddy put out her little, pale finger but stayed it a couple of inches
from the bee.

"Go on," said Tod.

Opening her mouth a little, Biddy went on and touched the bee.

"It's soft," she said. "Why don't it buzz?"

"I want to stroke it, too," said Susie. And Billy stamped a little on
Tod's foot.

"No," said Tod; "only Biddy."

There was perfect silence till the dog, rising, approached its nose,
black with a splash of pinky whiteness on the end of the bridge, as if to
love the bee.

"No," said Tod. The dog looked at him, and his yellow-brown eyes were
dark with anxiety.

"It'll sting the dog's nose," said Biddy, and Susie and Billy came yet
closer.

It was at this moment, when the heads of the dog, the bee, Tod, Biddy,
Susie, and Billy might have been contained within a noose three feet in
diameter, that Felix dismounted from Stanley's car and, coming from the
cottage, caught sight of that little idyll under the dappled sunlight,
green, and blossom. It was something from the core of life, out of the
heartbeat of things--like a rare picture or song, the revelation of the
childlike wonder and delight, to which all other things are but the
supernumerary casings--a little pool of simplicity into which fever and
yearning sank and were for a moment drowned. And quite possibly he would
have gone away without disturbing them if the dog had not growled and
wagged his tail.

But when the children had been sent down into the field he experienced
the usual difficulty in commencing a talk with Tod. How far was his big
brother within reach of mere unphilosophic statements; how far was he
going to attend to facts?

"We came back yesterday," he began; "Nedda and I. You know all about
Derek and Nedda, I suppose?"

Tod nodded.

"What do you think of it?"

"He's a good chap."

"Yes," murmured Felix, "but a firebrand. This business at
Malloring's--what's it going to lead to, Tod? We must look out, old man.
Couldn't you send Derek and Sheila abroad for a bit?"

"Wouldn't go."

"But, after all, they're dependent on you."

"Don't say that to them; I should never see them again."

Felix, who felt the instinctive wisdom of that remark, answered
helplessly:

"What's to be done, then?"

"Sit tight." And Tod's hand came down on Felix's shoulder.

"But suppose they get into real trouble? Stanley and John don't like it;
and there's Mother." And Felix added, with sudden heat, "Besides, I
can't stand Nedda being made anxious like this."

Tod removed his hand. Felix would have given a good deal to have been
able to see into the brain behind the frowning stare of those blue eyes.

"Can't help by worrying. What must be, will. Look at the birds!"

The remark from any other man would have irritated Felix profoundly;
coming from Tod, it seemed the unconscious expression of a really felt
philosophy. And, after all, was he not right? What was this life they
all lived but a ceaseless worrying over what was to come? Was not all
man's unhappiness caused by nervous anticipations of the future? Was not
that the disease, and the misfortune, of the age; perhaps of all the
countless ages man had lived through?

With an effort he recalled his thoughts from that far flight. What if
Tod had rediscovered the secret of the happiness that belonged to birds
and lilies of the field--such overpowering interest in the moment that
the future did not exist? Why not? Were not the only minutes when he
himself was really happy those when he lost himself in work, or love?
And why were they so few? For want of pressure to the square moment.
Yes! All unhappiness was fear and lack of vitality to live the present
fully. That was why love and fighting were such poignant ecstasies--they
lived their present to the full. And so it would be almost comic to say
to those young people: Go away; do nothing in this matter in which your
interest and your feelings are concerned! Don't have a present, because
you've got to have a future! And he said:

"I'd give a good deal for your power of losing yourself in the moment,
old boy!"

"That's all right," said Tod. He was examining the bark of a tree, which
had nothing the matter with it, so far as Felix could see; while his dog,
who had followed them, carefully examined Tod. Both were obviously lost
in the moment. And with a feeling of defeat Felix led the way back to
the cottage.

In the brick-floored kitchen Derek was striding up and down; while around
him, in an equilateral triangle, stood the three women, Sheila at the
window, Kirsteen by the open hearth, Nedda against the wall opposite.
Derek exclaimed at once:

"Why did you let them, Father? Why didn't you refuse to give him up?"

Felix looked at his brother. In the doorway, where his curly head nearly
touched the wood, Tod's face was puzzled, rueful. He did not answer.

"Any one could have said he wasn't here. We could have smuggled him
away. Now the brutes have got him! I don't know that, though--" And he
made suddenly for the door.

Tod did not budge. "No," he said.

Derek turned; his mother was at the other door; at the window, the two
girls.

The comedy of this scene, if there be comedy in the face of grief, was
for the moment lost on Felix.

'It's come,' he thought. 'What now?'

Derek had flung himself down at the table and was burying his head in his
hands. Sheila went up to him.

"Don't be a fool, Derek."

However right and natural that remark, it seemed inadequate.

And Felix looked at Nedda. The blue motor scarf she had worn had slipped
off her dark head; her face was white; her eyes, fixed immovably on
Derek, seemed waiting for him to recognize that she was there. The boy
broke out again:

"It was treachery! We took him in; and now we've given him up. They
wouldn't have touched US if we'd got him away. Not they!"

Felix literally heard the breathing of Tod on one side of him and of
Kirsteen on the other. He crossed over and stood opposite his nephew.