Читать книгу The Eyes of Love - Warwick Deeping - Страница 6

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Mr. John Smunk, corn-merchant, miller, and hay factor, stood at the foot of the stairs, and shouted like a farmer calling to a man across a fourteen-acre field.

“Sarrrah—Sa-rrr-ah!”

A prim, peeping voice came from above.

“Yes, dearie—yes?”

“Dearie be damned! Where the dickens have you put my hat?”

There was a thin, twittering sound, a rustling of skirts, and a diminutive woman in black appeared upon the stairs.

“What did you say, dearie?”

John Smunk showed a lean and sagacious face thrusting itself forward on the end of a long, sinewy neck.

“Where the dickens have you put my hat?”

Mrs. Sarah Smunk came mincing down the stairs. The curves of a high forehead and a receding chin seemed to meet at the tip of a diminutive nose. Mrs. Smunk never walked; she progressed with a peculiar tripping wriggle. Every gesture suggested deprecatory and flustered “niceness,” and a nervous inclination to giggle. But Mrs. Smunk had lived beyond the giggling stage. Moreover, she was deplorably deaf.

“What did you say, dearie?”

Her face put on the thin flutter of a smile.

“My hat?”

Her husband let fly like a blunderbuss, and his wife jumped.

“Oh, dear, John. I left it in the yard to dry.”

“Dry! What the——?”

“Now, John, dear, you know it was so very faded. I felt I must——”

“Must what—must what?”

“You do fluster me so! I sent Mary this morning for a little bottle of ink—only a penny bottle. Ink and water, John——”

The corn-merchant’s long neck seemed to collapse into his collar.

“Well, I’m damned! What next? I reckon you’d better ink the seat o’ my breeches. I never knew such a woman for messing about with ink, and cloth-reviver, and soaps, and dyes, and God knows what. You’ll be blackleading your legs next, and going out without stockings!”

His wife fidgeted and squirmed with an air of sweet and sickly forbearance.

“I’m always trying to be careful, John.”

“Yes, I know. Just fetch my hat.”

And when it was brought him, he crammed it on his grey pate, and walked out into the street, banging the door after him.

John Smunk was the wealthiest man in Ashhurst village, wealthier than Carlyon Lowndes, Esq., of Furze Park; wealthier even than Lawyer Catlack, whose smooth, shrewd suavity covered the memories of many discreditable transactions. Yet the corn-merchant was noted for his green hats and coats, his frayed ties and grease-stained waistcoats. He was a queer, ominous figure, round-backed, lean, and shabby, head thrust forward at the end of an abnormally long neck, lower lip blue and pendulous, eyes blue and hard. The crown of his head made a false show of benignity with its central patch of baldness and ring of grizzled, wavy hair. When walking, he looked like an old raven with a stick tucked under one wing.

John Smunk took the north road out of Ashhurst—Ashhurst, whose houses were packed like spectators on either side of one long street. The village had little beauty, since many of the old houses had gone, and Mr. Rottingben, the local builder, had a liking for slates, terra-cotta coloured ridge tiles, and string courses of blue brick. There were three stolid, staring Nonconformist chapels that competed in the matter of ugliness. The only picturesque building was the inn that boasted the sign of the Red Lion. The Ashhurst houses were prim, stiff, and dogmatic. The Red Lion Inn had an air of mellow tolerance and humour. It was like a buxom widow in the midst of a crowd of pious Tabithas.

Just below the alms-houses and the forge at the end of the village the corn-merchant was overtaken by a clattering milk-cart driven by a fiery-eyed little man with a huge brown beard. John Smunk’s big boots kept up their pounding in the middle of the road, so that the driver of the milk cart had to slow up.

“Sure, you be’s a thoughtful man, Mr. Smunk. It does un good to walk and think of un’s latter end.”

The corn-merchant turned with a birdlike cock of the eye. The driver of the milk-cart was one of the personalities of Ashhurst. His name was Jacob Bose, and by nature he was a fanatic. Ribald souls had nicknamed him “Gentleman Jesus.” He was a strenuous and aggressive vehicle of “grace,” and his piety knew no restraint and his tongue no discretion.

“Going down Fox Farm way, Jacob?”

“I be, sir. And a terr’ble goin’ down it may be for some folk in these parts. The road be steep that leadeth to destruction.”

John Smunk said “Ha,” and climbed into the milk cart.

Jacob Bose glanced at him with his fiery little eyes. He was a genius at beard-wagging and at improving the occasion, and his zeal was the zeal of a Luther. Moreover, like the great Martin, he was not afraid of speaking out before the great ones of the earth.

“D’ye think ye’ll get through ut, sir, d’ye think ye’ll get through ut?”

The corn-merchant turned an impassive yet cynical face.

“Well, Bose, you don’t often tug me by the coat-tails.”

“Seize th’ occasion, sir. Throw in the leaven——”

John Smunk grunted.

“You’ll find ut in every goodwife’s basket, sir; th’ needle! And even the darning sort has a terrifyin’ small eye.”

John Smunk’s back had a certain resemblance to the hump of a camel. He gave a grim chuckle.

“I’ve got through some tight places in my time, Jacob. Don’t ye fret your insolent, godly pate on my account. There are people who are richer in pride o’ piety than in pocket.”

The apostle of Ashhurst flourished his whip.

“I be a humble servant o’ Jesus, Mr. Smunk.”

The corn-merchant thrust out an aggressive lower lip.

“Sure, sure. Don’t you doubt that He takes you at your value, Jacob! You trade in other sorts of bonds and mortgages and merchandise. And it pleases ye, it stuffs ye with satisfaction, and warms ye like good beer. A man may have a bellyful of self-righteousness as well as a bellyful o’ meat.”

There was silence for a while. The two worthies drove on cheek by jowl, chewing the cud of meditation.

“It be a won’erful thing ter be rich, Mr. Smunk.”

“Ah, you know all about it, hey? You know a power more about it than I do! There’s hoarding and hoarding. Some folks may have a potful of glory and salvation hid in their backyards.”

“There be the parable o’ the talents, sir.”

“Sure! And something else about your right hand and your left hand, eh? And the blowing of trumpets, and the making of long prayers! I’ve got my sense of smell.”

The driver of the milk-cart chewed his brown beard.

“All sorts o’ people quote the Scriptures, sir.”

“That’s true, that’s true. Babes, and sucking calves, and blobby bellowing bulls. You can set me down here, Jacob. I’m a hard old sinner, and it is good for the righteous to love a sinner for nothing.”

Mr. Smunk rattled the small change in his pocket as he descended.

“The Lord be with ye, sir. The children o’ this world——”

“Are damned fools, Jacob, mostly. The parsons might put up prayers for the blessings o’ common sense.”

The corn-merchant was bound for Fox Farm, and Mr. Bose, as he drove on behind the lazy, clomping hoofs of his horse, shook his whip solemnly as at some stiff-necked and altogether unanswerable blasphemer.

The click-clack of the white gate caught Kate Falconer attacking the accumulation of weeds and rubbish in the neglected garden. Brambles from the hedge had rooted themselves into one of the long borders, and those folk who have experienced the aggressive and pugnacious habits of the bramble know how the plant can spread over and possess a field. Kate had gone to work with swapping-hook and fork, rooting up the suckers, and cutting the old trails back into the hedge. Michaelmas daisies and chrysanthemums gave splashes of colour to the scene. The grass had grown rankly in the little central plot, and yellow leaves were beginning to fall.

John Smunk was not a man who troubled about ceremony, or who distinguished weeds from flowers. He took the shortest cut across the garden, pushing through a sweetbriar hedge, and crushing green and succulent things under his great boots. Kate Falconer, sleeves turned up, hands protected by leather gloves, stood up and called to the corn-merchant with some asperity.

“Mind yon lavender bush, Mr. Smunk. We’ve got a path for people to walk on.”

The corn-merchant stepped round the lavender bush, gained the grass, and eyed the farmer’s wife with an air of admiring caution.

“Busy, hey?”

“Trying to make the place a little cleaner. Jesse won’t bother beyond scything the grass. Weeds don’t seem to worry him.”

“That’s bad for a farmer, Mrs. Falconer.”

“My man happens to be made that way.”

John Smunk set his stick in the ground and stood with his thumbs hooked in the arm-holes of his waistcoat. He stared at the wheelbarrow full of weeds like a “stock” judge criticising the points of a bullock.

“Jesse Falconer at home?”

“He’s down the farm.”

“He’s as well there as here. I reckon you wear the breeches. It’s a question of business, Mrs. Falconer.”

Kate laid her swapping-hook on the barrow.

“I suppose I have a better tongue in my head than my husband has.”

John Smunk gave a short and characteristic chuckle.

“I like to strike iron better than soft wood, m’am. Your husband owes me a little bit o’ money.”

“That’s not unlikely.”

“There’s my bill. And that there interest on the mortgage. He owes me for the whole year.”

“Jesse’s a casual man.”

“And I’m not, Mrs. Falconer. I can’t afford to be casual. I tell you, I’m thinking I shall have to foreclose.”

They looked each other in the eyes without flinching. Kate’s face lost none of its high colour, or its determination.

“You can press us if you please, Mr. Smunk. It won’t hurt Jesse. But ’t will be a nuisance for me.”

“Ah, sure.”

She squared her shoulders, and faced him.

“I’d rather not have any of my money in the farm, but if you press us,—well, I shall have to do ’t. It’s a dratted nuisance to have to sell good stock. The money’s there for you. It won’t be the farm you’ll get.”

The corn-merchant eyed her intently. A slow smile came over his face, drawing tight the crows’-feet about his eyes, and showing his blackened teeth. He had a liking for Kate Falconer, because she was hard, and shrewd, and stiff in the lower lip. She knew how to gain a point by hitting straight, and showing no fear.

“Well, I’d be sorry to inconvenience ye. I had been thinking——”

Kate laughed.

“That I’d let you get the farm at five pounds an acre, house and buildings thrown in! My husband may be a bad farmer, but I’m not a fool.”

John Smunk’s eyes twinkled.

“Ah, my dear, did I ever think it of you! As I was saying, I’d be sorry to inconvenience ye——”

“Well, don’t do it.”

“No!”

“You’ll get the money if you press us, but you won’t get the farm.”

The corn-merchant rubbed his chin, and regarded her with shrewd approval.

“I’m thinking——” he began.

“Well?”

“No—’tain’t to be said in so many words. Only it’s a pity. I reckon you ought to make the farm pay.”

“You can’t get through a doorway when there’s a sack you can’t lift lying between the posts.”

John Smunk nodded, and put his hands in his pockets.

“You’ll take something before you go?”

“Sure, I don’t mind if I do.”

For half an hour the corn-merchant sat in one of the Windsor chairs, drinking ale from a pewter tankard, and talking to Kate Falconer with peculiar friendliness. Even if she had “bluffed” him, he forgave it her, for the sake of her shrewdness and her courage. There is a certain sense of comradeship between hard-headed people and John Smunk had such a contempt for his own wife that he reacted towards friendliness when he came in contact with a tough and determined woman.

Jesse was down the farm watching Jim Purkiss and Peter Stone who were trudging to and fro at the handles of their ploughs. The men had set out the Nineteen Acre in ridges, and were working round them completely inverting the furrow-slice as was the practice in those parts. Now and again Jesse would take the handles of one of the ploughs, and draw a straight furrow, the dog Brick running at his heels.

As Jesse turned the plough team on the land’s end and let Purkiss take the handles, that hairy-faced simian cocked his hat on the back of his head and scratched at an idea.

“Whoa—Billy—there—whoa!”

The great, glossy-coated horses stood still.

“I be thinking, Muster Jesse, that t’ old oak in t’ Clay Bottom be spoiling a fair piece o’ land. He be a terrifying nuisance shuttin’ un out o’ t’ ole corner.”

The tree had stood there hundreds of years, and little men had played round him with their ploughs. And now, in his forlorn old age, these little men were waxing insolent.

Jesse looked thoughtful. He had a certain love for the old shell with its dead limbs, and its one small sprout of green. The tree had stood so long against the roaring and insensate arrogance of the wind that a man who loathed wind respected the tree’s stolid spirit of resistance.

“Ah, he be a tough un, Muster Jesse, though he be but an ol’ shell.”

“You’d like to grub him, Jim?”

Purkiss tilted a sly head.

“Waste o’ good time, sir. A little pinch o’ powder would do ’t better. Set ut low, and split him under t’ ground.”

“I’ll go round home that way, and have a look.”

“Maybe I’ve cussed that tree terrible in my time. Ye mind it, Muster Jesse, when I was for ploughing closer in t’ him, and struck a root. Lordie, how he did smack t’ handles into m’ ribs. Sure, he made me rech like a dog.”

Purkiss grinned over the reminiscence, set himself to the plough, and started his team across the field. Jesse watched the round-backed, knock-kneed figure receding across the brown soil. Then he turned away across the unploughed stubbles, climbed a gate into a meadow, and saw the towers of Pool Castle rising against a pale blue sky. The meadow was a vivid green, with the grey spires of a plantation of young ashes bounding it on the north. Jesse cut across the grass towards a rough, bramble-covered hedge, dog Brick trotting beside him.

He stopped abruptly when he was close to the hedge, and stood listening, while the dog sniffed the air. Something was moving on the other side of the hedge, rustling through the weeds and grass, and brushing the twigs and brambles as it moved. There was a thin place in the hedge some two feet away where an old oak stub had prevented the growth of the thorns. Jesse saw a hand stretched out. A slim, black figure pressed itself into the gap by the oak stub. The sunlight fell on a red mouth, black hair, and a round white face.

Jesse was standing close under the hedge, and for the moment Ann Wetherell did not see him. She seemed to be looking for someone, leaning through the hedge, with a troubled light in her eyes. A strand of red bryony berries stretched themselves across her bosom, and their colour was the colour of blood. Her neck shone a pearly brown above the low-cut collar of her dress, and she held her head with chin thrust forward so that the line of her throat showed. Jesse had the most vivid glimpse of her that he had ever had of any mortal creature, perhaps because she had risen so suddenly before him, and he could look at her without her knowing that she was being watched.

She turned her head sharply as Brick ran forward, barking.

“Oh, Mr. Jesse——!”

She caught her breath and coloured from throat to eyes.

“I oughtn’t to be on your land, sir, without asking. I wasn’t after blackberries.”

The flushing of her pale skin had given a warm and indefinable radiance to her face. The eyes seemed brighter, the contours more comely. She looked older, plumper, more mature.

“It doesn’t matter. Are you looking for someone?”

Ann’s hands touched the spray of bryony berries. She ran the red rosary through her fingers, and looked at Falconer with grave eyes.

“You haven’t seen Slim, sir?”

“That’s the eldest lad, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“No, I haven’t seen him. What’s he doing on the farm?”

The flush had died from her face, but it gathered again with sensitive swiftness.

“It’s like this, Mr. Falconer. Father’s a terror when he’s roused; he doesn’t know how rough he is. And he set about Slim an hour ago, because old Mr. Moker had caught the lad stealing apples.”

Compassion lit up her face and made it urgent and appealing. There were very few people who would waste sentiment upon Slim Wetherell, and the boy had been thrashed, not for stealing, but for being caught in the act. Ann had heard Slim’s cries in the wood-shed, and the roaring voice of her father, like the voice of a furious man who lashes a dog that has bitten him. She had seen Slim escape, and run like a mad thing down the road, mouth bleeding, clothes torn. A glimpse of the wild animal fear in the lad’s eyes had shocked her even more than his cries had done. And she had followed Slim, her heart a tumult of compassion.

Falconer stood with thoughtful face, absorbing vivid impressions. Nor was he thinking so much of young Slim Wetherell as of the girl with the bryony berries in her hands.

“Which way did he go?”

“Over the gate on the road, sir, into the Holly field.”

“Well, he may not be much the worse. Boys will stand a good deal.”

“But father’s like a wild man when he’s roused. It’s cruel. The boy never had a chance. It’s father who’s made him sly, and cruel, and rough. I sometimes think——”

She did not finish the sentence, for Brick had pushed through the hedge, and was thrusting his nose against her knee. Ann caught the dog in her arms, and broke into sudden, passionate weeping.

Falconer stood dumb. Like many silent men who feel acutely, a woman’s tears threw him into inarticulate self-consciousness. He rubbed the sleeve of his jacket with one huge hand, sighed, and remained silent. Ann had hidden her face against the dog’s shoulder. For a few brief moments sobs shook her. But she had will power that reacted quickly, and a spirit that did not sink into sudden woe.

“It’s silly of me, Mr. Falconer. I couldn’t just help it.”

“One can’t help things, sometimes.”

He looked at her timidly, almost furtively.

“You see, sir, it often comes over me—that—that the children don’t have the chance they should. And it worries me—it worries me terrible. I feel sometimes that—I’m just—no good.”

She put the dog down, squared her shoulders, and stood up to the facts of life. There was an air of quiet strength about her, a strength that was sweet and clean.

“I wanted to find Slim, Mr. Jesse, and just put my arms round him, and try and soften the lad. He’s hard and sullen. That’s what worries me in Slim.”

“I am going down to the Clay Bottom. I’ll keep an eye open for the lad. Things may go to a boy’s heart, though he’d bite his tongue off before he allowed it.”

Her eyes brightened.

“Aren’t we strange creatures, Mr. Falconer? It makes me marvel. There’s so much trouble and pain in the world, and yet we’re rough and cruel for nothing!”

Jesse nodded a grave and melancholy head.

“We are beasts, most of us, at times,” he said.

Ann loitered a moment, and then drew back from the gap in the hedge.

“I may as well go home, sir. I shall be between Slim and father, if the lad comes back.”

They moved eastwards with the wild, autumn-leaved hedge between them. There was a gate near the ash wood, and Falconer climbed over. Ann had become very silent. Her eyes remained fixed on the horizon, and she walked without turning her head. Jesse opened the next gate for her, and closed it after she had passed through. The path to Clay Bottom turned aside towards the left.

“Don’t fret about the youngster.”

“That doesn’t do any good, Mr. Jesse, does it? Thank you for being so kind.”

“Oh, that’s nothing.”

And their eyes met for a moment before they went upon their different ways.

Strangely enough in the old hollow oak in the north corner of the Clay Bottom, Falconer found young Slim Wetherell. The boy crouched there, looking up like a sullen and scared animal, his chin and mouth stained with blood. He was collarless, and his blue check shirt had been torn open at the throat. Moreover the boy had been blubbering. Falconer could tell that by his swollen, bleary eyes.

“Hallo!”

The boy glowered and said nothing.

“Come along out. Your sister has been looking for you.”

“Which sister?”

“Ann.”

“More fool she!”

The boy had the mark of the beast stamped upon his face. He was the young male animal, with all the meaner cunning of a thing that has been taught to use its baser wits. Falconer felt tempted to lift Slim Wetherell out and shake him.

“Come out, and cut along home,” he said.

Slim stood up, and caught sight of Brick. Dubious malice came into his eyes.

“Sha’n’t go home.”

“Yes, you will. You go and tell your father I’ve some apples left in my orchard that want gathering, and that I’ll give you a shilling a day to pick them.”

Slim stared, and then wriggled through the cleft in the trunk of the great tree. He fingered his cut lip, and looked dubiously at Falconer, as though groping after motives. Slim Wetherell was distrustful of kindness.

“What’s the game?” he asked sulkily.

“Apple-picking at a bob a day.”

“Nan’s been talking at ye——”

Suddenly an ugly grin spread over his face.

“It be somethin’ to have a growed-up sister. I’ll pick y’ apples for ye, Muster Falconer.”

And Jesse wondered why the lad’s eyes looked insolent.