Sussex Gorse: The Story of a Fight

by Sheila Kaye-Smith

On arriving home he was uncertain as to whether it would be more diplomatic to go straight to bed or let his father on his return from the Cocks find him industriously working at the corn accounts. He decided on the latter, and was soon with many groans and lickings of his pencil crediting and debiting Odiam's wheat.

Backfield came in about nine, by which time Robert's panting had completely subsided and his complexion lost the beetroot shade which might have betrayed his exertions. His father was in a good temper, and over-flowed with the Cocks' gossip—how Realf had got twenty-five pounds for his heifer at Battle, how the mustard had mixed in with Ticehurst's beans and spoilt his crop, how Dunk of Old Turk said he would vote Radical at the next election, and how young Squire Bardon had been robbed of his pocket-book, with certificates for three hundred pounds of Canadian stock and a ten-pound bank-note in it.

Robert bit off the end of his pencil, which his father, who was looking the other way, luckily did not see. The boy crouched over the fire, trying to hide his trembling, and longing yet not daring to ask a hundred questions. He was glad and at the same time sorry when Reuben having explained to him the right and the wrong way of sowing beans, and enlarged on the wickedness of Radicals in general and Gladstone in particular, returned to Bardon's loss.

"Of course he äun't sure as it wur stolen—he may have dropped it. But policeman döan't think that's likely."

"Then policeman's bin töald about it?" came faintly from Robert.

"Surelye! I wur spikking to him over at the Cocks. I said to him as I wur sartain as one of those lousy Workman's Institute lads of his had done it. That's wot comes of trying to help labourers and cowmen and such—there's naun lik helping the poor fur putting them above themselves, and in these times when everyone's fur giving 'em votes and eddicating them free, why——" and Reuben launched into politics again.

That night was another Hell. Robert lay wakeful in a rigor of despair. It was all over now. The constable would be at Odiam the first thing next morning. Bardon was bound to remember that his pocket-book was in the coat he had lent Bessie. He might even think that Bessie had taken it! This fresh horror nearly sent Robert out of the window and over the fields to the Manor to confess his crime. But he was kept back by the glimmerings of hope which, like a summer lightning, played fitfully over his mental landscape. He dared not stake everything. Perhaps after all young Bardon could not remember where he had put the pocket-book; he must have forgotten where it was when he offered the coat to Bessie, and it was possible that he would not remember till the lovers had escaped—after which he might remember as much as he liked, for Robert never thought for a moment that he could be traced once he had left Peasmarsh.

As a matter of fact his simplicity had done much for him in this matter. A man with a readier cunning would have taken out the money and restored the pocket-book exactly as he had found it. Robert had blunderingly grabbed the whole thing—and to that he owed his safety. If Bardon had found the pocket-book in his great-coat, he would at once have reconstructed the whole incident. As things were, he scarcely remembered lending the coat to Bessie, and it had certainly never occurred to him that his pocket-book was in it. Being rather a careless and absent-minded young man, he had no recollection of putting it there after some discussion with Sir Miles about his certificates. He generally kept it in his drawer, and thought that it must have been taken out of that.

So no constable called at Odiam the next morning, and at breakfast the whole Backfield family discussed the Squire's loss, with the general tag of "serve him right!"

The following day was market-day at Rye, and Robert and Peter were to take over the cart. Robert was glad of this, for he had made up his mind that he must change the bank-note. If he tried to change it at the Fair or after he had gone away with Bessie it might arouse suspicion; but no one would think anything of his father having so large a sum, and he could offer it when he went to pay the harness bill at the saddler's. As for the pocket-book, he threw that into the horse-pond when no one was looking; it was best out of the way, and the three hundred pounds' worth of certificates it contained meant nothing to him.