“Your supper’s still hot, Ned,” said Mrs. Beatup hesitatingly—“leastways, the gals have eaten all the taters, but I can hot you up....” She began to whimper as the bleared grey eyes slowly rolled towards her.
“Be quiet, Mother,” said Ivy.
Mus’ Beatup, slowly and carefully, made his way towards a broken-springed armchair beside the fire. He then sat down by the simple process of falling into it backwards; then he stretched out a foot that seemed made of clay and manure——
“Taake off my boots, Missus.”
6
It was quite dark before Tom was able to slip out to see to one or two odd jobs that wanted doing in the barns. He felt himself obliged to stay in the kitchen while his father was there, for though there had not been more than a few occasions when surliness had blazed into assault, he knew that it was always just possible that his father might become violent, especially as his mother always went the worst way—with tears, reproaches, arguments and lamentations. What would happen when he was no longer at hand to watch over her he did not like to think. It was all part of the load of anxiety and love which was settling down on him.
If he had been a free man he would probably have felt quite ready for the change ahead of him. Though his imagination had scarcely taken hold of the war, and though the harrow and the plough, with the thick sucking earth on his boots, and the drip of rain or stew of sunshine on waiting fields, had absorbed most of the boyish spirit of adventure which might have sent him questing out of stuffier circumstances—though his was the country heart, which is the last heart for warfare—in spite of all, he might have gone gaily to the new life, with its wider reach and freedom, if he had not known that his departure meant the crumbling of that little corner of England which was his, which his arm had built and his back supported.
He knew that Worge leaned on him, for he felt the weight of it even in his dreams. It was four years now since he had put his shoulder against it; he was only just twenty, but he knew that if four years ago he had not made up his mind to save the farm, his father would have drunk, and the rest of the family muddled, the place into the auction market, and the Beatups would now be scattered into towns or soaking their humble-pie in beer on smallholdings. He had done nothing very wonderful. The place was small and no more wanted a giant to hold it up than a giant to knock it down. He had merely worked while others slacked, thought while others slept, remembered while others forgot. But, without any thrill of pride or adventure, he knew that he had tided Worge through its bad hour, and that the same little upheld it now. He was the real farmer, though he had to be careful not to let his headship be seen. His father had not explained things clearly to the tribunal—explaining things clearly was not a quality of Tom’s either—he had been far too anxious to preserve his own importance, which might have suffered had he said, “My son runs the farm while I’m drinking at the pub.”
The others were not even as much good as his father. In the intervals of drinking, which in spite of Mrs. Beatup’s three-in-five calculation were often quite respectable, he was both hard-working and resourceful, though of late his brain had grown spongier and threatened a final rot. But the rest of the family had no upstanding moments. Ivy was strong and comparatively willing, but Tom did not believe in girls as farm-hands and never thought of Ivy even milking the cows. She and her mother looked after the chickens and did the housework, that was all. Nell was out all day and busy working in the evenings for her examination; Zacky was still at school, and Harry was a rover—the comrade of other farmers’ younger sons in ratting and sparrow-hunting, in visiting fairs, in trespassing for birds’ eggs, or sometimes solitary in strange obedience to the call of distant wood or village green. Yet Harry was Tom’s one hope—a last, forlorn one.
Tom was waiting for him now. He wanted to speak to his young brother alone, not in the dim lath-smelling bedroom where Zacky would be a third. Harry did not generally stop out late, though he had occasionally roamed all night—hunger and fear of a beating (another of Tom’s quasi-paternal tasks) usually brought him home just in time to satisfy one and escape the other.