CHAPTER XII

RUTH WAKES

Apart from such occasional sallies Ruth paid little attention to her

husband's friend or, indeed, to anything outside her home. Now that

she had dropped her anchor in the quiet waters of love sheltered by

law, and had her recovered self-respect to buttress her against the

batterings of a wayward world, she was snug, even perhaps a little

selfish with the self-absorption of the woman who is wrapped up in that

extension of herself which is her home, her children, and the man who

has given them her.

After her stormy flight she had settled down in her nest, and seldom

peeped over at the cat prowling beneath or at anybody, indeed, but the

cock-bird bringing back a grub for supper; and him she peeped for

pretty often. She was busy too with the unending busyness of the woman

who is her own cook, housekeeper, parlourmaid, nurse and laundress.

And happily for her she had the qualities that life demands of the

woman who bears the world's burden--a magnificent physique to endure

the wear and tear of it all, the invaluable capacity of getting on well

with her neighbours, method in her house, tact with her husband, a way

with her children.

And there was no doubt that on the whole she was happy. The reaction

from the _sturm-und-drang_ period before her marriage was passing but

had not yet wholly passed. Her spirit still slept after the hurricane.

Naturally a little indolent, and living freely and fully, if without

passion, her nature flowed pleasantly through rich pastures along the

channels grooved in earth by the age-long travail of the spirit.

Jenny and little Ned followed Susie, just a year between each child.

Ernie loved his children, especially always the last for the time

being; but the element of wonder had vanished and with it much of the

impetus that had kept him steady for so long.

"How is it now?" asked his mate, on hearing of the birth of the boy.

"O, it's all right," answered Ernie, wagging his head. "Only it ain't

quite the same like. You gets used to it, as the sayin is."

"And you'll get use-ter to it afore you're through, you'll see," his

friend answered, not without a touch of triumphant bitterness. He

liked others to suffer what he had suffered himself.

As little by little the romance of wife and children began to lose its

glamour, and the economic pressure steadily increased, the old weakness

began at times to re-assert itself in Ernie. He haunted the _Star_

over much. Joe Burt chaffed him.

"Hitch your wagon to a star by all means, Ern," he said. "But not that

one."

Mr. Pigott too cautioned him once or twice, alike as friend and

employer.

"Family man now, you know, Ernie," he said.

The sinner was always disarming in his obviously sincere penitence.

"I knaw I've unbuttoned a bit of late, sir," he admitted. "I'll brace

up. I will and I can."

And at the critical moment the fates, which seemed as fond of Ernie as

was everybody else, helped him.

Susie, his first-born, caught pneumonia. The shock stimulated Ernie;

as shock always did. The steel that was in him gleamed instantly

through the rust.

"Say, we shan't lose her!" he asked Mr. Trupp in staccato voice.

Mr. Trupp knew Ernie, knew his weakness, knew human nature.

"Can't say," he muttered. "Might not."

Ern went to the window and looked out on the square tower of the old

church on the Kneb above him. His eyes were bright and his uncollared

neck seemed strangely long and thin.

"She's got to live," he muttered defiantly.

The doctor nodded grimly.

The Brute had pounced on Ernie sleeping and was shaking him as a dog

shakes a rat. Mr. Trupp, who had no intention of losing Susie, was by

no means sorry.

"If it's got to be, it's got to be," said Ruth, busy with poultices.

"Only it won't be if I can help it."

She was calm and strong as Ernie was fiercely resentful. That angered

Ernie, who was seeking someone to punish in his pain.

When Mr. Trupp had left he turned on Ruth.

"You take it cool enough!" he said with a rare sneer.

She looked at him, surprised.

"Well, where's the sense in wearin yourself into a fret?" answered

Ruth. "That doosn't help any as I can see."

"Ah, I knaw!" he said. "You needn't tell me."

She put down the poultice and regarded him with eyes in which there was

a thought of challenge.

"What d'you knaw, Ern?"

There was something formidable about her very quiet.

"What I do, then," he said, and turned his back on her. "If it was

somebody else, we should soon see."

She came to him, put her hand on his shoulder, and turned him so that

she could read his face. He did not look at her.

She turned slowly away, drawing in her breath as one who rouses

reluctantly from sleep.

"That's it, is it?" she said wearily. "I thart it'd come to that some

day."

Just then little Alice danced in from the street, delicate, pale

sprite, with anemone-like health and beauty.

"Daddy-paddy!" she said, smiling up at him, as she twined her fingers

into his.

He bent and kissed her with unusual tenderness.

"Pray for our little Sue, Lal," he muttered.

The child looked up at him with fearless eyes of forget-me-not blue.

"I be," she said.

He gave her a hand, and they went out together into Motcombe Garden:

for they were the best of friends.

Ruth was left. In her heart she had always known that this would come:

he would turn on her some day. And she did not blame him: she was too

magnanimous. Men were like that, men were. They couldn't help

theirsalves. Any one of them but Ernie would have thrown her past up

at her long before. She was more grateful for his past forbearance

than resentful at his present vindictiveness. Now that the blow, so

long hovering above her in the dimness of sab-consciousness, had fallen

she felt the pain of it, dulled indeed by the fact that she was already

suffering profoundly on Susie's account. But the impact braced her;

and it was better so. There was no life without suffering and

struggle. If you faced that fact with your eyes open, never

luxuriating in the selfishness of make-believe, compelling your teeth

to meet on the granite realities of life, then there would be no

dreadful shock as you fell out of your warm bed and rosy dreams into an

icy pool.

Ruth went back to her hum-drum toil. She had been dreaming. Now she

must awake. It was Ernie who had roused her from that dangerous

lethargy with a brutal slash across the face; and she was not

ungrateful to him.

When he returned an hour later with little Alice she was unusually

tender to him, though her eyes were rainwashed. He on his side was

clearly ashamed and stiff accordingly. He said nothing; instead he was

surly in self-defence.

To make amends he sat up with the child that night and the next.

"Shall you save her, sir?" asked the scare-crow on the third morning.

"I shan't," replied the doctor. "Her mother may."

Next day when Mr. Trupp came he grunted the grunt, so familiar to his

patients, that meant all was well.

When the corner was turned Ern did not apologise to Ruth, though he

longed to do so; nor did she ask it of him. To save himself without

undergoing the humiliation of penance, and to satisfy that most easily

appeased of human faculties, his conscience, he resorted to a trick

ancient as Man: he went to chapel.

Mr. Pigott who had stood in that door at that hour in that frock-coat

for forty years past, to greet alike the sinner and the saved, welcomed

the lost sheep, who had not entered the fold for months.

"I know what this means," he said, shaking hands. "You needn't tell

me. I congratulate you. Go in and give thanks."

Ern bustled in.

"I shall come regular now, sir," he said. "I've had my lesson. You

can count on me."

"Ah," said Mr. Pigott, and said no more.

Next Sunday indeed he waited grimly and in vain for the prodigal.

"Soon eased off," he muttered, as he closed the door at last. "One

with a very sandy soil."

The Manager of the Southdown Transport Company went home that evening

to the little house on the Lewes Road in unaccomodating mood.

"_His_ trousers are coming down all right," he told his wife. "I've

said it before, and I'll say it again. Once you let go o God----"

"God lets go o you," interposed Mrs. Pigott. "Tit for tat."