Kadwell looked on Nell as a conquered kingdom. She herself was not so sure, for after he had gone home that night, her flagging powers revived, and she had a week in which to recruit her forces. During that week she passed through moments of sick revulsion from him, in which his strength and roughness disgusted her. But when he came again, she found herself powerless as she had been before.
He had strong allies. Nell was lonely, friendless, humbled to the dust; she was at the same time reacting from her former intellectual and ecclesiastical influences. His love helped restore her self-respect and his outstretched arms were rightly placed to catch her as the pendulum swung her away from her old tastes and glories. Nell found herself for the first time the interesting member of the family—at least in her mother’s [230] eyes. She was the courted, the beloved—even if hand in hand with love came strange tyrannies—and her sudden change to exaltation from degradation turned her head a little.
Sometimes there were hours when she saw clearly, saw that Kadwell was impossible as her mate, that they had nothing in common, that not even his passion was really acceptable to her.... He was a coarse brute, who would always trample on her tastes and wishes and ignore her mind and soul—and in these hours she knew that it was her mind and soul which counted most, in spite of the newly-awakened body. She was not really of a passionate nature, only a little drugged. She was doping herself with Steve so that she might forget the anguish and humiliation of the past autumn.
But this clearness did not last long, and it was always fogged in the same way—by a sense of her own unworthiness. She told herself that she was wicked to despise Steve, who was much better than she in his different way. He might be uneducated, coarse, and self-willed, but he was strong and brave and resolute, all the things that she was not—“And I say unto you, despise not one of these little ones, for their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.” ...
Then she would remember his wound, which he had got fighting for her and England over at Loos, and in the depths of that self-contempt which was so often with her now, alternating with her moods of self-confidence, she acknowledged that she had done nothing for the War. Though she had always prided herself on being more patriotic than the rest of her family, she had done far less than they—less than Tom, who had gone to fight, even if ignorant and unwilling; less than Harry, who had boldly flung down his challenge to the earth and taken up [231] arms against her for his country’s sake; less than Ivy, who was cheerfully and competently filling a man’s place and doing a man’s work; less than her mother, who had borne these children for her country’s need; less even than her father, who paid rates and taxes and cultivated the ground. The fact that they were all, except perhaps Harry, more or less unconscious of their service, only made her reproach greater. She of her knowledge had done nothing, and they of their ignorance had done much. Who was she to despise them or Kadwell? Should she not take this chance to do the little she could by bringing comfort and happiness into a soldier’s life? She knew all the difference that Thyrza had made to Tom—let her do the same for Steve, humbly, simply, conscious of her failure up till now.
Early in the New Year Bill Putland suddenly came home on leave, and still more suddenly married a bewildered and delighted Polly Sinden. They had not even been definitely engaged; she had not known he was coming home till she got his telegram, fixing not only the date of his arrival but the date of the wedding. They were married at Brownbread Street, by an elderly clergyman who was taking the curate’s place during his honeymoon—Mr. Poullett-Smith had been married up at Dallington, and the joyful clash of his wedding chimes came to Nell as she sat with Steve in the sun-slatted murk of the Dutch barn, and made her more than usually submissive to his caresses.
Ivy, delighted at her friend’s good luck, forgave a long coldness, and came to Polly’s marriage. She brought with her Sergeant Staples, and after the ceremony took him to Worge for tea.
Mrs. Beatup had not been to the wedding, for Thyrza’s illness had begun, and her mother-in-law had spent most of the afternoon down at the Shop.
[232]
“Oh, she’s doing valiant,” she said in answer to their enquiries, “but ’tis unaccountable hard on a girl to be wudout her husband at such a time....”
“Where’s Nell?” asked Ivy.
“Up wud her father, surelye. He’s bin easier to-day, but he’s a tedious cross oald man these times. You’d never think the pacerfist and objectious conscience he’s got lying in bed and reading the paapers and wanting things to eat and drink as he can’t git—reckon he’d stop the War to-morrow for a bit of cheese.”
“Kadwell bin here any more?”
“Reckon he never misses—it’ll be Nell’s turn next after Polly. You’d best maake haste, Ivy Beatup, or at the raate we’re going, you’ll be the only oald maid left in the parish.”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Ivy, with her mouth full of bread.
“But Nell ull be a fool if she marries him,” she added seriously. “He aun’t her kind. I know him, and he’s a bit of a swine, I reckon.”
“Reckon he’s a valiant, stout chap, and Nell ull be a fool if she says no.”
Ivy did not argue the matter, but before she went away she made an opportunity to speak to her sister alone.
“Nell, you haven’t promised Steve Kadwell?”
Nell did not answer for a moment—she looked dazed. Then she said slowly:
“Yes—I promised him on Sunday.”
“Then write and tell him you’ve changed your mind.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a fool. You know quite well he aun’t the chap for you—you, wud all your liddle dentical ways!”
The tears came into Nell’s eyes.
[233]
“I love him.”
Ivy stared critically at her. She seemed to have altered.
“Have you told mother?”
“No.”
“When are you going to be married?”
“I dunno—we haven’t talked about it yet.”
“Well, doan’t be in a hurry—give him a good think over.”
She had no time to say more, and realised that there was not much more to be said. Nell seemed dazed and foolish, like a pilgrim lost in a strange land.