A Clergyman's Daughter Page 11

nowhere, and sprawled exhausted in dry ditches smelling of fennel

  and tansies, and sneaked into private woods and 'drummed up' in

  thickets where firewood and water were handy, and cooked strange,

  squalid meals in the two two-pound snuff-tins that were their only

  cooking pots. Sometimes, when their luck was in, they had

  excellent stews of cadged bacon and stolen cauliflowers, sometimes

  great insipid gorges of potatoes roasted in the ashes, sometimes

  jam made of stolen autumn raspberries which they boiled in one of

  the snuff-tins and devoured while it was still scalding hot. Tea

  was the one thing they never ran short of. Even when there was no

  food at all there was always tea, stewed, dark brown and reviving.

  It is a thing that can be begged more easily than most. 'Please,

  ma'am, could you spare me a pinch of tea?' is a plea that seldom

  fails, even with the case-hardened Kentish housewives.

  The days were burning hot, the white roads glared and the passing

  cars sent stinging dust into their faces. Often families of hop-

  pickers drove past, cheering, in lorries piled sky-high with

  furniture, children, dogs, and birdcages. The nights were always

  cold. There is hardly such a thing as a night in England when it

  is really warm after midnight. Two large sacks were all the

  bedding they had between them. Flo and Charlie had one sack,

  Dorothy had the other, and Nobby slept on the bare ground. The

  discomfort was almost as bad as the cold. If you lay on your back,

  your head, with no pillow, lolled backwards so that your neck

  seemed to be breaking; if you lay on your side, your hip-bone

  pressing against the earth caused you torments. Even when, towards

  the small hours, you managed to fall asleep by fits and starts, the

  cold penetrated into your deepest dreams. Nobby was the only one

  who could really stand it. He could sleep as peacefully in a nest

  of sodden grass as in a bed, and his coarse, simian face, with

  barely a dozen red-gold hairs glittering on the chin like snippings

  of copper wire, never lost its warm, pink colour. He was one of

  those red-haired people who seem to glow with an inner radiance

  that warms not only themselves but the surrounding air.

  All this strange, comfortless life Dorothy took utterly for

  granted--only dimly aware, if at all, that the other, unremembered

  life that lay behind her had been in some way different from this.

  After only a couple of days she had ceased to wonder any longer

  about her queer predicament. She accepted everything--accepted the

  dirt and hunger and fatigue, the endless trailing to and fro, the

  hot, dusty days and the sleepless, shivering nights. She was, in

  any case, far too tired to think. By the afternoon of the second

  day they were all desperately, overwhelmingly tired, except Nobby,

  whom nothing could tire. Even the fact that soon after they set

  out a nail began to work its way through the sole of his boot

  hardly seemed to trouble him. There were periods of an hour at a

  time when Dorothy seemed almost to be sleeping as she walked. She

  had a burden to carry now, for as the two men were already loaded

  and Flo steadfastly refused to carry anything, Dorothy had

  volunteered to carry the sack that held the stolen potatoes. They

  generally had ten pounds or so of potatoes in reserve. Dorothy

  slung the sack over her shoulder as Nobby and Charlie did with

  their bundles, but the string cut into her like a saw and the sack

  bumped against her hip and chafed it so that finally it began to

  bleed. Her wretched, flimsy shoes had begun to go to pieces from

  the very beginning. On the second day the heel of her right shoe

  came off and left her hobbling; but Nobby, expert in such matters,

  advised her to tear the heel off the other shoe and walk

  flatfooted. The result was a fiery pain down her shins when she

  walked uphill, and a feeling as though the soles of her feet had

  been hammered with an iron bar.

  But Flo and Charlie were in a much worse case than she. They were

  not so much exhausted as amazed and scandalized by the distances

  they were expected to walk. Walking twenty miles in a day was a

  thing they had never heard of till now. They were cockneys born

  and bred, and though they had had several months of destitution in

  London, neither of them had ever been on the road before. Charlie,

  till fairly recently, had been in good employment, and Flo, too,

  had had a good home until she had been seduced and turned out of

  doors to live on the streets. They had fallen in with Nobby in

  Trafalgar Square and agreed to come hop-picking with him, imagining

  that it would be a bit of a lark. Of course, having been 'on the

  beach' a comparatively short time, they looked down on Nobby and

  Dorothy. They valued Nobby's knowledge of the road and his

  boldness in thieving, but he was their social inferior--that was

  their attitude. And as for Dorothy, they scarcely even deigned to

  look at her after her half-crown came to an end.

  Even on the second day their courage was failing. They lagged

  behind, grumbled incessantly, and demanded more than their fair

  share of food. By the third day it was almost impossible to keep

  them on the road at all. They were pining to be back in London,

  and had long ceased to care whether they ever got to the hopfields

  or not; all they wanted to do was to sprawl in any comfortable

  halting place they could find, and, when there was any food left,

  devour endless snacks. After every halt there was a tedious

  argument before they could be got to their feet again.

  'Come on, blokes!' Nobby would say. 'Pack your peter up, Charlie.

  Time we was getting off.'

  'Oh, ---- getting off!' Charlie would answer morosely.

  'Well, we can't skipper here, can we? We said we was going to hike

  as far as Sevenoaks tonight, didn't we?'

  'Oh, ---- Sevenoaks! Sevenoaks or any other bleeding place--it

  don't make any bleeding difference to me.'

  'But ---- it! We want to get a job tomorrow, don't we? And we got

  to get down among the farms 'fore we can start looking for one.'

  'Oh, ---- the farms! I wish I'd never 'eard of a ---- 'op! I

  wasn't brought up to this ---- 'iking and skippering like you was.

  I'm fed up; that's what I am ---- fed up.'

  'If this is bloody 'opping,' Flo would chime in, 'I've 'ad my

  bloody bellyful of it already.'

  Nobby gave Dorothy his private opinion that Flo and Charlie would

  probably 'jack off' if they got the chance of a lift back to

  London. But as for Nobby, nothing disheartened him or ruffled his

  good temper, not even when the nail in his boot was at its worst

  and his filthy remnant of a sock was dark with blood. By the third

  day the nail had worn a permanent hole in his foot, and Nobby had

  to halt once in a mile to hammer it down.

  ''Scuse me, kid,' he would say; 'got to attend to my bloody hoof

  again. This nail's a mulligatawny.'

  He would search for a round stone, squat in the ditch and carefully

  hammer the nail down.
/>
  'There!' he would say optimistically, feeling the place with his

  thumb. 'THAT b--'s in his grave!'

  The epitaph should have been Resurgam, however. The nail

  invariably worked its way up again within a quarter of an hour.

  Nobby had tried to make love to Dorothy, of course, and, when she

  repulsed him, bore her no grudge. He had that happy temperament

  that is incapable of taking its own reverses very seriously. He

  was always debonair, always singing in a lusty baritone voice--his

  three favourite songs were: 'Sonny Boy', ''Twas Christmas Day in

  the Workhouse' (to the tune of 'The Church's One Foundation'), and

  '"----!" was all the band could play', given with lively renderings

  of military music. He was twenty-six years old and was a widower,

  and had been successively a seller of newspapers, a petty thief,

  a Borstal boy, a soldier, a burglar, and a tramp. These facts,

  however, you had to piece together for yourself, for he was not

  equal to giving a consecutive account of his life. His conversation

  was studded with casual picturesque memories--the six months he had

  served in a line regiment before he was invalided out with a damaged

  eye, the loathsomeness of the skilly in Holloway, his childhood in

  the Deptford gutters, the death of his wife, aged eighteen, in

  childbirth, when he was twenty, the horrible suppleness of the

  Borstal canes, the dull boom of the nitro- glycerine, blowing in the

  safe door at Woodward's boot and shoe factory, where Nobby had

  cleared a hundred and twenty-five pounds and spent it in three

  weeks.

  On the afternoon of the third day they reached the fringe of the

  hop country, and began to meet discouraged people, mostly tramps,

  trailing back to London with the news that there was nothing doing--

  hops were bad and the price was low, and the gypsies and 'home

  pickers' had collared all the jobs. At this Flo and Charlie gave

  up hope altogether, but by an adroit mixture of bullying and

  persuasion Nobby managed to drive them a few miles farther. In a

  little village called Wale they fell in with an old Irishwoman--

  Mrs McElligot was her name--who had just been given a job at a

  neighbouring hopfield, and they swapped some of their stolen apples

  for a piece of meat she had 'bummed' earlier in the day. She gave

  them some useful hints about hop-picking and about what farms to

  try. They were all sprawling on the village green, tired out,

  opposite a little general shop with some newspaper posters outside.

  'You'd best go down'n have a try at Chalmers's,' Mrs McElligot

  advised them in her base Dublin accent. 'Dat's a bit above five

  mile from here. I've heard tell as Chalmers wants a dozen pickers

  still. I daresay he'd give y'a job if you gets dere early enough.'

  'Five miles! Cripes! Ain't there none nearer'n that?' grumbled

  Charlie.

  'Well, dere's Norman's. I got a job at Norman's meself--I'm

  startin' tomorrow mornin'. But 'twouldn't be no use for you to try

  at Norman's. He ain't takin' on none but home pickers, an' dey say

  as he's goin' to let half his hops blow.'

  'What's home pickers?' said Nobby.

  'Why, dem as has got homes o' deir own. Eider you got to live in

  de neighbourhood, or else de farmer's got to give y'a hut to sleep

  in. Dat's de law nowadays. In de ole days when you come down

  hoppin', you kipped in a stable an' dere was no questions asked.

  But dem bloody interferin' gets of a Labour Government brought in a

  law to say as no pickers was to be taken on widout de farmer had

  proper accommodation for 'em. So Norman only takes on folks as has

  got homes o' deir own.'

  'Well, you ain't got a home of your own, have you?'

  'No bloody fear! But Norman t'inks I have. I kidded'm I was

  stayin' in a cottage near by. Between you an' me, I'm skipperin'

  in a cow byre. 'Tain't so bad except for de stink o' de muck, but

  you got to be out be five in de mornin', else de cowmen 'ud catch

  you.'

  'We ain't got no experience of hopping,' Nobby said. 'I wouldn't

  know a bloody hop if I saw one. Best to let on you're an old hand

  when you go up for a job, eh?'

  'Hell! Hops don't need no experience. Tear 'em off an' fling 'em

  into de bin. Dat's all der is to it, wid hops.'

  Dorothy was nearly asleep. She heard the others talking desultorily,

  first about hop-picking, then about some story in the newspapers of

  a girl who had disappeared from home. Flo and Charlie had been

  reading the posters on the shop-front opposite; and this had revived

  them somewhat, because the posters reminded them of London and its

  joys. The missing girl, in whose fate they seemed to be rather

  interested, was spoken of as 'The Rector's Daughter'.

  'J'a see that one, Flo?' said Charlie, reading a poster aloud with

  intense relish: '"Secret Love Life of Rector's Daughter.

  Startling Revelations." Coo! Wish I 'ad a penny to 'ave a read of

  that!'

  'Oh? What's 't all about, then?'

  'What? Didn't j'a read about it? Papers 'as bin full of it.

  Rector's Daughter this and Rector's Daughter that--wasn't 'alf

  smutty, some of it, too.'

  'She's bit of hot stuff, the ole Rector's Daughter,' said Nobby

  reflectively, lying on his back. 'Wish she was here now! I'd know

  what to do with her, all right, I would.'

  ''Twas a kid run away from home,' put in Mrs McElligot. 'She was

  carryin' on wid a man twenty year older'n herself, an' now she's

  disappeared an' dey're searchin' for her high an' low.'

  'Jacked off in the middle of the night in a motor-car with no

  clo'es on 'cep' 'er nightdress,' said Charlie appreciatively. 'The

  'ole village sore 'em go.'

  'Dere's some t'ink as he's took her abroad an' sold her to one o'

  dem flash cat-houses in Parrus,' added Mrs McElligot.

  'No clo'es on 'cep' 'er nightdress? Dirty tart she must 'a been!'

  The conversation might have proceeded to further details, but at

  this moment Dorothy interrupted it. What they were saying had

  roused a faint curiosity in her. She realized that she did not

  know the meaning of the word 'Rector'. She sat up and asked Nobby:

  'What is a Rector?'

  'Rector? Why, a sky-pilot--parson bloke. Bloke that preaches and

  gives out the hymns and that in church. We passed one of 'em

  yesterday--riding a green bicycle and had his collar on back to

  front. A priest--clergyman. YOU know.'

  'Oh. . . . Yes, I think so.'

  'Priests! Bloody ole getsies dey are too, some o' dem,' said Mrs

  McElligot reminiscently.

  Dorothy was left not much the wiser. What Nobby had said did

  enlighten her a little, but only a very little. The whole train of

  thought connected with 'church' and 'clergyman' was strangely vague

  and blurred in her mind. It was one of the gaps--there was a

  number of such gaps--in the mysterious knowledge that she had

  brought with her out of the past.

  That was their third night on the road. When it was dark they

  slipped into a spinney as usual to 'skipp
er', and a little after

  midnight it began to pelt with rain. They spent a miserable hour

  stumbling to and fro in the darkness, trying to find a place to

  shelter, and finally found a hay-stack, where they huddled

  themselves on the lee side till it was light enough to see. Flo

  blubbered throughout the night in the most intolerable manner, and

  by the morning she was in a state of semi-collapse. Her silly fat

  face, washed clean by rain and tears, looked like a bladder of

  lard, if one can imagine a bladder of lard contorted with self-

  pity. Nobby rooted about under the hedge until he had collected an

  armful of partially dry sticks, and then managed to get a fire

  going and boil some tea as usual. There was no weather so bad that

  Nobby could not produce a can of tea. He carried, among other

  things, some pieces of old motor tyre that would make a flare when

  the wood was wet, and he even possessed the art, known only to a

  few cognoscenti among tramps, of getting water to boil over a

  candle.

  Everyone's limbs had stiffened after the horrible night, and Flo

  declared herself unable to walk a step farther. Charlie backed her

  up. So, as the other two refused to move, Dorothy and Nobby went

  on to Chalmers's farm, arranging a rendezvous where they should

  meet when they had tried their luck. They got to Chalmers's, five

  miles away, found their way through vast orchards to the hop-

  fields, and were told that the overseer 'would be along presently'.

  So they waited four hours on the edge of the plantation, with the

  sun drying their clothes on their backs, watching the hop-pickers

  at work. It was a scene somehow peaceful and alluring. The hop

  bines, tall climbing plants like runner beans enormously magnified,

  grew in green leafy lanes, with the hops dangling from them in pale

  green bunches like gigantic grapes. When the wind stirred them

  they shook forth a fresh, bitter scent of sulphur and cool beer.

  In each lane of bines a family of sunburnt people were shredding

  the hops into sacking bins, and singing as they worked; and

  presently a hooter sounded and they knocked off to boil cans of tea

  over crackling fires of hop bines. Dorothy envied them greatly.

  How happy they looked, sitting round the fires with their cans of

  tea and their hunks of bread and bacon, in the smell of hops and

  wood smoke! She pined for such a job--however, for the present

  there was nothing doing. At about one o'clock the overseer arrived

  and told them that he had no jobs for them, so they trailed back to

  the road, only avenging themselves on Chalmers's farm by stealing a

  dozen apples as they went.

  When they reached their rendezvous, Flo and Charlie had vanished.

  Of course they searched for them, but, equally of course, they knew

  very well what had happened. Indeed, it was perfectly obvious.

  Flo had made eyes at some passing lorry driver, who had given the

  two of them a lift back to London for the chance of a good cuddle

  on the way. Worse yet, they had stolen both bundles. Dorothy and

  Nobby had not a scrap of food left, not a crust of bread nor a

  potato nor a pinch of tea, no bedding, and not even a snuff-tin in

  which to cook anything they could cadge or steal--nothing, in fact,

  except the clothes they stood up in.

  The next thirty-six hours were a bad time--a very bad time. How

  they pined for a job, in their hunger and exhaustion! But the

  chances of getting one seemed to grow smaller and smaller as they

  got farther into the hop country. They made interminable marches

  from farm to farm, getting the same answer everywhere--no pickers

  needed--and they were so busy marching to and fro that they had not

  even time to beg, so that they had nothing to eat except stolen

  apples and damsons that tormented their stomachs with their acid

  juice and yet left them ravenously hungry. It did not rain that

  night, but it was much colder than before. Dorothy did not even

  attempt to sleep, but spent the night in crouching over the fire