Doomsday. Warwick Deeping

screwed up his eyes.

      "Not enough of it to be worth a scrimmage. Dare say I could get it for you."

      "How much?"

      "Can't say."

      "Go to three pounds. My day's extravagance, Mr. Symonds."

      Harnett held the sale in the garden, standing on a kitchen table under the shade of a lime tree, with a smaller table to serve as a rostrum. He was a bald-headed, cynical man, with a set smile, and a tired, flat voice. His gagging was conventional and perfunctory. "Thirteen shillings I am bid. Thirteen shillings! Unlucky number, ladies and gents. Make it fourteen. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Fourteen shillings I am bid, good kitchen table. Fifteen shillings, Mr. Furze. Fifteen shillings—"

      It was a hot day, and the bidding was languid, and the crowd one such as Mr. Harnett was apt to describe as a "Lot of gaping stock-fish." Arnold was lucky. Mr. Symonds bought in the tea-service for one pound, fifteen shillings. Furze lost the oak bureau, but he won the table, the mahogany chest of drawers, the Windsor chairs, the bedstead, the oak chest, the long mirror, the stair carpet, the kitchen table and half a dozen other bargains.

      With the help of a gentleman from Melhurst who was there to earn some casual silver as a porter Furze loaded his possessions on to the wagon, covered them with a rick cloth, and started for "Doomsday." His lunch had been a slice of bread and a piece of cheese, and some cold tea out of a bottle, but it was one of those days for him when a man does not feel physical hunger. He was happy. He walked beside his two "greys" with a mind full of possessive symbolism. The rose lustre tea-service, carefully packed in a box, was the cynosure of the day's happenings. Already he was making plans for the disposal of the furniture.

      It happened that from the bank above the road Mary Viner saw the blue wagon pass as she had seen it set off in the morning. But much had happened. The wagon was full, but her heart felt empty.

      Furze saw her and pulled up for a moment, and his face was happy. Her conscience smote her.

      "I have done rather well."

      She smiled down at the lover in him, because she loved the lover.

      "I'm so glad."

      "You must come and have tea, you and your people, when I am straight."

      "We should love to."

      He waved his hat and went on, leaving her to wonder why the lover should not suffice, and why he should be lost in the husband. For that is what happened; she had read it and been told it. Marriage was a wholly different affair. "My dear, flirt with the bank-clerk if you like—but marry the banker." Clare's philosophy. Marriage should be comfortable; it needed cushions. Lovers might be content with a haycock or a bank of heather, and an ephemeral moonlight madness; marriage was a house to be lived in.

      She returned to her "Green Shutters" and her old people, and the making of a gooseberry tart. Gooseberries were early that year.

      4

      Will Blossom worked until seven o'clock that evening on his master's beer and great good humour, helping to unload the wagon and carry the furniture into the house. The bedstead, the chest of drawers, and a little old mahogany wash-hand stand had to be persuaded up the narrow stairs. The rest of the purchases were left in the living-room.

      Mrs. Blossom heard about it when her man came home.

      "I tell 'ee 'e 'as bought a bedstead."

      Mrs. Sarah laughed.

      "Looks like business, hee, hee, hee, though most gal's first bed be a grass bank or a dry ditch bottom."

      Her man growled at her.

      "Muster Furze be'unt that sort."

      "Oh, ben't he! She was round there to-day."

      "Who be she?"

      "That there Mary Viner. She looks ready for it, she do. Come to pick bluebells! Hee, hee, hee."

      Her man, irresponsibly stubborn, clumped through into the scullery to wash. He, too, had been caught at the haymaking season, and for his sins was the mate of the lady who annexed and wore his old caps. To Will Blossom marriage was symbolized by a tongue, and a jeering voice that never had anything good to say of anyone when the particular person was not there to hear it.

      Meanwhile Furze was busy, happily busy, a pipe in his mouth, and all the windows open wide. And so were the windows of his soul. Having cleared the living-room by carrying the kitchen table and the cupboard and other necessities into the kitchen, and added to them his own home-made gear, he arranged the new life about the old oak table. The oak chest looked well under the east window. The three Windsor chairs he tried in various positions. The lounge sofa, the long mirror, a little old pie-crust table and two rugs went into Mrs. Damaris' parlour. Certainly, the sofa needed some attention, some flowery piece of cretonne draped over it temporarily, and a man who could mend harness ought to be able to tackle such a job.

      Last of all he unpacked the pink lustre and laid it out on the oak table, while Bobbo, puzzled by so many movements and mutations, sat with his head on one side and watched this new game. The evening light slanted through the west window, and the metallic and rosy glow of the old china seemed to float upon the dark sheen of the oak. Furze stood back with his hands in his pockets, and felt that the room was good.