CHAPTER VIII
Leaving Fishpingle, the Squire walked down the passage which led past the pantry into the housekeeper’s room, where he knew he would find his wife. During the hour when he did accounts with his butler, Lady Pomfret passed the same time with housekeeper and cook. The Squire was so ruffled, as he stumped down the passage, that he broke one of his own inviolate rules, and called out “Mary, Mary,” as if he were shouting for a housemaid. Lady Pomfret’s clear tones came back. “I am here, Geoffrey.” Her smile, as she answered him, delighted the cook, an old and privileged retainer. It said so unmistakably: “Poor dear man! He can’t help it. When he gets excited he wants—me.” The cook’s answering smile was broader but as easily read as Lady Pomfret, who interpreted it thus: “Yes, my lady, the men are all alike, we have to drop our jobs, when they need—us.”
Sir Geoffrey appeared, red of face, and congested of eye, but he minded his manners.
“Good morning, Mrs. Mowland. How are you? As well and hearty as ever, I hope?”
The cook curtsied. She was one of his own people. The Squire’s civilities were greatly appreciated in the “room” and in the servant’s hall. He knew the names of everybody, high and low, in his establishment, and could talk familiarly with a scullery-maid, asking politely after her brothers and sisters, and sure to pay her a compliment if her cheeks were sufficiently rosy. In his own dining-room, were the potatoes not to his liking, he might instruct Fishpingle to throw them at Mrs. Mowland’s head, but such extravagance of behaviour endeared him to his household. The autocrat was so very human. He spoke, not quite so pleasantly, to his wife:
“Mary, my dear, I want a word with you.”
“Certainly, Geoffrey. In your own room, I suppose?”
“In my own room.”
He led the way to the library, which contained a vast number of calf-bound volumes which nobody disturbed. Here, above the book-cases, hung portraits of favourite hunters and hounds. Between them grinned the masks of half a dozen foxes, and on the mantel-shelf might be seen two hunting-horns brilliantly polished by Alfred, although much dented. The Squire found a chair for Lady Pomfret, but remained standing.
“Mary, I am upset.”
“Dear Geoffrey, I am so sorry. What has upset you?”
“Ben.”
“Dear me! Not wilfully, I am sure.”
“Don’t be too sure,” he snapped out. “Ben presumes upon my friendship and forbearance. I was fool enough to take him into my confidence this morning.”
“In my humble opinion that is not a foolish thing to do.”
“Isn’t it, b’ Jove! You wait. I spoke to him of our little plan, our little match-making plan.”
Lady Pomfret smiled ironically. The use of the possessive pronoun tickled her humour. He made so sure that his little plan was hers. And, really, that was very sweet of him. The Squire saw no derision in her smile; he was too much perturbed.
“Ah! What did Ben say?”
The Squire repeated what Ben had said, with pardonable accretions. Lady Pomfret remained perfectly calm. He continued vehemently:
“Ben has the impudence to disapprove. He would like to see Lionel marrying a milkmaid.”
“Surely he never said that?”
“I think he said it, or I said it. No matter! He flung at my head that ignominious marriage of young Fordingbridge.”
“Was it ignominious? The end—twins—seems to have justified the means.”
“Tchah! Well, Mary, you think as I do, bless you! so I shan’t ask for your opinion. Ben has great influence with Lionel.”
“Has he?”
“Of course he has. Ben—damn him!—I beg your pardon, Mary!—might conceivably queer our pitch.”
“Oh dear, no!”
“You reassure me. But you know, Mary, I have always had an odd presentiment that Lionel might stick a knife into me.”
Lady Pomfret lost her composure for an instant. She said emphatically:
“That presentiment is preposterous.”
The Squire continued at an easier pace, ambling forward to his objective.
“I mean this, my dear. We know our dear Lionel. He is a good boy, a nice affectionate son:——”
“That and much more,” murmured the mother.
“I quite agree, but I am not blind to his—a—limitations. He talks with Tom, Dick, and Harry. I have his word for it. He talks with that pestilent parson.”
Lady Pomfret protested. Protest, she was well aware, might be wasted, but, being the woman she was, she had to make it.
“Mr. Hamlin is not pestilent. He is like you—”
“What?”
“He has the courage to speak his opinions regardless of the effect produced on his listeners.”
“Um! You accuse me of that? I am astonished. I flatter myself that I don’t impose my opinions upon others. However, let that pass. Where was I? Yes, yes, pray don’t interrupt me for a minute! Lionel is too absorbent, a bit of a chameleon, what? He likes to hear both sides. I don’t blame him, but there it is. Having heard both sides, poor boy! he gets rather dazed. Conditions in our rural districts daze him—and no wonder. He asks where he is?”
“Surely you can tell him.” She smiled again.
“I’m dashed if I can. That’s the trouble. He’s a weathercock out of order. And he can’t, as yet, get at the root of things. He failed with those Mucklows. It is humiliating to reflect that Ben found out the trouble at once, and put it right. I gave the boy a free hand. Why didn’t he dig out the truth? Now, I’ve lost my point. I was heading for what?”
“You said something absurd about Lionel sticking a knife into you.”
“So I did. Lionel, with his too loose ideas——You know, Mary, the army is not what it was in my time. Even in good regiments you’ll find a taint of demagogy, the trail of the serpent. Have I lost my point again? No. Lionel wrote regularly to little Joyce Hamlin. She wrote to him. She’s a deuced pretty girl.”
“So Mr. Moxon thought.”
“I hope Moxon will get her. But—this is my point—I want to hammer it well home—Lionel might fall in love with just such a bread-and-butter miss as Joyce.”
“That doesn’t describe the child quite fairly, Geoffrey.”
“Well, well, you know what I’m driving at. It is his duty not to marry for money, but to find a nice girl with money. There are plenty of ’em. God forbid that I should force Lady Margot down his throat! It is quite likely she won’t cotton to him——”
“Or he to her?”
“As to that, I am not alarmed. You charmers,” he smiled genially at her, “lead us poor fellows where you will. Practically, Mary, you proposed to me.”
“I didn’t.”
“You lured me on and on, you witch! If this little lady wants Lionel, she’ll lure him on. I don’t worry about that. He gave me his word that he was heart-whole.”
“Then he is, or was, when he said so.”
“Was—was? You don’t think——?”
“I think lots of things. I know very little. Till quite lately Lionel has been transparently friendly with Joyce and she with him. During the past few days I have noticed a slight change in him. I have hardly set eyes on her. He is a trifle absent-minded with me, and not quite so jolly. I am sure of this—he shares your anxieties. He would like to help you, but cannot find a way. He did just hint to me that he would leave the army, if he knew enough to take Bonsor’s place.”
“Rubbish! I have indicated the way for him, a broad and easy path. Well, I have a lot to do, but I had to have this chat with you. You are sure of Ben’s loyalty—hay?”
Her eyes did not meet his, but she answered quietly:
“I am sure that dear Ben has the true interests of all of us next his heart.”
He paused at the door, smiling at her.
“I am off to the Home Farm. I shall pass through the rose garden, and I shall pick the best rose for you. Where is Lionel?”
“I don’t know.”
Lionel happened to be at the Vicarage.
He had definitely made up his mind that he could say to Joyce what he kept from his own mother and father, and he knew, instinctively, that her advice, at such a moment, would help him enormously. He could, it is true, have laid his case before the Parson, a sound adviser, but he shrank from such an ordeal. Hamlin was too brutally outspoken. To place his perplexities before him meant listening to a one-sided indictment of landed gentry in general and the Squire in particular.
Chance, so often complaisant to lovers, ordained that Lionel should find Joyce alone. The Parson was attending a Diocesan Conference in Salisbury, and his eldest son had accompanied him. Also, it happened to be raining; so Joyce received Lionel in her own den, where she kept a lathe, a sewing-machine, rolls of flannel and long-cloth, many books, and her collections of eggs and butterflies. Lionel was invited to sit down and light his pipe.
“This is like old times,” he remarked.
“Isn’t it?”
While he was filling his pipe, she went on with her sewing. He looked at her small, capable hands and deft fingers, her workmanlike kit, and the shining coils of her brown hair, a shade lighter than her eyes.
Then he plunged into his troubles.
“We had a talk the other day, Joyce, but I never discovered till I was walking home that I had asked for your advice and never got it. I’m here to get it this morning.”
Unconsciously, thinking of the Parson’s injunctions, he laid stress upon this last sentence. It was plain to the girl that he had not come for anything else. He went on hurriedly.
“I owe my father five hundred pounds. This is strictly between ourselves. I got into debt to that tune, and he paid up like a trump. He never slated me at all. Mother doesn’t know. Now, I’ll say to you that I should have kept out of debt, if I had even suspected that he was really hard up. I swear that, Joyce.”
“You needn’t. I am sure of it.”
“And I’ll tell you something else. Generous and jolly as he’s been, I do feel sore and hurt because he couldn’t take me into his confidence. Once more, most strictly between ourselves,” she nodded, “there’s a big mortgage on the property, a plaster applied by my great-grandfather. Perhaps you knew it.”
She answered simply:
“I thought everybody knew it. I’m sure our parlourmaid does.”
“Just so. Well, I didn’t know. I’ve been treated like a child.”
She tried to console him.
“But, Lionel, the old school are like that. They never tell their nearest and dearest what most intimately concerns them. Look at those Ocknell girls.” (The Ocknell estate marched with the Pomfret property.) “They were given every advantage except those which teach women to earn a living. They hunted, they wore pretty frocks, and had a gorgeous time, till their father died. The son has the property, heavily mortgaged, and the girls have seventy-five pounds a year apiece.”
“Beastly for them!”
“I should think so. If misery loves company, you are not alone.”
The sympathy in her voice moved him to further confidence.
“Now, what bothers me is: how can I repay my father? If I’d known what I know to-day, when I left Eton, horses wouldn’t have dragged me into the army, although soldiering suits me down to the ground. As a soldier I’m an encumbrance on my people. They have to stint, by Jupiter! to keep me in clover. I ought to be earning money, not spending it.”
She assented with decision. He continued, not so fluently:
“With all the good will in the world, I can’t help father now. I made a mess of a small job the other day. If father died to-morrow, I should be hopelessly at sea on this big property. I should probably drop pots of money through sheer inexperience. You’ve listened to your father. You know what he thinks on these subjects. I want to ask you a straight question. What is to become of the landed gentry of this country, if they go on educating their children to spend money instead of making it?”
Joyce took her time, picking her phrases carefully:
“The landed gentry will go, Lionel, unless necessity forces them to face things as they are, instead of as they were. Father makes hay of the assertion that big properties can’t pay. They can pay, and pay well, if they are handled intelligently, scientifically. Mr. Moxon says just the same.”
Lionel laughed a little nervously.
“Moxon said that, did he? Probably about this very property? Ah! I thought so. Please go on.”
“What applies to our great manufacturing industries, so Mr. Moxon says, applies also to the land question. Manufacturers who refuse to scrap obsolete machinery are scrapped themselves. The inventive genius of this country is marvellous. What made the Germans rich?”
“I’m hanged if I know.”
“Mr. Moxon told me. A process for reducing refractory iron ores which was invented by an Englishman. This estate has been worked upon the same conservative lines for generations. These lines are worked out.”
Her voice died away. Lionel was tremendously impressed. What a clever little woman it was, to be sure! But a jealous pang pierced him. If he could talk, like Moxon——! And how closely she must have listened to the beggar to repeat, as she did, his very words; for he divined that they were not her words. And Moxon was coming back, confound him! He felt absurdly cheap and small, when he compared himself to Moxon. Unable to answer Moxon out of his own pitiful inexperience, he found himself repeating words often in the Squire’s mouth.
“Of course, Joyce, this scrapping process is costly. Intensive culture, on any large scale, means a large output of capital. Reconstruction isn’t quite as easy as Moxon thinks.”
“You had better talk to Mr. Moxon about that.”
“I will. Is—is he coming back soon?”
“I don’t know.”
As she answered him she blushed. Lionel drew false inferences from that blush. She continued hurriedly:
“Anyway, if something isn’t done, and soon, by the country gentlemen, we shall live to see a few immense properties owned by plutocrats, and all the other estates split up into small holdings.”
Lionel groaned.
“I can’t think of that, Joyce. It tears me horribly. Does your father hope for that?”
“No. Father detests slackness and inefficiency, because he knows how terribly they affect others. Labourers, for instance, at the mercy of farmers and landlords, men who can’t be sure of keeping the same roof over their heads. He may be biassed—I don’t know—because he does interest himself in the wrongs of the poor. Shocking cases come to his notice, grievances that cry to Heaven for redress. Not on this property, but even here so much more might be done.”
Lionel made no attempt to contradict her. He had heard enough.
“We come to grips now, Joyce. What can I do? What ought I to do? We are very old friends, and, listening to you, I realise with mortification that you are far ahead of me because my blinds have been down, and yours up during these last four years. Give me your advice, you dear old thing!”
He leaned towards her, and she saw that tears were in his eyes, that he was torn, as he said, by an emotion and sensibility for which she had not given him credit. Everything that was best and most womanly in her welled up in flood. At that moment she knew that she loved him because he had come to her in his hour of need. But her self-control was greater than his. She looked at him with undimmed eyes, although tears gushed into her heart. And the swift thought flashed through her brain that if this was a representative of country gentlemen they could ill be spared. Another thought as swiftly took its place. She had wondered more than once why such a woman as Lady Pomfret had devoted her life to such a man as the Squire. Not that she underestimated what was fine in him. But he seemed a coarser clay, too massive a personality, too autocratic, for a gentlewoman of superlative quality. Now she knew instinctively. The Squire, as a young man, had been like Lionel—sincere, impulsive, full of vitality, and with that same appeal radiating from him, the appeal for guidance, the stronger the more appealing, when the woman recognises her ability to supply what is lacking, a lack of which the man himself may be quite unconscious. Prosperity had changed Sir Geoffrey, not for the better. What effect would adversity have upon him and his son?
But he had asked for advice. What counsel could she give him?
She laid down her sewing, clasping her hands upon her lap.
“I am afraid,” she said. “You put upon me a responsibility. Father says people ought to be careful of giving advice because so often it is taken.”
“I shall at least try to follow your advice, Joyce.”
“What is my advice?” she asked with almost passion. “What is it worth—nothing. I am only an echo. You asked me the other day if you ought to leave the army. I have lain awake trying to answer that question.”
It was a dangerous admission, and he leapt eagerly upon it.
“Have you? Lain awake, eh?” His voice thrilled. “That was sweet of you.”
Her tone became normal—practical. She held herself well in hand, smiling faintly.
“I repeat I am an echo. I remember what others say, and what I have read. Work will save you and yours, Lionel, undivided energies concentrated upon problems which are far beyond me. There has been one steadfast worker upon the Pomfret property—Fishpingle.”
“I know. He’s amazing.”
“Your father,” she continued, treading delicately, “has kept the traditions of his order. He has not neglected county and parish duties. Father gives him unstinted credit for that. He has worked very faithfully for others, but——”
“But——”
“How can I criticise him to you? It seems such impertinence.”
“Joyce, if you are a true friend, you will say everything that is in your heart.”
“Everything? Hardly! I am skating over thin ice. Has your father’s work for others really helped them? Has it not taken the form of charity? Doesn’t it make his people more dependent upon him? Doesn’t it lead to helplessness in the end?”
“Joyce, dear, I believe it does. What would you have him do?”
“Him? If I could speak impersonally! Your father is not likely to alter much, unless he went through some great character-changing experience. The labourers in Wiltshire will remain much as they are so long as the squires remain as they are. What is needed is a shining example. The greatest thing that could happen, and which may happen, would be the object-lesson of science triumphant over our thin soil. The land owner who makes his land pay handsomely will do more for his people than all the District and Parish Councils put together.”
Lionel said humbly:
“I suppose that is undiluted Moxon?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. I like him, Joyce. He is a fine fellow. I—I hate to tell you, but I’ve been a snob about Moxon, and listening to you I wish, with all my heart, that I were Moxon.”
“Do you?” She hesitated. Then she said slowly, “I am glad that you are just—you.”
“Bless you!” he exclaimed fervently.
But she declined to answer his definite question about giving up the army.
“You might be wanted there, Lionel. You are a keen soldier. If there should be war?”
The talk drifted to India. Presently Lionel went back to the Hall.
He was a prey to conflicting emotions, chewing a bitter-sweet cud. Three conclusions were in his mind: Joyce’s friendship for him had not diminished; she had lain awake trying to solve his problems; in her kind eyes he had read sympathy and affection. That was the pleasant first conclusion. The others, as convincing to him, were not so palatable. She had repeated Moxon’s words. His ipsissima verba. Joyce was not a phrase-maker, although she talked well and to the point. Does any woman listen attentively to any man unless she is interested in him? Obviously Lionel was too modest and too dense (as the Parson had divined) to consider the possibility of a girl listening, keenly alert, to talk that might profit another man. Lastly, when speaking of Moxon, she had blushed! She wanted him to come back, and he would come back, this clever, able fellow, to turn a doubtful “No” into a glad “Yes.”
With an effort he left Joyce and Moxon standing together at the altar.
He harked back to his own affairs doggedly. What could he do? A talk with Fishpingle might help.
He found that encyclopædia of rural knowledge in his room, still busy with Pomfret accounts, spectacles on nose. Fishpingle greeted him joyously. The rain had stopped, and the river would be in fine order. Master Lionel, of course, wanted his rod, a split-cane affair built by a famous maker, which the old man guarded jealously. But Lionel sat down and refilled his pipe, which had gone out during his conversation with Joyce. Being a “thruster,” like his father, he rode straight at the big fence—
“Ought I to chuck the service?”
Fishpingle looked astounded. Lionel, without pausing, set forth his difficulties. Unconsciously, he, too, quoted Moxon.
“Tell me, Fishpingle, do you think that science can triumph over our thin soil?”
“What a question, Master Lionel!”
“You jolly well answer it, if you can.”
“This is a grazing county. Science is teaching us every day better methods of getting more milk from our cows, and a finer quality of butter and cheese. Sheep and pigs pay well where there is no wastage of food.”
“Is there much wastage on our farms?”
He shot his questions at Fishpingle with a slight air of defiance. Would this old chap take him seriously?
“There is too much wastage.”
“How can it be checked?”
“The labourers are very careless. One can’t watch them all the time. And they love the old slipshod ways. What are you getting at, Master Lionel?”
He replied impatiently, with a toss of his head.
“You. I’m a fool, and luckily I know it. The Squire laughs at my idea of leaving the army. He likes to think that I’m treading in his steps. So I am. But where do they lead—backwards or forwards?”
Fishpingle polished the lenses of his spectacles. He couldn’t quite see this young man who enfiladed him right and left with questions which had baffled the wisest in England for five and twenty years. This sprig from a fine tree was shooting too fast for him. He evaded a direct reply.
“Evidently, Master Lionel, you’ve made up your mind not to go backwards.”
“I have. But standing still won’t help much, and I don’t know how to get ‘forward.’”
“One lives and learns. It’s slow work. All over the country the land system, generally, is the nation’s weak spot. I believe in the land. I hate to see strong young men emigrating.”
Lionel laughed, but not too mirthfully.
“How did you get the truth out of those Mucklows? I did my little bit with ’em. By George, it was little.”
Fishpingle disclaimed any credit.
“I know ’em, Master Lionel. I knew that Ezekiel Mucklow has been walking out with Mr. Hamlin’s parlourmaid for five years. They just stand it so long. Then they want cottages in a hurry. To deal with ’em you must know ’em—all the ins and outs of their queer minds. Half the young men from Ocknell Manor have gone. That estate is a disgrace. And many others. It’ll be in the market soon. And the Ocknells have been there for five hundred years.”
“But you believe in the land.”
Fishpingle might have been repeating the Apostles’ Creed, as he answered solemnly:
“’Tis the backbone of England, Master Lionel. I’ve always thought that. And it ought to supply the nation with all the food it needs, and more too. We’ve ceased to be an island. Everybody admits it. Yes, I believe in the land.”
“Do you believe in the landowners?”
“In some of them.”
He sighed; lines puckered his face. He held out his hands, palms upward, as if he were weighing landowners, and finding the weight short.
Lionel said reflectively:
“You’ve answered my question. I ought to leave the army and put myself under Mr. Moxon.”
“Mr.—Moxon?”
“Didn’t you know? He’s an expert, grappling with this very problem. He gave the Squire some priceless tips, but will he take ’em?”
Fishpingle shook his head. Lionel assumed a more cheerful manner and deportment.
“This talk has cleared the air. I haven’t wasted my time this morning. I shall tackle my father next.”
“Not to-day, Master Lionel.”
“Why not?” the young man asked impatiently. “Does he think I’m going to waste all my leave playing tennis and fishing?”
“Go slow!” counselled the sage. “You can’t rush the Squire. Mr. Moxon, if he is an expert, would tell you to read up the subject, to—to see the thing as a whole, to find out what is ahead of you, Master Lionel.”
Lionel’s face darkened again. He said moodily:
“I’m such a mug that I don’t even know the title of one book dealing with land in an up-to-date way.”
“I could lend you some books and pamphlets.”
“You?”
Fishpingle rose and went to his bureau. Out of a drawer he selected two books and half a dozen pamphlets.
“This bangs Banagher!” exclaimed Lionel, as he glanced at the titles. “Upon my soul, you’re a wonder! But, you sly old fox, you don’t keep these in the bookcase. And I promise you that I shan’t leave ’em lying about in father’s room.”
“Thank you, Master Lionel. Some of the pamphlets are one-sided. You must salt ’em. But the stuff you want is there.”
“Hot stuff, too!” He glanced at one of the pamphlets. “Sport isn’t spared, I see.” He read aloud a title—
“‘Tyranny of Sport.’ Is sport a tyranny?”
“Sometimes. You know more about it than the man who wrote that pamphlet. But he gives his views. Lots of people think as he does. When you’ve read all that, Master Lionel, it will be time enough to talk to Sir Geoffrey.”
Lionel tucked the books under his arm and stuffed the thin pamphlets into his coat pocket.
“You’re right, as usual, old chap.” He held out his hand, with a delightful smile. “You know, I look upon you as a sort of second father. Many thanks.”
Fishpingle listened to his firm step, as he strode down the stone-flagged passage, whistling “Garryowen.” Then he crossed to the hearth, staring long and frowningly, not at the photographs of Squire and son, but at the gracious, tender face of Lady Pomfret.