CHAPTER X
Margot recovered her temper and spirits as the motor sped homeward. The benedictions of the countryside fell like dew upon her, the soft air, the fragrance of pines, the leafy glades where the deer wandered, the great open spaces of moorland. Swift motion exhilarated her. She had paid many fines for exceeding the speed limit. She decided that she could think better in the country, and her thoughts, like bees amongst lime blossom, buzzed busily. Joyce had asked to be dropped at the Vicarage. The Squire hospitably entreated her to lunch at the Hall; Lionel insisted upon it; but Joyce told them that her father was alone. That settled the matter. Margot feigned a civil disappointment. At heart she was glad. The morning, after all, had not been wasted. The information she sought was hers.
The Parson came out to meet his daughter, and stood talking to the Squire—a tall, grim, gaunt figure. The deep tones of his voice impressed Margot. As they glided on again, she said to the Squire:
“Mr. Hamlin is a remarkable personality.”
“Man of too many angles,” growled Sir Geoffrey. “I bark my shins against ’em.”
Margot nodded, too discreet to press an interesting subject further. Lionel had hinted that relations were strained between two autocrats, each intent upon having his way in the same parish. She wondered if Joyce inherited her sire’s personality. Men obtruded that priceless possession; wise women hid it. Joyce might be wiser than she seemed, more determined, more resouceful. If she, too, wanted Lionel, would she fight for him as steadily and strenuously as she had played golf that morning? Another question for Time to answer.
At luncheon, telling Lady Pomfret a vivacious story of the defeat at golf, she obliterated the memory of her loss of temper by owning up to it.
“I made an idiot of myself,” she confessed. “I lost the match, and eight fat half-crowns—and my temper. Sir Geoffrey was adorable. I saw that Lionel hated me, but not so furiously as I hated myself.”
“I thought you took it jolly well,” affirmed the young man.
“No complaints, my dear, no complaints. We’ll take ’em on again any day.” Thus the Squire.
Lionel beamed. She knew that he was thinking: “Margot is the right sort. She was tried rather high this morning.” He said ingenuously:
“I lost my temper, mother. Joyce played like a book.”
Margot added demurely:
“In very pretty binding.”
If she expected a compliment from the young man, she was disappointed. He merely nodded, adding after a pause:
“You wouldn’t believe it, but Joyce makes her own clothes.”
Margot hadn’t a doubt of that, but she expressed suitable surprise and commendation. Sir Geoffrey changed the conversation.
The afternoon passed pleasantly. After tea Lionel went down to the river to try for a fish, a fat trout that defied capture. Lady Pomfret and Margot sat under the trees and talked. Sir Geoffrey stumped off to the Home Farm with Fishpingle.
By this time Margot had established intimacy with her host’s butler. She felt towards him as Lionel did to the fat trout. She wanted to land him, to weigh him, to hold him in her small hand. Mystery encompassed Fishpingle. She tried to read his history between the lines upon a discreet face. That was her method of learning French history from “mémoires à servir.” But Fishpingle eluded her. She could find him at any time in his room; he received her courteously; he talked delightfully about old plate, and birds, and Nether-Applewhite, but never, never of himself.
As the Squire and his faithful henchman walked off together, Margot said lightly:
“You have many precious possessions in your dear old house, but it seems to me that of all of them Fishpingle is the most priceless.”
Lady Pomfret became alert. At moments, Margot’s cleverness frightened her. Not her sprightliness in small talk. Lady Pomfret could discount that, and did. But the little lady exhibited, in flashes, powers of intuition and characterisation which were certainly remarkable.
“Tell me what you mean, my dear.”
“I speak of him as a possession. In the last few years I have had three butlers, each of them highly recommended. I pay a little more than is usual to my upper servants, because I want to keep them. And I think I am consistently nice to them. That pays, doesn’t it? And yet, to my intense annoyance, they leave me. They are not possessions, as they used to be. Fishpingle showed me that handsome inkstand. I was consumed with envy when I read the inscription—‘Fifty years’ service!’”
“He became page to Lady Alicia Pomfret when he was ten. His duties, I fancy, were not too onerous. She had him educated.”
“Ah! But, obviously, he has gone on educating himself.”
Another flash. Lady Pomfret assented. Margot continued—
“How do you do it? Your cook, Mrs. Mowland, is another possession, and your housekeeper, Mrs. Randall. It’s wonderful.”
“They are our own people, part of the soil, and we live in the country all the year round. London makes servants restless. Change excites them. We have been fortunate in these—possessions. You are right, Margot, they are priceless.”
“I see you can’t whisper your secret to me.”
“There is no secret.”
Margot laughed, with a little gesture of resignation. Evidently, Lady Pomfret was not to be coaxed or flattered into talking about her amazing butler. Skilfully, she selected and cast another fly.
“Your stillroom maid, Prudence, Fishpingle’s niece, is charming. I ventured to ask for the recipe of those melting griddle cakes we have at tea. She said that the recipe was yours.”
“You are most welcome to it.”
“Thank you so much. Prudence is the apple of Fishpingle’s eye, but you have chief place in his heart.”
Lady Pomfret “sat up,” in every sense of that slangy phrase.
“Bless me! He told you that?”
“Not he. I guessed. You reign supreme.”
Margot sighed. Not without reason had an inspired minor poet given her the nickname—La Reine Margot. She wished to reign, not merely over men, but with a wider dominion over all—something difficult of achievement in London. As the châtelaine of Beaumanoir Chase this dominating instinct might have been gratified. She could say bitter things about the Salique law. Lady Pomfret wondered why such a visitor, so “smart” (to use an odious word), had settled down contentedly at Pomfret Court, where the entertainment of a town guest must be considered hum-drum. At this moment light came to her. She divined that Margot was studying intelligently conditions which made petty sovereignty possible. She remembered the “pumping” of Joyce, which amused her at the time. Purpose underlay the many questions. She remembered, also, that Margot missed no opportunity of ingratiating herself with Bonsor and others at the Home Farm. She supposed that this was Margot’s “way” (which paid!), and part of a sincere desire to please the Squire. Lastly, regarding her own son with a fond mother’s eye, she had been shrewd enough to realise that, matrimonially, he was no great “catch” for an heiress of quality. In her heart, whilst humouring her husband, she had confidently expected a “débâcle.” A dasher had dashed at a new experience. Very soon, such a personage would be bored and flit elsewhere, a case, in fine, of Marie Antoinette milking cows!
And now, swiftly, she was modifying these premature conclusions. To make assured her new foundations, she, too, cast a fly. As a fisherman, she was quite as adroit as Margot.
“I reign happily over a small establishment. My rule, such as it is, imposes penalties. In my place, Margot, you would be bored.”
Margot “rose” instantly. The fly stuck fast in her throat. And the moment had come, she decided, when sincerity would best serve her purpose. She replied eagerly—
“Dear Lady Pomfret, you are so clever, but indeed you are mistaken. Sir Geoffrey, oddly enough, this very morning, seemed surprised when I told him that I was not bored. I ask you, as I asked him—do I look bored?”
Lady Pomfret laughed, partly because it was pleasant to reflect that her hand had not lost its cunning.
“I have read somewhere, my dear, that you are an accomplished amateur actress. We have never entertained a visitor so easily. Indeed, you have entertained—us! At least, we might have invited some of our neighbours to meet so agreeable a guest.”
“I feared that. I dared to hint as much to the Squire.”
“The wretch never told me.”
“I wanted to rest, to gloat in this quiet paradise. To fortify myself.”
“For what?”
The quiet question brought a faint flush to Margot’s pale cheeks, but she replied vivaciously:
“Against my autumn visits, a dreary round, which no longer sufficies me. The people I know are too aggressive, too neurotic, too jumpy. I have chosen my friends—if you can call them that—not very wisely. My own fault. This last season was trying. One must keep up with the procession, and it simply races along.”
Lady Pomfret felt sorry for her, pity welled into her kind eyes and suffused her voice. Margot looked so small, so frail. Take from her the trappings of her position, and what was left? A motherless young woman, who, admittedly, had chosen the wrong friends. She murmured softly—
“Poor little Margot! You make me sad. But I am glad that you think of this,” her glance wandered round the peaceful garden, “as a sanctuary.”
“I do. I do. Why didn’t we meet before?”
During the two days that followed this confidential talk with her hostess, Margot spun webs in that dainty parlour, her heart, now swept and garnished for the reception of Lionel. She encouraged him to talk freely, ever watchful and ready to steer him out of the troubled waters of introspection and windy conjecture into the snug harbourage of a practical prosperity. Lionel had read the books and pamphlets lent by Fishpingle. And Fishpingle had warned him that they were one-sided, written by men who had suffered abuses, who card-indexed flagrant instances with something of the same gusto which animates collectors of pornographic engravings. It was quite easy for Margot to deal with such propaganda. More, her knowledge impressed him. She presented the other side with a suavity in pleasing contrast to the acerbity of the pamphleteers. If she stickled for Authority, as she did, she garbed it in motley. Very cleverly, she laid stress upon the necessity of loyalty to their own order.
“You can’t destroy your own nest, Lionel. Make no mistake! These demagogues mean to wipe us out, if they can. If they do,” she shrugged her shoulders, “it will be largely due to our indolence and indifference. We may have to fight with their bludgeons. My father advocated a Union of Landed Gentry.”
“Why not?” asked Lionel.
“Because, my child, Authority detests co-operation. You see that in politics. The heads of different departments won’t pull together. People talk of a united Cabinet. A Cabinet is never united.”
The surprise in his face amused her. What fun enlightening such an innocent! She went on, more suavely than ever:
“Before I put my hair up, in my father’s lifetime, the Mandarins used to foregather at Beaumanoir. Our chef was a great artist.”
“Chinaman?”
“England’s statesmen. I beheld them with awe—the Olympians! The awe soon went after I got to know them. Their very ordinary talk shattered my illusions. Believe me, Lionel, they are well called representative men. They represent most faithfully the Man in the Street, whom they study to please and satisfy after—bien entendu—they have ground their own little axes. Heavens! how they disappointed me. No imagination! No enthusiasm! No real sympathy! Just commonplace party politicians with a gift of the gab and ears pricked to catch the Voice of the People.”
“This is a staggerer for me, Margot.”
She laughed at his sober face.
“Come to my house, and you shall meet some of them. There are rare exceptions, of course. I speak generally. I want to warn you and prepare you. Heaven has sent me to your rescue. You were thinking of chucking the army, studying chemistry as applied to land, and turning yourself into your father’s bailiff.”
“Something of that sort.”
“A fine programme, if it could be carried out. But, suppose it couldn’t? You might fail. What a situation then! Will your father co-operate with you? Will he supply the sinews of war? Experimental chemistry is costly, as my father found out. Success might come after many failures. Would your father stand the strain of those failures?”
“No—he wouldn’t. But I must do something. Better to try and fail than to sit still and trust to luck. You are not very encouraging. Give me a lead, if you can.”
She answered seriously:
“I think I can. I like you, Lionel; I like your people; I love this dear old place. It is far nicer than Beaumanoir, and I loved that. Yes, I should be proud to help you, but the obvious way is so seldom obvious to the traveller himself. You have come back from India to face conditions which I have heard discussed ever since I was fifteen. And I have heard both sides. Personally, I have made my choice. I stick to my order, sink or swim.”
“I feel like that, too.”
“Well, I have warned you that you can’t expect too much from Authority. If it comes to a real fight, we shall stand together. Meanwhile, every man in your position should prepare for that fight.”
“You talk well, Margot.”
“I repeat what I have heard.”
Joyce had said the same. He remembered that in the mythologies Echo is a nymph.
“How am I to prepare?”
“You ought to be in Parliament. Punch may well call it The House of Awfully Commons, but there is no other place for such as you.”
He muttered gloomily—
“Sit up late, and do as I’m told.”
She laughed.
“It’s not quite as bad as that. In Parliament you would get the training you need. If I know you, you’d forge ahead. At any rate, you would be in the movement. And your chance would come.”
Lionel answered her sharply, with incisive curtness:
“You have not painted a flattering portrait of politicians, yet you urge me to become one of them.”
“I described them as I see them, because you are so preposterously modest. You look up to them. Many of them could look up to you. Place and power are easily within your grasp. Men with half your advantages have climbed high.”
Her flattery tickled him, but he stuck doggedly to his point.
“Parliament would mean a bigger allowance. Father couldn’t afford it.”
Her tone became light again.
“As to that, you are like poor Beau. You must make the right sort of marriage. Unlike poor Beau, you are well able to do it.”
He moved uneasily.
“Margot—have you talked this over with Father?”
“On my honour—no. Why do you ask?”
“Your views are his views. He put it to me within a few hours of my return home. ‘You must marry a nice little girl with a bit of money.’”
The adjective “little” may have caused her embarrassment. And his voice, as he spoke, was low and troubled. He seemed, too, to be deliberately looking away from her. She saved an awkward situation with a ripple of laughter.
“Why, of course,” she went on, quite herself again. “I could find you half a dozen nice girls. Do you prefer them—little?”
He stammered out a reply:
“I—I d-don’t know. You see I—I haven’t quite got to father’s point of view. I mean to say I never thought of marrying at all. It wasn’t exactly beyond my horizon, but——!” He broke off, raising troubled eyes to her.
She handled him with extreme delicacy and patience.
“I understand perfectly. Young men of your type don’t think of marriage till—till love imposes the thought of it on them. But is it possible, Lionel, that you have never been in love?”
“Never—in the sense you mean.”
“Really? What a sensation to come! But—how shall I put it?—wouldn’t you like to be? Every girl worth her salt thinks of a possible husband—generally a quite impossible man. Have you never thought of a possible wife?”
“In the abstract—yes. Are you pulling my leg, Margot?”
“Heaven forbid! I am nearly, not quite, as solemn as you are.”
But she laughed gaily, contradicting her own words. Her laughter was so infectious that Lionel laughed with her. The ice between them broke and drifted away. He chuckled, like his father.
“I say, you must think me a mug.”
“I feel,” she paused, meeting his glance roguishly, “I feel old enough to be your mother, and really I’m one year younger than you.”
“One year and three months.”
“You looked me up?”
“I did.”
She inferred, possibly, more than was strictly warrantable. Suddenly the dressing gong boomed out. Margot got up. Lionel protested:
“You don’t take half an hour to shove on a frock, do you?”
“Sometimes. I am wearing a new frock to-night. I hope you will like it.”
“You must spend a lot on your clothes.”
“I do. Why not? I have money to burn. A tout à l’heure.”
She waved her hand and departed.
Lionel sat on under the trees, gazing at the lengthening shadows as they stole across the velvety lawn, and letting his thoughts project themselves into the future. No man likes to think that he is being pursued by a woman, however charming she may be. But such a probability didn’t occur to him. His father was wiser in such matters. Lionel accepted Margot’s advice as impersonal. And she had not been “primed” by the squire. The pair, such a contrast to each other in most respects, happened to think alike, independently and sincerely, upon a subject which they had not discussed together.
What would it mean to him, if he captured Margot? For the first time he thought of her not as the wife chosen for him by a fond and ambitious sire, but as the woman chosen by himself out of all the world. Any man might be proud to possess a creature so distinguished, so sought after, so attractive physically and mentally. Other men would envy him. In the regiment his pals would congratulate him warmly on “landing” a big “fish.” No young fellow is independent of public opinion, least of all an old Etonian, a subaltern in a crack corps. Men he knew had been caught by enterprising spinsters in India, swishing tempestuous petticoats of the wrong cut. He remembered what was said at mess concerning such matches. Fordingbridge had gone a “mucker.” Young Ocknell, too, the silly ass, had married a second-rate actress. And Ocknell Manor was offered for sale in Country Life!
He heard the clock in the stable-yard strike a quarter to eight. The short cut to his room lay through the shrubberies, and a side door not far from the pantry. He happened to be wearing tennis shoes. As he approached the side door, he saw Prudence and Alfred. Their faces might have been three inches apart, not more. Prudence giggled and flitted indoors. Alfred stood his ground, grinning sheepishly.
“Very close out here,” said Lionel.
Alfred assented, adding nervously—
“’Ee won’t tell tales out o’ school, Master Lionel, will ’ee? ’Tis as much as my place be worth, if Squire caught Prue an’ me mumbud-gettin’, he be so tarr’ble set on eugannicks.”
“Trust me,” smiled Lionel. “The Squire will come round, Alfred. I said a word to him, as I promised, but I spoke too soon. Don’t worry! By George, you are a lucky fellow. Prue is a little dear. And you both looked as happy as larks. I say, I shall be late for dinner.”
He rushed into the house, followed more leisurely by Alfred, still grinning.
Hastily dressing, Lionel was sensible of an emotion which might or might not be the quickening of love. He found himself envying Alfred. It must be jolly to have a pretty girl look at a fellow as Prudence looked at her lover. The world was going round and round for them. Had little Margot such a glance in her battery? Had she ever looked at a man like that?
Had Joyce?
When he appeared in the Long Saloon, the last of the party, Margot was wearing her new frock, fashioned out of chiffon of the particular emerald green she affected and so bespangled that it looked as if dusted with tiny diamonds. About her white neck shimmered her famous pearls. She wore no other jewelry. Lionel, as he approached her, shaded his eyes. The Squire chuckled.
“A bit of a dazzler, eh, boy?”
“Quite stunning,” said Lionel.
Margot flashed a glance at him, which the Squire and Lady Pomfret, standing just behind her, couldn’t see. Long afterwards Lionel described this glance as a “crumpled.” The question, so doubtfully propounded whilst he was dressing, had been answered. Tom Challoner was a fool. Lady Margot Maltravers might be cold as Greenland’s icy mountains to him—and serve him right! To a friend, at the psychological moment, her heart revealed itself enchantingly—warm as India’s coral strand.
They went into dinner.
The talk settled upon a cricket-match to be played, next day, upon the Squire’s ground—Nether-Applewhite v. Long-Baddeley, a neighbouring village. The Parson captained his XI. The Squire, in a long white kennel-overcoat, officiated as umpire. Margot wanted to play games. Looking on bored her. But the Squire promised entertainment. Obviously, he had set his heart upon a victory. Lionel was quite as keen. To hear the two discussing the “form” of different village champions, one might suppose that an international match impended. Sir Geoffrey mentioned a bowler, Joel Tibber, who put the fear of the Lord into timid batsmen. Joel could pitch a ball with deadly accuracy at the batsman’s head. Having established the right degree of “funk,” he bowled with equal accuracy at the wicket. Joel belonged to Long-Baddeley, but his mother had been born in Nether-Applewhite. The Squire felt that he owned a half-interest in Joel. Margot hoped that Fishpingle would take the field, and Lionel told her that he kept wicket. She learnt later that the Parson batted with a thick broomstick, about the right handicap for a man who had made his “century” for the Gentlemen of England. The Squire said solemnly:
“If Lionel is in form we shall romp home.”
“Do you feel in form?” asked Margot.
“Ra-ther! But if that beast Joel picks me off, as he did last time, I shall want ‘first aid.’ Can you give it?”
Lady Pomfret observed mildly, “I take a little arnica and lint on to the battlefield.”
Margot said, as solemnly as Sir Geoffrey:
“This is a serious affair.”
She was assured of it. Any jesting upon the national game would be unseemly. It might be permissible to laugh at the cricketers, not at cricket. This from Lady Pomfret, with a sly twinkle in her eye. Twice she essayed to turn the ball of talk from the wickets. Twice the Squire returned that ball to his son—and the great game went on.
Was Margot bored?
No. Such talk in her own house amongst her own set might be deemed impossible. The first ball would have gone to the boundary and stayed there. But here, in this panelled dining-room, with the scent of new-mown hay stealing through the open windows, with the pitch itself to be seen from those windows, lying smooth as silver in the moonlight, what cleaner, better theme could be chosen? It smelt of the countryside. It presented humours delightfully Arcadian.
After dinner, Lionel proposed piquet. Given equal cards, Margot was incomparably the better player. Lady Pomfret, watching her noticed, that she played to the score, played, in short, to win. She noticed, too, that Lionel seemed to be studying his opponent rather than the game. He discarded carelessly; he forgot to score points. In her own mind smiling to herself, the mother perpetrated a mild pun. “He looks at her hands instead of his own.” Lionel, let us admit, was watching and waiting for another dynamic glance. He might have guessed that a second would not be forthcoming too soon. A second might have weakened the first. Nevertheless, what was carefully hidden from Lionel revealed itself unmistakably to Lady Pomfret. She beheld Truth before the nymph left her well.
“Margot means to have him.”
The Squire, dozing in his big armchair, sat bolt upright.
“Bless my soul!” he exclaimed. “It’s past eleven. To bed with you, boy! And take a pinch of bi-carbonate of potash.” He turned to his guest. “Nothing like it to clear the eye.”
“Take two pinches, Lionel,” counselled the little lady.
Lady Pomfret read her and smiled.
The Squire rang the bell, a signal that meant “Lights out!” With his hand on the old-fashioned bell-pull, he turned to his son.
“By the way, I heard a bit of news this afternoon. The Professor has turned up again.”
“Moxon, father?”
“Yes, Moxon.” He added for Margot’s benefit, “Not a Moxon of Wooton, my dear, but a very presentable and knowledgable young man.”