CHAPTER IV
'Come in!' said Alice Gaddesden in a languid tone. From the knock, sharp and loud, on her bedroom door, she guessed that it was her sister Margaret who wished to see her. She did not wish, however, to see Margaret at all. Margaret, who was slightly the elder, tired and coerced her. But she had no choice.
Mrs. Strang entered briskly.
'My dear Alice! what a time of day to be in bed! Are you really ill?'
Mrs. Gaddesden grew red with annoyance.
'I thought I had told you, Margaret, that Dr. Crother advised me more than a year ago not to come down till the middle of the morning. It rests my heart.'
Mrs. Strang, who had come up to the bedside, looked down upon her sister with amused eyes. She herself was curiously like the Squire, even as to her hair, which was thick and fair, and already whitening, though she was not yet thirty. Human thinness could hardly have been carried further than she and the Squire achieved it. She had her father's nose also. But the rest of her features were delicately regular, and her quick blue eyes were those of a woman who told no falsehoods herself, and had little patience with other people's.
'My dear Alice, why do you believe doctors? They always tell you what you want to hear. I am sure you told Dr. Crother exactly what to say,' said Margaret, laughing, as she placed a chair by the bedside.
'Oh, of course I know you think everybody's a sham who isn't as strong as yourself!' said Mrs. Gaddesden, sinking back on her pillows with a soft sigh of resignation. 'Though I think you might have remembered the horribly hard work I've been doing lately.'
'Have you?' Mrs. Strang wrinkled her brow, as though in an effort to recollect. 'Oh, yes, I know. I have always been getting notices lately with your name on them, at the end of a long tail beginning with a Duchess, and stuffed with Countesses. And I always think—there's Alice doing the work, and the Countesses getting the glory. Do you really do the work?'
And Margaret, who did not often see her sister, and was of a genuinely inquiring turn of mind, turned upon her a penetrating look.
'Well, of course,' said Mrs. Gaddesden, a little confused, 'there are always the secretaries.'
'Ah-ha!' Mrs. Strang laughed—one might almost say crowed. 'Yes, indeed, if it weren't for the secretaries! By the way, what do you think about the specimen here?'
Mrs. Gaddesden lost her languid air at once. She sat up among her pillows, a reasonably pretty woman, not without some likeness to Pamela, in points that did not matter.
'My dear Margaret,' she said, with emphasis, 'this has got to be watched!—watched, I tell you.'
Mrs. Strang opened her eyes wide.
'What on earth do you mean?'
Alice Gaddesden smiled.
'Well, of course, you're much cleverer than I am, but I really do see further in practical matters than you do. Haven't you noticed,' she bent forward, looking mysterious and intent, 'how already father depends upon her, how she's beginning to run the whole show—and she hasn't been here much more than six weeks? My dear Margaret, with a secretary like that you never can tell!'
'Well,' said Mrs. Strang coolly, 'and what then?'
'Oh, well, of course, if you're prepared to see a person like that—in our mother's place!'
'"A person like that"—how dreadfully old-fashioned you are, Alice! She's a lady; she's much more highly educated than you or I, and if she gets her way, she'll perhaps keep father out of some of the scrapes he seems bent on. You know this business of the park is perfectly mad!'
For the first time in this conversation Margaret Strang's face was grave. And when it was grave, some people would have called it fine.
'And just think what it'll cost,' said Mrs. Gaddesden despondently, 'even if he had a case—which he probably hasn't—and if he were to win it. There'll be no money left for Aubrey or any of us soon.'
'But of course he hasn't a case, and of course he can't win!' cried Margaret Strang. 'It's not that I care about—or the money—it's the disgrace!'
'Yes,' murmured Alice doubtfully.
'When you think—'
Mrs. Strang paused; her bright blue eyes, alive with thoughts, were fixed absently on her sister. She seemed to see a number of shabby streets, where she was accustomed to work, with little shabby shops, and placards on them—'No butter,' 'No milk,' and apples marked 4d. each.
'Think what?' said Alice.
Mrs. Strang's mind returned to Alice, and Alice's very elaborate and becoming negligée.
'Only that, in my opinion, it's the duty of every landowner to produce every ounce of food he can, and to do what he's told! And father not only sets a shocking example, but he picks this absurd quarrel with the Chicksands. What on earth is Aubrey to do? Or poor Beryl?'
'Well, he comes to-night,' said Alice, 'so I suppose we shall hear. I can't make Aubrey out,' she added reflectively.
'Nobody can. I was talking to a brother-officer of his last week, a man who's awfully fond of him. He told me Aubrey did his work very well. He was complimented by Headquarters on his School only last month. But he's like an automaton. Nobody really knows him, nobody gets any forwarder with him. He hardly speaks to anybody except on business. The mess regard him as a wet blanket, and his men don't care about him, though he's a capital officer. Isn't it strange, when one thinks of what Aubrey used to be five years ago?'
Alice agreed. Perhaps he was still suffering from the effects of his wound in 1915.
'Anyway he can't give Beryl up,' said Margaret with energy, 'if he's a man of honour!'
Alice shrugged her shoulders.
'Then he'll give up the estate, according to father.'
'Desmond would give it back to him, if there's anything left of it, or if he wants it.'
'Margaret!'
'You think I don't care about the family—that there should always be a Mannering of Mannering? Yes, I do care, but there are so many other things now to care about,' added Mrs. Strang slowly.
'Who's making me late now?' said Alice, looking at her watch.
Margaret took the hint and departed.
That same evening, in the September dusk, a dog-cart arrived at the Hall, bringing Major Mannering and a Gladstone bag.
Pamela and Desmond rushed out to meet him. Their elder sisters were dressing for dinner, and the Squire was in the library with Elizabeth. The twins dragged the newcomer into their own den, and shut the door upon him. There Desmond gave him a breathless survey of the situation, while Pamela sat on a stool at his feet, and put in explanatory words at intervals. Their father's extraordinary preparations for waging war against the County Committee; his violence on the subject of the Chicksands; Beryl's despairing letters to Pamela; a letter from Arthur Chicksands to Desmond,—all these various items were poured out on the newcomer, with an eagerness and heat which showed the extreme interest which the twins took in the situation.
Meanwhile Aubrey Mannering sat listening almost in silence. He was a delicately built, distinguished-looking man, who carried a large scar on his forehead, and had lost a finger of the left hand. The ribbons on his breast showed that he was both an M.C. and a D.S.O.—distinctions won at the second battle of Ypres and on the Somme. While the twins talked, his eyes travelled from one to the other, attentive, but curiously aloof.
He was saying to himself that Pamela was extremely pretty, and Desmond a splendid fellow. Then—in a moment—while he looked at his young brother, a vision, insistent, terrible, passed ghost-like between him and the boy. Again and again he tried to shake it off, and again and again it interposed.
'Oh, Aubrey, what will you do?' said Pamela despairingly, leaning her head against her brother's knee.
Her voice recalled him. He laid his hand upon her beautiful hair.
'Well, dear, there's only one thing, of course, for me to do—to stick to Beryl and let father do his worst.'
'Hurrah!' said Desmond. 'That's all right. And of course you know, Aubrey, that if father tries any hankey-pankey with the estate, and leaves it to me, I shall give it back to you next day.'
Aubrey smiled. 'Father'll live another twenty years, old man. Will there be any England then, or any law, or any estates to leave?'
The twins looked at him in amazement. Again he recovered himself quickly.
'I only meant that, in times like these, it's no good planning anything twenty years ahead. We've got to win the war, haven't we?—that's the first thing. Well, now, I must go and clean up. Who's here?'
'Alice and Margaret,' said Pamela. 'And father's new secretary.'
'You never told me about him,' said Aubrey indifferently, as he rose.
'"Him" indeed!' laughed Desmond. 'Nothing of the sort!'
Aubrey turned a puzzled look upon him.
'What! a lady?'
Desmond grinned.
'First Class in Mods, and an awful swell. Father can't let her out of his sight. Says he never had anybody so good.'
'And she'll end by bossing us all,' put in Pamela. 'She's begun it already. Now you really must go and dress.'
When the eldest son of the house entered the drawing-room, he found everybody gathered there but his father and the Rector, who was coming to dine. He was at once seized on by his married sisters, who saw him very rarely. Then Pamela led him up to a tall lady in pale blue.
'My eldest brother—Miss Bremerton.'
He looked at her with curiosity, and was glad when, after the arrival of his father and the Rector, it fell to him to take the new secretary in to dinner. His father's greeting to him had been decidedly cool—the greeting of a man who sees a fight impending and wishes to give away nothing to his opponent. In fact the two men had never been on really cordial terms since August 1914, when Aubrey had thrown up his post in the Foreign Office to apply for one of the first temporary commissions in the New Army. The news came at a moment when the Squire was smarting under the breakdown of a long-cherished scheme of exploration in the Greek islands, which was to have been realized that very autumn—a scheme towards which his whole narrow impetuous mind had been turned for years. No more Hellenic or Asia Minor excavations! no more cosmopolitan Wissenschaft! On that fatal August 4 a whole world went down submerged beneath the waves of war, and the Squire cared for no other. His personal chagrin showed itself in abuse of the bungling diplomats and 'swashbuckler' politicians who, according to him, had brought us into war. So that when Aubrey applied for a commission, the Squire, mainly to relieve his own general irritation, had quarrelled with him for some months, and was only outwardly reconciled when his son came home invalided in 1915.
During the summer of 1917, Aubrey, after spending three days' leave at Mannering, had gone on to stay at Chetworth with the Chicksands for a week. The result of that visit was a letter to his father in which he announced his engagement to Beryl. The Squire could make then no open opposition, since he was still on friendly terms with Sir Henry, who had indeed done him more than one good turn. But in reply to his son's letter, he stood entirely on the defensive, lest any claim should be made upon him which might further interfere with the passion of his life. He was not, he said, in a position to increase Aubrey's allowance—the Government robbers had seen to that—and unless Beryl was prepared to be a poor man's wife he advised them to wait till after the war. Then Sir Henry had ridden over to Mannering with a statement of what he was prepared to do for his daughter, and the Squire had given ungracious consent to a marriage in the spring. Chicksands knew his man too well to take offence at the Squire's manners, and Beryl was for a time too timidly and blissfully happy to be troubled by them.
'You have been here a few weeks,' said the newcomer to Elizabeth, when the party had settled down at table.
'About six weeks. It seems longer!' smiled Elizabeth.
'You are doing some work for my father?'
Elizabeth explained herself. Major Mannering listened attentively.
'So what you do for him is literary—and historical?'
'Oh no—I do accounts, and write letters too.'
'Accounts? I thought there was a housekeeper?'
'She went a month ago to the W.A.A.C.'s. Please!—do you mind?' And to his amazement, as he was putting out his hand automatically to a piece of bread lying on his left, Miss Bremerton's hand holding a fork neatly intercepted him, and moved the bread away.
'It's our "Self-denying Ordinance,"' explained the lady, colouring a little. 'The bread appears because—because your father doesn't think rations necessary. But no one touches it, and Forest collects it afterwards—for breakfast.'
A smile broke on Aubrey's grave and pensive face.
'I see. Mayn't I really have any?'
Elizabeth hesitated.
'Well, perhaps, as a guest, and a soldier. Yes, I think you may.' And she would have restored her prey had not her neighbour stopped her.
'Not at all. As a soldier I obey orders. My hat! how you've drilled them all!' For, looking round the table, he saw that not a single guest had touched the bread lying to their left.
'That's Pamela and Mr. Desmond! They've given everybody a menu for three days.'
'Good heavens—not my father!'
'Oh no, no! We don't think he suspects anything, and he has everything he likes.'
'And my married sisters?' Elizabeth hesitated again.
'Well, Mrs. Gaddesden is rather afraid of being starved. Mrs. Strang, on the other hand, thinks we're wickedly extravagant!'
Her neighbour was so much amused that conversation flowed on easily thenceforward; and Desmond opposite whispered to Pamela:
'Just look at Broomie! She's actually making Aubrey talk.'
The Major's rôle, however, was on the whole that of listener. For Elizabeth meant to talk—meant to explain herself to the son and heir, and, if she could, to drive him to an interest in the family affairs. To her trained, practical mind the whole clan seemed by now criminally careless and happy-go-lucky. The gardens were neglected; so was the house; so was the estate. The gardens ought to have been made self-supporting; there were at least a third too many servants in the house; and as for the estate, instead of being a profit-making and food-producing concern, as it should have been, it was a bye-word for bad management and neglected land. She did not pretend to know much about it yet; but what she did know roused her. England was at grips with a brutal foe. The only weapon that could defeat her was famine—the sloth and waste of her own sons. This woman, able, energetic, a lover of her country, could not conceal her scorn for such a fatal incompetence. Naturally, in talking to the eldest son, she made the agent her scapegoat for the sins of the owner. The Squire's responsibility was carefully masked. But Aubrey Mannering perfectly understood what she would be at. She was a clever woman who wanted things improved. Well, let her improve them. It did not matter to him.
But she appeared to him as a somewhat special type of the modern woman, with her advanced education and her clear brain; and for a time he observed her curiously. The graceful dress, pale blue with touches of black, which exactly became her fair skin, the bright gold of her hair, and the pleasant homeliness of her face—her general aspect indeed—attracted him greatly. She might know Greek; at heart, he believed, she was a good housewife; and when she incidentally mentioned Dutch relations, he seemed to see her with a background of bright pots and pans, mopping tiled floors.
But presently he ceased to pay much attention to her. His dreamy sense became aware of the scene as a whole; the long table; his father's fantastic figure at the head of it; Alice Gaddesden elaborately dressed and much made up on the one side, his sister Margaret in a high black gown, erect and honest, on the other; Desmond and Pamela together, chatting and chaffing with the Rector. It was the room so familiar to his childhood and youth, with the family pictures, the Gainsborough full-length of his very plain great-grandmother in white satin at the end, two or three Vandyck school-portraits of seventeenth-century Mannerings, and the beautiful Hogarth head—their best possession—that was so like Pamela. The furniture of the room was of many different dates—incongruous, shabby, and on the whole ugly. The Mannerings of the past had not been an artistic lot.
Nor had the room—the house indeed—many tender associations for him. His childhood had not been very happy. He had never got on with his father, and his mother, who had been the victim of various long illnesses during his boyhood, had never, unluckily, meant much to him. He knew that he was of a very old stock, which had played a long and considerable part in the world; but the fact brought him no thrill. 'That kind of thing is played out,' he thought. Let his father disinherit him—he was quite indifferent.
Then, as he fell silent beside his father's new secretary, the table vanished. He saw instead the wide Picardy flats, a group of poplars, a distant wood, and in front a certain hollow strewn with dead and dying men—one figure, in front of the rest, lying face downwards. The queer twisted forms, the blasted trees, the inexorable horror—the whole vision swept over him again, as it had done in the schoolroom. His nerves shrank and trembled under it.
Beryl—poor little Beryl! What a wretch he had been to propose to her—in a moment of moral and physical weakness, when it had seemed a simple thing to accept her affection and to pledge his own! But if she stood by him, he must stand by her. And he had had the kindest letter from Sir Henry, and some sweet tremulous words from her. Suppose she offered to release him? His heart leapt guiltily at the thought. What, indeed, had a man so haunted and paralysed to give to a girl like Beryl? It was an outrage—it ought to cease.
But as to his father, that was simple enough.
The Squire and his eldest son retreated to the library after dinner, and all the rest of the party waited uneasily to see what would happen. Elizabeth did her best to keep things going. It might have been noticed—it was noticed by at least two of the persons present—that quite unobtrusively, she was already the mistress of the house. She found a stool and a fire-screen for Mrs. Gaddesden; she held some wool for Mrs. Strang to wind; and a backgammon board was made ready for the Squire, in case he returned.
But he did not return. Aubrey came back alone, and found them all hanging on his entrance. Pamela put down her knitting and looked at him anxiously; so did the elder sisters. He went up absently to the chimney-piece, and stood leaning against it.
'Well?' said Pamela in a low voice, as she came to sit on a stool near him.
He smiled, but she saw that he was pale.
'Can you take me over to Chetworth to-morrow—early—in the pony-cart?'
'Yes, certainly.'
'Half-past ten?'
'Right you are.'
No more was said. Aubrey turned at once to Alice Gaddesden and proposed a round game. He played it with much more spirit than usual, and Desmond's antics in 'Animal Grab' put all serious notions to flight.
But when the game was over, and Forest brought in the candles, Margaret tried to get some information.
'You found the father reasonable?' she said to her brother in an undertone, as they stood together by the fire.
'Oh, yes,' was the indifferent answer, 'from his own point of view.'
And when he had lit their candles for his sisters, he excused himself at once on the ground of being dog-tired after a long day. The door closed upon him.
The family gathered together in a group, while the Rector and Elizabeth talked about the village at the further end of the room.
'They've quarrelled!' said Margaret decisively.
Alice Gaddesden, because it was Margaret's opinion, disagreed. There was nothing to show it, she said. Aubrey had been quite calm. Desmond broke out, 'Did you ever see Aubrey anything else?' Pamela said nothing, but she slipped out to tell Forest about the pony-cart.
Meanwhile the Rector had looked at his watch, and came up to take his leave.
'Has the Squire gone to bed?' he said cheerfully. 'I daresay. He works so hard. Give him my fare-wells.'
And he went off, quite aware, both from his knowledge of the family and of the Squire's recent actions, that there were storms brewing in the old house, but on the whole thinking more of the new secretary than of his old friends. A charming woman!—most capable! For the first time he might get some attention paid to the village people. That child with the shocking bow-legs. Poor little Pamela had tried to do her best. But this woman would see to it; she knew how to get things done.
Meanwhile, as the rest of the party dispersed, Forest brought a message to Elizabeth. 'The Squire would be glad if you would spare him a few minutes, Miss, in the library. He won't keep you long.'
Elizabeth went unwillingly.
The library was in darkness, except for one small lamp at the further end, and the Squire was walking up and down. He stopped abruptly as he saw his secretary.
'I won't keep you, Miss Bremerton, but do you happen to know at all where my will is?'
'Your will, Mr. Mannering?' said Elizabeth in amazement. 'No, indeed! I have never seen it.'
'Well, it's somewhere here,' said the Squire impatiently. 'I should have thought in all your rummagings lately you must have come across it. I took it away from those robbers, my old solicitors, and I wasn't going to give it to the new man—don't trust him particularly not to talk. So I locked it up here—somewhere. And I can't find it.' And he began restlessly to open drawer after drawer, which already contained piles of letters and documents, neatly and systematically arranged, with the proper dockets and sub-headings, by Elizabeth.
'Oh, it can't be there!' cried Elizabeth. 'I know everything in those drawers. Surely it must be in the office?' By which she meant the small and hideously untidy room on the ground floor into which masses of papers of all dates, still unsorted, had been carted down from London.
'It isn't in the office!' He was, she saw, on the brink of an outburst. 'I put it somewhere in this room my own self! And I should have thought by now you knew the geography of this place as well as I do!'
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. The big room indeed was still full to her of unexplored territory, with caches of all kinds in it, new and ancient, waiting to be discovered. She looked round her in perplexity, not knowing where to begin. A large part of the room was walled with glass cases, holding vases, bronzes, and other small antiquities, down to about a yard from the floor, and the space below being filled by cupboards and drawers. Elizabeth made a vague movement towards a particular set of cupboards which she knew she had not yet touched, but the Squire irritably stopped her.
'It's certainly not there. That bit of the room hasn't been disturbed since the Flood! Now those drawers'—he pointed—'might be worth looking at.'
She hurried towards them. But the Squire, instead of helping her in her search, resumed his walk up and down, muttering to himself. As for her, she was on the verge of laughter, the laughter that comes from nerves and fatigue; for she had had a long day's work and was really tired. The first drawer she opened was packed with papers, a few arranged in something like order by her predecessor, the London University B.A., but the greater part of them in confusion. They mostly related to a violent controversy between the Squire and various archæological experts with regard to some finds in the Troad a year or two before the war, in which the Squire had only just escaped a serious libel suit, whereof indeed all the preliminaries were in the drawer.
On the very top of the drawer, however, was a conveyance of a small outlying portion of the Mannering estate, which the Squire had sold to a neighbour only a year before this date. Hopeless! If that was there, anything might be anywhere!
Was she to spend the night searching for the needle in this bottle of hay? Elizabeth's face began to twitch with uncomfortable merriment. Should she go and knock up the housekeeper and instal her as chaperon, or take a stand, and insist on going to bed like a reasonable woman?
She hunted through three drawers. The Squire meanwhile paced incessantly, sometimes muttering to himself. Every time he came within the circle of lamplight his face was visible to Elizabeth, wrinkled and set, with angry eyes; and she saw him as a person possessed by a stubborn demon of self-will. Once, as he passed her, she heard him say to himself, 'Of course I can write another at once—half a sheet will do.'
She replaced the third drawer. Was the Squire to have a monopoly of stubbornness? She thought not. Waves of indefinite but strong indignation were beginning to sweep through her. Why was the Squire hunting for his will? What had he been saying to his son—his son who bore on his breast and on his body the marks of his country's service?
She rose to her feet.
'I can't find anything, Mr. Mannering. And I think, if you will allow me, I will go to bed.'
He looked at her darkly.
'I see. You are a person who stickles for your hours—you won't do anything extra for me.' There was a sneer in his tone.
Elizabeth felt her cheeks suddenly burn. In the dim light she looked amazingly tall, as she stood straightened to her full height, confronting this man who really seemed to her to be only half sane.
'I think I have done a great deal for you, Mr. Mannering. But if you don't think so we had better end my engagement!'
His countenance changed at once. He eagerly apologized. He was perfectly aware of her extraordinary merits, and should be entirely lost without her help. The fact was he had had a painful scene, and was overdone.
Elizabeth received his explanation very coldly, only repeating, 'May I go to bed?'
The Squire drew his hand across his eyes.
'It is not very late—not yet eleven.' He pointed to the grandfather clock opposite. 'If you will only wait while I write something?'—he pointed to a chair. 'Just take a book there, and give me a quarter of an hour, no more—I want your signature, that's all. We won't look any further for the will. I can do all I want by a fresh document. I have been thinking it over, and can write it in ten minutes. I know as much about it as the lawyers—more. Now do oblige me. I am ashamed of my discourtesy. I need not say that I regard you as indispensable—and—I think I have been able to do something for your Greek.'
He smiled—a smile that was like a foam-flake on a stormy sea. But he could put on the grand manner when he chose, and Elizabeth was to some extent propitiated. After all he and his ways were no longer strange to her. Very unwillingly she seated herself again, and he went rapidly to his writing-table.
Then silence fell, except for the scratching of the Squire's pen. Elizabeth sat pretending to read, but in truth becoming every moment the prey of increasing disquiet. What was he going to ask her to sign? She knew nothing of his threat to his eldest son—nothing, that is, clear or direct, either from himself or from the others; but she guessed a good deal. It was impossible to live even for a few weeks in close contact with the Squire without guessing at most things.
In the silence she became aware of the soft autumn wind—October had just begun—playing with a blind on a distant window. And through the window came another sound—Desmond and Pamela, no doubt, still laughing and talking in the schoolroom.
The Squire rose from his seat.
'I shall be much obliged,' he said formally, 'if you will kindly come here. We shall want another witness, of course. I will call Forest.'
Elizabeth approached, but paused a yard or two from him. He saw her in the light—her gold hair and brilliant dress illuminated against the dark and splendid background of the Nikê in shadow.
She spoke with hesitation.
'I confess I should like to know, Mr. Mannering, what it is you are asking me to sign.'
'That doesn't matter to a witness. It is nothing which will in any way compromise you.'
'No—but'—she drew herself up—'I should blame myself if I made it easier for you to do something you would afterwards regret.'
'What do you mean?'
She summoned all her courage.
'Of course I must know something. You have not kept your affairs very secret. I guess that you are angry with your son, with Major Mannering. If this thing you ask me to sign is to hurt—to injure him—if it is—well, then—I refuse to sign it!'
And with a sudden movement she threw both her hands behind her back and clasped them there.
'You refuse?'
'If you admit my description of that paper.' She motioned towards it as it lay on the writing-table.
'I have no objection whatever to your knowing what it is—as you seem determined to know,' he said sarcastically. 'It is a codicil revoking my will in favour of my eldest son, and leaving all the property of which I die possessed, and which is in my power to bequeath, to my younger son Desmond. What have you to do with that? What possible responsibility can you have?'
Elizabeth wavered, but held her ground, though in evident distress.
'Only that—if I don't sign it—you would have time to consider it again. Mr. Mannering—isn't it—isn't it—very unjust?'
The Squire laughed.
'How do you know that in refusing you are not unjust to Desmond?'
'Oh no!' she said fervently. 'Mr. Desmond would never wish to supplant his brother—and for such a reason. And especially—' she paused.
There were tears rising in her throat.
'Especially—what? Upon my word, you claim a rather remarkable knowledge of my family—in six weeks!'
'I do know something of Desmond!' Her voice showed her agitation. 'He is the dearest, the most generous boy. In a few months he will be going out—he will be saying good-bye to you all.'
'And then?'
'Is this a time to make him unhappy—to send him out with something on his mind?—something that might even—'
'Well, go on!'
'Might even make him wish'—her voice dropped—'not to come back.'
There was silence. Then the Squire violently threw down the pen he was holding on the table beside him.
'Thank you, Miss Bremerton. That will do. I bid you good-night!'
Elizabeth did not wait to be told twice. She turned and fled down the whole length of the library. The door at the further end closed upon her.
'A masterful young woman!' said the Squire after a moment, drawing a long breath. Then he took up the codicil, thrust it into a drawer of his writing-table, lit a cigarette, and walked up and down smoking it. After which he went to bed and slept remarkably well.
Elizabeth cried herself to sleep. No comforting sprite whispered to her that she had won the first round in an arduous campaign. On the contrary, she fully expected dismissal on the morrow.