CHAPTER IX
On the following morning the breakfast at Mannering was a very tame and silent affair. Forest was not in attendance, and the under housemaid, who commonly replaced him when absent, could not explain his non-appearance. He and his wife lived in a cottage beyond the stables, and all that could be said was that he 'had not come in.'
The Squire also was absent. But as his breakfast habits were erratic, owing to the fact that he slept badly and was often up and working at strange seasons of the night, neither of his daughters took any notice. Elizabeth did not feel inclined to say anything of her own observations in the small hours. If the Squire and Forest had been working at the barricade together, they were perhaps sleeping off their exertions. Or the Squire was already on the spot, waiting for the fray? Meanwhile, out of doors, a thick grey mist spread over the park.
So she sat silent like the other two—(Mrs. Gaddesden was of course in bed)—wondering from time to time when and how she should announce her departure.
Pamela meanwhile was thinking of the letter she would have to write to Desmond about the day's proceedings, and was impatient to be off as soon as possible for the scene of action. Once or twice it occurred to her to notice that Miss Bremerton was looking rather pale and depressed. But the fact only made Pamela feel prickly. 'If father does get into a row, what does it really matter to her. She's not responsible!—she's not one of us!'
Immediately after breakfast, Pamela disappeared. She made her way quietly through the park, where the dank mist still clung to the trees from which the leaf was dropping silently, continuously. The grass was all cobwebs. Every now and then the head of a deer would emerge from the dripping fern only to be swallowed up again in the fog.
Could a motor-plough work in a fog?
Presently, she who knew every inch of the ground and every tree upon it, became aware that she was close to the Chetworth gate. Suddenly the rattle of an engine and some men's voices caught her ear. The plough, sure enough! The sound of it was becoming common in the country-side. Then as the mist thinned and drifted she saw the thing plain—the puffing engine, one man driving and another following, while in their wake ran the black glistening furrow, where the grass had been.
And here was the gate. Pamela stood open-mouthed. Where were the elaborate defences and barricades of which rumour had been full the night before? The big gate swung idly on its hinges. And in front of it stood two men placidly smoking, in company with the village policeman. Not a trace of any obstruction—no hurdles, no barbed wire, only a few ends of rope lying in the road.
Then, looking round, she perceived old Perley, with a bag of ferrets in his hand, emerging from the mist, and she ran up to him breathlessly.
'So they've come, Perley! Was it they forced the gate?'
Perley scratched his head with his free hand.
'Well, it's an uncommon queer thing, Miss—but I can't tell yer who opened them gates! I come along here about seven o'clock this mornin', and the fog was so thick yo couldn't see nothin' beyond a yard or two. But when I got up to the gates, there they were open, just as you see 'em now. At first I thought there was summat wrong—that my eyes wasn't what they used to was. But they was all right.'
'And you saw the gates shut last night?'
'Barred up, so as you couldn't move 'em, Miss!—not without a crowbar or two, an' a couple of men. I thowt it was perhaps some village chaps larkin' as had done it. But it ain't none o' them. It beats me!'
Pamela looked at the two men smoking by the gate—representatives, very likely, of the Inspection Sub-Committee. Should she go up and question them? But some inherited instinct deterred her. She was glad the country should have the land and the corn. She had no sympathy with her father. And yet all the same when she actually saw Demos the outsider forcibly in possession of Mannering land, the Mannering spirit kicked a little. She would find out what had happened from some of their own people.
So after watching the County Council plough for a while as it clove its way up and down the park under the struggling sun which was gradually scattering the fog—her young intelligence quite aware all the time of the significance of the sight—she turned back towards the house. And presently, advancing to meet her, she perceived the figure of Elizabeth Bremerton—coming, no doubt, to get picturesque details on the spot for the letter she had promised to write to a certain artillery officer. A quick flame of jealousy ran through the girl's mind.
Miss Bremerton quickened her step.
'So they're open!' she said eagerly, as she and Pamela met. 'And there's nothing broken, or—or lying about!'
She looked in bewilderment at the unlittered road and swinging gate.
'They were open, Perley says, first thing this morning. He came by about seven.'
'Before the plough arrived?'
'Yes.'
They stood still, trying to puzzle it out. Then a sudden laugh crossed Elizabeth's face.
'Perhaps there were no barricades! Perhaps your father was taking us all in!'
'Not at all,' said Pamela drily. 'Perley saw the gates firmly barred with hurdles and barbed wire, and all tied up with rope, when he and his wife left the Lodge late last night.'
Elizabeth suddenly coloured brightly. Why, Pamela could not imagine. Her fair skin made it impossible for a flush to pass unnoticed. But why should she flush?
Elizabeth walked on rapidly, her eyes on the ground. When she raised them it was to look rather steadily at her companion.
'I think perhaps I had better tell you at once—I am very sorry!—but I shall be leaving you in a month. I told your father so last night.'
Pamela looked the astonishment she felt. For the moment she was tongue-tied. Was she glad or sorry? She did not know. But the instinct of good manners came to her aid.
'Can't you stand us?' she said bluntly. 'I expect you can't.'
Elizabeth laughed uncomfortably.
'Why, you've all been so kind to me. But I think perhaps'—she paused, trying to find her words—'I didn't quite understand—when I came—how much I still wanted to be doing things for the war—'
'Why, you might do heaps of things!' cried Pamela. 'You have been doing them. Taking an interest in the farms, I mean—and all that.'
'Well, but—' Elizabeth's brow puckered.
Then she broke into a frank laugh—'After all, that wasn't what I was engaged for, was it?'
'No—but you seemed to like to do it. And it's war-work,' said Pamela, inexorably.
Elizabeth was dismally conscious of her own apparent inconsistencies. It seemed best to be frank.
'The fact is—I think I'd better tell you—I tried yesterday to get your father to give up his plans about the gates. And when he wouldn't, and it seemed likely that there might be legal proceedings and—and a great fuss—in which naturally he would want his secretary to help him—'
'You just felt you couldn't? Well, of course I understand that,' said Pamela fervently. 'But then, you see,' she laughed, 'there isn't going to be a fuss. The plough just walked in, and the fifty acres will be done in no time.'
Elizabeth looked as she felt—worried.
'It's very puzzling. I wonder what happened? But I am afraid there will be other things where your father and I shall disagree—if, that is, he wants me to do so much else for him than the Greek work—'
'But you might say that you wouldn't do anything else but the Greek work?'
'Yes, I might,' said Elizabeth smiling, 'but once I've begun—'
'You couldn't keep to it?—father couldn't keep to it?'
Elizabeth shook her head decidedly. A little smile played about her lips, as much as to say, 'I am a managing woman and you must take me at that. "Il ne faut pas sortir de son caractère."' Pamela, looking at her, admired her for the first time. And now that there was to be no more question—apparently—of correspondence with Arthur Chicksands, her mood changed impulsively.
'Well, I'm very sorry!' she said—and then, sincerely, 'I don't know how the place will get on.'
'Thank you,' said Elizabeth. Her look twinkled a little. 'But you don't know what I might be after if I stayed!'
Pamela laughed out, and the two walked home, better friends than they had been yet, Elizabeth asking that the news of her resignation of her post might be regarded as confidential for a few days.
When they reached the house, Pamela went into the morning-room to tell her sisters of the tame ending to all their alarms, while Elizabeth hurried to the library. She was due there at half-past ten, and she was only just in time. Would the Squire be there? She remembered that she had to apologize for her absence of the day before.
She felt her pulse thumping a little as she opened the library door. There was undoubtedly something about the Squire—some queer magnetism—born perhaps of his very restlessness and unexpectedness—that made life in his neighbourhood seldom less than interesting. His temper this morning would probably be of the worst. Something, or some one, had defeated all his schemes for a magnificent assertion of the rights of man. His park was in the hands of the invaders. The public plough was impudently at work. And at the same moment his secretary had given warning, and the new catalogue—the darling of his heart—would be thrown on his hands. It would not be surprising to find him rampant. Elizabeth entered almost on tip-toe, prepared to be all that was meek and conciliating, so far as was compatible with her month's notice.
A tall figure rose from the Squire's table and made her a formal bow.
'Good-morning, Miss Bremerton. I expected your assistance yesterday afternoon, but you had, I understand, made an engagement?'
'I asked you—a few days ago,' said Elizabeth, mildly confronting him. 'I am sorry if it inconvenienced you.'
'Oh, all right—all right,' said the Squire hastily. 'I had forgotten all about it. Well, anyway, we have lost a great deal of time.' His voice conveyed reproach. His greenish eyes were fierily bent upon her.
Elizabeth sat down at her table without reply, and chose a pen. The morning's work generally consisted of descriptions of vases and bronzes in the Mannering collection, dictated by the Squire, and illustrated often by a number of references to classical writers, given both in Greek and English. The labour of looking out and verifying the references was considerable, and the Squire's testy temper was never more testy than when it was quarrelling with the difficulties of translation.
'Kindly take down,' he said peremptorily.
Elizabeth began:
'"No. 190. Greek vase, from a tomb excavated at Mitylene in 1902. Fine work of the fifth century B.C. Subject: Penelope's Web. Penelope is seated at the loom. Beside her are the figures of a young man and two females—probably Telemachus and two hand-maidens. The three male figures in the background may represent the suitors. Size, 23 inches high; diameter, 11 inches. Perfect, except for a restoration in one of the handles."
'Have you got that?'
'Yes.'
'Go on please. "This vase is of course an illustration of the well-known passage in the Odyssey, Book 21. 103. I take Mr. Samuel Butler's translation, which is lively and modern and much to be preferred to the heavy archaisms of the other fellows."'
Elizabeth gave a slight cough. The Squire looked at her sharply.
'Oh, you think that's not dignified? Well, have it as you like.'
Elizabeth altered the phrase to 'other translators.' The Squire resumed. '"Antinous, one of the suitors, is speaking: 'We could see her working on her great web all day long, but at night she would unpick the stitches again by torchlight. She fooled us in this way for three years, and we never found her out, but as time wore on, and she was now in her fourth year, one of her maids, who knew what she was doing, told us, and we caught her in the act of undoing her work, so she had to finish it, whether she would or no....' I tell you, we never heard of such a woman; we know all about Tyro, Alcmena, Mycene, and the famous women of old, but they were nothing to your mother—any one of them."—And yet she was only undoing her own work!—she was not forcing a grown man to undo his!' said the Squire, with a sudden rush of voice and speech.
Elizabeth looked up astonished.
'Am I to put that down?'
The Squire threw away the book he was holding. His shining white hair seemed positively to bristle on his head, his long legs twined and untwined themselves.
'Don't pretend, please, that you don't know what part you've been playing in this affair!' he said with sarcasm. 'It took Forest and me three good hours this morning to take down as fine a barricade as ever I saw put up. I'm stiff with it still. British liberties have been thrown to the dogs—γυναικος ούνεκα—all because of a woman! And there you sit, as though nothing had happened! Yet I chanced to see you just now, coming back with Pamela!'
Elizabeth's flush this time dyed her all crimson. She sat, pen in hand, staring at her employer.
'I don't understand what you mean, Mr. Mannering.' At which her conscience whispered to her sharply, 'You guessed it already—in the park!'
The Squire jumped to his feet, and came to stand excitedly in front of her, his hands thrust into the high pockets of his waistcoat.
'I am extremely sorry!' he said, with that grand seigneur politeness he could put on when he chose—'but I am not able to credit that statement. You make it honestly, of course, but that a person of your intelligence, when you saw those gates, failed to put two and two together, well!'—the Squire shook his head, and shrugged his shoulders, became, in fact, one protesting gesture—'if you ask me to believe it,' he continued, witheringly, 'I suppose I must, but—'
'Mr. Mannering!' said Elizabeth earnestly, 'it would really be kind of you to explain.'
Her blush had died away. She had fallen back in her chair, and was meeting his attack with the steady, candid look that betrayed her character. She was now entirely self-possessed—neither nervous nor angry.
The Squire changed his tone. Folding his arms, he leant against a pedestal which supported a bust of a Roman emperor.
'Very well, then—I will explain. I told you yesterday of a step I proposed to take by way of testing how far the invasion of personal freedom had gone in this country. I was perfectly justified in taking it. I was prepared to suffer for my action. I had thought it all out. Then you came in—and by force majeure compelled me to give it all up!'
Elizabeth could not help laughing.
'I never heard any account of an incident which fitted less with the facts!' she said with vivacity.
'It exactly fits them!' the Squire insisted. 'When I told you what I meant to do, instead of sympathy—instead of simple acquiescence, for how the deuce were you responsible!—you threatened to throw up the work I cannot now possibly accomplish without you—'
'Mr. Levasseur?' suggested Elizabeth.
'Levasseur be hanged!' said the Squire, taking an angry pace up and down. 'Don't please interrupt me. I have given you a perfectly free hand, and you have organized the work—your share of it—as you please. Nobody else is the least likely to do it in the same way. When you go, it drops. And when your share drops, mine drops. That's what comes of employing a woman of ability, and trusting to her—as I have trusted to you!'
Was there ever any attack so grotesque, so unfair? Elizabeth was for one moment inclined to be angry—and the next, she was conscious of yieldings and compunctions that were extremely embarrassing.
'You rate my help a great deal too high,' she said after a moment. 'It is you yourself who have taught me how to work in your way. I don't think you will have any real difficulty with another secretary. You are'—she ventured a smile—'you are a born teacher.'
Never was any compliment less successful. The Squire looked sombrely down upon her.
'So you still intend to leave us,' he said slowly, 'after what I have done?'
'What have you done?' said Elizabeth faintly.
'Made myself a laughing-stock to the whole country-side!—and thrown all my principles overboard—to content you—and save my book!' The reply was given with an angry energy that shook her. 'I have humbled myself to the dust to meet your sentimental ideas—and there you sit—as stony and inaccessible as this fellow here!'—he brought his hand down with vehemence on the Roman emperor's shoulder. 'Not a word of gratitude—or concession—or sympathy! I was indeed a fool to take any trouble to please you!'
Elizabeth was silent. They surveyed each other. 'No agitation!' said Elizabeth's inner mind; 'keep cool!'
At last she withdrew her own eyes from the angry tension of his—dropped them to the table where her right hand was mechanically drawing nonsense figures on her blotting-paper.
'Did you really yourself take down that barricade?' she said gently.
'I did! And it was an infernal piece of work!'
'I'm awfully glad!' Her voice was very soft.
'I daresay you are. It suits your principles, and your ideas, of course—not mine! And now, having driven me to it—having publicly discredited and disgraced me—you can still sit there and talk of throwing up your work.'
The growing passion in the irascible gentleman towering above her warned her that it was time to bring the scene to an end.
'I am glad,' she repeated steadily, 'very glad—especially—for Mr. Desmond.'
'Oh, Desmond!' the Squire threw out impatiently, beginning again to walk up and down.
'He would have minded so dreadfully,' she said, still in a lower key. 'It was really him I was thinking of. Of course I had no right to interfere with your affairs—'
The Squire turned, the tyrant in him reviving fast.
'Well, you did interfere—and to some purpose! Now then—yes or no—is your notice withdrawn?'
Elizabeth hesitated.
'I would willingly stay with you,' she said, 'if—'
'If what?'
She looked up with a sudden flash of laughter.
'If we can really get on!'
'Name your terms!' He returned, frowning and excited, to the neighbourhood of the Roman emperor.
'Oh no—I have no terms,' she said hurriedly. 'Only—if you ask me to help you with the land, I should want to obey the Government—and—and do the best for the war.'
'Condition No. 1,' said the Squire grimly, checking it off. 'Go on!'
'And—I should—perhaps—beg you to let Pamela do some V.A.D. work, if she wants to.'
'Pamela is your affair!' said the Squire impatiently. 'If you stay here, you are her chaperon, and, for the present, head of the household.'
'Only just for the present—till Pamela can do it!' put in Elizabeth hastily. 'But she's nineteen—she ought to take a part.'
'Well, don't bother me about that. You are responsible. I wash my hands of her. Anything else?'
It did not do to think of Pamela's feelings, should she ever become aware of how she was being handed over. But the mention of her, on a sudden impulse, had been pure sympathy on Elizabeth's part; a wish to strike on the girl's behalf while the iron was so very hot. She looked up quietly.
'No, indeed there is nothing else—except indeed—that you won't expect me to hide what I feel about the war—and the little we at home can do to help—'
Her voice failed a little. The Squire said nothing. She went on, with a clearing countenance.
'So—if you really wish it—I will stay, Mr. Mannering—and try to help you all I can. It was splendid of you—to give up your plans. I'm sure you won't regret it.'
'I'm not sure at all—but it's done. Now, then, let us understand. You take over my estate correspondence. You'll want a clerk—I'll find one. You can appoint a new agent if you like. You can do what you like, in fact. I was never meant to be a landowner, and I hate the whole business. You can harry the farmers as you please—I shan't interfere.'
'Allow me to point out,' said Elizabeth firmly, 'that at college I was not trained in land-agency—but in Greek!'
'What does that matter? If women can build Dreadnoughts, as they say they can, they can manage estates. Now, then, as to my conditions. Do what you like—but my book and the catalogue come first!' He looked at her with an exacting eye.
'Certainly,' said Elizabeth.
'But I know what you'll do—you'll go and break down! You are not to break down.'
'Certainly!' said Elizabeth.
'But you have once broken down.'
Her start was perceptible, but she answered quietly.
'I was ill a year ago—partly from overwork. But I am normally quite strong.'
The Squire observed her. It was very pleasant to him to see her sitting there, in her trim serge dress, with its broad white collar and cuffs—the sheen of her hair against the dark wall—her shapely hands ready for work upon his table. He felt as if he had with enormous difficulty captured—recaptured—something of exceptional value; like one of those women 'skilled in beautiful arts' whom the Greek slave-raiders used to carry off from a conquered city, and sell for large sums to the wives of wealthy Greek chieftains. Till now he had scarcely thought of her as a woman, but rather as a fine-edged but most serviceable tool which he had had the extraordinary good luck to find. Now, with his mere selfish feeling of relief there mingled something rather warmer and more human. If only she would stay, he would honestly try and make life agreeable to her.
'Well now, that's settled,' he said, drawing a long breath—'Oh—except one thing—you will of course want a larger salary?'
'Not at all,' said Elizabeth decidedly. 'You pay me quite enough.'
'You are not offended with me for asking?' His tone had become astonishingly deferential.
'Not the least. I am a business woman. If I thought myself entitled to more I should say so. But it is extremely doubtful whether I can really be of any use whatever to you.'
'All right,' said the Squire, returning to his own table. 'Now, then, let us go on with No. 190.'
'Is it necessary now to put in—well, quite so much about Penelope?' asked Elizabeth, as she took up her pen.
'What do you think?'
'It seems a little long and dragged in.' Elizabeth looked critically at the paragraph.
'And we have now unravelled the web?—we can do without her? Yes—let her go!' said the Squire, in a tone of excessive complaisance.
When the morning's work was done, and luncheon over, Elizabeth carried off Pamela to her room. When Pamela emerged, she went in search of Forest, interviewed him in the gun-room, and then shutting herself up in the 'den' she wrote to Desmond.
'MY DEAR DEZZY—There are such queer things going on in this queer house! Yesterday Broomie gave warning, and father barricaded the park gates, and was perfectly mad, and determined not to listen to anybody. In the middle of the night he and Forest took the barricade down, and to-day, Broomie is to be not only secretary, but land-agent, and anything else she pleases—queen, in fact, of all she surveys—including me. But I am bound to say she had been very decent to me over it all. She wants me to do some of the housekeeping—and she has actually made father consent to my helping at the hospital every afternoon. Of course I am awfully glad about that. I shall bicycle over.
'But all the same it is very odd, and perhaps you and I had better consider what it may mean. I know from Broomie herself that she gave notice yesterday—and now she is going to stay. And I know from Forest that father called him up when it was quite dark, between three and four in the morning—Mrs. Forest thought the Germans had come when she heard the knocking—and asked him to come with him and undo the gates. Forest told me that he would have had nothing whatever to do with closing them, nor with anything 'agin the Government! He's a staunch old soul, is Forest. So when father told him what he wanted, he didn't know what to make of it. However, they both groped their way through the fog, which was thick on the other side of the park, and set to at the gates. Forest says it was an awful business to get everything cleared away. Father and Gregson had made an uncommonly good job of it. If Gregson had put in work like that on his own hedges and gates, Forest says he mightn't have been kicked out! It took them ages getting the barbed wire cleared away, because they hadn't any proper nippers. Father took off his coat, and worked like a navvy, and Forest hoisted him up to get at the wire along the wall. Forest says he was determined to leave nothing! "And I believe, Miss, the Squire was very glad of the fog—because there couldn't be any one prying around."
'For it seems to be really true that the village has been in a state of ferment, and that they had determined to free the gates and let in the Council plough. Perley was seen talking to a lot of men on the green last night. I met him myself this morning after breakfast near the gates, and he confessed he had been there already—early. I expect he came to reconnoitre and take back the news. Rather calm, for one of father's own men! But that's the new spirit, Dezzy. We're not going to be allowed to have it all our own way any more. Well, thank goodness, I don't mind. At least, there is something in me that minds. I suppose it's one's forbears. But the greater part of me wants a lot of change—and there are often and often times when I wish I'd been born in the working-class and was just struggling upwards with them, and sharing all their hopes and dreams for "after the war." Well, why shouldn't I? I'm going to set Broomie on to some of the cottages in the village—not that she'll want setting on—but after all, it's I who know the people.
'But that's by the way. The point is why did father give in? Evidently because Broomie gave notice, and he couldn't bear the idea of parting with her. Of course Alice—and Margaret too, to some extent—are convinced it all means that father wants to marry her. Only Alice thinks that Miss Bremerton has been intriguing for it since the first week she set foot in the house; while Margaret is certain that she wouldn't marry father if he asked her. She thinks that Miss B. is just the new woman, who wants to do things, and isn't always thinking about getting married. Well, Dezzy, old boy—I don't know what to think. I'll keep my eyes open, and report to you. I don't—altogether—like her. No, I don't—that's flat. I wish, on the whole, she'd taken her departure! And yet I feel rather a toad for saying so. She is splendid in some things—yes, she is! And the Rectory people take the most rose-coloured view of her—it's too late to tell you why, for the postman is just coming.
'Good-bye, Dezzy—dear Dezzy! I know how glad you'll be about the gates. Write to me as often as you can. By the way, Miss Bremerton has got a brother in the war—with General Maude. That ought to make me like her. But why did she leave us to find it out through the Rectory? She never says anything about herself that she can help. Do you think you'll really get to France in January? Ever your loving
'PAM.'