CHAPTER VII
A week or two had passed.
The Squire was on his way to inspect his main preparations for the battle at the park gates, which he expected on the morrow. He had been out before breakfast that morning, on horseback, with one of the gardeners, to see that all the gates on the estate, except the Chetworth gate, were locked and padlocked. For the Chetworth gate, which adjoined the land to be attacked, more serious defences were in progress.
All his attempts to embarrass the action of the Committee had been so far vain. The alternatives he had proposed had been refused. Fifty acres at the Chetworth end of Mannering Park, besides goodly slices elsewhere, the County Committee meant to have. As the Squire would not plough them himself, and as the season was advancing, he had been peremptorily informed that the motor plough belonging to the County Committee would be sent over on such a day, with so many men, to do the work; the land had been surveyed; no damage would be done to the normal state of the property that could be avoided; et cetera.
So the crisis was at hand. The Squire felt battle in his blood.
As he walked along through his domain, exhilarated by the bright frosty morning, and swinging his stick like a boy, he was in the true Quixotic mood, ready to tilt at any wind-mill in his path. The state of the country, the state of the war, the state of his own affairs, had produced in him a final ferment of resentment and disgust which might explode in any folly.
Why not go to prison? He thought he could bear it. A man must stand by his opinions—even through sacrifice. It would startle the public into attention. Such outrages on the freedom, on the ancient rights of Englishmen, must not pass without protest. Yes—he felt it in him to be a martyr! They would hardly refuse him a pocket Homer in prison.
What, a month? Three weeks, in actual practice. Luckily he cared nothing at all about food—though he refused to be rationed by a despotic Government. On a handful of dates and a bit of coarse bread he had passed many a day of hard work when he was excavating in the East. One can always starve—for a purpose! The Squire conceived himself as out for Magna Charta—the root principles of British liberty. As for those chattering fellows of the Labour Party, let them conquer England if they could. While the Government ploughed up his land without leave, the Socialists would strip him of it altogether. Well, nothing for it but to fight! If one went down, one went down—but at least honourably.
In the Times that morning there was a report of a case in the north, a landowner fined £100, for letting a farm go to waste for the game's sake. And Miss Bremerton had been holding up the like fate to him that morning—because of Holme Wood. A woman of parts that!—too clever!—a disputatious creature, whom a man would like to put down. But it wasn't easy; she slipped out of your grip—gave you unexpected tits for tats. One would have thought after that business with the will, she would be anxious to make up—to show docility. In such a relation one expected docility. But not a bit of it! She grew bolder. The Squire admitted uncomfortably that it was his own fault—only, in fact, what he deserved for making a land-agent, accountant, and legal adviser out of a poor lady who had merely engaged herself to be his private secretary for classical purposes.
All the same he confessed that she had never yet neglected the classical side of her duties. His thoughts contrasted the library and the collections as they were now, with what they had been a couple of months before. Now he knew where books could be found; now one could see the precious things he possessed. Her taste—her neatness—her diligence—nothing could beat them. And she moved so quietly—had so light a foot—and always a pleasant voice and smile. Oh yes, she had been a great catch—an astonishing catch—no doubt of that. All the same he was not going to be entirely governed by her! And again he thought complacently of the weak places in her scholarship—the very limited extent of her reading—compared to his. 'By Zeus!—ει ποτ' εστιν—if it weren't for that, I should never keep the whip-hand of her at all!'
She had made a forlorn attempt again, that morning, to dissuade him from the park adventure. But there he drew the line. For there really was a line, though he admitted it might be difficult to see, considering all that he was shovelling upon her. He had been very short—perhaps she would say, very rude—with her. Well, it couldn't be helped! When she saw what he was really prepared to face, she would at least respect him. And if he was shut up, she could get on with the catalogue, and keep things going.
Altogether the Squire was above himself. The tonic air and scents of the autumn, the crisp leaves underfoot, the slight frost on the ruts, helped his general intoxication. He, the supposed scholar and recluse, was about to play a part—a rattling part. The eye of England would be upon him! He already tasted the prison fare, and found it quite tolerable.
As to Desmond—
But the thought of him no sooner crossed the Squire's mind than he dismissed it. Or rather it survived far within, as a volcanic force, from which the outer froth and ferment drew half its strength. He was being forcibly dispossessed of Desmond, just as he was being forcibly dispossessed of his farms and his park; or of his money, swallowed up in monstrous income tax.
Ah, there were Dodge and Perley, the two park-keepers, one of whom lived in the White Lodge, now only a hundred yards away. Another man who was standing by them, near the park wall, looked to the Squire like Gregson, his ejected farmer. And who was that black-coated fellow coming through the small wicket-gate beside the big one? What the devil was he doing in the park? There was a permanent grievance in the Squire's mind against the various rights-of-way through his estate. Why shouldn't he be at liberty to shut out that man if he wanted to? Of course by the mere locking and barricading of the gates, as they would be locked and barricaded on the morrow, he was flouting the law. But that was a trifle. The gates were his own anyway.
The black-coated man, however, instead of proceeding along the road, had now approached the group of men standing under the wall, and was talking with them. They themselves did not seem to be doing anything, although a large coil of barbed wire and a number of hurdles lay near them.
'Hullo, Dodge!'
At the Squire's voice the black-coated man withdrew a little distance to the roadway, where he stood watching. Of the three others the two old fellows, ex-keepers both of them, stood sheepishly silent, as the Squire neared them.
'Well, my men, good-morning! What have you done?' said the Squire peremptorily.
Dodge looked up.
'We've put a bit of wire on the gate, Squoire, an' fastened the latch of it up—and we've put a length or two along the top of the wall,' said the old man slowly—'an' then—' He paused.
'Then what?—what about the hurdles? I expected to find them all up by now!'
Dodge looked at Perley. And Perley, a gaunt, ugly fellow, who had been a famous hunter and trapper in his day, took off his hat and mopped his brow, before he said, in a small, cautious voice, entirely out of keeping with the rest of him:
'The treuth on it is, Squoire, we don't loike the job. We be afeard of their havin' the law on us.'
'Oh, you're afraid, are you?' said the Squire angrily. 'You won't stand up for your rights, anyway!'
Perley looked at his employer a little askance.
'They're not our rights, if you please, Muster Mannering. We don't have nothing to say to 'un.'
'They are your rights, you foolish fellow! If this abominable Government tramples on me to-day, it'll trample on you to-morrow.'
'Mebbe, Squoire, mebbe,' said Perley mildly. 'But Dodge and I don't feel loike standing up to 'un. We was engaged to mind the roads an' the leaves, an' a bit rabbitin', an' sich like. But this sort of job is somethin' out o' the common, Muster Mannering. We don't hold wi' it. The County they've got a powerful big road-engine, Squoire. They'll charge them gates to-morrow—there 'll be a terr'ble to do. My wife, she's frightened to death. She's got a cart from Laycocks, and she's takin' all our bit things over to her mother's. She won't stay, she says, to be blowed up, not for no one. Them Governments is terr'ble powerful, Squoire. If they was to loose a bit o' gas on us—or some o' they stuffs they put into shells? Noa, Noa, Squoire'—Perley shook his head resolutely, imitated exactly by Dodge—'we'll do our dooty in them things we was engaged to do. But we're not foightin' men!'
'You needn't tell me that!' said the Squire, exasperated. 'The look of you's enough. So you refuse to barricade those gates?'
'Well, we do, Squoire,' said Perley, in a tone of forced cheerfulness.
'Yes, we do,' said Dodge slowly, copying the manner of his leader.
All this time Gregson had been standing a little apart from the rest. His face showed traces of recent drinking, his hands wandered restlessly from his coat-collar to his pockets, his clothes were shabby and torn. But when the Squire looked round him, as though invoking some one or something to aid him against these deserters, Gregson came forward.
'If you want any help, Mr. Mannering, I'm your man. I suppose these fellows'll lend a hand with carrying these things up to the gates. They'll not risk their precious skins much by doing that!'
Perley and Dodge replied with alacrity that so far they would gladly oblige the Squire, and they began to shoulder the hurdles.
It was at that moment that the Squire caught the eye of the black-coated man, who had been observing the whole proceedings from about ten yards off. The expression of the eye roused in Mannering an itching desire to lay immediate hands on its possessor. He strode up to him.
'I don't know, sir, why you stand there, looking on at things that are no business of yours,' he said angrily. 'If you want to know your way anywhere, one of my men here will show you.'
'Oh, thank you,' said the other tranquilly. 'I know my way perfectly.' He held up an ordnance map, which he carried in his hand. 'I'm an engineer. I come from London, and I'm bound for a job at Crewe. But I'm very fond of country walking when the weather's good. I've walked about a good bit of England, in my time, but this part is a bit I don't know. So, as I had two days' holiday, I thought I'd have a look at your place on the road. And as you are aware, Mr. Mannering'—he pointed to the map—'this is a right-of-way, and you can't turn me out.'
'All the same, sir, you are on my property,' said the Squire hotly, 'and a right-of-way only means a right of passing through. I should be much obliged if you would hurry yourself a little.'
The other laughed. He was a slim fellow, apparently about thirty, in a fresh, well-cut, serge suit. A book was sticking out of one pocket; he returned the map to the other. He had the sallow look of one who has spent years in hot workshops, and a slight curvature of the spine; but his eyes were singularly, audaciously bright, and all his movements alert and decided.
'It's not often one sees such a typical bit of feudalism as this,' he said, without the smallest embarrassment, pointing to the old men, the gates, the hurdles, which Gregson was now placing in position, and finally the Squire himself. 'I wouldn't have missed it for worlds. It's as good as a play. You're fighting the County Agricultural War Committee, I understand from these old fellows, because they want a bit of your park to grow more food?'
'Well, sir, and how does it matter to you?'
'Oh, it matters a great deal,' said the other, smiling. 'I want to be able to tell my grandchildren—when I get 'em—that I once saw this kind of thing. They'll never believe me. For in their day, you see, there'll be no squires, and no parks. The land 'll be the people's, and all this kind of thing—your gates, your servants, your fine house, your game-coverts, and all the rest of it—will be like a bit of history out of Noah's Ark.'
The Squire looked at him attentively.
'You're a queer kind of chap,' he said, half contemptuously. 'I suppose you're one of those revolutionary fellows the papers talk about?'
'That's it. Only there are a good many of us. When the time comes,' he nodded pleasantly, 'we shall know how to deal with you.'
'It'll take a good deal longer than you think,' said the Squire coolly; 'unless indeed you borrow the chap from Russia who's invented the machine for cutting off five hundred heads at once, by electricity. That might hasten matters a little!'
He had by now entirely recovered his chaffing, reckless temper, and was half enjoying the encounter.
'Oh, not so long,' said the other. 'You're just passing a Franchise Bill that will astonish you when you see the results! You perhaps may just live it out—yes, you may die peaceably in that house yonder. But your son, if you have one—that'll be another pair of boots!'
'You and your pals would be much better employed in stopping this accursed war than in talking revolutionary drivel like that,' said the Squire, with energy.
'Oh ho! so you want to stop the war?' said the other, lifting his eyebrows. 'I should like to know why.'
The Squire went off at once into one of his usual tirades as to 'slavery' and 'liberty.' 'You're made to work, or fight! willy-nilly. That man's turned out of his farm—willy-nilly. I'm made to turn him out—willy-nilly. The common law of England's trampled under foot. What's worth it? Nothing!'
The Squire's thin countenance glowed fanatically. With his arms akimbo he stood towering over the younger man, his white hair glistening in the sun.
The other smiled, as he looked his assailant up and down.
'Who's the revolutionist now?' he said quietly. 'What's the war cost you, Mr. Mannering, compared to what it's cost me and my pals? This is the first holiday I've had for three years. Twice I've dropped like dead in the shop—strained heart, says the doctor. No time to eat!—no time to sleep!—come out for an hour, wolf some brandy down and go back again, and then they tell you you're a drunken brute! "Shells and guns!" says the Government—"more shells!—more guns!—deliver the goods!" And we've delivered 'em. My two brothers are dead in France. I shall be "combed" out directly, and a "sniper" will get me, perhaps, three days after I get to the trenches, as he did my young brother. What then? Oh, I know, there's some of us—the young lads mostly—who've got out of hand, and 'll give the Government trouble perhaps before they've done. Who can wonder, when you see the beastly towns they come out of, and the life they were reared in! And none of us are going to stand profiteering, and broken pledges, and that kind of thing!'—a sudden note of passion rushed into the man's voice. 'But after all, when all's said and done, this is England!' he turned with a fine, unconscious gesture to the woods and green spaces behind him, and the blue distances of plain—'and we're Englishmen—and it's touch and go whether England's going to come out or go under; and if we can't pay the Huns for what they've done in Belgium—what they've done in France!—what they've done to our men on the sea!—well, it's a devil's world!—and I'd sooner be quit of it, it don't matter how!'
The man's slight frame shook under the force of his testimony. His eyes held the Squire, who was for the moment silenced. Then the engineer turned on his heel with a laugh:
'Well, good-day to you, Mr. Mannering. Go and fasten up your gates! If I'm for minding D.O.R.A. and winning the war, I'm a good Socialist all the same. I shall be for making short work with you, when our day comes.' And touching his hat, he walked rapidly away.
The Squire straightened his shoulders, and looked round to see whether they had been overheard. But the labourers carrying the hurdles, and Gregson burdened with the coil of wire, had not been listening. They stood now in a group close to the main gate waiting for their leader. The Squire walked up to them, picking his way among various articles of furniture, a cradle, some bedding, a trunk or two, which lay scattered in the road in front of the white casemented lodge. The wife of old Perley, the lodge-keeper, was standing on her doorstep.
'Well, no offence, Muster Mannering, but Perley and me's going over to my sister's at Wood End to-night, afore the milingtary come.' The black-browed elderly woman spoke respectfully but firmly.
'What silly nonsense have you got into your heads?' shouted the Squire. 'You know very well all that's going to happen is that the County Council are going to send their motor-plough over, and they'll have to break down the gates to get in, so that the law can settle it. What's come to you that you're all scuttling like a pack of rabbits? It's not your skins that'll pay for it—it's mine!'
'We're told—Perley an' me—as there'll be milingtary,' said Mrs. Perley, unmoved. 'Leastways, they'll bring a road-engine, Perley says, as'll make short work o' them gates. And folks do say as they might even bring a tank along; you know, sir, as there's plenty of 'em, and not fur off.' She nodded mysteriously towards a quarter, never mentioned in the neighbourhood, where these Behemoths of war had a training-ground. 'And Perley and me, we can't have nowt to do wi' such things. We wasn't brought up to 'em.'
'Well, if you go, you don't come back!' said the Squire, shaking a threatening hand.
'Thank you, sir. But there's work for all on us nowadays,' said the woman placidly.
Then the Squire, with Gregson's help, set himself fiercely to the business. In little more than an hour, and with the help of some pieces of rope, the gate had been firmly barricaded with hurdles and barbed wire, wicket-gate and all, and the Squire, taking a poster in large letters from his pocket, affixed it to the outside of the gate. It signified to all and sundry that the Chetworth gate of Mannering Park could now only be opened by violence, and that those offering such violence would be proceeded against according to law.
When it was done, the Squire first addressed a few scathing words to the pair of park-keepers, who smoked imperturbably through them, and then transferred a pound-note to the ready palm of Gregson, who was, it seemed, on the point of accepting work as a stock-keeper from another of the Squire's farmers—a brother culprit, only less 'hustled' than himself by the formidable County Committee, which was rapidly putting the fear of God into every bad husbandman throughout Brookshire. Then the Squire hurried off homewards.
His chief thought now was—what would that most opinionated young woman at home say to him? He was at once burning to have it out with her, and—though he would have scorned to confess it—nervous as to how he might get through the encounter.
Fate, however, ordained that his thoughts about the person who had now grown so important to his household should be affected, before he saw her again, from a new quarter. The Rector, Mr. Pennington, quite unaware of the doughty deeds that had been done at the Chetworth gate, and coming from his own house which stood within the park enclosure, ran into the Squire at a cross-road.
The Squire looked at him askance, and kept his own counsel. The Rector was a man of peace, and had once or twice tried to dissuade the Squire from his proposed acts of war. The Squire, therefore, did not mean to discuss them with him. But, in general, he and the Rector were good friends. The Rector was a bit of a man of the world, and never attempted to put a quart into a pint-pot. He took the Squire as he found him, and would have missed the hospitalities of the Hall—or rather the conversation they implied—if he had been obliged to forgo them. The Squire on his side had observed with approval that the Rector was a fair scholar, and a bad beggar. He could take up quotations from Horace, and he was content with such parish subscriptions as the Squire had given for twenty years, and was firmly minded not to increase.
But here also the arrival of Elizabeth had stirred the waters. For the Rector was actually on his way to try and get a new subscription out of the Squire; and it was Elizabeth's doing.
'You remember that child of old Leonard the blacksmith?' said the Rector eagerly; 'a shocking case of bow-legs, one of the worst I ever saw. But Miss Bremerton's taken endless trouble. And now we've got an admission for him to the Orthopaedic hospital. But there's a few pounds to be raised for his maintenance—it will be a question of months. I was just coming over to see if you would give me a little,' he wound up, in a tone of apology.
The Squire, with a brow all clouds, observed that when children were bow-legged it was entirely the fault of their mothers.
'Ah, yes,' said the Rector, with a sigh. 'Mrs. Leonard is a slatternly woman—no doubt of that. But when you've said that you haven't cured the child.'
The Squire ungraciously said he would consider it; and the Rector, knowing well that he would get no more at a first assault, let the child alone, and concentrated on the topic of Elizabeth.
'An extraordinarily capable creature,' he said warmly, 'and a good heart besides. You were indeed lucky to find her, and you are very wise to give her her head. The village folk can't say enough about her.'
The Squire felt his mouth twitching. With some horses, is there any choice—but Hobson's—as to 'giving' them their head?
'Yes, she's clever,' he said grudgingly.
'And it was only to-day,' pursued the Rector, 'that I heard her story from a lady, a friend of my wife's, who's been spending Sunday with us. She seems to have met Miss Bremerton and her family at Richmond a year or so ago, where everybody who knew them had a great respect for them. The mother was a nice, gentle body, but this elder daughter had most of the wits—though there's a boy in a Worcester regiment they're all very fond and proud of—and she always looked after the others, since the father—who was a Civil servant—died, six years ago. Then two years since, she engaged herself to a young Yeomanry officer—'
'Eh—what?—what do you say?—a Yeomanry officer?' said the Squire, looking round.
'Precisely—a Yeomanry officer. They were engaged and apparently very happy. He was a handsome, upstanding fellow, very popular with women. Then he went out to Egypt with his regiment, and it was intended they should marry when he got his first leave. But presently his letters began to change. Then they only came at long intervals. And at last they stopped. He had complained once of an attack of sunstroke, and she was wretched, thinking he was ill. At last a letter reached her from a brother officer, who seems to have behaved very kindly—with the explanation. Her fiance had got into the clutches—no one exactly knew how—of a Greek family living in Alexandria, and had compromised himself so badly with one of the daughters, that the father, a cunning old Greek merchant, had compelled him to marry her. Threats of exposure, and all the rest! The brother officer hinted at a plot—that the poor fellow had been trapped, and was more sinned against than sinning. However, there it was. He was married to the Greek girl; Miss Bremerton's letters were returned; and the thing was at an end. Our friend says she behaved splendidly. She went on with her work in the War Trade Department—shirked nothing and no one—till suddenly, about six months ago, she had a bad breakdown—'
'What do you mean?' said the Squire abruptly. 'She was ill?'
'A combination of overwork and influenza, I should think; but no doubt the tragedy had a good deal to do with it. She went down to stay for a couple of months with an uncle in Dorsetshire, and got better. Then the family lost some money, through a solicitor's mismanagement—enough anyway to make a great deal of difference. The mother too broke down in health. Miss Bremerton came home at once, and took everything on her own shoulders. You remember, she heard of your secretaryship from that Balliol man you wrote to—who had been a tutor of hers when she was at Somerville? She determined to apply for it. It was more money than she was getting in London, and she had to provide for her mother and to educate her young sister. Plucky woman! All this interested me very much, I confess. I have formed such a high opinion of her! And I thought it would interest you.'
'I don't know what we any of us have to do with it,' grumbled the Squire.
The Rector drew himself up a little, resenting the implied rebuke.
'I hope I don't seem to you to be carrying gossip for gossip's sake,' he said, rather indignantly. 'Nothing was further from my intention. I like and admire Miss Bremerton a great deal too much.'
'Well, I don't know what we can do,' said the Squire testily. 'We can't unmarry the man.'
The Rector pulled up short, and offered a chilly good-bye. As he hurried on towards the village—little knowing the obstacles he would encounter in his path—he said to himself that the Squire's manners were really past endurance. One could hardly imagine that Miss Bremerton would be long able to put up with them.
The Squire meanwhile pursued the rest of his way, wrapped in rather disagreeable reflections. He was not at all grateful to the Rector for telling him the story—quite the reverse. It altered his mental attitude towards his secretary; introduced disturbing ideas, which he had no use for. He had taken for granted that she was one of those single women of the present day whose intellectual interests are enough for them, who have never really felt the call of passion, and can be trusted to look at life sensibly without taking love and marriage into account. To think of Miss Bremerton as having suffered severely from a love-affair—broken her heart, and injured her health over it—was most distracting. If it had happened once—why, of course, it might happen again. She was not immune; in spite of all her gifts, she was susceptible, and it was a horrid nuisance.
He went home all on edge, what with the adventure of the gates, the encounter with the engineer fellow, and now the revelations of the Rector.
As he approached the house, he saw from the old clock in the gable of the northern front that it was two o'clock. He was half-an-hour late for lunch. Luncheon, in fact, must be over. And indeed, as he passed along the library windows, he saw Elizabeth's figure at her desk. It annoyed him that she should have gone back to work so soon after her meal. He had constantly made it plain to her that she was not expected to begin work of an afternoon till four o'clock. She would overdo it: and then she would break down again as she had done before. In his selfishness, his growing dependence on her companionship and her help, he began to dread the mere chance.
How agreeable, and how fruitful, their days of work had been lately! He had been, of course, annoyed sometimes by her preoccupation with the war news of the morning. Actually, this Caporetto business, the Italian disaster, had played the mischief with her for a day or two—and the news from Russia. Any bad news, indeed, seemed to haunt her; her colour faded away; and if he dictated notes to her, they would be occasionally inaccurate. But that was seldom. In general, he felt that he had made great strides during the preceding weeks; that, thanks to her, the book he was attempting was actually coming into shape. She had suggested so much—sometimes by her knowledge, sometimes by her ignorance. And always so modest—so teachable—so docile.
Docile? The word passing through his mind again, as it had in the morning, roused in him mingled laughter and uneasiness. For outside their classical work together, nothing indeed could be less docile than Miss Bremerton. How she had withstood him in the matter of the codicil! He could see her still, as she stood there with her hands behind her, defying him. And that morning also, when she had spoken her mind on the project of the gates.
Well, now, he had to go in and tell her that the deed was done, and the park was closed.
He crept round to a side door, nervous lest she should perceive him from the library, and made Forest get him some lunch. Then he hung about the hall smoking. It was ridiculous—nonsensical—but he admitted to himself that he shrank from facing her.
At last a third cigarette put the requisite courage into him, and he walked slowly to the library. As he entered the room, Elizabeth rose from her chair.
She stood there waiting for his orders, or his report—her quiet eyes upon him.
He told himself not to be a fool, and throwing away his cigarette, he walked up to her, and said in a tone of bravado:
'Well, the barricades are up!'