CHAPTER XIV
Elizabeth was coming back in that flushed mood when an able man or woman who begins to feel the tide of success or power rising beneath them also begins to remind himself or herself of all the old commonplaces about Fate or Chance. Elizabeth's Greek reading had steeped her in them. 'Count no man happy till his death'; 'Count nothing finished till the end'; tags of this kind were running through her mind, while she smiled a little over the compliments that Sir Henry had been paying her.
He could not express, he said, the relief with which he had heard of her return to Mannering. 'Don't, please, go away again!' Everybody in the county who was at all responsible for its war-work felt the same. Her example, during the winter, had been invaluable, and the skill with which she had brought the Squire into line, and set the Squire's neglected estate on the road to food-production, had been—in Sir Henry's view—nothing short of a miracle.
'Yes, a miracle, my dear lady!' repeated Sir Henry warmly. 'I know the prickliness of our good friend there! I speak to you confidentially, because I realize that you could not possibly have done what you have done unless you had won the Squire's confidence—his complete confidence. Well, that's an achievement, I can tell you—as bad as storming a redoubt. Go on—don't let go! What you are doing here—the kind of work you are doing—is of national importance. God only knows what lies before us in the next few months!'
And therewith a sudden sobering of the ruddy countenance and self-important manner. For a few seconds, from his mind and Elizabeth's there vanished all consciousness of the English woodland scene, and they were looking over a flayed and ravaged country where millions of men stood ranged for battle.
Sir Henry sighed.
'Thank God, Arthur is still at home—doing some splendid work, they tell me, at the War Office, but, of course, pining to be off to France again. I hear from him that Desmond is somewhere near Armentières. Well, good-bye—I tied my horse to the gate, and must get home. Stick to it! Say good-bye to the Squire for me—I shall be over again before long. If there is anything I can do for you—count upon me. But we count upon you!'
Astonishing effusion!—from an elderly gentleman who, at the beginning of things, had regarded her as elderly gentlemen of great local position do regard young women secretaries who are earning their own living. Sir Henry's tone was now the tone of one potentate to another; and, as we have seen, it caused Elizabeth to tame her soul with Greek, as she walked back through the wood to rejoin the Squire.
When she perceived him waiting for her, she wished with some fervour that she were not alone. She had tried to keep Captain Dell with her, but he had pleaded an urgent engagement at a village near the farther end of the wood. And then Sir Henry had deserted her. It was annoying—and unforeseen.
The Squire observed her as she came up—the light, springing step, the bunch of primroses in her belt. He closed the book, of which he had not in truth read a word.
'You have been a long time?'
'But I assure you it was well worth while!' She paused in front of him, a little out of breath, leaning on her measuring-pole. 'We found ten or twelve more ash—some exactly of the size they want.'
'Who are "they"?'
'The Air Board,' said Elizabeth, smiling.
'The fellows that wrote me that letter? I didn't want their thanks.'
Elizabeth took no notice. She resumed—
'And Sir Henry went into the figures of that contract with Captain Dell. He thinks the Captain has done very well, and that the prices are very fair—very good, in fact.'
'All the same, I don't mean to accept their blessed contract.'
'Oh, but I thought it was settled!' cried Elizabeth in distress. She sat down on a dry stump a little way off, and the Squire actually enjoyed the sight of her discomfiture.
'Why on earth should I allow these people, not only to make a hideous mess of my woods, and murder my trees, but to take three years—three years—over the disgusting business, before they get it all done and clear up the mess? One year is the utmost I will allow.'
Elizabeth looked consternation.
'But think of the labour difficulties,' she pleaded. 'The contractor can't get the men. Of course, he wants to cut and move the trees as soon as he can, so as to get his money back.'
'That's his affair,' said the Squire obstinately. 'I want to get my woods in a decent state again, so that I mayn't be for ever reminded that I sold them—betrayed them—for filthy lucre.'
'No!' said Elizabeth firmly, her colour rising, 'for the Army!'
The Squire shrugged his shoulders.
'So they say. Meanwhile the timber-man makes an unholy profit.'
There was silence for a moment, then Elizabeth said,
'Do you really mean to stick to that condition?'
'I should be glad if Dell would see to it.'
'Then'—said Elizabeth slowly—'the contract will drop. I understand they cannot possibly pledge themselves to removal within the time named.'
'Well, there are other timber-merchants.'
'The difficulty of labour is the same for everybody. And Captain Dell thinks no one else would give the price—certainly not the Government. You will remember that some of the money was to be spent immediately.' Her tone was cold and restrained, but he thought it trembled a little.
'I know,' he interrupted, 'on cottages and the hospital. Money oozes away at every pore! I shall be a bare beggar after the war. Have you the contract there? Or did Dell take it?'
Elizabeth drew a roll of blue paper out of her pocket. Her indignation made her speechless. All the endless negotiations, Captain Dell's work, her work—to go for nothing! What was the use of trying to serve—to work with such a man?
The Squire took the roll from her and searched his pockets for a fountain-pen.
'I will make some notes on it now for Dell's guidance. I might forget it to-night.'
Elizabeth said nothing. He turned away, spread out the papers on the smooth trunk of the fallen tree, and began to write.
Elizabeth sat very erect, her mouth proudly set, her eyes wandering into the distance of the wood. What was she to do? The affront to herself was gross—for the Squire had definitely promised her the night before that the bargain should go through. And she felt hotly for the hard-working agent. Should she put up with it? Her meditations of the night recurred to her—and she seemed to herself a very foolish woman!
'There you are!' said the Squire, as he handed the roll back to her.
She looked at it unwillingly. Then her face changed. She stooped over the contract. Below the signature of the firm of timber-merchants stood large and full that of 'Edmund Mannering.'
The Squire smiled.
'Now are you satisfied?'
She returned the contract to its envelope, and both to her pocket. Then she looked at him uncertainly.
'May I ask what that meant?'
Her voice was still strained, and her eyes by no means meek.
'I am sorry,' said the Squire hurriedly. 'I don't know—it was a whim. I wanted to have the pleasure—'
'Of seeing how a person looks under a sudden disappointment?' said Elizabeth, with rather pinched lips.
'Not at all. It was a childish thing—I wanted to see you smile when I gave you the thing back. There—that's the truth. It was you disappointed me!'
Elizabeth's wrath vanished. She hid her face in her hands and laughed. But there was agitation behind the laughter. These were not the normal ways of a reasonable man.
When she looked up, the Squire had moved to a log close beside her. The March sun was pouring down upon them, and there was a robin singing, quite undisturbed by their presence, in a holly-bush near. The Squire's wilful countenance had never seemed to Elizabeth more full of an uncanny and even threatening energy. Involuntarily she withdrew her seat.
'I wish to be allowed to make a very serious proposition to you,' he said eagerly, 'one that I have been considering for weeks.'
Elizabeth—rather weakly—put up a protesting hand.
'I am afraid I must point out to you, Mr. Mannering, that Mrs. Gaddesden will be waiting lunch.'
'If I know Alice, she will not wait lunch! And anyway there are things more important than lunch. May I take it for granted, Miss Bremerton, that you have not been altogether dissatisfied with your life here during this six months?'
Elizabeth looked him gravely in the face. It was clear there was to be no escape.
'How could I have been, Mr. Mannering? You have taught me a great, great deal—and given me wonderful opportunities.'
The Squire nodded, with a look of satisfaction.
'I meant to. Of course Chicksands would say that it was only my own laziness—that I have given you the work I ought to have done myself. My reply would be that it was not my work. If a man happens to be born to a job he is not in the least fitted for, that's the affair of Providence. Providence bungled it when he, she, or it—take which pronoun you like—τυχη, as you and I know, is feminine—made me a landowner. My proper job was to dig up and decipher what is left of the Greeks. And if any one says that the two jobs are not tanti, and the landowning job is more important than the other, I disagree with him entirely, and it would be impossible for him to prove it. But there was a vacuum—that I quite admit—and Nature—or Providence—disliked it. So she sent you along, my dear lady!'—he turned upon her a glowing countenance—'and you fitted it exactly. You laid hands on what has proved to be your job, and Chicksands, I expect, has been telling you how marvellously you're doing it, and begging you not to let this duffer'—the Squire pointed to his leather waistcoat—'get hold of it again. Hasn't he?'
He smiled triumphantly, as Elizabeth's sudden flush showed that his shaft had hit. But he would not let her speak.
'No—please don't interrupt me! Of course Chicksands took that view. Any sensible man would—not that Henry is really a sensible man. Well, now, then—I want to ask you this. Don't these facts point to a rather—remarkable—combination? You assist me in the job that I was born for. I have been fortunate enough to be able to put into your hands the job that you apparently were born for. And you will forgive me for saying that it might have been difficult for you to find it without my aid. Nature—that is—seems to have endowed you not only with a remarkable head for Greek, but also with the capacity for dealing with the kind of people who drive me distracted—agents and timber-merchants, and stuck-up county officials, whom I want to slay. And you combine your job with an idealism—just as I do mine. You say "it's for the country" or "for the army," as you did just now. And I scribble and collect—for art's sake—for beauty's sake—for the honour of human genius—what you like! What then could be more reasonable—more natural'—the Squire drew himself up gravely—'than that you and I should join forces—permanently? That I should serve your ideas—and you should serve mine?'
The Squire broke off, observing her. Elizabeth had listened to this extraordinary speech with growing bewilderment. She had dreaded lest the Squire—in proposing to marry her—should make love to her. But the coolness of the bargain actually suggested to her, the apparent absence from it of any touch of sentiment, took her completely aback. She was asked, in fact, to become his slave—his bailiff and secretary for life—and the price was offered.
Her face spoke for her, before she could express her feeling in words. The Squire, watching her, hurriedly resumed.
'I put it like an idiot! What I meant was this. If I could induce you to marry me—and put up with me—I believe both our lives might be much more interesting and agreeable!'
The intensity of the demand expressed in his pale hazel eyes and frowning brow struck full upon her.
But Elizabeth slowly shook her head.
'I am very grateful to you, Mr. Mannering, but'—a rather ironical smile showed itself—'I think you hardly understand me. We should never get on.'
'Why?'
'Because our temperaments—our characters—are so different.'
'You can't forgive me about the war?'
'Well, that hurts me,' she said, after a moment, 'but I leave that to Mr. Desmond. No! I am thinking of myself and you. What you propose does not attract me at all. Marriage—in my view—wants something—deeper—to build on than you suggest.'
'Inconsistent woman!' cried the inner voice, but Elizabeth silenced it. She was not inconsistent. She would have resented love-making, but feeling—something to gild the chain!—that she had certainly expected. The absence of it humiliated her.
The Squire's countenance fell.
'Deeper?' he said, with a puzzled look. 'I wonder what you mean? I haven't anything "deeper." There isn't anything "deep" about me.'
Was it true? Elizabeth suddenly recalled those midnight steps on the night of Desmond's departure.
'You know,' he resumed, 'for you have worked with me now for six months—you know at least what kind of a man I am. I assure you it's at any rate no worse than that! And if I ever annoyed you too much, why you could always keep me in order—by the mere threat of going away! I could have cut my throat any day with pleasure during those weeks you were absent!'
Again Elizabeth hid her face in her hands and laughed—rather hysterically. There was something in this last appeal that touched her—some note of 'the imperishable child,' which indeed she had always recognized in the Squire's strange personality.
The Squire waited—frowning. When she looked up at last she spoke in her natural friendly voice.
'I don't think, Mr. Mannering, we had better go on talking like this. I can't accept what you offer me—'
'Again I can't think why,' he interrupted vehemently; 'you have given me no sort of explanation. Why must you refuse?'
'Because I don't feel like it,' she said, smiling. 'That's all I need say. Please don't think me ungrateful. You've offered me now a position and a home—and you've given me my head all this time. I shall never forget it. But I'm afraid—'
'That now I've made such an ass of myself you'll have to go?'
She thought a moment.
'I don't know that I need say that—if—if I could be sure—'
'Of what? Name your conditions!'
His face suddenly lightened again. And again a quick compunction struck her.
She looked at him gently.
'It's only—that I couldn't stay here—you will see of course that I couldn't—unless I were quite sure that this was dead and buried between us—that you would forget it entirely—and let me forget it!'
Was it fancy, or did the long Don Quixotish countenance quiver a little?
'Very well. I will never speak of it again. Will that do?' There was a long pause. The Squire's stick attacked a root of primroses closely, prized it out of the damp ground, and left it there. Then he turned to his companion with a changed aspect. 'Well, now, then—we are as we were—and'—with a long half-indignant breath—'remember I have signed that contract!'
He rose from his seat as he spoke.
They walked home together through the great wood, and across the park. They were mostly silent. The Squire's words 'we are as we were' echoed in the ears of both. And yet both were secretly aware that something irrevocable had happened.
Then, suddenly, beating down all the personal trouble and disquiet in Elizabeth's mind, there rushed upon her afresh, as she walked beside the Squire, that which seemed to shame all personal feeling—the renewed consciousness of England's death-grapple with her enemy—the horror of its approaching crisis. How could this strange being at her elbow be still deaf and blind to it!
They parted in the hall.
'Shall I expect you at six?' said the Squire formally. 'I have some geographical notes I should like you to take down.'
She assented. He went to his study, and shut himself in. For a long time he paced up and down, flinging himself finally into a chair in front of Desmond's portrait. There his thoughts took shape.
'Well, my boy, I thought I'd won some trenches—but the counter-attack has swept me out. Where are you? Are you still alive? If not, I shan't be long after you. I'm getting old, my boy—and this world, as the devil has made it, is not meant for me.'
He remained there for some time, his hands on his knees, staring into the bright face of his son.
Elizabeth too went to her room. On her table lay the Times. She took it up and read the telegrams again. Raid and counter-raid all along the front—and in every letter and telegram the shudder of the nearing event, ghastly hints of that incredible battlefield to come, that hideous hurricane of death in which Europe was to see once more her noblest and her youngest perish.
'Oh, why, why am I a woman?' she clasped her hands above her head in a passion of revolt. 'What does one's own life matter? Why waste a thought—an hour upon it!'
In a second she was at her table putting together the notes she had made that morning in the wood. About a hundred and fifty more ash marked in that wood alone!—thanks to Sir Henry. She rang up Captain Dell, and made sure that they would be offered that night direct to the Government timber department—the Squire's ash, for greater haste, having been now expressly exempted from the general contract. Canadians were coming down to fell them at once. They must be housed. One of the vacant farms, not yet let, was to be got ready for them. She made preliminary arrangements by telephone. Then, after a hasty lunch, at which the Squire did not appear, and Mrs. Gaddesden was more than usually languid and selfish, Elizabeth rushed off to the village on her bicycle. The hospital Commandant was waiting for her, with such workpeople as could be found, and the preparation of the empty house for fifty more beds was well begun. Elizabeth was frugal, but resolute, with the Squire's money. She had leave to spend. But she would not abuse her power; and all through her work she was conscious of a queer remorseful gratitude towards the man in whose name she was acting.
Then she bicycled to the School, where a group of girls whom she had captured for the land were waiting to see her. Their uniforms were lying ready on one of the schoolroom tables. She helped the girls to put them on, laughing, chatting, admiring—ready besides with a dozen homely hints on how to keep well—how to fend for themselves, perhaps in a lonely cottage—how to get on with the farmer—above all, how to get on with the farmer's wife. Her sympathy made everything worth while—put colour and pleasure into this new and strange adventure, of women going out to break up and plough and sow the ancient land of our fathers, which the fighting men had handed over to them. Elizabeth decked the task with honour, so that the girls in their khaki stood round her at last glowing, though dumb!—and felt themselves—as she bade them feel—the comrades-in-arms of their sweethearts and their brothers.
Then with the March twilight she was again at Mannering. She changed her bicycling dress, and six o'clock found her at her desk, obediently writing from the Squire's dictation.
He put her through a stiff series of geographical notes, including a number of quotations from Homer and Herodotus, bearing on the spread of Greek culture in the Aegean. During the course of them he broke out once or twice into his characteristic sayings and illustrations, racy or poetic, as usual, and Elizabeth would lift her blue eyes, with the responsive look in them, on which he had begun to think all his real power of work depended. But not a word passed between them on any other subject; and when it was over she rose, said a quiet good-night, and went away. After she had gone, the Squire sat over the fire, brooding and motionless, for most of the evening.
One March afternoon, a few days later, the following letter reached Pamela, who was still with her sister. It was addressed in Desmond Mannering's large and boyish handwriting.
'B.E.F., March.
'MY DEAR PAMELA—I am kicking my heels here at an engineer's store, waiting for an engineer officer who is wanted to plan some new dug-outs for our battery, and as there is no one to talk to inside except the most inarticulate Hielander I ever struck, I shall at last make use of one of your little oddments, my dear, which are mostly too good to use out here—and write you a letter on a brand new pocket-pad, with a brand new stylo.
'I expect you know from Arthur about where we are. It's a pretty nasty bit of the line. The snipers here are the cleverest beasts out. There isn't a night they don't get some of us, though our fellows are as sharp as needles too. I went over a sniping school last week with a jolly fellow who used to hunt lions in Africa. My hat!—we have learnt a thing or two from the Huns since we started. But you have to keep a steady look-out, I can tell you. There was a man here last night in a sniper's post, shooting through a trench loophole, you understand, which had an iron panel. Well, he actually went to sleep with his rifle in his hand, having had a dog's life for two or three nights. But for a mercy, he had pulled down his panel—didn't know he had!—and the next thing he knew was a bullet spattering on it—just where his eye should have been. He was jolly quick in backing out and into a dug-out, and an hour later he got the man.
'But there was an awful thing here last night. An officer was directing one of our snipers—stooping down just behind him, when a Hun got him—right in the eyes. I was down at the dressing-station visiting one of our men who had been knocked over—and I saw him led in. He was quite blind,—and as calm as anything—telling people what to do, and dictating a post card to the padre, who was much more cut up than he was. I can tell you, Pamela, our Army is fine! Well, thank God, I'm in it—and not a year too late. That's what I keep saying to myself. And the great show can't be far off now. I wouldn't miss it for anything, so I don't give the Hun any more chances of knocking me over than I can help.
'You always want to know what things look like, old Pam, so I'll try and tell you. In the first place, it's just a glorious spring day. At the back of the cranky bit of a ruined farm where we have our diggings (by the way, you may always go back at night and find half your bedroom shot away—that happened to me the other night—there was a tunic of mine still hanging on the door, and when you opened the door, nothing but a hole ten feet deep full of rubble—jolly luck, it didn't happen at night-time!) there are actually some lilac trees, and the buds on them are quite big. And somehow or other the birds manage to sing in spite of the hell the Huns have made of things.
'I'm looking out now due east. There's a tangled mass of trenches not far off, where there's been some hot raiding lately. I see an engineer officer with a fatigue party working away at them—he's showing the men how to lay down a new trench with tapes and pegs. Just to my left some men are filling up a crater. Then there's a lorry full of bits of an old corduroy road they're going to lay down somewhere over a marshy place. There are two sausage balloons sitting up aloft, and some aeroplanes coming and going. Our front line is not more than a mile away, and the German line is about a mile and a quarter. Far off to my right I can just see a field with tanks in it. Ah—there goes a shell on the Hun line—another! Can't think why we're tuning up at this time of day. We shall be getting some of their heavy stuff over directly, if we don't look out. It's rot!
'And the sun is shining like blazes on it all. As I came up I saw some of our men resting on the grass by the wayside. They were going up to the trenches—but it was too early—the sun was too high—they don't send them in till dusk. Awfully good fellows they looked! And I passed a company of Bantams, little Welsh chaps, as fit as mustard. Also a poor mad woman, with a basket of cakes and chocolate. She used to live in the village where I'm sitting now—on a few bricks of it, I mean. Then her farm was shelled to bits and her old husband and her daughter killed. And nothing will persuade her to go. Our people have moved her away several times—but she always comes back—and now they let her alone. Our soldiers indeed are awfully good to her, and she looks after the graves in the little cemetery. But when you speak to her, she never seems to understand, and her eyes—well, they haunt one.
'I'm beginning to get quite used to the life—and lately I have been doing some observation work with an F.O.O. (that means Forward Observation Officer), which is awfully exciting. Your business on these occasions is to get as close to the Germans as you can, without being seen, and you take a telephonist with you to send back word to the guns, and, by Jove, we do get close sometimes!
'Well, dear old Pam, there's my engineer coming across the fields, and I must shut up. Mind—if I don't come back to you—you're just to think, as I told you before, that it's all right. Nothing matters—nothing—but seeing this thing through. Any day we may be in the thick of such a fight as I suppose was never seen in the world before. Or any night—hard luck! one may be killed in a beastly little raid that nobody will ever hear of again. But anyway it's all one. It's worth it.
'Your letters don't sound to me as though you were particularly enjoying life. Why don't you ever give me news of Arthur? He writes me awfully jolly letters, and always says something nice about you. Father has written to me three times—decent, I call it,—though he always abuses Lloyd George, and generally puts some Greek in I can't read. I wonder if we were quite right about Broomie? You never say anything about her either. But I got a letter from Beryl the other day, and what Miss B. seems to be doing with Father and the estate is pretty marvellous.
'All the same I don't hear any gossip as to what you and I were afraid of. I wonder if I was a brute to answer her as I did—and after her nice letter to me? Anyway, it's no wonder she doesn't write to me any more. And she did tell me such a lot of news.
'Good-bye. Your writing-pad is really ripping. Likewise pen. Hullo, there go some more shells. I really must get back and see what's up.—Your loving
'DESMOND.'
Meanwhile in the seething world of London, where the war-effort of an Empire was gathered up into one mighty organism, the hush of expectancy grew ever deeper. Only a few weeks or days could now divide us from the German rush on Paris and the coast. Behind the German lines all was movement and vast preparation. Any day England might rise to find the last fight begun.
Yet morning after morning all the news that came was of raids, endless raids, on both sides—a perpetual mosquito fight, buzzing now here, now there, as information was wanted by the different Commands. Many lives were lost day by day, many deeds of battle done. But it all seemed as nothing—less than nothing—to those whose minds were fixed on the clash to come.
Then one evening, early in the second week in March, a telegram reached Aubrey Mannering at Aldershot. He rushed up to town, and went first to the War Office, where Chicksands was at work.
Chicksands sprang up to meet him.
'You've heard? I've just got this. I made his Colonel promise to wire me if—'
He pointed to an open telegram on his table:
"Desmond badly hit in raid last night. Tell his people. Authorities will probably give permission to come. Well looked after."
The two men stared at each other.
'I have wired to my father,' said Mannering, 'and am now going to meet him at King's Cross. Can you go and tell Pamela to get ready—or Margaret? But he'll want Pamela!'
Neither was able to speak for a moment, till Mannering said, 'I'll bring my father to Margaret's, and then I'll go and see after the permits.'
He lingered a moment.
'I—I think it means the worst.'
Chicksands' gesture was one of despair.
Then they hurried away from the War Office together.