[CHAPTER XIX]
INVESTIGATION
Old Jackson was in the gravel-pit, half a mile up the road from the lodge gates, which made a walk long enough for Fred to have thought over with fluttering anticipations, ever since Pamela had asked him to see Jackson with her. It was she who had suggested that it would be better to talk to him there rather than in the openness of the park, when the carts had brought down their loads.
They started off across the park by a footpath which led to the road higher up the hill. It was not the first time that Fred had been alone with her, but they had not been for a walk together before, as this ostensibly was. "We're going for a little walk," Pamela said, her stick in her hand, as they met her father coming along that very path, and he seemed to see nothing to remark in the thrilling fact. "Come back to lunch," he said to Fred. "There's something I want to consult you about."
Colonel Eldridge had treated Fred with a courtesy; that had gratified him exceedingly, and such an invitation would have given him food for pleasurable conjecture if his mind had not been full of something else. "Poor old Dad," said Pamela, when they left him and went on. "I suppose it's this horrid quarrel he wants to talk about. There's nobody he can unburden himself to about it. I shall be glad if he does to you. You must encourage him to talk quite freely."
Yes, Fred would do that. Things were going extraordinarily well for him. It was a great deal to have Pamela confiding in him. He would hardly have been undergoing this moving intimate experience of a country walk with her, but for the disturbance in which Hayslope was involved. If they were also to bring him into close personal touch with her father, they would be doing him very good service.
Pamela moved along beside him in the active grace of her young girlhood, talking to him quietly and confidentially. He answered her in the same tone, alert to make the response that she would have him make; but only a part of his mind was upon the subject that alone held hers. The rest of it was in a ferment of incredulous wonder and self-gratulation. He stole a glance at her every now and then and wondered afresh at finding himself in this sort of companionship. Everything about her was fresh and sweet and virginal. In all his mean experience of sex he had never thought to have been so moved by the mere proximity of such a girl as this; in all his selfish, uninspired experience of life he had never thought to have been thrilled by a pure emotion. She made him hate the thought of evil, and turn away with disgust from his baser self. If he was ready to plot and scheme to get her, and would not be too particular what weapons he used if it came to a fight, once having made her his own, he would tend the spiritual flame that she had lighted in him. Already he was a better man because of her. He knew it and rejoiced in it, who had not previously desired to be anything better than he was.
They left the park and went for a short distance up the shady road, to where a track ran off among the trees to the shallow pit at the end of it. The rich red gravel lay in ruled banks and mounds where it had been dug out, and the men who were working at it were filling the two carts which were to carry it down to the park. Old Jackson was working as hard as anyone, as well as directing it all. He was a fine figure of a man, with his upright sinewy frame kept supple by use. His face had that delicacy of line and feature which is to be found among the true sons of the soil, perhaps as often as the result of generations of blue blood. His eyes were clear and keen, with a look in them not far removed from the innocent look of a child. Such men as he may take orders from others all their lives, but they never lose their dignity of manhood.
The carts were nearly filled. Fred and Pamela waited until they were ready to be moved, and then Fred told Jackson that they wanted to speak to him. Would he send the carts on and stay behind for a few minutes?
He gave the orders and returned to them, putting on his coat. "Have you got a pipe?" asked Fred, offering him his opened tobacco pouch; but with a glance at Pamela he refused. Fred put the pouch back into his pocket, and his own pipe with it, and began rather hurriedly: "Miss Eldridge wants to ask you a few questions. Perhaps you know that there's some misunderstanding between Colonel Eldridge and Sir William about Coombe, Sir William's gardener. If you can tell her exactly what happened when Colonel Eldridge came down to Barton's Close, she thinks she may be able to do something to straighten it all out. She'll see you don't suffer from anything you tell her."