He took a step away from them and then turned round again. "I said to young Norman yesterday," he said, "'if you want to hear the rights of it,' I said, 'you can ask Dell or Chambers,' I said. He'll tell you, Missy. 'I won't have nothing more to do with it,' I said. 'You can ask Dell or Chambers.'"
Fred's face wore a disagreeable look as he frowned after the old man's broad back. As a boy he had played with the village lads, and held a sort of leadership among them, but more because of his athletic prowess than from any recognition on their part of his superior station. The elders of the village, recognizing his rough clay, had paid him hardly more respect than if he were one of their own sons. It was plain that Jackson considered that no more was owing to him now. If not quite one of themselves, he was not for a moment to be counted as of the elect.
Had Pamela understood the snub that the old man had given him? He smoothed away the frown and turned quickly to her. But she was looking down, and on her face there was a frown too of perplexity.
"Norman has been asking him questions," she said.
"Norman," he said. "I wonder why. And I suppose he went to those other two men. Of course they'll tell him anything he wants to hear."
She did not quite like this. She started to walk along the track, Fred at her side, his brain working quickly. "I think the old man is right," he said. "You ought not to be mixed up in this—not in the way of asking questions yourself, I mean. Let me ask them for you. Very likely, if I'd had old Jackson alone, I could have got something out of him. I'm quite sure I can out of those other two, and it's important I should, now that the enemy has got to work."
She looked at him with an expression that he had not seen on her face before, and instantly regretted having called up. "Norman isn't an enemy," she said. "If he has been asking questions, it is because he wants to get it all cleared up, as much as we do."
"Oh, yes," he said evenly. "I didn't mean anything else. But it would be only natural that he should want to see his father justified. Much better get at it from another side. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll see these men in their dinner hour. I don't suppose it will take very long to get it out of them. Then I'll come straight up to the Hall, and I shall be able to tell you before lunch."
"I'm not sure I wouldn't rather see Norman first," she said; but she said it rather doubtfully. Norman might have told her that he was going to make inquiries on his own account, instead of saying that neither he nor she could do anything. Fred had offended her in calling him the enemy, but he was probably right in attributing some bias to Norman. She did not disguise from herself her own bias, and when Fred said again that it would be better to get the story for themselves, she acquiesced.