The Hall and the Grange: A Novel

by Archibald Marshall

"I'll go now," he said, when they came to the gate that led into the park. "It's nearly a quarter to twelve, and I shall catch them coming back. I want to go home first."

It cost him something to leave her; there would have been plenty of time to walk with her to the Hall and back to the village by twelve o'clock. But he knew he could not trust himself to hide his antagonism to Norman, if she were to discuss his intervention further. He did not want to arouse that defensive and offended look in her face again. When he next met her he expected to have firmer ground under his feet. She was already a little doubtful of Norman. He wasn't in the least doubtful. Of course Norman was gathering material for his side; if not he would have told Pamela what he was going to do. Probably he would tell her, when he had done it; but Fred would have told her first. He had a score to wipe off against Norman.

He did not go to the Vicarage, but to the Hayslope Arms, where he was quite accustomed to making himself at home. On his first arrival at Hayslope he had frequented it, picking up old acquaintances there, and establishing himself as one who had made his way in the world but had not become proud on that account. The men who had been boys with him liked him well enough, and he was free with his money. When all his thoughts had become centred on Pamela, he had left off going there; the contrast between what had satisfied him in the way of company and what was open to him at the Hall was too great. He felt some slight repugnance now as he entered the sanded bar; but he was keen in spite of it, for he realized that the book of the village gossip was open to him whenever he liked to dip into it, and that if he had not of late cut himself off from his old associates he might have had much material to manipulate. But it would be easy to pick it all up, and Norman had no such chances, though those who came in contact with him liked him.

Pamela took a book into the garden, to a seat which commanded a view of the drive, and waited with what patience she could muster. She felt a little guilty, but allowed no patience with herself over that. It seemed to be she alone who could straighten out this tangle, which was making her father so sad that it wrung her heart to see him. His dejected look when he thought himself unobserved, still more his forced cheerfulness with his children—oh, it was sad to see! And she loved him; she thought she loved him better than anybody in the world, better even than her mother, over whom she was rather puzzled at this time. Her mother never allowed herself to be unduly perturbed about anything, and met her own troubles with a whimsical philosophy which Pamela had admired greatly, since she had been old enough to see that they were such as many women would have made themselves miserable over. Certainly she had lightened the burdens that her husband had had to bear, by showing herself happy with what was left to her, and encouraging her children to do the same. She and Pam had often talked that over together. They were never to let him see that they missed anything, and her mother would never acknowledge to her that she did miss anything.

But in this new trouble that admirable spirit of cheerfulness hardly seemed adequate, or even suitable. Pam knew that her mother and her aunt had essayed to put it right, but not having been able to do so they seemed to accept it, and to want as much to be together as before. Pam was beginning to think that such an intimacy could only be possible if it was agreed that neither side was more worthy of blame than the other. Did her mother take that view? Pamela couldn't. There might be two sides to the quarrel, but what mattered was that it bore far more hardly upon the one than upon the other. She had seen that quite plainly for herself. Her father was depressed and saddened by it. Her uncle seemed to have put it aside altogether. He had been more than usually kind and affectionate to her on the one occasion on which she had been to the Grange since the split, obviously with the intention of showing himself so. But he had also been in more than usual high spirits. Of course he was pleased about his peerage and all that! And it was nice of him—perhaps—to want to show her that the quarrel had made no difference in his feelings towards any of them, except one. But she, at least, could not dissociate herself from that one; it seemed a disloyalty to go to the Grange and to be treated by Uncle William as if nothing had happened, while he stayed at home, alone and sad, because so much had happened. Uncle William was far more free with his expressions of affection than her father had ever been. His manner to his brother had always seemed to show great affection, and she had never doubted that he felt it towards him. But it was he who was showing himself almost unaffected by the estrangement, while her father was feeling it deeply.

The decision was growing up in her mind to talk to her uncle herself. That was why she wanted to find out more than she knew already of what had actually happened. She knew that her father made a point of Coombe's dismissal. If she could go to him and tell him why she thought he ought to give way...! It would be greatly daring, on the ground she had always occupied with him, when apparently her mother, who must have made some appeal, had failed to move him. But she knew that her mother had taken no steps to find justification for her father's attitude. Nobody seemed to have thought of doing that except herself—unless it was Norman. But she could not be sure of Norman, yet, though she was quite unwilling to take Fred's view of his investigations.

She saw Fred's figure top the little rise in the drive which hid the lodge from where she was sitting, and her eyes rested upon it as it approached and grew larger, with a gaze of inquiry, almost of exploration. She had not been unaffected by Norman's freely expressed dislike of Fred; but in a matter of this sort she must abide by her own knowledge and observation. Fred had been rather a horrid sort of boy, but that ought not to tell against him if he had turned himself into rather a good sort of man. She thought he had, though there seemed to be a common streak in him which slightly offended her sometimes. But surely a man who was not "nice," after all the hard experiences he had undergone, would not have shown himself so appreciative of the quiet domestic life that they lived at the Hall. She knew, of course, that he admired her, and probably frequented the Hall largely on her account. But his liking had never shown itself in a way to make her take counsel of herself; and that was another point in his favour. Her father liked him, and evidently trusted him, or he would not have wanted to consult him about something, as he was about to do. And he was whole-hearted in his defence of her father. That was more in his favour than anything else. It was enough, at any rate, for the present. She rose and went to meet him, not without eagerness.

They went back to her seat and he told her what he had discovered, but not how or where he had discovered it.

The gist of it—very carefully imparted, so that at no point could she take umbrage at it—was that Norman had been making his inquiries with the quite obvious intention of proving that nothing had been said that it was worth making such a fuss about. The two men, indeed, who did not belong to the village, now denied stoutly that Coombe had gone beyond a very mild protest at the work being stopped. They seemed to be in with Coombe again and it was quite likely that they were expecting well-paid work from him, when they had got through with their present job. Their denials had been so obviously insincere that it was scarcely worth while wasting time with them. Fred would not suggest who had primed them, but it was quite plain that they were saying only what they were expected to say, and would stick to it.

"If it is so," Pam said, "it must be Coombe who is priming them. Of course he would want as little made of it as possible."