[CHAPTER XII]
NEW IDEAS
Summer rain was falling heavily, and a little party was gathered together in the schoolroom at Hayslope Hall. This was a large room on the second floor, with windows looking two ways, one on to the park, two on to the garden and the woods beyond. There was a glimpse from these windows, through the trees, of some of the roofs and chimneys of the Grange on its opposite hill; and across the park the tower of the church and part of the village could be seen, with a wide stretch of country beyond, and Pershore Castle some miles away, to give accent to a characteristic scene of wooded undulating country, not yet tainted with the blight of industrialism. It was sometimes said that this old nursery, now the schoolroom, was the nicest room in the house. There were no such views to be obtained from those of the lower floors, but the views did not make up the whole of its charm. It had that of all rooms in an old house that have been devoted to the use of children. Changes in furniture or decoration come to them slowly. Everything that they contain has made its indelible impression upon the minds of those who have occupied them in the most receptive years of their lives, and are woven into the texture of their memories. They have witnessed the troubles of childhood; but these fade away and are forgotten, or remembered only as part of the immensely significant and varied experiences of that age, merging into the rest and carry no sting. They do not associate themselves with graver troubles, and to those who came back to them they seem to be a refuge from all the ills of life, so innocent are the pursuits with which they are connected, so free are they from the cares and forebodings associated with other familiar rooms.
This note of freedom and innocence was grateful to Fred Comfrey, who had been welcomed to this room by Alice and Isabelle, its present occupants, Miss Baldwin acquiescing. Fred had "taken notice" of Alice and Isabelle, for reasons not difficult to gauge. He had never cared much for children, and one would have said that he had no power to interest or attract them. But his absence of art probably recommended him to these two, who would not have liked him so well if he had been either jocular or condescending with them. He treated them in the same way as he treated Judith, who was grown up. Judith did not like him, but they did, and presently began to make use of him.
On this wet Saturday morning, when there were no lessons to be done, they were engaged in restoring an old toy theatre, which had once belonged to Hugo. Alice had composed a play, which was to be acted by figures designed by Isabelle. These had been cut out with a fretsaw, and coloured; and together they had glued them on to their stands. But the theatre itself, after having lain hidden for years in a lumber room, needed more serious repair than came within their scope. Fred was a godsend in this predicament, and was doing all that was necessary, with a capable hand. Pamela and the children were helping, arrayed all three in blue overalls, which as worn by Pamela seemed to Fred to be the most attractive costume that a girl could wear. Miss Baldwin sat apart, busy with needlework on her own account. Her presence had no effect upon the flow of chatter. She hardly came into the children's lives except as a reminder and concomitant of duty, and they were well accustomed to ignore her when amusement was on foot. Judith also sat apart, curled up on the deep shabby old sofa with a book, and oblivious to everything around her. Her enjoyment probably was enhanced by the sense of being in company, or she would have betaken herself elsewhere.
Miss Baldwin, however, was far more alive to what was going on than anybody there could have imagined. Unnoticed, she marked every look and every word. For romance was going on, here under her very eyes, and she could fit it all in to her ideas of how a story of romance should run.
There was the sweet young girl brought up in the seclusion of her country home, untouched as yet by the wand of love; there were two men eager to break the spell that held her; and one of them was a lord. Pamela had no idea how much Miss Baldwin, prim and plain and scholastic, admired her. Judith she had taught for a year, and Judith was just a schoolgirl to her, like any other, although she was now grown up, and as beautiful in her way as Pamela. Pamela seemed to her the very type of well-born maidenhood, beautiful and gay, and kind and gentle in her speech and in her ways. She could weave stories around her, and longed for the time when the suitors should come thronging. Upon Norman's first appearance she had cast him for the part of hero, and well he would have filled it but for the fact of his cousinhood. He was young and gay and handsome too, and a soldier. But she soon saw him as taking the place towards the girls of their brother, who had been killed. He might come into the story later, but not as a suitor.
Two suitors had now appeared on the field, almost at the same time. It might have been thought that Miss Baldwin would have favoured the lord, who, upon his first appearance at Hayslope, had actually ridden over on a horse, from his battlemented castle—or rather from his father's, which came to the same thing. But Horsham did not conform to her ideas of a lord, in spite of the horse and the castle. His looks were not on a level with Pamela's, and though he had youth on his side, she could not describe it to herself as gallant youth. He had addressed himself to her when he had first lunched at Hayslope, and with courtesy; but it had been to ask her whether she thought Edinburgh or Liverpool had the more easterly aspect. Suspecting some sort of catch, she had replied coldly in favour of Edinburgh, and it had appeared that she was wrong. That didn't matter; but the question seemed unworthy of one of his rank. She would rather that he had ignored her, as the meek silent drudge, in the family but not of it, and beneath the notice of such as he. He seemed to be well-meaning and well-educated—his conversation had been largely geographical. But Miss Baldwin was not content in a lord with qualities that would have graced a schoolmaster.
Did she then favour the suit of Fred Comfrey, whose desires lay open to her? She did. He was a son of the vicarage, who had gone out into the world at an early age to carve his own way in it; and from what she had heard, he seemed to some extent already to have carved it. He had given up everything to fight in the war, had fought like a hero—as far as she knew—and received honourable wounds, from which he had not yet entirely recovered. His square ugly face and his broad frame spelt POWER. If he was not quite the strong silent man—for he talked a good deal, and rather nervously—he might become so, under trial. He was still young, though he had done so much. He paid attention to her, and rather embarrassed her by so doing; for she did not wish to be talked to in company, having little to say in reply. But his reasons for doing so were obvious, and she approved of them. If she could have brought herself to tell him that she saw everything and wished him well, her tongue might have been unloosed in a way to surprise him. But that, of course, was impossible, though she sometimes played with the idea of the unconsidered governess putting everything right by a bashfully whispered word to the ever-after-grateful hero.
She did more than play with the idea of things going wrong. She expected and longed for it, but only as a preliminary to their eventually going right. Nobody but herself seemed yet to have awakened to what was going on. When they did, who could doubt that it would be the lord who would be preferred by the parents, and the other who would be sent about his business—perhaps with contumely? She rather hoped with contumely, for then he would have an opportunity of showing what stuff he was made of, and it would be so much more interesting. Oh, if only Pamela could have her eyes opened before the discovery came! If he had made no impression on her, she would, of course, accept his dismissal at the hands of her parents with complete equanimity, and the story would simply fizzle out.