“Who told you so?”
An inflection in the young man’s voice made Pawley regard him more attentively. Grimshaw’s face, however, remained expressionless. Pawley replied as guardedly as Mrs. Rockram:
“She admitted to me that Wilverley had dropped the handkerchief; and it seems reasonably certain that it will be picked up. He’s a masterful man.”
“He is,” Grimshaw assented. “Would—would Lady Selina bring pressure to bear?”
Again Pawley’s eyes showed surprise.
“Um! Pressure? Why should there be pressure, except from him?”
Cornered, rather confused, with a tinge of colour in his pale cheeks, Grimshaw said hastily:
“I can’t see him as a lover. He would, as you put it, drop the handkerchief and make sure of its being picked up at once. A girl of spirit mightn’t quite like that.”
V
With the colder weather, Upworthy boasted a cleaner bill of health, although the more elderly villagers suffered abominably from rheumatism. Anxious to “spare” Lady Selina, but even more anxious to mitigate conditions which might be improved, Grimshaw tackled Gridley, the power behind the throne exercising a sly, persistent authority which few could measure, least of all the lady of the manor. Gridley had succeeded his father as bailiff of the Chandos domain. Thousands of just such men are to be found in our southern and western counties. And more than half the misery in the rural districts can be traced to them, directly and indirectly. Back of their abuse of power lies, of course, the indolence of the landlord. And behind this again—ignorance. All Gridleys have in common a desire to make things easy for their employers. They stand doggedly as buffers between comfort and discomfort, between peace of mind and innumerable pettifogging worries and acerbities. Villagers dare not appeal to Cæsar. How many schoolboys beard a headmaster, indicting some unjust member of his staff? Villagers are children. They never cut loose from leading-strings. They whine to each other, and make a “visiting face” in the presence of the “quality.” They live, most of them, for the passing hour, seldom dwelling upon the future because, instinctively, they dread it. Who denies them great qualities? But they will be the better understood when it is admitted frankly that their unwritten code is poles apart from the code of the privileged classes. With the poor patience is a greater virtue than truthfulness; fidelity ranks above chastity; justice counts for nothing in comparison with generosity.