'"Wait and see,"' said Pamela pompously, and returned to her packing.
The preceding conversation took place during a break in Elizabeth's morning occupations. She had been busily occupied in collecting and copying out some references from Pausanias, under the Squire's direction. He meanwhile had been cataloguing and noting his new possessions, which, thanks to the aid of his henchman Levasseur, had been already arranged. And they made indeed a marvellous addition to the Mannering library and its collections. At the end of the room stood now a huge archaic Nikê, with outstretched peplum and soaring wings. To her left was the small figure, archaic also, of a charioteer, from the excavations at Delphi, amazingly full of life in spite of hieratic and traditional execution. But the most conspicuous thing of all was a mutilated Erôs, by a late Rhodian artist—subtle, thievish, lovely, breathing an evil and daemonic charm. It stood opposite the Nikê, 'on tiptoe for a flight.' And there was that in it which seemed at moments to disorganize the room, and lay violent and exclusive hold on the spectator.
Elizabeth on returning to her table found the library empty. The Squire had been called away by his agent and one of the new officials of the county, and had not yet returned. She expected him to return in a bad—possibly an outrageous temper. For she gathered that the summons had something to do with the decree of the County War Agricultural Committee that fifty acres, at least, of Mannering Park were to be given back to the plough, which, indeed, had only ceased to possess them some sixty years before. The Squire had gone out pale with fury, and she looked anxiously at her work, to see what there might be in it to form an excuse for a hurricane.
She could find nothing, however, likely to displease a sane man. And as she was at a standstill till he came back, she slipped an unfinished letter out of her notebook, and went on with it. It was to a person whom she addressed as 'my darling Dick.'
'I have now been rather more than a month here. You can't imagine what a queer place it is, nor what a queer employer I have struck. There might be no war—as far as Mannering is concerned. The Squire is always engaged in mopping it out, like Mrs. Partington. He takes no newspaper, except a rag called the Lanchester Mail, which attacks the Government, the Army—as far as it dare—and "secret diplomacy." It comes out about once a week with a black page, because the Censor has been sitting on it. Desmond Mannering—that's the gunner-son who came on leave a week ago and is just going off to an artillery camp—and I, conspire through the butler—who is a dear, and a patriot—to get the Times; but the Squire never sees it. Desmond reads it in bed in the morning, I read it in bed in the evening, and Pamela Mannering, Mr. Desmond's twin, comes in last thing, in her dressing-gown, and steals it.
'I seem indeed to be living in the heart of a whirlwind, for the Squire is fighting everybody all round, and as he is the least reticent of men, and I have to write his letters, I naturally, even by now, know a good deal about him. Shortly put, he is in a great mess. The estate is riddled with mortgages, which it would be quite easy to reduce. For instance, there are masses of timber, crying to be cut. He consults me often in the naïvest way. You remember that I trained for six months as an accountant. I assure you that it comes in extremely useful now! I can see my way a little where he can't see it at all. He glories in the fact that he was never any good at arithmetic or figures of any kind, and never looked at either after "Smalls." The estate of course used to be looked after in the good old-fashioned way by the family lawyers. But a few years ago the Squire quarrelled with these gentlemen, recovered all his papers, which no doubt went back to King Alfred, and resolved to deal with things himself. There is an office here, and a small attorney from Fallerton comes over twice or three times a week. But the Squire bosses it. And you never saw anything like his accounts! I have been trying to put some of them straight—just those that concern the house and garden—after six weeks' acquaintance! Odd, isn't it? He is like an irritable child with them. And his agent, who is seventy, and bronchitic, is the greatest fool I ever saw. He neglects everything. His accounts too, as far as I have inspected them, are disgraceful. He does nothing for the farmers, and the farmers do exactly as they please with the land.
'Or did! For now comes the rub. Government is interfering, through the County Committee. They are turning out three of Mr. Mannering's farmers by force, because he won't do it himself, and ploughing up the park. I believe the steam tractor comes next week. The Squire has been employing some new lawyers to find out if he can't stop it somehow. And each time he sees them he comes home madder than before.
'Of course it all comes from a passionate antagonism to the war. He is not a pacifist exactly—he is not a conscientious objector. He is just an individualist gone mad—an egotistical, hot-tempered man, with all the ideas of the old régime, who thinks he can fight the world. I am often really sorry for him—he is so preposterous. But the muddle and waste of it all drives me crazy—you know I always was a managing creature.
'But one thing is certain—that he is a most excellent scholar. I knew I had got rusty, but I didn't know how rusty till I came to work for him. He has a wonderful memory—seems to know every Greek author by heart—and a most delicate and unerring taste. I thought I should find a mere dabbler—an amateur. And it takes all I know to do the drudgery work he gives me. And then he is always coming down upon me. It delights him to find me out in a howler—makes him, in fact, quite good-tempered for twenty minutes.