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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Elizabeth's Campaign, by Mrs. Humphrey Ward,
+Illustrated by C. Allan Gilbert
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Elizabeth's Campaign
+
+Author: Mrs. Humphrey Ward
+
+Release Date: October 1, 2004  [eBook #13573]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELIZABETH'S CAMPAIGN***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Janet Kegg and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+ELIZABETH'S CAMPAIGN
+
+by
+
+MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
+
+Author of _Lady Rose's Daughter_, _Missing_, etc.
+
+Frontispiece in Color by C. Allan Gilbert
+
+1918
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ELIZABETH]
+
+
+
+
+     TO THE DEAR AND GALLANT
+             MEMORY
+               OF
+            T. S. A.
+  PASSCHENDAELE, OCTOBER 11, 1917
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+This book was finished in April 1918, and represents
+the mood of a supremely critical moment in the war.
+
+M. A. W.
+
+
+
+
+ELIZABETH'S CAMPAIGN
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+'Remember, Slater, if I am detained, that I am expecting the two
+gentlemen from the War Agricultural Committee at six, and Captain
+Mills of the Red Cross is coming to dine and sleep. Ask Lady
+Chicksands to look after him in case I am late--and put those
+Tribunal papers in order for me, by the way. I really must go
+properly into that Quaker man's case--horrid nuisance! I hope to be
+back in a couple of hours, but I can't be sure. Hullo, Beryl! I
+thought you were out.'
+
+The speaker, Sir Henry Chicksands, already mounted on his cob
+outside his own front door, turned from his secretary, to whom he
+had been giving these directions, to see his only daughter hurrying
+through the inner hall with the evident intention of catching her
+father before he rode off.
+
+She ran down the steps, but instead of speaking at once she began to
+stroke and pat his horse's neck, as though doubtful how to put what
+she had to say.
+
+'Well, Beryl, what's the matter?' said her father impatiently. The
+girl, who was slender and delicate in build, raised her face to his.
+
+'Are you--are you really going to Mannering, father?'
+
+'I am--worse luck!'
+
+'You'll handle him gently, won't you?' There was anxiety in the
+girl's voice. 'But of course you will--I know you will.'
+
+Chicksands shrugged his shoulders.
+
+'I shall do my best. But you know as well as I do that he's a queer
+customer when it comes to anything connected with the war.'
+
+The girl looked behind her to make sure that the old butler of the
+house had retired discreetly out of earshot.
+
+'But he can't quarrel with _you_, father!'
+
+'I hope not--for your sake.'
+
+'Must you really tackle him?'
+
+'Well, I thought I was the person to do it. It's quite certain
+nobody else could make anything of it.'
+
+Privately Beryl disagreed, but she made no comment.
+
+'Aubrey seems to be pretty worried,' she said, in a depressed tone,
+as she turned away.
+
+'I don't wonder. He should have brought up his father better. Well,
+good-bye, dear. Don't bother too much.'
+
+She waved her hand to him as he made off, and stood watching him
+from the steps--a gentle, attaching figure, her fair hair and the
+pale oval of her face standing out against the panelled hall behind
+her.
+
+Her father went his way down a long winding hill beyond his own
+grounds, along a country road lined with magnificent oaks, through a
+village where his practised eye noted several bad cottages with
+disapproval, till presently he slackened his horse's pace, as he
+passed an ill-looking farm about half a mile beyond the village.
+
+'Not a decent gate in the whole place!' he said to himself with
+disgust. 'And the farm buildings only fit for a bonfire. High time
+indeed that we made Mannering sit up!'
+
+He paused also to look over the neighbouring hedge at some fields
+literally choked with weeds.
+
+'And as for Gregson--lazy, drunken fellow! Why didn't he set some
+village women on? Just see what they've done on my place! Hullo,
+here he is! Now I'm in for it!' For he saw a slouching man coming
+rapidly towards him from the farmyard, with the evident intention
+of waylaying him. The man's shabby, untidy dress and blotched
+complexion did not escape Sir Henry's quick eye. 'Seems to have
+been making a night of it,' was his inward comment.
+
+'Good-day, Sir Henry,' said the farmer, laying a hand on Chicksands'
+bridle, 'I wanted a word with you, sir. I give you fair warning, you
+and your Committee, you'll not turn me out without a fight! I was
+never given no proper notice--and there are plenty as 'll stand by
+me.'
+
+The voice was thick and angry, and the hand shook. Sir Henry drew
+his horse away, and the man's hold dropped.
+
+'Of course you had every notice,' said Sir Henry drily.
+
+'I hadn't,' the man persisted. 'If the letters as they talk of were
+sent, I never saw 'em. And when the Committee came I was out--on
+business. Can't a man be out on his lawful business, Sir Henry,
+instead of dancin' attendance on men as know no better than he? The
+way this Government is doing things--you might as well live under
+the Czar of Russia as in this country. It's no country this for
+free men now, Sir Henry.'
+
+'The Czar of Russia has come to grief, my man, for the same reason
+that you have,' said Sir Henry, gathering up the reins, 'for
+shirking his duty. All very well before the war, but now we can't
+afford this kind of thing.'
+
+'And so you've told the Squire to turn me out?' said the man
+fiercely, his hands on his sides.
+
+'You've had no notice from Mr. Mannering yet?'
+
+'Not a word.'
+
+'But you've heard from the Inspection Committee?'
+
+The man nodded.
+
+'But it's not they as can turn me out, if the Squire don't agree.'
+
+There was a note of surly defiance in his voice.
+
+'I don't know about that,' said Sir Henry, whose horse was getting
+restive. 'My advice to you, Gregson, is to take it quietly, pull
+yourself together, and get some other work. There's plenty going
+nowadays.'
+
+'Thank you for nothing, Sir Henry. I've got plenty to advise
+me--people as I set more store by. I've got a wife and children,
+sir, and I shan't give in without a fuss--you may be sure of that.
+Good-day to you.'
+
+Sir Henry nodded to him and rode off.
+
+'He'll go, of course,' reflected the rider. 'Our powers are quite
+enough. But if I can't get Mannering to send the notice, it'll be a
+deal more trouble. Hullo, here's some one else! This is another pair
+of boots!'
+
+He had scarcely turned the corner beyond the farm when another man
+came running down the sloping field, calling to him. Sir Henry
+pulled up his horse again. But his aspect had changed, and his voice
+took another note.
+
+'Did you want to speak to me, Adam? A nice day, isn't it?'
+
+'I saw you, Sir Henry, from the top of the field, talking to Gregson
+in the road, and I thought perhaps you'd let me have a few words
+with you. You know, sir, this is awfully hard lines.'
+
+Sir Henry looked impatient, but the man who had spoken to him was a
+fine specimen of young manhood--broad-shouldered, clear-eyed, with a
+natural dignity of manner, not at all a person to be brushed aside.
+
+'I'm sure you can't defend Gregson, Adam,' said Sir Henry, 'you--one
+of the best farmers in the district! I wish they had put you on the
+Inspection Committee.'
+
+'Well, they didn't,' said the other, perhaps with a slight emphasis.
+'And there's many of us feel, I can assure you, as I do. Gregson's a
+poor creature, but he hasn't had quite fair play, Sir Henry--that's
+what we feel. And he's been fifteen years on his place.' The man
+spoke hesitatingly, but strongly. There was a queer, suppressed
+hostility in his pleasant blue eyes.
+
+'Fifteen years too long,' interrupted Sir Henry. 'I tell you, Adam,
+we can't afford now to let men like Gregson spoil good land while
+the country's likely to go hungry! The old happy-go-lucky days are
+done with. I wonder whether even you recognize that we're fighting
+for our lives?'
+
+'I know we are, Sir Henry. But if the war makes slaves of us what
+good will it do if we do win it?'
+
+Sir Henry laughed. 'Well, Adam, you were always a Radical and I was
+always a Conservative. And I don't like being managed any more than
+you do. But look at the way I'm managed in my business!--harried up
+and down by a parcel of young fellows from the Ministry that often
+seem to me fools! But we've all got to come in. And this country's
+worth it!'
+
+'You know I'm with you there, sir. But why don't you get at the
+Squire himself? What good have he or his agent ever been to anybody?
+You're a landlord worth living under; but--'
+
+'Ah! don't be in too great a hurry, Adam, and you'll see what you
+will see!' And with a pleasant salute, his handsome face twitching
+between frowns and smiles, Sir Henry rode on. 'What trade unionists
+we all are--high and low! That man's as good a farmer as Gregson's a
+vile one. But he stands by his like, as I stand by mine.'
+
+Then his thoughts took a different turn. He was entering a park,
+evidently of wide extent, and finely wooded. The road through it had
+long fallen out of repair, and was largely grass-grown. A few sheep
+were pasturing on it, and a few estate cottages showed here and
+there. Sir Henry looked about him with quick eyes. He understood
+that the Inspection Sub-Committee, constituted under the Corn
+Production Act, and on the look-out for grass-land to put under the
+plough, had recommended the ploughing up of all this further end of
+Mannering Park. It carried very few sheep under its present
+management; and the herd of Jersey cattle that used to graze it had
+long since died out. As for the game, it had almost gone--before the
+war. No use, either for business or play!
+
+Then--on this early autumn day of 1917--Sir Henry fell to musing on
+the vast changes coming over England in consequence of the war. 'Who
+would ever have believed that we--_we_ should put ourselves to
+school as we have done? Military service, rations, food-prices, all
+our businesses "controlled," and now our land looked after! How much
+of it has come to stay? Well, it won't affect me much! Ah! is that
+the Rector?'
+
+For a hundred yards ahead of him he perceived a clerical figure,
+spare and tall, in a wideawake hat, swinging towards him. The
+September sun was westering, and behind the approaching man lay
+broad stretches of wood, just showing here and there the first
+bronze and purple signs of autumn.
+
+The Rector, recognizing the solitary rider, waved his hand in
+welcome, and Sir Henry pulled up. The two men, who were evidently
+personal friends, exchanged greetings.
+
+'You're going to the Hall, Sir Henry?' said the Rector.
+
+Sir Henry described his business.
+
+The Rector shook his head reflectively.
+
+'You haven't announced yourself, I hope?'
+
+'No, I took that simple precaution. I suppose he's already pretty
+savage?'
+
+'With whom? The Committee? Yes, you won't find him easy to deal
+with. But just at present there's a distraction. His new secretary
+arrived some weeks ago, and he now spends his whole time, from
+morning till night, dictating to her and showing her his things.'
+
+'Secretary? A woman? Good heavens! Who is she?'
+
+'A great swell, I understand. Oxford First Class in Mods, Second in
+Greats. I've only just seen her. A striking-looking person.'
+
+'Why isn't she in France, or doing munition work?' growled Sir
+Henry.
+
+'I don't know. I suppose she has her reasons. She seems patriotic
+enough. But I've only exchanged a few words with her, at a very
+hurried luncheon, at which, by the way, there was a great deal too
+much to eat. She and Pamela disappeared directly afterwards.'
+
+'Oh, so Pamela's at home? What's the name of the new woman? I
+suppose she's to chaperon Pamela?'
+
+'I shouldn't wonder. Her name is Miss Bremerton.'
+
+'Beryl declares that Pamela is going to be a beauty--and clever
+besides. She used to be a jolly child. But then they go to school
+and grow up quite different. I've hardly seen her for a year and a
+half.'
+
+'Well, you'll judge for yourself. Good luck to you! I don't envy you
+your job.'
+
+'Good Lord, no! But you see I'm Chairman of this blessed show, and
+they all fixed on me to bell the cat. We want a hundred acres of the
+Park, a new agent, notices for three farmers, etcetera!'
+
+The Rector whistled. 'I shall wait, on tiptoe, to see what happens!
+What are your powers?'
+
+'Oh, tremendous!'
+
+'So you have him? Well, good-day.'
+
+And the Rector was passing on. But Sir Henry stooped over his
+horse's neck--'As you know, perhaps, it would be very inconvenient
+to my poor little Beryl if Mannering were to make a quarrel of it
+with me.'
+
+'Ah, I gathered that she and Aubrey were engaged,' said the Rector
+cordially. 'Best congratulations! Has the Squire behaved well?'
+
+'Moderately. He declares he has no money to give them.'
+
+'And yet he spent eighteen hundred pounds last week at that Christie
+sale!' said the Rector with a laugh. 'And now I suppose the new
+secretary will add fuel to the flame. I saw Pamela for a minute
+alone, and she said Miss Bremerton was "just as much gone on Greek
+things as father," and they were like a pair of lunatics when the
+new vases came down.'
+
+'Oh, blow the secretary!' said Sir Henry with exasperation. 'And
+meanwhile his daughters can't get a penny out of him for any war
+purpose whatever! Well, I must go on.'
+
+They parted, and Sir Henry put his cob into a sharp trot which
+soon brought him in sight of a distant building--low and
+irregular--surrounded by trees, and by the wide undulating slopes
+of the park.
+
+'Dreadfully ugly place,' he said to himself, as the house grew
+plainer; 'rebuilt at the worst time, by a man with no more taste
+than a broomstick. Still, he was the sixteenth owner, from father to
+son. That's something.'
+
+And he fell to thinking, with that half-ironic depreciation which he
+allowed to himself, and would have stood from no one else, of his
+own brand-new Georgian house, built from the plans of a famous
+American architect, ten years before the war, out of the profits of
+an abnormally successful year, and furnished in what he believed to
+be faultless taste by the best professional decorator he could find.
+
+'Yet compared to a Mannering, what do I mean to the people here?
+You scarcely begin to take root in this blessed country under half a
+century. Mannering is exceedingly unpopular; the people think him a
+selfish idler; but if he chose he could whistle them back with a
+hundredth part of the trouble it would take me! And if Aubrey wanted
+to go into Parliament, he'd probably have his pick of the county
+divisions. Curious fellow, Aubrey! I wonder exactly what Beryl sees
+in him?'
+
+His daughter's prospects were not indeed very clear to a mind that
+liked everything cut and dried. Aubrey Mannering was the Squire's
+eldest son; but the Squire was not rich, and had been for years past
+wasting his money on Greek antiquities, which seemed to his
+neighbours, including Sir Henry Chicksands, a very dubious
+investment. If Aubrey should want to sell, who was going to buy such
+things at high prices after the war? No doubt prices at
+Christie's--for good stuff--had been keeping up very well. That was
+because of war profits. People were throwing money about now. But
+when the war industries came to an end? and the national bills had
+to be paid?
+
+'The only thing that can't go down is land,' thought Sir Henry, with
+the cheerful consciousness of a man who had steadily year by year
+increased what had originally been a very modest property to
+something like a large estate.
+
+Mannering had plenty of that commodity. But how far had he dipped
+the estate? It must be heavily mortgaged. By decent management
+anybody, no doubt, might still bring it round. 'But Aubrey's not the
+man. And since he joined up at the beginning of the war the Squire
+won't let him have a voice in anything. And now Desmond--by George,
+the twins are nineteen this month!--Desmond'll be off directly. And
+then his father will be madder than ever.'
+
+By this time the ugly house was near at hand, and the thick woods
+which surrounded it had closed about the horse and rider.
+
+'Splendid timber,' thought Sir Henry, as he rode through it,
+measuring it with a commercial eye, 'but all past its prime, and
+abominably neglected.... Hullo! that looks like Pamela, and the new
+woman--the secretary!'
+
+For two ladies were coming down the drive towards him, with a big
+white and tan collie jumping round them. One of them, very tall and
+erect, was dressed in a dark coat and skirt, reasonably short, a
+small black toque, and brown boots and leggings. The close-fitting
+coat showed a shapely but quite substantial figure. She carried a
+stick, and walked with a peculiarly rapid and certain step. The
+young girl beside her seemed by comparison a child. She wore a white
+dress, in keeping with the warm September day, and with it a dark
+blue sports coat, and a shady hat. Her dress only just passed her
+knees, and beneath it the slender legs and high heels drew Sir
+Henry's disapproving eye. He hated extravagance in anything. Beryl
+managed to look fashionable, without looking _outre_, as Pamela did.
+But he reined up to greet her with ready smiles.
+
+'Well, Pamela, jolly to see you at home again! My word, you've
+grown! Shall I find your father in?'
+
+'Yes, we left him in the library. May I introduce Miss
+Bremerton--Sir Henry Chicksands.' The girl spoke with hurried
+shyness, the quick colour in her cheeks. The lady beside her bowed,
+and Sir Henry took off his hat. Each surveyed the other. 'A
+strong-minded female!' thought Sir Henry, who was by no means
+advanced in his views of the other sex.
+
+'The strong-minded female,' however, was not, it seemed, of the
+talkative kind. She remained quite silent while Pamela and Sir Henry
+exchanged some family gossip, with her ungloved hand caressing the
+nose of the collie, who was pressing against her with intrusive
+friendliness. But her easy self-possession as contrasted with
+Pamela's nervousness was all the time making an impression on Sir
+Henry, as was also the fact of her general good looks. Not a
+beauty--not at all; but, as the Rector had said, 'striking.'
+
+As for Pamela, what was the matter with the child? Until Beryl's
+name was mentioned, there was not a smile to be got out of her. And
+it was a very fleeting one when it came. Desmond's name fared a
+little better. At that the girl did at last raise her beautiful
+eyes, which till then she had hardly allowed to be seen, and there
+was a ray in them.
+
+'He's here on leave,' she said; 'a few days. He's just got his
+Commission and been accepted for the artillery. He goes into camp
+next week. He thinks he'll be out by January.'
+
+'We must certainly manage to see him before he goes,' said Sir Henry
+heartily. Then turning to Miss Bremerton with the slightly
+over-emphatic civility of a man who prides himself on his manners in
+all contingencies, he asked her if she was already acquainted with
+the Mannering neighbourhood.
+
+Miss Bremerton replied that it was quite unknown to her. 'You'll
+admire our trees,' said Sir Henry. 'They're very fine.'
+
+'Are they?' said the lady rather absently, giving a perfunctory
+glance to the woods sloping away on her right towards a little
+stream winding in the hollow. Sir Henry felt a slight annoyance. He
+was a good fellow, and no more touchy as to personal dignity than
+the majority of men of his age and class. But he was accustomed to
+be treated with a certain deference, and in Miss Bremerton's manner
+there was none whatever.
+
+'Well, good-bye, Pamela. I mustn't miss your father. When are you
+coming over to see Beryl?'
+
+'How am I to get there?' said the girl with a sudden laugh.
+
+'Oh, I see, you've got no petrol allowance?'
+
+'How should we? Nobody's doing any war work here.'
+
+There was an odd note in the speaker's voice.
+
+'Why don't you join Beryl in her canteen work?' said Sir Henry
+abruptly.
+
+'I don't know.'
+
+'She wants help badly. She passes your gate on her way to Fallerton.
+She could pick you up, and bring you back.'
+
+'Yes,' said Pamela. There was a pause.
+
+'Well, good-bye, dear,' said Sir Henry again, and with a ceremonious
+bow to Pamela's companion, he rode on--meditating on many things.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+'The Squire's in, Sir Henry, but--well, he's very busy.'
+
+'Never mind, Forest. I must see him. Can you find some one to take
+my horse round?'
+
+The grey-haired butler looked perplexed.
+
+'I've only got my own small boy, Sir Henry. There's two more of our
+men gone this morning. I don't know if you'll trust him. He's a good
+boy.'
+
+'Send him along, Forest. My beast's a lamb--you know him. But look
+here, Forest'--Sir Henry dismounted, bridle in hand. 'Don't give the
+Squire notice that I'm here, if you can help it, till you announce
+me.'
+
+The butler, who, in spite of his grey hair, was a square-set,
+vigorous-looking fellow, might be said, in reply, to have given the
+Squire's visitor a wink. At any rate a look of understanding passed
+between the two. The butler went quickly back into the house, and
+re-emerged with a boy, who was the small image of his father, to
+whom Sir Henry cheerfully gave up his cob. But as Forest led the way
+through the outer hall he stopped to say:
+
+'The Squire's not alone, sir. There was a gentleman arrived just as
+Miss Pamela went out. But I don't think he'll stay long.'
+
+'Who is he?'
+
+'Can't say, sir. He's lodging in the village, and comes to see the
+Squire's collections sometimes.'
+
+They were now in a long passage running along the eastern front of
+the house to a large room which had been added to its southern end,
+in order to hold the Squire's library and collections. Midway the
+butler turned.
+
+'You've heard, Sir Henry, about Mr. Desmond?'
+
+'Yes, Miss Pamela told me.'
+
+'Mr. Desmond says he'll be in France by January. He's as pleased as
+possible, but it's a deal sooner than Mr. Mannering hoped.'
+
+'Well, we've all got to take our chance in this war,' said Sir Henry
+gravely. 'And the artillery is a bit safer than the infantry. You
+know my son Arthur's a gunner.'
+
+'I hope he's all right, sir?'
+
+'Well, he's still on light work. He comes home this week for a bit.
+He was gassed at Ypres a year and a half ago, and had a bullet taken
+out of his chest about two months since. But he is nearly fit
+again.'
+
+The butler expressed his sympathy with a complete absence of shyness
+or servility, then threw open a door at the end of the passage,
+announcing, 'Sir Henry Chicksands, sir.'
+
+'_D-mn_!' said a voice loudly within.
+
+Sir Henry gave an involuntary start. Another look passed between
+him and Forest, amused or interrogative on the visitor's part,
+non-committal on the butler's.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The library of Mannering Hall as Sir Henry Chicksands entered it
+presented a curious spectacle. It was a long, barn-like room,
+partly lined with books, and partly with glass cases, in which
+Greek vases, Tanagra figures, and other Greek and Etruscan
+antiquities, all carefully marked and labelled, were displayed. A
+few large tables stood at intervals on the shabby carpet, also
+laden with books and specimens. They conveyed an impression of
+dust and disorder, as though no housemaid had been allowed to
+touch them for weeks--with one exception. A table, smaller than
+the rest, but arranged with scrupulous neatness, stood at one side
+of the room, with a typewriter upon it, certain books, and a rack
+for stationery. A folded duster lay at one corner. Pens, pencils,
+a box of clips, and a gum-pot stood where a careful hand had
+placed them. And at a corner corresponding to the duster was a
+small vase of flowers--autumnal roses--the only flowers in the
+room.
+
+But the various untidy accumulations, most of which seemed to be of
+old standing, had been evidently just added to by some recent
+arrivals. Four large packing-cases, newly opened, took up much of
+what free space was left on the floor. The straw, paper, and
+cottonwool, in which their contents had been packed, had been tossed
+out with a careless or impatient hand, and littered the carpet.
+Among the litter stood here and there some Greek vases of different
+sizes; in particular, a superb pair, covered with figures; beside
+which stood the owner of Mannering, talking to an apparently young
+man with an eye-glass, who was sitting on the floor closely
+examining the vases. The Squire turned a furrowed brow towards his
+approaching visitor, and putting down a small bronze he had been
+holding raised a warning hand.
+
+'How do you do, Chicksands? Very sorry, but I'm much too filthy to
+touch. And I'm horribly busy! These things arrived last night, and
+Mr. Levasseur has kindly come over to help me unpack them. Don't
+know if you've met him. Mr. Levasseur--Sir Henry Chicksands.'
+
+The man on the floor looked up carelessly, just acknowledging Sir
+Henry's slight inclination. Sir Henry's inner mind decided against
+him--at once--instinctively. What was a stout fellow, who at any
+rate _looked_ as though he were still of military age, doing with
+nonsense of this sort, at four o'clock in the day, when England
+wanted every able-bodied man she possessed, either to fight for her
+or to work for her? At the same time the reflection passed rapidly
+through his mind that neither the man nor the name had come up--so
+far as he could remember--before the County Tribunal of which he was
+Chairman.
+
+'Well, Chicksands, what do you want with me?' said the Squire
+abruptly. 'Will you take a chair?' And he pointed to one from which
+he hastily removed a coat.
+
+'I have some confidential business to talk to you about,' said Sir
+Henry, with a look at the dusty gentleman among the straw.
+
+'Something you want me to do that I'll be bound I shan't want to do!
+Is that it?' said Mannering with vivacity.
+
+He stood with his hands on a table behind him, his long spare frame
+in a nervous fidget, his eyes bright and hostile, and a spot of red
+on either thin cheek. Beside Chicksands, who was of middle height,
+solidly built, and moderately stout, with mental and physical
+competence written all over him, the Squire of Mannering seemed but
+the snippet of a man. He was singularly thin, with a slender neck,
+and a small head covered with thick hair, prematurely white, which
+tumbled over his forehead and eyes. He had the complexion of a girl,
+disproportionately large nose, very sharply and delicately cut as to
+bridge and nostril, and a mouth and chin which seemed to be in
+perpetual movement. He looked older than Sir Henry, who was verging
+on sixty, but he was in fact just over fifty.
+
+Sir Henry smiled a little at the tone of the Squire's question, but
+he answered good-humouredly.
+
+'I believe, when we've talked it over, you won't think it
+unreasonable. But I've come to explain.'
+
+'I know, you want me to give Gregson notice. But I warn you I'm not
+the least inclined to do anything of the kind.' And the speaker
+crossed his arms, which were very long and thin, over a narrow
+chest, while his eyes restlessly countered those of Sir Henry.
+
+Chicksands paused a moment before replying.
+
+'I have a good many papers here to show you,' he said at last,
+mildly, drawing a large envelope half-way from the inner pocket of
+his coat to illustrate his words, and then putting it back again.
+'But I really can't discuss them except with yourself.'
+
+The Squire's eyes shot battle.
+
+'It's the war, of course,' he said with emphasis; 'it's all the war.
+I'm told to do things I don't want to do, which affect my personal
+freedom, and other people's, because of a war I don't believe in,
+never asked for, and don't approve of. Here's Levasseur now, a
+clever fellow, cleverer than either you or me, Chicksands, and he's
+no more patriotic than I am. You talk to him!'
+
+'Thank you, I'm too busy,' said Sir Henry sharply, his face
+stiffening. 'Where can you see me, Mannering? I'm rather pressed for
+time. Is the smoking-room free?' And with a marked avoidance of any
+concern with the gentleman on the floor, who had by now risen to his
+feet, Sir Henry made an impatient movement towards a door at the
+further end of the library which stood ajar.
+
+Levasseur looked amused. He was a strongly-built, smooth-shaven
+fellow, with rather long hair, and the sallow look of the
+cigarette-smoker. His eyes were sleepy, his expression indolent or
+good-natured.
+
+'Oh, I'll make myself scarce with the greatest pleasure,' he said
+civilly. 'I can stroll about the park till you're ready for me
+again,' he added, turning to the Squire. 'Lovely day--I'll take a
+book and some cigarettes.' And diving into an open box which stood
+near he filled his cigarette-case from it, and then looked round him
+for a book. 'Where's that copy of the _Anthology_? That'll do
+nicely.'
+
+The Squire burst into a laugh, observing Sir Henry.
+
+'He's over military age, Chicksands.'
+
+'I suppose so,' said Sir Henry stiffly.
+
+'But only by six months, when the Act passed. So he's _just_ escaped
+you.'
+
+'I've really no concern whatever with Mr. Levasseur's affairs.' Sir
+Henry had flushed angrily. 'Is it to be here, or the smoking-room?'
+
+'Ta-ta! See you again presently,' said Levasseur. 'Ah, there's the
+book!' And diving to the floor for a hat and a book lying beside it,
+he made off, lighting a cigarette, with a laughing backward glance
+towards the Squire and his companion.
+
+'Well, now, what is it?' said Mannering, throwing himself with an
+air of resignation into a low arm-chair, and taking out a pipe.
+'Won't you smoke, Chicksands?'
+
+'Thank you, I've had my morning's allowance. Hullo! Who did that?
+What an awfully fine thing!'
+
+For suddenly, behind the Squire's head, Chicksands had become aware
+of an easel, and on it a charcoal sketch, life-size, of a boy, who
+seemed about eighteen or nineteen, in cricketing dress.
+
+The Squire looked round.
+
+'What, that sketch of Desmond? Haven't you seen it? Yes, it's jolly
+good. I got Orpen to do it in July.'
+
+Now that Sir Henry had once perceived the drawing it seemed to him
+to light up the whole place. The dress was the dress of the Eton
+Eleven; there was just a suggestion of pale blue in the sash round
+the waist. But the whole impression was Greek in its manly freedom
+and beauty; above all in its sacrifice of all useless detail to one
+broad and simple effect. Youth, eager, strong, self-confident, with
+its innocent parted lips, and its steadfast eyes looking out over
+the future--the drawing stood there as the quintessence, the
+embodiment, of a whole generation. So might the young Odysseus have
+looked when he left his mother on his first journey to hunt the boar
+with his kinsfolk on Mount Parnassus. And with such an air had
+hundreds of thousands of English boys gone out on a deadlier venture
+since the great war began, with a like intensity of will, a like
+merry scorn of fate.
+
+Sir Henry was conscious of a lump in his throat. He had lost his
+youngest son in the retreat from Mons, and two nephews on the Somme.
+
+'It's wonderful,' he said, not very clearly. 'I envy you such a
+possession.'
+
+The Squire made no reply. He sat with his long body hunched up in
+the deep chair, a pair of brooding eyes fixed on his visitor.
+
+'Well, what is it?' he said again, in a voice that was barely civil.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Sir Henry had been talking some time. The Squire had not interrupted
+him much, but the papers which Sir Henry had presented to him from
+time to time--Government communications, Committee reports, and the
+like--were mostly lying on the floor, where, after a perfunctory
+glance at them, he had very quickly dropped them.
+
+'Well, that's our case,' said Sir Henry at last, thrusting his hands
+into his pockets and leaning back in his chair, 'and I assure you
+we've taken a great deal of trouble about it. We shouldn't ask you
+or anybody else to do these things if it wasn't vitally necessary
+for the food-supply of the country. But we're going to have a narrow
+squeak for it next spring and summer, and we _must_ get more food
+out of the land.'
+
+Whereupon, in a manner rather provokingly reminiscent of a public
+meeting, Sir Henry fell into a discourse on submarines, tonnage, the
+food needs of our Allies, and the absolute necessity for undoing and
+repairing the havoc of Cobdenism--matters of which the newspapers of
+the day were commonly full. That the sound of his own voice was
+agreeable to him might have been suspected.
+
+Mr. Mannering roughly broke in upon him.
+
+'What was that you said about ploughing up the park?'
+
+'We ask you to break up fifty acres of it near the Fallerton end,
+and perhaps some other bits elsewhere. This first bit is so far
+from the house you'll never notice it; and the land ought to do very
+well if it's properly broken and trampled down.'
+
+The Squire sat up and began to tick things off on the fingers of his
+left hand.
+
+'Let me understand. You want me to give three of my farmers notice
+to quit--Gregson first of all--for bad farming; you ask me to plough
+up fifty acres of my park; and you have the goodness to suggest that
+I should cut some of my woods.'
+
+Sir Henry realized that possibly a strain on his temper was coming,
+but he felt sure he could stand it.
+
+'That is what we suggest--for your own advantage and the country's.'
+
+'And pray who are "_we_"? I don't yet understand that clearly.'
+
+'"We,"' said Sir Henry patiently, 'are the County War Agricultural
+Committee, formed for the express purpose of getting more food out
+of the land, and so making these islands self-supporting.'
+
+'And if I refuse, what can you do?'
+
+'Well, I'm afraid,' said Sir Henry, smiling uncomfortably, 'we can
+act without you.'
+
+'You can turn out my farmers, and plough my land, as you please?'
+
+'Our powers are very wide.'
+
+'Under--what do you call the beastly thing?--"Dora"--the Defence of
+the Realm Act?'
+
+Sir Henry nodded.
+
+The Squire rose and began to pace up and down, his hands under his
+coat-tails, his long spider legs and small feet picking their way in
+and out of the piles and boxes on the floor. At last he turned
+impetuously.
+
+'Look here, Chicksands, I shall not give that man warning!'
+
+Sir Henry surveyed the lanky figure standing opposite to him.
+
+'I should be very sorry, Mannering, to see you take that course,' he
+said, smiling and amiable as before. 'In some ways, of course, I am
+no more in love with some of the Government's proceedings than you
+are. We landlords may have to defend ourselves. I want, if I may say
+so, to keep your influence intact for the things that really matter.
+You and I, and all the other Brookshire landlords, may have, at some
+point, to act together. But we shall resist unreasonable demands
+much more easily if we accept the reasonable ones.'
+
+The Squire shook his head. The suave tone of the speaker had clearly
+begun to rasp his nerves.
+
+'No! You and I have really nothing in common. You may take it from
+me that I shall not give these men notice. What happens then?'
+
+'The Government steps in,' said Sir Henry quietly.
+
+'And turns them out? Very well, let them. And the park?'
+
+'We are, of course, most anxious to consult you.'
+
+'Excuse me, that's nonsense! I refuse--that's flat.'
+
+Sir Henry shrugged his shoulders. His tone became a trifle colder.
+
+'I can't believe that you will refuse. You can't deny--no sensible
+man could--that we've simply got to grow more food at home. The
+submarines have settled that for us.'
+
+'Who brought the submarines upon us? The politicians! No
+politicians, no war! If it hadn't been for a pack of idiots called
+diplomats making mischief abroad, and a pack of incompetents called
+politicians unable to keep their heads at home, there'd have been no
+war. It's Russia's war--France's war! Who asked the country whether
+it wanted a war? Who asked _me_?' The Squire, standing opposite to
+Sir Henry, tapped his chest vehemently.
+
+'The country is behind the war,' said Chicksands firmly.
+
+'How do we know? How do you know? I've as much right to an opinion
+as you, and I tell you the country is sick and tired of the war. We
+are all dying of the war! We shall all be paupers because of the
+war! What is France to me, or Belgium? We shall have lost men,
+money, security--half the things that make life worth living--for
+what?'
+
+'Honour!' said Sir Henry sharply, as he got on his feet.
+
+'_Honour_!' sneered Mannering--'what's honour? It means one thing to
+me and another to you. Aubrey bangs me over the head with it. But
+I'm like the Doctor in the Punch and Judy show--he thinks he's
+knocked me flat. He hasn't. I've a new argument every time he comes.
+And as for my daughters, they think me a lunatic--a stingy lunatic
+besides--because I won't give to their Red Cross shows and bazaars.
+I've nothing to give. The income tax gentlemen have taken care of
+that.'
+
+'Yet you spend on this kind of thing!' Sir Henry pointed to the
+vases. He had grown a little white.
+
+'Of course I can. That's permanent. That's something to mend the
+holes that the soldiers and the politicians are making. When the
+war's become a nightmare that nobody wants to remember, those little
+things'--he pointed to a group of Greek bronzes and terra-cottas on
+a table near--'will still be the treasures of the world!'
+
+In the yeasty deep of Sir Henry's honest mind emotions were rising
+which he knew now he should not long be able to control. He took up
+his hat and stick.
+
+'I'm sorry, Mannering, that I have not been able to convince you.
+I'm sorry for your point of view--and I'm sorry for your sons.'
+
+The words slipped out of his mouth before he knew.
+
+The Squire bounded.
+
+'My sons! The one's a fire-eater, with whom you can't argue. The
+other's a child--a babe--whom the Government proposes to murder
+before he has begun to live.'
+
+Sir Henry looked at the speaker, who had been violently flushed a
+minute earlier, and was now as pale as himself, and then at the
+sketch of Desmond, just behind the Squire. His eyes dropped; the
+hurry in his blood subsided.
+
+'Well, good-bye, Mannering. I'll--I'll do what I can to make things
+easy for you.'
+
+The Squire laughed angrily.
+
+'You'll put on the screws politely? Thank you? But still it will be
+_you_ who'll be putting the screw on, who'll be turning out my
+farmers, and ploughing up my land, and cutting down my trees.
+Doesn't it strike you that--well, that--under the circumstances--it
+will be rather difficult for Aubrey and Beryl to keep up their
+engagement?'
+
+The Squire was sitting on the edge of the table, his thin legs
+crossed, his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets. Sir Henry coloured
+hotly.
+
+'You gave your consent to their engagement, Mannering.'
+
+'Yes, but I propose to withdraw it,' said the Squire coolly.
+
+Sir Henry's indignation kept him cool also.
+
+'You can't play ducks and drakes with young people's lives like
+that. Even you can't do that.'
+
+'I can. I can withdraw my consent.'
+
+'Because you mean to fight the County War Committee, of which I am
+Chairman?'
+
+'Precisely. The situation is too difficult,' said the Squire with
+sparkling eyes. 'The young people will no doubt see it for
+themselves.'
+
+'Pshaw! Nonsense!' cried Sir Henry, finally losing his temper.
+'Aubrey is long since of age and his own master.'
+
+'Perhaps, but he is an extravagant fellow, who likes money and
+spends it. And if he is his own master, I am the master of the
+estate; there is no entail.'
+
+Chicksands laughed aloud.
+
+'So because I come on a mission to try and save you friction and
+trouble, you are going to avenge yourself on your son and my
+daughter?'
+
+'I merely point out the properties,' said the Squire provokingly,
+his legs dangling.
+
+There was a pause. Sir Henry broke it with dignity, as he turned
+away.
+
+'I think we had better break off this discussion. I cannot--I do
+not--believe you will carry out what you say. But if you do, I shall
+stand by the young people.'
+
+'No doubt!' said the Squire, who seemed to bristle from head to
+foot. 'Well, good-bye, Sir Henry. Sorry your visit has not been more
+agreeable. Forest will look after you.' And ringing the bell
+vehemently as he passed the fireplace, the Squire walked rapidly to
+the door and threw it open.
+
+Chicksands passed through it, speechless with indignation and, if
+the truth were told, bewilderment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Squire shut the door upon his adversary, and then, with his
+hands on his sides, exploded in a fit of laughter.
+
+'I always knew I must be rude to the old boy some time,' he said,
+with the glee of a mischievous child. 'But, ye gods, how his
+feathers drooped! He looked like a plucked cockatoo as he went out.'
+
+He stood thinking a moment, and then with a look of sudden
+determination he went to his writing-table and sat down to it.
+Drawing a writing-pad towards him, he wrote as follows:
+
+     'MY DEAR AUBREY--Your future father-in-law has just been
+     insulting and harrying me in ways which no civilized State had
+     ever heard of before the war. He is the Chairman of a
+     ridiculous body that calls itself the County War Agricultural
+     Committee, that lays absurd eggs in the shape of sub-Committees
+     to vex landlords. They have been going about among my farmers
+     and want me to turn out three of them. I decline, so I suppose
+     they'll do it for me. And they're going to plough up a lot of
+     the park--without my leave. And Chicksands is the head and
+     front of the whole business. He came here to-day to try and
+     coax me into submission. But I would neither be coaxed nor
+     bullied. I've broken with him; and if my children stand by me
+     properly, they'll break with him too. I really don't see how
+     you're going to marry Beryl after this. At least, I shall
+     certainly not help you to do it, and if you defy me you must
+     take the consequences. The whole world's gone mad. My only
+     consolation is that I have just got some new Greek things, and
+     that Levasseur's helping me unpack them. However, it's no good
+     talking to you about them. You wasted all your time at
+     Cambridge, and I doubt whether you could construe a bit of
+     Euripides to save your life.
+
+     'Of course if you want to talk this over, you had better run
+     down. I have got a new secretary--came here six weeks ago--a
+     topping young woman--who reads Greek like a bird. But her
+     quantities are not always what they should be. Good-bye.--Your
+     affectionate father,
+
+     'EDMUND MANNERING.'
+
+Having finished the epistle he read it over with a complacent
+countenance, put it up and stamped it. Then he looked at his watch.
+
+'What a long time that young woman's been away! I told her to take
+two hours off, but of course I didn't mean it. That was just my
+excessive politeness. D-mn my politeness. It's always getting in my
+way. I forget that women are naturally lazy. I daresay she was a bit
+fagged. But if she's interested in her work, what does that matter?
+I wonder whether she's looked out all these references?'
+
+And walking over to the one neat table In the room he surveyed it.
+There were some sheets lying on it mostly covered with an excellent
+Greek script, which he turned over. Suddenly he swooped on one of
+them.
+
+'Hullo! That line's wrong. Won't scan. Trusted to her memory, I
+suppose. Didn't look it up. And yesterday I caught her out in her
+accents. Women play the devil with accents. But she writes a pretty
+Greek. Eh? What?' For he had become aware of the re-entry of
+Levasseur, who was standing at his elbow.
+
+''Fraid I can't stay now,' said that person. 'I've promised to pick
+up some wounded at the station to-night.'
+
+'You--wounded!--what do you mean?' said the Squire, turning upon
+him.
+
+Levasseur's large, thin-lipped mouth showed what seemed an habitual
+grin.
+
+'I'd been getting so unpopular, it was becoming a nuisance. Line of
+least resistance, you understand. Now everybody's quite civil again.
+And I like chauffing.'
+
+'A mere bit of weakness!' grumbled the Squire. 'Either you keep out
+of the war, or you go into it. You'd better go off to a camp now,
+and get trained--and shot--as quickly as possible--get done with
+it.'
+
+'Oh no,' laughed the other. 'I'm all for middle courses. If they'll
+let me go on with my book, I don't mind driving a few poor fellows
+now and then!'
+
+The Squire looked at him critically.
+
+'The fact is you're too well fed, Levasseur, or you look it. That
+annoys people. Now I might gorge for a month, and shouldn't put on a
+pound.'
+
+'I suppose your household is rationed?'
+
+'Not it! We eat what we want. Just like the labourers. I found an
+old labourer eating his dinner under a hedge yesterday. Half a pound
+of bread at the very least, and he gets as much for his supper, and
+nearly as much for his breakfast. "I shall eat it, Squire, as long
+as I can get it. There's nowt else _packs_ ye like bread." And quite
+right too. Good word "pack."'
+
+'What'll he do when he can't get it?' laughed Levasseur, taking up
+his hat.
+
+'Stuff! This food business is all one big _blague_. Anyway the
+Government got us into the war; they're jolly well bound to feed us
+through it. They will, for their own necks' sake. Well, good-night.'
+
+Levasseur nodded in response, with the same silent, aimless grin,
+and disappeared through the garden door of the library.
+
+'Queer fellow!' thought the Squire. 'But he's useful. I shall get
+him to help catalogue these things as he did the others. Ah, there
+you are!'
+
+He turned with a reproachful air as the door opened.
+
+The westerly sun was coming strongly into the library, and shone
+full on the face and figure of the Squire's new secretary as she
+stood in the door-way. He expected an apology for an absence just
+five minutes over the two hours; but she offered none.
+
+'Pamela asked me to tell you, Mr. Mannering, that tea was ready
+under the verandah.'
+
+'Afternoon tea is an abominable waste of time!' said the Squire
+discontentedly, facing her with a Greek pot under each arm.
+
+'Do you think so? To me it's always the pleasantest meal in the
+day.'
+
+The voice was musical and attractive, but its complete
+self-possession produced a vague irritation in the Squire. With his
+two former secretaries, a Cambridge man and a spectacled maiden
+with a London University degree, he had been accustomed to play the
+tyrant as must as he pleased. Something had told him from the very
+beginning that he would not be able to tyrannize over this newcomer.
+
+But his quick masterful temper was already trying to devise ways of
+putting her down. He beckoned her towards the table where she had
+left her work, and she went obediently.
+
+'You've got that line wrong.' He pointed to a quotation from the
+_Odyssey_. 'Read it, please!'
+
+She read it. He stopped her triumphantly.
+
+'No, no, you can't make that long!' He pointed to one of the Greek
+words.
+
+Her fair skin flushed.
+
+'But indeed you can!' she said eagerly. 'Merry quotes three parallel
+passages. I have them in one of my notebooks.' And she began to
+search her table. Mannering stopped her ungraciously.
+
+'Of course there's always some learned fool behind every bad
+reading. Anyway, what do you say to those accents?' He pointed
+severely to another line of her Greek. This time Miss Bremerton's
+countenance changed.
+
+'Oh dear, what a blunder!' she said in distress, as she bent over
+her pages. 'I assure you I don't often do anything as bad as that.'
+
+Mannering was secretly delighted. His manner became at once all
+politeness.
+
+'Don't worry yourself, please. We all make mistakes.... You have a
+beautiful Greek handwriting.'
+
+Miss Bremerton took the compliment calmly--did not indeed seem to
+hear it. She was already scratching out the offending words with a
+sharp penknife, and daintily rewriting them. Then she looked up.
+
+'Pamela asked me to go back to her. And I was to say, will you come,
+or shall she send tea here?'
+
+'Oh, I'll come, I'll come. I've got something to say to Pamela,'
+said the Squire, frowning. And he stalked in front of her along the
+library passage, his brilliant white hair gleaming in its shadows.
+It was well perhaps that he did not see the amusement which played
+round Elizabeth Bremerton's handsome mouth as she pursued him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tea was laid on a flagged walk under a glazed pergola running along
+part of the southern wall of the house. Here Pamela was sitting
+waiting, with a basket of knitting on her knee which she put out of
+sight as soon as she heard her father's step. She had taken off her
+hat, and her plentiful brown hair was drawn in a soft wave across
+her forehead, and thickly coiled behind a shapely head. She was very
+young, and very pretty. Perhaps the impression of youth
+predominated, youth uncertain of itself, conscious rather of its own
+richness and force than of any definite aims or desires. Her
+expression was extremely reserved. A veil seemed to lie over her
+deep, heavy-lidded eyes, and over features that had now delicacy and
+bloom, but promised much more--something far beyond any mere girlish
+prettiness. She was tall and finely made, and for the school
+tableaux in which she had frequently helped she had been generally
+cast for such parts as 'Nausicaa among her maidens,' 'Athene
+lighting the way for Odysseus and Telemachus,' 'Dante's Beatrice,'
+or any other personage requiring dignity, even a touch of majesty.
+Flowing skirts, indeed, at once made a queen of her. It was evident
+that she was not at her ease with her father; nor, as yet, with her
+father's new secretary.
+
+The contrast between this lady and Pamela Mannering was obvious at
+once. If Pamela suggested romance, Elizabeth Bremerton suggested
+efficiency, cheerfulness, and the practical life. Her grandmother
+had been Dutch, and in Elizabeth the fair skin and yellow-gold hair
+(Rembrandt's 'Saskia' shows the type) of many Dutch forebears had
+reappeared. She was a trifle plump; her hair curled prettily round
+her temples; her firm dimpled chin and the fair complexion of her
+face and neck were set off, evidently with intention, by the plain
+blouse of black silky stuff, open at the neck, and showing a modest
+string of small but real pearls. The Squire, who had a wide
+knowledge of jewels, had noticed these pearls at once. It seemed to
+him--vaguely--that lady secretaries should not possess real pearls;
+or if they did possess them, should carefully keep them to
+themselves.
+
+He accepted a cup of tea from his daughter, and drank it absently
+before he asked:
+
+'Where's Desmond?'
+
+'He went to lunch at Fallerton--at the camp. Captain Byles asked
+him. I think afterwards he was going to play in a match.'
+
+The same thought passed through the minds of both father and
+daughter. 'This day week, Desmond will be gone.' In Pamela it
+brought back the dull pain of which she was now habitually
+conscious--the pain of expected parting. In her father it aroused an
+equally habitual antagonism--the temper, indeed, of ironic
+exasperation in which all his thinking and doing were at the moment
+steeped. He looked up suddenly.
+
+'Pamela, I have got something disagreeable to say to you.'
+
+His daughter turned a startled face.
+
+'I have had a quarrel with Sir Henry Chicksands, and I do not wish
+you, or Desmond, or any of my children, to have any communication
+henceforth with him, or with any of his family!'
+
+'Father, what _do_ you mean?'
+
+The girl's incredulous dismay only increased the Squire's
+irritation.
+
+'I mean what I say. Of course your married sisters and Aubrey will
+do what they please, though I have warned Aubrey how I shall view it
+if he takes sides against me. But you and Desmond are under my
+control--you, at any rate. I forbid you to go to Chetworth, and your
+friendship with Beryl must be given up.'
+
+'Father!' cried his daughter passionately, 'she is my best friend,
+and she is engaged to Aubrey.'
+
+'If they are wise, they will break it off. Family quarrels are
+awkward things. And if Aubrey has any feeling for his father, he
+will be as angry as I am.'
+
+'What _has_ Sir Henry been doing, father?'
+
+'Taking my own property out of my hands, my dear, giving notice to
+my farmers, and proposing to plough up my park, without my consent.
+That's all--just a trifle. But it's a trifle I shall fight!'
+
+The Squire struck the arm of his chair with a long and bony hand.
+
+'Why, it's only because they _must_!' said the girl half scornfully,
+her breath fluttering. 'Think what other people put up with,
+father. And what they do! And we do _nothing_!'
+
+Every word was said with difficulty, torn out of her by the shock of
+her father's statement. The Squire stared at her threateningly a
+little, then quieted down. He did not want a wrangle with Pamela, to
+whom in general he was not unkind, while keeping a strict rule over
+her.
+
+'Do nothing? What should we do? As if the war did not bleed us at
+every turn already. I warn you all I shan't be able to pay the
+income tax next year. Mannering will be sold up.' And thrusting his
+hands again into his pockets, he looked gloomily before him, over a
+piece of ill-kept garden, to the sloping park and blue interlacing
+hills that filled the distance.
+
+Elizabeth Bremerton put down her teacup, glanced at the father and
+daughter, and went discreetly away, back to the library and her
+work.
+
+Pamela hesitated a little, but at last moved nearer to him, and put
+a hand on his arm.
+
+'Father! I dreadfully want you to let me do something!'
+
+'Eh, what?' said Mannering, rousing himself. 'Don't try and coax me,
+child. It doesn't answer.'
+
+'I don't want to coax you,' said the girl proudly withdrawing her
+hand. 'It's a very simple thing. Will you let me go and do day work
+at the new Hospital, just across the park? They want some help in
+the housework. There are fifty wounded men there.'
+
+'Certainly not,' said Mannering firmly. 'You are too young. You have
+your education to think of. I told you I engaged Miss Bremerton to
+give you two hours' classics a day. When we've arranged these pots,
+she'll be free. You must also keep up your music. You have no time
+for housemaiding. And I don't approve of housemaiding for my
+daughter.'
+
+'The nicest girls I know are doing _anything_--scrubbing, washing
+up, polishing bath-taps, making swabs, covering splints,' said
+Pamela in a low voice. 'There are two of the Joyce girls at this
+hospital, just my age. Of course they don't let you do any
+nursing--for months.'
+
+'Lord Entwhistle may do what he likes with his girls. I propose to
+do what I think best with mine,' said Mannering as he rose.
+
+Then the girl's passion broke out.
+
+'It's _horrible_, father, that you won't do anything for the war, or
+let me do anything. Oh, I'm _glad_'--she clenched her hands as she
+stood opposite him, her beautiful head thrown back--'I'm thankful,
+that you can't stop Desmond!'
+
+Mannering looked at her, frowned, turned abruptly, and went away
+whistling.
+
+Pamela was left alone in the September evening. She betook herself
+to an old grass-grown walk between yew hedges at the bottom of the
+Dutch garden, and paced it in a tumult of revolt and pain. Not to go
+to Chetworth again! not to see Beryl, or any of them! How cruel! how
+monstrously unjust!
+
+'I shan't obey!--why should I? Beryl and I must manage to see each
+other--of course we shall! Girls aren't the slaves they used to be.
+If a thing is unjust, we can fight it--we ought to fight
+it!--somehow. Poor, poor Beryl! Of course Aubrey will stick to her,
+whatever father does. He would be a cur if he didn't. Desmond and I
+would never speak to him again!... Beryl'll have Arthur to help
+her, directly. Oh, I _wish_ I had a brother like Arthur!' Her face
+softened and quivered as she stood still a moment, sending her
+ardent look towards the sunset. 'I think I shall ask him to advise
+me.... I don't suppose he will.... How provoking he used to be! but
+awfully kind too. He'll think I ought to do what father tells me.
+How can I! It's wrong--it's abominable! Everybody despises us. And
+Desmond's dying to be off--to get away from it all--like Aubrey. He
+hates it so--he almost hates coming home! It's _humiliating_, and
+it's not our fault!'
+
+Such cries and thoughts ran through her as she walked impetuously up
+and down, in rebellion against her father, unhappy for her girl
+friend, and smarting under the coercion put upon her patriotism and
+her conscience. For she had only two months before left a school
+where the influence of a remarkable head-mistress had been directed
+towards awakening in a group of elder girls, to which Pamela
+belonged, a vivid consciousness of the perils and sufferings of the
+war--of the sacredness of the cause for which England was fighting,
+of the glory of England, and the joy and privilege of English
+citizenship. In these young creatures the elder woman had kindled a
+flame of feeling which, when they parted from her and their school
+life--so she told them--was to take practical effect in work for
+their country, given with a proud and glad devotion.
+
+But Pamela, leaving school at the end of July for the last time,
+after a surfeit of examinations, had been pronounced 'tired out' by
+an old aunt, a certain Lady Cassiobury, who came for long periodical
+visits to Mannering, and made a show of looking after her
+motherless niece. Accordingly she had been packed off to Scotland
+for August to stay with a school friend, one of a large family in a
+large country house in the Highlands. And there, roaming amid lochs
+and heather, with a band of young people, the majority of the men,
+of course, in the Army--young officers on short leave, or
+temporarily invalided, or boys of eighteen just starting their cadet
+training--she had spent a month full of emotions, not often
+expressed. For generally she was shy and rather speechless, though
+none the less liked by her companions for that. But many things sank
+deep with her; the beauty of mountain and stream; the character
+of some of the boys she walked and fished with--unnoticed
+sub-lieutenants, who had come home to get cured of one wound, and
+were going out again to the immediate chance of another, or worse;
+the tales of heroism and death of which the Scotch countryside was
+full. Her own mood was tuned thereby to an ever higher and more
+tragic key. Nobody indeed of the party was the least tragic.
+Everybody walked, fished, flirted, and laughed from morning till
+night. Yet every newspaper, every post, brought news of some death
+that affected one or other of the large group; and amid all the
+sheer physical joy of the long days in the open, bathed in sun and
+wind, there was a sense in all of them--or almost all of them--that
+no summer now is as the summers of the past, that behind and around
+the laughter and the picnicking there lay the Shadow that darkens
+the world.
+
+One gorgeous evening of gold and purple she was sitting by a
+highland stream with a lad of twenty, throwing ducks and drakes into
+the water. She was not at all in love with him; but, immature as she
+was, she could not help seeing that he was a good deal in love with
+her. He had been in uproarious spirits all the afternoon, and then
+somehow he had contrived to find this moment alone with her.
+
+'Well, it'll be good-bye to-morrow, or perhaps to-night,' he had
+said, as he flung yet another stone into the river, and she clapped
+her hands as she counted no less than six skips along the smooth
+water.
+
+'And then no leave for a long time?'
+
+'Well, I'd been ten months without any before.'
+
+'Perhaps we'll meet here again--next year.'
+
+'I don't expect it,' he said quietly.
+
+Her startled eyes met his full.
+
+'It'll be worse fighting this winter than last--it'll go on getting
+worse till the end. I don't look to coming back.'
+
+His tone was so cheerful and matter-of-fact that it confused her.
+
+'Oh, Basil, don't talk like that!' was all she could find to say.
+
+'Why not? Of course it's better not to talk about it. Nobody does.
+But just this afternoon--when it's been so jolly--here with you, I
+thought I'd like to say a word. Perhaps you'll remember--'
+
+He threw another stone, and on the moor beyond the stream she heard
+the grouse calling.
+
+'Remember what?'
+
+'That I was quite willing,' he said simply. 'That's all. It's worth
+it.'
+
+She could say nothing, but presently her hand dropped its pebble and
+found its way into his, and he had held it without saying a word for
+a little while. Then after dinner, with no good-bye to her, he had
+disappeared by the night train to the south.
+
+And that had been the spirit of all of them, those jolly, rampagious
+lads, plain or handsome, clever or slow. Two of them were dead
+already. But the one who had thrown ducks and drakes was still, so
+far as she knew, somewhere in the Ypres salient, unscathed.
+
+And after that she had come home to the atmosphere created by her
+father's life and character, in this old house where she was born,
+and in the estate round about it. It was as though she had only just
+realized--begun to realize--her father's strangeness. His
+eccentricities and unpopularity had meant little to her before. Her
+own real interests had lain elsewhere; and her mind had been too
+slow in developing to let her appreciate his fundamental difference
+from other people.
+
+At any rate her father's unpopularity had been lately acute, and
+Pamela herself felt it bitterly, and shrank from her neighbours and
+the cottage people. When Desmond came home with a D.S.O., or a
+Victoria Cross, as of course he would, she supposed it would be all
+right. But meanwhile not a single thing done for the war!--not a
+_sou_ to the Red Cross, or to any war funds! And hundreds spent on
+antiquities--thousands perhaps--getting them deeper and deeper into
+debt. For she was quite aware that they were in debt; and her own
+allowance was of the smallest. Two hundred and fifty a year, too,
+for Miss Bremerton!--when they could barely afford to keep up the
+garden decently, or repair the house. She knew it was two hundred
+and fifty pounds. Her father was never reticent about such things,
+and had named the figure at once.
+
+'Why wasn't Miss Bremerton doing something for the war? _Greek_
+indeed! when there was this fearful thing going on!' And in the
+evening air, as the girl turned her face towards the moonrise, she
+seemed to hear the booming of the Flanders guns.
+
+And now Miss Bremerton was to do the housekeeping, and to play tutor
+and chaperon to her. Pamela resented both. If she was not to be
+allowed to scrub in a hospital, she might at least have learnt some
+housekeeping at home, for future use. As for the Greek lessons, it
+was not easy for her to be positively rude to any one, but she
+promised herself a good deal of passive resistance on that side. For
+if nothing else was possible, she could always sew and knit for the
+soldiers. Pamela was not very good at either, but they did something
+to lessen the moral thirst in her.
+
+Ah, there was the library door. Miss Bremerton coming out--perhaps
+to propose a lesson! Pamela took to flight--noiseless and
+rapid--among the bosky corners and walks of the old garden.
+
+Elizabeth emerged, clearly perceiving a gleam of vanishing white in
+the far distance. She sighed, but not at all sentimentally. 'It's
+silly how she dislikes me,' she thought. 'I wonder what I can do!'
+
+Then her eye was caught by the tea-table still standing out in the
+golden dusk, which had now turned damp and chilly. Careless of
+Pamela not to have sent it away! Elizabeth examined it. Far too many
+cakes--too much sugar, too much butter, too much everything! And all
+because the Squire, who seemed to have as great a need of economy as
+anybody else, if not more, to judge from what she was beginning to
+know about his affairs, was determined to flout the Food
+Controller, and public opinion! What about the servants? she
+wondered.
+
+Perceiving a little silver bell on the table she rang it and waited.
+Within a couple of minutes Forest emerged from the house. Elizabeth
+hesitated, then plunged.
+
+'Take away the tea, please, Forest. And--and I should like to
+consult you. Do you think anybody wants as much tea and cakes in
+war-time?' She pointed to the table.
+
+Forest paused as he was lifting the silver tray, and put it down
+again. He looked at the table; then he looked at the lady opposite.
+
+'We servants, Miss, have never been asked what _we_ think. Mr.
+Mannering--that's not his way.'
+
+'But I may ask it, mayn't I, Forest?'
+
+Forest's intelligent face flamed.
+
+'Well, if we've really to speak out what we think, Miss--that's Cook
+and me--why, of course, the feeding here--well, it's a scandal!
+that's what it is. The Master will have it. No change, he says, from
+what it used to be. And the waste--well, you ask Cook! _She_ can't
+help it!'
+
+'Has she been here long, Forest?'
+
+'Fifteen years.'
+
+'And you?'
+
+'Twenty-two, Miss.'
+
+'Well, Forest,' Miss Bremerton approached him confidingly, 'don't
+you think that you, and Cook, and I--you know Mr. Mannering wishes
+me to do the housekeeping--well, that between us we could do
+something?'
+
+Forest considered it.
+
+'I don't see why not, Miss,' he said at last, with caution. 'You can
+reckon on me, that's certain, and on Cook, that's certain too. As
+for the young uns, we can get round them! They'll eat what they're
+given. But you'll have to go careful with the Squire.'
+
+Miss Bremerton smiled and nodded. They stood colloguing in the
+twilight for ten minutes more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+'I say, Pamela, who _is_ this female, and why has she descended on
+us?'
+
+The speaker was Desmond Mannering. He was sitting on the edge of a
+much dilapidated arm-chair in the room which had been the twins'
+"den" from their childhood, in which Pamela's governess even, before
+the girl's school years, was allowed only on occasional and
+precarious footing. Here Pamela dabbed in photography, made
+triumphant piles of the socks and mittens she kept from her father's
+eye, read history, novels, and poetry, and wrote to her school
+friends and the boys she had met in Scotland. Ranged along the
+mantelpiece were numbers of snapshots--groups and single
+figures--taken by her, with results that showed her no great
+performer.
+
+At the moment, however, Pamela was engaged in marking Desmond's
+socks. She was very jealous of her sisterly prerogative in the
+matter of Desmond's kit, and personal affairs generally. Forest was
+the only person she would allow to advise her, and one or two
+innocent suggestions made that morning by her new chaperon had
+produced a good deal of irritation.
+
+Pamela looked up with a flushed countenance.
+
+'I believe father did it specially that he might be able to tell
+Alice and Margaret that he hadn't a farthing for their war
+charities.'
+
+'You mean because she costs so much?'
+
+'Two hundred and fifty,' said Pamela drily.
+
+'My hat!--and her keep! I call that mean of father,' said Desmond
+indignantly. 'You can't go tick with a secretary. It means cash.
+There'll never be anything for you, Pam, and nothing for the garden.
+The two old fellows that were here last week have been turned off,
+Forest tells me?'
+
+'Father expects me to do the garden,' said Pamela, with rather
+pinched lips.
+
+'Well, jolly good thing,' laughed her brother. 'Do you a lot of
+good, Pam. You never get half enough exercise.'
+
+'I wouldn't mind if I were paid wages and could spend the money as I
+liked.'
+
+'Poor old Pam! It is hard lines. I heard father tell the Rector he'd
+spent eighteen hundred at that sale.'
+
+'And I'm ashamed to face any of the tradesmen,' said Pamela
+fiercely. 'Why they go on trusting us I don't know.'
+
+Desmond looked out of the window with a puckered brow--a slim figure
+in his cadet's uniform. To judge from a picture on the wall behind
+his head, an enlarged photograph of the late Mrs. Mannering taken a
+year before the birth of the twins--an event which had cost the
+mother her life--Desmond resembled her rather than his father. In
+both faces there was the same smiling youthfulness, combined--as
+indeed also in Pamela--with something that entirely banished any
+suggestion of insipidity--something that seemed to say, 'There is a
+soul here--and a brain.' It had sometimes occurred, in a dreamy way
+to Pamela, to connect that smile on her mother's face with a line in
+a poem of Browning's, which she had learnt for recitation at
+school:
+
+               This grew; I gave commands;
+          Then all smiles stopped together.
+
+Had her mother been happy? That her children could never know.
+
+Desmond's countenance, however, soon cleared. It was impossible for
+him to frown for long on any subject. He was very sorry for 'old
+Pam.' His father's opinions and behaviour were too queer for words.
+He would be jolly worried if he had to stay long at home, like
+Pamela. But then he wasn't going to be long at home. He was going
+off to his artillery camp in two days, and the thought filled him
+with a restless and impatient delight. At the same time he was more
+tolerant of his father than Pamela was, though he could not have
+told why.
+
+'Desmond, give me your foot,' Pamela presently commanded.
+
+The boy bared his foot obediently, and held it out while Pamela
+tried on a sock she had just finished knitting on a new pattern.
+
+'I'm not very good at it,' sighed Pamela. 'Are you sure you can wear
+them, Dezzy?'
+
+'Wear them? Ripping!' said the boy, surveying his foot at different
+angles. 'But you know, Pam, I can't take half the things you want me
+to take. What on earth did you get me a Gieve waistcoat for?'
+
+'How do you know you won't be going to Mesopotamia?'
+
+'Well, I don't know; but I don't somehow think it's very likely.
+They get their drafts from Egypt, and there's lots of artillery
+there.'
+
+Pamela remembered with annoyance that Miss Bremerton had gently
+hinted the same thing when the Gieve waistcoat had been unpacked in
+her presence. It was true, of course, that she had a brother
+fighting under General Maude. That, no doubt, did give her a modest
+right to speak.
+
+'How old do you think she is?' said Desmond, nodding in the
+direction of the library.
+
+'Well, she's over thirty.'
+
+'She doesn't look it.'
+
+'Oh, Desmond, she does!'
+
+'Let's call her the New Broom--Broomie for short,' said Desmond.
+'Look here, Pam, I wish you'd try and like her. I shall have a
+dreadful hump when I get to camp if I think she's going to make you
+miserable.'
+
+'Oh, I'll try,' said the girl with dreary resignation. 'You know I'm
+not to see Beryl again?' She looked up.
+
+Her brother laughed.
+
+'Don't I see you keeping to that! If Aubrey's any good he'll marry
+her straight away. And then how can father boycott her after that?'
+
+'He will,' said Pamela decisively.
+
+'And if father thinks I'm going to give up Arthur, he's jolly well
+mistaken,' said the boy with energy. 'Arthur's the best fellow I
+know, and he's been just ripping to me.'
+
+The young face softened and glowed as though under the stress of
+some guarded memory. Pamela, looking up, caught her brother's
+expression and glowed too.
+
+'Beryl says he isn't a bit strong yet. But he's moving heaven and
+earth to get back to the front.'
+
+'Well, if they don't give him enough to do he'll be pretty sick.
+He's no good at loafing.'
+
+There was silence a little. Outside a misty sunshine lay on the
+garden and the park and in it the changing trees were beginning to
+assume the individuality and separateness of autumn after the
+levelling promiscuity of the summer. The scene was very English and
+peaceful; and between it and the two young creatures looking out
+upon it there were a thousand links of memory and association.
+Suddenly Desmond said:
+
+'Do you remember that bother I got into at Eton, Pam?'
+
+Pamela nodded. Didn't she remember it? A long feud with another
+boy--ending in a highly organized fight--absolute defiance of tutor
+and housemaster on Desmond's part--and threatened expulsion. The
+Squire's irritable pride had made him side ostentatiously with his
+son, and Pamela could only be miserable and expect the worst. Then
+suddenly the whole convulsion had quieted down, and Desmond's last
+year at Eton had been a very happy one. Why? What had happened?
+Pamela had never known.
+
+'Well, Arthur heard of it from "my tutor." He and Arthur were at
+Trinity together. And Arthur came over from Cambridge and had me out
+for a walk, and jawed me, jawed "my tutor," jawed the Head, jawed
+everybody. Oh, well no good going into the rotten thing,' said
+Desmond, flushing, 'but Arthur was awfully decent anyway.'
+
+Pamela assented mutely. She did not want to talk about Arthur
+Chicksands. There was in her a queer foreboding sense about him. She
+did not in the least expect him to fall in love with her; yet there
+was a dim, intermittent fear in her lest he might become too
+important to her, together with a sharp shrinking from the news,
+which of course might come any day, that he was going to be married.
+She had known him from her childhood, had romped and sparred with
+him. He was the gayest, most charming companion; yet he carried with
+him, quite unconsciously, something that made it delightful to be
+smiled at or praised by him, and a distress when you did not get on
+with him, and were quite certain that he thought you silly or
+selfish. There was a rumour which reached Mannering after the second
+battle of Ypres that he had been killed. The Chicksands' household
+believed it for twenty-four hours.
+
+Then he was discovered--gassed and stunned--in a shell-hole, and
+there had been a long illness and convalescence. During the
+twenty-four hours when he was believed to be dead, Pamela had spent
+the April daylight in the depths of the Mannering woods, in tangled
+hiding-places that only she knew. It was in the Easter holidays. She
+was alone at Mannering with an old governess, while her father was
+in London. The little wrinkled Frenchwoman watched her in silence,
+whenever she was allowed to see her. Then when on the second morning
+there came a telegram from Chetworth, and Pamela tore it open,
+flying with it before she read it to the secrecy of her own room,
+the Frenchwoman smiled and sighed. 'Ca, c'est l'amour!' she said to
+herself, 'assurement c'est l'amour!' And when Pamela came down
+again, radiant as a young seraph, and ready to kiss the apple-red
+cheek of the Frenchwoman--the rarest concession!--Madame Guerin did
+not need to be told that Arthur Chicksands was safe and likely to be
+sound.
+
+But the Frenchwoman's inference was premature. During the two years
+she had been at school, Pamela had thought very little of Arthur
+Chicksands. She was absorbed in one of those devotions to a
+woman--her schoolmistress--very common among girls of strong
+character, and sometimes disastrous. In her case it had worked well.
+And now the period of extravagant devotion was over, and the girl's
+mind and heart set free. She thought she had forgotten Arthur
+Chicksands, and was certain he must have forgotten her. As it
+happened they had never met since his return to the front in the
+autumn of 1915--Pamela was then seventeen and a schoolgirl--or, as
+she now put it, a baby. She remembered the child who had hidden
+herself in the woods as something very far away.
+
+And yet she did not want to talk about 'Arthur,' as she had always
+called him, and there was a certain tremor and excitement in her
+mind about him. The idea of being prevented from seeing him was
+absurd--intolerable. She was already devising ways and means of
+doing it. It was really not to be expected that filial obedience
+should reign at Mannering.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The twins had long left the subject of the embargo on Chetworth, and
+were wrangling and chaffing over the details of Desmond's packing,
+when there was a knock at the door.
+
+Pamela stiffened at once.
+
+'Come in!'
+
+Miss Bremerton entered.
+
+'Are you very busy?'
+
+'Not at all!' said Desmond politely, scurrying with his best Eton
+manners to find a chair for the newcomer. 'It's an awful muddle, but
+that's Pamela!'
+
+Pamela aimed a sponge-bag at him, which he dodged, and Elizabeth
+Bremerton sat down.
+
+'I want to hold a council with you,' she said, turning a face just
+touched with laughter from one to the other. 'Do you mind?'
+
+'Certainly not,' said Desmond, sitting on the floor with his hands
+round his knees. 'What's it about?' And he gave Pamela's right foot
+a nudge with his left by way of conveying to her that he thought her
+behaviour ungracious. Pamela hurriedly murmured, 'Delighted.'
+
+'I want to tell you about the servants,' said Elizabeth. 'I can't do
+anything unless you help me.'
+
+'Help you in what?' said Desmond, wondering.
+
+'Well, you know, it's simply scandalous what you're all eating in
+this house!' exclaimed Elizabeth, with sudden energy. 'You ought to
+be fined.' She frowned, and her fair Dutch complexion became a
+bright pink.
+
+'It's quite true,' said Pamela, startled. 'I told father, and he
+laughed at me.'
+
+'But now even the servants are on strike,' said Elizabeth. 'It's
+Forest that's been preaching to them. He and Cook have been drawing
+up a week's _menu_, according to the proper scale. But--'
+
+'Father won't have it,' said Pamela decidedly.
+
+'An idea has occurred to me,' was Elizabeth's apologetic reply.
+'Your father doesn't come in to lunch?'
+
+'Happy thought!' cried Desmond. 'Send him in a Ritz luncheon, while
+the rest of you starve. Easy enough for me to say as I'm off--and
+soldiers aren't rationed! We may be as greedy pigs as we like.'
+
+'What do you say?' Elizabeth looked at Pamela. The girl was
+flattered by the deference shown her, and gradually threw herself
+into the little plot. How to set up a meatless day for the
+household, minus the Squire, and not be found out; how to restrict
+the bread and porridge allowance, while apparently outrunning
+it--knotty problems! into which the twins plunged with much laughter
+and ingenuity. At the end of the discussion, Elizabeth said with
+hesitation, 'I don't like not telling Mr. Mannering, but--'
+
+'Oh no, you can't tell him' said Pamela, in her most resolute tone.
+'Besides, it's for the country!'
+
+'Yes, it's the country!' echoed Elizabeth. 'Oh, I'm so glad you
+agree with me. Forest's splendid!'
+
+'I say, Broomie's not bad,' thought Desmond. Aloud he said,
+'Forest's a regular Turk in the servants' hall--rules them all with
+a rod of iron.'
+
+Elizabeth laughed. 'He tells me there was a joint of cold beef last
+night for supper, and he carried it away bodily back into the
+larder. And they all supped on fried potatoes, cheese, oatcake and
+jam! So then I asked him whether anybody minded, and he said the
+little kitchen-maid cried a bit, and said she "was used to her
+vittles and her mother would be dreadfully put out." "'_Mother_!'
+says I, 'haven't you got _a young man_!' And then I give her a real
+talking to about the war. 'You back your young man,' I said, 'and
+there's only one way as females can do it--barring them as is in
+munitions. Every bit of bread you don't eat is helping to kill
+Boches. And what else is your young man doin'? Where do you say he
+is? Wipers? You ask him. He'll tell you!' So then we were all nice
+and comfortable--and you needn't bother about us downstairs. _We're_
+all right!"'
+
+'Good old Forest!' laughed Desmond, delighted. 'I always knew he was
+the real boss here. Father thinks he is, but he can't do without
+Forest, and the old boy knows it.'
+
+'Well, so that's agreed,' said Elizabeth demurely, as she rose. 'I
+naturally couldn't do anything without you, but so long as your
+father gets everything that he's accustomed to--'
+
+'I don't see quite what you're going to do about dinner--late
+dinner, I mean?' said Pamela pensively.
+
+Elizabeth beamed at her.
+
+'Well, I became a vegetarian last week, except for very occasional
+break-outs. Fish is a vegetable!'
+
+'I see,' reflected Pamela. 'We can break out now and then at dinner,
+when father's got his eye on us--'
+
+'And be pure patriots at lunch,' laughed Miss Bremerton, as she
+opened the door. 'Au revoir! I must go back to work.'
+
+She vanished. The brother and sister looked at each other.
+
+Desmond gave his opinion.
+
+'I believe she's a good sort!'
+
+'"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 Nike, 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 Eros, by a late Rhodian
+artist--subtle, thievish, lovely, breathing an evil and daemonic
+charm. It stood opposite the Nike, '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 naivest
+    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 _regime_, 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.
+
+    'As to the rest of the family, there is a charming boy and
+    girl--twins of nineteen, the boy just off to an artillery camp
+    after his cadet training; the girl extremely pretty and
+    distinguished, and so far inclined to think me an intruder and a
+    nuisance. How to get round her I don't exactly know, but I
+    daresay I shall manage it somehow. If she would only set up a
+    love-affair I could soon get the whip-hand of her!
+
+    'Then there is the priceless butler, with whom I have already
+    made friends. I seem to have a taste for butlers, though I've
+    never lived with one. He is fifty-two and a volunteer, in stark
+    opposition to the Squire, who jeers at him perpetually. Forest
+    takes it calmly, seems even in a queer way to be attached to his
+    queer master. But he never misses a drill for anybody or any
+    weather, and when he's out, the under-housemaid "buttles" for
+    him like a lamb. The fact is, of course, that he's been here for
+    twenty years, and the Squire couldn't get on for a day without
+    him, or thinks he couldn't. So that his position is, as you may
+    say, strongly entrenched, and counter-attacks are useless.
+
+    'The married daughters--Mrs. Gaddesden, who, I think, is an
+    Honourable, and Mrs. Strang--are coming to-morrow to see their
+    brother before he goes into camp. The Squire doesn't want them
+    at all. Ah, there he comes! I'll finish later...'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Squire came in--to use one of the Homeric similes of which he
+was so fond--'like a lion fresh from a slain bull, bespattered with
+blood and mire.' He had gone out pale, he returned crimson, rubbing
+his hands and in great excitement. And it was evident that he had by
+now formed the habit of talking freely to his secretary. For he went
+up to her at once.
+
+'Well, now they know what to expect!' he said, his eyes glittering,
+and all his thick hair on his small peaked head standing up in a
+high ridge, like the crest of a battle-helmet.
+
+'Who are "they"?' asked Elizabeth, smiling, as she quietly pushed
+her letter a little further under the blotting-paper.
+
+'The County Council idiots--no, the Inspector fellow they're sending
+round.'
+
+'And what did you tell him?'
+
+'That I should resist their entry. The gates of the park will be
+locked. And my lawyers are already preparing a case for the High
+Court. Well--eh!--what?'--the speaker wound up impatiently, as
+though waiting for an immediate and applauding response.
+
+Elizabeth was silent. She bent over the Greek book in front of her,
+as though looking for her place.
+
+'You didn't think I was going to take it lying down!' asked the
+Squire, in a raised voice. Her silence suggested to him afresh all
+the odious and tyrannical forces by which he felt himself
+surrounded.
+
+Elizabeth turned to him with a cheerful countenance.
+
+'I don't quite understand what "it" means,' she said politely.
+
+'Nonsense, you do!' was the angry reply. 'That's so like a woman.
+They always want to catch you out; they never see things simply and
+broadly. You'd like to make yourself out a fool--[Greek: nepia]--and
+you're not a fool!'
+
+And with his hands in his pockets he made two or three long strides
+up to the Nike, at the further end of the room, and back, pulling up
+beside her again, as though challenging her reply.
+
+'I assure you, sir, I wasn't trying to catch you out,' Elizabeth
+began in her gentlest voice.
+
+'Don't call me "sir." I won't have it!' cried the Squire, almost
+stamping.
+
+Then Elizabeth laughed outright.
+
+'I'm sorry, but when I was working in the War Trade Department I
+always called the head of my room "sir."'
+
+'That's because women _like_ kow-towing--[Greek: doulosunen
+anechesthai]!' said the Squire. Then he threw himself into a chair.
+'Now let's talk sense a little.'
+
+Elizabeth's attentive look, and lips quivering with amusement which
+she tried in vain to suppress, and he was determined not to see,
+showed her more than willing.
+
+'I suppose you think--like that fellow I've just routed--that it's
+a uestion of food production. It isn't! It's a question of
+_liberty_--_versus_ bondage. If we can only survive as slaves, then
+wipe us out! That's my view.'
+
+'Wasn't there a bishop once who said he would rather have England
+free than sober?' asked Elizabeth.
+
+'And a very sensible man,' growled the Squire, 'though in general
+I've no use for bishops. Now you understand, I hope? This is going
+to be a test case. I'll make England ring.'
+
+'Are you sure they can't settle it at once, under the Defence of the
+Realm Act?'
+
+'Not they!' said the Squire triumphantly. 'Of course, I'm not
+putting up a frontal defence. I'm outflanking them. I'm proving that
+this is the worst land they could possibly choose. I'm offering them
+something else that they don't want. Meanwhile the gates shall be
+locked, and if any one or anything breaks them down--my lawyers are
+ready--we apply for an injunction at once.'
+
+'And you're not--well, nervous?' asked Miss Bremerton, with a
+charming air of presenting something that might have been
+overlooked.
+
+'Nervous of what?'
+
+'Isn't the law--the new law--rather dreadfully strong?'
+
+'Oh, you think I shall end in the county gaol?' said the Squire
+abruptly. 'Well, of course'--he took a reflective turn up and
+down--'I've no particular wish just now for the county gaol. It
+would be an infernal nuisance--in the middle of this book. But I
+mean to give them as much trouble as I can. I'm all right so far.'
+
+He looked up suddenly, and caught an expression on his secretary's
+face which called him to order at once, though he was not meant to
+see it. Contempt?--cold contempt? Something like it.
+
+The Squire drew himself up.
+
+'You've made the arrangements, I suppose, for to-morrow?'
+
+He spoke curtly, as the master of the house to a dependent.
+
+Elizabeth meekly replied that she had done everything according to
+his directions. Mrs. Gaddesden was to have the South rooms.
+
+'I said the East rooms!'
+
+'But I thought--' Elizabeth began, in consternation.
+
+'You thought wrong,' said the Squire cuttingly. 'Do not trouble
+yourself. I will tell Forest'
+
+Elizabeth coloured crimson, and went on with her work. The Squire
+rang the bell. But before Forest could answer it, there was a quick
+step in the passage, and Desmond came bursting in.
+
+'Pater, I say! it's too fine! You can't frowst all day at this
+nonsense. Come out, and let's shoot those roots of Milsom's. He told
+me yesterday there were five or six coveys in his big field alone.
+Of course everybody's been poaching for all they're worth. But
+there's some left. Forest'll get us some sandwiches. He says he'll
+come and load for you. His boy and the garden boy'll do for
+beaters.'
+
+The Squire stood glumly hesitating, but with his eye on his son.
+
+'Look here,' said Desmond, 'I've only got two days!'
+
+Elizabeth could not help watching the boy--his look at his father,
+the physical beauty and perfection of him. The great Victory at the
+end of the room with her outstretched wings seemed to be hovering
+above him.
+
+'Well, I don't mind,' said the Squire slowly.
+
+Desmond gave a laugh of triumph, twined his arm in that of his
+father, and dragged him away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     'DEAR BELOVED DICK--I must just finish this before dinner. Oh,
+     how I like to think of you at Baghdad, with trees and shade,
+     and civilized quarters again, after all you've gone through.
+     Have you got my letters, and those gauze things I sent you for
+     the hot weather? They tell me here they're right. But how's one
+     to know? Meanwhile, my dear, here are your mother and sister on
+     their knees to you, just to be told what you want. Try and want
+     something!--there's a dear.
+
+     'Mother's fairly well--I mean as well as we can expect after
+     such an illness. My salary here enables me to give her a proper
+     trained nurse, and to send Jean to school. As to the rest,
+     don't trouble about me, old man. Sometimes I think it was my
+     pride more than anything else that was hurt a year ago. Anyway
+     I find in myself a tremendous appetite for work. In spite of
+     his oddities, Mr. Mannering is a most stimulating critic and
+     companion. My work is interesting, and I find myself steeped
+     once more in the most fascinating, the most wonderful of all
+     literatures! What remains unsatisfied in me is the passion
+     which you know I have always had for setting things
+     straight--organizing, tidying up! Not to speak of other
+     passions--for work directly connected with the war, for
+     instance--which have had to be scrapped for a time. I can't
+     bear the muddle and waste of this place. It gets on my nerves.
+     Perhaps, if I stay, I may get a chance. I have made a small
+     beginning--with the food. But I won't bother you with it.
+
+     'Above all, I must try and make friends with the twins.
+     Desmond would be easy, but he's going. Pamela will be more
+     difficult. However, I shall do my best. As I have already said,
+     if she would only set up a flirtation--a nice one--that I could
+     aid and abet!
+
+     'What will the married sisters be like? Desmond and Pamela say
+     very little. All I know is that Alice--that's Mrs.
+     Gaddesden--is to have a fire in her room all day, though the
+     weather now is like July. To judge from her photographs, she is
+     fair, rather pretty, stout and lethargic. Whereas Margaret is
+     as thin almost as her father, and head-over-ears in war
+     charities. She lives, says Pamela, on arrowroot and oatcake, to
+     set an example, and her servants leave her regularly every
+     month.
+
+     'Well, we shall see. I run on like this, because you say you
+     like to be gossipped to; and I am just a little lonely
+     here--sometimes. Good-night, and good-bye.--Your devoted
+     sister,
+
+     'ELIZABETH.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+'Come in!' said Alice Gaddesden in a languid tone. From the knock,
+sharp and loud, on her bedroom door, she guessed that it was her
+sister Margaret who wished to see her. She did not wish, however, to
+see Margaret at all. Margaret, who was slightly the elder, tired and
+coerced her. But she had no choice.
+
+Mrs. Strang entered briskly.
+
+'My dear Alice! what a time of day to be in bed! Are you really
+ill?'
+
+Mrs. Gaddesden grew red with annoyance.
+
+'I thought I had told you, Margaret, that Dr. Crother advised me
+more than a year ago not to come down till the middle of the
+morning. It rests my heart.'
+
+Mrs. Strang, who had come up to the bedside, looked down upon her
+sister with amused eyes. She herself was curiously like the Squire,
+even as to her hair, which was thick and fair, and already
+whitening, though she was not yet thirty. Human thinness could
+hardly have been carried further than she and the Squire achieved
+it. She had her father's nose also. But the rest of her features
+were delicately regular, and her quick blue eyes were those of a
+woman who told no falsehoods herself, and had little patience with
+other people's.
+
+'My dear Alice, why do you believe doctors? They always tell you
+what you want to hear. I am sure you told Dr. Crother exactly what
+to say,' said Margaret, laughing, as she placed a chair by the
+bedside.
+
+'Oh, of course I know you think everybody's a sham who isn't as
+strong as yourself!' said Mrs. Gaddesden, sinking back on her
+pillows with a soft sigh of resignation. 'Though I think you _might_
+have remembered the horribly hard work I've been doing lately.'
+
+'Have you?' Mrs. Strang wrinkled her brow, as though in an effort to
+recollect. 'Oh, yes, I know. I have always been getting notices
+lately with your name on them, at the end of a long tail beginning
+with a Duchess, and stuffed with Countesses. And I always
+think--there's Alice doing the work, and the Countesses getting the
+glory. Do you really do the work?'
+
+And Margaret, who did not often see her sister, and was of a
+genuinely inquiring turn of mind, turned upon her a penetrating
+look.
+
+'Well, of course,' said Mrs. Gaddesden, a little confused, 'there
+are always the secretaries.'
+
+'Ah-ha!' Mrs. Strang laughed--one might almost say crowed. 'Yes,
+indeed, if it weren't for the secretaries! By the way, what do you
+think about the specimen here?'
+
+Mrs. Gaddesden lost her languid air at once. She sat up among her
+pillows, a reasonably pretty woman, not without some likeness to
+Pamela, in points that did not matter.
+
+'My dear Margaret,' she said, with emphasis, 'this has got to be
+watched!--_watched_, I tell you.'
+
+Mrs. Strang opened her eyes wide.
+
+'What on earth do you mean?'
+
+Alice Gaddesden smiled.
+
+'Well, of course, you're much cleverer than I am, but I really do
+see further in practical matters than you do. Haven't you noticed,'
+she bent forward, looking mysterious and intent, 'how _already_
+father depends upon her, how she's beginning to run the whole
+show--and she hasn't been here much more than six weeks? My dear
+Margaret, with a secretary like that you _never_ can tell!'
+
+'Well,' said Mrs. Strang coolly, 'and what then?'
+
+'Oh, well, of course, if you're prepared to see a person like
+that--in our mother's place!'
+
+'"A person like that"--how dreadfully old-fashioned you are, Alice!
+She's a lady; she's much more highly educated than you or I, and if
+she gets her way, she'll perhaps keep father out of some of the
+scrapes he seems bent on. You know this business of the park is
+perfectly mad!'
+
+For the first time in this conversation Margaret Strang's face was
+grave. And when it was grave, some people would have called it fine.
+
+'And just think what it'll cost,' said Mrs. Gaddesden despondently,
+'even if he had a case--which he probably hasn't--and if he were to
+win it. There'll be no money left for Aubrey or any of us soon.'
+
+'But of course he hasn't a case, and of course he can't win!' cried
+Margaret Strang. 'It's not that I care about--or the money--it's the
+disgrace!'
+
+'Yes,' murmured Alice doubtfully.
+
+'When you think--'
+
+Mrs. Strang paused; her bright blue eyes, alive with thoughts, were
+fixed absently on her sister. She seemed to see a number of shabby
+streets, where she was accustomed to work, with little shabby shops,
+and placards on them--'No butter,' 'No milk,' and apples marked 4d.
+each.
+
+'Think what?' said Alice.
+
+Mrs. Strang's mind returned to Alice, and Alice's very elaborate and
+becoming _negligee_.
+
+'Only that, in my opinion, it's the duty of every landowner to
+produce every ounce of food he can, and to do what he's told! And
+father not only sets a shocking example, but he picks this absurd
+quarrel with the Chicksands. What on earth is Aubrey to do? Or poor
+Beryl?'
+
+'Well, he comes to-night,' said Alice, 'so I suppose we shall hear.
+I can't make Aubrey out,' she added reflectively.
+
+'Nobody can. I was talking to a brother-officer of his last week, a
+man who's awfully fond of him. He told me Aubrey did his work very
+well. He was complimented by Headquarters on his School only last
+month. But he's like an automaton. Nobody really knows him, nobody
+gets any forwarder with him. He hardly speaks to anybody except on
+business. The mess regard him as a wet blanket, and his men don't
+care about him, though he's a capital officer. Isn't it strange,
+when one thinks of what Aubrey used to be five years ago?'
+
+Alice agreed. Perhaps he was still suffering from the effects of his
+wound in 1915.
+
+'Anyway he can't give Beryl up,' said Margaret with energy, 'if he's
+a man of honour!'
+
+Alice shrugged her shoulders.
+
+'Then he'll give up the estate, according to father.'
+
+'Desmond would give it back to him, if there's anything left of it,
+or if he wants it.'
+
+'Margaret!'
+
+'You think I don't care about the family--that there should always
+be a Mannering of Mannering? Yes, I do care, but there are so many
+other things now to care about,' added Mrs. Strang slowly.
+
+'Who's making me late now?' said Alice, looking at her watch.
+
+Margaret took the hint and departed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That same evening, in the September dusk, a dog-cart arrived at the
+Hall, bringing Major Mannering and a Gladstone bag.
+
+Pamela and Desmond rushed out to meet him. Their elder sisters were
+dressing for dinner, and the Squire was in the library with
+Elizabeth. The twins dragged the newcomer into their own den, and
+shut the door upon him. There Desmond gave him a breathless survey
+of the situation, while Pamela sat on a stool at his feet, and put
+in explanatory words at intervals. Their father's extraordinary
+preparations for waging war against the County Committee; his
+violence on the subject of the Chicksands; Beryl's despairing
+letters to Pamela; a letter from Arthur Chicksands to Desmond,--all
+these various items were poured out on the newcomer, with an
+eagerness and heat which showed the extreme interest which the twins
+took in the situation.
+
+Meanwhile Aubrey Mannering sat listening almost in silence. He was a
+delicately built, distinguished-looking man, who carried a large
+scar on his forehead, and had lost a finger of the left hand. The
+ribbons on his breast showed that he was both an M.C. and a
+D.S.O.--distinctions won at the second battle of Ypres and on the
+Somme. While the twins talked, his eyes travelled from one to the
+other, attentive, but curiously aloof.
+
+He was saying to himself that Pamela was extremely pretty, and
+Desmond a splendid fellow. Then--in a moment--while he looked at his
+young brother, a vision, insistent, terrible, passed ghost-like
+between him and the boy. Again and again he tried to shake it off,
+and again and again it interposed.
+
+'Oh, Aubrey, what will you do?' said Pamela despairingly, leaning
+her head against her brother's knee.
+
+Her voice recalled him. He laid his hand upon her beautiful hair.
+
+'Well, dear, there's only one thing, of course, for me to do--to
+stick to Beryl and let father do his worst.'
+
+'Hurrah!' said Desmond. 'That's all right. And of course you know,
+Aubrey, that if father tries any hankey-pankey with the estate, and
+leaves it to me, I shall give it back to you next day.'
+
+Aubrey smiled. 'Father'll live another twenty years, old man. Will
+there be any England then, or any law, or any estates to leave?'
+
+The twins looked at him in amazement. Again he recovered himself
+quickly.
+
+'I only meant that, in times like these, it's no good planning
+anything twenty years ahead. We've got to win the war, haven't
+we?--that's the first thing. Well, now, I must go and clean up.
+Who's here?'
+
+'Alice and Margaret,' said Pamela. 'And father's new secretary.'
+
+'You never told me about him,' said Aubrey indifferently, as he
+rose.
+
+'"Him" indeed!' laughed Desmond. 'Nothing of the sort!'
+
+Aubrey turned a puzzled look upon him.
+
+'What! a lady?'
+
+Desmond grinned.
+
+'First Class in Mods, and an awful swell. Father can't let her out
+of his sight. Says he never had anybody so good.'
+
+'And she'll end by bossing us all,' put in Pamela. 'She's begun it
+already. Now you really must go and dress.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the eldest son of the house entered the drawing-room, he found
+everybody gathered there but his father and the Rector, who was
+coming to dine. He was at once seized on by his married sisters, who
+saw him very rarely. Then Pamela led him up to a tall lady in pale
+blue.
+
+'My eldest brother--Miss Bremerton.'
+
+He looked at her with curiosity, and was glad when, after the
+arrival of his father and the Rector, it fell to him to take the new
+secretary in to dinner. His father's greeting to him had been
+decidedly cool--the greeting of a man who sees a fight impending and
+wishes to give away nothing to his opponent. In fact the two men had
+never been on really cordial terms since August 1914, when Aubrey
+had thrown up his post in the Foreign Office to apply for one of the
+first temporary commissions in the New Army. The news came at a
+moment when the Squire was smarting under the breakdown of a
+long-cherished scheme of exploration in the Greek islands, which was
+to have been realized that very autumn--a scheme towards which his
+whole narrow impetuous mind had been turned for years. No more
+Hellenic or Asia Minor excavations! no more cosmopolitan
+_Wissenschaft_! On that fatal August 4 a whole world went down
+submerged beneath the waves of war, and the Squire cared for no
+other. His personal chagrin showed itself in abuse of the bungling
+diplomats and 'swashbuckler' politicians who, according to him, had
+brought us into war. So that when Aubrey applied for a commission,
+the Squire, mainly to relieve his own general irritation, had
+quarrelled with him for some months, and was only outwardly
+reconciled when his son came home invalided in 1915.
+
+During the summer of 1917, Aubrey, after spending three days' leave
+at Mannering, had gone on to stay at Chetworth with the Chicksands
+for a week. The result of that visit was a letter to his father in
+which he announced his engagement to Beryl. The Squire could make
+then no open opposition, since he was still on friendly terms with
+Sir Henry, who had indeed done him more than one good turn. But in
+reply to his son's letter, he stood entirely on the defensive, lest
+any claim should be made upon him which might further interfere with
+the passion of his life. He was not, he said, in a position to
+increase Aubrey's allowance--the Government robbers had seen to
+that--and unless Beryl was prepared to be a poor man's wife he
+advised them to wait till after the war. Then Sir Henry had ridden
+over to Mannering with a statement of what he was prepared to do for
+his daughter, and the Squire had given ungracious consent to a
+marriage in the spring. Chicksands knew his man too well to take
+offence at the Squire's manners, and Beryl was for a time too
+timidly and blissfully happy to be troubled by them.
+
+'You have been here a few weeks,' said the newcomer to Elizabeth,
+when the party had settled down at table.
+
+'About six weeks. It seems longer!' smiled Elizabeth.
+
+'You are doing some work for my father?'
+
+Elizabeth explained herself. Major Mannering listened attentively.
+
+'So what you do for him is literary--and historical?'
+
+'Oh no--I do accounts, and write letters too.'
+
+'Accounts? I thought there was a housekeeper?'
+
+'She went a month ago to the W.A.A.C.'s. Please!--do you mind?' And
+to his amazement, as he was putting out his hand automatically to a
+piece of bread lying on his left, Miss Bremerton's hand holding a
+fork neatly intercepted him, and moved the bread away.
+
+'It's our "Self-denying Ordinance,"' explained the lady, colouring a
+little. 'The bread appears because--because your father doesn't
+think rations necessary. But no one touches it, and Forest collects
+it afterwards--for breakfast.'
+
+A smile broke on Aubrey's grave and pensive face.
+
+'I see. Mayn't I really have any?'
+
+Elizabeth hesitated.
+
+'Well, perhaps, as a guest, and a soldier. Yes, I think you may.'
+And she would have restored her prey had not her neighbour stopped
+her.
+
+'Not at all. As a soldier I obey orders. My hat! how you've drilled
+them all!' For, looking round the table, he saw that not a single
+guest had touched the bread lying to their left.
+
+'That's Pamela and Mr. Desmond! They've given everybody a _menu_ for
+three days.'
+
+'Good heavens--not my father!'
+
+'Oh no, _no_! We don't think he suspects anything, and he has
+everything he likes.'
+
+'And my married sisters?' Elizabeth hesitated again.
+
+'Well, Mrs. Gaddesden is rather afraid of being starved. Mrs.
+Strang, on the other hand, thinks we're wickedly extravagant!'
+
+Her neighbour was so much amused that conversation flowed on easily
+thenceforward; and Desmond opposite whispered to Pamela:
+
+'Just look at Broomie! She's actually making Aubrey talk.'
+
+The Major's role, however, was on the whole that of listener. For
+Elizabeth meant to talk--meant to explain herself to the son and
+heir, and, if she could, to drive him to an interest in the family
+affairs. To her trained, practical mind the whole clan seemed by now
+criminally careless and happy-go-lucky. The gardens were neglected;
+so was the house; so was the estate. The gardens ought to have been
+made self-supporting; there were at least a third too many servants
+in the house; and as for the estate, instead of being a
+profit-making and food-producing concern, as it should have been, it
+was a bye-word for bad management and neglected land. She did not
+pretend to know much about it yet; but what she did know roused her.
+England was at grips with a brutal foe. The only weapon that could
+defeat her was famine--the sloth and waste of her own sons. This
+woman, able, energetic, a lover of her country, could not conceal
+her scorn for such a fatal incompetence. Naturally, in talking to
+the eldest son, she made the agent her scapegoat for the sins of the
+owner. The Squire's responsibility was carefully masked. But Aubrey
+Mannering perfectly understood what she would be at. She was a
+clever woman who wanted things improved. Well, let her improve
+them. It did not matter to him.
+
+But she appeared to him as a somewhat special type of the modern
+woman, with her advanced education and her clear brain; and for a
+time he observed her curiously. The graceful dress, pale blue with
+touches of black, which exactly became her fair skin, the bright
+gold of her hair, and the pleasant homeliness of her face--her
+general aspect indeed--attracted him greatly. She might know Greek;
+at heart, he believed, she was a good housewife; and when she
+incidentally mentioned Dutch relations, he seemed to see her with a
+background of bright pots and pans, mopping tiled floors.
+
+But presently he ceased to pay much attention to her. His dreamy
+sense became aware of the scene as a whole; the long table; his
+father's fantastic figure at the head of it; Alice Gaddesden
+elaborately dressed and much made up on the one side, his sister
+Margaret in a high black gown, erect and honest, on the other;
+Desmond and Pamela together, chatting and chaffing with the Rector.
+It was the room so familiar to his childhood and youth, with the
+family pictures, the Gainsborough full-length of his very plain
+great-grandmother in white satin at the end, two or three Vandyck
+school-portraits of seventeenth-century Mannerings, and the
+beautiful Hogarth head--their best possession--that was so like
+Pamela. The furniture of the room was of many different
+dates--incongruous, shabby, and on the whole ugly. The Mannerings of
+the past had not been an artistic lot.
+
+Nor had the room--the house indeed--many tender associations for
+him. His childhood had not been very happy. He had never got on with
+his father, and his mother, who had been the victim of various long
+illnesses during his boyhood, had never, unluckily, meant much to
+him. He knew that he was of a very old stock, which had played a
+long and considerable part in the world; but the fact brought him no
+thrill. 'That kind of thing is played out,' he thought. Let his
+father disinherit him--he was quite indifferent.
+
+Then, as he fell silent beside his father's new secretary, the table
+vanished. He saw instead the wide Picardy flats, a group of poplars,
+a distant wood, and in front a certain hollow strewn with dead and
+dying men--one figure, in front of the rest, lying face downwards.
+The queer twisted forms, the blasted trees, the inexorable
+horror--the whole vision swept over him again, as it had done in the
+schoolroom. His nerves shrank and trembled under it.
+
+Beryl--poor little Beryl! What a wretch he had been to propose to
+her--in a moment of moral and physical weakness, when it had seemed
+a simple thing to accept her affection and to pledge his own! But if
+she stood by him, he must stand by her. And he had had the kindest
+letter from Sir Henry, and some sweet tremulous words from her.
+Suppose she offered to release him? His heart leapt guiltily at the
+thought. What, indeed, had a man so haunted and paralysed to give to
+a girl like Beryl? It was an outrage--it ought to cease.
+
+But as to his father, that was simple enough.
+
+The Squire and his eldest son retreated to the library after dinner,
+and all the rest of the party waited uneasily to see what would
+happen. Elizabeth did her best to keep things going. It might have
+been noticed--it was noticed by at least two of the persons
+present--that quite unobtrusively, she was already the mistress of
+the house. She found a stool and a fire-screen for Mrs. Gaddesden;
+she held some wool for Mrs. Strang to wind; and a backgammon board
+was made ready for the Squire, in case he returned.
+
+But he did not return. Aubrey came back alone, and found them all
+hanging on his entrance. Pamela put down her knitting and looked at
+him anxiously; so did the elder sisters. He went up absently to the
+chimney-piece, and stood leaning against it.
+
+'Well?' said Pamela in a low voice, as she came to sit on a stool
+near him.
+
+He smiled, but she saw that he was pale.
+
+'Can you take me over to Chetworth to-morrow--early--in the
+pony-cart?'
+
+'Yes, certainly.'
+
+'Half-past ten?'
+
+'Right you are.'
+
+No more was said. Aubrey turned at once to Alice Gaddesden and
+proposed a round game. He played it with much more spirit than
+usual, and Desmond's antics in 'Animal Grab' put all serious notions
+to flight.
+
+But when the game was over, and Forest brought in the candles,
+Margaret tried to get some information.
+
+'You found the father reasonable?' she said to her brother in an
+undertone, as they stood together by the fire.
+
+'Oh, yes,' was the indifferent answer, 'from his own point of view.'
+
+And when he had lit their candles for his sisters, he excused
+himself at once on the ground of being dog-tired after a long day.
+The door closed upon him.
+
+The family gathered together in a group, while the Rector and
+Elizabeth talked about the village at the further end of the room.
+
+'They've quarrelled!' said Margaret decisively.
+
+Alice Gaddesden, because it was Margaret's opinion, disagreed. There
+was nothing to show it, she said. Aubrey had been quite calm.
+Desmond broke out, 'Did you ever see Aubrey anything else?' Pamela
+said nothing, but she slipped out to tell Forest about the
+pony-cart.
+
+Meanwhile the Rector had looked at his watch, and came up to take
+his leave.
+
+'Has the Squire gone to bed?' he said cheerfully. 'I daresay. He
+works so hard. Give him my fare-wells.'
+
+And he went off, quite aware, both from his knowledge of the family
+and of the Squire's recent actions, that there were storms brewing
+in the old house, but on the whole thinking more of the new
+secretary than of his old friends. A charming woman!--most capable!
+For the first time he might get some attention paid to the village
+people. That child with the shocking bow-legs. Poor little Pamela
+had tried to do her best. But this woman would see to it; she knew
+how to get things done.
+
+Meanwhile, as the rest of the party dispersed, Forest brought a
+message to Elizabeth. 'The Squire would be glad if you would spare
+him a few minutes, Miss, in the library. He won't keep you long.'
+
+Elizabeth went unwillingly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The library was in darkness, except for one small lamp at the
+further end, and the Squire was walking up and down. He stopped
+abruptly as he saw his secretary.
+
+'I won't keep you, Miss Bremerton, but do you happen to know at all
+where my will is?'
+
+'Your will, Mr. Mannering?' said Elizabeth in amazement. 'No,
+indeed! I have never seen it.'
+
+'Well, it's somewhere here,' said the Squire impatiently. 'I should
+have thought in all your rummagings lately you must have come across
+it. I took it away from those robbers, my old solicitors, and I
+wasn't going to give it to the new man--don't trust him particularly
+not to talk. So I locked it up here--somewhere. And I can't find
+it.' And he began restlessly to open drawer after drawer, which
+already contained piles of letters and documents, neatly and
+systematically arranged, with the proper dockets and sub-headings,
+by Elizabeth.
+
+'Oh, it can't be there!' cried Elizabeth. 'I know everything in
+those drawers. Surely it must be in the office?' By which she meant
+the small and hideously untidy room on the ground floor into which
+masses of papers of all dates, still unsorted, had been carted down
+from London.
+
+'It isn't in the office!' He was, she saw, on the brink of an
+outburst. 'I put it somewhere in this room my own self! And I should
+have thought by now you knew the geography of this place as well as
+I do!'
+
+Elizabeth raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. The big room indeed
+was still full to her of unexplored territory, with _caches_ of all
+kinds in it, new and ancient, waiting to be discovered. She looked
+round her in perplexity, not knowing where to begin. A large part of
+the room was walled with glass cases, holding vases, bronzes, and
+other small antiquities, down to about a yard from the floor, and
+the space below being filled by cupboards and drawers. Elizabeth
+made a vague movement towards a particular set of cupboards which
+she knew she had not yet touched, but the Squire irritably stopped
+her.
+
+'It's certainly not there. That bit of the room hasn't been
+disturbed since the Flood! Now those drawers'--he pointed--'might be
+worth looking at.'
+
+She hurried towards them. But the Squire, instead of helping her in
+her search, resumed his walk up and down, muttering to himself. As
+for her, she was on the verge of laughter, the laughter that comes
+from nerves and fatigue; for she had had a long day's work and was
+really tired. The first drawer she opened was packed with papers, a
+few arranged in something like order by her predecessor, the London
+University B.A., but the greater part of them in confusion. They
+mostly related to a violent controversy between the Squire and
+various archaeological experts with regard to some finds in the Troad
+a year or two before the war, in which the Squire had only just
+escaped a serious libel suit, whereof indeed all the preliminaries
+were in the drawer.
+
+On the very top of the drawer, however, was a conveyance of a small
+outlying portion of the Mannering estate, which the Squire had sold
+to a neighbour only a year before this date. Hopeless! If that was
+there, anything might be anywhere!
+
+Was she to spend the night searching for the needle in this bottle
+of hay? Elizabeth's face began to twitch with uncomfortable
+merriment. Should she go and knock up the housekeeper and instal her
+as chaperon, or take a stand, and insist on going to bed like a
+reasonable woman?
+
+She hunted through three drawers. The Squire meanwhile paced
+incessantly, sometimes muttering to himself. Every time he came
+within the circle of lamplight his face was visible to Elizabeth,
+wrinkled and set, with angry eyes; and she saw him as a person
+possessed by a stubborn demon of self-will. Once, as he passed her,
+she heard him say to himself, 'Of course I can write another at
+once--half a sheet will do.'
+
+She replaced the third drawer. Was the Squire to have a monopoly of
+stubbornness? She thought not. Waves of indefinite but strong
+indignation were beginning to sweep through her. Why was the Squire
+hunting for his will? What had he been saying to his son--his son
+who bore on his breast and on his body the marks of his country's
+service?
+
+She rose to her feet.
+
+'I can't find anything, Mr. Mannering. And I think, if you will
+allow me, I will go to bed.'
+
+He looked at her darkly.
+
+'I see. You are a person who stickles for your hours--you won't do
+anything extra for me.' There was a sneer in his tone.
+
+Elizabeth felt her cheeks suddenly burn. In the dim light she looked
+amazingly tall, as she stood straightened to her full height,
+confronting this man who really seemed to her to be only half sane.
+
+'I think I have done a great deal for you, Mr. Mannering. But if you
+don't think so we had better end my engagement!'
+
+His countenance changed at once. He eagerly apologized. He was
+perfectly aware of her extraordinary merits, and should be entirely
+lost without her help. The fact was he had had a painful scene, and
+was overdone.
+
+Elizabeth received his explanation very coldly, only repeating, 'May
+I go to bed?'
+
+The Squire drew his hand across his eyes.
+
+'It is not very late--not yet eleven.' He pointed to the grandfather
+clock opposite. 'If you will only wait while I write something?'--he
+pointed to a chair. 'Just take a book there, and give me a quarter
+of an hour, no more--I want your signature, that's all. We won't
+look any further for the will. I can do all I want by a fresh
+document. I have been thinking it over, and can write it in ten
+minutes. I know as much about it as the lawyers--more. Now do oblige
+me. I am ashamed of my discourtesy. I need not say that I regard you
+as indispensable--and--I think I have been able to do something for
+your Greek.'
+
+He smiled--a smile that was like a foam-flake on a stormy sea. But
+he could put on the grand manner when he chose, and Elizabeth was to
+some extent propitiated. After all he and his ways were no longer
+strange to her. Very unwillingly she seated herself again, and he
+went rapidly to his writing-table.
+
+Then silence fell, except for the scratching of the Squire's pen.
+Elizabeth sat pretending to read, but in truth becoming every moment
+the prey of increasing disquiet. What was he going to ask her to
+sign? She knew nothing of his threat to his eldest son--nothing,
+that is, clear or direct, either from himself or from the others;
+but she guessed a good deal. It was impossible to live even for a
+few weeks in close contact with the Squire without guessing at most
+things.
+
+In the silence she became aware of the soft autumn wind--October
+had just begun--playing with a blind on a distant window. And
+through the window came another sound--Desmond and Pamela, no doubt,
+still laughing and talking in the schoolroom.
+
+The Squire rose from his seat.
+
+'I shall be much obliged,' he said formally, 'if you will kindly
+come here. We shall want another witness, of course. I will call
+Forest.'
+
+Elizabeth approached, but paused a yard or two from him. He saw her
+in the light--her gold hair and brilliant dress illuminated against
+the dark and splendid background of the Nike in shadow.
+
+She spoke with hesitation.
+
+'I confess I should like to know, Mr. Mannering, what it is you are
+asking me to sign.'
+
+'That doesn't matter to a witness. It is nothing which will in any
+way compromise you.'
+
+'No--but'--she drew herself up--'I should blame myself if I made it
+easier for you to do something you would afterwards regret.'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+She summoned all her courage.
+
+'Of course I must know something. You have not kept your affairs
+very secret. I guess that you are angry with your son, with Major
+Mannering. If this thing you ask me to sign is to hurt--to injure
+him--if it is--well, then--I refuse to sign it!'
+
+And with a sudden movement she threw both her hands behind her back
+and clasped them there.
+
+'You refuse?'
+
+'If you admit my description of that paper.' She motioned towards it
+as it lay on the writing-table.
+
+'I have no objection whatever to your knowing what it is--as you
+seem determined to know,' he said sarcastically. 'It is a codicil
+revoking my will in favour of my eldest son, and leaving all the
+property of which I die possessed, and which is in my power to
+bequeath, to my younger son Desmond. What have you to do with that?
+What possible responsibility can you have?'
+
+Elizabeth wavered, but held her ground, though in evident distress.
+
+'Only that--if I don't sign it--you would have time to consider it
+again. Mr. Mannering--isn't it--isn't it--very unjust?'
+
+The Squire laughed.
+
+'How do you know that in refusing you are not unjust to Desmond?'
+
+'Oh no!' she said fervently. 'Mr. Desmond would never wish to
+supplant his brother--and for such a reason. And especially--' she
+paused.
+
+There were tears rising in her throat.
+
+'Especially--what? Upon my word, you claim a rather remarkable
+knowledge of my family--in six weeks!'
+
+'I do know something of Desmond!' Her voice showed her agitation.
+'He is the dearest, the most generous boy. In a few months he will
+be going out--he will be saying good-bye to you all.'
+
+'And then?'
+
+'Is this a time to make him unhappy--to send him out with something
+on his mind?--something that might even--'
+
+'Well, go on!'
+
+'Might even make him wish'--her voice dropped--'not to come back.'
+
+There was silence. Then the Squire violently threw down the pen he
+was holding on the table beside him.
+
+'Thank you, Miss Bremerton. That will do. I bid you good-night!'
+
+Elizabeth did not wait to be told twice. She turned and fled down
+the whole length of the library. The door at the further end closed
+upon her.
+
+'A masterful young woman!' said the Squire after a moment, drawing a
+long breath. Then he took up the codicil, thrust it into a drawer of
+his writing-table, lit a cigarette, and walked up and down smoking
+it. After which he went to bed and slept remarkably well.
+
+Elizabeth cried herself to sleep. No comforting sprite whispered to
+her that she had won the first round in an arduous campaign. On the
+contrary, she fully expected dismissal on the morrow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+It was a misty but warm October day, and a pleasant veiled light lay
+on the pillared front of Chetworth House, designed in the best taste
+of a fastidious school. The surroundings of the house, too, were as
+perfect as those of Mannering were slatternly and neglected. All the
+young men had long since gone from the gardens, but the old
+labourers and the girls in overalls who had taken their places,
+under the eye of a white-haired gardener, had been wonderfully
+efficient so far. Sir Henry supposed he ought to have let the lawns
+stand for hay, and the hedges go unclipped; but as a matter of fact
+the lawns had never been smoother, or the creepers and yew hedges
+more beautifully in order, so that even the greatest patriot fails
+somewhere.
+
+Beryl Chicksands was walking along a stone-flagged path under a yew
+hedge, from which she commanded the drive and a bit of the road
+outside. Every now and then she stopped to peer into the sunlit haze
+that marked the lower slopes of the park, and the delicate hand that
+shaded her eyes shook a little.
+
+Aubrey was coming--and she was going seriously to offer to give him
+up--to try to persuade him indeed to break it off. Since her first
+agitated letter to him begging him not to think of her, but to
+decide only what was best for his own future, she had received a few
+words from him.
+
+     'DEAREST BERYL--Nothing has happened to interfere with what we
+     promised each other last summer--nothing at all! My poor father
+     seems to be half out of his mind under the stress of war. If he
+     does what he threatens, it will matter very little to me; but
+     of course _you_ must consider it carefully, for I shall have
+     uncommonly little in the worldly way to offer you. Your father
+     has written very kindly, and your dear little note is just like
+     you. But you must consider.
+
+     'I sometimes doubt whether my father _will_ do what he
+     threatens, but we should have to take the risk. Anyway we shall
+     meet directly, and I am always, and unalterably, your devoted
+
+     'AUBREY.'
+
+That had been followed by a boyish note from Desmond--dear, jolly
+fellow!
+
+     'My father's clean daft! Don't bother, my dear Beryl. If he
+     tries to leave me this funny old place, instead of Aubrey,
+     well, there are two can play at that game. I wouldn't touch it
+     with a barge-pole. You and A. have only got to stick it a
+     little, and it'll be all right.
+
+     'I've given him a bit of my mind about the park and the farm.
+     He stands it from me and only chaffs. That's because he always
+     treats me like a baby.
+
+     'Very sorry I can't come on Tuesday with Aubrey, but there's
+     some good-bye calls I must pay. Hope Arthur will be about. I
+     want awfully to see him. Hard luck his being hit like that,
+     after all the rest. Snipers are beasts!
+
+     '_P.S._--You can't think what a brainy young woman father's got
+     for his new secretary. And she's not half bad either. Pamela's
+     rather silly about her, but she'll come round.'
+
+Beryl paid small attention to the postscript. She had heard a good
+deal from Pamela about the newcomer, but it did not concern her. As
+to the business aspect of the Squire's behaviour, Beryl was well
+aware that she was an heiress. Aubrey would lose nothing financially
+by giving up the Mannering estate to marry her. Personally she cared
+nothing about Mannering, and she had enough for both. But still
+there was the old name and place. How much did he care about it? how
+much would he regret it? Supposing his extraordinary father really
+cut him off?
+
+Beryl felt she did not know. And therewith came the recurrent
+pang--how little she really knew about the man to whom she was
+engaged! She adored him. Every fibre in her slight sensitive body
+still remembered the moment when he first kissed her, when she first
+felt his arm about her. But since--how often there had been moments
+when she had been conscious of a great distance between them--of
+something that did not fit--that jarred!
+
+For herself, she could never remember a time since she was seventeen
+when Aubrey Mannering had not meant more to her than any one else in
+the world. On his first departure to France, she had said good-bye
+to him with secret agonies of spirit, which no one guessed but her
+mother, a colourless, silent woman, who had a way of knowing
+unexpectedly much of the people about her. Then when he was badly
+wounded in some fighting near Festubert, in May 1915, and came home
+for two months' leave, he seemed like a stranger, and Beryl had not
+known what to be at with him. She was told that he had suffered
+very much--it had been a severe thigh wound implicating the sciatic
+nerve--and that he had been once, at least, very near to death. But
+when she tried to express sympathy with what he had gone through, or
+timidly to question him about it, her courage fled, her voice died
+in her throat. There was something unapproachable in her old
+playfellow, something that held her, and indeed every one else, at
+bay.
+
+He was always courteous, and mostly cheerful. But his face in repose
+had an absent, haunted look, the eyes alert but fixed on vacancy,
+the brow overcast and frowning. In the old days Aubrey's smile had
+been his best natural gift. To win a smile from him in her
+childhood, Beryl would have done anything--have gone on her knees up
+the drive, or offered up the only doll she cared for, or gone
+without jam for a week. Now when he came home invalided, she had the
+same craving; but what she craved for came her way very rarely. He
+would laugh and talk with her as with other people. But that
+exquisite brightness of eye and lip, which seemed to be for one
+person only, and, when it came, to lift that person to the seventh
+heaven, she waited for in vain.
+
+Then he went back to France, and in due course came the Somme.
+Aubrey Mannering went through the whole five months without a
+scratch. He came back with a D.S.O. and a Staff appointment for a
+short Christmas leave, everybody, except his father, turning out to
+welcome him as the local hero. Then, for a time, he went to
+Aldershot as the head of an Officers' School there, and was able to
+come down occasionally to Chetworth or Mannering.
+
+During that first Christmas leave he paid several visits to
+Chetworth, and evidently felt at home there. To Lady Chicksands,
+whom most people regarded as a tiresome nonentity, he was
+particularly kind and courteous. It seemed to give him positive
+pleasure to listen to her garrulous housekeeping talk, or to hold
+her wool for her while she wound it. And as she, poor lady, was not
+accustomed to such attention from brilliant young men, his three
+days' visit was to her a red-letter time. With Sir Henry also he was
+on excellent terms, and made just as good a listener to the details
+of country business as to Lady Chicksands' domestic tales.
+
+And yet to Beryl he was in some ways more of a riddle than ever. He
+talked curiously little about the war--at least to her. He had a way
+of finding out, both at Chicksands and Mannering, men who had lost
+sons in France, and when he and Beryl took a walk, it seemed to
+Beryl as though they were constantly followed by friendly furtive
+looks from old labourers who passed them on the road, and nodded as
+they went by. But when the daily war news was being discussed he had
+a way of sitting quite silent, unless his opinion was definitely
+asked. When it was, he would answer, generally in a rather
+pessimistic spirit, and escape the conversation as soon as he could.
+And the one thing that roused him and put him out of temper was the
+easy complacent talk of people who were sure of speedy victory and
+talked of 'knock-out' blows.
+
+Then six months later, after the capture of the Messines Ridge, in
+which he took part, he reappeared, and finding his father,
+apparently, almost intolerable, and Pamela and Desmond away, he
+migrated to Chetworth. And there he and Beryl were constantly
+thrown together. He never talked to her with much intimacy; he
+certainly never made love to her. But suddenly she became aware that
+she had grown very necessary to him, that he missed her when she was
+away, that his eyes lit up when she came back. A special relation
+was growing up between them. Her father perceived it; so did her
+brother Arthur; and they had both done their best to help it on.
+They were both very fond of Aubrey; and nothing could be more
+natural than that she should marry one who had been her neighbour
+and playmate from childhood.
+
+The thing drifted on, and one day, in the depths of a summer
+beechwood, some look in the girl's eyes, some note of tremulous and
+passionate sweetness, beyond her control, in her deep quiet voice,
+touched something irrepressible in him, and he turned to her with a
+face of intense, almost hungry yearning, and caught her
+hands--'Dear--dearest Beryl, could you--?'
+
+The words broke off, but her eyes spoke in reply to his, and her
+sudden whiteness. He drew her to him, and folded her close.
+
+'I don't think I ought'--the faltering, broken voice startled
+her--'I don't know whether I can make you happy. Dear, dear little
+Beryl!'
+
+At that she put up her mouth instinctively, only to shrink back
+under the energy of his kiss. Then they had walked on together, hand
+in hand; but she remembered that, even before they left the wood,
+something seemed to have dimmed the extraordinary bliss of the first
+moment--some restlessness in him--some touch of absent-mindedness,
+as though he grudged himself his own happiness.
+
+And so it had been ever since. He had resumed his work at
+Aldershot, and owing to certain consequences of the wound in 1915
+was not likely, in spite of desperate efforts on his own part, to be
+sent back to the front. His letters varied just as his presence did.
+Something always seemed to be kept back from her--was always beyond
+her reach. Sometimes she supposed she was not clever enough, that he
+found her inadequate and irresponsive. Sometimes, with a sudden,
+half-guilty sense of disloyalty to him, she vaguely wondered whether
+there was some secret in his life--some past of which she knew
+nothing. How could there be? A man of stainless and brilliant
+reputation--modest, able, foolhardily brave, of whom all men spoke
+warmly; of a sensitive refinement too, which made it impossible to
+think of any ordinary vulgar skeleton in the background of his life.
+
+Yet her misgivings had grown and grown upon her, till now they were
+morbidly strong. She did not satisfy him; she was not making him
+happy; it would be better for her to set him free. This action of
+his father's offered the opportunity. But as she thought of doing
+it--_how_ she would do it, and how he might possibly accept it--she
+was torn with misery.
+
+She and her girl-friend Pamela were very different. She was the
+elder by a couple of years, and much more mature. But Pamela's
+undeveloped powers, the flashes of daring, of romance, in the
+awkward reserved girl, the suggestion in her of a big and splendid
+flowering, fascinated Beryl, and in her humility she never dreamt
+that she, with her delicate pensiveness, the mingled subtlety and
+purity of her nature, was no less exceptional. She had been brought
+up very much alone. Her mother was no companion for her, and the
+brother nearest her own age and nearest her heart had been killed at
+the opening of the war. Arthur and she were very good friends, but
+not altogether congenial. She was rather afraid of him--of his
+critical temper, and his abrupt intolerant way, with people or
+opinions he disliked. Beryl was quite aware of his effect on Pamela
+Mannering, and it made her anxious. For she saw little chance for
+Pamela. Before the war, Arthur in London had been very much sought
+after, in a world where women are generally good-looking, and
+skilled besides in all the arts of pursuit. His standards were
+ridiculously high. His women friends were many and of the best. Why
+should he be attracted by anything so young and immature as Pamela?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At last! A pony-cart coming up from the lodge, with two figures in
+it--Aubrey and Pamela. So poor Pam had at last got hold of something
+in the nature of an animal!
+
+Beryl gripped the balustrading which bordered one side of the path,
+and stood watching intently--a slender creature, in a broad purple
+hat, shading her small, distinguished face.
+
+Presently, as the visitors approached the house, she waved to them,
+and they to her. They disappeared from view for a minute. Then a
+man's figure emerged alone from a garden door opening on the flagged
+path.
+
+He came towards her with outstretched hands, looked round him
+smiling to see that no one was in sight, and then kissed her. Beryl
+knew she ought to have resisted the kiss; she had meant to do it;
+but all the same she submitted.
+
+'Your father met us at the door. Arthur has carried Pamela off
+somewhere. Very sporting of them, wasn't it? So I've got you alone!
+How nice you look! And what a jolly place this is!'
+
+He first looked her up and down with admiring eyes, and then made a
+gesture towards the beautiful modern house, and the equally
+beautiful and modern gardens in which it stood, with their still
+unspoilt autumn flowers, their cunning devices in steps and
+fountains and pergolas.
+
+'How on earth do you keep it so trim?' He put a hand through her
+arm, and drew her on towards the wood-walk which opened beyond the
+formal garden and the lawn.
+
+'With two or three old men, and two girls from the village,' said
+Beryl. 'Father doesn't mind what he gives up so long as it isn't the
+garden.'
+
+'It's his pet vice!' laughed Aubrey--'his public-house, like my
+father's Greek pots. I say--you've heard of the secretary?'
+
+It seemed to Beryl that he was fencing with her--delaying their real
+talk. But she accepted his lead.
+
+'Yes, Desmond seems to like her. I don't gather that Pamela cares
+very much about her.'
+
+'Oh, Pamela takes time. But what do you think the secretary did last
+night?'
+
+'What?' They had paused under a group of limes clad in a glory of
+yellow leaf, and she was looking up in surprise at the unusual
+animation playing over the features of the man beside her.
+
+'She refused to sign a codicil to my father's will, disinheriting
+me, and came to tell me so this morning! You should have heard her!
+Very formal and ceremonious--very much on her dignity! But such a
+brick!'
+
+Mannering's deep-set eyes under his lined thinker's brow shone with
+amusement. Beryl, with the instinctive jealousy of a girl in love,
+was conscious of a sudden annoyance that Miss Bremerton should have
+been mixed up in Aubrey's personal affairs.
+
+'What _do_ you mean?'
+
+Aubrey put an arm round her shoulder. She knew she ought to shake it
+off, but the pressure of it was too welcome. They strolled on.
+
+'I had my talk with father last night. I told him he was absurd, and
+I was my own master. That you were perfectly free to give me
+up--that I had begged you to consider it--but I didn't think you
+would,' he smiled down upon her, but more gravely; 'and failing
+dismissal from you, we should be married as soon as it was
+reasonably possible. Was that right, darling?'
+
+She evaded the question.
+
+'Well--and then?'
+
+'Then he broke out. Sir Henry of course was the _bete noire_. You
+can imagine the kind of things he said, I needn't repeat them. He is
+in a mood of perfectly mad opposition to all this war legislation,
+and it is not the least good arguing with him. Finally he told me
+that my allowance would be stopped, and Mannering would be left to
+Desmond, if we married. "All right!" I said, "I daresay, if he and I
+survive you, Desmond will let me look round sometimes." Not very
+respectful, perhaps, but by that time I was fed up. So then I wished
+him good-night, and went back to the drawing-room. In a few minutes
+he sent for Miss Bremerton--nobody knew why. I was dog-tired, and
+went to bed, and didn't I sleep!--nine good hours. Then this
+morning, just after breakfast, when I was strolling in the garden
+with a cigarette waiting for Pamela, who should come out but Miss
+Bremerton! Have you seen her?'
+
+'Only in the distance.'
+
+'Well, she's really a very fine creature, not pretty exactly--oh,
+not pretty at all--but wonderfully well set up, with beautiful hair,
+and a general look of--what shall I say?--dignity, refinement,
+knowing her own mind. You feel she would set you down in a moment if
+you took the smallest liberty. I could not think what she wanted.
+But she came up to me--of course we had made acquaintance the night
+before--"May I speak to you, Major Mannering? I wish to say
+something private. Shall we walk down to the kitchen garden?" So we
+walked down to the kitchen garden, and then she told me what had
+happened after dinner, when my father sent for her. She told it very
+stiffly, rather curtly in fact, as though she were annoyed to have
+to bother about such unprofessional things, and hated to waste her
+time. "But I don't wish, I don't intend," she said, "to have the
+smallest responsibility in the matter. So after thinking it over, I
+decided to inform you--and Mr. Desmond too, if you will kindly tell
+him--as to what I had done. That is all I have to say," with her
+chin very much in the air! "I did it, of course, because I did not
+care to be mixed up in _any_ private or family affairs. That is not
+my business." I was taken aback, as you can imagine! But, of course,
+I thanked her--'
+
+'Why, she couldn't have done anything else!' said Beryl with
+vivacity.
+
+'I don't know that. Anybody may witness anything. But she seems to
+have guessed. Of course my father never keeps anything to himself.
+Anyway she didn't like being thanked at all. She turned back to the
+house at once. So then I asked her if she knew what had happened to
+the precious codicil. And she flushed up and said, with the manner
+of an icicle, "Mr. Mannering sent me to the drawer this morning,
+where he had put it away. It was lying on the top, and I saw it."
+"Signed?" I said. "No, not signed." Then she began to hurry, and I
+thought I had offended her in some way. But it dawned upon me,
+presently, that she was really torn between her feeling of chivalry
+towards me--she seems to have a kindness for soldiers! her brother
+is fighting somewhere--and her professional obligations towards my
+father. Wasn't it odd? She hated to be indiscreet, to give him away,
+and yet she could not help it! I believe she had been awake half the
+night. Her eyes looked like it. I must say I liked her very much. A
+woman of a great deal of character! I expect she has a rough time of
+it!'
+
+'But of course,' said Beryl, 'it may be all signed and witnessed by
+now!'
+
+'Most probably!' The Major laughed. 'But _she_ did her best anyway,
+and I shan't ask her any more questions. We had better take it for
+granted. My father is as obstinate as they make 'em. Well now, dear
+Beryl, have you--have you thought it over?'
+
+He pointed to a seat, and sat down by her. The brightness of his
+look had passed away. The thin, intellectual face and lined brow had
+resumed the expression that was familiar to Beryl. It was an
+expression of fatigue--not physical now, for he had clearly
+recovered his health, but moral; as though the man behind it were
+worn out by some hidden debate with his own mind, into which he fell
+perpetually, when left to himself. It was the look which divided him
+from her.
+
+'Yes,' she said slowly, 'I've been thinking a great deal.' She
+stopped; then lifting her eyes, which were grey and fringed with
+dark lashes--beautiful eyes, timid yet passionately honest--she
+said, 'You'd better give me up, Aubrey!'
+
+He made a restless movement, then took her hands and raised them to
+his lips.
+
+'I don't feel like it!' he said, smiling. 'Tell me what you mean.'
+
+She looked down, plucking at the fringed belt of her sports coat.
+Her lips trembled a little.
+
+'I don't think, Aubrey, I can make you happy! I've been feeling
+often--that I don't seem to make much difference to you. And now
+this is very serious--giving up Mannering. _You_ may mind it much
+more than you think. And if--'
+
+'If what? Go on!'
+
+She raised her eyes again and looked at him straight.
+
+'If I can't make up?'
+
+The colour flooded into his face, as though, far within, something
+stirred 'like a guilty thing surprised.' But he said tenderly:
+
+'I don't care _that_, Beryl'--he snapped his fingers--'for Mannering
+in comparison with you.'
+
+Her breath fluttered a little, but she went on resolutely. 'But I
+must say it--I must tell you what I feel. It seems the right
+opportunity. So often, Aubrey, I don't seem to understand you! I say
+the wrong thing. I'm not clever. I haven't any deep thoughts--like
+you or Arthur. It would be terrible if you married me, and then--I
+felt you were disappointed.'
+
+He moved a little away from her and, propping his chin on his hands,
+looked gravely through the thinning branches of the wood.
+
+'I wonder why you say that--I wonder what I've done!'
+
+'Oh, you've done nothing!' cried Beryl. 'It's only I
+feel--sometimes--that--that you don't let me know things--share
+things. You seem sometimes so sad--and I can't be any help--you
+won't let me! That's what I mind so much--so dreadfully!'
+
+He was silent a moment. Then without any attempt at caresses, he
+said, 'I wonder, Beryl, whether you--whether you--ever realize--what
+we soldiers have _seen_? No!--thank God!--you don't--you can't.'
+
+She pressed her hands to her eyes, and shuddered.
+
+'No, of course I can't--of course I can't!' she said passionately.
+
+Then, while her eyes were still hidden, there passed through
+his worn features a sharp spasm, as of some uncontrollable
+anguish--passed and was gone.
+
+He turned towards her, and she looked up. If ever love, all-giving,
+self-forgetting, was written on a girl's face, it was written on
+Beryl's then. Her wild-rose colour came and went; her eyes were full
+of tears. She had honestly made her attempt, but she could not carry
+it through, and he saw it. Some vague hope--of which he was
+ashamed--died away. Profoundly touched, he put out his arms, and
+making nothing of her slight resistance, gathered her close to him.
+
+'Did you ever read _Sintram_, Beryl?'
+
+'Yes, years ago.'
+
+'Do you remember his black fits--how they came upon him
+unexpectedly--and only Verena could help him? It's like that with me
+sometimes. Things I've seen--horrible sufferings and death--come
+back on me. I can't get over it--at least not yet. But I'll never
+let it come really between us. And perhaps--some day'--he hesitated
+and his voice dropped--'you shall help me--like Verena!'
+
+She clung to him, not knowing what he meant, but fascinated by his
+deep voice, and the warm shelter of his arms. He bent down to kiss
+her, in the most passionate embrace he had ever given her.
+
+Then he released her, and they both looked at each other with a new
+shyness.
+
+'So that's all right!' he said, smiling. 'You see you can't drop me
+as easily as you think. I stick! Well, now, you take me as a
+pauper--not exactly a pauper--but still--I've got to settle things
+with your father, though!'
+
+Beryl proposed that they should go and look for the others.
+
+They went hand in hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sir Henry meanwhile was engaged in the congenial occupation of
+inspecting and showing his kitchen gardens. His son Arthur and
+Pamela Mannering were following him round the greenhouses, finding
+more amusement in the perplexities of Sir Henry's conscience than
+interest in the show itself.
+
+'You see they've brought in the chrysanthemums. Just in time! There
+was a frost last night,' said Sir Henry, throwing open a door, and
+disclosing a greenhouse packed with chrysanthemums in bud.
+
+'My hat--what a show!' said his son.
+
+'Not at all, Arthur, not at all,' said his father, annoyed. 'Not a
+third of what we had last year.'
+
+Arthur raised his eyebrows, and behind his father's back he and
+Pamela exchanged smiles. The next house showed a couple of elderly
+men at work pruning roses intended to flower in February and March.
+
+'This is almost my favourite house,' exclaimed Sir Henry. 'Such a
+wonderful result for so little labour!' He strolled on complacently.
+
+'How long does this take you, Grimes?' Arthur inquired discreetly of
+one of the gardeners.
+
+'Oh, a good while, Mr. Arthur--what with the pruning, and the
+syringing, and the manuring,' said the man addressed, stopping to
+wipe his brow, for the day was mild.
+
+Arthur's look darkened a little. He fell into a reverie, while
+Pamela was conscious at every step of his tall commanding presence,
+of the Military Cross on his khaki breast, and the pleasant,
+penetrating eyes under his staff cap. Arthur, she thought, must be
+now over thirty. Before his recent wound he had been doing some
+special artillery work on the Staff of an Army Corps, and was a very
+rising soldier. He was now chafing hotly against the ruling of his
+Medical Board, who were insisting that he was not yet fit to go back
+to France.
+
+Pamela meanwhile was going through moments of disillusion. After
+these two years she had looked forward to the meeting with such
+eagerness, such hidden emotion! And now--what was there to have been
+eager about? They seemed to be talking almost as strangers. The
+soreness of it bewildered her.
+
+Presently, as they were walking back to the house, leaving Sir
+Henry in anxious consultation over the mushroom-house with the
+grey-haired head gardener, her companion turned to her abruptly.
+
+'I suppose _that's_ all right!' He pointed to some distant figures
+on the fringe of a wood.
+
+'Beryl and Aubrey? Yes--if Aubrey can make her see that she isn't
+doing him any harm by letting him go on.'
+
+'Good heavens! how could she do him any harm?'
+
+'Well, there's Mannering. As if that mattered!' said the girl
+scornfully. 'And then--Beryl's too dreadfully humble!'
+
+'Humble! About what? No girl ought to be humble--ever!'
+
+Pamela's eyes recovered their natural brilliance under his
+peremptory look. And he, who had begun the walk with no particular
+consciousness at all about his companion, except that she was a
+nice, good-looking child, whom he had known from a baby, with equal
+suddenness became aware of her in a new way.
+
+'Why shouldn't we be humble, please?' she said, with a laugh.
+
+'Because it's monstrous that you should. Leave that to us!'
+
+'There wouldn't be much of it about, if we did!' The red danced in
+her cheek.
+
+'Much humility? Oh, you're quite mistaken. Men are much more humble
+than you think. But we're human, of course. If you tempt us, you
+soon put the starch into us.'
+
+'Well, you must starch Beryl!' said Pamela, with emphasis. 'She will
+think and say that she's not worthy of Aubrey, that she knows
+she'll disappoint him, that she wouldn't mind his giving up
+Mannering if only she were sure she could make him happy--and heaps
+of things like that! I'm sure she's saying them now!'
+
+'I never heard such nonsense in my life!' The masculine face beside
+her was all impatience. 'One can't exactly boast about one's sister,
+but you and I know very well what Beryl is worth!'
+
+Pamela agreed fervently. 'Besides, Desmond would give it back.'
+
+'Hm--' her companion demurred. 'Giving back isn't always easy. As to
+pounds, shillings, and pence, if one must talk of them, it's lucky
+that Beryl has her "bit." But I shouldn't wonder if your father
+thought better of it after all.'
+
+Pamela flushed indignantly.
+
+'He all but signed a codicil to his will last night! He's in a
+tearing hurry about it. He called in Miss Bremerton and wanted her
+to witness it. And she refused. So father threw it into a drawer,
+and nobody knows what has happened.'
+
+'Miss Bremerton? The new secretary?' The tone expressed both
+amusement and curiosity. 'Ah! I hear all sorts of interesting things
+about her.'
+
+Pamela straightened her shoulders defiantly.
+
+'Of course she's interesting. She's terribly clever and up to date,
+and all the rest of it. She's beginning to boss father, and very
+soon she'll boss all the rest of us.'
+
+'Perhaps you wanted it!' said Captain Chicksands, smiling.
+
+'Perhaps we did,' Pamela admitted. 'But one needn't like it all the
+same. Well, she's rationed us--that's one good thing--and father
+really doesn't guess! And now she's begun to take an interest in
+the farms! I believe she's walked over to the Holme Wood farm
+to-day, to see for herself what state it's in. Father's in town. And
+she's trying hard to keep father out of a horrible row with the
+County Committee.'
+
+'About ploughing up the park?'
+
+Pamela nodded.
+
+'Plucky woman!' said Arthur Chicksands heartily. 'I'm sure you help
+her, Pamela, all you can?'
+
+'I don't like being managed,' said the girl stubbornly, rather
+resenting his tone.
+
+A slight shade of sternness crossed the soldier's face.
+
+'You know it's no good playing with this war,' he said drily. 'It's
+as much to be won here as it is over seas. _Food_!--that'll be the
+last word for everybody. And it's women's work as much as men's.'
+
+She saw that she had jarred on him. But an odd jealousy--or perhaps
+her hidden disappointment--drove her on.
+
+'Yes, but one doesn't like strangers interfering,' she said
+childishly.
+
+The soldier threw her a side-glance, while his lip twitched a
+little. So this was Pamela--grown-up. She seemed to him rather
+foolish--and very lovely. There was no doubt about that! She was
+going to be a beauty, and of a remarkable type. He himself was a
+strong, high-minded, capable fellow, with an instinctive interest in
+women, and a natural aptitude for making friends with them. He was
+inclined, always, to try and set them in the right way; to help them
+to some of the mental training which men got in a hundred ways, and
+women, as it seemed to him, were often so deplorably without. But
+this schoolmaster function only attracted him when there was
+opposition. He had been quite sincere in denouncing humility in
+women. It never failed to warn him off.
+
+'Do you think she really wants to interfere?' he asked, smiling. 'I
+expect it's only that she's got a bit of an organizing gift--like
+the women who have been doing such fine things in the war.'
+
+'There's no chance for me to do fine things in the war,' said Pamela
+bitterly.
+
+'Take up the land, and see! Suppose you and Miss Bremerton could
+pull the estate together!'
+
+Pamela's eyes scoffed.
+
+'Father would never let me. No, I think sometimes I shall run away!'
+
+He lifted his eyebrows, and she was annoyed with him for taking her
+remark as mere bluff.
+
+'You'll see,' she insisted. 'I shall do something desperate.'
+
+'I wouldn't,' he said, quietly. 'Make friends with Miss Bremerton
+and help her.'
+
+'I don't like her enough,' she said, drawing quick breath.
+
+He saw now she was in a mood to quarrel with him outright. But he
+didn't mean to let her. With those eyes--in such a fire--she was
+really splendid. How she had come on!
+
+'I'm sorry,' he said mildly. 'Because, you know--if you don't mind
+my saying so--it'll really take the two of you to keep your father
+out of gaol. The Government's absolutely determined about this
+thing--they can't afford to be anything else. _We're_ being
+hammered, and gassed, and blown to pieces over there'--he pointed
+eastward. 'It's the least the people over here can do--to play
+up--isn't it?' Then he laughed. 'But I mustn't be setting you
+against your father. I didn't mean to.'
+
+Pamela shrugged her shoulders, in silence. She really longed to ask
+him about his wound, his staff work, a thousand things; but they
+didn't seem, somehow, to be intimate enough, to be hitting it off
+enough. This meeting, which had been to her a point of romance
+in the distance, was turning out to be just nothing--only
+disappointment. She was glad to see how quickly the other pair were
+coming towards them, and at the same time bitterly vexed that her
+_tete-a-tete_ with Arthur was at an end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Meanwhile Elizabeth Bremerton was sitting pensive on a hill-side
+about mid-way between Mannering and Chetworth. She had a bunch of
+autumn berries in her hands. Her tweed skirt and country boots
+showed traces of mud much deeper than anything on the high road; her
+dress was covered with bits of bramble, dead leaves, and
+thistledown; and her bright gold hair had been pulled here and there
+out of its neat coils, as though she had been pushing through hedges
+or groping through woods.
+
+'It's perfectly _monstrous_!' she was thinking. 'It oughtn't to be
+allowed. And when we're properly civilized, it won't be allowed. No
+one ought to be free to ruin his land as he pleases! It concerns the
+_State_. "Manage your land decently--produce a proper amount of
+food--or out you go!" And I wouldn't have waited for war to say it!
+Ugh! that place!'
+
+And she thought with disgust of the choked and derelict fields, the
+ruined gates and fences, the deserted buildings she had just been
+wandering through. After the death of an old miser, who, according
+to the tale she had heard in a neighbouring village, had lived there
+for forty years, with a decrepit wife, both of them horribly
+neglected and dirty, and making latterly no attempt to work the
+farm, a new tenant had appeared who would have taken the place, if
+the Squire would have rebuilt the house and steadings, and allowed a
+reasonable sum for the cleansing and recovering of the land. But
+the Squire would do nothing of the kind. He 'hadn't a farthing to
+spend on expensive repairs,' and if the new tenant wouldn't take the
+farm on the old terms, well, he might leave it alone.
+
+The place had just been investigated by the County Committee, and a
+peremptory order had been issued. What was the Squire going to do?
+
+Elizabeth fell to thinking what _ought_ to be done with the Squire's
+twelve thousand acres, if the Squire were a reasonable man. It was
+exasperating to her practical sense to see a piece of business in
+such a muddle. As a child and growing girl she had spent long
+summers in the country with a Dorsetshire uncle who farmed his own
+land, and there had sprung up in her an instinctive sympathy with
+the rich old earth and its kindly powers, with the animals and the
+crops, with the labourers and their rural arts, with all the
+interwoven country life, and its deep rooting in the soil of history
+and poetry.
+
+Country life is, above all, steeped in common sense--the old,
+ancestral, simple wisdom of primitive men. And Elizabeth, in spite
+of her classical degree, and her passion for Greek pots, believed
+herself to be, before everything, a person of common sense. She had
+always managed her own family's affairs. She had also been the paid
+secretary of an important learned society in her twenties not long
+after she left college, and knew well that she had been a
+conspicuous success. She had a great love, indeed, for any sort of
+organizing, large and small, for putting things straight, and
+running them. She was burning to put Mannering straight--and run it.
+She knew she could. Organizing means not doing things yourself, but
+finding the right people to do them. And she had always been good
+at finding the right people--putting the round pegs into the round
+holes.
+
+All very well, however, to talk of running the Squire's estate! What
+was to be done with the Squire?
+
+Take the codicil business. First thing that morning he had sent her
+to that very drawer to look for something, and there lay the
+precious document--unsigned and unwitnessed--for any one to see. He
+made no comment, nor of course did she. He would probably forget it
+till the date of his son's marriage was announced, and then complete
+it in a hurry.
+
+Take the farms and the park. As to the farms there were two
+summonses now pending against him with regard to 'farms in
+hand'--Holme Wood and another--besides the action in the case of the
+three incompetent men, Gregson at their head, who were being turned
+out. With regard to ploughing up the park, all his attempts so far
+to put legal difficulties in the way of the County Committee had
+been quite futile. The steam plough was coming in a week. Meanwhile
+the gates were to be locked, and two old park-keepers, who were
+dithering in their shoes, had been told to defend them.
+
+At bottom, Elizabeth was tolerably convinced that the Squire would
+not land himself in gaol, cut off from his books and his bronzes,
+and reduced to the company of people who had never heard of
+Pausanias. But she was alarmed lest he should 'try it on' a little
+too far, in these days when the needs of war and the revolutionary
+currents abroad make the setting down of squires especially
+agreeable to the plebeians who sit on juries or county committees.
+Of course he must--he certainly would--climb down.
+
+But somebody would have to go through the process of persuading
+him! That was due to his silly dignity! She supposed that somebody
+would be herself. How absurd! She, who had just been six weeks on
+the scene! But neither of the married daughters had the smallest
+influence with him; Sir Henry Chicksands had been sent about his
+business; Major Mannering was out of favour, and Desmond and Pamela
+were but babes.
+
+Then a recollection flashed across the contriving mind of Elizabeth
+which brought a decided flush to her fair skin--a flush which was
+half amusement, half wrath. That morning a rather curious incident
+had happened. After her talk with Major Mannering, and because the
+morning was fine and the Squire was away, she had dragged a small
+table out into the garden, in front of the library, and set to work
+there on a part of the new catalogue of the collections, which she
+and Mr. Levasseur were making. She did not, however, like Mr.
+Levasseur. Something in her, indeed, disapproved of him strongly.
+She had already managed to dislodge him a good deal from his former
+intimacy with the Squire. Luckily she was a much better scholar than
+he, though she admitted that his artistic judgment was worth having.
+
+As a shelter from a rather cold north wind, she was sitting in full
+sun under the protection of a yew hedge of ancient growth, which ran
+out at right angles to the library, and made one side of a
+quadrangular rose-garden, planted by Mrs. Mannering long ago, and
+now, like everything else, in confusion and neglect.
+
+Presently she heard voices on the other side of the hedge--Mrs.
+Strang, no doubt, and Mrs. Gaddesden. She did not take much to
+either lady. Mrs. Strang seemed to her full of good intentions, but
+without practical ability to fit them. For Mrs. Gaddesden's type she
+had an instinctive contempt, the contempt of the clever woman of
+small means who has had to earn her own living, and to watch in
+silence the poses and pretences of rich women playing at
+philanthropy. But, all the same, she and the servants between them
+had made Mrs. Gaddesden extremely comfortable, while at the same
+time rationing her strictly. 'I really can be civil to anybody!'
+thought Elizabeth complacently.
+
+Suddenly, her own name, and a rush of remarks on the other side of
+this impenetrable hedge, made her raise her head, startled, from her
+work, eyes and mouth wide open.
+
+It was Mrs. Gaddesden speaking.
+
+'Yes, she's gone out. I went into the library just now to ask her to
+look out a train for me. She's wonderfully good at Bradshaw. Oh, of
+course, I admit she's a very clever woman! But she wasn't there.
+Forest thinks she's gone over to Holme Wood, to get father some
+information he wants. She asked Forest how to get this this morning.
+My dear Margaret,' with great emphasis, 'there's no question about
+it! If she chooses, she'll be mistress here before long. She's
+steadily getting father into her hands. She was never engaged, was
+she, to look after accounts and farms? and yet here she is, taking
+everything on. He'll grow more and more dependent upon her, and
+you'll see!--I believe he's been inclined for some time to marry
+again. He wants somebody to look after Pamela, and set him free for
+his hobbies. He'll very soon find out that this woman fills the
+part, and that, if he marries her, he'll get a classical secretary
+besides.'
+
+Mrs. Strang's voice--a deep husky voice--interposed.
+
+'Miss Bremerton's not a woman to be married against her will, that
+you may be sure of, Alice.'
+
+'No, but, my dear,' said the other impatiently, 'every woman over
+thirty wants a home--and a husband. She'd get that here anyway,
+however bad father's affairs may be. And, of course, a _position_.'
+
+The voices passed on out of hearing. Elizabeth remained transfixed.
+Then with a contemptuous shake of the head, and a bright colour, she
+returned to her work.
+
+But now, as she sat meditating on the hill-side, this absurd
+conversation recurred to her. Absurd, and not absurd! 'Most women of
+my sort can do what they have a mind to do,' she thought to herself,
+with perfect _sang-froid_. 'If I thought it worth while to marry
+this elderly lunatic--he's an interesting lunatic, though!--I
+suppose I could do it. But it isn't worth while--not the least. I've
+done with being a woman! What interests me is the bit of
+_work_--national work! Men find that kind of thing enough--a great
+many of them. I mean to find it enough. A fig for marrying!'
+
+All the same, as she returned to her schemes both for regenerating
+the estate and managing the Squire--schemes which were beginning to
+fascinate her, both by their difficulty and their scale--she found
+her thoughts oddly interfered with, first by recollections of the
+past--bitter, ineffaceable memories--and then by reflections on the
+recent course of her relations with the Squire.
+
+He had greeted her that morning without a single reference to the
+incidents of the night before, had seemed in excellent spirits, and
+before going up to town had given her in twenty minutes, _a propos_
+of some difficulty in her work, one of the most brilliant lectures
+on certain points of Homeric archaeology she had ever heard--and she
+was a connoisseur in lectures.
+
+Intellectually, as a scholar, she both admired and looked upon
+him--with reverence, even with enthusiasm. She was eager for his
+praise, distressed by his censure. Practically and morally,
+patriotically, above all, she despised him, thought him 'a worm and
+no man'! There was the paradox of the situation and as full of
+tingling challenge and entertainment as paradoxes generally are.
+
+At this point she became aware of a group on the high road far to
+her right. A pony-cart--a girl driving it--a man in khaki beside
+her; with a second girl-figure and another khaki-clad warrior,
+walking near.
+
+She presently thought she recognized Pamela's pony and Pamela
+herself. Desmond, who was going off that very evening to his
+artillery camp, had told her that 'Pam' was driving Aubrey over to
+Chetworth, and that he, Desmond, was 'jolly well going to see to it
+that neither old Aubrey nor Beryl were bullied out of their lives by
+father,' if he could help it. So no doubt the second girl-figure was
+that of Beryl Chicksands, and the other gentleman in khaki was
+probably Captain Chicksands, for whom Desmond seemed to cherish a
+boyish hero-worship. They had been all lunching together at
+Chetworth, she supposed.
+
+She watched them coming, with a curious mingling of interest in them
+and detachment from them. She was to them merely the Squire's paid
+secretary. Were they anything to her? A puckish thought crossed her
+mind, sending a flash of slightly cynical laughter through her quiet
+eyes. If Mrs. Gaddesden's terrors--for she supposed they were
+terrors--were suddenly translated into fact, why, all these people
+would become in a moment related to her!--their lives would be mixed
+up with hers--she and they would matter intimately to each other!
+
+She sat smiling and dreaming a few more minutes, the dimples playing
+about her firm mouth and chin. Then, as the sound of wheels drew
+nearer, she rose and went towards the party.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The party from Chetworth soon perceived Elizabeth's approach. 'So
+this is the learned lady?' said the Captain in Pamela's ear. She had
+brought him in her pony-carriage so far, as he was not yet able for
+much physical exertion, and he and Beryl were to walk back from
+Holme Wood Hill.
+
+He put up his eye-glass, and examined the figure as it came nearer.
+
+'She's just come up, I suppose, from the farm,' said Pamela,
+pointing to some red roofs among the trees, in the wide hollow below
+the hill.
+
+'"Athene Ageleie"!' murmured the Major, who had been proxime for the
+Ireland, and a Balliol man. 'She holds herself well--beautiful
+hair!'
+
+'Beryl, this is Miss Bremerton,' said Aubrey Mannering, with a
+cordial ring in his voice, as he introduced his fiancee to
+Elizabeth. The two shook hands, and Elizabeth thought the girl's
+manner a little stand-off, and wondered why.
+
+The pony had soon been tied up, and the party spread themselves on
+the grass of the hill-side; for Holme Wood Hill was a famous point
+of view, and the sunny peace of the afternoon invited loitering.
+For miles to the eastward spread an undulating chalk plain, its
+pale grey or purplish soil showing in the arable fields where the
+stubbles were just in process of ploughing, its monotony broken by a
+vast wood of oak and beech into which the hill-side ran down--a wood
+of historic fame, which had been there when Senlac was fought, had
+furnished ship-timber for the Armada, and sheltered many a cavalier
+fugitive of the Civil Wars.
+
+The wood indeed, which belonged to the Squire, was a fragment of
+things primeval. For generations the trees in it had sprung up,
+flourished, and fallen as they pleased. There were corners of it
+where the north-west wind sweeping over the bare down above it had
+made pathways of death and ruin; sinister places where the fallen or
+broken trunks of the great beech trees, as they had crashed
+down-hill upon and against each other, had assumed all sorts of
+grotesque and phantasmal attitudes, as in a trampled melee of
+giants; there were other parts where slender plumed trees, rising
+branchless to a great height above open spaces, took the shape from
+a distance of Italian stone palms, and gave a touch of southern or
+romantic grace to the English midland scene; while at their feet,
+the tops of the more crowded sections of the wood lay in close,
+billowy masses of leaf, the oaks vividly green, the beeches already
+aflame.
+
+'Who says there's a war?' said Captain Chicksands, sinking
+luxuriously into a sunny bed of dry leaves, conveniently placed in
+front of Elizabeth. 'Miss Bremerton, you and I were, I understand,
+at the same University?'
+
+Elizabeth assented.
+
+'Is it your opinion that Universities are any good?--that after the
+war there are going to be any Universities?'
+
+'Only those that please the Labour Party!' put in Mannering.
+
+'Oh, I'm not afraid of the Labour Party--awfully good fellows, many
+of them. The sooner they make a Government the better. They've got
+to learn their lessons like the rest of us. But I do want to know
+whether Miss Bremerton thinks Oxford was any _use_--before the
+war--and is going to be any use after the war? It's all right now,
+of course, for the moment, with the Colleges full of cadets and
+wounded men. But would you put the old Oxford back if you could?'
+
+He lay on his elbows looking up at her. Elizabeth's eyes sparkled a
+little. She realized that an able man was experimenting on her,
+putting her through her paces. She asked what he meant by 'the old
+Oxford,' and an amusing dialogue sprang up between them as to their
+respective recollections of the great University--the dons, the
+lectures, the games, the Eights, 'Commem.' and the like. The Captain
+presently declared that Elizabeth had had a much nicer Oxford than
+he, and he wished he had been a female student.
+
+'Didn't you--didn't you,' he said, his keen eyes observing her, 'get
+a prize once that somebody had given to the Women's Colleges for
+some Greek iambics?'
+
+'Oh,' cried Elizabeth, 'how did you hear of that?'
+
+'I was rather a dab at them myself,' he said lazily, drawing his hat
+over his eyes as he lay in the sun, 'and I perfectly remember
+hearing of a young lady--yes, I believe it was you!--whose
+translation of Browning's "Lost Leader" into Greek iambics was
+better than mine. They set it in the Ireland. You admit it? Capital!
+As to the superiority of yours, I was, of course, entirely
+sceptical, though polite. Remind me, how did you translate "Just for
+a ribbon to put on his coat"?'
+
+With a laughing mouth, Elizabeth at once quoted the Greek.
+
+The Captain made a wry face.
+
+'It sounds plausible, I agree,' he said slowly, 'but I don't believe
+a Greek would have understood a word of it. You remember that in the
+dim Victorian ages, when one great Latin scholar gave, as he
+thought, the neatest possible translation of "The path of glory
+leads but to the grave," another great Latin scholar declared that
+all a Roman could have understood by it would have been "The path of
+a public office leads to the jaws of the hillock"?'
+
+The old Oxford joke was new in the ears of this Georgian generation,
+and when the laugh subsided, Elizabeth said mildly:
+
+'Now, please, may I have yours?'
+
+'What--my translation? Oh--horribly unfair!' said the Captain,
+chewing a piece of grass. 'However, here it is!'
+
+He gave it out--with unction.
+
+Elizabeth fell upon it in a flash, dissected and quarrelled with
+every word of it, turned it inside out in fact, while the Captain,
+still chewing, followed her with eyes of growing enjoyment.
+
+'Well, I'll take a vote when I get back to the front,' he said, when
+she came to an end. 'Several firsts in Mods on our staff. I'll send
+you the result.'
+
+The talk dropped. The mention of the front reminded every one of the
+war, and its bearing on their own personal lot. Desmond was going
+into camp that evening. In a few months he would be a full-blown
+gunner at the front. Beryl, watching Aubrey's thin face and nervous
+frown, proved inwardly that the Aldershot appointment might go on.
+And Elizabeth's thoughts had flown to her brother in Mesopotamia.
+
+Pamela, sitting apart, and deeply shaded by a great beech with
+drooping branches that rose behind the group, was sharply unhappy,
+and filled with a burning jealousy of Elizabeth, who queened it
+there in the middle of them--so self-possessed, agreeable, and
+competent. How well Arthur had been getting on with her! What a
+tiresome, tactless idiot she, Pamela, must seem in comparison! The
+memory of her talk with him made her cheeks hot. So few chances of
+seeing him!--and when they came, she threw them away. She felt for
+the moment as though she hated Elizabeth. Why had her father saddled
+her upon them? Life was difficult enough before. Passionately she
+began to think of her threat to Arthur. It had been the merest 'idle
+word.' But why shouldn't she realize it--why not 'run away'? There
+was work to be done, and money to be earned, by any able-bodied
+girl. And perhaps then, when she was on her own, and had proved that
+she was not a child any longer, Arthur would respect her more, take
+more interest in her.
+
+'What do you prophesy?' said Elizabeth suddenly, addressing Arthur
+Chicksands, who seemed to be asleep in the grass. 'Will it end--by
+next summer?'
+
+'What, the war?' he said, waking up. 'Oh dear, no. Next year will be
+the worst of any--the test of us all--especially of you civilians at
+home. If we stick it, we shall save ourselves and the world. If we
+don't--'
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. His voice was full and deep. It thrilled
+the girl sitting in the shade--partly with fear. In three weeks or
+so, the speaker would be back in the full inferno of the front, and
+because of her father's behaviour she would probably not be able to
+see him in the interval. Perhaps she might never see him again.
+Perhaps this was the last time. And he would go away without giving
+her a thought. Whereas, if she had played her cards differently,
+this one last day, he might at least have asked her to write to him.
+Many men did--even with girls they hardly knew at all.
+
+Just then she noticed a movement of Beryl's, and saw her friend's
+small bare hand creep out and slip itself into Aubrey Mannering's,
+as he sat beside her on the grass. The man's hand enfolded the
+girl's--he turned round to smile at her in silence. A pang of
+passionate envy swept through Pamela. It was just so she wished to
+be enfolded--to be loved.
+
+It was Elizabeth--as the person who had business to do and hours to
+keep--who gave the signal for the break-up of the party. She sprang
+to her feet, with a light, decided movement, and all the others fell
+into line. Arthur and Beryl still accompanied the Mannering
+contingent a short distance, the Captain walking beside Elizabeth in
+animated conversation. At last Beryl peremptorily recalled him to
+the pony-carriage, and the group halted for good-byes.
+
+Pamela stood rather stiffly apart. The Captain went up to her.
+
+'Good-bye, Pamela. Do write to me sometimes! I shall be awfully
+interested about the farms!'
+
+With vexation she felt the colour rush to her cheeks.
+
+'I shan't have much to say about them,' she said stiffly.
+
+'I'm sure you will! You'll get keen! But write about anything. It's
+awfully jolly to get letters at the front!'
+
+His friendly, interrogating eyes were on her, as though she puzzled
+him in this new phase, and he wanted to understand her. She said
+hurriedly, 'If you like,' hating herself for the coolness in her
+voice, and shook hands, only to hear him say, as he turned finally
+to Elizabeth, 'Mind, you have promised me "The Battle of the
+Plough"! I'm afraid you'll hardly have time to put it into iambics!'
+
+So he had asked Miss Bremerton to write to him too! Pamela vowed
+inwardly that in that case she would not write him a line. And it
+seemed to her unseemly that her father's secretary should be making
+mock of her father's proceedings with a man who was a complete
+stranger to her. She walked impetuously ahead of Aubrey and
+Elizabeth. Towards the west the beautiful day was dying, and the
+light streamed on the girl's lithe young figure and caught her
+golden-brown hair. Clouds of gnats rose in the mild air; and a light
+seemed to come back from the bronzed and purple hedgerows, making a
+gorgeous atmosphere, in which the quiet hill-top and the thinning
+trees swam transfigured. A green woodpecker was pecking
+industriously among some hedgerow oaks, and Pamela, who loved birds
+and watched them, caught every now and then the glitter of his
+flight. The world was dropping towards sleep. But she was burningly
+awake and alive. Had she ever been really alive before?
+
+Then--suddenly she remembered Desmond. He was to be home from some
+farewell visits between five and six. She would be late; he might
+want her for a hundred things. His last evening! Her heart smote
+her. They had reached the park gates. Waving her hand to the two
+behind, with the one word 'Desmond!' she began to run, and was soon
+out of their sight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Elizabeth and Aubrey were not long behind her. They found the house
+indeed pervaded with Desmond, and Desmond's going. Aubrey also was
+going up to town, but of him nobody took any notice. Pamela and
+Forest were in attendance on the young warrior, who was himself in
+the wildest spirits, shouting and whistling up and downstairs,
+singing the newest and most shocking of camp songs, chaffing Forest,
+and looking with mischievous eyes at the various knitted 'comforts'
+to which his married sisters were hastily putting the last stitches.
+
+'I say, Pam--do you see me in mittens?' he said to her in the hall,
+thrusting out his two splendid hands with a grin. 'And as for that
+jersey of Alice's--why, I should stew to death in it. Oh, I know--I
+can give it to my batman. The fellows tell me you can always get rid
+of things to your batman. It's like sending your wedding-presents to
+the pawn-shop. But where is father?' The boy looked discontentedly
+at his watch. 'He vowed he'd be here by five. I must be off by a few
+minutes after eight.'
+
+'The train's late. He'll be here directly,' said Pamela confidently;
+'and I say--don't you hurt Alice's feelings, old man.'
+
+'Don't you preach, Pam!' said the boy, laughing. And a few minutes
+afterwards Pamela, passing the open door of the drawing-room, heard
+him handsomely thanking his elder sisters. He ran into her as he
+emerged with his arms full of scarves, mittens, and the famous
+jersey which had taken Alice Gaddesden a year to knit.
+
+'Stuff 'em in somewhere, Pam!' he said in her ear. 'They can go up
+to London anyway.' And having shovelled them all off on to her, he
+raced along the passage to the library in search of Elizabeth.
+
+'I say, Miss Bremerton, I want a book or two.'
+
+Elizabeth looked up smiling from her table. She was already of the
+same mind as everybody outside and inside Mannering--that Desmond
+did you a kindness when he asked you to do him one.
+
+'What kind of a book?'
+
+'Oh, I've got some novels, and some Nat Goulds, and Pamela's given
+me some war-books. Don't know if I shall read 'em!--Well, I'd like a
+small Horace, if you can find one. "My tutor" was an awfully good
+hand at Horace. He really did make me like the old chap! And have
+you got such a thing as a Greek Anthology that wouldn't take up much
+room?'
+
+Elizabeth went to the shelves to look. Desmond as the possessor of
+literary tastes was a novelty to her. But, after all, she understood
+that he had been a half in the Sixth at Eton, before his cadet
+training began. She found him two small pocket editions, and the boy
+thanked her gratefully. He began to turn over the Anthology, as
+though searching for something.
+
+'Can I help you to find anything?' she asked him.
+
+'No--it's something I remember,' he said absently, and presently
+hit upon it, with a look of pleasure.
+
+'They did know a thing or two, didn't they? That's fine anyway?' He
+handed her the book. 'But I forget some of the words. Do you mind
+giving me a construe?' he said humbly.
+
+Elizabeth translated, feeling rather choky.
+
+'"On the Spartans at Thermopylae.
+
+'"Him--"'
+
+'That's Xerxes, of course,' put in Desmond.
+
+'"Him, who changed the paths of earth and sea, who sailed upon the
+mainland, and walked upon the deep--him did Spartan valour hold
+back, with just three hundred spears. Shame on you, mountains and
+seas!"'
+
+'Well, that's all right, isn't it?' said the boy simply, looking up.
+'Couldn't put it better if you tried, could you?' Then he said,
+hesitating a little as he turned down the leaf, and put the book in
+his pocket, 'Five of the fellows who were in the Sixth with me this
+time last year are dead by now. It makes you think a bit, doesn't
+it?--Hullo, there is father!'
+
+He turned joyously, his young figure finely caught in the light of
+Elizabeth's lamp against the background of the Nike.
+
+'Well, father you have been a time! I thought you'd forgotten
+altogether I was off to-night.'
+
+'The train was abominably late. Travelling is becoming a perfect
+nuisance! I gave the station-master a piece of my mind,' said the
+Squire angrily.
+
+'And I expect he said that you civilians jolly well have to wait for
+the munition trains!'
+
+'He muttered some nonsense of that sort. I didn't listen to him.'
+The Squire threw himself down in an arm-chair. Desmond perched on
+the corner of a table near. Elizabeth discreetly took up her work
+and disappeared.
+
+'How much time have you got?' asked the Squire abruptly.
+
+'Oh, a few minutes. Aubrey and I are to have some supper before I
+go. But Forest'll come and tell me.'
+
+'Everything ready? Got money enough?'
+
+'Rather! I shan't want anything for an age. Why, I shall be buying
+war-loan out of my pay!'
+
+He laughed happily. Then his face grew suddenly serious.
+
+'Look here, father--I want awfully to say something. Do you mind?'
+
+'If you want to say it, I suppose you will say it.'
+
+The Squire was sitting hunched up, looking old and tired, his thick
+white hair piled fantastically above his eyes.
+
+Desmond straightened his shoulders with the air of one going over
+the parapet.
+
+'Well, it's this, father. I do wish you'd give up that row about the
+park!'
+
+The Squire sat up impatiently.
+
+'That's not your business, Desmond. It can't matter to you.'
+
+'Yes, but it _does_ matter to me!' said the boy with energy. 'It'll
+be in all the papers--the fellows will gas about it at mess--it's
+awfully hard lines on me. It makes me feel rotten!'
+
+The Squire laughed. He was reminded of a Fourth of June years
+before, when Desmond had gone through agonies of shame because
+his father was not, in his eyes, properly 'got-up' for the
+occasion--how he had disappeared in the High Street, and only
+joined his people again in the crowd at the fireworks.
+
+'I recommend you to stick it, Desmond. It won't last long. I've got
+my part to play, and you've got yours. You fight because they make
+you.'
+
+'I _don't!_' said the boy passionately. 'I fight because--'
+
+Then his words broke down. He descended from the table.
+
+'Well, all right, father. I suppose it's no good talking. Only if
+you think I shan't mind if you get yourself put in quad, you're
+jolly well mistaken. Hullo, Forest! I'm coming!'
+
+He hurried off, the Squire moving slowly after him. In the hour
+before the boy departed he was the spoilt darling of his sisters and
+the servants, who hung round him, and could not do enough for him.
+He endured it, on the whole, patiently dashing out at the very end
+to say good-bye to an old gardener, once a keeper, with whom he used
+to go ferreting in the park. To his father alone his manner was not
+quite as usual. It was the manner of one who had been hurt. The
+Squire felt it.
+
+As to his elder son, he and Aubrey parted without any outward sign
+of discord, and on the way to London Aubrey, with the dry detachment
+that was natural to him in speaking of himself, told the story of
+the preceding twenty-four hours to the eager Desmond's sympathetic
+ears. 'Well done, Broomie!' was the boy's exultant comment on the
+tale of the codicil.
+
+The house after Desmond's departure settled dreamily down. Pamela,
+with red eyes, retreated to the schoolroom, and began to clear up
+the debris left by the packing; Alice Gaddesden went to sleep in
+the drawing-room; Mrs. Strang wrote urgent letters to registry
+offices, who now seldom answered her; the Squire was in the library,
+and Elizabeth retreated early to her own room. She spent a good deal
+of time in writing up a locked diary, and finishing up a letter to
+her mother. Then she saw to her astonishment that it was nearly one
+o'clock, and began to feel sleepy.
+
+The night was warm, and before undressing she put out her light, and
+threw up her window. There was a moon nearly at the full outside,
+and across the misty stretches of the park the owls were calling.
+
+Suddenly she heard a distant footstep, and drew back from the
+window. A man was pacing slowly up and down an avenue of pollarded
+limes which divided the rose-garden from the park. His figure could
+only be intermittently seen; but it was certainly the Squire.
+
+She drew the curtains again without shutting the window; and for
+long after she was in bed she still heard the footstep. It awakened
+many trains of thought in her--of her own position in this household
+where she seemed to have become already mistress and indispensable;
+of Desmond's last words with her; of the relations between father
+and son; of Captain Chicksands and his most agreeable company; of
+Pamela's evident dislike of her, and what she could do to mend it.
+
+As to Pamela, Elizabeth's thoughts went oddly astray. She was vexed
+with the girl for what had seemed to the elder woman her young
+rudeness to a gallant and distinguished man. Why, she had scarcely
+spoken a word to him during the sitting on the hill! In some way,
+Elizabeth supposed, Captain Chicksands had offended her--had not
+made enough of her perhaps? But girls must learn now to accept
+simpler and blunter manners from their men friends. She guessed that
+Pamela was in that self-conscious, _exalte_ mood of first youth
+which she remembered so well in herself--fretting too, no doubt,
+poor child! over the parting from Desmond. Anyway she seemed to have
+no particular interest in Arthur Chicksands, nor he in her, though
+his tone in speaking to her had been, naturally, familiar and
+intimate. But probably he was one of those able men who have little
+to say to the young girl, and keep their real minds for the older
+and experienced woman.
+
+At any rate, Elizabeth dismissed from her mind whatever vague notion
+or curiosity as to a possible love-affair for Pamela in that
+direction might have been lurking in it. And that being so, she
+promptly, and without _arriere pensee_ of any sort, allowed herself
+the pleasant recollection of half an hour's conversation which had
+put her intellectually on her mettle, and quickened those infant
+ambitions of a practical and patriotic kind which were beginning to
+rise in her.
+
+But the Squire's coming escapade! How to stop it?--for Desmond's
+sake chiefly.
+
+Dear boy! It was on a tender, almost maternal thought of him that
+she at last turned to sleep. But the footstep pursued her ear. What
+was the meaning of this long nocturnal pacing? Had the Squire, after
+all, a heart, or some fragment of one? Was it the parting from
+Desmond that thus kept him from his bed? She would have liked to
+think it--but did not quite succeed!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+A week or two had passed.
+
+The Squire was on his way to inspect his main preparations for the
+battle at the park gates, which he expected on the morrow. He had
+been out before breakfast that morning, on horseback, with one of
+the gardeners, to see that all the gates on the estate, except the
+Chetworth gate, were locked and padlocked. For the Chetworth gate,
+which adjoined the land to be attacked, more serious defences were
+in progress.
+
+All his attempts to embarrass the action of the Committee had been
+so far vain. The alternatives he had proposed had been refused.
+Fifty acres at the Chetworth end of Mannering Park, besides goodly
+slices elsewhere, the County Committee meant to have. As the Squire
+would not plough them himself, and as the season was advancing, he
+had been peremptorily informed that the motor plough belonging to
+the County Committee would be sent over on such a day, with so many
+men, to do the work; the land had been surveyed; no damage would be
+done to the normal state of the property that could be avoided; et
+cetera.
+
+So the crisis was at hand. The Squire felt battle in his blood.
+
+As he walked along through his domain, exhilarated by the bright
+frosty morning, and swinging his stick like a boy, he was in the
+true Quixotic mood, ready to tilt at any wind-mill in his path. The
+state of the country, the state of the war, the state of his own
+affairs, had produced in him a final ferment of resentment and
+disgust which might explode in any folly.
+
+Why not go to prison? He thought he could bear it. A man must stand
+by his opinions--even through sacrifice. It would startle the public
+into attention. Such outrages on the freedom, on the ancient rights
+of Englishmen, must not pass without protest. Yes--he felt it in him
+to be a martyr! They would hardly refuse him a pocket Homer in
+prison.
+
+What, a month? Three weeks, in actual practice. Luckily he cared
+nothing at all about food--though he refused to be rationed by a
+despotic Government. On a handful of dates and a bit of coarse bread
+he had passed many a day of hard work when he was excavating in the
+East. One can always starve--for a purpose! The Squire conceived
+himself as out for Magna Charta--the root principles of British
+liberty. As for those chattering fellows of the Labour Party, let
+them conquer England if they could. While the Government ploughed up
+his land without leave, the Socialists would strip him of it
+altogether. Well, nothing for it but to _fight_! If one went down,
+one went down--but at least honourably.
+
+In the _Times_ that morning there was a report of a case in the
+north, a landowner fined L100, for letting a farm go to waste for
+the game's sake. And Miss Bremerton had been holding up the like
+fate to him that morning--because of Holme Wood. A woman of parts
+that!--too clever!--a disputatious creature, whom a man would like
+to put down. But it wasn't easy; she slipped out of your grip--gave
+you unexpected tits for tats. One would have thought after that
+business with the will, she would be anxious to make up--to show
+docility. In such a relation one expected docility. But not a bit of
+it! She grew bolder. The Squire admitted uncomfortably that it was
+his own fault--only, in fact, what he deserved for making a
+land-agent, accountant, and legal adviser out of a poor lady who had
+merely engaged herself to be his private secretary for classical
+purposes.
+
+All the same he confessed that she had never yet neglected the
+classical side of her duties. His thoughts contrasted the library
+and the collections as they were now, with what they had been a
+couple of months before. Now he knew where books could be found; now
+one could see the precious things he possessed. Her taste--her
+neatness--her diligence--nothing could beat them. And she moved so
+quietly--had so light a foot--and always a pleasant voice and smile.
+Oh yes, she had been a great catch--an astonishing catch--no doubt
+of that. All the same he was not going to be entirely governed by
+her! And again he thought complacently of the weak places in her
+scholarship--the very limited extent of her reading--compared to
+his. 'By Zeus!--[Greek: ei pot' estin]--if it weren't for that, I
+should never keep the whip-hand of her at all!'
+
+She had made a forlorn attempt again, that morning, to dissuade him
+from the park adventure. But there he drew the line. For there
+really was a line, though he admitted it might be difficult to see,
+considering all that he was shovelling upon her. He had been very
+short--perhaps she would say, very rude--with her. Well, it couldn't
+be helped! When she saw what he was really prepared to face, she
+would at least respect him. And if he was shut up, she could get on
+with the catalogue, and keep things going.
+
+Altogether the Squire was above himself. The tonic air and scents
+of the autumn, the crisp leaves underfoot, the slight frost on the
+ruts, helped his general intoxication. He, the supposed scholar and
+recluse, was about to play a part--a rattling part. The eye of
+England would be upon him! He already tasted the prison fare, and
+found it quite tolerable.
+
+As to Desmond--
+
+But the thought of him no sooner crossed the Squire's mind than he
+dismissed it. Or rather it survived far within, as a volcanic force,
+from which the outer froth and ferment drew half its strength. He
+was being forcibly dispossessed of Desmond, just as he was being
+forcibly dispossessed of his farms and his park; or of his money,
+swallowed up in monstrous income tax.
+
+Ah, there were Dodge and Perley, the two park-keepers, one of whom
+lived in the White Lodge, now only a hundred yards away. Another man
+who was standing by them, near the park wall, looked to the Squire
+like Gregson, his ejected farmer. And who was that black-coated
+fellow coming through the small wicket-gate beside the big one? What
+the devil was he doing in the park? There was a permanent grievance
+in the Squire's mind against the various rights-of-way through his
+estate. Why shouldn't he be at liberty to shut out that man if he
+wanted to? Of course by the mere locking and barricading of the
+gates, as they would be locked and barricaded on the morrow, he was
+flouting the law. But that was a trifle. The _gates_ were his own
+anyway.
+
+The black-coated man, however, instead of proceeding along the road,
+had now approached the group of men standing under the wall, and
+was talking with them. They themselves did not seem to be doing
+anything, although a large coil of barbed wire and a number of
+hurdles lay near them.
+
+'Hullo, Dodge!'
+
+At the Squire's voice the black-coated man withdrew a little
+distance to the roadway, where he stood watching. Of the three
+others the two old fellows, ex-keepers both of them, stood
+sheepishly silent, as the Squire neared them.
+
+'Well, my men, good-morning! What have you done?' said the Squire
+peremptorily.
+
+Dodge looked up.
+
+'We've put a bit of wire on the gate, Squoire, an' fastened the
+latch of it up--and we've put a length or two along the top of the
+wall,' said the old man slowly--'an' then--' He paused.
+
+'Then what?--what about the hurdles? I expected to find them all up
+by now!'
+
+Dodge looked at Perley. And Perley, a gaunt, ugly fellow, who had
+been a famous hunter and trapper in his day, took off his hat and
+mopped his brow, before he said, in a small, cautious voice,
+entirely out of keeping with the rest of him:
+
+'The treuth on it is, Squoire, we don't loike the job. We be afeard
+of their havin' the law on us.'
+
+'Oh, you're afraid, are you?' said the Squire angrily. '_You_ won't
+stand up for your rights, anyway!'
+
+Perley looked at his employer a little askance.
+
+'They're not _our_ rights, if you please, Muster Mannering. We don't
+have nothing to say to 'un.'
+
+'They are your rights, you foolish fellow! If this abominable
+Government tramples on me to-day, it'll trample on you to-morrow.'
+
+'Mebbe, Squoire, mebbe,' said Perley mildly. 'But Dodge and I don't
+feel loike standing up to 'un. We was engaged to mind the roads an'
+the leaves, an' a bit rabbitin', an' sich like. But this sort of job
+is somethin' out o' the common, Muster Mannering. We don't hold wi'
+it. The County they've got a powerful big road-engine, Squoire.
+They'll charge them gates to-morrow--there 'll be a terr'ble to do.
+My wife, she's frightened to death. She's got a cart from Laycocks,
+and she's takin' all our bit things over to her mother's. She won't
+stay, she says, to be blowed up, not for no one. Them Governments is
+terr'ble powerful, Squoire. If they was to loose a bit o' gas on
+us--or some o' they stuffs they put into shells? Noa, Noa,
+Squoire'--Perley shook his head resolutely, imitated exactly by
+Dodge--'we'll do our dooty in them things we was engaged to do. But
+we're not foightin' men!'
+
+'You needn't tell me that!' said the Squire, exasperated. 'The look
+of you's enough. So you refuse to barricade those gates?'
+
+'Well, we do, Squoire,' said Perley, in a tone of forced
+cheerfulness.
+
+'Yes, we do,' said Dodge slowly, copying the manner of his leader.
+
+All this time Gregson had been standing a little apart from the
+rest. His face showed traces of recent drinking, his hands wandered
+restlessly from his coat-collar to his pockets, his clothes were
+shabby and torn. But when the Squire looked round him, as though
+invoking some one or something to aid him against these deserters,
+Gregson came forward.
+
+'If you want any help, Mr. Mannering, I'm your man. I suppose these
+fellows'll lend a hand with carrying these things up to the gates.
+They'll not risk their precious skins much by doing that!'
+
+Perley and Dodge replied with alacrity that so far they would gladly
+oblige the Squire, and they began to shoulder the hurdles.
+
+It was at that moment that the Squire caught the eye of the
+black-coated man, who had been observing the whole proceedings from
+about ten yards off. The expression of the eye roused in Mannering
+an itching desire to lay immediate hands on its possessor. He strode
+up to him.
+
+'I don't know, sir, why you stand there, looking on at things that
+are no business of yours,' he said angrily. 'If you want to know
+your way anywhere, one of my men here will show you.'
+
+'Oh, thank you,' said the other tranquilly. 'I know my way
+perfectly.' He held up an ordnance map, which he carried in his
+hand. 'I'm an engineer. I come from London, and I'm bound for a job
+at Crewe. But I'm very fond of country walking when the weather's
+good. I've walked about a good bit of England, in my time, but this
+part is a bit I don't know. So, as I had two days' holiday, I
+thought I'd have a look at your place on the road. And as you are
+aware, Mr. Mannering'--he pointed to the map--'this is a
+right-of-way, and you can't turn me out.'
+
+'All the same, sir, you are on my property,' said the Squire hotly,
+'and a right-of-way only means a right of passing through. I should
+be much obliged if you would hurry yourself a little.'
+
+The other laughed. He was a slim fellow, apparently about thirty, in
+a fresh, well-cut, serge suit. A book was sticking out of one
+pocket; he returned the map to the other. He had the sallow look of
+one who has spent years in hot workshops, and a slight curvature of
+the spine; but his eyes were singularly, audaciously bright, and all
+his movements alert and decided.
+
+'It's not often one sees such a typical bit of feudalism as this,'
+he said, without the smallest embarrassment, pointing to the old
+men, the gates, the hurdles, which Gregson was now placing in
+position, and finally the Squire himself. 'I wouldn't have missed it
+for worlds. It's as good as a play. You're fighting the County
+Agricultural War Committee, I understand from these old fellows,
+because they want a bit of your park to grow more food?'
+
+'Well, sir, and how does it matter to you?'
+
+'Oh, it matters a great deal,' said the other, smiling. 'I want to
+be able to tell my grandchildren--when I get 'em--that I once saw
+this kind of thing. They'll never believe me. For in their day, you
+see, there'll be no squires, and no parks. The land 'll be the
+people's, and all this kind of thing--_your_ gates, _your_ servants,
+_your_ fine house, _your_ game-coverts, and all the rest of it--will
+be like a bit of history out of Noah's Ark.'
+
+The Squire looked at him attentively.
+
+'You're a queer kind of chap,' he said, half contemptuously. 'I
+suppose you're one of those revolutionary fellows the papers talk
+about?'
+
+'That's it. Only there are a good many of us. When the time comes,'
+he nodded pleasantly, 'we shall know how to deal with you.'
+
+'It'll take a good deal longer than you think,' said the Squire
+coolly; 'unless indeed you borrow the chap from Russia who's
+invented the machine for cutting off five hundred heads at once, by
+electricity. That might hasten matters a little!'
+
+He had by now entirely recovered his chaffing, reckless temper, and
+was half enjoying the encounter.
+
+'Oh, not so long,' said the other. 'You're just passing a Franchise
+Bill that will astonish you when you see the results! You perhaps
+may just live it out--yes, you may die peaceably in that house
+yonder. But your son, if you have one--that'll be another pair of
+boots!'
+
+'You and your pals would be much better employed in stopping this
+accursed war than in talking revolutionary drivel like that,' said
+the Squire, with energy.
+
+'Oh ho! so you want to stop the war?' said the other, lifting his
+eyebrows. 'I should like to know why.'
+
+The Squire went off at once into one of his usual tirades as to
+'slavery' and 'liberty.' 'You're made to work, or fight!
+willy-nilly. That man's turned out of his farm--willy-nilly. I'm
+made to turn him out--willy-nilly. The common law of England's
+trampled under foot. What's worth it? Nothing!'
+
+The Squire's thin countenance glowed fanatically. With his arms
+akimbo he stood towering over the younger man, his white hair
+glistening in the sun.
+
+The other smiled, as he looked his assailant up and down.
+
+'Who's the revolutionist now?' he said quietly. 'What's the war cost
+_you_, Mr. Mannering, compared to what it's cost me and my pals?
+This is the first holiday I've had for three years. Twice I've
+dropped like dead in the shop--strained heart, says the doctor. No
+time to eat!--no time to sleep!--come out for an hour, wolf some
+brandy down and go back again, and then they tell you you're a
+drunken brute! "Shells and guns!" says the Government--"more
+shells!--more guns!--deliver the goods!" And we've delivered 'em. My
+two brothers are dead in France. I shall be "combed" out directly,
+and a "sniper" will get me, perhaps, three days after I get to the
+trenches, as he did my young brother. What then? Oh, I know, there's
+some of us--the young lads mostly--who've got out of hand, and 'll
+give the Government trouble perhaps before they've done. Who can
+wonder, when you see the beastly towns they come out of, and the
+life they were reared in! And _none of us_ are going to stand
+profiteering, and broken pledges, and that kind of thing!'--a sudden
+note of passion rushed into the man's voice. 'But after all, when
+all's said and done, this is _England_!' he turned with a fine,
+unconscious gesture to the woods and green spaces behind him, and
+the blue distances of plain--'and we're _Englishmen_--and it's touch
+and go whether England's going to come out or go under; and if we
+can't pay the Huns for what they've done in Belgium--what they've
+done in France!--what they've done to our men on the sea!--well,
+it's a devil's world!--and I'd sooner be quit of it, it don't matter
+how!'
+
+The man's slight frame shook under the force of his testimony. His
+eyes held the Squire, who was for the moment silenced. Then the
+engineer turned on his heel with a laugh:
+
+'Well, good-day to you, Mr. Mannering. Go and fasten up your gates!
+If I'm for minding D.O.R.A. and winning the war, I'm a good
+Socialist all the same. I shall be for making short work with you,
+when our day comes.' And touching his hat, he walked rapidly away.
+
+The Squire straightened his shoulders, and looked round to see
+whether they had been overheard. But the labourers carrying the
+hurdles, and Gregson burdened with the coil of wire, had not been
+listening. They stood now in a group close to the main gate waiting
+for their leader. The Squire walked up to them, picking his way
+among various articles of furniture, a cradle, some bedding, a trunk
+or two, which lay scattered in the road in front of the white
+casemented lodge. The wife of old Perley, the lodge-keeper, was
+standing on her doorstep.
+
+'Well, no offence, Muster Mannering, but Perley and me's going over
+to my sister's at Wood End to-night, afore the milingtary come.' The
+black-browed elderly woman spoke respectfully but firmly.
+
+'What silly nonsense have you got into your heads?' shouted the
+Squire. 'You know very well all that's going to happen is that the
+County Council are going to send their motor-plough over, and
+they'll have to break down the gates to get in, so that the law can
+settle it. What's come to you that you're all scuttling like a pack
+of rabbits? It's not your skins that'll pay for it--it's mine!'
+
+'We're told--Perley an' me--as there'll be miling_tary_,' said Mrs.
+Perley, unmoved. 'Leastways, they'll bring a road-engine, Perley
+says, as'll make short work o' them gates. And folks do say as they
+might even bring a tank along; you know, sir, as there's plenty of
+'em, and not fur off.' She nodded mysteriously towards a quarter,
+never mentioned in the neighbourhood, where these Behemoths of war
+had a training-ground. 'And Perley and me, we can't have nowt to do
+wi' such things. We wasn't brought up to 'em.'
+
+'Well, if you go, you don't come back!' said the Squire, shaking a
+threatening hand.
+
+'Thank you, sir. But there's work for all on us nowadays,' said the
+woman placidly.
+
+Then the Squire, with Gregson's help, set himself fiercely to the
+business. In little more than an hour, and with the help of some
+pieces of rope, the gate had been firmly barricaded with hurdles and
+barbed wire, wicket-gate and all, and the Squire, taking a poster in
+large letters from his pocket, affixed it to the outside of the
+gate. It signified to all and sundry that the Chetworth gate of
+Mannering Park could now only be opened by violence, and that those
+offering such violence would be proceeded against according to law.
+
+When it was done, the Squire first addressed a few scathing words to
+the pair of park-keepers, who smoked imperturbably through them, and
+then transferred a pound-note to the ready palm of Gregson, who was,
+it seemed, on the point of accepting work as a stock-keeper from
+another of the Squire's farmers--a brother culprit, only less
+'hustled' than himself by the formidable County Committee, which was
+rapidly putting the fear of God into every bad husbandman throughout
+Brookshire. Then the Squire hurried off homewards.
+
+His chief thought now was--what would that most opinionated young
+woman at home say to him? He was at once burning to have it out with
+her, and--though he would have scorned to confess it--nervous as to
+how he might get through the encounter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fate, however, ordained that his thoughts about the person who had
+now grown so important to his household should be affected, before
+he saw her again, from a new quarter. The Rector, Mr. Pennington,
+quite unaware of the doughty deeds that had been done at the
+Chetworth gate, and coming from his own house which stood within the
+park enclosure, ran into the Squire at a cross-road.
+
+The Squire looked at him askance, and kept his own counsel. The
+Rector was a man of peace, and had once or twice tried to dissuade
+the Squire from his proposed acts of war. The Squire, therefore, did
+not mean to discuss them with him. But, in general, he and the
+Rector were good friends. The Rector was a bit of a man of the
+world, and never attempted to put a quart into a pint-pot. He took
+the Squire as he found him, and would have missed the hospitalities
+of the Hall--or rather the conversation they implied--if he had been
+obliged to forgo them. The Squire on his side had observed with
+approval that the Rector was a fair scholar, and a bad beggar. He
+could take up quotations from Horace, and he was content with such
+parish subscriptions as the Squire had given for twenty years, and
+was firmly minded not to increase.
+
+But here also the arrival of Elizabeth had stirred the waters. For
+the Rector was actually on his way to try and get a new subscription
+out of the Squire; and it was Elizabeth's doing.
+
+'You remember that child of old Leonard the blacksmith?' said the
+Rector eagerly; 'a shocking case of bow-legs, one of the worst I
+ever saw. But Miss Bremerton's taken endless trouble. And now we've
+got an admission for him to the Orthopaedic hospital. But there's a
+few pounds to be raised for his maintenance--it will be a question
+of months. I was just coming over to see if you would give me a
+little,' he wound up, in a tone of apology.
+
+The Squire, with a brow all clouds, observed that when children
+were bow-legged it was entirely the fault of their mothers.
+
+'Ah, yes,' said the Rector, with a sigh. 'Mrs. Leonard is a
+slatternly woman--no doubt of that. But when you've said that you
+haven't cured the child.'
+
+The Squire ungraciously said he would consider it; and the Rector,
+knowing well that he would get no more at a first assault, let the
+child alone, and concentrated on the topic of Elizabeth.
+
+'An extraordinarily capable creature,' he said warmly, 'and a good
+heart besides. You were indeed lucky to find her, and you are very
+wise to give her her head. The village folk can't say enough about
+her.'
+
+The Squire felt his mouth twitching. With some horses, is there any
+choice--but Hobson's--as to 'giving' them their head?
+
+'Yes, she's clever,' he said grudgingly.
+
+'And it was only to-day,' pursued the Rector, 'that I heard her
+story from a lady, a friend of my wife's, who's been spending Sunday
+with us. She seems to have met Miss Bremerton and her family at
+Richmond a year or so ago, where everybody who knew them had a great
+respect for them. The mother was a nice, gentle body, but this elder
+daughter had most of the wits--though there's a boy in a Worcester
+regiment they're all very fond and proud of--and she always looked
+after the others, since the father--who was a Civil servant--died,
+six years ago. Then two years since, she engaged herself to a young
+Yeomanry officer--'
+
+'Eh--what?--what do you say?--a Yeomanry officer?' said the Squire,
+looking round.
+
+'Precisely--a Yeomanry officer. They were engaged and apparently
+very happy. He was a handsome, upstanding fellow, very popular with
+women. Then he went out to Egypt with his regiment, and it was
+intended they should marry when he got his first leave. But
+presently his letters began to change. Then they only came at long
+intervals. And at last they stopped. He had complained once of an
+attack of sunstroke, and she was wretched, thinking he was ill. At
+last a letter reached her from a brother officer, who seems to have
+behaved very kindly--with the explanation. Her fiance had got into
+the clutches--no one exactly knew how--of a Greek family living in
+Alexandria, and had compromised himself so badly with one of the
+daughters, that the father, a cunning old Greek merchant, had
+compelled him to marry her. Threats of exposure, and all the rest!
+The brother officer hinted at a plot--that the poor fellow had been
+trapped, and was more sinned against than sinning. However, there it
+was. He was married to the Greek girl; Miss Bremerton's letters
+were returned; and the thing was at an end. Our friend says she
+behaved splendidly. She went on with her work in the War Trade
+Department--shirked nothing and no one--till suddenly, about six
+months ago, she had a bad breakdown--'
+
+'What do you mean?' said the Squire abruptly. 'She was ill?'
+
+'A combination of overwork and influenza, I should think; but no
+doubt the tragedy had a good deal to do with it. She went down to
+stay for a couple of months with an uncle in Dorsetshire, and got
+better. Then the family lost some money, through a solicitor's
+mismanagement--enough anyway to make a great deal of difference. The
+mother too broke down in health. Miss Bremerton came home at once,
+and took everything on her own shoulders. You remember, she heard of
+your secretaryship from that Balliol man you wrote to--who had been
+a tutor of hers when she was at Somerville? She determined to apply
+for it. It was more money than she was getting in London, and she
+had to provide for her mother and to educate her young sister.
+Plucky woman! All this interested me very much, I confess. I have
+formed such a high opinion of her! And I thought it would interest
+you.'
+
+'I don't know what we any of us have to do with it,' grumbled the
+Squire.
+
+The Rector drew himself up a little, resenting the implied rebuke.
+
+'I hope I don't seem to you to be carrying gossip for gossip's
+sake,' he said, rather indignantly. 'Nothing was further from my
+intention. I like and admire Miss Bremerton a great deal too much.'
+
+'Well, I don't know what we can do,' said the Squire testily. 'We
+can't unmarry the man.'
+
+The Rector pulled up short, and offered a chilly good-bye. As he
+hurried on towards the village--little knowing the obstacles he
+would encounter in his path--he said to himself that the Squire's
+manners were really past endurance. One could hardly imagine that
+Miss Bremerton would be long able to put up with them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Squire meanwhile pursued the rest of his way, wrapped in rather
+disagreeable reflections. He was not at all grateful to the Rector
+for telling him the story--quite the reverse. It altered his mental
+attitude towards his secretary; introduced disturbing ideas, which
+he had no use for. He had taken for granted that she was one of
+those single women of the present day whose intellectual interests
+are enough for them, who have never really felt the call of passion,
+and can be trusted to look at life sensibly without taking love and
+marriage into account. To think of Miss Bremerton as having suffered
+severely from a love-affair--broken her heart, and injured her
+health over it--was most distracting. If it had happened once--why,
+of course, it might happen again. She was not immune; in spite of
+all her gifts, she was susceptible, and it was a horrid nuisance.
+
+He went home all on edge, what with the adventure of the gates, the
+encounter with the engineer fellow, and now the revelations of the
+Rector.
+
+As he approached the house, he saw from the old clock in the gable
+of the northern front that it was two o'clock. He was half-an-hour
+late for lunch. Luncheon, in fact, must be over. And indeed, as he
+passed along the library windows, he saw Elizabeth's figure at her
+desk. It annoyed him that she should have gone back to work so soon
+after her meal. He had constantly made it plain to her that she was
+not expected to begin work of an afternoon till four o'clock. She
+would overdo it: and then she would break down again as she had done
+before. In his selfishness, his growing dependence on her
+companionship and her help, he began to dread the mere chance.
+
+How agreeable, and how fruitful, their days of work had been lately!
+He had been, of course, annoyed sometimes by her preoccupation with
+the war news of the morning. Actually, this Caporetto business, the
+Italian disaster, had played the mischief with her for a day or
+two--and the news from Russia. Any bad news, indeed, seemed to haunt
+her; her colour faded away; and if he dictated notes to her, they
+would be occasionally inaccurate. But that was seldom. In general,
+he felt that he had made great strides during the preceding weeks;
+that, thanks to her, the book he was attempting was actually coming
+into shape. She had suggested so much--sometimes by her knowledge,
+sometimes by her ignorance. And always so modest--so teachable--so
+docile.
+
+_Docile_? The word passing through his mind again, as it had in the
+morning, roused in him mingled laughter and uneasiness. For outside
+their classical work together, nothing indeed could be less docile
+than Miss Bremerton. How she had withstood him in the matter of the
+codicil! He could see her still, as she stood there with her hands
+behind her, defying him. And that morning also, when she had spoken
+her mind on the project of the gates.
+
+Well, now, he had to go in and tell her that the deed was done, and
+the park was closed.
+
+He crept round to a side door, nervous lest she should perceive him
+from the library, and made Forest get him some lunch. Then he hung
+about the hall smoking. It was ridiculous--nonsensical--but he
+admitted to himself that he shrank from facing her.
+
+At last a third cigarette put the requisite courage into him, and he
+walked slowly to the library. As he entered the room, Elizabeth rose
+from her chair.
+
+She stood there waiting for his orders, or his report--her quiet
+eyes upon him.
+
+He told himself not to be a fool, and throwing away his cigarette,
+he walked up to her, and said in a tone of bravado:
+
+'Well, the barricades are up!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+The Squire having shot his bolt, looked anxiously for the effect of
+it.
+
+Elizabeth, apparently, took it calmly. She was standing with one
+hand on the table behind her, and the autumn sun streaming in
+through the western windows caught the little golden curls on her
+temples, and the one or two small adornments that she habitually
+wore, especially a Greek coin--a gold stater--hanging on a slender
+chain round her neck. In the Squire's eyes, the stately figure in
+plain black, with the brilliant head and hands, had in some way
+gathered into itself the significance of the library. All the
+background of books, with its pale and yet rich harmony of tone, the
+glass cases with their bronzes and terra-cottas, the statues, the
+papers on the table, the few flowers that were never wanting to
+Elizabeth's corner, the taste with which the furniture had been
+re-arranged, the general elegance and refinement of the big room in
+fact, since Elizabeth had reduced it from chaos to order, were now
+related to her rather than to him. He could not now think of the
+room without her. She had become in this short time so markedly its
+presiding spirit. 'Let there be order and beauty!' she had said,
+instead of dirt and confusion; and the order and beauty were there.
+
+But the presiding spirit was now surveying him, with eyes that
+seemed to have been watchfully withdrawn, under puckered brows.
+
+'I don't understand,' said Elizabeth. 'You have fastened up the
+gates?'
+
+'I have,' said the Squire jocularly. 'Mrs. Perley believes the
+Committee will bring a tank! That would be a sight worth seeing.'
+
+'You really want to stop them from ploughing up that land?'
+
+'I do. I have offered them other land.'
+
+Elizabeth hesitated.
+
+'Don't you believe what the Government say, Mr. Mannering?'
+
+'What do they say?'
+
+'That everything depends upon whether we shall have food enough to
+hold out? That we can't win the war unless we can grow more food
+ourselves?'
+
+'That's the Government's affair.' The Squire sat down at his own
+table and began to look out a pen.
+
+'Well now, Miss Bremerton, I don't think we need spend any more time
+over this tiresome business. I've already lost the morning. Suppose
+we get on with the work we were doing yesterday?'
+
+He turned an amicable countenance towards her. She on her side moved
+a little towards a window near her table, and looked out of it, as
+though reflecting. After a minute or two he asked himself with a
+vague anxiety what was wrong with her. Her manner was certainly
+unusual.
+
+Suddenly she turned, and came half across the room towards him.
+
+'May I speak to you, please, Mr. Mannering?'
+
+'By all means. Is there anything amiss?'
+
+'I think we agreed on a month's notice, on either side. I should be
+glad if you would kindly accept my notice as from to-day.'
+
+The Squire rose violently, and thrust back his chair.
+
+'So that's what you have been cogitating in my absence?'
+
+'Not at all,' said Elizabeth mildly. 'I have made a complete list of
+the passages you asked for.'
+
+She pointed to her table.
+
+'Yet all the time you were planning this move--you were making up
+your mind what to do?'
+
+She hesitated.
+
+'I was often afraid it would have to be done,' she said at last.
+
+'And pray may I ask your reasons?' The Squire's tone was sarcastic.
+'I should like to know in what I have failed to satisfy you. I
+suppose you thought I was rude to you this morning?'
+
+'Oh, that didn't matter,' she said hastily. 'The fact is, Mr.
+Mannering,' she crossed her hands quietly in front of her, 'you put
+responsibilities on me that I am not prepared to carry. I feel I
+must give them up.'
+
+'I thought you liked responsibility.'
+
+Elizabeth coloured.
+
+'It--it depends what sort. I begin to see now that my
+principles--and opinions--are so different from yours that, if we go
+further, I shall either be disappointing you or--doing what I think
+wrong.'
+
+'You can't conceive ever giving up your opinion to mine?'
+
+'No!' Elizabeth shook her head with decision. 'No! that I really
+can't conceive!'
+
+'Upon my word!' said the Squire, fairly taken aback. They confronted
+each other. Elizabeth began to look disturbed. Her eyelids flickered
+once or twice.
+
+'I think we ought to be quite serious,' she said hurriedly. 'I
+don't want you to misunderstand me. If you knew how I valued this
+opportunity of doing this classical work with you! It is
+_wonderful_'--her voice wavered a little, or the Squire fancied
+it--'what you have taught me even in this short time. I am proud to
+have been your secretary--and your pupil. If it were only that'--she
+paused--'but you have also been so kind as to--to take me into your
+confidence--to let me do things for you, outside of what you engaged
+me for. I see plainly that--if I go on with this--I shall become
+your secretary--your agent in fact--for a great many things besides
+Greek.'
+
+Then she made an impetuous step forward.
+
+'Mr. Mannering!--the atmosphere of this house chokes me!'
+
+The Squire dropped back into his chair, watching her with eyes in
+which he tried--not very successfully--to keep dignity alive.
+
+'Your reasons?'
+
+'I am with the _country_!' she said, not without signs of agitation;
+'and you seem to me to care nothing about the country!'
+
+Disputation was never unwelcome to the Squire. He riposted.
+
+'Of course, we mean entirely different things by the word.'
+
+She threw back her head slightly, with a gesture of scorn.
+
+'We might argue that, if it were peace-time. But this is _war_! Your
+country--my country--has the German grip at her throat. A few
+months--and we are saved--or broken!--the country that gave us
+birth--all we have--all we are!' Her words came short and thick,
+and she had turned very white. 'And in this house there is never, in
+your presence, a word of the war!--of the men who are dying by land
+and sea--_dying_, that you and I may sit here in peace--that you may
+talk to me about Greek poetry, and put spokes in the wheels of those
+who are trying to feed us--and defend us--and beat off Germany.
+Nothing for the wounded!--nothing for the hospitals! And you won't
+let Pamela do anything! Not a farthing for the Red Cross! You made
+me write a letter last week refusing a subscription. And then,
+when they only ask you to let your land grow food--that the
+German pirates and murderers mayn't starve us into a horrible
+submission--_then_ you bar your gates--you make endless trouble,
+when the country wants every hour of every man's time--you, in your
+position, give the lead to every shirker and coward! No! I can't
+bear it any more! I must go. I have had happy times here--I love the
+work--I am very glad to earn the money, for my people want it. But I
+must go. My heart--my conscience won't let me stay!'
+
+She turned from him, with an unconscious gesture which seemed to the
+Squire to be somewhat mingled with that of the great Victory
+towering behind her, and went quickly back to her table, where she
+began with trembling hands to put her papers together.
+
+The Squire tried to laugh it off.
+
+'And all this,' he said with a sneer, 'because I tied up a few
+gates!'
+
+She made no reply. He was conscious of mingled dismay and fury.
+
+'You will stay your month?' he inquired at last, coldly. 'You don't
+propose, I imagine, to leave me at a moment's notice?'
+
+She was bending over her table, and did not look up.
+
+'Oh yes, I will stay my month.'
+
+He sat speechless, watching her. She very quickly finished what she
+was doing, and taking up her note-book, and some half-written
+letters, she left the room.
+
+'A pretty state of things!' said the Squire, and thrusting his long
+hands into his pockets he began to pace the library, in the kind of
+temper that may be imagined--given the man and the circumstances.
+
+The difference, however, between this occasion and others lay in the
+fact that the penalties of temper had grown so unjustly heavy. The
+Squire felt himself hideously aggrieved. Abominable!--that he should
+be hindered in his just rights and opinions by this indirect
+pressure from a woman, whom he couldn't wrestle with and floor, as
+he would a man, because of her sex. That was always the way with
+women. No real equality--no give and take--in spite of all the
+suffrage talk. Their weakness was their tyranny. Weakness indeed!
+They were much stronger than men. God help England when they got the
+vote! The Greeks said it--Euripides said it. But, of course, the
+Greeks have said everything! Hecuba to Agamemnon, for instance, when
+she is planning the murder of the Thracian King:
+
+'Leave it to me!--and my Trojan women!'
+
+And Agamemnon's scoffing reply--poor idiot!--'How can _women_ get
+the better of men?'
+
+And Hecuba's ghastly low-voiced 'In a _crowd_ we are
+terrible!'--[Greek: deinon to plethos]--as she and her women turn
+upon the Thracian, put out his eyes, and tear his children limb from
+limb.
+
+But _one_ woman might be quite enough to upset a quiet man's way of
+living! The moral pressure of it was so iniquitous! Your convictions
+or your life! It was the language of a footpad.
+
+To pull down the hurdles, and tamely let in Chicksands and his
+minions--how odious! To part with Elizabeth Bremerton and to be
+reduced again to the old chaos and helplessness--how still more
+odious! As to the war--so like a woman to suppose that any war was
+ever fought with unanimity by any country! Look at the Crimea!--the
+Boer War!--the Napoleonic Wars themselves, if it came to that! Why
+was Fox a patriot, and he a traitor? Let her answer that!
+
+And all the time, Elizabeth's light touch upon his will was like the
+curb on a stubborn horse. Once as he passed her table angry
+curiosity took him to look at some finished work that was lying
+there. Perfection! Intelligence, accuracy, the clearest of scripts!
+All his hints taken--and bettered in the taking. Beside it lay some
+slovenly manuscripts of Levasseur's. He could see the corners of
+Miss Bremerton's mouth go up as she looked it through. Well, now he
+was to be left to Levasseur's tender mercies--after all he had
+taught her! And the accounts, and the estate, and these infernal
+rations, that no human being could understand!
+
+The Squire's self-pity rose upon him like a flood. Just at the
+worst, he heard a knock at the library door. Before he could say
+'Come in,' it was hurriedly opened, and his two married daughters
+confronted him--Pamela, too, behind them.
+
+'Father!' cried Mrs. Gaddesden, 'you must please let us come and
+speak to you!'
+
+What on earth was wrong with them? Alice--for whom her father had
+more contempt than affection--looked merely frightened; but
+Margaret's eyes were angry, and Pamela's reproachful. The Squire
+braced himself to endurance.
+
+'What do you want with me?'
+
+'_Father_!--we never thought you meant it seriously! And now Forest
+says all the gates are closed, and that the village is up in arms.
+The labourers declare that if the County plough is turned back
+to-morrow, they'll break them down themselves. And when we're all
+likely to be starving in six months!'
+
+'You really can't expect working-folk to stand quietly by and see
+such a thing!' said Margaret in her intensest voice. 'Do, father,
+let me send Forest at once to tell the gardeners to open all the
+gates.'
+
+The Squire defied her to do any such thing. What was all the silly
+fuss about? The County people could open the gates in half-an-hour
+if they wanted. It was a demonstration--a protest--a case to go to
+the Courts on. He had principles--if no one else had. And if they
+weren't other people's principles, what did it matter? He was ready
+to stand by them, to go to prison for them. He folded his arms
+magnificently.
+
+Pamela laughed excitedly, and shook her head.
+
+'Oh, no, father, you won't be a hero--only a laughing-stock! That's
+what Desmond minds so much. They won't send you to prison. Some
+tiresome old Judge will give you a talking-to in Court, and you
+won't be able to answer him back. And then they'll fine you--and we
+shall be a little more boycotted than we were before! That's all
+that'll happen!'
+
+'"Boycotted"?--what do you mean?' said the Squire haughtily.
+
+'Oh, father, can't you _feel_ it?' cried Pamela.
+
+'As if one man could pit himself against a nation!' said Mrs.
+Strang, in that manner of controlled emotion which the Squire
+detested. He rarely felt emotion, but when he did, he let it go.
+
+Peremptorily he turned them all out, giving strict orders that
+nothing he had done should be interfered with. Then he attempted to
+go on with some work of his own, but he could not bring his mind to
+bear. Finally he seized his hat and went out into the park to see if
+the populace were really rising. It was a cold October evening, with
+a waxing moon, and a wind that was rapidly bringing the dead leaves
+to earth. Not a soul was to be seen! Only once the Squire thought he
+heard the sound of distant guns; and two aeroplanes crossed rapidly
+overhead sailing into the western sky. Everywhere the war!--the
+cursed, cursed obsession of it!
+
+For the first time there was a breach in the Squire's defences,
+which for three years he had kept up almost intact. He had put
+literature, and art, and the joys of the connoisseur between himself
+and the measureless human ill around him. It had spoilt his personal
+life, had interfered with his travels, his diggings, his friendships
+with foreign scholars. Well, then, as far as he could he would take
+no account of it, would shut it out, and rail at the men and the
+forces that made it. He barely looked at the newspapers; he never
+touched a book dealing with the war. It seemed to him a triumph of
+mind and intelligence when he succeeded in shutting out the
+hurly-burly altogether. Only, when in the name of the war his
+private freedom and property were interfered with, he had flamed out
+into hysterical revolt. Old aristocratic instincts came to the aid
+of passionate will, and, perhaps, of an uneasy conscience.
+
+And now in the man's vain but not ignoble soul there stirred a first
+passing terror of what the war might do with him, if he were
+_forced_ to feel it--to let it in. He saw it as a veiled Presence at
+the Door--and struggled with it blindly.
+
+He was just turning back to the house, when he saw a figure
+approaching in the distance which he recognized. It was that of a
+man, once a farmer of his, and a decent fellow--oh, that he
+confessed!--with whom he had had a long quarrel over a miserable sum
+of money, claimed by the tenant when he left his farm, and disputed
+by the landlord.
+
+The dispute had gone on for two years. The Squire's law-costs had
+long since swallowed up the original money in dispute.
+
+Then Miss Bremerton, to whom the Squire had dictated some letters in
+connection with the squabble, had quietly made a suggestion--had
+asked leave to write a letter on approval. For sheer boredom with
+the whole business, the Squire had approved and sent the letter.
+
+Then, this very morning, a reply from the farmer. Grateful
+astonishment! 'Of course I am ready to meet you, sir--I always have
+been. I will get my solicitor to put what you proposed in your
+letter of this morning into shape immediately, and will leave it
+signed at your door to-night. I trust this trouble is now over. It
+has been a great grief to me.'
+
+And now there was the man bringing the letter. One worry done with!
+How many more the same patient hand might have dealt with, if its
+exacting owner hadn't thrown up her work--so preposterously!
+
+The Squire gave an angry sigh, slipped out of the visitor's way
+through a shrubbery, and returned to his library. Fires had begun,
+and the glow of the burning logs shone through the room. The return
+to this home of his chief studies and pursuits during many
+delightful years was always, at any hour of the day or year, a
+moment of pleasure to the Squire. Here was shelter, here was
+escape--both from the troubles he had brought upon himself, and from
+the world tumult outside, the work of crazy politicians and
+incompetent diplomats. But if there was any season when the long
+crowded room was more attractive than at any other, it was in these
+autumn evenings when firelight and twilight mingled, and the natural
+'homing' instinct of the Northerner, accustomed through long ages to
+spend long winters mostly indoors, stirred in his blood.
+
+His books, too, spoke to him; and the beautiful dim forms of bronzes
+and terra-cottas, with all their suggestions of high poetry and
+consummate art, breathing from the youth of the world. He
+understood--passionately--the jealous and exclusive temper of the
+artist. It was his own temper--though he was no practising
+artist--and accounted largely for his actions. What are politics--or
+social reform--or religion--or morals--compared to _art_? The true
+artist, it has been pleaded again and again, has no country. He
+follows Beauty wherever she pitches her tent--'an hourly neighbour.'
+Woe to the interests that conflict with this interest! He simply
+drives them out of doors, and turns the key upon them!
+
+This, in fact, was the Squire's defence of himself, whenever he
+troubled to defend himself. As to the pettinesses of a domineering
+and irritable temper, cherished through long years, and flying out
+on the smallest occasions--the Squire conveniently forgot them, in
+those rare moments of self-vision which were all the gods allowed
+him. Of course he was master in his own house and estate--why not?
+Of course he fought those who would interfere with him, war or no
+war--why not?
+
+He sat down to his table, very sorry for himself, and hotly
+indignant with an unreasonable woman. The absence of her figure from
+the table on the further side of the room worked upon his nerves.
+She had promised at least to stay her month. These were working
+hours. What was she doing? She could hardly be packing already!
+
+He tried to give his attention to the notes he had been working at
+the day before. Presently he wanted a reference--a line from the
+_Philoctetes_. 'The Lemnian fire'--where on earth was the passage?
+He lifted his head instinctively. If only she had been there--it was
+_monstrous_ that she wasn't there!--he would just have thrown the
+question across the room, and got an answer. Her verbal memory was
+astonishing--much better than his.
+
+He must, of course, get up and look out the reference for himself.
+And the same with others. In an hour's time he had accomplished
+scarcely anything, and a settled gloom descended upon him. That was
+the worst of accustoming yourself to crutches and helps. When they
+were unscrupulously and unjustly taken away, a man was worse off
+than if he had never had them.
+
+The evening post came in. The Squire looked through it with disgust.
+He perceived that several letters were answers to some he had
+allowed his secretary to draft and send in his name--generally in
+reply to exasperated correspondents who had been kept waiting for
+months, and trampled on to boot.
+
+_Now_ he supposed she would refuse to have anything to do with this
+kind of thing! She would keep to the letter of her bargain, for the
+few weeks that remained. Greek he might expect from her--but not
+business.
+
+He opened one or two. Yes, there was no doubt she was a clever
+woman--unpardonably and detestably clever. Affairs which had been
+mountains for years had suddenly become mole-hills. In this new
+phase he felt himself more helpless than ever to deal with them.
+She, on the contrary, might have put everything straight--she might
+have done anything with him--almost--that she pleased. He would have
+got rid of his old fool of an agent and put in another, that she
+approved of, if she had wished.
+
+But no!--she must try and dictate to him in public--on a matter of
+public action. She must have _everything_ her own way. Opinionated,
+self-conceited creature!
+
+When tea-time came he rang for Forest, and demanded that a cup of
+tea should be brought him to the library. But as the butler was
+leaving the room, he recalled him.
+
+'And tell Miss Bremerton that I shall be glad of her company when
+she has finished her tea.'
+
+Forest hesitated.
+
+'I think, sir, Miss Bremerton is out.'
+
+Out!--was she? Her own mistress already!
+
+'Send Miss Pamela here at once,' he commanded.
+
+In a minute or two a girl's quick step was heard, and Pamela ran in.
+
+'Yes, father?'
+
+'Where is Miss Bremerton?' The Squire was standing in front of the
+fire, angrily erect. He had delivered his question in the tone of an
+ultimatum.
+
+'Why, father, you've forgotten! She arranged with you that she was
+to go to tea at the Rectory, and I've just got a note from Mrs.
+Pennington to ask if they may keep her for the evening. They'll send
+her home.'
+
+'I remember no such arrangement,' said the Squire, in a fury.
+
+'Oh, father--why, I heard her speak to you! And I'm sure she wanted
+a little break. She's been looking dead-tired lately, and she said
+she had a headache at lunch.'
+
+'Very well. That'll do,' said the Squire, and Pamela departed,
+virtuously conscious of having stood by Elizabeth, though she
+disliked her.
+
+The Squire felt himself generally cornered. No doubt she was now
+telling her story to the Penningtons, who, of course, would
+disapprove the gates affair, in any case. The long hours before
+dinner passed away. The Squire thought them interminable. Dinner was
+a gloomy and embarrassed function. His daughters were afraid of
+rousing a fresh whirlwind of temper, if the gates were mentioned;
+and nothing else was interesting. The meal was short and spare, and
+the Squire noticed for the first time that while meat was offered to
+him, the others fed on fish and vegetables. All to put him in the
+wrong, of course!
+
+After dinner he went back to the library. Work was impossible. He
+hung over the fire smoking, or turning over the pages of a fresh
+section of the catalogue which Elizabeth had placed--complete--on
+his desk that morning.
+
+It seemed to him that all the powers of mischief had risen against
+him. The recent investigation of his affairs made by Elizabeth at
+his express wish, slight and preliminary though it was, had shown
+him what he had long and obstinately refused to see--that the estate
+had seriously gone down in value during the preceding five years;
+that he had a dozen scraps and disputes on his hands, more than
+enough to rasp the nerves of any ordinary man--and as far as nerves
+were concerned, he knew very well that he was not an ordinary man;
+that, in short, he was impoverished and embarrassed; his agent was a
+scandal and must be dismissed, and his new lawyers, a grasping,
+incompetent crew. For a moment, indeed, he had had a glimpse of a
+clear sky. A woman, who seemed to have the same kind of business
+faculty that many Frenchwomen possess, had laid hands on his skein
+of troubles, and might have unravelled them. But she had thrown him
+over. In a little while he would have to let Mannering--for who
+would buy an estate in such a pickle?--sell his collections, and go
+and live in a flat in West Kensington. Then he hoped his
+enemies--Chicksands in particular--would be satisfied.
+
+But these, to do him justice, were not the chief thoughts, not the
+considerations in his mind that smarted most. Another woman
+secretary or woman accountant--for, after all, clever women with
+business training are now as thick as blackberries--might have
+helped him to put his affairs straight; but she would not have been
+a Miss Bremerton, with her scholarship, her taste, her love of the
+beautiful things that he loved. He seemed to see her fair skin
+flushing with pleasure as they went through a Greek chorus together,
+or to watch her tenderly handling a bronze, or holding a Tanagra
+figure to the light.
+
+Of course some stupid creatures might think he was falling in love
+with her--wanting to marry her. He laughed the charge to scorn. No!
+but he confessed her comradeship, her friendship, had begun to mean
+a good deal to him. For twenty years he had lived in loneliness.
+Now, it seemed, he had found a friend, in these days when the new
+independence of women opens a thousand fresh possibilities not only
+to them, but to men also.
+
+Well, well, it was all over! Better make up his mind to it.
+
+He went to the window, as it was nearing ten o'clock, and looked
+out. It was foggy still, the moon and stars scarcely visible. He
+hoped they would have at least the sense at the Rectory to provide
+her with a lantern, for under the trees the road was very dark.
+
+Oh, far in the distance, a twinkling light! Good! The Squire hastily
+shut the window, and resumed his pacing. Presently he thought he
+heard the house door open and shut, and a little while after the
+library clock struck ten.
+
+Now it would be only the natural thing to go and say good-night to
+his daughters, and, possibly, to inquire after a headache.
+
+The Squire accordingly emerged. In the hall he found his three
+daughters engaged in lighting their candles at the Chippendale
+table, where for about a hundred and fifty years the ladies of
+Mannering had been accustomed to perform that rite.
+
+The master of the house inquired coldly whether Miss Bremerton had
+returned safely. 'Oh yes,' said his daughter Margaret, 'but she went
+up to bed at once. She hasn't got rid of her headache.'
+
+Mrs. Strang's stiff manner, and the silence of the others showed the
+Squire that he was deep in his daughters' black books. Was he also
+charged with Miss Bremerton's headache? Did any of them guess what
+had happened? He fancied from the puzzled look in Pamela's eyes as
+she said good-night to him that she guessed something.
+
+Well, he wasn't going to tell them anything. He went back to the
+library, and presently Pamela, in her room upstairs, heard first the
+library bell, then the steps of Forest crossing the hall, and
+finally a conversation between the Squire and the butler which
+seemed to last some time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in the very early morning--between four and five--that
+Elizabeth was wakened, first by vague movements in the house, and
+then by what seemed to be cautious voices outside. She drew a
+curtain back and looked out--a misty morning, between darkness and
+dawn, and trees standing on the grass in dim robes of amethyst and
+gold. Two men in the middle distance were going away from the house.
+She craned her neck. Yes--no doubt of it! The Squire and Forest.
+What could they be about at that hour of the morning? They were
+going, no doubt, to inspect the barricades! Yet Forest himself had
+told her that nothing would induce _him_ to take a hand in the
+'row.'
+
+It was strange; but she was too weary and depressed to give it much
+thought. What was she going to do now? The world seemed emptily open
+before her once more, chill and lonely as the autumn morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+On the following morning the breakfast at Mannering was a very tame
+and silent affair. Forest was not in attendance, and the under
+housemaid, who commonly replaced him when absent, could not explain
+his non-appearance. He and his wife lived in a cottage beyond the
+stables, and all that could be said was that he 'had not come in.'
+
+The Squire also was absent. But as his breakfast habits were
+erratic, owing to the fact that he slept badly and was often up and
+working at strange seasons of the night, neither of his daughters
+took any notice. Elizabeth did not feel inclined to say anything of
+her own observations in the small hours. If the Squire and Forest
+had been working at the barricade together, they were perhaps
+sleeping off their exertions. Or the Squire was already on the spot,
+waiting for the fray? Meanwhile, out of doors, a thick grey mist
+spread over the park.
+
+So she sat silent like the other two--(Mrs. Gaddesden was of course
+in bed)--wondering from time to time when and how she should
+announce her departure.
+
+Pamela meanwhile was thinking of the letter she would have to write
+to Desmond about the day's proceedings, and was impatient to be off
+as soon as possible for the scene of action. Once or twice it
+occurred to her to notice that Miss Bremerton was looking rather
+pale and depressed. But the fact only made Pamela feel prickly. 'If
+father does get into a row, what does it really matter to her.
+She's not responsible!--she's not one of us!'
+
+Immediately after breakfast, Pamela disappeared. She made her way
+quietly through the park, where the dank mist still clung to the
+trees from which the leaf was dropping silently, continuously. The
+grass was all cobwebs. Every now and then the head of a deer would
+emerge from the dripping fern only to be swallowed up again in the
+fog.
+
+Could a motor-plough work in a fog?
+
+Presently, she who knew every inch of the ground and every tree upon
+it, became aware that she was close to the Chetworth gate. Suddenly
+the rattle of an engine and some men's voices caught her ear. The
+plough, sure enough! The sound of it was becoming common in the
+country-side. Then as the mist thinned and drifted she saw the thing
+plain--the puffing engine, one man driving and another following,
+while in their wake ran the black glistening furrow, where the grass
+had been.
+
+And here was the gate. Pamela stood open-mouthed. Where were the
+elaborate defences and barricades of which rumour had been full the
+night before? The big gate swung idly on its hinges. And in front of
+it stood two men placidly smoking, in company with the village
+policeman. Not a trace of any obstruction--no hurdles, no barbed
+wire, only a few ends of rope lying in the road.
+
+Then, looking round, she perceived old Perley, with a bag of ferrets
+in his hand, emerging from the mist, and she ran up to him
+breathlessly.
+
+'So they've come, Perley! Was it they forced the gate?'
+
+Perley scratched his head with his free hand.
+
+'Well, it's an uncommon queer thing, Miss--but I can't tell yer who
+opened them gates! I come along here about seven o'clock this
+mornin', and the fog was so thick yo couldn't see nothin' beyond a
+yard or two. But when I got up to the gates, there they were open,
+just as you see 'em now. At first I thought there was summat
+wrong--that my eyes wasn't what they used to was. But they was all
+right.'
+
+'And you saw the gates shut last night?'
+
+'Barred up, so as you couldn't move 'em, Miss!--not without a
+crowbar or two, an' a couple of men. I thowt it was perhaps some
+village chaps larkin' as had done it. But it ain't none o' them. It
+beats me!'
+
+Pamela looked at the two men smoking by the gate--representatives,
+very likely, of the Inspection Sub-Committee. Should she go up and
+question them? But some inherited instinct deterred her. She was
+glad the country should have the land and the corn. She had no
+sympathy with her father. And yet all the same when she actually saw
+Demos the outsider forcibly in possession of Mannering land, the
+Mannering spirit kicked a little. She would find out what had
+happened from some of their own people.
+
+So after watching the County Council plough for a while as it clove
+its way up and down the park under the struggling sun which was
+gradually scattering the fog--her young intelligence quite aware all
+the time of the significance of the sight--she turned back towards
+the house. And presently, advancing to meet her, she perceived the
+figure of Elizabeth Bremerton--coming, no doubt, to get picturesque
+details on the spot for the letter she had promised to write to a
+certain artillery officer. A quick flame of jealousy ran through
+the girl's mind.
+
+Miss Bremerton quickened her step.
+
+'So they're open!' she said eagerly, as she and Pamela met. 'And
+there's nothing broken, or--or lying about!'
+
+She looked in bewilderment at the unlittered road and swinging gate.
+
+'They were open, Perley says, first thing this morning. He came by
+about seven.'
+
+'Before the plough arrived?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+They stood still, trying to puzzle it out. Then a sudden laugh
+crossed Elizabeth's face.
+
+'Perhaps there were no barricades! Perhaps your father was taking us
+all in!'
+
+'Not at all,' said Pamela drily. 'Perley saw the gates firmly barred
+with hurdles and barbed wire, and all tied up with rope, when he and
+his wife left the Lodge late last night.'
+
+Elizabeth suddenly coloured brightly. Why, Pamela could not imagine.
+Her fair skin made it impossible for a flush to pass unnoticed. But
+why should she flush?
+
+Elizabeth walked on rapidly, her eyes on the ground. When she raised
+them it was to look rather steadily at her companion.
+
+'I think perhaps I had better tell you at once--I am very
+sorry!--but I shall be leaving you in a month. I told your father so
+last night.'
+
+Pamela looked the astonishment she felt. For the moment she was
+tongue-tied. Was she glad or sorry? She did not know. But the
+instinct of good manners came to her aid.
+
+'Can't you stand us?' she said bluntly. 'I expect you can't.'
+
+Elizabeth laughed uncomfortably.
+
+'Why, you've all been so kind to me. But I think perhaps'--she
+paused, trying to find her words--'I didn't quite understand--when I
+came--how much I still wanted to be doing things for the war--'
+
+'Why, you might do heaps of things!' cried Pamela. 'You have been
+doing them. Taking an interest in the farms, I mean--and all that.'
+
+'Well, but--' Elizabeth's brow puckered.
+
+Then she broke into a frank laugh--'After all, that wasn't what I
+was engaged for, was it?'
+
+'No--but you seemed to like to do it. And it's war-work,' said
+Pamela, inexorably.
+
+Elizabeth was dismally conscious of her own apparent
+inconsistencies. It seemed best to be frank.
+
+'The fact is--I think I'd better tell you--I tried yesterday to get
+your father to give up his plans about the gates. And when he
+wouldn't, and it seemed likely that there might be legal proceedings
+and--and a great fuss--in which naturally he would want his
+secretary to help him--'
+
+'You just felt you couldn't? Well, of course I understand that,'
+said Pamela fervently. 'But then, you see,' she laughed, 'there
+isn't going to be a fuss. The plough just walked in, and the fifty
+acres will be done in no time.'
+
+Elizabeth looked as she felt--worried.
+
+'It's very puzzling. I wonder what happened? But I am afraid there
+will be other things where your father and I shall disagree--if,
+that is, he wants me to do so much else for him than the Greek
+work--'
+
+'But you might say that you wouldn't do anything else but the Greek
+work?'
+
+'Yes, I might,' said Elizabeth smiling, 'but once I've begun--'
+
+'You couldn't keep to it?--father couldn't keep to it?'
+
+Elizabeth shook her head decidedly. A little smile played about her
+lips, as much as to say, 'I am a managing woman and you must take me
+at that. "Il ne faut pas sortir de son caractere."' Pamela, looking
+at her, admired her for the first time. And now that there was to be
+no more question--apparently--of correspondence with Arthur
+Chicksands, her mood changed impulsively.
+
+'Well, I'm very sorry!' she said--and then, sincerely, 'I don't know
+how the place will get on.'
+
+'Thank you,' said Elizabeth. Her look twinkled a little. 'But you
+don't know what I might be after if I stayed!'
+
+Pamela laughed out, and the two walked home, better friends than
+they had been yet, Elizabeth asking that the news of her resignation
+of her post might be regarded as confidential for a few days.
+
+When they reached the house, Pamela went into the morning-room to
+tell her sisters of the tame ending to all their alarms, while
+Elizabeth hurried to the library. She was due there at half-past
+ten, and she was only just in time. Would the Squire be there? She
+remembered that she had to apologize for her absence of the day
+before.
+
+She felt her pulse thumping a little as she opened the library
+door. There was undoubtedly something about the Squire--some
+queer magnetism--born perhaps of his very restlessness and
+unexpectedness--that made life in his neighbourhood seldom less
+than interesting. His temper this morning would probably be of the
+worst. Something, or some one, had defeated all his schemes for a
+magnificent assertion of the rights of man. His park was in the
+hands of the invaders. The public plough was impudently at work.
+And at the same moment his secretary had given warning, and the
+new catalogue--the darling of his heart--would be thrown on his
+hands. It would not be surprising to find him rampant. Elizabeth
+entered almost on tip-toe, prepared to be all that was meek and
+conciliating, so far as was compatible with her month's notice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A tall figure rose from the Squire's table and made her a formal
+bow.
+
+'Good-morning, Miss Bremerton. I expected your assistance yesterday
+afternoon, but you had, I understand, made an engagement?'
+
+'I asked you--a few days ago,' said Elizabeth, mildly confronting
+him. 'I am sorry if it inconvenienced you.'
+
+'Oh, all right--all right,' said the Squire hastily. 'I had
+forgotten all about it. Well, anyway, we have lost a great deal of
+time.' His voice conveyed reproach. His greenish eyes were fierily
+bent upon her.
+
+Elizabeth sat down at her table without reply, and chose a pen. The
+morning's work generally consisted of descriptions of vases and
+bronzes in the Mannering collection, dictated by the Squire, and
+illustrated often by a number of references to classical writers,
+given both in Greek and English. The labour of looking out and
+verifying the references was considerable, and the Squire's testy
+temper was never more testy than when it was quarrelling with the
+difficulties of translation.
+
+'Kindly take down,' he said peremptorily.
+
+Elizabeth began:
+
+'"No. 190. Greek vase, from a tomb excavated at Mitylene in 1902.
+Fine work of the fifth century B.C. Subject: Penelope's Web.
+Penelope is seated at the loom. Beside her are the figures of a
+young man and two females--probably Telemachus and two hand-maidens.
+The three male figures in the background may represent the suitors.
+Size, 23 inches high; diameter, 11 inches. Perfect, except for a
+restoration in one of the handles."
+
+'Have you got that?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Go on please. "This vase is of course an illustration of the
+well-known passage in the _Odyssey_, Book 21. 103. I take Mr. Samuel
+Butler's translation, which is lively and modern and much to be
+preferred to the heavy archaisms of the other fellows."'
+
+Elizabeth gave a slight cough. The Squire looked at her sharply.
+
+'Oh, you think that's not dignified? Well, have it as you like.'
+
+Elizabeth altered the phrase to 'other translators.' The Squire
+resumed. '"Antinous, one of the suitors, is speaking: 'We could see
+her working on her great web all day long, but at night she would
+unpick the stitches again by torchlight. She fooled us in this way
+for three years, and we never found her out, but as time wore on,
+and she was now in her fourth year, one of her maids, who knew what
+she was doing, told us, and we caught her in the act of undoing her
+work, so she had to finish it, whether she would or no....' I tell
+you, we never heard of such a woman; we know all about Tyro,
+Alcmena, Mycene, and the famous women of old, but they were nothing
+to your mother--any one of them."--And yet she was only undoing her
+own work!--she was not forcing a grown man to undo his!' said the
+Squire, with a sudden rush of voice and speech.
+
+Elizabeth looked up astonished.
+
+'Am I to put that down?'
+
+The Squire threw away the book he was holding. His shining white
+hair seemed positively to bristle on his head, his long legs twined
+and untwined themselves.
+
+'Don't pretend, please, that you don't know what part you've been
+playing in this affair!' he said with sarcasm. 'It took Forest and
+me three good hours this morning to take down as fine a barricade as
+ever I saw put up. I'm stiff with it still. British liberties have
+been thrown to the dogs--[Greek: gynaikos houneka]--all because of a
+woman! And there you sit, as though nothing had happened! Yet I
+chanced to see you just now, coming back with Pamela!'
+
+Elizabeth's flush this time dyed her all crimson. She sat, pen in
+hand, staring at her employer.
+
+'I don't understand what you mean, Mr. Mannering.' At which her
+conscience whispered to her sharply, 'You guessed it already--in the
+park!'
+
+The Squire jumped to his feet, and came to stand excitedly in front
+of her, his hands thrust into the high pockets of his waistcoat.
+
+'I am _extremely_ sorry!' he said, with that _grand seigneur_
+politeness he could put on when he chose--'but I am not able to
+credit that statement. You make it honestly, of course, but that a
+person of your intelligence, when you saw those gates, failed to put
+two and two together, well!'--the Squire shook his head, and
+shrugged his shoulders, became, in fact, one protesting gesture--'if
+you ask me to believe it,' he continued, witheringly, 'I suppose I
+must, but--'
+
+'Mr. Mannering!' said Elizabeth earnestly, 'it would really be kind
+of you to explain.'
+
+Her blush had died away. She had fallen back in her chair, and was
+meeting his attack with the steady, candid look that betrayed her
+character. She was now entirely self-possessed--neither nervous nor
+angry.
+
+The Squire changed his tone. Folding his arms, he leant against a
+pedestal which supported a bust of a Roman emperor.
+
+'Very well, then--I _will_ explain. I told you yesterday of a step I
+proposed to take by way of testing how far the invasion of personal
+freedom had gone in this country. I was perfectly justified in
+taking it. I was prepared to suffer for my action. I had thought it
+all out. Then _you_ came in--and by _force majeure_ compelled me to
+give it all up!'
+
+Elizabeth could not help laughing.
+
+'I never heard any account of an incident which fitted less with the
+facts!' she said with vivacity.
+
+'It exactly fits them!' the Squire insisted. 'When I told you what I
+meant to do, instead of sympathy--instead of simple acquiescence,
+for how the deuce were you responsible!--you threatened to throw up
+the work I cannot now possibly accomplish without you--'
+
+'Mr. Levasseur?' suggested Elizabeth.
+
+'Levasseur be hanged!' said the Squire, taking an angry pace up and
+down. 'Don't please interrupt me. I have given you a perfectly free
+hand, and you have organized the work--your share of it--as you
+please. Nobody else is the least likely to do it in the same way.
+When you go, it drops. And when your share drops, mine drops.
+That's what comes of employing a woman of ability, and trusting to
+her--as I have trusted to you!'
+
+Was there ever any attack so grotesque, so unfair? Elizabeth was for
+one moment inclined to be angry--and the next, she was conscious of
+yieldings and compunctions that were extremely embarrassing.
+
+'You rate my help a great deal too high,' she said after a moment.
+'It is you yourself who have taught me how to work in your way. I
+don't think you will have any real difficulty with another
+secretary. You are'--she ventured a smile--'you are a born teacher.'
+
+Never was any compliment less successful. The Squire looked sombrely
+down upon her.
+
+'So you _still_ intend to leave us,' he said slowly, 'after what I
+have done?'
+
+'What have you done?' said Elizabeth faintly.
+
+'Made myself a laughing-stock to the whole country-side!--and thrown
+all my principles overboard--to content you--and save my book!' The
+reply was given with an angry energy that shook her. 'I have humbled
+myself to the dust to meet your sentimental ideas--and there you
+sit--as stony and inaccessible as this fellow here!'--he brought his
+hand down with vehemence on the Roman emperor's shoulder. 'Not a
+word of gratitude--or concession--or sympathy! I was indeed a fool
+to take any trouble to please you!'
+
+Elizabeth was silent. They surveyed each other. 'No agitation!' said
+Elizabeth's inner mind; 'keep cool!'
+
+At last she withdrew her own eyes from the angry tension of
+his--dropped them to the table where her right hand was
+mechanically drawing nonsense figures on her blotting-paper.
+
+'Did you really yourself take down that barricade?' she said gently.
+
+'I did! And it was an infernal piece of work!'
+
+'I'm awfully glad!' Her voice was very soft.
+
+'I daresay you are. It suits your principles, and your ideas, of
+course--not mine! And now, having driven me to it--having publicly
+discredited and disgraced me--you can still sit there and talk of
+throwing up your work.'
+
+The growing passion in the irascible gentleman towering above her
+warned her that it was time to bring the scene to an end.
+
+'I am glad,' she repeated steadily, 'very glad--especially--for Mr.
+Desmond.'
+
+'Oh, Desmond!' the Squire threw out impatiently, beginning again to
+walk up and down.
+
+'He would have minded so dreadfully,' she said, still in a lower
+key. 'It was really him I was thinking of. Of course I had no right
+to interfere with your affairs--'
+
+The Squire turned, the tyrant in him reviving fast.
+
+'Well, you did interfere--and to some purpose! Now then--yes or
+no--is your notice withdrawn?'
+
+Elizabeth hesitated.
+
+'I would willingly stay with you,' she said, 'if--'
+
+'If what?'
+
+She looked up with a sudden flash of laughter.
+
+'If we can really get on!'
+
+'Name your terms!' He returned, frowning and excited, to the
+neighbourhood of the Roman emperor.
+
+'Oh no--I have no terms,' she said hurriedly. 'Only--if you
+ask me to help you with the land, I should want to obey the
+Government--and--and do the best for the war.'
+
+'Condition No. 1,' said the Squire grimly, checking it off. 'Go on!'
+
+'And--I should--perhaps--beg you to let Pamela do some V.A.D. work,
+if she wants to.'
+
+'Pamela is your affair!' said the Squire impatiently. 'If you stay
+here, you are her chaperon, and, for the present, head of the
+household.'
+
+'Only just for the present--till Pamela can do it!' put in Elizabeth
+hastily. 'But she's nineteen--she ought to take a part.'
+
+'Well, don't bother me about that. You are responsible. I wash my
+hands of her. Anything else?'
+
+It did not do to think of Pamela's feelings, should she ever become
+aware of how she was being handed over. But the mention of her, on a
+sudden impulse, had been pure sympathy on Elizabeth's part; a wish
+to strike on the girl's behalf while the iron was so very hot. She
+looked up quietly.
+
+'No, indeed there is nothing else--except indeed--that you won't
+expect me to hide what I feel about the war--and the little we at
+home can do to help--'
+
+Her voice failed a little. The Squire said nothing. She went on,
+with a clearing countenance.
+
+'So--if you really wish it--I will stay, Mr. Mannering--and try to
+help you all I can. It was splendid of you--to give up your plans.
+I'm sure you won't regret it.'
+
+'I'm not sure at all--but it's done. Now, then, let us understand.
+You take over my estate correspondence. You'll want a clerk--I'll
+find one. You can appoint a new agent if you like. You can do what
+you like, in fact. I was never meant to be a landowner, and I hate
+the whole business. You can harry the farmers as you please--I
+shan't interfere.'
+
+'Allow me to point out,' said Elizabeth firmly, 'that at college I
+was not trained in land-agency--but in Greek!'
+
+'What does that matter? If women can build Dreadnoughts, as they say
+they can, they can manage estates. Now, then, as to my conditions.
+Do what you like--but my book and the catalogue come _first_!' He
+looked at her with an exacting eye.
+
+'Certainly,' said Elizabeth.
+
+'But I know what you'll do--you'll go and break down! You are _not_
+to break down.'
+
+'Certainly!' said Elizabeth.
+
+'But you have once broken down.'
+
+Her start was perceptible, but she answered quietly.
+
+'I was ill a year ago--partly from overwork. But I am normally quite
+strong.'
+
+The Squire observed her. It was very pleasant to him to see her
+sitting there, in her trim serge dress, with its broad white collar
+and cuffs--the sheen of her hair against the dark wall--her shapely
+hands ready for work upon his table. He felt as if he had with
+enormous difficulty captured--recaptured--something of exceptional
+value; like one of those women 'skilled in beautiful arts' whom the
+Greek slave-raiders used to carry off from a conquered city, and
+sell for large sums to the wives of wealthy Greek chieftains. Till
+now he had scarcely thought of her as a woman, but rather as a
+fine-edged but most serviceable tool which he had had the
+extraordinary good luck to find. Now, with his mere selfish feeling
+of relief there mingled something rather warmer and more human. If
+only she would stay, he would honestly try and make life agreeable
+to her.
+
+'Well now, that's settled,' he said, drawing a long
+breath--'Oh--except one thing--you will of course want a larger
+salary?'
+
+'Not at all,' said Elizabeth decidedly. 'You pay me quite enough.'
+
+'You are not offended with me for asking?' His tone had become
+astonishingly deferential.
+
+'Not the least. I am a business woman. If I thought myself entitled
+to more I should say so. But it is extremely doubtful whether I can
+really be of any use whatever to you.'
+
+'All right,' said the Squire, returning to his own table. 'Now,
+then, let us go on with No. 190.'
+
+'Is it necessary now to put in--well, _quite_ so much about
+Penelope?' asked Elizabeth, as she took up her pen.
+
+'What do you think?'
+
+'It seems a little long and dragged in.' Elizabeth looked critically
+at the paragraph.
+
+'And we have now unravelled the web?--we can do without her?
+Yes--let her go!' said the Squire, in a tone of excessive
+complaisance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the morning's work was done, and luncheon over, Elizabeth
+carried off Pamela to her room. When Pamela emerged, she went in
+search of Forest, interviewed him in the gun-room, and then shutting
+herself up in the 'den' she wrote to Desmond.
+
+     'MY DEAR DEZZY--There are such queer things going on in this
+     queer house! Yesterday Broomie gave warning, and father
+     barricaded the park gates, and was perfectly mad, and
+     determined not to listen to anybody. In the middle of the night
+     he and Forest took the barricade down, and to-day, Broomie is
+     to be not only secretary, but land-agent, and anything else she
+     pleases--queen, in fact, of all she surveys--including me. But
+     I am bound to say she had been very decent to me over it all.
+     She _wants_ me to do some of the housekeeping--and she has
+     actually made father consent to my helping at the hospital
+     every afternoon. Of course I am awfully glad about that. I
+     shall bicycle over.
+
+     'But all the same it is very odd, and perhaps you and I had
+     better consider what it _may_ mean. I know from Broomie herself
+     that she gave notice yesterday--and now she is going to stay.
+     And I know from Forest that father called him up when it was
+     quite dark, between three and four in the morning--Mrs. Forest
+     thought the Germans had come when she heard the knocking--and
+     asked him to come with him and undo the gates. Forest told me
+     that _he_ would have had nothing whatever to do with closing
+     them, nor with anything 'agin the Government! He's a staunch
+     old soul, is Forest. So when father told him what he wanted, he
+     didn't know what to make of it. However, they both groped their
+     way through the fog, which was thick on the other side of the
+     park, and set to at the gates. Forest says it was an awful
+     business to get everything cleared away. Father and Gregson had
+     made an uncommonly good job of it. If Gregson had put in work
+     like that on his own hedges and gates, Forest says he mightn't
+     have been kicked out! It took them ages getting the barbed
+     wire cleared away, because they hadn't any proper nippers.
+     Father took off his coat, and worked like a navvy, and Forest
+     hoisted him up to get at the wire along the wall. Forest says
+     he was determined to leave nothing! "And I believe, Miss, the
+     Squire was very glad of the fog--because there couldn't be any
+     one prying around."
+
+     'For it seems to be really true that the village has been in a
+     state of ferment, and that they had determined to free the
+     gates and let in the Council plough. Perley was seen talking to
+     a lot of men on the green last night. I met him myself this
+     morning after breakfast near the gates, and he confessed he had
+     been there already--early. I expect he came to reconnoitre and
+     take back the news. Rather calm, for one of father's own men!
+     But that's the new spirit, Dezzy. We're not going to be allowed
+     to have it all our own way any more. Well, thank goodness, I
+     don't mind. At least, there is something in me that minds. I
+     suppose it's one's forbears. But the greater part of me wants a
+     _lot_ of change--and there are often and often times when I
+     wish I'd been born in the working-class and was just struggling
+     upwards with them, and sharing all their hopes and dreams for
+     "after the war." Well, why shouldn't I? I'm going to set
+     Broomie on to some of the cottages in the village--not that
+     she'll want setting on--but after all, it's I who know the
+     people.
+
+     'But that's by the way. The point is why did father give in?
+     Evidently because Broomie gave notice, and he couldn't bear the
+     idea of parting with her. Of course Alice--and Margaret too, to
+     some extent--are convinced it all means that father wants to
+     marry her. Only Alice thinks that Miss Bremerton has been
+     intriguing for it since the first week she set foot in the
+     house; while Margaret is certain that she wouldn't marry father
+     if he asked her. She thinks that Miss B. is just the new woman,
+     who wants to _do_ things, and isn't always thinking about
+     getting married. Well, Dezzy, old boy--_I_ don't know what to
+     think. I'll keep my eyes open, and report to you. I
+     _don't--altogether--like her_. No, I don't--that's flat. I
+     wish, on the whole, she'd taken her departure! And yet I feel
+     rather a toad for saying so. She is splendid in some
+     things--yes, she is! And the Rectory people take the most
+     rose-coloured view of her--it's too late to tell you why, for
+     the postman is just coming.
+
+     'Good-bye, Dezzy--dear Dezzy! I know how glad you'll be about
+     the gates. Write to me as often as you can. By the way, Miss
+     Bremerton has got a brother in the war--with General Maude.
+     That ought to make me like her. But why did she leave us to
+     find it out through the Rectory? She never says anything about
+     herself that she can help. Do you think you'll really get to
+     France in January? Ever your loving
+
+     'PAM.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+It was a bright January day. Lunch was just over at Mannering, and
+the luncheon-party had dispersed--attracted to the garden and the
+park by the lure of the sunshine after dark days of storm and wind.
+Mrs. Gaddesden alone was left sitting by the fire in the hall. There
+was a cold wind, and she did not feel equal to facing it. She was
+one of those women, rare in these days, who, though still young,
+prefer to be prematurely old; in whom their great-grandmothers, and
+the 'elegant' lackadaisical ways of a generation that knew nothing
+of exercise, thick boots and short skirts, seem to become once more
+incarnate. Though Mannering was not ill-warmed, Alice moved about it
+in winter wrapped in a picturesque coat of black velvet trimmed with
+chinchilla, her head wreathed in white lace. From this rather
+pompous setting her fair hair, small person, and pinched pale face
+looked out perhaps with greater dignity than they could have
+achieved unadorned. Her chilliness, her small self-indulgences,
+including an inordinate love of cakes and all sweet things, were the
+standing joke of the twins when they discussed the family freely
+behind the closed doors of the 'Den.' But no one disliked Alice
+Gaddesden, though it was hard to be actively fond of her. She and
+her husband were quite good friends; but they were no longer of any
+real importance to each other. He was a good deal older than she;
+and was often away from London on 'war work' in the Midlands. On
+these occasions Alice generally invited herself to Mannering. She
+thus got rid of housekeeping, which in these days of rations worried
+her to death. Moreover, food at Mannering was much more plentiful
+than food in town--especially since the advent of Elizabeth
+Bremerton.
+
+It was of Elizabeth that Mrs. Gaddesden was thinking as she sat
+alone in the hall. From her seat she could perceive a shrubbery walk
+in the garden outside, along which two figures were pacing--Miss
+Bremerton and the new agent. Beyond, at some distance, she was aware
+of another group disappearing among the trees of the park--Pamela
+with Captain Chicksands and Beryl.
+
+This was the first time that any member of the Chicksands family had
+been a guest at Mannering since the quarrel in the autumn. The
+Squire had not yet brought himself to shake hands with Sir Henry.
+But Beryl on the one side, and Pamela on the other--aided and
+abetted always by Elizabeth Bremerton--had been gradually breaking
+down the embargo; and when, hearing from Beryl that her brother
+Arthur was with them for a few days, Pamela had openly proposed in
+her father's presence to ask them both to luncheon, the Squire had
+pretended not to hear, but had at any rate raised no objection. And
+when the brother and sister arrived, he had received them as though
+nothing had happened. His manners were always brusque and
+ungracious, except in the case of persons who specially mattered to
+his own pursuits, such as archaeologists and Greek professors. But
+the Chetworth family were almost as well acquainted with his ways as
+his own, and his visitors took them philosophically. Arthur
+Chicksands had kept the table alive at luncheon with soldier
+stories, and the Squire's sulky or sarcastic silence had passed
+unnoticed.
+
+Mrs. Gaddesden's mind was very full of the Captain's good looks and
+distinction. He was now in London, at the War Office, it seemed, for
+a short time, on a special mission; hence his occasional weekends
+with his family. When the mission was over--so Beryl told Pamela--he
+was probably going out to an important appointment in the
+Intelligence Department at G.H.Q. 'Arthur's a great swell,' said
+Beryl, 'though as to what he's done, or what people think of him,
+you have to dig it out of him--if you can!'
+
+Mrs. Gaddesden did not very much like him. His brusque sincerity
+made people of her sort uncomfortable. But she would have liked very
+much to know whether there was anything up between him and Pamela.
+Really, Miss Bremerton's discretion about such things was too
+tiresome--ridiculous--almost rude! It was no good trying, even, to
+discuss them with her.
+
+As to the disinheriting of Aubrey, no more had been heard of it.
+Miss Bremerton had told Aubrey when he was at home for twenty-four
+hours at Christmas that, as far as she knew, the codicil was still
+unsigned. But Aubrey didn't seem to care the least whether it was or
+no. If Beryl wished him to raise the question again with his father,
+of course he would; otherwise he greatly preferred to leave it
+alone. And as Beryl had no will or wishes but his, and was, in
+Alice's opinion, only too absurdly and dependently in love, the
+sleeping dogs were very much asleep; and the secret of Mannering's
+future disposal lay hid impenetrably in the Squire's own breast.
+
+At the same time, Mrs. Gaddesden was firmly persuaded that whatever
+Elizabeth Bremerton wished or advised would ultimately be done.
+
+What an extraordinary position that young woman now held among them!
+Nearly three months had now elapsed since Mrs. Gaddesden's autumn
+visit--since Desmond had gone into training at his artillery
+camp--since a third of the park had been ploughed up, and since
+Elizabeth Bremerton had thrown up her post only to come back next
+day as dictator.
+
+Yes--_dictator_! Mrs. Gaddesden was never tired of thinking about
+it, and was excitedly conscious that all the neighbourhood, and all
+their friends and kinsfolk were thinking and speculating with her.
+At the beginning of November, before she and Margaret Strang went
+back to town, the Squire had announced to all of them that Miss
+Bremerton had become his 'business secretary,' as well as his
+classical assistant. And now, after three months, the meaning of
+this notice was becoming very clear. The old agent, Mr. Hull, had
+been dismissed, and moderately--very moderately--pensioned. It was
+said that Miss Bremerton, on looking into his accounts, saw no
+reason at all for any special indulgence. For, in addition to
+everything else, she turned out to be a trained accountant!--and
+money matters connected with the estate were being probed to the
+bottom that had never been probed before. Mrs. Gaddesden's own
+allowance--for the Squire had always obstinately declined to settle
+any capital on his married daughters--had been, for the first time,
+paid at the proper date--by Elizabeth Bremerton! At least, if the
+Squire had signed it, she had written the cheque. And she might
+perfectly well have signed it. For, as Pamela had long since
+reported to her sisters, Elizabeth paid all the house and estate
+accounts over her own signature, and seemed to have much more
+accurate knowledge than the Squire himself of the state of his bank
+balance, and his money affairs generally.
+
+Not that she ever paraded these things in the least. But neither did
+she make any unnecessary mystery about it with the Squire's family.
+And indeed they were quite evident to any one living in the house.
+At times she would make little, laughing, apologetic remarks to one
+of the daughters--'I hope you don't mind!--the Squire wants me to
+get things straight.' But in general, her authority by now had
+become a matter of course.
+
+Her position in the Mannering household, however, was as nothing to
+her position in the estate and the neighbourhood. That was the
+amazing thing which had by now begun to set all tongues wagging. Sir
+Henry Chicksands, meeting Mrs. Gaddesden at the station, had poured
+himself out to her. 'That extraordinary young woman your father has
+got hold of, is simply transforming the whole place. The farmers on
+the whole like her very much. But if they don't like her, they're
+_afraid of her_! For Heaven's sake don't let her kill herself with
+over-work. She'll soon be leading the county.'
+
+Yes. Work indeed! How on earth did she get through it? In
+the mornings there she was in the library, absorbed in the
+catalogue, writing to the Squire's dictation, transcribing or
+translating Greek--his docile and obedient slave. Then in the
+afternoon--bicycling all over the estate, and from dark onwards,
+till late at night, busy with correspondence and office work, except
+just for dinner and an hour afterwards.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The door of the outer hall opened and shut. Elizabeth and a young
+man--the new agent--entered the inner hall, where Mrs. Gaddesden was
+sitting, Elizabeth acknowledging her presence with a pleasant nod
+and smile. But they passed quickly through to the room at the
+further end of the hall, which was now an estate office where
+Elizabeth spent the latter part of her day. It was connected both
+with the main living-rooms of the house, and with a side entrance
+from the park, by which visitors on estate matters were admitted.
+
+A man was sitting waiting for Miss Bremerton. He was the new tenant
+of the derelict farm, on the Holme Wood side of the estate, and he
+had come to report on the progress which had been made in clearing
+and ploughing the land, and repairing the farm-buildings. He was a
+youngish man, a sergeant in a Warwickshire regiment, who had been
+twice wounded in the war, and was now discharged. As the son of an
+intelligent farmer, he had had a good agricultural training, and it
+was evident that his enthusiasms and those of the Squire's new
+'business-secretary' were running in harness.
+
+The new agent, Captain Dell, also a discharged Territorial, who had
+lost an arm in the war, watched the scene between the incoming
+tenant and Elizabeth, with a shrewd pair of eyes, through which
+there passed occasional gleams of amusement or surprise. He was
+every day making further acquaintance with the lady who was
+apparently to be his chief, but he was well aware that he was only
+at the beginning of his lesson. Astonishing, to see a woman taking
+this kind of lead!--asking these technical questions--as to land,
+crops, repairs, food production, and the rest--looking every now and
+then at the note-book beside her, full of her own notes made on the
+spot, or again, setting down with a quick hand something that was
+said to her. And all through he was struck with her tone of quiet
+authority--without a touch of boasting or 'side,' but also without a
+touch of any mere feminine deference to the male. She was there in
+the Squire's place, and she never let it be forgotten. Heavens,
+women had come on during this war! Through the young man's mind
+there ran a vague and whirling sense of change.
+
+'Well, Mr. Denman, that all sounds splendid!' said Elizabeth, at
+last, as she rose from her table. 'The country won't starve, if you
+can help it! I shall tell the County Committee all about you on
+Tuesday. You don't want another tractor?'
+
+'Oh, no, thank you! The two at work are enough. I hope you'll be
+over soon. I should like to show you what we've been after.' The
+man's tone was one of eager good will.
+
+'Oh yes, I shall be over before long,' said Elizabeth cheerfully.
+'It's so tremendously interesting what you're doing. And if you want
+anything I can help you in, you can always telephone.'
+
+And she pointed smiling to the instrument on the table--the first
+that had ever been allowed within the walls of Mannering. And that
+the Squire might not be teased with it, Elizabeth had long since
+fitted an extra inner door, covered with green baize, to the door of
+the office.
+
+The new tenant departed, and Elizabeth turned to the agent.
+
+'I really think we've caught a good man there,' she said, with a
+smile. 'Now will you tell me, please, about those timber proposals?
+I hope to get a few words with the Squire to-night.'
+
+And leaning back in her chair, she listened intently while Captain
+Dell, bringing a roll of papers out of his pocket, read her the
+draft proposals of a well-known firm of timber merchants, for the
+purchase of some of the Squire's outlying woods of oak and beech.
+Lights had been brought in, and Elizabeth sat shading her eyes from
+the lamp before her,--a strong and yet agreeable figure. Was it the
+consciousness of successful work--of opening horizons, and satisfied
+ambitions, that had made a physical presence, always attractive, so
+much more attractive than before--that had given it a magnetism and
+fire it had never yet possessed? Pamela, who was developing fast,
+and was acutely conscious of Elizabeth, asked herself the question,
+or something like it, about once a week. And during a short
+Christmas visit that Elizabeth had paid her own people, her gentle
+mother, much puzzled and a little dazzled by her daughter, had
+necessarily pondered the why and wherefore of a change she felt, but
+could not analyse. One thing the mother's insight had been clear
+about. Elizabeth was not in love. On the contrary, the one
+love-affair of her life seemed to be at last forgotten and put
+aside. Elizabeth was now in love with _efficiency_; with a great
+task given into her hand. As to the Squire, the owner of Mannering,
+who had provided her with the task, Mrs. Bremerton could not
+imagine him or envisage him at all. Elizabeth's accounts of him
+were so reticent and so contradictory.... 'Well, that's very
+interesting'--said Elizabeth thoughtfully, when Captain Dell laid
+down his papers--'I wonder what Mr. Mannering will say to it? As you
+know, I got his express permission for you to make these enquiries.
+But he hates cutting down a single tree, and this will mean a wide
+clearance!'
+
+'So it will--but the country wants every stick of it. And as to not
+cutting, one sees that from the woods--the tragedy of the
+woods!'--said the young man with emphasis. 'There has been no decent
+forestry on this estate for half a century. I hope you will be able
+to persuade him, Miss Bremerton. I expect, indeed, it's Hobson's
+choice.'
+
+'You mean the timber will be commandeered?'
+
+'Probably. The Government have just come down on some of Lord
+Radley's woods just beyond our borders--with scarcely a week's
+warning. No "With your leave" or "By your leave"! The price fixed,
+Canadians sent down to cut, and a light railway built from the woods
+to the station to carry the timber, before you could say "Jack
+Robinson."'
+
+'You think the price these people offer is a fair one?' She pointed
+to the draft contract.
+
+'Excellent! The Squire won't get nearly as much from the
+Government.'
+
+'What one might do with some of it for the estate!' said Elizabeth,
+looking up, her blue eyes dancing in the lamplight.
+
+'Rebuild half the cottages?' said the other, smiling, as he rose. 'A
+village club-house, a communal kitchen, a small holdings scheme--all
+the things we've talked about? Oh yes, you could do all that and
+more. The Squire doesn't know what he possesses.'
+
+'Well, I'll take the papers to him,' said Elizabeth, holding out her
+hands for them. 'I may perhaps catch him to-night'
+
+A little more business talk, and the agent departed. Then Elizabeth
+dreamily--still cogitating a hundred things--touched an electric
+bell. A girl typist, who acted as her clerk, came in from an
+adjoining room. Elizabeth rapidly dictated a number of letters,
+stayed for a little friendly gossip with the girl about her father
+in the Army Service Corps, who had been in hospital at Rouen, and
+had just finished, when the gong rang for afternoon tea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Elizabeth entered, the hall was crowded. It was the principal
+sitting-room of the house, now that for reasons of economy fires
+were seldom lit in the drawing-rooms. Before Elizabeth's advent it
+had been a dingy, uncomfortable place, but she and Pamela had
+entirely transformed it. As in the estate so in the house, the
+Squire did not know what he possessed. In all old houses with a
+continuous life, there are accumulations of furniture and stores,
+discarded by the generation of one day, and brought back by the
+fashion of the next. A little routing in attics and forgotten
+cupboards and chests had produced astonishing results. Chippendale
+chairs and settees had been brought down from the servants'
+bedrooms; two fine Dutch cabinets had been discovered amid a mass of
+lumber in an outhouse; a tall Japanese screen, dating from the end
+of the eighteenth century, and many pairs of linen curtains
+embroidered about the same time in branching oriental patterns by
+the hands of Mannering ladies, had been unearthed, and Pamela--for
+Elizabeth having started the search had interfered very little with
+its results--had spent some of her now scanty leisure in making the
+best of the finds. The hall was now a charming place, scented,
+moreover, on this January evening by the freesias and narcissus that
+Elizabeth had managed to rear in the house itself, and Pamela, who
+had always been ashamed of her own ill-kept and out-at-elbows home,
+as compared with the perfections of Chetworth, had been showing
+Arthur and Beryl Chicksands what had been done to renovate the old
+house since they were last in it--'and all without spending a
+penny!'--with a girlish pleasure which in the Captain's opinion
+became her greatly. Pamela needed indeed a good deal of animation to
+be as handsome as she deserved to be! A very critical observer took
+note that her stock of it was rapidly rising. It was the same with
+the letters, too, which for a month or so past, she had condescended
+to write him, after treating him most uncivilly in the autumn, and
+never answering a long screed--'and a jolly good one!'--which he had
+written her from Paris in November.
+
+As Elizabeth came in, Pamela was reading aloud a telegram just
+received, and Miss Bremerton was greeted with the news--'Desmond's
+coming to-night, instead of to-morrow! They've given him forty-eight
+hours' leave, and he goes to France on Thursday.'
+
+'That's very short!' said Elizabeth, as she took her place beside
+Pamela, who was making tea. 'Does your father know?'
+
+Forest, it appeared, had gone to tell him. Meanwhile Captain
+Chicksands was watching with a keen eye the relation between Miss
+Bremerton and Pamela. He saw that the Squire's secretary was
+scrupulously careful to give Pamela her place as daughter of the
+house; but Pamela's manner hardly showed any real intimacy between
+them. And it was easy to see where the real authority lay. As for
+himself he had lately begun to ask himself seriously how much he was
+interested in Pamela. For in truth, though he was no coxcomb, he
+could not help seeing--all the more because of Pamela's variable
+moods towards him--that she was at least incipiently interested in
+him. If so, was it fair to her that they should correspond?--and
+that he should come to Mannering whenever he was asked and military
+duty allowed, now that the Squire's embargo was at least partially
+removed?
+
+He confessed to himself that he was glad to come, that Pamela
+attracted him. At the same time there was in him a stern sense that
+the time was no time for love-making. The German hosts were
+gathering; the vast breakdown in Russia was freeing more and more of
+them for the Western assault. He himself was for the moment doing
+some important intelligence work, in close contact with the High
+Command. No one outside a very small circle knew better than he what
+lay in front of England--the fierce death-struggle over a thousand
+miles of front. And were men and women to be kissing and marrying
+while these storm-clouds of war--this rain of blood--were gathering
+overhead?
+
+Involuntarily he moved further from Pamela. His fine face with the
+rather high cheek-bones, strong mouth, and lined brow, seemed to put
+softness away. He approached Elizabeth.
+
+'What is the Squire doing about his wood, Miss Bremerton? The
+Government's desperately in want of ash!'
+
+He spoke almost as one official might speak to another--comrade to
+comrade. What he had heard about her doings from his father had
+filled his soldier's mind with an eager admiration for her. That was
+how women should bear themselves in this war--as the practical
+helpers of men.
+
+He fell into the chair beside her, and Elizabeth was soon deep in
+conversation with him, a conversation that any one might overhear
+who would. It turned partly on the armies abroad--partly on the
+effort at home. There was warmth--even passion--in it, studiously
+restrained. But it was the passion of two patriots, conscious
+through every pulse of their country's strait.
+
+The others listened. Pamela became silent and pale. All the old
+jealousy and misery of the autumn were alive in her once more. She
+had looked forward for weeks to this meeting with Arthur Chicksands.
+And for the first part of his visit she had been happy--before
+Elizabeth came on the scene. Why should Elizabeth have all the
+homage and the attention? She, too, was doing her best! She was
+drudging every day as a V.A.D., washing crockery and scrubbing
+floors; and this was the first afternoon off she had had for weeks.
+Her limbs were dog-tired. But Arthur Chicksands never talked to
+_her_--Pamela--in this tone of freedom and equality--with the whole
+and not the half of his mind. 'I could hold my own,' she thought
+bitterly, 'but he never gives me the chance! I suppose he despises
+girls.'
+
+As the hall clock struck half-past five, however, Elizabeth rose
+from her seat, gathering up the papers she had brought in from the
+office, and disappeared.
+
+Arthur Chicksands looked at his watch. Beryl exclaimed:
+
+'Oh, no, Arthur, not yet! Let's wait for Desmond!'
+
+Pamela said perfunctorily--'No, please don't go! He'll be here
+directly.'
+
+But as they gathered round the fire, expecting the young gunner, she
+hardly opened her lips again. Arthur Chicksands was quite conscious
+that he had wounded her. She appeared to him, as she sat there in
+the firelight, in all the first fairness and freshness of her youth,
+as an embodied temptation. Again he said to himself that other men
+might love and marry on the threshold of battle; he could not bring
+himself to think it justifiable--whether for the woman or the man.
+In a few weeks' time he would be back in France and in the very
+thick, perhaps, of the final struggle--of its preparatory stages, at
+any rate. Could one make love to a beautiful creature like that at
+such a moment, and then leave her, with a whole mind?--the mind and
+the nerve that were the country's due?
+
+All the same he had never been so aware of her before. And
+simultaneously his mind was invaded by the mute, haunting certainty
+that her life was reaching out towards his, and that he was
+repelling and hurting her.
+
+Suddenly--into the midst of them, while Mrs. Gaddesden was talking
+endlessly in her small plaintive voice about rations and
+queues--there dropped the sound of a car passing the windows, and a
+boy's clear voice.
+
+'Desmond!' cried Pamela, with almost a sob of relief, and like one
+escaping from a nightmare she sprang up and ran to greet her
+brother.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Elizabeth had found the Squire waiting for her, and, as
+she saw at once, in a state of tension.
+
+'What was that you were saying to me about timber last week?' he
+demanded imperiously as she entered, without giving her time to
+speak. 'I hear this intolerable Government are behaving like
+madmen, cutting down everything they can lay hands on. They shan't
+have my trees--I would burn them first!'
+
+Elizabeth paused in some dismay.
+
+'You remember--' she began.
+
+'Remember what?' It was long since she had heard so snappish a tone.
+
+'That you authorized me--'
+
+'Oh, I daresay, I gave myself away--I'm always doing so. I don't
+mean half I say. You're too full of business--you take me up too
+quick. What are those papers you've got there?'
+
+Elizabeth's red cheeks showed her taken aback. It was the first time
+for weeks that her employer had turned upon her so. She had grown so
+accustomed to managing him, to taming the irritable temper that no
+one else but she could cope with, and, unconsciously, so proud of
+her success, that she was not prepared for this attack. She met it
+meekly.
+
+'I have a proposal here to submit to you, from ---- & Co.' (she
+named a firm of timber-merchants famous throughout the Midlands).
+'There is nothing in it--Captain Dell is certain--that would injure
+the estate. You have such masses of timber! And, if you don't sell,
+you may find it commandeered. You know what's happened to Lord
+Radley?'
+
+The Squire sulkily demanded to be informed. Elizabeth told the
+story, standing at his desk, like a clerk making a report. It seemed
+to enrage her auditor.
+
+'This _accursed_ war!' he broke out, when she had finished--'it
+makes slaves and idiots of us all. It must--it shall end!' And
+marching tempestuously up and down, he went off into one of the
+pessimist and pacifist harangues to which she was more or less
+accustomed. Who would rid the country of a Government that could
+neither make peace nor make war?--that foresaw nothing--that was
+making life unbearable at home, by a network of senseless
+restrictions, while it wasted millions abroad, and in the military
+camps! The Labour Party were the only people with a grain of sense.
+They at least would try to make peace. Only, when they had made it,
+to be governed by them would be even worse than to be governed by
+Lloyd George. There was no possible life anywhere for decent quiet
+people. And as for the ravaging and ruin of the woods that was going
+on all over England--
+
+'The submarine return is worse this week,' said Elizabeth in a low
+voice.
+
+She had gone to her own table and was sitting there till the
+hurricane should pass over. There was in her a fresh and chafing
+sense of the obstacles laid in her path--the path of the scientific
+and successful organizer--by the Squire's perversities. It was not
+as though he were a pacifist by conviction, religious or other. She
+had seen him rout and trample on not a few genuine professors of the
+faith. His whole opposition to the war rested on the limitations
+and discomforts inflicted on his own life. It reminded her of
+certain fragments of dialogue she had overheard in the winter, where
+she had chanced to find herself alone in a railway carriage full of
+a group of disaffected workmen returning from a strike meeting at
+Leicester. 'If there are many like these, is the country worth
+saving?' she was saying to herself all the time, in a dumb passion.
+
+Yet, after all, those men had done months and years of labour for
+the country. Saying 'I will not go!' they had yet gone. Without a
+spark of high feeling or conscious self-sacrifice to ease their
+toil, they had yet, week by week, made the guns and the shells which
+had saved the armies of England. When this temporary outbreak was
+over they would go back and make them again. And they were tired
+men--sallow-faced, and bowed before their time.
+
+But what had this whimsical, accomplished man before her ever done
+for his country that he should rail like this? It was difficult
+after a tiring day to keep scorn and dissent concealed. They
+probably showed in her expression, for the Squire turned upon her as
+she made her remark about the submarines, examining her with a pair
+of keen eyes.
+
+'Oh, I know very well what you and that fellow Chicksands think
+about persons like me who endeavour to see things _as they
+are_!'--he smote a chair before him--'and not as you and our
+war-party _wish_ them to be. Well, well--now then to business. Who
+wants to cut my woods--and what do they offer for them?'
+
+Elizabeth put the papers in front of him. He turned them over.
+
+'H'm--they want the Cross Wood--one of the most beautiful woods in
+England. I have spent days there when I was young drawing the trees.
+And who's the idiot'--he pointed to some marginal notes--'who is
+always carping and girding? "Good forestry" would have done this and
+not done that. "Mismanagement"--"neglect"! Upon my word, who made
+this man a judge over me?'
+
+And flushed with wrath, the Squire looked angrily at his secretary.
+'Heavens!'--thought Elizabeth--'why didn't I edit the papers before
+I showed them?' But aloud she said with her good-tempered smile--
+
+'I am afraid I took all those remarks as applying to Mr. Hull. He
+was responsible for the woods, wasn't he? He told me he was.'
+
+'Nothing of the kind! In the end the owner is responsible. This
+fellow is attacking _me_!'
+
+Elizabeth said nothing. She could only wait in hope to see how the
+large sums mentioned in the contract might work.
+
+'"Maximum price"! What's this?--"Had Mr. Mannering been willing to
+enter into negotiations with us last year,"'--the Squire began to
+read a letter accompanying the draft contract--'"when we approached
+him, we should probably have been able to offer him a better price.
+But under the scale of prices now fixed by the Government--"'
+
+The owner of Mannering bounded out of his seat.
+
+'And you actually mean to say that I may not only be forced to sell
+my woods--but whether I am forced or not, I can only sell them at
+the Government price? Intolerable!--absolutely _intolerable_! Every
+day that Englishmen put up with these tyrannies is a disgrace to the
+country!'
+
+'The country must have artillery waggons and aeroplanes,' said
+Elizabeth, softly. 'Where are we to get the wood? There are not
+ships enough to bring it overseas?'
+
+'And suppose I grant you that--why am I not to get my fair
+price--like anybody else? Just tell me that!'
+
+'Why, everybody's "controlled"!' cried Elizabeth.
+
+'Pshaw! I am sorry to be uncivil'--a sarcastic bow in her
+direction--'but I really must point out that you talk nonsense.
+Look at the money in the banks--look at the shops and the
+advertisements--look at the money that people pay for pictures, and
+old books, and autographs. _Somebody's_ making profits--that's
+clear. But a wretched landowner--with a few woods to sell--it is
+easy to victimize him!'
+
+'It comes to a large sum,' said Elizabeth, looking down. At last she
+was conscious of a real exasperation with the Squire. For four
+months now she had been wrestling with him--for his own good and the
+country's, and everything had always to be begun again. Suddenly her
+spirits drooped.
+
+The Squire observed her furtively out of the corners of his eyes.
+Then he turned to the last page of the contract, with its final
+figures. His eyebrows went up.
+
+'The man's a _fool_!' he said vehemently. 'I know the value of my
+own timber a great deal better than he. They're not worth a third of
+what they put them at.'
+
+'Even at the Government price?' Elizabeth ventured slyly. 'He'll be
+very glad to give it!'
+
+'Then it's blackmailing the country,' said the Squire obstinately.
+'I loathe the war, but I'm not a profiteer.'
+
+Elizabeth was silent. If the Squire persisted in rejecting this
+deal, which he had himself invited in another mood, half her dreams
+for the future, the dreams of a woman just beginning to feel the
+intoxication of power, or, to put it better, the creative passion of
+the reformer, were undone. She had already saved the Squire much
+money. When all reasonable provision had been made for investment,
+replanting, and the rest, this sale would still leave enough to
+transform the estate and scores of human lives upon it. Her will
+chafed hotly under the curb imposed upon it by the caprices of a
+master for whom--save only as a Greek scholar--she had little
+respect. After a while, as the Squire was still turning over the
+contract with occasional grunts and mutterings, she asked--
+
+'Will you please tell me what I am to reply?'
+
+Her voice was cold and measured.
+
+The Squire threw up his white head.
+
+'What hurry is there?' he said testily.
+
+'Oh, none--if you wish it delayed. Only--' she hesitated--'Captain
+Dell tells me the Government inspectors are already in the
+neighbourhood. He expects them here before long.'
+
+'And if I make a stand--if I oppose you--well--it'll be the gates
+over again?' She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+'We must try to find the money some other way. It is badly wanted. I
+thought--'
+
+'You thought I had authorized this--and you've given all your work
+for nothing? You think I'm an impossible person?'
+
+Suddenly she found him sitting beside her. Perforce she looked him
+in the face.
+
+'Don't give notice again!' he said, almost with passion.
+
+'It's not so easy now,' she said, with a rather uncertain voice.
+
+'Because you've done so much for me?--because you've slaved and put
+your heart into it? That's true. Well now, look here. We'll put that
+beastly thing away to-night--perhaps I shall be in a better temper
+in a few days.'
+
+There was a note in his voice he seemed unable to keep out of it.
+Elizabeth looking up caught the fire light on the sketch of Desmond.
+Had the Squire's eyes been on it too? Impossible to say--for he had
+already turned away.
+
+'Oh, yes,--put it away!' she said hurriedly.
+
+'And I'll go over the woods with you on--Friday,' said the Squire
+after a pause. 'Oh, I don't deny that the money is tempting. I'm not
+such a pauper as I once was, thanks to you. I seem to have some
+money in the bank--astonishing situation! And--there's a jolly good
+sale at Christie's coming on.'
+
+He looked at her half-shamefaced, half-ready to resent it if she
+laughed at him.
+
+Her eyes laughed.
+
+'I thought you'd forgotten that. I saw you mark the catalogue.'
+
+'Beech and oak between two and three hundred years old--in exchange
+for Greek gems, between two and three thousand. Well--I'll consider
+it. Now then, are you feeling better?'
+
+And to her amazement he approached her with an outstretched hand.
+Elizabeth mechanically placed her own in it.
+
+'I know what you want,' he said impetuously. 'You've got a head full
+of dreams. They're not my dreams--but you've a right to them--so
+long as you're kind to mine.'
+
+'I try to be,' she said with a rather tremulous lip.
+
+At that moment the library door opened. Neither perceived it.
+Desmond came in softly, lest his father should be at work. A carved
+oak screen round the door hid his entrance, and as he emerged into
+the light his eyes caught the two distant figures standing hand in
+hand.
+
+Instinctively he stepped back a few paces and noisily opened the
+door. The Squire walked away.
+
+'Why, Desmond!' said his father, as the boy emerged into the light,
+'your train's punctual for once. Thank you, Miss Bremerton--that'll
+do. Kindly write to those people and say that I am considering the
+matter. I needn't keep you any longer....'
+
+That night a demon came to Elizabeth and offered her a Faust-like
+bargain. Ambition--noble ambition on the one side--an 'elderly
+lunatic' on the other. And she began to consider it!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Everybody in Mannering had gone to bed but Desmond and Pamela. It
+was not certain indeed that the Squire had gone to bed, but as there
+was a staircase beside one of the doors of the library leading
+direct to his room, it was not likely that he would cross the hall
+again. The twins felt themselves alone.
+
+'I daresay there'll be a raid to-night,' said Desmond, 'it's so
+bright and still. Put down that lamp a moment, Pamela.'
+
+She obeyed, and he threw away his cigarette, went to one of the
+windows, and drew up the blinds.
+
+'Listen!' he said, holding up his hand. Pamela came to his side, and
+they both heard through the stillness that sound of distant guns
+which no English ear had heard--till now--since the Civil War.
+
+'And there are the searchlights!'
+
+For over London, some forty miles away behind a low range of hills,
+faint fingers of light were searching the sky.
+
+'At this very moment, perhaps,'--said the boy between his
+teeth--'those demons are blowing women and children to pieces--over
+there!'
+
+Pamela shivered and laid her cheek against his shoulder. But both he
+and she were aware of that strange numbness which in the fourth year
+of the war has been creeping over all the belligerent nations, so
+that horror has lost its first edge, and the minds, whether of
+soldiers in the field, or of civilians at home, have become hardened
+to facts or ideas which would once have stirred in them wild
+ferments of rage and terror.
+
+'Shall we win, this year, Desmond?' said Pamela, as they stood
+gazing out into the park, where, above a light silvery mist a young
+moon was riding in a clear blue. Not a branch stirred in the great
+leafless trees; only an owl's plaintive cry seemed to keep in rhythm
+with that sinister murmur on the horizon.
+
+'Win?--this year?' said the boy, with a shrug. 'Don't reckon on it,
+Pam. Those Russian fools have dished it all for months!'
+
+'But the Americans will make up?'
+
+Desmond assented eagerly. And in the minds of the English boy and
+girl there rose a kind of vague vision of an endless procession of
+great ships, on a boundless ocean, carrying men, and men, and more
+men--guns, and aeroplanes, and shining piles of shells--bringing the
+New World to the help of the Old.
+
+Desmond turned to his sister.
+
+'Look here, Pam, this time next week I shall be in the line. Well, I
+daresay I shan't be at the actual front for a week or two--but it
+won't be long. We shall want every battery we've got. Now--suppose I
+don't come back?'
+
+'Desmond!'
+
+'For goodness' sake, don't be silly, old girl. We've got to look at
+it, you know. The death-rate of men of my age' (_men!--Desmond, a
+man_!) 'has gone up to about four times what it was before the war.
+I saw that in one of the papers this morning. I've only got a
+precious small chance. And if I don't come back, I want to know what
+you're going to do with yourself.'
+
+'I don't care what happens to me if you don't come back!' said the
+girl passionately. She was leaning with folded arms against the side
+of the window, the moonlight, or something else, blanching the face
+and her fair hair.
+
+Desmond looked at her with a troubled expression. For two or three
+years past he had felt a special responsibility towards this
+twin-sister of his. Who was there to look after her but he? He saw
+that his father never gave her a serious thought, and as to
+Aubrey--well, he too seemed to have no room in his mind for
+Pam--poor old Pam!
+
+'How are you getting on with Broomie?' he asked suddenly.
+
+'I don't like her!' said Pamela fiercely. 'I shall never like her!'
+
+'Well, that's awkward,'--said the boy slowly, 'because--'
+
+'Because what?'
+
+'Because I believe she means to marry father!'
+
+Pamela laughed angrily.
+
+'Ah, you've found that out too!'
+
+Desmond pulled down the blind again, and they went back to the fire,
+sitting on the floor beside it, with their arms round each other, as
+they had been used to do as children. And then in a low voice, lest
+any ears in the sleeping house should be, after all, on the alert,
+he told her what he had seen in the library. He was rather ashamed
+of telling her; only there was this queer sense of last words--of
+responsibility--for his sister, which excused it.
+
+Pamela listened despondently.
+
+'Perhaps they're engaged already! Well,--I can tell you this--if
+father does marry her, she'll rule him, and me--if I give her the
+chance--and everybody on the place, with a rod of iron.'
+
+Desmond at first remonstrated. He had been taken aback by the sudden
+vision in the library; and Pamela's letters for some time past had
+tended to alter his first liking for 'Broomie' into a feeling more
+distrustful and uncertain. But, after all, Broomie's record must be
+remembered. 'She wouldn't sign that codicil thing--she made father
+climb down about the gates--and Sir Henry says she's begun to pull
+the estate together like anything, and if father will only let her
+alone for a year or two she'll make him a rich man.'
+
+'Oh, I know,' said Pamela gloomily, 'she's paid most of the bills
+already. When I go into Fallerton now--everybody--all the tradesmen
+are as sweet as sugar.'
+
+'Well, that's something to the good, isn't it? Don't be unfair!'
+
+'I'm not unfair!' cried Pamela. 'Don't you see how she just swallows
+up everybody's attention--how nobody else matters when she's
+there! How, can you expect _me_ to like that--if she were an
+archangel--which she isn't!'
+
+'But has she done anything nasty--anything to bother you?'
+
+'Well, of course, I'm just a cypher when she's there. I'm afraid I
+oughtn't to mind--but I do!'
+
+And Pamela, with her hands round her knees, stared into the fire in
+bitterness of spirit. She couldn't explain, even to Desmond, that
+the inward eye all the time was tormented by two kindred
+visions--Arthur in the hall that afternoon, talking war work with
+Elizabeth with such warm and eager deference, and Arthur on Holme
+Hill, stretched at Elizabeth's feet, and bandying classical chaff
+with her. And there was a third, still more poignant, of a future in
+which Elizabeth would be always there, the centre of the picture,
+mistress of the house, the clever and charming woman, beside whom
+girls in their teens had no chance.
+
+She was startled out of these reflections by a remark from Desmond.
+
+'You know, Pam, you ought to get married soon.'
+
+The boy spoke shyly--but gravely and decidedly. Pam thought with a
+sudden anguish--'He would never have said that, unless--'
+
+She laid her head on his shoulder, clinging to him.
+
+'I shan't get married, old boy.'
+
+'Oh, that's nonsense! Look here, Pam--you mustn't mind my poking
+my nose into things where I've no business. You see, it's
+because--Well, I've sometimes thought--punch my head, if you
+like!--that you had a fancy for Arthur Chicksands.'
+
+Pamela laughed.
+
+'Well, as he hasn't got any fancy for me, you needn't take that into
+your dear old head!'
+
+'Why, he was always very fond of you, Pam.'
+
+'Oh, yes, he liked ragging me when I was a child. I'm not good
+enough for him now.'
+
+'What do you mean--not good enough?'
+
+'Not clever enough, you silly old boy. He'll marry somebody much
+older than me.'
+
+Desmond ruminated.
+
+'He seemed to be getting on with Broomie this afternoon?'
+
+'Magnificently. He always does. She's his sort. She writes to him.'
+
+'Oh, does she?' The boy's voice was dry and hostile. He began to
+understand, or thought he did. Miss Bremerton was not only plotting
+to marry his father--had perhaps been plotting for it from the
+beginning--but was besides playing an unfair game with Pam--spoiling
+Pam's chances--cutting in where she wasn't wanted--grabbing, in
+fact. Anger was mounting in him. Why should his father be mopped up
+like this?--and Pamela made unhappy?
+
+'I'd jolly well like to stop it all!' he said, under his breath.
+
+'Stop what? You dear, foolish old man! You can't stop it, Dezzy.'
+
+'Well, if she'll only make him happy--!'
+
+'Oh, she'll be quite decent to him,' said Pamela, with a shrug, 'but
+she'll despise him!'
+
+'What the deuce do you mean, Pam?'
+
+Whereupon, quite conscious that she was obeying an evil and feverish
+impulse, but unable to control it, Pamela went into a long and
+passionate justification of what she had said. A number of small
+incidents--trifling acts and sayings of Elizabeth's--misinterpreted
+and twisted by the girl's jealous pain, were poured into Desmond's
+ears.
+
+'All the servants know that she treats father like a baby. She and
+Forest manage him in little things--in the house--just as she runs
+the estate. For instance, she does just what she likes with the
+fruit and the flowers--'
+
+'Why, _you_ ought to do all that, Pam!'
+
+'I tried when I came home from school. Father wouldn't let me do a
+thing. But _she_ does just what she pleases. You can hear her and
+Forest laughing over it. Oh, it's all right, of course. She sends
+things to hospitals every week.'
+
+'That was what you used to want.'
+
+'I do want it--but--'
+
+'You ought to have the doing of it?'
+
+'Oh, I don't know. I'm away all day. But she might at least
+_pretend_ to refer to him--or me--sometimes. It's the same in
+everything. She twists father round her little finger; and you can
+see all the time what she thinks--that there never was such a bad
+landlord, or such a miserable, feckless crew as the rest of us,
+before she came to put us straight!'
+
+Desmond listened--partly resisting--but finally carried away. By the
+time their talk was over he felt that he too hated Elizabeth
+Bremerton, and that it was horrid to have to leave Pamela with her.
+
+When they said good-night Pamela threw herself on her bed face
+downwards, more wretched than she had ever been--wretched because
+Desmond was going, and might be killed, wretched, too, because her
+conscience told her that she had spoilt his last evening, and made
+him exceedingly unhappy, by a lot of exaggerated complaints. She was
+degenerating--she knew it. 'I am a little beast, compared to what I
+was when I left school,' she confessed to herself with tears, and
+did not know how to get rid of this fiery plague that was eating at
+her heart. She seemed to look back to a time--only yesterday!--when
+poetry and high ideals, friendships and religion filled her mind;
+and now nothing--nothing!--was of any importance, but the look, the
+voice, the touch of a man.
+
+The next day, Desmond's last day at home, for he was due in London
+by the evening, was gloomy and embarrassed for all concerned.
+Elizabeth, pre-occupied and shrinking from her own thoughts, could
+not imagine what had happened. She had put off all her engagements
+for the day, that she might help in any last arrangements that might
+have to be made for Desmond.
+
+But Desmond declined to be helped, not rudely, but with a decision,
+which took Elizabeth aback.
+
+'Mayn't I look out some books for you? I have found some more pocket
+classics,' she had said to him with a smile, remembering his
+application to her in the autumn.
+
+'No, thank you. I shall have no time.' And with that, a prompt
+retreat to Pamela and the Den. Elizabeth, indeed, who was all
+eagerness to serve him, found herself rebuffed at every turn.
+
+Nor were matters any better with Pamela, who had cried off her
+hospital work in order to pack for Desmond. Elizabeth, seeing her
+come downstairs with an armful of khaki shirts to be marked, offered
+assistance--almost timidly. But Pamela's 'Thank you, but I'd rather
+not trouble you--I can do it quite well'--was so frosty that
+Elizabeth could only retire--bewildered--to the library, where she
+and the Squire gave a morning's work to the catalogue, and never
+said a word of farm or timber.
+
+But the Squire worked irritably, finding fault with a number of
+small matters, and often wandering away into the house to see what
+Desmond was doing. During these intervals Elizabeth would sit, pen
+in hand, staring absently into the dripping garden and the park
+beaten by a cold rain. The future began to seem to her big with
+events and perplexity.
+
+Then with the evening came the boy's leave-taking; full of affection
+towards his father and sister, and markedly chilly in the case of
+Elizabeth. When the station taxi had driven off, Elizabeth--with
+that cold touch of the boy's fingers still tingling on her
+hand--turned from the front door to see Pamela disappearing to the
+schoolroom, and the Squire fidgeting with an evening paper which the
+taxi had brought him from the station.
+
+Elizabeth suddenly noticed the shaking of the paper, over which only
+the crest of white hair showed. Too bad of Pamela to have gone off
+without a word to her father! Was it sympathy with the Squire, or
+resentment on her own account, that made Elizabeth go up to
+him?--though at a respectful distance.
+
+'Shall we finish the bit of translation we began this morning, if
+you're not busy?' she said gently. It was very rarely now that she
+was able to do any classical work after the mornings.
+
+The Squire threw down the newspaper, and strode on before her to the
+library without a word. Elizabeth followed. Rain and darkness had
+been shut out. The wood fire glowed on the hearth, and its ruddy
+light was on the face of the Nike, and its solemn outstretched
+wings. All the apparatus of their common work was ready, the work
+that both loved. Elizabeth felt a sudden, passionate drawing towards
+this man twenty years older than herself, which seemed to correspond
+to the new and smarting sense of alienation from the twins and their
+raw, unjust youth. What had been the reason for their behaviour to
+her that day?--what had she done? She was conscious of long weeks of
+effort, in Pamela's case,--trying to please and win her; and of a
+constant tender interest in Desmond, which had never missed an
+opportunity of doing or suggesting something he might like--all for
+this! She must have offended them she supposed in some way; how,
+she could not imagine. But her mood was sore; and, self-controlled
+as she was, her pulse raced.
+
+Here, however, she was welcome, she was needed; she could distract
+and soothe a bitterness of soul best measured by the Squire's most
+unusual taciturnity. No railing at the Government or the war,
+not a fling even at the 'd----d pedant, Chicksands!' or 'The
+Bubbly-jocks,' as he liked to call the members of the County War
+Committee. Elizabeth put a text of Aristophanes--the _Pax_--into his
+hands, and drew her table near to him, waiting his pleasure. There
+was a lamp behind him which fell on her broad, white brow, her
+waiting eyes and hand, and all the friendly intelligence of her
+face. The Squire began haltingly, lost his place, almost threw the
+book away; but she cheered him on, admired this phrase, delicately
+amended that, till the latent passion had gripped him, and he was
+soon in full swing, revelling in all the jests and topicalities of
+the play, where the strikers and pacifists, the profiteers, the
+soldiers and munition workers of two thousand odd years ago, fight
+and toil, prate and wrangle and scheme, as eager and as alive as
+their descendants of to-day. Soon his high, tempestuous laugh rang
+out; Elizabeth's gentler mirth answering. Sometimes there was a
+dispute about a word or a rendering; she would put up her own view,
+with obstinacy, so that he might have the pleasure of knocking it
+down. And all through there was the growing sense of comradeship, of
+mutual understanding, which, in their classical work at least, had
+been always present for Elizabeth, since her first acquaintance with
+her strange employer.
+
+When she rose, reluctantly, at the sound of the dressing-bell, the
+Squire paced up and down while she put her books and papers away.
+Then as she was going, he turned abruptly--
+
+'I told Forest to order the _Times_--will you see he does it?'
+
+'Certainly.'
+
+'I loathe all newspapers,' he said sombrely. 'If we must go to the
+devil, I don't want to know too much about it. But still--'
+
+She waited a moment, but as nothing more came she was leaving the
+room, when he added--
+
+'And don't forget the timber business to-morrow afternoon. Tell Dell
+to meet us in Cross Wood.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When she had gone, the Squire still continued pacing, absorbed
+in meeting the attack of new and strange ideas. He had
+always been a man with a singularly small reflective gift.
+Self-examination--introspection of any sort--were odious to him. He
+lived on stimulus from outside, attracted or repelled, amused or
+interested, bored or angry, as the succession of events or impressions
+might dictate. To collect beautiful things was a passion with him, and
+he was proud of the natural taste and instinct, which generally led
+him right. But for 'aesthetics'--the philosophy of art--he had nothing
+but contempt. The volatile, restless mind escaped at once from the
+concentration asked of it; and fell back on what the Buddhist calls
+'Maia,' the gay and changing appearances of things, which were all he
+wanted. And it was because the war had interfered with this pleasant
+and perpetual challenge to the senses of the outer world, because
+it forced a man back on general ideas that he did not want to
+consider--God, Country, Citizenship--that the Squire had hated the
+war.
+
+But this woman who had become an inmate of his house, while she
+ministered to all the tastes that the Squire had built up as a
+screen between himself and either the tragic facts of contemporary
+life, or any troublesome philosophizing about them, was yet
+gradually, imperceptibly, drawing the screen aside. Her humanity was
+developing the feeble shoots of sympathy and conscience in himself.
+What she felt, he was beginning to feel; and when she hated anything
+he must at least uncomfortably consider why.
+
+But all this she did and achieved through her mere fitness and
+delightfulness as a companion. He had never imagined that life would
+bring him anybody--least of all a woman--who would both give him so
+much, and save him so much. Selfish, exacting, irritable--he knew
+very well that he was all three. But it had not prevented this
+capable, kind, clever creature from devoting herself to him, from
+doing her utmost, not only to save his estate and his income, but to
+make his life once more agreeable to him, in spite of the war and
+all the rancour and resentments it had stirred up in him.
+
+How patient she had been with these last! He was actually beginning
+to be ashamed of some of them. And now to-night--what made her come
+and give him the extra pleasure of her company these two hours?
+Sympathy, he supposed, about Desmond.
+
+Well, he was grateful; and for the first time his heart reached out
+for pity--almost humbled itself--accepted the human lot. If Desmond
+were killed, he would never choose to go on living. Did she know
+that? Was it because she guessed at the feelings he had always done
+his best to hide that she had been so good to him that evening?
+
+What as to that love-story of hers--her family?--her brother in
+Mesopotamia? He began to feel a hundred curiosities about her, and a
+strong wish to make life easy for her, as she had been making it
+easy for him. But she was excessively proud and scrupulous--that he
+had long since found out. No use offering to double her salary, now
+that she had saved him all this money! His first advance in that
+direction had merely offended her. The Squire thought vaguely of the
+brother--no doubt a young lieutenant. Could interest be made for
+him?--with some of the bigwigs. Then his--very intermittent--sense
+of humour asserted itself. He to make interest with anybody--for
+anybody--in connection with the war! He, who had broken with every
+soldier-friend he ever had, because of his opinions about the
+war!--and was anathema throughout the country for the same reason.
+Like all members of old families in this country he had a number of
+aristocratic and wealthy kinsfolk, the result of Mannering marriages
+in the past. But he had never cared for any of them, except to a
+mild degree for his sister, Lady Cassiobury, who was ten years older
+than himself, and still paid long visits to Mannering, which bored
+him hugely. On the last occasion, he was quite aware that he had
+behaved badly, and was now in her black-books.
+
+No--there was nothing to be done, except to let this wonderful woman
+have her own way! If she wanted to cut down the woods, let her!--if
+she wanted to amuse herself by rebuilding the village, and could
+find the money out of the estate, let her!--it would occupy her,
+attach her to the place, and do him no harm.
+
+Yes, attach her to the place; bind her! hold her!--that was what he
+wanted. Otherwise, how hideously uncertain it all was! She might go
+at any time. Her mother might be ill--old ladies have a way of being
+ill. Her brother might be wounded--or killed. Either of those events
+would carry her off--out of his ken. But if she were engaged deeply
+enough in the estate affairs she would surely come back. He knew
+her!--she hated to leave things unfinished. He was eager now to heap
+all kinds of responsibilities upon her. He would be meek and
+pliable; he would put no sort of obstacles in her way. She would
+have no excuse for giving him notice again. He would put up with all
+her silly Jingoism--if only she would stay!
+
+But at this point the Squire suddenly pulled up short in his pacing
+and excitedly asked himself the question, which half the people
+about him were already beginning to ask.
+
+'Why shouldn't I marry her?'
+
+He stood transfixed--the colour rising in his thin cheeks.
+
+Hitherto the notion, if it had ever knocked at the outer door of the
+brain, had been chased away with mockery. And he had no sooner
+admitted it now than he drove it out again. He was simply afraid of
+it--in terror lest any suspicion of it should reach Elizabeth. Her
+loyalty, her single-mindedness, her freedom from the smallest taint
+of intrigue--he would have answered for them with all he possessed.
+If, for a moment, she chose to think that he had misinterpreted her
+kindness, her services in any vile and vulgar way, why, he might
+lose her on the instant! Let him walk warily--do nothing at least to
+destroy the friend in her, before he grasped at anything more.
+
+Besides, how could she put up with him? 'I am the dried husk of a
+man!' thought the Squire, with vehemence. 'I couldn't learn her ways
+now, nor she mine. No; let us be as we are--only more so!'
+
+But he was shaken through and through; first by that vanishing of
+his boy into the furnace of the war, which had brought him at last
+within the grip of the common grief, the common fear, and now by
+this strange thought which had invaded him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After dinner, Elizabeth, who was rather pale, but as cheerful and
+self-possessed as usual, put Mrs. Gaddesden's knitting to rights at
+least three times, and held the wool for that lady to wind till her
+arm ached. Then Mrs. Gaddesden retired to bed; the Squire, who with
+only occasional mutterings and mumblings had been deep in
+Elizabeth's copy of the _Times_, which she had at last ventured to
+produce in public, went off to the library, and Elizabeth and Pamela
+were left in the hall alone.
+
+Elizabeth lingered over the fire; while Pamela wondered impatiently
+why she did not go to her office work as she generally did about
+nine o'clock. Pamela's mood was more thorny than ever. Had she not
+seen a letter in Elizabeth's handwriting lying that very afternoon
+on the hall-table for post--addressed to Captain Chicksands, D.S.O.,
+War Office, Whitehall? Common sense told her that it probably
+contained nothing but an answer to some questions Arthur had put to
+the Squire's 'business secretary' as to the amount of ash in the
+Squire's woods--Arthur's Intelligence appointment having something
+to do with the Air Board. But the mere fact that Elizabeth should be
+writing to him stirred intolerable resentment in the girl's
+passionate heart. She knew very well that it was foolish,
+unreasonable, but could no more help it than a love-smitten maiden
+of old Sicily. It was her hour of possession, and she was struggling
+with it blindly.
+
+And Elizabeth, the shrewd and clever Elizabeth, saw nothing, and
+knew nothing. If she had ever for a passing moment suspected the
+possibility of 'an affair' between Arthur Chicksands and Pamela, she
+had ceased to think of it. The eager projects with which her own
+thoughts were teeming, had driven out the ordinary preoccupations of
+womankind. Derelict farms, the food-production of the county,
+timber, village reconstruction, war-work of various kinds, what time
+was there left?--what room?--in a mind wrestling with a hundred new
+experiences, for the guessing of a girl's riddle?
+
+Yet all the same she remained her just and kindly self. She was
+troubled--much troubled--by the twins' behaviour. She must somehow
+get to the bottom of it.
+
+So that when only she and Pamela were left in the hall she went up
+to the girl, not without agitation.
+
+'Pamela--won't you tell me?--have I done anything to offend you and
+Desmond?'
+
+She spoke very quietly, but her tone showed her wounded. Pamela
+started and looked up.
+
+'I don't know what you mean,' she said coldly. 'Did you think we had
+been rude to you?'
+
+It was the first hostile word they had ever exchanged.
+
+Elizabeth grew pale.
+
+'I didn't say anything about your being rude. I asked you if you
+were cross with me.'
+
+'Oh--cross!' said Pamela, suddenly conscious of a suffocating
+excitement. 'What's the good of being cross? It's you who are
+mistress here.'
+
+Elizabeth fell back a step in dismay.
+
+'I do think you ought to explain,' she said after a moment. 'If I
+had done anything you didn't like--anything you thought unkind, I
+should be very very sorry.'
+
+Pamela rose from her seat. Elizabeth's tone seemed to her pure
+hypocrisy. All the bitter, poisonous stuff she had poured out to
+Desmond the night before was let loose again. Stammering and
+panting, she broke into the vaguest and falsest accusations.
+
+She was ignored--she was a nobody in her own home--everybody knew
+it and talked of it. She wasn't jealous--oh no!--she was simply
+miserable! 'Oh, I daresay you can no more help it than I can. You,
+of course, are twenty times more use here than I am. I don't
+dispute that. But I am the daughter of the house after all, and it
+is a little hard to be so shelved--so absolutely put in the
+background!--as I am--'
+
+'Don't I consult you whenever I can? haven't I done my best to--'
+interrupted Elizabeth, only to be interrupted in her turn.
+
+--'to persuade father to let me do things? Yes, that's just
+it!--_you_ persuade father, you manage everything. It's just that
+that's intolerable!'
+
+And flushed with passion, extraordinarily handsome, Pamela stood
+tremulously silent, her eyes fixed on Elizabeth. Elizabeth, too, was
+silent for a moment. Then she said with steady emphasis:
+
+'Of course there can only be one end to this. I can't possibly stay
+here.'
+
+'Oh, very well, go!' cried Pamela. 'Go, and tell father that I've
+made you. But if you do, neither you nor he will see me again for a
+good while.'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'What I say. If you suppose that _I'm_ going to stay on here to bear
+the brunt of father's temper after he knows that I've made you throw
+up, you're entirely mistaken.'
+
+'Then what do you propose?'
+
+'I don't know what I propose,' said Pamela, shaking from head to
+foot, 'but if you say a word to father about it I shall simply
+disappear. I shall be able to earn my own living somehow.'
+
+The two confronted each other.
+
+'And you really think I can go on after this as if nothing had
+happened?' said Elizabeth, in a low voice.
+
+Pangs of remorse were seizing on Pamela, but she stifled them.
+
+'There's a way out!' she said presently, her colour coming and
+going. 'I'll go and stay with Margaret in town for a bit. Why should
+there be any fuss? She's asked me often to help with her
+war-workroom and the canteen. Father won't mind. He doesn't care in
+the least what I do! And nobody will think it a bit odd--if you and
+I don't talk.'
+
+Elizabeth turned away. The touch of scorn in her bearing was not
+lost on Pamela.
+
+'And if I refuse to stay on, without saying or doing anything--to
+put myself right--you threaten to run away?'
+
+'I do--I mean it,' said Pamela firmly. She had not only hardened
+again under the sting of that contempt she detected in Elizabeth,
+but there was rising up in her a sudden and rapturous vision of
+London:--Arthur at the War Office--herself on open ground--no longer
+interfered with and over-shadowed. He would come to see her--take
+her out, perhaps, sometimes to an exhibition, or for a walk. The
+suggestion of going to Margaret had been made on the spur of the
+moment without after-thought. She was now wedded to it, divining in
+it a hundred possibilities.
+
+At the same moment she became more cautious, and more ashamed of
+herself. It would be better to apologize. But before she could speak
+Elizabeth said:
+
+'Does Desmond agree with what you have been saying?'
+
+Pamela staring at her adversary was a little frightened. She rushed
+into a falsehood.
+
+'Desmond knows nothing about it! I don't want him dragged in.'
+
+Elizabeth's eyes, with their bitter, wounded look; seemed to search
+the girl's inmost mind. Then she moved away.
+
+'We had better go to bed. We shall both want to think it over.
+Good-night.'
+
+And from the darkness of the hall, where fire and lamp were dying,
+Pamela half spell-bound, watched the tall figure of Elizabeth slowly
+mounting the broad staircase at the further end, the candle-light
+flickering on her bright hair, and on a bunch of snowdrops in her
+breast.
+
+Then, for an hour, while the house sank into silence, Pamela sat
+crouched and shivering by the only log left in the grate. 'A little
+while ago,' she was thinking miserably, 'I had good feelings and
+ideas--I never hated anybody. I never told lies. I suppose--I shall
+get worse and worse.'
+
+And when she had gone wearily to bed, it was to cry herself to
+sleep.
+
+The following morning, an urgent telegram from her younger sister
+recalled Elizabeth Bremerton to London, where her mother's invalid
+condition had suddenly taken a disastrous turn for the worse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+'Hullo, Aubrey! what brings you here?' And with the words Arthur
+Chicksands, just emerging from the War Office, stopped to greet a
+brother officer, who was just entering it.
+
+'Nothing much. I shan't be long. Can you wait a bit?'
+
+'Right you are. I've got to leave a note at the Ministry of
+Munitions, but I'll be back in a few minutes.'
+
+Arthur Chicksands went his way to Whitehall Gardens, while Major
+Mannering disappeared into the inner regions of that vast building
+where dwell the men on whom hang the fortunes of an Empire. Arthur
+walking fast up Whitehall was very little aware of the scene about
+him. His mind was occupied with the details of the interview in
+which he had just been engaged. His promotion had lately been rapid,
+and his work of extraordinary interest. He had been travelling a
+great deal, backwards and forwards between London and Versailles,
+charged with several special enquiries in which he had shown both
+steadiness and _flair_. Things were known to him that he could not
+share even with a friend so old and 'safe' as Aubrey Mannering. The
+grip of the coming crisis was upon him, and he seemed 'to carry the
+world in his breast'
+
+'Next year--next February--where shall we all be?' The question was
+automatically suggested to him by the sight of the green buds of the
+lilac trees In front of Whitehall Terrace.
+
+'Oh, my dear Susan!--do look at those trees!'
+
+Chicksands, startled from his own meditations, looked up to see two
+old ladies gazing with an eager interest at a couple of plane trees,
+which had just shed a profusion of bark and stood white and almost
+naked in the grey London air. They were dear old ladies from some
+distant country-side, with bonnets and fronts, and reticules, as
+though they had just walked out of _Cranford_, and after gazing with
+close attention at the plane trees near them they turned and looked
+at all the other plane trees in Whitehall, which presented an
+equally plucked and peeled appearance.
+
+Then the one addressed as Susan laughed out--a happy, chuckling
+laugh.
+
+'Oh, I see! My dear Ellen, how clever people are now! They're
+_camouflaged_--that's what it is--can't you see?--all the way down,
+because of the raids!'
+
+The admiring fervour of the voice was too much for Chicksands. He
+hurried past them, head down, and ran up the steps of the Ministry
+of Munitions. From that point of vantage he turned, shaken with
+amusement, to see the pair advancing slowly towards Westminster,
+their old-fashioned skirts floating round them, still pointing
+eagerly at the barkless trees. Had they come from some piny region
+where the plane is not? Anyway the tension of the day was less.
+
+He repeated the tale to Aubrey Mannering a few minutes later, when
+they had turned together into Birdcage Walk. But Aubrey scarcely
+gave it the ghost of a smile. As to his old friend's enquiries about
+his own work and plans, he answered them quite readily, but shortly,
+without any expansion; with the manner, indeed, of one for whom
+talk about himself had no sort of attraction. And as they passed
+along the front of the barracks, where a few men were drilling,
+Chicksands, struck by his companion's silence, turned a sudden look
+upon him. Mannering's eyes were absently and yet intently fixed on
+the small squads of drilling men. And it was sharply borne in on
+Chicksands that he was walking beside the mere image or phantom of a
+man, a man whose mind was far away--'voyaging through strange seas
+of thought alone.' Mannering's eyes were wide open; but they made
+the weird impression on the spectator of a double seeing--of some
+object of vision beyond and behind the actual scene of the barracks
+and the recruits, and that an object producing terror or pain.
+Chicksands made a remark and it was not answered.
+
+It was not the first time that Arthur had observed this trance-like
+state in the man who was to be his brother-in-law, and had been his
+'chum' from childhood. Others had noticed it, and he had reason to
+think that Beryl was often distressed by it. He had never himself
+seen any signs of strangeness or depression in Aubrey before the
+Easter of 1915, when they met in Paris, for the first time after the
+battle of Neuve Chapelle, in which Mannering had lost his dearest
+friend, one Freddy Vivian, of the Worcesters. During the winter they
+had met fairly often in the neighbourhood of Ypres, and Aubrey was
+then the same eager, impulsive fellow that Chicksands had known at
+Eton and Cambridge, bubbling over with the exploits of his
+battalion, and adored by his own men. In April, in a raid near
+Festubert, Mannering was badly wounded. But the change in him was
+already evident when they were in Paris together. Chicksands could
+only suppose it represented the mental and nervous depression caused
+by Vivian's death, and would pass away. On the contrary, it had
+proved to be something permanent.
+
+Yet it had never interfered with his efficiency as a soldier, nor
+his record for a dare-devil courage. There were many tales current
+of his exploits on the Somme, in which again and again he had singed
+the beard of Death, with an absolute recklessness of his own
+personal life, combined with the most anxious care for that of his
+men. Since the battle of Messines he had been the head of a
+remarkable Officers' School at Aldershot, mainly organized by
+himself. But now, it seemed, he was moving heaven and earth to get
+back to France and the front. Chicksands did not think he would
+achieve it. He was invaluable where he was, and his superiors, to
+Mannering's indignation, were inclined to regard him as a man who
+was physically fit rather for home service than the front.
+
+When they reached the Buckingham Palace end of the Walk, Mannering
+paused.
+
+'Where are you lunching?'
+
+'At Brooks', with my father.'
+
+'Oh, then I'll walk there with you.'
+
+They struck across the park, and talk fell on a recent small
+set-back which had happened to a regiment with which they were both
+well acquainted.
+
+Chicksands shrugged his shoulders.
+
+'I've heard some details at the War Office. Just ten minutes' rot!
+The Colonel stopped it with his revolver. Most of them splendid
+fellows. Two young subs gave way under a terrific shelling and their
+men with them. And in ten minutes they were all rushing forward
+again, straight through the barrage--and the two lieutenants were
+killed.'
+
+'My God!--lucky fellows!' cried Mannering, under his breath, with a
+passion and suddenness that struck astonishment into his companion.
+
+'Well, yes,' said Arthur, 'in a sense--but--nothing would have
+happened to them. They had wiped it out.'
+
+Mannering shook his head. Then with a great and evident effort he
+changed the conversation.
+
+'You know Pamela's in town?'
+
+'Yes, with Margaret Strang. I'm going to dine there to-night. How's
+the new agent getting on?'
+
+Aubrey smiled.
+
+'Which?--the man--or the lady?'
+
+'Miss Bremerton, of course. I got a most interesting letter from her
+a fortnight ago. Do you know that she herself has discovered nearly
+a thousand ash in the Squire's woods, after that old idiot Hull had
+told her she wouldn't find half-a-dozen? A thousand ash is not to be
+sneezed at in these days! I happen to know that the Air Board wrote
+the Squire a very civil letter.'
+
+'"All along of Eliza!"' mused Mannering. 'She's been away from
+Mannering just lately. Her invalid mother became very seriously ill
+about three weeks ago, and she had to go home for a time. My father,
+of course, has been fussing and fuming to get her back.'
+
+'Poor Squire! But how could Pamela be spared too?'
+
+Mannering hesitated.
+
+'Well, the fact is she and my father seem to have had a good
+old-fashioned row. She tried to fill Miss Bremerton's place, and of
+course it didn't answer. She's too young, and my father too
+exacting. Then when it broke down, and he took things out of her
+hands again, comparing her, of course, enormously to her
+disadvantage with Miss Bremerton, Pamela lost her temper and said
+foolish things of Miss Bremerton. Whereupon fury on my father's
+part--and sudden departure on Pamela's. She actually bicycled off to
+the railway station, sent a telegram for her things, and came up to
+Margaret. Alice Gaddesden is looking after father. But of course he
+and she don't get on a bit.'
+
+The Captain looked much concerned.
+
+'It's a pity Pamela takes that line--don't you think? I really don't
+see the conspirator in Miss Bremerton. I hoped when I saw her first
+she would make just all the difference to Pamela.'
+
+'Yes, it's puzzling. I ran down to see my father, who was in a rabid
+state of mind, not knowing what to do with all the schemes and
+business this clever woman started--perfectly lost without her.'
+
+'Ah, that's the worst of your Indispensable!' laughed Chicksands.
+
+Mannering threw him a quick, scrutinizing look. Various items of
+information picked up at Mannering, mostly from his sister Alice,
+had made him wonder whether some jealousy of a more vital and
+intimate kind than appeared might not be at the root of Pamela's
+behaviour. He was not observant at this period of his life, except
+of things relating to his engagement to Beryl, his work, or those
+inner pre-occupations which held him. But it had once or twice
+crossed his mind that Pamela might be interested in Arthur; and
+there had been certain hints from Beryl, who was, however, he was
+certain, scarcely better informed than he was. Pamela was a most
+secretive and independent young woman. He doubted whether even
+Desmond, whom she adored, knew much about her.
+
+Well, supposing she was jealous--jealous of her father's secretary,
+and on account of Arthur, was there the smallest cause for it? He
+understood that Arthur and Miss Bremerton had met occasionally, and
+he had himself heard Chicksands express the warmest admiration for
+her as the right sort of new woman, 'as straight as you make
+'em'--and with 'a brain like a man'--which, from one who was always
+rather a critical spectator than a courtier of women, was high
+praise. But as for any spark of sex in it--Mannering laughed at the
+notion. No. If that really was Pamela's delusion, something must be
+done to rid his little sister of it if possible. He would talk to
+Beryl.
+
+But--as always when any new responsibility presented itself to
+him--a deep inner weariness rebelled. In small things as in great,
+he was mentally like a man walking and working with a broken limb.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Arthur Chicksands stood some time that evening waiting on the
+doorstep of Mrs. Strang's small house, in one of the old streets of
+Westminster. 'No servants, I suppose,' he said to himself with
+resignation. But it was bitterly cold, and he was relieved to hear
+at last the sound of a voice and a girl's laugh inside. Pamela
+opened the door to him, pulling down the sleeves of a thin black
+dress over her shapely arms.
+
+'Oh, come in. Margaret's cooking the dinner, and I've laid the
+table. Bernard's just bringing up some coals, and then we're ready.'
+
+Mr. Bernard Strang, a distinguished Home Office official, appeared
+at that moment in his shirt-sleeves at the head of the kitchen
+stairs, bearing a scuttle of coal in each hand.
+
+'Gracious! Give me one of them!' said the Captain, hurrying to the
+rescue.
+
+But Mr. Strang, putting down the right-hand scuttle, to take breath,
+warned him off.
+
+'Thank you, Chicksands--but no brass hats need apply! Many
+thanks--but you're too smart!' He pointed, panting, to the red tabs
+and to the bit of variegated ribbon on Chicksands' broad chest. 'Go
+and help Pamela bring in the dinner.'
+
+The Captain obeyed with alacrity.
+
+'All the servants left on Monday,' said Pamela. 'We had a charwoman
+this morning, but she's gone to-night, because there's a new moon.'
+
+'What--raids?'
+
+Pamela nodded as she gave him the soup, with instructions to carry
+it carefully and put it by the fire. She seemed to be in her gayest
+mood, and Chicksands' eyes followed her perpetually as she went
+backwards and forwards on her household tasks. Presently Mrs. Strang
+appeared, crimson from the fire, bearing the fishpie and vegetables
+that were to provide the rationed meal.
+
+'To think,' said Mr. Strang, when they were at last at table, 'that
+there was a time when we were proud of our "little dinners," and
+that I never made myself unpleasant unless Margaret spent more than
+five pounds on the food alone. Shall I ever eat a good dinner
+again?'
+
+He looked wistfully at the bare table.
+
+'Will you ever want to?' said Arthur, quietly.
+
+A momentary silence fell upon the little party. Bernard Strang had
+lost two brothers in the war, and Chicksands had no sooner spoken
+than he reproached himself for a tactless brute. But, suddenly, the
+bells of the Abbey rang: out above their heads, playing with every
+stroke on the nerves of the listeners. For the voice of England was
+in them, speaking to that under-consciousness which the war has
+developed in us all.
+
+'Any news?' said Strang, looking at Arthur.
+
+'No. The Eastern business gets a little worse every day.'
+
+'And the "Offensive"?
+
+'Let them! Our men want nothing better.'
+
+On which the dinner resolved itself into a device for making the
+Captain talk. The War Office crisis, the men gathered in conclave at
+Versailles, and that perpetual friction between the politician and
+the soldier, which every war, big or little, brings to the front,
+and which will only end when war ends--those were the topics of it,
+with other talk such as women like to listen to of men about
+individual men, shrewd, careless, critical, strangely damning here,
+strangely indulgent there, constant only in one quality--that it is
+the talk of men and even if one heard it behind a curtain and
+strained through distance, could never by any chance be mistaken for
+the talk of women.
+
+At intervals Pamela got up to change the plates and the dishes,
+quieting with a peremptory gesture the two males, who would spring
+to their feet. 'Haven't I done parlour-work for six months?--no
+amateurs, please!' And again, even while he talked on, Arthur's eyes
+would stray after the young full figure, the white neck and throat,
+the head with the soft hair folded close around it in wavy bands
+that followed all its lines--as it might have been the head of one
+of those terra-cottas that her father had stolen from the Greek
+tombs in his youth.
+
+But unfortunately, after dinner, in a corner of the dark
+drawing-room, he must needs try and play the schoolmaster a little,
+for her good of course; and then all went to pieces.
+
+'I hear you ran away!'
+
+The voice that threw out this sudden challenge was half ironical,
+half affectionate; the grey eyes under their strong black brows
+looked at her with amusement.
+
+Pamela flushed at once.
+
+'Aubrey told you, I suppose? What was the good of staying? I
+couldn't do anything right. I was only making things worse.'
+
+'I can hardly believe that! Couldn't you just have kept Miss
+Bremerton's work going till she came back?'
+
+'I tried,' said Pamela stiffly, 'and it didn't do.'
+
+'Perhaps she attempts too much. But she seemed to me to be very
+sensible and human. And--did you hear about the ash trees?'
+
+'No,' said Pamela shortly, her foot nervously beating the ground.
+'It doesn't matter. Of course I know she's the cleverest person
+going. But I can't get on with her--that's all! I'm going to take up
+nursing--properly. I'm making enquiries about the London Hospital. I
+want to be a real Army nurse.'
+
+'Will your father consent?'
+
+'Fathers can't stop their daughters from doing things--as they used
+to do!' said Pamela, with her chin in the air.
+
+She had moved away from him; her soft gaiety had disappeared; he
+felt her all thorns. Yet some perversity made him try to argue with
+her. The war--pray the Lord!--might be over before her training as
+an Army nurse was half done. Meanwhile, her V.A.D. work at Mannering
+was just what was wanted at the moment from girls of her age--hadn't
+she seen the appeals for V.A.D.'s? And also, if by anything she did
+at home--or set others free for doing--she could help Captain Dell
+and Miss Bremerton to pull the estate round, and get the maximum
+amount of food out of it, she would be serving the country in the
+best way possible.
+
+'The last ounce of food, mind!--that's what it depends on,' he said,
+smiling at her, 'which can stick it longest--they or we. You belong
+to the land--ought you desert it?'
+
+Pamela sat unmoved. She knew nothing about the land. Her father had
+the new agent--and Miss Bremerton.
+
+'Your sister there,' said Chicksands, nodding towards the front
+drawing-room, where Strang and his wife were sitting Darby and Joan
+over the fire discussing rations and food prices, 'thinks Miss
+Bremerton already overdone.'
+
+'I never saw the least sign of it!'
+
+'But think!--your father never slackens his Greek work--and there is
+all the rest.'
+
+'I suppose if it's too much for her she'll give it up,' said Pamela
+in her most obstinate voice.
+
+But even then a normally tactful man still held on.
+
+Never was anything more maladroit. It was the stupidity of a clever
+fellow, deluding himself with the notion that having refused the
+role of lover, he could at least play that of guardian and adviser;
+whose conscience, moreover, was so absolutely clear on the subject
+of Elizabeth Bremerton that he did not even begin to suspect what
+was rankling In the girl's morbid sense.
+
+The relation between them accordingly went from bad to worse; and
+when Pamela rose and sharply put an end to their private
+conversation, the evening would have practically ended in a quarrel
+but for some final saving instinct on Chicksands' part, which made
+him mention Desmond as he bade her good-night.
+
+'I could tell you where he is,' he said gravely. 'Only I mustn't. I
+had a note from him yesterday--the dear old boy! He wrote in the
+highest spirits. His colonel was "ripping," and his men, of course,
+the best in the whole battery.'
+
+'If you get any news--ever--before we do,' said Pamela, suddenly
+choking, 'you'll tell us at once?'
+
+'Trust me. He's never out of my mind.'
+
+On that her good-night was less cold than it would have been five
+minutes before. But he walked home through the moonlit streets both
+puzzled and distressed--till he reached his club in Pall Mall, where
+the news coming through on the tape quickly drove everything out of
+his soldier's mind but the war.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Gaddesden was sitting as usual in the hall at Mannering. A mild
+February was nearly out. It would be the first of March on the
+morrow.
+
+Every moment she expected to hear the Fallerton taxi draw up at the
+front door--bringing Elizabeth Bremerton back to Mannering. She had
+been away more than a month. Mrs. Gaddesden went back in thought to
+the morning when it had been announced to the Squire by his pale and
+anxious secretary that she had had bad news of her invalid mother,
+and must go home at once. The Squire--his daughter could not deny
+it--had behaved abominably. But of all of his fume and fret, his
+unreasonable complaints and selfish attempts to make her fix the
+very day and hour of her return, Elizabeth had taken no notice. Go
+she would, at once; and she would make no promises as to the exact
+date of her return. But on the morning before she went she had
+worked superhumanly to put things in order, whether for her typist,
+or Captain Dell, or Pamela, who must at least take over the
+housekeeping. The relations between her and Miss Bremerton that
+morning had struck Mrs. Gaddesden as odd--certainly not cordial. But
+there was nothing to complain of in Pamela's conduct. She would do
+her best, she said, and sat listening while Elizabeth gave her
+instructions about food cards, and servants, and the rest.
+
+Then, when the taxi had driven away with the Dictator, what temper
+on the Squire's part! Mrs. Gaddesden had very nearly gone home to
+London--but for the fact of raids, and the fact that two of her most
+necessary servants had joined the W.A.A.C.'s. Pamela, on the other
+hand, had gone singing about the house. And really the child had
+done her best. But how could any one expect her to manage her father
+and the house, especially on the scraps of time left her by her
+V.A.D. work? The Squire had been like a fractious child over the
+compulsory rations. Nobody was less of a glutton--he pecked like a
+bird; but the proper food to peck at must be always there, or his
+temper was unbearable. Pamela made various blunders; the household
+knew hunger for the first time; and the servants began to give
+warning. Captain Dell could do nothing with his employer, and the
+timber business was hung up.
+
+Then came Pamela's outbreak after a tirade from the Squire bitterly
+contrasting his lost secretary's performances, in every particular,
+with those of his daughter. The child had disappeared, and a message
+from the station was all that remained of her. Well, who could
+wonder? Mrs. Gaddesden reflected, with some complacency, that even
+she had spoken her mind to her father that night, conveniently
+forgetting some annoying retorts of his about herself, and the
+custom she had developed of sitting for hours over the fire
+pretending to knit, but really doing nothing. After her enormous
+exertions in the cause of the war--she was accustomed to say--of the
+year before, she was in need of a rest. She was certainly taking it.
+Since Pamela left, indeed, she had been obliged to do the
+housekeeping, and considered it very hard work. She had never yet
+been able to calculate the food coupons correctly.
+
+So she, like all the rest, was looking eagerly for Elizabeth.
+
+Yes!--that was the cracked horn of the village taxi. Mrs. Gaddesden
+poked the fire with energy and rang for Forest. But his quick ears
+had heard the signal before hers, and he was already hurrying
+through the hall to the front door.
+
+And there was the library door opening, so her father too had been
+on the watch. Voices in the vestibule, and as the outer door of the
+hall opened, the Squire appeared at the further end. Alice Gaddesden
+had an odd feeling that something important--decisive--was going to
+happen.
+
+Yet nothing could have been more unassuming than Elizabeth's entry.
+It was evident, indeed, that Forest was overjoyed to see her. He
+shouldered her modest boxes and bags with a will, and a housemaid,
+all smiles, came running half way downstairs to take some of his
+burden from him. Elizabeth followed the butler and took Mrs.
+Gaddesden's hand.
+
+'My train was late. I hope you've not waited tea?'
+
+'Why, of course we have,' said the Squire's voice. 'Forest!--tea at
+once.'
+
+Elizabeth, not having perceived his approach in the dimness of the
+February twilight, turned with a start to greet the Squire. He
+looked, to her eyes, lankier and thinner and queerer than ever. But
+it was a distinguished queerness. Elizabeth had forgotten that the
+brow and eyes were so fine, and the hair so glistening white. The
+large nose and small captious chin passed unnoticed. She was
+astonished at her own throb of pleasure in seeing her employer
+again.
+
+His pleasure was boisterously evident, though presently he showed it
+in his usual way by attacking her. But first Mrs. Gaddesden made the
+proper enquiries after Elizabeth's invalid mother.
+
+Elizabeth, looking extremely tired as she sat by the fire, in the
+chair which the Squire--most unwonted attention!--had drawn up for
+her, said that her mother was better, and volunteered nothing
+further. The Squire, meanwhile, had observed her looks, and was
+chafing inwardly against invalid relations who made unjust claims
+upon their kith and kin and monstrously insisted on being nursed by
+them. But he had the sense to hold his tongue, and even to profess a
+decent sympathy.
+
+Then, without any further preamble, he plunged into his own affairs.
+
+'Everything's gone to rack and ruin since you left,' he said
+vehemently. 'Of course you knew it would!'
+
+Elizabeth's eyebrows lifted. The look, half tolerant, half amused,
+with which she greeted sallies of this kind was one of her
+attractions for the Squire.
+
+'What's Captain Dell been doing?' she inquired.
+
+'Marking time!' was the testy reply. 'He's been no good by
+himself--I knew he wouldn't be--no more use than old Hull.'
+
+Elizabeth's expression showed her sceptical.
+
+'And the timber?'
+
+'Just where you left it. The rascally fellows want all sorts of
+conditions. You may accept them if you like--I won't. But I told
+them we'd meet them in the woods to-morrow--you, and Dell and I. And
+Chicksands, who likes poking his nose into everything, is coming
+too.'
+
+'Sir Henry?' asked Elizabeth in astonishment.
+
+'Well, I thought you might like the old boy's opinion, so I rang him
+up on that horrid thing you've put into the office. I don't care
+about his opinion in the least!'
+
+A treat arranged for her return! Elizabeth felt as if she were being
+offered Sir Henry's head on a charger.
+
+'That will be a great help!' she said with rather artificial
+enthusiasm, at which the Squire only shrugged his shoulders. 'Has
+Sir Henry been over here--'
+
+'While you've been away? Nothing of the sort. He's not crossed the
+threshold since I turned him out six months ago. But he's coming all
+the same--as mild as milk.'
+
+'Very good of him!' said Elizabeth with spirit.
+
+'That's as you choose to look at it. And as to everything else--'
+
+'The catalogue?'
+
+'Gone to the crows!' said the Squire gloomily. 'Levasseur took some
+references to look out last week, and made twenty mistakes in as
+many lines. He's off!'
+
+Elizabeth removed her hat and pressed her hands to her eyes, half
+laughing, half aghast. Never had anything been more welcome to the
+Squire than the sheen of her hair in the semi-darkness. Mrs.
+Gaddesden had once annoyed him by calling it red.
+
+'And the farms?'
+
+'Oh, that I leave you to find out. I shovelled all the letters on to
+your table, just as Pamela left them.'
+
+'Pamela!' said Elizabeth, looking up. 'But where is she?'
+
+The Squire held his peace. Mrs. Gaddesden drily observed that she
+was staying with Mrs. Strang in town. A bright colour spread in
+Elizabeth's cheeks and she fell silent, staring into the fire.
+
+'Hadn't you better take your things off?' said Mrs. Gaddesden.
+
+Elizabeth rose. As she passed the Squire, he said gruffly:
+
+'Of course you're not ready for any Greek before dinner?'
+
+She smiled. 'But of course I am. I'll be down directly.'
+
+In a few more minutes she was standing alone in her room. The
+housemaid, of her own accord, had lit a fire, and had gathered some
+snowdrops for the dressing table. Elizabeth's bags had been already
+unpacked, and all her small possessions had been arranged just as
+she liked them.
+
+'They spoil me,' she thought, half pleased, half shrinking. 'But why
+am I here? Why have I come back? And what do I mean to do?'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+These questions--'Why did I come back?--What am I going to do?' were
+still ringing through Elizabeth's mind when, on the evening of her
+return, she entered the library to find the Squire eagerly waiting
+for her.
+
+But the spectacle presented by the room quickly drove out other
+matters. She stood aghast at the disorder which three weeks of the
+Squire's management had brought about. Books on the floor and piled
+on the chairs--a dusty confusion of papers everywhere--drawers open
+and untidy--her reign of law seemed to have been wiped out.
+
+'Oh, what a _dreadful_ muddle!'
+
+The Squire looked about him--abashed.
+
+'Yes, it's awful--it's all that fellow Levasseur. I ought to have
+turned him out sooner. He's the most helpless, incompetent idiot.
+But it won't take you very long to get straight? I'll do anything
+you tell me.'
+
+He watched her face appealingly, like a boy in a scrape. Elizabeth
+shook her head.
+
+'It'll take me a full day. But never mind; we need not begin
+to-night.'
+
+'No, we won't begin to-night!' said the Squire emphatically.
+'There!--I've found a chair for you. Is that fire as you like it?'
+
+What astonishing amiability! The attack of nerves which had assailed
+Elizabeth upstairs began to disappear. She took the chair the Squire
+offered her, cleared a small table, and produced from the
+despatch-box she had brought into the room with her a writing-block
+and a fountain-pen.
+
+'Do you want to dictate anything?'
+
+'Not at all!' said the Squire. 'I've got nothing ready for
+dictating. The work I have done during your absence I shall probably
+tear up.'
+
+'But I thought--'
+
+'Well, I daresay--but can't a man change his mind? Greek be hanged!'
+thundered the impatient voice. 'I want some conversation with
+you--if you will allow me?'
+
+The last words slipped awkwardly into another note. It was as though
+a man should exchange the trombone for the flute. Elizabeth held her
+peace; but her pulse was beginning to quicken.
+
+'The fact is,' said the Squire, 'I have been thinking over a good
+many things--in the last hour.' Then he turned upon her abruptly.
+'What was that you were saying to Alice in the hall just now, about
+moving your mother into better rooms?'
+
+Elizabeth's parted lips showed her surprise.
+
+'We do want better rooms for her,' she said hesitatingly, after a
+moment. 'My sister Joan, who is at home just now, is looking out.
+But they are not easy to find.'
+
+'Don't look out!' said the Squire impetuously. 'I have a better plan
+to propose to you. In these horrible days people must co-operate and
+combine. I know many instances of families sharing a house--and
+servants. Beastly, I admit, in the case of a small house. One runs
+up against people--and then one hates them. I do! But in the case of
+a large house it is different. Now, what do you say to this? Bring
+your mother here!'
+
+'Bring--my mother--here?' repeated Elizabeth stupidly. 'I don't
+understand.'
+
+'It's very simple.' The Squire stood over her, his thumbs in his
+waistcoat pockets, his eyes all vivacity. 'This is a big house--an
+old barn, if you like, but big enough. Your mother might have the
+whole of the east wing--which looks south--if she pleased; and
+neither she nor I need ever come in each other's way, any more than
+people who have flats in the same building. I heard you say she had
+a nurse. Well, there would be the nurse--and another servant
+perhaps. And the housekeeping could be in common. Now do consider
+it. Be reasonable! Don't mock at it, because it isn't your own
+plan,' said the Squire severely, perceiving the smile, which she
+could not repress, spreading over Elizabeth's countenance.
+
+'It's awfully good of you!' she began warmly--'but--'
+
+'But what?'
+
+Then Elizabeth's smile vanished, and instead he saw a dimness in the
+clear blue eyes.
+
+'My poor little mother is too ill--much too ill--' she said in a low
+voice. 'She may live a good while yet; but her mind is no longer
+clear.'
+
+The Squire was checked. This possible aspect of the case had not
+occurred to him. But he was not to be defeated.
+
+'If you can move her from one house to another, surely you could
+move her here--in an invalid motor? It would only take an hour and a
+half.'
+
+Elizabeth shook her head quietly, but decidedly.
+
+'Thank you, but I am afraid it is impossible. She couldn't take the
+journey, and--no, indeed, it is out of the question!'
+
+'Will you ask your doctor?' said the Squire obstinately.
+
+'I know what he would say. Please don't think of it, Mr. Mannering.
+It's very, very good of you.'
+
+'It's not the least good,' said the Squire roughly. 'It's sheer,
+naked self-interest. If you're not at ease about your mother, you'll
+be throwing up your work here again some day, for good, and that'll
+be death and damnation!'
+
+He turned frowning away, and threw himself into a chair by the fire.
+
+So the murder was out. Elizabeth must needs laugh. But this clumsy
+way of showing her that she was indispensable not only touched her
+feeling, but roused up the swarm of perplexities which had buzzed
+around her ever since her summons to her mother's bedside on the
+morning after her scene with Pamela. And again she asked herself,
+'Why did I come back? And what am I going to do?'
+
+She looked in doubt at the fuming gentleman by the fire, and
+suddenly conscience bade her be frank.
+
+'I would like to stay here, Mr. Mannering, and go on with my work. I
+have told you so before. I will stay--as long as I can. But I
+mustn't burn my boats. I mustn't stay indefinitely. I have come to
+see that would not be fair--'
+
+'To whom?' cried the Squire, raising himself--'to whom?'
+
+'To Pamela,' said Elizabeth firmly.
+
+'Pamela!' The Squire leapt from his seat. 'What on earth has Pamela
+got to do with it!'
+
+'A very great deal. She is the natural head of your house, and it
+would be very difficult for me to go on living here--after--perhaps--I
+have just put a few things straight for you, and catalogued the
+pots--without getting in her way, and infringing her rights!'
+
+Elizabeth was sitting very erect and bright-eyed. It seemed to her
+that some subliminal self for which she was hardly responsible had
+suddenly got the better of a hair-splitting casuistical self, which
+had lately been in command of her, and that the subliminal self had
+spoken words of truth and soberness.
+
+But instead of storming, the Squire laughed contemptuously.
+
+'Pamela's rights? Well, I'll discuss them when she remembers her
+duties! I remonstrated with her one morning when the servants were
+all giving warning--and there was nothing to eat--and she had made a
+hideous mess of some instructions of mine about a letter to the
+County Council--and I pointed out to her that none of these things
+would have happened if you had been here.'
+
+'Oh, poor Pamela!' exclaimed Elizabeth--'but still more, poor me!'
+
+'"Poor me"?' said the Squire. 'What does that mean?'
+
+'You see, I have a weakness for being liked!' said Elizabeth after a
+moment. 'And how can Pamela like anybody that is being thrown at her
+head like that?' She looked at her companion reproachfully. But the
+Squire was not to be put down.
+
+'Besides,' he continued, without noticing her interruption, 'Pamela
+writes to me this morning that she wants my consent to her training
+as an Army nurse.'
+
+'Oh no,' cried Elizabeth--'not yet. She is too young!'
+
+Her face showed her distress. So she was really driving this poor
+child, whom she would so easily have loved had it been allowed her,
+out of her home! No doubt Pamela had seized on the pretext of her
+'row' with her father to carry out her threat to Elizabeth of
+'running away,' and before Elizabeth's return to Mannering, so that
+neither the Squire nor any one else should guess at the real reason.
+But how could Elizabeth acquiesce?
+
+Yet if she revealed the story of Pamela's attack upon her to the
+Squire, what would happen? Only a widening of the breach between him
+and his daughter. Elizabeth, of course, might depart, but Pamela
+would be none the more likely to return to face her father's wrath.
+And again for the hundredth time Elizabeth said to herself, in
+mingled pain and exasperation--'What _did_ she mean?--and what have
+I ever done that she should behave so?'
+
+Then she raised her eyes. Something impelled her--as it were a
+strong telepathic influence. The Squire was gazing at her. His
+expression was extraordinarily animated. It seemed to her that words
+were already on his lips, and that at all costs she must stop them
+there.
+
+But fortune favoured her. There was a knock at the library door. The
+Squire irritably said, 'Come in!' and Forest announced, 'Captain
+Dell.' The Squire, with some muttered remark, walked across to his
+own table.
+
+The agent entered with a beaming countenance. All that he knew was
+that the only competent person in a rather crazy household had
+returned to it, and that business was now likely to go forward. He
+had brought some important letters, and he laid them nominally
+before his employer, but really before Elizabeth. He and she talked;
+the Squire smoked and listened, morosely aloof. Yet by the end of
+the agent's visit a grudging but definite consent had been given to
+the great timber deal; and Elizabeth hurried off as Captain Dell
+departed--thankful for the distant sound of the first bell for
+dinner.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sitting up in bed that night, with her hands behind her head, while
+a westerly wind blew about the house, Elizabeth again did her best
+to examine both her conscience and her situation.
+
+The summons which had taken her home had been a peremptory one. Her
+mother, who had been ill for a good many months, had suddenly
+suffered some brain injury, which had reduced her to a childish
+helplessness. She did not recognize Elizabeth, and though she was
+very soon out of physical danger, the mental disaster remained. A
+good nurse was now more to her than the daughter to whom she had
+been devoted. A good nurse was in charge, and Elizabeth had
+persuaded an elderly cousin, living on a small annuity, to come and
+share her mother's rooms. Now what was more necessary than ever
+was--money! Elizabeth's salary was indispensable.
+
+Was she to allow fine feelings about Pamela to drive her out of her
+post and her earnings--to the jeopardy not only of her mother's
+comfort, but of the good--the national--work open to her at
+Mannering?
+
+But there was a much more agitating question behind. She had only
+trifled with it till now. But on the night of her return it pressed.
+And as a reasonable woman, thirty years of age, she proceeded to
+look it in the face.
+
+When Captain Dell so opportunely--or inconveniently--knocked at the
+library door, Mr. Mannering was on the point of asking his secretary
+to marry him. Of that Elizabeth was sure.
+
+She had just escaped, but the siege would be renewed. How was she
+going to meet it?
+
+Why shouldn't she marry the Squire? She was poor, but she had
+qualities much more valuable to the Squire than money. She could
+rescue him from debt, put his estate on a paying footing, restore
+Mannering, rebuild the village, and all the time keep him happy by
+her sympathy with and understanding of his classical studies and
+hobbies.
+
+And thereby she would be doing not only a private but a public
+service. The Mannering estate and its owner had been an offence to
+the patriotism of a whole neighbourhood. Elizabeth could and would
+put an end to that. She had already done much to modify it. In her
+Greek scholarship, and her ready wits, she possessed all the spells
+that were wanted for the taming of the Squire.
+
+As to the Squire himself? She examined the matter dispassionately.
+He was fifty-two--sound in wind and limb--a gentleman in spite of
+all his oddities and tempers--and one of the best Greek scholars of
+his day. She could make her own terms. 'I would take his name--give
+him my time, my brains, my friendship--in time, no doubt, my
+affection.' He would not ask for more. The modern woman, no longer
+young, an intellectual, with a man's work to do, can make of
+marriage what she pleases. The possibilities of the relations
+between men and women in the future are many, and the psychology of
+them unexplored. Elizabeth was beginning to think her own case out,
+when, suddenly, she felt the tears running over her cheeks.
+
+She was back in past days. Mannering had vanished. Oh--for
+love!--for youth!--for the broken faith and the wounded trust!--for
+the first fresh wine of life that, once dashed from the lips, the
+gods offer no more! She found herself sobbing helplessly, not for
+her actual lost lover, who had passed out of her life, but for those
+beautiful ghosts at whose skirts she seemed to be clutching--youth
+itself, love itself.
+
+Had she done with them for good and all? That was what marrying the
+Squire meant.
+
+A business marriage--on her side, for an income, a home, a career;
+on his, for a companion, a secretary, an agent. Well, she said to
+herself as she calmed down, that she could face; but supposing,
+after all, that the Squire was putting more into the scales than
+she? A sudden fear grew strong in her--fear lest this man should
+have more heart, more romance in him than she had imagined
+possible--that while she was thinking of a business partnership, the
+Squire was expecting, was about to offer, something quite different.
+
+The thought scared and repelled her. If that were indeed the case,
+she would bid Mannering a long and final farewell.
+
+But no!--she reassured herself; she recalled the Squire's passionate
+absorption in his archaeological pursuits; how his dependence upon
+her, his gratitude to her, his surprising fits of docility, were all
+due to the fact that she helped him to pursue them--that his mind
+sharpened itself against hers--that her hand and brain were the
+slaves of his restless intelligence.
+
+That was all--that must, that should be all. She thought vigorously
+of the intellectual comradeships of history--beginning with Michael
+Angelo and Vittoria Colonna. They were not certainly quite on all
+fours with her own situation--but give modern life and the new woman
+time!
+
+Suppose, then, these anxieties set at rest, and that immediately,
+within twenty-four hours, or a week, the Squire were to ask her to
+marry him and were ready to understand the matter as she did--what
+else stood in the way?
+
+Then, slowly, in the darkness of the room, there rose before her the
+young figures of the twins, with their arms round each other's
+necks, as she had often seen them--Desmond and Pamela. And they
+looked at her with hostile eyes!
+
+'Cuckoo!--intriguer!--we don't want you!--we won't accept you!'
+
+But after all, as Elizabeth reflected not without a natural
+exasperation, she was _not_--consciously--a cuckoo; she was not an
+intriguer; there was nothing of the Becky Sharp about her at all; it
+would have been so very much simpler if there had been! To swallow
+the Squire and Mannering at one gulp, to turn out the twins, to put
+Mrs. Gaddesden--who, as Elizabeth had already discovered, was
+constantly making rather greedy demands upon her father--on rations
+according to her behaviour, to bring in her own poor mother and all
+her needy relations--to reign supreme, in fact, over Mannering and
+the county--nothing would be easier.
+
+The only thing that stood in the way was that the Squire's secretary
+happened to be a nice woman--and not an adventuress. Elizabeth's
+sense of humour showed her the kind of lurid drama that Pamela no
+doubt was concocting about her--perhaps with the help of Beryl--the
+two little innocents! Elizabeth recalled the intriguing French
+'companion' in _War and Peace_ who inveigles the old Squire. And as
+for the mean and mercenary stepmothers of fiction, they can be
+collected by the score. That, no doubt, was how Pamela thought of
+her. So that, after her involuntary tears, Elizabeth ended in a
+laughter that was half angry, half affectionate.
+
+Poor children! She was not going to turn them out of their home. She
+had written to Pamela during her absence with her mother, asking
+again for an explanation of the wild and whirling things that Pamela
+had said to her that night in the hall, and in return not a single
+frank or penitent word!--only a few perfunctory enquiries after Mrs.
+Bremerton, and half a page about an air-raid. It left Elizabeth
+sorer and more puzzled than before.
+
+Desmond too! She had written to him also from London a long chat
+about all the things he cared about at Mannering--the animals,
+Pamela's pony, the old keeper, the few pheasants still left in the
+woods, and what Perley said of the promise of a fair partridge
+season. And the boy had replied immediately. Desmond's Eton manners
+were rarely caught napping; but the polite little note--stiff and
+frosty--might have been written to a complete stranger.
+
+What _was_ in their minds? How could she put it right? Well, anyhow,
+Desmond could not at that moment be wasting time or thought on home
+worries, or her own supposed misdemeanours. Where was the radiant
+boy now? In some artillery camp, she supposed, behind the lines,
+waiting for his ordeal of blood and fire. Waiting with the whole
+Army--the whole Empire--for that leap of the German monster which
+must be met and parried and struck down before England could breathe
+again. And as she thought of him, her woman's soul, winged by its
+passion of patriotism, seemed to pass out into the night across the
+sea, till it stood beside the English hosts.
+
+'Forces and Powers of the Universe, be with them!--strengthen the
+strong, uphold the weak, comfort the dying!--for in them lies the
+hope of the world.'
+
+Her life hung on the prayer. The irresponsive quiet of the night
+over the Mannering woods and park, with nothing but the wind for
+voice, seemed to her unbearable. And it only answered to the apathy
+within doors. Why, the Squire had scarcely mentioned the war since
+her return! Neither he nor Mrs. Gaddesden had asked her for an
+evening paper, though there had been a bad London raid the night
+before. She had seen a letter 'on active service,' and addressed,
+she thought, in Desmond's handwriting, lying on the library table;
+and it seemed to her there was a French ordnance map near it. But in
+answer to her enquiries about the boy, the Squire had vouchsafed
+only a few irritable words, 'Well--he's not killed yet! The devil's
+business over there seems to be working up to a greater hell than
+ever!' Nothing more.
+
+Well, she would see to that! Mannering should feel the war, if she
+were to live in it. She straightened her shoulders, her will
+stiffening to its task.
+
+Yes, and while that dear boy was out there, in that grim fighting
+line, no action of hers, if she could help it, should cause him a
+moment's anger or trouble. Her resolution was taken. If the Squire
+did mean to ask her to marry him she would try and stop him in
+mid-career. If she couldn't stop him, well, then, she would give him
+his choice--either to keep her, as secretary and friend, and hold
+his peace, or to lose her. She felt certain of her power to contain
+the Squire's 'offensive,' if it were really threatened.
+
+But, on the other hand, she was not going to give up her post
+because the twins had taken some unjust prejudice against her!
+Nothing of the kind. She had those ash trees to look after! She was
+tolerably sure that a thorough search would comb out a good many
+more for the Air Board from the Squire's woods than had yet been
+discovered. The Fallerton hospital wanted more accommodation. There
+was an empty house belonging to the Squire, which she had already
+begun, before her absence, with his grudging permission, to get
+ready for the purpose. _That_ had to be finished. The war workroom
+in the village, which she had started, must have another
+Superintendent, the first having turned out a useless chatterbox.
+Elizabeth had her successor already in mind. There were three or
+four applications waiting for the two other neglected farms. Captain
+Dell was hurrying on the repairs; but there was more money
+wanted--she must get it out of the Squire. Then as to labour--German
+prisoners?--or women?
+
+Her brain began to teem with a score of projects. But after lying
+awake another hour, she pulled herself up. 'This won't do. I must
+have six hours' sleep.' And she resolutely set herself to repeat one
+of the nursery poems of her childhood, till, wooed by its silly
+monotony, sleep came.
+
+It was a bright March day in the Mannering woods, where the Squire,
+Elizabeth, and Captain Dell were hanging about waiting for Sir Henry
+Chicksands. The astonishing warmth and sunshine of the month had
+brought out a shimmer of spring everywhere, reddened the great heads
+of the oaks, and set the sycamore buds shining like jewels in the
+pale blue. There was an endless chatter and whirr of wood-pigeons in
+the high tree-tops, and underfoot the anemones and violets were busy
+pushing their gentle way through the dead leaves of autumn. The
+Squire's beechwoods were famous in the neighbourhood, and he was
+still proud of them; though for many years past they had gone
+unnoticed to decay, and were in some places badly diseased.
+
+To Elizabeth, in an artistic mood--the mood which took her in town
+to see exhibitions of Brabazon or Steer--the woods were fairyland.
+The high slender oak of the middle wood, the spreading oak that
+lived on its borders, the tall columnar beech feathering into the
+sky, its grey stem shining as though by some magic property in the
+beautiful forest twilight--the gleams and the shadows, the sounds
+and scents of the woodland world--she could talk or write about
+these things as poetically, and as sincerely, as any other educated
+person when put to it; but on this occasion, it has to be said
+frankly, she was thinking of nothing but aeroplanes and artillery
+waggons. And she had by now developed a kind of _flair_ in the
+woods, which was the astonishment of Captain Dell, himself no mean
+forester. As far as ash was concerned, she was a hunter on the
+trail. She could distinguish an ash tree yards ahead through a mixed
+or tangled wood, and track it unerringly. The thousand ash that she,
+and the old park-keepers set on by her, had already found for the
+Government, were nothing to what she meant to find. The Squire's
+woods, some of which she had not yet explored at all, were as mines
+to her in which she dug for treasure--for the timber that might save
+her country.
+
+Captain Dell delighted in her. He had already taught her a great
+deal, and was now drilling her in the skilled arts of measurement
+and valuation. The Squire, in stupefaction, watched her at work with
+pole and tape, measuring, noting, comparing. Had it been any one
+else he would have been bored and contemptuous. But the novelty of
+the thing and the curious fact that the lady who looked up his Greek
+references was also the lady who was measuring the trees, kept him a
+half-unwilling but still fascinated spectator of her proceedings.
+
+In the midst of them Sir Henry Chicksands appeared, making his way
+through the thick undergrowth. Elizabeth threw a hasty look at the
+Squire. This was the first time the two neighbours had met since the
+quarrel. The Squire had actually written first--and to please her.
+Very touching, and very embarrassing! She hoped for the best.
+
+Sir Henry Chicksands advanced as though nothing had happened--solid,
+ruddy, benevolent, and well dressed, as usual.
+
+He bowed with marked deference to Elizabeth, and then offered a hand
+to the Squire, which was limply accepted.
+
+'Well, Mannering, very glad to see you. Like every one else, you
+seem to be selling your woods.'
+
+'Under threat of being shot if I don't!' said the Squire grimly.
+
+'What? They're commandeered?'
+
+'The Government spies are all about. I preferred to anticipate them.
+Well, what about your ploughed-up grass-lands, Chicksands? I hear
+they are full of wire-worms, and the crops a very poor show.'
+
+'Ah, it was an enemy said that,' laughed Sir Henry, submitting with
+a good grace to some more remarks of the same kind, and escaping
+from them as soon as he could.
+
+'I heard of your haul of ash,' he said. 'A man in the Air Board told
+me. Magnificent!'
+
+'You may thank her.' The Squire indicated his secretary. 'I knew
+nothing about it.'
+
+'And you're still hunting?' Sir Henry turned to Elizabeth. 'May I
+join your walk if you're going through the woods?' Captain Dell was
+introduced. 'You want my opinion on your deal? Well, I'm an old
+forester, and I'll give it you with pleasure. I used to shoot here,
+year after year, with the Squire, in our young days--isn't that so,
+Mannering? I know this bit of country by heart, and I think I could
+help you to bag a few more ash.'
+
+Elizabeth's blue eyes appealed with all proper deference to the
+Squire.
+
+'Won't you come?'
+
+He shook his head.
+
+'I'm tired of timber. Do what you like. I'll sit here and read till
+you come back.'
+
+Sir Henry's shrug was perceptible, but he held his peace, and the
+three walked away. The Squire, finding a seat on a fallen tree, took
+a book out of his pocket and pretended to read it.
+
+'Nobody can be as important as Chicksands looks!' he said to himself
+angrily. Even the smiling manner which ignored their six months'
+quarrel had annoyed him hugely. It was a piece of condescension--an
+impertinence. Oh, of course Chicksands was the popular man, the
+greatest power in the county, looked up to, and listened to by
+everybody. The Squire knew very well that he himself was ostracized,
+even hated; that there had been general chuckling in the
+neighbourhood over his rough handling by the County Committee, and
+that it would please a good many people to see all his woods
+commandeered and 'cut clean.'
+
+Six months before, his inborn pugnacity would only have amused
+itself with the situation. He was a rebel and a litigant by nature.
+Smooth waters had never attracted him.
+
+Yet now--though he would never have admitted it--he was often
+conscious of a flagging will and a depressed spirit. The loneliness
+of his life, due entirely to himself, had, during Elizabeth
+Bremerton's absence, begun sharply to find him out. He had no true
+fatherly relation with any of his children. Desmond loved him--why,
+he didn't know. He didn't believe any of the others cared anything
+at all about him. Why should they?
+
+The Squire's eyes followed the three distant walkers, Elizabeth,
+graceful and vigorous, between the other two. And the conviction
+gripped him that all the pleasure, the _liveableness_ of life--such
+as still remained possible--depended for him on that central figure.
+He looked back on his existence before her arrival at Mannering, and
+on what it had been since. Why, she had transformed it!
+
+How could he cage and keep her?--the clever, gracious creature! For
+the first time in his life he was desperately, tremulously humble.
+He placed no dependence at all on his name or his possessions.
+Elizabeth was not to be bought.
+
+But management--power--for the things she believed in--_they_ might
+tempt her. He would give them to her with both hands, if only she
+would settle down beside him, take a freehold of that chair and
+table in the library, for life!
+
+He looked back gloomily to his clumsy proposal about her mother, and
+to her remarks about Pamela. It would be indeed intolerable if his
+children got in his way! The very notion put him in a fever.
+
+If that tiresome fellow, Dell, had not interrupted them the night
+before, what would have happened?
+
+He had all the consciousness of a man still in the prime of life, in
+spite of his white hair; for he had married at twenty-one, and had
+never--since they grew up--seemed to himself very much older than
+his elder children. He had but a very dim memory of his wife.
+Sometimes he felt as if, notwithstanding the heat of boyish passion
+which had led him to marry her, he had never really known her. There
+were moments when he had an uncomfortable suspicion that for some
+years before her death she had silently but irrevocably passed
+judgment upon him, and had withdrawn her inner life from him.
+Friends of hers had written to him after her death of beautiful
+traits and qualities in her of which he himself had known nothing.
+In any case they were not traits and qualities which appealed in the
+long run to a man of his pursuits and temperament. He was told that
+Pamela had inherited some of them.
+
+A light rustling sound in the wood. He looked up to see Elizabeth
+coming back towards him unaccompanied. Captain Dell and Sir Henry
+seemed to have left her.
+
+A thrill of excitement ran through him. They were alone in the
+depths of the spring woodland. What better opportunity would he ever
+have?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Elizabeth was coming back in that flushed mood when an able man or
+woman who begins to feel the tide of success or power rising beneath
+them also begins to remind himself or herself of all the old
+commonplaces about Fate or Chance. Elizabeth's Greek reading had
+steeped her in them. 'Count no man happy till his death'; 'Count
+nothing finished till the end'; tags of this kind were running
+through her mind, while she smiled a little over the compliments
+that Sir Henry had been paying her.
+
+He could not express, he said, the relief with which he had heard of
+her return to Mannering. 'Don't, please, go away again!' Everybody
+in the county who was at all responsible for its war-work felt the
+same. Her example, during the winter, had been invaluable, and the
+skill with which she had brought the Squire into line, and set the
+Squire's neglected estate on the road to food-production, had
+been--in Sir Henry's view--nothing short of a miracle.
+
+'Yes, a miracle, my dear lady!' repeated Sir Henry warmly. 'I know
+the prickliness of our good friend there! I speak to you
+confidentially, because I realize that you could not possibly have
+done what you have done unless you had won the Squire's
+confidence--his complete confidence. Well, that's an achievement, I
+can tell you--as bad as storming a redoubt. Go on--don't let go!
+What you are doing here--the kind of work you are doing--is of
+national importance. God only knows what lies before us in the next
+few months!'
+
+And therewith a sudden sobering of the ruddy countenance and
+self-important manner. For a few seconds, from his mind and
+Elizabeth's there vanished all consciousness of the English woodland
+scene, and they were looking over a flayed and ravaged country where
+millions of men stood ranged for battle.
+
+Sir Henry sighed.
+
+'Thank God, Arthur is still at home--doing some splendid work, they
+tell me, at the War Office, but, of course, pining to be off to
+France again. I hear from him that Desmond is somewhere near
+Armentieres. Well, good-bye--I tied my horse to the gate, and must
+get home. Stick to it! Say good-bye to the Squire for me--I shall be
+over again before long. If there is anything I can do for you--count
+upon me. But _we_ count upon you!'
+
+Astonishing effusion!--from an elderly gentleman who, at the
+beginning of things, had regarded her as elderly gentlemen of great
+local position do regard young women secretaries who are earning
+their own living. Sir Henry's tone was now the tone of one potentate
+to another; and, as we have seen, it caused Elizabeth to tame her
+soul with Greek, as she walked back through the wood to rejoin the
+Squire.
+
+When she perceived him waiting for her, she wished with some fervour
+that she were not alone. She had tried to keep Captain Dell with
+her, but he had pleaded an urgent engagement at a village near the
+farther end of the wood. And then Sir Henry had deserted her. It was
+annoying--and unforeseen.
+
+The Squire observed her as she came up--the light, springing step,
+the bunch of primroses in her belt. He closed the book, of which he
+had not in truth read a word.
+
+'You have been a long time?'
+
+'But I assure you it was well worth while!' She paused in front of
+him, a little out of breath, leaning on her measuring-pole. 'We
+found ten or twelve more ash--some exactly of the size they want.'
+
+'Who are "they"?'
+
+'The Air Board,' said Elizabeth, smiling.
+
+'The fellows that wrote me that letter? I didn't want their thanks.'
+
+Elizabeth took no notice. She resumed--
+
+'And Sir Henry went into the figures of that contract with Captain
+Dell. He thinks the Captain has done very well, and that the prices
+are very fair--very good, in fact.'
+
+'All the same, I don't mean to accept their blessed contract.'
+
+'Oh, but I thought it was settled!' cried Elizabeth in distress. She
+sat down on a dry stump a little way off, and the Squire actually
+enjoyed the sight of her discomfiture.
+
+'Why on earth should I allow these people, not only to make a
+hideous mess of my woods, and murder my trees, but to take three
+years--_three years_--over the disgusting business, before they get
+it all done and clear up the mess? One year is the utmost I will
+allow.'
+
+Elizabeth looked consternation.
+
+'But think of the labour difficulties,' she pleaded. 'The contractor
+can't get the men. Of course, he _wants_ to cut and move the trees
+as soon as he can, so as to get his money back.'
+
+'That's his affair,' said the Squire obstinately. 'I want to get my
+woods in a decent state again, so that I mayn't be for ever reminded
+that I sold them--betrayed them--for filthy lucre.'
+
+'No!' said Elizabeth firmly, her colour rising, 'for the Army!'
+
+The Squire shrugged his shoulders.
+
+'So they say. Meanwhile the timber-man makes an unholy profit.'
+
+There was silence for a moment, then Elizabeth said,
+
+'Do you really mean to stick to that condition?'
+
+'I should be glad if Dell would see to it.'
+
+'Then'--said Elizabeth slowly--'the contract will drop. I understand
+they cannot possibly pledge themselves to removal within the time
+named.'
+
+'Well, there are other timber-merchants.'
+
+'The difficulty of labour is the same for everybody. And Captain
+Dell thinks no one else would give the price--certainly not the
+Government. You will remember that some of the money was to be spent
+immediately.' Her tone was cold and restrained, but he thought it
+trembled a little.
+
+'I know,' he interrupted, 'on cottages and the hospital. Money oozes
+away at every pore! I shall be a bare beggar after the war. Have you
+the contract there? Or did Dell take it?'
+
+Elizabeth drew a roll of blue paper out of her pocket. Her
+indignation made her speechless. All the endless negotiations,
+Captain Dell's work, her work--to go for nothing! What was the use
+of trying to serve--to work with such a man?
+
+The Squire took the roll from her and searched his pockets for a
+fountain-pen.
+
+'I will make some notes on it now for Dell's guidance. I might
+forget it to-night.'
+
+Elizabeth said nothing. He turned away, spread out the papers on the
+smooth trunk of the fallen tree, and began to write.
+
+Elizabeth sat very erect, her mouth proudly set, her eyes wandering
+into the distance of the wood. What was she to do? The affront to
+herself was gross--for the Squire had definitely promised her the
+night before that the bargain should go through. And she felt hotly
+for the hard-working agent. Should she put up with it? Her
+meditations of the night recurred to her--and she seemed to herself
+a very foolish woman!
+
+'There you are!' said the Squire, as he handed the roll back to her.
+
+She looked at it unwillingly. Then her face changed. She
+stooped over the contract. Below the signature of the firm of
+timber-merchants stood large and full that of 'Edmund Mannering.'
+
+The Squire smiled.
+
+'Now are you satisfied?'
+
+She returned the contract to its envelope, and both to her pocket.
+Then she looked at him uncertainly.
+
+'May I ask what that meant?'
+
+Her voice was still strained, and her eyes by no means meek.
+
+'I am sorry,' said the Squire hurriedly. 'I don't know--it was a
+whim. I wanted to have the pleasure--'
+
+'Of seeing how a person looks under a sudden disappointment?' said
+Elizabeth, with rather pinched lips.
+
+'Not at all. It was a childish thing--I wanted to see you smile
+when I gave you the thing back. There--that's the truth. It was you
+disappointed me!'
+
+Elizabeth's wrath vanished. She hid her face in her hands and
+laughed. But there was agitation behind the laughter. These were not
+the normal ways of a reasonable man.
+
+When she looked up, the Squire had moved to a log close beside her.
+The March sun was pouring down upon them, and there was a robin
+singing, quite undisturbed by their presence, in a holly-bush near.
+The Squire's wilful countenance had never seemed to Elizabeth more
+full of an uncanny and even threatening energy. Involuntarily she
+withdrew her seat.
+
+'I wish to be allowed to make a very serious proposition to you,' he
+said eagerly, 'one that I have been considering for weeks.'
+
+Elizabeth--rather weakly--put up a protesting hand.
+
+'I am afraid I must point out to you, Mr. Mannering, that Mrs.
+Gaddesden will be waiting lunch.'
+
+'If I know Alice, she will not wait lunch! And anyway there are
+things more important than lunch. May I take it for granted, Miss
+Bremerton, that you have not been altogether dissatisfied with your
+life here during this six months?'
+
+Elizabeth looked him gravely in the face. It was clear there was to
+be no escape.
+
+'How could I have been, Mr. Mannering? You have taught me a great,
+great deal--and given me wonderful opportunities.'
+
+The Squire nodded, with a look of satisfaction.
+
+'I meant to. Of course Chicksands would say that it was only my
+own laziness--that I have given you the work I ought to have done
+myself. My reply would be that it was not my work. If a man
+happens to be born to a job he is not in the least fitted for,
+that's the affair of Providence. Providence bungled it when he,
+she, or it--take which pronoun you like--[Greek: tyche], as you
+and I know, is feminine--made me a landowner. My proper job was to
+dig up and decipher what is left of the Greeks. And if any one
+says that the two jobs are not _tanti_, and the landowning job is
+more important than the other, I disagree with him entirely, and
+it would be impossible for him to prove it. But there was a
+vacuum--that I quite admit--and Nature--or Providence--disliked
+it. So she sent you along, my dear lady!'--he turned upon her a
+glowing countenance--'and you fitted it exactly. You laid hands on
+what has proved to be your job, and Chicksands, I expect, has been
+telling you how marvellously you're doing it, and begging you
+not to let this duffer'--the Squire pointed to his leather
+waistcoat--'get hold of it again. Hasn't he?'
+
+He smiled triumphantly, as Elizabeth's sudden flush showed that his
+shaft had hit. But he would not let her speak.
+
+'No--please don't interrupt me! Of course Chicksands took that view.
+Any sensible man would--not that Henry is really a sensible man.
+Well, now, then--I want to ask you this. Don't these facts point to
+a rather--remarkable--combination? You assist me in the job that I
+was born for. I have been fortunate enough to be able to put into
+your hands the job that you apparently were born for. And you will
+forgive me for saying that it might have been difficult for you to
+find it without my aid. Nature--that is--seems to have endowed you
+not only with a remarkable head for Greek, but also with the
+capacity for dealing with the kind of people who drive me
+distracted--agents and timber-merchants, and stuck-up county
+officials, whom I want to slay. And you combine your job with an
+idealism--just as I do mine. You say "it's for the country" or "for
+the army," as you did just now. And I scribble and collect--for
+art's sake--for beauty's sake--for the honour of human genius--what
+you like! What then could be more reasonable--more natural'--the
+Squire drew himself up gravely--'than that you and I should join
+forces--permanently? That I should serve your ideas--and you should
+serve mine?'
+
+The Squire broke off, observing her. Elizabeth had listened to this
+extraordinary speech with growing bewilderment. She had dreaded lest
+the Squire--in proposing to marry her--should make love to her. But
+the coolness of the bargain actually suggested to her, the apparent
+absence from it of any touch of sentiment, took her completely
+aback. She was asked, in fact, to become his slave--his bailiff and
+secretary for life--and the price was offered.
+
+Her face spoke for her, before she could express her feeling in
+words. The Squire, watching her, hurriedly resumed.
+
+'I put it like an idiot! What I meant was this. If I could induce
+you to marry me--and put up with me--I believe both our lives might
+be much more interesting and agreeable!'
+
+The intensity of the demand expressed in his pale hazel eyes and
+frowning brow struck full upon her.
+
+But Elizabeth slowly shook her head.
+
+'I am very grateful to you, Mr. Mannering, but'--a rather ironical
+smile showed itself--'I think you hardly understand me. We should
+never get on.'
+
+'Why?'
+
+'Because our temperaments--our characters--are so different.'
+
+'You can't forgive me about the war?'
+
+'Well, that hurts me,' she said, after a moment, 'but I leave that
+to Mr. Desmond. No! I am thinking of myself and you. What you
+propose does not attract me at all. Marriage--in my view--wants
+something--deeper--to build on than you suggest.'
+
+'Inconsistent woman!' cried the inner voice, but Elizabeth silenced
+it. She was not inconsistent. She would have resented love-making,
+but _feeling_--something to gild the chain!--that she had certainly
+expected. The absence of it humiliated her.
+
+The Squire's countenance fell.
+
+'Deeper?' he said, with a puzzled look. 'I wonder what you mean? I
+haven't anything "deeper." There isn't anything "deep" about me.'
+
+Was it true? Elizabeth suddenly recalled those midnight steps on the
+night of Desmond's departure.
+
+'You know,' he resumed, 'for you have worked with me now for six
+months--you know at least what kind of a man I am. I assure you it's
+at any rate no worse than that! And if I ever annoyed you too much,
+why you could always keep me in order--by the mere threat of going
+away! I could have cut my throat any day with pleasure during those
+weeks you were absent!'
+
+Again Elizabeth hid her face in her hands and laughed--rather
+hysterically. There _was_ something in this last appeal that touched
+her--some note of 'the imperishable child,' which indeed she had
+always recognized in the Squire's strange personality.
+
+The Squire waited--frowning. When she looked up at last she spoke in
+her natural friendly voice.
+
+'I don't think, Mr. Mannering, we had better go on talking like
+this. I can't accept what you offer me--'
+
+'Again I can't think why,' he interrupted vehemently; 'you have
+given me no sort of explanation. Why must you refuse?'
+
+'Because I don't feel like it,' she said, smiling. 'That's all I
+need say. Please don't think me ungrateful. You've offered me now a
+position and a home--and you've given me my head all this time. I
+shall never forget it. But I'm afraid--'
+
+'That now I've made such an ass of myself you'll have to go?'
+
+She thought a moment.
+
+'I don't know that I need say that--if--if I could be sure--'
+
+'Of what? Name your conditions!'
+
+His face suddenly lightened again. And again a quick compunction
+struck her.
+
+She looked at him gently.
+
+'It's only--that I couldn't stay here--you will see of course that I
+couldn't--unless I were quite sure that this was dead and buried
+between us--that you would forget it entirely--and let me forget
+it!'
+
+Was it fancy, or did the long Don Quixotish countenance quiver a
+little?
+
+'Very well. I will never speak of it again. Will that do?' There was
+a long pause. The Squire's stick attacked a root of primroses
+closely, prized it out of the damp ground, and left it there. Then
+he turned to his companion with a changed aspect. 'Well, now,
+then--we are as we were--and'--with a long half-indignant
+breath--'remember I have signed that contract!'
+
+He rose from his seat as he spoke.
+
+They walked home together through the great wood, and across the
+park. They were mostly silent. The Squire's words 'we are as we
+were' echoed in the ears of both. And yet both were secretly aware
+that something irrevocable had happened.
+
+Then, suddenly, beating down all the personal trouble and disquiet
+in Elizabeth's mind, there rushed upon her afresh, as she walked
+beside the Squire, that which seemed to shame all personal
+feeling--the renewed consciousness of England's death-grapple with
+her enemy--the horror of its approaching crisis. How could this
+strange being at her elbow be still deaf and blind to it!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They parted in the hall.
+
+'Shall I expect you at six?' said the Squire formally. 'I have some
+geographical notes I should like you to take down.'
+
+She assented. He went to his study, and shut himself in. For a long
+time he paced up and down, flinging himself finally into a chair in
+front of Desmond's portrait. There his thoughts took shape.
+
+'Well, my boy, I thought I'd won some trenches--but the
+counter-attack has swept me out. Where are you? Are you still alive?
+If not, I shan't be long after you. I'm getting old, my boy--and
+this world, as the devil has made it, is not meant for me.'
+
+He remained there for some time, his hands on his knees, staring
+into the bright face of his son.
+
+Elizabeth too went to her room. On her table lay the _Times_. She
+took it up and read the telegrams again. Raid and counter-raid all
+along the front--and in every letter and telegram the shudder of the
+nearing event, ghastly hints of that incredible battlefield to come,
+that hideous hurricane of death in which Europe was to see once more
+her noblest and her youngest perish.
+
+'Oh, why, why am I a woman?' she clasped her hands above her head in
+a passion of revolt. 'What does one's own life matter? Why waste a
+thought--an hour upon it!'
+
+In a second she was at her table putting together the notes she had
+made that morning in the wood. About a hundred and fifty more ash
+marked in that wood alone!--thanks to Sir Henry. She rang up Captain
+Dell, and made sure that they would be offered that night direct to
+the Government timber department--the Squire's ash, for greater
+haste, having been now expressly exempted from the general contract.
+Canadians were coming down to fell them at once. They must be
+housed. One of the vacant farms, not yet let, was to be got ready
+for them. She made preliminary arrangements by telephone. Then,
+after a hasty lunch, at which the Squire did not appear, and Mrs.
+Gaddesden was more than usually languid and selfish, Elizabeth
+rushed off to the village on her bicycle. The hospital Commandant
+was waiting for her, with such workpeople as could be found, and the
+preparation of the empty house for fifty more beds was well begun.
+Elizabeth was frugal, but resolute, with the Squire's money. She had
+leave to spend. But she would not abuse her power; and all through
+her work she was conscious of a queer remorseful gratitude towards
+the man in whose name she was acting.
+
+Then she bicycled to the School, where a group of girls whom she
+had captured for the land were waiting to see her. Their uniforms
+were lying ready on one of the schoolroom tables. She helped the
+girls to put them on, laughing, chatting, admiring--ready besides
+with a dozen homely hints on how to keep well--how to fend for
+themselves, perhaps in a lonely cottage--how to get on with the
+farmer--above all, how to get on with the farmer's wife. Her
+sympathy made everything worth while--put colour and pleasure into
+this new and strange adventure, of women going out to break up and
+plough and sow the ancient land of our fathers, which the fighting
+men had handed over to them. Elizabeth decked the task with honour,
+so that the girls in their khaki stood round her at last glowing,
+though dumb!--and felt themselves--as she bade them feel--the
+comrades-in-arms of their sweethearts and their brothers.
+
+Then with the March twilight she was again at Mannering. She changed
+her bicycling dress, and six o'clock found her at her desk,
+obediently writing from the Squire's dictation.
+
+He put her through a stiff series of geographical notes, including a
+number of quotations from Homer and Herodotus, bearing on the spread
+of Greek culture in the Aegean. During the course of them he broke
+out once or twice into his characteristic sayings and illustrations,
+racy or poetic, as usual, and Elizabeth would lift her blue eyes,
+with the responsive look in them, on which he had begun to think all
+his real power of work depended. But not a word passed between them
+on any other subject; and when it was over she rose, said a quiet
+good-night, and went away. After she had gone, the Squire sat over
+the fire, brooding and motionless, for most of the evening.
+
+One March afternoon, a few days later, the following letter reached
+Pamela, who was still with her sister. It was addressed in Desmond
+Mannering's large and boyish handwriting.
+
+     'B.E.F., _March_.
+
+     'MY DEAR PAMELA--I am kicking my heels here at an engineer's
+     store, waiting for an engineer officer who is wanted to plan
+     some new dug-outs for our battery, and as there is no one to
+     talk to inside except the most inarticulate Hielander I ever
+     struck, I shall at last make use of one of your little
+     oddments, my dear, which are mostly too good to use out
+     here--and write you a letter on a brand new pocket-pad, with a
+     brand new stylo.
+
+     'I expect you know from Arthur about where we are. It's a
+     pretty nasty bit of the line. The snipers here are the
+     cleverest beasts out. There isn't a night they don't get some
+     of us, though our fellows are as sharp as needles too. I went
+     over a sniping school last week with a jolly fellow who used to
+     hunt lions in Africa. My hat!--we have learnt a thing or two
+     from the Huns since we started. But you have to keep a steady
+     look-out, I can tell you. There was a man here last night in a
+     sniper's post, shooting through a trench loophole, you
+     understand, which had an iron panel. Well, he actually went to
+     sleep with his rifle in his hand, having had a dog's life for
+     two or three nights. But for a mercy, he had pulled down his
+     panel--didn't know he had!--and the next thing he knew was a
+     bullet spattering on it--just where his eye should have been.
+     He was jolly quick in backing out and into a dug-out, and an
+     hour later he got the man.
+
+     'But there was an awful thing here last night. An officer was
+     directing one of our snipers--stooping down just behind him,
+     when a Hun got him--right in the eyes. I was down at the
+     dressing-station visiting one of our men who had been knocked
+     over--and I saw him led in. He was quite blind,--and as calm as
+     anything--telling people what to do, and dictating a post card
+     to the padre, who was much more cut up than he was. I can tell
+     you, Pamela, our Army is _fine_! Well, thank God, I'm in
+     it--and not a year too late. That's what I keep saying to
+     myself. And the great show can't be far off now. I wouldn't
+     miss it for anything, so I don't give the Hun any more chances
+     of knocking me over than I can help.
+
+     'You always want to know what things look like, old Pam, so
+     I'll try and tell you. In the first place, it's just a glorious
+     spring day. At the back of the cranky bit of a ruined farm
+     where we have our diggings (by the way, you may always go back
+     at night and find half your bedroom shot away--that happened to
+     me the other night--there was a tunic of mine still hanging on
+     the door, and when you opened the door, nothing but a hole ten
+     feet deep full of rubble--jolly luck, it didn't happen at
+     night-time!) there are actually some lilac trees, and the buds
+     on them are quite big. And somehow or other the birds manage to
+     sing in spite of the hell the Huns have made of things.
+
+     'I'm looking out now due east. There's a tangled mass of
+     trenches not far off, where there's been some hot raiding
+     lately. I see an engineer officer with a fatigue party working
+     away at them--he's showing the men how to lay down a new
+     trench with tapes and pegs. Just to my left some men are
+     filling up a crater. Then there's a lorry full of bits of an
+     old corduroy road they're going to lay down somewhere over a
+     marshy place. There are two sausage balloons sitting up aloft,
+     and some aeroplanes coming and going. Our front line is not
+     more than a mile away, and the German line is about a mile and
+     a quarter. Far off to my right I can just see a field with
+     tanks in it. Ah--there goes a shell on the Hun line--another!
+     Can't think why we're tuning up at this time of day. We shall
+     be getting some of their heavy stuff over directly, if we don't
+     look out. It's rot!
+
+     'And the sun is shining like blazes on it all. As I came up I
+     saw some of our men resting on the grass by the wayside. They
+     were going up to the trenches--but it was too early--the sun
+     was too high--they don't send them in till dusk. Awfully good
+     fellows they looked! And I passed a company of Bantams, little
+     Welsh chaps, as fit as mustard. Also a poor mad woman, with a
+     basket of cakes and chocolate. She used to live in the village
+     where I'm sitting now--on a few bricks of it, I mean. Then her
+     farm was shelled to bits and her old husband and her daughter
+     killed. And nothing will persuade her to go. Our people have
+     moved her away several times--but she always comes back--and
+     now they let her alone. Our soldiers indeed are awfully good to
+     her, and she looks after the graves in the little cemetery. But
+     when you speak to her, she never seems to understand, and her
+     eyes--well, they haunt one.
+
+     'I'm beginning to get quite used to the life--and lately I have
+     been doing some observation work with an F.O.O. (that means
+     Forward Observation Officer), which is awfully exciting. Your
+     business on these occasions is to get as close to the Germans
+     as you can, without being seen, and you take a telephonist with
+     you to send back word to the guns, and, by Jove, we do get
+     close sometimes!
+
+     'Well, dear old Pam, there's my engineer coming across the
+     fields, and I must shut up. Mind--if I don't come back to
+     you--you're just to think, as I told you before, that it's _all
+     right_. Nothing matters--_nothing_--but seeing this thing
+     through. Any day we may be in the thick of such a fight as I
+     suppose was never seen in the world before. Or any night--hard
+     luck! one may be killed in a beastly little raid that nobody
+     will ever hear of again. But anyway it's all one. It's worth
+     it.
+
+     '_Your_ letters don't sound to me as though you were
+     particularly enjoying life. Why don't you ever give me news of
+     Arthur? He writes me awfully jolly letters, and always says
+     something nice about you. Father has written to me _three_
+     times--decent, I call it,--though he always abuses Lloyd
+     George, and generally puts some Greek in I can't read. I wonder
+     if we were quite right about Broomie? You never say anything
+     about her either. But I got a letter from Beryl the other day,
+     and what Miss B. seems to be doing with Father and the estate
+     is pretty marvellous.
+
+     'All the same I don't hear any gossip as to what you and I were
+     afraid of. I wonder if I was a brute to answer her as I
+     did--and after her nice letter to me? Anyway, it's no wonder
+     she doesn't write to me any more. And she _did_ tell me such a
+     lot of news.
+
+     'Good-bye. Your writing-pad is really ripping. Likewise pen.
+     Hullo, there go some more shells. I really must get back and
+     see what's up.--Your loving
+
+     'DESMOND.'
+
+Meanwhile in the seething world of London, where the war-effort of
+an Empire was gathered up into one mighty organism, the hush of
+expectancy grew ever deeper. Only a few weeks or days could now
+divide us from the German rush on Paris and the coast. Behind the
+German lines all was movement and vast preparation. Any day England
+might rise to find the last fight begun.
+
+Yet morning after morning all the news that came was of raids,
+endless raids, on both sides--a perpetual mosquito fight, buzzing
+now here, now there, as information was wanted by the different
+Commands. Many lives were lost day by day, many deeds of battle
+done. But it all seemed as nothing--less than nothing--to those
+whose minds were fixed on the clash to come.
+
+Then one evening, early in the second week in March, a telegram
+reached Aubrey Mannering at Aldershot. He rushed up to town, and
+went first to the War Office, where Chicksands was at work.
+
+Chicksands sprang up to meet him.
+
+'You've heard? I've just got this. I made his Colonel promise to
+wire me if--'
+
+He pointed to an open telegram on his table:
+
+"Desmond badly hit in raid last night. Tell his people. Authorities
+will probably give permission to come. Well looked after."
+
+The two men stared at each other.
+
+'I have wired to my father,' said Mannering, 'and am now going to
+meet him at King's Cross. Can you go and tell Pamela to get
+ready--or Margaret? But he'll want Pamela!'
+
+Neither was able to speak for a moment, till Mannering said, 'I'll
+bring my father to Margaret's, and then I'll go and see after the
+permits.'
+
+He lingered a moment.
+
+'I--I think it means the worst.'
+
+Chicksands' gesture was one of despair.
+
+Then they hurried away from the War Office together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+It was afternoon at Mannering.
+
+Elizabeth was walking home from the village through the park. Still
+the same dry east-wind weather--very cold in the wind, very warm in
+the sun. If the German offensive began while these fine days held,
+they would have the luck of weather as we had never had it. Think of
+the drenching rains and winds of the Passchendaele attack! In the
+popular mind the notion of 'a German God' was taking actual concrete
+shape. A huge and monstrous form, sitting on a German hill, plotting
+with the Kaiser, and ordering the weather precisely as the Kaiser
+wished--it was thus that English superstition, aided by Imperial
+speeches and telegrams, began to be haunted.
+
+Yet the world was still beautiful--the silvery stems of the trees,
+the flitting of the birds, the violet carpets underfoot. On the
+fighting line itself there was probably a new crop of poets, hymning
+the Spring with Death for listener, as Julian Grenfell and Rupert
+Brooke had hymned it, in that first year of the war that seems now
+an eternity behind us.
+
+Moving along a path converging on her own, Elizabeth perceived the
+Squire. For the first time that morning he had put off their joint
+session, and she had not seen him all day. Her mind was now always
+uneasily aware of him--aware, too, of some change in him, for which
+in some painful way she felt herself responsible. He had grown
+strangely tame and placable, and it was generally noticed that he
+looked older. Yet he was more absorbed than ever in the details of
+Greek research and the labour of his catalogue. Only, of an evening,
+he read the _Times_ for a couple of hours, generally in complete
+silence, while Elizabeth and Mrs. Gaddesden talked and knitted.
+
+An extraordinary softness--an extraordinary compassion--was steadily
+invading Elizabeth's mind in regard to him. Something suggested to
+her that he had come into life maimed of some essential element of
+being, possessed by his fellow-men, and that he was now conscious of
+the lack, as a Greek Faun might be conscious of the difference
+between his life and that of struggling and suffering men. Nothing,
+indeed, could less suggest the blithe nature-life which Greek
+imagination embodied in the Faun, than the bizarre and restless
+aspect of the Squire. This spare white-haired man, with his tempers
+and irritations, was far indeed from Greek joyousness. And yet the
+Greek sense of beauty, half intellectual, half sensuous, had always
+seemed to her the strongest force in him. Was it now besieged by
+something else?--was the Faun in him, at last, after these three
+years, beginning to feel the bitter grip of humanity?
+
+'"Deeper"? I don't know what you mean. There is nothing "deep" in
+me!' She often recalled that saying of his, and the look of
+perplexity which had accompanied it.
+
+To herself of late he had been always courteous and indulgent; she
+had hardly had an uncivil word from him! But it seemed to her that
+he had also begun to avoid her, and the suspicion hurt her
+amazingly. If indeed it were true, then leave Mannering she must.
+
+He came up with her at a cross-road, and threw her a look of
+enquiry.
+
+'You have been to the village?'
+
+'To the hospital. Thirty fresh wounded arrived last night.'
+
+'I have just seen Chicksands,' said the Squire abruptly. 'Arthur
+tells him the German attack must be launched in a week or two, and
+may come any day. A million men, probably, thrown against us.'
+
+'So--the next few months will decide,' said Elizabeth, shuddering.
+
+'My God!--why did we ever go into this war!' cried the man beside
+her suddenly, in a low, stifled voice. She glanced at him in
+astonishment. The new excuses, the new tenderness for him in her
+heart made themselves heard.
+
+'It was for honour,' she breathed--'for freedom!'
+
+'Words--just words. They don't stop bombs!'
+
+But there was nothing truculent in the tone.
+
+'You had a line from Mr. Desmond this morning?'
+
+'Yes--a post card. He was all right.'
+
+Silence dropped between them. They walked on through the beautiful
+wooded park. Carpets of primroses ran beside them, and masses of
+wild cherry blossoms were beginning to show amid the beeches.
+Elizabeth was vaguely conscious of beauty, of warm air, of heavenly
+sun. But the veil upon the face of all nations was upon her eyes
+also.
+
+When they reached the house, the Squire said,
+
+'I looked up the passage in the _Persae_ that occurred to me
+yesterday. Will you come and take it down?'
+
+They went into the library together. On a special table in front of
+the Squire's desk there stood a magnificent Greek vase of the early
+fifth century B.C. A king--Persian, from his dress--was sitting in a
+chair of state, and before him stood a small man apparently
+delivering a message. [Greek: Aggelos] was roughly written over his
+head.
+
+The Squire walked up and down with a text of the _Persae_ in his
+hand.
+
+'"This vase," he dictated, "may be compared with one signed by
+Xenophantos, in the Paris collection, the subject of which is the
+Persian king, hunting. Here we have a Persian king, identified by
+his dress, apparently receiving a message from his army. We may
+illustrate it by the passage in the _Persae_ of AEschylus, where
+Atossa receives from a messenger the account of the battle of
+Salamis--a passage which contains the famous lines describing the
+Greek onslaught on the Persian fleet:
+
+'"'Then might you hear a mighty shout arise--
+
+'"'Go, ye sons of Hellas!--free your fathers, free your children and
+your wives, the temples of your gods, and the tombs of your
+ancestors. For now is all at stake!...'
+
+'"We may recall also the final summing-up by the [Greek: aggelos] of
+the Persian defeat--
+
+'"'_Never, on a single day, was there so great a slaying of men._'"'
+
+Elizabeth took down the words, first in Greek and then in English.
+They rang in her ears, long after she had transcribed them. The
+Squire moved up and down in silence, absorbed apparently in the play
+which he went on reading.
+
+Outside the light was failing. It was close on six o'clock, and
+summer time had not yet begun.
+
+Suddenly the Squire raised his head.
+
+'That, I think, was the telephone?'
+
+Elizabeth rose--
+
+'May I go? It is probably Captain Dell.'
+
+She hurried away to her office-room, where the call-bell was
+insistently ringing.
+
+'Yes--who is that?'
+
+'A telegram please--for Mr. Mannering--from London.'
+
+'Wait a moment--I will tell Mr. Mannering.'
+
+But as she turned to go back to the library she saw the Squire had
+followed her, and was standing at the door. He came forward at once
+and took up the receiver.
+
+Elizabeth watched him with a fast beating pulse. He heard the
+message, took out a pencil and wrote it down on a piece of paper
+lying near, put up the receiver, and turned to her.
+
+'It is from Aubrey. "Desmond is severely wounded. Please come at
+once. Permission will be given to you and Pamela to go to France. I
+hope to go with you. Will meet you King's Cross 8.40. Aubrey."'
+
+He steadied himself a moment by a hand on Elizabeth's table. She
+went up to him, and took his other hand, which closed an instant on
+hers.
+
+'I thought so,' he said, under his breath. 'I knew it.... Telephone,
+please, to Fallerton for the taxi, while I go and speak to Forest.'
+
+She gave the order and then hastened into the hall where Mrs.
+Gaddesden was busy trimming a hat. The Squire's eldest daughter
+sprang up at sight of Elizabeth.
+
+'Oh, what is it? I know it's bad news--it's Desmond!'
+
+Elizabeth repeated the telegram. 'Your father is going off at once.
+I have telephoned for the car.'
+
+'Oh, but I must go too--of course I must!' said Alice, weeping.
+'Where is my maid?'
+
+Elizabeth pointed out gently that, in speaking of the permits for
+France, Major Mannering had only referred to the Squire and Pamela.
+
+'Oh, but he must have meant me too--of course he must! Where is my
+maid?' She rang the upstairs' bell violently. 'Oh, father, how
+_awful_!'--the Squire had just entered the hall--'of course I'm
+going with you?'
+
+'What does she mean?' said the Squire impatiently to Elizabeth.
+'Tell her I'm going alone.'
+
+'But, father, you must take me!' cried Alice, running forward with
+clasped hands. 'He is my brother! I must see him again!'
+
+'He asks for Pamela,' said the Squire grimly. 'Aubrey shall wire to
+you. You'd better stay here--if Miss Bremerton will look after you.'
+
+'I don't want to be looked after--I want to look after Desmond and
+you,' said Alice, with sobs.
+
+The Squire's eyes travelled over the soft elaboration of her dress
+and hair--all her perfumed and fashionable person.
+
+'It is impossible,' he said sharply. Then turning to Elizabeth he
+gave her a few directions about his letters. 'I shall get money in
+town. I will wire directly we arrive.'
+
+Alice was silenced, and sat half sulky, half sobbing, by the fire,
+while the preparations for departure went forward. She offered help
+hysterically once or twice, but it was not needed.
+
+The little car from the village arrived in half an hour. The Squire
+stood at the hall door waiting for it. He had not spoken since the
+news arrived except to give the most necessary orders. But as he saw
+the car nearing the house, he turned to Elizabeth.
+
+'I expect we shall cross to-night. I shall wire you to-morrow.' Then
+to Forest--
+
+'Do your best to help Miss Bremerton. She is in charge of
+everything.'
+
+'Aye, sir. You'll give our duty to Mr. Desmond, sir. I trust you'll
+bring him home.'
+
+The Squire made no reply. He stood motionless till the car arrived,
+stepped into it, and was gone.
+
+Elizabeth went back into the house, and to Alice Gaddesden, still
+sobbing by the fire. At sight of Elizabeth she broke out into
+complaints of her father's unkindness, mixed presently, to
+Elizabeth's dismay, with jealousy of her father's secretary.
+
+'I don't know why father didn't let me help him with his packing,
+and it's I who should have been left in charge! I'm his eldest
+daughter--it is natural that I should be. I can tell you it's very
+hard--to see somebody--who's not a relation--doing--doing everything
+for him!--so that he won't let anybody else advise him--or do
+anything! It is very--very--wounding for us all. Pamela feels it--I
+know she does--and Desmond too.'
+
+Elizabeth, very white and distressed, knelt down by her and tried to
+calm her. But the flood of angry self-pity could not be stayed.
+
+'Oh, I daresay you don't mean it, but you have--yes, you have a way
+of getting everybody's attention. Of course you're awfully
+clever--much cleverer than I am--or Pamela. But still it--it isn't
+pleasant. I know Pamela felt it dreadfully--being cut out with
+people she likes--people she cares about--and who--who might
+care for her--like Arthur Chicksands. I believe--yes, I do
+believe--though she never told me--that's why she went to London.'
+
+Elizabeth rose from her knees. For a moment she was struck dumb. And
+when at last she spoke it was only to repeat the name Mrs. Gaddesden
+had mentioned in utter bewilderment.
+
+'Captain Chicksands! What can you mean?'
+
+'Why, of course girls can't hold their own with older women when the
+older women are so charming and clever--and all that'--cried Mrs.
+Gaddesden, trying desperately to justify herself--'but I've been
+awfully sorry for Pamela! Very likely it's not your fault--you
+couldn't know, I daresay!'
+
+'No, indeed, I didn't know!' said Elizabeth, in a low voice, 'and I
+can't understand now what you mean.'
+
+'Don't you remember the day Arthur Chicksands spent here just before
+Desmond went? Don't you remember how he talked to you all the
+afternoon about the woods? Well, _I_ saw Pamela's face as she was
+sitting behind you.'
+
+Mrs. Gaddesden raised a triumphant though tear-stained countenance.
+She was avenging not only her father's latest slight, but a long
+series of grievances--small and great--connected with Elizabeth's
+position in the house. And the Squire's farewell to her had turned
+even her grief to gall.
+
+'If Pamela was hurt, I was a most innocent cause!' said Elizabeth at
+last, indignantly. 'And if you or any one else had given me the
+smallest hint--'
+
+'How could we?' was the rather sulky reply. 'Pamela, of course,
+never said a word--to me. But I rather think she did say something
+to Desmond.'
+
+'Desmond!' cried Elizabeth under her breath. She turned slowly, and
+went away, leaving Mrs. Gaddesden panting and a little scared at
+what she had done.
+
+Elizabeth went back to the library, where there was much to put in
+order. She forced herself to tidy the Squire's table, and to write a
+business letter or two. But when that was done she dropped her face
+in her hands, and shed a few very bitter tears.
+
+She seemed to herself to have failed miserably. In truth, her heart
+clung to all these people. She soon attached herself to those with
+whom she lived, and was but little critical of them. The warm,
+maternal temper which went with her shrewd brain seemed to need
+perpetually objects on which to spend itself. She could have loved
+the twins dearly had they let her, and day by day, in the absence of
+the mother, she had been accustomed to nurse, she had even
+positively enjoyed 'petting' Mrs. Gaddesden, holding her wool for
+her, seeing to her hot-water bottles, and her breakfast in bed.
+
+Pamela in love with Arthur Chicksands! And she remembered that a
+faint idea of it had once crossed her mind, only to be entirely
+dismissed and forgotten.
+
+'But I ought to have seen--I ought to have known! Am I really a
+vampire?'
+
+And she remembered how she, in her first youth, had suffered from
+the dominance and the accomplishment of older women; women who gave
+a girl no chance, who must have all the admiration, and all the
+opportunities, who would coolly and cruelly snatch a girl's lover
+from her.
+
+'And that's how I've appeared to Pamela!' thought Elizabeth between
+laughing and crying. 'Yet all I did was to talk about ash for
+aeroplanes! Oh, you poor child--you poor child!'
+
+She seemed to feel Pamela's pain in her own heart--she who had had
+love and lost it.
+
+'Am I just an odious, clever woman?' She sat down and hated herself.
+All the passing vanity that had been stirred in her by Sir Henry's
+compliments, all the natural pleasure she had taken in the success
+of her great adventure as a business woman, in the ease with which
+she, the Squire's paid secretary, had lately begun to lead the
+patriotic effort of an English county--how petty, how despicable
+even, it seemed, in presence of a boy who had given his all!--even
+beside a girl in love!
+
+And the Squire--'Was I hard to him too?'
+
+The night came down. All the strange or beautiful shapes in the
+library wavered and flickered under the firelight--the glorious
+Nike--the Eros--the noble sketch of the boy in his cricketing
+dress....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following morning came a telegram from Aubrey Mannering to Mrs.
+Gaddesden. Elizabeth had done her best to propitiate her but she
+remained cold and thorny, and when the telegram came she was pleased
+that the news came to her first, and--tragic as it was--that
+Elizabeth had to ask her for it!
+
+'Terrible wounds. Fear no hope. We shall bring him home as soon as
+possible.'
+
+But an hour later arrived another--from the Squire to Elizabeth.
+
+'Have a bed got ready in the library. Desmond's wish. Also
+accommodation near for surgeon and nurses. May be able to cross
+to-morrow. Will wire.'
+
+But it was nearly two days before the final message arrived--from
+Pamela to her sister. 'Expect us 7.20 to-night.'
+
+By that time the ground-floor of the west wing had been transformed
+into a temporary ward with its adjuncts, under the direction of a
+Fallerton doctor, who had brought Desmond into the world and pulled
+him through his childish illnesses. Elizabeth had moved most of the
+statues, transferred the Sargent sketch to the drawing-room, and put
+all the small archaeological litter out of sight. But the Nike was
+too big and heavy to be moved, and Elizabeth remembered that Desmond
+had always admired 'the jolly old thing' with its eager outstretched
+wings and splendid brow. Doctor Renshaw shook his head over the
+library as a hospital ward, and ordered a vast amount of meticulous
+cleaning and disinfection.
+
+'No hope?' he said, frowning. 'How do we know? Anyway there shall be
+no poison I can help.' But the boy's wish was law.
+
+On the afternoon before the arrival, Elizabeth was seized with
+restlessness. When there was nothing more to be done in the way of
+hospital provision (for which a list of everything needed had been
+sent ahead to Doctor Renshaw)--of flowers, of fair linen--and when,
+in spite of the spring sun shining in through all the open windows
+on the bare spotless boards, she could hardly bear the sight and
+meaning of the transformation which had come over the room, she
+found herself aimlessly wandering about the big house, filled with a
+ghostly sense of past and future. What was to be the real meaning of
+her life at Mannering? She could not have deserted the Squire in the
+present crisis. She had indeed no false modesty as to what her help
+would mean, practically, to this household under the shadow of
+death. At least she could run the cook and the servants, wrestle
+with the food difficulties, and keep the Squire's most essential
+business going.
+
+But afterwards? She shivered at the word. Yes, afterwards she would
+go! And Pamela should reign.
+
+Suddenly, in a back passage, leading from her office to the
+housekeeper's room, she came upon a boy of fourteen, Forest's
+hall-boy, really a drudge-of-all-work, on whom essential things
+depended. He was sitting on a chair beside the luggage lift absorbed
+in some work, over which his head was bent, while an eager tip of
+tongue showed through his tightened lips.
+
+'What are you doing, Jim?' Elizabeth paused beside the boy, who had
+always appeared to her as a simple, docile creature, not very likely
+to make much way in a jostling world.
+
+'Please, Miss, I'm knitting,' said Jim, raising a flushed face.
+
+'Knitting! Knitting what?'
+
+'Knitting a sock for my big brother. He's in France, Miss. Mother
+learnt me.'
+
+Elizabeth was silent a moment, watching the clumsy fingers as they
+struggled with the needles.
+
+'Are you very fond of your brother, Jim?' she asked at last.
+
+'Yes, Miss,' said the boy, stooping a little lower over his work.
+Then he added, 'There's only him and me--and mother. Father was
+killed last year.'
+
+'Do you know where he is?'
+
+'No, Miss. But Mr. Desmond told me when he was here he might perhaps
+see him. And I had a letter from Mr. Desmond ten days ago. He'd come
+across Bob, and he wrote me a letter.'
+
+And out of his pocket he pulled a grimy envelope, and put it into
+Elizabeth's hands.
+
+'Do you want me to read it, Jim?'
+
+'Please, Miss.' But she was hardly able to read the letters for the
+dimness in her eyes. Just a boyish letter--from a boy to a boy. But
+it had in it, quite unconsciously, the sacred touch that 'makes us
+men.'
+
+A little later she was in the village, where a woman she knew--one
+Mary Wilson--was dying, a woman who had been used to come up to do
+charing work at the Hall, before the last illness of a bed-ridden
+father kept her at home. Mary was still under fifty, plain, clumsy,
+and the hardest worker in the village. She lived at the outbreak of
+war with her father and mother. Her brother had been killed at
+Passchendaele, and Mary's interest in life had vanished with him.
+But all through the winter she had nursed her father night and day
+through a horrible illness. Often, as Elizabeth had now discovered,
+in the bitterest cold of the winter, she had had no bed but the
+flagstones of the kitchen. Not a word of complaint--and a few
+shillings for both of them to live upon!
+
+At last the father died. And the night he died Mary staggered across
+to the wretched cottage of a couple of old-age pensioners opposite.
+'I must rest a bit,' she said, and sitting down in a chair by the
+fire she fainted. Influenza had been on her for some days, and now
+pneumonia had set in. The old people would not hear of her being
+taken back to her deserted cottage. They gave up their own room to
+her; they did everything for her their feeble strength allowed. But
+the fierce disease beat down her small remaining strength.
+Elizabeth, since the story came to her knowledge, had done her best
+to help. But it was too late.
+
+She went now to kneel at the beside of the dying woman. Mary's weary
+eyes lifted, and she smiled faintly at the lady who had been kind to
+her. Then unconsciousness returned, and the village nurse gave it as
+her opinion that the end was near.
+
+Elizabeth looked round the room. Thank God the cottage did not
+belong to the Squire! The bedroom was about ten feet by seven, with
+a sloping thatched roof, supported by beams three centuries old. The
+one window was about two feet square. The nurse pointed to it.
+
+'The doctor said no pneumonia case could possibly recover in a room
+like this. And there are dozens of them, Miss, in this village. Oh,
+Mary is glad to go. She nursed her mother for years, and then her
+father for years. She never had a day's pleasure, and she was as
+good as gold.'
+
+Elizabeth held the clammy, misshapen hand, pressing her lips to it
+when she rose to go, as to the garment of a saint.
+
+Then she walked quickly back through the fading spring day, her
+heart torn with prayer and remorse--remorse that such a life as Mary
+Wilson's should have been possible within reach of her own life and
+she not know it; and passionate praying for a better world, through
+and after the long anguish of the war.
+
+'Else for what will these boys have given their lives!--what meaning
+in the suffering and the agony!--or in the world which permits and
+begets them?'
+
+Then, at last, it was past seven o'clock. The dusk had fallen, and
+the stars were coming out in a pure pale blue, over the leafless
+trees. Elizabeth and Alice Gaddesden stood waiting at the open door
+of the hall. A motor ambulance was meeting the train. They would
+soon be here now.
+
+Elizabeth turned to Mrs. Gaddesden.
+
+'Won't you give a last look and see if it is all right?'
+
+Alice's weak, pretty face cleared, as she went off to give a final
+survey to Desmond's room. She admitted that Elizabeth had been
+'nice' that day, and all the days before. Perhaps she had been
+hasty.
+
+Lights among the distant trees! Elizabeth thought of the boy who had
+gone out from that door, two months before, in the charm and beauty
+of his young manhood. What wreck was it they were bringing back?
+
+Then the remembrance stabbed her of that curt note from France--of
+what Mrs. Gaddesden had said. She withdrew into the background. With
+all the rest to help, she would not be wanted. Yes, she had been too
+masterful, too prominent.
+
+Two motors appeared, the ambulance motor behind another. They drew
+up at the side door leading direct through a small lobby to the
+library, and the Squire, his eldest son, and Captain Chicksands
+stepped out--then Pamela.
+
+Pamela ran up to her sister. The girl's eyes were red with crying,
+but she was composed.
+
+'On the whole, he has borne the journey well. Where is Miss
+Bremerton?'
+
+Elizabeth, hearing her name, emerged from the shadow in which she
+was standing. To her astonishment Pamela threw an arm round her neck
+and kissed her.
+
+'Is everything ready?'
+
+'Everything. Will you come and see?'
+
+'Yes. They won't want us here.'
+
+For the lobby was small; and surgeon and nurses were already
+standing beside the open door of the ambulance, the surgeon giving
+directions to the stretcher-bearers of the estate who had been
+waiting.
+
+Pamela looked at the bed, the nurses' table, the bare boards, the
+flowers. Her face worked pitifully. She turned to Elizabeth, who
+caught her in her arms.
+
+'Oh, I am glad you have put the picture away!'
+
+One deep sob, and she recovered herself.
+
+'He's not much disfigured,' she murmured, 'only a cut on the
+forehead. Most of the journey he has been quite cheerful. That was
+the morphia. But he's tired now. They're coming in.'
+
+But it was the Squire who entered--asking peremptorily for Miss
+Bremerton.
+
+The well-known voice struck some profound response in Elizabeth. She
+turned to him. How changed, how haggard, was the aspect!
+
+'Martin--that's the surgeon we've brought with us--wants something
+from Fallerton at once. Renshaw's here, but he can't be spared for
+telephoning. Come, please!'
+
+But before she could pass through the door, it was filled by a
+procession. The stretcher came through, followed by the surgeon and
+nurses who had come from France. Elizabeth caught a glimpse of a
+white face and closed eyes. It was as though something royal and
+sacred entered the hushed room. She could have fallen on her knees,
+as in a Breton 'pardon' when the Host goes by.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+The bustle of the arrival was over. The doctors had given their
+orders, the nurses were at their posts for the night, and, under
+morphia, Desmond was sleeping. In the shaded library there were only
+hushed voices and movements. By the light of the one lamp, which was
+screened from the bed, one saw dimly the fantastic shapes in the
+glass cases which lined the walls--the little Tanagra figures with
+their sun-hats and flowing dress--bronzes of Apollo or Hermes--a
+bronze bull--an ibex--a cup wreathed with acanthus. And in the
+shadow at the far end rose the great Nike. She seemed to be asking
+what the white bed and the shrouded figure upon it might
+mean--protesting that these were not her symbols, or a language that
+she knew.
+
+Yet at times, as the light varied, she seemed to take another
+aspect. To Aubrey, sitting beside his brother, the Nike more than
+once suggested the recollection of a broken Virgin hanging from a
+fragment of a ruined church which he remembered on a bit of road
+near Mametz, at which he had seen passing soldiers look stealthily
+and long. Her piteous arms, empty of the babe, suggested motherhood
+to boys fresh from home; and there were moments when this hovering
+Nike seemed to breathe a mysterious tenderness like hers--became a
+proud and splendid angel of consolation--only, indeed, to resume,
+with some fresh change in the shadows, its pagan indifference, its
+exultant loneliness.
+
+The Squire sat by the fire, staring into the redness of the logs.
+Occasionally nurse or doctor would come and whisper to him. He
+scarcely seemed to hear them. What was the good of talking? He
+knew that Desmond was doomed--that his boy's noble body was
+shattered--and the end could only be a question of days--possibly
+a week. During the first nights of Desmond's sufferings, the
+Squire had lived through what had seemed an eternity of torment.
+Now there was no more agony. Morphia could be freely given--and
+would be given till all was over. The boy's young strength was
+resisting splendidly, a vitality so superb was hard to beat; but
+beaten it would be, by the brutality of the bullet which had
+inflicted an internal injury past repair, against which the energy
+of the boy's youth might hold out for a few days--not more. That
+was why he had been allowed to bring his son home--to die. If
+there had been a ray, a possibility of hope, every resource of
+science would have been brought to bear on saving him, there in
+that casualty clearing-station, itself a large hospital, where the
+Squire had found him.
+
+All the scenes, incidents, persons of the preceding days were
+flowing in one continuous medley through the Squire's mind--the
+great spectacle of the back of the Army, with all its endless
+movement, its crowded roads and marching men, the hovering
+aeroplanes, the _camouflaged_ guns, the long trains of artillery
+waggons and motor-lorries, strange faces of Kaffir boys and Chinese,
+grey lines of German prisoners. And then, the hospital. Nothing very
+much doing, so he was told. Yet hour after hour the wounded came in,
+men shattered by bomb and shell and rifle-bullet, in the daily raids
+that went on throughout the line. And scarcely a moan, scarcely a
+word of complaint!--men giving up their turn with the surgeon to a
+comrade--'Never mind me, sir--he's worse nor me!'--or the elder
+cheering the younger--'Stick it, young'un--this'll get you to
+Blighty right enough!'--or, in the midst of mortal pain, signing a
+field postcard for the people at home, or giving a message to a
+_padre_ for mother or wife. Like some monstrous hand, the grip of
+the war had finally closed upon the Squire's volatile, recalcitrant
+soul. It was now crushing the moral and intellectual energy in
+himself, as it had crushed the physical life of his son. For it was
+as though he were crouching on some bare space, naked and alone,
+like a wounded man left behind in a shell-hole by his comrades'
+advance. He was aware, indeed, of a mysterious current of spiritual
+force--patriotism, or religion, or both in one--which seemed to be
+the support of other men. He had seen incredible, superhuman proofs
+of it in those few hospital days. But it was of no use to him.
+
+There was only one dim glimmer in his mind--towards which at
+intervals he seemed to be reaching out. A woman's face--a woman's
+voice--in which there seemed to be some offer of help or comfort. He
+had seen her--she was somewhere in the house. But there seemed to be
+insuperable barriers--closed doors, impassable spaces--between
+himself and her. It was a nightmare, partly the result of fatigue
+and want of sleep.
+
+When he had first seen his son, Desmond was unconscious, and the end
+was hourly expected. He remembered telegraphing to a famous surgeon
+at home to come over; he recalled the faces of the consultants round
+Desmond's bed, and the bald man with the keen eyes, who had brought
+him the final verdict:
+
+'Awfully sorry!--but we can do nothing! He may live a little
+while--and he has been begging and praying us to send him home.
+Better take him--the authorities will give leave. I'll see to
+that--it can't do much harm. The morphia will keep down the
+pain--and the poor lad will die happy.' And then there was much talk
+of plaster bandages, and some new mechanical appliance to prevent
+jolting--of the surgeon going home on leave who would take charge of
+the journey--of the nurses to be sent--and other matters of which he
+only retained a blurred remembrance.
+
+The journey had been one long and bitter endurance. And now Desmond
+was here--his son Desmond--lying for a few days in that white
+bed--under the old roof. And afterwards a fresh grave in Fallerton
+churchyard--a flood of letters which would be burnt unread--and a
+world without Desmond.
+
+Meanwhile, in a corner of the hall, Chicksands and Pamela were
+sitting together--hand in hand. From the moment when he had gone
+down to Folkestone to meet them, and had seen Pamela's piteous and
+beautiful face, as she followed the stretcher on which Desmond lay,
+across the landing-stage of the boat, Chicksands' mind had been
+suddenly clear. No words, indeed, except about the journey and
+Desmond had passed between them. But she had seen in his dark eyes a
+sweetness, a passion of protection and help which had thawed all the
+ice in her heart, and freed the waters of life. She was ashamed of
+herself, but only for a little while! For in Desmond's presence all
+that concerned herself passed clean out of sight and mind. It was
+not till she saw Elizabeth that remorse lifted its head again; and
+whatever was delicate and sensitive in the girl's nature revived,
+like scorched grass after rain.
+
+Since the hurried, miserable meal, in which Elizabeth had watched
+over them all, Pamela had followed Elizabeth about, humbly trying to
+help her in the various household tasks. Then when at last Elizabeth
+had gone off to telephone some final orders to Captain Dell at
+Fallerton for the morning Pamela and Arthur were left alone.
+
+He came over to where she sat, and drew a chair beside her.
+
+'Poor child!' he said, under his breath--'poor child!'
+
+She lifted her eyes, swimming in tears.
+
+'Isn't it marvellous, how she's thought of everything--done
+everything?'
+
+Elizabeth had not been in his mind, but he understood the _amende_
+offered and was deeply touched.
+
+'Yes, she's a wonderful creature. Let her care for you, Pamela, dear
+Pamela!'
+
+He lifted her hand to his lips, and put his arm round her. She leant
+against him, and he gently kissed her cheek. So Love came to them,
+but in its most tragic dress, veiled and dumb, with haggard eyes of
+grief.
+
+Then Pamela tried to tell him all that she herself had understood of
+the gallant deed, the bit of 'observation work' in the course of
+which Desmond had received his wound. He had gone out with another
+subaltern, a sergeant, and a telephonist, creeping by night over No
+Man's Land to a large shell-hole, close upon an old crater where a
+German outpost of some thirty men had found shelter. They had
+remained there for forty-eight hours--unrelieved--listening and
+telephoning. Then having given all necessary information to the
+artillery Headquarters which had sent them out, they started on the
+return journey. But they were seen and fired on. Desmond might have
+escaped but for his determined endeavours to bring in the Sergeant,
+who was the first of them to fall. A German sniper hidden in a
+fragment of ruin caught the boy just outside the British line; he
+fell actually upon the trench.
+
+Desmond had been the leader all through, said Pamela; his Colonel
+said he was 'the pluckiest, dearest fellow'--he failed 'in nothing
+you ever asked him for.'
+
+Just such a story as comes home, night after night, and week after
+week, from the fighting line! Nothing remarkable in it, except,
+perhaps, the personal quality of the boy who had sacrificed his
+life. Arthur Chicksands, with three years of the war behind him,
+felt that he knew it by heart--could have repeated it, almost in his
+sleep, and each time with a different name.
+
+'The other lieutenant who was with him,' said Pamela, 'told us he
+was in splendid spirits the day before; and then at night, just
+before they started, Desmond was very quiet, and they said to each
+other that whatever happened that night they never expected to see
+England again; and each promised the other that the one who
+survived, if either did, would take messages home. Desmond told him
+he was to tell me, if he was killed--that he'd "had a splendid
+life"--and lived it "_all out_." "She's not to think of it as cut
+short. I've had it _all_. One lives here a year in a day." And he'd
+only been seven weeks at the front! He said it was the things he'd
+seen--not the horrible things--but the glorious things that made
+him feel like that. Now he did believe there was a God--and I must
+believe it too.'
+
+The tears ran down her face. Arthur held the quivering hands close
+in his; and through his soldier's mind, alive with the latest and
+innermost knowledge of the war, there flashed a terrible pre-vision
+of the weeks to come, the weeks of the great offensive, the storm of
+which might break any day--was certain, indeed, to break soon, and
+would leave behind it, trampled like leaves into a mire of blood,
+thousands of lives like Desmond's--Britain's best and rarest.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An hour later the hall was deserted, except for Elizabeth, who,
+after seeing Pamela to bed, came down to write some household
+letters by the only fire. Presently the surgeon who was sitting up
+with Desmond appeared, looking worried. His countenance brightened
+at sight of Elizabeth, with whom he had already had much practical
+consultation.
+
+'Could you persuade Mr. Mannering to go to bed?'
+
+Elizabeth rose with some hesitation and followed him into the
+library. The great room, once so familiar, now so strange, the
+nurses in their white uniforms, moving silently, one standing by the
+bed, watch in hand--Major Mannering on the farther side,
+motionless--the smell of antiseptics, the table by the bed with all
+its paraphernalia of bandages, cups, glasses, medicine bottles--the
+stillness of brooding death which held it all--seemed to dash from
+her any last, blind, unreasonable hope that she might have
+cherished.
+
+The Squire standing by the fire, where he had been opposing a
+silent but impatient opposition to the attempt of doctor and nurses
+to make him take some rest, saw Elizabeth enter. His eyes clung to
+her as she approached him. So she _was_ near him--and he was not cut
+off from her.
+
+Then the surgeon watched with astonishment the sudden docility of a
+man who had already seemed to him one of the most unmanageable of
+persons. What spell had this woman exercised? At any rate, after a
+few whispered words from her, the Squire bowed his white head and
+followed her out of the room.
+
+In the hall Elizabeth offered him a candle, and begged him to go to
+bed. He shook his head, and pointed to a chair by the dying fire.
+
+'That will do. Then I shall hear--'
+
+He threw himself into it. She brought him a rug, for the night was
+chilly, and he submitted.
+
+Then she was going away, for it was past midnight, but something in
+his fixed look, his dull suffering, checked her. She took an old
+stool and sat down near him. Neither spoke, but his eyes gradually
+turned to hers, and a strange communion arose between them. Though
+there were no words, he seemed to be saying to her--'My boy!--my
+boy!'--over and over again--and then--'Stay there!--for God's sake,
+stay!'
+
+And she stayed. The failing lamp showed her upturned face, with its
+silent intensity of pity, her hands clasped round her knees, and the
+brightness of her hair. The long minutes passed. Then suddenly the
+Squire's eyelids fell, and he slept the sleep of a man physically
+and mentally undone.
+
+Aubrey Mannering sat by his brother all night. With the first dawn
+Desmond awoke, and there was an awful interval of pain. But a fresh
+morphia injection eased it, and Aubrey presently saw a smile--a look
+of the old Desmond. The nurse washed the boy's hands and face,
+brought him a cup of tea, took pulse and temperature.
+
+'He's no worse,' she said in a whisper to Aubrey, as she passed him.
+
+Aubrey went up to the bed.
+
+'Aubrey, old chap!' said the boy, and smiled at him. Then--'It's
+daylight. Can't I look out?'
+
+The nurse and Mannering wheeled his bed to the window, which opened
+to the ground. A white frost was on the grass, and there was a clear
+sky through which the sunrise was fast mounting. Along an eastern
+wood ran a fiery rose of dawn, the fine leaf-work of the beeches
+showing sharply upon it. There was a thrush singing, and a robin
+came close to the window, hopped on the ledge, and looked in.
+
+'Ripping!' said Desmond softly. 'There were jolly mornings in France
+too.' Then his clear brow contracted. Aubrey stooped to him.
+
+'Any news?' said the blanched lips.
+
+'None yet, old man. We shan't get the papers till eight.'
+
+'What's the date?'
+
+'March 18th.'
+
+Desmond gave a long sigh.
+
+'I would have liked to be in it!'
+
+'In the big battle?' Aubrey's lip trembled. 'You have done your bit,
+old man.'
+
+'But how is it going to _end_?' said the boy, moving his head
+restlessly. 'Shall we win?--or they? I shall live as long as ever I
+can--just to know. I feel quite jolly now--isn't it strange?--and
+yet I made the doctors tell me--'
+
+He turned a bright look on his brother, and his voice grew
+stronger. 'I had such a queer dream last night, Aubrey,--about
+you--and that friend of yours--do you remember?--you used to bring
+him down--to stay here--when Pam and I were little--Freddy Vivian--'
+
+The boy looking out into the woods and the morning did not see the
+change--the spasm--in his brother's face. He continued--'We kids
+liked him awfully. Well, I saw him! I actually did. He stood
+there--by you. He was talking a lot--I didn't understand--but--'
+
+A sudden movement. Aubrey fell on his knees beside the bed. His deep
+haggard eyes stared at his brother. There was in them an anguish, an
+eagerness, scarcely human.
+
+'Desmond!--can't you remember?'
+
+The words were just breathed--panted.
+
+Desmond, whose eyes had closed again, smiled faintly.
+
+'Why, of course I can't remember. He had his hand on your shoulder.
+I just thought he was cheering you up--about something.'
+
+'Desmond!--it was I that killed him--I could have saved him!'
+
+The boy opened his eyes. His startled look expressed the question he
+had not strength to put.
+
+Aubrey bent over the bed, speaking hurriedly--under possession. 'It
+was at Neuve Chapelle. I had gone back for help--he and ten or
+twelve others who had moved on too fast were waiting in a bit of
+shelter till I could get some more men from the Colonel. The Germans
+were coming on thick. And I went back. There was a barrage on--and
+on the way--I shirked--my nerve went. I sat down for twenty minutes
+by my watch--I hid--in a shell-hole. Then I went to the Colonel, and
+he gave me the men. And when we got up to the post, I was just a
+quarter of an hour too late. Vivian was lying there dead--and the
+others had been mopped up--prisoners--by a German bombing party. It
+was I who killed Vivian. No one knows.'
+
+Aubrey's eyes searched those of the boy.
+
+The next moment Mannering was torn with poignant remorse that, under
+the sudden shock of that name, he should have spoken at last--after
+three years--to this dying lad. Crime added to crime!
+
+'Don't think of it any more, Desmond,' he said hurriedly, raising
+himself and laying his hand on his brother's. 'I oughtn't to have
+told you.'
+
+But Desmond showed no answering agitation.
+
+'I did see him!' he whispered. 'He stood there--' His eyes turned
+towards the window. He seemed to be trying to remember--but soon
+gave up the effort. 'Poor old Aubrey!' His feeble hand gave a faint
+pressure to his brother's. 'Why, it wasn't you, old fellow!--it was
+your body.'
+
+Aubrey could not reply. He hid his face in his hands. The effort of
+his own words had shaken him from top to toe. To no human being had
+he ever breathed what he had just told his young brother. Life
+seemed broken--disorganized.
+
+Desmond was apparently watching the passage of a flock of white
+south-westerly clouds across the morning sky. But his brain was
+working, and he said presently--
+
+'After I was struck, I hated my body. I'd--I'd like to commit my
+spirit to God--but not my body!'
+
+Then again--very faintly--
+
+'It was only your body, Aubrey--not your soul. Poor old Aubrey!'
+Then he dozed off again, with intervals of pain.
+
+At eight o'clock Pamela came in--a vision of girlish beauty in spite
+of watching and tears, in her white dressing-gown, the masses of her
+hair loosely tied.
+
+She sat down by him, and the nurse allowed her to give him milk and
+brandy. Paralysis in the lower limbs was increasing, but the brain
+was clear, and the suffering less.
+
+He smiled at her, after the painful swallowing was over.
+
+'Why!--you're so like mother, Pamela!'
+
+He was thinking of the picture in the 'den.' She raised his hand,
+and kissed it--determined to be brave, not to break down.
+
+'Where's Broomie?' he whispered.
+
+'She'd like to come and see you, Dezzy. Dezzy, darling!--I was all
+wrong. She's been so good--good to father--good to all of us.'
+
+The boy's eyes shone.
+
+'I thought so!' he said triumphantly. 'Is she up?'
+
+'Long ago. Shall I tell her? I'll ask Nurse.'
+
+And in a few more minutes Elizabeth was there.
+
+Desmond had been raised a little on his pillows, and flushed at
+sight of her. Timidly, he moved his hand, and she laid hers on it.
+Then, stirred by an impulse that seemed outside her will, she
+stooped over him, and kissed his forehead.
+
+'That was nice!' he murmured, smiling, and lay for a little with his
+eyes shut. When he opened them again, he said--
+
+'May I call you Elizabeth?'
+
+Elizabeth's tender look and gesture answered. He gazed at her in
+silence, gathering strength for some effort that was evidently on
+his mind.
+
+'Father minds awfully,' he said at last, his look clouding. 'And
+there's no one--to--to cheer him up.'
+
+'He loves you so,' said Elizabeth, with difficulty, 'he always has
+loved you so.'
+
+The furrow on his brow grew a little deeper.
+
+'But that doesn't matter now--nothing matters but--'
+
+After a minute he resumed, in a rather stronger voice--'Tell me
+about the woods--and the ash trees. I did laugh over that--old Hull
+telling you there were none--and you--Why, I could have shown him
+scores.'
+
+She told him all the story of the woods, holding his hot hand in her
+cool ones, damping his brow with the eau-de-cologne the nurses gave
+her, and smiling at him. Her voice soothed him. It was so clear and
+yet soft, like a song,--not a song of romance or passion, but like
+the cheerful crooning songs that mothers sing. And her face reminded
+him even more of his mother than Pamela's. She was not the least
+like his mother, but there was something in her expression that
+first youth cannot have--something comforting, profound, sustaining.
+
+He wanted her always to sit there. But his mind wandered from what
+she was saying after a little, and returned to his father.
+
+'Is father there?' he asked, trying to turn his head, and failing.
+
+'Not yet.'
+
+'Poor father! Elizabeth!' he spoke the name with a boyish shyness.
+
+'Yes!' She stooped over him.
+
+'You won't go away?'
+
+Elizabeth hesitated a moment, and he looked distressed.
+
+'From Mannering, I mean. Do stay, Broomie!'--the name slipped out,
+and in his weakness he did not notice it--'Pamela knows--that she
+was horrid!'
+
+'Dear Desmond, I will do everything I can for Pamela.'
+
+'And for father?'
+
+'Yes, indeed--I will be all the help I can,' repeated Elizabeth.
+
+Desmond relapsed into silence and apparent sleep. But Elizabeth's
+heart smote her. She felt she had not satisfied him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But before long by the mere natural force of her personality, she
+seemed to be the leading spirit in the sick-room. Only she could
+lead or influence the Squire, whose state of sullen despair
+terrified the household. The nurses and doctors depended on her for
+all those lesser aids that intelligence and love can bring to
+hospital service. The servants of the house would have worked all
+night and all day for her and Mr. Desmond. Yet all this was scarcely
+seen--it was only felt--'a life, a presence like the air.' Most of
+us have known the same experience--how, when human beings come to
+the testing, the values of a house change, and how men and women,
+who have been in it as those who serve, become naturally and
+noiselessly its rulers, and those who once ruled, their dependents.
+It was so at Mannering. A tender, unconscious sovereignty
+established itself; and both the weak and the strong grouped
+themselves round it.
+
+Especially did Elizabeth seem to understand the tragic fact that as
+death drew nearer the boy struggled more painfully to live, that he
+might know what was happening on the battlefield. He would have the
+telegrams read to him night and morning. And he would lie brooding
+over them for long afterwards. The Rector came to see him, and
+Desmond accepted gratefully his readings and his prayers. But they
+were scarcely done before he would turn to Elizabeth, and his eager
+feverish look would send her to the telephone to ask Arthur
+Chicksands at the War Office if Haig's mid-day telegram was in--or
+any fresh news.
+
+On the 20th of March, Chicksands, who had been obliged to go back to
+his work, came down again for the night. Desmond lay waiting for
+him, and Arthur saw at once that death was much nearer. But the boy
+had himself insisted on strychnine and morphia before the visit, and
+talked a great deal.
+
+The military news, however, that Chicksands brought him disappointed
+him greatly.
+
+'Not _yet_?'--he said miserably--'_not yet_?'--breathing his life
+into the words, when Chicksands read him a letter from a staff
+officer in the Intelligence Department describing the enormous
+German preparations for the offensive, but expressing the view--'It
+may be some days more before they risk it!'
+
+'I shall be gone before they begin!' he said, and lay sombre and
+frowning on his pillows, till Chicksands had beguiled him by some
+letters from men in Desmond's own division which he had taken
+special trouble to collect for him.
+
+And when the boy's mood and look were calmer, Arthur bent over him
+and gave him, with a voice that must shake, the news of his Military
+Cross--for 'brilliant leadership and conspicuous courage' in the
+bit of 'observation work' that had cost him his life.
+
+Desmond listened with utter incredulity and astonishment.
+
+'It's not me!'--he protested faintly--'it's a mistake!'
+
+Chicksands produced the General's letter--the Cross itself. Desmond
+looked at it with unwilling eyes.
+
+'I call it silly--perfectly silly! Why, there were fellows that
+deserved it ten times more than I did!'
+
+And he asked that it should be put away, and did not speak of it
+again.
+
+In all his talk with him that night, the elder officer was
+tragically struck by the boy's growth in intelligence. Just as death
+was claiming it, the young mind had broadened and deepened--had
+become the mind of a man. And in the vigil which he kept during part
+of that night with Martin, the able young surgeon who had brought
+Desmond home, and was spending his own hard-earned leave in easing
+the boy's death, Chicksands found that Martin's impression was the
+same as his own.
+
+'It's wonderful how he's grown and _thought_ since he's been out
+there. But do we ever consider--do we ever realize--enough!--what a
+marvellous thing it is that young men--boys--like Desmond--should be
+able to live, day after day, face to face with death--consciously
+and voluntarily--and get quite used to it? Which of us before
+the war had ever been in real physical danger--danger of
+violent death?--and that not for a few minutes--but for days,
+hours, weeks? It seems to make men over again--to create a
+new type--by the hundred thousand. And to some men it is an
+extraordinary intoxication--this conscious and deliberate
+acceptance--defiance!--of death--for a cause--for their country. It
+sets them free from themselves. It matures them, all in a moment--as
+though the bud and the flower came together. Oh, of course, there
+are those it brutalizes--and there are those it stuns. But Desmond
+was one of the chosen.'
+
+The night passed. The Squire came in after midnight, and took his
+place by the bed.
+
+Desmond was then restless and suffering, and the nurse in charge
+whispered to the Squire that the pulse was growing weaker. But the
+boy opened his eyes on his father, and tried to smile. The Squire
+sat bowed and bent beside him, and nurses and doctors withdrew from
+them a little--out of sight and hearing.
+
+'Desmond!' said the Squire in a low voice.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Is there anything I could do--to please you?' It was a humble and a
+piteous prayer. Desmond's eyes travelled over his father's face.
+
+'Only--love me!' he said, with difficulty. The Squire grew very
+white. Kneeling down he kissed his son--for the first time since
+Desmond was a child.
+
+Desmond's beautiful mouth smiled a little.
+
+'Thank you,' he said, so feebly that it could scarcely be heard.
+When the light began to come in he moved impatiently, asking for the
+newspapers. Elizabeth told him that old Perley had gone to meet them
+at the morning train at Fallerton, and would be out with them at the
+earliest possible moment.
+
+But when they came the boy turned almost angrily from them. 'The
+Shipping Problem--Attacks on British Ports--Raids on the French
+Front--Bombardment of German Towns--Curfew Regulations'--Pamela's
+faltering voice read out the headings.
+
+'Oh, what rot!' he said wearily--'what rot!'
+
+After that his strength ebbed visibly through the morning.
+
+Chicksands, who must return to town in the afternoon, sat with him,
+Pamela and Elizabeth opposite--Alice and Margaret not far away. The
+two doctors watched their patient, and Martin whispered to Aubrey
+Mannering, who had come down by a night train, that the struggle for
+life could not last much longer.
+
+Presently about one o'clock, Aubrey, who had been called out of the
+room, came back and whispered something to Chicksands, who at once
+went away. Elizabeth, looking up, saw agitation and expectancy in
+the Major's look. But he said nothing.
+
+In a few minutes Chicksands reappeared. He went straight to Desmond,
+and knelt down by him.
+
+'Desmond!' he said in a clear voice, 'the offensive's begun. The
+Chief in my room at the War Office has just been telephoning me. It
+began at eight this morning--on a front of fifty miles. Can you hear
+me?' The boy opened his eyes--straining them on Arthur.
+
+'It's begun!' he said eagerly--'begun! What have they done?'
+
+'The bombardment opened at dawn--about five--the German infantry
+attacked about eight. It's been going on the whole morning--and down
+the whole front from Arras to the Scarpe.'
+
+'And we've held?--we've _held_?'
+
+'So far magnificently. Our outpost troops have been withdrawn to the
+battle-zone--that's all. The line has held everywhere. The Germans
+have lost heavily.'
+
+'Outpost troops!' whispered the boy--'why, that's nothing! We always
+expected--to lose the first line. Good old Army!'
+
+A pause, and then--so faintly breathed as to be scarcely audible,
+and yet in ecstasy--'England!--England!'
+
+His joy was wonderful--heart-breaking--while all those around him
+wept.
+
+He lay murmuring to himself a little while, his hand in Pamela's.
+Then for a last time he looked at his father, but was now too weak
+to speak. His eyes, intently fixed on the Squire, kept their
+marvellous brightness--no one knew how long. Then gently, as though
+an unseen hand put out a light, the brilliance died away--the lids
+fell--and with a few breaths Desmond's young life was past.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+It was three weeks after Desmond's death. Pamela was sitting in the
+'den' writing a letter to Arthur Chicksands at Versailles. The first
+onslaught on Amiens was over. The struggle between Bethune and Ypres
+was in full swing.
+
+     'DEAREST--This house is so strange--the world is so strange!
+     Oh, if I hadn't my work to do!--how could one bear it? It seems
+     wrong and hateful even, to let one's mind dwell on the
+     wonderful, wonderful thing, that you love me! The British Army
+     retreating--_retreating_--after these glorious years--that is
+     what burns into me hour after hour! Thank God Desmond didn't
+     know! And if I feel like this, who am just an ignorant,
+     inexperienced girl, what must it be for you who are working
+     there, at the very centre, the news streaming in on you all the
+     time?--you who know how much there is to fear--but also how
+     much there is to be certain of--to be confident of--that we
+     can't know. Our splendid, _splendid_ men! Every day I watch for
+     the names I know in the death list--and some of them seem to be
+     always there. The boy--the other sub-lieutenant--who was with
+     Desmond when he was wounded, was in the list yesterday.
+     Forest's boy is badly wounded. The old gardener has lost
+     another son. Perley's boy is "missing," and so is the poor
+     Pennington boy. They are heroic--the Penningtons--but whenever
+     I see them I want to cry.... Oh, I can't write this any more.
+     I have been writing letters of sympathy all day.
+
+     'Dearest, you would be astonished if you could see me at this
+     moment. I am to-day a full blown group leader. Do you know what
+     that means? I have had a long round among some of our farms
+     to-day--bargaining with the farmers for the land-girls in my
+     group, and looking after their billets. Yesterday I spent half
+     the day in "docking" with six or eight village women to give
+     them a "send off." I don't believe you know what docking means.
+     It is pretty hard work, and at night I have a nightmare--of
+     roots that never come to an end, and won't pull out!
+
+     'You were quite right--it _is_ my work. I was born in the
+     country. I know and love it. The farmers are very nice to
+     me. They see I don't try to boss them as the Squire's
+     daughter--that I'm just working as they are. And I can say a
+     good deal to them about the war, because of Desmond. They all
+     knew him and loved him. Some of them tell me stories about his
+     pluck out hunting as a little chap, and though he had been such
+     a short time out in France he had written to two or three of
+     them about their sons in the Brookshires. He had a heavenly
+     disposition--oh, I wish I had!
+
+     'At the present moment I am in knee-breeches, gaiters, and
+     tunic, and I have just come in. Six o'clock to five, please
+     sir, with half-an-hour for breakfast and an hour for dinner (I
+     eat it out of a red handkerchief under a hedge). It was wet and
+     nasty, and I am pretty tired. But one does not want to
+     stop--because when one stops one begins to think. And my
+     thoughts, except for that shining centre where you are, are so
+     dark and full of sorrow. I miss Desmond every hour, and some
+     great monstrous demon seems to be clutching at me--at you--at
+     England--everything one loves and would die for--all day long.
+     But don't imagine that I ever _doubt_ for one moment. Not
+     I--
+
+          For right is right, since God is God,
+          And right the day must win;
+          To doubt would be disloyalty,
+          To falter would be sin.
+
+     I know that's not good poetry. But I just love it--because it's
+     plain and commonplace, and expresses just what ordinary people
+     feel and think.
+
+     'Oh, why was I such a fool about Elizabeth! Now that you are at
+     a safe distance--and of course on the understanding that you
+     never, never say a word to me about it--I positively will and
+     must confess that I was jealous of her about you--yes, about
+     you, Arthur--because you talked to her about Greek--and about
+     ash for aeroplanes--and I couldn't talk about them. There's a
+     nice nature for you! Hadn't you better get rid of me while you
+     can? But the thing that torments me is that I can never have it
+     quite out with Desmond. I told him lies, simply. I didn't know
+     they were lies, I suppose; but I was too angry and too unjust
+     to care whether they were or not. On the journey from France I
+     said a few little words to him--just enough, thank Heaven! He
+     was so sweet to her in those last days--and she to him. You
+     know one side of her _is_ the managing woman--and the other
+     (I've only found it out since Desmond's death)--well, she seems
+     to be just asking you to creep under her wings and be mothered!
+     She mothered him, and she has mothered me since he shut his
+     dear eyes for ever. Oh, why won't she mother us all--for good
+     and all!--father first and foremost.
+
+     'I told you something about him last time I wrote, but there is
+     a great deal more to tell. The horrible thing is that he seems
+     not to care any more for any of his old hobbies. He sits there
+     in the library day after day, or walks about it for hours and
+     hours, without ever opening a book or looking at a thing. Or
+     else he walks about the woods--sometimes quite late at night.
+     Forest believes he sleeps very little. I told you he never came
+     to Desmond's funeral. All business he hands over to Elizabeth,
+     and what she asks him he generally does. But we all have vague,
+     black fears about him. I know Elizabeth has. Yet she is quite
+     clear she can't stay here much longer. Dear Arthur, I don't
+     know exactly what happened, but I _think_ father asked her to
+     marry him, and she said no. And I am tolerably sure that I
+     counted for a good deal in it--horrid wretch that I am!--that
+     she thought it would make me unhappy.
+
+     'Well, I am properly punished. For if or when she goes
+     away--and you and I are married--if there is to be any marrying
+     any more in this awful world!--what will become of my father?
+     He has been a terrifying mystery to me all my life. Now it is
+     not that any longer. I know at least that he worshipped
+     Desmond. But I know also that I mean nothing to him. I don't
+     honestly think it was much my fault--and it can't be helped.
+     And nobody else in the family matters. The only person who does
+     matter is Elizabeth. And I quite see that she can't stay here
+     indefinitely. She told me she promised Desmond she would stay
+     as long as she could. Just at present, of course, she is the
+     mainspring of everything on the estate. And they have actually
+     made her this last week Vice-Chairman of the County War
+     Agricultural Committee. She refused, but they _made_ her. Think
+     of that--a woman--with all those wise men! She asked father's
+     leave. He just looked at her, and I saw the tears come into her
+     eyes.
+
+     'As to Beryl and Aubrey, he was here last Sunday, and she spent
+     the day with us. He seems to lean upon her in a new way--and
+     she looks different somehow--happier, I think. He told me, the
+     day after Desmond died, that Dezzy had said something to him
+     that had given him courage--"courage to go on," I think he
+     said. I didn't ask him what he meant, and he didn't tell me.
+     But I am sure he has told Beryl, and either that--or something
+     else--has made her more confident in herself--and about him.
+     They are to be married quite soon. Last week father sent him,
+     without a word, a copy of his will. Aubrey says it is very
+     fair. Mannering goes to him, of course. You know that Elizabeth
+     refused to witness the codicil father wrote last October
+     disinheriting Aubrey, when he was so mad with Sir Henry? It was
+     the first thing that made father take real notice of her. She
+     had only been six weeks here!
+
+     'Good-night, my dearest, dearest Arthur! Don't be too much
+     disappointed in me. I shall grow up some day.'
+
+A few days later the Squire came back from Fallerton to find nobody
+in the house, apparently, but himself. He went through the empty
+hall and the library, and shut himself up there. He carried an
+evening paper crumpled in his hand. It contained a detailed report
+of the breaking of the Portuguese centre near Richebourg St. Vaast
+on April 10, and the consequent retreat, over some seven miles,
+since that day of the British line, together with the more recent
+news of the capture of Armentieres and Merville. Sitting down at his
+own table he read the telegrams again, and then in the stop-press
+Sir Douglas Haig's Order of the Day--
+
+'_There is no other course open to us but to fight it out. Every
+position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement.
+With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our
+cause, each one of us must fight to the end. The safety of our homes
+and the freedom of mankind depend alike upon the conduct of each one
+of us at this critical moment._'
+
+The Squire read and re-read the words. He was sitting close to the
+tall French window where through some fine spring days Desmond had
+lain, his half-veiled eyes wandering over the woods and green spaces
+which had been his childhood's companions. There--submissive for
+himself, but, for England's sake, and so that his mind might receive
+as long as possible the impress of her fate, an ardent wrestler with
+Death through each disputed hour--he had waited; and there, with the
+word _England_ on his lips, he had died. The Squire could still see
+the marks made on the polished floor by the rolling backward of the
+bed at night. And on the wall near there was a brown mark on the
+wall-paper. He remembered that it had been made by a splash from a
+bowl of disinfectant, and that he had stared at it one morning in a
+dumb torment which seemed endless, because Desmond had woke in pain
+and the morphia was slow to act.
+
+_England_! His boy was dead--and his country had its back to the
+wall. And he--what had he done for England, all these years of her
+struggle? His carelessness, his indifference returned upon him--his
+mad and selfish refusal, day by day, to give his mind, or his body,
+or his goods, to the motherland that bore him.
+
+'_Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?_'
+
+No--it had been nothing to him. But Desmond, his boy, had given
+everything. And the death-struggle was still going on. '_Each one of
+us must fight on to the end._' Before his eyes there passed the
+spectacle of the Army, as he had actually seen it--a division, for
+instance, on the march near the Salient, rank after rank of young
+faces, the brown cheeks and smiling eyes, the swing of the lithe
+bodies. And while he sat there in the quiet of the April evening,
+thousands of boys like Desmond were offering those same lithe bodies
+to the Kaiser's guns without murmur or revolt because England asked
+it. Now he knew what it meant--_now he knew_!
+
+There was a knock at the door, and the sound of something heavy
+descending. The Squire gave a dull 'Come in.' Forest entered,
+dragging a large bale behind him. He looked nervously at his master.
+
+'These things have just come from France, sir.'
+
+The Squire started. He walked over in silence to look while Forest
+opened the case. Desmond's kit, his clothes, his few books, a
+stained uniform, a writing-case, with a number of other
+miscellaneous things.
+
+Forest spread them out on the floor, his lips trembling. On several
+nights before the end Desmond had asked for him, and he had shared
+the Squire's watch.
+
+'That'll do,' said the Squire presently; 'I'll look over them
+myself!'
+
+Forest went away. After shutting the door he saw Elizabeth coming
+along the library passage, and stopped to speak to her.
+
+'The things have just come from France, Miss,' he said in a low
+voice.
+
+Elizabeth hesitated, and was turning back, when the library door
+opened and the Squire called her.
+
+'Yes, Mr. Mannering.'
+
+'Will you come here, please, a moment?'
+
+She entered the room, and the Squire closed the door behind her,
+pointing mutely to the things on the floor.
+
+The tears sprang to her eyes. She knelt down to look at them.
+
+'Do you remember anything about this?' he said, holding out a little
+book. It was the pocket Anthology she had found for Desmond on the
+day of his going into camp. As she looked through it she saw a
+turned-down leaf, and seemed still to hear the boy's voice, as he
+hung over her shoulder translating the epigram--
+
+'_Shame on you, mountains and seas!_'
+
+With a swelling throat she told the story. The Squire listened, and
+when afterwards she offered the book to him again, he put it back
+into her hand, with some muttered words which she interpreted as
+bidding her keep it.
+
+She put it away in the drawer of her writing-table, which had been
+brought back to its old place only that morning. The Squire himself
+went to his own desk.
+
+'Will you sit there?' He pointed to her chair. 'I want to speak to
+you.'
+
+Then after a pause he added slowly, 'Will you tell me--what you
+think I can now do with my time?'
+
+His voice had a curious monotony--unlike its usual tone. But
+Elizabeth divined a coming crisis. She went very white.
+
+'Dear Mr. Mannering--I don't know what to say--except that the
+country seems to want everything that each one of us can do.'
+
+'Have you read Haig's Order of the Day?'
+
+'Yes, I have just read it.'
+
+The Squire's eyes, fixed upon her, had a strange intensity.
+
+'You and I have never known--never dreamt--of anything like this.'
+
+'No--never. But England has had her back to the wall before!'
+
+She sat proudly erect, her hands quietly crossed. But he seemed to
+hear the beating of her heart.
+
+'You mean when Pitt said, "Roll up the map of Europe"? Yes--that too
+was vital. But the people at home scarcely knew it--and it was not a
+war of machines.'
+
+'No matter! England will never yield.'
+
+'Till Germany is on her knees?' His long bony face, more lined, more
+emaciated than ever, seemed to catch a sombre glow from hers.
+
+'Yes--though it last ten years! But the Americans are hurrying.'
+
+'Are all women like you?'
+
+Her mouth trembled into scorn.
+
+'Oh, think of the women whose shoe-strings I am not worthy to
+unloose!--the nurses, the French peasant-women, the women who have
+given their husbands--their sons.'
+
+His look showed his agitation.
+
+'So we are to be saved--by boys like Desmond--and women like you?'
+
+'Oh, I am a cypher--a nothing!' There was a passionate humiliation
+in her voice. 'I should be nursing in France--'
+
+'If it weren't for your mother and your sister?'
+
+She nodded. There was a pause. Then the Squire said, in a different
+tone,
+
+'But you have not answered my question. I should be obliged if you
+would answer it. How am I, being I--how is a man of my kind to fill
+his time--and live his life? If the country is in deadly peril--if
+the ground is shaking beneath our feet--if we are to go on fighting
+for years, with "our backs to the wall," even I can't go on
+cataloguing Greek vases. I acknowledge that now. So much I grant
+you. But what else am I good for?'
+
+The colour flushed in her fair skin, and her eyes filled again with
+tears.
+
+'Come and help!' she said simply. 'There is so much to do. And for
+you--a large landowner--there is everything to do.'
+
+His face darkened.
+
+'Yes, if I had the courage for it. But morally I am a weakling--you
+know it. Do you remember that I once said to you if Desmond fell, I
+should go with him--or after him?'
+
+She waited a moment before replying, and then said with energy,
+'That would be just desertion!--_he_ would tell you so.'
+
+Their eyes met, and the passion in hers subdued him. It was a
+strange dialogue, as though between two souls bared and stripped of
+everything but the realities of feeling.
+
+'Would it be? That might be argued. But anyway I should have done
+it--the very night Desmond died--but for you!'
+
+'For me?' she said, shading her eyes with a hand that trembled. 'No,
+Mr. Mannering, you could not have done such a thing!--for your
+honour's sake--for your children's sake.'
+
+'Neither would have restrained me. I was held to life by one
+thread--one hope only--'
+
+She was silent.
+
+'--the hope that if I was to put my whole life to school again--to
+burn what I had adored, and adore what I had burned--the one human
+being in the world who could teach me such a lesson--who had begun
+to teach it me--would stand by me--would put her hand in mine--and
+lead me.'
+
+His voice broke down. Elizabeth, shaken from head to foot, could
+only hide her face and wait. Even the strength to protest--'Not
+now!--not yet!' seemed to have gone from her. He went on vehemently:
+
+'Oh, don't imagine that I am making you an ordinary proposal--or
+that I am going to repeat to you the things I said to you--like a
+fool--in Cross Wood. Then I offered you a bargain--and I see now
+that you despised me as a huckster! You were to help my hobby; I was
+to help yours. That was all I could find to say. I didn't know how
+to tell you that all the happiness of my life depended on your
+staying at Mannering. I was unwilling to acknowledge it even to
+myself. I have been accustomed to put sentiment aside--to try and
+ignore it. To _feel_ as I did was itself so strange a thing to me,
+that I struggled to express it as prosaically as possible. Well,
+then, you were astonished--and repelled. That I saw--I realized it
+indeed more and more. I saw that I had perhaps done a fatal thing,
+and I spent much time brooding and thinking. I felt an acute
+distress, such as I had never felt in my life before--so much so
+that I began even to avoid you, because I used to say to
+myself--"She will go away some day--perhaps soon--and I must
+accustom myself to it." And yet--'
+
+He lifted the hand that shaded his eyes, and gave her a long
+touching look.
+
+'Yet I felt sometimes that you knew what was happening in me--and
+were sorry for me. Then came the news of Desmond. Of those days
+while he lay here--of the days since--I seem to know now hardly
+anything in detail. One of the officers at the front said to me that
+on the Somme he often lost all count of time, of the days of the
+week, of the sequence of things. It seemed to be all one
+present--one awful and torturing _now_. So it is with me. Desmond is
+always here'--he pointed to the vacant space by the window--'and you
+are always sitting by him. And I know that if you go away--and I am
+left alone with my poor boy--though I shall never cease to hear the
+things he said to me--the things he asked me to do--I shall have no
+strength to do them. I cannot rise and walk--unless you help me.'
+
+Elizabeth could hardly speak. She was in presence of that tremendous
+thing in human experience--the emergence of a man's inmost self.
+That the Squire could speak so--could feel so--that the man whose
+pupil and bond-slave she had been in those early weeks should be
+making this piteous claim upon her, throwing upon her the weight of
+his whole future life, of his sorrow, of his reaction against
+himself, overwhelmed her. It appealed to that instinctive, that
+boundless tenderness which lies so deep in the true woman.
+
+But her will seemed paralysed. She did not know how to act--she
+could find no words that pleased her. The Squire saw it, and began
+to speak again in the same low measured voice, as though he groped
+his way along, from point to point. He sat with his eyes on the
+floor, his hands loosely clasped before him.
+
+'I don't, of course, dare to ask you to say--at once--if you will be
+my wife. I dread to ask it--for I am tolerably certain that you
+would still say no. But if only now you would say, "I will go on
+with my work here--I will help a man who is weak where I am
+strong--I will show him new points of view--give him new reasons for
+living--"'
+
+Elizabeth could only just check the sobs in her throat. The sad
+humility of the words pierced her heart.
+
+The Squire raised himself a little, and spoke more firmly.
+
+'Why should there be any change yet awhile? Only stay with us. Use
+my land--use me and all I possess--for the country--for what Desmond
+would have helped in--and done. Show me what to do. I shall do it
+ill. But what matter? Every little helps. "We have our backs to the
+wall." I have the power to give _you_ power. Teach me.'
+
+Then reaching out, he took her hand in his. His voice deepened and
+strengthened.
+
+'Elizabeth!--be my friend--my children's friend. Bring your poor
+mother here--and your sister--till Pamela goes. Then tell me--what
+you decide. You shall give me no pledge--no promise. You shall be
+absolutely free. But together let us do a bit of work, a bit of
+service.'
+
+She looked up. The emotion, the sweetness in her face dazzled him.
+
+'Yes,' she said gravely--'I will stay.'
+
+He drew a long breath, and stooping over the hands she had given
+him, he kissed them.
+
+Then he released her and, rising, walked away. The portrait of
+Desmond had been brought back, but it stood with its face to the
+wall. He went to it and turned it. It shone out into the room, under
+the westering sun. He looked at it a little--while Elizabeth with
+trembling fingers began to re-arrange her table in the old way.
+
+Then he returned to her, speaking in the dry, slightly peremptory
+voice she knew well.
+
+'I hear the new buildings at the Holme Hill Farm are nearly ready.
+Come and look at them to-morrow. And there are some woods over there
+that would be worth examining. The Air Board is still clamouring for
+more ash.'
+
+Elizabeth agreed. Her smile was a gleam through the mist.
+
+'And, on the way back, Pamela and I must go and talk to the
+village--about pigs and potatoes!'
+
+'Do you really know anything about either?' he asked, incredulously.
+
+'Come and hear us!'
+
+There was silence. The Squire threw the window open to the April
+sunset. The low light was shining through the woods, and on the
+reddening tops of the beeches. There was a sparkle of leaf here and
+there, and already a 'livelier emerald' showed in the grass.
+Suddenly a low booming sound--repeated--and repeated.
+
+'Guns?' said the Squire, listening.
+
+Elizabeth reminded him of the new artillery camp beyond Fallerton.
+
+But the sounds had transformed the April evening. The woods, the
+grass, the wood-pigeons in the park had disappeared. The thoughts of
+both the on-lookers had gone across the sea to that hell of smoke
+and fire, in which their race--in which England!--stood at bay. A
+few days--or weeks--or months, would decide.
+
+The vastness of the issue, as it came flooding in upon the soul of
+Elizabeth, seemed to strain her very life--to make suspense
+unbearable.
+
+An anguish seized her, and unconsciously her lips framed the
+passionate words of an older patriotism--
+
+'Oh! pray--_pray for the peace of Jerusalem! They shall prosper that
+love thee!_'
+
+
+
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