"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.
Leva.s.seur 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 pa.s.sed. So he"s _just_ escaped you."
"I"ve really no concern whatever with Mr. Leva.s.seur"s affairs." Sir Henry had flushed angrily. "Is it to be here, or the smoking-room?"
"Ta-ta! See you again presently," said Leva.s.seur. "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 Parna.s.sus. 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 a.s.sure 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?"