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 Leva.s.seur. 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 sc.r.a.pe. 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 a.s.sailed 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 d.a.m.nation!"
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!"