"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 a.s.sociations 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 un.o.btrusively, 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.