"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 ent.i.tled 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-cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 cla.s.sical a.s.sistant. 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.