It took Mr. Spooner nearly a quarter of an hour to recover his breath, gain a grasp of the situation and a.s.semble his business wits.
"Of course I"ll carry out your instructions, Mr. Trevor," he said at last. "You can safely leave the matter in our hands. But, although it is against my business interests, pray let me beg you to reconsider your decision. It is such a beautiful home, your grandfather, the Bishop"s, before you."
"He bought it pretty cheap, didn"t he, somewhere in the "seventies?"
"I forget the price he paid for it, but I could look it up. Of course we were the agents."
"And then it was let to some dismal people until my father died and my mother took it over. I"m sorry I can"t get sentimental about it, as if it were an ancestral hall, Mr. Spooner. I want to get rid of the place, because I hate the sight of it."
"It would be presumptuous of me to say anything more," answered the old-fashioned country auctioneer.
"Say what you like, Mr. Spooner," laughed Doggie in his disarming way.
"We"re old friends. But send in your people this afternoon to start on inventories and measuring up, or whatever they do, and I"ll look round to-morrow and select the bits I may want to keep. You"ll see after the storing of them, won"t you?"
"Of course, Mr. Trevor."
Mr. Spooner drove away in his little car, a much dazed man.
Like the rest of Durdlebury and the circ.u.mjacent county, he had a.s.sumed that when the war was over Mr. James Marmaduke Trevor would lead his bride from the Deanery into Denby Hall, where the latter, in her own words, would proceed to make things hum.
"My dear," said he to his wife at luncheon, "you could have knocked me over with a feather. What he"s doing it for, goodness knows. I can only a.s.sume that he has grown so accustomed to the destruction of property in France, that he has got bitten by the fever."
"Perhaps Peggy Conover has turned him down," suggested his wife, who, much younger than he, employed more modern turns of speech. "And I shouldn"t wonder if she has. Since the war girls aren"t on the look out for pretty monkeys."
"If Miss Conover thinks she has got hold of a pretty monkey in that young man, she is very much mistaken," replied Mr. Spooner.
Meanwhile Doggie summoned Peddle to the hall. He knew that his announcement would be a blow to the old man; but this was a world of blows; and after all, one could not organize one"s life to suit the sentiments of old family idiots of retainers, served they never so faithfully.
"Peddle," said he, "I"m sorry to say I"m going to sell Denby Hall.
Messrs. Spooner and Smithson"s people are coming in this afternoon. So give them every facility. Also tea, or beer, or whisky, or whatever they want. About what"s going to happen to you and Mrs. Peddle, don"t worry a bit. I"ll look after that. You"ve been jolly good friends of mine all my life, and I"ll see that everything"s as right as rain."
He turned, before the amazed old butler could reply, and marched away.
Peddle gaped at his retreating figure. If those were the ways which Mr. Marmaduke had learned in the army, the lower sank the army in Peddle"s estimation. To sell Denby Hall over his head! Why, the place and all about it was _his_! So deeply are squatters" rights implanted in the human instinct.
Doggie marched along the familiar high road, strangely exhilarated.
What was to be his future he neither knew nor cared. At any rate, it would not lie in Durdlebury. He had cut out Durdlebury for ever from his scheme of existence. If he got through the war, he and Peggy would go out somewhere into the great world where there was man"s work to do. Parliament! Peggy had suggested it as a sort of country gentleman"s hobby that would keep him amused during the London seasons--so might prospective bride have talked to prospective husband fifty years ago. Parliament! G.o.d help him and G.o.d help Peggy if ever he got into Parliament. He would speak the most unpopular truths about the race of politicians if ever he got into Parliament. Peggy would wish that neither of them had ever been born. He held the trenches"
views on politicians. No fear. No muddy politics as an elegant amus.e.m.e.nt for him. He laughed as he had laughed in the dining-room at Denby Hall.
He would have a bad quarter of an hour with Peggy. Naturally. She would say, and with every right: "What about me? Am I not to be considered?" Yes, of course she would be considered. The position his fortune a.s.sured him would always be hers. He had no notion of asking her to share a log cabin in the wilds of Canada, or to bury herself in Oliver"s dud island of Huaheine. The great world would be before them.
"But give me some sort of an idea of what you propose to do," she would with perfect propriety demand. And there Doggie was stuck. He had not the ghost of a programme. All he had was faith in the war, faith in the British spirit and genius that would bring it to a perfect end, in which there would be unimagined opportunities for a man to fling himself into a new life, and new conditions, and begin the new work of a new civilization.
"If she"ll only understand," said he, "that I can"t go back to those blasted little dogs, all will be well."
Not quite all. Although his future was as nebulous as the planetary system in the Milky Way, at the back of his mind was a vague conviction that it would be connected somehow with the welfare of those men whom he had learned to know and love: the men to whom reading was little pleasure, writing a school-child"s laborious task, the glories of the earth as interpreted through art a sealed book; the men whose daily speech was foul metaphor; the men, hemi-demi-semi-educated, whose crude socialistic opinions the open lessons of history and the eternal facts of human nature derisively refuted; the men who had sweated and slaved in factory and in field to no other purpose than to obey the biological laws of the perpetuation of the species; yet the men with the sweet minds of children, the gushing tenderness of women, the hearts of lions; the men compared to whom the rotten squealing heroes of Homer were a horde of cowardly savages. They were _men_, these comrades of his, swift with all that there can be of divine glory in men.
And when they came home and the high G.o.ds sounded the false trumpet of peace?
There would be men"s work in England for all the Doggies in England to do.
Again, if Peggy could understand this, all would be well. If she missed the point altogether, and tauntingly advised him to go and join his friends the Socialists at once--then--he shoved his cap to the back of his head and wrinkled his forehead--then----
"Everything will be in the soup," said he.
These reflections brought him to the Deanery. The nearest way of entrance was the stable-yard gate, which was always open. He strode in, waved a hand to Chipmunk who was sitting on the ground with his back against the garage, smoking a pipe, and entered the house by the French window of the dining-room. Where should he find Peggy? His whole mind was set on the immediate interview. Obviously the drawing-room was the first place of search. He opened the drawing-room door, the hinges and lock oily, noiseless, perfectly ordained, like everything in the perfectly ordained English Deanery, and strode in.
His entrance was so swift, so protected from sound, that the pair had no time to start apart before he was there, with his amazed eyes full upon them. Peggy"s hands were on Oliver"s shoulders, tears were streaming down her face, as her head was thrown back from him, and Oliver"s arm was around her. Her back was to the door. Oliver withdrew his arm and retired a pace or two.
"Lord Almighty," he whispered, "here"s Doggie!"
Then Peggy, realizing what had happened, wheeled round and stared tragically at Doggie, who, preoccupied with the search for her, had not removed his cap. He drew himself up.
"I beg your pardon," he said with imperturbable irony, and turned.
Oliver rushed across the room.
"Stop, you silly fool!"
He slammed the open door, caught Doggie by the arm and dragged him away from the threshold. His blue eyes blazed and the lips beneath the short-cropped moustache quivered.
"It"s all my fault, Doggie. I"m a beast and a cad and anything you like to call me. But for things you said last night--well--no, hang it all, there"s no excuse. Everything"s on me. Peggy"s as true as gold."
Peggy, red-eyed, pale-cheeked, stood a little way back, silent, on the defensive. Doggie, looking from one to the other, said quietly:
"A triangular explanation is scarcely decent. Perhaps you might let me have a word or two with Peggy."
"Yes. It would be best," she whispered.
"I"ll be in the dining-room if you want me," said Oliver, and went out.
Doggie took her hand and, very gently, led her to a chair.
"Let us sit down. There," said he, "now we can talk more comfortably.
First, before we touch on this situation, let me say something to you.
It may ease things."
Peggy, humiliated, did not look at him. She nodded.
"All right."
"I made up my mind this morning to sell Denby Hall and its contents.
I"ve given old Spooner instructions."
She glanced at him involuntarily. "Sell Denby Hall?"
"Yes, dear. You see, I have made up my mind definitely, if I"m spared, not to live in Durdlebury after the war."
"What were you thinking of doing?" she asked, in a low voice.
"That would depend on after-war circ.u.mstances. Anyhow, I was coming to you, when I entered the room, with my decision. I knew, of course, that it wouldn"t please you--that you would have something to say to it--perhaps something very serious."