The Squire having shot his bolt, looked anxiously for the effect of
it.
Elizabeth, apparently, took it calmly. She was standing with one
hand on the table behind her, and the autumn sun streaming in
through the western windows caught the little golden curls on her
temples, and the one or two small adornments that she habitually
wore, especially a Greek coin--a gold stater--hanging on a slender
chain round her neck. In the Squire's eyes, the stately figure in
plain black, with the brilliant head and hands, had in some way
gathered into itself the significance of the library. All the
background of books, with its pale and yet rich harmony of tone, the
glass cases with their bronzes and terra-cottas, the statues, the
papers on the table, the few flowers that were never wanting to
Elizabeth's corner, the taste with which the furniture had been
re-arranged, the general elegance and refinement of the big room in
fact, since Elizabeth had reduced it from chaos to order, were now
related to her rather than to him. He could not now think of the
room without her. She had become in this short time so markedly its
presiding spirit. 'Let there be order and beauty!' she had said,
instead of dirt and confusion; and the order and beauty were there.
But the presiding spirit was now surveying him, with eyes that
seemed to have been watchfully withdrawn, under puckered brows.
'I don't understand,' said Elizabeth. 'You have fastened up the
gates?'
'I have,' said the Squire jocularly. 'Mrs. Perley believes the
Committee will bring a tank! That would be a sight worth seeing.'
'You really want to stop them from ploughing up that land?'
'I do. I have offered them other land.'
Elizabeth hesitated.
'Don't you believe what the Government say, Mr. Mannering?'
'What do they say?'
'That everything depends upon whether we shall have food enough to
hold out? That we can't win the war unless we can grow more food
ourselves?'
'That's the Government's affair.' The Squire sat down at his own
table and began to look out a pen.
'Well now, Miss Bremerton, I don't think we need spend any more time
over this tiresome business. I've already lost the morning. Suppose
we get on with the work we were doing yesterday?'
He turned an amicable countenance towards her. She on her side moved
a little towards a window near her table, and looked out of it, as
though reflecting. After a minute or two he asked himself with a
vague anxiety what was wrong with her. Her manner was certainly
unusual.
Suddenly she turned, and came half across the room towards him.
'May I speak to you, please, Mr. Mannering?'
'By all means. Is there anything amiss?'
'I think we agreed on a month's notice, on either side. I should be
glad if you would kindly accept my notice as from to-day.'
The Squire rose violently, and thrust back his chair.
'So that's what you have been cogitating in my absence?'
'Not at all,' said Elizabeth mildly. 'I have made a complete list of
the passages you asked for.'
She pointed to her table.
'Yet all the time you were planning this move--you were making up
your mind what to do?'
She hesitated.
'I was often afraid it would have to be done,' she said at last.
'And pray may I ask your reasons?' The Squire's tone was sarcastic.
'I should like to know in what I have failed to satisfy you. I
suppose you thought I was rude to you this morning?'
'Oh, that didn't matter,' she said hastily. 'The fact is, Mr.
Mannering,' she crossed her hands quietly in front of her, 'you put
responsibilities on me that I am not prepared to carry. I feel I
must give them up.'
'I thought you liked responsibility.'
Elizabeth coloured.
'It--it depends what sort. I begin to see now that my
principles--and opinions--are so different from yours that, if we go
further, I shall either be disappointing you or--doing what I think
wrong.'
'You can't conceive ever giving up your opinion to mine?'
'No!' Elizabeth shook her head with decision. 'No! that I really
can't conceive!'
'Upon my word!' said the Squire, fairly taken aback. They confronted
each other. Elizabeth began to look disturbed. Her eyelids flickered
once or twice.
'I think we ought to be quite serious,' she said hurriedly. 'I
don't want you to misunderstand me. If you knew how I valued this
opportunity of doing this classical work with you! It is
_wonderful_'--her voice wavered a little, or the Squire fancied
it--'what you have taught me even in this short time. I am proud to
have been your secretary--and your pupil. If it were only that'--she
paused--'but you have also been so kind as to--to take me into your
confidence--to let me do things for you, outside of what you engaged
me for. I see plainly that--if I go on with this--I shall become
your secretary--your agent in fact--for a great many things besides
Greek.'
Then she made an impetuous step forward.
'Mr. Mannering!--the atmosphere of this house chokes me!'
The Squire dropped back into his chair, watching her with eyes in
which he tried--not very successfully--to keep dignity alive.
'Your reasons?'
'I am with the _country_!' she said, not without signs of agitation;
'and you seem to me to care nothing about the country!'
Disputation was never unwelcome to the Squire. He riposted.
'Of course, we mean entirely different things by the word.'
She threw back her head slightly, with a gesture of scorn.
'We might argue that, if it were peace-time. But this is _war_! Your
country--my country--has the German grip at her throat. A few
months--and we are saved--or broken!--the country that gave us
birth--all we have--all we are!' Her words came short and thick,
and she had turned very white. 'And in this house there is never, in
your presence, a word of the war!--of the men who are dying by land
and sea--_dying_, that you and I may sit here in peace--that you may
talk to me about Greek poetry, and put spokes in the wheels of those
who are trying to feed us--and defend us--and beat off Germany.
Nothing for the wounded!--nothing for the hospitals! And you won't
let Pamela do anything! Not a farthing for the Red Cross! You made
me write a letter last week refusing a subscription. And then,
when they only ask you to let your land grow food--that the
German pirates and murderers mayn't starve us into a horrible
submission--_then_ you bar your gates--you make endless trouble,
when the country wants every hour of every man's time--you, in your
position, give the lead to every shirker and coward! No! I can't
bear it any more! I must go. I have had happy times here--I love the
work--I am very glad to earn the money, for my people want it. But I
must go. My heart--my conscience won't let me stay!'
She turned from him, with an unconscious gesture which seemed to the
Squire to be somewhat mingled with that of the great Victory
towering behind her, and went quickly back to her table, where she
began with trembling hands to put her papers together.
The Squire tried to laugh it off.
'And all this,' he said with a sneer, 'because I tied up a few
gates!'
She made no reply. He was conscious of mingled dismay and fury.
'You will stay your month?' he inquired at last, coldly. 'You don't
propose, I imagine, to leave me at a moment's notice?'
She was bending over her table, and did not look up.
'Oh yes, I will stay my month.'
He sat speechless, watching her. She very quickly finished what she
was doing, and taking up her note-book, and some half-written
letters, she left the room.
'A pretty state of things!' said the Squire, and thrusting his long
hands into his pockets he began to pace the library, in the kind of
temper that may be imagined--given the man and the circumstances.
The difference, however, between this occasion and others lay in the
fact that the penalties of temper had grown so unjustly heavy. The
Squire felt himself hideously aggrieved. Abominable!--that he should
be hindered in his just rights and opinions by this indirect
pressure from a woman, whom he couldn't wrestle with and floor, as
he would a man, because of her sex. That was always the way with
women. No real equality--no give and take--in spite of all the
suffrage talk. Their weakness was their tyranny. Weakness indeed!
They were much stronger than men. God help England when they got the
vote! The Greeks said it--Euripides said it. But, of course, the
Greeks have said everything! Hecuba to Agamemnon, for instance, when
she is planning the murder of the Thracian King:
'Leave it to me!--and my Trojan women!'
And Agamemnon's scoffing reply--poor idiot!--'How can _women_ get
the better of men?'
And Hecuba's ghastly low-voiced 'In a _crowd_ we are
terrible!'--[Greek: deinon to plêthos]--as she and her women turn
upon the Thracian, put out his eyes, and tear his children limb from
limb.
But _one_ woman might be quite enough to upset a quiet man's way of
living! The moral pressure of it was so iniquitous! Your convictions
or your life! It was the language of a footpad.
To pull down the hurdles, and tamely let in Chicksands and his
minions--how odious! To part with Elizabeth Bremerton and to be
reduced again to the old chaos and helplessness--how still more
odious! As to the war--so like a woman to suppose that any war was
ever fought with unanimity by any country! Look at the Crimea!--the
Boer War!--the Napoleonic Wars themselves, if it came to that! Why
was Fox a patriot, and he a traitor? Let her answer that!
And all the time, Elizabeth's light touch upon his will was like the
curb on a stubborn horse. Once as he passed her table angry
curiosity took him to look at some finished work that was lying
there. Perfection! Intelligence, accuracy, the clearest of scripts!
All his hints taken--and bettered in the taking. Beside it lay some
slovenly manuscripts of Levasseur's. He could see the corners of
Miss Bremerton's mouth go up as she looked it through. Well, now he
was to be left to Levasseur's tender mercies--after all he had
taught her! And the accounts, and the estate, and these infernal
rations, that no human being could understand!
The Squire's self-pity rose upon him like a flood. Just at the
worst, he heard a knock at the library door. Before he could say
'Come in,' it was hurriedly opened, and his two married daughters
confronted him--Pamela, too, behind them.
'Father!' cried Mrs. Gaddesden, 'you must please let us come and
speak to you!'
What on earth was wrong with them? Alice--for whom her father had
more contempt than affection--looked merely frightened; but
Margaret's eyes were angry, and Pamela's reproachful. The Squire
braced himself to endurance.
'What do you want with me?'
'_Father_!--we never thought you meant it seriously! And now Forest
says all the gates are closed, and that the village is up in arms.
The labourers declare that if the County plough is turned back
to-morrow, they'll break them down themselves. And when we're all
likely to be starving in six months!'
'You really can't expect working-folk to stand quietly by and see
such a thing!' said Margaret in her intensest voice. 'Do, father,
let me send Forest at once to tell the gardeners to open all the
gates.'
The Squire defied her to do any such thing. What was all the silly
fuss about? The County people could open the gates in half-an-hour
if they wanted. It was a demonstration--a protest--a case to go to
the Courts on. He had principles--if no one else had. And if they
weren't other people's principles, what did it matter? He was ready
to stand by them, to go to prison for them. He folded his arms
magnificently.
Pamela laughed excitedly, and shook her head.
'Oh, no, father, you won't be a hero--only a laughing-stock! That's
what Desmond minds so much. They won't send you to prison. Some
tiresome old Judge will give you a talking-to in Court, and you
won't be able to answer him back. And then they'll fine you--and we
shall be a little more boycotted than we were before! That's all
that'll happen!'
'"Boycotted"?--what do you mean?' said the Squire haughtily.
'Oh, father, can't you _feel_ it?' cried Pamela.
'As if one man could pit himself against a nation!' said Mrs.
Strang, in that manner of controlled emotion which the Squire
detested. He rarely felt emotion, but when he did, he let it go.
Peremptorily he turned them all out, giving strict orders that
nothing he had done should be interfered with. Then he attempted to
go on with some work of his own, but he could not bring his mind to
bear. Finally he seized his hat and went out into the park to see if
the populace were really rising. It was a cold October evening, with
a waxing moon, and a wind that was rapidly bringing the dead leaves
to earth. Not a soul was to be seen! Only once the Squire thought he
heard the sound of distant guns; and two aeroplanes crossed rapidly
overhead sailing into the western sky. Everywhere the war!--the
cursed, cursed obsession of it!
For the first time there was a breach in the Squire's defences,
which for three years he had kept up almost intact. He had put
literature, and art, and the joys of the connoisseur between himself
and the measureless human ill around him. It had spoilt his personal
life, had interfered with his travels, his diggings, his friendships
with foreign scholars. Well, then, as far as he could he would take
no account of it, would shut it out, and rail at the men and the
forces that made it. He barely looked at the newspapers; he never
touched a book dealing with the war. It seemed to him a triumph of
mind and intelligence when he succeeded in shutting out the
hurly-burly altogether. Only, when in the name of the war his
private freedom and property were interfered with, he had flamed out
into hysterical revolt. Old aristocratic instincts came to the aid
of passionate will, and, perhaps, of an uneasy conscience.
And now in the man's vain but not ignoble soul there stirred a first
passing terror of what the war might do with him, if he were
_forced_ to feel it--to let it in. He saw it as a veiled Presence at
the Door--and struggled with it blindly.
He was just turning back to the house, when he saw a figure
approaching in the distance which he recognized. It was that of a
man, once a farmer of his, and a decent fellow--oh, that he
confessed!--with whom he had had a long quarrel over a miserable sum
of money, claimed by the tenant when he left his farm, and disputed
by the landlord.
The dispute had gone on for two years. The Squire's law-costs had
long since swallowed up the original money in dispute.
Then Miss Bremerton, to whom the Squire had dictated some letters in
connection with the squabble, had quietly made a suggestion--had
asked leave to write a letter on approval. For sheer boredom with
the whole business, the Squire had approved and sent the letter.
Then, this very morning, a reply from the farmer. Grateful
astonishment! 'Of course I am ready to meet you, sir--I always have
been. I will get my solicitor to put what you proposed in your
letter of this morning into shape immediately, and will leave it
signed at your door to-night. I trust this trouble is now over. It
has been a great grief to me.'
And now there was the man bringing the letter. One worry done with!
How many more the same patient hand might have dealt with, if its
exacting owner hadn't thrown up her work--so preposterously!
The Squire gave an angry sigh, slipped out of the visitor's way
through a shrubbery, and returned to his library. Fires had begun,
and the glow of the burning logs shone through the room. The return
to this home of his chief studies and pursuits during many
delightful years was always, at any hour of the day or year, a
moment of pleasure to the Squire. Here was shelter, here was
escape--both from the troubles he had brought upon himself, and from
the world tumult outside, the work of crazy politicians and
incompetent diplomats. But if there was any season when the long
crowded room was more attractive than at any other, it was in these
autumn evenings when firelight and twilight mingled, and the natural
'homing' instinct of the Northerner, accustomed through long ages to
spend long winters mostly indoors, stirred in his blood.
His books, too, spoke to him; and the beautiful dim forms of bronzes
and terra-cottas, with all their suggestions of high poetry and
consummate art, breathing from the youth of the world. He
understood--passionately--the jealous and exclusive temper of the
artist. It was his own temper--though he was no practising
artist--and accounted largely for his actions. What are politics--or
social reform--or religion--or morals--compared to _art_? The true
artist, it has been pleaded again and again, has no country. He
follows Beauty wherever she pitches her tent--'an hourly neighbour.'
Woe to the interests that conflict with this interest! He simply
drives them out of doors, and turns the key upon them!
This, in fact, was the Squire's defence of himself, whenever he
troubled to defend himself. As to the pettinesses of a domineering
and irritable temper, cherished through long years, and flying out
on the smallest occasions--the Squire conveniently forgot them, in
those rare moments of self-vision which were all the gods allowed
him. Of course he was master in his own house and estate--why not?
Of course he fought those who would interfere with him, war or no
war--why not?
He sat down to his table, very sorry for himself, and hotly
indignant with an unreasonable woman. The absence of her figure from
the table on the further side of the room worked upon his nerves.
She had promised at least to stay her month. These were working
hours. What was she doing? She could hardly be packing already!
He tried to give his attention to the notes he had been working at
the day before. Presently he wanted a reference--a line from the
_Philoctetes_. 'The Lemnian fire'--where on earth was the passage?
He lifted his head instinctively. If only she had been there--it was
_monstrous_ that she wasn't there!--he would just have thrown the
question across the room, and got an answer. Her verbal memory was
astonishing--much better than his.
He must, of course, get up and look out the reference for himself.
And the same with others. In an hour's time he had accomplished
scarcely anything, and a settled gloom descended upon him. That was
the worst of accustoming yourself to crutches and helps. When they
were unscrupulously and unjustly taken away, a man was worse off
than if he had never had them.
The evening post came in. The Squire looked through it with disgust.
He perceived that several letters were answers to some he had
allowed his secretary to draft and send in his name--generally in
reply to exasperated correspondents who had been kept waiting for
months, and trampled on to boot.
_Now_ he supposed she would refuse to have anything to do with this
kind of thing! She would keep to the letter of her bargain, for the
few weeks that remained. Greek he might expect from her--but not
business.
He opened one or two. Yes, there was no doubt she was a clever
woman--unpardonably and detestably clever. Affairs which had been
mountains for years had suddenly become mole-hills. In this new
phase he felt himself more helpless than ever to deal with them.
She, on the contrary, might have put everything straight--she might
have done anything with him--almost--that she pleased. He would have
got rid of his old fool of an agent and put in another, that she
approved of, if she had wished.
But no!--she must try and dictate to him in public--on a matter of
public action. She must have _everything_ her own way. Opinionated,
self-conceited creature!
When tea-time came he rang for Forest, and demanded that a cup of
tea should be brought him to the library. But as the butler was
leaving the room, he recalled him.
'And tell Miss Bremerton that I shall be glad of her company when
she has finished her tea.'
Forest hesitated.
'I think, sir, Miss Bremerton is out.'
Out!--was she? Her own mistress already!
'Send Miss Pamela here at once,' he commanded.
In a minute or two a girl's quick step was heard, and Pamela ran in.
'Yes, father?'
'Where is Miss Bremerton?' The Squire was standing in front of the
fire, angrily erect. He had delivered his question in the tone of an
ultimatum.
'Why, father, you've forgotten! She arranged with you that she was
to go to tea at the Rectory, and I've just got a note from Mrs.
Pennington to ask if they may keep her for the evening. They'll send
her home.'
'I remember no such arrangement,' said the Squire, in a fury.
'Oh, father--why, I heard her speak to you! And I'm sure she wanted
a little break. She's been looking dead-tired lately, and she said
she had a headache at lunch.'
'Very well. That'll do,' said the Squire, and Pamela departed,
virtuously conscious of having stood by Elizabeth, though she
disliked her.
The Squire felt himself generally cornered. No doubt she was now
telling her story to the Penningtons, who, of course, would
disapprove the gates affair, in any case. The long hours before
dinner passed away. The Squire thought them interminable. Dinner was
a gloomy and embarrassed function. His daughters were afraid of
rousing a fresh whirlwind of temper, if the gates were mentioned;
and nothing else was interesting. The meal was short and spare, and
the Squire noticed for the first time that while meat was offered to
him, the others fed on fish and vegetables. All to put him in the
wrong, of course!
After dinner he went back to the library. Work was impossible. He
hung over the fire smoking, or turning over the pages of a fresh
section of the catalogue which Elizabeth had placed--complete--on
his desk that morning.
It seemed to him that all the powers of mischief had risen against
him. The recent investigation of his affairs made by Elizabeth at
his express wish, slight and preliminary though it was, had shown
him what he had long and obstinately refused to see--that the estate
had seriously gone down in value during the preceding five years;
that he had a dozen scraps and disputes on his hands, more than
enough to rasp the nerves of any ordinary man--and as far as nerves
were concerned, he knew very well that he was not an ordinary man;
that, in short, he was impoverished and embarrassed; his agent was a
scandal and must be dismissed, and his new lawyers, a grasping,
incompetent crew. For a moment, indeed, he had had a glimpse of a
clear sky. A woman, who seemed to have the same kind of business
faculty that many Frenchwomen possess, had laid hands on his skein
of troubles, and might have unravelled them. But she had thrown him
over. In a little while he would have to let Mannering--for who
would buy an estate in such a pickle?--sell his collections, and go
and live in a flat in West Kensington. Then he hoped his
enemies--Chicksands in particular--would be satisfied.
But these, to do him justice, were not the chief thoughts, not the
considerations in his mind that smarted most. Another woman
secretary or woman accountant--for, after all, clever women with
business training are now as thick as blackberries--might have
helped him to put his affairs straight; but she would not have been
a Miss Bremerton, with her scholarship, her taste, her love of the
beautiful things that he loved. He seemed to see her fair skin
flushing with pleasure as they went through a Greek chorus together,
or to watch her tenderly handling a bronze, or holding a Tanagra
figure to the light.
Of course some stupid creatures might think he was falling in love
with her--wanting to marry her. He laughed the charge to scorn. No!
but he confessed her comradeship, her friendship, had begun to mean
a good deal to him. For twenty years he had lived in loneliness.
Now, it seemed, he had found a friend, in these days when the new
independence of women opens a thousand fresh possibilities not only
to them, but to men also.
Well, well, it was all over! Better make up his mind to it.
He went to the window, as it was nearing ten o'clock, and looked
out. It was foggy still, the moon and stars scarcely visible. He
hoped they would have at least the sense at the Rectory to provide
her with a lantern, for under the trees the road was very dark.
Oh, far in the distance, a twinkling light! Good! The Squire hastily
shut the window, and resumed his pacing. Presently he thought he
heard the house door open and shut, and a little while after the
library clock struck ten.
Now it would be only the natural thing to go and say good-night to
his daughters, and, possibly, to inquire after a headache.
The Squire accordingly emerged. In the hall he found his three
daughters engaged in lighting their candles at the Chippendale
table, where for about a hundred and fifty years the ladies of
Mannering had been accustomed to perform that rite.
The master of the house inquired coldly whether Miss Bremerton had
returned safely. 'Oh yes,' said his daughter Margaret, 'but she went
up to bed at once. She hasn't got rid of her headache.'
Mrs. Strang's stiff manner, and the silence of the others showed the
Squire that he was deep in his daughters' black books. Was he also
charged with Miss Bremerton's headache? Did any of them guess what
had happened? He fancied from the puzzled look in Pamela's eyes as
she said good-night to him that she guessed something.
Well, he wasn't going to tell them anything. He went back to the
library, and presently Pamela, in her room upstairs, heard first the
library bell, then the steps of Forest crossing the hall, and
finally a conversation between the Squire and the butler which
seemed to last some time.
* * * * *
It was in the very early morning--between four and five--that
Elizabeth was wakened, first by vague movements in the house, and
then by what seemed to be cautious voices outside. She drew a
curtain back and looked out--a misty morning, between darkness and
dawn, and trees standing on the grass in dim robes of amethyst and
gold. Two men in the middle distance were going away from the house.
She craned her neck. Yes--no doubt of it! The Squire and Forest.
What could they be about at that hour of the morning? They were
going, no doubt, to inspect the barricades! Yet Forest himself had
told her that nothing would induce _him_ to take a hand in the
'row.'
It was strange; but she was too weary and depressed to give it much
thought. What was she going to do now? The world seemed emptily open
before her once more, chill and lonely as the autumn morning.