The weeks came and passed, and the work at the Hall continued with
unabated energy. Early in November everything was in readiness for the
occupation of the new tenants; and with the departure of the workmen the
servants arrived at the Hall, and were speedily followed by Mr and Mrs
Chadwick and the pekinese.
John Musgrave, with punctilious politeness, paid his call within the
week, and was admitted and ushered into the drawing-room by a
responsible-looking young woman in a neat uniform, who was, Mr Musgrave
supposed, Mrs Chadwick's butler.
Mrs Chadwick, beautifully gowned, rose at his entry to receive him; a
very gracious hostess, having discarded her air of bantering satire,
which had so often incensed Mr Musgrave, for the easy cordiality of the
woman of the world, bent on being agreeable in her own home; bent, too,
on maintaining an attitude of sympathetic patience towards the
idiosyncrasies of other people. John Musgrave considered her for the
first time without reservation a very charming woman. Mr Chadwick, who
had a greater right than anyone else to set himself up as an authority
on this subject, had never considered her anything else.
Mr Chadwick was present on the occasion of John Musgrave's call. He
was a big man of indolent appearance, who preferred rather to listen
than to talk, but who, when he offered an opinion, commanded naturally
the respectful attention of his hearers. One felt that the man
possessed a mind of his own. Although most people pride themselves on
this possession, it is not given to every one to secure its recognition
by others. It is usually the case that the people who insist most upon
this recognition are the people who do not receive it. John Musgrave,
although he had met Mr Chadwick before, had very little knowledge of
the man. It surprised him now to discover in him a man he could like
and feel at home with. He had been prepared for something quite
different. It had even occurred to him that no man of any intelligence
could take second place and allow his wife to usurp his privileges as
head of the house; but when he talked with Mr Chadwick he found it
necessary to modify his views to the extent of admitting that in
exceptional circumstances a clever man might do this without the
sacrifice of his dignity. Will Chadwick would have solved the question,
had Mr Musgrave put it to him, by explaining that he regarded the
individual, irrespective of sex, as being under the obligation of
filling the place he or she is most fitted to fill. It was not a matter
of privilege, in his opinion, but of capacity; and he never bothered
about sex problems. His wife and he were companions and not rivals in
their domestic relations.
When Mr Musgrave left--and he was less conventional in timing his
departure than he had been in the selection of the hour and date of his
call--he carried with him a very pleasant picture of the perfectly
organised and harmonious home of cultured and agreeable people. There
was a good deal, after all, to be said in favour of English home-life.
It was regrettable that home-life was going out of fashion.
As he walked down the broad gravelled drive Mr Musgrave pondered deeply
over these matters. He glanced about him upon the beautiful wooded
lands surrounding the Hall, and thought how many old English homes of
equal dignity were passing into the hands of wealthy strangers because
their owners preferred to live in moderate comfort abroad to clinging to
their birthright and all it symbolised in defiance of a meagre purse.
The privilege conferred by birth, and the dignity of ancient things,
were fetishes with Mr Musgrave, to whom poverty in a good old English
home would have been preferable to the easy freedom of continental life.
This was one of John Musgrave's many old-fashioned ideas; and
old-fashioned ideas are occasionally worthy to stand beside and
sometimes even in advance of the modern trend of thought.
While thinking of these things Mr Musgrave was suddenly brought face to
face with something so essentially modern that, prepared as he was for
surprises in Mrs Chadwick's household, he was nevertheless taken
completely aback. The first intimation of this extreme modernity rushed
upon him disconcertingly, after the manner of a noisy herald preparing
the way for some one of importance, in the shape of a very ugly and
extraordinarily fierce-looking bull-dog. The bull-dog sprang out upon
him from behind a wall and growled ferociously, showing his teeth, which
is the custom of the well-bred bull, who cannot conceal them, as Mr
Musgrave knew. Mr Musgrave, who disliked dogs, was nevertheless not so
utterly foolish as to raise his stick, or otherwise show the alarm he
felt; but he was very greatly relieved when a sharp, clear whistle
called the bull-dog off and assured him that some one, who seemingly had
authority, was at hand for his protection. Then it was that, looking up
to trace the whistle to its source, he was confronted with the most
astonishing sight he had ever beheld.
Against the wall a long ladder leaned, and standing at the top of the
ladder doing something apparently to a climbing rose-bush--or, to be
exact, not doing anything to the climbing rose-bush at that moment, but
looking down at himself--was a young woman. For a second John Musgrave
thought it was a boy; during the next second it dawned upon his startled
intelligence that this was no boy, but an exceedingly well-grown young
woman--a young woman in male attire; that is to say, while the upper
part of her was clothed in quite feminine fashion, the lower half--John
Musgrave blushed as he grasped the horrible reality--was garbed in a
man's overalls, a serviceable pair of loose-fitting blue trousers,
buckled in at the waist with a workmanlike belt, in which was thrust
pruning-knife, hammer, and other things necessary to a gardener at the
top of a long ladder with no mate at the foot.
"It is all right; he is quite gentle," the girl called down the ladder
reassuringly to the astonished, upturned face of Mr Musgrave.
She was, Mr Musgrave could not fail to observe, a very pretty girl, and
she looked unquestionably well in the immodest get-up. Her hair, which
was uncovered, was brown, and broke into curls at her temples; and a
pair of smiling, darkly grey eyes gazed down at him amiably, with serene
indifference to her embarrassing attire. Mr Musgrave imagined this
male attire must be even more embarrassing to its wearer than it was to
him to behold, in which he was quite mistaken. The girl was beautifully
unconscious of anything in her appearance to attract comment. She wore
trousers for use; and the serviceability of a thing explains and
justifies its existence.
Since the person who addressed him was a woman, natural instinct
suggested to Mr Musgrave the raising of his hat; but the sight of those
objectionable overalls decided him that the courtesy was uncalled for;
then, meeting the grey eyes fully, natural instinct prevailed with him.
The top of a ladder is not a comfortable place for social amenities, and
the young person in the overalls had a long nail between her lips, which
she had removed in order to call out her reassurance and had since
replaced; she inclined her head nevertheless.
"That Moresby," murmured the owner of the grey eyes, as they followed
Mr Musgrave's retreat. "Moresby does not like two-legged females; it
prefers the skirt, and cherishes the fond delusion that the feet are
attached quite decorously somewhere to the hem."
Then she returned to her work, and dismissed Mr Musgrave from her
thoughts. The head gardener at the Hall had something else to do
besides occupying her mind with idle speculations.
Mr Musgrave passed out through the lodge gates feeling inexpressibly
shocked. He knew, because she herself had told him when unfolding some
of her schemes, that it was Mrs Chadwick's practice to employ female
labour whenever possible. In that respect, although it was unusual--for
which reason alone it did not appeal to him as desirable--she was, he
allowed, experimenting in a perfectly legitimate manner; but he could
not see the necessity for the substitution of male attire. Because a
young woman was employed in an unwomanly capacity it was no argument
that she should further unsex herself by encroaching on the right of man
to this very proper assertion of being, as the young woman would have
expressed it, a biped. But Mr Musgrave in his very natural prejudice
overlooked two essential points: that clothes in the first instance are
worn for decency and comfort; and that the fashion of them has been
decided with regard to utility and convenience, rather than the
important question of sex. Plainly a skirt is neither useful nor
convenient for climbing ladders in; it is also highly dangerous. Mr
Musgrave might have argued: why climb ladders? To which the grey-eyed
girl would have replied: because thereby she could earn a living in a
perfectly honest and agreeable manner by following the occupation which
most interested her, and in which she was undoubtedly skilled. Also the
climbing of ladders is quite as simple to many women as it is to the
average man. It is a matter of balance. Some people enjoy climbing,
just as others prefer going down-hill, and the more equable natures,
like Mr Musgrave, have a predilection for a flat road.
But--Mr Musgrave blushed again as he recalled a mental picture of the
girl in the overalls--she was such a pretty girl. She looked the kind
of girl one places instinctively in a refined home, engaged in the
ladylike occupation of painting flowers on satin, or working at plain
sewing for the poor. Mr Musgrave's idea of a suitable setting would
not have raised a pang of regret in the contented breast of the head
gardener. She would not have vacated her position at the top of the
ladder for the most elegant drawing-room, nor have relinquished her
pruning-scissors in favour of the daintiest satin-work in the world.
She, like Mr Chadwick, believed in the individual doing what she was
best fitted to do. And gardening was her "job."
It is a noteworthy fact that had the head gardener been plain and
middle-aged her unsuitable occupation and unseemly attire would not have
worried John Musgrave to the extent that it did. He would have
dismissed the matter from his thoughts as simply objectionable, and
therefore not to be dwelt on; but the youth of this girl and the beauty
of her aroused his sympathies. The clear grey eyes were responsible for
this. Chivalry in the male breast, even when that, breast belongs to a
middle-aged bachelor, is an emotion which, contrary to all right
principles, responds most readily to the curve of young lips and the
call to laughter from bright eyes.