The few weeks before Lionel’s arrival passed pleasantly and without
incident. Prudence may have sat on Alfred’s knee, or wandered with him
on Sunday afternoon’s but the Squire was unaware of such doings. He
remained engrossed in his preparations to provide entertainment for his
son and heir, in Sir Geoffrey’s eyes a dual personality. His son he
regarded as a jolly boy, a st’un or two below right weight; his heir
bulked larger above the horizon. Like all men of his kidney, he thought
pessimistically of the future. We are writing of pre-war days, at a time
when a now famous statesman was attacking the dukes, who, perhaps, of
all men in exalted positions, least deserved such assaults. The Squire
was keenly aware that the greater included the less, and that he, too,
was assailed. How could he answer such attacks? He, and thousands in his
position, writhed in secret because pride prohibited a recital of what
had been done, the innumerable sacrifices, the paring down and remitting
of rents, the private charities, the cheerful renunciation of luxuries,
as a “set off” against much left undone through want of means. Could a
gentleman of unblemished lineage toot any horn other than that carried
by him as M.F.H.? Could he touch the pitch of public controversy and not
be defiled?
Nevertheless Sir Geoffrey carried a high head and a conviction that
things would mend. Almost furtively, he would steal into his dining-room
to stare with melancholy eyes at the Reynolds’ beauty. A neighbouring
county magnate had sold just such a masterpiece, and in its honoured
place hung a copy of the original. “No copy for me,” growled Sir
Geoffrey to himself, thinking of awkward questions put by
unsophisticated guests.
Fishpingle and he overhauled the estate accounts. The Squire employed no
expert land agent. Possibly, what he gained in a saved salary was lost
twice over owing to the management of an amateur. He employed his own
people, a phrase ever in his mouth, and the Wiltshire peasant in the
more remote districts is a blunted tool, quite unfit for the finer uses
of high farming. Bonsor had no executive ability whatever. Fishpingle,
on the other hand, had an instinct, almost infallible, about
stock-breeding. His heart and soul were in it, like the Squire’s.
Fishpingle may have known what he had saved and made for his friend and
master. The Squire, serenely unconscious of his debt, took the credit
_en bloc_ and whistled complacently.
We get a further glimpse of this honest gentleman, when we mentioned the
fact that he stood out valiantly against motor cars till the last gasp
from his wife. To please her, he bought a limousine, and forthwith
extolled it, because it was his, as the best car on the market, which it
wasn’t.
Night and day his thoughts wandered, in happy vagabondage, to Lady
Margot Maltravers.
She spent a flying week-end before Lionel arrived.
Some description of the young lady must be attempted. The late Lord
Beaumanoir had left his only child the freehold of a handsome house in
London, some valuable town property, and a round sum securely invested
in gilt-edged securities. The Beaumanoir estates and title passed to a
distant kinsman. When she came of age, Lady Margot announced her
intention of going “on her own.” Having plenty to “go on,” this
announcement was acclaimed by poorer relations as indicating spirit and
intelligence. Under cover of this chorus of praise, a few private loans
were impetrated. Lady Margot lavished _largesse_ with amusing cynicism.
“I must pay for my whistle,” she remarked to her intimates. “If I
whistle the wrong tune, the poor dears will hold their tongues.”
However, despite predictions to the contrary, she conducted herself
circumspectly. It was true that minor poets were to be seen in her
drawing-room and about her dining-table, with a sprinkling of artists,
politicians, barristers, musicians, and novelists. She said that she
liked to be amused. She had more than one flirtation. The “poor dears”
feared that she had not treated her lovers well. She was accused of
luring them on and then laughing at them. When reproached she replied
modestly: “Really, you know, they are hunting comfortable board and
lodging rather than little me.”
Little she was, although _mignonne_ is a happier word. Her feet and
hands were exquisite. It was said—perhaps truly—that Lady Margot
bought her footwear from that mysterious personage who lives in Paris,
and who has the effrontery to demand from his clients a big premium,
cash on the nail, before he consents to supply them with shoes at a
fabulous price. Her frocks were beyond compare, and she especially
affected, in the evening, a vivid translucent emerald green that set off
admirably the dead white of her complexion and her dark sparkling eyes
and hair. Her portrait, by one of her admirers, was hung upon the line
in the Royal Academy, and made the artist’s reputation while enhancing
hers.
About the time when she encountered our Wiltshire squire, Lady Margot
was getting “fed up” with clever young men consumed by their own
ambitions. In fine, they had ceased to amuse her. They ground their
little axes too persistently. Indeed, she had captivated Sir Geoffrey at
once by saying candidly: “You know, they wouldn’t be missed. The real
world would wag on without them.”
Sir Geoffrey was quite of her opinion.
“Popinjays, my dear young lady, popinjays.”
This queerly contrasted pair, the reactionary squire and the
twentieth-century maiden, met at a big Hampshire house, where the
partridge driving is superlatively good. Sir Geoffrey happened to be a
fine performer, a little slow with his second gun, but quick enough to
shoot in the best company. To the humiliation of the younger men, Lady
Margot accompanied the veteran, and highly recommended his performance
and his retriever’s. He amused her more than the young men, because he
was absolutely sincere. And she succumbed instantly to the gracious
personality of Lady Pomfret, accepting with alacrity an invitation to
visit Pomfret Court, openly chagrined when no early date was set.
She arrived in May, driving her Rolls-Royce, and accompanied by a
chauffeur and a French maid.
Sir Geoffrey, as was his wont, received her at the front door. The
warmth of the reception rather astonished her. But it was quite in
keeping, so she reflected, with the hospitable air of the house, a fine
specimen of late Elizabethan architecture. To luxury in its myriad
phases she was accustomed; comfort, as the Pomfrets interpreted the
word, might be more restful. She promised herself fresh and diverting
experiences in studying types which she had supposed to be extinct.
This first visit was an enormous success.
She beheld, of course, half a dozen different photographs of the
Rifleman, and asked many questions concerning him.
“He is no popinjay,” affirmed Sir Geoffrey.
“Do you call him clever?” she asked the proud father.
“Clever! Now, my dear, what the doose d’ye mean by ‘clever’?”
“Quite frankly, Sir Geoffrey, I ask for information.”
“Am I clever?” demanded the Squire.
“Oh no, dear Geoffrey,” said his wife, tranquilly.
The three persons were at tea in what was known as the Long Saloon, a
charming room with two great oriel windows, similar to those at
Montacute, embellished by innumerable achievements, escutcheons setting
forth in stained glass the armorial bearings of the families that had
intermarried with the Pomfrets. The walls were panelled in oak palely
golden with age. Against these walls stood cabinets of Queen Anne and
the Georges filled with English porcelain. There were lovely bits of
Chinese lacquer, many chintz-covered sofas and chairs, two well-worn
Persian carpets, and tables of all sizes and shapes. Every article
looked as if it had stood still for generations. Lady Margot said
happily that here was exactly the right setting for her hosts. The room
shone with the same soft lustre that gleamed from the silver of the tea
equipage two centuries old.
Sir Geoffrey laughed.
“Are _you_ clever, Mary?”
“Here and there, Geoffrey, where my own interests are vitally
concerned.”
Lady Margot stuck to her point.
“Is your son interested in art and literature?”
Her listeners failed to detect a slight accent of derision.
“Um! He’s an outdoor man, as I am. I can tell you this. He is interested
in persons. He is the most popular fellow in Nether-Applewhite.”
“Really? I look forward to making his acquaintance.”
At this the Squire chuckled.
He would have laughed aloud, had he realised that his guest was indeed
more interested in his son than she was prepared to admit, even to
herself. The photographs captivated her. She made certain that Lionel
Pomfret was utterly different from the young men who frequented her own
house. She recognised in him the _preux chevalier_. With such parents
could he be anything else? Leaping to quite unjustifiable conclusions,
she decided, also, that this only son must have taken from father and
mother what was best in each. Perhaps, for the first time in her
variegated life, she became romantic. Nobody, as yet, had whetted her
imagination.
If Sir Geoffrey had divined all this!
Presently, when many of Prudence’s fancy cakes had been eaten, Sir
Geoffrey led his guest to the farther window.
“Do you see anything familiar?” he asked.
“Of course. How exciting! Our coat. Have our families intermarried?”
“In 1625, when Charles the First ascended his throne.”
“I must look that up.”
“We will do so together.”
Upon the following Monday morning she whirled away, leaving a gap behind
her. Sir Geoffrey waxed a thought too enthusiastic. Lady Pomfret
admitted her intelligence and good-breeding.
“Mary, you are lukewarm.”
“I suspend judgment. What does Ben say?”
“Ben—Ben? I haven’t asked Ben. I needn’t ask him. Quality is everything
with the old fellow. He will bore me stiff raving about her. She was
uncommonly civil to him. A witch, my dear, a witch.”
“You burn her alive with this excess of praise.”
Fishpingle, however, who went fishing with the Squire that same Monday
afternoon, did not rave about Lady Margot Maltravers. The Squire did so
for him, and believed that what he said had been said by his faithful
henchman. He caught more trout than Fishpingle, and returned home in
exuberant spirits.
Whether by accident or design, Joyce Hamlin was not asked to meet the
“dasher.”
The problem of ways and means for an heir’s suitable entertainment was
solved triumphantly by the Squire, without a hint from either my lady or
old Ben. Sir Geoffrey went to town alone. He returned, next day,
inflated with a sense of his own cleverness and craft. He had let the
shooting! Fishpingle was visibly impressed and touched. In the memory of
man the Pomfret shootings had been rigorously preserved by and for the
Pomfret squires. The sacrifice almost matched that of Abraham.
And—unlike the Patriarch—the Squire had measured what that sacrifice
meant to his son—practically nothing.
“Our partridges are never driven till early November, and by that time
Lionel will be in the Red Sea. Well, well, I hope my old pals will keep
my guns warm.”
Lady Pomfret kissed him. He had brought her a trinket from Cartier’s, a
tiny brooch as dainty as herself. As he was pinning it into a lace
jabot, she asked anxiously:
“Oh, Geoffrey, did you remember to order a new dress suit?”
“I remembered not to order it. I prefer old togs.”
* * * * *
In the good old days before rents fell and prices rose, Sir Geoffrey had
owned a small cutter, which lay in Southampton Water, and with which he
had won several races. All that was left of this gallant craft might be
found in a stout oak box under the stairs in the hall, a box full of
flags, gay bunting wherewith the Squire decorated his house upon great
occasions. You may be sure that all these little flags were strung out
upon the afternoon of Lionel’s arrival. The father met his son at
Salisbury; the mother, and a goodly number of the Squire’s “people,”
assembled on the lawn. Perhaps the boy himself, after he had kissed his
mother, said all that can be said on such delightful occasions. After an
absence of four years, an absence that had turned him from a delicate
stripling into a healthy man, he stood upon the steps of his old home
and gazed affectionately at the honest, beaming faces upturned to his.
The welcoming cheers died away. There was no sound save the cawing of
the rooks in the beeches behind the house. Lionel said impulsively:
“I say, it is jolly to be at home again. It’s the jolliest moment of my
life.”
That was all and quite enough. The Squire led the way into the
dining-room, and his people followed to drink health and prosperity to
the heir. The oldest tenant made a short speech, Lionel replied in a
dozen words. The visitors soon drifted away. Father, mother, and son
were left alone.
“He’s a man,” said the Squire.
The mother smiled happily, noting subtler changes than the merely
physical. He had grown into a man, true. India had burnt him brown. Hard
work and exercise had taken away a certain boyish immaturity, but in
essentials he remained much the same—impulsive, affectionate, and
ingenuous. His clear eyes met hers with no reservations. His laugh had
the same joyous spontaneity. But in his voice were new inflections. He
spoke with a crisper decision, with something of his sire’s authority.
He carried himself with an air——! Lady Pomfret divined instantly that
he had ceased to be an echo of family traditions and predictions. He
would take his own line across any country. She decided, as quickly,
that he was still heart-whole. No woman stood between mother and son.
That first evening became an imperishable memory. The two men she loved
best were at their best. She sat silent, looking at them, listening to
ancient family jokes, revelling in the present and yet conscious that
her thoughts were straying into the future. Lionel just touched upon his
health. The regimental doctor, a capital chap, pronounced him sound.
“He vetted me before I left. Clean bill.”
“Thank God!” exclaimed the Squire heartily.
Lionel talked much of soldiering. The Squire nodded portentously, not
quite at his ease. He wanted his boy to be “keen.” At the same time,
soldiering with Lionel was intended to be a means rather than an end.
For five pleasant years Sir Geoffrey had served in the Brigade of
Guards. Straitened fortunes had prevented the Squire from putting his
son into his old regiment, but he had no regrets about that. Foreign
service had done the trick. Nevertheless, the time was coming swiftly
when the boy must take up other interests and responsibilities. An
infusion of pipeclay was in his marrow. Pomfrets had served their
sovereigns by land and sea, but the heir of the family—in his
opinion—could render better service on his own land. For the moment he
kept such thoughts to himself.
Lady Pomfret went upstairs at eleven. The Squire and Lionel sat together
till after midnight. Alone with his son, the father—not a man of great
perspicacity—became oddly sensible of the change which the mother had
divined so quickly. Obviously, Lionel did not see eye to eye with his
senior upon certain matters. To the Squire, need it be said, life
generally, his life, was a cut-and-dried affair. He believed devoutly in
his own order; he detested perplexing compromises; a thing b’ Jove! was
right or wrong. Being an ardent fox-hunter, an ex-master of hounds, he
pursued his objectives without much regard for obstacles, although he
availed himself of gaps in stiff fences. And till very lately he had
ridden first-class horses—which makes a tremendous difference to a
man’s “going.” Lionel, he perceived, had a touch of the “trimmer” in
him. When the Squire—as was inevitable—spoke of the increasing
troubles of the landed gentry, Lionel was not disposed to take for
granted, what the Squire did, that the landowners were the unhappy
victims of circumstance and democratic tendency. The boy hinted
unmistakably that even county potentates had something to learn about
organisation and economy. He spoke incisively of his own profession,
tactfully shifting the ground from Wiltshire to India.
“We have to work harder,” he remarked cheerfully. “But we don’t yet work
hard enough. We shall find that out if there is a big row and we come up
against fellows who work harder than we do.”
“Um!”
Lionel continued with more diffidence:
“It seems to me, father, that it is always a case of the survival of the
fittest. If the landed gentry can’t hold their own, they’ll be
scrapped.”
“Good God!”
“You can’t get away from it. There it is.”
“Scrapped! What a word!”
“Beastly. But, as I said just now, some neighbours of ours, your own
intimate friends, are tackling jobs they don’t understand. You stick to
the old acres. Do they? And take your own case and mine. Is life in a
jolly regiment really the right training for a man who must make his
land pay or go under?”
“Do you want to leave the Rifle Brigade and go to an Agricultural
College?”
“Not much. I’ve had a topping time, thanks to your generosity, sir, but,
I ask you, when you were in the Coldstream what did you and your pals
talk about?”
The Squire exploded, not loudly.
“I tell you this, sir: we didn’t talk socialism.”
Lionel laughed.
“I’ll bet you didn’t. I know what you talked about.”
“We jaw on about the same good old subjects still, but half the fellows
in our mess are in much the same position that I am. Their fathers, like
you, own properties with decreasing rent-rolls. We have to talk about
that sometimes.”
“I should like to hear your conclusions.”
“Right O! But they must be your own, more or less. The thing whittles
itself down to efficiency. The very biggest men, the dukes, for
instance, employ experts. The smaller men can’t afford that.”
“Go on,” growled Sir Geoffrey, half-pleased, half-resentful. He was
agreeably surprised to find that his boy possessed opinions which at any
rate challenged attention. He was disagreeably aware that those opinions
might clash with his own.
Lionel went on:
“If the smaller men can’t afford experts to run their estates, they must
supply the necessary knowledge themselves. That means hard work and at
best small pay. _And_—more intelligence in the working.”
“We’ll go to bed,” said the Squire.
He rose, looking affectionately at his son.
“By the way,” he said lightly, “I’ve let the shootin’ this year, but
that won’t affect you.”
“Let the shooting?”
The Squire nodded. Lionel’s disconcerted face rather pleased him. The
boy was a chip of the old block. He added curtly:
“I shan’t make a habit of it. The extra money comes in handy.”
Lionel hesitated and flushed.
“Are you really hard up?”
“Well—yes. Let’s leave it at that.” His voice became genial. “I told
you to-night, because old Ben would be sure to blurt it out to you
to-morrow morning. No complaints! You’re at home again, and as fit as a
fiddle. Don’t worry! We shall pull through.”
Lionel’s expressive face remained pensive and distressed. An awful
thought flitted into Sir Geoffrey’s head. To banish it was instinctive.
He clutched his son’s arm.
“I take it, my boy, that you ain’t entangled with any woman or girl out
there—what?”
Lionel laughed.
“Lord, no. What an idea!”
The Squire beamed at him.
“Well, well—these things happen. We must find you a nice little wife,
old chap, with a bit o’ money—a bit o’ money. Yes, yes, God forbid that
any son of mine should marry for money, but why not follow the Quaker’s
advice to his son, and go where money is.”
“Why not?” said Lionel, smiling back at his father.
They went arm-in-arm through the hall, and then to bed.
* * * * *
When the Squire reached the big room in which Lionel had been born he
found Lady Pomfret still up and wide awake. The Squire chided her, but
confessed that he was not feeling sleepy himself.
“It’s been a day of great excitement. Mary, my dear, we have reason to
be proud and grateful. The boy has turned into a fine young fellow. I
wish you could have seen his face when I told him about the shootin’. He
stared at me as if the heavens had fallen. And his concern, of course,
was entirely on my account. Very gratifying—very. Another thing. No
entanglements. I hinted at marriage, a nice little girl with a bit o’
money. He laughed and replied: ‘Why not?’ Of course, there must be no
pressure, not a pennyweight. But I warn you, he has ideas. He
marches—a—with the times.”
“Do you mean away from—us?”
“That remains to be seen. He is keen about his profession.”
“You regret that?”
“Yes, and no. Our grandchildren, Mary, will wean him from pipeclay.”
As he spoke, he kissed her tranquil face and whispered a compliment.
“You looked so young and pretty to-night. I hardly see you as a
grandmother.”
She touched his arm softly.
“We won’t count those blessed chicks till they’re hatched.”
Something in her tone arrested the Squire’s attention. He said sharply:
“Why not, Mary? Anticipation in such a vital matter is a joy that I,
most certainly, shall not renounce.”
“If—if there should be disappointment?”
“Why apprehend anything so unlikely?”
“Because Lady Margot—if your dreams come true—is the last of her
branch of the family. I have never seen her in _my_ dreams with a baby
in her pretty arms.”
“Nonsense, Mary, nonsense. Sitting up late is always bad for you. To bed
with you! I shall go to my dressing-room.”
He moved to the dressing-room door, and then came back, half-smiling,
half-frowning.
“I see the fly in your ointment. Lady Margot is _petite_. And what of
it? Large women do not necessarily have large families. Mrs. Hamlin was
no bigger than Lady Margot, and she presented Hamlin with four whoppin’
big boys. I have often wondered, my dear Mary, why the wives of poor
parsons are so needlessly prolific.”
Lady Pomfret smiled ironically.
“The doctrine of Compensation, Geoffrey.”
“Perhaps. Now—pop into bed!”
In the bachelor’s wing Lionel was smoking the last cigarette before
turning in. He stood at the widely open window, staring at the park,
lying silver-white beneath a waning moon. Against the silvery spaces of
turf the yews stood out sharply black—_sable_ upon _argent_. The fallow
deer were grazing just beyond the lawn. In the distance he could see the
winding line of the river.
But he frowned as he looked out upon that goodly heritage which in the
fullness of time would be his. The significant fact that the shooting
had been let festered him. He remembered, going back to the old Eton
days, that his father had always “groused” about lack of cash, other
fellows’ fathers did the same. It had never occurred to him to take such
grumblings too seriously. Indeed, comparing his comfortable, beautiful
home with other homes, he had felt a little sore. To keep such an
establishment as Pomfret, to entertain handsomely, to hunt and shoot,
meant an income not far off five figures. It might have shrunk, no
doubt, but enough and to spare was left.
But letting the shooting——!
“Damn!” he exclaimed.
Why had his father not confided in him? The question was easily
answered. The Squire had old-fashioned ideas. Quite probably his own
wife did not know the exact amount of his income. More—grouse as he
could and did to neighbours and friends Sir Geoffrey’s cherished code
prevented him from sharing money anxieties with his wife. She would
know, of course, that money was not so plentiful, but he would be
punctilious in keeping from her actual details.
And that hint about marrying a nice girl with money——
Lionel swore softly again, and again. He realised that his home-coming
was less joyous, and he had something to confess to his sire on the
morrow which assuredly would detract from the merry-makings. He decided
that he would talk things over with old Fishpingle first.
However, being young and healthy he went to bed and fell asleep within a
few minutes. The Squire in his big four-poster slept as soundly. Lady
Pomfret lay awake till the small hours.
* * * * *