MISS BALDWIN LOOKS ON
To Miss Baldwin, watching the progress of that story in real life which
she found even more absorbing than her favourite fiction, it seemed that
complicating influences were coming into play, as summer passed into
autumn and autumn into winter. The story was made the more interesting,
but that happy ending which she rigidly exacted from all stories that
should earn her approbation, became increasingly obscured to her vision.
In a written story, you know--if you dealt with fiction of the sort that
you could trust--that the happy ending would come, and previous troubles
to be passed through only threw it into greater relief when it did come.
But in a story of real life you could not be so sure. In real life
things sometimes went wrong and remained wrong, which was one reason for
turning for relief to the right sort of fiction.
Fred Comfrey, upon whose suit, it will be remembered, Miss Baldwin was
inclined to look with favour, went away, rather suddenly. Watching
Pamela with sharp but sympathetic eyes, she questioned whether
"something" hadn't happened. There was some talk about Fred at breakfast
and luncheon, which were Miss Baldwin's opportunities for getting into
touch with family views. He was taking up a career in which he had
already attained some success; and a still greater measure of success
was expected of him now that he was ready to throw himself into it
again. Colonel Eldridge seemed to believe in him, and to like him. Miss
Baldwin could not interpret anything he said as a sign that he had any
suspicion of Fred's hopes of winning Pamela. His references to the young
man were hardly to be labelled as patronizing, but there was always a
sense of difference in them; or so it seemed to Miss Baldwin, who was
alive to such shades. She did not herself attach much social value to
the Comfreys. The Vicar was the Vicar, ex-officio on an equality with
her employers, and so treated by them, but he was obviously of a
different clay from the Vicar of Blagrove, for instance, who with his
family were of the intimates among the country neighbours. Mrs. Comfrey
seemed hardly to consider herself, and certainly Miss Baldwin didn't
consider her, on an equality with Mrs. Eldridge. If Fred were to be
viewed only in the light of his origin, it would not be surprising that
the idea of his aspiring to Pamela had not yet so much as entered the
head of Pamela's father.
But love takes small heed of such reckonings; otherwise, what would have
become of half the stories that Miss Baldwin so much enjoyed? The strong
devoted young man who was to fight his arduous way to an eminence which
he might fitly invite the lady of his choice to share with him, would be
greatly encouraged in his ascent if that lady's sympathies were with
him. And they might be; for she would see in him from the beginning
something of what he had it in him to become.
Were Pamela's sympathies with Fred in his coming endeavours? Certainly
they were. She agreed with everything that was said about the merit
shown by a man with no initial advantages in making his way in the world
by his own efforts and character. But there was no least little sign of
a personal interest in the result. If there had been, Miss Baldwin could
hardly have missed it. There seemed to be, instead, a tendency to close
the subject, whenever it was opened, with some general or even
platitudinous observation which, with other signs, persuaded Miss
Baldwin that Pamela had acquired some distaste for Fred Comfrey. But she
had been markedly friendly to him right up till the time he went away;
so what could the reason be but that he had "said something to her?"
Out of her expert knowledge of such subjects, Miss Baldwin had no
difficulty in conjecturing what that "something" had been, or in
interpreting the slight indications afforded by Pamela as proof of what
she had always supposed. Pamela had given Fred her friendship, but never
in the smallest degree her love, and the premature declaration of his
love for her had come as an unpleasant shock to her.
The effect of these conclusions upon Miss Baldwin herself was that from
the moment she formed them her sympathies began to depart from Fred.
This is easily explicable. Up until now he had been selected by her as
the suitor towards whose success the story was directing itself. One
allowed oneself those castings forward in the early stages of a story.
But, when indications began to be dropped that a particular suitor was
not intended for the prize, one put oneself upon the side of whoever
else seemed likely to win it, thus preparing for full participation in
the author's ultimate design. She had piled upon Fred virtues that were
not too apparent as long as there seemed reasonable hope of his success;
but now that Pamela, if she read her aright, had rejected the idea of
him and his virtues, they seemed much less to her. He was not, unless
Pamela chose to reckon him so, in any way to be considered her equal. He
might, indeed, if the story should so run, quite adequately play some
sort of villain's part, such as-- But it was too early to cast forward
in that direction. The story was still progressing in its main lines,
with another suitor to be observed, and an evident awareness on the part
of all the characters who came within her view of what was going on.
She had her opportunity with the rest of taking occasion to watch the
trend of events, for Lady Crowborough, coming over to Hayslope on a day
of early September to announce herself as the giver of an elaborate
picnic entertainment, had graciously included Miss Baldwin, who happened
to come within range of her vision, in the general invitation. Miss
Baldwin hardly supposed that she would enjoy herself, when she accepted
it; but she did, and not only because of the opportunities it gave her
for observation. The whole affair was like a scene in a story--a story
of high life--and her description of it, in letters to relatives were
full, and within due limits enthusiastic.
The numerous guests, drawn from the houses large and small within a
fairly wide radius, assembled at the Castle at about eleven o'clock of
a golden morning. They came mostly in cars of their own, but some
driving, some riding bicycles, and a few on horseback. The horses seemed
to give the expedition something of the flavour of a past time, though
there were hardly enough of them to deserve the style of cavalcade, such
as must often have set out from Pershore Castle in days not long gone
by. Pamela rode on a horse provided for her from the Pershore stables,
and so did young Lord Horsham. So did a niece of Lady Crowborough's
staying in the house, who was the life and soul of the party, and seemed
to be responsible for many of the arrangements. She had taken particular
notice of Miss Baldwin herself, and arranged for her to drive in a
carriage with an extremely nice clergyman and his wife and invalid
daughter, who were spending their holidays at a farmhouse near.
There were refreshments provided at the Castle before the start was
made. Miss Baldwin described the Castle, as it had presented itself to
her--one of the stately homes of England, of which she had been promised
a more extended exploration at a future date. The noble owners had also
struck her favourably, as true representatives of the aristocracy of our
favoured land--stately, too, especially the Countess, but of the most
courteous manner, and without a touch of condescension.
The scene of the picnic was a tract of primeval forest some ten miles
away. There were ancient gnarled trees of immense girth, with little
secret lawns, and stretches of deep bracken; a purling stream, and an
outcrop of rugged rocks, where the picnic feast was held. After having
feasted and strolled, the party returned to the Castle, and then broke
up, at a comparatively early hour. A simple entertainment, but quite
delightful experience, with most of the best-known people in that part
of the County attending and all expressing themselves as having obtained
the acme of enjoyment from it.
Miss Baldwin's letter did not disclose what seemed to her to have been
the inspiration and intention of this highly appreciated entertainment.
It was so much in matter of her own discovery that she hardly dared to
lay stress on it, even in her own imaginings. And yet she thought she
could not be mistaken. There was a round dozen of young girls there,
some of them of more obvious social importance than Pamela; but the
honours were hers. She was not mistaken there, for the nice clergyman's
wife asked her who Pamela was, and seemed surprised to hear that there
was no title attached to her, as there was to some of the others. And
the nice clergyman's invalid daughter asked her pointblank whether
Pamela was engaged to young Lord Horsham. Both Lord and Lady Crowborough
appeared to treat her as if she were; but, as Miss Baldwin knew that she
was not, this could only mean that they wanted her to be. Nor was it too
much to suppose that, by treating her almost as the most honoured guest,
they were willing that all these country neighbours whom they had
gathered together should know that they wanted her to be.
And yet nothing came of it. The few days, exciting to Miss Baldwin
because of what she was expecting, which followed the picnic brought no
announcement. Lord Horsham came over to the Hall the very next day, but
nothing came of that, as might so confidently have been expected. He
came over several times more before he went back to Oxford in October.
He was the admitted friend of the family; there was no young person who
was there more often, and no young man of those who came to the house
who could be considered in the light of a rival, now that Fred Comfrey
was off the scene. It seemed to Miss Baldwin that there was an air of
expectation abroad; that both Colonel and Mrs. Eldridge were waiting for
something. And the conviction grew upon her that there was a hitch
somewhere.
Where was it? There was no doubt about the young man's admiration for
Pamela. He was the best of friends with Judith, and very nice to the
children, as was natural, but it was Pamela who drew him. Her attitude
towards him was frank and kind. Oh, she did like him, and was bright and
gay when he was there, though not always so at other times. Could it be
that she was, after all, casting thoughts back to that other? By this
time Miss Baldwin was inclined to resent such an idea. Fred had taken
his place in her scheme as the rejected suitor, and it now seemed to her
that Pamela had never treated Fred with the same kind of friendliness as
she treated Horsham. Couldn't she make up her mind about him? Or was
there something else going on that delayed the wished-for climax?
It came gradually to Miss Baldwin, as the months passed by, that there
was a good deal going on at Hayslope of which she had not the key.
Life was duller there, and sadder, than she had known it at any time
during the two years she had been there, even during the last months of
the war, when Colonel Eldridge had been mostly away, and the shadow of
Hugo's death still lay over them. But during that first winter, when
things were beginning to settle down, there had been a good deal going
on that had interested Miss Baldwin in her first experience of the life
of a country house. Very little of it went on now.
What had become of all the visiting that seemed to play such a large
part in the lives of such people as the Eldridge's? Colonel and Mrs.
Eldridge never slept away from Hayslope during that autumn and early
winter. Pamela went away twice, and Judith once. Pamela had a girl
friend to stay with her for a week or so, and an aunt of Mrs.
Eldridge's, who had been wont to spend the month of October at Hayslope
for years past, came with her maid, but went back to Brighton, where she
lived, after a week. It was then that Miss Baldwin first realized how
everything was being cut down, more and more closely. The old lady was
reported to have said that she didn't get enough to eat, which was of
course ridiculous; what she didn't get was the elaborate provision that
had struck Miss Baldwin herself when she had first come to Hayslope
Hall. Nor did she get the service, except what her own pampered
grumbling maid gave her. Nobody else came to the Hall, where there had
been a constant succession of guests. There were only enough servants
now to do the work of the house for the normal family life, which was
also being reduced all the time, something here always being cut off or
something there. The drawing-room was shut up, the billiard-room was
never used. Mrs. Eldridge gave up her room and took to the morning-room,
which all the family inhabited. More wood than coal was to be burnt in
the schoolroom, and everywhere else. The outdoor staff was cut down to
one man and a boy for the garden, and Timbs for stable and garage; but
the cars were little used now. The light supper which had taken the
place of dinner during the summer was continued, except for the week
during which the old woman from Brighton was there.
There was never any discussion of these and other economies, at least
before Miss Baldwin, and there was no grumbling at them. Colonel
Eldridge was far more silent than she had ever known him, and she
thought he was ageing, and seemed now, when she saw him sometimes from
the schoolroom window walking alone, always to have his eyes on the
ground, and to stoop slightly, who had been so upright and active. Mrs.
Eldridge was just the same, always unruffled, always well-dressed,
though seldom in the beautiful clothes Miss Baldwin had been wont to
admire. Pamela and Judith had taken to doing things that had been done
before by servants, mostly out of doors. They looked after the poultry
entirely, making a pastime of it to all appearance. And they had taken
to making many of their own clothes; Mrs. Eldridge's maid, who had also
looked after them, was much occupied in housework. No word ever fell
from either of them to show that they were affected by the change in
their circumstances, which by now had come to be a complete change from
the way of life lived at Hayslope during that first winter after the
war. Pamela was not nearly so bright as she had been; there was
_something_ the matter with her, though it was not, apparently,
discontent with home conditions. Judith was much the same as she had
always been, sometimes silent, sometimes uproarious; half a child, half
a woman; but Judith had not known the life that Pamela had known, after
she was grown-up. Judith's life was altered chiefly by her emancipation
from the schoolroom. Her home and what went on in it was enough for her,
as it was for the children.
The outstanding difference at Hayslope, greater even than the changes at
the Hall, which, after all, did not affect the core of family life, was
the Grange unoccupied. There it stood, a big, rich house, from which had
radiated sociability and close intimacy, with all its rooms shut up, its
chimneys cold, its windows shuttered. There were a man and his wife to
caretake, and men still at work outside--more than there were now at the
Hall, though their only task was to keep things just alive for future
occupancy. It made a blank, even to Miss Baldwin and the children, who
sometimes went through the gardens in their walks, and lamented its
desolation, as remarkable by contrast as if it had been falling into
complete disuse. Presently there seemed to grow up about its forsaken
state something significant of a change more unhappy than was shown by
a house from which life had only been removed for a time. What did it
stand for in the story that Miss Baldwin was tracing out for herself
from all the happenings around her?
Neither Lord Eldridge nor Lady Eldridge, nor Norman, had come back since
they had left Hayslope at the end of August. Nobody from the Hall had
visited them, either in London or at the other house they had taken in
the country.
Miss Baldwin was not in the way of picking up rumours at Hayslope. She
was not in close enough contact with the family in which she lived to
get much from them, and she was in no closer contact with servants or
with people outside. But she could not help knowing that there had been
something of a split; and indeed that was now taken for granted. Alice
and Isabelle knew it. "Father and Uncle William aren't very good friends
now. I think Uncle William takes too much on himself now he is a Lord,
and father doesn't quite like it. But they'll be friends again when
Uncle William comes back to Hayslope." Isabelle had said that, as they
were going through the Grange garden. Some of it she had been told, some
of it she had probably made up for herself, for Alice had contradicted
her. "I don't think it's anything to do with his being a lord. Auntie
Eleanor is a Lady, and she's just the same; and so is Norman."
But were they just the same? It looked as if the estrangement had
affected both families by this time, though on the surface they
maintained relations. Colonel Eldridge corresponded with his brother,
for he sometimes mentioned, in Miss Baldwin's presence, that he had
heard from him. Pamela, if no one else, had been asked to stay at
Eylsham. Why hadn't she gone? That had never been disclosed. Norman
wrote to her sometimes, from Cambridge, and she to him.
What was the quarrel about? Money, thought Miss Baldwin, having come to
this conclusion partly because in fiction it was generally money that
brothers who had reached middle age quarrelled about, if they quarrelled
at all, partly because of the now patent contrast between the wealth
that exuded from Lord Eldridge and the lack of it that was increasingly
in evidence at the Hall. She could find no simple explanation of why
this state of things should have brought about a quarrel, but its
effects were now remarkable enough. The younger brother was a rich man,
and a lord, the elder, in spite of his large house and his estates, was
seen to be a poor one. Surely the younger ought to have come to the
assistance of the elder before this! He was not only not doing that; he
was holding off from him. Dark work, somewhere!
Early in December Fred Comfrey paid a visit to Hayslope, and Miss
Baldwin's interest returned to Pamela and her story, which had fallen
into the second place of late, because of what was happening otherwise.
It seemed to her that Pamela's attitude towards him was entirely
different from what it had been. She was friendly, but seemed on the
alert not to be left alone with him. His dejection was plain to be seen.
Colonel Eldridge seemed glad to see him; otherwise he would probably
not have been asked to the house more than once, during the two days of
his visit. He came on Saturday morning and stayed to lunch; and he came
again to lunch on Sunday and stayed most of the afternoon. But Pamela
had bicycled over after church to a house a few miles off, and did not
return until he had gone.
At supper on Sunday evening the veil was lifted for a moment from what
had been puzzling Miss Baldwin; but what was revealed only puzzled her
more.
Colonel Eldridge talked about Fred, and said: "He has been doing
business with William--seen quite a lot of him."
Pamela looked up surprised. "He never told me that," she said.
That was all. The veil was dropped again immediately. Lord Eldridge was
mentioned sometimes before Miss Baldwin, perhaps to keep up appearances;
but she was not to hear anything about him that mattered. All that she
gathered from this was that Colonel Eldridge saw nothing to object to in
a business connection between Lord Eldridge and Fred Comfrey, and that
Pamela was surprised, and apparently displeased at it. Or perhaps her
displeasure was only at Fred's not having told her. But she hadn't given
him much opportunity of telling her anything. It was all very difficult;
but what seemed to be plain was that Fred Comfrey could now be ruled out
as a suitor, though he might not yet consider himself so.
This was quite what Miss Baldwin wished by this time, and her
satisfaction was increased when Lord Horsham soon afterwards reappeared
on the scene. He was received in a very different way. It really seemed
at last as if something were going to happen. Miss Baldwin had come to
hold a high opinion of Lord Horsham, as a young man of sober, steady
habits who would make an excellent husband even for so fine a flower of
girlhood as Pamela, and this altogether apart from the rich gilding of
his title and inheritance. But he had not, previously, presented himself
to her as one whose coming might be expected to enliven a whole
household. That, however, was the effect of his frequent visits during
the early part of his Christmas vacation. And what could Colonel and
Mrs. Eldridge's lively welcome of him mean but that they also thought
something might be about to happen? What could Pamela's lighter spirits
mean but that she was getting ready for something to happen? Judith and
the children might not yet have had their eyes opened to the
possibilities of the happening, but they all three made much of Lord
Horsham. That might partly be accounted for by the rarity of such visits
as his in these days; but on his side there seemed to be a conscious
desire to stand well with them, and a success in the endeavour which was
agreeable to watch. If Pamela did marry him, her family might be
expected to share some of the tangible fruits of the alliance. They
could hardly be said to have gone down in the world--that dreadful
phrase which sometimes suggested itself to Miss Baldwin--if the eldest
son of an Earl, who lived in an ancient Castle, took his bride from
their house.
Miss Baldwin went home for three weeks' holiday at Christmas, hoping
that on her return a new chapter in the romance would be ready for her
perusal. It had reached the point at which developments of some sort
could not long be delayed.