Elizabeth's Campaign Part 21

The man's slight frame shook under the force of his testimony. His eyes held the Squire, who was for the moment silenced. Then the engineer turned on his heel with a laugh:

'Well, good-day to you, Mr. Mannering. Go and fasten up your gates!

If I'm for minding D.O.R.A. and winning the war, I'm a good Socialist all the same. I shall be for making short work with you, when our day comes.' And touching his hat, he walked rapidly away.

The Squire straightened his shoulders, and looked round to see whether they had been overheard. But the labourers carrying the hurdles, and Gregson burdened with the coil of wire, had not been listening. They stood now in a group close to the main gate waiting for their leader. The Squire walked up to them, picking his way among various articles of furniture, a cradle, some bedding, a trunk or two, which lay scattered in the road in front of the white cas.e.m.e.nted lodge. The wife of old Perley, the lodge-keeper, was standing on her doorstep.

'Well, no offence, Muster Mannering, but Perley and me's going over to my sister's at Wood End to-night, afore the milingtary come.' The black-browed elderly woman spoke respectfully but firmly.

'What silly nonsense have you got into your heads?' shouted the Squire. 'You know very well all that's going to happen is that the County Council are going to send their motor-plough over, and they'll have to break down the gates to get in, so that the law can settle it. What's come to you that you're all scuttling like a pack of rabbits? It's not your skins that'll pay for it--it's mine!'

'We're told--Perley an' me--as there'll be miling_tary_,' said Mrs.

Perley, unmoved. 'Leastways, they'll bring a road-engine, Perley says, as'll make short work o' them gates. And folks do say as they might even bring a tank along; you know, sir, as there's plenty of 'em, and not fur off.' She nodded mysteriously towards a quarter, never mentioned in the neighbourhood, where these Behemoths of war had a training-ground. 'And Perley and me, we can't have nowt to do wi' such things. We wasn't brought up to 'em.'

'Well, if you go, you don't come back!' said the Squire, shaking a threatening hand.

'Thank you, sir. But there's work for all on us nowadays,' said the woman placidly.

Then the Squire, with Gregson's help, set himself fiercely to the business. In little more than an hour, and with the help of some pieces of rope, the gate had been firmly barricaded with hurdles and barbed wire, wicket-gate and all, and the Squire, taking a poster in large letters from his pocket, affixed it to the outside of the gate. It signified to all and sundry that the Chetworth gate of Mannering Park could now only be opened by violence, and that those offering such violence would be proceeded against according to law.

When it was done, the Squire first addressed a few scathing words to the pair of park-keepers, who smoked imperturbably through them, and then transferred a pound-note to the ready palm of Gregson, who was, it seemed, on the point of accepting work as a stock-keeper from another of the Squire's farmers--a brother culprit, only less 'hustled' than himself by the formidable County Committee, which was rapidly putting the fear of G.o.d into every bad husbandman throughout Brooks.h.i.+re. Then the Squire hurried off homewards.

His chief thought now was--what would that most opinionated young woman at home say to him? He was at once burning to have it out with her, and--though he would have scorned to confess it--nervous as to how he might get through the encounter.

Fate, however, ordained that his thoughts about the person who had now grown so important to his household should be affected, before he saw her again, from a new quarter. The Rector, Mr. Pennington, quite unaware of the doughty deeds that had been done at the Chetworth gate, and coming from his own house which stood within the park enclosure, ran into the Squire at a cross-road.

The Squire looked at him askance, and kept his own counsel. The Rector was a man of peace, and had once or twice tried to dissuade the Squire from his proposed acts of war. The Squire, therefore, did not mean to discuss them with him. But, in general, he and the Rector were good friends. The Rector was a bit of a man of the world, and never attempted to put a quart into a pint-pot. He took the Squire as he found him, and would have missed the hospitalities of the Hall--or rather the conversation they implied--if he had been obliged to forgo them. The Squire on his side had observed with approval that the Rector was a fair scholar, and a bad beggar. He could take up quotations from Horace, and he was content with such parish subscriptions as the Squire had given for twenty years, and was firmly minded not to increase.

But here also the arrival of Elizabeth had stirred the waters. For the Rector was actually on his way to try and get a new subscription out of the Squire; and it was Elizabeth's doing.

'You remember that child of old Leonard the blacksmith?' said the Rector eagerly; 'a shocking case of bow-legs, one of the worst I ever saw. But Miss Bremerton's taken endless trouble. And now we've got an admission for him to the Orthopaedic hospital. But there's a few pounds to be raised for his maintenance--it will be a question of months. I was just coming over to see if you would give me a little,' he wound up, in a tone of apology.

The Squire, with a brow all clouds, observed that when children were bow-legged it was entirely the fault of their mothers.

'Ah, yes,' said the Rector, with a sigh. 'Mrs. Leonard is a slatternly woman--no doubt of that. But when you've said that you haven't cured the child.'

The Squire ungraciously said he would consider it; and the Rector, knowing well that he would get no more at a first a.s.sault, let the child alone, and concentrated on the topic of Elizabeth.

'An extraordinarily capable creature,' he said warmly, 'and a good heart besides. You were indeed lucky to find her, and you are very wise to give her her head. The village folk can't say enough about her.'

The Squire felt his mouth twitching. With some horses, is there any choice--but Hobson's--as to 'giving' them their head?

'Yes, she's clever,' he said grudgingly.

'And it was only to-day,' pursued the Rector, 'that I heard her story from a lady, a friend of my wife's, who's been spending Sunday with us. She seems to have met Miss Bremerton and her family at Richmond a year or so ago, where everybody who knew them had a great respect for them. The mother was a nice, gentle body, but this elder daughter had most of the wits--though there's a boy in a Worcester regiment they're all very fond and proud of--and she always looked after the others, since the father--who was a Civil servant--died, six years ago. Then two years since, she engaged herself to a young Yeomanry officer--'

'Eh--what?--what do you say?--a Yeomanry officer?' said the Squire, looking round.

'Precisely--a Yeomanry officer. They were engaged and apparently very happy. He was a handsome, upstanding fellow, very popular with women. Then he went out to Egypt with his regiment, and it was intended they should marry when he got his first leave. But presently his letters began to change. Then they only came at long intervals. And at last they stopped. He had complained once of an attack of sunstroke, and she was wretched, thinking he was ill. At last a letter reached her from a brother officer, who seems to have behaved very kindly--with the explanation. Her fiance had got into the clutches--no one exactly knew how--of a Greek family living in Alexandria, and had compromised himself so badly with one of the daughters, that the father, a cunning old Greek merchant, had compelled him to marry her. Threats of exposure, and all the rest!

The brother officer hinted at a plot--that the poor fellow had been trapped, and was more sinned against than sinning. However, there it was. He was married to the Greek girl; Miss Bremerton's letters were returned; and the thing was at an end. Our friend says she behaved splendidly. She went on with her work in the War Trade Department--s.h.i.+rked nothing and no one--till suddenly, about six months ago, she had a bad breakdown--'

'What do you mean?' said the Squire abruptly. 'She was ill?'

'A combination of overwork and influenza, I should think; but no doubt the tragedy had a good deal to do with it. She went down to stay for a couple of months with an uncle in Dorsets.h.i.+re, and got better. Then the family lost some money, through a solicitor's mismanagement--enough anyway to make a great deal of difference. The mother too broke down in health. Miss Bremerton came home at once, and took everything on her own shoulders. You remember, she heard of your secretarys.h.i.+p from that Balliol man you wrote to--who had been a tutor of hers when she was at Somerville? She determined to apply for it. It was more money than she was getting in London, and she had to provide for her mother and to educate her young sister.

Plucky woman! All this interested me very much, I confess. I have formed such a high opinion of her! And I thought it would interest you.'

'I don't know what we any of us have to do with it,' grumbled the Squire.

The Rector drew himself up a little, resenting the implied rebuke.

'I hope I don't seem to you to be carrying gossip for gossip's sake,' he said, rather indignantly. 'Nothing was further from my intention. I like and admire Miss Bremerton a great deal too much.'

'Well, I don't know what we can do,' said the Squire testily. 'We can't unmarry the man.'

The Rector pulled up short, and offered a chilly good-bye. As he hurried on towards the village--little knowing the obstacles he would encounter in his path--he said to himself that the Squire's manners were really past endurance. One could hardly imagine that Miss Bremerton would be long able to put up with them.

The Squire meanwhile pursued the rest of his way, wrapped in rather disagreeable reflections. He was not at all grateful to the Rector for telling him the story--quite the reverse. It altered his mental att.i.tude towards his secretary; introduced disturbing ideas, which he had no use for. He had taken for granted that she was one of those single women of the present day whose intellectual interests are enough for them, who have never really felt the call of pa.s.sion, and can be trusted to look at life sensibly without taking love and marriage into account. To think of Miss Bremerton as having suffered severely from a love-affair--broken her heart, and injured her health over it--was most distracting. If it had happened once--why, of course, it might happen again. She was not immune; in spite of all her gifts, she was susceptible, and it was a horrid nuisance.

He went home all on edge, what with the adventure of the gates, the encounter with the engineer fellow, and now the revelations of the Rector.

As he approached the house, he saw from the old clock in the gable of the northern front that it was two o'clock. He was half-an-hour late for lunch. Luncheon, in fact, must be over. And indeed, as he pa.s.sed along the library windows, he saw Elizabeth's figure at her desk. It annoyed him that she should have gone back to work so soon after her meal. He had constantly made it plain to her that she was not expected to begin work of an afternoon till four o'clock. She would overdo it: and then she would break down again as she had done before. In his selfishness, his growing dependence on her companions.h.i.+p and her help, he began to dread the mere chance.

How agreeable, and how fruitful, their days of work had been lately!

He had been, of course, annoyed sometimes by her preoccupation with the war news of the morning. Actually, this Caporetto business, the Italian disaster, had played the mischief with her for a day or two--and the news from Russia. Any bad news, indeed, seemed to haunt her; her colour faded away; and if he dictated notes to her, they would be occasionally inaccurate. But that was seldom. In general, he felt that he had made great strides during the preceding weeks; that, thanks to her, the book he was attempting was actually coming into shape. She had suggested so much--sometimes by her knowledge, sometimes by her ignorance. And always so modest--so teachable--so docile.

_Docile_? The word pa.s.sing through his mind again, as it had in the morning, roused in him mingled laughter and uneasiness. For outside their cla.s.sical work together, nothing indeed could be less docile than Miss Bremerton. How she had withstood him in the matter of the codicil! He could see her still, as she stood there with her hands behind her, defying him. And that morning also, when she had spoken her mind on the project of the gates.

Well, now, he had to go in and tell her that the deed was done, and the park was closed.

He crept round to a side door, nervous lest she should perceive him from the library, and made Forest get him some lunch. Then he hung about the hall smoking. It was ridiculous--nonsensical--but he admitted to himself that he shrank from facing her.

At last a third cigarette put the requisite courage into him, and he walked slowly to the library. As he entered the room, Elizabeth rose from her chair.

She stood there waiting for his orders, or his report--her quiet eyes upon him.

He told himself not to be a fool, and throwing away his cigarette, he walked up to her, and said in a tone of bravado:

'Well, the barricades are up!'

CHAPTER VIII