On the following morning the breakfast at Mannering was a very tame and silent affair. Forest was not in attendance, and the under housemaid, who commonly replaced him when absent, could not explain his non-appearance. He and his wife lived in a cottage beyond the stables, and all that could be said was that he 'had not come in.'
The Squire also was absent. But as his breakfast habits were erratic, owing to the fact that he slept badly and was often up and working at strange seasons of the night, neither of his daughters took any notice. Elizabeth did not feel inclined to say anything of her own observations in the small hours. If the Squire and Forest had been working at the barricade together, they were perhaps sleeping off their exertions. Or the Squire was already on the spot, waiting for the fray? Meanwhile, out of doors, a thick grey mist spread over the park.
So she sat silent like the other two—(Mrs. Gaddesden was of course in bed)—wondering from time to time when and how she should announce her departure.
Pamela meanwhile was thinking of the letter she would have to write to Desmond about the day's proceedings, and was impatient to be off as soon as possible for the scene of action. Once or twice it occurred to her to notice that Miss Bremerton was looking rather pale and depressed. But the fact only made Pamela feel prickly. 'If father does get into a row, what does it really matter to her. She's not responsible!—she's not one of us!'
Immediately after breakfast, Pamela disappeared. She made her way quietly through the park, where the dank mist still clung to the trees from which the leaf was dropping silently, continuously. The grass was all cobwebs. Every now and then the head of a deer would emerge from the dripping fern only to be swallowed up again in the fog.
Could a motor-plough work in a fog?
Presently, she who knew every inch of the ground and every tree upon it, became aware that she was close to the Chetworth gate. Suddenly the rattle of an engine and some men's voices caught her ear. The plough, sure enough! The sound of it was becoming common in the country-side. Then as the mist thinned and drifted she saw the thing plain—the puffing engine, one man driving and another following, while in their wake ran the black glistening furrow, where the grass had been.
And here was the gate. Pamela stood open-mouthed. Where were the elaborate defences and barricades of which rumour had been full the night before? The big gate swung idly on its hinges. And in front of it stood two men placidly smoking, in company with the village policeman. Not a trace of any obstruction—no hurdles, no barbed wire, only a few ends of rope lying in the road.
Then, looking round, she perceived old Perley, with a bag of ferrets in his hand, emerging from the mist, and she ran up to him breathlessly.
'So they've come, Perley! Was it they forced the gate?'
Perley scratched his head with his free hand.
'Well, it's an uncommon queer thing, Miss—but I can't tell yer who opened them gates! I come along here about seven o'clock this mornin', and the fog was so thick yo couldn't see nothin' beyond a yard or two. But when I got up to the gates, there they were open, just as you see 'em now. At first I thought there was summat wrong—that my eyes wasn't what they used to was. But they was all right.'
'And you saw the gates shut last night?'
'Barred up, so as you couldn't move 'em, Miss!—not without a crowbar or two, an' a couple of men. I thowt it was perhaps some village chaps larkin' as had done it. But it ain't none o' them. It beats me!'
Pamela looked at the two men smoking by the gate—representatives, very likely, of the Inspection Sub-Committee. Should she go up and question them? But some inherited instinct deterred her. She was glad the country should have the land and the corn. She had no sympathy with her father. And yet all the same when she actually saw Demos the outsider forcibly in possession of Mannering land, the Mannering spirit kicked a little. She would find out what had happened from some of their own people.
So after watching the County Council plough for a while as it clove its way up and down the park under the struggling sun which was gradually scattering the fog—her young intelligence quite aware all the time of the significance of the sight—she turned back towards the house. And presently, advancing to meet her, she perceived the figure of Elizabeth Bremerton—coming, no doubt, to get picturesque details on the spot for the letter she had promised to write to a certain artillery officer. A quick flame of jealousy ran through the girl's mind.
Miss Bremerton quickened her step.
'So they're open!' she said eagerly, as she and Pamela met. 'And there's nothing broken, or—or lying about!'
She looked in bewilderment at the unlittered road and swinging gate.
'They were open, Perley says, first thing this morning. He came by about seven.'
'Before the plough arrived?'
'Yes.'
They stood still, trying to puzzle it out. Then a sudden laugh crossed Elizabeth's face.
'Perhaps there were no barricades! Perhaps your father was taking us all in!'
'Not at all,' said Pamela drily. 'Perley saw the gates firmly barred with hurdles and barbed wire, and all tied up with rope, when he and his wife left the Lodge late last night.'
Elizabeth suddenly coloured brightly. Why, Pamela could not imagine. Her fair skin made it impossible for a flush to pass unnoticed. But why should she flush?
Elizabeth walked on rapidly, her eyes on the ground. When she raised them it was to look rather steadily at her companion.
'I think perhaps I had better tell you at once—I am very sorry!—but I shall be leaving you in a month. I told your father so last night.'
Pamela looked the astonishment she felt. For the moment she was tongue-tied. Was she glad or sorry? She did not know. But the instinct of good manners came to her aid.
'Can't you stand us?' she said bluntly. 'I expect you can't.'
Elizabeth laughed uncomfortably.
'Why, you've all been so kind to me. But I think perhaps'—she paused, trying to find her words—'I didn't quite understand—when I came—how much I still wanted to be doing things for the war—'
'Why, you might do heaps of things!' cried Pamela. 'You have been doing them. Taking an interest in the farms, I mean—and all that.'
'Well, but—' Elizabeth's brow puckered.
Then she broke into a frank laugh—'After all, that wasn't what I was engaged for, was it?'
'No—but you seemed to like to do it. And it's war-work,' said Pamela, inexorably.
Elizabeth was dismally conscious of her own apparent inconsistencies. It seemed best to be frank.
'The fact is—I think I'd better tell you—I tried yesterday to get your father to give up his plans about the gates. And when he wouldn't, and it seemed likely that there might be legal proceedings and—and a great fuss—in which naturally he would want his secretary to help him—'
'You just felt you couldn't? Well, of course I understand that,' said Pamela fervently. 'But then, you see,' she laughed, 'there isn't going to be a fuss. The plough just walked in, and the fifty acres will be done in no time.'
Elizabeth looked as she felt—worried.
'It's very puzzling. I wonder what happened? But I am afraid there will be other things where your father and I shall disagree—if, that is, he wants me to do so much else for him than the Greek work—'
'But you might say that you wouldn't do anything else but the Greek work?'
'Yes, I might,' said Elizabeth smiling, 'but once I've begun—'
'You couldn't keep to it?—father couldn't keep to it?'
Elizabeth shook her head decidedly. A little smile played about her lips, as much as to say, 'I am a managing woman and you must take me at that. "Il ne faut pas sortir de son caractère."' Pamela, looking at her, admired her for the first time. And now that there was to be no more question—apparently—of correspondence with Arthur Chicksands, her mood changed impulsively.
'Well, I'm very sorry!' she said—and then, sincerely, 'I don't know how the place will get on.'
'Thank you,' said Elizabeth. Her look twinkled a little. 'But you don't know what I might be after if I stayed!'
Pamela laughed out, and the two walked home, better friends than they had been yet, Elizabeth asking that the news of her resignation of her post might be regarded as confidential for a few days.
When they reached the house, Pamela went into the morning-room to tell her sisters of the tame ending to all their alarms, while Elizabeth hurried to the library. She was due there at half-past ten, and she was only just in time. Would the Squire be there? She remembered that she had to apologize for her absence of the day before.
She felt her pulse thumping a little as she opened the library door. There was undoubtedly something about the Squire—some queer magnetism—born perhaps of his very restlessness and unexpectedness—that made life in his neighbourhood seldom less than interesting. His temper this morning would probably be of the worst. Something, or some one, had defeated all his schemes for a magnificent assertion of the rights of man. His park was in the hands of the invaders. The public plough was impudently at work. And at the same moment his secretary had given warning, and the new catalogue—the darling of his heart—would be thrown on his hands. It would not be surprising to find him rampant. Elizabeth entered almost on tip-toe, prepared to be all that was meek and conciliating, so far as was compatible with her month's notice.
A tall figure rose from the Squire's table and made her a formal bow.
'Good-morning, Miss Bremerton. I expected your assistance yesterday afternoon, but you had, I understand, made an engagement?'
'I asked you—a few days ago,' said Elizabeth, mildly confronting him. 'I am sorry if it inconvenienced you.'
'Oh, all right—all right,' said the Squire hastily. 'I had forgotten all about it. Well, anyway, we have lost a great deal of time.' His voice conveyed reproach. His greenish eyes were fierily bent upon her.
Elizabeth sat down at her table without reply, and chose a pen. The morning's work generally consisted of descriptions of vases and bronzes in the Mannering collection, dictated by the Squire, and illustrated often by a number of references to classical writers, given both in Greek and English. The labour of looking out and verifying the references was considerable, and the Squire's testy temper was never more testy than when it was quarrelling with the difficulties of translation.
'Kindly take down,' he said peremptorily.
Elizabeth began:
'"No. 190. Greek vase, from a tomb excavated at Mitylene in 1902. Fine work of the fifth century B.C. Subject: Penelope's Web. Penelope is seated at the loom. Beside her are the figures of a young man and two females—probably Telemachus and two hand-maidens. The three male figures in the background may represent the suitors. Size, 23 inches high; diameter, 11 inches. Perfect, except for a restoration in one of the handles."
'Have you got that?'
'Yes.'
'Go on please. "This vase is of course an illustration of the well-known passage in theOdyssey, Book 21. 103. I take Mr. Samuel Butler's translation, which is lively and modern and much to be preferred to the heavy archaisms of the other fellows."'
Elizabeth gave a slight cough. The Squire looked at her sharply.
'Oh, you think that's not dignified? Well, have it as you like.'
Elizabeth altered the phrase to 'other translators.' The Squire resumed. '"Antinous, one of the suitors, is speaking: 'We could see her working on her great web all day long, but at night she would unpick the stitches again by torchlight. She fooled us in this way for three years, and we never found her out, but as time wore on, and she was now in her fourth year, one of her maids, who knew what she was doing, told us, and we caught her in the act of undoing her work, so she had to finish it, whether she would or no....' I tell you, we never heard of such a woman; we know all about Tyro, Alcmena, Mycene, and the famous women of old, but they were nothing to your mother—any one of them."—And yet she was only undoing her own work!—she was not forcing a grown man to undo his!' said the Squire, with a sudden rush of voice and speech.
Elizabeth looked up astonished.
'Am I to put that down?'
The Squire threw away the book he was holding. His shining white hair seemed positively to bristle on his head, his long legs twined and untwined themselves.
'Don't pretend, please, that you don't know what part you've been playing in this affair!' he said with sarcasm. 'It took Forest and me three good hours this morning to take down as fine a barricade as ever I saw put up. I'm stiff with it still. British liberties have been thrown to the dogs—γυναικος ούνεκα—all because of a woman! And there you sit, as though nothing had happened! Yet I chanced to see you just now, coming back with Pamela!'
Elizabeth's flush this time dyed her all crimson. She sat, pen in hand, staring at her employer.
'I don't understand what you mean, Mr. Mannering.' At which her conscience whispered to her sharply, 'You guessed it already—in the park!'
The Squire jumped to his feet, and came to stand excitedly in front of her, his hands thrust into the high pockets of his waistcoat.
'I amextremelysorry!' he said, with thatgrand seigneurpoliteness he could put on when he chose—'but I am not able to credit that statement. You make it honestly, of course, but that a person of your intelligence, when you saw those gates, failed to put two and two together, well!'—the Squire shook his head, and shrugged his shoulders, became, in fact, one protesting gesture—'if you ask me to believe it,' he continued, witheringly, 'I suppose I must, but—'
'Mr. Mannering!' said Elizabeth earnestly, 'it would really be kind of you to explain.'
Her blush had died away. She had fallen back in her chair, and was meeting his attack with the steady, candid look that betrayed her character. She was now entirely self-possessed—neither nervous nor angry.
The Squire changed his tone. Folding his arms, he leant against a pedestal which supported a bust of a Roman emperor.
'Very well, then—Iwillexplain. I told you yesterday of a step I proposed to take by way of testing how far the invasion of personal freedom had gone in this country. I was perfectly justified in taking it. I was prepared to suffer for my action. I had thought it all out. Thenyoucame in—and byforce majeurecompelled me to give it all up!'
Elizabeth could not help laughing.
'I never heard any account of an incident which fitted less with the facts!' she said with vivacity.
'It exactly fits them!' the Squire insisted. 'When I told you what I meant to do, instead of sympathy—instead of simple acquiescence, for how the deuce were you responsible!—you threatened to throw up the work I cannot now possibly accomplish without you—'
'Mr. Levasseur?' suggested Elizabeth.
'Levasseur be hanged!' said the Squire, taking an angry pace up and down. 'Don't please interrupt me. I have given you a perfectly free hand, and you have organized the work—your share of it—as you please. Nobody else is the least likely to do it in the same way. When you go, it drops. And when your share drops, mine drops. That's what comes of employing a woman of ability, and trusting to her—as I have trusted to you!'
Was there ever any attack so grotesque, so unfair? Elizabeth was for one moment inclined to be angry—and the next, she was conscious of yieldings and compunctions that were extremely embarrassing.
'You rate my help a great deal too high,' she said after a moment. 'It is you yourself who have taught me how to work in your way. I don't think you will have any real difficulty with another secretary. You are'—she ventured a smile—'you are a born teacher.'
Never was any compliment less successful. The Squire looked sombrely down upon her.
'So youstillintend to leave us,' he said slowly, 'after what I have done?'
'What have you done?' said Elizabeth faintly.
'Made myself a laughing-stock to the whole country-side!—and thrown all my principles overboard—to content you—and save my book!' The reply was given with an angry energy that shook her. 'I have humbled myself to the dust to meet your sentimental ideas—and there you sit—as stony and inaccessible as this fellow here!'—he brought his hand down with vehemence on the Roman emperor's shoulder. 'Not a word of gratitude—or concession—or sympathy! I was indeed a fool to take any trouble to please you!'
Elizabeth was silent. They surveyed each other. 'No agitation!' said Elizabeth's inner mind; 'keep cool!'
At last she withdrew her own eyes from the angry tension of his—dropped them to the table where her right hand was mechanically drawing nonsense figures on her blotting-paper.
'Did you really yourself take down that barricade?' she said gently.
'I did! And it was an infernal piece of work!'
'I'm awfully glad!' Her voice was very soft.
'I daresay you are. It suits your principles, and your ideas, of course—not mine! And now, having driven me to it—having publicly discredited and disgraced me—you can still sit there and talk of throwing up your work.'
The growing passion in the irascible gentleman towering above her warned her that it was time to bring the scene to an end.
'I am glad,' she repeated steadily, 'very glad—especially—for Mr. Desmond.'
'Oh, Desmond!' the Squire threw out impatiently, beginning again to walk up and down.
'He would have minded so dreadfully,' she said, still in a lower key. 'It was really him I was thinking of. Of course I had no right to interfere with your affairs—'
The Squire turned, the tyrant in him reviving fast.
'Well, you did interfere—and to some purpose! Now then—yes or no—is your notice withdrawn?'
Elizabeth hesitated.
'I would willingly stay with you,' she said, 'if—'
'If what?'
She looked up with a sudden flash of laughter.
'If we can really get on!'
'Name your terms!' He returned, frowning and excited, to the neighbourhood of the Roman emperor.
'Oh no—I have no terms,' she said hurriedly. 'Only—if you ask me to help you with the land, I should want to obey the Government—and—and do the best for the war.'
'Condition No. 1,' said the Squire grimly, checking it off. 'Go on!'
'And—I should—perhaps—beg you to let Pamela do some V.A.D. work, if she wants to.'
'Pamela is your affair!' said the Squire impatiently. 'If you stay here, you are her chaperon, and, for the present, head of the household.'
'Only just for the present—till Pamela can do it!' put in Elizabeth hastily. 'But she's nineteen—she ought to take a part.'
'Well, don't bother me about that. You are responsible. I wash my hands of her. Anything else?'
It did not do to think of Pamela's feelings, should she ever become aware of how she was being handed over. But the mention of her, on a sudden impulse, had been pure sympathy on Elizabeth's part; a wish to strike on the girl's behalf while the iron was so very hot. She looked up quietly.
'No, indeed there is nothing else—except indeed—that you won't expect me to hide what I feel about the war—and the little we at home can do to help—'
Her voice failed a little. The Squire said nothing. She went on, with a clearing countenance.
'So—if you really wish it—I will stay, Mr. Mannering—and try to help you all I can. It was splendid of you—to give up your plans. I'm sure you won't regret it.'
'I'm not sure at all—but it's done. Now, then, let us understand. You take over my estate correspondence. You'll want a clerk—I'll find one. You can appoint a new agent if you like. You can do what you like, in fact. I was never meant to be a landowner, and I hate the whole business. You can harry the farmers as you please—I shan't interfere.'
'Allow me to point out,' said Elizabeth firmly, 'that at college I was not trained in land-agency—but in Greek!'
'What does that matter? If women can build Dreadnoughts, as they say they can, they can manage estates. Now, then, as to my conditions. Do what you like—but my book and the catalogue comefirst!' He looked at her with an exacting eye.
'Certainly,' said Elizabeth.
'But I know what you'll do—you'll go and break down! You arenotto break down.'
'Certainly!' said Elizabeth.
'But you have once broken down.'
Her start was perceptible, but she answered quietly.
'I was ill a year ago—partly from overwork. But I am normally quite strong.'
The Squire observed her. It was very pleasant to him to see her sitting there, in her trim serge dress, with its broad white collar and cuffs—the sheen of her hair against the dark wall—her shapely hands ready for work upon his table. He felt as if he had with enormous difficulty captured—recaptured—something of exceptional value; like one of those women 'skilled in beautiful arts' whom the Greek slave-raiders used to carry off from a conquered city, and sell for large sums to the wives of wealthy Greek chieftains. Till now he had scarcely thought of her as a woman, but rather as a fine-edged but most serviceable tool which he had had the extraordinary good luck to find. Now, with his mere selfish feeling of relief there mingled something rather warmer and more human. If only she would stay, he would honestly try and make life agreeable to her.
'Well now, that's settled,' he said, drawing a long breath—'Oh—except one thing—you will of course want a larger salary?'
'Not at all,' said Elizabeth decidedly. 'You pay me quite enough.'
'You are not offended with me for asking?' His tone had become astonishingly deferential.
'Not the least. I am a business woman. If I thought myself entitled to more I should say so. But it is extremely doubtful whether I can really be of any use whatever to you.'
'All right,' said the Squire, returning to his own table. 'Now, then, let us go on with No. 190.'
'Is it necessary now to put in—well,quiteso much about Penelope?' asked Elizabeth, as she took up her pen.
'What do you think?'
'It seems a little long and dragged in.' Elizabeth looked critically at the paragraph.
'And we have now unravelled the web?—we can do without her? Yes—let her go!' said the Squire, in a tone of excessive complaisance.
When the morning's work was done, and luncheon over, Elizabeth carried off Pamela to her room. When Pamela emerged, she went in search of Forest, interviewed him in the gun-room, and then shutting herself up in the 'den' she wrote to Desmond.
'MY DEARDEZZY—There are such queer things going on in this queer house! Yesterday Broomie gave warning, and father barricaded the park gates, and was perfectly mad, and determined not to listen to anybody. In the middle of the night he and Forest took the barricade down, and to-day, Broomie is to be not only secretary, but land-agent, and anything else she pleases—queen, in fact, of all she surveys—including me. But I am bound to say she had been very decent to me over it all. Shewantsme to do some of the housekeeping—and she has actually made father consent to my helping at the hospital every afternoon. Of course I am awfully glad about that. I shall bicycle over.
'But all the same it is very odd, and perhaps you and I had better consider what itmaymean. I know from Broomie herself that she gave notice yesterday—and now she is going to stay. And I know from Forest that father called him up when it was quite dark, between three and four in the morning—Mrs. Forest thought the Germans had come when she heard the knocking—and asked him to come with him and undo the gates. Forest told me thathewould have had nothing whatever to do with closing them, nor with anything 'agin the Government! He's a staunch old soul, is Forest. So when father told him what he wanted, he didn't know what to make of it. However, they both groped their way through the fog, which was thick on the other side of the park, and set to at the gates. Forest says it was an awful business to get everything cleared away. Father and Gregson had made an uncommonly good job of it. If Gregson had put in work like that on his own hedges and gates, Forest says he mightn't have been kicked out! It took them ages getting the barbed wire cleared away, because they hadn't any proper nippers. Father took off his coat, and worked like a navvy, and Forest hoisted him up to get at the wire along the wall. Forest says he was determined to leave nothing! "And I believe, Miss, the Squire was very glad of the fog—because there couldn't be any one prying around."
'For it seems to be really true that the village has been in a state of ferment, and that they had determined to free the gates and let in the Council plough. Perley was seen talking to a lot of men on the green last night. I met him myself this morning after breakfast near the gates, and he confessed he had been there already—early. I expect he came to reconnoitre and take back the news. Rather calm, for one of father's own men! But that's the new spirit, Dezzy. We're not going to be allowed to have it all our own way any more. Well, thank goodness, I don't mind. At least, there is something in me that minds. I suppose it's one's forbears. But the greater part of me wants alotof change—and there are often and often times when I wish I'd been born in the working-class and was just struggling upwards with them, and sharing all their hopes and dreams for "after the war." Well, why shouldn't I? I'm going to set Broomie on to some of the cottages in the village—not that she'll want setting on—but after all, it's I who know the people.
'But that's by the way. The point is why did father give in? Evidently because Broomie gave notice, and he couldn't bear the idea of parting with her. Of course Alice—and Margaret too, to some extent—are convinced it all means that father wants to marry her. Only Alice thinks that Miss Bremerton has been intriguing for it since the first week she set foot in the house; while Margaret is certain that she wouldn't marry father if he asked her. She thinks that Miss B. is just the new woman, who wants todothings, and isn't always thinking about getting married. Well, Dezzy, old boy—Idon't know what to think. I'll keep my eyes open, and report to you. Idon't—altogether—like her. No, I don't—that's flat. I wish, on the whole, she'd taken her departure! And yet I feel rather a toad for saying so. She is splendid in some things—yes, she is! And the Rectory people take the most rose-coloured view of her—it's too late to tell you why, for the postman is just coming.
'Good-bye, Dezzy—dear Dezzy! I know how glad you'll be about the gates. Write to me as often as you can. By the way, Miss Bremerton has got a brother in the war—with General Maude. That ought to make me like her. But why did she leave us to find it out through the Rectory? She never says anything about herself that she can help. Do you think you'll really get to France in January? Ever your loving
'PAM.'
It was a bright January day. Lunch was just over at Mannering, and the luncheon-party had dispersed—attracted to the garden and the park by the lure of the sunshine after dark days of storm and wind. Mrs. Gaddesden alone was left sitting by the fire in the hall. There was a cold wind, and she did not feel equal to facing it. She was one of those women, rare in these days, who, though still young, prefer to be prematurely old; in whom their great-grandmothers, and the 'elegant' lackadaisical ways of a generation that knew nothing of exercise, thick boots and short skirts, seem to become once more incarnate. Though Mannering was not ill-warmed, Alice moved about it in winter wrapped in a picturesque coat of black velvet trimmed with chinchilla, her head wreathed in white lace. From this rather pompous setting her fair hair, small person, and pinched pale face looked out perhaps with greater dignity than they could have achieved unadorned. Her chilliness, her small self-indulgences, including an inordinate love of cakes and all sweet things, were the standing joke of the twins when they discussed the family freely behind the closed doors of the 'Den.' But no one disliked Alice Gaddesden, though it was hard to be actively fond of her. She and her husband were quite good friends; but they were no longer of any real importance to each other. He was a good deal older than she; and was often away from London on 'war work' in the Midlands. On these occasions Alice generally invited herself to Mannering. She thus got rid of housekeeping, which in these days of rations worried her to death. Moreover, food at Mannering was much more plentiful than food in town—especially since the advent of Elizabeth Bremerton.
It was of Elizabeth that Mrs. Gaddesden was thinking as she sat alone in the hall. From her seat she could perceive a shrubbery walk in the garden outside, along which two figures were pacing—Miss Bremerton and the new agent. Beyond, at some distance, she was aware of another group disappearing among the trees of the park—Pamela with Captain Chicksands and Beryl.
This was the first time that any member of the Chicksands family had been a guest at Mannering since the quarrel in the autumn. The Squire had not yet brought himself to shake hands with Sir Henry. But Beryl on the one side, and Pamela on the other—aided and abetted always by Elizabeth Bremerton—had been gradually breaking down the embargo; and when, hearing from Beryl that her brother Arthur was with them for a few days, Pamela had openly proposed in her father's presence to ask them both to luncheon, the Squire had pretended not to hear, but had at any rate raised no objection. And when the brother and sister arrived, he had received them as though nothing had happened. His manners were always brusque and ungracious, except in the case of persons who specially mattered to his own pursuits, such as archæologists and Greek professors. But the Chetworth family were almost as well acquainted with his ways as his own, and his visitors took them philosophically. Arthur Chicksands had kept the table alive at luncheon with soldier stories, and the Squire's sulky or sarcastic silence had passed unnoticed.
Mrs. Gaddesden's mind was very full of the Captain's good looks and distinction. He was now in London, at the War Office, it seemed, for a short time, on a special mission; hence his occasional weekends with his family. When the mission was over—so Beryl told Pamela—he was probably going out to an important appointment in the Intelligence Department at G.H.Q. 'Arthur's a great swell,' said Beryl, 'though as to what he's done, or what people think of him, you have to dig it out of him—if you can!'
Mrs. Gaddesden did not very much like him. His brusque sincerity made people of her sort uncomfortable. But she would have liked very much to know whether there was anything up between him and Pamela. Really, Miss Bremerton's discretion about such things was too tiresome—ridiculous—almost rude! It was no good trying, even, to discuss them with her.
As to the disinheriting of Aubrey, no more had been heard of it. Miss Bremerton had told Aubrey when he was at home for twenty-four hours at Christmas that, as far as she knew, the codicil was still unsigned. But Aubrey didn't seem to care the least whether it was or no. If Beryl wished him to raise the question again with his father, of course he would; otherwise he greatly preferred to leave it alone. And as Beryl had no will or wishes but his, and was, in Alice's opinion, only too absurdly and dependently in love, the sleeping dogs were very much asleep; and the secret of Mannering's future disposal lay hid impenetrably in the Squire's own breast.
At the same time, Mrs. Gaddesden was firmly persuaded that whatever Elizabeth Bremerton wished or advised would ultimately be done.
What an extraordinary position that young woman now held among them! Nearly three months had now elapsed since Mrs. Gaddesden's autumn visit—since Desmond had gone into training at his artillery camp—since a third of the park had been ploughed up, and since Elizabeth Bremerton had thrown up her post only to come back next day as dictator.
Yes—dictator! Mrs. Gaddesden was never tired of thinking about it, and was excitedly conscious that all the neighbourhood, and all their friends and kinsfolk were thinking and speculating with her. At the beginning of November, before she and Margaret Strang went back to town, the Squire had announced to all of them that Miss Bremerton had become his 'business secretary,' as well as his classical assistant. And now, after three months, the meaning of this notice was becoming very clear. The old agent, Mr. Hull, had been dismissed, and moderately—very moderately—pensioned. It was said that Miss Bremerton, on looking into his accounts, saw no reason at all for any special indulgence. For, in addition to everything else, she turned out to be a trained accountant!—and money matters connected with the estate were being probed to the bottom that had never been probed before. Mrs. Gaddesden's own allowance—for the Squire had always obstinately declined to settle any capital on his married daughters—had been, for the first time, paid at the proper date—by Elizabeth Bremerton! At least, if the Squire had signed it, she had written the cheque. And she might perfectly well have signed it. For, as Pamela had long since reported to her sisters, Elizabeth paid all the house and estate accounts over her own signature, and seemed to have much more accurate knowledge than the Squire himself of the state of his bank balance, and his money affairs generally.
Not that she ever paraded these things in the least. But neither did she make any unnecessary mystery about it with the Squire's family. And indeed they were quite evident to any one living in the house. At times she would make little, laughing, apologetic remarks to one of the daughters—'I hope you don't mind!—the Squire wants me to get things straight.' But in general, her authority by now had become a matter of course.
Her position in the Mannering household, however, was as nothing to her position in the estate and the neighbourhood. That was the amazing thing which had by now begun to set all tongues wagging. Sir Henry Chicksands, meeting Mrs. Gaddesden at the station, had poured himself out to her. 'That extraordinary young woman your father has got hold of, is simply transforming the whole place. The farmers on the whole like her very much. But if they don't like her, they'reafraid of her! For Heaven's sake don't let her kill herself with over-work. She'll soon be leading the county.'
Yes. Work indeed! How on earth did she get through it? In the mornings there she was in the library, absorbed in the catalogue, writing to the Squire's dictation, transcribing or translating Greek—his docile and obedient slave. Then in the afternoon—bicycling all over the estate, and from dark onwards, till late at night, busy with correspondence and office work, except just for dinner and an hour afterwards.
The door of the outer hall opened and shut. Elizabeth and a young man—the new agent—entered the inner hall, where Mrs. Gaddesden was sitting, Elizabeth acknowledging her presence with a pleasant nod and smile. But they passed quickly through to the room at the further end of the hall, which was now an estate office where Elizabeth spent the latter part of her day. It was connected both with the main living-rooms of the house, and with a side entrance from the park, by which visitors on estate matters were admitted.
A man was sitting waiting for Miss Bremerton. He was the new tenant of the derelict farm, on the Holme Wood side of the estate, and he had come to report on the progress which had been made in clearing and ploughing the land, and repairing the farm-buildings. He was a youngish man, a sergeant in a Warwickshire regiment, who had been twice wounded in the war, and was now discharged. As the son of an intelligent farmer, he had had a good agricultural training, and it was evident that his enthusiasms and those of the Squire's new 'business-secretary' were running in harness.
The new agent, Captain Dell, also a discharged Territorial, who had lost an arm in the war, watched the scene between the incoming tenant and Elizabeth, with a shrewd pair of eyes, through which there passed occasional gleams of amusement or surprise. He was every day making further acquaintance with the lady who was apparently to be his chief, but he was well aware that he was only at the beginning of his lesson. Astonishing, to see a woman taking this kind of lead!—asking these technical questions—as to land, crops, repairs, food production, and the rest—looking every now and then at the note-book beside her, full of her own notes made on the spot, or again, setting down with a quick hand something that was said to her. And all through he was struck with her tone of quiet authority—without a touch of boasting or 'side,' but also without a touch of any mere feminine deference to the male. She was there in the Squire's place, and she never let it be forgotten. Heavens, women had come on during this war! Through the young man's mind there ran a vague and whirling sense of change.
'Well, Mr. Denman, that all sounds splendid!' said Elizabeth, at last, as she rose from her table. 'The country won't starve, if you can help it! I shall tell the County Committee all about you on Tuesday. You don't want another tractor?'
'Oh, no, thank you! The two at work are enough. I hope you'll be over soon. I should like to show you what we've been after.' The man's tone was one of eager good will.
'Oh yes, I shall be over before long,' said Elizabeth cheerfully. 'It's so tremendously interesting what you're doing. And if you want anything I can help you in, you can always telephone.'
And she pointed smiling to the instrument on the table—the first that had ever been allowed within the walls of Mannering. And that the Squire might not be teased with it, Elizabeth had long since fitted an extra inner door, covered with green baize, to the door of the office.
The new tenant departed, and Elizabeth turned to the agent.
'I really think we've caught a good man there,' she said, with a smile. 'Now will you tell me, please, about those timber proposals? I hope to get a few words with the Squire to-night.'
And leaning back in her chair, she listened intently while Captain Dell, bringing a roll of papers out of his pocket, read her the draft proposals of a well-known firm of timber merchants, for the purchase of some of the Squire's outlying woods of oak and beech. Lights had been brought in, and Elizabeth sat shading her eyes from the lamp before her,—a strong and yet agreeable figure. Was it the consciousness of successful work—of opening horizons, and satisfied ambitions, that had made a physical presence, always attractive, so much more attractive than before—that had given it a magnetism and fire it had never yet possessed? Pamela, who was developing fast, and was acutely conscious of Elizabeth, asked herself the question, or something like it, about once a week. And during a short Christmas visit that Elizabeth had paid her own people, her gentle mother, much puzzled and a little dazzled by her daughter, had necessarily pondered the why and wherefore of a change she felt, but could not analyse. One thing the mother's insight had been clear about. Elizabeth was not in love. On the contrary, the one love-affair of her life seemed to be at last forgotten and put aside. Elizabeth was now in love withefficiency; with a great task given into her hand. As to the Squire, the owner of Mannering, who had provided her with the task, Mrs. Bremerton could not imagine him or envisage him at all. Elizabeth's accounts of him were so reticent and so contradictory.... 'Well, that's very interesting'—said Elizabeth thoughtfully, when Captain Dell laid down his papers—'I wonder what Mr. Mannering will say to it? As you know, I got his express permission for you to make these enquiries. But he hates cutting down a single tree, and this will mean a wide clearance!'
'So it will—but the country wants every stick of it. And as to not cutting, one sees that from the woods—the tragedy of the woods!'—said the young man with emphasis. 'There has been no decent forestry on this estate for half a century. I hope you will be able to persuade him, Miss Bremerton. I expect, indeed, it's Hobson's choice.'
'You mean the timber will be commandeered?'
'Probably. The Government have just come down on some of Lord Radley's woods just beyond our borders—with scarcely a week's warning. No "With your leave" or "By your leave"! The price fixed, Canadians sent down to cut, and a light railway built from the woods to the station to carry the timber, before you could say "Jack Robinson."'
'You think the price these people offer is a fair one?' She pointed to the draft contract.
'Excellent! The Squire won't get nearly as much from the Government.'
'What one might do with some of it for the estate!' said Elizabeth, looking up, her blue eyes dancing in the lamplight.
'Rebuild half the cottages?' said the other, smiling, as he rose. 'A village club-house, a communal kitchen, a small holdings scheme—all the things we've talked about? Oh yes, you could do all that and more. The Squire doesn't know what he possesses.'
'Well, I'll take the papers to him,' said Elizabeth, holding out her hands for them. 'I may perhaps catch him to-night'
A little more business talk, and the agent departed. Then Elizabeth dreamily—still cogitating a hundred things—touched an electric bell. A girl typist, who acted as her clerk, came in from an adjoining room. Elizabeth rapidly dictated a number of letters, stayed for a little friendly gossip with the girl about her father in the Army Service Corps, who had been in hospital at Rouen, and had just finished, when the gong rang for afternoon tea.
When Elizabeth entered, the hall was crowded. It was the principal sitting-room of the house, now that for reasons of economy fires were seldom lit in the drawing-rooms. Before Elizabeth's advent it had been a dingy, uncomfortable place, but she and Pamela had entirely transformed it. As in the estate so in the house, the Squire did not know what he possessed. In all old houses with a continuous life, there are accumulations of furniture and stores, discarded by the generation of one day, and brought back by the fashion of the next. A little routing in attics and forgotten cupboards and chests had produced astonishing results. Chippendale chairs and settees had been brought down from the servants' bedrooms; two fine Dutch cabinets had been discovered amid a mass of lumber in an outhouse; a tall Japanese screen, dating from the end of the eighteenth century, and many pairs of linen curtains embroidered about the same time in branching oriental patterns by the hands of Mannering ladies, had been unearthed, and Pamela—for Elizabeth having started the search had interfered very little with its results—had spent some of her now scanty leisure in making the best of the finds. The hall was now a charming place, scented, moreover, on this January evening by the freesias and narcissus that Elizabeth had managed to rear in the house itself, and Pamela, who had always been ashamed of her own ill-kept and out-at-elbows home, as compared with the perfections of Chetworth, had been showing Arthur and Beryl Chicksands what had been done to renovate the old house since they were last in it—'and all without spending a penny!'—with a girlish pleasure which in the Captain's opinion became her greatly. Pamela needed indeed a good deal of animation to be as handsome as she deserved to be! A very critical observer took note that her stock of it was rapidly rising. It was the same with the letters, too, which for a month or so past, she had condescended to write him, after treating him most uncivilly in the autumn, and never answering a long screed—'and a jolly good one!'—which he had written her from Paris in November.
As Elizabeth came in, Pamela was reading aloud a telegram just received, and Miss Bremerton was greeted with the news—'Desmond's coming to-night, instead of to-morrow! They've given him forty-eight hours' leave, and he goes to France on Thursday.'
'That's very short!' said Elizabeth, as she took her place beside Pamela, who was making tea. 'Does your father know?'
Forest, it appeared, had gone to tell him. Meanwhile Captain Chicksands was watching with a keen eye the relation between Miss Bremerton and Pamela. He saw that the Squire's secretary was scrupulously careful to give Pamela her place as daughter of the house; but Pamela's manner hardly showed any real intimacy between them. And it was easy to see where the real authority lay. As for himself he had lately begun to ask himself seriously how much he was interested in Pamela. For in truth, though he was no coxcomb, he could not help seeing—all the more because of Pamela's variable moods towards him—that she was at least incipiently interested in him. If so, was it fair to her that they should correspond?—and that he should come to Mannering whenever he was asked and military duty allowed, now that the Squire's embargo was at least partially removed?
He confessed to himself that he was glad to come, that Pamela attracted him. At the same time there was in him a stern sense that the time was no time for love-making. The German hosts were gathering; the vast breakdown in Russia was freeing more and more of them for the Western assault. He himself was for the moment doing some important intelligence work, in close contact with the High Command. No one outside a very small circle knew better than he what lay in front of England—the fierce death-struggle over a thousand miles of front. And were men and women to be kissing and marrying while these storm-clouds of war—this rain of blood—were gathering overhead?
Involuntarily he moved further from Pamela. His fine face with the rather high cheek-bones, strong mouth, and lined brow, seemed to put softness away. He approached Elizabeth.
'What is the Squire doing about his wood, Miss Bremerton? The Government's desperately in want of ash!'
He spoke almost as one official might speak to another—comrade to comrade. What he had heard about her doings from his father had filled his soldier's mind with an eager admiration for her. That was how women should bear themselves in this war—as the practical helpers of men.
He fell into the chair beside her, and Elizabeth was soon deep in conversation with him, a conversation that any one might overhear who would. It turned partly on the armies abroad—partly on the effort at home. There was warmth—even passion—in it, studiously restrained. But it was the passion of two patriots, conscious through every pulse of their country's strait.
The others listened. Pamela became silent and pale. All the old jealousy and misery of the autumn were alive in her once more. She had looked forward for weeks to this meeting with Arthur Chicksands. And for the first part of his visit she had been happy—before Elizabeth came on the scene. Why should Elizabeth have all the homage and the attention? She, too, was doing her best! She was drudging every day as a V.A.D., washing crockery and scrubbing floors; and this was the first afternoon off she had had for weeks. Her limbs were dog-tired. But Arthur Chicksands never talked toher—Pamela—in this tone of freedom and equality—with the whole and not the half of his mind. 'I could hold my own,' she thought bitterly, 'but he never gives me the chance! I suppose he despises girls.'
As the hall clock struck half-past five, however, Elizabeth rose from her seat, gathering up the papers she had brought in from the office, and disappeared.
Arthur Chicksands looked at his watch. Beryl exclaimed:
'Oh, no, Arthur, not yet! Let's wait for Desmond!'
Pamela said perfunctorily—'No, please don't go! He'll be here directly.'
But as they gathered round the fire, expecting the young gunner, she hardly opened her lips again. Arthur Chicksands was quite conscious that he had wounded her. She appeared to him, as she sat there in the firelight, in all the first fairness and freshness of her youth, as an embodied temptation. Again he said to himself that other men might love and marry on the threshold of battle; he could not bring himself to think it justifiable—whether for the woman or the man. In a few weeks' time he would be back in France and in the very thick, perhaps, of the final struggle—of its preparatory stages, at any rate. Could one make love to a beautiful creature like that at such a moment, and then leave her, with a whole mind?—the mind and the nerve that were the country's due?
All the same he had never been so aware of her before. And simultaneously his mind was invaded by the mute, haunting certainty that her life was reaching out towards his, and that he was repelling and hurting her.
Suddenly—into the midst of them, while Mrs. Gaddesden was talking endlessly in her small plaintive voice about rations and queues—there dropped the sound of a car passing the windows, and a boy's clear voice.
'Desmond!' cried Pamela, with almost a sob of relief, and like one escaping from a nightmare she sprang up and ran to greet her brother.
Meanwhile Elizabeth had found the Squire waiting for her, and, as she saw at once, in a state of tension.
'What was that you were saying to me about timber last week?' he demanded imperiously as she entered, without giving her time to speak. 'I hear this intolerable Government are behaving like madmen, cutting down everything they can lay hands on. They shan't have my trees—I would burn them first!'
Elizabeth paused in some dismay.
'You remember—' she began.
'Remember what?' It was long since she had heard so snappish a tone.
'That you authorized me—'
'Oh, I daresay, I gave myself away—I'm always doing so. I don't mean half I say. You're too full of business—you take me up too quick. What are those papers you've got there?'
Elizabeth's red cheeks showed her taken aback. It was the first time for weeks that her employer had turned upon her so. She had grown so accustomed to managing him, to taming the irritable temper that no one else but she could cope with, and, unconsciously, so proud of her success, that she was not prepared for this attack. She met it meekly.
'I have a proposal here to submit to you, from —— & Co.' (she named a firm of timber-merchants famous throughout the Midlands). 'There is nothing in it—Captain Dell is certain—that would injure the estate. You have such masses of timber! And, if you don't sell, you may find it commandeered. You know what's happened to Lord Radley?'
The Squire sulkily demanded to be informed. Elizabeth told the story, standing at his desk, like a clerk making a report. It seemed to enrage her auditor.
'Thisaccursedwar!' he broke out, when she had finished—'it makes slaves and idiots of us all. It must—it shall end!' And marching tempestuously up and down, he went off into one of the pessimist and pacifist harangues to which she was more or less accustomed. Who would rid the country of a Government that could neither make peace nor make war?—that foresaw nothing—that was making life unbearable at home, by a network of senseless restrictions, while it wasted millions abroad, and in the military camps! The Labour Party were the only people with a grain of sense. They at least would try to make peace. Only, when they had made it, to be governed by them would be even worse than to be governed by Lloyd George. There was no possible life anywhere for decent quiet people. And as for the ravaging and ruin of the woods that was going on all over England—
'The submarine return is worse this week,' said Elizabeth in a low voice.
She had gone to her own table and was sitting there till the hurricane should pass over. There was in her a fresh and chafing sense of the obstacles laid in her path—the path of the scientific and successful organizer—by the Squire's perversities. It was not as though he were a pacifist by conviction, religious or other. She had seen him rout and trample on not a few genuine professors of the faith. His whole opposition to the war rested on the limitations and discomforts inflicted on his own life. It reminded her of certain fragments of dialogue she had overheard in the winter, where she had chanced to find herself alone in a railway carriage full of a group of disaffected workmen returning from a strike meeting at Leicester. 'If there are many like these, is the country worth saving?' she was saying to herself all the time, in a dumb passion.
Yet, after all, those men had done months and years of labour for the country. Saying 'I will not go!' they had yet gone. Without a spark of high feeling or conscious self-sacrifice to ease their toil, they had yet, week by week, made the guns and the shells which had saved the armies of England. When this temporary outbreak was over they would go back and make them again. And they were tired men—sallow-faced, and bowed before their time.
But what had this whimsical, accomplished man before her ever done for his country that he should rail like this? It was difficult after a tiring day to keep scorn and dissent concealed. They probably showed in her expression, for the Squire turned upon her as she made her remark about the submarines, examining her with a pair of keen eyes.
'Oh, I know very well what you and that fellow Chicksands think about persons like me who endeavour to see thingsas they are!'—he smote a chair before him—'and not as you and our war-partywishthem to be. Well, well—now then to business. Who wants to cut my woods—and what do they offer for them?'
Elizabeth put the papers in front of him. He turned them over.
'H'm—they want the Cross Wood—one of the most beautiful woods in England. I have spent days there when I was young drawing the trees. And who's the idiot'—he pointed to some marginal notes—'who is always carping and girding? "Good forestry" would have done this and not done that. "Mismanagement"—"neglect"! Upon my word, who made this man a judge over me?'
And flushed with wrath, the Squire looked angrily at his secretary. 'Heavens!'—thought Elizabeth—'why didn't I edit the papers before I showed them?' But aloud she said with her good-tempered smile—
'I am afraid I took all those remarks as applying to Mr. Hull. He was responsible for the woods, wasn't he? He told me he was.'
'Nothing of the kind! In the end the owner is responsible. This fellow is attackingme!'
Elizabeth said nothing. She could only wait in hope to see how the large sums mentioned in the contract might work.
'"Maximum price"! What's this?—"Had Mr. Mannering been willing to enter into negotiations with us last year,"'—the Squire began to read a letter accompanying the draft contract—'"when we approached him, we should probably have been able to offer him a better price. But under the scale of prices now fixed by the Government—"'
The owner of Mannering bounded out of his seat.
'And you actually mean to say that I may not only be forced to sell my woods—but whether I am forced or not, I can only sell them at the Government price? Intolerable!—absolutelyintolerable! Every day that Englishmen put up with these tyrannies is a disgrace to the country!'
'The country must have artillery waggons and aeroplanes,' said Elizabeth, softly. 'Where are we to get the wood? There are not ships enough to bring it overseas?'
'And suppose I grant you that—why am I not to get my fair price—like anybody else? Just tell me that!'
'Why, everybody's "controlled"!' cried Elizabeth.
'Pshaw! I am sorry to be uncivil'—a sarcastic bow in her direction—'but I really must point out that you talk nonsense. Look at the money in the banks—look at the shops and the advertisements—look at the money that people pay for pictures, and old books, and autographs.Somebody'smaking profits—that's clear. But a wretched landowner—with a few woods to sell—it is easy to victimize him!'
'It comes to a large sum,' said Elizabeth, looking down. At last she was conscious of a real exasperation with the Squire. For four months now she had been wrestling with him—for his own good and the country's, and everything had always to be begun again. Suddenly her spirits drooped.
The Squire observed her furtively out of the corners of his eyes. Then he turned to the last page of the contract, with its final figures. His eyebrows went up.
'The man's afool!' he said vehemently. 'I know the value of my own timber a great deal better than he. They're not worth a third of what they put them at.'
'Even at the Government price?' Elizabeth ventured slyly. 'He'll be very glad to give it!'
'Then it's blackmailing the country,' said the Squire obstinately. 'I loathe the war, but I'm not a profiteer.'
Elizabeth was silent. If the Squire persisted in rejecting this deal, which he had himself invited in another mood, half her dreams for the future, the dreams of a woman just beginning to feel the intoxication of power, or, to put it better, the creative passion of the reformer, were undone. She had already saved the Squire much money. When all reasonable provision had been made for investment, replanting, and the rest, this sale would still leave enough to transform the estate and scores of human lives upon it. Her will chafed hotly under the curb imposed upon it by the caprices of a master for whom—save only as a Greek scholar—she had little respect. After a while, as the Squire was still turning over the contract with occasional grunts and mutterings, she asked—
'Will you please tell me what I am to reply?'
Her voice was cold and measured.
The Squire threw up his white head.
'What hurry is there?' he said testily.
'Oh, none—if you wish it delayed. Only—' she hesitated—'Captain Dell tells me the Government inspectors are already in the neighbourhood. He expects them here before long.'
'And if I make a stand—if I oppose you—well—it'll be the gates over again?' She shrugged her shoulders.
'We must try to find the money some other way. It is badly wanted. I thought—'
'You thought I had authorized this—and you've given all your work for nothing? You think I'm an impossible person?'
Suddenly she found him sitting beside her. Perforce she looked him in the face.
'Don't give notice again!' he said, almost with passion.
'It's not so easy now,' she said, with a rather uncertain voice.
'Because you've done so much for me?—because you've slaved and put your heart into it? That's true. Well now, look here. We'll put that beastly thing away to-night—perhaps I shall be in a better temper in a few days.'
There was a note in his voice he seemed unable to keep out of it. Elizabeth looking up caught the fire light on the sketch of Desmond. Had the Squire's eyes been on it too? Impossible to say—for he had already turned away.
'Oh, yes,—put it away!' she said hurriedly.
'And I'll go over the woods with you on—Friday,' said the Squire after a pause. 'Oh, I don't deny that the money is tempting. I'm not such a pauper as I once was, thanks to you. I seem to have some money in the bank—astonishing situation! And—there's a jolly good sale at Christie's coming on.'
He looked at her half-shamefaced, half-ready to resent it if she laughed at him.
Her eyes laughed.
'I thought you'd forgotten that. I saw you mark the catalogue.'
'Beech and oak between two and three hundred years old—in exchange for Greek gems, between two and three thousand. Well—I'll consider it. Now then, are you feeling better?'
And to her amazement he approached her with an outstretched hand. Elizabeth mechanically placed her own in it.
'I know what you want,' he said impetuously. 'You've got a head full of dreams. They're not my dreams—but you've a right to them—so long as you're kind to mine.'
'I try to be,' she said with a rather tremulous lip.
At that moment the library door opened. Neither perceived it. Desmond came in softly, lest his father should be at work. A carved oak screen round the door hid his entrance, and as he emerged into the light his eyes caught the two distant figures standing hand in hand.
Instinctively he stepped back a few paces and noisily opened the door. The Squire walked away.
'Why, Desmond!' said his father, as the boy emerged into the light, 'your train's punctual for once. Thank you, Miss Bremerton—that'll do. Kindly write to those people and say that I am considering the matter. I needn't keep you any longer....'
That night a demon came to Elizabeth and offered her a Faust-like bargain. Ambition—noble ambition on the one side—an 'elderly lunatic' on the other. And she began to consider it!