The seventeenth hole is only easy for an accomplished golfer. If you take a driver for the tee shot you go too far; unless you are a fine “iron” player you fall lamentably short. Lionel took his cleek, and was short, but well in the fairway. The Squire selected that old and trusty servant—a spoon.
“This does the trick,” he observed to his partner. “There you are, Margot—a possible two, my dear.”
He chuckled complacently, taking Margot’s arm. He believed the match was over. The ball he had just driven lay some three yards from the hole.
Lionel said to Joyce: “If you want to wipe your shoes on me, Joyce, I’ll lie down and let you do it.”
Joyce asked her caddie for a mashie.
The shot presented no great difficulties, except that it was necessary to lay the ball dead at a distance of forty yards. To Lionel’s delight she succeeded famously, leaving her partner a putt of three feet upon a level green.
At this crisis, Margot failed lamentably. She ought, of course, to have laid her ball within a foot of the hole. Joyce, with the same shot, bearing in mind the score, would have played for safety. Instead, Margot putted boldly for the hole and overran it six feet. The Squire made light of this misdemeanor, for it was quite obvious that the little lady had lost her temper.
“I shall down it,” he assured her. But his ball lipped the hole and ran round it. Lionel holed out in three.
“All square,” said the Squire. “Now, Margot, we’ll give ’em a taste of our real quality.”
She smiled faintly, irritated with herself, irritated with Lionel, who was much too cock-a-whoop. In silence she followed her partner to the eighteenth tee. Joyce drove off as steadily as ever, no pressing, a nice full swing. Margot followed with a fair shot, but many yards short of Joyce’s ball. This left the Squire a very dangerous stroke. If he played for the “pin,” he might land in a ditch. If he “skrimshanked,” Margot would have to play a difficult approach on to the most tricky green on the course.
“What shall I do?” he asked.
“Go for it,” replied Margot, curtly.
Sir Geoffrey took out his brassey, shaking his head, as he noted a “cuppy” lie. But he knew himself to be a good and steady player, and this was “a corking good match.”
To his immense satisfaction he played the shot of the day, carrying the ditch and running on to the green. Lionel congratulated him heartily:
“You’re a marvel, father. That shot has cost me seven and sixpence.”
“Not yet,” said Joyce. “Play well to the left.”
Fired by his father’s example, Lionel made an excellent shot. When they reached the green the Squire’s ball lay below the hole. Lionel’s was above. The odds, therefore, were at least two to one against Lionel and his partner. Joyce had to putt downhill upon a slippery surface.
Lionel wondered whether her nerve would fail her. A fairy’s touch was needed. If the ball overran the hole it must trickle on down the slope. Joyce, however, did exactly the right thing at the right time.
“It’s a halved match,” said the Squire, “and one of the best I’ve ever played.”
Margot had the easiest of approach putts, but her blunder at the seventeenth lay heavy on her mind. She was terrified of overrunning the mark. She putted feebly; the ball quivered upon the crest of the slope, and rolled back. When it stopped it was further from the hole than before.
“Um!” said the Squire. “An inch more and you’d have done it. Cheer up!”
She was biting her lip with vexation.
The Squire putted for the hole and missed it.
“I’ve this for the match,” said Lionel.
The ball lay some twenty inches from the hole. Lionel popped it in, and turned to Joyce.
“I could hug you, Joyce,” he said gaily.
Lady Margot shrugged her shoulders.
“I must give up golf,” she said tartly. “It exasperates me.”
The Squire laughed at her, as he handed his son half a sovereign.
“We can’t always win, my dear.”
CHAPTER X
Margot recovered her temper and spirits as the motor sped homeward. The benedictions of the countryside fell like dew upon her, the soft air, the fragrance of pines, the leafy glades where the deer wandered, the great open spaces of moorland. Swift motion exhilarated her. She had paid many fines for exceeding the speed limit. She decided that she could think better in the country, and her thoughts, like bees amongst lime blossom, buzzed busily. Joyce had asked to be dropped at the Vicarage. The Squire hospitably entreated her to lunch at the Hall; Lionel insisted upon it; but Joyce told them that her father was alone. That settled the matter. Margot feigned a civil disappointment. At heart she was glad. The morning, after all, had not been wasted. The information she sought was hers.
The Parson came out to meet his daughter, and stood talking to the Squire—a tall, grim, gaunt figure. The deep tones of his voice impressed Margot. As they glided on again, she said to the Squire:
“Mr. Hamlin is a remarkable personality.”
“Man of too many angles,” growled Sir Geoffrey. “I bark my shins against ’em.”
Margot nodded, too discreet to press an interesting subject further. Lionel had hinted that relations were strained between two autocrats, each intent upon having his way in the same parish. She wondered if Joyce inherited her sire’s personality. Men obtruded that priceless possession; wise women hid it. Joyce might be wiser than she seemed, more determined, more resouceful. If she, too, wanted Lionel, would she fight for him as steadily and strenuously as she had played golf that morning? Another question for Time to answer.
At luncheon, telling Lady Pomfret a vivacious story of the defeat at golf, she obliterated the memory of her loss of temper by owning up to it.
“I made an idiot of myself,” she confessed. “I lost the match, and eight fat half-crowns—and my temper. Sir Geoffrey was adorable. I saw that Lionel hated me, but not so furiously as I hated myself.”
“I thought you took it jolly well,” affirmed the young man.
“No complaints, my dear, no complaints. We’ll take ’em on again any day.” Thus the Squire.
Lionel beamed. She knew that he was thinking: “Margot is the right sort. Shewastried rather high this morning.” He said ingenuously:
“I lostmytemper, mother. Joyce played like a book.”
Margot added demurely:
“In very pretty binding.”
If she expected a compliment from the young man, she was disappointed. He merely nodded, adding after a pause:
“You wouldn’t believe it, but Joyce makes her own clothes.”
Margot hadn’t a doubt of that, but she expressed suitable surprise and commendation. Sir Geoffrey changed the conversation.
The afternoon passed pleasantly. After tea Lionel went down to the river to try for a fish, a fat trout that defied capture. Lady Pomfret and Margot sat under the trees and talked. Sir Geoffrey stumped off to the Home Farm with Fishpingle.
By this time Margot had established intimacy with her host’s butler. She felt towards him as Lionel did to the fat trout. She wanted to land him, to weigh him, to hold him in her small hand. Mystery encompassed Fishpingle. She tried to read his history between the lines upon a discreet face. That was her method of learning French history from “mémoires à servir.” But Fishpingle eluded her. She could find him at any time in his room; he received her courteously; he talked delightfully about old plate, and birds, and Nether-Applewhite, but never, never of himself.
As the Squire and his faithful henchman walked off together, Margot said lightly:
“You have many precious possessions in your dear old house, but it seems to me that of all of them Fishpingle is the most priceless.”
Lady Pomfret became alert. At moments, Margot’s cleverness frightened her. Not her sprightliness in small talk. Lady Pomfret could discount that, and did. But the little lady exhibited, in flashes, powers of intuition and characterisation which were certainly remarkable.
“Tell me what you mean, my dear.”
“I speak of him as a possession. In the last few years I have had three butlers, each of them highly recommended. I pay a little more than is usual to my upper servants, because I want to keep them. And I think I am consistently nice to them. That pays, doesn’t it? And yet, to my intense annoyance, they leave me. They are not possessions, as they used to be. Fishpingle showed me that handsome inkstand. I was consumed with envy when I read the inscription—‘Fifty years’ service!’”
“He became page to Lady Alicia Pomfret when he was ten. His duties, I fancy, were not too onerous. She had him educated.”
“Ah! But, obviously, he has gone on educating himself.”
Another flash. Lady Pomfret assented. Margot continued—
“How do you do it? Your cook, Mrs. Mowland, is another possession, and your housekeeper, Mrs. Randall. It’s wonderful.”
“They are our own people, part of the soil, and we live in the country all the year round. London makes servants restless. Change excites them. We have been fortunate in these—possessions. You are right, Margot, they are priceless.”
“I see you can’t whisper your secret to me.”
“There is no secret.”
Margot laughed, with a little gesture of resignation. Evidently, Lady Pomfret was not to be coaxed or flattered into talking about her amazing butler. Skilfully, she selected and cast another fly.
“Your stillroom maid, Prudence, Fishpingle’s niece, is charming. I ventured to ask for the recipe of those melting griddle cakes we have at tea. She said that the recipe was yours.”
“You are most welcome to it.”
“Thank you so much. Prudence is the apple of Fishpingle’s eye, but you have chief place in his heart.”
Lady Pomfret “sat up,” in every sense of that slangy phrase.
“Bless me! He told you that?”
“Not he. I guessed. You reign supreme.”
Margot sighed. Not without reason had an inspired minor poet given her the nickname—La Reine Margot. She wished to reign, not merely over men, but with a wider dominion over all—something difficult of achievement in London. As thechâtelaineof Beaumanoir Chase this dominating instinct might have been gratified. She could say bitter things about the Salique law. Lady Pomfret wondered why such a visitor, so “smart” (to use an odious word), had settled down contentedly at Pomfret Court, where the entertainment of a town guest must be considered hum-drum. At this moment light came to her. She divined that Margot was studying intelligently conditions which made petty sovereignty possible. She remembered the “pumping” of Joyce, which amused her at the time. Purpose underlay the many questions. She remembered, also, that Margot missed no opportunity of ingratiating herself with Bonsor and others at the Home Farm. She supposed that this was Margot’s “way” (which paid!), and part of a sincere desire to please the Squire. Lastly, regarding her own son with a fond mother’s eye, she had been shrewd enough to realise that, matrimonially, he was no great “catch” for an heiress of quality. In her heart, whilst humouring her husband, she had confidently expected a “débâcle.” A dasher had dashed at a new experience. Very soon, such a personage would be bored and flit elsewhere, a case, in fine, of Marie Antoinette milking cows!
And now, swiftly, she was modifying these premature conclusions. To make assured her new foundations, she, too, cast a fly. As a fisherman, she was quite as adroit as Margot.
“I reign happily over a small establishment. My rule, such as it is, imposes penalties. In my place, Margot, you would be bored.”
Margot “rose” instantly. The fly stuck fast in her throat. And the moment had come, she decided, when sincerity would best serve her purpose. She replied eagerly—
“Dear Lady Pomfret, you are so clever, but indeed you are mistaken. Sir Geoffrey, oddly enough, this very morning, seemed surprised when I told him that I was not bored. I ask you, as I asked him—do I look bored?”
Lady Pomfret laughed, partly because it was pleasant to reflect that her hand had not lost its cunning.
“I have read somewhere, my dear, that you are an accomplished amateur actress. We have never entertained a visitor so easily. Indeed, you have entertained—us! At least, we might have invited some of our neighbours to meet so agreeable a guest.”
“I feared that. I dared to hint as much to the Squire.”
“The wretch never told me.”
“I wanted to rest, to gloat in this quiet paradise. To fortify myself.”
“For what?”
The quiet question brought a faint flush to Margot’s pale cheeks, but she replied vivaciously:
“Against my autumn visits, a dreary round, which no longer sufficies me. The people I know are too aggressive, too neurotic, too jumpy. I have chosen my friends—if you can call them that—not very wisely. My own fault. This last season was trying. One must keep up with the procession, and it simply races along.”
Lady Pomfret felt sorry for her, pity welled into her kind eyes and suffused her voice. Margot looked so small, so frail. Take from her the trappings of her position, and what was left? A motherless young woman, who, admittedly, had chosen the wrong friends. She murmured softly—
“Poor little Margot! You make me sad. But I am glad that you think of this,” her glance wandered round the peaceful garden, “as a sanctuary.”
“I do. I do. Why didn’t we meet before?”
During the two days that followed this confidential talk with her hostess, Margot spun webs in that dainty parlour, her heart, now swept and garnished for the reception of Lionel. She encouraged him to talk freely, ever watchful and ready to steer him out of the troubled waters of introspection and windy conjecture into the snug harbourage of a practical prosperity. Lionel had read the books and pamphlets lent by Fishpingle. And Fishpingle had warned him that they were one-sided, written by men who had suffered abuses, who card-indexed flagrant instances with something of the same gusto which animates collectors of pornographic engravings. It was quite easy for Margot to deal with such propaganda. More, her knowledge impressed him. She presented the other side with a suavity in pleasing contrast to the acerbity of the pamphleteers. If she stickled for Authority, as she did, she garbed it in motley. Very cleverly, she laid stress upon the necessity of loyalty to their own order.
“You can’t destroy your own nest, Lionel. Make no mistake! These demagogues mean to wipe us out, if they can. If they do,” she shrugged her shoulders, “it will be largely due to our indolence and indifference. We may have to fight with their bludgeons. My father advocated a Union of Landed Gentry.”
“Why not?” asked Lionel.
“Because, my child, Authority detests co-operation. You see that in politics. The heads of different departments won’t pull together. People talk of a united Cabinet. A Cabinet is never united.”
The surprise in his face amused her. What fun enlightening such an innocent! She went on, more suavely than ever:
“Before I put my hair up, in my father’s lifetime, the Mandarins used to foregather at Beaumanoir. Our chef was a great artist.”
“Chinaman?”
“England’s statesmen. I beheld them with awe—the Olympians! The awe soon went after I got to know them. Their very ordinary talk shattered my illusions. Believe me, Lionel, they are well called representative men. They represent most faithfully the Man in the Street, whom they study to please and satisfy after—bien entendu—they have ground their own little axes. Heavens! how they disappointed me. No imagination! No enthusiasm! No real sympathy! Just commonplace party politicians with a gift of the gab and ears pricked to catch the Voice of the People.”
“This is a staggerer for me, Margot.”
She laughed at his sober face.
“Come to my house, and you shall meet some of them. There are rare exceptions, of course. I speak generally. I want to warn you and prepare you. Heaven has sent me to your rescue. You were thinking of chucking the army, studying chemistry as applied to land, and turning yourself into your father’s bailiff.”
“Something of that sort.”
“A fine programme, if it could be carried out. But, suppose it couldn’t? You might fail. What a situation then! Will your father co-operate with you? Will he supply the sinews of war? Experimental chemistry is costly, as my father found out. Success might come after many failures. Would your father stand the strain of those failures?”
“No—he wouldn’t. But I must do something. Better to try and fail than to sit still and trust to luck. You are not very encouraging. Give me a lead, if you can.”
She answered seriously:
“I think I can. I like you, Lionel; I like your people; I love this dear old place. It is far nicer than Beaumanoir, and I loved that. Yes, I should be proud to help you, but the obvious way is so seldom obvious to the traveller himself. You have come back from India to face conditions which I have heard discussed ever since I was fifteen. And I have heard both sides. Personally, I have made my choice. I stick to my order, sink or swim.”
“I feel like that, too.”
“Well, I have warned you that you can’t expect too much from Authority. If it comes to a real fight, we shall stand together. Meanwhile, every man in your position should prepare for that fight.”
“You talk well, Margot.”
“I repeat what I have heard.”
Joyce had said the same. He remembered that in the mythologies Echo is a nymph.
“How am I to prepare?”
“You ought to be in Parliament.Punchmay well call it The House of Awfully Commons, but there is no other place for such as you.”
He muttered gloomily—
“Sit up late, and do as I’m told.”
She laughed.
“It’s not quite as bad as that. In Parliament you would get the training you need. If I know you, you’d forge ahead. At any rate, you would be in the movement. And your chance would come.”
Lionel answered her sharply, with incisive curtness:
“You have not painted a flattering portrait of politicians, yet you urge me to become one of them.”
“I described them as I see them, because you are so preposterously modest. You look up to them. Many of them could look up to you. Place and power are easily within your grasp. Men with half your advantages have climbed high.”
Her flattery tickled him, but he stuck doggedly to his point.
“Parliament would mean a bigger allowance. Father couldn’t afford it.”
Her tone became light again.
“As to that, you are like poor Beau. You must make the right sort of marriage. Unlike poor Beau, you are well able to do it.”
He moved uneasily.
“Margot—have you talked this over with Father?”
“On my honour—no. Why do you ask?”
“Your views are his views. He put it to me within a few hours of my return home. ‘You must marry a nice little girl with a bit of money.’”
The adjective “little” may have caused her embarrassment. And his voice, as he spoke, was low and troubled. He seemed, too, to be deliberately looking away from her. She saved an awkward situation with a ripple of laughter.
“Why, of course,” she went on, quite herself again. “I could find you half a dozen nice girls. Do you prefer them—little?”
He stammered out a reply:
“I—I d-don’t know. You see I—I haven’t quite got to father’s point of view. I mean to say I never thought of marrying at all. It wasn’t exactly beyond my horizon, but——!” He broke off, raising troubled eyes to her.
She handled him with extreme delicacy and patience.
“I understand perfectly. Young men of your type don’t think of marriage till—till love imposes the thought of it on them. But is it possible, Lionel, that you have never been in love?”
“Never—in the sense you mean.”
“Really? What a sensation to come! But—how shall I put it?—wouldn’t you like to be? Every girl worth her salt thinks of a possible husband—generally a quite impossible man. Have you never thought of a possible wife?”
“In the abstract—yes. Are you pulling my leg, Margot?”
“Heaven forbid! I am nearly, not quite, as solemn as you are.”
But she laughed gaily, contradicting her own words. Her laughter was so infectious that Lionel laughed with her. The ice between them broke and drifted away. He chuckled, like his father.
“I say, you must think me a mug.”
“I feel,”she paused, meeting his glance roguishly, “I feel old enough to be your mother, and really I’m one year younger than you.”
“One year and three months.”
“You looked me up?”
“I did.”
She inferred, possibly, more than was strictly warrantable. Suddenly the dressing gong boomed out. Margot got up. Lionel protested:
“You don’t take half an hour to shove on a frock, do you?”
“Sometimes. I am wearing a new frock to-night. I hope you will like it.”
“You must spend a lot on your clothes.”
“I do. Why not? I have money to burn.A tout à l’heure.”
She waved her hand and departed.
Lionel sat on under the trees, gazing at the lengthening shadows as they stole across the velvety lawn, and letting his thoughts project themselves into the future. No man likes to think that he is being pursued by a woman, however charming she may be. But such a probability didn’t occur to him. His father was wiser in such matters. Lionel accepted Margot’s advice as impersonal. And she had not been “primed” by the squire. The pair, such a contrast to each other in most respects, happened to think alike, independently and sincerely, upon a subject which they had not discussed together.
What would it mean to him, if he captured Margot? For the first time he thought of her not as the wife chosen for him by a fond and ambitious sire, but asthe womanchosen by himself out of all the world. Any man might be proud to possess a creature so distinguished, so sought after, so attractive physically and mentally. Other men would envy him. In the regiment his pals would congratulate him warmly on “landing” a big “fish.” No young fellow is independent of public opinion, least of all an old Etonian, a subaltern in a crack corps. Men he knew had been caught by enterprising spinsters in India, swishing tempestuous petticoats of the wrong cut. He remembered what was said at mess concerning such matches. Fordingbridge had gone a “mucker.” Young Ocknell, too, the silly ass, had married a second-rate actress. And Ocknell Manor was offered for sale inCountry Life!
He heard the clock in the stable-yard strike a quarter to eight. The short cut to his room lay through the shrubberies, and a side door not far from the pantry. He happened to be wearing tennis shoes. As he approached the side door, he saw Prudence and Alfred. Their faces might have been three inches apart, not more. Prudence giggled and flitted indoors. Alfred stood his ground, grinning sheepishly.
“Very close out here,” said Lionel.
Alfred assented, adding nervously—
“’Ee won’t tell tales out o’ school, Master Lionel, will ’ee? ’Tis as much as my place be worth, if Squire caught Prue an’ me mumbud-gettin’, he be so tarr’ble set on eugannicks.”
“Trust me,” smiled Lionel. “The Squire will come round, Alfred. I said a word to him, as I promised, but I spoke too soon. Don’t worry! By George, youarea lucky fellow. Prue is a little dear. And you both looked as happy as larks. I say, I shall be late for dinner.”
He rushed into the house, followed more leisurely by Alfred, still grinning.
Hastily dressing, Lionel was sensible of an emotion which might or might not be the quickening of love. He found himself envying Alfred. It must be jolly to have a pretty girl look at a fellow as Prudence looked at her lover. The world was going round and round for them. Had little Margot such a glance in her battery? Had she ever looked at a man like that?
Had Joyce?
When he appeared in the Long Saloon, the last of the party, Margot was wearing her new frock, fashioned out of chiffon of the particular emerald green she affected and so bespangled that it looked as if dusted with tiny diamonds. About her white neck shimmered her famous pearls. She wore no other jewelry. Lionel, as he approached her, shaded his eyes. The Squire chuckled.
“A bit of a dazzler, eh, boy?”
“Quite stunning,” said Lionel.
Margot flashed a glance at him, which the Squire and Lady Pomfret, standing just behind her, couldn’t see. Long afterwards Lionel described this glance as a “crumpled.” The question, so doubtfully propounded whilst he was dressing, had been answered. Tom Challoner was a fool. Lady Margot Maltravers might be cold as Greenland’s icy mountains to him—and serve him right! To a friend, at the psychological moment, her heart revealed itself enchantingly—warm as India’s coral strand.
They went into dinner.
The talk settled upon a cricket-match to be played, next day, upon the Squire’s ground—Nether-Applewhitev.Long-Baddeley, a neighbouring village. The Parson captained his XI. The Squire, in a long white kennel-overcoat, officiated as umpire. Margot wanted to play games. Looking on bored her. But the Squire promised entertainment. Obviously, he had set his heart upon a victory. Lionel was quite as keen. To hear the two discussing the “form” of different village champions, one might suppose that an international match impended. Sir Geoffrey mentioned a bowler, Joel Tibber, who put the fear of the Lord into timid batsmen. Joel could pitch a ball with deadly accuracy at the batsman’s head. Having established the right degree of “funk,” he bowled with equal accuracy at the wicket. Joel belonged to Long-Baddeley, but his mother had been born in Nether-Applewhite. The Squire felt that he owned a half-interest in Joel. Margot hoped that Fishpingle would take the field, and Lionel told her that he kept wicket. She learnt later that the Parson batted with a thick broomstick, about the right handicap for a man who had made his “century” for the Gentlemen of England. The Squire said solemnly:
“If Lionel is in form we shall romp home.”
“Do you feel in form?” asked Margot.
“Ra-ther! But if that beast Joel picks me off, as he did last time, I shall want ‘first aid.’ Can you give it?”
Lady Pomfret observed mildly, “I take a little arnica and lint on to the battlefield.”
Margot said, as solemnly as Sir Geoffrey:
“This is a serious affair.”
She was assured of it. Any jesting upon the national game would be unseemly. It might be permissible to laugh at the cricketers, not at cricket. This from Lady Pomfret, with a sly twinkle in her eye. Twice she essayed to turn the ball of talk from the wickets. Twice the Squire returned that ball to his son—and the great game went on.
Was Margot bored?
No. Such talk in her own house amongst her own set might be deemed impossible. The first ball would have gone to the boundary and stayed there. But here, in this panelled dining-room, with the scent of new-mown hay stealing through the open windows, with the pitch itself to be seen from those windows, lying smooth as silver in the moonlight, what cleaner, better theme could be chosen? It smelt of the countryside. It presented humours delightfully Arcadian.
After dinner, Lionel proposed piquet. Given equal cards, Margot was incomparably the better player. Lady Pomfret, watching her noticed, that she played to the score, played, in short, to win. She noticed, too, that Lionel seemed to be studying his opponent rather than the game. He discarded carelessly; he forgot to score points. In her own mind smiling to herself, the mother perpetrated a mild pun. “He looks at her hands instead of his own.” Lionel, let us admit, was watching and waiting for another dynamic glance. He might have guessed that a second would not be forthcoming too soon. A second might have weakened the first. Nevertheless, what was carefully hidden from Lionel revealed itself unmistakably to Lady Pomfret. She beheld Truth before the nymph left her well.
“Margot means to have him.”
The Squire, dozing in his big armchair, sat bolt upright.
“Bless my soul!” he exclaimed. “It’s past eleven. To bed with you, boy! And take a pinch of bi-carbonate of potash.” He turned to his guest. “Nothing like it to clear the eye.”
“Take two pinches, Lionel,” counselled the little lady.
Lady Pomfret read her and smiled.
The Squire rang the bell, a signal that meant “Lights out!” With his hand on the old-fashioned bell-pull, he turned to his son.
“By the way, I heard a bit of news this afternoon. The Professor has turned up again.”
“Moxon, father?”
“Yes, Moxon.” He added for Margot’s benefit, “Not a Moxon of Wooton, my dear, but a very presentable and knowledgable young man.”
CHAPTER XI
Cricket matches of the first magnitude are played of a Saturday in Nether-Applewhite. At ten punctually, an aged and yellow bus, drawn by two stout horses, rolled through the lodge gates of Pomfret Court and drew up at the marquee. A young, fresh-faced man, sitting by the driver, tootled a tandem horn. Fishpingle said to the Squire:
“His lordship is with them.”
Long-Baddeley formed part of Lord Fordingbridge’s property.
The Squire and Lionel advanced to greet their visitors. They shook hands with Fordingbridge, Joel Tibber, and those members of XI whom they knew personally. Mild chaff was exchanged. The Squire inquired after the twins.
“Two big bouncing boys,” proclaimed the father. “It would do your heart good to see them, Sir Geoffrey.”
“The more the merrier. Never expected to see you.”
“I’m not playing, but I had to come. Lionel looks as fit as a fiddle.”
“Yes, yes; India’s made a strong man of him.”
Lionel bandied pleasantries with Mr. Tibber, the captain of Long-Baddeley—
“I’ve put on chain armour under my flannels, Joel.”
“Ah-h-h! Pitch won’t be so nice an’ bumpy, seemin’ly, after them there rains.”
He spoke with sincere regret. A hard, bumpy pitch meant many wickets for Mr. Tibber. He preferred village greens for his deadly work. The Parsons, wearing his Cambridge “blue,” joined the group. In the cricket field he looked ten years younger. Lionel couldn’t see either Moxon or Joyce. But the onlookers had not yet arrived. Margot and Lady Pomfret were expected at noon.
Joel won the toss and elected to bat. Hamlin and his merry men took the field. Fordingbridge and the Squire served as umpires. The two elder Mucklows went on to bowl. George, the youngest of the brethren, approached his captain.
“I can bowl a wicked ball,” he said. He pronounced “bowl” as if it rhymed with “jowl.”
“No, you can’t,” replied the Parson, decisively.
“I thinks I can,” urged George. “God A’mighty made us Mucklows bowlers, He did.”
“You stand in the deep field, George. If you miss a catch, you can go to Canada and never return.”
He patted him pleasantly on the shoulder. George retired, grumbling. One of the Long-Baddeley batsmen asked for a trial ball. After heated discussion this was conceded as a favour, not a right. Fishpingle quoted the law, upholding the rigour of the game, like Mrs. Battle. Another discussion followed the first delivery, “no-balled” by his lordship. Fishpingle sustained the decision.
Lionel was fielding at square leg, and between the overs and opportunities of chatting with Fordingbridge, who, matrimonially, as deemed by the county to have gone a “mucker.” Lionel, however, noticed that he seemed the better for it.
“You must come and see my missis, Lionel. She’s a topper. We’re farmers. Rise with the lark, my boy. I feel another man. It came to this—I had to take hold or let go. Now I save all the money which I used to spend away from home. And I’m on the spot to check wastage.”
“The simple life, Johnnie, agrees with you.”
“Lord love you, I was slidin’ downhill when you went to India. Couldn’t look an egg in the face at breakfast, and bored with everything and everybody.”
The game went on with varying fortune. The star batsman ran himself out, and hotly disputed the Squire’s decision, daring to affirm that his lordship would have rendered another verdict. The Squire treated such incidents humourously, as not the least amusing part of village cricket. Fordingbridge rebuked the misdemeanant, saying in a loud voice:
“Don’t be a damned fool, Dave Misselbrook! I’m ashamed of you.”
Dave retreated. The batsman at the other end observed apologetically:
“Dave ain’t hisself. His young ’ooman give him the chuck las’ week.”
Fordingbridge took this bit of gossip seriously—
“Did she? I must have a talk with the baggage.”
Lionel laughed, but he was much impressed. Fordingbridge, as he recalled him, a man who raced, and hunted from Melton, and kept late hours and loose company, had indeed changed. Curiosity consumed him to see the “topper,” surely a worker of miracles. Then his thoughts wandered to Joyce. Was she sitting upon the Vicarage lawn with Moxon? Why had Moxon returned so quickly? Had she whistled?Confound it!Thinking of Joyce, an easy catch was missed. Loud cheers from Long-Baddeley. “You duffer!” growled the Squire. Fishpingle shook his head sorrowfully.
At midday the spectators began to arrive. Margot and Lady Pomfret wandered round the ground, talking to the village fathers and mothers, who sat placidly beneath the oaks and beeches. Lady Pomfret anticipated diversion where it was likely to be met.
“This,” she murmured to Margot, “is a character.” They were approaching an old woman, who had been wheeled on to the ground in a bath-chair. She sat erect, tremendously interested in a game she did not understand. A grandson was fielding hard by.
“How are you, Mrs. Parish? Isn’t this a little venturesome?”
“I’m the same as usual, my lady. My pore heart goes on a-flutterin’ like an old hen tryin’ for to fly. Doctor says ’twill stop sudden-like any minute, night or day. I ain’t afeard. Maybe ’tis presumption to say that. I’d like to go—quick, wi’out givin’ too much trouble. What fair worrits me is the fear o’ poppin’ off in public. If I dropped dead, so to speak, in village street, ’twould scare the little ’uns.”
“I see your grandson is playing.”
“That he be, an’ proud as King Garge on his throne. Scared too, the gert silly! I told ’un to carry a stiff tail, I did. It mads me, yas, it do, when I see boys an’ girls meetin’ trouble halfway. Nice, religious lad, too. This very marning he makes me promise to pray so be as he bain’t bowled out fust ball.”
“And did you?” asked Margot.
The old woman looked keenly at her. Village gossip had spread far and wide the Squire’s plans.
“This is Lady Margot Maltravers, Mrs. Parish.”
“Ah-h-h! I guessed that. Did I pray, my lady? Yas—I did.”
“I am quite sure your prayer will be answered,” said Margot.
“I baint so sure,” retorted the dame, sharply. “God A’mighty’s ways be past findin’ out. I mind me prayin’ as never so for a second husband, bein’ lucky with Job Parish, but that prayer went on t’ muck-heap.”
After a few more words, they passed on.
“A gallant old soul!” Margot observed.
Lady Pomfret nodded, saying reflectively—
“I think I must pray for young Charley Parish.”
Margot considered this.
“If you do,” she predicted, “he will carry out his bat.”
By the time they had circled the field, Joyce and Moxon had arrived. The Professor was duly presented to her little ladyship, who engaged him forthwith in talk, strolling on with him, whilst Joyce sat by Lady Pomfret. Moxon’s face and figure pleased Margot. He looked that happy combination, a man of thought and action. His grey eyes were clear as his complexion; the nose was delicately modelled; his chin indicated resolution. When he smiled, he showed white even teeth. Margot said easily—
“Lionel Pomfret has talked to me about you. He is rather absorbent. I managed to squeeze your ideas out of him. They interested me, although they conflict with my own.”
Moxon showed some surprise.
“Ideas, Lady Margot? What do you conceive to be my ideas?”
“The regeneration of the land, the amelioration of rural conditions, a clean sweep of—us.”
She laughed, exhibiting no trace of malice. Moxon perceived, none the less, that he was challenged. He answered her quietly—
“I never said that to Pomfret.”
“You must be mistaken.”
“I am positive.”
“I have it. You talked to Miss Hamlin and her father.”
“Oh yes.”
“Miss Hamlin repeated what she heard to Mr. Pomfret. Perhaps she failed to report to you quite accurately.”
Moxon hastened to defend Joyce. Inaccuracy was not her weakness. His views were public property. He repudiated warmly any desire upon his part to sweep away anything of value. Margot was constrained to withdraw the last indictment.
“All the same, Mr. Moxon—ought I to call you ‘Professor’?”
“Most certainly not.”
“All the same,” she continued, “that underlies your programme. I am well aware that we rule, to-day, on sufferance. As yet, the country people, particularly the people in such counties as this, are singularly free from disaffection. You and your friends are stirring them up.”
“To help themselves,” he interrupted; “to make them realise that they are practically parasites, living for you and on you.”
“I dare say. These good fellows,” she indicated the Nether-Applewhite XI, “don’t look like parasites.”
“This parish is exceptional. Even here—I hesitate to offend.”
“Pray go on!”
“Even here the condition is that of stagnant dependence. The labourers are at the mercy of farmer and landowner. Power is not abused on this state, but it might be. At Ocknell Manor the conditions are atrocious. Everything is left to an ignorant agent, who skins ’em alive.”
Margot shrugged her slender shoulders.
“I repeat, if you stir them up, if you transfer the power to them—we go. I leave it to you to say whether you are honestly convinced that the masses will succeed where the classes have failed.”
By this time they had strolled back to the marquee, and joined the others. Margot had no wish to prolong a futile discussion. As Moxon had said, his views were public property. She had listened to them, at first hand, from the more radical statesman who preached them in and out of season. Her particular object had been accomplished. Moxon, as she had guessed, was a man of parts. No girl would dismiss such a lover lightly.
But he had come back.
The rival teams lunched very fraternally together, and much shandygaff was consumed. Just before luncheon, Long-Baddeley was dismissed with ninety-two runs to their credit. Nether-Applewhite had lost one wicket. After luncheon, Alfred Rockley covered himself with glory. Joel Tibber had no terrors for him. Prudence applauded his feats with hands and voice. When Lionel and he got “set,” runs came swiftly—four after four. Spectators from Long-Baddeley enlivened the contest. Old gaffers left the ale-house to prattle together about matches played two score years ago, but never forgotten. To many an innings kindly Time had added runs. Finally, Alfred was caught in the deep field, and, as so often happens when a partnership is dissolved, Lionel playing forward at a short-pitched ball, was clean bowled. One hundred and fifty-seven for four wickets.
Lionel, flushed by exercise and triumph, joined Margot. He looked his best. To his amazement, she fussed over him. He was very hot; he must put on a coat. A southerly breeze blew fresh from the Solent. He mustn’t sit down yet. Why not take a turn with her?
Lady Pomfret was much amused.
The pair wandered off, but Lionel insisted upon watching the game.
“You will see Hamlin bat with a stump—a real treat.”
“Not after you.”
“Good Lord! And you are training me to appreciate fine bits. He’s a fine bit, and I’m a cheap reproduction.”
Under her schooling, he was learning much about Pomfret furniture and pictures.
“As to that, Lionel, you hold yourself too cheap.”
Hamlin and Fishpingle were now batting. The old Cambridge “blue” exhibited form in its highest manifestation. Upon a pitch, now none too good, he stopped or struck every ball with absolute accuracy, timing them perfectly. Fishpingle presented the village “stone-waller,” intent only upon keeping up his wicket and letting the Parson score. Runs came slowly. Lionel told Margot that amateur bowlers lost their length against a stubborn defence. Then he said abruptly:
“But, of course, you are bored.”
“No, very much the contrary. I have seen nothing like this for years. I like it—the enthusiasm is infectious. As for the villagers, I wouldn’t change them for the world. That dear old woman, Mrs. Parish—! The row of granfers on the bench—! Two of the darlings are wearing smocks. Your professor would change all that; give him a free hand, and he would people the countryside with men and women cut to pattern, all aping their betters, and all discontented.”
“Why do you call him my professor?”
“He nearly got you. I suppose he belongs to Miss Hamlin.”
“Not yet, I fancy.” Lionel replied stiffly.
“Ah, well, she will be foolish, if she lets him slip through her fingers. Mr. Moxon and I have agreed to disagree, but I like him. He will make his mark. What are they cheering for?”
“Fishpingle is out. Now we may have some fun. The village slogger takes his place.”
The slogger rolled out of the marquee, disdaining pads or gloves. Nether-Applewhite cheered, anticipating much leather-hunting.
“You hit ’un, Joe!”—“Stretch their legs for ’un, lad!”—“Ah-h-h! Now for a bit o’ sport.”
Encouraged by these remarks, the object of them strode to his wicket and took block. Lionel explained what was needed:
“We haven’t time to finish the match. Hamlin may declare our innings closed if we touch the double century. Then our great chance is to get ’em all out before time is called.”
“Where do we stand now?”
“We’ve made about a hundred and ninety.”
The slogger brandished the willow. Joel hurtled forward. A deep groan came from the bench of granfers as a judicious “yorker” knocked two stumps out of the ground. The discomfited batsman glared at a mocking field.
“I warn’t ready,” he shouted. “You hear me?”
“Tut, tut!” said the Squire. “They can hear you in Salisbury, my man. Better luck next time.”
One of the Mucklow brethren took his place. Joel delivered a terrific ball, which seemed to whiz straight at the batsman’s head. Mucklow bobbed; the bails flew. Long-Baddeley howled with joy. Adam Mucklow scratched his head. He was assured by Point that it was still on his shoulders. Sadly, sighing deeply, he went his weary way. Lord Fordingbridge said jovially: “Joel, if you do the hat trick, order one of the best at my expense.” George Mucklow advanced.
“Don’t ’ee be afeared, Garge!”
“I ain’t afeared,” declared George, valiantly; but he was. His knees were as wax.
“No flowers at his funeral,” said the wit of Long-Baddeley.
“Keep your eye on the ball,” counselled the Parson.
Joel delivered the third ball. The unhappy George shut both eyes and flinched. A derisive roar went up, so did the bails. George gazed about him.
“You be out,” said the wicket-keeper.
“So I be. ’Tis sartin I didn’t know it. I can bowl a bit, but this ain’t cricket, ’tis murder.”
He vanished.
A few more runs were added to the score before the last wicket fell. Charles Parish achieved three singles and carried out his bat. The prayers of two righteous women had availed that much. Total score for Nether-Applewhite, two hundred and three. Long-Baddeley went in with one hundred and twelve runs to make in less than two hours. If they failed, and ten wickets fell, they would suffer ignominious defeat. Strategy demanded careful play. Fordingbridge congratulated the Squire upon his pitch, a batsman’s wicket, which accounted for big scores rare in village cricket.
Margot went back to Lady Pomfret and tea. She sat next to Joyce and talked to her. Joyce seemed preoccupied—not herself. Her interest in the game struck Margot as feigned. Her face, too, was paler than usual, faint shadows encircled her eyes. Was she sorry that Moxon had come back? It appeared, however, that Moxon’s visit was incidental, almost accidental. He had to leave on the Monday.
“Have you a headache?” asked Margot.
“Yes.”
Margot, under the same circumstances, would have said “No.” She decided that Joyce’s sincerity might be reckoned hercheval de bataille. She expressed sympathy, offering to send her maid to fetch some aspirin tabloids from the Hall. Joyce made light of a petty ailment. The sun was rather hot. Her headache would pass. As the two girls talked one of the village mothers passed by, dragging a toddler of her own. The child caught her foot in the ropes of the marquee, fell heavily, and began to howl. Joyce jumped up, snatched the child from the ground, crooned over it, hugged it, made it laugh, whilst the young mother stood sheepishly looking on.
“Leave her with me for a few minutes,” said Joyce.
The mother moved on, the child cuddled up to Joyce, and then fell asleep. Margot said in a whisper.
“That was amazing. How do you do it?”
“I am fond of children.”
“And this one is a special favourite?”
“No; I don’t think I know this child. The mother is from Ocknell. She married a Nether-Applewhite man, but they have only come here lately.”
“It’s magic.”
Presently the mother came back, but the child left Joyce reluctantly. Margot thought that she had guessed the riddle.
“She must ill-treat the child.”
Joyce smiled.
“Oh no. Village mothers rather spoil their children. Didn’t you know that?”
Margot confessed that she didn’t. Joyce continued:
“But, of course, there is the reaction, when they are tired and fussed. That mother was fussed. I saw it at once. To come here this afternoon means more work to-night.”
“How is your headache?”
“Gone!”
“Really, you know, you’re rather an amazing person. But you hide your light. I don’t. Yours burns with a steadier beam.”
“A farthing dip,” said Joyce.
Stumps were to be drawn at seven promptly. As the minutes slipped by, Nether-Applewhite realised sorrowfully that Time had ranged himself with the enemy. Long ago, they had abandoned the hope of scoring runs. Each batsman was instructed to block the bowling, to hold the fort defensively. Five wickets had fallen for some sixty runs, and the best batsmen were out. Could the tail of the team wag on for twenty minutes? Hamlin put himself on to bowl lobs, twisting, curling, underhand balls. At Cambridge, long ago, the head of his College, the illustrious Master of Trinity, had made a jest upon Hamlin’s bowling. Presenting a prize set of books, he had remarked blandly, “Hamlin, you are the only undergraduate I know who has combined underhand practices with stainless integrity.”
“Sneaks!” said Long-Baddeley.
Hamlin waved his field in nearer. Lionel, at square leg, drew so near the batsman that Margot trembled for his safety. And Hamlin, delivering his ball, followed it valiantly halfway up the pitch. Point stationed himself four yards from the crease. The mighty Tibber fell to these tactics. Point took the ball almost from the bottom of the bat, and said politely, “Thank you.” Four wickets to fall and sixteen minutes to go!
The seventh wicket fell five minutes later to a ball that pitched three feet wide of the stumps on the off side and then nicked off the leg bail.
Three and eleven!
The granfers had shouted themselves thirsty and hoarse. One patriarch announced his intentions, “if so be as we win, I’ll carry more good ale to-night than any man o’ my years in Wiltsheer.”
Excitement gripped Margot and Joyce. Every stroke was cheered and counter-cheered. Derisive comment winged its way to the pitch from every point of the compass, and from every mouth, male and female. Lady Pomfret discovered that she had split a new pair of gloves. Above the Squire’s white coat glowed a face red as the harvest sun, now declining through a haze. Fordingbridge exhorted his men to endure patiently to the end.
Three wickets to fall and seven minutes to go!
At this crisis Lionel distinguished himself and wiped out the grievous memory of a dropped catch in the first innings. A stalwart son of Long-Baddeley smote hard at a ball pitched too short, pulling it savagely to leg. Lionel held it convulsively.
“Good boy,” said the Squire, wiping his forehead.
Even the ranks of Tuscany cheered.
Two and five!
Could it be done? Candour compels us to state that Fabian tactics might have succeeded, had not Fordingbridge been present. He, good sportsman, suffered no exasperating delays. Batsmen dared not tarry, drawing on their gloves.
One and three!
George Mucklow took heart of grace. Funk exuded from every pore of the tenth batsman’s skin as he, like George, tremblingly asked the umpire for block.
“Block be damned!” shouted his lordship. “Hit the next ball to the boundary, and I’ll give you a fiver.”
This counsel of perfection undid the unhappy youth. Hamlin bowled straight and true for the middle stump. The youth smote and missed.
“Bif!” yelled Lionel.
All out and one minute to spare. As the Nether-Applewhite team carried the Parson shoulder high to the marquee, the stable clock tolled solemnly the defeat of Long-Baddeley. Fishpingle and Alfred hurried to the house, but the Squire’s voice roared after them—
“Ben!”
“Sir Geoffrey?”
“Champagne to-night.”
“Yes, Sir Geoffrey.”
Margot inquired tenderly after Lionel’s hands. He had anticipated “first aid”; it was his, even to the sacrifice of a tiny handkerchief. Lionel demanded nothing more romantic than a tankard of shandygaff. Margot fetched it, for the moment his obedient slave. Joyce ministered as faithfully to her father with ginger beer.
When the yellow ’bus was full, inside and out, the Squire made a short speech to which Fordingbridge responded. How pleasant it is to hear such simple rhetoric! How invidious the task of setting it down! The better team had won. A jolly day was over.
Three cheers for Sir Geoffrey Pomfret!
And three cheers for his “lardship”!
Lionel said to Margot—
“This is the sort of thing we dream of on the Plains. The whole scene rises out of the desert, like a mirage.”
“I wonder if it is a mirage?”
“Eh?”
“Tout passe.” She sighed.
Lionel looked at her uneasily, wondering if a vein of cynicism, seldom displayed, was merely superficial. At any rate Joyce and she had forced him to think, to analyse his thoughts, to draw inferences from them. He said slowly:
“I took it all for granted before I went to India. It never occurred to me then that I was fortunate in my home or in anything else. I remember ‘grousing’ if a cog in the machinery slipped. Machinery! That’s the word. I reckoned this to be machinery. By George! I hadn’t wit enough to reflect that machinery doesn’t last for ever and ever.”
She made no reply.
Her sprightly brain was busy, applying what he had said to herself. For her the past fortnight had been a fresh experience, and perfectly delightful. The peaceful atmosphere, the rest to her own over-stimulated nerves, her courteous hosts, her ever-increasing interest in the young man beside her, so different from the strivers and pushers of the metropolitan market-place—these had sufficed. Would they suffice if she held them in perpetuity?
Frankly, she didn’t know; an odd misgiving assailed her. Was she a creature of change, incapable of finding happiness in stable conditions?
She heard Lionel’s voice coming back to her, as if from a distance. He was talking of Fishpingle.
“The dear old boy kept wicket jolly well, and he looked so ripping on his flannels.”
“Yes. The moment I saw him—I knew. The mystery was solved.”
“What did you know?”
“He is a gentleman—all through. His story—the little I have heard of it—confirms that. Lady Alicia had a pretty maid, who went about with her.Une petite faute.We can guess the rest.”
“You are very sharp, Margot. That is mother’s opinion.”
“Is it? Then the thing is settled. Your dear mother is sharper than I am.”
Lionel was astounded.
“Mother—sharp?”
“As a Damascus blade, and as finely tempered. I must look up the directories. I never heard of a gentle family with the name—Fishpingle.”
“Nor I.”
“It sounds like the name of a place.”
“So it does.”
They joined the others on the lawn. Joyce, Moxon, the Parson, and Lady Pomfret were listening to the Squire as he dwelt at length upon the vicissitudes of the day. Alfred stood high in his favour. He gazed affectionately at the Parson. Lionel was welcomed with winged words; even so Nestor may have acclaimed Achilles.
“Is it a mirage?” thought Margot, as she went up to her pretty room.