CHAPTER XIV
“Creep—crane—go canny!”
This policy was not to Lionel’s taste. Hamlin, too would abhor it, wax sour under it, suppress pride and wrath till they might break bonds and run amok. Under the suspense of waiting, Euphrosyne would languish.
But what else could be done?
The Fates, not Lionel, answered the insistent question.
Upon the Tuesday afternoon the Squire went a-fishing by himself, too perturbed of mind to seek any companion save that of his own thoughts. One thing—quite enough—he knew. The boy had not “gone for” Margot. None the less, they remained on easy, intimate terms with each other. But at dinner, after the hunt, Margot had spoken of leaving on the following Wednesday. The Squire was a stickler for keeping social engagements; such engagements were made, of course, by a young lady of quality many weeks ahead. Had he received from Lionel, over their wine, some intimation that all was well, he would have been quite satisfied. But why did the boy hold his tongue? What ailed him? Lady Pomfret was solemnly interrogated. Let her hazard some reasonable conjecture! She presented one, tentatively, placidly, and exasperatingly. The young people might wish to remain simply and enduringly—friends. The Squire was much ruffled, purged his mind drastically, dropped an oath, and apologised. He kept on repeating himself: “She wants him, I tell you. She was ripe for the pluckin’ a week ago. That my son should be a laggard——!” His wife consoled him with the assurance that no man could read a maid’s heart. “I read yours,” he affirmed. She smiled at him. He kissed her and went his way.
Lionel caught Joyce alone for a few blessed minutes. She had told the Parson.
“What did he say, my angel?”
“He was wonderful,” she sighed. “I was right to tell him.”
“Of course you were,” he exclaimed fervently. “Will it hurt you to tell me exactly what he said about—about me—and father?”
“He anticipates grave trouble. I’ll tell you every word, when——”
“When?”
“When the trouble is over. He would rather not see you yet. His position is——”
“Humiliating! When I look at you——!”
“I don’t look my best this morning, a bedraggled thing!”
To this he replied vehemently:
“Joyce, my blessed girl, nothing can cheapen you or your father. Not prejudice, nor discourtesy—if it should come to that—nor injustice. I have told Margot. She was very sympathetic. Of course, she always regarded me as a friend. She will help, if she can. Her advice—and, mind you, she’s a dasher—is:Creep—crane—go canny!Father’s absurd position can’t be carried by storm. I shall undermine the fortress. That will take time.”
“Yes; but I warn you father won’t wait too long.”
“I count on Fishpingle. If you could have seen his dear old face when I told him! We shall collogue, I promise you.”
He returned home, champing the curb which circumstances imposed.
After tea, when the Squire betook himself to the river, Margot sat, as usual, upon the lawn, with Lady Pomfret. Lionel slipped away to Fishpingle’s room. “Colloguing,” in his present feverish condition, soothed him. To Fishpingle he could exhibit flowers of speech, nose-gays of pretty sentiment. And he could talk emphatically of the future, the simple life full of costless pleasures, dignified by steady work, by the determination to solve Moxon’s problem, to make Pomfret land pay. Fishpingle nodded approvingly, making happy suggestions, collaborating whole-heartedly.
In this agreeable fashion an hour or more may have passed away. Suddenly they heard the Squire’s voice in the courtyard, loud and clear. He was rating the egregious Bonsor.
“I tell you, man, this is your damned carelessness. Unless I give my personal attention to every detail, things go to blazes. I am surrounded by a pack of fools.”
Bonsor’s voice mumbled a reply. Fishpingle said quietly:
“The Squire has not caught any fish.”
Sir Geoffrey stumped in, fuming and fussing. Fishpingle rose to relieve him of rod, creel, and landing-net. Lionel said pleasantly:
“Anything wrong, father?”
“Everything,” snapped the angry man. “Tuesday is my unlucky day. I believe I was born on a Tuesday.”
Fishpingle politely corrected him.
“No, Sir Geoffrey. You were born on a Wednesday, at 1.45 a. m.”
The Squire turned to Lionel.
“I lost two beauties, and broke the tip of my rod.”
Fishpingle assured him that the tip could be mended in ten minutes. The Squire fumed on:
“Four thoroughbred pigs out of the new litter are dead. Mother overlaid ’em. There are moments when I wish my mother had overlaid me. Bonsor tells me we are nearly out of coal, Ben.”
“I warned you, Sir Geoffrey, that we were running short a fortnight ago.”
“You didn’t. If you had, I should have ordered a fresh supply by return of post. Bonsor says that no coal has been ordered, which proves conclusively that you did not tell me.”
Lionel interrupted.
“But he did, father. Fishpingle told you in my presence, just after luncheon, as you and I were going to look at the horse I rode yesterday.”
Sir Geoffrey glared at both butler and son.
“Just like him,” he snorted. “Ben knows perfectly well that a new horse, if he’s a decently bred ’un, drives everything else out of my head. Order the coal, Ben. Wire for a truck.”
“Very good, Sir Geoffrey.”
The Squire crossed to the hearth and sat down in Fishpingle’s big chair. He frowned portentously, muttering:
“I am most confoundedly upset.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Sir Geoffrey.”
“Tchah! I’m not speaking of the coal, nor the pigs. This is Tuesday. Does Alfred go out on Tuesday?”
“I let him go this afternoon, Sir Geoffrey.”
“Did you know that Tuesday was Prudence Rockley’s afternoon off?”
“No, Sir Geoffrey. Mrs. Randall lets Prudence go out, if there’s no pressing work.”
The Squire stamped his foot.
“Pressin’ work. Ha—ha! Hit the right word, for once. Very pressin’ work, b’ Jove! In defiance of my orders, I caught Alfred and Prudence kissin’ each other—under my very nose. Pressin’ work, indeed. They skedaddled. Hunted cover. Spoiled my sport, I tell you. I couldn’t get out a clean line. Are they in now?”
“I think so, Sir Geoffrey.”
“Send for ’em—at once. Bring ’em here. Don’t stare at me, boy! I’m not suffering from suppressed gout, as you think. I’ll stop these gallivantings.”
“You have often said that you liked our men and maids to have a whiff of fresh air between tea and dinner.”
Fishpingle had left the room. The Squire stamped again.
“I did. And this is what comes of thinking for others.”
“Father——?”
“What is it?”
“Go easy with them! They love each other dearly.”
“Good God! They’re first-cousins, boy. Not a word! Stay here! You shall see me deal with ’em.”
“But——”
“Not a word,” roared the Squire.
Lionel lit a cigarette, frowning, conscious that he was being treated as a child, resenting it, anxious to plead for the lovers, anticipating “ructions,” and condemned to be present, a silenced witness. Fishpingle came back, followed by Prudence and Alfred, looking very sheepish and red. Alfred was in livery. Prudence had not changed a very dainty little frock.
“Stand there!” commanded the autocrat.
The blushing pair stood still in front of the table, facing the Squire, who sat erect in his chair, assuming a judicial impassivity, as became a Justice of the Peace and a Chairman of the Board of Guardians. He addressed Fishpingle, coldly:
“Now, Ben, did I, or did I not, give you a message some two months ago to be delivered by you to Prudence?”
“You did, Sir Geoffrey.”
“Kindly repeat it.”
“You instructed me to tell Prudence to find another young man.”
Lionel tried to restrain himself, and failed lamentably.
“Oh, I say!”
The Squire preserved his magisterial tone and deportment.
“You say nothing, Lionel. This is my affair. Now, Ben, I’ll lay ten to three you never delivered my message.”
“That he did,” whimpered Prudence. “In this very room, too.”
“Um! I beg your pardon, Ben. Don’t sniff, Prudence! And answer my questions truthfully. If that message was delivered, how dare you kiss Alfred in my shrubberies?”
Prudence pulled herself together, meeting the Squire’s inflamed glance.
“Me and Alfred’ll be man an’ wife, come Michaelmas.”
“In—deed? Cut and dried, is it?”
He apostrophised Alfred, who may have misinterpreted a derisive but calm inflection. Alfred brightened, his voice was eager and propitiating.
“If so be, Sir Geoffrey, as you meant what you wrote in the newspapers. Give me mort o’ comfort. ’Twas in theTimes. Mr. Fishpingle’ll have it. He keeps everything you write, he do.”
The Squire stared at his footman. Lionel said quietly:
“What did Sir Geoffrey write, Alfred?”
Alfred assumed a pose acquired in the National schools, head erect, hands at side, feet close together.
“Sir Geoffrey said that the sooner a man o’ twenty-five and a fine young maid of eighteen set about providin’ legitimate an’ lawful subjects for the king, the better. An’ more than that. I got the piece by heart, I did. He said that in Nether-Applewhite he paid a premium for such there matches—a lil’ cottage, look, and a lil’ garden, and a fi’-pun’ note, so be as God A’mighty sent twins.”
Prudence blushingly rebuked him.
“Alferd!”
“His brave words, Prue, not mine.”
Sir Geoffrey coughed. That a servant of his should memorise his prose might be deemed flattering and eminently proper. He said graciously:
“I meant ’em. There is a cottage for you——”
“May the Lard bless ’ee, Sir Geoffrey!”
Sir Geoffrey raised a minatory finger.
“Provided, mark you, that each marries—somebody else.”
This was too much for the feelings of an inflamed maid. Prudence confronted the autocrat with heaving bosom and sparkling eyes.
“If so be, as I can’t have Alfred, I’ll die a sour old maid, I will.”
Her outburst provoked the Squire to unmagisterial wrath. He raised his voice and a dominating hand.
“Hold your tongue! We have had quite enough of this. I can’t prevent Alfred marrying you, you little baggage, but if he does he must find another place, and a cottage in a parish which doesn’t belong to me.”
Prudence’s courage and defiance oozed from her. With a wailing cry, she flung herself into Fishpingle’s arms.
“Uncle Ben——!”
Fishpingle comforted her.
“There, there, my maid! You obey me. I tell you to go to your room and have a nice comfortable cry. Off with you!”
The Squire added a word:
“And keep out of my shrubberies, confound you!”
Prudence left Fishpingle’s arms, and turned to the Squire, with tears rolling down her cheeks. She said defiantly:
“I know where I be going—quick!”
She bolted, slamming the door.
“The minx! Where is she going?”
Fishpingle couldn’t inform him. Possibly to her mother, who was head laundry-maid. The Squire addressed Alfred.
“You can go, Alfred, but I warn you not to follow that pert, ungrateful girl. And—in case you should be tempted to disobey me, bring me at once a large whisky and soda.”
“Bring two, Alfred,” added Lionel.
Alfred obeyed, crestfallen and sullen. As soon as he left the room, Lionel began to protest:
“Look here, father, this is too hot, I——”
The Squire smiled blandly.
“Tch! Tch! All this has been intensely disagreeable to me boy, But, dammy! I must practise what I preach. Sound eugenics. No in-and-in breeding. Ben here agrees with me, don’t you, old friend?”
“No, Sir Geoffrey.”
The astonished Squire gripped hard the arms of his chair.
“Wha-a-at?” he roared.
Fishpingle replied deliberately:
“I do not agree with you, Sir Geoffrey. I repeat what I said before. The strain in this case is clean and strong on both sides. In my judgment Alfred and Prudence are specially designed by Providence to practise what you preach, and to provide His Majesty in due time with legitimate and lawful subjects.”
Sir Geoffrey rose majestically. He approached his butler. He surveyed him from head to heel. Upon his red face amazement wrestled with incredulity. With an immense effort, he controlled himself, saying calmly:
“You mean, Ben, that you—youoppose my wishes?”
“In this instance, yes.”
Alfred entered with the cooling drinks. Sir Geoffrey gasped out:
“I have never been so—so——”
“Thirsty, Sir Geoffrey?” suggested Fishpingle, as Alfred presented the salver.
The Squire seized a glass with a trembling hand, completed the sentence, “in all my life.”
“Nor I,” said Lionel, taking the other glass.
Alfred withdrew. Sir Geoffrey tossed off his drink, nearly choking. As he slammed the empty glass upon the table, he exploded.
“You—traitor!”
Lionel slammed down his empty glass.
“Traitors, father; I’m with Fishpingle, if an honest opinion is called treachery.”
“Good God! My own son against me.” But, quickly, he moderated his tone, saying testily: “There, there! ‘Traitor’ was too strong an expression. I withdraw it. But I stand firm on the other matter. I repeat: Prudence and Alfred are too near of kin.”
Lionel answered respectfully:
“You, sir, have proved Fishpingle’s case up to the hilt.”
“Eh? What d’ye mean, boy?”
“Fishpingle will read you an extract from an article written by you on this subject, won’t you, old chap?”
“With pleasure, Master Lionel.”
He crossed to his bookcase, opened a drawer below it, turned over some papers, and fished out a scrap-book.
“Something I wrote. All right! I stand by my own words—always have done. No chopping and changing for me!”
Fishpingle found the page and the clipping. He put on his spectacles.
“Hurry up,” enjoined the Squire. “What an old dodderer!”
Fishpingle began:
“Under date April the first——”
“Is this a stupid joke, Ben?”
“That happens to be the date, Sir Geoffrey. The article was written by you some fifteen years ago.”
“Um! Ancient history. I refuse to accept unqualified responsibility for what I wrote fifteen years ago.”
Lionel laughed. He felt that the tension was relieved.
“I say—play cricket, father!”
“Cricket? How the doose, boy, can you remember what I wrote when you were a lad of ten?”
“Simply because Fishpingle read that clipping to me about a week ago.”
The Squire growled.
“This looks like a damned conspiracy.”
At this moment Lady Pomfret sailed into the room, followed by Margot. Prudence had fled, weeping to her kind mistress. Regardless of a visitor, the maid had told her piteous tale, entreating help, first aid which couldn’t wait. Lady Pomfret had hesitated, knowing her man. Then Margot had interposed. “L’union fait la force.” Let them seek the autocrat together. Let women’s wit and tact prevail! She ached for the encounter. Together they would triumph gloriously. Lady Pomfret yielded reluctantly to importunity. Prudence raced back to Alfred.
Lady Pomfret smiled at her lord.
“Dear Geoffrey, we have just seen poor little Prudence Rockley.”
Margot, in her sprightliest tone, added incisively:
“Yes; and we’ve nipped in to fight under Cupid’s banner.” She advanced to the charge gaily. “Now, you must listen to—me.”
But Sir Geoffrey was proof against alluring wiles.
“Must I?” he said stiffly.
“Why, of course, you must. Dear Lady Pomfret was dragged here by me. Frown at me, not at her. I plead for youth and beauty.”
Just then, Youth and Beauty peered in through the open window. It was daring, audacious, a violation of inviolate tradition. But what will you? The hapless pair were beside themselves with misery and despair. Each gripped the other’s hand.
Sir Geoffrey was hard put to it. Courtesy to a guest strained him to breaking-point. He bowed silently. Margot continued:
“You are a true lover, Sir Geoffrey. You must know that love is free.”
The Squire shied at the adjective. And this interruption had befogged him.
“Free love,” he repeated. “God bless my soul! What next?”
Lady Pomfret explained, deprecatingly.
“Margot means, Geoffrey, that love is free to choose, to select——”
Margot continued with animation:
“Jill has the right to pick her Jack. If Jack is willing”—she paused and looked at Fishpingle—“and I understand that he is—”
Alas! Poor Alfred! The question undid him. Had he remained silent, Margot might have triumphed. The Squire was melting beneath her fiery glances. He wanted to please her. He loved to confer a favour royally. But a voice from outside froze the very cockles of his heart.
“Aye. That I be, my lady.”
Such an interruption, at such a time, from such a source, filled the Squire with fury. He roared out:
“Ben.”
“Sir Geoffrey?”
“Discharge that impertinent rascal at once.”
Lady Pomfret spoke and looked her dismay.
“Oh, Geoffrey! Who will wait at dinner? Poor Charles is so inefficient.”
Sir Geoffrey lowered his voice.
“Discharge him after dinner. Pay him his wages, and send him packing.”
Another voice floated in through the window.
“I go with Alfie, Sir Geoffrey.”
The Squire, fulminating, strode to the window, Youth and Beauty had vanished. He came back, as Lady Pomfret observed disconsolately:
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! We shall soon be left without servants.”
Everybody was upset. For once Margot forgot her tact. She said with acerbity:
“But really this is—feudal. It reeks of the Middle Ages.” Then, regaining her sprightliness, she smiled: “Sir Geoffrey, do come back to the twentieth century.”
Lady Pomfret smiled faintly.
“Please do, dear Geoffrey.”
“Never! What unspeakable insolence!”
“Poor things!” sighed Lady Pomfret. “They forgot us because we had driven them to think only of themselves.”
Her charming voice, her kind, pleading eyes, her gracious gestures, were not wasted upon the Squire. Lionel, in a cheerful tone, said to the company generally:
“Fishpingle was about to read us something of father’s, something eugenic and relevant.”
Sir Geoffrey protested:
“Um! Ha! In the presence of ladies——” He cleared his throat.
Margot said happily:
“I shall listen with pleasure to anything Sir Geoffrey has written.”
Lionel turned to Fishpingle, who held the clipping in his hand.
“Go ahead, Fishpingle! Please remember, Margot, that my father is astride his favourite hunter. Now for it!”
Fishpingle, thus adjured, and after a glance at Sir Geoffrey, began to read aloud: “The question of in-and-in breeding——”
“Gracious!” ejaculated Lady Pomfret.
“I beg your ladyship’s pardon.”
“How well you read!” said Margot. “Pray go on, you delightful person!”
Fishpingle went on: “The question of in-and-in breeding, where the parent stock on both sides is vigorous and healthy, can only be answered by experiment. As a successful breeder of cattle, horses, and hounds, I am strongly in favour of it. If History is to be believed, the Pharaohs of the earlier dynasties, all of them pre-eminent for strength of mind and body, married their own sisters.”
Lady Pomfret interrupted quietly:
“I think that will do, Ben.”
“Very good, my lady.”
Lionel, watching his sire’s expression, confident that the clouds were rolling away, said, with a laugh:
“Father, you’re down and out.”
“I never wrote it,” said the Squire, emphatically.
“Then who did? You signed it.”
“Ben wrote it,” declared the Squire.
“Ben?” echoed Lady Pomfret. “Did you write it, Ben?”
Fishpingle replied modestly:
“The sentence about the Pharaohs is mine, my lady. I happened to be reading about them at the time. And when I typed Sir Geoffrey’s manuscript——”
Margot murmured:
“What a paragon! A butler who does typewriting.”
Sir Geoffrey said hastily:
“It amuses Fishpingle. He’s what we call in the Forest a ‘caslety man.’ Yes, yes, I remember. He slipped in that paragraph about the Pharaohs.”
“It hammered your point well home,” said Lionel.
“It did,” said Margot. “Now, Sir Geoffrey, haul down your flag! Make this nice young couple happy, to please me.”
“And me, Geoffrey.”
The Squire, at bay, pressed too hard, and seeing, possibly, derisive gleams in more than one pair of eyes, said curtly:
“I propose to be master in my own house.”
Margot compressed her lips. She admitted candidly that any woman may be snubbed once. It is her own fault if she courts a second rebuff. She laughed acidulously, said very chillingly, “Oh, certainly,” and left the room. Lady Pomfret approached her husband, and laid her hand upon his sleeve.
“Prudence is Ben’s kinswoman, very dear to him. If Ben approves this match, what business is it of ours?”
Sir Geoffrey answered obstinately:
“They were born and bred in my parish, this impudent couple. They can do what they like—out of it.”
Lady Pomfret kept her temper admirably. If she travelled along lines of least resistance, she reached her goal eventually. She turned to Fishpingle with a little rippling laugh:
“Ah, well, I leave the Squire with you, Ben. We know—don’t we?—how kind he can be.”
She went out. Lionel opened the door for his mother, closed it behind her, and came back. Obviously, he was losing control of his temper. His fingers were clenched; an angry light sparkled in his eyes; he carried a high head. Sir Geoffrey saw none of this. He was glaring at Fishpingle. The autocrat addressed his butler:
“I am furious with you, sir. Thanks to you and your precious kinswoman I have been forced, sorely against the grain, to refuse a guest a favour, and, worse, to rebuke my dear wife.”
Lionel cast discretion to the void. The Pomfret temper might be deemed an heirloom. It slumbered in Lionel. Now—it woke.
“This is damnable.”
The Squire could hardly believe his ears. When he turned upon his son, his eyes, also, seemed hardly to be trusted. Lionel was positively glaring at him. Rank mutiny! Riot!
“How dare you take this tone, boy?”
Lionel attempted no apology.
“I would remind you, sir, that I am a man, and not only your son, but your heir. If I survive you, which at one time didn’t seem likely, this property and its responsibilities must come to me. I have a right—indeed, sir, it is my duty—to protest against an act of injustice and cruelty.”
“Leave the room, sir. This is intolerable.”
Lionel boiled over. Behold the creeper at awkward fences! Behold the craner! Fishpingle, standing behind the Squire, hoisted warning signals. In vain. A hot-headed youth was riding hard for a fall. He met his father’s eyes defiantly.
“I am not blind, sir, to your plans for my future. You intended me, your own son, to be a pawn in your hands.”
Fishpingle groaned.
“Master Lionel——!”
“Fishpingle, I have been a coward. I asked for your help. I wanted you to plead my cause, to use your influence——”
The Squire started.
“Influence? You asked another man to influence—me. Are you stark mad? And what cause, pray, is he to plead? Answer me.”
Fishpingle stretched out his hands.
“Master Lionel——”
“Hold your damned tongue, Ben!”
“Please,” said Lionel.
Fishpingle crossed slowly to the window, and looked out over the park. Two men whom he had loved and served were standing upon the edge of an abyss and he was powerless to avert disaster. His spirit travailed within him, bringing forth nothing. He heard Sir Geoffrey say, in a frozen voice:
“I am waiting, Lionel, for an explanation, and an apology.”
The son answered in the same hard, cold tone:
“I am too proud, father, to explain a fact, which needs no explanation and no apology. Last Sunday afternoon I asked Joyce Hamlin to become my wife, and she did me the honour of accepting me.”
Without pausing to watch the effect of this stunning blow, he turned and left the room. Fishpingle remained at the window.
CHAPTER XV
Sir Geoffrey stood still for a moment after his son had left the room. Then he sat down in the big armchair, staring vacantly at the hearth. His premonition had come true—the boy had stuck a knife into him. Almost in a whisper he murmured hoarsely, “Lionel!”
Fishpingle turned. “Shall I call Master Lionel back?”
“No,” said the Squire.
He spoke drearily. The bloom of his fine maturity seemed to fade. He looked pale and haggard. Fishpingle had a disconcerting glimpse of old age, of old age in its most sorrowful and touching manifestation, solitary, disconsolate, apathetic. The Squire leaned his head upon his hand, as if the weight of thoughts were insupportable.
Outside a bird twittered monotonously—some house sparrow bent upon disturbing the peace of the swallows, migrants whom he regarded as trespassers.
“Damn that sparrow!” exclaimed Sir Geoffrey.
He sat upright; the sanguine colour flowed back into his clean-shaven cheeks. Perhaps the consoling reflection stole into his mind that matters might be worse: the boy might have married the Parson’s daughter secretly. He said testily to Fishpingle:
“Don’t gape at me like that! Keep your pity for those who may need it.”
Fishpingle obeyed. His face slowly hardened into the impassive mask of the well-trained servant. The Squire continued less testily but with reproachful mockery:
“So you, you, the man I have trusted for fifty years, were chosen by my son to plead a cause which he hadn’t the pluck to plead for himself.”
“Nothing was settled about that, Sir Geoffrey.”
“Tchah! He went to you, not to his mother—I lay my life on it—nor to me. Why? Because, obviously, you were on his side, siding, b’ Jove! against—me.”
“I side with Master Lionel, Sir Geoffrey.”
“That’s honest, at any rate. We know where we are. Now, Ben, you shall plead his case in his absence. I will listen as patiently as may be. Begin!” Fishpingle opened his lips and closed them. “Ha! You are silent because there is nothing to say.”
“No. Because there is so much—all, all that I have learnt during those fifty years, all that I hold most dear, most sacred——”
His voice died away. The Squire was not unmoved. He cleared his throat vigorously and said kindly:
“Take your time. This shall be threshed out fairly between us. Sit down! Keep your hands quiet, Ben. When you fidget, it distracts me.”
“I would rather stand, Sir Geoffrey.”
“Do as you please.” With indulgent irony he added, “The counsel for the defence addresses the Court standing.”
Fishpingle moved a little nearer. He spoke very slowly, as a man speaks who has some long-considered message to deliver.
“Master Lionel, before he went to India, did not expect to survive you.”
The Squire moved uneasily. Fishpingle had recalled cruel anxieties never quite forgotten, what may be termed the unpaid bills of life pigeon-holed, put aside for Fate and Fortune to settle. He replied, however, with decision:
“He has grown into a strong man.”
“Has he? Are you quite sure of that? I would give my life to be sure. He may live long if he marries the right woman. Is Lady Margot the right woman, Sir Geoffrey?”
“Yes.”
“I wish with all my heart I could think so.”
“How can you know all that such a marriage would mean to me, and this big property, and him?”
“I have thought of all that, Sir Geoffrey. Indeed, indeed, I have thought of little else since her ladyship first came here. She is a lady of quality——”
“Every inch of her.”
“And very clever. She would push the fortunes of her husband. There is a barony in abeyance which could be terminated in favour of her son, if she had a son. Her money would lift the mortgage which cripples the estate. Her money would build new cottages, fertilise our thin soil, put farming upon a higher plane, transform Nether-Applewhite into what has been the dream of your life—and mine—a model village.”
The Squire stared at him. Fishpingle’s powers of speech had affected him before, but never so convincingly. He said curtly:
“You have the gift of the gab, Ben. God knows where you get it from. More, you have the knack of reading my mind, of echoing my thoughts, using the very phrases that are mine.”
“Everything I have said is so obvious.”
“Obvious? Um! Is that another stab in the back? Well, I am obvious. I despise twisting and wriggling. You have left out the most obvious thing. And I dislike mentioning it. Her little ladyship cottoned to the boy. She wants him, or she did want him, b’ Jove! And now, this girl, this Radical parson’s daughter without a bob, without any breeding, not much better than any blooming, red-cheeked milk-maid, has undone all my work. What cursed spell has she cast?”
“Nature cast the spell, Sir Geoffrey.”
The Squire began to fume again, frowning and pulling at his ample chin.
“Nature——! Aided and abetted by you. Rank sentimentalist you are, and always were. I have the obvious” (the word had rankled) “common sense to scrap sentiment. Do you remember those cows, that half-bred herd I inherited with other disabilities? My lady wanted me to keep them.”
“Bless her!”
“And you sided with her.”
“Did I?”
“Of course you did.”
Fishpingle smiled faintly. He crossed to one of the tallboys standing in an alcove and pulled open a drawer. The Squire growled.
“What are you up to now?”
“I want to look at an old diary.”
He pulled out half a dozen thin books, selected one, and turned over the pages. The Squire watched him with exasperation.
“What dawdling ways!”
“Here we are, Sir Geoffrey. Five and twenty years ago, when Master Lionel was short-coated.”
“Get forrard, you skirter!”
Fishpingle put on his spectacles, and read aloud: “‘Heated argument with the Squire. He and my lady insisted upon keeping our dairy cows. I floored him with the milk returns——’”
“Floored me?”
Fishpingle continued placidly:
“‘—and enjoyed a small triumph. The cows are to be fattened for the butcher, and the dairy will show a profit instead of a loss.’”
He replaced the diary and removed his spectacles. The Squire muttered protest:
“As usual, Ben, you wander from the point, you shifty old fox. Why jaw about cows? Now—what have you against Lady Margot?”
“Will she be happy here in this quiet back-water?”
“Tchah! My son’s wife—when I’m gone—will live where it’s her duty to live—amongst her husband’s people.”
“Perhaps. Master Lionel takes after my lady. He’s incapable of unkindness or selfishness.”
“Thank you, Ben. I’m allowing you great latitude. Go on! Take advantage of it!”
“If Master Lionel married Lady Margot, he would try to make her happy. He would live most of the year in London. He would share her life, and that life is one of constant excitement and change. She has been happy here for three weeks, because this is a change. Would she ever take my lady’s place? Never!”
He spoke with fire. The Squire lay back in his chair, gently twiddling his thumbs. In his opinion no woman could take his wife’s place, but what of that? None the less, mention of Lady Pomfret smoothed out some wrinkles. He smiled beatifically, lifted above himself.
“Who could? My lady is unique. Why make these foolish comparisons? As for London——Well, well, I should like to see the boy in Parliament. Let him march with these cursed democratic times, and strike a shrewd blow for his order, a blow for the next generation.”
Fishpingle played his trump card.
“The next generation? Lady Margot has no love of children.”
“What d’ye mean? How dare you say that? How on earth do you know?”
“We have talked together.”
“About her children——!” He held up his hands.
“What are we coming to? I ask Heaven the question.”
“I can answer it, Sir Geoffrey. I know my place, and her ladyship knows hers—none better. I did take the liberty of trying to interest her in Nether-Applewhite children. And then she told me quite frankly that children bored her. I remember her words—yes. ‘I can endure a clean child for ten minutes. Babies in the mass make me think kindly of Herod.’”
“Her ladyship, Ben, likes a joke with an edge to it. You wait till she has babies of her own.”
“One might have to wait long for that. Lady Margot’s family is almost extinct. A great-uncle died in a private asylum.”
“I see you’ve been nosin’ about. Just like you. All old families have their skeletons.”
Fishpingle, carried out of himself for a moment, like the hapless Alfred, forgot his place, as he muttered:
“Yes, yes, her ladyship is very thin.”
The Squire jumped up.
“Damn you, Ben, that is the last straw. I have sat here listening to your mumbling with a patience and good temper wasted upon a very thankless fellow. You know best what you owe me and mine.”
He paused. Fishpingle bowed superbly.
“I do, Sir Geoffrey.”
“You are never so irritating as when you force me to say things intensely disagreeable. I hate to rub it in, but I am Squire of Nether-Applewhite and you are my butler. As my butler I expect you to consider my wishes, and to carry them out to the best of your ability.”
“I have tried to do so, Sir Geoffrey.”
“Up to a point—up to a point. I admit it. Let us have the facts, say I! And then deliver judgment on them. You have aided and abetted two servants in this establishment who are flagrantly disobeying me. And you have aided and abetted Master Lionel, with the knowledge and therefore with the deliberate intention of upsetting other plans which I had confided to you. If I am wrong, pray correct me.”
Thus the magistrate, using the words and gestures of authority. As he spoke a quaint benevolent despotism illuminated his sturdy face. How kind he could be to his dependents when they kow-towed to his rule both wife and butler knew. And the memory of countless petty sacrifices which had truly endeared him to “his people” moved Fishpingle profoundly. But his own intimate knowledge of those people, a knowledge so seldom gleaned by the Overlord, the vivid, intimate experience of fifty years, had taught him inexorably that such powers as the Squire and his like exercised were a wastage of vital force, misdirected energy which, in the fullness of time, must defeat its own purposes. And this, he had slowly come to realise, was the underlying tragedy of the countryside. With this realisation marched its corollary. The authority of the squire, vested by immemorial custom in him, was, in turn, passed on by him to the farmers who used it or abused it according to their lights. And the farmers, with rarest exceptions, united energies to maintain ever-weakening positions against those beneath them. If prosperity followed a generous use of such power, the result, even then, was disastrous to the labourer and his family. He lost initiative, foresight, any desire to rise and better his humble condition. When he rebelled, when he decided to tear himself loose from emasculating influences, what could he do? Emigrate. And England loses a Man.
Fishpingle had studied carefully the books and pamphlets lent to Lionel. As he admitted, they were one-sided, a compilation of hideous grievances, valuable as such, almost valueless from the point of view of reconstruction. The “three acres and a cow” school filled this wise old man with derisive contempt. To divide great estates into small holdings of individual ownership might seem a sound solution to economists who wrote incisive articles in rooms littered with works of reference. The man on the spot was not so optimistic. He had seen the experiment tried with allotments. The labourer lacked knowledge; he muddled about with soils, just as his wife muddled about in the kitchen, spoiling good food. No reform, so Fishpingle believed, could come from below. Light must shine from above.
If the Squire could be led to see clearly the issues he had raised.
If Authority, in fine, could impose its own limitations?
Was it possible to answer the stem indictment brought against himself, as steward and butler? Obviously, the Squire considerd his own position to be impregnable. And yet, alas! it was built upon foundations now crumbling away. If such foundations could not be replaced with sound masonry, the great fabric reared upon them would fall in irretrievable ruins, serving, like the feudal castles, as a landmark of the past.
He said with dignity:
“You are not wrong in that, Sir Geoffrey. I don’t deny these charges.”
“Good! You are an honest man, Ben. Acknowledge frankly that your sentiment, your affection for these young people—I include Master Lionel—have warped your judgment and seduced you from your duty and loyalty to me, and, dammy! I’ll wipe out the offence. Come, come!”
His tone was genial and persuasive, so kindly that Fishpingle wrestled with the temptation to “creep” and “crane.” Perhaps the thought of Lionel’s “lead” over a stone wall fortified him. He drew back from the proffered right hand of a fellowship he prized inordinately.
“What? You refuse?”
“You called me honest, Sir Geoffrey. I hope humbly that I am so. I am your butler, but my conscience is my own. I hold firmly to the conviction that you have no right, granting that you possess the power, to interfere with these young lives. I say less than I feel out of the respect and affection I bear you.”
The Squire swore to himself. If Fishpingle had beheld him, not as the friend of many years, not even as the kindly master, but as an abstraction, a sort of composite photograph of all overlords, so Sir Geoffrey beheld Fishpingle as the composite servant, the subordinate, the underling. To be quite candid, he regarded the Parson,hisparson, in much the same light. There had been moments, few and far between, when the Squire had taken himself censoriously to task. As a rule, such disagreeable self-analysis forced itself upon him when he was dealing with matters outside his particular jurisdiction, county matters rather than parochial. He had marked the effect of power exercised misapprehendingly, with insufficient technical knowledge behind it. And if he happened to be a party to any such blundering, he felt very sore. Let it be remembered, also, that his father died when he was a boy. He had come into his kingdom upon his twenty-first birthday. Comparing him with neighbouring magnates, he shone conspicuous as a man who did his duty, and was comfortably warmed by the fire of self-righteousness. As a soldier, let it be added, he would have obeyed any order from his commanding officer. On Authority’s shoulders be the blame, if such order were contrary to the King’s Regulations. In this case he assumed full responsibility before God and man. From the pinnacle upon which, so he devoutly believed, God and man had placed him, he beheld Fishpingle as a faithful servant, a rank mutineer.
He said freezingly:
“Very well, sir. I shall deal with my son myself. I shall tell him to-night that under no circumstances will I consent to his marriage with an obscure girl whose father doesn’t even bear arms. Ha! I asked him, when he came here, what his coat was, and he replied, laughing in my face, ‘My coat, Sir Geoffrey, issable, with collar and cuffsargent.’ Master Lionel can marry without my consent. Thanks to your encouragement he is quite likely to do so. He must come here after my death, but not before, sir, not before.”
Fishpingle said entreatingly:
“Sleep over it, Sir Geoffrey, I beg you. Miss Joyce is like my dear lady.”
“She isn’t.”
“As you said just now, nobody could be quite like her ladyship. But Miss Joyce has her lamp.”
The Squire tartly requested him to explain. Fishpingle allowed his glance to stray to the photographs upon the mantelshelf. As he spoke he saw his mistress as she had revealed herself to him during nearly thirty years. Her light streamed over the past.
“My lady’s lamp, Sir Geoffrey, has burned so steadily. I have never seen it flame or flicker. It throws its beams on others, never on herself. But one knows that she is there, behind her lamp, always the same sweet gracious lady, serene in all weathers; above us, shining down on us, and yet of us.”
Sir Geoffrey turned abruptly and went to the window. Fishpingle perceived that he was agitated, touched. He blew his nose with quite unnecessary violence. Then he turned.
“You have described my lady better—I admit it—than I could describe her myself. But Miss Joyce has not her lamp.” His voice hardened. “Now, Ben, mark me well. I propose to put down this mutiny with a firm hand.” He held it up. “These rioting servants must be brought to heel. You will discharge Alfred after dinner and pay him a month’s wages in lieu of notice. You will send Prudence back to her mother to-night. Alfred can leave to-morrow morning. You hear me?”
While he spoke, with increasing emphasis, he marked a subtle but unmistakable change in Fishpingle. The man revealed himself divested of a butler’s smug trappings. Any air of subserviency vanished. A stranger, seeing the two men together, facing each other, at issue with each other, would have marked a resemblance, the stronger because it was of the spirit, not the flesh. In height and build they were much alike, but Fishpingle’s head was incomparably the finer.
“I hear you. A hard, cruel man has spoken, not my old master and friend.”
“Silence, sir!”
“I thought, I believed, that I knew you. And I did know you once. But you have changed—changed. You are no longer my master. I am no longer your man. Discharge your own servants, Sir Geoffrey Pomfret!”
With shining eyes and features quivering with agitation, he ended upon a clarion note of defiance and wrath. Sir Geoffrey was infinitely the calmer.
“I take you at your word,” he said. “I discharge—you. For her ladyship’s sake, not mine, I ask you to wait upon us at dinner for the last time. To-morrow morning, at ten-thirty, you can bring your books and accounts to my room.”
Fishpingle bowed.
Sir Geoffrey waited one moment. Perhaps, at the last, he looked for an apology. None came. Fishpingle stood erect, but less rigid. His indignation passed swiftly. His glance lost its fire; his eyes, still smouldering, assumed a sorrowful expression.
Sir Geoffrey went out. The clock in the stable-yard chimed and then tolled the hour—seven. Upon the previous Saturday it had rung out with the same solemn note a delightful day.