"I don't know that there's much more to tell, dear. Coombe quite obviously came to Edmund to crow over him, though of course hepretendedto be respectful. But when Edmund told him that there had been a mistake and that the work was to go on, he said he had had his orders and must abide by them. So what else could he have come for?"
"What did he say he had come for? I'm not defending him, but this is serious. I want to know exactly what happened."
"Oh, he pretended that the men who had been dismissed might make a disturbance in the village. So ridiculous! Two of them are Edmund's own tenants, and the other two are most respectable men, and one of them is a teetotaller. Edmund says he has seldom had work better done than they are doing it now."
"I wish William were here. Coombe has never given us any cause for dissatisfaction, and this is quite a new light on him."
"And afterwards it came out that he had spoken in the most impertinent way about Edmund to these very men; so much so, that old Jackson wouldn't put up with it, andallof them would have refused to go on working under him if hehadbeen told to go on—by William, I mean, for he had been told to go on by Edmund and had refused to do so. The fact is, I suppose he had got into a mess with his men, and thought he could shift the blame on to Edmund. You see, dear,—takeit all round—it was really impossible that the work should be taken up again. Still, I quite hope that it may be, later, and be finished in time for the autumn planting. There isn't any violent hurry, is there?"
"No. But whether the garden is made or not seems so unimportant now in the face of all these complications. I think I won't say anything to Coombe myself, but will wait until William comes down. What was it actually that he said to the men about Edmund?"
"Oh, it was outrageous; but it shows the sort of feeling that has grown up with regard to Edmund and William. He told them that Edmund was desperately jealous of William on account of his title and his money, and that if this work they were doing was stopped they would have him to thank for it, for he hated William doing anything at Hayslope. Then of course he had been paying them more than the current rate of wages—I suppose William didn't know that—which made it difficult for Edmund when it came to employing them himself. But there they are, working for us at less than they were paid here, and refusing to go on under Coombe at the higher rate. So you see that Edmundisstill respected by the villagers and work-people, in spite of all the difficulties that have been made."
Lady Eldridge arose somewhat abruptly. "We seem to have got back to general criticism," she said, "which I thought we had put behind us. I am not going on with that, Cynthia. I think we had better leave it alone altogether until William comes down. See, the rain has stopped. Let us go out."
There was nothing remarkable about Hayslope Church, unless it was its tower, which was large enough to make it a landmark for miles around, and its bells, whose full and mellow peal ringing out across the summer woods and fields, or in winter time over a landscape muffled white in snow, brought that sense of peaceful festivity which belongs especially to rural England, so many centuries old. The tower was of perpendicular architecture, the main body of the church, conceived with less largeness of aim, of an earlier date. But most of its character had been finally lost in the restoration to which it had been subjected in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Colonel Eldridge's grandfather had supplied the money for this work, as a thank-offering for the safe return of his son, who had been in the thick of the Indian Mutiny. The taste, which had seemed to him of the best, had been supplied by one or other of the ecclesiological malefactors of the time, whose baneful activities, carried on by their immediate successors, have left scarcely an old church in all England in which it is possible to feel the quiet and grateful influences of tradition. There were seats of pitch pine, varnished, a chancel paved with encaustic tiles, thinly lacquered metal work of a mean design, and a littletriple reredos of oak underneath the distressing colours of the East window.
And yet it was possible sometimes to catch the sense of the long past, which the restorers had done their mischievous best to destroy. Lady Eldridge, somewhat troubled in her mind, and anxious to lay hold of whatever composing influence the morning service could bring her, looked here and there during the progress of the sermon, and it came home to her—that soothing impression of age and use and wont, which is the rightful heritage of old churches, and especially of old country churches.
The seats belonging to the Hall and the Grange were in what had once been the South Chapel, and were slightly raised above the rest. The side view of the altar, the choir-boys and handful of choirmen, backed by the garishly patterned organ pipes, held nothing for the eye to rest on with pleasure. But the high pulpit, of Jacobean oak, from which Mr. Comfrey was engaged in directing his flock, was consecrated by some centuries of use to that weekly exercise. Behind him, in a line from where she was sitting, was a window of little diamond panes of clear glass, through which the trees could be seen, and the birds flying to and fro. Perhaps it was this which first brought the sense of peace to her mind; for that outlook into the happy world of birds and trees had often freed her thoughts from the slight oppression caused by Mr. Comfrey's dialectics, which were concerned with nothing that seemed to bear upon the life that was all about him. But this morning it set her thinking of the past, as it hung about the familiarchurch, in which once or twice before she had caught at the skirts of time, and held them for a little.
Underneath the tower, from the wooden ceiling behind the high-pointed arch, the stout bell-ropes hung down, thickened with worsted where the ringers held them. Behind them were the ponderous oak doors, from a chink between which streamed a thin plate of golden light, that fell upon the sombre tables of the law, which the renovators had banished from over the altar; and above the arch was a large square panel painted with the Royal Coat of Arms. Somehow, the sight of these things, which had nothing to do with the long-ago history of the church, was grateful to her. Her imagination, and her knowledge, were equal to reviving some vision of the church as it had been before the Reformation, when the same kind of country-folk as now resorted to it fixed their stolid gaze upon the priest before the altar, and knew him in his outside comings and goings as the villagers of to-day knew their Mr. Comfrey. But it was a life nearer to her own, and yet established for some generations past, of which the voice of the old church whispered to her this morning. By turning her head to the right she could see a large mural monument of white marble, filling the space of a blocked-up window, which commemorated the virtues of an early eighteenth century Eldridge, and those, less enlarged upon but possibly as exemplary, of his wife. Those were the times of which she liked to think, and the years that came after them, when her husband's forbears lived in the Hall, much as it was now, and came here every Sunday, to take part in the same prayers and psalms,and to listen, or otherwise, to sermons from the same pulpit. Some of them had lived through troublous times, but none, surely, in such a time of unrest as this, with the great catastrophe only just lifted, and its ultimate results not yet in any power to foresee. She herself had been less affected by it than many. She had lost no near relations; she had not to rearrange her life to meet reduced opportunities. But the weight of it hung over her all the same. It was a comfort to feel that here was something that went on, that came from a past not too remote, and was joined to her life by special ties.
In the two seats in front of her sat the family from the Hall. They had not come unscathed out of the catastrophe. Yet the same sense of something stable and supporting in this Sunday habit of churchgoing hung about them. More even than herself they belonged here. Almost more than the house they inhabited, this place seemed to stand for continuity and settlement in the lives of such as they. For life in the house must alter from time to time, and might alter much; but what went on in the church altered little.
Such a life as theirs seemed to her preferable to her own life, even with the restrictions that diminished means had brought them. Such restrictions would not have troubled her for herself, as long as the quiet round of daily duty and pleasure remained. She would have enjoyed it more than the life she led, chiefly in London. The days she spent at the Grange were the best days, but the Grange too seemed to echo the busy London life, so bound up in all its aspects with the spending ofmoney. There was some restful feeling about it, surrounded as it was by the woods and fields, but it was not to compare with the restfulness of the Hall, which reflected only the life of the country, as it had been lived there for generations. It seemed to her that if she had been in Cynthia's place she would have been glad that the London house had had to be given up, for all her interests then would have been concentrated upon the house which was really the home. Cynthia did love her country home, she knew, and had accepted the change in her lot with admirable absence of complaint. But they were not made alike; Cynthia would have been completely happy if their positions in life had been changed.
Colonel Eldridge sat upright in his seat, his closely-cropped grey head held erect, the brown skin of his neck and shaven cheek contrasting with the clean polished white of his stiff collar, his flat back and square shoulders clothed in dark creaseless serge. The rigid neatness of his appearance and attire went with his straight confined mind, in which there was little room for the leniencies that gave her the sense of something large and responsive in her husband. Her gaze rested on him, and she tried to imagine something of what he was thinking, as he sat so unmoved, his eyes bent down, and his ears, she was sure, not responsive to Mr. Comfrey's well-intentioned hair-splittings.
It was probably this effort to put herself in his place that brought to her a rush of pity for him, so strong that moisture came to her eyes, and she looked away to the ribbons and daisies in Isabelle's hat, immediately in front of her.
She had been hard to him in her thoughts, although she had worked upon her husband's more easily moved sensibilities to put aside the offence he had caused, and to treat him with generosity. She had even felt great impatience with Cynthia, though she hoped she had refrained from showing it. It had been difficult, the day before, to treat her with the customary affection, when they had laid aside their discussion, which was leading to no understanding, and spent an hour together out of doors. She believed Cynthia to be as anxious as she was that this unseemly dispute in which they had found themselves involved should end; but Cynthia had allowed herself to say many things that she would not have allowed to be said to her without taking great offence. She had been right to let them go by, but she was not so sure that she had not kept a spark of resentment over them alive in her mind. If so, she must put it out. Cynthia was her friend of many years, and did love her; of that she was assured. Friends ought to be able to speak plainly to one another, and if they did not agree upon a given subject, they must fall back upon the deeper agreement to which their friendship had brought them, tested by time and welded by affection.
In this dispute there seemed to be nothing that could be done by discussing the rights and wrongs of it. Discussion seemed only to add new causes of complaint, which were already so numerous as to be swamping the original one. But the deeper tie was there, for all of them. She made up her mind definitely that she, for her part, would lean all her weight upon it, and not allowherself to be turned aside by any accidents of the moment. And she knew that William would be ready to act the large generosity that was his, even to the extent of accepting blame, where blame was not rightly due to him.
What was it that really lay at the bottom of the feeling that seemed to be growing up to separate them? Not the question of the garden, which had been complicated by all sorts of little mistakes, or it would have been amicably settled long ago. Cynthia had been right when she had said that that was only a symptom, though she had applied it only to one side. Edmund complained of William overshadowing him at Hayslope. That was what it came to in the last resort. Well, William was a man of mark, and Edmund was not. And it was impossible for William to put the same value upon what was of most importance to Edmund, which was also a cause of complaint. Hayslope wasn't and couldn't be always in the forefront of his mind, with all the varied and thronging interests that were his. Edmund ought to be able to see that; but if he couldn't, or wouldn't, then it only remained for William to be more careful than ever not to upset his dignity, which should not be very difficult for him, with the affection that he had for Edmund. As for the dictatorial methods that Edmund was apt to adopt towards his younger brother, perhaps it had been a mistake to bring them up at all. It would be small-minded to keep them standing as a subject for resentment, and they meant nothing that mattered. William had put up with them comfortably for the greater part of his life, and shewas sure he would go on putting up with them for the sake of keeping the peace.
Without a doubt, when the balance was struck, there had been more offence against them than against Edmund. Very well, then; it was for them to make light of it. They could well afford to do so. They had so much more than Edmund now; they would even stand in Edmund's place some day, if they survived him, and would have that in addition which he had hoped to have handed on to his son. Poor Edmund; he had been very much tried. It would not cost much to give way to him in this affair, and carefully to avoid all occasions of offence in the future.
The service came to an end, and the congregation streamed out into the bright sunlight. It was composed of the households from the Hall, the Grange, and the Vicarage, a few farmers and their families, villagers and labouring people. It had not filled half the church, for the country habit of churchgoing is lessening, along with the not so admirable habit of Sabbatarianism. At Hayslope, perhaps more people went to church than would be usual in a country village, because the gentry went regularly, and, although Colonel Eldridge would not have put pressure on any of his tenantry to follow his example, it was generally supposed that he liked to see as full a congregation as possible. It was his custom to linger in the churchyard after the service, to exchange salutations, and for a few words with one and another. Lady Eldridge, whose eyes and ears were open towards him, marked his pleasant courteous air with those to whom he spoke. It was plain that theyliked to be singled out by him. He was an excellent Squire, of a kind that is fast disappearing. There was nobody there that morning of whom he did not know something more than their occupations about this estate. He could probably have put a name to all the children, and they bobbed, and touched their caps to him, not as if they had merely been taught to do so. It was not, after all, no small a thing to hold the respect and esteem of some few hundreds of people towards all of whom, directly or indirectly, he stood in a special position not invariably easy to maintain. Money could not have bought just that response; there were many rich landowners, generous according to their lights, who would not have been liked and respected in the way this one was, who might now be called poor.
There was a gate leading from the churchyard to the Vicarage garden, but Fred Comfrey joined himself on to the Eldridges, who crossed the road and entered the park through the lodge gates, just opposite. He seemed to Norman, who watched him with an unfavouring eye, to do this with a hangdog air, as if he knew he was taking a liberty. At any rate, he should not walk with Pamela, if that was his object. Norman fastened upon her himself, and said: "Let's get away. I want to talk to you about something."
"Wait half a minute," she said, her head turned towards the group behind her; and then she moved towards Fred, and said: "I've found that book at last. If you'll come up now I'll give it to you."
Fred visibly brightened, before Norman's offended eyes, and seized upon her invitation as inclusive of hercompany during the walk home, for he put himself instantly by her side. She threw a half-glance at Norman, such as to absolve her in his mind from having intended this; but she shouldn't have given the bounder the opportunity of joining her in that way. Of course he would stick like a leech, if he got the smallest encouragement.
Pamela said to Norman, trying to bring him into a conversation of three: "Do you remember that book, 'Jack o' the Mill' that Hugo used to be so fond of when he was a boy? I remember him showing me the pictures in it, when I was quite tiny. Fred reminded me of it, and I've found it for him."
"No," said Norman, who remembered the book perfectly well. But "no" was the shortest word he could find. He wanted to hear Fred talk, and give himself away.
Fred seemed to be quite ready to talk, and he did not follow Pamela's lead in trying to bring Norman into the conversation. He talked about Hugo, in a way that aroused Norman's contemptuous disgust. Really, one would have thought that the two of them together had been models of sweet and innocent boyhood, and that the one who was dead lived enshrined in the heart of the other as a tender memory that would never fade. Poor little Pam liked it, of course, and there was no objection to having Hugo turned into a plaster saint for her benefit. But the fellow was obviously out to recommend himself through this beatification, and to share the halo. He was trying now to bring Pamela herself into the picture of the blameless past, representing the three ofthem as having taken part in the sacred idyll. This afforded Norman food for sardonic amusement, remembering as he did how little Pamela had been considered by the hulking brute that Fred had been then, or even by Hugo, when he had been in Fred's company. At the third or fourth "Do you remember?" he could stand it no longer, and turned back to join the children and Miss Baldwin, who were immediately behind them. This was intended as a protest, but neither Pamela nor Fred, in the interest of their conversation, seemed to notice it.
Fred did not stay to luncheon, although Norman heard his aunt invite him. He went off with his book, and Norman had his opportunity of talking to Pamela. It had been in his mind to begin upon the subject of Fred; but it was of no use just to repeat his warning of yesterday, and anything he might say about the conversation from which he had just retired in disgust would reflect upon Hugo. Hugo was becoming increasingly a subject not to be mentioned between him and Pamela. Besides, hehadsomething he wanted to say to her.
She waited for him to speak first, as they turned towards the lawn, and possibly expected a rebuke, as before. "I say, Pam," he said. "This is a rotten business about the new garden."
"What new garden?" she asked in surprise, for her parents were old-fashioned in respect of not discussing all and everything before their children, and no echo of what had been disturbing them had reached her.
He was surprised in his turn. "What, don't youknow?" he said. "Father had begun to make a garden in that field at the bottom of the wood, and Uncle Edmund stopped it."
Then he gave her the story, as it had been told him by Coombe that morning, when he had gone down to Barton's Close, and found him in his Sunday clothes, musing over the havoc he had wrought. The story had lost nothing in the way of incrimination of Colonel Eldridge, and complete exculpation of himself.
"I don't believe it," said Pam shortly. "If anything has happened, it wasn't like that."
"Well, somethinghashappened, because the digging was stopped a week ago, and the men who were doing it are working at the drive here."
"Yes, Dad did say, now I remember, that he had taken on some men, who had been working for Uncle Bill. What does Auntie Eleanor say about it?"
"I haven't said anything to her. It seems to me, anyhow, as if our respective, and respected, parents had fallen out, and I want to know what lineweare going to take about it."
"The lineIshould take about it, if I had to take any, would be that if Dad and Uncle Bill disagreed about something, Dad would be in the right."
"I say, Pam! Are you annoyed about anything?"
"No."
"Well, you're rather terse, aren't you? It's a pity, because you're looking particularly seraphic this morning. I noticed it first in church."
"It was very sweet of you; and I believe it to be so. Everything seemed to go on right this morning. Therearedays like that. You don't think that Dad and Uncle Bill have really quarrelled, do you? Of course I know the gardenwasto be made, and it seems odd that it should have been left off like that."
"Yes, it is odd. I don't like to think of their having a row. It would be very unlike them. Still, according to Coombe—"
"What, according to Coombe? If he said what you say he did about Dad, you ought to have shut him up."
"I did, as a matter of fact. But there must besomethingin it."
"I think we'd better wait and see what there is. If there's anything at all, it will blow over. I suppose you can't expect them always to agree about everything, and Uncle Bill is so much away, and so busy, that he might not always think enough of Dad's point of view, who is always here."
"It might be something of that sort. Anyhow,weneedn't take sides."
"Oh,Ishould, if there was really a quarrel. I adore Uncle Bill, but if it was a question between him and Dad I should take Dad's side through thick and thin. And I should expect you to take Uncle Bill's. So I expect we should quarrel worse than they would."
He laughed lightly. "Not much fear of our quarrelling," he said. "I say, Pam, have you seen Sunny Jim lately? I'm told that he is in residence at Pershore Castle, the seat of his father, the Earl of Crowborough, and a dull dog at that."
"Yes, he has been over here once or twice. I shouldthink he might quite possibly come over this afternoon. Do you want to see him?"
"I don't know that I particularly want to; but I shall, no doubt. How is his affair progressing?"
"What affair?"
"His suit for the hand of Miss Eldridge, of Hayslope Hall. Is his ardour still undiminished, and has he had any encouragement yet?"
Pamela laughed. "I'll tell you something, if you'll promise to keep it to yourself," she said.
Norman promised.
"Well, I don't think he knows it yet, but he is beginning to fall in love with Judith. She doesn't know it either, of course; but it's the greatest fun in the world to watch them."
"Tell me about it. I shouldn't mind that at all. As a matter of fact, I think Jim ought to be kept in the family, dull as he is. As long as it isn't you!"
"Judith doesn't find him dull. And you make a great deal too much of his dulness. He isn't interested in the things that we like; but he does know a lot, and I should think he was very sound in what he does know."
"Let's hope he is. Oh, he's not a bad fellow, I like old Jim; and people liked him at school. It's only that one gets in the way of labelling a fellow. Judith's a funny bird; you never quite know how to take her. She's extraordinarily pretty, though, and ought to be prettier still when she's quite fledged. I don't wonder that Jim is beginning to see it."
"Oh, but I don't think he is yet. As the danger is passing, I don't mind admitting now that Iwastheattraction, and perhaps he still thinks I am. He— Well, he behaves like that. But it's Judith who really interests him—I suppose because he interests her. They talk over all sorts of things together, and he tells her everything about himself, and what he is going to do. Atpresenthe doesn't in the least mind a third person assisting in their confabulations; and of courseshedoesn't, except that—you know—she hates giving herself away. I keep quiet, and listen, putting in a word every now and then, so that I shan't appear to be just taking notes of them. It's awfully funny; and rather touching too, sometimes. I'm longing for the time to come when I shall be foundde trop. When that happens, something else will happen very soon afterwards."
"Rather exciting, isn't it? Have the parents tumbled to it yet, do you think?"
"Not to Judith. Oh, look! There he is! I said he would be over to-day. Now, if you keep your mouth shut and your ears open you'll see that I'm right."
Lord Horsham advanced across the lawn towards them, a smile of deprecation on his face. His apologies and explanations over having invited himself to lunch, delivered with looks directed straight at Pamela, seemed to furnish a contradiction to her late pronouncement. But when he had made them, and addressed a few words to Norman, he drew from under his arm a large Blue Book, and asked: "Where's Judith? I said I would bring this over to show her. It's about Rural Housing. You know we were talking about it the other day."
"Yes," said Pam. "I know she wants to hear more about it. I think you'll find her in the library, Jim. Iwon't come in just now, because Norman and I have something to talk about."
"Oh, I'm sorry I disturbed you. Yes, I'll go and find her. You'resureMrs. Eldridge won't mind my inviting myself like this?"
He was once more reassured, and went off. "You see!" said Pam, in a low voice. "I took a bright part in that conversation, but it's with Judy he wants to go on with it."
"Oh, it's a cinch!" said Norman, with delight. "Dear old silly old solemn old Jim, and Judith with her golden hair a hanging down her back! What a lark, Pam! But I say, old girl, I don't quite like the idea of you getting left in this way. If everything else had failed I did think you could fall back upon the Viscountess Horsham. Are you sure you don't mind? You're not hiding rampant jealousy under a mask of indifference, are you? It is sometimes done, I know."
"No, I'm not. It's an incubus lifted from me."
"Well, itwouldhave been rather rotten. You're made for better things. What I have thought of doing is to bring relays of bright young fellows down to stay, and let you run your eye over them. What do you think of that? I'm rather tired of running about, and I thought I'd stay here for a bit, and do some work, and play with you."
"Oh, I'm so glad, Norman. It is a little dull here sometimes without you. As for the bright young fellows, I shall be pleased to inspect them. I do enjoy a little male society occasionally."
Dusk was beginning to fall as Colonel Eldridge took a last stroll round the garden he loved, smoking the pipe to which he had taken when he had decided that cigars were too expensive for him any longer. The rest of the family were at the Grange, except the two children, who were supposed to be in bed. Whether they actually were so or not their father allowed himself to doubt, with a smile at the corners of his mouth. They had been keeping him company until summoned by Miss Baldwin, and his thoughts were still upon them. He had a great love for young children, but some stiff reserved trait in his character prevented him from showing it, even to his own, when there was anyone else by. What he liked was to have them to himself, and listen to their prattle, which was all music in his ears, though he affected to exercise some control over it. He would rather stay at home with the children, he had said, than dine at the Grange; but Mrs. Eldridge had understood that he would not go there until the dispute between him and his brother was settled. Sir William was coming down late that evening, dining on the train.
The children actually were in bed; for Miss Baldwin, always eager to get to her evening's reading, was strict in this matter. She was sitting by the window thatfaced on to the drive. She liked best the other windows, with their view across the lawn, but thought that Colonel Eldridge might look up and see her there, and feel that he was being watched. She did take an occasional surreptitious look at him. He was interesting her at this time, for she thought that he must soon come into the story which she was weaving around Pamela, and though she knew how he ought to act in order to advance the interest of the story, she was not sure that he would fulfil her expectations. It was more interesting so. One did not always want to look at pages ahead in an exciting story.
Miss Baldwin was not so immersed in the printed story she was reading as to be quite oblivious to the beauty of the scene before her, in the fading light of the summer evening. She sometimes raised her eyes to it, with a grateful sense of its increasing her enjoyment in the pleasant hour that was all her own. The sky was an expanse of faint pulsing blue, passing to a delicate rose above the horizon; the distant country was losing its sharper details in the pale haze that enveloped it, but the heavy mass of Pershore Castle could still be seen in the middle distance, and kept alive in her mind that other story which she was making for herself.
It was this state of awareness, no doubt, that suggested to her that the motor-car which she descried on the drive, upon one of her upward looks, was bringing one of Pamela's suitors to interview Pamela's father. Horsham had driven himself over a few evenings before, after dinner, with the offer of a joy-ride. She rosehastily and looked out of the other window. Colonel Eldridge was still there, looking at his roses now, in the garden nearest the drive. He would be seen by whoever was in the car, and it was probable that the ensuing conversation would take place under her eyes.
The car could be seen more plainly when she went back, and it was a disappointment to recognize it as Sir William Eldridge's big touring Rolls-Royce, instead of the more modest and slightly out-of-date Rénault from Pershore Castle. It had purred up to the iron gate which divided the gravelled square in front of the house from the park by the time she had adjusted her mind to the disappointment, and while the chauffeur was opening the gate she looked out again at Colonel Eldridge, who by this time had heard it, and was moving towards where he could see who was coming. She saw Sir William hitch himself out of the driving-seat, and go across to his brother, with the light active step which she always admired in him, and heard his hearty greeting. "Well, Edmund, old fellow, I thought I'd come and have a word or two with you on my way home, though I wasn't sure that you wouldn't be dining at the Grange. Eleanor wrote that Cynthia and the girls were."
It seemed to Miss Baldwin that Colonel Eldridge's reply to the greeting was lacking in the warmth which it invited. But his manner was never so free and open as Sir William's, who had the pleasantest way with him, even when he addressed himself to a retiring but appreciative governess. The words he used had no importance to impress themselves upon her, but SirWilliam's next speech, delivered in his clear voice, which carried them up to her, were: "I'm glad I've found you alone, then. Look here, old boy, let's get this tiresome business that we've been writing about out of the way." Here they moved off together on to the lawn. "The last thing in the world I want is to get up against you, and if I've done or written anything that has offended you, I'm sorry for it."
There was a pause before Colonel Eldridge replied. His voice was in a lower key, and by this time they were out of hearing. Miss Baldwin, who had much delicacy of feeling, shut the two windows which looked on to the lawn, softly, while their backs were turned to her; but she did not forbid herself to conjecture what it was that had happened between them or to taste her own surprise that anything should have happened to bring forth that introductory speech. She did not connect it with the affair in which she was so interested, for she had not given Sir William a part in that story. Probably it was nothing of any consequence, and when they had talked it over, walking up and down the lawn, Colonel Eldridge with his pipe, Sir William with his cigar, they would go into the house, and Sir William would take a little refreshment before driving himself home to the Grange. The great car stood there below, its latent power ready to be put in motion at a moment's notice, and the chauffeur stood by it, as if he, at least, was not expecting to be kept there long.
The two men walked up and down together for half an hour, until it became too dark to see their faces. Sometimes they stopped in their walk and stood stillfor a time, and then they would go on again. Sometimes Sir William made a gesture, but Colonel Eldridge hardly moved his hands, except to take his pipe out of his mouth, and once to fill and light it again. It was impossible for Miss Baldwin, who now watched them, fascinated by a sense of drama, and with no pretence to herself of not doing so, to avoid the conviction that their dispute was serious, and not easy of settlement. She thought she could tell from Sir William's movements that he was coming to feel more and more annoyance, and that Colonel Eldridge was also angry, though he was exercising control over himself.
But surely, it must end some time! It was so dark now that she could only just see their forms in the shade of the trees, and Sir William's cigar glowed with a red point of light; and still they went on. She began to get alarmed lest Colonel Eldridge might look up at the windows of the schoolroom and notice that they were unlit, and it would be discovered that she had been watching them, sitting in the dark. But she dared not draw the curtains now, for that would be to attract attention.
The end came suddenly, and in a way to make her draw her breath. They had been stationary for some time, and their voices had raised themselves slightly. She could hear them through the other window, which remained open, but not what they were saying. Sir William walked quickly across the lawn, and through the gate to where his car was standing. He got into his seat, and the twin lights in front of the car blazed out blindingly. The chauffeur ran to open the gateinto the park, and it seemed to her that he hardly had time to jump on to the car as it went through it, swinging to behind them. She watched the radiance that moved with it, and the little point of red light behind it, until it disappeared over a dip, and then went again to the other window. Colonel Eldridge was lighting his pipe once more. When he had done so, he resumed his slow pacing of the lawn.
They were playing Bridge at the Grange, Lady Eldridge and Pamela against Mrs. Eldridge and Norman. Judith, who did not care for Bridge, was deep in a big chair, reading a book. Her passion for facts, lately fostered by her friendship with Lord Horsham, had not driven her to choose this book, which was "Three Men in a Boat." She read it closely, turning over the pages at regular intervals, and never smiled once. But when she came to reproducing scraps of its wisdom after she had digested it and made it her own, she would make others laugh over it.
Her mother's eyes were often upon her in the intervals of the game, with a sort of critical look, as if she were trying to see her in some new light. She made a picture to fill the eye, in her white frock, with the deep purple ribbons at her waist and in her dusky hair. The dark covering of the chair framed her young form, and threw up the delicate profile of her face, the long lashes veiling her eyes, the full red lips a little apart. She was a very beautiful girl, but childhood seemed to linger about her, emphasized by the way her hair was done, and the slim crossed ankles beneath herskirt, shorter than she would presently come to wear it. Was her mother trying to see her as already a woman? It would not be surprising if others did, though it was doubtful if she herself was yet ready to step out of the enchanted garden of her girlhood.
A rubber was just finished, and Pamela and Norman were endeavouring to come to some agreement about the score, when sounds were heard outside which caused Lady Eldridge to rise from her chair. "That must be William," she said. "He's very late. I'll just go and see if he wants anything."
She went out, and did not return. Pamela and Norman finished their calculations and leant back in their chairs. Mrs. Eldridge had already moved to a more comfortable one, and was sitting there in silence, looking out into the night, through the open French windows.
Presently it became noticeable that they were left alone. Even Judith looked up from her book inquiringly, but turned again to Montmorency, relieved, perhaps, at having a few more minutes' respite. Norman said: "I wonder what they're doing?" Then he and Pamela began to play Patience, and so they all continued, but with expectancy.
Ten minutes must have gone by before Lady Eldridge came in again. Her sister-in-law threw a sharp glance at her, but she showed no traces of anything having happened to disturb her, unless it was in an added seriousness of expression. "William sends his love, and hopes you will excuse his coming in," shesaid. "He has some letters to write before he goes to bed."
Mrs. Eldridge got up. "It is time we were going," she said, and Lady Eldridge did not ask her to stay longer, though it was not later than half-past ten, and their parties did not usually break up so early. Norman looked quickly from one to the other, and said: "All right; I'll go and get the car. I shall be ready by the time you've got your bonnet and spencer on, Aunt Cynthia."
Their light cloaks were in the hall. Pamela went out to get hers, and Judith followed her, Mrs. Eldridge lingering behind. "William went to see Edmund on his way home," Lady Eldridge said to her; "and they have quarrelled. Oh, Cynthia, do put it right! I'll do allIcan. We mustn't stay here now, or the girls will suspect something."
She had spoken with great earnestness, though hurriedly, and immediately went into the hall, where she talked to Pamela and Judith until Norman came round with the car. Mrs. Eldridge said nothing; but when she kissed her sister-in-law good-night, she gave her a pressure of the hand, which was returned as warmly.
Pamela sat in front with Norman. The car he was driving was half closed, and the screen behind them allowed them to talk without being overheard by Mrs. Eldridge and Judith. "Father has been with Uncle Edmund," he said, "for nearly an hour. I'm afraid they've had a row."
Pamela had not imagined anything of the sort, andwas disagreeably affected. "Oh, they can't have," she said. "Why do you think so?"
"Well, it was odd, his not coming in. And why shouldn't mother have said that he had been at the Hall? And why should she have stayed out with him so long?"
Depression seized upon Pamela. She was young enough to feel rather shocked at the idea of her elders quarrelling, which had never happened at home within her knowledge. The Hall and the Grange had been in such close contact for years past that her uncle and aunt shared something of the feeling that she had for her parents, who had not yet come to be criticized by their children. It was unpleasant to think of them as moved by temper, or more than on the surface by irritation, at least against one another. A rift would affect them all. A disagreeable impression had already been made by Uncle Bill not coming in to see them, for he had always given them such a welcome, and hurried to greet them as if they were a part of his own family, whom he was glad to see again after an absence.
"I suppose it's about that beastly garden," said Norman. "But mother told me he had written to her about it, and said that he wasn't going on with it now. If he went to see Uncle Edmund on his way home, it can only have been to tell him so."
The implied criticism of her father moved Pamela. "It's no use our imagining what it is," she said. "Let's wait until we know."
"Yes; we can't do anything. I suppose mother andAunt Cynthia can, though.Theydon't want to quarrel."
"Dad and Uncle William won't either. I should think Uncle Bill is more easily upset than Dad. If he is annoyed with him now, he will have got over it by to-morrow."
There was a slight pause. "It's rather beastly, you know," Norman said. "Already, in the few words we've had about it, I've been looking at it from father's point of view and you from Uncle Edmund's. I suppose it's natural; but what I think is that it can't be anything serious, and there's no reason for us to take sides. I won't, anyhow. I dare say you're right, and father is more quick-tempered than Uncle Edmund. They're both jolly good sorts, and I don't think you'll often find two brothers of their age who get on so well together as they do. I suppose I'm rather like father myself. I've often said things you haven't liked, but I've been sorry for them afterwards."
This touched her. It was one of the things that she loved about Norman—his quick reactions at the call of affection. She had sometimes been guilty of arousing his annoyance, so that she might see him come round to her again. "I'm sure we needn't worry ourselves," she said, with more agreement in her tone than she had used before. "Uncle Bill not coming in to see us was so unusual that we are making more of it than it can possibly mean. Supposing they were both angry with one another just now, it can't possibly last. Even if they didn't calm down at once themselves, mother and Auntie Eleanor wouldn't let them go on with it."
Norman laughed at that. "And if they couldn't stop them, we should," he said. "We're all like one family. Nothing could separate us for long."
When they came to the iron gate where the park ended, it was to find it open. "Oh, there's Dad!" said Pamela, and called out a greeting to him as they passed through. "I'm so glad, Norman.Heisn't keeping out of your way. He must have got over it already."
She ran back to her father when the car stopped before the door, and put her arm through his. "Have you been lonely without us, darling?" she said. "I'll stay with you till Norman goes through again. I know he isn't coming in."
It was in his usual rather expressionless voice that he asked her: "Had a good evening? The children and I practised archery, with some old bows and arrows they found upstairs. I think we must set that up properly."
It was a great relief to her to find him like this. When Norman came back slowly through the gate, he thanked him for bringing them home, and bid him good-night in his usual way. She could see that Norman was relieved too. There had been if not an actual quarrel something very like it, but this was the way in which such unfortunate occurrences between elders should be treated, with nothing of it allowed to be seen by those who looked up to them. She could not help comparing his attitude with that of Uncle William, who had taken it in such different fashion. Her father's dignity and self-control seemed to her to exhibit itself plainly beside his unwillingness to show himselfunder his annoyance. It was not difficult to judge which of the two was more likely to have been in the right.
They shut the gate and went back to the house. Colonel Eldridge kissed her good-night. "I'll go and have a word with mother," he said.
Yes, something had happened, and her father and mother would talk it over together. And very soon it would all be put right. Uncle William and Auntie Eleanor were also probably talking it over, and she would certainly bring him to the right frame of mind. He was such a good sport, though without the essential wisdom that showed up so plainly in her father. He must have been in the wrong; but he was so generous and so affectionate that it would not take him long to see it and to say so.
As for Norman, his uncle's greeting had removed his discomfort entirely. The best of friends were apt to fall out occasionally, and if that had happened between his father and his uncle, it was nothing to worry about. He dismissed them from his mind as he sped down the drive, until he had to slow up for that part of the road which was under repair, when it occurred to him that this was probably what the row was about. The workmen who had been engaged for work at the Grange had been snooped for work at the Hall. Really, thatwasrather thick! There was no doubt that Uncle Edmund had an arbitrary way with him; but he was a thoroughly good old sort, all the same. Norman had many kindnesses to remember from him, from his early boyhood, when country pursuits had not come to himso readily as they did now, and during his visits to the Hall it had always been thoughtfully arranged that he should have all possible opportunities for enjoying himself.
He did not accelerate to his former pace when he had passed over the loose stones but leant back in his seat and crawled along, so as to give himself up to the romance of the summer night, and all the moving thoughts that his surrender to it would bring him. The young moon had not long since risen, and bathed the undulating spaces of the park in a soft, silvery sheen. The night coolness after the heat of the day brought sweet, sharp scents to his nostrils. The still beauty of the night seemed to be inviting him to something more than a solitary appreciation of it. He wished he had suggested that they should go for a longer drive. He and Pam both loved the beauty of the earth, and would have expressed their love for this sweet aspect of it to one another, heightening their own appreciations, as they did with every new discovery they made about truth and beauty. Pam was a girl in a thousand. His thoughts dwelt upon her, though he had thought of inviting them to the contemplation of another figure. As an only child he was lucky to have these girl cousins at the Hall, in place of sisters, and especially Pam, whom he had loved since she was a tiny child, Pam, who had grown up to take so many of her ideas and opinions from him, as a girl should, with one much older, who had seen more of the world than she had. Pam was grown up now; sometimes she expressed ideas of her own, and was inclined to assert them, asshe had not been wont to do. That made her more interesting, for he would not have had her a mere echo of himself; and he knew that, for all her little charming airs of independence, she still looked up to him and admired him, which was right too, for although there were many better fellows than himself, he had taught her to accept the right pattern. Pam would be throwing herself away if she chose from another one. He was glad that the danger from Horsham's incipient suit seemed to be over. It was odd that he should be coming to prefer Judith, who, in spite of her beauty, had none of the bright charm and cleverness of dear Pam; but Horsham certainly wasn't good enough for her, though he would do very well for Judith. As for that outsider, Fred Comfrey...!
Norman accelerated here, and did not slow down again until he had reached the elaborate iron gates which gave access to the Grange. He had had the idea of a long moonlight drive by himself, with his thoughts to keep him company, but changed his mind now, and went in.
As he entered the brightly lit hall, the remembrance of the occurrences of half an hour before returned to him. He hadn't seen his father yet, who would probably be in his room, for he never went to bed early. He would go in and find out all about it.
Mrs. Eldridge was waiting for her husband in his room, where he usually sat for an hour or so after she had gone to bed. The lamps were lit and the curtains drawn. She was standing by the fireplace, and still wore her cloak over her evening gown. She looked amazingly young for her years as she stood there in her graceful evening guise, with an expression of almost childish alarm in her eyes, looking up at him expectantly.
"Did you see William?" he asked her shortly.
"No," she said. "He wouldn't come in to us. We came away about a quarter of an hour after he had come, without seeing him."
"Ah!"
He was very quiet in speech and manner, with an air as it struck her, of great depression. She could not be sure, until he had spoken, of what had happened, that he had not something deeply to regret upon his own part.
"Better sit down," he said, "and I'll tell you about it. Until William apologizes to me for things he has said, and dismisses that man Coombe for his insolence, I won't see him or have anything to do with him. But I don't want you or the children to make any difference. Let's hope Eleanor will bring him to reason; Iknow she has a good influence over him. She may not want to meet me; I've thought of that. But I should like you to go to the Grange as usual. I don't want you to quarrel with William either. We'll leave the quarrelling to him, as he seems bent on it."
"Tell me what happened, dear," she said. "He came here on his way home, didn't he?"
"Oh, yes; with an air of coming to put everything right by making handsome concessions over something he doesn't care a hang about. If I was so unreasonable as to question anything he had done he would give it up—of course. I wasn't to be allowed to have had any reason on my side; it didn't matter even that he'd mistaken me, and that I hadn't wanted to stop what he was doing, and had tried to get it carried on. He waved all that aside—didn't want to talk about it. What he did want was very plain. He wanted to show himself as the large-minded man who could make all allowances for a narrow-minded fool of an elder brother always standing on his own petty dignity. However, he'd be careful not to tread on my corns in that way again. Let's forget all about it and begin afresh. I would have swallowed all that—I did swallow it—for there was some right feeling behind it; but...."
"Edmund dear," she interrupted him, "before you go on—oughtn't we to keep that in front of us as the thing that really matters? William is fond of you, and you of him. When Eleanor and I have been talking it over, we...."
"It has got beyond that now," he interrupted her in his turn. "What neither you nor Eleanor can seeis that William is not the same man as he used to be. What really matters, you say! What really matters is what he founds himself upon; and what he founds himself upon now is his money, and the place he has made for himself in the world. Fond of me? Yes, I dare say he is. He'd like to do this or that to help me where things are difficult; but it's to be on the understanding that I knuckle under to him. I can't accept his help, or his—or his fondness on those terms. I'm fond of him, you say? Yes—or of what he was before his success spoilt him. When he returns to that, things shall be as they were between us. Until then, I've got to take him as he is now; and without loss of self-respect I can't do it and keep on terms with him."
"What was it, then, that you quarrelled about?"
He hesitated at the word. "William may call it quarrelling," he said. "I suppose it is just a quarrel to him. I shouldn't admit that I quarrelled. He got very excited, and I didn't. That's the plain truth. I didn't feel excited; I felt very sad."
"My poor old darling!" she said tenderly. "It's too bad of William, with all the troubles you have had on you."
He went on, in the same quiet, unemotional voice: "I accepted his good will. Yes, I did that, though his way of expressing it was distasteful to me. But I said that I didn't want the cause of complaint set aside like that. I thought that the reasons I had given against the extra garden-making were sound; but they didn't override other considerations and I should prefer it to go on. That didn't seem to suit him. In themood he was in, I suppose he didn't wantmeto be the one to make concessions. But I rather think, from something he let fall, that he has something new on hand to interest him, and the garden plan means nothing to him now; or at any rate that he would rather give it up, on the grounds of giving way to me, than go on with it because I have given way to him. That's one of the ways in which his money has spoilt him. When a man has a lot of money, and doesn't care for just piling it up, he's always looking about for ways of spending it; and the last way he has found is all important to him, until he finds another one; then his interest in it goes. I'm sure that's how it is with William. But I was firm about it. 'It may not interest you now as much as it did,' I said; 'but the way in which it has been thrown over will reflect upon me, if it is given up altogether. For one thing, there's Barton's Close already cut up, and you can't leave it like that. You must either go on with the work or put it back as it was. It has been put about that I stopped the work, unreasonably; and the men who were doing it are now working for me. If you want to do justice to me, you'll remove all that talk, and you can only do it by going on. When the road has been mended,' I said, 'you can take on that extra labour again, and get all the digging and so on done in time to plant!'"
"Did he make any fuss about the men being taken on for the drive?"
"It was one of the things that he had put aside, with a wave of the hand, as if I had done somethingthat I ought not to have done, but he would overlook it with the rest. That was why I mentioned it. I wasn't going to justify myself about it, but I said: 'The men wouldn't have gone straight back to work for you after being sent away; but they will when the time comes, if I talk to them.' He didn't quite like that either. He was gradually losing his position as being entirely in the right, but giving way because it wasn't worth while to come up against me in something that didn't matter. It does matter, and I was determined not to close it up on those terms.
"At last he agreed to go on, but by that time he had lost a good deal of his—what shall I say?—expansive manner, and gave in grudgingly. Then he was for going home, and if it could have been settled at that, there would have been an end of the affair. I had left Coombe out of it until then, for I didn't want it complicated by something that I thought would probably be new to him altogether. I said: 'There's one thing, William, that I must ask you to do and that is to send Coombe about his business. If it hadn't been for him the work would have been going on now. You can easily satisfy yourself about that,' I said, 'and I don't press it. But Coombe spoke of me openly with the grossest impertinence, and in a way that you would have resented just as much as if you had heard it. I've held my hand,' I said; 'I left it till you came down. But something has got to be done about it now.'"
"You didn't tell me, dear, that you were going to say that Coombe must be sent away."
"I didn't talk to you much about Coombe, did I? Itook it for granted that William would dismiss him when he knew what sort of man he was. Servants may talk about you behind your back, and I dare say most of them do. But when it is brought to your notice you can't shut your eyes to it. If I had heard one of mine speaking of William in the way that fellow spoke of me, I should have sent him about his business in double-quick time, however useful he was to me."
"Did William refuse to do it?"
"He haggled about it. He had always found Coombe perfectly respectful. Surely I was mistaken. He couldn't have said what he was reported to have said. If I showed annoyance at all perhaps I showed it then; but I had myself in hand. I knew that if I got into the excited state that he was beginning to get into then, it was all up. Besides, I was determined that he should get rid of Coombe. For one thing, it will be a sort of test of his sincerity, for I don't deny that it will be of some inconvenience to him. Coombe is a good gardener, and they are not so easy to get now. But it's a monstrous idea that a man who has openly shown his hand in that way should be kept in the place. It would have a bad effect all round. William ought to be able to see that, and I told him so."
"Did you tell him exactly what the man had said?"
"I told him the worst of it. I said: 'One of the things that was repeated to me was that I was jealous of your money and your title, and I should stop you doing anything you wanted to do in Hayslope if I possibly could. Are you going to keep in your service a man who has said a thing like that about me?' Iasked him. He said he didn't believe it had been said; somebody was trying to stir up mischief. I said: 'I'm afraid, William, that your money and your title have had an influence in this place that isn't exactly what you think it to be. This man Coombe has only let some of it out. Still,' I said, 'he's let it out in such a way that it can't be passed over. The only way you can possibly put it right is to show thatyouare not going to stand that sort of talk, and the only way you can do that is to send Mr. Coombe marching. And that's what you'll do,' I said, 'if you mean what you have been saying about wanting to put things straight between us, and to work in with me here at Hayslope.'"
"Yes," she said with a sigh, "I think you were right there."
"I'm sorry to say that that was too much for him. It was the end of anything like reasonable talk on his part. Every now and then he seemed to be trying to pull himself together, as when he tried to get from me who had heard those words said; but when I told him, he said that I had only got them third-hand, and it wouldn't be fair on Coombe to sack him without giving him a chance to defend himself. I said I shouldn't expect him to do anything but deny it all. 'And with all respect to you, William,' I said, 'I'm not going to make you a judge between me and your servant. You can ask old Jackson, if you like, what happened; but even by doing that you'll be appearing to doubt my word, and you won't want to do it if you're ready to act rightly by me. As long as that man remains inyour service,' I said, 'I'm not going near the Grange. You owe it to me to send him away.'"
"Was that at the end of all?"
"No. He wouldn't promise to do it without making inquiries for himself, and I said: 'Very well, then; you are putting yourself definitely against me here. I suppose you understand that. How do you propose that we shall go on living next door to one another with this between us? It will be known all over the place that Coombe has insulted me, that you have been told of it, and don't think it necessary to take any steps. It's an impossible position,' I said."
"Surely he could see that, couldn't he?"
"He had worked himself up into such a state then that he couldn't see anything. After that, until he went away, he was simply offensive. He justified everything that I have said about his attitude towards me and more. Oh, I don't want to go over it all. I should think he'd be sorry when some of the things he said come back to him. There was he, spending his life in the service of his country, and here was I, consumed with jealousy of him and thinking only how I could put spokes in his wheel. It's that accusation of jealousy that I won't put up with. He must withdraw it and apologize for it before I'll meet him again. It means a break, Cynthia. I had time to think it all over before you came home. I'm afraid it means a break. He brought Eleanor into it. He gave me to understand that she was up against me for what he was pleased to call my dictatorial ways; it wasn't only he who had suffered under them. If that's so, she won'ttry to put it straight, and that's really the only chance with what it has come to now."
"Oh, my dear, she will. I know she will. She and I talked about it the other day. I know what is in her mind. She only meant that first letter you wrote, and she said that that was all wiped out now. I told you, didn't I? She is longing for it to be put right. She will do all she can, I know."
"I hope so. It will be a very serious matter if it isn't put right. But I stand upon those two points. William must take back that accusation of jealousy. It's a wrong thing for one brother to say of another."
"Oh, yes. If it was said in the heat of the moment...."
"I'm afraid that what was said in the heat of the moment was only what has been building itself up in his mind for a long time past. It's a result of his deterioration. Because I don't treat him as I suppose other people do who worship success—and he has come to want that—I'm jealous of his success. He can't see straight any longer; he can't see me as I've always been, and am still.Thatis what is between us, and it goes deeper than anything he has said or done. He isn't any longer the brother I used to have."
She saw that he was deeply moved and that it was no time now to say anything to alter his mind. Besides, the one fact that she and Eleanor had both insisted on as lying behind everything—the affection between the brothers—seemed no longer to govern the situation. Their ways had widely diverged, and it looked as if theyhad drifted apart in spirit as well as in the interests they had once held in common.
Her husband rose from his chair with a deep sigh, and said something that she was unprepared for. "Thank God, that I've still got you and the children left to me!"
She broke down and shed tears, but dried them immediately, for she knew how he disliked the expression of emotion, and that his own had been wrung from him only by deep feeling. He kissed her good-night and said kindly: "Don't take it too much to heart. And if you and Eleanor can mend it between you, you won't find me implacable. I've gone a long way in trying to put it straight, and I'll go further if it's necessary."
"If William will apologize?" she said, making a last effort.
"I'll do without an apology. After all, it isn't words that I want. Let him dismiss Coombe, without any further to-do. I'll take that as covering everything. I dare say I said things to him that offended him as much as he offended me, though it is certain that I held myself more in hand than he did. No, I don't want any apology. But he must dismiss Coombe."