The difference between Colonel Eldridge's room at the Hall and his brother's at the Grange was a good deal more than the difference between a room in an old house and one devoted to like uses in a new. Indeed if you had averaged the age of their contents, the room at the Grange would have shown the earlier date. It had been one of the latest additions, when furniture and decoration had become a source of keen interest to its owner, and there had been no lack of money to carry out his tastes.
There was no bright Turkey carpet or American desk here, as in Sir William's room in London. He wrote his letters at a Queen Anne Bureau, bought at Christie's for a sum that would have paid for everything in his brother's room and left a substantial amount over. There was no insistent colour, to detract from the rich subdued values of this and other fine pieces of furniture. A few pictures of the early Dutch school, which Sir William particularly affected, hung upon the walls, panelled in dark oak. The electric light glowed and sparkled from a lustre chandelier of Waterford glass. The few ornaments admitted were also mostly of old glass, and as many of them as were suitable held flowers. There was a beautiful soft-hued Persian carpet, and curtains of heavy brocade of no determinate hue. Onlythe books in the glass-fronted Sheraton bookcase were mostly new, many of them in rich bindings; and the easy chairs and sofa were of the latest word in comfort.
The room was a success from first to last, and Sir William felt it to be so every time he entered it. And yet he still gained, whenever he went into his brother's room at the Hall, a sense of satisfaction for which he would perhaps have exchanged the different sort of pleasure that he took in his own creation. That room, with its old-fashioned furniture of no special value; its faded and threadbare carpet, and shabby easy chairs; the untidy books on the shelves; the paintings, prints and photographs that crowded the walls; the medley of ornaments and knicknacks on the mantelpiece and side-tables; the gun-cases, cartridge-cases, game-bags, golf-clubs, and all the litter of a sportsman's room; the very smell of it, compounded of tobacco smoke and leather, slightly musty paper, and slightly damp dog, with a reminder of ripe apples mysteriously underlying it all—it meant quiet and ease and a thousand associations of indoor and outdoor life, hardly any of which were represented in the room that was his. He had even been slightly ashamed of his room when he had first shown it to his brother, who had said: "It's very fine. I've never seen a finer, for a fellow who can live up to it. It wouldn't do for me, because I couldn't keep that old shooting-jacket of mine hanging up behind the door." That was it, Sir William decided afterwards. It was really a room for a man who liked to live in a drawing-room, and he didn't want, himself, to live always in a drawing-room, even a man's drawing-room. Still, heliked to have beautiful things about him, and with that taste you had to discriminate. You couldn't get the two kinds of attraction into the same room. He had the one, and must do without the other.
It was this room that Norman entered when he returned from the Hall. He had none of the doubts about it that his father sometimes expressed. His appreciations were finer than his father's. Sir William had to possess a treasure of art for it to give him the acme of pleasure. Norman loved it for itself, and he loved the beautiful things in this room. His appreciation of it even affected him now, as he went in, though he was thinking of something else. His mother, in her evening gown, sitting near a great bowl of flowers, seemed to him to add to its value; his father, standing over her, in the light tweed suit in which he had been travelling, seemed slightly out of place. It was a room in which, if you occupied it in the evening, you ought to be dressed for the evening.
This impression, however, was momentary, for a stronger one immediately took its place. He had expected to see his father considerably disturbed, and his mother disturbed too, but by this time less so than his sharp eyes had made her out to be when she had said good-bye to his aunt and cousins. For she was a queller of disturbance, in herself and others, and might by this be expected to have made her mark upon his father, though not perhaps to the extent of quieting him altogether.
But there were no signs of disturbance upon their faces at all, nor in their manner. His father was leaningup against the mantelpiece, talking with some show of excitement, certainly, but with a smile upon his face; and she was looking up at him, not smiling, but with interest and sympathy.
Sir William turned round, as he came into the room. "Ah, Norman!" he said. "Here you are! I've been waiting for you. You come into this little affair, as well as mother and me. You'll want to hear all about it."
Norman sat himself down, with his hands in his pockets. "I always want to hear all about everything," he said.
His father laughed. "It's rather exciting," he said. "I really hadn't been expecting anything of the sort. They've offered me a peerage."
"Good business!" said Norman warmly.
Sir William laughed again. "It will come to you some day," he said. "That's one reason why I feel pleased about it."
"When the time comes," said Norman, "I shall grow a little tiny chin beard, like the peers in 'Iolanthe.' But I thought you were going to be a Member of Parliament, father."
"Well, that is being a Member of Parliament—of the Upper House. Oh, it isn't—I've been telling mother—just a mark of honour for what I did during the war. They gave me a knighthood for that, which closed the account. They want me for something else now—a new business altogether. I won't go into the details of it now, but they want somebody in both Houses for it. It was just a question in which one I should be of most use, andit was decided finally that someone else—I won't mention his name yet—should look after it in the Commons, and I in the Lords. It will mean a lot of work, but I don't mind that. I like work, and I really think I can do something in this job they've given me. I know I did good work in the war, and I've had the feeling sometimes—though I've kept it to myself—that enough notice wasn't taken of it. I don't mean in the way of reward, for I didn't do it for reward; but I thought they might have found me of such use that they would want to give me something else to do, when there's so much that wants doing. Well, it seems that they haven't lost sight of me at all; they have only been waiting for an opportunity. And now it has come. Yes, I'm very well pleased about it."
"So am I," said Norman. "And I'm jolly glad it has come in that way. If they had given you a peerage instead of making you a knight, people might have said you had paid out cash for it. They wouldn't have said it to you, but they might have said it to me. Fellows will say anything to you nowadays; it's the modern technique. I shall be an Honourable, I suppose. I shall have to put up with a lot because of that. But I shall live it down in time. When is it coming off, father?"
Sir William did not smile at this speech. "There's a lot of nonsense talk about buying peerages," he said. "I've been saying to mother, only just now, that I doubt whether there has ever been a single instance of a man putting down so much money and getting a peerage for it, or even a baronetcy. Or, if things were everdone in that way, they're certainly not now. As far as I'm concerned, I'd just as soon have done what I'm going to do in the Commons as in the Lords. For many things I would much rather have been in the Commons. But it would have meant fighting an election, with a lot of time and energy wasted; andthatwould have cost money. On the whole, I am glad it was settled as it has been. You're pleased too, Nell, aren't you? I wouldn't have taken it, you know, Norman, without first consulting your mother—and telling you. I haven't yet, as a matter of fact, though I promised to write, either accepting or declining, to-morrow."
"Oh, I hope you won't decline, father. I didn't gather there was any chance of that. I've got rather keen on it now. Aren't you, Mum?"
She smiled at him and then at her husband, looking up at him. "I'm very glad," she said, "that they want you again. And I know that you will do splendid work, as you did before. It will mean a lot more work for father, you know, Norman; but it will be work that he will do well and enjoy doing."
"You never were a half-doer, were you, father?" said Norman. "I should think you would wake up the old Lords a bit. The general idea seems to be that they can do with it. What are you going to call yourself?"
Sir William's face lost its brighter look. "There's a slight difficulty about that," he said. "In the ordinary way I should take the title of Hayslope. It would be the natural thing, as we've been here so long, and—and—considering that Hayslope is coming to me some day. The trouble is that it isn't mine yet, and I'mafraid the present owner might object. He'd have no reason to; but...."
Norman's ears were disagreeably affected by that phrase "the present owner." The dispute, which he had forgotten until that moment, was serious, then.
Lady Eldridge spoke, in her quiet firm voice. "I think you ought to know, Norman," she said, "that Uncle Edmund is showing himself hostile to your father. Father went to the Hall to tell him, first of all, about what has been happening, but there was a disagreement that had to be cleared out of the way first, and he found it impossible to do it."
Sir William shifted his position. "I've done all I can," he said. "The dispute was about a twopenny halfpenny affair which I've been trying to put right ever since. I've given way upon all points—more than I ought to have done; but it's of no use. Nothing's of any use. He's determined on quarrelling. I can't do any more."
"I suppose it's about that garden," said Norman. "What does Uncle Edmund want done about it?"
"What does he want done about it? I wish to God you could find out. First of all he makes himself offensive because I began it. Very well! I overlook the offence and I stop it. But that doesn't do. I'm told I shall be damaging his position in the place if I don't begin all over again. Very well; I say I will, when he has finished with the men I took on for the work, and he took from me forhiswork. Then I'm told that before I do anything else I've got to get rid of the man who has been doing it all. Something has come to his ears thatCoombe is supposed to have said about him. A wise man would have shut his ears to that sort of gossip; but because of it, I'm to dismiss a man who has served me well, out of hand, and without giving him a chance of defending himself. I said I'd look into it; but he wouldn't have that. To ask questions of anybody would be to doubt his word, though all he has to go on is what somebody told somebody else who told him. It's perfectly childish; but I'm not going to bother about it any more. I've got far too much to do. If he wants to break with me, he must.Idon't want it, and I've gone all lengths to pacify him. But the fact is that he isn't a big enough man to be able to see me going ahead in the world while he's standing still. All his life he has considered himself my superior. He's my elder brother, and I've given in to him. I've given in to him over this, up to the limit. But now he asks too much. I shall just have to go on, and leave him out of account."
"If we weren't all living at Hayslope," Lady Eldridge said, "it would be easy to keep apart for a time, and the friction would die down. What we must do is to make the best of it until Uncle Edmund becomes more reasonable. Neither you nor I, Norman, need take notice of it unless we are forced to. Father wants us to treat it in that way."
"Oh, yes," said Sir William. "He can't visit my sins upon you; and I certainly don't want to visit his upon Cynthia and the girls. You must go on as much as possible as before. He won't come here, and I shan't go to the Hall. That's all the difference it need make,and when we have gone on for some time like that, I dare say he will come round—see he's been making a fool of himself." He paused for a moment. "I know you're not used to hearing me talk of him like that, but I really can't help myself. I've been sorry for him lately, and have done my best to help him over the troubles and difficulties he has had. But none of that seems to count for anything. He was so—so coldly and obstinately determined to have his own way this evening that it thoroughly upset me. He seems to have nothing in him to respond to the feeling I have always had for him—no kindness, no generosity. I'm not used to losing my temper, but I'm afraid I did lose it with him this evening—his arrogance worked me up to such an extent. No doubt that will all be brought up against me. Actually, I came away without telling him what I had gone there to tell him. That will be brought up against me too. I really can't cope with it any longer. It's an infernal nuisance that this place, which would be more than ever a recreation to me now, should only be turned into a worry. But I won't have it so. I'm not coming down here to be plunged into little local bothers, which take more settling than any of the big things I have to deal with. For the present he and I had better keep apart."
"I'm afraid it's the only way—for the present," said Lady Eldridge. "But it is a very unhappy state of things."
Norman had listened to his father's speech not without discomfort, which was increased by his mother's acceptance of it. "You and Uncle Edmund have always been good pals," he said. "I should have thoughtmother and Aunt Cynthia might do something together to put him right. I expect he would want to behave decently, if he saw the way."
"I'm quite ready to leave it to them," said Sir William. "If they can bring him to reason I'll put it all aside—any time. It's all I want to do. But there's one thing I won't do, and that's to dismiss Coombe off-hand on his orders. I shall have him up to-morrow, and hearhisstory. And I shall ask that old Jackson what happened. I'm kindly permitted to do that. If I find Coombe has gone altogether too far, I shall consider what to do next. But I'm not going to be hectored and pressed to act hastily on a one-sided second or third hand statement. I've a pretty good idea of what did happen. Edmund goes down to find the men working at the garden; he examines Coombe about it in an arrogant sort of way, and shows him plainly that he's annoyed withme—he wouldn't mind that, though it'slése majestéto breathe a word of criticism againsthim. Then when he's gone, Coombe, who after all owes loyalty to me and not to him, lets something drop before men who take it up and make mischief of it to score off him—perhaps because he was getting rid of them, though he was acting under orders there. Oh, it isn't worth while going into it all. I'm sick to death of the whole business. Here we are now, going over and over it, when there's something of real interest to ourselves to talk over. We'd better go to bed, I think. I'm afraid I've worked myself up again. To-morrow I dare say I shall be able to see it all more calmly. I can't to-night."
When Norman went to his room he did not immediatelyget ready to go to bed. The window attracted him, open to all the loveliness of the summer night, and he went and leant out of it, taking into his nostrils the scent of the dew-steeped earth, and into his ears the little noises that a nature-lover can perceive and distinguish, where to others there is only silence.
The world was so beautiful, and life was so full and interesting, that it was impossible for him to be affected overmuch by either of the factors that had just been introduced into it. The honour that was coming to his father he thought a very proper one, and he had seen that he was pleased about it, not only because of the work that it would enable him to do. Norman had no fault to find with that. It would be rather fun to call yourself Lord Something-or-other, though the thrill would probably pass off sooner than you expected. It would even be rather fun to be called "the Honourable" though that would no doubt pass off too—rather more quickly. That seemed to be about all there was to it; but there had been so many peerages created of late years that there had even come to be something to deprecate about such handles to your name. You were always coming across fellows you had never heard of before who called themselves, quite legitimately, "the Honourable." He would be one of them now, and he grinned to himself as he imagined the chaff to which he would be subjected on that account, and formulated a few of the replies he would make to it.
But he had soon exhausted the subject, and his smile faded as that other troublesome affair took its place in his mind.
He didn't like that at all. It seemed to contradict all the jolly things that were connected in his mind with his uncle, who was stiffer in manner than his father, but so kind-hearted underneath it all. He had never thought of him as he had been reflected in his father's speech, and it was difficult to think about him like that now, though he certainly seemed to be behaving in a way that could scarcely be defended.
His window overlooked the wooded valley that lay between the two houses, and the opposite hill. A corner of the Hall could be seen from it. His thoughts went out to his cousins, asleep there, and especially to Pam, whom he loved more than the others. He and Pam were as close friends as they had always been. He couldn't do without Pam. He always wanted to tell her everything that had happened to him, as he supposed fellows who had favourite sisters did. But he was not quite so sure now of her always adopting his views. She was getting together a collection of views of her own. How would she take this?
It was not necessary to accept seriously what she had said this evening about their backing up their respective parents in any dispute between them, and quarrelling with each other because of their quarrel. Her mother and his wouldn't do that. They would try to get at the rights of the case. There must be a right and a wrong somewhere, and it was probable that there was some of each on both sides. He had only heard his father's story so far, and Pam would only hearherfather's. They ought to put their heads together and balance the two.
He thought over this for some time, and came to the conclusion that they were not likely to agree, which somewhat depressed him. Then he thought it over further still, and it seemed to him that the only thing to say to Pam was: "You and I can't get at the rights of it, so let's leave it alone altogether, and by and by it will right itself. And above all, don't let it make any difference to us."
Would Pam accept that, as the course laid down by his superior wisdom? A year or two ago, she certainly would have done so. If she didn't now, it would seem as if he had lost some of his influence over her.
Hoping that she would, but a little doubtful of it, Norman presently went to bed.
"Sir William Eldridge, who was recently raised to the peerage, has taken the title Lord Eldridge of Hayslope."
Mr. Comfrey read out this item of information from his newspaper, as he sat at breakfast with his wife and his son, and expressed his satisfaction over it. "I'm glad it has been settled like that," he said. "He will simply be called Lord Eldridge, and there can't possibly be any objection to it. Lord Hayslope would have made a good title, but under the circumstances it would hardly have done."
"I don't see why not," said Mrs. Comfrey. "It would be ridiculous of Colonel Eldridge to object, and he'd have no grounds for it either."
Mr. Comfrey was a mild-mannered man, who took his opinions upon worldly affairs very much on his wife's recommendation; but as she took hers upon ecclesiastical affairs chiefly on his, he never felt his self-respect wounded by her somewhat peremptory methods. She was a short, broad woman with a somewhat masculine type of countenance, which, indeed, had been reproduced with surprising fidelity in her son. She might have been expected, from her appearance, to be immovable in whatever opinions she did hold, in face of whatever opposition. But she was very apt toweaken on them if they proved unwelcome to those with whom she wished to stand well. Perhaps if her husband had ever tried to controvert them he might have secured an occasional option upon views of his own; but he would have had to do so long before this, for by now she had established her ascendancy. Fred seemed to pay no respect to them at all, with the consequence that she often wavered before him. But they remained good friends. She admired her son, built in her own image, and, if he did not admire her, he liked her treatment of him since he had returned home, which was very different from what it had been when he was a boy.
Fred's whole attitude towards his home had changed since his boyhood. Hayslope was a college living, and a small one at the best of times. Mr. Comfrey, who had gained no particular scholastic honour, would not have been offered it if its emoluments had been enough to attract a bigger gun. He had scarcely any money of his own to supplement them, but his wife had brought him a few hundred a year, with which they had managed to get along. There had never been enough for anything but a skimped existence, and Fred had not enjoyed the same advantages as those of other sons of the clergy in the parishes around Hayslope, still less of the well-endowed laity. He had been glad enough to get away, at an early age, and not for some years had had any desire to come back again.
But after a time, his memories had softened. His home life had been dull and meagre, but the inconvenient, sparsely-furnished old house with its shadygarden gradually grew upon him during his hard exile; and all around it was the country in which he had tasted some of the delights which better-endowed youth enjoyed so fully. When he did come back he had money of his own. His mother made no difficulty about accepting a substantial payment from him for his board, which removed the effect of scraping from the Vicarage household arrangements; and he did pretty well as he liked at home, which he had never been allowed to do before. It was pleasant enough to idle there during the months of his convalescence, and to feel that he need not hurry them.
And there was the Hall, which had always provided him with an outlet into the kind of life denied to one of his parentage. If it had been a place of desire to him in his youth, it was a thousand times more so now, for it enshrined Pamela, who threw her sweet radiance upon everything about her.
For one who had lived roughly, as he had, and mostly with men for years past, it was a revelation of quietness and happiness to be taken in upon intimate terms to such a life as was led at the Hall. It was happiness of a sort that he had never imagined for himself. It was not entirely because of Pamela that he hugged himself upon the memory of those hours he had spent in the schoolroom, helping the children with their games, or of other hours in other rooms of the quiet, spacious house and in the summer playground of the garden. Love had softened this young man, not cut out by nature, it would have seemed, to tread the gentler ways of life. Love had transformed for him even the shabbyrooms and overshaded surroundings of his own home, since Pamela had enlightened them with her presence. He had thought of himself as staying there only so long as his health required it, and then leaving it again to plunge into the excitements of the career that he had marked out for himself. But still he lingered on, though now he was nearly strong again, and would soon be ready for the fray. He did not suppose that he would have any chance in the pursuit upon which his mind was set until he had something more definite than at present to lay before Pamela's parents; nor did he suppose himself as yet to have made any impression upon Pamela herself in the way he was determined upon. It would be better for him to go away for a time, and to come back every now and then with something done to recommend himself further to her and to her parents. But he could not bring himself to make plans to go away yet.
"Colonel Eldridge has never been consulted on the matter," said Fred, in answer to his mother's speech. "To my mind he has every right to object to the way in which he has been treated."
"It is difficult to get at the rights of the quarrel," said Mrs. Comfrey. "But we all know that Lord Eldridge, as I suppose we can call him now, isn't a quarrelsome man, and I'm sure nobody could call Lady Eldridge a quarrelsome woman."
Mr. Comfrey chipped in before Fred could speak. "I think it's a pity," he said, "to talk about a quarrel at all. There has been an unfortunate misunderstanding which I'm very sure will soon be cleared up."
"Therehasbeen a quarrel," Mrs. Comfrey pronounced, "and a pretty serious one. The two brothers are not on speaking terms. It's no good shutting your eyes to facts. I suppose we shall keep out of it as long as we can, but I think we shall have to take sides in it sooner or later, and I must say I'm inclined to take Lord Eldridge's side."
"Oh, my dear," expostulated the Vicar. "Don't talk about taking sides. I'msureit isn't necessary. We've always been good friends with both families. Do let us remain so, I beg of you."
"I agree with mother," said Fred, at which she brightened visibly, but drooped somewhat when he added: "There's enough to go on, and I'm on the side of the family at the Hall, all the way and all the time."
"Well, of course," said Mrs. Comfrey, "you have had the Hall almost as your second home all your life, and I suppose it's natural that you should think more of it than of the Grange, which is new since you went away. But there's no doubt that the Grange is a more important house now than the Hall, which isn't what it used to be and won't be again until Lord Eldridge succeeds his brother there."
Mr. Comfrey made a deprecatory gesture, and Fred said, rather roughly: "What do I care about all that?"
"What I mean," Mrs. Comfrey hastened to explain herself, "is that with your way to make in business, Lord Eldridge may be very useful to you, and it would be a pity to go against him. Of course, if Hugo hadn'tdied...! What I mean is that Colonel Eldridge isn't the chief man in Hayslope any longer, and...."
She tailed off ineffectively, but picked herself up to add: "Norman has taken the place that used to be Hugo's. You used to be great friends with Norman."
"I hate Norman," said Fred, "and always did. I dare say Sir William may be of use to me when I get started. I haven't lost sight of that. But I'm not going to pay too high a price for his help. The people at the Hall are my friends, and I'm not going back on them."
He was not offended by his mother's crudities, having nurtured himself on crudities and practised them, all his life. Nor was he going to make her partaker of his secret hopes, or even, if he could help it, give her cause for suspecting his desires. "Sir William was quite decent to me, when I saw him," he said, "and Lady Eldridge has asked me—once—to the Grange since I've been home. But look at the welcome they've given me at the Hall! I don't care much for female society; it's never been in my line. But as long as I'm living quietly here, I like to have the Hall to go to; and I believe Colonel Eldridge likes to see me there. I find plenty to talk to him about. No, I'm not going back on them."
Mrs. Comfrey expressed her appreciation of the nobility of this attitude. It had occurred to her once or twice that Fred might be attracted by Pamela, but the idea had taken no firm hold of her mind. She knew that he was not a lady's man, as he would have expressed it, and besides, the difference in social statusbetween the Eldridges and themselves had always been accepted by her, although she liked to make use of such phrases as, for instance, that the Hall had always been a second house to Fred. The Eldridges, living now in a far more restricted way than before, had come to have less value in her eyes; but they were still a good way above the level upon which Fred would be likely to look when thoughts of matrimony engaged him. His reference now to talks with Colonel Eldridge confirmed her view that he went to the Hall for the reasons that he said he did, and not for the sake of Pamela in particular. But she brought in Pamela's name, just to see how he would take it.
"Pamela being so thick with Norman," she said, "I dare say they will do more to keep the peace than even Lady Eldridge and Mrs. Eldridge."
"I shouldn't count too much on that if I were you," said Fred. "Pamela takes her father's side, and she's quite right too. I don't pretend to know what she thinks about it all, because I haven't asked her, but it's my opinion that she's getting a bit sick of Norman's swank. He's always been a sort of tin god to those girls, and now they're older they're getting tired of taking all their opinions from him. At least that's how it seems to me with Pam."
Mr. Comfrey arose apologetically from the table. "I think I'll leave you, if you don't mind," he said, and as they did not mind, he left them.
Fred's speech had been unconcerned enough until it had come to that last word. He had not been used to calling Pamela "Pam," and there was just a somethingin his voice to lead Mrs. Comfrey a little farther in her investigations. "Pamela has grown into a very pretty girl," she said. "I wonder if there is anything in what they say about her and Lord Horsham."
"It's not at all unlikely," said Fred, in such a tone as to remove the last traces of suspicion from her, though for his own comfort he allowed himself to add: "I don't thinkshehas any idea of it yet though."
"It would be a good match for her," said Mrs. Comfrey; which ended the conversation.
Half an hour later, Fred made his way to the Hall. It had been hard work for him to conduct himself thus unconcernedly with his parents, for something exciting was before him, on which all his mind had been working ever since he had last seen Pamela the evening before.
It was not true that he had not talked over the current affair with her. He had borne himself in such a way, with a mixture of reticence and sympathy, that she had first of all mentioned openly to him the fact of the dispute, which she had not intended to do, and had then discussed it with him in all its bearings. What he had told his mother of his being on the side of the Hall was entirely true, for he had shown himself such an ardent partisan that Pamela preferred him as a receptacle for her confidences to anybody else. So far, Colonel and Mrs. Eldridge had held to their custom of keeping their children out of such discussions. Their hold on it was already weakening, for it was becoming impossible to ignore the dispute altogether. Pamela and her mother had talked about it, but not yet without many reticences on Mrs. Eldridge's side. Pamelaand Judith had agreed that it was a nuisance. The children were supposed to know nothing. Miss Baldwin didn't count.
There remained Norman. Norman had behaved well about it, Pamela thought. At the very outset he had said to her that it was impossible for him and her to get at the rights of it, and that he didn't particularly want to. He looked up to his uncle almost as much as to his own father, and hated to think of either of them being discovered in the wrong. They, too, had better leave it out of account, and go on being pals as before. Then Norman had gone away on a visit, and had written to Pam, a long letter from a country house in which Lady Margaret Joliffe was also staying. He had written a good deal about her, but the most important of his statements was that there was another fellow there whose attritions she seemed to prefer to his. "My proud spirit won't brook rivalry," was his comment upon the situation. "I must be all or nothing. By the time I come home I shall be able to tell you whether I'm all or nothing." He had come home two days before, and had told her with a grin that his fate still hung in the balance; and she divined that that affair had passed its zenith, and would soon fade away like the rest.
Oh, if only this unhappy cleavage could have been mended, how pleased she would have been to have Norman back at Hayslope for the full month he now intended to stay there! His letter had been very grateful to her. No mention had been made of the trouble at home. He had written with his old-time affection,as if she were the one person in the world to whom he could go with everything, and to whom he wanted to go with everything. At that distance away, what he omitted from his letters may have seemed of small importance, but when he returned it could not be so. It was bound to come up between them sooner or later, and when it did come up they could no longer be absolutely frank and outspoken together. Each of them must be very careful not to say anything that could arouse opposition in the other.
For a fortnight had passed since the brothers had met and quarrelled, and nothing had been mended yet, though attempts had been made.
Sir William had written to Colonel Eldridge the next day, telling him first of all of the honour that was to be conferred on him, which he said he had intended to do the evening before. He regretted exceedingly what had passed between them, and if he had said anything in the heat of the moment that had offended his brother he regretted that too, and apologized for it. He had given careful consideration to his brother's demand that he should dismiss his head gardener, and, as he understood the demand, without giving the man the chance of defending himself against the accusation brought against him, and had decided not to act in a way that he thought would be arbitrary and unjust. But he had examined Coombe upon what he was reported to have said and had no doubt that it had been much exaggerated. Something Coombe had admitted to have said that was not respectful to Colonel Eldridge, after he had come down to where he was working and expressed hisannoyance at what was being done. Sir William hoped very much that his brother would take into consideration the fact, of which he seemed to have lost sight, that the slight put upon him, Sir William, in this expression of annoyance at what he was doing was considerable. He had not allowed Coombe to repeat to him what had actually been said to him, but had given him a pretty stiff rebuke for the disrespect he had admitted to. Might not this be allowed now to close the account? It was a most disagreeable thing for them to be at loggerheads in this way, after all the years of close intimacy that had existed between them and their families. For his part he was ready to forget all about it, the moment his brother gave him the chance.
To which Colonel Eldridge had replied shortly that he congratulated his brother upon the honour he was about to receive, and that he must abide by the stipulation he had made before they could return to their old terms with one another.
Then Lady Eldridge had gone to the Hall, and had a long conversation with him and his sister-in-law. Cynthia had seemed to want him to give way, but he had refused to do so, firmly though not with the slightest show of temper. He had, in fact, treated Lady Eldridge with the most courteous consideration, but he had put her in somewhat of a difficulty. "I don't think William sees the situation very clearly," he had said. "I haven't so many outside matters to occupy my thoughts as he has, and I do see it clearly. Have either of you ever expressed to one another this ideathat I am jealous of William's success in life, which has been so much greater than mine?"
She had cast down her eyes and there had been an awkward pause, which he had cut short by saying: "That feeling has never existed in my mind, and therefore I can't have shown it. That's what's between us, Eleanor—that unjust and damaging accusation. William sees nothing more than disrespect in what his servant said to me, but I see that accusation defended in him, and as long as he's here, allowed to spread unchecked. William can only put that right by dismissing Coombe. It's no good writing any more or talking any more until that's done."
So Coombe remained the obstacle to at least a formal reconciliation. For he did remain, and it may be supposed that his tongue was not idle in the village, where, however, he was not liked. Colonel Eldridge was; far more liked than his brother, in spite of Sir William's open-handed ways. He was stiff, but he was kind. He lived among his people, and they knew that he was interested in all of them, though he was never hail-fellow-well-met with anybody. There was growing up a strong body of support for him, in a controversy into which the village folk had a far clearer insight than might have been supposed. If he had escaped the jealousy that had been laid to his charge, they had not, on his account. It was hard lines that the Squire at the Hall should have to give up this and that that he'd always been accustomed to, and Sir William at the Grange should be rolling in money. It didn't seem right somehow. And the Colonel had been out andfought in the war, and lost his only son too, while Sir William had stopped at home and made money. No, it didn't seem right, did it? And now they'd gone and made him lord and all; and when the Colonel died he would step into the Hall, and Mrs. Eldridge and the young ladies would be turned out. And so he'd have everything, which didn't hardly seem fair, whichever way you looked at it.
That was the way the majority of opinion went, and when the affair at Barton's Close came to give point to it, crystallized into still sharper criticism. No wonder the Colonel had objected to that—money chucked away in cutting up good pasture, and more labour wanted for a garden that wouldn't be no use to anybody, while the garden at the Hall was run with two men short now, and the road through the park was getting into a dreadful state. It was generally supposed, and approved of, that Colonel Eldridge had peremptorily stopped the garden-making at Barton's Close. Quite right too! Time he stopped something! He hadn't thought of the men who'd lose their jobs by it; but see how he'd put that right! He hadn't wanted to spend the money on the road, but he wasn't one to see a man out of a job if he'd got one to give him. They'd work for him too, and at less wages than they could get working under a man like Coombe. Coombe ought to have been sent off for what he'd let out about the Colonel. It wasn't the way to talk, for a man who'd been brought into the place when there were other men there who could have done his job just as well as he could. Sir William would have sacked him too, ifhe'd done what he ought. They did say that he'd quarrelled with the Colonel for stopping him cutting up Barton's Close. Sir William was getting a bit too big for his boots. That was about the size of it, and it wouldn't do him any harm to be told so.
Thus the commonalty of Hayslope, not knowing everything that had passed, and splitting no hairs, but ready to endorse in their Squire a more unreasoned attitude than he had actually yet taken. It was not suspected, either at the Hall or the Grange how keen was the interest in the dispute, or even that it was known that the brothers were keeping apart; for there was still coming and going between the two houses as before, and a great carefulness that no significant word should be dropped before the servants. But Pamela, going about in the village, had sensed the feeling of expectation. Coombe, she felt sure, was still making mischief. If only Uncle William would send him away, there might be a chance of their all settling down again.
Treading very delicately, she put it to Norman. Couldn't they do something to find out what was going on? Uncle William wouldn't believe that Coombe had made mischief. But if it was proved to him that he had!
Norman took refuge in their compact, but in defence of it made it plain that he thought her father's demand unreasonable. This warned her that she mustn't look to him for any help now. He was on his father's side, as she was on hers. She couldn't blame him, but it was good-bye, for the present, to the freedom and confidence that had always existed betweenthem. She felt sad, when he had left her, but a little hurt with him too, because he had failed her.
Fred wouldn't fail her. He showed himself eager to help her in any way that she might suggest. What they were going to do this morning was to see old Jackson together, and get from him exactly what had happened at first, and what was happening now.
Old Jackson was in the gravel-pit, half a mile up the road from the lodge gates, which made a walk long enough for Fred to have thought over with fluttering anticipations, ever since Pamela had asked him to see Jackson with her. It was she who had suggested that it would be better to talk to him there rather than in the openness of the park, when the carts had brought down their loads.
They started off across the park by a footpath which led to the road higher up the hill. It was not the first time that Fred had been alone with her, but they had not been for a walk together before, as this ostensibly was. "We're going for a little walk," Pamela said, her stick in her hand, as they met her father coming along that very path, and he seemed to see nothing to remark in the thrilling fact. "Come back to lunch," he said to Fred. "There's something I want to consult you about."
Colonel Eldridge had treated Fred with a courtesy; that had gratified him exceedingly, and such an invitation would have given him food for pleasurable conjecture if his mind had not been full of something else. "Poor old Dad," said Pamela, when they left him and went on. "I suppose it's this horrid quarrel he wants to talk about. There's nobody he can unburden himselfto about it. I shall be glad if he does to you. You must encourage him to talk quite freely."
Yes, Fred would do that. Things were going extraordinarily well for him. It was a great deal to have Pamela confiding in him. He would hardly have been undergoing this moving intimate experience of a country walk with her, but for the disturbance in which Hayslope was involved. If they were also to bring him into close personal touch with her father, they would be doing him very good service.
Pamela moved along beside him in the active grace of her young girlhood, talking to him quietly and confidentially. He answered her in the same tone, alert to make the response that she would have him make; but only a part of his mind was upon the subject that alone held hers. The rest of it was in a ferment of incredulous wonder and self-gratulation. He stole a glance at her every now and then and wondered afresh at finding himself in this sort of companionship. Everything about her was fresh and sweet and virginal. In all his mean experience of sex he had never thought to have been so moved by the mere proximity of such a girl as this; in all his selfish, uninspired experience of life he had never thought to have been thrilled by a pure emotion. She made him hate the thought of evil, and turn away with disgust from his baser self. If he was ready to plot and scheme to get her, and would not be too particular what weapons he used if it came to a fight, once having made her his own, he would tend the spiritual flame that she had lighted in him. Already he was a better man because of her. He knewit and rejoiced in it, who had not previously desired to be anything better than he was.
They left the park and went for a short distance up the shady road, to where a track ran off among the trees to the shallow pit at the end of it. The rich red gravel lay in ruled banks and mounds where it had been dug out, and the men who were working at it were filling the two carts which were to carry it down to the park. Old Jackson was working as hard as anyone, as well as directing it all. He was a fine figure of a man, with his upright sinewy frame kept supple by use. His face had that delicacy of line and feature which is to be found among the true sons of the soil, perhaps as often as the result of generations of blue blood. His eyes were clear and keen, with a look in them not far removed from the innocent look of a child. Such men as he may take orders from others all their lives, but they never lose their dignity of manhood.
The carts were nearly filled. Fred and Pamela waited until they were ready to be moved, and then Fred told Jackson that they wanted to speak to him. Would he send the carts on and stay behind for a few minutes?
He gave the orders and returned to them, putting on his coat. "Have you got a pipe?" asked Fred, offering him his opened tobacco pouch; but with a glance at Pamela he refused. Fred put the pouch back into his pocket, and his own pipe with it, and began rather hurriedly: "Miss Eldridge wants to ask you a few questions. Perhaps you know that there's some misunderstanding between Colonel Eldridge and SirWilliam about Coombe, Sir William's gardener. If you can tell her exactly what happened when Colonel Eldridge came down to Barton's Close, she thinks she may be able to do something to straighten it all out. She'll see you don't suffer from anything you tell her."
Some such opening had been agreed upon between them, but Pamela's brows came slightly together at the last sentence. "I do want to know exactly what Coombe did say," she added. "I know you didn't like his talking as he did about father, so I thought you'd help us about it if you could."
The old man looked away. There was something pathetic in his expression of patience and slight puzzlement. "I told the Colonel," he said slowly. "He's always been a kind master to me, and I'm glad to be took on by him again."
"Yes, you wouldn't like to hear him spoken against," said Fred. "Sir William wouldn't either, if he knew of it. But Coombe seems to be a clever sort of man in the mischief he makes, and he's persuaded Sir William that he didn't say anything that could be objected to. But you heard him, didn't you?"
The blue eyes came slowly round to Fred and rested on him again, and did not leave him this time. "I don't know as I want to make that known to all and sundry," said old Jackson. "There's a many asks me, but I say to them as I say to you, that the Colonel's been a good master to me, and I don't like such things said."
Pamela understood him and said quickly, before Fred could speak: "You don't want to repeat it, do you? I'm glad you don't. But...."
"But there are others who heard it," said Fred. "And it must have been put about all over the place. You won't do Colonel Eldridge any harm by telling us."
The old man's face changed slightly as he looked at Pamela. "Don't you go for to mix yourself up in it, Missy," he said. "Nobody scarcely don't pay attention to what that there Coombe says about the Colonel. He don't come from these parts, and we knows the Colonel." He turned to Fred again. He seemed to have found his speech now. "'Tain't for the likes of Miss Pamela to be mixed up in it. What comes to your ears here and there you keep to yourself, or say to others, and not to her. None of us who belongs to Hayslope don't want the young ladies mixed up in this."
Fred ignored the rebuke, which struck him unpleasantly. "Well, I belong to Hayslope too, you know," he said, "though I've been away from it for a good many years."
"What's for the likes of us ain't for the likes of her," returned the old man, looking full at him. Then he looked again at Pamela. "Don't you mix yourself up in it, Missy," he said, in the almost caressing tone which he had used towards her before. "I'll get along down to the road now."
He took a step away from them and then turned round again. "I said to young Norman yesterday," he said, "'if you want to hear the rights of it,' I said, 'you can ask Dell or Chambers,' I said.He'lltell you, Missy. 'I won't have nothing more to do with it,' I said. 'You can ask Dell or Chambers.'"
Fred's face wore a disagreeable look as he frowned after the old man's broad back. As a boy he had played with the village lads, and held a sort of leadership among them, but more because of his athletic prowess than from any recognition on their part of his superior station. The elders of the village, recognizing his rough clay, had paid him hardly more respect than if he were one of their own sons. It was plain that Jackson considered that no more was owing to him now. If not quite one of themselves, he was not for a moment to be counted as of the elect.
Had Pamela understood the snub that the old man had given him? He smoothed away the frown and turned quickly to her. But she was looking down, and on her face there was a frown too of perplexity.
"Norman has been asking him questions," she said.
"Norman," he said. "I wonder why. And I suppose he went to those other two men. Of course they'll tell him anything he wants to hear."
She did not quite like this. She started to walk along the track, Fred at her side, his brain working quickly. "I think the old man is right," he said. "You ought not to be mixed up in this—not in the way of asking questions yourself, I mean. Let me ask them for you. Very likely, if I'd had old Jackson alone, I could have got something out of him. I'm quite sure I can out of those other two, and it's important I should, now that the enemy has got to work."
She looked at him with an expression that he had not seen on her face before, and instantly regretted having called up. "Norman isn't an enemy," she said. "If hehas been asking questions, it is because he wants to get it all cleared up, as much as we do."
"Oh, yes," he said evenly. "I didn't mean anything else. But it would be only natural that he should want to see his father justified. Much better get at it from another side. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll see these men in their dinner hour. I don't suppose it will take very long to get it out of them. Then I'll come straight up to the Hall, and I shall be able to tell you before lunch."
"I'm not sure I wouldn't rather see Norman first," she said; but she said it rather doubtfully. Norman might have told her that he was going to make inquiries on his own account, instead of saying that neither he nor she could do anything. Fred had offended her in calling him the enemy, but he was probably right in attributing some bias to Norman. She did not disguise from herself her own bias, and when Fred said again that it would be better to get the story for themselves, she acquiesced.
"I'll go now," he said, when they came to the gate that led into the park. "It's nearly a quarter to twelve, and I shall catch them coming back. I want to go home first."
It cost him something to leave her; there would have been plenty of time to walk with her to the Hall and back to the village by twelve o'clock. But he knew he could not trust himself to hide his antagonism to Norman, if she were to discuss his intervention further. He did not want to arouse that defensive and offended look in her face again. When he next met her heexpected to have firmer ground under his feet. She was already a little doubtful of Norman. He wasn't in the least doubtful. Of course Norman was gathering material for his side; if not he would have told Pamela what he was going to do. Probably he would tell her, when he had done it; but Fred would have told her first. He had a score to wipe off against Norman.
He did not go to the Vicarage, but to the Hayslope Arms, where he was quite accustomed to making himself at home. On his first arrival at Hayslope he had frequented it, picking up old acquaintances there, and establishing himself as one who had made his way in the world but had not become proud on that account. The men who had been boys with him liked him well enough, and he was free with his money. When all his thoughts had become centred on Pamela, he had left off going there; the contrast between what had satisfied him in the way of company and what was open to him at the Hall was too great. He felt some slight repugnance now as he entered the sanded bar; but he was keen in spite of it, for he realized that the book of the village gossip was open to him whenever he liked to dip into it, and that if he had not of late cut himself off from his old associates he might have had much material to manipulate. But it would be easy to pick it all up, and Norman had no such chances, though those who came in contact with him liked him.
Pamela took a book into the garden, to a seat which commanded a view of the drive, and waited with what patience she could muster. She felt a little guilty, but allowed no patience with herself over that. It seemedto be she alone who could straighten out this tangle, which was making her father so sad that it wrung her heart to see him. His dejected look when he thought himself unobserved, still more his forced cheerfulness with his children—oh, it was sad to see! And she loved him; she thought she loved him better than anybody in the world, better even than her mother, over whom she was rather puzzled at this time. Her mother never allowed herself to be unduly perturbed about anything, and met her own troubles with a whimsical philosophy which Pamela had admired greatly, since she had been old enough to see that they were such as many women would have made themselves miserable over. Certainly she had lightened the burdens that her husband had had to bear, by showing herself happy with what was left to her, and encouraging her children to do the same. She and Pam had often talked that over together. They were never to let him see that they missed anything, and her mother would never acknowledge to her that she did miss anything.
But in this new trouble that admirable spirit of cheerfulness hardly seemed adequate, or even suitable. Pam knew that her mother and her aunt had essayed to put it right, but not having been able to do so they seemed to accept it, and to want as much to be together as before. Pam was beginning to think that such an intimacy could only be possible if it was agreed that neither side was more worthy of blame than the other. Did her mother take that view? Pamela couldn't. There might be two sides to the quarrel, but what mattered was that it bore far more hardly upon the onethan upon the other. She had seen that quite plainly for herself. Her father was depressed and saddened by it. Her uncle seemed to have put it aside altogether. He had been more than usually kind and affectionate to her on the one occasion on which she had been to the Grange since the split, obviously with the intention of showing himself so. But he had also been in more than usual high spirits. Of course he was pleased about his peerage and all that! And it was nice of him—perhaps—to want to show her that the quarrel had made no difference in his feelings towards any of them, except one. But she, at least, could not dissociate herself from that one; it seemed a disloyalty to go to the Grange and to be treated by Uncle William as if nothing had happened, while he stayed at home, alone and sad, because so much had happened. Uncle William was far more free with his expressions of affection than her father had ever been. His manner to his brother had always seemed to show great affection, and she had never doubted that he felt it towards him. But it was he who was showing himself almost unaffected by the estrangement, while her father was feeling it deeply.
The decision was growing up in her mind to talk to her uncle herself. That was why she wanted to find out more than she knew already of what had actually happened. She knew that her father made a point of Coombe's dismissal. If she could go to him and tell him why she thought he ought to give way...! It would be greatly daring, on the ground she had always occupied with him, when apparently her mother,who must have made some appeal, had failed to move him. But she knew that her mother had taken no steps to find justification for her father's attitude. Nobody seemed to have thought of doing that except herself—unless it was Norman. But she could not be sure of Norman, yet, though she was quite unwilling to take Fred's view of his investigations.
She saw Fred's figure top the little rise in the drive which hid the lodge from where she was sitting, and her eyes rested upon it as it approached and grew larger, with a gaze of inquiry, almost of exploration. She had not been unaffected by Norman's freely expressed dislike of Fred; but in a matter of this sort she must abide by her own knowledge and observation. Fred had been rather a horrid sort of boy, but that ought not to tell against him if he had turned himself into rather a good sort of man. She thought he had, though there seemed to be a common streak in him which slightly offended her sometimes. But surely a man who was not "nice," after all the hard experiences he had undergone, would not have shown himself so appreciative of the quiet domestic life that they lived at the Hall. She knew, of course, that he admired her, and probably frequented the Hall largely on her account. But his liking had never shown itself in a way to make her take counsel of herself; and that was another point in his favour. Her father liked him, and evidently trusted him, or he would not have wanted to consult him about something, as he was about to do. And he was whole-hearted in his defence of her father. That was more in his favour than anything else. It was enough, at anyrate, for the present. She rose and went to meet him, not without eagerness.
They went back to her seat and he told her what he had discovered, but not how or where he had discovered it.
The gist of it—very carefully imparted, so that at no point could she take umbrage at it—was that Norman had been making his inquiries with the quite obvious intention of proving that nothing had been said that it was worth making such a fuss about. The two men, indeed, who did not belong to the village, now denied stoutly that Coombe had gone beyond a very mild protest at the work being stopped. They seemed to be in with Coombe again and it was quite likely that they were expecting well-paid work from him, when they had got through with their present job. Their denials had been so obviously insincere that it was scarcely worth while wasting time with them. Fred would not suggest who had primed them, but it was quite plain that they were saying only what they were expected to say, and would stick to it.
"If it is so," Pam said, "it must be Coombe who is priming them. Of course he would want as little made of it as possible."
Fred thought this very likely—with a reluctant air that seemed to indicate that he knew better, but didn't want to say so.
"Pegg, the other man, tells a different story," he said, and repeated to her some of the things that had been said by Coombe about her father, which made her blush hot with resentment. "Did Norman talk to him?" she asked.
"Yes."
"And did he tell him that?"
"Well, no, he didn't."
"Why not? Do tell me everything." She was becoming impatient over his hesitations.
He plumped it out: "Because he saw that it wouldn't be well received. These men know on which side their bread's buttered, and they are not going to give themselves away. Even Old Jackson—he's working for your father now, and hopes to be kept on, but he doesn't want to offend Sir William. None of them do. Pegg hopes to be kept on here too, I think, and he doesn't mind giving Coombe away, but he isn't going to give him away to Norman. That's how it is, and it's no good hiding it. I don't know what Norman really wants, but it's quite plain what these menthinkhe wants, and that's to back up his side of the quarrel. Everybody knows there is a quarrel now, and nearly everybody is on our side. I've found that out. I think you must leave Norman out of it, if you're to do any good."
She thought this over, but made no reply. "Is Coombe still making mischief?" she asked.
"He's rather frightened, I think, and has kept his mouth shut lately; but everybody knows that he would do Colonel Eldridge any injury that he could. They think he ought to be got rid of. He's a bad influence in the place."
Pamela rose. "It's nearly lunch time," she said. "Thank you very much for helping me. I must think what to do."