Lady Eldridge came over to the Hall the next morning. Mrs. Eldridge received her with bright amiability. On the surface they were friends as before, but the desire for one another's company was less. They had not quarrelled and would not quarrel, but each of them knew now that the other had espoused the quarrel, and that it was beyond their powers to end it.
Lady Eldridge had brought news. William had taken a shooting in Suffolk, and she was going to join him there immediately, to get ready for their first party, to which, however, she had brought no invitation. "It has all been rather sudden," she said with a smile. "But William is like that. It is very good partridge country. He heard that the shoot was to be let, and ran down to see about it. It seemed to be just what he wanted, so he closed with them at once."
"Lord Crowborough told Edmund yesterday that he was buying a place in Suffolk," said Mrs. Eldridge. "Well, my dear, it will be dreadful to lose you, but under the circumstances at present I'm afraid we shouldn't get much pleasure out of one another here. Perhaps it's the best thing. Are you going to move your furniture there?"
"But William hasn't bought the place," said Lady Eldridge. "It is extraordinary what tales get about.He has only taken it for the season, furnished, of course. It's a very nice house, and his idea is that we shall go there this winter when we are not in London. But there is no idea of our giving up the Grange. I hope we shall be here next summer, and that everything will be happy again between us."
"I hope it will be," said Mrs. Eldridge with a sigh; "and I wish we didn't have to wait until next summer for it. Little things always seem to be happening to put us farther apart, and nothing ever happens to bring us closer together."
"There is one little thing that may help. William is sending Coombe up to Eylsham. A head gardener is wanted there, and he has got him the place. He won't come back here, even when our tenancy there ends."
So there was that trouble removed, but too late for it to have much effect. Colonel Eldridge, when he heard of it, expressed a modified satisfaction. "I'm glad to get the fellow out of the place," he said, "though I think the mischief he may have done is at an end. People here have taken his measure, and he doesn't seem to have turned anybody against me. It has happened to suit William to clear him out of here; if he had meant to satisfy me by doing it he'd have done it in a different way."
He expressed some doubt, also, as to whether Lord Crowborough's story wasn't true after all. "Eleanor hasn't seen him for a fortnight or more," he said. "She only knows what he has written to her. We know that the placeison the market. Very likely hehas taken it for a time to see how it suits him; and if it does he will buy it. He hasn't told Eleanor that yet. I don't know that I've any reason to complain about it, if it is so. I suppose he wants landed property to support his new title, and he wouldn't be content to wait for Hayslope. My life is pretty well as good as his. At any rate there's no definite point in dispute left now between us. There's no need for him to turn his back on me any longer."
"Wouldn't he expect you to take the first step towards a reconciliation now?"
"I dare say he would. But I'm not going to do it. What grounds should I have to go on? There aren't any. At the same time, ifheputs out any feelers, I shan't reject them. For one thing it is getting very tiresome to have to arrange things that he and I are both concerned in through lawyers, and absurdly expensive, too. Of course that doesn't matter to him, but every penny matters to me now. There are all sorts of little points that a few words between us would settle, and I've got to make a formal business of correspondence with all of them. If he no longer has any feeling for me as a brother, there's no reason for him to treat me as an enemy."
He had not mentioned to his wife that Lord Crowborough was going to try to put matters straight between him and his brother, but it was very much in his mind. He was beginning to have an uneasy feeling that if he had held himself a little less stiffly no estrangement need have occurred. He had been right, he thought, in every point of their dispute, and hisbrother wrong, but looking back upon it all there was nothing that should have led to an actual state of enmity between them. The results of that state were pressing hardly upon him. There was a great deal of business in connection with the estate to which William was now the next heir that had been made easy by their meeting so often and being so of accord in what should be done. It had to be recognized too that, in spite of his determination to carry out his own obligations to the full, William had done much to grease the wheels. If he had never allowed him to pay money that was not actually due from him, a considerable saving had been made in his own expenditure by William's ready, open-handed ways. He was not sure, either, that William had not actually paid a good deal here and there that was not strictly due from him. He seemed to have been clever in getting over objections on his part, and making it all appear natural and business-like. You might say what you pleased about money not mattering much to him, and about his taking a pride in playing the bountiful; but it would be ungracious to look upon that side only, and to ignore the undoubted generosity of his dealings, and especially the impulse to cover it up. It was that generosity which Colonel Eldridge was missing now, even more than the tangible results of it, though the lack of them was making his days dark and anxious. In fact, he was beginning to miss William, though he had given Lord Crowborough to understand that he could do very well without him for the future.
Lord Crowborough lost no time in putting his goodintention to the proof. He was seriously disturbed at the state of things revealed to him by his old friend. He had not thought that the quarrel had gone nearly so far nor so deep. In talking it over with Lady Crowborough, he expressed himself doubtful about being able to do much to mend matters. "William has put Edmund's back up," he said, "and I'm not altogether surprised at it. Still, Edmund is ready to make friends if William gives him a chance. At least, he is quite willing to meet him again; and if they come together I expect theywillmake friends."
"I think it is all very absurd," said Lady Crowborough. "I feel quite sure that Colonel Eldridge is in the wrong from beginning to end, and I very nearly told him so this afternoon."
"But, my dear, you didn't know anything about it this afternoon."
"Oh, yes, I did. I knew there was something amiss. It was as much as I could do to be civil to Colonel Eldridge; he is so obstinate and wrong-headed. She backs him up, too, though she pretends to be all sweetness and reasonableness. I'm sorry for her though, for I'm afraid they have very little money now, and are going through a bad time. I was a good deal more friendly to her this afternoon than I felt like, because of that; and I must keep in with her because of Pamela."
"Why because of Pamela?"
"Well, I hadn't meant to say anything to you yet, but I don't seem to be able to keep anything to myself. Jim is in love with Pamela. She's a very sweet girl, though her parents are rather tiresome. I don't seeany reason to object. Jim might marry somebody of higher rank or with more money, but we're not worldly, as I told Mrs. Eldridge, and if he has set his heart on Pamela I'm not sorry for it."
"You told Mrs. Eldridge? You talked that over together?"
"Well, and why not? Of courseshewould like it. As she said, with four daughters and two of them grown up, it was time to think about marriage for them."
"Did she really say that?"
"Not in so many words, perhaps, but that was what she meant. You wouldn't object to Jim marrying Pamela, would you?"
"No, I shouldn't object," said Lord Crowborough, after a pause of consideration. "I think I should be rather glad. Pamela is a very charming girl. But I doubt if there's anything in it all the same. I happened to notice that Jim wasn't much with her this afternoon. He was much more with little Judith, and they seemed to be getting on extraordinarily well together. Oddly enough, it did cross my mind that something might come out of that by and by."
"It's curious you should say so, because that is what Mrs. Eldridge seemed to be hinting at. She never says anything straight out. However, we shall see. She was very anxious that we should get up a picnic. I think her idea was to help matters on, though she wouldn't have acknowledged that. I shouldn't have taken to the suggestion if I had seen any reason why matters shouldn't be helped on. I should be rather disappointedif it is Judith and not Pamela. But we shall see. I shall let Mrs. Eldridge have her picnic, and we shall see what comes of it. Then we shall know what to do."
Lord Crowborough met Lord Eldridge in London by appointment. He went up for the day, on purpose to do so. It was a little unfortunate that Lord Eldridge's engagements prevented his accepting an invitation to lunch, for a more leisured conversation in a mellower atmosphere than that of his office in the City might have led to more satisfactory results.
For the mission was a failure. "I shan't take any further steps," said Lord Eldridge; firmly. "It's very kind of you to want to bring us together again, and as far as I'm concerned I'm not going to keep up a feud. You can tell Edmund that, if you like. But it's he who has created the feud, and if he wants it ended it's for him to make the advance. I've done every mortal thing that he has wanted me to do, unreasonable as well as reasonable, and it has been of no use. There's nothing more left for me to do."
"Well, there was something—he didn't tell me what it was—that he thought you might have done. But he said he didn't mind now whether you did it or not."
"Yes, exactly. That's how it goes all the time. I don't wonder he didn't tell you what it was.Idon't mind telling you. I was to dismiss my head gardener, out of hand, at a word from him. I didn't see any reason to do it, when I had looked into the complaint, which I did do. But I have taken the man away from Hayslope, and got him another job, solely and entirelyto remove that cause of complaint. And now I'm told he doesn't mind whether I do it or not. Why, he made it the final cause of the split between us! He wouldn't come to my house again as long as that man was there. I haven't seen him since, and really, Crowborough, I don't want to see him. I don't know what has come over him, but there's nothing one can do to placate him. I'm not going to take any more trouble about it." He turned sharply round in his chair. "What the devilisit that he complains of?" he asked in a tone of strong irritation. "I'm just what I've always been to him. We've always got on well together up till now."
"Well, he says that you'renotjust the same," said Lord Crowborough, with weighty insistence. "And I'm not sure that you are, you know, William. Of course you've got a deal more money than most of us, and that seems to be complicating things at Hayslope."
"Complicating things! I'll tell you this, that Edmund will find things a good deal more complicated without my money to help him along. He's got no head for business, not even estate business, which he thinks he knows all about. I don't think he has the least idea what a help I've been to him over that. I've been rather keen that he shouldn't know. But now that it will all be on his own shoulders I think he'll find his troubles increasing on him pretty heavily."
"Well, do you want that, William? Do you want that?"
Lord Crowborough had scored there. "No, I don't want it," said Lord Eldridge in a tone that wasalmost sulky. "At least, I don't want him to be pushed up into a corner. I don't think it will do him any harm to get some idea of what I've really done for him during these last few years, all the same."
"I know how generous you have been, my dear fellow. I know that we were never to mention what you did over that unpleasant business of Hugo's with Horsham, butIshall never forget it."
"I saved Edmund trouble and disgrace over that, didn't I? I'd have done anything to prevent his knowing what a young scoundrel Hugo really was. I was going to say, what a lot of thanks I get for it; but of course he doesn't know. I haven't told you, because I haven't seen you since, that I had a reminder of that business the other day. I tried to warn Edmund of what might be coming, but he wouldn't even listen to me. Apparently nothinghashappened yet, and I hope nothing will."
"What is it? I thought that was all over and done with."
"So did I. But do you remember young Barrett, who was one of them that evening, and was killed at the same time as Hugo?"
"I remember his name."
"His mother wrote and asked me to go and see her. She thought Hugo was my son, as it turned out, fortunately for Edmund, or he would have had the story. She had found among his papers an I. O. U. of Hugo's for four hundred pounds, and a statement written by himself of exactly what had happened on that night. It was a pretty damaging indictment. Although I hadknown it all through, it made me ashamed to read it."
"What kind of a woman can she be to want to show that to the boy's father, after he had been killed?"
"Oh, I ought to have told you that she didn't show me the paper until she knew that I wasn't his father. It was the I. O. U. that she wanted to talk about. She's an emotional, I should say rather hysterical sort of woman. It's possible she might have shown Edmund the paper, if he had been there instead of me; but she hadn't meant to do so when she wrote. She didn't know what to do about the I. O. U. She had thought of destroying it, but couldn't make up her mind what to do. I offered to settle it then and there, but she wouldn't let me. She has plenty of money, and when it came to the point I think she was rather ashamed at the idea of taking it. I suppose she really wanted the luxury of a little fuss, and if she was going to behave generously about it, to let it be known, at any rate to Hugo's people. I couldn't do anything with her except that I think I made her understand that it wouldn't do her son's name any good to have it known. So I suppose she'll keep quiet. I tried to make her see that it would be a cruel thing, as you said just now, to trouble Hugo's father. I told her that he didn't know the worst, though I did, and you did, and that I had settled it, as far as it could be settled. She seemed to accept it all, and to be glad that her mistake had prevented her from doing something she might have regretted. But I can't feel sure about her. He was her only son; she wants to keep him alive in some way. Isaw that she sent a subscription of a hundred pounds to some charity, in his name, only a few days ago. You never know where you are with a woman like that. I've done all that I can."
"Poor old Edmund! It would be a sad thing if he had to know about it after all."
"Yes; I don't think it will happen. I don't in the least think it will happen. She'll let me know if she wants the money. She practically promised me that. I'm rather glad now that Edmund did prevent my warning him about it. I had just come from her, and I felt doubtful as to what she would do. I shouldn't have told him everything—only something that would have broken the shock to him if it had come. But it's weeks ago now. She's apparently decided not to do anything. I think the danger is past."
"It looks like it; and I'm very glad of it. Poor Edmund! He clings to that boy's memory, though I'm afraid he'd have given him nothing but trouble if he'd lived. You've been very good, William, in keeping the worst of it from him. You've done it even since you quarrelled with him. Now look here—can't you carry it a bit further and make friends with him again?"
"Oh, I'm quite ready to make friends with him if he wants it. I've told you so. But as for taking the first step, which I suppose is what you want me to do, I tell you I'm tired of taking first steps. When this absurd dispute began, I put aside one offence after the other from him, and acted on what I thought was beneath it all—I mean the very thing you rely on—our always having got on well together as brothers andall that.Hedidn't rely on that. Every step I took was made the basis of further offence. No, I'm not going out on that road again. If he wants me he knows well enough how to get me."
"My dear fellow, I dare say you're in the right and he's in the wrong—all the way through if you like. But it's a question of acting generously."
"I've tried to do that. But when your generosity is thrown back in your face time after time—! No, it's no good, Crowborough. I'm ready to put it all aside and begin again; but I'm not going to make any more advances."
With this Lord Crowborough had to be content. He made the most of it to Colonel Eldridge. William was quite ready to return to their former relations, but he was still sore about the way in which his efforts at reconciliation had been rejected, as he considered. Couldn't Edmund himself write something that would put it right? He felt sure that William would respond.
"I'll think about it," said Colonel Eldridge. "I'm not going to do anything in a hurry."
He thought about it very carefully. He wanted to have it over. William had said he was ready to have it over; but did he really want it, in the same way, or didn't he much care? His whole attitude now seemed to show that he hardly cared at all. He was leaving Hayslope and all his interests there, which had been much to him. Now, besides all the other interests of his successful life, they counted for very little, and he, his brother, was just part of them. If he were to putaside his resentments, which still caused him acute annoyance when he remembered their successive occasions, and to make some advance towards reconciliation, wouldn't it be taken as just an indication that he had found himself unable to do without William's assistance and was ready to eat humble pie in order to get it again?
No, he couldn't do it. William would no doubt respond effusively. He would pretend that nothing had ever happened, and behave with that excessive brotherliness which he had always found it difficult to respond to, though he had valued it as expressing the feeling which he had also cherished. With the memory of all that would have to be ignored still fresh in his mind, he knew that he could not meet that attitude graciously—not for some time to come. It would be a false intimacy to which he would be immediately invited; not false, perhaps, on William's part, because with all his late offences endorsed, and the excitements of his life taking up most of his attention, he would be relieved to be able to give his impulses play; but certainly false on his part, who must have time in which to get back to the old terms.
What he would do—and it would be a great concession—would be to write directly to William upon some subject with which they had been dealing through their lawyers. That would be a beginning, from which they could gradually proceed to something more; and in time the past would be forgotten. It was the only way. Neither of them would be climbing down, and there would be no chance of still further misunderstandings,from a correspondence about a dispute upon which they would never agree.
Yes, he would do that without delay. Perhaps the process towards complete reconciliation would not be too protracted. His spirits rose when he thought of that.
They had just finished lunch at the Hall. Pamela was wondering rather disconsolately what she should do with herself for the afternoon. The times seemed out of gear. There was the Grange half a mile away, to which she was accustomed to repair if there seemed to be nothing particular to do at home. Aunt Eleanor was there. She had come over this morning, but Pamela had not seen her, and she had made no suggestions for meeting later in the day. Norman was there, with his two friends. He might bring them over some time during the afternoon; she had half expected that he would do so during the morning; but perhaps they had been reading, as they called it. Eric Blundell, the one who had talked to her most the afternoon before at Pershore Castle had told her that they intended to read very hard during their stay at the Grange. Norman had been excessively annoyed with her when she had last seen him, but his annoyance seldom lasted long. He would surely want to have it out with her! She would rather enjoy that. Anything to escape from this deadly blight which seemed to be settling down on them all!
She had stepped out of the window of the dining-room after lunch, and was standing there, when she saw Norman coming towards her from among the trees. He was alone. He must have hurried over his lunch, andleft his friends upon some pretext. Perhaps he had done that so as to have it out with her. She brightened, but did not go forward to meet him.
He waved his stick to her, in his usual manner, when he saw her, and there was no sign of annoyance on his face as he approached. That was one thing that was rather nice about Norman. If he ever lost his temper, as he did occasionally, he recovered it very quickly.
"We're going off for a joy-ride," he called out, as he came up to her. "I've come to fetch you."
"Who is going?" she asked, "and where?"
"Just we three bright young sparks, and you. We're going in Eric Blundell's car. She's a flier, but she only holds four, sitting rather snug, or we'd have asked Judy. He wants to go and see some cousins who live at Medchester. It's about forty miles there and another forty back, so we ought to start at once. Are you on?"
She was on; and soon they were walking down the wood together.
"I say, old girl," said Norman, as soon as they started, "I was rather shirty with you yesterday, and I'm afraid I showed it. I'm sorry. You won't have it up against me, will you?"
"You didn't like me taking notice of Fred Comfrey, I suppose."
"You've hit it. I always say you can see a thing as quick as anybody, and I'll maintain that against all and sundry."
He seemed to be in high spirits. It was grateful to Pamela to find him like that, and relieved some of her soreness. "Fred Comfrey is going away this afternoon,"she said. "He came up to say good-bye this morning."
"Did he? Well, we must try to bear up under it. Is he coming back to-morrow afternoon?"
"No, he isn't. He's going to London to start work again. So you won't have to lose your temper any more because of him."
"No. That's such an advantage, isn't it? I hate losing my temper, especially with you. It wastes such a lot of time."
"You're very foolish to have done it at all. You know I don't really like him much; but I can't treat him rudely, just to please you."
Norman became a shade graver. "I said to myself that you couldn't really like him," he said. "But I'm gladyou'vesaid it too. You see, Pam, when you think a lot of a girl, as I do of you—I mean when you put her high—you don't like seeing her make friends with somebody miles below her. That's really how it was when I saw you going off with that creature; but of course I was an ass to get shirty about it. You see, old girl, it means nothing to you. I know that. But probably it means a good deal to him, and you give him a handle. You can't afford to give handles to people like that. At least—no; I didn't mean to say that. I'm not going to lecture you about it. You do exactly what you like, and I'm sure it will be all right."
"Well, it's self-denying of you not to want to lecture me about it; and I think you can trust me too. Talking about it at all makes it of too much importance. So let's leave off. There are other things to talk about,and I shouldn't have been sorry to have had an opportunity of doing it yesterday."
"Ah! Well, I wasn't ready to talk about those other things yesterday. Now I am. In fact it's what I came over to do, and I had some trouble to prevent those other lads from coming with me. We've got plenty of time. Let's sit down here and discuss the situation."
They had come to the stile leading to the meadows. Norman perched himself upon it. Pamela stood in front of him, with some indecision in her face. She was not quite prepared for a full-dress debate, and the afternoon's pleasure was in front of her. "I thought you said we must start at once," she said.
"That was camouflage. I told Castor and Pollux that we'd start in half an hour. I gave them two glasses of port each to keep them quiet. What I've got to tell you won't take long. It's chiefly that I investigated that business of Coombe for myself, as the governor didn't seem to be giving it enough attention. I think Uncle Edmund made a bit too much of it, because it hasn't really done him any harm; in fact, I think it has rallied the enlightened electorate of Hayslope to him. At the same time the fellowhadtried to make mischief, and I think the governor ought to have sent him away for it. I told him so, in a letter written under my own hand and seal, and I got his reply this morning. I'm glad to say that he had come to the same conclusion himself, and Mr. Coombe departs immediately. So that ought to end it, oughtn't it, Pam?"
"I'm very glad you did that, Norman," said Pamela, looking down. "I knew you were trying to find outsomething, but— Oh, Iamso glad." She looked up at him, smiling.
"Dear old girl," he said affectionately. "You set Master Comfrey on to it, didn't you? Well, I'm not going to say any more about that. We can forget all the disagreeables now—I'm afraid I must continue to think Master Comfrey one of them—and be as we were. I think we ought to be moving on now, or Castor-oil and Pole-ax will be getting restive. I say, mother told you about the shoot in Suffolk, didn't she? It's a topping place. I expect the governor will want to ask Uncle Edmund to come up and blaze at 'em directly they've made it up. You'll have to come too. It's a good big house, and we shall be able to put up lots of bright spirits."
"Oh, it will be heavenly to get all this trouble over," said Pamela, as they walked on together. "You can't think how glad I am. It's like a great weight lifted off me."
"I know. They're both of them a bit touchy; but they're good sorts. I knewwecould put it right if we took it in hand. I wanted to tell you what I'd done yesterday; but I thought it would come better if I could tell you that it was all finished with."
"Oh, Norman, I'm afraid I was rather horrid. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about asking Fred to help me too. But let's forget all about him, and about it, and enjoy ourselves. It will be rather fun this afternoon, won't it? I feel I canreallyenjoy myself now."
She chatted on gaily as they climbed up through the wood at the Grange garden, and hardly left off chatteringand laughing as preparations and adjustments were made for their drive, and she was packed into the front seat beside the owner of the car. It was Norman's suggestion that she should keep company with his friend Blundellovitch on the outward journey and with his friend Pollocksky on the homeward. But he altered this arrangement on the return, and insisted upon sitting behind with her himself. "She's my cousin and not yours," was his argument, "and I find I've got a lot to say to her."
For a good many months afterwards Pamela looked back upon that expedition as the last entirely happy time she had had. It seemed as if the troubles that had been darkening her home life increasingly of late had all been swept away, for she had no doubt then that her father and her uncle would immediately compose their differences, and the close intimacy between the two families would go on as before. It had not occurred to her that the Grange would be completely unoccupied. Her uncle and aunt had often been away, for many weeks together, and she had sometimes been with them, in the South of France or in Scotland, or elsewhere. It would be fun to go to the house in Suffolk; she had not been away from home for a long time, and change was agreeable to her, especially in that company.
So she gave herself up to the enjoyment of the hour, and was sparkling and radiant with happiness. Mr. Blundellovitch, as he was called throughout the afternoon, was a stricken victim of her charms, and Mr. Pollocksky, though unrighteously deprived of his opportunities,was not behind him in admiration of her. They had a merry time in the house which they visited, and started homewards so late that it was dark long before they reached Hayslope. During the last half hour she and Norman talked quietly together, her hand in his. There had been misunderstandings between them, as between their parents, but they were done away with now, and they were as close together as they had ever been. It was not until then that she realized that the Grange was to be forsaken in two days' time, which induced a slight touch of melancholy, not unpleasing under the circumstances, which included a full moon, and a delicious astringent hint of autumn in the warm night air. Norman wasn't sure that even the partridges would make it worth while to exchange Hayslope for Eylsham; but Pamela said wisely that it would be better for their two families not to be so close to one another for a time. "When you're as old as Dad and Uncle Bill," she said, "it's more difficult to make up a quarrel. They'll like each other much better if they don't see so much of one another for a time."
"Yes," said Norman, "I think that's true. They wouldn't be able to treat it as you and I should. We might have little rows occasionally, but we should always make them up, and when we had we should forget all about them at once. That's one of the advantages of being young. I like being young, don't you? It comes over me sometimes that I am, just as it used to come over me out there, 'I'm in France.' But I'm not in France now, and I shan't be young any longer in half a minute or so."
"I don't know that I quite follow you," said Pamela politely.
"Oh, I follow myself, all the way. Don't you see? Take the governor, for instance. He must have enjoyed himself as we're doing now when he was our age, and sometimes thought how jolly it was to be young. And being old seemed centuries off, or at least so far off that it didn't count. Yet here he is thirty years or so older, and it's what he's doing now that matters to him. It isn't that it's a short time or a long time. It's just that time doesn't seem to count somehow. Look at old Horace, we three Latinists were reading this morning. He was extraordinarily alive, and aware of himself, so to speak. But nearly two thousand years have slipped by since he got tight, or half tight, and played the goat generally. They don't count when you read him, and another few years won't count for us when we look back on to-day. We're here—now. That's all that seems to matter."
"Yes, I think I see it dimly," said Pam. "Anyhow, I'm very glad that we are here now. It's a lovely world, and I think youmustenjoy it more when you're young."
The next day there was some coming and going between the Hall and the Grange, but the shadow of immediate departure lay over the Grange, and it was impossible not to take it as a departure more significant than it had hitherto appeared. Lady Eldridge might come down again for a day or two to finish her packings away for the winter. Norman said that he wouldcome down before he went back to Cambridge. But the prospect of autumn and winter passing over the house emptied of its usual life could not be ignored, and as yet there were no signs of the complete reconciliation that Norman had announced. All the family from the Hall were at the Grange during the afternoon except Colonel Eldridge. Pamela had thought he would come with them and was disappointed because he didn't. Her mother and her aunt talked together, but, it seemed to Pamela, not in quite the same way as before.
She had one more talk with Norman alone. They went down together to Barton's Close, not with any conscious intention of visiting the scene of so much disturbance, but probably led to it by some such impulse. The wide, wood-enclosed meadow lay quiet and deserted. The soil that had been dug up for the plantings over a considerable area had been grassed over again, with the sods cut from it, but the design of the garden, as far as it had gone, was plain to be seen. It would never be made now. That thought struck them both at the same time, for they had taken a modified interest in the project, and their imaginations had played about the garden that was to have been made here. It was almost as if it had been, and was now destroyed.
"It's a pity," Norman said. "However, it doesn't really matter, if we can get rid of the bothers that came of it."
For the first time, the thought came to Pamela that her father had been unreasonable. But she put it away from her. "It wasn't this that they really quarrelled about," she said, "though it began it. Norman, doyou think that it is all over? I don't feel quite so sure as I did yesterday."
Norman didn't feel quite so sure either. He had had a talk with his mother, and though she had agreed that there was nothing left now of the original grounds of the quarrel, she had not treated it as if they were back on the old terms yet. It had almost seemed to him that she didn't wish that particularly. She had been very quiet about it, but what had struck him most was that she was obviously glad that they were going away. He knew that she loved the home that she had made for herself at the Grange. She had not even seen the Suffolk house, which had not at first been talked of as if it were to provide them with more than a place for the entertainment of their shooting-parties. Some of those might very well have been for men only, and she might have preferred to come to the Grange at intervals instead of arranging for everything away from it, as she was doing now, hurriedly but completely.
But he didn't want Pam to think that they were leaving Hayslope because of the quarrel. Better debit something to his father rather than that!
"Well, all this sudden pushing off is rather like the governor, you know," he said. "He's kept himself young in that way. He gets a sudden idea into his head, and that's the great thing for the moment. I'm rather like that myself. Perhaps Uncle Edmund thinks it all rather funny; but—you'll see—when he's been up to Eylsham and shot a few birds and drunk a few glasses of good old tawny, they'll be as thick as thieves together again."
"Do you think Uncle William will ask him to shoot with him?"
"Why, of course he will." But as he said it Norman had some doubts of his own. Uncle Edmund was a difficult person. The disordered ground in front of them seemed to cry that aloud. His father was about fed up with it. If Uncle Edmund didn't respond graciously to this last attempt to satisfy his demands there might be no reconciliation at all. There was nothing more left to be done, and he would just have to be left alone till he came round of himself. If Norman read his mother aright, she was already preparing for that to be a long process.
Moreover, he had asked if Pam couldn't be included in the first party, which his father had already made up. The guns were to be three of his father's friends, and Norman and Blundell and Pollock, who were proposing to pursue their course of reading in whatever intervals of leisure might be left to them at Eylsham. Only one man was bringing his wife. There would be plenty of room for Pam. But his mother had said that his father didn't want anybody from the Hall until they knew where they stood. There would be plenty of time later.
So there was something that couldn't be said to her, and yet she must know that in ordinary times she would have been asked. Oh, it was all becoming difficult and beastly again. Why on earth couldn't Uncle Edmund do the proper generous thing for once and put an end to it all for good? Yesterday they had been as happy as larks because they had thought their elders hadsettled their quarrel. Perhaps they had, but it wasn't certain yet, and in the meantime here was poor little Pam getting sad about it again. And no wonder, with this beastly half-made and unmade garden in front of her eyes.
"Oh, why did we come down here?" he said, turning away in impatience. "I hate the very sight of the place. Let's go back and find the others."
They went back, and were cousinly to one another, but careful again now not to touch upon the awkward subject. The cord that had bound them together so closely the evening before was loosened.
The next day the Grange was left empty, and the gardeners went down to Barton's Close with a horse-roller, and flattened down the places where the ground had been disturbed.
To Miss Baldwin, watching the progress of that story in real life which she found even more absorbing than her favourite fiction, it seemed that complicating influences were coming into play, as summer passed into autumn and autumn into winter. The story was made the more interesting, but that happy ending which she rigidly exacted from all stories that should earn her approbation, became increasingly obscured to her vision. In a written story, you know—if you dealt with fiction of the sort that you could trust—that the happy ending would come, and previous troubles to be passed through only threw it into greater relief when it did come. But in a story of real life you could not be so sure. In real life things sometimes went wrong and remained wrong, which was one reason for turning for relief to the right sort of fiction.
Fred Comfrey, upon whose suit, it will be remembered, Miss Baldwin was inclined to look with favour, went away, rather suddenly. Watching Pamela with sharp but sympathetic eyes, she questioned whether "something" hadn't happened. There was some talk about Fred at breakfast and luncheon, which were Miss Baldwin's opportunities for getting into touch with family views. He was taking up a career in which he had already attained some success; and a stillgreater measure of success was expected of him now that he was ready to throw himself into it again. Colonel Eldridge seemed to believe in him, and to like him. Miss Baldwin could not interpret anything he said as a sign that he had any suspicion of Fred's hopes of winning Pamela. His references to the young man were hardly to be labelled as patronizing, but there was always a sense of difference in them; or so it seemed to Miss Baldwin, who was alive to such shades. She did not herself attach much social value to the Comfreys. The Vicar was the Vicar, ex-officio on an equality with her employers, and so treated by them, but he was obviously of a different clay from the Vicar of Blagrove, for instance, who with his family were of the intimates among the country neighbours. Mrs. Comfrey seemed hardly to consider herself, and certainly Miss Baldwin didn't consider her, on an equality with Mrs. Eldridge. If Fred were to be viewed only in the light of his origin, it would not be surprising that the idea of his aspiring to Pamela had not yet so much as entered the head of Pamela's father.
But love takes small heed of such reckonings; otherwise, what would have become of half the stories that Miss Baldwin so much enjoyed? The strong devoted young man who was to fight his arduous way to an eminence which he might fitly invite the lady of his choice to share with him, would be greatly encouraged in his ascent if that lady's sympathies were with him. And they might be; for she would see in him from the beginning something of what he had it in him to become.
Were Pamela's sympathies with Fred in his comingendeavours? Certainly they were. She agreed with everything that was said about the merit shown by a man with no initial advantages in making his way in the world by his own efforts and character. But there was no least little sign of a personal interest in the result. If there had been, Miss Baldwin could hardly have missed it. There seemed to be, instead, a tendency to close the subject, whenever it was opened, with some general or even platitudinous observation which, with other signs, persuaded Miss Baldwin that Pamela had acquired some distaste for Fred Comfrey. But she had been markedly friendly to him right up till the time he went away; so what could the reason be but that he had "said something to her?"
Out of her expert knowledge of such subjects, Miss Baldwin had no difficulty in conjecturing what that "something" had been, or in interpreting the slight indications afforded by Pamela as proof of what she had always supposed. Pamela had given Fred her friendship, but never in the smallest degree her love, and the premature declaration of his love for her had come as an unpleasant shock to her.
The effect of these conclusions upon Miss Baldwin herself was that from the moment she formed them her sympathies began to depart from Fred. This is easily explicable. Up until now he had been selected by her as the suitor towards whose success the story was directing itself. One allowed oneself those castings forward in the early stages of a story. But, when indications began to be dropped that a particular suitor was not intended for the prize, one put oneself upon theside of whoever else seemed likely to win it, thus preparing for full participation in the author's ultimate design. She had piled upon Fred virtues that were not too apparent as long as there seemed reasonable hope of his success; but now that Pamela, if she read her aright, had rejected the idea of him and his virtues, they seemed much less to her. He was not, unless Pamela chose to reckon him so, in any way to be considered her equal. He might, indeed, if the story should so run, quite adequately play some sort of villain's part, such as— But it was too early to cast forward in that direction. The story was still progressing in its main lines, with another suitor to be observed, and an evident awareness on the part of all the characters who came within her view of what was going on.
She had her opportunity with the rest of taking occasion to watch the trend of events, for Lady Crowborough, coming over to Hayslope on a day of early September to announce herself as the giver of an elaborate picnic entertainment, had graciously included Miss Baldwin, who happened to come within range of her vision, in the general invitation. Miss Baldwin hardly supposed that she would enjoy herself, when she accepted it; but she did, and not only because of the opportunities it gave her for observation. The whole affair was like a scene in a story—a story of high life—and her description of it, in letters to relatives were full, and within due limits enthusiastic.
The numerous guests, drawn from the houses large and small within a fairly wide radius, assembled at theCastle at about eleven o'clock of a golden morning. They came mostly in cars of their own, but some driving, some riding bicycles, and a few on horseback. The horses seemed to give the expedition something of the flavour of a past time, though there were hardly enough of them to deserve the style of cavalcade, such as must often have set out from Pershore Castle in days not long gone by. Pamela rode on a horse provided for her from the Pershore stables, and so did young Lord Horsham. So did a niece of Lady Crowborough's staying in the house, who was the life and soul of the party, and seemed to be responsible for many of the arrangements. She had taken particular notice of Miss Baldwin herself, and arranged for her to drive in a carriage with an extremely nice clergyman and his wife and invalid daughter, who were spending their holidays at a farmhouse near.
There were refreshments provided at the Castle before the start was made. Miss Baldwin described the Castle, as it had presented itself to her—one of the stately homes of England, of which she had been promised a more extended exploration at a future date. The noble owners had also struck her favourably, as true representatives of the aristocracy of our favoured land—stately, too, especially the Countess, but of the most courteous manner, and without a touch of condescension.
The scene of the picnic was a tract of primeval forest some ten miles away. There were ancient gnarled trees of immense girth, with little secret lawns, and stretches of deep bracken; a purling stream, and anoutcrop of rugged rocks, where the picnic feast was held. After having feasted and strolled, the party returned to the Castle, and then broke up, at a comparatively early hour. A simple entertainment, but quite delightful experience, with most of the best-known people in that part of the County attending and all expressing themselves as having obtained the acme of enjoyment from it.
Miss Baldwin's letter did not disclose what seemed to her to have been the inspiration and intention of this highly appreciated entertainment. It was so much in matter of her own discovery that she hardly dared to lay stress on it, even in her own imaginings. And yet she thought she could not be mistaken. There was a round dozen of young girls there, some of them of more obvious social importance than Pamela; but the honours were hers. She was not mistaken there, for the nice clergyman's wife asked her who Pamela was, and seemed surprised to hear that there was no title attached to her, as there was to some of the others. And the nice clergyman's invalid daughter asked her pointblank whether Pamela was engaged to young Lord Horsham. Both Lord and Lady Crowborough appeared to treat her as if she were; but, as Miss Baldwin knew that she was not, this could only mean that they wanted her to be. Nor was it too much to suppose that, by treating her almost as the most honoured guest, they were willing that all these country neighbours whom they had gathered together should know that they wanted her to be.
And yet nothing came of it. The few days, excitingto Miss Baldwin because of what she was expecting, which followed the picnic brought no announcement. Lord Horsham came over to the Hall the very next day, but nothing came of that, as might so confidently have been expected. He came over several times more before he went back to Oxford in October. He was the admitted friend of the family; there was no young person who was there more often, and no young man of those who came to the house who could be considered in the light of a rival, now that Fred Comfrey was off the scene. It seemed to Miss Baldwin that there was an air of expectation abroad; that both Colonel and Mrs. Eldridge were waiting for something. And the conviction grew upon her that there was a hitch somewhere.
Where was it? There was no doubt about the young man's admiration for Pamela. He was the best of friends with Judith, and very nice to the children, as was natural, but it was Pamela who drew him. Her attitude towards him was frank and kind. Oh, she did like him, and was bright and gay when he was there, though not always so at other times. Could it be that she was, after all, casting thoughts back to that other? By this time Miss Baldwin was inclined to resent such an idea. Fred had taken his place in her scheme as the rejected suitor, and it now seemed to her that Pamela had never treated Fred with the same kind of friendliness as she treated Horsham. Couldn't she make up her mind about him? Or was there something else going on that delayed the wished-for climax?
It came gradually to Miss Baldwin, as the monthspassed by, that there was a good deal going on at Hayslope of which she had not the key.
Life was duller there, and sadder, than she had known it at any time during the two years she had been there, even during the last months of the war, when Colonel Eldridge had been mostly away, and the shadow of Hugo's death still lay over them. But during that first winter, when things were beginning to settle down, there had been a good deal going on that had interested Miss Baldwin in her first experience of the life of a country house. Very little of it went on now.
What had become of all the visiting that seemed to play such a large part in the lives of such people as the Eldridge's? Colonel and Mrs. Eldridge never slept away from Hayslope during that autumn and early winter. Pamela went away twice, and Judith once. Pamela had a girl friend to stay with her for a week or so, and an aunt of Mrs. Eldridge's, who had been wont to spend the month of October at Hayslope for years past, came with her maid, but went back to Brighton, where she lived, after a week. It was then that Miss Baldwin first realized how everything was being cut down, more and more closely. The old lady was reported to have said that she didn't get enough to eat, which was of course ridiculous; what she didn't get was the elaborate provision that had struck Miss Baldwin herself when she had first come to Hayslope Hall. Nor did she get the service, except what her own pampered grumbling maid gave her. Nobody else came to the Hall, where there had been a constant successionof guests. There were only enough servants now to do the work of the house for the normal family life, which was also being reduced all the time, something here always being cut off or something there. The drawing-room was shut up, the billiard-room was never used. Mrs. Eldridge gave up her room and took to the morning-room, which all the family inhabited. More wood than coal was to be burnt in the schoolroom, and everywhere else. The outdoor staff was cut down to one man and a boy for the garden, and Timbs for stable and garage; but the cars were little used now. The light supper which had taken the place of dinner during the summer was continued, except for the week during which the old woman from Brighton was there.
There was never any discussion of these and other economies, at least before Miss Baldwin, and there was no grumbling at them. Colonel Eldridge was far more silent than she had ever known him, and she thought he was ageing, and seemed now, when she saw him sometimes from the schoolroom window walking alone, always to have his eyes on the ground, and to stoop slightly, who had been so upright and active. Mrs. Eldridge was just the same, always unruffled, always well-dressed, though seldom in the beautiful clothes Miss Baldwin had been wont to admire. Pamela and Judith had taken to doing things that had been done before by servants, mostly out of doors. They looked after the poultry entirely, making a pastime of it to all appearance. And they had taken to making many of their own clothes; Mrs. Eldridge's maid, who hadalso looked after them, was much occupied in housework. No word ever fell from either of them to show that they were affected by the change in their circumstances, which by now had come to be a complete change from the way of life lived at Hayslope during that first winter after the war. Pamela was not nearly so bright as she had been; there wassomethingthe matter with her, though it was not, apparently, discontent with home conditions. Judith was much the same as she had always been, sometimes silent, sometimes uproarious; half a child, half a woman; but Judith had not known the life that Pamela had known, after she was grown-up. Judith's life was altered chiefly by her emancipation from the schoolroom. Her home and what went on in it was enough for her, as it was for the children.
The outstanding difference at Hayslope, greater even than the changes at the Hall, which, after all, did not affect the core of family life, was the Grange unoccupied. There it stood, a big, rich house, from which had radiated sociability and close intimacy, with all its rooms shut up, its chimneys cold, its windows shuttered. There were a man and his wife to caretake, and men still at work outside—more than there were now at the Hall, though their only task was to keep things just alive for future occupancy. It made a blank, even to Miss Baldwin and the children, who sometimes went through the gardens in their walks, and lamented its desolation, as remarkable by contrast as if it had been falling into complete disuse. Presently there seemed to grow up about its forsaken state something significantof a change more unhappy than was shown by a house from which life had only been removed for a time. What did it stand for in the story that Miss Baldwin was tracing out for herself from all the happenings around her?
Neither Lord Eldridge nor Lady Eldridge, nor Norman, had come back since they had left Hayslope at the end of August. Nobody from the Hall had visited them, either in London or at the other house they had taken in the country.
Miss Baldwin was not in the way of picking up rumours at Hayslope. She was not in close enough contact with the family in which she lived to get much from them, and she was in no closer contact with servants or with people outside. But she could not help knowing that there had been something of a split; and indeed that was now taken for granted. Alice and Isabelle knew it. "Father and Uncle William aren't very good friends now. I think Uncle William takes too much on himself now he is a Lord, and father doesn't quite like it. But they'll be friends again when Uncle William comes back to Hayslope." Isabelle had said that, as they were going through the Grange garden. Some of it she had been told, some of it she had probably made up for herself, for Alice had contradicted her. "I don't think it's anything to do with his being a lord. Auntie Eleanor is a Lady, and she's just the same; and so is Norman."
But were they just the same? It looked as if the estrangement had affected both families by this time, though on the surface they maintained relations. ColonelEldridge corresponded with his brother, for he sometimes mentioned, in Miss Baldwin's presence, that he had heard from him. Pamela, if no one else, had been asked to stay at Eylsham. Why hadn't she gone? That had never been disclosed. Norman wrote to her sometimes, from Cambridge, and she to him.
What was the quarrel about? Money, thought Miss Baldwin, having come to this conclusion partly because in fiction it was generally money that brothers who had reached middle age quarrelled about, if they quarrelled at all, partly because of the now patent contrast between the wealth that exuded from Lord Eldridge and the lack of it that was increasingly in evidence at the Hall. She could find no simple explanation of why this state of things should have brought about a quarrel, but its effects were now remarkable enough. The younger brother was a rich man, and a lord, the elder, in spite of his large house and his estates, was seen to be a poor one. Surely the younger ought to have come to the assistance of the elder before this! He was not only not doing that; he was holding off from him. Dark work, somewhere!
Early in December Fred Comfrey paid a visit to Hayslope, and Miss Baldwin's interest returned to Pamela and her story, which had fallen into the second place of late, because of what was happening otherwise. It seemed to her that Pamela's attitude towards him was entirely different from what it had been. She was friendly, but seemed on the alert not to be left alone with him. His dejection was plain to be seen. Colonel Eldridge seemed glad to see him; otherwise hewould probably not have been asked to the house more than once, during the two days of his visit. He came on Saturday morning and stayed to lunch; and he came again to lunch on Sunday and stayed most of the afternoon. But Pamela had bicycled over after church to a house a few miles off, and did not return until he had gone.
At supper on Sunday evening the veil was lifted for a moment from what had been puzzling Miss Baldwin; but what was revealed only puzzled her more.
Colonel Eldridge talked about Fred, and said: "He has been doing business with William—seen quite a lot of him."
Pamela looked up surprised. "He never told me that," she said.
That was all. The veil was dropped again immediately. Lord Eldridge was mentioned sometimes before Miss Baldwin, perhaps to keep up appearances; but she was not to hear anything about him that mattered. All that she gathered from this was that Colonel Eldridge saw nothing to object to in a business connection between Lord Eldridge and Fred Comfrey, and that Pamela was surprised, and apparently displeased at it. Or perhaps her displeasure was only at Fred's not having told her. But she hadn't given him much opportunity of telling her anything. It was all very difficult; but what seemed to be plain was that Fred Comfrey could now be ruled out as a suitor, though he might not yet consider himself so.
This was quite what Miss Baldwin wished by this time, and her satisfaction was increased when LordHorsham soon afterwards reappeared on the scene. He was received in a very different way. It really seemed at last as if something were going to happen. Miss Baldwin had come to hold a high opinion of Lord Horsham, as a young man of sober, steady habits who would make an excellent husband even for so fine a flower of girlhood as Pamela, and this altogether apart from the rich gilding of his title and inheritance. But he had not, previously, presented himself to her as one whose coming might be expected to enliven a whole household. That, however, was the effect of his frequent visits during the early part of his Christmas vacation. And what could Colonel and Mrs. Eldridge's lively welcome of him mean but that they also thought something might be about to happen? What could Pamela's lighter spirits mean but that she was getting ready for something to happen? Judith and the children might not yet have had their eyes opened to the possibilities of the happening, but they all three made much of Lord Horsham. That might partly be accounted for by the rarity of such visits as his in these days; but on his side there seemed to be a conscious desire to stand well with them, and a success in the endeavour which was agreeable to watch. If Pamela did marry him, her family might be expected to share some of the tangible fruits of the alliance. They could hardly be said to have gone down in the world—that dreadful phrase which sometimes suggested itself to Miss Baldwin—if the eldest son of an Earl, who lived in an ancient Castle, took his bride from their house.
Miss Baldwin went home for three weeks' holiday at Christmas, hoping that on her return a new chapter in the romance would be ready for her perusal. It had reached the point at which developments of some sort could not long be delayed.
Christmas had always been a great family occasion at Hayslope. For years before the William Eldridges had come to live at the Grange they had spent their Christmases at the Hall, and there had sometimes been other relations there. This year an indeterminate spinster cousin of Mrs. Eldridge's was coming, but no other guests. Lord Eldridge would be entertaining a party at Eylsham Hall, duly announced in the press.
It was this announcement that seemed to Pamela to complete and establish the breach between the two families. "Why is it?" she asked her mother. "I thought that father and Uncle William were more or less friends again now. They write to each other. Uncle William sent his love to us in a letter he wrote the other day."
"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Eldridge, with a sigh. "But there it begins and ends. Father would have been quite willing to make it up any time during the last few months; but Uncle William doesn't seem to want to. He's got quite away from us, you see. He's in the big world, and we're not. I suppose he doesn't think about us any more."
"But Auntie Eleanor! She writes to you, mother."
"Oh, yes," she said again. "We've never quarrelled."
"But won't iteverend, mother? Just look at the difference—what happy Christmases we used to spend all together! And now there's no idea of our being together at all. Didn't you ask them to come here for Christmas?"
"Well, I didn't tell father, but I wrote to Auntie Eleanor and asked her if they would come if we did ask them. I thought it might bring us all together again. But of course it would have been worse if we had asked them and they had refused. She wrote very nicely, as she always does; but William had already made up his party, or some of it. I dare say what happened was that he found he could get somebody that he particularly wanted then, and asked the rest to meet him—or her, or them. I don't know. When people once begin to chase other people, for their names or their positions or whatever it is that attracts them, it—well, it becomes a habit. Other sociabilities have to give way to it."
This was rather painful to Pamela. "But Auntie Eleanor isn't like that, mother dear."
It was half a question. "No," said Mrs. Eldridge, quite decisively. "She and I have often talked that over. At least, we used to, before we settled it between us, for good and all. It simply isn't worth while to make friends with anybody for any other reason than because you like them for themselves, and not for what they've got. Now you're grown up, darling, I don't mind telling you that I was rather inclined at one time—oh, years and years ago—to want to get myself in everywhere. It's easy enough, if you have a certain position to begin with, and enough money. And I wasquite good-looking, when I was first married, and—"
"You are now, mother darling," said Pamela, with a laugh: "but do go on."
"I don't say that there's not some fun to be got out of it," Mrs. Eldridge continued. "Of course I don't mean just the vulgar sort of climbing; but it's amusing to feel that youbelongto everything, and people want—you, instead of your wanting them. Still, it's never worth while in the long run. Eleanor saw that quite clearly, from the beginning, and she made me see it. It's one of the things that I have to thank her for."
"Oh, mother, it's dreadful that you have to be apart now. Don't you feel it very much?"
"Of course I do. But not so much as I should have done a few years ago. You're grown up now, you see. Besides, I've got used to the quiet life. I don't really want anything else now, as long as one can live without too much anxiety. I only discovered that a short time ago. Eleanor was always preaching it to me; but now she's getting farther away from it herself, poor dear. I'm sorry for her."
Pamela's direct mind was apt to be a little puzzled by her mother. It was not always easy to recognize the source of her speeches, or whether she was serious or only amusing herself. "Do you mean that you're really sorry for her?" she asked. "I suppose she needn't get away from the sort of life she likes, if she doesn't want to."
"She can't help herself. She loves William. I love father, and I want what he wants. It's the same with her. But what he wants happens to be more satisfyingthan what William wants. It's only rather tiresome that just as I have discovered that for myself it's beginning to be difficult to have anything at all that one wants. I've been wanting to tell you something for some time, Pam darling, but I've put it off because I went on hoping that it might not be necessary. Don't tell the others yet, but I'm afraid it has to come. We can't afford to go on living here."
Pamela looked down. "Poor old Daddy!" she said.
"Yes, it's for him I feel it more than for ourselves. It seems to be impossible for a country gentleman to live in his own house nowadays, unless he has an income apart from it. Daddy never had much that wasn't tied up, and what he did have is all gone now. I don't think we can get expenses down any farther here; it is just coming to be a great anxiety. It was I who said I thought we ought to go. He could hardly have brought himself to propose it before it became absolutely impossible, as it isn't quite, yet."
"Do you mean he is going to sell Hayslope, mummy?"
"No, darling, he couldn't do that; he only has a life interest. He'll try to let the house and the shooting. It's just that we can't afford to keep up a house of this size, for ourselves to live in. We should be quite well off in a smaller house, and with the rent for this coming in, if it can be let."
"Where should we go, mother?"
"That's the difficulty. Father wants to be here, to look after the property. If the Grange hadn't beenenlarged to such an extent, we could have gone there; but there's no good thinking of that. It would cost as much to live there now as to live here. We have thought of Town Farm. It was a Manor house at one time, but it would take a lot of money to put it back now, and make it nice to live in. I'm afraid it's either that, or going quite away. But there's no need to hurry anything. We shan't go away just yet. Don't tell Judith, or the children yet."
"No, mother, of course not. Don't you think I could go out and do something? So many girls do now. I'm sure I could make my own living if I tried."
"There's no necessity, darling. And I think father would hate that more than anything. I know he would like you to stay at home until you marry."
Was this an invitation to her to unburden herself? Her mother had never mentioned marriage to her before. If it was, she did not take it up. "There are lots of things I can do at home," she said. "And Judith, too. You know we'll do all we can, mother dear."
"Oh, yes, darling. I think that if we can find a nice house somewhere in the country, much smaller than this, but big enough for us to be happy in, it will lift a good deal of the burden. Poor Daddy is getting more and more depressed about everything, though he is trying to keep it from us all the time. It's very hard that it should be like this now for men who have done what he has. It all comes from the horrible war; and yet there are some people who have done nothing but thrive on it."
There was no need to dot the i's of that speech. Pamela didn't want to talk about her uncle, even to her mother. There was no satisfaction to be gained from blaming him, but she did blame him now in her heart, and she thought that her mother did too. Would he stand by and see them leave their home without doing anything? Of course he could do something, if he wanted to. But he didn't seem to care now. Did her aunt care? She was sure that she did, but she had apparently resigned herself to the new unhappy state of things between them. Did Norman care?
He had written to Pamela from Cambridge, not less frequently than during previous terms, and in much the same way. Some of his letters had made her laugh, but not with the old light-hearted appreciation of his humour. What mattered to her most just now he never mentioned. Once he had represented himself as on the verge of another love affair, with the daughter of a Don of another college, to which he said he was thinking of migrating. But she did not smile at all at that. She was beginning to be impatient of Norman's love affairs, which never lasted more than a few weeks. This one didn't last so long as that apparently, for he did not allude to it again. If he had done so, Pamela would have written him a letter in which she would have said that she didn't want to hear any more about his philanderings, and she was inclined to regret that the opportunity was denied her. Norman never said anything about Christmas, though in previous years his letters had been full of anticipations. He seemed tobe quite content at the prospect of their spending it apart.
Oh, life was unhappy now. But there remained the duty of hiding unhappiness as much as possible. Pamela was a good deal with her father in these days, and she knew that he liked to have her with him, though he never talked to her about his troubles. Well, it was something to be able to remove his mind from them. She was able to do that, though she seemed to be of so little use otherwise.