The Project Gutenberg eBook ofWhitewashThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: WhitewashAuthor: Horace Annesley VachellRelease date: March 24, 2018 [eBook #56827]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Mardi Desjardins & the online DistributedProofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net frompage images generously made available by the InternetArchive (https://archive.org)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHITEWASH ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: WhitewashAuthor: Horace Annesley VachellRelease date: March 24, 2018 [eBook #56827]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Mardi Desjardins & the online DistributedProofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net frompage images generously made available by the InternetArchive (https://archive.org)
Title: Whitewash
Author: Horace Annesley Vachell
Author: Horace Annesley Vachell
Release date: March 24, 2018 [eBook #56827]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Mardi Desjardins & the online DistributedProofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net frompage images generously made available by the InternetArchive (https://archive.org)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHITEWASH ***
WHITEWASH
HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL
WHITEWASHBYHORACE ANNESLEY VACHELLAuthor “The Soul of Susan Yellam,” “Fishpingle,”“Quinney’s,” etc., etc.NEW YORKGEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
WHITEWASH
BY
HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL
Author “The Soul of Susan Yellam,” “Fishpingle,”
“Quinney’s,” etc., etc.
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
Copyright, 1920,By George H. Doran CompanyPrinted in the United States of America
Copyright, 1920,
By George H. Doran Company
Printed in the United States of America
TOMORLEY ROBERTS
TO
MORLEY ROBERTS
CONTENTS
Transcriber’s Notescan be found at the end of this eBook.
WHITEWASH
CHAPTER ILADY SELINA CHANDOS
Lady Selina laid down her pen—a quill—smiling pensively. Early in life she had been taught to smile by a mother with half a dozen attractive but dowerless daughters, who had smiled themselves obediently into wives and matrons. Critics admitted that the smile had quality. No derision twisted it. Artlessly, with absolute sincerity, Lady Selina scattered her smiles as largesse. Royalties know the value of such smiles, and so do politicians.
Her eyes—blue, heavily-lidded, with arched brows above them—wandered from her desk, the desk of a busy lady of the manor, to the portrait of her late husband which hung above the chimney-piece. Henry Chandos had been her senior by some five and twenty years. During another quarter of a century of tranquil married life Lady Selina had loved, honoured and obeyed him as the dominant partner. A stranger, looking at the portrait, might have guessed that the Squire of Upworthy—if physiognomy is to be trusted (which it isn’t)—was likely to inspire honour and obedience rather than love. An uncompromising chin, aWellingtonia giganteanose and steel-grey eyes overhung by beetling brows, bespoke the autocrat. He wore a stained red hunting coat and grasped a hunting horn in his left hand. Hounds came swiftly to the toot of that horn; and eager horsemen, you may be sure, followed at a respectful distance. Henry Chandos never bullied his “field.” He checked “thrusters” with a glance. The wags christened him “Old Gimlets.” And in the County Council, upon the Bench, in and out of his own house, he exercised a gift of silence. His neighbours knew that he took his own line over any country regardless of obstacles. If damage ensued he paid for it generously.
When at work in her sitting-room, Lady Selina was always conscious of her husband’s portrait, sensible that his counterfeit presentment looked down approvingly upon her labours. He, too, had worked hard in this fine room, and since his death the widow had carried on that work along his lines, as, with his last breath, he had entreated her to do.
She rose from her chair and crossed to the sofa on which were piled many red flannel cloaks. On a table lay pound packages of tea, and a small basket holding gills of gin discreetly covered with a white napkin. These were her particular gifts to her own people, to be bestowed presently,coram publico, before tea was served on the lawn beneath the approving eyes of the doctor, parson, and such of the local gentry as might “drop in.”
As she rose, glancing at the neat piles of books and letters, a sigh escaped her. Nobody knew how much her work perplexed and bothered her. If her smile disarmed criticism, it was partly, perhaps, because pathos informed it. At times it seemed to say: “I want to please people, but it’s horribly difficult.” No business training had been vouchsafed her, except such knowledge as had come from dealing with servants and tradesmen. In the management of a large estate her husband had never consulted her. And yet—a tremendous tribute—he had left her everything during her lifetime, scorning to impose any conditions should she marry again. Possibly he knew that she would not do so.
As she stood beside the sofa, plump and prosperous, erect mentally and physically, an intelligent child might have proclaimed her to be what she was, a superb specimen of the English châtelaine. Obviously a gentlewoman, courteous alike to the Lord-Lieutenant of her county or to the humblest of her many dependents, exacting respect from all and affection from many, she had just passed her fifty-fifth birthday. But her face remained free from wrinkles, smoothly pink as if glowing autumnally after a sunny summer; and her features were on the happiest terms with each other, firmly but delicately modelled, prominent, but not aggressively so.
She wore clothes of no particular mode that became her admirably. Her butler entered the room.
“Well, Stimson, what is it?”
Her voice was very pleasant and articulate. At the mere sound of it the austere face of the old retainer relaxed. Deprecatingly, he informed his mistress that Mr. Goodrich had arrived.
Lady Selina frowned slightly. Her guests had been invited for four. It was not yet half-past three.
“Show Mr. Goodrich on to the lawn. Tell him, with my compliments, that I will join him there in a few minutes.”
“Very good, my lady. Mr. Goodrich expressed a wish to see your ladyship before the others came.”
Lady Selina retorted sharply:
“Bless the man! Why couldn’t you say so at once? I’ll see Mr. Goodrich here.”
Stimson withdrew. Lady Selina returned to her desk and sat down. Perhaps she wished to impress her parson, an old friend, that she was busy. Beholding the lady of the manor engrossed in multifarious duties, Mr. Goodrich might consider himself courteously admonished. None the less, she received him with a gracious smile, and expressed herself as glad to see him. The parson said genially:
“A charming day for our little fête.”
As he sat down near her, Lady Selina eyed him interrogatively, divining something unpleasant. She was well aware that her general staff, so to speak, were self-trained in the art of what is now called “camouflage.” She had learnt to distrust the smiles of others, knowing well that her own smiles often served to disguise her feelings.
Mr. Goodrich settled himself comfortably in his chair, and crossed a pair of shapely legs which in his opinion ought to wear gaiters, archdiaconal if not episcopal. He, too, like the lady of the manor, presented a plump and prosperous exterior to a changing and hypercritical world. From his relaxed, easy attitude one might guess that this was not a soldier of the church militant, the more robust physically because, perhaps, he habitually exercised his body instead of his mind, an indefatigable walker and talker rather than a thinker. He looked his best, indeed, from the back of a fat cob, not in the pulpit or at the lectern, although his perfectly tied white cravat was austerely clerical. Lady Selina wasted no time:
“You have something disagreeable to tell me?”
“No, no. Disagreeable is too strong a word. Worrying—m’yes. I dislike being appealed to in such matters.”
“In what matters, my dear friend?”
“I went for a ride this morning, and—a—happened to look in upon old Ephraim Exton. He asked me to speak to you, and the day being so—a—propitious, I was beguiled against my better judgment into saying I would.”
His slight hesitations did not annoy Lady Selina. She accepted them as homage, a soaping of the ways, a desire upon the part of her staff to “spare” their chief anything approximating to a shock. But she said humorously:
“Then why don’t you?”
The parson smiled at her, nodding his handsome head.
“Old Ephraim is sorely troubled about his best cow.”
“But I’m not a cow doctor.”
“No, no, but Ephraim thinks that the trouble is not so much with the cow, a valuable animal, so he tells me, but with the cowhouse. He thinks it needs rebuilding.”
Lady Selina said trenchantly:
“You mean he said so to you?”
“M’yes. Not that he complained. He pointed out to me that the roof might fall in on top of the cows.”
Lady Selina laughed, but her forehead was not quite smooth as she replied:
“I see, Ephraim Exton didn’t complain, but he persuaded you to do it. Really, the old fellow is quite hopeless.”
Mr. Goodrich nodded.
“M’yes; he so impressed me this morning.” Then he added genially:
“His son, John, is a bright young fellow—um?”
“Bright? He may brighten into a fire-brand. He labels himself Socialist. I shall do my duty, Mr. Goodrich.”
The parson purred pleasantly, rubbing his hands.
“You’ll rebuild the cowsheds——? How good of you——!”
“No.” She spoke sharply. “The man’s a fool to house delicate high-bred stock in ramshackle buildings. I’ve remitted part of his rent.”
“We all know how kind you are about that.”
Lady Selina made a deprecating gesture. Then, with her usual energy, she set forth her case as against that of her tenant. Because of certain concessions, Exton had undertaken to keep the farm buildings in reasonable repair. But the money which ought to have been spent on roofs had been diverted to the speculative purchase of valuable stock. The parson lent an attentive and sympathetic ear, but he had heard the tale before. One word explained the trouble as between landlord and tenant—Compromise. Secretly, he was of opinion that outside repairs should be done by landlords, regardless of other concessions, but he didn’t say so to the lady of the manor. Plain speech meant an indictment of Gridley, the bailiff, the power behind the throne. Lady Selina might send for Gridley. Indeed she had done so before. And always Gridley—bother him!—got the best of such talk.
Lady Selina ended on the highest note.
“Gridley wants me to give Exton notice to quit.”
“Oh, dear! Won’t that be very disagreeable?”
“Very. Do you shirk doing your duty, Mr. Goodrich, when it happens to be disagreeable?”
The parson answered quite truthfully:
“Sometimes.”
Lady Selina smiled graciously, and the smile deepened as her two children entered from the lawn. Brian, the son, was a handsome young man of twenty-eight, a dashing hussar, cut to pattern. Cicely deserves more attention. She had been born ten years after her brother, arriving on earth as a surprise packet, so to speak. Intelligence sparkled in her soft brown eyes, a charming alertness, often so distinctively the attribute of children born to parents no longer young. Nobody could call her a beauty. The rather smug comeliness of regular features had been denied her. But her colouring was excellent, the clear red and brown of the out-o’-doors girl. Her laugh warmed the cockles of all hearts; her manners made her welcome everywhere. Fortunately for her, she had been sent to school, much to the surprise of Lady Selina’s kinsmen. At school she had achieved some sort of detachment from the cut-and-dried traditions of Upworthy Manor. None could call her a rebel, but in less robust moments her mother wondered whether the daring experiment had been altogether a success. She could read her son easier than her daughter.
Brian said gaily:
“The goodies are weighing in, Mums.” Then he turned to the parson, holding out his hand. “And how are you coming up this fine day, Mr. Goodrich?”
The parson shook his head. “I don’t know that I’m coming up, Brian.” He smiled paternally at the young man whom he had baptised and confirmed, adding regretfully: “I’m toddling down the shady slopes of sixty. Cicely, my dear, how well you look!”
“Thank you, Mr. Goodrich.”
Brian approached the sofa.
“Shall we cart out this stuff?” he asked.
“One moment.”
Brian’s blue eyes lingered upon his mother’s serious face.
“Hullo! What’s up? You look portentous.”
“I am worried, my dear.”
“Poor old Mums! What about?”
She hesitated, glancing at the parson now erect upon the hearthrug and smiling blandly. As a rule, Lady Selina acted after much indecision, and discussed—not too often—her actions afterwards. But at this particular moment she felt upset, cornered by circumstances, upon the sharp horns of a dilemma. She had never evicted a tenant. To do so was intolerably unpleasant. But these Extons, complaining behind her back, for ever leaving undone what they had promised to do, exasperated her beyond bearing. She answered her son quietly:
“The Extons. Tell me your candid opinion of Ephraim Exton.”
Brian replied promptly:
“One of the best.”
“Best of what?”
“Best of the best.”
Cicely murmured derisively:
“How illuminating!”
“Shut up, Cis. Mother knows what I mean.”
“I don’t,” said Lady Selina. “Your best of the best is always behind with his rent.”
Goodrich interposed a seasonable word. He was prepared to side with Brian against his august mother. The bishop of the diocese had been appointed by a Liberal Prime Minister. His lordship held advanced views upon the right administration of landed estates.
“He is a sound Churchman, Lady Selina.”
“Can you say as much of his son?” asked Lady Selina.
“ ’Um! Laodicean. I admit it—Laodicean.”
“Fiddle! John Exton is a free-thinker. Children——!”
Brian and Cicely looked at her gravely. Cicely realised that her mother was dredging, as she called it, anxious to sweep public opinion into her net. And Cicely, not Brian, was well aware that public opinion counted with the lady of the manor, although she never admitted as much.
Lady Selina said with intense solemnity:
“I believe it is my duty to give Ephraim Exton notice to quit.”
Cicely exclaimed vehemently:
“Darling Mother, please don’t!”
Brian shrugged his shoulders, muttering:
“I went ferreting with old Ephraim. That ought to count.”
Cicely gave a better reason.
“The Extons were on the land here before us. That ought to count.”
Very wisely the parson held his tongue. Lady Selina replied tartly:
“My dears, the Extons may be here after us, if I allow sentiment to overrule common sense.”
Having repeated this golden axiom so often on the lips of her late husband, Lady Selina paused to stare at the lugubrious countenance of her butler who had entered the room as she was speaking.
“Bless me! Stimson? Has the roof fallen in?”
“Not yet, my lady. The carrier has forgotten the buns.”
“No buns! I shall have to give the dear children pennies instead.”
She hurried out to find the necessary coppers, followed leisurely by Stimson. Brian laughed.
“What a situation! My Lady Bountiful—bunless!”
Cicely crossed the room, and laid her hand upon the parson’s sleeve, looking up into his pleasant face.
“Oh, Mr. Goodrich, this is awful.”
“Well, well, Cicely, really, you know, the little ones would sooner have pennies.”
Cicely stared at him in amazement. Perhaps, for the first time, she beheld her pastor as one concerned with parochial trifles oblivious of great issues. She said almost gaspingly:
“I’m speaking of the Extons. Surely, surely, it can’t be Mother’s duty to turn out such old tenants.”
At this Brian pulled himself together. Cis, evidently, was getting out of hand.
“You can bet your boots, Cis, that Mums knows best. Don’t you run riot, old thing! Any fool can see that she loathes the job as much as you do.”
“I suppose so,” Cicely admitted reluctantly. “And if Mr. Goodrich thinks Mother right——?” She looked at the parson, interrogatively.
“Exton is certainly an unlucky farmer, still——”
“Suppose Mother turns him out, and suppose it kills him? Everybody will say that she has done him in.”
Mr. Goodrich raised an expostulatory finger.
“Done him in? What an expression!”
Brian, meanwhile, had sauntered up to the open window. Suddenly he turned.
“Dr. Pawley is outside. Oughtn’t I to ask him in here?”
“Of course,” said Cicely. “And we’ll find out what he thinks.”
Dr. Pawley had introduced both Brian and Cicely to this wicked world. Failing in health and energy, he carried with him a kind, whimsical face, slightly sunk between high, narrow shoulders. Chronic sciatica made him limp a little. In the pockets of his ill-fitting rusty coat he carried sugar-plums which he popped deftly into the mouths of howling children. From this it may be inferred that he was not an up-to-date practitioner, and perhaps the more beloved in Upworthy on that account. An old bachelor of small independent means, Lady Selina had long ago accepted him as a friend and counsellor. He dined at the Manor constantly in those remote days when medical attendants were rarely offered luncheon. County magnates were less supercilious when they remarked the esteem which Dr. Pawley had inspired in Henry Chandos and his wife. And ultimately they, too, accepted him and entertained him, almost regarding him as one of themselves. Pawley himself knew that he owed his somewhat unique position in the county to Lady Selina. Unbefriended by her, he would have remained obscure and ignored by the quality. She gave him the opportunity which he had seized. After that he had held his own as a talker and a listener. And he scorned gossip, although he might swallow it with a faint smile curving his thin, sensitive lips.
Cicely greeted him warmly.
“How nice of you to come to our tea-fight.”
“How are you, Pawley?” asked the parson.
“I’m not pulling my weight, Goodrich. People make cheap jokes about doctors and a sickly season, but I want a partner and a holiday, and I mean to have both.”
He sat down near Cicely, who said hastily:
“Why is there always sickness in Upworthy at midsummer?”
Some inflection in her young voice challenged attention. Goodrich blinked; Pawley thought to himself: “At last, the inevitable question——!” Temptation assailed him to evade it. And such evasion might be justified by his sense of loyalty and gratitude to Lady Selina. Nevertheless some truth-compelling quality in her glance made him answer simply:
“Our people aren’t too healthy, my dear.”
“Why—why?”
“Partly a matter of drainage; wages are low. That means insufficient nutrition, eh, Goodrich?”
“Quite so; quite so.”
Cicely turned to Brian, who was again at the window, watching the arriving villagers.
“Brian, do you hear? Dr. Pawley says the village drains are wrong.”
Brian laughed carelessly.
“Drains? There aren’t any. Mother says open drainage is the best in villages. She knows.”
“Does she?” Once more her eyes seemed to fix themselves inexorably upon Pawley’s pale face. “Does Mother really know, Dr. Pawley? Has she ever taken expert advice, for instance?”
“As to that, my dear child, the fact is we are comfortably antediluvian.”
Cicely digested this, turning troubled orbs from doctor to parson, sensible of tension, and—with the inherited instincts of a fox-hunter—keenly aware that her quarry was escaping. She said with something of her mother’s air of finality:
“Are we? Then the deluge is coming.” In a different voice, charmingly persuasive, she went on: “And now, dear doctor, I want to talk to you about something else of tremendous importance.”
“How you frighten me!”
She smiled at him.
“You’re a rare favourite with Mother. You and—and Mr. Goodrich”—the parson was included as a happy after-thought—“are levers.”
“Levers? Bless me!”
“Yes. I always think of Mother as a sort of fixed star, but you two can move her. And your influence with her is the greater because you hardly ever exercise it.”
The parson accepted this as an indictment, and looked uneasy. Pawley’s eyes twinkled, as the girl continued:
“Mother is thinking of evicting the Extons.”
Pawley’s eyes stopped twinkling.
“Bless my soul!”
“Brian and I are dead against it, aren’t we, Brian?”
Again the young man laughed, not heartlessly. Cicely, under the stress of excitement, amused him. And excitement became her. She looked—topping. At the same time she was riding for a fall. He must shout out: “ ’Ware wire!” He did so.
“This isn’t our business, Cis.”
“But it is. Eventually, I suppose, Upworthy will go to you.”
“Oh no, not necessarily. Mother has a power of appointment. If I ran rusty, b’Jove, Mother might feel it her duty to leave Upworthy to George Chandos.”
“You selfish pig——!”
“Children, my dear children!” The parson lifted his hand. Cicely said crossly:
“You’re all sitting on the fence.”
“We’re men of peace,” murmured the parson.
Instantly Cicely became penitent. “I’m ever so sorry. Doctor, can you give me something not too nasty to cure a quick temper?”
Pawley chuckled.
“There’s no state of savage irritation which can’t be mitigated by the exhibition of a little calomel.”
“Do you take that?”
“No. In my case it isn’t necessary. Now, what do you want a tired old man to do?”
Cicely replied promptly:
“Pull the popularity stop.”
“Eh?”
“You jolly well know what I mean. You’re much cleverer than you look, dear doctor.”
As she spoke Lady Selina majestically entered the room, pausing in horror as Cicely’s clear tones penetrated her ears and her understanding.
“My darling child! What are you saying to Dr. Pawley?”
“He is, Mums. Every doctor ought to be. To look clever is rather alarming. To be clever and not look it is so very reassuring.”
Lady Selina held out her hand to her old friend, saying graciously:
“Very glad to see you, doctor. Brian, you can take the cloaks on to the lawn.”
“Let me help you,” said the parson.
The two men disappeared with arms full of red flannel cloaks. Cicely, standing dose to Pawley, laughed.
“Why do you laugh, child?” asked Lady Selina.
“Only because Mr. Goodrich is a man of peace.” She nudged Pawley, much to her mother’s astonishment. “Why are you nudging Dr. Pawley?”
“Was I? Well, yes, I was. He’s a man of peace, too. I want him to say something before we go on to the lawn.”
“Oh! You want him to say something which apparently can’t be said without nudging. What is it?”
Cicely slipped to her mother’s side, taking her arm and pressing it coaxingly.
“Dr. Pawley knows how worry affects you, don’t you, doctor?”
“Worry affects all of us.”
Lady Selina’s face relaxed beneath the pressure of Cicely’s arm.
“But I’m not worrying, you silly child.”
“Oh, Mother——! Not worrying about the poor Extons? You said you were just now.”
“For the moment I had forgotten the Extons. Yes, yes, I must take action at once, because to-morrow is Midsummer Day.”
She moved, like a line-of-battle ship, to her desk, and picked up an Estate ledger. Cicely made a sign to Pawley, who shook his head dubiously. Lady Selina, after a pause, said austerely:
“It’s as I thought. I must give Ephraim Exton a year’s notice from to-morrow, or lose a quarter. Cicely, send Agatha Farleigh to me. She’s on the lawn.”
Agatha was Lady Selina’s typist, and a protégée, a daughter of the village, who, by virtue of a lively intelligence, had been taught typewriting and stenography at the expense of the lady of the manor.
Cicely refused to budge, exclaiming loudly:
“If you turn out that old man, Mums, I don’t want to be here next November.”
“Next November?”
“You’ll be burnt in effigy on the village green. Guy Fawkes’ Day!”
“Rubbish! Run away and send Agatha to me.”
Cicely, in desperation, turned to Dr. Pawley.
“Doctor, have you nothing to say?”
Pawley sighed, shrugging his shoulders. In a tired voice, he said quietly:
“The Extons are much liked, Lady Selina.”
Lady Selina closed the Estate ledger, standing very erect, unconsciously assuming the pose of her late husband. But she spoke pleasantly, suppressing a rising exasperation. Pawley’s pale face affected her. And he had grown old in her service, a loyal friend. Certainly she owed him consideration. After tea, she might talk with him—alone.
“Well, well, the letter can be written any time before eight. I shall give my dear people their tea.” She moved slowly to the open window, turning on the threshold, smiling confidently. “I am not afraid of becoming unpopular with them.”
As she swept out, Cicely whispered to Pawley:
“All is well. She won’t write the letter. Ah, doctor, you didn’t half back me up.”
He took both her hands, looking gravely into her eager face.
“I am an old man, my dear, and I am devoted to your mother. Shall we follow her on to the lawn?”
The lawns of Upworthy Manor sloped from the house to the topiary garden. This topiary garden was famous for its size and construction. In pre-war days, some ten men were kept constantly at work from March to October trimming the yews and mowing and rolling the grass alleys. Lady Selina regarded it with reverence. Cicely hated it, but dared not say so. The trimness and primness of it all affected her oddly. Apart from the waste of labour which the care of such an absurdity involved, it symbolised what she had learned at school to dislike and distrust—artificial clipping of Nature. A yew, left to its own devices, was a glorious tree, intimately associated with the history and expansion of England, furnishing the long bows of Agincourt even as later the great oaks were transformed miraculously into the wooden walls that kept our shore inviolate. To turn a yew into a peacock seemed to Cicely a monstrous perversion. And, as a child, looking out of her nursery window by moonlight, she envisaged the dark beasts and birds coming to life, and preying mercilessly upon beloved creatures such as lambs and puppies and kittens. There was a legend, too, in the family, babbled by nursemaids, that the Chandos who had laid out the topiary garden had designed it as a sort of prison for a young and beautiful wife of whom he was morbidly jealous. She had never been suffered to stray far from the walled-in alleys and tunnels. The story had a tincture of truth in it, no more, quite enough to fire the fancy of an imaginative child.
Upon fête days the villagers were graciously permitted to wander at will through the topiary garden.
By the time that Cicely reached the lawn most of Lady Selina’s people had assembled about the tea-tables. Cicely joined Brian. Her mother was standing near the parson, who, with uplifted hand and voice, addressed the company:
“My dear friends, once more we meet in this charming garden, where we have enjoyed so often the gracious hospitality of the Lady of the Manor.” (Cheers.) “Lady Selina desires me to thank you for this kind reception, and I am quite sure that you wish me to thank her on your behalf for her continued bounty and the good creature comforts which we are about to enjoy. The gifts soon to be bestowed on the aged and infirm are very precious oblations——”
At this point the speaker was shrilly interrupted by a small boy, not ill-looking, but presenting a vacuous countenance to all beholders, and regarded by them as the village softy.
“What do Pa’son say?”
Everybody smiled compassionately. Nick Farleigh, a cousin of Lady Selina’s typist, was regarded as quite harmless and on occasion a source of innocent amusement. Mr. Goodrich answered him:
“Oblations, my young friend, mean offerings, symbols of the love and affection which Lady Selina has shown to all of us, gentle and simple, ever since she came to Upworthy to reign over us with unremitting generosity and kindliness. In her name I bid you welcome.”
More cheers.
Brian whispered to his sister:
“Old Goody lays it on a bit thick, but Mother has played the game, bless her.”
The company sat down to tea. Cicely and Brian helped to wait, flitting here and there, talking to everybody. Nick said in a loud voice: “I be going to have a rare gorger.”
“I like to see ’em tuck in,” said Brian to Cicely.
“I don’t know. It looks, doesn’t it, as if they didn’t have quite enough at home?”
After tea came the solemn bestowal of red cloaks, pounds of tea, and the gills of gin furtively bestowed upon the old women. Cicely found herself near Dr. Pawley.
“Timothy Farleigh isn’t here,” she said. “Is he ill?”
“I don’t think so.”
Cicely noticed an accent of restraint. She continued quickly: “I can’t remember his ever coming to our bun-feasts, can you?” Pawley remained silent. Cicely decided that something was eluding her.
“Is there any reason why he shouldn’t come?”
Her persistence amused and distressed an old friend. Obviously, she was on the hunt for accurate information. If he put her off a hot scent, she would return to it. And yet he shrank from telling the truth, although well aware that it would come more gently from his lips than from any others. Suddenly, so it seemed to him, a jolly girl had bloomed into a woman. He answered reluctantly:
“Yes.”
“Do tell me the reason, please.”
Dr. Pawley lowered his voice.
“You see, his two little girls died of diphtheria long ago.”
“But what on earth has that got to do with his coming here? Surely he can’t blame my mother?”
“I can’t go into that with you, Cicely. Speaking personally, I blame John Gridley. He knew well enough that Farleigh’s cottage was hardly fit for habitation.”
Cicely stared at him.
“Why, it’s the prettiest cottage in Upworthy.”
As she spoke Lady Selina bore down upon them, in full sail before a brisk breeze of popularity. The Olympians had finished their tea; games were started by the children; the sun shone in cloudless skies.
“My congratulations,” murmured Pawley, as Lady Selina paused in front of him.
“Yes; the dear things do appreciate what one does for them. I was just thinking to myself that this is England at her best. Will you come back to my room, doctor? I want a word with you.”
He followed her obediently, but Cicely thought that his courteous smile was slightly derisive. Her mother, of course, wanted to talk to him about the Extons. The old fellow would plead for them. Lady Selina, in high good humour, would be merciful.
And, quite easily, this came to pass. No promises were made, but Lady Selina nodded when Pawley discreetly hinted that it might be inexpedient to make martyrs of the Extons. Then, perceiving that enough had been said, he changed the talk.
“I am thinking of taking a partner,” he began. “And I am happy to say that the right man is likely to come here to help me. You have heard of him, Henry Grimshaw.”
Lady Selina shook her head.
“Grimmer,” added Pawley.
“Grimmer? Dear me! Are you speaking of Brian’s friend at Winchester? The wonderful Grimmer.” She laughed. “At one time Brian gave us too much of—Grimmer. At school he was certainly a star of the first magnitude. What has he done since?”
Pawley could only furnish a few details. Grimshaw had distinguished himself as a student of medicine, taking several degrees. For some years he had overworked himself in Poplar. Comparative rest and good country air had been prescribed for him by a Harley Street specialist. Pawley added quietly:
“When he answered my advertisement, he mentioned his friendship for Brian at school.”
“I shall welcome Brian’s old friend cordially. I am glad that your partner is a public-school man.”
“He isn’t my partner yet, Lady Selina, but he has promised to run down to me and talk things over. It will be much for him and all of us if he has your good-will. There is no doubt whatever of his capacity. I am lucky to secure so up-to-date a colleague.”
“Up-to-date?” She barely winced. “I take it that you are speaking of him professionally. Surgery, I am told, has made immense strides, but medicine remains, doesn’t it, very much where it was?”
“Grimshaw is a surgeon, Lady Selina. And up-to-date in that. For the rest I know nothing about him except this. In his two letters to me he expressed himself modestly. I should imagine that he will give undivided energies to his profession.”
“He will have very little to do, it seems to me.”
“Um. As to that I am not so sure.”
“My people are wonderfully healthy.”
“Some of them.”
Lady Selina’s eyes wandered to the lawn; through the open windows floated much laughter. Euphrosyne is surely the sister of Hygeia. And at that moment a patriarch was approaching, Nicodemus Burble, past eighty-one, and able to do a day’s work in the fields. The lady of the manor said triumphantly:
“Ah, there’s a fine specimen.”
Nicodemus halted at the open window and touched his cap.
“Well, Nicodemus, how are you?”
“I bain’t so wonnerful grand, my lady.”
“Dear me! If your boots are clean, come you in, and tell me what you want.”
Nicodemus removed his cap and entered cautiously. Lady Selina indicated a chair upon which the old man sat gingerly, staring about him. Lady Selina, after eyeing him keenly, said with unction:
“If I look half as well as you do when I’m past eighty I shall be heartily thankful. Now, what can I do for you?”
“I be fair twisted into knots wi’ they dratted rheumatics, my lady.”
“Didn’t you take the medicine which I asked Dr. Pawley to send you?”
“Be—utiful stuff, to be sure.”
But he rubbed his knees as he spoke. Lady Selina examined him more critically. “Your medicine doesn’t seem to have done him much good,” she observed.
Pawley, who knew his man, said confidentially:
“Own up, Nicodemus, you poured my medicine down the sink.”
Nicodemus gasped.
“Lard preserve our dear lives. How did ’ee know that, doctor?”
“So much of it has gone the same road,” replied Pawley.
Nicodemus was never without a plausible excuse.
“It give me such a rampagin’ in my innards as never was.”
Lady Selina could not accept this as adequate.
“Now, Nicodemus, if you threw the medicine down the sink you didn’t take it.”
“ ’Twas the same sart seemin’ly, my lady—all in same blue bottle. ’Tisn’t physic I wants. ’Tis my roof that leaks so tarrible, and allers has done, allers—allers.”
His voice droned away. Lady Selina said cheerfully:
“Your roof shall be mended.”
“ ’Tis a new roof as be needed, my lady.”
“Well, we’ll see about that presently. You got the port wine I sent you?”
“Yes, my lady. I owes my long life to ’ee, my lady.” He rose with difficulty. “Now I’ll march homealong.” He moved very stiffly to the window. Pawley rose also, intercepting him.
“You’re going a bit short, granfer.”
“ ’Tis my near leg, doctor.”
“My car is outside. I’ll run you down to your cottage. Take my arm.”
Lady Selina smiled pleasantly as her two guests left her presence. In a well-ordered village gentle and simple moved together in just such harmonious relations. A pleasurable glow pervaded the tissues of mind and body. Her people were properly cared for. And they responded—to use a phrase of Dr. Pawley’s—to humane treatment. The cheers of that fine summer’s afternoon still echoed in her ears.
She sat down at her desk to tackle, with appetite, a small pile of unanswered letters.
She was writing leisurely, when a noise outside distracted her attention. Noise, honest mirth, was to be expected upon such an occasion. But common decency imposed limits upon that. Above the noise, accentuating it, rose bucolic laughter, the laughter of the ale-house. Lady Selina walked to the window, frowning. As she walked a sentence rang out:
“Biff ’un again, Johnny, biff ’un again!”
Then she heard her son’s voice raised commandingly, the voice of an officer on the parade ground.
“Shut up, you fellows, at once.”
The noise died down; giggles succeeded.
Lady Selina stood still, listening. She could trust her son to deal drastically with anything approximating to a disturbance in her garden. That such a disturbance should take place amongst her guests filled her with dismay and astonishment.
She was enlightened forthwith by Brian, who entered hurriedly, rather flushed in the face.
“What has happened, Brian?”
“A little scrap, Mums.”
“A little—scrap.” She repeated the words incredulously.
“Yes; Johnny Exton and Gridley.”
“You tell me that John Exton and Gridley have been fighting on my lawn. Send them to me immediately. What an outrage!”
Brian withheld comment. Within a minute the offenders appeared looking uncommonly sheepish. Brian ushered them into the presence, and closed the French windows against a grinning and inquisitive crowd. Lady Selina stared coldly at her bailiff. He presented a not too prepossessing appearance, being hatless and breathless, with his tie undone, his hair in disorder and a dash of blood upon his cheek. Hard eyes glared out of a weather-beaten face. Lady Selina hardly recognised her smug, obsequious Grand Vizier. She glanced swiftly at John Exton, the son of Ephraim. The young man bore no marks of the encounter, but he appeared to be still simmering with rage. Gridley was thick-set and slightly corpulent; John Exton was tall and slim. Lady Selina turned to her bailiff.
“What have you to say, Gridley?”
“He struck me first, my lady.”
She addressed the young man, coldly.
“You struck my bailiff on my lawn?”
“On my cheek, my lady.”
Gridley put his hand to his cheek, and discovering blood began to wipe it off with a bandana. John looked at the knuckles of his right hand, grinned, and hid his hand in his pocket. Lady Selina, judicially calm outwardly, continued:
“Kindly tell me, John Exton, why you, my guest this afternoon, struck another guest of mine?”
John fidgeted, blurting out the words:
“I’m not your guest, my lady.”
“What do you mean?”
The young man replied sullenly:
“With things as they are at our farm, I haven’t time, my lady, to be anybody’s guest. Father put his money into valuable stock, and some of ’em are dying. We’re pretty nigh desperate. Father told me to find Mr. Gridley this afternoon, and to ask for a little help. I went to his house. They told me he was here——”
“Yes, yes; but why did you strike him?”
Excitedly, he didn’t pause to pick his words.
“Because, my lady, he’s a bully and a brute.”
Lady Selina made no attempt to hide her amazement. The young man spoke with such passion that he became impressive.
“Bless my soul! What do you answer to that, Gridley?”
Gridley answered fiercely:
“He’s a liar.”
Immediately Lady Selina’s handsome face stiffened into impassivity.
“You forget yourself, my good man.”
“Infernal cheek,” muttered Brian.
Gridley cringed.
“I beg pardon, my lady. I’m your ladyship’s servant. Young Exton said narsty things about you, my lady. Said you was responsible for the rotten conditions at his father’s farm. That maddened me, my lady.”
She turned once more to John Exton. He confronted her boldly but not brazenly, although it is likely that such a woman at such a time might mistake courage for defiance.
“Did you say that?”
“Something of the sort, my lady.”
“And then——?”
Gridley answered eagerly:
“I spoke up for you, my lady. I told him that when you lowered his father’s rent three years ago it was understood that you were not responsible for the outside repairs.”
“Which is perfectly true.”
Gridley continued with less restraint, perceiving, possibly, that a little warmth of speech might be deemed pardonable:
“With that he flies out at me, my lady. I’d be ashamed to repeat his language to your ladyship. I aim to keep a clean tongue in my head, I do.”
John interpolated quickly:
“Only when talking to her ladyship.”
“Silence, please.” She shot a disdainful glance at John and turned once more to her bailiff. Her voice became velvety.
“Tell me what John Exton said with—a—decent reservations.”
Gridley began to inflate, striking an attitude and speaking in a loud, derisive tone:
“I’m a humbug and a hypocrite, my lady. I’m grinding Gridley, I am. I grind the face o’ the pore and my own axe at the same time.”
Lady Selina was able to fill in the lacunæ in this text. She looked very coldly at the young man.
“You dared to say that to my bailiff?”
“It’s true, my lady; every word of it.”
“Stuff and nonsense! And how dare you hold me responsible for the disease at your neglected farm?”
John spoke deprecatingly.
“Our buildings ought to be destroyed.”
Gridley nodded.
“What I’ve said many a time.”
Lady Selina nodded also.
“I’m inclined to agree with that. The buildings were never taken care of.”
John exploded.
“They were taken too much care of.”
Gridley pursued his advantage, saying slyly:
“He thinks, my lady, that he and his father own your property.”
“No, I don’t,” John replied hotly. “All the same——” He broke off abruptly.
“Pray, finish your sentence.”
The young man pulled himself together. Voice and hands trembled slightly as he said more quietly:
“Property, my lady, is a trust, a sacred trust, or—or it ought to be.”
Lady Selina paused before she answered him, a pause characteristic of her. She boasted, not without reason, that she was approachable, that she listened patiently to what her people might wish to say to her. And rarely indeed did she lose her temper with servants or those whom she held beneath her in station. A faint smile flickered about her lips as she asked quietly:
“Do you seriously accuse me of abusing a sacred trust?”
Gridley broke another silence.
“He says the land belongs to all of us.”
“Do you?”
Poor John became desperate, the champion of a lost cause, with his back to the wall, sensible that further speech was futile, quite unable to hold his tongue when challenged.
“I think the land belongs to England, my lady, although a few have been allowed to do what they like with it.”
“Allowed?”
“Yes, your ladyship,allowed.”
“You can go.”
John stared at her and went out. Brian opened the door for him and then closed it. Lady Selina spoke to Gridley:
“You will receive a letter from me tomorrow morning. Act upon it promptly.”
“Very good, my lady.”
Mother and son were left alone.
Brian went up to Lady Selina and kissed her, murmuring:
“This has been beastly for you, Mums. I’m most awfully sorry.”
“Yes, yes; but what do you think of it?”
“As to that, I think, of course, what you think.”
“I call John Exton an anarchist.”
“So do I.”
“And I won’t have anarchists in Upworthy. Send Agatha Farleigh to me.”
“Right-o!”
He hurried away, with an air of relief. Lady Selina glanced at her late husband’s portrait, frowning, and biting her lips. Then she went back to her desk, reopening the Estate ledger and eyeing it grimly. Before Agatha came in, she took up a cut-glass bottle holding crystals of ammonia in eau de Cologne, and inhaled the pungent fumes. She had not admitted to her son that she was stupefied with astonishment.
Agatha Farleigh, however, found her mistress calm as usual.
The girl approached the desk and stood respectfully at attention.