Elizabeth's Campaign Part 31

'But has she done anything nasty--anything to bother you?'

'Well, of course, I'm just a cypher when she's there. I'm afraid I oughtn't to mind--but I do!'

And Pamela, with her hands round her knees, stared into the fire in bitterness of spirit. She couldn't explain, even to Desmond, that the inward eye all the time was tormented by two kindred visions--Arthur in the hall that afternoon, talking war work with Elizabeth with such warm and eager deference, and Arthur on Holme Hill, stretched at Elizabeth's feet, and bandying cla.s.sical chaff with her. And there was a third, still more poignant, of a future in which Elizabeth would be always there, the centre of the picture, mistress of the house, the clever and charming woman, beside whom girls in their teens had no chance.

She was startled out of these reflections by a remark from Desmond.

'You know, Pam, you ought to get married soon.'

The boy spoke shyly--but gravely and decidedly. Pam thought with a sudden anguish--'He would never have said that, unless--'

She laid her head on his shoulder, clinging to him.

'I shan't get married, old boy.'

'Oh, that's nonsense! Look here, Pam--you mustn't mind my poking my nose into things where I've no business. You see, it's because--Well, I've sometimes thought--punch my head, if you like!--that you had a fancy for Arthur Chicksands.'

Pamela laughed.

'Well, as he hasn't got any fancy for me, you needn't take that into your dear old head!'

'Why, he was always very fond of you, Pam.'

'Oh, yes, he liked ragging me when I was a child. I'm not good enough for him now.'

'What do you mean--not good enough?'

'Not clever enough, you silly old boy. He'll marry somebody much older than me.'

Desmond ruminated.

'He seemed to be getting on with Broomie this afternoon?'

'Magnificently. He always does. She's his sort. She writes to him.'

'Oh, does she?' The boy's voice was dry and hostile. He began to understand, or thought he did. Miss Bremerton was not only plotting to marry his father--had perhaps been plotting for it from the beginning--but was besides playing an unfair game with Pam--spoiling Pam's chances--cutting in where she wasn't wanted--grabbing, in fact. Anger was mounting in him. Why should his father be mopped up like this?--and Pamela made unhappy?

'I'd jolly well like to stop it all!' he said, under his breath.

'Stop what? You dear, foolish old man! You can't stop it, Dezzy.'

'Well, if she'll only make him happy--!'

'Oh, she'll be quite decent to him,' said Pamela, with a shrug, 'but she'll despise him!'

'What the deuce do you mean, Pam?'

Whereupon, quite conscious that she was obeying an evil and feverish impulse, but unable to control it, Pamela went into a long and pa.s.sionate justification of what she had said. A number of small incidents--trifling acts and sayings of Elizabeth's--misinterpreted and twisted by the girl's jealous pain, were poured into Desmond's ears.

'All the servants know that she treats father like a baby. She and Forest manage him in little things--in the house--just as she runs the estate. For instance, she does just what she likes with the fruit and the flowers--'

'Why, _you_ ought to do all that, Pam!'

'I tried when I came home from school. Father wouldn't let me do a thing. But _she_ does just what she pleases. You can hear her and Forest laughing over it. Oh, it's all right, of course. She sends things to hospitals every week.'

'That was what you used to want.'

'I do want it--but--'

'You ought to have the doing of it?'

'Oh, I don't know. I'm away all day. But she might at least _pretend_ to refer to him--or me--sometimes. It's the same in everything. She twists father round her little finger; and you can see all the time what she thinks--that there never was such a bad landlord, or such a miserable, f.e.c.kless crew as the rest of us, before she came to put us straight!'

Desmond listened--partly resisting--but finally carried away. By the time their talk was over he felt that he too hated Elizabeth Bremerton, and that it was horrid to have to leave Pamela with her.

When they said good-night Pamela threw herself on her bed face downwards, more wretched than she had ever been--wretched because Desmond was going, and might be killed, wretched, too, because her conscience told her that she had spoilt his last evening, and made him exceedingly unhappy, by a lot of exaggerated complaints. She was degenerating--she knew it. 'I am a little beast, compared to what I was when I left school,' she confessed to herself with tears, and did not know how to get rid of this fiery plague that was eating at her heart. She seemed to look back to a time--only yesterday!--when poetry and high ideals, friendships and religion filled her mind; and now nothing--nothing!--was of any importance, but the look, the voice, the touch of a man.

The next day, Desmond's last day at home, for he was due in London by the evening, was gloomy and embarra.s.sed for all concerned.

Elizabeth, pre-occupied and shrinking from her own thoughts, could not imagine what had happened. She had put off all her engagements for the day, that she might help in any last arrangements that might have to be made for Desmond.

But Desmond declined to be helped, not rudely, but with a decision, which took Elizabeth aback.

'Mayn't I look out some books for you? I have found some more pocket cla.s.sics,' she had said to him with a smile, remembering his application to her in the autumn.

'No, thank you. I shall have no time.' And with that, a prompt retreat to Pamela and the Den. Elizabeth, indeed, who was all eagerness to serve him, found herself rebuffed at every turn.

Nor were matters any better with Pamela, who had cried off her hospital work in order to pack for Desmond. Elizabeth, seeing her come downstairs with an armful of khaki shirts to be marked, offered a.s.sistance--almost timidly. But Pamela's 'Thank you, but I'd rather not trouble you--I can do it quite well'--was so frosty that Elizabeth could only retire--bewildered--to the library, where she and the Squire gave a morning's work to the catalogue, and never said a word of farm or timber.

But the Squire worked irritably, finding fault with a number of small matters, and often wandering away into the house to see what Desmond was doing. During these intervals Elizabeth would sit, pen in hand, staring absently into the dripping garden and the park beaten by a cold rain. The future began to seem to her big with events and perplexity.

Then with the evening came the boy's leave-taking; full of affection towards his father and sister, and markedly chilly in the case of Elizabeth. When the station taxi had driven off, Elizabeth--with that cold touch of the boy's fingers still tingling on her hand--turned from the front door to see Pamela disappearing to the schoolroom, and the Squire fidgeting with an evening paper which the taxi had brought him from the station.

Elizabeth suddenly noticed the shaking of the paper, over which only the crest of white hair showed. Too bad of Pamela to have gone off without a word to her father! Was it sympathy with the Squire, or resentment on her own account, that made Elizabeth go up to him?--though at a respectful distance.

'Shall we finish the bit of translation we began this morning, if you're not busy?' she said gently. It was very rarely now that she was able to do any cla.s.sical work after the mornings.

The Squire threw down the newspaper, and strode on before her to the library without a word. Elizabeth followed. Rain and darkness had been shut out. The wood fire glowed on the hearth, and its ruddy light was on the face of the Nike, and its solemn outstretched wings. All the apparatus of their common work was ready, the work that both loved. Elizabeth felt a sudden, pa.s.sionate drawing towards this man twenty years older than herself, which seemed to correspond to the new and smarting sense of alienation from the twins and their raw, unjust youth. What had been the reason for their behaviour to her that day?--what had she done? She was conscious of long weeks of effort, in Pamela's case,--trying to please and win her; and of a constant tender interest in Desmond, which had never missed an opportunity of doing or suggesting something he might like--all for this! She must have offended them she supposed in some way; how, she could not imagine. But her mood was sore; and, self-controlled as she was, her pulse raced.

Here, however, she was welcome, she was needed; she could distract and soothe a bitterness of soul best measured by the Squire's most unusual taciturnity. No railing at the Government or the war, not a fling even at the 'd----d pedant, Chicksands!' or 'The Bubbly-jocks,' as he liked to call the members of the County War Committee. Elizabeth put a text of Aristophanes--the _Pax_--into his hands, and drew her table near to him, waiting his pleasure. There was a lamp behind him which fell on her broad, white brow, her waiting eyes and hand, and all the friendly intelligence of her face. The Squire began haltingly, lost his place, almost threw the book away; but she cheered him on, admired this phrase, delicately amended that, till the latent pa.s.sion had gripped him, and he was soon in full swing, revelling in all the jests and topicalities of the play, where the strikers and pacifists, the profiteers, the soldiers and munition workers of two thousand odd years ago, fight and toil, prate and wrangle and scheme, as eager and as alive as their descendants of to-day. Soon his high, tempestuous laugh rang out; Elizabeth's gentler mirth answering. Sometimes there was a dispute about a word or a rendering; she would put up her own view, with obstinacy, so that he might have the pleasure of knocking it down. And all through there was the growing sense of comradeship, of mutual understanding, which, in their cla.s.sical work at least, had been always present for Elizabeth, since her first acquaintance with her strange employer.

When she rose, reluctantly, at the sound of the dressing-bell, the Squire paced up and down while she put her books and papers away.

Then as she was going, he turned abruptly--

'I told Forest to order the _Times_--will you see he does it?'

'Certainly.'

'I loathe all newspapers,' he said sombrely. 'If we must go to the devil, I don't want to know too much about it. But still--'