Elizabeth's Campaign Part 9

She vanished. The brother and sister looked at each other.

Desmond gave his opinion.

'I believe she's a good sort!'

'"Wait and see,"' said Pamela pompously, and returned to her packing.

The preceding conversation took place during a break in Elizabeth's morning occupations. She had been busily occupied in collecting and copying out some references from Pausanias, under the Squire's direction. He meanwhile had been cataloguing and noting his new possessions, which, thanks to the aid of his henchman Leva.s.seur, had been already arranged. And they made indeed a marvellous addition to the Mannering library and its collections. At the end of the room stood now a huge archaic Nike, with outstretched peplum and soaring wings. To her left was the small figure, archaic also, of a charioteer, from the excavations at Delphi, amazingly full of life in spite of hieratic and traditional execution. But the most conspicuous thing of all was a mutilated Eros, by a late Rhodian artist--subtle, thievish, lovely, breathing an evil and daemonic charm. It stood opposite the Nike, 'on tiptoe for a flight.' And there was that in it which seemed at moments to disorganize the room, and lay violent and exclusive hold on the spectator.

Elizabeth on returning to her table found the library empty. The Squire had been called away by his agent and one of the new officials of the county, and had not yet returned. She expected him to return in a bad--possibly an outrageous temper. For she gathered that the summons had something to do with the decree of the County War Agricultural Committee that fifty acres, at least, of Mannering Park were to be given back to the plough, which, indeed, had only ceased to possess them some sixty years before. The Squire had gone out pale with fury, and she looked anxiously at her work, to see what there might be in it to form an excuse for a hurricane.

She could find nothing, however, likely to displease a sane man. And as she was at a standstill till he came back, she slipped an unfinished letter out of her notebook, and went on with it. It was to a person whom she addressed as 'my darling d.i.c.k.'

'I have now been rather more than a month here. You can't imagine what a queer place it is, nor what a queer employer I have struck. There might be no war--as far as Mannering is concerned. The Squire is always engaged in mopping it out, like Mrs. Partington. He takes no newspaper, except a rag called the _Lanchester Mail_, which attacks the Government, the Army--as far as it dare--and "secret diplomacy." It comes out about once a week with a black page, because the Censor has been sitting on it. Desmond Mannering--that's the gunner-son who came on leave a week ago and is just going off to an artillery camp--and I, conspire through the butler--who is a dear, and a patriot--to get the _Times_; but the Squire never sees it. Desmond reads it in bed in the morning, I read it in bed in the evening, and Pamela Mannering, Mr. Desmond's twin, comes in last thing, in her dressing-gown, and steals it.

'I seem indeed to be living in the heart of a whirlwind, for the Squire is fighting everybody all round, and as he is the least reticent of men, and I have to write his letters, I naturally, even by now, know a good deal about him. Shortly put, he is in a great mess. The estate is riddled with mortgages, which it would be quite easy to reduce. For instance, there are ma.s.ses of timber, crying to be cut. He consults me often in the navest way. You remember that I trained for six months as an accountant. I a.s.sure you that it comes in extremely useful now!

I can see my way a little where he can't see it at all. He glories in the fact that he was never any good at arithmetic or figures of any kind, and never looked at either after "Smalls."

The estate of course used to be looked after in the good old-fashioned way by the family lawyers. But a few years ago the Squire quarrelled with these gentlemen, recovered all his papers, which no doubt went back to King Alfred, and resolved to deal with things himself. There is an office here, and a small attorney from Fallerton comes over twice or three times a week.

But the Squire bosses it. And you never saw anything like his accounts! I have been trying to put some of them straight--just those that concern the house and garden--after six weeks'

acquaintance! Odd, isn't it? He is like an irritable child with them. And his agent, who is seventy, and bronchitic, is the greatest fool I ever saw. He neglects everything. _His_ accounts too, as far as I have inspected them, are disgraceful. He does nothing for the farmers, and the farmers do exactly as they please with the land.

'Or did! For now comes the rub. Government is interfering, through the County Committee. They are turning out three of Mr.

Mannering's farmers by force, because he won't do it himself, and ploughing up the park. I believe the steam tractor comes next week. The Squire has been employing some new lawyers to find out if he can't stop it somehow. And each time he sees them he comes home madder than before.

'Of course it all comes from a pa.s.sionate antagonism to the war.

He is not a pacifist exactly--he is not a conscientious objector. He is just an individualist gone mad--an egotistical, hot-tempered man, with all the ideas of the old _regime_, who thinks he can fight the world. I am often really sorry for him--he is so preposterous. But the muddle and waste of it all drives me crazy--you know I always was a managing creature.

'But one thing is certain--that he is a most excellent scholar.

I knew I had got rusty, but I didn't know how rusty till I came to work for him. He has a wonderful memory--seems to know every Greek author by heart--and a most delicate and unerring taste. I thought I should find a mere dabbler--an amateur. And it takes all I know to do the drudgery work he gives me. And then he is always coming down upon me. It delights him to find me out in a howler--makes him, in fact, quite good-tempered for twenty minutes.

'As to the rest of the family, there is a charming boy and girl--twins of nineteen, the boy just off to an artillery camp after his cadet training; the girl extremely pretty and distinguished, and so far inclined to think me an intruder and a nuisance. How to get round her I don't exactly know, but I daresay I shall manage it somehow. If she would only set up a love-affair I could soon get the whip-hand of her!

'Then there is the priceless butler, with whom I have already made friends. I seem to have a taste for butlers, though I've never lived with one. He is fifty-two and a volunteer, in stark opposition to the Squire, who jeers at him perpetually. Forest takes it calmly, seems even in a queer way to be attached to his queer master. But he never misses a drill for anybody or any weather, and when he's out, the under-housemaid "b.u.t.tles" for him like a lamb. The fact is, of course, that he's been here for twenty years, and the Squire couldn't get on for a day without him, or thinks he couldn't. So that his position is, as you may say, strongly entrenched, and counter-attacks are useless.

'The married daughters--Mrs. Gaddesden, who, I think, is an Honourable, and Mrs. Strang--are coming to-morrow to see their brother before he goes into camp. The Squire doesn't want them at all. Ah, there he comes! I'll finish later...'

The Squire came in--to use one of the Homeric similes of which he was so fond--'like a lion fresh from a slain bull, bespattered with blood and mire.' He had gone out pale, he returned crimson, rubbing his hands and in great excitement. And it was evident that he had by now formed the habit of talking freely to his secretary. For he went up to her at once.

'Well, now they know what to expect!' he said, his eyes glittering, and all his thick hair on his small peaked head standing up in a high ridge, like the crest of a battle-helmet.

'Who are "they"?' asked Elizabeth, smiling, as she quietly pushed her letter a little further under the blotting-paper.

'The County Council idiots--no, the Inspector fellow they're sending round.'

'And what did you tell him?'

'That I should resist their entry. The gates of the park will be locked. And my lawyers are already preparing a case for the High Court. Well--eh!--what?'--the speaker wound up impatiently, as though waiting for an immediate and applauding response.

Elizabeth was silent. She bent over the Greek book in front of her, as though looking for her place.

'You didn't think I was going to take it lying down!' asked the Squire, in a raised voice. Her silence suggested to him afresh all the odious and tyrannical forces by which he felt himself surrounded.

Elizabeth turned to him with a cheerful countenance.

'I don't quite understand what "it" means,' she said politely.

'Nonsense, you do!' was the angry reply. 'That's so like a woman.

They always want to catch you out; they never see things simply and broadly. You'd like to make yourself out a fool--[Greek: nepia]--and you're not a fool!'

And with his hands in his pockets he made two or three long strides up to the Nike, at the further end of the room, and back, pulling up beside her again, as though challenging her reply.

'I a.s.sure you, sir, I wasn't trying to catch you out,' Elizabeth began in her gentlest voice.

'Don't call me "sir." I won't have it!' cried the Squire, almost stamping.

Then Elizabeth laughed outright.

'I'm sorry, but when I was working in the War Trade Department I always called the head of my room "sir."'

'That's because women _like_ kow-towing--[Greek: doulosunen anechesthai]!' said the Squire. Then he threw himself into a chair.

'Now let's talk sense a little.'

Elizabeth's attentive look, and lips quivering with amus.e.m.e.nt which she tried in vain to suppress, and he was determined not to see, showed her more than willing.

'I suppose you think--like that fellow I've just routed--that it's a uestion of food production. It isn't! It's a question of _liberty_--_versus_ bondage. If we can only survive as slaves, then wipe us out! That's my view.'

'Wasn't there a bishop once who said he would rather have England free than sober?' asked Elizabeth.

'And a very sensible man,' growled the Squire, 'though in general I've no use for bishops. Now you understand, I hope? This is going to be a test case. I'll make England ring.'

'Are you sure they can't settle it at once, under the Defence of the Realm Act?'

'Not they!' said the Squire triumphantly. 'Of course, I'm not putting up a frontal defence. I'm outflanking them. I'm proving that this is the worst land they could possibly choose. I'm offering them something else that they don't want. Meanwhile the gates shall be locked, and if any one or anything breaks them down--my lawyers are ready--we apply for an injunction at once.'

'And you're not--well, nervous?' asked Miss Bremerton, with a charming air of presenting something that might have been overlooked.

'Nervous of what?'

'Isn't the law--the new law--rather dreadfully strong?'

'Oh, you think I shall end in the county gaol?' said the Squire abruptly. 'Well, of course'--he took a reflective turn up and down--'I've no particular wish just now for the county gaol. It would be an infernal nuisance--in the middle of this book. But I mean to give them as much trouble as I can. I'm all right so far.'

He looked up suddenly, and caught an expression on his secretary's face which called him to order at once, though he was not meant to see it. Contempt?--cold contempt? Something like it.