The Hall and the Grange Part 22

Pamela moved along beside him in the active grace of her young girlhood, talking to him quietly and confidentially. He answered her in the same tone, alert to make the response that she would have him make; but only a part of his mind was upon the subject that alone held hers. The rest of it was in a ferment of incredulous wonder and self-gratulation. He stole a glance at her every now and then and wondered afresh at finding himself in this sort of companionship. Everything about her was fresh and sweet and virginal. In all his mean experience of s.e.x he had never thought to have been so moved by the mere proximity of such a girl as this; in all his selfish, uninspired experience of life he had never thought to have been thrilled by a pure emotion. She made him hate the thought of evil, and turn away with disgust from his baser self. If he was ready to plot and scheme to get her, and would not be too particular what weapons he used if it came to a fight, once having made her his own, he would tend the spiritual flame that she had lighted in him.

Already he was a better man because of her. He knew it and rejoiced in it, who had not previously desired to be anything better than he was.

They left the park and went for a short distance up the shady road, to where a track ran off among the trees to the shallow pit at the end of it. The rich red gravel lay in ruled banks and mounds where it had been dug out, and the men who were working at it were filling the two carts which were to carry it down to the park. Old Jackson was working as hard as anyone, as well as directing it all. He was a fine figure of a man, with his upright sinewy frame kept supple by use. His face had that delicacy of line and feature which is to be found among the true sons of the soil, perhaps as often as the result of generations of blue blood.

His eyes were clear and keen, with a look in them not far removed from the innocent look of a child. Such men as he may take orders from others all their lives, but they never lose their dignity of manhood.

The carts were nearly filled. Fred and Pamela waited until they were ready to be moved, and then Fred told Jackson that they wanted to speak to him. Would he send the carts on and stay behind for a few minutes?

He gave the orders and returned to them, putting on his coat. "Have you got a pipe?" asked Fred, offering him his opened tobacco pouch; but with a glance at Pamela he refused. Fred put the pouch back into his pocket, and his own pipe with it, and began rather hurriedly: "Miss Eldridge wants to ask you a few questions. Perhaps you know that there's some misunderstanding between Colonel Eldridge and Sir William about Coombe, Sir William's gardener. If you can tell her exactly what happened when Colonel Eldridge came down to Barton's Close, she thinks she may be able to do something to straighten it all out. She'll see you don't suffer from anything you tell her."

Some such opening had been agreed upon between them, but Pamela's brows came slightly together at the last sentence. "I do want to know exactly what Coombe did say," she added. "I know you didn't like his talking as he did about father, so I thought you'd help us about it if you could."

The old man looked away. There was something pathetic in his expression of patience and slight puzzlement. "I told the Colonel," he said slowly.

"He's always been a kind master to me, and I'm glad to be took on by him again."

"Yes, you wouldn't like to hear him spoken against," said Fred. "Sir William wouldn't either, if he knew of it. But Coombe seems to be a clever sort of man in the mischief he makes, and he's persuaded Sir William that he didn't say anything that could be objected to. But you heard him, didn't you?"

The blue eyes came slowly round to Fred and rested on him again, and did not leave him this time. "I don't know as I want to make that known to all and sundry," said old Jackson. "There's a many asks me, but I say to them as I say to you, that the Colonel's been a good master to me, and I don't like such things said."

Pamela understood him and said quickly, before Fred could speak: "You don't want to repeat it, do you? I'm glad you don't. But...."

"But there are others who heard it," said Fred. "And it must have been put about all over the place. You won't do Colonel Eldridge any harm by telling us."

The old man's face changed slightly as he looked at Pamela. "Don't you go for to mix yourself up in it, Missy," he said. "n.o.body scarcely don't pay attention to what that there Coombe says about the Colonel. He don't come from these parts, and we knows the Colonel." He turned to Fred again. He seemed to have found his speech now. "'Tain't for the likes of Miss Pamela to be mixed up in it. What comes to your ears here and there you keep to yourself, or say to others, and not to her. None of us who belongs to Hayslope don't want the young ladies mixed up in this."

Fred ignored the rebuke, which struck him unpleasantly. "Well, I belong to Hayslope too, you know," he said, "though I've been away from it for a good many years."

"What's for the likes of us ain't for the likes of her," returned the old man, looking full at him. Then he looked again at Pamela. "Don't you mix yourself up in it, Missy," he said, in the almost caressing tone which he had used towards her before. "I'll get along down to the road now."

He took a step away from them and then turned round again. "I said to young Norman yesterday," he said, "'if you want to hear the rights of it,' I said, 'you can ask Dell or Chambers,' I said. _He'll_ tell you, Missy. 'I won't have nothing more to do with it,' I said. 'You can ask Dell or Chambers.'"

Fred's face wore a disagreeable look as he frowned after the old man's broad back. As a boy he had played with the village lads, and held a sort of leadership among them, but more because of his athletic prowess than from any recognition on their part of his superior station. The elders of the village, recognizing his rough clay, had paid him hardly more respect than if he were one of their own sons. It was plain that Jackson considered that no more was owing to him now. If not quite one of themselves, he was not for a moment to be counted as of the elect.

Had Pamela understood the snub that the old man had given him? He smoothed away the frown and turned quickly to her. But she was looking down, and on her face there was a frown too of perplexity.

"Norman has been asking him questions," she said.

"Norman," he said. "I wonder why. And I suppose he went to those other two men. Of course they'll tell him anything he wants to hear."

She did not quite like this. She started to walk along the track, Fred at her side, his brain working quickly. "I think the old man is right,"

he said. "You ought not to be mixed up in this--not in the way of asking questions yourself, I mean. Let me ask them for you. Very likely, if I'd had old Jackson alone, I could have got something out of him. I'm quite sure I can out of those other two, and it's important I should, now that the enemy has got to work."

She looked at him with an expression that he had not seen on her face before, and instantly regretted having called up. "Norman isn't an enemy," she said. "If he has been asking questions, it is because he wants to get it all cleared up, as much as we do."

"Oh, yes," he said evenly. "I didn't mean anything else. But it would be only natural that he should want to see his father justified. Much better get at it from another side. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll see these men in their dinner hour. I don't suppose it will take very long to get it out of them. Then I'll come straight up to the Hall, and I shall be able to tell you before lunch."

"I'm not sure I wouldn't rather see Norman first," she said; but she said it rather doubtfully. Norman might have told her that he was going to make inquiries on his own account, instead of saying that neither he nor she could do anything. Fred had offended her in calling him the enemy, but he was probably right in attributing some bias to Norman. She did not disguise from herself her own bias, and when Fred said again that it would be better to get the story for themselves, she acquiesced.

"I'll go now," he said, when they came to the gate that led into the park. "It's nearly a quarter to twelve, and I shall catch them coming back. I want to go home first."

It cost him something to leave her; there would have been plenty of time to walk with her to the Hall and back to the village by twelve o'clock.

But he knew he could not trust himself to hide his antagonism to Norman, if she were to discuss his intervention further. He did not want to arouse that defensive and offended look in her face again. When he next met her he expected to have firmer ground under his feet. She was already a little doubtful of Norman. He wasn't in the least doubtful. Of course Norman was gathering material for his side; if not he would have told Pamela what he was going to do. Probably he would tell her, when he had done it; but Fred would have told her first. He had a score to wipe off against Norman.

He did not go to the Vicarage, but to the Hayslope Arms, where he was quite accustomed to making himself at home. On his first arrival at Hayslope he had frequented it, picking up old acquaintances there, and establishing himself as one who had made his way in the world but had not become proud on that account. The men who had been boys with him liked him well enough, and he was free with his money. When all his thoughts had become centred on Pamela, he had left off going there; the contrast between what had satisfied him in the way of company and what was open to him at the Hall was too great. He felt some slight repugnance now as he entered the sanded bar; but he was keen in spite of it, for he realized that the book of the village gossip was open to him whenever he liked to dip into it, and that if he had not of late cut himself off from his old a.s.sociates he might have had much material to manipulate. But it would be easy to pick it all up, and Norman had no such chances, though those who came in contact with him liked him.

Pamela took a book into the garden, to a seat which commanded a view of the drive, and waited with what patience she could muster. She felt a little guilty, but allowed no patience with herself over that. It seemed to be she alone who could straighten out this tangle, which was making her father so sad that it wrung her heart to see him. His dejected look when he thought himself un.o.bserved, still more his forced cheerfulness with his children--oh, it was sad to see! And she loved him; she thought she loved him better than anybody in the world, better even than her mother, over whom she was rather puzzled at this time. Her mother never allowed herself to be unduly perturbed about anything, and met her own troubles with a whimsical philosophy which Pamela had admired greatly, since she had been old enough to see that they were such as many women would have made themselves miserable over. Certainly she had lightened the burdens that her husband had had to bear, by showing herself happy with what was left to her, and encouraging her children to do the same. She and Pam had often talked that over together. They were never to let him see that they missed anything, and her mother would never acknowledge to her that she did miss anything.

But in this new trouble that admirable spirit of cheerfulness hardly seemed adequate, or even suitable. Pam knew that her mother and her aunt had essayed to put it right, but not having been able to do so they seemed to accept it, and to want as much to be together as before. Pam was beginning to think that such an intimacy could only be possible if it was agreed that neither side was more worthy of blame than the other.

Did her mother take that view? Pamela couldn't. There might be two sides to the quarrel, but what mattered was that it bore far more hardly upon the one than upon the other. She had seen that quite plainly for herself. Her father was depressed and saddened by it. Her uncle seemed to have put it aside altogether. He had been more than usually kind and affectionate to her on the one occasion on which she had been to the Grange since the split, obviously with the intention of showing himself so. But he had also been in more than usual high spirits. Of course he was pleased about his peerage and all that! And it was nice of him--perhaps--to want to show her that the quarrel had made no difference in his feelings towards any of them, except one. But she, at least, could not dissociate herself from that one; it seemed a disloyalty to go to the Grange and to be treated by Uncle William as if nothing had happened, while he stayed at home, alone and sad, because so much had happened. Uncle William was far more free with his expressions of affection than her father had ever been. His manner to his brother had always seemed to show great affection, and she had never doubted that he felt it towards him. But it was he who was showing himself almost unaffected by the estrangement, while her father was feeling it deeply.

The decision was growing up in her mind to talk to her uncle herself.

That was why she wanted to find out more than she knew already of what had actually happened. She knew that her father made a point of Coombe's dismissal. If she could go to him and tell him why she thought he ought to give way...! It would be greatly daring, on the ground she had always occupied with him, when apparently her mother, who must have made some appeal, had failed to move him. But she knew that her mother had taken no steps to find justification for her father's att.i.tude. n.o.body seemed to have thought of doing that except herself--unless it was Norman. But she could not be sure of Norman, yet, though she was quite unwilling to take Fred's view of his investigations.

She saw Fred's figure top the little rise in the drive which hid the lodge from where she was sitting, and her eyes rested upon it as it approached and grew larger, with a gaze of inquiry, almost of exploration. She had not been unaffected by Norman's freely expressed dislike of Fred; but in a matter of this sort she must abide by her own knowledge and observation. Fred had been rather a horrid sort of boy, but that ought not to tell against him if he had turned himself into rather a good sort of man. She thought he had, though there seemed to be a common streak in him which slightly offended her sometimes. But surely a man who was not "nice," after all the hard experiences he had undergone, would not have shown himself so appreciative of the quiet domestic life that they lived at the Hall. She knew, of course, that he admired her, and probably frequented the Hall largely on her account.

But his liking had never shown itself in a way to make her take counsel of herself; and that was another point in his favour. Her father liked him, and evidently trusted him, or he would not have wanted to consult him about something, as he was about to do. And he was whole-hearted in his defence of her father. That was more in his favour than anything else. It was enough, at any rate, for the present. She rose and went to meet him, not without eagerness.

They went back to her seat and he told her what he had discovered, but not how or where he had discovered it.

The gist of it--very carefully imparted, so that at no point could she take umbrage at it--was that Norman had been making his inquiries with the quite obvious intention of proving that nothing had been said that it was worth making such a fuss about. The two men, indeed, who did not belong to the village, now denied stoutly that Coombe had gone beyond a very mild protest at the work being stopped. They seemed to be in with Coombe again and it was quite likely that they were expecting well-paid work from him, when they had got through with their present job. Their denials had been so obviously insincere that it was scarcely worth while wasting time with them. Fred would not suggest who had primed them, but it was quite plain that they were saying only what they were expected to say, and would stick to it.

"If it is so," Pam said, "it must be Coombe who is priming them. Of course he would want as little made of it as possible."

Fred thought this very likely--with a reluctant air that seemed to indicate that he knew better, but didn't want to say so.

"Pegg, the other man, tells a different story," he said, and repeated to her some of the things that had been said by Coombe about her father, which made her blush hot with resentment. "Did Norman talk to him?" she asked.

"Yes."

"And did he tell him that?"

"Well, no, he didn't."

"Why not? Do tell me everything." She was becoming impatient over his hesitations.

He plumped it out: "Because he saw that it wouldn't be well received.

These men know on which side their bread's b.u.t.tered, and they are not going to give themselves away. Even Old Jackson--he's working for your father now, and hopes to be kept on, but he doesn't want to offend Sir William. None of them do. Pegg hopes to be kept on here too, I think, and he doesn't mind giving Coombe away, but he isn't going to give him away to Norman. That's how it is, and it's no good hiding it. I don't know what Norman really wants, but it's quite plain what these men _think_ he wants, and that's to back up his side of the quarrel.

Everybody knows there is a quarrel now, and nearly everybody is on our side. I've found that out. I think you must leave Norman out of it, if you're to do any good."

She thought this over, but made no reply. "Is Coombe still making mischief?" she asked.

"He's rather frightened, I think, and has kept his mouth shut lately; but everybody knows that he would do Colonel Eldridge any injury that he could. They think he ought to be got rid of. He's a bad influence in the place."

Pamela rose. "It's nearly lunch time," she said. "Thank you very much for helping me. I must think what to do."

CHAPTER XX