The Hall and the Grange Part 32

"I don't think so. At least I don't remember her name for the moment.

Could you afford to give me a card index for a Christmas present? I was reading an advertis.e.m.e.nt the other day, and I think it is just the thing I want, to be able to refer to any of them at a moment's notice."

Norman laughed freely. "That's jolly good, Pam," he said. "Jolly good.

If I could only find somebody who could say that sort of thing. Of course she'd have to be as pretty as you too, and you don't find 'em like that in every basket of peaches. Margaret came nearest to you, but--"

"What has become of Margaret? I did think something might happen there, when it had gone on for a fortnight. Or was it only ten days?"

"That's not quite so good, Pam. I saw Margaret last week. We met at a play, and had a word together between the acts. Rather moving, it was. I think we both felt that a chapter in our long-past lives, though closed, would always remain as a tender and delicate memory. In years to come, when she's a d.u.c.h.ess on her own, and I'm a minor middle-aged lord, with a chin-beard and a tummy, we shall get rather sentimental with one another. Perhaps we shall fix up a match between my Clarence and her Ermyntrude. But I was going to tell you about Donna Clara. I call her that because her father is a Don of Clare, not because she's Spanish or Portugese, because she isn't. She's a peach; I will say that for her; and dances a treat. But I'm no longer thinking of migrating to Clare College on her account."

"Why not? Is she _quite_ brainless? You don't seem to mind them having scarcely any, but I suppose it would be an objection if she hadn't got beyond words of one syllable."

"Don't try too hard, Pam. Something good will slip out if you wait for it. So far from being brainless, Donna Clara-- But why pursue these futile recriminations? She's the last. I shan't go about looking for it any more. Perhaps I shall live and die a bachelor. I recognized all the symptoms with Donna Clara. I was taken with her. I _did_ lean out of my window and think about her when I got home; only it was so d.a.m.n cold that I shut it again directly. I _did_ take all the trouble in the world to see her again. But when I did, that was the end of it. I _could_ have gone on, but I didn't. I saw that I should be suffering from an agreeable sort of fever for a few weeks, and then I should recover, and have it all to go through again. Pam dear, it isn't good enough."

"Well, I'm not sorry you've come to that conclusion," said Pam. "It came home to me when the affair with Margaret fizzled out. I think the whole business is rather tiresome. You've got lots of other things to do. I suppose a man can go pottering on like that, playing with his emotions.

A girl would be rather a beast if she did it. But even in a man I think it's spoiling something or other. I think you're quite right to give it up, if you really mean to."

Norman showed himself a trifle offended over this. "I don't know that you need take it as solemnly as all that," he said. "We've had larks together about it, but I can keep it to myself, if you'd rather."

Pam's eyes filled with tears, which surprised her as much as they did Norman when he saw them. "Oh, don't let's quarrel, even in fun," she said. "It's all unhappy enough without that." Then she broke down and cried, but dried her eyes immediately, angry with herself. "I've had a horrid thing happen to me," she said. "I didn't mean to tell you about it, but I always have told you everything, almost."

He took her hand. "Dear little Pam," he said. "I know everything is perfectly beastly for you now. I can't do anything about it yet, but you know I hate it as much as you do. I've really come here because of that--at least, you know I should hate not being with you at Christmas.

I determined I'd be as merry and bright as possible, but I haven't always felt like it when I've thought about you. If you want to talk over things quietly I'm quite ready."

She gave his hand a squeeze, and withdrew hers. "It isn't about leaving here," she said. "I mind that for poor old Daddy's sake, and it's all part of the general horridness which makes everything different. I suppose I shouldn't mind about this if it weren't for being unhappy about other things."

Then she told him about Fred. "I suppose I did give him some encouragement," she said, "though of course I never meant to." She smiled ruefully. "Perhaps it was that afternoon at Persh.o.r.e Castle that brought it on me. I was annoyed with you rather, and did it to make you annoyed with me, which you were."

"Oh, yes, I quite understood that," he said. "But why do you let it worry you, Pam dear? You've got rid of the fellow--pretty easily too.

You might have had to get rid of him yourself."

"I know. I'm glad I was saved that. I don't know why I feel it as I do, though I've tried to find out. I can't really blame Fred. Why should I blame him for wanting me? And he didn't even bother me. He went to father."

"And I expect he wishes he hadn't now. I can tell you why you feel it, without looking up any words in a dictionary. He's so far beneath you in every way that it's like a degradation to have him even thinking about you in that way. As for bringing it on--I don't think you could have helped it--a pushing common bounder like that, who wouldn't understand your just being friendly with him. It would have had to come, sooner or later."

"Perhaps you're right, though I don't feel it quite like that. I think I've got myself to blame somewhere. Still, I'm well out of it, and I dare say I shall get over the horrid feeling in time. I hope I shan't have to see him again--not for a long time."

"Of course you'll get over it; and you needn't see him any more, ever--in any way that will matter to you. I wish I could say the same for myself; but the odd thing is that he's got himself in with the governor--in business. He says he's good at it, and a nice enough fellow, who did well in the war. I'm all for treating fellows well who did well in the war, but you do get a bit fed up with some of them, whom you'd never have known but for the old war. I don't suppose Mr. Comfrey would have dared to think about you, before the war. Oh, we've got a lot up against the Kaiser. Let's forget about him, Pam, and forget all about the other bothers, and have a jolly Christmas."

CHAPTER XXVIII

AND THE THIRD

On the afternoon of Christmas Day Norman went out to take the air. There was a cold drizzle of rain, and n.o.body was inclined to accompany him. He was not sorry to be alone, for he had a good deal to think about, and his thoughts flowed freely as he strode along, b.u.t.toned up in his rain coat and rather enjoying the bleak inclemency of the weather, so unlike that of the traditional Christmas. But the Christmas atmosphere was abundantly alive at the Hall, and he carried it with him as he tramped through the mud.

He came back as dusk was falling through the wood at the lower end of the park, and some a.s.sociation of place brought sharply back to his memory the fight he had had with Fred Comfrey down here, years before.

He could see Fred and Hugo sitting on the log as he went towards them across the park, and there came to him a return of the feelings with which he had approached them. He came out of the wood at the place where the fallen log had been. It had gone now, but there was Fred, his old-time enemy, standing under a tree, with his eyes fixed upon the Hall, the windows of which were showing their welcoming lights that no longer welcomed him.

He started in surprised affront, as Norman came upon him. It was an awkward meeting, for his reason for being there was apparent, and he could not help knowing that it was so to Norman. He hunched his shoulders and turned away in offence, without a greeting. Norman, who had been thinking of him with cherished aversion, had an impulse of pity towards him, and obeyed the impulse instantly, as his custom was. "Merry Christmas!" he said. "I heard you were down here."

It was the first thing that came into his head to say, and was only meant as a disclaimer of enmity. But Fred took it as a jeer, and turned on him, his face flaming with antagonism. "I dare say you did," he said.

"d.a.m.n you! I say something in confidence, and it's told to everybody at once; and I'm kicked out because of it. A merry Christmas!" There followed an oath directed against Norman, and he turned his back on him again.

Norman's impulsion of pity still held him. He had disliked Fred, in their boyhood, but before their final quarrel there had been times in which they had been companions, without hostility between them. That old contact was present to his mind; and Fred was down now; he couldn't triumph over him. "I didn't mean any offence," he said. "I do know what happened, but there's no offence in that either."

Fred turned on him again. "I'm not good enough for her," he said. "No offence in showing me that in the beastliest sort of way, I suppose! I do the straight thing, and it's immediately used as a weapon against me.

Yet Eldridge was ready enough to come to me for help in his blasted money difficulties. If he doesn't mind telling everybody my affairs I don't mind telling his."

Again he turned away, leaving Norman at a loss. He took a few steps, and threw over his shoulder: "You make her think she's everything to you, and behave as if she was nothing. I'd have given her more than you ever will." Then he went away, leaving Norman with something more to think about, as he walked slowly back across the park in the chilly dusk to where the warmth and light of the house was awaiting him.

The next day he went away, and the Hall settled down again to the quiet life that had been brightened by his coming.

The weather cleared after Christmas, and on the first day on which the roads were dry enough Lord Crowborough came tricycling over to Hayslope Hall, and, in the same state of heat as before and with the same means of allaying it by his side, sat talking to his old friend.

He had heard of the decision to let the Hall, and was full of sympathy.

At the same time, he couldn't quite understand it. What did William say about it? Surely--!

Colonel Eldridge cut him short. "There's no enmity now between me and William," he said. "We've practically agreed to go our separate ways, though that has never been put into words. William doesn't come into this, and wouldn't have come into it if we had never fallen out. All he could have done would have been to subsidize me here, and I dare say he would have been quite ready to do it. But of course I couldn't have accepted that in any case."

"No. I can see that, if you put it in that way. But there ought to be a way out, Edmund. He will succeed you here, and I am pretty certain that if you both wanted to you could arrange things."

"Not in any way that wouldn't come round in the long run to my staying here as William's pensioner. The property could be resettled by him and me and Norman agreeing; but there's nothing in it for me beyond my life interest and my wife's jointure. No; I am ready to go now, for some years at least. It's possible that after a time, when I've cleared off certain enc.u.mbrances on my income, I might be able to come back. But it isn't time to think of that yet. I shan't be sorry to go, if I can find something suitable to go to. This place has become a burden, and all the pleasure of living in it has departed. The nuisance is that there's no house here for me to go to. The Grange is out of the question, and there's no other house that would do for us without a lot of money spent upon it. I haven't got any money for such purposes."

"It seems hard lines that William should have spoilt the only house in the place that would suit you; and now he doesn't even live in it himself."

"Oh, well; that's done, and there's no good dwelling on it. Things have gone his way and they haven't gone mine. They haven't been going the way of us landowners for a long time, and the war has about finished us. I sometimes wish I'd been born a generation earlier. My father used to grumble sometimes; but look at the difference between those times and these. Oh, no; it's time I cleared out. There's no room in the world that's coming for people like me."

"Oh, my dear fellow, you mustn't talk like that. There's always room in the world for people like you. We shouldn't have won the war without 'em, for one thing."

"It doesn't seem to have done us much good winning the war. Nothing's the same as it was, and it will get worse. However, we needn't talk about that. We shall have to stick it out, whatever's in store for us. I don't suppose I've got more to grumble about than most. If I can let this house well, as I think I can, and find another somewhere, we shall be all right. I suppose the girls will marry in time. Cynthia and I will have enough, for as long as remains to us."

"I think I might find you a house, Edmund. I've been turning it over in my mind since I heard that you wanted something near here. Give me a few days longer. But I want to know--you didn't tell me. What _does_ William say about your leaving Hayslope?"

"I don't suppose he knows. I haven't told him. I dare say Norman has by this time."

"I see Norman was here for Christmas, wasn't he? He's a nice boy, that.

I'm glad it shouldn't have made a difference to him."

"So am I--very glad. Yes; he's a very nice boy. He's like a brother to my girls, and I'm glad they've got him, now their own brother is dead.

He'll look after them, if they ever want looking after."

"They're dear girls, all of them, Edmund. You won't have them all with you for very long, I expect. I've had a sort of hope lately that--I don't see why such old friends as we are shouldn't talk over these things--I've a fancy that my boy thinks there's n.o.body in the world like your Pamela. Well, my wife says it's Pamela; I had a sort of idea myself that it was little Judith. It's one of 'em, or I'll eat my hat. Would that be agreeable to you, if it came off some day?"

Colonel Eldridge laughed. "It would be very agreeable to me," he said.

"I've had things put to me that weren't so agreeable. Fathers don't seem to have much of a say in these matters nowadays. But, thank goodness, my girls weren't old enough to run all those risks of war-time. Yes, John, if that arrangement would suit you, it would certainly suit me. I've been wondering, quite lately what sort of marriage Pamela would make--realizing that she was old enough to get married, which I suppose doesn't come into a father's head about his eldest girl until it's put there."