The Hall and the Grange Part 8

Judith, having laid her train, returned to serious conversation. "I don't know why one should be ashamed of it," she said. "But I do keep my actual tastes rather dark before Pam. Of course she's much cleverer than I am, and I don't mind her poking fun at me a bit; in fact I rather enjoy it. But you're the first person I've ever confessed to that I really like dates and things of that sort. I find them--refreshing. Do you feel that too?"

Horsham's face lit up. It seemed that he did, and that he had never forgotten those of the Kings and Queens of England, which he had also learnt in childhood. They recited them together, with mutual pleasure, in a sort of measured chant, and laughed heartily when they had done so.

"Of course, that capacity, which we both seem to have, is going to be very useful to me in my career," Horsham said. "If you can get facts at your fingers' ends, and keep them there--"

"What career do you mean?" inquired Judith. "I didn't know you'd got one."

"Oh, yes. Don't tell anybody, because it isn't _quite_ settled yet, but I'm going to be Private Secretary to--unpaid, of course--to--well, perhaps I'd better not mention his name, even to you; but he's a Cabinet Minister. Perhaps I shall try to get into Parliament by and by."

"You can't, if you're a lord, can you?"

He explained that difficulty away for her for ever, so exhaustively did he handle it. He was going to take politics seriously. He thought it his duty; but it would also be his pleasure. "I've played the fool a bit,"

he confessed; "but that's all over now. I was young, and--"

He broke off in some confusion. He had suddenly remembered Hugo, and didn't know how much she knew of the disturbance of three years before.

She knew no more than Pamela, which was scarcely anything; but they had discussed it together. "You and Hugo played the fool together, didn't you?" she asked, with a slight frown.

He was rather taken aback by her directness, but he spoke as directly, after a short pause of reflection. "Hugo was blamed for what was just as much my fault as his," he said stoutly. "He was older than me--that was all. It's all over long ago--poor fellow!--and we don't want to think about it any more."

"I'm glad you've said it like that," she said with a glance of approval at him. "So will Pamela be. I shall tell her. But don't _you_ say anything to her about it."

"You don't think--?"

"No, I don't. What you've said is quite enough, and we don't want to talk about it any more at all. Let's go and find Pamela, and Fred. We might have another game before tea."

Horsham was quite willing to go and find Pamela, though he had unexpectedly enjoyed his chat with Judith, who struck him as a girl of quite remarkable intelligence. He told her so, as they walked together.

"Of course you were only a kid when I was here last," he said, making allowances for her, and for himself.

"Yes," said Judith. "And you weren't much to write home about, either."

He looked surprised at this speech, until she laughed, when he laughed too. "You and Pamela both like chaffing a fellow, don't you?" he said.

"I suppose some fellows wouldn't see it, and be offended. But I'm rather quick at seeing things, and I don't mind."

Judith suddenly felt an immense liking for him, compounded in a curious way of respect and tenderness. He was a heavily built young man, though his figure was upright, and had the activity of his youth. His face was neither handsome nor ugly, but there was a look of honesty and simplicity in it that gave it character. She felt a strong compunction at having prepared a trap for him. "I was chaffing you when I advised you to recite poetry to Pamela," she said hurriedly. "Don't you. At least, don't recite 'The Wreck of the Hesperus.' She'd think that tosh; and so do I."

This disturbed him for a moment, but he soon recovered. "I was an a.s.s not to see what you were driving at," he said. "But you must remember that _I_ never said I thought that was a fine poem."

"No, you didn't," she said soothingly. "And I don't suppose either of us really care much for what _they_ would call fine poetry. What I do like of Longfellow's is his 'Psalm of Life'."

"Do you mean that?" he asked; and when she said she did he repeated slowly and impressively, as they walked beneath the trees:

"'Life is real, life is earnest, And the grave is not its goal.

Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.'

"Ah, yes. That's poetry. I don't envy people who can't see the beauty of that."

CHAPTER VIII

WELLSBURY

Sir William and Lady Eldridge were spending the week-end at a great country house, the seat of a Cabinet Minister with whom Sir William had worked arduously during the war, to the undoubted advantage of the Department of which Lord Chippenham had been the head, and also to the advantage of the British taxpayer. For this Department--or at least that part of its work for which Sir William had been responsible--had escaped those accusations of waste and extravagance which were so freely and so regrettably made. The work had been done quietly, resourcefully and economically, and there were few who knew anything about its details. In fact, but for the large number of people who were rewarded for services during the war of whom n.o.body had ever heard before their names appeared in the Honours List, Sir William's knighthood might have aroused speculation. He had deserved it, at least as well as most, but it was not generally known what he had done, and there were to be found here and there those who thought that he had made money out of the war, and that his knighthood had eventuated in some way out of the money he had made. As a matter of fact he had done five years' hard work for nothing, and would have been richer than he was if he had confined his energies to his own affairs. But that never troubled him. He was rich enough for all ordinary purposes as it was, even with the ruinous taxation to which his income was subjected; and now that his public work had been wound up, and he was free again to work for himself, he was likely to become richer still.

There had been two flies in the ointment of his public success. One was that a K. B. E. was hardly a sufficient reward for his valuable services. He knew how valuable they had been, and that others who had done work that could not be compared with his had won regards far higher. He had asked for nothing, and had not breathed to a soul except his wife the disappointment he had felt at the closing of the chapter.

Perhaps if he had advertised himself more-- But reflection always brought him the gratifying sense of having done his work not for the sake of reward, and he was too active and eager in pursuing the aims to which he had now returned to dwell upon the disappointment. At the same time his chief had also known the value of his work, and might, if he had exerted himself, have influenced a higher recognition of it.

The other source of dissatisfaction was a much smaller affair. In fact he was rather ashamed of allowing it entrance to his mind, and had never mentioned it to his wife.

Lord Chippenham was an eminent public servant. He was also--or rather Lady Chippenham was--an eminent personality in the social world. Sir William had worked with him over years, but had never become intimate with him. He had dined once or twice with him in London; but in those strenuous times of the war that meant nothing, and since the war, when social entertainments were beginning to take their normal course, he had not even done that. Indeed, Lord Chippenham seemed to have forgotten him altogether, and he could not help feeling a little sore about it.

But then at last had come the invitation to Wellsbury, the famous Elizabethan house where it had been Lady Chippenham's pleasure to gather together parties of all that was most brilliant in the world, not only of fashion but of art and letters and whatever else could add variety and interest to her parties. The invitation gave him great pleasure, which he could not keep from his wife, who took it calmly enough. There were plenty of what are called "good houses" open to them, and if it had been their ambition to climb into the social prominence that is represented by mixing always with those who keep in the busy swim, there would have been no difficulty about it. That was no more of an end to him than it was to her; but Wellsbury was different. The climbers were not asked there; or if they were, their climbing ambitions were not the qualities most apparent in them. Also, you went to Wellsbury to enjoy yourself.

Sir William enjoyed himself exceedingly. So did Lady Eldridge, who found people among the numerous guests whom she liked and who liked her. They were not all strangers either. The Eldridges had a large circle of acquaintance in London, which touched other circles, and was always enlarging itself. There were people at Wellsbury during that week-end who knew less of the world gathered there than they did.

At least half the guests bore names that were well known, and some were of real eminence. And there were many young people, who made themselves merry, and were encouraged to do so, not only by their hostess, who was merry and high-spirited herself, but by the venerated Minister of State, who listened with a twinkling eye to the hubbub of talk and laughter that arose around him, and sometimes contributed to it. He spent much of his time during the day with the children who were collected there with the rest, and had a grandchild seated on either side of him at lunch on Sunday. He was a very charming benign old gentleman in his own lovely home; the word "harmless" might perhaps have been used to describe him as he showed himself there, and William Eldridge gained some amus.e.m.e.nt from the recollection of episodes in his official hours, when that epithet would not have seemed suitable.

It did occur to Sir William once or twice during those lovely summer days to ask himself whether he had been invited to Wellsbury with any particular object. He and his wife had been received there almost as if they were habitues of the house; and yet it was over a year since he had had word with Lord Chippenham at all, and this private recognition of him was at least tardy. But there was so much to see and to do, in the great house, full of its wonderful treasures, and full, too, of agreeable and interesting people, that he gave himself up to the flow of it all, and put aside the idea of anything to come of the visit except the pleasure of the visit itself.

Rain came on late on Sunday morning, and though it was not enough to keep everybody indoors and never looked like continuing, Sir William took the opportunity of writing a few letters after luncheon. There was a little panelled room off the billiard-room, which he had seen the evening before, with just one lovely early Dutch picture in it, and he went there rather than to his own room upstairs, partly because he wanted to look at the picture again, partly because of the satisfaction of making use of as many rooms as possible in this beautiful ancient house, in which for two days he was at home.

There was n.o.body in the billiard-room, or in the inner room, which was open to it, but also in part concealed. He had been there for some little time when two young men came into the billiard-room and began to play. He recognized them by their voices as Nigel Byrne, Lord Chippenham's private secretary, and William Despencer, the youngest son of the house. He went on writing, being now immersed in what he was doing, as his habit was, and paid no further attention to them. It did not occur to him that they would not know that anybody was in the inner room; he did not think about it at all, concentrated as his mind was on his writing. The click of the b.a.l.l.s and the voices of the young men, who were playing in desultory fashion and talking all the time, came to him as an accompaniment to his thoughts, but with no more meaning than the noises of traffic would have had if he had been writing in a room in London.

But presently, as he leant back in his chair to consider something, a phrase struck upon his ear, and he woke up to the disagreeable fact that they were talking about him, and for all he knew might have been talking about him for the last ten minutes.

"The Chief thinks a lot of him. He did extraordinarily good work in the war."

"I know he did. These big business men did make themselves useful--some of them. Did pretty well out of it too."

"Eldridge didn't."

It was at this point that Sir William woke up to their speech, but what had come immediately before his name was mentioned, which his ears had taken in without conveying it to his brain, also turned itself into meaning.

"Perhaps not; though you never know. Anyhow, he's a new man, and I think we've saddled ourselves with quite enough of them. I think we ought to get back to the old sort--the men who come of good stock. They've always been the backbone of our party, and--"

The speaker was surprised by the appearance of the man he had been criticizing. Sir William stood in the arched recess at the end of the room, his pen in his hand, and a smile upon his face.

"I'm awfully sorry," he said. "I've been writing in there, and have only just realized that you were talking about me."

The young men stared at him in consternation, and he spoke again, with the air of one who meant to dominate the situation. That was exactly what he did mean. A sudden crisis always strung him up to the most effective control of his powers, and he had formed his decision in the few seconds that had elapsed between the mention of his name and his standing before them.

"I really haven't been listening," he said. "I was too busy with what I was doing, or I'd have stopped you before. But I'm not exactly a new man, you know. You can look me up in a book, if you like. Eldridge of Hayslope, in Downshire. And I give you my word I haven't made a bob out of the war." Then he turned to go back to his writing.

William Despencer had been collecting himself during this speech. He was a young man of a serious cast of mind, conspicuously honest and straightforward, though of an outlook not of the widest. "I'm sorry you overheard what we were saying," he said. "And I apologize for the mistake I seem to have made. I'm glad you corrected me."

Sir William turned to him again, but Nigel Byrne broke in before he could speak. "You heard me defend you," he said with a pleasant smile, which, with his attractive appearance and ready speech was part of his qualification for the position he so admirably filled. "William was talking generally, and I happened to know that you weren't of the type.