The Rector whistled. 'I shall wait, on tiptoe, to see what happens! What are your powers?'
'Oh, tremendous!'
'So you have him? Well, good-day.'
And the Rector was passing on. But Sir Henry stooped over his horse's neck—'As you know, perhaps, it would be very inconvenient to my poor little Beryl if Mannering were to make a quarrel of it with me.'
'Ah, I gathered that she and Aubrey were engaged,' said the Rector cordially. 'Best congratulations! Has the Squire behaved well?'
'Moderately. He declares he has no money to give them.'
'And yet he spent eighteen hundred pounds last week at that Christie sale!' said the Rector with a laugh. 'And now I suppose the new secretary will add fuel to the flame. I saw Pamela for a minute alone, and she said Miss Bremerton was "just as much gone on Greek things as father," and they were like a pair of lunatics when the new vases came down.'
'Oh, blow the secretary!' said Sir Henry with exasperation. 'And meanwhile his daughters can't get a penny out of him for any war purpose whatever! Well, I must go on.'
They parted, and Sir Henry put his cob into a sharp trot which soon brought him in sight of a distant building—low and irregular—surrounded by trees, and by the wide undulating slopes of the park.
'Dreadfully ugly place,' he said to himself, as the house grew plainer; 'rebuilt at the worst time, by a man with no more taste than a broomstick. Still, he was the sixteenth owner, from father to son. That's something.'
And he fell to thinking, with that half-ironic depreciation which he allowed to himself, and would have stood from no one else, of his own brand-new Georgian house, built from the plans of a famous American architect, ten years before the war, out of the profits of an abnormally successful year, and furnished in what he believed to be faultless taste by the best professional decorator he could find.
'Yet compared to a Mannering, what do I mean to the people here? You scarcely begin to take root in this blessed country under half a century. Mannering is exceedingly unpopular; the people think him a selfish idler; but if he chose he could whistle them back with a hundredth part of the trouble it would take me! And if Aubrey wanted to go into Parliament, he'd probably have his pick of the county divisions. Curious fellow, Aubrey! I wonder exactly what Beryl sees in him?'
His daughter's prospects were not indeed very clear to a mind that liked everything cut and dried. Aubrey Mannering was the Squire's eldest son; but the Squire was not rich, and had been for years past wasting his money on Greek antiquities, which seemed to his neighbours, including Sir Henry Chicksands, a very dubious investment. If Aubrey should want to sell, who was going to buy such things at high prices after the war? No doubt prices at Christie's—for good stuff—had been keeping up very well. That was because of war profits. People were throwing money about now. But when the war industries came to an end? and the national bills had to be paid?
'The only thing that can't go down is land,' thought Sir Henry, with the cheerful consciousness of a man who had steadily year by year increased what had originally been a very modest property to something like a large estate.
Mannering had plenty of that commodity. But how far had he dipped the estate? It must be heavily mortgaged. By decent management anybody, no doubt, might still bring it round. 'But Aubrey's not the man. And since he joined up at the beginning of the war the Squire won't let him have a voice in anything. And now Desmond—by George, the twins are nineteen this month!—Desmond'll be off directly. And then his father will be madder than ever.'
By this time the ugly house was near at hand, and the thick woods which surrounded it had closed about the horse and rider.
'Splendid timber,' thought Sir Henry, as he rode through it, measuring it with a commercial eye, 'but all past its prime, and abominably neglected. … Hullo! that looks like Pamela, and the new woman—the secretary!'
For two ladies were coming down the drive towards him, with a big white and tan collie jumping round them. One of them, very tall and erect, was dressed in a dark coat and skirt, reasonably short, a small black toque, and brown boots and leggings. The close-fitting coat showed a shapely but quite substantial figure. She carried a stick, and walked with a peculiarly rapid and certain step. The young girl beside her seemed by comparison a child. She wore a white dress, in keeping with the warm September day, and with it a dark blue sports coat, and a shady hat. Her dress only just passed her knees, and beneath it the slender legs and high heels drew Sir Henry's disapproving eye. He hated extravagance in anything. Beryl managed to look fashionable, without looking outré, as Pamela did. But he reined up to greet her with ready smiles.
'Well, Pamela, jolly to see you at home again! My word, you've grown! Shall I find your father in?'
'Yes, we left him in the library. May I introduce Miss Bremerton—Sir Henry Chicksands.' The girl spoke with hurried shyness, the quick colour in her cheeks. The lady beside her bowed, and Sir Henry took off his hat. Each surveyed the other. 'A strong-minded female!' thought Sir Henry, who was by no means advanced in his views of the other sex.
'The strong-minded female,' however, was not, it seemed, of the talkative kind. She remained quite silent while Pamela and Sir Henry exchanged some family gossip, with her ungloved hand caressing the nose of the collie, who was pressing against her with intrusive friendliness. But her easy self-possession as contrasted with Pamela's nervousness was all the time making an impression on Sir Henry, as was also the fact of her general good looks. Not a beauty—not at all; but, as the Rector had said, 'striking.'
As for Pamela, what was the matter with the child? Until Beryl's name was mentioned, there was not a smile to be got out of her. And it was a very fleeting one when it came. Desmond's name fared a little better. At that the girl did at last raise her beautiful eyes, which till then she had hardly allowed to be seen, and there was a ray in them.
'He's here on leave,' she said; 'a few days. He's just got his Commission and been accepted for the artillery. He goes into camp next week. He thinks he'll be out by January.'
'We must certainly manage to see him before he goes,' said Sir Henry heartily. Then turning to Miss Bremerton with the slightly over-emphatic civility of a man who prides himself on his manners in all contingencies, he asked her if she was already acquainted with the Mannering neighbourhood.
Miss Bremerton replied that it was quite unknown to her. 'You'll admire our trees,' said Sir Henry. 'They're very fine.'
'Are they?' said the lady rather absently, giving a perfunctory glance to the woods sloping away on her right towards a little stream winding in the hollow. Sir Henry felt a slight annoyance. He was a good fellow, and no more touchy as to personal dignity than the majority of men of his age and class. But he was accustomed to be treated with a certain deference, and in Miss Bremerton's manner there was none whatever.
'Well, good-bye, Pamela. I mustn't miss your father. When are you coming over to see Beryl?'
'How am I to get there?' said the girl with a sudden laugh.
'Oh, I see, you've got no petrol allowance?'
'How should we? Nobody's doing any war work here.'
There was an odd note in the speaker's voice.
'Why don't you join Beryl in her canteen work?' said Sir Henry abruptly.
'I don't know.'
'She wants help badly. She passes your gate on her way to Fallerton. She could pick you up, and bring you back.'
'Yes,' said Pamela. There was a pause.
'Well, good-bye, dear,' said Sir Henry again, and with a ceremonious bow to Pamela's companion, he rode on—meditating on many things.
'The Squire's in, Sir Henry, but—well, he's very busy.'
'Never mind, Forest. I must see him. Can you find some one to take my horse round?'
The grey-haired butler looked perplexed.