The Country House

It was not seldom that Mrs. Pendyce was summoned to the study to hear him say: “I want to ask your advice. So-and-so has done such and such… I have made up my mind.”

She came, therefore, in a few minutes. In compliance with his “Look at that, Margery,” she read the note, and gazed at him with distress in her eyes, and he looked back at her with wrath in his. For this was tragedy.

Not to everyone is it given to take a wide view of things – to look over the far, pale streams, the purple heather, and moonlit pools of the wild marches, where reeds stand black against the sundown, and from long distance comes the cry of a curlew – nor to everyone to gaze from steep cliffs over the wine-dark, shadowy sea – or from high mountainsides to see crowned chaos, smoking with mist, or gold-bright in the sun.

To most it is given to watch assiduously a row of houses, a back-yard, or, like Mrs. and Mr. Pendyce, the green fields, trim coverts, and Scotch garden of Worsted Skeynes. And on that horizon the citation of their eldest son to appear in the Divorce Court loomed like a cloud, heavy with destruction.

So far as such an event could be realised imagination at Worsted Skeynes was not too vivid – it spelled ruin to an harmonious edifice of ideas and prejudice and aspiration. It would be no use to say of that event, “What does it matter? Let people think what they like, talk as they like.” At Worsted Skeynes (and Worsted Skeynes was every country house) there was but one set of people, one church, one pack of hounds, one everything. The importance of a clear escutcheon was too great. And they who had lived together for thirty-four years looked at each other with a new expression in their eyes; their feelings were for once the same. But since it is always the man who has the nicer sense of honour, their thoughts were not the same, for Mr. Pendyce was thinking: ‘I won’t believe it – disgracing us all!’ and Mrs. Pendyce was thinking: ‘My boy!’

It was she who spoke first.

“Oh, Horace!”

The sound of her voice restored the Squire’s fortitude.

“There you go, Margery! D’you mean to say you believe what this fellow says? He ought to be horsewhipped. He knows my opinion of him.

“It’s a piece of his confounded impudence! He nearly ran over me, and now – ”

Mrs. Pendyce broke in:

“But, Horace, I’m afraid it’s true! Ellen Malden – ”

“Ellen Malden?” said Mr. Pendyce. “What business has she – ” He was silent, staring gloomily at the plan of Worsted Skeynes, still unrolled, like an emblem of all there was at stake. “If George has really,” he burst out, “he’s a greater fool than I took him for! A fool? He’s a knave!”

Again he was silent.

Mrs. Pendyce flushed at that word, and bit her lips.

“George could never be a knave!” she said.

Mr. Pendyce answered heavily:

“Disgracing his name!”

Mrs. Pendyce bit deeper into her lips.

“Whatever he has done,” she said, “George is sure to have behaved like a gentleman!”

An angry smile twisted the Squire’s mouth.

“Just like a woman!” he said.

But the smile died away, and on both their faces came a helpless look. Like people who have lived together without real sympathy – though, indeed, they had long ceased to be conscious of that – now that something had occurred in which their interests were actually at one, they were filled with a sort of surprise. It was no good to differ. Differing, even silent differing, would not help their son.

“I shall write to George,” said Mr. Pendyce at last. “I shall believe nothing till I’ve heard from him. He’ll tell us the truth, I suppose.”

There was a quaver in his voice.

Mrs. Pendyce answered quickly:

“Oh, Horace, be careful what you say! I’m sure he is suffering!”

Her gentle soul, disposed to pleasure, was suffering, too, and the tears stole up in her eyes. Mr. Pendyce’s sight was too long to see them. The infirmity had been growing on him ever since his marriage.

“I shall say what I think right,” he said. “I shall take time to consider what I shall say; I won’t be hurried by this ruffian.”

Mrs. Pendyce wiped her lips with her lace-edged handkerchief.

“I hope you will show me the letter,” she said.

The Squire looked at her, and he realised that she was trembling and very white, and, though this irritated him, he answered almost kindly:

“It’s not a matter for you, my dear.”

Mrs. Pendyce took a step towards him; her gentle face expressed a strange determination.

“He is my son, Horace, as well as yours.”

Mr. Pendyce turned round uneasily.

“It’s no use your getting nervous, Margery. I shall do what’s best. You women lose your heads. That d – d fellow’s lying! If he isn’t – ”

At these words the spaniel John rose from his corner and advanced to the middle of the floor. He stood there curved in a half-circle, and looked darkly at his master.

“Confound it!” said Mr. Pendyce. “It’s – it’s damnable!”

And as if answering for all that depended on Worsted Skeynes, the spaniel John deeply wagged that which had been left him of his tail.

Mrs. Pendyce came nearer still.

“If George refuses to give you that promise, what will you do, Horace?”

Mr. Pendyce stared.

“Promise? What promise?”

Mrs. Pendyce thrust forward the note.

“This promise not to see her again.”

Mr. Pendyce motioned it aside.

“I’ll not be dictated to by that fellow Bellew,” he said. Then, by an afterthought: “It won’t do to give him a chance. George must promise me that in any case.”

Mrs. Pendyce pressed her lips together.

“But do you think he will?”

“Think – think who will? Think he will what? Why can’t you express yourself, Margery? If George has really got us into this mess he must get us out again.”

Mrs. Pendyce flushed.

“He would never leave her in the lurch!”

The Squire said angrily:

“Lurch! Who said anything about lurch? He owes it to her. Not that she deserves any consideration, if she’s been – You don’t mean to say you think he’ll refuse? He’d never be such a donkey?”

Mrs. Pendyce raised her hands and made what for her was a passionate gesture.

“Oh, Horace!” she said, “you don’t understand. He’s in love with her!”

Mr. Pendyce’s lower lip trembled, a sign with him of excitement or emotion. All the conservative strength of his nature, all the immense dumb force of belief in established things, all that stubborn hatred and dread of change, that incalculable power of imagining nothing, which, since the beginning of time, had made Horace Pendyce the arbiter of his land, rose up within his sorely tried soul.

“What on earth’s that to do with it?” he cried in a rage. “You women! You’ve no sense of anything! Romantic, idiotic, immoral – I don’t know what you’re at. For God’s sake don’t go putting ideas into his head!”

At this outburst Mrs. Pendyce’s face became rigid; only the flicker of her eyelids betrayed how her nerves were quivering. Suddenly she threw her hands up to her ears.

“Horace!” she cried, “do – Oh, poor John!”

The Squire had stepped hastily and heavily on to his dog’s paw. The creature gave a grievous howl. Mr. Pendyce went down on his knees and raised the limb.

“Damn the dog!” he stuttered. “Oh, poor fellow, John!”

And the two long and narrow heads for a moment were close together.

CHAPTER V

RECTOR AND SQUIRE

The efforts of social man, directed from immemorial time towards the stability of things, have culminated in Worsted Skeynes. Beyond commercial competition – for the estate no longer paid for living on it – beyond the power of expansion, set with tradition and sentiment, it was an undoubted jewel, past need of warranty. Cradled within it were all those hereditary institutions of which the country was most proud, and Mr. Pendyce sometimes saw before him the time when, for services to his party, he should call himself Lord Worsted, and after his own death continue sitting in the House of Lords in the person of his son. But there was another feeling in the Squire’s heart – the air and the woods and the fields had passed into his blood a love for this, his home and the home of his fathers.

And so a terrible unrest pervaded the whole household after the receipt of Jaspar Bellew’s note. Nobody was told anything, yet everybody knew there was something; and each after his fashion, down to the very dogs, betrayed their sympathy with the master and mistress of the house.

Day after day the girls wandered about the new golf course knocking the balls aimlessly; it was all they could do. Even Cecil Tharp, who had received from Bee the qualified affirmative natural under the circumstances, was infected. The off foreleg of her grey mare was being treated by a process he had recently discovered, and in the stables he confided to Bee that the dear old Squire seemed “off his feed;” he did not think it was any good worrying him at present. Bee, stroking the mare’s neck, looked at him shyly and slowly.

“It’s about George,” she said; “I know it’s about George! Oh, Cecil! I do wish I had been a boy!”

Young Tharp assented in spite of himself:

“Yes; it must be beastly to be a girl.”

A faint flush coloured Bee’s cheeks. It hurt her a little that he should agree; but her lover was passing his hand down the mare’s shin.

“Father is rather trying,” she said. “I wish George would marry.”

Cecil Tharp raised his bullet head; his blunt, honest face was extremely red from stooping.

“Clean as a whistle,” he said; “she’s all right, Bee. I expect George has too good a time.”

Bee turned her face away and murmured:

“I should loathe living in London.” And she, too, stooped and felt the mare’s shin.

To Mrs. Pendyce in these days the hours passed with incredible slowness. For thirty odd years she had waited at once for everything and nothing; she had, so to say, everything she could wish for, and – nothing, so that even waiting had been robbed of poignancy; but to wait like this, in direct suspense, for something definite was terrible. There was hardly a moment when she did not conjure up George, lonely and torn by conflicting emotions; for to her, long paralysed by Worsted Skeynes, and ignorant of the facts, the proportions of the struggle in her son’s soul appeared Titanic; her mother instinct was not deceived as to the strength of his passion. Strange and conflicting were the sensations with which she awaited the result; at one moment thinking, ‘It is madness; he must promise – it is too awful!’ at another, ‘Ah! but how can he, if he loves her so? It is impossible; and she, too – ah! how awful it is!’

Perhaps, as Mr. Pendyce had said, she was romantic; perhaps it was only the thought of the pain her boy must suffer. The tooth was too big, it seemed to her; and, as in old days, when she took him to Cornmarket to have an aching tooth out, she ever sat with his hand in hers while the little dentist pulled, and ever suffered the tug, too, in her own mouth, so now she longed to share this other tug, so terrible, so fierce.

Against Mrs. Bellew she felt only a sort of vague and jealous aching; and this seemed strange even to herself – but, again, perhaps she was romantic.

Now it was that she found the value of routine. Her days were so well and fully occupied that anxiety was forced below the surface. The nights were far more terrible; for then, not only had she to bear her own suspense, but, as was natural in a wife, the fears of Horace Pendyce as well. The poor Squire found this the only time when he could get relief from worry; he came to bed much earlier on purpose. By dint of reiterating dreads and speculation he at length obtained some rest. Why had not George answered? What was the fellow about? And so on and so on, till, by sheer monotony, he caused in himself the need for slumber. But his wife’s torments lasted till after the birds, starting with a sleepy cheeping, were at full morning chorus. Then only, turning softly for fear she should awaken him, the poor lady fell asleep.

For George had not answered.

In her morning visits to the village Mrs. Pendyce found herself, for the first time since she had begun this practice, driven by her own trouble over that line of diffident distrust which had always divided her from the hearts of her poorer neighbours. She was astonished at her own indelicacy, asking questions, prying into their troubles, pushed on by a secret aching for distraction; and she was surprised how well they took it – how, indeed, they seemed to like it, as though they knew that they were doing her good. In one cottage, where she had long noticed with pitying wonder a white-faced, black-eyed girl, who seemed to crouch away from everyone, she even received a request. It was delivered with terrified secrecy in a back-yard, out of Mrs. Barter’s hearing.

“Oh, ma’am! Get me away from here! I’m in trouble – it’s comin’, and I don’t know what I shall do.”

Mrs. Pendyce shivered, and all the way home she thought: ‘Poor little soul – poor little thing!’ racking her brains to whom she might confide this case and ask for a solution; and something of the white-faced, black-eyed girl’s terror and secrecy fell on her, for, she found no one not even Mrs. Barter, whose heart, though soft, belonged to the Rector. Then, by a sort of inspiration, she thought of Gregory.

‘How can I write to him,’ she mused, ‘when my son – ’

But she did write, for, deep down, the Totteridge instinct felt that others should do things for her; and she craved, too, to allude, however distantly, to what was on her mind. And, under the Pendyce eagle and the motto: ‘Strenuus aureaque penna’, thus her letter ran:

“DEAR GRIG,

“Can you do anything for a poor little girl in the village here who is ‘in trouble’. – you know what I mean. It is such a terrible crime in this part of the country, and she looks so wretched and frightened, poor little thing! She is twenty years old. She wants a hiding-place for her misfortune, and somewhere to go when it is over. Nobody, she says, will have anything to do with her where they know; and, really, I have noticed for a long time how white and wretched she looks, with great black frightened eyes. I don’t like to apply to our Rector, for though he is a good fellow in many ways, he has such strong opinions; and, of course, Horace could do nothing. I would like to do something for her, and I could spare a little money, but I can’t find a place for her to go, and that makes it difficult. She seems to be haunted, too, by the idea that wherever she goes it will come out. Isn’t it dreadful? Do do something, if you can. I am rather anxious about George. I hope the dear boy is well. If you are passing his club some day you might look in and just ask after him. He is sometimes so naughty about writing. I wish we could see you here, dear Grig; the country is looking beautiful just now – the oak-trees especially – and the apple-blossom isn’t over, but I suppose you are too busy. How is Helen Bellew? Is she in town?

“Your affectionate cousin,

“MARGERY PENDYCE.”

It was four o’clock this same afternoon when the second groom, very much out of breath, informed the butler that there was a fire at Peacock’s farm. The butler repaired at once to the library. Mr. Pendyce, who had been on horseback all the morning, was standing in his riding-clothes, tired and depressed, before the plan of Worsted Skeynes.

“What do you want, Bester?”

“There is a fire at Peacock’s farm, sir.” Mr. Pendyce stared.

“What?” he said. “A fire in broad daylight! Nonsense!”

“You can see the flames from the front, sir.” The worn and querulous look left Mr. Pendyce’s face.

“Ring the stable-bell!” he said. “Tell them all to run with buckets and ladders. Send Higson off to Cornmarket on the mare. Go and tell Mr. Barter, and rouse the village. Don’t stand there – God bless me! Ring the stable-bell!” And snatching up his riding-crop and hat, he ran past the butler, closely followed by the spaniel John.

Over the stile and along the footpath which cut diagonally across a field of barley he moved at a stiff trot, and his spaniel, who had not grasped the situation, frolicked ahead with a certain surprise. The Squire was soon out of breath – it was twenty years or more since he had run a quarter of a mile. He did not, however, relax his speed. Ahead of him in the distance ran the second groom; behind him a labourer and a footman. The stable-bell at Worsted Skeynes began to ring. Mr. Pendyce crossed the stile and struck into the lane, colliding with the Rector, who was running, too, his face flushed to the colour of tomatoes. They ran on, side by side.

“You go on!” gasped Mr. Pendyce at last, “and tell them I’m coming.”

The Rector hesitated – he, too, was very out of breath – and started again, panting. The Squire, with his hand to his side, walked painfully on; he had run himself to a standstill. At a gap in the corner of the lane he suddenly saw pale-red tongues of flame against the sunlight.

“God bless me!” he gasped, and in sheer horror started to run again. Those sinister tongues were licking at the air over a large barn, some ricks, and the roofs of stables and outbuildings. Half a dozen figures were dashing buckets of water on the flames. The true insignificance of their efforts did not penetrate the Squire’s mind. Trembling, and with a sickening pain in his lungs, he threw off his coat, wrenched a bucket from a huge agricultural labourer, who resigned it with awe, and joined the string of workers. Peacock, the farmer, ran past him; his face and round red beard were the colour of the flames he was trying to put out; tears dropped continually from his eyes and ran down that fiery face. His wife, a little dark woman with a twisted mouth, was working like a demon at the pump. Mr. Pendyce gasped to her:

“This is dreadful, Mrs. Peacock – this is dreadful!”

Conspicuous in black clothes and white shirt-sleeves, the Rector was hewing with an axe at the boarding of a cowhouse, the door end of which was already in flames, and his voice could be heard above the tumult shouting directions to which nobody paid any heed.

“What’s in that cow-house?” gasped Mr. Pendyce.

Mrs. Peacock, in a voice harsh with rage and grief answered:

“It’s the old horse and two of the cows!”

“God bless me!” cried the Squire, rushing forward with his bucket.

Some villagers came running up, and he shouted to these, but what he said neither he nor they could tell. The shrieks and snortings of the horse and cows, the steady whirr of the flames, drowned all lesser sounds. Of human cries, the Rector’s voice alone was heard, between the crashing blows of his axe upon the woodwork.

Mr. Pendyce tripped; his bucket rolled out of his hand; he lay where he had fallen, too exhausted to move. He could still hear the crash of the Rector’s axe, the sound of his shouts. Somebody helped him up, and trembling so that he could hardly stand, he caught an axe out of the hand of a strapping young fellow who had just arrived, and placing himself by the Rector’s side, swung it feebly against the boarding. The flames and smoke now filled the whole cow-house, and came rushing through the gap that they were making. The Squire and the Rector stood their ground. With a furious blow Mr. Barter cleared a way. A cheer rose behind them, but no beast came forth. All three were dead in the smoke and flames.

The Squire, who could see in, flung down his axe, and covered his eyes with his hands. The Rector uttered a sound like a deep oath, and he, too, flung down his axe.

Two hours later, with torn and blackened clothes, the Squire stood by the ruins of the barn. The fire was out, but the ashes were still smouldering. The spaniel John, anxious, panting, was licking his master’s boots, as though begging forgiveness that he had been so frightened, and kept so far away. Yet something in his eye seemed to be saying:

“Must you really have these fires, master?”

A black hand grasped the Squire’s arm, a hoarse voice said:

“I shan’t forget, Squire!”

“God bless me, Peacock!” returned Mr. Pendyce, “that’s nothing! You’re insured, I hope?’

“Aye, I’m insured; but it’s the beasts I’m thinking of!”

“Ah!” said the Squire, with a gesture of horror.

The brougham took him and the Rector back together. Under their feet crouched their respective dogs, faintly growling at each other. A cheer from the crowd greeted their departure.

They started in silence, deadly tired. Mr. Pendyce said suddenly:

“I can’t get those poor beasts out of my head, Barter!”

The Rector put his hand up to his eyes.

“I hope to God I shall never see such a sight again! Poor brutes, poor brutes!”

And feeling secretly for his dog’s muzzle, he left his hand against the animal’s warm, soft, rubbery mouth, to be licked again and again.

On his side of the brougham Mr. Pendyce, also unseen, was doing precisely the same thing.

The carriage went first to the Rectory, where Mrs. Barter and her children stood in the doorway. The Rector put his head back into the brougham to say:

“Good-night, Pendyce. You’ll be stiff tomorrow. I shall get my wife to rub me with Elliman!”

Mr. Pendyce nodded, raised his hat, and the carriage went on. Leaning back, he closed his eyes; a pleasanter sensation was stealing over him. True, he would be stiff to-morrow, but he had done his duty. He had shown them all that blood told; done something to bolster up that system which was-himself. And he had a new and kindly feeling towards Peacock, too. There was nothing like a little danger for bringing the lower classes closer; then it was they felt the need for officers, for something!

The spaniel John’s head rose between his knees, turning up eyes with a crimson touch beneath.

‘Master,’ he seemed to say, ‘I am feeling old. I know there are things beyond me in this life, but you, who know all things, will arrange that we shall be together even when we die.’

The carriage stopped at the entrance of the drive, and the Squire’s thoughts changed. Twenty years ago he would have beaten Barter running down that lane. Barter was only forty-five. To give him fourteen years and a beating was a bit too much to expect: He felt a strange irritation with Barter – the fellow had cut a very good figure! He had shirked nothing. Elliman was too strong! Homocea was the thing. Margery would have to rub him! And suddenly, as though springing naturally from the name of his wife, George came into Mr. Pendyce’s mind, and the respite that he had enjoyed from care was over. But the spaniel John, who scented home, began singing feebly for the brougham to stop, and beating a careless tail against his master’s boot.

It was very stiffly, with frowning brows and a shaking under-lip, that the Squire descended from the brougham, and began sorely to mount the staircase to his wife’s room.

CHAPTER VI

THE PARK

There comes a day each year in May when Hyde Park is possessed. A cool wind swings the leaves; a hot sun glistens on Long Water, on every bough, on every blade of grass. The birds sing their small hearts out, the band plays its gayest tunes, the white clouds race in the high blue heaven. Exactly why and how this day differs from those that came before and those that will come after, cannot be told; it is as though the Park said: ‘To-day I live; the Past is past. I care not for the Future!’

And on this day they who chance in the Park cannot escape some measure of possession. Their steps quicken, their skirts swing, their sticks flourish, even their eyes brighten – those eyes so dulled with looking at the streets; and each one, if he has a Love, thinks of her, and here and there among the wandering throng he has her with him. To these the Park and all sweet-blooded mortals in it nod and smile.

There had been a meeting that afternoon at Lady Malden’s in Prince’s Gate to consider the position of the working-class woman. It had provided a somewhat heated discussion, for a person had got up and proved almost incontestably that the working-class woman had no position whatsoever.

Gregory Vigil and Mrs. Shortman had left this meeting together, and, crossing the Serpentine, struck a line over the grass.

“Mrs. Shortman,” said Gregory, “don’t you think we’re all a little mad?”

He was carrying his hat in his hand, and his fine grizzled hair, rumpled in the excitement of the meeting, had not yet subsided on his head.

“Yes, Mr. Vigil. I don’t exactly – ”