Elizabeth's Campaign Part 13

'I won't keep you, Miss Bremerton, but do you happen to know at all where my will is?'

'Your will, Mr. Mannering?' said Elizabeth in amazement. 'No, indeed! I have never seen it.'

'Well, it's somewhere here,' said the Squire impatiently. 'I should have thought in all your rummagings lately you must have come across it. I took it away from those robbers, my old solicitors, and I wasn't going to give it to the new man--don't trust him particularly not to talk. So I locked it up here--somewhere. And I can't find it.' And he began restlessly to open drawer after drawer, which already contained piles of letters and doc.u.ments, neatly and systematically arranged, with the proper dockets and sub-headings, by Elizabeth.

'Oh, it can't be there!' cried Elizabeth. 'I know everything in those drawers. Surely it must be in the office?' By which she meant the small and hideously untidy room on the ground floor into which ma.s.ses of papers of all dates, still unsorted, had been carted down from London.

'It isn't in the office!' He was, she saw, on the brink of an outburst. 'I put it somewhere in this room my own self! And I should have thought by now you knew the geography of this place as well as I do!'

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. The big room indeed was still full to her of unexplored territory, with _caches_ of all kinds in it, new and ancient, waiting to be discovered. She looked round her in perplexity, not knowing where to begin. A large part of the room was walled with gla.s.s cases, holding vases, bronzes, and other small antiquities, down to about a yard from the floor, and the s.p.a.ce below being filled by cupboards and drawers. Elizabeth made a vague movement towards a particular set of cupboards which she knew she had not yet touched, but the Squire irritably stopped her.

'It's certainly not there. That bit of the room hasn't been disturbed since the Flood! Now those drawers'--he pointed--'might be worth looking at.'

She hurried towards them. But the Squire, instead of helping her in her search, resumed his walk up and down, muttering to himself. As for her, she was on the verge of laughter, the laughter that comes from nerves and fatigue; for she had had a long day's work and was really tired. The first drawer she opened was packed with papers, a few arranged in something like order by her predecessor, the London University B.A., but the greater part of them in confusion. They mostly related to a violent controversy between the Squire and various archaeological experts with regard to some finds in the Troad a year or two before the war, in which the Squire had only just escaped a serious libel suit, whereof indeed all the preliminaries were in the drawer.

On the very top of the drawer, however, was a conveyance of a small outlying portion of the Mannering estate, which the Squire had sold to a neighbour only a year before this date. Hopeless! If that was there, anything might be anywhere!

Was she to spend the night searching for the needle in this bottle of hay? Elizabeth's face began to twitch with uncomfortable merriment. Should she go and knock up the housekeeper and instal her as chaperon, or take a stand, and insist on going to bed like a reasonable woman?

She hunted through three drawers. The Squire meanwhile paced incessantly, sometimes muttering to himself. Every time he came within the circle of lamplight his face was visible to Elizabeth, wrinkled and set, with angry eyes; and she saw him as a person possessed by a stubborn demon of self-will. Once, as he pa.s.sed her, she heard him say to himself, 'Of course I can write another at once--half a sheet will do.'

She replaced the third drawer. Was the Squire to have a monopoly of stubbornness? She thought not. Waves of indefinite but strong indignation were beginning to sweep through her. Why was the Squire hunting for his will? What had he been saying to his son--his son who bore on his breast and on his body the marks of his country's service?

She rose to her feet.

'I can't find anything, Mr. Mannering. And I think, if you will allow me, I will go to bed.'

He looked at her darkly.

'I see. You are a person who stickles for your hours--you won't do anything extra for me.' There was a sneer in his tone.

Elizabeth felt her cheeks suddenly burn. In the dim light she looked amazingly tall, as she stood straightened to her full height, confronting this man who really seemed to her to be only half sane.

'I think I have done a great deal for you, Mr. Mannering. But if you don't think so we had better end my engagement!'

His countenance changed at once. He eagerly apologized. He was perfectly aware of her extraordinary merits, and should be entirely lost without her help. The fact was he had had a painful scene, and was overdone.

Elizabeth received his explanation very coldly, only repeating, 'May I go to bed?'

The Squire drew his hand across his eyes.

'It is not very late--not yet eleven.' He pointed to the grandfather clock opposite. 'If you will only wait while I write something?'--he pointed to a chair. 'Just take a book there, and give me a quarter of an hour, no more--I want your signature, that's all. We won't look any further for the will. I can do all I want by a fresh doc.u.ment. I have been thinking it over, and can write it in ten minutes. I know as much about it as the lawyers--more. Now do oblige me. I am ashamed of my discourtesy. I need not say that I regard you as indispensable--and--I think I have been able to do something for your Greek.'

He smiled--a smile that was like a foam-flake on a stormy sea. But he could put on the grand manner when he chose, and Elizabeth was to some extent propitiated. After all he and his ways were no longer strange to her. Very unwillingly she seated herself again, and he went rapidly to his writing-table.

Then silence fell, except for the scratching of the Squire's pen.

Elizabeth sat pretending to read, but in truth becoming every moment the prey of increasing disquiet. What was he going to ask her to sign? She knew nothing of his threat to his eldest son--nothing, that is, clear or direct, either from himself or from the others; but she guessed a good deal. It was impossible to live even for a few weeks in close contact with the Squire without guessing at most things.

In the silence she became aware of the soft autumn wind--October had just begun--playing with a blind on a distant window. And through the window came another sound--Desmond and Pamela, no doubt, still laughing and talking in the schoolroom.

The Squire rose from his seat.

'I shall be much obliged,' he said formally, 'if you will kindly come here. We shall want another witness, of course. I will call Forest.'

Elizabeth approached, but paused a yard or two from him. He saw her in the light--her gold hair and brilliant dress illuminated against the dark and splendid background of the Nike in shadow.

She spoke with hesitation.

'I confess I should like to know, Mr. Mannering, what it is you are asking me to sign.'

'That doesn't matter to a witness. It is nothing which will in any way compromise you.'

'No--but'--she drew herself up--'I should blame myself if I made it easier for you to do something you would afterwards regret.'

'What do you mean?'

She summoned all her courage.

'Of course I must know something. You have not kept your affairs very secret. I guess that you are angry with your son, with Major Mannering. If this thing you ask me to sign is to hurt--to injure him--if it is--well, then--I refuse to sign it!'

And with a sudden movement she threw both her hands behind her back and clasped them there.

'You refuse?'

'If you admit my description of that paper.' She motioned towards it as it lay on the writing-table.

'I have no objection whatever to your knowing what it is--as you seem determined to know,' he said sarcastically. 'It is a codicil revoking my will in favour of my eldest son, and leaving all the property of which I die possessed, and which is in my power to bequeath, to my younger son Desmond. What have you to do with that?

What possible responsibility can you have?'

Elizabeth wavered, but held her ground, though in evident distress.

'Only that--if I don't sign it--you would have time to consider it again. Mr. Mannering--isn't it--isn't it--very unjust?'

The Squire laughed.

'How do you know that in refusing you are not unjust to Desmond?'

'Oh no!' she said fervently. 'Mr. Desmond would never wish to supplant his brother--and for such a reason. And especially--' she paused.

There were tears rising in her throat.

'Especially--what? Upon my word, you claim a rather remarkable knowledge of my family--in six weeks!'

'I do know something of Desmond!' Her voice showed her agitation.

'He is the dearest, the most generous boy. In a few months he will be going out--he will be saying good-bye to you all.'

'And then?'