Elizabeth's Campaign Part 23

'Oh yes, I will stay my month.'

He sat speechless, watching her. She very quickly finished what she was doing, and taking up her note-book, and some half-written letters, she left the room.

'A pretty state of things!' said the Squire, and thrusting his long hands into his pockets he began to pace the library, in the kind of temper that may be imagined--given the man and the circ.u.mstances.

The difference, however, between this occasion and others lay in the fact that the penalties of temper had grown so unjustly heavy. The Squire felt himself hideously aggrieved. Abominable!--that he should be hindered in his just rights and opinions by this indirect pressure from a woman, whom he couldn't wrestle with and floor, as he would a man, because of her s.e.x. That was always the way with women. No real equality--no give and take--in spite of all the suffrage talk. Their weakness was their tyranny. Weakness indeed!

They were much stronger than men. G.o.d help England when they got the vote! The Greeks said it--Euripides said it. But, of course, the Greeks have said everything! Hecuba to Agamemnon, for instance, when she is planning the murder of the Thracian King:

'Leave it to me!--and my Trojan women!'

And Agamemnon's scoffing reply--poor idiot!--'How can _women_ get the better of men?'

And Hecuba's ghastly low-voiced 'In a _crowd_ we are terrible!'--[Greek: deinon to plethos]--as she and her women turn upon the Thracian, put out his eyes, and tear his children limb from limb.

But _one_ woman might be quite enough to upset a quiet man's way of living! The moral pressure of it was so iniquitous! Your convictions or your life! It was the language of a footpad.

To pull down the hurdles, and tamely let in Chicksands and his minions--how odious! To part with Elizabeth Bremerton and to be reduced again to the old chaos and helplessness--how still more odious! As to the war--so like a woman to suppose that any war was ever fought with unanimity by any country! Look at the Crimea!--the Boer War!--the Napoleonic Wars themselves, if it came to that! Why was Fox a patriot, and he a traitor? Let her answer that!

And all the time, Elizabeth's light touch upon his will was like the curb on a stubborn horse. Once as he pa.s.sed her table angry curiosity took him to look at some finished work that was lying there. Perfection! Intelligence, accuracy, the clearest of scripts!

All his hints taken--and bettered in the taking. Beside it lay some slovenly ma.n.u.scripts of Leva.s.seur's. He could see the corners of Miss Bremerton's mouth go up as she looked it through. Well, now he was to be left to Leva.s.seur's tender mercies--after all he had taught her! And the accounts, and the estate, and these infernal rations, that no human being could understand!

The Squire's self-pity rose upon him like a flood. Just at the worst, he heard a knock at the library door. Before he could say 'Come in,' it was hurriedly opened, and his two married daughters confronted him--Pamela, too, behind them.

'Father!' cried Mrs. Gaddesden, 'you must please let us come and speak to you!'

What on earth was wrong with them? Alice--for whom her father had more contempt than affection--looked merely frightened; but Margaret's eyes were angry, and Pamela's reproachful. The Squire braced himself to endurance.

'What do you want with me?'

'_Father_!--we never thought you meant it seriously! And now Forest says all the gates are closed, and that the village is up in arms.

The labourers declare that if the County plough is turned back to-morrow, they'll break them down themselves. And when we're all likely to be starving in six months!'

'You really can't expect working-folk to stand quietly by and see such a thing!' said Margaret in her intensest voice. 'Do, father, let me send Forest at once to tell the gardeners to open all the gates.'

The Squire defied her to do any such thing. What was all the silly fuss about? The County people could open the gates in half-an-hour if they wanted. It was a demonstration--a protest--a case to go to the Courts on. He had principles--if no one else had. And if they weren't other people's principles, what did it matter? He was ready to stand by them, to go to prison for them. He folded his arms magnificently.

Pamela laughed excitedly, and shook her head.

'Oh, no, father, you won't be a hero--only a laughing-stock! That's what Desmond minds so much. They won't send you to prison. Some tiresome old Judge will give you a talking-to in Court, and you won't be able to answer him back. And then they'll fine you--and we shall be a little more boycotted than we were before! That's all that'll happen!'

'"Boycotted"?--what do you mean?' said the Squire haughtily.

'Oh, father, can't you _feel_ it?' cried Pamela.

'As if one man could pit himself against a nation!' said Mrs.

Strang, in that manner of controlled emotion which the Squire detested. He rarely felt emotion, but when he did, he let it go.

Peremptorily he turned them all out, giving strict orders that nothing he had done should be interfered with. Then he attempted to go on with some work of his own, but he could not bring his mind to bear. Finally he seized his hat and went out into the park to see if the populace were really rising. It was a cold October evening, with a waxing moon, and a wind that was rapidly bringing the dead leaves to earth. Not a soul was to be seen! Only once the Squire thought he heard the sound of distant guns; and two aeroplanes crossed rapidly overhead sailing into the western sky. Everywhere the war!--the cursed, cursed obsession of it!

For the first time there was a breach in the Squire's defences, which for three years he had kept up almost intact. He had put literature, and art, and the joys of the connoisseur between himself and the measureless human ill around him. It had spoilt his personal life, had interfered with his travels, his diggings, his friends.h.i.+ps with foreign scholars. Well, then, as far as he could he would take no account of it, would shut it out, and rail at the men and the forces that made it. He barely looked at the newspapers; he never touched a book dealing with the war. It seemed to him a triumph of mind and intelligence when he succeeded in shutting out the hurly-burly altogether. Only, when in the name of the war his private freedom and property were interfered with, he had flamed out into hysterical revolt. Old aristocratic instincts came to the aid of pa.s.sionate will, and, perhaps, of an uneasy conscience.

And now in the man's vain but not ign.o.ble soul there stirred a first pa.s.sing terror of what the war might do with him, if he were _forced_ to feel it--to let it in. He saw it as a veiled Presence at the Door--and struggled with it blindly.

He was just turning back to the house, when he saw a figure approaching in the distance which he recognized. It was that of a man, once a farmer of his, and a decent fellow--oh, that he confessed!--with whom he had had a long quarrel over a miserable sum of money, claimed by the tenant when he left his farm, and disputed by the landlord.

The dispute had gone on for two years. The Squire's law-costs had long since swallowed up the original money in dispute.

Then Miss Bremerton, to whom the Squire had dictated some letters in connection with the squabble, had quietly made a suggestion--had asked leave to write a letter on approval. For sheer boredom with the whole business, the Squire had approved and sent the letter.

Then, this very morning, a reply from the farmer. Grateful astonishment! 'Of course I am ready to meet you, sir--I always have been. I will get my solicitor to put what you proposed in your letter of this morning into shape immediately, and will leave it signed at your door to-night. I trust this trouble is now over. It has been a great grief to me.'

And now there was the man bringing the letter. One worry done with!

How many more the same patient hand might have dealt with, if its exacting owner hadn't thrown up her work--so preposterously!

The Squire gave an angry sigh, slipped out of the visitor's way through a shrubbery, and returned to his library. Fires had begun, and the glow of the burning logs shone through the room. The return to this home of his chief studies and pursuits during many delightful years was always, at any hour of the day or year, a moment of pleasure to the Squire. Here was shelter, here was escape--both from the troubles he had brought upon himself, and from the world tumult outside, the work of crazy politicians and incompetent diplomats. But if there was any season when the long crowded room was more attractive than at any other, it was in these autumn evenings when firelight and twilight mingled, and the natural 'homing' instinct of the Northerner, accustomed through long ages to spend long winters mostly indoors, stirred in his blood.

His books, too, spoke to him; and the beautiful dim forms of bronzes and terra-cottas, with all their suggestions of high poetry and consummate art, breathing from the youth of the world. He understood--pa.s.sionately--the jealous and exclusive temper of the artist. It was his own temper--though he was no practising artist--and accounted largely for his actions. What are politics--or social reform--or religion--or morals--compared to _art_? The true artist, it has been pleaded again and again, has no country. He follows Beauty wherever she pitches her tent--'an hourly neighbour.'

Woe to the interests that conflict with this interest! He simply drives them out of doors, and turns the key upon them!

This, in fact, was the Squire's defence of himself, whenever he troubled to defend himself. As to the pettinesses of a domineering and irritable temper, cherished through long years, and flying out on the smallest occasions--the Squire conveniently forgot them, in those rare moments of self-vision which were all the G.o.ds allowed him. Of course he was master in his own house and estate--why not?

Of course he fought those who would interfere with him, war or no war--why not?

He sat down to his table, very sorry for himself, and hotly indignant with an unreasonable woman. The absence of her figure from the table on the further side of the room worked upon his nerves.

She had promised at least to stay her month. These were working hours. What was she doing? She could hardly be packing already!

He tried to give his attention to the notes he had been working at the day before. Presently he wanted a reference--a line from the _Philoctetes_. 'The Lemnian fire'--where on earth was the pa.s.sage?

He lifted his head instinctively. If only she had been there--it was _monstrous_ that she wasn't there!--he would just have thrown the question across the room, and got an answer. Her verbal memory was astonis.h.i.+ng--much better than his.

He must, of course, get up and look out the reference for himself.

And the same with others. In an hour's time he had accomplished scarcely anything, and a settled gloom descended upon him. That was the worst of accustoming yourself to crutches and helps. When they were unscrupulously and unjustly taken away, a man was worse off than if he had never had them.

The evening post came in. The Squire looked through it with disgust.

He perceived that several letters were answers to some he had allowed his secretary to draft and send in his name--generally in reply to exasperated correspondents who had been kept waiting for months, and trampled on to boot.

_Now_ he supposed she would refuse to have anything to do with this kind of thing! She would keep to the letter of her bargain, for the few weeks that remained. Greek he might expect from her--but not business.

He opened one or two. Yes, there was no doubt she was a clever woman--unpardonably and detestably clever. Affairs which had been mountains for years had suddenly become mole-hills. In this new phase he felt himself more helpless than ever to deal with them.

She, on the contrary, might have put everything straight--she might have done anything with him--almost--that she pleased. He would have got rid of his old fool of an agent and put in another, that she approved of, if she had wished.

But no!--she must try and dictate to him in public--on a matter of public action. She must have _everything_ her own way. Opinionated, self-conceited creature!

When tea-time came he rang for Forest, and demanded that a cup of tea should be brought him to the library. But as the butler was leaving the room, he recalled him.

'And tell Miss Bremerton that I shall be glad of her company when she has finished her tea.'

Forest hesitated.

'I think, sir, Miss Bremerton is out.'