Elizabeth's Campaign Part 25

'They were open, Perley says, first thing this morning. He came by about seven.'

'Before the plough arrived?'

'Yes.'

They stood still, trying to puzzle it out. Then a sudden laugh crossed Elizabeth's face.

'Perhaps there were no barricades! Perhaps your father was taking us all in!'

'Not at all,' said Pamela drily. 'Perley saw the gates firmly barred with hurdles and barbed wire, and all tied up with rope, when he and his wife left the Lodge late last night.'

Elizabeth suddenly coloured brightly. Why, Pamela could not imagine.

Her fair skin made it impossible for a flush to pa.s.s unnoticed. But why should she flush?

Elizabeth walked on rapidly, her eyes on the ground. When she raised them it was to look rather steadily at her companion.

'I think perhaps I had better tell you at once--I am very sorry!--but I shall be leaving you in a month. I told your father so last night.'

Pamela looked the astonishment she felt. For the moment she was tongue-tied. Was she glad or sorry? She did not know. But the instinct of good manners came to her aid.

'Can't you stand us?' she said bluntly. 'I expect you can't.'

Elizabeth laughed uncomfortably.

'Why, you've all been so kind to me. But I think perhaps'--she paused, trying to find her words--'I didn't quite understand--when I came--how much I still wanted to be doing things for the war--'

'Why, you might do heaps of things!' cried Pamela. 'You have been doing them. Taking an interest in the farms, I mean--and all that.'

'Well, but--' Elizabeth's brow puckered.

Then she broke into a frank laugh--'After all, that wasn't what I was engaged for, was it?'

'No--but you seemed to like to do it. And it's war-work,' said Pamela, inexorably.

Elizabeth was dismally conscious of her own apparent inconsistencies. It seemed best to be frank.

'The fact is--I think I'd better tell you--I tried yesterday to get your father to give up his plans about the gates. And when he wouldn't, and it seemed likely that there might be legal proceedings and--and a great fuss--in which naturally he would want his secretary to help him--'

'You just felt you couldn't? Well, of course I understand that,'

said Pamela fervently. 'But then, you see,' she laughed, 'there isn't going to be a fuss. The plough just walked in, and the fifty acres will be done in no time.'

Elizabeth looked as she felt--worried.

'It's very puzzling. I wonder what happened? But I am afraid there will be other things where your father and I shall disagree--if, that is, he wants me to do so much else for him than the Greek work--'

'But you might say that you wouldn't do anything else but the Greek work?'

'Yes, I might,' said Elizabeth smiling, 'but once I've begun--'

'You couldn't keep to it?--father couldn't keep to it?'

Elizabeth shook her head decidedly. A little smile played about her lips, as much as to say, 'I am a managing woman and you must take me at that. "Il ne faut pas sortir de son caractere."' Pamela, looking at her, admired her for the first time. And now that there was to be no more question--apparently--of correspondence with Arthur Chicksands, her mood changed impulsively.

'Well, I'm very sorry!' she said--and then, sincerely, 'I don't know how the place will get on.'

'Thank you,' said Elizabeth. Her look twinkled a little. 'But you don't know what I might be after if I stayed!'

Pamela laughed out, and the two walked home, better friends than they had been yet, Elizabeth asking that the news of her resignation of her post might be regarded as confidential for a few days.

When they reached the house, Pamela went into the morning-room to tell her sisters of the tame ending to all their alarms, while Elizabeth hurried to the library. She was due there at half-past ten, and she was only just in time. Would the Squire be there? She remembered that she had to apologize for her absence of the day before.

She felt her pulse thumping a little as she opened the library door. There was undoubtedly something about the Squire--some queer magnetism--born perhaps of his very restlessness and unexpectedness--that made life in his neighbourhood seldom less than interesting. His temper this morning would probably be of the worst. Something, or some one, had defeated all his schemes for a magnificent a.s.sertion of the rights of man. His park was in the hands of the invaders. The public plough was impudently at work.

And at the same moment his secretary had given warning, and the new catalogue--the darling of his heart--would be thrown on his hands. It would not be surprising to find him rampant. Elizabeth entered almost on tip-toe, prepared to be all that was meek and conciliating, so far as was compatible with her month's notice.

A tall figure rose from the Squire's table and made her a formal bow.

'Good-morning, Miss Bremerton. I expected your a.s.sistance yesterday afternoon, but you had, I understand, made an engagement?'

'I asked you--a few days ago,' said Elizabeth, mildly confronting him. 'I am sorry if it inconvenienced you.'

'Oh, all right--all right,' said the Squire hastily. 'I had forgotten all about it. Well, anyway, we have lost a great deal of time.' His voice conveyed reproach. His greenish eyes were fierily bent upon her.

Elizabeth sat down at her table without reply, and chose a pen. The morning's work generally consisted of descriptions of vases and bronzes in the Mannering collection, dictated by the Squire, and ill.u.s.trated often by a number of references to cla.s.sical writers, given both in Greek and English. The labour of looking out and verifying the references was considerable, and the Squire's testy temper was never more testy than when it was quarrelling with the difficulties of translation.

'Kindly take down,' he said peremptorily.

Elizabeth began:

'"No. 190. Greek vase, from a tomb excavated at Mitylene in 1902.

Fine work of the fifth century B.C. Subject: Penelope's Web.

Penelope is seated at the loom. Beside her are the figures of a young man and two females--probably Telemachus and two hand-maidens.

The three male figures in the background may represent the suitors.

Size, 23 inches high; diameter, 11 inches. Perfect, except for a restoration in one of the handles."

'Have you got that?'

'Yes.'

'Go on please. "This vase is of course an ill.u.s.tration of the well-known pa.s.sage in the _Odyssey_, Book 21. 103. I take Mr. Samuel Butler's translation, which is lively and modern and much to be preferred to the heavy archaisms of the other fellows."'

Elizabeth gave a slight cough. The Squire looked at her sharply.

'Oh, you think that's not dignified? Well, have it as you like.'

Elizabeth altered the phrase to 'other translators.' The Squire resumed. '"Antinous, one of the suitors, is speaking: 'We could see her working on her great web all day long, but at night she would unpick the st.i.tches again by torchlight. She fooled us in this way for three years, and we never found her out, but as time wore on, and she was now in her fourth year, one of her maids, who knew what she was doing, told us, and we caught her in the act of undoing her work, so she had to finish it, whether she would or no....' I tell you, we never heard of such a woman; we know all about Tyro, Alcmena, Mycene, and the famous women of old, but they were nothing to your mother--any one of them."--And yet she was only undoing her own work!--she was not forcing a grown man to undo his!' said the Squire, with a sudden rush of voice and speech.