Elizabeth's Campaign Part 30

Had the Squire's eyes been on it too? Impossible to say--for he had already turned away.

'Oh, yes,--put it away!' she said hurriedly.

'And I'll go over the woods with you on--Friday,' said the Squire after a pause. 'Oh, I don't deny that the money is tempting. I'm not such a pauper as I once was, thanks to you. I seem to have some money in the bank--astonis.h.i.+ng situation! And--there's a jolly good sale at Christie's coming on.'

He looked at her half-shamefaced, half-ready to resent it if she laughed at him.

Her eyes laughed.

'I thought you'd forgotten that. I saw you mark the catalogue.'

'Beech and oak between two and three hundred years old--in exchange for Greek gems, between two and three thousand. Well--I'll consider it. Now then, are you feeling better?'

And to her amazement he approached her with an outstretched hand.

Elizabeth mechanically placed her own in it.

'I know what you want,' he said impetuously. 'You've got a head full of dreams. They're not my dreams--but you've a right to them--so long as you're kind to mine.'

'I try to be,' she said with a rather tremulous lip.

At that moment the library door opened. Neither perceived it.

Desmond came in softly, lest his father should be at work. A carved oak screen round the door hid his entrance, and as he emerged into the light his eyes caught the two distant figures standing hand in hand.

Instinctively he stepped back a few paces and noisily opened the door. The Squire walked away.

'Why, Desmond!' said his father, as the boy emerged into the light, 'your train's punctual for once. Thank you, Miss Bremerton--that'll do. Kindly write to those people and say that I am considering the matter. I needn't keep you any longer....'

That night a demon came to Elizabeth and offered her a Faust-like bargain. Ambition--n.o.ble ambition on the one side--an 'elderly lunatic' on the other. And she began to consider it!

CHAPTER XI

Everybody in Mannering had gone to bed but Desmond and Pamela. It was not certain indeed that the Squire had gone to bed, but as there was a staircase beside one of the doors of the library leading direct to his room, it was not likely that he would cross the hall again. The twins felt themselves alone.

'I daresay there'll be a raid to-night,' said Desmond, 'it's so bright and still. Put down that lamp a moment, Pamela.'

She obeyed, and he threw away his cigarette, went to one of the windows, and drew up the blinds.

'Listen!' he said, holding up his hand. Pamela came to his side, and they both heard through the stillness that sound of distant guns which no English ear had heard--till now--since the Civil War.

'And there are the searchlights!'

For over London, some forty miles away behind a low range of hills, faint fingers of light were searching the sky.

'At this very moment, perhaps,'--said the boy between his teeth--'those demons are blowing women and children to pieces--over there!'

Pamela s.h.i.+vered and laid her cheek against his shoulder. But both he and she were aware of that strange numbness which in the fourth year of the war has been creeping over all the belligerent nations, so that horror has lost its first edge, and the minds, whether of soldiers in the field, or of civilians at home, have become hardened to facts or ideas which would once have stirred in them wild ferments of rage and terror.

'Shall we win, this year, Desmond?' said Pamela, as they stood gazing out into the park, where, above a light silvery mist a young moon was riding in a clear blue. Not a branch stirred in the great leafless trees; only an owl's plaintive cry seemed to keep in rhythm with that sinister murmur on the horizon.

'Win?--this year?' said the boy, with a shrug. 'Don't reckon on it, Pam. Those Russian fools have dished it all for months!'

'But the Americans will make up?'

Desmond a.s.sented eagerly. And in the minds of the English boy and girl there rose a kind of vague vision of an endless procession of great s.h.i.+ps, on a boundless ocean, carrying men, and men, and more men--guns, and aeroplanes, and s.h.i.+ning piles of sh.e.l.ls--bringing the New World to the help of the Old.

Desmond turned to his sister.

'Look here, Pam, this time next week I shall be in the line. Well, I daresay I shan't be at the actual front for a week or two--but it won't be long. We shall want every battery we've got. Now--suppose I don't come back?'

'Desmond!'

'For goodness' sake, don't be silly, old girl. We've got to look at it, you know. The death-rate of men of my age' (_men!--Desmond, a man_!) 'has gone up to about four times what it was before the war.

I saw that in one of the papers this morning. I've only got a precious small chance. And if I don't come back, I want to know what you're going to do with yourself.'

'I don't care what happens to me if you don't come back!' said the girl pa.s.sionately. She was leaning with folded arms against the side of the window, the moonlight, or something else, blanching the face and her fair hair.

Desmond looked at her with a troubled expression. For two or three years past he had felt a special responsibility towards this twin-sister of his. Who was there to look after her but he? He saw that his father never gave her a serious thought, and as to Aubrey--well, he too seemed to have no room in his mind for Pam--poor old Pam!

'How are you getting on with Broomie?' he asked suddenly.

'I don't like her!' said Pamela fiercely. 'I shall never like her!'

'Well, that's awkward,'--said the boy slowly, 'because--'

'Because what?'

'Because I believe she means to marry father!'

Pamela laughed angrily.

'Ah, you've found that out too!'

Desmond pulled down the blind again, and they went back to the fire, sitting on the floor beside it, with their arms round each other, as they had been used to do as children. And then in a low voice, lest any ears in the sleeping house should be, after all, on the alert, he told her what he had seen in the library. He was rather ashamed of telling her; only there was this queer sense of last words--of responsibility--for his sister, which excused it.

Pamela listened despondently.

'Perhaps they're engaged already! Well,--I can tell you this--if father does marry her, she'll rule him, and me--if I give her the chance--and everybody on the place, with a rod of iron.'

Desmond at first remonstrated. He had been taken aback by the sudden vision in the library; and Pamela's letters for some time past had tended to alter his first liking for 'Broomie' into a feeling more distrustful and uncertain. But, after all, Broomie's record must be remembered. 'She wouldn't sign that codicil thing--she made father climb down about the gates--and Sir Henry says she's begun to pull the estate together like anything, and if father will only let her alone for a year or two she'll make him a rich man.'

'Oh, I know,' said Pamela gloomily, 'she's paid most of the bills already. When I go into Fallerton now--everybody--all the tradesmen are as sweet as sugar.'

'Well, that's something to the good, isn't it? Don't be unfair!'

'I'm not unfair!' cried Pamela. 'Don't you see how she just swallows up everybody's attention--how n.o.body else matters when she's there! How, can you expect _me_ to like that--if she were an archangel--which she isn't!'