A Romance of the Countryside needs no preface. But underlying the adventures and misadventures of the story is an obvious purpose, and the importunities of any purpose, if denied expression in the main narrative, do press forward, with a justifiable relevance, when that narrative is completed. I could wish that it had been possible to deal with my theme as it will present itself after the war, when the position of the country gentlemen of this kingdom is likely to be even more poignant than in pre-war days. It seems to me almost certain that the type of man whom I have endeavoured to portray faithfully in these pages will become extinct unless he and his justify their claim to existence by dealing drastically with the problem that confronts them, a problem far more difficult of solution than it was four years ago. If the men who own land, and little else, wish to keep that land, they must make it pay by the sacrifice of much they hold dear; they must abandon their deep ruts and take the high-road of progress. What is needed jumps to any observant eye—intimate knowledge of a difficult subject. The old dogs won’t learn the new tricks. But their sons must learn them, if they wish to inherit the family acres. I am of the opinion that it will be a bad day for England when the Squires are scrapped. If they are scrapped, it will be their own fault. Heirs to many acres cannot, in the future, pass the most valuable and fructifying years of their lives in crack regiments, or anywhere else. They must stick to the land, and concentrate undivided energies upon it. No man who has studied agricultural conditions at first hand in France, for example, will deny the fact that even thin, sterile soil can be made productive. To achieve triumphantly such a task postulates the exercise of qualities which insure success in any other business—economy, patience, fortitude, and common sense. The big industrial concerns are owned and managed by experts. Agriculture—the backbone of England—is in the hands, for the most part, of amateurs. Some large farmers may be cited as exceptions, but the landowners, the smaller farmers and the labourers who till their allotments simply don’t know their business, and accordingly make a muddle of it. I do not believe that the allotment schemes, which sound so plausible, will prosper under the protection of Government, until the landowners and farmers first set an example of “how to do it.” The wastage everywhere is appalling. Why is it that Scotch farmers, confronted with greater difficulties as regards soil and climate, are able to pay so much higher wages than English farmers? Because they are thriftier and more intelligent. But you can’t raise man’s intelligence by giving him land of his own, and then telling him to go ahead and prosper. Much more is wanted.

I have spoken of the necessity of sacrifice. The Squires will have to give up certain luxuries, such as a season in London, foreign travel, and crippling allowances to idle sons. But sport should remain their inalienable possession if they pursue it as a pastime and not as the principal business of their lives. Hunting, shooting, and fishing are national assets within reasonable limitations. Long may they flourish! It is not the Squires who have imposed the tyranny of sport upon their people, but the plutocrats. Much undiluted nonsense has been written against hunting and shooting mainly by men who are grossly ignorant of their subject, bent upon citing extreme instances, which, when investigated, turn out to be absolutely exceptional. Editors of influential papers still encourage these gentlemen of the pen to attack dukes because deers forests in the Highlands are not planted to potatoes! Why not try oranges or bananas? Triumphant democracy still believes that it is more sportsmanlike to walk up birds and “tailor” them, instead of killing them as they are driven to the guns, flying fast and high overhead.

When this theme of the countryside first presented itself to me, I was tempted to take, as a type, what is called a “bad” landowner, one who neglects wilfully his responsibilities and duties. Unhappily, there are many such. But these petty tyrants are irreclaimable. Unquestionably they will be scrapped. And the sooner the better! Hope of salvation lies with men like Sir Geoffrey Pomfret, true lovers of the soil, but helplessly ignorant of its potentialities. In this category are not included the very few magnates who can and do employ experts to manage their estates. These few must make it their business to spread the knowledge for which, by costly experiments, they have paid a tremendous price. They, and they alone, are really qualified and able to put men upon allotments and demonstrate what intelligence and ingenuity can accomplish.

A last word. I wrote a book and a comedy entitled “Quinneys’.” The book appeared first and then the play. Some critics took for granted that the play was a dramatization of the novel. They happened to be wrong. The comedy was written before the book. In this case, my comedy “Fishpingle” was produced at the Haymarket Theatre in 1916. The novel will appear in 1917. I leave it to the same critics to guess which was written first.

HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL.

Beechwood,

April, 1917.

FISHPINGLE

CHAPTER I

Fishpingle’s room at Pomfret Court challenged the interest of visitors to that ancient manor-house. It had been part of the original Pomfret House destroyed by fire in the first decade of the seventeenth century. Walls, floor, and ceiling were of stone quarried on the estate and laid by a master-builder, who, obviously, had revelled in the eccentricities of his craft. The general effect was that of a crypt, although a big window, facing south, and looking into a charming courtyard, had been cut out of the wall in 1830. This window, however, was Psuedo-Gothic in character, and not too offensive to the critical eye. And the furniture, also, waifs and strays from all parts of the house, stout time-mellowed specimens, presented a happy homogeneity, as if they, at least, were content with this last resting-place. A Cromwellian table upon which Cavaliers had cut their initials, faced the wide open fireplace. In the alcoves flanking the hearth stood two Queen Anne tallboys, much battered. Opposite to them was a Sheraton bookcase and bureau roughly restored by the village carpenter. The chairs were mostly eighteenth century. But oak, walnut and mahogany twinkled at each other harmoniously, polished by unlimited elbow-grease to a rich golden sameness of tint, the one tint which the faker of old furniture is, happily, unable to reproduce.

This room had been known as the Steward’s Room in the time of Sir Geoffrey Pomfret’s predecessor and father. Fishpingle came into possession when he was installed as butler long after Sir Geoffrey’s accession to the family honours. Some forty years had passed since then but the room retained its ancient uses, inasmuch as Fishpingle was recognised and even acclaimed as steward rather than butler, whose stewardship was the more real because it concerned itself loyally with cause and disdained effect. Sir Geoffrey boasted with good reason that he was the most approachable of squires. He may not have been aware that Fishpingle soaped the ways upon which importunate tenants slid from cottage to hall. Fishpingle served as an encyclopædia of information concerning the more intimate details of estate management. He kept a big diary. In the tallboys were filed papers and memoranda. Sir Geoffrey’s only son, Lionel, and Lady Pomfret shared a saying which had mellowed into a crusted family joke: “Fishpingle knows.”

Upon the stone walls were some fine heads of fallow deer, and half a dozen cases of stuffed birds and fish. Fishpingle, it might be inferred, was something of an angler and naturalist. A glance at his bookcase revealed his interest in horse and hound. Beckford was there, and Daniel’s “Rural Sports,” and Izaac Walton. In the place of honour shone conspicuous a morocco-bound, richly-tooled, gilded volume—“Stemmata Pomfretiana.” This genealogical work had been compiled, regardless of expense, by Sir Geoffrey’s grandfather, who had wasted time and money in pursuit of other and less harmless interests. It was he indeed, who encumbered a fine estate with a large and crippling mortgage.

Into Fishpingle’s room came Alfred Rockley, the first footman, carrying a handsome tankard in one hand and a “chammy” leather in the other. Alfred was a good-looking young fellow, racy of the Wiltshire soil, born and bred upon the Pomfret estates and quite willing to serve a master who lived upon those estates and did not own (or lease) a house in town. A reason for this contentment will appear immediately.

Alfred placed the tankard, bottom uppermost upon the Cromwellian table, and stared at it intently with a slight frown upon his ordinarily pleasant countenance. Then he picked it up, rubbed it softly, and began to inspect himself in its shining surface. This agreeable task so engrossed him that he failed to notice the sly approach of a maid-servant, who followed a tip-tilted nose into the room. The nose belonged to Prudence Rockley, a cousin of Alfred and the stillroom maid of the establishment. She carried a feather duster and a smile which, so Sir Geoffrey affirmed, was worth an extra five pounds a year in wages.

“Boo!” said she.

Alfred dropped the tankard and caught it again deftly. The Squire encouraged cricket. Prudence laughed. Alfred displayed some irritation.

“There you go again.”

He spoke with the Wilts accent, an accent dear to the Squire and his lady, as being the unmistakable voice of “his” people. Prudence shrugged a pretty pair of shoulders as she answered with the same rising inflection:

“I’ll go, Alfred, if so be as I’m disturbing you at your—work.”

“I came nigh on droppin’ the bloomin’ mug.”

As he spoke, he rubbed it caressingly, but his eyes dwelt even more caressingly upon the stillroom maid, who, noting his glance, began dusting the articles upon the table. As she moved from the young man, she murmured interrogatively:

“Why ever have ’ee brought it in here?”

“I’ll tell ’ee, if you’ll give us a kiss, Prue.”

“Don’t ’ee be silly!”

Alfred retorted with conviction.

“If it be silly to want to kiss ’ee, I be the biggest fule in the parish. ’Ee didn’t want coaxin’ las’ night, Prue.”

To this Prudence replied with alluring directness and simplicity.

“Be good, Alfie. If you kiss me afore ‘elevenses’ my cheeks ’ll be red as fire, and Uncle Ben ’ll ask questions.”

Alfred let this soak in, as he rubbed the shining tankard. Then he spoke decisively.

“I want un to ask questions. Sooner the better. Our gettin’ wed depends, seemin’ly, upon your Uncle Ben.”

The significance of his tone was not lost upon the maid. Her straight brows puckered slightly as she asked:

“But—why? You said that las’ night, you did.”

Alfred laid down the tankard and held aloft a handsome silver inkstand.

“It is here, Prue.” Then he read aloud an inscription. “‘Presented to Benoni Fishpingle, after fifty years’ service, by his affectionate friends, Sir Geoffrey and Lady Pomfret.’ Affectionate! Ah-h-h-h! They do think the world o’ Benoni Fishpingle, they do. Now, Prue, you coax your Uncle Ben, and then he’ll downscramble Squire. Tell un that we be a fine up-standin’ couple, a credit to Nether Applewhite.”

“That don’t need tellin’, Alfie.”

Alfred put down the inkstand and approached the maid, smiling at her. He wagged his head knowingly.

“They got on to it at dinner las’ night. Yas, they did.”

He chuckled and took her hand in his.

“Got on to—what?”

“Eugannicks.”

He spoke so solemnly that Prudence was vastly impressed.

“Eugannicks,” she repeated, “what’s that?”

Alfred hesitated.

“Eugannicks be—eugannicks.”

“You’re a oner at explainin’ things to a pore young maid, you be.”

Alfred stiffened, but he pressed her hand softly.

“It’s like this, Prue. I can’t explain eugannicks to a young maid, rich or pore—see?”

“No, I don’t. S’pose,” she dimpled with mischief, “s’pose you try.”

Alfred’s face brightened. Inspiration illumined it.

“You ask your Uncle Ben. Never so happy he be as when enlightenin’ ignorance.”

She withdrew her hand.

“Ignorance? Thank you. I will ask un.”

Alfred sighed with relief.

“Do. All the same, if you think red bain’t so becomin’ early in the marning, do ’ee put off askin’ un till after tea.”

Prudence betrayed a livelier interest.

“Mercy! Why should eugannicks make me blush?”

Alfred chuckled again.

“You ask your Uncle Ben.”

Prudence nodded, satisfied that interrogation could not be pushed further. Her eyes were caught by the gleaming tankard.

“That be a be—utiful mug, Alfie.”

“Don’t ’ee touch it. I’ll tell ’ee why I brought un in here, and take payment after supper. The story be a kind o’ parryble.”

Prudence laughed.

“What big, brave words!”

Alfred pointed at the tankard. Unconsciously, he began to understudy the tone and manner of the village parson. We shall meet this gentleman presently. For the moment it is enough to say that he was a man of character and influence. He had taught Alfred in Sunday school and prepared him for Confirmation.

“The parryble o’ that there tankard’ll learn ’ee——”

“Teach me, Alfie——”

Prudence had reason to believe herself better educated than her cousin. She used the country dialect because it would have been “grand” to speak otherwise. But her uncle, Benoni Fishpingle, spoke English as free from accent as Sir Geoffrey’s, and expressed himself with even greater lucidity.

“Will learn ’ee what sort of an old fusspot your Uncle Ben be. When I first comes here, ten years ago, ’twas well rubbed into me that this yere tankard,” he held it up again, “was worth its weight in gold. William an’ Mary.”

“William and Mary?”

“King William and Queen Mary. Bloody Mary he called her.”

“My! What ever did she call him?”

Alfred was unable to answer this question. Gazing solemnly at the tankard, he continued in the same impressive tone:

“I dunno. In them ancient days I warn’t allowed to touch the damn thing. Not worthy accordin’ to your Uncle Fusspots. But when I becomes first footman it was my duty—an’ privilege—to clean un once a week. Now, Prue, you mark well what follers. I cleaned un yes’dy afternoon, an’ put un back in pantry safe. Fusspots was there, a-watchin’ me out o’ the corner of his eye. Then I had to answer the library bell. When I comes back to pantry this yere tankard was sittin’ bottom-up on floor!”

Prudence gave an astonished gasp as she repeated his words:

“Bottom-up on floor?”

Alfred nodded, almost pontifically. He had caught and held the pretty maid’s interest in his narrative. His tone dropped mysteriously.

“Knowin’ my man, so to speak, and his lil’ endearin’ ways I says never a word, but I picks up the mug and cleans un all over again. I puts it back in safe an’ presently Fusspots sends me in here to fetch his specs. When I gets back, I’m a liar if that there tankard warn’t wrong side up on floor again.”

He paused dramatically. Prudence’s blue eyes were sparkling; a brace of dimples played hide and seek upon her rosy cheeks.

“Well, I never!”

Alfred just touched the shining silver with his “chammy.”

“I looks at tankard, an’ Fusspots he looks at me with that queer grin o’ his. I’d half a mind to kick the mug into next parish, but I remains most handsomely calm—yas, I did. Then I goes to work on a teapot. Presently the old un says blandly, ‘Alferd, where’s my specs?’ I give him his specs and he shoves him on. Then he just looks at me over the top of ’em, and he says, ‘My lad,’ he says, ‘whatever is that settin’ on floor?’ I answers up, just as innocent as you be, Prue——”

Prudence pouted, looking prettier than ever.

“I bain’t innocent, Alfie.”

Alfred glanced through the window and kissed her.

“I answers then, just so full o’ sauce as you be, ‘Why, Mr. Fishpingle,’ I says, ‘’tis the tankard what I cleaned so be—utiful five minutes ago.’ ‘Hold hard,’ he says, ‘are you sure, my lad, that it is clean?’ That fair madded me, Prue, an’ I lets go my left——”

Prudence gasped again.

“Alferd Rockley, you never hit Uncle Ben surely?”

“Figure o’ speech, my maid. I says: ‘I be just so sure ’tis clean, as you be o’ salvation.’”

“What a nerve!” murmured Prudence.

“I thought I’d fair landed un. Not a bit! He answers up, very quiet-like: ‘Alferd,’ he says, ‘I bain’t sure o’ my salvation. Pick up that tankard, my lad, and put it in safe. You can clean it properly to-morrow marnin’. At a quarter to eleven, you put un on the table in my room—bottom up.’ Now I asks you, Prue, is that tankard cleaned a fair treat, or is it not? Don’t ’ee touch un!”

As he ended his amazing narrative, Alfred solemnly placed the tankard, bottom up, on the table, inviting Prudence to inspect its immaculate surface. She bent down, staring at it. Alfred kissed the nape of her neck. As he did so, he sprang sharply to attention, and so did the maid. She moved swiftly and silently to the fireplace.

Sir Geoffrey Pomfret entered.

He belonged to a type of country gentleman now almost extinct. His round, rosy, clean-shaven face suggested John Bull. To accentuate this resemblance he wore breeches and gaiters, very well cut, a rough shooting-coat, a canary waistcoat and a bright bird’s-eye blue cravat. Every movement and word proclaimed the autocrat. He advanced a couple of steps, glanced about him with a genial smile, and addressed the obsequious Alfred.

“Where’s Mr. Fishpingle?”

“In stable-yard, I think, Sir Geoffrey.”

The Squire crossed to the chimney-piece, eyeing Prudence with much approval. He said pleasantly:

“Don’t let me disturb you, my dear. Bless me! Your skirts have come down and your hair’s gone up.”

Prudence curtsied.

“If you please, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Well, well, the flight of Time does not please me. How’s your good mother, Prudence?”

“Very nicely, Sir Geoffrey.”

The Squire nodded his massive head.

“Healthy family, you Rockleys. Most of my people, thank the Lord! are healthy.” Alfred grinned acquiescence. “What the doose are you grinnin’ at?”

“I beg pardon, Sir Geoffrey.”

“I like grins. A good grin is worth money to any young man. Speak up, sir! Always share a joke with a friend. I hope, b’ Jove! you regard me as a friend?”

Man and maid answered simultaneously:

“Oh, yes, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Certainly, Sir Geoffrey.”

The Squire squared his broad shoulders and laughed.

“Then out with it, Alfred.”

Alfred, thus encouraged, and sensible that he was appearing to advantage in the eyes of Prudence, said boldly:

“I was remembering, Sir Geoffrey, what you was sayin’ las’ night about they eugannicks.”

The Squire laughed again.

“Took it all in, did you?” Alfred bobbed. “Capital! If I had my way, eugenics should be taught in every school in the kingdom.” He spoke to Alfred, but he looked kindly at Prudence.

“If you please, sir——”

“Yes, my pretty maid?”

“What are—eugannicks?”

Sir Geoffrey hesitated and coughed, but he was not the man to crane long at an awkward fence.

“Well, well, how can I put it plainly to an intelligent child?”

“I be nineteen, Sir Geoffrey, come Michael-mas.”

“And my god-daughter, b’ Jove!”

“Yes, Sir Geoffrey.”

She curtsied again. The question had been asked and answered many times. The Squire was now at his best—“in touch,” as he put it, with his own people. He stroked an ample chin.

“I have sixteen god-daughters in Nether Applewhite, and the welfare of all of ’em is near and dear to my heart. Nineteen, are yer?” He surveyed her critically. “And one of ten, too?” She smiled. “All alive and doin’ well?” Prudence nodded; the Squire rubbed his hands together. “Capital! The crop that never fails. How many in your family, Alfred?”

“Seven, Sir Geoffrey. No—eight.”

Alfred grinned deprecatingly.

Instantly the Squire’s voice grew testy.

“What d’ye mean, sir, by your ‘seven, no eight’?”

“I forgot my twin brother, Sir Geoffrey, him as died afore I was christened. I was only a lil’ baby at the time.”

“Yes, yes, I remember. Sad affair. Diphtheria. Cost me a pretty penny. Drains—damn ’em.”

For a moment silence imposed itself, broken by the soft, coaxing voice of Prudence.

“And—eugannicks, Sir Geoffrey?”

The Squire pulled himself together, inflating his chest, astride a favourite hobby. He began glibly enough:

“Drains, my girl, are a vital part of eugenics, but it begins—it begins——Um! It’s not easy to make myself perfectly plain to a young girl.”

Alfred grinned again, Prudence said reflectively:

“That’s what Alferd said, Sir Geoffrey.”

Alfred’s grin vanished as the Squire’s keen eyes rested upon him.

“Bless my soul? Have you been discussing eugenics with my god-daughter?”

Alfred moved uneasily.

“She did ask for information, Sir Geoffrey; and I made so bold as to refer her to Mr. Fishpingle.”

The Squire’s face indicated relief.

“Yes, yes, Mr. Fishpingle will explain. Dear me! Is that the William and Mary tankard?”

“Yes, Sir Geoffrey.”

“What the doose is it doin’ there—upside down?”

“Mr. Fishpingle’ll explain that, Sir Geoffrey. His very particular orders. I—I think I hear him coming, Sir Geoffrey.”

Prudence began dusting again as Fishpingle came into the room. He was a slightly older man than the squire and bore his years less lightly. He was something of the Squire’s build, a fine figure of a man—so the women said—and he bore upon a thinner, more refined face, the same look of authority. As soon as he saw his master he smiled delightfully. Sir Geoffrey growled out:

“You ought to be a policeman, Ben.”

“A policeman, Sir Geoffrey?”

“You’re never about when you’re most particularly wanted. Have you looked at the mare?”

Fishpingle answered easily with the respectful assurance of an old servant who had gone rabbiting with his master when they were boys together.

“You won’t ride her again this season, Sir Geoffrey. She never was quite up to your weight, and this spring hunting on hard ground is cruel work on the hocks. She’ll have to be fired, the pretty dear.”

“Turn her out into the water-meadows.”

“Very good, sir.”

“And now, pray tell me, what is the meaning of—that?”

He indicated the tankard. Fishpingle smiled.

“A small matter of discipline, Sir Geoffrey, which concerns Alfred and myself.”

“But why, man, is it placed upside down?”

“Merely as an object lesson, to test a young man’s powers of observation.”

As he spoke, with a certain quaint deliberation, he glanced affectionately at the fine piece of silver. Then, in a sharper tone, he spoke to Alfred:

“Take it away, my lad, and clean it properly.”

Alfred picked up the tankard, somewhat sullenly. His face brightened as the Squire exclaimed irritably:

“But, damn it, Ben, the tankard is clean. Here—give it me.”

Alfred handed over the tankard, which the Squire examined carefully.

“Nothing wrong that I can see.”

Alfred betrayed a momentary triumph. Fishpingle said quietly:

“Please inspect the bottom of it, Sir Geoffrey.”

The Squire did so, and chuckled.

“Yes, yes, I take you, Ben. Inculcate your object lesson, my friend.”

Fishpingle obeyed this injunction in his own deliberate fashion. Perhaps this was the essential difference between two men who had so much else in common. The Squire, obviously, acted upon impulse. Inheriting a large estate early in life, and with it those droits de seigneur which, to do him credit, he had exercised both leniently and with an honest regard for the feelings of others, he had learned to control everybody upon his domain except himself. Fishpingle, on the other hand, with a much stronger will and an intelligence far above the average, habitually looked before he leaped. Having done so he was quite likely to leap farther than his master. He took the tankard from Sir Geoffrey’s hand, and slowly tapped the bottom of it.

“Hall marks full of plate powder. A guest sees this fine tankard on Sir Geoffrey’s dining-table. If he is a connoisseur he asks leave to look it over. And the one thing which gives him the information he’s after—pedigree—has been hidden by your carelessness. Off with you!”

Alfred, much crestfallen, took the tankard and left the room. Sir Geoffrey sat down in Fishpingle’s big armchair. He smiled pleasantly at Prudence.

“Run along, my little maid,” he said, in his most genial voice.

Prudence hesitated, fiddling with her apron.

“What is it, my dear?”

She blushed a little.

“Eugannicks, Sir Geoffrey.”

The Squire threw back his head and laughed.

“Ha—ha! What a nose for a hunted fox!”

Prudence, thus compared to a hound, had wit enough to “speak” to a good scent.

“If it ought to be taught in the schools——”

The Squire was delighted. As a rule, the stupidity of some of his people exasperated him.

“You sly little puss! I say, Ben——”

“Sir Geoffrey?”

“Your little niece wants to know the meaning of eugenics.”

“Please, uncle.”

Fishpingle glanced from the beaming face of the Squire to the demure Prudence standing at attention between them. The light from the big window fell full upon her trim, graciously rounded figure. Here, indeed, was the concrete presentment of what eugenics might achieve. A faint smile flickered about his lips; his eyes softened. As a matter of fact, Prudence was not his niece, but a cousin, a first cousin once removed. But he gazed at her with the proud and affectionate glance of a father. Then he said slowly:

“Eugenics, Prudence, is the new science which deals with conditions which make for the improvement of the human race.”

The Squire nodded complacently.

“Couldn’t have put it better myself b’ Jove!”

Fishpingle bowed.

“That is exactly what you said last night, Sir Geoffrey, to her ladyship.”

“So I did—so I did. But my lady failed to understand me.”

“I don’t understand neither,” murmured Prudence.

“Have another go, Ben,” the Squire enjoined.

Fishpingle took his time, choosing his words carefully.

“You are a strong healthy girl, Prudence.”

“Aye—that I be, thank the Lard!”

Sir Geoffrey was not the man to let pass such an opportunity. It may be mentioned here that he had made sacrifices for his people, amongst which may be counted the giving up of a town house, foreign travel, and the riding of less expensive hunters not quite up to his weight. He said gravely:

“You can thank me, too, Prudence. The sanitary condition of Nether Applewhite put that fine colour into your cheeks, my girl.” Prudence curtsied. “Go on, Ben. Forrard away!”

If the Squire was swift to grasp his opportunities, as much and more could be said of Fishpingle. He had reason to believe that love passages had taken place between Alfred and Prudence, and a marriage between these young people would be, in his opinion, the real right thing. Would the Squire encourage such a match?

“Alfred,” he said, looking at the Squire as he spoke, “is also a fine specimen of what a young man ought to be. And a marriage between you two young persons would be, from the point of view of eugenics——”

“Disastrous!”

Sir Geoffrey, sitting bolt upright, snapped out the adjective.

“Oh-h-h!” exclaimed Prudence. Fishpingle was surprised also.

“I beg your pardon, Sir Geoffrey.”

“They are first cousins, man. Had you forgotten that?”

Prudence interrupted hastily.

“Father an’ mother was second cousins.”

“Were they, b’ Jove! That makes the matter ten times worse.”

“But—why?” Prudence insisted.

Sir Geoffrey, fairly cornered, growled out:

“You explain, Ben.”

“Not now, Sir Geoffrey, if you please. Later.”

“Yes, yes; you can leave us, Prudence.”

The maid went out quickly. As the door closed behind her a gulp was heard. The Squire frowned.

“Ben?”

“Sir Geoffrey.”

“That little dear was upset.”

“Young females are subject to frustrations.”

“Shush-h! She wouldn’t listen at the door, would she?”

“My niece—eavesdropping?”

“She ain’t your niece, if it comes to that. And the best of ’em do it. Why was the child upset?”

Fishpingle answered directly.

“Because Alfred and she hope to get married.”

The Squire exploded, shaking a minatory forefinger at his butler.

“You knew this? And not a word to me? Tchah!”

The resentful sparkle in the Squire’s eyes might have been detected also in the eyes of Fishpingle, but there was no irritability in his tone as he said respectfully:

“I haven’t had a word from them yet, Sir Geoffrey, but I guessed what was up.”

“Well, well, I count on you to nip this. It must be nipped—nipped.”

He stood up. Fishpingle remained silent. In a louder voice, with a peremptory gesture, Sir Geoffrey continued:

“Did you hear me, Ben? I said—nipped. No in-and-in breeding on my property.”

Fishpingle observed blandly:

“It worked well enough with the Suffolk punches and the hounds you had from the Duke of Badminton.”

“Damn you, Ben, it is just like your impudence to argue with me. Now—I leave this little matter in your hands. Have you seen that fool Bonsor this morning?”

Bonsor was the bailiff and a source of chronic irritation to his employer. Fishpingle had seen him and spoken to him about some ailing sheep. The Squire listened, frowning and nodding his head. When Fishpingle had finished, he burst out irrelevantly:

“Don’t forget what I said just now. You share my views about breedin’. All you know you’ve got from me, you ungrateful old dog!”

“I owe much to your family, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Pay your debts. There are moments, Ben, when you disappoint me. When you try to—a—down me with my own carefully digested arguments. You’re a match-makin’ old woman, you are. You’ve encouraged Prudence to become engaged to her double first cousin.”

Fishpingle smiled disarmingly.

“Double first cousins, Sir Geoffrey, if you’ll pardon me, are the children, let us say, of two brothers who happen to have married two sisters.”

The Squire fumed, tapping his gaiters with the riding switch which he carried.

“There you go again! Trying to crow over me with knowledge gleaned, b’ Jove! from me. You tell Prudence to find another young man.” He stumped to the door and opened it. “You make that perfectly plain to the little baggage. I’m counting on her for half a dozen healthy kids at the least. You hear me? That’s the irreducible minimum.”

“I’ll make a mental note of it, Sir Geoffrey.”

Sir Geoffrey relaxed a little.

“I’m sorry if I’ve made you lose your temper, Ben.”

“Pray don’t mention it, Sir Geoffrey.”

“And if Bonsor comes bobbing round again about those damned sheep, tell him what you think—I mean what I think.”

He went out, slamming the door. Fishpingle whistled softly to himself.

CHAPTER II

Fishpingle sat down to his desk and busied himself with some papers. He thought it likely that Prudence might return, but she didn’t. The butler lit a pipe, rose from his chair, and crossed to the fireplace. Upon the mantel-shelf, framed alike in handsome leather frames, stood three photographs—Sir Geoffrey, in hunting kit, which became him admirably, Lady Pomfret, and Lionel Pomfret in the uniform of the Rifle Brigade. Fishpingle gazed intently at the portrait of his mistress. It happened to be an admirable likeness, recently taken. Fishpingle’s face softened, as he murmured something to himself. Perhaps he was thinking that here indeed was that rare bird—a lady of quality, the porcelain clay of human kind. The gracious curves of face and person, the kind, thoughtful eyes, heavily lidded, the sweet mouth, the delicately cut nose—all these attributes indicated race. One glance at such a portrait would inform any observer that Sir Geoffrey had been fortunate in his choice of a wife. And the same observer might have hazarded the conjecture that the lady was well content with her husband and life. Obviously, too, that life had been sheltered, lavender-scented, fragrant with all odours of woods and fields, untainted by what is offensive and cruel and urban.

“Bless her!” ejaculated Fishpingle.

He turned to the portrait of her son, a smiling stripling, who had inherited the delicate features of his mother, and, apparently, none of his father’s rugged health and massive physique. Fishpingle frowned a little. But he smiled again when he glanced at the Squire’s bluff, jolly face. Meanwhile his pipe had gone out. He relit it, walked to the door, called for Alfred, at work in the pantry, and then sat down in the big armchair.

Alfred’s voice was heard humming a tune. He stopped humming as he came in.

“Sit down,” said Fishpingle.

Alfred, rather surprised, perched himself upon the edge of a chair. Fishpingle puffed at his pipe. After a moment or two, he removed it from his lips, saying abruptly:

“So you want to marry Prudence?”

Alfred betrayed astonishment.

“The lil’ besom told ’ee?”

Fishpingle shook his head.

“How did ’ee find out?”

“Never mind that! The powers of observation, my lad, so singularly lacking in you, are sharpened to a finer edge in me.”

In dealing with his subordinates, Fishpingle’s copious vocabulary and choice of English never failed to astonish and confound. It was known, of course, that he had been educated above his station because his mother had been the favourite maid of Sir Geoffrey’s grandmother, and later he had served as valet to his present master. But even these well-established facts were inadequate to the bucolic intelligence. A spice of mystery remained. Fishpingle ended on a sharper note:

“You want her?”

Alfred leant forward, speaking very emphatically:

“Aye—that I do. She be the sweetest lil’ maid in Wiltsheer, she be.”

“Um! And Prudence wants you, hey?”

Alfred grinned. Beneath the crust of an upper-servant’s manner, he caught a glimpse of that rare and refreshing fruit—sympathy. And he was well aware of the butler’s affection for his kinswoman.

“Ah-h-h! When she were a settin’ on my knee las’ night, with her dinky arms roun’ my neck, and her lil’ mouth——”

“That will do,” said Fishpingle, drily. “Obviously, the maid wants you. Now, let me see—your grandfather lived to a ripe old age, didn’t he?”

Alfred nodded eagerly.

“Granfer, he lived to be a hundred an’ two. Yas, he did. An’ he could carry more ale, an’ mead, an’ cider, wi’out showing it, than any man in Nether Applewhite. An’ smokin’ like a chimbley all the time. A most wonnerful man was granfer.”

Fishpingle pursed up his lips, judicially, and his tone became magisterial.

“But your father is dead, Alfred. What killed him?”

Alfred laughed incredulously. Let it not be imputed to him for heartlessness.

“You ain’t never forgotten how pore dear father died. Mother killed un.”

“Nonsense, my lad.”

“’Tis true as true. Mother, pore soul, she put carbolic acid in an ale bottle. Father—you mind he was Sir Geoffrey’s shepherd?” Fishpingle inclined his head. “Well, he come home-along tarr’ble thirsty, an’, dang me! if he didn’t take a swig out o’ ale bottle. Doctor said ’twould have killed any other man in two jiffs, but father he lived two hours in most tarr’ble agony. ’Twas a very sad mishap.”

Alfred sniffed, overcome by his emotions. Fishpingle nodded.

“I’m sorry, my boy. My memory is not quite what it was. Well, it seems that Prudence wants you and that you want her.”

Alfred smiled again. He began to plead his case excitedly.

“I’ve money in bank, I have. And strong arms to work and fend for her. God A’mighty knows I be fair achin’ for her. I earns good wages, I do. And when you retire, sir, I be countin’ on steppin’ into your shoes.”

“You’ll never quite fill them.”

“That be sober truth. I’ve a dinky lil’ foot I have.”

“You can go.”

Alfred jumped up.

“Then it be right and tight seemin’ly?”

Fishpingle looked at him.

“Suppose Sir Geoffrey objected?”

Alfred laughed gaily.

“You can get round un. We all knows that. ’Tis the common sayin’ that you be lard o’ the monor of Nether Applewhite in all but name.”

“Off with you!”

Alfred burst into song.

“And now I’ll marry my own pretty maid,

So handsome, and so cle—ver!”

Fishpingle held up his hand.

“Don’t sing! And—not a word of this to Prudence till I’ve spoken to her.”

Alfred nodded and withdrew.

Alone, once more, Fishpingle moved restlessly about the room. He was sensible of some premonition of trouble, some lurking doubt of his power to smooth the path of these simple lovers, some fear that interference on his part might be obstinately resented. Work might have distracted him, but for the moment there was not work enough for two able-bodied footmen, not to mention the odd man, who laboured more abundantly than them all.

He sat down at the Sheraton bureau, and took from a drawer a much battered tin box, which he opened with a small key attached to his watch chain. The box held some letters and a miniature. In his less robust moments, when any really pressing appeal happened to be made to his sentimental side, a side carefully hidden from Nether Applewhite, Fishpingle was in the habit of opening this box, and looking at the miniature. He might, if the necessity were really importunate, read a letter or two. He had picked up the miniature when a tap at the door was heard.

“Come in.”

Prudence appeared. Fishpingle was not deceived by her self-composed and almost valiant deportment. He knew that she had missed “elevenses” and had spent at least a quarter of an hour crying in her room, and as much time again in repairing the ravages wrought by tears. As he was expecting her, and didn’t wish her to know it, he expressed a mild surprise.

“Is everybody as idle as I am in this house?”

She perched herself upon his knee, put one arm round his neck, and kissed his forehead.

“Dear Uncle Ben,” she cooed.

“Cupboard love, my dear. I know why you are here. I know what you want—Alfred.”

“What a man you be!”

“Don’t you want him? Speak up!”

She put her lips to his ear and whispered. “Yes, I do. There!”

“And you came here to tell me this?”

“N—no.”

“Then why did you come?”

“Because of what Sir Geoffrey said. What did he mean? What did he mean?”

Fishpingle felt her cheek rubbed softly against his. The little witch meant to abuse her powers. And her sweetness, the artlessness of her avowal, were irresistible. Indecision took to its heels. Then and there he registered a vow to fight on the lover’s side, to fight, if need be, to a finish. He said tentatively:

“About eugenics?”

She slipped from his knee, fetched a foot-stool, and sat down upon it, clasping his hand in hers.

“Tell about eugannicks, Uncle Ben.”

For the second time that morning he noticed that the maid was in sunlight, whereas he sat in shadow. And her voice, eager, youthful, vibrant with feeling, seemed to ring out of the sunlight, whereas his own grave inflections floated quietly out of the shadowy past.

“It would come better from your mother, Prue.”

“Mother be manglin’ to-day. ’Tis easier to talk to ’ee than her, so busy she be from marnin’ till night. An’ I brought my troubles to ’ee, Uncle Ben, when I was a lil’ maid. Squire said that a marriage ’atween cousins ’d be dis—astrous. If he were talkin’ eugannicks, why then I hate an’ despise eugannicks—yas, I do.”

“He was talking eugenics. Sir Geoffrey is a great gentleman, Prue. There are not many left like him. He lives on his own land, he spends all his money amongst his own people.”

Prudence said sharply:

“Squire ain’t too much to spend, seeminly.”

“True enough. He’s land poor. It’s been a struggle ever since I can remember. And I’ve been here all my life. And I know Squire better—better than he knows himself.”

Prudence observed more cheerfully:

“We all says that.”

He pressed her hand. She divined somehow that he was speaking with difficulty, speaking rather to himself than to her, conjuring up a picture which she beheld but dimly.

“You are little more than a child, but have you ever thought of what it means when two persons live together and work together for fifty years?”

“I have thought o’ that lately, Uncle Ben.”

“Eugenics begin there, my maid. Two persons living together and working together, not entirely for themselves but for others. Now, Prue, have you thought of the others?”

“What others?” she whispered.

“Your—children.”

“Ye—es. But I hope there won’t be too many o’ they, uncle.”

“Mind your grammar. You speak well enough before the quality. Now, child, I’ve broken the ice for a modest maid. Eugenics mean care and thought for those who come after us. Sir Geoffrey looks upon all of you as his children. He gave up the hounds to build more cottages. He takes a real interest in every colt and lamb and calf and child born in Nether Applewhite.”

Prudence considered this, with her head on one side.

“He must get fair dazed and mazed, pore man,” she declared.

“Occasionally he does. Look at me, Prue.”

She lifted her clear eyes to his, listening attentively as he went on—

“Rightly or wrongly, Sir Geoffrey dislikes marriages between folk who are near of kin.”

Prudence pouted.

“’Tis right and proper that a maid may not marry her granfer, but cousins——”

Fishpingle tried to explain that any taint, any predisposition to disease, is likely to come out with greater virulence in the children of those persons who are of kin. Prudence, however, remained unconvinced. She jumped up and stood proudly before him.

“But, Uncle Ben, we be strong and hearty as never was, me and Alfie.”

“If I can make that clear to Sir Geoffrey——”

“To be sure you can, and you will.”

To her amazement and distress his tone, as he answered her, sounded unconvincing and troubled.

“Perhaps. I—I hope so. He can be very—obstinate.”

“You be more obstinate than he.”

Tears formed in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. Fishpingle was not proof against this. Suddenly she flung herself into his arms, sobbing passionately. Between her sobs he could hear a strangled voice repeating miserably:

“I can’t live without Alfie, no, I can’t.”

He stroked her head till she grew calmer. He was wondering, not for the first time, at the force of love, its violence in primitive natures, its effect upon such an artless maid as this, and lastly the danger involved in thwarting and diverting from its normal channel so devastating a stream. And the resolution to help this confiding, helpless creature gathered increasing will-power and direction. When she grew calmer, he said softly:

“You can’t live without Alfred? Come, come, I have lived all these years without a wife.”

As he spoke, he was sensible that an older, more experienced woman might have turned upon him fiercely, asking him if such an abstention, whether voluntary or forced, was to be commended. And when Prudence left his encircling arm and lifted widely-opened eyes to his, he almost winced before their mute interrogation. But the maid only murmured gently:

“That be true. Uncle Ben, dear, whatever made ’ee stay single? Do tell!”

Should he speak or hold his peace? Her violence had affected him most strangely, broken down barriers of silence, self-imposed. The wish to speak gripped him. And the right word at such a moment might be a warning now and a solace hereafter if—if his plans went agley. He said very quietly:

“My Christian name is Benoni.”

Prudence observed promptly—

“Benoni, so mother tells me, come slam-bang out o’ the Holy Book.”

“Yes. Did your mother tell you what Benoni means?” She shook her head. “It means in Hebrew—a son of sorrow.”

She stared at him, trying to interpret a new and strange kinsman. Pity informed her face, and then she smiled, recalling the old and familiar Uncle Ben.

“But you bain’t sorrowful, dear heart.”

“I hope not. I count myself, Prue, a happy man. But sorrow brought me into the world, sorrow brought me to Nether Applewhite.”

As her imagination grappled with his calm statement, Fishpingle sat down. She knelt beside him, forgetting her own troubles as she gazed anxiously into his kind face.

“Surely your mother has given you some—hint?”

Prudence affirmed positively that this was not the case. She added proudly that her mother was no talker; one who kept herself to herself as became a respectable mother of ten. Fishpingle continued:

“Your grandmother was my mother’s sister.”

“I know that.”

“My mother was the prettiest maid in Nether Applewhite; clever, too, quick with her tongue, as you are—and quick with her needle, as you aren’t.”

“Now, Uncle Ben!”

His voice lost its more familiar intonations and became impersonal and dreamy.

“She became lady’s maid to Sir Geoffrey’s grandmother, Lady Alicia Pomfret. She went about with her everywhere. She ran away with my father. And when I was born she—died.”

Prudence shivered.

“Oh, dear! You never saw your own mother?”

He picked up the miniature.

“This, child, is her portrait.”

Prudence looked at it and kissed it.

“Thank you, Prue,” said Fishpingle. He took the miniature from her and placed it with the letters in the tin box.

“Before my mother died, she sent for Lady Alicia, her old mistress. Her ladyship took charge of me and brought me here.”

“But your father, Uncle Ben? Didn’t he want you?”

“He was not his own master. He married again later on. A small provision was made for me, not much. That is all. What I have told you is between our two selves. Promise?”

“I promise and vow! But why didn’t you marry? A man must love somebody.”

“I have loved Sir Geoffrey, Master Lionel, her ladyship and you.”

He kissed her tenderly, and she rose to her feet. In his ordinary tone he said:

“Be off to your work. If Mrs. Randall asks any questions, you can say that I had need of you.”

She hesitated.

“I have need of you, Uncle Ben. I shan’t eat nor sleep unless you tell me that I shall get Alfie.”

“Sir Geoffrey instructed me just now to tell you something very different. You are to find another young man.”

Her face fell dolorously. Fishpingle’s eyes twinkled, and his square chin obtruded itself.

“But I tell you, Prudence, to do nothing of the sort.”

She laughed.

“I shall obey you, uncle.”

Like Alfred, she burst into song as she flitted down the corridor.

Fishpingle locked the tin box and put it away. Then he saw to it that Alfred and the second footman, a singularly raw youth, were diligently at work in the pantry. The second footman had been taken, so to speak, from the plough-tail because Sir Geoffrey had stood sponsor for him, and it was an idiosyncrasy of the Squire’s to keep an eye upon his god-children, rather to the disgust of Fishpingle, who set an inordinate value upon old plate, and much to the amusement of Lady Pomfret. Having rated the second footman soundly, Fishpingle went into the dining-room, where a small table in the big oriel window was laid for two. Upon the walls hung portraits of dead and gone Pomfrets, and in the centre of the room stood the great mahogany table at which many of them had made merry. Fishpingle frowned as his eyes rested upon the portrait of Sir Guy Pomfret, the present baronet’s grandfather, a gentleman of fashion, who had played skittles with a fine fortune. Beside him, painted by the same artist, hung the portrait of Lady Alicia, his kind friend and protector. He owed his education to this stately dame, and much else beside. Fishpingle smiled pleasantly at her.

Having satisfied himself that the luncheon table was in order, he opened one of the casement windows and gazed placidly at the park, which sloped with charming undulations to the Avon. His glance lingered with affection upon the ancient yews thriving amazingly upon a thin, chalky soil. They had been here before the Pomfrets! There was a particular yew in Nether Applewhite churchyard mentioned in Doomsday Book. Out of some of these yews had been fashioned the bows of Crécy and Agincourt.

He wondered whether the old order of landed gentry were doomed. The parson, Mr. Hamlin, a bit of a Radical, held iconoclastic views. According to this reverend gentleman, who much enjoyed an argument, great estates, and in particular those which suffered from lack of ready money, would share the fate of similar properties in France, and be duly apportioned amongst a triumphant democracy to the betterment of the majority. Fishpingle loathed such a possibility, the more so because the parson’s arguments were hard nuts to crack. Such a man, upon such an estate, provoked surprise and exasperation. Fishpingle knew that he had been offered the living because he was famous as a cricketer. The Squire believed in muscular Christianity. After the irreparable event came the soul-shattering discovery that the parson supported Mr. Gladstone. A three acres and a cow fellow!

A May sun illumined the landscape. The dining-room faced due east, and to the west, beyond the woods which fringed the park, stretched the New Forest. Sir Geoffrey hunted with both fox-hounds and buck-hounds, and Fishpingle could well remember the days, not long passed, when the house at this spring season was hospitably full of “thrusters” from the shires, keen to kill a May fox in the most beautiful woodlands in England. Economy prohibited such lavish entertainment now that rents were falling with the price of corn and the rate of living steadily rising.

A soft voice put to flight these reflections.

“Ah, Ben, I thought I should find you here.”

Fishpingle turned hastily to behold his mistress smiling at him.

Fishpingle never looked at her without reflecting that no artist could possibly do her justice. Others, but no better judges, shared this conviction. A delicate bisque figure, moulded by Spengler, would lose its charm if painted. Lady Pomfret suggested the finest bisque, and yet colour radiated from her, those soft tints which seem to defy reproduction. She was past fifty, matronly in person, but youth remained, an inalienable possession. The consciousness that she was beloved may have kept ardent this dancing flame, for love is the supreme beauty doctor. To this great gift some fairy godmother had added a lively sense of humour constantly exercised by the wife of Sir Geoffrey. And, in every way, she was his happy complement. He believed, honest fellow, that he ruled his wife. Fishpingle knew that he became as wax beneath her slender, pliable fingers. Long ago, she had accepted his disabilities as part and parcel of the man she loved. His quick temper, his prejudices and predilections growing stronger with advancing years, his too hasty conclusions and judgments endeared the Squire to her. And she knew that he adored her, had remained the gallant lover of her girlhood, prodigal in attentions which delight women. Invariably he saw her to her carriage; he rose when she entered a room; he brought her flowers and such simple oblations; he paid her compliments. He exacted from others the respect which he rendered so spontaneously to her.

Lady Pomfret approached Fishpingle and said confidentially:

“The Squire is upset this morning.”

Fishpingle, slyly aware that this was the thin edge of the wedge, and that Sir Geoffrey had attempted to enlist his wife upon his side and against the lovers, assigned to the Squire’s discomposure what he knew to be the wrong reason.

“I told him the mare was not up to his weight.”

“That distressed him; it wasn’t that.”

“Might have been the sheep, my lady.”

“It might have been, but it wasn’t. I think, Ben, that you are well aware of the real reason. Now, why have you made this match?”

Fishpingle made a gesture of repudiation. Lady Pomfret laughed.

“I can guess that Nature was the matchmaker, not you. It is unfortunate that they are cousins.”

“Why so, my lady? There is no danger in such matches, where the strain on both sides is clean and sound. That is Sir Geoffrey’s own view.”

Lady Pomfret held up a protesting finger.

“My dear Ben, I cannot talk eugenics with you, because I should be confounded by your superior knowledge. What I want to ask you is this: are the young people deeply attached to each other, or is it a mere passing flirtation?”

He answered her positively.

“They are deeply attached, my lady. I can assure you that it is no passing fancy, but the real thing.”

“Does an old crusty bachelor flatter himself that he knows the real thing?”

“He does, my lady.”

Lady Pomfret laughed gaily. The freedom and familiarity of her intercourse with this faithful servant were the greater because she knew that he was incapable of abusing his privileges.

“Ben,” she continued, “I am quite sure that your fighting instincts have been aroused. Don’t shake your head! I know you, and you know me. The Squire is thinking of sending Alfred away, but I ventured to point out to him that he was a most excellent servant, who understood our ways, and that poor Charles, his godson”—she chuckled—“was hardly ready for promotion. That gave him pause. Now I suggest to you the propriety of marking time. Youth can wait, and so can Age. This tempest in our teapot will blow over. And— strictly between ourselves—we must give undivided attention to a match which more seriously concerns the fortunes of our family.”

Fishpingle became alert instantly.

“Master Lionel is coming home,” he exclaimed. “This is great news, my lady, wonderful news.”

“We don’t know for certain, Ben. It is probable. And then——!”

“And then?”

She recovered her sprightliness, which had vanished at mention of her son. He was with his regiment in India. He had exchanged from an English battalion because his lungs were none too strong. The dreadful word was never spoken, but Fishpingle knew that a slight but unmistakable tendency to consumption had manifested itself. There was reason to believe that the young fellow had grown more robust in the Punjab. But the taint, the predisposition, had been inherited from his mother’s family, the Belwethers.

Lady Pomfret’s eyes twinkled.

“He has not been allured by any girl in India. I have his positive assurance on that.”

Fishpingle made no reply. He was wondering whether his mistress could assign a reason for this indifference, a reason divined rather than known to himself. From the guileless expression of her face, he could draw no inference save this: that she was less guileless, where her own flesh and blood might be concerned, than she appeared. He waited patiently for further enlightenment. He perceived, moreover, that Lady Pomfret was in a rarely expansive mood.

“If we could pick and choose for him!”

“Ah!”

“Money is sadly needed, Ben.”

Each sighed, thinking of necessary things left undone—sterile acres that cried aloud for fertilisers; farm-buildings falling into disrepair; grumbling tenants; the long, dreary catalogue of “wants” upon an impoverished estate.

“You have great influence with the Squire, Ben.”

She spoke with significance. Fishpingle smiled. The dear lady had sought him with a definite object in view, which she would reveal after her own fashion. In this case, it was revealed sooner than she had intended, for she “gave herself away” by allowing her eyes to linger upon the finest picture in the dining-room, a magnificent Sir Joshua, a full-length portrait of a Pomfret beauty. At once Fishpingle stiffened and became impassive.

“You don’t approve?”

Her feminine quickness of apprehension on such occasions as these always disconcerted him. He realised that he, in his turn, had “given himself away.”

“Sell that? Never, my lady.”

She shrugged her shoulders, regarding him ironically, reflecting with ever-increasing amazement that long service with the Pomfrets had positively turned him into a Pomfret, that he had become blind, like his master, to what was so crystal clear to her—the necessity of sacrifice, of lopping off superabundant growth to save a splendid tree.

“It is worth twenty thousand pounds, Ben.”

He remained silent. Undismayed, she tried again.

“That outlying strip of building property, eh? Would it be missed?”

Fishpingle grunted. It was futile to discuss such matters with a Belwether. Everybody knew that their estates had melted away by just such a process of constant disintegration. He said vehemently:

“Your ladyship knows that the most valuable pictures are heirlooms.”

“That could be got over with Master Lionel’s consent.”

So, she had taken expert opinion! A sweet lady, but a crafty.

“All the land is strictly entailed.”

“So you have told me before, but that, too, could be arranged, if the necessity of breaking the entailment were made plain.”

Fishpingle let himself go. To the amusement of his mistress, he became for the moment the Squire, using the Squire’s familiar gestures, taking words often in his mouth.

“My lady, Sir Geoffrey may be right about this, or he may be wrong, but what he inherited from his father cannot be sold. He will pass it on to his son. That is part of his religion.”

“And yours?”

The sharp question, so quietly spoken, took him aback. She continued quickly:

“You feel as he does about this supremely important matter, but why—why? That is a mystery to me. I can understand his feelings about his own property, not yours. Have you no sense of detachment, Ben? Can you not see, as I see, the issues involved?”

Her voice faltered. Fishpingle became acutely distressed. He said entreatingly:

“My lady, I would do anything, anything, to serve you and yours, but not this one thing. It would mean the beginning of the end. Every Pomfret before Sir Guy added to this property till it became what it is. You know that the Squire would give his right hand if he, too, would carry on the family tradition and buy, not sell. As for the issues involved, I think I see them plainly. Sir Geoffrey sees them. He does not shrink from them. Nor do you, I know.”

“Ah! you don’t quite know, but go on.”

“Expenses must be cut down. Economy in management, better organisation and better prices, which must come, will pull us through.”

She retorted sombrely:

“Better prices may not come, and my son is coming home.”

“Master Lionel, my lady, will think as his father thinks.”

“Ben, you make things hard for me.”

She sat down, folding her hands upon her lap. Her expression indicated resignation, feminine weakness. Fishpingle was not deceived. The battle was not over, but beginning. Her ladyship had cleared her decks for action.

“I can’t quite follow you, my lady.”

“You will in a moment,” her tone brightened. Outside, she could hear Sir Geoffrey rating a retriever. That meant freedom from interruption. In five minutes the faithful Ben would be enlightened. She asked him to sit down. He did so with a premonition of defeat.

“Has it occurred to you, my dear old friend, that the simplest solution of our problem might be found if Lionel married money?”

Fishpingle flushed a little. The delicate flattery of leaving out the formal pretext to her son’s son, the tacit assurance that she suspended for a moment the difficult relationship between mistress and man, produced its intended effect.

“I have often thought of it, my lady.”

“Then you will admit that Lionel is placed in a false position?”

Fishpingle winced. She had pierced, at the first thrust, the joint in his armour.

“He might be,” he admitted.

“He is in it already. God forbid that direct pressure should be used. The Squire is incapable of that. Because we should not use such pressure, the dear fellow might apply it himself. And if—if, Ben, he happened to fall in love with a charming, penniless girl——”

Her voice died away. Fishpingle tried to read her thoughts and failed helplessly. Did she suspect that there was such an attachment already? After a pause she went on:

“That would be a great trial and disappointment to his father.”

Fishpingle opened his mouth and closed it.

“You know that, Ben, as well as I do. There are many nice girls with money. Sir Geoffrey, poor dear man, is picking and choosing half a dozen such, but our son can be trusted to make his own choice.”

“Yes,” said Fishpingle.

“If you had to choose, Ben, between the selling of that Reynolds and the building land and Lionel’s future happiness would you hesitate a moment?”

“Not a moment, my lady.”

“I was quite sure of that.”

She rose, smiling placidly. Fishpingle rose with her. Nothing more was to be said. The conqueror held out her hand.

“You are a true friend, Ben, loyal and—discreet.”

With that Parthian shot, she went her way.

CHAPTER III

Nether-Applewhite Vicarage, which adjoined the small church, lay snugly within the park, less than half a mile from Pomfret Court. Below it was the village through which flowed the placid Avon. In the days of Mr. Hamlin’s predecessor, a cadet of the Pomfret family, the proximity of vicarage to hall had been regarded as an advantage. The Squire shot and hunted with his parson, who was assuredly not the worse parson for being a sportsman, and each strolled in and out of the other’s house half a dozen times a week. This pleasant and profitable intercourse lasted till the death of the parson. It has been said that Mr. Hamlin was a Radical, but in justice to the Squire it must be added that political differences might easily have been overcome, inasmuch as Sir Geoffrey disliked all politicians, and, although a staunch supporter of the Conservative Association in his Division, confessed handsomely that political arguments bored him to tears. And when his old friend and kinsman passed away, he had sought diligently for his successor and believed fondly that he had found him. Even now, after fifteen years of bickering and increasing estrangement, Sir Geoffrey would have admitted frankly that Hamlin had justified his selection. He was a hard worker and popular—perhaps a shade too popular—in a large straggling parish. More, he preached short rousing sermons which concerned themselves more with conduct than dogma. Since his incumbency, there had been less drunkenness, obscenity, and scandal-mongering. Indeed, in weightier matters, the Squire and he saw eye to eye. They differed hopelessly about non-essentials. Hamlin, a High Churchman, had introduced certain harmless practices, genuflections and the like, into the Ritual. Lady Pomfret was amused at these antics upon the part of a big fellow who could hit a cricket ball for six. Not so the Squire. He rocked with rage. Finally, he rose from his knees, and stumped out of church. A letter was despatched, worded not too temperately. Mr. Hamlin became less acrobatic in front of the altar. The Squire realised that he had behaved hastily. The two men might have become friends after this regrettable incident had the rabbits on the estate been less prolific. As a matter of fact, they increased and multiplied against the particular orders of the Squire. The parson, unhappily, was not aware of this. Most indiscreetly, he took upon himself to write a letter to Sir Geoffrey making a personal matter of it. He received what the autocrat of Nether-Applewhite called a “stinger.” Hamlin apologised, but the mischief had been done. Lastly—one hesitates to record such a trifle—the parson was a total abstainer, not a bigot, nor one to force his opinions instead of wine down a guest’s throat, but all the same, a man who passed the decanter with a certain air of superiority. Mrs. Hamlin, who had helped to keep the peace, was dead. Hamlin was left with four stout sons and a pretty daughter.

Some few days after the events recorded in the last chapter, Joyce Hamlin was sitting at breakfast with her father. Hamlin, black-a-vized, with pale, clear skin, big but gaunt, gobbled up his food with that indifference to it so common to men of his character. Joyce ministered to him faithfully. Since his wife’s death, Hamlin had become even more absorbed in his work, and talked of little else. Joyce served as housekeeper and curate. When he rose and filled his pipe she said cheerfully:

“Any particular orders, daddy?”

“You might see Bonsor about those repairs in the chancel. We shall have the roof falling in before we know where we are.”

“Mr. Bonsor has referred the matter to the Squire.”

“Perhaps a word to old Fishpingle would expedite things.”

“If I see him, I’ll mention it.”

“Or, better still, attack Lady Pomfret.”

Joyce laughed.

“Same thing, daddy.”

“Eh?”

“Lady Pomfret manipulates the Squire through Fishpingle.”

Hamlin saw no humour in this. Strategy exasperated him. He practiced direct methods, frontal attack, with the accompanying heavy artillery of argument.

“Letters late, as usual,” he said testily. “Postman chattering at the hall when he ought to be half way through the village. How long, O Lord, how long?”

He broke out into sharp criticism and condemnation of the old order, stigmatised as selfish, domineering, and negligent. Joyce listened deferentially. It was a real grief to her that parson and squire pulled against each other, because she saw clearly how much might have been achieved had they pulled together. Anyway, the Pomfrets had been charming to her and her brothers.

A bouncing parlourmaid entered with the belated letters and the Westminster Gazetter, which arrived by post, some three hours ahead of the daily papers—another Hamlin grievance. Hamlin took the letters from the servant, who went out. One letter, with a Rawal-Pindi postmark upon the envelope, was addressed to Joyce. Her father said carelessly:

“Who is your Indian correspondent?”

Joyce answered as carelessly:

“Lionel Pomfret.”

Hamlin opened his Westminster and became absorbed in a leading article. Joyce opened her letter, read it, and re-read it. She sat in her late mother’s place at the head of the table. Hamlin was standing near the window. She started slightly when she heard his voice.

“What does young Pomfret say for himself?”

“He is coming home. Oh, dear!”

Hamlin raised his dark brows. Joyce explained, less calmly:

“He begged me not to mention it.”

“How absurd! How could his coming home concern anybody except himself and his people? Obviously a Pomfret, saturated with a sense of his own importance.”

Joyce had plenty of spirit. She retorted pleasantly but incisively:

“You are mistaken, daddy, it might be better for Lionel if he had a greater sense of his own importance. Unless he has changed very much, he is altogether too modest and unassuming.”

“Then why this ridiculous mystery about his comings and goings?”

“Because, I fancy, he may have told me first.”

Her father nodded and left the dining-room. Alone in his small study he whistled softly to himself. He was no fool, and assuredly he was no snob. It had never occurred to him that Lionel Pomfret had more than a brotherly interest in his girl. Before he went to India, the pair had played tennis together, but what of that? Lionel had been far more intimate with Joyce’s brothers.

Why should he write to her first?

Why shouldn’t he?

But Joyce had blushed a little as he left the dining-room. He attempted for the first time to envisage her as a wife, a mother. Everything that was hard in the parson softened as he beheld his daughter with a child in her arms, mistress in her own house, independent of him altogether.

Upon second thoughts, he decided finally that he was leaping to unwarrantable conclusions. She would have read a love-letter alone in her room. And she was incapable of deceit.

Still, her blush worried him, and the artless avowal that Lionel had written to her first. Yes, yes; something might come of this. A great joy, perhaps a great sorrow. One conviction troubled him. Sir Geoffrey would make himself intolerably unpleasant.

Meanwhile, Joyce’s blush lingered upon her cheeks. Her father’s hasty exit disturbed her. She was quite aware of what she had done, of the thoughts which her indiscreet words must have provoked. She wondered if she could allay such thoughts by showing him the letter. It was a jolly letter, a sincere reflection of the writer, so that it seemed to be the spoken rather than the written word. It might have been dashed off by one subaltern to another. Joyce had half a dozen such epistles upstairs. It may be added here that no love passages, in the literal sense, had taken place between these two correspondents.

But—she had blushed.

And she was the first to be told that he was coming home.

Joyce put away the letter with the others, and set forth on her common round. Such as it was, it sufficed her. She held her head high, and little of interest escaped her brown eyes. Town girls would have pitied her. She pitied them. Not to know the names of birds and flowers and butterflies, to be detached from interest in humbler neighbours, to be denied the privilege of small ministrations, must surely take from life much of the joy in living. Her sense of the present, so vivid and acute, her happy ignorance of life outside her tiny circle, prevented her from traffics, voyages and discoveries into the future.

Beside the river, she dawdled a little, having marked down several trout which might, later on, be captured by a Green Jacket. She hoped that Lionel would not miss the big May-fly rise in June. If he left India at once he would arrive in the nick of time. She recalled his tremendous triumph beneath the bridge, a thirteen pounder caught with a lump of raw beef. The Field had a paragraph about it. He was a boy of sixteen at the time, and she a fat child of ten. She had scampered at his bidding to the Pomfret Arms to get a landing net.

Halfway down the village she met Bonsor, who tried to escape from her. He “bobbed”—the Squire’s descriptive word—when she mentioned the chancel. And he evaded searching questions concerning the thatching of certain cottages. Joyce inquired politely after the Squire, and learned that he was furious because a local sanitary inspector had condemned some pigsties. Bonsor speculated vaguely as to the future of a world where such interference was possible, and then went his solitary way, grumbling and growling. Joyce wondered why the Squire employed Bonsor. Her father scrapped him as hopelessly out of touch with modern conditions. But Bonsor, although a Hampshire man, had married in Nether Applewhite. He had become, accordingly, one of Sir Geoffrey’s people. The Squire would never scrap him.

By noon, she had reached the Hall. As she approached the front door she saw Lady Pomfret busily engaged on the lawn clipping obtruding twigs from a topiary group of hen and chickens cunningly fashioned out of box. Her delight and satisfaction in such tiny accessories to a great place appealed deeply to Joyce, constrained, as she was, to find her pleasure in similar insignificant things. Lady Pomfret kissed her, and at touch of her lips the girl guessed that the great news had reached the mother.

“Lionel is coming home,” said Lady Pomfret. “I believe, my dear, that I am the happiest woman in England.”

To Joyce’s surprise she was kissed again.

“How splendid,” said Joyce.

Lady Pomfret glanced at her keenly, but no blush stole into Joyce’s cheeks.

“You must stay to luncheon, child. At this moment, Fishpingle, I believe, is decanting a bottle of our ‘Yellow Seal’ port, and the Squire is assisting him. We were a little put out this morning about some condemned pigsties, but we have forgotten that. And, by the way, have you walked up here to see a lonely old woman, or is your visit—parochial?”

“Both,” said Joyce.

“Ah! Well, under the special circumstances, shall we decide to side-track—I learnt that word from dear Lionel—the parochial part. If you like you can tell me.”

“Father wanted so much to know about the chancel repairs. He believes that the roof may fall in.”

The Pomfret family pew happened to be in the chancel, another bone of contention between parson and squire. Lady Pomfret’s kind eyes perceived that Joyce was ill at ease, unhappy at mentioning one of many things left undone. She tapped her cheek.

“How nice of your father to be thinking of me. He, brave man, would stand erect if the heavens fell. Now, I promise you that the roof shall be put in order.”

Joyce thanked her, much relieved. Lady Pomfret continued gaily:

“Fortified by you, I feel encouraged to spy upon the Squire. Walk with me to Fishpingle’s room. I will bet you a pair of gloves that we shall find those two wicked men drinking port as well as decanting it.”

“Before luncheon?”

“And when I think what I went through at Harrogate last year!”

They strolled along so leisurely that we will take the liberty of preceding them.

The information that pigsties in his village had been condemned by some Jack in-Office had reached the Squire overnight. And the vials of his wrath had been poured upon Bonsor before breakfast. At breakfast Sir Geoffrey heard from his son. Straightway woes and tribulations melted like snowflakes in front of a roaring fire. The boy affirmed that he was hard as nails, and ready for the time of his life. He should have it, b’ Jove! His leave would last over the cubbing and possibly the opening meet in November. And the buck-hounds would be hunting in August. Why had that damned mare lamed herself? Lionel was just the weight for her. But the boy should be mounted if his father went afoot. Would it be a decent fishing season? Of course they must entertain, fill the old house with the right sort, do the thing well. Girls, too, the pick of the county, with a sparkler or two from Mayfair?

Thus the Squire, giving tongue to a breast-high scent.

Lady Pomfret smiled and nodded.

From his wife, the Squire hurried to Fishpingle. All that he had said to his wife he repeated, with additions, to his dear old Ben. And then, together, they went “down cellar.”

The cellars at Pomfret Court were holy ground, entered taper in hand, a sanctuary, where none save the elect might wander. The Squire believed, of course, in laying down wine. And, oddly enough, what the unthinking might have indicted as extravagance and superfluity had turned out a sound investment. The Squire had a palate, and he bought his wine from first-rate people. He boasted that his port and champagne cost him nothing. He laid down double the quantity he needed and sold half when the wine matured. He had been not so successful with claret.

The main feature of the Pomfret cellars was a stone chamber in the form of a pentagon, from which branched five passages lined with bins. The chamber and passages, either by design or happy chance, registered the right temperature all the year round. In Sir Guy’s day—in his hot youth—orgies had taken place in this pentagonal chamber. A round table, glittering with plate and glass, was laid for four choice spirits. Acolytes brought bottle after bottle from the adjoining bins. Upon one of these occasions, so the legend ran, four men consumed twelve magnums of Château Lafite! Sir Guy was the friend of the First Gentleman in Europe.

Solemn as this great occasion was, the Spirit of Comedy illumined it. Charles, the second footman, carrying two winebaskets, was in attendance. Fishpingle, need it be said, would have perished at the stake rather than entrust one bottle of the precious “Yellow Seal,” Cockburn’s 1868 vintage, to such a hobbledehoy. The wine-cupboard upstairs, which held the wine in everyday use, needed replenishing. Hence the presence of Charles, trembling with excitement at the privilege vouchsafed him. To fill his baskets and despatch their carrier was Fishpingle’s first and easiest task. Then, in silence, Squire and butler approached the sacred bin. At this moment such a crash as is rarely heard except in farce or pantomime rang through the vaulted chambers. Fishpingle spoke first to his startled master.

“Charles has fallen from the top of the stairway to the bottom.”

Sir Geoffrey could be trusted to show his quality in such emergencies. He knew that every bottle of wine was smashed, and the wine was good wine. He said suavely:

“I hope, Ben, that the boy has not hurt himself.”

Fishpingle was not at his best. He said almost rancorously:

“I hope, Sir Geoffrey, that he has broken his neck, but I’ll go and inquire.”

He returned with the information that Charles had pitched on his head, and therefore none the worse for his misadventure.

Two bottles of the “Yellow Seal” were taken to Fishpingle’s room. Sir Geoffrey led the way with one, Fishpingle followed with t’other. Alfred brought old Waterford glass decanters from the pantry.

The rites began. After carefully drawing the corks, Fishpingle inserted into the necks of the bottles two fids of cotton-wool soaked in alcohol. The alcohol—according to Fishpingle—destroyed any fungus growth between the neck of the bottle and the cork. A small quantity of wine was then poured into a glass, and solemnly smelt by each man in turn. They smiled ecstatically. Two fresh glasses were filled to the brim, and held up to the light.

“Beautiful,” murmured the Squire.

“Brilliant,” added Fishpingle.

“Master Lionel, God bless him!” said the Squire.

Fishpingle’s voice quavered, as he repeated the toast.

“Master Lionel, God bless him!”

They sipped the wine, winking at each other.

“What a breed, Ben!”

“What vinosity, Sir Geoffrey!” He looked at the nectar with a melancholy smile, as he continued: “There was a time, Sir Geoffrey, when a gentleman drank a decanter of this after dinner. And now, one bottle amongst four men.”

“Not if I’m of that party,” replied the Squire briskly. “Sit ye down, Ben, sit ye down. We’ll have a second glass presently and another toast.”

They sat down at the Cromwellian table, with the decanter between them. A full week had elapsed since Fishpingle’s confidential talk with Lady Pomfret, and, so far, the Squire had not spoken a word about Alfred and Prudence. Probably—so Fishpingle reflected—her ladyship had assured Sir Geoffrey that it was wiser to leave the young people alone. Upon the other and more important matter of selling the Reynolds Fishpingle had kept silence, biding the right opportunity. At this moment he wondered whether it was about to present itself.

Sir Geoffrey harked back to his son.

“He has six months’ leave, Ben.”

“Good. Master Lionel will be back in India, by December.”

Sir Geoffrey did not misunderstand this.

“Pooh, pooh! He’s grown into a strong man.”

“From the bottom of my heart I hope so.”

Sir Geoffrey sipped his wine, glancing at Fishpingle out of the corner of his eye. He was growing ripe for confidences. He began blusterously:

“Damn you, Ben, you’ve given me a nasty taste in the mouth. Master Lionel will make old bones. I feel that in my bones. Enough of that. We must give him the welcome he deserves, but I could wish, for his sake, that we had more shots in the locker—what?”

Fishpingle inclined his head. The opportunity had come. But he waited for the Squire to plunge deeper into his difficulties.

“‘The little more, and—and——’”

Fishpingle completed the quotation.

“‘And how much it is; And the little less, and what miles away!’”

“Yes, yes—what a memory you’ve got, Ben.

“I forget these confounded jingles. Where were we? You’ve put me off with your rhymes.”

“The empty locker,” suggested Fishpingle, sipping his wine.

“Just so. A very few hundreds added to my shrinking income would make such an immense difference to this dear lad’s home-coming.”

Fishpingle picked his way warily.

“The income, for instance, from twenty thousand pounds.”

“Tchah! Why do you jaw about specific sums? Twenty thousand pounds! Is such a sum as that likely to drop from heaven on me! Talk practical politics, you old ass. Can we scrape up a few tenners and fivers?”

“You can put your hand on twenty thousand pounds, Sir Geoffrey.”

Sir Geoffrey lay back in his chair, staring at his butler.

“Are you going dotty, Ben?”

“That particular sum hangs in the dining-room.” He leant forward, meeting the Squire’s eyes. For a moment the Squire failed to catch his meaning. When that meaning percolated to his marrow, he swore prodigiously, as our Army, long ago, was said to have sworn in Flanders. His glance become congested. With a gulp, he tossed off his wine.

“There!” he spluttered, “you’ve made me choke over the best wine in the world. Sell the Sir Joshua, which, by the way, isn’t mine to sell? Sell the finest picture in the house? Dammy, you are mad. What d’ye mean, hay?” He glared fiercely at the one man living whom he could have sworn to be incapable of making such an amazing suggestion.

Fishpingle paid no attention to his ebullition of indignation.

“Heirlooms, very valuable heirlooms, can be sold, Sir Geoffrey, under certain conditions.”

The Squire exploded again.

“This is the limit. You’ve thought of this—you—you! I supposed, dash it! that you were drawing a bow at a venture, firing into the ‘brown.’ Not a bit of it! You really mean it.” Fishpingle bowed. “It’s a deliberate suggestion. Why not put a halter about my lady, and sell her at auction in Salisbury market-place? Ha—ha! Why not start an old curiosity shop with the family plate and furniture? We should do a roarin’ trade. However, there it is. You’re not a Pomfret. We might sell some land, hay?”

“Yes. That outlying strip—for building purposes.”

“My God! The man is dotty.”

His old master looked so genuinely concerned and distressed that Fishpingle melted. His voice quavered; he held out his hands entreatingly.

“Sir Geoffrey, I know how you feel. We were boys together. I am, I hope, part of the family, and as—as proud of it as you are. But this—this sacrifice would put things right for you—and Master Lionel.”

“Much you know about him,” the Squire growled out, “if you think he would be a party to such a—a violation, yes, violation, of all our traditions. Not another word!” He raised his hand peremptorily. “I shall overlook this outrageous suggestion, Ben, because you mean well—you mean well. I lost my temper, I admit it, because I thought you knew me, through and through, and shared my feelings about this property and what goes with it, which, mark you, is a sacred trust for which—a—I deem myself accountable. Finish your wine, man!” Fishpingle drained his glass. “Now”—the Squire’s voice rang out cheerily—“we will forget all this. I’ve another toast. Fill your glass and mine. We’ll drink it standing.”

Fishpingle obeyed his instructions. The two men stood up. Sir Geoffrey laughed, as he held up his glass.

“The toast, Ben, is worthy of the wine. I give you: Master Lionel’s wife!”

Fishpingle nearly dropped his glass.

“What!” he exclaimed. “Is Master Lionel married?”

The Squire chuckled.

“Had you there, Ben. You rose like a fat trout at a May-fly. I give the toast again: Master Lionel’s future wife!”

“He’s found her?”

“Not yet, but I think I have. Drink, man, drink.”

Fishpingle repeated the words of the toast. “Master Lionel’s future wife.”

The Squire added firmly:

“May God bless her and her children!”

The toast was drunk, and the men sat down again. The Squire chuckled as he went on sipping his port. His face radiated good humour and happy expectations. He lowered his voice and his glass.

“Now, Ben, I am going to tell you something. I met the other day a most charming young lady, a dasher, sir, a dasher, clean bred, in the Stud Book, best stock in the kingdom, pretty, intelligent, and an heiress. Better still, she has no big place of her own.”

“Might I ask the name Sir Geoffrey?”

“Lady Margot Maltravers, the late Lord Beaumanoir’s only child.”

“An only child?” Fishpingle repeated the words reflectively.

“Why do you sit there lookin’ like an owl in an ivy bush? By the luck of things, Lady Margot is an only child. What of it? What of it?”

“Nothing. Master Lionel is an only child.”

“Don’t rub that in! Why did Providence send my parson four sons? I ask such questions, but, b’ Jove, I can’t answer them. Can you?”

It will never be known whether Fishpingle could have answered the Squire’s question, because, at this moment, Lady Pomfret floated into the room, followed by Joyce Hamlin. The two men rose. Instantly the Squire became the gentleman of the old school. He greeted Joyce as if she were a duchess. He smiled charmingly at his wife. Lady Pomfret raised her hand and pointed whimsically at the decanters. Then she looked at Ben reproachfully.

“Oh, Ben, I thought you knew better than to allow Sir Geoffrey to drink port before luncheon. And when I remember what I went through at Harrogate——!”

“I went through it, not you, my dear Mary.”

He took a lovely rose from his buttonhole and presented it to his wife as a propitiatory offering. She accepted it, shaking her head and smiling.

“You will go there alone, Geoffrey, next time.”

“A glass of port would do you good, Mary.”

She declined with thanks. Sir Geoffrey turned to Joyce.

“Well, Joyce, my dear, you look blooming this morning. What a colour! No air like our air. And, of course, you have heard our news, which—a—justifies, ha! a glass of port before luncheon.”

Lady Pomfret noted what was left in the decanter.

“Our news justified, perhaps, one glass, Geoffrey, not two.”

“Tut, tut! Well, Joyce, I’ll wager that my lady surprised you, hay?”

Joyce hesitated and was lost. A town girl might have dissembled, but George Hamlin’s daughter had inherited her father’s uncompromising code. Nevertheless, she replied with self-possession.

“Not surprised exactly, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Bless my soul! Why not—why not?”

“You see I had a letter from Lionel by the same post.”

Obviously, the Squire was taken aback, Lady Pomfret raised her delicate brows. Joyce continued hastily:

“He does write a jolly letter, so like himself, so full of fun.”

“Um! Quite—quite.”

Lady Pomfret said placidly:

“Dear Joyce is staying to luncheon. We are going into the garden. Do you wish to come with us, Geoffrey?”

“Join you presently,” replied the Squire. “Ben and I are talking over a little business—ways and means, ways and means, and more ways than means, worse luck!”

The ladies withdrew. Sir Geoffrey moved to the fireplace, standing in front of it, facing Fishpingle and frowning.

“Ben?”

“Sir Geoffrey?”

“I’m a bit worried. You know, none better, that I’ve a nose.” He stroked that well-formed feature as he spoke. “So have you. It’s a devilish odd thing, but your nose—after pokin’ itself into my affairs for a thousand years—has shaped itself after my pattern.”

“I dare say, Sir Geoffrey. It’s a good pattern.”

“You heard that young lady just now, and you must have been surprised, as I was, although you stood like a graven image. She had a letter from Master Lionel this morning. Now, why does he write to her? As between man and man, as between stout old friends, what d’ye make of it—hay?”

Fishpingle was not prepared to say what he made of it. Knowing his master, he temporised.

“Why shouldn’t Master Lionel write to her?”

“Tchah! The boy doesn’t write too often to me. I don’t like this, Ben, I tell you I don’t like it.”

“Miss Hamlin is a very sweet young lady.”

“Daughter of a Rad. Never knew that when I gave him the livin’. And who are the Hamlins, I ask you, spelt with an ‘i’?”

“Mrs. Hamlin was a sweet lady, too.”

“Sugary adjectives. You are damnably sentimental, Ben, and, and—a—saccharine. Good word that! Where was I? Your confounded interruptions always put me out of my stride. Yes, yes, I’m not a snob but Mrs. Hamlin, if my memory serves me, was the daughter of an auctioneer. The girl is hairy at the heel, b’ Jove.”

“She isn’t.”

“You have the impudence to contradict me?”

“I thought we were speaking as man to man, as friends.”

“So we are, so we are. But it was a slap in the face all the same. And, damn it, sir, any pretty girl can twist you round her finger. Keep your temper, Ben! Between you all my morning has been wrecked. I shall go and hearten myself up with a squint at the new litter of pigs—fifteen little darlings. That old sow does her duty, b’ Jove!”

He clapped his hat upon his head and strode to the door. There he stood still for a moment, pulling himself together. His voice had quite recovered its geniality as he said in parting:

“With your hasty temper, old friend, you oughtn’t to touch port.”

Fishpingle heard his voice once more in the courtyard, Sir Geoffrey was speaking to his retriever.

“Good dog! Fine handsome doggie! Best dog in England, what? Come and look at the piggy-wiggies with master.”

Fishpingle crossed to the bookcase, and took out a well-used Peerage. Then he put on his spectacles. He sat down at the table and opened the ponderous tome. His fingers turned a few pages. He found “Beaumanoir” and read on.

CHAPTER IV

The few weeks before Lionel’s arrival passed pleasantly and without incident. Prudence may have sat on Alfred’s knee, or wandered with him on Sunday afternoon’s but the Squire was unaware of such doings. He remained engrossed in his preparations to provide entertainment for his son and heir, in Sir Geoffrey’s eyes a dual personality. His son he regarded as a jolly boy, a st’un or two below right weight; his heir bulked larger above the horizon. Like all men of his kidney, he thought pessimistically of the future. We are writing of pre-war days, at a time when a now famous statesman was attacking the dukes, who, perhaps, of all men in exalted positions, least deserved such assaults. The Squire was keenly aware that the greater included the less, and that he, too, was assailed. How could he answer such attacks? He, and thousands in his position, writhed in secret because pride prohibited a recital of what had been done, the innumerable sacrifices, the paring down and remitting of rents, the private charities, the cheerful renunciation of luxuries, as a “set off” against much left undone through want of means. Could a gentleman of unblemished lineage toot any horn other than that carried by him as M.F.H.? Could he touch the pitch of public controversy and not be defiled?

Nevertheless Sir Geoffrey carried a high head and a conviction that things would mend. Almost furtively, he would steal into his dining-room to stare with melancholy eyes at the Reynolds’ beauty. A neighbouring county magnate had sold just such a masterpiece, and in its honoured place hung a copy of the original. “No copy for me,” growled Sir Geoffrey to himself, thinking of awkward questions put by unsophisticated guests.

Fishpingle and he overhauled the estate accounts. The Squire employed no expert land agent. Possibly, what he gained in a saved salary was lost twice over owing to the management of an amateur. He employed his own people, a phrase ever in his mouth, and the Wiltshire peasant in the more remote districts is a blunted tool, quite unfit for the finer uses of high farming. Bonsor had no executive ability whatever. Fishpingle, on the other hand, had an instinct, almost infallible, about stock-breeding. His heart and soul were in it, like the Squire’s. Fishpingle may have known what he had saved and made for his friend and master. The Squire, serenely unconscious of his debt, took the credit en bloc and whistled complacently.

We get a further glimpse of this honest gentleman, when we mentioned the fact that he stood out valiantly against motor cars till the last gasp from his wife. To please her, he bought a limousine, and forthwith extolled it, because it was his, as the best car on the market, which it wasn’t.

Night and day his thoughts wandered, in happy vagabondage, to Lady Margot Maltravers.

She spent a flying week-end before Lionel arrived.

Some description of the young lady must be attempted. The late Lord Beaumanoir had left his only child the freehold of a handsome house in London, some valuable town property, and a round sum securely invested in gilt-edged securities. The Beaumanoir estates and title passed to a distant kinsman. When she came of age, Lady Margot announced her intention of going “on her own.” Having plenty to “go on,” this announcement was acclaimed by poorer relations as indicating spirit and intelligence. Under cover of this chorus of praise, a few private loans were impetrated. Lady Margot lavished largesse with amusing cynicism. “I must pay for my whistle,” she remarked to her intimates. “If I whistle the wrong tune, the poor dears will hold their tongues.”

However, despite predictions to the contrary, she conducted herself circumspectly. It was true that minor poets were to be seen in her drawing-room and about her dining-table, with a sprinkling of artists, politicians, barristers, musicians, and novelists. She said that she liked to be amused. She had more than one flirtation. The “poor dears” feared that she had not treated her lovers well. She was accused of luring them on and then laughing at them. When reproached she replied modestly: “Really, you know, they are hunting comfortable board and lodging rather than little me.”

Little she was, although mignonne is a happier word. Her feet and hands were exquisite. It was said—perhaps truly—that Lady Margot bought her footwear from that mysterious personage who lives in Paris, and who has the effrontery to demand from his clients a big premium, cash on the nail, before he consents to supply them with shoes at a fabulous price. Her frocks were beyond compare, and she especially affected, in the evening, a vivid translucent emerald green that set off admirably the dead white of her complexion and her dark sparkling eyes and hair. Her portrait, by one of her admirers, was hung upon the line in the Royal Academy, and made the artist’s reputation while enhancing hers.

About the time when she encountered our Wiltshire squire, Lady Margot was getting “fed up” with clever young men consumed by their own ambitions. In fine, they had ceased to amuse her. They ground their little axes too persistently. Indeed, she had captivated Sir Geoffrey at once by saying candidly: “You know, they wouldn’t be missed. The real world would wag on without them.”

Sir Geoffrey was quite of her opinion.

“Popinjays, my dear young lady, popinjays.”

This queerly contrasted pair, the reactionary squire and the twentieth-century maiden, met at a big Hampshire house, where the partridge driving is superlatively good. Sir Geoffrey happened to be a fine performer, a little slow with his second gun, but quick enough to shoot in the best company. To the humiliation of the younger men, Lady Margot accompanied the veteran, and highly recommended his performance and his retriever’s. He amused her more than the young men, because he was absolutely sincere. And she succumbed instantly to the gracious personality of Lady Pomfret, accepting with alacrity an invitation to visit Pomfret Court, openly chagrined when no early date was set.

She arrived in May, driving her Rolls-Royce, and accompanied by a chauffeur and a French maid.

Sir Geoffrey, as was his wont, received her at the front door. The warmth of the reception rather astonished her. But it was quite in keeping, so she reflected, with the hospitable air of the house, a fine specimen of late Elizabethan architecture. To luxury in its myriad phases she was accustomed; comfort, as the Pomfrets interpreted the word, might be more restful. She promised herself fresh and diverting experiences in studying types which she had supposed to be extinct.

This first visit was an enormous success.

She beheld, of course, half a dozen different photographs of the Rifleman, and asked many questions concerning him.

“He is no popinjay,” affirmed Sir Geoffrey.

“Do you call him clever?” she asked the proud father.

“Clever! Now, my dear, what the doose d’ye mean by ‘clever’?”

“Quite frankly, Sir Geoffrey, I ask for information.”

“Am I clever?” demanded the Squire.

“Oh no, dear Geoffrey,” said his wife, tranquilly.

The three persons were at tea in what was known as the Long Saloon, a charming room with two great oriel windows, similar to those at Montacute, embellished by innumerable achievements, escutcheons setting forth in stained glass the armorial bearings of the families that had intermarried with the Pomfrets. The walls were panelled in oak palely golden with age. Against these walls stood cabinets of Queen Anne and the Georges filled with English porcelain. There were lovely bits of Chinese lacquer, many chintz-covered sofas and chairs, two well-worn Persian carpets, and tables of all sizes and shapes. Every article looked as if it had stood still for generations. Lady Margot said happily that here was exactly the right setting for her hosts. The room shone with the same soft lustre that gleamed from the silver of the tea equipage two centuries old.

Sir Geoffrey laughed.

“Are you clever, Mary?”

“Here and there, Geoffrey, where my own interests are vitally concerned.”

Lady Margot stuck to her point.

“Is your son interested in art and literature?”

Her listeners failed to detect a slight accent of derision.

“Um! He’s an outdoor man, as I am. I can tell you this. He is interested in persons. He is the most popular fellow in Nether-Applewhite.”

“Really? I look forward to making his acquaintance.”

At this the Squire chuckled.

He would have laughed aloud, had he realised that his guest was indeed more interested in his son than she was prepared to admit, even to herself. The photographs captivated her. She made certain that Lionel Pomfret was utterly different from the young men who frequented her own house. She recognised in him the preux chevalier. With such parents could he be anything else? Leaping to quite unjustifiable conclusions, she decided, also, that this only son must have taken from father and mother what was best in each. Perhaps, for the first time in her variegated life, she became romantic. Nobody, as yet, had whetted her imagination.

If Sir Geoffrey had divined all this!

Presently, when many of Prudence’s fancy cakes had been eaten, Sir Geoffrey led his guest to the farther window.

“Do you see anything familiar?” he asked.

“Of course. How exciting! Our coat. Have our families intermarried?”

“In 1625, when Charles the First ascended his throne.”

“I must look that up.”

“We will do so together.”

Upon the following Monday morning she whirled away, leaving a gap behind her. Sir Geoffrey waxed a thought too enthusiastic. Lady Pomfret admitted her intelligence and good-breeding.

“Mary, you are lukewarm.”

“I suspend judgment. What does Ben say?”

“Ben—Ben? I haven’t asked Ben. I needn’t ask him. Quality is everything with the old fellow. He will bore me stiff raving about her. She was uncommonly civil to him. A witch, my dear, a witch.”

“You burn her alive with this excess of praise.”

Fishpingle, however, who went fishing with the Squire that same Monday afternoon, did not rave about Lady Margot Maltravers. The Squire did so for him, and believed that what he said had been said by his faithful henchman. He caught more trout than Fishpingle, and returned home in exuberant spirits.

Whether by accident or design, Joyce Hamlin was not asked to meet the “dasher.”

The problem of ways and means for an heir’s suitable entertainment was solved triumphantly by the Squire, without a hint from either my lady or old Ben. Sir Geoffrey went to town alone. He returned, next day, inflated with a sense of his own cleverness and craft. He had let the shooting! Fishpingle was visibly impressed and touched. In the memory of man the Pomfret shootings had been rigorously preserved by and for the Pomfret squires. The sacrifice almost matched that of Abraham. And—unlike the Patriarch—the Squire had measured what that sacrifice meant to his son—practically nothing.

“Our partridges are never driven till early November, and by that time Lionel will be in the Red Sea. Well, well, I hope my old pals will keep my guns warm.”

Lady Pomfret kissed him. He had brought her a trinket from Cartier’s, a tiny brooch as dainty as herself. As he was pinning it into a lace jabot, she asked anxiously:

“Oh, Geoffrey, did you remember to order a new dress suit?”

“I remembered not to order it. I prefer old togs.”

In the good old days before rents fell and prices rose, Sir Geoffrey had owned a small cutter, which lay in Southampton Water, and with which he had won several races. All that was left of this gallant craft might be found in a stout oak box under the stairs in the hall, a box full of flags, gay bunting wherewith the Squire decorated his house upon great occasions. You may be sure that all these little flags were strung out upon the afternoon of Lionel’s arrival. The father met his son at Salisbury; the mother, and a goodly number of the Squire’s “people,” assembled on the lawn. Perhaps the boy himself, after he had kissed his mother, said all that can be said on such delightful occasions. After an absence of four years, an absence that had turned him from a delicate stripling into a healthy man, he stood upon the steps of his old home and gazed affectionately at the honest, beaming faces upturned to his. The welcoming cheers died away. There was no sound save the cawing of the rooks in the beeches behind the house. Lionel said impulsively:

“I say, it is jolly to be at home again. It’s the jolliest moment of my life.”

That was all and quite enough. The Squire led the way into the dining-room, and his people followed to drink health and prosperity to the heir. The oldest tenant made a short speech, Lionel replied in a dozen words. The visitors soon drifted away. Father, mother, and son were left alone.

“He’s a man,” said the Squire.

The mother smiled happily, noting subtler changes than the merely physical. He had grown into a man, true. India had burnt him brown. Hard work and exercise had taken away a certain boyish immaturity, but in essentials he remained much the same—impulsive, affectionate, and ingenuous. His clear eyes met hers with no reservations. His laugh had the same joyous spontaneity. But in his voice were new inflections. He spoke with a crisper decision, with something of his sire’s authority. He carried himself with an air——! Lady Pomfret divined instantly that he had ceased to be an echo of family traditions and predictions. He would take his own line across any country. She decided, as quickly, that he was still heart-whole. No woman stood between mother and son.

That first evening became an imperishable memory. The two men she loved best were at their best. She sat silent, looking at them, listening to ancient family jokes, revelling in the present and yet conscious that her thoughts were straying into the future. Lionel just touched upon his health. The regimental doctor, a capital chap, pronounced him sound.

“He vetted me before I left. Clean bill.”

“Thank God!” exclaimed the Squire heartily.

Lionel talked much of soldiering. The Squire nodded portentously, not quite at his ease. He wanted his boy to be “keen.” At the same time, soldiering with Lionel was intended to be a means rather than an end. For five pleasant years Sir Geoffrey had served in the Brigade of Guards. Straitened fortunes had prevented the Squire from putting his son into his old regiment, but he had no regrets about that. Foreign service had done the trick. Nevertheless, the time was coming swiftly when the boy must take up other interests and responsibilities. An infusion of pipeclay was in his marrow. Pomfrets had served their sovereigns by land and sea, but the heir of the family—in his opinion—could render better service on his own land. For the moment he kept such thoughts to himself.

Lady Pomfret went upstairs at eleven. The Squire and Lionel sat together till after midnight. Alone with his son, the father—not a man of great perspicacity—became oddly sensible of the change which the mother had divined so quickly. Obviously, Lionel did not see eye to eye with his senior upon certain matters. To the Squire, need it be said, life generally, his life, was a cut-and-dried affair. He believed devoutly in his own order; he detested perplexing compromises; a thing b’ Jove! was right or wrong. Being an ardent fox-hunter, an ex-master of hounds, he pursued his objectives without much regard for obstacles, although he availed himself of gaps in stiff fences. And till very lately he had ridden first-class horses—which makes a tremendous difference to a man’s “going.” Lionel, he perceived, had a touch of the “trimmer” in him. When the Squire—as was inevitable—spoke of the increasing troubles of the landed gentry, Lionel was not disposed to take for granted, what the Squire did, that the landowners were the unhappy victims of circumstance and democratic tendency. The boy hinted unmistakably that even county potentates had something to learn about organisation and economy. He spoke incisively of his own profession, tactfully shifting the ground from Wiltshire to India.

“We have to work harder,” he remarked cheerfully. “But we don’t yet work hard enough. We shall find that out if there is a big row and we come up against fellows who work harder than we do.”

“Um!”

Lionel continued with more diffidence:

“It seems to me, father, that it is always a case of the survival of the fittest. If the landed gentry can’t hold their own, they’ll be scrapped.”

“Good God!”

“You can’t get away from it. There it is.”

“Scrapped! What a word!”

“Beastly. But, as I said just now, some neighbours of ours, your own intimate friends, are tackling jobs they don’t understand. You stick to the old acres. Do they? And take your own case and mine. Is life in a jolly regiment really the right training for a man who must make his land pay or go under?”

“Do you want to leave the Rifle Brigade and go to an Agricultural College?”

“Not much. I’ve had a topping time, thanks to your generosity, sir, but, I ask you, when you were in the Coldstream what did you and your pals talk about?”

The Squire exploded, not loudly.

“I tell you this, sir: we didn’t talk socialism.”

Lionel laughed.

“I’ll bet you didn’t. I know what you talked about.”

“We jaw on about the same good old subjects still, but half the fellows in our mess are in much the same position that I am. Their fathers, like you, own properties with decreasing rent-rolls. We have to talk about that sometimes.”

“I should like to hear your conclusions.”

“Right O! But they must be your own, more or less. The thing whittles itself down to efficiency. The very biggest men, the dukes, for instance, employ experts. The smaller men can’t afford that.”

“Go on,” growled Sir Geoffrey, half-pleased, half-resentful. He was agreeably surprised to find that his boy possessed opinions which at any rate challenged attention. He was disagreeably aware that those opinions might clash with his own.

Lionel went on:

“If the smaller men can’t afford experts to run their estates, they must supply the necessary knowledge themselves. That means hard work and at best small pay. And—more intelligence in the working.”

“We’ll go to bed,” said the Squire.

He rose, looking affectionately at his son.

“By the way,” he said lightly, “I’ve let the shootin’ this year, but that won’t affect you.”

“Let the shooting?”

The Squire nodded. Lionel’s disconcerted face rather pleased him. The boy was a chip of the old block. He added curtly:

“I shan’t make a habit of it. The extra money comes in handy.”

Lionel hesitated and flushed.

“Are you really hard up?”

“Well—yes. Let’s leave it at that.” His voice became genial. “I told you to-night, because old Ben would be sure to blurt it out to you to-morrow morning. No complaints! You’re at home again, and as fit as a fiddle. Don’t worry! We shall pull through.”

Lionel’s expressive face remained pensive and distressed. An awful thought flitted into Sir Geoffrey’s head. To banish it was instinctive. He clutched his son’s arm.

“I take it, my boy, that you ain’t entangled with any woman or girl out there—what?”

Lionel laughed.

“Lord, no. What an idea!”

The Squire beamed at him.

“Well, well—these things happen. We must find you a nice little wife, old chap, with a bit o’ money—a bit o’ money. Yes, yes, God forbid that any son of mine should marry for money, but why not follow the Quaker’s advice to his son, and go where money is.”

“Why not?” said Lionel, smiling back at his father.

They went arm-in-arm through the hall, and then to bed.

When the Squire reached the big room in which Lionel had been born he found Lady Pomfret still up and wide awake. The Squire chided her, but confessed that he was not feeling sleepy himself.

“It’s been a day of great excitement. Mary, my dear, we have reason to be proud and grateful. The boy has turned into a fine young fellow. I wish you could have seen his face when I told him about the shootin’. He stared at me as if the heavens had fallen. And his concern, of course, was entirely on my account. Very gratifying—very. Another thing. No entanglements. I hinted at marriage, a nice little girl with a bit o’ money. He laughed and replied: ‘Why not?’ Of course, there must be no pressure, not a pennyweight. But I warn you, he has ideas. He marches—a—with the times.”

“Do you mean away from—us?”

“That remains to be seen. He is keen about his profession.”

“You regret that?”

“Yes, and no. Our grandchildren, Mary, will wean him from pipeclay.”

As he spoke, he kissed her tranquil face and whispered a compliment.

“You looked so young and pretty to-night. I hardly see you as a grandmother.”

She touched his arm softly.

“We won’t count those blessed chicks till they’re hatched.”

Something in her tone arrested the Squire’s attention. He said sharply:

“Why not, Mary? Anticipation in such a vital matter is a joy that I, most certainly, shall not renounce.”

“If—if there should be disappointment?”

“Why apprehend anything so unlikely?”

“Because Lady Margot—if your dreams come true—is the last of her branch of the family. I have never seen her in my dreams with a baby in her pretty arms.”

“Nonsense, Mary, nonsense. Sitting up late is always bad for you. To bed with you! I shall go to my dressing-room.”

He moved to the dressing-room door, and then came back, half-smiling, half-frowning.

“I see the fly in your ointment. Lady Margot is petite. And what of it? Large women do not necessarily have large families. Mrs. Hamlin was no bigger than Lady Margot, and she presented Hamlin with four whoppin’ big boys. I have often wondered, my dear Mary, why the wives of poor parsons are so needlessly prolific.”

Lady Pomfret smiled ironically.

“The doctrine of Compensation, Geoffrey.”

“Perhaps. Now—pop into bed!”

In the bachelor’s wing Lionel was smoking the last cigarette before turning in. He stood at the widely open window, staring at the park, lying silver-white beneath a waning moon. Against the silvery spaces of turf the yews stood out sharply black—sable upon argent. The fallow deer were grazing just beyond the lawn. In the distance he could see the winding line of the river.

But he frowned as he looked out upon that goodly heritage which in the fullness of time would be his. The significant fact that the shooting had been let festered him. He remembered, going back to the old Eton days, that his father had always “groused” about lack of cash, other fellows’ fathers did the same. It had never occurred to him to take such grumblings too seriously. Indeed, comparing his comfortable, beautiful home with other homes, he had felt a little sore. To keep such an establishment as Pomfret, to entertain handsomely, to hunt and shoot, meant an income not far off five figures. It might have shrunk, no doubt, but enough and to spare was left.

But letting the shooting——!

“Damn!” he exclaimed.

Why had his father not confided in him? The question was easily answered. The Squire had old-fashioned ideas. Quite probably his own wife did not know the exact amount of his income. More—grouse as he could and did to neighbours and friends Sir Geoffrey’s cherished code prevented him from sharing money anxieties with his wife. She would know, of course, that money was not so plentiful, but he would be punctilious in keeping from her actual details.

And that hint about marrying a nice girl with money——

Lionel swore softly again, and again. He realised that his home-coming was less joyous, and he had something to confess to his sire on the morrow which assuredly would detract from the merry-makings. He decided that he would talk things over with old Fishpingle first.

However, being young and healthy he went to bed and fell asleep within a few minutes. The Squire in his big four-poster slept as soundly. Lady Pomfret lay awake till the small hours.

CHAPTER V

Lionel awoke early. He was lying in his own bed—at home. For the moment nothing else mattered. Soon he would get up, and scurry round his old haunts before breakfast. He felt an Eton boy again, back for the holidays, with no confounded first school ahead of him. His eye rested upon certain framed photographs by Hills and Saunders. He had not distinguished himself very greatly at Eton, either in the classrooms or in the playing fields, but he had enjoyed himself and held his own. At Sandhurst, later on, he had been even happier, although his health had provoked anxieties.

He glanced out of the window. A capital morning for fishing! He knew that the Squire had duties, never neglected, upon the bench of magistrates. Old Fishpingle would be available as a companion. They would make a day of it. His mother would come down to the river for luncheon. Then his thoughts flitted to the Vicarage. What a jolly girl Joyce Hamlin was! No nonsense about her. Rosy as a Ribstone pippin and as sound at core. She might make a fourth at luncheon and square a charming circle. He had half expected to see her on the lawn to welcome him, but she was full of tact—bless her! She guessed, of course, that his father and mother would want him to themselves, and she couldn’t be dismissed like a tenant. He’d just nip in and shake her hand before breakfast.

With this happy thought percolating through his mind, he jumped out of bed, and rang for Alfred, who appeared grinning as usual. Lionel chaffed him, asking innumerable questions, amongst them this: “Had he secured a sweetheart?” Alfred, who bore to his young master something of the affection which had linked together the Squire and Fishpingle, unbosomed himself promptly. Yes; he and Prudence had made it up to get married, but the Squire was hostile. Lionel, much surprised, asked more questions, and elicited all the story.

“He’ll come round,” affirmed Lionel, alluding to his father. “And, perhaps, I can slip in a word. First cousins be damned! You and little Prue are the star couple of Nether-Applewhite.”

“Thank ’ee, Master Lionel. We be fair achin’ to earn money.”

“What d’ye mean, Alfred?”

“Sir Geoffrey, he give a pound for every child born in parish, an’ five pounds so be as God A’mighty sees fit to send twins.”

“I say, the sooner you earn that money, the better.” Half an hour afterwards, he was inhaling deep breaths of air fresh from the downs. The usual round engrossed him. A visit to the stables, a glance at the cricket pitch in the park, a squint at the river, and lastly—the Vicarage.

He found Joyce where he expected to find her, in the garden. No embarrassment showed itself on either side. They met, as they had parted, good friends, pals, as Lionel put it. He was as unaffectedly glad to see the maid, as she was to see him. But from her, without design on her part, came further corroboration of straitened means.

Lionel had said ingenuously: “I do hope, Joyce, that Squire and Parson pull together a little better than they did?”

Joyce answered as frankly: “As to that, Lionel, you can judge for yourself. Father thinks, as he always has thought, that if something is really wanted, he has only to ask for it, without”—she laughed not too mirthfully—“without any preliminary beating of bushes.”

“Your father is dead right about that. He’s the last man to ask for what isn’t really wanted.”

When Lionel insisted upon concrete information, Joyce told him the story of the chancel repairs, now in hand, thanks to Lady Pomfret’s promise. She ended dismally:

“Father, somehow, won’t realise that Sir Geoffrey is terribly cramped for ready money.”

Lionel muttered as dismally:

“Is it as bad as that?”

She nodded.

He went on excitedly: “This is a nasty jar, Joyce. I swear to you that it’s bad news for me. I never suspected it. He ought to have told me.”

A faint derision informed her next words.

“You ought to have guessed.”

“Ought I?”

He considered this, frowning. Then they talked of lighter matters, each enchanted to note the changes in the other. Betore they parted, after a half promise from Joyce that she might wander to the river, Lionel said abruptly:

“You are happy, Joyce? You look happy, but——”

“But?”

“There isn’t much to amuse you here.”

“I love the place and the people.”

This statement of fact was weighed and not found wanting as Lionel hastened back to the Hall. Joyce was now a woman of twenty, but she retained the freshness and bloom of a girl of seventeen. Lionel guessed that she had filled her mother’s place admirably. He compared her to his own mother. When a young man does this, he ought to see and recognise the road he is travelling. Lionel had no such sense of direction. He decided hastily that Joyce, being often in his mother’s company, had grown delightfully like her.

He whistled as he strode along.

At breakfast, he told the tale of his wanderings. At mention of the Vicarage, the Squire remarked irritably:

“Joyce is well enough, a good girl, but Hamlin is gettin’ impossible. He does a lot of mischief in the village.”

Lionel retorted warmly: “Father, he is incapable of that.”

Lady Pomfret winced. But she hastened to add:

“Your dear father doesn’t accuse Mr. Hamlin of making mischief deliberately.”

At that, the Squire “took the floor.” He spoke vehemently, with a feeling and emotion that surprised and confounded his son. Hamlin, first and last, was a Rad, with a Rad’s pestilent notions about property. He stuck his nose into every pie in the parish. He positively exuded Socialism. The fellow was of the people and with the people. All his ideas were impossible and Utopian. Did he do mischief deliberately? Perhaps not. But, unconsciously, he set class against class. He was importunate in his demands—demands, b’ Jove! which no landowner could grant without hostilising his farmers. Take wages. Concede, if you like, that wages were low in Wiltshire, about as low as the intelligence of the peasants. Concede, also, that in special cases a landowner might pay higher wages to his own outdoor servants, under-gardeners and the like. Concede all that, and then try it! And every farmer on your property would besiege you with protests, because they—poor devils!—couldn’t pay higher wages. Outsiders never understood these things. It was like arguing about sport with fellows who weren’t sportsmen. Hamlin had played cricket for his ’Varsity, but he wasn’t a sportsman. There you had it in a nutshell.

Under the table, Lady Pomfret gently pressed her son’s foot. Wisely, he attempted no defence of the parson. The Squire recovered his good humour with a second rasher of home-cured bacon. As he rose from the table, he smiled genially at wife and son.

“I spoke my mind just now, the more strongly because I have to suppress such feelings. It comes to this, Lionel, when a fellow is making sacrifices, when he is paring down expenses right and left, when he is doing his damndest to ‘carry on,’ it is exasperating to be pestered for the extra inch when you have cheerfully given the ell.”

He blew his nose with violence and left the dining-room.

“Dear fellow!” murmured Lady Pomfret. “He has been horribly worried during the last four years.”

Lionel looked and felt dazed. He supposed that Lady Pomfret invariably sided with her husband. Not out of any insincerity or moral weakness, but because she was of his generation and shared his views which were in all honesty focussed upon his duties and responsibilities. As much could be said of Hamlin. Lionel’s mind remained quite clear on this point. What confused and distressed him was the sudden realisation of cheese-paring, of sacrifice, of anxieties which he had ignored till this moment.

“Then it is true,” he murmured.

“What is true, my dear?”

“That we are much less well off than I had ever suspected.”

“I am afraid that is true, Lionel.”

“Surely you know, mother?”

“Not everything.”

“Good Lord!”

“The mortgage has always eaten into his peace of mind.”

“The mortgage? I never knew there was a mortgage.”

“That is why I sit with my back to the portrait of your great-grandfather.”

She explained matters to a wondering son. He listened impatiently, tapping the carpet with his foot, irritated perhaps unduly because of his own ignorance and impotence. When Lady Pomfret had finished, he tried, for her sake, to speak lightly—

“If I had known all this, mother, I might have helped him.”

“How?”

“I could have worried along on a less generous allowance. As it is——!” He broke off, with a gesture. She reassured him gently:

“Your father put you into a good regiment, and he has allowed you what he decided was necessary. If you asked him to give you less, he would refuse.”

Lionel exhibited a trace of his father’s obstinacy.

“We shall see about that,” he muttered. Then he kissed her tenderly, stroking her delicate hand.

“It has been beastly for both of you. And you two have always looked so comfy and prosperous.”

Lady Pomfret laughed.

“Call us mummers, Lionel. We have been forced to keep up appearances. Most of our friends are in the same boat. I see the comic side of it all and the tragic.”

Lionel smoked an after-breakfast pipe alone. Tobacco, however, failed to soothe him.

At half-past ten, Fishpingle and he took the path leading to the river. Fishpingle, in a very sporting coat and knickerbockers (which had been discarded by the Squire), might have been mistaken at a short distance for that potentate. He was doubtful about the prospects. The sun had risen high above the clouds and the breeze was dying down. To his astonishment, Lionel displayed indifference, saying incisively:

“I want to have a long yarn with you, old chap. If the trout aren’t on the rise, so much the better.”

Fishpingle stared at him keenly.

“That doesn’t sound like you, Master Lionel.”

“I’m not myself this morning. I’ve a big load that I must get off my chest. We’ll sit under a willow while I do it.”

The trout were not feeding, as Fishpingle had predicted. There might be a nice “rise” later on. Lionel glanced up and down the stream. Joyce was not on the “rise” either. A clump of willows was found, and the men sat down, Lionel wasted no time.

“I’ve had a shock, Fishpingle. I never knew till this morning that there was a crippling mortgage on this property. I never knew that father was pinched and pinching. What did he get for the shooting, eh?”

Fishpingle, who knew the exact amount, answered cautiously:

“Several hundred pounds.”

“Now, sit tight! I’m going to give you a shock, I owe several hundred pounds, and I must tell father at the first decent opportunity.”

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Fishpingle. “Several hundred pounds!”

“No excuses to you, you dear old man! I raced a bit out there and backed losers. I played polo. And bridge. I spent last year’s leave in Kashmir. Between ourselves, I had no idea I was so dipped. The bets had to be settled on the nail; so I went to the natives. Before I started for home they dunned me. I had to tell my colonel. Before I go back these debts must be settled in full. Believing my father to be a comparatively rich man, I assured my chief that they would be. I’ve had a thumping good allowance and I feel this morning about as sick as they make ’em. Now—you’ve got it.”

“Several hundred pounds,” repeated Fishpingle.

“Call it five—a monkey.”

“Oh, dear—oh, dear!”

“Don’t look so miserable! I can get the monkey from Cox’s, my agents, but they insist upon a guarantee from my father. Of course I could go to the Jews!”

“No, no, Master Lionel. But this will upset the Squire terribly.”

“Don’t rub that in!”

Fishpingle got up, shaking his head dolorously and making gestures with his hands, a habit of his when distressed. At any other time, Lionel would have laughed, and with his powers of observation whetted to a finer edge in India might have deduced from these antics that here was an old friend of the family, who—by virtue of his relation to that family—had been constrained all his life to suppress speech which found expression in these very gestures. He not aware that a struggle against other habits was raging. But he knew—had he recalled it—that Fishpingle had the reputation of being what servants called “close.” He saved his money. Nobody guessed how much he had saved, or what he had done with his savings. Only Fishpingle himself realised that the habit of saving had taken a grip of him. He was curiously dependent, and yet independent of the Pomfrets.

He could not envisage life apart from the family whom he had served so devoutedly, but his mind could and did dwell with satisfaction upon the securely invested money which assured to him, in extremity, ease approximating to affluence. In a big way, he could be generous. He had helped the mother of Prudence Rockley and others, but he had never touched the ever-increasing main hoard.

He said in a strangled voice:

“Don’t tell the Squire, Master Lionel. He has trouble enough. I—I will give you the money gladly.”

Lionel leapt up. Many surprises, during the past twenty-four hours, had prepared him for others, but this was the greatest.

“You dear old chap,” he gasped, “what are you saying? Give me five hundred pounds?”

“With all my heart.”

Volubly, he continued, protesting with uplifted finger against interruption. Lady Alicia Pomfret had left him a thousand pounds. He had never touched the interest on this nest egg, reinvesting it year after year. For a man in his position he was rich—rich! He wanted to help. It was his pleasure and his duty to help those to whom he owed everything. Lionel, for the second time that morning, felt dazed and stupid. He could understand, easily enough, Fishpingle’s wish to help, but his ability to do so involved other issues. If he were rich, if, for example, the nest egg were four times its original size, why, in the name of the Sphinx, had he remained in his present position? Why hadn’t he cut loose long ago, married, and set up a snug business of his own? These thoughts chased each other through his mind till Fishpingle stopped speaking. Lionel grasped his hand.

“I shall remember this all my life,” he began. “But I couldn’t take five hundred from you, Fishpingle, either as a gift or a loan. And, believe me, I shall have no difficulty in raising the money with a guarantee from my father. I made a clean breast of it to you, because I thought that together we might work out the best way of breaking beastly news to him. It is beastly to find out that he has been pinching while I have been squandering. He put the thing in a phrase at breakfast. Wait! Let me get his own words. They sunk in. I can promise you. Yes; I have ’em. ‘It is exasperating to be pestered for the extra inch, when you’ve given the ell cheerfully.’ Asking for his guarantee is just that extra inch clapped on to the ell of my allowance. Now—tackle him I must. Together we’ll settle the where and the when and the how. But you’re a topper, the very best in the world!”

He gripped his hand fiercely.

Fishpingle accepted the situation. He perceived that here was a point of honour and principle. No Pomfret could be swerved from that. So he said simply:

“If the Squire must be told, Master Lionel, tell him to-night, after dinner, when he is sipping his port.”

“Right! I will.”

“You made no excuse to me, make none to him.”

“Right again, you, you—sage.”

Fishpingle pointed to the river. “A trout is rising just beyond that stump. He lies under it, a whopper.”

“Is he? Do you know, Fishpingle, there are moments when sport seems to me a poor substitute for other and more exciting things. You’ve excited me. You have come up from under your stump, and you’re a whopper. And I want to throw my fly over you.”

Fishpingle betrayed slight uneasiness. The young man confronting him with keen sparkling eyes had lost his look of irresolution. His firm chin stuck out aggressively, he spoke with the authority of his father.

“As you please, Master Lionel.”

Lionel hesitated, picking his words, but joyously sensible that his mind had become clear again.

“I suppose,” he began tentatively, “that the truth is just this. I have changed, not you dear people. I used to take certain things and persons for granted, you, for instance. It seemed to me, before I went to India, that you were part of the general scheme, a sort of keystone to the arch. I really thought that you wallowed in being our butler and general factotum.”

“So I do.”

“Fishpingle—that’s a whopper, too. I’m not quite the innocent fool I was. Men serve others, cheerfully enough, if they’re the right sort, but they do it because they have to. I never met a fellow yet, old or young, who didn’t want to be his own, if he could manage it. I supposed that you couldn’t manage it. But you can. More, you could have managed it long ago. That’s as clear as our water is to-day.”

“I wanted to stay on.”

“But why—why?”

“This is my home, Master Lionel.”

“You’re a wily old trout, you are. But it isn’t your home. If anything happened to father and me, where would you be? You ought to have married and had some jolly kids. Nether-Applewhite is famous for its pretty girls.”

Fishpingle was cornered, but his humour rescued him. He said slyly:

“Pretty, yes; but not very highly educated, Master Lionel.”

“I see. We’re getting to grips now. My great-grandmother, so I have heard, made a bit of a pet of you. She saw to it that you got a better education than our girls. Obviously, she intended you to profit by that and cut loose. For some inscrutable reason you didn’t. If that education, old chap, made a bachelor of you, it was rather a questionable blessing, eh?”

“Perhaps.”

Fishpingle’s face had assumed the impenetrable mask of the highly trained English servant. Lionel glanced at him.

“Ah! You refuse to rise?”

“The trout, Master Lionel, are fairly on the feed now.”

He pointed to the river, with many rippling circles upon its surface. Lionel had tact enough to say no more. He picked up his rod, sticking out of the ground beside him.

“Try a May fly,” suggested Fishpingle.

Lionel did so. The pair separated, Fishpingle taking the upper reaches, above the village. Lionel fished diligently without much success, possibly because his heart was not in his work. From time to time he glanced down stream at a spot where the road shone white above the meadowsweet and rushes. Joyce Hamlin might float into sight at any minute, but she didn’t. Lionel felt slightly piqued as the sun rose to the zenith. Surely, upon his first day at home, she might have come. His Colonel, a man of the world, had impressed this maxim, upon his subaltern: “Women do what they like. Many of ’em undertake thankless jobs. That is because the spirit of self-sacrifice warms ’em to the core.”

Was Joyce that sort of woman?

He began to think of her as a woman. A pal, so he interpreted the word, would have joined another pal. And if some definite duty kept her from him, she would have mentioned it before breakfast. Deliberately, she had let him think that she would come. And she hadn’t. Some woman’s reason accounted for her absence.

At luncheon Lady Pomfret joined the anglers. Fishpingle had grassed two brace of fat trout. Lionel had only one fish. The luncheon was very jolly, the sort of thing you gloated over during hot, sleepless nights in India. Below the willows, where the lobster and other good things were spread upon a snowy cloth, gurgled the weirs to the north of the village. Lionel remembered a famous run of the buckhounds from Bramshaw Telegraph to Nether-Applewhite, an eight-mile point. The buck had swum the Avon and the big hounds followed. Half a dozen had just escaped drowning in the sluices. Lionel helped to rescue them. Behind the willows stretched the water-meadows, where he had learnt to hit snipe. He recalled the Squire’s injunction: “Say to yourself—Snipe on toast—before you pull trigger. That’ll steady your nerves.” On the rising ground bordering the park, just where hill met sky, was a low belt of firs, the best stand of that particular partridge beat, where the “guns” could take the birds as they topped the belt. Lionel had covered himself with glory at that stand, downing two in front and two behind, a notable performance in any company. And when his father had acclaimed this feat with proud insistence, Lionel had to confess that the two behind had fallen to one shot! Look, in fine, where he would, the young man could recall some happy or amusing incident of his youth, and never once, during those rosy hours, had he reflected that he was amazingly fortunate, that the lines of his life meandered, like the placid Avon, through pleasant places. As he put it to Fishpingle, he had taken things and persons for granted. He had ranked sport as a pursuit of the first magnitude.

Fishpingle, you may be sure, was asked to join the party at luncheon. Lionel, watching him, noted his good manners, or rather his unstudied ease of manner. He displayed, too, for Lady Pomfret’s benefit, a remarkable fund of Arcadian lore, that intimate knowledge of wild birds and beasts gained at first hand. Lionel decided that he talked better than the Squire, who prided himself upon his powers of speech.

Why had such a man been content to serve the Pomfrets?

After luncheon, at Fishpingle’s earnest request, the anglers changed beats. Lady Pomfret accompanied her son to the upper reaches. But he showed little keenness although more fly was on the water, and the prospects of good sport much better. The mother remarked this:

“Are you tired, my dear?”

His laugh allayed that anxiety.

“Tired? I’m consumed with curiosity—that’s all.”

“What is biting at you?”

“Fishpingle.”

“Oh!”

“Mother, read the riddle of Fishpingle to me.”

She shook her head. The riddle of her son challenged attention. How greatly he had changed, this boy who had been so absurdly boyish and cut to pattern, who had accepted everything and questioned nothing. Long after he had joined his regiment, she looked in vain for any shades of expression in him. If he liked a play or a book, it was “priceless” or “tophole.” If he disliked it, one word flew from his lips like a projectile—“Tosh!” She remembered taking him to a concert, where a famous virtuoso had entranced a large audience. Lionel announced presently that he was bored to tears. She had said gently, “Do you think, Lionel, that is your fault or the fault of Pachmann?” And he had stared at her, startled out of his complacency but utterly misapprehending the humour and purpose of her question.

She said tranquilly:

“I can’t read that riddle. I have always believed that poor Ben’s father was a gentleman. Your great-grandmother may have known who he was. If she did, she carried the secret to her grave. Anyway, she educated Ben, and left him some money. She was very fond of Ben’s mother, her maid. Ben became your father’s servant. You know, Lionel, that men and women run in grooves. And the longer you remain in a groove, the harder it is to get out of it. Above and beyond all this remains the fact of Ben’s affection for us. I have never doubted the enduring quality of that. For the rest, I know no more than you do.”

“It’s a mystery,” declared Lionel.

After this talk, fishing really engrossed him. He returned home to tea in high spirits with five good fish in his creel. Alone in his room, changing his clothes, he remembered that he had not spoken to his mother about Joyce. And he had intended to do so, to invite her judgment upon the riddle of sex. As he pulled off his wet boots, he thought with keen anticipation of many delightful talks with her. What a gift she had of inviting confidence! And withal, a woman of exasperating reserves. It was not easy to “get at her.” Her graciousness, her tranquillity, disarmed attack.

The Squire had returned from the Bench, when Lionel sauntered into the Long Saloon. He greeted his son boisterously and listened to a recital of the day’s sport. Each fish had to be hooked and played all over again. And then, as he proposed a stroll round the Home Farm, he said to Lady Pomfret:

“By the way, I have heard from Lady Margot. She will be happy to come to us after the Eton and Harrow match. That will be about three weeks from now.”

“And who is Lady Margot?” asked Lionel.

The Squire chuckled:

“You wait and see, my boy. She’s a dasher—a dasher.”

Lionel wondered whether this was the nice little girl with a bit of money.

“What does she dash at?” he asked.

Lady Pomfret answered him:

“Everything and everybody.”

The Squire, not quite satisfied, hastened to assure Lionel that the young lady was perfectly charming in face, figure, and intelligence.

Lionel’s eyes twinkled, but he asked gravely enough:

“Has she money, father?”

The Squire flushed, as he answered quickly: “A hatful.”

Presently, father and son took the road to the Home Farm. The Squire noticed that Lionel seemed slightly preoccupied, that he praised perfunctorily the Shorthorns and Suffolk Punches. Being an impassioned optimist—except upon the subject of estate management—the Squire hoped that his heir’s thoughts had flown away in the direction of Lady Margot. We may hazard the conjecture that Lionel was concerned rather with the difficulties of breaking “beastly” news to a generous but choleric sire.

CHAPTER VI

Fishpingle had given Lionel sound advice. The Squire was generally at his best after dinner, provided, of course, that the cook had done her duty. Upon this occasion, in honour of the heir, she had surpassed herself. And a glass of vintage port, after champagne, has a mellowing effect. Throughout dinner, the Squire’s mercurial spirits rose steadily. Indeed, as he was sipping his port, he said, with a jolly laugh, that the Hamlins must be invited to dine—and the sooner the better, b’ Jove! Parson Pomfret had tucked stout legs under his mahogany once a week. A rare old bird—that! He related anecdotes about Hamlin’s predecessor. The family rat-catcher, Bob Nobs by name, sung lustily in the village choir. But he raised his stentorian voice high above Parson Pomfret’s endurance. One Sunday morning, after the first hymn, the Parson addressed him sharply: “Look ye here, Bob Nobs, the angels will like your singing just as well if you don’t sing so loud.”

“Did you laugh, father?” asked Lionel.

The Squire was scandalised.

“Laugh, sir? Laugh in God’s House! Certainly not, but I fairly split my sides in the churchyard.”

As soon as Lady Pomfret left the dining-room, the Squire said briskly:

“Another glass of wine, Lionel? It won’t hurt you, my boy,” and he pushed the decanter across the table.

“Thanks, no.” He hesitated, flushed, and plunged.

“The truth is, sir, I do need Dutch courage. But with your permission I’ll drink another glass of wine after I’ve told you something.”

The Squire whacked the table.

“Damn it all!” he roared. “Have you told me a lie? Are you in love?”

“No,” said Lionel.