The Soldier and the Gentlewoman Page 5

  This was the justice of mankind and the penalty of womanhood. But in her father also had been the glamour from which even now she could not escape. She remembered the giant who strode into her nursery in his gay pink coat and picked her up with one hand. She remembered the hero of the 1906 election, and how the mob had cheered him in the market square at Llanon. She saw him presiding at a local eisteddfod, and smelt again paraffin, farm labourers, the dankness of a village hall. She saw the rows of lively Welsh faces upturned, laughing. He was chaffing the prize winners. Beside her, on the platform, a sly little minister was chuck- ling. “The Squire’s champion! Yes, indeed! He’s always the best speaker present.”

  The scene shifted: a steamy summer’s day after heavy rain; the smell of trampled earth, pulped grass and wet canvas. Through the mud she skidded after her father as he strode round the ring. A trotting match was about to begin. The sporting crowd of dark, eager men was excited. Bets were being exchanged and children hoisted on to their parents’ shoulders, the better to see the great event of the Llanon Show. Preoccupied as they were, all these people saluted her father. She enjoyed the smiles and nods, the raised hats and the fore- locks touched. “There he goes. Look, man! There be the Squire. Ah, he’s the most rash, fearless rider in three counties.”

  She was on the stairs at home, very cold in her cotton night-gown. Her naked toes were curled on the polished oak. How long she had waited, craning over the banisters to hear the buzz of talk that came muffled from the drawing-room! At last he appeared in the black satin knee-breeches and white lace of his High Sheriff’s uniform—a hero of the cloak and sword romances she had just begun to read. He had promised to look up and wave. But he crossed the hall without remembering her.

  Her father’s failures to keep his word had often driven her out to these never-changing yews. She had come here, too, to think in secret of another man. Not far from this dark place he had overtaken her the night before he sailed for India, and had caught her in his arms and kissed her, not with tenderness, as always before, but so roughly that he bruised her lips. She had struggled for a moment, frightened and angry; then been still, feeling her heart, wild with pleasure, close to his.

  “I won’t take no for an answer, d’you hear?” he had said. “You’ve played with me for over a year. You’ve kept me dangling—”

  “No,” she protested, “it wasn’t play.”

  “And now you’ve turned me down for the sake of a damned house—”

  “It’s not that only. There’s father—”

  “Much he cares! We’ve been into all that before. You’ll be sorry when I’ve gone.”

  “Oh, my dear! My dear! Don’t you think I know it?”

  “Then come away now.”

  “I can’t. Not yet—not till I’ve thought—”

  “When I come back then, you shall say yes. If you haven’t made up your mind by then, I’ll burn the damned house down! I’m coming back the first leave I get—are you listening?”

  Her father had died before that first leave and Howel had brought home Cecily to be the mistress of Plâs Einon. Gwenllian remembered how with mingled distress and relief, she had put the keys and account books into her sister-in-law’s soft little hands. Then she had run up to her room, shaken with excitement, to write a letter to India. But he had not come back. This was the fidelity of men.

  It was Howel she had hated for bringing Cecily home, not Cecily herself. Cecily was weak and amiable; she did not rule Plâs Einon long. An heir was needed. After two or three disappointments, the effort of trying to produce a living child had robbed her of interest in anything but her own condition, and government had passed again into Gwenllian’s hands. She ceased to think then of her faithless lover. Instead she became once more busy, powerful, respected; in all but name, mistress of the place she loved. Her future seemed assured. Howel would live; if Cecily died and he married again, he would choose a girl as docile as she, as weak as his own mother had been. Evan was a morose widower; he had shunned women since the death of his bride. If by chance he inherits in my time, Gwenllian told herself, he will need me.

  But the war came. Security was at an end. Evan was killed at Gallipoli; Howel in hourly danger in Flanders. Morning after morning, with tight lips and a sinking heart, Gwenllian searched the casualty list for his name. No man’s wife could have dreaded news of his death more than she her brother’s, and none worked harder to hold and improve his estate. But when Howel died of wounds in the last month of the war, she knew that, deep in her heart, there was no grief for him. Her youth, which in 1914 had scarcely begun to fade, abruptly left her. She went about her business, white as a ghost, and the neighbours were touched by her sorrow. All could see that it was real and crushing. But it was for Plâs Einon she mourned. It was not for selfish, overbearing Howel that night after night she drove her wet face into the pillow, but because she must leave the stately house she had ruled, the garden she had made lovely, the land she had learned to farm, the green hills and the woods where she had played and hunted all her life. For these she had denied her only love and concealed her wrath against the men of her race. Now, by the terms of her father’s will, a stranger inherited.

  Under the yews she brooded on him, this common little suburban with a pale moustache, this governess’s son, whose father had been cut off from the family by his misalliance! She had intended to disregard him; to leave him to wreck Plâs Einon; never again to set eyes upon it herself. But something in his anxious young face, as though he were eager to be taught; some echo of her own mood in his hot defence of conservatism had pierced her despair and she had begun to watch him. He was no Einon-Thomas in appearance—like his third-rate little mother, she supposed—but, if she could win his confidence and become his adviser, she might save him from being a discredit to the family. Perhaps then, she would visit Plâs Einon— the woman to whom the next generation would appeal as to the oracle of their race. Even through him, the tradition might be handed on. Her quick brain, accustomed to contrivance, had sprung to a new determination while they were saying goodbye in the drawing-room. On Tuesday, by a trick of the engagement calendar, she would have him alone. She could test her material.

  Through the yew trees, she heard a car coming from the direction of the house. In all her brooding on the past, she had been listening for this sound. Her lips parted in eagerness, but not to smile. Stooping beneath the dark branches, she went to meet another man in whose keeping was all that she loved.

  Chapter IV

  HE LISTENS TO HER

  When Dick had been shewn the walled garden with its box-edged walks, and had explored the winding paths of the shrubbery, in which graceful nature was half tamed, he was more than ever pleased with his inheritance. It was agreeable to prod the spongy lawns with his stick and to let his imagination loose on tennis parties and girls in thin white frocks. In the honied evening light that turned raindrops to topaz, the sprouting grass, the flowers, the trees in bud, all looked their freshest and most lovely. He listened with pleasure to the song of a blackbird and the sweet whistling of a thrush. The melody of running water too, in Plâs Einon dingle, enchanted him. When a shower pattered down his neck off the glossy leaves of laurel, he reflected that it would be even better here at midsummer.

  His spirits had risen so high by the time he jumped into his car that he forgot to be apologetic, and waved a jaunty farewell to the widow. Decent little woman, he thought, admiring her big blue eyes. If she’d been ten years younger—but a man in his position could take his pick of the best. He wasn’t going to hurry over his choice! He meant to have a bit of fun first. And he drove away from Plâs Einon with a grin on his freckled face.

  He went slowly, the better to look about him. The drive was suitably picturesque, curving to and fro along the side of a miniature ravine at the foot of which the river flowed. The eighteenth-century designer of the grounds had constructed the usual waterfalls and artificial ponds. He had built a summer-house or two in the style of a classi
c temple, and planted ornamental clumps of trees, arranging vistas through the beech woods. Coming to the sombre group of yew trees near the lodge, Dick felt that they were independent of the general design; these dark giants, tortuously interlocked, were never planted in the Age of Reason. They seemed, rather, to be survivals, like very ancient witches, of a time of faith and fear, when the land was still haunted by ghosts and demons.

  This bit wants clearing, Dick decided. I shall have half of these chaps down, and let in some light.

  A figure in black appeared on the road ahead of him.

  Queer, he thought, I never noticed her when I turned the last corner. She must have been lurking among those dismal trees. Blessed if it isn’t Cousin Gwen!

  He pulled up sharp.

  “Hello! Can I give you a lift anywhere?”

  “Oh, thanks so much. As a matter of fact, I was going down to the village before dinner. But it’s later than I thought. I could walk back if you’d just run me down.”

  “Right,” he answered, set almost at ease by the friendliness of her manner.

  She climbed in beside him and, after she was seated, exclaimed: “Oh, but I forgot. It’s not on your way back to Llanon.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” he assured her. “I’m my own master now. I can dine at any old hour.”

  “I hope that doesn’t mean you sometimes forget to dine at all?” she said, and he was reminded of his mother, who had often lectured him on the care of his health. Cousin Gwen was a good sort.

  “Oh dear no. I’m not at all a helpless sort of chap,” he boasted, glad that there were still women who were women. It was pleasant to see her shake her head when he added: “I can take good care of myself.” It made him feel warm and sheltered; it gave him confidence in a callous world.

  They approached the lodge, and the keeper hurried out as fast as his rheumatic legs would carry him. He wore a respectful smile as he opened the gate, reviving in Dick the feelings of a second lieutenant acknowledging his first salute. But here there were no senior officers whom he must salute in turn. Plâs Einon was his. The people on the estate were his servants, to keep on, to promote, to discharge. Henceforth he was accountable to none for his actions, and need not associate with those who criticised or ridiculed him. A little song of emancipation sang itself through his whole being: “I can do what I damned well like.” Not that he’d be a tyrant. He’d be popular as well as respected.

  Suddenly he realised that he did not know which way to turn the car. “Where d’you want me to go?” he asked Gwenllian.

  “Right. Our village is a mile further along the road by which you came.”

  He swerved at her bidding and began with caution to descend a very long steep hill. He was not sure yet of his command over the first car he had ever owned. Far away below them, he could see a church tower, grey, between elm trees. No houses were visible, but a few threads of bluish smoke rose into the still air.

  “You call it our village,” he said. “I don’t remember any village on the plans they sent me of the property.”

  “No,” she answered. “But that’s our parish church. And we’re buried under it—lots of us. We walk over ourselves every Sunday, going into the family pew.”

  “Good Lord! What a grim idea!” he exclaimed.

  She changed the subject at once. “We’re rather proud of our village, let me tell you. It’s our nearest shopping centre though it has only one shop. But you’ve no idea what odd things you can buy in it. And then we’ve a real live banker and a butcher too, besides all the poachers who bring fish and game to back doors after dark—not to ours, of course. The banker only sets up shop once a week, and the butcher twice—when he’s sober—for three hours.”

  “Good heavens,” laughed Dick, “can you only cash a cheque once a week?”

  “That’s oftener than you’ll need to. Everybody’ll trust you here,” she said, and smiled at him as though she already did so.

  “That’ll be a change,” he was about to say with a rueful grin, but he thought better of it, and observed instead, “I like the sound of our village. Tell me more about it.”

  She told him, and he was relieved to find that she made her account amusing and intimate, as though the village were his indeed and she had ceased to think of him as an outsider. Next week’s stocktaking would be less formidable than he had feared. And he was encouraged to question her about the villagers and the men who worked on the estate. Her replies showed an impressive knowledge of their characters, the wages they received, the rents they paid.

  “You seem to have everything to do with the estate at your finger tips,” he said in a tone of surprise.

  She gave a laugh that sounded unexpectedly hard. “I ought to know a bit about it. I’ve only just handed it back to Mr. Lloyd—I flatter myself in better condition than he left it.”

  “To the agent?” Dick asked. “But didn’t he always manage it?”

  “He’s been away in the Yeomanry since August ’14”

  “Oh, I say,” Dick exclaimed. “And you’ve been running the whole show single-handed?”

  She smiled at him—as though she liked him quite a lot, he fancied. “Cecily’s had no business training and her health’s bad,” she said. “Frances is never here.”

  “But, hang it all, I shouldn’t have thought you were brought up to estate management, either—not with two brothers.”

  A slight grimace twisted her lips downwards. “Father let me pick up a good deal, riding about with him.” And she added: “In term time, when the boys weren’t there.”

  “Well,” Dick declared, “all I can say is, you must be jolly clever.”

  She looked into his eyes and slowly smiled in such a fashion that he became vividly aware for the first time of her sex. “It isn’t so difficult to learn about what you love,” she said.

  He was embarrassed and replied hastily: “You ought to have been a boy.”

  To that she made no answer, but leaned forward so that he could see nothing but her hunched shoulder. “Stop here, please,” she commanded. Her tone was abrupt. Hang it all, he thought, he wasn’t her chauffeur.

  He brought the car to a standstill before the first white-washed cottage of Cwmnant. Beyond it straggled the rest of the village, like a disordered flock of sheep along a winding lane. An amusing sort of hamlet, Dick considered it, but think of living clean out of the world like this! He’d have to get away pretty often.

  When Cousin Gwen was in the road beside the car, she stooped and seemed to be re-tying her shoe-lace. She took a long time about it. What was the trouble? And, catching a glimpse of her face, he thought that the features were contracted, as if by a twinge of pain.

  “Are you all right?” he enquired, peering at her.

  “Perfectly, thanks,” she answered, straightening herself. “My shoe-lace broke.” She was smiling at him again and talking pleasantly about his homeward drive, but he had an uncomfortable feeling that it cost her an effort. He ought not to have said, “You ought to have been a boy.” It seemed to have upset her. Perhaps she was touchy about not being more attractive. He stared at her feet. What serviceable brogues she wore! She had mended the lace neatly, though; he couldn’t see the knot.

  “I’d better be getting along,” he said, his hand on the wheel.

  “Thank you most awfully,” she answered. “It’s been such a pleasure to me to tell you just a few things about our people. I should like—if you’ll allow me—” Then she broke off, and staring at her shoe-lace again, added, “Oh, by the way, I looked up our engagement calendar again to make sure. Wednesday, not Tuesday, was the day fixed on for the others to lunch out.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Then you won’t want me then?”

  “But, of course. Just drop in whenever you like. It’s your house now. And even if it weren’t—Only, perhaps, Tuesday would be better. Can you manage it?”

  “Rather. All days are the same to me,” Dick declared. And he repeated with complacence, “I’m my own ma
ster now.”

  “You’re lucky,” she told him. When she became animated, she had remarkably fine eyes. Not that he had ever cared much for any woman’s eyes unless they were blue. As he drove back past his new domain, he wondered why blue eyes should—but she did not remain in his thought. What interested him was his own future, with which she wasn’t concerned.

  Dickie, my boy, he said, your luck’s just beginning, and he thought how glad his mother would have been. She would have been rather a fish out of water at Plâs Einon. Still, he would have been glad to have her there—or in the dower house at any rate.

  Chapter V

  HE IS AGAIN HER LISTENER

  Getting to know his estate was not as agreeable as he had anticipated. The tenants were extremely polite, but they made him drink so much stewed tea and eat so many currant pancakes that his digestion became deranged. He had been told that they would be offended if he declined any offer of food or drink, and he wished at all costs to get on well with them. But it was difficult. He failed to understand half they said, and was at times unsure whether they were addressing him in English, or in the Welsh language which they used amongst themselves. When the good news had reached him that he had inherited an estate at home, he had not bargained for its being inhabited by a lot of jabbering foreigners. He had thought of the principality as a remote part of England where the miners gave trouble but the fishing was said to be good, and he had imagined tenant-farmers as red-faced fellows, honest but slow, quaint as rustic characters in a play. It was a shock to discover that most of his own tenants were sharp-featured, bright-eyed folk, whose swift speech and dramatic gesture showed that they were quicker-witted than himself, and he began to wonder whether the studied monotony of his own speech might not seem as comic to them as the chanting cadence of theirs was to him strange and irritating. Well, not comic perhaps. They would know of course that his way of speaking English was correct. But he was ill at ease among them. If his estate had been in one of the home counties, he would have liked it better.