Chapter Nine
The weeks came and passed, and the work at the Hall continued with unabated energy. Early in November everything was in readiness for the occupation of the new tenants; and with the departure of the workmen the servants arrived at the Hall, and were speedily followed by Mr and Mrs Chadwick and the pekinese.
John Musgrave, with punctilious politeness, paid his call within the week, and was admitted and ushered into the drawing-room by a responsible-looking young woman in a neat uniform, who was, Mr Musgrave supposed, Mrs Chadwick’s butler.
Mrs Chadwick, beautifully gowned, rose at his entry to receive him; a very gracious hostess, having discarded her air of bantering satire, which had so often incensed Mr Musgrave, for the easy cordiality of the woman of the world, bent on being agreeable in her own home; bent, too, on maintaining an attitude of sympathetic patience towards the idiosyncrasies of other people. John Musgrave considered her for the first time without reservation a very charming woman. Mr Chadwick, who had a greater right than anyone else to set himself up as an authority on this subject, had never considered her anything else.
Mr Chadwick was present on the occasion of John Musgrave’s call. He was a big man of indolent appearance, who preferred rather to listen than to talk, but who, when he offered an opinion, commanded naturally the respectful attention of his hearers. One felt that the man possessed a mind of his own. Although most people pride themselves on this possession, it is not given to every one to secure its recognition by others. It is usually the case that the people who insist most upon this recognition are the people who do not receive it. John Musgrave, although he had met Mr Chadwick before, had very little knowledge of the man. It surprised him now to discover in him a man he could like and feel at home with. He had been prepared for something quite different. It had even occurred to him that no man of any intelligence could take second place and allow his wife to usurp his privileges as head of the house; but when he talked with Mr Chadwick he found it necessary to modify his views to the extent of admitting that in exceptional circumstances a clever man might do this without the sacrifice of his dignity. Will Chadwick would have solved the question, had Mr Musgrave put it to him, by explaining that he regarded the individual, irrespective of sex, as being under the obligation of filling the place he or she is most fitted to fill. It was not a matter of privilege, in his opinion, but of capacity; and he never bothered about sex problems. His wife and he were companions and not rivals in their domestic relations.
When Mr Musgrave left – and he was less conventional in timing his departure than he had been in the selection of the hour and date of his call – he carried with him a very pleasant picture of the perfectly organised and harmonious home of cultured and agreeable people. There was a good deal, after all, to be said in favour of English home-life. It was regrettable that home-life was going out of fashion.
As he walked down the broad gravelled drive Mr Musgrave pondered deeply over these matters. He glanced about him upon the beautiful wooded lands surrounding the Hall, and thought how many old English homes of equal dignity were passing into the hands of wealthy strangers because their owners preferred to live in moderate comfort abroad to clinging to their birthright and all it symbolised in defiance of a meagre purse. The privilege conferred by birth, and the dignity of ancient things, were fetishes with Mr Musgrave, to whom poverty in a good old English home would have been preferable to the easy freedom of continental life. This was one of John Musgrave’s many old-fashioned ideas; and old-fashioned ideas are occasionally worthy to stand beside and sometimes even in advance of the modern trend of thought.
While thinking of these things Mr Musgrave was suddenly brought face to face with something so essentially modern that, prepared as he was for surprises in Mrs Chadwick’s household, he was nevertheless taken completely aback. The first intimation of this extreme modernity rushed upon him disconcertingly, after the manner of a noisy herald preparing the way for some one of importance, in the shape of a very ugly and extraordinarily fierce-looking bull-dog. The bull-dog sprang out upon him from behind a wall and growled ferociously, showing his teeth, which is the custom of the well-bred bull, who cannot conceal them, as Mr Musgrave knew. Mr Musgrave, who disliked dogs, was nevertheless not so utterly foolish as to raise his stick, or otherwise show the alarm he felt; but he was very greatly relieved when a sharp, clear whistle called the bull-dog off and assured him that some one, who seemingly had authority, was at hand for his protection. Then it was that, looking up to trace the whistle to its source, he was confronted with the most astonishing sight he had ever beheld.
Against the wall a long ladder leaned, and standing at the top of the ladder doing something apparently to a climbing rose-bush – or, to be exact, not doing anything to the climbing rose-bush at that moment, but looking down at himself – was a young woman. For a second John Musgrave thought it was a boy; during the next second it dawned upon his startled intelligence that this was no boy, but an exceedingly well-grown young woman – a young woman in male attire; that is to say, while the upper part of her was clothed in quite feminine fashion, the lower half – John Musgrave blushed as he grasped the horrible reality – was garbed in a man’s overalls, a serviceable pair of loose-fitting blue trousers, buckled in at the waist with a workmanlike belt, in which was thrust pruning-knife, hammer, and other things necessary to a gardener at the top of a long ladder with no mate at the foot.
“It is all right; he is quite gentle,” the girl called down the ladder reassuringly to the astonished, upturned face of Mr Musgrave.
She was, Mr Musgrave could not fail to observe, a very pretty girl, and she looked unquestionably well in the immodest get-up. Her hair, which was uncovered, was brown, and broke into curls at her temples; and a pair of smiling, darkly grey eyes gazed down at him amiably, with serene indifference to her embarrassing attire. Mr Musgrave imagined this male attire must be even more embarrassing to its wearer than it was to him to behold, in which he was quite mistaken. The girl was beautifully unconscious of anything in her appearance to attract comment. She wore trousers for use; and the serviceability of a thing explains and justifies its existence.
Since the person who addressed him was a woman, natural instinct suggested to Mr Musgrave the raising of his hat; but the sight of those objectionable overalls decided him that the courtesy was uncalled for; then, meeting the grey eyes fully, natural instinct prevailed with him.
The top of a ladder is not a comfortable place for social amenities, and the young person in the overalls had a long nail between her lips, which she had removed in order to call out her reassurance and had since replaced; she inclined her head nevertheless.
“That Moresby,” murmured the owner of the grey eyes, as they followed Mr Musgrave’s retreat. “Moresby does not like two-legged females; it prefers the skirt, and cherishes the fond delusion that the feet are attached quite decorously somewhere to the hem.”
Then she returned to her work, and dismissed Mr Musgrave from her thoughts. The head gardener at the Hall had something else to do besides occupying her mind with idle speculations.
Mr Musgrave passed out through the lodge gates feeling inexpressibly shocked. He knew, because she herself had told him when unfolding some of her schemes, that it was Mrs Chadwick’s practice to employ female labour whenever possible. In that respect, although it was unusual – for which reason alone it did not appeal to him as desirable – she was, he allowed, experimenting in a perfectly legitimate manner; but he could not see the necessity for the substitution of male attire. Because a young woman was employed in an unwomanly capacity it was no argument that she should further unsex herself by encroaching on the right of man to this very proper assertion of being, as the young woman would have expressed it, a biped. But Mr Musgrave in his very natural prejudice overlooked two essential points: that clothes in the first instance are worn for decency and comfort; and that the fashion of them has been decided with regard to utility and convenience, rather than the important question of sex. Plainly a skirt is neither useful nor convenient for climbing ladders in; it is also highly dangerous. Mr Musgrave might have argued: why climb ladders? To which the grey-eyed girl would have replied: because thereby she could earn a living in a perfectly honest and agreeable manner by following the occupation which most interested her, and in which she was undoubtedly skilled. Also the climbing of ladders is quite as simple to many women as it is to the average man. It is a matter of balance. Some people enjoy climbing, just as others prefer going down-hill, and the more equable natures, like Mr Musgrave, have a predilection for a flat road.
But – Mr Musgrave blushed again as he recalled a mental picture of the girl in the overalls – she was such a pretty girl. She looked the kind of girl one places instinctively in a refined home, engaged in the ladylike occupation of painting flowers on satin, or working at plain sewing for the poor. Mr Musgrave’s idea of a suitable setting would not have raised a pang of regret in the contented breast of the head gardener. She would not have vacated her position at the top of the ladder for the most elegant drawing-room, nor have relinquished her pruning-scissors in favour of the daintiest satin-work in the world. She, like Mr Chadwick, believed in the individual doing what she was best fitted to do. And gardening was her “job.”
It is a noteworthy fact that had the head gardener been plain and middle-aged her unsuitable occupation and unseemly attire would not have worried John Musgrave to the extent that it did. He would have dismissed the matter from his thoughts as simply objectionable, and therefore not to be dwelt on; but the youth of this girl and the beauty of her aroused his sympathies. The clear grey eyes were responsible for this. Chivalry in the male breast, even when that, breast belongs to a middle-aged bachelor, is an emotion which, contrary to all right principles, responds most readily to the curve of young lips and the call to laughter from bright eyes.
Chapter Ten
The residents of Moresby – by which is usually understood not the bulk of the community, but that select portion which gathers in the drawing-rooms and about the tables of its social equals – were moved to a mild and almost pained surprise at being hospitably bidden to dine at the Hall within a month of the Chadwicks’ arrival. This was, Moresby recognised with chill ingratitude, a grave breach of social etiquette. Plainly it was the duty of Moresby to show hospitality to the new-comers and then accept in return whatever the Hall saw fit to offer in acknowledgment of its welcome.
But Mrs Chadwick, who needed no precedent in anything she wished to do, was not prepared to wait on Moresby hospitality, which, she rightly guessed, would be slow in asserting itself. She wanted to gather her new neighbours together, and she did not mind in the least whether or no they invited her back to their houses. As soon, therefore, as they had called and she had returned the calls, she asked them to dine; and despite the general feeling of perturbed wonder which this unexpected invitation occasioned, no one – their numbers were but four, because Moresby had its limitations – declined.
Thus it came about that on a certain cold December night John Musgrave foregathered with his neighbours and one or two people from Rushleigh in the great drawing-room at the Hall, where, as a young man in the old squire’s time, he had been wont to attend functions of a similar nature, more formal and dull perhaps, as suited the day and prestige of the entertainer, but certainly not more splendid nor more kindly in tone.
It was so long since John Musgrave had taken part in any entertainment other than an informal supper at the vicarage or an equally quiet home-dinner, that he felt rather bewildered as he looked about him on this assemblage of, for the greater part, familiar faces rendered unfamiliar by reason of an unwonted magnificence of attire. Even little Mrs Errol was gowned with unusual elegance. As Mr Musgrave’s eyes fell upon her he was conscious for the first time that she was a very pretty woman. He had not thought of her as pretty before; he had merely considered her womanly. It was possible, he realised, to be womanly and pretty at the same time. Her dress was eminently becoming.
Miss Simpson wore a narrow-shouldered, aesthetic garment, so modestly cut that only the scraggy column of her throat was visible above its lavender folds. Mr Musgrave, whose eyes were attracted towards her by the magnetic force of her gaze, which was riveted on him from the moment of his entry, compared her to her disadvantage with the vicar’s modish little wife, whose extravagance in the matter of her new dress was spoiling one-half of her satisfaction in the knowledge that she compared favourably with the other guests.
Of the rest of the ladies present only one was unknown to Mr Musgrave. His eyes fell upon her as he left his hostess’s side, passed over her face without recognition, and then, as though suddenly reminded of having seen it somewhere amid other surroundings, planted, indeed, in an altogether different setting, they wandered back uncertainly and rested with a puzzled scrutiny on the delicate profile that was half turned from him. Something in the rebellious wave of the brown hair, something in the buoyant grace of the girl’s carriage, appeared vaguely familiar. And then suddenly the stranger turned and faced him squarely, and a pair of darkly grey eyes looked for a second into his and betrayed a flash of recognition. The faintest of smiles lit their grey depths. She was talking to the vicar, and she turned to him and said something in a low voice, as a result of which the vicar summoned Mr Musgrave to his side and presented him, and – quite unnecessarily, John Musgrave thought – left him alone with this exceedingly womanly looking, unwomanly young person.
As Mr Musgrave beheld her now, suitably attired in an exceedingly elegant yet simple white dinner dress, he found it difficult to associate this dainty person with the dreadful vision in blue overalls standing at the top of a long ladder and whistling to the bull-dog. He shuddered when he recalled that sight. How could any refined girl be guilty of such immodest conduct?
But the person in the overalls had done him a service. He felt that it would be only courtesy to acknowledge it. But did not courtesy demand rather that he should ignore that painful episode? It was possible that the girl would be displeased to be reminded of that occasion. Mr Musgrave felt so embarrassed, and was so little successful in concealing this emotion, that the girl, becoming conscious of it, imagined that he was shy. She promptly “started in,” as she would have phrased it, to set him at his ease.
“I’m quite in love with Moresby,” she said brightly. “It’s the prettiest spot I’ve happened upon so far. These old places which have fallen asleep are restful. I was just asking Mr Errol when you arrived to whom that beautiful garden belonged, with the old gabled house standing back from the road, and he replied, ‘Here’s the owner.’ When I looked round and saw you I remembered your face. Diogenes introduced us informally, if you recall the afternoon you called here. He is a dreadfully pushing person, Diogenes; but he’s a dear when you know him.”
“I daresay,” Mr Musgrave answered, correctly surmising that Diogenes was the bull-dog. “But I dislike dogs.”
“I should never have thought that,” replied the girl, looking faintly surprised; “because Diogenes likes you. He never speaks to people he doesn’t like; and dogs as a rule know at once when people are not sympathetic. He quite gushed about you after you had gone. I won’t tell him he has made a mistake, it might hurt his feelings. And after all you are possibly mistaken yourself. You’d love dogs, I expect, if you once allowed yourself to take an interest in them. They are like children; one has to get accustomed to them.”
“On the occasion you refer to,” said Mr Musgrave tactfully, “I was very obliged to you for coming to my assistance. I confess to having felt distinctly nervous of Diogenes.”
“Most people are,” she said. “He looks so ferocious, and he’s noisy. But that was only good-tempered teasing. He always helps me when I am gardening, and he enjoys thinking he is keeping intruders off. You must come and see the gardens some day. Mr Errol tells me you are dreadfully learned about flowers.”
“I am interested in flowers,” John Musgrave allowed modestly.
“So am I – enormously. I just love having this big place to experiment with. And my aunt is such a dear; she gives me a free hand.” She laughed delightfully, showing a set of very pretty teeth. “A free hand constitutes also unlimited funds, and that is such a help in the making of a beautiful garden.”
“I should have thought,” Mr Musgrave said, “that the making of a garden was unnecessary where a garden already existed. I understood the grounds were always kept up.”
“They have been kept from neglect,” she answered. “But there is a lot to be done. We have got to bring it all up to date.”
“Oh?” he said, and repressed a shudder. He had never liked that expression; since his acquaintance with Mrs Chadwick he had grown to actively dislike it. “I am old-fashioned, I suppose,” he added. “I prefer things left as they are. The associations which cling about familiar things are more beautiful, in my opinion, than change. No outlay of money can improve an old-world garden.”
“The introduction of a quantity of patent manure into the ground helps considerably in its productiveness,” she answered practically. “Wait till the summer comes. When you see the glory of bloom then you’ll admit the utility of money. I should like some time to come and see your garden. Do you work in it yourself?”
“I!” Mr Musgrave appeared taken aback at the suggestion that he should labour among his borders, which were noted in Moresby for their beauty. “I supervise the man, of course,” he said.
“Oh!” she returned in a tone of commiseration for the pleasure that he missed. “Supervising is tame. When one feels the soil with one’s hands one learns what it means to love it, and every little root one buries in the mould becomes as a dear child. You are only scientifically interested in flowers, I suspect. I’ve learnt the science of them, too; but I am trying to forget all that and acquire practical knowledge. Imagine a mother bringing up her child scientifically! I know some people consider it a wise plan, but every child, like every plant, has its little peculiarities, and needs to be made a separate study.”
“You are very young,” Mr Musgrave remarked, looking into the clear eyes with a shade of disapproval in his own, “to entertain views on these subjects.”
To his surprise she laughed.
“I’m twenty-eight,” she answered frankly. “If one hasn’t any views at that age it is safe to predict one will never have any. At twenty-eight lots of women are engaged in experimenting practically in the upbringing of children. I have nephews and nieces ranging up to ten.”
Mr Musgrave was by now firmly convinced that he did not like this young person. He was quite sure that working in overalls was not good for the mind. And yet, when he came to reflect upon what she had said later, he failed to discover what there had been to object to so strongly in her talk. But he had taken a strong objection to the tone of her conversation. Could it be that he was not merely old-fashioned, but slightly priggish? Mr Musgrave did not like to think of himself as a prig. It is a term which Englishmen affect to despise. Nevertheless there are a few prigs in the world. Mr Musgrave was not a prig, but he came perilously near to being one at times.
A move in the direction of the dining-room put an end to their talk. Mr Musgrave was paired off with his legitimate dinner partner, a Rushleigh lady, the importance of whose social position as a member of one of the oldest families in the neighbourhood rendered it seemingly unnecessary for her to support the effort of being even ordinarily conversational. John Musgrave knew her intimately, and was therefore not unduly depressed by her long silences and her chilly acceptance of his stereotyped phrases in an attempt to sustain a courteous soliloquy during the courses.
Farther down, on the opposite side of the table, the grey-eyed girl was chatting animatedly with a young medical man, also from Rushleigh, who appeared, John Musgrave observed with a sense of feeling suddenly bored and out of tune with his surroundings, to be enjoying himself hugely. Mr Musgrave had always understood that young people did not enjoy dinner-parties; as a young man he had found them extraordinarily dull. But this young man was apparently enjoying both the food and the company. The grey-eyed girl was not, however, discussing with him patent manures, or other horticultural matters. At the moment when John Musgrave observed them they were engaged in a flippant conversation which the young man characterised as psychological, but which John Musgrave would not have dignified by such a term. It was the kind of agreeable nonsense which is pleasing only to youth.
The young man considered the grey-eyed girl ripping. The grey-eyed girl – who was called Peggy Annersley – referred to him in her thoughts as a sport. Mr Musgrave would not have approved of either expression. The vocabulary of youth is uncouth.
In the drawing-room, following the long dinner, there was a little music, under cover of which many of the guests took refuge in silence, relieved that the necessity to make conversation was temporarily relaxed. The business of enjoying one’s self is a strenuous matter.
Mr Musgrave, moved by a stern sense of duty and the conviction of what was correct, went from one group of acquaintances to another and exchanged civilities with all. Peggy watched his conscientious progress through the room with mischievous, comprehending eyes. He was the quaintest thing in Moresby, she reflected, where everything was quaint.
Later, when the guests had departed, in response to a question put by Mrs Chadwick in reference to him, she stated that he seemed quite a nice old thing. Mrs Chadwick surveyed her niece thoughtfully, and then glanced at her own reflection in a mirror.
“Should you describe me as old?” she asked.
“You!” the girl laughed scoffingly. “You dear! What a question?”
“I am thirty-nine,” Mrs Chadwick said. “And John Musgrave is forty.”
The girl looked unimpressed.
“I daresay. But no one would consider John’s years. He is fossilised,” she said.