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 classic 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 master 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.