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.
The agent, too, was a most annoying fellow. He selected all the gateways where mud lay deepest and squelched through it as if it didn’t exist. Dick had been bred on pavements. He had spent the first winter of the war in the trenches. He hated mud; it was associated in his mind neither with sport nor with agriculture, but with freezing hours of alternate terror and boredom. To clog through the foul substance, day after day, was not his idea of the privileges of ownership.
Nor was Mr. Lloyd’s duck-like fondness for swamps his sole offence. He had begun by taking it for granted that Dick understood his technical jargon. He spoke of sweet land and sour, of pleaching hedges and of silage. For even so plain an animal as the sheep, he had a string of preposterous names: theaves, tups, ewes, wether lambs, rams, hoggs. Dick lost count of them. Pigs, when Mr. Lloyd spoke of them, became sows or boars, brims or gilts. At last Dick was forced to admit that all this was Greek to him, and the fellow was surprised. As though, thought Dick in sore self-defence, I were to plunge some poor devil of a civilian into Autumn Manoeuvres and expect him to know what everything was about! Probably the agent despised him.
On Tuesday, at the hour appointed for luncheon with the three friendly ladies, he drove up to the portico of his own house, telling himself that an Englishman’s home, at any rate, was his castle. The parlourmaid who took his hat and stick from him in the hall, did not ask as before: “What name shall I say, please sir?” but gave him a deferential smile. He followed her into the pleasant drawing-room. Only his cousin Gwen was there, arranging a bowl of daffodils. He liked to see a lady at a pretty task like that.
“Oh Dick,” she said, laying down the flowers, and advancing with outstretched hand, “I’ve been wondering whether I ought to have sent a man into Llanon to stop your coming.”
“Why?” he asked. “You don’t mean to give up my education, I hope? Not after all the stuff you began to tell me the other evening?”
“Of course not,” she said, signing to him to take a seat beside her on the sofa. “If there’s any way whatever in which I can be of use to you—It’s the very least I could do, isn’t it, after your letting me stay on here so long?”
“Rot,” he exclaimed, and wished he had not done so. It was such a schoolboy word and rather third-rate.
“And you mustn’t suppose,” she continued, “I didn’t realise how awkward that first meeting must have been for you—worse for you than for any of us.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said.
“But I do,” she persisted, “because you’ve shown yourself to be so extraordinarily generous since poor Howel was killed. I can guess just what anyone of your generous nature—”
“Oh I say,” he protested, “please don’t—” It was decent of her to credit him with generosity. There was nothing he liked better than being highly esteemed. But he wished she’d shut up. He stooped down and began to scratch the stouter of the two Sealyhams, who lay bolster-like, displaying a pink belly and waving short thick paws in the air. “I like your dogs,” he said.
“I’m so glad. I shouldn’t have liked you if you hadn’t.”
He looked up at her and they exchanged a smile.
“I want to ask your pardon,” she said.
“What on earth for?” he stammered, tickling the terrier with such nervous vigour that she rolled about in an ecstasy.
“Well I’m afraid I’m always rather stiff with people at first,” she explained, “until I know we’re going to be good friends. Then I’m all right.”
“I know you are,” he declared with what gallantry he could summon. “I enjoyed that drive down to our village, and all the tales you told me.”
“I’ll tell you plenty more if you encourage me like that. We Welsh are famous talkers.”
“Then why were you thinking of putting me off to-day?”
“Have a glass of sherry,” she said, “while I tell you.”
The decanter was of massive old cut glass and the sherry did it credit. As Dick sipped he warmed towards his cousin. Before he had emptied his glass he liked her as much as any middle-aged woman he had ever known.
“I breakfasted early,” she said, “and went out before the others were down. There’s a good deal of work with the poultry at this time of year you know. If I don’t keep the men up to the mark they let half the chicks die of the gapes.”
“I thought your sister-in-law was the poultry expert.”
Gwenllian’s smile disposed of that error. “She talks a lot about it. Well, I was busy till noon, so I didn’t hear her and Frances making their plans for the day. Of course I thought they’d both be here to receive you. But when I came in, I found they’d gone over to Lady Llangattoc’s—some stupid misreading of the engagement book. I’m dreadfully sorry it’s happened.”
“I’m not,” said Dick, growing more at ease and able to pay compliments. “I’m glad, as long as you’ll let me come again to-morrow?”
Luncheon was announced, and Gwenllian led the way across the hall, hung with trophies of hunt and battle and the travels of younger sons among savage people. The dining-room was large, more formal and less pleasing than the drawing-room. At first it seemed to Dick chilling that he and Gwenllian should eat alone at one end of so long a table, with two silent and watchful maids hovering over them; but half a bottle of the best claret he had ever drunk gave him confidence. The lamb, Gwenllian informed him, had been reared on the estate and roast in front of an open fire.
“I believe this is the last house in Wales where meat isn’t thrust into an oven to bake,” she declared. And when he was helping himself to pie, she spoke of the delicacy of her early forced rhubarb. “Such a vile stringy weed as most people eat it late in summer,” she said. “Fit for trippers at a seaside boarding-house, like stewed prunes or tinned pears.” Dick heartily agreed. The Einon-Thomas rhubarb melted in the mouth, and the vast loaf of bread that stood among the Georgian silver on the sideboard was another revelation to him. There were marks of wood ash upon it and, unlike baker’s bread, it had positive flavour and moisture. It was surprising to discover that plain fare could be so good, for he had supposed that one could feed well only by paying a high price for dishes with French names.
“I say,” he asked, when they were left alone, “how on earth do you get modem servants to do all these things in the old way?”
“I catch them when they leave school at fourteen,” she answered, with a smile. “When once I’ve taught them that they know nothing whatever about anything, I can begin to train them.”
“Sounds like shaking the raw recruit in the Service. But don’t they desert?”
“Not once they’re broken in,” Gwenllian answered. “They begin to take a pride in the tradition of the house.”
“What makes ’em stay at first?”
“Their parents. Plâs Einon still means something in this corner of the county. Frances’s Labour friends are trying to set class against class, but they haven’t succeeded in making our people look on us as enemies. The older ones know that for generations we’ve worked as hard as they—most of us, at any rate. We’ve kept them as well as ourselves in old age, long before L. G. was born or thought of. There’s never been a faithful retainer we haven’t pensioned off.”
Dick watched the proud lift of her chin, and said to himself: I’m glad she’s a relation of mine. Drinking his own excellent port and hearing his cousin talk thus, he felt every inch an Einon-Thomas.
His admiration for her grew throughout the afternoon. There was nothing she did not know, yet her knowledge never humiliated him. As she was showing him the dubious Romney of laughing great-aunt Lavinia, who went to London to see George the Fourth crowned and died there of the small-pox, she said: “You can’t have had much time to spare for connoisseurship. How have you managed to learn so much about pictures and furniture and china?” “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, blushing with pleasure. “Fond of ’em, I suppose. But you know a lot more than I do.”
“My dear Dick! I’ve had little else to do all my life; while you were fighting in the greatest war there’s ever been.”
He had made a mistake, he perceived, in avoiding middle-aged spinsters. The company of a well- informed woman, who wished to please, yet did not expect to be flirted with, was extremely comfortable, and he felt sorry that Cousin Gwen was to leave the neighbourhood so soon. He began to talk of the dower house, regretting that it was let. Gwenllian had some amusing tales to tell of its former occupants.
“But I’m boring you, perhaps,” she asked, “with stories you already know?”
“Good Lord no,” he assured her. “I know next to nothing about our family history.”
“You have had every reason to think ill of us, too,” she said. “Our treatment of your mother—”
He felt his face and neck grow hot. “Oh, well, I don’t know. I suppose the old man had a right to cut off a son who married without his consent.”
“When there was nothing against the match,” Gwenllian protested, “except that the lady was not an heiress?” Dick stared at his feet. “That’s true, isn’t it?” she added gently. “Your mother hadn’t much money of her own?”
“No,” he said, “she hadn’t.” Was it possible that Cousin Gwen had never heard that his mother had been a nursery-governess whose father kept a chemist’s shop?
“Of course,” she continued, “Grandpapa belonged to the old school. When he was young the French Revolution was fresh in people’s minds, and he had a horror of insubordination. He didn’t marry until late in life, and brought up his children on the principles of his own boyhood. Father often told us how they never dared speak until spoken to, or sit down in his presence without his leave. He arranged a match between your father and Miss Emily Gwynne-Evans of Llanyre Abbey. She had a fortune of twelve hundred a year, which was handsome in those days. But she had the Gwynne-Evans impediment in her speech. One of her great uncles was promoted for the gallant stand his company made at Waterloo. It was said in this neighbourhood that he’d given the order to retire, but that, as usual, his men hadn’t been able to understand him.”
“That’s good,” chuckled Dick.
“Anyhow, your father wouldn’t marry the lady. Grandpapa was furious, but after a while he arranged another match which he fancied no sportsman could refuse. It was with Miss Lavinia Lloyd-Jones of Llandau Castle. She was the youngest of nine, and her fortune consisted of one diamond bracelet and a farm rented at eighteen pounds a year. But there were expectations from a godmother, and she was considered to have the most graceful seat on horseback of any lady in the county. Those were the days of long flowing habits, you know, when style was admired in the softer sex more than hard riding. Her mounts were trained to go straight from a walk into a canter so that Miss Lavinia might never be seen rising to anything so inelegant as a trot.”
Dick guffawed. “I say,” he interrupted, “you tell these old stories awfully well. And Father cut up rusty about the cantering lady, too?”
“Yes. Grandfather was livid with rage. So one day—Father used to make us laugh describing it, he was a gifted mimic, like so many Welshmen—the fierce old man stalked into this room where Grandmamma was going through her visiting list, preparing to send out invitations to an archery meeting, and Aunt Fanny was helping. ‘ Take paper and pen, child,’ Grandpapa commanded; Aunt Fanny was thirty-six at the time. And when she had a pen in her hand, ‘D’you know the name of every marriageable filly in every stable in the county?’ he asked. ‘Of every young maiden lady, Papa?’ ‘Yes, Miss Impudence! Don’t mince words with me. Do you, or do you not, eh? Can’t you give a plain answer to a plain question, eh?’ ‘Yes Papa, I—I think so.’ ‘And I should think so too. What else do I provide you two ladies with a carriage and pair for? All this calling isn’t likely to lead to a husband for yourself now, eh?’ Poor Aunt Fanny hung her head, and Grandmamma took the smelling-salts out of her reticule. ‘Well then,’ the old tyrant went on, ‘make me out a list of those who are still hopeful. See that it be writ legibly, and take heed you omit none.’ When it was written in Aunt Fanny’s exquisite Italian hand, he sent for your father. ‘Now, Sir Hard-to-please,’ he growled, ‘here are Roses and Violets, and Marys and Margarets, and Henriettas and Harriets and Hannahs. You will go to the Hunt Ball next month.’ ‘But I don’t dance, sir.’ ‘You will go to the Hunt Ball, d’you hear me? You’ll see everyone of ’em there, waltzing for their living, as the late Lord Byron said. If you can’t pick one of ’em out of the ring and get into double harness with her before the year is out, you shall have neither a father’s blessing, nor a penny of his leavings.’ But your father stayed at home on the night of the Hunt Ball. Grandmamma and Aunt Fanny drove off in tears. Grandpapa shut himself up in his study in a towering rage, but he could hear your father playing the piano—an instrument he despised as effeminate. And one of the tunes your father dared to play was— what do you think?—The Marseillaise!”
Dick laughed outright. “And what happened then?”
“He was packed off to a firm in Cheapside, through whom Grandpapa bought his Port. He came down here again only once, many years later, to announce his marriage to a lady—his own choice— a very pretty, charming one, I believe. Did you know that?”
“No,” Dick said. “I was only seven when he died. Mother told me nothing except that he’d quarrelled with his family.”
“Yes,” Gwenllian said in a tone of sympathy. “It was terribly hard on your parents, and on you. And, unfortunately, Father became involved in the foolish unjust quarrel. But for that, of course, we should have made it up after Grandpapa’s death.” Dick scratched the Sealyham behind the ear and she knowingly put out the tip of her pink tongue. He and his mother had been all in all to each other, but he was glad that Cousin Gwen had never met her.
“It’s a great pity,” he said, secure in an ashamed knowledge that they could never meet now, “you and my poor Mater never got to know each other.”
“Try to forgive us, will you?” said Gwenllian softly “If it’s not too late?” His face burned, and she added in a lighter tone, “I forgot to point out the Richard Wilson in the dining-room. It’s worth a lot. But I think I’ve managed to save so that you won’t have to sell it to pay the death duties. By the way,” she added, “don’t think me impertinent— will you?—if I ask whether you have any debts?”
“No,” he answered. “Never dared run ’em up.” She smiled her approval at him. “Splendid. Now come and look at your most valuable picture.”
The inspection of one led to another. They were half way up the wide, shallow stairs, jesting over their great aunts’ watercolours, when Gwenllian exclaimed, “Oh, but I oughtn’t to be taking the honours of show-woman on myself, while Cecily’s out.”
But the intimacy between them seemed now so well established that he urged her to show him the whole house. “I won’t split on you tomorrow,” he chuckled.
She laughed back at him. “All right. But we shall feel like two naughty children.…The pictures on the landing are only copies of Carlo Dolci and Sassoferrato. My mother’s grandfather bought them in Rome when he was on his grand tour. A good many of our pictures came into the family from her side. That’s her portrait, painted by John Collier not long before she died.”
Dick saw a realistic painting of a very tired and faded lady. She was reclining on a green plush sofa, with her feet on a rest. Her hands were limp in her silken lap. Behind her was the striped wall-paper he had noticed in the drawing-room, less pale than it had now become.
“You’re not a bit the same style of beauty as your mother,” he hastened to say.
She smiled at him again. “No. I’m an Einon-Thomas.”
Opening a door she led him into a severely furnished room. He glanced round it, noting the large roll-top desk, the shelves full of informative books, the pigeon-holes, the ordnance map. Her brother’s room, he thought, and then: No, by Jove, hers!
A man would have caused more disorder, and have chosen more comfortable chairs.
“Father,” said Gwenllian, indicating a large oil painting that dominated the room. “But it doesn’t begin to do him justice. He was considered remarkably handsome. It was done by a local painter to be presented to the Shire Hall the year he was High Sheriff. I managed, with a lot of persuasion, to have this copy made. Nothing would induce him to sit again. He hated the tomfoolery as he called it. You can see from the expression how he disliked sitting.” Dick looked at a muddy painting of a man with a heavy jowl and leaden brows. There was a tinge of purple in his cheeks. He was strongly built, with massive, insensitive hands, which were clutching the stock of a shot-gun. Dick resolved to banish the ugly thing to the attic or the servants’ hall.
“Not a flattering likeness, I should think,” he said, for the sake of being polite.
“It’s an atrocious caricature,” Gwenllian declared with an anger that surprised him. If she didn’t like it, why on earth did she keep it here? And, answering his unspoken question, she added “It’s all I have of him.” After a silence, she asked suddenly: “Would you mind very much if I took it away with me?” Well, thank God, that disposes of that, he thought.
“Naturally you must have anything—” he began
“Oh,” she said, “but I must have your authority for moving even a pin.” She went close to the portrait and stared up at it, twisting her hands together.
“You see, when Father had his stroke and made that will a couple of months before the end, Cecily was expecting her first baby. So was Evan’s wife, too, as it happened. She died, you know, and they couldn’t save the infant. And then, just after Father’s death, Cecily—” Gwenllian paused. “Poor Cecily’s been unlucky. All her children have been born dead or have died a few days later.”
“Good Lord,” exclaimed Dick, “I’d no idea.”
“No,” she said, with that downward twist of the lips which had startled him at their first meeting, “Neither had Father when he made his will.”
Dick’s face was burning. He could think of nothing to say.
“I believe Father was right, though, to do as he did,” she declared in a fierce tone. “It’s only by leaving every sou to heirs male, and demanding sacrifices of the others, that any property can be held together in these days of murderous taxation. We have been here since the legendary days of Welsh history. English people with French names who are proud of having ‘come over with the Conqueror’ can’t show a pedigree that compares with ours. We fought the Romans, and the Saxons after them, and held on to our own. We can’t go down now before a rabble of little Socialists, blustering in the House of Commons.” He was startled by her vehemence. “Frances and I profoundly disagree. Her reforms would lead to the old families being yet more impoverished, the great houses and parks and gardens broken up. They used to be the glory of England. Now, because everybody clamours for an equal share, they are to be turned into chicken farms and allotments, covered with barbed wire and tin shanties. And all the art treasures stored in them are to be sold to the Jews and resold to America. It makes me sick to think of!” She was pale and bitter.
“I quite agree with you,” Dick muttered, anxious to soothe her. It seemed to him extraordinary for a woman, who was out of the running herself, to be so passionate about property. But very unselfish, he told himself, very creditable.
“I’m afraid I grow rather warm on the subject,” she said, after a pause. “It seems to me so base to be the weak link in a long chain—the first poor soft thing to let it break.”
“I suppose a chain is a bit of a drag on some people,” he said vaguely.
Her chin went up. “Oh, the weak links feel the strain, I dare say…”
Somehow that phrase made him ill at ease. He began urging her again to take her father’s portrait.
Gwenllian’s lips parted eagerly. “I’m not sure, though,” she sighed, “that I want to take anything which belongs here, out of its setting. Don’t think me ungrateful, please Dick, but I would rather not until I’ve had time to think it over… Some day, perhaps, I’ll remind you of your generous offer.”
Oh Lord, he thought, does that mean I’ve got to keep this hideous relic here until she makes up her mind?
“Now,” she said, in her usual brisk tone, “you’d better go before the others return. Remember, tomorrow, not a word about our conspiracy.” She smiled at him, a mischievous smile that made her look years younger. “Poor Cecily must be allowed the distinction of telling you all she knows, or imagines she knows, about our home.”
Dick nodded. Cousin Gwen’s an astonishing able woman, he told himself as he drove away. I like her, too. And she can be made devilish useful if I play my cards right.