CHAPTER SIX
It was Saturday and, as was his custom during the session, the ForeignSecretary had gone for privacy and rest till Monday to a small countryhouse he had within easy reach of town. I went down with a letter fromFox in my pocket, and early in the afternoon found myself talkingwithout any kind of inward disturbance to the Minister's aunt, a lean,elderly lady, with a keen eye, and credited with a profound knowledge ofEuropean politics. She had a rather abrupt manner and a business-like,brown scheme of coloration. She looked people very straight in the face,bringing to bear all the penetration which, as rumour said, enabled herto take a hidden, but very real part in the shaping of our foreignpolicy. She seemed to catalogue me, label me, and lay me on the shelf,before I had given my first answer to her first question.
"You ought to know this part of the country well," she said. I think shewas considering me as a possible canvasser--an infinitesimal thing, butof a kind possibly worth remembrance at the next General Election.
"No," I said, "I've never been here before."
"Etchingham is only three miles away."
It was new to me to be looked upon as worth consideration for myplace-name. I realised that Miss Churchill accorded me toleration on itsaccount, that I was regarded as one of the Grangers of Etchingham, whohad taken to literature.
"I met your aunt yesterday," Miss Churchill continued. She had meteverybody yesterday.
"Yes," I said, non-committally. I wondered what had happened at thatmeeting. My aunt and I had never been upon terms. She was a greatpersonage in her part of the world, a great dowager land-owner, as pooras a mouse, and as respectable as a hen. She was, moreover, a keenpolitician on the side of Miss Churchill. I, who am neither land-owner,nor respectable, nor politician, had never been acknowledged--but I knewthat, for the sake of the race, she would have refrained from enlargingon my shortcomings.
"Has she found a companion to suit her yet?" I said, absent-mindedly. Iwas thinking of an old legend of my mother's. Miss Churchill looked mein between the eyes again. She was preparing to relabel me, I think. Ihad become a spiteful humourist. Possibly I might be useful for platformmalice.
"Why, yes," she said, the faintest of twinkles in her eyes, "she hasadopted a niece."
The legend went that, at a hotly contested election in which my aunt hadplayed a prominent part, a rainbow poster had beset the walls. "Whostarved her governess?" it had inquired.
My accidental reference to such electioneering details placed me upon anexcellent footing with Miss Churchill. I seemed quite unawares to haveasserted myself a social equal, a person not to be treated as a casualjournalist. I became, in fact, not the representative of the _Hour_--butan Etchingham Granger that competitive forces had compelled to accept ajournalistic plum. I began to see the line I was to take throughout myinterviewing campaign. On the one hand, I was "one of us," who hadtemporarily strayed beyond the pale; on the other, I was to be a sort ofgreat author's bottle-holder.
A side door, behind Miss Churchill, opened gently. There was somethingvery characteristic in the tentative manner of its coming ajar. Itseemed to say: "Why any noisy vigour?" It seemed to be propelled by acontemplative person with many things on his mind. A tall, grey man inthe doorway leaned the greater part of his weight on the arm that wasstretched down to the handle. He was looking thoughtfully at a letterthat he held in his other hand. A face familiar enough in caricaturessuddenly grew real to me--more real than the face of one's nearestfriends, yet older than one had any wish to expect. It was as if I hadgazed more intently than usual at the face of a man I saw daily, and hadfound him older and greyer than he had ever seemed before--as if I hadbegun to realise that the world had moved on.
He said, languidly--almost protestingly, "What am I to do about the Ducde Mersch?"
Miss Churchill turned swiftly, almost apprehensively, toward him. Sheuttered my name and he gave the slightest of starts of annoyance--astart that meant, "Why wasn't I warned before?" This irritated me; Iknew well enough what were his relations with de Mersch, and the mantook me for a little eavesdropper, I suppose. His attitudes were rathergrotesque, of the sort that would pass in a person of his eminence. Hestuck his eye-glasses on the end of his nose, looked at meshort-sightedly, took them off and looked again. He had the air oflooking down from an immense height--of needing a telescope.
"Oh, ah ... Mrs. Granger's son, I presume.... I wasn't aware...." Thehesitation of his manner made me feel as if we never should getanywhere--not for years and years.
"No," I said, rather brusquely, "I'm only from the _Hour_."
He thought me one of Fox's messengers then, said that Fox might havewritten: "Have saved you the trouble, I mean ... or...."
He had the air of wishing to be amiable, of wishing, even, to please meby proving that he was aware of my identity.
"Oh," I said, a little loftily, "I haven't any message, I've only cometo interview you." An expression of dismay sharpened the lines of hisface.
"To...." he began, "but I've never allowed--" He recovered himselfsharply, and set the glasses vigorously on his nose; at last he hadfound the right track. "Oh, I remember now," he said, "I hadn't lookedat it in that way."
The whole thing grated on my self-love and I became, in a contained way,furiously angry. I was impressed with the idea that the man was only apuppet in the hands of Fox and de Mersch, and that lot. And he gavehimself these airs of enormous distance. I, at any rate, wasclean-handed in the matter; I hadn't any axe to grind.
"Ah, yes," he said, hastily, "you are to draw my portrait--as Fox putit. He sent me your Jenkins sketch. I read it--it struck a very nicenote. And so--." He sat himself down on a preposterously low chair, hisknees on a level with his chin. I muttered that I feared he would findthe process a bore.
"Not more for me than for you," he answered, seriously--"one has to dothese things."
"Why, yes," I echoed, "one has to do these things." It struck me that heregretted it--regretted it intensely; that he attached a bitter meaningto the words.
"And ... what is the procedure?" he asked, after a pause. "I am new tothe sort of thing." He had the air, I thought, of talking to somerespectable tradesman that one calls in only when one is _inextremis_--to a distinguished pawnbroker, a man quite at the top of atree of inferior timber.
"Oh, for the matter of that, so am I," I answered. "I'm supposed to getyour atmosphere, as Callan put it."
"Indeed," he answered, absently, and then, after a pause, "You knowCallan?" I was afraid I should fall in his estimation.
"One has to do these things," I said; "I've just been getting hisatmosphere."
He looked again at the letter in his hand, smoothed his necktie and wassilent. I realised that I was in the way, but I was still so disturbedthat I forgot how to phrase an excuse for a momentary absence.
"Perhaps, ..." I began.
He looked at me attentively.
"I mean, I think I'm in the way," I blurted out.
"Well," he answered, "it's quite a small matter. But, if you are to getmy atmosphere, we may as well begin out of doors." He hesitated, pleasedwith his witticism; "Unless you're tired," he added.
"I will go and get ready," I said, as if I were a lady withbonnet-strings to tie. I was conducted to my room, where I kicked myheels for a decent interval. When I descended, Mr. Churchill waslounging about the room with his hands in his trouser-pockets and hishead hanging limply over his chest. He said, "Ah!" on seeing me, as ifhe had forgotten my existence. He paused for a long moment, lookedmeditatively at himself in the glass over the fireplace, and then grewbrisk. "Come along," he said.
We took a longish walk through a lush home-country meadow land. Wetalked about a number of things, he opening the ball with that infernalJenkins sketch. I was in the stage at which one is sick of the thing,tired of the bare idea of it--and Mr. Churchill's laboriously kindphrases made the matter no better.
"You know who Jenkins stands for?" I asked. I wanted to get away on theside issues.
"Oh
, I guessed it was----" he answered. They said that Mr. Churchillwas an enthusiast for the school of painting of which Jenkins was thelast exponent. He began to ask questions about him. Did he still paint?Was he even alive?
"I once saw several of his pictures," he reflected. "His work certainlyappealed to me ... yes, it appealed to me. I meant at the time ... butone forgets; there are so many things." It seemed to me that the manwished by these detached sentences to convey that he had the weight of akingdom--of several kingdoms--on his mind; that he could spare no morethan a fragment of his thoughts for everyday use.
"You must take me to see him," he said, suddenly. "I ought to havesomething." I thought of poor white-haired Jenkins, and of his longstruggle with adversity. It seemed a little cruel that Churchill shouldtalk in that way without meaning a word of it--as if the words were apolite formality.
"Nothing would delight me more," I answered, and added, "nothing in theworld."
He asked me if I had seen such and such a picture, talked of artists,and praised this and that man very fittingly, but with a certaintimidity--a timidity that lured me back to my normally overbearing frameof mind. In such matters I was used to hearing my own voice. I couldtalk a man down, and, with a feeling of the unfitness of things, Italked Churchill down. The position, even then, struck me as gentlyhumorous. It was as if some infinitely small animal were bullying somecolossus among the beasts. I was of no account in the world, he had hissay among the Olympians. And I talked recklessly, like any littleschool-master, and he swallowed it.
We reached the broad market-place of a little, red and grey, home countytown; a place of but one street dominated by a great inn-signboard a-topof an enormous white post. The effigy of So-and-So of gracious memoryswung lazily, creaking, overhead.
"This is Etchingham," Churchill said.
It was a pleasant commentary on the course of time, this entry into thehome of my ancestors. I had been without the pale for so long, that Ihad never seen the haunt of ancient peace. They had done very little,the Grangers of Etchingham--never anything but live at Etchingham andquarrel at Etchingham and die at Etchingham and be the monstrousimportant Grangers of Etchingham. My father had had the undesirabletouch, not of the genius, but of the Bohemian. The Grangers ofEtchingham had cut him adrift and he had swum to sink in other seas. NowI was the last of the Grangers and, as things went, was quite the bestknown of all of them. They had grown poor in their generation; they badefair to sink, even as, it seemed, I bade fair to rise, and I had comeback to the old places on the arm of one of the great ones of the earth.I wondered what the portentous old woman who ruled alone in Etchinghamthought of these times--the portentous old woman who ruled, so theysaid, the place with a rod of iron; who made herself unbearable to hercompanions and had to fall back upon an unfortunate niece. I wonderedidly who the niece could be; certainly not a Granger of Etchingham, forI was the only one of the breed. One of her own nieces, most probably.Churchill had gone into the post-office, leaving me standing at the footof the sign-post. It was a pleasant summer day, the air very clear, theplace very slumbrous. I looked up the street at a pair of great stonegate-posts, august, in their way, standing distinctly aloof from thecommon houses, a little weather-stained, staidly lichened. At the top ofeach column sat a sculptured wolf--as far as I knew, my own crest. Itstruck me pleasantly that this must be the entrance of the Manor house.
The tall iron gates swung inward, and I saw a girl on a bicycle curveout, at the top of the sunny street. She glided, very clear, small, anddefined, against the glowing wall, leaned aslant for the turn, and cameshining down toward me. My heart leapt; she brought the whole thing intocomposition--the whole of that slumbrous, sunny street. The bright skyfell back into place, the red roofs, the blue shadows, the red and blueof the sign-board, the blue of the pigeons walking round my feet, thebright red of a postman's cart. She was gliding toward me, growing andgrowing into the central figure. She descended and stood close to me.
"You?" I said. "What blessed chance brought you here?"
"Oh, I am your aunt's companion," she answered, "her niece, you know."
"Then you _must_ be a cousin," I said.
"No; sister," she corrected, "I assure you it's sister. Ask anyone--askyour aunt." I was braced into a state of puzzled buoyancy.
"But really, you know," I said. She was smiling, standing up squarely tome, leaning a little back, swaying her machine with the motion of herbody.
"It's a little ridiculous, isn't it?" she said.
"Very," I answered, "but even at that, I don't see--. And I'm notphenomenally dense."
"Not phenomenally," she answered.
"Considering that I'm not a--not a Dimensionist," I bantered. "But youhave really palmed yourself off on my aunt?"
"Really," she answered, "she doesn't know any better. She believes in meimmensely. I am such a real Granger, there never was a more typical one.And we shake our heads together over you." My bewilderment was infinite,but it stopped short of being unpleasant.
"Might I call on my aunt?" I asked. "It wouldn't interfere--"
"Oh, it wouldn't _interfere_," she said, "but we leave for Paristo-morrow. We are very busy. We--that is, my aunt; I am too young andtoo, too discreet--have a little salon where we hatch plots against halfthe regimes in Europe. You have no idea how Legitimate we are."
"I don't understand in the least," I said; "not in the least."
"Oh, you must take me literally if you want to understand," sheanswered, "and you won't do that. I tell you plainly that I find myaccount in unsettled states, and that I am unsettling them. Everywhere.You will see."
She spoke with her monstrous dispassionateness, and I felt a shiver passdown my spine, very distinctly. I was thinking what she might do if evershe became in earnest, and if ever I chanced to stand in her way--as herhusband, for example.
"I wish you would talk sense--for one blessed minute," I said; "I wantto get things a little settled in my mind."
"Oh, I'll talk sense," she said, "by the hour, but you won't listen.Take your friend, Churchill, now. He's the man that we're going to bringdown. I mentioned it to you, and so...."
"But this is sheer madness," I answered.
"Oh, no, it's a bald statement of fact," she went on.
"I don't see how," I said, involuntarily.
"Your article in the _Hour_ will help. Every trifle will help," shesaid. "Things that you understand and others that you cannot.... He isidentifying himself with the Duc de Mersch. That looks nothing, but it'sfatal. There will be friendships ... and desertions."
"Ah!" I said. I had had an inkling of this, and it made me respect herinsight into home politics. She must have been alluding to Gurnard, whomeverybody--perhaps from fear--pretended to trust. She looked at me andsmiled again. It was still the same smile; she was not radiant to-dayand pensive to-morrow. "Do you know I don't like to hear that?" I began.
"Oh, there's irony in it, and pathos, and that sort of thing," she said,with the remotest chill of mockery in her intonation. "He goes into itclean-handed enough and he only half likes it. But he sees that it's hislast chance. It's not that he's worn out--but he feels that his time hascome--unless he does something. And so he's going to do something. Youunderstand?"
"Not in the least," I said, light-heartedly.
"Oh, it's the System for the Regeneration of the Arctic Regions--theGreenland affair of my friend de Mersch. Churchill is going to make agrand coup with that--to keep himself from slipping down hill, and, ofcourse, it would add immensely to your national prestige. And he onlyhalf sees what de Mersch is or _isn't_."
"This is all Greek to me," I muttered rebelliously.
"Oh, I know, I know," she said. "But one has to do these things, and Iwant you to understand. So Churchill doesn't like the whole business.But he's under the shadow. He's been thinking a good deal lately thathis day is over--I'll prove it to you in a minute--and so--oh, he'sgoing to make a desperate effort to get in touch with the spirit of thetimes that he doesn't like an
d doesn't understand. So he lets you gethis atmosphere. That's all."
"Oh, that's _all_," I said, ironically.
"Of course he'd have liked to go on playing the stand-off to chaps likeyou and me," she mimicked the tone and words of Fox himself.
"This is witchcraft," I said. "How in the world do you know what Foxsaid to me?"
"Oh, I know," she said. It seemed to me that she was playing me with allthis nonsense--as if she must have known that I had a tenderness for herand were fooling me to the top of her bent. I tried to get my hook in.
"Now look here," I said, "we must get things settled. You ..."
She carried the speech off from under my nose.
"Oh, you won't denounce me," she said, "not any more than you didbefore; there are so many reasons. There would be a scene, and you'reafraid of scenes--and our aunt would back _me_ up. She'd have to. Mymoney has been reviving the glories of the Grangers. You can see,they've been regilding the gate."
I looked almost involuntarily at the tall iron gates through which shehad passed into my view. It was true enough--some of the scroll work wasradiant with new gold.
"Well," I said, "I will give you credit for not wishing to--to prey uponmy aunt. But still ..." I was trying to make the thing out. It struckme that she was an American of the kind that subsidizes households likethat of Etchingham Manor. Perhaps my aunt had even forced her to takethe family name, to save appearances. The old woman was capable ofanything, even of providing an obscure nephew with a brilliant sister.And I should not be thanked if I interfered. This skeleton of swiftreasoning passed between word and word ... "You are no sister of mine!"I was continuing my sentence quite amiably.
Her face brightened to greet someone approaching behind me.
"Did you hear him?" she said. "_Did_ you hear him, Mr. Churchill. Hecasts off--he disowns me. Isn't he a stern brother? And the quarrel isabout nothing." The impudence--or the presence of mind ofit--overwhelmed me.
Churchill smiled pleasantly.
"Oh--one always quarrels about nothing," Churchill answered. He spoke afew words to her; about my aunt; about the way her machine ran--thatsort of thing. He behaved toward her as if she were an indulged child,impertinent with licence and welcome enough. He himself looked ratherlike the short-sighted, but indulgent and very meagre lion that peers atthe unicorn across a plum-cake.
"So you are going back to Paris," he said. "Miss Churchill will besorry. And you are going to continue to--to break up the universe?"
"Oh, yes," she answered, "we are going on with that, my aunt would nevergive it up. She couldn't, you know."
"You'll get into trouble," Churchill said, as if he were talking to achild intent on stealing apples. "And when is our turn coming? You'regoing to restore the Stuarts, aren't you?" It was his idea of badinage,amiable without consequence.
"Oh, not quite that," she answered, "not _quite_ that." It was curiousto watch her talking to another man--to a man, not a bagman like Callan.She put aside the face she always showed me and became at once whatChurchill took her for--a spoiled child. At times she suggested acertain kind of American, and had that indefinable air of glibacquaintance with the names, and none of the spirit of tradition. Onehalf expected her to utter rhapsodies about donjon-keeps.
"Oh, you know," she said, with a fine affectation of aloofness, "weshall have to be rather hard upon you; we shall crumple you up like--"Churchill had been moving his stick absent-mindedly in the dust of theroad, he had produced a big "C H U." She had erased it with the point ofher foot--"like that," she concluded.
He laid his head back and laughed almost heartily.
"Dear me," he said, "I had no idea that I was so much in the way of--ofyourself and Mrs. Granger."
"Oh, it's not only that," she said, with a little smile and a cast ofthe eye to me. "But you've got to make way for the future."
Churchill's face changed suddenly. He looked rather old, and grey, andwintry, even a little frail. I understood what she was proving to me,and I rather disliked her for it. It seemed wantonly cruel to remind aman of what he was trying to forget.
"Ah, yes," he said, with the gentle sadness of quite an old man, "I daresay there is more in that than you think. Even you will have to learn."
"But not for a long time," she interrupted audaciously.
"I hope not," he answered, "I hope not." She nodded and glided away.
We resumed the road in silence. Mr. Churchill smiled at his own thoughtsonce or twice.
"A most amusing ..." he said at last. "She does me a great deal of good,a great deal."
I think he meant that she distracted his thoughts.
"Does she always talk like that?" I asked. He had hardly spoken to me,and I felt as if I were interrupting a reverie--but I wanted to know.
"I should say she did," he answered; "I should _say_ so. But MissChurchill says that she has a real genius for organization. She used tosee a good deal of them, before they went to Paris, you know."
"What are they doing there?" It was as if I were extracting secrets froma sleep-walker.
"Oh, they have a kind of a meeting place, for all kinds of Legitimistpretenders--French and Spanish, and that sort of thing. I believe Mrs.Granger takes it very seriously." He looked at me suddenly. "But youought to know more about it than I do," he said.
"Oh, we see very little of each other," I answered, "you could hardlycall us brother and sister."
"Oh, I see," he answered. I don't know what he saw. For myself, I sawnothing.