Nevertheless the fellow must be a good man with horses; otherwise he would not be perched on one with the stirrups crossed over the saddle in front of him and lead two others. She did not know that she would care to do that herself nowadays; there had been a time when she would have. She had intended to slip down from the chestnut and hand it over to Gunning. Once she was down on the road he could not very well refuse. But she felt disinclined to cock her leg over the saddle. He looked like a fellow who could refuse.
He refused. She had asked him to hold her horse whilst she went down and spoke to his master. He had made no motion towards doing so; he had continued to stare fixedly at her. She had said:
“You’re Captain Tietjens’ servant, aren’t you? I’m his wife. Staying with Lord Fittleworth!”
He had made no answer and no movement except to draw the back of his right hand across his left nostril — for lack of a handkerchief. He said something incomprehensible — but not conciliatory. Then he began a longer speech. That she understood. It was to the effect that he had been thirty years, boy and man with his Lordship and the rest of his time with the Cahptn. He also pointed out that there was a hitching post and chain by the gate there. But he did not advise her to hitch to it. The chestnut would kick to flinders any cart that came along the road. And the mere idea of the chestnut lashing out and injuring itself caused her to shudder; she was a good horsewoman.
The conversation went with long pauses. She was in no hurry; she would have to wait till Campion or Fittleworth came back — with the verdict, probably. The fellow, when he used short sentences, was incomprehensible because of his dialect. When he spoke longer she got a word or two out of it.
It troubled her a little, now, that Edith Ethel might be coming along the road. Practically she had promised to meet her at that spot and at about that moment, Edith Ethel proposing to sell her love-letters to Christopher — or through him…. The night before she had told Fittleworth that Christopher had bought the place below her with money he had from Lady Macmaster because Lady Macmaster had been his mistress. Fittleworth had boggled at that… it had been at that moment that he had gone rather stiff to her.
As a matter of fact Christopher had bought that place out of a windfall. Years before — even before she had married him — he had had a legacy from an aunt and in his visionary way had invested it in some Colonial — very likely Canadian — property or invention or tramway concession because he considered that some remote place, owing to its geographical position on some road — was going to grow. Apparently during the war it had grown and the completely forgotten investment had paid nine and sixpence in the pound. Out of the blue. It could not be helped. With a monetary record of vision-ariness and generosity such as Christopher had behind him, some chickens must now and then come home — some visionary investment turn out sound, some debtor turn honest. She understood even that some colonel who had died on Armistice night and to whom Christopher had lent a good sum in hundreds had turned honest. At any rate his executors had written to ask her for Chris-topher’s address with a view to making payments. She hadn’t at the time known Christopher’s address, but no doubt they had got it from the War Office or somewhere.
No doubt with windfalls like those he had kept afloat, for she did not believe the old-furniture business as much as paid its way. She had heard through Mrs. Cramp that the American partner had embezzled most of the money that should have gone to Christopher. You should not do business with Americans. Christopher, it is true, had years ago — during the war — predicted an American invasion — as he always predicted everything. He had indeed said that if you wanted to have money you must get it from where money was going to; in other words, if you wanted to sell, you must prepare to sell what was wanted. And they wanted old furniture more than anything else. She didn’t mind. She was already beginning a little campaign with Mrs. de Bray Pape to make her re-furnish Groby — to make her export all the clumsy eighteen-forty mahogany that the great house contained, to Sante Fé or wherever it was that Mr. Pape lived alone, and to re-furnish with Louis Quatorze as befitted the spiritual descendant of the Maintenon. The worst of it was that Mr. Pape was stingy.
She was, indeed, in a fine taking that morning — Mrs. de Bray Pape. In hauling out the stump of Groby Great Tree the woodcutters had apparently brought down two-thirds of the ball-room exterior wall and that vast, gloomy room, with its immense lustres was wrecked along with the old school-rooms above it. As far as she could make out from the steward’s letter Christopher’s boyhood’s bedroom had practically disappeared…. Well, if Groby Great Tree did not like Groby House it had finely taken its dying revenge…. A nice shock Christopher would get! Anyhow Mrs. de Bray Pape had pretty well mangled the great dovecote in erecting in it a new power station.
But apparently it was going to mangle the Papes to the tune of a pretty penny and apparently Mr. Pape might be expected to give his wife no end of a time…. Well, you can’t expect to be God’s Vicegerent of England without barking your shins on old, hard things.
No doubt Mark knew all about it by now. Perhaps it had killed him. She hoped it hadn’t because she still hoped to play him some tidy little tricks before she had done with him…. If he were dead or dying beneath that parallelogram of thatch down among the apple boughs all sorts of things might be going to happen. Quite inconvenient things.
There would be the title. She quite definitely did not want the title and it would become more difficult to decry Christopher. People with titles and great possessions are vastly more difficult to decry than impoverished commoners, because the scale of morality changes. Titles and great possessions expose you to great temptations — you may be excused if you succumb. It is scandalous, on the other hand, that the indigent should have any fun!
So that sitting rather restfully in the sunlight on her horse, Sylvia felt like a general who is losing the fruits of victory. She did not much care. She had got down Groby Great Tree: that was as nasty a blow as the Tietjenses had had in ten generations.
But then a queer, disagreeable thought went through her mind, just as Gunning at last made again a semi-comprehensible remark. Perhaps in letting Groby Great Tree be cut down God was lifting the ban off the Tietjenses. He might well.
Gunning, however, had said something like:
“Shuddn’ gaw dahn theer. Ride Boldro up to farm n’ put he in loose box.” She gathered that if she would ride her horse to some farm he could be put in a loose box and she could rest in the farmer’s parlour. Gunning was looking at her with a queer, intent look. She could not just think what it meant.
Suddenly it reminded her of her childhood. Her father had had a head gardener just as gnarled and just as apparently autocratic. That was it. She had not been much in the country for thirty years. Apparently country people had not changed much. Times change; probably people do not, much.
For it came back to her with sudden extraordinary clearness. The side of a greenhouse, down there in the west where she had been “Miss Sylvia, oh, Miss Sylvia,” for a whole army of protesting retainers, and that old, brown, gnarled fellow, who was equally “Mr. Carter” for them all, except her father. Mr. Carter had been potting geranium shoots and she had been teasing a little white kitten. She was thirteen with immense plaits of blond hair. The kitten had escaped from her and was rubbing itself, its back arched against the leggings of Mr. Carter, who had a special affection for it. She had proposed — merely to torment Mr. Carter — to do something to the kitten, to force its paws into walnut shells perhaps. She had so little meant to hurt the kitten that she had forgotten what it was she had proposed to do. And suddenly the heavy man, his bloodshot eyes fairly blazing, had threatened if she so much as blew on that kitten’s fur, to thrash her on a part of her anatomy on which public school-boys rather than young ladies are usually chastised… so that she would not be able to sit down for a week, he had said.