Chapter V: A Secret Agreement

MR. STIRLING had placed himself in the farmer's high-backed chair; and Mrs. Morris occupied one of cane, exactly opposite. Their positions seemed to be opposed, as well mentally as bodily. A displeased dent still marked the Squire's forehead; and his gaze was bent moodily downward. Mrs. Morris, looking not at him but at the wall, with hands resolutely folded, heard what he had to say. An odour of stale tobacco filled the air; for this was the farmer's "den."

"You see what I mean?"

"Yes—I see," she replied.

"For my niece's sake, I will allow no risks to be run." She knew that he might have added, "And for my own sake!"—and her lip curled. "Remember!—I am quite decided about this. If, through any carelessness, you allow suspicions to be awakened, you know the consequences."

"Yes," she stolidly repeated.

"I have been a good friend to Raye." He spoke in unconscious echo of Winnie's words.

"Yes, you have," she admitted. "But—"

"You must be content with that. I will go on being a good friend to him, so long as our agreement is strictly kept to. Once break it— and you know the consequences."

He was gazing at her, and her expressionless eyes met his.

"Yes, I know," she assented in a dull tone.

"Your income stops, and I have no more to do with Raye. You understand what that means—for the future."

"Yes, I know," she repeated.

"One item in our agreement was—that Raye should never come to this neighbourhood, without my express permission."

"You mean—he's never to see me?"

"I mean what I say. He is not to come here. If you wish to see him, you go elsewhere."

"Not even—once in the year! I've always had that."

"Not even once in the year. It is your own doing. If you had stayed in Norfolk, as I desired, you could have had him as before. Now you cannot."

"It's a bit hard on Raye—if he mayn't ever come to his own home."

"That is your affair. You have chosen."

Her face took an obstinate set.

"I couldn't help coming. I'm wanted here. I just felt I had to come."

"Under the circumstances, you ought to have felt that you had to stay away, considering—though I would rather not say this—all that I have done for you and yours. Remember—but for me you were penniless. Remember, too, that I was not bound. You had from the first no real claim upon me."

"I don't know as I see that," she muttered.

"Whether you see it or not, it is true."

"Anyway, when I promised I'd do as you wanted, I did say I might some day have to come here and look after my uncle. I don't forget that you've done a lot for us. But all the same, I had to come."

"Then you have to accept the consequences. When you wish to see Raye, it must be elsewhere. That is decided. I need not again remind you how much in Raye's future may hang upon this. One more point. You must keep Jane in order."

"I'm sure I don't know whatever I'm to do. She's off on her bike for hours together. I can't stop her. She aint like Winnie, always happy with a book. Jane likes lots of friends, and she don't trouble to tell me where she goes, nor what she does with herself."

The Squire's look was uncompromising.

"She's for ever on the go, wanting amusements. I don't know what's come over the girls nowadays. It's always amusement that they want,—not work."

"You must control her."

"I never could manage Jane, and that's the truth. She just goes where she chooses, and picks up whoever she comes across. It's her way."

"It is a great deal too much her way. She is becoming talked about. In Norfolk, however objectionable such behaviour might be, it did not matter to me personally. I will not allow it here."

"I don't see how I'm to stop her."

"You must find a way. Jane has to be kept in order." In a lower tone he added: "Do not make it necessary for me to take next year a step which I should be most reluctant to take—to refuse the renewal of your uncle's lease."

She was startled out of her stolid unconcern. "You wouldn't! It would kill him."

"I should regret extremely having to do it. But—he might have to choose between that and sending you all away,—or rather, sending Jane away. At any cost, I intend to guard my niece's happiness."

He could see that she swelled resentfully, and he stood up to say good-bye. No one, noting those two faces, contrasted and antagonistic, would have imagined how in the past their lives had been intertwined; not through any action of his own. The fact was known to themselves only; not even to her children.

They watched him from the sitting-room window, as he passed down the garden, and paused for a chat with the farmer; and Mrs. Morris observed—

"He's been making a lot of complaints of you, Jane. You've got to mend your ways."

"Much obliged!" Jane tossed her head.

"He says you're getting talked about in Lynnbrooke. You're always in and out there; and you're a deal too free and noisy with folks. He don't like that sort of thing."

Jane tossed her head again. She was extraordinarily unlike Winnie; not only by nature but by training, having been sent by her mother to a very third-rate school, and then having spent years with some distant cousins of her mother in Manchester; undesirable companions for any girl.

"He'll have to do without the liking. I'm not his humble slave—I can tell him that. Goodness gracious me, I'm not going to ask him what I may and mayn't do. He seems to think he owns our bodies and souls, because the land belongs to him."

"He's always so kind," Winnie put in reproachfully.

"Kind to you, if you like. You know how to come over him. He just hates me, and always did. He thinks of me as if I was scum beneath his feet." Jane's metaphor was mixed.

"It's your own fault," Mrs. Morris said shortly. "And if you don't look sharp, you'll get us all into trouble. I can tell you, he won't stand it. I know what he means. It's those Parkinses he don't like, that you're so thick with."

Jane snapped her fingers.

"I don't care that for him," she declared.

Unconscious of Jane's rebellious attitude, the Squire rode homeward; and half-way between Lynnbrooke and Lynnthorpe he came suddenly on Doris. She was seated meditatively by the roadside, her bicycle propped against the hedge. She was so engrossed she did not notice his approach till he dismounted.

"Are you coming to see Katherine? Is anything wrong with your machine?"

She glanced up with a brilliant smile. "Oh no, thanks. I'm only making a debating-club of myself. Question under discussion—Shall I go on, or shall I turn back?"

"Why turn back? Thomas shall see you home."

"Oh, thanks—but it's light so late now. Mother wanted me to cover some books before going out; and I wouldn't. It's an awful business—such a state as they are in. And I was vexed about something else too; so I started off without telling her. Ought I to give up and go back?"

"Is that necessary, now you have come so far?" He met the appeal in her face with a man's decisiveness. "Tell your mother I wished you to come."

"Thanks awfully—" and she sprang to her feet. "That will put it all right."