Coelebs: The Love Story of a Bachelor. Young Florence Ethel Mills
Although there was no longer a woman to occupy Mr Musgrave’s drawing-room, he adhered to his rule strictly, because adhering to rule was his practice, and men of John Musgrave’s temperament do not change the habit of a lifetime merely on account of the removal of the reason for a stricture. But unmistakably on this particular night the rule had been violated; the fragrance of cigarette smoke lingered in the air, and on a small table beside Mrs Chadwick’s coffee-cup an ash-tray, containing a partially smoked cigarette, confessed unblushingly that Mrs Chadwick had been enjoying her after-dinner smoke. On a cushion beside Mrs Chadwick, who was seated on the sofa, reposed the pampered pekinese, the presence of which both Eliza and her master resented equally.
John Musgrave gravely ignored both these objectionable novelties, and, crossing the room in his deliberate fashion, seated himself beside Mrs Errol, as a man adrift in uncongenial surroundings seeks refuge in the society of one upon whom the mantle of respectability still rested, and who embodied for him safe and familiar things.
Walter Errol shared the sofa with the pekinese and the pekinese’s mistress, and smoothed the little creature’s silken coat while he chatted with its owner and Mrs Sommers, who, a devoted admirer of the vicar’s, sat on the other side of him.
“I’ve been hearing such a lot about the parish from your wife,” Mrs Chadwick said. “I’m quite charmed with the place. I have always longed to find a spot that has been passed over by time, so that I could bring it up to date in a hurry. It takes the people’s breath away at first; but they grow to like it – like riding on a switchback and standing on a moving staircase. When one learns to balance one’s self these things are delightful.”
“I can well believe it,” the vicar answered, and wondered whether she suspected that she had already succeeded in taking away the breath of one of Moresby’s inhabitants. “But I doubt whether you will find us exactly grateful.”
She looked him directly in the eyes and smiled. She was, he observed, a very handsome woman, and her smile was radiant.
“I never look for gratitude,” she answered; “it is a waste of time. And why should people be grateful? Whatever we do, even though it be ostensibly for the benefit of others, we do in a measure for ourselves. Therefore there is no sufficient ground for gratitude. I shall simply love modernising Moresby. Modernising is one of my cranks. The improvement of women’s economic position is another. I don’t employ any men servants, except for the rough and hard work. I have a woman butler, women chauffeurs, women gardeners – head gardeners; they have lads under them. And their wages are at the same rate as men’s wages. It works admirably. You must come and inspect every department when we are settled in. And if you can help with any ideas I shall be grateful.”
“So you permit yourself the grace of gratitude?” he said, smiling.
“Oh, that’s a figure of speech, of course. I hope you will be kind to me, and let me poke about the schools, and interfere generally?”
“If that is a kindness, you can count on it,” he said. “I shall be grateful for ideas too. I’ve grown behind the times with the rest.”
“You humbug!” remarked Mrs Sommers with a laugh. “He is the only progressive person in Moresby,” she added, turning to Mrs Chadwick, who was watching the vicar’s caressing hand as it played with her dog’s ears. “You’ll find he will possibly think ahead of you. Where you will need to start – and I very much doubt whether you will get beyond the starting-point – is with my brother, John. Modernise him, my dear, and I will believe in woman’s power.”
Mrs Chadwick glanced towards John Musgrave, seated erect in his chair, conversing seriously with the vicar’s bored little wife; then her eyes wandered back to Belle’s face and rested there affectionately.
“You have set me something of a task,” she said. “But I am going to attempt it.”
Walter Errol laughed softly.
“Since I possess already unshakable faith in your sex,” he said, “I predict enormous changes. ‘Ce n’est pas une simple émeute, c’est un révolution.’”
Chapter Five
Mrs Chadwick’s purpose in coming to Moresby was not concerned only, or even chiefly, with the interior decoration of the Hall, which was kept, as far as the squire’s means permitted, in very good order both inside and out. There was a certain amount of work to be done, and Mrs Chadwick purposed having a voice in this, as in other things; but her presence was more concerned with the home farm than with the palatial residence she intended to occupy. The home farm came within the range of her scheme for the development of women’s energies.
For several generations this farm had been worked on conservative lines by tenants who from father to son had succeeded to the place in unbroken succession, after the manner, indeed, of the family at the Hall. Though merely tenants, they had looked upon the farm as their rightful inheritance, quite as if it had been entailed property of their own. That anyone should seek to dispossess them would never have occurred to them in the light of possibility. But the present fanner was a bad tenant, and the farm was going to ruin. With the expiration of his lease had come the order for his eviction.
Mrs Chadwick, in taking the Hall, had stipulated for the right to find her own tenant for the farm. In the end she became the tenant, with full power to do what she liked with the property, providing always that what she did was for the improvement of the farm, and was first of all submitted to the squire for his approval. She had submitted so many schemes to him already that the worthy man, like John Musgrave, had felt his breath taken away; and in order to avoid any further shocks he had applied her to his lawyer, and gone abroad for an indefinite time to escape the worry of these matters. Change was not agreeable to him; but he was not so unwise as to object to the improvement of his estate, and the expenditure of other people’s money upon it.
The lawyer, grasping the main point that Mrs Chadwick intended laying out money on the property, and had plenty of it to disburse, was satisfied to give her a free hand. Provided only that she increased the working value of the farm, he saw no reason against her pulling down all the old buildings and erecting new ones on improved models, and enlarging and improving the dwelling-house. Everything was to be brought up to date. There could be no objection, the lawyer considered, to that. He was not averse to change when it had a sound financial basis; and Mrs Chadwick’s ideas occurred to him as practical. He was not quite so positive that her intention to work the farm principally with female labour would prove satisfactory. But that was her affair. If she liked to run risks of that nature she could afford the whim.
With the passing of the days, with the coming and going of architects and builders, and other persons the nature of whose occupation remained a mystery to John Musgrave, Mrs Chadwick’s host became more and more bewildered, more distinctly opposed to this feverish feminine energy – to this unfeminine encroachment on what he had always considered was the business of his sex. What, he wondered, was Mr Chadwick thinking about to allow his wife to interview these people, and settle without reference to his wishes all the details of the home which was, after all, to be paid for by cheques which he, presumably, would sign?
John Musgrave could not have brought himself to remind any woman of her duty as a wife; but he did in many ways allow Mrs Chadwick to see that he viewed her proceedings with amazement, and with a sort of well-controlled disapproval. His attitude only amused her. In the process of attempting to modernise Mr Musgrave, she took a pleasure occasionally in shocking him.
“Does Mr Chadwick usually leave the conduct of his affairs entirely in your hands?” he asked her once.
“His affairs!” she repeated, with an uplift of her arched brows. “Oh, you mean ‘our’ affairs. Will knows these things interest me; they only bore him. He is a lazy man, except in the matter of organisation; he’s splendid at that. Generally, I suggest a certain scheme and he develops it. He has a genius for developing.”
That certainly was true of Mr Chadwick. In most of his successful undertakings his wife had originated the idea, and he had developed it; hers was the quick, and his the thorough, brain. Quite voluntarily he ceded her a full share for the credit of the enormous fortune he had amassed; and he was lazily interested in her