The Country House

J >> John Galsworthy >> The Country House

THE COUNTRY HOUSE

By John Galsworthy




CHAPTER I

A PARTY AT WORSTED SKEYNES

The year was 1891, the month October, the day Monday. In the dark
outside the railway-station at Worsted Skeynes Mr. Horace Pendyce's
omnibus, his brougham, his luggage-cart, monopolised space. The face
of Mr. Horace Pendyce's coachman monopolised the light of the solitary
station lantern. Rosy-gilled, with fat close-clipped grey whiskers and
inscrutably pursed lips, it presided high up in the easterly air like
an emblem of the feudal system. On the platform within, Mr. Horace
Pendyce's first footman and second groom in long livery coats with
silver buttons, their appearance slightly relieved by the rakish cock of
their top-hats, awaited the arrival of the 6.15.

The first footman took from his pocket a half-sheet of stamped and
crested notepaper covered with Mr. Horace Pendyce's small and precise
calligraphy. He read from it in a nasal, derisive voice:

"Hon. Geoff, and Mrs. Winlow, blue room and dress; maid, small drab. Mr.
George, white room. Mrs. Jaspar Bellew, gold. The Captain, red. General
Pendyce, pink room; valet, back attic. That's the lot."

The groom, a red-cheeked youth, paid no attention.

"If this here Ambler of Mr. George's wins on Wednesday," he said, "it's
as good as five pounds in my pocket. Who does for Mr. George?"

"James, of course."

The groom whistled.

"I'll try an' get his loadin' to-morrow. Are you on, Tom?"

The footman answered:

"Here's another over the page. Green room, right wing--that Foxleigh;
he's no good. 'Take all you can and give nothing' sort! But can't he
shoot just! That's why they ask him!"

From behind a screen of dark trees the train ran in.

Down the platform came the first passengers--two cattlemen with long
sticks, slouching by in their frieze coats, diffusing an odour of beast
and black tobacco; then a couple, and single figures, keeping as far
apart as possible, the guests of Mr. Horace Pendyce. Slowly they came
out one by one into the loom of the carriages, and stood with their eyes
fixed carefully before them, as though afraid they might recognise each
other. A tall man in a fur coat, whose tall wife carried a small bag of
silver and shagreen, spoke to the coachman:

"How are you, Benson? Mr. George says Captain Pendyce told him he
wouldn't be down till the 9.30. I suppose we'd better----"

Like a breeze tuning through the frigid silence of a fog, a high, clear
voice was heard:

"Oh, thanks; I'll go up in the brougham."

Followed by the first footman carrying her wraps, and muffled in a white
veil, through which the Hon. Geoffrey Winlow's leisurely gaze caught
the gleam of eyes, a lady stepped forward, and with a backward glance
vanished into the brougham. Her head appeared again behind the swathe of
gauze.

"There's plenty of room, George."

George Pendyce walked quickly forward, and disappeared beside her. There
was a crunch of wheels; the brougham rolled away.

The Hon. Geoffrey Winlow raised his face again.

"Who was that, Benson?"

The coachman leaned over confidentially, holding his podgy white-gloved
hand outspread on a level with the Hon. Geoffrey's hat.

"Mrs. Jaspar Bellew, sir. Captain Bellew's lady, of the Firs."

"But I thought they weren't---"

"No, sir; they're not, sir."

"Ah!"

A calm rarefied voice was heard from the door of the omnibus:

"Now, Geoff!"

The Hon. Geoffrey Winlow followed his wife, Mr. Foxleigh, and General
Pendyce into the omnibus, and again Mrs. Winlow's voice was heard:

"Oh, do you mind my maid? Get in, Tookson!"

Mr. Horace Pendyce's mansion, white and long and low, standing
well within its acres, had come into the possession of his
great-great-great-grandfather through an alliance with the last of the
Worsteds. Originally a fine property let in smallish holdings to tenants
who, having no attention bestowed on them, did very well and paid
excellent rents, it was now farmed on model lines at a slight loss. At
stated intervals Mr. Pendyce imported a new kind of cow, or partridge,
and built a wing to the schools. His income was fortunately independent
of this estate. He was in complete accord with the Rector and the
sanitary authorities, and not infrequently complained that his tenants
did not stay on the land. His wife was a Totteridge, and his coverts
admirable. He had been, needless to say, an eldest son. It was his
individual conviction that individualism had ruined England, and he had
set himself deliberately to eradicate this vice from the character of
his tenants. By substituting for their individualism his own tastes,
plans, and sentiments, one might almost say his own individualism, and
losing money thereby, he had gone far to demonstrate his pet theory that
the higher the individualism the more sterile the life of the community.
If, however, the matter was thus put to him he grew both garrulous
and angry, for he considered himself not an individualist, but what he
called a "Tory Communist." In connection with his agricultural interests
he was naturally a Fair Trader; a tax on corn, he knew, would make all
the difference in the world to the prosperity of England. As he often
said: "A tax of three or four shillings on corn, and I should be farming
my estate at a profit."

Mr. Pendyce had other peculiarities, in which he was not too individual.
He was averse to any change in the existing order of things, made lists
of everything, and was never really so happy as when talking of himself
or his estate. He had a black spaniel dog called John, with a long nose
and longer ears, whom he had bred himself till the creature was not
happy out of his sight.

In appearance Mr. Pendyce was rather of the old school, upright and
active, with thin side-whiskers, to which, however, for some years past
he had added moustaches which drooped and were now grizzled. He wore
large cravats and square-tailed coats. He did not smoke.

At the head of his dining-table loaded with flowers and plate, he sat
between the Hon. Mrs. Winlow and Mrs. Jaspar Bellew, nor could he
have desired more striking and contrasted supporters. Equally tall,
full-figured, and comely, Nature had fixed between these two women a
gulf which Mr. Pendyce, a man of spare figure, tried in vain to fill.
The composure peculiar to the ashen type of the British aristocracy
wintered permanently on Mrs. Winlow's features like the smile of a
frosty day. Expressionless to a degree, they at once convinced the
spectator that she was a woman of the best breeding. Had an expression
ever arisen upon these features, it is impossible to say what might have
been the consequences. She had followed her nurse's adjuration: "Lor,
Miss Truda, never you make a face--You might grow so!" Never since that
day had Gertrude Winlow, an Honourable in her own right and in that of
her husband, made a face, not even, it is believed, when her son was
born. And then to find on the other side of Mr. Pendyce that puzzling
Mrs. Bellew with the green-grey eyes, at which the best people of her
own sex looked with instinctive disapproval! A woman in her position
should avoid anything conspicuous, and Nature had given her a
too-striking appearance. People said that when, the year before last,
she had separated from Captain Bellew, and left the Firs, it was simply
because they were tired of one another. They said, too, that it looked
as if she were encouraging the attentions of George, Mr. Pendyce's
eldest son.

Lady Maiden had remarked to Mrs. Winlow in the drawing-room before
dinner:

"What is it about that Mrs. Bellew? I never liked her. A woman situated
as she is ought to be more careful. I don't understand her being asked
here at all, with her husband still at the Firs, only just over the way.
Besides, she's very hard up. She doesn't even attempt to disguise it. I
call her almost an adventuress."

Mrs. Winlow had answered:

"But she's some sort of cousin to Mrs. Pendyce. The Pendyces are related
to everybody! It's so boring. One never knows---"

Lady Maiden replied:

"Did you know her when she was living down here? I dislike those
hard-riding women. She and her husband were perfectly reckless. One
heard of nothing else but what she had jumped and how she had jumped it;
and she bets and goes racing. If George Pendyce is not in love with her,
I'm very much mistaken. He's been seeing far too much of her in town.
She's one of those women that men are always hanging about!"

At the head of his dinner-table, where before each guest was placed
a menu carefully written in his eldest daughter's handwriting, Horace
Pendyce supped his soup.

"This soup," he said to Mrs. Bellew, "reminds me of your dear old
father; he was extraordinarily fond of it. I had a great respect for
your father--a wonderful man! I always said he was the most determined
man I'd met since my own dear father, and he was the most obstinate man
in the three kingdoms!"

He frequently made use of the expression "in the three kingdoms," which
sometimes preceded a statement that his grandmother was descended from
Richard III., while his grandfather came down from the Cornish giants,
one of whom, he would say with a disparaging smile, had once thrown a
cow over a wall.

"Your father was too much of an individualist, Mrs. Bellew. I have a
lot of experience of individualism in the management of my estate, and
I find that an individualist is never contented. My tenants have
everything they want, but it's impossible to satisfy them. There's a
fellow called Peacock, now, a most pig-headed, narrowminded chap. I
don't give in to him, of course. If he had his way, he'd go back to the
old days, farm the land in his own fashion. He wants to buy it from me.
Old vicious system of yeoman farming. Says his grandfather had it. He's
that sort of man. I hate individualism; it's ruining England. You won't
fend better cottages, or better farm-buildings anywhere than on my
estate. I go in for centralisation. I dare say you know what I call
myself--a 'Tory Communist.' To my mind, that's the party of the future.
Now, your father's motto was: 'Every man for himself!' On the land that
would never do. Landlord and tenant must work together. You'll come over
to Newmarket with us on Wednesday? George has a very fine horse running
in the Rutlandshire a very fine horse. He doesn't bet, I'm glad to say.
If there's one thing I hate more than another, it's gambling!"

Mrs. Bellew gave him a sidelong glance, and a little ironical smile
peeped out on her full red lips. But Mr. Pendyce had been called away to
his soup. When he was ready to resume the conversation she was talking
to his son, and the Squire, frowning, turned to the Hon. Mrs. Winlow.
Her attention was automatic, complete, monosyllabic; she did not appear
to fatigue herself by an over-sympathetic comprehension, nor was she
subservient. Mr. Pendyce found her a competent listener.

"The country is changing," he said, "changing every day. Country houses
are not what they were. A great responsibility rests on us landlords. If
we go, the whole thing goes."

What, indeed, could be more delightful than this country-house life of
Mr. Pendyce; its perfect cleanliness, its busy leisure, its combination
of fresh air and scented warmth, its complete intellectual repose, its
essential and professional aloofness from suffering of any kind, and its
soup--emblematically and above all, its soup--made from the rich remains
of pampered beasts?

Mr. Pendyce thought this life the one right life; those who lived it the
only right people. He considered it a duty to live this life, with its
simple, healthy, yet luxurious curriculum, surrounded by creatures bred
for his own devouring, surrounded, as it were, by a sea of soup! And
that people should go on existing by the million in the towns, preying
on each other, and getting continually out of work, with all those
other depressing concomitants of an awkward state, distressed him. While
suburban life, that living in little rows of slate-roofed houses so
lamentably similar that no man of individual taste could bear to see
them, he much disliked. Yet, in spite of his strong prejudice in
favour of country-house life, he was not a rich man, his income barely
exceeding ten thousand a year.

The first shooting-party of the season, devoted to spinneys and the
outlying coverts, had been, as usual, made to synchronise with the last
Newmarket Meeting, for Newmarket was within an uncomfortable distance of
Worsted Skeynes; and though Mr. Pendyce had a horror of gaming, he liked
to figure there and pass for a man interested in sport for sport's sake,
and he was really rather proud of the fact that his son had picked up so
good a horse as the Ambler promised to be for so little money, and was
racing him for pure sport.

The guests had been carefully chosen. On Mrs. Winlow's right was
Thomas Brandwhite (of Brown and Brandwhite), who had a position in
the financial world which could not well be ignored, two places in the
country, and a yacht. His long, lined face, with very heavy moustaches,
wore habitually a peevish look. He had retired from his firm, and
now only sat on the Boards of several companies. Next to him was Mrs.
Hussell Barter, with that touching look to be seen on the faces of many
English ladies, that look of women who are always doing their duty,
their rather painful duty; whose eyes, above cheeks creased and
withered, once rose-leaf hued, now over-coloured by strong weather,
are starry and anxious; whose speech is simple, sympathetic, direct,
a little shy, a little hopeless, yet always hopeful; who are ever
surrounded by children, invalids, old people, all looking to them for
support; who have never known the luxury of breaking down--of these was
Mrs. Hussell Barter, the wife of the Reverend Hussell Barter, who would
shoot to-morrow, but would not attend the race-meeting on the Wednesday.
On her other hand was Gilbert Foxleigh, a lean-flanked man with a long,
narrow head, strong white teeth, and hollow, thirsting eyes. He came of
a county family of Foxleighs, and was one of six brothers, invaluable
to the owners of coverts or young, half-broken horses in days when, as
a Foxleigh would put it, "hardly a Johnny of the lot could shoot or ride
for nuts." There was no species of beast, bird, or fish, that he could
not and did not destroy with equal skill and enjoyment. The only thing
against him was his income, which was very small. He had taken in Mrs.
Brandwhite, to whom, however, he talked but little, leaving her to
General Pendyce, her neighbour on the other side.

Had he been born a year before his brother, instead of a year after,
Charles Pendyce would naturally have owned Worsted Skeynes, and
Horace would have gone into the Army instead. As it was, having almost
imperceptibly become a Major-General, he had retired, taking with him
his pension. The third brother, had he chosen to be born, would have
gone into the Church, where a living awaited him; he had elected
otherwise, and the living had passed perforce to a collateral branch.
Between Horace and Charles, seen from behind, it was difficult to
distinguish. Both were spare, both erect, with the least inclination to
bottle shoulders, but Charles Pendyce brushed his hair, both before and
behind, away from a central parting, and about the back of his still
active knees there was a look of feebleness. Seen from the front they
could readily be differentiated, for the General's whiskers broadened
down his cheeks till they reached his moustaches, and there was in his
face and manner a sort of formal, though discontented, effacement, as of
an individualist who has all his life been part of a system, from which
he has issued at last, unconscious indeed of his loss, but with a vague
sense of injury. He had never married, feeling it to be comparatively
useless, owing to Horace having gained that year on him at the start,
and he lived with a valet close to his club in Pall Mall.

In Lady Maiden, whom he had taken in to dinner, Worsted Skeynes
entertained a good woman and a personality, whose teas to Working Men in
the London season were famous. No Working Man who had attended them
had ever gone away without a wholesome respect for his hostess. She was
indeed a woman who permitted no liberties to be taken with her in any
walk of life. The daughter of a Rural Dean, she appeared at her best
when seated, having rather short legs. Her face was well-coloured, her
mouth, firm and rather wide, her nose well-shaped, her hair dark. She
spoke in a decided voice, and did not mince her words. It was to her
that her husband, Sir James, owed his reactionary principles on the
subject of woman.

Round the corner at the end of the table the Hon. Geoffrey Winlow was
telling his hostess of the Balkan Provinces, from a tour in which he
had just returned. His face, of the Norman type, with regular, handsome
features, had a leisurely and capable expression. His manner was easy
and pleasant; only at times it became apparent that his ideas were in
perfect order, so that he would naturally not care to be corrected. His
father, Lord Montrossor, whose seat was at Coldingham six miles away,
would ultimately yield to him his place in the House of Lords.

And next him sat Mrs. Pendyce. A portrait of this lady hung over the
sideboard at the end of the room, and though it had been painted by a
fashionable painter, it had caught a gleam of that "something" still in
her face these twenty years later. She was not young, her dark hair was
going grey; but she was not old, for she had been married at nineteen
and was still only fifty-two. Her face was rather long and very pale,
and her eyebrows arched and dark and always slightly raised. Her eyes
were dark grey, sometimes almost black, for the pupils dilated when she
was moved; her lips were the least thing parted, and the expression of
those lips and eyes was of a rather touching gentleness, of a rather
touching expectancy. And yet all this was not the "something"; that was
rather the outward sign of an inborn sense that she had no need to ask
for things, of an instinctive faith that she already had them. By that
"something," and by her long, transparent hands, men could tell that
she had been a Totteridge. And her voice, which was rather slow, with
a little, not unpleasant, trick of speech, and her eyelids by second
nature just a trifle lowered, confirmed this impression. Over her bosom,
which hid the heart of a lady, rose and fell a piece of wonderful old
lace.

Round the corner again Sir James Maiden and Bee Pendyce (the eldest
daughter) were talking of horses and hunting--Bee seldom from choice
spoke of anything else. Her face was pleasant and good, yet not quite
pretty, and this little fact seemed to have entered into her very
nature, making her shy and ever willing to do things for others.

Sir James had small grey whiskers and a carved, keen visage. He came of
an old Kentish family which had migrated to Cambridgeshire; his coverts
were exceptionally fine; he was also a Justice of the Peace, a Colonel
of Yeomanry, a keen Churchman, and much feared by poachers. He held
the reactionary views already mentioned, being a little afraid of Lady
Malden.

Beyond Miss Pendyce sat the Reverend Hussell Barter, who would shoot
to-morrow, but would not attend the race-meeting on Wednesday.

The Rector of Worsted Skeynes was not tall, and his head had been
rendered somewhat bald by thought. His broad face, of very straight
build from the top of the forehead to the base of the chin, was
well-coloured, clean-shaven, and of a shape that may be seen in
portraits of the Georgian era. His cheeks were full and folded, his
lower lip had a habit of protruding, and his eyebrows jutted out above
his full, light eyes. His manner was authoritative, and he articulated
his words in a voice to which long service in the pulpit had
imparted remarkable carrying-power--in fact, when engaged in private
conversation, it was with difficulty that he was not overheard. Perhaps
even in confidential matters he was not unwilling that what he said
should bear fruit. In some ways, indeed, he was typical. Uncertainty,
hesitation, toleration--except of such opinions as he held--he did not
like. Imagination he distrusted. He found his duty in life very clear,
and other people's perhaps clearer, and he did not encourage his
parishioners to think for themselves. The habit seemed to him a
dangerous one. He was outspoken in his opinions, and when he had
occasion to find fault, spoke of the offender as "a man of no
character," "a fellow like that," with such a ring of conviction that
his audience could not but be convinced of the immorality of that
person. He had a bluff jolly way of speaking, and was popular in his
parish--a good cricketer, a still better fisherman, a fair shot,
though, as he said, he could not really afford time for shooting. While
disclaiming interference in secular matters, he watched the tendencies
of his flock from a sound point of view, and especially encouraged them
to support the existing order of things--the British Empire and the
English Church. His cure was hereditary, and he fortunately possessed
some private means, for he had a large family. His partner at dinner was
Norah, the younger of the two Pendyce girls, who had a round, open face,
and a more decided manner than her sister Bee.

Her brother George, the eldest son, sat on her right. George was of
middle height, with a red-brown, clean-shaved face and solid jaw. His
eyes were grey; he had firm lips, and darkish, carefully brushed hair, a
little thin on the top, but with that peculiar gloss seen on the hair of
some men about town. His clothes were unostentatiously perfect. Such men
may be seen in Piccadilly at any hour of the day or night. He had
been intended for the Guards, but had failed to pass the necessary
examination, through no fault of his own, owing to a constitutional
inability to spell. Had he been his younger brother Gerald, he would
probably have fulfilled the Pendyce tradition, and passed into the Army
as a matter of course. And had Gerald (now Captain Pendyce) been George
the elder son, he might possibly have failed. George lived at his club
in town on an allowance of six hundred a year, and sat a great deal in a
bay-window reading Ruff's "Guide to the Turf."

He raised his eyes from the menu and looked stealthily round. Helen
Bellew was talking to his father, her white shoulder turned a little
away. George was proud of his composure, but there was a strange longing
in his face. She gave, indeed, just excuse for people to consider her
too good-looking for the position in which she was placed. Her figure
was tall and supple and full, and now that she no longer hunted was
getting fuller. Her hair, looped back in loose bands across a broad low
brow, had a peculiar soft lustre.

There was a touch of sensuality about her lips. The face was too broad
across the brow and cheekbones, but the eyes were magnificent--ice-grey,
sometimes almost green, always luminous, and set in with dark lashes.

There was something pathetic in George's gaze, as of a man forced to
look against his will.

It had been going on all that past summer, and still he did not know
where he stood. Sometimes she seemed fond of him, sometimes treated him
as though he had no chance. That which he had begun as a game was now
deadly earnest. And this in itself was tragic. That comfortable ease
of spirit which is the breath of life was taken away; he could think
of nothing but her. Was she one of those women who feed on men's
admiration, and give them no return? Was she only waiting to make her
conquest more secure? These riddles he asked of her face a hundred
times, lying awake in the dark. To George Pendyce, a man of the world,
unaccustomed to privation, whose simple creed was "Live and enjoy,"
there was something terrible about a longing which never left him for a
moment, which he could not help any more than he could help eating, the
end of which he could not see. He had known her when she lived at the
Firs, he had known her in the hunting-field, but his passion was only of
last summer's date. It had sprung suddenly out of a flirtation started
at a dance.

A man about town does not psychologise himself; he accepts his condition
with touching simplicity. He is hungry; he must be fed. He is thirsty;
he must drink. Why he is hungry, when he became hungry, these inquiries
are beside the mark. No ethical aspect of the matter troubled him; the
attainment of a married woman, not living with her husband, did not
impinge upon his creed. What would come after, though full of unpleasant
possibilities, he left to the future. His real disquiet, far nearer, far
more primitive and simple, was the feeling of drifting helplessly in a
current so strong that he could not keep his feet.

"Ah yes; a bad case. Dreadful thing for the Sweetenhams! That young
fellow's been obliged to give up the Army. Can't think what old
Sweetenham was about. He must have known his son was hit. I should say
Bethany himself was the only one in the dark. There's no doubt Lady Rose
was to blame!" Mr. Pendyce was speaking.