“Now I’ve talked a great deal about Spirr, and I’m afraid bored you dreadfully, but what I want to lead up to is whether, now that you know the feelings, or even the passions, involved, you will not think about putting your bird sanctuary somewhere else, and letting the Hunt buy Spirr from you?”
“I’m sorry,” Frampton said. “The place has associations for me, which go deep.”
He stopped a moment, thinking how deep they went, and wondering whether Margaret would have advised him to accept this offer, not to be churlish and stand out against what people so much wanted. He liked this hunting man; he was a very fine, simple fellow; but then, he did not like the fellow’s wife, with the face like the angry ham and the folly about the musk-rats and the beavers. She had not made him welcome there. She had shown him plainly that he was there on sufferance, against her will. He thought at once that his dead love would have told him to agree with the adversary and let the covert go. Then he thought, no, she wouldn’t; she loathed fox-hunting, and despised its followers: “grown-up people,” she said said, “running a poor fox to death.” She had planned to make the wood a sanctuary, and it now was one. She had much enjoyed the thought of it, and loved the sight of it. Perhaps some of her last thoughts on earth had been of it and about it. Then he thought of Posh Tilter and hardened his heart. Never should they draw Spirr.
The lady said, with bitter and evil intention: “I had not understood that you had associations nearer than Condicote.”
“Those were my father’s,” he answered. “My father came from there. I do not know the place much. But for Spirr Wood, I have very deep feeling.”
He knew that the lady had wished him to know, that she and everybody there knew, that his grandfather had been a baker in Condicote. He decided that the lady had ruined the Hunt’s chance of ever having a fox from the covert in time to come. He resolved to hit back in a way that would make them squirm; he did so.
“Another thing I’ve thought of doing presently,” he said, though the matter had only at that moment floated into his mind, “is to develop all this countryside as building sites. Tatchester is an appalling city from every point of view. The Cathedral has its points, of course, but apart from the Close, there isn’t a decent house in the place. Now out by Spirr, and along by Mullples, there are wonderful views and lovely country. What I want to do, and I’m sure you’ll welcome the idea, is to build a couple of hundred red brick villas, just to the east of Spirr, grouped round a cinema; for that is the modern centre of any community, the cinema; you can hardly have the one without the other. Don’t you think that that would be a God-send for the poor chaps who have to live in Tatchester? They could come out on their motor-bikes after work and enjoy themselves. Or we could have three or four of these big red charries to bring them. Don’t you think that that would be a good thing?”
He knew that he had dealt them a deadly thrust apiece; with his best poker face he watched their misery and rage. The lady’s face gave him acute pleasure. She had been hardly able to contain her indignation with him hitherto; now she boiled over.
“Surely, Mr. Mansell,” she began, “surely, Mr. Mansell, you are not seriously thinking of desecrating this wonderful part of England?”
“Desecrating?” he said. “Really, no; I would never desecrate. I like buildings, and I like this country. I only want to give a lot of poor chaps a chance of enjoying it.”
“Enjoying it? Mr. Mansell, but they wouldn’t enjoy it as we should.”
“Very likely not; I hope not; for they are very different sort of people, but they would enjoy it, I don’t doubt.”
“Yes, at the expense of everybody else.”
“No, at my expense; but the scheme would be self-supporting.”
“You know what I mean, Mr. Mansell; it would be at the expense of everybody who cares for this countryside. It has been kept hitherto by people who love it.”
“Wouldn’t you rather that it were lived in henceforth by people who love it.”
“Those people you talk of bringing wouldn’t love it. They would bring the slum spirit here. And they would not thank you; they would do nothing but growl, even if you gave them the houses rent free. A great deal is done for the poor; a very great deal too much, if you ask me; and they’ve got into the way now of expecting a great deal and giving nothing in return for what they have. They get an education free, which they don’t value and don’t really want. They leave school, and they turn up their noses at the work that is offered to them, at good wages, in the districts they know. I speak here with authority, Mr. Mansell, for I have to try to get maids and cooks here, and I cannot get them. I have found it much easier and a great deal more satisfactory to go to the trouble of getting maids from Sweden and Norway, who come over here for a year to learn English. I can’t get English maids, though I offer them twice and three times the wages the same maids got in my mother’s house. The young women will not take indoor service. What they want is to be free for the day at half-past five, and to go to a cinema with a young man; and then on Sunday to drive off with him on a motor-bicycle to the other side of the county.”
“I’m only a bachelor,” he said. “My housekeeper does most of that kind of thing for me. We haven’t had any trouble yet. Most of my servants have been with me for years. Servants take a world of trouble off one’s shoulders, and it’s a troublous kind of job, so they ought to have as good a time as one can afford, don’t you think? I think it all lies in that; giving them plenty of time to be absolutely theirs, and also a fair share of one’s own good time.”
This was not at all the doctrine to which Lady Bynd was accustomed, from her parents, her pulpit, her daily paper and her own persuasion. Sir Peter was distressed to see the bearings running hot. Mansell had risen to go. He tried hard to bring the talk to a gentler level.
“It is the swing of the pendulum,” he said. “People were too much repressed, and now are a little too much for themselves. They’ll come back to the old loyalties. But, Mr. Mansell, you’ll forgive me for harping so on my one string of Spirr Wood. I realise that you have deep feelings about the covert, so, if you cannot make us happy, I hope that your sanctuary will give you much happiness. But, if you ever should change your mind, will you remember the Tunsters, who drink still to George the Second?”
“I have a receipt for a punch of that time,” Frampton said. “I’ll send it to you, if you’d like that. I must keep Spirr as a bird place. If in the Spring you would care to see the birds, I hope you will come to see them. I hope to have some then.”