§ 31

That afternoon the Coroner’s inquest was held on Peter Alard, and twelve good men and true brought in a verdict of “accidental death.” The Coroner directed them with the conscientiousness of his kind—he pointed out that, according to medical opinion, the dead man’s wounds must almost certainly have been self-inflicted; but on the other hand they had rather conflicting evidence as to how the body was lying when found, and the doctor could not speak positively without this. He would point out to the witnesses the desirability of leaving the body untouched until either a doctor or the police had been summoned. No doubt they had thought they were doing right in carrying him to his father’s house, but such action had made it difficult to speak positively on a highly important point. As to the motives for suicide—they had heard Miss Mount’s evidence, which he thought had been very creditably given—indeed, he considered Miss Mount’s conduct to have been throughout irreproachable, and whatever the findings of the jury she must not blame herself for having acted as any right-minded young lady would have done under the circumstances. Feeling herself attracted by the deceased, a married man, and realising that he was also attracted by her, she had very properly decided to leave the neighbourhood, and but for her father’s professional engagements would have done so at once. The meeting at which she had made this decision known to Mr. Alard had taken place two months ago, and it was for the Jury to decide whether it was likely to have driven him to take his life so long after the event. The deceased’s sister, Mrs. Benjamin Godfrey, had told them of a conversation she had had with him on the afternoon of his death. He seemed then to have been preoccupied about his farm of Starvecrow, and other evidence had shown that the estate was much encumbered, like most big properties at the present time, though the position was no more serious than it had been a year ago. The Jury must decide if any of these considerations offered sufficient motive for self-destruction, if the deceased’s manner on the day of his death had been that of a man on the verge of such desperate conduct, and if the medical evidence pointed conclusively to a self-inflicted death. There were alternatives—he enlarged on the nature of gun accidents, dismissed the possibilities of murder—but the evidence for these hung on the thread of mere conjecture, and was not borne out by medical opinion.

The verdict was a surprise to the family. The loophole left by the Coroner had been so small that no one had expected even a local Jury to squeeze through it. But these men had all known Peter, many of them had done business with him, all had liked him. No one of them would have him buried with a slur upon his memory—no one of them would have his widow’s mourning weighted with dishonour, or his child grow up to an inheritance of even temporary insanity—and incidentally they all liked Miss Stella Mount, and had no intention she should bear the burden of his death if they could help it. So they brought in their verdict, and stuck to it, in spite of some rather searching questions by the Coroner. They wouldn’t even bring in an open verdict—they would do the thing properly for the kindly Squire who had for so long stood to them for all that was best in the falling aristocracy of the land.

Peter was buried with his father in Leasan churchyard, in the great vault of the Alards, where all of them lay who had not been buried at Winchelsea. He and Sir John mingled their dust with Sir William the land-grabber, whose appetite for farms lay at the bottom of all the later difficulties of the estate, with Gervase the Non-Juror, with Giles who met his casual loves at the Mocksteeple—with all the great company of Squires who had lived at Conster, lorded Leasan, built and farmed and played politics for nearly five hundred years. Perhaps as they stood round the grave in the late April sunshine, some of the family wondered if these were the last Alards for whom the vault would be opened.

Everyone went back to Conster after the funeral. Sir John’s will had already been read by the solicitors. It presented no difficulties—the whole estate went to Peter Alard and his heirs; in the event of his dying without male issue, to Gervase. The will had been made shortly after the death of George.

Gervase knew that now the time had come when he must face his family. They were all there at tea, except Vera—who was still unable to leave her room—and he could tell by a certain furtive expectancy in some and uneasiness in others that a crisis was impending. Doris was the head of the expectant group, Jenny of the uneasy ones. Doris had never looked more unlike the hysterical, dishevelled woman who had wept for Sir John. In her new black frock, and her hat with the plumes that swept down to her shoulders—powdered, rouged, salved, pencilled and henna’d into elegance if not into beauty, she seemed to have gathered up in herself all the pomp and circumstance of the Alards. There was not much of it to be seen in Lady Alard’s weary preoccupation with the burnt scones, in Rose’s glancing survey of the other women’s clothes, in Mary’s rather colourless smartness, in Jenny’s restlessness or her husband’s awkwardness—he had carried his first top-hat into the drawing-room, and put it, with his gloves inside it, on the floor between his large feet—and there was certainly nothing of it in the present holder of the title, sitting with his arms folded and thrust up the sleeves of his habit, his shoulders hunched as with a sense of battles to come.

Gervase considered that the sooner the row was over the better; so, as no one seemed inclined to begin it, he decided to start it himself.

“Mother, dear, do you think you could lend me five shillings?—At least I’d better say give it to me, for I don’t suppose there’s the slightest chance of your ever seeing it again.”

“Yes, dear—but why ... I don’t understand.”

“Well, I’ve only got eighteenpence left from the money Father Peter gave me to come here, and the third class fare to Brighton is six and six.”

“Gervase,” shrieked Doris—“you’re not going back to that place!”

“My dear, what else did you expect?”

“But you won’t stay there—you won’t go on being a monk—you won’t refuse to be Sir Gervase Alard!”

“I haven’t even begun to be a monk, and, according to the solicitors, I’ll have to go on being Sir Gervase Alard to the end of my days—but I’m going to stay there.”

“But what’s to become of us? Gervase, you can’t be Squire and not live here.”

“Let me explain myself. I’m not thinking of being Squire. I forfeit all my rights absolutely, except the title, which I’m told I can’t get rid of. But I shall sell the estate.”

The silence that fell was almost terrifying. Doris sank back in her chair as if fainting, Lady Alard covered her face, Rose sat with her mouth open, Jenny and Godfrey stared at each other.

Lady Alard was the first to speak.

“You mean that you’re going to turn us out—your mother and sisters—not even leave us a roof over our heads? And what becomes of the furniture?”

“I shall of course consult your wishes about the house. If you want to go on living here, the house and grounds are yours.”

“But Gervase,” cried Doris hoarsely—“what good will the house be to us without the land? Do you think we’re going to live on here and see all the estate pieced out and flung to small-holders and contractors?—I’d rather go and live in a slum.”

“If Gervase doesn’t mean to live here, I’m by no means sure that I care to stay on,” said Lady Alard. “The morning-room chimney smokes abominably, and the bedrooms are extremely inconvenient—also, with my illness, I really think I ought to live in a town. We might move into Hastings.”

“But Gervase doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” cried Doris—“he can’t desert us and fling away his responsibilities like this. Sell the estate! Oh, God—poor Father!” and she burst into tears.

Rose sprang to her feet with an indignant look at Gervase, and put her arm round Doris’s heaving shoulders, but her sister-in-law ungratefully pushed her away.

“I’m dreadfully sorry,” said Gervase, “but I really don’t think I’m letting anyone down. I’ve gone into things pretty thoroughly during the last few days, and really it would have been extremely difficult for us to carry on.”

“Difficult—but not impossible.”

“Not impossible. But possible only in the way we’ve been doing for the last ten years, and, honestly, do you think that’s good enough?”

“It’s better than throwing everything overboard, anyhow.”

“I don’t think it is. By ‘throwing everything overboard,’ as you call it, we can at least save the land.”

“How?”

“For the last ten years we’ve been doing hardly anything for the land. We’ve been unable to introduce up-to-date methods; we can’t even keep our farms in decent repair. If we hung on now, still further crippled by death-duties, the land would simply go to pot. By selling, we can save it, because it will pass into the hands of men who will be able to afford it what it needs. Possibly one or two of the tenants will buy their farms. Anyhow, there won’t any longer be a great, big, unwieldy, poverty-stricken estate, paying more in taxes than it actually brings in profits and deteriorating every year for lack of money spent on it.”

“But I’m perfectly sure that if you pulled yourself together you could save the estate without cutting it in pieces. A conservative government is sure to improve matters for us and reduce taxation. I know Peter could have saved us.”

“I’m not Peter.”

“But you could save us if you wanted to. You’ve only to put yourself at the head of things, and get a really good bailiff, and perhaps sell an outlying farm or two to bring in a little ready money.... But you won’t. That’s what you mean. You don’t want to come out of your monastery and face the world again. You could save us. But you won’t.”

“You’re quite right—I won’t.”

The discussion had somehow become a dialogue between Gervase and Doris. Why Doris should appoint herself as Alard’s spokesman no one exactly knew, but none of the rest made any effort to join in. Lady Alard was too deeply preoccupied with the house and its impending changes to worry about the land, Rose was angry with Doris for having repulsed her, so would give her no support, Mary was indifferent, Godfrey diffident, and Jenny, though revolting deeply from her brother’s choice, was too loyal to him to take anyone else’s part.

“I won’t because I can’t,” continued Gervase; “I can’t leave the Abbey, even if I knew that by doing so I could save Conster. I went there long before I’d the slightest notion I should ever succeed to this place, but even if I’d known I should have gone just the same. The only other thing I could do now would be to appoint a trustee to administer the estate for me, but in that way I should only be adding to the difficulties all round. By selling the place I’m doing the best possible thing for the land and for everyone else. The land will run a chance of being developed to its fullest value, instead of being neglected and allowed to deteriorate, and I’ll be making a fairly decent provision for Mother and all the rest of you—you’ll be far better off than if we’d stuck to the old arrangement; you’ll have ready money for about the first time in your lives. Mother and Doris and Mary can live on here if they like, or they can go and live in Hastings or in town. I think the sale ought to realise enough to make everyone fairly comfortable—anyhow, much more comfortable than they are in the present state of things.”

“But, Gervase,” sobbed Doris—“you don’t seem to think of the family.”

“What else am I thinking of? I’m just telling you that you and Mary and Mother——”

“But we’re not the family. I mean the whole thing—the house of Alard. What’s to become of it if you go and sell the estate, and shut yourself up in an Abbey, instead of coming here and looking after the place, and marrying and having children to succeed you? Don’t you realise that if you don’t marry, the whole thing comes to an end?”

“I’m afraid it will have to come to an end, Doris. I can’t save it that way.”

Doris sprang to her feet. She looked wild.

“But you must save it—you must. Oh, Gervase, you don’t understand. I’ve given up my life to it—to the family. I’ve given up everything. I could have married—but I wouldn’t—because he wasn’t the sort of man for our family—he wasn’t well-connected and he wasn’t rich—it would have been a comedown for an Alard, so I wouldn’t have him—though I loved him. I loved him ... but I wouldn’t have him, because I thought of the family first and myself afterwards. And now you come along, undoing all my work—making my sacrifice worthless. You don’t care twopence about the family, so you’re going to let it be sold up and die out. We’re going to lose our house, our land, our position, our very name.... I gave up my happiness for Alard, and you go and make my sacrifice useless. Gervase, for God’s sake save us. You can—if only you’ll come away from those monks and be Squire here. I’m sure God can’t wish you to desert us. Gervase, I beg you, I pray you to save the family—I pray you on my knees....”

And suiting the action to the word, she went down on her knees before him.

The others sat rooted to their chairs—partly at the sight of Doris’s frenzy, partly of her humiliation, partly to hear the multitudinous lovers she had always hinted at reduced in a moment of devastating candour to one only. Gervase had sprung to his feet. He trembled and had turned very white. Then for a moment he, too, seemed to turn to stone.

“I pray you,” repeated Doris hoarsely—“I pray you on my knees....”

Her brother recovered himself and, taking both her hands, pulled her to her feet.

“Don’t, Doris....”

“Then, will you?”

“My dear, is the family worth saving?”

“What d’you mean?”

“Listen, Doris. You’ve just told me that you’ve given up your life’s love and happiness to the family. Peter ... I know ... gave up his. Mary gave up part of hers, but saved a little. Jenny alone has refused to give up anything, and is happy. Is our family worth such sacrifices?”

Her head drooped unexpectedly to his shoulder, and she collapsed in weeping.

“No,” he continued—“it isn’t worth it. The family’s taken enough. For five hundred years it has sat on the land, and at first it did good—it cared for the poor, it worked its farms to the best advantage, and the estate prospered. But it’s outlived those days—it’s only an encumbrance now, it’s holding back the land from proper development, it’s keeping the yeoman and small land-owner out of their rights, it can’t afford to care for the poor. It can barely keep its hold on the land by dint of raising mortgages and marrying for money. It can only be kept up by continual sacrifices—of the land, of the tenants, of its own children. It’s like a wicked old dying god, that can only be kept alive by sacrifices—human sacrifices. And I tell you, it shan’t be any more.”

There was another pause, noisy with Doris’s weeping. The other members of the family began to feel that they ought to take their share in the argument. They none of them felt for Alard what Doris so surprisingly felt, but after all they could not sit round and watch Gervase turn the world upside down without some protest.

“You know I want to be reasonable,” said Jenny in rather an uncertain voice, “and I don’t want to push you into a way you don’t want to go. But from your own point of view, don’t you think that all this that’s happened just shows—that—that this religious life isn’t, after all, the right life for you—the life you were meant for?”

“I always said it was very silly of Gervase to become a monk,” said Lady Alard. “He could do quite a lot of good in the parish if he lived at home. Mr. Williams said he was looking for someone to manage the Boy Scouts.”

“Yes, that was what poor George was always saying,” said Rose—“‘Charity begins at home.’”

“Oh, don’t think I haven’t prayed over this,” cried Gervase—“that I haven’t tried hard to see if, after all, my duty didn’t lie in taking my place here and trying to save the property. But I’m quite sure that isn’t my duty now. As I’ve tried to show Doris, Conster simply isn’t worth saving. It’s lost its power for good—it can only do harm, to the district and to us. It had much better come to an end.”

“But even if you feel like that about the estate,” said Mary—“there’s the family apart from the land. It’s rather dreadful to think that a fine old family like ours should be deliberately allowed to die out—the name become quite extinct. And it’s not only for the family’s sake, but for yours. You’re a young man—scarcely more than a boy. I think it’s dreadful that you should already have made up your mind to live without marriage and die without children.”

“So do I!” cried Jenny, fierce at last.

“I’ve gone into all that,” said Gervase with a touch of weariness, “and you know how I’ve decided.”

“But these new circumstances hadn’t arisen.”

“I shouldn’t have decided differently if they had.”

“I’m not sure,” said Mary—“that even that other plan you spoke of wouldn’t be best—better than selling everything, I mean. Couldn’t you administer the estate through a bailiff or trustee?”

“If my father and Peter couldn’t make it pay, what would be the result of an absentee landlord?—the place wouldn’t stand it. We’d bust. No, in fairness to the land it ought to go back to the small landlords—that’s its only chance of recovery. I’m not doing this only for our own sakes, but for the sake of the land and the people it ought to belong to.”

“I think you’re a traitor,” said Rose—“a traitor to your house.”

“I wish I was dead,” cried Doris. “First Father—then everything else.... I’ve nothing to live for now.”

“Why, you’ve got me,” said Lady Alard—“You’ll come with me, Doris. I think I shall go to Worthing—it’s more bracing than the coast here. Gervase, do you think the dining-room sideboard would fit into a smaller house?”

“Oh, Father,” sobbed Doris—“Oh, Father—oh, Peter.... What would you have done if you had known how it was going to end?”

THE END

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.

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