The Country House | Page 6

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.