The Heart of Una Sackville | Page 6

to the terrace by a long flight of stone stairs, the balustrades of which are covered by a tangle of clematis and roses. When I come walking down those steps and see the peacock strutting about in the park, and the old sundial, and the row of beeches in the distance, I feel a thrill of something that makes me hot and cold and proud and weepy all at the same time. Father says he feels just the same, in a man-ey way, of course, and that it is much the same thing as patriotism--love of the soil that has come down to you from generations of ancestors, and that it's a right and natural feeling and ought to be encouraged. I know it is in him, for he will deny himself anything and everything to keep the place in order and give his tenants a good time, but--Resolution number two--I, Una Sackville, solemnly vow to speak the plain truth about my own feelings in this book, and not cover them up with a cloak of fine words--I think there's a big sprinkling of conceit in my feelings. I do like being the Squire's daughter, and having people stare at me as I go through the town, and rush about to attend to me when I enter a shop. Ours is only a little bit of a town, and there is so little going on that people take an extra special interest in us and our doings. I know some of the girls quite well--the vicar's daughter and the doctor's, and the Heywood girls at the Grange, and I am always very nice to them, but I feel all the time that I am being nice, and they feel it too, so we never seem to be real friends. Is that being a snob, I wonder? If it is, it's as much their fault as mine, because they are quite different to me from what they are to each other--so much more polite and well-behaved.
I spend the mornings with father, and the afternoons with mother. At first she had mapped out my whole day for me--practising, reading, driving, etcetera, but I just said straight out that I'd promised to go the rounds with father, and I think she was glad, though very much surprised.
"He will be so pleased to have you! It's nice of you, dear, to think of it, and after all it will be exercise, and there's not much going on in the morning."
She never seemed to think I should enjoy it, and I suppose it would bore her as much to walk round to the stables and kennels, and talk to the keepers about game, and the steward about new roofs to cottages, and cutting timber, as it does him to go to garden-parties and pay formal calls. It seems strange to live together so long and to be so different.
I have not met many strangers as yet, because Vere is bringing down a party of visitors for August, and mother is not in a hurry to take me about until I have got all my things; but one morning, when I was out with father, I met such a big, handsome man, quite young, with a brown face and laughing eyes, dressed in the nice country fashion which I love--Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers and leggings. Father hailed him at once, and they talked together for a moment without taking any notice of me, and then father remembered me suddenly, and said--
"This is my youngest daughter. Come home from school to play with me, haven't you, Babs?" and the strange man smiled and nodded, and said, "How do, Babs?" just as calmly and patronisingly as if I had been two. For a moment I was furious, until I remembered my hockey skirt and cloth cap, and hair done in a door-knocker, with no doubt ends flying about all round my face. I daresay I looked fourteen at the most, and he thought I was home for the holidays. I decided that it would be rather fun to foster the delusion, and behave just as I liked without thinking of what was proper all the time, and then some day he would find out his mistake, and feel properly abashed. His name is Will Dudley, and he is staying with Mr Lloyd, the agent for the property which adjoins father's, learning how to look after land, for some day he will inherit a big estate from an uncle, so he likes to get all the experience he can, and to talk to father, and go about with him whenever he has the chance, and father likes to have him--I could tell it by the way he looks and talks. We walked miles that morning, over gates and stiles, and