“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.”
This was meant as a friendly ending to the meeting. He showed his sympathy with the Tuncesters, to the extent of sending them a receipt for a punch; showed that he was going to be adamant about Spirr, and also showed them that he recognised that they would not be friends, and indeed belonged in opposite camps, but that what he had to share with them, a knowledge and love of birds, he would share, if they wished, to the full. He turned to say good-bye to his hostess, who was not content to end on a low note.
She had been brought up to having her own way without much opposition. She had learned, in the England of her girlhood, to ride over those who were not in her set, nor of her way of thinking; she was determined to ride over Frampton.
“It must be very interesting to you,” she said, “to come here, so near to your father’s old home.”
“It is interesting to see a new bit of England,” he said, “and study the savage inhabitants, and the dear old ruins of the eighteenth century, pretending to be what they were. England is always interesting.”
She affected not to see his hand, so he put it in his pocket.
“I don’t know what guns you make,” she said; “they may be very fine or they may not. Opinions differ. But if I know anything of the youth of these parts, your absurd scheme of a bird sanctuary will not prosper very far. And I must say, I hope it won’t. And if you try your plan of jerry-building, I’ll see what the Ministries can do.”
“It’s always a fresh surprise, isn’t it?” he said, “what the Ministries will do. One of them’s rather keen on having a machine-gun range and school just up above here. I tell them it’s just the place. I do hope they’ll establish it. I could try my new quick-firer at my own door, so to speak.” Seeing that he had touched her to the quick, he went on. “I’ve grown to loathe the quiet and the dry rot up on the Waste,” he said. “Haven’t you? Don’t you long to train quick-firers on Stubbington Wood, to blast some of those old sick trees away?”