I looked at Susan, sitting up very straight in her blue overalls, with a red ribbon in her hair. There was an anxious appeal in her eyes as she looked from me to Josella.
“Three,” I said.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Masen. The allocation is ten per unit. The girl can come to H.Q. We can find useful work for her there until she is old enough to take charge of a unit herself.”
“My wife and I regard Susan as our own daughter,” I told him shortly.
“I repeat, I am sorry. But those are the regulations.”
I regarded him for some moments. He looked steadily back at me. At last:
“We should, of course, require guarantees and undertakings regarding her, if this had to happen,” I said.
I was aware of several quickly drawn breaths. Torrence’s manner relaxed slightly.
“Naturally we shall give you all practicable assurances,” he said.
I nodded. “I must have time to think it all over. It’s quite new to me, and rather startling. Some points come to my mind at once. Equipment here is wearing out. It is difficult to find more that has not deteriorated. I can see that before long I am going to need good strong working horses.”
“Horses are difficult. There’s very little stock at present. You’ll probably have to use man-power teams for a time.”
“Then,” I said, “there’s accommodations. The outbuildings are too small for our needs now—and I can’t put up even prefabricated quarters single-handed.”
“There we shall be able to help you, I think.”
We went on discussing details for twenty minutes or more. By the end of it I had him showing something like affability; then I got rid of him by sending him off on a tour of the place, with Susan as his sulky guide.
“Bill, what on earth——” Josella began as the door closed behind him and his companions.
I told her what I knew of Torrence and his method of dealing with trouble by shooting it early.
“That doesn’t surprise me at all,” remarked Dennis. “You know, what is surprising me is that I’m suddenly feeling quite kindly toward the triffids. Without their intervention, I suppose there would have been a whole lot more of this kind of thing by now. If they are the one factor that can stop serfdom coming back, then good luck to ’em.”
“The whole thing’s clearly preposterous,” I said. “It doesn’t have a chance. How could Josella and I look after a crowd like that and keep the triffids out? But,” I added, “we’re scarcely in a position to give a flat ‘No’ to a proposition put up by four armed men.”
“Then you’re not——”
“Darling,” I said, “do you really see me in the position of a seigneur, driving my serfs and villeins before me with a whip—even if the triffids haven’t overrun me first?”
“But you said——”
“Listen,” I said. “It’s getting dark. Too late for them to leave now. They’ll have to stay the night. I imagine that tomorrow the idea will be to take Susan away with them—she’d make quite a good hostage for our behavior, you see. And they might leave one or two of their men to keep an eye on us. Well, I don’t think we’re taking that, are we?”
“No, but——”
“Well, I hope I’ve convinced him now that I’m coming round to his idea. Tonight we’ll have the sort of supper that might be taken to imply accord. Make it a good one. Everybody’s to eat plenty. Give the kids plenty too. Lay on our best drinks. See that Torrence and his chaps have plenty of that, but the rest of us go very easy. Toward the end of the meal I shall disappear for a bit. You keep the party going, to cover up. Play rowdy records at them, or something. And everybody help to whoop it up. Another thing—nobody is to mention Michael Beadley and his lot. Torrence must know about the Isle of Wight setup, but he doesn’t think we do. Now, what I’ll be wanting is a sack of sugar.”