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The Graftons: A Novel

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Title: The Graftons: A Novel

Author: Archibald Marshall


        
Release date: May 1, 2012 [eBook #39587]

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Annie R. McGuire. This book was produced from
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAFTONS: A NOVEL ***




Produced by Annie R. McGuire. This book was produced from
scanned images of public domain material from the Google
Print archive.









THE GRAFTONS




BY THE SAME AUTHOR


  THE HOUSE OF MERRILEES
  EXTON MANOR
  THE ELDEST SON
  THE SQUIRE'S DAUGHTER
  THE HONOUR OF THE CLINTONS
  THE GREATEST OF THESE
  THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH
  WATERMEADS
  UPSIDONIA
  ABINGTON ABBEY
  THE GRAFTONS




THE GRAFTONS
_A NOVEL_


BY
ARCHIBALD MARSHALL


[Illustration]


NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1918




COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.




TO
WILLIAM HENRY BATES




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
      I SURLEY RECTORY                                                 1
     II A QUESTION OF PATRONAGE                                       13
    III IN THE GARDEN                                                 27
     IV A PRESENTATION                                                45
      V THE SYSTEM                                                    63
     VI THE VICAR'S DECISION                                          80
    VII A MORNING RIDE                                                93
   VIII THE BISHOP FINDS A MAN                                       107
     IX THE NEW VICAR                                                121
      X YOUNG GEORGE TAKES ADVICE                                    136
     XI THE SECOND LOVE                                              151
    XII CAROLINE AND BEATRIX                                         164
   XIII PARIS                                                        178
    XIV A WEDDING                                                    192
     XV AN ACCIDENT                                                  207
    XVI MAURICE                                                      218
   XVII HOW THEY TOOK IT                                             235
  XVIII MORE OPINIONS                                                246
    XIX AFTER THE WEDDING                                            261
     XX CAROLINE'S HOME-COMING                                       277
    XXI A VISIT                                                      291
   XXII THE FAMILY VIEW                                              307
  XXIII AN ENGAGEMENT                                                318
   XXIV BARBARA                                                      327




INTRODUCTION


This novel, though it is complete in itself, deals with the same
characters as "Abington Abbey." Its publication gives me the opportunity
of replying to some criticisms of that novel, which would apply equally
to this one.

The criticisms to which I refer have to do, not with faults of
authorship, to which it would not be becoming to reply, but with matters
for which an apology, or at least an explanation, may be offered.

The first has been that in such times as these a novel dealing with
minor currents of life as they existed before the war is something of an
anachronism. Perhaps it is. In the fourth year of the war, life as it is
depicted in these two novels seems already far away. But what is a
novelist of manners to do, granted the assumption--admittedly
debateable--that he is to go on writing novels at all? He must either
write _about_ the war, in one or other of its far-reaching effects upon
life, or else he must leave it alone altogether. At least, those are the
only alternatives that I have felt to be open to me; and, after having
written one novel with the war as its deliberate climax, I have chosen
the latter. When the war is over, it will be possible to take its
adjustments into account as affecting everyday life, but while it is
going on I do not think it is possible. It looms too big. Minor affairs
would have their values in contrast with it, and truth would suffer.

If further justification were necessary, I think I could find it in the
relief it brings from the heavy weight of the war to turn one's mind to
those happy days in which life presented problems of less appalling
significance than now, and to gain the comforting assurance that those
days will come again. This relief I know to be felt by readers as well
as by writers of fiction.

The second criticism upon which I should like to have my say is that the
life I have depicted in those of my novels whose scenes are laid in the
English country has been for some time a thing of the past, and after
the war may be expected to disappear altogether. My American critics,
kind as most of them are, often seem to accuse me of presenting an
idyllic picture of a state of things which is based upon rotten
foundations, and either of leaving out of account or of deliberately
shutting my eyes to the rottenness.

I should not accept either charge. If it were worth anybody's while to
read through those novels of mine in which the economic conditions of
English landholding are touched upon, I think he would find in the first
place that I have nowhere defended whatever abuses may still attach to
the system, but have frequently satirised them; and in the second place
that economic questions play but a small part in my fictions.

I think that if I had left such questions alone altogether there would
be no criticism to meet. I could point to a dozen novelists who write
about the same sort of people, living in the same surroundings, as I do,
against whom it would not be brought, because they take the conditions
for granted, and their readers take them for granted. If I touch upon
such questions here and there it is because they interest me as factors
in the lives of my characters; but they are not the factors which I have
chosen as the main thesis of my novels, except in one instance. In "The
Old Order Changeth" I did seek to reflect the renewal that is always
going on in English landowning, and always has gone on since the
beginning,--where the new men come in to dispossess the old; and the
social disturbance that takes place at each such upheaval, before the
new become absorbed in their turn into the old.

That is how I see it. Whatever changes may have come and may be coming
in the economic conditions of landholding, and of agricultural labour,
the life of the country house, large or small, goes on much the same as
ever, and will go on. Where it can no longer be supported by the land,
it is supported by money made elsewhere. English people like the flavour
of country life, and it is very seldom that a man who has made his
fortune in business does not eventually buy or rent a country house.
Many of the big estates in the United Kingdom have been acquired of late
years by rich Americans, who buy them, I suppose, not as an investment
in property, but because they also are attracted by the flavour of
English country life. Country houses, from the great house such as is
represented here by Abington Abbey down to the little house such as
Stone Cottage, are scattered all over England, and I should say that in
nine cases out of ten, taking large and small together, the people who
inhabit them have no concern with the land, in the way of drawing any
part of their income from it, or of dealing with it as a productive
agency. They have not come "back to the land" in any essential sense;
they have only come back to the country. I believe that no economic
changes that may affect those who live by the land, whether as employers
or labourers, will much affect the social life of English country
houses.

As far as my novels are concerned, it is simply a question of placing
the sort of people whom I know best in the surroundings of which I like
to write. Where my characters are in direct contact with the business of
the land, or are affected by it, I do not shirk reference to it, as far
as it seems to bear upon the main purpose of my story. But I have not
set out to present an all-round picture of the conditions of country
life in any of the fictional districts I have chosen as the scene of my
novels. The great majority of the inhabitants of any countryside are the
people who work on the land and live by it, and these I have left out
almost entirely; not because I do not recognise their actual importance,
but because in the social scene of my stories they would not appear, or
only in a very minor degree. It may be an unsatisfactory state of things
which divides people off in that way, into social strata, but it
undoubtedly exists, and it is not the business of a novelist to justify
the conditions he finds, but to reflect them; unless, of course, he sets
out to make a discussion of those conditions the basis of his story.

As for my family of Graftons, who are real and dear to me, I have
pictured them in the sunny days of peace. But in my vision, at least,
the shadow of the war lies over them, as it does in retrospect over all
immediately pre-war fictional characters. Dick Mansergh and Maurice
Bradby would have been fighting since the beginning; Young George and
his friend Jimmy would have been caught up in it by this time. In the
slaughter of bright youth that is going on, it would hardly be expected
that not one out of the four would be killed or wounded. George Grafton
would be "doing something," with the men of his generation, and would
hardly be able to regard life now as going so easily for him as to make
of it a spiritual danger. The girls must have known sorrow and a much
changed outlook, unless they have been more fortunate than most.

Yes, these are stories of the past, as much as if they had been written
about people living forty or fifty years ago instead of four or five.
But the shadow will pass away, and life will emerge again into the
sunshine. I have looked forward, in writing them, as much as I have
looked back.

  ARCHIBALD MARSHALL.
  _March_, 1918.




CHAPTER I

SURLEY RECTORY


The old man lay dying at last. He had lingered on for months, now
getting a little better and giving hope that the end might be deferred
for a time, now sinking, so that it seemed as if it had come; but with
all the alterations in his state moving onwards slowly and surely
towards his rest. Now there was no longer any hope, even for a few days
more. His two daughters and his son sat by his bedside, waiting. There
was nothing to do but to wait, and to think.

It was towards the close of a sunny April day. The windows of the large
eastward-facing room were wide open to admit the fragrant air. The birds
were making a great to do in the Rectory garden, where the flowers of
early spring flaunted their bright colours, and the lawns answered them
with living verdure. Nearly every morning for five and forty years the
old man who was dying had arisen from the bed on which he lay to look
out on this scene. It might almost be said to have been what he had
lived for. At the age of thirty-four, still a young man, with a wife
still younger, and his two little girls, he had come to this assured
haven, with no thought of leaving it until he had lived his life out to
the full, where there was everything to make life what he wished it to
be.

There was the pleasant roomy house, so admirably adapted to the delights
of a quiet home life, the beautiful garden, the glebe and the
outbuildings and the two or three cottages which added what was almost a
little farm to what was almost a country mansion. And there was the
substantial income, which would provide for the pleasures and
hospitalities as well as the responsibilities of country life.

There was a little queer eighteenth century church, hardly more than a
meeting-house, but big enough to hold such proportion of the three
hundred or so inhabitants of the parish of Surley as would make a
practice of attending it. It was to serve them that the Reverend William
Cooper had been appointed to the living by the Bishop of the Diocese,
and the house and the garden and the glebe and the substantial income
were to be the reward of his service. None of the parishioners were very
poor; the income would not be greatly depleted by the calls of charity.
Nor would the time of their ministrant be too much occupied by them,
supposing him to have other uses to which to put it.

He had done his work and taken his reward. There had never been any
question in his mind that the one was not fitted to the other, nor any
sense of diffidence before others who were spending themselves in the
vineyard with material reward barely existent. It had been rather the
other way about. The Rector of Surley was almost a dignitary, by reason
of the reward, and carried himself so before his lesser brethren, but
not with arrogance, for he was an amiable likeable man, and only living
up to his position. These things were so; it was not even necessary to
excuse them, at least in those days.

An amiable likeable man! He had gone about his parish for five and forty
years, until there were only two or three in it who were older than he.
Most of them now living he had christened into the Church, many he had
buried, some he had married, a few he had helped, as one helps friends,
not as one gives doles to the poor. He had touched the lives of all of
them, and they had been satisfied with him. It was not for them to
complain of the established order. These things came from above. If the
Rector of Surley lived in a big house, with a thousand a year, the
Squire lived in a bigger one, with ten thousand a year. The one was no
more explicable than the other, and no more or less to be criticised.
What might come from either to ameliorate the lot of the less fortunate
would depend upon what sort of Squire or Rector there might be.

Lying in his bed, as he had lain for months past, or when his strength
had rallied sitting wrapped up in a big chair by the window, the old man
must sometimes have occupied himself in casting up his accounts
preparatory to the great Audit to which he would soon have to submit
them.

His life had been kindly and useful. He had never turned a deaf ear to
the call of sympathy, nor shirked any of his easy duties, as easy duties
are sometimes apt to be shirked when no punishment is to be expected
from the shirking except from the disapproval of conscience. Probably he
had given more thought to the episodes of his long life as they affected
himself and his family than to the affairs of his ministry.

His wife had managed him until she had died, and then his daughters had
managed him. In neither case had the managing been done in such a way as
to irritate, or to lessen his dignity before the world. Perhaps he had
hardly known that he had been managed, for he had had his own way, and
had not been aware that it was often the way into which he had been
guided. If both wife and daughters had sometimes raised bristles on the
backs of neighbours, it had been his part to smooth them down, and he
had gained liking by the contrast between himself and them. When his
wife had died he would greatly have missed her sure capable hand in the
affairs of life if his daughters had not then been of an age to fill her
place. He was a man to be dependent upon women, and to draw the best
that was in them towards himself.

The guidance exercised by women, however, seldom earns love, even when
it escapes domination, and the guidance exercised by the old Rector's
daughters did not always escape it, though they made his welfare the
chief object in their lives. It was his son whom he loved, and thought
most about, during the long hours in which he lay drifting towards the
end.

He had come to him late in life. He was now not yet twenty-four. If he
had been only a year older the great anxiety which had shadowed the old
man's last months would have been lightened.

The living of Surley was in the gift of the Bishop, but it had been held
by a Cooper for three generations, covering a period of nearly eighty
years. If only it could be handed on to Denis!

He had been ordained in the previous Advent, with a title to his
father's curacy. He had done the work of the parish, with the help, or
oversight, of his sisters, and taken such of the services as is
permitted to a Deacon. The people liked him, and if these matters were
arranged by the popular voice he would certainly have been the next
Rector of Surley. But he would not be eligible for Priest's Orders for
another seven months. It was almost too much to hope that the Bishop
would present a Deacon of only a few months' standing to one of the
richest livings in his gift.

But the old man could not give up hope. These things had been done
before; he had a dozen cases at his fingers' ends. But unfortunately
they were all cases dating back many years, to a time when the fitting
of rewards to work done, or to be done, in the Church, had not seemed of
such importance as now. Fifty years ago nobody would have made any fuss
about such an appointment; now-a-days there would certainly be a fuss.
But he would not admit that there ought to be; he only tacitly accepted
the fact that it was impossible for him to take any steps to bring about
what he so ardently desired.

The Bishop had been to see him during his illness. Perhaps he might have
put in a word then; he had thought beforehand that he might. But he had
not done so. To that extent he accepted the changed conditions. But none
the less he deplored them. He felt it to be hard, for one thing, that he
would have to die without knowing what should happen after him. His own
uncle, whom he had succeeded in the living, had been made contented by a
promise on his deathbed. He himself had known that he would be presented
to the living a month or more before it had become vacant.

Ah! things were ordered better in those days. There was more human
kindliness, and not so many Radicals, to interfere with what had been
established for so long and had worked so well.

The two women and the young man sat by the bedside, speaking sometimes
in low voices to one another, otherwise busy with their thoughts. Now
and then one of them would rise and put a hand to pillow or sheet, but
more to give herself the comfort of performing some little service for
him who would soon be beyond her care than because he still needed it.
For he lay quite still, with eyes closed, breathing faintly as if in
sleep. They would not have known that the end was very near if the
doctor had not told them that the quiet breathing might cease at any
time, and left them to wait for the end.

There was not much emotion in the minds of either of them. The passing
had been too long and too gradual. Their brains were weary, if their
active bodies were not. They had nursed him turn and turn about, with
help from one or another of the faithful women about the house, but the
nursing had made no great demands upon them. Neither would have admitted
to the other that there was a slight sense of relief in the end having
come at last. Gladly they would have kept him with them and spent
themselves in his service, even if he should never speak to them or open
his eyes upon them again. But they had grown used to the idea of losing
him all the same. Life was strong in them, and there would be many
things to do when he had gone.

The end came as the dusk began to gather in the corners of the room,
with a fluttering breath that was like a faint sigh, and a silence
hardly more complete than the silence that had been before. The old
Rector of Surley was dead, and the way was open for a new Rector to be
appointed.

The two sensible self-controlled women, who had for so long given their
service with a cheerful capability that had seemed almost hard in its
efficiency, faced a reaction that neither of them had been prepared for.
They sobbed together, and confessed, each of them, that they had not so
ardently wished that the dear old man should survive for a few hours or
a few days longer than they now wished he had. They would never have him
again alive. The thought was hardly to be borne. Their lives would be
desolate.

This mood lasted all the evening, and was genuine enough in its regret
for a time now past and not valued enough while it had lasted. Denis was
accused, though not to his face, of want of heart, because he said very
little, and had shed no tears whatever. By the end of the evening the
fact that they had, and could still do so, had come to be a consolation.
By the next morning it had become difficult to shed tears at will,
though they still came on occasions, but at rarer intervals. When all
the business in connection with the funeral and the notifying of friends
and relations had to be met they were ready to meet it, and found
satisfaction in the occupations with which every hour of the days that
followed were filled.

The letters and the calls of sympathy were most gratifying, as showing
the high esteem in which the late Rector, and his family, were held. One
of the first to call was Mrs. Carruthers, from Surley Park. There had
been a coolness, but death overrode everything.

The sisters were writing letters at the dining-room table.

"We had better go in together," said Rhoda. "It will be less awkward."

"If she doesn't say anything I don't see why we should," said Ethel.
"Let bygones be bygones, I say, at a time like this."

"I wonder if the Bishop has said anything to her," said Rhoda, as they
went across the hall together. The Bishop of the Diocese was Mrs.
Carruthers's uncle.

Mrs. Carruthers was very young and very pretty; too young, the Misses
Cooper were accustomed to say, and perhaps too pretty, though there
might be two opinions about that, to be mistress of a property like
Surley, which had been left to her unconditionally by her husband. The
old Rector had been fond of her before the dispute had parted the Park
and the Rectory, and even afterwards, for its details had been kept from
him, and he had not realised that the break had been so complete as it
actually had been.

Nothing was said about the cause of dispute, which had been concerned
with the 'goings on' of a dairy-maid at Surley Park. There had been an
episode with a young man, and the Misses Cooper, very stern upon keeping
the morals of the parish up to concert pitch, had fastened themselves
upon it firmly. But it was not the dairy-maid who had been concerned in
the episode, and they and Mrs. Carruthers had differed as to the
relative importance of their unfortunate mistake and of the fact that
there had undoubtedly been something to complain of somewhere.

There were tears in Ella Carruthers's eyes as she came forward to meet
the two sisters. "Oh, I am so sorry," she said. "The dear old man! Of
course one knew the end must be coming, but it doesn't make it less hard
to bear."

Rhoda and Ethel had tears too, to meet this. They had begun almost to
enjoy the bustle, but were glad to be able to show that the sadder
softer feelings still had sway with them. They were also relieved at the
final disappearance of the coolness between themselves and their
neighbour. There had been a formal mending of the breach some months
before, but they had not been in her house since, nor she in theirs.
Soon they were talking to her about their father as if they had always
been friends, and she was giving them genuine consolation by the
affection she showed herself to have entertained towards him. Their
feelings grew warmer, especially when she said, after they had talked
about the old Rector for some time: "I do hope Denis will succeed him. I
am sure that is what he would most have liked."

This, from the Bishop's niece, might or might not be significant. The
Bishop was known to be very fond of her, and had stayed with her once at
Surley Park, during the year in which he had occupied his See. It was
with a sense of excitement that they set themselves to find out exactly
how significant it might be.

"It was the one thing that he really desired," said Rhoda. "I think he
had almost made up his mind to speak a word to the Bishop about it, when
he came over to see him. But I suppose he felt he couldn't. I know he
didn't."

"I fancy," said Ethel, "that he thought he could safely leave it in the
Bishop's hands. After all, it would be far the best thing for the
parish. That is undoubted."

"And the Bishop might be expected to see that," said Rhoda, backing her
up. "He is very wise and far-sighted. And he couldn't help liking and
admiring our dear father."

The statement was almost a question. Ella Carruthers, faintly amused,
treated it as such.

"Oh, no," she said. "He talked to me about him. He felt a great sympathy
with him. I think he realised what his wishes were likely to be about
Denis, though of course he didn't say anything about it to me."

The sisters did not ask themselves how, in that case, she could have
divined the thoughts of her august relative. Both of them brightened
visibly. "I don't like to hope too much," said Rhoda who, as the elder,
always spoke first. "But it _would_ be such a good thing for the
parish."

"Everybody loves Denis," said Ethel. "There is nobody, I don't care who
he is, who could influence them more. And we should be here to help him,
as we always helped our dear father. They know our ways. Of course, one
mustn't put it on personal grounds, but it _would_ seem a pity for all
our work here to be lost."

"We should work wherever we went," said Rhoda. "It is not ourselves we
are thinking of. Neither of us would care to settle down to a selfish
life without trying to influence our fellow-creatures for good. But I do
feel that if we were not permitted to stay on and work here, a great
deal that we have done during the last twenty years and more might be
lost. People so soon relapse."

Ella Carruthers could hardly keep the smile from her lips. The idea of
the parish relapsing into heathendom on the departure of the Misses
Cooper amused her, though, in her softer mood towards them, she only
found it rather pathetic that they should disclaim personal interest in
the decision that was soon to be made. She knew little about the
conditions of Church patronage, and still less as to what her uncle's
ideas on the subject were. But she thought she might 'put in a word'
when he came to the funeral, as he had, most gratifyingly, announced his
intention of doing; she had reason to believe, generally, that her word
had weight with him. She left them with heightened hopes, which, if
hardly justified by any influence in her power to exercise, at least put
the seal upon the reconciliation between her and them.

"She really is kind at heart," said Rhoda, as they went back into the
dining-room, after saying good-bye to her. "I shan't be sorry to be
friends with her again."

"Nobody can say we have kow-towed," said Ethel. "It was the principle we
stood up for, and although we frankly admitted the mistake we made we
have never given way an inch upon that."




CHAPTER II

A QUESTION OF PATRONAGE


Ella Carruthers lunched at Abington Abbey on that day. The whole family
were there except Young George, who was at school,--George Grafton,
Caroline, Beatrix, Barbara, and Miss Waterhouse. The old Rector of
Surley had been ill almost ever since the Graftons had come to live at
the Abbey, and they had hardly known him. So the talk, as far as it
concerned his death, was almost entirely devoted to the question of his
successor.

The family took a keen interest in it. George Grafton was patron of the
living Abington, and the Vicar of Abington, the Reverend A. Salisbury
Mercer, was known to cherish hopes that the richer living of Surley
would be offered to him. In that case Grafton would have to present
another Vicar to Abington, and his family did not propose to deprive him
of their advice upon the subject. Also, none of them liked the Reverend
A. Salisbury Mercer.

"We're divided, you see, Ella," said Caroline. "We should like to get
rid of Lord Salisbury, but we don't think he deserves to have Surley."

"And we rather love Denis," said Beatrix. "He is frightfully solemn, and
he hasn't shown any indication of loving any of us, the few times we
have met him, which annoys us a little: but we're on his side, on the
whole. We would keep Lord Salisbury for the sake of letting you have
Denis."

"Thank you very much," said Ella. "We should all have to bear our
crosses, whatever happened. Mine would be Rhoda and Ethel, if Denis gets
it. But, as I told you once before, I should immediately set about
finding him a wife, and then they would have to go. I think they would
try to stop him marrying, whoever it was, and I should enjoy myself over
it. I suppose none of you would care to take the situation. I could
recommend you."

"I might," said Barbara, "if you'll wait till I have my hair up. I don't
feel that I could love Denis passionately, but I could be a good wife to
him if he didn't beat me."

"Barbara darling," expostulated Miss Waterhouse. "I don't like to hear
you talk in that way. It is not delicate."

"I didn't mean it, Dragon dear," said Barbara. "I'm the most
delicate-minded female, really."

"How would it be," said Grafton, "if we presented Denis to Abington,
supposing Mercer got Surley?"

The suggestion was received with applause. "Really, Daddy, you're quite
brilliant," said Beatrix. "Lord Salisbury would hate that more than
anything, except Denis getting Surley."

"Beatrix dear," said Miss Waterhouse. "I don't think you should talk as
if the object of presenting one clergyman to a living were to annoy
another one."

"Quite right, Dragon," said Grafton. "The less we annoy the clergy the
better, though they often annoy us."

"You would have Rhoda and Ethel here," Ella Carruthers warned them.

"Then I don't think you possibly can, Dad," said Caroline. "If you offer
it to Denis you must stipulate that he pensions them off. I think that
what we really want is a very nice old clergyman with white hair."

"A trifle infirm," added Beatrix.

"And with a nice old wife who goes about in a basket chaise," said
Barbara. "Or else a very beautiful curate with a moustache, that I could
fall in love with. Dragon darling, _don't_ say I oughtn't to have said
that. I must fall in love sometime, you know, and it would be so good
for me to begin with a clergyman."

Fine weather had set in so early that year that tennis and croquet
courts had already been marked out, and they played lawn tennis after
luncheon. The court was visible from the road, little frequented, that
ran through the park, and by and by the Vicar himself came along it,
with his wife, and called out to announce that he was coming in.

"That's because he sees you here, Ella," said Beatrix. "He has rather
left off inviting himself in that way. He will want to know if the
Bishop has dropped any hints. Couldn't you possibly make up a few?"

There was a slight gleam in Ella Carruthers's eye as she took the
suggestion, though there was no time to reply to it, for the Vicar was
already approaching, pomposity clothing him like a garment, his smiling,
good-natured little wife by his side. The game, which was nearly
finished, was dropped by consent, and the Vicar, after requesting that
it should be continued, but not pressing the point, was content to be
surrounded by them on the seats that were disposed at the edge of the
lawn.

"We were _so_ sorry to hear of dear old Mr. Cooper's death," said Mrs.
Mercer to Ella. "I'm sure it seems no time since he was as well and
strong as anybody. I could hardly believe it when I heard it."

"It has been expected for a long time," said her husband. "He has passed
away in the ripeness of his years, and there is no need to repine. We
went over this morning to offer our sympathy to those who are left
behind. They are bearing up very well, I am happy to say. But you had
just been to see them yourself, Mrs. Carruthers. They were much
gratified by your kind visit, and I hear that his Lordship is to come
over and take part in the funeral."

"Yes, I believe so," said Ella. "I hope to get him to stay the night
with me. It is some time since he came to see me, and we shall have a
good deal to talk over."

"Ah!" said the Vicar, with semi-archness. "I know how much he values
your advice. He has told me so himself."

"Really, Albert?" queried Mrs. Mercer, much interested. "You never told
me that."

The Vicar looked slightly annoyed. "It was when I was over at the
Palace," he said somewhat inadequately; and turned to Ella again. "It is
rather pathetic," he said, "the way those poor girls cling to the idea
that their young brother may be appointed to succeed their father. They
even gain some encouragement from something that you let fall, as to his
Lordship's intentions, no doubt with the idea of comforting them. But it
would never do, you know. No Bishop in these days could afford to make
such an appointment. It would create a scandal."

"Didn't you say, Albert, that it would amount almost to the sin of
simony?" enquired Mrs. Mercer.

"Oh! good heavens, Ella!" exclaimed Grafton. "Do preserve your uncle
from the sin of simony. That would be too awful."

The Vicar, sensitive to ridicule like most people of self-conceit, after
a glance at the faces round him, turned upon his wife. "I should never
have said so absurd a thing in such a connection," he said. "You are
thinking of something quite different."

Ella Carruthers broke in. "My uncle has only been Bishop here for a
little over a year," she said. "He has told me more than once that there
has been a great deal to learn. And I know I have helped him in one or
two things."

A gleam of satisfaction shone in the Vicar's eye. She seemed to be
appealing to him for advice, which she could pass on, and he was quite
ready to give it. "Your uncle," he said, "has spent all his life of
service--hard and devoted service, I know--in large towns. Though no man
could rival him in knowledge of urban clerical problems, it would be
nothing to be surprised at if he were not yet fully alive to all the
currents of opinion among the country clergy."

"You have lived mostly in the country, Ella," said Grafton. "If you
could give your uncle a few hints as to what the clergy think about
these things he might perhaps be glad of it."

"Oh, I'm sure he would," broke in Mrs. Mercer enthusiastically. "Dear
Mrs. Carruthers, please try. It would be such a splendid thing. And I'm
sure there's nobody who could prime you up better than my husband. He
has made a life-long study of these questions, just as the Bishop has
about town questions."

The Vicar almost simpered. "I wouldn't compare any knowledge of mine
with the Bishop's, my dear," he said. "At the same time, in my humble
sphere, I have observed, and thought, and consulted with men perhaps
wiser than myself, and I think I do know the conditions of a country
diocese such as this, possibly, if I may say so without being
misunderstood, as well as any Bishop."

"I know my uncle is always anxious to discover the opinions of people
who really know things," said Ella. "And he is certainly not above
taking advice."

"I should hardly presume to offer advice," said the Vicar. "For one
thing, my position as incumbent of one of the less important livings in
the Diocese would hardly justify me in offering advice to my Diocesan.
Personally, I am more than contented with my lot, and should never lift
so much as a finger to change it. But if circumstances did conspire to
move me to a higher sphere of influence, where it would not be
unbecoming to lift my voice in advice, I should consider it my duty to
do so, if asked, knowing that possibly I could thus serve my
generation."

"I suppose the living of Surley would hardly give you that opportunity,
would it?" asked Ella. "I think there are fewer inhabitants, and it is a
poor little church."

"Oh, yes, dear Mrs. Carruthers, it _certainly_ would," said Mrs. Mercer.
"The Rector of Surley has always been a person of importance. Even old
Mr. Cooper was, though compared with my husband--"

"Oh, _please_, my dear!" interposed her husband. "Let me speak for
myself. Your question wants considering, Mrs. Carruthers. It is true, as
my wife says, that the Rector of Surley has always been considered a
person of some weight in the Diocese. The last two incumbents were Rural
Deans, and Mr. Cooper would have been so if he had not considered
himself too old when the office fell vacant. Yes, I think I may say that
the Rectorate of Surley _would_ provide scope for a man anxious to serve
in the way we have been discussing, though it was not actually the sort
of position I had in my mind. But I should think it probable that his
Lordship has already made his decision. If not, and you have an
opportunity of whispering a word in his ear, dear lady, warn him against
such a grave mistake as the appointment of young Cooper would be. I
speak--"

"But _don't_, for goodness sake, tell Rhoda and Ethel that my husband
advised you to," interrupted Mrs. Mercer. "We should never hear the last
of it."

The Vicar showed signs of acute annoyance. "Really, Gertrude!" he said.
"One would think I was doing something underhand in speaking as I do."

"Well, dear, of course we _have_ both sympathised with them when they
told us of their hopes. I know it was only to--"

But he would not let her go on. "For young Cooper as a man I have the
utmost respect," he said, "and if he were twenty or even perhaps ten
years older and had proved himself in his sacred calling, as he will
do--as I'm sure he will do--I should say institute him as Rector of
Surley, and the blessing of God go with him. But it is not a personal
question. Religion is too sacred a thing to be treated in that way, and
I have a duty to perform that can't be tampered with. For the Bishop's
own sake he should be warned against making a mistake of that sort,
Rhoda and Ethel or no Rhoda and Ethel."

"Well, Ella," said Grafton, rising, "you know what to do and say, if
you're asked. I'm sorry for young Denis, because I should like to see
him settled in a good fat living. But you see it wouldn't do, and your
uncle ought to be warned against it."

The Vicar also rose. "At the same time," he said, "I shouldn't like it
to be thought that the advice had come from me. It might almost look as
if I wanted the living for myself, and I should greatly dislike that
idea going abroad."

"But you wouldn't refuse it if my uncle were persuaded that you were the
best man to give it to?" hazarded Ella.

"I should consider it," said the Vicar, after a moment's weighty pause.
"I can't say more at present than that I should consider it."

As his wife also seemed about to express herself upon the subject he
took his leave, somewhat hurriedly, and carried her along with him.
Grafton and Caroline accompanied them to the garden gate.

"Isn't he the limit?" enquired Beatrix when they were out of earshot.
"_Can_ he think we're all such fools as not to see through him?"

"I wanted to see how far he would go," said Ella. "Really, I think it
would be almost worth while having him at Surley to be able to play with
him. But from this moment I am heart and soul on the side of Denis,
Rhoda and Ethel or no Rhoda and Ethel."

This was not the only clerical invasion of the Abbey on that afternoon.
It contained a household which presented such attractions to friendly
neighbours that a day seldom went by without a visit from one or more of
them. Worthing, the agent of the Abington property, as well as of the
adjoining one of Wilborough, and his pupil, Maurice Bradby, came to
reinforce the tennis players. So did Richard Mansergh, the eldest son
of Sir Alexander, of Wilborough, a sailor home on leave, and already if
appearances went for anything, desperately enamoured of Beatrix. And
about tea-time the party was joined by the Reverend Rogers Williams,
Vicar of Feltham, and his wife, who came over on bicycles, accompanied
by several Airedale terriers, whose breeding they supervised in the
intervals of more serious occupations. They were known as the Breezy
Bills in the Grafton family, and a closer intimacy had been established
with them during the previous holidays by Young George, who had taken a
youthful liking to their daughter, Maggie, aged fourteen.

Tea was in the Long Gallery upstairs, and the talk was mostly about the
Rectory of Surley.

"Are you a candidate?" asked Grafton of Mr. Williams. "Because if so we
shall have to be careful what we say. I may tell you at once that our
sympathies are with young Denis Cooper."

"I a candidate!" exclaimed Mr. Williams with a hearty laugh--he laughed
heartily at anything in which a humourous significance might be
inferred, and at many things where it was not apparent,--"Oh, good
gracious, no! Wouldn't leave Feltham for anything in the world. We've
got everything exactly as we like it there, haven't we, dear?"

"Yes," said his wife. "The kennels couldn't be beaten and they've cost
us a lot of money, which we should lose if we moved. And there's the
carpentering shop too. Oh, no, we look on at it all and laugh about it,
don't we, dear?"

Mr. Williams laughed about it. "I don't know about young Denis," he
said. "That would be rather a tall order, as things go now-a-days.
There's one fellow, though, that I hope _won't_ get it. But perhaps I'd
better not say who he is in this company." He laughed again.

"Oh, we know who you mean," said Caroline. "We hope he won't get it
either. But why shouldn't Denis?"

"I suppose because all the rest of us would kick up such a fuss," said
Mr. Williams, laughing most heartily. "I shouldn't on my own account,
but there are lots of older men who have worked hard all their lives who
ought to be considered before a young one just beginning. There's
nothing to do there either. A young fellow ought to have something to
do."

"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Ella. "Rhoda and Ethel find a great deal
to do, and Denis is never idle. I can't take your view of it at all, and
I hope my uncle won't."

Mr. Williams laughed. "We were wondering how much Mrs. Carruthers might
have to do with it as we rode over, weren't we, dear?" he asked of his
wife, and laughed again.

"We hope she is going to have a great deal to do with it," said Beatrix.
"We are heart and soul for Denis."

Richard Mansergh, who was sitting next to her, frowned slightly.
"Brill--our fellow--was saying that with that big house and good income
there ought to be a sort of community there," he said.

"That's just what Father Brill would say," said Mrs. Williams.
"Everybody likes Father Brill; but preserve us from having our nice
Rectories and Vicarages filled with people of his sort. I don't mean his
sort personally, but celibates stalking about in cassocks, and no women
in the parsonages for poor people to come to. It wouldn't do at all."

"I'm sure it wouldn't," said Worthing. "You can't change and muddle up
English country life like that. What were all the parsons' houses built
for? You've got them in every village in the land, so that there should
be an educated man able to live like a gentleman; and now people like
Brill want to put it all back again. It won't do."

"You speak with considerable heat, James," said Grafton.

"Well, I think it's a lot of tommy-rot," said Worthing, "and I've often
told Brill so. The people don't want it. The happiest state of things
for them is where an old-fashioned Squire is doing his duty, and an
old-fashioned parson is doing his duty."

"And an old-fashioned agent is doing his duty," hazarded Barbara.

Worthing eyed her askance, and then chuckled. "You're a cheeky young
baggage," he said, "but you're not far wrong either. The agent has to
drive the team, and it wants some driving. It's the human side that's
wanted; that's what it is--the human side."

He came abruptly to an end, with a frown of perplexity on his ample, not
over-intellectual face. It was Caroline who interpreted his ideas for
him further.

"You're quite right, dear Uncle Jimmy," she said. "That's what strikes
one when one gets into country life a little. The system may not be
perfect, but it works splendidly with the right people to look after
it."

Her father smiled at her indulgently. "What do you know about the
system?" he asked her.

"Oh, I've been reading," she said. "I read a lot when you are up in
London, Dad, and don't want looking after."

"I don't see much wrong with the system," said Richard Mansergh. "It's
worked jolly well for hundreds of years, and it's only the Radicals who
want to upset it."

"The naughty wicked Radicals, of course!" said Beatrix. "I like them
better than the Tories myself. I once met Mr. Birrell, and he's the
sweetest old lamb in the world."

"One swallow doesn't make a summer," said Richard. "Wait till you've met
a few more."

Mr. Williams laughed heartily. "They'd like to turn us all out," he
said. "But we won't _be_ turned out--not without a struggle. I don't
think there's much wrong with the system either, and I'd rather see
young Denis Rector of Surley than one of Father Brill's communities
there."

"Oh, so would I," said Ella, "and I hope my uncle will make him. He's
old for his years already, and every day he'll get older."

"Do you think the Bishop will appoint him?" asked Mr. Williams.

"I don't know," she said. "If I knew I'd say so. But I do know that
whatever he does it won't be because he's afraid of what people will say
about him."




CHAPTER III

IN THE GARDEN


They went back to the tennis courts after tea, but there were not enough
of them to make up two sets, the Breezy Bills having left on their
bicycles, followed by a trail of Airedales. "Come and look at the
rock-garden," said Caroline to Maurice Bradby.

The young man brightened visibly. He had sat silent during the
conversation at the tea table, as he generally sat silent in company,
being too diffident to put forward his views in a general conversation.
But he had views of his own on many subjects, and those who took the
trouble to elicit them often found them interesting.

Caroline was one of these. She was no older than he, but had seen so
much more of the world and its inhabitants that her feeling towards him
was almost maternal.

He was not like the young men whom she had met in such shoals in London
ball-rooms and in country houses, not one of whom, however they might
differ in character and tastes, but had done and known many of the
things that she had. Bradby was the son of a clergyman, and had left his
provincial Grammar-school for a stool in a provincial bank, to be
released from it after four years of unhappy confinement for the
country life after which his soul had always hankered. The country was
a passion with him, and Caroline had penetrated some of his depths at an
early stage, when the rest of the family were only in the state of
finding him uncommonly heavy in hand, because his upbringing had not
trained him to respond to the easy intimacy which they offered to all
whom they thought worthy of it, and had offered to him on his
introduction to them under Worthing's wing. Caroline, sweet and kind to
all who seemed to need helping in the world, had taken more trouble
about him than the rest, but they had all come to accept him by this
time for what he was. It was no longer awkward to have him sitting
silent while talk flowed high all about him; they knew him too well to
be obliged to drag him into it out of politeness, or for one of them to
detach herself to talk to him. And it was only in talk that he was
backward. If there was anything to do he was a stand-by,--clever and
capable and interested. All of them liked him very well, but only
Caroline had come to be unaffected by his dissimilarity from type.

He was tall and loosely built, with large, strong hands, and, it must be
confessed, with unusually large feet. His hair was not well brushed, and
looked as if it could not be. His features were indeterminate, but he
had large, dark eyes which somehow redeemed them. His clothes were
unobtrusive, but whatever he wore he never looked well-dressed. Among
the smart young men of the Graftons' large circle of friends, who came
down to shoot at Abington or to spend week-ends there, and even those
who were not smart but belonged obviously to the same class, he seemed
always out of place. This was somewhat of an annoyance to Beatrix, who
was apt to complain that there was no reason why he should so
persistently take a back seat, considering that they had done all they
could to make a friend of him. But it did not annoy Caroline. She had
seen once or twice young men among their visitors who did not live and
move wholly on the surface of things find something in common with him.
He was her protege. She did not even want to see him 'smartened up,' as
Beatrix, commenting upon his unaccented appearance, had sometimes
suggested as a process that would improve him.

The rock-garden, fashioned the previous year out of a disused stone
quarry across a paddock from the garden, was full of interest, in this
its second flowering season, and attracted visits at all hours of the
day. Maurice Bradby had worked hard with hands and brains at its
construction, and knew more about what was growing in it than any of its
owners. He had had few opportunities of acquiring garden knowledge in
the provincial town in which most of his life had been spent, but he
sucked in and assimilated such knowledge without effort, and added to it
by close observation, and to a lesser extent by study of his subject.
All subjects that had to do with nature found this eager response in
him, and Worthing, a countryman by birth and upbringing, had said more
than once that he had never had a pupil so easy to teach.

Bradby found his voice the moment they were clear of the tennis lawn.
"What did you mean about the system being wrong just now?" he asked.

She looked up at him with a smile. "I don't think I said it was wrong,
did I?" she said. "I said that it wanted the right people to make it
work."

He seemed to be considering this, and she said, half jestingly, "I know
you think everything is right in the country."

"It's right for me," he said simply. "I suppose it's right for you, too,
isn't it?"

"Yes; but then look how you and I are placed."

He considered this too. "We're not placed in the same way," he said.
"I'm part of the machine, and I'm learning to be a still more important
part of the machine."

"Well, am I not part of the machine too? If we were just here to enjoy
ourselves, as some people do buy country houses just to enjoy
themselves, I suppose that would mean standing apart from the machine.
But we aren't like that, are we?"

He did not reply at once, and as they had now reached the rock-garden,
and Caroline's next words were about the flowers that were showing their
vivid spring colours in the amphitheatre all about them, the
conversation was broken off for the time.

But it was resumed again a little later, as they stood here and there,
or moved slowly up and down the rocky stairs or about the stone paths.

"You know, I think we did take it rather as a new toy when we first
come down here," Caroline said. "We loved the country, and we wanted a
country house of our very own. Of course we've all enjoyed it awfully in
that way, but I don't think any of us thought we should live here so
much as we have. We've hardly lived in London, all together, since. And
we are always wanting to get back here when we do."

"Mr. Grafton doesn't take such an interest in the estate as Sir
Alexander does in Wilborough?" he said.

She laughed. "Darling old Dad!" she said. "It is rather a bore to him.
He works when he is in London, and likes to play down here, and leave
the work to you and Uncle Jimmy. But he's a good Squire all the same,
isn't he? He gives you everything you ask for."

"Oh, yes. There's never any trouble about money to run the show as it
ought to be run. I only meant he didn't take much interest in details."

"I don't suppose people at the head of a big business generally do, do
they? They leave the details to the people they can trust. Dad wouldn't
take much interest in the details of his banking."

"Oh, well, I see what you mean. This isn't his real business as it is
Sir Alexander's. Still, there's something I can't get quite right in my
mind. It's all so--well, so happy, to me, that I don't like to think
there's a flaw anywhere--in the system, I mean. Mr. Grafton pays for it,
doesn't he? He makes his money somewhere else. He bought the estate,
but it can't return him much on his capital--certainly not enough to
live on in the way you do."

"No, but why should it? We get all the fun of it extra. I suppose you
may say Dad pays for that. It returns enough to run itself, though. I
suppose you and Uncle Jimmy see to that."

"Oh, yes. It keeps us going, too. And everything is run as it ought to
be. All the farms are let, and everybody is contented,--or ought to be.
Everybody is getting a living, anyhow, out of the land."

"I love to think of people getting a living out of the land."

His eyes shone as he turned his face quickly to her. "Do you feel like
that about it, too?" he asked. "So do I. It fills me with pleasure. I
like to think of everything that's growing on the land, and every little
thing that's done to make it grow, and the men who do it all; and some
of them get so wise, always living and working on it, that you would
never learn all they know if you read about it till the end of your
life."

"I talked to old Bull once while he was laying a fence," she said. "He
was proud to let me see how cleverly he was doing it, and that it wasn't
so easy as it looked. He has been hedging and ditching all his life, and
he enjoys it as much as anything he could do."

"Yes, I know. That's the sort of work a man can enjoy, with his hands.
You're helping nature, and if you learn the ways of nature she helps
you. There's never any monotony in nature. She's alive."

"When you see people like that, you're apt to be ashamed of yourself for
all the things you want to make you contented. Old Bull has brought up a
large family on less than half of what I have for a dress allowance. His
dear old wife,--I know her too--gets the most out of every penny that he
gives her, and he has all he wants at home. There's no anxiety about
life when you've been trained to do without things and not to want
them."

"No, you get your satisfaction out of the things you have, and they are
much bigger than the things you do without."

"They have enough to eat and drink, and good clothes to wear. They have
their family interests, and their friends. They see people they know,
and have known all their lives, more easily than people like us do. They
hardly ever move out of their village, but the little changes of life
from day to day and from week to week, with their work, and their times
of leisure, are enough for them."

He smiled at her. "It's an idyllic picture," he said. "There are people
who will tell you that you won't keep them on the land except by
bringing the pleasures of the town to them."

She did not hesitate; her ideas seemed to be clearly set. "That's mostly
the young people," she said. "I'm only thinking now of the older ones,
who really belong to the land. Their interests are in it, and I think
it brings them something as near contentment as it is possible to have."

"You feel a little like that about it yourself, don't you?" he asked
half shyly.

She smiled. "I suppose we are generally thinking a little about
ourselves when we are talking about other people," she said. "I know how
different my life is from theirs--how much more I want to--to keep me
quiet. But I know that the more simple I make it, and the more it
depends upon what lies around me, the happier I am."

He looked at her almost with veneration. She was an unusually pretty
girl, with an expression of sweetness and kindness which was more than
her beauty. To him she seemed so far above all other girls whom he had
ever seen as to be of a different flesh and spirit. Beatrix was even
more beautiful than Caroline, and she was kind and sweet too, though
with more contrariety in her. But to him she was common clay beside
Caroline, whose lightest word he was inclined to receive as an oracle.
Both of them seemed to him, in his self-respecting timidity, far above
himself. He had had no contact with the life they represented before he
had come to Abington, and thought himself quite unfitted to take part in
it, with its ease and elaboration of wealth and unfamiliar custom
marking it at every turn. To think of himself as anywhere on the same
footing as these shining girls would have seemed to him hardly less
presumptuous than to think of himself as on a level with a Royal
Princess. But just as the goddesses of old time filled the hearts of
mortal men with bliss by showing them what they shared with them, but
never lost their godhead by so doing, so Caroline moved his wonder and
admiration by letting him into some of the secret places of her nature,
which was as fair as its outward form, but still remained high above
him.

"It's what I feel," he said gently, "though I lived a dull life before I
came here, and you lived a gay one. I've given up nothing that I wanted.
I enjoy my life much more; but still it's a good deal simpler than it
was."

"It comes of doing the work you like in the surroundings you like," she
said sagely. "With a woman it isn't so much the work as all the little
ways of spending her time. She doesn't as a rule, unless she's creative,
or has to earn her own living, work by herself, or for herself. She is
in touch with others all the time. I never thought of myself as having a
place here, except the one I have always had at home. But I have, you
know. I've made friends with a great many people. We all have. We know
most of the people in the village, and all the children. I suppose I
just thought of Abington, when we first came down, as a lovely house in
which we could enjoy ourselves, by ourselves, or with the friends we
asked to come here, and the people we should get to know in the houses
round. I never thought of it as a place with a few hundred people living
right round you. But now I know them, it's different. I have plenty of
friends among them too, friends who tell me things about themselves, and
like to hear what I have to tell them. I think I have made myself part
of the machine, after all. But I like to think about it as a big
family."

They were walking back to the tennis lawn by this time. "Yes, that's
what Worthing meant by the human side," said Bradby. "I know he thinks a
lot about that, and we have talked about it. It isn't giving them
charity; they don't want that; or they ought not to want it. It's
feeling that you're all the same flesh and blood. If there has been
anything wrong with the system, that's what has kept it together all
these years."

Richard Mansergh and Beatrix did not talk about the system when they
presently betook themselves for a stroll in the evening sunlight, before
he mounted his horse to ride home. He had, in truth, a little difficulty
in persuading her to take it with him, for his admiration of her had by
this time reached the point at which it demanded expression, and
expression in its turn was apt to demand answers of a kind which she was
not ready to give. But at this time she rather prided herself upon her
total immunity from the softer passions, and gained some satisfaction in
fencing with them when they were obtruded on her notice. It was only a
question of whether or no she was in the mood to exercise her wits that
made her accept or decline these contests, and she had only hung back a
little because her late activities had rather tired her.

She was enough to turn the head of any man, with her sweet flower-like
face, whose mischievous eyes only made it more bewitching. She was only
nineteen, and her slender form had hardly yet filled out to womanhood,
but showed delicious soft curves of neck and shoulder. She wore a short
white skirt and a white silk blouse, all very workmanlike for her play,
but most femininely becoming. A wide-brimmed hat, which she caught up
from the seat beside her, slightly altered the note of her clothes. She
seemed to the young man more desirable thus, walking by his side, than
in the activities of the game, although he had admired her grace and
skill too while she had been playing. Perhaps the hat was put on
instinctively to soften the impressions of athleticism; but a wide hat
brim also conceals eyes and mouth from one who is considerably taller,
when it is to be desired that they shall be concealed.

Richard Mansergh was some years older than she--a Commander in His
Majesty's Navy, and a good man at his job, a born lover of the sea, but
just at present anxious to spend as much time away from it as rules and
duties stretched to their utmost limit would allow. He was taller than
most sailors, and rather good-looking or rather ugly according to
whether regularity of feature or perfection of limb should appeal to the
observer. In form he was something of an Adonis, and the shape of the
head and the way it was set on his neck hardly prepared one for a face
that was not that of an Adonis, though it showed strength and a
cleanness that had its attraction too.

He was very deeply in love, more deeply in love than he had ever been in
his life, or had ever thought to be with a very young girl, since his
salad days were long since over. He was of an ardent temperament, and
previous loves had burnt themselves out without ever coming to the point
of a strong desire for matrimony. But this time it was coming to that,
if he could win himself any response from this intoxicating, tormenting,
elusive creature, whose image had imprinted itself so deeply on his
inward vision that he walked the earth or sailed the seas with it ever
before him. He was masterful in his ways, and his wooing, when once he
had made up his mind, was direct. But he would never propose to her, if
he wooed her for ten years, unless he gained some sign of love from her.
He wanted the whole of her, for his very own. It was like heady wine to
him to think of her with him always, in spirit if not in body. All he
would have, all he would do, would be hers, but she must make it so
first, and she must give him back all that was in her, all the endless
treasures of her mind and her spirit, which thrilled him afresh every
time he brought a new one to light. He had never felt like that about
any woman before, and he exulted in the strength of his passion, and the
new things about love that it was teaching him. They were all good
things, and made the cleanest of his past loves seem like mere
sensuality. It would be the true, deathless marriage, if he could win
her.

Beatrix was far from suspecting on what a pedestal of adoration he had
set her. It hardly showed in the way he treated her, which was masterful
and encroaching. She knew she was being stormed, and rather enjoyed it,
but she did not know how the weather would change, if she surrendered.
Then there would be a deep enduring calm, and strength in which she
could rest herself. If she surrendered! She was nowhere near it at
present.

"I want you to tell me about that fellow you were in love with."

She turned a little pale at the shock, and stood still on the grassy
path down which they were wandering towards the yew-enclosed lily pond.
She was used to his abrupt attacks, and had nerved herself to meet one,
as he had walked silent by her side. But she had not expected anything
like this.

Her momentary pallor was succeeded by a deep blush, as she looked up at
him with protesting eyes. He met her gaze, and adored her afresh because
she did not look down.

"Really, I'm not going to talk to you about that," she said indignantly.

He went on, and after a moment's hesitation she went with him, though
her inclination was to turn back. But she never ran away from anything.

"Why not?" he asked. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. I want to know how
much you cared for him."

The shock once over, Beatrix was not sorry to have her lips opened for
her. It is not often that a girl is given the opportunity of explaining
that she did not care very much for a man to whom she has been engaged,
and who has left her; at least, not to anybody to whom the statement
will bring pleasure, and credence.

"Haven't you ever known what calf-love is?" she enquired, beginning by
being very hard upon herself.

"Oh, yes, rather. All men do. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Love's a
very beautiful thing, you know, and if you like beautiful things you're
on the lookout for it from an early age. Sometimes it's the right sort
of thing you get hold of, but as you don't know much when you're first
attacked you generally don't."

Beatrix felt herself helped. "Well, I suppose girls have it, too," she
said. "In books they are generally supposed to begin with a curate."

She felt suddenly rather like crying, she could not have told why; but
it was because the love she had given to the man who had been sent away
from her and had not come back again, had been a sacred thing, though
now it was dead; and its uprooting had left a wound which had not yet
become a scar. She was glad to sit down on one of the stone seats of the
lily-pond garden, which by this time they had reached.

"_You_ wouldn't do that sort of thing," he said. "I expect until that
fellow made love to you, you'd laughed at it all."

This was quite true, and she felt herself lifted by his understanding.
It was painful to have loved and to love no longer; but since she did
love no longer it was more comforting to her self-respect to believe
that her love had been of a lighter quality than she had thought it at
the time.

She dropped the ugly idea of calf-love. She could do better than that,
on consideration. "I should have been a Marquise you know," she said,
"and a very rich and important one. Girls are apt to be bowled over by
that sort of thing, you know."

"_You_ wouldn't be, though," he said again with great directness.

This was quite true too. She was flattered, but was not prepared to drop
this line entirely. And she believed every word she was saying. "I don't
mean that I was on the lookout for a title, in that crude sort of way,"
she said. "I don't think I'm like that."

How entirely unlike it he thought her he found it difficult to refrain
from saying in a way that might have startled her, touched as he was by
the pathetically doubtful note in her speech.

"Of course you're not," he said. "I told you so. But I suppose everybody
all round you was egging you on, and flattering you about it. You'd like
to think you were pleasing people."

How understanding he was, in spite of the rough shocks his speeches
sometimes brought with them! It really had been like that, at first.

"My darling old Daddy wasn't pleased at all," she said. "He hated it."

"Yes, I know he did. It's a great feather in his cap. Most fathers
would have gone about purring. He was a good-looking fellow too, wasn't
he? I never saw him myself, but my brother Geoffrey says he was."

This was a line she would rather have kept off of. "Yes, I suppose he
was," she said judicially. "He was a lot older than me, and had seen a
great deal of the world. Of course that flattered me. I don't think a
younger man would have swept me off my feet as he did."

The Marquis de Lassigny had been thirty-six at the time of his quick
wooing of Beatrix. Richard Mansergh was thirty-two, and had also seen a
good deal of the world. This statement brought him pleasure.

"I see now," said Beatrix, speaking very calmly, "that I thought of him
as possessing all sorts of qualities that weren't really his. Of course
I thought I knew a great deal about men, as I had been out a whole
season, and had seen so many of them. Now I see how little I really
knew."

She was getting on very nicely, but his next words brought a check. "But
you did love him," he said, uncompromisingly. "You wanted to give him
everything that was in you."

How true that was she felt a pang in remembering. Whatever his love for
her had been, hers had been for him the entire surrender of all she was
or would be.

She was on her defence. "I told you I didn't know enough," she said.
"But I had never loved anybody before--in that way. Of course I gave
all the best that was in me."

He caught his breath. It wouldn't have been she if she hadn't done that.
But what a treasure for a man to throw away! "He can't have been fit to
black your boots," he said, "or he'd have waited for you for twenty
years."

She felt the need of a lighter note. "I should have been old and ugly by
that time," she said.

"You'd have been neither. But if you'd lost all your looks you'd have
been just the same."

She was touched by the almost impersonal conviction in his speech, and
comforted by his belief in her. But she was not yet ready. "It's very
kind of you to say that," she said. "He didn't think so. And I'm very
glad he didn't now. It took me a little time to get over it, but I
_have_ got over it. I don't want anything that I haven't got now. I love
my family, and they love me, and we're all going to be happy together
for a long time. Now, I think we'll go in."

He rose obediently and walked back to the house by her side. She had
given him no opening such as he ardently longed for, no response that
might bid him hope. But he could wait for that. It would come in time,
if mortal man could do anything to induce it.

As for her, she was in a more emotional state than appeared on the
surface. Such an experience as she had undergone--to love for the first
time, and to have the love rejected--could scarcely help hardening a
nature such as hers, yielding and trustful. But the hardening would not
set in until the wound became a scar; and he had opened it again, and
delayed the process.

It served him better than he knew that he had done so.




CHAPTER IV

A PRESENTATION


The old Rector of Surley was duly buried, and all his friends and
neighbours for miles round attended his burying. The Bishop was there,
sympathetic and urbane. He talked most kindly to the Misses Cooper, and
in such a way as once more to bring to their eyes those tears which the
abundant business of the past few days had almost dried up. And he was
closeted with Denis for nearly half an hour in the comfortable study of
which the young man had made himself the occupant. Thereafter he retired
to his niece's house, and spent a pleasant restful afternoon and
evening, not too much overcome with melancholy to enjoy the little
change.

Had he said anything? The sisters had hardly been able to restrain
themselves from listening outside the door, and fastened upon Denis the
moment their illustrious guest had left the house.

Denis frowned slightly. No, he had said nothing.

What had they talked about then? They were not going to be put off in
that way, by the brother they had nursed, and smacked, not so many years
before. They supposed, rather sharply, that he and the Bishop had not
spent all that time together in silence.

Denis did not give them much information, but left them to infer that
the Bishop's talk had just been that of a kind wise Father in God with a
young man setting out upon his life's work. They construed this into a
wish on his part to find out for himself whether this particular young
man was a suitable object for his patronage, and hoped afresh. If he had
_not_ been going to offer Denis the living, he would certainly have said
so, and advised him what to do when his curacy at Surley came to an end.
For a new incumbent would not want a curate. Denis would either stay on
as Rector or depart altogether.

Two or three days went past. Denis went to London on business connected
with his father's estate, and having got there sent a telegram to say
that he should not be returning until the following day.

His sisters did not quite like this. He had given no reason for staying
away over the night, and, if they would have disclaimed the right to
direct his movements, there was still a lingering idea in their minds
that they ought to be consulted about them. He had taken up no clothes,
and there was the hint of a suspicion that he had given them the slip;
also that he had stayed up to amuse himself, which would not be becoming
so soon after the sad event. Denis had always been extraordinarily
well-behaved, and wise and steady beyond his years. They prided
themselves a good deal on the way he had been brought up. He would not
do anything actually wrong; that they were sure of. Still, it was a good
thing that he would have them there to look after him. If he were
appointed Rector of Surley, he would want all the advice, and
direction, that they could give him, at his age. They had made it plain
to the Bishop, without, of course, obtruding themselves or their
desires, that he could rely upon them to give that advice and direction.

The next morning the long-expected letter came. There was no doubt about
it. It was written in the episcopal hand and sealed with the episcopal
seal. Really, it was extraordinarily tiresome of Denis not to be there
to open it.

It did not, however, take them quite half a minute to decide to open it
themselves. A longer period of hesitation would have made it appear that
it was not the most natural thing to do, as of course it was. Denis
would certainly have asked them to open it if he had known he would be
absent when it came, and after all, the letter was as important to them
as it was to him.

They drew a long breath of delight and relief as they devoured its
contents together. As they told one another immediately afterwards, they
had really not dared to hope, but now their fears were set at rest it
was easy to see that nothing else could have happened. If only their
dear father could have known!

They both thought of him, in the pleasure to which they now gave
themselves up. It would have sent him out of the world happy, the dear
old man. Really, if the Bishop had intended to present Denis all along,
he _might_ have stretched the point and relieved their father's mind of
its anxiety.

When they had settled down to the news, and to their cooling breakfast,
a slight reaction set in. They felt all the fears and doubts with which
they had lived for so long rolling back upon them, though now they
should have been set at rest. Really, it _had_ scarcely seemed possible
that the living should be given to Denis, considering his youth, and his
Deacon's orders. Their talk for a time was almost as if they were
blaming the Bishop for his presentation, and covered most of the ground
that might have been taken by the Vicar of Abington, or other clerical
critics, of such an appointment. But this state of mind, induced by
fears too little allowed, and helped by the kind things the Bishop had
said in his letter, soon disappeared. There would be a great deal of
criticism to meet, and they at least must not show themselves to be
influenced by any of it. The Bishop had made the appointment of his own
free will, and on grounds that seemed good to him. They had done nothing
to urge him, nor had they pulled any strings. That was a great comfort
to them now, and they gave themselves and one another considerable
credit for it. Then they decided that they had better not say anything
about the appointment until Denis returned home. After all, the letter
_had_ been written to him, and the news could wait. This was their only
reference to the fact of their having opened the letter, and they felt
that it covered everything.

But as Denis did not arrive by the train that would have brought him
home in time for lunch, and could not now be expected until six o'clock,
the news began to sit heavily upon them. They had been busy indoors all
the morning, and had had only to stifle the natural desire to tell the
servants. In the afternoon they went about the parish, and could not
forbear from encouraging several with whom they had dealings by telling
them that it was quite possible that they would not have to leave them
after all. But as they had said this before, though not perhaps with the
same satisfied look in their eyes, the secret was kept.

They came home to tea, and now they longed for Denis's return, for the
news had burnt itself right through their lightly formed purpose, and
only the hour or so that they would have to wait for him prevented their
summoning all the servants, indoor and outdoor, and imparting to them
their triumph.

There came a ring at the bell, and presently Mr. and Mrs. Mercer were
announced. Rhoda and Ethel cast a sharp and identical meaning glance at
one another before they rose to receive them. It said as plain as if
spoken: "_You_ won't be able to keep it in."

Denis's absence was explained and commented upon.

"I wanted to see him particularly," said the Vicar. "An old friend of
mine, who has somewhat broken down in health, needs an assistant priest
to go to him and do just the work that Denis has been doing here for
your dear father. It would be the very place for him, if--if he were
free to take it." He mentioned the name of his friend, of the pretty
village in Devonshire of which he was Rector, and the stipend offered,
while Rhoda and Ethel listened politely with meaning smiles on their
faces, and wondered how they could ever have liked this man.

Mrs. Mercer saw the smiles, and though she did not understand their full
import divined something of their source. "Of course, dear," she said,
"we know it is _possible_ that Denis may be preferred to this living. In
that case this offer would be of no use to him. We only thought that if
he _wasn't_--! And my husband hasn't told you that there's a charming
little house, big enough for all three of you."

"There was never really any chance of Denis's appointment here," said
the Vicar, not without annoyance. "It was quite right to humour the poor
old gentleman, as he so set his heart upon it; but Rhoda and Ethel are
far too sensible to have any such ideas themselves; and it would be
wrong too."

Rhoda had once boasted that there was nothing of the cat in her, but she
enquired very sweetly, "And why wrong, Mr. Mercer?"

"My dear girl," said the Vicar, "you know as well as I do. It would be a
job, and Bishops dare not perpetrate jobs in these days. And if you are
inclined still to cherish hopes of that sort, as it is perhaps not
altogether unnatural that you should, as you had to persuade your dear
father of it for so long, let me tell you at once that the appointment
has already been made, I am not at liberty to say in what quarter. But
you will hear about it very soon."

It was Ethel who said, "Oh, really, Mr. Mercer! Did the Bishop tell you
that himself?"

"You never told _me_, Albert, when you came back from the Palace
yesterday," said Mrs. Mercer in an aggrieved voice.

"It was not the Bishop himself, of course," said the Vicar. "But I had
it on the best authority. Please don't ask me any more. The conversation
was confidential."

"It wasn't _you_ it was offered to, dear, was it?" enquired his wife.
"No, I'm sure you would have told me that. I suppose Mr. Burgoyne must
have told you." Mr. Burgoyne was the Bishop's chaplain.

The Vicar, like most self-important but weak men, was incapable of
keeping anything to himself under pressure, and when Rhoda said, as
sweetly as before: "If you've told us as much as that I think you
_might_ tell us who the living has been offered to. Secrets are
absolutely safe with us," he hummed and ha-ed, and then said: "Well,
Burgoyne did not actually extract a promise from me to keep it to
myself, but he gave me to understand,"--how grateful he was afterwards
to have put it in that way--"that Leadbetter was to have it. It would be
an appointment not altogether free from criticism. I believe that
Leadbetter has never held a parochial charge, but he has been Precentor
of the Cathedral for a great many years, and if good livings _are_ to be
given in that sort of way, which personally I think they should not be,
I don't know that the Bishop can be greatly blamed for giving it to
him."

"_I_ think they should be given to men who have borne the burden and
heat of the day in the poorer livings," said Mrs. Mercer with a sigh,
for she had been encouraged to hope, and the hope was now dead. She
didn't ask herself why her husband had left her for nearly twenty-four
hours without telling her so. There were questions about him
occasionally which she refrained from asking herself. She _had_ asked
him why he seemed so bent upon going over to Surley that afternoon, as
they had previously decided to do something else. She would have
demurred to going if she had known that this piece of news was to be
imparted to Rhoda and Ethel.

The time had come to speak. "Well, Mr. Mercer," said Rhoda, "either Mr.
Burgoyne didn't know what he was talking about, or else you
misunderstood him. I don't know what you mean by a job; I can't see one
in it myself, and I'm quite sure the Bishop wouldn't be capable of such
a thing; but he _has_ appointed Denis Rector of Surley, and in my
opinion, a very good appointment it is."

"And in mine too," said Ethel. She did not add more, because the most
interesting thing to do at the moment was to watch the Vicar's face.

There was no room for incredulity, with the announcement made in that
fashion. He could only stare. But the quality of his stare was such as
to give Rhoda and Ethel almost as much gratification as they had drawn
from the Bishop's letter.

It was a gratification, however, that was broken in upon at once, for
Mrs. Mercer, when she had once taken in the announcement, was so beaming
and so sincere in her congratulations that they had to be met in
something of the same spirit, and the full flavour of the triumph was
lost.

The Vicar, also, when he had recovered himself, added his
congratulations, and explained away as far as possible his previous
unfortunate expressions; explained also that Mr. Burgoyne's assumption
had been so near to being a direct statement that he must have been
mistaken himself as to the Bishop's intentions. He was listened to with
the utmost politeness, but was shown that he had not quite succeeded in
wiping away the mark made by the word 'job,' and was left with the
impression that if he was not very careful he would hear more of it.

He was not in fact able altogether to hide his chagrin, although he knew
well that he was affording satisfaction in showing it. He took his wife
away as soon as politeness permitted, and what he said to her on the way
home did not add to her happiness in the stroke of good fortune that had
come to her friends.

Rhoda and Ethel loudly, and almost indecently, exulted the moment their
backs were turned. Really, it was _too_ transparent. The man had got
over his disappointment at having his own absurd hopes dispelled, and
had come with no other purpose than to crow over them. _She_ had let
_that_ out. Fancy not saying a word to her about it! She was a good
little thing herself, and had really _meant_ it when she had said she
was pleased. She was worth a dozen of him, with his conceit and his
spite. Thank goodness there were not many clergymen like _him_ in the
Church. That sort of spirit did more harm to religion than any other. It
would really be almost better to have an evil-liver in a parish. Fancy
ever thinking that the Bishop could be taken in by _him_! He knew better
than _that_, at any rate. It had been a most painful exhibition, and the
sooner it was forgotten the better.

It gave them something to talk about until Denis came home, when they
both flew at him with the news, Rhoda brandishing the Bishop's letter.
Questions as to what he had been doing, and why he hadn't let them know,
could wait.

Denis's surprised displeasure at their action in opening the letter took
them aback. In their eagerness to impart the news they had forgotten
that there was anything irregular in the way they had obtained it. They
were not accustomed to accept criticism from their brother, but whatever
excuses may be made to one's self for opening letters addressed to
somebody else, when there is strong curiosity to be satisfied, the doing
so wears a different aspect when the excuses have to be made to that
somebody else. Denis listened gravely to what they had to say, and then
went off to his study, and his gravity and silence had this much effect
that they did not follow him there, as they would have thought
themselves justified in doing in almost any other circumstances.

Nor did they see him again until they all three met in the drawing-room
before dinner.

By that time the effect upon him of their well-meant action might have
been expected to have worn off, and they were ready to talk it all over
in the way he should have been prepared to do when they had first told
him. Really, he looked _quite_ like a Rector already, standing up before
the fire in his silk waist-coat, with a look of self-possession and
dignity that gave them a new idea of him. Perhaps they felt, as they
came in together and saw him standing there, that he was, after all, the
source from which the importance that was still happily to be theirs was
to be drawn, and that the manner in which they had hitherto borne
themselves towards him might have to be altered in some respects.

Rhoda dropped a curtsey, and said: "Homage to the Rector of Surley"; and
Ethel followed suit.

Denis did not smile. "Have you told anybody of the Bishop's offer?" he
said.

Rhoda drew herself together. It was time this rebellious spirit was
crushed. "My dear boy," she said, "if you are still nursing a grievance
at our having opened the Bishop's letter, which, after all, concerns us
as much as it does you, do please get rid of it. It isn't a pretty
spirit. You have already shut yourself up for nearly two hours, in which
we might have been talking of the good thing that has happened; and
surely that is enough."

He repeated his question. "Have you told anybody of the offer?"

"We told nobody," said Ethel, "as the letter was written to you, until
Mr. and Mrs. Mercer called this afternoon. He had got it into his head
that the living had been offered to Mr. Leadbetter, and came over with
no other purpose than to tell us that, and see how we should take it. He
hadn't even told his wife. When he had crowed over us enough, of course
we had to tell him."

"It would have been impossible to have kept it to ourselves without
acting a lie," added Rhoda.

Denis considered this piece of information, and drew away from the fire.
"I'm very sorry you told him," he said, with his face half averted from
them. "I have already written to refuse the Bishop's offer. I don't feel
myself equal yet to the responsibilities of a parish. I want to do some
years' hard work in a town first."

After a pause of consternation and incredulity, both sisters set on him
at once. How could he possibly have made such a decision? It was really
too outrageous. And without giving them the slightest warning! Couldn't
he trust the Bishop to know and do what was right? Why on earth hadn't
he taken their advice before doing such a thing?

All the scandalised surprise came back to that, and it was the first
thing he answered, when the flood of speech showed signs of abating.

"I didn't tell you," he said, "because I didn't think there was any
chance of the offer being made to me, and I wanted to avoid this sort of
discussion."

Dinner was announced at that moment, and further discussion had to be
put off until the parlour-maid had left them to themselves and their
food for a time. The interval had been spent in almost complete silence,
all three of them nerving themselves for what was to come.

All three began to speak at the same time, when the maid had shut the
door behind her; but it was Denis who continued his speech, his sisters
relinquishing theirs to listen to him.

"You ought not to make this difficult for me," he said. "I made up my
mind long ago, and I'm sure I was right to do it. I didn't want to tell
our dear father, because his ideas on these things were old-fashioned,
and I don't think he could have seen it in its true light. But _you_
ought to be able to. I'm very sorry for your own disappointment, but you
ought to be able to judge a matter like this on higher grounds."

This speech gave them plenty of material, and the sharp attack was
renewed. How could he say such a wicked thing about their dear father!
And the idea of accusing _them_ of thinking about themselves in that
worldly way! He must know very well that all their thoughts had been for
him, and for the good of the parish in which they had worked nearly all
their lives. Please drop _that_ unworthy charge, if he could not see it
all in its proper light yet.

There was plenty more of it, and he sat silent and flushed under the
attack. But so far it had only stiffened him.

It is difficult for a domineering woman to relinquish the weapons which
temperament thrusts into her hands, but they came to see that they could
not move him by censure, and they descended to argument, as a half-way
house to reasoning, but not without showing annoyance that they were
forced to do so.

Surely the Bishop must know better than he what was the right thing to
do in a matter like this! Wouldn't it be almost an impertinence to throw
the offer back in his face? He could see _that_, couldn't he? And it was
not only the Bishop; it was the dying wish of their dear father, which
really it was preposterous to set aside as merely old-fashioned. And
_they_ had no doubt about its being the right thing to accept, whatever
their opinion might be worth. Did he really feel justified in going
against the opinions of people so much older and wiser than himself?

This was rather more difficult to meet. They were considerations that he
had spent much anxious thought over, during the long hour that he had
spent by himself. And he could not yet be quite certain that he had
solved them in the right way, though he had conscientiously followed the
light that was in him. Also, his sisters had established a considerable
authority over him, and he was uncomfortable in withstanding them.

But he won through this stage, the contest being occasionally broken
into by the intrusions of the maid, and the intervals being spent in
bringing up more ammunition for the guns of argument.

He could only decide such a matter on his own conscience, which had
given him a strong leading. He was quite sure that the Bishop would
respect his decision. Couldn't they accept it now as having been made,
and help him in looking forward and preparing for the new work he had
undertaken?

This plea seemed to show a slight weakening. They drew from him the
admission that his letter of refusal had not yet been posted, and set
themselves ardently to induce him to reconsider it. Under the violence
of the attack he seemed to waver, though the streak of obstinacy in him,
almost more than the weight of his convictions, was all the time
stiffening him under the appearance of indecision, which was only the
result of not being able to find immediate answers to each and all of
their arguments.

The battle moved its scene from the dining-room to the drawing-room, and
raged with varying degrees of heat until it was nearly time for family
prayers. It flared up hotly when Denis told them that he had spent the
night with the Vicar of the London parish of whom he had already
accepted a curacy; for he had to admit that he had been in negotiation
about it for some time, and they pointed out to him with some truth
that if he had told them of this, instead of keeping it himself as if it
were a shameful secret, all the present trouble would have been avoided.
And was it _possible_ that he had said nothing to the Bishop about it,
when he had had that long talk with him, and he had been so kind?

In their offence at having been kept in the dark themselves, they had
not at once fastened upon this, the weakest of all places in the young
man's armour. Why had he not told the Bishop, in that talk in which the
announcement of such a decision would only have drawn the kindest
sympathy and the wisest advice? He had asked himself that question many
times during the hour he had spent by himself battling with his
temptation, and there had been no answer to it for which he could take
any credit to himself.

For the temptation of the world, as represented by the Rectory of
Surley, had been almost overwhelming, and although he had set in hand
his arrangements under the belief that there was little likelihood of
its being offered to him, he had not had the courage to make the offer
impossible. He had set out to burn his boats by entering into
correspondence with the London Vicar, but he had not been able to bring
himself to apply the match, and it is doubtful if he would have done so
later if he had not spent that evening with the devoted priest who had
fired his spiritual ambition afresh. Coming down in the train he had
reproached himself greatly for his vacillation, and his boats had flared
up behind him in a most illuminating conflagration. He reproached
himself unsparingly for having, as he now saw, desired to gain from the
Bishop's views defence for a young man's burying himself at the outset
of his career in a comfortable country living, instead of trying to gain
from him support for his higher ambitions. But he could not disguise
from himself that his lack of frankness must appear most blameworthy to
the man to whom in such a talk he had owed frankness above all things,
and indeed, as he blushed hotly to think, simulated it.

Well, he had committed a grave fault, and must abide its consequences in
lessened estimation of him by the man with whom he would have liked to
stand well. But to disguise the fault by taking a reward for it would
not help matters, and was an act which, in the sensitive state of
conscience he had reached, would be impossible to him. The very fact
that he had led the Bishop to imagine that he would be ready to accept
the responsibilities and emoluments of Surley now prevented his doing
so, more than any other fact.

But it may be imagined how much of this his sisters were able to accept,
in their state of irritation and anger against him. They could only see
the inexcusable fault, and it seemed to them the strongest reason yet
advanced why he should obey their urging.

The poor badgered young man rose from his seat of purgation, saying that
it was nearly time for prayers, but that he would rather not conduct
them to-night, not feeling in tune for them, and would go to his study.

Then they fell upon him for wanting to avoid the very thing that would
most help him to come to a right decision, and pointed out how very
wrong his ideas must be since he could not even face his devotions.

So the servants were summoned, and he read and prayed before his
household, and gained some solace and support from doing so.

When prayers were over he said, in a quieter voice than they had
permitted him to use during the greater part of the contest, that he
could not discuss the question any more. If he had done wrong, as he
knew he had, he was now going to do right, and his letter of refusal
would be sent to the Bishop the next morning.




CHAPTER V

THE SYSTEM


Except where his feelings were deeply involved, as they had been in that
matter of Beatrix's affair with the Marquis de Lassigny, George Grafton
was a man who exercised authority with an easy grace which those who
came within its sphere scarcely realised as authority, so much did his
wishes seem to comply with their own. His family appeared to possess and
to exercise complete liberty of action, and he to fall in with their
wishes as much as they with his. But this was because they all loved one
another, and they had kept him young between them. If any of them wanted
to do anything that he did not care about, he had only to say that he
didn't care about it, and they not only didn't do it, but didn't want to
do it, because there was nothing so well worth doing as pleasing him.
This was in small matters; but there had never been any big difference
of desire, except in Beatrix's affair, which he had not handled with his
wonted easy detachment. But in the way that had turned out he had proved
to have been in the right, in a good many ways which she had not been
able to see, and now did see; and his treatment of her during her
recovery from love's illness had restored his happy ascendancy, somewhat
shaken while the illness had lain heavily upon her.

With his servants and dependants there was never any trouble at all.
They liked serving him, and took a pride in serving him well. In
business it was the same; but on the rare occasions on which he had had
to assert his authority he had done it with a decision that showed his
customary easy manner to rest upon strength, and not upon a weak
complaisance.

In business negotiation he usually had his way, because he had always
made up his mind beforehand what his way was to be, and that it was
reasonable that he should have it. By this means he missed the _coups_
that come from imposing unreasonable conditions on an opponent, but
gained a reputation for fairness and straightness of dealing which made
up for it.

He was, in fact, a man of decision and character, under his amiable
easy-going exterior, and he was not afraid of a contest, though he
preferred not to enter one unless he thought he had a good chance of
coming out victor.

It is doubtful, however, whether he had ever entered into one which
would provide such a test of his qualities, as when he decided to get
rid of the Vicar of Abington--the Reverend A. Salisbury Mercer, M.A.

This was after the commotion occasioned by Denis Cooper's refusal of the
living of Surley had died down.

The commotion had been considerable, and a good deal of it had been
created by the Vicar of Abington, who really had nothing to do with it
at all. Denis had now departed to his curacy in the East End of London,
and his sisters had betaken themselves to the Cathedral City of
Medchester, where they had many friends, or at least acquaintances, and
their activities could be made use of for the general benefit of their
fellow church-people. Mr. Leadbetter had been instituted Rector of
Surley, and it was beginning to be known that he had refused the
Bishop's offer of the living before it had been made to Denis, but had
thought better of it on going over to Surley, and finding that the
little church, otherwise undistinguished, possessed a remarkable roof
for sound. He was a bachelor, with plenty of money of his own, besides
what would come to him from his rectorate, and intended to provide a new
organ, and to train a small but exquisite choir to render a full musical
service, after the manner of Cathedrals and College Chapels, twice a
day.

Grafton unfolded his resolve to Worthing, over the dinner table, when
the girls and Miss Waterhouse had left them to their cigars.

"I'm going to get rid of Mercer," he said. "The fellow has become an
infernal nuisance, and I'm tired of him."

Worthing stared at him, and laughed. "You can't do it," he said. "I
thought you knew better than that. You're the patron of the living, and
you appoint a man when it becomes vacant. But once appointed he sticks
there till he chooses to go. You've nothing more to do with it than
anybody else."

"Oh, I know all that. When I say I'm going to get rid of him, I don't
mean that I've got the power to turn him out. But you can do a good many
things that you haven't got that sort of power over, if you go the right
way to work."

"Well, I don't care much about Mercer myself, though I've always tried
to keep my opinion dark for the sake of peace. He's a tiresome fellow,
and that's a fact; but he's never done anything that he could be shifted
for. It takes a Bishop all he knows, and a devil of a lot of money
besides, to get rid of an incumbent who's a real wrong 'un. There was a
case over at Minbrook when I first came here."

"I know that too. But to my mind a quarrelsome back-biting fellow like
Mercer does more harm in a community like this than many a man who kicks
over the traces in a way to give a handle against himself."

"I quite agree with you there," said Worthing, allowing himself to be
diverted to this question of the welfare of a community, which he had
much at heart. "I'm glad you take that view of it. It's the right view
for a landholder to take, in my opinion. It's up to us who are running a
place like this to keep people contented and happy. It's the human side,
as I often tell young Bradby. You've got to be just in your dealings,
but there are lots of little points where the law seems to give you an
unfair advantage. I don't say it does, but it seems to, in the way
things are looked at now, with all this Radicalism about. You can run
things all right on the old system if you bring goodwill to bear, and
remember the people you're dealing with aren't any different to what
you are yourself. It seems to me that's the best thing about the old
system--the human contact between all parties concerned."

"Well, the parson of a village ought to be the one above all others who
makes that contact. What's he there for otherwise?"

"I agree with that too. I'm a good churchman, and all that, and of
course the religious side of it is important. But to my mind it's more
important still that he should be the friend of all his people, rich and
poor alike, so that they can go to him for anything, and find a friend
in him."

"That _is_ the religious side of it, isn't it?"

"I suppose it ought to be. But the parsons now-a-days seem to want to
run a country parish as they would a town one. We don't see much of it
hereabouts, except with Brill, and he's kept in order by Lady Mansergh.
Brill's a nice kind-hearted fellow too, and if it wasn't for all that
high falutin' church business, and changing all the services from what
they've been accustomed to, and shoving them off their perches
generally, he'd do as well as any country parson. Take a man like
Williams. He's a good deal more interested in his dogs and his
carpentering than he is in his church services, I should say. I don't
want to hold him up as a perfect example, but he's the friend of all his
parishioners. Beckley's a close-fisted landlord, and doesn't get on
particularly well with his tenants. But Williams often does them a good
turn with him. He's a _human_ sort of fellow. That's what I like about
Williams."

"And that's just what Mercer isn't."

Worthing had rather forgotten about Mercer, and his inclination to make
the best of people and give everybody a chance was strong in him. He
frowned slightly. "He's cantankerous," he said. "I can't deny that."

"Yes, he's cantankerous, and a good many other things besides. There's
hardly a soul round about--of our sort, I mean--that he hasn't fallen
out with. When I first came here he warned me against the whole lot of
them, without exception."

"Did he? Well, he oughtn't to have done that. I don't believe you'd find
a nicer lot of people, take 'em all round, anywhere in England."

"That's what you told me, on the same day as he'd said the opposite, and
I'm more inclined to your opinion than his. Then he makes trouble in the
place itself. My girls and Miss Waterhouse are finding that out
constantly. There's always a lot of quarrelling going on, and if you
follow it up you generally find he has had a finger in the pie."

"Well, I can't deny that either. I've often had to smooth over things
that he has put wrong. He is a tiresome fellow, and there's no denying
it. It would certainly be a good thing for the parish if he were got rid
of. Still he hasn't done anything that he could be got rid of for, and I
don't see how you're going to bring it about."

"I'm going to ask him to go."

Worthing stared and laughed again. "I should like to be there when you
do it," he said.

"I don't think you would. If you thought I was getting the better of him
you'd want to take his part. That's what you're made like."

"Oh, I don't know about that. But I do like to keep the peace."

"If we can persuade Mr. Mercer to take himself off, I hope we shall get
somebody here who'll help you. We'd better go up to the girls now.
They'll be wanting their bridge."

When the Vicar walked up to the Abbey the next morning in answer to
Grafton's note requesting an interview, it was with anticipations not
unpleasurable. Somehow, he had never succeeded in gaining the footing of
intimacy with his chief parishioners that he felt to be his due. It was
even some weeks now since he had been invited to the house, and he had
felt aggrieved about it, because in his position he ought to have been
the most frequent guest at the only other house in the place occupied by
such people as himself.

It had not always been so. On the Graftons' first arrival he had felt
himself free to run in and out of the house on the most intimate terms,
and had always been sure of a welcome, as was only right and proper. It
had begun to steal over him lately, in wafts of cold suspicion, which he
had put away from him whenever they approached, that his welcome had
perhaps never been quite so warm as he had taken for granted. He had
also begun to suspect that certain criticisms he had passed upon the
Graftons--of course without meaning anything by them--might have come to
their ears, and accounted for the cessation of invitations, to lunch and
to dine, which had never failed even after the running in and out showed
itself to be not quite what they wanted. But this suspicion had
stiffened him against them. If they proved themselves difficult to get
on with, as so many people in this part of the world unfortunately did,
he was not the man to give in to them. He had his own position of
dignity and responsibility and would take his stand unflinchingly upon
that. It was the duty of a Squire and a parson to keep on good terms
with one another for the sake of example, especially when the people of
a parish were so quarrelsome and difficult to manage as they were at
Abington. He had done all he could to bring that happy state of things
about. If the other party was blind to the advantages, nay to the
Christian duty, of such an understanding, then he must pursue his course
unflinchingly apart. On no account would he knuckle under, and debase
his sacred profession.

Still, he had no _wish_ to quarrel, and it was somewhat of a relief to
be asked to a consultation with Grafton, no doubt upon some measure of
importance in connection with the parish. There had been far too little
of that co-operation. A Squire might do so much to help a parson in his
devoted labours for the good of the community, and Grafton had done so
little, though on his first coming the Vicar had had strong hopes that
here was at last a man who would back him up, in his spiritual duties,
as he in his turn was only too anxious to give help and advice, in _all_
matters, in return.

But in spiritual matters he had even been denied what was undoubtedly
his due. Grafton had not even come to church regularly, nor put pressure
on his household to do so. The last was inexcusable. The Vicar could
make allowances for a man in Grafton's position who worked in London,
though not very regularly, and looked upon his days in the country as
holidays. But his servants ought to be _made_ to come to church. The
Vicar had felt so strongly about this that he had once told Grafton so,
and pointed out that he himself was always there in fair weather or
foul. Grafton had said that most of his servants did attend church
regularly, and none of them kept away altogether, and had not been able
to see that that was not the point. And pressed to exercise his
authority he had refused to do so.

Then there was that point of Barbara's confirmation. Miss Waterhouse had
asked him the previous year whether he should be holding confirmation
classes, and he had said that he should, for the Advent confirmation,
but only for the young people of the village, and that of course Barbara
could not be expected to attend them. He had offered, at the sacrifice
of his own valuable time to prepare Barbara for confirmation by herself,
and Miss Waterhouse had thanked him, but had put the matter off. Then
when the time had drawn near, and he had raised the question, he had
been told that Barbara would not be confirmed that year at all. They
would be in London after Christmas and she would be confirmed in the
spring, at the church where her sisters had been. But they had not moved
to London after Christmas, and Barbara had not been confirmed. He had
asked about it and received an evasive answer.

He was thinking of this, and getting nettled about it, as he walked
through the park to the Abbey, when it suddenly occurred to him that
this was probably what Grafton wanted to see him about. Well, if it was,
that would put a good many things right. He would pocket the offence
that he had felt and had been _right_ in feeling, at having had his
offer treated in the fashion it had been, and would renew it. Barbara
was a very interesting child--she was seventeen, and ought to have been
confirmed long ago--and he would enjoy his talks with her. By the time
he reached the house he was convinced that it was Barbara's religious
education that Grafton wished to see him about.

He was received in the long, low library, with its ranks of mellow
russet books which no one ever read, its raftered ceiling, and its
latticed windows. It was the room which Grafton called his, but seldom
used except for business purposes or when men were staying in the house.
He was writing at a table at the far end of the room when the Vicar was
announced, and came forward to greet him at once with his pleasant
friendly air. It was no part of his intention to antagonise him.

The Vicar began the conversation. "I wondered, as I came up," he said in
his pompous but would-be-intimate manner, "whether it was about
Barbara's confirmation you wanted to talk to me. She really ought to
have been confirmed last year, and the intention was that she should be
this spring, wasn't it? There will be a confirmation either here or at
Feltham later on in the year, and I shall be very pleased to prepare her
for it if you wish it. I could come here once or twice a week, or she
could come to me, whichever you preferred."

Grafton was about to refuse, rather shortly, when he bethought himself.

"Are you going to have a confirmation class?" he asked.

"Oh, yes. But I shouldn't expect her to attend that. It's for the boys
and girls of the village. There are one or two farmers' daughters this
year, but nobody of the same class as Barbara. You couldn't--"

"What has class got to do with it?" Grafton interrupted him. "I should
have thought in a matter like that everybody was equal."

"Oh, well, if you take it like that!" said the Vicar, "_I_ think so, of
course, but--"

"What should you teach her?" asked Grafton.

"What should I teach her?" He seemed somewhat at a loss. "I shouldn't
teach her any Roman doctrine, if that's what you're thinking of. Good
Prayer Book doctrine, you know. At confirmation you take upon yourself
the vows that others have made for you in your Baptism. You'll find it
all in the Prayer Book. Careful preparation deepens the spiritual life,
at a time when the young soul is at its most malleable, and open to
religious impressions. It is a very blessed opportunity."

He spoke with unction. Grafton looked as if he were suffering from a
slight nausea. "I don't care a bit about doctrine," he said. "I do
believe in Christianity, and I think I recognise its spirit when I see
it. I see it in my daughter Caroline. She hasn't a thought in her head
that isn't sweet and good. She never thinks of herself when there's
anybody else to think of. She does everybody good all round her, by just
being herself."

The Vicar rather enjoyed theological discussion. "That's an interesting
point of view," he said. "And a very natural one. I admire Caroline
myself--enormously. But I should say hers was a natural goodness. Very
beautiful, of course, and something to thank God for; but not of
_itself_ religious."

"Why not?"

"Perhaps I should say not of itself Christian. You may observe the same
sort of goodness in people who don't follow the Christian religion--in
Buddhists and so forth. In the Christian religion we are taught to look
for Grace, and--"

"Oh, well, grace or goodness--it's the same thing. I won't go on with
this; I didn't ask you to be good enough to come and see me to talk
about Barbara's confirmation. I shouldn't want you to prepare her. It's
yourself I want to talk about. You're not very comfortable here at
Abington, are you? You don't care for the people round you, and you find
it difficult to get on with the villagers."

The Vicar's mouth opened. "I don't understand you," he said.

"I know that as patron of this living I've no sort of authority over the
man who holds it, or anything of that sort; but I might be able to ease
the wheels a bit if you saw your way to exchanging it for another. I
believe such things are done. I don't know whether you've ever thought
about it."

The Vicar was still at a loss. "The living is certainly not much of a
prize," he said, with a laugh. "It couldn't be held except by a man with
private means of his own--considerable private means. If you had any
idea of raising the endowment--"

"Well, I might do that--or add to the income, or whatever it might be,
for a man who could make himself happy here, and get on with us all. I
won't beat about the bush, Mercer. You seem to have got at loggerheads
with everybody here, and it's no more comfortable for us than it is for
you. You haven't fallen out with us yet, but I can't help feeling it may
come any time. If I could do anything to make it easy for you to get
away from a place where you don't find congenial society, we could part
on good terms now, and it might save trouble in the future."

The Vicar now understood that the proposal was not to raise the
endowment of the living for his own benefit. He had not yet grasped the
fact that he was being invited to quit.

"I can only say that if you and I fall out it won't be my fault," he
said. "It's quite true that the people round here--your sort of people,
I mean--are a cantankerous lot."

"Well, I don't find them so, Mercer. I don't find them so."

He did not like being contradicted in this resolute fashion. "I'm afraid
we must agree to differ on that point then," he said stiffly.

"It's the _whole_ point, Mercer. It isn't only one or two you've managed
to fall out with; that might happen to anybody, though if sensible
people manage to fall out with their neighbours they generally manage to
fall in again sooner or later. It's the whole lot. When we first came
here you warned me against every single family about here we were likely
to make friends with, except two. And you've fallen out with them
since."

He now understood that he was being brought to book, and he liked that
less than anything. He grew red and gobbled like a turkey cock before he
spoke.

"This is a most unwarrantable attack," he said. "Did you ask me to come
here to receive a lecture from you, Mr. Grafton?"

"I asked you to come here to see if we couldn't come to some mutual
understanding that needn't reflect upon you if we can do so. My reasons
for wanting a change made are likely to be painful to you, I know, and
probably surprising as well. But I must state them if anything is to
come of it. So I do so as directly as possible. If you'll accept them,
and talk it over on the grounds that I should like a change made, so
much the better. Then we needn't go over the reasons any more."

"You'd like a change made." He understood it now, and summoned all his
powers of resistance, and resentment. "And you really think, Mr.
Grafton, that because you've bought this property, and live in the
biggest house on it, you can order things in that way. Let me tell you
that there is one house in this parish that you have _not_ bought, and
that is my humble Vicarage. You have no more right to dispose of that
than you have of--of the Bishop's Palace at Medchester. You--"

"Can't we talk over things reasonably, Mercer? If I thought I had that
sort of power, I should make some attempt to exercise it, shouldn't I? I
shouldn't be asking you if we can't come to some understanding."

"And what understanding on such a subject is possible, I should like to
know. You want me to go; that's the plain truth of the matter. Do you
think I'm not a fit person to exercise my duties here, may I ask?"

Grafton was silent, with a silence that was significant.

There was a drop in the temperature. "For my own satisfaction this must
be cleared up," said the Vicar, speaking with dignified restraint. "If
you have any charges to bring against me I must know what they are, so
that I can meet them in the open."

"There are no charges, Mercer, to be met in that way. I've told you
already why I should like a change made, if you can bring yourself to
consider it. It isn't only the people of our own sort, as you say, that
you don't get on with. You're at loggerheads with half your parishioners
at one time or another. My girls are always coming across it, wherever
they go. They're keen--Caroline is especially--to make friends with the
people in the place, and for us who live here in a certain relation with
them to do what we can for them. It's one of the pleasures of
landholding to be given that sort of opportunity. We've all of us come
to see that. I believe we should be as happy and contented a community
as you'd find anywhere, if--well, if it weren't for you, Mercer. I don't
want to be offensive, but that's what it comes to."

The Vicar was trembling with anger. "But this is outrageous," he
exclaimed.

"Oh, I don't think so," said Grafton easily. "I've no wish to offend
you, but it seems to me that the state of things I want here is worth
taking that risk for. I tell you plainly that you seem to me such a
difficulty in the way of it that if you go on here I can't continue to
offer you the friendship of myself and my family. In ordinary life, if a
man you know is continually acting in a way you don't like, you drop
his acquaintance, or if it's necessary you fight him. I don't want to
fight you, and I don't suppose you want to fight me. I've said enough to
show you that I've reasons which seem to me important for wanting to
come to the understanding with you that I've indicated. I don't want to
argue about them, or to push them in. They're there. I'll ask you to
think over what I've said. Anything I can do to make it advantageous and
agreeable to you to find some other place to work in, I will do; and if
you decide to go, well, as far as people outside will be able to see,
you and we will part as friends, and you'll be going, of course, of your
own free will."

He rose from his chair, and the Vicar rose at the same time. He had an
enormous amount to say, but found it difficult to say it as Grafton
walked down the long room, opened the door for him, and accompanied him
through the dining-room into the hall.

"It wants thinking over, I know," said Grafton, taking no notice of his
beginnings of sentences. "You can't decide this sort of thing in a
hurry. If you and Mrs. Mercer will come and dine with us to-morrow
night, you and I could have a friendly talk about it afterwards and see
if there's anything to be done. Caroline will write Mrs. Mercer a note."

The Vicar was on the doorstep, still striving for speech. Grafton said
good-bye to him, and returned to the library.




CHAPTER VI

THE VICAR'S DECISION


Grafton didn't tell Caroline to write her note of invitation to Mrs.
Mercer until the next morning. It was sent to the Vicarage by hand, with
instructions to the bearer to wait for an answer.

Mrs. Mercer took it into her husband's study. In the ordinary way she
would have done this with some expression of gaiety and pleasure, for
she took such variations of life as happy surprises, and could be moved
to excitement even by an invitation to a flower-show, with a garden
party attached.

But this time her face did not light up as she opened and read the note,
and only the thought of the waiting messenger sent her to her husband's
room at once.

"Here is an invitation from Caroline for us to dine at the Abbey
to-night," she said, with a grave face. "Do you wish me to accept it?"

The Vicar was very busy. He looked up from his writing as if he could
hardly detach his thoughts from what he was doing, and said: "What is
to-night? Thursday. There's nothing on, I think. Yes, accept it." Then
he turned to his writing again.

Mrs. Mercer wrote her answer and sent it out. When she had done so she
sat with a thoughtful look upon her face for some time, which gradually
changed to one of decision. Then she went in to her husband's study
again, and shut the door after her as if she meant to stay there. This
was unusual. She was not made to feel herself welcome in that room in
the morning hours.

She was not to be made welcome now. The Vicar had left his writing-table
and was walking up and down the room, with a look on his face that was
not pleasant to see. It didn't grow any more pleasant as he saw her shut
the door behind her with that air which meant that she had something
serious to say to him. "My dear, you're just interrupting me in a train
of thought," he said in an annoyed voice. "If you want to talk about
anything do please wait until lunch time, or at least until the post
comes. I shall have a few minutes to spare then."

For answer she sat herself down in a high-backed chair which stood by
the empty fireplace. "Albert," she said, "I must speak to you. Things
are wrong with us all round, and I am kept out of it all. If I am to be
a true wife to you, and stand by your side in all the difficulties and
troubles which come to us with the people round, I ought to know what is
going on, and not be kept in the dark, as you always keep me."

Tears stood in the little lady's eyes. She had been such a good loyal
wife to him, putting all her money at his disposal, and allowing him to
treat it as if it were his own, and even as if she ought to be thankful
to him for the comfortable home that he could not have given her
himself. She had never felt any disturbance of mind on that score, and
did not feel any now. They were one, and hers was his. But for the trust
and obedience she had given him, never questioning his wisdom, nor
failing to take his side in the repeated disputes and estrangements that
had come about between them and their neighbours, he did owe her return.
The time had come when she could no longer go on putting her whole trust
in him, if he did not show some corresponding trust in her.

He stopped in his walking up and down, and stood before her, the
arrogant frown and look on his face which she knew so well. But
something now told her that she must not be awed into submission by it,
as previously she had always been.

"Really, I don't understand you," he said. "You must leave me to conduct
my own affairs in my own way, as you have always done. You can help me
in the difficulties I have in my work--and they are heavy enough, God
knows, with the sort of people I have to deal with here--by giving me
peace and quietness in my own home. You can help me in no other way. The
troubles I have fall upon my own shoulders, and I am acting rightly by
you in trying to keep you unaffected by them."

"But they do not only fall upon you," she said quietly. "We make friends
with people, and everything seems to be going happily; and then suddenly
we are not friends any longer. Often I have had to find it out for
myself, and sometimes you don't even tell me what has happened to cause
the change. It was so with the Beckleys. I have never known why we left
off being friends with them. And I have never known why there was such
disturbance before Mollie Walter was married. It would have been
natural, as she was almost like your own daughter, as you so often used
to say, that she should have been married from here, and that Mrs.
Walter should have stayed on at the Cottage until after she was married.
But her house at Wilborough was hurried on for her so that Mollie could
be married from there, and you were not even asked to take part in the
ceremony."

He had resumed his pacing of the room during the progress of this
speech, and his look was not so arrogant as it had been.

"I certainly don't propose to go into old questions of that sort," he
said. "They are over and done with, and--"

"I don't wish to go into them either," she said. "I didn't press you to
take me into your confidence then, and I won't do it now. But I think
you ought to tell me what has been the trouble with the Graftons. You
have criticised them from time to time, as you criticise everybody,"--he
frowned at this sentence, which was unlike any she had ever used to
him--"but we have been on friendly terms with them for over a year. At
first we were on _very_ friendly terms with them, and you used to go to
the Abbey in just the same way as you used to run in and out of Stone
Cottage. They have always been as nice as possible to me, but I
couldn't help seeing that they were not as friendly towards you as they
had been. When you left off going there in the intimate way you did at
first, they still asked us to the house fairly often. But this
invitation to dinner to-night is the first we have had from them for
weeks."

He did not usually allow her to speak at this length without
interrupting her, but when you are brought to book about anything it is
as well to know exactly what you have to meet. It may not after all be
so difficult to meet it as you had anticipated.

It was with something like his customary tone that he said: "We have
often discussed the Graftons together, and you know well enough that
there are many things about them which I, as a priest of the Church,
cannot approve of. If there has been any decline of intimacy between us
it is for that reason and that reason alone. They are not what I thought
they were when they first came here, and though in the position in which
I stand towards them I must do my best to keep the peace for the good of
the parish, I shall not surrender one jot or tittle of what I stand for
here, for the sake of keeping in with the rich man of the parish."

It sounded very well to him, but she rather spoilt it by asking in a
quiet voice: "What do you stand for here, Albert?"

Whether or not the necessity of explaining to her the whole gist and
meaning of the Ordination Service withheld him from replying to her at
once, she had time to go on before he spoke.

"I haven't been able to prevent myself asking that question lately," she
said. "I was very much troubled by the way you behaved"--another phrase
to which his ears were quite unaccustomed from her--"about the Coopers.
When you thought that the Bishop had offered Surley to Mr. Leadbetter
you didn't tell me anything about it, but you took me over there so that
you might tell _them_, though you knew what disappointment it would
bring them. Then when they told you that the living had been offered to
Denis, you congratulated them, but you spoke in such a different way to
me as we came home; and you did your best to stir up trouble about it
before you knew that Denis had refused the offer. And even when that did
come out, you couldn't give him any credit for what was a fine action on
his part, as I think, but could only talk about the way his sisters were
served right in doing what they had, and put it about what they had
done, to discredit them."

The Vicar had in fact arrived at the conclusion that Rhoda and Ethel had
opened the Bishop's letter addressed to their brother, which it is
probable that no one else would have guessed at; and righteous
indignation at such an action had been his chief contribution to the
talk that had resulted from the Bishop's offer and its refusal. It was
somewhat disturbing to find that his wife had not taken that indignation
at its face value. He defended himself at some length against her charge
of uncharity, but her silence and her downcast look warned him that he
was not impressing her, and as the ground was not of the strongest he
relinquished it.

"But we will have an end to all this," he said, catching at his
authority, so unexpectedly being questioned. "I can quite see that my
silence as to the Graftons may have been misunderstood by you. The fact
is that for months I have been coming to see that my position here will
become impossible unless the Graftons refrain from meddling in affairs
which are my concern and not theirs. I went down to the Abbey yesterday
to have it out with Grafton once and for all. Either I must be allowed
my own way here in matters which appertain to my office, and that must
be definitely understood, or else I must fight for it, and all pretence
of intimacy and friendship must be abandoned between us. Matters have
come to a crisis. I found Grafton quite irreconcileable. He takes his
stand, as a rich man of that type always does, upon his money."

"Oh, Albert!" she exclaimed.

"I don't mean to say, of course, that he mentions his money, but it
comes down to that. He has bought this place, and imagines that he has
bought all the people who live in it body and soul. I told him very
plainly that he had not bought me, and that I was not for sale, and I
flatter myself that I have given him something to think about. I was at
first very angry, as you no doubt saw when I came home, but I have been
thinking long and earnestly too. If you had not come in just now with a
series of accusations which are really quite unjustified and
exceptionally painful in the midst of a crisis of this sort, I should
have told you in a very short time where my deliberations had led me.
They are serious enough, and as you are concerned in the matter as well
as myself, I should have consulted you before making any actual
decision. But I feel that I can no longer go on here under such
conditions. The work I have spent some of the best years of my life over
is made of no avail, and to go on with it would only be to invite
further failure. Better face all the distress of a complete break, and
the expense of a move, and get away from the place. I had almost made up
my mind to do that, and if you give me your concurrence I shall take the
step without further hesitation. You know that when Sherlock sent the
photograph of that charming little house at Darthead, which he was
prepared to put at the disposal of anybody who would go and help him
there, you said you wished we were in a position to go ourselves. Well,
let us go, I say. It will mean some sacrifice of means, and I shall not
be the ultimate authority at Darthead, as I have been here. But there
will be less to keep up, and with an older man than he had anticipated
getting, Sherlock would only be too glad to give a free hand. In fact he
said that if he could get somebody whom he could thoroughly trust, he
should try to get away for a year at least, and leave his curate in
complete charge. Are you ready to make this new departure with me,
Gertrude, and support me loyally in my reasons for making it?"

By the time he had come to the end of this speech, he had forgotten the
beginning. But she had not, and a proposal that otherwise would have
found her enthusiastic, for she liked change, and the photograph of the
house at Darthead had pleased her enormously, left her for the time
unmoved. For his account of his interview with Grafton by no means
tallied with certain facts in her own possession.

His representation of himself as disapproving of the Graftons to such an
extent that he had finally been forced to deliver an ultimatum was one
of them. He had overwhelmed them with censure when he had thought he had
anything to complain about, but any approach on their part to intimacy
had always been responded to by him, and it was only when it showed
signs of dropping again that he had reverted to his attitude of
disapproval. That disapproval had certainly increased during the last
few months, in which the intimacy had been withheld, but he had shown
himself almost delighted to receive Grafton's note asking him to come
and see him, and had certainly not gone down to the Abbey with any idea
of delivering an ultimatum. He had returned in what was almost a fury,
and she had sat silent and depressed while he had covered the whole
Grafton family with abuse, but had not told her anything of what the new
trouble was about; nor had she asked him. And yet he had made no
difficulty about her accepting Caroline's invitation to dinner that
evening. No doubt he had persuaded himself of the truth of what he was
saying, even as he said it, as his way was. But it carried no
conviction to her.

"I think," she said quietly, "that it would be better for us to go away
from here if we cannot keep friends with any one about us."

Something warned him not to take exception to this speech, or to
expatiate further upon the offences he had received. "We can put all
that behind us now," he said. "I have not been able to make headway
against the forces arrayed against me here, and it will be better for us
to start entirely afresh. There is no need to keep up any ill-feeling
against even the Graftons. That is why we can dine with them to-night,
on the old friendly terms. If I had not decided to leave the place we
should have been obliged to refuse their invitation. I think you will
find no unpleasantness there, if you do and say nothing to arouse it
yourself. When they hear we are going, perhaps they may even be rather
sorry. Whoever comes here after me--Grafton will have to find somebody
himself, and I wish him luck of the job, for a living of this value--I
don't think he will easily find a more devoted parish priest than I have
been, or a Vicar's wife more ready to do her duty than _you_ have been,
my dear."

This tribute, thoroughly deserved but so rarely paid by him, did not
bring instant grateful delighted response from her, as usually it would
have done. Her eyes had been forced open, and could not be closed again
by a careless word of compliment. She knew that even in his last speech
he had not spoken the entire truth to her. His easy words, and his
sudden changes, for which there was always a reason, but a reason that
would not stand any test of sincerity, sounded different to her now.
Would she ever be persuaded and convinced by them again?

He hardly knew how much of truth and how much of falsehood there was in
his words himself. Although he had played lightly with the idea of going
to Darthead--his friend had asked him if he knew of a curate, but it was
not certain that he would accept the offer he would make of himself, or
that he had not by this time found one--all his thoughts had been taken
up with the fight he was going to have with Grafton. It was to have
begun that very evening over Grafton's dinner table, with a statement of
exactly where he stood that should be unmistakeable. Yesterday he had
been unprepared, but now he had his speeches ready; he had been
rehearsing some of them when his wife had come in to him. Grafton would
knuckle under; men of the Vicar's temperament never allow for answers to
the speeches they compose beforehand.

He had not projected his mind clearly into the future, as to what should
happen after he had gained his victory. Grafton had said that if he
stayed on at Abington he should no longer treat him as a friend. Perhaps
he imagined him so overcome by his defeat that he would hardly dare to
hold aloof from him. Perhaps a little whisper of reason in a corner of
his mind prepared him for that complete revulsion of feeling which came
to him under his wife's unexpected attack, and made him as eager to
escape the contest, and to go, as a few minutes earlier he had been to
engage in it and to stay on immoveable.

He had hardly had time to gauge the importance of her change of attitude
towards him. He had not been able to beat down her awkward enquiries
into his conduct as previously he had always nipped the mildest of
protests from her, and kept his dominance over her. But he was far from
suspecting that his reign of unreason was over. She had gone farther in
questioning, and even criticising him, than ever before, but he only had
to treat her with a little more care to bring her to his feet again,
accepting and for the most part admiring everything that he said or did.

But another little whisper of caution from a corner of his mind warned
him that he had better cut the knot of the difficulties which had at
last aroused that spirit of revolt in her, get away from it all, and
start afresh. His mind swung round instantly to a strong desire to get
away from it all, and with credit to himself. Before he had finished the
speech in which he broached his new-found intention to her, he saw
himself leaving Abington with the warmly expressed regrets of his
parishioners in his ears; and, if the vision of an illuminated address
and a handsome piece of plate did not present itself to him quite so
early, it did later.

The next morning Grafton went down to his Estate Office in the village
to see Worthing. They had a little business to transact together. When
it had been finished Grafton said, "By the bye, the Mercers dined with
us last night. They brought rather a surprising piece of news. Mercer
has made up his mind that he has borne the heat and burden of the day in
Abington long enough. He is going to retire, and live in Devonshire--in
a village where he can do a little clerical work for a friend."

Worthing stared at him open-mouthed, and then laughed heartily. "By
Jove, you're a wonder," he said. "How did you do it?"

"How did I do what? I don't know what you're talking about. I'm telling
you about Mercer. It's a charming house they're going to. Mrs. Mercer
brought a photograph of it. Mercer doesn't want to live in idleness.
Though he's borne the burden and heat of the day in this humming hive of
population, he still feels he has a few more years of work in him for
the good of the community. He isn't going to be a curate exactly; he's
going to help his friend, if he doesn't fall out with him--but he didn't
say that."

"Is he really going, or are you pulling my leg?"

"Why should I pull your leg? He's going next month. He's already looking
about for somebody to get up a testimonial to him. He didn't tell me
that either, but I gathered it. He hoped there'd be no fuss. He'd prefer
to say good-bye to his friends and go quietly--no illuminated addresses,
or anything of that sort. But I gathered that he won't refuse one if it
is offered. I rather fancy he has you in his mind, James, as the right
person to see about it."

"I'm damned if I do," said Worthing.




CHAPTER VII

A MORNING RIDE


Caroline and her father rode out very early one morning at the beginning
of June. One of the habits they had formed was to seize to themselves
the delicious freshness of the new day, unspoilt by the smoke and stir
of towns.

She and he were alone at the Abbey. After more than a year in which the
London house had scarcely been used, they were beginning to discuss the
advisability of giving it up altogether. They discussed it now as they
rode across the dewy grass of the park, on their way to the high ground
which would bring them to their favourite view across miles of southward
facing country to the sea.

"You see, darling," Caroline was saying, "we always want to be here when
we are there, and we very seldom want to be there when we are here.
Beatrix generally stays with Aunt Katharine or Aunt Mary, anyhow, and
you like staying at your Club if you have to go up alone. Now that
Barbara has gone to Paris the Dragon won't have to be in London to look
after her, as we thought she must if she went up for classes."

"And what about you, Cara? You shirked most of your London gaieties last
year. Are you going to cut yourself off from them altogether?"

She laughed happily. "Fancy wanting London gaieties when you can have
this!" she said. "I sang for joy this morning when I woke up and found
myself here instead of in London."

"Yes, that's all very well," he said. "I feel like that myself, though I
suppose that at my age no satisfaction is quite as hilarious as it is at
yours. But it isn't only the gaieties that you miss by cutting yourself
off from London. It's being in the swim. When you've been in the swim as
long as I have, you know how much of it is necessary to you and how much
isn't. And you don't lose all that you've gained for yourself when you
begin to sit lightly to it all. But you have to gain it first."

"I'm not sure that I want to gain more than I have," she said. "I have
heaps of friends, and we see a good many of them down here. I like
seeing those who really do count in that way; you get to know them
better. It's the background of life that I love so in the country. You
belong to yourself more. Things come to you and you don't have to go out
to find them. I believe you feel that too, Daddy."

"Yes, I do," he said, "more than I should have thought possible a year
ago. But still I can't see that it is quite the right thing for you to
bury yourself down here entirely."

"Don't you feel that it's nice to have me here to welcome you when you
come home?" she asked.

"Oh, my darling," he said, "nothing could be better--for me. It's you
I'm thinking of."

Barbara had been sent off, protesting, to a 'family' in Paris a
fortnight before. She was to come home in August, when Young George
would also come home for his summer holidays; otherwise she had declared
she would not consent to go at all. Beatrix was in London with Lady
Handsworth, enjoying her second season, but not with quite the same
youthful abandon as she had enjoyed her first. Miss Waterhouse was away
visiting, but would come back shortly, either to Abington or to the
house in Cadogan Place, wherever the headquarters of the family should
be. Caroline after a week in London had pressed for Abington, and had
had her own way. It was true that her way would bring most pleasure to
her father. His centre of gravity had changed from London to the
country. Except on occasions, his work occupied him not more than three
days a week, and with her at Abington his home was indisputably there,
as it would not have been otherwise. But he was getting to be a little
anxious about this increasing disinclination of hers to follow out the
life that seemed natural for a girl of her birth and upbringing. Both
his sisters-in-law had spoken to him about it, Lady Grafton as well as
Lady Handsworth. She was not doing herself justice. They knew that he
did not want to give her up, and there was no necessity for her to marry
just yet. But she ought not to cut herself off from the surroundings in
which girls of her sort did find husbands, the surroundings in which he
himself, and all of them, had found wives and husbands.

He had felt the force of this. Though he hoped to keep Caroline with him
for a time longer, the thought of her eventual marriage was never quite
absent from his thoughts about her. He did not want it to be,
necessarily, what is called a brilliant marriage, though with a girl of
Caroline's beauty and charm the most brilliant of marriages would not be
more than her due; but he did want her to marry among the people with
whom both sides of her family had been connected now for some
generations past, and that was conditional, as it seemed to him, upon
her keeping 'in the swim.' There was an idea at the back of his mind
that her whole-hearted love of a country life was rather unsettling her
for the right sort of marriage. It seemed actually to have been
responsible for her unwillingness to accept the young man whom for some
time past he had thought, not without satisfaction, that she might
marry. Francis Parry was still in love with her, and a year ago she had
refused him in such a way as not to have made him relinquish all hope of
winning her. The young man had told Grafton so rather pathetically not
so long before. He had not bothered her, he had said, but wasn't she
getting tired of shutting herself away from everybody? Was his chance
absolutely gone?

The question had made Grafton bethink himself. When Caroline had
definitely refused Francis for the second time a year before he had been
well content to have it so. She had said that she had always liked him,
and given her father to understand that when she should be ready to
marry he would be such a husband as she would choose. It was because she
was so happy at home that she did not want to marry yet. But now he was
not so sure that it would be a man of the type of Francis Parry whom she
would choose. She seemed to have moved away from the sort of life he
represented, which was exactly the sort of life that he himself had
represented, and to which his daughters had been brought up. The fact
that he had refrained hitherto with her from any reference to the young
man's plea, although they had talked him over together frankly enough
before, showed the extent of his doubts about her. Although he
sympathised with her strong preference for this quiet stay-at-home
country life, and to a large extent shared it, it seemed almost as if
she were moving away from him.

They came to the high beechwood from which the famous view was to be
seen. They sat on their horses, and drank in the tonic air which came
from the sea across miles of open country. The sun was now high in the
sky, and a line of silver in the far distance fulfilled their
expectations. For in most conditions of atmosphere the view of the sea
was by faith and not by sight.

"Isn't it heavenly!" said Caroline. "Oh, Dad, you must leave me to this;
I want to live all my life with it. I shouldn't mind if I never saw
London again."

They were going to breakfast at Grays, the seat of the Pemberton family.
Bertie Pemberton, the only son, had married a few months before Mollie
Walter, who had lived with her mother in a cottage at Abington. He also
had forsaken London, to settle down to a country existence for the rest
of his life. It had been necessary for him 'to do something' before
succeeding to the parental acres, and the something he had chosen to do,
after enjoying himself for three years at Oxford, was dealing with
stocks and shares. This pursuit would appear to be singularly fitted for
a young man with connections but no exaggerated equipment of brain
power. But he was a countryman at heart, as had been all his forebears.
A few years 'in the City' were his tribute to the larger life. Upon
marriage he was quite content to close that chapter. There was enough
for him to do with the management of his father's estate as a serious
occupation, and with the sports of the field as one hardly less serious.

An old stone-roofed farmhouse, restored and refitted to make it a
suitable home for an heir-apparent, was now Mollie's habitation. It
stood a little way back from the road, and as Grafton and Caroline rode
up she came flying down the flagged path from the house door to greet
them. She was like a vision of the summer morning in her sparkling
bridal happiness. Caroline embraced her warmly when she had dismounted,
with more emotion than she could have expressed. The happiness of others
is a moving thing, especially when it rests upon love; and Mollie was
supremely happy. Her husband, with a loud-voiced geniality which showed
him at least to have nothing to complain of in life, followed her out
and added his welcome. Thereafter there was talk and laughter, pride of
new possession and sympathy with it, until it was time for the Graftons
to ride home again.

"Isn't it lovely to see them so pleased with themselves?" Caroline said,
when she had waved her last farewell. "Do you remember Mollie a year
ago, how shy and retiring she was? She is like a different creature
now."

"Master Bertie is a different creature too," said her father. "He's
always been noisy, but I like the sort of noise he makes now better than
I did."

"He adores Mollie," said Caroline, "and she is just the wife for him. I
love to see them together. You see, Dad, it isn't necessary to fag about
in London as a preparation for marriage. Mollie has hardly ever been
there."

She seemed to have divined his inmost thoughts, and her speech surprised
him a little. "Have you been thinking about that?" he asked.

"No," she said. "I'm quite happy with you, darling, if only you will
leave me peacefully to look after you at Abington."

Her words gave him pleasure, but his conscience was aroused about her.
"Lord knows I am happy enough to have you," he said. "But I can't keep
you for ever. You'll want what Mollie has some day."

"Some day," she said. "Yes. But I have all I want for the present."

"What about Francis?" he asked, after a short pause. "He wants you as
much as ever. He told me so."

She looked troubled. "I know he does," she said. "He told me so too."

He waited for her to go on.

"I like him as much as ever," she said, "for what he is."

"For what he is!" he echoed.

"What he is isn't what I want now," she said, not without hesitation.
"It would be different if I were in love with him, as I suppose he is
with me,--poor Francis! If I felt like that I should not mind what I did
or where I went with him."

"My dear child, you talk as if he'd take you out to the wilds. You'd
live where you liked, within reach of London. He has to stick to it
closer than I do, at present. You couldn't live right away, like this.
But--"

"Oh, it wouldn't be the same," she said. "But it isn't that, Dad. I
don't love him. I thought I might, perhaps, last year, enough to live
whatever life he liked with him. But now I know I never can. He isn't
what I want."

"What do you want?" he asked, throwing a glance at her.

"Only you, darling," she said lightly. "Don't worry me about Francis.
I'm worried about him a little myself, because I do like him, and we're
friends. But he'll get over it, and find somebody else. I'm heart-free,
Dad. Really I am. I love you and B, and Barbara and Bunting, and the
Dragon, and every single soul who lives at Abington, except Lord
Salisbury; and he's going soon. When I begin to love somebody else I'll
let you know. I don't suppose you'll have me on your hands all your
life, but you'll have me for a good long time to come. Let's have a
canter."

He was pleased enough. If she had wanted to marry Francis Parry he would
have resigned her, and felt that it was the right thing. But he didn't
want that, or any other marriage for her, yet. He only wanted to be sure
that he was not keeping her selfishly; and her words, and more than her
words, her tone, relieved him of any doubt on that subject. And her love
for Abington, and her wish to make his home for him there suited him.
She was more his at Abington than she could be in London.

But he made up his mind that the succession of guests should not fail at
Abington. She must not live out of the world, as he and his like
estimated the world, at her age. He did not want her to become like the
three loud good-natured horsey Pemberton girls, who in spite of their
parentage and their wide relationships would always be country cousins,
wherever they went. Country cousins who came from such a house as Grays
were well enough in their way, but it was not the way of the world that
Caroline belonged to, the world that she was so fitted to adorn, and
they were not.

They had cantered across a high-lying common, and descended into a
country lane along which they walked their horses, ready for
conversation again. The hedges on either side of them were pink and
white with May; the golden carpet of early June was spread all over the
meadows; the trees wore their dress of freshest green; larks sang in
high ecstasy overhead. Grafton felt the delight of the unused untroubled
country, but though it was a rest and a refreshment to him, his life was
bound up with other things that took him away from it, even while he was
enjoying it. Stealing a glance at his girl's much-loved face, he caught
something of what it was to her to soak herself in all the happiness of
nature, to wake and sleep with it, and to cast off from her the fitful
life of sought-out amusements. She had flowered under it. Much as he
adored his little Beatrix, and sweet and kind as she was, it came to him
that Caroline's was the finer character of the two. Beatrix loved
Abington too, and the quieter life they led there; but she loved it as
he did, as a change and a refreshment. She would never have been content
to settle down to it as Caroline had, for she had not the same resources
in herself.

"Do you think there's anything between Beatrix and Dick Mansergh?" he
asked suddenly.

She laughed at him. "I've been wondering when you were going to ask me
that," she said.

"Oh, then you've noticed it."

"Darling old thing!" she said fondly. "It's plain enough that he's head
over ears. You _must_ have seen, haven't you?"

"Well, I suppose I have. But I want to know about her. _She_ isn't head
over ears, is she?"

"No, she certainly isn't that. It's too soon, you know, Daddy."

A shadow always came over his face when that affair with Lassigny was
brought to his mind. "She's not still thinking of that fellow, is she?"
he asked.

"I expect she thinks of him a good deal. That's why she won't think of
anybody else for some time to come."

He did not push his question. He knew that that danger was past, and
that if Beatrix still thought of Lassigny it was not with love. That had
died in her.

"Poor darling!" he said tenderly. "You know how I hated it at the time.
But when she was getting over it I sometimes almost wished that he had
come back. I'm precious glad he didn't, though."

"So am I now," said Caroline. "But it did leave a mark upon her. Should
you mind, Dad, if she did want to marry Dick?"

"Mind? No. Why should I mind?" he asked. "It's just the sort of marriage
I should like for her. I suppose they'd be away a lot at first, but the
old man is over eighty. It can't be very long before Dick succeeds. Then
they'd be living at Wilborough. There's nothing I should like better."

She was a little surprised at this. It had not been only his objection
to the man whom Beatrix had wanted to marry that had so upset him nearly
a year before.

He answered the thought in her mind. "I know B has got to marry," he
said. "She's cut out for it. She was so young last year, and it came as
a shock to me that she was already of a marriageable age. I couldn't get
used to it--that she wasn't mine any more."

"Do you feel like that about it, Dad?"

"I don't now. I've got used to the idea."

"Of course we shall always be yours, whoever we marry."

"Not as you have been, darling. That's impossible. It was old Lady
Mansergh who told me that fathers hated their daughters marrying because
they had always been first with them, and couldn't be first any longer.
That's true, I suppose, if they marry somebody you can't take in. It
would certainly have been true of me if Beatrix had married that
fellow." He never spoke of Lassigny by name. "But with a man you like
and respect it's different. You don't lose everything, even if you can't
be first any longer. If he's the right sort of man you gain. I believe
your grandfather felt that about me. He loved your mother, and she was
very young when we married. He didn't like giving her up, but he was so
nice about it that I took particular pains to show him what a lot I
thought of him. He was a fine old boy. I wish you'd known him longer,
Cara. I believe, when he got used to it, that he was as fond of me as he
was of any of his sons. Your mother used to write to him every week, and
I used to write to him too. He told me before he died that it had made
all the difference to him, the first year of our marriage. She was his
only daughter, you see, and that was the time he felt it most."

"Should you have felt like that about Francis, if I had wanted to marry
him, Dad?"

"It would rather have depended on how he felt about me," he said.

"Should you about Dick Mansergh?"

"I think I should. Yes, I think I should. I like him. He's straight. And
he's companionable too. Besides, he'd be giving her all she ought to
have. That would count for a good deal."

"In what way, Dad?"

"Well, you see, you're responsible for bringing up your daughters in a
certain way. You take a pride in what they become. You don't want it all
thrown away on somebody who isn't up to their level."

She laughed. "It all sounds very mercenary," she said.

"I don't think it is. A woman's position is her husband's; until she's
married it's her father's. You don't want your daughters lessened. It
isn't a question of money. It's like to like. Look at that chap your
Aunt Prudence married."

"He had lots of money."

"It's all he did have. A silly fellow! Nobody thinks anything of him
beside her. She has to carry him on her back wherever she goes."

"Poor Aunt Prudence! It's rather pathetic the way she wants people to
like him."

"Women have a wonderful sort of loyalty in that way. She must have found
out his deficiencies long ago, but I suppose she wouldn't admit to
herself that he has any. It's the people who look on who see it. All of
us thought the world of her. She'd have helped on the biggest sort of
man. It's all wasted on that rabbit-brained nobody."

"Well, darling, none of us are going to trouble you in that way. I
shan't, because I shall certainly want somebody with brains, though I
haven't got as many as Aunt Prudence. And I don't think Beatrix will
make any marriage that you wouldn't like, now. She's had her lesson,
poor darling! She won't let herself be caught again."

"I really should like her to marry Mansergh, if she cared for him."

"She doesn't yet, dear. But I think she's quite likely to come to it. I
rather think that he's strong enough to make her."




CHAPTER VIII

THE BISHOP FINDS A MAN


The Bishop was again visiting at Surley Park. He found his niece's house
a restful place of retirement, and his wife had confided to Ella
Carruthers that it was such a relief to the dear man to get away from
the clergy sometimes.

He was not, however, to be spared the question of the clergy upon this
visit, for the Graftons were coming over to consult him about one for
Abington, and he had been given due warning that it would be so. A
private patron does not always consult his Bishop over his appointments,
and it was supposed that his Lordship would not be averse from giving
his advice in this instance.

Grafton came over to tea, with Caroline and Beatrix. There were to be
guests at the Abbey that evening, or the consultation would have taken
place over the dinner table.

Tea was in the garden, which spread in wide cedar-decked lawns round the
great white house. The Bishop had a lovely garden of his own, in which
he could taste the sweets of retirement. But there was a remoteness
about this spreading country garden, with the fields and woods all
around it, which he could not get in the high-walled pleasaunce of his
palace. He sighed with contentment as he sank down into a large cane
chair by the tea table, and said:

"You have a lovely place here, my dear. I sometimes wish that I had set
out to be a country gentleman, and dealt with beasts instead of with
men."

"You have to deal with both as a landowner," said Ella, "and the men are
sometimes more difficult than the beasts."

"The men _are_ beasts sometimes," said the Bishop's wife, who prided
herself upon her plain speaking.

"Now, my dear," he said, "we are going to forget all the disputes that
beset us as long as we are here, and believe that none of them ever come
to disturb the peace of such a place as Surley. Isn't your friend
Grafton coming over to see me, Ella? Ah! but here he is with two of
those nice girls. What pretty creatures they are! It's a pleasure to
look at them."

The Graftons were coming across the wide lawn. They were indeed
pleasant-looking objects of the countryside, Grafton in his
smart-looking blue flannel suit, the girls in their pretty summer
frocks. Presently they were all chatting and laughing over the tea
table, and the Bishop was liking them more than ever for the friendly
way in which they treated him, and the absence from their demeanour of
that paralysing awe which so often irked him on similar occasions.

Tea was over, and Grafton had just introduced the subject about which he
had come, when a tall clerical figure was seen advancing across the
lawn.

"There's my friend Leadbetter come to see me," said the Bishop. "Do you
mind talking over the question before him? He has been in the Diocese
much longer than I have, and might be able to help us."

"I don't mind a bit," said Grafton, "but I don't know Mr. Leadbetter
yet. I haven't had time to call on him."

The introductions were made. Mr. Leadbetter seemed rather vague as to
who the Graftons were; but he seemed to be rather vague about everything
except the absorbing subject of Church music. He was a tall thin man,
with a pair of short-sighted eyes that peered mildly through big
spectacles. His new parishioners had not quite made up their minds what
to make of him yet, but those who had had anything to do with him had
found him thoughtful and friendly, and were inclined to accept him as an
adequate substitute for the old Rector who had lived among them for so
long, and whose ways they had known so well.

"We were just beginning to talk about a new Vicar for Abington," said
the Bishop, when Mr. Leadbetter had settled in a chair and had accepted
a cigarette, which he afterwards surreptitiously got rid of when it had
gone out three times, and both ends were in a shockingly untidy state.

"Ah, yes, Abington," he said, "I called at Abington Vicarage the other
day. I remember that the note of the doorscraper was C sharp. Mercer is
going, he told me. A very agreeable man--Mercer. You will be sorry to
lose him, Mr. Grafton."

Beatrix caught the Bishop's eye. There was a twinkle in it which made
her want to kiss him. She refrained from this exhibition, but felt she
had found a true friend.

"I know who you are, now, of course," said Mr. Leadbetter. "I remember
that Mercer mentioned your name when he came over to ask me if I thought
there was any chance of his being preferred to this living."

There was a short pause, and then everybody, including the Bishop,
laughed. Mr. Leadbetter looked surprised for a moment, and then smiled
deprecatingly. "Now I remember," he said, "perhaps you won't be sorry to
lose him, after all."

This was all that was said about the retiring Vicar of Abington.

"I haven't many friends among the clergy," said Grafton. "One or two of
my friends at Cambridge went into the Church, but I have lost track of
them mostly, and I can't think of one who would be likely to want to
come here. There is not much to offer, though I should be prepared to
add to the stipend for a man who couldn't afford to take it as it is."

He told them to what figure he would be willing to raise it, and the
Bishop said that it would give a wider field of choice, as they need not
think only about men who had money of their own.

"What sort of a man would you like to have there?" he asked. "Don't
tell any one that I asked that question, Leadbetter."

"Certainly not," said the Rector of Surley. "I never make trouble for my
Diocesan."

Grafton did not quite see why the question should not have been asked.
"All questions of High and Low, and that sort of thing, I leave to you,"
he said. "The sort of man I should like to have would be one who would
get on well with his parishioners, and help to keep us all together."

"Is that the sort of man you want, my dear?" asked the Bishop, turning
his beneficent gaze upon Caroline. "I suppose you take an interest in
the people around you."

"What you really want is a Christian," said the Bishop's wife
uncompromisingly. "I suppose there are a few in the Diocese, though I
can't say I have met many of them."

"My dear, my dear!" expostulated the Bishop.

Caroline answered his question. "We haven't been here very long," she
said, "but we have made a great many friends among our people. We should
like to do a lot for them, and we would help anybody who came there to
look after them."

"That is a most laudable statement from a Squire's daughter," said the
Bishop. "What sort of things do you want to do for your people?"

"She has all sorts of plans," said Ella. "We have talked them over
together. I want to do something of the same sort here when I get to
know Mr. Leadbetter more." She threw a look at the mild gentleman, who
was just then meditating the final relinquishment of his cigarette. "But
there are more people at Abington than there are at Surley."

"Do you mean blankets and coal?" asked the Bishop's wife, "or do you
mean Chamber music and lectures on literature?"

Mr. Leadbetter raised himself in his chair. "Ah! Chamber music!" he
said, with a gleam of satisfaction behind his spectacles. "If only we
could manage some Chamber music!"

"Not a bit of use," said the Bishop's wife. "A nigger minstrel
entertainment would go down much better."

"Caroline wants to teach the children Morris dancing and all that sort
of thing," said Grafton. "They have it in the village where my
brother-in-law lives, and everybody enjoys it immensely."

Caroline leaned forward. "Anything which will make us all happy
together," she said. "There are a lot of things which can be done that
we should all like doing, and that would go of themselves if they were
once started."

Grafton looked at her fondly. "I believe they would all do anything for
her, already," he said, "but she doesn't want them to feel that she is
patronising them. She wants to play with them just as she has played
with her friends in London. That's it, isn't it, Cara?"

"Yes, it's to make us friends," she said.

"I think that healthy amusement is a very good thing for people in a
country parish," said the Bishop's wife, "but you must have somebody to
lead. Is that what you want your new Vicar to do? If so I should think
he would be quite willing to do it. I have never found the clergy
unwilling to lead in anything."

"I should say the same about the wives of the clergy," said the Bishop,
with another twinkle in his eye, "I think we must find a married Vicar
for Abington."

"You didn't find a married Rector for Surley," said his niece, with
another provocative look at Mr. Leadbetter, who met it with bland
unconsciousness.

"Music is a great thing to bring people together," he said, "and I
suppose dancing too. But I have never danced, myself."

The eyes of Beatrix and the Bishop met again, and this time she had
great difficulty in preventing herself from embracing him.

"That will only be a part of what we should want to do," Caroline said;
"but it would be rather important to have the clergyman on our side. If
you want to get people together, he is the best man to do it, and he
ought to know them better than anybody."

"Yes, he _ought_ to," said the Bishop's wife.

"He does, if he is the right sort of man," said the Bishop. "I think any
incumbent might think himself fortunate in having you to help him in his
work, my dear."

Caroline's face fell a little, and the Bishop noticed it. Afterwards he
asked his niece why it was.

She thought for a moment, and then looked up with a smile. "To tell you
the truth, Uncle," she said, "and to risk your displeasure, Caroline and
I are rather fed up with the talk of a clergyman's _work_. I won't say
anything about this place, but at Abington it seemed to mean nothing but
interference, and trying to bring people into line all round. Caroline
refused to go visiting, as she was asked to do. Of course she does go to
see people, just as much perhaps as if she set out to do it as a regular
duty, in the way that the Coopers did here, and never ceased talking
about and patting themselves on the back for it. But she likes to go
where they know she comes as a friend, and will be pleased to see her.
She hates to think of that sort of thing as work."

"I don't know why you should think you risk my displeasure in telling me
that, my dear," said the Bishop.

A week later the Graftons were invited to dine at the Bishop's Palace.
The invitation was sent to Caroline by the Bishop's wife, who indicated
in a few terse sentences that a clergyman would be there on inspection,
but didn't know it, and was not to know it. If he didn't suit he could
go back where he came from, and nobody would be any the worse. Probably
her way of putting it had not been authorised by the Bishop, who,
however, took Grafton into his library on their arrival, and told him
that he thought he had found him the right man.

"He is quite young," he said, "and has not long been married. He has
been working hard in a very poor part of London, and I fancy that his
health won't stand it much longer. His father was an old friend of mine,
and if you like him I think I can persuade him to come to you. He hasn't
any money of his own, but what you mentioned the other day will be
enough for him. His name is Gerald Prescott."

They went up to the drawing-room, where a little group was standing by
one of the windows, admiring the view of the garden, with the piled
masonry of the Cathedral rising above the trees which enclosed it. There
were four of them. Ella Carruthers and her aunt were talking together
apart. The first impression of the group was one of happy youth. They
were all talking and laughing together, as if none of them had a care in
the world. They were Caroline, the Bishop's chaplain whom she knew
already, and Prescott and his wife, with both of whom she had
established relations almost upon the first words of introduction.

Grafton's first impression of the man to whom he had been invited to
extend his patronage was of one hardly more than a boy. He was very
fair, with untidy hair crowning a smooth fresh face, and though his
smile was frequent and pleased there was rather a pathetic look as of a
tired child about his eyes. His wife looked older than he, though she
was actually a few years younger, and not marked by the physical
weariness that showed in him. She had rosy cheeks and dark alert eyes,
in which there was a motherly look very noticeable when she turned them
upon her husband.

Caroline was immensely taken with both of them, they were so simple and
so confiding, and so unlike any young couple she had ever met before.
Both of them belonged to her world; that was evident by a score of
little signs. But they seemed to be quite detached from it, and indeed
to have lost interest in it. Their interests were based upon a broad
humanity which took no count of social grades. If the Bishop had
bethought himself of his niece's protest against the perpetual talk of a
clergyman's 'work,' in producing this particular clergyman for
inspection, he was abundantly justified by Prescott's conversation. He
and his wife both talked of the life they were living, the people they
knew, and the things they did, in the same way as they might have talked
if he had been an artist, for instance, living in Chelsea. There was the
big church in the background, which would correspond to the studio, and
what went on there, not to be too much talked about; and all around it
the atmosphere of struggle, and tears, and laughter, and the miraculous
events that shake the lives of those whose existence is based upon no
material certainties, but based all the firmer upon an immoveable trust
in a providence that may at any time bring something exciting and
beneficial to pass, and at the worst will never let you quite down. The
richness of it all was amazing. Instead of the picture of mean streets
and drab and sordid lives, into which a man descended from serener
heights to fight with poverty and crime, there was a crowded stage of
characters of infinite variety, playing with the big things of life
which are hidden under a mass of little things in the secured places,
but playing with them as the gods might play with them, who must have
the biggest toys to amuse them.

"You seem to have a lot of most disreputable acquaintances," said the
Bishop's wife, when Prescott had been telling them stories about his
friends.

"Oh, yes, we have," he said, with a bright smile. "All the respectable
ones go to chapel. But they're so dull that we don't try to get them
away. There's no proselytising in our parish."

Caroline began to be afraid, as the life and the pursuits of these young
people disclosed themselves, that Abington, with its sparser, more
monotonous life, would scarcely attract them, or satisfy them if they
came there. But Prescott, who was sitting next to her at dinner, said to
her in a low voice: "How do you think she's looking? She's always lived
in the country; she's apt to get a little run down in a town."

Caroline reassured him, after a glance at his wife, who looked the
picture of health and vigour, and he seemed relieved. "Of course she
loves it all," he said. "But it keeps her so on the go. It's very
distracting, a town life. Both of us enjoy getting out into the country
sometimes. You seem to belong to yourself more."

It was exactly what she had said of herself, finding a town life of such
different quality from his distracting for self-possession. "Would you
live in the country if you had the choice?" she hazarded.

"I'd live anywhere with her," he said, jerking his head towards his wife
with a boyish gesture. "But if I had to choose between the two, for
myself, I'd choose a town, because there's more to do. We both of us
like to have plenty to do."

After dinner, before the men came up, Caroline sat with Viola Prescott
in the window-seat from which they could see the dark mass of the
Cathedral rising above the trees into the velvet purple night, and she
asked the same question, in a tone that gave Caroline a tightening of
the throat.

"He's enjoying every moment of this," she said, "and he wanted just such
a change. We haven't been away together since just after Christmas. Do
you think he looks _very_ tired? It has been so hot in London."

"I think he looks as if he wants a change," said Caroline. "Fresh air,
perhaps, and not quite so much to do."

She sighed. "I was afraid you would say that," she said. "The Bishop
said it too. He's a lovely sort of Bishop, isn't he? So human, and so
kind, and not too churchy. It would be rather peaceful to be in his
Diocese."

"Would you like to live in the country?" Caroline asked her.

"_I_ should love it. I always did live in the country before we were
married. I used to go and stay with an aunt in London sometimes, and was
always glad to get back. I don't care about London amusements. But we
don't have to bother ourselves with them in our part of London. I do
like that, better than I thought I should, because you see people in a
more natural way than at the other end of London. Gerry feels like that
too. I can hardly ever drag him up to see our relations, and they hardly
ever come to see us."

"I feel just the same, about our part of London," said Caroline. "I've
persuaded father to give up our house there, because I like living in
the country much better. It's partly because of the people, as you say.
You get to know all sorts better, in the country. I have a lot of
friends among the people in our village, just as you have in your
parish, though they live rather quieter lives than yours seem to, and
are not so--well, so disreputable."

Both of them laughed, with a glance at the Bishop's wife. "They're not
really disreputable," Viola said; "only most of them don't know whether
they are going to have anything to eat to-morrow, or the next day. So
they have to keep cheerful while they _have_ got enough. Still, it is
rather a rackety life. I think I should like to be among quieter people,
for a change; and of course one does miss the sweet air and the peace of
the country. I wouldn't mind a bit for myself if I didn't think Gerry
ought to have a rest. He isn't very strong, poor darling, and he works
too hard."

It was the first time that work had been mentioned.

"And he _will_ invite such a lot of people to meals," she went on; "and
there isn't always enough for them. And then of course _he_ goes
without."

"I expect you do too, if there isn't enough," said Caroline, smiling at
her.

"Oh, I'm as strong as a horse," she said. "But we haven't got much
money, you know, and housekeeping _is_ rather difficult sometimes."

The Bishop's wife sailed over to them. "Are you persuading her to make
her husband come to Abington?" she asked. "She _ought_ to. He can't
stand _that_ life much longer."

Caroline looked up at her in some confusion.

"Oh, I know nothing was to be said about it till after you had seen
whether you liked them or not," she said. "But of course you like them.
I do myself, though I should like to smack them both and send them to
bed."

"We want a Vicar at Abington," said Caroline. "Father is the patron of
the living. Do persuade your husband to come there."

Viola's eyes filled with tears, and she took Caroline's hand. "Oh, my
dear, it's just what I should love for him," she said. "He'll get enough
to eat, and time to rest sometimes."

So when the men came up they found it all settled for them.




CHAPTER IX

THE NEW VICAR


The Prescotts came over to the Abbey on the next afternoon. They were to
stay there for two nights, and everything was to be settled for
Prescott's induction to the living at an early date.

Both of them were in the highest spirits. "What a lark it all is!" said
the Vicar-elect of Abington, grinning all over his face as Caroline met
them at the door. His wife was as excited and happy as he was, but when
Caroline took her up to her room, she took hold of both her hands, and
the tears came into her eyes, as she said: "Oh, my dear, if you only
knew what all this means to us! This lovely, peaceful country, after the
crowds and the dirt! It's the dirt I hate so much. You can't get away
from that. Gerry hates it too, though he won't admit it."

Grafton had arranged that they should inspect the Vicarage immediately
upon their arrival. The Vicar had expressed some surprise at the
suddenness with which everything had been arranged. He let it be
understood that it would have been more in keeping with the respect due
to his holy office if he had been consulted about the new appointment.
But at this time he was more careful than usual to escape all suspicion
of dispute, having his eye fixed upon the illuminated address and the
silver, or at least heavily-plated, salver or tea-service of the
presentation, of which, however, he had as yet gained no hint, although
the time for his departure was getting close.

The four of them walked up to the Vicarage together, after a preliminary
inspection of the church, with which Prescott expressed himself
delighted.

"Ours is a horrid gloomy thing," he said, "and you can't always feel you
are getting quite away in it. This is just right. I like it's being
here, right away from the village."

Their progress up the village street aroused notice, for it was some
weeks since it had been known that the Vicar was giving up, and so far
there had been no sign of his successor. If this was to be the new
Vicar, it was generally agreed by those who saw him, on his way to and
from the Vicarage, that he would do very well. The children were coming
from school when they returned, and he and Caroline, who were walking
behind the others, found themselves involved in a laughing group of
them, and went down to the end of the street with a small boy holding
one of Prescott's hands and a small girl the other, while the rest
circled round them and gave shrill and hilarious answers to the absurd
questions asked of them by this remarkable but none the less
entertaining new kind of clergyman.

The Vicar and Mrs. Mercer received them according as their different
temperaments dictated. The Vicar was important and patronising with
Prescott, and his wife sympathetic with Viola.

"I'm sure you will like the house," she said. "We have had some very
happy times here, and are sorry to be giving it up, although we have a
very nice one to go to. We will do all we can to make it easy for you to
come in."

Caroline put her arm into hers. She felt very sorry for this poor little
lady, who had made such a brave show in a situation that to her must
have been full of distress. Caroline did not know that her father had
actually asked the Vicar to leave, but it had been made so plain all
around that there was nothing but satisfaction felt at his departure.
People liked Mrs. Mercer, whenever they had a chance of judging of her
apart from her husband, but she had suffered from her very loyalty to
him, and must have been saddened at leaving her home of many years with
few to regret her.

She responded to Caroline's' touch with a little pressure of her arm,
and smiled up at her. "It's horrid going away from you, dear," she said.
"I shall be quite jealous thinking of Mrs. Prescott in my place here."

They went over the house and garden and outbuildings together, the Vicar
talking most of the time, and Prescott's face gradually lengthening as
he did so. For his talk was mostly of 'fixtures' and of 'taking over,'
and apparently it had not hitherto struck the Vicar-elect that to be
presented to a living involved details of this sort. He did not,
however, say anything as to any difficulty he might find in providing
money that had mounted up to a considerable sum when the Vicar had
indicated all the expensive articles that he had put in, and all the
other expensive articles that it wouldn't be worth while to take out. He
looked a little less frightened when they had come back to the
drawing-room and his wife said boldly: "I don't think we shall want
anything that we're not obliged to take, Mr. Mercer. We shan't be able
to live in more than a few rooms for some time, because we haven't got
any money for furnishing."

The Vicar blinked. It seemed almost indecent to acknowledge a lack of
money in this fashion, especially to a man who had 'private means.' He
turned to Prescott. "I don't think you will find it practicable to live
in a few rooms here," he said. "Your parishioners expect more of you in
the country than they do in a town. You have to keep up your position
before them."

Viola's interposition had lifted a weight from her husband's mind. Of
course she would undertake all that sort of thing. It wasn't for him to
bother himself about it. They would be quite happy living in two rooms
together, with the furniture that they already had; and, with the
enormous income of L500 a year that would now be at their disposal, they
would be able to get whatever they wanted to furnish the rest. Nor was
he at all subdued by the Vicar's speech.

"Oh, we are not going to be bothered about keeping up a position," he
said. "I expect I shall have plenty of parishioners a good deal poorer
than I am."

With the casting off of the burden which had begun to oppress him, he
emerged into a condition of extremely high spirits again. He drew
comparisons between the state in which he would live and that in which
the Mercers had lived. He chaffed the Vicar, and treated him generally
as if he were rather a comic character. He showed himself extremely
irresponsible with regard to all questions of management, both domestic
and official, and told Mrs. Mercer that if she hadn't taken all that
sort of thing off her husband's hands it must have been because she was
not fit to be a clergyman's wife. He received in a spirit of levity a
list of fixtures which the Vicar had typed out for him, services in the
church, meetings for this and that in the schoolroom and elsewhere, an
itinerary of visiting for three afternoons in the week.

"You _have_ been a busy little bee," he said. "I expect you've kept them
all in order too. I'm afraid I shan't be able to do that. But it all
looks splendid on paper. I wish I could afford a typewriter. But what's
this word 'agout'? Oh, I see, it's meant for 'about.' Thanks very much.
I'll put it in my pocket."

When they had taken themselves off the Vicar went into his study, with
his mouth set and the cloud on his Olympian brow that his wife had
become so used to after interviews of this sort. She followed him in,
however, and sat herself down in the high chair by the fireplace to go
through with it.

"Upon my word!" he began. "It's a positive _insult_ for Grafton to put a
man like that in to succeed me. And unless I am very much mistaken, it's
meant as such."

"The Bishop chose him, you know, Albert," she said quietly. "Mr. Grafton
told us that he had asked him to recommend him somebody."

"The Bishop can't know what an impossible sort of creature he is," he
said. "I am not at all sure that it isn't my duty to tell him. In all my
life I've never seen anybody so absolutely unfitted to take charge of a
parish. The idea of his having the audacity to tell me that he didn't
believe in regimenting people. That was a hit at me and my work, of
course. All that I have done here for years past is to be thrown away,
and the parish turned into a bear garden, for a young idiot like that to
disport himself in."

"He is evidently very gay and lively by nature," she said, "and of
course he is pleased at coming here. I think that half of what he said
was only meant in fun, and evidently he relies a great deal upon her for
all the business side of his work."

"She is no better than he is," snapped the Vicar. "Fancy a woman like
that going about among the people, and them knowing the way in which
they are going to live here. If she _does_ go about among the people!
But I should think it's more likely that they will both spend most of
their time at the Abbey, sponging on the Graftons, and trying to get in
with all the big houses around. You can see they are nobodies--not a
shilling to bless themselves with. No doubt it is a great thing for them
to get into a neighbourhood like this, and they'll make the most of it."

He went on for some time in this fashion, but his wife did not answer
him, and when he had run himself down a little and looked at her, he saw
that she was softly crying.

He came to a stop in front of her and said awkwardly, "What's the
matter? It's dreadful to think of things going to rack and ruin in a
place where we've worked so hard and done so much; but _we_ shall be out
of it at any rate. Don't upset yourself, Gertrude."

She dried her eyes. "I was thinking how happy they both were," she said.
"We were pleased too when we first came here and looked forward to
living in this nice house."

He resumed his pacing of the room. "So we shall be where we are going,"
he said, "and we are looking forward to a life of useful active service,
and not to the ramshackle unuseful life that those two are going to
live."

"They have left a great many friends behind them where they have been
living," she said, "and they will make a great many friends here. We
shall leave hardly a single friend, after fifteen years, and if we make
new ones where we are going to, I'm afraid we shan't keep them. Oh, why
can't you think more kindly of people, Albert? We see everybody around
us making friends and helping each other, and we are left out of it all.
The people we have quarrelled with can't all of them always be in the
wrong, and we always in the right."

"Oh, come now, my dear," he said authoritatively. "We have had that all
out, and I have admitted to you that I have perhaps been a little too
rigid in exacting respect for my office. The fact is, Gertrude, that you
are upset at giving up your home of so many years, and I can make
excuses for that. Let us begin our new life with cheerful hearts, and
leave the past behind us."

"We shall take it all with us," she said, "if you can't learn the
Christian charity that you preach about. My heart went out to those two
young people. I know that they are good and loving; you can see it in
their faces--loving towards each other and full of love towards the
people they live amongst. I am sure they will do more with that spirit
than we have ever been able to do."

"I can make excuses for you, Gertrude, as I said just now, but in
accusing me to my face of a lack of Christian charity, you are saying a
very serious thing."

"I know," she said. "And lately I have begun to see that it is a very
serious thing. You can't see goodness where it is plain to be seen. I
don't believe you will find anywhere a sweeter, truer character than
Caroline Grafton's. There isn't a soul in the place who knows her who
doesn't almost worship her; but she has offended you in some little way
and you can never say a good word for her. And I think the happiness of
that young couple ought to make anybody feel better who sees it, but it
only makes you gird at them. It has been so often like that. How many
times have you come back into this room after seeing people off with a
smile on your face, to cover them with contempt and anger? I know we
shall never be happy wherever we go, if you can't see how wrong you are;
and we shall never have any friends--not to keep them. We shall be
lonely all our lives."

She saved him the trouble of replying to this unwonted attack by going
out of the room, once more in tears. He walked up and down for some time
after she had left, with a frown upon his face, and once he went to the
door, and hesitated, as if he would follow her. But he thought
better--or worse--of it, and came back into the room and sat himself
down at his writing-table after the manner of a man exasperated beyond
all bearing.

It was not his wife, however, who had exasperated him, for he was nice
to her when they met again later on, and talked pleasantly about the new
home they were going to; so that she began to think that she had been
rather hard on him.

Caroline found her father alone just before they went up to dress for
dinner, and said: "Dad, darling, you've got heaps of money. Couldn't you
buy all those things Lord Salisbury wants to leave behind, and make
them a present of them? Poor dears, they'll have hardly anything. They
have been laughing about it, and I don't think he minds. But of course
she would like to have a pretty house. She was brought up in one. She
has been telling me about it."

"He's been telling _me_ about it too," said Grafton laughing. "You know,
I'm not at all certain, Cara, that we shan't have trouble with that pair
of lunatics. Nobody can help liking them, but as a Vicar and Vicaress of
a respectable country parish I don't quite see them."

"Oh, I do," she said. "He is just one big loving heart, and he hasn't
time to think about all the little things that most of us make such a
fuss about. And she has thrown herself into it all because she loves
him. But she's just like anybody else, and she'll keep him in order."

"Do you know the story of their marriage?" he asked her.

"She told me that the fathers of both of them had lost all their money
before they died, and that their relations on both sides had been very
much against their marriage."

"Their fathers were partners in business, and a third partner let them
in horribly, and bolted. Before they had time to pull things together
both of them died, within a month of one another. Their mothers were
both dead too, and they are both only children. It's an extraordinary
series of coincidences. The relations on each side accused the other of
rank carelessness, and there must have been great carelessness
somewhere, though they haven't discovered yet where it was. I dare say
they were both happy-go-lucky gentlemen, if they were anything like
their offspring, and one was as bad as the other. So both those young
people being in the same box they thought the best thing they could do
would be to get married."

"She was in a furniture shop for a year after her father died."

"Yes; till he'd managed to save twenty pounds out of his screw to get
something to start on. An old aunt of his came round by that time, but
he wouldn't take a bob off her. Well, I dare say they've been as happy
as most people on his hundred and fifty a year."

"Isn't it wonderful? But they'll be much better off now. You will buy
those things for them, won't you, darling?"

"No, Cara, I won't."

"Dad, darling! Why not?"

"I've told you, haven't I?"

She thought for a moment, and then kissed him. "Yes, I see," she said.
"You're a clear-sighted old Daddy. I expect you've been itching to do it
all the time."

"Well, I have, to tell you the truth," he said. "I should have liked to
tell Mercer to make up his beastly bill and send it in to me. But I saw
it wouldn't do. They wouldn't like to be dependent on us, and they
wouldn't like to say no. I'll tell you what I've had to do, though, and
it's a good thing that I've had a lucky stroke lately that will cover
it. I've had to promise the Bishop to endow the blooming living up to
the tune I was ready to pay Prescott. He wouldn't have taken it
otherwise."

In her happy state of never having had occasion to consider money, she
did not realise the magnitude of this obligation. "You're a little
patron of the Church, darling," she said, "and they'll put you in all
the papers."

"That's what I'm afraid of," he said. "I've told the old boy to keep it
dark."

The Graftons happened to be in London for the week in which the Vicar
took his departure. He had found out that there was no proposal on foot
to present him with a testimonial, nor even to give him a farewell tea.
He suffered acute annoyance over these omissions, but almost for the
first time in his life kept it to himself, and pleased his wife by
proposing that they should give a farewell tea themselves, to the more
regular of the churchgoing parishioners. This spontaneous exhibition of
liberality, coupled with the absence of any serious outbreak of
censorious speech during their last weeks at Abington, led her to
suppose that he also had taken to heart what had become so plain to her,
and gave hope of a less stormy life in the future. But, although there
may have been some faint reason for this hope, the tea-party had
suggested itself as the only opportunity for delivering a speech that he
had been preparing for some weeks past. If there was nobody who had the
common decency, at the end of fifteen years' pastorate, to sum up the
work that had been done in it, and to congratulate him upon it, he would
do so himself. He had kept records of all services, classes, meetings,
visits, and journeys during the whole of the time, and put together they
amounted to quite a respectable total. They would see that the life of a
devoted parish priest even in a country parish was not the easy thing
that 'perhaps some of you here are inclined to think.' When he had added
up his totals the bright idea struck him of dividing his income into
them, and showing what an absurd rate of pay the devoted parish priest
received for his self-sacrificing labours. But when the sum had been
done he found it worked out at about six and sixpence an item, and he
couldn't honestly make it less, even by omitting to reckon in the
rentable value of the Vicarage. Counting that in, it came to about
half-a-guinea, and however cheap his sermons might be at that price, he
thought it would hardly do to give the idea that he had been paid ten
and fivepence every time he had done one of his parishioners the honour
of paying him or her a call. So he gave up the idea with some regret,
because, of course, you couldn't really look at it in that way, and the
figures were sufficiently startling if looked at in some other.

Eventually the idea of the tea-party was given up too. Regular
churchgoers were found to be few in number, when the question came to be
considered in detail, and of no great importance in the community. The
farmers were hay-making, and without a stiffening of substantial people
the affair would come down to a mere offering of a meal to a score or so
of people who would rather enjoy it, which scarcely seemed worth while.

So the Vicar cast the dust of Abington from off his feet with no formal
leave-taking at all, and, remembering the thirteen thousand odd
engagements which he had carried out, felt some of the satisfaction of
martyrdom as he stepped into the train.

The Prescotts moved in. They refused to stay at the Abbey more than a
single night, and would not have stayed one if their furniture had
arrived on the same day as they did. For they would not have missed the
fun of a move for anything.

It was not much of a move. The contents of their two rooms in Bermondsey
made more of a show than might have been expected. Viola had a pretty
taste in furniture and decoration, and the year she had spent before her
marriage in helping to furnish for other people had shown her the right
way to set about it. They had managed to scrape together a little money
and made it go a very long way. Moreover, everybody helped her. Caroline
and she made curtains. Odd things not wanted at the Abbey found their
way to the Vicarage and were accepted as the gifts of friends. Mr.
Williams came over from Feltham and carpentered gaily. Maurice Bradby
was the handy man about the place. Everybody who came to see these new,
funny, delightful people got caught up in the prevailing excitement and
did something, if it was only to advise somebody else.

Only the new Vicar did nothing towards the installation of his home,
except appreciate it enormously. He was out all day among his
parishioners, whom he found the nicest sort of people he had ever met.




CHAPTER X

YOUNG GEORGE TAKES ADVICE


On a day early in his summer holidays Young George went over to Feltham
Hall to lunch with his friend and schoolfellow, Jimmy Beckley. Mr. and
Mrs. Beckley and their eldest daughter were away. "You don't mind
putting up with the kids at lunch," said Jimmy. "We can shift them
afterwards or make them useful if we want to play games. Ruth and Jane
aren't bad at tennis, and I've trained them all to bowl to me at a net.
We can have a little cricket practise if you like."

Jimmy himself had reached the ripe age of fifteen. He was the only son
of his house. The kids to whom he referred were his sisters Ruth, Jane,
Isabel, and Ellen, who ranged in age from sixteen to eleven, and whom he
affected to rule with a rod of iron. They were rather subdued in manner,
but more, perhaps, because their father, who had married late in life,
was something of a martinet, and they spent their days in company with
an accomplished and decisive French governess, than because they were in
any particular dread of Jimmy's rod.

"Mademoiselle will want to jabber French at you," Jimmy warned his
friend. "They're supposed to do it at lunch, and I don't mind it myself,
because it's good training. But you can answer her in English if you
like. She understands all right. She's not a bad sort, though apt to
think she has some authority over me, which of course she hasn't. You'll
make allowances for that. She's been here five years, and of course I
was o

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