Abington Abbey: A Novel

by Archibald Marshall

"No, I don't propose to do that," he said. "And now I think we'll talk about something else."

It was difficult to be angry with the stout kind-hearted lady herself, but Grafton was angry over the episode—more angry than he had been over any other. He and Caroline had come over in the little car that he drove himself, and he talked to her about it going back. "It's really intolerable that a woman like that should be mixed up in it," he said. "She's a good-hearted old thing, but she hasn't exactly the sort of history that makes her a person to consult in an affair like this. If B has so far forgotten herself as to make a confidant of Lady Mansergh it's time I talked to her about it. I've just let it alone so far, and hoped she'd recover herself by degrees. But she seems to be making her grievance public property, and she must leave off doing that."

"I don't think she can have said anything to Lady Mansergh," said Caroline, rather doubtful about it, all the same. "I think Geoffrey Mansergh must have told her. He knows a lot of people that we do."

"Oh, she talked about B crying her eyes out for him. She must have tried to get sympathy from her. Besides, she does talk about it to other people. There's that little Mollie Walter. And the Pemberton girls. They look at me as if I were a sort of ogre. And the Beckley girl too. Really, I'm not going to be put in that position. It's time B was brought to her senses. If she's going to change the whole of her attitude towards me because of this, I suppose I've got to put up with it. But I'm not going to be held up here as a brutal tyrannical father, and have the whole of our jolly family life spoilt, as she's spoiling it now."

In this mood he talked to Beatrix immediately he reached home, summoning her into the library in order to do so. He had never lectured one of his children before. None of them had ever needed it. In the old days of occasional childish naughtiness, when as a last resort his authority had been called in, his way had been to take them on his knee and express surprise and sorrow at what he had been told about them. Floods of tears, embraces and promises of complete and fundamental change of conduct had immediately followed, and carried off the remains of whatever naughtiness had been complained of. To hold out against Miss Waterhouse had sometimes been necessary to satisfy that spirit of contrariety which represents the workings of original sin in the best behaved of children. But to hold out against him had never been possible. The melting had come immediately, and subsequent behaviour had always been beautiful until the devil pricked again.

Perhaps if he had acted in some sort of way as would have represented this parental regret, Beatrix might have succumbed to it, as she had always done in the past. But he had shown her so plainly that his love was there ready for her, and that he wanted hers in return, and she had held aloof from him. He was hard with her, and she was hard in return, with a hardness he had never suspected in her. His displeasure seemed not to disturb her at all; she rejected its grounds, and expressed her displeasure with him in return, not with any lack of filial respect, but still as if they were two people on equal terms who had fallen out and could not come together again unless one or the other of them gave way. That he was her father did not appear to her to be reason why she should be the one to give way. She was very sorry, but she couldn't see that she had done anything wrong. She had not, as a matter of fact, said anything to Lady Mansergh, who had heard what had happened from outside. She had been very kind about it, and so had other people who knew. Mollie Walter was her chief friend, and she had told her everything; she didn't see how she could be blamed for that. If she had only told her one side, it was because she couldn't see that there was more than one side. She had never said a word about it to the Pembertons, nor they to her. But they had been more than usually kind to her since, and she supposed it was because they sympathised with her. She didn't see how she could be blamed for that either.

"Well, darling," said Grafton, "perhaps I did you an injustice in thinking that you had talked about it all too much. If so, I'm sorry. But look here, B, we can't go on like this, you know. It's spoiling our family life, and our happiness together. You've had nearly three weeks now to get over it in. When are you going to begin to be what you've always been again?"

"How can you expect me to be the same?" she asked. "I was very happy, and now I'm very unhappy."

"But you're not going to be unhappy all your life, you know. You were as happy here a month ago as all the rest of us. If you can't take so much pleasure in it all just at present you might at least stop spoiling it for us."

"How am I spoiling it for you?"