Abington Abbey: A Novel

by Archibald Marshall

That irreverent young man had not been asked to the house again, but it had been explained to him that sermon-writing was not the chief labour of a parish priest. He had a great deal of correspondence to get through, and he had to keep himself up in contemporary thought. The Vicar, indeed, did most of his reading sitting at his table, with his head propped on his hand. Few people could beat him in his knowledge of contemporary thought as infused through the brains of such writers as Mr. Philips Oppenheim, Mr. Charles Garvice, and Mr. William le Queux. Women writers he did not care for, but he made an exception in favour of Mrs. Florence Barclay, whose works he judged to contain the right proportions of strength and feeling. It must not be supposed that he was at all ashamed of his novel-reading, as some foolish people are. He was not ashamed of anything that he did, and, as for novels, he would point out that the proper study of mankind was man, and that next to studying the human race for yourself, it was the best thing to read the works of those authors who had trained themselves to observe it. Literature, as such, had nothing to do with it. If you wanted literature you could not have anything finer than certain parts of the Old Testament. It was hardly worth while going to modern authors for that. The more literature there was in a modern novel, the less human nature you would be likely to find. No; it would generally be found that the public taste was the right taste in these matters, whatever people who thought themselves superior might say. He himself claimed no superiority in such matters. He supposed he had a brain about as good as the average, but what was good enough for some millions of his fellow-countrymen was good enough for him. He preferred to leave Mr. Henry James to others who thought differently.

The "Daily Telegraph" came by the second post, at about twelve o'clock, and Mrs. Mercer was accustomed to bring it in to her husband, with whatever letters there were for him or for her. She liked to stay and chat with him for a time, and sometimes, if there was anything that invited discussion in her letters, he would encourage her to do so. But he generally happened to be rather particularly busy at this time, not, of course, with novel-reading, which was usually left till a later hour. He would just 'glance through the paper' and then she must really leave him. They could talk about anything that wanted talking about at lunch. He would glance through the paper hurriedly and then lay it aside and return to his writing; but when she had obediently left the room he would take up the paper again. It was necessary for him to know what was going on in the world. His wife never took the paper away with her. She had her own "Daily Mirror," which he despised and sometimes made her ashamed of reading, but never to the extent of persuading her to give it up. He was a kind husband, and seldom let a day go by without looking through it himself, out of sympathy with her.

On this March morning Mrs. Mercer brought in the "Daily Telegraph." It was all that had come by the post, except circulars, with which she never troubled him, and her own "Daily Mirror." She rather particularly wanted to talk to him, as he had come home late the night before from a day in London, and had not since felt inclined to tell her anything about it. Whether she would have succeeded or not if she had not come upon him reading a novel which he had bought the day before is doubtful. As it was, he did not send her away on the plea of being particularly busy.

"Ah!" he said, laying the book decidedly aside. "I was just looking through this. It is so good that I am quite looking forward to reading it this evening. Well, what's the news with you, my dear?"

Little Mrs. Mercer brightened. She knew his tones; and he was so nice when he was like this. "It's me that ought to ask what's the news with you," she said. "You haven't told me anything of what you did or heard yesterday."

He had been glancing through the paper, but looked up. "There is one thing I heard that may interest you," he said. "I sat next to a man at lunch at the Club and got into conversation with him, or rather he with me, and when it came out that I was Vicar of Abington he said: 'Is that the Abington in Meadshire?' and when I said yes he said: 'I've had Abington Abbey on my books for a long time, and I believe I've let it at last.' He was a House-Agent, a very respectable fellow; the membership of a club like that is rather mixed, but I should have taken him for a barrister at least, except that he had seemed anxious to get into conversation with me."

"It's like that in trams and buses," said Mrs. Mercer. "Anybody who starts a conversation isn't generally as good as the person they start it with."

The Vicar let this pass. "He told me," he said, "that a client of his—he called him a client—who had been looking out for a country house for some time had taken a fancy to the Abbey, and said that if the photographs represented it properly, which they generally didn't when you saw the place itself, and everything else turned out to be as it had been represented, he thought it would suit him. He should come down and look at it very soon."

"Who is he?" asked Mrs. Mercer. "Did he tell you?"

"He did not tell me his name. He said he was a gentleman in the City. I asked the name, but apparently it isn't etiquette for that sort of people to give it. Every calling, of course, has its own conventions in such matters. I said we didn't think much of gentlemen in the City in this part of the world, and I rather hoped his friend would find that the place did not suit him. Some of us were not particularly rich, but we were quite content as we were. By that time he had become, as I thought, a little over-familiar, which is why I said that."