Abington Abbey: A Novel

by Archibald Marshall

As for the rest of them, they were always chanting her virtues and charm. For each of them she had something special. With Caroline she extolled a country existence, and didn't know how she could have kept away from her nice house and her lovely garden for so long. She was quite sincere in this. Caroline would soon have discovered it if she had been pretending. She did love her garden, and worked in it. And she led the right sort of life in her fine house, entertaining many guests, but never boring herself if they dwindled to one or two, nor allowing herself to be crowded out of her chosen pursuits. She read and sewed and played her piano, and was never found idle. Caroline and she were close friends.

Beatrix had made a confidant of her, and had received much sympathy. But she had told her outright that she could not have expected her father to act otherwise than he had, and Beatrix had taken it from her, as she would not have taken it from any one else.

Miss Waterhouse she treated as she was treated by her own beloved charges, with affection and respect disguised as impertinence. She was young enough and witty enough to be able to do so. Miss Waterhouse thought her position somewhat pathetic—a young girl in years, but with so much on her shoulders. She had come to think it admirable too, the way in which she fulfilled her responsibilities, which never seemed to be a burden on her. Her guardian, who was also her lawyer, advised her constantly and was frequently at Surley, but her bailiff depended on her in minor matters, and she was always accessible to her tenants, and beloved by them.

It was in much the same way that Grafton had come to regard her. In the way she lived her life as mistress of her large house, and of a property which, though it consisted of only half a dozen farms, would have over-taxed the capacity of many women, she was a paragon. And yet she was scarcely older than his own children—might have been his child in point of years—and had all the charm and light-heartedness of her youth. She had something more besides—a wise woman's head, quick to understand and respond. He was so much the companion of his own children that a friend of theirs was usually a friend of his. Many of his daughters' girl friends treated him in much the same way as if he had been Caroline and Beatrix's brother instead of their father. Ella Carruthers did. It was difficult sometimes to imagine that she was a widow and the mistress of a large house, so much did she seem to belong to the family group. In their united intercourse he had not had many opportunities of talking to her alone, and had never so far sought them. But on two or three occasions they had found themselves tête-à-tête for a time, and he had talked to her about what was filling his mind, which was Beatrix and her love-affair, and particularly her changing attitude towards himself.

She had taken his side warmly, and had given him a sense of pleasure and security in her sympathy. Also of comfort in what had become a considerable trouble to him. She knew how much Beatrix loved him, she said. She had told her so, and in any case she could not be mistaken. But she was going through a difficult time for a girl. He must have patience. Whichever way it turned out she would come back to him. How could she help it, he being what he had been to her all her life?

As to the possibility of its turning out in any way but one, she avowed herself too honest to give him hope, much as she would have liked to do so. Beatrix was in love with the man, and had not changed; nor would she change within the six months allowed her. Whether her lover would come for her again when the time was up was another question. She could tell no more than he. But he must not allow himself to be disappointed if he did. He had accepted him provisionally, and must be prepared to endorse his acceptance. Surely he would get used to the marriage, if it came off! And the mutual absorption of a newly-married couple did not last for ever. She could speak from experience there. She had adored her own guardian, in whose house she had been brought up from infancy. She fancied she must have loved him at least as much as most girls loved their own fathers; yet when she had been engaged to be married, and for a time afterwards, she had thought very little of him, and she knew now that he had felt it, though he had said nothing. But after a time, when she had wanted him badly, she had found him waiting for her, just the same as ever; and now she loved him more than she had done before.

Grafton was not unimpressed by this frank disclosure, though the not unimportant fact that the lady's husband had proved himself a rank failure in his matrimonial relations had been ignored in her telling of the story. And it would be a dismal business if the full return of his child to him were to depend upon a like failure on the part of the man she should marry. Certainly he didn't want that for her. If she should marry the fellow it was to be hoped that she would be happy with him, and he himself would do nothing to come between them. Nevertheless, the reminder that the fervour of love need not be expected to keep up to concert pitch, when the sedative effect of marriage had had time to cool it, did bring him some consolation, into which he did not look too closely. It would be soothing if the dear child were to discover that her old Daddy stood for something, after all, which she could not get even from her husband, and that he would regain his place apart, and be relieved of the hard necessity of taking in and digesting an alien substance in order to get any flavour out of her love for him. He never would and never could get used to the fellow; he felt that now, and told the sympathetic lady so. She replied that one could get used to anything in this life, and in some cases it was one's duty to do so. She was no mere cushiony receptacle for his grievances. She had a mind of her own, and the slight explorations he had made into it pleased and interested him. He was not so loud in his praises of her as his daughters, but it was plain that he liked to see her at the Abbey, and it was always safe to accept an invitation for him to Surley if he was absent when it was given.

Mrs. Carruthers was not riding that morning. Out of deference to her exalted guest and various others of weight and substance, invited to meet him, she was hunting on wheels. Some of them would view such episodes of the chase as could, with luck, be seen from the seats of a luxurious motor-car, but she was driving his lordship himself in her pony-cart, quite in the old style in vogue before the scent of the fox had begun to dispute its sway in the hunting-field with that of petrol. It was years since the Bishop had come as close as this to one of the delights of his youth, and he showed himself mildly excited by it, and talked to Barbara about hounds and horses in such a way as to earn from her the soubriquet of "a genuine lamb."

He was too important, however, to be allowed more than a short conversation with one of Barbara's age, and was reft from her before she could explore very far into the unknown recesses of a prelatical mind. She was rewarded, however, for the temporary deprivation—she had other opportunities on the following day—by coming in for Ella Carruthers's sparkling description of the disturbance caused in the clerical nest of Surley by her uncle's visit.

"When they heard he was really coming," she was saying to Grafton, "they redoubled their efforts. Poor young Denis—who really looks sweet as a curate, though more deliciously solemn than ever—was sent up with a direct proposal. Couldn't I let bygones be bygones for the good of the community? I said I didn't know what the community had to do with it, and I couldn't forgive the way they had behaved. He said they were sorry. I said they had never done or said a thing to show it. We fenced a little, and he went back to them. Would you believe it, they swallowed their pride and sent me a letter. I'll show it you. You never read such a letter. They asked me to dinner at the end of it,—to-night—and perhaps I should be able to bring his lordship. I thanked them for their letter, and refused their invitation—of course politely. I asked Denis to dinner last night, and they let him come, but I think he must have had a struggle for it, because he looked very unhappy. My uncle is going to see poor old Mr. Cooper this afternoon, and, of course, they'll make a dead set at him; but it will be a bedside scene, and that's all they're going to get out of it."