Abington Abbey: A Novel

by Archibald Marshall

"No," she said. "He has been more or less laid up ever since we came here."

"I am afraid he will never get about again. He seems to me to be on his last legs, if I may so express myself."

No objection being made to his doing so, he went on. "He has done good work in his time. He is past it now, poor old man, but in years gone by he was an example to all—full of energy and good works. I have been told that before he came to Surley, and held a small living somewhere in the Midlands, he did not rest until he had raised the endowment by a hundred pounds a year. That means hard unremitting work, in these days when the laity is apt to keep its purse closed against the claims of the church. I always like to give credit where credit is due, and I must say for old Mr. Cooper that he has deserved well of his generation."

"It is nice to think of his ending his days in peace in that beautiful place," said Mrs. Walter. "When Mollie and I went to call there in the summer I thought I had never seen a prettier house and garden of its size."

"I wish we could have the luck to get the living when old Mr. Cooper does go," said Mrs. Mercer artlessly. "I don't want the old gentleman to die yet awhile, naturally, but he can't be expected to hold out very much longer; he is eighty-four and getting weaker every day. Somebody must be appointed after him, and I think myself it ought to be an incumbent of the diocese who has borne the heat and burden of the day in a poorly endowed living."

She was only repeating her husband's oft-spoken words, being ready to take his view in all matters, and using his methods of expression as being more suitable than her own. But he was not pleased with the implied compliment. "I wish you wouldn't talk in that way, Gertrude," he said, in an annoyed voice. "Before such friends as Mrs. Walter and Mollie it may do no harm, but if such a thing were said outside it would look as if I had given rise to the wish myself, which is the last thing I should like to be said. If it so befalls me I shall be content to go on working here where Providence has placed me till the end of the chapter, with no other reward but the approval of my own conscience, and perhaps the knowledge that some few people are the better and worthier for the work I have spent a great part of my life in doing amongst them. At the same time I should not refuse to take such a reward as Surley would be if it were offered to me freely, and it were understood that it was a reward for work honestly done through a considerable period of years. I would not take it under any other conditions, and as for doing anything to solicit it, it would be to contradict everything that I have always stood for."

"Oh, yes, dear," said Mrs. Mercer. "But it wouldn't have done any harm just to have met the Bishop in a friendly way at Surley itself. It might have sort of connected you with the place in his mind. I wish we had been able to keep friends with Mrs. Carruthers, or that Rhoda and Ethel had accepted your offer to preach to-morrow afternoon."

Really, although a devoted helpmate, both in purse and person, this woman was a trial. His face darkened so at her speech that Mrs. Walter struck in hurriedly so as to draw the lightning from the tactless speaker. "The Miss Coopers were hoping the last time they were over here that their brother might be appointed to succeed their father," was her not very sedative effort.

But the lightning was drawn. The lowered brows were bent upon her. "I think it is quite extraordinary," said the Vicar, "that those girls should give themselves away as they do. Really, in these matters there are decencies to be observed. A generation or two ago, perhaps, it was not considered wrong to look upon an incumbency as merely providing an income and a house, just as any secular post might. You get it in the works of Anthony Trollope, a tedious long-winded writer, but valuable as giving a picture of his time. But with the growth of true religion and a more self-devoted spirit on the part of the clergy it is almost approaching the sin of simony to talk about an incumbency in the way those girls do so freely."

"They only said that their brother was very much liked by everybody in the parish," said Mollie, who had seen her mother wince at the attack. "They said if the Bishop knew how suitable he really was, he might look over his youth, and appoint him."