Abington Abbey: A Novel

by Archibald Marshall

Mrs. Mercer having been satisfied, and her mouth incidentally closed, by order, the more difficult task remained to placate Mollie and Pemberton. On thinking it over carefully, with wits sharpened by a real and increasing alarm, the Vicar had decided that neither of those two would wish an open breach, and would welcome an assumption upon which they could avoid it. This enabled him to put a little more dignity into his letter than the facts entitled him to. He had, he wrote, entirely misjudged the situation. Nothing, naturally, could please him better than that the girl in whom he had taken so warm an interest should find happiness in a suitable marriage. He had no hesitation in saying that this struck him as an eminently suitable marriage, and he asked her to believe that he was sincere in wishing her all joy and blessing from it. Anything that he may have said in the heat of the moment to Mr. Pemberton, under the impression that his attentions had not been serious, he should wish unreservedly to apologise for. When one had made a mistake, it was the part of an honest man to acknowledge it frankly, and make an end of it. He thought that it might be more agreeable to Mr. Pemberton that this acknowledgment should be conveyed to him through Mollie. He did not, therefore, propose to write to him himself, but trusted that no more would be thought or said of what had passed.

The letter ended tentatively on the note of his old intercourse with Mollie, and the last sentences gave him more trouble than all the rest put together. He knew well enough that if his overtures were not accepted this claim to something special in the way of affection on both sides could only be contemptuously rejected, and that in any case he had no right left upon which to found it.

It was gall and bitterness to him to recall her standing up to confront him with her clear quiet eyes fixed upon him, searching out his meanness, and of her lover with his hand resting on her shoulder to show that it was he in whom she could place her confidence to protect her against the claims of an unworthy jealousy. And he touched the bottom of the cup when he figured them reading his letter together and accepting his compact because he was not worth while their making trouble about, his sting once drawn; and not at all because they believed in its sincerity. They would know well enough why he had written it, especially in the light of his wife's ignorance of what had happened, which he would not be able to prevent her showing them. That ignorant loud-mannered young man who had to be apologised to, in such a way that he could hardly accept the apology without feeling if not showing contempt! It shook him with passion to think of his degradation before him, and of what was being given to him so beautifully and freely. There was not in his thoughts a vestige of the feeling that he would have to act before the world—of pleasure that the girl towards whom he claimed to have given nothing but protecting affection should have found her happiness in a promising love. It was all black jealousy and resentment on his own behalf, and resentment against her as well as against the man whom she had chosen for herself.

And yet by the next morning he had persuaded himself that some of those feelings which he would have to act were really his. Perhaps in some sense they were, for right feelings can be induced where the necessity for them is recognised, and his affection for Mollie had actually included those elements which he had so steadfastly kept in the foreground. Also, his arrogance and self-satisfaction had prevented him in his bitterest moments from recognising all the baseness in himself, and gave him a poor support in thinking that, after all, his letter showed manliness and generosity, and might be accepted so. He had, at any rate, to keep up his front before the world, and by the time he met and talked to the Graftons between their house and the church his good opinion of himself had begun to revive. He was still troubled with fears as to how his overtures would be received. Mollie would have received his letter early that morning, and might have come over with her answer; but she had evidently waited to consult over it with her lover. He had prevented his wife running over to the Cottage, saying that they would meet Mollie either before or after church. And so it had to be left, with tremors and deceptions that, one would have thought, must have disturbed him greatly in the duties he would have to fulfil before his parishioners. Yet he preached a sermon about the approaching festival of the church, which denoted in his view, amongst other things, that the evil passions under which mankind had laboured since the creation of the world had in the fulness of time found their remedy, and told his hearers, with the air of one who knew what he was talking about, that there was no excuse for them if they gave way to any evil passion whatsoever, since the remedy was always to their hand. And in this connection he wished to point out to them, as he had done constantly throughout his ministry, that the highest means of grace were there at their very doors in that place in which they were gathered together. He himself was always to be found at his post, and woe betide any of them who neglected to take advantage of what he as a priest of the church was there to give them. The sermon, delivered with his usual confidence, not to say pomposity, did him good. He felt small doubt after it of being able to control the situation in support of his own dignity, whatever attitude towards him Mollie and Bertie Pemberton should decide to adopt.

In the meantime those young lovers were spending an hour of bliss together. They talked over all that had led up to their present happy agreement, and found each other more exactly what they wanted every minute that passed. A very short time was devoted to consideration of the Vicar's letter. "Oh, tear it up and forget all about the blighter," said Bertie, handing it back to her. But there was a little more to be settled than that. Mrs. Mercer must be considered, for her own sake as well as for Mrs. Walter's. "Well then, you can say 'how do you do' to the fellow and leave it at that," said Bertie. "If he's got any decency in him he won't want to push himself, and if he does you let me know, and I'll deal with him. I'm letting him off cheap, but we don't want to bother our heads with him. You needn't answer his letter. Tear it up."

So Mollie tore it up and put it in the fire, and the Vicar was forgotten until they met him and Mrs. Mercer on their way to the Abbey.

The meeting passed off with less awkwardness than might have been expected, as such reparatory meetings generally do, where both sides are willing to ignore the past. Mrs. Walter was with them, having been persuaded to lunch at the Abbey. The Vicar addressed himself chiefly to her, while his wife gushed happily over Mollie, and included Bertie in her address in a way which gave him a good opinion of her, and enabled him to accept the Vicar's stiff word of congratulation with one of thanks before he turned his back upon him. It was over in a very short time, and Mr. and Mrs. Mercer pursued their way homewards, the lady chattering freely, the lord holding his head on high and accepting with patronising affability the salutations of such of his parishioners as he passed on the way. He was already reinstated in his good opinion of himself, and said to his wife as they let themselves into their house: "We must think about a present for Mollie. We ought to be the first. We shall see her often, I hope, after she's married, as she won't be living very far away."

The greetings and congratulations at the Abbey were such as to reduce Mollie almost to tears of emotion, and to give Bertie a higher opinion of his new neighbours than he had had before, though his opinion of them had always been high. They were among warm personal friends, and they were Mollie's friends, knitted to her by what she had shown herself to be. As country neighbours they would have as much to offer as any within reach of the place where these two would live out their lives, but Bertie Pemberton would never have enjoyed the fullest intimacy with them apart from Mollie. She wanted no exaltation in his eyes, but it gave him an added pride in her to see how she was valued by these people so thoroughly worth knowing, and of pleasure that they should be so ready to take him into their friendship as the chosen of their dear Mollie.

There were no guests from outside staying at the Abbey, but Worthing, Maurice Bradby and Jimmy Beckley were lunching there. Worthing's congratulations were hearty, Bradby's shy, and Jimmy's solemn and weighty. "My dear chap," he said with a tight grip of Bertie's hand, and looking straight into his eyes, "I congratulate you on taking the plunge. It's the best thing a man can do. I'm sure you've chosen well for yourself, and I don't believe you'll ever regret it."

"Thanks, old boy," said Bertie, "I hope I shall be able to say the same to you some day."