Abington Abbey: A Novel

by Archibald Marshall

"We mustn't quarrel with the fellow," said Grafton. "Haven't you seen Worthing?"

"Have we seen Worthing!" exclaimed Barbara. "He's a lamb. He's been away, but he came back yesterday afternoon, and rolled up directly. The Dragon likes him. He was awfully sweet to her. He's going to buy us some horses. You don't mind, do you, Daddy? I know you've got lots of money."

"That's where you make the mistake," said Grafton, "but of course we must have a gee or two. I want to talk to Worthing about that. Did you ask him to dine to-night, Cara?"

"Yes. He grinned all over. He said we were a boon and a blessing to men. He really loves us."

"And we love him," said Barbara. "We were wondering when the time would come to call him Jimmy. We feel like that towards him. Or, Dad darling, it is topping living in the country. Don't let's ever go back to London."

All the circumstances of life had been so much at Grafton's disposal to make what he liked out of them that he had become rather difficult to move to special pleasure by his surroundings. But he felt a keen sense of satisfaction as he entered this beautiful house that he had bought, and the door was shut on the wild and windy weather. That sensation, of a house as a refuge, is only to be gained in full measure in the country, whether it is because the house stands alone against the elements, or that the human factor in it counts for more than in a town. There was the quiet old stone-built hall cheered by the fire of logs on the great hearth, the spacious soft-carpeted staircase and corridors, the long gallery transformed by innumerable adjustments into the very shrine of companionable home life, and all around the sense of completeness and fitness and beauty which taste and a sufficiency of wealth can give to a house built in the days when building was the expression of ideas and aspirations, and an art as creative and interpretative as any.

He felt positively happy as he dressed in the large comfortable, but not over luxurious room that Caroline had chosen for him. He had expressed no preferences on the subject when they had gone over the house together, but remembered now that he had rather liked this particular room out of the score or so of bedrooms they had gone through. It looked out on to the quiet little space of lawn and the trees beyond from three windows, and would get the first of the sun. He loved the sun, and Caroline knew that. She knew all his minor tastes, perhaps better than he knew them himself. He would have been contented with a sunny room and all his conveniences around him, or so he would have thought. But she had seen that he had much more than that. The old furniture which had struck him pleasantly on their first visit was there—the big bed with its chintz tester, the chintz-covered sofa, the great wardrobe of polished mahogany—everything that had given the room its air of solid old-fashioned comfort, and restful, rather faded charm. But the charm and the comfort seemed to have been heightened. The slightly faded air had given place to one of freshness. The change was not so great as to bring a sense of modernity to unbalance the effect of the whole, but only to make it more real. Caroline was a genius at this sort of expression, and her love and devotion towards him had stimulated her. The freshness had come from the fact that she had changed all the chintzes, and the carpet and curtains, ransacking the house for the best she could find for the purpose. She had changed some of the furniture too, and added to it. Also the prints. He did recognise that change, as he looked around him, and took it all in. He was fond of old prints, and had noticed those that were of any value as he had gone through the rooms. There had been rubbish mixed with the good things in this room; but there was none left. "Good child!" he said to himself with satisfaction as he saw what she had done in this way.

He thought of her and his other children as he dressed, and he thought of his young wife. A charming crayon portrait of her hung in the place of honour above the mantelpiece, on which there were also photographs of her, and of the children, in all stages of their growth. Caroline had collected them from all over the London house. The crayon portrait had been one of two done by a very clever young artist, now a famous one, whom they had met on their honeymoon. This had been the first, and Grafton had thought it had not done justice to his wife's beauty; so the artist, with a smiling shrug of the shoulders, had offered to do another one, which had pleased him much better, and had hung ever since in his bedroom in London. Now, as he looked at this portrait, which had hung in a room he seldom went into, he wondered how he could have been so blind. The beauty, with which he had fallen in love, was there, but the artist had seen much more than the beauty that was on the surface. It told immeasurably more about the sweet young bride than the picture he had made of her afterwards. It told something of what she would be when the beauty of form and feature and colouring should have waned, of what she would have been to-day more than twenty years later.

Grafton was not a man who dwelt on the past, and his life had been too prosperous and contented to lead him to look forward very often to the future. He took it as it came, and enjoyed it, without hugging himself too much on the causes of his enjoyment. The only unhappiness he had ever known had been in the loss of his wife, but the wound had healed gradually, and had now ceased to pain him.

But it throbbed a little now as he looked at the portrait with new eyes. He and she had talked together of a country house some time in the future of their long lives together—some such house as this, if they should wait until there was enough money. It was just what she would have delighted in. She had been brought up in a beautiful country house, and loved it. Caroline inherited her fine perceptions and many of her tastes from her. It would have been very sweet to have had her companionship now, in this pleasant and even exciting life that was opening up before them. They would all have been intensely happy together.