The entrance of the Vicar had the effect of stopping the flow for a moment, but it was resumed again almost immediately, and was never actually discontinued by the two young men, who were talking to Caroline, until she left them to greet the new arrivals.
"Ah, that's right; I'm glad you've come," said Grafton. "I suppose you know Mr. and Mrs. Pemberton. We've just discovered they're old friends of my wife's people."
"No, I don't think that we've ever met before," said Mrs. Pemberton, addressing herself to the Vicar, who stood awkwardly beside her. She had the air of not minding to whom she addressed herself as long as she was not asked to discontinue addressing somebody. "I suppose you're the clergyman here. It's been rather beyond our beat, you know, until we got the car, and, of course, there hasn't been anybody here for years. Nice to have the place occupied again, isn't it? Must make a lot of difference to you, I should think. And such nice people too! Yes, it's odd, isn't it? Mr. Francis Parry came to spend the week-end with us—my son brought him—and he asked us if we knew the Graftons who had just bought this place, and we said we didn't but were going to call on them when they'd got settled in; and then suddenly I remembered and said: 'Didn't one of the Graftons marry Lord Handsworth's sister, and she died?' Well, I've known the Handsworths ever since I was a girl, and that's a good many years ago, as you may imagine. You needn't trouble to contradict me, you know."
She looked up at him with a sharp smile. She was a hard-bitten old lady, with a face full of wrinkles in a skin that looked as if it had been out in the sun and rain for years, as indeed it had, and a pair of bright searching eyes. The Vicar returned her smile. One would have said that she had already made a conquest of him, in spite of his previous disapprobation, and her having taken no particular pains to do so.
"Was Mrs. Grafton Lord Handsworth's sister?" he asked.
"Yes. Ain't I telling you so? Ruth Handsworth she was, but I don't think I ever knew her. She was of the second family, and I never saw much of the old man after he married again. Well, Francis Parry suggested walking over with my son. He's a friend of these people. So we thought we might as well drop ceremony and all come. Have you got a clothing-club in this village?"
In the meantime, on the other side of the fire-place, old Mr. Pemberton was giving his host some information about the previous inhabitants of the Abbey. He was rather deaf, and addressed his opponent in conversation as if his disability were the common lot of humankind, which probably accounted for the high vocal tone of the Pemberton family in general. "When I was a young fellow," he was saying, "there was no house in the neighb'r'ood more popular than this. There were four Brett girls, and all of them as pretty as paint. All we young fellows from twenty miles round and more were quarrelling about them. They all stuck together and wouldn't look at a soul of us—not for years—and then they all married in a bunch, and not a single one of them into the county. I was in love with the eldest myself, but I was only a boy at Eton and she was twenty-four. If it had been the other way about we might have kept one of them. Good old times those were. The young fellows used to ride over here, or drive their dog-carts, which were just beginning to come in in those days, and those who couldn't afford horseflesh used to walk. There were one or two sporting parsons in the neighb'r'ood then, and some nice young fellows from the Rectories. Sir Charles Dawbarn, the judge—his father was rector of Feltham when I was a young fellow. He wanted to marry the second one, but she wouldn't look at him. Nice fellow he was too. They don't seem to send us the parsons they used to in the old days. We've got a fellow at Grays goes about in a cassock, just like a priest. Behaves like one too. Asked my wife when he first came if she'd ever been to confession. Ha! ha! ha! She told him what she thought of him. But he's not a bad fellow, and we get on all right. What sort of a fellow have you got here? They can make themselves an infernal nuisance sometimes if they're not the right sort; and not many of them are nowadays, at least in these parts."
"That's our Vicar talking to Mrs. Pemberton," said Grafton in as low a voice as he thought would penetrate.
"Eh! What!" shouted the old man. "Gobbless my soul! Yes. I didn't notice he was a parson. Hope he didn't hear what I said. Hate to hurt anybody's feelings. Let's get further away. I've had enough of this fire."
Miss Waterhouse was talking to Mrs. Mercer by one of the windows, and all the young people had congregated round the further fire-place. The two older men joined them, and presently there was a suggestion of going over the house to see what had been done with it.