Abington Abbey: A Novel

by Archibald Marshall

"It's not so nice as the park at Abington," said Mrs. Mercer; "more like a farm road except for the lodge. Is Grays as big a house as the Abbey?"

"Bigger, I should say," said her husband. "The Pembertons are a very old Meadshire family. I looked them up in a book in the library at the Abbey. Except the Clintons, over the other side, they are the oldest. They have often married into titled families. They are a good deal better than the Graftons, I should say. Sir James Grafton is only the third baronet, and his grandfather was a jeweller in Nottingham, the book says. Of course, they've made money, which stands for everything in these days. Oh, how that made me jump!"

Another car had come up behind them, of which the powerful horn had given warning that room was asked for it. The smaller car had changed gears at the beginning of the rise, and the larger one swung by it as it made way. Three girls were sitting together on the back seat, and waved as they were carried past. They were Caroline and Beatrix, with Mollie sitting between them.

"Now what on earth does that mean!" exclaimed the Vicar, in a tone of annoyance. "Mollie coming to dine here! But she doesn't even know them. And why didn't Caroline tell me they were coming, when I asked her for the car? Why couldn't we all have come together?"

These questions were presently answered. Bertie Pemberton had come down from London in the afternoon and brought a friend with him. A car had been sent over to Abington to ask that everybody who happened to be there should come over and dine. Caroline was also particularly asked to persuade little Miss Walter to come with them, and to take no denial. A note would be taken to her, but perhaps she wouldn't come unless she were pressed. This last piece of information, however, was not imparted to the Vicar, and he was left wondering how on earth Mollie came to be there, and with the full determination to find out later.

There was nothing lacking in the warmth of welcome accorded to their guests by the whole Pemberton family, which could hardly have been more loudly expressed if they had come to dine in an asylum for the deaf, and were qualified for residence there. The Vicar had quite forgotten his dislike of this noisy cheerful family. He had bicycled over on a hot day to see Mrs. Pemberton, had found that she had forgotten who he was for the moment, but by engaging her in conversation on the subjects of which she had previously unbosomed herself had regained the interest she had shown in him. He had been given his cup of tea, and shown the village hall, and told that the next time he came over he must come to lunch. Then Mrs. Pemberton had left cards at Abington Vicarage—the Vicar and his wife being out, unfortunately, at the time,—and before they could return the call had asked them to dine. It was an acquaintanceship, begun under the happiest auspices, which the Vicar quite hoped would ripen into a genuine friendship. He was inclined to like the free-and-easy ways of real old-established country people. They were apt, possibly, to think too much about horses and dogs, but that did not prevent their taking a genuine interest in their fellow-creatures, especially those who were dependent on them for a good deal of their satisfaction in life. Mrs. Pemberton, although she didn't look it, was a woman who did a great deal of good. She would have made an admirable clergyman's wife.

Father Brill, the Vicar of Grays, was also dining, in a cassock. He had only been in the place for three months, but had already established his right to be called Father and to wear a cassock instead of a coat. He was a tall spare man with a commanding nose and an agreeable smile. Old Mr. Pemberton had taken a fancy to him, though he was very outspoken with regard to his eccentricities. But he chaffed him just as freely to his face as he criticised him to others. His attitude towards him was rather like that of a fond father towards a mischievous child. "What do you think that young rascal of mine has been doing now?" was the note on which his references to Father Brill were based.

The Vicar, who was 'low' in doctrine, but inclined to be 'high' in practice—where it didn't matter—had cautiously commiserated Mrs. Pemberton on the extravagances of her pastor during his first visit. But he had discovered that they caused her no anxiety. The only thing she didn't care about was 'this confession'—auricular, she believed they called it. But as long as she wasn't expected to confess herself, which she should be very sorry to do, as it would be so awkward to ask Father Brill to dinner after it, she wasn't going to make any fuss. It would possibly do the young men of the place a lot of good to confess their sins to Father Brill, if he could induce them to do so; she was pretty certain it would do Bertie good, but, of course, he would never do it. As for the women, if they wanted to go in for that sort of thing, well, let 'em. Father Brill wasn't likely to do them any harm—with that nose. What she should have objected to would be to be interfered with in the things she ran herself in the parish. But they got on all right together there. In fact, she went her way and Father Brill went his, and neither of them interfered with the other.

The two clergymen sat on either side of their hostess, and the Vicar was rather inclined to envy the easy terms that Father Brill was on with her. It had not occurred to him to treat a lady in Mrs. Pemberton's position with anything but deference, to listen to her opinions politely, and not to press his own when they differed from hers. But here was Father Brill actually inviting her to discussion, and, while listening politely to what she had to say, finding food for amusement in it, and by no means hiding his amusement from her.

"I'm afraid you must be a good deal older than you admit to," he said. "You must have gained your opinions in girlhood, and they are about those that were held in the thirties and forties of the nineteenth century. That would make you about ninety-three now, and I must admit that you wear very well for your age."