Abington Abbey: A Novel

by Archibald Marshall

"I mean, if they love each other."

"Oh, love each other!" he exclaimed. "She's hardly out of the nursery. A fellow like that—years older than she is, but young enough to make himself attractive—he knows how to make love to a young girl, if he wants to. Had plenty of practice, I dare say."

It was an unhappy ride for Caroline. His mood was one of bitterness, chiefly against Lassigny, but also against Beatrix—though with regard to her it was shot with streaks of tenderness. At one time, he ought not to have let her go away without seeing that there was somebody to look after her and prevent her from getting into mischief—but he had trusted her, and never thought she'd do this sort of thing; at another, she was so young and so pretty that she couldn't be expected to know what men were like. Poor little B! If only he'd kept her at home a bit longer! She was always happy enough at home.

To Caroline, with her orderly mind, it seemed that there were only two questions worth discussing at all—whether there was any tangible objection to Lassigny as a husband for Beatrix, and, if her father's objections to her marrying him were so strong, what he proposed to do. She had inherited this orderliness of mind from him. As a general rule he went straight to the heart of a subject, and all subsidiary considerations fell into their proper place. But she could not get an answer to either of these questions, though with regard to the latter he seemed to consider it of great importance to get Beatrix home and talk to her. This would have been very well if it had simply meant that he wanted to find out whether she had pledged herself lightly, and, if he thought she had, do all he could to dissuade her. Or if there had been anything he could have brought up against Lassigny, which might have affected her, other than his being a foreigner, which certainly wouldn't. He never said that he would forbid the marriage, nor even that he would postpone it for a certain period, both of which he could have done until Beatrix should come of age.

Longing as she did to put herself in line with him whenever she could, she allowed his feelings against Lassigny to affect her. There was nothing tangible. He knew nothing against him—hardly anything about him, indeed, except what all the world of his friends knew. With an Englishman in the same position it would have been quite enough. From a worldly point of view the match would be unexceptionable. There was wealth as well as station, and the station was of the sort that would be recognised in England, under the circumstances of Lassigny's English tastes and English sojourns. But that side of it was never mentioned. She had the impression of Lassigny as something different from what she had ever known him—with something dark and secret in his background, something that would soil Beatrix, or at least bring her unhappiness in marriage. And yet it was nothing definite. When she asked him directly if he knew anything against him, he answered her impatiently again. Oh, no. The fellow was a Frenchman. That was all he needed to know.

They were no nearer to anything, and she was no nearer to him, when they arrived at Feltham Hall. When they had passed through the lodge gates he suddenly said that he would ride back alone. She would be all right with Barbara and Bunting.

He turned and rode off, with hardly a good-bye to her.

Worthing lived in comfortable style in an old-fashioned farmhouse, which had been adapted to the use of a gentleman of quality. The great kitchen had been converted into a sitting-room, the parlour made a convenient dining-room, and there were four or five oak-raftered lattice-windowed bedrooms, with a wider view over the surrounding country than was gained from any window of the Abbey, which lay rather in a hollow. As Grafton waited for his host, walking about his comfortable bachelor's room, or sitting dejectedly by the open window looking out on to the rain, which had again begun to come down heavily, he was half-inclined to envy Worthing his well-placed congenial existence. A bachelor—if he were a bachelor by temperament—lived a life free of care. Such troubles as this that had so suddenly come to disturb his own more elaborate life he was at least immune from.

He was glad to have Worthing to consult with. Among all his numerous friends there was none to whom he would have preferred to unburden himself. Sometimes a man of middle-age, whose friendships are for the most part founded on old associations, comes across another man with whom it is as easy to become intimate as it used to be with all and sundry in youth: and when that happens barriers fall even more easily than in youthful friendships. Grafton had found such a man in Worthing. He was impatient for his arrival. He was so unused to bearing mental burdens, and wanted to share this one. Caroline had brought him little comfort. He did not think of her, as he waited for Worthing to come in; while she, riding home with Barbara and Bunting, and exerting herself to keep them from suspecting that there was anything wrong with her, was thinking of nobody but him.

He told Worthing what he had come to tell him the moment he came in. He remembered that fellow Lassigny who had stayed with them at Whitsuntide. Well, he had had a letter from Beatrix to say that she was engaged to him. He was very much upset about it. He had wired to Beatrix to come home at once.