The Hall and the Grange: A Novel

by Archibald Marshall

[CHAPTER IX]

LETTERS

The Eldridges arrived home in time for luncheon. They lived in a large house in Belgravia, old enough to have some character of space and dignity, but old enough also to have been exceedingly inconvenient if much money had not been spent in modernizing it. It had been their London home for about fifteen years, and was a trifle behind the latest fashion in furnishing and decoration. The latest of such fashions, it should be recognized, rests upon the recognition of the value of older fashions, which in its fulness dates from a very few years back. There was plenty of good old furniture in the Eldridges' house, some of it now of considerable value, but it would have welded itself into quite a different whole if the "doing up" and furnishing of the house had been taken in hand some years later than it was. The time was approaching when Sir William would acquire another, possibly still larger house, and begin all over again. He was already vaguely dissatisfied with this one; but it had qualities which pleased him too, and he had never quite lost the sense of satisfaction with which he had moved into it from a smaller house and spent money upon making it the place in which they should live the larger life that was then opening out before them. His own room, with its outlook upon a little square of walled-in garden, was a very refuge, and he and his wife sometimes sat there in the few evenings when they were at home together alone, in a grateful seclusion of green morocco and bright Turkey carpet, with books and prints on the Morris-decked walls, and only the huge and hideous American desk, of the palest possible growth of oak, to indicate the sterner purposes to which the room was primarily dedicated.

Sir William went into this room on their arrival, and turned over the pile of letters and papers that were there awaiting him. He opened a few of them, and glanced over their contents, and then unlocked his desk, but only to put certain of the papers away. He was too excited to take up his immediate affairs in the short time that remained before luncheon, though on ordinary occasions he would have done so, for he hated wasting even a few minutes of his time.

He had thought over what had happened, and what might happen during the journey to London. But, coming thus into his familiar room, he seemed to see it all with a new significance. He had the feeling that he had come back to this room a different man—a bigger man than the one who had used it before; and the feeling rather surprised him. For, after all, to spend a few days in a large country house was no new experience to him, he had been in close contact with Lord Chippenham before for many months upon end, and the idea of a seat in Parliament was not entirely a novelty. What had happened, he decided, as he walked up and down the room, or stood looking out upon the green and bright colour of the little paved square of garden, was that he had attained to recognition, when he had thought that the official chapter of his life was closed. It set a higher value on it, even to himself. He was not the same man as had for so long occupied this room, and thought of his public work as efficiently done for the good of his country, but as already a thing of the past. The chapter was not closed, but might lead to other chapters, beyond the present scope of his imagination. It had put him among the men of his time who counted for something. Lord Chippenham, whatever his stirring of expectation might have meant, undoubtedly thought of him as counting for something already. The last year, during which he had attended to his affairs, and spent as much of his time as he could spare from them at Hayslope, had only been a lull. His foot was already on the ladder of distinction, and he might mount on it higher than he had ever thought of mounting.

He was summoned to luncheon, and took some of his as yet unopened letters in with him. He did not come to the one from his brother until he and his wife were alone together.

"Well, I never—!"

Lady Eldridge looked up, to see his face dark and angry. "Read that," he said, throwing the letter across to her; "the first part, I mean," and waited till she had done so, though phrases of indignation kept rising to his lips, which he stifled by occupying them with food and drink, too hastily consumed.

He did not wait for her remarks, when she looked up again, with consternation on her face. "You heard what I said about Edmund only just this morning," he broke out. "I'm always thinking what I can do for him, and that's the way he treats me in return. Really, it's incredible!"