The Hall and the Grange: A Novel

by Archibald Marshall

"There you are then. In the long run it comes to this, that he does exactly what he likes, which is what I said at the beginning. Still, William's a good fellow, and I know he's devoted to you; I've reason to know it. I should like to have a brother of that sort myself, but my brother Alfred has always been a nuisance to me, with his schemes for making enormous fortunes which never came off. It's different when your brother has a lot more money than you have. It's a very good thing, with all the burdens they're heaping on land nowadays, to have money brought into a property from outside. I suppose William could buy another place now, if he wanted to. I rather admire him for sticking to Hayslope, and if it amuses him to spend money on the Grange—well, it's because he likes it better than any other place."

Colonel Eldridge walked to the lodge gates with Lord Crowborough, who, mounted on his machine, suited his pace to his. They parted with much good will on either side, though with no more than a "Good-bye then for the present" to show it.

As he walked slowly back to the house, his heart was tender within him. It was almost worth while to have quarrelled with this old friend to have him back on the old terms again. But quarrelling was never worth while. He had come rather near to quarrelling with William over that affair of Barton's Close. He remembered with some compunction that he had spoken angrily to his wife about it, and had written to William with more irritation than he now liked to think about; though he had shown in the latter part of his letter that the strength of his protest was not meant to go deeper than its expression. William had not yet answered his letter, as there would have been just time for him to do, which seemed to show that he had not taken it in offence; and the work of his garden was still going on. Colonel Eldridge had been inclined to take exception to that, although he was quite prepared for it to go on. It would have been better if William had written, saying that he had not understood his objection as serious, or something of that sort. It gave some colour to Crowborough's criticism of his way of pushing through his intentions. But it was true, what Crowborough had also said, that he loved Hayslope, and preferred to spend his money there rather than to make another place to his liking. Colonel Eldridge well knew that itch for improvement, and more improvement, and had acted upon it himself in the days when there had been money to spare for that sort of thing. He now thought of his protest as altogether exaggerated, and wished he hadn't made it. He was even inclined to be interested in the new garden that William had designed, and thought that he might be able to suggest some slight improvement in the details of the design when they came together on it, with the protest put aside and forgotten.

As he walked slowly along on the grass by the drive, with the wide acres of his park surrounding him, the sheep and cattle feeding peacefully, or lying in the shade of the trees in which he took pride, he thought of himself as too apt to get annoyed about trifles.

It had not always been so. He was rigid in the demands he made upon others, but he thought about them kindly too—even his servants, whom he treated with old-fashioned stiffness, but whose welfare he would take pains to promote; much more the members of his family, in whose happiness his was bound up. He was the head of his house, and that must be recognized by everybody around him. But his rule was not exercised for his own exclusive benefit, and it had been his pride not to make it irksome by indulgence in transitory moods.

He was more at peace with himself at this moment than he had been since his troubles had come upon him. He saw that the trouble about money had loomed too large in his mind. There was enough money to have in the quiet way in which life had been going at Hayslope Hall, now for some time past. Cynthia was making herself happy in it; the children were happy. Why shouldn't he be? For the first time he caught a glimpse of a life lived more closely to the soil than it had come to be lived in such houses as his before the war. In the time of his great-grandfather, before a rich marriage had brought more money into the family, when a London house had been added to the country one, and the country house keyed up to a more elaborate style, Hayslope had been occupied for by far the greater part of the year, with a rare visit to London or Bath, or to the country houses of friends or relations. There were old letters and diaries in the library which told of the life that had centred at Hayslope in those days. It was far simpler than the life that he and his had lived there before the war, but it seemed to have contented those who lived it.

They saw the seasons in and out, and each had its duties as well as pleasures. Guests would be entertained for weeks together, and live the daily life of their hosts; they seemed to see even more of their country neighbours, who lived in the same way as they did, with their recognized indoor and outdoor pursuits to fill the days, and their merry-makings in company, more eagerly looked forward to than the more frequent and elaborate amusements of to-day. The great charm of those days seemed in part actually to rest upon the difficulty of communication with the world outside, which concentrated the sweets of life upon the country home. And where the home was of the spacious and well-provided kind of Hayslope Hall, it must have been more cherished than if it were only resorted to for periods in the year, and even those periods broken up by frequent departures elsewhere.

Perhaps that old stay-at-home life of the country house would come back of compulsion, now that so many people were straitened in circumstances. It would be a good thing in many ways if it did; if the men who owned the land lived more closely to it, and identified themselves with those who were bound to it. That was a larger question; but there was no doubt that it could be made a satisfying life, if the necessary changes were squarely faced and accepted, and the life was arranged on a new basis. It came to his mind, with a gratifying sense of discovery, that for him and his family that basis had already been found. It only remained to cease always casting back towards what had been before and could now be no longer. The best part remained, and life for him and his at Hayslope might be happy as it had ever been.

And the other deeper trouble was clearing too. He was glad that it had been mentioned between him and his old friend, whom for a time it had parted. At the last, as they had gone down the drive together, Lord Crowborough had said to him, quite simply: "We fell out about your poor boy, Edmund. I don't want to go away and leave him as something that must never be mentioned between us. It was a sad business, but for him it was wiped out when he fought well and was killed. He was your only son, and you've lost him. I've been more lucky in keeping mine."

That had put the finishing touch to their reconciliation. Hugo's lapses could be forgotten now, as they had been forgiven. They had been bad. For a long time after his death one trouble after another had come because of him, one revelation after another had been made. He had kept them nearly all to himself. Only his brother knew something of them, and he knew by no means all. His wife knew nothing. But an end seemed to have come to it at last. The burden on his mind was lifting, though it still lay heavy upon his purse, and would mean rigid economy for years to come.