The Hall and the Grange: A Novel

by Archibald Marshall

Underneath the tower, from the wooden ceiling behind the high-pointed arch, the stout bell-ropes hung down, thickened with worsted where the ringers held them. Behind them were the ponderous oak doors, from a chink between which streamed a thin plate of golden light, that fell upon the sombre tables of the law, which the renovators had banished from over the altar; and above the arch was a large square panel painted with the Royal Coat of Arms. Somehow, the sight of these things, which had nothing to do with the long-ago history of the church, was grateful to her. Her imagination, and her knowledge, were equal to reviving some vision of the church as it had been before the Reformation, when the same kind of country-folk as now resorted to it fixed their stolid gaze upon the priest before the altar, and knew him in his outside comings and goings as the villagers of to-day knew their Mr. Comfrey. But it was a life nearer to her own, and yet established for some generations past, of which the voice of the old church whispered to her this morning. By turning her head to the right she could see a large mural monument of white marble, filling the space of a blocked-up window, which commemorated the virtues of an early eighteenth century Eldridge, and those, less enlarged upon but possibly as exemplary, of his wife. Those were the times of which she liked to think, and the years that came after them, when her husband's forbears lived in the Hall, much as it was now, and came here every Sunday, to take part in the same prayers and psalms, and to listen, or otherwise, to sermons from the same pulpit. Some of them had lived through troublous times, but none, surely, in such a time of unrest as this, with the great catastrophe only just lifted, and its ultimate results not yet in any power to foresee. She herself had been less affected by it than many. She had lost no near relations; she had not to rearrange her life to meet reduced opportunities. But the weight of it hung over her all the same. It was a comfort to feel that here was something that went on, that came from a past not too remote, and was joined to her life by special ties.

In the two seats in front of her sat the family from the Hall. They had not come unscathed out of the catastrophe. Yet the same sense of something stable and supporting in this Sunday habit of churchgoing hung about them. More even than herself they belonged here. Almost more than the house they inhabited, this place seemed to stand for continuity and settlement in the lives of such as they. For life in the house must alter from time to time, and might alter much; but what went on in the church altered little.

Such a life as theirs seemed to her preferable to her own life, even with the restrictions that diminished means had brought them. Such restrictions would not have troubled her for herself, as long as the quiet round of daily duty and pleasure remained. She would have enjoyed it more than the life she led, chiefly in London. The days she spent at the Grange were the best days, but the Grange too seemed to echo the busy London life, so bound up in all its aspects with the spending of money. There was some restful feeling about it, surrounded as it was by the woods and fields, but it was not to compare with the restfulness of the Hall, which reflected only the life of the country, as it had been lived there for generations. It seemed to her that if she had been in Cynthia's place she would have been glad that the London house had had to be given up, for all her interests then would have been concentrated upon the house which was really the home. Cynthia did love her country home, she knew, and had accepted the change in her lot with admirable absence of complaint. But they were not made alike; Cynthia would have been completely happy if their positions in life had been changed.

Colonel Eldridge sat upright in his seat, his closely-cropped grey head held erect, the brown skin of his neck and shaven cheek contrasting with the clean polished white of his stiff collar, his flat back and square shoulders clothed in dark creaseless serge. The rigid neatness of his appearance and attire went with his straight confined mind, in which there was little room for the leniencies that gave her the sense of something large and responsive in her husband. Her gaze rested on him, and she tried to imagine something of what he was thinking, as he sat so unmoved, his eyes bent down, and his ears, she was sure, not responsive to Mr. Comfrey's well-intentioned hair-splittings.

It was probably this effort to put herself in his place that brought to her a rush of pity for him, so strong that moisture came to her eyes, and she looked away to the ribbons and daisies in Isabelle's hat, immediately in front of her.

She had been hard to him in her thoughts, although she had worked upon her husband's more easily moved sensibilities to put aside the offence he had caused, and to treat him with generosity. She had even felt great impatience with Cynthia, though she hoped she had refrained from showing it. It had been difficult, the day before, to treat her with the customary affection, when they had laid aside their discussion, which was leading to no understanding, and spent an hour together out of doors. She believed Cynthia to be as anxious as she was that this unseemly dispute in which they had found themselves involved should end; but Cynthia had allowed herself to say many things that she would not have allowed to be said to her without taking great offence. She had been right to let them go by, but she was not so sure that she had not kept a spark of resentment over them alive in her mind. If so, she must put it out. Cynthia was her friend of many years, and did love her; of that she was assured. Friends ought to be able to speak plainly to one another, and if they did not agree upon a given subject, they must fall back upon the deeper agreement to which their friendship had brought them, tested by time and welded by affection.

In this dispute there seemed to be nothing that could be done by discussing the rights and wrongs of it. Discussion seemed only to add new causes of complaint, which were already so numerous as to be swamping the original one. But the deeper tie was there, for all of them. She made up her mind definitely that she, for her part, would lean all her weight upon it, and not allow herself to be turned aside by any accidents of the moment. And she knew that William would be ready to act the large generosity that was his, even to the extent of accepting blame, where blame was not rightly due to him.

What was it that really lay at the bottom of the feeling that seemed to be growing up to separate them? Not the question of the garden, which had been complicated by all sorts of little mistakes, or it would have been amicably settled long ago. Cynthia had been right when she had said that that was only a symptom, though she had applied it only to one side. Edmund complained of William overshadowing him at Hayslope. That was what it came to in the last resort. Well, William was a man of mark, and Edmund was not. And it was impossible for William to put the same value upon what was of most importance to Edmund, which was also a cause of complaint. Hayslope wasn't and couldn't be always in the forefront of his mind, with all the varied and thronging interests that were his. Edmund ought to be able to see that; but if he couldn't, or wouldn't, then it only remained for William to be more careful than ever not to upset his dignity, which should not be very difficult for him, with the affection that he had for Edmund. As for the dictatorial methods that Edmund was apt to adopt towards his younger brother, perhaps it had been a mistake to bring them up at all. It would be small-minded to keep them standing as a subject for resentment, and they meant nothing that mattered. William had put up with them comfortably for the greater part of his life, and she was sure he would go on putting up with them for the sake of keeping the peace.

Without a doubt, when the balance was struck, there had been more offence against them than against Edmund. Very well, then; it was for them to make light of it. They could well afford to do so. They had so much more than Edmund now; they would even stand in Edmund's place some day, if they survived him, and would have that in addition which he had hoped to have handed on to his son. Poor Edmund; he had been very much tried. It would not cost much to give way to him in this affair, and carefully to avoid all occasions of offence in the future.