The Hall and the Grange: A Novel

by Archibald Marshall

The service came to an end, and the congregation streamed out into the bright sunlight. It was composed of the households from the Hall, the Grange, and the Vicarage, a few farmers and their families, villagers and labouring people. It had not filled half the church, for the country habit of churchgoing is lessening, along with the not so admirable habit of Sabbatarianism. At Hayslope, perhaps more people went to church than would be usual in a country village, because the gentry went regularly, and, although Colonel Eldridge would not have put pressure on any of his tenantry to follow his example, it was generally supposed that he liked to see as full a congregation as possible. It was his custom to linger in the churchyard after the service, to exchange salutations, and for a few words with one and another. Lady Eldridge, whose eyes and ears were open towards him, marked his pleasant courteous air with those to whom he spoke. It was plain that they liked to be singled out by him. He was an excellent Squire, of a kind that is fast disappearing. There was nobody there that morning of whom he did not know something more than their occupations about this estate. He could probably have put a name to all the children, and they bobbed, and touched their caps to him, not as if they had merely been taught to do so. It was not, after all, no small a thing to hold the respect and esteem of some few hundreds of people towards all of whom, directly or indirectly, he stood in a special position not invariably easy to maintain. Money could not have bought just that response; there were many rich landowners, generous according to their lights, who would not have been liked and respected in the way this one was, who might now be called poor.

There was a gate leading from the churchyard to the Vicarage garden, but Fred Comfrey joined himself on to the Eldridges, who crossed the road and entered the park through the lodge gates, just opposite. He seemed to Norman, who watched him with an unfavouring eye, to do this with a hangdog air, as if he knew he was taking a liberty. At any rate, he should not walk with Pamela, if that was his object. Norman fastened upon her himself, and said: "Let's get away. I want to talk to you about something."

"Wait half a minute," she said, her head turned towards the group behind her; and then she moved towards Fred, and said: "I've found that book at last. If you'll come up now I'll give it to you."

Fred visibly brightened, before Norman's offended eyes, and seized upon her invitation as inclusive of her company during the walk home, for he put himself instantly by her side. She threw a half-glance at Norman, such as to absolve her in his mind from having intended this; but she shouldn't have given the bounder the opportunity of joining her in that way. Of course he would stick like a leech, if he got the smallest encouragement.

Pamela said to Norman, trying to bring him into a conversation of three: "Do you remember that book, 'Jack o' the Mill' that Hugo used to be so fond of when he was a boy? I remember him showing me the pictures in it, when I was quite tiny. Fred reminded me of it, and I've found it for him."

"No," said Norman, who remembered the book perfectly well. But "no" was the shortest word he could find. He wanted to hear Fred talk, and give himself away.

Fred seemed to be quite ready to talk, and he did not follow Pamela's lead in trying to bring Norman into the conversation. He talked about Hugo, in a way that aroused Norman's contemptuous disgust. Really, one would have thought that the two of them together had been models of sweet and innocent boyhood, and that the one who was dead lived enshrined in the heart of the other as a tender memory that would never fade. Poor little Pam liked it, of course, and there was no objection to having Hugo turned into a plaster saint for her benefit. But the fellow was obviously out to recommend himself through this beatification, and to share the halo. He was trying now to bring Pamela herself into the picture of the blameless past, representing the three of them as having taken part in the sacred idyll. This afforded Norman food for sardonic amusement, remembering as he did how little Pamela had been considered by the hulking brute that Fred had been then, or even by Hugo, when he had been in Fred's company. At the third or fourth "Do you remember?" he could stand it no longer, and turned back to join the children and Miss Baldwin, who were immediately behind them. This was intended as a protest, but neither Pamela nor Fred, in the interest of their conversation, seemed to notice it.

Fred did not stay to luncheon, although Norman heard his aunt invite him. He went off with his book, and Norman had his opportunity of talking to Pamela. It had been in his mind to begin upon the subject of Fred; but it was of no use just to repeat his warning of yesterday, and anything he might say about the conversation from which he had just retired in disgust would reflect upon Hugo. Hugo was becoming increasingly a subject not to be mentioned between him and Pamela. Besides, he had something he wanted to say to her.

She waited for him to speak first, as they turned towards the lawn, and possibly expected a rebuke, as before. "I say, Pam," he said. "This is a rotten business about the new garden."

"What new garden?" she asked in surprise, for her parents were old-fashioned in respect of not discussing all and everything before their children, and no echo of what had been disturbing them had reached her.