“She is also very handsome in the way of features,” said Hugh, with a touch of flippancy.
The planting of the lupin-seeds which Hugh had upset was to have been part of what Canon Alington called the horticultural curriculum for the evening, and since that was no longer possible, gardening operations were deferred in toto till the morrow, and the two walked over to the adjoining golf links to play a short round before dinner. As he had often done before, Canon Alington, having spun a coin to decide who should drive first, asked Hugh if he would have “capita aut caudæ,” and Hugh, having won, had the bright thought of replying “Habeo honorem.” Dick, however, demurred to this as being an improper use of the Latin word “honor,” which meant not “honour,” but “public office.”
Agnes Alington was older than Hugh by several years. She had married young, at the age of eighteen, when a girl’s character, so to speak, is in the state of an ingot of red-hot iron, fresh taken from the furnace, and easily and glowingly to be fashioned into any shape that her blacksmith desires. The blacksmith in this case being Canon Alington, it was not difficult to forecast that in a very short space of time she would be hammered into a shape on which the author had stamped his own very distinct and efficient personality, and be, so to speak, hall-marked with him. This formation of his wife’s mind, a task which Dick had definitely set himself and earnestly carried out, was very soon accomplished, with the result, as might have been expected, that Agnes became extraordinarily like him. This too had happened, that as she became more like him he began to admire her more and more for all those qualities which under his tuition sprang up like rather stiff flowers in her character. He had exactly the same qualities himself, but in his busy and strenuous life he had no time to admire them in himself, nor sufficient self-consciousness to think about them at all except in as far as the deeds they dictated were his duty. But somehow when he saw them so brilliant and vigorous in his wife, the ordinary human love, under direction of which he had wooed and won her, became a very steadfast and solid thing, founded (though the foundation had been added afterward) on the granite of imperishable esteem and respect. In all points, indeed, the welding bore the trace of the hammerer’s characteristics, and in a quality so personal and essential, one would have said, as that of humour Agnes now completely resembled her husband, though at the time of her marriage she was quite capable, like her brother, of telling fairy-tales to children out of her own head. But to-day the light side of things was sufficiently represented in her life if from time to time she could strike out some idea akin to that under inspiration of which she had suggested “Abigaildom” for the baize door of the passage leading to the maidservants’ rooms. She had become an ideal helpmeet for him and she truly and without exaggeration expressed what he was to her in a pet name for him, which was Galahad, again often abbreviated into the nom de foyer of Laddie. Rarely, indeed does it happen that two people are so thoroughly and essentially suited to each other as these were, and in all the difficulties and perplexities no less than in all the happiness and joys of their excellent and admirable lives they were truly one. And the seed of this thoroughly happy marriage was set in their two children, who had neither of them ever given their parents a single moment of anxiety, except as regards their eyesight, which necessitated their both wearing spectacles. These were a boy and girl, now aged nine and eight respectively. Their names were Ambrose and Perpetua, the calendar saints of the days on which they had been born.
Perpetua on the occasion of Hugh’s visit happened to be away from home, staying with an aunt by the seaside for a week, but when the two men came back from their golf they found Ambrose walking by himself up and down the gravel path of the kitchen garden, and he ran to meet them. Hugh, though in general fond of children, was terrified of Ambrose because of his stainless character and his consciousness of virtue.
“How are you, Uncle Hugh?” said Ambrose very properly. “Mamma told me you were coming to-day, and I was so pleased!”
“Why, that’s awfully jolly of you,” said Hugh. “And where’s Perpetua?”
“She is staying with Aunt Susan. I made a calendar of the days when she would be away, and I cross one off every evening. Don’t I, papa?”
“Yes, my son. Is your mother in?”
“Oh, yes, we came in together about half an hour ago! We went to see a poor woman who is ill, and I took her some strawberries. They were my own, from my own garden. I carried them in a cabbage-leaf.”
“Strawberries?” said Hugh. “How delicious! Let’s go and eat some. I haven’t had any strawberries since—since lunch.”