“Gay!” they would say. “Call this gay? Now, Blackpool’s gay, if you like.”
But Andy walked up to the Stamfords’ door with a very tender feeling in his heart for the little place that smiled in the sunshine after rain, with something of the exquisite pathetic radiance of a child laughing through tears.
From that moment he loved Gaythorpe—the place itself—apart from the people, or his work amongst them.
When he entered the drawing-room Mrs. Stamford was there alone, as she had been on the first occasion that he took a meal in the house, and her appearance in evening dress was just of the same startlingly unfinished kind as her day attire. By some accident somebody seemed to have thrown a necklace round her neck and it had remained—but it was quite impossible to feel that Mrs. Stamford had had anything to do with its getting there. And her hair was somehow a distinct protest against the low neck, though it would have been impossible to picture her at that hour of the day in anything but a low neck.
She glanced out of the window after greeting Andy, and remarked—
“This rain will do old Sam Petch’s garden good. He cried yesterday when my husband went to see him because his marigolds were dried up. I fear he is failing at last.”
Andy looked at her, and suddenly he saw too, how the Stamfords and Gaythorpe were one—welded together by generations of common interests. It was as natural for Mr. Stamford to drive down to see old Sam Petch as it was for him to sit in his own garden.
Andy recalled the “visiting of the poor,” which he had heard and seen, and knew that he was witnessing the last of a vanishing system which may or may not have been good but was quite certainly beautiful.
“Mr. Stamford takes a great interest in old Sam Petch,” was all Andy found to say out of these many thoughts.
“Interest!” said Mrs. Stamford. “Why, old Sam worked for my husband’s grandfather, and he used to make whistles out of cabbage-stalks for Dick when he was a boy.” She paused. “By the way, I’m so glad you and Dick are friends.” She paused again. “If there is anything at all you are wanting for the church or village——”