The Chesters of Pinnels End were as much an institution in the Fareham neighbourhood as the Abbey Church, itself. Hospitality was a religion with them, and William Chester and Olivia his wife were never so happy as when their big wandering house was absolutely full. They had six grown-up sons scattered about the world who were forever sending their friends to "cheer up the old people," so they were seldom lonely. They were not particularly rich, certainly not smart--the interior of Pinnels was almost conspicuously shabby--but they were the youngest and cheeriest old people imaginable, and their house was comfortable as are few houses. Those who had once enjoyed its entertainment were fain to return with gleeful frequency.
For nearly four hundred years there had been Chesters at Pinnels End--large families of Chesters, and however they may have differed as to politics, religion, or personal taste, they were supremely unanimous in one matter: they none of them could bear any changes at Pinnels.
Mrs. Chester used to declare that until a carpet there actually fell to pieces and tripped up her husband and sons, she was never allowed to replace it. That done, it was months before they became resigned, years before they consented to regard it with any but the most grudging toleration, and even then it was compared unfavourably with its predecessors.
The party to be assembled at Pinnels consisted of three of the sons--two on leave from India and Egypt respectively; the third an Oxford man who had just taken his degree and was marking time at home while his father sought out an agent with whom to place him to learn estate management--Lallie, Sidney Ballinger, who was asked because he was a neighbour, and because kind Mrs. Chester knew that he would rather be in the same house with Lallie Clonmell than anywhere else on earth. There was Celia Jones, the usual "nice girl" of house parties, who possessed no striking characteristics whatsoever; and the remaining guest was a Mrs. Atwood, the wife of a busy doctor in Carlisle.
Her host would have found it rather difficult to explain Mrs. Atwood's presence. He met her while he and his wife were spending a few days in a house of a mutual friend about a fortnight before; and somehow, although he could never remember exactly how it came about, Mrs. Atwood had extracted an invitation from him for this particular week-end.
"Did you take such a fancy to her, father?" Mrs. Chester asked, when informed of the lady's projected visit. "I didn't care much for her myself, and I shouldn't have thought she was your sort either."
"I can't say I was greatly attracted, though there's something rather pleasing and pathetic about her, and she wanted so badly to fill in those four days between two visits. It's such a deuce of a way back to Carlisle--and she 'longed' so to see Fareham--historic old town, you know--and consulted me about hotels there, and so on. You've often done the same thing yourself; you know you have."
"Oh, I shall be most pleased to see her and, of course I've told her so. Only--I wonder how she'll fit in with the others."
"She'll fit in right enough; the more the merrier."
"I can't imagine Mrs. Atwood merry under any circumstances."