“An able journalist,” said the Dean, “has a great power in his hands. He can do more than the politicians to mould public opinion. It’s a great responsibility. Look at the Guardian, now; and the Times.”
Eddy looked at them, where they lay on the table by the window. He looked also at the Spectator, Punch, the Morning Post, the Saturday Westminster, the Quarterly, the Church Quarterly, the Hibbert, the Cornhill, the Commonwealth, the Common Cause, and Country Life. These were among the periodicals taken in at the Deanery. Among those not taken in were the Clarion, the Eye-Witness (as it was called in those bygone days) the Church Times, Poetry and Drama, the Blue Review, the English Review, the Suffragette, Further, and all the halfpenny dailies. All the same, it was a well-read home, and broad-minded, too, and liked to hear two sides (but not more) of a question, as will be inferred from the above list of its periodical literature.
They had coffee in the hall after lunch. Grace, ease, spaciousness, a quiet, well-bred luxury, characterised the Deanery. It was a well-marked change to Eddy, both from the asceticism of St. Gregory’s, and the bohemianism (to use an idiotic, inevitable word) of many of his other London friends. This was a true gentleman’s home, one of the stately homes of England, how beautiful they stand.
Daphne proposed that they should visit another that afternoon. She had to call at the Bellairs’ for a puppy. Colonel Bellairs was a land-owner and J.P., whose home was two miles out of the town. His children and the Dean’s children had been intimate friends since the Dean came to Welchester from Ely, where he had been a Canon, five years ago. Molly Bellairs was Daphne Oliver’s greatest friend. There were also several boys, who flourished respectively in Parliament, the Army, Oxford, Eton, and Dartmouth. They were fond of Eddy, but did not know why he did not enter one of the Government services, which seems the obvious thing to do.
Before starting on this expedition, Daphne and Eddy went round the premises, as they always did on Eddy’s first day at home. They played a round of bumble-puppy on the small lawn, inspected the new tennis court that had just been laid, and was in danger of not lying quite flat, and visited the kennels and the stables, where Eddy fed his horse with a carrot and examined his legs, and discussed with the groom the prospects of hunting weather next week, and Daphne petted the nervous Timothy, who shied at children and cats.
These pleasing duties done, they set out briskly for the Hall, along the field path. It was just not freezing. The air blew round them crisp and cool and stinging, and sang in the bare beech woods that their path skirted. Above them white clouds sailed about a blue sky. The brown earth was full of a repressed yet vigorous joy. Eddy and Daphne swung along quickly through fields and lanes. Eddy felt the exuberance of the crisp weather and the splendid earth tingle through him. It was one of the many things he loved, and felt utterly at home with, this motion across open country, on foot or on horse-back. Daphne, too, felt and looked at home, with her firm, light step, and her neat, useful stick, and her fair hair blowing in strands under her tweed hat, and all the competent, wholesome young grace of her. Daphne was rather charming, there was no doubt about that. It sometimes occurred to Eddy when he met her after an absence. There was a sort of a drawing-power about her that was quite apart from beauty, and that made her a popular and sought-after person, in spite of her casual manners and her frequent selfishnesses. The young men of the neighbourhood all liked Daphne, and consequently she had a very good time, and was decidedly spoilt, and, in a cool, not unattractive way, rather conceited. She seldom had any tumbles mortifying to her self-confidence, partly because she was in general clever and competent at the things that came in her way to do, and partly because she did not try to do those she would have been less good at, not from any fear of failure, but simply because she was bored by them. But a clergyman’s daughter, even a dean’s, has, unfortunately, to do a few things that bore her. One is bazaars. Another is leaving things at cottages. Mrs. Oliver had given them a brown paper parcel to leave at a house in the lane. They left it, and Eddy stayed for a moment to talk with the lady of the house. Master Eddy was generally beloved in Welchester, because he always had plenty of attention to bestow even on the poorest and dullest. Miss Daphne was beloved, too, and admired, but was usually more in a hurry. She was in a hurry to-day, and wouldn’t let Eddy stay long.
“If you let Mrs. Tom Clark start on Tom’s abscess, we should never get to the Hall to-day,” she said, as they left the cottage. “Besides, I hate abscesses.”
“But I like Tom and his wife,” said Eddy.
“Oh, they’re all right. The cottage is awfully stuffy, and always in a mess. I should think she might keep it cleaner, with a little perseverance and carbolic soap. Perhaps she doesn’t because Miss Harris is always jawing to her about it. I wouldn’t tidy up, I must say, if Miss Harris was on to me about my room. What do you think, she’s gone and made mother promise I shall take the doll stall at the Assistant Curates’ Bazaar. It’s too bad. I’d have dressed any number of dolls, but I do bar selling them. It’s a hunting day, too. It’s an awful fate to be a parson’s daughter. It’s all right for you; parsons’ sons don’t have to sell dolls.”
“Look here,” said Eddy, “are we having people to stay after Christmas?”