"Darling B,—"I am so happy. Bertie came here this afternoon, and we are engaged. I should have come to tell you all about it but Mother isn't well, and I can't leave her. He is coming here to-morrow morning and we should both like to come and see you all after church time. So we will if Mother is well enough for me to leave her.
"Darling B,—
"I am so happy. Bertie came here this afternoon, and we are engaged. I should have come to tell you all about it but Mother isn't well, and I can't leave her. He is coming here to-morrow morning and we should both like to come and see you all after church time. So we will if Mother is well enough for me to leave her.
"Ever your loving"Mollie."
There was a chatter of delight mixed with some surprise, and then Beatrix told them, which she had not done before, of Bertie's preparatory investigations in the hunting-field. "It is really I who have brought it on," she said, "and I am very proud of myself. She is a darling, and he is much better than any one would give him credit for."
"I have always given him credit for being a good sort," said Barbara. "It's only that he makes more noise in being a good sort than most people. I wonder how Lord Salisbury will take it."
"Perhaps they will break it to him after church," said Caroline.
"I don't imagine that Master Bertie is coming over here to go to church," said Grafton. "He will have something better to do. Can't you ask them all to lunch, B?"
Beatrix said she must go and have a word with Mollie directly after breakfast. At this point Young George came in, rubbing his eyes, and with all the signs on him of acute fatigue. He received the news calmly and said: "I wonder what Jimmy will say.You know he's coming over here to lunch, to talk about the show."
"The blessed infant!" said Beatrix. "He will give them his blessing, like a solemn old grandfather."
"It's rather an important thing for him, you know," said Young George seriously. "He's rather interested in the Pembertons. I can't say more than that at present."
This speech was received with whoops of delight, and Young George was embraced for having made it, but struggled free, and said: "No, but I say you know, you must be careful what you say to Jimmy. It's pretty serious with him, and I shouldn't wonder if something didn't come of it before long."
"They might have the two marriages at the same time," suggested Barbara. "Jimmy could carry Mollie's train as a page in white satin, and then step into his own place as bridegroom."
Young George expostulated at this disrespectful treatment of his friend. "Jimmy isn't a fool," he said, "and he knows it couldn't come off yet. But I'll tell you this, just to show you, though you mustn't let it go any further. He's chucked the idea of going to Oxford. He says directly he leaves Eton he must begin to make money."
"Well that shows he's in earnest," said Grafton. "I admire a fellow who can make sacrifices for the girl he loves."
The Grafton family went to church. On their way across they met the Vicar and Mrs. Mercer. The littlelady was full of smiles. "I know you must have heard our great news," she said, "for I saw Beatrix coming from Stone Cottage half an hour ago. We are so pleased about it. It's a great thing for dear Mollie, though, of course, we shall hate losing her."
The Vicar, if not all smiles like his wife, also expressed his pleasure over the affair, rather as if it had been of his own making. Beatrix had heard something of what had happened the evening before from Mollie, but by no means all. Mollie had also spoken of a note of congratulation that had come from the Vicarage that morning, so she took it that he had swallowed his chagrin, and that matters were to be on the same footing between the Vicarage and Stone Cottage as before.
The Vicar's letter, indeed, had been a masterpiece of capitulation. Going home the night before, he had seen that it was necessary to cover up his mistakes by whatever art he could summon, unless he was prepared for an open breach with the Walters, which if it came would react on his own position in a way that would make it almost impossible. In view of his behaviour towards Bertie it was not certain that this could be done, but he had at least to make his effort. He had first of all set the mind of his wife at ease by giving her a garbled account of what had taken place in the drawing-room of Stone Cottage, from which she had drawn the conclusion that he had felt it his duty to ask young Pemberton what his intentions were towards the girl whom he looked upon as being in some senseunder his protection, and that his intervention had brought about an immediate proposal of marriage. This had, of course, set his own mind at rest, and had indeed brought him considerable pleasure. She was not, however, to say a word outside about his part in the affair.
It had been enough for her to have those fears under which she had made her escape from Stone Cottage set at rest, and she had not examined too closely into the story, though she had asked a few questions as to the somewhat remarkable fact of the proposal having been made in his presence and accepted within the quarter of an hour that had elapsed between her home-coming and his. If she had known that he had left Stone Cottage within about three minutes, and had spent the rest of the time calming himself by a walk up the village street, she might have found it, in fact, still more remarkable. She was so relieved, however, at finding her husband prepared to accept Mollie's engagement, and to act in a fatherly way towards the young couple, that she rested herself upon that, and let her own pleasure in the happiness that had come to the girl she loved have its full flow.
Mrs. Mercer having been satisfied, and her mouth incidentally closed, by order, the more difficult task remained to placate Mollie and Pemberton. On thinking it over carefully, with wits sharpened by a real and increasing alarm, the Vicar had decided that neither of those two would wish an open breach, and would welcome an assumption upon which they couldavoid it. This enabled him to put a little more dignity into his letter than the facts entitled him to. He had, he wrote, entirely misjudged the situation. Nothing, naturally, could please him better than that the girl in whom he had taken so warm an interest should find happiness in a suitable marriage. He had no hesitation in saying that this struck him as an eminently suitable marriage, and he asked her to believe that he was sincere in wishing her all joy and blessing from it. Anything that he may have said in the heat of the moment to Mr. Pemberton, under the impression that his attentions had not been serious, he should wish unreservedly to apologise for. When one had made a mistake, it was the part of an honest man to acknowledge it frankly, and make an end of it. He thought that it might be more agreeable to Mr. Pemberton that this acknowledgment should be conveyed to him through Mollie. He did not, therefore, propose to write to him himself, but trusted that no more would be thought or said of what had passed.
The letter ended tentatively on the note of his old intercourse with Mollie, and the last sentences gave him more trouble than all the rest put together. He knew well enough that if his overtures were not accepted this claim to something special in the way of affection on both sides could only be contemptuously rejected, and that in any case he had no right left upon which to found it.
It was gall and bitterness to him to recall her standing up to confront him with her clear quiet eyes fixedupon him, searching out his meanness, and of her lover with his hand resting on her shoulder to show that it was he in whom she could place her confidence to protect her against the claims of an unworthy jealousy. And he touched the bottom of the cup when he figured them reading his letter together and accepting his compact because he was not worth while their making trouble about, his sting once drawn; and not at all because they believed in its sincerity. They would know well enough why he had written it, especially in the light of his wife's ignorance of what had happened, which he would not be able to prevent her showing them. That ignorant loud-mannered young man who had to be apologised to, in such a way that he could hardly accept the apology without feeling if not showing contempt! It shook him with passion to think of his degradation before him, and of what was being given to him so beautifully and freely. There was not in his thoughts a vestige of the feeling that he would have to act before the world—of pleasure that the girl towards whom he claimed to have given nothing but protecting affection should have found her happiness in a promising love. It was all black jealousy and resentment on his own behalf, and resentment against her as well as against the man whom she had chosen for herself.
And yet by the next morning he had persuaded himself that some of those feelings which he would have to act were really his. Perhaps in some sense they were, for right feelings can be induced where the necessityfor them is recognised, and his affection for Mollie had actually included those elements which he had so steadfastly kept in the foreground. Also, his arrogance and self-satisfaction had prevented him in his bitterest moments from recognising all the baseness in himself, and gave him a poor support in thinking that, after all, his letter showed manliness and generosity, and might be accepted so. He had, at any rate, to keep up his front before the world, and by the time he met and talked to the Graftons between their house and the church his good opinion of himself had begun to revive. He was still troubled with fears as to how his overtures would be received. Mollie would have received his letter early that morning, and might have come over with her answer; but she had evidently waited to consult over it with her lover. He had prevented his wife running over to the Cottage, saying that they would meet Mollie either before or after church. And so it had to be left, with tremors and deceptions that, one would have thought, must have disturbed him greatly in the duties he would have to fulfil before his parishioners. Yet he preached a sermon about the approaching festival of the church, which denoted in his view, amongst other things, that the evil passions under which mankind had laboured since the creation of the world had in the fulness of time found their remedy, and told his hearers, with the air of one who knew what he was talking about, that there was no excuse for them if they gave way to any evil passion whatsoever, since the remedy was always totheir hand. And in this connection he wished to point out to them, as he had done constantly throughout his ministry, that the highest means of grace were there at their very doors in that place in which they were gathered together. He himself was always to be found at his post, and woe betide any of them who neglected to take advantage of what he as a priest of the church was there to give them. The sermon, delivered with his usual confidence, not to say pomposity, did him good. He felt small doubt after it of being able to control the situation in support of his own dignity, whatever attitude towards him Mollie and Bertie Pemberton should decide to adopt.
In the meantime those young lovers were spending an hour of bliss together. They talked over all that had led up to their present happy agreement, and found each other more exactly what they wanted every minute that passed. A very short time was devoted to consideration of the Vicar's letter. "Oh, tear it up and forget all about the blighter," said Bertie, handing it back to her. But there was a little more to be settled than that. Mrs. Mercer must be considered, for her own sake as well as for Mrs. Walter's. "Well then, you can say 'how do you do' to the fellow and leave it at that," said Bertie. "If he's got any decency in him he won't want to push himself, and if he does you let me know, and I'll deal with him. I'm letting him off cheap, but we don't want to bother our heads with him. You needn't answer his letter. Tear it up."
So Mollie tore it up and put it in the fire, and theVicar was forgotten until they met him and Mrs. Mercer on their way to the Abbey.
The meeting passed off with less awkwardness than might have been expected, as such reparatory meetings generally do, where both sides are willing to ignore the past. Mrs. Walter was with them, having been persuaded to lunch at the Abbey. The Vicar addressed himself chiefly to her, while his wife gushed happily over Mollie, and included Bertie in her address in a way which gave him a good opinion of her, and enabled him to accept the Vicar's stiff word of congratulation with one of thanks before he turned his back upon him. It was over in a very short time, and Mr. and Mrs. Mercer pursued their way homewards, the lady chattering freely, the lord holding his head on high and accepting with patronising affability the salutations of such of his parishioners as he passed on the way. He was already reinstated in his good opinion of himself, and said to his wife as they let themselves into their house: "We must think about a present for Mollie. We ought to be the first. We shall see her often, I hope, after she's married, as she won't be living very far away."
The greetings and congratulations at the Abbey were such as to reduce Mollie almost to tears of emotion, and to give Bertie a higher opinion of his new neighbours than he had had before, though his opinion of them had always been high. They were among warm personal friends, and they were Mollie's friends, knitted to her by what she had shown herself to be. As countryneighbours they would have as much to offer as any within reach of the place where these two would live out their lives, but Bertie Pemberton would never have enjoyed the fullest intimacy with them apart from Mollie. She wanted no exaltation in his eyes, but it gave him an added pride in her to see how she was valued by these people so thoroughly worth knowing, and of pleasure that they should be so ready to take him into their friendship as the chosen of their dear Mollie.
There were no guests from outside staying at the Abbey, but Worthing, Maurice Bradby and Jimmy Beckley were lunching there. Worthing's congratulations were hearty, Bradby's shy, and Jimmy's solemn and weighty. "My dear chap," he said with a tight grip of Bertie's hand, and looking straight into his eyes, "I congratulate you on taking the plunge. It's the best thing a man can do. I'm sure you've chosen well for yourself, and I don't believe you'll ever regret it."
"Thanks, old boy," said Bertie, "I hope I shall be able to say the same to you some day."
"It may be sooner than you think," said Barbara, who was a trifle annoyed with Jimmy at the moment for having given himself airs over her in these matters. "The little man is only waiting till he grows up—say in about ten years' time."
Jimmy turned a wrathful face upon her, and Young George frowned his displeasure at this tactless humour. "You're inclined to let your tongue run away with you, Barbara," said Jimmy, with great dignity. "Ineed only point out that I shall be leaving school in three years, to show how absurd your speech is."
"You really do overdo it, Barbara!" expostulated Young George.
"He got a swishing last half for trying to smoke," said Barbara remorselessly. "I don't suppose he succeeded, because it would have made him sick."
Jimmy and Young George then withdrew, to concoct plans for bringing Barbara to a right sense of what was due to men of their age, and Barbara, to consolidate her victory, called out after them, "You'll find cigarettes in Dad's room, if you'd like to try again."
"Barbara darling," said Miss Waterhouse, "I don't think you should tease Jimmy so unmercifully as you do. Children of that age are apt to be sensitive."
The whole of the Pemberton family motored over in the afternoon, and Mollie's acceptance into the bosom of it left nothing to be desired in heartiness or goodwill. Old Mr. Pemberton kissed her, and said that though he'd never been more surprised in his life, he had never been more pleased. He thought that the sooner they were married the better, and he should see about getting a house ready for them the next day. Mrs. Pemberton said she had never credited Bertie with so much sense. He wasn't all that Mollie probably thought he was, but they would all be there to keep him in order if she found the task too much for her. A slight moisture of the eyes, as she warmly embraced the girl, belied the sharpness of her speech, and she talkedafterwards to Mrs. Walter in a way that showed she had already taken Mollie into a heart that was full of warmth and kindness. There was no doubt about the genuineness of the pleasure expressed by Nora, Effie and Kate, who were loud and tender at the same time, and amply supported their widespread reputation as real good sorts.
Beatrix was rather ashamed of herself for the doubts she had felt as to whether the Pemberton family would think that the heir to its dignities and estates was doing well enough for himself in marrying, as they might have put it from their standpoint and in their lingo, out of their beat. But they made it plain that their beat took in all that Mollie represented in sweet and desirable girlhood as of chief account, and were rejoiced that she should tread it with them.
Mrs. Walter was almost overcome by the suddenness of the occurrence, and the strong flood of kindness and happiness that it had set in motion. She was a woman with a meek habit of mind, which her long years of servitude had not lessened. She had accepted the insinuation that had run all through the Vicar's addresses on the subject of Mollie and Bertie Pemberton—that the Pembertons were in a social position much superior to her own, though not, as it had always been implied, to his, and that in any attentions that the young man might give to her daughter there could be no design of ultimate marriage. Her dignity had not been wounded by the presentation of the Pemberton superiority, and had only asserted itself when he had seemed to hintthat she might be anxious to bridge the gulf between them. But here were these people, whom she had been invited to look upon in that way, welcoming not only her daughter as a particular treasure that she was to be thanked for giving up to them, but including herself in their welcome. Old Mr. Pemberton told her that if she would like to live nearer to her daughter after her marriage he would find a little house for her too; and Mrs. Pemberton seemed anxious to assure her that they did not want to take Mollie away from her altogether, but wished her to share in all that the marriage would bring to them. Bertie was admirable with her. It was a sign of the rightness of his love for Mollie, which had changed him in so many respects, that he should be able to present himself to this mild faded elderly woman, to whom he would certainly not have troubled to commend himself before, as a considerate and affectionate son. He had already embarked upon a way of treating her—with a sort of protecting humour, compounded of mild chaff and little careful attentions—which gave her the sensation of being looked after and made much of in a way that no man had done since the death of her husband. So she was to be looked after for the rest of her life, not to be parted from her daughter, but to have a son given her in addition. She had begun the day with fears and tremors. She ended it in deep thankfulness, and happiness such as she had never thought would be hers again.
Bertie found opportunity for a little word alone with Beatrix in the course of the afternoon.
"Well, I've fixed it up, you see," he said, with a happy grin, "thanks to you."
"I saw you going to do it," said Beatrix. "You looked very determined. Was there much difficulty?"
"Seemed to come about quite natural somehow," he said. "But I haven't got used to my luck yet, all the same. You were right when you said I wasn't good enough for that angel."
"I don't say it now," said Beatrix. "I think you'll do very well. But sheisan angel, and you're never to forget it."
"Not likely to," said Bertie.
The whole Grafton family and Miss Waterhouse, as the Vicar had discovered through one of those channels open to Vicars who take an interest in the intimate doings of their flock, had been asked to dine at Surley Park on that Sunday evening. It was not, of course, a dinner-party, to which the Bishop might have objected, but considering the number of guests staying in the house it was near enough to give pleasure on that account to Barbara and Young George. Their view of the entertainment was satisfied by the costumes, the setting of the table, and the sparkling but decorous conversation, in which both of them were encouraged to take a due share; the Bishop's by the fact that there was no soup and the joint was cold, which might almost have justified its being regarded as Sunday supper, if one were of the religious school which considered that meal to be the fitting close of the day; also by the presence of the Curate of the parish, taking his due refreshment of mind and body after the labours of the day.
The guests from outside were chiefly relations of Mrs. Carruthers and of the Bishop, elderly well-placedpeople for the most part, not markedly ecclesiastical in their interests or conversation, though affairs of the church were not left untouched upon, out of deference to their distinguished relative. But there were one or two younger people, and among them an American bride, Lady Wargrave, who was on her first visit to England, and kept the company alive by her comments and criticisms on all that was new to her in the country of her adoption.
A matter of some interest to the Graftons was the way in which Denis Cooper had acquitted himself before the eyes of his superior officer in the religious exercises of the day. They had no particular interest in him personally, as he was not of the character to expend himself in social intercourse with his neighbours against the obstacles of his home. He and his sisters appeared regularly at all the country houses around when it was a question of some festivity to which the invitations were general, but the two ladies were not exactly popular among their neighbours, and had always hitherto kept a firm hand upon the doings of their much younger brother. They disliked his going intimately to houses at which they themselves were not made welcome, and during the two months since he had taken ostensible charge of his father's parish he had not done so. So the Graftons hardly knew him, but were interested on general grounds in the little comedy of patronage which was being enacted before their eyes. It was fresh to them, these desires and jealousies in connection with a factor of country lifewhich hardly shows up in a city, except in those circles in which all church affairs are of importance. All over the country are these pleasant houses and gardens and glebes, with an income larger or smaller attached to them, and a particular class of men to whom their disposal is of extreme interest. In this case there was one of the prizes involved, and they knew at least two of the candidates, for their own Vicar had made it plain enough that he was one of them, and here was the other. Here also was the authority with whom it lay to award the prize. His decision could not be foreseen, but might be guessed at, and any signs of it that might be visible under their eyes were of value.
Their sympathies inclined towards the candidature of Denis Cooper, in spite of their small acquaintance with him. It would be a sporting thing if he were to pull it off, against the handicap of his extreme youth. On the other hand, if their own Vicar should be appointed, he would be removed from the sphere of his present labours and, apart from the relief that this would afford them in itself, it would be followed by another little comedy, in which they would all take a hand themselves. For it would lay with their father to appoint a successor, and it was not to be supposed that he would undertake a task of such importance except in full consultation with themselves. On the balance, however, they were supporters of Denis Cooper, and it looked well for his chances that when they entered the morning-room of Surley Park, where theguests were assembled, the Bishop was seen standing by the fire-place with his hand on the young man's shoulder.
Ella Carruthers found an opportunity before dinner was announced of confiding to Caroline and Beatrix that he had acquitted himself well. "Really I believe I'm going to pull it off," she said. "It's very good of me to take so much trouble about Denis because it means my saddling myself with Rhoda and Ethel, when I should so much like to get rid of them. Still, if I succeed in getting him firmly planted in the Rectory I shall set about finding him a wife, and then they'll have to go. They won't like it, and they'll make trouble, which I shall enjoy very much."
"Was the Bishop pleased with his sermons?" asked Caroline.
"He only preached one," she said. "My uncle performed in the afternoon, I think with the idea of showing him how much better he could do it himself. But of the two I liked Denis's sermon the better. It was more learned, and didn't take so long."
"Was he pleased with Denis?" asked Beatrix. "It looked like it when we came in. I believe they were telling one another funny stories."
"Oh, yes. He said he seemed an honest manly young fellow, and not too anxious to push himself."
"Was that a dig at Rhoda and Ethel, do you suppose?"
"I took it so. I said they were very tiresome in the way they tried to direct everything and everybody,but that Denis wasn't like them at all. All the people in the place loved his old father, and liked him too."
"Do you think he took that in?"
"I hope so, though, of course, he wouldn't commit himself. I think he's sized up Rhoda and Ethel, though, for he asked me when Mrs. Cooper died, and said that he had heard that she had been a very managing woman. I say, did you know that your Lord Salisbury actually came over here to church this afternoon?"
"OurLord Salisbury!" exclaimed Beatrix.
"I don't think he did any good for himself. I had to ask him to tea, as he hung about after church, and we were all walking up together. But I took care to let my uncle see that I was forced into it. He was quite friendly with him, but didn't give him the whole of his attention, as he seemed to expect. Oh, he sees into things all right, the clever old dear! I should say that Lord Salisbury's forcing himself in like that has put him out of the betting. I don't know what others there are running, but I'd stake a pair of gloves on Denis's chances, and I shall try to do a little more for him still before I've finished."
The number of guests made a general conversation round the dinner-table of infrequent occurrence, though whenever the Bishop showed signs of wishing to address the assembly he was allowed to do so, and Lady Wargrave sometimes succeeded, more by the gaiety and wit of her speech than by its high-pitched note, in making herself listened to by everybody. It was fortunate, however, for what hung upon it, that a certain conversationin which she bore a leading part towards the end of the meal was confined to her end of the table.
She was talking of transatlantic marriages in general, and her own particular. "I'd like everybody to know," she said, "that I married for love. Now do tell me, Bishop, from what you can see at the other end of the table, that you think I am speaking the truth."
Lord Wargrave, at that moment in earnest conversation with a dignified-looking dowager, was good-looking enough, in a rather heavy British way, to make the claim not unreasonable, though he was by no means the equal of his wife in that respect.
"I can believe that you both fell in love with each other," said the Bishop benignly.
"Thank you," said the lady, "I hope you are not being sarcastic. Lots of our girlsdomarry for the sake of a title, and I won't say that it's not funny to be called My Lady just at first. Still it wears off after a bit, and isn't worth giving up your American citizenship for."
"Would you rather Lord Wargrave had been a plain American citizen instead of an Englishman with a title?" asked Ella.
"Why, sure! I'm telling you so."
"But you do like Englishmen, all the same," suggested the Bishop.
"I'm not going to say that I like Englishmen as much as Americans. Nothing will drag that from me, if I never set foot in the States again. But as to that,Wargrave has promised me a trip every two years. I wouldn't have married him without, though you can see that I adore him, and I'm not ashamed of showing it."
"Well then, you like Englishmen next best to Americans."
"Perhaps I do, though I think Frenchmen are real cute. They've a way with them. With an Englishman you generally have to do more than half yourself. With a Frenchman you've got to be mighty smart to see that you get the chance of doing your half. With an Englishman, when you're once married it's finished, but I should judge that you would have to get busy and keep busy, married to a Frenchman."
Ella Carruthers stole a look at Beatrix, who was seated a few places away from her. She had been talking to her neighbour, but now sat with her eyes fixed upon the speaker. Her colour was a little heightened, but it was impossible to tell from her look what she was thinking. Ella hoped for her sake that the conversation would not be continued on that subject, and prepared her wits to divert it. But the next moment something had been said which changed her feeling from one of sympathy with Beatrix to one of sharp alarm on her behalf.
"A French Marquis came to N'York last fall," pursued Lady Wargrave, "who was the cutest thing in the way of European nobility you ever struck. He talked English like an Amurrcan, and was a poifectly lovely man to look at. One of my girl friends has justgotten engaged to him; I had the noos from her last mail. Of course I wrote back that I was enchanted, but if he had wantedmethere'd have been no Marquise yet awhile. But I wasn't rich enough anyway. The Frenchmen who come over are always out for the dollars, the Englishmen let them go by sometimes. Wargrave did. He could have had one of our big fortunes, if he wouldn't rather have had me."
Poor little Beatrix! She was spared the hammer-stroke of hearing her lover's name in public, but there was never any doubt in her mind that it was he. She turned dead white, and kept her eyes fixed upon Lady Wargrave until she had finished her speech and passed on lightly to some other topic. Then she turned to her neighbour and listened to something he was saying to her, but without hearing it, and she was obliged to leave off peeling the orange she held because her hands were trembling.
There happened to be nobody at that end of the table, listening to Lady Wargrave, who could connect her speech with Beatrix, except Ella Carruthers. Beatrix, when she had sat still and silent for a moment, looked at her suddenly with an appealing look, and found her eyes fixed upon her with the deepest concern. That enabled her to overcome her tremors. She would have broken down if Ella, by any word, had drawn attention to her. She suddenly turned to her neighbour and began to chatter. He was an elderly man, interested in his dinner, who had not noticed her sudden pallor. As she talked, her colour came back toher, and she hardly left off talking until the sign was given, rather prematurely, for the ladies to leave the table. Her knees were trembling as she rose from her seat, and she was glad of Ella's arm to support her as she walked from the room.
"No," she said, in answer to a low-spoken word of going upstairs. "I don't want to. Ask if it's he—but I know it is—and tell Caroline to come and tell me."
She made her way to a sofa in a corner of the big drawing-room, and sat down, while the rest of the women clustered around the chimney-piece. She sat there waiting, without thought and without much sensation. She was conscious only of revolt against the blow that had been dealt her, and determination to support it.
Presently Caroline came to her, her soft eyes full of trouble. "My darling!" she said tenderly, sitting down by her.
"You needn't say it," she said quickly. "If he's like that I'm not going to make a scene. Pretend to talk to me, and presently I'll go and talk to the others."
She had an ardent wish to throw it all off from her, not to care, and to show that she didn't care. But her knees were trembling again, and she could not have walked across the room.
Caroline was near tears. "Oh, it's wicked—the way he has treated you," she said. "You're going to forget him, aren't you, my darling B?"
"Of course I am," said Beatrix, hurriedly. "I'llthink no more of him at all. I've got you—and Daddy—and the Dragon."
The mention of Miss Waterhouse may have been drawn from her by the approach of that lady, though she had been all the mother to her that she had ever known and she did feel at that moment that there was consolation in her love.
Miss Waterhouse did not allow her tenderness to overcome her authority, though her tenderness was apparent as she said: "Darling B, you won't be feeling well. I have asked Ella to send for the car, and I shall take you home. We will go quietly upstairs, now, before the men come in."
Beatrix protested. She was perfectly all right, and didn't want any fuss made about her. She was rather impatient, and burning to show that she didn't care. But as most of the people towards whom she would have to make the exhibition wouldn't know that she had any reason to care, it seemed hardly worth the expenditure of energy, of which, at that moment, she had none too much to spare. Also she did care, and the thought of getting away quietly and being herself, in whatever guise her feelings might prompt, was immensely soothing. So she and Miss Waterhouse slipped out of the room, and by the time the men came into it were on their way home.
It was Caroline who told her father. She had a little dreaded his first word and look. In some ways, over this affair of Beatrix's, he had not been quite as she had learnt to know him. He had lost that completemastery which long years of unfailing kindness and gentleness had given him over his children. He had shown annoyance and resentment, and had made complaints, which one who is firmly in authority does not do. Some weakness, under the stress of feeling, had come out in him, instead of the equable strength which his children had learnt to rely on. Perhaps Caroline loved him all the more for it, for it was to her he had come more than to any other for sympathy and support. But she did not want to have to make any further readjustments. Which of the mixed and opposing feelings would he show first, on the news being broken to him—the great relief it would bring to himself, or the sympathy he would certainly feel towards his child who had been hurt.
"Daddy darling," she said, drawing him a little aside, "B and the Dragon have gone home. She heard at dinner that Lassigny is going to be married. She's all right, but the Dragon made her go home."
His face—that of a man whom a sufficiency, but not an overplus, of food and wine and tobacco had put into just accord with the World about him—expressed little but bewilderment. "Heard at dinner!" he echoed. "Who on earth told her?"
"Lady Wargrave. She had had a letter from America."
He threw a look at that resplendent lady, whose high but not unmusical voice was riding the stream of talk. Her beautiful face and form, her graceful vivacity, and the perfection of her attire were such as naturally tohave attracted round her magnet-wise the male filings of after-dinner re-assembly. Grafton himself, casting an unattached but attachable eye round him on entering the room, would have made his way instinctively to the group in which she was sitting.
"Damn the woman!" he said vindictively.
Caroline took hold of the lapels of his coat and kissed him, in defiance of company manners. "Hush, darling! The Bishop!" she said.
Throughout the short hour that followed he was vivacious and subdued by turns. He had no more than a few words alone with his hostess. "Poor little B!" she said commiseratingly.
"Yes, poor little B!" he echoed. "Are you sure it's that fellow?"
"Oh, yes, she said so, when I asked her. I didn't tell her why I had asked. You can talk to her about it if you like."
"Oh, good Lord, no!" he said. "I don't want to hear the fellow's name again. What has happened to him is nothing to me, if we've got rid of him. Of course I'm glad of it. It shows I was right about him. Now I shall get my little girl back again."
It was the sort of speech that Caroline had vaguely feared. Ella Carruthers said, with a smile: "You can't expect to keep her long, you know. But I'm glad this is at an end, as you so much disliked it."
Going home in the car, at a comparatively early hour, because bishops are supposed to want to go to bed on Sunday evenings, they talked it over. Buntinghad heard the news from Barbara, and was inclined to take a serious view of it.
"I think it's disgraceful to throw over a girl like that," he said. "What are you going to do about it, Dad?"
"There's nothing to be done," said his father, "except to help B to forget all about him. Of course she'll be very much hurt, but when she's had time to think it over she'll see for herself that he wasn't worth what she gave him. It won't want any rubbing in. Better leave him alone altogether, and forget about him ourselves."
Caroline put out her hand, and gave his a squeeze. Barbara said: "You were quite right about him, after all, Daddy."
"Well, it looks like it," he answered. "But when somebody else has been hurt you're not going to help them get over it by saying, 'I told you so.' Poor little B has been hurt, and that's all we've got to put right at present."
"There's the show coming on," said Bunting. "That'll interest her. And Jimmy will take care not to badger her at rehearsals. He's a kind-hearted chap, and he'll understand."
"He's a pompous conceited little ass," said Barbara, in whom the remembrance of certain passages of the afternoon still rankled. "But perhaps he'll make her laugh, which will be something."
"He can be very funny when he likes," said Bunting guilelessly.
"Not half so funny as when he doesn't like," returnedBarbara. "You know, Daddy, I think B will get over it pretty soon, if we leave her alone. I believe she'd begun to like him not so much."
"You observed that, did you?" said her father. "Well, if it is so it will make it all the easier for her."
Beatrix had gone to bed when they got in. Miss Waterhouse said that she had taken it better than she had expected. She had been relieved at getting away from Surley, and the necessity to play a part, had cried a little in the car going home, but not as if she were likely to break down, and had said she didn't want to talk about it. But Caroline might go to her when she came in.
"Give her my love and a kiss," said Grafton, "and come down and talk to me afterwards. It's early yet."
Caroline came down to him in her dressing-gown, with her fair hair hanging in a plait down her back, as she had been wont to do as a child when he had wanted her, and she had been so pleased and proud to keep him company. Latterly he had not seemed to want her quite so much. His easy life had been troubled, as it had never been before in her recollection, except after her mother's death, and then she had known, child as she was, that she had been able to give him consolation. In this so much smaller trouble she knew she had not sufficed for him. One soul, however deeply loved, cannot heal the wounds dealt to love by another, though it may assuage them. He had wanted Beatrix's love more than hers, because hers had never been in question. But there was no depth of jealousy in her true tender nature, only little ruffles on the surface. She had felt for him. If he got back to be what he wanted with Beatrix, he would be not less to her but more. And he was most of what she wanted at that time.
She sat down on the arm of his chair before the fire, and hoped he would take her on his knee, as he had always done when she had kept him company as a child.Perhaps that was why she had prepared herself for the night before coming to him.
He gazed into the fire, and waited for her to speak. "She sent you her love," she said, her lip and her voice quivering a little with her disappointment.
He roused himself and looked up at her, catching the note of emotion, but not understanding its cause, then drew her on to his knee and kissed her. "My darling," he said, and she put her face to his neck and cried a little, but not from unhappiness.
"I'm very silly," she said, searching for the handkerchief in the pocket of his smoking-jacket, and drying her eyes with it. "There's nothing to cry about, really. She's going to be all right. I'm glad it's all over, and so will she be very soon." Then she gave a little laugh, and said: "We've had a hog of a time, haven't we, Dad?"
It was one of his own phrases, thus consecrated for use in the family on all suitable occasions. That this could be considered one was her rejection of unnecessary emotion.
"You've been very good about it, darling," he said, some sense of not having given her the place due to her love stealing upon him. "I shouldn't have got through it as well as I have, but for you."
This was balm to her. He had not yet put a question to her as to Beatrix, and she made haste to satisfy him.
"She's sorry she went against you so much," she said. "But before she knew—last night—she says she wanted you more than she had done for a long time. Shethinks now she would have come not to want him so much, even if—if this hadn't happened."
"Oh, yes, I know," he said. "I felt it, and half-hoped it might mean that, but didn't like to hope too much. You know, darling, it was more instinct with me than anything. It didn't seem to me a right—what shall I say?—a right combination—those two. When I was tackled about it—by Aunt Katherine and others—I couldn't put up much of a defence. But none of them ever made me feel any different, though I gave way. I should have hated it, always, if it had come off. I couldn't have helped myself, though I should have tried to make the best of it for B's sake. Didn't you feel it wouldn't have done?"
She was silent for a moment. She hadn't felt it, and the thought troubled her loyal mind that because she had not been able to show him that her instinct was with his, which now had proved itself to be the right one, she had failed him. "I don't think anybody saw it plainly but you, darling," she said. "I suppose we didn't know enough. It's fortunate that it has turned out as it has."
"Well, there it is," he said, after a pause. "It's lucky that it has turned out as it has. If it hadn't, although I felt what I did about it, I couldn't have done anything—shouldn't have done anything. You want to save your child, and you can't do it. You can't act, in these matters, on what your judgment tells you, unless you've got a clear reason that all the world will recognise. If you do, the whole pack'sagainst you, and the child you're doing it for at the head of them. Perhaps it's weakness to give way, as I did, but for the little I did manage to bring about I've gone through, as you say, a hog of a time. If I'd done more I should have lost more still, and she'd never have known that what has happened now didn't happen because of me. It's a difficult position for us fathers who love their daughters and whose love doesn't count against the other fellow's, when it comes along, even when it isn't all it ought to be. That B has been saved this time—it's a piece of luck. It makes you think a bit. You can't take it in and be glad of it all at once."
She could not follow all of this expression of the time-old problem of fatherhood, but seized upon one point of it to give him comfort. "It does count, darling," she said. "It always must, when a father has been what you have been to us."
"It hasn't counted much with B. Perhaps it will again now."
"Oh, yes, it will. It was there all the time. It will be, more than ever now. She'll see by and by what you've saved her from."
"What I tried to. Doesn't she see it now?"
She had already told him the best. Beatrix's last word had been the message of love to him, but Caroline had had to struggle for it.
"She's all upset," she said. "She can't see everything all at once. She's outraged at having been jilted; that was her word. She's indignant against himfor lowering her in her own eyes. She almost seems to hate him now."
"That's because she's angry with him. It doesn't mean that she won't feel it a lot before she's done."
"No. She's hurt and angry all round."
"Angry with me, then?"
"No, not that. And at the end—I told you—she sent you her love, and a kiss. Oh, she does love you. But you'll have to be a little careful, Dad."
"Careful, eh? She doesn't think I'm going to crow over her, does she?"
"Of course not. And I told her how sweet you'd been about it—that you only wanted to help her to forget it."
"Well, what's the trouble then?"
She hesitated a little. "It was unreasonable," she said, "but if you hadn't sent him away, this wouldn't have happened."
He was silent for a time, and she was a little alarmed. He had been much ruffled too; there were bristles to be smoothed away with him as well as with Beatrix. But she was too honest not to want to tell him everything.
He relieved her immensely by laughing. "He's what she has found him out to be," he said, "and she's well out of it. But if I hadn't done what I did, she'd have been well in it by this time. Poor darling! She's been hurt, and she wants to hit out all round. I dare say she didn't spare you, did she?"
Caroline laughed in her turn. "I didn't know anythingabout it," she said. "I didn't know what love meant. She has told me that before, you know. Perhaps I don't know what that sort of love means, and that's why I didn't think about it quite as you did, Dad. But she asked me to forgive her for saying that, and other things, before I left her. She's very sweet, poor darling. She hates hurting anybody."
They sat silent for a time. The fire of logs wheezed and glowed in the open hearth. Round them was the deep stillness of the night and the sleeping house—that stillness of the country which brings with it a sense of security, so little likely is it to be disturbed, but also, sometimes, almost a sense of terror, if solitary nerves are on edge. To-night it was only peace that lapped them round, sitting there in full companionship and affection.
Presently Grafton said, with a sigh of relief: "Thank God it's all over. I'm only just beginning to feel it. We shall be all together again. It has spoilt a lot of the pleasure of this place."
"We've been here a year now," she said. "And we've had some very happy times. It's been better, even, than we thought it would."
"I wish we'd done it before. I think it was Aunt Mary who said once that we ought to have done it ten years ago if we had wanted to get the full benefit out of it."
"What did she mean by the full benefit?"
He thought for a moment, and then did not answer her question directly. "It's the family life that takeshold of you," he said. "If it's a happy one nothing else counts beside it. That's what this business of B's has put in danger. Now it's over, I can see how great the danger has been."
"But you must expect her to marry some time, darling."
"I know. But the right sort of fellow. It's got to be somebody you can take in. I've thought it all over, while this has been going on, but I didn't dare to look into it too closely because this wasn't the right fellow. If she'd been in trouble, afterwards, she'd have come to me. But I shouldn't have been able to do much to mend it for her. But the right sort of marriage—I should have had my share in that. I shan't dread it, when it comes, for any of you. You'll want me to know all about your happiness. You'll want me to be with you sometimes, and you'll want to write to me often, so as to keep up. I shan't be out of it,—if you marry the right fellow."
"I can't imagine myself being happy away from you for long, Daddy," she said softly.
"Ah, that's because you don't know what it is yet, darling. Oh, you'll be happy right enough, when it comes. But you'll be thinking of me too, and there'll always be the contact—visits or letters. Without it, it would be too much—a man losing his daughter, if he loved her. That's what I've feared about B. She'd go away. Perhaps she wouldn't even take the trouble to write."
"Oh, yes, darling."
"I don't know. I couldn't tell how much I should be losing her. Oh, well, it's over now. One needn't think about it any more. She won't choose that sort of fellow again; and the right sort of fellow would want her to keep up with her father."
There was another pause, and then he said: "It's given me a lot to think about. When your children are growing up you're fairly young. Perhaps you don't value your family life as much as you might. You hardly know what they are to you. Then suddenly they're grown up, and begin to leave you. You don't feel much older, but the past, when you had them all with you, is gone. It's a big change. You've moved up a generation. If you can't be certain of having something to put in the place of what you've lost——"
He left off. She understood that, now the danger was removed, he was allowing himself to face all the troubles that he had hardly dared look into, and so getting rid of them.
"You'll never grow old, darling," she said fondly. "Not to me, at any rate. And if I ever do marry I shall always want you. At any rate, we have each other now, for a long time, I hope. If B does marry—and of course she will, some day—it isn't likely to be for some time now. And as for me, I don't feel like it at all. I'm so happy as I am."
"Darling child," he said. "What about Francis, Cara? That all over?"
"I'm a little sorry for him, Dad. He's been awfully good about it. I do like him as a friend, you know,and it's difficult for him to keep that up, when he wants something more of me. But he writes me very nice letters, and I like writing to him too."
"That's rather dangerous, darling, if you're not going to give him what he wants."
"Is it, Daddy? Can't a man and a girl be friends—and nothing more?"
"He wants to be something more, doesn't he? You'd feel rather shocked and hurt, wouldn't you—if he wrote and told you he was going to marry somebody else."
She smiled. "I think I should feel rather relieved," she said.
"In that case," he said, after a moment's thought, "I don't suppose you ever will marry him. I've thought that, perhaps, you might after a time. I'm glad of it, darling. I've had enough lately. I want you all with me—here chiefly—for a bit longer. I don't want to think of the break-up yet awhile. We're going to enjoy Abington together, even more than we have done. It's going to be a great success now."
"I love it," she said. "I've always loved home, but this is more of a home than we have ever had. I love every day of my life here."
They talked a little longer of the pleasures they had had, and would have, in their country home, of the friends they had made in it, of the difference in outlook it had given to both of them. Caroline had seen her father alter slightly during the past year, grow simpler in his tastes, less dependent upon pleasures that had to be sought for, and, as she knew now thathe had realised himself, still more welded to the life his children made for him. She saw something of what it would be to him to lose it, and if she had felt any waverings in that matter of a marriage that seemed to promise every known factor of happiness in marriage, except the initial propulsion of love on both sides, she now relinquished them. If love should come to her some day, and all the rest should follow, she knew that her love for her father would not grow less. But at present she wanted no one but him, and her sisters and brother, and her dear Dragon. She looked forward with intense happiness to the new year that was coming to them, in the life that was so pleasant to her, yielding all sorts of delights that she had only tasted of before, and making quiet and strong the spirit within her.
And he saw the change in her a little too, during that midnight hour, in which they sat and talked together before the fire. She had based herself upon this quiet country life in a way that went beyond anything either of them had expected from it. The daily round of duties and pleasures sufficed for her. Less than Beatrix, less probably than Barbara would be, was she dependent upon the distractions which had formed part of the woof and warf of the life in which she had been brought up. How far they were from the ultimate simplicities of life perhaps neither of them suspected, influenced and supported as they were by wealth and habit. But at the roots, at least of Caroline's nature, lay the quiet acceptance of love and duty as the bestthings that life could afford, and they had put forth more vigorous shoots in this kind settled country soil.
They sat on, watching the dying fire, talking sometimes, sometimes silent, loth to break up this hour of contentment and felt companionship, which held the seeds of so much more in the future. And there we must leave them for the present, looking forward.