By the time he had come to the end of this speech, he had forgotten the beginning. But she had not, and a proposal that otherwise would have found her enthusiastic, for she liked change, and the photograph of the house at Darthead had pleased her enormously, left her for the time unmoved. For his account of his interview with Grafton by no means tallied with certain facts in her own possession.
His representation of himself as disapproving of the Graftons to such an extent that he had finally been forced to deliver an ultimatum was one of them. He had overwhelmed them with censure when he had thought he had anything to complain about, but any approach on their part to intimacy had always been responded to by him, and it was only when it showed signs of dropping again that he had reverted to his attitude of disapproval. That disapproval had certainly increased during the last few months, in which the intimacy had been withheld, but he had shown himself almost delighted to receive Grafton's note asking him to come and see him, and had certainly not gone down to the Abbey with any idea of delivering an ultimatum. He had returned in what was almost a fury, and she had sat silent and depressed while he had covered the whole Grafton family with abuse, but had not told her anything of what the new trouble was about; nor had she asked him. And yet he had made no difficulty about her accepting Caroline's invitation to dinner that evening. No doubt he had persuaded himself of the truth of what he was saying,even as he said it, as his way was. But it carried no conviction to her.
"I think," she said quietly, "that it would be better for us to go away from here if we cannot keep friends with any one about us."
Something warned him not to take exception to this speech, or to expatiate further upon the offences he had received. "We can put all that behind us now," he said. "I have not been able to make headway against the forces arrayed against me here, and it will be better for us to start entirely afresh. There is no need to keep up any ill-feeling against even the Graftons. That is why we can dine with them to-night, on the old friendly terms. If I had not decided to leave the place we should have been obliged to refuse their invitation. I think you will find no unpleasantness there, if you do and say nothing to arouse it yourself. When they hear we are going, perhaps they may even be rather sorry. Whoever comes here after me—Grafton will have to find somebody himself, and I wish him luck of the job, for a living of this value—I don't think he will easily find a more devoted parish priest than I have been, or a Vicar's wife more ready to do her duty thanyouhave been, my dear."
This tribute, thoroughly deserved but so rarely paid by him, did not bring instant grateful delighted response from her, as usually it would have done. Her eyes had been forced open, and could not be closed again by a careless word of compliment. She knew that even in his last speech he had not spoken the entiretruth to her. His easy words, and his sudden changes, for which there was always a reason, but a reason that would not stand any test of sincerity, sounded different to her now. Would she ever be persuaded and convinced by them again?
He hardly knew how much of truth and how much of falsehood there was in his words himself. Although he had played lightly with the idea of going to Darthead—his friend had asked him if he knew of a curate, but it was not certain that he would accept the offer he would make of himself, or that he had not by this time found one—all his thoughts had been taken up with the fight he was going to have with Grafton. It was to have begun that very evening over Grafton's dinner table, with a statement of exactly where he stood that should be unmistakeable. Yesterday he had been unprepared, but now he had his speeches ready; he had been rehearsing some of them when his wife had come in to him. Grafton would knuckle under; men of the Vicar's temperament never allow for answers to the speeches they compose beforehand.
He had not projected his mind clearly into the future, as to what should happen after he had gained his victory. Grafton had said that if he stayed on at Abington he should no longer treat him as a friend. Perhaps he imagined him so overcome by his defeat that he would hardly dare to hold aloof from him. Perhaps a little whisper of reason in a corner of his mind prepared him for that complete revulsion of feeling which came to him under his wife's unexpectedattack, and made him as eager to escape the contest, and to go, as a few minutes earlier he had been to engage in it and to stay on immoveable.
He had hardly had time to gauge the importance of her change of attitude towards him. He had not been able to beat down her awkward enquiries into his conduct as previously he had always nipped the mildest of protests from her, and kept his dominance over her. But he was far from suspecting that his reign of unreason was over. She had gone farther in questioning, and even criticising him, than ever before, but he only had to treat her with a little more care to bring her to his feet again, accepting and for the most part admiring everything that he said or did.
But another little whisper of caution from a corner of his mind warned him that he had better cut the knot of the difficulties which had at last aroused that spirit of revolt in her, get away from it all, and start afresh. His mind swung round instantly to a strong desire to get away from it all, and with credit to himself. Before he had finished the speech in which he broached his new-found intention to her, he saw himself leaving Abington with the warmly expressed regrets of his parishioners in his ears; and, if the vision of an illuminated address and a handsome piece of plate did not present itself to him quite so early, it did later.
The next morning Grafton went down to his Estate Office in the village to see Worthing. They had a little business to transact together. When it had been finished Grafton said, "By the bye, the Mercers dinedwith us last night. They brought rather a surprising piece of news. Mercer has made up his mind that he has borne the heat and burden of the day in Abington long enough. He is going to retire, and live in Devonshire—in a village where he can do a little clerical work for a friend."
Worthing stared at him open-mouthed, and then laughed heartily. "By Jove, you're a wonder," he said. "How did you do it?"
"How did I do what? I don't know what you're talking about. I'm telling you about Mercer. It's a charming house they're going to. Mrs. Mercer brought a photograph of it. Mercer doesn't want to live in idleness. Though he's borne the burden and heat of the day in this humming hive of population, he still feels he has a few more years of work in him for the good of the community. He isn't going to be a curate exactly; he's going to help his friend, if he doesn't fall out with him—but he didn't say that."
"Is he really going, or are you pulling my leg?"
"Why should I pull your leg? He's going next month. He's already looking about for somebody to get up a testimonial to him. He didn't tell me that either, but I gathered it. He hoped there'd be no fuss. He'd prefer to say good-bye to his friends and go quietly—no illuminated addresses, or anything of that sort. But I gathered that he won't refuse one if it is offered. I rather fancy he has you in his mind, James, as the right person to see about it."
"I'm damned if I do," said Worthing.
Caroline and her father rode out very early one morning at the beginning of June. One of the habits they had formed was to seize to themselves the delicious freshness of the new day, unspoilt by the smoke and stir of towns.
She and he were alone at the Abbey. After more than a year in which the London house had scarcely been used, they were beginning to discuss the advisability of giving it up altogether. They discussed it now as they rode across the dewy grass of the park, on their way to the high ground which would bring them to their favourite view across miles of southward facing country to the sea.
"You see, darling," Caroline was saying, "we always want to be here when we are there, and we very seldom want to be there when we are here. Beatrix generally stays with Aunt Katharine or Aunt Mary, anyhow, and you like staying at your Club if you have to go up alone. Now that Barbara has gone to Paris the Dragon won't have to be in London to look after her, as we thought she must if she went up for classes."
"And what about you, Cara? You shirked most of your London gaieties last year. Are you going to cut yourself off from them altogether?"
She laughed happily. "Fancy wanting London gaieties when you can have this!" she said. "I sang for joy this morning when I woke up and found myself here instead of in London."
"Yes, that's all very well," he said. "I feel like that myself, though I suppose that at my age no satisfaction is quite as hilarious as it is at yours. But it isn't only the gaieties that you miss by cutting yourself off from London. It's being in the swim. When you've been in the swim as long as I have, you know how much of it is necessary to you and how much isn't. And you don't lose all that you've gained for yourself when you begin to sit lightly to it all. But you have to gain it first."
"I'm not sure that I want to gain more than I have," she said. "I have heaps of friends, and we see a good many of them down here. I like seeing those who really do count in that way; you get to know them better. It's the background of life that I love so in the country. You belong to yourself more. Things come to you and you don't have to go out to find them. I believe you feel that too, Daddy."
"Yes, I do," he said, "more than I should have thought possible a year ago. But still I can't see that it is quite the right thing for you to bury yourself down here entirely."
"Don't you feel that it's nice to have me here to welcome you when you come home?" she asked.
"Oh, my darling," he said, "nothing could be better—for me. It's you I'm thinking of."
Barbara had been sent off, protesting, to a 'family' in Paris a fortnight before. She was to come home in August, when Young George would also come home for his summer holidays; otherwise she had declared she would not consent to go at all. Beatrix was in London with Lady Handsworth, enjoying her second season, but not with quite the same youthful abandon as she had enjoyed her first. Miss Waterhouse was away visiting, but would come back shortly, either to Abington or to the house in Cadogan Place, wherever the headquarters of the family should be. Caroline after a week in London had pressed for Abington, and had had her own way. It was true that her way would bring most pleasure to her father. His centre of gravity had changed from London to the country. Except on occasions, his work occupied him not more than three days a week, and with her at Abington his home was indisputably there, as it would not have been otherwise. But he was getting to be a little anxious about this increasing disinclination of hers to follow out the life that seemed natural for a girl of her birth and upbringing. Both his sisters-in-law had spoken to him about it, Lady Grafton as well as Lady Handsworth. She was not doing herself justice. They knew that he did not want to give her up, and there was no necessity for her to marry just yet. But she ought not to cut herself off from the surroundings in which girls of her sort did find husbands, the surroundings in which he himself, and all of them, had found wives and husbands.
He had felt the force of this. Though he hoped to keep Caroline with him for a time longer, the thought of her eventual marriage was never quite absent from his thoughts about her. He did not want it to be, necessarily, what is called a brilliant marriage, though with a girl of Caroline's beauty and charm the most brilliant of marriages would not be more than her due; but he did want her to marry among the people with whom both sides of her family had been connected now for some generations past, and that was conditional, as it seemed to him, upon her keeping 'in the swim.' There was an idea at the back of his mind that her whole-hearted love of a country life was rather unsettling her for the right sort of marriage. It seemed actually to have been responsible for her unwillingness to accept the young man whom for some time past he had thought, not without satisfaction, that she might marry. Francis Parry was still in love with her, and a year ago she had refused him in such a way as not to have made him relinquish all hope of winning her. The young man had told Grafton so rather pathetically not so long before. He had not bothered her, he had said, but wasn't she getting tired of shutting herself away from everybody? Was his chance absolutely gone?
The question had made Grafton bethink himself. When Caroline had definitely refused Francis for the second time a year before he had been well content to have it so. She had said that she had always liked him, and given her father to understand that when sheshould be ready to marry he would be such a husband as she would choose. It was because she was so happy at home that she did not want to marry yet. But now he was not so sure that it would be a man of the type of Francis Parry whom she would choose. She seemed to have moved away from the sort of life he represented, which was exactly the sort of life that he himself had represented, and to which his daughters had been brought up. The fact that he had refrained hitherto with her from any reference to the young man's plea, although they had talked him over together frankly enough before, showed the extent of his doubts about her. Although he sympathised with her strong preference for this quiet stay-at-home country life, and to a large extent shared it, it seemed almost as if she were moving away from him.
They came to the high beechwood from which the famous view was to be seen. They sat on their horses, and drank in the tonic air which came from the sea across miles of open country. The sun was now high in the sky, and a line of silver in the far distance fulfilled their expectations. For in most conditions of atmosphere the view of the sea was by faith and not by sight.
"Isn't it heavenly!" said Caroline. "Oh, Dad, you must leave me to this; I want to live all my life with it. I shouldn't mind if I never saw London again."
They were going to breakfast at Grays, the seat of the Pemberton family. Bertie Pemberton, the onlyson, had married a few months before Mollie Walter, who had lived with her mother in a cottage at Abington. He also had forsaken London, to settle down to a country existence for the rest of his life. It had been necessary for him 'to do something' before succeeding to the parental acres, and the something he had chosen to do, after enjoying himself for three years at Oxford, was dealing with stocks and shares. This pursuit would appear to be singularly fitted for a young man with connections but no exaggerated equipment of brain power. But he was a countryman at heart, as had been all his forebears. A few years 'in the City' were his tribute to the larger life. Upon marriage he was quite content to close that chapter. There was enough for him to do with the management of his father's estate as a serious occupation, and with the sports of the field as one hardly less serious.
An old stone-roofed farmhouse, restored and refitted to make it a suitable home for an heir-apparent, was now Mollie's habitation. It stood a little way back from the road, and as Grafton and Caroline rode up she came flying down the flagged path from the house door to greet them. She was like a vision of the summer morning in her sparkling bridal happiness. Caroline embraced her warmly when she had dismounted, with more emotion than she could have expressed. The happiness of others is a moving thing, especially when it rests upon love; and Mollie was supremely happy. Her husband, with a loud-voiced geniality which showed him at least to have nothing to complainof in life, followed her out and added his welcome. Thereafter there was talk and laughter, pride of new possession and sympathy with it, until it was time for the Graftons to ride home again.
"Isn't it lovely to see them so pleased with themselves?" Caroline said, when she had waved her last farewell. "Do you remember Mollie a year ago, how shy and retiring she was? She is like a different creature now."
"Master Bertie is a different creature too," said her father. "He's always been noisy, but I like the sort of noise he makes now better than I did."
"He adores Mollie," said Caroline, "and she is just the wife for him. I love to see them together. You see, Dad, it isn't necessary to fag about in London as a preparation for marriage. Mollie has hardly ever been there."
She seemed to have divined his inmost thoughts, and her speech surprised him a little. "Have you been thinking about that?" he asked.
"No," she said. "I'm quite happy with you, darling, if only you will leave me peacefully to look after you at Abington."
Her words gave him pleasure, but his conscience was aroused about her. "Lord knows I am happy enough to have you," he said. "But I can't keep you for ever. You'll want what Mollie has some day."
"Some day," she said. "Yes. But I have all I want for the present."
"What about Francis?" he asked, after a shortpause. "He wants you as much as ever. He told me so."
She looked troubled. "I know he does," she said. "He told me so too."
He waited for her to go on.
"I like him as much as ever," she said, "for what he is."
"For what he is!" he echoed.
"What he is isn't what I want now," she said, not without hesitation. "It would be different if I were in love with him, as I suppose he is with me,—poor Francis! If I felt like that I should not mind what I did or where I went with him."
"My dear child, you talk as if he'd take you out to the wilds. You'd live where you liked, within reach of London. He has to stick to it closer than I do, at present. You couldn't live right away, like this. But—"
"Oh, it wouldn't be the same," she said. "But it isn't that, Dad. I don't love him. I thought I might, perhaps, last year, enough to live whatever life he liked with him. But now I know I never can. He isn't what I want."
"What do you want?" he asked, throwing a glance at her.
"Only you, darling," she said lightly. "Don't worry me about Francis. I'm worried about him a little myself, because I do like him, and we're friends. But he'll get over it, and find somebody else. I'm heart-free, Dad. Really I am. I love you and B,and Barbara and Bunting, and the Dragon, and every single soul who lives at Abington, except Lord Salisbury; and he's going soon. When I begin to love somebody else I'll let you know. I don't suppose you'll have me on your hands all your life, but you'll have me for a good long time to come. Let's have a canter."
He was pleased enough. If she had wanted to marry Francis Parry he would have resigned her, and felt that it was the right thing. But he didn't want that, or any other marriage for her, yet. He only wanted to be sure that he was not keeping her selfishly; and her words, and more than her words, her tone, relieved him of any doubt on that subject. And her love for Abington, and her wish to make his home for him there suited him. She was more his at Abington than she could be in London.
But he made up his mind that the succession of guests should not fail at Abington. She must not live out of the world, as he and his like estimated the world, at her age. He did not want her to become like the three loud good-natured horsey Pemberton girls, who in spite of their parentage and their wide relationships would always be country cousins, wherever they went. Country cousins who came from such a house as Grays were well enough in their way, but it was not the way of the world that Caroline belonged to, the world that she was so fitted to adorn, and they were not.
They had cantered across a high-lying common, anddescended into a country lane along which they walked their horses, ready for conversation again. The hedges on either side of them were pink and white with May; the golden carpet of early June was spread all over the meadows; the trees wore their dress of freshest green; larks sang in high ecstasy overhead. Grafton felt the delight of the unused untroubled country, but though it was a rest and a refreshment to him, his life was bound up with other things that took him away from it, even while he was enjoying it. Stealing a glance at his girl's much-loved face, he caught something of what it was to her to soak herself in all the happiness of nature, to wake and sleep with it, and to cast off from her the fitful life of sought-out amusements. She had flowered under it. Much as he adored his little Beatrix, and sweet and kind as she was, it came to him that Caroline's was the finer character of the two. Beatrix loved Abington too, and the quieter life they led there; but she loved it as he did, as a change and a refreshment. She would never have been content to settle down to it as Caroline had, for she had not the same resources in herself.
"Do you think there's anything between Beatrix and Dick Mansergh?" he asked suddenly.
She laughed at him. "I've been wondering when you were going to ask me that," she said.
"Oh, then you've noticed it."
"Darling old thing!" she said fondly. "It's plain enough that he's head over ears. Youmusthave seen, haven't you?"
"Well, I suppose I have. But I want to know about her.Sheisn't head over ears, is she?"
"No, she certainly isn't that. It's too soon, you know, Daddy."
A shadow always came over his face when that affair with Lassigny was brought to his mind. "She's not still thinking of that fellow, is she?" he asked.
"I expect she thinks of him a good deal. That's why she won't think of anybody else for some time to come."
He did not push his question. He knew that that danger was past, and that if Beatrix still thought of Lassigny it was not with love. That had died in her.
"Poor darling!" he said tenderly. "You know how I hated it at the time. But when she was getting over it I sometimes almost wished that he had come back. I'm precious glad he didn't, though."
"So am I now," said Caroline. "But it did leave a mark upon her. Should you mind, Dad, if she did want to marry Dick?"
"Mind? No. Why should I mind?" he asked. "It's just the sort of marriage I should like for her. I suppose they'd be away a lot at first, but the old man is over eighty. It can't be very long before Dick succeeds. Then they'd be living at Wilborough. There's nothing I should like better."
She was a little surprised at this. It had not been only his objection to the man whom Beatrix had wanted to marry that had so upset him nearly a year before.
He answered the thought in her mind. "I know Bhas got to marry," he said. "She's cut out for it. She was so young last year, and it came as a shock to me that she was already of a marriageable age. I couldn't get used to it—that she wasn't mine any more."
"Do you feel like that about it, Dad?"
"I don't now. I've got used to the idea."
"Of course we shall always be yours, whoever we marry."
"Not as you have been, darling. That's impossible. It was old Lady Mansergh who told me that fathers hated their daughters marrying because they had always been first with them, and couldn't be first any longer. That's true, I suppose, if they marry somebody you can't take in. It would certainly have been true of me if Beatrix had married that fellow." He never spoke of Lassigny by name. "But with a man you like and respect it's different. You don't lose everything, even if you can't be first any longer. If he's the right sort of man you gain. I believe your grandfather felt that about me. He loved your mother, and she was very young when we married. He didn't like giving her up, but he was so nice about it that I took particular pains to show him what a lot I thought of him. He was a fine old boy. I wish you'd known him longer, Cara. I believe, when he got used to it, that he was as fond of me as he was of any of his sons. Your mother used to write to him every week, and I used to write to him too. He told me before he died that it had made all the difference to him,the first year of our marriage. She was his only daughter, you see, and that was the time he felt it most."
"Should you have felt like that about Francis, if I had wanted to marry him, Dad?"
"It would rather have depended on how he felt about me," he said.
"Should you about Dick Mansergh?"
"I think I should. Yes, I think I should. I like him. He's straight. And he's companionable too. Besides, he'd be giving her all she ought to have. That would count for a good deal."
"In what way, Dad?"
"Well, you see, you're responsible for bringing up your daughters in a certain way. You take a pride in what they become. You don't want it all thrown away on somebody who isn't up to their level."
She laughed. "It all sounds very mercenary," she said.
"I don't think it is. A woman's position is her husband's; until she's married it's her father's. You don't want your daughters lessened. It isn't a question of money. It's like to like. Look at that chap your Aunt Prudence married."
"He had lots of money."
"It's all he did have. A silly fellow! Nobody thinks anything of him beside her. She has to carry him on her back wherever she goes."
"Poor Aunt Prudence! It's rather pathetic the way she wants people to like him."
"Women have a wonderful sort of loyalty in that way. She must have found out his deficiencies long ago, but I suppose she wouldn't admit to herself that he has any. It's the people who look on who see it. All of us thought the world of her. She'd have helped on the biggest sort of man. It's all wasted on that rabbit-brained nobody."
"Well, darling, none of us are going to trouble you in that way. I shan't, because I shall certainly want somebody with brains, though I haven't got as many as Aunt Prudence. And I don't think Beatrix will make any marriage that you wouldn't like, now. She's had her lesson, poor darling! She won't let herself be caught again."
"I really should like her to marry Mansergh, if she cared for him."
"She doesn't yet, dear. But I think she's quite likely to come to it. I rather think that he's strong enough to make her."
The Bishop was again visiting at Surley Park. He found his niece's house a restful place of retirement, and his wife had confided to Ella Carruthers that it was such a relief to the dear man to get away from the clergy sometimes.
He was not, however, to be spared the question of the clergy upon this visit, for the Graftons were coming over to consult him about one for Abington, and he had been given due warning that it would be so. A private patron does not always consult his Bishop over his appointments, and it was supposed that his Lordship would not be averse from giving his advice in this instance.
Grafton came over to tea, with Caroline and Beatrix. There were to be guests at the Abbey that evening, or the consultation would have taken place over the dinner table.
Tea was in the garden, which spread in wide cedar-decked lawns round the great white house. The Bishop had a lovely garden of his own, in which he could taste the sweets of retirement. But there was a remoteness about this spreading country garden, with the fields and woods all around it, which he could not get in the high-walled pleasaunce of his palace. He sighedwith contentment as he sank down into a large cane chair by the tea table, and said:
"You have a lovely place here, my dear. I sometimes wish that I had set out to be a country gentleman, and dealt with beasts instead of with men."
"You have to deal with both as a landowner," said Ella, "and the men are sometimes more difficult than the beasts."
"The menarebeasts sometimes," said the Bishop's wife, who prided herself upon her plain speaking.
"Now, my dear," he said, "we are going to forget all the disputes that beset us as long as we are here, and believe that none of them ever come to disturb the peace of such a place as Surley. Isn't your friend Grafton coming over to see me, Ella? Ah! but here he is with two of those nice girls. What pretty creatures they are! It's a pleasure to look at them."
The Graftons were coming across the wide lawn. They were indeed pleasant-looking objects of the countryside, Grafton in his smart-looking blue flannel suit, the girls in their pretty summer frocks. Presently they were all chatting and laughing over the tea table, and the Bishop was liking them more than ever for the friendly way in which they treated him, and the absence from their demeanour of that paralysing awe which so often irked him on similar occasions.
Tea was over, and Grafton had just introduced the subject about which he had come, when a tall clerical figure was seen advancing across the lawn.
"There's my friend Leadbetter come to see me," said the Bishop. "Do you mind talking over the question before him? He has been in the Diocese much longer than I have, and might be able to help us."
"I don't mind a bit," said Grafton, "but I don't know Mr. Leadbetter yet. I haven't had time to call on him."
The introductions were made. Mr. Leadbetter seemed rather vague as to who the Graftons were; but he seemed to be rather vague about everything except the absorbing subject of Church music. He was a tall thin man, with a pair of short-sighted eyes that peered mildly through big spectacles. His new parishioners had not quite made up their minds what to make of him yet, but those who had had anything to do with him had found him thoughtful and friendly, and were inclined to accept him as an adequate substitute for the old Rector who had lived among them for so long, and whose ways they had known so well.
"We were just beginning to talk about a new Vicar for Abington," said the Bishop, when Mr. Leadbetter had settled in a chair and had accepted a cigarette, which he afterwards surreptitiously got rid of when it had gone out three times, and both ends were in a shockingly untidy state.
"Ah, yes, Abington," he said, "I called at Abington Vicarage the other day. I remember that the note of the doorscraper was C sharp. Mercer is going, hetold me. A very agreeable man—Mercer. You will be sorry to lose him, Mr. Grafton."
Beatrix caught the Bishop's eye. There was a twinkle in it which made her want to kiss him. She refrained from this exhibition, but felt she had found a true friend.
"I know who you are, now, of course," said Mr. Leadbetter. "I remember that Mercer mentioned your name when he came over to ask me if I thought there was any chance of his being preferred to this living."
There was a short pause, and then everybody, including the Bishop, laughed. Mr. Leadbetter looked surprised for a moment, and then smiled deprecatingly. "Now I remember," he said, "perhaps you won't be sorry to lose him, after all."
This was all that was said about the retiring Vicar of Abington.
"I haven't many friends among the clergy," said Grafton. "One or two of my friends at Cambridge went into the Church, but I have lost track of them mostly, and I can't think of one who would be likely to want to come here. There is not much to offer, though I should be prepared to add to the stipend for a man who couldn't afford to take it as it is."
He told them to what figure he would be willing to raise it, and the Bishop said that it would give a wider field of choice, as they need not think only about men who had money of their own.
"What sort of a man would you like to have there?"he asked. "Don't tell any one that I asked that question, Leadbetter."
"Certainly not," said the Rector of Surley. "I never make trouble for my Diocesan."
Grafton did not quite see why the question should not have been asked. "All questions of High and Low, and that sort of thing, I leave to you," he said. "The sort of man I should like to have would be one who would get on well with his parishioners, and help to keep us all together."
"Is that the sort of man you want, my dear?" asked the Bishop, turning his beneficent gaze upon Caroline. "I suppose you take an interest in the people around you."
"What you really want is a Christian," said the Bishop's wife uncompromisingly. "I suppose there are a few in the Diocese, though I can't say I have met many of them."
"My dear, my dear!" expostulated the Bishop.
Caroline answered his question. "We haven't been here very long," she said, "but we have made a great many friends among our people. We should like to do a lot for them, and we would help anybody who came there to look after them."
"That is a most laudable statement from a Squire's daughter," said the Bishop. "What sort of things do you want to do for your people?"
"She has all sorts of plans," said Ella. "We have talked them over together. I want to do something of the same sort here when I get to know Mr.Leadbetter more." She threw a look at the mild gentleman, who was just then meditating the final relinquishment of his cigarette. "But there are more people at Abington than there are at Surley."
"Do you mean blankets and coal?" asked the Bishop's wife, "or do you mean Chamber music and lectures on literature?"
Mr. Leadbetter raised himself in his chair. "Ah! Chamber music!" he said, with a gleam of satisfaction behind his spectacles. "If only we could manage some Chamber music!"
"Not a bit of use," said the Bishop's wife. "A nigger minstrel entertainment would go down much better."
"Caroline wants to teach the children Morris dancing and all that sort of thing," said Grafton. "They have it in the village where my brother-in-law lives, and everybody enjoys it immensely."
Caroline leaned forward. "Anything which will make us all happy together," she said. "There are a lot of things which can be done that we should all like doing, and that would go of themselves if they were once started."
Grafton looked at her fondly. "I believe they would all do anything for her, already," he said, "but she doesn't want them to feel that she is patronising them. She wants to play with them just as she has played with her friends in London. That's it, isn't it, Cara?"
"Yes, it's to make us friends," she said.
"I think that healthy amusement is a very good thing for people in a country parish," said the Bishop's wife, "but you must have somebody to lead. Is that what you want your new Vicar to do? If so I should think he would be quite willing to do it. I have never found the clergy unwilling to lead in anything."
"I should say the same about the wives of the clergy," said the Bishop, with another twinkle in his eye, "I think we must find a married Vicar for Abington."
"You didn't find a married Rector for Surley," said his niece, with another provocative look at Mr. Leadbetter, who met it with bland unconsciousness.
"Music is a great thing to bring people together," he said, "and I suppose dancing too. But I have never danced, myself."
The eyes of Beatrix and the Bishop met again, and this time she had great difficulty in preventing herself from embracing him.
"That will only be a part of what we should want to do," Caroline said; "but it would be rather important to have the clergyman on our side. If you want to get people together, he is the best man to do it, and he ought to know them better than anybody."
"Yes, heoughtto," said the Bishop's wife.
"He does, if he is the right sort of man," said the Bishop. "I think any incumbent might think himself fortunate in having you to help him in his work, my dear."
Caroline's face fell a little, and the Bishop noticed it. Afterwards he asked his niece why it was.
She thought for a moment, and then looked up with a smile. "To tell you the truth, Uncle," she said, "and to risk your displeasure, Caroline and I are rather fed up with the talk of a clergyman'swork. I won't say anything about this place, but at Abington it seemed to mean nothing but interference, and trying to bring people into line all round. Caroline refused to go visiting, as she was asked to do. Of course she does go to see people, just as much perhaps as if she set out to do it as a regular duty, in the way that the Coopers did here, and never ceased talking about and patting themselves on the back for it. But she likes to go where they know she comes as a friend, and will be pleased to see her. She hates to think of that sort of thing as work."
"I don't know why you should think you risk my displeasure in telling me that, my dear," said the Bishop.
A week later the Graftons were invited to dine at the Bishop's Palace. The invitation was sent to Caroline by the Bishop's wife, who indicated in a few terse sentences that a clergyman would be there on inspection, but didn't know it, and was not to know it. If he didn't suit he could go back where he came from, and nobody would be any the worse. Probably her way of putting it had not been authorised by the Bishop, who, however, took Grafton into his libraryon their arrival, and told him that he thought he had found him the right man.
"He is quite young," he said, "and has not long been married. He has been working hard in a very poor part of London, and I fancy that his health won't stand it much longer. His father was an old friend of mine, and if you like him I think I can persuade him to come to you. He hasn't any money of his own, but what you mentioned the other day will be enough for him. His name is Gerald Prescott."
They went up to the drawing-room, where a little group was standing by one of the windows, admiring the view of the garden, with the piled masonry of the Cathedral rising above the trees which enclosed it. There were four of them. Ella Carruthers and her aunt were talking together apart. The first impression of the group was one of happy youth. They were all talking and laughing together, as if none of them had a care in the world. They were Caroline, the Bishop's chaplain whom she knew already, and Prescott and his wife, with both of whom she had established relations almost upon the first words of introduction.
Grafton's first impression of the man to whom he had been invited to extend his patronage was of one hardly more than a boy. He was very fair, with untidy hair crowning a smooth fresh face, and though his smile was frequent and pleased there was rather a pathetic look as of a tired child about his eyes. His wife looked older than he, though she was actuallya few years younger, and not marked by the physical weariness that showed in him. She had rosy cheeks and dark alert eyes, in which there was a motherly look very noticeable when she turned them upon her husband.
Caroline was immensely taken with both of them, they were so simple and so confiding, and so unlike any young couple she had ever met before. Both of them belonged to her world; that was evident by a score of little signs. But they seemed to be quite detached from it, and indeed to have lost interest in it. Their interests were based upon a broad humanity which took no count of social grades. If the Bishop had bethought himself of his niece's protest against the perpetual talk of a clergyman's 'work,' in producing this particular clergyman for inspection, he was abundantly justified by Prescott's conversation. He and his wife both talked of the life they were living, the people they knew, and the things they did, in the same way as they might have talked if he had been an artist, for instance, living in Chelsea. There was the big church in the background, which would correspond to the studio, and what went on there, not to be too much talked about; and all around it the atmosphere of struggle, and tears, and laughter, and the miraculous events that shake the lives of those whose existence is based upon no material certainties, but based all the firmer upon an immoveable trust in a providence that may at any time bring something exciting and beneficial to pass, and at the worst will never let youquite down. The richness of it all was amazing. Instead of the picture of mean streets and drab and sordid lives, into which a man descended from serener heights to fight with poverty and crime, there was a crowded stage of characters of infinite variety, playing with the big things of life which are hidden under a mass of little things in the secured places, but playing with them as the gods might play with them, who must have the biggest toys to amuse them.
"You seem to have a lot of most disreputable acquaintances," said the Bishop's wife, when Prescott had been telling them stories about his friends.
"Oh, yes, we have," he said, with a bright smile. "All the respectable ones go to chapel. But they're so dull that we don't try to get them away. There's no proselytising in our parish."
Caroline began to be afraid, as the life and the pursuits of these young people disclosed themselves, that Abington, with its sparser, more monotonous life, would scarcely attract them, or satisfy them if they came there. But Prescott, who was sitting next to her at dinner, said to her in a low voice: "How do you think she's looking? She's always lived in the country; she's apt to get a little run down in a town."
Caroline reassured him, after a glance at his wife, who looked the picture of health and vigour, and he seemed relieved. "Of course she loves it all," he said. "But it keeps her so on the go. It's very distracting, a town life. Both of us enjoy getting outinto the country sometimes. You seem to belong to yourself more."
It was exactly what she had said of herself, finding a town life of such different quality from his distracting for self-possession. "Would you live in the country if you had the choice?" she hazarded.
"I'd live anywhere with her," he said, jerking his head towards his wife with a boyish gesture. "But if I had to choose between the two, for myself, I'd choose a town, because there's more to do. We both of us like to have plenty to do."
After dinner, before the men came up, Caroline sat with Viola Prescott in the window-seat from which they could see the dark mass of the Cathedral rising above the trees into the velvet purple night, and she asked the same question, in a tone that gave Caroline a tightening of the throat.
"He's enjoying every moment of this," she said, "and he wanted just such a change. We haven't been away together since just after Christmas. Do you think he looksverytired? It has been so hot in London."
"I think he looks as if he wants a change," said Caroline. "Fresh air, perhaps, and not quite so much to do."
She sighed. "I was afraid you would say that," she said. "The Bishop said it too. He's a lovely sort of Bishop, isn't he? So human, and so kind, and not too churchy. It would be rather peaceful to be in his Diocese."
"Would you like to live in the country?" Caroline asked her.
"Ishould love it. I always did live in the country before we were married. I used to go and stay with an aunt in London sometimes, and was always glad to get back. I don't care about London amusements. But we don't have to bother ourselves with them in our part of London. I do like that, better than I thought I should, because you see people in a more natural way than at the other end of London. Gerry feels like that too. I can hardly ever drag him up to see our relations, and they hardly ever come to see us."
"I feel just the same, about our part of London," said Caroline. "I've persuaded father to give up our house there, because I like living in the country much better. It's partly because of the people, as you say. You get to know all sorts better, in the country. I have a lot of friends among the people in our village, just as you have in your parish, though they live rather quieter lives than yours seem to, and are not so—well, so disreputable."
Both of them laughed, with a glance at the Bishop's wife. "They're not really disreputable," Viola said; "only most of them don't know whether they are going to have anything to eat to-morrow, or the next day. So they have to keep cheerful while theyhavegot enough. Still, it is rather a rackety life. I think I should like to be among quieter people, for a change; and of course one does miss the sweet air and the peace of the country. I wouldn't mind a bit for myself if Ididn't think Gerry ought to have a rest. He isn't very strong, poor darling, and he works too hard."
It was the first time that work had been mentioned.
"And hewillinvite such a lot of people to meals," she went on; "and there isn't always enough for them. And then of coursehegoes without."
"I expect you do too, if there isn't enough," said Caroline, smiling at her.
"Oh, I'm as strong as a horse," she said. "But we haven't got much money, you know, and housekeepingisrather difficult sometimes."
The Bishop's wife sailed over to them. "Are you persuading her to make her husband come to Abington?" she asked. "Sheoughtto. He can't standthatlife much longer."
Caroline looked up at her in some confusion.
"Oh, I know nothing was to be said about it till after you had seen whether you liked them or not," she said. "But of course you like them. I do myself, though I should like to smack them both and send them to bed."
"We want a Vicar at Abington," said Caroline. "Father is the patron of the living. Do persuade your husband to come there."
Viola's eyes filled with tears, and she took Caroline's hand. "Oh, my dear, it's just what I should love for him," she said. "He'll get enough to eat, and time to rest sometimes."
So when the men came up they found it all settled for them.
The Prescotts came over to the Abbey on the next afternoon. They were to stay there for two nights, and everything was to be settled for Prescott's induction to the living at an early date.
Both of them were in the highest spirits. "What a lark it all is!" said the Vicar-elect of Abington, grinning all over his face as Caroline met them at the door. His wife was as excited and happy as he was, but when Caroline took her up to her room, she took hold of both her hands, and the tears came into her eyes, as she said: "Oh, my dear, if you only knew what all this means to us! This lovely, peaceful country, after the crowds and the dirt! It's the dirt I hate so much. You can't get away from that. Gerry hates it too, though he won't admit it."
Grafton had arranged that they should inspect the Vicarage immediately upon their arrival. The Vicar had expressed some surprise at the suddenness with which everything had been arranged. He let it be understood that it would have been more in keeping with the respect due to his holy office if he had been consulted about the new appointment. But at this time he was more careful than usual to escape all suspicionof dispute, having his eye fixed upon the illuminated address and the silver, or at least heavily-plated, salver or tea-service of the presentation, of which, however, he had as yet gained no hint, although the time for his departure was getting close.
The four of them walked up to the Vicarage together, after a preliminary inspection of the church, with which Prescott expressed himself delighted.
"Ours is a horrid gloomy thing," he said, "and you can't always feel you are getting quite away in it. This is just right. I like it's being here, right away from the village."
Their progress up the village street aroused notice, for it was some weeks since it had been known that the Vicar was giving up, and so far there had been no sign of his successor. If this was to be the new Vicar, it was generally agreed by those who saw him, on his way to and from the Vicarage, that he would do very well. The children were coming from school when they returned, and he and Caroline, who were walking behind the others, found themselves involved in a laughing group of them, and went down to the end of the street with a small boy holding one of Prescott's hands and a small girl the other, while the rest circled round them and gave shrill and hilarious answers to the absurd questions asked of them by this remarkable but none the less entertaining new kind of clergyman.
The Vicar and Mrs. Mercer received them according as their different temperaments dictated. TheVicar was important and patronising with Prescott, and his wife sympathetic with Viola.
"I'm sure you will like the house," she said. "We have had some very happy times here, and are sorry to be giving it up, although we have a very nice one to go to. We will do all we can to make it easy for you to come in."
Caroline put her arm into hers. She felt very sorry for this poor little lady, who had made such a brave show in a situation that to her must have been full of distress. Caroline did not know that her father had actually asked the Vicar to leave, but it had been made so plain all around that there was nothing but satisfaction felt at his departure. People liked Mrs. Mercer, whenever they had a chance of judging of her apart from her husband, but she had suffered from her very loyalty to him, and must have been saddened at leaving her home of many years with few to regret her.
She responded to Caroline's' touch with a little pressure of her arm, and smiled up at her. "It's horrid going away from you, dear," she said. "I shall be quite jealous thinking of Mrs. Prescott in my place here."
They went over the house and garden and outbuildings together, the Vicar talking most of the time, and Prescott's face gradually lengthening as he did so. For his talk was mostly of 'fixtures' and of 'taking over,' and apparently it had not hitherto struck the Vicar-elect that to be presented to a living involveddetails of this sort. He did not, however, say anything as to any difficulty he might find in providing money that had mounted up to a considerable sum when the Vicar had indicated all the expensive articles that he had put in, and all the other expensive articles that it wouldn't be worth while to take out. He looked a little less frightened when they had come back to the drawing-room and his wife said boldly: "I don't think we shall want anything that we're not obliged to take, Mr. Mercer. We shan't be able to live in more than a few rooms for some time, because we haven't got any money for furnishing."
The Vicar blinked. It seemed almost indecent to acknowledge a lack of money in this fashion, especially to a man who had 'private means.' He turned to Prescott. "I don't think you will find it practicable to live in a few rooms here," he said. "Your parishioners expect more of you in the country than they do in a town. You have to keep up your position before them."
Viola's interposition had lifted a weight from her husband's mind. Of course she would undertake all that sort of thing. It wasn't for him to bother himself about it. They would be quite happy living in two rooms together, with the furniture that they already had; and, with the enormous income of £500 a year that would now be at their disposal, they would be able to get whatever they wanted to furnish the rest. Nor was he at all subdued by the Vicar's speech.
"Oh, we are not going to be bothered about keepingup a position," he said. "I expect I shall have plenty of parishioners a good deal poorer than I am."
With the casting off of the burden which had begun to oppress him, he emerged into a condition of extremely high spirits again. He drew comparisons between the state in which he would live and that in which the Mercers had lived. He chaffed the Vicar, and treated him generally as if he were rather a comic character. He showed himself extremely irresponsible with regard to all questions of management, both domestic and official, and told Mrs. Mercer that if she hadn't taken all that sort of thing off her husband's hands it must have been because she was not fit to be a clergyman's wife. He received in a spirit of levity a list of fixtures which the Vicar had typed out for him, services in the church, meetings for this and that in the schoolroom and elsewhere, an itinerary of visiting for three afternoons in the week.
"Youhavebeen a busy little bee," he said. "I expect you've kept them all in order too. I'm afraid I shan't be able to do that. But it all looks splendid on paper. I wish I could afford a typewriter. But what's this word 'agout'? Oh, I see, it's meant for 'about.' Thanks very much. I'll put it in my pocket."
When they had taken themselves off the Vicar went into his study, with his mouth set and the cloud on his Olympian brow that his wife had become so used to after interviews of this sort. She followed him in,however, and sat herself down in the high chair by the fireplace to go through with it.
"Upon my word!" he began. "It's a positiveinsultfor Grafton to put a man like that in to succeed me. And unless I am very much mistaken, it's meant as such."
"The Bishop chose him, you know, Albert," she said quietly. "Mr. Grafton told us that he had asked him to recommend him somebody."
"The Bishop can't know what an impossible sort of creature he is," he said. "I am not at all sure that it isn't my duty to tell him. In all my life I've never seen anybody so absolutely unfitted to take charge of a parish. The idea of his having the audacity to tell me that he didn't believe in regimenting people. That was a hit at me and my work, of course. All that I have done here for years past is to be thrown away, and the parish turned into a bear garden, for a young idiot like that to disport himself in."
"He is evidently very gay and lively by nature," she said, "and of course he is pleased at coming here. I think that half of what he said was only meant in fun, and evidently he relies a great deal upon her for all the business side of his work."
"She is no better than he is," snapped the Vicar. "Fancy a woman like that going about among the people, and them knowing the way in which they are going to live here. If shedoesgo about among the people! But I should think it's more likely that they will both spend most of their time at the Abbey,sponging on the Graftons, and trying to get in with all the big houses around. You can see they are nobodies—not a shilling to bless themselves with. No doubt it is a great thing for them to get into a neighbourhood like this, and they'll make the most of it."
He went on for some time in this fashion, but his wife did not answer him, and when he had run himself down a little and looked at her, he saw that she was softly crying.
He came to a stop in front of her and said awkwardly, "What's the matter? It's dreadful to think of things going to rack and ruin in a place where we've worked so hard and done so much; butweshall be out of it at any rate. Don't upset yourself, Gertrude."
She dried her eyes. "I was thinking how happy they both were," she said. "We were pleased too when we first came here and looked forward to living in this nice house."
He resumed his pacing of the room. "So we shall be where we are going," he said, "and we are looking forward to a life of useful active service, and not to the ramshackle unuseful life that those two are going to live."
"They have left a great many friends behind them where they have been living," she said, "and they will make a great many friends here. We shall leave hardly a single friend, after fifteen years, and if we make new ones where we are going to, I'm afraid we shan't keepthem. Oh, why can't you think more kindly of people, Albert? We see everybody around us making friends and helping each other, and we are left out of it all. The people we have quarrelled with can't all of them always be in the wrong, and we always in the right."
"Oh, come now, my dear," he said authoritatively. "We have had that all out, and I have admitted to you that I have perhaps been a little too rigid in exacting respect for my office. The fact is, Gertrude, that you are upset at giving up your home of so many years, and I can make excuses for that. Let us begin our new life with cheerful hearts, and leave the past behind us."
"We shall take it all with us," she said, "if you can't learn the Christian charity that you preach about. My heart went out to those two young people. I know that they are good and loving; you can see it in their faces—loving towards each other and full of love towards the people they live amongst. I am sure they will do more with that spirit than we have ever been able to do."
"I can make excuses for you, Gertrude, as I said just now, but in accusing me to my face of a lack of Christian charity, you are saying a very serious thing."
"I know," she said. "And lately I have begun to see that it is a very serious thing. You can't see goodness where it is plain to be seen. I don't believe you will find anywhere a sweeter, truer character than Caroline Grafton's. There isn't a soul in the placewho knows her who doesn't almost worship her; but she has offended you in some little way and you can never say a good word for her. And I think the happiness of that young couple ought to make anybody feel better who sees it, but it only makes you gird at them. It has been so often like that. How many times have you come back into this room after seeing people off with a smile on your face, to cover them with contempt and anger? I know we shall never be happy wherever we go, if you can't see how wrong you are; and we shall never have any friends—not to keep them. We shall be lonely all our lives."
She saved him the trouble of replying to this unwonted attack by going out of the room, once more in tears. He walked up and down for some time after she had left, with a frown upon his face, and once he went to the door, and hesitated, as if he would follow her. But he thought better—or worse—of it, and came back into the room and sat himself down at his writing-table after the manner of a man exasperated beyond all bearing.
It was not his wife, however, who had exasperated him, for he was nice to her when they met again later on, and talked pleasantly about the new home they were going to; so that she began to think that she had been rather hard on him.
Caroline found her father alone just before they went up to dress for dinner, and said: "Dad, darling, you've got heaps of money. Couldn't you buy all those things Lord Salisbury wants to leave behind, and makethem a present of them? Poor dears, they'll have hardly anything. They have been laughing about it, and I don't think he minds. But of course she would like to have a pretty house. She was brought up in one. She has been telling me about it."
"He's been tellingmeabout it too," said Grafton laughing. "You know, I'm not at all certain, Cara, that we shan't have trouble with that pair of lunatics. Nobody can help liking them, but as a Vicar and Vicaress of a respectable country parish I don't quite see them."
"Oh, I do," she said. "He is just one big loving heart, and he hasn't time to think about all the little things that most of us make such a fuss about. And she has thrown herself into it all because she loves him. But she's just like anybody else, and she'll keep him in order."
"Do you know the story of their marriage?" he asked her.
"She told me that the fathers of both of them had lost all their money before they died, and that their relations on both sides had been very much against their marriage."
"Their fathers were partners in business, and a third partner let them in horribly, and bolted. Before they had time to pull things together both of them died, within a month of one another. Their mothers were both dead too, and they are both only children. It's an extraordinary series of coincidences. The relations on each side accused the other of rankcarelessness, and there must have been great carelessness somewhere, though they haven't discovered yet where it was. I dare say they were both happy-go-lucky gentlemen, if they were anything like their offspring, and one was as bad as the other. So both those young people being in the same box they thought the best thing they could do would be to get married."
"She was in a furniture shop for a year after her father died."
"Yes; till he'd managed to save twenty pounds out of his screw to get something to start on. An old aunt of his came round by that time, but he wouldn't take a bob off her. Well, I dare say they've been as happy as most people on his hundred and fifty a year."
"Isn't it wonderful? But they'll be much better off now. You will buy those things for them, won't you, darling?"
"No, Cara, I won't."
"Dad, darling! Why not?"
"I've told you, haven't I?"
She thought for a moment, and then kissed him. "Yes, I see," she said. "You're a clear-sighted old Daddy. I expect you've been itching to do it all the time."
"Well, I have, to tell you the truth," he said. "I should have liked to tell Mercer to make up his beastly bill and send it in to me. But I saw it wouldn't do. They wouldn't like to be dependent on us, and they wouldn't like to say no. I'll tell you what I've had to do, though, and it's a good thing that I've had a luckystroke lately that will cover it. I've had to promise the Bishop to endow the blooming living up to the tune I was ready to pay Prescott. He wouldn't have taken it otherwise."
In her happy state of never having had occasion to consider money, she did not realise the magnitude of this obligation. "You're a little patron of the Church, darling," she said, "and they'll put you in all the papers."
"That's what I'm afraid of," he said. "I've told the old boy to keep it dark."
The Graftons happened to be in London for the week in which the Vicar took his departure. He had found out that there was no proposal on foot to present him with a testimonial, nor even to give him a farewell tea. He suffered acute annoyance over these omissions, but almost for the first time in his life kept it to himself, and pleased his wife by proposing that they should give a farewell tea themselves, to the more regular of the churchgoing parishioners. This spontaneous exhibition of liberality, coupled with the absence of any serious outbreak of censorious speech during their last weeks at Abington, led her to suppose that he also had taken to heart what had become so plain to her, and gave hope of a less stormy life in the future. But, although there may have been some faint reason for this hope, the tea-party had suggested itself as the only opportunity for delivering a speech that he had been preparing for some weeks past. If there was nobody who had the commondecency, at the end of fifteen years' pastorate, to sum up the work that had been done in it, and to congratulate him upon it, he would do so himself. He had kept records of all services, classes, meetings, visits, and journeys during the whole of the time, and put together they amounted to quite a respectable total. They would see that the life of a devoted parish priest even in a country parish was not the easy thing that 'perhaps some of you here are inclined to think.' When he had added up his totals the bright idea struck him of dividing his income into them, and showing what an absurd rate of pay the devoted parish priest received for his self-sacrificing labours. But when the sum had been done he found it worked out at about six and sixpence an item, and he couldn't honestly make it less, even by omitting to reckon in the rentable value of the Vicarage. Counting that in, it came to about half-a-guinea, and however cheap his sermons might be at that price, he thought it would hardly do to give the idea that he had been paid ten and fivepence every time he had done one of his parishioners the honour of paying him or her a call. So he gave up the idea with some regret, because, of course, you couldn't really look at it in that way, and the figures were sufficiently startling if looked at in some other.
Eventually the idea of the tea-party was given up too. Regular churchgoers were found to be few in number, when the question came to be considered in detail, and of no great importance in the community.The farmers were hay-making, and without a stiffening of substantial people the affair would come down to a mere offering of a meal to a score or so of people who would rather enjoy it, which scarcely seemed worth while.
So the Vicar cast the dust of Abington from off his feet with no formal leave-taking at all, and, remembering the thirteen thousand odd engagements which he had carried out, felt some of the satisfaction of martyrdom as he stepped into the train.
The Prescotts moved in. They refused to stay at the Abbey more than a single night, and would not have stayed one if their furniture had arrived on the same day as they did. For they would not have missed the fun of a move for anything.
It was not much of a move. The contents of their two rooms in Bermondsey made more of a show than might have been expected. Viola had a pretty taste in furniture and decoration, and the year she had spent before her marriage in helping to furnish for other people had shown her the right way to set about it. They had managed to scrape together a little money and made it go a very long way. Moreover, everybody helped her. Caroline and she made curtains. Odd things not wanted at the Abbey found their way to the Vicarage and were accepted as the gifts of friends. Mr. Williams came over from Feltham and carpentered gaily. Maurice Bradby was the handy man about the place. Everybody who came to see these new, funny, delightful people got caughtup in the prevailing excitement and did something, if it was only to advise somebody else.