Abington Abbey - Archibald Marshall

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somebody who would repeat it to him."

      "I think he'd like it," said Caroline. "I'm sure he loves a lord."

      Worthing sat and chuckled as an account was given of the visits of the 'Breezy Bills,' and the Misses Cooper, who were given the name of 'the Zebras,' partly owing to their facial conformation, partly to the costumes they had appeared in. He brought forward no criticism himself, and shirked questions that would have led to any on his part, but he evidently had no objection to it as spicing conversation, and freed himself from the slight suspicion of being a professional peacemaker. "He's an old darling," Barbara said of him afterwards. "I really believe he likes everybody, including Lord Salisbury."

      When the two men were left alone together, Worthing said: "You've got one of the nicest families I ever met, Grafton. They'll liven us up here like anything. Lord, what a boon it is to have this house opened up again!"

      "They're a cheery lot," said Grafton. "You'll like the boy too, I think. He'll be home soon now. I suppose there are some people about for them all to play with. I hardly know anybody in this part of the world."

      "There are some of the nicest people you'd meet anywhere," said Worthing. "They'll all be coming to call directly. Oh, yes, we're very fortunate in that way. But yours is the only house quite near. It'll mean a lot to me, I can tell you, to have the Abbey lived in again, 'specially with those nice young people of yours."

      "How far off is Wilborough? You go there a lot, don't you?"

      "Oh, yes, I do. I look after the place, as you know, and old Sir Alexander likes to have me pottering about with him. You'll like the old boy. He's seventy, but he's full of fun. Good man on a horse too, though he suffers a lot from rheumatism. Wilborough? It's about two miles from me; about three from here."

      "What's Lady Mansergh like? Wasn't she——"

      "Well, yes, she was; but it's a long time ago. Nobody remembers anything about it. Charming old woman, with a heart of gold."

      "Old woman! I thought she was years younger than him, and still kept her golden hair and all that sort of thing."

      "Well, yes, she does. Wouldn't thank you for calling her old, either. And I don't suppose she's much over fifty. But she's put on flesh. That sort of women does, you know, when they settle down. Extraordinary how they take to it all, though. She used to hunt when I first came here. Rode jolly straight too. And anybody'd think she'd lived in the country all her life. Well, I suppose she has, the best part of it. Dick must be twenty-eight or nine, I should think, and Geoffrey about twenty-five. Nice fellows, both of them."

      "Mercer told me, that second time I came down, that they weren't proper people for the children to know."

      A shade crossed Worthing's expansive face. "Of course a parson has different ideas about things," he said. "She did divorce her first husband, it's true; but he was a rotter of the worst type. There was never anything against her. She was before our time, but a fellow told me that when she was on the stage she was as straight as they make 'em, though lively and larky. All I can say is that if your girls were mine I shouldn't object to their knowing her."

      "Oh, well, that's enough for me. They probably won't want to be bosom friends. It would be awkward, though, having people about that one didn't want to know. According to Mercer, there aren't many people about here that one would want to know, except a few parsons and their families. He seems to have a down on the lot of them."

      "Well, between you and me," said Worthing confidentially, "I shouldn't take much notice of what Mercer says, if I were you. He's a nice enough fellow, but he does seem, somehow, to get at loggerheads with people. I wouldn't say anything against the chap behind his back, but you'd find it out for yourself in time. You'll see everybody there is, and you can judge for yourself."

      "Oh, yes, I can do that all right. Let's go and play bridge. The girls are pretty good at it."

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      Mrs. Walter and Mollie were at their mid-day Sunday dinner. Stone Cottage, where they lived, stood at the top of the village street. It had a fair-sized drawing-room and a little bandbox of a dining-room, with three bedrooms and an attic, and a garden of about half an acre. Its rent was under thirty pounds a year, and it was as nice a little country home as a widow lady with a very small income and her daughter could wish for.

      Mrs. Walter's husband had been a schoolmaster. He was a brilliant scholar and would certainly have risen high in his profession. But he had died within two years of their marriage, leaving her almost unprovided for. She had the income from an insurance policy of a thousand pounds and he had left the manuscript of a schoolbook, which was to have been the first of many such. One of his colleagues had arranged for its publication on terms not as favourable as they should have been, but it had brought her in something every year, and its sales had increased until now they produced a respectable yearly sum. For twenty years she had acted as matron in one of the boarding-houses of the school at which her husband had been assistant master. It had been a hard life, and she was a delicate woman, always with the fear before her of losing her post before she could save enough to live on and keep Mollie with her. The work, for which she was not well suited, had tried her, and it was with a feeling of immense relief and thankfulness that she at last reached the point at which she could give it up, and live her own quiet life with her daughter. She could not, in fact, have gone on with it much longer, and kept what indifferent health she had; and looking back she was inclined to wonder how she had stood it for so long. Every morning that she woke up in her quiet little cottage brought a blissful sense of relief at being free from all the stress and worry of that uncongenial life, and no place she could have found to live in would have been too quiet and retired for her.

      She was a thin colourless woman, with whatever good looks she may have had in her youth washed out of her by ill-health and an anxious life. But Mollie was a pretty girl, soft and round and dimpled, and wanting only encouragement to break into merriment and chatter. She needed a good deal of encouragement, though. She was shy, and diffident about herself. Her mother had kept her as retired as possible from the busy noisy boys' life by which they had been surrounded. The housemaster and his wife had not been sympathetic to either of them. They were snobs, and had daughters of their own, not so pretty as Mollie, nor so nice. There had been slights, which had extended themselves to the day school at which she had been educated. During the two years before they had settled down at Abington she had been at a school in Paris, first as a pupil, then as a teacher. She had gained her French, but not much in the way of self-confidence. She too was pleased enough to live quietly in the country; she had had quite enough of living in a crowd. And Abington had been delightful to them, not only from the pleasure they had from the pretty cottage, all their own, but from the beauty of the country, and from the kindness with which they had been received by the Vicar and Mrs. Mercer, who had given them an intimacy which had not come into their lives before. For Mrs. Walter had dropped out from among her husband's friends, and had made no new ones as long as she had remained at the school.

      "You know, dear," Mollie was saying, "I rather dreaded going to the Abbey. I thought they might be sniffy and stuck up. But they're not a bit. I do think they are three of the nicest girls I've ever met, Mother. Don't you?"

      "Yes, I think they are very nice," said Mrs. Walter. "But you must be a little careful. I think that is what the Vicar's warning meant."

      "What, Mother?"

      "Well, you know he said that you should be careful about going there too much—never without a special invitation. He is so kind and thoughtful for us that I think he must have feared that they might perhaps take you up at first, as you are the only girl in the place besides themselves, and then drop you. In many ways their life is so different

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