MRS. STAMFORD, the wife of the Squire of the parish, stood before the
mantelpiece awaiting the arrival of the new Vicar. She was a tall, spare
woman, and her garments always seemed to cling to her, not because they
couldn’t come off, but because they dared not. Even in repose, Mrs.
Stamford always looked as if she had that moment finished doing
something energetic, or were just about to start again.
“Pleased to see you, Mr. Deane,” she said, when Andy, very flat and
shining about the head, was ushered in. “Only got back a day or two
since, or we should have looked you up before. Have you got settled
down? How d’you like Gaythorpe?”
She fired these remarks with such directness that Andy could not help
feeling as if some one had thrown something at him.
“I like it immensely.” Then, after a moment’s pause, and with a good
deal of effort, “I am more than grateful to you and Mr. Stamford——”
“Oh, that’s all right; we’ll take that as read,” interrupted Mrs.
Stamford with a short laugh so exactly like that of William the parrot
that Andy could not help having a bewildered feeling that she would next
begin to draw corks as well. However, she looked towards the door behind
her guest instead, and remarked in a voice which she kept for that one
topic—
“Here is my son, Dick.”
A tall young fellow, very like his mother, but somehow indefinably
weaker, came forward and shook hands without effusion.
“Got settled down yet?”
“Quite, thank you.”
“You’ll find it dullish, I expect.”
“No—rather exciting, so far.”
The young men took each other’s measure, and then Dick Stamford said in
a different tone—
“Well, come in and have a game of billiards with me when you’ve nothing
better to do.”
“Thanks, I shall be very pleased,” said Andy.
It was queer how anxiously Mrs. Stamford had looked from one to the
other during the little conversation, and more odd still that this
tough, unemotional woman should be unable to keep back a long sigh of
relief when it was over.
“Have a turn in the garden until the others turn up?” said Dick, after a
pause.
So the two young men went out, and a moment later Mr. Stamford came into
the room, limping slightly, and walking with a stick. As he closed the
door he looked across anxiously at his wife.
“Well?”
“I think it will be a success. He has taken Mr. Deane round the garden.”
“I wonder, Ellen, if we ought not to have let him remain in the Guards.
He showed no tendency to drink when he was with his regiment, so far as
I know.”
Mrs. Stamford’s mouth set into those firm lines her husband knew so
well.
“It was his duty to come home and look after things when your accident
made you unable to do so. He will be master here. He must learn how to
manage the estate.”
Mr. Stamford smiled at his wife, and it could be seen then whence Dick’s
weakness came.
“You wanted him home, Ellen, and so did I.”
“I should never have suggested it if I had not thought it the right
thing,” said Mrs. Stamford, flushing a little.
“Of course not—of course not,” agreed her husband. “Young companionship
is all he needs, and I think Mr. Deane will supply that deficiency. It
was his open look and pleasant, manly tone that struck me when I first
heard him preach. ‘Just the sort of young fellow to make a nice
companion for Dick,’ I said to myself.” He rubbed his hands together as
he repeated this little story for the hundredth time, after the manner
of people who live deep in the country and have little to talk about. “I
went straight to my cousin after the service and asked if the lad
wouldn’t do for us.”
“Your cousin thought it an unsuitable appointment. He wanted you to take
the senior curate,” said Mrs. Stamford, “and in some ways he was quite
right. Of course this boy can’t preach.”
“No.” Mr. Stamford chuckled. “I believe, though, he thinks he got the
living on account of that sermon about Saul.”
“Oh, well, so long as he doesn’t preach more than half an hour _I_ don’t
care what he says.”
They were both smiling as the two young men came in through the glass
door, and then luncheon was announced.
“Mrs. Atterton and Elizabeth can’t be coming,” said Mrs. Stamford,
glancing at the clock. “Anyhow, we won’t wait any longer.”
So they went across the spacious old hall into a dining-room where
everything was so harmonious and so mellowed by long companionship, that
you noticed the various objects in it at first no more than you do, at
first sight, the details of any beautiful thing which has grown and not
been made. Mr. Stamford himself was no more conscious of his
treasure-house than he was of the nose upon his face. He was, of course,
in some hidden place, proud of both. The nose was the best kind of nose,
and the house was the best kind of house, and it would have been
incongruous if a Stamford of Gaythorpe Manor had been provided with a
nose or a house that was less than the best; but he felt no more
inclination to draw his visitor’s attention to his surroundings than to
his nose.
“Cold beef, please,” said Andy, in answer to the butler’s discreet
inquiries; and when the man returned with quite a mountain of thins
slices on the plate he felt too much of a stranger to offer any
remonstrance.
Mrs. Stamford gave the man an imperceptible nod of approval, for it had
already penetrated to her ears—as such things do penetrate in country
places—that the new Vicar had an enormous appetite.
But Andy wrestled with the cold beef, all unheeding, for it takes a
lifetime to learn—and some happy ones never learn—how different are
people’s thoughts of us from what we imagine they must be—not worse,
necessarily, or better, but so extraordinarily different.
Then a cart went past the window to the front door and they all looked
up.
“Elizabeth at last. Dick!” said his mother.
The young man left his luncheon and went, with more alertness than Andy
had supposed him capable of, to welcome the belated guest. A minute
later he returned with her, and Mr. and Mrs. Stamford both glanced with
pleased eyes at the tall, gallant-looking couple who came down the long
room together. Evidently, felt Andy, there was something in the air,
though he saw, when Elizabeth sat down, that she had no engagement ring
on her finger.
“I’m so sorry to be late,” she said, “but at the last moment mamma’s
back gave way.”
“Oh, how unfortunate; but I quite understand,” responded Mrs. Stamford,
more nearly gushing than Andy could have believed possible.
“I hoped Mrs. Atterton’s back had been better of late,” said Mr.
Stamford.
Then Mrs. Stamford added, to draw the stranger into the conversation,
“Poor Mrs. Atterton is troubled with a weak back, Mr. Deane.”
Thus was Andy introduced to that feature of Gaythorpe society—Mrs.
Atterton’s back. He looked across at Elizabeth and remembered vividly
his first sight of her, shining out, as it were, between the drab,
middle-aged crowd, and his secret resentment against her was increased.
She obviously had everything; it must have been simply a childish desire
to ‘best’ him which had led her to bid against him until he was obliged
to pay some pounds more than he need have done.
“And how,” said Elizabeth, leaning towards him, “do you like Gaythorpe?”
The question did not surprise him, because it would have been much more
unusual at this period if any one had failed to ask it; but what did
astonish him was the change in Elizabeth’s manner from the extreme
stiffness of their last parting to an eager kindness that made Andy say
to himself, with some pleasant feeling of man-of-the-worldness, that she
was evidently the sort who would flirt with a broomstick if nothing else
were available. _He_ had known that kind in London town. And he winked
to himself astutely over the fruit-tart as he responded to her overtures
with some reserve.
After luncheon they all went into the garden, and just for a moment,
while Dick fetched the key of one of the fruit-houses, and Mrs. Stamford
was settling her husband in his long chair, Andy and the young lady were
alone together on a broad grass walk beside a hedge of lilacs. There was
a border of flowering plants on the other side just coming into bloom,
and at the end you could see a little figure of Love without an arm
under a copper beech. Somewhere in the distance a pigeon was cooing. The
full sun lay very calm and bright and even over the old stable tower and
the long house, and the grass path before them. The stable clock chimed
a quarter to three. It all seemed the very embodiment of age-long
prosperity and pleasant ease.
Andy felt at peace with all the world. She could flirt with him if she
liked—he didn’t care.
“So you’re fond of walking?” he said indulgently, continuing a topic
started at luncheon.
“Yes,” she said, staring at the grass path. Then she put out a hand, not
touching him, only nearly, and the colour in her cheeks deepened until
they were like some exquisite fruit that a young sun had kissed in
orchards that belonged to the youth of the world. But Elizabeth was
always greatly annoyed at her trick of blushing, and compared herself
bitterly to a beetroot.
“You were going to say!” remarked Andy.
“Oh, there’s Mr. Stamford coming. I must tell you. I’ve been to see Mrs.
Simpson,” said Elizabeth.
“Well?” said Andy, taken aback.
“You wanted it for her. And I bid against you until you had to pay
pounds more than you need have done. And you must have had so many
expenses getting into your house. And it was all so idiotic of me. My
sister always says I’m an idiot, and I am. I only stopped when I did
because I hadn’t another penny until next July.”
“Why”—Andy stood still, facing her, and the most wonderful scent from
all the sun-warmed lilacs blew across them—enveloped them—“why—you
wanted it for Mrs. Simpson too?”
“You surely couldn’t think,” said Elizabeth, “that I wanted that beast
for _myself_!”
“You thought I did,” muttered Andy.
“Oh—a man—that’s different,” said Miss Elizabeth.
“My furniture is all Sheraton—modern, of course, but good in style,”
said Andy loftily. Then he saw Elizabeth’s hair against the lilacs, all
brown and gold, and something made him forget he was the new Vicar—he
was a boy and she a girl, with a joke between them. “I say,” he
chuckled, “you know it wouldn’t go into her house. She’s made me put her
sideboard into my dining-room.”
Ha-ha-ha! They laughed together for the first time, and the sound
mingled with the rustling of young leaves and the love-song of a thrush,
as much a part of the sweetness of nature in springtime as the rest.
Then Dick Stamford came towards them with his mother, and Elizabeth
slipped her arm through that of the elder woman with her little air of
reposeful tenderness which sat almost oddly on a young girl. She had
that sort of kindness in her ways which most girls only learn from their
first baby, and her voice held deep notes which caught the heart every
now and then, breaking her light chatter like a stone in a narrow
stream.
“You’ll stay tea, Elizabeth, and then Dick shall take you home,” said
Mrs. Stamford.
“I’m awfully sorry, but I must have the cart round in half an hour.
Mamma’s back——” apologised Elizabeth.
So mamma’s back was not only a convenience to herself, personally.
Then Andy said good-bye, and Mrs. Stamford, leaving Dick and Elizabeth
alone, strolled down the drive with her other guest.
“You will find Gaythorpe very quiet,” said Mrs. Stamford at the gate,
obviously thinking of something else, and yet lingering.
Andy glanced back at it all, and a sudden vivid picture of the tumult of
things warring beyond this quiet place struck across his mind.
“This seems——” He sought a way to say it, but none came. “This does
seem quiet.” He tried again. “Seems as if it had been lived in easily
for ages.”
“Um. Well, people have no leisure to live now; they’ve only time to make
a living,” said Mrs. Stamford absently. Then she said what she had been
meaning to say all down the drive. “My son is a great deal alone here in
the evenings. More alone than is good for him. I shall be grateful if
you will come in when you can and have a game of billiards. You play,
don’t you?”
“Oh yes—we had a couple of tables at the Men’s Institute in my last
parish. I shall be very pleased to come,” said Andy.
So he went away down the road, feeling that pleasant as the world had
been that morning early, it was immensely more delightful now.
Two urchins watched him go up the road, then squashed disreputable hats
down on their brows and began to imitate his professional stride which
he had unconsciously copied on first arrival in London from the senior
curate.
“Parson Andy walks like this! Parson Andy walks like this!” they chanted
together under their breath, stepping down the road behind him.
For by this abbreviation was the Reverend Andrew Deane already known to
his parishioners. It was inevitable, of course, but as yet he remained
in blissful ignorance of the fact, and only the night before had
secretly burned a satin tie-case on which a tactless cousin had
embroidered ‘Andy.’
As he went across the churchyard, taking the short-cut home, he glanced
once more at the gravestone of Gulielmus; and having glanced, he stood a
moment, thinking.
It was most probable that this dead brother of his had been entertained
by a Stamford of Gaythorpe Manor, just as he had been. Will Ford—who
was now Gulielmus—had no doubt walked back by the very path beside
which his body now lay sleeping.
What had he felt? Why had he never married? How had life gone with him?
Andy was standing very still in the warm quiet of the spring afternoon
when suddenly a sense of jolly-good-fellowship and kindness seemed to
fill his spirit—as if some comrade had passed that way and shouted a
merry greeting. There was nothing strange or abnormal about it, either
then or in the ineffaceable after-remembrance of it.
Only—Andy had felt on his first journey to Gaythorpe as if, across the
centuries, he greeted a brother; now he felt as if, across the
centuries, a brother greeted him.