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CHAPTER III

Nothing could be less like a messenger of Fate than a mahogany sideboard with a plate-glass back.

And yet —

“Here’s Mrs. Simpson’s little girl for the third time since seven!” said Mrs. Jebb, coming hastily into the room, with ribbon-strings all aflutter about her, as usual.

“What does she want?” said Andy, buttering his toast.

“Something about a sideboard,” said Mrs. Jebb, poised, as it were, upon one hand at the table corner. “Three times before breakfast about a sideboard! You really must make a stand, or you will never have a minute to call your own. You are too good-natured.”

And she turned her head slightly, so as to give Andy the benefit of that glance which the late Mr. Jebb found irresistible.

“Nonsense,” said Andy. “It’s what I’m paid for;” and he rustled his letters together, carefully avoiding the amorous eye.

“As your aunt remarked, in engaging my services,” said Mrs. Jebb, “it is a great thing for you to have a lady in the house. I hope you will let me help you in any way that I can.”

“Thank you. I’ll go round to Mrs. Simpson’s at once,” said Andy, leaving an excellent corner of the buttered toast. “By the way, I should like my potatoes soft in the middle if you don’t mind.”

“Of course. Anything you wish, please mention at once,” said Mrs. Jebb. Nothing could subdue her gaiety upon this summer morning, when the birds were singing, and the sun was shining, and Hope threw wreaths upon the tombstone of Mr. Jebb.

Andy glared at her.

“There is nothing more at present, thank you,” he said, going out; then Mrs. Jebb went to the window and looked after him with an easy tear in her eye.

“Impetuous,” she murmured, “impetuous, but sweet.”

Could Andy but have heard her!

However, by this time he was already entering the little garden before Mrs. Simpson’s cottage at the lane end, and all his thoughts were engrossed by the unexpected sight of the famous sideboard standings in sections around the creeper-covered doorway. The widow sat weeping on an empty box near that part containing the cellaret, while a dark, anxious-looking little girl of about six stood pulling her mother’s sleeve, and a big boy of three hammered the little girl with broad, fat fists.

“Stop that,” said Andy, seizing the boy from behind; but the culprit turned on him such a jolly, good-natured smile that he was disarmed, and only said lamely —

“You shouldn’t hit your little sister.”

“I haven’t got nobody elth to hit,” lisped the cherub, looking up at Andy with blue-eyed surprise.

“You mustn’t mind what he says,” interposed Sally anxiously. “Boys are born naughty. They can’t help it.”

Andy glanced at Mrs. Simpson, who still sat with her face hidden, evidently overcome by her feelings, and he braced himself for a scene of tearful gratitude. It was unpleasant, but no doubt inevitable, so the best thing to do was to get it over as soon as possible.

“H-hem! I see you got the sideboard all right, Mrs. Simpson. I am afraid it would be rather late last night before you received it, but the carrier – ”

“I’ve been sitting on this box since six, waiting to see you,” interposed Mrs. Simpson.

“Please don’t! Don’t say a word more. I’m only too delighted,” began Andy.

“There’s nothing,” wept Mrs. Simpson, “to be delighted about. It won’t go into the house. And you can’t keep a sideboard in a garden. Oh, I know you meant well, but this makes me realise my comedown more than anything else that has happened. After thinking I’d got it, it still has to go all the same. I dreamt last night that rows of great girls came up one after the other and banged hot-water cans down on the polished top, and when I wasn’t dreaming I was looking out of the window to see if it rained. And Mrs. Werrit will get my sideboard after all. And the Thorpe family will say they were in the right not to buy it in for me. And I shall look like a fool. I hate people that always turn out to be right in the end.”

It was a very long speech for Mrs. Simpson, who was usually neither tearful nor garrulous, and Andy saw that the woman had been stirred to the foundations of her being.

“What can I do? If I could do anything?” he said helplessly.

Mrs. Simpson dabbed her eyes with a black-bordered handkerchief and tried to pull herself together.

“I never gave way like this before – not even when my husband died. And you mustn’t think me ungrateful. It was very kind indeed of you to buy the sideboard for me. Only, you see how it all is.”

“Well, suppose we get the thing moved away from here at once,” said Andy, ruefully surveying the scene.

Mrs. Simpson looked at him.

“There’s one thing – but I don’t suppose you would – one couldn’t expect – ”

“What is it?” demanded Andy. “I’d do anything I could, but I don’t see – ”

“Well, I was wondering if you could possibly take care of it for me at the Vicarage until I did get a house where there was room for it.”

“Why, splendid!” said Andy. “The very thing. Of course I will.”

“Splendid!” said Jimmy, butting at Andy’s legs like a young goat.

“And mother can go across and shine it, can’t she?” said Sally gravely. “She doesn’t never let anybody shine it but herself.”

“Of course she can,” said Andy, “and you too. I have heaps of empty rooms.”

“But it must be in a room with a fire,” said Mrs. Simpson, beginning to weep again. “It would soon look different if it was put away in an unoccupied room.”

“It’s not a piano,” smiled Andy. “Oh, it’ll be all right in the drawing-room. That isn’t furnished yet you know.”

“It ought to be in a room with a fire,” persisted Mrs. Simpson, setting her lips.

“But my study is not large enough, and the dining-room is fully furnished. I really could not – ”

“Of course. I said not from very first. I couldn’t expect it,” said Mrs. Simpson, rising with resigned sadness. “Shall I let Mrs. Will Werrit know, or will you?”

“But, Mrs. Simpson, I assure you it’ll be perfectly all right,” urged Andy.

“I’m sure you think so, Mr. Deane, and I’m most grateful to you for what you’ve done. I’ll drop a line to Mrs. Will Werrit at once.”

She turned to go into the cottage and Jimmy set up a piercing yell, the tired little girl whimpered; there were loose straw and paper blowing desolately about the garden. It seemed most melancholy to Andy, this everyday trouble of a broken-up home. The dreariness of it pierced through the young hope and glamour that surrounded him, and for one dull moment he heard the hopeless chant which underlies all life: “Is it worth while? Is it worth while?”

As Andy stood there, staring blankly at the dust and straw, the tasteful appearance of his dining-room seemed quite suddenly to be a very small thing – and he had thought it so tremendously important.

“We will put your sideboard into the dining-room, then, until we find a better place for it,” he said.

“Well, that is good of you – though it’s an ornament to any room,” said Mrs. Simpson, brightening at once. “We must make some arrangement by which it becomes your property altogether if I die first,” she added, in a burst of real gratitude.

“No,” said Andy, driven to asserting himself at last by the idea of being saddled with the sideboard for life. “No. To that I will never agree.” He paused. “But there’s no need to talk about dying at present.”

Mrs. Simpson dried her eyes, folded her hands, and spoke with almost her wonted tranquillity.

“You never know. Anybody would have taken a lease of Mr. Simpson’s life.”

“I am sorry I never knew your husband,” said Andy, resuming his professional manner.

“Well,” said Mrs. Simpson, “I don’t suppose you’d have seen much of him if he’d been here. He didn’t like the clergy. Not that he had anything against them, but he didn’t like them.” She paused, then, wishful to avoid offence, she added: “It was just a matter of taste. He never could eat oysters either, and they’re a delicacy, as everybody knows.”

“Of course,” said Andy solemnly, his face grave but his heart light with laughter, and the dolorous chanting of the underworld forgotten.

Life was a splendid thing – like the spring morning – and something glorious must be round the corner.

CHAPTER IV

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.