They talked about this now, over the tea-table. "It will be jolly to have all that space round you and to feel that it belongs to you," said Caroline. "I shall love to go out in the morning and stroll about, without a hat, and pick flowers."
"And watch them coming up," said Barbara. "That's what I shall like. And not having always to go out with the Dragon. Of course, I shall generally want you to come with me, darling, and I should always behave exactly as if you were there—naturally, as I'm a good girl. But I expect you will like to go out by yourself sometimes too, without one of the Graftons always hanging to you."
"You'll like the country, won't you, dear?" asked Beatrix. "I think you must go about with a key-basket, and feed the sparrows after breakfast."
"I was brought up in the country," said Miss Waterhouse. "I shall feel more at home there than you will."
"Your mother would have loved the garden," said Grafton. "She always missed her garden."
"Grandfather showed me the corner she had at Frampton when she was little," said Caroline. "There's an oak there where she planted an acorn. It takes up nearly the whole of it now."
"Where is it?" asked her father. "I never knew that. I should like to see it."
Caroline described the spot to him. "Ah, yes," he said, "I do remember now; she showed it me herself when we were engaged."
"Grandfather showed it to me too," said Beatrix.
"Yes, I know," said Caroline quickly. "You were there."
Their mother was often spoken of in this way, naturally, and not with any sadness or regret. Caroline remembered her. Beatrix said she did, and was inclined to be a little jealous of Caroline's memories.
"I think I'll come with you after all, to-morrow," said Beatrix. "I can put off my fencing for once."
"Yes, do, darling," said Caroline. "You and I and Dad will have a jolly day together."
CHAPTER II
THE VICAR
The Vicar of Abington was the Reverend A. Salisbury Mercer, M.A., with a tendency towards hyphenation of the two names, though the more resounding of them had been given to him at baptism in token of his father's admiration for a great statesman. He was middle-sized, but held himself in such a way as to give the impression of height, or at least of dignity. His dignity was, indeed, dear to him, and his chief quarrel with the world, in which he had otherwise made himself very comfortable, was that there were so many people who failed to recognise it. His wife, however, was not one of them. She thought him the noblest of men, and more often in the right than not. He was somewhere in the early fifties, and she about ten years younger. She was a nice good-tempered little lady, inclined to easy laughter, but not getting much occasion for it in her home, for the Reverend A. Salisbury Mercer took life seriously, as became a man of his profession. She had brought him money—not a great deal of money, but enough to give him a well-appointed comfortable home, which the emoluments of Abington Vicarage would not have given him of themselves. In clerical and clerically-minded society he was accustomed to complain of the inequalities of such emoluments in the Church of England. "Look at Abington," he would say, some time in the course of the discussion. "There's a fine church, which wants a good deal of keeping up, and there's a good house; but the value of the living has come down to about a hundred and thirty a year. No man without private means—considerable private means—could possibly afford to take it. And those men are getting scarcer and scarcer. After me, I don't know what will happen at Abington."
The village of Abington consisted mainly of one broad street lined on either side with red brick houses, cottages and little shops. The Vicarage was a good-sized Georgian house which abutted right on to the pavement, and had cottages built against it on one side and its own stable-yard on the other. The Vicar was often inclined to complain of its consequent lack of privacy, but the fact that its front windows provided an uninterrupted view of the village street, and what went on there, went a good way towards softening the deprivation. For he liked to know what his flock were doing. He took a good deal of responsibility for their actions.
One of the front rooms downstairs was the study. The Vicar's writing-table was arranged sideways to the window, so that he could get the light coming from the left while he was writing. If he looked up he had a good view right down the village street, which took a very slight turn when the Vicarage was passed. Another reason he had for placing his table in this position was that it was a good thing for his parishioners to see him at work. "The idea that a clergyman's life is an easy one," he would say to any one who might show a tendency to advance or even to hold that opinion, "is quite wrong. His work is never ended, either within or without. I myself spend many hours a day at my desk, but all that the public sees of what I do there is represented by an hour or two in church during the week."
An irrepressible nephew of his wife engaged in London journalism, to whom this had once been said during a week-end visit, had replied: "Do you mean to say, Uncle, that the sermon you preached this morning took you hours to write up? I could have knocked it off in half an hour, and then I should have had most of it blue-pencilled."
That irreverent young man had not been asked to the house again, but it had been explained to him that sermon-writing was not the chief labour of a parish priest. He had a great deal of correspondence to get through, and he had to keep himself up in contemporary thought. The Vicar, indeed, did most of his reading sitting at his table, with his head propped on his hand. Few people could beat him in his knowledge of contemporary thought as infused through the brains of such writers as Mr. Philips Oppenheim, Mr. Charles Garvice, and Mr. William le Queux. Women writers he did not care for, but he made an exception in favour of Mrs. Florence Barclay, whose works he judged to contain the right proportions of strength and feeling. It must not be supposed that he was at all ashamed of his novel-reading, as some foolish people are. He was not ashamed of anything that he did, and, as for novels, he would point out that the proper study of mankind was man, and that next to studying the human race for yourself, it was the best thing to read the works of those authors who had trained themselves to observe it. Literature, as such, had nothing to do with it. If you wanted literature you could not have anything finer than certain parts of the Old Testament. It was hardly worth while going to modern authors for that. The more literature there was in a modern novel, the less human nature you would be likely to find. No; it would generally be found that the public taste was the right taste in these matters, whatever people who thought themselves superior might say. He himself claimed no superiority in such matters. He supposed he had a brain about as good as the average, but what was good enough for some millions of his fellow-countrymen was good enough for him. He preferred to leave Mr. Henry James to others who thought differently.
The "Daily Telegraph" came by the second post, at about twelve o'clock, and Mrs. Mercer was accustomed to bring it in to her husband, with whatever letters there were for him or for her. She liked to stay and chat with him for a time, and sometimes, if there was anything that invited discussion in her letters, he would encourage her to do so. But he generally happened to be rather particularly busy at this time, not, of course, with novel-reading, which was usually left till a later hour. He would just 'glance through the paper' and then she must really leave him. They could talk about anything that wanted talking about at lunch. He would glance through the paper hurriedly and then lay it aside and return to his writing; but when she had obediently left the room he would take up the paper again. It was necessary for him to know