They all got into the big car and arrived at the Vicarage, where they were introduced to Mrs. Mercer, and allowed to depart again after apologies given and accepted, and the requisite number of minutes devoted to polite conversation.
The Vicar and his wife stood at the front door as they packed themselves again into the car. "Oh, what delightful people!" the little lady exclaimed as they drove off, with valedictory waving of hands from all three of them. "They will be an acquisition to us, won't they? I have never seen a prettier girl than Miss Grafton, and such charming manners, and so nicely dressed. And he is so nice too, and how pretty it is to see father and daughter so fond of one another! Quite an idyll, I call it. Aren't you pleased, Albert dear? I am."
Albert dear was not pleased, as the face he turned upon her showed when she had followed him into his study. "The way that Worthing takes it upon himself to set aside my arrangements and affect a superiority over me in the place where I should be chief is really beyond all bearing," he said angrily. "It has happened time and again before, and I am determined that it shall not happen any further. The very next time I see him I shall give him a piece of my mind. My patience is at an end. I will not stand it any longer."
Mrs. Mercer drooped visibly. She had to recall exactly what had happened before she could get at the causes of his displeasure, which was a painful shock to her. He had given, for him, high praise to the new-comers over the luncheon-table, and she had exulted in the prospect of having people near at hand and able to add so much to the pleasures of life with whom she could make friends and not feel that she was disloyal to her husband in doing so. And her raptures over them after she had met them in the flesh had not at all exaggerated her feelings. She was of an enthusiastic disposition, apt to admire profusely where she admired at all, and these new people had been so very much worthy of admiration, with their good looks and their wealth and their charming friendly manners. However, if it was only Mr. Worthing with whom her husband was annoyed, that perhaps could be got out of the way, and he would be ready to join her in praise of the Graftons.
"Well, of course, it was rather annoying that they should be whisked off like that when we had hoped to have had them to talk to comfortably," she said. "But I thought you didn't mind, dear. Mr. Grafton only has a few hours here, and I suppose it is natural that he should want to go round the estate. We shall see plenty of them when they come here to live."
"That is not what I am objecting to," said her husband. "Mr. Grafton made his excuses in the way a gentleman should, and it would have been absurd to have kept him to his engagement, though the girl might just as well have stayed. It can't be of the least importance that she should see the places where the high birds may be expected to come over, or whatever it is that they want to see. I don't care very much for the girl. There's a freedom about her manners I don't like."
"She has no mother, poor dear," interrupted Mrs. Mercer. "And her father evidently adores her. She would be apt to be older than her years in some respects. She was very nice to me."
"As I say," proceeded the Vicar dogmatically, "I've no complaint against the Graftons coming to apologise for not keeping their engagement. But I have a complaint when a man like Worthing comes into my house—who hardly ever takes the trouble to ask me into his—and behaves as if he had the right to over-ride me. I hate that detestable swaggering high-handed way of his, carrying off everything as if nobody had a right to exist except himself. He's no use to anybody here—hardly ever comes to church, and takes his own way in scores of matters that he ought to consult me about; even opposes my decisions if he sees fit, and seems to think that an insincere word or smile when he meets me takes away all the offence of it. It doesn't, and it shan't do so in this instance. I shall have it out with Worthing once and for all. When these new people come here I am not going to consent to be a cipher in my own parish, or as a priest of the church take a lower place than Mr. Worthing's; who is after all nothing more than a sort of gentleman bailiff."
"Well, he has got a sort of way of taking matters into his own hands," said Mrs. Mercer, "that isn't always very agreeable, perhaps. But he is nice in many ways, and I shouldn't like to quarrel with him."
She knew quite well, if she did not admit it to herself, that it would be impossible to quarrel with Worthing. She herself was inclined to like him, for he was always excessively friendly, and created the effect of liking her. But she did feel that he was inclined to belittle her husband's dignity, in the way in which he took his own course, and, if it conflicted with the Vicar's wishes, set his remonstrances aside with a breezy carelessness that left them both where they were, and himself on top. Also he was not regular in his attendance at church, though he acted as churchwarden. She objected to this not so much on purely religious grounds as because it was so uncomplimentary to her husband, which were also the grounds of the Vicar's objections.
"I don't wish to quarrel with him either," said the Vicar. "I don't wish to quarrel with anybody. I shall tell him plainly what I think, once for all, and leave it there. It will give him a warning, too, that I am not to be put aside with these new people. If handled properly I think they may be valuable people to have in the parish. A man like Grafton is likely to want to do the right thing when he comes to live in the country, and he is quite disposed, I should say, to do his duty by the church and the parish. I shall hope to show him what it is, and I shall not allow myself to be interfered with by Mr. Worthing. I shall make it my duty, too, to give Grafton some warning about the people around. Worthing is a pastmaster in the art of keeping in with everybody, worthy or unworthy, and if the Graftons are guided by him they may let themselves in for friendships and intimacies which they may be sorry for afterwards."
"You mean the Manserghs," suggested Mrs. Mercer.
"I wasn't thinking of them particularly, but of course they are most undesirable people. They are rich and live in a big house, and therefore everything is forgiven them. Worthing, of course, is hand in glove with them—with a man with the manners of a boor and a woman who was divorced, and an actress at that—a painted woman."
"Well, she is getting on in years now, and I suppose people have forgotten a lot," said Mrs. Mercer. "And her first husband didn't divorce her, did he? She divorced him."
"What difference does that make? You surely are not going to stand up for her, are you? Especially after the way in which she behaved to you!"
"No," said Mrs. Mercer doubtfully. It was Lady Mansergh's behaviour to her husband that had hitherto been the chief cause of offence, her 'past' having been ignored until the time of the quarrel, or as the Vicar had since declared, unknown. "Oh, no, Albert, I think she is quite undesirable, as you say. And it would be a thousand pities if that nice girl, and her younger sisters, were to get mixed up with a woman like that. I think you should give Mr. Grafton a warning. Wilborough is the nearest big house to Abington, and I suppose it is natural that they should be friendly."
"I shall certainly do that. Mr. Grafton and Sir Alexander can shoot together and all that sort of thing, but it would be distinctly wrong for him to allow young girls like his daughters to be intimate with people like the Manserghs."
"The sons are nice, though. Fortunately Lady Mansergh is not their mother."
"Richard is away at sea most of the time, and Geoffrey is not particularly nice, begging your pardon. I saw him in the stalls of a theatre last year with a woman whose hair I feel sure was dyed. He is probably going the same way as his father. It would be an insult to a young and pure girl like Miss Grafton to encourage anything like intimacy between them."
"I expect they will make friends with the Pembertons. There are three girls in their family and three in that."
"It would be a very bad thing if they did. Three girls with the tastes of grooms, and the manners too. I shall never forget the insolent way in which that youngest one asked me if I didn't know what a bit of ribbon tied round a horse's tail meant when I was standing behind her at that meet at Surley Green, and when I didn't move at once that young