The Hall and the Grange Part 1

The Hall and the Grange.

by Archibald Marshall.

CHAPTER I

THE HALL

Colonel Eldridge was enjoying an afternoon doze, or a series of dozes, in the Sabbath peace of his garden. His enjoyment was positive, for he had a prejudice against sleeping in the day-time, and sat upright in his basket chair with no support to his head; so that when sleep began to overtake him he nodded heavily and woke up again. If he had provided himself with a cushion from one of the chairs or lounges by his side, he would have slumbered blissfully, but would have been lost to the charm of his surroundings.

These included a great expanse of lawn, mown and rolled and tended to a sheeny perfection of soft rich colour; the deep shade of n.o.bly branching trees in their dark dress of mid-July; bright flower-beds; the terraced front of a squarely built stone house of a comfortably established age.

These were for the eye to rest upon after one of those heavy nods, and to carry their message of s.p.a.cious seclusion and domestic well-being.

For the other senses there were messages that conveyed the same meaning--the hot brooding peace of the July afternoon, tempered by the soft stirring of flower-scented breezes, the drone of bees and of insects less usefully employed, the occasional sweet pipe of birds still mindful of earlier courtships, the grateful and secure absence of less mundane sounds. The house was empty, except for servants, who obtruded themselves neither on sight nor hearing. The tennis net on the levelled s.p.a.ce by the rose garden hung in idle curves. Colonel Eldridge had the whole wide verdurous garden to himself, and the house, too, if he cared to enter it. Though he liked to have his family around him as a general rule, he found it pleasant to keep his own company thus for an hour or so.

He was just approaching the time when one of those droops which punctuated his light slumbers would wake him up to a more lively sense of well-being, and he would take up the book that lay on his knee, when his half-closed eyes took in a figure emerging from the trees among which the lawn lost itself at the lower end of the garden. He aroused himself and waved a welcoming hand, which meant among other things: "Here you have a wide-awake man reading a book on Sunday afternoon, but you need not be afraid of disturbing him." The grateful la.s.situde, however, which enveloped his frame prevented his rising to greet his brother, who came towards him with an answering wave of the hand, and took a seat by his side.

There was not much difference in the age of the two brothers, which was somewhere in the fifties. In appearance, also, they were something alike, of the same height and build, and with the same air of wearing their years well. Colonel Eldridge had the military caste impressed upon him, with closely cropped hair underneath his straw hat, small grey moustache, and a little net-work of wrinkles about his keen blue eyes.

His clothes were neat and un.o.btrusive, as of a man who gets the best tailoring and leaves it at that.

Sir William Eldridge also, quite obviously, got the best tailoring. He wore a suit of soft brown, with boots polished to an enviable pitch; the narrow sleeves of his jacket, ornamented with four b.u.t.tons, showed the doubled-over cuffs of his blue flannel shirt, fastened with enamelled links; a gay bandana tie heightened the agreeable contrast of blue and brown; his soft felt hat was of light grey, with a black band. With a new pair of chamois leather gloves he would have been beautifully dressed for any occasion that did not demand a silk hat and whatever should go with it. But he wore or carried no gloves for a walk of half a mile across the fields, by the river, from Hayslope Grange, where he lived, to Hayslope Hall, his brother's house. He had the same regularity of feature as his brother; his hair was a shade or two greyer, but he looked some years younger, with his fresh skin and his active figure.

There was almost an exuberance about him. If Colonel Eldridge had allowed his hair to grow longer than convention demanded, it would only have looked as if it wanted cutting. If Sir William had done so it would have seemed natural to his type.

"Been having a little nap?" he said, as he dropped into a chair by his brother's side.

Colonel Eldridge flinched ever so little. His strict regard for truth forbade him to deny the charge, but it should not have been brought against him. "Couldn't have much of a nap sitting up in a chair like this," he said, rather brusquely.

Sir William ignored this. "How jolly and peaceful it is here," he said.

"Really, I don't know a more delicious garden than this anywhere. It would take a hundred years to produce just this effect at the Grange, though I've spent pots of money over the gardens there."

"Gardening with a golden spade," said his brother. "You can't do everything with money."

"You can do a good deal. And if you've got big trees you can do practically everything. The misfortune about the Grange is that there are no big trees immediately around the house. If there had been I should have aimed at something of this sort. I could have got the lawn all right. It's the best sort of garden to look out on--an expanse of lawn and shady trees--quiet and green and peaceful. You're quite right, Edmund. With all I've done, and all I've spent on my garden, it's fussy compared to this. You remember I wanted you to do certain things here, when I first got keen on the game. Well, I'm glad you didn't. If you had, I should have wanted you to undo them by this time."

Colonel Eldridge smiled, his momentary pique forgotten. "Oh, well, people come miles to see your garden," he said. "It's worth seeing. But on the whole I'd rather have this one to live in."

"Ah, that's it; you've just hit it. There's all the difference between a garden to look at and a garden to live in. I've come to see that, and I suppose you've always seen it. I generally do come around to your views in the long run, old fellow. In this matter of a lawn shaded by trees, I've come round so completely that I've got to have it, though I'm afraid I can't have it to walk straight out of the house onto, and to look at from my windows. But there's that four-acre field--Barton's Close--down by the wood. I want to bring that in--I suppose you'll have no objection. By thinning out a bit, so as to leave some of the bigger trees isolated, and planting judiciously, I can get the effect there."

"Rather a pity to cut up old pasture, isn't it? And it must be half a mile from the house."

"Oh, nothing like as much as that--not more than five hundred yards, I should say. I wish it were nearer; but it will be effective to lead down to it by a path through the corner of the wood. You'll come upon a charming, restful, retired place that you hadn't been expecting. I only wish the lake had been closer, so as to have brought that in; but I think we could get a vista by cutting down a few trees. I might ask you to consider that later on; but we'd better see how the lawn turns out first."

"I don't think I should want to cut down trees there, William. Whatever distance Barton's Close may be from the Grange, the lake is certainly over a mile. You can't turn the whole place into a garden. As it is, it's overweighted. You've got to consider the future. It would have been all right if poor Hugo had lived. He'd have succeeded me here, and I suppose Norman would have gone on living at the Grange after you."

"Oh, I know, old fellow, but--"

"Let me finish. When I die, and you or Norman come here, Cynthia and the girls will have to live at the Grange. It's much too big a place for them already. I dare say you'd get a big rent for it; but that's not what they'll want. They would have had enough to live on there as it used to be; but with the way things are going now it'll be a place that will want a lot of keeping up. It will want a good deal more keeping up than this."

"Of course you're right to think about the future, old fellow." Sir William spoke more slowly, leaning forward in his chair with his elbows on his knees and tapping his stick on the turf. "I've thought about it a good deal, too. Things are altered now--unfortunately. I come into it more, don't I?--I and Norman."

"Oh, yes, of course. Still, I'm not an old man yet. And Cynthia.... It's not out of the question.... But we needn't think of that. The chances are you'll succeed me. But for a good many years yet--in the ordinary way--I shall be here at Hayslope, and--"

He did not finish, and Sir William did not help him out. He frowned a little as he sat looking down on the gra.s.s and tapping his stick, but there was no alteration in the kindly tone of his speech when he said after a time: "If Cynthia bears you another son, n.o.body will be more pleased than I shall. Some people might think I didn't mean that, but you know better. That's why we can talk over the future between us without misunderstanding one another."

Colonel Eldridge stirred in his seat. "Oh, yes, Bill," he said. "You don't want to step into my shoes yet a while. I know that well enough.

You will step into them sooner or later. I know that, too. We shan't have any more children. And as for what's to come after us, Norman will make a better squire of Hayslope than poor Hugo could have done. I wouldn't say so to Cynthia--I don't know that I'd say it to anybody but you--but I've come to see that the poor fellow had made too much of a mess of things for us to have hoped that he'd ever pull up. I feel no bitterness against him--G.o.d knows. I did; but that's all wiped out. I loved him when he was a little fellow, and I never really left off loving him, though he brought me a lot of trouble. Now I'm free to love his memory. He did well at the end."

"Oh, yes. You can be proud of him. There was lots of good in him, and it came out at the last. No need to think about all the rest. I haven't thought about it for a long time."

"Well, I've got to think of it occasionally, I'm afraid. Things are still difficult because of poor Hugo. But--"

"Look here, old fellow--why don't you let me wipe all that off? I can do it without bothering myself in the least."

"Thanks, Bill, you're very good. But I'll bear my own burdens."

"Between you and me--what is there to quibble about? I've been lucky in life. But you're a better man than I am, when all's said and done. And you're the head of the family. We ought to stand together--'specially now, when I'm almost in the same position towards you as Hugo was, you might say. Take it as done for Hayslope. In a way, I'm as much interested in the place as you are."

"Thanks, William, but this is a personal matter. Most of my income comes from the place, but I'm only tenant for life. I've got to make good on my own account. It means a bit of skimping, but that's all. There's enough for me and Cynthia and the girls, and I'll hand over Hayslope to you, or whoever it may be, as I received it from our father."

"Well, I won't press you. But you know at any time that the money's there if you want it, and you'll give me pleasure if you'll take it.

What's money between you and me? I've been in the way of making it and you haven't. There you have it in a nutsh.e.l.l. But after all, I'm not a money-grubber. I only care for it for what it will bring. It's at your service any time, Edmund--five thousand, ten thousand--whatever you want to clear off that old trouble. Take it from me, that you'll be doing me a real pleasure if you'll ask for it at any time. Are you coming over to tea? I promised Eleanor I'd get back. I think there'll be some people from the Castle."

He rose from his seat. Colonel Eldridge retained his. "I don't think I'll come, thanks," he said, with a slight frown. "I don't particularly care about meeting people from the Castle."

Sir William looked away. There was a slight frown on his face now, but not of annoyance. "I know it's rather difficult for you," he said. "But wouldn't it be better to face it? You must meet them sooner or later.

And as far as they are concerned, it's all over. There'd be no real awkwardness. As a matter of fact I don't think that the Crowboroughs are coming themselves. It's the Branchleys--who are staying with them. If they do come, there'd be more or less of a crowd--with all the young people. You'd get over the first meeting, and then it would all be buried."

"I know I've got to meet them some time or other. I know that Crowborough did have cause for complaint against Hugo. But he went much too far, and I can never forget it, now the poor boy's dead."

"You couldn't have forgotten it if he hadn't taken back the worst of what he accused Hugo of. I admit that. But he did take it back, didn't he?"

"Well, did he? That's what I'm not so sure about. I've got to behave as if he did--I know that. If we were to have it out together again, there's likely to be such a row that we should be enemies for life. I don't want that, for the sake of Cynthia and the girls. I suppose he doesn't want it, either, or he wouldn't have tried to mend the row we did have."

"But, surely--"

"I know what you're going to say. He wrote and said he'd never intended to accuse Hugo of swindling young Horsham. It was the way I'd taken what he did say that made him lose his temper and go farther than he'd meant to. That's all very well. But he didn't withdraw the charge."

There was a look of perplexity on Sir William's face as he stood by his brother, preparing to leave him, but not to leave the discussion into which they had so lightly drifted with a ragged edge of uncertainty.

"Poor Hugo!" he said. "He made trouble for you, Edmund--for all of us.

It's all forgiven and ought to be forgotten. But where it remains alive it ought to be faced, oughtn't it? He did lead Jim Horsham into bad ways. You've admitted as much as that."

"Yes, I did admit it. It was bad enough. But to lay that a son of mine cheated a brother officer out of a large sum of money--! That was the accusation."

"Crowborough made it when he was worked up about what he had discovered, and he withdrew it."

It was Colonel Eldridge who ended the discussion, and allowed his brother to go free. "Well, that's what we began with," he said. "I'm ready to act on the supposition that he did withdraw it. But I don't feel inclined to meet him this afternoon, William. Thanks all the same."

Sir William took his departure. His brother watched his smart, alert figure crossing the lawn, until it was lost among the trees at the bottom of the garden. Then he rose and sauntered slowly towards the house, and his face was thoughtful and disturbed--more disturbed than the previous conversation might have seemed to warrant.