“What on earth shall I do with myself all Tuesday?” he said again as he walked away from the churchyard on the Sunday evening. “I don’t know what these people do with themselves when there’s no hunting and shooting. It seems unnatural to me that a man shouldn’t have his bread to earn—or a woman either in some form.” After that he went back to his inn.
On the Monday he went out to Cornbury Grange late in the afternoon. Butler Cornbury drove into Baslehurst with a pair of horses, and took him back in his phaeton.
“Give my fellow your portmanteau. That’s all right. You never were at the Grange, were you? It’s the prettiest five miles of a drive in Devonshire; but the walk along the river is the prettiest walk in England—which is saying a great deal more.”
“I know the walk well,” said Rowan, “though I never was inside the park.”
“It isn’t much of a park. Indeed there isn’t a semblance of a park about it. Grange is just the name for it, as it’s an upper-class sort of homestead for a gentleman farmer. We’ve lived there since long before Adam, but we’ve never made much of a house of it.”
“That’s just the sort of place that I should like to have myself.”
“If you had it you wouldn’t be content. You’d want to pull down the house and build a bigger one. It’s what I shall do some day, I suppose. But if I do it will never be so pretty again. I suppose that fellow will petition; won’t he?”
“I should say he would;—though he won’t get anything by it.”
“He knows his purse is longer than ours, and he’ll think to frighten us;—and, by George, he will frighten us too! My father is not a rich man by any means.”
“You should stand to your guns now.”
“I mean to do so, if I can. My wife’s father is made of money.”
“What! Mr. Comfort?”
“Yes. He’s been blessed with the most surprising number of unmarried uncles and aunts that ever a man had. He’s rather fond of me, and likes the idea of my being in Parliament. I think I shall hint to him that he must pay for the idea. Here we are. Will you come and take a turn round the place before dinner?”
Rowan was then taken into the house and introduced to the old squire, who received him with the stiff urbanity of former days.
“You are welcome to the Grange, Mr. Rowan. You’ll find us very quiet here; which is more, I believe, than can have been said of Baslehurst these last two or three days. My daughter-in-law is somewhere with the children. She’ll be here before dinner. Butler, has that tailor fellow gone back to London yet?”
Butler told his father that the tailor had at least gone away from Baslehurst; and then the two younger men went out and walked about the grounds till dinner time.
It was Mrs. Butler Cornbury who gave soul and spirit to daily life at Cornbury Grange—who found the salt with which the bread was quickened, and the wine with which the heart was made glad. Marvellous is the power which can be exercised, almost unconsciously, over a company, or an individual, or even upon a crowd by one person gifted with good temper, good digestion, good intellects, and good looks. A woman so endowed charms not only by the exercise of her own gifts, but she endows those who are near her with a sudden conviction that it is they whose temper, health, talents, and appearance is doing so much for society. Mrs. Butler Cornbury was such a woman as this. The Grange was a popular house. The old squire was not found to be very dull. The young squire was thought to be rather clever. The air of the house was lively and bracing. Men and women did not find the days there to be over long. And Mrs. Butler Cornbury did it all.
Rowan did not see her till he met her in the drawing-room, just before dinner, when he found that two or three other ladies were also staying there. She came up to him when he entered the room, and greeted him as though he were an old friend. All conversation at that moment of course had reference to the election. Thanks were given and congratulations received; and when old Mr. Cornbury shook his head, his daughter-in-law assured him that there would be nothing to fear.
“I don’t know what you call nothing to fear, my dear. I call two thousand pounds a great deal to fear.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if we don’t hear another word about him,” said she.
The old man uttered a long sigh. “It seems to me,” said he, “that no gentleman ought to stand for a seat in Parliament since these people have been allowed to come up. Purity of election, indeed! It makes me sick. Come along, my dear.” Then he gave his arm to one of the young ladies, and toddled into the dining-room.
Mrs. Butler Cornbury said nothing special to Luke Rowan on that evening, but she made the hours very pleasant to him. All those half-morbid ideas as to social difference between himself and his host’s family soon vanished. The house was very comfortable, the girls were very pretty, Mrs. Cornbury was very kind, and everything went very well. On the following morning it was nearly ten when they sat down to breakfast, and half the morning
