Edward Benson - Arundel

Edith had finished winding the clock when her mother got up.

"There is still half an hour before we need think of getting ready for church, dear," she said, "and we might go on planning our arrangements for next week. The maps are in the drawing-room, for Denton brought them in last night, but the print is so small that I should be glad if you would get my number two spectacles which I left in my bedroom. They are either on my dressing-table or on the small table by my bed. Filson will find them if you cannot put your hand on them. Oh, look; there are two starlings pecking at the garden-beds. How bold they are with the mowing-machine so close! I hope Ellis will scare them away from the asparagus."

Edith managed to find the number two spectacles without troubling Filson, and devoted her whole mind, which was as tranquil and lucid as her mother's, to the great question of the journey to Bath. Though the distance was something over a hundred miles, it was clearly better to risk being a little over-tired, and compass the whole in one day, rather than spend the night – perhaps not very comfortably – at some half-way country inn, where it was impossible to be certain about the sheets. After all, if the fatigue was severe a day's rest on arrival at Bath, postponing the treatment till the day after, would set things right. But in that case lunch must either be obtained at Reading, or, better still, they could take it with them in a luncheon-basket, and eat it en route . Denton could take his, too, and they would stop for half an hour to eat after Reading, thus dividing the journey into two halves. So far so good.

The question of Filson's journey was more difficult. If the day was fine she could, of course, travel outside with Denton, but if it was wet she would have to come inside – a less ideal arrangement with regard to knees. In that case also Lind would have to go up to town with the heavy luggage, and see it firmly bestowed in the Bath express at Paddington. At this point Edith triumphantly vindicated the superiority of two heads over one, and suggested that Filson should go up to town with the heavy luggage, and catch the 2.30 express (was it not?) at Paddington, thus arriving at Bath before them. Indeed, she would have time almost to unpack before they came.

The 2.30 train was verified, and thereafter all was clear. Lind would escort Filson and the heavy luggage to the station, and since Mrs. Williams would be putting up lunches anyhow, Filson could take hers as well… But it was time to get ready for church, and the question of cushions and cloaks for so long a drive which might be partly cold and partly warm must wait. But certainly Denton would have to come in either after church or in the evening, for the route, which appeared to lie straight down the Bath road, had not been tackled at all yet.

Mrs. Hancock's religious convictions and practices, which Edith entirely shared with her, were as comfortable as her domestic arrangements, but simpler, and they did not occupy her mind for so many hours daily. It must be supposed that she recognized the Christian virtue of charity, for otherwise she would not, in the course of the year, have knitted so large a quantity of thick scarves, made from a cheap but reliable wool, or have sent them to the wife of her parish clergyman for distribution among the needy. She worked steadily at them after the short doze which followed tea, while Edith read aloud to her, but apart from this and the half-crowns which she so regularly put into the offertory-plate, the consideration of the poor and needy did not practically concern her, though she much disliked seeing tramps and beggars on the road. For the rest, a quiet thankfulness, except when she had rheumatism, glowed mildly in her soul for all the blessings of this life which she so abundantly enjoyed, and even when she had rheumatism she was never vehement against Providence. She was quite certain, indeed, that Providence took the greatest care of her, and she followed that example by taking the greatest care of herself, feeling it a duty to do so. For these attentions she returned thanks every morning and evening in her bedroom, and in church on Sunday morning, and also frequently in the evening, if fine. When rheumatism troubled her she added a petition on the subject and went to Bath. Never since her earliest days had she felt the slightest doubts with regard to the religion that was hers, and dogma she swallowed whole, like a pill. Her father had been a Canon of Salisbury, and in the fourth and least-used sitting-room in the house, where smoking was permitted if gentlemen were staying with her, was a glass-fronted bookcase in which were four volumes of his somewhat controversial sermons. These she sometimes read to herself on wet Sunday evenings, if Edith chanced to have a sore throat. Her evening doze usually succeeded this study. But to say that the principles of a Christian life were alien to her would be libellous, since, though neither devout nor ascetic, she was kind, especially when it involved no self-sacrifice, she was truthful, she was a complete stranger to envy, slander, or malice, and was quite unvexed by any doubts concerning the wisdom and benevolence of the Providence in which she trusted as firmly as she trusted in aspirin and Bath for her rheumatism.

At the church in which she was so regular an attendant, she found both doctrine and ritual completely to her mind, even as it was to the mind of the comfortable and prosperous inhabitants of Heathmoor generally. No litany ever lifted up its lamentable petitions there, the hymns were always of a bright and jovial order, unless, as in Lent, brightness was liturgically impossible, and the vicar even then made a habit of preaching delightfully short and encouraging sermons about the Christian duty of appreciating all that was agreeable in life, and told his congregation that it was far more important to face the future with a cheerful heart than to turn a regretful eye towards the sins and omissions of the past. To this advice Mrs. Hancock found it both her pleasure and her duty to conform, and, indeed, with her excellent health, her four thousand pounds a year, and her household of admirable servants, it was not difficult to face the future with smiling equanimity. And though, again, it would have been libellous to call her pharisaical, for she was not the least complacent in her estimate of herself, she would have experienced considerable difficulty in making any sort of catalogue of her misdoings. Besides, as Mr. Martin distinctly told them, it was mere morbidity to dwell among the broken promises of the past. "Far better, dear friends, to be up and doing in the glorious sunlight of a new day. Sufficient, may we not truly say, to the day is the good thereof. Let that be our motto for the week. And now."

And the refreshed and convinced congregation poured thankful half-crowns into the velvet collecting pouches, and themselves into the glorious sunlight.

Edward Holroyd, from the bow-window of his dining-room next door – like most of the inhabitants of Heathmoor he habitually sat in his dining-room after breakfast when not leaving for the City by the 9.6 a.m. train – saw the Hancocks' car glide churchwards at ten minutes to eleven, and then proceeded to his drawing-room to practise on his piano with slightly agitated hands. The agitation was partly due to the extraordinary number of accidentals which Chopin chose to put into the Eleventh Etude, partly to a more intimate cause, connected with the invitation he had just accepted. For some months now – in fact, ever since his twenty-seventh birthday – he had made up his mind that it was time to get married, and had held himself in a position of almost pathetic eagerness – like a man crouching for the sprint, waiting the signal of the pistol – to fall in love. But either the pre-ordained maiden or some psychical defect in himself had been lacking, and he had long been wondering if there was to be any pistol at all. If not, it was idle to maintain himself in the tense, crouching strain. But he had no doubts whatever that he wished to be married, and that Mrs. Hancock – when he allowed himself for a moment to face a slightly embarrassing question – wished him to be married, too. She constantly turned his head in one particular direction, and that direction showed him, in house-agents' phrase, a very pleasing prospect, which, without complacency, he believed smiled on him with an open and even affectionate regard. But he wondered at himself for not being of a livelier eagerness in emotional matters, for he brought to the vocations and avocations of his busy and cheerful life a fund of enthusiasm which was of more than normal intensity. Like the majority of the males of Heathmoor, he rounded off days of strenuous work in the City with strenuous amusements, and with croquet in summer and bridge and piano-playing in the winter, filled up to the brim the hours between the arrival of the evening train and bedtime. But the failure of the inevitable and unique She to put in an appearance and bewitch the eyes and the heart which were so eager to be spellbound was disconcerting. For years he had looked for her, for years he had missed her, and since his twenty-seventh birthday he had begun to determine to do without her. He accepted the limitations, namely, his own inability to fall in love, for which he could not devise a cure, and was prepared to close gratefully with so pleasant and attractive an arrangement as he believed to be open to him. He liked and admired Edith, her firm and comely face, her serene content, her quiet capable ways. She was as fond of croquet and bridge as himself, and – this was a larger testimonial than he knew – really enjoyed his piano-playing. And if the lightnings and thunders of romance roused no reverberating glories in his heart, it must be remembered that romance is a shy rare bird, coming not to nest under every eave, and that there would be a very sensible diminution in marriage fees if every man delayed matrimony until the blinding ecstatic light fell upon his enraptured eyes.