Chapter 4 ANTONY PELHAM.

The surroundings of Norham Cathedral were the great attraction of the little town to Antony Pelham. Large, airy houses, set in gardens to match, with here and there a field running down to the street, formed one side of the main thoroughfare of the town. It was wide and shady, bounded on its other side by the Canons' Walk, a gravelled terrace, extending the whole length of the cathedral graveyard, over-arched by "immemorial elms," where the rooks, year after year, cawed their noisy affairs into the ears of those below.

At the eastern end of the cathedral the Canons' Court terminated the Walk, and provided residences for the minor canons almost under the cathedral walls. The Deanery stood at one end of the Court, and the gardens of all the houses extended southwards to enclosed fields called the Parks, on which also the grounds of the old palace, on the southern side of the cathedral, abutted.

Beyond the boundaries of the Cathedral Precincts the town developed into a small, compact area of shops, and then sprawled on into suburbs. These, called respectively Easton and Weston, had little to do with each other, and less with the exclusive Precincts. They had a church and parish apiece, served by two of the minor canons.

The spacious houses round the cathedral had been built originally to serve as town houses for the county families. They were now often used as dower houses, or pleasant homes to retire to from the active work of life. Their owners formed a sufficiently large circle to make society pleasant, but they admitted no one into their midst who was not "one of them."

When old General Orme died, he left no one to occupy the fine old house on the hill called "The Ridges," beyond which the "Green," with its complement of houses-also old, but filling the more useful r?les of Grammar School, Sessions House, and such like-descended into the valley. Here, as far off as possible, the necessary lock-up and railway station hid their commonness out of sight.

It was with amazement, and incredulity at his audacity, that the news gradually was received of the purchase of "The Ridges," by Antony Pelham, a lawyer from the big town of Blackton, eight miles away. This manufacturing town had superseded Norham as the county town-since which it was scarcely ever mentioned, much less visited, by the Norhamites. Not only had he bought "The Ridges" but, with an extraordinary fatuity, he meant to go on with his business and travel backwards and forwards.

After hearing this, nobody troubled to make any further inquiries about him-he was beneath notice. It was stated by the neighbours whose grounds adjoined his that an army of workmen had been sent from somewhere, and were, of course, making a wreck of the beautiful old house. But no interest was taken in their proceedings, except by David and Sandy Bethune, who rapturously availed themselves of the kindly circumstances attending his advent. The short cut to school on the Green, up a gravelled path on the edge of the field, which the old General had put at the service of his friends who wished to visit the Green, had become lately to the Bethune boys a way to bliss. Marjorie and her brothers now slowly ascended the hill to "The Ridges" by this path.

As they walked along, more like owners than suppliants for forgiveness, David pointed out to his sister the hiding-places they had found convenient. Marjorie's own conscience was asleep on the matter, and she did not put herself out to rebuke him. The man was angry. Her father had written that his boys would apologise. She supposed they would. They were generally able to do so when necessary, without in the least considering themselves bound thereby as to future action.

Marjorie looked with interest at the places pointed out to her on the way up. She even enlarged a hole in the undergrowth to admit Sandy's plump body. But a vague irresolution and faint sense of discomfort came into her mind as the old red-brick house came in sight, and a blaze of colour from the flower-beds before the windows struck upon her vision.

"Boys," she said, softly, "David, you will be nice, even if this man is a cad. Do you hear, Sandy?" she said more sternly, as Sandy panted to her side, returning from some exploration.

"All right," said Sandy; "there he is!"

They had emerged from the shrubbery path and had reached the edge of the lawn, which was divided from the long field by some white palings. Steadying herself by these, and an occasional grip at her father's trousers, as he walked beside her, was a little two-year-old girl. Her nurse was visible at some distance, sitting at needlework under the trees.

"Father's put 'Dear Sir,' 'stead of 'Horrid Fellow,'" he announced.-p. 68.

Undecided whether to advance on to the lawn, or to go further and ring at the front-door bell, Marjorie paused. The man's back was towards her. It did not present the appearance she had somehow expected. Why her imagination should have invested the new-comer with the attributes of a vulgar old man she could not afterwards recollect. But she had expected this. Instead, the back was young, and slim, and well-coated; and the finely poised head above it was adorned with a crop of short dark curls. Seeing him thus, Marjorie was conscious of a little embarrassment. A filtering doubt, creeping through her mind, made her give a hasty glance round at her young brothers.

David's eyes were glaring at the figure of his enemy, his face wearing an expression of deep disgust. Sandy had put on the air of jaunty unconcern with which he always met a difficulty. Ross, aged four, was looking distrustfully at the baby, whilst only on little Orme's cherubic face was there any appreciation of the situation. He gave an exclamation of delight, unloosed his hand from the relaxing grasp of Marjorie, and hurried over the grass, head foremost, as was his wont when in a hurry. This youngest Bethune, like his brothers before him, had a sociable disposition; and was apt at making friends of every person, especially every infant person, he came near. From the private study of the Bishop-whereto his way was by a friendly window-to the cottage hearths he occasionally visited through convenient open doors when on his rambles-Orme Bethune was a welcome guest. To him girl-babies were a special fascination. He made advances to this one immediately.

Sitting down on the grass, to accommodate his three years to her two, he essayed to draw her nearer. She responded femininely. First she hid her face behind her father's legs. Then she unloosed his trousers and steadied her approach by the big brim of Orme's hat. With the other hand she rained blows upon his face. Bashing her dolls' heads was, with this baby, a preliminary to loving them. Finding this one to be flesh and blood, she crowed with glee, and sat down suddenly beside him.

Mr. Pelham had advanced a step or two on beholding Marjorie, her face an unexpected marvel of youth and fairness, against the dark background of the trees. Then his eyes fell on David's scowling countenance; he stopped, and his face flushed.

"Father has sent you a letter," Marjorie began. "Which of you has got it?" turning to the boys.

"Not me," said David sullenly, his manner conveying that no power on earth could have induced him to touch it.

"Nor me," said Sandy cheerfully.

"Surely you brought it?" Marjorie asked, a certain severity in her tone. "You, Ross?" hopefully.

Ross's face had just lighted up with the intention of making a trio of the charming duet on the lawn. He was slower than his more agile brothers-but sure, and none the less mischievous, for that his mischief was better matured beforehand. He opened his hands to show his innocence, and, murmuring "Me go find it!" he joined Orme.

Marjorie's eyes were lifted in an appealing fashion, the prettiness of which she would have been the last to believe, to the dark eyes somewhat haughtily questioning hers.

"My father wrote," she was beginning, when a skirmish and a squeal made her stop. Ross was rifling his little brother's pockets with an air of business. Orme was wriggling and fighting, and the baby was kicking and screaming in his defence, a vivid little vixen.

"Here," said Ross proudly, as having overturned Orme and left him prostrate, he held up Mr. Bethune's letter.

Marjorie's colour rose at the aspect of the dishevelled note. Its appearance, indeed, was not that of a missive calculated to appease the anger of an offended man. She watched a little amusedly the expression of the long fingers which daintily received and opened the crumpled paper. Then it struck her that in the character of suppliants they were not behaving properly.

She looked at David. His face now wore an expression of absolute vacuity. She wondered if by any possibility it would be taken for penitence. She hoped it might, as it certainly expressed nothing else. Laying her hand on his shoulder-after all, he was only nine, and could not have done much mischief, even if he had behaved badly-Marjorie gave him a gentle push forward.

"My little brother is sorry," she began, as the dark eyes, smiling now, were uplifted from the note.

But David, beating off her hand, said fiercely, "I'm not!"

"Oh, David!" said Marjorie, helplessly. "Then, if you aren't, why did we-you come?" a sudden passion in her tone.

"Margie! Margie!" called the cheerful voice of Sandy. And Marjorie turned her eyes hopefully to the speaker. He, at least, would not fail her in this emergency-he was always ready to say something nice.

Sandy was staggering towards them laden with the baby. His cap had fallen off, and she was alternately thumping his tight curls and laying her face down upon them in gurgling delight. This living head, with its silky adornments, was quite a new sort of toy in her hitherto child-solitary life.

Mr. Pelham made an alarmed step forward. He expected nothing less than the sudden destruction of his baby. But Sandy, grasping her tightly with both sturdy arms, eluded his outstretched hand and went on to Marjorie.

"Ain't she a nice baby, Margie? She's a girl. Don't you wish we'd got a girl 'stead of on'y boys? Can I take this'n home?" he demanded, suddenly fixing brilliant blue eyes on the baby's owner.

"Oh, Sandy, Sandy! are you as artless as you seem?" thought Marjorie, watching with sympathy the magnetic change on the father's face as he looked down at his child.

"I am sorry. I can't spare her," he said gently, looking kindly at the eager beggar.

"Can't you?" disappointedly; "I should like her ever so."

"Me, too," cried Orme, standing by with straddled legs and wide-open eyes fixed on Mr. Pelham.

"Me yike her ever so," chimed in Ross, ambling up and joining the group, murmuring, as no one attended to him, that he would carry her in his two arms.

Sandy was staggering towards them laden with the baby.

In her dark, flashing beauty this baby, with her vivid face, her quick movements, her vitality, her curious coquetry of advance and withdrawal, was a revelation to the little boys. Only David-silent and superior-still held aloof, till the baby suddenly saw him and claimed him for another slave.

"Up!-up!" she called, in the imperious monosyllables by which she declared her will, holding out her arms to David and beating an impatient tattoo on Sandy with her toes. No boy could have resisted the flattery-least of all David, whom his mother often set to "mind" the babes because he was so good to them. And David-a sudden flush and smile illumining his face-took her from Sandy's unwilling clasp.

* * *

No apologies were made that day. In David's arms the baby accompanied her new friends-all clamouring, all seeking to amuse-down the hill to the gate.

Marjorie and Mr. Pelham followed slowly. If the man found the young girl interesting, he was to her equally so. She had come across no one like him before. He had come out of a world of which she knew nothing-of which, until to-day, she had never thought. Not many working people had hitherto come under her notice.

"Have you pictures?" she had asked, in surprise at a remark.

"A few-I wish I had shown them to you, as you care for them."

"But you have altered the old house?" There was a world of reproach in her tone.

"Not for the worse, I hope. It has been most carefully restored."

"Ah, yes-restored!" said Marjorie slightingly. The word was an abomination, savouring of destruction, in Norham.

Mr. Pelham smiled. "Come and see some day," he said. "I should like Mr. Bethune's opinion. My friend, the architect, wondered that I had not claimed his counsel."

"Why didn't you? People do."

"I realised my-presumption," he answered, pausing a moment for a word.

Marjorie turned to look at him.

"My father--" she began; "you are laughing at us. I know what you mean. We are old-fashioned, behind the times, prejudiced, narrow-I wonder you came."

He laughed. "It was just for that I came. I wanted my little one to have, a beautiful home, and all beside that you have said."

"But you, of course, despise old things! Do you?" she asked-"even that!"

They had reached in their descent of the hill an opening in the trees whence across the field stood out blackly against the luminous western sky the stately cathedral. Fore-shortened against the sky, the great length of the building was not perceptible. But the twin spires, the great central tower, the dome of the chapter-house, and the length of the northern transept, suggested a building raised for all time, if not for eternity.

"That is old," said Marjorie, a world of possessive delight in her voice.

"You share your father's love for it?" he said, turning to look at the face beside him, its fairness accentuated by the evening glow.

"How do you know? You know my father?" And a man less acute than this one would have seen the way straight before him into the girl's heart.

"Don't you think you can know a man in his books?" he asked. "Even if I had not heard him read the paper, I think I should have understood by that little book how he loved the cathedral."

"I did not know you were that sort," she said slowly, as into her eyes there crept a friendliness, which the man, recognising, found very pleasant to meet.

"But I am afraid I am not that sort," he said. "I am ignorant and he is learned. But I can feel the fascination of it. And I want my baby to grow up amongst it all-amongst you all," he corrected. "You remember what Ruskin says about homes? That passage after he has described what houses, homes, should not be, 'tottering, foundationless shells of splintered wood and mutilated stone, comfortless, unhonoured dwellings which men build in the hope of leaving.' Instead, I would have our homes like temples, built to last, and to be lovely, something God has lent to us for our life, and that our children will love." He paused. "That is the sort of home I want to make for my little one."

They had reached the iron gate leading into the road. Sandy, with an air of possession, drew forth his key and threw it open, and the action brought recollection back to Marjorie.

"Oh!" with a sudden start, "we came to apologise, and I forgot. Sandy, give Mr. Pelham his key, and remember--"

Sandy came forward, holding out the key with a twinkle in his merry eyes. "I 'pologise," he said.

Mr. Pelham laughed. "Keep the key, and come in and see my baby as you go backwards and forwards; she has no playfellows."

The baby flashed her smiles and kissed her hands.

The baby from her father's arms flashed her smiles and kissed her hands, as the two stood watching through the gate the receding figures of the Bethunes.