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Page 69
Bill repeated the outline of events of yesterday.
"Yes .... And Mr. Ablett hasn't been found yet?" She shook her
head in distress. "It still seems to have happened to somebody
else; somebody we didn't know at all." Then, with a sudden grave
smile which included both of them, "But you must come and have
some tea."
"It's awfully decent of you," said Bill awkwardly, "but we--er--"
"You will, won't you?" she said to Antony.
"Thank you very much."
Mrs. Norbury was delighted to see them, as she always was to see
any man in her house who came up to the necessary standard of
eligibility. When her life-work was completed, and summed up in
those beautiful words: "A marriage has been arranged, and will
shortly take place, between Angela, daughter of the late John
Norbury ...." then she would utter a grateful Nunc dimittis and
depart in peace to a better world, if Heaven insisted, but
preferably to her new son-in-law's more dignified establishment.
For there was no doubt that eligibility meant not only
eligibility as a husband.
But it was not as "eligibles" that the visitors from the Red
House were received with such eagerness to-day, and even if her
special smile for "possibles" was there, it was instinctive
rather than reasoned. All that she wanted at this moment was
news--news of Mark. For she was bringing it off at last; and, if
the engagement columns of the "Morning Post" were preceded, as in
the case of its obituary columns, by a premonitory bulletin, the
announcement of yesterday would have cried triumphantly to the
world, or to such part of the world as mattered: "A marriage has
very nearly been arranged (by Mrs. Norbury), and will certainly
take place, between Angela, only daughter of the late John
Norbury, and--Mark Ablett of the Red House." And, coming across
it on his way to the sporting page, Bill would have been
surprised. For he had thought that, if anybody, it was Cayley.
To the girl it was neither. She was often amused by her mother's
ways; sometimes ashamed of them; sometimes distressed by them.
The Mark Ablett affair had seemed to her particularly
distressing, for Mark was so obviously in league with her mother
against her. Other suitors, upon whom her mother had smiled, had
been embarrassed by that championship; Mark appeared to depend on
it as much as on his own attractions; great though he thought
these to be. They went a-wooing together. It was a pleasure to
turn to Cayley, that hopeless ineligible.
But alas! Cayley had misunderstood her. She could not imagine
Cayley in love until she saw it, and tried, too late, to stop it.
That was four days ago. She had not seen him since, and now here
was this letter. She dreaded opening it. It was a relief to
feel that at least she had an excuse for not doing so while her
guests were in the house.
Mrs. Norbury recognized at once that Antony was likely to be the
more sympathetic listener; and when tea was over, and Bill and
Angela had been dispatched to the garden with the promptness and
efficiency of the expert, dear Mr. Gillingham found himself on
the sofa beside her, listening to many things which were of even
greater interest to him than she could possibly have hoped.
"It is terrible, terrible," she said. "And to suggest that dear
Mr. Ablett--"
Antony made suitable noises.
"You've seen Mr. Ablett for yourself. A kinder, more warmhearted
man--"
Antony explained that he had not seen Mr. Ablett.
"Of course, yes, I was forgetting. But, believe me, Mr.
Gillingham, you can trust a woman's intuition in these matters."
Antony said that he was sure of this.
"Think of my feelings as a mother."
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