Clergy -- England -- Fiction; England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Families -- England -- Fiction
The Chartries pew, the only family pew remaining in the church, was well
attended at the eleven o’clock service, Lady Sunningdale being, as
usual, the brightest object present; indeed, among the rest of the
congregation she resembled a bird of paradise which had by mistake found
its way into a colony of sparrows. But what this violation of her habits
in appearing so long before lunch had cost her none but her maid knew.
However, there she was, and the colours of the spectroscope blossomed
together in her hat, and in a fit of absence of mind, to which she was
prone, she as nearly as possible put up a pink sunshade, forgetting
where she was, to shield her from the sun which was shining through a
mauve-coloured saint on to the middle of her face in a manner which she
felt to be aggressive and probably unbecoming. So she moved to behind
the shadow of a neighbouring pillar, from where, looking at the organ,
she could see who sat there.
“Too heavenly,” she said in a shrill whisper to Stella Plympton. “Martin
is at the organ. I’m afraid he won’t play the Brahms, though. What a
pity it is not Good Friday; he would be sure to give us the Charfreitag
music.”
That, however, was not to be, and instead the familiar strains of “O
Rest in the Lord” were the prelude to which six choir-boys, four choir
men, including the carpenter, who in a fluty falsetto sang a steady
third below the trebles and believed it to be alto, advanced to their
places. But Martin, in Lady Sunningdale’s opinion, could do no wrong,
and again she whispered shrilly to Stella,--
“Is he not wonderful? That tune is exactly like the stained glass. It is
absolutely the ‘air’ of the place. Look, there is Helen Challoner
sitting with the choir. Is she not a dream? Tell Frank to look at her.”
But this was unnecessary, as Frank Yorkshire was already looking. He was
a rather stout, very pleasant-faced young man of about thirty, with
smooth flaxen hair, rather prominent blue eyes, and an expression of
extraordinary amiability, which his character fully endorsed. He was
remarkably adaptable, and while he would willingly talk flippancies with
Lady Sunningdale, his tenantry adored him for his friendliness and his
great common sense if the baby was ill or the pig would not put on
flesh. In other respects he was a Baron of the realm, immensely wealthy,
and unmarried, so that he was perpetually drenched by showers of
eligible girls, whom aspiring mothers hurled at his head. These he
returned with thanks, uninjured.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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