He heard, or imagined that he heard, all these things. The churchwarden, an old farmer, ushered him to a seat. He sat down, bent his brow into his hand in the way usual among church-goers, and then settled to an examination of the church.
He knew a good deal about churches. He summed up this one as follows: “Norman plan, small and beautiful; nothing but the sanctuary remaining; present structure begun in fourteenth century, 1350, and added to, with much rebuilding and changing, till about 1520. After that, very little until a ceiling and some whitewash, about 1740. After that, an almost total neglect for a hundred and forty years, then a collection and a bazaar, a scraper firm put in and a general clean-up, coinciding with the first bath-room in the squire’s manor; the results before us, bright pine pews, varnished, ye olde churche style; gas brackets the same, by the well-known firm; the Bish. out from Tatchester to open it.”
At this point, the padre came in with the choir and the service began. It went on in the usual way, with the usual intonations, the usual tunes, the usual signals and smiles from woman to woman, the farmers coming out strong in the psalms, the ladies getting their own back in the hymns, a sigh of content when the litany ended, a rustle of bliss when they all settled for the sermon.
The sermon did not interest Frampton; during the giving out of the text, his eye was caught by a bit of old glass in a window across the church in the north aisle. He decided, that he would not enter this church again, except to look at this glass. Yet he gave the parson a good mark; he seemed a good chap. Somehow, he was angry with the institution. He was a hungry sheep looking up and not being fed; there was no food for him there. He had the justice to ask himself, if he would have taken any good offered by this particular shepherd, who no doubt would offer some, if he had the inkling of a suspicion that some were wanted. The service came to an end; he walked swiftly out and away, followed by curious eyes.
He was much discussed at lunch-time throughout the parish.
“He went away so quickly,” the parson’s wife said. “I meant to speak to him, to ask him to come to tea this afternoon.”
“The fellow went away as if the hounds were after him,” the squire, Button Budd, said. “A dark-looking fellow. Didn’t at all like his looks. To tell the truth, I’m glad. I didn’t want to have to ask him to lunch. Fellow makes guns; father was a baker; low fellow, not at all the sort of thing.”
All the same, Mrs. Button Budd, who shared his prejudices, felt that her husband ought to call at
“It is only leaving a card,” she said. “He will very likely be out; and even if he’s in you need not see him; the cards are the important thing. We need not see him, if he returns the call; but anyhow, we shall have done our duty, if anything should crop up later.”
Button Budd did not much relish calling.
“They say he’s got all sorts of queer painter fellows to do his walls,” he objected.
However, in the sacred name of neighbourliness, he dared this menace to his morals, and through his, the State’s, and called.
As it chanced, Mansell was at home when he came. It chanced, also, that he was at the point of coming out through the front door, at the instant of the squire’s ringing of the bell. There the two met; the squire could not at the moment find the wit to say:
“I only came to leave cards; I don’t want to know you, of course.”
Frampton shook him by the hand and asked him to come in; in fact, had him in, somehow, before the squire quite knew where he was. Frampton took him into his study, and offered him tea and a smoke. He replied that he never drank tea, except when called in the morning, and never smoked, except after dinner. He settled into a chair, and looked with much perplexity and misgiving at the loves of Tristan and Isolt, then looking at their best. The two men took stock of each other. Budd was a short, erect, stocky, lean man. He had an eyeglass, which was often the most important thing in his face. He had a tendency to fuss; he did not look too healthy; and wore good country clothes. He nursed his riding bowler, his riding gloves and the crop which he carried instead of a cane, as though they were reins. Frampton asked him if he would like a whisky and soda; he said he would, but his doctor had warned him off it for a bit, until after Christmas anyhow. He looked again at Tristan and Isolt.
“So you’ve come down to live in these parts?” he said at length.
Frampton said that he had.
The squire had never seen so many books in one room before; he looked in vain for the library edition of Surtees. Frampton said that it had been a lovely autumn. The squire said it had been the best he could remember, ever since shooting began.