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Updated: June 25, 2025
Michael found opportunity to explain to Aunt Barbara what had happened, suggesting as a consolatory simile the domestic difficulties of the seals at the Zoological Gardens, and was pleased to find her recognise the aptness of this description. But heaviest of all on the spirits of the whole party sat the anxiety about Lady Ashbridge.
During dinner Michael constantly found her looking at him in a shy and eager manner, removing her gaze when she found it was observed, and when, later, after a silent cigarette with his father in the smoking-room, during which Lord Ashbridge, with some ostentation, studied an Army List, Michael went to his bedroom, he was utterly astonished, when he gave a "Come in" to a tapping at his door, to see his mother enter.
We have to till, with our own efforts, 'our goodly heritage. You have to learn the meaning of such words as patriotism, and caste, and duty." Lord Ashbridge thought that he was really putting this very well indeed, and he had the sustaining consciousness of sincerity.
His large, rather flamboyant person, his big white face and curling brown beard, his loud voice and his falsetto laugh, his absolutely certain opinions, above all the fervency of his consciousness of being Lord Ashbridge and all which that implied, completely filled any place he happened to be in, so that a room empty except for him gave the impression of being almost uncomfortably crowded.
Apart from his work, the centre of his life was certainly the household of the Falbes, where the brother and sister lived with their mother. She turned out to be in a rather remote manner "one of us," and had about her, very faint and dim, like an antique lavender bag, the odour of Ashbridge.
All of this so filled Michael's mind as he travelled down that evening to Ashbridge, that he scarcely remembered the errand on which he went, and when it occurred to him it instantly sank out of sight again, lost in the recollection of the music which he had heard to-day and which belonged to the art that claimed the allegiance of his soul.
Behind them, separated from the rest of the church by an ornamental ironwork grille, was the Comber chapel, in which antiquarians took nearly as much pleasure as Lord Ashbridge himself. Here reclined a glorious company of sixteenth century knights, with their honourable ladies at their sides, unyielding marble bolsters at their heads, and grotesque dogs at their feet.
"It has given Michael an independence which I much deplore. And she did it in direct opposition to my wishes." This touched on one of the questions about which Lady Ashbridge had her convictions. She had a mild but unalterable opinion that when anybody died, all that they had previously done became absolutely flawless and laudable.
He had not much character when he left Ashbridge. He has had more than one job in England since then, and has lost them all. He has come down very much in the world even since I saw him last." "A pity," said Lady O'Gara, "since he rendered you a service." "I gave him some money and got rid of him: it was the only thing to do." Once again Lady O'Gara's frank eyes turned upon her husband.
Suddenly it struck Michael that his father was not thinking about Lady Ashbridge at all, nor about him, but in the main about himself. All had to be done from the dominant standpoint; he owed it to himself to alleviate the conditions under which his wife must live; he owed it to himself that his son should do his part as a Comber.
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