Page:The Author of Beltraffio, The Middle Years, Greville Fane, and Other Tales (London, Macmillan & Co., 1922).djvu/392

FORDHAM CASTLE the funeral, which was in any case to be thoroughly "quiet"? The vivid thing seemed to pass before Abel's eyes the day he heard of the bright compatriot, just the person to go round with, a charming handsome witty widow, whom Miss Magaw had met at Fordham Castle, whose ideas were, on all important points, just the same as her own, whose means also (so that they could join forces on an equality) matched beautifully, and whose name in fine was Mrs. Sherrington Reeve. "Mattie has felt the want," Mrs. Magaw explained, "of some lady, some real lady like that, to go round with: she says she sometimes doesn't find it very pleasant going round alone."

Abel Taker had listened with interest this in formation left him staring. "By Gosh, then, she has struck Sue!"

"'Struck' Mrs. Taker?"

"She isn't Mrs. Taker now—she's Mrs. Sherrington Reeve." It had come to him with all its force—as if the glare of her genius were, at a bound, high over the summits. "Mrs. Taker's dead: I thought, you know, all the while, she must be, and this makes me sure. She died at Fordham Castle. So we're both dead."

His friend, however, with her large blank face, lagged behind. "At Fordham Castle too—died there?"

"Why she has been as good as living there!" Abel Taker emphasised. "'Address Fordham Castle'—that's about all she has written me. But perhaps she died before she went"—he had it before him, he made it out. "Yes, she must have gone as Mrs. Sherrington Reeve. She had to die to go—as it would be for her like going to heaven. Marriages, sometimes, they say, are made up there; and so, sometimes then, apparently, are friendships—that, you see, for instance, of our two shining ones." 372