This fell in with Lady Ella's liking for the rare rural
quiet of the Kibe valley and the neighbourhood of her cousins the
Walshinghams. Unhappily it did not fall in with the inflexible
resolution of each and every one of the six leading towns of the see to
put up, own, obtrude, boast, and swagger about the biggest and showiest
thing in episcopal palaces in all industrial England, and the new
bishop had already taken a short lease and gone some way towards the
acquisition of Ganford House, two miles from Pringle, before he realized
the strength and fury of these local ambitions.
At first the magnates and influences seemed to be fighting only among
themselves, and he was so ill-advised as to broach the Ganford House
project as a compromise that would glorify no one unfairly, and leave
the erection of an episcopal palace for some future date when he perhaps
would have the good fortune to have passed to "where beyond these
voices there is peace," forgetting altogether among other oversights
the importance of architects and builders in local affairs. His
proposal seemed for a time to concentrate the rich passions of the whole
countryside upon himself and his wife.
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