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Of course he didn't mean that Mary was savage and inaccessible. It was Gwendolen that he meant. So, since he couldn't sit there much longer without saying something, he presently addressed himself to Mary. "Any news of Greatorex today?" "I haven't heard. Shall I ask Essy?" "No," said Mr. Cartaret, so abruptly that Mary looked at him. "He was worse yesterday," said Gwenda.
I can't do without Gwenda." "She has come back, Papa." "She's always coming hack. But she'll go away again. Where is she?" "I'm here, Papa dear." "Here one minute," said the Vicar, "and gone the next." "No no. I'm not going. I shall never go away and leave you." "So you say," said the Vicar. "So you say." He looked round uneasily. "It's time for Ally to go to bed. Has Essy brought her milk?"
"I have dismissed Essy," said the Vicar, "for a sufficient reason." "There's no reason to turn her out before Christmas." "There is," said the Vicar, "a very grave reason. We needn't go into it." He knew that his daughter knew his reason. But he ignored her knowledge as he ignored all things that were unpleasant to him. "We must go into it," said Gwenda.
But the concert was not till the first week in December; and it was in November that Rowcliffe began to form the habit that made him remarkable in Garth, of looking in at the Vicarage toward teatime every Wednesday afternoon. Mrs. Gale, informed by Essy, was the first to condole with Mrs.
By courteous movement of his hand the Vicar condoned Rowcliffe's rudeness, which he attributed to professional pique very natural in the circumstances. With admirable tact he changed the subject. "I also wished to consult you about another matter. Rowcliffe was all attention. "It's about it's about that poor girl, Essy Gale." "Essy," said Rowcliffe, "is very well and very happy."
And as he sang it, looking nobly if a little heavily over the heads of his audience, he saw Essy Gale hidden away, and trying to hide herself more, beside her mother in the farthest corner of the room. He had forgotten Essy. And at the sight of her his nobility went from him and only his heaviness remained.
He doesn't believe what they say. Papa says I'm a shameful girl, and Mary says I took Jim Greatorex from Essy. And they think " "Never mind what they think, darling." "I must protest " The Vicar would have burst out again but that his son-in-law restrained him. "Better leave her to Gwenda," he said. He opened the door of the study. "Really, sir, I think you'd better. And you, too, Mary."
At that Essy's face began to shake piteously. Standing by the door, she cried quietly, with soft sobs, neither hiding her face nor drying her tears as they came. "You had better tell me," said the Vicar. "I s'all nat tall yo'," said Essy, with passionate determination, between the sobs. "You must." "I s'all nat I s'all nat." "Hiding it won't help you," said the Vicar. Essy raised her head.
Though a Wesleyan she could not shirk the appointed ceremonial. It was Essy who took the Bible and Prayerbook from their place on the sideboard under the tea-urn and put them on the table, opening them where the Vicar had left a marker the night before. It was Essy who drew back the Vicar's chair from the table and set it ready for him.
Greatorex was not yet dead of his pneumonia. The doctor had passed the Vicarage gate. And as he passed he had said to himself. "How execrably she plays." The three sisters waited without a word for the striking of the church clock. The church clock struck ten. At the sound of the study bell Essy came into the dining-room. Essy was the acolyte of Family Prayers.
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