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If it pleased God to afflict him that was God's affair, and, even as a devout Wesleyan, Essy considered that God had about done enough. As Essy sat and stitched, she smiled, thinking of Greatorex's son who lay in her bed in the little room over the kitchen. Miss Gwenda let her have him with her on the nights when Mrs. Gale slept up at the Farm. It was quiet in the Vicarage kitchen.
Her grieved eyes let down their lids before the smouldering hostility in his. Her stillness and her shut eyes moved him to compunction. They appeased him with reminiscence, with suggestion of her smooth and innocent sleep. He had been thinking of what she had done to him; of how she had lied to him about Gwenda; of the abominable thing that Alice had cried out to him in her agony.
And she had found that it could be induced in him by suggestion. She had only to say to him, "Steven, you're thoroughly worn out," and he was thoroughly worn out. She had more pleasure, because she had more confidence, in this lethargic, middle-aged Rowcliffe than in Rowcliffe young and energetic. His youth had attracted him to Gwenda and his energy had driven him out of doors.
With admirable tact she assumed Rowcliffe's interest in Ally and the Vicar. It made it easier to begin about Gwenda. And before she began it seemed to her that she had better first find out if he knew. So she asked him point-blank if he had heard from Gwenda? "No," he said. At her name he had winced visibly. But there was hope even in his hurt eyes.
And he clung incessantly to Gwenda, whom he had feared. When he looked round in his strange and awful gentleness and said, "Where's Ally?" his voice was the voice of a mother calling for her child. And when he said, "Where's Gwenda?" it was the voice of a child calling for its mother.
And if she says it is she thinks it is." Gwenda was silent. "I'm coming all right, tell her." "Well, but what day? We'd better fix it. Don't come on a Tuesday or a Friday, I'll be out." "I must come when I can." She went on a Tuesday. She had had tea with her father first. Meal-time had become sacred to the Vicar and he hated her to be away for any one of them.
Trevor's presence, however, he made no attempt to hide the pleasure which his meeting with Gwenda aroused in him. She was looking very beautiful in a dress of some soft white material, and as she held out her hand to Will a strange feeling came over him, a feeling that that sweet face would for ever be his lodestar, and that firm little white hand would help him on the path of life.
"Which of you two is going to hook me up?" said Mary. She was in the Vicar's room, putting on her wedding-gown before the wardrobe glass. Her two sisters were dressing her. "I will," said Gwenda. "You'd better let me," said Alice. "I know where the eyes are." Gwenda lifted up the wedding-veil and held it ready. And while Alice pulled and fumbled Mary gazed at her own reflection and at Alice's.
It had dawned on him that, with Alice left a permanent invalid on his hands, he couldn't really afford to part with Gwenda. She might be terrible in the house, but in her way a way he didn't altogether approve of she was useful in the parish. She would cover more of it in an afternoon than Mary could in a month of Sundays.
Unless " She stopped. Her sister was looking her straight in the face now. "Unless what?" "My dear Gwenda, don't glare at me like that. I'm not saying things and I'm not thinking them. I don't know what you're thinking. If you weren't so nervy you'd own that I've always been decent to you. I'm sure I have been. I've always stood up for you. I've always wanted to have you here "
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