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. 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. It was Essy whom he relied on for
responses that _were_ responses and not mere mumblings and mutterings.
She was Wesleyan, the one faithful, the one devout person in his
household.
To-night there was nothing but a mumbling and a muttering. And that
was Mary. She was the only one who was joining in the Lord's Prayer.
Essy had failed him.
* * * * *
Prayers over, there was nothing to sit up for. All the same, it was
Mr. Cartaret's rule to go back into the study and to bore himself
again for a whole hour till it was bed-time. He liked to be sure that
the doors were all bolted and that everybody else was in bed before he
went himself.
But to-night he had bored himself so badly that the thought of his
study was distasteful to him. So he stayed where he was with his
family. He believed that he was doing this solely on his family's
account. He told himself that it was not right that he should leave
the three girls too much to themselves. It did not occur to him that
as long as he had had a wife to sit with, he hadn't cared how much
he had left them. He knew that he had rather liked Mary and Gwendolen
when they were little, and though he had found himself liking them
less and less as they grew into their teens he had never troubled to
enquire whose fault that was, so certain was he that it couldn't be
his. Still less was it his fault if they were savage and inaccessible
in their twenties. 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.
They all looked at Gwenda.
"Who told you that?" said Mr. Cartaret by way of saying something.
"Mrs. Gale."
"When did she tell you?"
"Yesterday, when I was up at the farm."
"What were you doing at the farm?"
"Nothing. I went to see if I could do anything." She said to herself,
"Why does he go on at us like this?" Aloud she said, "It was time some
of us went."
She had him there. She was always having him.
"I shall have to go myself tomorrow," he said.
"I would if I were you," said Gwenda.
"I wonder what Jim Greatorex will do if his father dies."
It was Mary who wondered.
"He'll get married, like a shot," said Alice.
"Who to?" said Gwenda. "He can't marry _all_ the girls----"
She stopped herself. Essy Gale was in the room. Three months ago
Essy had been a servant at the Farm where her mother worked once a
fortnight.
She had come in so quietly that none of them had noticed her. She
brought a tray with a fresh glass of water for the Vicar and a glass
of milk for Alice. She put it down quietly and slipped out of the room
without her customary "Anything more, Miss?" and "Good-night."
"What's the matter with Essy?" Gwenda said.
Nobody spoke but Alice who was saying that she didn't want her milk.
More than a year ago Alice had been ordered milk for her anæmia. She
had milk at eleven, milk at her midday dinner, milk for supper, and
milk last thing at night. She did not like milk, but she liked being
ordered it. Generally she would sit and drink it, in the face of
her family, pathetically, with little struggling gulps. She took a
half-voluptuous, half-vindictive pleasure in her anæmia. She knew that
it made her sisters sorry for her, and that it annoyed her father.
Now she declared that she wasn't feeling well, and that she didn't
want her milk.
"In that case," said Mr. Cartaret, "you had better go to bed."
Alice went, raising her white arms and rubbing her eyes along the
backs of her hands, like a child dropping with sleep.
One after another, they rose and followed her.
* * * * *
At the half-landing five steep steps in a recess of the wall led aside
to the door of Essy's bedroom. There Gwenda stopped and listened.
A sound of stifled crying came from the room. Gwenda went up to the
door and knocked.
"Essy, are you in bed?"