I must, I think, have been upset by Mrs. Protheroe. I’m not usually given to such unprofitable reflections.
Griselda and Dennis went rather far now and then but I hadn’t the heart to check them. I have always thought it a pity that the mere presence of a clergyman should have a damping effect.
Lawrence took a gay part in the conversation. Nevertheless I was aware of his eyes continually straying to where I sat, and I was not surprised when after dinner he manœuvred to get me into the study.
As soon as we were alone his manner changed.
“You’ve surprised our secret, sir,” he said. “What are you going to do about it?”
I could speak far more plainly to Redding than I could to Mrs. Protheroe, and I did so. He took it very well.
“Of course,” he said, when I had finished, “you’re bound to say all this. You’re a parson. I don’t mean that in any way offensively. As a matter of fact I think you’re probably right. But this isn’t the usual sort of thing between Anne and me.”
I told him that people had been saying that particular phrase since the dawn of time, and a queer little smile creased his lips.
“You mean every one thinks their case is unique? Perhaps so. But one thing you must believe.”
He assured me that so far – “there was nothing wrong in it.” Anne, he said, was one of the truest and most loyal women that ever lived. What was going to happen he didn’t know.
“If this were only a book,” he said gloomily, “the old man would die – and a good riddance to everybody.”
I reproved him:
“Oh! I didn’t mean I was going to stick him in the back with a knife, though I’d offer my best thanks to anyone else who did so. There’s not a soul in the world who’s got a good word to say for him. I rather wonder the first Mrs. Protheroe didn’t do him in. I met her once, years ago, and she looked quite capable of it. One of those calm dangerous women. He goes blustering along, stirring up trouble everywhere, mean as the devil, and with a particularly nasty temper. You don’t know what Anne has had to stand from him. If I had a penny in the world I’d take her away without any more ado.”
Then I spoke to him very earnestly. I begged him to leave St. Mary Mead. By remaining there, he could only bring greater unhappiness on Anne Protheroe than was already her lot. People would talk, the matter would get to Colonel Protheroe’s ears – and things would be made infinitely worse for her.
Lawrence protested.
“Nobody knows a thing about it except you, padre.”
“My dear young man, you underestimate the detective instinct of village life. In St. Mary Mead every one knows your most intimate affairs. There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands.”
He said easily that that was all right. Every one thought it was Lettice.
“Has it occurred to you,” I asked, “that possibly Lettice might think so herself.”
He seemed quite surprised by the idea. Lettice, he said, didn’t care a hang about him. He was sure of that.
“She’s a queer sort of girl,” he said. “Always seems in a kind of dream, and yet underneath I believe she’s really rather practical. I believe all that vague stuff is a pose. Lettice knows jolly well what she’s doing. And there’s a funny vindictive streak in her. The queer thing is that she hates Anne. Simply loathes her. And yet Anne’s been a perfect angel to her always.”
I did not, of course, take his word for this last. To infatuated young men, their inamorata always behaves like an angel. Still, to the best of my observation, Anne had always behaved to her stepdaughter with kindness and fairness. I had been surprised myself that afternoon at the bitterness of Lettice’s tone.
We had to leave the conversation there, because Griselda and Dennis burst in upon us and said I was not to make Lawrence behave like an old fogy.