The girl looked grave. ‘After getting warm walking …’ she murmured, ‘I don’t think you ought to—’
‘But just feel how hot the sun is — burning hot!’ And he made her sit down by his side; even going so far as to give her a little friendly pull closer to him when she seemed shy of taking more than the minutest share of the tweed jacket spread out beneath them.
Nelly sat with her legs stretched straight out in front of her, Richard with his knees under his chin; and when he told her that it was like sitting together on a magic carpet that only needed one talismanic word to transport them both to some Happy Valley out of reach of all annoyance, she nodded in contented agreement.
The hot thundery heavy sunshine fell upon them like an actual stream of attenuated gold, as though the very father of gods and men were blessing them with full hands.
‘Well — now we are alone and safe,’ said Richard, hugging his knees with his clenched fingers and letting his eyes rest on the childish indoor shoes she was wearing, strapped with a thin leather strap above the instep, ‘let’s hear the worst. Out with it Miss Nelly! I can tell you in advance, by a sort of presentiment, that I shall be able to find a solution. Out with it Miss Nelly!’
‘You may drop the Miss — if you like,’ said the girl in a low voice, plucking a long feathery grass blade and pulling it to pieces on her lap.
‘Well, out with it, Nelly!’ he repeated.
She drew in her breath as if for a great burst of volubility; and then suddenly, instead of telling him anything, she broke into a flood of tears. Richard longed to take that fair forehead with its pearl-white transparent skin, its delicate blue veins, its exquisite arched eyebrows, and those wet cheeks hidden in her hands, and comfort them with caresses; but it seemed somehow as if it would be stealing an unfair advantage of her just then. So he just laid one of his hands lightly on her shoulder. ‘Come, come, little one,’ he said. ‘I’m certain we can settle all these things if you only tell me.’
She made a gallant effort and stopped crying, turning to him a look of almost frightened apology. ‘Don’t be angry with me,’ she murmured. ‘I really don’t often give way like this. I think it must be the thunder in the air. It’s so hot and close isn’t it?’
Richard hurriedly assented. ‘Oh awfully close! But do try and tell me now. I’m sure I’m the right person to be told.’
‘It’s about Father,’ she said quietly. ‘He’s written several times to London lately and he’s written to Selshurst. And now it’s all decided. They’ve accepted his resignation. Someone’s coming from Selshurst to take the service. And there’s to be a new vicar. He’s not to be allowed to officiate in the church again. In fact it’s more like being turned out than resigning. There’ll only be one more quarter’s salary coming in; and that’s the end. After that we’ve got nothing! And we’ve not saved a penny. God knows what we shall do. What hastened all so and brought things to a head was some parishioner from over the hill complaining to the bishop — no Little-, gate person would have done it. I believe it was the foreman at Toat Farm. He’s a silly officious old fool. He’s always been a trouble. He must have told them about Father’s leaving out prayers and things. Whenever it says God in the service he changes it to Christ. It’s very, very cruel — happening like this. But I suppose it was bound to come sooner or later. I suppose it would sound odd if a stranger heard him. He didn’t always change it to Christ. Sometimes he changed it to Lord but he always changed it — except when he was thinking of his butterflies or something, and then he forgot and said it like anybody else. I suppose it couldn’t go on like that, could it? Though the people here didn’t seem to notice any difference.’
She stopped breathlessly and looked at her companion with appealing eyes.
Richard felt compelled to confess to her that it did seem a little strange for a priest to expurgate the syllable God out of the Christian worship. He admitted that he did not very clearly see how it could ‘go on’ quite like that.
‘But cannot your Father make any special use of his scientific knowledge? He seemed to me a man of unusual mental power. Couldn’t he get a biological position in some college?’
Nelly frowned just a tiny bit at this, and thought in her heart, How curiously stupid the nicest of men are! Any woman who’d seen Father would know at once that he was quite hopeless in things like that. I suppose the truth is all men are a little hopeless themselves. How any of them do any practical work I can’t think!
And she sighed and smiled, and then frowned again.
‘No. I suppose that’s out of the question,’ said Richard and stared helplessly at the little crossed ankles lying in the grass beside him, over which the ash leaves above their heads threw a tracery of delicate shadows.
Sitting there in his shirtsleeves he felt as though he were prepared to undertake any quixotic labour on behalf of this young girl. But what form could it take?
‘I think perhaps I ought to tell you something else,’ said Nelly gravely. ‘Perhaps you’ve guessed I’m engaged to be married to Mr Canyot?’
‘Yes,’ said Richard with a beating heart.
She was evidently making a tremendous effort to be entirely frank with him and he felt a wave of vibrant pity for her in her manifest embarrassment.
‘Mr Canyot’s been so different since he lost his mother. He misunderstands things. I mean he confuses things. But it’s all too much my own fault!’ She pulled up a large handful of sun-warmed grass and threaded it around her fingers.
Richard could not help noticing that she still wore the ring which he had from the first day assumed to be her engagement ring.
‘I ought to tell you that we had a bad quarrel that day when we walked back together from Selshurst.’
Now we come to it! thought Richard.
‘And the quarrel,’ she went on, ‘if you want to know, was absurdly enough about you!’
‘About me?’ cried Richard, putting a good deal more astonishment into his tone than he actually felt. What he really felt was something much more like the edge and fringe of extreme foolishness; for he began to fear that he had exaggerated altogether the link between her and himself.
She is treating me as her father confessor, he thought. She is talking to me about her love affair. And a very cynical and rather bitter emotion passed through him.
‘Yes, it was about you, about us,’ the girl went on. It was a faint comfort to him to remark that she did blush — she blushed so quickly; it was the misfortune of her transparent complexion — at the word ‘us’.
‘He was troubled in his mind because I liked you, because we liked each other. He said I looked at you and talked to you differently from the way I did with him. Well! you are different, a lot different, from Robert, aren’t you?’
Richard dryly admitted that he did differ from Mr Robert Canyot.
‘We quarrelled over that all the way home. He was rude to me. He was really angry. And I’m afraid I got angry too and said things that hurt him.’
‘Things that hurt him,’ repeated Richard, helping her out.
‘I said I had a right to choose my own friends. I said … more than I ought to have said!’ And she gave Richard that same indescribably lovely smile that he had received from her three times before.