The Three Sisters Part 49

"Nothing. Nothing whatever of the sort you mean."

"You're sure there hasn't been"--he paused discreetly for his word--"some misunderstanding?"

"Quite sure. There isn't anything to misunderstand. I'm going because I want to go. There are too many of us at home."

"Too many of you--in the state your sister's in?"

"That's exactly why I'm going. I'm trying to tell you. Ally'll go on being ill as long as there are three of us knocking about the house.

You'll find she'll buck up like anything when I'm gone. There's nothing the matter with her, really."

"That may be your opinion. It isn't Rowcliffe's."

"I know it isn't. But it soon will be. It was your own idea a little while ago."

"Ye--es; before this last attack, perhaps. D'you know what Rowcliffe thinks of her?"

"Yes. But I know a lot more about Ally than he does. So do you."

"Well--"

They were sitting down to it now.

"But I can't afford to keep you if you go away."

"Of course you can't. You won't have to keep me. I'm going to keep myself."

Again he stared. This was preposterous.

"It's all right, Papa. It's all settled."

"By whom?"

"By me."

"You've found something to do in London?"

"Not yet. I'm going to look--"

"And what," inquired the Vicar with an even suaver irony, "_can_ you do?"

"I can be somebody's secretary."

"Whose?"

"Oh," said Gwenda airily, "anybody's."

"And--if I may ask--what will you do, and where do you propose to stay, while you're looking for him?" (He felt that he expressed himself with perspicacity.)

"That's all arranged. I'm going to Mummy."

The Vicar was silent with the shock of it.

"I'm sorry, Papa," said Gwenda; "but there's nowhere else to go to."

"If you go there," said Mr. Cartaret, "you will certainly not come back here."

All that had pa.s.sed till now had been mere skirmis.h.i.+ng. The real battle had begun.

Gwenda set her face to it.

"I shall not be coming back in any case," she said.

"That question can stand over till you've gone."

"I shall be gone on Friday by the three train."

"I shall not allow you to go--by any train."

"How are you going to stop me?"

He had not considered it.

"You don't suppose I'm going to give you any money to go with?"

"You needn't. I've got heaps."

"And how are you going to get your luggage to the station?"

"Oh--the usual way."

"There'll be no way if I forbid Peac.o.c.k to carry it--or you."

"Can you forbid Jim Greatorex? _He_'ll take me like a shot."

"I can put your luggage under lock and key."

He was still stern, though, he was aware that the discussion was descending to sheer foolishness.

"I'll go without it. I can carry a toothbrush and a comb, and Mummy will have heaps of nightgowns."

The Vicar leaned forward and hid his face in his hands before that poignant evocation of Robina.

Gwenda saw that she had gone too far. She had a queer longing to go down on her knees before him and drag his hands from his poor face and ask him to forgive her. She struggled with and overcame the morbid impulse.

The Vicar lifted his face, and for a moment they looked at each other while he measured, visibly, his forces against hers.

She shook her head at him almost tenderly. He was purely pathetic to her now.