Part 3 (2/2)

The watch and clock both agreed that it was not a minute later than fifteen minutes to ten. A whole quarter of an hour before Prayer-time.

There was nothing but Prayer-time to look forward to.

He began to fidget again. He filled his pipe and thought better about smoking it. Then he rang the bell for his gla.s.s of water.

After more delay than was at all necessary Essy appeared, bringing the gla.s.s of water on a plate.

She came in, soft-footed, almost furtive, she who used to enter so suddenly and unabashed. She put the plate down on the roll-top desk and turned softly, furtively, away.

The Vicar looked up. His eyes were large and blue as suspicion drew in the black of their pupils.

”Put it down here,” he said, and he indicated the ledge of the bureau.

Essy stood still and stared like a half-wild creature in doubt as to its way. She decided to make for the bureau by rounding the roll-top desk on the far side, thus approaching her master from behind.

”What are you doing?” said the Vicar. ”I said, Put it down here.”

Essy turned again and came forward, tilting the plate a little in her nervousness. The large blue eyes, the stern voice, fascinated her, frightened her.

The Vicar looked at her steadily, remorselessly, as she came.

Essy's lowered eyelids had kept the stain of her tears. Her thick brown hair was loose and rumpled under her white cap. But she had put on a clean, starched ap.r.o.n. It stood out stiffly, billowing, from her waist. Essy had not always been so careless about her hair or so fastidious as to her ap.r.o.ns. There was a little strained droop at the corners of her tender mouth, as if they had been tied with string. Her dark eyes still kept their young largeness and their light, but they looked as if they had been drawn tight with string at their corners too.

All these signs the Vicar noted as he stared. And he hated Essy. He hated her for what he saw in her, and for her buxom comeliness, and for the softness of her youth.

”Did I hear young Greatorex round at the back door this evening?” he said.

Essy started, slanting her plate a little more.

”I doan knaw ef I knaw, sir.”

”Either you know or you don't know,” said the Vicar.

”I doan know, I'm sure, sir,” said Essy.

The Vicar was holding out his hand for his gla.s.s of water, and Essy pushed the plate toward him, so blindly and at such a perilous slant that the gla.s.s slid and toppled over and broke itself against the Vicar's chair.

Essy gave a little frightened cry.

”Clever girl. She did that on purpose,” said the Vicar to himself.

Essy was on her knees beside him, picking up the bits of gla.s.s and gathering them in her ap.r.o.n. She was murmuring, ”I'll mop it oop. I'll mop it oop.”

”That'll do,” he said roughly. ”That'll do, I tell you. You can go.”

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