The Three Sisters | Page 9

going on so as to make them think
it."
"Think what?"
"That she really had done something."
"Do you suppose they did?"

"Yes. You can't blame them. He couldn't have piled it on more if she
had. It's enough to make her."
"Oh Gwenda!"
"It would be his own fault. Just as it's his own fault that he hates her."
"He doesn't hate her. He's fond of all of us, in his way."
"Wot of Ally. Don't you know why? He can't look at her without
thinking of how awful he is."
"And if he _is_--a little----You forget what he's had to go through."
"You mean Mummy running away from him?"
"Yes. And Mamma's dying. And before that--there was Mother."
Gwenda raised her head.
"He killed Mother."
"What do you mean?"
"He did. He was told that Mother would die or go mad if she had
another baby. And he let her have Ally. No wonder Mummy ran away
from him."
"Who told you that story?"
"Mummy."
"It was horrid of her."
"Everything poor Mummy did was horrid. It was horrid of her to run
away from him, I suppose."
"Why did you tell me that? I didn't know it. I'd rather not have known."

"Well, now you do know, perhaps you'll be sorrier for Ally."
"I am sorry for Ally. But I'm sorry for Papa, too. You're not."
"I'd be sorry for him right enough if he wasn't so sorry for himself."
"Gwenda, _you're_ awful."
"Because I won't waste my pity? Ally's got nothing--He's got
everything."
"Not what he cares most for."
"He cares most for what people think of him. Everybody thought him a
good kind husband. Everybody thinks him a good kind father."
* * * * *
The music suddenly ceased. A sound of voices came instead of it.
"There," said Gwenda. "He's gone in and stopped her."
He had, that time.
And in the sudden ceasing of the Pathetic Sonata the three sisters heard
the sound of wheels and the clank of horseshoes striking together.
Mr. Greatorex was not yet dead of his pneumonia. The doctor had
passed the Vicarage gate.
And as he passed he had said to himself. "How execrably she plays."
* * * * *
The three sisters waited without a word for the striking of the church
clock.

XI

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