have to keep their children, and look after them. It hasn't been so bad while I could be sent away to school – but you see what Mummie would really like is to be just herself and my stepfather and the boys.'
I said slowly, 'I still think you're morbid, Megan, but accepting some of what you say as true, why don't you go away and have a life of your own?'
She gave me an odd un-childlike smile. 'You mean take up a career. Earn my living?'
'Yes.'
'What at?'
'You could train for something, I suppose. Shorthand, typing, bookkeeping.'
'I don't believe I could. I am stupid about doing things. And besides -'
'Well?'
She had turned her head away, now she turned it slowly back again. It was crimson and there were tears in her eyes.
She spoke now with all the childishness back in her voice:
'Why should I go away? And be made to go away? They don't want me, but I'll stay. I'll stay and make everyone sorry. I'll make them all sorry. Hateful pigs! I hate everyone here in Lymstock. They all think I'm stupid and ugly. I'll show them! I'll show them! I'll -'
It was a childish, oddly pathetic rage.
I heard a step on the gravel around the corner of the house.
'Get up,' I said savagely. 'Go into the house through the drawing room. Go up to the bathroom. Wash your face. Quick.'
She sprang awkwardly to her feet and darted through the window as Joanna came around the corner of the house.
I told her Megan had come to lunch.
'Good,' said Joanna, 'I like Megan, though I rather think she's a changeling. Something left on a doorstep by the fairies. But she's interesting.'
I see that so far I have made little mention of the Reverend and Mrs. Calthrop.
And yet both the vicar and his wife were distinct personalities. Dane Calthrop himself was perhaps a being more remote from everyday life than anyone I have ever met. His existence was in his books and in his study. Mrs. Dane Calthrop, on the other hand, was quite terrifyingly on the spot. Though she seldom gave advice and never interfered, yet she represented to the uneasy consciences of the village the Deity personified.
She stopped me in the High Street the day after Megan had come to lunch. I had the usual feeling of surprise, because Mrs. Dane Calthrop's progress resembled coursing more than walking, thus according with her startling resemblance to a greyhound, and as her eyes were always fixed on the distant horizon you felt sure that her real objective was about a mile and a half away.
'Oh!' she said. 'Mr. Burton!'
She said it rather triumphantly, as someone might who had solved a particularly clever puzzle. I admitted that I was Mr. Burton and Mrs. Dane Calthrop stopped focusing on the horizon and seemed to be trying to focus on me instead.
'Now what,' she said, 'did I want to see you about?'
I could not help her there. She stood frowning, deeply perplexed.
'Something rather nasty,' she said.
'I'm sorry about that,' I said startled.
'Ah,' cried Mrs. Dane Calthrop. 'Anonymous letters! What's this story you've brought down here about anonymous letters?'
'I didn't bring it,' I said, 'it was here already.'
'Nobody got any until you came, though,' said Mrs. Dane Calthrop accusingly.
'But they did, Mrs. Dane Calthrop. The trouble had already started.'
'Oh, dear,' said Mrs. Dane Calthrop. 'I don't like that.'
She stood there, her eyes absent and far away again. She said:
'I can't help feeling it's all wrong. We're not like that here. Envy, of course, and malice, and all the mean spiteful little sins – but I didn't think there was anyone who would do that. No, I really didn't. And it distresses me, you see, because I ought to know.'
Her fine eyes came back from the horizon and met mine.
They were worried, and seemed to hold the honest bewilderment of a child's.
'Why ought you to know?' I said.
'I usually do. I've always felt that's my function. Caleb preaches good sound doctrine and administers the sacraments. That's a priest's duty, but if you admit marriage at all for a priest, then I think his wife's duty is to know what people are feeling and thinking, even if she can't do anything about it. And I haven't the least idea whose mind is -'
She broke off, adding absently, 'They are such silly letters, too.'
'Have you – er – had any yourself?'
I was a little diffident of asking, but Mrs. Dane Calthrop replied perfectly naturally, her eyes opening a little wider:
'Oh, yes, two – no, three. I forget exactly what they said. Something very silly about Caleb and the schoolmistress, I think. Quite absurd, because Caleb has absolutely no taste for flirtation. He never has had. So lucky being a clergyman.'
'Quite,' I said, 'oh, quite.'
'Caleb would have been a saint,' said Mrs. Dane Calthrop, 'if he hadn't been just a little too intellectual.'
I did not feel qualified to answer this criticism, and anyway Mrs. Dane Calthrop went on, leaping back from her husband to the letters in rather a puzzling way.
'There are so many things the letters might say, but don't. That's what is so curious.'
'I should hardly have thought they erred on the side of restraint,' I said bitterly.
'But they don't seem to know anything. None of the real things.'
'You mean?'
Those fine vague eyes met mine.
'Well, of course. There's plenty of wrongdoing here – any amount of shameful secrets. Why doesn't the writer use those?'
She paused and then asked abruptly, 'What did they say in your letter?'
'They suggested that my sister wasn't my sister.'
'And she is?'
Mrs. Dane Calthrop asked the question with unembarrassed friendly interest.
'Certainly Joanna is my sister.'
Mrs. Dane Calthrop nodded her head. 'That just shows you what I mean. I daresay there are other things -'
Her clear uninterested eyes looked at me thoughtfully, and I suddenly understood why Lymstock was afraid of Mrs. Dane Calthrop.
In everybody's life there are hidden chapters which they hope may never be known. I felt that Mrs. Dane Calthrop knew them.
For once in my life, I was positively delighted when Aimee Griffith's hearty voice boomed out:
'Hullo, Maud. Glad I've just caught you. I want to suggest an alteration of date for the Sale of Work. Morning, Mr. Burton.'
She went on:
'I must just pop into the grocer's and leave my order, then I'll come along to the Institute if that suits you?'
'Yes, yes, that will do quite well,' said Mrs. Dane Calthrop. Aimee Griffith went into the International Stores.
Mrs. Dane Calthrop said, 'Poor thing.'
I was puzzled. Surely she could not be pitying Aimee?
She went on, however: 'You know, Mr. Burton, I'm rather afraid -'
