§ 6

Charles Smith was not allowed to come down again. The solicitors declared it advisable that Mary should see nothing of him while proceedings were pending. Indeed it was necessary to guard her reputation like a shrine. She stayed at Conster while the weeks dragged through the spring, and when in May Sir John and Lady Alard went for their yearly visit to Bath, it was decided that she should go to the Vicarage, so that a polish of sanctity and ecclesiastical patronage might be given to her stainlessness.

So she packed her belongings—helped by Jenny instead of Gisèle, whose wages had been beyond her means ever since her plunge for freedom—and they were taken to where Leasan Parsonage stood hidden among May trees and lilac bushes down Leasan lane.

Mary was not personally looking forward to the change, though the atmosphere of Conster was eruptive, and though one felt the family solidarity more strongly at the Manor than at the Parsonage, and was also—in spite of luxury—more conscious of the family’s evil days. Her feeling for Rose was almost fear—her bustle, her curiosity, her love of rule, her touch of commonness provoked an antipathy which was less dislike than alarm. She also shrank from the ugliness and discomforts of the Vicarage life—Rose was supposed to have a gift for training Raw Girls, and, as Gervase once said even when the girls ceased to be actually raw, they were still remarkably underdone. Chatter, scoldings, creaking footsteps, and the smell of bad cooking filled the house all day—George, whom Mary was inclined to like in spite of his stupidity, took the usual male refuge in flight, and spent most of his time shut up in his study, which shared the sanctity of Leasan church and could be invaded by no one but his wife.

There were also two rather colourless children, Lillian and Edna, whose governess—a more cultured type of Raw Girl—made a sixth at luncheon. It had always been a secret grief to Rose that she had never had a son; her only comfort was that no other Alard had done so up till now. But this comfort would probably be taken from her soon. Vera would be sure to have a son—Jewesses always did.... Rose thought vaguely about Abraham....