But for Mrs. Vanderdecken I should not be here, returned to the fold!’

Father Consett exclaimed:

‘Don’t say it, child. I’d rather, heaven help me, you had gone on living in open sin.’

Sylvia sat down again, her hands listlessly in her lap.

‘Have it your own way,’ she said, and the Father returned to the fourth sheet of the telegram.

‘What does this mean?’ he asked. He had returned to the first sheet. ‘This here: “Accept resumption yoke”?’ he read, breathlessly.

‘Sylvia,’ Mrs. Satterthwaite said, ‘go and light the spirit lamp for some tea. We shall want it.’

‘You’d think I was a district messenger boy,’ Sylvia said as she rose. ‘Why don’t you keep your maid up? … It’s a way we had of referring to our … union,’ she explained to the Father.

‘There was sympathy enough between you and him then,’ he said, ‘to have bywords for things. It was that I wanted to know. I understood the words.’

‘They were pretty bitter bywords, as you call them,’ Sylvia said. ‘More like curses than kisses.’

‘It was you that used them then,’ Mrs. Satterthwaite said. ‘Christopher never said a bitter thing to you.’

An expression like a grin came slowly over Sylvia’s face as she turned back to the priest.

‘That’s mother’s tragedy,’ she said. ‘My husband’s one of her best boys. She adores him. And he can’t bear her.’ She drifted behind the wall of the next room and they heard her tinkling the tea-things as the Father read on again beside the candle. His immense shadow began at the centre and ran along the pitchpine ceiling, down the wall and across the floor to join his splay feet in their clumsy boots.

‘It’s bad,’ he muttered. He made a sound like ‘Umbleumbleumble.… Worse than I feared … umbleumble.… “accept resumption yoke but on rigid conditions”. What’s this: “esoecially”; it ought to be a “p”, “especially regards child reduce establishment ridiculous our position remake settlements in child’s sole interests flat not house entertaining minimum am prepared resign office settle Yorkshire but imagine this not suit you child remain sister Effie open visits both wire if this rough outline provisionally acceptable in that case will express draft general position Monday for you and mother reflect upon follow self Tuesday arrive Thursday Lobscheid go Wiesbaden fortnight on social task discussion Thursday limited solely comma emphasised comma to affairs.” ’

‘That means,’ Mrs. Satterthwaite said, ‘that he doesn’t mean to reproach her. Emphasised applies to the word solely.…’

‘Why d’you take it …’ Father Consett asked, ‘did he spend an immense lot of money on this telegram? Did he imagine you were in such trepidation.…’ He broke off. Walking slowly, her long arms extended to carry the tea-tray, over which her wonderfully moving face had a rapt expression of indescribable mystery, Sylvia was coming through the door.

‘Oh, child,’ the Father exclaimed, ‘whether it’s St. Martha or that Mary that made the bitter choice, not one of them ever looked more virtuous than you. Why aren’t ye born to be a good man’s helpmeet?’

A little tinkle sounded from the tea-tray and three pieces of sugar fell on to the floor. Mrs. Tietjens hissed with vexation.

‘I knew that damned thing would slide off the tea-cups,’ she said. She dropped the tray from an inch or so of height on to the carpeted table. ‘I’d made it a matter of luck between myself and myself,’ she said. Then she faced the priest.

‘I’ll tell you,’ she said, ‘why he sent the telegram. It’s because of that dull display of the English gentleman that I detested.