Silence fell for a moment. Charles adjusted himself in his seat. He seemed preoccupied. She wondered whether he was feeling the weight of his conscience.

‘Do tell me,’ she said, ‘about home.’ Swallowing her hurt, she said at last, ‘Tell me about Father. About the work. The Lord’s work.’ The words felt rusty in her mouth and she realized, with something that was almost panic, how little she had been talking about these things lately.

Charles also sat back, giving the impression of being appeased by this. As they journeyed south, stopping at Warwick and Leamington Spa, he gave her news of their little church. Though he talked about their work in the village, the progress of the word under himself and her father as shepherds of the flock, she thought she heard a bitter edge to his voice, a touch almost of scorn. She realized that he had been hoping for more, to be sent back to a large mission in one of the great cities – Birmingham, Manchester or London. And it had been decided that these were not the right places for him. Who had said what to whom? she wondered. Had her father, although not able to confront the truth directly with her, spoken to someone, hinted, or more than hinted, at Charles’s lingering instability?

The more he talked, the more she felt an attitude of disapproval towards her coming from him. So, to convince him that she had not spent her time in Birmingham mixed up only in worldly matters of commerce, she told him about the Pooles.

Charles shook his head on hearing this, in a manner of pastoral sadness and concern.

‘The life of the poor is endlessly hard,’ he said. ‘It is our task and our mission field.’

‘At least at home people can more easily keep livestock and grow a little something,’ she said, wanting to impress her new knowledge upon him. ‘In the quarter where the Pooles live, the houses are in a most dire state, all crammed together amid smoke and fumes, and there’s not a house which has running water and scarcely a blade of grass or a garden to be seen. Although –’ she smiled – ‘there is a man in the next court of houses to the Pooles, who somehow manages to keep a pig!’

Charles smiled politely. ‘Gracious me. Though I did see such things when I worked in the city myself.’

‘Of course,’ she said, still trying to appease him. ‘You have had so many experiences of ministry.’

‘Not enough, apparently, to warrant having my own congregation.’ The bitterness was now very clear.

‘Oh, Charles, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I know that’s what you would most like. Perhaps they think you need one more stage of preparation before being given such a heavy responsibility?’

‘There are those younger than me charged with greater responsibilities,’ he said sulkily.