Thinking of him brought to mind his words about God working in a mysterious way; and suddenly she was lifted out of her fear and doubt and filled with a sense of destiny. She had remembered at the precise moment that she had because it was then too late, she had been brought back to Walwyk and committed to remaining because her sole purpose was to save Ethel Rigby. It was as simple as that.

17

‘WELL,’ CANON THORBY ASKED QUIZZICALLY, ‘DID you have a nice lunch?’

‘A nice long lunch,’ she said. ‘You must remember, though, that everything Mrs Grieve has to tell me about her past life is new and therefore interesting to me. I really had a most entertaining time.’

‘You’re looking a great deal better.’

‘Coming home completed my cure.’

She had found the remains of the Tío Pepe. And she had gone across the Green again and spent the last of her money on some more cheese and butter and some flour. She had spent much of her morning making cheese straws. An offering in the House of Rimmon.

As soon as he was comfortably installed, she said with a bright confidence:

‘We were going to talk about the future, weren’t we? The awkward part of this would all have been over before we met if Miss Ellison hadn’t taken such a peculiarly strict view of her instructions to look after me.’ She recounted the incident, making it sound trivial and slightly amusing. ‘But I’ll tell you exactly what I said in my letter, Canon Thorby.’ She told him, ending, ‘If you have the slightest doubt as to my sanity, please don’t hesitate to say so. Worse things have been said, and done me no harm.’

Busy as his mind was with the main issue, he was aware of an obscure change in her manner, her voice, even her way of looking at him. Something old-maidish, easily flustered, slightly fumbling, had left her; she seemed brisker, bolder.

‘Put like that, it sounds so simple; but there is a complication. Dear Miss Mayfield, I hate saying it – but I have already replaced you. You see, after your accident I couldn’t leave Miss Benson to struggle on until the end of the term; I gave her what help I could, but it wasn’t enough. And I heard of a young woman who was just down from Girton. Her home is in Selbury and her widowed mother was very anxious for her to find a post where she could sleep at home. She came in, every day towards the end of the term, on a scooter. She and her mother are so delighted by this arrangement that I simply haven’t the heart to tell her that it no longer holds. You do see, don’t you? We had no notion of when, if ever, you would be fit to take up work again.’