‘Is it . . . I suppose it is something to do with my state of mind?’

‘Good Lord, no! It’s about you and Wesley Baines.’

‘Oh.’

Take it calmly, she told herself. It can do little harm. And for your purpose it is just as well that attention should be focused upon something simple and silly, over and done with.

‘I’ll tell you exactly what they’re saying. You know me well enough to know that I don’t believe a word of it, don’t you? And I jumped on Isabel Thorby the other day when she spoke of it. It was that, as much as anything, that made me decide to tell you.’ She lifted her thin hands with a clinking of rings and checked off the main points of what was being said. Almost as soon as Miss Mayfield arrived in the village, Mrs Baines began talking of leaving. The moment Mrs Baines went with Sydney into hospital, Miss Mayfield was asking Wesley to supper. On pretence of delivering a pair of shoes, Wesley called at Miss Mayfield’s house and went in and stayed for a long time. The news of his death had been such a jolt that she’d only saved herself from falling by clutching at the banister. Wesley was known to have a weakness for women out of his class; he’d married the only moderately educated woman he’d ever met, and when he found one a notch higher, he’d fallen headlong. And since his wife refused to divorce him and his Methodist principles wouldn’t allow him to live in sin, he’d gone melancholy and drowned himself.

Miss Mayfield was disgusted to the very depths of her being, shocked, hurt, ashamed. But she had a feeling – irrational, perhaps, but very strong – that this was the way she was intended to feel. In this place there was an ulterior motive behind everything. Behind, perhaps – yes, horrid as the thought was, it must be faced – behind Mrs Grieve’s explanation and sympathetic anger.

‘I’m grateful to you for telling me. It explains a few things that had puzzled me.’

‘You take it very calmly,’ Mrs Grieve said, lifting the teapot to refill the cups.

‘What am I supposed to do? Foam at the mouth and run in circles?’

Mrs Grieve laughed.

‘You really are the most surprising person. I verily believe that I was far more upset – on your behalf, I mean.’

‘Getting upset wouldn’t help. This kind of thing seems to me to be an inevitable part of life in a remote place. They don’t read, to get to the cinema is an effort, so they manufacture their own folk tales, as they have been doing for hundreds of years. I don’t like it, but I can bear it. If I live to be eighty, I shall probably look back and gloat over having figured in a romance, however far-fetched.’