‘Mrs Rigby, Ethel had cause to remove her dress in school this afternoon and Miss Mayfield saw, to her consternation, that her back shows marks of a beating. A pretty severe beating.’

‘Be a funny thing if it didn’t,’ Mrs Rigby said with no sign of being abashed or repentant. ‘Laid it on good and hard, I did. She’ll bear the marks for a week, I reckon.’

‘May we know why you beat her?’

‘You may. You’ll understand, sir. I’m not having her go the way Maud went, at least not for lack of a hiding to bring her to her senses.’

‘Not that old trouble already?’

‘Sorry as I am to say it, that is so. I’ll name no names for the present, and I’ve knocked sense into Ethel I think, but if I have any more bother, I shall ask you to hev a word with the chap. Everything else apart, she’s only fourteen and, sometimes I think, not all that bright.’

‘I’ll do more than have a word,’ he said sternly. ‘To revert to Ethel. Don’t you think she is a little old to be whipped? Have you tried other persuasions?’

‘I’ve talked till I was black in the face. Now, you’re both clever people, you tell me; what do you do with a girl of fourteen who turns round and says, “I’ll do what I like”? Specially’ – her voice almost broke – ‘when you know what happened before and can look back . . . and remember.’

‘I know, I know,’ Canon Thorby said hastily. ‘It is a very trying situation. You know, you may be a little over-anxious. History seldom so exactly repeats itself. Would you mind if I had a word with Ethel?’

‘Why should I? She’s right here.’ She opened the door into the back room and called. Ethel came in, carrying her knitting. It was some of the dish-cloth yarn which, smeared with aluminium paint, was to be chain mail in some of the scenes. The elder girls had been entrusted to work on it at home.

‘Hullo, Ethel,’ the Canon said. ‘I should like you to tell me, in your own words, exactly what happened last evening.’

‘What about last evening, sir?’

‘Weren’t you punished?’

Ethel swung round on her grandmother and said venomously:

‘What did you want to go telling about that for? You hit me, didn’t you? Wasn’t that enough? D’you want to make me look a fool in front of everybody?’

‘It was I, Ethel. I saw your back when I unzipped the dress this afternoon. I thought something should be done about it.’

‘Oh.’ From lowered sulky eyes Ethel shot Miss Mayfield a look of hatred.