After Mathew Cardinal's visit the talk rose to a shriek.Grace knew that those sudden silences on her entrance into the room meant lively and excited discussion."How terrible for the poor rector!""Such an odd girl--taken out of the slums." "Yes, quite drunk.He knocked Mrs.Maxse down." "Oh I assure you that she went to see Caroline Purdie the very day after.She did indeed..."Yes.Grace knew all about it.Unless things changed Paul would have to go.His life was ruined by this girl.
Nevertheless for a whole happy week the world seemed to sink back into its old accustomed apathy.The very house seemed to take on its old atmosphere.Paul came out of his study and went about paying calls.That hour, from six to seven, when he was at home to his parishioners seemed once again to be crowded with anxious old women and men out of work and girls in trouble.He took Grace with him on his rounds.Every one was very friendly.Grace was able to reassume some of her old importance.
Her old flow of conversation--checked recently by the sense of Maggie's strangeness--returned to her.In the morning she would stand by her brother's study-table, duster in hand, and pour out her heart.
"You know, Paul, it's all very well, you may say what you like, but if Mrs.Maxse thinks she's going to have the whole of that second pew she's mistaken.It's only for a week or two that she's got the Broadbents staying with her, and I know what she's after.Just fancy! What she wants is to put the Broadbents in that second seat the two Sundays they're here and then stick to it after they're gone.Just fancy what Miss Beats and Miss Hopwood will feel about it! What I mean is that they've had that seat for nearly eight years and now to be turned out! But I assure you, Paul, from what Linda Maxse said to me yesterday I believe she intends that, I do indeed.
She thinks Miss Beats and Miss Hopwood will get used to sitting somewhere else after two Sundays.'I'm sure they won't mind--poor old things,' she said only yesterday.'Poor old things.' Just fancy!
Why, Mary Beats is very little older than I.You'll have to put your foot down about it, you will, indeed, Paul.Yes, you will.Give Linda Maxse an inch and she takes a mile, I always said--and this is just the kind of thing..."So happily Grace ran on and Paul looked up from his desk at her, digging his fingers into his white hair, smiling at her in just the old confidential way that he used to have before Maggie came.
She revived, too, her old habit of talking to herself.This had always been an immense relief to her--it had helped her to feel reassurance.Lately she had felt that Maggie was overhearing her and was laughing at her; this had checked her and made her suspicious.
Now as she began to mount the stairs she would murmur to herself:
"It might be better to tell Jenny to go to Bartletts.After all, it's quicker that way, and she'll be able to tell the boy to bring the things back.She needn't wait.All the same she's stupid, she'll make a muddle of it as likely as not.And Womball's boy is livelier than Bartletts'.That's something after all.But if she goes out at two-thirty she'll never be back by four--unless she went by Smith's lane of course--she might do that...Oh, dear, these stairs are a trial...yes, she might do that, and then she'd only be an hour altogether.I'll suggest that..."Her murmur was a cheerful monotonous sound accompanying her as she went.She would stop and rub the side of her nose with her thumb, considering.In the house, when there was no fear of callers, she wore large loose slippers that tap-tapped as she went.In the evenings she sat in Paul's study all amongst the Cornhills, The Temple Bars, and The Bible Concordances.They were very cosy and happy, and she talked incessantly.For some reason she did not dare to ask him whether he were not happier now that Maggie was away.
She did not dare.There was not the complete confidence that there had been.Paul was strange a little, bewitched by Maggie's strangeness...There was something there that Grace did not understand.So she said nothing, but she tried to convey to him, in the peculiar warmth of her good-night kiss, what she felt.
Then Maggie returned.She came back in her black clothes and with her pale face.Her aunt had died.She was more alone even than before.She was very quiet, and agreed to everything that Grace said.Nevertheless, although she agreed, she was more antagonistic than she had been.She had now something that intensely preoccupied her.Grace could see that she was always thinking about something that had nothing to do with Skeaton or Paul or the house.She was more absent-minded than ever, forgot everything, liked best to sit in her bedroom all alone.
"Oh, she's mad!" said Grace."She's really mad! Just fancy if she should go right off her head!" Grace was now so desperately frightened that she lay awake at night, sweating, listening to every sound."If she should come and murder me one night," she thought.
Another thought she had was: "It's just as though she sees some one all the time who isn't there."Then came 13th March, that dreadful day that would be never forgotten by Grace so long as she lived.During the whole of the past week Skeaton had been delivered up to a tempest of wind and rain.The High Street, emptied of human beings, had glittered and swayed under the sweeping storm.The Skeaton sea, possessing suddenly a life of its own, had stormed upon the Skeaton promenade, and worried and lashed and soaked that hideous structure to within an inch of its unnatural life.Behind the town the woods had swayed and creaked, funeral black against the grey thick sky.Across the folds the rain fell in slanting sheets with the sibilant hiss of relentless power and resolve.