"Well, I was on my way home," he said. "I have been visiting since lunch-time. I have been right to the far end of the parish to see a poor old woman who is bedridden, but so good and patient that she is a lesson to us all." He turned to Caroline. "I wonder if you would walk up to Burnt Green with me some afternoon and see her. I was telling her about you, and I know what pleasure it would give her to see a bright young face like yours. I'm sure, if you only sat by her bedside and talked to her it would do her good. She is so lonely, poor old soul!"
He spoke very earnestly. Caroline looked at him with dislike tingeing her expression, though she was not aware of it. But Miss Waterhouse replied, before she could do so. "If you will tell us her name and where to find her, Mr. Mercer, we shall be glad to go and see her sometimes."
He gave the required information, half-unwillingly, as it seemed; but this lady was so very insistent in her quiet way. "Mollie Walter comes visiting with me sometimes," he said. "I don't say, you know, that sick people are not pleased to see their clergyman when he calls, but I am not too proud to say that a sympathetic young girl often does more good at a bedside than even the clergyman."
"I should think anybody would be pleased to see Mollie," said Beatrix. "If I were ill she is just the sort of person I should like to see."
"Better than the clergyman?" enquired the Vicar archly. "Now be careful how you answer."
Beatrix turned her head away indifferently. Young George, who was afflicted to the depths of his soul by the idea of this proffered intimacy, said, awkwardly enough but with intense meaning: "My sisters are not used to go visiting with clergymen, sir. I don't think my father would like it for them."
The Vicar showed himself completely disconcerted, and stared at Young George with open eyes and half-open mouth. The boy was cramming himself with bread and butter, and his face was red. With his tangled hair, and clothes that his late exertions had made untidy, he looked a mere child. But there was no mistaking his hostility, nor the awkward fact that here was another obstacle to desired intimacy with this agreeable family.
It was so very unexpected. The Vicar had thought himself quite successful, with his hand on his shoulder, and his few kindly words, in impressing himself upon this latest and very youthful member of it as a desirable friend of the family. And behold! he had made an enemy. For Young George's objection to his sisters' visiting with clergymen in general was so obviously intended to be taken as an objection to their visiting with this one. That was made plain by his attitude.
Miss Waterhouse solved the awkward situation. "Visiting sick people in the country is not like visiting people in the slums of London, Bunting dear. Mr. Mercer would let us know if there were any danger of infection. It would be better, though, I think, if we were to pay our visits separately."
There was to be no doubt about that, at any rate. Miss Waterhouse was hardly less annoyed than Young George at the invitation that had been given, and its impertinence was not to be salved over however much it was to be desired that dislike should not be too openly expressed.