Flora waited for a moment and then said very gently:
“As you say, I don’t know anything about these things, but perhaps you would tell me what you want. We might think of some way of making things better. And you can see for yourself that your secret—and David’s—is safe with me. I’ve deceived my father, sooner than let him guess. I don’t think he need ever know, now.”
“Why don’t you want him to know?” said Mrs. Carey with sudden curiosity that seemed to check her crying.
“It would make him very unhappy. He was proud of David and he thinks that David had a career before him. Perhaps you’ve read in books,” said Flora, speaking as though to a child, “about people thinking death is better than dishonour. Well, my father is like that.”
“He’s a parson, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Carey shrugged her shoulders.
“Where is your husband now?” Flora enquired. She felt that she could ask this woman questions without fear or rebuff, but she thought that it would be for her to disentangle the truth from the false in Mrs. Carey’s replies.
“Fred’s in Scotland. He’s staying with his mother. She’s a beastly old woman and I hate her. If she’d been a decent sort, you’d think she’d have used her influence to put things right between us, now wouldn’t you? But she’s never let Fred alone ever since we married. Always telling him tales about me, and saying I’m extravagant, and a flirt, and wanting to know why I’ve never had a baby. It’s not my fault if I’ve got rotten health, now is it? I’ve always been delicate. I’m sure I only wish I had got a child. It might have made Fred nicer to me, and I should have had something to care for.”
She began to cry again.