“Wait a minute, Lalage. Take my advice and don’t go on. It’s not safe. My uncle is threatening you with all sorts of violence. You can guess the sort of temper he’s in.”
“Gout?”
“No. Your letter.”
“My letter? Oh, yes. I’d forgotten that letter for the moment. You mean the one I wrote to him about the Archdeacon’s marriage.”
“Now you know why you’d better not go near him for a day or two.”
“Silly old ass, isn’t he, to lose his temper about that? But I can’t stop to argue. I must get Pussy Battersby at once. There isn’t a moment to spare.”
“If the Archdeacon hasn’t turned up, what on earth do you want her for?”
“The fact is,” said Lalage, “that Hilda’s mother is at the rectory.”
“I thought she’d arrive some day. You couldn’t expect to keep her at bay forever. The wonder is that she didn’t come long ago.”
“She travelled by the night mail and was rather dishevelled when she arrived, hair a bit tousled, a smut on the end of her nose and a general look of crinklyness about her clothes. Hilda has been in floods of tears and sobbing like a steam engine all morning.”