“I don’t know.”
She never knew, perhaps that was the best. But he was beginning to.
“Well, remember, if ever you want to run away, come up to London and stay with us. We have not yet arranged to go to London; that is, I have not even broached the subject with Mamma, but I must go, and in the end she and I will go. So just you come when you want.”
“I will. An’ may I bring Father too?”
“But—but yes, if you think he needs it.”
“I know you. An’ what’s wrong with Father? He’s nothing to be ashamed of. You think I don’t notice the way people pass us as if we weren’t there when they meet us on the road. It’s not his fault his being what he is. He was brought to it, and by your lot too.”
“June, what do you mean?”
“They were always criticising him—d’you suppose I don’t know how it was?—always carping away at him till his life wasn’t his own and as if it didn’t belong to him and no one else, and not to everyone as they thought, and finding fault with Mother for being in love with the postman, of course it was wrong, but why shouldn’t she, and them saying that he didn’t do his duty to his parish when he was worth the whole crew of them put together.”
“But June . . .”
“Oh, I’m not blaming you, don’t be frightened. But it was your lot that brought him to it, it . . .”