“He didn’t.”
“I felt at the time that I should have bolted. Grimshaw told me that just such intolerable conditions drove him out of Essex and Poplar.”
“Mr. Grimshaw went to France because he was needed there. I am sure of that.”
“I daresay. Anyway, he left Upworthy. Where was I? Oh, yes. I can’t tell you where responsibility begins or ends. Our land system howls to heaven for reform. And I can’t tell you what ought to be done at Upworthy. Tinkering with improvements is bad business. For the present, at any rate, until this accursed war ends, Lady Selina must be left alone. I—I’m sorry I spoke with such heat.”
“I am much obliged to you,” said Cicely.
V
This confidential talk produced one unexpected effect. Cicely’s plastic mind, plastic under any dominating hand, began to envisage Grimshaw as driven out of Upworthy by circumstance. Instinct had told her that Wilverley’s conjecture was wrong, and instinct happened to be right. But her intelligence, much sharpened by Tiddy, reversed the first judgment. She beheld Grimshaw turning his back upon a hopeless fight, as admittedly he had done before. And if this were true, he would not come back.
He had not written to her.
Not even to Tiddy would she admit that she had hoped for a letter. If he cared, he would surely write. He might write, if he didn’t care. And he had written to Mrs. Rockram, an epistle read aloud to Cicely and then put away as a cherished souvenir of a perfect gentleman. Grimshaw had written also more than once to Dr. Pawley, but Cicely had not read these letters. She gathered from an old friend that Grimshaw was doing first-class work, likely to be recognised, if not rewarded, at Headquarters. Pawley said to her regretfully:
“This parish is too small for him.”