“Subject, as I have said, to some possible restrictions if your enthusiasm carries you too far. There is evidently some big scheme looming behind this request. You had better let me know the worst at once. What is to be your first extravagance?”
Mollie’s head still rested in the cup of her hands. She looked at him steadily, with a little flame of determination in her grey eyes.
“I am going to have the vicarage painted and papered from top to bottom. It’s disgracefully shabby! The paper is hanging off the walls in some places, and where it isn’t, it would be almost better if it were, it is so ugly and worn. It is too bad to expect Mr and Mrs Thornton to do all the hard, depressing work of the parish and keep bright and cheerful themselves, when their home is enough to give the blues to a clown! It looks as if it hadn’t been touched for a century!”
Mr Farrell lowered his eyelids and sat in a grim silence, while the clock ticked a full two minutes. Mollie, watching his face, saw the thin lips grow thinner and thinner, as they were pressed the more firmly together; the horizontal lines in his forehead deepened into furrows. There was no mistaking the fact that he was displeased, and deeply displeased, even before the cold eyes met hers once more.
“I had no intention now, or at any other time, of allowing you to assume control over the whole parish! My proposition referred simply to this house and your own entertainment. I am still capable of looking after my own property.”
“But—” began Mollie, and stopped short.
Even her courage failed before the obvious retort that the property was not looked after, but allowed to fall into dilapidation; but Mr Farrell understood without the need of words, and his eyes flashed with anger.
“You must permit me to judge for myself! When my day is over, whoever comes into possession can squander my money as he or she sees fit, but I cannot hurry the time forward, however much you may desire it. You must be patient and wait. It may come sooner than you think.”
Mollie sprang to her feet with an exclamation of mingled pain and anger.
“Oh, Uncle Bernard, how cruel! How can you say anything so horrid and unjust! It isn’t true, and you know it isn’t true, and I don’t deserve it! I only asked for what you yourself suggested.”