Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman
looking bachelor is unfairly exposed to temptation in England. They will let well alone if only others would leave them alone. . .
As witness that girl at Morecambe. I shall not tell you about that, because I hope—nay more; I pray—that it is all satisfactorily settled; and, also, I was never told the full story. It was enough for me that he had lost a splendid appointment and now, once more, has nothing to live on; he must marry or find a job. . . When the girl’s father came to the house—one of these rugged, north-of-England clergymen who always have the air of intimidating you into a state of grace—, it was my husband whom he insisted on seeing. I had never known Arthur in a state of such ungovernable fury. Bursting into my room, he stamped up and down, incoherent, beside himself. . . To this day I do not know what Will is supposed to have done. The girl kissed him good-night or something. I suppose I am the last person to condone any freedom, but she was a mere child ten years younger than my boy—what more natural or innocent? The old father spied on them. . . Hence the storm. Reading between the lines, I should conjecture that the girl deliberately laid herself out to catch Will. The one time I saw this Molly Phenton, she seemed an attractive child, with deep-set, rather appealing eyes;
158
