“You know all about things, of course, except the one thing which to me is all important. I can't go on without knowing whether I have a chance with your sister. It is against your father's expressed wish that she should have anything to do with me, but I told him that I could not and would not promise not to ask her. I get my holiday at the end of this month, and am coming down to put it to the touch. It means more to me than you can possibly imagine.
She discussed the letter with George, whose advice was: “Answer it politely, but say nothing; and nothing to Nollie. I think it would be a very good thing. Of course it's a bit of a make-shift—twice her age; but he's a genuine man, if not exactly brilliant.”
Gratian answered almost sullenly: “I've always wanted the very best for Nollie.”
George screwed up his steel-coloured eyes, as he might have looked at one on whom he had to operate. “Quite so,” he said. “But you must remember, Gracie, that out of the swan she was, Nollie has made herself into a lame duck. Fifty per cent at least is off her value, socially. We must look at things as they are.”
George smiled, on the point of saying: 'That makes me feel it must be a good thing!' But he subdued the impulse.
“I agree that we're bound by his absence not to further it actively. Still Nollie knows his wishes, and it's up to her and no one else. After all, she's no longer a child.”
His advice was followed. But to write that polite letter, which said nothing, cost Gratian a sleepless night, and two or three hours' penmanship. She was very conscientious. Knowledge of this impending visit increased the anxiety with which she watched her sister, but the only inkling she obtained of Noel's state of mind was when the girl showed her a letter she had received from Thirza, asking her to come back to Kestrel. A postscript, in Uncle Bob's handwriting, added these words:
“We're getting quite fossilised down here; Eve's gone and left us again. We miss you and the youngster awfully. Come along down, Nollie there's a dear!”
“They're darlings,” Noel said, “but I shan't go. I'm too restless, ever since Daddy went; you don't know how restless. This rain simply makes me want to die.”
The weather improved next day, and at the end of that week harvest began. By what seemed to Noel a stroke of luck the farmer's binder was broken; he could not get it repaired, and wanted all the human binders he could get. That first day in the fields blistered her hands, burnt her face and neck, made every nerve and bone in her body ache; but was the happiest day she had spent for weeks, the happiest perhaps since Cyril Morland left her, over a year ago. She had a bath and went to bed the moment she got in.