"I thought I had taken him on by the week to paint my house," he said at last.
"So you did. But he said he must see his missus and hear how his little girl had done in her music exam."
Mrs. Wellin delivered this piece of news very fast and with evident gusto. It might have been thought she enjoyed inflicting it on her master.
"And this was a man sent me a week ago by the Birmingham Distress Committee--nine weeks out of work--family in the workhouse--everything up the spout. Goodness gracious, Anne, how did he get the money? Return fare, Birmingham, three-and-ten."
"Don't ask me, sir," said the woman in the sun-bonnet. "I don't go pryin' into such trash!"
"Is he coming back? Is my house to be painted?" asked the Rector helplessly.
"How kind of him! Music exam! Lord save us! And three-and-ten thrown into the gutter on a week-end ticket--with seven children to keep--and all your possessions gone to 'my uncle.' And it isn't as though you'd been starving him, Anne!"
"I wish I hadn't dinnered him as I have been doin'!" the woman broke out. "But he'll know the difference next week! And now, sir, I suppose you'll be goin' to that place again to-night?"
Anne jerked her thumb behind her over her left shoulder.
"Suppose so, Anne. Can't afford a night-nurse, and the wife won't look after him."
"Why don't some one make her?" said Anne, frowning.
"Better not talk about it, Anne. When a woman's been in hell for years, you needn't expect her to come out an angel. She won't forgive him, and she won't nurse him--that's flat."
"No reason why she should shovel him off on other people as wants their night's rest. It's takin' advantage--that's what it is."
"I say, Anne, I must read my letters. And just light me a bit of fire, there's a good woman. July!--ugh!--it might be February!"
In a few minutes a bit of fire was blazing in the grate, though the windows were still wide open, and the Rector, who had had a long journey that day to take a funeral for a friend, lay back in sybaritic ease, now sipping his tea and now cutting open letters and parcels. The letter signed "F. Marcoburg" in the corner had been placed, still unopened, on the mantelpiece now facing him.
The Rector looked at it from time to time; it might have been said by a close observer that he never forgot it; but, all the same, he went on dipping into books and reviews, or puzzling--with muttered imprecations on the German tongue--over some of his letters.