‘I am going out, Margiad, and that is enough.’
He watched her put away the work-basket. How she fussed about things. But then, she always did.
‘I shan’t be long.’
And at the top of her voice she shouted, ‘I am not your warder.’
‘Indeed you are not. You are my sister, and that is all.’
‘I will not wait up.’
‘Understood.’
‘You will find me where I am, Mervyn, and that is respectable.’
‘I shall not disturb you.’
‘You are a fool.’
‘Do I say thank you to that?’
‘I wish I could laugh.’
He rushed at her, screamed in her face, ‘Then laugh.’
Margiad sat down, bowed her head, twisting her fingers in her lap. She made to look up at this brother, but did not, and then said quietly. ‘If this goes on much longer, Mervyn, your chapel will empty.’
The outright laugh quite shocked her.
He was bent over her, suddenly grinning in her face.
‘Talking like a prophet now, are you,’ he said.
The moment he caught her glance she closed her eyes, and sat further back, and deeper down in her chair.
‘Have you thought of Mr Price?’
‘I have thought of a good many things,’ Mervyn replied.
‘I always took you to be a sensible man,’ she said.
‘I have learned to be humble.’
‘You are still a fool.’
‘I’m not ashamed of being a fool.’
‘I’m only surprised that you cannot hear the laughing in your ears.’
He returned to his chair. ‘Is that all?’ he asked. ‘There is nobody laughing, Margiad.’
‘You mean that.’
‘I mean that.’
‘You’ll be a disgrace to your collar.’
With a tired voice, he said, quietly, ‘I cannot hear you, Margiad.’
‘You’re ill, and you don’t know it. I’ll have Dr Hughes here to see you. I mean that.’
He got up, went across to her, was close again, and this time the flat of his hands pressing on her shoulders.
‘Will you - - - leave me - - - alone?’
She removed his hands, stood up, faced him, her mouth opened and closed, but she said nothing, but stared at him with a look of utter bewilderment.
‘Do sit down, Margiad,’ he said, and pressed her back to the chair.
‘I don’t know you, you’re a changed man, something’s happening and I don’t understand it. Your years are toppling you, Mervyn.’
‘Once, I was afraid of myself, think of that. Me, a man.’ He stood back, ‘And now I’m not. I’m going out.’
‘They’ll laugh louder than ever.’
‘Let them laugh.’
‘That one at the Decent Hotel read a letter you wrote, and they laughed their heads off about it.’
