And it had been
felt that Gwenda had not done anything to redeem her father's and her
sister's eccentricities, and that Mary, though she was a nice girl,
had hardly done enough. For the last eighteen months visits at the
Vicarage had been perfunctory and very brief, month by month they had
diminished, and before Mary's marriage they had almost ceased.
Still, Mary's marriage had appeased the parish. Mrs. Steven Rowcliffe
had atoned for the third Mrs. Cartaret's suspicious absence and for
Gwenda Cartaret's flight. Lady Frances Gilbey's large wing had further
protected Gwenda.
Then, suddenly, the tale of Alice Cartaret and Greatorex went round,
and it was as if the Vicarage had opened and given up its secret.
At first, the sheer extremity of his disaster had sheltered the Vicar
from his own scandal. Through all Garthdale and Rathdale, in the
Manors and the Lodges and the Granges, in the farmhouses and the
cottages, in the inns and little shops, there was a stir of pity and
compassion. The people who had left off calling at the Vicarage called
again with sympathy and kind inquiries. They were inclined to forget
how impossible the Cartarets had been. They were sorry for Gwenda. But
they had been checked in their advances by Gwenda's palpable recoil.
She had no time to give to callers. Her father had taken all her time.
The callers considered themselves absolved from calling.
Slowly, month by month, the Vicarage was drawn back into its
silence and its loneliness.
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