point in her letter state explicitly her desire to return; but that is the

unmistakable message conveyed by the general nuance of many of the passages,

imbued as they are with a deep nostalgia for her days at Darlington Hall. Of

course, Miss Kenton cannot hope by returning at this stage ever to retrieve

those lost years, and it will be my first duty to impress this upon her when we

meet. I will have to point out how different things are now - that the days of

working with a grand staff at one's beck and call will probably never return

within our lifetime. But then Miss Kenton is an intelligent woman and she will

have already realized these things. Indeed, all in all, I cannot see why the

option of her returning to Darlington Hall and seeing out her working years

there should not offer a very genuine consolation to a life that has come to be

so dominated by a sense of waste.

 

And of course, from my own professional viewpoint, it is clear that even after a

break of so many years, Miss Kenton would prove the perfect solution to the

problem at present besetting us at Darlington Hall. In fact, by terming it a

'problem', I perhaps overstate the matter. I am referring, after all, to a

series of very minor errors on my part and the course I am now pursuing is

merely a means of pre-empting any 'problems' before one arises. It is true,

these same trivial errors did cause me some anxiety at first, but once I had had

time to diagnose them correctly as symptoms of nothing more than a

straightforward staff shortage, I have refrained from giving them much thought.

Miss Kenton's arrival, as I say, will put a permanent end to them.

 

But to return to her letter. It does at times reveal a certain despair over her