Raymond wiped the soap off his razor. “Thanks.”
“It must be a great day in your life,” Eugene remarked. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his dressing gown, and hunched his shoulders in the semblance of a shrug. “I suppose there isn’t anything I’m wanted to do, is there?”
“What should there be?”
“Nothing, I hope. I don’t propose to come down to breakfast. This has been a shock to me. I slept very badly, too.”
“You didn’t hear anything?”
“If I had heard anything I should have gone down,” Eugene replied, turning to leave the room.
He was intercepted in the doorway by Bart, who came impetuously in, his whip still in his hands, and all the healthy colour drained from his cheeks. “Ray!” he blurted out, thrusting rudely past Eugene. “Loveday says… the Guv’nor!”
“Yes, that’s right,” Raymond answered, putting on his collar. “Looks as though he went in his sleep. I’m waiting for Lifton.”
“Rame’s car is standing outside. When — who found…Was anyone with him?”
Raymond had quickly knotted his tie, and was putting on his coat. “No, no one. Martha found him dead when she went in this morning. Sorry, I must go down. Did you say Rame’s car?”
Loveday tapped on the half-open door at that moment. “The doctor’s here, Mr Ray. Dr Lifton has the influenza: it’s Dr Rame that’s come. I was thinking it might be well he should see the mistress when he’s finished downstairs. It will be a shock to her nerves. surely, when she knows what’s happened.”
“If she wants him, she can send a message down. ' Raymond replied unsympathetically, and went out of the room.
Loveday glanced towards Bart, standing rigidly by the window, and jerking at his whip-lash. “I’ll get you a cup of tea, my dear,” she said, pity and love warming her rich voice.
He gave his head a little shake. “No, I don’t want it.” His stubborn mouth quivered. “I cursed him last night. I — Oh, Guv’nor!”
She went towards him, ignoring Eugene, who stood by the door, somewhat cynically regarding her. “Don’t you take on, my dear!” she said. “It’s little he’d care for a curse or two. You were a good son to him, and he knew it.”
'No, I wasn’t. I thought — I didn’t even believe — But he was ill! I didn’t want him to die! I — oh, hell, I was dammed fond of him, the grand old devil that he was! And I wish to God he were alive now to — to bawl the lot of us out!” His voice broke on something between a laugh and a sob; he brushed his hand across his brimming eyes, and pushed his way past Eugene out of the room.
“I am afraid, my dear Loveday,” said Eugene maliciously, “that you will find my brother Bart more upset by this event than perhaps you expected.”
“It’s natural he should be,” she-responded, picking up Raymond’s dressing-gown, and putting it away in the wardrobe. “If you please, sir!”
He stood aside to allow her to pass, a little nettled by her self-possession, and she went away towards the back of the house to fetch her mistress’s early tea-tray from the pantry.
Faith had fallen asleep on the previous evening without the aid of narcotics. She had gone up to her room soon after Penhallow had been wheeled out of the Long drawing-room, and, as Loveday assisted her to undress, she had noticed with vague surprise that the nightly headache which she had come to regard as inevitable was for once absent. She supposed that the aspirin she had swallowed before going down to dinner must still be operating on her system, and she had told Loveday, with a little sigh, that she felt as though she could sleep naturally. A feeling of deep peace hung over her, undisturbed by any twinge of remorse for what she had done. She was very tired, but not with the nervous fatigue which made it impossible for her to relax her limbs and to be still in her bed. Almost as soon as she had laid her head upon the pillow, her eyelids had begun to sink over her eyes; and as she thought, not of Penhallow but of the little flat in London, she drifted into a deep peaceful sleep from which she did not arouse until Loveday drew back the curtains next morning.
She seemed then to herself to be rising to the surface of a vast ocean of sleep, and as she stirred, and opened her eyes, she murmured: “Oh, I have had such a loverly sleep!”
Loveday came towards the bed with her mistress’s bed jacket in her hand. Faith stretched herself, and yawned, not immediately remembering the events of the previous day. She asked what the time was, and when Loveday told her, half past eight, she said, sitting up, and putting her arms into the sleeves of the jacket: “Why, how late! You shouldn’t have let me sleep on, Loveday!”
Loveday turned to the table beside the bed, and poured out a cup of tea. “No, ma’am, I know. But you were sleeping so sound I didn’t care to wake you. There’s some bad news you have to hear, ma’am.”
As she spoke these words, remembrance of what she had done came flooding back to Faith, and she gave a stifled exclamation. After so good a night’s rest, with its soothing effect upon her overwrought nerves, it now seemed to her that she must have been mad, and she could almost have believed that she had dreamt the whole. She recalled quite clearly her every action, and even her thoughts, which, appearing reasonable to her at the time, seemed in the light of morning to partake of the nature of insanity. The wish that Penhallow might die was still present; but the resolution to bring about his death had departed from her mind as suddenly as it had entered it. So unreal did her action seem to her that she felt as divorced from it as though she had performed it in a trance.
She raised her eyes to Loveday’s face. “Bad news?” she faltered, clasping her hands tightly together.
“It’s the Master, ma’am.”
Then she had done it. She had succeeded. She swallowed, but found herself unable to speak. She waited, her gaze fixed on Loveday’s face with an expression on it of wonder and of dread.
“The Master’s dead, ma’am.”
A sound that was hardly a cry broke from her; she buried her face in her hands. “Oh, Loveday! Oh, Loveday! Oh, no, no!”
Loveday put her arms round her, drawing her to lie against her deep, warm breasts. “There, my dear, there! Don’t you take on, now. He went in his sleep, the way anyone would wish for him.”
Faith wept, but not for sorrow, nor yet for pity. She wept for her own madness, which had turned her into a murderess, and for relief that her long purgatory was ended. Loveday rocked her, and murmured to her, and after a little while she stopped, and groped for her handkerchief. Loveday found it for her, and when she had dried her eyes, she coaxed her to drink her tea. She was leaning back against her banked-up pillows, sipping the tea between spasmodic sobs, when Vivian came into the room. When she saw Vivian, she thought how she had set her free too, and her eyes filled with weak tears again. She said: “Oh, Vivian!”
Vivian’s uncompromising honesty made it impossible for her to understand how anyone could weep for what she was glad of. She said bluntly: “I don’t see what you’ve got to cry for. We all know that you’ve been miserable for years.”
“Oh, don’t!” Faith begged, the tears brimming over “Don’t talk like that, please!”
“Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t pretend that I care. It would be sheer hypocrisy. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the best thing that has ever happened in this house!”
Faith was really shocked by this speech, for although she had been able to do what perhaps Vivian had never contemplated doing, she was incapable of facing an unvarnished truth, and was already seeing her action, not as a crime, but as a deed undertaken as much for the good of others as for her own peace. Loveday, whispering comfort, had spoken of Penhallow’s death as a release from suffering, and she realised without effort that this was true, and had begun to believe that she had been at least to some extent actuated by this thought when she had determined to poison Penhallow. But not even to herself did she use that harsh word. There were plenty of euphemisms for the ugly terms, Murder and Poison, and they came more naturally to her brain, so that she had no need consciously to evade the cruder words.
“It’s been a shock to her,” Loveday said, in a reproving tone. “Indeed, Mrs Eugene, you didn’t ought to speak like that, with the poor gentleman lying there dead.” She paid no heed to the angry flush that stained Vivian’s cheeks, but turned from her to her mistress, asking whether she should prepare the bath for her.
“Oh, I don’t know!” Faith said undecidedly. “I feel so upset, and queer, Loveday!”
“Well, you aren’t going to stop washing just because there has been a death in the house, are you?” inquired Vivian caustically.
