Put in such blunt terms as this, it did seem absurd, but Faith felt vaguely that in the performance of everyday actions at such a moment there was something bordering on the indecent. She ignored Vivian. “I suppose I — Yes, of course I shall have my bath just as I always do. Please get it ready for me, Loveday!”
“That’s right, my dear,” Loveday said, patting her hand. “Then you’ll get back into bed, and I’ll bring your breakfast up to you, and you’ll be better.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t!” Faith said. “I couldn’t swallow anything! Please don’t ask me to! I ought to get up. Do you think I should go down at once? I — I feel so absolutely bowled over I don’t seem to be able to think!”
“You lay quiet awhile,” Loveday counselled her. “'There’s nothing you can do, my dear. The doctor’s below at this moment, and I was thinking you would like to have him come up to you, and give you something for your poor nerves.”
“No. No, I shall be all right!” Faith said, pressing her finger-tips to her temples. “I don’t want a doctor. Unless I ought to see him about — about Adam. Must I? I don’t feel that I can bear it! But of course if I ought to — I don’t know what one does when — when a thing like this happens!”
“If you don’t want to see him, there’s no particular reason why you should,” said Vivian. “Raymond’s there, and I don’t see that you can tell him anything he doesn’t know already. I mean, it isn’t as though this was unexpected. Lifton warned you, didn’t he?”
“Yes, oh yes! And he had been getting worse later hadn’t he? Charmian saw a great change in him. She told me so.”
“It’s Dr Rame,” Loveday said. “Dr Lifton has the influenza.”
“Dr Rame!” Faith repeated nervously. “Oh, I would rather not see him if I needn’t! I never liked him. He’s so hard, and unsympathetic!”
“I’ll go and turn the bath on,” Loveday said, picking up the early tea-tray. “Mr Ray said if you wanted to see the doctor to send down a message.”
“Only if I must! But if he wants to speak to me of course I’ll see him! Tell Mr Ray that, Loveday!”
“You’ve no call to worry, my dear,” Loveday said soothingly.
Vivian would have remained, after she had left the room, to discuss Penhallow’s death with Faith, but Faith stopped her, saying that she could not bear to talk about it. She shrugged contemptuously, therefore, and went away.
In the dining-room, several members of the family were gathered round the table, partaking of breakfast in a desultory and ill-at-ease fashion. Clara was seated as usual at the foot of the table, dispensing coffee and tea in the intervals of sniffing into a screwed-up handkerchief: with which she from time to time wiped the corners of’ her eyes. Conrad was somewhat defiantly consuming a plateful of bacon and eggs; Aubrey, not noticeably affected by the general depression, was spreading a thin slice of toast with marmalade; and Bart, having pushed away his plate, almost untouched, was mechanically stirring his coffee, his rather reddened eyes lowered.
Neither Raymond nor Charmian was present. In response to Vivian’s inquiry, Clara replied huskily that they were both in Penhallow’s room still, with the doctor.
Vivian sat down, having helped herself to some fish from the dish on the sideboard. After a short silence, Conrad cleared his throat, and said: “I shan’t go to work today, of course.”
Nobody made any answer to this observation. Vivian said: “What on earth are they taking so long, for? I saw the doctor’s car drive up ages ago! What do you suppose they can be doing?”
Aubrey, who had dignified the occasion by discarding his colourful sports-wear for a lounge suit which he wore with a lavender shirt, replied: “Darling, must we go into that? You’re so marvellous with your self-possession and all that, I expect you don’t mind a bit what you talk about at breakfast, but I haven’t got anything like your strength of character, and I do wish you wouldn’t, sweetie. Besides, some of our number are quite upset about it.”
“Not you,” Bart said, momentarily raising his eyes from his coffee-cup.
“My dear, the only thing which upsets me — and you simply can’t imagine how frightful it was! — was the perfectly ghoulish noise which Martha made. I mean, talk about the purely primitive! No, I’m not going to pretend that I’m shattered by Father’s death. You wouldn’t any of you believe it if I did. He was showing the most alarming signs of being about to interfere with my lovely, ordered existence, and I regard his death as an unmixed blessing.”
“Well, I’m glad one of you has the moral courage to say what you really think!” said Vivian.
“Your approval, darling, might have been expresses I more grammatically, but I can’t tell you how much it has encouraged me,” said Aubrey dulcetly. “After all, it is the spirit which counts, isn’t it?”
“Anyway, you can bloody well keep what you think to yourself!” Bart said, addressing his sister-in-law. “We all know what you thought of the Guv’nor!”
“Now, Bart, don’t, there’s a good boy!” Clara said. “We, don’t want any quarrellin’. I daresay he was a wicked old man, but I don’t know what we’re any of us goin’ to do now he’s gone. It won’t seem like Trevellin without him goin’ on the rampage, and upsettin’ everybody right and left.” She applied her handkerchief to her eyes again. “I’m sure I don’t know why I’m cryin’, for very uncomfortable he’s made me, time and time again, but there it is! Has anyone been up to Faith?”
“I’ve seen her,” Vivian answered. “She’s having a bath at the moment.”
“Is she cut up about it?” asked Conrad.
Vivian gave a short laugh. “She thinks she is, anyway. I’m afraid I’ve got no time for these conventionally minded women who think it incumbent upon them to shed tears just because someone whom they detested has died!”
“Here, I say, that’s coming it a bit thick!” protested Conrad. “I don’t say Father didn’t treat her to rather a rough passage, but you’ve got no right to say that she detested him! I should have thought that she’d be bound to be cut up about it!”
“Then you won’t be disappointed,” said Vivian acidly. “She’ll gratify all your ideas of how a bereaved person should behave, I’m sure!”
Clay came into the room at that moment, looking reared and bewildered. “I say, is it true?” he asked. “I’ve just heard — I overslept this morning — I didn’t know a thing! But one of the maids told me — only I simply couldn’t believe it!”
“If you mean, is it true Father’s dead, yes, it is!” said Conrad. “So you can go upstairs again, and take off that bloody awful pullover, and put on something decent!”
“Of course I wouldn’t have put on a coloured thing if I’d known!” Clay said. “I’ll change it after breakfast, naturally. Good lord, though! I — I can’t get over it! How did it happen? When did he die?”
The barely veiled excitement in his voice roused Bart to a flash of anger. “What the devil does it matter to you how he died, or when he died? A fat lot you care! God damn your eyes, you’re glad he’s dead!”
“How dare you's-say such a th-thing?” Clay stammered, flushing to the roots of his hair. “Of course I’m not!”
“Liar!” said Conrad.
Aubrey intervened, saying in his most mannered style: “Sit down, little brother, and try to carry off this very difficult situation with as much grace as you can muster. You really could hardly do better than to model yourself on me. Now, I’m not bewailing Father’s death in the least, but neither am I permitting an indecent elation to appear in my demeanour. As my raiment, so my conduct: subdued but not funereal!”
“Shut up, you ass!” said Conrad.
“Listen!” Vivian interrupted, lifting her head. “That sounds like the doctor going!”
In another minute the door opened, and Charmian came in. She looked rather pale, as though she had sustained a severe shock, and she did not at first say anything.
“Is that Rame going?” Vivian asked. “What on earth has he been doing all this time?”
“Where’s Ray?” Conrad demanded.
“Seeing Rame off.” Charmian dug her hands into her coat-pockets, and took up her favourite position on the hearth-rug, with her feet widely planted. “Well, you might as well know at once what has happened. Rame won’t sign the certificate.”
