telling Bart that I hope you’ll both of you invite me to Trellick one of these days, Loveday.”
Everybody but Bart looked slightly outraged. Loveday blushed, and stammered: “You’re very good, miss, I’m sure.”
“You’d better get used to calling me Charmian, my dear girl, if you’re going to be my sister-in-law,” said Charmian, by way of demonstrating her freedom from class consciousness.
Conrad got up, violently thrusting back his chair. “I don’t want any pudding!” he said. “All I need is a basin to be sick into!”
He slammed his way out of the room, and Bart, who had started up, was pressed down again into his chair by Loveday’s hand on his shoulder. She said in her gentle way: “It wouldn’t be seemly, miss, not as things are. It’s better we should go on the same for the present.”
This speech, while it rather discomfited Charmian, still further predisposed Clara in Loveday’s favour. She said, a little later, when the family repaired to the Yellow drawing-room, that it showed a good disposition. Since Bart was not present, she was able to add that nothing would ever make her like the gal, but that things might have been worse.
The nightly gathering in Penhallow’s room had never been popular with any member of the family, but a melancholy feeling of loss and of aimlessness descended upon the company when the lamps were brought in, and the curtains drawn. The sense of that empty, darkened room at the end of the house lay heavily upon the minds of the family; and the absence from the gathering not only of Faith, but of Raymond, Clay, and the twins as well, brought home Penhallow’s death more poignantly to his children than anything else during that interminable day had done.
Ingram, walking up after dinner from the Dower House, was instantly struck by the change, and blew his nose loudly, and said that the old place would never be the same again. Gregarious by nature, he had enjoyed the evenings spent in his father’s room, and he had enough of Penhallow’s patriarchal instinct to wish to herd as many of his family together (always excepting Aubrey and Clay) as he could. He would have gone to look for the twins, had he not been dissuaded by Clara, who said gloomily that it would be better to leave both of them alone; and although he had very little interest in his stepmother, he inquired after her as well, and seemed disappointed to hear that she had gone to bed.
“She’s upset, poor gal,” said Clara. “It’s been a tryin’ day for everyone.”
“It may have been trying,” remarked Vivian, in her intolerant way, “but why Faith should think it necessary to weep over Mr Penhallow’s death, I fail to see. In fact, I’ve no patience with it. She’s behaving as though she’d cared for him, and we all of us know she was absolutely miserable, and hated the sight of him! I can’t stand that kind of hypocrisy.”
“Here, I say!” expostulated Ingram. “You’ve got no right to talk like that, Vivian! You don’t know how she may feel!”
Vivian hunched her shoulder. “If she had a grain of honesty she wouldn’t pretend to be heartbroken at what she must be glad of.'
“That,” said Charmian, preparing to hold the stage, “is rank bad psychology. Faith’s behaviour is perfectly consistent with her whole mental make-up, and outlook on life. I know the type well. I haven’t the smallest doubt that she is quite sincere in her present grief, just as I am sure that she was equally sincere when she thought herself unhappy with Father. Her nature is shallow; she is easily swayed, and extremely impressionable. She is the sort of woman who, having complained of her wrongs for God knows how many years, will now spend the rest of her life telling herself that she was always a perfect wife to Father. Just at the moment, she’s had a severe shock, which has jolted her out of her normal rut. I daresay she’s suffering from a good deal of remorse, wishing she’d made more allowances for Father, and that sort of thing, and remembering the days when she was in love with him. It won’t last, but it’s all perfectly sincere while it does.”
“You may be right, my dear Char,” said Eugene languidly, “but in justice to Vivian I must observe that Faith has given us all the impression, for longer than I care to reckon up, that she would regard Father’s death as an unmixed blessing.”
“My good Eugene, can’t you realise that there are a great many people in the world, of whom Faith is one, who talk vaguely about what they want to happen, and not only are horrified when it does happen, but find as well that they didn’t really want it at all?” said Charmian scornfully. “It is typical of Faith that she must always have a grievance. She’s the kind of woman who enjoys a grievance! She’d rather keep it than lift a finger to set it right, as often and often she might have done, merely by exerting herself a little. What is more, she dramatises herself incessantly. Oh, quite unconsciously! It has been my experience that many ineffectual and supine people do. It’s their only form of mental exertion –if you can call it mental! At the moment, she is seeing herself as the sorrowing widow. Really seeing herself! You can call it hypocrisy if you like: I don’t, because I understand her perfectly, and I know that she believes so thoroughly in her own poses that they cease to be poses, and become an integral part of her character.”
“Thank you very much,” said Eugene, in an extinguished voice. “I’m sure we’re all most grateful to you for your masterly exposition of Faith’s character. And now may we talk about something interesting?”
“As a matter of fact,” interposed Ingram, before Charmian could wither Eugene, “I came up to have word with you, Char. Something I want to talk to about.”
“I’m at your disposal,” replied Charmian briskly “Come into the library!”
“Oh, Char darling, don’t say you’re going to talk secrets with Ingram!” begged Aubrey, looking up from the embroidery which he had brought down from his room, and was working on under the light thrown by one of the lamps. “I was just going to ask your advice about this spray I’m about to start on. Do you think a blending of russet-tones would be rather lovely?”
No one supposed for a moment that Aubrey felt the faintest interest in Charmian’s opinion of his work; but although Eugene refused to be drawn, Ingram rendered the gambit an outstanding success by turning to glare at Aubrey with a mixture of loathing and astonishment in his face. He had not previously noticed his deplorable young brother’s occupation, for which reason Aubrey, who had hoped to infuriate the twins, and was feeling defrauded by their tiresome absence, took care to call his attention to it. He at once delivered himself of a scathing denunciation of Aubrey’s character and habits, employing so many well-worn phrases, and looking so extremely like the military man of any farce, that even Eugene’s lips twitched, and he said: “An officer and a gentleman, sir!” while Aubrey himself was so entranced that he forgot to add fuel to this promising blaze, and only recovered his presence of mind when Charmian began to drag Ingram out of the room.
“Don’t be such a fool, Ingram!” Charmian said impatiently. “Can’t you see he’s trying to get a rise out of you?”
“Puppy!” said Ingram.
“Char, my precious, don’t, don’t take him away! Not before he’s said he’d have liked to have had me under him in the regiment! Oh, I do think you’re mean, I do, really!”
Charmian, however, was unmoved by this plea, and marched Ingram off to the library. As she lit the central lamp in this rather dismal apartment, she said severely: “You simply make him more outrageous by taking any notice of him. He does it to annoy you.”
“He’s a namby-pamby, effeminate — well, I won’t say!”
“Good lord, I know all about Aubrey! As a matter of fact, he isn’t such a wet as you might think. I never saw anyone ride straighter to hounds.”
“That makes it worse!” said Ingram, not very intelligibly, but with immense conviction. “But I didn’t come here to talk about that young so-and-so! Now, look here, Char, you’ve got a head on your shoulders! What’s your frank opinion about Father’s death?”
“I don’t know. What’s yours?”
“Well, I’ve been having a long pow-wow with Myra about it, and we both of us feel the same. Of course, it isn’t for me to say anything — damned awkward position, and all that! — but taking one thing with another, and looking at it all round — perfectly dispassionately, mind you! — everything points in the same direction.”
“You mean you think Ray did it.”
“Well, what do you think?”
“I’ve told you: I don’t know. I shouldn’t have thought he was the sort to poison anyone, but as I said this morning, he takes his own line. I’ve never got to the bottom of Ray, and I don’t suppose I ever shall.”
“Never did hit it off with the old man, you know. It struck me lately that things were worse between them
