And in the evenings, while they played bridge or listened to Jean’s music, she sometimes caught his eye, watching her with the old admiration, telling her that he was ready to support her no matter what happened.
A week after the encounter with Miss Peavey at the catnip-bed, Peters came to Olivia’s room late in the afternoon to say, with a curious blend of respect and confidence, “He’s ill again, Mrs. Pentland.”
She knew what Peters meant; it was a kind of code between them. … The same words used so many times before.
She went quickly to the tall narrow library that smelled of dogs and apples and woodsmoke, knowing well enough what she would find there; and on opening the door she saw him at once, lying asleep in the big leather chair. The faint odor of whisky—a smell which had come long since to fill her always with a kind of horror—hung in the air, and on the mahogany desk stood three bottles, each nearly emptied. He slept quietly, one arm flung across his chest, the other hanging to the floor, where the bony fingers rested limply against the Turkey-red carpet. There was something childlike in the peace which enveloped him. It seemed to Olivia that he was even free now of the troubles which long ago had left their mark in the harsh, bitter lines of the old face. The lines were gone, melted away somehow, drowned in the immense quiet of this artificial death. It was only thus, perhaps, that he slept quietly, untroubled by dreams. It was only thus that he ever escaped.
Standing in the doorway she watched him for a time, quietly, and then, turning, she said to Peters, “Will you tell Higgins?” and entering the door she closed the red-plush curtains, shutting out the late afternoon sunlight.
Higgins came, as he had done so many times before, to lock the door and sit there in the room, even sleeping on the worn leather divan, until John Pentland, wakening slowly and looking about in a dazed way, discovered his groom sitting in the same room, polishing a bridle or a pair of riding-boots. The little man was never idle. Something deep inside him demanded action: he must always be doing something. And so, after these melancholy occasions, a new odor clung to the library for days … the fresh, clean, healthy odor of leather and harness-soap.
For two days Higgins stayed in the library, leaving it only for meals, and for two days the old lady in the north wing went unvisited. Save for this single room, there was no evidence of any change in the order of life at Pentlands. Jean, in ignorance of what had happened, came in the evenings to play. But Sabine knew; and Aunt Cassie, who never asked questions concerning the mysterious absence of her brother lest she be told the truth. Anson, as usual, noticed nothing. The only real change lay in a sudden display of sulking and ill-temper on the part of Miss Egan. The invincible nurse even quarreled with the cook, and was uncivil to Olivia, who thought, “What next is to happen? I shall be forced to look for a new nurse.”
On the evening of the third day, just after dinner, Higgins opened the door and went in search of Olivia.
“The old gentleman is all right again,” he said. “He’s gone to bathe and he’d like to see you in the library in half an hour.”
She found him there, seated by the big mahogany desk, bathed and spotlessly neat in clean linen; but he looked very old and weary, and beneath the tan of the leathery face there was a pallor which gave him a yellowish look. It was his habit never to refer in any way to these sad occasions, to behave always as if he had only been away for a day or two and wanted to hear what had happened during his absence.
Looking up at her, he said gravely, “I wanted to speak to you, Olivia. You weren’t busy, were you? I didn’t disturb you?”
“No,” she said. “There’s nothing. … Jean and Thérèse are here with Sybil. … That’s all.”
“Sybil,” he repeated. “Sybil. … She’s very happy these days, isn’t she?” Olivia nodded and even smiled a little, in a warm, understanding way, so that he added, “Well, we mustn’t spoil her happiness. We mustn’t allow anything to happen to it.”
A light came into the eyes of Olivia. “No; we mustn’t,” she repeated, and then, “She’s a clever girl. … She knows what she wants from life, and that’s the whole secret. Most people never know until it’s too late.”
A silence followed this speech, so eloquent, so full of unsaid things, that Olivia grew uneasy.
“I wanted to talk to you about …” he hesitated for a moment, and she saw that beneath the edge of the table his hands were clenched so violently that the bony knuckles showed through the brown skin. “I wanted to talk to you about a great many things.” He stirred and added abruptly, “First of all, there’s my will.”
He opened the desk and took out a packet of papers, separating them carefully into little piles before he spoke again. There was a weariness in all his movements. “I’ve made some changes,” he said, “changes that you ought to know about … and there are one or two other things.” He looked at her from under the
