There was no need to dot the i's of that speech. Pamela didn't want to talk about her uncle, even to her mother. There was no satisfaction to be gained from blaming him, but she did blame him now in her heart, and she thought that her mother did too. Would he stand by and see them leave their home without doing anything? Of course he could do something, if he wanted to. But he didn't seem to care now. Did her aunt care? She was sure that she did, but she had apparently resigned herself to the new unhappy state of things between them. Did Norman care?
He had written to Pamela from Cambridge, not less frequently than during previous terms, and in much the same way. Some of his letters had made her laugh, but not with the old light-hearted appreciation of his humour. What mattered to her most just now he never mentioned. Once he had represented himself as on the verge of another love affair, with the daughter of a Don of another college, to which he said he was thinking of migrating. But she did not smile at all at that. She was beginning to be impatient of Norman's love affairs, which never lasted more than a few weeks. This one didn't last so long as that apparently, for he did not allude to it again. If he had done so, Pamela would have written him a letter in which she would have said that she didn't want to hear any more about his philanderings, and she was inclined to regret that the opportunity was denied her. Norman never said anything about Christmas, though in previous years his letters had been full of anticipations. He seemed to be quite content at the prospect of their spending it apart.
Oh, life was unhappy now. But there remained the duty of hiding unhappiness as much as possible. Pamela was a good deal with her father in these days, and she knew that he liked to have her with him, though he never talked to her about his troubles. Well, it was something to be able to remove his mind from them. She was able to do that, though she seemed to be of so little use otherwise.
The usual preparations for Christmas went on, though on a smaller scale than before. The children mustn't know that for their elders all such preparations were something of an extra burden instead of a pleasure. Even Judith refused to be exhilarated by them. "What's the good of holly and mistletoe," she said, "with only old Cousin Annie coming? I think Uncle William's a beast. I never liked him, and now I hate him."
Pamela protested. Judith had been as fond of Uncle William as all the rest of them. "Perhaps I was when I was little," she admitted. "But I haven't liked him at all since he has been Lord Eldridge. Father ought to have been Lord Eldridge, if anybody had to be. But I hate lords, except Jim; and he isn't like a lord."
Pamela laughed. "What is he like then?" she asked.
Judith did not reply to this. "I think you ought to marry him," she said, with her sometimes disconcerting abruptness. "He wants you to, and you couldn't get anybody better. Besides, father and mother would like it. With four of us, and being rather poor now, of course they would like us to get married."
"How do you know Jim would like me to marry him?" asked Pamela.
"Because he told me so."