“You are sure you don’t mind me talking about it, sir?”
“Mind! Oh, no, Mrs Sarson, say what you like.”
“Well, you see, sir, even if one is a widow and growing old, one can’t help feeling interested in weddings. I suppose it’s being a woman. Everybody’s dreadfully disappointed.”
“Indeed,” said Chris coldly.
“And, yes, indeed, sir. No big party; no wedding breakfast and cake; no going away in chaises and fours. If poor Mr Gartram had been alive, it wouldn’t have been like this. Why, do you know, sir, the quarry folk were getting ready powder and going to fire guns, and make a big bonfire on the cliffs; but Mr Trevithick, the lawyer, went to them with a message from Miss Claude, sir, asking for them to do nothing; and they’re just going to the church and back to the big house, and not even going away.”
“Indeed!”
“Oh, yes, sir, and I did hear that Miss Claude actually wanted to be married in black, but Miss Mary Dillon persuaded her not. I heard it on the best of authority, sir.”
Chris made no reply, and, finding no encouragement, Mrs Sarson cleared her lodger’s breakfast things away, and left the room.
The moment he was alone, Chris started from his chair to stand with his back to the light; his teeth set hard and fists clenched as a spasm of mental agony for the moment mastered him.
“No,” he said, after a few moments, with a bitter laugh, “this won’t do. What is it to me? I can bear it now like a man. She shall see how indifferent I am.”