He did not wait to see how this news was received, but as he ran down the stairs he heard Aubrey exclaim: “Oh, no, not really? I simply can’t believe it! You’re not serious, Ray?”
In Penhallow’s room, Martha was rocking herself to and fro on a chair beside the vast bed, and Vivian, with a kimono caught hurriedly round her, and clutched together with one hand, was standing in the middle of the room staring as though she could not believe her eyes, first at Martha, and then at Penhallow’s still form. When she heard Raymond’s footsteps, she turned, and said in a queer, hushed voice: “He’s dead!”
“So I’ve heard,” Raymond replied, brushing past her, and bending over the bed. He straightened himself after a moment. He looked a little pale under his tan, and he did not at once say anything. He was indeed so much shaken by this unexpected turn which events had taken that he was unable immediately to marshal his wits into some sort of order. Through the medley of thoughts racing past one another in his brain, one more persistent than the rest kept on recurring: that Penhallow’s death was of immense importance to him, since he could never now betray the secret of his birth. He remembered that Penhallow had spoken of papers to prove his story; the picture of him jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the cupboards in the head of his bed flashed vividly across his mind. He glanced from one to the other of the three persons gathered about the bed, a coldly calculating light in his frowning eyes. He addressed Vivian. “You’d better go and get dressed!”
She pushed her hair away from her brow. “Yes,” she agreed mechanically. “I — I don’t seem able to take it in. He’s really dead! I shan’t have to live here any more! We’re free!”
Martha lifted her head. “You shameless malkin! There he lays, gone dead, and you stannin’ there as bold and as heartless as yer mind to! Eh, my dear, my dear, the proper man that you was! Out of this, you wicked hussy! You shanna’ stand staring at un! You shanna’, I tell you!”
Vivian coloured slightly, and seemed as though she would have retorted. Raymond said, before she could speak: “Go on! You had better let Eugene know what’s happened. Reuben, get Martha out of this! We can’t have this row going on. And send Jimmy down to Lifton’s house at once, do you hear?”
“That young runagate!” Reuben said bitterly. “For anything any of us knaves he’s laying abed still!”
“Kick him out, then! Martha! I say, Martha, it’s no good crying like that! You go and lie down, or something. Where’s Sybilla, Reuben?”
The tears started to run down Reuben’s cheeks again. “She was cooking his breakfast. She’s got him some thickback beauties, just the way he liked them, and he won’t never eat them now!”
“Well, take Martha to her!” Raymond said. “If that little swine, Jimmy, isn’t dressed, send one of the girls down to Lifton’s on her cycle, and ask him to come up as soon as he can. Get a move on, man!”