“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."