Excitement at the disclosure was mingled in Rose’s voice with disappointment that she had not been the one to make it.
“Yes,” continued her sister-in-law in a struggling voice—“they’ve always been in love—ever since he married me—ever since he gave her up. They’ve never been out of it—I know it now.”
“But I always thought it was all on her side.”
“Oh, no, it wasn’t. Peter was infatuated with her, for some strange reason—she doesn’t seem to me at all the sort of girl a man of his type would take to. Being simple himself, you’d think he’d like something more sophisticated.”
“But Stella is sophisticated—she’s artful. Look how she got Gervase to change his religion, and break his poor brother’s heart. I often think that it was Gervase’s religion which killed poor George, and Stella was responsible for that. She may have pretended to be in love with him just to get him over. You see she can be forgiven anything she does by just going to confession.”
“Well, she needs forgiveness now if she never did before. So it’s just as well she knows where to get it.”
“But, Vera, do you really think there’s anything—I mean anything wicked between them?”
“I don’t know what you call wicked, Rose, if keeping a man’s affections away from his wife who’s soon going to have her first child ... if that isn’t enough for you.... No, I don’t suppose he’s actually slept with her”—Vera liked shocking Rose—“She hasn’t got the passion or the spunk to go so far. But it’s bad enough to know Peter’s heart isn’t mine just when I need him most—to know he only married me just to put the estate on its legs, and now is bitterly regretting it”—and Vera began to cry.
“But how do you know he’s regretting it? He doesn’t go about with Stella, I can tell you that. I’d be sure to have heard if he did.”
“No, I daresay he doesn’t go about with her. I shouldn’t mind if he did, if only his manner was the same to me. But it isn’t—every time we’re together I can see he doesn’t love me any more. He may have for a bit—he did, I know—but Stella got him back, and now every time he looks at me I can see he’s regretting he ever married me. And if the baby’s a girl ... my only justification now is that I may be the mother of an heir ... if the baby’s a girl, I hope I’ll die. Oh, I tell you, Stella may be Lady Alard yet.”