“My God!” said Peter.
He was perhaps the most scandalised of all the Alards, and had about him a solemn air of wounding which was more distressing to Gervase than his father’s wrath.
“I introduced him to her,” he said heavily—“I introduced him. I never thought ... how could I think ... that she held herself so cheap—all of us so cheap.”
“You really needn’t treat the matter as if Jenny had married the rag-and-bone man——” began Gervase.
“I know Godfrey’s position quite well.”
“He farms his own land, and comes of good old stock. He’s well off, and will be able to give her everything she’s been accustomed to——”
“He won’t. She’s been accustomed to the society of gentlepeople, and he’ll never be able to give her that. She’s gone to live on a farm, where she’ll have her meals in the kitchen with the farm-men. I tell you I know the Godfreys, and they’re nothing more than a respectable, good sort of farming people who’ve done well out of the war. At least, I won’t call them even that now,” he added fiercely—“I won’t call a man respectable who worms himself into intimacy with my sister on the strength of my having introduced him.”
“However, it’s some comfort to think they’ve gone to the Poldhu hotel at Mullion,” said Lady Alard; “the Blakelocks were there once, you know, Doris, and the Reggie Mulcasters. She won’t notice the difference quite so terribly since he’s taken her there.”
“Yes, she will,” said Peter—“she’ll notice the difference between the kind of man she’s been used to meeting here and a working farmer, who wasn’t even an officer during the war. If she doesn’t—I’ll think worse of her even than I do now. And as for you——” turning suddenly on Gervase—“I don’t trust myself to tell you what I think of you. I expect you’re pleased that we’ve suffered this disgrace—that a lady of our house has married into the peasantry. You think it’s democratic and all that. You’re glad—don’t say you’re not.”
“Yes, I am glad, because Jenny’s happy. You, none of you, seem to think of that. You don’t seem to think that ‘the kind of man she’s been meeting here’ hasn’t been the slightest use to her—that all he’s done has been to trouble her and trifle with her and then go off and marry money—that now at last she’s met a man who’s treated her honourably——”