“She’s been wonderful,” said Jenny, “but I think she’s breaking a bit now.”
“And Vera?”
Vera had not been wonderful. It is difficult to be wonderful when your husband has killed himself because he loved another woman and you did not die in childbirth to let him marry her.
“It’s dreadful,” moaned Jenny. Then suddenly she wondered if Gervase knew the worst. There was a look of bright peace in his eyes which seemed to show that he was facing sorrow without humiliation or fear.
“Did Dr. Mount tell you that—tell you exactly how Peter died?”
“He told me he had been killed accidentally out shooting. He gave me no details—he couldn’t wait more than a minute.”
“Oh, my dear, it was much worse than that....”
She saw that once again she would have to “break it” to somebody. It was easier telling Gervase than it had been to tell the others, for he did not cry out or protest, but when she had finished she saw that his eyes had lost their bright peace.
Doris was sobbing again, uncontrollably.
“The two of them gone—first Peter and then Father. To think that Peter should have gone first.... Thank God Father didn’t know! He didn’t know anybody, Gervase—the last person he recognised was me. That will always be a comfort to me, though it was so dreadful.... I went into the library, and found him all huddled there, alone ... and I said ‘Are you ill, Father?’—and he said ‘Get out’—and now, Gervase, you’re the head of the family—you’re Sir Gervase Alard.”