Are we not to have breakfast this morning?’ said Duncan.
‘What did you say, Uncle?’
‘No breakfast, did you say, Father?’
Duncan put his hands beneath his coat and his legs apart, and looked down at his feet.
‘I expect Mother will be down soon,’ said Sibyl, summing up the position before she thought.
‘Your mother’s punctuality is a disadvantage rather than otherwise,’ said her father in an almost amused tone, ‘if we are to be led to depend upon it, and then played false.’
‘Played false after twenty years,’ said Nance. ‘It is a grievance we cannot be armed against.’
‘Consistent unpunctuality is the thing to aim at, as no one can be punctual,’ said Duncan in a muffled voice.
‘Mother was not well last night, Father. She may not be coming down.’
‘Wasn’t she?’ said Grant and Sibyl.
‘No, not at all,’ said Nance, looking at her father. ‘Cassie and I sat with her until she was asleep.’
66 Duncan swayed slightly to and fro, his hands wavering about his pockets.
‘Father, I wish you would answer me.’
‘Did you ask me anything?’
‘People generally make a comment, when they hear someone is ill.’
‘Well, I will comment in the usual way,’ said Duncan, almost pleasantly. ‘How is your mother this morning?’
‘I have not heard: I do not know, Father. I have only just remembered she is not well.’
Duncan fixed his eyes on his daughter, his brows slowly rising.
‘I will go and see how she is, Father.’
Duncan turned his head slowly after her, his brows remaining at their angle.
‘Shall I go for you, Nance?’ said Grant.
‘It is Nance’s anxiety,’ said his uncle, his voice seeming to follow the movement of his brows. ‘It is in her imagination that the trouble lies. You may tell your mother, Nance, that we are waiting for her.’
‘I shall not couch the inquiry in those terms, Father.’
‘You saw my wife last night, Miss Jekyll?’ said Duncan, in a tone of easy continuation. ‘Nothing amiss, is there?’
‘There is something amiss, but I do not know how much.’
‘Well, nothing; or you would know,’ said Duncan, his voice settling on to a comfortable note.
There was silence.
‘People little know the inconvenience this sort of casualness causes,’ said Duncan, glancing at the clock.
‘They may be preoccupied with other things,’ said Cassie.
‘Perhaps Mother is not well enough to come down,’ said Sibyl.
67 ‘Not well enough to come down! When the people – the daughters who knew she was not well, did not trouble to inquire after her!’
‘She may want a tray taken up,’ said Grant.
‘She certainly would have wanted one, if it had been as Nance said.’
‘Why should Nance want to prove that Aunt Ellen is ill?’
Duncan just raised his brows and threw out his hands.
‘It could not be of any advantage to her.’
‘It would make us all seem as if we were heartless, or selfish or something, I suppose. Though even on that basis, she had not decided much about it.’ Duncan gave a little laugh, as though he could not help it.
Nance returned to the room.
‘Mother does not feel any better. She thinks she will stay in bed.’
‘She is not sure?’ said Duncan.
‘Yes, she is sure, Father. I might have put it differently.’
Duncan glanced at her, and walked to the door.
‘Ellen! Ellen! When are you coming down? Do you realize we are waiting? I don’t seem to be able to get a message through.’
‘It is Mother who failed to do that. Father would only have to walk up one flight of stairs.’
‘What did you say, Nance?’ said Duncan, looking back.
Nance repeated her words, and caused her father simply to resume his position.
‘Is Aunt Ellen really ill?’ said Grant.
‘She looks unlike herself, and says she cannot eat.’
‘We had better observe the futility of taking up a tray.’
‘I will get it ready,’ said Sibyl, going to the sideboard.
Duncan returned to the room. 68
‘She will be down in a few minutes,’ he said in a careless tone.
‘Father, is she fit to? Did you over-persuade her?’
‘You are not even yet sure of your opinion of her fitness.’
‘Did you over-persuade her, Father?’
‘That is the safe part of the question. I did not persuade her at all. I do not persuade people. I called out to her, and inquired when she was coming down; and she answered, “In a few minutes”.’
‘I hope she is equal to it.’
‘You are not convinced that she is not?’ said Duncan, looking at Nance in a rather quizzical manner. ‘It shows how little meaning your words have.’
‘I wish her words were allowed to have some meaning, Father.’
‘I wish they were,’ said Duncan, turning to Sibyl. ‘My good child, I beg you will cease to fidget with that tray. You heard your mother said she was coming down. You might have lost your senses.’
Ellen entered the room, and walked to her seat, seeming to focus all her attention upon reaching it, and leaving the door open behind her.
‘Mother, are you ill?’ said Sibyl, as Grant went to shut the door.
‘You cannot attain to conviction about that, can you?’ said Duncan, not turning his eyes to his wife.
‘I was getting ready a tray for you, Mother.’
‘You were,’ said Duncan, repressing a laugh. ‘And you are right to say so. It would not occur to your mother as likely, when you knew it would not be needed.’ He glanced up under his brows at Ellen.
69 Ellen looked at the tray, as if it would have met her need, and seemed about to speak, but did not do so.
‘Well, now the truant is here, we may get along,’ said Duncan. ‘People who don’t want any breakfast, generally want a good one, in my experience. It seems to be a symptom of their state.’
Ellen looked at her husband, and in an unfamiliar way, as though it were a normal thing, sank into tears.
Duncan plied his knife, and fork, keeping his eyes down. Sibyl got up and put her arms round her mother, who made an almost fierce movement to be free.
Duncan changed his plate, thinking better of his choice of food.
‘What time will you be ready to start to church, my wife?’ he said, the easy term of affection placing the occasion.
Ellen gave him a glance, and fought with her tears.
‘She is going to bed, of course, Father,’ said Nance. ‘She is ready to go now.’
‘Then why does she not go?’ said Duncan, helping himself.
‘Because you make it impossible, Father.’
Duncan flung out his hand, and rising in such a way as to give the table a shock, strode towards the door.
‘Father, you have upset the coffee!’ said Sibyl.
Duncan made a sign to Bethia, without a glance at the table, and went on his way.
‘Every Sunday breakfast seems the worst,’ said Nance. ‘But I imagine we have attained the climax now.’
‘I am so silly; I wish I were not such a fool,’ wept Ellen, using a term strange on her lips.
‘Sibyl, tell someone to see to Mother’s room.’
‘Mother likes to have me with her. Someone else can go.’
70 Ellen took a hand of each of her daughters, and spoke and wept at the same time.
‘I can’t help what Father says: I must stay at home to-day. People must sometimes be ill. I have been ill less often than I ought in my life, because Father hated illness. I must sometimes be like other people. This house has to be so different from other houses; and lately I have felt it is too much for me, all this difference.’
Cassie signed to Grant to carry the message, and Ellen was taken to bed. It was settled that Grant and Sibyl should go to church, and Nance remain with her mother. Cassie was, as usual, to join her family. The question of consulting Duncan did not present itself as possible.
Duncan appeared in the hall at the customary hour. He perceived his companions, and guessed how matters lay; and taking his hat, walked from the house, so suddenly that he left them behind. They hastened to catch up with him, and presently he paused and looked back.
‘Nance is not coming to church, Father. She is staying with Mother.’
Duncan remained as he was, his eyes straining towards some object not imagined by his companions.
‘You felt you could leave your mother, did you?’ he said, as he turned to proceed.
Sibyl was at a loss for an answer.
‘It is a mistake to have too many people about,’ said Grant. ‘Nance is to send for the doctor, if she feels there is any need.’
‘What doctor?’ said his uncle, after a pause.
‘Smollett, of course, Uncle. What other doctor is there?’
‘Why, many others, I have believed. Smollett is not the one I should choose, if I saw reason for uneasiness.’ 71
‘Which one would you choose?’
Duncan hummed to himself.
‘The information would be of no good to you,’ he said in a moment, as if the answer were an afterthought.
‘We have never had any other doctor, Father.’
‘We have never had this show of anxiety. If there is any ground for it, Smollett is not the man. But if it is merely a show, as you seem to agree, it is well enough.’
There was silence.
‘Oh, you must have a show about something sometimes,’ said Duncan, with tolerant resignation. ‘Your life is too smooth and easy to be possible.’
‘Smollett is a clever man,’ said Grant. ‘I never know why he stays in the country.’
‘You won’t get out of it in that way, Grant. If he were good beyond a point, he would not be in the country.’
‘What did you think of Aunt Ellen yourself, Uncle?’
‘I thought,’ said Duncan, after a just perceptible pause, ‘that she would be better about amongst us all, under observation; so that, if there seemed any reason, we could send for a proper man.’
‘We could not do much observation in church. And Smollett is probably as good at it as we are. And this plan has the advantage of allowing the patient to keep her bed.’
‘Oh, no, he is not, Grant,’ said Duncan, glancing with interest at a tombstone, as he passed, and lowering his voice in the door of the church. ‘No one can observe anyone, as well as her own family. That is why I was surprised that you and Sibyl came to church, feeling as you did.’
He proceeded to his pew, protected from Grant’s reply, and put the matter aside to concentrate on other things. When a 72 messenger came, and Fabian left the church, he simply signed to his companions to keep their seats. In due course he led them to their friends, without comment upon the occurrence.
‘Why, what is wrong with Ellen, Duncan?’ said Florence at once. ‘Was she ill when you came out? She has looked very thin lately.’
‘These Christian names!’ said Dulcia, falling against Beatrice. ‘They send a thrill down my spine.’
‘She was not quite herself,’ said Duncan. ‘Nance was to send a message, if she needed help. We must go home, and let Sibyl relieve her.’
‘Ah, it is nice to be wanted,’ said Mr Bode.
‘So you all felt you could come to church?’ said Gretchen.
‘No, not all,’ said Duncan. ‘We felt one of us should remain.’
‘I am sure Mrs Edgeworth has everything that could be conceived of,’ said Dulcia, in her clear tones. ‘We shall only have to ask Dr Smollett that.’
‘I will come in and see her this afternoon,’ said Florence.
‘So will I,’ said Mrs Bode. ‘I hope there will be something I can do.’
‘Well, Mother dear, I hope not,’ said Dulcia. ‘If there is nothing, it will show there is nothing wrong.’
‘Ah, that is what my wife would like,’ said Mr Bode. ‘To do something for somebody. That is what would suit her.’
‘Well, I hope there is not much amiss,’ said Duncan; ‘or the gathering will be out of place. I am glad none of you feel there is. I think the general feeling is a good touchstone.’
‘What a very odd opinion!’ said Grant.
‘I am not so sure I feel it,’ said Gretchen to Cassie. ‘Doctors are not fetched out of church for nothing.’
73 ‘If they were good for much more, they would not be in church,’ said Almeric.
‘But I repudiate your alarmist theories, Mrs Jekyll,’ said Dulcia. ‘It is borne in upon me, that nothing much is the matter: I feel I could almost guarantee it. We should not be standing about here, if there were. I feel we should somehow be prevented.’ She laughed.
‘We need not say that our time is yours,’ said Beatrice, stepping up to Cassie. ‘It goes without saying.’
‘It does not do that. But I will remember it.’
‘Thank you very much,’ said Beatrice, simply.
‘I leave things that go without saying, to do their own business,’ said her cousin. ‘Or they might be the other kind of things.’
‘I suggest we should go home,’ said Duncan to Grant and Sibyl. ‘There is little sense in standing about gossiping and adopting this pose of being anxious.’
‘I am sure there has been no hint of gossip, Mr Edgeworth, or pose either,’ said Dulcia. ‘I have been listening to them, and I bear witness to it. Any appearance of anxiety has been absolutely genuine.’
Duncan walked on as if he had not heard, but atoned to his companions by causing for their sakes an amused twitch to play about his lips.
Fabian met them in their hall with the sauvity of his kind, under conditions that would indicate another manner.
‘Ah, it is nice to see you all together. It is what we have been wanting. Yes, and Miss Cassie is with you. That is what is wanted too. So we will all go up to Nance. I have sent for a nurse to be of some help to her. I knew it was what you would wish.’
74 ‘Have you seen my wife?’ said Duncan, passing over this summary of gratified desires.
‘I have been with her since I left the church. It was wise of Nance to send for me. She has been wise and good.’
‘Is there anything much wrong?’
‘Well, perhaps we should not say it is wrong. Nature will have her way with us.’
‘Is anything serious the matter?’
‘Well, we use words like “serious”. But words do not make much difference, do they?’
‘They convey ideas of things. Tell us the truth,’ said Grant, incurring a look from his uncle for overreaching his place.
‘Dr Smollett is doing so, Grant.’
‘Ah, the wisest of us cannot always do that,’ said Fabian, sighingly speaking as one of these.
‘Can you tell us what you fear the mischief is?’
‘What is sometimes the mischief with us, and the mischief for a long while. But it made no difference until to-day, or until quite lately; we can think that. Yes, you will like to see her; and you need not feel it will do harm.’
The family followed him to Ellen’s bed, sensing the warning in the words. Nance was sitting by her mother, and the nurse was in the room, her presence striking its own note of warning. Fabian muttered to Grant, under cover of giving place to Duncan and the girls.
‘A deep mischief has gone on for a long time. It seems to do its work at the end. It is months since I spoke to your uncle of her looks. There is little more for it to do.’
Duncan turned his head, and Fabian came forward.
‘Now, here they have all come to see you,’ he said, as if this 75 fact had importance. ‘Yes, that is what they wanted, when they entered the house. Some of us are thought about more than other people.’
Ellen was lying on her back, seeming to be sunk into the bed, with a look of having lain for a long while. Her face seemed suddenly thin and small, and her family knew they had missed a gradual change. She hardly moved her head, but turned her eyes.
‘It is lazy of me to be lying here. I don’t know when I have lain in bed. It seems so easy to get used to it.’
‘We are all lazy,’ said Duncan. ‘Lying here does not make any difference. We are none of us going to do anything useful to-day.’
‘Mother dearest, do you feel ill?’ said Sibyl.
‘I don’t feel really ill, not really,’ said Ellen, her voice at once perplexed and aware. ‘You need not stay here. You must be going down to luncheon. Bethia is going out this afternoon.’
The everyday words threw up what was strange in her voice.
‘You will have luncheon with us, Smollett?’ said Duncan, not looking at the face on the pillow.
‘If I may send a message to my wife, I shall like to be with you all.’ It was somehow clear that Florence would not come that day.
Duncan led the way from the room, throwing over his shoulder a glance of summons. Ellen’s eyes followed him, and Sibyl noticed her look.
‘Say good-bye to Mother, Father.’
Duncan gave an absent nod towards the bed, as if he hardly heard, and Ellen relapsed as though meeting what was natural.
At the table Duncan talked in his usual way, forcing Grant to take his part, and appearing unaware of his daughters’ silence. Afterwards he went as usual to the library, with no sign of knowing that he went alone.
76‘Oh, yes,’ he said, pausing and looking up the staircase, ‘come and bring me the news. We had better have it before we smoke.’ He closed the door without waiting to be answered, helpless in the grip of the morning’s mood.
The day wore on and the cloud grew, and at last overwhelmed the house. Ellen was still and quiet, and was thought to show no change, but her first unconsciousness seemed an expected thing. She spoke at times, with a hint of awe at her state, as though the strangeness of the experience showed it to her from outside. She was pleased that the girls and Grant should come to her door, and when she no longer turned her head, would ask with closed eyes which of them it was. Duncan came at longer intervals, and returned alone to the library. At dinner, where Fabian was again present, his aloofness had taken the guise of individual anxiety.
‘Do you give us hope, Smollett?’
‘While there is life there is hope. And there is life still.’
‘Be silent,’ said Duncan, to the weeping Sibyl. ‘Do you mistake this for a time to think of yourself? Bethia, return to the room, when you are fit for your duty.’
The family went to bed at night, avoiding the effort of urging each other to rest. The sisters came often in the night to Ellen’s room. Duncan slept through the hours like a dead man: he had spent himself the most. Fabian and the nurse and Cassie rested and watched by turns. No mention had been made of another opinion; it was only not said in words that the time was too short.
The next day Fabian admitted a cloud over his urbanity and ease; Duncan presented an impregnable front; Nance and Grant were haggard and silent; and Sibyl was openly tear-stained and dishevelled. Duncan looked at her and did not speak: it was a small thing this morning.
77The day went on, silent, swift, at a standstill, without time. The midday meal was one which was never remembered. At some time in the afternoon came Ellen’s last lucid hour, and her family found themselves at her deathbed.
She turned with a smile, and a gesture towards the nurse, suggestive of some characteristic comment upon her. Her daughters made a silent response, and she closed her eyes, content to have done what was in her mind.
In a minute she opened them with a worried, almost guilty air.
‘There are one or two things not paid,’ she said, her hurried, stumbling voice her own but for its weakness.
‘There is a list in my own desk.’ The thought shot through them that it would not long be this. ‘There are more than one or two, I think.’
‘That is my business,’ said her husband. ‘It has nothing to do with you.’
Ellen relapsed with a smile of relief, that showed in its simplicity how she had looked as a child.
Then she turned her eyes from one to another, seeming to have just seen them.
‘Stay for a little while,’ she said, as though she had been dull alone, and closed her eyes.
There was silence until she opened them and looked at nothing, and Sibyl bent over her.
‘Mother, you know how I have always loved you?’
Duncan pushed his daughter aside, and took her place.
‘Loved me?’ said Ellen, looking about in a bewildered way, as if she heard from a distance. ‘I know that Nance has loved me. I like people to show those things, myself.’
78There was silence, while Sibyl approached again, and Nance drew aside, as though agreeing she had had enough.
Ellen seemed to feel her husband’s eyes, and met them.
‘Illness is always a trouble, isn’t it? Some people are always ill. Of course they can’t help it, but that does not make it better.’
‘It is a trouble to those who are ill,’ said Duncan, taking her hand.
‘I want to say good night to Cassie,’ said Ellen, in an almost petulant tone. ‘I don’t know what I should do without Cassie. She and Grant make things so much better for us, don’t they?’
‘Good night, Ellen,’ said Cassie, stooping over the bed.
‘Good night,’ said Ellen, in a satisfied, almost social tone, and was silent.
Fabian took his hand from her wrist, and turned to face her family.
‘She had her last wish. You can feel that,’ he said, welcoming the place of this desire of Ellen’s which he knew to have been gratified. ‘You have been beyond praise; you have made your father proud, when you wanted to do something for him. Grant, we will leave them to you and Miss Cassie. You are both of you people who can do so much. Edgeworth, you will stay with me for a while?’
Duncan complied, something about him forbidding concern or condolence. He thanked Fabian for what he had done, and spoke some conventional words of his wife. Then he took his leave, and went to the library and closed the door.
An incident broke across the hour, and shaped its memories. Bethia came to say that Miss Fellowes had called, and begged to see a member of the family. Cassie found Beatrice and Dulcia waiting on their feet, as if they would not serve their own comfort in the conditions of the house.
79 ‘How is Mrs Edgeworth?’ said Beatrice, stepping gravely forward.
‘She died a little while ago.’
‘I feared that might be so, when I saw the blinds drawn down. But I was so loth to give up a purpose I had come to for her,’ said Beatrice, firmer than usual in the face of obstacles. ‘May I perhaps leave my message for someone else in the house?’
‘If it will do for anyone, perhaps you will give it to me.’
Beatrice met Cassie’s eyes in silence.
‘I am simply the adjutant, Miss Jekyll,’ said Dulcia, as though Cassie’s attention would by now be upon herself: ‘I am not the originator of the scheme.’
‘I was grateful for the support,’ said Beatrice. ‘I am so poor-spirited over the things that ought to make me the opposite. I do not make any bones about it.’
‘I hope it does not need so much spirit to leave a message here.’
‘Ah, now, Miss Jekyll, if you think that,’ said Dulcia, ‘you quite mistake the force of your personality.’
‘May the message be given to someone who would receive it?’ said Beatrice, passing lightly over her implication that this would hardly be Cassie. ‘To Mr Edgeworth perhaps, as he is in need.’
‘Shall I give it to him for you?’
‘Thank you very much,’ said Beatrice, in a revealingly grateful tone. ‘I ought not to let my work devolve upon you. But we neither of us want to be thanked, do we? It all has too little to do with us. I know I felt just compelled to it.’
‘That is what I feel,’ said Cassie.
‘It is kind of you to see us, Miss Jekyll. We could not expect it of the family, and we know you feel it as they do,’ said Dulcia, doing justice to Cassie’s kindness. 80
‘Mrs Edgeworth was a great friend of mine.’
‘We know she was, Miss Jekyll; that it was a real, genuine, equal friendship.’
‘Why speak of it in the past tense?’ said Beatrice.
‘If anyone knows it was well with her at the end, it is you, Miss Jekyll.’
‘She had nothing to repent of,’ said Cassie.
‘I think we all have that,’ said Beatrice, with a kind of charged brightness.
‘Not Mrs Edgeworth.’
‘I am sure I feel I have,’ said Beatrice, as though this indicated it in a general sense.
‘And I,’ said Dulcia; ‘things without number.’
‘People are so different,’ said Cassie.
Dulcia took Cassie’s hands and pushed them backwards, with a roguishly comprehending expression.
‘May I write a note to Mr Edgeworth?’ said Beatrice suddenly.
Cassie opened a writing table.
‘Confess, now, Miss Jekyll. You would like to put a pistol at our heads,’ said Dulcia, as her friend made deliberate preparations.
‘I cannot stay with you much longer, if that is what you mean.’
Dulcia looked slightly taken aback, though it was hardly an exaggerated treatment of her words.
Beatrice rose, and coming to Cassie, put a fastened letter into her hands.
‘You will give it to Mr Edgeworth? Thank you very much indeed.’
‘Now here is Miss Jekyll, grieved and worn and needed by other people!’ said Dulcia. ‘And here are we, preventing her 81 from attending to herself and to them! So if she will promise to do the first as well as the last, we will not ask another word.’
‘I promise,’ said Cassie.
‘Anything to get rid of us!’ said Dulcia, catching Beatrice’s hand. ‘Now, farewell, Miss Jekyll, and in the literal sense. You have lost a friend, an intimate – we give you that fully – but the world is not dark, because of one spot. Come along, Miss Fellowes; we hold to our side of the bargain.’
Beatrice followed, turning to smile at Cassie, as if she would not leave her without a sign.
Cassie was going upstairs with the note, when she met Fabian.
‘Miss Fellowes wrote this for Mr Edgeworth. She came with a message for Ellen, and found it too late.’
Fabian took the note and tore it across.
‘Oh, yes, Miss Cassie. Yes, you gave it to me to give to him, and I forgot. No one will be referring to it. Miss Beatrice has left it to us.’
The family gathered at the evening meal, meeting no reason for breaking the routine. Fabian’s absence reduced their life at once to the level of the future.
‘Do you want to come to dinner, or not, Sibyl?’ said Duncan.
‘I don’t mind, Father,’ said his daughter, looking at him through tears.
Duncan sat down without further sign, except that he suddenly motioned Nance to her mother’s place.
‘Well, we have lost one very dear to us all,’ he said, as though summing up the matter before putting it aside. ‘She will always be the dearest of my memories. We cannot look for life to be the same.’ 82
The meal shadowed forth the numberless meals of the future without Ellen. Duncan’s voice seemed unfamiliar, and his figure was unreal as he left them.
‘You are coming, Grant?’
‘No, Uncle; I will stay with the girls to-night.’
Duncan went into his room and closed the door.
‘Cassie, will it always be like this?’ said Sibyl.
‘No. This is a day by itself. I suppose not even your father would see it as typical.’
‘Is Father all right alone?’
‘Not if appearances are deceitful,’ said Nance. ‘But we do not consider remedying his condition.’
‘It is all very well for you, Nance, after what she said. There is no need for you to wish you had been different.’
‘No other success in your life will count,’ said Grant. ‘You may from this day cease from effort.’
‘If you don’t like sitting in Mother’s place,’ said Sibyl, ‘we can all sit nearer together, and leave it empty.’
‘Its emptiness would hardly be a solution.’
‘It would be better for us, than seeing someone else in it.’
‘It would be worse than seeing Nance in it,’ said Cassie.
‘Father settled the question, and on the whole opinion is with him.’
‘I find I am not capable of real sorrow,’ said Grant. ‘Aunt Ellen’s life was not more to me than my own. And my own kind of sorrow is very uncongenial.’
‘I wish I could joke,’ said Sibyl. ‘Cassie, shall I always feel I was not good enough to Mother?’
‘No, not always. Not very much longer.’
‘Are the ennobling effects of sorrow temporary?’ said Nance. 83 ‘I admit I have not felt them. I have only been surprised and sorry not to see them in Father.’
‘It would be a great thing for us, for Uncle to be ennobled. It will be too bad, if he is not a changed man. Surely he will not allow Aunt Ellen to have died in vain.’
They went from one thing to another, reckless, confused, hysterical; and hardly noticed when someone opened the door.
‘It would be well not to make so much noise,’ said Duncan. ‘If you wish it for yourselves, you can hardly do so for the servants. I chose not to employ one of them on the message.’
‘Cassie, shall we ever live down this shame?’ said Nance.
‘What does it matter what we live down, when Mother is dead?’ said Sibyl, rushing to the door. ‘I can’t stay with you; I am going down to Father.’
She broke into the library, where Duncan was by himself.
‘Father, you and I must grieve for Mother alone. No one else seems to miss her. We must feel she has left us to each other.’
Duncan looked up and around, as though a wave were breaking over him.
‘We will not wear our hearts on our sleeves,’ he said.