She raised her eyes to Loveday’s face. “Bad news?” she faltered, clasping her hands tightly together.
“It’s the Master, ma’am.”
Then she had done it. She had succeeded. She swallowed, but found herself unable to speak. She waited, her gaze fixed on Loveday’s face with an expression on it of wonder and of dread.
“The Master’s dead, ma’am.”
A sound that was hardly a cry broke from her; she buried her face in her hands. “Oh, Loveday! Oh, Loveday! Oh, no, no!”
Loveday put her arms round her, drawing her to lie against her deep, warm breasts. “There, my dear, there! Don’t you take on, now. He went in his sleep, the way anyone would wish for him.”
Faith wept, but not for sorrow, nor yet for pity. She wept for her own madness, which had turned her into a murderess, and for relief that her long purgatory was ended. Loveday rocked her, and murmured to her, and after a little while she stopped, and groped for her handkerchief. Loveday found it for her, and when she had dried her eyes, she coaxed her to drink her tea. She was leaning back against her banked-up pillows, sipping the tea between spasmodic sobs, when Vivian came into the room. When she saw Vivian, she thought how she had set her free too, and her eyes filled with weak tears again. She said: “Oh, Vivian!”
Vivian’s uncompromising honesty made it impossible for her to understand how anyone could weep for what she was glad of. She said bluntly: “I don’t see what you’ve got to cry for. We all know that you’ve been miserable for years.”
“Oh, don’t!” Faith begged, the tears brimming over “Don’t talk like that, please!”
“Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t pretend that I care. It would be sheer hypocrisy. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the best thing that has ever happened in this house!”
Faith was really shocked by this speech, for although she had been able to do what perhaps Vivian had never contemplated doing, she was incapable of facing an unvarnished truth, and was already seeing her action, not as a crime, but as a deed undertaken as much for the good of others as for her own peace. Loveday, whispering comfort, had spoken of Penhallow’s death as a release from suffering, and she realised without effort that this was true, and had begun to believe that she had been at least to some extent actuated by this thought when she had determined to poison Penhallow. But not even to herself did she use that harsh word. There were plenty of euphemisms for the ugly terms, Murder and Poison, and they came more naturally to her brain, so that she had no need consciously to evade the cruder words.
“It’s been a shock to her,” Loveday said, in a reproving tone. “Indeed, Mrs Eugene, you didn’t ought to speak like that, with the poor gentleman lying there dead.” She paid no heed to the angry flush that stained Vivian’s cheeks, but turned from her to her mistress, asking whether she should prepare the bath for her.
“Oh, I don’t know!” Faith said undecidedly. “I feel so upset, and queer, Loveday!”
“Well, you aren’t going to stop washing just because there has been a death in the house, are you?” inquired Vivian caustically.
Put in such blunt terms as this, it did seem absurd, but Faith felt vaguely that in the performance of everyday actions at such a moment there was something bordering on the indecent. She ignored Vivian. “I suppose I — Yes, of course I shall have my bath just as I always do. Please get it ready for me, Loveday!”
“That’s right, my dear,” Loveday said, patting her hand. “Then you’ll get back into bed, and I’ll bring your breakfast up to you, and you’ll be better.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t!” Faith said. “I couldn’t swallow anything! Please don’t ask me to! I ought to get up. Do you think I should go down at once? I — I feel so absolutely bowled over I don’t seem to be able to think!”
“You lay quiet awhile,” Loveday counselled her. “"There’s nothing you can do, my dear. The doctor’s below at this moment, and I was thinking you would like to have him come up to you, and give you something for your poor nerves.”
“No. No, I shall be all right!” Faith said, pressing her finger-tips to her temples. “I don’t want a doctor. Unless I ought to see him about — about Adam. Must I? I don’t feel that I can bear it! But of course if I ought to — I don’t know what one does when — when a thing like this happens!”
“If you don’t want to see him, there’s no particular reason why you should,” said Vivian. “Raymond’s there, and I don’t see that you can tell him anything he doesn’t know already. I mean, it isn’t as though this was unexpected. Lifton warned you, didn’t he?”
“Yes, oh yes! And he had been getting worse later hadn’t he? Charmian saw a great change in him. She told me so.”
“It’s Dr Rame,” Loveday said. “Dr Lifton has the influenza.”
“Dr Rame!” Faith repeated nervously. “Oh, I would rather not see him if I needn’t! I never liked him. He’s so hard, and unsympathetic!”
“I’ll go and turn the bath on,” Loveday said, picking up the early tea-tray. “Mr Ray said if you wanted to see the doctor to send down a message.”
“Only if I must! But if he wants to speak to me of course I’ll see him! Tell Mr Ray that, Loveday!”
“You’ve no call to worry, my dear,” Loveday said soothingly.
Vivian would have remained, after she had left the room, to discuss Penhallow’s death with Faith, but Faith stopped her, saying that she could not bear to talk about it. She shrugged contemptuously, therefore, and went away.
In the dining-room, several members of the family were gathered round the table, partaking of breakfast in a desultory and ill-at-ease fashion. Clara was seated as usual at the foot of the table, dispensing coffee and tea in the intervals of sniffing into a screwed-up handkerchief: with which she from time to time wiped the corners of’ her eyes. Conrad was somewhat defiantly consuming a plateful of bacon and eggs; Aubrey, not noticeably affected by the general depression, was spreading a thin slice of toast with marmalade; and Bart, having pushed away his plate, almost untouched, was mechanically stirring his coffee, his rather reddened eyes lowered.
Neither Raymond nor Charmian was present. In response to Vivian’s inquiry, Clara replied huskily that they were both in Penhallow’s room still, with the doctor.
Vivian sat down, having helped herself to some fish from the dish on the sideboard. After a short silence, Conrad cleared his throat, and said: “I shan’t go to work today, of course.”
Nobody made any answer to this observation. Vivian said: “What on earth are they taking so long, for? I saw the doctor’s car drive up ages ago! What do you suppose they can be doing?”
Aubrey, who had dignified the occasion by discarding his colourful sports-wear for a lounge suit which he wore with a lavender shirt, replied: “Darling, must we go into that? You’re so marvellous with your self-possession and all that, I expect you don’t mind a bit what you talk about at breakfast, but I haven’t got anything like your strength of character, and I do wish you wouldn’t, sweetie. Besides, some of our number are quite upset about it.”
“Not you,” Bart said, momentarily raising his eyes from his coffee-cup.
“My dear, the only thing which upsets me — and you simply can’t imagine how frightful it was! — was the perfectly ghoulish noise which Martha made. I mean, talk about the purely primitive! No, I’m not going to pretend that I’m shattered by Father’s death. You wouldn’t any of you believe it if I did. He was showing the most alarming signs of being about to interfere with my lovely, ordered existence, and I regard his death as an unmixed blessing.”