It would have been better for Faith could she but have found a friend, but this she was unable to do, being convinced that she could have nothing in common with her neighbours. They were country-bred, and she was never able to interest herself in country pursuits, always preferring to dwell upon the amenities of the life she had abandoned when she married Penhallow rather than to adapt herself to circumstances. Her relations with the matrons of the district never extended beyond acquaintanceship. She blamed the inelasticity of their minds; it was not given to her to understand that a craving for sympathy was no foundation for friendship.
This craving had grown with the years; because of it she had taken Loveday Trewithian out of the kitchen, and had promoted her to be her personal maid, and, later, her confidante. Loveday was gentle, and patient. She would listen to Faith’s complainings, and agree that she was hardly used; and she invested her services with a tender cajolery immensely gratifying to a woman who all her life long had passionately desired to be cosseted, and considered.
“Oh, Loveday!” Faith said, in her fretful voice, when Loveday came into her bedroom. “Has anything happened?”
Beside the fair, faded woman in bed, with the thin hands and dilating blue eyes, Loveday Trewithian seemed to glow with life and vigour. She lifted the breakfast-tray from her mistress’s knees, and smiled down at her warmly. “It’s nothing,” she said soothingly.
“I thought I heard Mr Penhallow shouting,” Faith said falteringly.
“Yes, sure,” Loveday said. “My uncle Reuben’s saying it’s Mr Aubrey that’s made him angry. You don’t need to upset yourself, ma’am.”
Faith relaxed on to her pillows with a little sigh, her mind relieved of its most pressing anxiety, that Clay, whose career at Cambridge was not fulfilling his early promise, might have done something to enrage his father. She watched Loveday set the tray down near the door, and begin to move about the room, laying out what clothes she thought Faith would wear. Her mind turned to a lesser care; she said: “The bath water was tepid again this morning. I do think Sybilla might pay a little attention to it."
“I’ll speak to her for you, ma’am, never fear! They say it’s the system that’s wrong.”
“Everything’s out-of-date or out-of-order in this house!” I’aith said.
“It isn’t fit for a delicate lady like you, ma’am, to have to live where there’s so little comfort,” murmured Loveday. “It’s wonderful the way you put up with it, surely.”
“Nobody cares whether it’s fit for me or not,” Faith said. “I’m used to that. Trevellin never agreed with me. I never feel well here, and you know how badly I sleep. I had to take my drops last night, and even then I had a wretched night!”
“It’s your nerves, and no wonder!” Loveday said. “You ought to get away for a change, ma’am, if I may say so. This is no place for you.”
“I wish I could go away, and never come back!” Faith said, half to herself.
A knock sounded on the door, and before she could reply to it Vivian had walked in. Loveday set the brushes straight on the dressing-table, picked up the breakfast tray, and went away. Faith saw from the crease between Vivian’s brows that she was in one of her moods, and at once said in a failing voice that she had passed a miserable night and had a splitting headache.
“I’m not surprised at all,” responded Vivian. “Your precious husband saw to it we should all have thoroughly disturbed nights.”
“Oh! I didn’t know,” Faith said nervously. “Was he awake in the night?”
“Was he! You’re lucky: you don’t sleep on his side of the house. When he wasn’t pealing his bell, he was shouting for Martha. Disgusting old hag!” Vivian took a cigarette from a battered packet in the pocket of her tweed jacket, and lit it. “Is it true that she was one of his mistresses?” she asked casually. “Eugene says she was.”
Faith flushed scarlet, and sat up in bed. “That’s just the sort of thing Eugene would say!” she said angrily. “And I should have thought you would have had more decent feeling than to have repeated it to me!”
“Oh, sorry!” Vivian answered. “Only Penhallow’s affairs are always so openly talked about that I didn’t think you’d mind. It’s no use pretending you don’t know anything about them, Faith, because of course you do. And for God’s sake don’t pretend that you mind, because I know darned well you don’t.”
"Well, I do mind!” said Faith. “You needn’t think that because I say nothing I like having that old woman in my house, doing all the sort of things for Adam which any decent man would have had a valet for! But I think it’s disgraceful of Eugene to go about saying she used to be Adam’s mistress! Even if it were true, such things are better not spoken of.”
“I don’t know,” Vivian said reflectively. “Practically the only thing I like about the Penhallows — except Eugene, of course — is their way of having everything aboveboard ;and freely spoken of. I mean, there’s nothing furtive about them.”
“I was brought up to consider that certain things were better left unsaid!” said Faith primly.
“So was I, and damned dull it was. If you wouldn’t pretend so much—”
“You seem to forget that I’m Eugene’s stepmother,” said Faith, snatching at the rags of her dignity.
“Oh, don’t be silly! You’re not quite eleven years older than I am, and I know perfectly well that you loathe this place as much as I do. But I do think you might do something to make it more possible! After all, you’re Penhallow’s wife! But just look at the servants, for a start! Sybilla’s just been extremely insolent to Eugene, and as for Reuben, and that loathsome creature, Jimmy-"
“It’s no use complaining to me,” interrupted Faith. “I can’t do anything about it. And Sybilla’s a good cook. I should like to know who else would stay in a place like this, or cook for a positive army of people on a stove that was out-of-date twenty years ago! I’m only thankful she and Reuben do stay.”
“And then there’s that maid of yours,” Vivian continued, disregarding her. “You’ll have to get rid of her, Faith.”
“Get rid of Loveday! I’ll do no such thing! She’s the one person in the house who considers me!”
“Yes, I know, but Aunt Clara always says she’s a double-faced girl.”
“I don’t want to listen to what Clara says! She’s a spiteful old woman, and just because I’m fond of Love day—”
“No, it isn’t that. They all say the same. Bart’s at his old tricks again. It’s absolutely fatal to employ good-looking servants in this house. I should have thought you must have known that.”
“Loveday Trewithian is a thoroughly nice girl, and I won’t hear a word against her!”
“Eugene says she means to marry Bart.”
Faith’s blue eyes started a little. She stammered: “I don’t believe it! Bart wouldn’t—”
“I know he’s never wanted to marry any of his other bits of stuff,” said Vivian, “but honestly, Faith, he does seem to have gone in off the deep end this time. Conrad’s livid with jealousy. You must have noticed it! Eugene says—