§ 2

It would be difficult to say how the rumour got abroad in Vinehall and Leasan that the Mounts were going away. It may have been servants’ gossip, or the talk of some doctor come down to view the practice. But, whatever the source, the story was in both villages at the end of the month, and in the first week of December Rose Alard brought it to Starvecrow.

She had come to have tea with Vera, and Peter was there too. Vera was within three months of the heir, and displayed her condition with all the opulence of her race. Not even her purple velvet tea-gown could hide lines reminiscent of Sarah’s and Hannah’s exulting motherhood. Her very features seemed to have a more definitely Jewish cast—she was now no longer just a dark beauty, but a Hebrew beauty, heir of Rebecca and Rachel and Miriam and Jael. As Jenny had once said, one expected her to burst into a song about horses and chariots. She had for the time lost those intellectual and artistic interests which distinguished her from the other Alards. She no longer seemed to care about her book, for which she had so far been unable to find a publisher, but let it lie forgotten in a drawer, while she worked at baby clothes. Nevertheless she was inclined to be irritable and snap at Peter, and Peter himself seemed sullen and without patience. Rose watched him narrowly—“He’s afraid it’s going to be a girl.”

Aloud she said—

“Have you heard that the Mounts are leaving Vinehall?”

Her news caused all the commotion she could have wished.

“The Mounts leaving!”—“When?”—“Why?”—“Both of them?”

“Yes, both. I heard it at the Hursts; they seemed quite positive about it, and you know they’re patients.”

“But where are they going?” asked Vera.

“That I don’t know—yet. The Hursts said something about a colonial appointment.”

“I’m surprised, I must say. Dr. Mount’s getting old, and you’d think he’d want to stay on here till he retired—not start afresh in a new place at his age.”

“If you ask me, it’s Miss Stella’s doing. She’s lived here nearly all her life and hasn’t got a husband, so she thinks she’ll go and try somewhere else before it’s too late.”

“Then they’d certainly better go to the Colonies—there are no men left in England. But I’m sorry for Dr. Mount.”

“I suppose you know it’s all over between her and Gervase?”

“Oh, is it—at last?”

“Yes—he hasn’t been there since his holiday in September. He has his dinner on Sundays either at the Church Farm or alone with Mr. Luce.”

“Rose, how do you find out all these things?”

“The Wades told me this. They say she’s been looking awful.”

“Peter!” cried Vera irritably, as a small occasional table went to the ground.

“No harm done,” he mumbled, picking it up.

“But you’re so clumsy. You’re always knocking things over....” She checked herself suddenly, pleating angry folds in her gown.

Peter got up and went out.

“I’m glad he’s gone,” said Rose—“it’s much easier to talk without a man in the room. I really do feel sorry for Stella—losing her last chance of becoming Lady Alard.”

“You think it’s Gervase who’s cooled off, not she who’s turned him down?”

“Oh, she’d never do that. She’s much too keen on getting married.”

“Well, so I thought once. But I’m not so sure now. I used to think she was in love with Gervase, but now I believe she only kept him on as a blind.”

“To cover what?”

“Peter.”

“You mean....”

“That they’ve been in love with each other the whole time.”

“Vera!”

Excitement at the disclosure was mingled in Rose’s voice with disappointment that she had not been the one to make it.

“Yes,” continued her sister-in-law in a struggling voice—“they’ve always been in love—ever since he married me—ever since he gave her up. They’ve never been out of it—I know it now.”

“But I always thought it was all on her side.”

“Oh, no, it wasn’t. Peter was infatuated with her, for some strange reason—she doesn’t seem to me at all the sort of girl a man of his type would take to. Being simple himself, you’d think he’d like something more sophisticated.”

“But Stella is sophisticated—she’s artful. Look how she got Gervase to change his religion, and break his poor brother’s heart. I often think that it was Gervase’s religion which killed poor George, and Stella was responsible for that. She may have pretended to be in love with him just to get him over. You see she can be forgiven anything she does by just going to confession.”

“Well, she needs forgiveness now if she never did before. So it’s just as well she knows where to get it.”

“But, Vera, do you really think there’s anything—I mean anything wicked between them?”

“I don’t know what you call wicked, Rose, if keeping a man’s affections away from his wife who’s soon going to have her first child ... if that isn’t enough for you.... No, I don’t suppose he’s actually slept with her”—Vera liked shocking Rose—“She hasn’t got the passion or the spunk to go so far. But it’s bad enough to know Peter’s heart isn’t mine just when I need him most—to know he only married me just to put the estate on its legs, and now is bitterly regretting it”—and Vera began to cry.

“But how do you know he’s regretting it? He doesn’t go about with Stella, I can tell you that. I’d be sure to have heard if he did.”

“No, I daresay he doesn’t go about with her. I shouldn’t mind if he did, if only his manner was the same to me. But it isn’t—every time we’re together I can see he doesn’t love me any more. He may have for a bit—he did, I know—but Stella got him back, and now every time he looks at me I can see he’s regretting he ever married me. And if the baby’s a girl ... my only justification now is that I may be the mother of an heir ... if the baby’s a girl, I hope I’ll die. Oh, I tell you, Stella may be Lady Alard yet.”

She threw herself back among the cushions and sobbed unrestrainedly. Rose felt a thrill. She had always looked upon Vera as a superior being, remote from the commonplaces of existence in Leasan; and here she was behaving like any other jealous woman.

“Oh, I wish I’d never married,” sobbed Vera—“at least not this sort of marriage. My life’s dull—my husband’s dull—my only interests are bearing his children and watching his affair with another woman. I’m sick of the County families—they’ve got no brains, they’ve got no guts—I’d much better have married among my own people. They at least are alive.”

Rose was shocked. However, she valiantly suppressed her feelings, and patted the big olive shoulder which had shrugged abandonedly out of the purple wrappings.

“Don’t worry, dear,” she soothed—“you’re upset. I’m sure Peter’s all right. It’s often rather trying for men in times like these ...” she heaved on the edge of an indelicate remark ... “so they notice other women more. But I’m quite sure there’s nothing really wrong between him and Stella; because if there was,” she added triumphantly, “Stella wouldn’t be going away.”

“Oh, wouldn’t she!”

“No, of course not. I expect she’s going only because she knows now definitely that she’ll never get Peter back.”

“Nonsense.”

“It isn’t nonsense, dear. Don’t be so cross.”

“I’m sorry, Rose, but I’m ... anyhow Dr. Mount can’t go before I’m through, and that’s three months ahead. I’ve half a mind not to have him now. I feel sick of the whole family.”

“That would be very silly of you, Vera. Dr. Mount’s the best doctor round here for miles, and it would only be spiting yourself not to have him. After all he’s not responsible for Stella’s behaviour.”

“No, I suppose not. Oh, I daresay I’m an ass, going on like this.”

She sat up, looking more like the author of “Modern Rhymes.” Rose, who had always been a little afraid of her, now had the privileged thrill of those who behold the great in their cheaper moments.

“You’ll be all right, dear,” she said meaningly “in three months’ time.”

“All right, or utterly done in. O God, why can’t someone find out a way of deciding the sex of children? I’d give all I possess and a bit over to be sure this is going to be a boy. Not that I want a boy myself—I like girls much better—but I don’t want to see Peter go off his head or off with Stella Mount.”

“I don’t believe she’s got a single chance against you once you’re yourself again. Even now I could bet anything that it’s all on her side.”

“She’s got no chance against me as a woman, but as an Ancient Habit she can probably do a lot with a man like Peter. But I’m not going to worry about her any more—I’ve given way and made an utter fool of myself, and it’s done me good, as it always does. Rose, you promise not to say a word of this to anyone.”

“Of course I won’t. But I might try to get at the facts....”

“For God’s sake don’t. You’ll only make a mess.”

As she revived she was recovering some old contempt for her sister-in-law.