§ 24

Sir John Alard died when the cocks were crowing on Starvecrow and Glasseye and Doucegrove, and on other farms of his wide-flung estate too far away for the sound to come to Conster. His wife and daughters and daughter-in-law were with him when he died, but he knew no one. His mind did not come out of its retreat for any farewells, and if it had, would have found a body stiffened, struggling, intractable, and disobedient to the commands of speech and motion it had obeyed mechanically for nearly eighty years. Death came and brought the gift of dignity—a dignity he had never quite achieved in all his lifetime of rule. When his family came in for a last look, after the doctor and the nurse had performed their offices, they saw that the querulous, irascible old man of the last few months was gone, and in his place lay Something he had never been of stillness and marble beauty. When Dr. Mount had invited them in to the death-chamber, the daughters had at first refused, and changed their minds only when they found that Lady Alard was unexpectedly ready to go. Now Jenny at least was glad. It was her first sight of death (for she had not seen George’s body and would never see Peter’s) and she was surprised to find how peaceful and triumphant the body looked when set free from the long tyranny of the soul. It comforted her to know that in its last fatal encounter with terror, pain and woe, humanity was allowed to achieve at least the appearance of victory. Her father lying there looked like one against whom all the forces of evil had done their worst in vain.

Nobody cried except Doris, who cried a great deal. She had not cried for Peter, but when her father’s spirit had slipped out after a sigh, she had burst into a storm of noisy weeping. She was sobbing still, kneeling beside the body of the father who had bullied and humiliated her all her life, the only one of his children who really regretted him.

There was the sound of wheels in the drive below.

“Is that Gervase?” asked Jenny, going to the window.

“No,” said Mary, “it’s Dr. Mount going away.”

“He seems in a great hurry to get off,” said Rose—“he didn’t wait a minute longer than he could possibly help.”

“I don’t wonder,” said Jenny.

“I expect he’s gone home to break it to Stella,” whispered Rose.

“He told me he was going to Starvecrow to see Vera,” said Jenny icily. She hated Rose’s conjectures all the more that she now shared them herself.

“It will be dreadful for some people at the inquest,” continued her sister-in-law.

“Dreadful! how dreadful?—You don’t mean Stella’s to blame, do you?”

“Oh, of course, I don’t mean she’s really done anything wicked—but she let poor Peter go on loving her when she knew it was wrong.”

“How could she have stopped him?—supposing it’s true that he did love her.”

“Any girl can stop a man loving her,” said Rose mysteriously.

“Oh, can she?—it’s obvious you’ve never had to try.”

Jenny was surprised at her own vindictiveness, but she felt all nerves after such a night. Rose was plunged into silence, uncertain whether she had been complimented or insulted, and the next minute there was another sound of wheels in the drive.

“That must be Gervase.”

A taxi had stopped outside the door, and out of it climbed, not Gervase but Brother Joseph of the Order of Sacred Pity, with close-cropped hair, a rough, grey cassock and the thickest boots man ever saw. As she watched him from the window, Jenny felt a lump rise in her throat.

She was going down to meet him when suddenly Doris started up from the bedside.

“Let me go first.”

She brushed past her sister and ran downstairs before anyone could stop her. Jenny hurried after her, for she felt that Doris in her present condition was not a reassuring object to meet the home-comer. But she was too late. Doris flung open the door almost at the same instant as the bell rang.

“Welcome!” she cried hysterically—“Welcome—Sir Gervase Alard!”