Читать книгу The End of the House of Alard онлайн

52 страница из 99

He did not think there was any engagement, any promise. Circumstances might finally keep them apart. Rose, Doris, Jenny, his father and mother—the whole family—did not want Peter to marry Stella Mount whose face was her fortune. It was the same everlasting need of money that was making the same people, except Jenny of course, shrug at poor Jim Parish, whose people in their turn shrugged at portionless Jenny. Money—money . . . that was what the Squires wanted—what they must have if their names were to remain in the old places.

Gervase felt rather angry with Peter. He was angry to think that he who had the power was divided as to the will. How was it possible that he could stumble at such a choice? What was money, position, land or inheritance compared to simple, solid happiness? . . . He buried his face in the pillow, and a kind of horror seized him at the cruel ways of things. It was as if a bogey was in the room—the kind that used to be there when he was a child, but no longer visible in the heeling shadows round the nightlight, rather an invisible sickness, the fetish of the Alards dancing in triumph over Stella and Peter.