More than once, in the weeks that followed, Judith’s mind swung back
to the words: “There’s no living with my mother, these days.” Once
she asked Dr. Schubert about it. Might not Mrs. Trench be, in fact,
a very sick woman--keeping herself out of bed by sheer force of her
indomitable will? To which Lavinia’s physician replied, with a none
too sympathetic smile: “Yes, she is a very sick woman ... but there is
nothing in my materia medica that will reach her case. I am looking for
a return of her old trouble--a hardening of the fluid in the gall duct.
She has passed through two sieges of jaundice. And at another time the
hardening reached the stage of well solidified stones, that yielded to
large and persistent doses of olive oil--a remedy that Mrs. Trench took
as a peculiarly cruel and unnecessary punishment.”
“I’m glad to know it’s purely physical,” Mrs. Ascott breathed. “I was
afraid it was ... spleen.”
Dr. Schubert’s eyes twinkled.
“Your neighbour’s liver trouble originates in her spleen. You’ll say
my anatomy is defective; but Mrs. Trench’s body is the victim of an
abnormal mind. To be physically unfit always infuriates her. Her
passionate outbursts always react on that highly important gland,
that nature designed for the cleansing of the physical body. Result?
A clogged liver and a worse fit of temper. Poor David! He is so fine.
Life ought to have given him velvet instead of gravel.”
At no time did Lavinia take to her bed for more than a few hours, and
then only when some personal triumph was to be gained by a direct
appeal to the sympathy of her family. If she harboured a feeling of
ill-will against her neighbour, it was in effect to class her with
those of her own household. She seldom glanced into the garden across
the low stone barrier, and when she walked from the kitchen stoop to
David’s shop, at the lower end of her own domain, she went with head
inclined, as if she were battling against a furious northern gale. Even
Theodora was beginning to practice caution, and a less amiable maid
than Drusilla would have given notice, long ago.
Larimore and his mother were icily polite, as was their wont when no
other form of civil intercourse was possible. The coldness began the
day after Mrs. Trench taunted her son with his failure to win the
Marksley commission. But her smug “I told you so” had little to do
with the prolonged siege. Lary would have forgiven her. His father had
schooled him not to hold her accountable for the bitter things she
said. You could reason with Theodora; but Lavinia....
No, the rancour was not on this side. His had been the triumph. His
mother had sought to deliver a blow that must shatter his dearest
idol--and the blow had missed the mark. Dutton was wont to say that
nobody ever got ahead of Vine Trench. And in this case it was Lavinia
who defeated herself. So much the worse for Larimore, who had parried
the thrust with a foreknowledge that staggered and infuriated her.