I
When school closed in June, Judith took Theodora for the long promised
visit to New York. Sydney and Eileen were off for a belated honeymoon
in the mountains of Colorado, and Lavinia Trench reflected that the
coveted privacy had come at the crucial moment. She would be alone to
think things out. David was away from home much of the time, and when
he was in the house his wife was only mechanically conscious of his
presence. She viewed the neighbours as through a mist. Orders were
given to Drusilla, with the monotonous intonation of a talking machine.
That the orders were rational was evidence of the complete detachment
that could enable her mind to function without conscious effort. It was
as if she had wound up the machinery of her being and had withdrawn,
leaving it to the old familiar routine.
After three weeks, her cloistered retreat was invaded by the most
disturbing member of her family. The passionate devotion that had
centered in her youngest-born--to her purblind vision the most perfect
copy of herself--had undergone insidious change, as she centered
her interest in Eileen. Theodora was irritating beyond endurance.
With the child in the house, there could be no peace. Reluctantly,
almost bitterly, she came back to the dull reality of life. David was
still in Jacksonville from Monday to Saturday. After a day or two,
she consented to let Theo stay with Dr. Schubert and Nanny. To her
daughter-in-law she confessed that it was not because the old doctor
was so lonely, but that she could not endure the child’s incessant
chatter. The dropping of a fork behind her chair would send her into a
paroxysm of shaking--Lavinia, who had always laughed at nervous women.