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"Miss Vinrace is dead," he said very distinctly. Mrs. Paley merely bent a little towards him and asked, "Eh?" "Miss Vinrace is dead," he repeated. It was only by stiffening all the muscles round his mouth that he could prevent himself from bursting into laughter, and forced himself to repeat for the third time, "Miss Vinrace. . . . She's dead."
He was a great dim force in the house, by means of which they held on to the great world which is represented every morning in the Times. But the real life of the house was something quite different from this. It went on independently of Mr. Vinrace, and tended to hide itself from him. He was good-humoured towards them, but contemptuous.
"Age of Chaucer; Age of Elizabeth; Age of Dryden," she reflected; "I'm glad there aren't many more ages. I'm still in the middle of the eighteenth century. Won't you sit down, Miss Vinrace? The chair, though small, is firm. . . . Euphues. The germ of the English novel," she continued, glancing at another page. "Is that the kind of thing that interests you?"
But there was one portrait in a gilt frame, for which a nail was needed, and before she sought it Mrs. Chailey put on her spectacles and read what was written on a slip of paper at the back: "This picture of her mistress is given to Emma Chailey by Willoughby Vinrace in gratitude for thirty years of devoted service." Tears obliterated the words and the head of the nail.
Chailey was expected to sit in a cabin which was large enough, but too near the boilers, so that after five minutes she could hear her heart "go," she complained, putting her hand above it, which was a state of things that Mrs. Vinrace, Rachel's mother, would never have dreamt of inflicting Mrs.
"That's for Miss Vinrace," said Clarissa. "She can't bear our beloved Jane." "That if I may say so is because you have not read her," said Richard. "She is incomparably the greatest female writer we possess." "She is the greatest," he continued, "and for this reason: she does not attempt to write like a man. Every other woman does; on that account, I don't read 'em."
She bent a blade of grass, and set an insect on the utmost tassel of it, and wondered if the insect realised his strange adventure, and thought how strange it was that she should have bent that tassel rather than any other of the million tassels. "You've never told me you name," said Hewet suddenly. "Miss Somebody Vinrace. . . . I like to know people's Christian names." "Rachel," she replied.
I can remember what an age ago it seems! settling the basis of a future state with the present Secretary for India. We thought ourselves very wise. I'm not sure we weren't. We were happy, Miss Vinrace, and we were young gifts which make for wisdom." "Have you done what you said you'd do?" she asked. "A searching question! I answer Yes and No.
It is a gentleman, as you may observe, and his name is Oliver. . . . I do not think I could forgive you, Miss Vinrace, if you broke my Oliver," she said, firmly taking the bottle out of Rachel's hands and replacing it in the cupboard. Rachel was swinging the bottle by the neck. She was interested by Miss Allan to the point of forgetting the bottle.
Half-way upstairs, at a point where the light and sounds of the upper world conflicted with the dimness and the dying hymn-tune of the under, Rachel felt a hand drop upon her shoulder. "Miss Vinrace," Mrs. Flushing whispered peremptorily, "stay to luncheon. It's such a dismal day. They don't even give one beef for luncheon. Please stay."
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