Intolerable Civility

Chapter Twenty-Eight: For the Taking

With the coming of spring, the air at Plas Bryn changed. Cate was aware of undercurrents of tension between everyone in the Demery family, herself included. The conversation David had had with Sarah seemed to have started it, or perhaps merely given strength to the currents that were already bubbling beneath the surface. At dinner that night, David spent most of the meal talking about what had happened upstairs with Sarah. He was by turns saddened and angered by Sarah's mercantile and entitled attitude towards him and the house, and Cate, relieved to hear that Sarah did not truly love him, was only too willing to listen to him and try to make him feel better with small words of support, encouragement, and sympathy. She thought she helped, but from then on, there was a noticeable, polite coolness between David and Sarah. In consequence, Sarah tried to grovel to Laurie, and when her overtures of friendship were bluntly rejected, became very close to Mrs Demery and Paul instead. Hardly a day went by when she did not visit either the one or the other. This meant that Laurie spent a lot of time at Plas Bryn, trying to avoid Sarah, but there were tensions here too. Cate wasn't sure if it was because Laurie now knew about Oliver or because she now knew that Cate knew about Wynn, but either way, Laurie was strangely cool towards Cate, and even more strangely devoid of her usual acid remarks.

Even Paul seemed different. He came to visit David several times about business, and took a moment on each occasion to come to speak to Cate and Luke. He was almost too friendly to Luke, which worried Cate because she instinctively felt that Paul did not like him. When David explained to her about the trust he was setting up, that perhaps explained his theatrically genial manner towards Luke, but it did not make sense of the probing way Paul enquired after her health and feelings and home. One time, while having tea with her in her sitting room, he abruptly stood up and tried the door between her and David's apartments.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I thought I would see if David wanted tea."

"He's not in there. And the door is locked."

"I see that." Paul sat down again and took another slice of pound cake. "Is the door always kept locked? What happens if you need David?"

"Then I knock and he opens it."

"Ah." Paul swallowed the last crumb of his pound cake, looking quite depressed. "Yes, I suppose he would."

Another time, when she was feeling under the weather due to some suspect cream cakes, Paul hesitantly, unhappily suggested that perhaps he was to expect a nephew or niece soon. When she protested vehemently that it was not possible, he brightened again.

She could only assume that Paul did not want her to have a child with David. It seemed very selfish of Paul, even if he had his own troubles in that area. All the same, when Paul suggested a small dinner party in honour of Luke's first birthday, Cate could not deny the appeal of the idea.

"Though he turned one over two months ago," she said. "We're very late for his birthday."

"The idea came to me late," Paul said. "To own the truth, I did not realize how old he really was. Nevertheless, I think late would be better than never. Another idea I have had is that we could change his surname, make him properly part of the family."

That was something Cate had long secretly wished for herself. "I would love for him to be a Demery. But what does David think?"

"I'm sure he would approve. He's very fond of the boy."

"I will ask him."

"And about the dinner party? I can think of several families in the neighbourhood who would love to be invited and meet David's wife and son."

"I don't know about inviting strangers. I'm very shy outside the family, and my reputation is still far from unshadowed."

"A small extension of your society would do you good. But never mind. My wife will come, and her sisters and brothers. My wife's siblings can hardly be strangers to you, surely?"