Papa requests a glass of brandy before dinner—a quaint habit.
Russell greets their greyhound warmly—a quaint practice.
I express pleasure in the robust country air—a quaint notion.
Do I believe the entire family convened a meeting to discuss the most banal and cutting word to apply with hostile consistency? Do I thinksweet, darling, precious,andfascinating,among others, were proposed in their turn and found wanting before the company settled onquaint?
Yes, yes, I do.
To give the Holcrofts their due, it is a masterful insult.
They could not have come up with a more devastating slight if they had thought about it for two weeks (though obviously not for two weeks, as I am unworthy of so much of their attention).
It is in its twin implications—of old-fashionedness and strangeness—that the slight truly hits its mark. Each time I hear it, I feel small and inadequate and I have to forcibly hold myself still lest I recoil in embarrassment.
Fortunately, Mama has yet to detect the jeering undertone and continues to receive each utterance gratefully, as though delighted by the tepidness of their admiration.
One wishes to underwhelm.
Always.
There is nothing more gauche than overwhelming one’s listener.
What my family has done to earn the Holcrofts’ contempt is a mystery to me.
PresumablyIam the one giving offense, as it was through my efforts that Mr. Holcroft’s dear friend’s iniquity came to light. If I had not launched my investigation into the suspicious death of Mr. Davies—a fictional law clerk whom I did not yet know to be an invention of my cousin Bea’s—then Sir Dudley would still be gleefully soaking the respondents in his courtroom to the tune of several hundred pounds a year. The wretched scene in that filthy little room in that narrow lane would never have taken place, and Mr. Holcroft would not be forced to accept the grim reality that his old school chum tried to murder his son.
O, happy blissful ignorance!
But I alsosavedhis son’s life.
Our would-be murderer, a hideous man of intolerable strength and cunning, had his knife pressed against Sebastian’s jugular when I bashed the assailant over the head with a rotted floorboard. Stunned, he fell to the ground, dropping his weapon.
A daring rescue of heroic proportions!
That alone deserves their respect, and yet they act as though it never happened.
Do they all share Mr. Holcroft’s fondness for the homicidal miscreant?
I cannot believe it.
Mrs. Holcroft, from whom Sebastian got his green eyes and serious forehead, strikes me as too sensible to favor a murderer’sfeelings over her son’s life. Her dealings so far have been circumspect: She treats her husband with patience, the servants with courtesy, and her children with esteem.
And yet there is no mistaking her resentment.
It is highly discouraging, and I struggle to keep my spirits up after passing a mostly sleepless night. If not tasked with the all-important mission of winning over Sebastian’s father, then I would have avoided their company entirely, retiring to my bedchamber to rest or read or brood.
But Ihavemy mission, so I am here in the room with the tapestries, looking like a fish.
Naturally, Sebastian is not here.
Touring the estate with his father’s trustworthy steward, Sebastian has left me alone to contend with his family. Present in addition to Mr. and Mrs. Holcroft are his brother Chester, a scapegrace only a few months older than me and somehow twice as silly, and three sisters: Mrs. Dowell, the eldest, whose husband, Norman, and three sons will be joining us early next week; Sarah, who, at two and twenty, just finished her third season, during which she received her fourth marriage proposal, which was as unappealing to her as the first three; Eleanor, at eighteen the youngest and the most like Sebastian, with her chestnut hair and bright eyes dusted with dark lashes.
Absent from the gathering is his other brother, Arthur, who lives in Cornwall to be close to his wife’s family. He plans to visit later in the summer, well after we leave, denying me the pleasure of his scorn as well, though perhaps he will decide to convey his disgust in a letter.
I can only hope for that happy event.
Am I being sarcastic?
