Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/165

 But Mamma was dead. Lanice could see her grow sleepy in church under the long periods of the Reverend Mr. Goochey, see her yawn behind her palm-leaf fan which was always kept in the pew, and, as she caught her daughter's eye, turn the yawn into a little grimace. She would move restlessly within her fine clothes and try to whisper to Papa, who frowned and looked straight ahead. A lovely, heedless woman. How could she be dead? There had always been a sweet scent to her clothing and a leafy rustle of silk. Why had she run off with Cuncliffe? Who was he? Why had he run off with her?

And now she was dead, and somewhere the foreign soil held her pleasurable body. Perhaps young Cuncliffe wore black upon his arm and on his hat, the way Papa ought to...or should Papa? What does a widower of his type do? Professor Ripley was also a widower. If it had not been for Mamma there would never have been a drop of bad blood in her to answer when Mr. Jones had cried to it. One drop of bad blood...Who and what was Mamma? Who was Roger Cuncliffe, and why?

'Papa, I want to go to Italy.'

'You always did.'

'But now I must go. I stay awake so much wondering...about everything...at the end. I must go. I can't leave her so far away buried in a foreign land. I want her to be buried here in Amherst.'

'She never liked Amherst especially.'