Such was marriage into a family. Such was family life.... Yes, she felt unreal there, and also unsafe. She had prevaricated about George and the penknife; and she had allowed Clara to remain under the impression that her visit to the house was a birthday visit. Auntie Hamps and destiny, between them, would lay bare all this lying. The antipathy against her would increase. But let it increase never so much, it still would not equal Hilda’s against the family, as she thrilled to it then. Their narrow ignorance, their narrow self-conceit, their detestation of beauty, their pietism, their bigotry--revolted her. In what century had they been living all those years? Was this married life? Had Albert and Clara ever felt a moment of mutual passion? They were nothing but parents, eternally preoccupied with "oughts" and "ought nots" and forbiddances and horrid reluctant permissions. They did not know what joy was, and they did not want anybody else to know what joy was. Even on the outskirts of such a family, a musical evening on a Sunday night appeared a forlorn enterprise. And all the families in all the streets were the same. Hilda was hard enough on George sometimes, but in that moment she would have preferred George to be a thoroughly bad rude boy and to go to the devil, and herself to be a woman abandoned to every licence, rather than that he and she should resemble Clara and her offspring. All her wrath centred upon Clara as the very symbol of what she loathed.
"Hello!" cried the watchful Albert from the window. "What’s happening, I wonder?"
In a moment Rupert ran into the room, and without a word scrambled on his mother’s lap, absolutely confident in her goodness and power.
"What’s amiss, tuppenny?" asked his father.
"Tired," answered Rupert, with a faint, endearing smile.
He laid himself close against his mother’s breast, and drew up his knees, and Clara held his body in her arms, and whispered to him.
"Mammy tired too," he glanced upwards at his mother’s eyes in sympathy.
And immediately he was asleep. Clara kissed him, bending her head down and with difficulty reaching his cheek with her lips.
"Well," said Clara, "the fact is some of ’em were so excited they stopped my afternoon sleep this afternoon. I always do have my nap, you know,"--she looked at Hilda. "In here! When this door’s closed they know mother mustn’t be disturbed. Only this afternoon Lucy or Amy--I don’t know which, and I didn’t enquire too closely--forgot.... He’s remembered it, the little Turk."