They scarcely ever spoke to one another, and it was
Peter's object to avoid the house as often as possible, but in his father's
silence now (Peter himself being older and intuitively sharper as to the
reason of things) he saw active dislike, and even, at times, a suggested
fear. Outwardly they--his father, his grandfather, his aunt, Mrs.
Trussit--had changed not at all; his grandfather the same old creature of
grey hairs and cushions and rugs, his father broad and square and white in
the face with his black hair carefully brushed, his aunt with her mittens
and trembling hands and silly voice, Mrs. Trussit with her black silk gown
and stout prosperous face--Oh! they were all there, but he fancied--and
this might easily be imagination--that they, like the portraits of the old
Westcotts about the walls, watched him, as he grew, knowing that ever, as
the months passed, the day came nearer when father and son must come to
terms. And beyond this he had, even at this early time, a consciousness
that it was round his mother's room that the whole matter hung--his mother
whom he saw once or twice a week for a very little time in the morning,
when that old terror of the white silent room would creep upon him and hold
him tongue-tied.
And yet, with it all, he knew, as every holiday came, more clearly, that
again and again they, his mother and himself, were on the verge of speech
or action.
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