Pride House: The Quest for Vainglory

Chapter 22 Edgar

  Sometimes when Doubt’s troubles seemed overwhelming she would seek out the solace of a talk with her beloved brother. Now she went to his room which, despite Pride’s orders, had never been exchanged for another.

  She found him lying fully clothed on the bed and wearing a sleeping mask.

  “Good morning, brother,” she said tenderly, and taking up a feather duster, dusted his suit and mask. This finished, she sat down in a low chair close by him.

  “Things are looking desperate,” she confided. “Humility is in the house, and now they’re starting to make up mocking songs about our family. I’ve done all I can, but I’m afraid that we’re going to lose the place.”

  He made no answer.

  “O Death,” she said, as her tears began to flow, “and they’re making us out to be villains. God knows I wanted this house for myself—and for you, Death, for you—but where’s the evil in that? Someone has to run the place, so why not me? And if I hadn’t married Pride, what would have become of us, and of Tedium, Confusion, and Worry?”

  Doubt was not used to voicing such thoughts, even to her brother. She had the uncomfortable feeling that, if she kept talking, she would surprise lurking inconsistencies within herself that were best left alone.

  “That Reason,” she said throatily, “when she looks at me nowadays, it’s as if she were looking at some depraved creature, some repulsive parasite loose in the house. But it’s not as if—it’s not as if—”

  She halted while a cold shiver began at the top of her head and trickled down her neck and back.

  “You’ve never told me enough,” she said, “about our family’s weakness, about this congenital disease that makes me so pale and bloodless and—”

  She had to stop, for she heard a note of reproach entering her voice, heard it as if she were listening to someone else, and it alarmed her.

  “Oh, brother, I’m sorry,” she said breathlessly. “Nothing must ever come between us. Believe me, I’ll be true to what mother and father taught us. I won’t give up. I’ll talk to Worry again and to the others, and we’ll make some new plan to keep the house. We’ll think of something.”

  For a long time she sat with a heart like a lump of iron within her tiny chest. She had never felt less desire to control the house. She thought of Humility’s family, so healthy and forthright, and apparently so happy.

  “They were born lucky,” she said in a voice as thick and bitter as if she were cursing. “Death, these rich foreigners can never understand what you and I have been driven to. What do they know of an orphan’s life? Of living by one’s wits, moving here and there? Don’t we all do what we have to do?”