She could not see Italy in the company of these women.
Suddenly Mary remembered them both quite well, though they had not met
since a visit the mother and daughter had made to Scotland when she was
seven years old, before convent days. She recalled her aunt's way of
holding out a hand, like an offering of cold fish. And she remembered
how the daughter was patterned after the mother: large, light eyes, long
features of the horse type, prominent teeth, thin, consciously
virtuous-looking figure, and all the rest.
They had the sort of drawing-room that such women might be expected to
have, of the coldest grays and greens, with no individuality of
decoration. The whole house was the same, cheerless and depressing even
to those familiar with London in a November fog, but blighting to one
who knew not London in any weather. Even the servants seemed cold,
mechanical creatures, made of well-oiled steel or iron; and when Lady
MacMillan had driven off to a hotel, Mary cried heartily in her own
bleak room, with motor-omnibuses roaring and snorting under her windows.
At dinner, which was more or less cold, like everything else, there was
talk of the cousin who had left Mary a legacy of fifty thousand pounds;
and it was easy to divine in tone, if not in words, that the
Home-Davises felt deeply aggrieved because the money had not come to
them. This cousin had lived in the Cromwell Road house during the last
invalid years of her life, and had given them to understand that Elinor
was to have almost, if not quite, everything.
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