Penhallow (14 page)

‘He’s a good boy,’ said Penhallow. ‘Damme if I don’t do something handsome for him!’

‘If you want to do something handsome for anyone, let it be for one of your legitimate sons!’ Vivian threw over her shoulder.

‘Your precious husband, I suppose!’ jeered Penhallow.

‘Why not?’ she demanded.

‘Because I don’t want to, that’s why, you little madam!’

‘That’s where you’re so beastly unfair!’ she said. ‘You only encourage that disgusting Jimmy because you know everyone else loathes him!’

Eugene reached out a long arm, and tickled the back of her neck where the short tendrils of hair curled upwards. His fingers conveyed comfort and remonstrance both. She flushed quickly, and shifted the stool on which she sat nearer to the sofa, so that he could put his arm round her, and she lean back against his shoulder.

‘Look here, Father!’ said Conrad, raising his chin from his wrists. ‘Nobody objects to your employing your little mistakes, if you want to, but for God’s sake teach ‘em to keep their places! If Jimmy treats me to much more of his bloody impudence there’ll be murder done!’

‘Somebody might, at the same time, teach him to polish my shoes properly,’ suggested Eugene, in a gentle voice.

‘So he’s been cheeking you, has he, Con?’ grinned Penhallow. ‘By God, he’s got spirit, that lad!’

‘Spirit!’ exploded Bart. ‘He’s a sneaking little rat. trading on your blooming protection! You lie there letting him gammon you into thinking he’s worth his salt. but if you saw how he behaves outside this room you’d darned soon kick him out!’

‘That’s right,’ nodded Clara. ‘Can’t stand corn. You shouldn’t take him round the country with you, Adam, introducing him to decent people. It stands to reason the boy must get above himself.’

‘Old Mother Venngreen been complaining to you. Clara?’ asked Penhallow, with a chuckle. ‘That did me more good than all Lifton’s drenches, I can tell you. Nearly split my sides watching the old turkey-hen gobble and ruffle up her feathers!’

The twins shouted with laughter, not having known previously of this historic encounter, but Ingram looked a trifle shocked, and said in a expostulating tone: ‘No. really, sir, I say! You can’t do that sort of thing! I mean, the Vicar’s wife ‘

Bart gave a crow of delight. ‘Ingram and the old school tie! Play up for the side — don’t let the school down — stick to the done-thing, fellers!’

‘White man’s burden,’ said Conrad. ‘Example to the neighbourhood. Long live our pukka sahib!’

"Shut up, you young fools!’ Ingram said, reddening. ‘All the same, in your position, sir—’

‘Blast your impudence, are you going to tell me how I ought to behave myself?’ demanded Penhallow, but with more amusement than anger.

‘I don’t know how we are ever to look Mrs Venngreen in the face again, any of us,’ said Faith, in a low voice.

‘Speaking for myself,’ murmured Eugene, drawing Vivian’s head back so that he could smile down into her adoring eyes, ‘I don’t find that I have any very overpowering desire to look her in the face. None that I can’t master, you know.’

‘I had a horse with a face like Mrs Venngreen’s,’ remarked Clara reminiscently. ‘You’ll remember him, Adam: a chestnut with a white blaze. He had a bad habit of jumpin’ off his forehand.’

‘Talking about horses,’ interrupted Bart suddenly, turning his head towards Raymond, ‘Weep says it’s spavin, Ray.’

‘What’s that?’ Penhallow demanded. ‘If you’ve got a spavined horse in the stables, get rid of him!’

‘That’s right,’ agreed Clara. ‘I don’t care what anyone may say: a spavined horse is an unsound horse.’

‘Rubbish!’ said Raymond, retiring into the newspaper again. ‘You manage your own horses, and leave me to manage mine, Aunt Clara.’

‘Well, what’s to be done about it?’ asked Bart. ‘Blisters?’

‘Likely to cause absorption,’ Raymond responded briefly. ‘I’ll look him over in the morning.’

‘You’ll have to cool his system before you treat him,’ said Ingram.

‘Thanks for the tip!’ Raymond retorted, throwing him a scornful glance. ‘Any other obvious remarks?’

‘I’d fire him,’ remarked Conrad.

Eugene yawned. ‘From which one gathers that he’s not one of your horses. Don’t you, Ray! Ruin his appearance for good and all if you do.’

‘Try setons!’ recommended Bart.

‘Oh, shut up, the lot of you!’ said Raymond. ‘There’s nothing but a slight exostosis! Do you think I was born yesterday?’

‘Biniodide of mercury,’ said Penhallow. ‘Nothing like it!’

Raymond grunted, and refused thereafter to be drawn into the discussion which waxed louder and louder, Penhallow recalling cases he had known of spavined horses from his youth upwards; the twins arguing hotly on the most efficacious cure for the complaint; and Ingram and Clara putting in comments and suggestions whenever they could make their voices heard above the rest.

Faith set her teeth, and rethreaded her needle, trying to shut out the sound of boisterous voices, to wrap herself up in some world of her own that contained no horses, no aggressively assertive young men, no coarse-tongued old ones, and above all no over-heated, overcrowded, fantastically furnished bedrooms where she could be compelled to sit night after night while her temples throbbed, and her eyes ached from the unguarded flames of the countless candles all round the room.

Vivian, within the circle of Eugene’s arm, leaning her head back against his shoulder, had let her eyelids droop, one part of her mind irritated by the turmoil of dispute raging about her, the other dreaming of a little flat where she could be alone with Eugene, who was so very dear , whose very touch could soothe and comfort her exasperation, and whom she wanted to possess utterly, wrapping him round her with love, keeping him safe from his lusty, unappreciative brothers. While he remained at Trevellin she could never feel him to be wholly her own. He might bicker languidly with his brothers, but he was one of them, sharing many of their interests, imperceptibly changing from the man-of-the-world, the artist, she had married to one whose life was bound up in the confines of a Cornish estate which she hated.

I must get him away, she thought. Somehow, anyhow, I must manage to get him away from this dreadful place!

The discussion on the proper treatment of, and improbable cure of, bone spavin was brought to an abrupt end by Penhallow, who suddenly said: ‘I want a drink! Where’s that damned boy, Jimmy?’ and reached out a hand to tug at the crimson bell-pull beside his bed.

No agreement had been reached, the maximum amount of abuse had been indulged in, opinions scoffed at or shouted down, and a quantity of irrelevant anecdote recited. The Penhallows, in fact, had spent a pleasant twenty minutes giving vent to their exuberant vitality, and were now perfectly content to allow the subject to drop.

How awful they are! thought Faith. I can’t go on like this! I can’t, I can’t! I shall go mad!

The bell was answered in a few moments by Reuben and Jimmy both, Reuben carrying in the massive silver tray with all the bottles, decanters, glasses, and sandwiches with which it was the custom of the Penhallows to refresh themselves during the evening; and Jimmy, with one arm ostentatiously in a sling, bearing the overflow on a small, tarnished salver.

‘What the hell makes you so late, you old rascal?’ demanded Penhallow jovially.

Reuben dumped the large tray down on the refectory table, and gave a sniff. ‘If Master Bart would be so obliging as to leave this young varmint the use of both his arms, perhaps I wouldn’t be late,’ he said severely. A glance at the clock under the glass shade caused him to add: ‘Which I’m not, sir, I’ll thank you to notice. Ten o’clock’s been the time for you to call for a drink since I don’t know when, and if you’re going to change your habits at your time of life we shall be all at sixes and sevens.’

‘Damn your impudence!’ said Penhallow cheerfully. ‘What the devil are you doing with that thing round your neck, Jimmy? Take if off, and come and shake up my pillows!’

‘Mr Bart’s sprained my wrist,’ said Jimmy, with an air of patient endurance.

‘I know that, fool! Think yourself lucky he didn’t break it, and stop makin’ a damned exhibition of yourself! You leave your little half brother alone, Bart, or I’ll have something to say to you!’

Raymond looked up at this, a heavy scowl on his brow, and exclaimed: ‘My God, that’s too much! You can get out, Jimmy!’

‘Oh, no, he can’t!’ said Penhallow, grinning wickedly. ‘I want him to shake up my pillows. Come here, Jimmy. my boy! Don’t pay any attention to them: I won’t let ‘em hurt you.’

Jimmy was so pleased at being told to disregard Raymond’s orders that he slipped his injured arm out of the sling, and went towards the bed. Bart, straightening himself suddenly, got between him and it, and said dangerously: ‘You heard Mr Raymond: get the hell out of this before I boot you!’

‘Bart!’ roared Penhallow, making Faith start nervously, and prick her finger.

‘I’ll shake your pillows up for you when I’ve seen your pet cocktail off, Dad,’ replied Bart, not turning his head.

‘Hark forrard, Bart!’ Conrad encouraged his twin, in a ringing tone.

Jimmy retreated a few paces, casting a sidelong look at the door. Reuben went on setting out the glasses on the table, as though nothing out of the way were taking place.

‘Bart!’ thundered Penhallow.

‘Now, don’t let’s have any vulgar brawling, I do implore you, Bart!’ begged Eugene. "Ware riot, my lad, ‘ware riot! Really, a false scent! It isn’t worth it!’

Bart hunched his shoulders, and turned reluctantly to confront Penhallow, who had reached for the ebony cane beside his bed, and was raising it threateningly. The fierce old eyes met and held the sullen young ones. ‘By God, Bart, if you don’t obey me I’ll have the hide off your back!’ Penhallow swore. "Jimmy, you little rat, come here!’

Bart seemed to hesitate for an instant; then, with a laugh and a shrug, he lounged back to his position by the lacquer cabinet. With an air of conscious virtue, Jimmy shook up the pillows, and replaced them, straightened the flaring patchwork quilt, and asked if there was anything else he could do for his master.

Penhallow gave a chuckle. ‘You take yourself off, and don’t you give your brothers any more of your impudence, hear me? One of these days I shan’t be here to hold the pack off you, and then where will you be, eh? Off with you, now!’

‘And no sneaking off on the sly, either,’ said Reuben, accompanying Jimmy to the door. ‘Since that wrist of yours isn’t too bad to let you shake up the plaster’s pillow, we’ll see if it won’t lend a hand in the pantry after all.’

The double doors closed behind them. Penhallow looked under his brows at Bart, a smile hovering round his mouth. ‘You young devil! Getting the bit between your teeth, aren’t you? Pour me out a drink!’

Raymond, who had risen to his feet, the local paper crushed in one hand, said with a rasp in his voice: ‘Hell, do you think I’ll put up with that?’

‘Yes, or anything else I choose to make you put up with!’ Penhallow returned contemptuously.

‘Our half-brother! My God, what next?’ Raymond said furiously.

‘Oh, he’s one of mine all right!’ Penhallow said, malice twinkling in his eyes. ‘Look at his nose!’

‘I don’t doubt it! But if you imagine I’m going to have my orders ignored by him or any other of your bastards, you’ll learn your mistake!’

‘Well, damn it, it was you who tried to override Father’s orders to him!’ interrupted Ingram.

Raymond rounded on him, an ugly look on his face. ‘You keep out of this! What are you doing here, anyway? Haven’t you got a home of your own to sprawl in — rentfree?’

Conrad gave a crack of laughter, and started to chant: ‘Worry, worry, worry!’ Eugene began to laugh; and Bart ranged himself on Raymond’s side, loudly applauding his conduct in having ordered Jimmy out of the room. Above the tangle of angry voices, Penhallow’s made itself easily audible. Vivian, realising that the family was fairly embarked upon one of its zestful quarrels, clenched her fists, and said sharply: ‘Oh, my God, how I loathe you all! How I loathe you all!’

Faith folded her embroidery with trembling hands, and slipped from the room. She found that her knees were shaking, and had to stand for a moment, leaning against the wall, to recover herself. The quarrels were becoming more frequent, she thought, or she was too worn-down to bear them as once she must have been able to. The sound of angry voices beat still upon her ears; she fled from it, down the long broad passage to the main hall, and up the shallow stairs to her room at the head of them, and sank into a chair, pressing her hands to her temples.

She found herself thinking of Clay, picturing him in the midst of such a scene as was now raging in Penhallow’s room. As sensitive as she was herself, afraid of his father, and of his brothers, wincing from a raised voice, life at Trevellin, if it did not drive him out of his mind, must surely wreck his nervous system. He would be expected to do all the things his more robust half brothers delighted in, and between his fear of their contempt if he refused his fences, and his fear of the fences themselves, his life would be a lasting misery.

His last letter to his mother had announced his intention of defying the parental mandate, and seeking employment in London, but Faith knew that this was only bluster, and not meant for other eyes than hers. He would come home at the end of the term, resentful, yet not daring to speak out boldly to Penhallow. He would pour out his troubles to his mother; he would think that somehow or other she ought to be able to protect him, unable, or perhaps unwilling, to see that she was as helpless as he in Penhallow’s remorseless grip. She did not blame him: she knew that she ought to help him, and thought that there was nothing she would not do to set him free from Penhallow’s tyranny. But there did not seem to be anything she could do, since her entreaties had been of no avail, and she was wholly without the means of supplying Clay with money to make him independent of Penhallow.

She tried to explain this to him when he came back to Trevellin early in June, but he had inherited her dislike of facing unwelcome facts and was more inclined to descant upon what they might both have done, had almost every circumstance of their respective positions been other than they were, than to form any plan founded on the situation as it was.