Penhallow

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “Master’s had a bad night,” he observed.

  Raymond grunted.

  “He had Martha out to him four times,” pursued Reuben, fitting a faded satin cosy over the teapot. “Seemingly there wasn’t much wrong with him, barring the gout. He’s clever enough now.”

  This piece of information elicited no more response than the first. Reuben thoughtfully polished a thin Georgian spoon on his sleeve, and added: “He’s had a letter from young Aubrey. Seemingly, he’s got himself in debt again. That’s done Master good, that has.”

  Raymond made no objection to this unceremonious reference to his younger brother, but the intelligence thus cavalierly conveyed to him brought a scowl to his like, and he looked up from the letter in his hand.

  “I thought that ’ud fetch you,” said the retainer, sleeting his gaze with a kind of ghoulish satisfaction.

  “I don’t want any damned impudence from you,” returned Raymond, moving to the table, and seating himself at the head of it.

  Reuben gave a dry chuckle. Removing the lid from one of the entree dishes, he shovelled several pilchards on to a plate, and dumped this down before Raymond. “You don’t need to trouble yourself,” he observed. “Master says young Aubrey won’t get a farden out of him.” He pushed one of the toast-racks towards Raymond, and prepared to depart. “Next thing you know, we’ll have young Aubrey down here,” he said. “That’ll be clean-of that will!”

  Raymond gave a short bark of sardonic laughter. Reuben, having unburdened himself of all the information at present at his disposal, took himself off, just as Clara Hastings came in from the garden, and entered the dining-room.

  It would have been hard for anyone, casually encountering Clara, to have made an accurate guess at her age. She was, in fact, sixty-three years old, but although her harsh-featured countenance was wrinkled and weather-beaten, her untidy locks were only streaked with grey, and her limbs had the elasticity of a much younger woman’s. She was a tall, angular creature, and, rather unexpectedly, looked her best in the saddle. She had strong, bony hands, generally grimed with dirt, since she was an enthusiastic gardener, and rarely took the trouble to protect her hands with gloves. Her skirts never hung evenly round her, and since she wore them unfashionably long, and was continually catching her heels in them, their hems often sagged where the stitches had been rent. When enough of the hem had come unsewn to discommode her, she cobbled it up again, using whatever reel of cotton came first to her hand. She was always ready to spend more money than she could afford on her horses or her garden, but grudged every penny laid out in clothing. She had been known to watch, over a period of months, the gradual reduction in price of a hat in one of the cheaper shops at Liskeard, triumphantly acquiring it at last for a few grudged shillings in a clearance sale at the end of the year. As a bride of twenty-two, she had set out on her honeymoon in a new sealskin coat: as a widow of sixty-three, she still wore the same sealskin coat, brown now with age, and worn in places down to the leather. Neither her son, Clifford, a solicitor in Liskeard, nor any of the Penhallows paid the least attention to the deplorable appearance she so often presented, but her ill-chosen and occasionally frayed garments were a source of continual disgust to her daughter-in-law, Rosamund; an annoyance to Penhallow’s wife, Faith; and even roused Vivian from her absorption in more important cares to comment caustically upon them.

  She was dressed this morning in a voluminous and shiny blue skirt imperfectly confining at the waist a striped flannel shirt-blouse; a woollen cardigan, shapeless and tufty from much washing, and faded to an indeterminate hue; a pair of cracked shoes; odd stockings; and a collection of gold chains, Cairngorm brooches, and old fashioned rings. Two strands of hair had already escaped from the complicated erection on the top of her head and a hairpin was dropping out of a loop of hair over one ear. She took her seat opposite Raymond, behind the cups and saucers, remarking as she did so that her grey had cast a shoe.

  “I can’t spare any of the men,” responded Raymond. "Jimmy the Bastard will have to take him down to the smithy.”

  Clara accepted this without comment, and began to pour out some coffee for him, and tea for herself: Having done this, she got up and went over to the sideboard, returning in a few moments with a plate upon which reposed a sausage, a fried egg, and several rashers of bacon. Raymond was studying a sheet of figures, and paid no attention to her. It occurred to neither of them that he should wait upon her.

  “Your father was on the rampage again in the night,” remarked Clara presently.

  “Reuben told me. He had Martha out of bed four times.”

  “Gout?” inquired Clara.

  “I don’t know. There’s a letter from Aubrey.”

  Clara stirred her tea reflectively. “I thought I heard him shoutin’,” she said. “Aubrey gettin’ into debt again’’

  “So Reuben says. I shouldn’t be surprised. Damned young waster!”

  “Your father won’t be happy till he’s got him down here,” said Clara. “He’s a queer boy. I never could make head nor tail of those bits of writing of his. I daresay they’re very clever, though. He won’t like it if he has to come down here.”

  “Well, nor shall I,” said Raymond. “It’s bad enough having Eugene doing nothing except lounge on the sofa, and fancy himself ill all day.”

  “Your father likes havin’ him,” said Clara.

  “I’m damned if I know why he should.”

  “He’s very amusin’,” said Clara.

  Raymond having apparently nothing to say in answer to this, the interchange ceased. The clatter of heavy feet on the uncarpeted oak stairs, and a loud whistling, heralded the approach of one of the twins. It was Conrad, the younger of them. He was a good-looking young man, dark and aquiline like all his family, and, although taller than his eldest brother, was almost as stockily built. Though not considered to be as clever as Aubrey, his senior by three years, he had more brain than his twin, and had contrived to pass, after a prolonged period of study, the various examinations which enabled him to embrace the profession of land agent. Penhallow having bought him a junior partnership in a local firm of some standing, it was considered that unless the senior partners brought the partnership to an end, on account of his casual habit of absenting himself from the office on the slimmest of pretexts, he was permanently settled in life.

  He came into the room, pushed the door to behind him, favoured his aunt with a laconic greeting, and helped himself largely from the dishes on the sideboard. “The old man’s had a bad night,” he announced, sitting down at the table.

  “So we’ve already been told,” said Raymond.

  “I heard him raising Cain somewhere in the small hours,” said Conrad, reaching out a long arm for the butter-dish. “Your grey’s cast a shoe, Aunt Clara.”

  She handed him his coffee. “I know. Your brother says Jimmy can take him down to the village.”

  “Bet you the old man keeps Jimmy dancing attendance on him all day,” said Conrad. “I don’t mind leading him down. I’m going that way. You’ll have to arrange to fetch him, though.”

  “If you’re going to the village, you can drop that at the Dower House,” said Raymond, tossing a letter over to him.

  Conrad pocketed it, and applied himself to his breakfast. He had reached the marmalade stage, and Raymond had lighted his pipe, before the elder twin put in an appearance.

  Bartholomew came in with a cheerful greeting on his lips. There was a strong resemblance between him and Conrad, but he was the taller and the more stalwart of the two, and looked to be much the more goodhumoured, which indeed he was. He had a ruddy, open countenance, a roving eye, and a singularly disarming grin. He gave his twin a friendly punch in the ribs as he passed him on his way to the sideboard, and remarked that it was a fine day. “I say, Ray!” he added, looking over his shoulder. “What’s the matter with the Guv’nor?”

  “I don’t know. Probably nothing. He had a bad night.”

  “Gosh, don’t I know it!�
�� said Bart. “But what’s got his goat this morning?”

  “That fool Aubrey. Reuben says he’s got into debt again.”

  “Hell!” said Bart. “That puts the lid on my chances of getting the Guv’nor to dip his hand in the coffer. Lend me a fiver, Ray, will you?”

  “What do you want it for?”

  “I owe most of it.”

  “Well, go on owing it,” recommended Raymond. “I’ll see you farther before I let you owe it to me.”

  “Blast you! Con?”

  “Thanks for the compliment.”

  Bart turned to Clara. “Auntie? Come on, be a sport, Clara! I swear I’ll pay it back.”

  “I don’t know where you think I could find five pounds,” she said cautiously. “What with the vet’s bill, and me needin’ a new pair of boots, and “

  “You can’t refuse your favourite nephew! Now, you know you haven’t the heart to, Clara darling!” wheedled Bart.

  “Get along with you! You’re a bad boy,” Clara told him fondly. “I know where your money goes! You can’t get round your old aunt.”

  Bart grinned at her, apparently satisfied with the result of his coaxing. Clara went on grumbling about her poverty and his shamelessness; Conrad and Raymond began to argue about a capped hock, a discussion which soon attracted Clara’s attention; and by the time Vivian Penhallow came into the dining-room the four members of the family already seated at the table were loudly disputing about the rival merits of gorse, an ordinary chain, or a strap-and-sinker to cure a stall-kicker.

  Vivian Penhallow, Surrey-born, was a fish out of water amongst the Penhallows. She had met Eugene in London, had fallen in love with him almost at first sight, and had married him in spite of the protests of her family. While not denying that his birth was better than their own, that his manners were engaging, and his person attractive, Mr and Mrs Arden had felt that they would have preferred for their daughter a husband with some more tangible means of supporting her than they could perceive in Eugene’s desultory but graceful essays and poems. Since they knew him to be the third, and not the eldest, son of his father they did not place so much dependence on Penhallow’s providing for him as he appeared to. But Vivian was of age, and, besides being very much in love with Eugene, who was seven years her senior, she had declared herself to be sick to death of the monotony of her life, and had insisted that she hated conventional marriages, and would be happy to lead an impecunious existence with Eugene, rubbing shoulders with artists, writers, and other Bohemians. So she had married him, and would no doubt have made an excellent wife for him, had he seriously settled down to earn a living with his pen. But after drifting about the world for a few years, leading a hand-to-mouth existence which Vivian enjoyed far more than Eugene did, Eugene had suffered a serious illness, which was sufficiently protracted to exhaust his slender purse, and to induce him to look upon himself as a chronic invalid. He had naturally gone home to Trevellin to recuperate both his health and his finances, and Vivian had never since that date been able to prevail upon him to leave the shelter of the parental roof. Eugene declared himself to be quite unfit to cope with the cares of the world, and added piously that since his father was in a precarious state of health, he thought it his duty to remain at Trevellin. When Vivian represented to him her dislike of living as a guest in a household teeming with persons all more or less inimical to her, he patted her hand, talked vaguely of a roseate future when Penhallow should be dead and himself peculiarly independent, and begged her to be patient. A tendency on her part to pursue the subject had the effect of sending him to bed with a nervous headache, and since Vivian believed in his ailments, and was passionately determined to guard him from every harsh wind that blew, she never again tried to persuade him to leave Trevellin.

  Since she was not country-bred, knew nothing about horses, and cared less, she was regarded by her brothers in-law with an almost complete indifference. Being themselves unable to imagine a more desirable abode than Trevellin, and having grown up to consider the tyranny of its master an everyday affair, they had none of them any conception of the canker of resentment which ate into Vivian’s heart. They thought her a moody little thing, laughed at her tantrums, and mocked at her absorption in Eugene. Without meaning to be unkind, they teased her unmercifully and were amused when she quarrelled with them. In their several ways, they were all of them imperceptive, and insensitive enough to make it impossible for them to understand why anyone should be hurt by their cheerful brutality.

  Faith, their father’s second wife, had been crushed by the Penhallows; Vivian remained a rebel, and had even developed a kind of protective crust which rendered her indifferent to their contempt of herself. She never pretended to take an interest in the subjects which absorbed them, and said now, as she walked into the room in time to hear Conrad ask Bart whether he remembered a herring-gutted chestnut Aubrey had picked up cheap some years ago: “Oh, do shut up about horses! I want some fresh toast for Eugene. Sybilla sent him up slices like a doorsteps. I should have thought she must know by now that he likes very thin toast, not too much browned.”

  She cast a frowning glance at the toast still remaining icy in the racks on the table, but Bart warded her off with one outstretched arm. “No, you don’t! Eugene is damned well not going to pinch our toast!”

  She stalked over to the bell-rope, and tugged at it imperiously. “That’s cold, anyway. Sybilla must make some fresh for him. He’s had one of his bad nights.”

  Both twins at once made derisive noises, which had the effect of bringing a flush to her cheeks. Even Raymond’s grim countenance relaxed into a faint smile. “There’s nothing the matter with Eugene, beyond a common lack of guts,” he said.

  She said hotly: “Because you’ve never known a day’s illness in your life, you think no one else has a right to be delicate! Eugene suffers from the most terrible insomnia. If anything happens to upset him—”

  A roar of laughter interrupted her. She shut her lips closely, her eyes flashing, and her nostrils a little distended.

  “Now don’t tease the gal!” said Clara. “Eugene’s got a bit of indigestion, I daresay. He was always the one of you with the touchy stomach, and if he likes to call it insomnia there’s no harm in that that I know of."

  “I don’t know how anyone can expect to get any rest in this house, with your father behaving as though there was no one but himself entitled to any consideration, and shouting for that disgusting old woman in the night loud enough to be heard a mile off!” cried Vivian furiously. “You wouldn’t like it if I said that there was nothing the matter with him, but nothing will ever make me believe that he couldn’t be perfectly well if he wanted to be!”

  “Who said there was anything the matter with him?” demanded Bart. “He’s all right!”

  “Then why does he rouse the whole house four times during the night?”

  “Why shouldn’t he? His house, isn’t it?”

  “He’s as selfish as the rest of you! He wouldn’t care if Eugene got ill again!”

  Raymond got up from the table, and collected his letters. “You’d better tell him so,” he advised.

  “I shall tell him so. I’m not afraid of him, whatever you may be!”

  “Ah, you’re a grand girl, surely!” Bart said, lounging over to where she stood, and putting an arm round her shoulders. “Loo in, my dear, loo in! Give me a bitch-pack every time!”

  She pushed him angrily away. “Oh, shut up!”

  At this moment Reuben came in. “Was it one of you, ringing?” he asked severely.

  “It was I,” said Vivian, in a cold voice. “Mr Eugene can’t eat the toast Sybilla sent up to him. Please tell her to make some more, thin, and not burnt!”

  “Sybilla’s more likely to box his ears for him,” remarked Conrad, preparing to follow Raymond out of the room.

  “I’ll tell her, m’m,” said Reuben disapprovingly, “but he always was a one for picking over his food, Master Eugene was, and if we was to start paying any attent
ion to his fads there’d be no end to it. Many’s the time Master’s walloped him -’

  “ If you’ll kindly do as I tell you?” snapped Vivian.

  “You’re spoiling him,” said Reuben, shaking his head. “I’d give him fresh toast! Master Eugene indeed!”

  Vivian with difficulty restrained herself from returning an answer to this, and after giving one of his disparaging sniffs Reuben withdrew.

  “Stop worryin’ over the boy, my dear, and have your breakfast!” recommended Clara kindly. “Here’s your tea. Now sit down, do!”

  Vivian took the cup-and-saucer, remarking that it was as black as ink, as usual, and sat down at the table. “I don’t know how you can bear that man’s impertinence,” she added. “He’s familiar, and slovenly, and impossible!”

  “Well, you see, he’s been at Trevellin ever since he was a boy, and his father before him,” explained Clara mildly. “He doesn’t mean any harm, my dear, but it’s not a bit of good expecting him to be respectful to the boys. When you think of the times he’s chased them out of the larder with a stick, it’s not likely he would be. But never you mind!”

  Vivian sighed, and relapsed into silence. She knew that Clara, though sympathetic, would never take her part against her own family. The only ally she had in the house was Faith, and she despised Faith.

  Chapter Two

  It was Faith Penhallow’s custom to breakfast in bed, a habit she had adopted not so much out of regard for her health, which was frail, but because she resented her sister-in-law’s calm assumption of the foot of the table, behind the coffee-cups. She had no real wish to pour out tea and coffee for a numerous household, but like a great many weak people she was jealous of her position, and she considered that Clara’s usurpation of her place at table made her appear ridiculous. She had several times hinted that it was the mistress of the house who ought to take the foot of the table, but while she was incapable of boldly stating a grievance Clara was equally incapable of recognising a hint. So Clara, having taken the seat upon her first coming home to the house of her birth, kept it, and Faith, refusing to acknowledge defeat, never came downstairs until after breakfast.