But when Penhallow discovered that the sprained wrist made it impossible for Jimmy to perform many of the duties in the sick-room which had been allotted to him, he swore, and commanded Bart to leave the lad alone.
“I’ll break every bone in his body, if he gives me any of his lip!” promised Bart.
Penhallow regarded him with an irascibility not unmixed with pride. “No, you won’t,” he said mildly. “I need him to wait on me. When I’m gone you can please yourself. Until then you’ll please me!”
Bart scowled down at him, as he lay in his immense bed. “What you want with such a dirty little tick beats me. Guv’nor!” he said. “I wouldn’t let him come within a ten-foot pole of me, if I were in your shoes!”
As this interchange took place after dinner, when the entire family had been gathered together in Penhallow’ room, after the custom which he had instituted upon first taking to his bed and ever afterwards refused to modify , it seemed good to several other people to join in the conversation, each one adding his or her mite to the general condemnation of Jimmy’s character and habits. Even Ingram, who had limped up from the Dower House to pass the evening in his father’s room, gave it as his opinion that the air of Trevellin would be purer for Jimmy’s absence; while Conrad asserted that he had lately missed a number of small articles, and was prepared to bet that they had found their way into Jimmy’s pocket.
“You’re all of you jealous of poor little Jimmy,” said Penhallow, becoming maudlin. “You’re afraid of what I’ll leave him in my will. He’s the only one of the whole pack of you who cares tuppence about his old father.”
Everyone knew that Penhallow was under no illusions about the nature of his misbegotten offspring, and was merely trying to promote a general feeling of annoyance, but only Raymond, who contented himself with giving a contemptuous laugh, could resist the temptation of picking up the glove tossed so provocatively into the midst of the circle.
They were all present, scattered about the great room, which was lit by candles in the wall-sconces, and in massive chandeliers of Sheffield plate, which stood upon tables wherever they were needed. There was also an oil lamp upon the refectory table, brought in by Faith, who complained that she could not see to sew by the flickering candle-light. She sat with her fair head bent over a wisp of embroidery, her workbasket open on the oak table at her elbow, the scissors in it caught by the flames of the candles on the wall, and flashing back brilliant points of light. She had chosen a straight-backed Jacobean chair, and drooped in it, seldom looking up from her work, her whole pose suggesting that she was enduring a nightly penance. Her sister-in-law occupied an arm-chair on one side of the fire, opposite to the one in which Raymond sat, glancing through the pages of the local paper. Clara was wearing a tea-gown, once black, now rusty with age; she had turned the skirt up over her knees to preserve it from the scorching heat of the leaping fire in the huge hearth, and displayed the flounces of an ancient petticoat. Her bony fingers were busy with her crochet; a pair of pince-nez perched on the high bridge of her nose, and was secured to her person by a thin gold chain. attached to a brooch, pinned askew on her flat chest. The disreputable cat, Beelzebub, lay asleep in her lap. Near to her, seated astride a spindle-legged chair with a rotting brocade seat, was Conrad. He had crossed his arms along the delicately curved back of the chair, and was resting his chin on them. Eugene, after a slight disputee with Ingram, had obtained sole possession of the chesterfield at the foot of the bed, and lay on it in an attitude of lazy grace. Vivian, wearing a dress of flaring scarlet, was a splash of colour in the open space immediately before the fire, hugging her knees on a stool between Clara’s and Raymond’s chairs, turning her back upon the bed, staring moodily into the flames. Ingram, oddly discordant in a dinner jacket and a stiff shirt, which Myra insisted on his wearing every evening, sat in a deep chair pulled away from the fire, with one leg stretched out before him for greater ease, his elbows on the arms of his chair, and his fingertips lightly pressed together. Bart was leaning up against the lacquer cabinet with his hands in his pockets, the light from the candles above his head, which was wavering in the draught from the windows, playing strange tricks with his face, giving it a saturnine expression, making him look, Faith thought, glancing up from her work, like a devil, which he was not. The atmosphere was heavy with the scent of the cigars Penhallow and Raymond were smoking, which overcame the thinner, more acrid fumes of the twins’ cheap cigarettes. How unhealthy it was, Faith thought, to sleep in a room stale with tobacco smoke! How hot it was in here, how fantastic the candle-light, dazzling the eyes, making the red lacquer cabinet glow as though it were on fire, casting queer shadows in the corners of the room, playing over the strong, dark faces of Penhallow and his sons! She gave a little inward shudder, and bent again over her needlework, wondering how many purgatorial evenings lay ahead of her, and how she could save Clay from being drawn into a circle as alien to him as it was to her.
"Jealous of Jimmy the Bastard!” Ingram was saying. “Oh, come now, sir, that’s a bit too steep!”
“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.
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“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 t
he 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?”
Penhallow Page 12
