Penhallow (12 page)

‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ he said, laughing, but reddening a little too. ‘Who said anything about getting married? I’ve got to settle down sometime, haven’t I?’

She shook her head dubiously. ‘You’re up to something: don’t tell me! Is she a nice gal?’

‘Who? The future Mrs Bart? Oh, sure!’ he said, grinning at her. ‘Don’t you think I’ve got good taste, Auntie?’

‘No,’ she said bluntly. ‘Not that it’s my affair, and when you come to think of it…’ She left the sentence unfinished, and rubbed the tip of her nose reflectively.

‘Come to think of what?’ asked Bart.

‘Nice gals,’ said Clara.. ‘Look at that daughter-in-law of mine!’

‘I don’t want to,’ replied Bart frankly. ‘Cliff’s welcome to her.’

‘Well, there it is,’ said Clara, not very intelligibly. ‘She was a nice girl, and I daresay she’s a good wife.’

‘Any time I want to go to bed with a cold compress, I’ll look around me for her double,’ said Bart.

‘That’s it,’ said Clara vaguely. She stood looking at him in a puzzled way for a few moments, gave her head another shake, and walked off, leaving the conversation suspended in mid-air.

Chapter Seven

Clara’s representations to Penhallow on Bart’s behalf having failed of their object, it next occurred to him to approach Raymond on the matter. Raymond’s undisguised anxiety to rid Trevellin of its many inhabitants made him hopeful that he might find an ally; but his first interview with him was disappointing. Raymond said caustically that if he wished to convince Penhallow that he was fit to be entrusted with the sole management of Trellick he had better pay a little more attention to his duties on the estate and up at the stud-farm. Bart, whose resentment of his stricture way not lessened by a knowledge of having lately deserved it replied hotly, and the interview came to an abrupt close. When his anger had had time to cool, he again opened the matter to Raymond, offering him an awkward apology for sundry errors of omission, and saying in excuse that he had been busy with affairs of his own for the past few weeks.

‘Yes, I know that,’ said Raymond unhelpfully ‘Loveday Trewithian.’

Bart turned scarlet, but said: ‘Rot! The fact is, I’m sick of hanging about at home. I want to be on my own. Damn it, I’m twenty-five!’

‘It’s a pity you don’t behave as though you were,’ said Raymond.

Bart kept his temper with an effort. ‘Look here, Ray! You’ve as good as said you want to get rid of me! Why can’t you back me with the Guv’nor?’

‘I don’t want to get rid of you. You’re quite useful, when you can keep your mind on the job. Eugene’s the one I want to get rid of.’

‘Oh, I don’t know!’ Bart said, momentarily diverted. ‘He’s so damned funny, with his ailments, and that spitfire of a wife of his. I think I should miss them if they cleared out. Mind you, I’m not in favour of Aubrey’s coming home. Or Clay. But if they are coming, all the more reason for me to make myself scarce.’

Raymond gave him a straight look under his lowering brows. ‘If you imagine I’m going to help you to Trellick so that you can make a fool of yourself over Loveday Trewithian, you’ve got another guess coming to you.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ muttered Bart.

‘Do you mean to marry that girl?’

‘Look here, who’s been talking to you about my affairs?’ Bart demanded.

‘I’ve got eyes in my head.’

‘Well, keep them off my business, will you?’

‘If you’re thinking of marrying Loveday Trewithian, you’ll find I’m not the only one to take an interest in what you call your business. You young fool, so it is true, is it?’

‘I didn’t say so. What if it is? I suppose I can please myself when it comes to getting married!’

‘Oh, no, you can’t!’ retorted Raymond grimly. ‘You’re a Penhallow!’

‘Oh, to hell with that!’ said Bart. ‘That kind of snobbery’s been dead for years!’

‘You’ll discover your little error, my lad, if you go any farther with that girl. What the devil’s the matter with you? Do you see yourself calling Reuben uncle?’

Bart could not help grinning, but he replied: ‘I shan’t. It’ll all work out quite easily: you’ll see!’

‘No, I’m damned if I shall! If you can’t get that girl out of your system, she’ll have to go.’

Bart’s chin jutted dangerously. ‘You try interfering with Loveday, and watch me!’

‘Don’t be a bigger ass than you can help! God, I thought you had more pride! Since when has a Penhallow gone to the kitchen for a wife?’

Bart flushed. ‘That’ll be all from you, Ray! Loveday’s worth a dozen of Faith, or Vivian, or that stuck-up bitch Cliff landed himself with. The trouble with you is that you’re eaten up with conceit. Who cares two pins for the damned family, I should like to know?’

‘Go and tell Father your plans, and you’ll find out who cares,’ replied Raymond.

‘Oh, go to hell!’ Bart exploded, and turned on his heel.

The only result of this interview was that Raymond took the first opportunity that offered of warning Loveday to leave his young brother alone. She stood demurely before him, looking up at him under her lashes, and keeping her hands folded over her apron. She denied nothing, and admitted nothing, and she betrayed no hint of resentment. She said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘No, sir,’ in her meekest tone. He thought her either a fool, or a dangerously clever young woman, and was tempted to speak to Reuben about her. Natural taciturnity, a dislike of discussing the failings of a Penhallow with a servant, and a wary foreboding of Bart’s probable reactions to any intervention of Reuben’s made him forbear. He mentioned the matter instead to Conrad, but Conrad, who had been picking quarrels with his twin for weeks, still would not allow anyone else to criticise him. ‘Oh, there’s nothing in it!’ Conrad said. ‘She isn’t the first, and she won’t be the last.’

‘Do you know that he means to marry her?’

‘Rot!’ Conrad said scornfully. ‘Bart wouldn’t be such a fool!’

‘I’ll take damned good care he doesn’t get the chance to be!’ Raymond said. ‘What’s got into the kid, I should like to know?’

Conrad shrugged, and would not answer. He did not know what had got into Bart, and his jealously possessive nature was profoundly troubled. Bart was as friendly as ever he had been; as ready to go off with him, a hand tucked in his arm; as willing, had he received the smallest encouragement, to confide in him; but in some indefinable way he seemed to Conrad to have withdrawn himself, to be living in a snug world of his own, which had no room in it for his twin. None of his earlier amatory adventures had affected him in this manner, and without pausing to consider the unreason of his own feelings, Conrad allowed hatred of Loveday to fester in his soul, until he could scarcely see her without wanting to do her an injury. When the turmoil in his own breast led him to snap Bart’s head off, which it often did, and he caught Bart looking at him with a puzzled, rather hurt expression in his face; he wanted to hit Bart, or to spirit him away to some unspecified locality far beyond the reach of predatory females: he was never quite sure which.

Eugene, whom little escaped, was as well aware of his jealousy as of its cause, and lost few opportunities to plant his barbs in Conrad’s flesh, impelled more by a natural love of mischief than by any real desire to wound. A spin't of considerable unrest dwelt in the house, and was not improved by a sudden recrudescence of energy upon the part of Penhallow, who, after a long spell of physical quiescence, took it into his head to arise from his bed nearly every day, and to meddle with every concern of the house, estate, and stud-farm. He sat in his wheeled chair, usually clad in his disreputable old camel-hair dressing-gown, and wrapped about in a plaid rug, and insisted upon being pushed to the various places where he was least wanted. He harried Raymond, Ingram, and Bart unmercifully, finding fault with all their activities, countermanding most of their orders, roaring abuse of them in front of stable-hands and grooms, and driving them into an uneasy alliance against him. Finding Clara triumphant at having coaxed the rare adder’s tongue to show its head in her garden, amongst the more general Osmunda regalis, and the Hymenophyllum, Tunbridgense, and Unilaterale which she cherished with such anxious care, he threatened to convert the whole area into a sunk garden of Italian design, to give pleasure to his wife. As Faith’s efforts at gardening were confined to the plucking of flowers for the house, and an unsuccessful but characteristic attempt to induce roses to flourish in a climate more suited to fuchsias and hydrangeas, no one was taken in by the blatant falsity of this reason for disturbing Clara’s peace of mind, and the family banded together temporarily to protect her interests. In this they were ably assisted by Hayle, the head-gardener, who said that he had enough on his hands already, and couldn’t get through the work of the place as it was, what with being short-handed, and Mrs Penhallow taking Luckett, the under-gardener, off his work to drive her about the country in season and out of it. This served instantly to divert Penhallow, who, after scarifying his wife for being fool enough to require the services of a chauffeur, and ignorant enough to remove him from his proper sphere in the middle of the bedding-out season, commandeered Luckett’s services himself, and spent several days in being driven up on to the Moor, down to the coast, and into the neighbouring towns of Bodmin and Liskeard, where he called upon a number of acquaintances, hailing them from their houses to stand beside the car exchanging the time of day with him, and marvelling at the robustness of his constitution. He fortified himself upon these drives from a flask of brandy, and insisted upon being accompanied by whichever member of his entourage he thought least wished to go with him. He took Jimmy with him when he went to call at the Vicarage, well knowing that Jimmy’s very existence was an offence in Mrs Venngreen’s eyes; and when the Vicar, standing in a sharp wind in the road, made his wife’s excuses, showed such alarming signs of preparing to descend from the car with Jimmy’s and the startled Vicar’s assistance, that Mrs Venngreen was obliged to come out of the house after all, to prevent his invading it, and very likely (she thought) succumbing there to a heart-attack. She joined her husband in the road, and since she had very good manners forced herself to accept with the appearance at least of credulity Penhallow’s jovial assurances that he had come to call at the Vicarage with the express purpose of discovering how she did. Her private opinion was that he was possessed of a peculiarly malignant devil. He was certainly in a riotous mood, and when she inquired politely after the health of his sons, said with a fiendish twinkle that they were all eating their heads off, including the young rascal he had with him. Under Mrs Venngreen’s outraged gaze, he indicated the regrettable Jimmy, just so that she should have no doubt of his meaning. Mrs Venngreen’s countenance became so rigid and inflamed that he drove off in high good-humour to see if he could get such interesting reactions out of Rosamund Hastings, whom he cordially disliked. Upon the whole, Rosamund’s behaviour was not so satisfactory as Mrs Venngreen’s, but even her cold air of breeding could not conceal her disgust, and Penhallow thought that she would certainly have a good deal to say to poor old Cliff about it when he came home from his office later in the day. He returned to Trevellin, considerably exhausted, but still, apparently, driven by his strange fit of energy, since although he retired to bed he summoned his entire family to spend the evening in his room, in the usual way, and kept them there till an advanced hour of the night, playing backgammon with him, discussing the merits and faults of every horse in the stables, recalling extremely funny and generally improper incidents which belonged to his youth, drinking a quantity of whisky, and consuming a sort of rear-banquet consisting of all the foods most likely to ensure him a restless night.

His medical adviser, Dr Wilfred Lifton, who had attended him for more years than either could remember, besides delivering Rachel of all her children, from Ingram down to the twins, paid him one of his periodical visits, and solemnly warned him that he was fast killing himself; but Penhallow merely laughed, and said that he didn’t want any damned leech to tell him what he could do or what he could not do. He refused to allow his old friend to sound him, but recommended him to join him in a glass of sherry instead.

Dr Lifton was neither brilliant nor modern, but since he was a sportsman, and a good man to hounds, he was popular with a certain section of the community, who in any case disliked the up-to-date methods of his partner, an earnest and severe gentleman who treated his patients with a sternness quite alien to anyone accustomed to Dr Lifton’s casual attentions.