Penhallow (20 page)

She went towards the door, but he thundered at her to stop. She paused, her fingers already grasping the handle, and looked back at him with an expression on her face half of fear, half of defiance.

‘Come back here, my girl!’ he commanded grimly. ‘I’ve got something to say to you!’

‘No!’ she said, in a faint voice. ‘I can’t bear any more. I can’t!’

She made as if to open the door, but he said very distinctly: ‘If you leave this room till I say you may, I give you fair warning, my dear, I’ll have you brought back to me. I’ll send Jimmy for you, and tell him to see that you come.’

A sound like a whimper escaped her; she looked at him with strained, fearful eyes. ‘I think you’re mad!’ she whispered.

‘Oh, no, I’m not! Come here!’

She approached reluctantly, and perceptibly winced when he grasped her wrist. He pulled her down on to the bed, and she sat stiffly there, almost shivering under his hand. ‘Now, look you here, Faith, my girl!’ he said. ‘A damned fool you’ve made of Loveday Trewithian, but what’s done can’t be undone. But if I find that you’ve been encouraging the girl to marry my son Bart I’ll make you sorry you were ever born! Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I don’t want her to marry Bart. Why should I encourage her?’

‘Because you’re a sentimental little fool! There, that’ll do! You needn’t sit there looking as though you were a rabbit, and I was a boa-constrictor. I haven’t been such a bad husband to you.’

‘I sometimes think that you have killed my soul!’ she said in a trembling voice.

He almost threw her hand from him. ‘Oh, for God’s sake get out, and stay out!’ he shouted. ‘Killed your soul indeed! What trashy book did you pick that up from? Get to hell out of this! Do you hear me. Get out!’

She got up from the bed with shaky haste, and left the room, conscious of having failed again to help Clay. When she reached the hall, and stood under the portrait of Rachel, she looked up at it, thinking that Rachel would not have failed in her place. The hard, painted eyes mocked her. ‘Fool!’ Rachel seemed to say. ‘Haven’t you learnt yet how to handle Penhallow?’

She averted her gaze from the portrait, and thought of the new disaster which had fallen on the house. Although she had said that she considered Loveday to be too good for Bart, she was conventional enough to be shocked by the idea of his marrying her. It was one thing to raise the girl to the position of confidential maid; quite another to be obliged to receive her on equal terms, as a step daughter-in-law. Then she realised that when Loveday married Bart she would go away from Trevellin, leaving her old mistress without any other comforter than Clay, who was too miserable himself to have much sympathy to spare for his mother. She began already to feel herself deserted, and stood there, in the middle of the hall, with slow tears welling up in her eyes, and rolling down her cheeks. She wiped them away, but still they continued to fall. She knew that the whole family would blame her for Bart’s entanglement; and she felt that Loveday had acted treacherously towards her, abusing her trust, and perhaps only pretending to sympathise with her as a move in the deep game she had been playing.

But this was a minor evil compared with the terrible thing which had happened in Penhallow’s room. By dint of dwelling upon it, adding to it all his previous cruelties (though these had not included physical hurt), and recalling her own dutiful behaviour during the twenty years of their marriage, she very soon persuaded herself into believing that she was a deeply wronged woman. The habit of self-deception being engrained in her, she had always been incapable of perceiving that there were faults in her own character. Starting her married life on a misplaced belief that a husband, unless he were a brute, must think his wife perfect in all respects, a being to be ceaselessly cherished and indulged, she had never since been able to readjust her ideas; and as Penhallow from the outset fell lamentably short of her ideal, she early began to regard herself as a martyr. She belonged to that order of women who require a husband to combine the attributes of a lover and a father. This instinct had led her to feel a stronger attraction towards men many years her senior, and had finally betrayed her into marrying Penhallow. He had failed her; her temperament, as much as her lack of mental capacity, made it impossible for her to discern her own failures.

She heard footsteps approaching, and went out of the open front door into the garden. Here she was presently joined by Clay, who had been wandering about in an aimless fashion, awaiting the result of her interview with his father. Once glance at her face was sufficient to inform him that she had not succeeded in her mission. He said: ‘O God!’ and slumped down upon a rustic seat, and gazed moodily at a hedge of fuchsia.

Faith sat down beside him, and, after blowing her nose, and dabbing at her reddened eyes, said: ‘I did my best. He just won’t listen.’

He was silent for a moment, kneading his hands together between his knees. His mouth worked; he said after a slight pause: ‘Mother!’

‘Yes, dearest?’

‘I can’t stick it.’

With a vague idea of consoling him, she said: ‘I know, but perhaps you may not mind the work as much as you think. One thing is that Clifford’s nice. I mean, he’s kind, and I’m sure he ‘

‘It isn’t that — though that’s bad enough! It’s having to go on living here. I — I simply can’t!’

‘You’ll have me, darling. And it may not be for very long, perhaps. I mean, one never knows what may turn up.’

He paid no attention to this. ‘Mother, I — I hate Father!’ he said, as though the words were wrenched out of him.

‘Oh, dearest, you mustn’t say that!’

‘It’s true. What’s more, he hates me. He’ll make my life a hell on earth. He and the twins between them. It isn’t so bad now, but you wait till the hunting-season starts! I know just what’ll happen: I’ve been through it before. They’ll expect me to master all the most rawmouthed brutes in the stable, and they’ll go for me day and night, pulling my style to bits, telling me that all I need is a little jumping-powder when I don’t happen to feel like hunting. You heard Ray, the other day! You’d think it was a worse crime to pull your horse right into a fence than to embezzle a bank! I loathe horses! I loathe hunting! But what do you suppose would happen if I said that I don’t approve of blood-sports? Actually, I think they’re absolutely wrong, but that’s a detail.’

‘I know so well how you feel,’ Faith sighed, with more sympathy than tact. ‘I was always terrified of riding.’

He reddened, and replied rather loftily: ‘It isn’t that, so much as that I simply disapprove of the whole business. Of course, the others are utterly incapable of understanding that! All they think about is hunting! If you’re unlucky enough to be born a Penhallow you’ve got to be a good man across country, and God help you if you’re not! Yes, and if you refuse to take a drop fence, which nobody likes, hang it all, you’re told you’ve got no heart! Actually, I’ve always had a sort of premonition about jumping, but it isn’t the sort of thing one talks about, and I’ve never said anything about it.’

‘Oh, darling, whatever do you mean?’ exclaimed Faith.

‘Oh, nothing!’ Clay said. ‘Merely that I have a sort of feeling — some people would call it an intuition, I expect that that’s how I shall meet my end.’

His mother responded in the most gratifying way to this dark pronouncement, expressing so much horror at the grim thought conjured up before her that he was soon obliged to try to calm her fears, and even to admit that he had not so far experienced any definite vision of his own lifeless form stretched beside an oxer. He made her promise not to mention the matter to his half brothers. He said that they would only laugh, or put up jumps in one of the paddocks and school him over them until he went mad. Having, in this artless fashion, added a considerable weight of anxiety to the load already bowing Faith’s shoulders down, he said that as far as he could see he might just as well be dead for all the good he was ever likely to do now that his career had been blighted, and walked off to throw pebbles moodily into a pond below the south lawn.

Matters were in this unsatisfactory state when the two remaining members of the family, Charmian and Aubrey, arrived at Trevellin to spend a week there in honour of Penhallow’s sixty-second birthday.

They journeyed down together, and were met at Liskeard by Jimmy the Bastard, driving the limousine. Only two years separated them in age, Charmian being thirty, and Aubrey twenty-eight; but although both lived in London they rarely met, and only discovered a sort of affinity between themselves when forced to return to the parental roof. Here, by tacit consent, they formed a defensive alliance against the barbarity of the rest of the family.

In appearance, both were dark, with aquiline features, but Charmian was stockily built, and did her best, by cutting her strong, wiry hair short and wearing the most masculine garments she could find, to look as much like a man as possible; while Aubrey, a slender young man with an exotic taste in pullovers and socks, affected a great many feminine weaknesses, such as a horror of mice, and revolted his more robust brothers by assuming a decidedly fin-de-siecle manner. He was generally held to be the cleverest of the Penhallows; had published two novels, both of which had enjoyed a moderate success; a quantity of verse conceived in so modern a medium as to baffle the comprehension of the greater part of the reading world; and was at present working in collaboration with one of his artistic friends on the libretto for a satirical revue. He inhabited a set of chambers near St James’s Street; which were at the moment furnished in the Turkish style; rode a showy hack in the Park; contrived to hunt at least once a week with the Grafton; and divided his time between his artistic and his sporting friends. Occasionally, it amused him to bring both together at one of his evening parties, as a result of which the intellectuals went away saying that Aubrey was too adorably whimsical for words, and probably a case of split personality, which was what one found so intriguing in him; and the sportsmen agreed amongst themselves that if Penhallow weren’t such a damned good man to hounds, really, one wouldn’t quite know what to think.

Charmian, rendered independent of Penhallow by the timely demise of a godmother who had left her a sum of money sufficient to provide her with a small income, shared a flat with a very feminine blonde, who resembled nothing so much as a pink fondant. The Penhallows had only once been gratified by a sight of this object of their masterful sister’s passionate solicitude, Charmian having on one occasion brought her down to spend the weekend at Trevellin. The visit had not been repeated. Leila Morpeth and the Penhallows had not found themselves with anything in common; and the younger Penhallows had been so transfixed with amazement at the spectacle of Charmian hovering protectively over an opulent female of generous proportions, who had a habit of referring to herself as ‘poor little me’ in accents suggestive of extreme childhood, that they were struck dumb, and mercifully only recovered full power of self expression when the visitor had departed with Charmian on Monday morning.

The brother and sister, meeting at Paddington Station, occupied themselves for the first part of the journey exchanging poisoned shafts, Charmian shooting hers with a ruthlessness worthy of her father, and Aubrey planting his darts with precision and sweetness; but when they approached the end of their journey they entered upon a temporary truce, which developed into a positive alliance as soon as they discovered that Jimmy had been sent to meet them.

‘Darling,’ said Aubrey, in flute-like accents, ‘how it does bring the horror of it all back to one, to see that face! Oh, I do think it is quite too low and dreadful of Father, don’t you?’

‘I shouldn’t mind it,’ said Charmian fairly, ‘if the little beast weren’t so obviously a wrong ‘un.’

‘Wouldn’t you, sweet? You’re so strong-minded and wonderful. Do you suppose the twins will be dreadfully hearty? It was quite too awful the last time I was here. Con was always slipping away to cuddle a most deplorable female in the village. So disgusting!’

Unlike her brother, who lounged gracefully in one corner of the car, Charmian sat bolt upright, keenly scrutinising the countryside, and conveying the impression that it was distasteful to her to be obliged to sit still and idle. She said: ‘I never pay any attention to what the twins do. I consider them quite beneath contempt. I doubt whether either of them has ever read a book in his life.’

‘Oh, darling, are you sure? There’s a kind of distinction about that. I do feel you’re wrong, somehow. Don’t you think they read Stonehenge On the Horse?’

‘I daresay. I meant a real book. I can’t think how Vivian stands it here. I love Trevellin, and I always shall, but the absence of any form of culture in the house, and the paucity of ideas of everybody in it would drive me to desperation if I had to live here!’

‘Darling, you don’t mean to imply, do you, that that afflictive woman you live with exudes culture as well as Attar of Roses?’

She darted a kindling look at him, and replied stiffly: ‘Leila has extremely advanced ideas, and is a most interesting woman. In any case, I don’t propose to discuss her.’

‘You’re always so right, precious. Bricks without straw.’

She ignored this remark, and the silence remained unbroken for some time. At length, she said abruptly: ‘If Father hadn’t married again, I expect I should have stayed here all my life.’

‘Do you say that in a complaining spirit, or are you acknowledging your indebtedness to Faith?’ he inquired.

‘I could never play second fiddle to anyone,’ she said. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t choose to come back, now that I have experienced a fuller life!’

He looked amused, but refrained from making any reply. She was looking out of the window, and presently remarked in her urgent way: ‘All the same, this country has a hold over one! I shall tramp up to Rough Tor, and Brown Gilly. Oh, the smell of the peat!’

‘Do you find scents nostalgic?’ he asked languidly. ‘They don’t have that effect on me at all.’

‘The peat-stacks on the Moor, and the wild blocks of granite, and the still pools!’ she said, disregarding him. ‘The white bedstraw under one’s feet, and the sharp scent of the thyme! Oh, there is no place on earth quite the same!’