A Suitable Vengeance (25 page)

“Don’t try to avoid the issue by bringing up all that.”

“Oh, no! Avoidance. What a heinous crime! Another sin I’ve committed. Another black mark on my soul.” Peter took the university picture from the wall, tossing it in his brother’s direction. It landed with a clatter against the legs of a chair. “You’re completely unsullied, aren’t you, Tommy? Why can’t I just follow your faultless example?”

“I don’t want a row with you, Peter.”

“It’s delicious. Drugs, adultery, and fornication. All in one family. Who knows what else we’d have to work with if only Judy were here as well. But then, she’s dabbled a bit in adultery herself, hasn’t she, Tommy? Like mother, like daughter. That’s what I say. And what about you? Too noble to have it off with some bloke’s wife if she strikes your fancy? Too moral? Too ethical? I can’t believe that.”

“This is getting us nowhere.”

“What a blight we must be to you. Living hand in glove with the seven deadly sins and enjoying every one of them. Where do we do the worse damage? To your bloody title or your precious career?”

“You’d say anything if you believed it had the power to hurt me, wouldn’t you?”

Peter laughed, but he was gripping the back of an armchair tightly. “To hurt
you?
Is that what you actually think? I can’t believe it. As far as I know, the world still revolves round the sun, not you. Or hadn’t you noticed? There
are
actually people who lead their lives without the slightest worry about how their behaviour affects the Eighth Earl of Asherton, and I’m one of them, Tommy. I don’t dance to your tune. I never have. I never will.” His features contorted with an angry bitterness. “What I really love about this whole sodding conversation is the implication that you care about anything beyond yourself. About Howenstow. About Mother. About me. What difference would it make to you if this place burned to the ground? What difference would it make if both of us died in the flames? You’d be free of us then. You’d never have to worry about playing the role. Dutiful son. Loving brother. You make me sick.” Peter fumbled in his pocket, bringing out a packet of cigarettes. But his hands were shaking so badly that he dropped them to the floor where they spilled out onto the carpet.

“Peter,” Lynley said. “Peter, let me help you. You can’t go on this way. You know that. You must.”

“And if I die, what of it? Then you’ll only have Mother and Roderick to contend with. She’s invited him tonight, you know. What an insult to the earl! I think she’s actually decided to declare independence.”

“They don’t matter. You know that. Let me help you. Please.”

“Help? You?” Peter bent and retrieved his cigarettes. It took him four tries with a match before he was able to light one. “You’d sully your pretty reputation to salvage mine? What a laugh that is! What’s it to you what happens to me, as long as your own name stays pure?”

“You’re my brother.”

Peter drew in on his cigarette deeply before mashing it out in an ashtray. “To hell with your brotherhood.” He started for the door.

Lynley grabbed his arm as he passed. “That’s easy for you, isn’t it? To hell with brotherhood. To hell with everyone. Because a commitment to people takes you away from dope. And you can’t bear that.”

“You talk to
me
of commitments? You filthy hypocrite. When did you ever commit to anyone besides yourself?”

Lynley refused to be sidetracked. “Seeing the mill was a revelation today. You ought to be proud of what you’ve become.”

“A smuggler! A dealer! An addict! What a nice little footnote in the family history. What a blackguard! What a fiend!” Peter’s voice spiralled. He pulled himself from his brother’s grasp. “So have me arrested. Or better yet, arrest me yourself. Haul me into the Met. Turning in your own brother should make your career. Here.” He extended his hands, wrists together. “Shackle me up. Take me away tonight and have your promotion tomorrow.”

Lynley watched the play of emotion on his brother’s face. He tried to tell himself that this confrontation had its roots in Peter’s addiction. But he knew quite well that his own past behaviour, his obstinate pride, and his need to punish had led inevitably to this ugly outburst. Still, he struggled against the desire to lash out in return.

“Listen to yourself. Look at what it’s doing to you. Look at what you’ve become.”

“I’ve become nothing! It’s where I began. It’s what I always was.”

“In your own eyes, perhaps. But in no one else’s.”

“In
everyone’s
eyes. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to measure up and I’ve chucked it. Do your hear? I’ve chucked it all and I’m bloody well glad of it. So leave me alone, will you? Go back to your nice little townhouse and your nice little life. Make yourself a nice little marriage with a nice little wife. Have some nice little babies to carry on your name and leave me alone! Just leave me alone!” His face was empurpled; his body shook.

“Yes. I can see that’s best.” Lynley stepped past his brother only to see that their mother, white-faced, had come to the doorway. How long she had been standing there, he couldn’t have said.

“My dear, my
dear!
It was simply divine.” The Reverend Mrs. Sweeney divided the final word into two, with a dramatic pause between the syllables, as if in the hope of building anticipation in her audience over how her sentence would end, be it with approbation or censure.
Plorable
, her tone implied, was as likely a conclusion as
vine
.

She was seated directly across from St. James, midway down the length of the linen-covered dining table at which were gathered a party of eighteen. They constituted an interesting assortment of Lynley relations, Cornish notables, and community members who had known the family for years. The Reverend Mr. Sweeney and his wife belonged to this latter group.

Mrs. Sweeney leaned forward. Candlelight glimmered across the astounding, wide field of her chest which was amply revealed by a remarkable décolletage. St. James wondered idly what excuse Mrs. Sweeney had concocted for wearing such a gown this evening. Its cut was certainly not what one generally expected from a minister’s wife and she wasn’t in the role of Beatrice now. Then he noticed the damp, longing, and agitated glances which Mr. Sweeney—three seats away and attempting to converse politely with the wife of the Plymouth MP—was casting in his wife’s direction. He put the question to rest.

Fork raised, a bit of salmon pastry caught on its tines, Mrs. Sweeney continued. “My dear, the entire
cast
was simply thrilled with your photographs. Dare we
hope
to make it a yearly event?” She was speaking to Deborah, who sat on Lynley’s right at the head of the table. “Just think of it. An annual collection of photographs with our own Lord Asherton. In a different costume every time.” She trilled a little laugh. “The actors, I mean. Of course. Not Lord Asherton.”

“But why not Tommy in costume as well?” Lady Helen said. “I think it’s high time he joined the Nanrunnel Players and stopped hiding his talent under a bushel.”

“Oh, we could hardly dare to hope or to think…” Mr. Sweeney tore his attention from his wife’s cleavage long enough to take up this thought.

“I can just see it,” Sidney laughed. “Tommy as Petruchio.”

“I’ve told him time and again it was a mistake to read history at Oxford,” Lady Helen said. “He’s always had a flair for the stage. Haven’t you, Tommy darling?”

“Might we
really
…” Mr. Sweeney faltered, caught between the obvious teasing of Lynley’s friends and his own unspoken hope that there might be a margin of reality behind Lady Helen’s words. He said, as if it were a possible inducement to Lynley’s becoming one of the local thespians, “We have so often asked Dr. Trenarrow to join us under the lights.”

“A pleasure I must avoid,” Trenarrow said.

“And those you don’t avoid?”

Peter Lynley asked the question, winking round the table in a manner that suggested skeletons were about to leap out of the cupboards while the dead came springing back to life. He poured more of the white burgundy into his wine glass and did the same for Sasha. Both of them drank. Sasha smiled down at her plate as if enjoying a secret joke. Neither of them had touched their salmon.

A brief hiatus came upon the conversation. Trenarrow broke it. “High blood pressure keeps me from many pleasures, I’m afraid. Such are the failings of middle age.”

“You don’t have the look of a man who has failings,” Justin Brooke said. He and Sidney had twined their hands on the table top. St. James wondered how either of them was managing to eat.

“We all have failings,” Trenarrow replied. “Some of us are fortunate in that we manage to keep them better hidden than others. But we all of us have them. It’s the way of the world.”

Hodge, assisted by two of the dailies who had been induced to stay into the evening, emerged from the warming room as Dr. Trenarrow spoke. The introduction of a second course arrested attention. If Peter Lynley had sought the embarrassment of others with his sly question, food proved to be eminently more interesting to the assembled group.

“You’re not sealing Wheal Maen!” The exclamation rose like a wail, emitted from Lady Augusta, Lynley’s maiden aunt. His father’s sister had always maintained a proprietary interest and watchful eye over Howenstow. As she spoke, she cast a look of outrage upon John Penellin on her right, who remained detached from the conversation.

St. James had been surprised to see Penellin among the guests. Surely a death in the family would have been excuse enough to allow him to beg off a dinner party in which he appeared to have little interest. The estate manager had spoken less than ten words during drinks in the hall, spending most of the time standing at the window and gazing gravely in the direction of the lodge. However, from what he had seen and heard last night, St. James knew Penellin had no love for his son-in-law. So perhaps it was his indifference to Mick Cambrey which prompted him to take part in the gathering. Or perhaps it was an act of loyalty to the Lynleys. Or a behaviour he wished to be seen as such.

Lady Augusta was continuing. She was a woman wells-killed in the art of dinner table dialogue, devoting half her time to the right, the other to the left, and throwing a remark right down the centre whenever she deemed it appropriate. “It’s bad enough that Wheal Maen must be closed. But cows were actually grazing in the park when I arrived! Good heavens, I couldn’t believe my eyes. My father must be spinning in his grave. I don’t understand the reason, Mr. Penellin.”

Penellin looked up from his wine glass. “The mine’s too close to the road. The main shaft’s flooded. It’s safer to seal it.”

“Piffle!” Lady Augusta proclaimed. “Those mines are individual works of art. You know as well as I that at least two of our mines have beam-engines that are perfectly intact. People want to see that sort of thing, you know. People pay to see it.”

“Guided tours, Aunt?” Lynley asked.

“Just the thing!”

“With everyone wearing those wonderful cyclops hats with little torches attached to their foreheads,” Lady Helen said.

“Yes, of course.” Lady Augusta rapped the table sharply with her fork. “We don’t want the Trust here, sniffing round for another Lanhydrock, putting everyone out of house and home, do we?
Do
we?” She gave a quick nod, accepting no response as agreement. “Quite. We don’t. But what other way do we have of avoiding those little beasts than by dealing with the tourist trade ourselves, my dears? We must make repairs, we must open the mines, we must allow tours. Children love tours. They’ll be wild to go down. They’ll give their parents no peace until they’ve had a look.”

“It’s an interesting idea,” Lynley said. “But I’ll only consider it on one condition.”

“What’s that, Tommy dear?”

“That you run the tea shop.”

“That I…” Her mouth closed abruptly.

“In a white cap,” Lynley went on. “Dressed as a milkmaid.”

Lady Augusta pressed against the back of her chair and laughed with the heartiness of a woman who knew she’d been bested, if only for the moment. “You naughty boy,” she said and dipped into her soup.

Conversation ebbed and flowed through the remainder of the meal. St. James caught only snatches here and there. Lady Asherton and Cotter talking about a large brass charger, caparisoned and prancing, that hung on the room’s east wall; Lady Helen relating to Dr. Trenarrow an amusing tale of mistaken identity at a long ago house party attended by her father; Justin Brooke and Sidney laughing together over a remark Lady Augusta made about Lynley’s childhood; the Plymouth MP and the Reverend Mrs. Sweeney wandering in a maze of confusion in which he discussed the need for economic development and she responded with a dreamy reverie about bringing the film industry to Cornwall apparently in order to feature herself in a starring role; Mr. Sweeney—when his eyes were not feasting upon his spouse—murmuring vague responses to the MP’s wife, who was speaking about each of her grandchildren in turn. Only Peter and Sasha kept their voices low, their heads together, their attention on each other.

Thus the company moved smoothly towards the end of the meal. This was heralded by the presentation of the pudding, a flaming concoction that looked as if its intended purpose was to conclude the dinner by means of a conflagration. When it had been duly served and devoured, Lynley got to his feet. He brushed back his hair in a boyish gesture.