Penhallow (15 page)

She went to meet him at the station in the aged limousine. His greeting was scarcely designed to flatter her. ‘Oh, Mother, this is too ghastly!’ he exclaimed. hurrying towards her on the platform. ‘Can’t you do anything!’

It was not in her nature to return a baldly unpalatable answer, so a good deal of time was spent in a discussion founded on eventualities which might, but almost certainly would not, occur. ‘If only Cliff would have the courage to tell your father he doesn’t want you as a pupil!’ Faith said. ‘If only I had some relations with money! If only I could get your father to see that you’d be wasted in Cliff’s office!’

‘I do think you ought to have some influence over Father!’ Clay said.

In this unprofitable fashion the drive to Trevellin was accomplished, mother and son arriving at the old grey house below the Moor in a state of considerable nervous agitation, Faith having developed a nagging, headache, and Clay experiencing the familiar sinking at the pit of his stomach which always attacked him at the prospect of having to confront Penhallow.

In appearance, he was not strikingly like either parent. His colouring was nondescript, inclined to fair, but although his eyes had something of Faith’s expression they were not blue, but grey. He had the aquiline cast of features of all the Penhallows, but his mother’s soft mouth and indeterminate chin. He was rather above the average height, but had yet to fill out, being at present very thin and immature. He had several nervous tricks, such as smoothing his hair, and fidgeting with the knot of his tie; from having been the butt of his brothers he had acquired a defensive manner, and was often self-conscious in company, assuming an ease of manner which it was plain he did not possess. He was apt to take offence too readily and was far too prone to adopt a belligerent tone with his half-brothers; and no amount of mockery could break him of unwise attempts to impress them by recounting unconvincing tales of his strong handling of such persons as form-masters, Deans, and Proctors.

The first person he encountered on entering the house was Bart, who hailed him good-naturedly enough, saying: ‘Hello, kid! I forgot you were descending on us today. Skinny as ever, I see.’ He turned his head, as Eugene came out of the library, and called: ‘Hi, Eugene! The budding lawyer’s blown in!’

Clay bristled at once, and replied in rather too high-pitched a voice: ‘You don’t suppose I’m going to go into Cliff’s office, do you? I can assure you that I shall have something to say to Father about that!’

Bart grinned. ‘I’ll bet you will! I can hear you: Yes, Father. No, Father! Just as you wish, Father.’

Faith at once rushed to the defence of her young: ‘Can’t you let the poor boy set foot inside the house without starting to tease him? I should have thought that after not having seen him for three months you might have found something pleasant to say to him!’

‘Kiss your little brother, Bart!’ said Eugene reprovingly. ‘Well, Benjamin? Will you receive our address of welcome now, or later?’

‘Oh, shut up!’ said Clay. ‘You’re not a bit funny!’

‘Darling, I know you’ll want a bath after that horrid journey,’ Faith said, ignoring Eugene. ‘I told Sybilla to be sure to see that the water was properly heated. Come upstairs, won’t you?’

She took his arm, and pressed it affectionately, and he went with her up the stairs, leaving Bart to grimace expressively at Eugene, and to observe that why Penhallow should want to draw such an appalling little wet back into the fold was a matter passing his comprehension.

Chapter Nine

Clay’s first meeting with his father took place that evening, after dinner, in the presence of the rest of the family. Upon setting eyes on his youngest son, Penhallow at once demanded to be told why he had not presented himself several hours earlier, shooting this question at Clay in such a fierce way that the boy changed colour, and stammered out a rather incoherent reply, which was to the effect that he hadn’t known that Penhallow wanted to see him particularly. This had the effect of making Penhallow scarify him soundly for his lack of filial respect; and as he addressed most of his diatribe to him in a thunderous tone, and ended by asking him what he had to say for himself, Clay was speedily reduced to a state of pallid terror, and was only able to say, in shaken accents, that he was sorry, and hadn’t meant to offend anyone. Such supine behaviour roused all the worst in Penhallow, who set about bullying him in good earnest, insisting on receiving answers to quite impossible questions, and saying everything he could to goad him into making a hot retort. Faith, perilously near tears, tried to come to Clay’s support, and succeeded, in as much as Penhallow’s ire was instantly diverted, and fell upon her luckless head. Clay slid into the background, and tried to look as though he did not mind having been roared at, and was not in the least upset by the interlude. Conrad, who had seen Bart kissing Loveday in the orchard, and was in a smouldering temper in consequence, began to bait him, with so much ill nature that Bart came to his rescue, telling his twin to lay off the kid, for God’s sake! Bart was quite capable of inflicting physical hurt on anyone who roused his wrath, but he was never spiteful. But since he could not understand that his good-natured intervention increased Conrad’s ill-humour, Conrad’s jealous temperament being unable to brook his twin’s siding with another member of the family against himself, he did Clay very little service. Raymond, who had scarcely been on speaking terms with Penhallow since their quarrel over Jimmy, took no part in the general turmoil, but sat scowling into the fire, and occasionally exchanging a brief word or two with his aunt. He glanced contemptuously at Clay, when that unfortunate young man withdrew to a chair in a secluded corner, and seemed slightly amused by Conrad’s baiting of him.

Having worked off his rage, Penhallow was ready to discuss the affairs of the estate, the stables, the farm, and the neighbouring countryside with his sons. Clay, bearing as little part in this animated conversation as his mother, sat with clenched teeth, wondering with sick distaste whether it was worse to be berated by Penhallow than to be obliged to sit through an evening of such talk as this. When Reuben and Jimmy brought in the usual refreshments, he had to help the twins dispense these. He carried a glass of whisky-and-soda to Vivian, and told her in an undertone that he couldn’t stand this sort of thing.

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘You say that, but you will stand it. I know you!’

He coloured, and asserted more loudly than he meant to: ‘Well, I shan’t. I’m not a child any longer, and the sooner everyone realises that, the better it will be for — for them!’

Conrad overheard this, and said at once: ‘Listen to this, all of you! Dear little Clay isn’t a child any longer! Isn’t it wonderful what a Varsity education will do for one? What did they teach you at Cambridge, Clay? We never managed to teach you anything — not even to throw your heart over!’

‘Or to stop pulling his horse right into a fence,’ said Raymond dryly. ‘If you are going to stay at home, Clay, I suppose you will have to be mounted.’

Clay dared not assert that he was not going to stay at home, although every minute spent in the company of his family made him the more determined by hook or by crook to escape from Trevellin; but he showed so little interest in the question of what horses he could ride during the coming season that even Eugene roused himself to remark dispassionately that no one would take him for a Penhallow. Fortunately, Penhallow was too much absorbed in what Bart was telling him about the Demon colt to pay any heed to this interchange; and as any mention of the Demon colt had the invariable effect of drawing nearly every member of the family into the discussion, Clay was presently able to slip out of the room without attracting attention. His mother soon followed him, and they went upstairs together to her bedroom, where Clay at once unburdened his mind to her, pacing about the room as he did so, and fidgeting with whatever came in the way of his unquiet hands. Faith’s attention was thus divided between what he had to say, and what he was doing, and she found herself impelled to interrupt him several times, to beg him not to twirl the lid of her powder-bowl round; to take care of that chair, because one leg was broken; and please not to swing the blind-cord to and fro, because it made her giddy.

‘I don’t believe,’ said Clay gloomily, ‘that you have the least idea how desperate it all is!’

‘Oh, darling, how can you say that to me?’ Faith reproached him.

‘I suppose you’re used to it,’ pursued Clay, disregarding this interpolation. ‘You simply don’t realise how ghastly it is here! But I’ve been away from it, and you just can’t imagine how it strikes one, after having lived in civilised surroundings, amongst cultured people! I couldn’t bear it, Mother. It’s no use expecting me to. I mean, I should simply cut my throat. There’s nothing I wouldn’t rather do!’

Correctly assuming that this sweeping assertion excepted any form of manual toil, or office drudgery. Faith said: ‘Yes, but what can we do about it? I’ve tried my best to make your father see reason, but you know what he is. If only you’d done better in your First Part I think there might have been some hope, but ‘

‘Of course, anyone who imagines that one goes to the Varsity merely to swot, and pass examinations, just doesn’t understand the first thing about it,’ said Clay loftily. ‘And, what’s more, I never heard that Eugene did so damned well up at Oxford, or Aubrey either, if it comes to that!’

‘I know,’ she said quickly. ‘That’s what’s so unfair! You were much too young to know anything about it at the time, but actually Eugene cost your father a great deal of money, when he was up, besides getting into the sort of scrapes I should have thought any father would have However, that’s his affair! Only, I believe the awful thing is that your father wouldn’t have minded, if you’d disgraced yourself at Cambridge, and got entangled with dreadful girls, and been sent down for sheer hooliganism!’

Clay stared at her. ‘Of course, he’s mad!’ he said, with conviction. ‘Absolutely batty!’

She shook her head, but said, as though she feared to be overheard: ‘He’s got very strange lately. Not mad, but very — very eccentric. More than that, really. He has been doing some outrageous things, and he seems to me to be drinking more than he used to. I’m very worried about him.’

Clay accepted this conventional statement. He himself disliked his father, but he would have been rather shocked had Faith admitted that she too disliked him. He said: ‘He looks all right. I didn’t notice any change.’

‘Dr Lifton says he can’t possibly go on as he is doing. You’ve no idea what unsuitable things he eats, and the amount he drinks, and the way he’s been rushing about the country.’

‘I suppose his inside is pretty well accustomed to strong drink,’ said Clay, with a slight laugh.

‘Yes, but, really, darling, there are limits! I don’t mean that he gets drunk, actually, but I have seen him — well, in that reckless state which always means he’s been drinking steadily. You saw the whisky Con measured into his glass tonight. Well, that’s nothing. I mean, it isn’t only what he drinks when we’re all there, but I know from Loveday that Martha has orders to leave the whisky decanter beside his bed when he settles down for the night, and if you ever saw the drink bills you’d realise what an appalling amount he must dispose of.’

‘Can’t you stop him?’ inquired Clay, without much interest.

‘No. He wouldn’t listen to anything I said. Reuben does what he can, by seeing to it that there’s only a certain amount of whisky left in the decanter each night, but you never know when your father will put a stop to that. No one can do anything with him once he’s determined on getting his own way.’

‘Well,’ said Clay, sticking out his chin, ‘I can’t say I care two hoots how much he drinks, but he’s not going to get his own way as far as my affairs are concerned. I’m damned well not going to be jockeyed into Cliff’s office to suit his convenience!’

‘Oh, darling, I’m quite heartbroken about that, but what can you do?’

‘Why can’t he make me an allowance, and let me do what I want to do?’ demanded Clay. ‘He lets Aubrey please himself, hang it all!’

‘Yes, but he says he isn’t going to any longer,’ sighed Faith. ‘He’s got a sort of mania for keeping you all at home. I’m sure I don’t know why, because he doesn’t do anything but quarrel with you. He even went for Bart the other night, and Bart’s his favourite.’

‘I shouldn’t have thought,’ said Clay, in an ill-used voice, ‘that it was much to expect, that I should be allowed to choose my own profession!’

‘If only I had the means to help you!’ sighed Faith.

A gentle tap on the door was immediately followed by Loveday’s entrance, bearing the hot-water bag without which Faith never, summer or winter, went to bed. She smiled warmly upon her mistress, and, as she slipped the bag between the sheets, let her eyes flicker over Clay. Clay, who had not noticed her much on his previous vacations, was conscious of a strong attraction, and was enough a Penhallow to return the glance with a kind of invitation in his own eyes. In his mother’s presence he was debarred from making any further overtures, but when, next morning, he encountered Loveday in the hall, he slid an arm round her waist, and said clumsily: ‘I say, Loveday, you might welcome a fellow home!’

Her smile, though it was indulgent, excited him. He wondered how it came about that he had never till now realised how beautiful she was, and said so, stammering a little.

‘I expect you’re growing up, Mr Clay,’ she replied demurely. ‘Give over now, my dear, do!’

‘Give me a kiss, Loveday!’ he said, grasping her more securely.

She shook her head. ‘Leave me go,’ she replied. ‘You’re getting to be too big a boy now for these games, Mr Clay!’

He coloured, for he hated to be laughed at, and would probably have pulled her into his arms had he not heard the door of Eugene’s room open. He looked round in quick alarm; Loveday slipped away, in no way discomposed, and went gracefully down the stairs.

Eugene’s face showed that he fully appreciated the situation. He said, in his light languid way: ‘So the puppy’s growing into a hound, is he, Benjamin? Well, I am sure that is all very edifying, but if you think my advice worth taking I can give you a piece of it which may save you from future unpleasantness.’

‘Oh, shut up!’ said Clay. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’

‘I wonder,’ said Eugene amiably, ‘from where you get your instinctive love of prevarication? Keep your paws off Loveday Trewithian, little brother. She’s Bart’s meat!’

‘Good lord, I was only fooling with her!’ Clay said.

‘I’m sure!’ Eugene retorted. ‘The point, thickhead, being that Bart isn’t.’