Penhallow (30 page)

‘Oh, I don’t know!’ Faith said undecidedly. ‘I feel so upset, and queer, Loveday!’

‘Well, you aren’t going to stop washing just because there has been a death in the house, are you?’ inquired Vivian caustically.

Put in such blunt terms as this, it did seem absurd, but Faith felt vaguely that in the performance of everyday actions at such a moment there was something bordering on the indecent. She ignored Vivian. ‘I suppose I — Yes, of course I shall have my bath just as I always do. Please get it ready for me, Loveday!’

‘That’s right, my dear,’ Loveday said, patting her hand. ‘Then you’ll get back into bed, and I’ll bring your breakfast up to you, and you’ll be better.’

‘Oh, no, I couldn’t!’ Faith said. ‘I couldn’t swallow anything! Please don’t ask me to! I ought to get up. Do you think I should go down at once? I — I feel so absolutely bowled over I don’t seem to be able to think!’

‘You lay quiet awhile,’ Loveday counselled her. ‘"There’s nothing you can do, my dear. The doctor’s below at this moment, and I was thinking you would like to have him come up to you, and give you something for your poor nerves.’

‘No. No, I shall be all right!’ Faith said, pressing her finger-tips to her temples. ‘I don’t want a doctor. Unless I ought to see him about — about Adam. Must I? I don’t feel that I can bear it! But of course if I ought to — I don’t know what one does when — when a thing like this happens!’

‘If you don’t want to see him, there’s no particular reason why you should,’ said Vivian. ‘Raymond’s there, and I don’t see that you can tell him anything he doesn’t know already. I mean, it isn’t as though this was unexpected. Lifton warned you, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, oh yes! And he had been getting worse later hadn’t he? Charmian saw a great change in him. She told me so.’

‘It’s Dr Rame,’ Loveday said. ‘Dr Lifton has the influenza.’

‘Dr Rame!’ Faith repeated nervously. ‘Oh, I would rather not see him if I needn’t! I never liked him. He’s so hard, and unsympathetic!’

‘I’ll go and turn the bath on,’ Loveday said, picking up the early tea-tray. ‘Mr Ray said if you wanted to see the doctor to send down a message.’

‘Only if I must! But if he wants to speak to me of course I’ll see him! Tell Mr Ray that, Loveday!’

‘You’ve no call to worry, my dear,’ Loveday said soothingly.

Vivian would have remained, after she had left the room, to discuss Penhallow’s death with Faith, but Faith stopped her, saying that she could not bear to talk about it. She shrugged contemptuously, therefore, and went away.

In the dining-room, several members of the family were gathered round the table, partaking of breakfast in a desultory and ill-at-ease fashion. Clara was seated as usual at the foot of the table, dispensing coffee and tea in the intervals of sniffing into a screwed-up handkerchief: with which she from time to time wiped the corners of’ her eyes. Conrad was somewhat defiantly consuming a plateful of bacon and eggs; Aubrey, not noticeably affected by the general depression, was spreading a thin slice of toast with marmalade; and Bart, having pushed away his plate, almost untouched, was mechanically stirring his coffee, his rather reddened eyes lowered.

Neither Raymond nor Charmian was present. In response to Vivian’s inquiry, Clara replied huskily that they were both in Penhallow’s room still, with the doctor.

Vivian sat down, having helped herself to some fish from the dish on the sideboard. After a short silence, Conrad cleared his throat, and said: ‘I shan’t go to work today, of course.’

Nobody made any answer to this observation. Vivian said: ‘What on earth are they taking so long, for? I saw the doctor’s car drive up ages ago! What do you suppose they can be doing?’

Aubrey, who had dignified the occasion by discarding his colourful sports-wear for a lounge suit which he wore with a lavender shirt, replied: ‘Darling, must we go into that? You’re so marvellous with your self-possession and all that, I expect you don’t mind a bit what you talk about at breakfast, but I haven’t got anything like your strength of character, and I do wish you wouldn’t, sweetie. Besides, some of our number are quite upset about it.’

‘Not you,’ Bart said, momentarily raising his eyes from his coffee-cup.

‘My dear, the only thing which upsets me — and you simply can’t imagine how frightful it was! — was the perfectly ghoulish noise which Martha made. I mean, talk about the purely primitive! No, I’m not going to pretend that I’m shattered by Father’s death. You wouldn’t any of you believe it if I did. He was showing the most alarming signs of being about to interfere with my lovely, ordered existence, and I regard his death as an unmixed blessing.’

‘Well, I’m glad one of you has the moral courage to say what you really think!’ said Vivian.

‘Your approval, darling, might have been expresses I more grammatically, but I can’t tell you how much it has encouraged me,’ said Aubrey dulcetly. ‘After all, it is the spirit which counts, isn’t it?’

‘Anyway, you can bloody well keep what you think to yourself!’ Bart said, addressing his sister-in-law. ‘We all know what you thought of the Guv’nor!’

‘Now, Bart, don’t, there’s a good boy!’ Clara said. ‘We, don’t want any quarrellin’. I daresay he was a wicked old man, but I don’t know what we’re any of us goin’ to do now he’s gone. It won’t seem like Trevellin without him goin’ on the rampage, and upsettin’ everybody right and left.’ She applied her handkerchief to her eyes again. ‘I’m sure I don’t know why I’m cryin’, for very uncomfortable he’s made me, time and time again, but there it is! Has anyone been up to Faith?’

‘I’ve seen her,’ Vivian answered. ‘She’s having a bath at the moment.’

‘Is she cut up about it?’ asked Conrad.

Vivian gave a short laugh. ‘She thinks she is, anyway. I’m afraid I’ve got no time for these conventionally minded women who think it incumbent upon them to shed tears just because someone whom they detested has died!’

‘Here, I say, that’s coming it a bit thick!’ protested Conrad. ‘I don’t say Father didn’t treat her to rather a rough passage, but you’ve got no right to say that she detested him! I should have thought that she’d be bound to be cut up about it!’

‘Then you won’t be disappointed,’ said Vivian acidly. ‘She’ll gratify all your ideas of how a bereaved person should behave, I’m sure!’

Clay came into the room at that moment, looking reared and bewildered. ‘I say, is it true?’ he asked. ‘I’ve just heard — I overslept this morning — I didn’t know a thing! But one of the maids told me — only I simply couldn’t believe it!’

‘If you mean, is it true Father’s dead, yes, it is!’ said Conrad. ‘So you can go upstairs again, and take off that bloody awful pullover, and put on something decent!’

‘Of course I wouldn’t have put on a coloured thing if I’d known!’ Clay said. ‘I’ll change it after breakfast, naturally. Good lord, though! I — I can’t get over it! How did it happen? When did he die?’

The barely veiled excitement in his voice roused Bart to a flash of anger. ‘What the devil does it matter to you how he died, or when he died? A fat lot you care! God damn your eyes, you’re glad he’s dead!’

‘How dare you's-say such a th-thing?’ Clay stammered, flushing to the roots of his hair. ‘Of course I’m not!’

‘Liar!’ said Conrad.

Aubrey intervened, saying in his most mannered style: ‘Sit down, little brother, and try to carry off this very difficult situation with as much grace as you can muster. You really could hardly do better than to model yourself on me. Now, I’m not bewailing Father’s death in the least, but neither am I permitting an indecent elation to appear in my demeanour. As my raiment, so my conduct: subdued but not funereal!’

‘Shut up, you ass!’ said Conrad.

‘Listen!’ Vivian interrupted, lifting her head. ‘That sounds like the doctor going!’

In another minute the door opened, and Charmian came in. She looked rather pale, as though she had sustained a severe shock, and she did not at first say anything.

‘Is that Rame going?’ Vivian asked. ‘What on earth has he been doing all this time?’

‘Where’s Ray?’ Conrad demanded.

‘Seeing Rame off.’ Charmian dug her hands into her coat-pockets, and took up her favourite position on the hearth-rug, with her feet widely planted. ‘Well, you might as well know at once what has happened. Rame won’t sign the certificate.’

Chapter Seventeen

Her words were received in uncomprehending silence. Conrad broke it. ‘What do you mean, he won’t sign the certificate? Why not?’

‘He thinks Father didn’t die a natural death,’ responded Charmian bluntly.

They all stared at her. ‘Didn’t die a natural death?’ Conrad repeated. ‘What on earth are you driving at, Char?’

‘Oh dear, I do wish I hadn’t come home!’ said Aubrey. ‘I can see, because I am very quick-witted and sensitive to atmosphere, that everything is going to become too morbid and repellent for words. Char, my precious, do put us out of this frightful suspense! I can’t bear it!’

‘If you want it in plain words, Rame thinks Father was murdered,’ said Charmian.

Clara dropped her teaspoon with a clatter into her saucer. Bart half-started from his chair, and sank back again, his eyes fixed incredulously on his sister’s face. Clay turned chalk-white, and moved his lips stickily.

‘Rot!’ said Conrad loudly and scornfully.

‘Yes, that’s what I said, but apparently I was wrong,’ Charmian replied, drawing her cigarette-case from her pocket, and taking a cigarette from it. She shut the with a snap, and turned to feel for a matchbox on the  mantelpiece behind her.

‘But what — how… ?’Bart demanded.

She struck a match, and lit her cigarette. ‘Poison, of course.’

‘Rubbish!’ said Clara strongly. ‘I never heard of such a thing! Poison, indeed! He ate and drank a lot of foolish  things last night, as anyone could have told Rame! What next!’

‘There was a sort of blue look about him,’ Charmian said. ‘I noticed it myself, though it didn’t, of course, convey anything in particular to my mind. Rame asked if Father was in the habit of taking sleeping-draughts. Reuben and Martha both swore that he wasn’t. Them was a drain of whisky left in the decanter beside the bed, and he tasted it. He has taken both the glass and the decanter away with him, and I suppose you know what that means.’

‘Do you mean — do you mean that there’ll have to be an inquest?’ Conrad said, in a stupefied tone. ‘On Father."

 ‘Of course.’

Clara, who had been staring at Charmian with dropped jaw and slowly mounting colour, found her voice to say: ‘Inquest? We’ve never had such a thing in our family! I never did in all my life! Why, whatever next. I should like to know? Your father would be furious at the idea of anythin’ like that happenin’! It’ll have to be put a stop to: I won’t have it!’

‘I wish it could be stopped,’ returned Charmian. ‘Unfortunately, it can’t. This is where the police take over. Jolly, isn’t it?’

‘Police?’ Clay gasped. ‘Oh, I say, how awful! Rame must have made a mistake!’

‘Of course he’s made a mistake!’ said Clara, more moved than anyone could remember to have seen her. ‘This is what comes of callin’ in one of these newfangled doctors! I’ve no patience with it! Your father died because he ate and drank too much last night, and that’s all there is to it!’

No one paid any heed to this. Bart got up suddenly, thrusting back his chair. ‘But, my God, this is ghastly!’ he exclaimed. ‘Are you saying that somebody put poison in the Guv’nor’s whisky? One of us?’

Charmian shrugged. Clay was inspired to say: ‘It’s titter piffle! I mean, who would?’

‘Little brother, do you think you could keep your ill-omened mouth shut?’ asked Aubrey plaintively. ‘I am beginning to feel quite too terribly unwell, and that remark has conjured up such a number of daunting reflections that I wish more than ever that I hadn’t stupidly forgotten to bring my vinaigrette with me. I don’t know who would — at least, not yet — but when I think of all who might -well, I needn’t go on, need I?"

‘You figure on the list yourself, don’t you?’ suggested Conrad, not very nicely.

‘Yes, beloved, I should think I am destined to occupy a prominent position on the list, and that is what is upsetting me. Fancy being so unfeeling as to point it out to me in that horrid way! Oh, I do wish I weren’t here!’

‘Do you mean to tell me,’ demanded Clara, ‘that we’re goin’ to have police at Trevellin?’

‘I suppose so,’ replied Charmian.

‘And it’s no use your saying that you’ve never heard of such a thing, Clara love, because they were practically never out of the house when the twins were innocent boys,’ said Aubrey. ‘Not to mention the various occasions when Ray and Ingram and Eugene… ‘

‘That was nothin’!’ interrupted Clara. ‘A bit of boyish devilry, and your father always settled it without any fuss. But this! Well, I shall never get over it!’ Vivian, who had been sitting in silence for some minutes, now said defiantly: ‘If he really was poisoned.. I quite see, of course, that I might have been the person to have done it.’

‘Yes, darling,’ agreed Aubrey, ‘but there’s nothing to be so grand about in that. It would be far more distinguished not to be a suspect. I mean, it’s so obvious, isn’t it, that it’s going to be too dreadfully commonplace to be one of those who might well have murdered Father?’

Bart turned his eyes towards him. ‘Not one of us — not one of us! — would have done such a thing!’ he said fiercely.

‘How sweet of you to say so, Bart! I shouldn’t think it’s in the least true, but I do appreciate the thoroughly nice spirit that inspired you to utter such noble words. I quite thought you would instantly assume that I was the guilty party.’

‘I wouldn’t put it beyond you,’ interpolated Conrad.

‘No, I’m sure you wouldn’t, but that’s only because I wear a maroon velvet jacket and a silk shirt, and you can’t help feeling that such a man would be capable of committing almost any crime.’

‘Well, all I know is that Father had made up his mind to make you live at home, which is about the last thing on earth that would suit your book!’

‘Mustn’t it be lovely to be Conrad?’ said Aubrey, looking round the table. ‘Sitting there in a perfectly unassailable position, making spiteful remarks to me! I cant help entertaining what I admit to be a very ignoble hope that we shall discover that he had a motive for killing Father after all.’

Conrad looked rather taken aback. ‘Look here, who do you consider might have had a motive?’

‘It would be so much easier to tell you who hadn’t,’ replied Aubrey. ‘I shouldn’t think even a policeman could suspect darling Aunt Clara. Unless you’re cherishing a hideous secret, you would appear to be out of the running — but do try not to look so smug about it! It goes against the grain, but I’m bound to say I don’t see what Eugene would have had to gain. Char and Ingram seem to be out of it too. I can’t think of anyone else.’

‘You’d much better not talk about it at all,’ said Clara severely. ‘Depend upon it, it won’t lead to any good.’

‘I don’t know about anyone else, but if you mean to say that you think Bart would have laid a finger on Father ‘

Aubrey sighed. ‘I simply can’t bear it when you start on your oppressive Damon and Pythias act, Con dear. I daresay Bart didn’t do it, but the meanest intelligence — yes, that’s my polite way of saying yours, so that angry flush isn’t wasted — must perceive that he has a perfectly beautiful motive. Of course, if Ray is the murderer, the whole thing is most sordid, because he must have done it for filthy lucre, which one can’t help feeling lets the whole family down; but if Bart did it, his motive, however little it may appeal to me personally, lifts the crime on to a much higher plane. All for Love, in fact. Darling Clara, please pour me out another cup of coffee!’

‘I consider it in the highest degree unlikely that Bart had anything at all to do with it,’ said Charmian, before Bart could speak.

‘Yes, precious, so do I, but if half what one reads is true love has a most peculiar effect, even upon people like Bart. I wouldn’t know. Of course, the thing that would afford one a really subtle gratification would be to find that Faith had atoned for years of almost complete ineffectiveness by — Oh dear, there’s Clay! To think I had nearly committed a social solecism! I didn’t quite though,, did I?"

‘If you imagine I’m going to sit here while you cast your rotten aspersions on my mother, you’re jolly well mistaken!’ said Clay, growing very red in the face, and assuming the blustering tone he was too prone to use when talking to his brothers.

‘Why don’t you knock me down?’ mocked Aubrey. ‘Go on! What are you waiting for?’

‘Oh, shut up!’ said Charmian impatiently. ‘Of all the futile suggestions, Aubrey, that surely takes the cake!’

‘I know, but you must admit it was a very lovely thought. Oh, look! Here’s Ray, looking exactly as though he’d been stuffed!’

Except for glancing scornfully at him, Raymond paid no attention to him. He took his place at the head of the table, and looked down the length of it at Clara. ‘Coffee, please. I take it Char’s told you all what Rame said?’

‘It isn’t true, Ray!’ Bart had been staring out of the window, but he wheeled round to fling these words at his elder brother. ‘It couldn’t be true! Not the Guv’nor!’

‘Oh, isn’t Bart sweet?’ Aubrey said, addressing the company generally. ‘Or don’t you like guilelessness above the age of consent? I think it’s rather touching.’

‘If you don’t keep your damned mouth shut, I’ll knock hell out of you!’ Bart threatened, clenching his fists.

‘The wish is father to the thought, dearie. You wouldn’t believe the number of dirty Japanese tricks I’ve got up my sleeve.’

‘You can both of you keep your mouths shut!’ Raymond said. ‘What good do you imagine you’re doing, bickering like a couple of school kids? We’re in the bloodiest mess possible, let me tell you! By midday it’ll be all over the county that Father’s been murdered! We’re going to be dragged through the mud, all of us! We shall have reporters trying to photograph the scene of the crime, and our name splashed all over the cheaper press!’

‘Will we by God!’ said Conrad. ‘I’d like to see a reporter trying to poke his nose into Trevellin! He’d get something he wasn’t expecting!’

‘You’ll make a fool of yourself if you come to blows with the Press,’ observed Charmian dryly. ‘What happens next, Ray?’

‘The body will be removed for a post-mortem examination. Rame will arrange that with the police.’

‘No!’ Clara arose in her wrath. ‘That’s too much! Ray, I don’t know what you’re thinkin’ about to allow such a thing! It’s not decent!’

‘I’ve no power to stop it. You don’t suppose I want any of this to happen, do you? For God’s sake, don’t you start kicking up a fuss! I’ve had a bad enough time with Martha already.’

‘O God!’ Bart said, in a breaking voice, and plunged out of the room.

Conrad rose from his chair. ‘If it’s found to be true that Father was murdered, I’ll bet I know who did it!’ he said savagely. ‘It ‘ud be just about what she would do, the damned slut that she is!’ He looked down at Aubrey. ‘ As for you, you keep your tongue off Bart!’

Aubrey waited until he had slammed his way out of the room before remarking: ‘Yes, that was always one the possibilities. They say poison is a woman’s weapon don’t they?’

‘I never liked that gal,’ said Clara, shaking her head ‘but I don’t hold with tryin’ to put things on people like that.’

‘I know nothing about Loveday Trewithian,’ said Charmian. ‘What seems to me to be of more importance is the fact that Jimmy the Bastard was out all night, and isn’t yet back.’