Penhallow (36 page)

‘That,’ said Charmian, preparing to hold the stage, ‘is rank bad psychology. Faith’s behaviour is perfectly consistent with her whole mental make-up, and outlook on life. I know the type well. I haven’t the smallest doubt that she is quite sincere in her present grief, just as I am sure that she was equally sincere when she thought herself unhappy with Father. Her nature is shallow; she is easily swayed, and extremely impressionable. She is the sort of woman who, having complained of her wrongs for God knows how many years, will now spend the rest of her life telling herself that she was always a perfect wife to Father. Just at the moment, she’s had a severe shock, which has jolted her out of her normal rut. I daresay she’s suffering from a good deal of remorse, wishing she’d made more allowances for Father, and that sort of thing, and remembering the days when she was in love with him. It won’t last, but it’s all perfectly sincere while it does.’

‘You may be right, my dear Char,’ said Eugene languidly, ‘but in justice to Vivian I must observe that Faith has given us all the impression, for longer than I care to reckon up, that she would regard Father’s death as an unmixed blessing.’

‘My good Eugene, can’t you realise that there are a great many people in the world, of whom Faith is one, who talk vaguely about what they want to happen, and not only are horrified when it does happen, but find as well that they didn’t really want it at all?’ said Charmian scornfully. ‘It is typical of Faith that she must always have a grievance. She’s the kind of woman who enjoys a grievance! She’d rather keep it than lift a finger to set it right, as often and often she might have done, merely by exerting herself a little. What is more, she dramatises herself incessantly. Oh, quite unconsciously! It has been my experience that many ineffectual and supine people do. It’s their only form of mental exertion –if you can call it mental! At the moment, she is seeing herself as the sorrowing widow. Really seeing herself! You can call it hypocrisy if you like: I don’t, because I understand her perfectly, and I know that she believes so thoroughly in her own poses that they cease to be poses, and become an integral part of her character.’

‘Thank you very much,’ said Eugene, in an extinguished voice. ‘I’m sure we’re all most grateful to you for your masterly exposition of Faith’s character. And now may we talk about something interesting?’

‘As a matter of fact,’ interposed Ingram, before Charmian could wither Eugene, ‘I came up to have word with you, Char. Something I want to talk to about.’  

‘I’m at your disposal,’ replied Charmian briskly ‘Come into the library!’

‘Oh, Char darling, don’t say you’re going to talk secrets with Ingram!’ begged Aubrey, looking up from the embroidery which he had brought down from his room, and was working on under the light thrown by one of the lamps. ‘I was just going to ask your advice about this spray I’m about to start on. Do you think a blending of russet-tones would be rather lovely?’

No one supposed for a moment that Aubrey felt the faintest interest in Charmian’s opinion of his work; but although Eugene refused to be drawn, Ingram rendered the gambit an outstanding success by turning to glare at Aubrey with a mixture of loathing and astonishment in his face. He had not previously noticed his deplorable young brother’s occupation, for which reason Aubrey, who had hoped to infuriate the twins, and was feeling defrauded by their tiresome absence, took care to call his attention to it. He at once delivered himself of a scathing denunciation of Aubrey’s character and habits, employing so many well-worn phrases, and looking so extremely like the military man of any farce, that even Eugene’s lips twitched, and he said: ‘An officer and a gentleman, sir!’ while Aubrey himself was so entranced that he forgot to add fuel to this promising blaze, and only recovered his presence of mind when Charmian began to drag Ingram out of the room.

‘Don’t be such a fool, Ingram!’ Charmian said impatiently. ‘Can’t you see he’s trying to get a rise out of you?’

‘Puppy!’ said Ingram.

‘Char, my precious, don’t, don’t take him away! Not before he’s said he’d have liked to have had me under him in the regiment! Oh, I do think you’re mean, I do, really!’

Charmian, however, was unmoved by this plea, and marched Ingram off to the library. As she lit the central lamp in this rather dismal apartment, she said severely: ‘You simply make him more outrageous by taking any notice of him. He does it to annoy you.’

‘He’s a namby-pamby, effeminate — well, I won’t say!’

‘Good lord, I know all about Aubrey! As a matter of fact, he isn’t such a wet as you might think. I never saw anyone ride straighter to hounds.’

‘That makes it worse!’ said Ingram, not very intelligibly, but with immense conviction. ‘But I didn’t come here to talk about that young so-and-so! Now, look here, Char, you’ve got a head on your shoulders! What’s your frank opinion about Father’s death?’

‘I don’t know. What’s yours?’

‘Well, I’ve been having a long pow-wow with Myra about it, and we both of us feel the same. Of course, it isn’t for me to say anything — damned awkward position, and all that! — but taking one thing with another, and looking at it all round — perfectly dispassionately, mind you! — everything points in the same direction.’

‘You mean you think Ray did it.’

‘Well, what do you think?’

‘I’ve told you: I don’t know. I shouldn’t have thought he was the sort to poison anyone, but as I said this morning, he takes his own line. I’ve never got to the bottom of Ray, and I don’t suppose I ever shall.’

‘Never did hit it off with the old man, you know. It struck me lately that things were worse between them than usual. And then there’s this extraordinary busing,  about his trying to strangle Father! Upon my word Char, I could hardly believe it! I don’t hold any brief for Ray, but I honestly didn’t think he was as bad as that. Seems to me a perfectly astonishing affair.’

‘Yes,’ Charmian agreed thoughtfully. ‘I wonder what Father did to make him lose his temper to that extent?’

‘Oh, some row about money! They’ve had any number.’

‘I know that. But they never ended in that kind of a scene before. I can’t help feeling that there’s something very odd behind it.’

‘Connected with Uncle Phin?’

‘That I can’t make up my mind about.’

‘Frightful thing if it was Ray,’ Ingram remarked, in rather an unconvincing tone.

Charmian disliked blatant insincerity, and said at once: ‘It would suit your book all right, wouldn’t it?’

‘Now, look here, Char!’ expostulated Ingram, reddening. ‘That’s a poisonous thing to say! I don’t pretend that I’ve ever got on with Ray, but I call it a bit thick to insinuate…’

‘I wasn’t insinuating. You can’t stand Ray at any price, and he can’t stand you. You probably think you’d make a better head of the family than he will, and you know darned well that life won’t be nearly so easy for you now he’s holding the purse-strings.’

Ingram looked disconcerted by this forthright speech, and muttered: ‘Never thought of such things! All the same, I shouldn’t want to get rid of the rest of the family if I were the heir!’

‘Well, my opinion is that it may be the saving of the family to be obliged to fend for themselves.’

As Ingram chose to take this as a reflection upon himself, the interview came to an abrupt end. Charmian went away to write her nightly letter to Leila Morpeth; and Ingram returned to the Yellow drawing-room to propound his views to Eugene.

Eugene, who was more worried than he cared to admit, would have subscribed to any theory which exonerated Vivian; and although he privately considered it unlikely that Raymond would have descended to such a weapon as poison, he did not like Raymond, knew very well that he would receive little, if any, pecuniary assistance from him in the future, and so experienced no difficulty in suppressing his inner scepticism, and discovering a number of good reasons for believing him to be guilty. Clara was distressed, and made several attempts to put an end to the discussion, maintaining stoutly her conviction that it was Jimmy who had killed Penhallow; but Vivian, who for all her brazen attitude was haunted by dread, supported Ingram, rather in the manner of one catching at a straw. Clay, who had come back into the room, also added his mite, with more eagerness than was seemly; but he was speedily reduced to silence by Aubrey, who looked up from his needlework to say kindly: ‘Dear little fellow, we all feel sure you believe Ray did it, but you must learn to be seen and not heard. Besides, it’s very dangerous to draw attention to yourself. What with one thing and another — well, you see my point, don’t you?’

This had the effect, first of shutting Clay up, and then of making him leave the room to seek reassurance of his  mother.

Faith, coaxed by Loveday to eat some dinner, feeling better, and had begun to argue herself into the belief that the police would never discover the authors of the crime; but a very little of her son’s companionship sufficed to throw her back into a condition of extreme terror. Clay’s account of the discussion at present in progress downstairs made her eyes dilate. She sail faintly: ‘No, no! Of course it wasn’t Ray! How can they say such a thing?’

‘Well, but Mother, you must admit it does look fishy. I mean, we know he went for Father yesterday morning_

he didn’t deny it. And, on top of that, we know he had rows with Father about his spending so much. Then, too, he’s the heir. What’s more, he’s behaving damned queerly, you know. Of course, I know he’s always a surly sort of a chap, but honestly, Mother, ever since Father was killed-’

‘Stop!’ Faith exclaimed, sitting bolt upright in bed. ‘You mustn’t say such things, Clay! I — I forbid you! It’s wicked! I know Ray didn’t do it!’

‘It’s all very well to say that, but you can’t know it,’ objected Clay. ‘It’s obvious the police have got their eyes on him. He’s the one who stands to gain the most. And what about all that business with Uncle Phin? It stood out a mile that there was something up between the pair of them. Why was Ray so anxious to squash the idea that Uncle Phin could have had anything to do with it? For he was: no getting away from that! What did Uncle Phin come up here for today? I’ll bet it wasn’t just to inquire after you! No: he and Ray have got some kind of an understanding.’

She broke in on this to say in a desperate tone: ‘What can Phineas Ottery possibly have had to gain through your father’s death? They scarcely ever met! It’s the most absurd, the most far-fetched-’

‘Well, what did he want with Father yesterday, Mother? And why did Ray say he hadn’t seen him, when he had?’

‘I don’t know — I can’t imagine! There’s probably some perfectly simple explanation!’

‘Of course, I quite see that it’ll be a shocking affair, if it does turn out to be Ray, but, after all, Mother, it’ll be just as bad if it was Aubrey, or Bart.’

‘Aubrey or Bart!’

‘Well, Con thinks it was Loveday, but I can’t see why it mightn’t just as well have been Bart. Apparently, Father had put a complete spoke in his wheel, and you have to bear in mind that in all probability he was afraid Father meant to cut him out of his will. Or it might have been Bart and Loveday between them. In fact—’

‘Clay, I tell you I can’t bear this! How dare you talk like that? I won’t permit it! What would you feel if they spoke about you in this dreadful way?’

He gave an uneasy laugh. ‘As a matter of fact, Aubrey as good as told me he believed I’d done it. I know very well they all think I might have. Of course, it merely amuses me, because it’s so utterly absurd, but all the same-’

She turned so white that he was startled. ‘Aubrey — no, no, they wouldn’t pay any attention to him! He always says spiteful things. The police don’t think you had anything to do with it!’

‘Oh, lord, no! Well, I mean to say, why should they? said Clay, with an assumption of carelessness.

The prospect he had conjured up, however, was terrible enough to keep his mother awake long into the night; and when, during the following day, it became apparent that the police were pursuing their investigations very strictly, and were fast bringing to light even circumstance which the family would have wished to bury in decent oblivion, she began to look so hag-ridden, that Charmian observed dispassionately that she would probably end up in a Home for Nervous Breakdown Cases.

It was amazing how easily the police seemed to be able to ferret out information. A chance word led them to question first this member of the household, and then that one discovered, to one’s dismay, how little had ever taken place in the family of which the servants had not had the fullest cognizance. The between-maid had heard Clay say that he would go mad if his father forced him to work in his cousin’s office; all the housemaids remembered perfectly being sent to find Mr Bart, and send him to his father’s room, and recounted with zest the rage Penhallow had been in at the time; Martha disclosed that Penhallow had, previously to that occasion, summoned Loveday Trewithian to his presence, and had also questioned her on the relationship between. Loveday and Bart. Martha, who had no love for Faith, told too of the occasion when Penhallow had rung for her to remove his weeping wife from his sight. Encouraged by Inspector Logan, she dilated upon this theme, with the result that the Inspector formed the opinion that her stories, were greatly exaggerated. As he had by that time reached an understanding of the peculiar position she had held in the house ever since the first Mrs Penhallow’s death, he had no difficulty in concluding that she was actuated largely by jealousy of haith. That Penhallow had often reduced his meek, laded wife to tears he did not doubt: he had already had evidence of the astonishing ease with which Faith shed tears. He did not exclude her from his list of possibles, but he did not consider it likely that, having borne patiently with Penhallow for twenty years, she should suddenly have taken it into her head to murder him. That she might have done it on her son’s behalf did not appear to him to be a tenable theory. The fate Penhallow had had in store for Clay did not strike Inspector Logan as being at all terrible. He could appreciate that a young gentleman might object strenuously to being removed from college (where he had obviously been wasting his time), but he set very little store by the various accounts he heard of his hysterical pronouncements. Young gentlemen of Clay’s type were much given, in the Inspector’s experience, to talking a lot of wild nonsense, and behaving as though the end of the world had come when they had to do things they didn’t fancy doing. To be articled to his own cousin, well known to be a very nice and sporting gentleman, and to be kept at home, with nothing to pay for his board, and every agreeable luxury of horses and cars and such-like at his disposal, could hardly be expected to impress the Inspector as being anything but a very pleasant life; and even if he had been able to believe that Clay, who seemed to him a silly, spoilt sort of a young man, might not have liked the career planned for him, it would have been quite incomprehensible to him that his mother should not have perceived the advantages of having him so well provided for, and, moreover, kept at home under her fond eye.