Penhallow (4 page)

Faith used to stare at the portrait of Rachel Penhallow, which hung in the hall, trying to imagine what kind of a woman she had been, how she had managed to hold her own against Penhallow, or if she had not. She thought that she had: the painted face was strong, even arrogant, with hard challenging eyes, and a full underlie thrusting lip against the upper. Faith felt that she would have disliked Rachel, perhaps have been afraid of her; and sometimes, in one of her morbidly fanciful moods, she would take the notion into her head that the painted eyes mocked her. She would have liked to have thought that Rachel’s spirit brooded darkly over the house, for she was superstitious by inclination, but it was impossible to suppose that any other spirit than Penhallow’s reigned at Trevellin. So curious was she about her predecessor that during the early years of her marriage, she was forever trying to make those who had known Rachel intimately talk of her, even cultivating a friendship with Delia Ottery, who was Rachel’s younger sister, and who lived with her brother Phineas in a square grey house on the outskirts of Bodmin. But the inconsequent stories Delia told of Rachel did not help her to form a composite picture, because it was plain that Delia, admiring her sister, had yet had no real understanding of her. She knew what Rachel did, but not what Rachel was. She had an unspeculative mind, and was, besides, stupid and very shy. She had developed into the old maid of fiction: there could be nothing in common between her and Faith; and the friendship languished. It had lasted for long enough to provide the young Penhallows with food for ribaldry, Delia having always been regarded by them as the Family Eccentric.

It would have been better for Faith could she but have found a friend, but this she was unable to do, being convinced that she could have nothing in common with her neighbours. They were country-bred, and she was never able to interest herself in country pursuits, always preferring to dwell upon the amenities of the life she had abandoned when she married Penhallow rather than to adapt herself to circumstances. Her relations with the matrons of the district never extended beyond acquaintanceship. She blamed the inelasticity of their minds; it was not given to her to understand that a craving for sympathy was no foundation for friendship.

This craving had grown with the years; because of it she had taken Loveday Trewithian out of the kitchen, and had promoted her to be her personal maid, and, later, her confidante. Loveday was gentle, and patient. She would listen to Faith’s complainings, and agree that she was hardly used; and she invested her services with a tender cajolery immensely gratifying to a woman who all her life long had passionately desired to be cosseted, and considered.

‘Oh, Loveday!’ Faith said, in her fretful voice, when Loveday came into her bedroom. ‘Has anything happened?’

Beside the fair, faded woman in bed, with the thin hands and dilating blue eyes, Loveday Trewithian seemed to glow with life and vigour. She lifted the breakfast-tray from her mistress’s knees, and smiled  down at her warmly. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said soothingly.

‘I thought I heard Mr Penhallow shouting,’ Faith said falteringly.

‘Yes, sure,’ Loveday said. ‘My uncle Reuben’s saying it’s Mr Aubrey that’s made him angry. You don’t need to upset yourself, ma’am.’

Faith relaxed on to her pillows with a little sigh, her mind relieved of its most pressing anxiety, that Clay, whose career at Cambridge was not fulfilling his early promise, might have done something to enrage his father. She watched Loveday set the tray down near the door, and begin to move about the room, laying out what clothes she thought Faith would wear. Her mind turned to a lesser care; she said: ‘The bath water was tepid again this morning. I do think Sybilla might pay a little attention to it."

‘I’ll speak to her for you, ma’am, never fear! They say it’s the system that’s wrong.’

‘Everything’s out-of-date or out-of-order in this house!’ I’aith said.

‘It isn’t fit for a delicate lady like you, ma’am, to have to live where there’s so little comfort,’ murmured Loveday. ‘It’s wonderful the way you put up with it, surely.’

‘Nobody cares whether it’s fit for me or not,’ Faith said. ‘I’m used to that. Trevellin never agreed with me. I never feel well here, and you know how badly I sleep. I had to take my drops last night, and even then I had a wretched night!’

‘It’s your nerves, and no wonder!’ Loveday said. ‘You ought to get away for a change, ma’am, if I may say so. This is no place for you.’

‘I wish I could go away, and never come back!’ Faith said, half to herself.

A knock sounded on the door, and before she could reply to it Vivian had walked in. Loveday set the brushes straight on the dressing-table, picked up the breakfast tray, and went away. Faith saw from the crease between Vivian’s brows that she was in one of her moods, and at once said in a failing voice that she had passed a miserable night and had a splitting headache.

‘I’m not surprised at all,’ responded Vivian. ‘Your precious husband saw to it we should all have thoroughly disturbed nights.’

‘Oh! I didn’t know,’ Faith said nervously. ‘Was he awake in the night?’

‘Was he! You’re lucky: you don’t sleep on his side of the house. When he wasn’t pealing his bell, he was shouting for Martha. Disgusting old hag!’ Vivian took a cigarette from a battered packet in the pocket of her tweed jacket, and lit it. ‘Is it true that she was one of his mistresses?’ she asked casually. ‘Eugene says she was.’

Faith flushed scarlet, and sat up in bed. ‘That’s just the sort of thing Eugene would say!’ she said angrily. ‘And I should have thought you would have had more decent feeling than to have repeated it to me!’

‘Oh, sorry!’ Vivian answered. ‘Only Penhallow’s affairs are always so openly talked about that I didn’t think you’d mind. It’s no use pretending you don’t know anything about them, Faith, because of course you do. And for God’s sake don’t pretend that you mind, because I know darned well you don’t.’

"Well, I do mind!’ said Faith. ‘You needn’t think that because I say nothing I like having that old woman in my house, doing all the sort of things for Adam which any decent man would have had a valet for! But I think it’s disgraceful of Eugene to go about saying she used to be Adam’s mistress! Even if it were true, such things are better not spoken of.’

‘I don’t know,’ Vivian said reflectively. ‘Practically the only thing I like about the Penhallows — except Eugene, of course — is their way of having everything aboveboard ;and freely spoken of. I mean, there’s nothing furtive about them.’

‘I was brought up to consider that certain things were better left unsaid!’ said Faith primly.

‘So was I, and damned dull it was. If you wouldn’t pretend so much—’

‘You seem to forget that I’m Eugene’s stepmother,’ said Faith, snatching at the rags of her dignity.

‘Oh, don’t be silly! You’re not quite eleven years older than I am, and I know perfectly well that you loathe this place as much as I do. But I do think you might do something to make it more possible! After all, you’re Penhallow’s wife! But just look at the servants, for a start! Sybilla’s just been extremely insolent to Eugene, and as for Reuben, and that loathsome creature, Jimmy-"

‘It’s no use complaining to me,’ interrupted Faith. ‘I can’t do anything about it. And Sybilla’s a good cook. I should like to know who else would stay in a place like this, or cook for a positive army of people on a stove that was out-of-date twenty years ago! I’m only thankful she and Reuben do stay.’

‘And then there’s that maid of yours,’ Vivian continued, disregarding her. ‘You’ll have to get rid of her, Faith.’

‘Get rid of Loveday! I’ll do no such thing! She’s the one person in the house who considers me!’

‘Yes, I know, but Aunt Clara always says she’s a double-faced girl.’

‘I don’t want to listen to what Clara says! She’s a spiteful old woman, and just because I’m fond of Love day—-’

‘No, it isn’t that. They all say the same. Bart’s at his old tricks again. It’s absolutely fatal to employ good-looking servants in this house. I should have thought you must have known that.’

‘Loveday Trewithian is a thoroughly nice girl, and I won’t hear a word against her!’

‘Eugene says she means to marry Bart.’

Faith’s blue eyes started a little. She stammered: ‘I don’t believe it! Bart wouldn’t—-’

‘I know he’s never wanted to marry any of his other bits of stuff,’ said Vivian, ‘but honestly, Faith, he does seem to have gone in off the deep end this time. Conrad’s livid with jealousy. You must have noticed it! Eugene says—

‘I ‘I don’t want to hear what Eugene says! He always was a mischief-maker, and I don’t believe one word of this!’

Any criticism of Eugene at once alienated Vivian. She put out her cigarette in the grate, and got up, saying coldly: ‘You can believe what you like, but if you’ve a grain of sense you’ll get rid of the girl. I don’t know if Bart means to marry her or not, and I care less, but if it’s true, and Penhallow gets to hear of it, you’ll wish you’d paid attention to me, that’s all.’

‘I don’t believe a word of it!’ Faith repeated, on the verge of tears.

Vivian opened the door, remarking over her shoulder: ‘You never believe anything you don’t want to believe. I’ve no patience with people like you.’

After she had gone, Faith lay for quite half an hour thinking how brutal Vivian had been, and how rude, and how no one cared for her nerves, or hesitated to upset her when she had had a bad night. It was characteristic of her that she did not let her mind dwell on the unwelcome tidings which Vivian had imparted. If they were true, there would be the sort of trouble she dreaded; but she did not want to dismiss Loveday, and so she refused even to contemplate the possibility of their being true.

It was past ten o’clock when Faith at last got up and began to dress. Fortunately for herself, and indeed for the rest of the household, it was Sybilla Lanner who undertook the housekeeping at Trevellin. She had done so from the time of Rachel’s death. An attempt by Faith, in the early days of her marriage, to take the reins into her own hands had failed, not because Sybilla opposed it, or showed the slightest jealousy of the new Mrs Penhallow, but because Faith had no idea how to cater for a large family, and was, besides, the kind of woman who could never remember people’s individual tastes. Easy-going, slovenly, wasteful Sybilla, never planning ahead, always sending one of the maids running to the village to buy another couple of loaves of bread or a tin of baking powder, yet never forgot that Mr Raymond would not touch treacle, or that Mr Conrad liked his eggs fried on both sides, or that the Master would not eat a pasty unless scalded cream was served with it, in the old-fashioned way. On the only two occasions that Faith’s aunt, who had brought her up, visited her at Trevellin, she had exclaimed against Sybilla’s extravagance, and had tried to introduce her to more methodical ways. She had failed. Sybilla, soft-spoken like all her race, agreed with every word she said, and continued to rule the kitchen as she had ruled it for years.

By the time Faith came out of her bedroom it was eleven o’clock, and the family had dispersed. The maids were still making beds, emptying slops, and raising a dust with long-handled brooms; for since no one bothered to oversee their work they went about it in a cheerful, leisurely fashion, with a good deal of chatter, and singing, and no attention paid to the clock. Faith remarked, encountering a stout girl who had just come out of Raymond’s room with a dustpan-and-brush in her hand, that the rooms ought to have been finished an hour ago. The girl agreed with her, smiling good-humouredly, and adding that they did seem to be a bit behindhand today. They were always behindhand. Faith passed on, down the wide, oaken stair, feeling irritated, knowing that she ought to look after the maids better, but telling herself that she had neither the health nor the energy to train raw country girls.

The stairs led down to the central hall, a low-pitched, irregularly-shaped space with several passages leading from it, and a number of doors. Rachel’s portrait hung over the great stone fireplace, facing the staircase; a gateleg table, with a bowl of flowers on it, stood in the middle of the hall; there were several Jacobean chairs, with tall carved backs, and worn seats; a faded Persian rug; a large jar containing peacocks’ feathers, which stood in one corner; an ancient oak coffer; a coal-scuttle of tarnished copper; two saddle-back armchairs; a Chippendale what-not, its several tiers piled with old newspapers, magazines, garden-scissors, balls of string, and other such oddments; and a kneehole-desk, of hideous design, under one of the windows which flanked the open front door. Besides Rachel’s portrait, the walls bore several landscapes, in heavy gilt frames; a collection of mounted masks and pads; four stags’ heads; two warming-pans; a glass case enclosing a stuffed otter; and a fumed oak wall-fixture, from whose hooks depended a number of hunting-crops and dog-whips.

The season was late spring, and the air which stole in through the open Gothic door was sharp, and made Faith shiver. She crossed the hall to the morning-room, a pleasantly shabby apartment which looked out on to a tangle of shrubbery and flower-beds. There was no one in the room, or in the Yellow drawing-room which led out of it. She guessed that her sister-in-law was either gardening amongst the ferns which were her obsession, or driving herself along the hollow lanes in her high dogcart, behind the rawboned horse which Faith always thought so like her. She looked about for the morning’s paper, and, not finding it, left the room, and went to look in the dining-room for it. She was returning with it in her hand when Reuben came into the hall from the broad passage which led to the western end of the house, and delivered an unwelcome message.

‘Master wants to see you, m’m.’

‘Oh! Yes, of course. I was just going,’ she said. She always hoped that the servants were not aware of her dread of Penhallow, who seemed to her so much more monstrous now that he was confined nearly always to his bed. ‘Loveday tells me that he isn’t so well this morning,’ she added.

‘I knew how it would be when he was so set on having Sybilla bake him a starry-gaze pie,’ responded Reuben gloomily. " It never did agree with him.’