Penhallow (5 page)

Faith barely repressed a shudder. Penhallow had suddenly taken it into his head, on the previous day, to demand a dish rarely seen now in Cornwall. He had wanted to know why starry-gaze pies were never served at Trevellin, had recalled those made under his grandmother’s auspices, had reviled the modern generation for turning away from the customs of their fathers, and had ended by sending for Sybilla, and commanding her to make him a starry-gaze pie for his dinner. By God, they should all of them have starry-gaze pie for dinner, and know what good Cornish food could be like! He had got up from his huge bed, and had had himself wheeled into the dining-room to preside over this memorable meal, and had had the pie set down before him, so that he could serve it with his own hands. Since eight persons sat down to dinner, the pie was of generous proportions, a great mound of pastry through which protruded the heads of a number of pilchards. Faith had felt sick, but she had forced herself to eat some of it, lacking the moral courage which made Vivian reject it with loathing.

She thought privately that a bout of indigestion served her husband right; and hoped that it might prevent his again demanding this objectionable dish.

As though he read this thought, Reuben said: ‘But no one won’t get him to believe it was the pie, tell him till Doomsday, set in his ways, that’s what he is.’

It seemed to her beneath her dignity to discuss her husband with his manservant, so she returned no answer, but laid the newspaper down on the table, and moved towards the corridor which ran along the back of the western end of the house.

A series of small windows, set deep in the stone wall, lit the corridor, which led past a winding staircase to a smaller hall with a door leading out of the back of the house into Clara’s fern-garden. Beyond this, double doors gave on to a room which seemed to have been designed as a ballroom, and which had been for several years Penhallow’s bedroom.

Faith hesitated for a moment, with her hand on the door, and her head slightly bent to catch any sound of voices within the room. She could hear nothing, and after drawing in her breath, rather in the manner of a diver about to plunge into deep waters, she turned the handle, and went in.

Chapter Three

The room into which Faith Penhallow stepped occupied the whole of the floor space at the western end of the house, and had windows at each end, those at the front looking out on to the sweep of the avenue leading down to the lodge-gates, and the lawn and fields beyond; and those at the back overlooking an enclosed garden, surrounded on three sides by a grey, creeper-hung wall. This wing of the house had been added to the original structure in the seventeenth century; Penhallow’s room was wainscoted from floor to ceiling, and contained, besides some magnificent mouldings, a superb fireplace on the wall between the double doors through which Faith had come, and another, single door leading into a dressing-room at the front of the house. This fireplace was most richly carved, its lofty mantelpiece upheld, on either side of the big square cavity where a log fire burned on a huge pile of woodash, by caryatids. The room was higher-pitched than the rooms in the main part of the house, and had a very fine plaster ceiling, somewhat damaged in places by cracks, and blackened by smoke, which would occasionally puff out from the hearth, when the wind was in the wrong quarter. The heavy wainscoting made the room dark, in spite of the windows at each end, but the first impression anyone entering it was of colour, so varied and unexpected as to make the uninitiated blink.

The room was crammed with furniture, and ornanments jostled one another on the mantelpiece, on the tops of several chests, over several small tables which had been fitted into any vacant space that offered. These, like the  incredible assortment of furniture, seemed to have been chosen without regard to period or congruity, which was indeed the case, Penhallow having crammed into the room every piece that took his fancy. Thus, a red lacquer cabinet, with an ivory figure of the god Ho-Ti on the top of it, stood between the two windows at one end of the room, and two repulsive plant-holders, fashioned of bamboo and each containing some half-a-dozen pots of tropical greenery, stood under the corresponding windows at the other end of the room. Flanking the fireplace were two enormous malachite vases, on consoles, which had been wrested from the Yellow drawing-room. In one corner stood a marble-topped wash-stand of red mahogany, imperfectly hidden by a cheap Japanese screen which showed a covey of golden birds flying on a black ground. Close to this, on the wall opposite to the fireplace, was a marquetry chest, mellow with age, rubbing shoulders with a delicate table of yellow satinwood, squeezed between it and the bed. Beyond the bed, a walnut tallboy confronted a round table covered with a crimson chenille cloth, and a Carolinian day-bed of particularly graceful design, whose frayed cane seat and back were fitted with squabs of faded wine-red velvet. Penhallow’s wheeled chair stood in the corner, and a long refectory table, piled with books, papers, decanters, medicine-bottles, and a canvas-bag from which several dog-biscuits had spilled, occupied most of the space behind the front windows. A mahogany corner-cupboard hung beside the door into the dressing-room; several armchairs of varied design and colour were scattered about the room, together with a pair of rush-seated ladder-back chairs; an early Chippendale stool, with cabriole legs and claw-and-ball feet; an angular seat of Gothic design and unsurpassed discomfort; and a large chesterfield, which was drawn across the foot of the bed. There were no pictures on the walls, but a convex mirror of Queen Anne date, set in a gilded frame, hung over the mantelpiece, and there were a number of candle-sconces round the room. On the mantelpiece, a gilt time-piece with an enamelled face, and supported by nymphs and cherubim, stood under a glass dome, and was flanked by a pair of Rockingham pheasants, one or two pieces belonging to an old chess-set, and two groups of bronze horses. The corner by the double doors was taken up by a grandfather clock of Chippendale-chinois; and, placed wherever space could be found for them, were some small, spindle-legged tables, covered with punch-spoons, snuff boxes, patch-boxes, Bristol paper-weights, and Dresden figures.

But it was not the medley of ornaments, the crowded furniture, or the juxtaposition of wine-red and crimson and the hot scarlet of Chinese lacquer which instantly claimed and held the visitor’s attention. Colour rioted in the carpet which almost covered the floor, grass-green curtains swore at chairs upholstered in peacock-blue, but they all faded into neutrality beside the blaze of colour thrown over Penhallow’s bed in the form of a patchwork quilt sewn in multi-coloured hexagons of satin, velvet and brocade.

The bed itself dominated the room. It might have burn supposed that so massive and antiquated a structure had been in the family for generations: in actual fact Penhallow had bought it at a sale some years previously. It was an enormous four-poster of painted wood, hung about with curtains of mulberry velvet, much rubbed and faded with age, with a ceiling painted with a design of cupids and rose-garlands, and an intricate arrangement of cupboards and drawers set in the tall headpiece. It stood uncomfortably high, and was wide enough to have accommodated four people without undue crowding. In the middle of it, banked up by a selection of pillows and cushions, and wearing an ancient dressing-gown over his pyjamas, lay Penhallow, a mountainous ruin of a man, with a hawk-nose jutting between bloated cheeks; fierce, malicious eyes staring beneath brows that were still jet-black and bushy; and an arrogant, intemperate mouth. His hair was grizzled, and it could be seen that he had developed a huge paunch. Around him, spread over the splendour of the quilt, were a variety of books, periodicals, cigar-cases, match-boxes, ledgers, letters, and a dish piled with fruit. At the foot of the bed, panting slightly, lay an aged and rather smelly Cocker spaniel, as obese as her master. It was her amiable custom to growl at anyone entering Penhallow’s room, and she made no exception in Faith’s favour.

‘Good bitch!’ said Penhallow approvingly.

Faith shut the door behind her, and moved towards an armchair which stood at some distance from the fire.

The room was uncomfortably warm, the pile of woodash in the hearth glowing red under a couple of smouldering logs. Except during the very few weeks in the year when Penhallow allowed his fire to go out, the ash was never removed. It made the dusting of his bedroom one of the labours of Hercules, but that was a consideration which naturally did not weigh with him.

‘Good morning, Adam,’ Faith said, her anxious eyes trying to read his face. ‘I’m so sorry you had a bad night. I didn’t sleep at all well myself.’

She knew from the curl of his full lips, and the gleam in his eyes, that he was in one of his bad moods. He was always like that after a disturbed night. She guessed that he had sent for her to make himself unpleasant, and felt her heart begin to thump against her ribs.

‘Didn’t sleep well, didn’t you?’ he said jeeringly. ‘What have you got to keep you awake? You weren’t worrying. your empty head over me, at all events. Loving wife, aren’t you?’

‘I didn’t know you were awake. Of course I would have come down if I’d known you wanted me.’

He gave a bark of laughter. ‘A lot of use you’d have been! By God, I don’t know how I came to tie myself up to such a poor creature!’

She was silent, her colour fluctuating nervously. He observed this sign of agitation with open satisfaction. ‘Lily-livered, that’s what you are,’ he said. ‘You’ve got no spirit. Eugene’s little cat of a wife’s worth a dozen of you.’

She said imploringly: ‘I can’t bear quarrelling, Adam.’

‘My first wife would have cut my face open with her riding-whip for half of what you take lying down,’ he taunted her.

She was aware that he would like her better for storming at him; she was unable to do it: she would never all her life long, overcome her sick dread of being shouted at by a loud, angry voice. With her genius for saying the wrong thing, she faltered: ‘I’m different, Adam."

He burst out laughing in good earnest at that, throwing his head back, so that his laughter seemed to reverberate from the painted ceiling of his preposterous bed. To Faith’s ears, it held a note of savage gloating. She rested her thin hands on the arms of her chair, and sat tense, flushing. ‘Different!’ he ejaculated. ‘By God, you are! Look at Rachel’s brats, and at that whelp of yours!’

Her flush died, leaving her cheeks very pale. She looked anxiously at him. She thought that of course she should have known that he would attack Clay.

He shifted his bulk in bed, so that he was able to look more directly at her. ‘Well,’ he said abruptly, ‘I can’t discover that that precious son of yours is doing any good at Cambridge, or likely to.’

It was true that Clay’s University career had been, so far, disappointing, but he had not, to her knowledge, disgraced himself in any way, and she could hardly suppose that scholastic attainments would have interested his father. She said: ‘I don’t know what you mean. I’m sur -’

‘I mean it’s a waste of money keeping him there,’ Penhallow interrupted. ‘He’s wasting his time, that’s what he’s doing!’

‘I don’t know why you should say so, Adam. It isn’t as though he’d done anything ‘

‘Damme, woman, don’t be such a fool!’ he exploded, making her start. ‘I know he hasn’t done anything! That’s what I’m saying! He doesn’t row, he doesn’t play a game, he doesn’t want to join the Drag, he isn’t even man enough to get into mischief. He’s a namby-pamby young good-for-nothing, and I’ll be damned if I’ll keep him eating his head off there for the pleasure of seeing him come home a couple of years on with a Pass degree!’

‘I’m sure I don’t know why you should mind his not doing as well as — as we’d expected,’ Faith said, plucking up courage in defence of her darling. ‘You always said book-learning didn’t run in your family.’ It occurred to her that his attack on Clay was more than usually unjust. Roused to indignation, she said, ‘I should like to know what Eugene did at Oxford, or Aubrey either, for that matter! It’s simply because it’s Clay that you go on like this!’

A sardonic chuckle shook him. ‘You’d like to know, would you? They’re a couple of young scoundrels, both of ‘em, but neither of ‘em spent three years at Oxford without leaving their marks, I can tell you that!’ He stabbed a thick finger at her. ‘But it didn’t do them a bit of good! That’s what I’m saying. They learned a lot of damned nonsense there, and I was a fool to send ‘em. My other boys are worth a dozen of that pair. What use is Eugene, I should like to know, writing for a pack of half-baked newspapers, and keeping his feet dry in case he should catch a cold? As for young Aubrey, if I’d kept him at home and set him to work under Ray, I’d have done better by him! I’ve had trouble enough with Bart and Con, but, by God, give me a couple of lusty young rogues who take their pleasures in the way they were meant to, rather than that covey of unhealthy intellectuals Aubrey runs with ."

‘It isn’t fair to blame Oxford for what Aubrey does,’ Faith protested feebly. ‘Besides, Clay isn’t in the least like that. Clay’s a very good boy, and I’m sure— ‘ She broke off for she saw by his face that she had said the wrong thing again.

‘Clay’s nothing,’ he said shortly. ‘No guts, no spunk, not one bit of devil in him! ‘Takes after you, my dear.’

She turned away her eyes from the derisive smile in his. A black cat with a nocked ear, which had been curled  up in a chair by the fire, woke, and stretched, and began to perform an extensive toilet.