Penhallow (6 page)

Penhallow selected an apple from the dish of fruit on the bed, and took a large bite out of it. ‘I’m going to put him to work with Cliff,’ he said casually.

She looked up quickly. ‘With Clifford,’ she repeated. ‘ Clay?"

"That’s right,’ agreed Penhallow, chewing his apple.

‘You can’t do that!’ she exclaimed.

‘What’s to stop me?’ inquired Penhallow almost amiably.

‘But, Adam, why? What has he done? It isn’t fair!’

‘He hasn’t done anything. That’s why I’ll be damned it I’ll keep him eating his head off at college. You had a notion he was cut out for a scholar. I’d no objection. The hell of a lot of scholarship he’s shown! All right! If he ain’t going to be a scholar what’s the sense of leaving him there? A country solicitor’s about all he’s fit to be, and that’s what he shall be. Cliff’s willing to take him.’

She stammered: ‘He isn’t cut out for it! He’d hate it! He wants to write!’

‘Wants to write, does he? So that’s his idea! Well, you can tell him to get rid of it! There are two of my spawn playing at that game already, and there isn’t going to be a third. He’ll study law with Cliff.’ He spat out a pip, and added: ‘He can live here, and Ray can see what he can do towards licking him into some kind of shape.’

‘Oh, no!’ she cried out involuntarily. ‘He’d hate it! He doesn’t care for the country. He’s much happier in town. This place doesn’t agree with him any more than it agrees with me.’

He heaved himself up in bed, his countenance alarmingly suffused with colour. ‘So that’s the latest, is it? He doesn’t care for Trevellin! By God, if you weren’t such a spiritless little fool I should wonder if you’d played me false, my girl! Or is this a notion out of your own head? Do you tell me that a son of mine is going to tell me to my face that he doesn’t care for his birthplace?’

She reflected that nothing was more unlikely. Passing her tongue between her lips, she said: ‘You forget that he’s my son as well as yours, Adam.’

‘I don’t forget he’s your son,’ he interrupted brutally. ‘The only doubt I have is whether he’s mine.’

The insult left her unmoved; she scarcely attended to it. With one of her inept attempts to divert him, she said: ‘You aren’t feeling well this morning. We can discuss it another time.’

He pitched the core of his apple into the fire, and licked his fingers before answering her. ‘There’s nothing to discuss. I’ve had it out with Cliff. It’s all settled.’

‘You shan’t do it!’ she cried. ‘I won’t let you, I won’t! Clay at least shan’t be tied to this hateful place as I am! It isn’t fair! You’re only doing it to hurt me! You’re cruel, Adam, cruel!’

‘That’s a good one!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why, you bloodless little idiot, a lad with an ounce of spirit in him would thank me for it! I’m giving him a damned good roof over his head, and the best life a man could ask! He can hunt, shoot, fish ‘

‘ He doesn’t care about that kind of thing!’ she said, betrayed into another of her disastrous admissions.

His anger, which had so far been smouldering, burst into flame. ‘God damn the pair of you!’ he thundered. ‘He  doesn’t care for that sort of thing! He doesn’t care for that sort of thing! And you sit there boasting of it! He’d rather live in town! Then let him do it! Let him show me what he’s made of! Let him set up for himself in London, and astonish us all with this precious writing of his! Let him send me to the devil, and cut loose! I’m agreeable!’ He beat with one hand upon the patchwork quilt, upsetting the dish of fruit. An orange rolled off the bed, and a little way across the floor, and lay, a splash of crude colour, in the middle of the carpet. He looked savagely at Faith, out of narrowed, mocking eyes. ‘Can you see him doing it, this fine son of yours? Can you, whey-face?’

‘How can he get away, when you know very well he has no money? Besides, he isn’t of age. He—-’

‘That wouldn’t stop him, if he were worth his salt! Not of age! He’s nineteen, isn’t he? When Bart was his age he was the most bruising rider to hounds in two counties, besides being the handiest young ruffian with his fists you’d meet in a month of Sundays! Hell and the devil, he was a man, d’ye hear me? If I’d thrown him out on his arse, he could have got his living with his hands! And he would have! Why, he was younger than your brat when he fathered a child on to Polperrow’s bitch of a daughter!’

‘I believe you would like Clay better if he’d been as wild and shameless as Bart and Conrad!’ she cried in a trembling voice.

‘I should,’ he replied grimly.

She began to cry, a suggestion of hysteria in her convulsive sobs. ‘I wish I were dead! I wish I were dead!’

‘Wish I were dead, more likely,’ he said sardonically. ‘But I’m not, my loving wife! Damn you, stop snivelling!’

She cowered in the depths of the chair, hiding her face in her hands, her sobs growing more uncontrolled. ‘I don’t believe you ever loved me! You’d like to break my heart! You’re tyrannical, and cruel! You only want to hurt people!’

‘Will you stop it?’ he shouted, groping for the worsted bell-pull, and tugging it furiously. ‘Slap my face, if you like! Stick a knife between my ribs, if you’ve the courage, but don’t cringe there snivelling at me! You and your son! You and your son!’

She made a desperate effort to control herself, but she was a woman to whom tears came easily, and she found it hard to check them. She was still gulping and dabbing at her eyes when Martha entered the room in answer to the bell’s summons. The promptitude with which she appeared suggested that she had in all probability been within earshot of the room for some time.

Penhallow, who had not ceased to tug at the crimson bell-pull, released it, and sank back on to the bank of pillows, panting. ‘Take that damned fool of a woman away!’ he ordered. ‘Keep her out of my sight, or I’ll do her an injury!’

" Well it was you sent for her,’ Martha pointed out, unmoved by his rage. ‘Give over, my dear, now do! You’d better go away, missus, or we’ll have un bursting a blood-vessel. Such doings!’

At Martha’s entrance, Faith had sprung up out of her chair, making a desperate attempt to check her tears.  Penhallow’s words had brought a wave of shamed colour to her cheeks; she gave an outraged moan, and fled from the room, almost colliding in the passage with Vivian. She ran past her, averting her face. Vivian made no movement to stop her but walked on into Penhallow’s room, a purposeful scowl on her brow. Encountering Martha, she said curtly: ‘I want to talk to Mr Penhallow. Clear out, will you?’

This rude interruption, instead of adding to Penhallow’s fury, seemed to please him. Some of the high colour in his face receded; he gave a bark of laughter, and demanded: ‘What do you want, hell-cat?’

‘I’ll tell you when Martha’s gone,’ she replied, standing squarely in the middle of the room, with her back to the fire, and her hands dug deep into the pockets of her tweed jacket.

‘Who the devil do you think you are, giving your orders in my room?’ he asked roughly.

She pushed her underlip out a little in an aggressive way which tickled him. ‘I shan’t go till I’ve said what I’ve come it, say. I’m not afraid of you. You won’t make me cry.’

‘Good lass!’ he approved. ‘Damme, if you’d the sense to know a blood-horse from a half-bred hack I’d be proud of you, so I would! Take yourself off, Martha. God’s teeth, what are you standing there for like a fool? Get out!’

 ‘And don’t stand listening at the door either!’ said Vivian, with a forthrightness to match Penhallow’s own.

Martha gave a chuckle. ‘Aw, my dear, it’s a wonder, surely, Master Eugene chose you for his wife! You’ll eat us all up yet you’re that fierce,’ she remarked, without rancour, and took herself off with her shuffling step, and shut the doors behind her.

The spaniel, which had greeted Vivian with her usual growl, now jumped down from the bed, lumbered over to the fire, and cast herself down before it, panting. The cat paused in its ablutions to regard her fixedly for a few moments, after which it resumed its toilet.

Penhallow flung one or two of the ledgers and papers which littered the bed on to the chenille-covered table beside him, and said: ‘Pour me out a drink. Have one yourself.’

‘I don’t drink at this hour of the morning,’ replied Vivian. ‘You oughtn’t to either, if you’ve really got dropsy.’

‘Blast your impudence!’ he said cheerfully. ‘What’s it to you, I should like to know? You’d be glad enough to see me underground, I’ll bet my last shilling!’

She shrugged. ‘It isn’t anything to do with me except that it’ll make your gout worse, and that means that we shall all suffer. What do you want?’

‘I’ll take a glass of claret. Claret never hurt any man yet. My old grandfather never touched anything else, the last years of his life, and he lived to be eighty-five. You’ll find the bottle in the corner-cupboard. Bring it over here where I can lay my hand on it.’

She brought him the bottle, and a glass, and set both down on the table, retiring again to her stance before the fire Penhallow heaved himself round in bed to reach the bottle, cursing her in a genial way for not pouring the wine out for him, and filled his glass. He drank it off, refilled the glass, and disposed himself more comfortably against his pillows. ‘Now, what’s the matter with you, eh? Do you think I haven’t had my fill of silly women this day?’

‘You’re nothing but a bully,’ she remarked, looking scornfully at him. ‘Why don’t you take it out on someone more capable of defending herself than Faith?’

‘Daresay I will,’ he retorted. ‘You, if you annoy me. You’re as discontented as she is. Spoilt, that’s the matter with you! Spoilt!’

‘Spoilt! In this house? No one is considered here but you, and well you know it! That’s what I’ve come to talk about. I can’t and I won’t stand it any longer. This isn’t my home, and never will be. I want to go.’

‘What’s stopping you?’ he inquired amiably.

‘You are!’ she flung back at him. ‘You know very well nothing would make me leave Eugene.’

He lay sipping his wine, and grinning. ‘He’s his own master, ain’t he? Why don’t you get him to take you away if you don’t like it here?’

She felt her control over her too-quick temper slipping, and exerted herself to retain it. ‘Eugene isn’t strong enough to earn his own living without help,’ she said. ‘He’s never got over that illness.’

‘You mean he’s always fancying himself sick,’ he jibed. ‘I know Eugene! A lazy young devil he always was and always will be! For a sensible girl, you’ve made a mess of handling him, my dear. If you didn’t want to stay here, you shouldn’t have let him come down here in the first place.’

‘I never guessed he would want to stay on and on!’

He gave a chuckle. ‘The more fool you! Eugene’s not one to leave a snug fireside. You won’t shift him.’

‘He wasn’t living here when I married him!’ she said.

‘No, he wasn’t. Trying his wings. I always knew he’d come back. I didn’t mind.’

She looked across at him, under the straight brows which gave her the appearance of frowning even when she was not. ‘Why do you want to keep us here?’

‘What’s that to do with you?’ he retorted.

‘It’s just your love of power!’ she said. ‘You like to feel you’ve got us all under your thumb! But you haven’t got me under your thumb!’

His smile taunted her. ‘Haven’t I? You try to move Eugene, and see! Think you’re going to win against me, do you? Try it! I fancy you’ll go on dancing to my piping, my girl.’

She bit on her lip, knowing that it would be fatal to lose her temper. After a pause, she said carefully: ‘If you think Eugene’s lazy, you ought to want to encourage him to exert himself-’

‘God bless the wench! I never do what I ought to do. Don’t you know that yet?’

She ignored this. ‘I’ve got a right to my own home, to have my husband to myself. It isn’t fair to expect me to live in a house full of relatives!’

‘Fair! Fair!’ he broke in impatiently. ‘You’re all alike, you women, bleating about what’s fair! Think yourself lucky you’ve got a comfortable home to live in instead of having to rely on Eugene to support you! You’d fare badly if you had!’

‘I’d sooner starve in a cottage with Eugene, than go on living here!’ she said fiercely.

He laughed. ‘Ho-ho! I’d like to see you doing it! Take Him off to your cottage, then! You’ll come back soon  enough, with your tails between your legs, too!’

She said sullenly: ‘Why don’t you make Eugene an allowance? It needn’t cost you more than it must cost to keep us both here.’

‘Because I don’t want to,’ he answered.

She clenched her hands inside her pockets until her nails hurt her. ‘You think you’ve beaten me, but you haven’t. I’ll never give in to you. I mean to get Eugene out of this house, and away from your beastly influence. You’ve got Ray, and Ingram, and the twins: why must you have my husband too? He belongs to me!’

He made a gesture with one hand. He was a hirsute man, and strong, dark hairs grew over the back of it, and on his chest too, where the top button of his pyjamas had come undone. ‘Take him, then — but don’t expect me to help you. The impudence of you!’

She said with a good deal of difficulty, because she had much pride: ‘While you encourage him to hang about here, I can’t take him away. We haven’t enough money, and — all right, if you will have it, he does take the line of least resistance! But if you’d make him a small allowance, so that I could rent a little place in town, and keep him comfortable, I — I — I should be grateful to you!’

His smile showed her that he perfectly understood what an effort it cost her to make such an admission. He filled his glass a third time. ‘I don’t want your gratitude. I’d sooner keep you on the end of your chain, my lass. I’ve got a sense of humour, d’ye see? It amuses me to see you straining and struggling to break free. Think because I’m tied by the heels I haven’t any power left, don’t you’ You try setting up your will against mine, and see whether I’ve still power to rule my own household!’

‘O God, how I do hate you!’ she said passionately, glaring at him.

His grin broadened. ‘I know you do. I shan’t lose any sleep over that. Lots of people have hated me in my time, but no one ever got the better of me yet.’

‘I hope you drink yourself to death!’ she threw at him.