me! All you care for is getting your own way! You’ve tyrannised over your sons all their lives, and over Faith, too, because she’s a weak fool, but you shan’t spoil my life, and so I warn you!”
“Fight me, then!” he encouraged her. “I know you’ve got claws. Why don’t you use ’em?” She did not answer him, for a soft knock fell on the door at that moment, and as Penhallow shouted “Come in” her husband walked into the room.
Penhallow, third of the Penhallow brothers, was thirty-five years old, and resembled his elder brother, Ingram, except that he was more slenderly built, and looked to be more intelligent. He had the sallow complexion that often accompanies black hair, and he moved in a languid way. He enjoyed the convenient sort of ill-health which prevented his engaging upon any disagreeable task, but permitted his spending whole days following the hounds whenever he felt inclined to do so. He was adept at escaping from any form of unpleasantries, and extremely quick to detect the approach of a dilemma which might endanger his comfort. When he saw Vivian standing stockily in front of the fire, with her chin up, he perceptibly hesitated on the threshold.
Penhallow, observing this, said derisively: “Don’t run away, Eugene! You’ve come just in time to see your wife scratch the eyes out of my head!”
Eugene had a smile of singular charm. He bestowed it now upon Vivian, in a glance which seemed to embrace her as well as to sympathise with her. She felt her bones turn to water, helpless in the grip of the love for him which still, after six years, consumed her. Her lip quivered as she looked at him; she moved instinctively towards him. He put his arm round her, and patted her. “What’s the trouble, little love?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, her voice sounding sulky because of the constriction in her throat. She smiled tremulously up into his face, gave his hand an eloquent squeeze, and swung out of the room.
It was characteristic of Eugene that, when she had gone, he made no attempt to discover what had happened to upset her. He lowered himself into a chair by the fire, remarking: “Yours is the only warm room in the house, sir. Has anyone told you that you ought not to be drinking wine, or would you like me to?”
“Pour yourself out a glass,” said Penhallow. “Do you more good than the chemists’ muck you pour into your belly.”
“I haven’t inherited your digestion,” replied Eugene, stretching his long legs towards the fire. “If you don’t mind my saying so, Father, you ought to put central heating into this house. It’s damned cold.”
“When I’m dead, you can start pulling the house about: you won’t do it in my time,” responded Penhallow. “What’s brought you here this morning? Pleasure of my company?”
“Oh, I do get a lot of pleasure out of your company,” Eugene assured him. “I like this room, too. It’s utterly atrocious, artistically speaking — and that bit of so-called Dresden is a fake, though I don’t suppose you’ll take my word for it — but it has an atmosphere — er — not all due to that overfed bitch of yours.”
Penhallow grinned at him. “She’s old, like me. I’m overfed, too.”
“But you don’t stink,” murmured Eugene plaintively, stirring the spaniel with one elegantly shod foot. He turned his head, and said with a faint lift to his brows: “Are you really taking Clay away from college?”
“Oh, so Faith’s been pouring out her grievances to you, has she? She hasn’t wasted much time. Yes, I am.”
“Not to say pouring,” Eugene corrected. “I don’t mean that that wasn’t the general idea — which just goes to show she must be very upset, because she doesn’t really like me: I can’t think why, for I’m sure I’m very nice to her — but I can’t bear listening to other people’s troubles, they’re always so boring. Besides, she’s decidedly hysterical, which I find most unnerving. So I came to sit with you. But she says you’re going to make him study law with Cliff?”
“ It’s about all he’s fit for,” replied Penhallow. “He isn’t doing any good at Cambridge, and never would, if he lived there for the rest of his life.”
“No, I feel sure you’re right,” Eugene agreed. “I shouldn’t think he’s doing any harm either, though — which, if you come to consider the matter, seems to be a fair epitome of Clay’s character.”
““There are times when I wonder if the little worm can possibly be a son of mine!” said Penhallow, with a touch of violence.
“Oh, I should think he must be, sir!” said Eugene, with a flicker of his sweet smile. “I mean, I don’t want you to think that I’m criticising Faith, but she always seems to me to lack the sort of enterprise that — er — characterises our family. But do we really want Clay at Trevellin?”
“You’ll put up with him,” replied Penhallow curtly.
“Oh, quite easily!” agreed Eugene. “I shouldn’t dream of letting him worry me. I don’t somehow think that Ray will like it, though.”
Penhallow showed his teeth. “Ray’s not master here yet,” he said unpleasantly.
“No, thank God! I don’t think I should stay if he were. I find him very dull and worthy, you know. And then there’s Cliff!”
“What’s the matter with him?” demanded Penhallow.
“He’s a damned dull dog, if you like, but he doesn’t live here.”
“Ah, I wasn’t thinking of that! Merely I was wondering what weapons you had to employ to induce the poor dear fellow to take Clay on. I mean, there are limits even to Cliff’s good nature. Or aren’t there?”
“Cliff,” stated Clifford’s uncle, “will do as I tell him, and that’s all there is to it. He wouldn’t like to have his mother thrown on his hands — or, at any rate, that stiff-necked wife of his wouldn’t!”
“Yes, I thought you’d probably been more than usually devilish,” said Eugene, amused. “Poor old Clifford!”
Chapter Four
If she could have found Loveday Trewithian, Faith would have wept out all her troubles into that comfortably deep bosom, and would no doubt have been soothed and petted back to some semblance of calm, since she was very responsive to sympathy, and found a good deal of relief in making some kindly disposed person the recipient of her confidences. Upon leaving Penhallow’s room, almost the first member of the Household she encountered was Eugene, and such was her agitation, her urgent desire to unburden herself of Her latest woe, that she forgot for the moment that she had never liked him, and was indeed afraid of his soft, yet disquieting tongue, and began to tell him of his father’s brutality. From this infliction he very soon escaped; Vivian, who presently stalked through the hall on her way to the front door, brusquely refused to be detained, saying that she was going for a walk on the Moor, and didn’t want to talk to anyone. Faith went upstairs to her room, and rang the bell. It was answered by one of the housemaids, and a demand for Loveday was met with the intelligence that she had stepped out to the village for a reel of cotton. Faith was too much absorbed in her troubles to reflect that this was a very odd errand for Loveday to run in the middle of the morning. She dismissed Jane rather pettishly, and occupied herself for the next twenty minutes in dwelling upon her wrongs, Penhallow’s tyranny, and the injustice of his behaviour towards Clay. By this simple process she worked herself’ into a state of exaggerated desperation, in which she saw herself as one fighting with her back to the wall, and badly in need of an ally. Her nervous condition made inaction impossible to her, and after pacing about her room for some time, an abortive form of energy which exasperated far more than it relieved her, she decided to go to Liskeard, to see Clifford Hastings.
As she had never learnt to drive a car, and Liskeard was rather more than seven miles distant, this resolve necessitated the service of a chauffeur. It might have been supposed that in a household which employed a large number of servants there could be little difficulty about this, but although there were several grooms, stable-hands, gardeners, and boys employed on odd jobs, there was no official chauffeur. The Penhallows were inclined to despise motor-cars, and although Raymond often drove to outlying parts of the estate in a dilapidated runabout, and Conrad transported himself to and from his office in Bodmin in a dashing sports car, none of the family ever sat behind the wheel of a car from choice. A large landaulette of antique design and sober pace was kept for the use of the ladies, or to meet trains at Liskeard, and was driven either by one of the undergardeners, who had a turn for mechanics, or by Jimmy the Bastard, or, if these two failed, by one of the grooms, who was willing to oblige, but always managed to stall the car when he changed gear on the uphill way home.
Fortunately for Faith, who resented Jimmy’s presence in the house so much that she would rather have postponed her visit to Liskeard than have demanded his services, the under-gardener was engaged in bedding-out
