plants in the front of the house, and so was easily found. By slipping a raincoat on over his working clothes, and setting a peaked cap upon his head, he was able speedily to transform himself into a chauffeur; and after an agreeable passage of arms with the head-gardener, who took instant exception to his absenting himself from his work on the front beds, he went off to bring the ancient laudaulette round from the garage.
Trevellin being situated above the village of Polzant, the way to Liskeard lay downhill, and eastward, into the valley of the Fowey. The landaulette crawled ponderously out of the lodge-gates, and lumbered off down the narrow lane, passing the Dower House, where Ingram Penhallow lived with his sharp-tongued wife, Myra, and his two sons, Rudolph and Bertram, whose ambitions were to resemble their twin uncles as nearly as possible, but who were at present, happily for all concerned, gracing a respectable public school some hundreds of miles away from Trevellin. The peculiar beauty of the countryside through which she was being carried was entirely unnoticed by Faith, who, besides being wholly engaged in rehearsing what she should presently say to her husband’s nephew, considered that it was all too familiar to her to be worthy of having any attention bestowed upon it. So absorbed was she in her thoughts that she failed to observe the Vicar’s wife, Mrs Venngreen, who was coming out of the village shop when the landaulette drove through Polzant, and who bowed to her. Mrs Venngreen was a Churchwoman of rigid principles, and rarely crossed the unhallowed threshold of Trevellin, but she was sorry for Faith, whom she thought a poor, downtrodden little thing, and sometimes asked her to tea at the Vicarage. Her husband, an easy-going gentleman of comfortable habit of body, who liked a good glass of wine, and who was not unmindful of the benefits accruing to the Church from Penhallow’s lavish, if casual, generosity, talked vaguely about the need to bear an open mind, and was not above visiting his eccentric parishioner. His curate, Simon Wells, no Cornishman, but a lean and severe Midlander, thought that his Vicar possessed to a remarkable degree the faculty of being able to shut his eyes to whatever he did not wish to see, and himself seemed more likely to curse the Penhallows, root and branch, than to accept their hospitality. As he was not a sporting parson, the Penhallows were scarcely aware of his existence, so that his deep disapproval of them troubled them not at all.
In due course, the landaulette reached the outskirts of Liskeard, and entered the town, passing between rows of Georgian houses to the establishment near the marketplace which bore a modest brass plate beside its front door indicating that the premises were occupied by Messrs Blazey, Blazey, Hastings, and Wembury. This, however, was misleading, the late Mr Blazey senior having deceased a good many years previously, Mr Blazey junior having become a sleeping partner, and Mr Wembury being a valetudinarian whose activities were mostly confined to the not too arduous duties attached to the various Trusts in his care.
The resident partner was Mr Hastings, to whose sanctum Faith, after a short period of waiting in a room inhabited by a shabby-looking clerk and a youth with a lack-lustre eye and a shock of unruly hair, was admitted.
Clifford Hastings was the same age as his cousin Raymond, but although rather stout he had a roundness of face and a freshness of complexion which made him appear the younger of the two. He was not in the least like his mother; and except that he was a good man to hounds, and was not above slipping his arm round the wrist of a pretty woman, he had little in common with his Penhallow relations.
When Faith came into the room, he rose from behind the desk piled high with papers, and littered with a collection of pens, ink-pots, blotters, pen-wipers, and coloured pencils, and came round the corner of it to shake hands with her. He was blessed with an uncritical, friendly disposition, and was always genuinely glad to see any of his relations. He greeted Faith with hearty good humour, saying: “Well, Faith! This is very nice of you! How are you, my dear? How’s Uncle Adam? And my mother? All well, eh? Sit down, and tell me all the news!”
Not being in the mood for an exchange of ordinary civilities, Faith wasted no time in answering his inquiries, but plunged at once into the nature of her errand to him. “Cliff, I’ve come to beg you to help me!”
He retreated again to his chair behind the desk. A look of slight uneasiness crossed his placid features, for although he was a kindly man, he shared, in common with the majority of his fellow-creatures, a dread of becoming entangled in another person’s trials. However, he folded his hands on the blotter before him, and said cheerfully: “Anything I can do to help you of course I should be only too glad to do! What is it?”
She sat bolt upright in the chair on the other side of the desk, gripping her handbag between her nervous hands. “It’s about Clay!” she said breathlessly.
The look of uneasiness on Cliffs face deepened. He carefully rearranged various small objects in front of him, and replied: “About Clay! Oh, yes! Quite! As a matter of fact, Uncle Adam sent for me a couple of days ago to talk to me about him.”
“I know,” she interrupted. “He told me today. Cliff, you mustn’t take him! Please say you won’t consent!”
He perceived that this was going to be an extremely difficult interview. “Well, but, Faith —”
“I suppose Adam is going to pay you to take him, but I know that wouldn’t weigh with you! I don’t know how these things are arranged, but-’
“It simply means that he’ll be articled to me,” he explained, glad of the opportunity afforded to lead her away from the main point at issue. “I’ve no doubt he’ll-’
“He’d hate it!” she declared vehemently. “Adam’s only doing it because he’s never liked Clay, and he delights in upsetting me! Clay is going to write!”
“Well, well, I don’t know any reason why he shouldn’t write, if he has a bent that way. In his spare time, you know.”
She said impatiently: “You don’t understand. It would be death to Clay to be cooped up in a stuffy office, slaving over a lot of horrible deeds and things. He isn’t cut out for it.”
He looked a little startled. He was not very well acquainted with Clay Penhallow, the boy being twenty years his junior, but he had not supposed, from the little he’d seen of him, that he was made of such fiery metal as could not endure to be confined within four walls. He said feebly: “Oh, well, you know, it’s not such a bad life! Not like a London practice, you know. I mean; I see that the lad reared as he has been it would be a bit trying for him to be obliged to live in London all the year round. But you take my life! Of course, I can’t spare the time my cousins can, but I manage to hunt once a week, and sometimes twice, and I get quite a bit of fishing, besides...”
“It isn’t that! Clay isn’t interested in sport. He would like to live in London! But he’s artistic! It would simply kill him to be tied to a desk!”
If Clifford felt that a young gentleman of this character would scarcely be an asset to the firm of Blazey, Blazey, Hastings, and Wembury, he concealed it, merely remarking: “I see. Quite!”
“Besides, I don’t want him to be a solicitor,” continued Faith. “Or even a barrister. I mean, it isn’t in the least his line for one thing, and for another, I should simply hate a son of mine to spend his time defending people whom he knew to be guilty.”
This ill-formed view of the activities of barristers-at law made Clifford blink, but since Clay was not destined for the Bar there seemed to be little point in disabusing his mother’s mind of its feminine belief that every barrister spent his life defending blood-stained criminals. He did indeed wonder vaguely why a barrister should be almost invariably credited, first, with a criminal practice, and second, with a prescience which made it possible for him to feel certain of his client’s guilt or innocence, but this thought he also kept to himself. He said: “I quite understand your point of view, but it isn’t really such a bad life, Faith. In any case, Uncle Adam—”
“Adam’s only doing it to hurt me!” declared Faith, on a rising note which made Clifford stir uneasily in his chair, and hope that she was not going to treat him to a fit of hysterics. “I had it out with him this morning. I can’t tell you the things he said: sometimes I think he’s absolutely insane! He told me he’d arranged it all with you, so I thought my only hope was to come at once to see you, and explain that I don’t want you to let Clay be articled to you, or whatever it is! After all, Adam hasn’t any hold over you, Cliff? He can’t do anything to you if you refuse, and you can easily keep out of his way, if he flies into one of his awful rages!”
Clifford went on fidgeting with the lid of the ink-pot. His face now wore an extremely thoughtful expression. Faith’s artless exposition of her son’s character inspired him with a strong desire to be exempt from the necessity of admitting Clay into his firm, but there were reasons which made it extremely difficult, not to say impossible, for him to refuse to oblige his uncle in the matter. It was almost equally impossible for him to explain to Faith that fond as he was of his widowed mother, he would find it very awkward indeed if she were to be ejected from Trevellin, and thus (for her private means were of the slenderest) thrown upon his hands. It was not that he was an undutiful or an unaffectionate son, but he was married to a lady who would certainly not welcome to her home anyone so eccentric as her mother-in-law. Nor, he knew, would she feel at all inclined to retrench her household expenditure so as to enable him to make Clara a suitable allowance. Indeed, he scarcely knew how he would be able to manage
