know everyone else loathes him!”
Eugene reached out a long arm, and tickled the back of her neck where the short tendrils of hair curled upwards. His fingers conveyed comfort and remonstrance both. She flushed quickly, and shifted the stool on which she sat nearer to the sofa, so that he could put his arm round her, and she lean back against his shoulder.
“Look here, Father!” said Conrad, raising his chin from his wrists. “Nobody objects to your employing your little mistakes, if you want to, but for God’s sake teach ’em to keep their places! If Jimmy treats me to much more of his bloody impudence there’ll be murder done!”
“Somebody might, at the same time, teach him to polish my shoes properly,” suggested Eugene, in a gentle voice.
“So he’s been cheeking you, has he, Con?” grinned Penhallow. “By God, he’s got spirit, that lad!”
“Spirit!” exploded Bart. “He’s a sneaking little rat. trading on your blooming protection! You lie there letting him gammon you into thinking he’s worth his salt. but if you saw how he behaves outside this room you’d darned soon kick him out!”
“That’s right,” nodded Clara. “Can’t stand corn. You shouldn’t take him round the country with you, Adam, introducing him to decent people. It stands to reason the boy must get above himself.”
“Old Mother Venngreen been complaining to you. Clara?” asked Penhallow, with a chuckle. “That did me more good than all Lifton’s drenches, I can tell you. Nearly split my sides watching the old turkey-hen gobble and ruffle up her feathers!”
The twins shouted with laughter, not having known previously of this historic encounter, but Ingram looked a trifle shocked, and said in a expostulating tone: “No, really, sir, I say! You can’t do that sort of thing! I mean, the Vicar’s wife...”
Bart gave a crow of delight. “Ingram and the old school tie! Play up for the side — don’t let the school down — stick to the done-thing, fellers!”
“White man’s burden,” said Conrad. “Example to the neighbourhood. Long live our pukka sahib!”
'Shut up, you young fools!” Ingram said, reddening. “All the same, in your position, sir—”
“Blast your impudence, are you going to tell me how I ought to behave myself?” demanded Penhallow, but with more amusement than anger.
“I don’t know how we are ever to look Mrs Venngreen in the face again, any of us,” said Faith, in a low voice.
“Speaking for myself,” murmured Eugene, drawing Vivian’s head back so that he could smile down into her adoring eyes, “I don’t find that I have any very overpowering desire to look her in the face. None that I can’t master, you know.”
“I had a horse with a face like Mrs Venngreen’s,” remarked Clara reminiscently. “You’ll remember him, Adam: a chestnut with a white blaze. He had a bad habit of jumpin’ off his forehand.”
“Talking about horses,” interrupted Bart suddenly, turning his head towards Raymond, “Weep says it’s spavin, Ray.”
“What’s that?” Penhallow demanded. “If you’ve got a spavined horse in the stables, get rid of him!”
“That’s right,” agreed Clara. “I don’t care what anyone may say: a spavined horse is an unsound horse.”
“Rubbish!” said Raymond, retiring into the newspaper again. “You manage your own horses, and leave me to manage mine, Aunt Clara.”
“Well, what’s to be done about it?” asked Bart. “Blisters?”
“Likely to cause absorption,” Raymond responded briefly. “I’ll look him over in the morning.”
“You’ll have to cool his system before you treat him,” said Ingram.
“Thanks for the tip!” Raymond retorted, throwing him a scornful glance. “Any other obvious remarks?”
“I’d fire him,” remarked Conrad.
Eugene yawned. “From which one gathers that he’s not one of your horses. Don’t you, Ray! Ruin his appearance for good and all if you do.”
“Try setons!” recommended Bart.
“Oh, shut up, the lot of you!” said Raymond. “There’s nothing but a slight exostosis! Do you think I was born yesterday?”
“Biniodide of mercury,” said Penhallow. “Nothing like it!”
Raymond grunted, and refused thereafter to be drawn into the discussion which waxed louder and louder, Penhallow recalling cases he had known of spavined horses from his youth upwards; the twins arguing hotly on the most efficacious cure for the complaint; and Ingram and Clara putting in comments and suggestions whenever they could make their voices heard above the rest.
Faith set her teeth, and rethreaded her needle, trying to shut out the sound of boisterous voices, to wrap herself up in some world of her own that contained no horses, no aggressively assertive young men, no coarse- tongued old ones, and above all no over-heated, overcrowded, fantastically furnished bedrooms where she could be compelled to sit night after night while her temples throbbed, and her eyes ached from the unguarded flames of the countless candles all round the room.
Vivian, within the circle of Eugene’s arm, leaning her head back against his shoulder, had let her eyelids droop, one part of her mind irritated by the turmoil of dispute raging about her, the other dreaming of a little flat where she could be alone with Eugene, who was so very dear , whose very touch could soothe and comfort her exasperation, and whom she wanted to possess utterly, wrapping him round her with love, keeping him safe from his lusty, unappreciative brothers. While he remained at Trevellin she could never feel him to be wholly her own. He might bicker languidly with his brothers, but he was one of them, sharing many of their interests, imperceptibly changing from the man-of-the-world, the artist, she had married to one whose life was bound up in the confines of a Cornish estate which she hated.
I must get him away, she thought. Somehow, anyhow, I must manage to get him away from this dreadful place!
The discussion on the proper treatment of, and improbable cure of, bone spavin was brought to an abrupt end by Penhallow, who suddenly said: “I want a drink! Where’s that damned boy, Jimmy?” and reached out a hand to tug at the crimson bell-pull beside his bed.
No agreement had been reached, the maximum amount of abuse had been indulged in, opinions scoffed at or shouted down, and a quantity of irrelevant anecdote recited. The Penhallows, in fact, had spent a pleasant twenty minutes giving vent to their exuberant vitality, and were now perfectly content to allow the subject to drop.
How awful they are! thought Faith. I can’t go on like this! I can’t, I can’t! I shall go mad!
The bell was answered in a few moments by Reuben and Jimmy both, Reuben carrying in the massive silver tray with all the bottles, decanters, glasses, and sandwiches with which it was the custom of the Penhallows to refresh themselves during the evening; and Jimmy, with one arm ostentatiously in a sling, bearing the overflow on a small, tarnished salver.
“What the hell makes you so late, you old rascal?” demanded Penhallow jovially.
Reuben dumped the large tray down on the refectory table, and gave a sniff. “If Master Bart would be so obliging as to leave this young varmint the use of both his arms, perhaps I wouldn’t be late,” he said severely. A glance at the clock under the glass shade caused him to add: “Which I’m not, sir, I’ll thank you to notice. Ten o’clock’s been the time for you to call for a drink since I don’t know when, and if you’re going to change your habits at your time of life we shall be all at sixes and sevens.”
“Damn your impudence!” said Penhallow cheerfully. “What the devil are you doing with that thing round your neck, Jimmy? Take if off, and come and shake up my pillows!”
“Mr Bart’s sprained my wrist,” said Jimmy, with an air of patient endurance.
“I know that, fool! Think yourself lucky he didn’t break it, and stop makin’ a damned exhibition of yourself! You leave your little half brother alone, Bart, or I’ll have something to say to you!”
Raymond looked up at this, a heavy scowl on his brow, and exclaimed: “My God, that’s too much! You can get out, Jimmy!”
“Oh, no, he can’t!” said Penhallow, grinning wickedly. “I want him to shake up my pillows. Come here, Jimmy. my boy! Don’t pay any attention to them: I won’t let ’em hurt you.”
Jimmy was so pleased at being told to disregard Raymond’s orders that he slipped his injured arm out of the sling, and went towards the bed. Bart, straightening himself suddenly, got between him and it, and said dangerously: “You heard Mr Raymond: get the hell out of this before I boot you!”
