said anything about it.”
“Oh, darling, whatever do you mean?” exclaimed Faith.
“Oh, nothing!” Clay said. “Merely that I have a sort of feeling — some people would call it an intuition, I expect that that’s how I shall meet my end.”
His mother responded in the most gratifying way to this dark pronouncement, expressing so much horror at the grim thought conjured up before her that he was soon obliged to try to calm her fears, and even to admit that he had not so far experienced any definite vision of his own lifeless form stretched beside an oxer. He made her promise not to mention the matter to his half brothers. He said that they would only laugh, or put up jumps in one of the paddocks and school him over them until he went mad. Having, in this artless fashion, added a considerable weight of anxiety to the load already bowing Faith’s shoulders down, he said that as far as he could see he might just as well be dead for all the good he was ever likely to do now that his career had been blighted, and walked off to throw pebbles moodily into a pond below the south lawn.
Matters were in this unsatisfactory state when the two remaining members of the family, Charmian and Aubrey, arrived at Trevellin to spend a week there in honour of Penhallow’s sixty-second birthday.
They journeyed down together, and were met at Liskeard by Jimmy the Bastard, driving the limousine. Only two years separated them in age, Charmian being thirty, and Aubrey twenty-eight; but although both lived in London they rarely met, and only discovered a sort of affinity between themselves when forced to return to the parental roof. Here, by tacit consent, they formed a defensive alliance against the barbarity of the rest of the family.
In appearance, both were dark, with aquiline features, but Charmian was stockily built, and did her best, by cutting her strong, wiry hair short and wearing the most masculine garments she could find, to look as much like a man as possible; while Aubrey, a slender young man with an exotic taste in pullovers and socks, affected a great many feminine weaknesses, such as a horror of mice, and revolted his more robust brothers by assuming a decidedly fin-de-siecle manner. He was generally held to be the cleverest of the Penhallows; had published two novels, both of which had enjoyed a moderate success; a quantity of verse conceived in so modern a medium as to baffle the comprehension of the greater part of the reading world; and was at present working in collaboration with one of his artistic friends on the libretto for a satirical revue. He inhabited a set of chambers near St James’s Street; which were at the moment furnished in the Turkish style; rode a showy hack in the Park; contrived to hunt at least once a week with the Grafton; and divided his time between his artistic and his sporting friends. Occasionally, it amused him to bring both together at one of his evening parties, as a result of which the intellectuals went away saying that Aubrey was too adorably whimsical for words, and probably a case of split personality, which was what one found so intriguing in him; and the sportsmen agreed amongst themselves that if Penhallow weren’t such a damned good man to hounds, really, one wouldn’t quite know what to think.
Charmian, rendered independent of Penhallow by the timely demise of a godmother who had left her a sum of money sufficient to provide her with a small income, shared a flat with a very feminine blonde, who resembled nothing so much as a pink fondant. The Penhallows had only once been gratified by a sight of this object of their masterful sister’s passionate solicitude, Charmian having on one occasion brought her down to spend the weekend at Trevellin. The visit had not been repeated. Leila Morpeth and the Penhallows had not found themselves with anything in common; and the younger Penhallows had been so transfixed with amazement at the spectacle of Charmian hovering protectively over an opulent female of generous proportions, who had a habit of referring to herself as “poor little me” in accents suggestive of extreme childhood, that they were struck dumb, and mercifully only recovered full power of self expression when the visitor had departed with Charmian on Monday morning.
The brother and sister, meeting at Paddington Station, occupied themselves for the first part of the journey exchanging poisoned shafts, Charmian shooting hers with a ruthlessness worthy of her father, and Aubrey planting his darts with precision and sweetness; but when they approached the end of their journey they entered upon a temporary truce, which developed into a positive alliance as soon as they discovered that Jimmy had been sent to meet them.
“Darling,” said Aubrey, in flute-like accents, “how it does bring the horror of it all back to one, to see that face! Oh, I do think it is quite too low and dreadful of Father, don’t you?”
“I shouldn’t mind it,” said Charmian fairly, “if the little beast weren’t so obviously a wrong ’un.”
“Wouldn’t you, sweet? You’re so strong-minded and wonderful. Do you suppose the twins will be dreadfully hearty? It was quite too awful the last time I was here. Con was always slipping away to cuddle a most deplorable female in the village. So disgusting!”
Unlike her brother, who lounged gracefully in one corner of the car, Charmian sat bolt upright, keenly scrutinising the countryside, and conveying the impression that it was distasteful to her to be obliged to sit still and idle. She said: “I never pay any attention to what the twins do. I consider them quite beneath contempt. I doubt whether either of them has ever read a book in his life.”
“Oh, darling, are you sure? There’s a kind of distinction about that. I do feel you’re wrong, somehow. Don’t you think they read Stonehenge On the Horse?”
“I daresay. I meant a real book. I can’t think how Vivian stands it here. I love Trevellin, and I always shall, but the absence of any form of culture in the house, and the paucity of ideas of everybody in it would drive me to desperation if I had to live here!”
“Darling, you don’t mean to imply, do you, that that afflictive woman you live with exudes culture as well as Attar of Roses?”
She darted a kindling look at him, and replied stiffly: “Leila has extremely advanced ideas, and is a most interesting woman. In any case, I don’t propose to discuss her.”
“You’re always so right, precious. Bricks without straw.”
She ignored this remark, and the silence remained unbroken for some time. At length, she said abruptly: “If Father hadn’t married again, I expect I should have stayed here all my life.”
“Do you say that in a complaining spirit, or are you acknowledging your indebtedness to Faith?” he inquired.
“I could never play second fiddle to anyone,” she said. “Oh, I wouldn’t choose to come back, now that I have experienced a fuller life!”
He looked amused, but refrained from making any reply. She was looking out of the window, and presently remarked in her urgent way: “All the same, this country has a hold over one! I shall tramp up to Rough Tor, and Brown Gilly. Oh, the smell of the peat!”
“Do you find scents nostalgic?” he asked languidly. “They don’t have that effect on me at all.”
“The peat-stacks on the Moor, and the wild blocks of granite, and the still pools!” she said, disregarding him. “The white bedstraw under one’s feet, and the sharp scent of the thyme! Oh, there is no place on earth quite the same!”
“Darling, ought you to be quite so sentimental?” he asked solicitously. “I mean, it makes one feel slightly ill- at-ease. Besides, one has such a different conception of you.”
She gave a reluctant laugh. “You needn’t worry!”
“I do hope you are right, but I have the gravest misgivings. Oh, not about you, sweetie! Eugene wrote that Father has developed a most oppressive desire to gather us all together under the parental roof, and to keep us there.”
“Thank God I’m independent of Father!” said Charmian.
“Yes, darling, I am sure that is a most gratifying reflection, but it fails entirely to bring any relief to me,” said Aubrey somewhat acidly. “In fact, I find it a most corroding thought that you, who are so unworthy (being uncreative, my pet, which is the most degrading thing to be), should find yourself divorced from monetary cares, while I, who have created such lovely things, am obliged to come into these wilds for the express purpose of cajoling Father into paying the more urgent of my debts.”
“Well, why don’t you write a book that will sell?”
“Darling, really you ought to abandon the fuller life, and take up residence at Trevellin again!” Aubrey told her. “I’m saying it for your own good: that remark could only be appreciated by the Philistines.”
“Oh, I’ve never pretended to be anything but practical!” she replied. “If you don’t want to prostitute your art — is that how you would put it? — you’d better sell your hunters, and give up racing.”
“No, darling, that is not how I should put it,” said Aubrey gently. “You may have noticed that I have quite a horror of the cliché. What an arid type you are, dear one! Do not let us talk any more! It is dreadfully bad for
