That’s what I’m saying! He doesn’t row, he doesn’t play a game, he doesn’t want to join the Drag, he isn’t even man enough to get into mischief. He’s a namby-pamby young good-for-nothing, and I’ll be damned if I’ll keep him eating his head off there for the pleasure of seeing him come home a couple of years on with a Pass degree!”
“I’m sure I don’t know why you should mind his not doing as well as — as we’d expected,” Faith said, plucking up courage in defence of her darling. “You always said book-learning didn’t run in your family.” It occurred to her that his attack on Clay was more than usually unjust. Roused to indignation, she said, “I should like to know what Eugene did at Oxford, or Aubrey either, for that matter! It’s simply because it’s Clay that you go on like this!”
A sardonic chuckle shook him. “You’d like to know, would you? They’re a couple of young scoundrels, both of ’em, but neither of ’em spent three years at Oxford without leaving their marks, I can tell you that!” He stabbed a thick finger at her. “But it didn’t do them a bit of good! That’s what I’m saying. They learned a lot of damned nonsense there, and I was a fool to send ’em. My other boys are worth a dozen of that pair. What use is Eugene, I should like to know, writing for a pack of half-baked newspapers, and keeping his feet dry in case he should catch a cold? As for young Aubrey, if I’d kept him at home and set him to work under Ray, I’d have done better by him! I’ve had trouble enough with Bart and Con, but, by God, give me a couple of lusty young rogues who take their pleasures in the way they were meant to, rather than that covey of unhealthy intellectuals Aubrey runs with.”
“It isn’t fair to blame Oxford for what Aubrey does,” Faith protested feebly. “Besides, Clay isn’t in the least like that. Clay’s a very good boy, and I’m sure—” She broke off for she saw by his face that she had said the wrong thing again.
“Clay’s nothing,” he said shortly. “No guts, no spunk, not one bit of devil in him! “Takes after you, my dear.”
She turned away her eyes from the derisive smile in his. A black cat with a nocked ear, which had been curled up in a chair by the fire, woke, and stretched, and began to perform an extensive toilet.
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?”
