The room into which Faith Penhallow stepped occupied the whole of the floor space at the western end of the house, and had windows at each end, those at the front looking out on to the sweep of the avenue leading down to the lodge-gates, and the lawn and fields beyond; and those at the back overlooking an enclosed garden, surrounded on three sides by a grey, creeper-hung wall. This wing of the house had been added to the original structure in the seventeenth century; Penhallow’s room was wainscoted from floor to ceiling, and contained, besides some magnificent mouldings, a superb fireplace on the wall between the double doors through which Faith had come, and another, single door leading into a dressing-room at the front of the house. This fireplace was most richly carved, its lofty mantelpiece upheld, on either side of the big square cavity where a log fire burned on a huge pile of woodash, by caryatids. The room was higher-pitched than the rooms in the main part of the house, and had a very fine plaster ceiling, somewhat damaged in places by cracks, and blackened by smoke, which would occasionally puff out from the hearth, when the wind was in the wrong quarter. The heavy wainscoting made the room dark, in spite of the windows at each end, but the first impression anyone entering it was of colour, so varied and unexpected as to make the uninitiated blink.
The room was crammed with furniture, and ornanments jostled one another on the mantelpiece, on the tops of several chests, over several small tables which had been fitted into any vacant space that offered. These, like the incredible assortment of furniture, seemed to have been chosen without regard to period or congruity, which was indeed the case, Penhallow having crammed into the room every piece that took his fancy. Thus, a red lacquer cabinet, with an ivory figure of the god Ho-Ti on the top of it, stood between the two windows at one end of the room, and two repulsive plant-holders, fashioned of bamboo and each containing some half-a-dozen pots of tropical greenery, stood under the corresponding windows at the other end of the room. Flanking the fireplace were two enormous malachite vases, on consoles, which had been wrested from the Yellow drawing-room. In one corner stood a marble-topped wash-stand of red mahogany, imperfectly hidden by a cheap Japanese screen which showed a covey of golden birds flying on a black ground. Close to this, on the wall opposite to the fireplace, was a marquetry chest, mellow with age, rubbing shoulders with a delicate table of yellow satinwood, squeezed between it and the bed. Beyond the bed, a walnut tallboy confronted a round table covered with a crimson chenille cloth, and a Carolinian day-bed of particularly graceful design, whose frayed cane seat and back were fitted with squabs of faded wine-red velvet. Penhallow’s wheeled chair stood in the corner, and a long refectory table, piled with books, papers, decanters, medicine-bottles, and a canvas-bag from which several dog-biscuits had spilled, occupied most of the space behind the front windows. A mahogany corner-cupboard hung beside the door into the dressing-room; several armchairs of varied design and colour were scattered about the room, together with a pair of rush-seated ladder-back chairs; an early Chippendale stool, with cabriole legs and claw-and-ball feet; an angular seat of Gothic design and unsurpassed discomfort; and a large chesterfield, which was drawn across the foot of the bed. There were no pictures on the walls, but a convex mirror of Queen Anne date, set in a gilded frame, hung over the mantelpiece, and there were a number of candle-sconces round the room. On the mantelpiece, a gilt time-piece with an enamelled face, and supported by nymphs and cherubim, stood under a glass dome, and was flanked by a pair of Rockingham pheasants, one or two pieces belonging to an old chess-set, and two groups of bronze horses. The corner by the double doors was taken up by a grandfather clock of Chippendale-chinois; and, placed wherever space could be found for them, were some small, spindle-legged tables, covered with punch-spoons, snuff boxes, patch-boxes, Bristol paper-weights, and Dresden figures.
But it was not the medley of ornaments, the crowded furniture, or the juxtaposition of wine-red and crimson and the hot scarlet of Chinese lacquer which instantly claimed and held the visitor’s attention. Colour rioted in the carpet which almost covered the floor, grass-green curtains swore at chairs upholstered in peacock-blue, but they all faded into neutrality beside the blaze of colour thrown over Penhallow’s bed in the form of a patchwork quilt sewn in multi-coloured hexagons of satin, velvet and brocade.
The bed itself dominated the room. It might have burn supposed that so massive and antiquated a structure had been in the family for generations: in actual fact Penhallow had bought it at a sale some years previously. It was an enormous four-poster of painted wood, hung about with curtains of mulberry velvet, much rubbed and faded with age, with a ceiling painted with a design of cupids and rose-garlands, and an intricate arrangement of cupboards and drawers set in the tall headpiece. It stood uncomfortably high, and was wide enough to have accommodated four people without undue crowding. In the middle of it, banked up by a selection of pillows and cushions, and wearing an ancient dressing-gown over his pyjamas, lay Penhallow, a mountainous ruin of a man, with a hawk-nose jutting between bloated cheeks; fierce, malicious eyes staring beneath brows that were still jet-black and bushy; and an arrogant, intemperate mouth. His hair was grizzled, and it could be seen that he had developed a huge paunch. Around him, spread over the splendour of the quilt, were a variety of books, periodicals, cigar-cases, match-boxes, ledgers, letters, and a dish piled with fruit. At the foot of the bed, panting slightly, lay an aged and rather smelly Cocker spaniel, as obese as her master. It was her amiable custom to growl at anyone entering Penhallow’s room, and she made no exception in Faith’s favour.
“Good bitch!” said Penhallow approvingly.
Faith shut the door behind her, and moved towards an armchair which stood at some distance from the fire.
The room was uncomfortably warm, the pile of woodash in the hearth glowing red under a couple of smouldering logs. Except during the very few weeks in the year when Penhallow allowed his fire to go out, the ash was never removed. It made the dusting of his bedroom one of the labours of Hercules, but that was a consideration which naturally did not weigh with him.
“Good morning, Adam,” Faith said, her anxious eyes trying to read his face. “I’m so sorry you had a bad night. I didn’t sleep at all well myself.”
She knew from the curl of his full lips, and the gleam in his eyes, that he was in one of his bad moods. He was always like that after a disturbed night. She guessed that he had sent for her to make himself unpleasant, and felt her heart begin to thump against her ribs.
“Didn’t sleep well, didn’t you?” he said jeeringly. “What have you got to keep you awake? You weren’t worrying. your empty head over me, at all events. Loving wife, aren’t you?”
“I didn’t know you were awake. Of course I would have come down if I’d known you wanted me.”
He gave a bark of laughter. “A lot of use you’d have been! By God, I don’t know how I came to tie myself up to such a poor creature!”
She was silent, her colour fluctuating nervously. He observed this sign of agitation with open satisfaction. “Lily-livered, that’s what you are,” he said. “You’ve got no spirit. Eugene’s little cat of a wife’s worth a dozen of you.”
She said imploringly: “I can’t bear quarrelling, Adam.”
“My first wife would have cut my face open with her riding-whip for half of what you take lying down,” he taunted her.
She was aware that he would like her better for storming at him; she was unable to do it: she would never all her life long, overcome her sick dread of being shouted at by a loud, angry voice. With her genius for saying the wrong thing, she faltered: “I’m different, Adam."
He burst out laughing in good earnest at that, throwing his head back, so that his laughter seemed to reverberate from the painted ceiling of his preposterous bed. To Faith’s ears, it held a note of savage gloating. She rested her thin hands on the arms of her chair, and sat tense, flushing. “Different!” he ejaculated. “By God, you are! Look at Rachel’s brats, and at that whelp of yours!”
Her flush died, leaving her cheeks very pale. She looked anxiously at him. She thought that of course she should have known that he would attack Clay.
He shifted his bulk in bed, so that he was able to look more directly at her. “Well,” he said abruptly, “I can’t discover that that precious son of yours is doing any good at Cambridge, or likely to.”
It was true that Clay’s University career had been, so far, disappointing, but he had not, to her knowledge, disgraced himself in any way, and she could hardly suppose that scholastic attainments would have interested his father. She said: “I don’t know what you mean. I’m sur —”
“I mean it’s a waste of money keeping him there,” Penhallow interrupted. “He’s wasting his time, that’s what he’s doing!”
“I don’t know why you should say so, Adam. It isn’t as though he’d done anything”
“Damme, woman, don’t be such a fool!” he exploded, making her start. “I know he hasn’t done anything! 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?”
“I’ll tell you when Martha’s gone,” she replied, standing squarely in the middle of the room, with her back to the fire, and her hands dug deep into the pockets of her tweed jacket.
“Who the devil do you think you are, giving your orders in my room?” he asked roughly.
She pushed her underlip out a little in an aggressive way which tickled him. “I shan’t go till I’ve said what I’ve come it, say. I’m not afraid of you. You won’t make me cry.”
“Good lass!” he approved. “Damme, if you’d the sense to know a blood-horse from a half-bred hack I’d be proud of you, so I would! Take yourself off, Martha. God’s teeth, what are you standing there for like a fool? Get out!”
“And don’t stand listening at the door either!” said Vivian, with a forthrightness to match Penhallow’s own.
Martha gave a chuckle. “Aw, my dear, it’s a wonder, surely, Master Eugene chose you for his wife! You’ll eat us all up yet you’re that fierce,” she remarked, without rancour, and took herself off with her shuffling step, and shut the doors behind her.
The spaniel, which had greeted Vivian with her usual growl, now jumped down from the bed, lumbered over to the fire, and cast herself down before it, panting. The cat paused in its ablutions to regard her fixedly for a few moments, after which it resumed its toilet.
Penhallow flung one or two of the ledgers and papers which littered the bed on to the chenille-covered table beside him, and said: “Pour me out a drink. Have one yourself.”
“I don’t drink at this hour of the morning,” replied Vivian. “You oughtn’t to either, if you’ve really got dropsy.”
“Blast your impudence!” he said cheerfully. “What’s it to you, I should like to know? You’d be glad enough to see me underground, I’ll bet my last shilling!”
She shrugged. “It isn’t anything to do with me except that it’ll make your gout worse, and that means that we shall all suffer. What do you want?”
“I’ll take a glass of claret. Claret never hurt any man yet. My old grandfather never touched anything else, the last years of his life, and he lived to be eighty-five. You’ll find the bottle in the corner-cupboard. Bring it over here where I can lay my hand on it.”
She brought him the bottle, and a glass, and set both down on the table, retiring again to her stance before the fire Penhallow heaved himself round in bed to reach the bottle, cursing her in a genial way for not pouring the wine out for him, and filled his glass. He drank it off, refilled the glass, and disposed himself more comfortably against his pillows. “Now, what’s the matter with you, eh? Do you think I haven’t had my fill of silly women this day?”
“You’re nothing but a bully,” she remarked, looking scornfully at him. “Why don’t you take it out on someone more capable of defending herself than Faith?”
“Daresay I will,” he retorted. “You, if you annoy me. You’re as discontented as she is. Spoilt, that’s the matter with you! Spoilt!”
“Spoilt! In this house? No one is considered here but you, and well you know it! That’s what I’ve come to talk about. I can’t and I won’t stand it any longer. This isn’t my home, and never will be. I want to go.”
“What’s stopping you?” he inquired amiably.
“You are!” she flung back at him. “You know very well nothing would make me leave Eugene.”
He lay sipping his wine, and grinning. “He’s his own master, ain’t he? Why don’t you get him to take you away if you don’t like it here?”
She felt her control over her too-quick temper slipping, and exerted herself to retain it. “Eugene isn’t strong enough to earn his own living without help,” she said. “He’s never got over that illness.”
“You mean he’s always fancying himself sick,” he jibed. “I know Eugene! A lazy young devil he always was and always will be! For a sensible girl, you’ve made a mess of handling him, my dear. If you didn’t want to stay here, you shouldn’t have let him come down here in the first place.”
“I never guessed he would want to stay on and on!”
He gave a chuckle. “The more fool you! Eugene’s not one to leave a snug fireside. You won’t shift him.”
“He wasn’t living here when I married him!” she said.
“No, he wasn’t. Trying his wings. I always knew he’d come back. I didn’t mind.”
She looked across at him, under the straight brows which gave her the appearance of frowning even when she was not. “Why do you want to keep us here?”
“What’s that to do with you?” he retorted.
“It’s just your love of power!” she said. “You like to feel you’ve got us all under your thumb! But you haven’t got me under your thumb!”
His smile taunted her. “Haven’t I? You try to move Eugene, and see! Think you’re going to win against me, do you? Try it! I fancy you’ll go on dancing to my piping, my girl.”
She bit on her lip, knowing that it would be fatal to lose her temper. After a pause, she said carefully: “If you think Eugene’s lazy, you ought to want to encourage him to exert himself-’
“God bless the wench! I never do what I ought to do. Don’t you know that yet?”
She ignored this. “I’ve got a right to my own home, to have my husband to myself. It isn’t fair to expect me to live in a house full of relatives!”
“Fair! Fair!” he broke in impatiently. “You’re all alike, you women, bleating about what’s fair! Think yourself lucky you’ve got a comfortable home to live in instead of having to rely on Eugene to support you! You’d fare badly if you had!”
“I’d sooner starve in a cottage with Eugene, than go on living here!” she said fiercely.
He laughed. “Ho-ho! I’d like to see you doing it! Take Him off to your cottage, then! You’ll come back soon enough, with your tails between your legs, too!”
She said sullenly: “Why don’t you make Eugene an allowance? It needn’t cost you more than it must cost to keep us both here.”
“Because I don’t want to,” he answered.
She clenched her hands inside her pockets until her nails hurt her. “You think you’ve beaten me, but you haven’t. I’ll never give in to you. I mean to get Eugene out of this house, and away from your beastly influence. You’ve got Ray, and Ingram, and the twins: why must you have my husband too? He belongs to me!”
He made a gesture with one hand. He was a hirsute man, and strong, dark hairs grew over the back of it, and on his chest too, where the top button of his pyjamas had come undone. “Take him, then — but don’t expect me to help you. The impudence of you!”
She said with a good deal of difficulty, because she had much pride: “While you encourage him to hang about here, I can’t take him away. We haven’t enough money, and — all right, if you will have it, he does take the line of least resistance! But if you’d make him a small allowance, so that I could rent a little place in town, and keep him comfortable, I — I — I should be grateful to you!”
His smile showed her that he perfectly understood what an effort it cost her to make such an admission. He filled his glass a third time. “I don’t want your gratitude. I’d sooner keep you on the end of your chain, my lass. I’ve got a sense of humour, d’ye see? It amuses me to see you straining and struggling to break free. Think because I’m tied by the heels I haven’t any power left, don’t you’ You try setting up your will against mine, and see whether I’ve still power to rule my own household!”
“O God, how I do hate you!” she said passionately, glaring at him.
His grin broadened. “I know you do. I shan’t lose any sleep over that. Lots of people have hated me in my time, but no one ever got the better of me yet.”
“I hope you drink yourself to death!” she threw at him.
“I shall dance for joy on the day you’re buried!”
“That’s the spirit!” he applauded. “Damme, you’ve been badly reared, and you’d be the better for schooling, but there’s good stuff in you, by God there is! Go on! Toss your head, and gnash your little white teeth at me: I don’t mind your tantrums — like ’em! I shall keep you here just to pass the time away. It’s a dull enough life I lead now, in all conscience: it would be a damned sight duller if you weren’t here to spit your venom at me every time your liver’s out of sorts.”
“I’ll get the better of you!” she said, her voice shaking. “You’d keep Eugene hanging round you until it’s too late for him to pick up the old threads again. You don’t care whether it’s bad for him, or how miserable you make 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!”