Penhallow (24 page)

Still no inkling of his state of mind penetrated to her understanding; he had always had an abrupt manner, and she noticed nothing amiss. She said: ‘I’m so glad to see you! It seems such a long time since you were here! Because I don’t count that time you so kindly motored me back from town, you know, because you wouldn’t come in, would you? Not that I didn’t perfectly understand, for of course I know what a lot you always have to do, and how little time you have to spare. But I must tell you about Dicky! You remember that I asked the cornchandler — such an obliging man! — about poor little Dicky, who wasn’t quite well?’

He interrupted her. ‘I’ve come to speak to you,’ he said again. His underlip quivered. ‘I don’t know how to do it!’ he said desperately, looking round the room, at the cats, and the birdcages. ‘Now that I’m here — No, it isn’t possible!’

The chatter was stilled on her lips. She peered at him short-sightedly, sudden alarm in her face. She saw how haggard he looked, and retreated a step involuntarily. Her voice shook as she faltered: ‘Of course, dear! Of course! Though I can’t imagine what — You must let me fetch you some refreshment! A glass of sherry, and a biscuit. Phineas will be so pleased to see you! He was only saying the other day — But what am I doing, not asking you to sit down?’

‘I don’t want anything. I came to you because of something Father told me. I don’t trust him: he’d say anything! But I’ve got to know the truth, and you’re the only person — Oh no, my God, there’s Martha!’

There was no more colour in her face than in his. She uttered a little moan, and shrank back from him, terror in her eyes. ‘I don’t know what you mean! I don’t know what you mean!’ she cried, her voice rising to a shrill note. ‘Ray dear, you — you aren’t quite well! You’re not yourself! Do — do sit down! I’ll fetch Phineas. I expect you’ve been doing too much. A glass of sherry!’

He stood perfectly still, looking at her, noticing that her nose was shining, and a hairpin was drooping on to her shoulder. He felt as though this were all happening to someone else, not to him, Raymond Penhallow! No more confirmation was needed than that which he read in Delia’s frightened countenance. He would have gone away, but the situation was so strange that he did not know what to do in it, and so stood there, incongruous amongst the feminine knick-knacks with which the room was crammed. The muscles of his throat felt so rigid that he was obliged to swallow once or twice before he could speak. Then he said in a heavy tone which gave little indication of the turmoil in his breast: ‘It is true. You are my  ‘ He found that he could not utter the word, and changed the phrase — ‘You aren’t my aunt.’

She began to cry, in a gasping way, dabbing all the time at her eyes: ‘Oh, Raymond! Oh, Raymond!’

He regarded her stonily. It seemed to him that she had little cause to cry. It was his life which had been ruined; he could not appreciate that she might be crying for this reason. In his own overwhelming chagrin there was no room for compassion either for her present distress, or for the misery she must have endured forty years ago, ,and perhaps through the intervening years. He was conscious only of loathing her, and that so profoundly that it made him feel actually sick.

She had stumbled blindly to a chair, and was crouched in it, gulping and sniffing, and still dabbing at her eyes. They were already a little swollen. She raised them fleetingly to his face, and at once they overflowed again. ‘I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry, dear!’ she sobbed.

The hopeless inadequacy of her words irritated him. ‘Sorry!’ he ejaculated. ‘A trifle late in the day for you to be sorry!’

‘I didn’t know — I never meant — I’ve always loved you so!’ she said piteously.

His hands clenched on the whip he was holding; a rush of bitter, molten words crowded in his throat; he managed to choke them down. All he said, but that in a voice that made her flinch, was one word: ‘Don’t!’

Her sobs grew louder, more gasping. ‘If you knew — I did my best ‘

"No, you didn’t,’ he interrupted. He gave an ugly laugh. ‘Don’t women manage to dispose of their unwanted infants? Lie on them, or something? Couldn’t you have got rid of me?’

Her horrified eyes started at him. ‘Oh, Raymond, don’t, don’t! You don’t know what you’re saying! Oh, how wicked — Oh, you mustn’t talk like that!’

‘Wicked!’ he repeated. ‘Wasn’t it wicked to palm me off as your sister’s child? To let me grow up in utter ignorance — Oh my God, can’t you see what you’ve done?’

‘Rachel promised!’ she said desperately. ‘It wasn’t my fault… Rachel arranged everything! She promised no one should ever know! Adam had no right to tell you!’ A terrible thought occurred to her; she gave a whimper of fright, and cowered into the corner of her chair. ‘What did he do it for? Raymond, why did he do it?’

‘Does it matter?’ he asked.

‘But, Raymond!’ Her voice was rising again, on a note of panic. ‘What’s he going to do?’

‘I don’t know.’

She sprang up, catching her foot in the fringe of the rug on the floor, and stumbling over it. ‘But he can’t say anything! He mustn’t! Not after all these years! He promised! He couldn’t be so dreadful!’

She was advancing towards him, with her shaking hands held out. He deliberately put a table loaded with bibelots between them, not with the intention of hurting her, for he was not thinking of her at all, but because his flesh crept at the thought of being touched by her. ‘I tell you I don’t know what he means to do. I don’t know that it matters much. The mere fact — now that I know it’s true — It’s no use talking. I only came to find out — and I have. So that’s all.’

He turned towards the door. She called after him in a distracted voice: ‘Oh, don’t go like that! I can’t think!’

‘No,’ he said hardly. ‘I can’t think either. I daresay I shall be able to, when — when I’ve got more used to the idea of being just another of Father’s bastards.’

‘Oh, no, no!’ she whispered foolishly, and again stretched out her hand to him. But he went away without looking back, and a minute later she heard the clatter of his horse’s hooves diminishing in the distance.

Chapter Fourteen

The morning had not passed pleasantly for many members of the Penhallow family. Whatever gossip might be rife in the kitchen on the subject of Raymond’s quarrel with his father, no echo of this reached the family, no one, in fact, having the least idea that a quarrel had taken place; but there were troubles enough besides that to agitate the household. Vivian, who had come down late to breakfast, when only Clara, Conrad, Aubrey and Charmian still sat round the table, had rather unaccountably created a scene, during the course of which she had not only favoured those of the Penhallows who were present with her full and frank opinion of their manners, morals, and habits, but had launched forth into a diatribe against Penhallow himself, and had ended by declaring hysterically that if she did not soon escape from Trevellin she would go mad. After that, she had slapped Conrad’s face, because he laughed at her, and rushed out of the room, leaving her breakfast untouched. She was later heard, wildly sobbing, in the library, to which apartment it was conjectured that she had fled in the well-founded belief that few of the Penhallows were likely to enter it.

She left the dining-room party labouring under a strong feeling of surprise, for although she was known to be moody, she had never before been seen to lose all control over herself. The immediate cause of her outbreak seemed too trivial to warrant such a display of emotion. She had exploded with wrath at finding that Conrad had carelessly put a used plate (his own) in her place at the table, instead of removing it to the sideboard.

‘And who shall blame her?’ said Aubrey. ‘I do think that egg-stains are quite too alienating, don’t you? The twins simply have no sensibility at all.’

‘But what’s she want to kick up such a shindy about?’ demanded Conrad. ‘She’d only got to move it, hang it all! Anyone would think I’d put a live toad in her place!’

‘I wouldn’t pay any attention to Vivian’s tantrums, if I were you,’ Clara said. ‘I daresay she has her troubles.’

‘She’s got Eugene, if that’s what you mean!’

‘Is she starting a baby by any chance?’ inquired Charmian, who was sitting with both elbows on the table, and her coffee-cup held between her hands.

Clara rubbed her nose. ‘Well, she hasn’t said anythin’ about it to me,’ she said doubtfully. ‘Of course, that isn’t to say she isn’t, and it would account for her comin’ over squeamish, I daresay.’

‘Oh, no!’ said Aubrey imploringly. ‘Oh, Char darling, you don’t really think so, do you? I mean, what with Father being quite too gross for words, and the twins so terribly, terribly hearty, I don’t think I can bear any more! Shall you stay here for a whole week? I’m nearly sure I shan’t. It’s all so primitive, and vulgar, and I find that I definitely lack the herd-instinct, without which I quite see that it’s practically impossible to feel at home here.’

‘Well, that’s something, anyway!’ retorted Conrad, getting up from the table. ‘Considering that you affect the rest of us like a pain in the neck, the sooner you clear out the better!’

‘Now, that’s enough!’ Clara said mildly. ‘What with your father on the rampage, and now Vivian, we can’t do with any more nonsense.’

Conrad grimaced at her, and went away, but any hopes she or others might have entertained of spending the eve of Penhallow’s birthday in comparative peace were effectually put an end to, first by the discovery that Vivian was prolonging her attack of hysteria in the library; and next by the antics of Penhallow, who, as soon as he had recovered in some measure from the effects of Raymond’s assault upon him, proceeded to make his presence more than usually felt in the house. Knowing nothing of his father’s unpropitious mood, Clay was inspired to address an appeal to him, having nerved himself to take this desperate step by walking about the gardens for several hours, and rehearsing a convincing speech. Filial respect and manly determination were the predominant notes in the speech, as rehearsed, but since he was destined never to utter more than the opening phrases all his trouble was wasted. The very sight of his pallid countenance, nervously bobbing Adam’s apple, and unquiet hands exasperated Penhallow. He had always done what lay in his power to inspire his sons with dread of him, and had heartily despised any one of them who seemed to show that he had succeeded. Confronted by Clay, who was obviously terrified of him, and as obviously preparing to recite a set speech, he gave the fullest rein to his ill-humour, speedily reducing that unfortunate youth to a condition of stammering imbecility, tearing his character to shreds, trampling brutally over the tenderest spots in his sensibility, and dismissing him finally with a promise to take such steps as were requisite to turn him into a worthy member of the Penhallow family.

Emerging from his father’s room in a much shaken state, Clay fell into the arms of his half-sister, whom he encountered in the hall, and who promptly walked him out into the garden, and endeavoured, with the best possible motives, to instil resolution and self-reliance into him. But as he was of the type that responds only to encouragement mingled with a good deal of flattery, her methods, which were at once bracing and scornful, inspired him with nothing more than a desire to escape from her, coupled with a strong conviction that she did not understand him. He fled to his mother, and unburdened himself to her with so little reserve that it was not long before he had plunged her into a state of even greater desperation than his own.

Having passed one of her restless nights, Faith was late in coming downstairs. The hour which Clay had spent in her room had left her with a throbbing head; she felt her chief need was to be quiet, and was well aware that such a commodity was not to be found under the existing circumstances at Trevellin. The house seemed to teem with persons all more or less inimical to her; and as though it were not enough to find Eugene toying with an idea for an essay in the Yellow drawing-room, his wife viciously smoking cigarettes in the library, Clara mending stockings in the morning-room, and Charmian conducting an argumentative literary discussion with Aubrey in the hall, Myra had walked up from the Dower House to discover what plans had been made for Penhallow’s birthday party on the morrow. Myra had been in to see Penhallow, and gave it as her opinion that he was looking wonderful. As she had very little interest in anything beyond the walls of her own home, she hardly ever came into collision with her father-in-law, a circumstance which enabled her to face the thought of his amazing vitality with perfect equanimity.

‘I always say,’ she remarked brightly, ‘that he’ll see us all out! Of course, all the Penhallows are long-lived, aren’t they? I’m sure everyone thought his grandfather would die years and years before he did. He had everything in the world the matter with him, too. Of course, his father died young, but that was only because of a hunting accident.’

Faith barely repressed a shudder. Her sister-in-law replied placidly that she for one had never believed in half Penhallow’s ailments. She added that Dr Lifton might say what he liked, but that she knew her brother better than he did, and expected him to live for a good many years yet.

Faith could not listen to such a prognostication in silence. ‘If he did not drink so much!’ she said. ‘Dr Lifton told me himself that no constitution could stand it!’

‘Ah!’ said Clara, rethreading her needle. ‘Time will show.’

Faith went out into the garden, murmuring that her head ached. The thought of perhaps having to endure years of the sort of purgatory she had been going through for months now was so appalling to her that she looked quite hunted, and indeed felt as though her reason were tottering. Since Aubrey’s return to the fold, the noise and the strife in the family seemed to have become augmented, not one of his brothers being able, apparently, to see him without making some belittling remark to which he promptly responded in kind. Such bickering had no effect upon Clara, who largely ignored it, but it preyed on Faith’s nerves to an extent that would have been quite incomprehensible to the Penhallows, had they had the least idea of it. More than ever, now that Aubrey had come and Loveday had betrayed her confidence, she found herself dreaming of the prettily furnished fiat in London which she hoped to share one day with Clay. It had become her escape from the turmoil of actuality, but sometimes it seemed to her that she would never realise her ambition until she had grown too old and weary to enjoy it.

Seated in the shade of a big tree on the lawn, she glanced towards the sprawling grey house, with its graceful Dutch gables, its chamfered windows, and high chimney-stacks, and remembered with a feeling almost of incredulity that she had once, long ago, exclaimed at its beauty, and thought herself fortunate to be its mistress.

The truth was, of course, that she had never been its mistress. No spirit ruled at Trevellin other than Penhallow’s, and the tyranny he exercised was so complete that it left no member of the household untouched. Brooding over it, she realised, with a little start (for she was so much in the habit of thinking her own sufferings unique that she had never considered whether the rest of the family might not suffer too, in their degrees), that it would not only be herself and Clay who would be released by Penhallow’s death from an intolerable bondage. There was Raymond, always at silent loggerheads with his father, and striving against the odds to husband the estate; there was Vivian, tied to a house and an existence she loathed, cheated of her right to her own home; there was Bart, baulked of a marriage which, however distasteful to his family, would probably turn out successfully; there was Aubrey, escaping for a little while only to be caught back again into his father’s toils. Perhaps, in the end, Charmian too would be forced to abandon the peculiar life she had chosen for herself. It did not seem likely, but anything, Faith thought, was possible when Penhallow jerked on the reins. But if he were to die, as the doctor had hinted that he would, every trouble would vanish, and they would be free, all of them: free to disperse, to follow their own inclinations; free from the fear of Penhallow’s wrath; free from their degrading dependence upon him for their livelihood. Bart would marry his Loveday, and take her to live at Trellick; Vivian would at last have Eugene to herself, to worship and to protect; Aubrey might pursue his exotic course undisturbed; and Raymond, coming after impatient years into his inheritance, would govern Trevellin without let or hindrance. And Clay, who was so much more important than any of them, would be saved from the grim future planned for him by Penhallow, for even if Penhallow left him nothing, there would be her own jointure, and on that he and she could live in peace and tolerable comfort while he made a name for himself with his pen.

She saw clearly that Penhallow’s death would be a universal panacea, and at once it seemed to her monstrous that he should lie there, in that fantastic room, year upon year, as no doubt he would, growing steadily more outrageous, wasting the estate, spoiling so many people’s lives, breeding dissension and misery amongst them, while they all, in their several ways, ate their hearts out. If only he would fulfil his doctor’s expectations, and drink himself to death! If only his unwise exertions might suddenly prove fatal! It would be, she thought dreamily, as though the house had been exorcised of an evil spirit. But he would not succumb to his follies, because nothing in this world ever happened as one prayed it might. He would go on, as his grandfather had before him, triumphantly overcoming the weakness of his diseased body, wearing them all out, until, in the end, when at last he died, they would not care for their freedom any more, because it had come to them too late.