Джорджетт Хейер - Penhallow

“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.”