Джорджетт Хейер - Penhallow

Since she was not country-bred, knew nothing about horses, and cared less, she was regarded by her brothers in-law with an almost complete indifference. Being themselves unable to imagine a more desirable abode than Trevellin, and having grown up to consider the tyranny of its master an everyday affair, they had none of them any conception of the canker of resentment which ate into Vivian’s heart. They thought her a moody little thing, laughed at her tantrums, and mocked at her absorption in Eugene. Without meaning to be unkind, they teased her unmercifully and were amused when she quarrelled with them. In their several ways, they were all of them imperceptive, and insensitive enough to make it impossible for them to understand why anyone should be hurt by their cheerful brutality.

Faith, their father’s second wife, had been crushed by the Penhallows; Vivian remained a rebel, and had even developed a kind of protective crust which rendered her indifferent to their contempt of herself. She never pretended to take an interest in the subjects which absorbed them, and said now, as she walked into the room in time to hear Conrad ask Bart whether he remembered a herring-gutted chestnut Aubrey had picked up cheap some years ago: “Oh, do shut up about horses! I want some fresh toast for Eugene. Sybilla sent him up slices like a doorsteps. I should have thought she must know by now that he likes very thin toast, not too much browned.”

She cast a frowning glance at the toast still remaining icy in the racks on the table, but Bart warded her off with one outstretched arm. “No, you don’t! Eugene is damned well not going to pinch our toast!”

She stalked over to the bell-rope, and tugged at it imperiously. “That’s cold, anyway. Sybilla must make some fresh for him. He’s had one of his bad nights.”

Both twins at once made derisive noises, which had the effect of bringing a flush to her cheeks. Even Raymond’s grim countenance relaxed into a faint smile. “There’s nothing the matter with Eugene, beyond a common lack of guts,” he said.

She said hotly: “Because you’ve never known a day’s illness in your life, you think no one else has a right to be delicate! Eugene suffers from the most terrible insomnia. If anything happens to upset him—”

A roar of laughter interrupted her. She shut her lips closely, her eyes flashing, and her nostrils a little distended.

“Now don’t tease the gal!” said Clara. “Eugene’s got a bit of indigestion, I daresay. He was always the one of you with the touchy stomach, and if he likes to call it insomnia there’s no harm in that that I know of."

“I don’t know how anyone can expect to get any rest in this house, with your father behaving as though there was no one but himself entitled to any consideration, and shouting for that disgusting old woman in the night loud enough to be heard a mile off!” cried Vivian furiously. “You wouldn’t like it if I said that there was nothing the matter with him, but nothing will ever make me believe that he couldn’t be perfectly well if he wanted to be!”

“Who said there was anything the matter with him?” demanded Bart. “He’s all right!”

“Then why does he rouse the whole house four times during the night?”

“Why shouldn’t he? His house, isn’t it?”

“He’s as selfish as the rest of you! He wouldn’t care if Eugene got ill again!”

Raymond got up from the table, and collected his letters. “You’d better tell him so,” he advised.

“I shall tell him so. I’m not afraid of him, whatever you may be!”

“Ah, you’re a grand girl, surely!” Bart said, lounging over to where she stood, and putting an arm round her shoulders. “Loo in, my dear, loo in! Give me a bitch-pack every time!”

She pushed him angrily away. “Oh, shut up!”

At this moment Reuben came in. “Was it one of you, ringing?” he asked severely.

“It was I,” said Vivian, in a cold voice. “Mr Eugene can’t eat the toast Sybilla sent up to him. Please tell her to make some more, thin, and not burnt!”

“Sybilla’s more likely to box his ears for him,” remarked Conrad, preparing to follow Raymond out of the room.

“I’ll tell her, m’m,” said Reuben disapprovingly, “but he always was a one for picking over his food, Master Eugene was, and if we was to start paying any attention to his fads there’d be no end to it. Many’s the time Master’s walloped him -’

“ If you’ll kindly do as I tell you?” snapped Vivian.

“You’re spoiling him,” said Reuben, shaking his head. “I’d give him fresh toast! Master Eugene indeed!”

Vivian with difficulty restrained herself from returning an answer to this, and after giving one of his disparaging sniffs Reuben withdrew.

“Stop worryin’ over the boy, my dear, and have your breakfast!” recommended Clara kindly. “Here’s your tea. Now sit down, do!”

Vivian took the cup-and-saucer, remarking that it was as black as ink, as usual, and sat down at the table. “I don’t know how you can bear that man’s impertinence,” she added. “He’s familiar, and slovenly, and impossible!”

“Well, you see, he’s been at Trevellin ever since he was a boy, and his father before him,” explained Clara mildly. “He doesn’t mean any harm, my dear, but it’s not a bit of good expecting him to be respectful to the boys. When you think of the times he’s chased them out of the larder with a stick, it’s not likely he would be. But never you mind!”

Vivian sighed, and relapsed into silence. She knew that Clara, though sympathetic, would never take her part against her own family. The only ally she had in the house was Faith, and she despised Faith.

It was Faith Penhallow’s custom to breakfast in bed, a habit she had adopted not so much out of regard for her health, which was frail, but because she resented her sister-in-law’s calm assumption of the foot of the table, behind the coffee-cups. She had no real wish to pour out tea and coffee for a numerous household, but like a great many weak people she was jealous of her position, and she considered that Clara’s usurpation of her place at table made her appear ridiculous. She had several times hinted that it was the mistress of the house who ought to take the foot of the table, but while she was incapable of boldly stating a grievance Clara was equally incapable of recognising a hint. So Clara, having taken the seat upon her first coming home to the house of her birth, kept it, and Faith, refusing to acknowledge defeat, never came downstairs until after breakfast.

It was twenty years since Faith Clay Formby, a romantic girl of nineteen, had been swept off her feet by Adam Penhallow, a great, handsome, dark man, twenty two years her senior, and had left the shelter of her aunt’s house to marry him. She had been very pretty in those days, with large blue eyes, the softest of fair curls, and the most appealing mouth in the world. Penhallow’s age had lent him an added enchantment; he knew just how to handle a shy girl; and the knowledge that he was a rake did not in anyway detract from his charm. She had been flattered, had pictured to herself the future, when she would be mistress of a Manor in Cornwall, moving gracefully about the beautiful old house, worshipped by her (reformed) husband, adored by her stepchildren. She had meant to be so kind to his motherless family. She was prepared to encounter enmity, but she would win them over by her patience, and her understanding, until, within a few months, they would all confide in her, and vie with one another in waiting on her.

At first glance, Trevellin had been all and more than she had imagined. Situated not many miles from Liskeard, the big Tudor house, with its Dutch gables, its fall chimney-stacks, its many mullioned windows, was large enough and lovely enough to draw a gasp from her. She saw it on a clear summer’s evening, cool grey in a setting of pasture-land, with its walled gardens bright with flowers, its heavy oak doors standing hospitably open, and allowing her, before she set foot across the threshold, a glimpse of floors black with age, of a warped gateleg table, of a warming-pan hanging on a panelled wall. North of Trevellin, in the distance, the Moor rose up, grand in the mellow evening light. Penhallow had pointed out Rough Tor to her, and had asked her if she could smell the sharp peat-scent in the air. Oh, yes, it had quite come up to her expectations! Even the discovery that most of the bewildering number of rooms in the house were badly in need of decoration; that many of the carpets and curtains were shabby; that the most hideous examples of a Victorian cabinet-maker’s art stood cheek by jowl with pieces of Chippendale, or Hepplewhite; that it would have needed an army of servants to keep so rambling a house in good order, failed to dash her spirits. She would change all that.