Джорджетт Хейер - Penhallow

“It’s no use complaining to me,” interrupted Faith. “I can’t do anything about it. And Sybilla’s a good cook. I should like to know who else would stay in a place like this, or cook for a positive army of people on a stove that was out-of-date twenty years ago! I’m only thankful she and Reuben do stay.”

“And then there’s that maid of yours,” Vivian continued, disregarding her. “You’ll have to get rid of her, Faith.”

“Get rid of Loveday! I’ll do no such thing! She’s the one person in the house who considers me!”

“Yes, I know, but Aunt Clara always says she’s a double-faced girl.”

“I don’t want to listen to what Clara says! She’s a spiteful old woman, and just because I’m fond of Love day—”

“No, it isn’t that. They all say the same. Bart’s at his old tricks again. It’s absolutely fatal to employ good-looking servants in this house. I should have thought you must have known that.”

“Loveday Trewithian is a thoroughly nice girl, and I won’t hear a word against her!”

“Eugene says she means to marry Bart.”

Faith’s blue eyes started a little. She stammered: “I don’t believe it! Bart wouldn’t—”

“I know he’s never wanted to marry any of his other bits of stuff,” said Vivian, “but honestly, Faith, he does seem to have gone in off the deep end this time. Conrad’s livid with jealousy. You must have noticed it! Eugene says—

“I don’t want to hear what Eugene says! He always was a mischief-maker, and I don’t believe one word of this!”

Any criticism of Eugene at once alienated Vivian. She put out her cigarette in the grate, and got up, saying coldly: “You can believe what you like, but if you’ve a grain of sense you’ll get rid of the girl. I don’t know if Bart means to marry her or not, and I care less, but if it’s true, and Penhallow gets to hear of it, you’ll wish you’d paid attention to me, that’s all.”

“I don’t believe a word of it!” Faith repeated, on the verge of tears.

Vivian opened the door, remarking over her shoulder: “You never believe anything you don’t want to believe. I’ve no patience with people like you.”

After she had gone, Faith lay for quite half an hour thinking how brutal Vivian had been, and how rude, and how no one cared for her nerves, or hesitated to upset her when she had had a bad night. It was characteristic of her that she did not let her mind dwell on the unwelcome tidings which Vivian had imparted. If they were true, there would be the sort of trouble she dreaded; but she did not want to dismiss Loveday, and so she refused even to contemplate the possibility of their being true.

It was past ten o’clock when Faith at last got up and began to dress. Fortunately for herself, and indeed for the rest of the household, it was Sybilla Lanner who undertook the housekeeping at Trevellin. She had done so from the time of Rachel’s death. An attempt by Faith, in the early days of her marriage, to take the reins into her own hands had failed, not because Sybilla opposed it, or showed the slightest jealousy of the new Mrs Penhallow, but because Faith had no idea how to cater for a large family, and was, besides, the kind of woman who could never remember people’s individual tastes. Easy-going, slovenly, wasteful Sybilla, never planning ahead, always sending one of the maids running to the village to buy another couple of loaves of bread or a tin of baking powder, yet never forgot that Mr Raymond would not touch treacle, or that Mr Conrad liked his eggs fried on both sides, or that the Master would not eat a pasty unless scalded cream was served with it, in the old-fashioned way. On the only two occasions that Faith’s aunt, who had brought her up, visited her at Trevellin, she had exclaimed against Sybilla’s extravagance, and had tried to introduce her to more methodical ways. She had failed. Sybilla, soft-spoken like all her race, agreed with every word she said, and continued to rule the kitchen as she had ruled it for years.

By the time Faith came out of her bedroom it was eleven o’clock, and the family had dispersed. The maids were still making beds, emptying slops, and raising a dust with long-handled brooms; for since no one bothered to oversee their work they went about it in a cheerful, leisurely fashion, with a good deal of chatter, and singing, and no attention paid to the clock. Faith remarked, encountering a stout girl who had just come out of Raymond’s room with a dustpan-and-brush in her hand, that the rooms ought to have been finished an hour ago. The girl agreed with her, smiling good-humouredly, and adding that they did seem to be a bit behindhand today. They were always behindhand. Faith passed on, down the wide, oaken stair, feeling irritated, knowing that she ought to look after the maids better, but telling herself that she had neither the health nor the energy to train raw country girls.

The stairs led down to the central hall, a low-pitched, irregularly-shaped space with several passages leading from it, and a number of doors. Rachel’s portrait hung over the great stone fireplace, facing the staircase; a gateleg table, with a bowl of flowers on it, stood in the middle of the hall; there were several Jacobean chairs, with tall carved backs, and worn seats; a faded Persian rug; a large jar containing peacocks’ feathers, which stood in one corner; an ancient oak coffer; a coal-scuttle of tarnished copper; two saddle-back armchairs; a Chippendale what-not, its several tiers piled with old newspapers, magazines, garden-scissors, balls of string, and other such oddments; and a kneehole-desk, of hideous design, under one of the windows which flanked the open front door. Besides Rachel’s portrait, the walls bore several landscapes, in heavy gilt frames; a collection of mounted masks and pads; four stags’ heads; two warming-pans; a glass case enclosing a stuffed otter; and a fumed oak wall-fixture, from whose hooks depended a number of hunting-crops and dog-whips.

The season was late spring, and the air which stole in through the open Gothic door was sharp, and made Faith shiver. She crossed the hall to the morning-room, a pleasantly shabby apartment which looked out on to a tangle of shrubbery and flower-beds. There was no one in the room, or in the Yellow drawing-room which led out of it. She guessed that her sister-in-law was either gardening amongst the ferns which were her obsession, or driving herself along the hollow lanes in her high dogcart, behind the rawboned horse which Faith always thought so like her. She looked about for the morning’s paper, and, not finding it, left the room, and went to look in the dining-room for it. She was returning with it in her hand when Reuben came into the hall from the broad passage which led to the western end of the house, and delivered an unwelcome message.

“Master wants to see you, m’m.”

“Oh! Yes, of course. I was just going,” she said. She always hoped that the servants were not aware of her dread of Penhallow, who seemed to her so much more monstrous now that he was confined nearly always to his bed. “Loveday tells me that he isn’t so well this morning,” she added.

“I knew how it would be when he was so set on having Sybilla bake him a starry-gaze pie,” responded Reuben gloomily. " It never did agree with him.”

Faith barely repressed a shudder. Penhallow had suddenly taken it into his head, on the previous day, to demand a dish rarely seen now in Cornwall. He had wanted to know why starry-gaze pies were never served at Trevellin, had recalled those made under his grandmother’s auspices, had reviled the modern generation for turning away from the customs of their fathers, and had ended by sending for Sybilla, and commanding her to make him a starry-gaze pie for his dinner. By God, they should all of them have starry-gaze pie for dinner, and know what good Cornish food could be like! He had got up from his huge bed, and had had himself wheeled into the dining-room to preside over this memorable meal, and had had the pie set down before him, so that he could serve it with his own hands. Since eight persons sat down to dinner, the pie was of generous proportions, a great mound of pastry through which protruded the heads of a number of pilchards. Faith had felt sick, but she had forced herself to eat some of it, lacking the moral courage which made Vivian reject it with loathing.