“She’s not,” said Bart shortly, keeping a tight hold on his temper. He added: “She’s not that kind of a girl. What’s more, I’ve done nothing to be blackmailed about.”
Penhallow’s eyes narrowed. “You haven’t, eh? That’s what you say!”
“It’s true.”
Penhallow brought his fist down upon the table beside him with such force that the glass and the decanter standing on it rang. “Then if it’s true, what the devil are you playing at?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t you stand there lying to me!” roared Penhallow. “Do you think I was born yesterday?”
“All right, I won’t!” said Bart, wheeling to face him. “I am going to marry her, and be damned to you!”
Penhallow looked for a moment as though he would heave himself out of bed, but after glaring at Bart in hard-breathing silence, he relaxed against his pillows again, and drank what remained of the whisky in his glass. He set the glass down then, and said slowly: “Going to marry her, are you? We’ll see!”
“You can’t stop me.”
This seemed to amuse Penhallow, for he smiled. “There’s a lot of things I can do, my lad, which you don’t know yet. Now, don’t let’s have any more of this tomfoolery! You can’t marry my butler’s niece, and if you don’t know it you ought to! I see what’s happened: the girl’s been playing you on the end of her line, and she’s made you think you’ll only get her by putting a ring on her finger. Don’t you believe it! There’s no need to tie yourself up for the sake of a little love-making. If she’s so high in her notions, there are plenty of other fish in the sea. Come to that, I’d as soon you left her alone. Reuben won’t like it if you mess about with her, and I don’t want to upset the old fellow. Damn it, we were boys together!”
“I’m going to marry her,” Bart repeated.
The obstinacy in his face and the dogged note in his voice infuriated Penhallow, and made him lose his temper again. He began to curse his son, and the whole room seemed to shudder with the repercussions of his fury. A torrent of invective, mingled with bitter jeering, poured from him; he shouted threats; broke into fierce, mocking laughter at Bart’s greenness; and very soon goaded Bart into losing control of himself, and giving him back threat for threat.
Suddenly Penhallow stopped. He was panting, and his face was dangerously suffused with colour. Bart, staring at him with hot, angry eyes, and his underlip out-thrust pugnaciously, wondered if he was going to go off in a fit. But the colour gradually receded from his cheeks, and his breathing grew more easy. He was no fool, and he knew that to rail at Bart was no way of bending him to his will. The boy was too like himself, and one half of his mind delighted in the mulishness which exacerbated the other half of it. “There, that’s enough!” he said a little thickly. “Young devil! Come here!”
“What for?” Bart asked sullenly.
“Because I tell you to!” Penhallow said, anger flaring up again momentarily.
Bart hesitated for a moment, and then, with a shrug of his shoulders, walked up to the bed. Penhallow put out a hand, and grasped his arm, pulling him down to sit on the edge of the bed. He transferred his grasp to Bart’s knee, and gripped it through the whipcord breeches. Bart looked defensively at him. “Well?” he said.
“Damn it, you’re the best of the bunch!” Penhallow said. “You’ve got no sense, and you’re an impudent young dog, but there’s more of me in you than in any of your brothers. Now, Bart lad, there’s no point in quarrelling with me! I’m not going to last much longer, by what Lifton tells me.”
Bart’s simplicity was moved by this. He said in a slightly mollified tone: “I don’t want to quarrel with you, Guv’nor. Only I’m not going to be dictated to about this. I’m not a kid. I know what’ll suit me, and that’s Loveday.”
“If I hand Trellick over to you,” Penhallow said dryly. “What if I don’t?”
“I’ll manage somehow.”
“Talk sense! Who do you suppose is going to employ you? You don’t run well in harness, Bart. You’re too headstrong.”
“I’ll start a training stables of my own.”
“Where’s the money coming from? You’ll get none from me.”
“I don’t know, but you needn’t think you can force me to give Loveday up by cutting off supplies. I’m young, and strong, and I know enough about farming to get job any day of the week.”
“And what does Miss Loveday say to all this?” inquired Penhallow, the corners of his mouth beginning to lift.
He knew from Bart’s silence that he had set his finger on the weak link in his armour, and was satisfied. He tightened his grip on Bart’s knee. “Come on, my lad! Let’s have it from the shoulder! What are you going to do? Walk out on me? I can’t stop you!”
“Hell, why can’t you hand over Trellick, and let me please myself?” Bart exploded. “I’m not your heir. It doesn’t matter a tinker’s curse what I do! All that tosh about birth and breeding! It’s out-of-date — dead as mutton!”
“Well, I’m out-of-date,” said Penhallow. “Daresay I’ll be dead as mutton too before very long. Wait till I’m gone before you take that girl to church.”
Bart said awkwardly: “You’re all right, Guv’nor. See us all out.”
“Oh, no, I shan’t! I’m done, my boy. Drinking myself into my grave. I’ll be bound that old woman, Lifton, has told you so! Damned fool!”
Bart looked at him with a little concern in his face. “You’re good for years yet. Why don’t you ease up on the whisky a bit?”
“God damn it, do you suppose I want to add a few miserable years to my life?” Penhallow demanded. “Lying here, a useless hulk, gasping like a landed trout every time I so much as heave myself over in bed! I, who could throw any man to my inches, and better! No, by God! The sooner I’m laid underground the better I’ll be pleased!” He released Bart’s knee, giving it a little push, as though to drive him away. “Go and be damned to you! Marry the girl! I’ve taken some knocks in my time, and I can take this last one.”
“I say, Father, don’t!” Bart begged uncomfortably. “I don’t want to clear out, honestly I don’t! But I don’t see why you should be so cut up about it. I’m not going to be a ruddy literary bloke, like Eugene or Aubrey: I’m a farmer, and I want a wife who’ll be some use to me, not a blamed little fool like Vivian, or a cold poultice like Rosamund!”
Penhallow bit back an appreciative chuckle at this, and said: “I’m too old to change my way of thinking. It’ll be a bitter day to me when you tie yourself up to a wench out of my kitchen. I’m fond of you, Bart. I shall miss you like hell if you leave Trevellin. Wait till I’m gone, boy! When I’m in my grave I shan’t care what kind of a fool you make of yourself. You’ll get Trellick: I’ve left it to you in my will.”
Bart grinned at him. “Any strings tied to it, Guv’nor?” Penhallow shook his head. “No. It’s not entailed. I bought it with you in my eye. I want you to have it.”
“I know it’s unentailed. That wasn’t what I meant.”
“I know what you meant. No strings.”
Bart flushed. "Jolly good of you, Guv’nor!” he said gruffly. “Puts me in a filthy position, though. I’m not going to give Loveday up.”
“I’ve told you, I don’t care a damn what you do when I’ve gone. All I’m asking is that you have a bit of patience, Bart.”
A vague, half-formed suspicion formed in Bart’s mind. He said: “I shan’t change, you know.”
Penhallow’s lips curled a little. “No harm done, then. If you do change, I shall be glad; if you don’t, it won’t have done either of you any harm to wait a while. You’re young yet.”
Bart got up. “I’ll think about it,” he said reluctantly. “That’s right: you think about it,” said his father, with the utmost cordiality.
Chapter Eleven
When Bart had left the room, Penhallow settled himself, with a chuckle, more comfortably amongst his pillows. He thought he had Bart’s measure, and was fairly confident that he had averted the disaster of his marriage. It amused him to reflect how easy it was to disarm this most hot-headed of his sons. Bart had a tender heart; Penhallow did not think that Loveday would find it a simple matter to induce him to darken what he had been led to believe were his father’s last weeks on earth.