As might have been expected, there was a good deal of loud-voiced dispute in Penhallow’s room that evening, developing every now and then into a sudden quarrel, which flared up between any two of the family, attracted the others to take sides, raged for a little while, and as suddenly died down. Penhallow enjoyed it all immensely, and did not seem to be in the least exhausted by the noise and the strife. He was looking forward to his birthday, boasting of his vitality, promising to surprise them all yet. He drank a quantity of whisky during the evening, and when they left him had reached a reckless, elated condition, in which he laughed boisterously, flew into quick rages, recalled tangled anecdotes of his youth, and was by turns bawdy and maudlin.
Charmian, exclaiming that the room smelled like a pothouse, strode out of it as soon as her father’s recollections became raffish. Faith longed for the courage to follow her example, and glanced at Vivian, wondering what she was thinking. Vivian’s face showed only indifference. Faith supposed that she had become inured to these evenings, or perhaps had never been very squeamish.
“One would imagine,” Aubrey said later, picking up his candle from the table in the hall, “that Father will be very, very unwell in the morning.”
“No, he won’t,” Vivian replied curtly. “Merely bad-tempered. He’s been going on like this for weeks.”
“What, every night?” asked Aubrey, horrified. “Oh, I am glad I don’t live at home!”
“You may well be!” she said, with such suppressed passion that he blinked at her. “It’s hell here! The worst hell you ever dreamed of He’s like a giant squid, lying there, sucking you all in!”
He giggled, and, with a glance of contempt, she went past him up the stairs.
The morning found Penhallow in a brittle, dangerous mood. He had apparently passed a considerable portion of the night in weaving fuddled plans for the future activities of his numerous offspring. These were in general too extravagant to be taken seriously, but the recital of them exasperated Raymond, who had been summoned at an early hour to learn his father’s pleasure, and to receive a quantity of arbitrary orders, not the least maddening of which was one to cash another of Penhallow’s lavish cheques.
“What the devil have you done with the money you drew out only a week ago?” demanded Raymond, his straight brows beginning to lower.
“What the hell has that got to do with you?” retorted Penhallow, kindling at once. “By God, it’s coming to something when you cubs start questioning my doings! I don’t want any comments from you, my lad! You’ll do as you’re told.”
“I’m damned if I will!” Raymond said forcibly. “Do you know the extent to which your personal account is already overdrawn?”
“I know all I want to know — and I’ve heard more than I want to from you! You’ll take my cheque into Bodmin, and keep your comments to yourself!”
Raymond drove his hands deep into the pockets of his breeches, and stood facing the bed, with his feet widely planted and his head a little thrust forward, in a belligerent attitude, which added to Penhallow’s anger. “You’ll have my comments whether you want them or not,” he said. “I’ll cash no more of these senseless cheques.”
“No?” said Penhallow, his eyes narrowing. “You’d rather I sent Jimmy, would you?”
“You can send whom you please. You won’t do it often. I’ve already had an interview with the manager. It may interest you to know that he wanted to know if I considered you fit to be trusted with a cheque-book. I don’t, but I haven’t said so — yet.”
There was silence for a few hard-breathing seconds. Penhallow had heaved himself forward from his supporting pillows, as though in an attempt to reach his son. His face had become suffused with dull colour, and his eyes blazed with an expression of naked hatred. “You hound, Raymond!” he said thickly, panting. “You ill conditioned mongrel-cur! So that’s it, is it? You’d like to get a couple of doctors to declare me incapable, would you?”
“No,” Raymond answered coldly. “I prefer to wash our dirty linen at home. But I won’t stand by idly while you waste the estate, so don’t think it! If you drive me to it, I will have you declared incapable — God knows it’s the truth!”
Penhallow raised his clenched fists in an impotent, raging gesture. He let them fall again, and began to rock himself from side to side. “Have me declared incapable!” he said. “By God, I’ve been too easy with you! Think yourself master here already, don’t you? You’re not! Not by a long chalk, Raymond! I’ve been watching you; I’ve seen you beginning to think you own Trevellin, grudging every penny I’ve spent on my other sons. You didn’t like it when I had Eugene and his wife give up that damned London folly. You didn’t want Clay here. You’re like a bear with a sore head because I mean to keep Aubrey under my eye. That doesn’t matter to me. I get a laugh out of seeing you play the Squire. But my hand’s still on the reins, my fine son, and there was never a horse could unseat me, no, nor get the better of me! There’s been no love lost between you and me, but I’ve made use of you because it suited me to. You were always a surly, cross-grained boy. I should have known that you wouldn’t stand corn!”
Raymond shrugged his shoulders, indifferent to this flood of abuse. “You should know better than to waste your breath telling me what you think of me,” he said. “I’ve never cared what you thought, and I’m not likely to start now. All I care for is the place, which you’re doing your best to ruin. But you’ll not do it! You’ve been behaving for the past weeks as though you were out of your mind: it wouldn’t be so difficult to get all the business out of your hands.” A grim little smile curled his mouth; he said with a note of mockery in his voice: “You’re not certifiable, but it isn’t necessary that you should be. I’ve been into all that.”
“Have you?” Penhallow said. “Have you indeed, Ray? Maybe you think it’s you who are in the saddle now?”
“It’s I who am going to hold the purse-strings,” Raymond replied uncompromisingly. “Better make up your mind to that. You can yield gracefully, or you can wait to be forced into it.”
“Yield!” Penhallow ejaculated. He flung back his head, and broke into a roar of laughter. The spaniel lying at his feet sat up on her haunches, flattening her ears, and lolling her tongue at him. He kicked at her, and she jumped down from the bed, and waddled over to a patch of sunlight, and lay down in it. “Yield!” Penhallow said again. “And what would you like me to do, Master Ray? Turn Eugene out, I suppose, for a start! Ask you politely for a little pocket-money every week? You’re riding for a fall, Ray!”
“Turn Eugene out for a start,” Raymond agreed. “Leave Aubrey to settle his own debts, and Ingram to pay for his brats’ schooling! And stop squandering money on your dirty little bastard!”
Penhallow’s eyes glinted suddenly. He began to rock himself about again, chuckling with a kind of fiendish amusement. “Don’t like Jimmy, do you, Ray? God, that’s given me the best laugh of my life! It was always you who objected to him the most. Like me to turn him off, wouldn’t you?”
“Keep him to wait on you, if you want him,” Raymond said contemptuously. “But teach him his place!”
“I’ll teach you yours, you misbegotten young swine!” Penhallow said, an ugly sneer disfiguring his countenance. “He has as much right to be here as you, let me tell you!”
Raymond gave a short laugh. “Has he, by God? He’ll learn his mistake when I’m master here!”