Penhallow was sitting up in bed, with the fat spaniel sprawling beside him, and a blotter on his knees. As Jimmy came into the room he was licking the flap of an envelope. He remarked genially that he had a job for Jimmy to do. Jimmy saw at once that one of his restless, energetic moods was upon him, and reflected coldly that if he didn’t quieten down again there was no knowing when he mightn’t be took off sudden.
“I shall get up today,” Penhallow announced. “It’s time I saw something of my dear family. We’ll have a tea party. I’ve got a fancy to see that old fool Phineas again. I’ve told Con to fetch him and his sister out to tea in that flibberty-gibbett of a car of his; and you can take yourself to Liskeard, you lazy young dog, and give this letter to my nevvy. I’ll have him and his stuck-up wife out here too. And on your way back, stop at the Vicarage, and give my compliments to Venngreen, and tell him I find myself good and clever today, and I’ll be happy to see, him and his good lady to tea at five o’clock.”
“She won’t come,” observed Jimmy dispassionately.
Penhallow gave a chuckle. “I don’t care whether she comes or not. You tell her you won’t be there, and maybe she will. But Cliff will come, and what’s more he’ll bring his wife, because he knows better than to offend me. He can take a look at Clay while he’s here, and settle when the whelp’s to start work with him.”
Jimmy put the letter he had been given into his pocket, and removed the blotter and the inkstand from Penhallow’s knees. “I see Mr Clay hugging Loveday Trewithian upstairs just now,” he said, casting a sidelong look at his parent.
“The young dog!” exclaimed Penhallow, warming towards Clay. “So there is some red blood in him, is there? She’s a damned fine girl, that one.”
“Ah! Maybe there’s others as thinks as much,” said Jimmy darkly. “There’ll be trouble and to spare if Mr Bart was to hear of it, that’s all I know.”
A smile curled Penhallow’s mouth; he looked across at Jimmy with a little interest and some amusement narrowing his eyes. “One of Bart’s fancies, is she? Young rascal! If I were only ten years younger, I’m damned if I wouldn’t cut him out with the girl! All the same, I’ll tell him to be carefuclass="underline" Reuben wouldn’t like it if his niece got herself into trouble, and I don’t want any fuss and nonsense out of him.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Jimmy said, with a fair assumption of innocence. “Mr Bart’s going to marry her.”
“Going to what?” demanded Penhallow, his brows beginning to lower.
“Well, that’s what I heard Mr Eugene say,” Jimmy muttered, carrying the inkstand over to the refectory table, and setting it down there.
“You’re a fool!” Penhallow said irascibly. “Marry her! That’s a good one!”
“I didn’t ought to have spoken of it,” Jimmy said. “Mr Bart would very likely murder me if he knew I’d let it out. Don’t let on I told you, sir.”
Penhallow’s brow was by this time as black as thunder. “What cock-and-bull story have you got hold of?” he shot at Jimmy.
“Loveday said to me herself as how she would be Mrs Bart Penhallow.”
“Oh, she did, did she? Well, you may tell Loveday that she’s flying too high when she thinks to trap one of my boys into marrying her!”
“She’d tell Mr Bart on me if ever I said a word to her she didn’t like,” Jimmy said. “They’re only waiting till you set Mr Bart up at Trellick, Master, and that’s the truth, for all nobody dares to tell it to you.”
An alarmingly high colour suffused Penhallow’s cheeks, and his eyes glared at Jimmy under their beetling brows, as though they would drag the whole truth out of him, but he said nothing for some moments. Then he barked: “Get off with you to Mr Cliff’s, you damned little mischief-maker! I don’t believe a word of it. Trying to pay Mr Bart back for having twisted your arm, eh? I’d do well to send you packing! Get out!”
Jimmy departed, satisfied with his morning’s work, since he knew his father well enough to be sure that the information he had imparted would rankle.
Penhallow lay thinking it over for some time. The spaniel sat up, and began to scratch herself. He cursed her, and she sat on her haunches, lolling her tongue at him, and wagging her stump of a tail. “Old fool!” Penhallow said, and pushed her off the bed, and tugged at the bell-pull.
Martha answered its summons, and came in scolding.
“The devil’s in you, surely!” she said. “Ring, ring, ring, and Jimmy gone off to Liskeard, as well you know! If it’s whisky you want, I’ll not give it to you, my dear, not at this hour of the day I won’t!”
“Shut up! You cackle like a hen!” Penhallow replied roughly. “Where’s Eugene?”
“Where would un be, but keeping himself out of the draughts, and driving everyone that can be bothered to listen to un silly with his talk of neuralgia in un’s head?” retorted Martha. “There never was one of them, not even Clay, and it was not me had him to nurse, I thank my stars! That was a more troublesome child than Eugene, and un’s no better, nor never will be! What do you want with un, my dear?”
He pinched the patchwork quilt between his fingers, regarding her in a brooding way for some moments. “What’s between young Bart and Loveday Trewithian?” he asked abruptly.
She gave a dry chuckle. “Eh, you’re a nice one to ask!” she said. “What do you expect of a son of yourn, when you put a ripe plum in his reach? Why should you worry your head?”
"Jimmy’s got hold of a damned queer story,” he growled. “He’s been telling me Bart means to marry the girl.”
"Jimmy!” she ejaculated scornfully. “I reckon Jimmy would be glad to do un a mischief if he could!”
“Maybe.” He went on pleating the quilt, still looking at her under his brows. “Seems to me Con’s none so friendly with Bart these days.”
There was a question in his voice, but she merely tossed her head, and said: “Chuck-full of crotchets, Con be and always will! Marry Loveday Trewithian! Please the pigs, her bain’t come to that!”
“What’s the girl like?” he asked.
She sniffed. “As bold as yer mind to! Sech airs! I never did see!”
“You send my sister in to me!” he ordered. “You’re nothing but a doddering old idiot, Martha!”
She grinned. “Iss, sure, but I was a fine woman in my day, Maister!”
“You were that,” he agreed.
“When I was in my twenty,” she nodded. “That Loveday warn’t nothing to me, but I never took and thought to marry above my station, as well you knaw, my dear! I don’t knaw where the world’s a-going!”
“Get out of this, you old wind-bag, and send my sister to me!” he said impatiently.
She went off, chuckling to herself; and some minutes later Clara came into the room, with her hands grimed with earth-mould, a trowel in one of them, and a fern in the other. She left a clod of mud from one of her shoes on the carpet, and had evidently caught her heel in the hem of her skirt again, since it sagged unevenly and showed a frayed edge.
“You’re a sight, Clara,” Penhallow told her frankly. “What’s that miserable thing you’ve got hold of?”
“Nothin’ much. One of the film-ferns,” she replied. “You wouldn’t know.”
“No, nor care. Sit down, old girclass="underline" I want to talk to you.”
She obeyed, choosing the chair nearest to her, as though she had little intention of remaining long. “They tell me you’ve been settin’ the house by the ears again,” she remarked.
“My house, ain’t it? I’m going to get up."
“You’ll get up once too often one of these days, Adam.”
“You leave me to know what’s best for me! That wasn’t what I wanted you for. I’ve been hearing things about Bart.”
She did not speak, but he was watching her closely, and he thought that she stiffened.
“Oh!” he said dangerously. “So you know something, do you, Clara? Didn’t think to tell me, did you?”
“I don’t know anythin’ at all, Adam,” she replied. “It’s none of my business.”