Delia began nervously to fidget with the clasp of her handbag. “I’m sure dear Faith — Not that anyone could take Rachel’s place, but it takes all sorts to make a world, doesn’t it? Oh, Conrad, thank you, is this my tea? So wonderful of Clara to remember just how I like it!”
At this moment, Ingram suddenly became aware of his half-brother’s presence. He broke off in the middle of what he was saying to Phineas to exclaim: “Good lord, the kid’s back! Hallo, how are you?”
“I’m all right,” Clay answered.
Ingram looked him over critically, remarking with the paralysing candour of his family that it was time he started to furnish a bit. He grasped Clay’s arm above the elbow, feeling his muscle, and expressed himself as profoundly dissatisfied. “Why, my young rascal, Rudolph, could give you a stone!” he said. “Bertie’s got more muscle than you! Hi, Ray! you’ll have to do something about the kid! He’s growing up a positive weed!”
The fact that Ingram’s elder son was only two years junior to him always had the effect of making Clay feel that Ingram was even farther removed from him in age than Raymond. He stood more in awe of him, hated his loud, cheerful voice, and lost no time in escaping from his clutch. Phineas engaged Ingram’s attention once more by inquiring after the health and progress of Rudolph and Bertram, and Ingram was still descanting upon this theme when Reuben Lanner ushered the Vicar into the room.
The Reverend John Venngreen, a stout cleric with a wide, bland smile, and a gift for overlooking the obvious which amounted to genius, came in exuding good-will. Finding one member of the household, Ingram, boring the circle by the fire with an account of his sons’ exploits; another, Penhallow himself, reducing his wife and sister in-law to a condition of acute discomfort; a third, Eugene, apparently suffering from acute spiritual nausea; and a fourth, Clay, trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible at his Aunt Clara’s elbow, he was prompted to exclaim: “Ah, this is a pleasure indeed! And may I be allowed to join this happy family party? Penhallow, my dear fellow! Mrs Penhallow! Mrs Hastings! Mrs Ingram, my indefatigable helper! I am more fortunate than I knew! Mrs Eugene, too, as bright and blooming as ever! Well, well, well!”
“Where’s your wife?” demanded Penhallow, wheeling his chair round and shaking hands.
“Alas!” The Vicar’s smile widened, and he made a deprecating gesture. “She sent me to be the bearer of her excuses. This east wind had awakened her old enemy, I fear, and she would not venture out.”
“There!” said Penhallow, with an air of chagrin. “And I particularly arranged for poor little Jimmy to be kept out of the way!”
The Vicar managed, by suddenly affecting to perceive Rosamund for the first time, to remain deaf to this outrageous speech. He said: “If it is not Mrs Clifford! How do you do? And your dear little girls? Your nosegay of bright blossoms!”
“Now, don’t talk nonsense!” said Penhallow. “There’s nothing wrong with the kids, but one of ’em’s got teeth that stick out. You ought to do something about it, Rosamund. You don’t want her growing up rabbit-faced.”
“That’s right,” agreed Clara. “She ought to have a plate made for her, poor little soul! I remember we had to have one made for Char, and look at her now!”
Ingram was at once reminded of all the improper uses to which Charmian had put her plate, and Rosamund, ignoring the whole family, made room for the Vicar to sit down on the sofa beside her, and engaged him in a rather conventional conversation about gardening. Clifford went over to the tea-table, and after exchanging a few words with his mother, smiled in a friendly way at Clay, and asked him when he thought of starting work with him.
“I told you, nothing is settled yet,” Clay replied desperately. “I may as well tell you that I was never consulted about this, and it’s absolutely the last thing in the world I want to do! I don’t mean that I’m not very grateful to you, and all that, for being willing to take me, but I shouldn’t be the least use to you, and I do wish to God you’d say something to Father!”
“Well, well, you never know what you can do till you try!” said Clifford bracingly. Feeling himself to be standing on the brink of deep waters, he sought to escape by hailing Raymond, who was coming towards the table with Delia’s cup-and-saucer. “Hallo, Ray, old boy! Donkey’s years since I laid eyes on you! How’s the young stock?”
Raymond set the cup-and-saucer down before Clara, saying briefly: “Aunt Delia,” and turned to his cousin. “I’ve got one hit, and several promising colts.”
“Yes, Ingram told me about your Demon colt. I’d like to have a look at him. Got anything likely to suit me?”
“I might have. Come up to the stables presently, and you can cast your eye over what I’ve got.”
“If he weren’t a bit short of bone, that liver-chestnut would do nicely for Cliff, Ray,” remarked Clara, replenishing Delia’s cup.
“Cliff likes a lot in front of him,” put in Bart. “Tell you what, Cliff, I’ll sell you my Thunderbolt!”
“Why, what’s wrong with him?” retorted Clifford.
“I don’t like a sorrel,” said Clara, with a decisive shake of her head.
“A good horse,” said Bart sententiously, “can’t be a bad colour. There’s nothing wrong with him.”
“Barring his being at least three inches too long behind the saddle,” interpolated Raymond dryly.
Realising that Clifford was now embarked fairly upon a discussion of horseflesh which would in all probability last for the rest of his stay, Clay relieved his feelings by saying, “O God!” under his breath, and sighing audibly.
As might have been expected, the conversation gradually extended to nearly everyone else in the room; and after arguing loudly over the merits and demerits of quite half the horses at present in the stables or out to grass, the Penhallows surged out, under Penhallow’s direction, to conduct the guests to the stud-farm. As this lay at a considerable distance from the house, the services of all the available cars were requisitioned, Penhallow himself being hoisted into the dilapidated limousine, which Bart had had to fetch from the garage to accommodate him, the Vicar, Faith, Clara, and Phineas. Delia, after fluttering about in an aimless fashion for a few minutes, got into Raymond’s two-seater, reminding him that he had promised to show her his dear little colts. The only people to abstain from the expedition were Eugene and Vivian. The rest of the party drove off towards the uplands, taking in the hunting-stables on the way, and having most of the horses there paraded before them. Faith, who had developed a nagging headache, leaned back in the corner of the car with closed eyes, trying to shut her ears to the sound of insistent voices tossing scraps of hunting jargon to and fro; and Clay, standing in the yard amongst, yet apart from, his brothers, watched a succession of horses pass him, and with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, imagined the most restive apportioned to him. Raymond said, as Weens led out a bay whose chosen mode of progression was a sort of restless dance: “He might suit you, Clay.”
“Quite a good frontispiece,” Clay said judicially, thinking that the brute had a vicious eye. He could imagine how he would hump his back under a cold saddle, and could almost hear, in advance, his half brothers’ adjurations to himself to keep him walking, for God’s sake to keep his heels away from his sides! He knew he would soon part company with a horse like that, but he dared not say it.
Bart put him out of his agony. “Too nappy for Clay,” Bart said. “What about that half-bred mare Con picked up at Tavistock?”
“Oh, she’s a terrible brute!” Conrad said. “I’m frightened to death of her. Clay could never hold her, except on a twisted snaffle.”
Clay thought resentfully that if ever he should say that he was frightened, which he had never possessed the moral courage to do, they would all mock at him unkindly. But his brothers often swore to their terror of some horse, or some jump, and not even Penhallow did more than laugh at such confessions.