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!”
“When you’re master here!” Penhallow repeated. “So sure of yourself, aren’t you? So damned sure of yourself You’ll never be master here except by my consent!”
Raymond glanced scornfully at him. “I shall be master here as soon as you’re dead, and nothing you can do can alter that. I’m as familiar with the terms of the entail as you are yourself, so you may as well reserve that kind of bluster for someone it’ll impress. It cuts no ice with me.”
Penhallow leaned right forward, supporting himself on one fist, and clenching and unclenching the other. “You cocksure fool, the estate goes to my eldest legitimate son!
“I am your eldest son,” Raymond said impatiently.
“Not by a long chalk you’re not!” Penhallow replied, with a hiccough of a laugh. “I had at least a couple of sons before I begot you. Bastards, of course. Like you, Ray! Like you, and poor little Jimmy!”
There was a moment’s stunned silence. The colour draining from his face, Raymond stared into his father’s wickedly twinkling eyes. He seemed for an instant to cease to breathe; then he shattered the silence with a rasping laugh. “I don’t believe it!”