Phineas’s smile did not lose a jot of its blandness. “One of these days…” he said vaguely.
Raymond gave a laugh, and turned to bid farewell to his aunt. She laid a timid hand on his shoulder, and since it was plain that she intended to kiss him, he submitted, leaning sideways a little, and himself perfunctorily kissed her withered cheek. A nod to his uncle, and he drove off, leaving the portly brother and the skinny sister standing in the road, waving to him.
Chapter Six
The family did not assemble again in force until tea-time, since neither Faith nor the twins returned to Trevellin for lunch. But at five o’clock everyone but Penhallow himself foregathered ill the Long drawing-room, an apartment more akin to a gallery than a room, since it was immensely long, very narrow in proportion, and contained most of the family portraits hanging on the wall which faced the line of windows opening on to the front of the house. Some extremely valuable pieces of furniture were scattered about, amongst an almost equal number of commonplace chairs and tables; there was a small fire burning at one end, so hedged about with sofas and chairs as to give the other end of the room the appearance of a desert. Tea, which was brought in on a massive silver tray, was set out on a table in front of Clara’s accustomed chair; and a quantity of food was spread over two other tables, on Crown Derby and Worcester plates, and several silver cake-baskets, which were embellished with crochet-mats of Clara’s making. Ingram and Myra had walked up from the Dower House; and while Myra, a leathery woman with sharp features and an insistent voice, regaled Clara with an account of her triumph over the local butcher, Ingram straddled in front of the fire with leis hands in his pockets, loudly arguing with Conrad on the merits of one of Conrad’s hunters.
“He’s a comfortable ride, which is more than can be said for that nappy brute you were fool enough to buy from old Saltash,” Conrad said.
“Ewe-necked!” snorted Ingram.
“A ewe neck never yet went with a sluggish gee, so who cares?” retorted Conrad, dropping four lumps of sugar into his tea-cup. “He jumps off his hocks, too, unlike—”
“Oh, dry up, for God’s sake!” interrupted Vivian. “Can’t you talk of anything but horses, any of you?”
Bart, who was sprawling in a deep chair with a plate of Cornish splits poised on the arm of it, grinned, and said: “You wait till Clay comes home, Vivian, and then you’ll have an ally. I say, Con, have you heard the great news? The Guv’nor’s going to farm Clay out on poor old Cliff.”
“Who says so?” demanded Conrad.