‘That will do,’ she screamed at him. ‘I know your mocking, lying tongue.’
‘——For the health and prosperity and happiness granted to this family, for these years of peace and plenty, for all our pleasant days and quiet nights. Thank Him not only for yourself but for me, and for Roderick, and for Saul——’
‘Stop, you fool!’ She threw out her hand as she yelled and glared at him across the table, and immediately the spirit, which had made his voice drop wormwood, died out of him. He looked confused and frightened, and sank back into his chair. There followed a moment’s silence. They were all little frozen figures. Then Miss Femm bent her head and gabbled a grace.
‘You think you’re safe now, Horace, and you’ve had something to drink.’ She was busy filling the plates at her side with slices of beef, and she spoke more quietly. ‘And now you think you can afford to let that bad tongue of yours wag again. You’ll be sorry you didn’t keep it still.’
He roused himself. ‘I am sorry I have had a hand in this ridiculous scene,’ he told her. Then he turned to Margaret and showed her the ghost of a smile. ‘I must apologise for these exhibitions of—what shall I say?—rural eccentricities. We have lived so long alone here that we have forgotten how to behave in front of visitors. Even I, who only returned here during the War and have known the world, have forgotten my manners. We are old and rusty mountain hermits. You must excuse us.’
This was as embarrassing as the rest of it, and Margaret was glad to busy herself with the potatoes that he somewhat fantastically proffered with his apology. Philip and Penderel, having exchanged glances across the width of the table, said nothing but tried to be bustling with plates and slices of bread and the cruet. Good old eating, thought Penderel, it’ll carry anything off. Not that he minded these little family quarrels of the Femms, he told himself; he rather enjoyed them. They were like a passage from a new kind of morality play; a short scene for the sneering bone and the screaming flesh.
Nobody spoke. It was one of those silences not easily broken; their strength is tested by a tap or two of words tried over in the mind, and then they are left alone. Margaret bent over her plate. Philip was idly watching Miss Femm, who was heaping red meat on the plate that Morgan held out to her. The man looked so huge and savage that it seemed strange to see him with a plate at all. He ought to have taken the joint itself in his hairy hands and retired mumbling into a corner to gnaw it. Philip turned to his supper, and wondered who would speak next.
In another moment he was answered. The whole world spoke next. What happened was the last thing that any of them expected to happen. They all jumped and looked towards the door, now clamourous with repeated and urgent rappings.
‘What’s that?’ cried Miss Femm. ‘The door?’
‘Yes,’ roared Penderel, enjoying the sound of his own voice. ‘There’s someone outside.’