Ancestral Vices by Tom Sharpe Read Free Book Online Page A

investigating who precisely was responsible for the deformation of the pig and his own breach of good manners.
    ‘I think I’ll nip off to bed if you don’t mind,’ said Croxley when they finally rose from the table. ‘If you need anything in the night just ring for it.’
    He slipped out into the corridor and left Yapp to return to the drawing-room. Yapp went reluctantly and with every intention of telling his host exactly what he thought of him if he spoke one rude word again but Lord Petrefact, having discovered the unnatural origins of the species he had been presented with, was in no mood to quarrel with Walden Yapp.
    ‘You must excuse my outburst, my dear fellow,’ he said with apparent geniality. ‘It’s this confounded digestive system of mine, you know. It’s bad enough at the best of times but . . . do help yourself to brandy. Of course you will. I think I’ll have a small one myself.’ And in spite of Yapp’s protest that he had already drunk more than he usually did in a month, Lord Petrefact propelled himself across to the cabinet in the corner and handed him a very large brandy.
    ‘Now sit yourself down and have a cigar,’ he said. Thistime Yapp refused firmly on the grounds that he was a non-smoker.
    ‘Very sensible. Very sensible. Still; it calms the nerves, so they tell me.’ And armed with a large cigar and a sizeable brandy he manoeuvred his chair so that his relatively benevolent side was uncomfortably close to Yapp.
    ‘Now I daresay you’re wondering why I’ve invited you down here,’ he said in an almost conspiratorial whisper.
    ‘You mentioned something about my writing a history of the family.’
    ‘So I did. Quite so,’ said Lord Petrefact with every effort to appear absent-minded, ‘but doubtless you found the idea more than a little perplexing.’
    ‘I wondered why you had chosen me, certainly,’ said Yapp.
    Lord Petrefact nodded. ‘Exactly. And taking, let us say, the extreme poles of our political opinion, the choice must have seemed mildly eccentric.’
    ‘I did find it unusual and I think I ought to tell you here and now that . . .’
    But Lord Petrefact raised his hand. ‘No need, my dear fellow, no need at all. I know what you’re going to say and I agree absolutely with your preconditions. Precisely why I chose you. We Petrefacts may have our faults and I’ve no doubt you’ll catalogue them in detail, but one thing you won’t find in us is self-deception. I suppose another way of putting it would be to say we lack vanity, but that would be going too far. You’ve only got to lookat this infernal house to see to what lengths my grandparents went to proclaim their social superiority. And a fat lot of good it did them. Well, I’m of another generation, another epoch you might say, and if there’s one thing I value above all else it is the truth.’
    And managing to hold both his cigar and his brandy glass in one hand he grasped Yapp’s wrist rather unnervingly with the other.
    ‘The truth, sir, is the last repository of youth. How’s that for a saying?’
    Much to Yapp’s relief Lord Petrefact let go of his wrist and sat back in his chair looking remarkably pleased with himself.
    ‘Now what do you say to that?’ he insisted. ‘And there’s no use your looking in La Rochefoucauld or Voltaire for the maxim. Mine, sir, my very own and none the less true for that.’
    ‘It’s certainly a very interesting notion,’ said Yapp, not certain that he fully understood what the extraordinary old man was saying but feeling that it must have some significance for him.
    ‘Yes. The truth is the last repository of youth. And while a man is prepared to look truth in the face and see the mirror of his defects, let no man call him old.’
    And having delivered himself of this phrase so redolent of Churchill, Beaverbrook and possibly even Baldwin at his most meaningless, Lord Petrefact blew a smoke ring from his cigar with great expertise. Yapp watched, mesmerized, as