Penhallow by Georgette Heyer Read Free Book Online Page B

was wide enough to have accommodated four people without undue crowding. In the middle of it, banked up by a selection of pillows and cushions, and wearing an ancient dressing-gown over his pyjamas, lay Penhallow, a mountainous ruin of a man, with a hawk-nose jutting between bloated cheeks; fierce, malicious eyes staring beneath brows that were still jet-black and bushy; and an arrogant, intemperate mouth. His hair was grizzled, and it could be seen that he had developed a huge paunch. Around him, spread over the splendour of the quilt, were a variety of books, periodicals, cigar-cases, match-boxes, ledgers, letters, and a dish piled with fruit. At the foot of the bed, panting slightly, lay an aged and rather smelly Cocker spaniel, as obese as her master. It was her amiable custom to growl at anyone entering Penhallow’s room, and she made no exception in Faith’s favour.
    ‘Good bitch!’ said Penhallow approvingly.
    Faith shut the door behind her, and moved towards an armchair which stood at some distance from the fire.
    The room was uncomfortably warm, the pile of woodash in the hearth glowing red under a couple of smouldering logs. Except during the very few weeks in the year when Penhallow allowed his fire to go out, the ash was never removed. It made the dusting of his bedroom one of the labours of Hercules, but that was a consideration which naturally did not weigh with him.
    ‘Good morning, Adam,’ Faith said, her anxious eyes trying to read his face. ‘I’m so sorry you had a bad night. I didn’t sleep at all well myself.’
    She knew from the curl of his full lips, and the gleam in his eyes, that he was in one of his bad moods. He was always like that after a disturbed night. She guessed that he had sent for her to make himself unpleasant, and felt her heart begin to thump against her ribs.
    ‘Didn’t sleep well, didn’t you?’ he said jeeringly. ‘What have you got to keep you awake? You weren’t worrying. your empty head over me, at all events. Loving wife, aren’t you?’
    ‘I didn’t know you were awake. Of course I would have come down if I’d known you wanted me.’
    He gave a bark of laughter. ‘A lot of use you’d have been! By God, I don’t know how I came to tie myself up to such a poor creature!’
    She was silent, her colour fluctuating nervously. He observed this sign of agitation with open satisfaction. ‘Lily-livered, that’s what you are,’ he said. ‘You’ve got no spirit. Eugene’s little cat of a wife’s worth a dozen of you.’
    She said imploringly: ‘I can’t bear quarrelling, Adam.’
    ‘My first wife would have cut my face open with her riding-whip for half of what you take lying down,’ he taunted her.
    She was aware that he would like her better for storming at him; she was unable to do it: she would never all her life long, overcome her sick dread of being shouted at by a loud, angry voice. With her genius for saying the wrong thing, she faltered: ‘I’m different, Adam."
    He burst out laughing in good earnest at that, throwing his head back, so that his laughter seemed to reverberate from the painted ceiling of his preposterous bed. To Faith’s ears, it held a note of savage gloating. She rested her thin hands on the arms of her chair, and sat tense, flushing. ‘Different!’ he ejaculated. ‘By God, you are! Look at Rachel’s brats, and at that whelp of yours!’
    Her flush died, leaving her cheeks very pale. She looked anxiously at him. She thought that of course she should have known that he would attack Clay.
    He shifted his bulk in bed, so that he was able to look more directly at her. ‘Well,’ he said abruptly, ‘I can’t discover that that precious son of yours is doing any good at Cambridge, or likely to.’
    It was true that Clay’s University career had been, so far, disappointing, but he had not, to her knowledge, disgraced himself in any way, and she could hardly suppose that scholastic attainments would have interested his father.