There was no doubt of Mrs. Stroud’s pleasure in his company. His visits became more and more protracted. Her door opened to him almost before he knocked. He took her flowers, fruit and books. She was elated by her success. In erotic dreams she played off one lover against the other. In waking moments she told herself that neither was really in love with her. Her husband’s greatest compliment to her had been to say that her head was screwed on right. These words came to her mind now and she doubted the truth of them.
As the summer wore on and the paths became more overgrown, the air more vibrant with the song of locusts, the moon in its fullness a deeper orange and seemingly closer to the earth, Ernest found that he was no longer able to put Mrs. Stroud out of his mind when he returned to Jalna. Her image, intensified, remained with him wherever he went. Above all, he found himself resenting more and more Eden’s friendship with her. He resented his family’s amused approval of his amorous excursions. More than once he positively trembled with anger at some complacent remark of his brother’s about “the would-be adventuress.” Ernest had to go outside the room and lean against the wall to calm himself.
His old mother was far too clever, his brother knew him far too well, not to see evidence of the change in him.
“I told you,” Nicholas said to her, “that Ernest would get soft on that woman.”
“D’ye suppose they’re living in sin?” grinned Adeline.
“My dear Mother, you’re a better judge of that than I am.”
“Well, if ’tis so, it’s made him more interesting than ever I’ve known him. But then, it often does!”
Eden, the central figure, was slow to realize the import of these developments. He looked on the sudden intimacy between his uncle and Mrs. Stroud as an effort on Ernest’s part to find out, for the family, what sort of woman she was.
Since his outbreak of anger after the tea party was past he held little rancour against his family. He was still a boy and, when they one and all were particularly pleasant to him, he felt relief in his mind and renewed confidence in his ability to conduct this affair in his own way. In fact, he had a new zest for it. The eyes of his elders were on him. They had sent out their emissary. The emissary could not help but feel the charm of the enchantress. Mrs. Stroud repeated to him the gist of all her conversations with Ernest. When Eden made fun of some remark of Ernest’s, she exclaimed:
“After all, he’s a charming man. I’ve never met anyone like him. I hope you don’t mind my being friends with him, darling. He helps pass the time for me when you’re not here. It seems so long.”
Eden stared. “Does he come so often as all that?”
“Oh, not very often. But I shan’t let him any more, if you don’t want me to.”
Delicious words to her to utter, placing herself submissively under control of this fair-faced youth. Delicious to him to hear, as he looked at her strongly marked features, her virile body. What lines there were in her face were lines of spiritual endurance and secret eroticism. Her eyelashes were thick, her wide smile showed remarkably good teeth. Her small soft hands were hypnotic in a caress.
She was of so complicated a character that her constant probings of her own depths left her baffled. She was soon conscious of her effect on Ernest. She felt dizzy with the sense of her power. She had always felt capable of fascinating men, if only she had the opportunity. She had given up hope of such when she met Eden. Her friendship with the pliable, poetic boy of eighteen, of what she thought of as “aristocratic birth,” filled her days and nights with sensuous delight. She was not to grow old without having expressed in some fashion what she felt within her. When he sat on the floor, his head on her knee and her hand moved over the shining casque of his hair, waves of almost unbearable delight stirred her blood. She would remember how she had sat stroking the forehead of the paralytic till her arm was ready to drop off, and she would almost cry out in her joy.
Narrow as was her experience, it served to make her aware of her increasing influence over Ernest. She began to plan each meeting with him as a move in a campaign. She began to think of herself as living in a network of deception between two lovers, one of eighteen, the other past sixty. Though her intimacy with Eden had not advanced beyond a lingering kiss and that with Ernest beyond the discussion of amorous passages in novels, she was intoxicated by the potentialities of her position.
Again and again she wished that she had a tenant different from Dayborn, or no tenant at all. She pictured the house as she had first seen it, undivided and roomy. If only she could have received her admirers in such a house! She was angry with herself for having hampered the builder who had made the alterations. He had wanted a more solid dividing wall. But she had insisted on cheap materials. Now, in her most cherished moments, Dayborn’s voice would penetrate the partition, complaining of the hardness of his work or Chris’s cooking. Once Chris herself had shrieked that the sausages were burning and an hour with Eden had been spoilt. Eden had insisted on shouting back — “Bring them here! I like burnt sausages!” He had seemed about sixteen while she had felt an ageing vexation. Once Tod had cried throughout a visit from Ernest. He had been suffering from injudicious feeding. But Mrs. Stroud had never really liked him again.
As summer drew to its close and the grains were harvested, the majestic progress of the seasons disintegrated into violent, changeable, and erratic weather. Surely September brought greater heat than had July! There were storms, floods, fogs, and days of mesmeric heat, when all action seemed to cost an effort beyond its worth. Eden, Piers, and Finch went in each day to college and school. The effort to see that they did not miss their train took more out of Meg, she said, than all the rest of the day. She made no attempt to eat breakfast but, after their departure, was served with a tray in her room by Wragge. He was now definitely known in the family as “Rags,” and his position established. Meg, for the rest of the day, sat on the lawn with her needlework or did a little desultory gardening. She had engaged a healthy young housemaid who took much of the care of Wakefield upon herself. He had developed astonishingly during that summer, was forward and mischievous. Meg said that it was more than she could do to cope with him single-handed.
Lady Buckley had left for her home in Devon, Nicholas accompanying her as far as Quebec. His gout for the time being had disappeared and he was glad of the change. He had a weakness for the old French town for he had been born there.
Augusta was greatly disappointed that the affair between Mrs. Stroud and Eden had not been ended, by Ernest’s intervention, before she left. She had had a good talk with both her brother and her nephew, placing the dangers of their situation calmly but relentlessly before them.
“You,” she said to Ernest, “have shilly-shallied shamefully over this business. To judge from what you say, you have made a deep impression on the adventuress. That letter from her which you showed me proves it. Why do you not insist that she should put an end to her affair with Eden? Nicholas says it is because you are completely under her domination, and that he wishes he had undertaken the job.”
“Don’t worry your head, Augusta. I have the situation perfectly in hand. Before long you will get a letter telling you that all is over between Eden and Amy.”
“Amy!” Augusta’s jaw dropped.
“And why not? Surely there must be some familiarity where influence is desired.”
“I sometimes think it is all familiarity and no influence. But Mamma has confidence in you, so I suppose I must.”
To Eden, Lady Buckley said — “I am sorry to go away leaving you still enamoured of that woman.”
Eden laughed. “I am not enamoured, Auntie. You and the whole family should be grateful that I’m not entangled with some silly girl. If you knew what some of them are like you’d have a real shock.”
“I don’t wish to know what they or any other female who fancies herself a man killer, is like.”
He put both arms about her. In spite of herself she patted his back and said a tender goodbye.
>
Augusta had mixed feelings as the ship steamed down the St. Lawrence. She was both glad and sorry to be aboard. Memories of many greetings and partings from that port crowded each other in her mind. Surely this river marked the flow of her life. As an infant she had first arrived in her mother’s arms, her ayah having died at sea. She had sailed from Quebec as the bride of Edwin Buckley. He and she had many a time made the journeyings to and fro together. Then, as widow, she had come alone. But, of all the voyages, the last had been the most melancholy when she had been summoned because of the death of her brother, Philip. That had been early in the War. She had lent her house in Devon to the Government as a convalescent home for officers. She was leaving behind her vexing problems at Jalna. She wished Ernest might have been the one to see her off, as was usually the case. Fond as she was of Nicholas, Ernest was her favourite and it had hurt her more than she had guessed at the time to see how calmly he had relinquished what had always been his privilege. Was it possible — but no; she put the thought from her mind and turned her face resolutely toward the widening stretch of the river.
Ernest in truth missed Augusta less than he would, a few months ago, have thought possible. Nicholas was to spend a fortnight in Quebec. With brother and sister removed from the scene, Ernest settled down to enjoy his friendship with Mrs. Stroud to the full.
The sudden tropic heat of September, which other people found enervating, agreed with him. The high temperature brought out the delicate pink of his complexion. This made his eyes appear very blue. His pleasing reflection in the mirror was good for his spirits which, in their turn, aided his digestion, his weak point.
As he walked steadily along the path on this Sunday afternoon, exposed to the reddish and still intense glare of the sun, he felt scarcely more than forty and certainly looked little above fifty. He wore a light grey flannel suit and a panama hat. His socks, handkerchief and tie matched his eyes. A white rosebud bravely held up its head in his buttonhole. He felt oddly elated as he knocked on Mrs. Stroud’s door.
She opened it and stood dazzled a moment by the sunshine. Then she drew him hastily inside.
“We must keep out the heat,” she said.
“You are surprisingly cool in here. The blue curtains help to give the effect of coolness also. And that dress — have I seen it before?”
“No. It is new. Do you like it?”
“Very much.”
He touched the material with a new air of familiarity.
“I couldn’t resist it,” she said.
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“It is good of you to face this sun to come and see me. I scarcely hoped to see you before another hour.”
“I couldn’t wait,” he answered with a little laugh.
There was something different in that laugh. There was something new in their relationship. Possibly the cool sequestered air of the room, in contrast to the heat outside, had its share in the advancement. Perhaps the absence of Augusta and Nicholas had cut loose an anchor. Whatever it was, the two found themselves sailing into deeper waters. To bridge the moment Mrs. Stroud remarked:
“The wild flowers are lovely just now, aren’t they? Did you notice the Michaelmas daisies at the edge of the wood as you came here?”
“Yes. I should like to have brought you some but I was afraid they might be a little dusty. The goldenrod is coming on too. It makes one realize how the season passes.”
“And to think that a year ago we had not met. And now we seem like quite old friends.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I can’t think of anyone but you living in this house, now. I can’t think of myself as not coming to see you.”
“And I might so easily have chosen another place! My one trial is my tenant. Listen to that!”
Dayborn’s voice came from beyond the partition. “Put paraffin on the fire if it won’t go, you idiot!”
Ernest made a grimace of distaste but he said consolingly:
“I should never have noticed if you had not drawn my attention to it. But it is a pity the partition is so thin. What was your builder thinking of?”
“It was my fault. I wouldn’t let him spend what he wanted to. How I regret it now — when I want privacy — if ever I did!”
Ernest coloured. He coloured first at the thought of her meanness in hampering the builder, even more deeply at her plain statement of her need for privacy. He found his heart beating quickly. He began to wonder how deeply his punitive expedition was going to entangle him. He agreed:
“I am like you, too. I have a great need of privacy. The walls of Jalna are so built that, when I am in my room, the only person who has the power to annoy me is my brother. I must give him the credit of not often doing it, though occasionally he makes a great hubbub with his puppy. It’s a sweet little creature but it does yap.”
Mrs. Stroud made tea. It was now the custom for Ernest to carry the tray from the pantry for her. He glanced at the tomato sandwiches with approval. A fresh cream cheese and brown bread looked delicious. When she came in carrying the smaller tray with the tea things he smiled at her almost tenderly and exclaimed:
“Isn’t this nice!”
With a new air of ascendancy over him she made him sit down, and laid a little embroidered napkin across his knees, as though he were a child.
“There!” she said. “You mustn’t get a speck on that lovely grey flannel.”
He could not help himself. He stretched out his hand, caught hers, and imprinted a kiss on her wrist.
She hurried back to the tea table and began to pour the tea, not daring to meet his eyes. But he had come out into the open.
“I don’t see why you should mind that,” he said a little brusquely.
“It surprised me, that was all.”
“After all, any gentleman may kiss any lady’s hand. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes, but there are different ways of doing it.”
“Do you dislike my way?”
“No,” she replied in a whisper.
“Some day,” he continued with temerity, “I may salute you with an even greater difference. What will you say to that, I wonder?”
Their eyes met. They laughed excitedly. Ernest was enjoying himself. It was just the sort of love-making he liked — neither here nor there, but always on the verge of something. To Amy Stroud it was a nervous ordeal. She enjoyed it as a skater might enjoy skimming over exquisite but brittle ice which might, at any moment, crack beneath his weight. Ernest was a being of a different world from the one she knew. His urbanity always made her wonder what lay behind it. Yet she had no doubt of her fascination for him.
Nearly all her waking thoughts were concentrated on him and Eden. To draw them close to her, to keep them from interfering with each other, was her problem. Already Ernest had touched on the subject of Eden’s youth and the necessity for his education to be carried on without interruption from outside interests. There was a certain austerity in his face, when he spoke of Eden, that made her wonder.
She was expecting Eden that evening. He knew Ernest was to have tea with her and was not to set out till Ernest’s return. Between visits she would have time to rest for a bit, and lay the table for supper. They both were startled when Eden’s face appeared suddenly at the window. He drummed with his fingers on the pane. Ernest made no pretence of hiding his chagrin.
“Why had he to come!” he exclaimed angrily, but under his breath.
“Sh!” she formed with her lips, her eyes on Eden’s face.
“How quaint you look,” said Eden.
“Do we?” Mrs. Stroud’s lips were disapproving, but her eyes melted in tenderness.
“Yes. Like Darby and Joan.”
“And you are a Peeping Johnny,” said Ernest huffily.
“Shall I come in?”
Mrs. Stroud sprang up and went toward the door. Eden was on the threshold. He put his arms about her.
“Don’t!” She breathed in a panic, pushing him away. “Are you mad?”
; “Quite.”
He followed her into the room.
“Can I have tea?”
“May,” corrected his uncle automatically.
“May I?” repeated Eden, with docility.
“I’ll make a fresh pot.” She had not reseated herself and now picked up the teapot decisively. Her confusion vanished. She felt exhilarated at the thought of a crisis. She would show herself capable of keeping both lovers, for so she pictured them, in good humour.
Left together, they sat looking at each other; Ernest trying to appear not displeased; Eden wearing the veiled smile that sat oddly on his boy’s face. Ernest nervously tapped his teeth with his fingernails.
“What are they doing at home?” he asked. “You said that you would read to my mother. She is feeling Augusta’s departure.”
“I did. And she fell asleep. She was safe till tea time. Meg is dozing too. She’s in the hammock, the old one under the mulberry tree. Rags has cleaned it up for her. There was a ladybird sitting on her nose when I passed that way. Piers was making Finch bowl to him. They looked as hot as blazes. The nursemaid has been teaching Wakefield a hymn and he’s screaming ‘Jesus loves me’ at the top of his voice.”
“And my mother asleep!”
“He’s not near her. He’s sitting on Rags’s stomach where the clotheslines are. The cook is in prenuptial retirement.”
“And Renny?”
“Where he always is — in the stables.”
“Have you no work to do?”
“None.”
“Hm…. You don’t look very tidy.”
“I’ve stopped dressing up for Mrs. Stroud. She likes me any old way.”
There was an insolence of intimacy in his tone which Ernest found excessively annoying.
Eden repeated, as Mrs. Stroud returned with the pot of tea — “You don’t mind whether or not I’m tidy, do you?” He ran his hand through his hair, still further dishevelling it and aggressively stretched his legs, displaying his canvas shoes, the lace of one dangling.
Mrs. Stroud gave an indulgent look across him at Ernest. It re-established confidence between them. Ernest smiled. He passed his hand over his own yellowish-grey hair and accepted a fresh cup of tea.
Books 5-8: Whiteoak Heritage / Whiteoak Brothers / Jalna / Whiteoaks of Jalna Page 16