“How’s the lessons going?”
“I’m doing Latin,” he answered with dignity.
“Latin! Well, I never! At your age!”
“Mr. Fennel thinks they don’t begin it soon enough in the schools.
My brother Finch didn’t begin it till he was twelve. By the time I’m that age I shall be able to converse in it. Do you know what converse means?”
“Well, I should hope so. I’ve had some education. It means have a conversation. Let’s hear you say some Latin.”
He drew up the last of the lemon soda with a sputtering sound before he said — “Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant.”
“Well, I never,” declared Mrs. Brawn. “Whatever does it mean?”
“It’s different ways of saying I love you.”
She gaped, then frowned. “I call that shameful,” she said. “Putting such ideas into the head of a little boy. The rector ought to be ashamed of himself. Time enough for you to talk about different ways of loving when you’re twenty.”
“I guess that Mr. Fennel thinks as I’m not likely to live till I’m twenty, I may as well begin early.”
Pity filled Mrs. Brawn’s eyes with tears. “My, it’s too bad you’re so delicate.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” he agreed, then added — “I think I’ll have a bottle of ginger ale now. And will you please charge it?”
As she set it in front of him she reminded him — “You owe me ten cents already. Don’t forget that.”
He applied himself to the ginger ale for a moment before answering — “I won’t forget. And there’ll be plenty of money in our house after the Horse Show. My brother Renny will take a lot of prizes, you know.”
“Ah, he’s a fine figure on horseback. I see him pass most every day and that lady visitor too. I guess there’s a lot of talk about horses in your house just now.”
“There’s nothing else. Everybody’s going to the Show every night excepting me, and I’m going twice. And even my grandmother talks of going because of her new fur coat.”
“Lands sakes — would she go?”
“We’re trying to make her understand that church is better for her — but it’s not easy.”
With such amiable conversation his visit to the little shop ended and he found himself again crossing the field on his way home. With mild surprise he came upon his arithmetic textbook, little the worse for lying there all the morning. He replaced it in his schoolbag and trotted on and at last into the house. There he encountered Wragge, who said:
“You’ll be eating in the kitchen, young shaver. The three gentlemen ’as all gone into town. Also Miss Warkworth. Your grandmother ’as gone to lunch with the Miss Laceys, and your aunt and Miss Whiteoak gone with ’er. And a solid two hours it took to get her dressed and into the carriage. Wot ’as come over ’er I don’t know, but she gets livelier every day. She says to me yesterday, ‘Rags, I’m making money, I am.’ Fancy that, at her age.”
Down in the kitchen Mrs. Wragge asked Wakefield what he would like for lunch.
“A sandwich, with plenty of mustard, and a piece of pumpkin pie.”
“That ain’t much of a dinner.”
“I’m not very hungry.”
“It’s all the studying,” cried Mrs. Wragge. “That clergy-man works him too hard.”
“What did you learn today?” asked Rags.
Wakefield perched himself on a corner of the kitchen table. He said — “Mr. Fennel wore his surplice today.”
“When did he wear it?”
“All the while he taught me.”
The Wragges gave each other a look. “Never ’eard of such a thing,” said he. “And why did Mr. Fennel do that, I’d like to know.”
“Just to look holy,” replied Wake.
The cook screamed with laughter. “He must be crazy. No wonder you ain’t hungry.”
“Was he teaching you out of the Bible something special?” asked Rags.
The sandwich was ready and Wakefield bit into it with interest. He then said — “The first question Mr. Fennel asked me was, what is the difference between a hackney and a hunter.”
“The man’s out of his mind,” said the cook.
“And did you know?” asked Rags.
“Of course I knew.”
“And what was his next question?”
“He asked me, what are the points of a harness horse.”
“He’s demented,” said the cook.
“I’ll bet you didn’t know,” said Rags.
Wakefield said, through a mouthful of sandwich — “He must lift his feet high enough to kick flies off his belly. He musn’t plait or dish or go wide behind.”
Mrs. Wragge said — “This whole thing is a make-up. I don’t believe a word of it. Come now, eat your pie and move on. I want to clean up my kitchen.
Wakefield ate half his piece of pie as he walked slowly through the hall. In the library he presented the other half to Boney, the parrot. He then sat down to consider the fact that he had the house to himself. He could not remember this having happened before. He savoured the largeness and silence of the house for a short while, then, with the slow majestic walk of complete possession, he set out to explore.
Boney, his beak plastered with pumpkin pie, looked after him quizzically, tried to speak, but could utter no sound.
Wakefield thought he would begin at the very top, in Eden’s room. The door of this room was usually kept shut, excepting when Eden was in bed, for he liked to sleep in a draught. Wakefield went in and closed the door behind him. The window was wide open and it was pleasant up there among the treetops. He opened the drawer of the desk and saw Eden’s latest verses, written in pencil on pages from a notebook. There were poems in typescript too and several printed slips beginning with the words — “The Editors have read your manuscript with interest but regret …” It was very dull, with the exception of the poems which had been printed in magazines. These Eden had cut out and pasted in an ordinary school scribbler. Wakefield like achievement and these printed poems made him feel proud of Eden, as he knew Meg and the uncles were.
He sprinkled his hair with a nice-smelling toilet water that was on the washstand. He then strolled into the bedroom where Piers and Finch slept. He found nothing of interest there except half a chocolate bar which he nibbled, then liked so well he finished it.
He slid down the banisters to the floor below. He had suddenly remembered his saving bank which Meg kept in her room and the twenty-five-cent piece he had been given by Noah Binns. He found the bank in Meg’s clothes-cupboard. It was in the shape of a little house and you dropped the coin down the chimney. But first he turned the bank upside down and gave it a good shaking to see if it would render up its contents, as had the Poor Box. The bank, however, was obdurate. Nothing came through the chimney. He frowned and said aloud — “No enigmas, please.”
Suddenly, inexplicably, he decided against putting the money in the bank. He returned it to his pocket and the bank to the clothes-cupboard. It was wonderful having the house to himself. He ran along the passage, waving his arms and chanting — “No enigmas, please.” He threw his leg over the banister and slid to the hall below. As he arrived on the newel post he was startled to hear the piano being softly strummed. He scrambled down and glided to the door of the drawing-room and put his eye to the keyhole. He could make out the figure of Finch seated at the piano. Finch — of all people, who couldn’t play a note! But the strumming was soft and rather pretty till it became a torrent of strange and noisy chords.
Wakefield opened a door and went in. He stood just behind Finch till his hands rested on the keyboard, then he said in a highfalutin tone:
“Very nice, my boy. Very nice, indeed.”
Finch wheeled on the seat and faced him.
Wakefield produced the silver coin. “Here’s a quarter for you,” he said grandly, “for playing such a pretty tune.”
“I like your cheek,” said Finch. “Who do you think you are?”
“
Your Uncle Wakefield, dear boy.”
“Where did you get the quarter?”
“Out of the church Poor Box.”
“You little liar.”
“No enigmas, please. Do you want the quarter?”
Finch took it from him, caught him by the arm and put the coin down inside his collar. He said — “That’s how much I want it. And look here, don’t mention to anyone that I was at the piano, will you? I know I can’t play, but — well, don’t mention it.”
Wakefield could feel the coin slide down his spine. He wriggled and it appeared from beneath his shorts. He pocketed it and said, eager to be on a confidential footing with Finch — “All right. I won’t say, Finch. Let’s have a secret together. Let’s do something together. You know the sort of thing.”
“Like what?”
“Let’s see what Gran keeps in the small drawer in the wardrobe.”
“I’ve never noticed it.”
“I have, and yesterday she shut it quickly when I peeped in. Let’s go and see — together!”
Finch leaped past him, then halted. “Where is she?”
“At the Laceys’ with Meg and Aunt Augusta.”
Finch opened the door of the bedroom. Wakefield pressed close beside. He said — “I believe it’s a skull.”
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” said Finch. But he could not stop himself. He would have this secret with Wake, so that Wake would not tell of his piano strumming. Of late he was ridiculously sensitive to teasing.
He drew open the drawer.
“That’s what I thought was a skull,” Wake whispered. “It’s just a big new sponge. And there’s the sachet Miss Pink gave her, and there’s the little box with the Chinamen on the lid.”
“We’ve no business to look in here,” said Finch, ashamed. Then something caught his eyes. On the very bottom of the drawer lay the certificate of the shares in Indigo Lake. It was the word Indigo which held him. He remembered his grandmother’s cryptic uttering of that word and how Eden, more than once, had appeared embarrassed by it. But it was none of his affair and he was about to shut the drawer when a particularly hard head was thrust between those of the two boys.
“What are you up to?” Renny demanded.
“Oh, nothing — nothing at all,” stammered Finch.
Wakefield added — “We were just having a little look at my grandmother’s treasures.”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, and I have a mind to take a stick to your backs.” Then he saw the certificate. He bent lower for a moment to look at it, then sharply shut the drawer.
“Don’t come in here again,” he said, “when Gran’s not here. I’m ashamed of you.”
“You looked at it too,” said Wakefield. “What does it mean?”
From the library came Boney’s voice screaming:
“Gold — you old devil! Pieces of eight!”
XVII
AFTER THE SHOW
Nicholas waited, not with anxiety, but with some impatience, for his cheque from the sale of his shares in Indigo Lake. But like all those at Jalna, his mind was filled by the excitement of the Horse Show. Renny’s horses were doing well. He himself was the prize for the best performance in high jumping in the Hunter class. Dilly Warkworth achieved a third prize. Piers, riding polo ponies, carried off several. One of their Jersey cows won a prize and a team of Percherons received honourable mention. By the time the Show was over and the animals restored safely to their stalls everyone was satisfied and almost sated, for the weather had turned wet and they had travelled in the old car with its buttoned-down sides that did not keep out the wind and scarcely kept out the rain. The rag with which Renny wiped the misted windshield was often in his hand. Those who had been to the Show alighted from the car rather stiff and dazed. The trees, blacker than the darkness, sucked up the moisture into their roots. The dogs came barking into the porch to welcome them. Rags could hardly wait to hear the news of that day’s success or failure. He himself went twice to the Show, once taking his wife with him. On the night when he went by himself he got tight and did not show up at Jalna till the next day.
After the return, those of the family who had been to the Show had a late supper. They sat long about the table, relishing the cold roast beef, the cheese, the homemade bread, the crisp sticks of celery. A decanter of wine and one of whisky stood on the damask tablecloth, catching and holding the light. Even through two closed doors, the talk and laughter would rouse the grandmother and she would thump on the floor with her stick, and to the one who went to her would exclaim:
“Tell me who won. I don’t want to be left out of things.”
She liked best to have Renny answer her call, because from him she had the Show in greatest detail. He would sit on the side of her bed relating the prowess of each of his horses in turn. He would excite her till her old eyes would shine and she would say — “I can smell the tanbark. I can hear the band but — Lord, you should see the Shows in Ireland!”
“I have seen them, Gran, and they’re no better.”
“Ah, that’s the country for horses and the hunt. You should have seen me, when I was a girl, and my horse scrambling over the walls and me clinging to him for dear life. It was at the hunt in Ireland that I met my dear Philip.”
“Why, no, Gran, you met him first in India.”
“So I did. So I did. What a bad memory I’m getting! To think I would forget that — of all things. But now I remember how I’d tell him of it and he’d say he wished he’d been there. And now I imagine he was there, dear one! But you must tell me more about the Show. How did that girl Dilly ride the mare?”
“She should — the mare, I mean — have had a First but the way Dilly handled her it was a Third. Now I’ll show you what I mean.” And he took a small chair and perched himself on it and bobbed up and down, and beat it with an imaginary whip, so that his grandmother pulled her nightcap over one eye and laughed so loud that they heard her in the dining room, and Ernest came to the door and put his head in and said — “All this excitement is bad for you, Mamma. You’ll not sleep.”
“Mind your own business, Ernest,” she retorted. “I want to see this Show out.”
Boney took his head from under his wing and stared at them sleepily with one eye shut.
Adeline Whiteoak did indeed lie awake for a long while but her thoughts were pleasant. Indeed she had no actual thoughts, but a succession of pictures moved through her mind — she counted the leaping horses, as one might count sheep to put oneself to sleep. She saw the scarlet coats of the Mounted Police. She heard the band and saw the applauding crowd. In the dim night-light she saw her eldest grandson bouncing on the chair, his head the colour of the autumn leaves that were blown against her window that day. She heard laughter from the other room. The flying leaves, the leaping horses were mingled in her dreams.
The last upstairs were Dilly Warkworth and Renny. At the foot of the stairs she said:
“I know you are not pleased with me.”
“What makes you think that?”
“I’ve never ridden so badly. I could kill myself.”
“Nonsense. You won a ribbon.”
“A Third! It should have been a First.”
“Yes, it should,” he agreed.
“And I tried so hard — for your sake. Do you hate me?”
“It’s time you went to bed. You’re tired out.”
She put her face against the newel post and began to cry. He just touched the nape of her neck which was extremely pretty. That was enough. She twined both arms about his neck and drew his face down to hers. He kissed her without feeling, but he thought he never had seen her so attractive. She looked tired and pale, yet somehow younger and rather touching. He noticed that she had long eyelashes and charming little ears.
He said — “You’re not to worry about tonight. You’re to go to bed.
You’re tired.”
“We are made for each other,” she said breathlessly. “You know that. We can’t help c
oming together, can we?”
He stroked his left eyebrow with his forefinger. “I don’t see why,” he said.
“We are so much alike. We love the same things.”
“We don’t love each other.”
“I do. I adore the ground you walk on.”
“I’m not the marrying sort,” he said. “If that’s what you have in mind.”
“I have never thought of anything else.”
“You surprise me,” he said, “and that’s putting it mildly.”
“What did you think I was?”
“Oh, rather lighthearted. You’re always saying what fun things are.”
She made her large eyes larger. “I have had tragedy in my life.”
“Girls are disappointed in love every day.”
“Not girls with the deep feelings I have.”
“Come, come, get to your bed.”
“Bed — bed — why do you keep talking of bed?”
He gave her a shrewd look. “You have a funny mind, Dilly.”
“I feel faint,” she said. “Will you get me something to drink?”
“You’ve had enough to drink.”
“What a brute you are! I ought to hate you. But I don’t — I don’t — I don’t —”
The repetition became smothered in sobs. Her head moved about, feeling for his shoulder.
“My God!” he exclaimed in exasperation, “I wish you’d go to bed.”
“I’m faint. I simply couldn’t — couldn’t walk up those stairs.”
She did look pale.
He moved behind her, took her by the arms, and half-carried, half-pushed her up the stairs. He opened the door of her room, which was across the passage from his own, and put her inside. Still she clung to him. She had ceased her crying and now, half-laughing, she said, on a deep cajoling note — “Let’s get engaged. It would be such fun.”
Books 5-8: Whiteoak Heritage / Whiteoak Brothers / Jalna / Whiteoaks of Jalna Page 46