“There is nothing you need to do,” Meg said, almost soothingly, “except to bend over the basin.”
“No,” he yelled. “I can’t bend over the basin! I’ll be sick again.”
“Nonsense. It will make you feel better to have your head washed.”
Now her tone was commanding. She collared him, divested him of his jacket, pressed her hand on the back of his neck.
He bent over the basin. She made a lather on his head. She rubbed it in. He let himself go then, uttering noisy protests.
“Ouch! You’re hurting me! Ow — my ear!”
“Which ear?”
“That one. I think someone hit me on it.”
“Nonsense. Nobody hurt your ear. Bend lower.”
There was no doubt about it. The hot water, the massage, the cold-water rinse that followed, made him feel better. By the time he had the second rinsing he was almost himself again. But he would not let Meg know this. A listener up the hall might have thought he was on the rack.
Such a listener was Aunt Augusta. Her mother and brothers had retired for their after-dinner rest. She was enjoying the quiet of the drawing-room when this turmoil disturbed her. She now swept to the scene.
“Stop!” she commanded loudly. “I will not allow this poor boy to be beaten again.”
Meg was now enveloping Finch’s head in the towel. “Don’t worry, Aunt Augusta,” she laughed. “Finch has just had his hair washed. People are coming to tea and I simply could not let him be seen looking the way he did. And he has such pretty hair when it is properly washed. Look.” Proudly she lifted the towel from his head.
The two women now surveyed him with pleasure. His cheeks were pink and his fine straight hair released from the towel was taking on golden-brown tints. He smiled sheepishly at them, not knowing whether or not to be pleased with himself.
Meg put him by the heat of the glowing stove in the hall with a towel round his shoulders. With the dogs for company he meditated on the strangeness of life.
When tea time came he was there, in the drawing-room, in his best suit, handing out cups of tea, carefully offering cake to the company. To one of these Meg might have been heard to remark:
“He is at the awkward age, you know, but he has an affectionate disposition and in some ways he is quite clever.”
The conversation then moved to a more interesting subject. Teenagers had not yet been invented, nor were the peculiarities of very young people considered to be of importance.
XXIII
THE WINTER MOVES ON
Christmas came and went in a mood that varied little from other Christmases at Jalna. Several members of the family felt that they had less than usual to spend on presents, which was natural as their money losses had been considerable. Eden early announced that he would give nothing and expected nothing. However, at almost the last moment, he had some verses accepted by one of the best American magazines and was so happy about it that he went to town and bought a necktie for each of his uncles and brothers, and lace-edged handkerchiefs for his aunt, his sister, and Dilly. For his grandmother he bought a bottle of smelling salts which she sniffed with such zest that she first sneezed, then coughed and all but choked and had to be revived with brandy. This was the one untimely incident in an otherwise auspicious day.
Nicholas had made up his mind that his presents that year were to be better than usual. He would show that a bit of unlucky speculation did not affect his giving. As for Dilly, she was recklessly generous and said it was the best Christmas she ever had enjoyed. But to Piers it brought pleasure of a new sort. This was the heady pleasure of thinking of someone besides himself — to the complete exclusion of himself.
Thanks to Eden, a miracle had happened in the return of his lost investment. He was no longer hoping to double or treble his money. It seemed a magnificent thing just to have it once again in his possession. He made up his mind to buy Pheasant the most exciting Christmas present she ever had had. He spent a good deal of his time in pondering over what this was to be. Something to wear, that was certain. But what? He brought the conversation round to brooches (in these days they managed to meet quite often) but Pheasant let it be known that she already had a brooch and she considered one brooch quite enough for any girl. Of course he might buy her a ring, but there was a finality about a ring from which he shied away. A ring should be given only to seal an engagement. He brought the conversation round to earrings but Pheasant affirmed that earrings hurt and that she had no desire for them. What she did like was rings and never had possessed one. These conversations were carried on quite impersonally on her side, with no expectation of a present. Piers experienced the keenest enjoyment in them, in watching the expressions of her changeful little face, the drawing down in puzzlement of her pencilled brows, the judicial compressing of her sensitive lips.
One point which must be considered was whether Maurice Vaughan, her father, would allow her to accept a present of jewellery. Piers felt that it would be best, on the whole, for the present to be kept secret for the time being, and worn only when they were together.
The next thing he thought of was a bracelet, but when he asked her whether she liked bracelets she showed no interest in them whatever. They were sitting on the snowy bank beside the frozen pond and the one thing which seemed to interest Pheasant at the moment was a broken bootlace. She had tied it in a knot and the knot pressed on her instep.
“It hurts awfully,” she said. “I think I’ll go home.”
He examined the knot. “You’ve made a bad job of tying it,” he said.
“I can tie one that won’t hurt you. Take off the boot and I’ll fix it for you.”
Pheasant well knew that Mrs. Clinch would not approve of her removing her boot in front of Piers Whiteoak. Mrs. Clinch had devastating things to say about the goings on of young women since the War. She had read that there were girls in London who now carried their own latchkeys and let themselves in at all hours. She fastened on this as one of the greatest evils, which was rather strange, as at Vaughanlands the front door was never locked. Neither Mrs. Clinch nor Pheasant had the slightest desire to go out or in at all hours. As for the danger from burglars, it was not even considered.
The thought of a girl’s having a latchkey all her own was somehow fascinating to Pheasant. She pictured herself as coming home at midnight from some scene of revelry, inserting the latchkey in the large old lock, of which the actual key lay in a drawer of the hat rack, and entering the house on tiptoe, creeping past the room where Maurice slept and flinging off her velvet cloak in her own room, flinging it off with a weary gesture, sated with late hours and pleasure. Strangely enough the thought came to her now as she took off her boot and gave it to Piers. She asked:
“What do you think of latchkeys? For young women, I mean.”
He turned his wide blue gaze on her. “Latchkeys? What for?”
“Why, to get in and out with.” And she added, in a hushed tone — “Late at night.”
“Where?” he asked, beginning to pluck at the knot with his fingernails.
“In London.”
“Oh, there. You should hear the things Dilly tells. She often goes.”
“What sort of things?”
“Oh, rather wild things.”
“Does she tell them in front of your grandmother and your aunt and your sister?”
“Not she.”
“Do you approve?”
“Never thought about it.” Now he had untied and retied the knot.
“Put out your foot,” he ordered in a suddenly peremptory tone. Now he was kneeling in the snow. He held the boot invitingly before her.
“I can put it on.” She was suddenly shy.
“All right.” He dropped the boot, jumped up, and stood on his skates, staring at a little red squirrel that was reaching in a stump for a nut it had hidden there. “You ought to be hibernating,” he said, and made a snowball and threw at it.
Now Pheasant was sorry and somehow ashamed. She wished sh
e had let him put the boot on her. She wrestled with the bootlace but could not lace it up.
“Ready?” he asked briskly.
“I can’t manage it.”
“That’s what you get for being so proper.”
“Oh, Piers. You are mean.”
He wheeled, knelt down in front of her. Her small foot planted on the snow looked somehow pathetic. Skilfully he laced up the boot.
“Bend your foot and see if the knot hurts,” he said.
It no longer hurt. It was quite comfortable.
As she looked down at him kneeling there, a feeling of tenderness toward him almost overcame her. She felt sorry for them both. She said — “What a pity we are not birds, so we could fly.”
“Yes,” he agreed, unexpectedly, for she had thought he would laugh at her. “It would be fun if we could fly together.”
She plucked at a leaf of brown bracken that stuck up through the snow. It was when she bent her head that he noticed how round and slender and captivating was her neck.
“Do you like necklaces?” he asked, almost breathless in the excitement of this new idea.
“Do you intend to go into the jewellery business?” she asked. “Your mind seems sort of set on it.”
“I’ve never known a girl like you,” he answered in an annoyed tone. “No matter what I suggest, you don’t like it.”
“I suppose,” she said, feeling hurt, “you’ve had lots of girl friends.”
He got to his feet and brushed the snow from his knees. “A considerable few,” he answered.
“What were their names?”
He looked blank. “How could I remember?”
“Then, I suppose, you’ll forget my name — later on.”
“Oh, you’ll be taking a new name, one of these days.”
“What, for instance?”
“Whiteoak, perhaps.”
At this they both laughed rather nervously, then a silence fell. To break it Pheasant said — “If there’s one thing above another that I do like it’s a necklace. I mean a real one. Not just a string of beads.”
“I suppose,” he probed, “that you have a very good one.”
“I have beads but no necklace.”
Now he knew what her Christmas present was to be. A necklace. A really good one, with pretty semi-precious stones in it.
They were gay and laughed for sheer pleasure in the skimming round and round the little pond, with the western sun reddening their faces.
Piers was a little sobered by the price he had to pay for the necklet he chose. Yet what a moment it was when Pheasant opened the blue velvet box and discovered it lying there in its nest of white satin ... the fine gold chain, the flowerlike pendant of turquoise and tiny pearls.
“Not for me! Not for me — surely!” she cried.
He had brought it at a lucky moment. They were alone in the living room at Vaughanlands. Piers had chosen a time when he knew Maurice to be in town with Renny.
“Yes, for you.” He tried not to look important.
“But it’s beautiful!”
“It is rather nice.” Nonchalantly he took his chin in his hand and stared out of the window.
“Nice!” she cried. “Oh, Piers — why did you ever do it?”
Now he looked straight at her. “I like you, don’t I?”
“Well, perhaps ... I suppose you do ... but then —” she faltered.
“Then what?” he asked, as though trying to corner her.
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know anything except that I love it.”
“It,” repeated Piers.
“Why not?”
“Why not me?”
“Of course I do — at this moment.”
“Only at this moment!”
“All the time — naturally.”
They laughed nervously, as though at some witty but rather dangerous repartee.
She was wearing a high-necked blue serge dress and she now took the necklet from its box and said, controlling her voice — “Thank you, again and again.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said stiffly. Then he added — “What about trying it on?”
“With this dress? Never.”
“But I’d like to see it on you.”
She bit her lip in embarrassment. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t anything fit to wear with it, excepting my brown satin best dress.”
“This thing,” Piers said, as though contemptuously, “should be worn on the skin.”
“With a low-necked dress, you mean?”
“Of course.”
“I’d better put it away till summer,” she said. “I’ll get a new summer dress especially for it.... What about Maurice? What will he say?”
“Good Lord, Maurice mustn’t see it. He’d think it odd. He’d likely tell Renny and ...” Piers could not go on. He could not tell her of the row he’d get into at home if — Now he said, his breath coming quick — “I wish you’d wear it every day, under your dress. Then nobody will see it till —” he hesitated, looked about him, as though for some way of escape. But he could not escape from himself and the urge that drove him.
“Till when?” she asked, large-eyed.
“Till we come out into the open.” His voice was husky. The palms of his hands moist. A paralysing silence enveloped them. It was a relief to hear Mrs. Clinch coming.
Piers was a favourite with her and she smiled when she saw him.
“You’re quite a stranger,” she said.
“I’m a working man now, Mrs. Clinch,” he laughed.
“It’s news to me,” she said, “when I hear of any of the folks at Jalna working.”
“Now I call that insulting.” He gave his jolly smile. “We do a lot of hard work.”
“Hard work! None of yous knows what real work is.”
“My grandfather was a pioneer, like Pheasant’s grandfather.”
“Gentry, all of them,” said the housekeeper, “with plenty of money to hire other folks to work for them. Not but what I like your sort better than some of the upstarts I see nowadays. Money is all they have.”
“We certainly haven’t much.”
“Would you like a cookie?” she enquired. “I’ve some in the oven.”
“Thanks. I’ll go to the kitchen for them.”
“No. I’ll bring ’em in here.” Piers’s boyish vitality put new life into her. Angular though she was, she almost bustled from the room.
Like two culprits Piers and Pheasant smiled secretly at each other.
“Got it safe?” he whispered.
She patted the front of her dress. “In here.”
“Shall you wear it?”
“All the time. Underneath.”
“I think it’s rather nice, don’t you?”
“Perfectly lovely.”
He frowned judicially. “It isn’t a cheap thing, you know.”
“It must have cost the earth!”
He smiled, gratified. “Well, not quire.”
She said, almost tragically — “You shouldn’t have done it, Piers.”
“Why?” he demanded, as though defying all of his family, with Maurice and Mrs. Clinch into the bargain.
“Oh, because.”
“Because why?” He came close to her and looked deep into the golden-brown depths of her eyes.
“You know,” she whispered.
“I only know,” he said, “that you’re the sweetest ...”
Mrs. Clinch’s step was approaching. They drew apart, and when she appeared with a plate of cookies they were examining with rapt interest a steel engraving of Lady Butler’s “The Roll Call.”
During these winter months Dilly’s pursuit of Renny was as earnest as Piers’s pursuit of Pheasant. Yet it was more difficult, because while he was more accessible to attack, he was, at the same time, even more shy, and decidedly fiercer. They were like two hunters, out after two different sorts of prey. They differed also in their motives, for Piers did not yet know whether he intended a direct kill or whether th
e pursuit itself was enough, but Dilly was quite sure of what she wanted. She wanted to see the red-haired master of Jalna lying mortally wounded at her feet.
He was fleet in avoiding her, for he perceived the huntress’ glitter in her eye. Safe in his bedroom he counted the days till her departure on the shiny calendar that hung above his washstand. Ruefully he examined his reflection in the looking glass as that of a man about whom the toils were closing. The women of his family were on Dilly’s side. His grandmother was constantly reminding him that the girl had brass, and God knew he needed it. His aunt remarked what a handsome pair they made, and told him of the fine property in Leicestershire to which she was heir. His sister told him how she had learned to love Dilly and how she was the only girl she ever had met whom she could welcome a a sister at Jalna. Even Wakefield developed a clinging attitude toward Dilly (nobody but he and she knew how many chocolates she fed him) and showed such a partiality for her that Meg became a little jealous. One thing was certain, the child had small appetite for his meals and suffered two bilious bouts inside a fortnight.
His uncles had a decided affection for the girl but they said nothing to push Renny into this marriage.
Ernest said, stroking his long, finely-boned face with his long white hand — “I have remained single and shall remain single to the end of my life. There is a spirit in me which refuses to bend the neck to the yoke of matrimony. But you my dear boy, would, I imagine, find great pleasure in the companionship of a congenial woman. The question is — is Dilly congenial?”
Renny asked — “How did this question come up? I didn’t bring it up.”
“Really, I don’t know,” answered Ernest. “It’s the long winter I suppose.”
Renny stared at him. “I wish the family would get something else on their minds.”
“It’s difficult for them — you see I don’t include myself —” returned Ernest, “when there is such a desirable young woman in the house — and you.”
“Leave me out of it.”
“Yes, indeed, I quite agree.”
“If she is so desirable, why didn’t that other fellow toe the scratch?”
Books 5-8: Whiteoak Heritage / Whiteoak Brothers / Jalna / Whiteoaks of Jalna Page 55