05 Whiteoak Heritage

by Mazo de La Roche

  “You should get some good exercise,” said Renny, “thinning out those evergreens.”

  “Yes,” agreed Maurice but without enthusiasm, “they’re far too dense.”

  “Now look at Jalna,” wheeling to face his own domain. “There’s light there. We get all the sun, while we’ve lots of trees.”

  The house was indeed at this moment almost flamboyantly gay in its setting. The double row of tall balsams and hemlocks that bordered the drive stopped short at the gravel sweep. The lawn was open to sun and a group of silver birches showed trunks as white as the petals of narcissus, while their pointed leaves fluttered in palest green. The vast Virginia creeper that enriched the walls had placed its glittering young leaves with such precision against the old bricks that it seemed a calculated adornment. Certainly the fresh paint of the shutters and porch was in honour of Renny’s return, and the shine of every windowpane from polishing. Behind the house the cherry orchard spread the white veil of its blossoms and, in the ravine that divided the two estates, there were the red stems of willows, the purple and gold of flags that bloomed by the stream, and the stream’s own May-time blossom of foam. The energetic tapping of a woodpecker was the only sound.

  “It seems strange,” said Renny, “to own the place. When I left home my father was as sound as a nut. I thought he would live to be as old as my grandmother. I was satisfied to be his eldest son and to be a part of the place.”

  “I always admired your father,” said Maurice. “He had a fine physique and that beaming look you seldom see in faces nowadays.”

  “Well,” Renny spoke almost brusquely, “he’s gone and I’ve got to get used to it…. Come along, Maurice. Let’s see this fellow. What’s his name?”

  “Jim Dayborn. I forget his sister’s name. It was a little short name. Oh yes — Chris, he called her.”

  “I’m glad that house is occupied. I remember how desolate it looked standing there.”

  “Mrs. Stroud has made the place look very nice, my housekeeper tells me. She had a sort of party there for the Women’s Institute.”

  They walked on in silence.

  Coming out on the quiet country road they crossed it, and Maurice was about to suggest that they should take a short cut through the churchyard when he remembered the new graves there and turned abruptly toward a narrow path that crossed a field. Renny hesitated a moment, his eyes fixed on the church surrounded by white gravestones, now flushed pink in the sunset. Then he followed Maurice. In a short while they stood in front of the now inhabited white house. It had once been the home of Miss Pink, the organist, but when her parents died she could no longer afford to live there and its rental had been her chief income. She had suffered privations during its vacancy and the fact that it was now sold was as a new lease of life to her.

  The two men stood looking at it, remarking, with the interest of those whose roots have long been in the one spot, the alterations that had turned it into a two-family house. Also it had a fresh coat of paint, two green front doors against the fresh whiteness of the walls.

  “I’ll make a guess,” said Renny, “that Mrs. Stroud lives in the right-hand side.”

  “That’s easy. You can see the man moving about the room in the other half.”

  “No. I guessed from the curtains. A woman with a baby wouldn’t have had time for all those frills.”

  They strode through the gate and rang the bell. The door was opened almost at once by a very thin young man wearing loose grey flannel trousers and a rough grey pullover. His colouring was nondescript but his movements were so graceful and the bones of his face so fine that he gave an impression of elegance. His expression was gloomy. This changed to a look of expectancy when he saw Maurice Vaughan.

  Maurice introduced him to Renny.

  Jim Dayborn invited them indoors with no apparent embarrassment for the sparsely furnished, untidy room, the scant meal which looked as though it might have been thrown on to the bare table, and the baby’s diapers drying before the stove. Renny’s first thought on seeing these was — “Why the devil didn’t she dry them out in the sunshine?” He said, when they were seated:

  “I hear you understand horses and that you’re looking for a job.”

  “Yes,” said Dayborn, “I’m terribly anxious for work. You see, I have my sister and her baby to support. Not that she wants to be dependent. She’s ready to do anything. She’s absolutely at home with horses.”

  “Who could look after her baby?”

  “Oh, he’s no trouble. Put him down anywhere and he’ll amuse himself.”

  “In a stable?”

  “If necessary,” answered Dayborn laconically.

  “Where did you get your experience?” asked Renny.

  “We were brought up in a rectory in Suffolk. Our neighbours kept large stables and we spent half our time in them. We met an American who raised show horses and we came out to work with him. Well, that didn’t last and —”

  “Why didn’t it last?”

  “The owner was paying attention to my sister. But she didn’t like him. She liked a chap named Cummings. She married him and then Cummings died and my sister could not stick the place without him. The baby was just a few months old. We knew a horse breeder in Montreal and got a job with him. My sister can break in any sort of colt. She’s wonderful. But the man lost a lot of money and sold his horses. We’ve had bad luck since then. If you are wanting two people who aren’t afraid of work, and who understand horses, I hope you’ll give us a chance.”

  I’d like to meet your sister,” said Renny.

  “Good.” Dayborn left the room with a hangdog grace that repelled Renny, even while he was attracted by his candour. There’s something queer about him, he thought.

  Maurice’s eyes swept the disorderly room. He gave Renny a significant look. “If this is an example of her work …” he said under his breath.

  “Sh … they’re coming.”

  But the young woman who returned with Dayborn was the opposite of slovenly. Her khaki breeches and shirt, open at the neck, were well-cut and clean. Her pale fair hair hung straight and sleek about her small head. She was tall, like her brother, but their only resemblance was their extreme thinness. Compared to them, the baby of fifteen months she carried in her arms, was almost aggressively plump and rosy. He wore white flannel pyjamas, and his golden hair stood moist and curly from his bath.

  Dayborn introduced the two men to his sister. As Renny looked into her long amber-coloured eyes, he noticed also the fine line of her nostrils and the firm clasp of her thin calloused hand. When she smiled she showed good teeth with a small corner broken off one of the front ones.

  “What a fine child!” exclaimed Renny. “What is his name?”

  “Tod.”

  “Hello, Tod!”

  The baby leant forward and grasped Renny’s nose. He pressed his tiny nails into the flesh and crowed in pleasure.

  “No, no, Tod!” said his mother, unclasping the little fingers.

  “Come along, then,” said Renny. He took the baby into his arms, where he jumped and chuckled as though that, of all places, was where he most wanted to be.

  Renny gave a pleased grin. “He’s taken to me at once,” he said. “I wish my baby brother were half so friendly.”

  “Tod is like that with everyone. He has knocked about so much.”

  Renny gave her a swift but penetrating glance. “I’m afraid you’ve had rather a rough time.”

  She laughed shortly and a faint colour came into her thin cheeks. “It has been pretty bad — but I shouldn’t complain to one who has just come back form the War.”

  “But that’s different. You’re a woman and a very feminine one, in spite of your clothes. I’m wondering if the people about here approve of you. They’re very old-fashioned.”

  “Mrs. Stroud, our neighbour, seems not to mind. And of course she’s the most important to us — owning the house.”

  “I’d like to meet her.”

  Dayborn who w
ith Maurice had been standing by the window, exclaimed — “There she is! I believe she’s coming in.”

  “She has seen the visitors,” said Chris Cummings. “She’s eaten up by curiosity. No one enters this door but she knows it.”

  “I’ll not hear a word against her,” declared Dayborn. “Think of the eggs and fruit she’s given us!”

  “Yes. She is kind. But behind her good nature I’ll bet there’s a hell of a temper.”

  The girl was unconventional — swearing like that! Renny wondered how she would get on in this Victorian backwater. It was all very well for his grandmother to rip out an oath on occasion but she held a position unique in the community.

  She continued — “I’m afraid of people with tempers, aren’t you?”

  He said — “If I were my life wouldn’t be worth living.”

  “Do you mean that your family have tempers?”

  “Yes.”

  She eyed him critically. “I’ll bet you have one too.”

  He laughed. “Oh, I’m a terror in a rage.”

  “I’d like to see you.”

  “Perhaps you will — if you’re going to school horses for me.”

  Mrs. Stroud was in the room, her short, straight figure advancing almost relentlessly. Dayborn was moving solicitously beside her, as though he would leave no stone unturned to retain her goodwill. His introduction was characteristic.

  “This is Mr. Whiteoak, who is going to give us a job. For heaven’s sake put down the kid! This is our benefactress, Mrs. Stroud.”

  “I don’t know why you call me your benefactress. Is it because you have taken a house I badly wanted to let?” Her voice was deep and musical. She had fine grey eyes with black lashes and heavy brows. Her thick brown hair was elaborately done. Surely she must spend hours each day over it. One feature was noticeable which scarcely counted in other women. That was her ears. The hair swept clearly away from them, revealing how flat they lay against her head, their waxen pallor, and the fact they had no inward-curling rim. She was dressed in a black skirt, a black-and-white striped silk blouse with an immaculate lace jabot, fastened by a brooch formed of the name Aimee in wrought gold. She pressed Renny’s fingers in a firm clasp. She was thirty-eight.

  “You know the houses well, I guess,”

  “I knew them when they were one.”

  “Don’t you think I was clever to divide it?”

  “It is better, I suppose, than having it stand idle. I like things in their original state.”

  There was a domineering note in his voice that brought an antagonistic tone into her own. “Well, everyone else thinks the change is for the better. And it’s given me charming neighbours.” She smiled tenderly at the baby.

  Renny had set him down and he was staggering about among the legs of the grown-ups as though they were forest trees. He struck at them with a willow wand he carried, as though he would chop them down. He was angelic with his silvery curls and satin skin but he made small, animal noises. Mrs. Stroud knelt in front of him, holding her face, with eyes closed, toward his. He looked at it critically, wondering whether or not to hit it.

  Renny turned to Dayborn. “I must talk to you and your sister alone. Will you come to my place tomorrow morning. I’ll show you the stables and horses. We’ll talk over my plans for breeding. I’m cabling for an Irish hunter I saw when I was visiting relations on the way home.”

  “We shall be there soon after breakfast. I do hope you’ll take us on.” Dayborn’s thin face showed a painful eagerness.

  “I’d like to see both of you ride before I promise anything.”

  “You’ll find that we can ride all right.”

  Maurice’s deep voice broke in — “Mrs. Stroud wants us to see her house, Renny.”

  “Yes,” she put in, “it’s such an event, having strangers here.”

  If she had thought to propitiate Renny by this remark she was mistaken. The word stranger stabbed him like an insult. He turned it over in his mouth as though testing its ill-flavour. Then he repeated it aloud, adding — “Maurice and I were born here and our fathers before us.”

  “Yes, yes,” she agreed quickly. “But I’ve so dug myself in here that I feel like the old-timer. It’s so lovely having a possessive feeling toward a place after knocking about for years. Do forgive me!”

  Renny did not want his chagrin put into words but he lifted his lip in a smile which he fancied was amicable and said:

  “I’d like to see your house. To judge by the outside you must have made a good job of it.”

  “Tod must come too,” cried Mrs. Stroud, but the child’s mother picked him up.

  “It’s his bedtime,” she said.

  “Well, I shall be back to tuck him up,” said Mrs. Stroud. “Are you coming, Jim?”

  “I think I’ll stay and wash up.”

  “I’ll see you both tomorrow morning,” said Renny.

  Mrs. Stroud and Maurice had gone on. Renny and Chris Cummings exchanged a look. On his part it was a look of warm interest, calculating appraisement of her possible gifts as a breaker-in of colts. On hers, an effort to appear tough-fibred and capable, softened by the feminine thought that here was a man one could lean on.

  Renny followed Mrs. Stroud and Maurice. He heard Maurice saying:

  “I used to come here as a child and old Mr. Pink used to make baskets out of peach stones for me. He played the organ too.”

  “And so does his daughter. She’s such a sweet woman but so timid.

  She teaches your little girl, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “How delighted the child must be to have you home! What a reunion!”

  “Yes. It is nice!”

  Good God, thought Renny, the woman knows everything about everyone!

  All three went into the house.

  From the small square hall opened the living room. It was furnished in a definite colour scheme of blue and brown. It looked pleasantly homelike, a woman’s room, after the disorder of the house next door. It glittered with order and cleanliness. The only disorder was the deep settee strewn with blue and brown damask cushions. On these young Eden Whiteoak was lounging. He sat up, his hair dishevelled, unable to conceal his astonishment.

  “Hullo!” he said, staring at his older brother.

  “Hullo.” Renny in his turn was astonished. Eden looked suddenly grown-up. But what was he doing in this room? Smoking too. The cigarette was between his fingers. His lips were fixed in a defensive and nervous smile. He got up and turned to Mrs. Stroud.

  “I’ve brought back the book,” he said. “I came right in. I thought you’d be back.”

  “Oh — did you like it?” asked Mrs. Stroud, her eyes resting for an instant on the only book that was not in the bookshelves.

  “Very much.” Eden picked up the book. Its title was clear — a popular work on the building of small houses. He flushed and laid it down. “This isn’t it,” he said. He looked about vaguely. “I don’t know where I’ve put it!”

  Mrs. Stroud looked into Renny’s eyes. “Perhaps you didn’t know that Eden and I are friends. We got friendly over books.”

  There was an ironic gleam in Renny’s eyes. Their glances crossed like fencing foils.

  “It is so nice to find a young man who appreciates poetry,” she said. “We’ve been reading Rupert Brooke’s poems, and Flecker’s. Don’t you love them?”

  “I don’t love any poetry,” he returned. “But” — his glance added — “I understand women like you.”

  Maurice said — “I think you’ve done a very good job in making this place over.”

  The incident of the book was buried. Mrs. Stroud led them from room to room. Eden came last, his eyes on his elder brother’s back.

  When he and Mrs. Stroud were alone he ran his hands through his hair and gave her a distraught look.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to be a bad liar,” he said.

  “Why on earth shouldn’t you be sitting on my settee? Why were you embarrassed?
”

  “Why were you?”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “Well — it was just because I could see that you and he were.” They sat down side by side on the settee. “Tell me about him. He isn’t a bit like I thought he’d be.”

  Eden caught her hand and laid it against his cheek. “Save me from all soldiers!” he exclaimed.

  “Darling,” said Mrs. Stroud, “the only one you need saving from is yourself.”

  IV

  THE REINS

  THE GRANDMOTHER’S CHAIR had been placed out in the sun for the first time that year. She was ensconced in it, with a footstool at her feet and a rug about her knees. She wore a fur-lined cape and a crocheted wool “fascinator” was wrapped about her head. She actually felt too warm but, on the other hand, she was afraid of taking cold. It had been a long hard winter and she was tender from sitting by the fire. Her sons and daughter had insisted on her being well wrapped and her objections had been affected. She had her role of hardy pioneer to live up to. Now the sun beat down on her with affectionate warmth, for she had been the object of his solicitude for well past ninety years. She felt the benign warmth and she swelled her old body to open its pores. She had survived the winter. Now there was the long summer and autumn ahead.

  The sunlight was too much for her eyes and she kept them fixed on the soft green of the grass. She examined it critically, thinking how well she knew it in its comings and goings, its eager burgeoning in the spring, its browning in the fierce heat, its second greenness in September, how it was furred by frost in the fall; drooped, withered, and died in December.