05 Whiteoak Heritage

by Mazo de La Roche

  For one thing, too many questions were being asked. Not that his own liberty had yet been curtailed. Each morning he, Piers and Finch, took the train to the nearby town, the two younger to attend a large boys’ school, Eden to the University. Eden and Piers were athletic and popular. Eden was a fast runner and a good jumper: Piers, the best of his age in the football field.

  In the journeys to town they had had conversations which had produced an odd sort of partnership between them.

  Piers was a born farmer. Already he was talking of the day when he would leave school to devote himself to the land. The others might breed horses. He would sow crops, rear cows and pigs; already he knew a lot about them. His blue eyes would shine with pleasure when he saw a lolling sow suckling her plump litter on a field of swarthy stubble.

  It would be a good thing for Piers and Eden, their uncles said, to handle money and become accustomed to its careful usage. Eden had, in the last year, bought his own clothes and shown very good taste. Piers had bought bats, balls, racquets, skates, the innumerable things that seemed necessary to him. They had brought home silver mugs for their athletic prowess and added them to the collection already at Jalna.

  Eden was, at the moment, wearing an extremely well-fitting grey suit, one of the three he had ordered that spring. He had lately become conscious of his good looks, and no wonder, for since his acquaintance with Mrs. Stroud he had had them compared to Greek sculpture, and deplored as dangerous to woman. Still he was not vain of them. Rather he was amused by Mrs. Stroud’s extravagances. He was eager to see her for he had not been to her house for several days.

  He vaulted over the gate giving on to the road that led to her house, having put both book and soap into his pocket. Already that road was becoming dusty and he took to the path that ran along the verge. His whistle was clear as that of the oriole that had just crossed the first straws in his nest in the tallest elm.

  Mrs. Stroud opened the door herself. Her eyes lighted in surprise.

  “Will you let me in?” he asked.

  “Do you ask that because you’ve stayed away for so long?” Her deep moving voice always gave him a sense of something mysterious in her.

  “No. Because I’ve come back so soon. You must get tired of me.”

  “What have I done to deserve that?”

  “But — I don’t want to — come too often.”

  “Why?”

  “You have other friends.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Well —” He hesitated and gave a little laugh. She took him by the arm and drew him towards the living room.

  “You know that you are the only one who matters to me — in these parts.”

  He did not know why she had come there to live. Always there was that sense of mystery about her.

  Sinking on to the blue sofa he said, accepting the cigarette she offered him:

  “I had rather be here than anywhere…. The truth is we’ve been having some extra lectures.”

  The truth was that he had met a girl at a tennis match who had interested him to the eclipse of Mrs. Stroud. But, in what a short time the girl had bored him!

  “Isn’t it funny,” he said, after a few inhalations of the Russian cigarette for which Mrs. Stroud had given him a taste, “how little there is in the girls you meet?”

  “Very funny.” She looked at him between narrowed lids. “It shouldn’t be so. You should find them fascinating at your age.”

  “I don’t. Either they’re too prim or they’re too anxious to be thought sophisticated. They’re not a bit like you.”

  She gave her musical laugh.

  “Heaven forbid that they should be!”

  But her face and figure relaxed. She pictured, with a clarity that would have surprised him, what had been happening in the past days.

  She gave a wide smile that showed her fine teeth and asked:

  “How is that soldier brother of yours? Is it nice having him home again?”

  “It’s odd your asking that,” replied Eden. “I was thinking, just as I was on my way here, that it’s not so pleasant as we had expected.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “Why?”

  “He seems to me an unsettling sort of person.”

  “I never used to think so.”

  “Probably you both have changed. He has been through a war and you have grown up — almost.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Stroud, that last word was unkind!”

  She gave him a teasing look. “Do you feel entirely grown-up?”

  “Except when I’m with you.”

  “I wonder how I ought to take that remark,” she said musingly.

  “Well, I meant it for a compliment — in a sort of way.”

  “What else besides a compliment?” He gave her his odd smile, in which the eyes had no part but remained speculative and even ironic. A nerve in his cheek twitched. He said — “I wanted to make you a little angry.”

  “Does that please you? I mean, to make me angry?

  “It makes us seem a little more — intimate.”

  He saw that she was considering this and he thought — “I wish I hadn’t said that! I wish I hadn’t. She’ll expect — God, I shall feel a fool!”

  But she only laid her hand on his knee and said gently — “A nerve in your cheek is twitching. You are tired. You have been working too hard.”

  “I don’t feel it,” he said. “Where is it?”

  She touched his cheek with the tip of her second finger. “There.”

  He caught her hand and held it to his lips. “Now,” he thought, “what will she say?”

  For a moment she left her hand tranquilly in his, then withdrew it and said:

  “Tell me about this brother.”

  “Well, he used to be the eldest son and my father’s favourite, but now he’s the master of the house. We can’t get used to it.”

  “Who is we? ”

  “All of us, right from my grandmother down. We’d got a plan of living and it worked out very well. We can’t get used to his interference. He’s always interfering.”

  “With such a majority against him I don’t see how he can get his own way.”

  “So far, he has only attacked us separately.”

  Mrs. Stroud gave a mischievous smile. “Why don’t you attack him in a body then?”

  “I wish we could!”

  “In any case I should think your combined resistance would wear him down.”

  “You mustn’t think we’re having rows at Jalna. We’re not — yet. But I don’t see how we can go on like this. Now just listen…. He’s been home for a month. In that time he has had words with Grandmother about Wakefield. He’s had words with my aunt over this man Wragge he’s brought home with him. Aunt Augusta says it’s outrageous that such a fellow should act as butler in her father’s house. She says her father would turn over in his grave if he could see him handing about the soup. On the other hand, Gran likes Wragge. She’s always against Aunt Augusta. She’s fitted him out with an old livery three sizes too large for him and she’s encouraging him in his courtship with the cook. Eliza has left.”

  Eden stopped talking. He began to laugh softly as though at himself.

  “You know,” he said, “I love talking about us. I think we’re maddening but I love us. Don’t you think we’re lovable?” He looked at her slyly. “Or do you only see the maddening side?”

  “I wish I might be invisible in your house for a day. What about your uncles? Are they willing to be domineered over?”

  “Not they! They’ve each had a real set-to with him. Uncle Nick’s was about a stallion my father bought. Uncle Nick sold it last year. It wasn’t paying for itself. It wasn’t a good sire. But Renny wasn’t told. Now he’s furious. He and Uncle Nick shouted at each other. Grandmother was so excited that she dropped her egg flip and it spilled down the front of her dress.”

  “In this case my sympathy is with your brother.”

  “Mine isn’t. Uncle Nick did the ri
ght thing. As a matter of fact, we needed the money. It seems to get scarcer every year.”

  “And the other uncle?”

  “Oh, Uncle Ernest! He’s a dear old boy! He’d never have a quarrel with anyone. But he and Renny had a passage over an armchair that was a favourite of father’s. Uncle Ernie took it up to his room and Renny said he missed it from its place by the fire. He said he could just see father sitting in it with one of his spaniels between his knees, pulling burrs out of its ears and hiding them under the chair, where Mother wouldn’t see them. Uncle brought the chair down again and now Renny sits in it. But there’s a feeling between the two. In fact, Renny’s halo of a returned hero is beginning to grow spikes. He’s been after me, too, about my tailor’s bill. He says that I’m too young to order just what I want, but I’ve done it for the past year. He thinks Piers has more tennis racquets, skates, and hockey boots than he needs, and so he has! He says Meg has spoilt us. He’s told the youngsters that they must ask his permission to do things. I’ve just seen him giving young Piers a good hiding.”

  “What had Piers been doing?”

  “Kicking his bicycle about.”

  “Tck! And the baby? The little one?”

  “Oh, Renny frightened him so on his first day at home that Wake-field has begun to stammer whenever he sees him. He says — ‘P-pl-ease, no! B-b-b-baby says s-soldier must go way!’ Aunt Augusta says — ‘Poor child, this may change his whole life!’ And Gran gives him a nibble of her fruit cake.”

  Mrs. Stroud’s large grey eyes rested on him with commiseration. “Not a very tranquil environment for a young poet.”

  Eden flushed, but he laughed gaily. “I’m not a poet yet.” His flush deepened and he added — “But I did write something last night and I’ve brought it to show you, if you don’t mind.”

  “You know what I feel about that.”

  “I hope you’ll like it.”

  She rose and moved a vase of flowers to another position, then reseated herself in a chair opposite him, as for a ceremony, and looked at him with grave attentiveness. Eden took a small exercise book from his pocket and turned its pages nervously.

  A quick rap sounded on the door.

  “Bad luck!” exclaimed Mrs. Stroud softly. “But I’ll not answer it.”

  They sat in guilty silence while the knock was urgently repeated. Young Dayborn’s voice came: “Mrs. Stroud! Are you there? May we borrow your tea kettle? Ours has sprung a leak.”

  He left the door and moved toward the window. Mrs. Stroud darted to that corner of the room where they would be hidden. Eden pressed close after her. They crouched together. Her bodice was drawn tight across her breast. She breathed quickly. He threw his arm about her shoulders. Between irritation at the interruption, and the ridiculousness of their situation, he began to feel hysterical. He could scarcely control his laughter. Mrs. Stroud laid a firm hand on his mouth. They crouched close together while the knocking was reiterated. Then the outer door opened. Light steps went towards the kitchen.

  “He is going for the kettle,” she whispered. “When they want anything you can’t stop them.”

  “I hope the kettle is full of boiling water and he upsets it over himself.” He mumbled the words against her palm.

  The steps were retraced. The kettle struck sharply against the door handle.

  “He’s gone!” breathed Mrs. Stroud. Eden’s lips still moved but now he was kissing her hand. She took it away but flashed him a look that gave more than she had denied. They rose like one and returned to their seats. She looked a little flustered and touched her hair with her fingers. She spoke rather excitedly.

  “Really those people are becoming impossible! I have no privacy. They come and go as though we lived in the one house.”

  Eden was suddenly sulky. He stared at his hands that hung limply between his knees. Mrs. Stroud spoke cheerfully:

  “How are those two getting on with the schooling?” she asked.

  “Schooling?” he repeated as though he had never before heard the word.

  “Your brother’s horses. They’re pretty good riders, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, the girl especially. They are training a horse for the Grand National. Haven’t they told you?”

  “I believe they did mention something of the sort…. But don’t let us talk of them. I want to hear your poem.”

  “Who began talking about them? Not me.”

  “I spoke of them just for something to say. I couldn’t ask you to read your poetry the instant he had gone.”

  “We might have been silent.”

  “It was stupid of me! ”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does.”

  “I think I’ll go. I’ll leave the thing and you can read it later, when you’re in the mood.”

  “I’m in the mood now.” She spoke authoritatively. “Eden, don’t look like that. You’re hurting me. Come….” She picked up the book and put it in his hand.

  He sprang up and tossed it on to the bookshelves.

  “There! That’s how much I want to read it! Goodbye. I’m sorry if I’m being disagreeable.”

  Mrs. Stroud rose calmly. She brought a chair, mounted it, and retrieved the book. She put it into Eden’s hands with a smile, intimate and pleading. He accepted it with sudden meekness and turned the pages. He began to read in a low voice:

  “I and my shadow found each other.

  After the long night.

  We —”

  His voice faltered. “I can’t,” he said, and looked at her in despair. He got to his feet.

  “I should not have asked you.”

  “It’s all right…. Goodbye.”

  “When shall you come again?”

  “Soon. Tomorrow — if I may.”

  “I’ll be thinking of you, Eden.”

  A steady noise of hammering began next door. To its accompaniment they parted, he going out by a side door so that he might not be observed by the neighbours. The child could be heard crying.

  She watched his departing figure till out of sight. Then she returned to the living room. She plumped the cushions and emptied the ashtrays. She took up Eden’s book and held it to her lips. The hammering continued. She gave a vindictive look at the dividing wall.

  “I have a good mind,” she said, addressing her unseen neighbours, “to throw you out — baby and all!”

  But, when young Dayborn returned the kettle, there was no lessening in the kindness of her attitude toward them. “You can’t imagine,” she said, “what it means to me to have intimate neighbours. Sometimes I get spells of depression. Then I remember you three on the other side of the partition and everything seems brighter.”

  VII

  FINCH AND THE WHITE RAT

  FINCH HAD EIGHTY cents. By an iron-willed saving of his pocket money, which was five cents a week, he had accumulated forty cents. Piers had given him ten cents for taking his bicycle to the repair shop; Uncle Nicholas had given him ten cents for finding his spectacles; Meg had given him five for taking castor oil; and he had earned fifteen for helping to sort sound apples from rotten ones. Now he had enough to buy the white rat his heart was set on. The white rats were for sale at a shoemaker’s in Steed, the village seven miles away. Each rat had its own cage with a wheel for exercising. Not that his rat would spend much time in its cage. It would be playing about with him, learning to do wonderful tricks, running all over him with its dear little white feet.

  His body felt light as air, with the eighty cents in the small leather purse in his pocket. He could not keep his feet on the ground but skipped and leaped like a lamb. There would be seventy-five cents for the white rat and five cents for caramels. What a day! What life and power and joy were his!

  It was Saturday morning and he was free. His heart was so full that he made up his mind that he would brush his teeth as a gesture of gratitude to the Providence which ordered his life. He would be good that day if ever he had been good. What would the rat’s name be? For it must ha
ve a name. Something imposing and nice to say. He would ask Meg. Not that she was entirely sympathetic about the rat but she was kind and quite good at names. She generally named the horses and dogs.

  He stood by the washing stand in his little pyjamas with a patch on the seat, his toes curled up from the cold of the square of linoleum that lay before the stand, his hair on end. His own toothpaste was gone and he thought he would take some of Piers’s. It was neatly folded at the bottom, plump to squeeze. He laid a blob of the paste on his brush and began violently to rasp it across his large new front teeth. He was cautious about the back ones because of a loose one that ached. It had been the bane of his life for weeks — aching and wobbling — wobbling and aching. The new tooth beneath had pushed it almost out but still it clung. His tongue was sore from its sharp edge. He could not enjoy his meals but he kept the discomfort to himself because he dreaded to have the tooth pulled out.

  Even while he was being careful of it the door behind him opened suddenly and Piers came in. Finch started and the brush knocked against the bad tooth. He doubled up with pain. He dropped the brush.

  “Ooo — oo — oo!” he moaned.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Piers.

  “It’s my tooth! I hurt it.”

  Piers came to his side. What if Piers should smell the wintergreen scent of his own paste!