05 Whiteoak Heritage

by Mazo de La Roche

  Three weeks had passed since Renny’s visit to her. She had a secret desire to force him to intervene once more on Dayborn’s behalf. She desired the pleasure of refusing him. Although their meeting had been amicable she felt something antagonistic in him toward herself, something that had nothing to do with Eden. She could not forget his presence in the room, how it had obliterated all that had gone before.

  Deception, she told herself, was wearing her out, yet she had been so enmeshed by it in the past months that she wondered how she would ever exist without its stimulus. She had a leaning toward the belief of reincarnation and imagined that, in some earlier life, she had moved in the intrigues of a royal court.

  The morning after her evening paddle, with Eden, the weather changed. She woke half frozen in her bed, for she had fallen asleep with only the sheet over her. She could scarcely believe her eyes when she looked out of the window. It had been raining, and now a cold wind blew. Trees bent, if they were slender; waved their branches, if they were stalwart. The garden path was strewn with drenched leaves. She looked mournfully at the purple clouds and knew that fall had come.

  She ate her breakfast in this mood but a flicker of sunlight on the floor cheered her. After all, there was Indian summer still to come. She would look no farther ahead than that. She lighted a cigarette and settled down with the morning paper.

  She heard voices outside and glanced out of the window. She saw Renny Whiteoak at the gate. With him were the two children, Pheasant and Finch. He left them there and came toward the house. Her heart began to beat heavily. She folded the paper neatly, looked at her reflection in the glass and went to the door.

  Her first thought on opening it was how impervious to weather he looked. It seemed that weather had done its worst to him, that its worst had no more than toughened him, whipped his skin to a high colour, his frame to endurance, and given his eyes a look of wary pleasure in its companionship. This morning became him, she thought, seeing his bare head, the russet of his leather leggings. She invited him to come in. Then she called out:

  “Good morning, Pheasant! Why do you never come to see me any more?”

  “I don’t know,” the little girl answered slowly, but there was reproach in her eyes. Mrs. Stroud was embarrassed. They both knew that her visits had been discouraged.

  “Won’t you come in now? And Finch too?”

  “I think they had better wait outside till we have talked business for a little,” said Renny. In the dining room he said warmly:

  “I want to thank you for letting Dayborn stay on. It’s been most awfully kind of you, because I know you don’t like him.”

  “That is putting it mildly. I detest him. I’ve good reason to.”

  “I know — I know. But he’s been pretty good lately, hasn’t he?” He looked anxiously into her eyes.

  “Not so objectionable as formerly. But they can’t stay on.”

  “Of course not,” he agreed.

  “I’ve been wanting to see you about that.”

  “And I’ve wanted to see you.” His brown eyes still had that warm gleam in them. “As a matter of fact, I’ve heard of a place that will suit them, but they can’t get into it for a few weeks. About three.” He looked at her almost pleadingly.

  It was beginning to rain again, a fierce squally shower.

  “Do say yes,” he urged. “This would be awful weather to move in — especially with a baby.”

  She looked out of the window.

  “How long do you think it will last?”

  “About three weeks.”

  No canoeing, she thought, for three weeks! She said:

  “Very well, I’ll try, but, if I send for you in the meantime, you mustn’t be surprised.”

  “You’ll not be forced to send for me, I promise you. I can’t tell you how grateful I am. I should have come to see you about them before this, but I’ve been working hard and playing polo a good deal.” His face fell. “Did you see that the American team beat us on Wednesday?”

  “Yes,” she lied, for she had no interest in sporting news. “I was so sorry. But you put up a splendid game, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, we gave them a run for their money. But we were up against superior ponies. I’m breeding some now which I hope will make a difference. I’ve got one grand pony. You could pull his head through his chest and he’d never lose it!”

  “I wish I could see a polo match.”

  He looked at her commiseratingly.

  “What a pity! We’ve finished for the season but you must see one next year.” He knit his brow and then asked, — “Have you been to the Horse Show?”

  “No, but I’d love to go.”

  “You must come to our box. The Show’s in November.” He gave a start, exclaiming:

  “Those kids! They’re out in the rain! I must go.” Before she could speak he was at the door.

  She pressed ahead of him and threw open the door.

  “Children!” she called gaily. “Come right in! You must be wet through.”

  Renny grinned approvingly as the two children, who had been sheltering under a small inadequate maple tree, scampered along the path and into the house. They were bareheaded. The wet had made Pheasant’s hair wave over the top of her head but Finch’s was plastered down almost into his eyes. He smiled shyly at Mrs. Stroud but Pheasant retained her air of gravity. The two made as though to sit side by side on the sofa but Renny stopped them.

  “You’re too wet,” he said. “Sit on the floor by the fire.”

  There was a coal fire in the small grate. Mrs. Stroud was glad she had lighted it. It gave the room a homelike, cheerful look. The children sat on either side of the fire, their innocent profiles giving them an air of aloofness.

  Renny looked down at them indulgently. He looked, Mrs. Stroud thought, as though he were so used to children that he felt their presence only as an agreeable addition to the atmosphere. She herself felt some resentment at their coming yet, in a curious way, she felt a new familiarity with Renny.

  There was a scratching on the outer door. Finch said:

  “It’s Fan. She was at the back when we came in. Shall I open the door?”

  “Yes, do,” said Mrs. Stroud.

  “She was my father’s dog,” explained Renny. “Now she’s attached herself to me. She’s almost always with me. I hope you don’t mind.”

  The spaniel entered with an air of assurance, her fringed legs and long ears dripping from the wet grass.

  “Fan’s back is just like your head, Pheasant,” laughed Renny.

  The little girl gave him an adoring look. She stretched out a thin hand and laid it on his knee.

  “Look what Fan’s got!” cried Finch.

  It was the yellow claw of a fowl. With attention drawn to it, Fan laid it on the rug and raised her eyes to her master’s. Renny sprang up, gave the spaniel a gentle cuff and laid the fowl’s leg on the fire.

  “I’m so sorry,” he apologized.

  “Isn’t it lovely the way it sizzles.”

  “Wait a minute and you’ll smell it,” said Finch. He gazed rapturously into the grate.

  The spaniel seated herself and resignedly watched the destruction of her treasure.

  Silence fell in the room. Then Mrs. Stroud said:

  “I’m trying to see a resemblance between any of you brothers. I can’t find it. It’s extraordinary that no two should be alike.”

  Renny answered, with the vivacity that a discussion of his family always produced in him:

  “Well, it’s not so extraordinary. I’m the spit of my grandmother, as they say. Eden looks like his mother. Piers resembles our father. Meg is like him too. Wakefield is very like a picture of Uncle Nick at that age. Finch is just himself.”

  “He looks as though he might be musical.” She did not dare quote Eden as saying this. She wished, too, to appear discerning.

  “That’s clever of you, to see that,” answered Renny. “There’s quite a lot of musical talent in my family. My sister ca
n sing and both my uncles play the piano. Uncle Ernest has taught this fellow to play the ‘Blue Danube.’ Play the ‘Blue Danube’ for Mrs. Stroud, Finch. Would you like to hear him play the ‘Blue Danube’?”

  “I’d love to.” She smiled encouragingly at the little boy.

  Colour suffused his face. He began to tremble. “I can’t,” he muttered, hanging his head.

  “Go ahead,” urged Renny. “Don’t be a duffer!”

  “I can’t.”

  Mrs. Stroud leant toward him, her eyes compelling. “Just to please me!”

  “Go on, Finch,” said Pheasant, poking him with her elbow.

  He shook his head, staring down at his hands.

  Renny stretched out a long arm and drew Finch to him. “Play it, and I’ll give you a quarter,” he whispered.

  Finch tried to draw away, his breath came quickly. “I can’t,” he repeated.

  “Play it or you’ll get a good hiding,” Renny whispered in Finch’s ear. Across the boy he smiled amicably at Mrs. Stroud. He pushed Finch toward the piano.

  Finch sat on the stool, swallowed up in misery. He stared dumbly at the keyboard. As he stared he forgot the others in the room. He laid his small hands, brown from the summer sun, with nails cut too short for comfort, as Meg cut them, on the keys. He began to play. He played the waltz through. He played it delicately yet boldly, with a kind of innocent fervour. When he had finished he remained seated at the piano, his head hanging.

  Mrs. Stroud clapped her hands delightedly. She gave Renny an expressive look. She formed the word wonderful with her lips.

  “It is pretty good, isn’t it?” Renny said with pride. “Considering that he doesn’t know one note from another?”

  Mrs. Stroud opened a drawer and took out a box of chocolates. She offered them first to Finch.

  “Perhaps you’ll be a great pianist some day,” she said.

  “God forbid!” said Renny “But it’s nice to be able to play the piano. My uncles have had a good deal of pleasure from it.”

  “Are you fond of music?”

  “I’m not what you’d call musical,” he returned with diffidence, “but it’s nice to hear when you come into a house after a day in the stables. The only time I don’t like it is when the band blares out at a Show and I’m riding a novice.”

  The squall had ceased. Pale sunshine threw the shadow of a branch on the wall. The spaniel was noisily licking her paws.

  “It’s beginning to roast now,” said Pheasant, regarding the fowl’s foot.

  Renny got to his feet.

  “We must be off. Come, kids.”

  “Oh, don’t go yet!”

  “We must. We’re on our way to the church to inspect a leaking roof. I keep the roof in repair.”

  At the door he thanked her again for what she had agreed to concerning Dayborn. She stood in the doorway watching him disappear down the road, a child by either hand, the spaniel at his heels.

  When she returned to the room she stood thinking with crossed arms, her chin in her hand. She felt sure that she had attracted him. She felt in herself the power to draw him closer — to hold him. Here was a man! She had met no other like him! She was passionate. She had experience. What if she could win him — become his wife — the mistress of Jalna! The room turned slowly round with her. She put out her hand gropingly on the back of a chair and steadied herself.

  XVIII

  DISCOVERY

  FROM THE CHURCH, Renny turned homeward with Finch. Pheasant had run along the road toward Vaughanlands, waving her hand as she climbed over the gate that led into one of Morris’s fields. At home Renny found that his grandmother was still in bed. She disliked this sort of day and had a slight cold. She was not, however, feeling ill or depressed. She was propped up with pillows and had bed table across her knees on which she had laid out the cards for her favourite form of Patience. Her parrot, Boney was in his cage for it was one of his irritable days and he had, soon after breakfast, bitten Ernest. Now he was systematically throwing the seeds out of his seed-cup with a sidewise jerk of his beak, in search for a particular variety which he sometimes had as a treat. Each time he threw out a portion, he cast a piercing glance over the bottom of the cage and muttered an imprecation in Hindustani.

  Adeline ignored Renny’s presence, except by a nod, continuing to turn up the cards in threes, glancing across the board each time she did so with an expression ludicrously like her parrot’s. Renny, observing this, gave a chuckle of delight and seated himself on the side of the bed.

  “Glad you think it’s funny,” she said.

  “What, Gran?”

  “Me not being able to work the thing out.”

  “I wasn’t laughing at you, but at Boney.”

  She peered at the parrot. “He’s disgruntled. He gets that way. He bit your Uncle Ernest this morning, so his tonic must be ordered from the chemist.”

  “That’s not the way I treat horses that bite.”

  “What do you do to them? “ “Sell them, if I can.”

  “Ah, I couldn’t part with Boney. Could I, love?”

  He gave her a glassy stare, then went on throwing out his seeds. She put down her cards and clasped her handsome old hands on her stomach. She turned her large nose toward Renny.

  “You smell of the outdoors,” she said. “Lean over and let me sniff you.”

  He bent over her and she drew a deep breath. She fingered the lapel of his coat and looked into his eyes. “Tell me,” she said, “have you ever been in love?”

  “Often.”

  “Of course — passing fancies. I mean the real thing.”

  “Yes. Twice.”

  “When? ”

  “Well, once in France.”

  “Oh, the Countess! You told me about her. When was the other time?”

  “That’s a secret.”

  “No, it isn’t! Not from me. You’re in love now.”

  He patted her knee. “Go on with your game, old lady.”

  “I suppose it’s that Mrs. Stroud. Ernest confesses that he had an attachment for her.”

  “It’s not Mrs. Stroud and never could be.”

  “Is it that Cummings girl?”

  He shook his head.

  Adeline gave a triumphant chuckle, then looked serious.

  “You mustn’t think of marrying her. When you marry, it must be to a woman of position and means.”

  “The combination seems rare hereabout. Anyhow, I prefer good looks and similar tastes.”

  “Now you’ve proved it. It is that girl. Don’t you dare think of marrying her.”

  “I’m not.”

  “For one thing, she has a child.”

  “No harm in that.”

  “I wonder!” She repeated the words under her breath several times, then began to shuffle the cards. As she laid three out, she remarked:

  “Something’s got to be done about Eden.”

  “I don’t think he often goes to Mrs. Stroud’s now.”

  “Doesn’t he? Doesn’t he?”

  “Who says he does?”

  “Never mind. I have my ways of knowing what my grandsons are up to.”

  Rags tapped on the door, then entered, carrying a glass of hot cinnamon water on a tray. Adeline stretched out her hands to it. She sipped it cautiously.

  “Ha, it’s hot!”

  “It will do your cold good, ma’am.”

  Rags stood watching the old lady with an expression of deep commiseration. Looking across the tumbler she examined his features and demanded:

  “Why do you look like that? D’ye think I’m shaping for influenza?”

  “Ow, naow, ma’am. You’ll soon be fit again. I was just thinking wot a pity ’twould be to give you anything to worry about.”

  Her eyes gleamed. “I’m used to worry. I’ve worried for over ninety years. What mischief have you to tell, my man?”

  Rags scratched his chin and looked enquiringly at Renny.

  “Go ahead,” said Renny. “It’s a dull day.” />
  Rags bowed gravely.

  “There’s no young gentleman,” he said, “I admires more than Mr. Eden.”

  “Yes,” said Adeline. “What’s he been up to?”

  “I admires ’is book learning. There’s nothing I like better than to polish the silver cups ’e’s won for running and jumping.”

  “Out with it, Rags,” said Renny.

  “I’ve nothing to tell of against Mr. Eden. It’s ’is friend, sir.”

  “The lady friend?”

  “Nao. The gentleman. Mr. Powell ’is nime is.”

  Renny frowned. “What about him?”

  “Just that ’e daon’t exist, sir.”

  “Stop beating about the bush, Rags, and explain.”

  “Well, sir, it was like this. I ’ad to go on a message to the Rectory the other day. It was one of them lovely days when its ’ard for a ’igh-spirited young man like Mr. Eden to stay indoors. I saw ’im walking a’ead of me towards the back road where ’e was to meet Mr. Powell. But Mr. Powell wasn’t there. Nor did Mr. Eden look abaht for ’im. ’E just marched straight on to Mrs. Stroud’s.”

  “Ha!” exclaimed Adeline. “The young whelp!”

  “Go on,” said Renny.

  Rags warmed to the disclosure. “’E went in. As I’d been sent out on a message I didn’t dare waste my time watching outside the ’ouse, but the next day, when ’e set out to meet Mr. Powell, I set out after ’im, ’aving explained to my missus that I was off on a mission relating to the family welfare. Mr. Eden went straight to Mrs. Stroud’s, like ’e ’ad before. I ’adn’t long to wait. They came out together, she very smart in a white costume, and made down the road, me following. They never stopped till they reached that boat ’ouse at the end of the road. There they got into a canoe and paddled out of sight. The next time I couldn’t get away but yesterday I did. It was such a weary wait that I came ’ome again. But towards evening I took another stroll in that direction and ’ad the un’appiness of seeing them set out again. There’s no young man I admires more than Mr. Eden, and I don’t like to see ’im trapped in a spider’s web and never put out a ’and to save ’im.”