He entered and looked about him, pleased with the feminine order of the room. He said:
“I hope you don’t mind my coming. I was walking this way and thought I should like to see you in your own house. It was quite an innovation, dividing it in half.”
“How nice of you to come! I don’t have many visitors. But I have very near neighbours. Almost too near, at times.”
“But they’re nice young people, aren’t they?”
She gave a little shrug. “Nice enough. I like the woman better than the man, and the baby best of all. I suppose they are at Jalna. What hard work for a girl!”
“Yes. It is hard. But she likes it. Sometimes I think she has more care over the horses than she has over her own child.”
Ernest had seated himself near a window. It looked on to a small field gay with buttercups and red clover. He felt nervous with Mrs. Stroud’s attention entirely concentrated on him. Yet he had rehearsed what he was going to say. Now he said it.
“It is kind of you to take such an interest in Eden. We all appreciate it.”
She felt it necessary to steady herself at the mention of Eden’s name. She wondered why Ernest had come.
“Are you vexed at my having him here so much?”
“We could scarcely be that,” he hedged. “Intelligent companionship is so good for a youth. Most young people scarcely seem to have an idea in their heads these days.”
“Oh, Eden’s not like that! He’s teeming with ideas. He’s alive to his fingertips.”
“I take it that you are rather like that yourself,” said Ernest, with a warm look straight into her eyes.
She flushed, and acknowledged — “Yes, I am.”
Ernest began to feel more at his ease. He said:
“Eden is at the stage when he feels the necessity of being understood. I was like that once. Since then I have reached the point where I think it is better to conceal what you are from the world.”
“But were you ever like Eden?”
“Well, I don’t think I ever had such an ardent nature, but there was a resemblance. At his age I was more mature. I should think you would find his lack of maturity an obstacle to your friendship. As a matter of fact, I am surrounded by people who take very little interest in my mental pursuits.” He hesitated, and then added simply:
“I am thinking of writing a book.”
“Are you really! Eden has never mentioned it to me.”
Ernest looked hurt. “I have talked of it a good deal to him but I suppose he wasn’t deeply interested.”
“But I am. Would you tell me what it’s about?”
He crossed his legs and his eyes brightened.
“It’s about Shakespeare. My book is to be something quite different from all others on the subject. It’s a subject that lends itself to endless variety. I flatter myself that I have something new to say. In England my brother and I were confirmed theatre goers. We saw Irving and Terry in their best Shakespearian parts. We had the good fortune to know them in private life.”
“How wonderful!”
“Yes. Nicholas is reading the plays aloud to me. My eyes are not strong. He has a fine voice and quite a sense of the dramatic. The effect is surprisingly good.”
“How I should like to hear him!”
“I’ll bring him over one day and persuade him to read to you.”
“Oh, thank you.” Mrs. Stroud could scarcely believe that a morning so drab could have blossomed into such a day. She longed to say something that would impress Ernest. But, though her mind strove wildly, it could hit on nothing. She could only gaze at him and repeat:
“Thank you. That will be a treat.”
Ernest quoted, in his light, pleasant voice:
“‘Poetry is the blossom and fragrancy of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emotions, language.’”
Mrs. Stroud dared not trust herself to speak. Her eyes glistened with tears. Ernest talked on and on. He loved the sound of his own voice and he had never had such a listener.
She asked him to stay to tea. While she got it ready he walked up and down the room. He thought it was attractive though rather bare. He remembered a little Dresden figure in his own room, and thought he would bring it to her next time he came, for he was now sure there would be a next time.
There was a small crash in the kitchen. In her nervousness she had dropped the tea canister. He ventured to the door and said:
“I hope nothing has gone wrong.”
“Oh no, nothing is broken. Won’t you come out and see my kitchen?” She was suddenly self-possessed.
He wandered about, admiring everything. It was a novelty to see inside a kitchen and he had never known so pretty a one. He helped her carry in the tea things. They became more familiar and laughed a good deal as they ate their thin brown bread and butter, the sponge fingers, and drank the good China tea.
All the way home Ernest was full of his success. He could scarcely wait to tell the others of it.
XI
PHEASANT’S PLAN
PHEASANT’S LIFE, FROM the time she was eight to twelve, had been so monotonous that there had been little to distinguish one day from another except the changing of the seasons. These changes she had watched with an eye more perceptive than most children’s. She knew almost the exact moment when the old apple tree by the stream would put out its fragile pinky-white blossoms. She became weather-wise from association with Mrs. Clinch, and could prophesy rain or whether the thunder in the air meant clearing and cooling or another storm. She and Mrs. Clinch had long discussions about the weather. She knew of the various extremities of weather suffered by Mrs. Clinch during her entire life. It was their great and unfailing subject of conversation, the only one in which they met as equals. In winter, sitting by an almost red-hot stove, they passionately discussed the past seventy winters. In summer, when Mrs. Clinch had carried her rocking chair into the open and rocked and fanned to keep the mosquitoes off, Pheasant knelt on the warm grass beside her and they talked of droughts, floods, northern lights, thunderbolts, and people struck and burnt black by lightning.
Pheasant was not much interested in her lessons with Miss Pink. They consisted mostly in learning the minerals of distant countries and the dates of distant battles, by heart. She also had to learn by heart such poems as “Psalm of Life” and “Yarrow Revisited.” Mrs. Clinch taught her to darn and hem. But she put none of these accomplishments to any practical use as she did her knowledge of weather, which was a constant help and interest to her.
In these years the family at Jalna were the subject of much speculation. They were so near to her, they might have been so much to her, yet she rarely exchanged a word with one of them. But to meet a member of the family or hear a scrap of news about them changed the colour of the day. They were the second-best subject of conversation between her and Mrs. Clinch. The reason they were not the best was that Mrs. Clinch had so many undertones in speaking of them, so many hints at their pride and arrogance, that Pheasant often felt unhappy after talking of them. Yet individually, when she did meet one of them they were always nice to her, with the exception of Meg whom she had only met face to face twice. Each time Meg had given her, first a startled look, then one of cold scrutiny which had clouded to, what Pheasant felt, was dislike.
Sometimes she and Finch met by chance in the fields and played together a little. She thought of him as somewhat like herself and wished she knew him better. She had met him on the little bridge above the stream one day quite lately. She never ventured into the grounds of Jalna except secretly. That day she had stolen through the undergrowth to see if she could find watercress on the bank and had come upon him suddenly, sitting on the bridge, his legs dangling above the stream and a little white rat darting softly over the patch of sunlight on the boards, within the circle of his arm. She had stood knee-deep in the water staring up at him, wondering whether or not to speak. But he had spoken, as though he were expecting her.
“Hullo, Pheasant. Com
e and see my pet rat.”
She had splashed eagerly out of the water and clambered up the bank to his side.
“Look! He’s as tame as can be. I’m going to teach him all sorts of tricks. See, he’s not a bit afraid of me. He’ll sit on my hand. Look!”
Enchanted, she had watched him and the rat. The joy of being with another child had gone all through her. She had felt it even in her fingers and toes. There was a fluttering feeling in them. She wanted to run swiftly at the boy’s side or take hold of him and wrestle with him.
“Oh, Finch, may I touch him?”
He was dubious. “I don’t think he’d like it. He only knows me.”
“Just one little stroke.”
He allowed the caress. Pheasant thrilled to the feel of that warm velvet softness under her finger. But Finch was restless. He must be off with his pet. She often wondered how the little rat was getting on and if Finch had taught it tricks.
Sometimes she met Piers but she liked him least of the boys. He thought nothing of coming to Vaughanlands with his gun and shooting rabbits. She admired his pink and white skin, his blue eyes, but she thought he had a hard, teasing look. When they met he would boast of the things he shot. Once he had caught hold of her and tickled her in the ribs with iron fingers. After that she ran the other way when they met. She heard through Mrs. Clinch that he was unruly, that his sister and uncles could not control him. Mrs. Clinch said that he would shout that he would or wouldn’t do things.
Once Eden had been her favourite.
She had quite often seen him in the woods, murmured a timid hullo in answer to his greeting. She thought his smile was nice but rather sad. Then one day he had been suddenly friendly. He had taken her by the hand and they had walked together among the pines and birches. They had sat down together where there was a patch of wintergreen, and he had eaten the berries, yet made a face over them. He had been amusing and gentle, like no one she had ever known. Just to watch his changeful face had been fun. He had asked her innumerable questions about herself. At last, tossing up a handful of berries and catching them, he had confessed to her that he wrote poetry. He was going to be a lawyer, but in between cases, he had said, he would write lots of poems, and after a while when he had made some money he would give up law, do nothing but write poetry. Perhaps he would write a poem about her.
His confidences made the world a new place for Pheasant. She imagined he was to be her friend for ever. She had wandered through the woods day after day, hoping to meet him again, but when she did he had looked at her absent-mindedly, barely nodded, and gone his way. Had she offended him? She could not bear it. She had run after him and caught him by the arm, looking up into his face in eager questioning. But he had shaken her off and exclaimed petulantly — “Leave me alone!” That had been a year ago and she had not talked with him since.
The old grandmother, Lady Buckley, and the uncles were, to her, beings of a stately and remote world. She had had no commerce with them except when Nicholas had met her, stroked her hair with his large shapely hand, and later sent her a doll as a remembrance.
The grandmother she had often seen, drawn in her carriage by the two sleek bay horses, on her way to church or to pay a call. The old lady would direct a piercing glance at her, but not unkindly. Pheasant would stand stock-still, staring as long as the majestic folds of the widow’s veil were in sight and the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves beat a rhythm on the road.
She would never forget the day when little Wakefield ran away, over all the winding path to Vaughanlands. He had appeared in the doorway of the kitchen where she was sitting with Mrs. Clinch, holding a skein of wool for her and discussing the drought. He had come in as though he were an invited guest, run about the room and peeped into every corner. Mrs. Clinch had given him a cookie in each hand. He had taken quick eager bites, his curls hanging almost into his eyes. Oh, to have a little brother like that! If only they could have hidden him — kept him for ever!
But a servant had soon come to fetch him. He had been carried away weeping. Pheasant too had felt like crying.
She had felt that life would be different with Maurice at home. It was different but not in the way she had hoped for. Maurice was moody and gave little thought to her. In his own house, the War behind him, he felt his estrangement from Meg more than he had since its early days. He was melancholy and after dinner each night was inclined to drink too much.
One day, out of the loneliness of her heart, Pheasant said to Mrs. Clinch:
“Do you think he will ever like me?”
Mrs. Clinch regarded her with a cold, judicial eye. “He might, if you was a different sort of child.”
“Different? How different?”
“Well, you are what you are. I don’t s’pose you can help it.”
“I’d like,” said Pheasant, “to be more of a companion to him, like a daughter should.”
Mrs. Clinch looked pessimistic. She said:
“I don’t see him hobnobbing with you, if that’s what you mean. He’s got his own ways and his own thoughts and the less you interfere with him the better — poor young man!”
Those fatal words — poor young man — always ended Pheasant’s questions. She turned away, flushing deeply. She wondered what she could do to improve herself, to make herself more companionable for Maurice, more able to think like he did.
How did he think, she wondered. She tried to send out her mind that it might penetrate his, feel as his did. She felt herself coming home from the War, very large, manly, and brave, with Renny Whiteoak at her side. She tried not to feel envious that Renny had a decoration and she not. There was one thing she had anyhow. She had a little girl, all trembling with eagerness, waiting for her. Yet, when she met that little girl, what a disappointment lay in store! A shy, plain child with none of the attractions she had hoped for. And at Jalna, beyond the ravine, Meg Whiteoak whom she could not marry! Meg had been a beautiful girl. Mrs. Clinch said she had never seen a lovelier skin and even now there was none to compare to her. Still Pheasant had an interesting face, if only she were more intelligent!
This trying to penetrate Maurice’s mind was not successful. It led always to the conclusion that, if she herself were different, he would like her better, or notice her at any rate. One day he reprimanded her for coming to lunch with her hair untidy. Before the next meal she brushed her hair till it shone and tied a blue ribbon round her head with a bow at the temple. He did not even glance at it.
She tried to talk to him about Rob Roy which she was reading. He answered politely but he was not interested. She thought it’s too old-fashioned, I must read what he is reading. When he went out she took up a war novel which had been leant him by Nicholas Whiteoak, and buried herself in that. She read something terrible about a wounded soldier being caught in a barbed-wire entanglement and hanging there till a splinter of shell horribly finished him. Her flesh crept with terror of it. She felt sick. If Maurice had seen such things why should he want to read of them? Perhaps he could not get them out of his mind. Her heart was full of pity for him. She asked timidly:
“Do you like that book?”
“Not much,” he replied indifferently. “But there are some good descriptions in it.”
“Descriptions of what?”
“Fighting.”
“Did you see things as — bad as that?”
“Bad as what?”
“Things in the book?”
“Have you been reading it?”
“A little.”
“It’s not fit for you.”
“I just wanted to be able to talk to you about it.”
“Talk to me about war! Good Lord!”
“I thought” — she made a great effort and went on — “I thought the book might draw us together.”
Maurice laughed in genuine amusement. That hurt her cruelly. She buried her face in her lesson book, glad of the thick hair that fell forward across it.
Maurice said — “You’ve been alone too much with t
hat old woman. I wish you had another child to play with.”
She wanted to cry out, “It’s not another child I need, it’s you!” But she clenched her hands together tightly under the table, and her blurred vision sought the exports of Sweden.
Mrs. Stroud had occupied her house for some time before she and Pheasant met. Then, one day as Pheasant was passing her gate, Mrs. Stroud stopped her and asked her if she would like to see a nestful of young wagtails. There was one in her porch. Pheasant, full of excitement, followed her along the pink-bordered path. The air was heavy with the scent of pinks. She stood long, admiring the nestlings. Then Mrs. Stroud asked her if she would come indoors and drink a cup of chocolate with her. Pheasant accepted the invitation with outward dignity but with an inner thrill that made her almost dizzy with pleasure. Mrs. Stroud was the kindest woman she had ever met. Her house was the sweetest, cleanest, prettiest house she had ever seen, far prettier than Miss Pink’s which had formerly been her ideal. Mrs. Stroud showed her all over the house.
The room that pleased Pheasant most was the guest room with its pink silk bedspread and curtains that Mrs. Stroud herself had made. She said that no one had yet slept in the room. Perhaps Pheasant would come and spend the night with her. The chocolate was the best Pheasant had ever tasted, the cups the prettiest she had ever seen. Pheasant sat very straight, conversing sedately. She told Mrs. Stroud as much of her life as she thought not derogatory to herself. She stayed and stayed, till at last Mrs. Stroud suggested that they go next door and see the baby.
They had chosen an opportune time. Chris was giving him a bath for they had just come back from the stables and he was, as she said, dirty as any stableboy.
But now he was clean and pink! He stood, naked and jubilant, his silvery hair on end. He never knew when he was going to be washed or fed, and, when either blessing descended on him, accepted it with unquestioning joy.
The wild disorder of this house, its gypsy-like casualness, was as thrilling to Pheasant as the charm and order of Mrs. Stroud’s. She felt that a new world had opened up before her. She saw new possibilities in life. Only the hour before she had thought Mrs. Stroud the most lovely woman and the kindest she had ever met. She still thought her the kindest and was sure no one else had such a smile. But the sight of Chris Cummings in her khaki shirt and breeches, bathing Tod, filled her with a new admiration. She watched every movement of her lithe body, the bony competent hands, with intensest interest. Even the way her hair, the same colour as Tod’s, was licked back behind her ears and curled by her jawbone in a drake’s tail, was charming.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 134