Renny sat down by the table. His thin, highly coloured face looked worn. Straws clung to his coat. His hands, which he had washed at a basin in the scullery, looked red and chapped. To Pheasant, suddenly, he was not imposing, but pathetic. She bent over him, putting her arm around his shoulders.
“Is it dead?” she whispered.
He nodded, scowling. Then she saw that there were tears in his eyes. She clasped him to her, and they cried together.
XX
MERRY GENTLEMEN
EARLY in December, Augusta, Lady Buckley, came from England to visit her family. It would probably, unless her mother proposed to live forever, be the last Christmas the ancient lady would be on earth. At any rate, Augusta said in her letter, it would be the last visit to them in her own lifetime, for she felt herself too old to face the vagaries of ocean travel.
“She has said that on each of her last three visits,” observed Nicholas. “She makes as many farewells as Patti. I’ll wager she lives to be as old as Mamma.”
“Never,” interrupted his mother, angrily, “never. I won’t have it. She’ll never live to see ninety.”
“Augusta is a handsome woman,” said Ernest. “She has a dignity that is never seen now. I remember her as a dignified little thing when we were in shoulder-knots.”
“She always has an offended air,” returned Nicholas. “She looks as though something had offended her very deeply in early infancy and she had never got over it.”
Mrs. Whiteoak cackled. “That’s true, Nick. It was on the voyage from India, when I was so sick. Your papa had to change her underthings, and he stuck her with a safety pin, poor brat!”
The brothers laughed callously, and each squeezed an arm of the old lady. She was such an entertaining old dear. They wondered what they should ever do without her. Life would never be the same when she was gone. They would realize then that they were old, but they would never quite realize it while she lived.
They were taking her for her last walk of the season. This always occurred on a mild day in December. After that she kept to the house till the first warm spring day. Peering out between the crimson curtains of her window, she would see something in the air that marked the day as the one for her last walk. “Now,” she would exclaim, “here goes for my last walk till spring!” A thrill always ran through the house at this announcement. “Gran’s going for her last walk. Hullo, there, what do you suppose? Gran’s off for her last toddle, poor old dear.”
She invariably went as far as the wicket gate in the hedge beside the drive, a distance of perhaps fifty yards. They had arrived at the gate now, and she had put out her hands and laid them on the warm and friendly surface of it. They shook a good deal from the exertion, so that a tremor ran through her into the gate and was returned like a flash of secret recognition. Those three had stood together at that gate nearly seventy years before, when she was a lovely-shouldered young woman with auburn ringlets, and they two tiny boys in green velvet suits with embroidered cambric vests, and cockscombs of hair atop their heads.
They stood leaning against the gate without speaking, filled for the moment with quaint recollections, enjoying the mild warmth of the sun on their backs. Then Ernest said:
“Shall we turn back, Mamma?”
Her head was cocked. “No. I hear horses’ hooves.”
“She does, by gad,” said Nicholas. “You’ve better ears than your sons, Mamma.”
Renny and Alayne were returning from a ride. Like soft thunder the sound of their galloping swept along the drive, Then horses and riders appeared, the tall bony grey mare and the bright chestnut; the long, drooping, grey-coated figure of the man, and the lightly poised, black-habited girl.
“Splendid!” cried Nicholas. “Isn’t she doing well, Ernie?”
“One would think she had ridden all her life.”
“She’s got a good mount,” observed Renny, drawing in his horse, and throwing a look of pride over the chestnut and his rider.
Alayne’s eyes were bright with exhilaration. In riding she had found something which all her life she had lacked, the perfect outdoor exercise. She had never been good at games, had never indeed cared for them, but she had taken to riding as a waterfowl to the pond. She had gained strength physically and mentally. She had learned to love a gallop over frozen roads, against a bitter wind, as well as a canter in the temperate sun.
Renny was a severe master. Nothing but a good seat and a seemly use of the good hands nature had given her satisfied him. But when at last she rode well, dashing along before him, bright wisps of hair blown from under her hat, her body light as a bird’s against the wind, he was filled with a voluptuous hilarity of merely living. He could have galloped on and on behind her, swift and arrogant, to the end of the world.
They rarely talked when they rode together. It was enough to be flying in unison along the lonely roads, with the lake gulls screaming and sweeping overhead. When they did speak it was usually about the horses. He kept a sharp eye on her mount, and when he tightened a girth for her, or adjusted a stirrup, a look into her eyes said more than any words.
Sometimes Eden and Pheasant and Piers rode with them, and once they were joined by Maurice Vaughan, to Pheasant’s childlike delight. It was on this occasion that Eden’s horse slipped on the edge of a cliff above the lake, and would have taken him to the bottom had not Renny caught the bridle and dragged horse and rider to safety. He had pushed Piers and Maurice aside to do this, as though with a fierce determination to save Eden himself. Did he covet the satisfaction, Alayne wondered afterward, of risking his life to save Eden’s, to make up to him for winning the love of his wife, or was it only the arrogant, protective gesture of the head of the family?
Now at any time the bitterness of winter would descend on them. The rides would be few.
“Watch me,” cried Grandmother. “I’m going back to the house now. This is my last walk till spring. Ha—my old legs feel wobbly. Hold me up, Nick. You’re no more support than a feather bolster.”
The three figures shuffled along the walk, scarcely seeming to move. The horses dropped their heads and began to crop the dank grass of December.
“You’ve no idea,” said Renny, “how much the old lady and the two old boys mean to me.”
His grandmother had reached the steps. He waved his riding crop and shouted: “Well done! Bravo, Gran! Now you’re safe till spring, eh?”
“Tell them,” wheezed Gran to Nicholas, “that when they’ve put their nags away they’re to come and kiss me.”
“What does she say?” shouted Renny.
Nicholas rumbled: “She wants to be kissed.”
When they had installed their mother in her favorite chair, he said in a heavy undertone to Ernest:
“Those two are getting in deeper every day. Where’s it going to end? Where are Eden’s eyes?”
“Oh, my dear Nick, you imagine it. You always were on the lookout for that sort of thing. I’ve seen nothing. Still, it’s true that there is a feeling. Something in the air. But what can we do? I’d hate to interfere with an affair of Renny’s. Besides, Alayne is not that sort of girl—”
“They’re all that sort. Show me the woman who wouldn’t enjoy a love affair with a man like Renny, especially if she were snatched up from a big city and hidden away in a sequestered hole like Jalna. I’d be tempted to have one myself if I could find a damsel decrepit enough to fancy me.”
Ernest regarded his brother with a tolerant smile.
“Well, Nick, you have had affairs enough in your day. You and Millicent might be—”
“For God’s sake, don’t say that,” interrupted Nicholas. “I’d rather be dead than have that woman about me.”
“Ah, well—” Ernest subsided, but he murmured something about “a dashed sight too many affairs.”
“Well, they’re all over, aren’t they?” Nicholas asked testily. “Ashes without a spark. I can’t even remember their names. Did I ever kiss anyone in passion? I can’t recall the sensati
on. What I am interested in is this case of Renny and Alayne; it’s serious.”
“He scarcely seems to notice her in the house.”
“Notice her! Oh, my dear man—” Nicholas bit off the top of a cigar, and scornfully spat it out.
“Well, for an instance, when the young Fennels were in the other night, and the gramophone was playing, Alayne danced oftener with them and Eden, and even young Finch, than with Renny. I only saw her dance with him once.”
Nicholas said, pityingly: “My poor blind old brother! They only danced together once because once was all they could stand of it. I saw them dancing in the hall. It was dim there. Her face had gone white, and her eyes—well, I don’t believe they saw anything. He moved like a man in a dream. He’d a stiff smile on his face, as though he’d put it on for convenience: a mask. It’s serious with him this time, and I don’t like it.”
“There will be a pretty row if Eden gets on to it.”
“Eden won’t notice. He’s too damned well wrapped up in himself. But I wonder Meggie hasn’t.”
Ernest took up a newspaper and glanced at the date. “The seventeenth. Just fancy. Augusta will arrive in Montreal tomorrow. I expect the poor thing has had a terrible passage. She always chooses such bad months for crossing.” He wanted to change the subject. It upset his digestion to talk about the affairs of Renny and Alayne. Besides, he thought that Nicholas exaggerated the seriousness of it. They might be rather too interested in each other, but they were both too sensible to let the interest go to dangerous lengths. He looked forward to seeing Augusta; he and she had always been congenial.
She arrived two days later. She had made the passage without undue discomfort, never indeed missing a meal, though most of the passengers had been very ill. She had become such a hardened traveller in her infancy that it lay almost beyond the power of the elements now to disarrange her.
Lady Buckley was like a table set for an elaborate banquet at which the guests would never arrive. Her costume was intricate, elegant, with the elegance of a bygone day, unapproachable. No one would ever dare to rumple her with a healthy hug. Even old Mrs. Whiteoak held her in some awe, though behind her back she made ribald and derisive remarks about her. She resented Augusta’s title, pretended that she could not recall it, and had always spoken to her acquaintances of “my daughter, Lady Buntley—or Bunting—or Bantling.”
Augusta wore her hair in the dignified curled fringe of Queen Alexandra. It was scarcely grey, though whether through the kindness of nature or art was not known. She wore high collars fastened by handsome brooches. She had a long tapering waist and shapely hands and feet, the latter just showing beneath the hem of her rather full skirt. That air of having never recovered from some deep offence, of which Nicholas had spoken, was perhaps suggested by the poise of her head, which always seemed to be drawn back as though in recoil. She had strongly arched eyebrows, dark eyes, become somewhat glassy from age, the Court nose in a modified form, and a mouth that nothing could startle from its lines of complacent composure. She was an extremely well-preserved woman, who, though she was older than Nicholas or Ernest, looked many years younger. Since it was her fate to have been born in a colony, she was glad it had been India and not Canada. She thought of herself as absolutely English, refuting as an unhappy accident her mother’s Irish birth.
She was most favourably impressed by Alayne. She was pleased by a certain delicate sobriety of speech and bearing that Alayne had acquired from much association with her parents.
“She is neither hoydenish nor pert, as so many modern girls are,” she observed to her mother, in her deep, well-modulated voice.
“Got a good leg on her, too,” returned the old lady, grinning.
Lady Buckley and Alayne had long conversations together. The girl found beneath the remote exterior a kind and sympathetic nature. Lady Buckley was fond of all her nephews, but especially of the young boys. She would tell old-fashioned stories, some of them unexpectedly bloodcurdling, to Wakefield by the hour. She would sit very upright beside Finch while he practised his music lesson, composedly praising and criticizing, and the boy seemed to like her presence in the room. She endeared herself to Alayne by being kind to Pheasant. “Let us ignore her mother’s birth,” she said, blandly. “Her father is of a fine old English military family, and, if her parents were not married—well, many of the nobility sprang from illegitimate stock. I quite like the child.”
It was soon evident that Meg resented her aunt’s attitude toward Piers’s marriage, her admiration for Alayne, and her influence over Finch and Wakefield. She first showed her resentment by eating even less than formerly at the table. It would have been a marvel how she kept so sleek and plump had one not known of those tempting secret trays carried to her by Rags, who, if he were loyal and devoted to anyone on earth, was loyal and devoted to Miss Whiteoak.
She then took to sitting a great deal with her grandmother with the door shut against the rest of the family, and a blazing fire on the hearth. The old lady thrived on the scorching air and gossip. There was nothing she enjoyed more than “hauling Augusta over the coals” behind her back. To her face she gave her a grudging respect. Since Augusta approved of Finch’s music lessons, it was inevitable that his practising should prove a torture to the old lady.
“Gran simply cannot stand those terrible scales and chromatics,” Meg said to Renny. “Just at the hour in the day when she usually feels her brightest, her nerves are set on edge. At her age it’s positively dangerous.”
“If the boy were taking lessons from Miss Pink,” retorted Renny, bitterly, “the practising wouldn’t disturb Gran in the least.”
“Why, Renny, Gran never objected to his taking from Mr. Rogers! It doesn’t matter to her whom he takes from, though certainly Miss Pink would never have taught him to hammer as he insists on doing.”
“No, she would have taught him to tinkle out little tunes with no more pep than a toy music box. If the youngster is musical, he’s going to be properly taught. Alayne says he’s very talented.”
The words were scarcely out before he knew he had made a fatal mistake in quoting Alayne’s opinion. He saw Meg’s face harden; he saw her lips curl in a cruel little smile. He floundered.
“Oh, well, anyone can see that he’s got talent. I saw it long ago; that is why I chose Mr. Rogers.”
She made no reply for a moment, but still smiled, her soft blue eyes searching his. Then she said:
“I don’t think you realize, Renny, how strange your attitude toward Alayne is becoming. You have almost a possessive air. Sometimes I think it would be better if Eden had never brought her here. I’ve tried to like her, but—”
“Oh, my God!” said Renny, wheeling, and beginning to stride away. “You women make me sick. There’s no peace with you. Imagine the entire family by the ears because of a kid’s music lessons!” He gave a savage laugh.
Meg, watching him flounder, was aware of depths she had only half suspected. She said:
“It’s not that. It’s not that. It’s the feeling that there’s something wrong—some sinister influence at work. From the day Eden brought the girl here I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Afraid of something in her. Something fatal and dangerous. First she wormed her way—”
“Wormed her way’! Oh, Meggie, for heaven’s sake!”
“Yes, she did! She literally wormed her way into the confidence of the uncles. Then she captivated poor Finch. Just because she told him he was musical, he is willing to practise till he’s worn out and Grannie is ill. Then she turned Wake against me. He won’t mind a thing I say. And now you, Renny! But this is dangerous. Different. Oh, I’ve seen it coming.”
He had recovered himself.
“Meggie,” he said, stifling her in a rough tweed hug, “if you would ever eat a decent meal—you know you literally starve yourself—and ever go out anywhere for a change, you wouldn’t get such ideas into your head. They’re not like you. You are so sane, so we
ll balanced. None of us has as sound a head as you. I depend on you in every way. You know that.”
She collapsed, weeping on his shoulder, overwhelmed by this primitive masculine appeal. But she was not convinced. Her sluggish nature was roused to activity against the machinations of Alayne and Lady Buckley.
That evening when Finch went to the drawing-room to practise he found the piano locked. He sought Renny in the harness room of the stable.
“Look here,” Finch burst out, almost crying, “what do you suppose? They’ve gone and locked me out. I can’t practise my lesson. They’ve been after me for a week about it, and now I’m locked out.”
Renny, pipe in mouth, continued to gaze in whole-souled admiration at a new russet saddle.
“Renny,” bawled Finch, “don’t you hear? They’ve locked me out of the drawing-room, and I met Rags in the hall and he gave one of his beastly grins and said, ‘Ow, Miss W’iteoak ‘as locked up that pianer. She’s not goin’ to ‘ave any pianer playin’ in the ‘ouse till the old lidy’s recovered. She’s in a pretty bad w’y, she is, with all your rattlety-bangin’.’ I’d like to know what I’m to do. I may as well throw the whole thing up if I’m not allowed to practise.”
Renny made sympathetic noises against the stem of his pipe and continued to gaze at the saddle.
Finch drove his hands into his pockets and slumped against the door jamb. He felt calmer now. Renny would do something, he was sure, but he dreaded a row with himself the centre of it.
At last the elder Whiteoak spoke. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Finch. I’ll ask Vaughan if you may practise on his piano. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. The housekeeper’s deaf, so her nerves won’t be upset. I’ll have the piano tuned. It used to be a good one. Then you’ll be quite independent.”
Soon young Finch might be seen plunging through the ravine on the dark December afternoons to the shabby, unused drawing-room at Vaughanlands. He brought new life to the old piano, and it, like land that had lain fallow for many years, responded joyfully to his labour, and sent up a stormy harvest of sound that shook the prismed chandelier. Often he was late for the evening meal, and would take what he could get in the kitchen from Mrs. Wragge. Several times Maurice Vaughan asked him to have his supper with him, and Finch felt very much a man, sitting opposite Maurice with a glass of beer beside him, and no question about his smoking.
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