Augusta was listening to a sound outside. “Here is the car!” she cried, and hurried to meet them.
Mrs. Court squeaked, with even more alacrity, to the bell-cord and gave it a tug.
“Bring in the tea,” she said to the maid, “and we’d better have an extra pot.” She stood stock-still then, in the corner, watching the embraces of the family.
Augusta turned to her at last. “Oh, you have rung for tea! Now you must come and speak to my brothers and nephew. Of course you remember Nicholas and Ernest.”
They shook hands, recalling how the last time they had met had been in London during the Coronation ceremonies of King George.
“Dear Edwin was alive then,” said Augusta,
“Thomas was alive too,” said Mrs. Court, not to be outdone.
They settled about the tea table, and Augusta noted how well her brothers looked, but she was a little disappointed in Finch’s appearance. He had the same half-starved look. It was rather hard to reflect that this lanky youth was the possessor of her mother’s fortune, when it would have graced so well Ernest’s courtly presence. Not a large fortune, but how important in a family of such restricted means! Yet, when Finch, sitting close beside her, on a chair too low for him, gave her one of his affectionate looks, her heart warmed towards him and she plied him with buttered scones. She could hardly believe she had him here. A young man. And it seemed only yesterday when he was in his cradle! Finch, with even greater wonder, stared about the room with its innumerable ornaments and framed photographs. On the walls hung watercolours of Scottish scenery painted by Sir Edwin. On the mantel was a photograph of him looking out of pale eyes, between thin whiskers. There was a photograph of Wake, in the starry-eyed beauty of five. There was one of Eden and Piers in white sailor suits, with a dog between them. On the piano, a large one of Renny on Landor, the year he had won the King’s Plate. Then there was a pretty one of Meg with Patience. And a still prettier one of Pheasant with Mooey. Everywhere he looked he saw photographs of Whiteoaks. Nicholas, Ernest, and Augusta in their young and middle-aged days. Gran, as a handsome woman of fifty, in evening dress. And what was that on the small table just beside him? Himself at wild-eyed thirteen! It had been taken just after his first day’s shooting, and he held the gun, in the picture, with a terrified look. No wonder he had looked terrified, for the very next week he had tripped with it, when out with Piers, and nearly sent a bullet through Piers’s back. He had got a licking for his stupidity, and the gun had been taken away from him. It was nothing short of an insult to be faced with that picture in the moment of his arrival.
“I want you,” he whispered, “to burn that awful picture of me.”
“But I like it, dear. It’s the only one I have of you.”
“I’ll have one taken for you while I’m here.”
She gave him more tea, and again he whispered:
“I say, where’s the girl?”
Augusta looked mysterious. “She’s like you; she’s devoted to Nature. She forgets all about her meals!”
“That’s a lot like me!” And he helped himself to more honey.
“I hope,” he added, “that she doesn’t look like her mother.”
“Sh.”
“But they’re talking to her, one in each ear. She couldn’t possibly hear me.”
“That is her aunt by marriage. Sarah is an orphan and has been brought up by Mrs. Thomas. I must tell you about her father later.”
A shower was now beating against the panes. As though coming directly out of it Sarah Court appeared in the doorway and came slowly toward the group about the tea table.
What had Finch expected? An impetuous Irish girl, late for tea because she liked being out in the wet? A curly haired sprite, dancing in with rain-dappled cheeks? A sturdy matter-of-fact young person? Whatever he had vaguely expected, it was certainly not this.
She came with a long slow gait, that imparted almost no motion to the upper part of the body. That part, held with an erectness unknown to the present generation, moved like the torso of a statue carried on a float. Her dark dress was open at the throat, but buttoned tightly down the front with the effect of an old-fashioned basque, having also the effect of that garment in a short continuation below the waist. Her skirt was too long for fashion, and was arranged at the back in a manner suggestive of a bustle. Her arms were held rigidly at her sides, her hands had an extraordinary pallor. This pallor was equalled in the profile turned toward Finch. Her black hair was brushed back from her high forehead in glossy smoothness, and worn in a heavy braided coil at the nape.
Finch saw that she had the Court nose, but that was not what held his gaze with a sense of something remembered. As she was being greeted by his uncles, who apparently had seen her as a small child in Ireland, his mind flew here and there among his recollections of the past, striving to fix on something that would explain this strange sense of having seen her before. It had fastened on nothing, when he heard his aunt’s voice introducing them.
He still stood staring at her, unable to detach his mind. She came, however, to him holding out her hand. Something in the gesture gave him what he was looking for. Even as they shook hands he did not see her. His consciousness was occupied in the attic at Jalna. He saw himself in the lumber-room on a rainy day, crouching by the window, absorbed in old copies of Punch taken from a toppling dust-covered pile that year by year increased, for none were ever thrown away. He was looking at the picture of a Victorian drawing-room in which a whiskered gentleman was bowing over the hand of a lady. Other ladies were standing by. They were all alike, and each and all bore a striking resemblance to Sarah Court.
That was it! She was like a drawing by du Maurier.
He was so relieved by the discovery that he smiled delightedly at her. She smiled back, and he saw how the thin, delicate lips parted, showing unexpectedly small, even teeth. He thought he had never seen an upper lip so short, a chin so jutting.
Mrs. Court was saying:
“Well, Mole! So you’ve come out, now that the sun is gone!”
Sarah Court’s lips closed tightly. She fixed her eyes on a ring with a large green stone, which she began nervously to twist on her forefinger.
Her aunt leant forward, as though she would pry under the lowered lids.
“Well, Mouse! Quiet as ever?” She turned to Ernest. “I call her Mouse, she’s so silent. It’s very irritating to me when I’ve no other companion.”
Nicholas said—“Many years ago there was a girl we called Mouse. She was a ballet dancer.”
“Was she quiet?” asked Mrs. Court eagerly.
“No, she was rather noisy. But she’d a peaky little face, and small bright eyes.”
“I enjoy a good ballet/” said Mrs. Court, “but I’ve no pleasure in the Russian ballet. I hate Russian music. It’s nothing but a fantastic noise compared with Bach, or Handel, or Mozart. When Sarah begins to do the rough-and-tumble of it on her fiddle I get out of the room. It gives me the fidgets.” And she played a tattoo with her heels to show how really fidgety she could become.
Her niece had seated herself and continued to turn the green ring on her finger until Finch carried a cup of tea to her. She helped herself to bread and jam with something of the concentration of a child. Finch was so conscious of her withdrawal, he hesitated to speak to her. However, there was no need for conversation. Mrs. Court only stopped talking long enough to snatch a mouthful of scone or tea, and her harsh, yet somehow not disagreeable, voice required no encouraging response.
“Do you keep up your music?” she asked Nicholas.
“I play a little occasionally, but I notice that my hands are getting stiff.”
“Is that rheumatism?”
“I daresay.”
“And you’ve gout, too?”
He grunted.
“Now, I wonder if your blood pressure is high?”
“Shouldn’t be surprised. Nothing my body does surprises me now.”
She turned to Finch. “We must get
you playing. We’ll make a musical time of it.”
She talked of music she had heard in the principal capitals of Europe. “But I can’t afford to travel now,” she said. “I just stick at home in Ireland. Mouse and I make our own music. Don’t we, Mouse?”
How ludicrous, Finch thought, to call that remote-looking girl Mouse! He got up his courage and said:
“You play the violin awfully well, I expect.”
Her aunt had received no answer to her question and had apparently expected none, for she continued to talk without hesitating; but Sarah turned to Finch with a peculiar smile, with a certain elfish mischief in it, and answered:
“You’ll know that when you hear me.”
It was the first time he had heard her say more than a monosyllable. Her voice, he thought, was the very distillation of sweetness, all the more noticeable following, as it did, the gruff tones of her aunt. And it had a muted sound, as though a secret being within her spoke for her. He tried to draw her into conversation, but he was awkward and she was either shy or aloof.
He was glad to escape into the garden when the others went to their rooms. He stood on the drive drinking in the air that was so fresh after London, his eyes opened wide, as though they would take in, at one extravagant glance, the scene that lay unrolled before him.
The shower had passed and a light wind was blowing the rain clouds from the upper sky. In the west the sun had emerged from behind piled-up masses of snowy vapour, the fantastic shapes of which were outlined by his brilliance. But some of this triumphant radiance was reserved for the earth where fields and trees, wet with rain, showed their own colours intensified to celestial brightness.
The house stood on a hill overlooking the village of Nymet Crews and, beyond that, the fields, woods, and pastures that stretched to the edge of Dartmoor. From the village, with its square-towered Norman church and white cottages, there was another rise of land toward the moor, and on this stretch every irregularity of field and meadow was outlined by the flowering hedgerows. The pattern of it was unrolled before him like a rich tapestry The deep red earth of one field lay beside the pale red of another. The tender green of pasture against the silver green oats. The darkness of a spinney next a field of corn that held the sun. He could see lanes, between tall hedges, threading their way to the open moor, there to be lost. He could see, looming above all, the hyacinth-blue contours of the Tors. The air held an almost palpable sweetness, unknown to him, of garden flowers, of new-mown grass, of the thousand wild flowers of the countryside and hedge, of Dartmoor itself.
Lyming Hall was an unpretentious house of no particular period, but its gardens, lawns, and small park were kept in excellent order. Augusta was proud of the commanding view over the countryside. The fact that there were no large landowners about and few people of wealth gave her a pleasant feeling of superiority.
Finch wandered among the flower beds, discovered the tennis court, the rosery, and walked down the drive, which sloped steeply, to the gate. There was a small gabled lodge half hidden in roses, so much like a picture of a little English house that Finch had to grin with delight as he looked at it. He turned away when he saw a woman in the door and cut across a corner of the park to where he could see the stable.
In the stable he found only a pony which had just been given its evening meal by a boy a couple of years younger than himself. He put his knuckle to his forehead when he saw Finch. He had sombre black eyes and a rich tan on his cheeks.
“Good evening,” said Finch. “I came in to see the horses.”
“There’s only this one, zir,” answered the boy. “Her ladyship just keeps him for the lawn-mower and garden work. Her hasn’t kept more than this ‘un since I’ve worked ‘ere. His name’s Bobby.”
Finch patted Bobby’s fat flank. “I suppose he’s all she needs. But aren’t there any dogs about?”
“No, zir; we had one, but he was took bad one day and died.”
“Have you worked here long?”
“Two years, zir. I help Ash, the gardener.”
What a nice-looking boy he was, Finch thought. He said—“I should think you’d like a dog about.”
“Yes, zir.”
Finch wished he wouldn’t call him “sir” quite so often. It made him feel silly. The men about the stables at home did not treat him with great respect. He scarcely seemed grown up to them.
“An old English sheepdog is a nice dog,” he remarked. “We have one at home.”
“Yes, zir. An old English is a very nice kind of dog.”
“And Irish terriers are first-rate companions. We have one of them too.”
“Yes, zir. An Irish terrier is a nice kind of dog to have.”
Finch remembered Nip. “My uncle has a Yorkshire terrier. Clever little fellow, too.”
“Yes, zir. A Yorkshire terrier is a very nice kind of dog.” His dark eyes looked earnestly into Finch’s. He seemed satisfied that he was carrying on an animated conversation.
“There are spaniels too,” went on Finch.
“Yes, zir. A spannel is a nice kind of dog.”
Finch looked at him excitedly, trying to bridge the gulf that separated them. “My brother has two Clumber spaniels,” he said.
“Yes, zir. Two Clummer spannels must be very nice to have.”
They smiled at each other. Finch turned to go. Then he stopped. “I say, what kind of dog was the dog you had here?”
“He was a spannel, zir.”
“Oh... was he a good dog?”
“Yes, he was a spannel, zir.”
“Well, I think I’ll be off. What’s your name?”
“Ralph Hart, zir.”
Finch repeated the name to himself as he prowled among the shrubbery, thinking how well it suited the dark interesting-looking boy. But what a conversation! He should like to go back and do it all over again and see if it would turn out the same way. He’d wager it would.
He found the kitchen garden. He found strawberries under netting, and gooseberries like eggs. He came upon a door in a wall, almost hidden in ivy, and pushed it open. He found himself in a walled flower garden.
He went up and down the box-bordered paths, a lanky figure filled with the joy of being alive in that warm sweetscented enclosure. He squatted to look into Canterbury bells. He held moss-roses in his hand. He put his long nose to the very earth to smell the mignonette. The pear trees, trained against the wall, were beautiful to him. At that moment the orchard of pear trees at Jalna, that carelessly covered the ground with golden fruit every fall, seemed a poor thing. He could not decide which roses were the most beautiful—the newly opened ones, their inner petals still resisting the fingers of the sun, or those at that mysterious moment of perfection, just before they fade and fall, when they seem to be offering their essence in a final surrender so complete as to have something of delicate vehemence in it. He thought he should like to carry his breakfast to this garden one morning, and eat it with no one about but the birds and Ralph Hart.
When Ellen showed him his room, he was glad to find that its windows overlooked the walled garden. There was a can of hot water and his clothes were laid out ready for him on the bed. He felt very happy. He had had no idea it would be so nice at Aunt Augusta’s. He wished that Mrs. Court and her niece were not there so they might have been just a family party... Still, after all, Sarah Court was his cousin. But how strange and unapproachable she was! And she had a baffling charm for him. As he stood looking out of the window his thoughts, like curious birds, hovered about her.
He was still looking down into the garden, where a violaceous shadow had tempered all the brightness, when a light tap sounded on the door. Augusta’s voice asked:
“Are you dressed, dear? May I come in?”
He threw open the door and stood guiltily before her.
“I say, Aunt, I’m awfully sorry! I haven’t begun to dress; I’ve just been staring into the garden. You shouldn’t have given me a room with a window overlooking it.”
She s
ailed with kindly majesty into the room.
“I am glad you enjoy your view. It is not as pretty a room as I should have liked for you. But you see how it was. There were four others to be considered before you.”
“Look here,” cried Finch, with a violent wave of the arm, “I’d rather have this garden under my window than a Turkish rug and a Louis Seize bed and a Turner landscape in the room!”
“I am so glad you like it,” said Augusta; but she spoke abstractedly. She went back to the door, closed it, then sat down on the settee at the foot of the bed. She had on a black dinner dress and wore her old-fashioned jewellery that was beginning to be fashionable again. She raised her large eyes to Finch’s face and said, in a tone almost tragic:
“Finch, I am in great trouble.” Her voice sounded a baritone depth.
The thought of anyone’s being in trouble terrified him. He was used to trouble, Heaven knew, but his hair seemed to rise at the mere mention of it. “Oh—what’s up, Aunt?”
“Eden,” she boomed, “is sitting on the doorstep.”
He had an instant mental picture of Eden, rather down-at-heel but debonair, with that insolent, veiled smile of his, lounging on the door-sill. He could only make incoherent sounds expressing a state of being staggered.
“That girl,” proceeded Augusta, “is with him.”
So Eden and Minny were both sitting on the doorstep! He could only get out—“Well, well.”
But his look of consternation was sufficient to satisfy his Aunt of his sympathy.
“They are,” she said, “living in the lodge.”
The lodge! And he had walked down to it not an hour before! Perhaps the woman he had seen in the doorway was Minny.
“But how did they get there?” he asked.
“By effrontery. As they get everywhere. You know I am attached to Eden. I cannot help being attached to Eden. But to have him come and sit on my doorstep, when I have Mrs. Court and Sarah in the house, is too much.”
“But how did they come there? And when?” Life seemed one long surprise for him. Now he asked himself, as he had asked himself about so many things, can this be true?
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 262