Minny made Sarah sit in the one comfortable chair, close to the fire, because she looked so pale. Minny’s own cheeks glowed beneath the thick layer of powder. Her generous mouth smiled welcome, and this astonished Finch after what Eden had told him of her feelings toward Sarah. Sarah spread out the long fringe of her shawl and inhaled the smoke of her cigarette as though she were inhaling the very sweetness of life. She preened herself like a bird, and Minny was apparently delighted to entertain her. Eden too was delighted. He was beginning to feel the need of some society other than Minny’s. He heaped dry faggots on the fire, which crackled into swift ruddy flames. He sat down on the narrow ingle-seat facing Sarah. He thought Finch’s description of her very superficial. He read her with a far more subtle understanding.
Minny talked a great deal, directing almost all her conversation to Sarah, who sat motionless, seeming to drink in all that Minny said. She told of amusing things that had happened to them abroad, now and then appealing to Eden’s memory to supply some foreign name which she invariably mispronounced. Before long she began to speak of Eden’s poetry, of which she was very proud. It was the only poetry, she said, that she had ever been able to read, even though so much of it was hard to understand. Finch reminded Eden that he had promised to read him some of the poems he had written since leaving home.
Eden took a candle and went up the stairs that ascended from a corner of the room. Minny said—“He keeps everything he has in such perfect order.” Soon he returned, carrying a folio of papers. Hot wax had dripped on his hand, and he went to Minny like a child to show it.
He sat again in the ingle-nook and read by the light of the flames. His voice, always musical, took on new, full tones when he read his poems.
“These are some bits from the long poem ‘New France.’I can’t read all of it. It’s not in order,” he said.
He read fragments which he called—“Indian Braves as Galley Slaves,” “The Loves of Bigot,” “A Countess of Quebec,” and “Song of the Ursuline Nuns.”
The two young women made little murmuring noises of approval after each poem. Finch liked them immensely and said so. He was almost overcome when Eden said suddenly to Sarah—“Do you know, this boy has been paying my way for a year and a half. If it had not been for him I don’t know what I should have done.”
“That was good of him,” she said simply. “But how he must have liked doing it!”
“Did you like doing it?” Eden asked of him.
Finch assented, uttering the sudden guffaw of his hobbledehoy days, which still came from him in moments of embarrassment.
“These,” said Eden, taking up some sheets of paper clipped together, “are some things I wrote in Italy.”
“In Italy!” gasped Finch. “Why, I didn’t know you were in Italy!”
“Yes, I had to go. It was beastly cold in France and I’d got a cough.”
“We went on a cheap excursion,” put in Minny, easily.
“How splendid!” sighed Finch. “How I wish I might go!”
“Don’t be a silly young blighter,” said Eden. “You can go where you like.”
“Perhaps I’ll go with Arthur Leigh. He’s over here.”
Sarah looked expectantly into Eden’s face, waiting for the poems. He read three. The last one was “To a Young Nightingale Practising his Song in Sicily.” His listeners agreed that this was best of all
“It’s beautiful! It’s beautiful!” said Sarah, clasping her fingers tightly together. The shawl fell from her, as she leaned toward Eden, and her bare shoulders and arms were exposed to the firelight.
Eden was made happy by this approval. Soon he and Minny went to the larder together. Their whispers and the clink of china could be heard by the other two.
“Do you like them?” whispered Finch. “Are you glad you came?” He was worried lest her aunt might have missed her.
She nodded composedly.
Eden and Minny returned, he carrying a bottle in each hand, and she a large dish on which were arranged several sorts of cake, the icing of which, chocolate and pink and white, had crumbled and were intermingling.
Eden was hilarious at having company. Nothing was too ridiculous for him to say or do. Finch and Minny filled the room with their laughter. Sarah Court sat upright, sipping wine, nibbling cake, seeming to absorb with passionate intensity the gaiety of the moment.
As they hurried home along the drive they faced a strong warm wind from the moor. She had to grasp her shawl tightly to hold it about her. Their elders were still playing whist and they entered undiscovered. She glided up the stairs, while he lounged into the drawing-room and leant against Augusta’s chair, asking her what luck she had had.
X
OLD LOVE AND NEW
THE DAYS strung themselves out like pearls warmed on the sunburnt throat of summer, till Finch and his uncles had been a month in Devon. The time had passed quickly for the two old brothers, with no incident more unpleasant than a wrangle at the bridge table to shadow their enjoyment. There was so much to do in the way of garden parties, paying calls on old acquaintances, drinking tea in the rose garden, and having the Times to read when it was a few hours instead of two weeks old, that the day was all too short. The change had done them a world of good. Nicholas had not in years been so free from gout. Ernest was almost frightened by the power of his digestion. There seemed something sinister about a stomach that, from rebelling at a piece of seed cake at tea, turned to the consumption of strawberries and Devonshire cream without a qualm. Ever since his meeting with Rosamond Trent his digestion had improved, and it had crossed his mind that if such meetings could be arranged once in, say, six months, the benefit to him would be immense. He attributed his improvement to nothing else than the exhilaration of contact with this vigorous and highly efficient personality.
He and Nicholas were both fond of music, and they delighted in the violin and piano playing of Sarah and Mrs. Court. Nicholas thought the girl’s playing was without soul, and it was he who insisted that Finch should accompany her one evening. But the performance was a depressing failure. Finch was unaccountably nervous, and Sarah more soulless than ever. Mrs. Court had sat delightedly tapping her heels on the floor while they had spiritlessly executed a Polonaise by Chopin.
At the end she had exclaimed:
“Sarah can’t play with anyone but me! And Finch is far too nervous to play accompaniments. You’ve got to have nerves of iron to play accompaniments. I’ve never heard you do so badly as you did tonight, Mouse.”
The little woman had trotted eagerly to the piano, scarcely waiting till Finch had risen from the seat before she settled herself on it and instructed Sarah to repeat the Polonaise with her. Sarah had repeated it to the brilliant exactitude of her aunt’s accompaniment, and after that no one again suggested that the boy and girl play together.
But they did play together. Every afternoon that their elders went out to tea, and they went about four out of the seven, Sarah and Finch glided like two conspirators into the drawing-room. They went as though to indulge in the taste of some forbidden wine. He trembled as he sat with bent back above the keyboard while she tuned her violin. As they lost themselves in the indolent beauty of a Tchaikovsky waltz the world about them dissolved. Their life came into flower. But no word or sign of love passed between them beyond the expression of their love for music. On the days when they were not alone together she seemed to go out of his life, leaving him scarcely a thought of her beyond the fascination her face and her attitudes always had for him. Even sometimes when they had played together he left her presence with a feeling of relief, drawing a deep breath, as though he had come from an atmosphere too close for him. But at times he was so susceptible to her nearness, to something captivating and strange in her, that he would find it hard to restrain himself from some open expression of his emotion. Once a mist came before his eyes when he was accompanying her, and he could not see the notes. He stopped playing, and, after a wild cascade of grace notes, she stopped too.<
br />
“I lost my place,” he muttered.
She bent over him, her violin still tucked under her chin, and looked into his eyes with a gently curious expression. Yet he thought he detected the same hint of malice in her that he had encountered before. He stared steadily back without speaking, but his heart was beating wildly, and he was on the point of taking the violin from her hands and possessing himself of them when she straightened herself and, pointing to the place with her bow, said coldly:
“Please don’t waste our time! It goes so quickly.”
He wondered whether she were really repelling him or regarded these meetings only as an outlet for the sensuous enjoyment of music.
Once Nicholas did not go with the others as they imagined he had. Coming down from his room he turned, with a feeling of anticipation, towards the drawing-room at the sound of music. He opened the door softly, not wishing to interrupt them, but, after listening for a few moments and studying the expressions of the two, he withdrew as quietly as he had entered, standing outside the closed door until the piece was finished, with bent head and a look of sardonic gentleness on his lined face.
Though he had been conscious of the uneasy joy within the room, he never made any reference to their playing together. He never intruded on them again, and he often suggested afternoon excursions that would set them free.
Mrs. Court would have liked to insist on Sarah’s accompanying them, but to have taken her would have meant discomfort in the car. She gave her endless letters to write, and stuffy, old-fashioned dresses to alter to keep her busy in the evenings. These Sarah did, sitting up late in her room, having previously put out her light and pretended to go to bed.
Augusta, at this time, began to be a little tired of her guests. The constant strain of ordering meals, to say nothing of the expense of providing them, was beginning to tell on her nerves. She had thought that Mrs. Court would see eye to eye with her in her hope for the union of Sarah and Finch. She had broached the subject before his arrival, and it had been received with Mrs. Court’s customary jaunty good humour. But now Augusta was driven to believe that Mrs. Court did not approve of the match at all, that she selfishly wished to keep the girl unmarried in order that she might have not only a companion whose salary consisted of her clothes and keep, but one of striking appearance and artistic attainments. The young pair themselves were not very satisfactory. They seemed to have nothing to say to each other, and the music which she had hoped would draw them together was apparently a barrier between them. His attempt at accompanying Sarah had been a failure, and when Sarah and Mrs. Court made music Finch sat drooping in a corner, the picture of gloom.
Nicholas, too, was on her nerves. They could not be long together without his having this effect on her. His untidy hair and slovenly habits irritated her as much as Ernest’s neatness pleased her. More than once he had caused her dismay by his apparently unconscious imitation of their mother. He had made sops of his cake in his tea. He had rumbled at table—“I want gravy. More dish gravy, please,” in their mother’s very tone. She and Ernest had given each other a look. Another time he had said—“Why doesn’t that young whelp at the lodge come up to see me? I want to see Eden!” At this Ernest and she had been positively frightened. Ernest had counselled her to pay no attention to this vagary of Nick’s. “Just ignore him,” he had advised, “and he’ll grow ashamed of himself.” But they had an uncomfortable feeling that Nick knew their ignoring was a pretence and that he was unashamed.
When whist was being played in the evening it became the custom for Sarah and Finch to meet in the garden. They entered it by the door, and Finch usually left it ajar so that he might see the gardener’s boy and his girl pass, hand in hand. Ralph no longer troubled about the closing of the door. A quiet understanding had arisen between the two youths. No day passed without their talking together for a little. Finch learned that Ralph’s mother was a Cornishwoman and that the men of his family had followed a seafaring life. Sarah had found out that the girl was a kitchenmaid, thickset, round-faced, stolid. She had spoken to her once, but could scarcely make out what she said, for she came from a farm and spoke in broad Devon.
The rustic love affair had a peculiar fascination for the two who sat on the garden seat. They discussed the lovers, their regular walking out together; and Finch repeated fragments of his conversations with Ralph, trying to imitate the singsong of his speech. They would sit silent in the dusk, thinking of the other two in the dusk somewhere unseen, perhaps kissing, embracing, and they took a sensuous mournful pleasure in reflecting on their attachment.
Sometimes they went to the lodge, where they were very welcome to Eden and Minny, who were often bored by each other’s society. They would gather about the fire, and Eden would throw pine boughs on it that burst into a vivid crackling blaze, illuminating their faces and the black oak beams of the ceiling, then die down, leaving the pine needles like fiery wires. The twigs would writhe in worm-like agony, pale, turn grey, and crumble. Then Eden would throw on fresh boughs.
Before the fire he read his new poems to them, directing his voice towards Sarah, but Minny showed no sign of jealousy. She seemed perfectly sure of Eden. He said once to Finch, as they lay talking on a hillside—“Minny is kind. That’s the beautiful thing about her. Alayne is unselfish, but she isn’t really kind; and love without kindness is like a garden without grass...”
One evening a knock came at the door, and they looked at each other like frightened children, fancying it might be Mrs. Court in search of Sarah, for Finch had told Eden of her tyranny. But it was Nicholas and Ernest come to call. Nicholas and Augusta had had words over the whist-table, and the game had been broken up. The two ladies had gone to Augusta’s room, and the two gentlemen, feeling rather reckless, had marched down to the lodge. They showed no surprise at seeing Finch and Sarah there.
Minny was delighted by so much company. Nicholas and Ernest found the society of the young people so exhilarating that they felt aggrieved at the time they had lost on the evenings at whist. They asked Minny if she still could sing. She denied that she could, laughing a good deal. But, persuaded at last, she threw back her head and sang one piece after another to them. She had an endless repertory of old favourites. Her face was tilted as she sang, so that it was partly in shadow, but the full light of the fire fell on her white, throbbing throat, the skin of which was like the inner petals of a rose.
On the way back to the house Sarah whispered to Finch that now her aunt would find out everything and their evenings would be spoiled. Luckily for them a change in the weather came that night, and for several days they had driving rains and a gale from the moor. In the evenings the uncles asked for nothing better than a game of whist by the fire.
One morning Ernest announced his intention of going into Dorset to visit some old friends. That same day Finch had a letter from Arthur Leigh, and, remembering how much Augusta had admired Arthur, he conceived the idea of having him down for a visit during his uncle’s absence. He might have Ernest’s room, which was really the best guest room. Augusta, wondering if she would ever have the felicity of feeling somewhat lonely again, agreed. Inside a few days Ernest had gone, his room had been “turned out,” and Arthur had taken his place.
The friends were joyful to be with each other again and with an opportunity for intimacy they had hitherto not known. Finch had forgotten how subtly attuned to his surroundings and how full of charm Arthur was, and Arthur felt anew the curiosity and sympathy Finch roused in him. He thought the household rather a strange one, including its offshoot in the lodge. Most of all, he was interested in Sarah Court.
At his coming she had withdrawn into her former aloofness, and it was difficult to make Arthur believe that she had gone on secret visits to the lodge, continually deceiving the aunt to whom she now seemed so devoted. But one afternoon, when the three young people were left alone, Finch persuaded her to play her violin for Arthur. And from that time there seemed to be engendered in him, almost against his w
ill, a passionate interest in her. From being highspirited and gay he became meditative and morose. She appeared to be unconscious of the emotion she had roused in him. This change in his friend, taking place so soon after his advent into the house, was bewildering to Finch.
Augusta had had the tennis court put in order, and the daughter of the Vicar was invited to make a fourth at tennis. She was an athletic girl, with a blistered skin, who moved in long strides. Beside her the rigid yet gliding movements of Sarah seemed singularly out of place on the tennis lawn. Mrs. Court viewed with delight her incapacity for playing even a fairly good game.
“I never saw such a girl!” she would cry. “There’s nothing spry about her. I call her my puppet.” And sometimes she would exclaim—“Well played, Puppet!”
Sarah seemed as impervious to her aunt’s ridicule as she seemed unconscious of Leigh’s feeling for her. He and she always played on opposite sides, and the games usually turned out to be only a contest between Finch and the Vicar’s daughter.
After the game he and she would discuss the various plays while the other two sat silent, Arthur hitting at the turf with his racquet, while his large grey eyes were fixed on Sarah’s profile, as she sat gazing straight before her into untroubled space. She had been taught never to sit on the grass without something beneath her. She carried to the court a red woollen shawl, which Arthur spread out for her, and on it she sat isolated while the rest sprawled on the grass.
Finch was so conscious of Arthur’s unease that he scarcely knew what he said, still he managed to talk in a desultory fashion while his mind was occupied with the problem of his friend’s sudden infatuation. Was it really love that Arthur felt for Sarah, or had she merely exercised on him the peculiar fascination that seemed to be the very core of her personality? Finch himself had felt it. He had seen its effect on Eden. But in their case the spell was volatile, intermittent. Once Sarah had entered a room, neither the room nor its occupants remained the same. By the power of her chiselled remoteness she subdued their atmosphere. By the suggestion of hidden malice she produced a sense of foreboding. The more Finch observed aunt and niece, the more sure he was that Mrs. Court felt both the fascination and the foreboding. He began to think that her jeering attitude toward Sarah was assumed in an effort to reassure herself, as young Mooey reiterated—“I’m not f’ightened!”
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 266